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Do you like Loki's creations, dangerous experiments, and willingness to challenge enemies that appear above his league? Then you will definitely like Thairon, the protagonist of my original story, Arrival : Ruptures. Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated. Here are the links for : AO3, Spacebattles, Royal Road and Webnovel.
—
Midgard
Loki pressed the doorbell, waiting.
He was dressed in a suit to not arouse suspicion. His brother was staying with three humans, and he didn't know how much Thor had told them. He could have learned, but life was no fun when you knew everything.
A brown-haired female wearing glasses opened the door.
"Excuse me miss, I am looking for my brother. Tall, golden hair, big," he said, describing his brother. It would be difficult for him to be ignored by the Midgardians.
"Oh my god, you are Loki," she said, opening the door wider. "Come in; the big guy is in the kitchen."
He blinked and took a step inside. "Thank you." It appears Thor's ability to make quick friends had worked to his advantage once more.
"Guys, Thor's brother is here," she shouted, alerting the remaining residents of the house.
"Brother," Thor said, rushing out of the kitchen. He gathered Loki in a bear hug. Stripped of his powers or not, he was still physically strong.
Loki returned the hug, patting him on the back.
"Where have you been these last days?" Thor asked.
"It is a long, long story."
"Ah, right. These are Jane, Erik, and Darcy, my new friends. I have been helping Jane with her work while they allowed me to stay here," he said, introducing each of the humans.
It was not lost on him how his brother's voice softened upon gesturing to Jane.
"With her work?" he asked.
Jane held her hand out, and he took it, gently shaking. "I am an astrophysicist. Thor has been telling me about Bifrost and the Nine Realms."
"You told them everything?" he asked. Not that Thor was too interested in the inner workings of Bifrost; what he told them would be the bare bones.
His brother crossed his arms, a lopsided grin on his face as he looked up. "If Father didn't want me to, he should not have exiled me here."
"Fair," Loki said. A green wave washed over him, transmuting the suit into his green and dark robes.
"Oh my god," Jane breathed out while Erik and Darcy watched the magic with bulging eyes.
"How exactly did you manage to get yourself exiled in the first place?" he asked. Sif didn't know beyond that Thor had attacked the Jotnar envoys.
"Father didn't tell you?"
"He wasn't in a very talkative mood. I left quickly to deal with Jotunheim before finding you."
"Why don't you join us for breakfast while we talk?" Jane offered, gesturing to the kitchen.
"Thank you," Loki said, following along.
The kitchen was cozy, something you wouldn't find in Asgard's grand feast hall. He was familiar with Midgardian cuisine enough to know his way around.
Thor was quick to launch into the tale of his exile. Laufey, defeated and humiliated, was leaving Asgard. Thor, in a moment of spite, decided to taunt the King of Jotunheim. His birth father had responded by calling him a monster. In a moment of weakness, it brought Hela to Thor's mind. His brother lost control, and the next thing he knew, Mjolnir was escorting Laufey through the Bifrost by his jaw.
He and Father had gotten into a fight, which ended with Thor calling him a fool and a liar, which ended with Odin banishing his eldest son because he started a war with the Jotnar over an insult.
"You will be happy to know I convinced Laufey to abdicate in favor of his son, Helblindi. He is more inclined for a peaceful resolution compared to his father. I don't believe there will be a war," he explained.
Not unless Helblindi was a fool.
"I am sorry. You had to go through all that because of me," Thor apologized. He knew he and Loki could have handled the situation with the Jotnar, but because of their father, it had all fallen onto his brother's shoulders.
"Oh stop. I never needed a reason to put Laufey down," he said. His lips twitched at the memory of how easily the previous King of Jotunheim had folded.
"Since we have time, why don't you tell your long story?" Thor asked, pouring him a cup of coffee.
He took the cup, glancing at their host.
"If it's something you can't tell us, there is a room upstairs," Jane said, pointing to the hallway.
"I can tell you, I am just afraid doing so might give you an existential crisis," he warned. Knowing TVA, which technically was fate itself, existed would be difficult for them to swallow.
Thor winced. "That bad?"
"Yes."
"Then let's leave it aside for now. Father apparently sent Mjolnir after me, but the government built a facility around it. I can't summon it, and they won't just let me stroll in," Thor said.
Loki waved his hand, teleporting Mjolnir to the middle of the room.
Their hosts flinched at the sudden appearance of a hammer on the empty chair. Thor leaped to his feet, trying to lift the hammer, but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pulled.
"Don't bother. There is an enchantment around it," he said, waving his hand again.
"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the powers of Thor," their father's voice rang out of the hammer.
"That's your dad? Damn, he must be one hell of a storyteller with that voice," Darcy said, focusing on a completely different part.
"He actually is," Thor said. Whenever he had time, he would visit children in schools and tell stories.
"So, wait, whoever is worthy, they can just have his powers?" Erik finally spoke, having been a silent observer so far.
"Yes. A lesson intended for my brother, but anyone that can lift the hammer will indeed possess his command over lightning and the physical capabilities of an Aesir."
"No offense, but that sounds highly irresponsible," he said, looking at Darcy with a frown as she poked the hammer.
"Our father doesn't really know how much you have progressed. We have a policy of non-interference as long as there isn't an invasion. He must have chosen Midgard because he believes there would be nothing to present a danger to Thor nor worshippers to treat him like a prince," he explained the reasons why his father had chosen this realm but nodded at the end, "But yes, irresponsible."
Thor chuckled with a dry voice, looking at his hammer. "He lied, hid his past, and is willing to let Asgard be destroyed, yet decides I am not worthy."
"What does it even mean? To be worthy?" he asked with an amused edge at the last word.
"I assume it is about being selfless so you don't start a war over an insult," Loki said, making an educated guess.
"He should exile himself too, then, for all those wars of conquest."
Loki turned to the humans, giving a small bow with thin lips. "My apologies; we brought our family troubles to your home."
"Believe me, it is not a problem. Hearing all of this is so fascinating," Jane said. Knowing aliens had the same kind of problems, if only grander in scale, made them relatable.
"Not to sound condescending, but Thor said you were the greatest magician in Asgard. Can't you break the enchantment?" Erik asked.
"I can, but it would be like giving Jane all the knowledge on astrophysics," he said. He was all too willing to help his brother, but simply handing him his powers back wouldn't be helping.
She tilted her head back. "I wouldn't accomplish anything."
"Exactly."
"Even if he could, I wouldn't want him to. This is my mess to fix; you already did more than I could ask for," Thor said, glancing at his hammer.
"You are welcome."
"By the way, do you have mead with you?" his brother asked, rubbing his stomach.
"Of course you would ask for that." He snapped his fingers, summoning a synthesizer from his pocket dimension.
"What is that?" Jane asked, getting up to investigate the machine. It was a rectangular, golden box with three white circles at the top.
"A synthesizer. It creates material necessities out of energy," he said, ordering a mug of ale for Thor. The circles glowed as the energy flowed and a mug of cold ale appeared on top with a flash.
"Holy crap," Darcy said, attention suddenly turning on the new machine.
"Can it make anything?" Jane asked, watching Thor drink the mug in one go. Asgard was even more advanced than she had thought. They were basically a post-scarcity society.
"This one is for basic necessities such as food. There are industrial-grade synthesizers for more complex needs. Feel free to try whatever you want." It would be a way to show his gratitude for helping Thor. His brother would have managed on his own; he knew that much, but it was best not to draw too much attention.
"I suppose I should go and help those in need. It might yet break the enchantment."
"You don't have an ID; I don't think that's a good idea," Erik said. With the government sniffing around, an ID-less person acting as a hero would draw attention.
"Here," Loki said, a USA ID card appearing in between his fingers with a flourish.
"You can make fake IDs too? Cool."
"It is not fake. I added it to the local government archives."
Erik huffed. "Just with a wave of your hand?" He was taking these revelations relatively well, he knew, but each second things got more ridiculous.
"Yes. I am more accomplished than most others."
"Thor mentioned you were a scholar. How exactly does energy manipulation work?" Jane asked
Darcy, who had taken a sip from the watered-down mead she had synthesized, frowned. "Energy manipulation? He said magic, right?"
"I said 'seidr,'" he began, turning the Allspeak off for a moment. "My language, the Allspeak, makes you hear the words as their closest equivalent. Since Jane and Eric are more scientifically inclined, they understand it as energy manipulation, whereas Darcy picks it up as magic."
Darcy's head jerked back. "I feel like I was just called an idiot."
"You were not. It simply depends on how you see the world," he said.
He created an orb in his hand for demonstration. "As for what seidr is, it is a cosmic power that the Aesir and some of the other races in the Nine Realms have the genetic capability to utilize. It differs from race to race and person to person."
The orb transformed into a ball of lightning, turning to a small galaxy, an illusion replica of Odinforce, and finally, his mother's conjuration. "Thor's seidr manifests itself as thunder and lightning, while mine is wider in scope. Our father is a cosmic-level threat, while mother is extremely accomplished but the weakest when it comes to direct combat applications."
Their hosts watched without blinking, absorbing every moment.
"Do humans have that genetic capability?" Jane asked. Could the myriad of myths on Earth about magic and the supernatural be tied to this genetic variance?
"No. Asgard, Alfheim, Jotunheim, Muspelheim, Vanaheim, and Nornheim, to a much smaller degree, have that cosmic energy naturally found in the environment. Midgard and the rest do not; hence, you never evolved for it," he explained.
"Ah man, I wanted to be a magician too," Darcy said, deflating on her chair.
"Can I ask some questions about the Bifrost? Just enough to cover the basics?" Jane asked, her eyes shining.
Loki glanced at Thor, whose gaze softened upon looking at her once more. His brother nodded, and he shrugged.
"Ask away."
—
Jane Foster was quick to grasp the basics of how the Bifrost worked. Seeing as her people only had theories to work on, her understanding of the involved physics was advanced. He gave her enough to point her in the right direction but not enough to diminish her interest.
With Thor safe, he had no idea what else to do. He did not wish to return to Asgard until tempers cooled. Intruding on Jane Foster's hospitality anymore was not something he wanted either.
In truth, his mind was on a different matter.
Learning that other universes, so different from his own, existed out there had made him immensely curious. The knowledge that he had come from another Earth, an ordinary world without any of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial sights he had seen, explained everything.
He had thought places like Kamar-Taj, Asgard, and the myriad of alien races were simply hidden from the eyes of an ordinary human.
The facts were mindblowingly different.
A sense of wanderlust had taken him. He wished to travel and see what they had to offer. He had also considered traveling to his birth dimension but decided against it. There was nothing to see there except faded memories. His time could be spent better.
He could even take Cosmo. The mess with Laufey and the TVA meant he hadn't seen his faithful companion for the last few days. He could take her, travel, see, and discover.
Of course, there was something else he needed to do first.
Jane had gathered readings on the Bifrost during Thor's arrival, but her equipment and research data were seized by the government. She didn't think she would ever be able to get it back. Most of the devices were her creations.
The house and the occupants were already warded against danger. He just had to retrieve the seized property.
—
Coulson raised the phone to his ear, gazing at the sight of the foreign object with a tight look on his face. "Sir, we have a problem."
"What is it, Coulson?" the gruff voice on the other end asked.
"The hammer disappeared half an hour ago."
There was a brief silence as he prepared himself for what was to come. "Are you telling me it was stolen?"
"No sir. The scientists were getting some readings. It was there one second, gone the next. We don't know how," he said. It sounded like a blatant excuse, but the recipient knew Phil Coulson did not make excuses.
An even longer beat of silence stretched out. "Did they manage to learn something at least?"
"It's alien. The metal is nothing we have ever seen. Same for the energy signatures," he said. It all boiled down to the fact they knew nothing except it was not from Earth.
"Find the damn hammer, Coulson."
"Yes sir," he said to himself, pocketing the phone.
"Agent Coulson," a scientist approached, avoiding eye contact with him. It was either he made the man nervous or there was bad news coming.
"What is it?"
"The equipment we took from Jane Foster. They disappeared from the storage as well."
"Any leads on who?"
"No. Just like the hammer, they blinked out of existence."
Phil turned around, a small twitch in his eye.
Another visit to Miss Foster's house was in order. He would have to explain to the woman how her research and equipment had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
He could feel the accounting and the legal teams grumbling over a settlement.
—
In the next chapter:
"You seem to be in a good mood," he commented, appearing behind the boy. He flinched, rolling away from the bench and conjuring a blade. He ignored it, sitting on the other end of the empty seat.
"What are you doing here?" "The child-Loki hissed, eyes darting around. Contrary to his worries, the garden was empty. If everyone kept to their schedule, Odin was listening to petitions, Frigga was entertaining guests in another section of the garden, and Thor was off on an adventure.
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