The air seemed to solidify in an instant.
Flying ice shards hit Loki's face, and the figure that appeared in his eyes made his breathing turn shallow.
The Son of the Titan, Lothar.
His target, and also Darkseid's.
"Lothar?"
"What are you...?"
Hela struggled to her feet on the cracked, icy ground. Though her face was pale with exhaustion, she felt an inexplicable sense of calm in her heart.
Whoosh!
The question she was about to ask was cut short by a nutrient fluid bottle Lothar threw at her.
"..."
Hela eyed Lothar suspiciously, then glanced at Mera still standing behind Loki. She popped the top and downed the fluid. The energy quickly began to mend her injured body. "After this is over, you're going to explain everything to me."
"It's been a long time, Lothar." Loki, secretly cursing, composed himself and forced a fake smile. The small cube floating in his right hand gave him immense comfort. With this object, Lothar would be unable to harm him. Darkseid had promised it, and Loki had to believe him, because he had no other way out.
"Care to say hello to some of your old friends?" Loki waved his hand, and the thugs of the Justice League all took a step forward.
Lothar's gaze swept over them, but he remained unmoved.
There was his defeated foe, Superman (Clark).
Batman (Bruce Wayne), whose neck Superman had snapped.
The insignificant Wonder Woman (Diana).
Cyborg, the mechanical lifeform he had torn in half with his own hands.
The Flash (Barry Allen), who he had forced to reset the universe with his super-speed.
And of course, the woman Lothar knew best, Mera, who he had thought he'd never see again.
All of these were people he had faced, one way or another, in another universe. Now, they were all standing on the opposite side, siding with Loki.
"You didn't die?" Lothar looked at Loki, whom he thought was dead, and narrowed his eyes. "Woz."
"Scanning complete, Your Highness Lothar."
"Analysis shows a very special power residing in Ms. Mera's mind. It's estimated that this special power is why Ms. Mera is under Loki's control." Woz, trying to hold back his own panic, diligently analyzed Mera's anomaly.
"Control Mera?"
"He did that?" It wasn't that Lothar looked down on Loki, but Loki's impression on him was that of a total weakling.
"No, I can't do a deeper analysis, but from the surface-level field structure, it seems to be... Darkseid." The final result stunned Woz himself.
And upon hearing the result, Lothar's eyes sharpened instantly.
"You can't kill me, Lothar."
"But I can kill you!"
Darkseid's final words to him echoed in Lothar's ears, as clear as the morning bell.
Hela, who knew nothing of the feud between Lothar and Darkseid, stayed silent, simply regaining her energy, preparing to let her brother taste some "sisterly affection."
"That's right! All of this was personally created by the Lord of Apokolips, the strongest New God, Darkseid!"
Now that the main player was revealed, Loki saw no need to hide anymore. Hiding was pointless. Without Darkseid's help, how could a mere Loki control the Justice League's thugs?
As Apokolips's herald, Loki had already destroyed all the energy hubs in New York. As long as the portal was ready, Darkseid could appear in his true, invincible form at any moment.
"And a piece of advice: don't think your artificial intelligence can break this. It's impossible," Loki said with a grin. "Nobody can break Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation except for him." Loki's words crushed the last bit of hope in Lothar's heart.
"Then we'll just kill them all," Loki's words were exactly what Hela wanted to hear. Hela was more than ready to kill that "little bitch" who had the audacity to "seduce" Lothar.
"My father once told me that nothing is impossible for me." Lothar's face was cold as he instantly appeared beside Loki. He reached out to grab Loki's throat before he could react, but a golden trident appeared, blocking his path.
Lothar paused as a gorgeously robed Mera pulled Loki behind her.
Zzzzt!
A familiar heat vision blasted toward him again, and Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth wrapped around Lothar's right ankle. She yanked hard, and the off-balance Lothar slid dozens of feet across the ground.
"Lothar!" Hela held her arms out, creating metal shields that rose from the ground like a Rashomon gate, blocking Cyborg's particle cannon and Clark's heat vision.
"I'm fine," Lothar said. Sensing something was wrong, he violently pulled on the lasso wrapped around his arm, sending Wonder Woman Diana sliding across the ground.
"Woz!"
"From the analysis, the energy levels in Clark and the others are much higher than before!" Woz's hurried alert only deepened Loki's smug smile. He wasn't an idiot, and neither was Darkseid. Darkseid knew that Clark and the others were no match for Lothar before, so he wouldn't send them without powering them up first.
A shrewd ruler like Darkseid wouldn't send his troops to their certain deaths.
"Well, this is it for now, Lothar," Loki said as a blinding portal appeared behind him. Cyborg and the others, receiving the retreat order, vanished into the cube in Loki's hand. Loki left only Mera behind.
"I'll leave Mera with you," Loki said, a strange smile on his face as he waved to Lothar. "I told you, she's a gift for my sister, Hela." And with that, he was gone.
Lothar, Hela, and Mera were left standing alone.
"???"
Lothar was completely bewildered, unable to figure out what Loki was up to. He turned his head and saw Hela's intensely "kind" glare. Then he turned to Mera, whose grey eyes were completely devoid of emotion.
Caught in the middle, Lothar suddenly understood exactly what Loki's last words meant...
This was a skill he had learned all on his own.
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