For Loki, his training with the aeldari was exhausting but rewarding.

It started with small things, trying to explore his psyker powers. Loki realized, pretty quickly, that he wasn't a normal psyker at all… he was terrible! And that was so weird, because hadn't Loki-the-real-one said he was an Alpha Plus psyker? From what Loki understood, that should mean a godly psyker, absolutely incredible. Eldrad was able to explain it, though.

"Avatars are very different from other psykers," he said calmly as Loki attempted to levitate a saltshaker. Eldar had saltshakers just like humans, although maybe they were a little prettier. This one was a lovely waved crystal with a few openings on the top for the salt. It was weaving through the air like he was drunk, though, while Loki tried desperately to steady it. "The vast majority of your psionic potential is devoted to your God, leaving only the smallest of dregs for abilities like these. Of course, that is how you are still alive and sane." Yeah… Loki got that now. Human Alpha Plus psykers normally died REALLY fast, and that was if they were lucky. If they weren't, they got to be fingers of the Ruinous Powers in reality. Or in Hope, where it was hard for the Ruinous Powers to reach, just blow up an entire city when they were five…

Loki put aside that thought and concentrated but then a voice whispered in the back of his head. Why don't you just do it you know you want to. And Loki was so frustrated that he did it. Instead of properly levitating the saltshaker he decided gravity shouldn't matter and made gravity not be a thing for the saltshaker only and then used the air currents to hold it in place super easy –

And Eldrad smacked him upside the head.

"Stop that. I told you to do it properly," Eldrad said severely and Loki drooped. Why was this so hard?! He let the saltshaker drop to the ground, taking a small break as he readjusted everything and realized he was running pretty hot again. He needed a better cooling system to deal with all this.

"Sorry, sorry… I shouldn't have listened to Satan," Loki said, rubbing his head. Satan wasn't as good as Cegorach at selling his bullshit as good ideas, but he sometimes knew how to strike when the iron was hot. "He's this Warp Spawn of Tzeentch that follows me around and looks like a flying iguana," Loki said by way of explanation. He was also one of the voices in his head, although Loki had only really recognized that recently.

"Well, definitely don't listen to him and do your exercises properly. We are trying to build your mental stamina." Right, right. Using his other powers came super easy to him but this was so hard! That was good for building up his 'muscles' though.

Loki understood now why Eldrad and Yvraine had come to help train him. The other eldar were pretty confused, especially the young ones and thought he was totally hopeless and why were they bothering to train such a worthless human? That opinion changed pretty fast when they saw the other things they could do, but then they just didn't know how to handle it. It was Eldrad who'd actually trained an Avatar before and said Loki was actually pretty typical, and Yvraine who actually had the power of a God and could stifle Loki if he fucked up bad.

It took hours of work but Loki slowly got better, getting a real grasp of telekinesis. He'd never be able to use it like Eldrad could, to crush whole tanks with just his mind, but he didn't need to. Loki could just decide the tank should be crushed and it would be, which got to the same place but wasn't the same method at all.

"Good, you are making solid progress. Let's take a break for lunch," Eldrad said, to Loki's relief. Not that he needed to eat, exactly, but it would be good to take a moment and let his mind relax. Man, this was so hard!

Loki decided to join Eldrad even if he didn't need to eat, slipping himself into a human form and joining him at the table. It was a shame he couldn't have a proper pie, but soup was soup and Loki loved it as he was able to have a nice steaming bowl of something that was awfully close to pea soup.

"It's been so long since I was able to eat," Loki said, feeling almost overwhelmed by the flavors and feeling of having a proper mouth again. He loved his robot body, he really did, it had a lot going for it but eating was something everyone missed. Even some of the proper necrons missed it! "You know, where does the food go when I change back?" Eldrad smiled slightly.

"It's best not to examine that, like it's best not to examine where the mass goes when you change. You can become other animals, by the way," he said and Loki just nodded. "You knew?"

"Well, the real Loki is a notorious shapeshifter so if I'm really Loki, yeah," Loki said vaguely. Even without his reality warping gifts, that would have to be something he could do. Although. "I categorically refuse to have kids. I mean, myself. Carrying them." That was Not Happening. Eldrad was a little puzzled.

"I know very little of Loki, except that he is a god of mischief similar to Cegorach. Can you tell me more about him?" OH YAY! Loki loved to talk about the real Loki, he was great! And Eldrad seemed really interested!

Loki told Eldrad the stories about the actual Loki and he quickly understood why shape changing was definitely a thing he could do. The whole Sleipner thing made him raise his eyebrows, particularly when Loki said he'd always known that Loki-the-real-one considered that a huge failure, getting caught by the stallion and hated to think about it at all. Also, Cegorach had totally roasted him on that. It was all pretty brutal on Loki's pride and almost the worst thing that had happened to him.

"Almost? What was the worst thing to happen to him?" Eldrad asked and Loki paused, a bit puzzled. But he had the sense that the other operating system was closed up and not going to give him any information, so he just shrugged.

"Probably something in the Warp," Loki said vaguely. "I mean, the Norse pantheon isn't around anymore so something really bad must have happened." That was usually how it went, the Chaos Gods noticing little deities and gulping them down. "I kind of wonder what other gods are still around. The only one I know for sure is Cernunnos." Loki still remembered that vision of him, and the Feral worlder making a bloody sacrifice. Knowing that God, though, he'd gotten what he wanted from it with no strings attached. If you were going to make bargains with demons and gods, it really paid to know who you were dealing with and Cernunnos was harsh but fair.

"What other human Gods still exist? If the real Loki knows?" Eldrad asked and Loki took a deep breath before gently asking that other operating system. There was a brief hesitation but then it opened up a little and provided the information. It merged seamlessly into his head, like he'd always known.

"Well, keep in mind that I definitely don't know all the survivors. Cernunnos and Ishtar are actually the big ones, but there's also Vishnu, he's still around but in deep hiding." Loki paused, taking a sip of his tea. "He sometimes picks an Avatar and incarnates, and there are humans worshipping him in particular, in the universe. The reason he's hiding so hard is because he's a super enemy of Chaos and is kind of conducting a guerilla war on them." It was crazy that he knew this! Loki knew now that the real Loki thought Vishnu was kind of dumb, trying to act as the preserver at this point, but also really smart for managing to escape the destruction of his Pantheon. "Those are the big ones… Hades is still around but that's only because he's a pussy and surrendered most of his power to Nurgle." Total pussy, death would be better. "Hephaestus is alive but he probably wishes he wasn't, he's enslaved and banging out weapons for Chaos. He was the smith of the gods for the Greek pantheon," Loki said by way of explanation. Man, that sucked, he was probably enjoying his life about as much as Isha. "There's also a few others, I could describe them but I don't know their names." One of them had to be Japanese, was that Raijin? Also, was that a random oni? Loki-the-real-one just didn't know, he'd met them in passing. Also, there was one person-thing-monster that might be an African deity? It looked like another Trickster god, if Loki was any judge. "A lot of lesser things survived too, but those are the only surviving deities I know about." There were tons of myths and stories that had pulled through and quite a lot of them were incarnated right now, in the Primarchs. Maybe some Gods too, although Loki wasn't sure about that… wouldn't the Primarchs be even stronger then?

"I see, that's very interesting. Can you tell me a bit more about those three?" Eldrad asked and Loki nodded before giving him a quick rundown of Cernunnos, Ishtar and Vishnu. This might actually be important information for him to have someday and someday might be coming quickly. Loki had no illusions, as soon as the Pariah Nexus and the Tyranids were taken care of, Chaos was going to move. For the Imperium and the eldar, that was the next war. Imotekh might have to get involved with that too, but his main focus was going to be the Maynarkh. It really never ends, does it? Loki felt a bit sad, not for himself, but for the civilians and the Guard conscripts, the people who didn't choose any of this. Life was so unfair.

For himself, though, Loki regretted nothing. He'd adapted to civilian life okay, in fact he'd quite enjoyed working at the bookstore but going back to war was like taking the hand of a long lost friend. Sure, he'd been old and taken biotransference partly because he didn't want to die, but there was more to it than that… he'd loved the idea of being a mechanical skeleton and fighting in the stars forever! That was great! Being dead hadn't been great – just like Revalt, Loki had really noticed – but now he even had his soul back! This was fantastic!

After lunch, Loki started to learn how to see the future with Warp powers and that was where things got really interesting.

"Whoop!" Loki dodged a strike with perfect smoothness before lashing out. His opponent caught his mechanical fist but Loki moved with the movement and kicked him in the chest! But he anticipated that and put up a little telekinetic spot shield and Loki knew that would happen so he used his reality warping to reinforce his knee so it would break through but his opponent had seen he would do that so he'd erected a second spot shield behind the first and Loki knew he'd do that so he… got a headache. "This is getting stupid! And it hurts!" His head was really starting to hurt, it was not a joke.

"You are incredibly good at this. You must have been doing it all your life," Eldrad said from the sidelines as the aeldari warrior disengaged from him. Loki wavered on his feet, feeling incredibly weird. Quickly checking his heat levels made him wince. He was going to have to get a better cooling system from the Crypteks really soon, this was dangerous!

"I did always get migraines after fighting the drukhari. Usually optical migraines that made it hard to see," Loki said, remembering. The medical professionals had chalked it up to stress and given him some things to manage the pain. Although. "Just once, the drukhari launched a second attack while I was dealing with the migraine and it just went away instantly, I thought that was so weird. After that fight, though, I had a massive nosebleed and ended up in the hospital… was I damaging myself?" Organic brains didn't overheat like Necron ones did, but you could still hurt yourself.

"Yes, I would say so. Come here," Eldrad said and Loki obediently went to him and let Eldrad touch his head. He used his pyrokinesis to leech the heat away from him, cooling him down more efficiently. Loki had already tried to use his reality alteration to lower the heat and realized that was a terrible idea. He'd woken up a few hours later looking into Yvraine's face and been informed she'd basically resurrected him. Apparently, his head had tried to explode, wee!

Still, when he was using it properly this looking into the future while fighting was pretty easy. The real problem was when Loki was facing someone else who was doing it, then things started to go sideways as they kind of duked it out and then his brain started frying. Eldrad thought that practice, though, would get past that problem. That was the entire point of this, strengthening his mental muscles and making him more efficient. The less energy he wasted, the less needless heat his mind would generate. That was also, weirdly enough, why he generated far less heat using his reality altering powers… because he was an Avatar, that was naturally very efficient.

Loki was also studying under Yvraine and puzzling out the best ways to use reality warping. She was the one to open his mind to something he'd never even considered before.

"Strengthen him. Enhance his durability," Yvraine said and Loki hesitated, looking at the necron Warrior. He was one of the ones that could never be re-souled, who didn't have a mind anymore, the ones they were using for testing.

"Okay," Loki said, a touch dubiously. He didn't really know how technology worked, he'd never been a field engineer but he could just decide the necron should be tougher right? Looking at the necron, he tried his best… and then Yvraine cut his arm off like it was nothing!

It took several tries but Loki got it, making the necron stronger and regenerating faster. Then faster and more dexterous, although one thing Loki discovered he couldn't do at all was smarter. The Warrior was still dumb as dog dirt, just following the combat routines engraved in his mind by the C'Tan, but it was still way more challenging for Yvraine to tear him up when his body was tough as a tank! Loki was in awe of this ability and it hardly made him run hot at all!

"How many could I do that to? Surely not an army," Loki said and Yvraine smiled, a wicked twinkle in her eye.

"You are limited largely by what your mind can withstand. That is always so… great Avatars normally die when they go too far, employ powers too great to withstand. The flesh shreds beneath the weight of the God's power." Wow, this was so crazy! Loki wished his mum had been able to see this, she would be so proud of him.

Aeldari were like humans, though, in that they needed sleep and lived in a day/night cycle. Iyanden had artificial light that mimicked the cycle of day and night perfectly. So after a really crazy day of exerting himself, Loki still had plenty of time to do whatever. He spent a bit of it reading the War in Heaven and thinking about how he could make it better, before dropping into a rest cycle. He was doing rest cycles every day, now, it seemed to help a lot with the strains on his necron brain. Once that was done, though, Loki took a step sideways and walked into the Warp.

He was in the mood for something restful, and he knew exactly the place to go.


Loki slowly picked through the ruins of the Great Wasteland, his mind a million miles away. His black leather boots crunched on burnt wood, as he had to balance carefully and jump to get through the wreckage. This place wasn't friendly to foot travel, not at all.

The Great Wasteland was wide and vast, but Loki was in the ruins of a village that surrounded a shattered fortress. The village always smote his heart with sadness, because Loki recognized bits and pieces of it… this was a real place, taken from his memories. The drukhari had destroyed it, probably eighty years ago. His unit had arrived too late to do anything but search for survivors. There hadn't been any.

The fortress, though, was something out of Loki's imagination. It had once been an incredible fortification, with a massive wall but it had been sundered and left to the elements. Great blocks of stone had been tossed pretty far, too, hinting that the end of it had been explosive. Loki tilted his head back, seeing the sky was dark and threatening rain, but not raining just yet. Loki leapt over another wall, touching down with the ease of someone who could see the future just far enough and –

Loki stopped, freezing as he spotted another person here. He was a tired looking old man – well okay, maybe not THAT old – and absolutely huge! Was that an Astartes? He wasn't wearing any armor though and he was just sitting on a block of broken stone, staring blankly at the shattered ruins. And Loki felt a fierce anger flow through him.

Moving perfectly on instinct, Loki darted forward. The man looked up sharply and flung up an arm just in time to stop him from landing a punch to the face! Power flared on Loki's fist, the blue fire of the warp and the rock the man was sitting on cracked! He was knocked off it and landed on his feet and Loki noticed he was even taller than he'd thought. He frowned and looked super stern and Loki almost felt intimidated for a moment before remembering why he was angry.

"Who are you and what are you doing in MY place?" Loki said sharply. No one came here, it belonged to HIM! He wasn't sure why he felt that, he just did. The man's eyebrows drew down and he looked really put out.

"I don't talk to creatures like you." OH FUCK OFF! Loki's eyes narrowed and he wondered – runes were spells, right? But they would be HIS spells, not really belonging to Tzeentch because he was Loki so he reached a hand out and traced the simplest rune of all, for ice. The line hung in the air a moment, blazing blue before it exploded outwards and coated everything in heavy ice! Loki landed on it and his feet stuck to the ice because he wanted them to, no other reason than that but his enemy wasn't so lucky and cursed as he had to deal with that.

If they had been in the real world, things might have been different. In fact, they would probably have been different. But fighting with an actual God, within the Warp itself, was dumb as dog dirt. It was different from fighting literally anything else, even the greatest demon princes and daemons couldn't do this, but the actual Gods and Ruinous Powers could set the rules and Loki was starting to realize that was cheating on the next level. Unless something had the power to break his rules, they simply could not win.

(this also did mean that for mortals, defeating the Ruinous Powers was simply impossible)

(they set the rules)

This guy didn't have the power or didn't know how to use it if he did. Loki fought him head on, but peeking into the future and using runes whenever he felt like it. He needed to show that to the eldar and ask if it was safe, but Loki was pretty sure it was. That knowledge felt right at home in the palm of his hand.

Still, this guy was stubborn as a mule and Loki realized pretty quickly that he'd either have to kick him ridiculously hard and probably give him brain damage, or restrain him somehow. Thought led to action and something filled Loki's hand. He didn't even look at it, just trusted it to do what he want and he dashed around the stranger, beating him with speed! After a few times to confuse him, Loki slapped that hand on his back and the thing in his hand flowed out! It wrapped around the stranger several times and Loki felt like his head hurt as he tried to look at what he'd produced. What WAS that? It was like a shimmer in the air, like heat distortion, like something that wasn't really there at all but it acted like a spider's silk, flowing over him and enfolding him and completely impossible to break.

"A-argh! Damn you, Warp filth! I will – guh – " he tried hard to break free, but it was totally pointless as the stuff expanded and contracted without actually giving at all. What was this rope? Loki had an idea but that was crazy, right? "What do you want?!" he suddenly snapped and Loki jumped in front of him, neatly settling on a block of stone.

"Well honestly, I just want you to go away. What are you doing here anyway, marinating in the stench of failure?" Loki asked and the stranger paused in trying to break free to look at him. Loki felt like the man was really seeing him for the first time.

"Yes. How did you know?" he asked and Loki tilted his head, his hair sliding over his eyes before he pushed it away. It was the usual pale gold, he noticed, he had to be in his usual human form. He hadn't checked himself in a mirror.

"That's what this place is for. This is…" Loki paused for a moment, looking towards the ruined fortress, with its great, sundered walls. "This is the ruins of Asgard." The words made a deep pain go so hard into his chest, but Loki refused to fall into it. It wasn't time for that. "Also the ruins of a little town, I forget what it was called, it was destroyed a long time ago." That hurt too, it really did. They had been too slow, it had been their fault, this shouldn't have happened. "This place symbolizes failure, that's what it's all about. You realize that's the trap, right?" Loki asked, not sure this guy understood what was happening at all. Not to his surprise, he frowned.

"Trap? What do you mean?" he asked and Loki felt really bad for him. How long had he been sitting there, trapped in the memories of his failures? A year? A decade? A thousand years? It was all the same in here, where time wasn't a straight arrow but more of a ball of spaghetti.

"It's the trap of failure… the trap of just spending forever here, remembering how you failed, paralyzed by the past. And that's how you keep failing, because not doing anything is also failure," Loki said and he could tell the guy was really listening, now. "The way you get out of it is just leave. Turn away, put it all behind you and walk out. Of course, that's easier said than done." If you were caught up in the trap, Loki knew the village would stretch out endlessly and you'd loop around, coming back to the castle. "I really want you out of here, though, so I'll help. What does failure taste like? What does it smell like?" Loki said and the man stared at him like he was crazy but then he answered.

"Failure tastes like blood and tears," he said and Loki nodded solemnly. It would be different for every person, but he would agree with that. "It smells like…" the man fell silent for a moment, before continuing. "It smells like burning flesh and motor oil. The stench of filth and decay. It feels like… heat. Failure is hot." Oh, that was interesting!

"Failure feels different from different experiences… for me, failure feels like broken, bloody fingers. So cold you can't feel anything but pain, as you root through the wreckage, just trying to find one survivor," Loki said, remembering it. "Failure is the wind in your face and the snow that stings your eyes as your hands break on cold stone… that is the shape of my failure. For me, failure is cold." For a moment, Loki was tempted to fall into those memories, to relive them and sink into the despair of it all. But that was the trap and he shook it off. "I want you to think about all those things. I want you to experience them, but not fall into them… I want you to accept them. Then, you can walk out of this place." When you reached full acceptance, the ruins would let you go.

"That is very difficult," he said and Loki tilted his head. That was strange for him, because it hadn't been difficult at all for him… but then, his personality wasn't to ruminate on things. Loki remembered, the first time he'd come to the Great Wasteland he'd breathed in the air, the smell of soot and old blood, experienced all his pain, then pledged to do better. Be better. And then he'd walked out, feeling strong and ready to take on the world. "But I will try." Oh no you don't! That was a trap too!

"No! There is do or not do! There is no try!" Loki said before pointing at him. "Do it! Do it now! And remember the most important part of accepting your failure… promising that it won't happen again! And you can't do that if you stay here! So do it now, time is wasting!" Was time wasting though? Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't, you never knew in here. The guy looked at him like he was insane, but then chuckled softly.

"Can you free me from this?" Oh right! Loki made the rope vanish in a cloud of sparkles, reflecting on it for a moment… he knew what it was now, it was a cheap copy of Gleipnir. The real rope was missing, lost when Asgard fell, and it was infinitely stronger than what Loki had made. Loki watched as the stranger took a seat and closed his eyes, reflecting on it. He could tell the man had a Warp entity inside him but wasn't awakened to it, so he couldn't break the copy. If he'd been fully aware of his own nature, he could have broken not-really-Gleipnir pretty easily. It wasn't really that strong, it was kind of a trick.

Loki wasn't sure how long it was before the man opened his eyes and stood. He said nothing at all and just started walking, purpose in his stride. Loki followed behind, unsure he'd gotten it but he had! When he stepped out of the village, it didn't follow him, just letting him go, to Loki's pleasure. But then the man stopped, just looking at the landscape. The village and the castle were nestled in an alpine tundra. The rocky ground crunched underfoot, full of rocks large and small and dotted with scraggly greenery, fighting hard to survive. Larger rocks were everywhere, ranging in size from the size of a softball to blocks as big as a land speeder. Loki understood what this was… this was where a glacier had receded, leaving behind chunks of rock. Or rather it would have been if this were a real place, but it wasn't.

"…What do I do next?" The stranger asked, seeming a bit lost as he gazed over the endless tundra. Loki tilted his head.

"I think you need to go on the Sage's Journey," Loki said after a moment of deep cogitation. The man turned to look at him, frowning. "This is the Great Wasteland… it's also called the Land of Broken Things. Christians call it Purgatory. It's the place where lost souls go, before they find their proper place. It's possible to get out if you follow the Sage's Journey, which is basically completing a series of trials. You've completed the trial of failure, but there will be more. If you can complete them all, you get to go home, that's how the story goes," Loki said, knowing the Sage's Journey was a common motif of mythology and games and other stories. It all came together into a collective myth, of the trip to the underworld and self-discovery. However. "Mister… I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name." It felt important now. He hesitated a moment.

"Dorn," he said and Loki nodded.

"I'm Loki – Mr Dorn, please remember that this place isn't here to help you. It's here to destroy you. This…" Loki waved a hand, at the tundra around them. "This is malice. You can't trust anything here and if you succeed in the Sage's Journey it will be in spite of this place, not because of it. Don't trust anything here," Loki warned and Dorn smiled a little, a small quirking of his lips.

"Including you?" he asked and that was a good zing! Loki shrugged, rubbing a hand behind his head, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Eh, I'm playing the tutorial guy. You know, the person you meet when you first open a video game and he's all 'it's dangerous out there, take this!' and he gives you the starting noob gear." IN FACT! "Actually, let me do that!" Loki said before concentrating. A basic set of gear popped out of nowhere, this was great! "Here you go! Some armor and a starting sword. It's not good, but it's better than nothing and you'll find better stuff in here," Loki said cheerfully. "And I'll be honest, I wasn't planning to help you at all when I first saw you, it just turned out this way. I'm kind of random like that." Stuff just happened and he didn't know why.

"Well, I certainly believe that, the way you attacked me," Dorn said before accepting the gear. It fit perfectly, exactly as Loki had wanted it to. "Will I see you again?" Loki couldn't see anything in the future but he knew how this story usually went so.

"I hope not. Usually if you meet the tutorial guy later, he turns into a boss and you have to defeat him," Loki said vaguely and Dorn frowned. "This place is all about stories and patterns… don't worry about it, you often never meet the tutorial guy again. But if you want to look me up in the real world, I'm Loki and I belong to the Sautekh Empire." That should give him enough to work with. "I really should get going, I wanted to take a relaxing walk." And this was a time for partings, they both could tell.

"I see… well, I will remember your name. Thank you for the help," he said before setting off in a random direction and Loki set off in his random direction. It didn't really matter where you went in the Great Wasteland, you'd find what you needed to find. And it was a great place to relax and reflect, if you didn't mind the lost souls anyway. Was Dorn a lost soul? Loki wasn't entirely sure. He certainly wasn't like the others.

Loki wasn't sure what he was, but he definitely wasn't a typical lost soul.