Variations

Glorious Purpose: Welcome to the TVA

Here is the first real chapter for the show! Enjoy and don't forget to comment with any ideas or suggestions. I love getting reader input and hearing from all of you guys.

Gobi Desert, Mongolia, Date: 2012

The calm sands of the desert rustle, stirring up small amounts of it to blow around in the wind. That is, until a blue portal opens up in the sky, launching two figures out of it as if they were rockets. One of them screams all the way down before, at the last minute, holding out her hands and stopping her momentum two metres above the desert floor as if gravity has been turned off and frozen. She lets out a sigh of relief, but not before her body crashes the rest of the way and she lands face-first into a sand dune. "Ow."

After a few moments of just lying there in pain—although admittedly not as much as she would have been in if she fell the whole way without stopping—she rolls over onto her back. The sun blares down on her, creating an uncomfortable amount of light and sweltering dry heat. Her entire face is covered in tiny, grainy particles of sand, some of them even getting into her mouth. She wipes her mouth with her hand and tries to blow the sand out of her mouth.

She catches sight of Loki, completely free from his shackles, standing on a rock and talking to the locals as if he were giving them some sort of speech. But as Sigyn gets closer, she realizes it doesn't just look like he's giving some sort of speech. He is giving one. "I am Loki of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purp—"

Loki, as if hit in the side by some invisible force, goes soaring through the air. All of the locals make a face; they all know that it looked like it hurt.

Sigyn lowers her hand and storms forward to where he's landed, "Where the hell did you take us?"

A bewildered Loki slowly stands up, brushing the sand off of him as he goes. "I didn't mean to take us anywhere, so if you don't mind," Loki summons his daggers before continuing, "I'll be killing you now and then I'll be on my way."

Equally adigtated, Sigyn pulls out the gun that Natasha had given her, "In your dreams, reindeer games."

Before either can act, there's a noise, followed by three people coming out of nowhere and surrounding the Tesseract. Both look at each other with equal parts of confusion on their faces, questioning whether the other knows who these people are. Neither of them shows any sign of recognition.

"Never mind," says Loki, lowering his daggers and putting them away. He strides towards the people surrounding the Tesseract, leaving Sigyn to follow after him, not wanting to let him get away. Again.

"Don't touch that." As soon as Loki speaks up, the three people in protective gear turn their baton-like weapons towards him.

Loki takes a step back. He's never seen weapons like that before and neither has Sigyn.

Another one of the helmeted people steps out of some sort of glowing orange slab, clutching her weapon with an intimidating look on her face. "Appears to be a standard sequence violation," the woman says, glancing down to some tablet, "Branch is growing at a stable rate and slope. One Variant identified."

Sigyn knows a lot about SHEILD, but the whole 'variant' thing goes right over her head. Whatever government organization this is, they are clearly one with advanced technology, and the fact that they had this teleportation technology and she didn't see them helping out in New York makes her angry.

She apparently isn't the only one confused by the whole ordeal because Loki looks at them as if they have five heads, "I beg your pardon?"

"On behalf of the Time Variance Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline. Hands up," the woman orders, "You're coming with us." The batons power up, making the tips glow the same colour orange as the door that had opened and disappeared.