Above All Shadows [Loki Timetravel fic - Completed]

Part II - 22. Sakaar

PART II

This place is the worst.

Loki leaped to the left to avoid the great hunk of metal plummeting from the wormhole above. This was a hazard the locals knew to always be aware of, but he was still readjusting to life in the middle of the universe's trash pit. Still, he was getting there. Like any other inhabitant of Sakaar, he examined the universe's new offering on the off-chance it had value. It didn't. The twisted shape seemed to be a canard off a fighter ship; Loki wasn't so desperate as to become a metal scrapper.

He climbed further up the mound until he reached its summit and could look down at the cluster of buildings huddled in the mound's shadow. Frankly, to call them buildings was generous. These were just ships parts and bits of Xandarian plaster clobbered together without proper tools. The end product was a hideous and chaotic mishmash, much like the people in and around this quasi-legal camp.

The Grandmaster liked to claim that no one left his haven for lost and broken things. This couldn't have been further from the truth. A scrap heap that was allowed to build up exponentially was dangerous; it was only a matter of time until it collapsed on itself. Ships bearing the more valuable items — semi-functional bits of technology, expensive construction materials and breathing things — left Sakaar every day. It wasn't legal by the Grandmaster's laws, but as long as the activities took place outside the bounds of his city and he skimmed off the profits, he was happy to allow the smugglers to operate unconstrained.

Loki watched the miserable wretches the smugglers readied for their next transport and cringed. He hadn't dared to go straight to the Sanctuary. One cannot claim to search for someone and then go exactly where they were. Nor did Loki want to draw Thanos' attention to Asgard. The decision to go to Sakaar had been sensible, but it left him with a problem. He was Systems away from where he needed to be.

The smugglers were the obvious solution. No one had ever bothered to ask him how he had first encountered Thanos. Well, in truth, it hadn't been his choice. Loki had let go, he had fallen and he had landed among the endless junk piles of Sakaar. He had managed to survive for three months on this planet before he made a bet with the wrong person and ended up in the hands of smugglers gathering a ship for the Sanctuary. Thanos' crusade had always been short on manpower.

I doubt he ever appreciated the irony in that.

'So that's the easiest way,' Loki muttered under his breath. 'Retreat the path – the smugglers, the ship, the slave-pits of the Sanctuary. I strayed from the script once on Asgard and everything unravelled. This is the safest path.'

Yet, after days of trying to persuade himself that this was the way forward, the thought continued to repulse him. Those had been some of the most painful and miserable days of his life. Masochism didn't appeal. Besides, he wanted to change the future, not to relive it a second time. He would have to stray from the familiar path eventually. So why not now?

The answer was clear there. The more he changed earlier on, the less he could rely on his memories of the future.

And yet.

Screams tore through the air. A smuggler emerged from one of the buildings, holding a whip in one hand and in the other, dragging a small figure by the hair. A child, Loki realised when the people milling around backed away. He shuffled back. He still possessed a sense of self-preservation; he wasn't going anywhere near the smugglers.

He moved quickly and to his relief, the screams were soon beyond his earshot. Careful to avoid falling debris and places where the junk had accumulated enough to cause landslides, he made his way back to the city. Thus far he had avoided the glitz and glamour of the Grandmaster's citadel, staying instead in the crowded lower sectors of the city. People caught between the lawless junkyards and the Grandmaster's whims tried to make the best of their lives here. Once Loki armed himself with a blaster as long as his arm and accumulated a bit of dust on his shoes, he blended in well enough.