The floor of the briefing room groaned as Olsen lunged. Even without the power-assisted servos of his armor, a Space Marine at a full sprint is a terrifying spectacle of biological engineering. To the mortal eyes in the room, Olsen was nothing but a sudden, violent blur.
Boom!
The reinforced alloy wall dented inward as Olsen's fist connected with the space where Loki's head had been a microsecond before. Nick Fury's heart skipped a beat; the Helicarrier's hull was constructed from high-tensile aerospace alloys designed to withstand atmospheric re-entry, yet this "bodyguard" had nearly cracked the bulkhead with a single bare-handed strike.
Is this man even human? Fury wondered, his hand hovering over his pistol.
Loki, having shimmered into existence a few feet away, wore a look of amused condescension. "As expected of a primitive race. Completely devoid of grace. It seems I must provide a more... thorough education."
With a flick of his wrist, a dozen Lokis manifested simultaneously throughout the room. Each one held a pulsing scepter, their golden horns gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
"Do you see, mortals?" the chorus of illusions hissed.
Loki drank in the silence, savoring the perceived fear. He waited for them to grovel, to realize the futility of fighting a god.
Olsen was unimpressed. He had hunted Tzeentchian Sorcerers in the shifting labyrinths of the Warp; these static light-tricks were amateurish. His nostrils flared, his multi-lung and specialized olfactory nodes filtering the air. In less than a tenth of a second, his brain discarded the scentless "clones" and locked onto the biological musk and ozone trail of the real Prince of Mischief.
Loki didn't even have three seconds to gloat before the air pressure in front of him spiked. A fist the size of a heavy-duty mortar shell roared toward his face. His divine instincts screamed a warning, forcing him to snap back to reality.
Loki scrambled aside, a desperate, undignified dive that barely saved his skull from being pulverized. But before he could even wonder how the mortal had bypassed his "perfect" veil, a heavy blow caught him square in the solar plexus.
The air left Loki's lungs in a pained wheeze. Olsen followed through with a whip-kick that carried the force of a speeding vehicle.
Thump!
Loki was sent hurtling across the room. He hit the far wall and stayed there for several seconds, pinned by the sheer kinetic energy of the impact, before sliding slowly to the floor.
"Ugh—" Loki spat a mouthful of blood, his eyes bloodshot and wide with fury. "You... you dare... to lay hands upon a King!"
Asgardians—especially the royal line—were notoriously durable, but even a "god" has limits. Loki's handsome face was twisted in a mask of agony as he struggled to his feet. "I will burn this world! I will show you the true meaning of—"
Olsen's answer was a straight right to the jaw.
The punch was so fast it seemed to bypass time. Loki's head snapped back, the world turning into a buzzing hive of static. Before he could regain his balance, Olsen's massive, fan-like fingers clamped onto his skull. With a grunt of effort, the Space Marine slammed Loki's head into the deck.
The alloy floor, built to withstand the landing of fighter jets, spider-webbed under the impact.
"No! Loki!" Thor cried out. Despite the betrayal, he couldn't bear to see his brother dismantled like a training dummy.
Spurred by a desperate will to survive, Loki used a flicker of magic to swap places with a decoy. Olsen's heavy boot stomped through a ghost of green light, crushing the metal floor beneath.
Sensing a window, Loki lunged with his scepter, pressing the glowing blue gem against Olsen's chest. "Submit! I command you... kneel!"
Clang!
The scepter hit Olsen's chest with a sharp, metallic ring. Loki froze. The Mind Stone hummed, its power searching for a gateway into the target's nervous system, but it hit a wall of cold, unyielding ceramic and reinforced bone.
Beneath Olsen's skin lay the Black Carapace—a synthetic, neural-interface armor plate that had been surgically fused to his skeleton centuries ago. The scepter was poking a piece of military hardware, not a man.
Olsen looked down at the scepter, then up at Loki. His eyes were cold, professional, and entirely unimpressed.
"I SERVE ONLY THE IMPERIUM!"
"Gulp." Loki stiffly raised his head, his face inches from the veteran's.
Emrys, watching from the table, almost felt the need to applaud. Loki's "Godhood" was being systematically dismantled by the sheer, stubborn reality of Imperial engineering.
Realizing the scepter had failed, Loki tried to vanish again. He wasn't thinking about conquest anymore; he was thinking about the exit. But his "perfect" illusions were useless against a predator that hunted by scent, heat signatures, and atmospheric vibration.
A heavy slap caught Loki mid-vanish, spinning him like a top.
"Impossible!" Loki screamed, collapsing into a heap. "My veils are flawless! How can you see me?"
Olsen's eye twitched. Flawless? Compared to the mind-bending horrors of the Warp, this boy's magic was a child's parlor trick. It didn't even mask his heartbeat. However, Olsen remained cautious. In his five hundred years of service, he had learned that psykers often feigned weakness to draw their enemies into a trap.
To ensure the threat was neutralized, Olsen accelerated. His punches became a blur of afterimages, a systematic demolition of Asgardian anatomy.
Thor watched in silent horror as his brother was treated like a practice rug. Loki would attempt a spell, only to be caught by the throat and hurled into a bulkhead. He would try to speak, only to have the air knocked out of him by a kidney strike. By the end, the God of Mischief was a broken heap of green and gold, staring at the ceiling with dull, hollow eyes.
"Is it finished?" Emrys asked, leaning back in his chair.
Olsen stepped back, his chest barely heaving. He looked at the battered Loki with deep suspicion. "I am not certain, master. I have never encountered such a resilient 'psyker.' He has taken enough force to kill a squadron of Ogryns, yet he refuses to unleash his true warp-capability. He is either a coward or a master of deception."
The Avengers stared at Olsen in stunned silence. Refuses to use his full strength? The man had just beaten a god into a pulp, and he was worried that the god was "holding back."
Bruce Banner, standing safely in the corner, pushed up his glasses and looked at the unrecognizable heap that was Loki. "Well," he muttered softly, "he's certainly a 'puny god' now."
Loki heard the remark. He spat out a tooth, his eyes rolling back in his head as he finally succumbed to unconsciousness. To be defeated was one thing—to be insulted by a mortal "scientist" was the final blow to his pride.