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Thor Lore

Loki's Victory

Boom.

Thor sat in the Tower of Solitude, the library-prison once used by All-Father Odin. Hunched over a stone bench in a stone room, the Tower's sole prisoner on the orders of his brother, he fumed silently, waiting for the chance to act, and fearing what fate might befall Asgard if he could not act soon.

Boom.

From outside came rhythmic impacts, as something powerful hurled itself against the tower's walls. Thor could only wait. Loki had outwitted him, duping him into entering the Tower and imprisoning him there. As one might expect of a clever usurper such as Loki, the room was enchanted to stifle any sound he might utter.

Boom.

Dust and mortar drifted from one wall of Thor's cell. He stood. It was almost time. Loki might have betrayed him and made his devious play for the throne of Asgard, but even Loki could not think of everything.

Boom.

It had not occurred to him, for example, that Thor could call Mjölnir without making a sound.

BOOM

Mjölnir exploded through the wall of the Tower of Solitude and met Thor's extended hand. He gave a shout, relieved to hear the sound of his voice again.

"Brother!" With its walls shattered, the Tower of Solitude no longer held its enchantments. More quietly than his initial challenge, Thor added, "You have a surprise in store."

He flew through the hole, over the city of Asgard and toward the palace. Yggdrasil's roots arched far overhead. Loki had crews at hard labor tapping the World-Tree's sap, which was rich in Chronovium. Thor had no doubt that Loki would cut a deal with the dwarves or anyone else who could use the rich sap to create magical weapons or instruments. If he hadn't already. Chronovium had also transformed Loki's magic, making him even more powerful — but Thor felt it too. It glimmered in the carvings on Mjölnir's Uru head. He felt it even in the Odinforce.

Now Loki would feel it, too.

He shouted out his brother's name, letting the challenge echo across the city. "Your plan didn't work, brother! You see I'm free!"

And Loki was there, manifesting in the air just out of Thor's reach. "On the contrary, brother, my plan is working perfectly. Do you not think I anticipated you would solve this problem the only way you ever solve any problem?" He smirked. "That is to say, with brute force?"

The smirk was the opening Thor needed, the single moment of inattention that always got Loki in trouble. He seized Loki and dropped to the ground, smashing his brother into the stones of Asgard's palace plaza. He raised Mjölnir, but Loki stung Thor's hand with a short knife and twisted away.

How long had they been inexorably moving toward this moment? Centuries. Tens of centuries. I have tried, Thor thought. I tried to make him feel like one of us. But Loki only ever looks out for Loki, and now — again — Asgard's future hangs in the balance.

"I knew you had escaped the Tower before you were all the way through the hole," Loki sneered. "It's always makes me chuckle when you scream ‘Brother' like when we were children."

"And yet you have answered my call," Thor shot back. "If you could have stopped me, why the charade?"

"Oh, brother," Loki said, twisting the word, "you know I love a charade. And by escaping, you have helped settle a little dispute I was having. You see, a certain someone who may shortly be joining our conversation did not believe you would escape. And now that you have, she will doubtless see the wisdom of my proposed course of action."

As if he had summoned it, a portal opened. Through it, Thor saw the unmistakable landscape of Hel, bleak and dark and endless. Hela's legions of dead were on the march, Chronovium glittering in their empty eyes, Hela herself leading them on. Space bent around her, and in the next instant, she had stepped through the portal.