Mischief and Magic

Chapter 3

Morgan and Loki both stared at the bomb in horror for a moment. Loki nearly ignored it out of hand; such a small bomb wouldn't do much, if any, damage to him. Then he saw the fear in Morgan's eyes. A mortal? Even a small bomb could kill her. She turned to run, though they both knew she wouldn't make it in time. Even Loki wouldn't have made it in time to save either of them.

Loki worked quickly. For some reason, he couldn't let this intriguing little mortal die. He gestured with the scepter, throwing out his magic in a well-practiced, controlled gesture. He wasn't the master magician of Asgard for nothing. Though even he could only do so much in such a short time. He created a shield around the bomb as it exploded. The shield shattered almost immediately, lessening the explosion, but not completely stopping it.

Loki and Morgan were both thrown from the force of the explosion. Morgan screamed as she was thrown across the room. Loki just grunted as he landed hard on his back. He got back to his feet, the sense not quite knocked all the way back into him. He knew, though, that he needed to check on the girl before he got back to The Other's wishes. He would be punished if he wasn't seen to be obeying orders, to be obeying the mind control. He couldn't face more punishment and torture.

So he had to make them believe that he was trying to succeed. His real plan was to be caught and defeated, to get his idiot brother to team up with these Midgardians. The worlds would all need them to fight together against Thanos. Defeating Loki was just practice for them.

They couldn't know his true motives. No one could. Especially not Thanos or any of his minions. It was vitally important.

Loki got to his feet and started to go to Morgan to check on her. She had to have been injured by the bomb. Before he could get more than a couple of steps, the Hulk came crashing into the room. Just what he didn't need. He started to give the creature a speech, trying to distract it.

That plan failed more than he'd anticipated when the dull witless creature grabbed him by the leg and swung him around like a rag doll, smashing him into the floor.

The only good thing, he noted as the creature left with Loki in a crater made by his own body, was that his crater was near where Morgan had landed. It was a horrible coincidence that the Hulk hadn't noticed her to help her. The idiotic beast probably wouldn't have been able to figure out how to help her anyway, even if he had noticed.

Loki let out a pitiful groan of pain that sounded quite like a dying whale. At that noise, Morgan looked over at him. Her eyes were dazed and she was bleeding. There was so much blood around her. "You're back~" she said when she saw that his eyes were green again. The control of the scepter had been broken with the cognitive recalibration. That had been part of Loki's plan. He hadn't expected it to hurt so much.

Loki saw how injured Morgan was and knew she wouldn't survive. Not without help. Now that he was free of the scepter's influence, he was able to give that help. Maybe. He weakly summoned a healing stone and tossed it to her. "Crush it over your wounds." The healing stone would heal even a mortal. He just couldn't move to help her use it.

Morgan reached for the stone, but it had landed just out of her reach. She strained to reach it, knowing it was her only chance. Blood poured from her chest and she gasped for breath, fighting to stay conscious.

Loki's eyes widened in shock as he watched little wisps of gold magic flowed from her fingers, drawing the stone a scant inch closer to her. A Midgardian with magic? He hadn't thought such a thing possible.

Before the stone reached her, she passed out from the effort of the magic. "No!" He cried uselessly as her eyes fluttered shut. He couldn't do any more to help her. He'd tried, Norns, he'd tried.