Loki emerged in the hallway after the Time Twister finished it's loop. In the distance he spied a figure pushing a cart down to the other end of the hallway. Loki stepped towards him.
***
"Wish I could say I'm surprised." Hunter B-15 said dryly.
"Yeah, I wish you hadn't interrupted us." Mobius shot back as the two of them along with the squadron of Minutemen following close behind them.
"Me? It's my fault?"
"Look, he couldn't have gotten very far."
"Split up." B-15 ordered. "Prune on sight."
"No!" Mobius exclaimed as he branched off from the group. "No pruning, no resetting. He can still help us!"
***
Loki entered into the office area. The entire space was lined with office desks along with a few workers occupying a handful of them. Loki saw his target. The man pushing the cart. Upon closer inspection it was clear that he was the same man at the registry desk from before.
"Hey." Loki whispered as he approached him.
"Hey! I know you." The desk worker said, eyes widening as he spotted Loki. "You're that criminal with the blue box!"
Loki shushed him quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing them both to squat down into a low crouch beneath the level of the desk.
"What's your name?" Loki asked.
"Casey?" The worker said with uncertainty.
"Give me the Tesseract, or I'll gut you like a fish, Casey!" Loki threatened, mustering up an intimidating voice.
"What's a fish?" Casey asked loudly.
"Shhh!" Loki shushed him, then asked. "How do you not know what a fish is?"
"I've live my entire life behind a desk."
"Well what difference does it make?"
"Well, I wanna know exactly what I'm being threatened with before I comply." Casey said.
"Death, Casey." Loki said gruffly. "Violent, painful death!"
"Okay, okay." Casey said, putting up his hands in surrender. "I comply, I comply. I comply, jeez."
Casey stood up from the desk and rifled through one of its drawers and produced a glowing blue cube. "Is this it?"
Loki took the cube along with a breath of relief then looked down at the drawer that Casey had opened. His eyes widened as he looked down to see several stones, each glowing with their own unique light.
"What?" Loki uttered, picking up one of the gems. "Infinity Stones? How...how do you have these?"
"Oh, we actually get alot of those." Casey said. "Some of the guys use them as paperweights. Some of em''."
Loki manipulated the stone in his hand for one more moment before he dropped it back into the drawer. He then stood up from the cubicle and began surveying the environment he found himself in. Holding the Tesseract he moved towards the middle of the room, staring around him in astonishment.
"Is this this the greatest power in the universe?" He voiced.
The elevator dinged as the doors opened. Hunter B-15 and her squad emerged from it, Timesticks activated and ready. Hunter B-15 darted towards Loki, raising her Timestick to strike. Loki activated the Time Twister just before she approached, warping him out of the area completely. The Timestick descended as she completed her strike, smacking directly into Casey's cart and pulverizing it in seconds.
"Hoh!" Casey breathed in panic. "You almost hit me! That's so messed up!"
Hunter B-15 shot him an impatient look before breaking into a dead sprint forward. "Split up. Check the lower concourse."
"I do not forgive you!" Casey exclaimed, his voice trailing behind the squadron of Minutemen as they followed B-15.
***
Loki suddenly emerged back on the ground next to the table in the Time Theater. He took in a sigh of relief, then tossed the Time Twister device onto the table as he got up from the floor.
Loki looked up at the screen of the Avengers, perhaps in disdain, then took a seat at the table and pressed a few buttons on the projector module. The screen rewinded all the way back to the clip depicting the dead Frigga.
Loki began to tremble at the sight of it, barely able to contain his tears that were beginning to form in his eyes. Loki moved on to the next clip, pressing a few buttons on the module before the screen began fast forwarding. Loki stopped it at a clip of Odin.
"I love you, my sons." Odin said. "Remember this place. Home."
As Odin said the words, Loki began choking up even more, the flood gates had opened.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
The next clip was of him and Thor.
"Loki I thought the world of you." Thor said. "I thought we were going to fight side by side forever. Maybe you're not so bad afterall brother.
"Maybe not." On screen Loki stated.
"Thank you." Thor began. "If you were here I might even give you a hug."
Even amongst the sorrows Loki managed to produce a genuine laugh at the exchange. Loki shifted to the next clip. The scenery changed completely. He was suddenly on a ship surrounded by fire and debris. Loki stood, amidst it, gaze cast down before suddenly unsheathing his dagger and arcing it up towards Thanos's neck. The blade never made it to him. Thanos's gauntlet glowed with activation as a blue aura surrounded Loki's blade, freezing it an inch away from his neck.
The grin vanished from Loki's face.
"Undying?" Thanos said from the screen.
Loki stood up from his chair at the Titan's words, approaching the screen.
"You should choose your words more carefully." He continued.
The screen proceeded to show the Mad Titan grabbing Loki by the throat, squeezing the breath...and the life, from it. Loki squirmed and writhed violently against the Titan's unflinching grip.
"You..." He managed to choke out. "...will never be a god."
Loki turned away from the video screen as the bones to his neck snapped under Thanos's pressure. When he looked back, the screen depicted one final image of Thor weeping over Loki's body as the entire ship erupted. The spindling film from the viewing module ran out. "END OF FILE" the screen read.
Loki's expression twisted from distressed to smirking as he laughed. Then laughed... and laughed and laughed. The door to the Time Theater opened behind him as the figure entered.
"What's so funny?" B-15 said, entering the room.
Loki chuckled one last time before uttering. "Glorious purpose."
Loki turned back, facing the Hunter with eyes of steel. B-15 took steps towards him, he met her halfway, immediately lunging at her with a fist. She intercepted it in an instant, then followed up with a jab to his chest. He buckled under the blow, giving her enough time to pull him into a grapple and slamming him onto the table. As he was pinned down, Loki quickly reached out with his free hand to grab hold of the Time Twister laying on the table, then slipped beneath the Hunter's grip to sieze her under a grip of his own. Loki activated a button on the Time Twister. The Time Collar beeped in sync with it before unlocking from his neck. Loki quickly grabbed it before latching it onto B-15's neck. The Hunter's face twisted in shock as the collar locked around. She twisted around, but not before Loki managed to vanish her with the Time Twister, before she could strike in retaliation. Loki took in a sigh of relief as he was returned to solitude. Turning to face the door, he pressed another button on the device.
B-15 materialized, breaking into a dead sprint towards him. Loki activated the Twister again, this time tracing around its screen in a circular motion, sending her back to her initial position. He cocked his head curiously at the new development, then experimented with it by tracing the screen again.
"S-stop..." B-15 said as she glitched in and out of existence. "...i-it. S-stop i-it."
Loki paused for a moment before digging deeper into the Time Twister with his finger, causing
"Stop it...stop it... stop it...stop it...stop it...stop it. stop it..." The voice clipped over and over and over again like a broken record as the cycle repeated.
Loki pressed a button on the Twister, completely banishing her from the room before discarding the Time Twister on the table again, no longer amused by it.
***
"And this guy kept saying he was gonna turn me into a fish..." Casey said to the two Judges as they walked him down the hallway. "Whatever that is. And they just show up and prune my cart so there was nothing I could have don-"
B-15 suddenly materialized in front of them.
Casey gasped and jumped before quickly regaining his composure. "Hey, there you are." He said. "You know that... Variant you had...just... got away."
B-15 looked at him with a look of pure agitation then promptly brushed passed them.
***
Loki grabbed the Tesseract and walked towards a set of steps towards the side of the Time Theater and sat himself down on them, holding his face into his hands, perhaps processing everything that had just transpired.
The doors to the Time Theater opened.
"Loki?" Mobius called, holding a Timestick out in front of him. "Nowhere left to run."
"I can't go back can I?" Loki said, defeated. "Back to my timeline."
Mobius's face produced a pitied expression.
"I don't enjoy hurting people." Loki admitted, looking back to Mobius weakly. "I..I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to...because I've had to."
"Okay explain that to me." Mobius said.
"Because it's part of the illusion." Loki answered. "It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak..." Loki continued, this time pointing towards himself. "...to inspire fear."
"A desperate play for control." Mobius finished. "You do know yourself."
"A villain." Loki concluded.
"That's not how I see it." Mobius said.
Loki looked back at him, then back to the Tesseract, manipulating it in his hands.
"You try to use that?" Mobius asked.
"Oh several times." Loki said. "Even an Infinity Stone is useless here. The TVA is formidible."
"That's been my experience." Mobius said. "Listen, I can't offer you salvation, but maybe I can offer you something better."
Loki stood up from his seat on the steps.
"A fugitive Variant has been killing our Minutemen." Mobius said.
"And you need the God of Mischief to help you stop him?" Loki inquired.
"That's right." Mobius confirmed.
"Why me?" Loki asked.
"The Variant we're hunting is..." Mobius began. "...you."
Loki produced a confused expression. "I beg your pardon?"