JOTUNHEIM: VICTOR
Loki and Victor stood atop a craggy, grey mountain, a soft dusting of frost and snow covered the mountain top. Victor was bound in ropes to a pillar of stone, wearing his black leather jacket, white button down and dark blue jeans and all his articles of clothing were speckled with snow and torn in one place or another. Loki stood before him and gestured mildly towards another large stone pillar: "Your task Victor, destroy that stone pillar without moving."
Victor exhaled to calm himself, he needed to know what Loki could teach him, and knowledge always came at a price. The greatest toils of the enterprising warrior was always in the pursuit of knowledge and freedom, while he didn't like this situation, Loki could give him not only freedom after Ragnarok, but power as well, and freedom needed to be fought for with power. So Victor let wildfire flow through him.
Several black sparks materialised in the air around the rock, but nothing happened after that. Loki sighed in disappointment and the chains dissipated into a wisp of flame. Loki glared at the stone pillar and barely a second of tension before the stone combusted and nothing was left but a crimson bonfire on the scrochmark where the rock once stood.
Loki spoke evenly to his son: "While the runes are powered by your primal emotions, the chaos does not control you, you control the chaos. You learned how to access your power, but a wind with no discipline will never become a hurricane. Without discipline, extensive knowledge and practice, you would lack finesse, and with finesse comes power."
Victor's fists flared up with black fire, Loki brushed his hand through the flames: "Like I said, potential, but we need to harness it."
Loki snapped his fingers and Loki's magical fire, fire that actually hurt him, coursed through Victor's veins, causing him to scream out in pain, writhing on the floor as red lines surged through his skin, Loki sighed: "We can do better, can't we? Now try to make a construct out of the fire."
The lines receded as Victor rolled over panting, but slowly got back up hissing: "Bastard..."
Loki brushed that insult off: "Do it. Now."
Knowing that pain would be inevitable if he didn't, Victor flicked his wrist and a spiral of black flames spiralled out, two feet of black flames wreathed Victor's left arm. Loki nodded indulgently: "Now mould it."
Victor, closed his physical eyes and pictured a serpent in his mind's eye, as it was already similar is shape and length to the length of fire that he caressed in his hands. He envisioned the sharp tail, the arrowlike head, the narrow maw. He peeked at his flame and saw a serpentine silhouette appear before Victor lost focus and the fire serpent imploded in his hands. Loki shook his head: "Perhaps your gifts lie elsewhere... You're not strong enough yet."
Victor cursed under his breath: "I could have done it. I am strong enough."
Loki stared down at his son: "Prove it. Do something spectacular."
Without hesitation, Victor ignited himself with ghostly black flames. Loki smiled: "Good. Now give into the fire."
Straining, eyes squeezed shut, Victor groaned: "What happened to willpower?"
Loki spoke back with relative nonchalance: "I said willpower, lack thereof included and taken into account."
Victor groaned as he pushed himself more into giving into the fire, he felt each lick of flame on his skin, he felt the heat sear his skin, but no pain. When he opened his eyes, they were bathed in the ghostly black flames of the bonfire, he felt his limbs go weightless as they converted into pure thermal energy. Victor gasped: "I did it!" his voice was a deep rumble like the roar of a flame.
Loki laughed maniacally: "You did it! Good job son!"
Victor swung his arm with force and a smaller vortex spiralled off his larger vortex melting the permafrost that clung to the stone cliff plateau. Loki clapped in admiration: "Excellent Victor! Brilliant work!"
Victor the fire vortex roared and he maintained the fiery figure for several more seconds before he felt his blazing limbs weaken and ache before he let the feeling of blazing heat dissipate from his body as he let the flame give out as a smoking Victor materialized out of the inferno and collapsed onto the steaming ground with tongues of black flames curling off his back and limbs, breathing heavily.
Victor looked at Loki with fidelity: "Please... father... I did the best I could..."
Loki looked at his son, his face now a cliff of unreadable emotion: "A knife that snaps after one good stab is not a good enough knife."
Victor screamed as his insides were lit on fire again. Pain ran through his entire body as Loki's fires seared and burned his every vein without actually damaging anything. Loki smirked sinisterly as his son was moaning in agony: "Don't worry Victor... I'll make a weapon out of you..."
