Loki (fiorvalr) wrote in noexits, @ 2021-09-12 08:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, marvel (tv/movies): bucky barnes, marvel (tv/movies): loki laufeyson, → week 020 (leave it to derleth) |
Day 6 | Derleth Attacks!
Bucky catches Loki in his office. It doesn't go well.
The invasion had begun. Once Loki had settled his situation at home, he immediately headed for City Hall. It had been planned long ago that his base of operations would be there. And why not? Not only was it one of the tallest buildings in Dunwich, providing a perfect view of the devastation, but it was also a symbol of what was to come. Because the Lokian army wouldn’t stop with just Dunwich. Oh, no. Dunwich was only the beginning. Derleth was just the start. The proverbial patient zero of the attack. Soon the entire world would be under the control and command of the Lokians. It warmed Loki’s heart just thinking about it. Which was why his expression of disgust was so immediate when he stepped into his office and saw someone there who didn’t belong. Someone in his chair. In his human symbol for power. What was his name? Loki couldn’t remember. Loki didn’t care. He was no one to Loki. Just a postman. He wasn’t important to the cause. And soon he’d either be dead or assimilated into the Great Lokian Agenda. “Don’t get too comfortable.” Loki’s lips twisted into a sinister smirk. “There’s work to be done.” Bucky twirled a knife in his fingers. It was a combat knife, good and familiar in his fingers. Had Jimmy Barnes been a WWII vet? Probably. Interesting. "Shoulda guessed sooner that you were behind this," Bucky said, letting out a sigh. He let his ankles slide off the edge of the desk where he'd been resting them. "Mayor. More of your 'glorious purpose'?" He pointed the knife out the window. "What about your friends, Loki? I thought they mattered to you. What are you doing to your friends?" “Which friends are you referring to? The human ones? The milkmen and the housewives and the burger flippers?” Loki paced in front of the desk. Not close enough for any kind of physical confrontation. Not yet. This was a simple act of weighing the threat. Trying to determine whether he needed to be concerned. He grinned when Bucky pointed out the window. “Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a lot of friends right now.” The skies were already full of Lokian ships, lasers and death rays blasting down from the clouds while unsuspecting Dunwich citizens ran for their lives. The sound of their screams was a discordant chorus that made his heart soar. Soon they would have control of this planet. Of everything. “What are you going to do, postman? Are you going to kill your new overlord? I have brought comfort and safety to this world. In a matter of days you will all be brought to heel. With or without me this pathetic planet will be engulfed by Lokian forces. Eventually it will yield. The number of losses depends entirely on people like you.” Loki stopped in front of the desk and stared Bucky directly in the eyes. “Stand down and accept the inevitable.” Bucky blinked, looking at Loki, and then his eyes widened slightly as he realized his error. While he, Natasha, and many others had woken up from whatever this world had become, Loki had not. This wasn’t the man he’d confronted time and again, arguing over actions and merit. This was an actual alien overlord, committed to taking over the world in a bloody coup. Slowly, Bucky got to his feet. “I’ve seen your kind before. The ones who think they know best. The ones who want to cull the dissidents so that the rest will live in peace under the new regime. Sheep cowering under the new wolves.” His jaw set. “I’ve been their puppet. I was their weapon.” The knife spun into a reverse grip, blade comfortably settled against his wrist. On his other hand, a long sleeve and glove hid the vibranium arm that had returned that morning. “I will never stand down again.” He lashed out with the metal arm, hard and fast as he was able, towards Loki’s face. “No, you haven’t. You haven’t seen anything like me or my kind. We are eternal. We are indomitable. There is nothing in your world to compare to the Lokian civilization. You will surrender to us or you will die. And it matters not what is best or whether there is peace. Once your world is tamed we will move on to the next. And the next. We cannot be stopped.” True, he wasn’t the Loki who’d been traveling through space and time and various realities with the people of Derleth. Well, he was, but he wasn’t. Yet, there was still a glimmer of something in his eyes that contradicted the idea that he was different. Something that said otherwise. It might have looked to the keen gaze like he was playing along. Pretending. But maybe that was just Loki. Not just this Loki. But all Lokis. None of them were to be trusted, after all. None of them were completely pure of heart. None were entirely noble. There was always that mad scramble for power. And that neurotic twinge at the thought of defeat or embarrassment. And that internal thread which despised being disrespected. Loki didn’t move when Bucky lashed out at him. He didn’t need to. The moment Bucky’s arm came within striking distance it was met with an invisible force field. Hard and, for the moment, impenetrable. The force of hitting it would have crushed a normal person’s arm. But Bucky was in luck that he lunged with his metallic appendage. Then Loki held out his hand and a ray gun appeared. He aimed it at Bucky’s thigh and took a shot. Only a thought had the chance to cross Bucky’s mind -- Well, fuck -- before a bolt of something from the gun seared a small hole through the meat of his thigh. His leg buckled, and it was only decades of endurance conditioning that kept him on his feet. Bucky clenched his teeth, recentered his weight on his other leg, and threw a glare back at the mockery of Loki. “You know, I wanted to believe you,” he said, shaking his head. He didn’t sound angry anymore, nor did he sound defiant. Just tired and… disappointed? “I really wanted to believe that you were trying. That you wanted to be good. A good man. Respected. Appreciated. Trusted.” He thrust with the knife, aiming lower this time. That force field needed to be sorted. Did it cover him entirely? Did it have a power source? “But all it took was a little power, and you show your true colors again.” He threw another punch, to Loki’s right side. “And now Natasha,” Another spot, another stab. “And Julia,” Another spot, another punch. “And Sam, all know you were behind this.” The arm was fucking heavy, and he hadn’t gotten back enough of his serum-strength to keep this up for very long. Something had to give, and soon. The more Bucky talked, the more Loki grinned. But it wasn’t that knowing grin he usually had. Not the one when they had their argument on the sidewalk in Derleth so many weeks ago. This was something more malicious. Something less caring. Because this Loki didn’t know Bucky. He didn’t have the memories of the friendships he’d cultivated at Derleth. He didn’t even remember giving his life to save Thor and the last remaining Asgardians. Because none of that had ever happened in this Loki’s lifetime. This Loki had been born a conqueror. He had traveled vast numbers of universes, destroying worlds. And the belief of one measly human meant nothing to him. Everything for Planet Loki. Everything to pursue the colonialism of the Lokians. Everything to uphold the great and superior Supreme Loki. Nothing else mattered. Even Loki himself was expendable. “I am respected and appreciated and trusted. By my people. By the Supreme Loki. And when you and the rest of your planet are under our thrall then you will respect, appreciate, and trust me as well.” That was how the Lokians did it, after all. They compelled other civilizations to their will. And then they trapped them forever. As for mentioning those who were close to him? Well, Loki barely flinched. If they meant anything to him then he hid it deep beneath the layers of his alien overlord self. He threw his head back and laughed as Bucky continued to try and punch through his force field. “You foolish worm! You’re no match for me!” Except Bucky was making a small dent in the force field, particularly on the side where his metal arm hit. Loki didn’t notice. Then again, he didn’t care. Loki kicked his leg out, jabbing the heel of his foot into the laser wound on Bucky’s thigh. Then he bashed the ray gun against the side of his head. “Yield now! Or I will kill you!” Bucky wasn’t using that leg to support himself anymore, thankfully, but the kick against his wound hurt, enough to make him shuffle back a step. He saw the strike coming, but couldn’t get his limbs to move fast enough to block it, and the butt of the ray gun struck him in the temple, making his head swim for a moment before instinct and self-preservation kicked in. “Never,” he snarled, left fist lashing out again, metal fist striking like a piston, over and over again at the false mayor’s side. The rest of him could get tired, but the arm was vibranium, Shuri’s own creation, and it was all but indestructible. “You’ll have to kill me, you third-rate excuse for an overlord, because I will never yield to you or anyone else.” Another Loki might have relented. This one did not. The moment he felt that his force field was weakening from Bucky’s metallic arm, he turned his focus to the meaty part of the shoulder where the vibranium was connected. Loki pressed a button on the ray gun, changing the setting to something higher (but not quite disintegrating levels because he was enjoying the hand-to-hand combat,) and fired a long shot into the space of flesh between the neck and shoulder. Then he holstered the weapon and grabbed Bucky by the front of his shirt and flung him across the room, over the mayoral desk where he’d signed off on so many good deeds for the city of Dunwich, and into the wall. Outside the early battle raged on. Lasers flashed from the sky, illuminating people in bright green glows before incinerating them. Under the desk, not far from where Bucky had fallen was a large seed pod, hidden from view by the front side of the desk. Its vine-like tendrils crept out across the floor and encircled Bucky’s ankles, gripping tight. The pod throbbed at the sudden closeness of a potential victim and slowly began to grow. Loki stalked towards the desk and snatched a sharpened letter opener with an ostentatiously long blade that made it almost dagger-like from the top of the to-do pile of documents. Now, never to be done. He clenched the letter opener in his hand like a dagger and made his way around to Bucky. “Last chance, postman.” Loki stared at him, his gaze wild and merciless. “The pod or your life.” Bucky let out a scream of pain when the bolt struck his artificial brachial nerve. The jolt of pain was intense enough to jar him, and he barely registered that he was being thrown until he crashed to the wall and collapsed to the ground, flesh hand gripping the wound uselessly. He let out a second yell, this one in surprise, when his feet were yanked by the vines. Bucky’s eyes widened at the sight of the pod, and a cold trickle went down his spine. The pod was this fucked up version of the chair, and no way in hell was he going to let something else take control of his mind. Wrapping his flesh hand around the vines, Bucky pulled, yanking the pod closer and driving his metal fist through it. The pod burst, leaving a slimy goo covering the vibranium arm to the elbow. “My life, my terms, bitch.” “No!” Loki let out the closest thing to a blood-curdling scream that the Lokian species was capable of. It was high-pitched and wounded, as though he himself had somehow been affected by the decimation of the seed pod. That wasn’t entirely untrue. The Lokians had a telepathic connection between them. And while the seed pods weren’t exactly sentient in their own right, there was an empathetic thread that bound them together. But it was also more than that. The pods provided the Lokians with the means for assimilating other species. Without them they were mostly brute force. And the loss of a good seed pod meant the loss of a new Loki. They all came from the pods in one way or another, after all. And watching one explode, needlessly destroyed by some insignificant blip of a creature, hurt. It pained Loki. It enraged him. And if there had been any chance of reasoning with him — there hadn’t been — then it was gone in an instant. Loki lost all amusement for this little game they were playing. It was time to end this. “So be it,” he growled. Loki didn’t hesitate. He lunged over Bucky’s body and stabbed the letter opener into his gut. The blade went in so deep that part of the hilt slipped through the flesh as well. Then he ripped the blade out and stabbed him again. And again. There was nothing elegant about it. Nothing really very Loki about it. At least, not their Loki. The only similarity really was the look on his face. Pure unadulterated rage. And a twinge of sadistic pleasure. Loki dropped the letter opener onto the floor. Then he grabbed Bucky by the head and slammed his skull into the ground. Once. Twice. Three times. It wasn’t easy. Loki had to exhaust his strength just to hold Bucky down. Lokians often underestimated the unconscious will to survive. And the desire to remain independent of the thrall. But in this universe, Loki was the stronger of the two of them. So, he had that to his advantage. One disadvantage of the mind-wipes was that Bucky didn’t remember how to fight without the serum in his blood. He was tiring too quickly, his current form unable to keep up with the intensive combat his instincts and mind were attuned for. He wasn’t as effectively able to block out the pain. He was unwrapping the vines from his bound ankles when Loki’s dagger/letter opener sank into his belly, just under his ribs. He didn’t shout this time, didn’t scream. Instead, the breath seemed pulled from him and he gasped, flesh hand coming up to grasp the arm holding the blade. But the alien had the superior strength this time. Bucky couldn’t control the knife hand, so he did the only thing he could - used his grip on it as leverage to start attacking the other side again. He felt when the force field collapsed under his metal fist, felt the blows from the vibranium limb striking the Lokian’s body. Then his head was slammed into the ground. Stars burst in his vision. He struggled to get up, but strong arms were holding him down. His head was struck again. And again. Bucky felt a cough in his throat - it was wet. Something wasn’t right with his breathing, his chest felt squishy. The cough brought a mouthful of coppery blood to his mouth. Bucky focused his eyes on Loki’s face, and spat. Loki recoiled backward when Bucky spat blood in his face. He wiped the back of his arm across his cheek, smearing the blood across his skin. Loki stretched his hand towards the desk while Bucky attempted to catch his breath. He calmly opened the center drawer and removed a ‘VOTE LOKI’ sticker, provided to him earlier that week by his campaign manager. His secretary was supposed to pass them out during the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new park. Alas, that was temporarily delayed for the alien invasion. Priorities. Loki slapped the sticker on Bucky’s chest, just above his right breast. Then he picked up the dagger-esque letter opener and stabbed it through the center ‘O’ in ‘LOKI’. He left the blade pierced in Bucky’s chest, possibly puncturing the upper section of lung and ensuring that the sticker wouldn’t fall off. “That’s for always dropping my mail in the grass,” Loki said with a sneer. He stood up and grabbed Bucky by the leg, deftly dragging him to the large office window that overlooked the garden at the front of City Hall. From there he could see that Main Street was on fire. A trio of gelatinous cubes flew past. Loki opened the window completely before he picked Bucky up — as though he weighed nothing — and propped him against the sill, held up by one arm. If his body ached from the punches he’d accrued after his force field went down, he didn’t show it. Maybe that was because of the strength of his alien composition. Or maybe, like Bucky, he was just stubborn. “And this is for my friends. Pity you won’t be around to see them join me.” One final smirk before he shoved Bucky out the window to that patch of neatly manicured grass four floors below. |