Chapter 31.
One of the things he loved about being able to summon a portal was that he was no longer stuck in Midgard or the Yggdrassil system. Suddenly, and in an instant, he could visit all the planets he knew to begin his investigation.
Following the advice of the Ancient One, he decided to take a few hours off every now and then, and to spend that time with Jane when she was available. He also decided not to use any disguises, so he would have to go to quadrants where he wasn't known as Prince Loki of Asgard, but by any of his law-abiding aliases. This would allow him to be on the lookout for any information he could gather, should the Dark Elves decide to take refuge in one of those corners of the galaxy.
Jane was more receptive to the portal spell than he thought. Her initial surprise soon gave way to an innate curiosity about the physics behind it. He kept his explanation vague enough, so that someone with no knowledge of magic would think that was the complete theory, but had not enough information to reverse engineer the process. He never doubted Jane's honesty, but he didn't know how eager SHIELD would be to extract information from her. Keeping her in the dark was for her own good.
"I owe you a dinner," he said. "After all you have done for me."
"Where?" she laughed. "You said you had to keep a low profile. Anyway, you look thinner in person, if that was possible. What did they do to you? We can order some takeaway and stay here, you know?"
"It would be a bit suspicious if you ordered for five people when you are supposed to be alone."
"Wait... five people?"
"Magic consumes a lot of energy," he shrugged. "And I just woke up. This would be my breakfast."
"Okay," she seemed a bit befuddled, but she agreed to his plan, nonetheless. "Restaurant it is, then."
That night he took Jane to Huneka, a peaceful planet on the other side of the galaxy. More specifically, to one of its four moons, Huneka 2, where they had built a tourist resort with all the needed amenities, including an observation deck which served as its main attraction. Stargazing without an atmosphere was a dangerous dream for Midgardians, but not for many people in other systems.
Jane found it incredibly hard to contain her enthusiasm. The only disappointment was the fact that she couldn't understand anyone when they arrived.
"Don't worry," Loki said as he took her hand. "We will sort that out soon."
He led her into what appeared to be the dining area, not much different from an ordinary restaurant on Earth, except there seemed to be partitions for those species that required special treatment for physical, cultural or simply privacy reasons.
A creature that resembled like a cross between a small giraffe and a cat approached them, probably the head waiter. After bowing to each of them, Loki exchanged some words Jane couldn't understand and the creature led them into a separate area that looked like a cloakroom.
"Where are we?"
"I told him your translator is broken," Loki explained.
"You have translators?"
"You can't expect everyone to learn all the million dialects that are out there, can you?" he laughed. "I'll help you install it."
The head waiter returned with a small box, which he gave to Loki, bowed again and retired.
"This is a microcomputer," Loki explained, holding the open box. There was a very small, round, beige coloured gizmo inside. "It has an encyclopaedic translator for all the registered languages of both our local group and Andromeda's. Installation is very simple and safe. Once attached, it burrows inside the skin, disappears from sight and connects to your auditory nerves. It will translate in real time what is being said to you from any language you don't know."
"But it only translates what others say? Not what I say?"
"They understand you because they all wear one."
"Could I take it out?"
"Yes. You could, although you would need the help of another person who knows what to do. Besides, it's undetectable to Midgardian scanning machines."
She still seemed dubious, so Loki decided to press his point even further.
"I have no problem translating everything for you, but suppose you have to go somewhere where I'm not allowed to, or we get separated by accident. I'll watch over you, but you have to give me some guarantee that you will be able to fend for yourself to some extent."
She seemed convinced and agreed to install it. He asked her to pull her hair back so he could reach behind her ear.
"This one is the latest model," he said, brushing back some stray hairs from her neck. "It comes in every skin tone known in the galaxies and it's completely undetectable. You have no idea how nervous I was when they scanned my head right after you ran me over," he chuckled, applying the translator to her skin and pressing lightly. "This will sting a bit."
It did, but not as much as she thought. Suddenly what she thought was music coming from another room was the rumour of voices, speaking in perfect English.
"I see it works," he laughed, looking at her expression.
"But... how?"
"Do you understand me?"
"Well yes, you speak English."
"Not now. I'm speaking in Galukian."
Indeed, the movement of his lips didn't match the sounds he was making.
"Wait..." she frowned. "If the translator does all the work, how come you can speak anything but your language?"
"Because I'm not supposed to," he smiled mischievously. "Odin never agreed to have these devices in our system, so I had to procure one for myself when I could," he tapped the skin behind his right ear. "Learning how to communicate with other cultures is an important part of our education, but sometimes this can come in handy. You are lucky to speak one of the most popular languages on your planet," he added. "Otherwise we would have had to spun a little story for you."
Dinner was far more entertaining than she had expected. Jane appreciated being able to understand the lyrics of the songs playing in the background, or what the other people said around them. Although she was a bit shocked at the content of some of the conversations.
"Um... that... lady?" she spoke in a low voice. "She said she didn't know how they allowed bipeds in this place."
Loki shrugged.
"If it were up to her, no one would be allowed hear her."
"Wait, you know her?"
"Everyone here knows her," he smiled mischievously. "She's been quite polite since the incident. One fine evening she was rude to the wrong person and..." he waved his fingers in the air. "Some valuable cutlery made its way into her purse, to be found by security at the door."
Dinner went on without a hitch. Right before they served dessert, however, Jane suddenly fell silent. When Loki asked her if everything was all right, she blushed.
"I don't mean to pry," she began slowly. "But I just realized, you were supposed to be dead and now you said you were going to pay for all this. Won't they notice back at home? Well, I... I have no idea how your banking system works."
Loki smiled, but didn't laugh.
"No one will notice anything," he reassured her. "You see, each of my identities has their own bank account, since I learned to earn my own keep a long time ago, and that gives me all the freedom I want."
There was not a single lie in that statement. His stints as a smuggler and thief for hire had earned him enough income to live comfortably, but that was only part of the fortune he had scattered across the Milky Way and part of Andromeda. Betting, selling 'relics' to gullible, wealthy individuals who wouldn't miss the money spent on fake artifacts, his stints as a cat burglar, or as the hunter who would recover what he had previously stolen... His activities during his brief years in Victorian England were but the culmination of a long process in which he had honed his skills throughout the galaxy, and was finally able to use them without resorting to his magic powers. There was a whole universe of people with full purses and empty brains ready for the picking. A bit of charm and sweet talk most of the time, and no one ever dared accuse him of foul play.
He glossed over those parts for Jane. She was far from stupid, though, and frowned at the notion of making a fortune so easily and honestly. He made the point by reminding her that he had spent nearly a thousand years amassing small fortunes here and there, just as he had done in Midgard, and she seemed satisfied with the explanation.
After a very entertaining dinner, Loki and Jane went to the observation deck, but first he stopped in front of a very strange machine with a large oblong mark painted in the centre of a panel, and a dispenser tray underneath. He put his face in front of the mark and waited. Something beeped and flashed inside the panel and, after a few seconds, an object fell into the dispenser tray.
"Personalized shades," he explained. "This machine measures how much of the light spectrum your eyes naturally detect, and provides a way for you to perceive each wavelength without burning your corneas."
The observation deck had been built like a massive amphitheater. What Jane thought was a gigantic black screen was actually the windows, which were darkened outside show times.
Now, Loki hadn't mentioned on purpose that Huneka revolved around a sun in the vicinity of a red supergiant which, in turn, was being slowly consumed by a black hole.
He couldn't stop smiling when he saw her gawking at the spectacle before her, when the big windows were finally unveiled. They had been holding hands, and her grip tightened so hard it grew to be almost uncomfortable.
"What..." she whispered, out of breath.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
She nodded. He was startled when he saw tears rolling down her cheeks, but she quickly wiped them away and smiled back at him.
"Thank you, Loki."
There wasn't any other anomaly during the rest of the evening; he thought her tears might have been caused by having felt overwhelmed, which would have been understandable. After that she was all smiles until he left her at home.
Their first little outing had been a success, Loki thought.
More outings would follow when her agenda was clear and there was no danger of SHIELD suspecting anything. One never knew what you could eavesdrop during conversations among the wealthy and powerful, he said. Although, according to Jane, trying to find any information regarding their galaxy quadrant on the other side of the Milky Way seemed to her like deep-cleaning your apartment the night before a final. He still defended his strategy with many arguments, but her poorly concealed smile suggested she was just nodding along to avoid an argument.
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But high society and pleasant places weren't the only sources of information. The underbelly of the galaxy was ripe with information for those with a keen ear.
However, he felt his trainign wasn't progressing as quickly as he would have liked, and he shared his concerns with the Ancient One.
She seemed to ponder over his words before offering him a solution, though she made him swear that he would never tell anyone about the spell involved. His schedule would also change: Instead of training every single day, he would be forced to rest a certain number of hours between training sessions.
The Ancient One had observed Loki's dedication which bordered on obsession, and feared he would eventually break his body in the process.
To the other Masters, the Sorceress Supreme's lessons with Loki went as usual: They would see them go to the training grounds and emerge after a normal period of time, but Loki would look exceptionally battered, tired and strangely disoriented about the passage of time. No one paid much attention, taking it as normal that she had decided to give him intensive training every few days rather than a daily session.
However, Karl, always mindful of new recruits, regardless of background or age, approached Loki and politely inquired about his progress.
The Ancient One had warned Loki about Karl. Despite his noble nature, his mind was too dogmatic to understand that, sometimes, rules must be bent or broken. Both Loki and the Sorcerer Supreme agreed on this, so they both conspired and spun the same white lie about Loki's martial training.
The truth was that Loki was undergoing a process that was as excruciating as it was dangerous. The Sorcerer Supreme had spoken to him of a spell that would summon the spirit image of any creature of the caster's choosing into their presence. She also offered him the possibility of trapping him and the summoned creature in a controlled 'time bubble', where time would pass faster than normal, allowing a day's worth of training to be condensed in a few hours or even minutes.
As days went by, the Sorcerer Supreme watched his progress closely, trying to keep his obsession in check, especially in the early days when he was still regaining his full strength. Sometimes she had to put her foot down and stop the training when his wounds became too obvious. Still, he didn't give up, and little by little he was able to hold his own against stronger foes.