"Sylvie, are you okay?" Detective Loki asked his fiancée, who stayed by his side.
Sylvie nodded. "Are you?" She and Mobius had tried their best to ease his pain from the dark wounds Knull inflicted on him, but neither of them could heal him.
"I can barely feel anything below my elbows any longer, so I'm in no pain, if that eases your concerns."
"I don't know about you, but that makes me more concerned."
"Ditto." Mobius agreed.
"But..." Sylvie uncomfortably continued. "That's not... what I was asking about."
Loki looked down, becoming more aware of the tears that lingered in his eyes. "I- he made up his mind; there was nothing I could have done."
Sylvie nodded again. "Nothing any of us could do..."
"Come on, let's get you somewhere safe." Mobius coaxed. "Even you can't keep fighting in that condition."
With the two Thors long out from sight in their pursuit of Knull, Doctor Strange approached Loki.
"So that's it?" Strange questioned him. "You're just going to sit this one out?"
"No offense, you are the best surgeon on this planet, but I doubt there's anything you can do to fix this."
"No, they never covered treating injuries from dark alien energy at medical school, I'll admit. You've also got nothing on me in terms of medical skills, but in terms of magic, you're still a force to be reckoned with."
"And you're an experienced sorcerer, so you of all people know that I can't cast magic without moving my hands, nor can I wield weapons! What would you have me do, kick him to death? Bite him? A headbutt? Even with the use of my hands, I barely managed to defend myself against his full strength, so without them, I'm useless!"
Doctor Stephen Strange shook his head. "A wise old master of magic once told me that the hands don't make a sorcerer; it's our inner strength that fuels our magic, our willpower, the heart and soul of a sorcerer that makes him or her powerful, and I know you well enough by now to know you're way too stubborn to give up without a fight to the end! If I could heal you, I would, but we make do with the hand we're dealt, don't we? Uh... sorry, no pun intended."
Loki looked down at his limp hands and back to Strange, nodding. "Hands or no hands, I am still Loki, god of mischief, whether Knull chooses to acknowledge it or not, and I am still Asgard's greatest sorcerer!"
Mobius and Sylvie nodded. "Yeah, you are!"
"That's what makes a Loki a Loki: we don't die, we don't give up, and we don't let anyone or anything in the universe tell us what we can and can't do!" Sylvie boasted.
"She's right." Mobius agreed.
"See you there then." Doctor Strange and his team took a sling-ring portal after the Thors, leaving the detective alone with his own team.
Loki smiled at Sylvie. "Not a bad pep talk. I've just... I haven't much experience at using magic without the hand motions before."
"So about Healer..." Sylvie replied. "He's not... dead, is he?"
"I don't think so, no, Knull wanted Healer to join him, become part of his being instead of mine."
"So maybe that means you can take him back?" Mobius hoped. "But can you still heal yourself? You're super powerful by yourself, but maybe could you replicate his healing with your own magic by now?"
Loki thought for a moment and shrugged. "I'll certainly try my hardest, but there is a positive spin to this situation too: without the darkness inside of me that came with our bond, my light magic will be more potent. And after Knull's crippling parting gift, he won't expect me to be able to put up a fight, which will give me another tactical advantage!"
Sylvie tried to smile back, but her eyes lingered on his hands, a remorseful lump in her throat. "Loki... I'm sorry."
Loki's mouth gaped a tad, hearing his proud variant apologize taking him aback. He looked her in the eyes with all seriousness. "As long as you're okay, that's all that matters."
She pulled him into an embrace, remorseful tears dripping from her eyes, inadvertently making him wish he could move his arms more than ever to return the gesture. She held him for a few seconds until they were interrupted by a cry of pain sharp from Sylvie, blood spurting out of her mouth as she clutched her abdomen!
"Sylvie!"
"Forgetting someone?" Malice sneered. "You're not going anywhere, Lokiii, not after I went through the trouble of helping the creator disable you! You even attempt to do a parlor trick, with or without those necrotized hands, and I will clean out your lover from the inside out, starting with the baby~!"
Fighting the pain, Sylvie quickly cast a fiery spell at Malice, but he ducked back inside of her body and stunned her nervous system again!
"Nice try! I am in your headdd; I know what you are planning before you can go through with it! You try something like that again, and I will snap your spine like a twig! Then you two Loki lovebirds can be permanently crrrippled together!" Malice maliciously laughed as both Lokis seethed with rage!
"Would you STOP HURTING SYLVIE!? GET OUT OF HER!" Loki scolded. "You already took Healer, you've gotten your revenge!"
"And I'm going to make sure you don't undo that revenge and bring that failure of a Symbiote back; the deal was that he must stay gone for your little daughter to survive, so don't you do anything stupid to get her killed now!" Loki scowled at the hidden villain. "But maybe the doctor is right... maybe you are still a threat, even without the use of your hands. Hmmm... in that case, I'd better call in some reinforcements to finish you off!"
Malice signaled a dragon in the distance, which changed course to where Detective Loki stood. The Jotun-Asgardian prince's eyes glowed green as he prepared to face them, but Malice spoke again.
"No, you're not going to fight back, detective. You're going to stand there and die, or I will kill your little baby and show you her corpssse!" Loki shuddered and shut his eyes, the green glow faded as a tear trickled down. "Good host! Now, time to die!"
From a safe, hidden distance, Ragnarok Loki observed Malice's dirty tactics, overhearing his threats towards Detective Loki and his family. The trickster couldn't help but think back to his own imprisonment, watching his own son slaughtered before his eyes and being subsequently bound himself with his boy's bloody entrails.
Now, as Malice spitefully forced his detective variant into his own execution, Ragnarok Loki crept up behind them, his mind made up! The Symbiote dragon was almost to Detective Loki, its jaws opening wide, ready to bite off his head, while he braced for the worst.
As the mythologically accurate Loki drew near, he silently took out a sharp toenail he had removed from Naglfar, his ship he tirelessly constructed from untrimmed fingernails and toenails of the dead, along with a portable chalkboard, and when they noticed him approach, he scratched the board with the nail! The ear-splitting sound not only irritated Sylvie and the others, but it caused Malice's and the dragon's forms to destabilize! Sylvie immediately set the dragon ablaze while Detective Loki glared the evil Symbiote down and pulled him out of his fiancée with only his mind! As soon as the pair was unbonded, Sylvie, Detective Loki, and Mobius all cast fire on Malice as once! Malice shrieked in the combined flames, and the trio burned the shapeless Symbiote until there was nothing left of him but ashes.
"Good riddance, monster!" Detective Loki said before he ran to his lover. "Sylvie!" As they nuzzled foreheads, Sylvie glimpsed movement from Loki's arms and realized he was willing his telekinesis into them! He shakily managed to wrap his arms around her, and then he skillfully shifted control to his hands, completing the hug with her.
"Thanks for the help, Loki." Mobius told Ragnarok Loki. "You must be the Loki from the other Earth."
"Yeah." Sylvie added without turning to face him. "We owe you one."
"That would be me, but don't get the wrong idea: perhaps Grievance's disdain for his father rubbed off on me a smidge, but the only side in this war that I'm firmly against is the Aesir, and now that they're being dealt with, I'll just be on my merry way."
Detective Loki nodded at his variant before he spoke to Mobius and Sylvie. "Now take that TemPad and go somewhere safe, don't let anyone know where, and don't let any Symbiotes latch onto either of you!" He instructed his team. "I'll contact you with my own when I return to you."
They nodded in turn; Sylvie opened a Time Door, but before they returned home, her dragon Frelsir came flying out to them with her whistle. "You still look like you could use a ride. Give 'em Hel!"
"And if you see any enemy Symbiotes-" Mobius began.
"Let me guess, burn them to the ground?" Loki finished.
"I was gonna say roast 'em like marshmallows."
"Right. I'll give them the Malice treatment."
"You know, it's times like these I wish we still had the big angry cloud! I bet he'd make a nice appetizer out of that god of darkness!"
"I suppose, but don't forget, it still took the elder Loki's sacrifice just to allow Sylvie and I to enchant it, and even if we had Allioth, Knull or his Symbiotes might be able to bond with it, turn it back against us, and make us the appetizers!"
"Right, I hadn't thought of that." Mobius admitted. "Well, good luck!"
Detective Loki hopped on Frelsir's back, and the dragon carried him into the center of town while his friends made their exit.
When the two non-native Thors arrived at the scene, they found King Loki face down on the ground with Knull standing over King Thor beside him, both brothers badly bleeding and only the latter moving. Around them were char marks from lightning and fire, the surroundings damaged from a ferocious yet one-sided fight! It was clear who the victor was, the spoils in his hand: his old partner All-Black!
"Two down, one to go."
"You're not going anywhere!" Party Thor shouted. He and Red Thor fired a mighty blast of lightning at Knull, but he simply planted his weapon beside him, using it as a ground to redirect the electricity! Party Thor followed up with a blast of light, but without his Mjolnir to control it, it scattered in every direction, the stream spread too thin to harm his opponent! Knull then blotted out their view with darkness, and when it cleared, he was gone!
Red Thor prepared to fly after him, but the portal disappeared before he could reach it, and they both turned their attention on the wounded.
"Are you okay?" Party Thor asked. "Loki, is he…?"
"He-he took it from him!" King Thor sputtered. "He pulled it right out, and my brother is…" He inched over to him, and the other Thors beheld the vertebrae protruding from the gruesome hole in Loki's back.
"No… no…" Party Thor trembled in shock and sorrow.
"Where's Detective Loki!?" King Thor desperately inquired. "We need that healing power!"
"Knull has taken Healer back into his ranks, and he has furthermore left the detective crippled." Red Thor summarized.
King Thor lowered his head while Party Thor's eyes welled up with tears. "There- there must be something we can do!"
"…There is something I can try." King Thor placed Stormbreaker in his fallen brother's hand and closed it. "Stormbreaker… there is no question of Loki's worthiness. Revive him now, or allow the Odinforce to flow through him and grant him the power needed to revive himself, even if it's at the cost of my own power. Heal him from the darkness that has overtaken him this moment, before it is too late!" His eyes dripped while he waited, hoping for a miracle, but his brother laid still. "Do not make me watch him die one more time… do not make me watch one more member of my family die! I WON'T!" Red Thor watched somberly as his variants wept, King Thor nestling Loki in his arms, until he felt movement.
"Loki?" King Thor opened his eyes to see his brother groggily do the same, the hole in his back properly closing.
"Let me guess, I died again?" King Loki mumbled, looking back and forth among the three of them. "Ugh, I know Thor bears more family resemblance to our ancestors more than I, but this is absurd!"
"You are brothers…" Red Thor quietly said while his variant joyfully laughed and hugged his younger sibling.
"How did you do that?" Party Thor wondered. "How did you bring him back? I thought Healer was the only one who could reverse the damage from Knull's attacks?!"
"The Odinforce… well, I guess it would technically be the 'Thorforce' now, since it resides within me. Even I'm not sure of the full scope of its power, but... I had to try!"
Party Thor looked to Loki, the hole in his back closed up with his spine fully back inside. "My old man… has that kind of power flowing through him!?"
"So, did the other me bring you two Thors here?" King Loki wondered.
"Yes, he did! He needed lightning power to fight Knull's forces of darkness! Oh, and look!" Party Thor flashed light energy around himself. "I can do light magic now!"
Loki raised an eyebrow. "Well that's a twist: my Thor always made light of magic."
"Do you know where Knull is going?" Red Thor inquired. "What did he say to you?"
"I don't know where he went." King Thor panted. "But he-he mentioned another child of his, one he wanted to turn."
"Perhaps the Detective Loki can solve this riddle. "We may well need to make use of his device from the future to find Knull anyhow!"
"Are you feeling okay?" Party Thor asked. "You sound pooped- uh, exhausted!"
"This power... it comes at a price." King Thor replied. "Use it too much and you fall into a deep sleep, as Father did. So, uh, me's... where is Detective Loki?"
"He's back in that direction, where we were fighting Knull before." Red Thor answered.
"He's unable to fight right now, his arms disabled by Knull's darkness, so he could use a dose of that Odinforce to heal them!" Party Thor urged.
"I am sorry, but I used up all it to save my universe's Loki. I'm not as proficient with it as Father was."
"Which I'm grateful for, I'd like to say. So you can stay with me; you two Thors go ahead." King Loki told them. "Someone has to stay with the people and lead them to another glorious victory!"
"Lead on then, Brother!"
