The shop was silent for a solid second as they wrapped their heads, not around the fact that Buckman was dead but more of how he died and the visible truth of it.
None of them could tell if it was a mutant ability or another of the dozen types of extraneous abilities they were aware of. What it was mattered little compared to what it did. They had seen Buckman pull the trigger but not only was there no bullet despite the gun going off, they had watched as the man's body swiftly broke down into crumbs and dust, leaving only his visible soul behind—not that it seemed to mean anything as the soul too grew warped and became some ghostly monster before disappearing.
In the short duration of that solid second, they came to the late realization that what was most dangerous about the seemingly young polite shopkeeper wasn't his strange shop or mysterious abilities, but instead it was the words he spoke. The fact of them and the finality it insists.
Did he just send off Buckman's ghost to cleaning duty? The absurdity of the notion itself was the most unsettling part of it… among a dozen others.
What was in those bottles? Surely it wasn't…
—Acts of violence are not permitted inside the shop.
—Acts of violence against the Merchant are STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
—The Merchant has complete authority over the nature of punishment if any of the rules are broken.
It came with an unforgiving brace and kept itself in the important corner of their minds.
Emma Frost's mind that had been on optimized mode since the beginning whirred fervently through every piece of information about this shop that had been cataloged in her mind, crossmatching and referencing for anything—
The gears screeched to a halt on a particular topic, one that everyone in power knew but never spoke about. The ultimate threat and the reason why superpowers were feared. The odds of it were one against the universe's constant – frankly impossible and purely theoretical – but they existed.
Reality Warpers.
She took a deep breath. Her brain was running on panic mode and was presenting her the worst case scenario. He definitely wasn't a reality warper, but he was powerful enough for the distinction not to matter to people like her. Just like how it didn't matter to Buckman.
She opened her mouth to speak before either Shaw or Selene could nudge forward their agendas.
"Is he dead?"
"In all the ways that you're aware of, yes." Isaac replied, still calm, collected and casual. He didn't care if Buckman had been their friend or not. All he cared about was whether or not someone had broken the rules. It was a clear-cut approach that she could appreciate. The lines were there, straight and bold, and those who crossed it only had themselves to blame.
"Will this affect our business going forward?" Shaw's gaze landed on her but she coolly ignored it. Never an ounce of emotion showed on her face only dead cold indifference.
Isaac shook his head in confusion. "Why would it?"
From that reply alone, Emma ascertained that the man before her had no problems with killing people. The casual dismissal of it, far from being a warning signal, was the kind of cold comfort she rarely indulged herself in.
She saw Shaw's shoulders relax by a fraction and found herself amused. What contingency did he have in place that would have saved him had he been in Buckman's place? The answer was nothing, and knowing that Shaw had similarly accepted such amused her well enough.
"You're right. Why should it?" She let a smile show on her face. Buckman had escalated foolishly and had gotten his due. It would be a shame if something were to happen to his company and assets due to his opportuned passing.
Speaking of businesses, she looked at Isaac thoroughly and found herself sufficiently pleased at the subsequent thought. He would make a fine business partner, wouldn't he? If the neutrality and confidentiality held that is. He gave her the feeling that it would.
Feeling particularly bold, she asked a very important question. "Why can't I pick up on anything inside your shop? It feels like my mind is swimming through fog."
"Oh that. Well the shop has a very strict policy against any type of external interference so anything of that nature is strictly curtailed to ensure uncompromised individuality, and telepathy falls deeply in that category. I hope you understand."
She nodded. No extra word or flourish was needed. She turned around to leave as her business was concluded.
"Hope to see you again, ma'am. I'll have a collection of items you'll find interesting ready for you upon your next visit." She heard Isaac call from behind. She didn't look at Selene or Shaw as she made her departure.
"I'm sure you will." Unsurprisingly, she didn't doubt his claim a single bit. She paused briefly at the showcase of a white ball gown, took no more than a single glance at it, and continued on.
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...…..
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Few things could make Loki, God of Trickery, Lies and Mischief, lose himself to visible irritation or make him want to eat unrefined Asgardian steel. In a dual complexity – what he simply called his nature – these few things were also things he simply couldn't keep his eyes off of, either because they amused him or because he hated them so much to personally want to bring them to ruin.
One of such things was the… extricating group of specific individuals that called themselves his 'family'. Make no mistake, he hated them alright, no mistake on that, otherwise why would he go through the trouble of keeping a grounded eye and ear on everything that they got up to? He would be the one to bring them low, he'd swore that to his name.
At the top of the list was undoubtedly the old blind coot that paraded his deficiencies and yet called himself Allfather. Thor, his self-proclaimed brother, was the magnetic second on that list.
As usual with anything that concerned Thor, the concept of secrecy was divinely lost on him. So with the recent acquisition of his new bludgeoning tool, Loki knew it was in his best interests to understand what it could do before such a time when he would again confront the brute.
There were more than enough fools out there that he could nudge onto Thor's path, and as fate would have it, Skurge the Executioner, one of the stronger of Amora's obsessive fools was all too eager to cave in Thor's skull without any prompt from yours truly as soon as he heard of Thor's rumored increased strength and his new hammer.
Loki did not know what to expect from their timely clash but he knew what would happen. Thor would likely win, but by the edge of flesh off his bones and blood out his veins. Skurge was no easy foe, as brutal and mighty as every trueborn Asgardian.
So he eagerly watched, waiting for the scene of two fools frolicking about as they fought to amuse him.
That was not what happened.
Skurge was no simple warrior. He was Asgard's Executioner, and would have remained so if not for his stupid plight regarding Amora which led him into trying to kill Thor, failing that and automatically becoming one of the realm's enemies. He was just as physically strong and potent as Thor, if not by an edge, and his weapon – Bloodaxe – was one of the few weapons that could hold its own against Mjolnir. With an edge so sharp that there was little in the universe that it couldn't cut.
It was right for him to assume the battle would be a long and bitter one as their past stumbles had been. It was not so.
Few things could irritate Loki to the steep of his marrow – Thor being one of them, and another being not knowing what he was supposed to know. Ignorance was what fate tried to spite the Trickster God with, and at every turn he rebuked it. This time he couldn't, because Thor didn't let him.
And yet people wondered why he hated the man so.
He had watched as Skurge tracked down Thor with the fervency that said he wanted to put down the skyborn before his unrequited tragedy rustled her feathers from where she was nesting to look for him. The desperation for futility was so genuine that Loki had a little laugh at his expense.
He gave Skurge little nudges to speed along his search for Thor, nothing obvious – obviously – so he was able to pin Thor down in days during one of his heroic detours.
Loki watched through his numerous eyes as Skurge came up to Thor at the rock the blonde was sitting on after finishing off a few terrorizing trolls. The moment Loki's eyes met Thor visage, he felt the premonition that Thor was different. It wasn't how his shoulders were slouched, nor was it the sight of both hammers sitting on his sides. It was the way his eyes were slouched at the edges. Thor's eyes were always expressive but other than the light of recognition as Skurge came closer, the shape of his eyes remained dulled.
Something had changed Thor, Loki could remember thinking to himself as his eyes landed on the strange dark metal hammer.
"Not today, Skurge. I say this as much for your sake as it is for mine." Thor spoke evenly, sounding weary and reluctant. "If Amora sent you here, go back and tell her I'm busy."
"Thor. Odinson." Skurge brandished his battle axe and Thor's reply to that was a sigh that could have meant a lot of things, but one Loki recognized as profound disappointment.
At this point all Loki wanted to see was the two apes throwing themselves at each other and sate his curiosity.
Thor's new temperament unsettled him briefly but he shifted it aside to ponder on it later.
He wasn't physically there but he could almost feel the oppressing weight that fell on them as both warriors looked at each other.
Skurge, never one for too many speeches, cleaved his axe diagonally upward as he closed the distance between him and Thor, and Loki had been close to awarding him first contact, that is until Thor reacted.
Loki saw it clearly – few had his eyes for detail – how the new hammer came up to Thor's hands in a blink and carried the hand up with its speed until it crashed against the side of Skurge's face faster than the Executioner had attacked.
Loki had sat upright.
Thor sighed again as Skurge pushed himself to his feet from the long trench he had carved into the ground. "Whatever fight you think will be had, Skurge, I can assure you that it will not be."
Skurge fixed his jaw. "Thor." He said it simply enough, but the actions the behemoth took with it was anything but simple.
He leapt at Thor as magic gathered at the edge of the axe until it seemed to shimmer under noon's light.
Loki did not know when he had gone to his feet.
Both hammers wound up in Thor's hands and lightning danced off his form in accordance. Even as Skurge came down on him with an axe that almost seemed to be tearing a seam into the garment of space, Thor remained absolutely unfazed. No worry, no caution, no brace.
That was perhaps what sold the extent of his brother's change to Loki.
Mjolnir, held in one hand, met Bloodaxe's edge with a steady force and the atmosphere split in fractures. Wound in lightning, the second hammer came again on Skurge's head and struck him clear in a flash of lightning, sending him flying again with a single strike.
Skurge, atypical of Asgardians, refused to go down without a fight and brought himself to a slow stop by digging his axe into the ground.
Thor walked towards him calmly, arcs of lightning dancing off his form and tempered around his hammers. The obsessed fool of a behemoth still couldn't understand what was happening, but Loki did. Truly this was not a fight.
In the perfect display of the fool he was, he rushed at Thor, again, and as Thor came close, both of his hammers flew at Skurge but missed him completely.
"Harghh…" Loki groaned, loudly too.
Skurge came upon the barehanded Thor and tried to take off one of Thor's arms in a masterful swing but Thor read it… and caught the shaft of the axe with one hand.
Skurge, who had been similar to Thor in strength, faltered in shock as Thor stopped his momentum dead with one hand without being pushed back an inch.
This could not be Thor. But Loki knew.
Thor's right hand closed in a fist and punched the Executioner with a sonic boom across the face. Skurge fell to his knees but still stubbornly clung on to his weapon.
Again, dispassionately, Thor cocked his fist and wrapped it in lightning and brought it down on Skurge's head. As he did, the two hammers that had flown off corrected their paths and returned with intense ferocity, clad in heaven's judgment.
Hammers to the back of his head and Thor's fist to the front – The impact raked the ground to its foundation and cleared out the clouds in the sky.
"Heimdall."
The Bifrost fell in a flash of light and heat and then it was gone, as was Thor and the dead body of Skurge and his weapon.
Loki stared on, dumbfounded at what he'd just seen. He knew Thor, knew the bones of his strength, and also knew the terrifying capacity buried in his blood.
What he just saw was nothing of what he knew. That casual strength. Lightning wreathed. That immovable mien. This was much more than a 'change', much much more. It was more as if he had… ascended.
Loki shook his head. No, that couldn't be it.
His frustrations carried him the whole day, once more cementing why Thor remained at number two. He wracked his brain, thinking about that strength, that lightning, that elevation, and most importantly, that hammer.
He coiled around himself, laying low and showing the virtue of his patience. There was nothing to rush.
After all, the greatest lies are those that go on long enough to be true.
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