Chapter 1
Midgard was once his favorite place. A home away from home. A home to a second family. But now, it was an omen of death. Midgard was where he lost his father. Just returned from Midgard, he’d lost his mother. On the way to midgard was where he’d lost his brother, along with what remained on Asgard. And the list went on.
With someone to lose again, he hardly dared set foot on Midgardian soil. But today was the exception. Today was a family anniversary. The only kind he still had, visits to empty graves. This one a cliff just outside of New Asgard, where the end had begun. The next anniversary of misery on his list would bring him to one runestone amongst thousand others. The dates were just days apart. He always tried not to think of it, nor of the familiar names he’d see on the way there. He never succeeded.
Love stood just a step too close to the edge of the cliff, overlooking the water. The coat he had insisted she’d bring lay on the grass, despite the cold breeze. “Are we going to fight sea monsters?”
“Today’s not for fighting.” He sighed when he found the exact spot Father had taken his last breath. “Today is for remembering.”
“Remembering what?”
“That which is gone.” He sat down on that very same rock. “This is the place and day my father’s end came, and with it, that of our homeworld.”
“I can’t remember that. I wasn’t there.”
True. “When you’re my age, there is a lot to remember. Remembering is important. Never forget that.”
She squinted as if she was too young to really understand. Which she was. “I’m going to look for monsters in the grass.”
“Stay where I can see you and don’t go any closer to the cliff.”
Three seconds later, she was already at the very edge of his vision.
“It’s going to be a short talk this year, Father. I have someone small to look after now. And it has to be a coincidence, but hells, she reminds me of Loki at that age.” He chuckled. “Keep my place in Valhalla ready for when she starts the phase when she starts faking her death. I’m not going to survive that, and I’m counting that as a battle.’ He picked up some dirt and rubbed it between his fingers. All dust. “You know, I’m going to stop by his place next. If you have anything you want me to tell him for you, now’s the time. But yeah, I’m probably just talking to the wind. Besides, you’re already at the same place anyway.”
His talk was cut even shorter than expected by the sound of growling and kicking.
Human children didn’t bite, did they? He’d encountered children before during his work, but none of them had bitten anyone. Yet, this one had been one inch away from taking a chunk out of his arm. It was now after him like a rabid dog. A magical rabid dog girl.
Mobius had read up on the miracle child. She wasn’t part of the sacred timeline. At least, not anymore. She’d perished in a desert and, according to the sacred timeline, remained that way. Used to be, he’d be in the process of placing reset charges. Now, this could exist. It did exist, a wonderful deviation from the set path.
Unfortunately, that wonderful deviation was fast and vicious. Mobius was not trained for this scenario. Nor was he prepared for the blinding strike to his temple. By the time the stars had stopped tap-dancing before his eyes, he was already yanked away by the collar of his shirt.
“And what are you doing here?” The god of thunder demanded to know. His eyes lit up with lightning and his magical hammer ax laid loosely in his other hand, as if he might have mistaken Mobius for a valiant warrior. A certain sense of dramatics had to have been taught.
“Oh, excuse me.” He swatted at the hand. ‘I didn’t know this was private property.”
“It is right now.”
‘That’s not how real estate works. Could you, perhaps, let go of me now?”
Thor squinted at him and pushed him away. “Be on your way. You’re scaring the girl.”
“I’m scaring the girl?” Mobius looked at the feral child, who was smiling at his predicament. “She came at me like a pitbull.”
“That’s on you,” the god of thunder said without further explanation. “Now, move on. You’re interrupting a memorial.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He fixed his jacket. “But you’re a difficult man to find in this part of your life.”
Thor knitted his brow. “Sorry, what?’
The girl pulled at Thor’s arm. “He came out of an orange doorway without a door.”
The god of thunder scowled at Mobius. “I have no interest in involving myself in a wizard’s business. You’re wasting your time. Move along before I make you.”
“I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
“I don’t think so, but I think you’ll want to get out of my sight.”
The child hummed. “I want to know what that door-thingy was.”
“Wizard, wizard’s portals.” Thor shrugged. “Both are a dime a dozen these days.”
“No, no wizards.” He said. “I’m Mobius from the TVA.”
Thor grabbed his collar again. “Well, Mobius from Tetiviyeh, last warning.”
“Is this the example you want to give the kid?” Mobius pointed a finger at him. After this, he was going to stop by Asgard a few centuries ago to give Odin some pointers on parenting. For one, adopted kids don’t owe you special thanks for adopting them. Secondly, don’t put so much value on their ability to utilize brute strength. “Attacking unarmed people who aren’t doing anything to you? Also, TVA is an acronym, an organization, not some town in 12th century Bulgaria.”
Thor’s face scrunched up and he pushed Mobius away again. “Fine, we’re leaving. I hope you’re happy now, ruining a memorial.” He turned around, ushering the child along, and stalked away. This was going unsurprisingly difficult.
“Wait!” From here on out, Loki’s brother was going to travel from one battle to the other for a long time. Mobius didn’t feel like playing a temporal cat and mouse game. Better get to the point now. “It’s about Loki.”
As if by magic, the god of thunder froze in his tracks. After a moment, he turned around with a blank look in his eyes. “Whatever he did to you, you’re still wasting your time.”
“What, no?” Wow, way to expect the best from someone. “No, you see, he’s a friend of mine.”
“Friend of yours?” The god of thunder chuckled as if it were a good joke. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” He folded his arms. “Is there something funny about that?”
Thor blinked. “Uhm, no, it’s just- he never mentioned you.”
“Right, because he always confides in you about everything all the time. Like the secret passages between worlds. About Thanos being behind the invasion of New York city.”
Thor regarded him and frowned. “If you speak truly, I am sorry. He died years ago.”
“No, well yes.” Mobius inhaled. How to explain it quickly and coherently? “But it’s not the whole of the story.”
The rage in the thunder god’s eyes came on as abruptly as a flash of lighting. He all but lifted Mobius off the ground by the front of his shirt. “Don’t you dare tell me he’s alive, because I swear, I will kill him myself.”
Mobius would’ve called that a tad overly aggressive, but he’d read the file. Three strikes and you’re out. “No, he died. He’s really dead. In your reality.”
“In my what now?”
“Listen, there’s no quick or easy way to explain it. This is going to be one long series of one unbelievable, nonsensical thing after the other. I wouldn’t believe me and I’m not going to bother breaking your world and turning it upside down if you’re not going to see this through. So this is how it is, I’m going to tell you one thing and if that isn’t reason enough to look past all the crazy, we’re not going to get far.”
“Speak up.”
“I’m better at speaking up when I have both feet firmly on the ground.” He waited until Thor had released him. The dark clouds that had been gathering overhead, dispersed. “There’s still a Loki out there, not exactly the same one you saw dying, but it’s Loki. The one you grew up with and he needs your help.”
“Not exactly the same?” Thor asked, skeptically. Perhaps hopefully. “Is it Loki or not?”
“Uhm.” Fair is fair. A general explanation was in order. “Think amnesia. Incurable amnesia. Like he was pulled from the timeline and put down somewhere later on.”
“Bring me to him,” Thor demanded. “Now.”
“Afraid it ain’t that simple.” It was rather the essence of the problem. Mobius took several steps back. “But first, let this marinate for a bit. Be sure you want to involve yourself in a wizard’s business, because it are going to be levels of crazy you never imagined before. And if you’re sure, stick around a day longer after the next memorial on your calendar. I’ll be there. Oh, and arrange for a babysitter. The TVA doesn’t have daycare.”
“Wait!”
“See you in a second.” He opened a portal and made himself scarce. The god of thunder was waiting on the other side. He seemed no more amused than he’d been a second ago, about a week from his point of view.
Sif frowned at Loki’s runestone, at the snakes twirling around the base and the daggers and horned helmet carved in the middle, as if unsure what it was supposed to be. “It sounds like just another one of a long line of tricks to me.”
It had felt final, his last death. No tricks. No magic. Just a broken neck. All the same, Thor still expected his brother to just wander back into his life and brush the whole thing off like just any one of his pranks. “Maybe, but if he’s still out there to trick me, I’ll find him.”
“Dead men don’t play tricks. Either this is someone else’s work entirely, or he’s been alive this entire time. Again. If so, why would you even want to find him?”
Simple. “To kick his ass.”
“That is a good reason,” Sif admitted. “But is it worth the risk? If that really was a friend of Loki’s, chances are he is just as slippery. If not, he’s already a liar.”
“If there’s any chance to bring him home.” Thor inhaled. “If nothing else, I have to know what’s going on.”
“Nothing I can say is going to stop you, so I’ll just have to have your back.” She retreated to a circle of runestones to hide. One of them was Fandral’s.
And thus, Thor waited as the sun traveled through the skies. A day was a long timeframe. That funny little man had him stewing in uncertainty for days and he couldn’t even have done him the courtesy of naming a general indication of the hour.
At long last, the strange wizard walked out of an orange portal. His hair was still wind-swept and his shirt creased and disheveled. Thor had wondered at the remark about seeing him in a second. Timelines, incurable amnesia, moving someone along a timeline. This man had the ability of time travel, that much was certain.
Mobius of the TVA- whatever or wherever that might be- planted his hand on his hips at the sight of him. “You’re here.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“No.” The man planted his hands on his hips. “But are you sure you’re ready for this? I wasn’t kidding when I said this is going to turn your world- as you know it- upside down.”
‘Time travel is nothing new to me, wizard.”
“I know, all too well,” the man said, pressing his lips together in a line. “And I’m not a wizard. Also, time travel is an inaccurate oversimplification of what’s going on here. Not that I have a better word for it on the tip of my tongue.”
‘The way I got it, you were telling me- a second ago- that you took Loki out of time at some point in the past and brought him to the present. Is that right?”
“Sort of, but no. I mean, for all intents and purposes, yes. But no.”
“But you were talking about Loki from the past?”
"Yes."
“Alright, is he still in the past?”
“No.”
“So he is in the present.”
“No, not really.”
“In the future?”
“No, well, possibly. In a way.”
“So, he is in the future?”
“I wouldn’t describe it that way precisely. And I’m not even sure that’s where he is. It’s just a theory that an artificial intelligence presenting as a cartoon clock, who has actual amnesia and tried to kill us all, came up with, so I’m taking that with some grains of salt.”
Thor took a moment to see if that made more sense if he let it sink in. It did not. “A cartoon clock?!”
“We’re digressing,” the man said. “I’m going to start at the beginning here. TVA stands for time variance authority. Used to be, we watched over what we then called the sacred timeline. When you and your friends traveled back in time, you created a new timeline by essentially handing Loki the tesseract. Back then, multiple timelines couldn’t exist without endangering existence itself. So we took that Loki away and deleted that timeline. We brought him someplace where time doesn’t work like we understand it.”
“You abducted him?”
The man blinked. “In retrospect, yeah, a little. But that also means he’s still alive. Not exactly as you remember him. He didn’t live through anything that happened after New York.”
“I’ll take it. Which means, you have two options now.” Thor stepped into the man's personal space and looked down on him. “You bring him here to me, or you bring me to him. Now.”
The man looked up, almost bored. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what I need you for, you almighty god of thunder.” Boredom turned to a deep frown. “He’s somewhere I can’t reach him, but you might be able to.”
His brain was still in the middle of processing the existence of an murderous, amnesiac cartoon clock hypothesizing about past Loki’s current whereabouts. This was going too fast. “Reach him in the future?”
“I don’t know.” The man paced a few steps away. “Look, I told you this is going to take a lot of suspension of belief, okay? I can’t make it any better than that.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? This is all a little far-fetched. If you’re really a friend of Loki, you’re going to be slippery. If not, you’re a liar already.”
Something beeped. The man produced a small device from his pocket and stared at the screen, raising an eyebrow. “Credit where credit is due for that conclusion, to the lady behind the rock over there. But look, like I told you- what?- three times by now, it’s far-fetched. It sounds like a load of it. I wouldn’t believe me if I were in your shoes. That’s why I told you to think real hard about whether you're willing to take that leap of faith.”
“I am.” Thor said, gesturing at the emerging Sif to take it easy. “So, now what?”
“So now, you step through one of these portals with me. We’ve got a good dozen people who can help us figure this out.”
“You have a dozen people who can confirm what you’re telling me?”
"Yes. Actually, a dozen hundred or so if you don’t mind the quality of understanding of the whole thing."
“Shouldn’t you have mentioned that at some point. That’s proof.”
“If I can convince you to step through a portal with a stranger with that story, don’t you think I can convince a bunch of people to lie for me? Also, how do you know I’m not lying about those dozen people?”
“Do you want me to step through that portal or not?”
“Please do.” He leaned to the side to look at Sif, who was on her way to Thor’s side. “Is she coming too? Because as far as I know, she doesn’t like him.”
“Yeah well, she likes me.”
The man seemed amused. “She sure does.”
“What?”
“What?”
“Should we go into a portal or not?!”
“You shouldn’t,” a new voice said. A woman with dyed blond hair and dark roots, wearing a trench coat over leather armour stepped onto the field. An orange portal-door shut behind her. “Seriously, Mobius?”