Lights sparked in my vision as I pinwheeled through space, my breath knocked out of my chest from the lack of air.

I crashed into object after object, and I held my forearms in front of my face to protect myself. I felt like I was falling forever, until finally I crashed into solid ground, my black colliding with hard metal. I groaned as pain stabbed into my spine, an ache filling my bones.

I rolled over onto my stomach and winced at the pains in my body, blinking away the dark spots clouding my vision. I stood up slowly, dusting off my old Asgardian training leathers. I'd conjured it on myself to have some sort of protection, and my armor was too nostalgic to me.

I looked around and surveyed my surroundings, ever confused but trying to pin point where, exactly, in the galaxy I was. On this planet I'd landed in a dump, somewhere, scraps of metal and pieces of machinery and garbage were littered everywhere. All the trash was being dumped by large cosmic portals in the sky, ones with different colors placed randomly upon the horizon. I began to think this planet was just some collection point of space garbage, when I looked off into the distance and saw the towers of some techno looking city.

I grunted at the distance, I couldn't teleport there, I had no idea where I would land, but I still needed to make my way to civilization to find a way out of here. I needed to find Loki and Thor, and as much as I dreaded it, we needed to get back to Asgard. Clove and Hela will devour the realm if we can't stop them.

Their power terrified me to no end, and I knew we'd seen no more than a sample of what they were capable of, would we even survive them once they didn't hold back? A shiver ran down my spine at the thought.

I sighed and begun to trek through the trash, kicking away wheels and anything that blocked me, but I heard an engine whirring in the air and I looked up. The large purple and white body of a ship was flying overhead and began to land near me, its engine stirring dust from the earth and I raised my arm over my eyes to shield myself from it. From the door at the center of the ship a mechanical bridge extended out, and from the unit within a woman emerged, my shoulders sagged with relief at the sight of someone else.

The woman who walked out onto the walkway was wearing black armor, with a blue cape on one shoulder, her dark hair braided back into a ponytail and her brown skin decorated with white markings around her eyes and above her brows.

"Excuse me?" I called out, walking toward her as she descended from the ramp. She raised a brow at me. "Wow? Another Asgardian already?" She said, sounding sarcastic and surprisingly almost bored.

I narrowed my eyes. "You know of another Asgardian whose come through here?" I asked warily, wondering if Thor ended up on this same planet. And very possibly Loki. The woman turned her chin to the side and raising her eyebrows. "If you're looking for Thor he's days away from death. That's a lost cause, sweetheart." She muttered, watching my reaction carefully. My eyes darkened and anger flared inside of me. I turned my palms forward, very little but very hot flames of warning spawning there. "If you've done something to him-" "You look like a fighter." The woman said, looking at me considerably.

I was taken off guard by that, frowning at her strange timing. She whipped something small at my face and I pulled my forearm in front of me to guard my face, and I furrowed my brows in confusion as a small disc latched onto my skin and sank into my arm. "Wh-" But I was interrupted by the sudden surge of heat and electricity in my veins, and I blacked out as my body fell limp onto the ground.

-

When I came back to consciousness, it was to the sound of something mechanical starting up. I squinting my eyes, blinking away the dark spots in my vision. Lights flickered on and I startled as I began to move without putting myself in motion. When I adjusted to the light, I could see where I was. I was in some sort of steel chair that my wrists and ankles were cuffed to.

I was on some sort of conveyor belt going through a cave of machinery. I squinted in confusion.

"Fear not for you are found." A female voice on a speaker announced. I jumped. "What the f-" "You are home and there is no going back."

I pulled at the restraints at my wrists, grunting in frustration. "No one leaves this place," The female announcer added, lights began to shut off around me and I tried not to panic. I tugged again at the restraints, trying to not let the memory of me in another chair infiltrate my head, but nonetheless my breath began to quicken.

"But what is this place? The answer is- Sakaar." The tunnel of machinery ended suddenly, and then I was surrounded by space, white stars peppering around me. "Surrounded by cosmic gateways, Sakaar lives on the edge of the known and unknown. It is the collection point for all lost and unloved things- like you!"

Ouch.

"But here, on Sakaar, you are significant. Here you are loved." The image transformed into a vision of the planet I was on, colors soaring everywhere. My eyes were wide with bewilderment, and to say the least, I was weirded out.

"And no one loves you more than the grandmaster." The image cuts to a the silhouette of a man standing up in a sea of nothing, whom I assumed was the Grandmaster the announcer referred to.

"He is the original, the first lost and the first found." The image cuts to the man turning around to the city of Sakaar rising from the ground. "The creator of Sakaar, and the father of the Contest of Champions." the image turned into two burly, mutated men wearing gladiator clothing swinging massive weapons at one another. I frowned in distaste, this planet would not turn out well for me, and if Thor was here, I needed to get both of us out of here. "Where once you were nothing, now you are something." her voice grew eerie and it sent a shiver down my spine. I tugged at the restraints.

"You are the property of the Grandmaster."

You are mine, little bird.

I sucked in a deep breath, forcing it out. Breathe, I reminded myself. I couldn't afford any freak-outs at the moment, I had no idea where I was or where I would end up, and I needed a level head.

"Congratulations, you will meet the Grandmaster in... 5 seconds."

The chair picked up speed, colors splashing together.

"Prepare yourself."

I whipped my head around, willing myself not to panic. I had larger problems then some hippie who thinks he owns me, I'd figure this out.

"Prepare yourself."

I breathed in, and out, allowed myself a moment to feel the caress of the fire in my veins. I could call upon it any time, it was my lifeline. No matter how much I hated it, I longed for the security it gave me.

"You are now meeting the Grandmaster!"

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself, then suddenly all the noise stopped and it was just silence, and I wasn't moving anymore. I peeled my eyes open carefully, scared of what resided beyond my lids. I was no longer on the conveyor, though I was still in the chair, and I was surrounded by a group of people dressed in eccentric, retro clothing and armor with strange horns atop helmets, and in front of me a man sat on his own chair, a blue line of paint from his bottom lip to chin, he was dressed in blue clothing with a gold colored robe dressed over it, and his grey hair was styled in different directions.

Next to him were two women standing on each side of him, one being the woman who put me here, and the other being one who was shorter and looked much older, they both had painted white symbols on their face. Perhaps it was a trend here.

"She's a beaut, isn't she?" The man spoke up, his tone almost goofy. I frowned and drew my brows together, for some reason I'd imagined this 'Grandmaster' to be a little bit more intimidating.

The woman who put me in that chair nodded in agreement.

The man, whom I assumed to be the Grandmaster, squirmed excitedly in his seat. "Wow, you've already brought me a contender this week, and now you bring me, wha-what exactly is it you, bring me, Scrapper 142?" The Grandmaster asked 'Scrapper 142', whose lips curled at that question. "A gladiator," She says, I frowned, a gladiator? He grins in excitement. "A female gladiator! Haven't had one of those in a while. You are on fire this week, 142." the Grandmaster said, almost giddily.

The Grandmaster motioned to the other woman, "Take me closer," He told her, she looked aggravated, but stood behind him and pushed his chair toward me, and it began to float forward and inched toward me. I pushed back in my chair, hoping to put more distance between us.

"She looks like a fighter. What is she, Titan? Kree?" The Grandmaster asked, I looked at him in confusion. I took on no traits of either of those races. "Something like that," Scrapper 142 said.

"Wonderful, just wonderful. Topaz, pay her." He said, turning toward the other, more moody woman.

"I'll take fifteen million for her," Scrapper 142 said, and anger rose within me at that.

"Okay, Topaz-" "Fifteen million?" Topaz said suddenly, like it was atrocious that I could be worth that much, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of offense to that. "Oh for Heaven's sake, transfer the units." Topaz lifted her arm and pressed some sort of device on her forearm.

"Excuse me- I am not anyone's to buy or sell-" I said, clenching my fists and trying to prevent my fire from breaking loose of my skin, but I couldn't stop the surge in heat in veins as the power roiled under my skin angrily. The flames rolled beneath my skin and warmed me, and I fought it down forcefully. The Grandmaster wafted his face with his hand. "Is it- is it suddenly hot in here? Oh dangit- is the A.C. broken again? That stupid thing." He said, looking around in distaste. He said it as a way to brush off my comment, but I knew why it was getting hotter in the room.

The scrapper looked at me, with her head cocked to the side and eyebrows raised. She raised the same remote like device that electrocuted me discreetly, as if warning me to keep the fire to myself. I bared my teeth at her in anger and a sneer curled her lips in response.

"See you at the Contest," The scrapper said, walking past The Grandmaster and past me. He grinned at the implication of whatever freak show would occur soon, and she raised her hand and gave him a pat on the neck. When she raised her arm I could see a red tattoo peaking from her silver gauntlets and my eyes narrowed and widened when I realized what it was- the sacred one of the Valkyrie.

My face whited, not only was she Asgardian, she might very well be the last Valkyrie alive. The Valkyrie were told to all have died very gruesome deaths, so while I was angry at her for putting me in this situation, I realized something then,

she's like me

hiding from her past

"So, tell me 'bout yourself. What are you?" The Grandmaster asked while waving a finger toward me, almost completely teasingly. I blurted out almost immediately, before the scrapper left the room, "I'm a Valkyrie."

I heard the scrapper stop walking, her boots no longer disappearing down the hall.

The Grandmaster nodded and leaned forward, placing a finger on his chin. "Mhmm, now I don't know what that is- but it sure sounds cool. So I guess my question to you is- would you say Valkyrie, equals, fighter?"

I held my chin up then, hoping the scrapper would hear these words for what they were.

"You haven't met a fighter until you've met a Valkyrie." I said confidently. He grinned, standing up from his metal 'throne'. "You're a cocky little thing aren't you, tell me your name?"

"I am Lyra of Asgard, and you will regret ever putting me in this damned chair," I promised him, making sure he heard the truth in my threat. I'm sure he did, but he just grinned stupidly at me. "You're from Ass-berg too? Wow, small world. Do your fingers sparkle too?" He said, taking a remote from his cloak and knocking my fingers with it. I bared my teeth at him and he laughed, before motioning the remote forward.

"Right this way, woman Lord."

My chair starts up and starts wheeling out of the room through an arching white doorway that opened into a vast common area, people with a variety of strange clothing and hairstyles sat on sofas and laughing and talking, retro music played in the background. The Grandmaster stops walking into the room, stopping at a keyboard that was placed in a strange cul de sac of instruments. "So, allow me to formally introduce myself, I'm Grandmaster, I kinda run this place." He said, I watched him with strange, bewildered eyes as he began to press keys and play strange music. "There's this competition here I like to call the Contest of Champions, people come from far and wide to unwillingly participate in it. And it looks like you just might be next up on the roster! So, mozel tov to you, my friend." The Grandmaster said excitedly, Topaz grinned from beside him and I snarled at her.

"Lyra?" I heard a voice call, and I knew that voice. I twisted around in the chair, and walking toward me warily was none other than Loki. I sagged with relief, feeling tears began to fester behind my eyelids. "Loki," I breathed. He rushed to me, scanning my body for injury, I sucked in a breath.

The last time he stood in front of me, sitting in a chair, it hadn't ended well. That wasn't real! I screamed into my head, stop thinking about it!

"You're alive," Loki exhaled, I could see the restraint in his eyes, he wanted to touch me, but he knew I was uneasy around him, and he knew we were not alone. But I found myself wanting to touch him just as much.

"You know each other?" The Grandmaster asked, Loki twisted toward him suddenly, his cunning grin pulling at his lips. "Yes, actually, she's my wife." Loki said, making a point to stand at my side. The Grandmaster's eyebrows shot up. Loki put his hand near mine, and I reached as far as I could and linked my fingers through his. I noticed he had suddenly conjured a silver wedding band around his finger and began to wish I'd thought about doing to same. I wasn't sure how Loki was here, but he didn't have a chair and I did, and this Grandmaster lunatic didn't seem to mind him, so maybe this could work.

"Really? Where's your ring, misses?" He said, motioning to my vacant finger. I looked down suddenly, and schooled surprise into my expression. "I.. must've lost it in the scrapyard." I said immediately, staring at my finger for a few more seconds.

The Grandmaster claps Loki on the shoulder. "Well, my dear friend, who am I to keep a man and wife separated? Topaz, let this poor girl go." The Grandmaster said, Topaz looked at him in distaste. "Should I get the fifteen million back from the scrapper?" She asked, aggravation flashing in her eyes. "No, of course not, she brought back this man's wife. Let her keep the units."

The restraints were released from my wrists and ankles and I stood up immediately, happy to be free from it. Loki hugged my side to his immediately and I fought my small spike in fear, forcing myself to loop my arm behind his back to play the loving wife.

"Alright, you lovebirds can go be reunited. I have party to attend to," The Grandmaster said, shooting us each a wink.

When the Grandmaster stopped paying attention to us, Loki dipped his head down so his lips were close to my ear, "Can we talk?" He said, his voice shaky and breathless. I nodded quickly, choking back my emotions as best as I could.

-

The Bifrost had not ceased once Lyra broke from its colorful barrier.

It continued on, its path ceasing only when it arrived to its forever intended destination: Asgard. Clove and Hela arrived through the clashing colors of the Bifrost, emerging into the grand golden dome that harbored such power. Clove stalked carefully behind her daughter, Hela, whose ripped up suit began to mend slowly, stopped and her eyes hooded in delight, lips pursing with euphoria pulling into her features as Asgard's power rushed into her.

Clove's lip turned in distaste, Hela was a daughter of Asgard: of Odin: she needed her power from Asgard, unlike Clove, whose power lived within her as much as it did Nilfheim. And Lyra, she thought then, she fought back the frustration that curled her hands into fists, she would find her daughter soon enough. She mustn't grow angry with Hela, though it was clearly her fault that Lyra was halfway across the galaxy.

-TW: GORE-

"Who are you! What have you done with Thor!" Cried a new male voice, Clove flitted her eyes up, looking at the other beings in the room with disinterest. A burly, curly haired blonde stood at the podium that controlled the Bifrost, a golden sword in his hands. Clove waved her fingers, shadows dancing on her fingertips as darkness consumed the inside of the warrior. She allowed a dark tendril of her power to constrict the weak muscles in his neck slowly, in dire need of the delight of his pain. He dropped the golden sword, hands flying to his throat as he gasped, clawing at nothing at his neck even though he was being attacked from within. Clove quirked an interested brow as she watched his eyes bulge in his head and his body quickly depleted of color as his circulation was lost, his figure trembled with the fight: the fight he wouldn't win.

Another man in the dome yelled in fury, raising his sword and charging toward Clove. "Release him, witch!" He seethed angrily, and Clove frowned and pinned him in place with a deadly stare, shadows wrapping around his ankles and crawling up his shins and torso until it was trapping his hand that clutched his sword. The red-headed man stared and trembled in fear, and Clove's lips twitched in amusement as she flicked her finger to the side and his wrist snapped with a terrifying crack, the sword clattering to the ground as the red-head's hand pointed at a sickly ninety degree angle. The warrior let out an agonizing shriek.

Clove's eyes brightened with the sound, her ears reveling in such a joyous moment, the Asgardian's scream filled her shadows with delight, and of course it was ruined by her wretched first-born. "Mother," Hela warned, trying to bring to light that they had a timeframe. Clove frowned, before jerking her wrist to the side and snapping the spines of the two Asgardians. Their writhing and screaming, much to Clove's dismay, ended quickly as they both fell to the ground with a crack of their bones. Their mangled bodies falling to the golden floor while crimson blood pooled and spread like a virus around them, their flesh loosing its pigment within seconds.

Her shadows stirred within her veins unhappily, dissatisfied with the abrupt end. Their souls would not belong to her, sadly, they would take their place in Valhalla and would never see the halls of Nilfheim. She granted them the "warriors death" every Asgardian fought to obtain, but another soul would meet their end soon that she would grasp within her fingers. She longed for it.

Her and her daughter approached a third man, with cobalt colored armor that covered him, a bald tattooed head, and mop in his hand. His face was completely pale as he stared at the gnarly image of his colleagues,  and he held his hands up and dropped his mop, slowly easing to his knee.

"I'm just a janitor," he muttered, his wide, trembling eyes looking at the floor carefully. Hela grinned madly at the sight of the kneeling man, and Clove reigned in her shadows, knowing Hela had found her first subject. "You look like a smart boy with good survival instincts," Quipped her daughter, a sneer curling her lips in simple glee.

"How would you like a job?" She muttered devilishly, her eyes blazing with her first worker. The man nodded carefully, still staring at the ground and obviously too petrified to move. Finally, Clove turned toward her first born.

"Daughter," she warned carefully, her eyes darkening with her flaming threat as the words spilled from her tongue.

"For your sake, I'd hope your sister is returned to me soon, without a scratch." Clove drawled slowly, stalking toward her while letting a small tendril of her shadows dance in her iris in silent warning. Hela feigned an apology on her face, though she turned her chin up defiantly at Clove. "If your prized daughter is as powerful as you imply she is, a simple trip through space will be nothing." Hela replied simply, but Clove didn't need her magic to sense the hatred burning behind Hela's facade.

It didn't take any mind reader to know that Hela despised the very idea of her half sister, but Clove was unbothered by it. She wouldn't need Hela at all if only Lyra were to be finally brought to her. Still, she seethed toward Hela. "If you pull a stunt like that again," she threatened carefully, referring to her actions in the Bifrost that sent Lyra away, "I won't hesitate to return you to your banishment in Nilfheim, where you'll see your sister crowned as your queen and your blithering fool of a brother rule your rightful kingdom." Clove told her truthfully, and Hela backed down, but the hateful glint in her eyes was never lost.

"Is that what you want?" Clove growled, growing impatient with Hela's silence, Hela grounded her teeth but shook her head.

"No, Your Majesty."