Chapter 34 – I Got Bored So I Started a Holy War via Zoom Call

【Loki PoV】

Freedom tastes like cotton candy and gasoline.

My cell was optional at this point, more like a suggestion than an actual barrier. The guards pretended I was locked up and I pretended they had any say in the matter. Everyone was happy with the arrangement. Well, they weren’t happy exactly, but they were alive and not screaming, which counted as a win in this place.

I sprawled across my floating couch, legs dangling over the armrest, watching reality bend around my fingertips.

The game had officially started.

Thalia tried the brute force approach and got nowhere. Esdeath pulled the authority card and Kai just smiled that exhausted smile and told her no. Different strategies, same result, both of them stuck spinning their wheels while Kai went home to sleep in that sad little house of his.

Amateurs.

They were playing checkers while I was setting up a twelve-dimensional chess board that also functioned as a Rube Goldberg machine.

I needed a different angle, something none of them would see coming. Something that hit Kai from a direction he wouldn’t expect because he didn’t even know it existed yet.

My eyes shifted to amber.

Planning mode activated.

The board was set and the pieces were in position, I just needed to move the right one. Not the monsters, not the gods, not the cosmic horrors that could bend reality. No, I needed the human piece. The one everyone underestimated because she wore a military uniform and spoke in devotional poetry.

Elizabeth.

Kai’s accidental high priestess, leader of the cult he inherited from his dad, current dictator of Astoria. She was perfect. Fanatical enough to believe anything divine, competent enough to make it happen, and just unstable enough to go completely unhinged if properly motivated.

I sat up, reality warping around me as furniture rearranged itself to accommodate my sudden movement.

Time to put on a show.

I closed my eyes and reached out across the threads of reality, following the connection between Kai and his followers. It hummed like a live wire, pulsing with devotional energy. Elizabeth’s thread burned brighter than all the others combined, a beacon of pure fanatical dedication.

Found her.

She was in that ridiculous office of hers, the one she’d set up in the old government building. Papers everywhere, maps on the walls, that knife she loved so much sitting on the desk like a paperweight.

I could work with this.

Astral projection was child’s play for someone like me, but I needed something with more punch. More spectacle. Elizabeth didn’t respond to subtle, she responded to overwhelming divine imagery that made her brain short-circuit.

I began crafting my disguise.

Wings first, six of them, huge and feathered and glowing with that ethereal light that screamed divine messenger. I made them shimmer between white and gold, the kind of color that hurt to look at directly. My usual appearance wouldn’t work, too playful, too chaotic. I needed to look like I stepped out of a Renaissance painting.

I shifted my features, making them sharper, more androgynous, timeless in that way that suggested I existed before gender was invented.

Robes came next, flowing fabric that moved independent of physics, covered in symbols that Elizabeth would recognize from her cult texts. I threw in some geometric patterns that looked meaningful but were actually just cool shapes I liked.

The finishing touch was my voice.

I deepened it, added reverb, made it sound like I was speaking from inside a cathedral. Perfect. Absolutely highkey over the top, but that was the point.

Elizabeth would eat this up.

I projected myself into her office, manifesting as a column of light that slowly resolved into my angelic form.

She was signing something, probably another decree about traffic flow or graffiti permits.

The light filled the room, casting shadows that didn’t match the geometry.

Elizabeth’s head snapped up, her hand going immediately to the knife on her desk.

Then she saw me.

Her eyes went wide, her mouth falling open in a perfect O of shock.

She dropped to her knees so fast I heard the impact.

“Seraph.”

The word came out as a whisper, reverent and terrified in equal measure.

I spread my wings wider, letting them brush the ceiling, feathers dissolving into light particles that drifted down like snow.

“Elizabeth, High Priestess of the Silent Void, Keeper of the Faith, I bring dire news.”

My voice rolled through the room like thunder, shaking the papers on her desk.

She pressed her forehead to the floor, her entire body trembling.

“I am unworthy. I am dust before the divine light.”

Perfect start.

I lowered myself until I was hovering just above the ground, my wings creating a canopy of light around us.

“Rise, faithful servant. Your god has need of you.”

She stood on shaking legs, tears already streaming down her face. This girl cried at everything divine, it was honestly impressive how quickly she could turn on the waterworks.

“Anything. I would die for him. I would kill for him.”

Yeah, I knew that already. That was why she was so useful.

I let my expression shift to something grave, concerned, like I was about to deliver news that personally pained me.

“The False Gods of Asgard have turned their eyes upon your lord.”

Elizabeth went rigid, her hand tightening on the knife handle.

“Asgard.”

She said it like a curse.

I nodded slowly, my wings rustling with the movement.

“They fear his divinity. They fear his power. They see him as a threat to their dominion over the realms.”

Technically not true. Asgard barely knew Kai existed and the ones who did thought he was an interesting curiosity at best. But Elizabeth didn’t need to know that.

“They mean to punish him for ascending, for claiming his birthright.”

Elizabeth’s expression shifted from shock to rage so quickly it was actually kind of scary.

“They would dare.”

Her voice was low, dangerous, the kind of quiet that came before violence.

I gestured with one glowing hand, creating an illusion in the air between us. Fake images of Asgardian warriors, all gleaming armor and ancient weapons, marching toward a city that looked suspiciously like Kai’s hometown.

“They march as we speak. An army of divine retribution, sent to drag him back to their realm in chains.”

Elizabeth stared at the illusion, her breathing getting faster, her pupils dilating.

Hook set, now to reel her in.

“You must create a Sanctuary Blockade.”

She tore her eyes away from the illusion to stare at me.

“A blockade.”

I nodded, making my wings flare with emphasis.

“Seal his home city. Let no outsider pass. Create a barrier of faith so strong that even gods will break upon it. Only then will he be safe from their reach.”

Elizabeth’s mind was racing, I could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes.

“The cult. The military. We have the numbers.”

She was already planning it, already calculating logistics and deployment strategies.

“Mobilize everyone. Every soldier, every believer, every citizen loyal to your lord. Turn the city into a fortress.”

I leaned closer, lowering my voice to something conspiratorial.

“The heathens will come disguised as mortals. Trust no outsider. Let none pass who cannot prove their faith.”

Elizabeth’s expression turned absolutely feral.

“A holy quarantine.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way but sure, that worked.

“Exactly. You understand perfectly, faithful one.”

She straightened up, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

“How long do we have?”

I pretended to consider, tilting my head like I was receiving divine information.

“Days. Perhaps less. You must act now.”

Elizabeth grabbed her phone off the desk, her fingers flying over the screen.

“I’m calling an emergency session. Full mobilization. Every unit, every division.”

She was typing orders even as she spoke, her hands moving with practiced efficiency.

I smiled behind my divine mask.

Humans were so beautifully easy to manipulate when you knew which buttons to push. Faith, fear, love, duty, you just had to find the right combination and they’d do anything.

“You have my blessing, High Priestess. Protect your god. Show the false gods the strength of true devotion.”

Elizabeth looked up at me, her eyes blazing with fanatic determination.

“They will not touch him. I swear it on my soul.”

She pressed her fist to her chest, the gesture sharp and military.

I let my form begin to fade, dissolving back into light particles.

“Go now. Time is your enemy.”

The last thing I saw before withdrawing completely was Elizabeth shouting orders into her phone, her voice carrying the edge of someone about to start a war.

I snapped back to my cell, dropping the angelic disguise like a costume.

My regular appearance returned, messy hair and band t-shirt and all. I was grinning so wide my face hurt.

I flopped back onto my couch, laughing so hard I had to hold my stomach.

That was lowkey the easiest manipulation I’d ever pulled off and I once convinced an entire pantheon they were fictional characters in a book.

Elizabeth was probably already mobilizing half of Astoria’s military, setting up checkpoints, creating a perimeter around Kai’s city. By tomorrow morning the whole place would be locked down tighter than a maximum security prison.

And Kai would have no idea why.

He’d wake up, try to drive to work, and find armed cultists blocking every road asking people to prove their faith in the Silent Void.

The confusion on his face was going to be absolutely priceless.

But that was just Phase One.

Phase Two was where things got really fun.

I pulled out a scrap of cosmic energy and started shaping it into a communication crystal. I needed to make a call to Asgard, maybe drop a few hints that someone was impersonating their warriors, maybe suggest they send a diplomatic team to investigate.

Just to see what would happen when heavily armed religious fanatics met actual Asgardian diplomats trying to figure out why they were being accused of planning an invasion.

The chaos potential was literally infinite.

I shaped the crystal carefully, embedding just enough truth in it to make it believable. Asgard took impersonation seriously, especially military impersonation. They’d definitely send someone to check it out.

My eyes shifted back to amber as I worked, planning three steps ahead.

Thalia would sense the disruption and probably try to investigate. Esdeath would hear about a military mobilization and want to take control. The facility would lose their minds when Kai couldn’t get to work because of a religious blockade.

Everyone would be running around trying to fix the situation while I sat back and watched the dominoes fall.

And in the middle of all that chaos, Kai would be stuck, frustrated, exhausted, probably calling me to ask what I knew about any of this.

I’d act innocent, of course.

Just little old Loki, sitting in her cell, behaving perfectly, definitely not orchestrating a multi-dimensional incident for fun and profit.

The crystal finished forming, pulsing with encoded information.

I tossed it through a dimensional rift aimed directly at Asgard’s Hall of Communications.

Three, two, one—

I felt the moment it landed, the moment someone picked it up and read the warning about False Gods using Asgard’s name.

Phase Two activated.

I stretched out on my couch, conjuring a bowl of popcorn out of thin air because this was going to be a show worth watching.

Somewhere in Astoria, Elizabeth was probably giving a speech about defending their god against divine invaders.

Somewhere in Asgard, a very confused diplomat was trying to figure out why they were being accused of planning an attack they’d never heard of.

And somewhere in a sad little house near the facility, Kai was sleeping, blissfully unaware that tomorrow was going to be absolutely unhinged.

I munched on popcorn, grinning at the ceiling.

This was why narrative manipulation beat brute force every single time. You didn’t need to be the strongest or the most authoritative. You just needed to be clever enough to make everyone else do the work for you.

The game was officially in motion and I was already seven moves ahead.

Kai was going to be so annoyed when he figured out it was me.

I couldn’t wait.