He woke up to the taste of blood in his mouth, his face stuck to a cold floor he does not remember when he fell on.
He opened one eye. The ceiling above him was white, unlike anything he had seen on this floor until now. He tried to raise his head, so he felt pain explode in the side of his face, and remembered suddenly, like a slap, everything that happened before he lost consciousness.
The infant was the first to appear.
He did not understand how the floor had produced something like this, a baby barely crawling, with Loki’s own face in a disgustingly miniaturized form. The child did not move, did not attack, only sat there looking at him with empty eyes.
"I will not do this," Loki said in a slightly trembling voice, the idea itself was heavier than any battle he fought.
The floor did not give him a choice. The child approached crawling, and when it touched his foot, Loki felt something like an electric shock running through his body, a real not illusory pain. He understood then that this is not a test that can be refused.
It ended quickly, and with self hatred he had not felt like before. He did not describe the details even to himself after that.
Then came the old man.
A version of him at about seventy years old, sitting on a dilapidated wooden chair, his hands trembling naturally, and his eyes withered but strangely sharp, as if all the malice Loki accumulated in his short life condensed in that old look.
"You came late," the old man said in a hoarse voice, and stood up with painful slowness, but when he moved, he moved with a speed not suitable for his dilapidated body at all.
This battle was harder than expected. The old man knows every trick Loki knows, because he is him, after years of thinking about them. Loki received a blow to his chest that almost broke a rib, before he finally succeeded in dropping him with a desperate movement using all that remained of his strength.
He did not feel the relief of victory. Only exhaustion heavier than before.
After that, the copies followed at a greater speed, without enough interval for rest.
A copy of him laughing, a hysterical laugh that does not stop, attacking with random illogical movements, difficult to predict because it does not follow any real fighting pattern.
Another copy completely silent, crying throughout the battle without making a sound, but its blows were the most accurate among all copies until that moment.
An angry copy, attacking without calculation, easy to read but exhaustingly strong.
Loki lost count after the sixth or seventh copy, he no longer distinguished between rounds, only a continuous chain of pain and tiring victories, his body accumulating wounds without enough time to heal between them.
At some point, he fell on his knees after a copy he defeated barely, and could not stand up immediately.
"Enough," he said in a hoarse voice, not addressing anyone in particular. "Enough, I got the idea."
The floor did not respond. There was no one to respond in the first place.
He lay on his back for minutes, looking at the white ceiling, his blood mixing with light dust on the floor, and did not think about something specific for some time, only allowed himself emptiness.
When he finally sat, with difficulty, he found something different in front of him.
One copy, standing without movement, looking at him with exactly the same look, not bigger nor smaller, not happier nor angrier. The same clothes he wears now, torn in the same places, stained with almost the same amount of blood.
Himself, exactly as he is now.
Loki stood slowly, his body protesting with every movement, but he understood immediately that this is not another passing copy he is expected to defeat to move to the next one.
"You..." He stopped, corrected himself. "You are the last."
The copy did not respond. It only drew a knife exactly identical to Loki’s knife, and stood in a fighting stance Loki knows well, because it is his own stance exactly.
Loki felt something like fear creeping into him for the first time since the beginning of this floor, a fear different from all that preceded. This was not a child who does not resist, nor a slow old man despite his experience, nor an angry copy easy to predict.
This was him, without any difference he can exploit.
"If I lose this," he said to himself in a low voice, trying to understand the rules of a game no one told him about explicitly. "I will never surpass this floor."
He was not sure where this certainty came from, but it was present strongly, heavy in his stomach more than any hunger he felt in this whole journey.
The copy rushed first.
Loki expected it completely, because he knows exactly how he attacks when he rushes, so he avoided with the same movement that she would have done if she was the attacker. The two knives collided, a faint metallic spark, then separated.
There were no surprises in this battle, for every movement he does the opponent knew it beforehand, and every movement the opponent does he knew it beforehand too. The battle turned into something closer to an identical dance, a blow met by the same blow, an evasion met by the same evasion, until Loki felt that they are stuck in an endless loop.
"This will never end," he said in a broken voice, after another exchanged blow that settled nothing.
The copy did not respond, of course. Because if he were in its place, he would not respond either.
He thought quickly, trying to find something different to do, something not even he himself expects.
He stopped suddenly, in the middle of a movement he was supposed to complete.
The copy was surprised, by the same amount Loki would have been surprised if the opposite happened. The hesitation cost both half a second of unsynchronized chaos, then Loki used that half second exactly to rush with an incomplete movement he had not planned from the beginning.
The knife cut the copy’s arm.
It was not a deep wound, but it was the first real difference between the two since the start of the battle.
The copy retreated a step, holding its arm, and for the first time, something appeared on its face that had not appeared before, not exactly pain, closer to confusion.
Loki understood then, with sudden clarity. The only way to defeat himself was not to think like himself, even for just one moment.
He rushed again, but with a random movement he did not plan, illogical enough to confuse himself before confusing his opponent.
It succeeded.
The battle ended with unexpected speed after that, three consecutive blows all relied on decisions he had not planned beforehand, until the copy finally fell, and faded into quiet gray fog, without sound, without excess drama.
Loki remained standing alone, panting, the knife still in his trembling hand, and the wound of his own arm bleeding slowly.
He did not feel great victory. Only exhaustion surpassing any previous exhaustion, and a small question began to form somewhere behind his direct fatigue: If the only way to defeat himself is to stop thinking like himself, what does this mean about every coming battle he will fight against real enemies who know him less than that copy knew him?
He did not try to answer the question at that moment. His body was demanding rest more than any philosophical answer.
He sat on the ground, his back to the wall that began to form behind him, and closed his eyes, allowing himself finally the rest he postponed throughout this damned floor.