The Multiversal Road-Trip: Book Five

23

And cue the predictable reactions. Wanda raised an eyebrow and asked if it was safe. Scott jumped up and squealed, "Finally!" Strange put his head in his hands and groaned, clearly unhappy. The cloak floated away from Strange and started dancing mid-air.

OK... maybe he hadn't predicted that particular reaction. But he was just going to go with it.

"Yep, teleporting," Loki confirmed again, unable to stop grinning. "Who wants to go first?"

"Me, me, me, me!" Scott enthused. "I've always wanted to know what it's like to teleport!"

Loki shrugged. "OK. Just try not to throw up when you get there."

Scott's smile faltered as Loki started up his spell. He'd just spluttered out a "Wait, what?" when he vanished.

Cue the brief wave of exhaustion, but he barely registered it when Wanda squeaked next to him, and both he and Strange turned to her, wondering what the hell was wrong. But she was just covering her mouth with her hands and staring, wide-eyed, at where Scott had just been. At noticing they were watching her, she removed her hands and asked, still high-pitched, "What... what just happened?"

"He's fine," Loki hurriedly said. "I just teleported him. He's fine. He's just in space right now. In a spaceship carrier."

"Or in limbo," Strange added, and Loki glared daggers at him. Why did he mention that? Did he have no faith in his magic?

"Limbo?" Wanda asked, squeakily.

"Don't worry about it, he's not," Loki added, still glaring at Strange. "And for that, mate, you're going next." Without giving Strange much warning, he teleported him and the cloak, and he vanished. It may have been Loki's imagination, but he thought he saw him make a rude gesture at him before he vanished. "Bitch," he muttered, but he didn't mean it. Cue the second wave of exhaustion.

Wanda just looked even more freaked out, but although he had unlimited access to her thoughts now, Loki couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why she was so upset from this. "Are you OK, Wanda?" he asked, as calmly and gently as he could.

She nodded stiffly, he mouth a straight line. "They... they aren't in limbo, right?"

"No," Loki said, and he could actually say that with confidence. "I promise they aren't." Suddenly, he realised why she was so affected by the idea of limbo – that was where they were going to go to try to find her children.

He left it a while before asking if she was ready for her turn, and she nodded, closing her eyes as though bracing herself. Then she vanished, and the third wave of exhaustion hit him.

Now he was alone, he quickly stopped for breath, because he was actually much more tired than he was letting on. And, like Strange said, the lack of sleep wasn't exactly helping on that front. After a moment of procrastination, he exhaled and teleported himself to space.

That split second of weird flashing colours as he travelled through dimensions, then he materialised into a pitch black room. The other three were understandably shouting at each other in confusion. Oops. He hadn't realised the lights would be out.

Well, he couldn't blame them, exactly. Being teleported for the first time wasn't a nice experience, and definitely not into the dark. Still didn't stop him having to force himself not to laugh.

Loki summoned up some magic light so they could see each other, and was treated to a very awkward sight. He must have teleported the three of them a little too close together, because at some point before he'd arrived, they'd all tripped over one another and now they were in a messy pile on the floor. And for a moment he considered turning the magic light off, but it was too amusing to miss. Watching them stumble to their feet, with a barely traceable smirk, he asked, "Is this a bad time?"

"Um, yeah, a bit," Strange admitted, and he was pink. As was Wanda.

The only one who didn't look embarrassed was Scott. He was quite green, but he was smiling his head off. "That was sick," he said, jumping up and down. The smile fell off his face suddenly though. "But... actually, I feel really sick too, so that might be why."

But of course. Loki checked inside his pockets for his tiny flask, which must be getting close to being empty now, then handed it to Scott. "You lot get your shit sorted quick, I'll get the ship fired up."

Leaving the three of them behind, Loki strolled past all the doors behind which there were various ships, looking for T15, which Thor said he'd put his ship. As he approached, he noted the fingerprint sensor, and barely even thought twice before shape-shifting into Thor and opening the door, then shifting back into himself. Mimicking fingerprints was pathetically easy.

Well, at least Thor was decent at parking spaceships, because there was no sign of him crashing it anywhere, just the old damage from the Sovereign weapons during the many space chases. Dust had settled everywhere though, which was annoying, since it had only been two weeks, tops, since the thing was last used. But here in space, things seemed to get decrepit quickly, and Thor clearly hadn't been round everyday to clean it up.

Well, at least he still had the ship. That was better than nothing.