Havoc and Retribution

Triplicate Soul

Loki's first move is to swoop in to goad Hel, the second step to chat with and possibly save the Norns. He definitely does not have an ulterior motive of having them owe him a favor for saving them. Who does he look like, the god of lies?

Heimdall portals Thor, Loki and Barton across the stars in a blast of rainbow light. He has much more finesse than Hel does, Barton thinks to himself as they land unsteadily on a branch above Hel.

She swivels that murderous expression of hers up towards them, teeth barred. But then her eyes are grey, grey, grey and Jaycee is looking at him with her soft expression and she is whispering his name like a prayer.

It is an instant, but it stops his heart beats, makes them stutter. Sigyn was right, yes, he loved her. But now, in the present, he loves Jaycee Strong.

Yes, perhaps that is weird to love both of them. But because they were the Norn of the Afterlife, he has come to think of them as versions of each other, like reincarnations, but stronger and more unique in each iteration. Jaycee is a more human, more sarcastic version of Sigyn, the next logical evolution of a compassionate goddess for the more complicated times they face. Younger than Sigyn ever was when Loki knew her, but with the same brightness in her soul that shines like a megawatt bulb across the cosmos at him.

If this is to be a battle for her soul, he plans on bringing all of the pieces of her to the playing field. She deserves that chance.

"You," Hel hisses, the grey fading, the green flaring like a poisonous sunspot. "You maggot," she growls at Loki. "I'd hoped you'd died from wounds in the basement of the Avenger's Tower. Seems I should stick around to make sure I finish the job next time I try to kill you."

"I guess that makes you a rubbish goddess of death, now doesn't it," Loki retorts.

"Um, is the plan to provoke a goddess of death into killing us?" Thor asks. "Because I did not sign off on that plan."

Hel turns towards them fully, rising in a crest of rainbow light to land on a branch in front of them. It is Barton, Heimdall, Thor and Loki on one side, Hel on the other. She looks them over with a pitying look. "You're a little too late boys," she says. "I don't care if you brought the Norn's lackey," she looks at Heimdall disdainfully, "Or some stupid Midgardian archer," a nasty look at Clint, "or two washed up Aesir 'gods'", she says, using air quotes as she looks at the brothers. "It doesn't matter anymore. Yggdrasil is doomed."

Loki gives her a trademarked grin. He holds up his hand, the silver opal winking in the starlight. "Are you so sure about that?" he asks.

Hel pulls a disgruntled face that is all Jaycee. "You got married? That's nauseating," she says, caustic and uncomprehending and sarcastic.

"What? No?" Loki says. This played out differently in his head. He expected her to read his mind, figure out that the ring contains Sigyn's soul and that he has a trump card. This is so uncinematic right now.

Then Hel does read his mind; he can tell by the anger that flashes across her face. "It doesn't matter," she hisses at him. "I don't care if you found her soul. Yggdrasil is already falling. I have won."

"As long as Jaycee Strong still exists inside you, you'll never win," Loki tells her, serious and passionate. Thor looks at his brother out of the corner of his eye, impressed despite himself at the leader that has emerged.

"Ugh, so noble," Hel says, but then Jaycee surfaces for the briefest of moments. Her face is honest, awed, and she smiles, for Loki and Loki alone. Thor, Heimdall and Clint all look away discretely, Thor clearly his throat and fiddling with Mjolnir. Loki and Jaycee share something non-verbal, not telepathically, but communicated clearly nonetheless.