Somewhere on Knowhere: Book Three

17

Loki wasn't doing too well. The minute they'd gone through the jump point (much better at a slow speed rather than supersonic) he'd cut the power, left the cockpit, sat down at the table at the back of the ship and summoned himself a drink without a word to Stephen.

At first, Stephen thought he was having a reaction to the jumping through space – he was too; although he was feeling better now, five waves of G force and spells of light-headedness had left him with a bad headache and a feeling of dizziness. But this seemed unlikely, because if he was feeling dizzy, Stephen didn't expect the alcohol would exactly help with that.

"You OK?" Stephen asked him. He looked out the windshield and back at Loki again. "We escaped. You just blew everything up, which was awesome, if you don't mind me saying." Loki didn't respond, so Stephen supposed he might react to some sarcasm. "Oh, but of course, you wanted the explosions to be rainbow glitter rather than normal, boring explosions, right?"

Loki raised an eyebrow and stared at him. Stephen made a mental note not to use sarcasm around Loki when he was in a mood.

"Seriously, though, what's up?" Stephen tried again, joining Loki at the table.

"Remember how I said, quite emphatically, not to use magic?" Loki said, and really, Stephen didn't need him to say anything else.

If Loki was reluctant to use any magic at all while out here, there must have been a good reason. And if he was trying not to use any magic and not blow their cover, with the whole two obviously-magical and hardly-subtle spells in a row he'd just cast, he'd just blown it in the most spectacular way possible. But still...

"I don't get it," Stephen started. "You don't want to use magic but... they're clearly no match for it. So why not use it?"

Loki took a long drink before answering. "It's a good question, Strange. Remember how I mentioned how advanced their technology is?" Stephen nodded. "Well, I also found out it's so advanced, when magic is used against them, the technology automatically adapts to be unaffected by it."

Stephen automatically understood. "So... after a spell's used once, you can't use it again?"

Loki nodded in default. Then he seemed to register what Stephen had said and shook his head. "Kind of. But it's more than that – now I've used it against them, they'll be immune to all Asgardian magic, rather than just that particular spell."

"Oh," Stephen said eventually. "That's not good. Oh." Unsure of what to say, he put his elbows on the table and rested his head on them, noticing it was a weird material – not black metal like he'd expected, almost the same texture of a touchscreen. "So we get there and you won't be able to do any magic at all? We get into a fight and you'll just have to use Asgardian jujitsu on them?"

Loki cocked his head from side to side like he wasn't sure whether to agree. "Depends on the circumstance. Might use jujitsu, but I'm better at Asgardian karate and Asgardian Tae-Kwando."

Stephen raised his eyebrows at him, but Loki didn't seem to be kidding. "Seriously?" he half-laughed. "They're actually called that?"

"Yeah, where did you think people got the names from for your sports?" Loki asked, finishing his drink and magically refilling it. "Do you want a drink?"

Stephen rubbed his head as though that would help the headache. "If you've got any of that stuff you gave me earlier."

Loki gave him the tiny flask, albeit a little reluctantly. "I don't think you should risk drinking too much of that, Strange."

Stephen stopped his hand hallway between his mouth and the table. "Why, will I explode?"

"Yeah, you might," Loki said, completely seriously, which Stephen hadn't expected. "It's not really meant for mortals."