Chapter 1
“You will never be a god” those were his last words before his vision started to get dark, before his limbs started to get numb, the last sense he lost was the hearing, a small crack sound from his neck, then a fraction of seconds later his consciousness was lost.
Until this day.
The hearing was the last sense to lost and also the first one to get back, he heard murmurs, incomprehensible words, sounds of machines and a high pitched sound synchronized to his heart. As the minutes passes he slowly felt his body, laid in a bed, metal cuffs on his wrists and ankles, his limbs seemed to be thinner, and on his skin he felt… cold. For the first time on his life passed by his thoughts how could a frost giant feel cold, he had felt it in every winter in Asgard before knowing his real heritage, which didn’t changed much after finding out the truth, he wondered about how much Odin's magic had affected his physiology, or if all frost giants were like this; able to feel cold, but the immunity to it is triggered on extreme temperatures.
Loki opened his eyes, a bright white light blinded him, he instantly closed them.
“He is awaking.” A female voice said far away, “I need to warn –” the voice became too far.
He opened his eyes again, slowly, giving them time to adjust at the light, until he was finally able to see where he was.
His gaze ran by the infirmary room, he was definitely in Sakaar, recognized it by the view in the window, and by the wall's style. He eyed his own body, or at least tried to as there was a metal circle around his head, on the middle of the forehead, a halo connected by a straight metal bar long enough to reach his low back.
The trickster tried to touch the halo, but the chain's cuff on his wrist was too short, he took a deep breath, which made him notice a metal around his chest, right under his armpits, and another one on his waist, both of them were tight on his body and connected to the bar on his back, forbidding him to move.
“You are finally awake!” the Grandmaster's voice, he walked close to Loki's bed, some female had substituted Topaz's place on escorting him, “Well,” he sat in a chair close to the bed, “How are you feeling right now?” he placed his elbow in the edge of the bed, his chin resting on his hand.
Loki slowly blinked, confused with the situation, his month was dry, too dry.
“Oh, you should be thanking me for rescuing you from the space,”
The black haired's confused eyes found the Grandmaster’s face.
“Well, you were found floating between bodies and rests of a exploded ship, thanks to the tracker placed on your arm while you were drunk in a party.” He said slightly faster the last part, “And you weren’t breathing, then my doctors had to revive you, which they were successful. But,” a dramatic pause, “You had a small fracture on your neck and a few more fractures on your spine, but nothing too serious, this brace you are using right now was enough to keep you spine in place and avoid to you become paralyzed.” He said moving his hands, “Then you were brought here, but you became sand as half of the population, then five years later everyone was back, you included, but you were in comma and stayed like that for more two years.” He held up both hands, “And now, you are finally awake.” He smiled.
Loki slowly blinked, trying to process all the new information, “Why?” his voice came out low, weak.
“For what I heard from the wind singing,” the Grandmaster said looking to the celling, “You were part of the gladiators revolution, or at least was involved, I think, well you got inside that ship with them.” The Grandmaster stood,
“It was not cool. I used to call you my friend,” he started to pace around the room, “You have no idea about how much hard it was for me to get my control over here back, and I am not going to lie, but the fact that half of the population was missing for awhile helped me a lot, as they are back, everything is starting again, so a way to calm people down is,” a dramatic pause, “Reopen the Contest of Champions.” He stopped, looking at Loki in the eyes, “And I decided that as a punishment for betraying my friendship, you will be one of my gladiators.” He lifted his chin, slightly tilting his head to the side, the corner of his lips slightly curving upwards.
The green emerald eyed only stared at the man in front of his bed, tried to move his too thin body.
“Don’t move yourself too much, you may get paralyzed.” The Grandmaster said waving one of his hands.
“He is fully healed already.” Said one of the nurses who had just entered in the room.
“Oh, alright, well. Still, it is better to keep him in this brace until the new arena is finished, you saw how bad he was when he was found, also, it will help us to keep him in place.” The Grandmaster held up a hand towards his bodyguard, who gave him a controller, “Does he has a obedience disk?” he said low, pressing the button of the controller, which activated the disk on the dark haired.
A strong shock of pain ran by the Trickster’s body, the main spot of it on his nape, he couldn’t move, not until the gray haired turned off the device.
“Good, he is already using it, now if you all excuse me, I have more important stuff to do.” He said walking towards the door.
Loki was left alone in the room, thinking about what to do next, he had one objective, and definitely wouldn’t fight as a gladiator, he had several reasons to not do it, and the main one was the fact that is body was extremely skinny and weak.
oOo
A few days passed, Loki became friends with the nurse, she even let him stay with one of the arms without the cuff, thanks to her, he knew that there was only one week left until the arena’s construction be done, he had a plan in mind.
“But tell me, what about your family?” the nurse asked while organizing a few bandages in a cabinet.
His lips pressed in a thin line, “It is, complicated.” His eyes became distant.
“Were they in that ship with you?” she asked worried.
“My brother, the only who was still alive,” he haven’t thought about it since he woke up, haven’t allowed himself to do such a thing,
“Our relationship wasn’t the best, but…” his gaze lowed, the woman went close to his bed.
“But you still loved each other.” She was very close to him, to his torso.
Loki let scape a low breath, “Yes.” He straightened his free arm towards her, the nurse hugged him.
“I understand that.” She said rubbing his upper arm before releasing him and looking at the clock, “It is the end of my shift, I have to go.” She gave him a warm smile.
The male slowly blinked, he would nod if wasn’t the brace, he watched the woman walking out the room, closing the door right behind her.
Loki cleaned his thoughts, holding the key ring he had took from the nurse’s pocket in front of his face, choose the smaller key, then used it to open the cuff on his opposite hand, as his wrist was free, he let the key ring on his lap, used both hands and arms to sit as the spinal brace didn’t allowed him to properly move.
When finally sat he opened the cuffs on his ankles, pushed the blankets away from his body, then placed his feet in the cold floor, both hands still in the mattress as he slowly stood, his legs were weak, he barely could stand without support, the muscular lost during his comma got him hard.
The green eyed went to the bathroom, turned on the lights, he needed to take out this brace as it made his mobility even more compromised, he looked at the mirror, his eyes surveying the halo on his forehead, the metals around his bare torso, he tapped the bar on his back, nothing, he didn’t found a way to open it.
Leaning both hands on the sink, the dark haired thought; he was a shapeshifter, needed to get out this room as fast as possible, and have to take out this brace, his eyes fixed on the mirror, staring at his torso.
The metal under armpits were impossible to simply pull, unless he had a narrower rib cage and shoulders, while the one around his lower back could be pulled until a certain point…
His gaze lowed, started to use his power to change his body, to a female one, when finished his eyes found the mirror, he was finally able to take out the brace.
He held the halo, pulling it up, holding up both arms while pulling the bar, the Trickster did it until he was free from the metals, leaving it in the floor, staring at it for a few seconds, remembering about awful moments years ago. He started to tap his arms' skin, looking for the tracker, which was found on the middle of his right forearm, in the posterior side, also noticed that his body was still slowly changing, but it didn’t matter in this moment as he was busy.
Loki was back to the room, took a gown from a random cabinet, it left his forearms exposed and was long enough only to cover until his knees, but was still better than the simply underwear he used.
The green eyed started his search for a scalpel, or anything sharp enough to make a clean cut while debating on his head if he could change to his original form or should stay on this one. He found none, and got on conclusion that it would be a wiser choice to stay on this form as there would certain have people outside the room, and he wouldn’t stay unseen all the time.
The door was unlocked, he used a cover illusion to keep himself imperceptible, walked across the corridor supporting both hands in the wall, his legs shaking from the muscular weakness. A door right in front of him got opened, a nurse he never saw before came out, he used his index finger to touch her forehead, quickly searched in her mind for the nurses’ locker room, when found it he influenced her to dodge from him, otherwise they would collide on each other.