[Previously on]
The screen opens up with a half nearly destroyed New York City.
"Woah."
"I still clearly remember that day." Steve said.
"Don't we all?" Clint shrugged.
At the tower, Steve walks by the group as Rumlow is opening the case. Steve says into his comms that he is on his way down to coordinate search and rescue. Loki transforms into Steve and repeats what Steve just said.
A few giggles were heard as Thor, Steve, and Bruce rolled their eyes.
"You don't know this Captain, but he cast himself into you again when me and him were after the Dark Elves." Thor said.
"What are the.. Dark Elves?" Tony asked.
"Oh, you need not to worry about them. They're all dead, including their leader." Thor said.
Loki transforms back into himself and wants to ask something, but Thor slaps a device on Loki's mouth and tells him to shut up.
"Annoyed there, I see." Rocket said.
"Loki just.. drives you crazy, man." Clint argued.
Thor and Hulk push Loki forward as Tony closes the case with the Tesseract inside. The scene cuts to Thor, Tony, a chained-up Loki, and a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents inside the elevator as Thor and Tony stop Hulk from entering. Tony says to Hulk that they have reached maximum occupancy. Loki waves his hand in a 'bye' manner.
Cue a few chuckles.
Thor tells Hulk to take the stairs. Hulk roars and punches the elevator.
Bruce cringes.
"It's good that you're not like that anymore Banner, but I still miss the old Jolly Green." Tony said.
Tony and Thor are now on the first floor with Loki and some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Alexander Pierce and his men stop them. A HYDRA agent demands Stark to hand over the case.
Steve, Natasha, and Clint glare at Pierce onscreen.
The case drops to the floor. Thor panics. Ant-Man kicks the case away as Loki turns visibly confused.
Tony and Scott sorta tensed up.
Thor tells Tony to breath. 2023 Tony tells Scott into his comms to meet him in the alley room as he wants to take a quick slice. Unfortunately, Hulk barges through the door, knocking both 2023 Tony and the Tesseract, which has slid to Loki's feet.
'Oh no.'
"He's gonna grab it, ain't he?" Rocket asked.
Hulk roars his hatred for stairs. Loki takes this chance to grab the Tesseract and escape, which he exactly does.
"WHAT!?"
Bruce puts a hand on his head.
"I knew something bad was going to happen." Clint said. "But that was at least, less worse than what I am thinking right now.
"Now, this is where you will see where this version of Loki went." The voice said.
[Episode 1: Glorious Purpose]
2012 Thor asks where Loki has gone as his voice is nearly audible.
"Where'd he go?." Steve said.
The screen cuts to a dry desert. 'GOBI DESERT, MONGOLIA' appears on the screen. A portal opens as the being falls from the sky and lands in the desert near a village. The dust clears as Loki, who takes his mask off his mouth and tosses aside, sits up to see some people walk up to him. Loki just glares at them and quickly stands up on a rock.
"He is still in that 'ruling' position." Tony groaned.
"Well, this isn't the future Loki that Thor told us about." Natasha said. "Although, we would still kick his ass."
The people are just utterly confused. Loki tells them that he is of Asgard and is burdened with glorious purpose.
Everyone just roll their eyes.
The woman asks in Mongolian who he is and why he has come to their home.
"To terrorize, maybe." Clint said.
"Or worse, he could turn them into his slaves." Steve said.
Loki is about to answer, but he looks over to his left and sees a Timedoor open as strange armored people come out of it.
Everyone was confused on who these people were. Even Thor himself didn't know who these people were.
"Who are these morons?" Rocket asked.
The Timedoor closes. A minuteman scans the Tesseract. Loki looks over to the people and tells them a 'never mind' and walks over to the strangers. He tells them to not touch the Tesseract. Another portal opens up as B-15 passes through. She says that there appears to be a standard sequence violation and that the branch is growing at a stable rate. She looks the TemPad and it has identified the Variant Loki.
"What's a variant?" Scott asks.
"It's another word for prisoner." Rhodey responded.
Loki begs her pardon. She says that on behalf of the Time Variance Authority, she has come to arrest Loki for his crimes against the Sacred Timeline and demands him to put his hands up.
"So, Time Cops?" Scott asked.
"Yeah. Sounds like some." Rhodey said.
She says that he is coming with them. Loki questions about it. She prepares her staff and tells him that it's his last chance. Loki chuckles and says that he has had a long day of idiots in armored suits telling him what to do and tells them that it's their last chance. He tells them to get out of his way.
"Well, he's asking for it." Clint chuckled.
"You bet he is." Natasha agreed.
Hunter B-15 hits Loki's face with the weapon. Loki is moving in slow motion, only to be revealed that he is actually moving at 1/16 speed.
"Damn." Everyone said.
B-15 wraps a collar around Loki's neck. After a moment, Loki finally returns to normal speed as he collapses onto the ground. The Minutemen help him up onto his feet as they force him to go where they're going. Hunter B-15 commands the Minutemen to reset the Timeline. So they place down a reset charge and activate it.
"Woah." Scott says amazed.
"That's insane." Tony agreed with Scott.
"But what's it doing?" Thor asked.
Loki watches for a moment before being pushed in through the Timedoor by B-15.
The portal closes behind Loki and Hunter B-15. They are now, what appears to be, a working place.
"I wonder what they'll do with him." Bruce shrugged.
"Put him in front of a judge, and he has to answer to his crimes." Clint sassed.
They walk up to the front desk where Casey is. A skrull whose also a Variant is standing there too.
"What's that?" All the humans point to the Skrull.
"A skrull." Thor and Nebula answered.
Casey asks what species it is, as to which the Minuteman responds that it is a Skrull. Loki looks around, breathing heavily. He asks what this place is. A Minuteman and another Variant walk through another door. The Variant says that his dad is on the board of Goldman. Loki looks at Hunter B-15 and runs to try to escape, but she time twists Loki back where he was standing.
"What the?"
Casey greets the other two who just walked in. Loki looks back confused at Hunter B-15 and tries to escape again. She brings Loki back to where he was standing.
"Reversing time, I see." Tony chuckles. "I need to build something like that."
Loki falls to the knees and tries to take off the collar off his neck. Hunter B-15 pulls him up from the ground. Loki tells her that they're making a terrible mistake.
"'They're'? I think it's you, Loki, making the terrible mistake." Natasha said.
Casey greets Hunter B-15 and Loki. He tries to hand her a clipboard. She gives him the Tesseract and tells him to log it as evidence. Casey asks her to tell him what exactly the object is.
"How does he not know what Infinity Stones are?" Steve asked.
"Believe me, I still don't know what they do." Scott admits.
Loki tells Casey that the object is the Tesseract and warns him to be very careful with it.
"Yeah, I agree." Clint said.
Casey thinks it sounds dumb.
"It may sound dumb, but it does has infinite power." Rocket whispered.
Hunter B-15 and Loki walk to a door. Hunter B-15 pulls down a lever. Loki tells her that if she crosses him, there is going to be deadly consequences.
"We'll see where that makes you end up." Rhodey muttered.
"He's acting way to cocky and I love it." Scott says.
She pushes Loki into a room. The door closes as a robot activates itself behind him.
"Uh, what is this all about?" Thor wondered. "Are they going to hurt him!?"
The robot moves its pincers. Loki slaps away the pincers as he turns to see the robot. The light is now on. The robot is making a smiley face.
"What the.." Rhodey began.
"Kinda creepy." Scott said.
Loki hits a pincer away and tells the robot that what he is wearing is fine Asgardian clothes.
"I would be mad too." Thor muttered under his breath. "How disrespectful."
The robot tells him to stand very still and uses a laser beam to remove his clothes. Loki is now bare naked, but he falls through the floor. He is now wearing TVA Variant clothing. Loki looks at a flerken on the floor. He looks up to see a man wearing glasses behind a desk. He pushes the pile of paper slightly. The guy tells Loki to sign it to confirm that this is every word he has ever said.
"Oh, well. Good luck signing all that paperwork." Clint said.
Loki asks 'what?' to which, a piece of paper to the guy's left is printed with the word Loki just said, as well as a signature. Loki says that this is absurd and another piece of paper is printed with the sentence Loki just said.
"No more talk. Just sign it, unless you want keep talking." Steve says.
Loki's mouth is wide-open as he walks to closer to the desk. He grabs the pen and signs it. Loki falls through the floor yet again.
"How many floors does this thing have?" Steve asked.
"Like a million?" Scott chuckled to himself.
Loki looks up and points instantly at the roof. Loki stops to look at 'metal detector' structure in front of him. A guy with a clipboard asks Loki to confirm to his knowledge that he is a fully organic being that has a soul and not a fully robotic being.
"Does he look like a robot?" Tony asked.
"Well, they don't know that." Steve said. "They just, need to be sure."
"So what? We could have faced against an evil android before Ultron was even created." Bruce questioned.
"Yeah." Clint nodded. "If that's confirmed."
Loki is confused by the term, 'to my knowledge' and asks if a lot if a lot of people don't know if they're robots. The guy just thanks Loki for his confirmation and tells him to move through the detector. Loki is just standing there, looking and inspecting the machine.
"Is he really afraid of that?" Rocket asked.
"Well, he's just insecure about himself." Thor said.
Loki asks the guy what if he was actually a robot and didn't even know it. The guy explains that the machine would melt the being from the inside out and tells him to move along. Loki is still taking his time standing there, not wanting to go through the machine.
"Please don't impatient that guy." Clint said.
Loki hesitates and tells himself that he will be fine and finally walks through the machine and to his surprise, nothing happens.
"Was seriously expecting a lot more." Scott said.
"Like what?"
"Well, I was.. gee, I don't know." Scott shrugged.
Something is printed out of the machine. The guy grabs it. Loki asks what the guy what he has there. The guy says that it's Loki's temporal aura.
"Woah."
The guy politely tells Loki to go through the door. The door opens as Loki is now in another room. A Minuteman tells the other Variant from earlier to take a ticket. The Variant tells the Minuteman that this not a deli.
"I mean, is he wrong?" Rocket asked.
The Minuteman tells Loki to grab a ticket. Loki says that there only two of them, but the Minutemen demands him to.
"What's the big deal with not taking a ticket?" Tony asked.
Loki takes a ticket and holds it up for the Minuteman to see it. Loki shouts that this is a mistake and that he shouldn't be there. A voice over the PA repeats the exact same words Loki just said.
"The heck was that?" Clint asked.
Loki looks around. A TV screen turns on as an animated clock appears.
"The hell?" Tony and Rhodey exclaim.
"Is that a cartoonish clock I'm seeing right now? Scott blinked.
The animated clock says that this place is the Time Variance Authority and introduces herself as Miss Minutes. She says that it's her job to catch you up.
"This will be very helpful to understand where my brother is." Thor said.
The screen now changes into animation. Miss Minutes says that long ago, there was vast multiversal war. She explains that unique timelines battled each other for supremacy that nearly resulted in the destruction of everything.
"Okay, that sounds very unsettling." Bruce said.
She explains that the all-knowing Time-Keepers emerged and reorganized the multiverse into the Sacred Timeline. She says that sometimes, people would veer off the path and whoever does, they call them 'Variants'.
"I see now." Scott said.
"Shh."
She explains a few examples of what events Variant's created or started that weren't meant to happen. She explains that if you step off your path, it will create a nexus event, and if left unchecked, would branch off into madness and start another multiversal war. But she tells them not worry since the Time-Keepers created the TVA and all of its workers to step up and take care of the problem and to get you in front of a judge in no time. She chants 'FOR ALL TIME. ALWAYS.'
"So, Time Cops?" Scott questioned again.
"Yeah." Rhodey shrugged.
The screen turns back to reality. Loki is just standing there, taking in what he had just seen and heard. He scoffs.
"I don't think he buys it." Rhodey said.
Loki questions about the Time-Keepers, the Sacred Timeline, and if anyone would actually believe this bunkum. A Minuteman asks the other Variant for his ticket. The Variant is making up stupid lies that he tried to ask for one and calls the Minuteman a bucket head.
"Oh, I don't think you should've said that." Rhodey stated.
The Minuteman prunes the Variant.
Everyone is wide-eyed. Thor just thought of the Grandmaster doing a similar thing to his cousin back in Sakkar.
Loki has a panicked face. He pulls out his ticket.
"Yeah, I don't think he wants that same fate." Clint says, shocked.
"No one would." Bruce said.
"Thanks for visiting the TVA. Don't hesitate to let us know how we're doing." Miss Minutes says.
"Is it just me or do I find that clock extremely unsettling?" Scott asked.
"You're not the only one." Clint said.
[2535 words]