For All Time. Always!

12 - The One Where Loki Tries Tricking You

  "Do I get a weapon?," Loki asks, walking beside me. I scoff.

  "Nah," Mobius responds on the other side of me.

  "Well, I'll have my magic back. Is no one concerned about that?"

  "Of what?," I ask, looking him in the eyes.

  He pauses for a moment, looking deep into my eyes as well, until he clears his throat and continues. "Me betraying you."

  "No," Mobius answers.

  "Why not?"

  "Because you already know that we can catch you, and how's betraying us gonna get you any closer to the time-keepers?" I knee Mobius' side, making him grab his hip in pain. Was he seriously offering a visit with them?

  Loki stops with us, turning to my partner. "An audience with the time-keepers is on the table?"

  Mobius points at him. "Keep that focus," he says, starting to walk again.

⚛

  "Let me ask you this," Loki tells me as we walk through the Medieval Fair. "Why don't we just travel back to before the attack, when the Variant first arrives?"

  "Nexus Events destabilize the time flow," I start, repeating all I've learned in the past. "This branch is still changing and growing, so you gotta show up in real time."

  "Did you watch any of the training videos you were supposed to?," Mobius asks.

  "Well, as many as I could stand." I roll my eyes. "Your TVA propaganda is exhausting."

  "And what do these do?," a Minuteman asks from behind us, holding a reset charge.

  Loki looks at the man before looking back to our path. "Reset charges prune the affected radius of a branched timeline, allowing time to heal it's wounds." We approach the tent. "Which, by the way seems like a nice way of saying disintegrate everything in its vicinity."

  "He's on it," Mobius praises to me.

  Loki shrugs. "I watched the videos. I mean, some of them."

  We enter the large tent, seeing belongings of C-20. Her hat on the ground, along with the pruning stick. There were also a few bodies, some of which I recognized. It was brutal.

  "So he's taking hostages now?," B-15 asks.

  "The variant's never taken a hostage before," I reply.

  "Maybe he's upping his game."

  "Or he pruned her," one of the minuteman suggests.

  "A Loki couldn't have gotten the jump on C-20."

  "I think you underestimate, actually," Loki starts.

  "Fan out and search for her," B-15 orders her crew. "And hurry up, we got three units til' red line," she says, looking at her tempad.

  They start spreading out as Loki stands, looking at the helmet. "Wait." We all turn around to the man. "If you leave this tent you'll end up like them."

  Mobius and I walk up to the god. "What do you see?," I ask.

  "I see a scheme, and in that scheme I see myself." He starts walking around. "We have a saying in Asgard," he crouches down. "Where there are wolf's ears, wolf's teeth are near. It means to be aware of your surrounding."

  He gets up, walking around again. "Which is absurd, because my people are, by nature, gullible fools," I snicker and he beams at my reaction. "A trait that I, the God of Mischief, exploited time and time again simply by listening. My teeth were sharp, but my ears even sharper."

  "We're running out of time, Y/N," B-15 informs me.

  "Hold it. Just give him a chance."

  "You remind me of them. The Time Variance Authority and the gods of Asgard, one and the same," he starts walking toward B-15. "Drunk with power, blinded to the truth. Those you underestimate will devour you. You underestimate me, just as you underestimate this lesser Loki. Which is why, you walk into one wolf's mouth after another."

  Her device begins beeping. "Two units. He is wasting our time!"

  "Okay Loki, time to make a long story short," Mobius says.

  "We need to look for C-20."

  "That's exactly what the variant wants you to do," Loki looks to B-15. "It's a trap. He's waiting for you outside this tent."

  "Should I secure the reset charges?," a minuteman asks.

  "No, he wants me," Loki says immediately. "I'm the key to his plan. He knows that I'm stronger than him."

  "Almost one unit."

  "And he rightly believe that together we can overthrow and rule the TVA. But that's not what I want! I have a new purpose. I'm a servant of the Sacred Timeline," he says, winking. "And knowing what I now know about his tactics, I can deliver you the variant," he starts walking around Mobius and I.

  "But I need assurances," he says close to my ear, sending shivers down my spine.

  "Yeah?," Mobius asks.

  "Assurances that I won't be completely disintegrated the moment the job has been done."

  "Right.."

  "And we'll need to speak to the time-keepers at once. They're in graver danger than we realized," he whispers.

  Mobius and I think for a moment.

  "He's lying," Mobius concludes. "Just playing games. There's no one out there."

  B-15 nods. "Reset the timeline." Her men begin preparing the surroundings for a reset.

  "You had me there for a second. My ears are sharp too." We leave the area, letting it reset.

Loki's a naughty little sausage for tricking us