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The Fiendfyre—an accursed flame, eternally burning—roared to life. John's improved version of this forbidden magic had become one of the most potent offensive spells in the entire wizarding world.
A powerful, golden inferno, unquenchable as the sun, met a wave of blue-white ice that would not melt, crystalline and absolute.
This was a clash of elemental titans, extreme cold against extreme heat—a breathtaking, terrible work of art. Every inch of the building around them became a battleground of crystal and flame.
In the epicenter, fire and ice dueled, consuming each other. Fire scorched ice; ice attempted to seal the fire. They were locked in a desperate, violent embrace, yet neither could gain a decisive advantage. A fragile, explosive stalemate.
The illusions of Loki shimmering around the room vanished. Seeing John momentarily disappear within the raging conflagration, a ghost of a smile touched Loki's lips.
Suddenly, his body stiffened—froze.
He looked up, eyes wide, his face a mask of incredulous, primal fear.
A white-haired, one-eyed old man was walking slowly towards him.
The sight of this figure struck a terror deep within Loki's heart.
"Father."
Odin—the Allfather, King of Asgard.
Why—why is he here?
"You came all the way from Asgard?" Loki stumbled backward, shaking his head, a desperate edge to his voice. "You see—this is my kingdom now!"
"Loki!" A thunderous shout cut through Loki's frantic excuses.
Loki saw it then—the profound disappointment etched onto his father's face. It was the same crushing disappointment he'd seen that day on the Rainbow Bridge.
He murmured, his voice barely a breath, "Father..."
"I am not your father!" Odin—or the perfect illusion of him—snarled, his voice dripping with fury. "You know this! Your true father, Laufey, was killed by your hand!"
"No! He is not my father!" Loki shook his head wildly, his composure shattering. "He is not!"
"What are you quibbling about?" The Odin-illusion advanced, step by inexorable step. "Despicable son of the Frost Giants—heir of Jotunheim."
"You even abandoned your own realm! What nonsense do you speak of becoming a monarch!"
The illusion of Odin stood directly before Loki. Loki, now like a defiant, wounded child, his eyes burning red, shouted, "I did all of this for you!"
"To make you see me!" Loki gestured wildly towards the chaos outside. "I can also be a monarch! Can you not face me as you face Thor?"
"That is his birthright."
"I also have such a right!"
"Your only right was to be slain in your infancy!" The Odin-illusion's voice was like the crack of a glacier. He raised Gungnir, the spear of kings, his face a mask of profound, sorrowful disappointment. "You have failed me."
"You were never my son."
Loki's hands fell to his sides, his heart turning to ash.
"I was… never your son?" A mournful, broken smile twisted Loki's lips. He lowered his head, defeated.
The illusion of Odin raised his weapon, poised to deliver the final, ending blow.
Suddenly, a savage, desperate light flashed in Loki's eyes.
He flipped his hands—and the ornate, blue box, the Casket of Ancient Winters, appeared before him.
Immediately, a torrent of eternally freezing cold erupted, passing through the Odin-illusion's body. The cold wave didn't stop, blasting onward, heading towards Stark Tower in the distance.
Natasha, just about to reach Stark Tower, felt her blood run cold as the wave of absolute zero approached. Her face contorted in alarm.
"Dr. Selvig!"
She reached out towards Selvig on the rooftop.
Selvig, jarred from Loki's control by Tony's earlier attack, had just begun to realize the horror of what he had done.
"His scepter!" Selvig yelled, pointing frantically to the safety device he'd designed on the Tesseract machine.
Crystal-clear ice, beautiful and deadly, spread with impossible speed, covering Stark Tower, flash-freezing the entire building before Natasha could even think of a rescue. Selvig, too, did not escape this frigid fate.
Natasha was violently forced back by the sheer intensity of the cold before she could get any closer. But Selvig's last words echoed in her mind.
Looking down, on the frozen, flat roof of Stark Tower, the Mind Scepter lay quietly. But it too was encased in ice, far beyond Natasha's ability to retrieve alone.
In another building—one now encased in a similar sheath of ice—John glanced at his own frozen right hand, then looked at Loki.
Loki, too, had managed to dispel the worst of the fear in his heart. His face was grim. "Your magic is… peculiar, Wizard."
Clutching the Casket of Ancient Winters, Loki stared at John. "I find myself growing more and more curious about your true identity."
"Ordinary wizards don't wield power like that, do they?"
The God of Mischief was, indeed, the God of Mischief. He had deceived so many, and even after seeing the "Odin" illusion, he hadn't initially suspected anything was amiss. But the illusion's final, crushing words—that Odin no longer wanted him as a son—that had been the tell. That had made him see through it.
He looked at John's frozen hand—the hand now covered in shimmering golden scales—his eyes filled with a sharp, inquisitive light.
John flexed his frozen right hand. Cracks appeared on the icy surface.
With a surge of inner strength, the ice layer shattered. John moved his hand, seemingly completely unaffected.
He had only one question, his tone deceptively casual. "Do both you and your brother spend an inordinate amount of time passively thinking about your father?"
"Hmm?" Loki hesitated for a moment, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.
Think about Father?
Which Father?
John moved.
His figure vanished. When he reappeared, his right hand, now covered in gleaming silver—the Limited Gauntlet—was pressing down on the Casket of Ancient Winters. All the overflowing, deadly cold current began to pour into John's body, absorbed through the gauntlet.
His left hand, holding his wand, became a blur, too fast for the eye to follow.
Loki summoned his short blades again. In a flash, the two were locked in brutal close-quarters combat.
The silver light of John's wand grazed Loki's cheek, and a thin line of blood appeared. A sharp, backhanded pull from John, and Loki's knife-wielding hand spasmed, red marks blooming on his palm as he was forced to release his weapon.
John's right hand, which had absorbed too much of the Casket's power, froze solid again. Undeterred, John used the frozen hand and the Casket itself as a bludgeon, pulling it free and smashing it backward. The ice shattered, and the Casket of Ancient Winters crashed heavily into a statue within the building.
Losing the Casket, Loki was momentarily stunned. In that instant, John had already grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and thrown him.
Loki was completely disoriented by the sudden, savage barrage of attacks.
There was only one thought screaming in his mind.
"Is this a Wizard?!"
What kind of Wizard comes in close to fight like this?
Are you an Asgardian too?
He wasn't given a chance to think further.
Loki, like a cannonball, crashed heavily through the side of the building and slammed into Stark Tower through the opening he himself had blasted earlier.
Although the ice was bone-chilling, it wasn't a critical problem for Loki, who possessed the blood of Frost Giants. He rolled continuously across the frozen ground and got stuck against the elevator doors.
As he struggled to get up, John had already Apparated, appearing before him instantly.
He kicked Loki squarely in the chest, the wand in his hand spinning with deadly grace.
Loki wouldn't just sit there and take it. He grabbed John's foot, and a wave of intense cold immediately began to encase it.
John kicked him away again, dislodging the ice.
Putting everything else aside, Asgardians were truly durable. After all that, Loki, besides being a bit disheveled, only had a few more cuts and bruises. As expected of someone who was essentially fine even after being repeatedly smashed by the Hulk.
"Levicorpus!"
John's wand flashed with light, and Loki's body was yanked into the air, hanging upside down. John didn't stop there. Several more beams of silver light lanced across Loki's suspended form.
Loki, ever the trickster, used an illusion and vanished. Suddenly, the room was filled with Lokis.
"Blasting Curse!" John roared. "Oppugno!" He commanded, transforming the shattered remnants of Stark Tower's interior into a swarm of attacking projectiles—like a storm of shrapnel birds, they tore through the air, quickly clearing away the illusions.
The real Loki attacked again, but John's Shield Charm flared, blocking the incoming wave of cold.
Positions shifted several times as John pressed his assault relentlessly.
But as a master of sneak attacks, Loki wouldn't give up so easily. He concealed his figure, waiting. As John blocked another blast of frigid energy—
Loki appeared on John's left side, the cold light of his short blade flashing in his hand. The timing was perfect—exploiting the momentary gap after John had just cast a spell. As expected, a fellow magic-user understood the openings of a wizard.
John twisted sideways, using the back of his left hand to block the blow aimed directly at his heart.
Loki put his weight into it. The sharp short blade sliced through John's clothes. He pressed forward, and the blade slid down John's chest.
Red blood welled from his pierced left hand. The gruesome wound almost ran through John's entire body. He clenched his right fist and punched.
Loki raised his left hand, and a concussive impact sent John flying backward.
Several throwing knives, conjured from nowhere, flew directly at John.
John narrowed his eyes, his wand flashing—a Rebound Charm.
All the knives bounced back.
One short blade pierced through Loki's chest.
But Loki's body began to shimmer and disappear.
Illusion! Again!
John's eyes shifted, his pupils contracting back into vertical slits. His sharp gaze swept the room.
Loki had vanished, but using magic always left traces.
John frowned, his senses capturing the lingering magical traces scattered in the void. He waved his right hand, reaching into nothingness—and pulled.
Loki, who had been making his way towards the Mind Scepter, was only a step away when he felt his foot being yanked. He immediately looked back and saw John smiling faintly.
"A classic returns."
Loki was dragged back, his body pulled across the floor until he was once again in front of John.
An invisible, giant hand in the void grabbed Loki's legs and began to slam him left and right, over and over. Even the hard ice layer covering the floor was shattered by the repeated impacts.
John couldn't help but marvel—Asgardians were practically born hammers themselves. With this kind of resilience, John wondered if Asgardians were all secretly made of vibranium.
Loki was also being thrown around until he was dizzy and completely disoriented. He was tough, yes, but even he couldn't endure this kind of brutal, relentless treatment.
After being slammed against the floor for the seventh time by John, Loki couldn't take it anymore.
He struggled to his feet, his voice a raw, furious snarl. "Enough!"
Loki's face was ferocious, contorted with rage. As the dignified Prince of Asgard, when had he ever suffered such profound humiliation? Moreover, these insults—this degradation—came from the denizens of the lowly planet he was in the process of invading.
"Who do you think you are!"
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