Contest of Champions

35

After I catch my breath, Hogun leads the way to a spacious abandoned building. It used to be a casino, by the looks of it. Broken pieces of chairs and tables are scattered across the floor, a larger racing table sitting in the center of the room.

"This is where I've been hiding out," Hogun tells me. "There are some provisions still, and some water. No medical supplies, though."

I nod. "Thank you."

Hogun just looks at me. "You're Thor's little brother. He would never forgive me if I let you die."

I'm not sure how to take that. "So, I'm only alive right now because I'm Odinson?"

"Would you rather be dead?"

Swear to me.

My answer is the truth. "No."

"Then leave it at that, Loki."

I nod again. "Then I will, Hogun."

Silence falls as Hogun pulls out some food from further back in the casino. Bringing it over to the racing table, he shoves some of the debris and bones littering it aside and places the food down as I drag over some chairs.

I frown at the yaro roots. "Those aren't ripe."

If he were Sif, I would have found a blade pointed at my throat. If he were Thor, I would have been yelled at. If he were Gamora, I would have been knocked down a mountainside.

But Hogun just gives me a long-suffering look and proceeds to split the roots into two piles.

They're tough, and ordinarily the taste would be disgusting. But knowing the scarcity of food lends them the flavor only hunger can give, and no complaints pass my lips for the duration of the meal. The generosity of Hogun surprises me. He didn't have to offer me food. He didn't have to let me know there was any. But he did anyway. I feel a bit guilty, thinking of the dried fruit and meat in my pack, but say nothing.

"How goes the Contest?" he asks, finally breaking the silence.

I swallow and take a sip of water to wash down the roots. "Seven dead, so far."

"How many of them yours?"

"Two, with Raze. Helen Cho, of Seven."

Hogun nods.

"What about on your end?"

"One," he says. "Killed the other frost giant. Yesterday, at the Gauntlet. That's why her partner was here. He followed me through the portal, seeking revenge."

"Is there anyone else here, at this location?" I ask. "That you know of?"

Hogun shakes his head. "Not that I've heard or seen. I heard three cannons though, sometime last night. Do you know anything about that?"

I nod. "Dora Skirth of Ten, Drax and Mantis of Nine." A beat, and then, "How did your partner die?"

Hogun grunts. "Okoye put a spear through her neck."

I close my eyes briefly. "I'm sorry, Hogun."

He looks down. "She wasn't going to make it anyway. At least it's over for her."

"The three of us won't all survive, either," I tell him, and when he meets my gaze, I know he knows I'm talking about Sif.

"One of us can make it home," he asserts. "Do you know where Sif is, by any chance?"

I grimace. "The Lady Sif has made an alliance with the Avenger pack."

There's silence as Hogun thinks about this. "Hmm. Sif with the Avengers. Good for her." But I can tell he feels betrayed.

"Did you have a pact?" I ask.

Hogun shakes his head. "No. Not officially. I just assumed...." He doesn't finish. He doesn't have to.

"She talked to me about a pact," I tell him. "At least, an agreement for neither of us to cause the death of the other."

"What did you say?"

I tilt my head. "I agreed, at first. But she wanted a bit more verification that a 'fine.'"

"That's because she's met you," Hogun mutters.

I lift an eyebrow. "So why have you allied with me?"

Hogun rises, kicking back the old metal chair from the racing table. Instead of answering, he picks up his mace and I see the dark burn marks from the frost giant's grip on his wrist. "I'm going to run a quick sweep of the perimeter, ensure no other contenders have entered the asteroid."

"Is that where we are?" I ask, glancing up. Of course, the ceiling blocks my view of anything above my head, so it's a useless look.

Hogun doesn't answer; he just leaves.

For a moment, I sit still, staring down at the table but hardly noticing it. I think back to the battle, about when Raze grasped my arm but I didn't feel a thing.

"It burns."

Resting my left forearm on the table's edge, I tug at my tunic sleeve, shifting it back a little bit. I stare at the skin of my hand, wrist, and forearm, its pale hue seeming somehow unreliable, now that I've seen it shift. I could have sworn it was a greyish blue earlier.

I rotate my arm, my eyes continuing to rake my limb for any sign of a change in color, for a mark of falsity. But I see nothing, just the same hue my arm has always been.

My skin seemed to change colors when Raze had grabbed my arm. Had I been simply seeing things? Had it all been in my mind? Perhaps it had been nothing more than that, a trick of the mind or a fault with the light.

But that doesn't change the fact that Hogun had been burned by Raze's grasp, and I hadn't.

Why hadn't I been burned? Vanaheim and Asgard are similar enough where a burn to Hogun would also affect me, at least in some capacity. But I hadn't felt a thing. Nothing at all like a burn.

Tugging my sleeve back to its previous position, I try to focus on straightening my tunics but my mind keeps straying back to that grey-blue color.

Why? Why did my skin change color? What does that particular color mean? I find myself rubbing the back of my left hand and force myself to stop. I need to stop dwelling on this. I need to focus on the here and now, not the past.

You keep thinking about Gamora, though.

I angrily brush off that thought. Gamora is different.

How so? How is she different? You relive your oath to her almost constantly, yet that remains and will always remain in the past. Sometimes, you think of Veers, yet the whole reason you know her is in the past. Raze grabbing your arm? It's in the past now.

Let it all stay in the past.

I frown. I'm not so sure I'm going to be able to do that. After all, my strength in this Contest has been drawn from the past. I don't want to relinquish my oath to the past. I want to remember swearing to Gamora, I want to recall that moment she embraced me, holding me closer than life itself. I want to feel her rings touching my lips, silencing me with their coolness interspersed between her surprisingly soft fingers.

But now, when I think of her face, I see grey blue flashing off her normally silver implants.

Shaking my head, I rise and stalk around the table, trying to chase away the thoughts. I find myself glancing down at my left hand again and I have to wonder why my skin changed color. How? Why? And what does it mean?

The grey-blue of my wrist had momentarily matched that of Raze's fingers.

But before I can think further as to what this might mean, the front wall of the casino is blown apart.