Road Trip
Before the sun had left the hills surrounding the house owned by the man named Adam, Loki and Ruby were back on the road. They left a note, along with some money meant to compensate for ‘borrowing’ the car for a ride to the village and some supervisions.
“I hope he won’t mind,” Ruby said nervously as she parked the car at the station.
“I seriously doubt that,” Loki said dryly. “We stole his vehicle.”
“We didn’t steal it,” Ruby argued, “we’re leaving it here. I put it in the note.”
Loki simply rolled his eyes and got out. It was cold outside. Their breath made clouds in the morning air. Ruby shivered and looked over at Loki.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.
“The cold never bothers me. Shall we go?” he answered impatiently.
“Okay, Elsa,” she said with a smirk, and she started towards the station, followed by a confused Loki.
“Well…” she continued, looking thoughtfully at a map hanging on the wall next to the train rail, “we first need to get out of here. Where was this passage of yours located?”
“We’re not in… America?” Loki asked, instead of answering, looking at the map.
“…No? We’re in Germany,” she answered somewhat surprised.
“Wait, we need to go to America? Bro…”
“Not necessarily. I know of a few passages.”
“Good. Which one is the closest?”
“Well…”
Ruby gave him a look. “Let me guess,” she said, “you haven’t had any Earth topography recently, have you?”
“You could put it like that, yes. But I’m sure I can locate it once I see a map.”
Ruby sighed. “Okay. Let’s do this. You can disguise us, right?”
“Is that necessary?”
“If those SHIELD agents have any brains, they’ll have someone stationed here,” she answered, gesturing towards the building that sold the tickets.
“Right. As what, exactly?”
“Doesn’t really matter. Just anyone else will do. No one recognizable, mind.”
Loki answered by making a vague gesture, and a golden light covered the both of them, transforming their outer appearance. Ruby examined her new exterior.
“Sick, dude,” she commented.
“Have I offended you?” he asked, confused.
“What? No. It’s just a manner of speech. I meant it was cool… you know, amazing, I guess.”
She turned around and looked at her reflection in one of the building’s windows. She had raven black hair now, pulled back in a tight ponytail. And her clothes were clean now. Or they appeared to be. The woman staring back at her was older, though. She looked back at Loki. He was a blonde man with a goatee.
“Well, then. Let’s roll, partner,” she said cheerfully, leading the way.
“Zwei Karten, bitte,” she said confidently to the woman behind the glass.
“Wohin, Fräulein?” the woman asked in return. Ruby turned around to Loki and continued in English: “Where are we going to today, Howard? I’m so sorry, I only learned a few sentences in German. You do speak English, don’t you?”
“Yes, miss. Where to, ma’am?”
“Could you maybe show us a map, dear? The biggest you have.”
The lady looked annoyed, but got out a map of Germany and strips of France, Belgium and other neighboring countries. Ruby looked at Loki quizzically.
“Well, Howard dear?” she asked warmly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Loki scanned the map. He cleared his throat and tapped his finger on the left side of the map.
“Let’s go here,” he said in his best American accent (which was pretty good, if he said so himself).
“Holland? Why, what a splendid idea! How much is that, dear?” Ruby asked the lady.
“30 euro’s. Each. The bus leaves in an hour.”
Ruby gulped, but paid up none the less.
“Thank you! Or should I say ‘Danke’? Auf wiedersehen!”
Ruby didn’t relax until the bus had started driving towards the border. Luckily, she had made sure she’d settled close to the border. She did find it hard to believe a magical portal to some other planet was located in such a sober country, but she had to take ‘Howard’s’ word for it. He was sitting across from her. He looked much less threatening like this. Almost friendly. But there was something in his eyes. Almost like… But she stopped herself before she could finish that thought.
Outside, the landscape was slowly getting more flat and agricultural, a sure sign they were nearly in the Netherlands. They’d bought the map from the lady behind the counter, but it seemed Loki knew only vaguely where the portal was.
“Well, then, I hope you know what you’re doing. For both our sakes.”
Loki didn’t answer, but stared out the window.
“You ready to eat stroopwafels and frikandellen?” she asked, trying to keep the conversation going. If they were going to be on the run, they should at least be able to talk to each other. Plus, she needed to know who she was dealing with.
“For what?” he asked reluctantly.
“Dutch delicacies. They’re pretty good. I mean, stroopwafels are, but a frikandel is as much ‘meat’ as a mcNugget is, you know what I mean?”
“I can honestly say I do not.”
“Well, congrats. That officially killed the conversation. I’m gonna take a wee, okay? Be right back.”
She got up and walked through the bus. She really didn’t like peeing on the bud. Who did? The bathrooms were gross and stinky, and you felt like you could get cholera if you touched anything… But she’d forgotten to pee at the station in their hurry. Besides, thinking she did best on the toilet, for some reason. So she got to it. Besides being an eternal (or semi-eternal) creature that had some kind of ice-powers, Loki wasn’t that abnormal. Sure, he had daddy issues and an ego that ripped a hole in the space time continuum, but other than that… He was just your average megalomaniac. Not really a sociopath, but close. Arrogant, of course. Still thought he could outsmart her. Maybe she should let him. Then again, if SHIELD ever did come close… she could quite literally use him as a human(ish?) shield. So, she’d let him believe she was ignorant. Still, best to be on her guard. He was, after all, the God of lies and mischief. Or so she’d read.
After about a bazillion stops they finally arrived in Venlo, a southern Dutch city. Ruby stretched out her limbs gingerly. It was 8 o’clock.
“So how did you expect to find this portal exactly?” she asked Loki in a low voice. He was walking beside her down the road towards the center of the city. He shrugged.
“I can sense these things,” he said, as though it was obvious.
“Well, sense faster,” Ruby said irritably, “I think we’re being followed.”
Loki threw a nonchalant glance over his shoulder. Two men in black were walking behind them in the most non-inconspicuous way possible.
“Come now, SHIELD isn’t that stupid,” he said with a slight grin.
“First of all, keep your voice down,” Ruby mumbled angrily.
“And, second of all, I don’t think we should underestimate the stupidity of humanity or life in general.”
Loki just chuckled softly in response. Then he stopped dead in his tracks.
“I found it,” he whispered softly. Ruby turned to him, while stealing a glance towards their supposed followers. They passed her, seeming annoyed at the fact her ‘husband’ was holding up pedestrian traffic. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well then, show the way.”
Somewhere, in a dark stinky alley in the streets of Venlo, as all cities have these alleys, there is a portal to outer space. Apparently. Ruby was amazed. The walls and ground were unimpressive, typical urban features, complete with trashcans and graffiti to decorate them, until Loki had waved is hands in the air like he was trying to grasp something, found it, and had promptly torn a hole in the space-time continuum. Now, the portal was hanging there, in thin air, giving of a splendid lightshow.
“Ladies first,” Loki said with a grin, and he gestured towards the portal. Ha! As if she was born yesterday.
“After the gentlemen,” Ruby answered with emphasis. Loki raised one eyebrow and stepped into the portal. With some hesitation, she followed. A whirling kaleidoscope-like color pattern was around her, and a sense of being displaced filled her body. When her feet finally met the ground again, she fell on her knees and threw up the breakfast she’d bought at one of the bus stops. Once she’d gained control over her senses again, she heard Loki laughing behind her.
“Oh shut up,” she said shakily, “at least I didn’t get stabbed by a branch.”
She wanted to get up, but she suddenly felt the cold barrel of a gun in her neck.
“You should’ve taken my offer to go first, darling.”
“You should’ve learned your lesson by now, dear.”
But, not being used to traveling millions of lightyears in one blink of an eye and probably being more sensitive to it than the average human, there was nothing she could do about the situation at the moment. But ooh… She’d make him pay for this.
“Get up,” Loki said gloatingly.
The planet around them was quite barren. Grey sand as far as the eye could see. Big rocks here and there. Loki made her walk for at least an hour. Her condition didn’t improve on it. The atmosphere looked thin, showing loads of stars – but no sun. Finally, they arrived at a cave.
“Gather some wood. And don’t run away, mind. I’ll find you,” Loki commanded. Ruby obeyed him, all the while cursing under her breath. When she finally sat down in front of the fire, she was positvely exhausted.
“Well, then. I think it’s time you answer some questions,” Loki said, still pointing the gun at her. It was an odd design, definitely not from Earth. Not that was to be expected anyway. Ruby sighed.
“What do you want to know?” she asked reluctantly, warming her hands to the fire.
“First, how did you end up living all alone in the forest?”
“…It’s kind of a long story.”
Loki leaned back, keeping the gun pointed at her at all times.
“I have time,” he said, grinning.
“Buckle up, then, buddy. It’s backstory time. So, I guess you should know that my father had a thing for alien stuff. Studying it, that is. A while ago, when I was like 3, he found some kind of artefact on one of his excursions, and-”
“How is this relevant?”
“Do you wanna hear the story or not? ‘Cause if you’re gonna keep interrupting me you can just shoot me now.”
“Fine. Continue.”
“So, the dude found an artifact. Yay. My mom and him studied it for years, trying to figure out how it worked. Sometimes it would activate, sometimes it wouldn’t. One day, when I was 8, I was in the lab with my mom. I was looking at that thing, and… I don’t know what happened exactly, but somehow I thought it was a good idea to touch it. It wasn’t. The moment I touched it, it activated. But not like before, just glowing and stuff, oh no. The thing started beaming, and just burst open. I don’t know what happened, but when it was over, I felt like I wasn’t myself anymore. There was nothing left of my mom.”
“But what about your father?” Loki asked ruthlessly after a moment of silence.
“Give me a minute, dude, jeez,” Ruby snapped, wiping her eyes “I’m having a moment, here.”
“Okay, so my dad, having seen the footage, knew that I basically caused my mother’s death. He wasn’t pleased. Not that he ever said anything. He just, you know, never loved me since. Anyway, my brother also loved science. He thought he could harvest energy from dark matter. Poor Marcus. He got in an accident too, when I was 16. Seems to be the family curse. He didn’t die, though. He should have died.”
She was quiet for a while, staring into the fire. Then she continued:
“He, uhm, he lost his mind, you see. Not in the way like Don Quixote did or something, oh no. He became a complete psychopath. Which, you know, wouldn’t have been super bad – there’s psychopaths everywhere. But, he got powers too. He could suck the life out of anyone with one touch. He did that to dad. He could absorb energy from anything. After SHIELD had captured him, I thought everything would be fine. They didn’t cure him. They said they would. But they didn’t. They made him stronger. Crazier, even, if that’s possible. I’ve been hiding ever since.”
“Why?”
“Because to brainwash and enhance my brother’s powers is one thing, but to do that to me… The consequences would be… worse.”
“And why’s that?” Loki asked, leaning forward. Clearly, they’d arrived at his point of interest.
“Tell me, what happened exactly when you were exposed to this artifact?”
“Something similar to my brother, when his conscience was blown to pieces. Minus the crazy, that is. I hope.”
“Ruby…”
“Fine! Jeez, you really can’t appreciate a build-up, can you? I can manipulate energy. Any kind. Basically, where you need food to survive, I ‘eat’ energy directly, from my surroundings.”
He looked confused.
“Oh dear, our God is confused! Well, let me put it in simpler terms: I am more sensitive because I can sense energy all around me. I am stronger because I can use this energy more directly. I heal quicker because I can directly invest this energy to certain parts of my body. I can absorb this energy from all kinds of sources, even small ones like this one.” She gestured to the fire. The realization dawned on Loki. Ruby grinned.
“Yeah… that fire was a mistake.”
Loki pulled the trigger before Ruby had finished that sentence. Ruby caught the purple beam with her right hand. The hand glowed a golden color, slowly absorbing the energy.
“So was that,” she said dryly. Loki tried to get up, but Ruby knocked him out cold with one blow from her right hand.
“Sweet dreams, princey,” she said in a sugary voice, kicking the gun out of his hand.