Reunited
Evelyn can't believe the sight in front of her right now.
Loki is alive? How? Didn't Mobius just say he was dead? She witnessed it with her own eyes, so how was he here?
“...Evelyn?” Loki seems to share the sentiment of confusion. He tilts his head to the side, examining her from head to toe, as if he's trying to piece something together.
“But how…? Wha-” It's hard for her to even form words. “You're real?”
Loki blinks a couple of times before patting himself, making sure he was alright, nodding afterwards. “I…would certainly hope I am, I mean, I didn't get melted by that odd metal contraption inside the elevators, so I'm sure we could conclude that I-”
He couldn't even finish as the wind was knocked out of him. When he processes the situation, he realizes that Evelyn has her arms thrown around him in a tight, desperate embrace, as if she's practically hanging on to his very existence.
Which, technically, she is.
“You're real…” She whispers, her voice soft and shaky as she utters the words, scared that saying them any louder might jinx the situation. But it doesn't. After a minute, Loki too has his arms wrapped around her, squeezing her gently.
“Quite so, darling,” he chuckles softly, rubbing her back comfortingly.
She pulls away shortly after, clearing her throat softly as she leaves her arms at her sides, taking in the sight of him.
“...Did you cut your hair?”
“Um, no?” He asks in confusion, running his fingers through his hair. “I…went flying through the desert, I assume the heat got to my hair. Shrunk it up.”
“Oh,” she murmured. “Right.”
He laughs a little, and gives her an observant look. “You look older.”
She pauses at that, her lips curving into a sweet smile, but one that was laced with sadness. “You, uh…don't.”
They stood like that for a moment, looking at each other sadly before Evelyn cleared her throat, “Anyway, about this variant. You said that me and Loki were the best people to help you catch it. Who are they?”
“They're me,” Loki answered for her, before correcting himself. “A lesser version, at least.”
“There's that complex,” she sighed, turning back to Mobius.
“He's right about that first part, though,” the aforementioned man states. “This Loki variant has been a thorn in our side for a…long time. And we've never been able to catch him.”
“Yes, well, us Lokis are hard to catch. Slippery.” Loki said, looking at Mobius.
Evelyn snorts, “I said that exact same thing earlier.”
“Oh, you can shut up,” he retorted, but she could tell he was merely jesting.
“Need I remind you of the Saakar incident?”
“What’s that?”
Evelyn looked at him incredulously. “What do you mean, what’s that?”
“Oh,” Mobius pipes up. “I may or may not have missed a…small piece of information. This Loki is from 2012. Not from…your timeline.”
“2012?” Those words had the Vanir woman stunned. She then turns to Loki. “What did you do?”
“Escaped my future imprisonment with the Tesseract, thanks to the Avengers.”
Her eyes widen at his response, before it clicks in her mind.
“When we went back in time,” she mumbled to herself, taking a step back. “So you’re…not my Loki.” She grimaced when she thought about how that sounded. “I mean, obviously, you are my Loki, just- not the one I was expecting. Although- no, no, you’re the same person, but you’re also…different? Not that I’m saying being different is a bad thing, but I’m saying that it’s not-...”
Evelyn trails off when she realizes that all of her rambling leaves Mobius and Loki blinking at her in confusion, before peering at each other, as if silently asking the other if they understood a word that’d just come out of her mouth. She presses her lips into a thin line and relaxes her shoulders, defeatedly dropping her attempted explanation.
“...I should probably shut up.”
“Well, I wasn’t gonna say it, but-” Mobius said with a small shrug, coughing awkwardly. “Anyways, we’ve got a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it, so gear up, let’s go. There’s been an attack.” He then passed Loki something in clear packaging. “Put that on.”
Loki opens the packaging, freeing a dark brown jacket from its confines, before he shrugs it on and fixes his hair, drawing a little smile from Evelyn’s watchful eyes. She had to admit, it was good seeing him so…carefree again. She hasn’t seen that since they were children.
“Good,” Mobius compliments. “Yeah. Smart.”
Evelyn steps closer with a small frown. “Where’s my jacket? It’s cold in this place.”
“Oh! Right.” Mobius looks at her from head to toe, his hands on his hips. “Change of plans: We get you a new outfit, with a jacket, and then we head out, okay? Okay.”
=
“C-20 and her team went dark shortly after they jumped into the 1985 branch,” said the leader of the Minutemen group they were currently working with, who Evelyn later realized was Hunter B-15. “All signs point to another ambush.”
What was this variant, a serial killer? Evelyn thought.
“We’ve grabbed enough temporal aura to know it’s our Loki variant. But which kind of Loki remains unknown.”
Loki cuts in at this point. “They’re the lesser kind, to be clear.” Evelyn can't help herself from pinching the bridge of her nose. As much as she loves the man beside her, his ego was far too big, like other things. (gonna leave that to the imagination)
B-15 stares at him, completely unfazed. “Let me see the back of that jacket.”
This has Loki confusedly turning around and showing off the back, not knowing it was a whole setup, then when seeing the smug looks of the others, Loki turns around in offense when he sees what it says on the jacket.
“Very subtle. Well done.”
“Wait,” Evelyn said, looking over her shoulder to check the back of the jacket she'd received. “Does mine say that too?”
“Well, I'm sure it does.”
“I didn't even notice that…”
“Well, I don’t want anyone out there to forget what you are,” B-15 scoffs.
“What, your only hope of capturing a murderer?” Loki retorts.
“No, two cosmic mistakes.”
“Hold on, how did I get roped into this?” Evelyn said, crossing her arms. “You think I asked to 'veer off the path’ I didn't even know I had?”
“That’s enough,” Mobius speaks up, silencing the brief squabble.
“Lovely,” Loki mutters, rolling his eyes and shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Here's the deal. When we hop onto this branch, remember that we're not just looking for a time criminal, we're looking for a Loki. A variation of this guy.” A small gesture is made towards Loki. “A type we should all be very familiar with, because the TVA has pruned a lot of these guys almost more than any other variant.”
As if to prove that statement, he begins using his TemPad to show the number of different Loki variants that had been captured over the course of time. Evelyn quickly came to realize that Mobius was not exaggerating, from the looks of it.
“And no two are alike.”
“Woah,” Evelyn whispers, staring in disbelief at the endless versions of the man standing beside her.
“Slight difference in appearances,” Mobius continues. “Or not so slight.”
Yeah, he could say that again.
Loki in his Jotun form…Loki in a tracksuit…
Loki with…extreme body mass? And that was putting it nicely.
“Different powers, although powers generally include shape-shifting, illusion-projection, and my favorite…”
“Duplication casting.”
Everyone looks up at Loki due to his sudden interruption.
“...Illusion projection,” Mobius replied.
“No, they're two completely different powers,” Loki explains. “You see, illusion projection involves depicting a detailed image from outside oneself, which is perceptible to the external world, whereas duplication casting entails recreating an exact facsimile of one's body in its present circumstance, acts as a true holographic mirror of its molecular structure.” After his whole…lecture about which power does what, he smiles at the crowd. “But, uh…you already knew that.”
No one else knows how to reply at first, and frankly, it's probably because they were still trying to figure out what was just said.
“Um…basically, one is a hologram, one is a doppelganger,” Evelyn breaks it down in a simpler way, scratching the back of her head.
“Alright,” Mobius blinked, before shaking his head. “Noted.” He closes his TemPad, before finishing his instructions. “We’re gonna break into two teams, including myself, Miss Evelyn, and Professor Loki.”
“Why?” Loki asks.
“Because whoever this Variant is, we haven’t been able to find him, so let’s bring in an expert. Now let’s-” Mobius stops talking when he sees Evelyn put her hands on her hips in the same way he’s doing. “Wait, are you copying me?”
“Huh?” she blinks, quickly putting her hands behind her back. “No?”
“Unbelievable,” he sighs. “Anyways, let’s move out.”
The group nods and begins to move out, getting ready to hop onto the branch.
Evelyn turns her head as Loki hurries to catch up, walking in stride beside her.
"Don't worry darling, I've got this," he whispers with a wink.
"What?" Evelyn says, blinking in confusion before she folds her arms as they continue walking. "What are you up to?"
"I'm going to get us out of here." His smile looks promising, but she knows better than to believe that would happen. Like Mobius said, they'll just get caught in the end.
“Listen, I know we compare you to a snake just about all the time, but…” she lets out a sigh, turning to him with a solemn look. “I don’t think you can just slip out of this one this time.”
His smile then faltered, switching to a confused frown. “Why? You don’t think I can do it?”
“Loki, look who we’re up against right now. This isn’t some Avengers level threat, this is the TVA. And I know that they will catch us. Anywhere in time, anywhere in space, before we’ve even had a moment to settle into a different place.”
He contemplates her words for a moment before speaking. “Just trust me on this one, okay? I promise, we’ll get out of here one way or another.”
Before Evelyn could reply, Mobius appeared behind them. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Loki laughs, a lie already forming on his tongue. “Just…ideas of what to expect when we’re meeting this Variant, if he’s as dangerous as you say he is.”
“Uh-huh. Right.”
“Speaking of which, do I get a weapon?”
“Nah,” Mobius replies.
“Well, I’ll have my magic back,” he retorts. “We both will. Is no one concerned about that?”
“Of what?”
“Us betraying you.”
“Hm, no, not really,” he says. “Now her, definitely not, because she’s, well…her, and then, you’re you; and while you have a much bigger betrayal rate, my answer is still no.”
“Well, why? That’s practically insulting.”
“Because you know that we can catch you.”
“I rest my case,” Evelyn murmurs.
“Plus, how’s betraying us gonna get you any closer to the Timekeepers?”
Loki stops as if those words were music to his ears.
“An audience with the Timekeepers is on the table?”
Mobius gives him a reassuring pat. “Keep that focus.”
He leads the two of them through a time door, which takes them straight to the renaissance era that the Variant was in, a couple Minutemen ahead leading them towards the specific destination.
“He came…here?” Evelyn asks, surveying the area. “I thought it would’ve been more…dark here, to say the least.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got a plan,” Mobius replies. “And it can’t be a good one. Which is why we needed to keep our eyes peeled. Check for clues, anything that can help us.”
When they all enter the tent, it’s empty, as expected, save for the dead Minutemen lying in the grass, but their bodies seem to blend into the dull lighting of the environment.
There’s something else, too. In the middle of the ground, there’s a hat and a pruning stick lying abandoned, the body belonging to the items nowhere in sight.
“Who…does this belong to?” Evelyn asks, pointing below her feet when the attention is turned towards her. A couple of them step forward, Mobius included, as they try to figure out the owner.
“Is that…?” B-15 hesitates, but one of the others finishes for her.
“Yeah. That’s C-20’s.”
“So he’s taking hostages now?”
“This is…different,” Mobius mutters. “The Variant’s never taken a hostage before.”
“Why her? Why kill everyone else except for her?”
“...Mind control,” Evelyn suggested, tilting her head to the side. “If…this is a Loki we’re talking about, then I think maybe mind control is playing a key in this. I’ve seen him do it before back in New York, or- a version of him, anyways. But whatever this Variant needs, he must need her to do it and he’s taken ahold of her mind.”
Most of them look at her with intrigue, and Loki shrugs his shoulders slightly as if to agree with her statement.
“Interesting,” Mobius said. “So he’s upping his game.”
“Or she’s wrong and he pruned her,” another one of them piped up.
“A Loki couldn’t have gotten the jump on C-20,” B-15 argues. She sure had a strong opinion about Loki variants.
“I think you underestimate, actually-” Loki went to say, but was once again interrupted.
“Fan out and search for her. And hurry up, because we’re at three units until redline.”
The Minutemen nod and begin to head towards the exit of the check to begin their search. Evelyn turns to glance at Loki, and she notices this look in his eyes.
Oh no. She thinks. He’s about to try something.
And sure enough, as the thought passes through, he begins to speak.
“Wait.” Everyone slows down, eventually directing their gaze towards him. “If you leave this tent, you’ll end up like them.” Mobius takes the initiative and walks up to stand beside Loki, while Evelyn stands in front of him.
“What do you see?”
“...I see a scheme,” he replies. “And in that scheme, I see myself.”
He’s really playing into it. He must be willing to go all out in order to make a way for his escape.
“We have a saying in Asgard: ‘Where there are wolf’s ears, wolf’s teeth are near.’ It means to be aware of your surroundings. Which is absurd, because my people are, by nature, gullible fools.”
Well…Evelyn couldn’t exactly argue with that remark. Loki did trick them into believing he was the king, and they probably still wouldn’t have had a clue had Thor not intervened.
Then he went on to ramble about how he kept his ears sharp and proved the saying to be true, essentially, and how the TVA were no different from the gods of Asgard, “drunk with power and blinded to the truth.” At this point, the woman couldn’t figure out if he was still trying to escape or if he was just being plain petty.
“Those you underestimate will devour you,” he concludes. “You underestimate me, just as you underestimate this…lesser Loki. Which is why you underestimate one wolf’s mouth after another.”
“Two units,” B-15 emphasizes, beginning to get agitated. “He is wasting our time!”
“Okay, Loki,” Mobius says, gesturing for him to speed up. “Make a long story short.”
“We need to look for C-20.”
“That’s exactly what the Variant wants you to do,” Loki states. “It’s a trap. He’s waiting for you outside his tent.”
“But why would he be waiting for us if he’s already got what he came for?” Evelyn decides to ask, to which Loki shrugs.
“Perhaps he just doesn’t have everything.”
“Should I secure the reset charges?” one of the Minutemen asked.
“No, he wants me. I’m the key to his plan.”
Now Evelyn was starting to see where his real intentions were starting to creep through.
“He knows that I’m stronger than him-”
“Almost one unit.”
“-And he rightly believes that together, we can overthrow and rule the TVA. But that’s not what I want! I have a new purpose. I’m a…servant of the Sacred Timeline.”
If he knew how phony he sounded, he’d stop talking.
“And knowing what I now know about his tactics, I can deliver you the Variant, me and my…lovely partner, here,” he says, gesturing to Evelyn, who stares blankly at the group, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. “But I need assurances.”
Mobius contemplates his words for a moment. “Yeah?”
“Assurances that I won’t be completely disintegrated the moment the job has been done.”
Then he whispers something to Mobius, and a silence ensues. Nobody knows whether to move, or to speak, for that matter, until Mobius starts to laugh.
“He’s lying,” he tells the others, to which B-15 rolls her eyes. “Just playing games, there’s no one out there.”
“Reset the timeline,” the Hunter commands, leading everyone out the way they came.
Evelyn murmurs to Loki as she walks past, “Looks like the god of mischief is losing his touch.”
“What?” he whispers, his voice giving off the slight offense that comment brought. “I’m not losing anything.” Evelyn simply gave him a look, scoffed, and walked towards the exit, but adamant on the subject, he quickly followed after her.
“Hey!!”