After settling the serious business, Loki finally had time to tease his other self. He walked over to the other Loki, who was pinned to the ground beneath a spear, slowly crouched down, and smiled at him. "How does it feel?"
"Who the hell are you?!" Loki, sprawled on the floor, gritted his teeth and said with some difficulty, "You damned fake, where did you take Thor? What are you trying to do?!!"
Loki shook his head. "I'm not a fake, and neither is Thor. We're yourselves from a parallel universe."
He rose and turned to Thor. With a lift of Thor's hand, the spear pinning Loki down flew up, and Loki shakily climbed to his feet.
"I think we can talk." Loki glanced at Thor again, then looked at the identical version of himself.
Loki's feelings were complicated. He had suffered too many emotional shocks recently. First, he learned that he was not Odin's biological son. Then he discovered that Odin had actually invaded Jotunheim. Now, he had met Thor and himself from a parallel universe.
He also turned to look at Thor, who was drinking by the bar. His face was so familiar, yet his bearing felt distant and alien. That strange contradiction left him with far too many questions.
He watched his other self walk over and lean close to Thor's ear, whispering a few words as though confirming something with him. After a brief consideration, Thor glanced in Loki's direction and nodded.
It was an enormous shock to Loki. Besides the fact that Thor actually thought things over, he truly could not understand why his counterpart from another universe would speak to Thor in such a deferential manner.
His other self walked back and jerked his head toward the nearby corridor. Loki followed him, and together