Loki landed on the surface of the planet, glanced left at Strange, glanced right at Thor, and then shouted, "Stop fighting! What are you doing?!"
"This sneaky guy is a remnant of the Star Meteor Spirit Race!" Thor yelled toward Loki, "Don't stay here, I need to teach him a lesson!"
"No, Thor, you've got it all wrong, he's actually..."
Just as Loki started to explain, Thor turned and shouted at Sif, "Take him away."
Sif and Hogun flew over. Loki, with his slight frame, was no match for these two strongmen and was promptly taken away. Thor didn't forget to watch their retreating figures and added, "Take him back to the main ship, and don't let him out without my orders!"
Strange's eyes widened as he looked at Thor and said, "Are you crazy, he's your brother! Are you really going to lock him up like this?!"
"I think you're the crazy one." Thor shook the hammer in his hand and said, "Round two, here we go!"
Loki was taken back to Asgard's flagship for this campaign, still wearing his dusty dark green robe. Although the mud stains on it had disappeared, he still looked a bit ragged.
Heimdall, stationed at the spaceship's entrance, had seen it all before and shook his head, saying, "I told Thor before we left not to let Loki off the ship. Those blue-skinned creatures are tricky. Well, now look what's happened."
He shook his head and yelled inside, "Doctor? Where's the doctor? Have the accompanying doctor come to me immediately! There's a patient here!"
"I'm not sick," Loki stressed, "I didn't clash with them, at least not a direct confrontation."
"You can't fool me." Heimdall retorted, "The magic energy surrounding you shows you definitely fought, and I don't think you stand a chance against a group of those blue-skinned beasts. Whether you're sick or not is not for you to say, it's for the doctor to determine."
After Heimdall left, Loki was thrown into his room, surrounded by the medical team. He sighed helplessly.
During a pause in the doctors' report, he whispered into his communicator, "Now you see why I always run off, don't you? Even a human who sneaks into the Aesir gets treated like this, right?"
Once the doctor had finished examining Loki and assured that he was indeed okay, he didn't forget to mention to Heimdall that Loki had signs of overuse of magic, which was very bad for his health. For the coming period, he must rest and avoid any physical altercations.
Heimdall glared reproachfully at Loki, and the Warriors Three passed by his door, shaking their heads and sighing as if Loki was at death's door.
Although Loki had traveled back in time, the scene still irritated him. He slammed the door shut in frustration, then heard commotion outside — apparently, Odin had returned.
"I heard Loki was injured?" Odin looked around at his generals and asked, "Where's Thor? He insisted on bringing Loki to the frontline, and now he can't even look after his own brother. Where is he?"
Lying bored on his bed, Loki's eyes suddenly darted about, checking the time. He figured that Thor should be on his way back after his fight with Strange. In a flash, he disappeared from his room.
Strange and Thor had fought to a draw. Strange had actually never engaged in battle with Thor before, because at that time Thor had already become the Divine King. Their political statuses were too significant for them to fight casually, and even sparring could lead to controversy.
Neither could overcome the other. Even though Thor was younger now, the inherent advantages of the Aesir were like a foul yet unyielding stone in a cesspit. Strange was left to bully the sickly Loki.
Strange was already disconcerted by the stalemate, and just as he was about to follow the Asgard Fleet, he suddenly spotted a familiar figure appearing behind him.
"You're not thinking of chasing after our fleet, are you?" Loki inquired as he looked at Strange, "I must warn you, Odin is back, and if you run into him, you're likely to end up dead without a burial site."
"How did you get out?" Strange asked.
"Because they're too annoying," Loki replied candidly. But Strange took his words to mean that they must've been mocking and ostracizing him behind the scenes.
"Even though I don't know why you, this strange spy, are targeting us, I advise you to leave quickly. I've seen many unlucky souls get slaughtered by Odin for tailing the fleet," Loki said.
Strange narrowed his eyes, flew toward Loki, and they got closer. "You don't need to remind me. Even if Odin discovers me, it has nothing to do with you, does it?" Strange said.
Loki turned his head away.
"Is it because I've spoken your thoughts aloud?" Strange asked, "Don't you think your current situation is pretty miserable?"
"That's none of your business. I was just being kind-hearted," Loki said with a slightly sinister smile, "Though, there's a chance I'm just leading you into a trap, so that Thor and Odin can teach you a lesson."
"Is it just them? Not yourself?" Strange caught on with his peculiar train of thought and said, "Do you rely on them that much?"
"I can't beat you, so of course I'll let them teach you a lesson," Loki, with his arms crossed, replied, "You don't think they're out of methods to deal with you, do you?"
Just then, a flash of lightning crossed the sky, causing Loki to shrink his neck instinctively in a panic and then he said, "Odin is about to find out, I need to go!"
"Wait, take this." Strange tossed the Eye of Agomoto to Loki and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Holding the Eye of Agomoto in his hand, Loki weighed it and said into the communicator, "It seems that some universes' Eye of Agomoto is the Time Gem, I wonder what the Lokis from those universes would think if they saw this."
Having said that, he 'whooshed' back to the flagship. Just as he returned, he heard Odin's roaring echo throughout the cabin, "Loki, that good-for-nothing! Where has he gone off to now?!! Get people to bring him back!"
Odin turned his head to see the grinning Loki, slammed the table, pointed with a trembling hand towards the door. Loki staggered over, opened the door, walked in, and with a bang, closed the door behind him, and sure enough, Odin's roar could be heard again.
"Thor! Is this how you look after your brother?! You don't even know where he went!! I've been calling to regroup who knows how many times, and you're still fighting! When are you going to start using your head?!!"
Loki went back to his room and sat down. His room was simple, just a bed and a desk, with a small wardrobe on the side for clothes, a far cry from the room in the Fairy Palace he later showed Strange, not even comparable. One was like a suite in a luxury hotel, and the other was a tiny single room in a slum.
This only convinced Strange even more of his belief that Loki had a hard life. He was gnashing his teeth at these Asgardians.
Loki toyed with the Eye of Agomoto, seemingly curious about it, until suddenly the Eye lit up, startling him, but he still circled the now floating Eye in amazement.
"I really don't understand why they treat you like this," Strange's voice came from the Eye of Agomoto.
"What's there to not understand?" Loki sat on the edge of the bed, propping his chin with his hand, "Asgard is a typical Military State, everything serves war, no value without war, and those who are worthless must make way for those who have worth."
"You're still making excuses for them???"
"It's just the truth," Loki said, "Especially in times of war, when the horn sounds, everything serves victory, and those who can't contribute to victory are a burden and should not trouble others."
Strange at the other end of the Eye of Agomoto was silent. He left the Eye with Loki because it could detect whether the voices that pass through it are lies or not, and indeed, Loki had spoken the truth.
For some reason, Strange cut off the call, and the Eye of Agomoto fell down, no longer emitting any light. Loki casually placed it by the bedside.
A hologram of Shiller popped up on the communicator, and with a tone of curiosity, he said, "I didn't know this was your past, but it seems like you're telling the truth. Did you really have such a hard time back then?"
"Don't you know me? I'm best at telling partial truths. As a principle, Asgard was indeed like this," Loki said with a smile, "After the horn blows, everything revolves around martial glory, and royal kin or not, no one is exempt."
"But I'm an exception," Loki continued with a wistful look, "Odin never trained me to be a successor, so the instructions my and Thor's teachers got in our first class were different."
"Thor's martial arts teacher was admonished to be strict, for if he didn't study well, he could lose his life on the battlefield any time, while my martial arts teacher was told to be careful and not to let me get hurt. I wasn't expected to go to battle given my frailty; a simple bump could lay me up for months."
"Yes, neither Frigga nor Odin ever intended for me to go to battle. In their eyes, I wasn't part of the group defined by their martial prowess. I had no rights to inherit Asgard's power, and naturally, no duty to fight in battles. It was enough for me to simply stay alive," Loki explained.
"But you went to battle anyway," Shiller pointed out.
"Because of Thor," Loki offered an answer that was both expected and surprising. He elaborated, "It was always Thor who refused to give up. He wouldn't admit that my frailty was a natural defect, always thinking if I just exercised more, one day I'd become a sturdy warrior."
"I don't know if he's just incredibly stubborn or just deceiving himself but even up to now, he still thinks that way, even ignoring the opposition of Odin and the other generals, insisting on taking me to the front lines to keep an eye on me."
After pondering for a moment, Shiller said, "I don't think he's foolish enough not to recognize your condition, but he's not entirely deceiving himself either. Perhaps he's benefited from training himself, so he thinks you might as well, wanting to share those benefits with you."
Loki blinked, his expression unfathomable, and said, "What I told Steven just now was the truth; in the old days of Asgard, everything served the war, and even goddesses who didn't go to battle were still bound to proliferate, bearing more powerful offspring for Asgard."
"That's how Asgard is. We don't really care about heritage, class, or even gender. As long as you can contribute to the victory of the war in your way, then you'll receive the Father of All Gods' praise. That's why there are many Valkyries; they don't have to bear children, as long as they can fight, they are still a part of Asgard's efforts," Loki continued.
"Even many male warriors who were injured and disabled in war, unable to go to the front lines anymore, don't face disdain because they can still stay and bear children or do logistics work or help others with childcare," he added.
"But you didn't get to choose," Shiller pointed out. "Odin didn't want you to inherit Asgard, so naturally, he wouldn't let you wield power, and you couldn't earn glory and establish a career through warfare... so you wanted a child because of that time's obsession?"