Sigurd the Ever-Glorious scales a mountain in Tibet to visit the guru Kaluu who sits medicating on a mat. Kaluu does not welcome the interruption but Sigurd shows him the hero’s blade Gram (hoping to astonish the mystic). Kaluu is not impressed and asks how Sigurd came by the sword. We flash back several days…
…Loki was entertaining a visiting Verity Willis who can see through any lie (introduced in issue #2). Sigurd enters stealthily with not one, not two, but three devices which render him invisible. As Loki describes a plot he’s hatching, Sigurd sneaks in and tries to filch the sword—but Verity can see him. He reveals that the sword is his and promises to return it when he’s done with it. Now we get a flashback within a flashback: Earlier that day, the All-Mother appeared to Loki on his video game screen (looks like Space invaders) and commanded him to bring Sigurd back to Asgard. Now Sigurd challenges him to battle and Loki draws his own sword Leavateinn ("Damage Twig?" as Sigurd asks); in the duel the visitor kicks the God of Mischief out of a window. But Loki is not harmed, with his seven-league boots he is standing on a clothesline. Sigurd joins him on that precarious platform and slices though the line dropping them both into a huge dumpster. In those close quarters, Sigurd bests Loki and departs, feeling so unheroic….
Back on the Tibetan mountaintop, Sigurd reveals what he wants: to enter the Wheel of Karma, hoping to be reincarnated as a non-Asgardian god and escape the clutches of the Disir (see NEW MUTANTS #43 on this very site!). They use the truth-sword to cut their palms and mingle their blood on the prayer mat—and the guru reveals himself as Mephisto and the mat a standard infernal pact, delivering the hero into the villain’s clutches. Then Loki appears (having used the invisibility belt he nabbed from Sigurd during their dumpster duel and he managed to switch contracts and Mephisto is now under Loki’s power. The demonic dastard reminds Loki of how he banished the real Kid Loki—but Loki commands Mephisto back to Hell and teleports Sigurd to Asgardia where the All-Mother awaits.
Later, Loki, fearing that he could just as easily be exiled to Asgard again, outlines his mission for his partners: Verity, Lorelei and Thor….