Chapter Five

Loki thought his plan to escape the TVA using their own technology, alongside the other variant Loki, would be successful. However, he found himself on the dying planet of Lamentis sitting across from the female version of himself. It was a brief moment that Loki could catch his breath, as Sylvie looked at the destruction in the landscape as she began to accept her fate that she too would die with others.

Loki felt bad. This was all his fault. All he wanted to do was escape, surviving was one of his primary functions. "I'm sorry." He mentions.

Sylvie looked at him, filled with rage and sadness with her current situation. Nodding, she could accept she had her own part to play in the failed attempt. She had spent so long running from the TVA, preparing to overthrow the whole operation, no matter its cost. "I remember Asgard." She mentions drawing out a long breath. "Not much, but I remember my home. My people. My life." The woman continued to look at the landscape that is presented in front of her. "The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief."

Sylvie goes on to explain that once it caused enough of a detour on the timeline, it's when the TVA appeared. "They erased my reality and took me, prisoner." She explains. "I was just a child," Sylvie mentions she wasn't meant to exist in the first place after she escaped the TVA, running until she caused more Nexus events which meant she was found by agents. So she kept running for the longest time. "Until I eventually learnt to hide, it's where I grew up. The end of a thousand worlds."

Now it is where she will die.

Loki scoffs. "I managed to create a child, with a mortal." This interested Sylvie, many others had never had the same story as this Loki variant. "A son, that I will never see again."

"The TVA never meant to destroy him?" She wondered.

Loki shook his head. "There are some impossible scenarios to happen on the sacred timeline, but taking an artefact led me here." There was almost humour in his voice. "At least he grows old not knowing the failure of his father, a shadow of his own." No matter how different he pushed himself from Odin, there he was as an absent father himself, not watching Theo grow.

It seemed that Sylvie silently agreed with him.

The moon was drawn closer to Lamentis. "Not long to go." The blonde mentions, sighing. "Do you think what makes a Loki, a Loki, is the fact we're destined to lose?" She mused.

"No." Loki disagreed with her. "We may lose, sometimes painfully, but we don't die. We survive."

There was a shadow of a smile on her face. "I mean, you did. You were a child when the TVA took you." He exclaims. "But you nearly took down the organization that claims to govern the order of time, you did it on your own! You're amazing!" During the talk, Loki gives compliments the woman with their hand's touch. Little did they know that the motion had caused a Nexus event, letting the TVA able to locate them.

Their hands lock tighter as they watch a large boulder hit close to their location. It was a reflex out of fear, or comfort in a time of high stress.

However, they were caught before death could find them. Pulled apart into two separate cells.

After being stuck in a projected time loop, Loki is pulled out for questioning by Mobius. Both agent and prisoner sit opposite each other, as Mobius gets ready to write a series of notes for his own investigation. "Okay, you said the TVA is lying to me. What do you mean by that?" He asks. "Or is that a cockroach's survival mechanism kicking in?"

"Let me out of this place, stop beating me up and I will tell you." Loki clarifies crossing his arms across his chest.

"Cockroach got it." Mobius rights a snarky comment on his file. "How long have you been working for the variant?"

Loki is suddenly confused. "Me? Working for her?"

"Okay, so if you're not working for the variant, then what is it? Trying to find a way to escape to see your children?" Loki is even more confused about the words spoken by the agent. Mobius felt like the trust given to Loki in the past would mean he would be relayed the truth, not some encrypted words of his management hiding information from him. He had let a Nexus event occur by letting Loki have a glimpse at his child and this was how he repaid him. "Are you partners, hoping to rescue them?"

"Absolutely not," Loki confirms, shaking his head in disgrace. The possibility of venturing through the timeline to find his children would only put them in danger. "But what do you mean children? I only have a son."

Mobius sighed, this was just another distraction from finishing the case so he could move on to something more important. Looking back through his notes he finds the required information for Loki's question. "Loki variant L1130 fathered two children. A son and daughter." Mobius ignored the confused look on his face. "Yeah, you don't do partners, looking to see you abandoned their mother. Unless of course, it benefits you and you intend to betray them at some point."

"It was mutually beneficial." Loki refused to give any further information if that regarded his involvement with the variant or Darcy Lewis, the single mother to his two children. That's when Mobius decides to threaten to send Loki back into the time loop, he wanted to know what caused the Nexus event. "Of course it was me, pulling the strings all along."

Mobius sat back down on the chair to listen. "She came to me on Asgard, a long time ago, and she took me to one of her apocalypses to hatch our plan together."

"Which is?" Mobius demanded.

"Coming along very nicely, thank you." Loki thought manipulating the agent will let him get more information about the second child he fathered.

"And the variant?" He asks calmly.

"She's a pawn." He states. "Something very big is going to happen and when it does, I will dispose of her."

"Well we saved you the trouble there, she's already been pruned." Loki's smirk fades from his face. "So assume I do set you free, will you be recruiting your children-"

"Hang on, what did you just say?" Loki interrupts. Mobius is interrupted yet again trying to bring up Loki's next plan if he was to set him free. "No, is the variant gone?"

"Yeah." He confirms. He explains she broke out of her own time prison and attacked TVA agents so they stepped in and put a stop to her attacks.

Mobius could see the pained look on Loki's face as he explains it. "Good riddance." He mentions, hiding any other emotion. Although he failed and the agent could see that.

The agent laughs, making Loki question the man's sanity for a moment. "Look at your eyes, you like her!" He chants, exposing feelings that the variant had suddenly gained. "You like her, does she like you?" The agent couldn't believe it, Loki was so selfish he had fallen in love with himself. He ignored any questions that the variant fired at him.

"Her name was Sylvie," Loki confirms.

"Sylvie, lovely. How do you spell that?" Mobius asks.

Loki was getting sick of the mind games he was playing. "Is she alive?" He asks raising his voice.

"For now." Loki breathed a sigh of relief. "Was infiltrating the TVA was that always part of the grand plan? Should I expect your children to follow?"

"Our interests are allined." Mobius was still unsure whether the time spent in his escape had sent a message to his children to overthrow the timekeepers. Perhaps he needed to send field agents to investigate the status of the children. "Mobuis listen, if what Sylvie told me about this place is true, it affects all of us."

Mobius tried to start another argument with the variant, claiming he was lying. "You're all variants!" Loki yelled, causing an echo of silence throughout the room. "Everyone that works at the TVA, the timekeepers didn't create you, they kidnapped you from the timeline! They erased your memories, memories that she can access through enchantment."

The agent is stunned by the words spoken by Loki. "So before this, you had a past! Maybe you had a family of your own." Although the words hit the agent emotionally, he still had to stick to finishing the mission. He had been told not to believe anything that Loki was chanting about.

"Nice try." Loki shook his head, giving up on trying to convince the agent. "That was good!"

"Well, I'm gonna have to close the case on this one now, cause I don't need you anymore." Mobius mentions. "Or as you put it, our interests are no longer allined."

Two armed guards entered the room, preparing to take Loki to another department. "You know all the liars in this place, and there are many, you are the biggest." Loki had seen that small split second look on his face where what he had explained did make sense.

"Why, because I lied about your girlfriend?" He asks ignoring the god as he is whisked away. Did that mean that he had lied about the second child as well?

"Oh no, that I can respect. I mean the lies you tell yourself." Mobius looks back at Loki is thrown into another prison before turning back to the computer screen where there was a highlight of schemes that Loki's children were a part of when they were older. He noticed both had dark hair and blue eyes like their father, yet the boy looked more like the variant and he concluded that the female looked like the mortal.

Were they the next threat to the TVA?