Many thanks to Aublanc, my beta for this story.
Title: Victory in Defeat
Prompt: "Lights, Camera, Action. Write an action scene."
Warnings: Mental Imbalance, Mention of Torture, Extreme Violence, Suicidal Ideation
The Father of Chaos paused in his good work, eyes glazed as they swept across the charnel house his prison had become. Pieces of their bodies—not his, no, not this time— littered the floor. They'd grown careless indeed; they thought him beaten in truth, thought him hopeless and pliant and weak.
Fools.
True that he longed for an end, an end denied him so many times before—and he would have it by any means necessary—but Death would not accept him until he sent an offering to her, this he knew. So he'd spent long days deciding who would most please the Lady Death. The answer was delicious.
Who better to send in greeting than those who served her so willingly? The Lady was ever fickle. Surely such an irony would tickle her fancy and sway her to open her arms—even to one as wretched as he.
And so began the birth of an idea, a new obsession to haunt his waking moments. He'd waited patiently for his chance, had lulled his keepers into complacency, fooled them all into thinking that Loki, God of Mischief and Father of Monsters, was beaten and broken; their last mistake.
He kicked away the shackles that once bound all but his innate healing abilities—though they'd slowed even that most simple of magics—and wet his fingers in the blood of the Aesir who had been kind enough to remove them. Eyes distant and flags of fever high in the hollow of his cheeks, Loki traced the runes on the walls of his cell, the blood of his keeper confusing the wards enough to let him pass. It was…satisfying. He curled his fingers inward, sucked in a lungful of air, and closed his eyes, his magic building and building and building until he felt he could burst with it.
Glorious.
Loki exhaled in a rush, power blooming in full just as the first clatterings of the guards reached his ears. His lips curled into a razor's grin and he laughed as he let the spell take hold. A blink and he teetered on the edge of the Bifrost, Heimdall just steps away. His laughter ebbed, voice distant.
"What troubles you, Gatekeeper?"
"You know well, Loki."
Eyes unfocused, he looked past the Watcher's shoulder and nodded ponderously.
"Then know this: I bear a message for Odin All-Father. Tell him… tell him that I go to do what he could not. What he should have done centuries ago in the temple of ice. Tell him that."
And before he could think better, Loki pitched himself into the Void, spinning magic as he fell so far, so far... Even so—this fall was different. He did not wait curled into himself like a suckling torn from its mother as he had once. The Chitauri did not find him quivering with fear and hurt and need. No. Loki did not fall.
He flew.
He knew the moment he passed between the asteroid belts and entered the Beyond, the place where even the stars seemed to stand still and the Lord Thanos ruled all. He slowed his movements and shuddered as he set foot on the Chitauri home world for the first time in many, many years. Home in truth only to the upper echelon of the Chitauri armies, the husk of a world was shrouded with thick fear and cloying death in a way that only served to sharpen his mind and whet his appetite.
The Other was here.
Glassy eyes darkened as his form swelled. Horns and extra limbs sprouted, doubling in thickness as plated scales took the place of tender skin. He lumbered forward as the transformation completed, all six legs tearing at the ground to move him closer, closer, closer to the Other.
The form of the bilgesnipe was much bulkier than his usual shape, but Loki had donned its likeness in the past. It was…good to wear its skin, to have power equal to Thor and teeth and claws and Norns he'd forgotten what it felt like to run.
He blared his intentions and sped towards the encampment ahead. He could see the Chitauri scrambling from tent to tent to arm themselves and how he laughed. Not so very long ago Thor would have been the one charging against unnumbered foes with little thought of failure and oh how the tables had turned. But, he conceded, the only way he could fail was to live. There was more chance of the All-Father appearing in the heavens to beg his forgiveness than that.
But now he was barreling through the camp and all time for thought was lost.
The Chitauri swarmed around him, brandishing their spears and guns, threatening and screaming in a language that was all hiss-click-croaks and attitude. Loki cared not. He lowered his head with a bellow, the swollen knot of his magic pressing uncomfortably against his breastbone—it was always so when he wore a form that did not possess the capacity of magic on its own, but it was not a pleasant sensation. Warriors assaulted him from all sides, and though his thick hide turned aside all but the strongest strikes, Loki's displeasure grew. Every soldier that got close enough to harm him soon learned that bilgesnipe—especially those that were gods in disguise—were not easy prey.
Many a Chitauri warrior was trampled, bitten, tossed aside. Loki made no special effort to end them despite his annoyance. He focused instead on simply removing any who stood between he and the Other's dwelling in the center of the camp.
Then a spearhead broke off in his flesh and Loki decided he'd had enough. The souls of Chitauri foot soldiers might not impress the Lady, but killing them would improve his mood greatly. He loosed a layer of magic and forced it through the surrounding air, knocking down all those within fifteen feet of him and collapsing a few tents besides.
As soon as the casting was complete, Loki was abruptly reminded why he avoided utilizing magic in forms not suited to spell work. Head pounding and heart thundering, Loki strained to regain his Aesir form. As the Chitauri struggled to regain their footing—those that weren't dead of burst hearts or climbing over their downed brethren— the god fully regained his chosen shape and spun a warding for protection.
No sooner had he completed the bubble-like shield than the Other appeared. With a shout of triumph, Loki sprinted towards the wraith, summoning his equipment from the pocket between worlds he'd claimed as his own. Light rippled over his body and left leathers and gilded plate mail in its stead. Another flash of light and he clutched the staff given to him by Frigga when he first began to learn the art of seidr. So precious a gift had never seen battle; fitting that its first should be his last.
When Loki was but ten yards away, the Other made a cutting gesture and the warding split. Loki screamed with rage, but stumbled to a stop, eyes glued to his former handler and chest heaving as his core reeled, doing all in its power to stabilize. The Other hissed and circled the god slowly, carelessly motioning for the Chitauri to maintain their distance.
"The Trickster returns. Disgraceful. Have you come to beg for mercy, little god? You will find none here. Your nights will always belong to the Lord of the Shadows and you will ever long for something as sweet as pain."
Loki's lips twisted upwards in a parody of a smile, all sharp edges and wolfish intensity below wild eyes.
"Mercy? Perhaps I do seek it, but not from you. No, I come seeking a different reward— I think your head will do quite nicely!"
The god darted forwards and swung the gnarled staff with a snarl, sending a wave of magic through amplifying crystals and outwards. The percussive blow forced back the Other's hood, revealing too large eyes that were almost insectoid in nature, and Loki wasted no time in targeting the ghastly, bulging things. He thought of the lights bright enough to burn and breathed them into existence—heedless of his dwindling stores of magic, he shaped the light-streams into daggers and flung them at his foe.
The Other twisted and plucked the daggers from the air, hissing as they burnt skin and sight but largely unharmed. In retaliation, he spat upon them and flung them back at the god, too swiftly, too forcefully for Loki to do aught but scream as a dagger of his own creation—soiled now by the tainted saliva of a monstrosity—slipped past his defenses to bite into his chest, its passing marked by melted mail and the smell of roasted flesh.
The Other cackled and summoned his own weapon—an achingly familiar spear. The spear's head was double-edged and jagged, the haft thick and warped, the entirety cloaked by an energy so malevolent that Loki had to bite back another scream, had to remind himself that in this moment he had the means to fight back, that he was Loki and he would not bow again.
They threw themselves at one another, the lurid green of Loki's energies lashing out against the consuming indigo of the Other's strange workings. The Chitauri gibbered and howled as the two masters of seidr wove castings and counters as fast as thought.
Sweat beaded on Loki's brow and already he gaped for breath, knowing with a certainty that settled in his bones that his magic waned, that toxins overcame him from within while the Other was largely untouched, only toying—toying—with Loki as would a cat with a mouse.
Then Loki knew a fury unequal to any he had known before.
Not the persistent burn of jealousy, this. Not the sharp twisting born of betrayals. Not even the consuming hatred of himself, of the Jotnar, of all in the Nine Realms who stood against him compared to this.
It was not a fearsome, towering thing. Not a thing to be communicated with shouts and grand gestures. This had the weight of mountains behind it—solid and cold and filled with the knowledge that this, at least, would last until the end of days. It was stillness and power and conviction.
Loki Liesmith, Silvertongue, Skywalker, Trickster, God of Mischief, Father of Chaos, and Prince Among Monsters would not be denied. He would not be captured and played with, would not submit to a half-life lived on a barren planet ruled by the lone survivor of a cruel breed. He would not.
And with a manic grin—Loki let go.
The shifting spell he'd held so tightly to unwound and for the first time in centuries he felt free. With a shout of laughter, Loki reached for reserves that even he had not realized existed and drew the remaining heat from the air. The Other chittered with anger, scrabbling for purchase on the iced ground, his superior speed turned against him at last. It hurt, but Loki was beyond care; he swallowed the last vestiges of warmth and let the frost thicken on his hide, hands twisting in the complex pattern required to retrieve the Casket. By the time the Casket of Ancient Winters fully manifested, the Other had regained his feet and was furiously weaving a counter—a working of heat and light and burning things.
It mattered not.
Loki tore open the Casket and roared in triumph. A blast of penetrating cold solidified the very air, freezing his foes to their core and chilling his lungs—an event that shocked him into dropping the artifact. His mind raced. The Chitauri, he knew, were beyond help now, but the Other—though completely encased in ice a hand-span thick—would not be held for long. All magics could be countered given time as Heimdall had reminded him with his betrayal, even so great a magic as the Casket. He did not intend to allow the Other a chance to learn so.
Despite the rumblings of a coming storm and the still raging Casket lying forgotten on the planet's surface, Loki feverishly rattled off the most powerful earth-moving spell he knew. Chest heaving and limbs shaking, he ripped up a mass of rock the size of a horse and hurled it into the Other with the very dregs of his magic.
Ice and rock alike shattered with a deafening crack.
Victory.
Thunder seemed to shake the world and Loki collapsed, curling inwards as he gasped for breath with hands pressed against melted mail and the wound he knew would be his undoing. It no longer bled, but he could feel it festering beneath his skin, poison winding through his veins. With his magic expended and all those foolish enough to think to save him realms away, alone on an alien world but for the corpses of his enemies and the knowledge that he'd won at last—Loki cried.