56 Volume 2: Epilogue Part-1
***In a place where time itself is irrelevant
"So, you're saying that you're from a timeline in which you met another me, and had various adventures so that you could find out who's behind all of this. And what you found out was that Kang, or as you like to call him, He who remains was behind this." Mobius narrated slowly.
"And, wait a second. I'm not finished yet. You're also saying that he was the one that was actively trying to stop a time war. How does that even make sense? ", He made a weirded-out face.
"Yes!!! Ohh not to your question but yes that's basically the gist of it." Loki dramatically expressed his agreement.
"If what you are saying is true, then that could only be true if your Kang is one of the variants of this Kang or this is the variant of that Kang. Intriguing. What about the equation holder and equation wielder?" Mobius brooded.
"What is this equation you guys keep talking about since the moment I arrived? ", Loki asked irritated.
"Interesting. Your surprise seems real. Loki variants always find a new way to amaze me." Mobius smiled.
"Fine, let us start with the beginning. What is your understanding about the timestream? What is the timestream?" Mobius asked with a teaching tone.
"Hmm. It all begins with the sacred timeline, every time a being does something that should not have happened, a new branching timeline gets created. Such an event is known as a nexus event and the being is referred to as a nexus being. If these new branches of time are not destroyed in time, they keep branching out and you get a timewar on your hands." Loki quickly explained what that clock told him before.
"Hmm, a few mistakes but you have at least some knowledge of the concept." Mobius grimaced.
"First of all, there is no sacred timeline, there are multiple main timelines at the same time. Secondly, time is not the only element that is responsible for the multiverse. Don't worry, you will understand it before I am done with you." Morbius picked up a disk used to cover water glasses.
"First of all, you need to make sure that you know that time is not linear, it is a circle or a cylindrical shape depending on where you are."
"You can be in the past, present, and the future at the same time." He looked upwards at Loki and Loki nodded to indicate that he understood that.
"Great, since we have already established that, let's start with truly interesting parts. You see this disk in my hands?" Loki nodded.
"Think of this as the time stream that we know or are aware of. Imagine that this disk is made up of lots of circular threads combined. Every thread is one timeline. And the entirety of this disk is what we like to refer to as the main timelines." Morbius looked at Loki and realized that he was seriously focusing.
"You might be wondering why we put them in a similar category? It is because they are basically similar to one another. The only difference between them would be that a nexus event changed some of the things which made it different from the others."
"For example, in one of the timelines, you had a change of heart and ended up becoming part of a group known as the guardians of the galaxy. In another, something else happened."
"Like me conquering Midgard?" Loki asked in wonder.
"Yeah. That too." Morbius nodded absentmindedly.
"How can you be so casual about that? Why can that variant do that and I can't? " Loki asked angrily, remembering how he was dragged outside his timeline by the T.V.A.
"Because that variant of Loki was important in the grand scheme of things for Kang. He was a part of a piece that needs to be there doing exactly that for the future in which Kang can once again win the multiversal war. You were not, so you sadly had to go."
"But we're off topic again. Don't ask any more unrelated questions until my explanation is over." Morbius frowned in mild annoyance.
"So, BACK TO THE TOPIC, the known time stream is basically a group of timelines that are parallel to each other, and share quite a lot of similarities."
"The TVA has quite a control over this part of the time stream as our job is to monitor them and make sure that nothing unnecessary happens to them, if it happens, destroy the anomaly." He put the disk on the glass table.
"Now, expand your scope of the time stream a bit. Imagine this entire glass table as a part of the multiverse too. As you can see, the disk covers but a small portion of it. Then what about the rest?" Morbius asked, smiling.
"If the disk is the known time stream then the table must be the unknown part," Loki replied, and Morbius shook his head a bit.
"Not quite exactly. You see, the timeline of this part of the time stream still has things in common with main timelines to some degree, just the differences are quite broad."
"Like for example, Your lover Sylvie is from one of those timelines. Or that Alligator Loki variant you described in your story. Do you see the difference? They are so different but there is still a concept of Loki in their timeline."
"These timelines are categorized as the space between known and unknown. The further they are to the main timeline, the more difference they have from the main timeline."
"Like Sylvia's timeline is not that far from the main timelines (disk) which is why e TVA must have acted.
Other than that you also have the multiverse. Which normally has even bigger differences. Considering each universe has its own separate time stream.
"Like timelines where there was no such thing as avengers and Asgard, and instead a group known as mutants existed on earth. Or where there are no avengers and the only superhero in existence was spiderman."
"Who is spiderman?" Loki asked in confusion.
"Forget about him." Mobius waved his hand before continuing," Are we clear until now?"
Loki nodded," then this room would be the unknown part."
"Yes. Do you remember that I told you before that time is not the only element in the creation of a multiverse? Well, it is nowhere as clear as in the unknown part of the multiverse. This part includes universes so different in concept than our own that they appear like we entered a different dimension. "
"Like in one universe, everything is made of a spectrum of light. Particles never existed in that world." Mobius summarized.
"How does the equation come into all of this?" Loki impatiently asked.
"Well, that's the thing, it doesn't . It comes from outside the multiverse. There are worlds outside of the multiverse and the equation came from somewhere outside."
"We don't know when it came, because as I explained at the start, you can be in the past, present, and the future at the same time because time is not linear. It's just there but we know that it was not always there and you are the living proof of that."
"What do you mean?" Loki asked when Mobius pointed at him.
"You said it yourself, did you not? That you met another me and spent time with another TVA. That means that you are from the previous cycle of the time loop." Mobius picked up the disk once again.
"Let me explain. Imagine that you are a tiny ant and you are circling on this disk, okay? Now let's put three drops of coffee on a point in the circumference of this disk." Mobius performed the act as he spoke.
"Now as you travel on the perimeter, you encounter the drops and you drink one of them up completely and then move on and walk the whole path to reach the initial point."
"Now let's say that every time you reach the initial point, another ant joins you in your journey. Now you tell that ant that there were three drops of coffee on the perimeter and you ate one of them. How can you prove to that ant about the existence of that drop? To it, there were only two drops of coffee. The same would happen to the third ant except that there would not be any drop at that time. Morbius looked at Loki with expectation.
"The disk, in this case, are the main timelines and the drop represents an event that happened or hasn't happened in one cycle of the timelines and the second ant is me as you told me the events of the past cycle of the timeline." Mobius excitedly elaborated.
"TVA exists outside timelines but every TVA agent is a variant from the main timeline so if the timeline itself restarts, only then would we be affected otherwise it's impossible. You said that you met me inside TVA but I don't remember meeting you, that can only mean that you met me before the timelines were reset which is why I don't remember that."
"Back to the topic, we suspected that the equation was from outside the multiverse but there was no proof of it because while we can look at the past as well as the future in the timeline, we can't look into the past resets of the timeline. Only someone at the end of time which is also the beginning of the time can remember the previous reset because he is the origin of that reset which in this case is you."
"And as you said, in the previous reset, I never told you anything about the equation which means that we were right, it is a foreign power that took root in our multiverse. " Mobius looked at Loki, " you understand what I'm saying right?"
"Yeah, somewhat", Loki hesitantly replied.
"Now that we know that it's a foreign entity, let me explain what it is. Just like infinity stones are universal singularities that hold supreme authority on one expect of the universe, the equation is a multiversal singularity that controls the law/order expect of the multiverse. The one who wields the equation is known as the equation wielder while the one in which the equation resides is known as the equation holder."
"There are others like that too, for example, infinity and eternity or lady death but they usually remain passive but the equation does not," Mobius explained in a grim tone.
"And Kang is trying to fight that?" Loki asked.
"He is just delaying the inevitable. Since time is nonlinear, we already know the future and that he has lost in it but given that this is still the present, that future is still changeable and Kang is betting on that possibility." Mobius shrugged.
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I know that many of you find Serena annoying and too much and some of you even made it known via comments.
So, I need to make some things clear here. First of all, while I have a bit of bias toward Kar-el since it's easier to write him, there are two protagonists in this fiction. While I did not write a lot about Serena as compared to Kar-el because I have no experience with writing a female protag, please note that she is not just a side character.
Some of you pointed out that, for an assistant, she behaves too casually with Kar-el. She started as just an A.I. Assistant for him true but like any other thing, with time and circumstances, their relationship has evolved from that and may evolve more with time. The reason why I didn't explicitly tell that in chapters was that I didn't want to feed everything to my readers with a spoon. You guys need to do some guessing on why this and that happened and so on which would make it much more interesting.
As for why she behaves like that, there are future chapters dedicated to that and also why Kar-el behaves as he does too for the matter.
I received a recent review telling me that the book has become about Serena and her harem and weird adventures with Kar-el and while I find it hilarious and something that sounds appealing to make, it is not like that.
That's just because I have focused more on Serena and her environment for the first time. Please don't forget that before that we had a lot of chapters that focused on kar-el.
While being humble to great authors like cornbringer, I must confess that I am trying to find my own style at telling stories. I prefer to not just write from a single perspective and instead like to make most characters relevant by explaining why they behave as they do.
Personally speaking, I am open to your questions and while I often reply as much as I can, it is much easier to talk on discord so if you want to join, the link is in the synopsis/description of the fiction.
Also, I am thinking of editing earlier chapters of mistakes so if someone is willing to help, please join the discord and ping me. That would be much appreciated. Thank you for reading this book because when I started it, the most I expected to show up were just 20 or so readers.
Edited by: mootje
