Chapter Text
Much like when she’d first met Loki at the TVA and later on Lamentis, the bout started with light prodding. Experimental swings with their blades in tentative clashes of steele. After the first few prods, the man stepped back, studying her with a half grin. Then he lunged forward, and the fight began in earnest.
Almost too quickly for Sylvie to follow, she barely brought her blade up in time to block the swing at her throat. The muscles in her arms burned beneath the force of the impact, and Sylvie gritted her teeth against it. Redirecting the blow, she ducked inside his guard and jammed her elbow into his sternum. The variant grunted, the air driven from his lungs much to Sylvie’s satisfaction. But beyond that one sound, the jab had little effect on him. It was like driving her elbow against stone.
Like liquid, the variant slipped around her and directed an attack at Sylvie’s back. She clumsily stumbled out of his reach. A line of fire down her back was the price of not moving quick enough. By the time Sylvie turned around to face him again, the variant was already midway through his next attack. She intercepted the blow, redirected, slashed at his belly forcing him to jump back.
It was a hideous case of deja vu. Only, this was worse. Far, far worse.
For one thing, it quickly became clear that Loki had been holding back on her. Since their first meeting at the TVA, and especially at the Citadel. It was something Sylvie had at least partially suspected; despite his glib remarks of an easy life – and general clownery – the time they’d spent together told a different story. The way he moved, the way he fought, (almost a dance, all precise attacks and lethal grace) spoke of a lifetime of training and battle. Sylvie wasn’t so disconnected from her homeland as to not recognise Asgardian battle prowess. And his body, while lean and lanky, was all muscle. Compact, well toned muscle…
But she’d at least considered them evenly matched. And it was very quickly clear that her thinking had been in error. Sylvie would have been furious at the insult, if she wasn’t so preoccupied keeping up with the defensive. Because the variant had no such qualms, and he was one vicious bastard.
On and on they clashed, trading blows with blade and with fist. Sylvie was a scrappy fighter – had to be, with the life she lived – but the simple fact was the variant had size and reach on her. When she tried to get in close, negating his reach with her speed, it was only ever a stop gap before he swam out of her grasp and slashed at her again. Everytime she misjudged the distance between them, Sylvie earned another bite on her back and arms, either from his blade or his hook.
She lost ground, gained it back. Desperately held the defensive, pushed hard on offense. It was all she would do to stay out of his grasp, and he was wearing her down.
Breaking free of their latest deadlock, she staggered back, shoulder’s heavy with exhaustion, body littered with shallow cuts. The variant rolled back on his heels, posture insultingly loose as he studied her with a slight tilt of his head. He bore his own share of shallow wounds, much to her grim satisfaction, but seemed about as concerned about them as he would be by paper cuts. That infuriating half smirk tugged at his lips as he watched her fight to get her breath back. Sylvie hated that expression all the more for how much of a Loki smile it was.
“Don’t suppose you want to reconsider stepping back?” He suggested.
“Piss off,” she wheezed.
The variant rolled his shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Just thought I’d offer. You’re looking a little winded there, Blondie.”
Sylvie only bared her teeth in response. With another casual shrug, the variant advanced again, his stride leisurely. She retreated, but the man made no move to close the distance any quicker. On the bright side, she was very successfully keeping his attention off the boy.
Amused by her own dry wit, Sylvie huffed a breathless laugh, then clumsily dodged a lazy swing from the man’s blade. The most infuriating thing was, he didn’t need worry. The fight was winding down, and it was clear to both parties who the victor was going to be. The variant had known from the moment they began. Everything else was just pleasure
But, if there was one thing growing up in a barrage of increasingly ugly apocalypses taught her, it was this: if you’re not stronger, be faster. If you’re not faster, be more clever. And if you can’t do that, cheat.
Gathering the last reserves of her energy, she mounted another series of attacks. Still happy to play with her, he did little to dissuade her other than redirecting her blade, still peering down at her with that damnable grin. He slipped out from an admittedly clumsy overhead strike, leaving her stumbling past him with a smacking sting from the flat of his blade against her lower back. And leaving his chest completely open.
Seeing that expression vanish as she blasted him in the chest with a bolt of magic was one of the great highlights of her life. He flew back with an undignified squawk, landing in a tangle of ungainly limbs.
“Heh. Didn’t see that coming, did you, you son of a bitch?” she heaved.
With a hissing snatch of air through her teeth, Sylvie crossed over and lifted her blade for the final strike. The variant was too winded to dodge. She could see the moment he realized it, exhaustion and a flash of panic dancing in his eyes.
And she hesitated. Her arms locked up, halting the blade in mid motion and her breath stuttered as something painfully clamped itself around her heart. It was only for or a heartbeat, less even than that. But it was enough.
Teeth bared, the variant lunged back to his feet, trapping her sword arm. Sylvie caught his other arm as the hook descended toward her eye, barely holding him at bay with gritted teeth and quivering muscles. Acting on instinct, she reached out to enchant him. The green light of her magic sparked over her fingers where they were digging into his arm and stretched out in search of his mind.
Back on Lamentis, Loki had boasted that his mind was simply too strong to yield to her enchantment, something she’d laughed off without a thought. Not only had Sylvie never come across some with the fortitude to resist her magic in the centuries since she’d mastered it – including other magicians – but even the light prodding she’d had managed breaking the connection disproved the claim right away.
Every living thing – at least, those who had a conscious mind – had some kind of defense against psychic invasions. As unconscious as the immune system responding to a foreign body, most weren’t aware of it. Sylvie liked to think of those barriers as mist, easily blown away by the fire of her will. The stronger ones, those who had some training, or under some other influence, required the illusions. Something to distract the immune response as she chipped away at it. Still, easy. Sylvie had never come across a mind that didn’t yield beneath her magic; hell, even the cosmic horror of Alioth had succumbed to her power. Eventually.
That was what made it so laughable, so easily (foolishly) discarded.
Because the mind Loki boasted about so casually was in tatters. There were neat, precise burr holes in his mental defenses, straight down to the core of his mind. Sylvie had never seen anything like it. The pathways were blocked, but it was more like scar tissue than any intentional barrier meant to guard against psychic attacks. Thick, messy, and annoying to get through. At the time, Sylvie had no doubt that she would be able to, but ultimately, it wasn’t worth the effort with a target that was aware of her. Better to just beat the TemPad out of him; get what she needed and work off the frustration of her mission going up in smoke. Two birds, one stone, way more satisfying. She hadn’t given it any thought since.
Arrogant, foolish woman, she thought now.
If Loki’s defenses were anything like this, he had every right to be boastful. It was like ramming her fist against solid steel.
Sylvie jerked back with a shocked shout, looking down at where her hand was still anchored to his forearm. The acids of her stomach raced up to envelope her thudding heart and her head started to spin. Oh no .
Seconds ticked by in an agonizing eternity and a tumultuous wave of emotions threatened to drown her. Shock and denial – through brutal years on the run, in the midst of hideous apocalypses, against every threat that wanted to eat her alive, the one thing she could always rely on was her power. Having it stripped away, it failing her now, shook Sylvie to her foundations. Beneath that, burning rage at whoever had violated Loki’s mind (it was clean work, but devastating, it must have been so painful ). And eclipsing everything else, a brutal punch of fear as she realized that she’d just made a very, very costly mistake.
As she reeled, the variant studied her, head tilted to the side, curiosity and hint of recognition in his eyes.
“If you want to insist on turning this into a witch’s battle, I’m more than happy to oblige.”
Surging forward, he left Sylvie flailing behind her own momentum and smacked his palm against her forehead. Her heart dropped as she recognized the familiar tickle of mind magic and she scrambled to get her defenses up. But with her mind already partially open through the enchantment, he flooded right in.