The Multiversal Road-Trip: Book Five

31

Once Scott, Wanda and Strange were strapped into chairs like hostages and the cloak was firmly attached to Strange in the co-pilot chair, Loki attached his own seatbelt, which looked pathetically weak compared to the ones he'd bodged for the others. Well, he couldn't have mortals rattling around in the back of his ship while they were going supersonic – that was a safety hazard.

A hundred jump points... personally, Loki had gone over five hundred in one go before, (and really, he shouldn't be going over fifty) so he wasn't a novice at this. But Strange had been, like, nine or ten with a bad reaction, and Scott and Wanda had no clue what they were going in for. Even worse, they had to be going faster than the speed of sound.

Dammit. Why'd they change the rules? Idiots.

He just hoped they didn't need a permit. He couldn't be bothered with that shit right now.

Loki was suddenly hit with the uncomfortable realisation that he may have three ill mortals in his ship in a minute, and he was anything but a doctor. Plus he didn't like it when people were ill. But hey... Wanda wanted to go ahead with it, and she was the boss, so...

Ugh. He might as well just get it over with.

"We all buckled up?" Loki asked, lining the ship up a click away from the first jump point (that would allow him to build up some speed).

"All ready, sah!" Scott saluted in the back, while Wanda and Strange nodded nervously.

He faced forward, looking at the space ahead. Under his breath, he sighed, "This is madness," before shooting forwards, throwing them all back into their seats.

Within fifteen seconds, there was a loud Bang! outside, and he couldn't help grinning, and saying, "There goes the sound barrier."

"The sound barrier?" Scott repeated, and somehow, he still sounded amazed. "Cool!"

Loki bit his lip as they approached the jump point. "Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, don't be alarmed if your face goes a bit weird after fifty or so of these. Like, really weird. It's a normal thing to happen."

He could feel Strange's stare without even looking at him, and Wanda was asking telepathic questions at a million miles an hour (common sign of anxiety – thinking speeds up) which he couldn't spare the energy to decipher right now, and then they hit the first jump point. The G-force and light-headedness barely registered before they hit the next, for he'd chosen a specific path where the jump points were close together, then there was the next one, and a second later the next...

"Holy crap," Strange said, beside him. "This is a lot worse. A lot worse."

Loki clenched his teeth, focusing on steering so they didn't miss any, and said, "Well, I'm sorry. You lot just focus on not blacking out, OK? It'll be over in..." he checked how many jumps they'd been through, "...87 more jumps."

"Fun."

It wasn't fun. Even for Loki, who was just gritting his teeth and getting on with it, jumping so many points in quick succession was an incredibly uncomfortable experience. His ears were mostly full of a ringing noise, but he could just about make out screaming. OK, that meant they weren't dead or unconscious. That was good. And he was 99% certain he himself wasn't screaming.

But they weren't going to talk about that remaining 1%.

OK, that was 96 points done now... 97... 98... 99...

He grasped the emergency brake handle, and, as the last jump point came, yanked it hard and they stopped so abruptly, if they hadn't literally duct-taped themselves to the chairs, there would be three mortal shaped holes in his windshield. Well, no, his magic would have stopped that before they even got that close, to be fair. Honestly, it had just been funny watching Scott, the only one without any magic to aid him, try to duct-tape himself to the chair.