The Multiversal Road-Trip: Book Five

24

"There is no way this is real," Scott breathed when they finally caught up, coming into the compartment with him. His gaze was fixed on the ship, which was seriously nothing impressive to Loki, but Scott seemed to think it was the greatest thing in the world.

"It's real," Loki said, then he unlocked the door with the multitude of magic and manual locks he'd set up. "Just stay back a second."

Upon opening the door, he met the sight he'd expected. He hadn't been lying when he told Strange there was a killer rat infestation downstairs, and now they'd moved upstairs now. They were weird looking things. Taking careful aim, he threw his knife at one, killing it instantly, which scared the other ones enough to run back down the trapdoor that someone (thanks, Thor) had left open, which he slammed shut after tossing the dead rat down there too. At some point, he might get round to actually exterminating them.

"OK, you guys can come in now," Loki said, but then he heard Scott squeak and wheeled around to see him being attacked by one of the rats. Running over, he snatched the thing off his head and held it at arms length, thanking his common sense for the fact he was wearing everything-proof gloves, because the vicious thing was trying to gnaw his fingers off. "We don't eat guests," he told it.

"What the hell is that thing?" Wanda asked, staring at it.

"A weird mutant space rat which I embarrassingly have an infestation of," Loki answered, sighing. He scanned around for any more of the creatures, and, not seeing any, turned to Scott. "It didn't get you, did it?"

"I don't think so?" he guessed. "Suddenly I'm not so happy to be in space."

"Oh, it's overrated," Loki assured him. "Strange will tell you. Come in if you want." As they followed him inside the ship, he remembered he was still holding the rat, which was still squirming in his hand. He tightened his grip on it, yanked it sharply, and there was a snap, and it fell still. He tossed it in with the others. "Those things are so disgusting."

"Now I get why the Ravagers didn't want this ship," Strange nodded, watching him wipe the blood off his knife.

"Yeah, it's a real shit box," Loki frowned. "Best we got though."

"Not a shit box," Scott interrupted, looking around in awe now he was no longer being attacked by a vicious mutant rat. "This is actually pretty awesome."

"It kinda is," Wanda agreed, also looking around in awe. Mortals were easily impressed.

"I'll never understand you mortals," Loki sighed, shaking his head. Coming from Asgard, the greatest of the Nine Realms, everything else to him came as standard or sub-standard. Underwhelming. But watching their reactions was somewhat amusing. Shaking his head, he made his way over to the pilot's chair and started flicking all the switches and stuff needed to start up the ship.

"You need your trusty co-pilot this time?" Strange asked from behind him.

Loki smiled to himself at that, before getting rid of the smile (Strange didn't need to see him smiling at him) and turning around. "No co-pilot needed for this mission, thank you Mr Co-Pilot. It's only a half hour flight at half-speed, tops. But thanks for the offer."

When he turned back around, he heard Scott ask Strange, "Wait, you were a co-pilot on an actual spaceship? Like, for real? Like... for real for real?"

"For real," Strange confirmed, and Scott whistled.

"How was it?"

"Lives up to expectations, I'll say that much," Strange replied. Well, that was one way of putting it.

"He won't tell you that really he was screaming like a little kid for 90% of the time," Loki said, casually, spinning his chair around as he typed the coordinates for Robot Heaven Mephisto gave them into the tablet thing.

"Wait, really?" Scott and Wanda asked in unison, but Loki was listening out for Strange's reaction.

"Dude, no need to expose me like that," he sighed, and Loki lifted his gaze ever so slightly to meet Strange's eyes, and flashed him a little smirk at the unamused expression on his face. Gosh, he loved winding up this man.

"There was every need," Loki corrected, spinning back around and slotting the tablet screen into its slot again. "Now, has everyone got their seatbelts on? All buckled up?"

"Do we need to be?" Scott asked, seriously, but Loki just grinned to himself and switched the engine on, and the ship roared into life, hovering a few inches above the floor.

"I'll leave you guys to make that decision," he shrugged, telekinetically strapping his own seatbelt on. Then accelerating suddenly straight towards the closed exit doors.

Yep, there were two predictable thumps behind him (Strange must have learned from previous experiences and grabbed onto something). Well, he was sorry, (note the sarcasm) but he needed to reach a high speed or the emergency security settings would activate, and they didn't want to be blasted by missiles today, thank you. And he warned them.

Kind of.

Then it computed with him that the exit doors weren't open and they were speeding towards them at a steadily increasing 200mph.

Literally a split second before they crashed, he willed the doors open with his telekinesis, then was forced to make a sharp ninety degree turn upwards when he noticed a solid wall directly ahead, followed by a kind of spiralling manoeuvre when he found himself having to make a sharp diagonal turn. Wow, this was more work than he'd bargained for. Luckily it didn't take long for him to get into the swing of things again, and he even felt confident enough to hum one of those Midgardian songs Scott liked as he navigated the way through the spaceship carrier, as quick as possible before the emergency security systems activated.

Then the emergency sirens started wailing, right on cue for him to come into sight of the main exit.

Great. He loved a challenge.

Even though it wasn't much of a challenge, because he simply telekinetically forced the doors apart and went straight out into empty space, speeding up to over 400mph (the typical cruising speed in open space). Then he snapped his fingers and the sirens behind them stopped. It was ridiculously easy to override security systems these days. So long as they weren't Sovereign ones.

Well, they were probably out of firing range now, so Loki turned around to face the others. Wanda and Scott looked terrified, but Strange was simply tight-lipped and annoyed. Well, yeah, he'd experienced worse on his first trip to space. He was practically an expert in space chases now.

"What the hell, dude?" Scott asked when he regained his breath. His face just split into a massive smile. "That. Was. Insane. Insane."

"Insane," Wanda breathed, nodding. "You're insane."

"Don't tell me you only just realised?" Loki joked, but then a sudden wave of darkness in his mind caused him to physically wince and that made him decide to switch to serious mode for the rest of the journey. "Don't worry. We're just cruising along for about half an hour or so now. So get comfortable, I guess."