FTRS one shots and short stories

Variant Gilly (part 1)

Book 5 (Wished)

The basic plot of this chapter is based off of the Loki TV show. Credit goes to Marvel.

I'm late! I'm so late... that I might as well not go. Hmmmmm. Okay, that settles it. I'm just going to stay here and sleep, instead of going into town. I lay back down, pulling the covers over my head.

A sudden noise snaps me out of my sleepy haze. I look at the foot of my bed and see a glowing orange rectangle. Not the strangest thing I've ever seen, but weird enough to get me to stand up. I take a small step towards the rectangle, and I notice that it seems to be about the size of a door. This is weird, right? I mean, I live in a world with all kinds of magic things, but I've never seen anything like this!

A person wearing a helmet steps through the orange rectangle. The notice me immediately and grab my arm. I yell out in surprise and jerk back, falling to the ground as I do so. The person picks me up off the floor and passes me to someone else on the other side of the rectangle. What is going on?!

Once I'm on the other side of the rectangle, the setting changes dramatically. My room has disappeared and there are people everywhere. I see many people running past me and they're all dressed the same, so they must have uniforms. Maybe this is their job? Kidnapping people? Why? What did I do?

The person holding on to me brings me through a few rooms before ending up in a room that looks like a courtroom. I don't know what's happening, and I'm kind of too afraid to ask at this point. There are a few other people in the courtroom and they all stare at me as I'm set down in front of a podium.

"This is Gillian Cobbler from the 2,096th timeline. She's responsible for the newest branch that doesn't follow the sacred timeline. As we have been having problems due to other variants of Gillian Cobbler, the procedure has had to be changed for the time being." The person who brought me here turns from the group of people at the front of the room to look at me. "Gillian, you are accused of crimes against the sacred timeline, how do you plead?"

"What? I'm sorry, I don't understand. What's going on?" The people at the front of the room all sigh in annoyance then turn to each other and start whispering. The person sitting in the biggest chair bangs a gavel on the table.

"I understand that this timelines version of Gillian does not presently mean any harm, but due to recent incidents with other Gilly variants we must stop anything before it begins. We cannot risk leaving this variant alive. Prune her," the person says. They stand up and start to leave the room.

The person beside me pulls a stick off of their belt and it starts to glow orange. I try to take a step away from them, but somebody grabs my arm to keep me in place. I don't know what's happening, but it doesn't sound good. Why do they have to keep me in place? What's going on?

The person in front of me moves the glowing orange stick towards me, but they do so slowly. It's almost like they're scared of what's going to happen. Either they don't want to do this, or they've done it before and it had a bad outcome.

As the stick gets closer and closer, I try to move away but the person keeping me in place won't allow that. The person in front of me slowly seems to become less and less scared. Has the danger passed? Did they expect something to go wrong but it hasn't yet?

As the stick is inches from me, I see a person out of the corner of my eye. Immediately after, the arms around me loosen, then leave. The person in front of me falls to the ground as if they were kicked. Everyone in the room pauses for a second before chaos breaks loose. There's yelling and screaming, many people start running at me, most likely intending to hold me in place again.

I start running. What else can I do? Everyone here seems to dislike me so nothing good can come from me staying here. As I'm running I feel a hand grab my arm and suddenly I'm in a completely different place once again.

I start looking around but all I can see is smoke. It's dark gray and seems to stick to my skin and clothes. The smell is terrible and I start coughing uncontrollably. It hurts my head and the world starts spinning.

"Hey! We don't have time for you to faint! Cover your mouth and nose with this and follow me!" A piece of fabric appears in my hand and I tie it around my face without thinking. I take a hesitant step towards the voice before freezing again.

"Are you serious? I said follow me! Come on, we don't have much time!" The person in front of me holds out their hand. I can't make out their face and I can barely see the outline of the person. Do I really have to put my trust in a stranger? The last time I did that they hurt me. Everything turned out sort of okay for me, but bad things still happened.

"What's happening?" My voice is shaking when I ask the question. "What was that?"

"Well, the place you were just in is called the TVA, and they don't like people like us. That's all you need to know. I'll explain the rest when we get somewhere safe. I know it's hard to trust after what you've been through, but I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?" The person in front of me takes a step closer to me and I take a step back. They sigh, then they leap forward and grab my hand. The setting changes again.

I close my eyes as a headache overtakes my brain. When I open my eyes again, I can finally see the person that brought me here.

"Now, are you ready to listen?" A person that looks exactly like me, just older, asks. "You can trust us. We're more like you than you may have originally thought."