go_mischief (go_mischief) wrote in newalliance, @ 2014-04-23 20:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | loki |
Who: Loki and npcs galore.
Where: Asgard and Broxton, OK
When: April 23, 2014
What: So what is going on in Asgard while all this commotion is going on in Broxton? Bad things.
Rating: PG-13 (violence, gore)
ooc info: This is happening congruently to the event in Broxton, but in the name of saving space and avoiding clutter, the narratives are happening in this separate post. The reading is vast and not required, but will explain in detail what and why is happening for the course of the battle.
Asgard was in the midst of throwing off another spirited attack by its siegers, legions of troll and giants accosting its walls. Siege weaponry flung projectiles at both sides, some trailing fire through the blackened sky. It was not night, yet the darkness lay over everything, a gloomy magic that disheartened to the beleaguered Aesir.
While most were occupied with guarding Asgard’s edges, none saw the enemy slipping in through Asgard’s belly and walking through the dungeons. The troop of elves were lightly armored in dark leather and soft shoes that were a muffled whisper against the stone. Many may have been confused to see them here. Officially the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim had no part in the war. Secluded, their people were far too fractured and less numerous due to their tragic past. This group was not here with Svartalfheim’s queen’s knowing, however. With such violent history, however, extremists could be found, hungry for blood and vengeance.
One of the Dark Elves paused as she passed a door set to the side, humming with magic.
“Loki the Trickster…” she said in her native tongue, causing the entire group to pause. “He is within.”
The leader, a dark gray-blue tone compared to the much fairer blue Dark Elf who had stopped, looked to the door without emotion. “We have no need of him.”
“He was the one who told us how we might gain access to slay Odin,” she said, tone still respectful.
“We are not after Odin. Asgard’s king can die with the rest, watching our vengeance devour all.” He gave the door one last look. “It is not an unkindness. The Trickster can be rewarded for his aid by being allowed to sleep through his doom. Come.”
The elves quickly fell into silence and followed. They had memories the paths Loki had told to them, rushing into secret ways, passages that so few knew existed. Asgard’s Maker of Mischief had known about them since he was a child and had created his own since then as well. But they deviated from the throne room where Odin was promised to be focusing on coordinating Asgard’s defenses.
Instead, they left to the open court of the gardens, a dark rushing column who took down the very few guards who were not in defensive positions at the city’s gates. The cosmic tree spread overhead, softly glowing. Asgard was a blessed realm, lying dimensionally at the World Tree’s canopy in concern to its reach throughout the realms. Its giant boughs wound into its beautiful trunk with its gentle spiral, roots burying deep into the city grounds. The group of elves looked as tiny ants to the mighty ash tree.
“How much time until the Convergence begins fully?” the leader asked.
“Within our next six breaths. All those attacking Asgard will use the portals to their advantage as best they can.”
“Then this will spread along its body swiftly.” The leader produced a small iron box in his gloved hand and beckoned. Four of the elves came forward. They quickly linked hands as the others stood guard, starting their swift chant. The leader waited until he sensed the magic peak, then opened the iron case which would burn his skin were he to set it bare against it. A whisper, and the flames leaped forward, bright red for only a brief moment before the magic caught hold of them. The flames turned black, the crimson ghostly and ethereal in its tongues. It grew in the center of the chanting elves, becoming a column that spiraled straight upward, roaring with a strange, shrieking pitch as though much more distant than it truly was.
“Burn.” The leader gave a motion with his hand, and the column of flames suddenly bent and struck the World Tree.
The Dark Elves understood a great deal about Yggdrasil in order to make a flame that would harm it and spread throughout all the realms during the Convergence. However, even they did not expect what the World Tree did next. The flames started to hungrily ensnare the trunk, and Yggdrasil’s leaves shivered. The World Tree was its own entity, though few understood all its inner workings. When it realized the danger, the ash shuddered and groaned, twisting in the spot slowly. The ground shook violently, and the Dark Elves stepped back cautiously as the whole Tree started to lean away.
The armies outside of the wall paused in their fighting, feeling the ground rumbling beneath them. The Convergence was starting, all of Yggdrasil’s realms lined up perfectly as they had not for thousands of years. The other realms were never so easy to access along the World Tree’s pathways as now. The giant tree thus increased the width of the pathway, and fled, pulling and turning and twisting downward away from the fire that pursued. The ground opened up, and the armies outside stared as suddenly the city jerked downward a few meters, sinking, then suddenly fell completely from sight, a wide rift spreading like a lake where it once stood.
Yggdrasil had pulled itself to the easiest realm it could to escape the fire. Midgard.
The falling sensation had the Aesir clinging to whatever they could, the entire city plummeting for Oklahoma’s fields below. Odin had his eye closed, standing as the city dropped. When he opened it, the godly power that was the ruler of Asgard’s alone made his entire frame alight with power. The spell formed quickly at his bidding, and the laws of physics bent at his will. The city began to slow its wild plummet, the mass of stone and shaken buildings steadily slowing. Finally it came to an easy halt a mere 11 meters from the ground. And stayed.
Then Odin released a breath and promptly fell to his back.
~~~
Down in the Loki’s prison cell…
Asgard falling broke much of its prison, as well as its magic that held one in particular trapped in sleep.
Loki woke groggy and uncomfortable. He drew in a labored breath, tensed and squirmed in the dark, then wrenched his toe up and shoved with his legs to get out from under the cascade of stone. There was another jerk of the foundation, and for a moment he could only wriggle and frantically scramble as more stone rolled over him and pinned him down, then another shake and it was thankfully rolling off of him. He was mildly scraped and bruised, but otherwise intact.
Enough of that. Being crushed to death is far too dull. Loki shook dust from himself doggedly and made for the sliver of light, then worked at freeing himself of his bindings. But a few whispered words and he was soon stepping free and making his way swiftly up the stairs, haphazardly avoiding falling debris. The shaking had stopped, as well as the strange sensation of falling, but it wouldn’t do to stay underground.
Once he emerged into the chaos above, the Trickster was entirely bemused. This… is not Asgard’s sky. Loki looked up at the darkened heavens, then across the land below where fire from several Muspelheim giants showed a squirm of contestants struggling with each other. He grinned emptily. Well, at least the music is familiar. He looked up sharply as lightning split the sky, saw a familiar blur in the white-blue flash led by Mjolnir flying toward Asgard’s palace. Loki adjusted his arm’s sling, then rushed along, ignoring the confused Aesir he passed, and they in turn much more concerned with their shaken home and the battle going on below than him.
Not surprising, Thor had gone to the throne room. Loki looked to where the All-Father laid on the floor deathly still, Thor’s hand splayed on the old man’s chest. “Oh? Is he dead?” he asked, unconcerned.
Thor’s blue eyes lift sharply to him, but he didn’t seem surprised to see him. “No,” Thor stated. “He is but in the Odin-sleep. The task of forcing the city to levitate after so long a war must have been the cause.”
“Forcing the city to…?” Loki let his senses open further, feeling at the sharp, fresh magic at Asgard’s belly. “Ah. We’re in Midgard.” A frown. “Thor, why are we in Midgard?”
Thor stood, fists clenched, one about Mjolnir dangerously. “I know not. It came through with the Convergence.”
“Well, that didn’t happen last Convergence. There was only…” Loki lift his hand to feel at the energies, turned sharply, a knot in his belly. Suddenly his feet flew away, ignoring Thor’s call to halt until he was outside of the palace and looking toward the World Tree and where it bent and slowly writhed. “Oh dear…”
“Loki!” Thor grasped him by his outer robe to keep him from racing away again. “What dost thou know! Explain quickly, Brother. I am in foul temper and Midgard is in need of me.”
Loki continued to stare toward the World Tree, brows bent and mouth dry. “More than thou knowest, Thor,” he whispered. It was hard to see in the black, but Loki’s eyes had always been sharp at night. There was a column of black shadowy flame clinging to one side of the tree, and more floating in the air from whence Asgard had come through the Convergence’s rift. Here and there dark flicks of ethereal red could be seen, and wherever the flame lit, the tree twisted and writhed away from it, pulling the floating city slowly with. Loki took a breath then cursed quietly. “Oh, I’m a fool. They weren’t after Odin all this time. They were after-ah!”
Thor had grabbed Loki by the front of his tunic and spun him about, giving him a rough shake. “What hast thou done, brother!?”
Loki stared into the furious blue eyes, his one good hand raised submissively. He spoke rapidly. “I let the Dark Elves know the paths into the palace so that they could take their vengeance on Odin! I knew nothing of this! They are not after All-Father. They’re trying to destroy the Tree.”
Thor looked aghast to the World Tree, seeing the darker shadow trying to climb its bulk. “If they destroy the Tree…”
“They destroy it all,” Loki assured. Then he gave a garbled yelp as he was shaken again.
“Thou hast brought ruin to us all! Even Midgard--ALL the realms!”
“A jest that went too far!” Loki bit out through his rattled teeth.
“This is no jest, Brother!”
“Right, no!” Loki panted, Thor having finally stopped shaking him. He set his hand to his brother’s wrist. “But I think I can fix it.” Thor looked at him doubtfully. Loki looked back, gaze as dead serious as can be. “Chaos is one thing. Everything being dead is boring. Thou shouldst trust that much about me.”
“Trust thee, when thou hast brought this Ragnarok to us all? If thy split tongue hast ever lied before, then now-!”
Thor stopped when Loki snapped his hand out, catching a dart that was but a few inches from embedding into Thor’s neck. Thor dropped him immediately and let the hammer fly to its origin. The Dark Elf barely managed to move from the first intended blow, but Mjolnir turned sharply and caught it in the back easily.
“I thought thou said they would not be after the All-Father!” Thor caught Mjolnir easily, eyeing the shadows warily.
“Well, I can’t quite blame them for wanting to do that personally as well.” Loki backed up close to Thor, three blades appearing between his fingers and swiftly sent after their targets. “The Tree is more important than All-Father right now, Thor.”
“I will not leave our father to them like carrion for vultures,” Thor assured.
Fortunately there were others who had come when they saw Thor flying toward the throne room, and the closing dark elves were soon assailed by the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. Loki watched the five friends lay waste to the score of elves, trying to slip away in the chaos, foot sliding about the wall.
Another hand closed about his tunic and lifted him easily. Loki kicked before seeing whom held him, stopping and a bored expression forced on his features. “Oh, Balder, so good to see thee. Eh, Thor and the others were just saying how much they wished for thy help dispatching some darkly enemies behind me…”
“Help we no longer need,” Thor assured as he came about the wall, soon followed by his friends.
Balder still held Loki tightly, looking to them. “The battle is waging fierce beneath the city. The Convergence is causing confusion among enemy and ally alike. We are trying to reform ranks and have had some drop below to engage the fighting there, but the Dark Elves are in the city itself. Where is Odin?”
“He has fallen into the sleep. We cannot leave him unprotected, but we needs see after Yggdrasill as well.”
Sif lifted her chin. “We can defend the throne room and take out the Dark Elves on this front. Go to the tree.”
Balder looked to Loki. “Then I will reshackle this one. The last thing we need right now is more mischief.”
“Unless thou hast a better mage than I, that is not advisable,” Loki said tartly, casting his gaze to Thor. “Thou wilt need me at the Tree. Just keep thy hammer ready if thou doubts me so. Balder needs to be where thou cannot.”
Thor looked displeased, but caught Loki’s meaning and finally gave a resolute nod. “Thou art a son of Odin as well, Balder. The people need someone to organize them while Odin regains his strength. Loki, thou art with me.”
Balder set Loki down, the Trickster taking only enough time to awkwardly straighten his robe with his single arm. “Right. Let us go save the worlds, then.” He started to run swiftly, even as the city under their feet groaned and shuddered as Yggdrasill pulled slowly again. Behind them, he heard Balder giving out a call for all Asgard to hear, an echo that summoned all to order and arms. He scowled as Thor grabbed him up and they rushed through the air for the tree. “I hate that guy!” he confided loudly to Thor, but Thor paid his complaints no mind.
There were much greater tasks to focus on.
~~~
The Dark Elf leader leaped away as Thor landed at Yggdrasil, crushing two of his soldier’s with swift sweeps of his hammer. He looked to the dropped Trickster getting to his feet behind Thor, to the lightning storming at the edge of the powerful warrior.
“So the son of Laufey comes to undo his mischief, with Odinson to correct his wrongs. As it should be.” The Dark Elf smiled faintly. “But it is too late. What has been done cannot be undone now. Farewell.” The elf bowed slightly. Thor charged forward, but it was too late. The elf disappeared into the shadows, lost.
Loki was unconcerned with the elf, instead focusing on Yggdrasil as it gave another groan and a slow twist. “Thor, the flames--blow back what thou can! Do not touch it.”
“Aye.” Asgard’s fair haired prince had a similar thought, leaping upward at the grasping coil of flame trying to enwrap the slowly fleeing Tree. The stormy wind billowed with a spin of Mjolnir, and it violently rushed against the column of flame, blowing the ilky mass back and scattering it into the sky. It writhed vine-like, unstable and thin. Thor gave a satisfied nod and flew back to the cosmic tree once more. Loki was atop one of the giant roots that rolled from Asgard’s edge, his palm to the pulsating bark. “Canst thou remove that which is latched on?”
Loki was silent, hand touching the trunk. Then a sigh. “Yes.”
“Then what art thou waiting for?”
“Thor, it’s a deeper wound than that. This fire exists on more than one plane, just as Yggdrasill does. It’s a conscious death, a crawling disease of flame. No wonder why the Tree is having so much difficulty with it…” Loki looked up to the flame that Thor blew back. Where it had looked to be wavering and might fade, now it was regathering itself, creeping together to form larger masses. “It will just eat along its root system between all the realms, till it has destroyed it all.”
Thor looked over his shoulder. “How do we fight such a thing?”
“We do not. We summon something that can. Thor, bring Mjolnir here.”
Thor leapt to the root Loki was crouched upon, frowning but determined. “Why dost thou need Mjolnir?”
Loki glanced up before standing at his side. “Just listen and do exactly as I say. Is the strap about thy wrist tight?”
“Aye.”
The dagger sank into Thor’s ribs. “Good.”
Thor didn’t reply except for a surprised gasp of pain. Loki didn’t look to him, releasing the knife, buried to the hilt past Thor’s armor. He could feel the query in that pained gaze, knew that blade had bit far deeper than the metal itself. Loki’s smile was weak. “I’m sorry, Brother.” He kicked him, sending him hurtling from Asgard’s edge into the chaotic battlefield below, Mjolnir dragging him all the more swiftly. “This is something thou must not be close to.” Loki turned back to his task, then, the Norn Stones being called to.
Somewhere deep between the dimensions, bound to one of Yggdrasil’s roots, the Midgard Serpent opened its venomous eyes and stirred as the Norn Stones glowed about him.
Loki sighed, feeling the ache in his shoulder of his dead arm. A complex spell of this magnitude even with the use of two hands on such short notice…? “This is going to kill me,” he muttered. Then he gave all his energy toward enchanting Jormungand and calling his monstrous son to him.
It was so much easier to do with the Convergence, calling Jormungand. The Midgard Serpent existed between the worlds as well, having outgrown Midgard’s seas long ago, and now laid in the furrows where Yggdrasil’s roots stretched across time and space. Loki was at the edge of Asgard, on the root that dangled vicariously over the city’s edge. His own hand was aloft, pulling on the power of the Norn Stones, guiding.
It still was not enough. Loki’s eyes burned white, feeling the magic starting to ravage, and he let his mad mind continue to craft and wind to his will despite it, bending at the time and space and guiding the stubborn Serpent where he needed it to be, rather than where Jormungand wished to go.
The World Tree was not truly dwarfed by the ethereal figure that appeared, but nevertheless it was an immense creature, a shimmer of green and yellow, glassy in the nightly sky. It swept up past the tree, and Loki felt the crystal in his lifted arm splinter as too much magic energy was pushed through it. He bid the Serpent to open his maw, and Jormungand did, slavering and hungry, scraping across the tree’s dimension. The poison flame was designed for the World Tree. It was not for the creature that also oozed poison. Death and ruin was about to devour its own kind, in the manner of snakes.
The serpent rushed past, seeming an endless giant column of scale and claw, mouth wide. Yet he was so ethereal his bulk passing only caused the slightest of breeze that ruffled Loki’s clothing and hair. The column of flame disappeared into the open maw, and finally all of Jormungand did as well through the rift that Asgard had dropped from.
When the flame and monstrous dragon disappeared, the tree stilled. Then the great cosmic ash seemed to sigh, straightening above Asgard’s floating city. Loki was burned and wasted looking, green tendrils of smoke leaving his frame and eyes hollow. The Norn stones continued to float about him, and he forced himself to not waver, pulling the energies through himself once more. “Now back, Jormungand,” he ordered airily, his tongue starting to utter more arcane words. He started to guide the angry serpent about where it flew in the city’s previous sky, trying to force him from manifesting fully and to return to the space between the realms to sleep.
His tongue suddenly stilled as his frame jerked by a slice to his shoulder, turned on the spot. Then suddenly he felt his back strike the World Tree. Loki blinked rapidly, the white glow fading from his eyes.
The leader of the Dark Elves was standing in front of him, his sword buried through the middle of Loki’s chest and pinning him to Yggdrasil. His face was contorted with murderous fury. If Loki needed any confirmation that Jormungand swallowing the flame had worked completely, the elf’s expression was all he needed.
So he smiled, smug through the pain at the elf who wanted to destroy everything.
“Cursed mischief,” the elf hissed. The blade pulled free, and Loki lurched forward, blood gushing from his mouth, no longer smiling.
Loki tried to gather his senses. Jormungand was still at large, would manifest onto this plane fully. He was no longer capable of sending him back. Yet someone had to, before…! He forced blood out of his mouth, pulled in a ragged breath. “... wake up....” He scrabbled against the elf’s incoming arm, but it was rather useless with how weakened he was and still having but one arm. Asgard’s God of Mischief felt another sharp pain in his chest, than a burn that quickly began to spread. “Father, please…!.”
The burning gem consumed him swiftly, quickly setting his skin aglow and his eyes aflame. In the following second he fell to pieces, bits of meat, ash and blood. There was nothing solid left of him.