Loki moved first.
He moved with the speed of a god, crossing the distance between the sofa and the armchair in a fraction of a second. The Scepter drove forward, its bladed tip aimed directly at Arthur's chest.
Arthur stayed exactly where he was. He did not move. He did not raise a hand to defend himself.
He did not need to.
When the Scepter was mere inches from Arthur's chest, it ceased to exist. Loki ceased to exist. One moment the god was there, mid-thrust, his pale face twisted in absolute fury. The next, he was completely gone. Not destroyed. Not violently banished. Erased. As though he had never been real in the first place, and the universe had quietly corrected a minor error.
"You can come out now," Arthur said to the empty room. He still had not stood up from the armchair. "Stop wasting both our time."
The air rippled. Thirty identical Lokis materialised around the furniture, crowding the living room in a tide of green and gold. They gripped matching Scepters with matching expressions of venomous fury. They charged simultaneously.
But again, none of them made it within a foot of the armchair.
The exact moment they neared Arthur, they simply ceased to exist.
Arthur had not moved. Had not cast a spell. Had not raised a hand. The illusions just could not sustain themselves near him. Things that pretended to be alive could not maintain the act near a man who had authority over the boundary between what was real and what was not.
Arthur's newly gained power over Death made such cheap tricks entirely useless.
"You can keep making copies," Arthur said. "I can keep unmaking them. We both know how this ends." He paused. "You should also know that I reactivated the highest tier of this manor's wards the moment I stepped inside. Even with your new weapon, you are not leaving."
Silence.
Arthur sighed. "Fine."
He blinked, and his irises shifted from their natural blue to the twilight grey of Death Sight.
The room faded to dull outlines. Furniture became sketches. Walls became suggestions. But behind the grand oak bookshelf in the far corner, a thick golden thread burned with the unmistakable brilliance of a living soul.
Loki was crouching in the shadows, wrapped in layers of invisibility magic that fooled the eye, the ear, and every conventional magical sense in the Nine Realms.
None of which mattered to a man who could actually see death itself.
Arthur looked directly at the oak bookshelf. "This is quite a sight. The great Loki, Prince of Asgard, God of Mischief, hiding behind furniture like vermin. You called Midgardians ants, but I did not think you considered yourself lower."
Loki could see Arthur's expression through his concealment. He could see the grey eyes locked precisely on his position. The humiliation was worse than a blow.
He leapt out from behind the bookshelf, dropping the invisibility spell, and fired a blast of cosmic blue energy from the Scepter.
Arthur lazily raised a hand. A golden Eldritch mandala spun to life, catching the blast. The cosmic energy scattered harmlessly against the shield.
Loki threw a furious barrage of glowing green daggers. Arthur leaned left, stepped casually right, and let the rest shatter uselessly against the mandala.
Then, Arthur walked toward him. He did not hurry.
"I was going to make this completely painless for you," Arthur said. His voice was quiet, almost pleasant. "I was going to sit here until your grand invasion failed, wait for you to surrender, and hand you over to your brother wrapped in a neat little bow."
Loki lashed out. A bolt of green fire screamed from the Scepter. Arthur deflected it with a flick, bending the spell's trajectory into the floor where it scorched the hardwood.
"But then I learned about what you did on the Helicarrier."
Arthur's voice had not risen. If anything, it had gone much quieter.
"You took control of my friend's mind. You turned him into a weapon and aimed him at people I care about." Arthur stepped forward. Loki retreated, casting a barrier. Arthur walked through it without slowing. "You hurt them. You tried to kill them."
Loki fired a rapid sequence of blasts. Arthur sidestepped each one. They punched holes through the wall behind him.
"And then," Arthur said, and now his voice was very quiet, the kind of quiet that precedes something terrible, "you threatened my children. You looked into a camera, spoke to my son, and told him you would send his best friend to tear him apart. You were specific about it."
The death energy around Arthur's body thickened. The room dimmed. Not because the lights had changed, but because the darkness radiating from him was bending light away, pulling it inward the way gravity pulls water downhill.
"You have made me very angry, Loki. I have not been this angry since Mephisto."
Loki froze mid-cast. The Scepter's blue glow wavered weakly.
"Mephisto?" The word came out sharp. Involuntary. Every being in the Nine Realms who had studied the dark paths knew that name. "You fought Mephisto?"
"In his own realm." Arthur's tone was conversational. "He threatened my son. He is still paying for it."
Loki recalculated. The wizard standing before him had fought a Hell Lord in his own domain over a threat to his children. And from the look of things, had won. The implications settled over Loki like cold water.
"Did you come here to follow through on your threat?" Arthur asked. The conversational tone did not waver. "Did you come to hurt my children?"
"No." The denial was immediate. Instinctive.
"So why exactly are you here?" Arthur tilted his head. "For Winky? Did she frighten you that badly on the Helicarrier?"
Loki's left eye twitched.
Arthur smiled. He was correct.
"Winky," Arthur called out normally. "It seems he came all this way just for you."
A sharp pop echoed loudly in the living room.
Loki staggered forward, nearly losing his balance. He felt a pull and a sudden absence of weight in his hand. He looked down at his empty palms in disbelief.
Winky reappeared directly beside Arthur. In her slim, silver hands, she held the glowing golden Scepter. She offered it up to Arthur with a small, polite curtsy.
"Thank you, Winky." Arthur took the weapon and turned it over, examining the Mind Stone's blue glow with interest.
He looked back at the stunned god. "When Winky told me how she took the Scepter from you on the Helicarrier, I found it difficult to believe. This was your one edge against Thor. Against me. How could you have no countermeasures against someone snatching it?" He turned the weapon again. "I thought she must have been exaggerating. But here we are. Twice in a week."
"Where is your honor?" Loki spat, his voice raw with panic and rage. "A cowardly sneak attack. Two against one. Is this how the great Arthur Hayes chooses to fight?"
Arthur looked at him. The twilight grey eyes were dead steady and absolute zero cold.
"When it comes to the safety of my family, Loki, I do not care about honor. I care only about results."
He turned to Winky. "Would you like to handle this?"
Winky nodded eagerly. "Yes, Master."
"Would you prefer to do it here, or in the Mirror Dimension?"
"Here, please." Winky wrinkled her nose. "That mirror place makes Winky's head hurt."
"As long as you clean up after yourself."
Loki roared. To be stripped of his weapon and handed to a servant for a duel was an insult that cut deeper than any blade. He summoned two long hunting daggers from thin air and lunged at the elf with godlike speed.
Winky did not even blink. She popped completely out of existence.
Loki's daggers slashed through empty air. He spun, reaching for her magical signature, but found nothing. Winky had turned invisible. With no bystanders to protect, she was free to fight with what she was best at.
A heavy cast-iron frying pan swung at Loki's head out of nowhere.
He ducked at the last instant, feeling the wind of heavy metal graze his ear. The attacks did not stop. A flying teakettle smashed into his shoulder. A silver serving tray came spinning like a buzzsaw, forcing him to dive sideways. Loki dodged left and right, his divine reflexes pushed to their limits by the relentless, invisible assault of kitchenware.
He started casting wild blasts of green fire, scorching the rugs and antique furniture.
Arthur frowned. He raised a hand and a shimmering barrier formed around the battle area, sealing them in. The fire splashed harmlessly against it. The room could be restored easily, but Arthur preferred it not be destroyed in the first place.
"Hurry it up, Winky," Arthur called, checking his watch. "There is an alien invasion to end."
"Okay!" Winky's cheerful voice echoed from everywhere inside the enclosure.
The kitchen doors flew open. Pots, pans, rolling pins, heavy ladles, and carving knives came flying through the air and phased smoothly through Arthur's barrier. They descended on Loki at blinding speed. He was fast, but he had nothing to strike at. He could only dodge frantically as the massive swarm closed in on him from every possible angle.
He tried conjuring illusions to draw the fire. The flying kitchenware cut through them without hesitating, shattering each duplicate on contact and continuing toward the real target.
Loki was reduced to fighting awkwardly with his body alone. The flying swarm grew denser. The tight gaps between projectiles narrowed rapidly.
Then, exactly between one dodge and the next, the rug beneath his feet yanked sideways.
Loki lost his footing and crashed heavily onto his back. The pots and pans hit him from every direction. A heavy frying pan cracked into his ribs. A wooden rolling pin smashed across his shins. A whistling kettle slammed into his chest, knocking the air completely from his lungs.
Loki roared and blasted everything away with a burst of green magic, scattering dented cookware across the floor. He pushed himself to his knees, panting, scanning for any trace of the elf.
Nothing.
Winky had had her fun. She felt Arthur's impatience through the bond and decided to end it.
Suddenly, Loki could not move. The binding magic came without any warning whatsoever, locking his limbs rigidly in place. And Winky was not finished. The scattered pots and pans began to change. The metal warped and stretched, transfiguring into thick steel cables that slithered forward like snakes and wound around Loki's body, binding him to the floor.
Winky reappeared beside Arthur, back in her human form, smoothing the front of her dress. She was not even breathing hard.
"All done, Master," she said pleasantly.
Arthur looked at the bound god on his living room floor. The God of Mischief, conqueror of worlds, trussed up in transfigured cookware.
"Thank you, Winky." Arthur dispelled the barrier. "I will take it from here."