Visitation

by kalimecat

Loki has returned to Asgard and is imprisoned for his crimes. While in prison he has the occasional visitor, will the love of others bring back the fallen prince or is he truly too far gone?

68. Last Battle Part 2

A/N: HELLLOOOO READERS! HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY 2024! I hope each and every one of you and an amazing holiday season! We each have a brand new year and brand new start and that is a blessing. Oh my goodness can you believe I haven't updated this chapter since last year? (Heheh) Well, anyway I am proud to have a quick and timely update for you all as my Christmas/Holiday/New Year gift to you all! I don't make resolutions, but one of my New Year's goals is to finish this story LOL. Once more readers I thank you so much for your reviews, follows and favorites. Each one means so much to me. This is the BIG chapter. (No spoilers) But please know that I worked very hard to hopefully make this chapter worth the wait. I wrote this chapter and the last as 1 giant chapter and then went back to edit this one. I've tweaked it as much as possible, and it may not be perfect, but it is finished. LOL Well, I won't belabor the point. You've waited a long time to get here and so have I! Sp get your drinks your snacks, your comfy chair and whatever else you need ;) Happy reads and writes and mostly God bless you in the New Year. Without further ado...

Chapter 68

Now, Lady Sigyn Arndottir rushed to try to get back to the throne room. She had been in the catacombs, but finally emerged and found herself still on one of the upper floors, but the wall had been blown out and she could see down into the throne room. Even as she walked through the corridor she still saw dead bodies. The palace had lost the smell of opulent perfume and expensive incense, now all that she could smell was smoke and fire and death. The grotesque forms of mangled Aesir's bodies made her want to want to cry. She looked down at her feet, she had started to notice how they were throbbing. Of course, they were throbbing. The palace hallways were no longer sleek marble floors lined with plush, cashmere, and velvet rugs, but rather she'd been running full speed over piles of rubble, broken bricks, shattered glass, and sharp pieces of precious metals. When she looked down at her feet and saw that they were covered in red, she gasped. She didn't know if the blood on them was her own or someone else's as she splashed through several puddles of blood and other bodily fluids. She didn't want to think about it, the thought made her want to vomit. She started gagging. Sigyn stopped herself. She didn't have time to get sick, cry, or wipe her burning feet. "Merciful Yggdrasil, give me strength," she prayed.

She had to get the scepter to Loki. She glanced up and she saw that the realms were aligned. Sigyn's golden eyes were in a trance as she beheld the Convergence in its full glory. It was so beautiful, so mystical. To see the glory of all the worlds at once. Even the worlds that were known to be dangerous, looked quite breathtaking now. She stared up for a while. Maybe it was a minute, maybe it was too, but it was it was too long. Lady Sigyn shook her head, her matted golden locks slapped her in the face and broke her from her trance. Then she heard the screaming and crying that seemed to be coming from right outside the palace. Lady Sigyn squinted and moved to the nearest window. The most frightening thing was that she didn't see anything. Just a thick burning fog.

Once more the queen's handmaiden started to look all around. She had to get down to the throne room. She looked for the nearest stairwell, but it was completely blown out. She could try to go through the catacombs, but as she looked down at her battered feet, she didn't know if crawling through the catacombs again was the best idea. "Think Sigyn! Think!" she declared to herself. The idea popped into her head immediately. With rope and an arrow, she could swing down to the throne room which was 20 floors below her. She took off to rush about to see if she could find a rope or an arrow.

Loki had made his way into the palace. He couldn't take a step without walking over a body. Aesir and Dark-Elf alike. It made him cringe. It was all his fault. The repugnant smell of death had taken over his nostrils He could never make amends. He could never make right what he'd done. Lives had been taken, families had been destroyed, including his own. Loki gulped as his boots brushed against a fallen piece of the ceiling. The part that cracked off of the roof was a vivid mural image of the royal family. He, Thor, Frigga, and Odin had all been sitting together for the portrait. It was designed almost 1000 years ago, but no one had really. The faces were the same, but nothing was the same about that once serene and noble family depicted in the mural. Loki looked down and saw that the image of himself was broken off from the rest of his family. That was how it should be, maybe he had belonged once. He'd always felt like an outsider, but maybe that hadn't been as true as he thought. Maybe he had belonged, maybe they were his true family after all, but the image was broken and so was his family. If he had ever belonged he surely didn't now. He could never go back to having what he once had, he didn't deserve to have it anyway. Loki's head snapped to attention as he heard the frantic screams in the background. The howl of a tornado seemed to rage behind him. He looked behind him and saw that the layer to the balcony over the outside of the palace had fallen. Loki's first inclination was to run back and try to dig out the poor souls who had been crushed, but out of the corner of his eyes, he caught the mural image of Odin holding the magnificent Gungnir in his hands. It reminded him he had to focus, he had to get to Gungnir and Sigyn. Poor Sigyn, he hoped that she was safe and unharmed. He knew he couldn't save everyone in this atrocity that he had caused, but he wouldn't forgive himself if Lady Sigyn paid the price for his madness like so many others had. The best way to help all the people of Asgard and the Nine Realms was to prevent Malekith from succeeding in his diabolical plot.

The master mage of Asgard pressed forward being careful where he trod so as not to injure the fallen warriors of Asgard any further. The Aether ash all of a sudden seemed to grow thicker even within the walls of the palace. It was becoming hard to see, and Loki's emerald eyes started to sting. His lungs spasmed with fitful coughs. The scarlet haze obscured much of his vision, but still, as he looked up he beheld a most welcomed sight. He beheld the beautiful form of Lady Sigyn dashing back and forth in the corridor. Her garments were once pretty much ripped to rags, the pretty pink gown was unrecognizable in color as it had become a dirty stained cloth smeared with blood and mud. Her hair was a tangled, matted, mess atop her head, normally she had it designed splendidly. It didn't matter. Loki's heart skipped a beat. Battle-worn and disheveled, she looked breathtaking. "Sigyn!" he called to her; his voice echoed through the empty space. It somehow made its way over the cacophony of cries and screams.

Sigyn turned. She flung herself toward the balcony. She waved, "Loki!" her voice called out like a lark. Her smile was dazzling even through the haze and they both beamed at each other. She proudly held up Gungnir and displayed it to Loki.

Loki couldn't stop grinning as he waved at her. She had accomplished her mission, bringing them one step closer to stopping Ragnarok. He was proud of her. "Stay there! I'll come to you!" he shouted to her. Loki was quickly about to teleport to Sigyn's position when a bright, red blast struck him from behind. Loki flew against a column immediately, face first soon sliding to the floor.

"You're not going anywhere," Malekith rumbled from him.

"Loki!" Sigyn yelled from above as she beheld him fall. Her hands automatically reached out.

Loki tried to peel himself off of the ground. He soon felt a boot hit his back. It cruelly suppressed him. "Thanos wants you alive," Malekith hissed as he bent down and yanked Loki's horned helmet from his head, "but that doesn't mean I can't beat you into an inch of your worthless life," Malekith spoke cruelly in the language of the Dark-Elves as he let out a cruel chuckle while he bent down and gripped up a fistful of Loki's long, licorice, locks. He yanked Loki's head back and brought him to a standing position. With Loki's hair firmly in his grasp, he then brought his machete up toward Loki's lily-white neck. He flirted with the sensitive area over Loki's Adam's apple, scrapping the word over it over and over again and causing it to bleed. "Give me the Tesseract," he ordered. Loki's face winced, but he made no action to produce the cosmic cube.

"You won't be causing Ragnarok Malekith and you won't be freeing Thanos!" Loki his as the sharp machete continued to toy with Loki's Adam's apple, the blade was so sharp that it seemed to threaten to cut it right out.

"Fool !" Malekith spat. "Convergence is upon us," he pulled Loki's head back harder and forced him to stare into the sky. He could feel the way Loki's body reacted and grew rigid upon seeing the words form their perfect alignment. It had been several millennia since the fruit of Yggdrasil had drifted through her branches so harmoniously. It was truly a magnificent sight, but it filled Loki with a chilling dread. He had a mere few minutes to stop calamity from befalling them all. "GIVE IT TO ME!" Malekith howled. "It's over!" Malekith continued to rant. "Did you honestly think you could defeat me now?" the general questioned. "NOW? After how far you brought us," Malekith continued to taunt. "Now, you change your mind. OH, you are a sorry one Loki," he reminded him. "You are so fickle and confused that you have once again cost yourself the throne you so crave," the Dark-Elf once again yanked Loki's head and forced him to stare at the gilded throne that vortex bombs had tried to eat away.

"I never wanted the throne," Loki hissed despite the pain he was in from the way Malekith craned his neck.

"Good, for you never shall have one! It shall be mine!" Malekith decreed as he breathed in the Aether. "It shall be mine! I've waited for it and longed for it and thought of nothing else for 5000 years. And now I'm getting what's mine," he declared.

Malekith continued his monologue about Loki's inevitable defeat. He continued to demand the Tesseract from Loki, but all the while Lady Sigyn had been finding the tools that she needed. She found a fallen archer's quiver and bow. These weren't enchanted arrows like the ones she had been using. Still, Sigyn had no time to hesitate or feel unsure of herself, she quickly slipped the arrow tightly between her fingers and stretched the string of the bow back tightly, and then she cast her gaze toward Lord Malekith. She squinted and narrowed her sights so that they were only on him. She let the arrow fly. It sailed its way toward Malekith. As if he had a sixth sense Malekith turned and faced the same direction that the arrow was flying. He also looked at Lady Sigyn and his bloodless lips curled upward as he did so. He released Loki's hair just long enough to wave his hand and have the Aether slice through the arrow that was coming his way.

It only took a second, but it allowed Loki enough to slip and get his dagger. Malekith went back to holding him tight, he went to grab Loki by his luscious dark mane once more. Malekith continued to let out soft, mocking guffaws. "I'm going to get what's coming to me!" he exclaimed as he finally pulled his machete away from Loki's throat and raised it high in the air.

"You sure are," the emerald-eyed enchanter as he snatched his dagger from its place of concealment. Whipped it out and in a flash and slashed it across Malekith's face, it cut across his eyelid and cheek. The black blood poured from the side of Malekith's face. He hollered as he finally released Loki. The enchanter scrambled away and took a defensive stance. Malekith raged and the power of the Aether exploded from him. The power of Aether shot throughout the throne room and continued to corrupt the fixtures, it tore through the throne, leaving it looking like a holey piece of cheese not even fit for a mouse. It blew out a few of the columns and floors including the ones that were holding up Lady Sigyn. The floor where she was standing started to rock and crack beneath her. Loki turned around and saw that bits of tile were starting to fall from the floor. "Hold on Sigyn!" he shouted. Lady Sigyn did exactly as Loki instructed, with one hand clinging tightly to the railing. The other hand still firmly clutched at Gungnir. Lord Malekith's dark eyes spied the brilliant golden scepter in the woman's hand. The quiver that Sigyn had recently acquired from a fallen archer, fell from her shoulders and onto the throne room floor that was way beneath her.

"The scepter!" Malekith growled. "GIVE IT TO ME WENCH!" the Dark-Elf general roared and he went running toward Sigyn. She was stories above him, but he was determined to get Gungnir. He wouldn't allow anything to thwart his plans once more. Lady Sigyn was crouched down on her knees doing her best to maintain her balance as everything around her seemed to be shaking. Seeing Malekith charging toward Sigyn's direction, Loki quickly sprang into action he tossed a dagger right out Malekith's back. Loki's dagger didn't miss. It struck Malekith dead center. It looked like it should have grazed his spine. Malekith hunched over at a dangerous angle. He jerked and writhed desperately to get the knife out of his back. While Malekith was distracted Loki came to him quickly. Loki landed swift, decisive jabs at the leader of the Dark Elf. He struck him on all sides. He landed a kick to the knee, then he teleported to Lord Malekith's other side and landed a blow, an uppercut, and a punch directly in the nose. With a fresh knife, Loki would hit Malekith in the stomach. Malekith couldn't get a hold of the enchanter. Every time he struck, he'd disappear and then reappear only to wound the Dark Elf some more. Lord Malekith was becoming more and more vexed with the trickster. Was Loki just fiddling with him? Trying to wind up the clock so that there wasn't enough time left to unleash the Aether and awaken Ragnarök. The Aether became more cantankerous within him. The power gem would defend itself at all costs. Without warning sharp shards and spikes started to be flung in Loki's direction. Loki found himself struck in the shoulder by one of the deep red spikes. Asgardian armor was extremely strong, but even it didn't seem to stand a chance against the might of the Aether. The master mage fell before the leader of Svartalfheim.

Loki winced as he tried to pull the Aether shard from his shoulder, but with every twitch or move he made the pain got hotter. It burned intensely. The dark-haired enchanter soon cried out in agony. For the time being Malekith had turned his attention toward the once self-proclaimed rule of Asgard. Malekith once more unsheathed his monstrous machete. It was black and haggard and still slick with someone else's blood. "You're so pathetic and weak!" Malekith spat at Loki. He furiously spoke rapidly in his native language. "I don't care what Thanos requests," he started as he shook his head.

"Good luck telling him that," Loki retorted as he tried to push himself off the ground to no avail.

"I'll tell him you died like a dog trying to stop his plans. I'll tell you that Thor crushed your windpipe, himself!" Malekith continued to fume and foam. Spittle flew from his lips. "I don't care!" he raged on, black eyes wide. "I can't stand the sight of you any longer!" Malekith declared as he raised his hands and the machete high into the air. Malekith went to bring the broad sword down, but then soon found that it came in contact with a sharp, keen, flashing steel dagger of Loki's the small knife was solid as a rock and was able to withstand the strong blow from Malekith's dark saber. Still, Malekith pressed and pressed his sword deeper until once again his weapon was dangerously close to Loki's neck.

"Loki!" Lady Sigyn yelped as she saw the enchanter's predicament.

"Sigyn," Loki attempted to raise his voice while still holding his own against the warlord. "Run Sigyn!" he shouted.

But the blonde-haired handmaiden to Queen Frigga, couldn't run. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest as she watched. Sigyn continued to firmly clutch Gungnir. "Hey!" she exclaimed. "You want it!" she boldly raised Odin's scepter high so that Malekith could see it. Like a moth drawn to the flame, he looked on it with a lust that would not be satisfied until it was close to him. "You want it!" she continued once she knew she had his attention. "Come and get it, you bastard!" she beckoned as she held the weapon in an attack position. Lady Sigyn's pretty lips curled into a snarl. She thought hard about the power of the scepter. Power that was only meant for a true member of the royal family to yield. It was meant to be held by the rightful ruler of Asgard. She wasn't that, but she hoped that the Norns and all-fathers of the past would continue to favor her attempts. A bold, bright beam burst before her, it was a shot in the dark that didn't hit its target, but it was enough to give the general a pause.

Loki gaped at he beheld the radiant ray roll right past him. It split through the ceiling and wall. Once more the leader of the Dark Elves looked down before him. He laughed as the scepter missed him. "How pathetic can you be!" Malekith tossed his head back and guffawed wildly. "That you constantly have to have your women to defend you," he gestured his head in Sigyn's direction. Lady Sigyn readied the weapon and was ready to blast the villain to kingdom come. "You know what I did to the last one, let's see what I'll do to this one," he sneered. Loki's eyes green eyes grew wide and then instantly narrowed. He then landed a fast blow with his boot into Malekith's groin. Malekith howled and fell on his back.

As he fell Malekith cried, "ENOUGH!" Swirls of Aether blast shot off of him in every direction. Loki managed to dodge and roll out of the way of the shard of crimson just in time. Another powerful red blast went spiraling off and struck the floor where Sigyn was. Sigyn shrieked and ran as she tried to get away from where the stones of the floor were falling from right underneath her feet. Stone after stone, tile after tile, pillar after pillar crumbled and tumbled down into the floor below it until there was no floor left for Sigyn to fall on, but the throne room floor.

"Hang on, Sigyn," Loki shouted to her from his crouched position.

Instinctively, Lady Sigyn went running for the rail that wrapped around the floor. She gripped tightly to the banister as the floor seemed to crumble all around. The banister shook and the golden bar went flying off and disconnected from the floor. Sigyn hollered as she hung in the air. Her feet dangled stories above the throne. "Loki," she whimpered as she sobbed. One hand was tightly clinging to the golden railing for dear life, but the other firmly clutched Gungnir.

"Just hold on, Sigyn," Loki shouted to her once more. The enchanter rose to his feet and he stretched forth his hand and tried to hold the banister and floor in place. Stones and debris were levitated held in midair by an invisible force emanating from Loki's palm.

"Loki, I'm slipping," she gasped from above as she still held on tightly with one hand.

"It's ok, Sigyn. Let go! I'll catch you!" the raven-haired mage told her. Lady Sigyn was hesitant. It was so far down. But her arm ached from trying to hold her body weight up in that manner.

Lord Malekith wasn't in any way deterred. He was even more determined. While Sigyn hung from the railing she dangled his coveted golden carrot before his eyes. Loki continued to prompt her that it was safe to let go and Lady Sigyn was just about to give in to it. She started to close her eyes and count to herself preparing to let go. Then she heard more and more crashes and booms all around her. She noted that once more the stones were falling all around her. She looked on and then clearly watched as Malekith was running toward her. Loki shot forth a green energy beam that knocked Malekith down. Malekith sprang back up and vigorously waved his machete about in a threatening manner, but Loki continued to counter with several powerful blasts of his own. The Aether rumbled in response angrily inside him. Malekith shot forth another shard of the Aether that was meant to hit Loki. But Loki quickly cocooned himself in a bright lime green forcefield. the trickster himself was honestly surprised that the power of the Aether didn't tear through his defense. The Aether blast ricocheted right off of the forcefield and flew against the floor causing it to shake something fiercely once more. Without, thought Lady Sigyn reflexively grabbed for the bar with both hands. Just that quickly she forgot, and the scepter went falling from her hands. It stuck out from the debris.

The Dark-Elf general's eyes were fixated on the prize. He ran at full speed to try to grip it. Magical green pulses flew out of Loki's fingertips they slammed Malekith against the wall and into the floor. But for every hit that Loki landed against the warlord of Svartalfheim, Malekith replied with a conjuring of the Aether. Before long they were both locked in a stalemate battle Loki's power against Malekith's possession of the Aether Red and green bombs and beams clashing against each other. Loki would match volcanic Aether shards with bright, lime flames that would quickly cut off the red spikes. The two faced off, attacking and repelling one another with equal blasts of furious energy. Malekith grew more and more rageful with every passing second. Every blast that Loki executed that thwarted his own caused the Aether to rage more and more inside him. Soon everything was covered in red. "You fool!" Malekith hollered and breathed raggedly. His voice seemed to echo and swirl about in the blistering red vortex that the Aether had created. "Do you see this!?" he stretched forth his hands gesturing to the inferno. "You cannot stop this! YOU CAN'T STOP RAGNAROK!" he hollered.

Loki wiped his brow from behind his shimmering emerald forcefield. A roguish smile toyed on his severe lips. "But I can stop you," Loki warned him. Lord Malekith had released most of the Aether from his body. It swirled around them in huge funnels and started to splinter off as if different magnets were being used to pull it toward different portals. Soon, Loki beheld as nine distinct lines were formed ready to take shape and spread their darkness over the rest of the Nine Realms. But while the Aether was out and about before them, it was not within Malekith, and that made him vulnerable. Malekith stood proudly in the midst of the Aether as the gravitational power of the Convergence pulled the Infinity Stone's power toward the unsuspecting realms. Loki didn't hesitate. He saw an open shot and he took it. Twisting and twirling his hands in a complex motion, Loki produced a magnificent energy ball. It was the purest shade of jade and there was a golden glow that radiated from the inside. Finally, he released it. It shot forth like a cannon toward Malekith. He'd been standing there cackling like a fiend. He was so caught up in his apparent victory that he hadn't seen it coming. The Dark-Elf's guffaws were cut short as Malekith felt his body hit with wind and energy and flame and it pushed him back and slammed him against the wall. It was such a forceful hit that a body print the exact shape of the Dark-Elf general was left on the wall. Malekith slid down from the wall, his singed and sizzling like a sausage.

Loki leaned forward onto his knees and panted. Sweat poured down from his dark mane and brow. He was exhausted. He turned and looked back at Sigyn who was still desperately clinging, to the railing and hanging on the edge. He started to run toward her. He was barely able to run exhausted as he was but he could also see that Lady Sigyn was just barely managing to hold on for dear life and he hand to catch her. As Loki hobbled his way toward Sigyn Arndottir's position, Malekith slowly began to open his eyes and regain consciousness. His body ached and he had freshly formed burns and scars. He felt the blood that dribbled down his chin. While the Aether was within him, he was nearly impervious to all the attacks, but when the Aether was without he was vulnerable. And that thin, weak-willed enchanter, Malekith shook himself as he watched him race, his power did exceed his own. To fulfill his dark desire, Lord Malekith had to do the absolutely unthinkable. He pulled out one of the Kursed stones. Perhaps it was the very last one that they possessed. To take on the Kurse was an honor. It was to become invincible and invincibility was what he needed. No price was too high to pay. Even though it meant that he would be infertile. How would they rebuild Svartalfheim, with so many dead and him unable to reproduce? The questions moved through his mind rapidly, but truly Lord Malekith didn't have the time to dissect such minute details. All that mattered was releasing the Aether, freeing Thanos and defeating the House of Bor even a would-be Frost Giant who fancied himself an Asgardian. Even if he couldn't rebuild the Dark Elf population, he could be sure that the darkness that he would bring decimate everyone else. Malekith found one of his open wounds, where blood poured and he plunged the Kursed Stone into a bloody sore and took on the Kursed.

"Sigyn!" Loki called once he was under her. "It's ok, let go, Lady Sigyn. I'll catch you," he informed her.

Hearing Loki's voice was like a bell chime in her ear. She wanted to do nothing more than to fall into Loki's arms and not only because her arms ached abominably. But her eyes spotted something heading their way. She let out a wail. "Loki, look out!" She hollered. The sight of the horrible monster running up behind him made her heart pound. Loki turned around in a defensive stance with his daggers drawn and pointed, but Malekith in the form of the Kursed wasn't running toward him, he veered slightly and went for the pillar. The final pillar that was holding up the rail that Lady Sigyn was dangling from. With a fist made of rock, he rammed it right through the column and the rest of the floor came tumbling down with Lady Sigyn as well.

"LOOOOOKII!" Sigyn shouted as she fell. Loki spun around, taking his eyes off Malekith. His face was stricken. Loki's alabaster skin went a few shades whiter as he watched an avalanche of debris fall on top of Sigyn. "NOOOO!" The enchanter's heart skipped a beat, he heard Sigyn's cry and then her voice fell silent all he heard was the cement and debris falling and crushing her. It crushed the beautiful gold and ivory throne of Asgard, but despite how much the throne meant to him, he didn't even look back at it. He didn't even look back at Malekith. He didn't even take in his grotesque Kursed form. Loki ran to the piles and piles of rubble and immediately began pulling and yanking the stones off of the top. "Sigyn! Sigyn!" he screamed as he continued to dig. Broken bricks, cracked marble pieces, and all manner of other fragments flew from side to side as Loki vigorously tossed them here and there and everyone. His breath came out rapidly. Finally, he realized that this was not efficient at all. Carefully, Loki raised his hands over the debris. He levitated hundreds of the broken bits at once and flung them to the side quickly. All the while calling out Sigyn's name. As he shifted the bricks through levitation, out the corner of his eye he spied something gold gleaming. His heart beat double time in hopes that gold was Sigyn's beautiful blonde locks. She had such lovely sunlit curls he reminded himself. All at once he was reminded how vulnerable she had been. Besides her luscious locks, she had nothing atop her head. How injured could she be? "Sigyn? Sigyn! Please, can you hear me?" he called desperately. He noted that the shine of the gold wasn't Sigyn's silky tresses, but there was a hard metallic sheen to it. He knew it was Mjolnir and perhaps he should have reached for it, but Loki turned his eyes aside for the moment and continued to float the stones away. Stone flew back with abandon. Loki wasn't aiming, but he managed to hit Malekith with a few of the larger blocks.

In his new form, the rubble that Loki inadvertently flung at him bounced off of him like nothing. The blows only caused him to move faster. Loki heard a guttural voice mutter something behind him. It didn't even sound like words, just a series of grunts and growls, but he could faintly make out among the garbled groans. "Lost another one." The rumble in his voice could not be mistaken for anything less than mockery. Loki turned around, his body coiled like a viper's. He growled and hissed and protectively stood guarding the rubble that had buried Lady Sigyn. He reached for the dagger in the hilt by his side, but he needed no physical weapon his green eye glowered at the sharpness of his fabled weapon of choice. Malekith continued to lumber toward him. He was truly a horrible sight. He was horned on his head with long horns like the ones of Loki's helmet but they stuck out from the side. He was spiked, his armor had melded into his molten flesh and he had spikes and plates protruding out of the armor along his back. He still had slender features, but also fangs and he had grown nearly two feet taller. With the mix of the Aether in his blood had turned his rock-solid skin a hellish coloring. He looked like one of the beastly creatures of Musepelheim, where their fire giants roamed. "Don't worry," he continued to chuckle. "You'll join her soon enough...as will the rest of the Aesir. But I will let you mourn over her body while you hand over the Tesseract," Malekith extended his claws. "Why fight it any longer," Malekith went on. "You have nothing left to fight for anyway," he expressed and looked down at the pile of rubble.

Loki stood to his feet, green eyes glaring. He wiped the water from his face that he didn't realize was there. "Asgard may not survive and I may not either, but I promise you, you will die!" Loki threatened. "You won't live to ever commit this vile act again," Loki's shoulders heaved and he hurled spit into the Kursed's claw. Malekith yelled and brandished his machete and came at him like a ram. Loki stood his ground. The Kursed was desperate to get toward the scepter. Loki blocked him standing right in his path. Malekith went to headbutt him, with the look of the horns atop his head he was sure he could have speared Loki right through. But just as his head was about to make contact with Loki the enchanter disappeared before his eyes. Malekith flew into the wall and his horned head was stuck there.

Loki only had a few moments to spare, but he quickly turned his attention back to finding Sigyn, he waved his hand about and moved the debris aside, but with his few shifts he still didn't see Lady Sigyn. Malekith soon ripped his head from being stuck in the wall. Each horn held 2 large limestone chunks on it. Malekith scarcely felt the weight. He plucked the limestone bricks from off each of his horns and hurled them at Loki. Loki quickly tried to raise a forcefield, but the stones were hurled at such a furious velocity that Loki didn't have time. He was hit, he was slammed against the floor. Malekith's monstrous muzzle wore a smile although one could hardly call the contorted expression on the ugly face a smile. Loki appeared to be down for the count. Malekith intended to decapitate him soon enough. He would take his head and parade it around on his sword and show it to his brother before he gave him a similar fate. But Loki was down and out and so Malekith went to reach for what he needed to allow his dark purpose to be fulfilled. He went to reach for the scepter. The Kursed's horrible hands went to grab Gungnir's hilt that was nestled and sealed within the pile, but went he reached for the magnificent weapon it vanished. Dumbfounded, the Kursed's beady eyes spotted the scepter once more. He repeated the gesture only to have the same outcome. He shook his head. He was so angry black foam started forming at his mouth. Soon the ransacked throne room seemed to be filled with hundreds of Gungnir duplicates. The Kursed let out a chuckle as he spun around in bewilderment. "Full of tricks," Malekith muttered although he no longer saw his enemy lying helplessly on the floor. He no longer saw his enemy at all. "But you can't trick or con your way out of this. "The Aether is no trick!" Malekith declared as he raised his hands to the scene still transpiring all around them. The power of the Aether was still slowly rising into the air and heading toward the Nine Realms. "RAGNAROK IS REAL AND YOU CAN'T STOP IT!" he shouted to no one.

"I don't need to stop Ragnarök," a disembodied, articulate voice stated. "Just you," Loki declared as he revealed himself holding Mjolnir. The Kursed raged and fumed! He began tossing brick after brick at Loki. He didn't stop. His arms didn't grow tired. He was rapid fire, wielding blow after endless blow. Loki managed to block the rocks with his own energy blasts, he even spun Gungnir around rapidly repelling the debris. Loki fired the weapon once. It sent forth its powerful beam. Its white-hot energy was brighter than the sun. It struck Malekith directly, it struck him in the center of his chest. The beam of light and power pushed the beast of a warlord back against a column. Malekith let out a roar, but he was not utterly destroyed by the blast from Gungnir. Both Malekith and Loki were surprised by the fact. Loki continued to fire off the weapon of the royal family with reckless abandon. But the Kursed had become a juggernaut, he was perhaps stunned and bruised but he wasn't stopped by even the power of Gungnir. Loki was amazed, but in the back of his mind, he had known that the power of the scepter alone wasn't enough to stop the Aether. Gungnir possessed the power of the sun, Mjolnir was created from a star and contained the power of lightning, it would take both massive forces of light to overcome the ancient force of darkness.

The Kursed laughed loudly as he pressed past the power of the light. The beam cinged him a bit and fragments of his molten skin flaked and chipped away, but he was hardly phased by it at all. Loki's eyes grew wide as Malekith's beastly form lumbered toward him. With the scepter in one hand still spewing forth its rays. With Loki's other hand, he conjured an electric green beam of energy, it pushed against Malekith as well, for a minute both powers seemed to stun him, but not for long enough. Soon, Malekith was pushing forward walking against the energy blasts, and headed straight toward Loki. Loki's eyes darted about. Where was Thor? He should have retrieved Mjolnir by now. Convergence was at its peak and the Aether's dark power was swirling upward and upward into the portals. If they didn't do something soon, the effects would be irreversible.

Instantly, the grizzly face of the Kursed stood before the enchanter. Loki tried to hold his position firmly, but some much energy even caused him to lose his footing slightly. Loki felt himself sliding backward and truly he was wearying from exhausting his powers. The green blast soon fell away and even Gungnir had to be lowered for a moment to give Loki something to lean on. Loki didn't have time to rest or catch his breath for the Kursed's massive, mighty, molten mitt made its way around Loki's milky throat. Loki scrambled, but Malekith was pressing on his windpipe so tightly that Loki couldn't get a sound out. His legs buckled and kicked in the air as the monster lifted him a whole 2 feet off the ground. He brought Loki to his eye level. Loki's eyes were squeezed close as he fought for air, but he forced them open. They were green, watery and practically bugging out of their sockets. Loki's nose was positioned right before Malekith's monstrous mouth. The monster's breath was enough to kill the enchanter. It smelt like sulfur and carcasses combined. "Give me the Tesseract," Malekith demanded of him as he dug a black talon into Loki's throat.

Gasping, Loki managed. "Y-y-you...ll...ne-verrrr...free...Thaaaanoss." He had the nerve to add a cheeky smirk while Malekith choked him. Malekith growled in reply to Loki's retort. Loki still clung to the scepter, and then he brought it up and used it to stab the Kursed and push him off. The weapon gave just enough leverage to allow Malekith to drop Loki. Loki flat on his back still held fast to Gungnir, even though his body appeared motionless and breathless. The Kursed reached down to try to pluck the beautiful golden scepter from Loki's clasp, but he didn't get the chance. Swift as a flash of lightning itself, Loki unsheathed a hidden dagger infused with his energy Loki drove the dagger across the Kursed's ugly red face. He rammed the blade across his beady eye and scraped it. Loki smiled. Even in the hardened form of the Kursed, there was always a soft spot. Malekith reared back he was bellowing like a bilgeschnipe as he grabbed his eye. "Yes, feel free to take a moment," Loki offered as he kicked Malekith in the stomach, he empowered his kick with some magic energy, and it impacted the monster enough for him to bend over a little more while still grabbing his face. The Kursed was bent and hunched roaring like an animal as he still held his offended eye. Loki took advantage of the moment. He leaped upon the back of the Kursed. The monstrous creature's spikes sent poisoned punctures into Loki's legs.

Malekith continued to fume and rage. He thrust and bucked and threw himself off the ground as he tried to throw Loki off of him. Still, he could feel the enchanter lingering there riding him like a wild bull. Malekith rammed himself into walls and pillars. He desperately reached out trying to grab a hold of Loki on his back, but every time he reached out he couldn't grab hold of any piece of Loki. He couldn't grab hold of his cape or even his horned helmet. Instead, images were projected all around the Kursed. Images of Loki in his regal vestments, in clothes that were unscathed by the battle. In fact, the armor that the multiple images of Loki wore shined like the sun. The images of Loki called out to him. "Look here! No, over here! Yoohoo!" they called. They continued to mock him in a nearly childish fashion. The image of Loki showed him sticking out his tongue and wiggling his fingers at Malekith. Malekith was surrounded by these figures. All the voice rang in his ear practically driving him mad. He didn't know if it was the injury that Loki had caused to his eye or if the trickster was truly casting an illusion. Malekith tried to run into some of the images. He tried to clobber a few others with wildly swinging fists. Still, each and every time he missed as the images proved elusive and illusionary. "You know what they say Malekith," Loki's smooth crisp voice taunted. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice," and then Loki broke into a cackle. Finally, Lord Malekith had had enough. He reached out his hand summoning a little bit of the Aether to him. He then thrust the Aether ball into the ground. The red power exploded and the duplications of the master mage instantly dissipated. The Kursed looked around for the true form of Loki with his one, good eye, the other eye bled profusely of lava tears. He couldn't get a clear view of anything the Aether ash had become thick and dense in the room.

"Come out! Come out, wherever you are," Malekith sang in his native tongue through his monstrous muzzle. His words were garbled by his fangs and mouth full of black foam. He got no response right away, but soon he felt something slithering around the claw of his foot. Malekith reached down, he shook his foot vigorously trying to get whatever crawled over his claws off of him. He was about to call out his chant again to taunt Loki into showing himself, but the words were choked within his throat as he felt something tight wrap around his neck. He tried to free his neck from what held him, he felt the coils of a serpent constricting his throat. Soon a large python with scales of emerald green crisscrossing with gold. It reared its head in his face. The snake hissed ferociously at him and continued to squeeze. Malekith shook and raged furiously. He yanked and pulled at the python that coiled around his throat. He pulled and tugged viciously. The snake hissed and its forked tongue smacked Malekith about in the face. Finally, with the sheer brute force of the Kursed yanked the python from around his throat. He chucked the serpent toward the wall. Its writhing, slithering form flew backward through a vortex of Aether ash.

When the snake hit the wall, its true form was revealed. That of a then young man in golden armor and a horned helmet that was bent and crooked on his head. His green cape was nearly torn to shreds and his sides were bleeding through the armor. Loki gasped, he grabbed his side and tried to perform a quick healing, but didn't have a chance. The next thing he knew Loki felt mammoth, molten mitts pounding away at him. They came down swiftly and relentlessly. They clobbered him over and over again. Loki tried to gather himself. He put forth several blasts as if he were striking, Malekith with bombs, but his attacks did nothing against the Kursed's fury. With Convergence at its zenith, Malekith seemed unstoppable. The leader of the Dark Elves didn't let up one bit, he struck Loki in the face and in the chest and ribs. He heard Loki's ribs crack even through the arm. Loki screamed out. Loki tried to raise a flimsy forcefield of ice around himself. It brought him a few seconds only as soon the Dark-Elf general crushed through that as well.

"You insignificant little fool!" Malekith spat in Loki. "Look around you," he pointed out. "There's nothing you can do! There's no way you can defeat me!" he growled. "Why even bother now?" he questioned, but he didn't stop his torrential thrashing of the trickster. "You could have been on the winning side you know," he continued to taunt. "You were the grand architect of it all, you really brought me this far," he reminded him as he dragged his nails along Loki's alabaster neckline. "You could have ruled!" the Kursed rumbled. He gripped Loki up by his bloody collar and shook him a bit. "But you're too much of a coward to rule," Malekith declared. "Too scared to embrace real, raw power," Malekith continued to spew.

Loki coughed and blood sputtered from his lips, but as his blackened eyes barely managed to bat open he weakly declared, "T-t-the...on-n-ly...c-c-cowar-d-d is you,"

"NO!" Lord Malekith shouted in his face. He picked Loki up and slammed him back down on the ground and continued his violent walloping. "No! No! NO!" He struck Loki with every syllable much like a child having a tantrum. "You are a weakling, a coward, and a fool," Malekith accused. Though barely hanging on the consciousness the words struck Loki at his core, they were blunter than the first that repeatedly pounded him over and over again. His head rang and swam from the brutal beating that he was receiving at the monster's hands. He heard all the insults that he had been so afraid of receiving all his life. He heard the childish taunts of those who said it was pure cowardice for him to practice magic as a Prince of Asgard. He heard the many who accused him of weakness for his desire to avoid unnecessary physical altercations. He hated to be called a fool, that was the worst insult that could ever be hurled at him, although that one rarely came from without, that was the criticism that came from deep within. Was he a fool for thinking that he could ever be Thor's equal? Was he a fool for actually believing he was a biological son of Odin? For believing he was even an Asgardian when he had never really fit in?

"Y-you...the...the...the...cow-w-ward...sacrificed..y-your people," Loki croaked desperately. This time when Malekith tried to land a blow Loki caught it in his hand.

"I'd do it again!" the Kursed stated with a sick grin on his face.

"All...ready...have," Loki panted as he strained to keep the Kursed's rock-hard hands from hitting him once more.

With the strength of the Kursed, Loki was easily overwhelmed physically, Malekith pushed his hand down and riddled his some with explosive punches. "Weak!" he insulted once more as he saw Loki curl into a ball protectively,

"Str-strong...nough...t...stand...ag-ainst...Tha-tha-thanos," Loki tried to catch his breath.

"Idiot!" The Kusred shook its bulbous head. "I'm strong enough to stand with Thanos. Thanos will give me rule over this pathetic world that you call home. It could have been you. If you'd only been like me," Malekith stopped only enough to showcase his horrid appearance in its full glory.

"I'mmmm...nnnnot...like...you," Loki shook his head, his whole body trembling as he managed to sit up, "Th-Thanos...won't be making you a ruler," he said between coughs hand on his chest. "He won't be coming into the Nine Realms," he told him, blood streaming down his face. Loki made his best attempt to stand up, but he could scarcely get to his feet. "I'll never give you the Tesseract," Loki announced defiantly. He swayed on his feet and strained to even open his blackened eyes. Loki summoned a powerful air blast to push Malekith back. It was a mighty gust of wind that forced the monster back. With the fresh space created between them, Loki managed to put up a large green firewall. There were a few seconds of hesitancy. Malekith paced around cagey and looked and seemed afraid of the massive green flames. But soon his beastly visage came burling through the fire. His body was illuminated but unscathed even though he screamed like a maniac as he came through. Loki was on guard. He backed himself into the wall as he tried to call upon some self-healing that he had learned, but with so much dark energy swirling about it seemed as though it was having little effect. Loki called Gungnir to him. The Kursed ran toward him at full speed. Loki used Gungnir to shoot down one of the few remaining pillars that stood in the great throne room. The pillar was long and wide and surely weighed a few hundred tons in its weight in gold, it should have crushed the monster, but the creature of Svartalfheim was so strong and so mighty that it merely tossed the falling column off of himself and continued toward Loki. Loki raised the scepter toward Malekith, and he shot another powerful beam at the Kursed. The Kursed battled through the blistering light like he was rowing against a crazed current. Hard as it was, the Kursed was back in Loki's face. Loki whacked Malekith across the face with Gungnir about 5 times although he hated that, even though he was using one of the most powerful weapons in the Nine Realms the blows seemed to be barely glancing the beast. By the time Loki was about to land the 6th blow Malekith reached out with his powerful jowls and caught Gungnir in between his fangs. He held it there growling and laughing at Loki at the same time for his futile attempts to overcome him. Loki tried to pry it from the monster's mouth but the Kursed held on tight with its teeth still gnashing. He then thrust Loki off of him and into the wall. The shove that the Kursed gave to the master mage was so hard that Loki's thin body left an imprint on the wall.

The Kursed was carrying Gungnir in his right hand as he marched toward Loki who was battered and bruised against the wall. Twitched as he tried to peel himself from the wall. Every fiber of his being ached and he could feel every broken bone in his body. Eventually, gravity took its toll and Loki simply plopped out of the body-sized indentation of himself on the wall. He slid down face first; boneless and limp and barely alive. The Kursed simply scooped up Loki by the horns of his helmet he brought him back to face him. They were face to face and Loki couldn't imagine that the Kursed hideous visage looked any worse than his. His beat-up face was soon going to be indistinguishable from chopped meat. "This battle is over," The Kursed stated, "You've no chance of winning now," he mocked as he held Loki's face between his rough gravelly talons. He purposefully scraped his onyx nail across Loki's alabaster cheeks, further exasperating the massive bruises that he'd already inflicted upon him. "You lose! Like always," he added. "Now be a good little loser," he instructed as he bounced his fingers made of flint on Loki's thin lips just before he snatched the golden horned helmet off of Loki's head. He tossed it aside like it was rubbish. Loki's eyes rolled in the back of his head as he still fought to stay awake. "And hand over the spoils to the winners," with his claw his pointed to himself. He shook Loki ruthlessly. "Surely, you even have that much honor left...oh King of Asgard," he mocked. Loki didn't respond, Malekith didn't even know if he was still awake. "GIVE ME THE TESSERACT!" he shouted in the language of his people.

"Gohead...kilme," Loki muttered as his speech slurred, blood and spittle trickling down the side of his mouth, his head lulling to the side as he could scarcely even cause his eyelashes to bash let alone lift his head. Maybe he had lost, through blurry eyes he could see the way the Aether was taking over and he had tried to fight, but he was tired of fighting losing battles. Maybe he was made to lose, maybe it was in his nature, as the civil worker who had worked with the Avengers had stated. But even if he did lose his life, he couldn't let Malekith win. Even if all the realms fell to the Aether at least by keeping the Tesseract at bay he could ensure that Thanos didn't escape from his prison outside the Branches of Yggdrasil.

"I will beat you until you give it to me!" Malekith threatened.

"Y-y-you...c-could... beatmeto...d-d-death," Loki confessed his lips barely parting. "y-y-ou...w-w-wontttt, getit...fromme," Loki confessed panting, exhausted from even uttering the words.

The Kursed's boulder-like hands dropped Loki back to the floor. "You're insufferable," he muttered. "But I'll kill you with pleasure," Lord Malekith stated. As he held the scepter in his hands and pointed it toward Loki, who was hardly stirring, simply struggling for breath.

From the flat of his back, Loki managed to look up and see the Kursed's colossal form hovering over him. Breathless he uttered, "You'll find getting an artifact from a dead man troublesome," Loki managed to chuckle as he gave a wry smile through blood-covered lips. Loki's thin lips had plumped from swelling.

The warlord couldn't truly smile with his terrible teeth, but his attempt was sickening. He held fast to Gungnir and put it in both of his hands. "Well, there is only one way to find out," the monster stated. He readied the weapon and pointed it at Loki. Loki groaned as he once more tried to peel himself off the ground.

His attempt was feeble. His palms pressed toward the broken floor, and his arms shook terribly as he tried to rise. He was barely able to raise his chin before he came crashing back down to the floor. His bleary emerald eyes scarcely made out the silhouette of the mighty weapon. It made him sick to his stomach to see it in the hands of the likes of Malekith. Loki reached out a shaky hand in a meager protest, but his hand instantly flapped back down by his side, even that much effort was exhausting. The weapon had been used to stop Malekith and his hoard before, now it was in his hands to wield. He was sure that King Bor was screaming with rage from Valhalla at seeing such an atrocity. To see an enemy of Asgard that he had shed blood, sweat, and tears to stop holding his sacred scepter must have been enough to make the great king want to jump from Valhalla and into Helheim itself. He couldn't have imagined how anything could have been worse. Well, maybe Bor had been grieved just as much to see how his own son, Odin had brought a Frost Giant into the royal household. Surely, that was just as much a crime. He had never deserved to be a part of the house of Odin. Possibly, he was never wanted, but he had assumed the throne and usurped power, no different than the monster before him. Loki sighed weakly, perhaps he deserved this same fate. Gungnir was made to protect Asgard from its enemies. It was designed to be wielded by members of the royal household and keep out invaders. When Laufey had come on his behest to try to slay Odin, he'd used the scepter to kill him instead. He'd been proud of the irony of it all. He'd lured his biological father into the bedroom of his adopted father under the pretense that he'd get the chance to exact his revenge, kill the king of Asgard, and take a coveted weapon. When he used Gungnir to murder an unsuspecting Laufey he thought it justice, his "father" had thought he'd kill him and obviously thought very little of it at that. Who knows, perhaps Laufey even rejoiced thinking he was dead. He was a runt, sickly, and mostly unfit to be any more than a sacrifice. But Laufey hadn't succeeded in his sacrifice, but Loki had made sure he didn't miss the mark when he'd shot off Gungnir, he aimed to kill. Laufey perished in the worst way possible for him, he perished in Asgard, at the feet of his mortal enemy and with heat running through him. Poetic justice was all Loki had thought at the time. When Frigga had run up and hugged him and proclaimed him a hero for his valiant deeds he'd never felt better or prouder and that was for, but a fleeting moment.

Loki blinked as he tried to keep Gungnir in focus, but everything was swimming in and out of focus. Everything around him was red, but slowly fading to black. "I'm sorry," Loki whispered an apology, but to whom exactly he didn't know. Was it the Norns or the kings of the past, was it Thor, Odin and Frigga? Was it Dagmar, his child? Asgard? Sigyn? He'd failed everyone and he'd hurt everyone. He was sorry. He was so sorry. His very existence was sorry. He was going to die just like Laufey, he was going to die at the feet of his enemy, without even the ability to fight back. He was going to die by the same weapon that he'd used to kill someone, he was going to die by the weapon that killed the one who sired him. He was going to die like Frost Giant...like a monster. That's what he was. A monster, a Frost Giant, he was no son of Asgard, he was no Odinson and for that, he was truly sorry. "Imsorry," his lips very managed to form the words as his fatigue grew. This time he spoke to himself just before passing out.

The Kursed's ghastly hands had been holding Gungnir for a few moments, but the amazing golden trident didn't produce its radiant rays. Frustrated, the Kursed started to curse and pound the weapon on the ground. He grew even angrier as he found that it didn't break.

Faint coughs could be heard as the mounds of debris from where the floors above the throne room had collapsed. Sigyn crawled her way out of a dust pile as Loki's levitation lifted most of the stones off of her. She ached all over, she had on so little armor and she could feel the contusions, broken bones, and pulled muscles that coursed through her body from head to toe. The Aether Ash had taken over the throne room and made it look like the chamber was painted with blood. The ash filled her lungs and stung them viciously. She couldn't stop coughing. Sigyn hugged her stomach tightly as she couldn't stop coughing. The cough hurt her stomach. Blood trickled from the side of her face. Her shoulder was dislocated and had a terrible brush burn on it. Still, she crawled and dragged herself from the pile of broken stones. She could scarcely think but the last thing that she remembered was seeing a horrible monster and Loki fighting. "Loki," Lady Sigyn muttered to herself. She shook her head trying to get her bearings once more as she managed to peer over the rubble. There, her golden eyes detected the hideous creature. It was so ugly. Like something from her nightmares as a child. It was like one of the fire giants, red and huge, horny and fanged. The sight of it was enough to make her want to quake. She probably would have just sat there trembling hoping that such a beast didn't find her, but she noted that the savage was carrying Gungnir. "No!" she mumbled angrily. She had worked too hard to procure it and get it to Loki. She couldn't see it fall into that monster's claws. "Loki?" He came to her mind instantly. Her heart was filled with worry. Where was he? Why wasn't he fighting against this...this... villain? Before her mind had time to go off in a million directions, she managed to make out through the haze a prone form. She could scarcely catch a glimpse of the rounded gold of his horns. "Loki!" she yelped. Her voice was barely audible over the howling of the Aether winds.

Sigyn moved about wildly. In her haggard garments and with her bloody frame she looked like a little street mouse scurrying among the rubble. Frantically, her eyes searched for something. She had it on her back. Where was it, now? Sigyn's golden eyes were wide as saucers as she thought of what she needed. She started tossing stones and bricks aside in search of the quiver that she had found. It had been such a fortunate find. It had been a find that she surely had seen as a gift from the Norns. They were just regular arrows, not the mystical weapons that Loki had provided her with, but still, they were something. Her shoulders, arms and neck ached as she tried to move the stones. They felt so heavy and her arms felt so weak. Still, she pressed and persevered despite the rocks and stones that cut her up. "Please! Please! Please!" Lady Sigyn begged the Norns as she crawled about on her knees trying to locate it. When she saw it, Sigyn stumbled to get to it, but despite her pain, she managed to scoop it up. The handmaiden to Queen Frigga made her way to her feet. They still ached and bloody and bleeding. Lady Sigyn gathered the quiver and clutched it to her breasts gratefully. She still had the quiver with the arrows and the rope that she had gathered from before.

The daughter of Admiral Arn looked about. Archery required a sharp eye and keen vision. That was one of the first things she had learned as a schoolgirl studying weaponry. Warfare as well, had required one to be able to scout out the land, the see the advantages and disadvantages in the area of battle. Those were things she had learned in theory, but never practiced, for she had never been in war before. She'd practice combat in the arena and during the games, but those things were different. The obstacle courses were contrived and the opponents weren't really out to kill, they were out to show skill. Lady Sigyn Arndottir gulped. She hadn't truly had to show real skill since the day she competed in the Amazon games and that was more than 2 centuries ago. It was different with the elegant enchanted golden arrows that she'd just been using there was no risk, only reward. Now she was faced with something entirely different. Still, Sigyn knew she didn't have time to second-guess herself. She had to trust in her own ability and not the weapon. Sigyn knew what she had to do. She had a plan. She didn't know if it would work, but she had to try. It was hard to make things out in the opaque, red fog. The Aether grew and grew, the scarlet spirals continued in their frenzied trajectory toward the perfectly aligned portals. Sigyn squinted but made out the image of a low-hanging plank that seemed to be right over the monster's head. That would do. Sigyn nodded and gritted her teeth and yanked the rope from the quiver. Quickly, she started to tie knots and attach the rope to one of the arrows. All the while she kept an eye on the hellish-looking creature that stalked about. It was getting closer and closer to Loki. Her heart beat wildly in her chest as her fingers fumbled to attach the ropes.

The Kursed was furious that he could not cause the weapon of Bor to work. How dare this weapon of light not yield its power to his darkness. He growled furiously. Didn't this blasted contraption realize that he was the true king of Asgard now? It would yield to him. It must! " EVATNE! EVATNE! EVATNE!" he shouted. It meant yield in the language of the Dark Elves. His protests and commands meant absolutely nothing to Gungnir as it remained resolute in its position. Malekith couldn't fathom why the scepter didn't work, but he no longer had time to worry about the minutia of it all. He forged ahead. "Then I shall do this the old-fashioned way," He declared and there was a pleased sort of rumble that rose from his rounded muzzle. He walked closer and closer to Loki. He took long stomping strides and the ground quaked and shook in the wake of his massive, mighty feet. "I always like to see firsthand the light fade from my victims, anyway," he declared. He dragged Gungnir across the floor as he approached and he raised it toward Loki. It was still a sharp instrument. The Kursed intended to stab him clean through.

Malekith had the scepter pointed and he brought it down, but before he could complete the motion, he saw something shoot passed him. He thought little of it. Debris was flying and swirling all about. But he then felt something strike him between the shoulder blades. It didn't cause the stone-bodied brute any pain. It was a trifle. It practically tickled. Still, it was enough to make him pause. His pause was just long enough, for Lady Sigyn to crawl on her belly toward the monster's hideous clawed foot. He could scarcely feel when something was slipped around his ankle. The Kursed noticed nothing until it was entirely too late. Instantly, the horned fiend found himself yanked up by his ankle he dangled mid-air from a tether that was attached to an arrow that had found its target in a plank 60 ft over the throne room floor. The Kursed flailed about wildly in the air. Its beastly limbs twisted and flapped furiously. He didn't know what had hit him. The scepter flew from his hands. He growled and raged and fumed about it while he still hung there like a fresh piece of meat in the butcher shop. From his upside-down position, he watched as a female Asgardian slinked her way across the floor toward the unconscious enchanter.

---

Thor started to come to. His eyes blinked dully. An avalanche of golden bricks had practically buried him alive. The thunderer, thundered and the powerful rumbles caused even more of the building to come cascading down on the crown Prince of Asgard. Thor tried to leap up, but he found himself unable to even move. Searing pain tore through his chest and it made him feel as if he were having a heart attack. Thor eventually registered the large shard of the Aether that was lodged deep within his chest and very near his heart. Thor coughed up blood violently as he struggled to try and dislodge himself from the weight of the rubble that had fallen on him. Pillars and posts and glass and crushed him. The blonde-haired son of Odin stretched and attempted to move and flex his arms to try and pull the shards from his chest, but he was unable to even move because he was so buried. Thor looked all around the once glorious edifice was nothing but a crater all around him and he was in the center of it all.

He continued to glance around his vision was blurry, but still he saw nothing the swirling crimson particles of the Aether taking over everything. Thor tried to shoot off a massive burst of lightning, but each one caused him more agony. Thor twisted and thrashed about desperately as he tried to pluck himself from the bricks. In the distance over the palace, he saw a terrible image. He saw how the realms had aligned. Their formation was wondrous, but the sight of large tendrils of the Aether slithering upward and into the portals was awful. "NOOOO!" the crown prince raged. He flexed and gritted and strained, lightning bursting here and there, but still to no avail was he able to get out of the bricks. The Aether shard coursed dark energy through his veins and weakened his every attempt to move. A feeling of helplessness washed over the prince. He was supposed to be Asgard's defender. He was supposed to be Asgard's protector, but here he had been rendered powerless, helpless by Malekith. Thor's heart began to beat wildly in his chest. He didn't know if the power of the Aether spike was truly causing the pain, but he started to panic. This was Asgard's final hour and here he was stuck unable to do a thing. He didn't deserve to be Asgard's prince anymore. He supposed that wouldn't be a problem since it seemed as though Asgard as they knew it would be no more within the hour. Frantically, Prince Thor lifted up his voice. "HELP! HELP!' he hollered. Thor didn't feel as though he had ever let out such a pathetic cry in all his life. Thor was shouting at the top of his lungs. His pride had drifted aside. His pride did not matter now. Asgard's survival and the survival of the Nine Realms was all that was important. Still, Thor's pride had been pushed aside, but nonetheless, his cries were drowned out by the roaring of the Aether winds as the Aether raged. Thor didn't know how long he had shouted. It felt like he had shouted for hours. He raised his voice like thunder, but no response came. Soon, his throat ached from shouting and his lungs were in agony as the Aether shard had shifted and pressed against them. It threatened to puncture them. His voice was cut off from the pressure that the large spike inflicted.

Finally, Thor allowed his eyes to slip close. He allowed the tears that pricked at the back of his eyes to well up. He couldn't stop their flow and he hardly noticed as they spilled from the corners of his eyes. His head lulled to the side and rolled back and forth miserably as the feeling of failure washed over him. His eyes closed, "I'm sorry," the son of Odin murmured. "I've failed you all," he groaned. He had truly failed all. He'd failed all the Nine Realms, he failed the people of Asgard, he failed his friends and his family and Jane, but mostly he failed himself. Thor didn't even want to open his eyes but, even with his eyes closed he started to see a familiar face swim into focus. The face that came before his mind's eye was that of his father. He saw Odin in all his royal regalia. He looked so strong, noble, and gallant. Thor expected to see a look of horror, disappointment, and anger on his father's face. He thought that Odin would be shouting out at him condemning him for his weakness and incompetence in this matter. Instead, he got a vision of the great king of Asgard riding proudly and valiantly on the back of his black steed, Sleipnir. There were hills in the background and Thor noted the familiar terrain. That Sleipnir's hooves moved furiously uphill, through the forest and over the meadow. Thor couldn't believe what he was seeing. He was sure that his father had perished. He felt the weight of that burden in his heart. Thinking that his foolhardy ways had led to Asgard's doom and his own beloved father's demise was something he'd never forgive himself for in all his days. Fortunately, the number of days didn't seem like something that he would have to worry about for much longer. This image of his father had not been the ghastly image of a great king on his deathbed. Odin looked strong and vibrant, as valiant and powerful as Thor had remembered him in his youth. With bewilderment, Prince Thor muttered, "Father?"

"Arise, my son," Odin commanded from horseback.

"Where are you?" Prince Thor continued to question.

"Coming!" Odin's voice declared with strength. All at once the golden-locked son of Odin felt a new zeal and strength return to him. His heart was pounding, but not with fear and with panic, but with a rekindled adrenaline. "I'll be with you soon," Odin stated. His face was firm like flint and his one good eye was focused on where he was headed.

"I'll be with you soon," Thor echoed. The words from the king of Asgard bolstered his courage once more. Thor shook, the rocks and debris that had tumbled on top of him, started to roll right off of him. "We'll finish them together!" Thor hollered at last! "We'll finish them together!" Thor roared excitedly. He continued to see the image of his father in all his royal armor racing through the woods and over the dales. The vision was starting to get fuzzy. It started to blur like watercolors on a painting. "Father!" Thor shouted calling toward the vision with desperation as the image started to fade. He watched as red-ashes and embers wafted into his vision and tried to obscure his father's features. One of Thor's hands had finally been freed from the mounds of debris and he lifted that shaky hand as if he wanted to reach out and grab his father. Still, his massive hand trembled as he stretched it out before it flopped back at his side. Still, just before his father's face disappeared he saw the grizzled and wizened leader turn to him, his steely blue-gray eye gave a wink and he thought he almost saw a sliver of grin through the white whiskers of his beard. Then all at once his father was gone. "No, no, no," Thor moaned when he could no longer see the king of Asgard. "We'll finish them together! We'll finish them together!" the crown prince of the realm continued to declare.

"Thor!" the voice of his mother interrupted his delirium. "Oh goodness, Heimdal, there he is! Queen Frigga shouted as she hiked up her dress and attempted to crawl up a mountain of stones and bricks, crystals, glass, and wiring threatening to cut her up.

"Your Majesty, allow me," the gatekeeper stated. He didn't give Queen Frigga time to answer in the affirmative. The resolute protector of the Realm Eternal leaped up. He bounded over the mound as if running over a meadow. He immediately began removing the remaining rubble from off of Prince Thor and from roundabout him. "Hang on Your Highness," Heimdal told him. As he gathered up the prince. He saw the terrible Aether shard hot and red and blistering the flesh around it.

Thor winced and groaned at the movements all the while he still muttered, "We'll finish them together, father...we'll finish them together."

"Easy, sire, easy," Heimdal's rich voice tried to coax the wounded prince back to reality. He carried the prince outside of the rubble trap and laid him at his mother's feet.

"Oh, Thor!" Queen Frigga gasped. She clutched her breast, before falling to her knees next to her boy. She saw the mammoth-sized Aether stake sticking out of her son's chest. She saw him shiver. She could see his veins, each of them was turning red and poking through the flesh violently as they became tainted with the Aether. "We have to do something!" Queen Frigga yelled wild-eyed. Her hands immediately went to grab at the giant shard.

"No, Your Majesty! Don't touch!" Heimdal exclaimed as he watched her reach toward it. The Aether was so mighty and potent in the air that before Queen Frigga could even touch it a powerful ripple of red-hot energy shot forth. It knocked both the queen and the gatekeeper down. Queen Frigga fell upon Heimdal, but immediately shot back up and ran to Thor's side. "You know that it will defend itself, my lady," he reminded her.

"And I will defend my son!" the royal woman snapped.

Heimdal's scrutinizing eye studied Prince Thor's form. The power of the Aether had tainted his vision. He felt blind as he could no longer see the sights he once saw. Still, thanks to the Convergence he was still able to behold all Nine Realms at once although he really wished he couldn't see it all. The Aether swirls were just rolling upward and onward; like dark clouds on the horizon and heading into the unsuspecting branches of Yggdrasil. He was still able to use X-ray vision to see into Thor's innards. He saw the corruption that was taking place inward in Thor's body. "We won't be able to pull it out of him," Heimdal informed.

"Come Heimdal," Queen Frigga instructed. She sat down on her knees and began vigorously massaging Thor's arm. "Do as I do," she ordered. The guardian of the Bifrost followed suit behind the queen. He copied her movements and her ministrations. He recognized the intricate circles that her bloody, but delicate hands were carefully making on Thor's shoulders arms and chest.

"Like mother, like son," he stated. "Loki has learned everything you taught him, Your Majesty," he reported to her as also pressed and kneaded Thor's flesh.

"I pray so..." Frigga muttered breathlessly. "He's done so much wrong," she went on. She shook her head but continued to trace and press and twirl her hands over Thor's weakened body. "But I...I...I know that Loki is still good...deep...deep," she tried to say while she continued with the healing technique.

"I know it too," Heimdal confirmed to her. Frigga looked up. She hardly looked the part of a queen, she was filthy and bloody, covered and Asgard knew what. She was bedraggled and haggard, to the point where she looked like she hadn't slept in days. There were black marks around her eyes, she had been hit and kicked and punched and beaten savagely. There was no one a woman of her station should have endured that. But from a visage that was coated in grime, through the busted lip and broken knows and blackened eye, shined the hopeful image of a mother whose eyes welled with tears and face seemed to brighten even in these dark and dismal times and hearing any good news and word of kindness about her child. Heimdal looked back at her and inclined his head. "A son of Odin and Frigga," he stated to her. "He had just shown us this same technique that you taught him and had used it in the very same way."

Frigga didn't look up. She kept working on the intricacies of the body and the pressure points. She wiped her brow. "I didn't show Loki this technique, Master Heimdal," she informed him. "He showed me." Their eyes met and together they shared a smile. With that they watched as Thor started coughing deep from within his chest, he coughed up a bloody phlegm that looked as if it was mixed with the Aether itself. Then they watched as the large shard pushed its way out of his chest. It fell by the wayside and once it was disconnected from its fleshy sheath it dissipated into ash.

The blonde-haired son of the King and Queen of Asgard sat up, blood poured from his wound. It leaked and sputtered staining his mother's armor. Queen Frigga screamed. "Lie still! Lie down," she told him. Heimdal's hands were soon on his shoulders pressing him down.

"He'll bleed out!"

Queen Frigga was frantic and desperate. The woman was skilled with many enchantments, but in the place her son was in only a true master healer could truly mend Thor's wounds. She started to sob. "Mistress Eir! Mistress Eir! Healer Onrac!" the queen bellowed out the names of her most trusted physicians. It was useless. They weren't there. Onrac was in Kytheria and Mistress Eir, was still in the encampment on the outskirts of the Imperial City. The Chief Healer had wanted to come, but Queen Frigga had insisted that she stay put and take care of the injured that had made their way to the encampment. Oh, had that been a foolish command to give! Frigga gripped her heart. "Merciful Yggdrasil! Merciful Yggdrasil!" she kept shouting as put pressure on Thor's chest. All the blood seemed to be exploding from his heart and soaking through her fingers. It was just then that she remembered. She pried her hands away from her son's chest, but Heimdal immediately came and took the place of her own while she peeled off her breastplate. She ripped the armor off of her like a mad woman and out of the armor tumbled a healing crystal. Frigga pressed it to her son's chest. She watched as the stone glowed bright white with power. Slowly, Thor's trembling and violent coughing started to ease and then all at once cease. She and Heimdal beheld as the blood that he had lost seemed to be sucked back into the center of his chest and then all at once the flesh was mended again. He looked good as new as if he had never been struck by the bolt of the Aether. The healing crystal performed the feat and it no longer burned bright white.

"Fa-erwellfish-emtoget—er," Thor's words slacked and slurred as he sluggishly opened his eyes.

"Thor, Thor," his mother called gently. As she clutched his face.

"Mother?' Thor mouthed as his crystal blue eyes beheld a beat-up, beautiful face.

"Yes, yes, yes, my love!" Frigga declared as she pressed kisses across his face. "Are you alright?" she asked as she helped him sit up.

"Where is Father?" Thor questioned as he looked all around.

Queen Frigga shook her head. "Thor..." the Queen of Asgard's voice was a breathy whisper. She tried to find the strength in her tone once more, "Your father...When I left...Thor, he was..." She didn't want to say it. She swallowed the thick lump in her throat. She grabbed her son by the hand and looked at him with trembling eyes. "He was so far gone, Thor," she expressed as best she could. "I sat by your father's bedside, many times when he was in the Oversleep, for many years, but...but...I'd never seen him as if he was knocking on death's door like that," she stated.

Thor clutched his mother's hand tighter, although, he wanted desperately to release it so that he could cup his hand over both his ears. "What are you saying?" he questioned. "Heimdal," Thor's voice boomed as he turned to his longtime friend and mentor. "Did you see him die?"

"Your Highness," he began, "my eyes have been obscured since the Aether attack, I cannot see that far," he hung his head in shame.

"No," Thor shook his head finally refusing his mother's words. "I can't believe that! I saw him! I saw him!" Thor declared defiantly as he jumped to his feet.

"I know! I know! I know, my son," Frigga nodded as she trembled. She reached her hands back out to him and pulled him to her. She clung to him, pulled him close to her and she pressed her head into his chest.

Thor hugged her tightly and he tried to pretend that the tears pricking at the back of his blue eyes were from the Aether ash. "But I saw him! I saw him!" he declared. Prince Thor sounded like a petulant child. Frigga remembered the stubbornness of her eldest. When he held a belief in his heart it seemed absolutely impossible to pry him from it. He was dogged and relentless. She remembered how he clung to his firm belief about Juliussen. If the times weren't so dire, she would have probably laughed, but given the circumstances, she sniffled instead. He had kept that belief for so long until Loki revealed it. He had been so wroth with Loki It seemed like he'd never forgive him. It was what made her so concerned about now, Loki deserved nothing, but hate, she knew and she wondered if Thor would ever truly accept Loki again. Maybe it didn't matter. "I saw him riding through Asgard," he stated.

"Perhaps it was his soul, riding through Asgard to make its way to Valhalla," Heimdal stated. "The fault is mine, Your Majesties," Heimdal knelt down. Had I been more vigilant, these villains would have never been able to ransack Asgard," he stated.

"But he told me he was coming for me," Thor said with disbelief. His eyes wide and he shook his head. Thor's stormy eyes were lost. Then at all at once, they flickered with a new passion. Lightning crackled in his irises. "Perhaps he is coming to get me to say that I'll be joining him in Valhalla," he surmised.

Frigga shook her head. As a mother she had always tried to be there to calm her children's fears, she always wanted to be a voice of reason and encouragement. As a queen, she had tried to be a pillar of strength for all her people. Still, Frigga sighed. "It certainly does look like we are beyond help now," The queen's crystal blue eyes stared into the bleak red oblivion. "Perhaps it is over," She finally slumped down on the ground on her knees and cried.

Heimdal stood protectively over the wife of Odin. "We have given our best effort, my lady, but every good soldier knows when to give up the fight," the gatekeeper confessed. It was a sad statement to be made by a warrior who had stood watch over the boundaries of Asgard for more than 2500 years.

The queen looked up at the two men who were with her. "It is terrible that it is ending like this," she stated, "But we all knew the prophecy of Ragnarök," she looked down at her hands. She knew it more than most. When she was gifted with foresight, she had been plagued with the burden of terrible dreams and nightmares showing the awful, prophesied doomsday of their fair kingdom. When she'd taken to weaving her tapestry on the ancient loom, it had seemed to relieve her of the burden of such visions, but even if she could stop herself from dreaming it that didn't mean that she could stop it from happening. "It couldn't be stopped. But I am happy to face this moment in the end with people that I love," she reached up her hands and toward her son and her most faithful citizen. The two took her by the hand and helped her back to her feet. "Even if I can't be with all those that I love," she said with a heavy heart.

"Mother! We mustn't give up!" Thor insisted once more.

"Thor," Queen Frigga said as she turned and faced him. She started to shake her head. "We are out of time. What more can be done?" the queen questioned. She couldn't break her gaze from the terrible spirals that roiled on and on, upward into the sky.

"No, Mother," The crown Prince of Asgard protested. "I told Father we'll finish this together, and that's what I intend to do," he stated and lightning started to crackle around his fists. "There's still time! There are 15 minutes until Convergence will start to move out of alignment.
"It is too long and too short, my prince," Heimdal explained about the window.

"It's just enough time!" The thunderer stated.

"Thor, my love, you must hear me, your father isn't coming," the wife of Odin reported.

"I don't know if Father is coming or not, Mother," Thor shrugged. "Maybe he isn't," he shook his head. "Of maybe by the time he gets here, we'll all be dead," he heard how his words made his mother audibly gasp. "But I know that Father always fought til the end and that's what he would expect from all of us. The people of Asgard gave all they could, and I will as well. Whatever this ending is I will see it through to the end and we will finish it together," the blonde-haired son of Odin declared.

"I will fight by your side until the end, my liege," Heimdal confirmed as he clapped a fist over his chest.

"Heimdal, your sword has been by my side this whole time and I know you would fight with me to the end..."

"To the ends of the world, my lord," the gatekeeper pledged once more.

"But you have fought. I think the most important thing is for you and Mother to see if you can round up any remaining straggling Aesir, try to get them to a safe space," The leader of Asgard instructed.

"Is there a safe space from this destruction?" Queen Frigga questioned.

"Perhaps there isn't any true safety, but as you said, Mother if this is to be the end, let's let our people at least die in the safety of knowing that they are not alone and are around those they care for," Thor stated.

"But what of you, my son?" the golden-locked wife of Odin inquired. "Who will you finish this battle with?'

"Loki and I, Mother, we will finish it together," he winked at her. He gave his mother one last kiss on the cheek. He winked at Heimdal and Thor took off into the faming skies in a blaze of white-hot glory wrapped in lightning.

Thor rose into the air like a blaze. A burst of white amid the inferno that was once an illustrious metropolis. Lightning glowed deep in his eyes. Thor soared over the sweltering city. He saw how all of their most beautiful temples and elegant edifices, bastions, homes, stadiums, theaters, and courthouses they lied in ruin. Nothing seemed to be left. From an eagle's eyes view he could see all the bodies. The body count was so high, that the streets looked like they had been pathed with bricks and stones, but with bodies. Their innocent blood, the cement and mortar now. Thor had failed all of them. They'd fought for him and they'd died. He would not fail them again, but if he did he would be sure that he would die too and his body would be one to line the nonexistent streets as well.

Thor zipped about, he was heading for the terrible T-shaped spaceship. That held his hammer. The hammer. With the hammer he was sure this could be ended he now had 14 minutes until Convergence would end, but then it would be too late. He could only pray that perhaps the fates would allow him to lift his hammer despite the curse that Loki had placed upon him, perhaps for the sake of them all they would allow him to lift the hammer once more.

With lightning speed, Thor made his way toward the T-shaped vessel, but he heard a great commotion underneath him. It wasn't just the sound of the Aether crashing about and causing everything to crumble. He heard screams and cries, the sounds of steel and iron and battle continued to rage below. that He looked down at the skirmish that was taking place just outside the palace. Despite the fact that everything was bathed in the torrential rain of crimson crystals of the Aether, Thor managed to hone in on the image of his friends and the other Asgardians fighting with all their might. He saw how the Aesir continued to seem to be overwhelmed by the numbers of the Chituari. Those savage creatures seemed to think of nothing but destruction. The Chituari's numbers were boundless, Thor knew, but he had bottlenecked the portal that those animals had been pouring through. There were no more new Chituari invaders, but still, they seemed so numerous. And Dark Elves remained. Prince Thor saw as Lady Sif and Volstagg seemed to be doing their best to hold off a horde of Dark Elves. This perplexed the prince. They had fought too long and hard. Surely, there couldn't still be this many enemies in their midst. Even one enemy was too many for them now. Thor thought hard, but he needed to think quickly.

He'd talked to his father briefly about the power of the Aether. He'd seen that this Infinity Stone had the power to create illusions. Illusions, that were strong enough to even deceive a great trickster. There was so little time. Perhaps, it was just an illusion. He had a thought, an idea, but it was risky, Loki had only briefly taught him the basics of controlling his powers. He could produce powerful blasts, but it was hard to get them to strike the right targets without the hammer. The hammer was more focused, more precise. Thor reached forth his hand. He was desperate to try to summon Mjolnir. In the past, he could always feel his hammer. He could feel the power, it was like feeling a limb or any other part of his body. He knew it was connected to him. Now, Thor felt as though he reached into scarlet nothingness. He couldn't feel Mjolnir. It wasn't obeying his commands. He knew it was futile, but he was eager to try. But it wasn't working and he feared he could hover reaching out for the next 15 minutes and still nothing would happen.

Thor stretched his arms wide ripples of electricity rolled over his mighty muscles. They surged and tingled down to his fingertips. He let out a bombastic, thunderclap. The clap sent a large streak bursting forth from Prince Thor. It was bigger and stronger than any bast that the thunderer had ever produced. It was so powerful and great that it lit up the entire sky in a blinding and brilliant white light. For a moment the red haze that had saturated the city was no more and everything was perfectly illuminated. Light always chases away darkness and the shadows and illusions that Lord Malekith had used the Aether to create were no more.

The few measly remaining members of Malekith's army were exposed. Their ranks were laughable and Thor did laugh. His laugh rolled and sounded like thunder. Many of the Asgardians were blinded by Thor's explosion of light and electricity. They stumbled about like bats trying to fly in the sunlight. Thor watched as bold and proud companions slumped down in the aftermath of the battle. He watched as Frandal tried to weakly raise his sword against an enemy only to fall down. Volstagg's massive body was sprawled out. Hogun gripped his face and shielded his eyes. Lady Sif was still daring to try to fight, but her eyes were closed and the warrior woman was frantically flailing her sword about trying to hit enemies that were no longer there.

Even Sif in all her prowess in the art of war had finally wearied beyond her point of strength. Thor watched as Lady Sif passed out. Her body collapsed and her double-bladed sword fell from her hands. Thor's mind raced as he watched one by one more and more Aesir falling by the wayside. He also beheld as the Chituari started to panic. They had been rendered blind by the streak of mighty lightning. The creatures became crazed by their lack of vision. They ran and tore about, stampeding over the bodies of the Aesir. Inadvertently they shoved and scratched at the people of Asgard and pushed them off the edges of the cracked drawbridge into the palace. Likewise, the few Dark Elves who remained started to freak out from their blinded state. They were creatures of darkness after all, but their exposure to the piercing lightning had left them bereft of sight and helpless. They frantically started to fire their vortex forming blasters. Several black holes started to form all about where the exhausted Aesir lay. A few Aesir men and women were sucked up into the vortexes. The poor citizens of Asgard couldn't even fight back and in their unconscious states, they didn't even know what was happening. "NOOO!" Prince Thor bellowed from the clouds. With that, he descended once more upon the drawbridge still cloaked in lighting. Thor tore through the enemy. He picked up the Dark Elves and tossed them aside. One by one he flung them off of the broken bridge in every direction. Some he tossed into the Forever Sea that seemed to boil beneath them, others he flung high into the sky, he didn't see where they landed of landed at all. Many were torn asunder by the Aether winds. Still, a few were hurled into the palace itself. Thor then immediately after the Chituari. The rabid aliens still ran about at random, they stampeded and trampled over the fallen Asgardians without thought as they tried to regain their sight. Slowly, the illumination from Thor's enormous lightning streak started to fade, the crown prince then spun about like a top little lightning streak flying off of him and striking the Chituari down. Soon their disgusting forms were nothing but fried corpses.

Thor was ready to drop. His act had left him sapped of all energy. He fell upon his knees. Sweat and blood poured from every pore of his body. So much sweat and blood and Aether ash stung his eyes that Prince Thor could hardly see. He was panting, unable to breathe, his own heart seemed to be about to stop from the tremendous strain he had caused it to endure. As he looked at all the people passed out before him, Prince Thor had every desire to join their ranks. It took all to keep his eyes open. Thor crawled about, he checked to see if any were still alive. He placed trembling fingers on their throats and wrists to check for pulses. Some he found and some he didn't.

The son of Odin made his way, to his feet, he swayed and wobbled in his exhaustion, but he forced himself to take steps. He had to know if his friends had survived this ordeal. "Frandal! Hogun!" he called respectively as he found their bodies amidst the many. They were out cold, but he felt the rise and fall of their chests. He could have wept for joy at knowing that they were still alive, at least for now. Thor swallowed as he found Lady Sif. Blood spilled from her nose and from the crown of her head. "Sif! Sif!" Thor called to her as his hammer-holding hands tried to scoop her up and cradle her limp body. He tried to rouse her, but she didn't bat an eyelash. "Sif," his great booming voice was just a gentle whisper as his rough fingers brushed across her bloody face. "Sif, no," Thor blubbered. Thor looked up to the heavens. He wanted to beg all all-fathers of the past not to let this terrible thing happen. It could happen to Sif. "Sif!" Her name was uttered as a sob as Thor tried to hug her body tight without breaking her already battered body. As Thor looked up into the sky red as the blood that poured from Lady Sif's nostrils and forehead, he was reminded of the fact that time was running out. If he didn't get his hands on Mjolnir than a death count was all that would be in Asgard's future. He didn't even have time to shed a tear. He made his way to a standing position, but his whole body felt weak and frail. Thor laid Sif down gingerly and he found her famous double-blade that was only a few inches away from her fingers. He placed it on her chest and folded her hands neatly over it. He pressed a kiss on her forehead. The blood they gushed forth was still warm. With that, Thor took off into the air and headed toward the T-shaped mothership of the Dark Elves.

Maybe it was the whoosh of wind that blew by as Thor leaped once more into the air, maybe it was the electrical touch of one who possessed the power of thunder and lightning. Maybe it was just the tenderness and love in a kiss from a friend, but Lady Sif's eyes blinked and sluggishly opened for a moment. She saw Thor's cape riding high. Despite the immense pain she was in she smiled, "Thor!" she breathed excitedly as her eyes closed.

Thor soared and flew toward the T-shaped ship. He landed with a loud thud. He knocked down the twisted black iron door. Growling and fuming. He called for his hammer. Thor rampaged through the ship. He still needed to wait to replenish his powers, but with his bare hands, he ripped down the panels and the wiring of the ship. He tore off the screens and monitors and stomped through the floorboards in his desperate search. For the first time in a long time, it was as if he could hear Mjolnir calling to him. He could hear its hum, the familiar resounding ring that it made when it struck down on something and it called him forth. Thor ran through every door and every secret chamber in the mothership with his hand stretched out. He hoped that he would feel the hilt of Mjolnir smack against his hand once more, but it didn't happen and time was running out. Then finally, dimly, through one broken window. He saw it. It looked more beautiful and glorious than anything he had ever beheld. It was more lovely than a Yule tree fully decorated on Solstice morning. It was more refreshing than the sight of water in a desert. Thor punched through the wall to seek his prized possession. He couldn't wait to touch it to grip it.

Just as it seemed as though his fingers were once more about to feel the delightful weight of the hammer once more, he heard the rumbling of heavy footsteps. The booming footfalls caused the whole vessel to rumble, and Thor looked up and saw three grotesque forms come to surround him. He stood face to face with three monstrous Kurseds. The beasts immediately attacked the crown prince of Asgard. They pounded him with punches and held him back from getting to the hammer.

While Lord Malekith was all tied up dangling in the air above the crushed throne of King Odin, Sigyn finally made her way to Loki. The queen's handmaiden was banged up and bruised. Her feet were bleeding so badly that she couldn't stand. One of her shoulders felt like it was broken. It was starting to swell up, but still, Lady Sigyn persevered dragging her own battle-weary body across the landmine field that was once a throne room.

When Lady Sigyn finally reached Loki, she found his golden helmet was tossed aside, the back of his head had a nasty knot on it and blood oozed from the swollen place. Aside from that his pale flesh was looking as blue as if it had when she'd first beheld him in the cell in his Jotun form. Sigyn would have thought that he was a Frost Giant save the fact that there were none of the ornate circles and carvings etched in his flesh and his flesh was still tender to the touch. Even as Lady Sigyn's delicate hands gently stroked his skin she watched as Loki shuddered and winced in reaction to even the slightest tap to one of his contusions. "Loki," Sigyn muttered miserably as she beheld a battered face. The enchanter's pointy pose cracked and blood dripped from it. His thin lips were nearly plump from the beating that he had taken. His eyes were black as if they were painted with ink. The lady-in-waiting's hazel eyes welled up with tears as she beheld him. Loki's shiny golden armor was dented and soaked red. Sigyn did her best to remove the breastplate trying to find the source of where the blood was coming from. She soon found that Loki had two cracked ribs and one was sticking out severely and poking through the flesh. Sigyn screamed as she saw the ghastly injury. The daughter of Admiral Arn somehow managed to press past her own natural squeamish tendencies and tried to push the protruding bone in place. Loki's blood stung her fingers but she didn't care. "OH, LOKI!" she screamed in fear. His leg was bent in an unnatural angle she was sure it was broken. Lady Sigyn was no healer in the truest sense, but she hoped that some of the things that she had learned in school had stuck. She pulled on Loki's le hoping she could at least set it in place if she couldn't heal the break.

The queen's lady-in-waiting set her ear close to Loki's bust lips, but she couldn't feel his cool breath on her cheek. Her eyes were wide with fear. Immediately, she pressed her cheek against Loki's chest which was now devoid of armor. She thought that she heard a faint little rattling. It was a small slow beat, but it caused the golden-haired woman to weep. From there she raised her hands and clasped her hands together. "Merciful Yggdrasil," she gasped through her sobs, "Please, dear Norns, please," she cried as she peppered Loki's lax face with kisses. "Please! Please! Please," she wept between every kiss.

Languidly, blackened, bloated, beryl eyes opened. Everything those eyes took in swirled around coated in a bright vermillion coloring. It sloshed about wildly, but a face gradually formed before his eyes. It was dirty and cut up from forehead to chin. There was no rouge on the cheeks just black and blue bruises, there was no paint on the petite pretty lips, but there was dried blood and mud. Loki's own bloodied mouth slightly curled. The sight before his eyes was most welcomed. So gorgeous was the visage that he thought he'd died and gone to Valhalla and one of the Valkyrie of old was welcoming him into the golden gates. It was only that thought that let him know that it couldn't be a Valkyrie, for he surely, had no spot among the noble and virtuous Aesir souls who had merited their way into Valhalla. Howbeit, that realization made his heart skip a beat because that could only mean one thing. Loki's lips quivered as he tried to form words, "S-s-s-Sigynnnn?" he stammered. His fingers barely made it to brushing across her lips. Sigyn nodded vigorously as she puckered her lips to kiss his fingertips. "I...I...Thought...I thought," his silver tongue struggled to speak. "you're ok?" the master mage managed.

Lady Sigyn continued to bob her head, "Yes! Yes!" she uttered as she tightly gripped his hand. She was about to try to help Loki to his feet, but, Loki's eyes closed once more and he faded once more into senselessness. "Loki?" Sigyn called. "Loki, please!" she beckoned desperately as she shook him.

As Sigyn tried to revive Loki, the Kursed started to come to his senses and realize what had happened to him. He couldn't believe that he had been tied up by the pleasant-faced Aesir wench. Minutes continued to trickle by and once more he still needed the Tesseract if he was going to free Thanos. The Kursed took a quick swipe at the rope that was tied around his ankle. With his razor-like claws, one swipe was all it took to send the monster crashing back to the floor. He looked around to get his bearings. The Aether was filling the room beautifully, it obscured everything. It was a delicious precursor of the darkness to come, but still, through the haze and with his one good eye he managed to spy the pitiful sight of the maiden lying on Loki's chest shouting his name. He made his way to her.

Sigyn heard the Kursed coming. She took Loki by the shoulders and shook him roughly. She shouted and slapped him. "Wake up! Loki! Please, Loki, wake up! Loki!" she cried as the Kursed's awful form came toward her. He was only a few footsteps away from her. Sigyn finally rolled herself off of Loki and hobbled to take shelter behind a pile of bricks.

She heard the monster laugh, but it was a roar that made her blood run cold. The Kursed began to speak in the guttural language of the Dark Elves. "You can run, but it will do you no good wench," he threatened. "You shall be mine," he insisted and he turned his gaze toward where she was hiding. The tip of Sigyn's blonde head just barely poked over the pile of bricks that she sought shelter behind. She met his gaze. His pitch-black pupils glowed with an evil red flare. Sigyn started to shake. The way that his gaze held so much lust and unbridled malice. Sigyn slowly reached her hand out to grip something. "I'll have my way with you after I finish with your sweetheart," He mocked and he brought a tongue that looked like a big bulbous toad to lap over his muzzle. He was standing right overtop of Loki and his fearsome foot was poised over Loki's face ready to stomp it into the dirt.

"NOOOO!" Sigyn hollered. Then all at once, she came up running. Something bright and shiny in her hands. It was Gungnir. She quickly caused the scepter to fire. The bright burst sent the Kursed back but didn't completely knock him off his square. He instantly ran back to where Loki lay unconscious. This time his broad sword was out and he would have slit Loki from navel to nose had Lady Sigyn not leaped into action. No longer feeling, the pain in her feet, Sigyn ran on rocks and rubble glass and iron. She jumped over Loki with the scepter in hand and coiled herself Like a jungle cat protectively over him. She added a hiss for good measure as she looked the monster defiantly in the eye. She whacked, whacked, whacked the Kursed in the face with the weapon of a King his head swiveling with every beating that she gave him.

"How precious!" the Kursed mocked as his rocky hands finally caught Gungnir. "At least the last of his wenches that I fought, offered a challenge," the red-horned fiend chuckled. Sigyn's golden doubloon eyes went wide as he tossed the scepter aside. Sigyn fell back over Loki. Panting, chest heaving. "Makes it easier for me," he shrugged his large spiked shoulder as he hunched over her and took in her form. The Kursed watched and his monstrous mouth curled in a smile. "Looks like you're out of ideas, wench," he tried to articulate through his fangs.

"Not quite!" Sigyn declared, she reached behind her and grabbed Loki's silver daggers from his belt. The Kursed was breathing, drooling all over her. His hot slimy, saliva slid down her throat and chest. If she wouldn't have been so scared she would have shrieked in disgust. She took the beautiful dagger and rammed into the Kursed's open frothing mouth. The tongue was sensitive. Sigyn jammed it into the blade deep into his tongue. She wanted to saw the tongue right out of his mouth. She kept pressing it deeper and deeper in. Hot boiling crude erupted from the tongue, it splashed on Sigyn and burned her hand. She quickly retracted her hand from the jaws and cradled it as she screamed in pain. The Kursed raged; as the dagger stuck in his tongue like a splinter, but it only took a moment before his great gob was grinding up the dagger like candy. He then spewed the steel and iron bits from his mouth like seeds. He spat them right in her face. The sharp bits of metal scratched Lady Sigyn's face all over. Sigyn tried to shield her face, but before she could even cover herself she felt a bolder-like hand With that he backslapped her to the floor.

Blood spewed from her mouth as she fell on her face rolling right off of Loki and laid next to his unconscious body. Sigyn let out a groan the beast then gripped her by her hair like a caveman. Its claws scratched her scalp. Sigyn's eyes bulged open from the pain. Sigyn kicked and screamed and bucked wildly while trying to free her tendrils from being tangled in terrible talons, but she could not. All her best efforts did nothing. Hysterically, she caterwauled, "LOOOOKIIIII!"

The shrill, pierced Loki's ears. All the while the mage's own energies had been trying to heal his broken body, but with the power of destruction swirling it was hard to heal in an unconscious state. Loki's blackened eyes flung open. "Sigyn?" he asked blearily looking around. At first, he saw nothing but the ruby and onyx fractals swishing about like some horrid blizzard. He heard the golden-locked lady-in-waiting call his name wildly. "Sigyn," Loki panted her name in panic as he forced himself to his feet. At first, he fell right back down. He breathed deeply using the reserves of his powers to numb the pain of the broken bones. He pushed himself up once more. "Ahh, rise and shine, Your Majesty," the Kursed taunted Loki beckoning him forward as he held Lady Sigyn captive. The Kursed couldn't truly form a smile, but the sneer that he wore was a plan on his fangs.

"Let her go!" Loki demanded.

"Give me the TESSERACT!" the Kursed roared as he pulled out his machete and pressed it against Sigyn's throat.

"A real wizard knows to never play the same trick twice," Loki warned the monster. His eyes narrowed in the warmonger's direction.

"Oh, this is no trick," Malekith mouthed back. "Give it to me or I'll cut her to ribbons," he threatened. "Starting with her head!" His one hand was wrapped tightly around Lady Sigyn's mouth so that she couldn't even scream out, but her eyes screamed loud enough for Loki to hear. The mage's mind turned. Malekith didn't hesitate. "I cut!" the Kursed stated, and he ran his talons across her chest the top part of Lady Sigyn's chest was bloody. Tears pooled in her golden eyes, and he could hear her scream through his hand. The Kursed then licked his long nail that dripped with her blood.

Loki's shoulders heaved, and his breathing came out ragged as his eyes darted anxiously back and forth. "Alright! Stop!" Loki hollered. "You had it once and lost it... but if you want it again... come and take it," Loki offered as he pulled the shiny, sapphire cube from out of thin air. Loki held the Tesseract on the tips of his fingers.

"No tricks?" the Kursed growled.

"No tricks," Loki stated and sat the Cosmic Cube on the floor. Malekith's eyes grew wide with lust for the other Infinity Stone. He tossed Lady Sigyn aside and went running for the stone. The Kursed came running at him and if he raised a green forcefield between the Kursed and his prize. On the other side, Malekith could see what he coveted. He paced around like a cagey beast trying to find an end to the magic-infused wall, but every way he ran he found that Tesseract was shielded on all four sides. The Kursed seethed. He vehemently started beating at the shield. Each pound held the weight of 15 boulders and soon the shield had cracked completely. The energy shield shattered like a piece of glass. Once more Malekith went for the stone, but Loki stood in front of it like a sentry. He held Gungnir in his hands. His lip curled downward and he dug his feet into the floor.

The Kursed came charging at Loki at full speed. He was a blur of a boulder bounding toward the enchanter, still, Loki stood his ground. Loki encircled himself with the power of Gungnir's light. The powerful light wrapped around Loki like a brightly spinning fence. Malekith rushed at it, but the light caused him to bounce back. For a while its power seemed to be enough to push back the savage, but Loki found Malekith's hand reaching forward pressing toward him. His broad sword managed to sweep through the light and crash against the prongs of the scepter. It halted the light shield. Loki still, stood protectively guarding the Tesseract. Their two weapons locked in a fencing fight. Malekith slashed wildly with his sword. Loki took jabs with Gungnir to block the Kursed's mighty thrusts. Loki lunged and parried and feinted with the scepter, but he couldn't get the Kursed's blade to fall from his hand.

"You can't stop me! I'll have the Tesseract! Thanos will be freed! And you'll be good as dead!" Malekith spat. "And for all you've done, no one will even mourn you! No one will even care!" Malekith mocked. "You're a traitor to Asgard and to Thanos! You're truly better off dead!" he continued to rage. He gave a long sweeping slice like he was hacking down timber in a desperate reach for the trickster.

Loki dodged the crazed blow. He gave a wink to the beast. "Well, I'm not dead yet!" Loki declared. He spun around on his heels. His spin produced a large wind that blew Lord Malekith back. The Kursed had to sink its claws deep into one of the remaining pillars in the throne room to keep from being blown away. The wind rushed by him and then there was a bright burst of lime light. In the blink of an eye, Lord Malekith beheld as the thin trickster was no longer present, but instead, a gigantic, green and gold thunder lizard had taken his place and stood just over the Tesseract.

Instantly, the dragon roared and breathed out a bright orange flame all around. Malekith let go of the pillar and tried to run through the bright red fire that lapped up everything around him. The skin of the Kursed was hardly affected by the power of the dragon's fire. He pressed forward unscathed or even burned and made his way to the beautiful sapphire cube that glowed even in the midst of the flame right under the great serpent's golden underbelly.

The dragon hissed and lashed out at the Kursed with its forked tongue. The Kursed grabbed at the tongue and held on to it like a rope, his pull on the dragon's forked tongue was so hard that Loki felt as though he would rip his tongue out of his mouth. Frantically, Loki knew that he needed to change his method. He huffed and heaved, smoke steamed through his nostrils as he breathed out a new flame. This flame burned with a green hue. It was hotter and full of toxins and noxious gases. The blast from the reptile's mouth was enough to cause the monster from Svartalfheim to scream out. He finally let go. The Kursed was forced to stop drop and roll in an earnest attempt to get Loki's green flames from devouring his stony flesh.

With Malekith, distracted, the trickster, quickly reverted to his Aesir form and rushed to Lady Sigyn. The Aesir woman lay on the floor blood across her chest. Loki crawled below the flames he had created in great haste to reach her. When at last he did he quickly scooped her up. He cradled her head in his hands and elevated her body to his lap.

"Sigyn," he whispered her name with pools of tears in his eyes. "Sigyn, what have I done?" he asked.

"Loki," she breathed as her hand reached for his.

"Yes, yes, little Sigyn, I'm here, "The fair-haired maiden managed to offer a faint glimmer of a smile despite the excruciating pain that she was in as she heard the familiar moniker. "Are you alright, darling?" he questioned as he took in her form. The cut that Malekith had made across her chest didn't appear too deep.

Sigyn tried to speak, but words didn't form. Instead, she let out a whimper and shook her head, "Hurts," she finally choked out.

"I know...I Know..." Loki replied quickly his eyes roving over her form and observing every wound, "You'll be ok," he stated. Loki pressed a glowing palm against her exposed chest. Heat radiated from his normally chilly touch as he performed the simple act of healing. Sigyn rested for a moment and basked in the feel of his hand so near her heart. She could feel the energy and power working its healing on all the wounds that she had. She relaxed and her breathing eased. She turned her head to see that the Kursed had freed himself from being burned by the emerald flames and now had his sights set on the Tesseract once more.

She tapped Loki vigorously. "The Tesseract," Sigyn pointed out. Loki's head swiveled for a moment as he observed the claws of the Kursed reaching once more to take hold of the Infinity stone. Loki did a quick flick of his wrist and soon the ravaged ransacked throne room was covered with identical-looking copies of the Cosmic Cube. The master mage of the realm didn't allow his enchanted emerald eyes to cease from examining Sigyn.

The Kursed's one good eye bulged and widened as the Tesseract seemed to multiply right before his eyes. He shook his head in frustration. As he looked up he could see that already the Convergence was starting to end. He only had a few remaining minutes to free Thanos and allow the Aether's darkness to permeate the realms. In desperation, he reached out for the cube that he thought was the true Tesseract, only to have his talons phase right through it. In a rapid and frenzied, helter-skelter fashion the Kursed fumbled to find the Infinity Stone. He rushed about like a chicken. He reached and grabbed, darted, and scurried and had nothing to show for it.

Fuming and furious, foam falling from his fangs, the fiend flew forward for Loki. "Loki!" Sigyn shouted as she saw the Kursed coming full-speed on all fours toward them. She pointed her finger in that direction. Loki's head swiveled slightly, and he saw what she was talking about out of the corner of his eyes. He pushed her down. Right before her eyes, Lady Sigyn beheld as once more Loki shape-shifted into the mythical fire-breathing beast. The magnificent winged reptile shielded her. He put his long serpentine body between Sigyn and the Kursed. He swept her up protectively in his back claw. He spun around and his tail made a swiping motion to crush the Kursed.

But the Kursed was strong. The creature gripped the dragon's tail and held on. It yanked the dragon backward. The green and gold thunder lizard roared loudly. It whipped its tail about. It smashed the Kursed against the floor and wall until finally, the monster from Svartalfheim let go. The molten monster lay flat on the ground. It groaned slightly. Loki's illusion had faded, no longer were there 1000s of bright blue cubes littering the nearly demolished throne room. The Kursed's eye saw his target. It sprang up on two feet and once more went rushing for the Tesseract. The dragon's tail continued to whip about as the reptile hissed, spewing fire and flame as it did so. The Kursed ran about, carefully avoiding the flames. Soon the red Kursed was close enough to grab at the Infinity Stone, but once more the dragon's powerful tail came down like a wall blocking the last hope of Svartalfheim from getting its prize.

The Kursed went to lift the dragon's tail, but Loki bashed, bashed, bashed him with his tail relentlessly. The Kursed still stood its ground like a tree trunk, like a pillar, like a boulder he refused to be moved or knocked down anymore. He held up the dragon's tail nearly effortlessly all the while cursing Loki. The Tesseract still glowed its fluorescent blue hue which was a noticeable contrast to the room that was filling up with more and more black smoke and Aether. The Kursed watched as from in between Loki's golden, gleaming claws a hand emerged. The hand quickly grabbed for the Tesseract and then tucked it carefully back inside the claws. Malekith screamed. He dropped the dragon's tail and went rushing toward one of the remaining columns. The beast started to punch the columns with a ruthless fury. The punches sawed through the large pillar and the Kursed hoisted it over its head and chucked it at the dragon. He struck Loki in the face. He didn't stop. Quick as a flash the Kursed ran from pillar to post he scooped up any enormous piece he could find and continued to hurl them at the dragon. The Kursed hurled a pillar, hurled parts of the floor. He ripped off the arm of one of the statues of the Einherjar and threw it at the dragon. Loki covered his serpentine body with a leathery, emerald wing, Still, Malekith did not stop in his brutal attacks. He kept finding more and more massive objects to hurl. When the dragon poked its head out from the shelter of its wings another column was flying in his direction. Loki used the large horns on the top of its head to butt and burst the column. It cracked into several tiny pieces. Beneath the dust, the dragon growled. Green smoke burned through his teeth. The Kursed made its way back to where the throne was. The beautiful gilded chair was buried deep underneath the rubble, but The Kursed started to burrow his way beneath the mound.

Loki in dragon form still stood growling and roaring challenging Malekith to show himself once more. From between his claws, he heard. "Psst! Psst, Loki, I've got it," Loki's large jade eye which matched the color of his scales looked down and he saw Sigyn. She beamed up at him through bloodied lips and dirty face as she displayed the Tesseract. The dragon's forked tongue wriggled its way from out of its lizard lips and, razor-sharp teeth to licking Lady Sigyn on the cheek.

"Go Sigyn," Loki spoke to her.

"I'm not leaving you," she declared as she held onto his scaly foot.

"You have to," Loki encouraged, he nudged her with his snout. The hot breath of his nostrils tickled and soothed the sore areas of her flesh. "We still need the vial that Lady Sif has. We only have a few more minutes..." Loki's eyes were wide with the urgency of the moment. Lady Sigyn hesitated with her own eyes darting back and forth.

"Vial? What Vial?" Lady Sigyn questioned.

"Hopefully, Sif has it," Loki stated more to himself than to Sigyn. "You must go and get her to bring it! Now is the time!" he urged. Before she could protest Loki's eyes she watched as the crimson-colored Kursed jumped up from the pile of rubble. He looked like a red-hot devil with fire in his eyes as he lifted the throne from the floor over his head and flung it at the dragon.

"You will not stop me!" The Kursed screamed in the language of the Dark Elves. "Nothing you can do can stop me! Can stop this!" The great, gold and ivory chair struck the dragon in the face. This caused the dragon to yowl wildly. Loki reared up its foreclaws slicing through the Aether Ash. The Kursed stood defiantly before the dragon. Its bulky red body was diminutive next to the enormity of the gigantic reptile. With that, Loki's fore-claws landed with a thud back on the floor. The limestone of the palace floor cracked under his weight. Loki snapped his jaws and gnashed his terrible teeth as he went after the Kursed. The creature was so puny in comparison. He chased after the fiery fiend. The Kursed ran wildly jumping over columns and trampling and kicking about the Asgardian bodies. Even the carcasses of his own men he desecrated with his haste. The dragon was on his heels roaring as it also maneuvered and darted through the chamber.

The fire-breathing lizard was so close it threatened to gobble the Kursed up. The long neck stretched and weaved around pillar and post. Forked tongue licking and lapping, trying to sting the Kursed with its venom. The Kursed soon found another column. It quickly cut through it and then picked up the massive structure and tossed it at the dragon. As Loki beheld the projectile, he readied himself he blew out a hot, fiery dart that charred the pillar instantly. It was left as nothing but ash to fall into the mix of the soot that circled all around them.

Breathless, Malekith tried to take refuge behind one of the ruins that he and his horde had created. Bending down on his knees. With his one good eye, he happened to spy something golden glimmering beneath the wreckage. The warlord smiled.

Just then, Loki snaked his dragon body around Lord Malekith wrapping him in tight coils. The Kursed wriggled desperately as it felt its windpipe being constricted so tightly that the lava that coursed through its veins would explode from its pores. Loki poised its mouth over the creature and was ready to consume it. The Kursed managed to pull its arms free of the constriction and raise its hands holding back the jaws which threatened to devour him. The molten hands grabbed the dragon, by its fangs with the strength of the Aether inundating it, the Kursed possessed the strength of 20 Aesir men. Loki pushed down with more weight and fury, He could feel when the arms of the Kursed were about to give and he was ready to snap his mouth shut and take the Kursed out, but just as he felt the Kursed was about to give way, it twisted and rolled and managed to slam the dragon's head downward. Loki let out a low, mournful growl as it felt its head collide with the concrete. Quick as a flash, Malekith pulled out Gungnir. Loki could see the brilliant, gilded gleam of the weapon even through the swirling embers. Malekith still couldn't get the weapon to yield to his command, but the scepter was sharp. He scraped it across the scaley serpent's neck. He pressed it deep, and he would have tried to decapitate Loki had the dragon not kicked Malekith off of him. The Kursed's scarlet body flew back as if it was completely camouflaged in the burning cinders. As his body sailed into one of the remaining murals depicting the justice of the throne. Once more, the scepter was flung from his clasp.

Sigyn had been hiding in a corner. She'd been trying to find her way out of the throne room and trying to get to Lady Sif, but she'd gotten stuck. She couldn't get her bearings. Everything was just a blinding squall of cinders. She could barely see her hands in front of her face, let alone a way out, but in the blizzard of soot and ash, she could the flicker of the pure gold of Gungnir. She knew they needed it. She was like a moth drawn toward the flame. She ran toward it and scooped it up.

The Kursed's horns and spikes had him caught against the wall. Like a fly in a web, he wriggled trying to get free, but when his eye which was well adjusted to seeing in the haze caught sight of Lady Sigyn running to retrieve Odin's scepter he burst forth from the wall carrying parts of the wall on his back running toward her.

The dragon shook itself. Spying Malekith moving speedily in the direction of the lady-in-waiting. Loki once more sprang into action. With agility and grace and much frantic haste, he leaped over Malekith and grabbed Sigyn up protectively in his front foot. He then spread forth his mighty wings. The thick, leathery wings widened. They were so wide and so strong as they took flight they shattered the ceiling. He rose high into the sky. Flying against the torrential Aether winds and hail-like balls of volcanic ash that brutally pelted him. The dragon roared and shot fire through the air. The Kursed was unceasing. Malekith could not allow himself to be defeated. Just as the tip of the dragon's tail was about to soar out of the palace. The Kursed leaped on the tail.

---

From the T-shaped mothership of the Dark Elves where Mjolnir had been so wrongly imprisoned as kept out of the reach of the rightful heir to the throne of Asgard Thor heard the dragon's roar. At first, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end as he thought of the fact that this could be another Chituari attack. Could it be more leviathans? He thought he'd killed them all, but as he continued to listen. Thor recognized the distinctive bellow. He'd heard that roar long before in a long-forgotten dream, a nightmare that he had watched come to fruition. "Loki," he muttered as he smiled.

The Dark Elves who had been turned to Kurseds lunged for the prince. Thor took on all comers. Each one of the Kursed's came at him quickly and briskly from all sides. One jumped on him. back. Thor body-slammed it into the floor of the mothership. The Kursed didn't release Prince Thor from his bone-crushing grip. Thor grunted, but not before the second one of the big, horned brutes, that had melded their faces with the bloodless masks of the Dark Elves, came to try to give him a smack down. The Kursed leaped in the air and spread out, ready to bellyflop on top of Thor. As he came down for the landing, Thor used his powerful legs and charged his thunder thighs with electricity. Thor's killer kick-packed a wallop, and he skyrocketed the second Kursed through to the roof. The 3rd didn't hesitate to launch another attack. It proceeded to rip the piping out of the wall. Ruthlessly, it began to slam the pipe down on the metallic floor. Sparks flew as iron rubbed against iron. Thor released enough lightning that it started to sizzle the stony skin of the Kursed that held fast to him. The monster let him go quick enough and Thor sprang back into action.

He matched the Kursed that he had scalded pound for pound with powerful punches. The brute exchanged blows with Prince Thor and didn't falter as he took strikes to the face and ribs. The fists that were full of gravel and granite seemed to shatter through the prince's armor. Soon another one of the mutilated Dark Elves ran up behind him with the metal pipe that seemed to have been as tall as he was. The monstrous-looking soldier slapped Thor on the back with a pipe. Thor yelled out as he was brought down by the blow. The strike forced him to his knees. From there the two oversized abominations continued their tirade against the thunderer. The furious, flint feet feverish kicked at him. Huge hands heavy as hewn outside of a mountain continuously came and hurled heavy punches at the prince. Thor was peppered and pelted with battering. The final monster descended from the roof. He had part of the ceiling still attached to his horns, but he ripped it from his twisted and gnarled antlers and smashed it on the back of Thor's head. The thunder bearer came crashing down once more. Thor scarcely could get a counter lick back in. He struggled to stay awake. His mind raced. He knew that Kursed's were merely trying to wind his clock. In less than 10 minutes, the Aether would have spread throughout the Nine Realms and there would be nothing that he or anyone would be able to do.

Thor's senses dialed up to 100. Without any effort on his part. His vibrant blue eyes flickered with brilliant white flashes. His fists filled with fresh thunderbolts. Thor exploded with electricity. Lightning burst in every direction. It thrust into the molten monsters. It sent them flying into the walls and roofs and the other rooms of the T-shaped ship. Panting and bloody Thor managed to crawl his way toward the pedestal where Malekith had so proudly displayed his beloved hammer.

The hammer practically seemed to glow in the eyes of the Crown Prince of Asgard. Blood dripped from his knuckles as his finger fumbled to find the hilt of the hammer. Thor was nearly brought to tears as he felt the familiar weapon within his hold once again. "There, there, old friend," Thor whispered of Mjolnir as he wrapped his hands tightly around its hilt. He practically had to pull himself to stand upright. He leaned heavily on the hammer. "I've got you now. We are together again," he spoke soothingly to his precious gift. His fingers caressed and massaged the metal and leather. "Everything is going to be ok," he explained taking deep breaths. He looked up gratefully into the sky that was exposed through the broken roof of the ship. He could see the Aether ash swirling about. He could see nothing else. "It's not too late! It's not too late," he reminded himself. He stood up straight and proud and strong the way a prince of Asgard truly should with that he manhandled Mjolnir. His muscles bulged and he sweated and strained, grunted and groaned, but he couldn't get the hammer to budge.

"AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!" Thor hollered as thunder and lightning crackled all around. A great, gray storm cloud formed on the inside of the T-shaped ship. Winds started to howl and bluster within the chambers. Thor continued screaming and the storm grew larger and larger. Every muscle and sinew that the future heir to the throne of Asgard had was stretched and displayed at its full might. The veins in his biceps and triceps popped out. They were so pronounced they looked like tattoos. The golden-locked son of Odin gritted his teeth to the point where he tasted blood. "All-father's give me strength!" he prayed as he tried to summon the strength of a berserker. Mjolnir didn't flinch from the pedestal. Thor was panting and breathless. "NOOOO!" he hollered in hopelessness. He tossed his hands off of Mjolnir's hilt. He looked up into the sky he couldn't even see the turbulent red haze swirling about for he had created his own funnel cloud. Defiantly, the young thunderer continued to rage as he formed his tempest. Water washed over his face, and he didn't know if it was his tears or the torrential rainstorm that he had created. He didn't care. Fistful of lightning, he started to shout. "WHY? WHY? WHY?" The cry tore from him.

Finally, the prince sank to the ground looking at Mjolnir mournfully. They were only a few minutes away from the Convergence's peak coming to an end. If it ended it would be too late. Surely, the Norns hadn't ordained this grim fate, to be so close only to still face their demise. Thor began to blubber and bellow. "I am unworthy! I am unworthy of these realms! "he didn't deserve to be heir to Asgard if he couldn't protect her. "I am unworthy of this title!" he proclaimed to himself. He couldn't call himself the Crown Prince of Asgard, he couldn't call himself the God of Thunder if he couldn't even lift the hammer. Thor's head hung low. His long locks slapped him in the face. "I'm unworthy of my loved ones," he continued to sob. Of everything, that was the part that hurt him the most. He had failed his mother and father, Jane his friends on Asgard and Earth, and all across the Nine Realms, he'd failed his subjects. "I'm sorry," he apologized to them all and even his ancestors. He continued to stroke Mjolnir. At least the last time he had been unable to lift his beloved weapon had only affected him. He was stuck on Earth and away from his family, but Loki hadn't been a complete lunatic then, he most likely would have ruled Asgard with decency. Thor shook his head as tears still trickled down his cheeks. He cursed Loki and his clever mind and the power of the elixir he had been doped into drinking.

Just then, Thor's eyes flickered with a slightly new burst of energy. Loki was always saying how magic was an exact science. The spell wouldn't be broken until the final hour. It was only a few more minutes. Thor knew he had to do his best to keep fighting. The thunderer started to get up off his knees. Just as he felt as if he was able to raise his head high once more. The Prince of Asgard felt a clobber on the back of his head. He saw stars for a minute. He was soon assaulted with several blows striking his shoulders back and legs. The Kursed's were back, the big boulders beasts surrounded him once more. They grunted and growled and pounded their swords and blasters and clubs into their hands. Thor's let out a smirk. With lightning-fast reflexes, he punched and jabbed at them. He disarmed one of the disfigured soldiers of Svartalfheim and tossed it against the wall. Another countered, it quickly grabbed its blaster and started rapid firing at the golden-locked son of Odin. Prince Thor tucked and rolled and dodged the crazed attacks of the Kurseds. Soon the Kurseds in their desperation had fired holes all throughout their own ship and nearly destroyed it.

Thor's torrential downpour mingled with the Aether caused an acid rain effect. The exhausted and severely injured Aesir who had been passed out on the bridge slowly started to awaken as they felt wet, hot burns against their wounds. Many woke up screaming for the painful reaction. They immediately started to flee and try to take shelter from the storm. They rained backward and forward, but there appeared to be nowhere to go. The murky red haze obscured their vision.

"HELP US!"
"SAVE US!"

"THERE'S NO ESCAPE!" the frantic soldiers and civilian Aesir cried. Soon it wasn't just rain, but large scarlet-colored hailstones came tumbling down and pelted the Aesir. With seemingly nowhere else to turn there were some Asgardians who chose to jump into the roiling Forever Sea.

"This is madness," Frandal spoke as he observed the chaos.

"This is Ragnarök!" A young woman came and shouted in his face. She gripped him with his shoulders. A shook her head. She pointed out not only the terrible tempest but also a mighty flying lizard that roared over their heads. She continued shaking her head. "Death is coming! The end is near!" she wailed as she ran off from the swordsman. Frandal then beheld as she hurled herself into the sea.

"Maiden!" He called unto her, but it was too late. The Chivalrous Einherjar was about to dive in after her, but the hand of his friend halted him.

"Frandal, there's no time! We've got to get these people to safety," Lady Sif protested.

"What safety, Sif?" the plumpest member of their merry band questioned. "Look we've even got dragons!" the red-haired Viking pointed out.

"DRAGONS!" a horrified echo rang from the crowd. They continued in their panic and scattered all the more.

"Dragons!" Lady Sif shook her head. Even the shield-maiden had reached her breaking point. She didn't have enough energy to fight off dragons too. Still, she tried to steal herself and she held her double blade. She squinted as she watched the flying reptile spite fire and flame across the air. She could scarcely make out the distinct green and gold pattern that the creature possessed "Loki?' she muttered in disbelief. "Loki!" Lady Sif cheered.

"Loki?" Volstagg questioned as he shaded his eyes to see. But when he saw what Sif saw he threw his redhead back and laughed while grabbing his belly. Loki had only taken the form a few times, but it was certainly one of the most powerful that the trickster could take.

"Come on! Get the people inside the palace," Lady Sif encouraged.

The dragon zipped and zoomed through the tainted air. It spat smoke and fire and venom in its wake as it weaved through the broken towering spires of the city. Lady Sigyn desperately dangled between Loki's talons. Her hands held fast to the two priceless artifacts. She dare not drop them. She cradled both tightly to her breast while she got a dragon's eye view of the city. The way Loki whizzed and darted about in a frenzy, had everything flying in Lady Sigyn's face. It would seem as though they were about to fly through the stained-glass window, Sigyn would brace herself for glass to fly in her face, but somehow Loki would twist and twirl his way through a hole so that the glass didn't shatter and splatter all around them. A jagged piece of metal would be sticking out from one of the freshly dilapidated edifices. It seemed like it would be about the slice the dragon's foot right off. Sigyn not only pictured Loki winding up an accidental amputee but also, she picturing her own body going splat against already bloody streets. The world was swirling by her in a dizzying blur. Everything was red and black and horrible; the wind whipped her in the face and soon she felt the showers from above splashing in her face. It wasn't long before Sigyn, too felt the big black and red hail stones that were tumbling from the sky in a fury. She was grateful for the shelter inside the dragon's claws.

The Kursed too, was taking a high-flying ride on the dragon. The ruby red fiend hung on to the dragon's tail like a tick. Loki flew faster and faster. His wings furiously flapped against the tempestuous gusts and heavy hail. He flew higher, he darted and barrel-rolled, turned and twisted wildly in the air. But still, the Kursed latched on. He had his own rock-hard claws dug into the thicket of Loki scales. He sank his, gnarled twisted boar's tusk into the dragon's flesh. Now, a dragon's scales were thick, they were tough and leathery and slick, but the bite of the Kursed came down on the hide like a 10-ton pound of bricks. This sent Loki howling and screaming and flying a full speed, trying to buck the Kursed off of his back. Malekith was relentless. Once Malekith found that the scales were penetrable. He didn't stop. He continued to gnaw and bite and use his claws to tear through the dragon's scaley flesh. And soon the monster was scaling its way up the plates of the thunderlizard's back. All the while it ripped the green and gold plates along the dragon's spine.

Eventually, Malekith crawled his way up Loki's back like it was a ladder. He finally found his way to near Loki's neck. Malekith straddled Loki's neck. With big boulder thighs, he pressed hard and heavy into the dragon's windpipe. The dragon started to cough. He puffed out patches of smoke trying to get his breath. Malekith rode Loki. He grabbed him by his two great glittering, golden horns and roughly yanked his head back. The dragon's head swayed and shook vigorously, but he couldn't cause the Kursed to release him. Like he was controlling a bull. He had him by the horns Malekith pressed and yanked and caused Loki to twist and veer into directions he didn't want to go. His heavy-handed riding ran the dragon right into the arches of the great stadium. The arches came tumbling down like London bridges and the dragon was caught up and tangled in the aftermath of stones and bricks that threatened to crush his wings. He went spiraling and rolling through the air and nearly crashed.

Sigyn poked her head out wondering what was happening. She was starting to feel nauseous from all the rolling about. She saw Kursed raise his hard hands made of stones. She watched in horror as she saw Aether particles come and gather around his fists like they were being drawn in by a magnet. The Kursed took command of the Aether and started swirling it about. Then it launched powerful Aether blows against the dragon. It clobbered the dragon with shards of the Aether. Loki screamed and blew a burst of emerald flames as he was blinded by the Aether that stung his eyes as Loki was ramming into everything. Lady Sigyn still held tightly to Gungnir. She wanted to take a shot at the Kursed and get it off of Loki's back, but she was too scared that she might drop it and then all hope would be lost. Lady Sigyn still had the quiver on her back. She managed to set the arrow in the bow. She crawled her way between Loki's onyx claws. As he herked and jerked about Lady Sigyn found herself almost falling out. She yelped as she used her knees to hold on as tight as she could. She was hanging upside down and swaying like a leaf in the wind. It was so hard to see with wind and rain and Aether ash billowing all about. Malekith's hellish coloring was camouflaged perfectly in the slurry of scarlet soot. Nonetheless, Lady Sigyn set her sights and aim as best she could. She held her bow and arrow as steadily as she could. "Oh, please! Oh please! Oh, please," she prayed, just before she released it. The arrow flew straight and true and hit its target on the back of the Kursed's head.

Amazingly, during the turbulence of the tempest Lady Sigyn's arrow managed to fly straight and true toward its target. The arrow struck the Kursed on the back of the head. Of course, the small weapon wasn't enough to actually cause any damage to the creature. With the Aether swirling all around it and giving the beast energy, it seemed invincible. The dragon was flying lower and lower to the ground and his strong wings were crashing into the buildings. The dragon's wings were like razors, and they seemed to slice through the few remaining domes and steeples that the Imperial City had to offer. Lady Sigyn's arrow didn't pierce or hurt the Kursed in any way, but it gave enough impact to throw the monster off balance. The strike sent a hideous horned demon tumbling from the dragon's back. As the Kursed fell it bumped along the spikes that ran along the dragon's spine. It seemed as though the Kursed would roll right off the dragon's back and into the tumultuous waves of the Forever Sea.

But the stubborn Svartalfheim general would not be defeated, just as he was about to roll off of the dragon's back, he managed to catch hold of the dragon's tail. He held fast. The dragon swung its tail back and forth, up and down, finally freeing its tail from the clasp of the Kursed creature. The blazing, red body somersaulted through the air and Loki let out a power fire breath to char the stone-bodied brute. The dragon blasted the Kursed with several balls of fire, that had flames so hot, that it should have incinerated the monster on the spot. The Kursed's hellish form certainly looked crisped. As the body tumbled through the red haze the dragon rammed at the body of the Kursed with its horns. It headbutted the leader of the Dark Elves into one of the edifices. The impact of the shove was so potent it sent the Kursed sailing through several buildings.

With that, the dragon growled ferociously and let out a puff of smoke from its nostrils. The serpent smirked and flapped its wings to climb higher and higher into the air. Finally, the dragon climbed so that it landed on the top tower over the throne room of the palace there it was planted directly beneath the Convergence alignment. Aether ash and wind rushed all around it. Slowly, the daunting figure of the dragon melted away and transformed into that of the young enchanter. Loki and Sigyn stood on the very edge of the tower and Loki wobbled as his powers slowly drained. Sigyn caught him by the arms to keep him from falling over. "Loki!" she gasped.

"Sigyn," he stated blinking bright green eyes to gain his concentration once more. His arms wrapped tightly around her to keep her from falling as well.

"Convergence!" she pointed to worlds that were perfectly aligned above their heads. "The Aether! It's going in!" she expressed as she pressed her face against Loki's chest. The steady streams of evil red energy continued to wind their way up into the unsuspecting worlds.

"I know, I know. We need Thor! We need Mjolnir," Loki expressed but as he looked around, he didn't see any signs of the thunderer.

"Where's Thor?" Sigyn's eyes were also wide as she looked around.

"He's probably still, trying to retrieve Mjolnir. The curse wasn't supposed to be lifted until after Convergence. Technically, there's still 7 minutes of Convergence left," he stated.

"7 minutes... 7 minutes," the golden-locked Aesir woman muttered to herself. Her bright amber eyes looked up at Loki. "That's not so long," she expressed.

"It's longer than what we have time for Sigyn," Loki gripped her by the shoulders. "All this will have been for nothing. All this death and everything that everyone has tried to do will be for nothing and it's because of me," Loki pounded on his chest. "I that maybe with a few minutes to spare perhaps the curse would yield..."

"You are far too powerful an enchanter for any potion that you concoct to do less than its purpose..." She brought her bloody fingers up to touch Loki's face. There were fresh burns there.

Loki gave a rueful smirk as he leaned into Sigyn's touch, "Much good it has done, it has damned us all," he muttered miserably. "I'm so sorry, Sigyn," he said as he looked up at her, the water in his eyes making the emerald of them glisten brightly despite the red haze that sloshed about.

"You can't give us, Loki," she pressed. "There's still time.

"Little Sigyn, there's no time at all!"

"You have the Tesseract, and you have Gungnir," she stated as she presented the artifacts to him

"At least, no matter what happens without the Tesseract Thanos won't be able to get into the branches of Yggdrasil."

Sigyn wasn't exactly sure who Thanos was, but she knew whenever the name was started there was a slight tremor in Loki's eyes, his eyes shifted and looked askance for, but a moment, and his porcelain skin blanched. "Thor has 7 minutes, he could still show up," she encouraged as she nodded. "Malekith and that monster are gone," she reminded him. "All we have to do is wait," she called out loudly for the wailing of the Aether winds.

"Wait," Loki repeated. In his mind, he thought about what they were waiting for. Were they waiting to live or waiting to die? Were they waiting to be slaves or be free? Were they waiting for victory or defeat? Was he waiting for an absolution that would never come?

"LOKI! LOKI! LOKI!" He heard his name being bellowed over the boisterous blowing of the raging storm. The master mage turned around; eyes wide with hope. He only knew one person whose voice carried in the wind loud as thunder. His expression was nearly joyful. But he was shocked to find that it wasn't Odin's beautiful, blonde boy bellowing his name; it Malekith. Loki squinted, but he made out the form of the Kursed leaping from building to post, to monument and statue, like a great ape jumping from tree to tree. "IT'S NOT OVER! IT'S NOT OVER!"

"Who is it?" Sigyn clung to Loki. "Is it Thor," her face exploded with a bright smile as she tried to look over Loki's shoulder.

Loki quickly gripped her protectively, "No, Lady Sigyn, it's Malekith," Sigyn let out a scream as she saw the Kursed charging toward them using the fury of s bilgschnipe; jumping from pillar to post.

"Sigyn, you've got to go!" Loki declared urgently.

"No, I don't want to leave you," she shook her head.

"It's ok," Loki said, and he gave her a toothless grin. "You've got to get to Lady Sif and get the vial. This is our last chance," he urged.

"You still need Mjolnir," she reminded him.

"Like you said, we've still got time," His green eye winked at her. The Kursed was getting closer still shouting Loki's name and violent threats.

"YOUR HEAD WILL HANG ON MY WALL! YOUR WENCH WILL LIVE IN A CAGE! She'll have a prime view of your head there." Malekiths words came out huffing and ragged.

"Loki," she started to mutter.

Loki turned around and looked at her beautiful, blood, muddy face. "No matter what happens...I want you to know something," he started breathlessly.

"Yes," she looked into his eyes. Despite all the red that was around them their emerald, green shined bright and true.

"I...I...I..." His silver tongue faltered. "I want you to know," his eyes darted about once more. "I have something to tell you," he quickly tried to rephrase.

"Loki, Loki, Loki," the golden-locked maiden started to mumble. "Maybe this isn't the best time," she started.

Loki's thin lips played with a lopsided grin, "You're probably right," he nodded, "But it may be the last time... I...ever...we ever..." he started and surprised himself with the way he was at a loss for words. He looked askance. Lady Sigyn's gentle hand grabbed his narrow chin and brought their gazes back together. The golden radiance of her irises was evident although her hair was wild and mangy, and she looked like the dirtiest raggamuffin he'd ever seen. Yet, her beauty could not be hidden. He pulled Lady Sigyn close to him. The pull was strong and tight, and Lady Sigyn practically yelped. His hand wrapped tightly around her waist, and he held her firmly, his hand resting low, near her behind, while the other hand caressed her neck as he brought their lips to meet in a gentle kiss. It had been a long time since their lips had met, but while his lips were merely ghosting over hers, she'd never felt more longing in his kiss. She didn't know if it was him or her but the kiss quickly became more passionate and hungry. His silver tongue didn't falter. It never failed to work its magic charms. She'd always relished his kisses, sometimes they were firm, forceful, and commanding, other times lustful, hurried and she'd dare say courtly. Sometimes there was a fiery desire there and each one had left the young noblewoman breathless, but none like this. There was longing and desire there like she hadn't felt. She remembered the taste of his kisses before, spearmint, pepper, and lemon-lime that often blew her mind. Now, she tasted cold blood, dirty, soot, and embers. Yet she wanted more. Sigyn tasted the same, but to Loki, She tasted divine. Her lips had always been soft and puckered and painted, now her lips were dry, chapped, and dirty, but he could have pressed his lips against her all day. Lady Sigyn wrapped her arms tighter around Loki. Maybe this was the end. Maybe this was Ragnarok, but she could choose away to spend her final moments this would be it. The world drifted away, and neither one of them heard the horrendous howls all around them, they didn't feel the wild whirlwind that threatened to blow them off the tower. Neither felt the trepidation that they should have at this moment. All Loki heard was Sigyn's heartbeat, all Sigyn felt was Loki's lips and hands and the only emotion that passed between them was ecstasy. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in a split second, the enchanter broke the kiss. He peeled his lips away from hers begrudgingly. Sigyn's lips were left gaping. She was panting, her breath warm against his nose.

Sigyn's hands clung to Loki's shoulders... "Loki...I...I..." she hiccupped with tears in her eyes.

"Shhh," the enchanter placed a dirty finger on her lips and she leaned in and kissed it. "Don't be afraid," he whispered to her.

the daughter of Admiral Arn had a gentle smile plastered on her face "I'm not afraid," she told him as she bobbed her head. "I'm not afraid of what I feel," she assured him.

Emerald-eyed enchanter smiled and mouthed, "Good." Then he pushed her off the tower ledge just as the Kursed landed next to him with a thud.

"LOOOOOOOOKIIIIIII!" Sigyn hollered and her hands desperately groped at air and her legs kicked about. Loki reached back behind him. His fingers spread wide as he caused Lady Sigyn to levitate. She was still screaming wildly even though she was no longer falling, but merely floating in the open air.

The Kursed stood before Loki, fuming and snarling ferociously. He thumped his chest in a barbaric display as he started to stomp his huge feet made of granite. The creature's footfalls were so heavy that each stomp he took caused the tower to wobble. Loki fixed his footing to hold his balance. Malekith didn't have a second to spare. His window of golden opportunity was slowly closing. When Loki didn't fall right away Malekith took to brutally starting to rip the panels and siding off of the tower. He tossed the long golden plates that lined the top of the tower at Loki's head. Loki continued to slink and slank around, he was slippery as a serpent even in Aesir form. He easily danced around the feral attacks. They were wild and potent, but unfocused. The Kursed became more and more vehement seeing Loki avoid his blows with ease. The Kursed then started punching the flooring of the tower. He broke off the floor and took huge chunks of the limestone bricks. Each was solid and 10 inches thick. The Kursed flung it like a frisbee in the enchanter's direction. With one hand on the scepter. Loki raised Gungnir. When the boulder-like brick came burling at him, he blasted it quickly with a strike from Odin's scepter. Relentless, the Kursed hurled another and another, but each one disintegrated instantly.

Frustration mounted inside the Kursed, his one good eye glanced upward and he beheld the glory of the realms as they were slowly starting to taste the power of the Aether. Its darkness spread viciously to the worlds that would soon be painted black. He still needed the Tesseract though, for his dark purpose to be fulfilled. With an animalistic cry, he rushed up to Loki on all fours his hewn horns thrust into Loki's abdomen and through Loki's golden armor. Loki's cry was cut off and faded into a gasp from the searing pain. The Kursed yanked his molten horns from out of Loki's abdomen and Loki fell on his back. Concentration broken he let go of the levitation hold that he had on Lady Sigyn.

"AHHHHHHHH! "the bloodcurdling shriek of Lady Sigyn rang out like an alarm in Loki's ears once more.

"Sigyn," he gasped weakly. He turned around and saw her dress and hair flapping in the wind as she fell. Loki wished to reach out and stop her from falling once more, but agony gripped Loki's chest and it wasn't from purely seeing the fair maiden falling to her doom. While Sigyn's name dangled on his thin lips the Kursed came charging once more. The boulder beast had its hands made of stone wrapped around Loki's neck.

" I'LL CRUSH YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!" Malekith shouted in the language of the Dark Elves. He shook Loki and squeezed his neck tightly. "GIVE ME THE TESSERACT! GIVE ME THE TESSERACT!" he demanded. Loki's head continued to bang against the stone floor. His helmet flew off.

Jane Foster was still stationed on the perimeter of the throne room. She had just managed to grab all the spare parts of her reactor that she could find in hopes of assembling one last reactor. She had seen the whole outrageous fight between the Kursed and the dragon. Her mind was still processing everything that had transpired, but there was no time to sit and think and make conjecture. Now, there was only time for action. The scientist watched as many of the Aesir warriors had arisen from their unconscious states along the drawbridge. Jane was going to rush out to meet them. She hoped that Prince Thor was in their midst. She didn't know what was about to happen, but she knew she wanted to be in Thor's massive, muscular arms once more. As she started to hobble toward the throng of weakened warriors, she heard a high-pitched wail. Jane's eyes looked up and there she could ever so faintly make out a body plummeting downward into the throne room. "Sigyn?" the astrophysicist wondered aloud. Lady Sigyn was falling from a catastrophic height. Jane hoped that her device would work. The mortal scientist went running to position herself in the trajectory of Lady Sigyn's landing. She pulled out her remote. She planted the reactor. She turned up the remote to aim for Sigyn's closest altitude. Now, Jane was not a woman given too much prayer or faith. Since her father's death, it had seemed hard to have faith in anything beyond what she could see and quantify. Still, she prayed that the reactor would work. "Oh please! Oh please," she mumbled. As she cranked up the remote and ignited the reactor. A large ripple shot through the sky and swallowed up Lady Sigyn.

Sigyn continued to plummet all the while, she was yelling her head off. There was a tremor in the midst of the red haze and Sigyn fell right through it. The human scientist wiped her brow. She was grateful that she had been able to use her reactor to keep Lady Sigyn from becoming a stain on the palace floor, but still, her heart trembled within her chest. She didn't know where the ripple would cause Lady Sigyn to wind up. She hadn't gotten quite around to the part of inventing where she could control where the subject that was taken in by the tremor landed. Up until now it hadn't mattered where the person landed as it was being used against their enemies, but now she didn't know where Lady Sigyn would land. She looked all around as some of the Aesir people started to storm in through the broken-down walls of the throne room. She waited with bated breath to see Sigyn.

Lady Sigyn fell right through the ripple that Jane Foster's reactor caused. It felt strange. For a moment there was even a feeling of weightlessness, but Sigyn hardly noticed as she was still shrieking frantically. There was a tickle and a jolt, and she found herself being whipped about. Wind rushed across her face and then all of a sudden Sigyn opened her bright golden eyes and found herself screaming in the midst of a rushing mob of Asgardians. Her cries seemed to mingle with everyone else's cries and yet her incredible shrill seemed to drown out the other voices. Despite the pandemonium that was going on all around her, she finally noticed that her feet were safely planted on the ground. Sigyn nearly bent down to kiss the ground, but instead, she raised her hands in gratitude to the Norns. "Merciful Yggdrasil, thank you! Thank you!" she cried.

The people were rushing and racing, but some were hobbling and stumbling, others limped and crawled trying to find shelter. In their efforts to escape and find refuge for just a few moments before their lives could be completely altered and coated in darkness. They bumped and pushed and shoved, Sigyn couldn't even get her bearings before she found herself being pushed and pulled about in different directions. Before Lady Sigyn felt herself being pushed to the ground. She was kicked and stepped on most accidentally, but nonetheless, the queen's lady-in-waiting couldn't help, but feel that this was terrible irony, she had survived being splattered to death only to wind up being trampled to death. Sigyn tried to get back to her feet several times only to find herself being shoved down once more. Somehow, after several attempts, Sigyn managed to get to her feet. No sooner had she stood up than Lady Sigyn found herself being swept away by big, thick, strong cushioned shoulders. Sigyn was being hauled over the drawbridge on someone's shoulders. She looked down and she finally noted the distinct curly, ringlets of red bouncing beneath a helmet across a broad back. "Volstagg!" Lady Sigyn gasped.

"Sigyn!" the burly Viking called, he glanced at her, but he kept up his brisk jog leading others into the palace stronghold. "Oh, my goodness, thank the Norns, you are alright!" he declared. He crossed his arms over his chest to give her a hug. "Even though I don't know for how long," he admitted. "This Aether storm is getting worse," Volstagg stated as he held fast to her back to make sure she didn't blow away from the strong Aether gusts. "There's no sign of Prince Thor," he shook his head. "We've got dragons roaming about," he shrugged his shoulders, and she bumped up and down.

"That dragon is Loki, Volstagg,"

"Loki! I knew it! I knew it! I'd recognize that dragon form of his anywhere. Well, I'll tell you the last time that we saw that display of his we were battling the Water Wizards of..."

"Volstagg! Volstagg! Volstagg!" Sigyn called. "I'd love to hear the tale, but we only have a few moments is Lady Sif around?" she asked as she looked around desperately. It was hard to make out anyone in the massive swarming crowd.

"SIF!" Volstagg automatically bellowed. "Sif!" he continued to shout her name.

"Volstagg," the shield maiden's voice came up behind him. "This way! This way!" she called ushering the people forward.

"Sif!" Sigyn chirped cheerily as she saw the warrior woman.

"Lady Sigyn! Did you get Mjolnir?" the fiercest woman in Asgard asked.

"Yes, it's with Loki now," Sigyn explained as she bobbled up and down Volstagg's back like a sack. "But we still need Mjolnir," she stated. "Have you seen him?"

"I saw Prince Thor fly toward the Dark-Elf mothership," the brunette warrior woman explained. "He hasn't emerged." she shook her head as she ran. "We are running out of time!"

"We still have some time," Sigyn tried to assure her friend.

"Time! Time! Time? 5 minutes?"

"Loki is doing his best to hold the Kursed at bay and once Thor arrives with Mjolnir, they'll still need a place to contain the Aether. Do you still have the vial?"

Lady Sif continued jogging, she never broke a stride, but she managed to reach into the armor and pull out the containment that Loki had made out of Everwood and Fairy dust and obsidian stones. It was a beautiful vessel. "What can this vial do now? The Aether is raging everywhere!"
"When they combine the power of the weapons the vial must be in position. Right beneath the alignment." Sigyn's golden eyes were pleading.

"Sif we've got nothing left to lose," Frandal came up alongside his friends.

"Alright... I'll get myself in position," Sif agreed as she nodded resolutely. With that, the shield maiden stuck her double-bladed saber into the cracks and crevices that ran through the broken drawbridge and used it to catapult herself over the crowds and fling herself into the throne room.

The Kursed's massive hands continued to wrap tightly around Loki's thin neck. "GIVE UP!" he hollered as he squeezed relentlessly. Loki gasped, he brought his leg up to try and kick Malekith from off top of him, but the brute's boulder body didn't budge. "GIVE UP! Admit your defeat!" he howled and growled.

"Admit yours," Loki added, and he had his signature smirk stained on his face even though the warlord continued to wallop him with rocky fists. Loki gathered a bright green ball in his hands and when the Kursed came to clobber him again, he caught the stone fingers in his fist. He still wore a smile on his face despite the blood that ran through his white teeth. Loki's arm grew stronger as it was infused with his magic. The Convergence was slowly starting to pass over them and Loki's powers were growing once more.

Lord Malekith hollered and pressed deeper into Loki's larynx. This only caused the mage to laugh wildly. "You're a fool!" the Kursed declared unto him as gravel flew from his muzzle. "You're a fool!" He continued to spit venom and hot stones in Loki's face. "You will die, here this day and you will die for nothing! You'll save nothing! Once you're dead I'll take the Tesseract and Thanos and I will rule this realm and all the others with an iron fist!" He declared as he raised his hard hand high. The Aether swirled around it. Loki watched as the Aether seemed to infiltrate every crack and crevice of the Kursed's form. If possible, he seemed to redden even more. "You will die, and no one will care! No one will mourn you! You have betrayed everyone, and you matter to no one!" Malekith continued to rail at Loki. Loki headbutted the Kursed. His head was wrapped in a bright green glow and when he headbutted the monster it flew back. It stumbled backward and nearly fell off the ledge of the tower. The Kursed's molten, muscular limbs spun in the air like a windmill as he held his balance and spewed Aether shards left and right at the enchanter. Loki's green energy repelled every attack as he whipped it about him. "YOU CAN'T WIN!" he raged. The Kursed charged back at Loki. The Kursed's furious strength burrowed through the wave of green that Loki had put around him. Loki quickly spun the scepter around he twisted it over his head and behind his back, before striking Malekith with a blistering beam. Malekith tried to resist the power of Gungnir. He summoned the Aether around him to protect him, but slowly the shield of red was wearing thin. It didn't take long before the power of the scepter burst through the Aether cloud that the Kursed had tried to use as a barrier. The Kursed refused to concede his fist swung ferally. He rendered blow after blow which the trickster quickly blocked with a flip up his wrist and the scepter.

Exhausted, but not defeated the Kursed grabbed hold of the middle of the scepter, but he and Loki held on to it in a mighty tug of war. The Kursed's burst strength caused Loki to be jerked and yanked about. As the two tussled over the scepter the Kursed continued to spew his venom. "You will die Loki! And you will die Loki of no one!" The Kursed proclaimed. He finally, brought up his flint foot and kicked Loki in the knees. Loki screamed out as his knee bent back and he fell. His hand still desperately clung to Gungnir.

The Kursed started to cackle as he noted that he had brought Loki to his knees. "Pathetic fool!" The Kursed shouted at him in his native tongue. "IT'S TOO LATE! YOU'RE TOO LATE TO STOP IT!" the Kursed roared as it looked up with one good eye. It watched as slowly the portals were starting to shift. Even though the portals were slowly starting to slip out of the alignment toxic upward red flow of Aether ash was already present and the worlds were being filled with the evil sludge.

Loki's own heart started to pound as he looked around and saw the huddled mass of Aesir in the throne room. He looked around for Thor, but he didn't see the thunderer riding high in the wind. The Kursed continued to taunt him from behind about how his universe would be extinguished and about how inevitable his defeat was, how the worlds would soon be his. The Kursed continued to demand the Tesseract. But Loki blocked out the Kursed's mocking voice. All he heard in the background was bar-bar-bar. There was one 1 minute to spare. Loki knew there was only 1 last hope for them all. He didn't know if it would work, but on all accounts, it shouldn't but he had to try. Loki reached his free hand back toward the T-shaped ship.

The molten monsters had nearly destroyed their own ship. Oil and water leaked from the fresh holes that they had blasted into the metal roof and floor. The whole machine was on the fritz. Lights flashed and sirens blared as the computer system started to announce that it was going into meltdown mode. The mothership's engines started clicking and whirling and gyrating. It was a failsafe that the Dark Elves put into their ship. If the ship started taking on too much of a beating, the ship would naturally start to retreat.

The Kurseds dived on top of Prince Thor. They crushed him with their boulder bodies each weighed a ton. They dogpiled him, but Prince Thor's lightning flickered and flashed beneath the rocky pile. Soon the streaks of bright white lightning once more broke through the dogpile rocketing the rocky beings off of him. Thor's body was battered and bruised. His muscles ached and twitched. He could scarcely move he had to persevere. Thor crawled toward where his hammer rested on a pedestal. The beautiful mallet was chained like a slave. He had to set it free. Thor's strong hands went to yank at the chains and fetters fell off of his weapon with ease. The brutes wasted no time they immediately went to brutalize the son of Odin once more. They kicked him with their feet, and they cut him up with their sharp black diamond toenails. Thor caught one of the Kursed's by the foot before it went to strike him again. Quick as a flash and with a shout that rumbled like thunder he tossed the creature through the roof that it had blasted a hole in. The Kursed flew into the red oblivion.

The two that remained rushed to Prince Thor. One fired a blaster, the other carried its machete. The one that had the blast fired an arbitrary shot. That shot hit the floor and the Kursed who was running with a machete that was hoping to cut off Prince Thor's hands, fell through the floor. The beast let out a ghastly mournful bellow as it fell. There was nothing but the Forever Sea raging below it. The Kursed managed to catch hold of the edge of the hole. It yelped and wailed in horror as the tempestuous waves lapped at it. As the Kursed was made of solid stone if it fell into the roaring waves, it would sink right to bottom. The Kursed called the others for help. The beady eyes of the Kursed who was carrying the blaster looked down at the other mutilated Dark-Elf whom it had once considered a friend. With but a moment to spare the Kurse made a split decision. It shot off another round of the vortex-forming blaster. It was aiming for Prince Thor and Mjolnir, but just then the T-shaped spaceship that was on the verge of a self-destruct swayed back and forth. This caused the Kursed to lose its balance. The warrior from Svartalfheim hopped on one foot as it tried to remain upright. Still, it wasn't paying attention to the fact that in its body's natural effort to maintain balance its arms shifted. Its blaster was now pointed downward and when it inadvertently pressed the trigger it launched a vortex that ate up the base of the ship. The vessel lurched again and the Kursed stumbled through the whole it had just created by Prince Thor's feet. As the Dark-Elf mothership continued to malfunction, it went into stealth mode. Normally, stealth mode only affected the outside of the ship, but because of the malfunctions, the whole ship had become invisible.

Prince Thor's hands madly scrambled, to grab hold of something that he couldn't see as he felt himself starting to slide into the hole that was near his feet. Thor's blue eyes looked all around. The only thing still visible on the ship was Mjolnir. Even the pedestal had vanished with the faulty stealth mode. Thor reached desperately toward the hammer. He lunged forward on his belly and caught hold of the handle just as the desperate Kursed grabbed hold of Prince Thor's legs to keep from falling into the violent waves below. "AHHHH!" Thor hollered as he felt the weight of the Kursed pulling him down. Still, Prince Thor's efforts hand to be on the hammer. He could not let the hammer be lost. The unwavering Kursed started to climb up the prince's back like it was a ladder. It was soon on Thor's back pulling his blonde locks and wrapping its molten arms around Thor's neck in a chokehold. Thor gritted and strained and screamed, but he did not let go of Mjolnir's hilt.

Soon, the hammer started to shake. Thor felt a powerful tremor. Thor's heart filled with glee. He tried to yank Mjolnir from the invisible pedestal, but it didn't lift in his hands. It was quite the opposite. Thor felt the hammer pulling against his grasp. "Not possible," the son of King Odin and Queen Frigga ground out between his teeth. He refused to let go of the weapon's hilt. It shook and finally, there was no stopping Mjolnir. There was no holding it back. Mjolnir took off. It pulled right from Thor's grasp.

Thor was forced to let go of his beloved Mjolnir and he watched it sail valiantly through the holes in the roof of the ship. "NOOOO!" bellowed the Kursed as it and Thor fell into the Forever Sea. Thor shut his eyes and smiled as the cold black water slapped his back. As he fell, he heard words echo in his mind. "Whosoever holds this hammer, If he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor," The Kurseds flapped and floundered frantically once they hit the ocean. They tried to swim, but the raging sea showed no mercy and swallowed them up.

Thor swam against the current. His eyes looked up. Against the turbulent red haze, he saw a blaze of lightning streak across the sky toward the palace. Thor's face was filled with elation. He raised two triumphant fists in the air. "HE'S WORTHY!" he shouted.

Malekith continued to spew his vehement word vomit at Loki. But as the Kursed ranted and raved Loki felt something cold and metal and solid slam against his palm. It gave him an electric jolt as he lifted it high in the air. Lightning erupted from the magnificent mallet Mjolnir that was held in the hands of the master mage of Asgard. The Kursed's one beady red eye opened wide when he heard the heavy thwack of Mjolnir hitting against the inside of Loki's palm. The Monster jumped to his feet and yelled in fury. "No!" he protested stomping his massive foot. His glowing red eye looked up once more. He saw how the Aether was still seeping upward into the Nine Realms. "Impossible!" he roared louder. He slammed two great fists against the tower and the panels flew off. "Convergence peak is not over!" He was gasping and panting.

Loki stood mouth gaping as he held the hammer in his hands. He looked up at the beautiful weapon as he always had with wonder and awe. His awe this time was not at its masterful craftsmanship or at the raw power that it contained. He did not stare at it in amazement for the fact that it was simultaneously solid as a rock, and it felt as light as a feather in his hand. He was holding Mjolnir? He was holding Mjolnir? He was holding Mjolnir. He was holding MJOLNIR!

Loki's gaping mouth slowly started to form a smile. His deep emerald eyes prickled with tears that weren't simply from the fact that the Aether ash was starting to swirl around him swifter and stronger in a wild assault. All his life he'd simply wanted to hold it and now he was. Loki was dumbfounded by this. It was a long shot; he had reached his hand back in a crazed act of rashness. Rash reactions were irrational, and he knew that. But these were desperate times and they had called for desperate measures. As he reached his hand back, he'd known how foolhardy his action had been. He was the last person in the Nine Realms who could conceivably be worthy of holding the hammer. Still, with all his might he had begged Yggdrasil and the kings of the past and the Norn's not to let this be the end for them. Ragnarök may have been certain so, but it didn't have to be today, this hour and it surely didn't have to be because of him. He knew he was unworthy to ask held from the all-fathers, he wasn't even truly an Asgardian, but inwardly he was groveling for aid for the people of the Nine realms.

When the lightning blast finished piercing through the thick veil of Aether Ash, Loki finally registered the Kursed's words. They came out hardly intelligible, he responded, "You're right it's not," Loki stated.

"You are not Thor!" the Kursed shouted as he sucked the Aether into him, it blew him up and he swelled with the power.

"No, I'm not," Loki's green eyes lit up as he continued to watch lightning explode from the hammer.

"No one can lift the hammer but Thor!" Malekith raged

"But Thor can't lift the hammer until Convergence is over, thanks to me," Loki's gem-colored eye winked. "But my curse never said it couldn't be wielded by another," Loki laughed to himself. "And as you stated...I'm not Thor."

"YOU'RE NO ONE! YOU'RE A DEAD MAN WHEN THANO GETS HIS HANDS ON YOU!" Malekith sent Aether shards off in every direction. He gripped the large horns on his head. He wailed and raged grabbing his head and crashing it against the spire of the tower and making the tattered flag that still was trying to fly high against the Aether winds fall down.

Loki shook his head. He then turned to the Cyclops and stared him in the eye with a steely gaze. "I am Loki Odinson and Son of Queen Frigga, I am the rightful king of Jotunheim, Prince of Asgard, Master Mage of the Realm"

"You're a flaming FOOL! You're a coward, a spineless weasel, and a traitor! The Hammer can do nothing! The Aether cannot be destroyed!" Malekith continued to bellow to the winds.

Loki deepened his smirk. "I don't have to destroy it, just stop it!" he winked. With that Loki raised both his arms straight into the air. He called forth the powers of both weapons. Mjolnir and Gungnir sent forth their bright beams in tandem toward the swirling vortex of the Aether that was entering the realm of Nornheim. The two energy beams radiated into the Aether stream with herculean potency. The blasts were so luminous that for a moment the scarlet haze was blotted out by the brilliance of unbridled electric voltage and solar flare. Malekith beheld as the force of the two great relics combined and it caused the funnel of furious crimson to break apart and retreat. Loki screamed out once more as he rendered the powers of both the hammer and the scepter. It was so much energy coursing through his veins, it was using his body like a conductor and piercing through his cells. He lit up like a tree on Solstice. He glowed as bright as a star while the blast took out the Aether pillar that was twirling its way into Alfheim.

"NOOOO! ENOUGH!" the Kursed squalled in horror as he watched the Aether shrivel and the portals to the realms slide out of the alignment. Malekith panicked as he beheld the Aether being driven back from more and more of the realms. He could take no more. He charged at Loki like a bilgeschnipe. He galloped and grunted foamed at the mouth just as Loki caused the Aether vortex that was headed for Midgard to go into stasis. Malekith lunged on top of Loki like a wild animal. He knocked him off of the top of the tower. "You will not defeat me!" Malekith growled from on top of Loki as they both tumbled down off of the tower. "I will defeat you or we will both die," he swore, and he vehemently started to rip Loki's tarnished golden armor off of his body. The metal flew off of him in shreds. Loki's arms were stretched out wide as if he was resting. His face was nearly in repose. "This is the end of the story of Loki, the runt, the orphan, the outcast, the fool, the pawn, the traitor, the monster," The Kursed spat as he finally ripped the last protective layer from around Loki's heart and went to strike.

"Maybe so," Loki breathed in deeply while they fell.

"Wipe that smug grin off your face!" the Kursed demanded as he clobbered Loki once more.

Loki's smile only broadened. "But you forgot something about me..." he added. "I'm all the things you said, but that's not the only thing I am..." The Kursed screamed and wailed on Loki. He pounded him on his exposed chest and face with one strong stony hand. "I'm Loki Odinson, Prince of Asgard..."
"AHHHHHHHHH!" the Kursed roared his rocky hand beating Loki as they descended.

"God of Mischief," he winked and snapped his fingers. There was a green flash and the trickster had instantly vanished. The Kursed was now freefalling solo. As he looked back up, he beheld Loki once more standing on the tower holding both Mjolnir and Gungnir. He let the full force of the weapons channel through him. He was all aglow with rippling lightning a burning sun beam as the powerful rays took out the last of the Aether funnels.

Utilizing both weapons at once took a great amount of concentration and energy, Loki had to call upon all of his magical reserves to control the powers of lightning and sun. At first, it was painful to have so much energy coming from him. He felt like a tea kettle on an open flame, bubbling and boiling and ready to burst, but all he could do was whistle for release. His whistle was an anguished holler. It was excruciating and exhilarating, he felt on fire and like a live wire. His heart beat wildly. He'd never felt it beat so fast. It was like all 8 of Sleipnir's hooves were running with the speed of light in his chest.

He was charged up to full capacity, but Loki didn't know for how long he could sustain so much power. Loki's brilliant emerald eyes were blinded by both potent beams. He could no longer see the darkness of Aether that had once penetrated everything. The crimson mist didn't exist. All he could see was the radiant rays. The rays danced with florescent colors of yellow, white, gold, blue, and light green. Loki continued to scream as the process was draining and as every fiber of his being seemed to be inundated by foreign powers, but the pain was almost good. It was like an exercise routine, one where one wears themselves out and the muscles ache, but it's worth it, knowing that the goal had been achieved. It was cleansing. The burn was like a rebirth. The blinding light was rejuvenating and amid the burning light, Loki saw wonderful sights. It was like shadows of the past played and danced in the illumination. He saw himself as a little boy sitting on Odin's lap in the throne room. He saw himself racing into Frigga's arms for tight embraces. She kissed him on his pale cheeks until they were red and she'd pull up his tunics and blow raspberries on his belly until he was nothing but a fit of squeals and giggles. He saw he and Thor, two tiny tykes playing on the floor with their toy soldiers and blocks and wooden swords. The adventures they shared in their worlds of make-believe were second only to the adventures they had in real life. He saw them around the Yule tree excitedly unwrapping gifts and singing songs. They'd race from the tree with their toys and into the kitchen and stuff their faces with sweets. He was reminded of the two crumb-covered faces and icing-painted lips. He saw them in the courtyard, playing ball and hide-and-seek, they tackled each other and wind up in a heap of giggles. and in the courtyard. He heard all the laughter that they'd shared so many times. He saw himself learning his craft. A young boy buried in his books, but happy with the discoveries contained within the tomes. He saw himself as his mother's pupil. Her patient instruction and encouragement kept him going despite the ridicule of others. He visualized the moment when he'd first revealed his magic to the court at a royal celebration. and he saw the pride on the faces of his family, his teachers and his friends. He thought of his friends, fighting by their sides, the many adventures he shared, the monsters they'd fought together and the cities they'd saved. The jokes and laughs sometimes at his expense, but somehow as he saw it now, he didn't feel embarrassment or shame, he felt warmth and camaraderie. He saw Dagmar, her silver eyes shining through in the mystic light. He saw her beauty, heard her laughter, felt her touch. He remembered the love he'd had for her. The night of passion they'd shared. He witnessed their first shy kiss and their last. He saw him and Thor fighting in the most amazing battles and being victorious, he could see the comradery they once shared. He saw them standing back-to-back and never fearing or faltering as they trusted in one another. Thor had been his best friend. He replayed the New Year's Eve Ceremony from long ago when he received his helmet, his eyes recalled the pride of that day. Many more exciting memories were reflected in the beams, but some things weren't memories at all. He saw the face of the little girl who he'd seen in the vision. A child who looked like Dagmar, a child who was dirty and scraggly and poor, but yet the sight of her made him glad. He saw Asgard and all her citizens, the festivals and celebrations the times when he was out in the cities and shires and among the people and he didn't see the scorn and ridicule that he'd sometimes felt, now in the rays all he saw was the moments of respect and honor that they'd given him over the centuries. He saw Lady Sigyn. He saw her beautiful face and the way she looked at him, in her eyes he was a hero. She saw her lips puckering to kiss her. "What's greater than a king?" her voice posed to him. "What's greater than a king?" her sweet voice asked again. "A hero," she finally answered him gently. Her face disappeared and once again his eyes only could behold the glow. "FOR ASGARD!" Loki screamed as the powers of Gungnir and Mjolnir shot through him.

In the stasis state, the Aether floated as a large red blob hovering just above the throne room. Lady Sif was in position. She was standing directly under the Aether blob as were the rest of the people from the Imperial City. She held the vial open. "It's too high up!" the warrior woman stated as she watched the sludge from below. Just then Prince Thor appeared at her side.

"Thor!" Lady Sif, the Warrior's Three, Lady Sigyn, Lady Jane, and other citizens who were standing around gasped in awe.

They wanted to rush up and hug him and undoubtedly the crown prince of Asgard wanted to hug them too, but there was no time. "Sif, give me the container," he practically demanded. Without hesitation, she gave it to him. She tossed it to him, and he caught it. "Jane, do you still have one of your reactor rods?" he asked, there was urgency in his tone. Jane quickly nodded and she handed it to him.

"Take the remote," Jane said as she shoved both pieces of equipment at him. There was not another moment to delay.

Thor jumped into the air wind blowing behind him that nearly left the rest of the citizens of Asgard toppled over like dominos. Thor ascended higher and higher into the air until he seemed like just one infinitesimal speck next to the enormous red blob that hovered angrily over the throne room. Thor raised the carefully crafted container toward the scarlet sludge. Slowly the Aether started to be drawn toward the vial. It was amazing how the ooze seemed to be magnetized toward going into the vial.

"It's working! It's working!" the citizens of Asgard exclaimed from below as they saw the massive amount of Aether Ash that had once engulfed every inch of the city be drawn together and sucked into the vial. They continued to watch as Loki struck devastating blows at the Aether clouds that were racing toward the realms. Still, all and all there was an anxious tension among the congregation of Aesir. No one could bring themselves to cheer just yet.

"Wait!" One citizen's voice rang out. "If that's Prince Thor," she began as she pointed upward toward the blonde-haired hero with a barely-there tattered cape billowing behind him. "Who is that?" she questioned as she pointed to the person on the roof holding Mjolnir.

"That's Prince Loki," the strong baritone voice of Master Heimdal announced. Heads swiveled as they turned and beheld Asgard's loyal gatekeeper, standing dirty and beaten in their midst.

Sigyn's eyes became wide, she ran up to Heimdal's side nodding and confirming his words. "He's right! He's right!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "It's Loki," she called out to the crowd.

Susurrous murmurs rose among the throng of royal subjects. They all looked at each other with disbelief and astonishment. "Loki?" they whispered back and forth to one another as they looked to the tower where the bright beams of light were radiating from.

More and more of the Aether was becoming contained. Just then, Thor heard a bellowing. He looked up and saw the form of the most horrific-looking Kursed careening toward him. The creature was red as fire and roaring as if it were on fire. It fell right through the blob of Aether. Since the Kurse was already full of the Aether's dark power the contact with the Infinity Stone did nothing to harm its form. It was actually, quite the opposite. While the Kursed fell the Aether tugged in two. The liquid flowed in different directions and some of it followed behind the Kursed being absorbed into its molten body. Soon, the Kursed's terrified screeching at his plummeting turned to raucous guffawing. Near mockery. Thor watched as the monstrosity laughed while the ooze was sucked into his nostrils and mouth and absorbed in his hands. "IT'S NOT OVER ODINSONS! IT'S NOT OVER!" he yelled triumphantly. He swelled like a tick with the Aether practically dripping forth from the cracks in his rocky skin. Thor zipped behind Malekith. His hands burst forth with lightning as he tried to attack the Kursed beast, but the leader of the Dark Elves seemed impervious to the blasts. Instead, he continued with his mockery. "Ragnarök cannot be stopped!" he shouted at Thor who was soaring next to him as he fell. "The Aether cannot be destroyed!" he told the Crown Prince of Asgard as he continued to have streams of the Aether enter into him.

Thor's sapphire eyes flickered with a flash of lightning. "No, but you can," Prince Thor declared. With that, Thor tossed the reactor rod right at Lord Malekith. The rod found itself lodged deep within the rocky crevices of the monster's chest. Kursed's inane cackling was without ceasing as he tried to pluck the reactor from his chest. It took a minute, but finally, the metal pole was dislodged from his chest. The Kursed quickly tossed the reactor aside. With its arrow-dynamic form, it quickly fell faster and was soon underneath him. With that, Thor took the remote that Jane had given him. The thunderer knew nothing of the science behind the arrow, but he knew he had to act quickly. He cranked up all the knobs and levers and dials of the remote. A great ripple was then created right underneath the Kursed. Malekith was so busy cackling like the fiend that he was that he didn't notice the ripple until it was too late.

His one beady, bloody eye bulged as he finally noted he was heading right for the wavy pattern created in the air. The big bolder limbs of the Kursed scrambled and flapped desperately against the pull of the gravity from the reactor. He started frantically shooting off shards of the Aether only to have them sucked up into the containment vial which Loki had invented. Malekith fell right through the ripple. "NOOOOOOO!" the Kursed bellowed before he disappeared into the ripple. The ripple instantaneously transported the Kursed to the Forever Sea. He dropped right in, and the raging black water swallowed up the Kursed and he sank. His stone form and heart were lost in the Forever Sea.

Thor returned to his position in the sky where the large blob of the Aether hovered in the air shaking and rumbling like toxic gelatin. Thor heard Loki let out a scream as with every last ounce of energy the master mage had he used it to channel the boundless powers of sun and lightning. The glow of both weapons took over his body as he used the powers completely and fully to drive Aether Ash from Asgard's skies. He spun both Mjolnir and Gungnir about in a circular motion breaking down every particle and causing it to move toward the rest of the Aether blob. Finally, there was a break in the hellish black and red clouds and the faintest sliver of a ray of light started to peak through. Slowly, the potent beams grew smaller until eventually, they stopped shooting forth from the weapons. The Aether dispersed and in an act of self-preservation it all rushed together in one large, red gloop that hung over the palace. It seemed to be exactly the size of one of the portals to the other realms. Though, slowly the portals were shrinking. Thor flew right underneath the gigantic Aether blob. He had the vial made of Everwood, fairy dust, and onyx stone. Thor opened the container up wide. His blue eyes beheld the liquid Infinity Stone ebb and flow and attempt to wiggle and squiggle and squirm. The powerful sludge was stubborn, but its resistance was futile. All of Asgard witnessed as the Reality Stone was sucked into the vial. Thor slammed the vial shut. Below him, he heard the ballistic roar of the crowd of Aesir. The were shrieks and whistles, hollers and hoots, sobs of joy and wild chanting and applause that rolled through the air like thunder. Thor descended toward the crowd of Aesir who awaited with jubilation in the throne room of the palace. He held up the small vial that contained the Aether in triumph.

On top of the tower, Loki swayed as trying to channel both energies had completely zapped him. He allowed Gungnir to fall from his hand and it rested on the floor of the tower. It clattered as it did. In his right hand, Loki still held the hammer, his emerald eyes could scarcely focus as he looked at the mighty hammer. For so long he'd wanted to hold it and now he finally had. His chest burned. He felt like his heart would burst. All of a sudden, the hammer felt very heavy in his hands. He couldn't bear its weight anymore. Loki's hand was ghostly pale and shook profusely with Mjolnir in its grasp. Finally, Loki's wrist went limp as did the rest of his body. Mjolnir fell from his clasp. The hammer went hurling downward with the fury of a meteorite. It was all ablaze as it shot downward. While Prince Thor was receiving the adulation of the congregation of the Imperial City, he caught the flaming metal mallet sailing downward out the side of his sapphire eye. Thor immediately stuck out his hearty hands and called forth the hammer. The crowd saw the hammer change its direction instantaneously and soared and swooped into the grasp of its rightful wielder. Upon seeing this the Asgardians went berserk!

"LONG LIVE THE HOUSE OF ODIN!" the Aesir cried ecstatically.

The enchanter took a deep sigh of relief, he heard the madcap raving of the people. Before the cries of Asgard had only been filled with sorrow and mourning and despair. Now finally, the sound that rose up from the city was exuberant. As his gem-colored eyes sparkled as they caught the sliver of sunlight that dared to peak forth from the midst of the dispersing Aether clouds Loki knew that Ragnarök was forestalled at least for now. " For Asgard," Loki finally uttered with a slight smile tugged on his thin bleeding lips as he collapsed.

The crowd started to sing the old hymn. Many dropped to the floor so overcome with emotion. They kissed the ground of the throne room even though it had been reduced to little but rubble. They grabbed each other and huddled together hugging and kissing and soon holding hands as their voices joined. "The Fates love Asgard, the beautiful, golden, the radiant, the fertile, the gentle and the blessed..." When the people sang, "One more longing backward glance!" their voices resounded with strength, fervor, resilience and victory.

That caused Thor to turn around. He started to call to Loki beckoning him to come forth and join the celebration with the rest of the people of Asgard, but when he turned around he didn't find Loki standing like a conqueror on top of the Southern Tower, his eyes quickly darted downward and he found Loki's tattered green cape blowing like a battered flag in the wind as he tumbled downward unconsciously.

Prince Thor took off like a shot. He used Mjolnir to propel him forward to catch Loki as he fell. The crowd parted or they were blown back by Thor as he came in for an abrupt landing carrying Loki's limp body. Thor placed Loki's body down on the cracked floor next to the broken mural of their family. "Loki?" Thor called tenderly to him. "Loki!" The crown prince of Asgard called once more, his voice was frantic. For a while, there was no answer. Thor placed his ear to the center of Loki's chest which was coated in armor. He didn't hear the rattle of his heartbeat against the golden breastplate. Thor's eyes were wide. "No, no, no," Thor muttered miserably as he finally took a look at Loki. His slender body was prone and still. Thor noticed the gaping wound on Loki's right side. It looked like the armor had been sawed right through. Blood poured out, but to Thor's surprise the blood wasn't the normal bright scarlet hue; it was a near onyx coloring. The same licorice blood flowed from his nostrils and spilled into his slightly parted mouth. Thor looked at Loki's skin. It was filthy, but everyone was dirty from the battle but beneath the dirt a grime Thor watched as Loki's color changed. No longer delicate porcelain, it was becoming a hard, steely blue color. The color was so rich it matched Thor's eyes. Thor looked at Loki's face intently and he watched as etchings and carvings of intricated design started to appear along Loki's forehead and chin. "Loki, Loki, Loki!" Thor repeated more desperately. His hands yanked the broken armor from off the dark-haired enchanter's still chest. "Don't do this," his voice whispered as he rested his heavy hands on the center of Loki's chest near his heart. He detected no beat.

For the time the Asgardians were relishing the fact that Ragnarök had been forestalled. They had been praising and leaping and dancing and singing. They were rushing out to one another, hugging and kissing one another. They were so full of ecstasy and jubilee that they hardly noticed what was taking place in their midst. As the pandemonium started to settle, the Warriors Three, Lady Sif, Jane, Sigyn and Heimdal went to look for Prince Thor. They wanted so desperately to scream and shout and revel with him in the moment of ultimate glory. As they rushed about the crowd calling his name, they finally found him, in the midst of the throng a circle slowly started to form around the pair. Sif's finger pointed them out and many in the crowd saw. "Oh no!" Volstagg muttered as he hung his head.

"Loki!" Sigyn shrieked as she saw him lying there. The blonde-haired lady-in-waiting to Queen Frigga started to rush up on them. She would have been right by Thor's side, but a tender, but tough hand the color of tree bark held her in place. His golden eyes were transfixed on the pair as well, but like a tree, he remained rooted to the spot.

Although Lady Sigyn had been stopped by Lord Heimdal's sturdy hand many of the warriors of Asgard continued to draw closer, their elation abruptly giving way to concern and worry. As they well knew. The thrill of victory never came without the agony of defeat. Prince Thor noticed the crowd drawing near. He quickly hyperventilated for a moment. "STAY BACK!" he thundered and all obeyed. Voices that had once been raised in joyous cheers and rowdy applause became nearly silent except for a few saying muffled prayers and whispering last rights for the enchanter who had been worthy enough to wield Thor's hammer. "Stay back! Stay back!" Thor echoed, his voice growing softer and more broken. His eyes stung with tears, that he refused to let fall. He wiped his eyes and raised the hammer. He didn't slam it down, but he allowed it to gently tap the center of Loki's chest. There was a streak of lightning that came from the weapon. Maybe Mjolnir had been zapped of all its energy after the incredible bout, but tiny sparks did fly, and Loki hiccupped one shallow breath.

The hammer fell by Thor's side as he reached to cradle Loki's head and prop him off. Loki coughed fitfully and weakly all at once. Like he couldn't catch his breath. His heavy eyelids batted open ever so languidly, he looked around as best he could, but everything was a slurry blur. A face swam in and out of focus in his visage. "Th-th-th-thor," he choked out as black blood bubbled up from his lungs and spewed out his mouth.

The golden-locked son of Odin bobbed his head, his words lost for a moment though lips were moving. He instinctively tightened his grip on Loki's shoulders trying to prop him up to ease his discomfort. "I'm here...I'm here, Loki," Thor's words finally came out. "I need a healing crystal!" the thunder called over his shoulder to the crowd in desperation. Loki was still profusely bleeding from his side. All of a sudden, the was a murmur that sounded like a roar as the multitude of citizens from the Imperial City scrambled to find a single healing crystal among them.

"Thor?" Loki croaked out a whisper.

"Loki, don't talk," Thor commanded softly. "Save your strength and energy," Thor instructed. "I need a crystal!" the prince bellowed once more, but his eyes didn't leave Loki.

Loki's sharp features quirked; maybe he was trying to smile, but it came out as a wince and then he let out a pained cough. He violently coughed up black blood. Loki's eyes batted slowly. "No-n—n-no set-str-strength to save...I...I...I feel so weak," the words loosely tumbled from Loki's severe blue lips.

Thor shook his head. His golden lashes batted back the liquid that pricked his eyes. "Weak?" he laughed and even a soft laugh from the eldest son of Odin sounded like a roar. "Weak? Weak! That's nonsense! You just held Mjolnir," Thor pointed out as he lifted the hammer before Loki's eyes. "No weak person could do that," he reminded him. "You're strong! You're so strong," he reminded him. Thor made a muscle with his arm. "You're going to be ok, you're going to get help," Thor stated. He turned around and looked at the crowd gathered around. He saw the people with dour expressions, but he didn't see any healing crystals. Heimdal dropped his gaze when their eyes met, and Jane Foster was clutching her hand to her heart mouthing apologetic words. "Loki? Can you...you heal yourself?" Thor prompted.

Loki's eyes were like bright rubies rolling about in his cobalt cranium, they struggled to stay focused. Loki tried to concentrate on Thor's words but even that seemed to require too much effort. He couldn't imagine actually using magic now. Loki's palm stretched to try to touch his bleeding side. Thor watched hopefully as he saw a dim lime-colored light coming from his palm, but it flickered like a candle and was quickly extinguished. Loki's face looked pained from even the small attempt; frozen beads of sweat formed across his brow from the feeble effort. "No...no...no... Thor...I'm so tired," he barely managed to express.

"I know...I know," the blonde stated. "You'll rest soon. We'll all rest soon," he promised. "But for now, we have to stay awake," Thor encouraged. Thor could hardly bear to look at Loki. He looked so fragile, like an ice sculpture. It seemed as if more and more black blood oozed from Loki's nose and mouth and side and Thor was concerned, he would bleed out. Desperate, the Aesir prince pressed his hand toward Jotun's side to try to stop the deadly flow. As his hand came in contact with the blood, he immediately retracted it as it gave a terrible frost burn to the Aesir flesh.

"D-d-don't...Thor...don't," Loki shook his head.

"Shhh!" Thor practically scolded. "GET HELP!" the crown prince of Asgard shouted. "HE NEEDS HELP!" he yelled and blubbered. Soon a few Aesir started trying to run off in different directions, searching for a healing crystal or vial of elixir. Lady Sigyn, Sif and the Warriors Three rushed about at the behest of their crown prince to help their dying friend.

The trickster let out a small chuckle, and more blood spewed through his nostrils from the tiny guffaw. "n-n-no joke this time," Loki replied. He heard the chant many times before. Thor always acted it with such passion and earnestness that all fell for it. It was amazing to think that this time the desperate plea came from the crown prince's mouth with an even more frantic tremor. There was an urgent, demanding sound that seemed to force obedience out of all who heard it. "Thor...Thor...please...I'm...so-sorry...I'm s-s-sorry," the dark-haired enchanter started. His eyes were wide, and his voice was as sturdy as it could be under the circumstances. "I'msorryimsorrysimsorry," he mumbled practically deliriously. Loki's red eyes shot open once more trying to focus on Thor. His body seized up in pain. "I...I...I...I didn..mean...I never...meant for I...to go this far," Loki explained. It was a feeble excuse he knew. It didn't change what he had done, but it was the truth. It seemed like a lifetime ago when he'd let the Frost Giants into Asgard. It was merely a prank to spoil Thor's day...but somehow his mirthful mischief had spiraled into madness and mayhem, and he'd been powerless to stop it. He'd spiraled out of control, drunk on his own rage and addicted to a futile quest for power. He had no excuse, but... "Ididnwan...Ididnwan...Ididnwan," Loki's silver tongue slurred as more seizures overtook his shivering form.

"I know...I know," Thor nodded and there was such understanding. "Shhh...don't talk..." he urged once more. Loki's icy flesh had been a bright azure, but Thor watched with horror as even that color dissipated, and it turned shades of grey.

"Please!" Loki practically yelped. Tears trickled from the corner of bloodshot eyes. The tears were hot and seared icy flesh. "Forgivemeforgivemeforgivemeforgiveme, please," Loki begged. Loki was panting, struggling to breathe. His shaking hand clung desperately to Thor. "I...I...I... I don't...want...to...die...and think...I lost my brother," Loki looked at Thor pleadingly.

Thor shook his head; his golden locks slapped him in the face. He bent his face down closer to Loki's. "You freed me, you fought for Asgard. You wielded Mjolnir. You saved us all," the thunderer explained. "You're a hero, Loki!" Thor tried to shout, but his normally loud voice somehow got caught in his throat. "You're...you're my hero," the prince whispered with a tear in his eye.

Loki tried to suck in a sharp breath, but he couldn't get in enough air. His lungs were damaged by the Aether. He let out a raspy pained sigh, "I'm...I'm...I'm jussslike you...now...huh...bro-brother?" Loki smirked. He posed it as a question, hopeful like a little boy all of a sudden longing to be Thor's equal, but more so longing to know they could be family once again.

"All of Asgard saw that...you don't have to ask for forgiveness. I already forgave you...so long ago," Thor couldn't hold back his own tears. "You can never lose me Loki. You're my best friend... brother...my blood brother... you hear," Thor assured him as Thor's hot salt tears spilled down onto Loki's face, the pallor of his skin slowly turning ashen. The splashes of tears slipped into the creases of the carvings on Loki's face and stung. Loki hissed, but he smiled as he tried to make his eyes focus on Thor's face. Though there was sorrow housed in his eyes, there was also joy and pride and it had been a long time since that had truly been shared between them. Thor's hands fumbled as they broke contact with Loki's icy flesh for but a moment. He slipped something off of his finger and onto Loki's. It was something cold and something familiar. He attempted to raise Loki's hand to his red eyes so that he could catch a glimpse of the ring.

Loki's red eyes struggled to stay open, but he caught sight of the crude ring around his finger. Though the craftsmanship was amateurish the piece was priceless. Loki's cracked lips managed to smile, his teeth had black blood trickling between them, and he continued to cough and shudder vehemently, "Hhhhooww?" Loki questioned.

"It was my brother's," Thor expressed with a smile. "I kept it for him while he was lost' Thor replied with a watery smile. "Now, he's found! I can't lose him again," Thor said shaking Loki a bit. "Please, Loki stay with me," he begged. "We'll get you a healing crystal..." Thor nodded as he looked around for one.

"I...I...deserve this..." Loki managed to say as he pressed his hand on the blood that poured from right under his rib cage..." deserve...to...die..."

"No!" the blonde refuted.

"I...don't...deserve...a bro-ther...like...you...but"

"Oh well," Thor shrugged massive shoulders and tried to maintain a watery grin. "You've got one!" Thor nodded vigorously. He snatched one of Loki's daggers from his belt. "You're my blood... you're part of who I am... and that can't be changed," Thor quickly cut his own palm with the sharp blade.

"Don't," Loki gasped, but it was too late, the cut had been made in his hand and he pressed his bloody hand into Loki's bloody side. The two bloods mingled. Thor screamed as it burned his whole arm with frostbite.

"I love you, brother" Thor mouthed...

"I...I..." Loki's silver tongue grew weaker and slower.

"Loki!" a shrill voice shrieked. The voice came burrowing through the crowd. The crowd quickly parted letting the desperate woman through.

"The queen!

"The queen!"

"Your Majesty!

"Queen Frigga!" The Aesir mumbled as the royal woman pushed through their ranks. Queen Frigga didn't even hear them. Her eyes were solely focused on Loki! The queen of Asgard tripped over her dress as she slid forward toward Loki.

"Loki! Loki! Loki!" she shouted his name as tears ran like a waterfall down his face. She crawled next to Loki and cradled his head in her lap. She could see how shallow his breathing was, feel how hard his heart was working. His eyes barely fluttered open to see her face.

"M-m-mother?" Loki queried as blood bubbled up from his lungs.

Queen Frigga nodded, "Yes, yes, my baby, I'm here...mother's here...oh my love, my heart, you're alright. Mistress Eir! Hurry!" Queen Frigga shouted.

"Imsorrysorrysorry,"

"Shhh!" Frigga soothed him, her hands ran through his mud-caked ebony tresses. "It's ok...it's over... it's over...you saved us, you saved us," she assured him. "Oh, my son... I saw you... I saw what you did," she reminded him. "I'm so proud of you, Loki" she told him and "I never gave up on you" she bent down and kissed his black mane.

"How?" the younger son of Queen Frigga asked.

"I always knew who you were," she confirmed as she stroked his hair. Her lips tried to hold a smile despite the tears that were running down her face. "I've always known," she continued to nod. "Since I first held you in my arms," she reminded him.

"Who?" Loki asked if only to hear the voice of his mother one more time.

"My son," her voice cracked and quivered. "Odinson," she went on. "A great warrior, a mighty mage... a prince of Asgard," she whispered to him her hand on his chest as she could see he was struggling to breathe. "A hero," she told him.

"Mother. Brot-ther." Loki tried to speak his words were punctuated with coughs and blood spewed out of his mouth. His blue hands trembled as she tried to reach for theirs.

"Shhh. Shhh..." Frigga cooed. "EIR!" she shouted to the master healer.

Loki shook his head weakly in protest. Gray/blue eyelids flapped wearily over his reddish eyes. "Need...t-t-to...tell...y-y-y-ou," he tried to articulate through shudders and shivers and gasping breath. Queen Frigga could see how much of a struggle it was for Loki to speak. It broke her heart to see his silver tongue nearly silenced. She placed her ear near his frostbitten lips and prepared to hear his words, but she heard nothing. Loki's skin was gray and he was still.

"I am here, my lady," reported Mistress Eir as she hobbled forward. "I have healing water, my queen," she said as she revealed a tiny wineskin that contained the mystic liquid. She knelt down by Loki's side and poured the water into the wound, but it seemed like a tiny drop in comparison to the gaping hole. "His wounds are so great... I don't know if this is enough water," the master healer whispered to the queen and prince. "I need a crystal," she expressed.

Queen Frigga and Prince Thor looked at each other with panic in their eyes. Loki's body started convulsing violently. Eir tried to ease his seizure, Queen Frigga tried to sing to him a soothing lullaby and Thor held him tight. Then all at once the raven-haired enchanter became stock still. "LOKI! LOKI! LOKI!" Thor bellowed as he shook Loki's thin shoulders. Loki's mouth hung open and his red eyes stared blankly at the sky.

Eir pressed her fingers against his neck and wrists. "I'm sorry, Your Majesties," the greatest healer in Asgard muttered.

Queen Frigga shook her head. "No! No! NOO!" she wailed and wailed.

"Loki...brother," Thor moaned as he draped his arm across Loki's lifeless form for one final embrace and he wept on Loki's chest that held no heartbeat.

Master Heimdal observed it all. "Farewell, Your Highness," he said mournfully, and then he dutifully and loudly recited the last rites. His deep voice echoed throughout the nearly silent throne room, but soon he was not alone as all the Aesir who were present began repeating the solemn words. The hum of their chant was interrupted by the sound of thunderous, pounding hoofbeats that came racing into the throne room.

Heads swiveled as they watched a mighty black stallion rear on four hind legs and kick four front legs in the air. The congregation recognized the magnificent steed immediately. "Sleipnir," they mumbled amongst themselves. The name of the legendary horse moved through the crowd like a rustling wind. A regal figure dismounted from the eight-legged horse's back. Upon seeing him the whole congregation was stunned into silence. The Aesir were so overwhelmed by the sight that most couldn't bring themselves to say a word. Normally, they would have cheered and extolled his name, but after all they had witnessed the only action that seemed appropriate was a bow. And like a wave, the citizens of Asgard bowed low and deep before the figure. They got down on their knees and some even kissed the ground as he walked by. The people made way for him immediately.

He didn't seem to pay any heed to the children of Asgard. It was uncustomary for him not to give some acknowledgment to his royal subjects, but his one eye was focused. He reached Heimdal and stood by the side of the guardian of the Bifrost. He looked on at the Queen of Asgard and the crown prince bewailed unabashedly over the body of an enemy, a traitor, a dictator.

"My King," the gatekeeper was elated to see his liege, but his heart broke at what he had witnessed. His tone only could maintain its somberness.

"What troubles you gatekeeper?" he asked. The monarch looked around. The palace was decimated, but though golden and resplendent it was just a building and could be rebuilt. The skies were rolling back their clouds and a glimmer of sunshine was there. "The day is won," he stated.

"It is sire, without a moment to spare and at great cost,"

"At great cost to the house of Odin," a silent tear traveled down the weathered cheek and into the gray beard from a gray-blue eye.

He stepped forward closer to the royal family. He stood next to his beloved wife. She looked up at him and her face was like a fountain. "Oh, Odin! Odin! Odin!" she cried. She wrapped her arms around his legs. "Did you see what your son did? Did you see what your son did for you?" she begged him as she clung to his tunics.

"I saw what he did for all of Asgard," he told her.

"We have it! We have a crystal!" The Warriors Three, Lady Sif, and Sigyn shouted excitedly in silence as they came racing in.

Lady Sigyn was the one carrying the crystal, but she dropped it and let it roll to the floor when she saw what had transpired. "Loki?" she asked, her voice trembling. "NO!" she shrieked and covered her mouth.

The crystal rolled right by the king's feet; he scooped it up. He stuck out his hand and summoned Gungnir. The scepter flew from the top of the Southern Tower and into the king of Asgard's palm. "Stand back!" he ordered, and he drew his wife from his knees. The Warriors Three had to drag Thor away from his brother's body. Lady Sif cradled Sigyn, the queen's handmaiden couldn't even stand. Odin tossed the healing crystal high in the air and then blasted it with Gungnir. The crystal shattered into a million pieces, but from the blast came a beam of rainbow light that surrounded the younger son of Odin.

A/N: HELLOOOOO READERS! Omg you made it! You made it to the end of the chapter and what I call the true climax of this tale. Give yourself a round of applause, give yourself a pat on the back. Go and feel free to give yourself any leftover Christmas cookies on me lololl. I can't believe that we have gotten this far. From Chapter 1 to this story almost being done. We've come a long way and so have these characters. Some of you have been with me since day one and I hope that this chapter gave you what you were looking for. If you have been reading this story for all these many chapters then you have definitely earned the right to leave a review and let me know what you think after all I've been writing it for you :D (and me too) hehehe. I only plan to write to more chapters before I close the book on this story. But n from you would be a wonderful Christmas/ bday gift ;) (January is my bday month!)

PS: A new year brings new possibilities and dreams. God has certainly blessed each and every one of us to see 2024 and I know He has great things in store. We all have seen the pain and devastation that has happened in different parts of the world in 2023, some of us may have also gone through personal hardships in 2023, but I pray that this year brings you peace, love, joy, success, and health. Know that Jesus Loves You

God bless,

Kalimecat