Loki and Ingrid 14

Loki, Thor, and Ingrid get sidetracked on their journey to Asgard, and get captured by Thanos' daughter, Nova, sister of Gamora and Nebula. Ingrid gets to kick ass. Power of love.

A Cosmic Folly

“Ingrid, grab on!” shouts Thor, holding the tesseract to promptly return us back to Asgard. Maybe I can appeal to Odin. I’m concerned for Loki, after everything he has been through in the past few weeks and months, but I won’t say anything to Thor until we get back to Asgard. This isn’t like travelling by Bifrost, it’s swift, dark and cold. I can feel my heart beating as the blackness surrounds us. Then, suddenly, I’m lying on the hard ground with a thud, and I can’t see anything.

          “Ingrid? Ingrid? Open your eyes!” I can hear Loki now, then Thor.

          “Ingrid, you need to get up. Now.”

          “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to sit up, “I don’t travel well.” I blink once, then twice. I still seem to be surrounded by blackness. I feel someone trying to sit me up, then Thor’s voice again, “I do not think we are on Asgard, brother. What is this strange magic of yours—”

          “I didn’t do it, I swear!”

          “Why is it so dark?” I try to ask, but they don’t hear me.

          “You tried to kill me, Loki!”

          “It was Thanos lying to me—I—”

          “ENOUGH! I know what you’re up to—destroying realms is your hobby isn’t it? After all, you did try to destroy Jotunheim, and I had to DESTOY THE BIFROST!”

          “Thor, please.” I feel through the darkness until I grab onto his robes. “Not now. I saw him, he wasn’t thinking clearly. He told me Thanos lied—”

          “How do you know he’s not lying—”

          “Choose your words wisely, brother—”

          “LOKI—!”

          “Shut up, Thor!”

          “NO, LOKI—!”

          “I mean it. We aren’t alone.”

“What do you mean? Where are we?”

          “I-I don’t know. All I know is that he was watching me—well, his underling and I—”

          “Who was watching you, Loki?”

          “Thanos,” I answer, “He knows the whereabouts of all the stones.”

          “And how does—?”

          “I don’t know, but I know that we’re in danger. Loki failed to bring Thanos the tesseract before; it’s rigged now—he wants it.”

          “I don’t have it,” says Loki.

          “Of course, you do! How do you think we got here? Thor picks up the tesseract, now glowing, “If you’ll excuse me—” and with a whirl of Mjolnir, he is gone.

          “I guess Heimdall fixed the Bifrost?” I ask through the dark.

          “Shh. No hints.”

          “What?”

          “He can’t know—”

          “He will—” and that’s when I realize how completely and utterly alone we are. We can’t hand over the thing he wants. “Thor did the right thing, to return it to its place.”

          “And do you suspect he will return for us?”

          “I don’t know. If Thanos leaves him alone.”

          “Don’t say it. Please.”

          “Can you use magic or something? Get us back home?”

          “Already tried that. There’s a force field around the entire place. Thor got out because—well, he’s Thor. But I—”

          “I wish it wasn’t so dark,” I whisper, “I want to know my surroundings.”   

          “I failed, Ingrid.”

          “What?”

          “I said I would do it for him if he spared you—”

          “He doesn’t want me.”

          “You’re bait.”

          “Loki—”

          “I’m right here.” I can feel him now, one hand in my hair, the other reaching for mine.

          “What did you say about him again?”

          “That he sits in a chair all day. He has many working for him. The one who was assigned to me most often was a mysterious being known as The Other.”

          “That sounds bad.”

          “It’s worse. The scepter—it’s not just any scepter. There’s another infinity stone lost to us, on Midgard. Thanos gave me the scepter expecting me to return to him with one more stone than I set out with. Now I have neither the space stone, nor the mind stone—”

          “So, it is the mind stone,” I breathe, “I knew—”

          “What do we have here?” A silky, almost robotic voice issues from the depths of the room. “Show yourselves.”

          “How—” I stammer, as Loki begins to wield the ancient sorcery that is the light I first met him by. It twists and expands as the ball of light dissipates between us, dimly illuminating the barren room.

          “Hello,” says the synthetic female voice, sweetly, “Welcome to the Other Realm. My name is Nova. I shall be assisting you. I get a good look at the entity we are faced with, and I see her now, clearly. She has a lavender skin tone, but it seems like many parts of her are made entirely of machinery. “I am indeed the daughter of Master Thanos himself. I am the youngest of Thanos’ daughters, but the favorite, the most powerful. The others have resisted to much for their own good. It shall by my duty to kill them one day.” She says all of this with a complete lack of emotion, as she slowly advances, and I notice she has short, fair hair on one side of her face, while the other side is some sort of metal alloy. I almost pity her for a moment, then I remember she said she would kill her sisters one day, and the feeling fades.

          “Just who do you think you are?” probes Nova, “Appearing in the Other Realm uninvited?”

          “Excuse me, we were trying to go home. We didn’t come here by choice. We had something—”

          “Ah, and so you admit why you are here. Give me the tesseract and no one will get hurt.”

          “We don’t have it,” I say quickly, “I am truly sorry. We lost it.”

          “You LOST it?” Shouts Nova, stepping ever closer. I can feel her synthetic voice breathing down my neck as she raises the blade.

          “Not today, Nova.”        

          “Ah. The fugitive,” Nova gives a sick, half-smile as she reaches towards Loki, “You were the one supposed to bring the tesseract. The one to rule Earth. The one who possessed the mind stone—so tell me? Where are they?”

          Her hands move uncannily through the air, like snakes, getting ever closer to Loki. “So, tell me. If you tell me, I’ll let your little friend go.”

          “The tesseract is—”

          “NO!” I lunge forward, my feet hitting the hard floor as I reach for Nova, and swing.

          “Ha!” says Nova, “Do you think you can try to fight me?”

          “Ingrid, I’ll tell! We’ll figure something out!”

          “No,” I say, “I can’t fight you. But I will sure as hell try.”

          The silence that comes from Nova’s speechless expression is quickly doused by Loki’s spell, which nearly misses.

          “You’re insane,” spits Nova, advancing, “Truly insane!”

          “Yes, I am, Nova. And I love it.”

          Nova steps back, slowly, then throws the punch—her arm is made entirely of a strong metal, but Loki’s shielding charm is ready. Thrown to the ground by the force and shock of the fray, I helplessly watch from the floor as Nova rapidly throws kicks and punches, aiming for the head and Loki desperately shields the attacks. “I can keep this up all day,” he says, breathlessly dodging another punch.

          “Oh no. You can’t!” Nova laughs, pulling a device out of her pocket and pressing the command. “Does that hurt?”

          “Well, it wasn’t fun,” says Loki, clearly masking the pain, “But I still have my powers.” And he hits her with such a strong charm that she falls to the ground. He pulls a blade out of his sleeve and points it at Nova’s throat. “I will use this, if you don’t let us go, now,” he hisses, closer to her throat now, “I don’t know who you think you are and what you are doing, but I know who you are working for. And that’s what counts.”

          “Oh, Master Thanos!” screams Nova, on the floor, “Father, send help!”

          Two of Thanos’ henchmen rush to Nova’s side and pull her off the ground. The first pins Loki to the wall and demands an answer, “How did you break away from the oath. You swore allegiance!”

          “I remembered what true evil is.”

          “Leave me!” snaps Nova, clearly not ready to be in a victimized, “I can handle him. The guards leave as Nova swiftly grabs the knife out of Loki’s hand. “I could use my super laser and obliterate you in an instant,” says Nova, with her sick smirk, “But let’s make this personal. Tell me one last time—”

          I have no time to think as the blade slices the air, just missing Loki’s throat with my tactic. I have thrown her off balance, like I learned in sparring. Yes! I remember enough of hand to hand combat to know which mistakes to avoid, which organs to protect. And I block her punch with my arm and kick her straight in the chest before she has time to react. There. She is winded from the blow.

          I have the blade now, glimmering in the light from the room, shining with fury. “I will kill you!”

          “You can’t. I’m metal.”

          “Everyone has a weak spot,” I remember as I point the knife straight at her one natural eyes.

          “NO!” Screams Nova, “NO! I yield, I yield!”

          “Fine,” I spit in her face without removing the knife, “Go then. And don’t—”

          “I’ll go, then,” says Nova, back to her serene voice, “Because I have these restraints.” One chip codes to me and one to Loki. “And you can’t leave. Same rules apply. Do not resist the Master. Do not dare to speak his name—”

          “It won’t work.” I say as she is departing, but even I know that sometimes it’s too late.

          “He doesn’t have the whereabouts,” whispers Loki, “I lied when I said he knew all of them. Only those which are revealed by an oath. It was still attached to me from my time of—submission.”

          I can tell that it kills him to say it. “Submission.”

          “More like a violation of my thoughts, isn’t it? THANOS!”

          “Loki,” I whisper. “Don’t. Please.”

          “THANOS!”
          “Stop it, Loki!”

          “He lied to me Ingrid! He lied! And I refuse to play his little game!”

          “No, Loki. You’re hurting yourself!”

          “Thanos!” he laughs now, but not the kind of laugh from chasing brothers around Asgard on a summer’s day, but the manic laugh of an Asgardian in battle, slaying the enemy, after all of their comrades have fallen.

          “So, do we wait? Until Thor can get back?”

          “I don’t see what else to do. I mean—THANOS!—has us here—we should—we should wait!” It’s getting more intense with each utterance I can tell, and it’s getting to the point where even his numbness can’t dull the pain.

          “Loki,” I whisper. “Do we hug?”

          “No—Ingrid!” He’s still struggling, and the pain doesn’t seem to be dissipating. In fact, it seems to increase in volume as begins to lose all control of thought.

          I can’t watch anymore. Whatever game he was playing, it can’t have been worth it…no, I don’t have time to think. I clench my teeth and throw my arms around him with the force of a thousand winters.

---

I feel like a hundred knives are piercing my skin, a thousand wolves’ fangs, a million bullets…I can hardly breathe.         

          It goes on for a minute, an hour, a lifetime, as the knives cut through, go to the heart—what pleasure Thanos gets from torturing his victims with this pain I cannot fathom, but it would have to be great.

          Then I begin to feel something else, too. A soft warmth between us, weakly at first, then stronger. My head begins to clear as I open my eyes to see Loki, unconscious in my arms.

          The pain is gone now, all that remains is a dull ache, as I lay his head in my lap. The power of the chip is diminished, but how? Thanos is extremely powerful. Well, I don’t have time to think about that now. Instead, I must worry about escape, as soon as Loki is feeling better.

          I lay my hand on his forehead, as Frigga had done for all these years when he was ill, and begin to sing the ancient verse taught to children on Asgard:

Once came a man from realms untold,

To tell a tale both new and old,

About the battle, conquest great

The warriors, and of their fate

But most importantly of all

He told “Pride doth come before the fall.”

---

“I didn’t know you could sing, Ingrid,” whispers Loki, “You have the most beautiful voice.”

          I refrain from blushing as I try to remember what I felt again, and if I really disabled the chip. “Are you alright, Loki?”

          He opens his eyes a crack before answering, “Never been better. I’m not sure what your plan was, but it worked. One moment I—”

          “I know, I felt it. I can’t believe you had to withstand that for a year—”

          “It was never so intense,” he whispers, “As my hatred for Thanos grows, his desire to stop me.”

          “Then try to hate him less,” I blurt, “I can’t let you—”

          “I failed to deliver the stones. That’s what matters. We must keep them away from him as long as we can, do you understand?”

          “Yes. Of course.”

          “Even if I am subject to punishment at home, it will be nothing compared to Thanos’ wrath,” sighs Loki. “I want to go home.”

          “So, do I, Loki,” I whisper, “So do I.”