Star Dust (A Paladin Adventure)

Thor dragged both guards over. "Tell me what your orders are," he commanded.

The uninjured man spoke up. "We are to sweep this area for Lady Sif," he said, glancing over at her. Thor scowled.

"And what are you to do once your sweep is complete?

"Return to the citadel and report."

"Report to whom?"

"Loki, who has been given charge of the guard by Hela."

"My brother, in charge of the guard?" Thor said incredulously. The guard shrugged.

"It is the wish of Hela," he said.

"If we can get word to Loki, we can get the best information," I said in a low voice. Steve moved our group between the entrance and the captured guards.

"Ok, but how do we do that? How do we even know Loki is trustworthy? He could have had another change of heart since we were all sent to the Grandmaster," he said.

"We have to take a leap," I said. "Look, if we can get an unintercepted message to him, I can meet with him alone and see where his loyalty really lies," I offer. "I think that regardless of anything else, he's still my friend."

"If this guard reports directly to Loki, I can make him deliver a specific message," Wanda offered, and I smiled.

"Where would you meet him?" Steve asked, and Thor spoke up.

"I can take her to the hunting lodge where Sif was staying. Loki also knows of it; we found it when we were hunting together as youths. It may be why he has sent guards to search." He turned to me. "What message would you send?"

"Wanda, can you make the guard sing instead of speak a message?" I said, smiling craftily. She nodded, looking interested.

"We watched a lot of musicals. He enjoys them," I said to the mystified group. Thor looked baffled.

"I cannot imagine my brother finding entertainment in that," he said and I shrugged a shoulder, trying to remember his favorite. We'd watched the ones in his DVD collection a couple times each. The Phantom of the Opera movie with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum, On the Town, Singing in the Rain, High Society...Chicago. He'd very much enjoyed that movie; we'd watched it together a few times and security had reported he'd seen it several times on his own.

"A bit of a song from Chicago. He liked that one, and I think he'd connect it with me." I leaned over. "Hey, kid--" I waved and got the attention of the two guards.

"Once you make your report and tell him that Sif is not here, will other patrols come or will they move on?"

The braver one spoke. "In that case, the search would shift to another area. But we have found her."

"You will forget you have seen her," Thor growled.

"We cannot," the guard defended himself. "Our loyalty is to the ruler of Asgard." Who is not you, he might have added.

"I can make them forget," Wanda murmured. And so the plot was hatched; the guards were taken outside, their memory altered out of view of any of us to include just the impression of habitation in the lodge, and the senior of the pair, if he found himself alone with Loki, would deliver our message. Three lines from the toe-tapping number "I Can't Do It Alone"--

Now, you've seen me goin' through it
You may think there's nothin' to it
But I simply cannot do it alone!

Then, if Loki asked, he would give the coordinates to the hunting lodge. If Loki was not alone, the guard was to keep alert and deliver the message at the earliest opportunity. Wanda cleverly included a command that would make the man forget what he had just said after he delivered the message, so no one would be able to make him repeat it. We had a timeline of when the report was to be made and estimated how long it might take Loki to respond. If he did. It was a risk; he could send a patrol instead of coming himself. It was as safe a plan as we could devise.

The next day I went camping. I wouldn't be staying at the hunting lodge itself in case Loki behaved in a way I didn't want to believe. I took a bedroll with the very comfortable pad, rations, a lantern, a container of water, Bucky, and Thor. Thor came along for obvious familial reasons, and Bucky in case we needed...cleanup.

We didn't have long to wait. The day after we got settled in the woods around the lodge, we heard the whine of transportation, and moved carefully to a prearranged vantage point overlooking the lodge. The craft settled and Loki hopped out. He was alone; we moved around to the back of the lodge and entered from the rear in case there were any recording devices active on the craft.

Loki was looking under a bed when we found him. "Hey," I said, and he got to his feet quickly and crossed the room to hug me.

"I couldn't believe your clever message," he said. "How?"

"We will explain, brother," Thor said from the doorway, and Loki's head swiveled. After a moment, he crossed the room slowly and extended his arm. After another moment, Thor clasped his arm and pulled him into a brotherly, one-armed hug. It was nice.

"Well, let's get to talking," I said briskly, and we went downstairs. We didn't light a fire or anything that might attract attention. We were pushed for time as well; Hela had allowed Loki to clear a brief period of time for this trip and we didn't dare do anything that would arouse suspicion.

Thor summarized our experiences in the arena quickly, describing how we came to be returned to Asgard, and Loki explained Hela's plans as well. She wanted Sif, or, more accurately, the fetus that Sif was carrying. Dead or alive, it didn't matter...although dead was the most convenient since a child of Thor's would provide a rallying point for rebellion. "Are all of you camping in the woods?" he asked.

"No," said Thor. "The others are staying in the outpost in the hot water caverns."

"You must warn them, brother," Loki said instantly. "When I arranged to come down here, I told Hela that the guard had the impression that someone had been living here, and she dispatched a patrol to check the few other structures in this area while I came here."

Bucky immediately got on the communication device we'd found, but no one was answering. Loki jumped to his feet, pulling on Thor. "We must go now." We all ran for the door.

Another vehicle was at the cavern entrance. We could hear the fighting from outside and drew our weapons as we ran in. Loki snapped the neck of the first guard we encountered, tossing the body aside almost without breaking stride. In the main cavern, several guardsmen were down. It looked like the fight was getting mopped up. I saw Steve, standing between a guardsman and Sif, down on the floor, attended by Sam. Thor bellowed with rage and took care of the guardsman with one blow of Mjolnir to the head. There wasn't much left afterward. Sif was curled in on herself, but her sword was still clenched in her hand. Thor pried it out gently and held her hand as Sam explained that he thought she might miscarry as a result of a couple of savage blows she'd taken to her lower abdomen.

Bucky had one of the few remaining guardsmen in an interrogation situation, which was essentially him beating the information out of the guy. It seemed to be working fine. I collected the others for a brief explanation. "What's our next step?" Natasha asked.

"We need to get Sif to medical care," Sam said, leaving Thor and Sif alone together. "I'm almost positive she's miscarrying."

"Our options are few," Loki said quietly. "I doubt that we can find someone to treat her, not here. Our population is found mostly in the cities."

"We will storm the citadel," Thor snarled. "We will depose the pretender and I will kill her myself." I realized, as I looked at him, that I'd never really seen Thor mad. But here he was, almost Hulk-like in his rage, and I started to uneasily review what I knew about Norse berserkers. (Not much.)

Thor wouldn't be talked down. The lack of the returning guards would probably be a tipoff to Hela that something was up, so we had to move fast. We formed a plan. Our plan kind of sucked, but it was the only one we had. We would fly close to the citadel, land the craft, and sneak inside using Thor and Loki's knowledge of the area from their childhoods. From there, we would disperse to a few areas where we had the best chance of ambushing Hela. We agreed not to pussyfoot around but to kill her immediately; she was too dangerous to live. Meanwhile, a small group would get Sif to a healer. I knew the approach to the healing rooms pretty well and Loki and Thor both had alternative routes from when they would try to evade their parents after youthful accidents.

We assigned groups: Jim, Sam, and I would get Sif to help. The others formed three groups to hunt Hela. Each group started to plan its op. Sif drew us a floorplan of the area around the healing rooms, and we decided to go to a small chamber nearby; it was used as a stillroom and was usually empty. If there were healers there, so much the better, but otherwise, I would go find one. When Jim and Sam got up to start preparations for our infiltration, I stayed with Sif.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "I feel like this is my fault. It was my idea to contact Loki."

"It is not," she said. "And as much as I am reluctant to say it, it does not appear to be Loki's fault either. We all agreed that this was the best plan. The one who is responsible is the guard who did this. And Hela, for ordering it." She put her hand on her abdomen. "I do not want to lose the baby," she whispered. Her hand squeezed mine. "I know Thor married me so that he could hand over a child to his father as the heir," she whispered. "If I cannot provide him with a child, I worry that... It is difficult for our kind to have children. He may look elsewhere to father children."

"He does that to you, cut off his dick," I whispered back. "But I don't think he will. And this isn't anything you did to cause it. It doesn't mean that you couldn't become pregnant again. " I stroked hair off her face with my free hand. She moaned a little. I did what I could to soothe her, and soon Thor came over to pick her up and take her to the larger vehicle. Loki left, slightly ahead of us. He was to trigger a mechanical failure in order to take attention away from our craft landing without the guardsmen.

Thor set down the craft at the edge of the field and we crept from the vehicle toward the perimeter of the the citadel, separating as we went in order to achieve our missions. I went ahead; Jim's powered suit enabled him to carry Sif without strain, and Sam was ready to defend them. I made it to the stillroom without encountering anybody, then signaled the rest of the team. Ok. Step one accomplished. Now I had to find somebody to look after Sif. I eased out into the corridor and began the search; it had to be someone alone. I left Nike with the guys as I didn't want to accidentally make noise bumping into something and alerting the wrong people. It took a good twenty minutes before I found a target; he'd been in the healing suites when I'd been treated there and I had the impression he didn't think much of me, but that was unimportant. I pulled him off balance and into the wall, placing my knife on his spine where one thrust would sever the spinal cord. In the end, it wasn't hard to persuade him to come along even if it didn't do anything for my personal popularity. He examined Sif, compassion for his patient taking over, and it wasn't long before he reported that she had indeed miscarried. It would have been a daughter. Tears spilled from her eyes and she stifled the sound of her crying with her hand. The healer insisted we leave; we insisted we couldn't leave her alone, unguarded, and at risk. In exchange for the healer's personal promise to ensure Sif's continued well-being, we left Sam, since he was the one with the medical training, to watch out for her, and Jim and I went on to help the others, if we could find them.

The fight was in the throne room. We slid inside to a phantasmagorical nightmare. Shades of the dead filled the hall; although they seemed unable to hold a weapon, they were fairly terrifying. The loyalty of the guard was split; some of them fought for Hela, others for Thor. Jim launched to join Tony in attacking from above, and I snuck around the perimeter of the hall to see what was going on before rushing in. My friends had their hands full with Hela's personal guard; she seemed to be accompanied by a massive man who was skillful enough to keep both Loki and Thor at bay. It didn't look like the battle was going our way, however. There wasn't anybody who was unharmed, and Thor and Loki were barely holding on.

I walked up behind Hela and did what I'd threatened to do to the healer; severed her spinal cord. Now was not the time to fight fair. I pushed her off my knife as she screamed hate and rage, then aimed a kick at her temple that rendered her unconscious. I waded into the fight with Nike, striking with the intent to put down my opponent with three strikes or less. We were outnumbered and most of us didn't have any kind of enhanced durability. I had just engaged a guardsman when I heard the oddest sound; it was like silk ripping and a sliding noise; I looked over to see the man Thor and Loki and Loki's copies of himself were fighting start to grow and change shape. His shouts of laughter devolved into a lower sound, hissing, as his form changed to a gigantic serpent. WTF? I had so had it with freaking snakes. I ran forward as the snake struck at Thor.

Loki jumped in front of his brother and took the strike himself. He slid to the floor gracelessly; the sight reenergized Thor and he stepped over his brother to renew combat. I darted forward and dragged Loki to the side as the copies of Loki faded to nothing.

He wasn't in good shape; his fair skin had lost all its color and was fading to a grayish tone. "Be careful," he warned me, blood bubbling shockingly red on his lips. "Odin's brother. Cul. Take care--" his words faded as the light left his expressive eyes. I had to take a moment to deal with the shock of his death and swipe at my eyes before I could force myself back to my feet.

Combat had paused in the hall; all eyes were on Thor and Cul. When the battle between them was joined, it was brutal in ways I'd never seen before. No blows were pulled even a little. It wasn't just a fight to victory, each wanted the other to suffer, to see defeat approach before death. The strikes from the snake-Cul and bolts of lightning from Mjolnir struck the hall, damaging it; blocks of stone were working themselves loose, stone dust filtering down. Another blow from the snake tail had the stone starting to fall. I started for the nearest door, but a stone took out a guardsman right in front of me. I whimpered and changed direction. Everyone was trying to escape. Lightning from Mjolnir struck me, but it bounced off me; I think it recognized me. Thank somebody. Somehow, the serpent-Cul could still speak, and he taunted his nephew, whose temper flared until he was reacting, not acting. Thor, enraged, charged him, and Cul seized his opportunity and struck, two massive fangs piercing his armor. He pulled his head free and reared up triumphantly as Thor staggered nine steps before crumpling to the ground.

Cul's moment of triumph was shortlived; in shock I saw his head spinning away and the great flexible body went slack, spraying blood as it hit the floor. Behind him was Odin, with a greatsword in his hands. His eye took in the slaughter in the hall and the bodies of his sons. Then he walked slowly over to Hela, who was recovering consciousness. Kneeling beside her, he grasped her jaw and forced her to look at him.

"Release my sons from your halls, Hela," he said, power in his voice vibrating the air. Energy sizzled along the blade of his sword; it actually sparked, visible to the naked eye.

"And if I refuse?" she spat. Small jolts, like mini-earthquakes, shook the hall, making the damage worse.

"Then you will spend your remaining centuries in my cells, pissing and shitting yourself uncontrollably, unable to move your legs or care for yourself. But the scum of the Nine Realms may not mind that as they violate you at their pleasure," Odin said implacably. My skin crawled and the hair on the back of my neck stood up in revulsion as he spoke of the degradation and indignities she would suffer. That fate would terrify any woman. That Odin was using it as a tool shocked me as much; I wouldn't thought he'd treat any woman, much less a powerful goddess, like that. The earthshaking died away, but the power in the sword built. I found myself retreating from his presence, step by slow step until I bumped into something; looking around frantically, I saw it was Steve. His hand found mine; I don't think I could have stood any kind of restraint, even his arm around my waist. Even his.

"And if I do?" Hela asked, the defiance leeched from her voice.

He held up a beautiful golden apple, shimmering softly in the lights. "Your restoration, so long as you promise to stay out of Asgard and trouble me no further."

"You have my word," she snarled, and after a few long moments, the body of Loki began to stir, venom from the snake spilling out of the wounds, the punctures knitting together and closing. It was unbearably creepy. Directly in front of me, Thor began to move. Odin observed this, giving Hela the apple before standing and helped Thor to stand. I turned to Loki, and Steve stepped over and gave him a hand up. Loki still looked wild and pale as he scanned the hall. Odin and Thor approached; it took everything had not flee the hall with all the speed I possessed. Odin held up the sword and flicked the last of Cul's blood from the shining surface.

"I took this sword from the demon Surtr when I defeated him," Odin said, sliding it into its scabbard. The power flaring off the blade quenched. "Its name is Ragnarok. It is prophesied that drawing it will begin the end of the world, yet that has not occurred." He half-turned away and shouted orders for the hall to be cleared and for the masons to attend. I saw Hela rise and walk away, fading away as she did so.

"How is Sif?" Thor asked urgently.

"She miscarried," I said, feeling for the first time like that might not be an entirely bad thing. Another female, born into this world, wasn't such a joyous thought after what I'd just seen. "The healer says she'll be fine, though." Thor nodded, and strode after his father. Loki half-smiled at me and followed.

The team gathered around Steve and me. Nobody was ok with what had happened, but Wanda and Natasha and I were the worst off. "Does anybody know where the quinjet is?" Wanda asked in a higher-than-normal voice.

"I can't wait to go home," I agreed.

"How's Sif?" Natasha asked me.

"She'll be ok," I said.

"Let's go see," she said, and the three of us bolted that hall. We found that Sif had been moved to a treatment room. When he saw us and heard that it was over, Sam left for the hall and we stayed with Sif. Wanda and Natasha were treated for injuries from the battle and we took turns telling Sif what happened. She pried out what really had us freaked out.

"Odin would never..." her voice faded away. "You have nothing to worry about," she tried again. "The Allfather owes you a debt."

"No offense, but I don't think we really want to test that," Natasha muttered. At that moment, Bucky stuck his head in the room and told us we were wanted in the throne room. Reluctantly, we left Sif and returned.

When we arrived, Odin was speaking with Thor and Steve; the other men, including Loki, looked on. Odin motioned us over, and I tried hard not to feel like a little woman intruding on men's work. Odin held out his arm for me and I took it with the lightest possible touch. We walked up to the throne, and I stood aside as he climbed the stairs to the seat.

"And how can I reward those who did so much to help me reclaim my throne?" Odin asked, his ravens alighting on either side of him.

"I would just like to go home," Natasha said. "We did it for Thor." Her flat voice resounded through the hall and Thor winced slightly.

"Is this the wish of all?" Odin said sharply, and we all agreed. "I owe you a special debt," he said to me, but I shook my head.

Then I lifted my head enough to look at him. "There is something. You can revisit Loki's sentence. And then I would really like to go home."

Odin's face settled, as if he'd expected more. "Thor will escort you to your craft," he said austerely. I nodded at him and trailed behind. Loki fell into step with me.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"I saw what you did," I muttered back, and he turned, quirking a smile, as his father barked his name. There wasn't a lot of conversation as we got back into the guard's vehicle and Hawkeye gave Thor directions to the cloaked quinjet.

In short order, we were strapping ourselves into our seats as Clint took us up.