"Dr. Ernst, unfortunately, your stay in Asgard will have to end soon."
Loki's voice was smooth, but the words were a sudden, sharp guillotine.
Ernst paused.
He had already mastered their light-energy paradigms and mapped their spatial tech. He had no reason to stay.
Yet, being abruptly dismissed stung his pride.
"Why?" Ernst asked, his tone perfectly level.
"His Majesty assured me a peaceful pursuit of knowledge. I have broken no laws."
"It is nothing you have done, Doctor," Loki replied, playing the troubled diplomat.
"It is an internal matter. My father's health is failing."
Loki paced the lavish room, his emerald cape trailing behind him.
"He must periodically enter the Odinsleep to regulate his divine core. During this cycle, Asgard enters absolute martial law."
Loki stopped and looked at the human.
"You are an outsider with terrifying power. Even without malicious intent, you cannot remain. The Einherjar will relocate you."
Ernst listened closely. He saw the hook hiding in the bait.
"However," Loki added, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "as the second prince, I have certain flexibilities. I could arrange for you to stay."
A transaction. Loki wanted a favor.
And in Ernst's world, favors owed to gods were paid in blood.
"I see," Ernst smiled thinly.
"A generous offer, Prince Loki. But unnecessary."
Loki blinked.
"I have consumed your libraries," Ernst continued, adjusting his cuffs.
"I have learned what I came to learn. I will tender my resignation to the Allfather tomorrow."
Ernst looked out the window at the golden cosmos.
"I hear tales of a place called Knowhere. The severed head of an ancient, deceased god floating in the void. It sounds like a fascinating sight."
Loki froze.
This was not the script. Ernst was supposed to panic.
He was supposed to grovel, to offer anything to remain in the golden realm.
Instead, the human was casually packing his bags for deep space.
Loki's meticulous calculations were disintegrating.
For six months, the God of Mischief had watched this mortal. He had seen Ernst absorb millennia of Asgardian science in mere weeks.
If Ernst could weaponize knowledge so perfectly for himself, what could he do for someone else?
Asgard worshipped the sword. Loki wielded the mind. It left him marginalized, a shadow behind Thor's blinding sun.
Loki needed raw, undeniable power. And his golden goose was about to fly away.
The mask slipped. Loki gritted his teeth.
"Doctor Ernst. Let us stop the dance."
Ernst turned back, his eyes gleaming.
"I know what you are," Loki said, his voice stripped of its usual charm.
"I know your power stems from your terrifying understanding of the universe."
Loki took a step closer, desperation bleeding into his tone.
"I want that power. Make me stronger. I will pay whatever price you name."
Ernst looked at the desperate god.
"I am human," Ernst replied clinically.
"You are a god. Your cellular density is alien. I cannot guarantee my methods will translate to your biology."
Ernst tapped his chin.
"But I am willing to run the experiment. If it fails, the deal is void. If it succeeds... I want a branch of the World Tree."
Loki's eyes widened in horror.
"Three meters long," Ernst specified.
"That is impossible," Loki hissed.
"Yggdrasil is sacred. It is heavily guarded. Even I cannot simply walk up and snap off a branch."
"Difficult is not impossible," Ernst countered lazily.
"I am a patient man. I will empower you today. You have ten years to deliver the wood."
Loki weighed the scales. A decade was a blink for an immortal. The power was immediate.
"I agree," Loki nodded.
"But how do I know you won't empower me with a curse? Or that you won't simply leave?"
Ernst smiled. He reached into his coat.
He pulled out a heavy, dark parchment. It felt like dried leather, but it hummed with ancient malice.
"Dragon skin," Ernst explained.
"An binding contract."
He waved his hand over the parchment. Glowing, golden runes burned themselves into the flesh.
"We both infuse a drop of our life force. If either party defaults, the contract will retaliate with the combined, absolute maximum power of both signees."
It was a mutually assured destruction clause.
Loki read the runes carefully. He was a master of magical loopholes. He found none.
Satisfied, Loki bit his thumb. He pressed his bleeding digit to the parchment.
Ernst did the same.
The dragon skin flashed violently, then vanished into the ether, binding their souls.
"It is done," Loki breathed.
"When do we begin the procedure?"
"Right now," Ernst said, stepping forward.
"It will only take an hour."
Loki frowned. "An hour? To rewrite my power?"
"I am going to plunge your consciousness into a hyper-realistic, localized illusion," Ernst explained, his voice taking on a hypnotic cadence.
"It is a parallel mythological matrix. Anything you comprehend and conquer in the illusion will manifest as raw magical potential in your waking body."
Ernst raised a finger.
"A warning, Prince Loki. The illusion will test your soul. Do not lose yourself in the fabricated emotions. Remember who you are."
Loki, determined to step out of Thor's shadow, closed his eyes.
"Do it."
Ernst stepped into Loki's personal space.
A single drop of crimson, reality-warping energy gathered on Ernst's fingertip.
He pressed his finger directly against Loki's forehead.
Reality shattered.
Loki fell into a dream.
But he was not the second prince of Asgard.
He was a giant. The blood of Farbauti and Laufey coursed through his veins.
He was the sworn blood-brother of Odin.
The timeline accelerated, brutal and vivid.
He saw his wife, Sigyn. Her eyes were full of a tragic, suffocating love.
He felt a profound, irrational contempt for her.
He engaged in rampant infidelity. He fathered monsters.
Fenrir, a wolf the size of a mountain.
Hela, a terrifying entity of death.
Jormungandr, a serpent that coiled around the entire world.
He lived centuries of chaotic mischief. He built the walls of Asgard through trickery. He birthed the eight-legged steed Sleipnir.
He forged Gungnir and Draupnir.
He felt the intoxicating thrill of absolute chaos.
Then, the tragedy struck.
A prank gone horribly wrong. A sprig of mistletoe.
He watched Baldur, the golden son of Odin and Frigga, die.
The warmth of Asgard vanished. He was branded a demon.
Odin's wrath was absolute.
Loki watched his monstrous sons slaughtered before his eyes.
He felt the cold, slick intestines of his own children used to bind him to a jagged rock in a subterranean cave.
Above him, a massive serpent bared its fangs.
A drop of burning, acidic venom fell.
It struck his face.
Loki screamed. The pain was absolute. It burned through his flesh, into his very soul.
Only Sigyn remained.
His discarded wife stood by him in the dark. She held a golden bowl, catching the venom, granting him agonizingly brief moments of respite.
Time lost all meaning. Only the venom and the dark remained.
Until the chains broke.
Loki felt a world-ending rage consume him.
He marched on Asgard.
He unleashed Fenrir. He unleashed Jormungandr.
Hela marched her army of the dead across the Bifrost.
It was Ragnarok. The Twilight of the Gods.
He watched Fenrir swallow Odin whole.
He watched the World Serpent drown Thor in venom.
He stood on the burning ruins of the golden realm.
Before him stood Heimdall, his golden armor stained with soot and blood.
They clashed.
Loki felt Heimdall's blade sever his head. But as he fell, Loki drove his own spear through the Guardian's heart.
A mutual, apocalyptic death.
As his vision faded into black, Loki's final sight was his daughter Hela, commanding the dead, and Sigyn, weeping in the ashes.
He had given Sigyn his magic boots to escape. She had stayed anyway.
The darkness swallowed him entirely.
Then, a sharp intake of breath.
Loki's eyes snapped open.
He was back in his private chambers. The golden walls of Asgard were intact.
He was gasping for air, his body slick with cold sweat.
Standing before him, wiping a glowing red thread of magic from his fingertip, was Ernst.
"Welcome back," Ernst smiled.