Loki stood on the balcony, staring absently down at the bustling street below. It was almost time to see Thor again, but this time in the arena, and with Sif at his side, someone who couldn't stand him at the best of times.
He sighed heavily, regretting how things had gone on Asgard, his manipulations, his deceptions. Thanks to the Mind Stone, he could see things with a new clarity, recognizing the cycle he had trapped himself in.
How he craved validation and recognition, and when rejected, used chaos and manipulation to gain control, then inevitably lost it all when he let his ego get the better of him, only to do it all again, over and over again, never learning from his mistakes, never growing.
"Master," Carol said as she walked out to join him on the balcony. "It's almost time. Are you ready?"
"As ready as I will every be," Loki replied, turning to face his slave, a serious expression on his face. "You will do as Proxima commands," he said, leaving no room for argument.
"I will," Carol promised, knowing Loki couldn't afford to get distracted while fighting two Asgardian warriors, and dealing with whatever the Grandmaster would throw at him. "I promise I'll do what she says."
Loki nodded just as the door swung open, and Topaz walked in with ten of the Grandmaster's guards at her back.
He studied each guard carefully. Even combined they were no threat to him, let alone with Proxima beside him, but he had to allow them to believe they were so as not to tip off the Grandmaster.
"W-what is the meaning of this?" he stammered, looking shocked, but trying to hide it under false bravado.
"It's time," Topaz smirked, eager to see the arrogant fool put in his place.
"Already?" Loki asked, making his eyes go wide.
"The crowds are looking for blood. Try not to disappoint them," she said, smiling vindictively.
"Take them," she said, directing half the guards to Proxima and Carol. "The Grandmaster is waiting for them."
"Wait just a moment," Loki said with false bluster. "You can't just take my property!"
"The Grandmaster doesn't want to waste any more time than necessary," Topaz replied, as if the battle were already decided. "But you have nothing to worry about. Should you win, the Grandmaster will keep his end of the bargain, and return what is yours."
Loki nodded to Proxima, who clipped the leash to Carol's collar before the guards escorted them out.
This was the riskiest part of the plan, Carol being separated from him, but with the Mind Stone he could at least keep tabs on her in case the Grandmaster double-crossed him before the fight even took place.
"Let's go," Topaz said, shoving him to the door as the remaining guards surrounded him, leading him to the arena.
***
Carol stuck close to Proxima as they walked into the arena, already hearing the roar of the crowds as the preliminary battles took place.
The arena was massive, packed with alien species from dozens of worlds, many of which she knew nothing about.
She could see more than a few looking at them, their eyes lingering, but with Proxima and the Grandmaster's guards forming a tight circle around them, they kept a wide berth.
They climbed three sets of staircases around the winding structure, then an elevator, before finally reaching the top floor, which served as the Grandmaster's luxury box.
She looked around, not surprised by how extravagant and over the top it was with glowing lights, polished marble floors, and even a statue of the Grandmaster in the center of the room.
On a raised dais, the Grandmaster sat in another throne-like chair, giving him the perfect vantage point of the arena below.
"This way," a guard said gruffly, pushing them towards the empty seats on either side of the Grandmaster's throne.
Proxima reached out faster than the guard could react, grabbing his wrist the moment before he touched Carol, and twisted, an audible snap filling the room before he went down screaming, clutching his broken wrist.
The rest of the guards were on them in an instant, their weapons raised as Carol looked at them wearily, while Proxima stared them down with an almost bored expression on her face.
"On your knees!" one of the braver guards shouted. "Or we will fire!"
"Enough!" the Grandmaster said, rising from his seat as he made his way over to them, an almost jubilant expression on his face as he saw how Proxima handled his guard as the rest of his guests fell silent. "What's happened here?"
The same guard from before spoke, only to stop suddenly when the Grandmaster glared at him.
"Your guards touched that which does not belong to them," Proxima replied simply, practically daring the Grandmaster to challenge her.
The Grandmaster smirked, throwing his head back and laughing a second later. "Marvelous! You have no fear at all for me, do you, my dear?"
Carol shrank back, stepping closer to Proxima, the sound of his laughter chilling her to the bone. It sounded cheerful, even delighted, but she knew better.
She had seen that look enough times to know the difference, to see the madness just beneath the surface. The kind that allowed him to justify anything he did or said, and the frightening ability to enforce his will on almost anyone.
She saw him for what he truly was — a dangerous primordial being that saw anyone and everyone as his playthings.
He wasn't here in this place by accident, or by happenstance. The people he ruled over lived in squalor because he chose it, because it amused him.
Games of chance and skill, the arena, his hedonism, the illusion of free will he granted the gladiators, the elusive hope of freedom, it was all a carefully crafted trap so he could have what he truly desired, watching the light leave someone's eyes as they took their final breath.
"Take that out of here," the Grandmaster said, casting a contemptuous look at his guard, still groaning in pain. "He's ruining the ambiance," he added as the remaining guards snapped to attention and dragging him out.
"This way," he said, gesturing to the chairs beside his throne, returning his attention to Carol and Proxima. "You may watch your soon to be former master from the best seats in the house," he boasted as the conversations slowly resumed.
Proxima gave Carol's leash a tug, shaking her out of her stupor as they made their way to their seats.
Carol couldn't stop herself from trembling as they stepped closer, and closer to the Grandmaster, shaking like a leaf as she stared up at him, feeling a deep undercurrent of fear without Loki by her side.
She stopped short as they reached the stairs, forcing Proxima to pull on her leash to get her moving again.
She took a shaky breath as Proxima took her seat on the left of the Grandmaster, wishing Loki was here with her, instead of down in the arena.
Just as she stepped past Proxima, she felt her bodyguard wrap her fingers around her wrist, pulling her down to the floor between her legs.
Carol let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as relief flooded her, even as she felt the cold stone floor against her skin.
She looked up at Proxima silently, grateful for her intervention, then at the Grandmaster, expecting to find a furious expression on his face, but saw only the same cold amusement in his eyes before he turned his attention to the arena below.
She felt another wave of dread, one she couldn't explain, and before she even realized it, she looked up at her bodyguard pleadingly.
Proxima stared down at the little slave, running her fingers through her hair as she pushed Carol's cheek against her thigh.
'Needy little thing,' she thought, but with amusement rather than anger as she saw another avenue to help the slave understand her place.
The little slave had visions of ruling by Loki's side, giving orders, fighting in battle. She needed to be stripped of those illusions before she could understand her place, her true nature.
While Carol held the power of the Infinity Stones, they didn't belong to her, nor could she command them. The distinction was what she had yet to understand.
Carol stared down at the arena below, watching as Loki stepped out into the yard. She heard the announcer hyping up the crowd, their thunderous applause growing louder with each word he spoke, but she paid no attention to it.
She didn't dare look up at the Grandmaster, but she knew he knew the truth.
He knew about her, about the Infinity Stones, who Loki really was, and who his brother was. She didn't know when or how he figured it out, only that he did, and that he allowed this battle to take place despite all that, playing a game only the two of them knew was being played.
***
Loki looked up at the luxury box, sensing Carol's distress, but couldn't pay it any more attention as the doors on the other side of the arena opened and Thor and Sif stepped out, ready for battle.
Staring at both of them, they seemed to had been here for sometime, far longer than should have been possible.
Neither of them wore their Asgardian armor, and Thor now sported a shorter haircut, both of them looking like they'd been here for months, possibly even years.
He frowned, knowing that it hadn't been nearly that long since Asgard fell.
"YOU!!!" Thor shouted, a look of pure rage crossing his face as he hurled his sword the moment he recognized him.
"Damn it," Loki thought exasperated, watching Thor's sword spin end over end as it flew at his chest, wishing that just once things could be easy with his oaf of a brother.
He leaned to the side, watching out of the corner of his eye as the point of Thor's sword embedded in the wall behind him.
He turned back just in time to see the same murderous expression on Sif's face as she roared, jumping high into the air, using the sun to obscure his vision as she drew her bow, sending a hail of arrows at him while Thor charged him, drawing a mace from over his shoulder.
Loki pulled out his daggers in a flash as Sif's arrows drew closer, grudgingly approving of her strategy.
He deflected her arrows before they could skewer him, sparks raining down around him as metal struck metal, and the broken arrows landed harmlessly around him, forming a loose circle.
Loki shot Sif an exasperated look, but could do nothing else before as closed the gap between them, swinging his mace in a relentless barrage.
Despite Thor's rage he could tell his brothers time in the arena hadn't been wasted, noting how much faster he had become, his attacks far more accurate, forcing him to not only dodge, and deflect his attacks but also scramble backwards as it quickly became clear Thor was going for the kill, rather than just maiming him.
It put him at an unfortunate disadvantage, not only because he was unwilling to do the same but also because he couldn't risk injuring Sif or Thor, not with the looming threat of the Grandmaster hanging over all their heads.
His luck finally ran out when Thor hammered him in the chest with a spartan kick, sending him flying back, rolling end over end across the loose sand until he slammed into the stone wall of the arena, a spiderweb of cracks forming behind him.
He groaned, looking up as Sif sent another hail of arrows at him. 'Where the hell is she keeping all those?' he thought, quickly growing exasperated as he threw himself to the side at the last second, feeling an arrow glance off his chest plate as he did with a loud ping.
He tore his eyes away from Sif as she landed on the ground, this time watching as Thor retrieved his sword, charging him again.
The distraction nearly cost him his life as another arrow flew at him, much faster than before. He deflected it with his dagger, the power behind the attack more than enough to pierce his chest plate this time.
He looked from one side of the arena to the other, Thor running at him from one direction as Sif slowly stepped forwards, notching another arrow and firing.
He raised his dagger again, deflecting the arrow just in time, but felt the increased power of the attack, realizing Sif's strategy.
She'd worked out that her hail of arrows were too slow, and lacked the power to do any lasting damage to him, but with a single arrow she could put far more power into them, make them fly that much faster, and with his attention split between her and Thor it was only a matter of time before one of her arrows slipped through his guard.
'Two can play at this game,' he thought, sending a group of illusions at Sif, hoping that with her distracted, he could get through to his brother.
He watched out of the corner of his eye, unable to keep the smirk off his face as Sif ignored his illusions, believing them to be the same intangible ones he'd used in the past, only to be caught by surprise when one of them cracked her in the jaw with the hilt of their dagger, sending her crashing to the ground.
Sif drew her sword, spitting out a glob of blood as she dropped her bow before charging Loki, well aware of his ability to switch places with his illusions, and knowing she had to act quickly before he switched places again.
She grinned savagely, feeling resistance as she slashed him with her sword, reveling in the shocked look on Loki's face as he looked down at his chest, blood pouring from his wound.
'It's fatal,' she thought, and for once there was no escaping it, but when Loki's look of shock morphed into a sly grin, she knew something had gone terribly wrong.
A sudden explosion of pain struck the back of her head, sending her crashing to the ground, taking in a mouthful of sand.
She curled herself into a ball as six pairs of feet kick at her back, shoulders and legs relentlessly, preventing her from getting back to her feet.
"SIF!" Thor shouted, coming to a stop, his rage forgotten at how quickly Loki had neutralized her, leaving him wondering what to do. Continue forward to attack Loki, or go the other way and save Sif?
"I don't want to hurt you. Either of you," Loki called out, holding up his hand. "Just listen."
"I will NEVER fall for another one of your tricks, Loki!" Thor snarled. "NEVER!" he roared, his rage returning as he heard his brother's voice for the first time in almost a year.
"Keep your voice down, you fool," Loki hissed.
"Why?" Thor growled. "You consigned our people to death! No," he corrected himself. "You're no brother of mine! Not after what you've done!"
Sif groaned as she lay on the ground. Loki's attacks hurt, but he still hadn't gone for the kill even though the advantage was his, nor had he gone for any debilitating injuries, even though he had multiple opportunities to do just that.
She pushed the thought out of her mind as she struggled to her knees. Loki had a plan, just as he always did, and she didn't need to understand it in the heat of battle to know that she couldn't allow him to succeed.
"Stay down, Sif," one of Loki's illusions said in a measured tone. "I don't want to hurt you," he added as his other illusions ripped away the rest of her weapons, then held her by the arms and shoulders, forcing her to stay on her knees as they held a dagger to her throat.
"You will listen to what I have to say," Loki replied, nodding in Sif's direction.
"Another one of your illusions," Thor spat, dismissing it. "Nothing more than smoke and vapor."
"That was then, this is now," Loki said, creating another illusion that appeared behind Thor, kicking him in the back of the knee, and sending him to the ground.
Thor, true to his warrior training, rolled with the attack, grappling with his illusion, landing heavy punches to its kidneys, chest, and neck as they rolled in the dirt, taking an equal amount of attacks until Loki's illusion finally collapsed.
Thor looked up startled as Loki stood over him.
"Satisfied?" Loki demanded. "I could have killed you and Sif ten times over by now. Consider why I haven't!"
"No!" Thor roared, kipping back to his feet, and sending Loki staggering back with a well-placed uppercut. "You sent him!" he shouted, charging at Loki again.
Loki ducked down low, sweeping Thor's feet from underneath him, sending him sprawling to the ground as he took a step back, having no desire to get into another wrestling match with Thor, who despite everything was still physically stronger than him.
Thor growled, hammering his fist against the sand as he got back to his feet, grudgingly accepting that Loki's skills had improved in his absence.
"I didn't send him!" Loki shot back. "I didn't think he would come," he said more quietly.
"You expect me to believe that?" Thor demanded, his sword and mace forgotten as he attempted to pummel Loki to death with his bare hands.
Loki dodged and weaved through Thor's attacks, thankful that in his brother's rage he had reverted to the simpler fighting style he used in their youth, one he knew well, and exactly how to counter.
'Jab, cross, hook, kick, backhand,' Loki thought as Thor attacked, frowning as he noticed Thor telegraphing his moves far more than he should have been, his eyes widening a fraction too late as he realized Thor of all people had just played him.
Faster than he thought possible, Thor hurled a bolt of lightning at him, striking him in the chest and throwing him backwards, then jumped into the air at the same moment, grabbing him as they flew backwards.
With the electricity flowing through his body, his muscles spasmed painfully, making it impossible to defend against Thor as he grabbed his collar, hammering punches into his face and chest before finally kneeing him in the head.
The first hit stung, the second hit made him see stars, and the final one bloodied his nose.
He rolled across the dirt, coming to an undignified stop as he looked up into the sky, wondering what he had to do to get through to Thor only to see his boot coming down on his head.
Loki quickly rolled out of the way, barely avoiding Thor's booted foot that would have caved in his skull.
"I had to make a choice," Loki said, trying again to make Thor see sense as he returned to dodging Thor's attacks, this time much more carefully. "Thanos was coming. There was nothing I could do to change that."
"You made the wrong choice," Thor growled, throwing another right hook.
"And what would you have me do?" Loki demanded, feeling his arm sting as he blocked the punch.
"Send them somewhere else! Anywhere else! Not to our home!" Thor roared.
"It wouldn't have mattered," Loki replied. "He would have found them anyway. I sent them to you and Father because I thought that's where they would at least have a fighting chance!"
Thor roared even more furiously, throwing another punch. "DO NOT CALL HIM THAT!! You are not his son! You never were!"
"I am his son, brother! In more ways that even I knew at the time!" Loki replied, trying to get through to him as he dodged the attack.
"I'm tired of your games!" Thor growled, lunging at Loki again, raising his arm to throw another lightning bolt.
Loki growled, losing his own temper as he grabbed Thor's wrist, pulling hard, and throwing off his balance as he delivered a sharp jab to his armpit, then his ribs before using Thor's own momentum against his and flipping him over onto his back.
"It's no game!" Loki shouted. "Father didn't just take me from Jotunheim. He made me his blood."
"More lies," Thor spat, getting back to his feet, but more slowly this time as he favored his right side.
"To what end?" Loki demanded. "What is my advantage in lying to you now? Why would I come all this way to find you?"
"It's too late," Thor hissed. "Whatever it is you are up to, it's too late! Asgard is gone! Our people are gone! There is nothing left!"
"No," Loki shook his head. "I know about Hela. I know what's happening to Asgard, and while we can't save our home, we can at least save our people."
Thor laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "It's all gone Loki, everything. Hela refused to evacuate. Asgard is gone, and our people with it."
"No," Loki shook his head, furrowing his brows. "We still have time. Father wouldn't have warned me otherwise."
"Father?" Thor asked, now just as confused as Loki. "What? When did you…"
"Later," Loki dismissed. "It's too long a story to tell now. How much time has passed since you arrived here?" He asked, getting a sneaking suspicion of where Thor and Sif's anger had come from.
"Almost a year," Thor replied.
"Of course," Loki said, kicking himself for not considering the possibility sooner. "Hela threw you off the rainbow bridge. Traversing between realms that way isn't always linear."
"What are you saying, brother?" Thor asked, feeling an inkling of hope.
"It hasn't been a year," Loki explained.
"How long?" Thor demanded.
"A few months," Loki replied.
"If you're lying…" Thor said, his voice cracking, daring to hope again.
"I'm not," Loki replied. "But if we don't leave soon, it won't matter."
"Easier said than done," Thor replied, looking up at the Grandmaster's private box as the crowd turned on them, realizing they were no longer fighting.
Loki dispersed his illusions, releasing Sif. "I assume you heard everything."
Sif nodded, sheathing her sword, but still looking at Loki distrustfully, keeping her palm on the hilt of her sword.
Thor pulled back his collar, revealing a metallic disk on his neck. "They use these to keep us here."
"How do they work?" Loki asked, staring at it curiously.
"If we leave the arena, or attack the guards, they trigger them," Thor explained. "It shocks us until we can't move."
"With electricity?" Loki asked with a raised eyebrow, getting a nod from Thor and Sif. "Then zap them off and be done with it."
"I can't. Mjölnir is gone," Thor replied. "Destroyed by Hela," he added regretfully. "Without it, I don't have the control to do it."
Loki smirked, knowing exactly what their father would say. "Are you Thor, the god of hammers?"
Thor shot Loki an annoyed look, but before he could reply, they looked up, seeing the Grandmaster jump out of his private box, landing in the middle of the arena.
"A pity," the Grandmaster said with a sigh, dusting himself off. "I so hoped that you would battle each other to the death. Fratricide is always so entertaining. I suppose I'll have to take care of this myself," he said, the crowd cheering.
He smiled, waving at them. "What say you?!" he shouted. "Are you ready for a real show?!" he said as the crowd roared even louder.
"You're getting ahead of yourself," Loki replied, drawing his daggers, as Thor and Sif drew their own weapons. "Three on one isn't good odds, even for you. Let us leave, and I give you my word we will never return," he offered, hoping to avoid this fight if he could.
"I think you'll find," the Grandmaster smirked. "The odds are always in my favor," he said, snapping his fingers and activating Thor and Sif's control discs, sending them to the ground twitching.
Loki sighed, seeing some of his own past arrogance reflected at him in the Grandmaster actions, but also recognizing the position he was in.
Using the Infinity Stones with an arena full of witnesses wasn't ideal, but a prolonged fight with an elder of the universe was far worse.
He thought quickly, wondering which stone or what combination of stones to use for the greatest effect. The Mind Stone was out. Crawling around inside the mind of a being eons old was too dangerous to consider.
The Reality Stone had possibilities, and he had used it to good effect against Shmidt, but against the will of someone like the Grandmaster he was doubtful, which left only one real option, the Space Stone.
"Then perhaps it's better if we don't play at all," Loki smirked, calling on the power of the Space Stone, only for his eyes to widen when it didn't work. He could still feel it, but for lack of a better word, it felt inert.
The Grandmaster laughed knowingly. "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?"
"What have you done?" Loki demanded, trying the Reality Stone next, getting the same result.
"Me?" The Grandmaster smirked. "Nothing at all, but tell me, have you ever wondered why I rule over a planet of junk rather than an entire star system?"
Loki shook his head, quickly calculating his options, the few he had.
"This place," the Grandmaster said, throwing his hands up. "Is special. It sits upon the convergence point of countless unstable wormholes, putting it just slightly out of sync with the rest of the universe."
"The Infinity Stones," he continued, "depend on the universe being stable, each stone needing to anchor to something fixed in order to function."
"If you knew I had the stones from the very beginning, why continue with this farce?" Loki demanded.
"Isn't it obvious?" The Grandmaster asked, a hint of madness shining through in his eyes. "You, my young friend, have crafted a piece that changes the game forever. How could I not be intrigued?"
"That's why you hid yourself away here," Loki said with dawning realization. "You knew you couldn't use the stones indefinitely, that in time they would have killed even you, so you hid in the one place they couldn't be used against you."
"No," Loki shook his head, as another thought struck him. "You didn't come to this place. You created it."
"Yes," the Grandmaster replied, genuinely impressed this time. "I used the very stones in your possession now — the Reality and Space Stones to accomplish it, nearly killing myself in the process."
"Why are you telling me all this?" Loki asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion as he wondered what the Grandmaster's advantage was in telling him all this.
"I told you. You've impressed me," the Grandmaster replied. "There are few with the instinctual understanding of that which underpins the universe, and you, my young friend, understand it better than most. That, at the very least earns you a few moments of my time."
"Are you that sure of your victory?" Loki asked. "I may still surprise you."
The Grandmaster laughed, genuinely amused. "It truly will be a pity to kill you," he said, shaking his head. "Conversations like this are so rare, but a new game awaits, and I have spent far too much of my existence on this ball of dirt as it is."
"Careful," Loki bluffed, raising his daggers. "I was strong enough to find three stones, while you, with all your eons of existence, only found two."
"Perhaps I gave up too easily," the Grandmaster conceded. "But do not confuse that with a lack of power," he said, waving his hand as the roars of the crowd were suddenly silenced, and what looked like confetti rained down around them.
"How?" Loki asked, looking around in shock. It wasn't an illusion. He could tell that much, and it certainly wasn't the Reality Stone, yet somehow the Grandmaster had learned to mimic its power.
"That's not all," the grandmaster said, a portal appearing in front of him, but instead of stepping through he punched it, and a fraction of a second later, a portal appeared in front of Loki's face.
Loki didn't even have time to scream out in pain as he flew backwards, receiving a kick to the back that sent him crashing into the ground a moment later, followed by countless punches to his back and kidneys as he tried to stand up.
Loki grunted, his armor no match for the Grandmaster's strength as dents formed everywhere the ancient being struck.
He rolled to his side, kipping back up to his feet, knowing that he had to keep moving, but not in a straight line, nor in any direction the Grandmaster expected him to go.
He quickly created three illusions of himself, having them each run in different directions, hoping to buy himself enough time to counter the Grandmaster's abilities.
He couldn't go straight for the Grandmaster. That would be too obvious. He needed to distract him, to split his focus, but it was easier said than done.
The Grandmaster was destroying his illusions just as fast as he could conjure them, and it was only due to his ability to switch positions with his illusions that saved him thus far.
The Grandmaster's strategy was obvious, force him to expend his magic and exhaust himself physically, then he would go for the kill. It was an effective strategy, one he had used on more than one occasion when he had the magic to spare, but this time he was on the receiving end of it.
His luck went from bad to worse as the ground beneath his feet turned from loose sand to pillars of rock, rising out of the ground and blocking his path.
He cursed, dodging around them, but it required even more of his focus to avoid them, forcing him to abandon his illusions to avoid being struck.
When his last illusion disappeared, he again felt the full brunt of the Grandmaster's attention as the stone pillars attacked him from all directions, one inevitably breaking through his guard as it came out of the ground on an angle, slamming into his back, and throwing him across the arena, smashing him into a wall.
Loki rolled over onto his back, gasping for breath, his face drenched in sweat. No one had ever pushed him this hard, not ever, his whole body aching after that last hit.
That was when he heard it — the slow clapping that made his blood boil, mocking him. Then another pillar of stone appeared above him, hammering into his chest and pinning him to the ground.
"Impressive, my young friend," The Grandmaster laughed, "But I have never lost a game."
Loki growled, trying to push the pillar off his chest, only for it to slam into him with even greater force.
That was when he heard it — a roar of anger, but not from him. He looked out of the corner of his eye as Thor charged toward the Grandmaster, his mace raised, only for the Grandmaster to create another portal, this time reaching through to grab Thor by the throat and pull him through, then slam him heavily into the ground over and over again.
'He's going to kill him,' Loki thought, watching helplessly as Thor's arms went limp, his mace falling out of his slackened grip.
Watching his brother die, a desperate plan formed in his mind. The Grandmaster didn't know about the Mind Stone, and how different it was from the others. It wasn't tied to something tangible, but to the mind itself.
He'd used it on the Grandmaster's guards, and his protections had no effect.
He had feared using the stone against the Grandmaster, worried that he would detect his intrusion, but now that the cat was out of the bag, secrecy was no longer an issue.
He dove into the Grandmaster's mind, immediately feeling overwhelmed as he experienced firsthand how vast and complex his mind was.
Finding out how to knock him out would take hundreds if not thousands of years, and manipulating his memories would take his entire lifetime, but Thor only had seconds left to live.
'There has to be something,' Loki thought desperately, searching frantically, but it only got worse as he touched one of the Grandmaster's memories, alerting him to his presence.
He watched, still pinned to the ground, as the Grandmaster threw Thor against the arena wall, his body now bloodied and bruised, but thankfully still alive.
Then the Grandmaster looked at him in a way that sent a chill down his spine as he saw the monster for the first time without the thin veneer of civility he presented to the world.
The Grandmaster didn't bother stepping towards him as the pillar of stone pinning him to the ground suddenly sharpened into a point, piercing his armor, and bit into his flesh.
Loki grit his teeth, knowing he couldn't lose focus now, but couldn't hold back his pained scream as the stone slowly pierced his chest. He felt his focus wane as his mental grip on the Mind Stone weakened.
He wanted to fight, to save his brother, but he couldn't move, and even if he could, he wasn't strong enough to beat the Grandmaster, at least not without the other stones, but when the Grandmaster smirked at him before looking up at the luxury box, at Carol, something shifted.
A cold rage filled him as he glared at the Grandmaster. He ripped at the Grandmaster's memories, not caring what they were, not even bothering to look as he tore through them.
The Grandmaster stopped, falling to one knee as he clutched his head, his eyes widening in shock and pain.
Loki noticed immediately as the pillar turned back into sand, raining down on him. Then he understood what he'd done to the Grandmaster's memory, watching as it turned to ash.
He touched another memory, watching as it turned to ash as the Grandmaster let out a silent scream.
He spread out his will, latching onto the Grandmaster's memories, not searching for anything, but destroying.
It only took seconds, but it felt like hours as he destroyed every one of the Grandmaster's memories until there was nothing left but ash all around him.
He got to his feet, limping over to the fallen form of the Grandmaster, looking into his lifeless, vacant eyes.
He didn't have the power to destroy him. He wasn't sure anyone did, but taking away his memories was the next best thing.
He looked around the arena, seeing the spectators return to existence, no longer bound by the Grandmaster's will, all of them looking around in fear and confusion.
Sif rose to her feet, checking on Thor as she sheathed her sword before turning to face him. "You've changed," she said quietly.
Loki nodded. "How is he?"
"Out cold, but he'll be alright in a few days," Sif replied. "What now?"
"Now we leave," Loki said, signaling Proxima to bring Carol down.
Sif looked up alarmed as she heard a scream, drawing her sword as Proxima landed in front of them, holding Carol in her arms.
"It's alright," Loki replied. "They're with me."
Sif cast a glance at the women. "Your slave?" She asked, looking at Carol.
"You know about her?" Loki asked curiously. "How?"
"Your mother told me when you sent Eitri to Asgard," Sif explained.
"We need to leave," Loki said, taking in the state of the crowd as he flung the still unconscious form of his brother over his shoulder, knowing that without the Grandmaster around to keep them in line the whole planet would soon descend into anarchy.
Sif took one last look at the glassy-eyed form of the Grandmaster lying on the ground. "It would have been better to kill him than leave him in this state," she admonished.
"I doubt that's possible," Loki admitted.
"Will he get his memories back?" Carol asked.
"No," Loki shook his head. "But he will eventually relearn what he needs to survive."
"How long?" Carol asked.
"Perhaps decades before he can function normally," Loki replied. "And a few hundred years after that before he becomes a threat again."
***
Hi! Thanks for reading 🙂 I hope you enjoy the new chapter. I know its missing the customary Loki/Carol scene, but I couldn't find a way to work it in with the rest of the story that didn't seem forced. I will make up for it over the next few chapters though.
What do you think about the introduction of Sif and Thor to the story? We're nearing the end, so there's just a few more plot points to wrap up before Loki finally faces off with Thanos, and the story will end around chapter 41.
If you can, please take the time to review. Let me know how the story is going.
For more info on my writing, pictures of Loki, Vers(Carol Danvers), 31 exclusive chapter images for this chapter, audio chapters,and early access to chapters 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41 please visit: jumpinfiction.com
A big thank you to all my supporters, I really appreciate it.
Jumpin