"I swear I left him right here"
-LOKI-
“I swear I left him right here”
Thor stood beside his brother, arms folded, eyebrows furrowed. Loki’s posture copied his.
“Right here on the sidewalk or right there where the building is being demolished?”
Thor stared at the sight in front of him, the noise of the construction machine invading his ears. With a small sarcastic smile, he greeted “Great planning.”
If there was a building before, now it was completely torn in the middle of New York city. Thor’s eyes rammed through the building’s remains, until it landed on a squared plate.
SHADY ACRES Care Homewas what it read.
Loki shrugged, stealing a quick look at Thor. “How was I supposed to know? Can’t see into the future. I’m not a witch.”
“No? Then why do you dress like one?”
Loki looks offended. “Hey!”
“I can’t believe you’re alive.” Thor blurted” I saw you die. I mourned for you, I cried for you.”
Loki’s eyes furrowed once more, his hands involuntarily squeezing the black fabric of the suit that covered both of his arms. At this, Loki let them fall on his sides, attempting to release the tension of his muscles. His hands found his pants’ pockets. “I’m honored?”
If Thor was thinking about saying something next, all his thoughts were interrupted by female murmuring giggles approaching. They heard a faint “Ask him!” but before they could register what was happening, two young girls were at Thor’s right, smiling widely at him.
“Hi! Would you mind taking a picture with us?”
Thor quickly responded a “Oh sure…”, making the girls annoyingly squeal with excitement. The curly haired one lifted her arm, holding up a phone. At this, Loki couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Before taking the picture, Thor turns away to him. “Start figuring out where he is.”
The blond God then looks up at the camera and mimics the girls’ pose, sticking up two fingers, the phone’s image freezing on three smiling faces. The girls giggled and squealed once again, jumping at the picture. But before they turned around to leave, the shortest smiled apologetically at Thor. “Sorry to hear that Jane dumped you.”
No able to respond, Thor watched the back of the happy girls disappear into the New York’s crowd. Loki following as well. “She didn’t dump me, you know.” Loki heard his brother say, and turned his head to him, questioning if he actually needed to hear any kind of explanation. He tried to send him a signal, telling that he wasn’t interested in Thor’s love life, but apparently it wasn’t noticed. “I dumped her.” Thor’s voice seemed rushed. Loki patted his older brother’s back in some kind of sarcastic comfort. “It was mutual dumping.”
Suddenly Loki felt an unsettling warm sensation in his feet. Looking down curiously, he stared dumbfounded at some golden lights that circled him, sparkling furiously. He unconsciously opened his arms for balance.
On the other hand, Thor widened his eyes at the sight, instinctively backing up and moving away from the man. His heart quickly started pounding nervously. “What’s this?” he demanded, absolutely confused. What in the name of Odin was his brother planning now?!“Wh-wh-what are you doing?”
But instead of the mischievous look that Thor was waiting to receive, Loki’s expression is just as confused. “This isn’t me.” And just like that, he lets out a yelp before falling into the ground, completely disappearing.
A weirdly familiar sensation engulfed Loki’s body, as he felt like he was endlessly falling into an abyss. Memories flooded his mind and he automatically felt the urge to squeeze his eyes tightly. He couldn’t exactly think about anything in specific, as he fell at what seemed to be close to the light’s velocity but somehow still in slow motion. His muscles tightened around his bones, and it was like he could almost feel them internally getting painfully squeezed and almost cracking. Feeling like he had been falling for thirty minutes, he curiously opened his eyes to see if some kind of hard ground was approaching, wanting to prepare himself for the impact.
However, as soon as his eyelids cracked open, he felt his butt hit a firm and hard platform and his hands smashed against a equally hard surface. And weirdly enough, a wet and hot sensation filled his senses as he yelped in pain, the skin of his hand burning. That moment made his eyes widen instantly, making him aware of his surroundings.
Some kind of dinner establishment surrounded him. People around him sat at a table, some unaware of his presence, talking happily to each other, other curiously staring at him, mouth slightly opened. At their expressions, he blinked and looked at his hands, realizing that were resting above the same wooden table as the other people. The difference was that also on the surface was a fallen cup from which a yellow-ish liquid ran, directly at his hand. And then he yelped again, realizing the hot liquid had spilled in his skin. He quickly removed his hand, shaking the liquid off to the table. Suddenly, a white cloth joined the picture under his eyes, just next to the cup. A hand was holding it, wiping the table in a rapid and nervous motion. He followed the person’s arm, eyes landing on a small lady.
“Oh dear, are you okay?” she asked, worriedly. She watched as Loki tried to clean the liquid off with his other hand. “Oh of course, I am so sorry, I’ll get you some paper towels so that you can clean yourself, I’ll be right back.”
And just as quick as she appeared, Loki lost her sight form behind a door. Above it read in neon letters Bursum Street Café.
He furrowed his eyebrows for the millionth time that afternoon. What was going on?!
He looked around again. The people seemed to have forgotten him, and were now in their own world, staring at their phones, talking and laughing. Loki sighed, confused at all that was happening, wondering where his brother was now. His eyes searched for an exit door, as he questioned himself where he was and how would he go back to meet Thor. Feeling his suit wet, he rolled his eyes as he shook again his dripping arm, deciding to wait for the cleaning lady.
His leg unconsciously started shaking. Loki didn’t understand what was going on, and, although he would not admit, he was actually starting to get a bit nervous, feeling out of place. So much for a fun trip to New York to find Odin…
A sudden shout interrupted Loki’s thought, and his head quickly shot to the direction of the sound. He watched as the café doors were busted open by three masked men holding a gun each. Male voices echoed orders throughout the café. Loki raised an eyebrow. So this is how humans had fun…Two of the guys stayed by the doors, as the taller one stepped in front of the cash register. He pointed a gun at the young kid behind it and hit the machine hard.
“OPEN THE REGISTER NOW!”
The boy seemed paralyzed at the sight and his body didn’t move, his eyes wide open and filling with tears. As Loki observed his state, felt the urge to chuckle. But the man didn’t seem as pleased, screaming once again. “DIDN’T I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? NOW, KID!”
The kid quickly fidgeted with the code to open the machine with shaking hands. Loki sighed, laying back in his chair to admire the wonders of human interaction. Finally some fun.
“Don’t open it, Tyler!” a nervous loud whisper echoed in the middle of the room. Loki looked at a small young woman sitting across him. Her eyes stared angrily at the man with the pointing gun, her lips pressed against each other so hard that they trembled a bit, forming a round shaped petit mouth. Her expression screamed fierceness, but as Loki studied her body, he realized that her shakiness state didn’t seem much reassuring.
“Shut up, dumb bitch!” One of the other guys screamed, this time pointing the gun at her, but not moving from his position by the door. His distance from the girl made Loki question.
Although the girl visibly got more scared, she didn’t appear to face defeat as she inhaled deeply, allowing more words to leave her mouth, but ignoring the men. “Don’t do it, Tyler!”
“I said,” the guy approached closely the girl, but still not quit enough “shut the fuck up!” A click sound was heard and the women trembled, knowing that know all it took was the simple pull of the trigger. “Or I fucking kill you””
“Man…” the last guy that hadn’t said a word finally spoke in a low voice. His eyes looked worriedly at the raised gun in his partner’s hand, that now Loki realized that was shaking.
He scoffed.Amateurs.
“Hurry up, we don’t have time for this, Dude! Get the fucking money!” The man who Loki now thought to be the leader screamed at the forgotten boy behind the register, who was now full on crying his eyes out, making Loki cringe at such dramatism.
In his state of boredom, his eyes searched through the people around them, analyzing their scared faces. A mother caught his eye, trembling arms holding a small child that hid his face in her chest. She murmured quiet words in his hears. A foreign feeling made his wet arm chill.
“Ty-“
“She has the fucking nerve!” The gunman didn’t waste any more time and with a movement, the gun was pressed against the annoying girl’s forehead. Loki fought the urge to curse this woman, she had to be dumb.
“Hey man, seriously, we have to get out of here, don’t do anything stupid!” the raspy voice of the humble masked guy screamed from the entrance. He had just been watching the coffee shop, a shot gun readied in his arms, not pointed at anyone but the ceiling.
Alright, this was just turning tedious. Loki really had to get going, where the hell was Thor anyway… Rolling his eyes at the sight, Loki muttered, although loud enough for everyone to hear. “Just get on with the killing.”
The girl’s eyes shot to his sitting position, surprised, and scared at the words.
“Excuse me?!” The leader inquired. His brown eyes furrowing through the holes in the black mask. His led his gun in the direction of Loki this time.
“Oh in the name of Odin… You heard me.” Loki sank more in his chair and his arms fell to his sides, facing boredom. His eyes faced the same ceiling, curious to check the perspective of the passive guy’s gun. “Just do it, I seriously have got to be somewhere else, so I would really appreciate it you just got on with whatever child play you’re doing.”
And then it was his turn to feel the cold metal of the gun press against his forehead. “Who the hell are you?”
He yawned, letting a curious silence fill in the air. Oh how he loved some good suspense. And it was like the unexperienced man could transmit his lack of patience, making it travel through his arm, hand and finally to the point of his gun where it met Loki’s cold skin. Feeling this, the God decided that he had hold their attention enough, so he let the words form “I am Loki”
With this, he took a hold at the man’s wrist, gripping so hard that it began to cut of circulation. “of Asgard.”
Finally looking into the eyes of the man, he felt the hold of the gun loosen slowly, taking it as an opportunity to take it from him. A cracking sound was heard followed by a loud scream, and the man kneeled in front of him, holding his broken wrist in pain.
“Oh so now you pathetic mortals kneel.” Loki commented, deciding to get up, gun in his hand. “Alright.” He held up the gun and made it disappear on thin air, replacing it instead with a pair of knives, smirking at them. “That’s better. I don’t get why you humans are such fans of these ball throwing machines.” He swung both the knives around. “These are so much fancier.”
With that, Loki flawlessly threw one of them to the scared masked man that had been threatening the girl, and it landed in his knee. “Well wasn’t that boring. You seriously need to practice you threatening skills. If you need lessons, you can call me, just dial the word Heimdall.”
Loki threw a rock-hard punch at the guy’s nose. A whimper escaped his lips, and his words came out in a pained slow sequence. “God… Jesus… Christ” He fell to the ground, groaning loudly, mouth wide open.
Loki gasped, appearing offended. “God?!” He exclaimed, throwing the other knife at the laying guy’s sleeve coat, nailing the fabric to the floor, restraining him from moving. “Yes” he kicked the gun away from his reach. “… of Mischief” the man cried once again in pain as Loki’s classy suit shoe came in contact with his head “not Jesus Christ” he smiled.
A angry groan made Loki turn around, meeting the scowl of the broken wrist guy. Throwing himself at the girl, the God noticed he was holding up one of his own knifes at her neck.
“Now now, this is not fair. That is mine.” Loki growled seriously, finding this situation less and less amusing. He looked at the girl’s pained expression that stared back at his blue eyes, pleading for help. She gripped the arms of her attacker, grasping for air, as tears began to fill her eyes.
Loki felt the strange need to comfort her “It is fine, Lady Maeve.” Her name escaped his lips flawlessly, fitting perfectly between his teeth, the sound floating through the air to meet her ears, and she visibly relaxed just a bit. Content with his effect, Loki locked on Maeve’s and muttered a brief “Puff”
And as he said it, the knife disappeared from the man’s hand and formed itself in Loki’s. Confused at what just had happened, the man loosened his grip on the girl and Loki took advantage of his distraction, grabbing him be the neck, easily throwing him to the other side of the room.
“Okay, little guy” Loki now turned to the last man, who still hadn’t made a unique move since he had gotten there. “Would you give me the pleasure of going next?”
As he prepared himself to attack, a small shaking hand grabbed him by his arm and before he had any time to register the situation, a golden light blinded him, evolving his surroundings. And the next thing he knew, he was colliding again, this time on the ground, hitting his nose. The squeezing hand never leaving his arm, another body pressed against his, making him groan in pain.
A faint voice was heard. “You can handle it from here.”
And then, Thor’s. “Yes, thank you very much.”
Loki groaned in pain, throwing the small body off him so that he could stand up.
“Handle me?!” he said, incredulously, the knives reappearing once again in his hands, he observed the thin man in a weird red cloth. Ignoring Thor’s plea, he continued. “You some kind sorcerer? Don’t think for one minute you can send me to a place of out of minded mortals and second-rate me, you-“
“Alright, bye-bye”
And then again, Loki’s body came in contact with the ground, this time the taste of fresh grass filling up his mouth. And then again, the same foreign body colling against his.