Well, would you look at this. I'm not dead! Several of you told me to take my time, and I sure did. Apologies for the long wait, but life has been super busy as of late. On the plus side, I recently managed to pass my 3rd degree black belt test!

I'd like to think Star (guest) for catching that error in chapter 3. And yes, I did sort of reference Curious George.

As always, if you have any questions, ideas, or criticisms, please tell me.

On to the show!

CHAPTER 10

"I don't believe I've ever seen someone pick up shooting so quickly. Are you sure you've never done it before?"

"I did archery when I was a child, but I have never used a gun before."

"You have talent, my friend. It'd be a shame to see you waste it. Come back any time, I'd be glad to shoot with ya."

"I might. My thanks, for the lessons."

"It was my pleasure. Have a good day!"

Loki walked away from the gun range, hands deep in his hoodie pockets. It was hot, here in Arizona, but he didn't want to take the coat off. It was strange enough looking in shop windows and seeing a face that wasn't quite his own, and Loki didn't feel the need to change his new look as well. Jeans and a hoodie was a far cry from what the 'Avengers' had seen him wearing last, anyway.

A flash caught his eye as he walked by one of the local stores, and Loki flicked his fingers. A crash came from inside, along with a few startled cries, and Loki smirked. Another flick caused a can to explode, and the commotion became punctuated by several choice swear words.

Isn't there supposed to be a big ditch around here somewhere? Loki mused as the 'offender' was booted out onto the street. I should probably go check it out. Collapse a cliff or two, maybe. He paused, consulting his mental world map, before spinning on his heel and heading back the other direction. The unfortunate customer from before glared at Loki as he passed. Loki just raised an eyebrow, looking the man's tomato-sauce splattered form up and down.

"Having fun?" He asked, but the man just growled at him. Loki shrugged, continuing on his way. He had better things to do than continue taunting the guy. The man had picked the wrong person to insult earlier that day, and Loki had enjoyed making his life miserable.

Now, though, he had a ditch to get to. Maybe later he'd make his way to Las Vegas, and divest all of the casinos of their cash.

The Grand Canyon was grand enough, he supposed, but to someone who had traveled realms it was a little disappointing. There weren't even any dangerous creatures inside.

Loki smirked as an idea came to him. Perhaps the floor of the canyon could use a little something to… spice it up.

It was relatively easy to lure a few creatures from Muspelheim through one of the pathways. Most of them were goats, but he managed to snag a small wolf pack as well. The one giant he saw stayed well away from the path. No one noticed the new additions for a day. Then one enterprising poacher decided to shoot at one, and the whole herd of goats got spooked.

Muspelheim goats are normally black, with short, coarse hair, thick skin, and strangely sharp teeth. Fairly normal, right? Except, when they get spooked, they tend to light themselves on fire.

Twenty balls of angry fire stampeded up one of the trails, scaring hikers off the path and setting fire to brush.

Loki watched the show from a cliff high above. He contemplated collapsing a piece of the canyon, as had been his original plan, but then decided that he didn't need to bother. The wolves were biding their time, scouting out their new territory under the cover of darkness. They would start terrorizing the community later, setting fires with their saliva and eating anything they could get their jaws on.

Loki doubted anyone here was equipped to deal with creatures of the fire-world.

"Loki!" The shout came from behind him, and Loki subconsciously checked that his illusions had not failed.

They had not. He closed his eyes momentarily, cursing Odin. It was just like Thor to be there, ruining his fun.

"Loki, stop this at once!"

Thor was closer now, almost next to him, and Loki shoved all of his emotions down deep, locking them in a steel box to be dealt with never. He turned, brows furrowed in polite confusion.

"Are you talking to me?"

Thor was dressed casually, without his characteristic armor, and his favorite mortal was trailing behind him. Apparently, he had interrupted their vacation. Loki suppressed a smirk, his expression remaining politely confused.

"Oh, ah, I'm sorry. It's just… your hair..." Thor fumbled for a moment, not sure how to to correct the situation. Ah, yes. The hair. Another facet of himself Loki had not felt like losing.

"Never-mind." Jane placated, her hand on Thor's arm. "Sorry. You looked like someone he knows, from behind."

Thor nodded adamantly.

"Yes. My apologies for bothering you."

"No problem." Loki shrugged, turning back towards the landscape in front of him. He heard Thor and Jane leaving, Thor muttering 'Loki wouldn't be caught dead looking that casual, anyway" under his breath. When Loki judged them far enough away, his indifferent mask dropped and he sneered at the sight before him. It wasn't as calming as it had been mere minutes ago, and he turned away in disgust.

It took them days to calm and round up the flaming goats – Thor was there to help, of course, but he adamantly refused to let them be put down. Not that bullets worked, anyway. They ended up being shipped off to a zoo for safekeeping.

The wolves were a little harder to hunt down. No one realized they were there until one of them was caught on camera weeks later, its dark red fur gleaming in the moonlight and drops of something like napalm dripping from it's fangs. Suddenly, the frequent fires the national park had been struggling with made a lot more sense. Because of their more dangerous nature – no human could get near one without it attacking, and more than one enterprising poacher had lost his life to them – the Avengers were called in. The last of the seven were killed weeks later.

A few days after the Avengers left the area, a young girl living in a nearby town happened across a starving puppy. She took it home, unfazed by the flames that sometimes dripped from it's jaws.

After all, who wouldn't want a dog that could drool fire?

Las Vegas – or, technically, the Strip just outside of the town – was probably the most chaotic city Loki had been to yet. It was beautiful.

People were rushing to and fro at all times of the day – and night – and in every third alley someone was getting high, killed, or mugged. People danced, people sang, people wasted their life's earnings away in a desperate attempt to get rich. Loki could have walked down the streets in full battle regalia and no one would have batted an eye.

On the down side, he didn't think a sane person was on the street. He blew a lot of steam just causing the people that insulted him personally to suffer. After that, it was just trick after trick. Loki won millions in the casinos, and pretty soon he was banned from every single one. Then he turned to the other establishments – setting fires in the worst ones and subtly directing people towards the ones that amused him the most. He handed a stranger a thousand bucks and watched as the man ruined his whole life just spending it.

Eventually, though, even embarrassing the idiots grew boring. There was only so much one could do the same things before they got repetitive, so he collapsed the house of a drug lord and left town.

Maybe Egypt would be a fun place to visit? He could make his own traps, in one of the pyramids tourists went into. He was sure he could do much better than some long dead unenlightened mortals.

"Well, would you look at that."

"Exactly my thoughts, Sir."

"What on earth did Antler Ears do that got him barred from every casino on the strip?"

Egypt was… different, to say the least. It was stifling and hot, and the sun beat down unmercifully. Loki seriously contemplated leaving the moment he stepped off of the plane at the airport, simply because the heat made his skin crawl with memories that he couldn't quite recall. In the end, though, he came to the conclusion that it would be Ragnarok before he allowed any country on Midgard to drive him out.

He made his way to the great pyramids first, taking a few tours – both with a guide and without – and then explored other tombs. Some were discovered, and some were not, but he enjoyed setting traps along the way that would baffle even the most imaginative scientist. A few mummies in a museum became animated for a day, scaring the tourists, but ultimately Loki found himself drifting without purpose. There just wasn't anything that could hold his attention. Research helped alleviate the boredom, for a time at least, but three weeks after coming to Egypt Loki found himself sitting in a coffee shop, staring listlessly at his drink.

On Asgard, Loki had rarely been bored. The libraries there were vast, and if he needed to go to another realm for research he had no one to stop him. If he wasn't engrossed in learning, there was plenty of opportunity to stir up trouble with the boring townspeople, and even more in the palace itself. Half of the time, Thor was dragging him off on pointless quests for even more pointless reasons. There were things to learn, here, no matter how much he didn't admit it, but somehow everything seemed… useless.

There was something he needed to be doing – something important, something that would change worlds forever… but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was. No matter what he tried, nothing quieted that constant nagging ache in the back of his mind.

Something was going horribly wrong, and no one was prepared for it.

He was sitting there, contemplating the mess that his mind was, when she walked into the room. Loki glanced up as the door opened, and instinctively knew that something was different about this person. She looked like any other average customer Loki didn't consider himself average, of course but he could feel something different about her. It took him an embarrassingly long time to place the feeling – long enough for her to get her drink and sit down in a booth across the room from him – but he finally realized what that tingling wooden feeling reminded him of. The O'harleys.

The woman must be a mutant.

Instantly curious, Loki sent out a tiny trace of magic. He sipped his now lukewarm drink, letting the feeler dart lightly around the lady before finding itself a secluded spot in her clothing to hide itself. This new breed of human had caught Loki's rather fickle fascination, and he wasn't about to let an opportunity like this go to waste. He would figure out what this woman could do, and maybe learn something of what the mutants wanted in the process.

The man who joined her at the table a few minutes later was also clearly a mutant – the wood texture his magic felt around them was becoming more and more obvious the more he encountered the source.

It was a simple matter to extend his hearing to the other table, blocking out the room in between with ease. Loki had done this same exercise many times to figure out what his- what scheme Thor failing to plan when the oaf was ignoring him.

"...the newest employees are doing wonderfully, but I'm worried about the kid. He seems to be hanging around… the wrong sort."

"Jim and his gang?"

"Unfortunately. I have a feeling we will need to do something to discourage what they are planning."

That was interesting. The mutants were having trouble among themselves. Loki didn't know why he was even a little surprised. Humans were always squabbling over petty things. He took another sip of his coffee, grimaced, and absentmindedly warmed it back up. The action stretched his seidr mildly, but the recently closed tear was healing nicely.

"Have you seen what Seth can do? He is… what, twelve now, and already powerful." The woman continued.

"I wish. I've heard it's quite the spectacular show when he loses control, but I left before he manifested. You know I haven't been back to base yet..."

"You should go visit. I know for a fact that Dirk and Henry miss you."

"Those cretins? I thought they were going to move?"

"It didn't work out. The agent we had finding a place for them… had an accident, and had to go into hiding."

"Is she okay?"

"No one was hurt, but the Skandinavian government is wary, now."

"That's certainly better than it could have turned out."

"Indeed." The woman drained the rest of her drink and stood. "I have a meeting with Marcus soon. Stop by the base, see what's changed. We can talk more about your mission tonight."

"I will. See you soon, Adalyn."

Loki quickly sent another trace of seidr to rest on the shoulder of the man. The mutants parted ways, going opposite directions down the street, and Loki quickly gulped the rest of his own drink down and stood as well. He lingered a bit, buying one of the pastries the coffee shop offered, then set off down the road toward his second trace. He was going to figure out what the mutants were doing, and why on Midgard they were in hiding.

Maybe he could lend a hand. You know, shake things up a little. Spice up the human's lives. Make chaos. It was what he did, after all...