Follow the Clues
Loki lounged back in Mobius’s office chair, flipping through the jet ski magazine that he had found. Miss Minutes was droning on and on with questions about the way timelines were to function and whatnot.
“Come on, Loki” she sighed.
“Are you a recording or can you actually hear me?” He smirked.
“Uh…sort of both” Miss Minutes smiled.
Loki quickly but casually looked around before rolling up the magazine and attempting to hit Miss Minutes. It was rather amusing for the god as he watched her jump around and eventually retreat into the computer.
“Come on you can’t hide in the-“
Loki’s sentence was cut short as Mobius approached from behind.
“Is that my jet ski magazine? Put it down we have another incident”
Loki jumped up from his chair and followed closely behind Mobius.
“Is it Amora?”
“Our scanner says it is, same Asgardian signature and everything” Mobius handed a package to Loki as they walked.
The god examined the plastic wrapping before removing the contents and finding a khaki jacket with the TVA emblem pressed onto the front. As they walked to the debriefing room, Loki pulled the jacket on and moved his shoulders a bit to make sure it was constricting.
“How’s it fit?” Mobius chuckled, looking back at Loki.
“Very well. Though I do think the colour choice is a bit plain for my tastes” he said, flipping the collar up.
“Well, I’m sorry we don’t have any ‘fine Asgardian leather’ to give you. Plus I have to wear the same thing”
“Well it looks good on you but as an Asgardian prince I must say that the choices made were not in anyone’s best interest”
The two continued down the hallway until they entered a large room with monitors and a group of minutemen, including Hunter B-15. The hunter stared Loki down as he entered, her eyes following all of his movements as if expecting him to do something. Loki knew as well as she did that he couldn’t use his magic within the confines of the TVA, and yet, that didn’t stop his mind from wandering to plausible outcomes.
Mobius took his place next to Hunter B-15 and Loki made himself situated at the far end of the circle of people.
“Another Hunter and team of Minutemen were taken out, and she’s jumped once more” Mobius pulled up an image of the timeline.
The hologram hovered in the center of the circle of people and showed small branches coming off the timeline before vanishing completely. The image looped as Mobius kept speaking.
“She’s been jumping through time and leaving disruptions in her wake,” he said.
“But this is showing the timeline going back to normal” Loki interrupted. “If Amora is jumping through time and setting it back on course after she leaves then why is there a problem?”
“The problem is, is that she isn’t resetting the timeline, she’s rewriting it”
“How is that any different?”
“It’s like this” Mobius pulled up another image of the timeline, but the branches were different. “Each time Amora jumps forward or backward through time she does something, what that is we have yet to find out, but what she is doing is causing branches. When she leaves, she thinks that rewriting it, so she was never there is going to erase her tracks. When in fact, by rewriting the timeline she is branching it even further and causing a multitude of anomalies that require our teams to be sent out and reset the timeline properly.”
Loki scoffed, a subtle smile on his face.
“You find this amusing?” Mobius raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, waiting for Loki’s answer.
Loki licked his lips, and his smile grew into a grin, “Yes. It’s rather amusing.”
“Care to share with the class?” Hunter B-15 said.
Where could Loki start? They wouldn’t understand even if he explained it.
*********
“Amora! Where are we going?” Loki, now around the age of a teenager, tried to wiggle his wrist free of his friend’s grasp.
Amora was holding tight to her friend as she pulled him down the many corridors and eventually into a secluded alcove.
“What?-“
“SHHH!” Amora pressed her finger to Loki’s lips, he could smell the familiar scent of mint from her clothing. “I figured it out”
Amora grinned from ear to ear, the dim lighting of the alcove illuminating her jade coloured eyes and showcasing their joy.
Loki finally wrestled his face free of her hand, “Figured what out?”
“IT” Amora emphasized.
Loki’s eyes grew wide, he knew exactly what she was talking about.
“How do you know it worked? That’s master-level magic”
“Just wait”
Amora pulled him to her side and motioned for him to peer around the corner of the alcove. They waited for several seconds before a small burst of green magic accumulated in the center of the corridor. As the magic grew larger it created a portal, once the portal was large enough a figure stepped out of it.
It was another Amora, same hairstyle, same outfit, and same everything, nothing was amiss. The other Amora looked back at the portal she had stepped from and gave her signature devilish grin.
Loki was entranced at the scene in front of him because he knew for certain that Amora was right next to him. The feeling of her nails digging into his arm was no mere illusion or trick, and yet, she was several paces away from him as well, examining the portal.
“Woah…” he breathed out.
“I know” Amora spoke barely above a whisper. “Imagine all the tricks we could do with this power. If Thor gets one over on you we can just jump back before it happened and get him first”
The other Amora had finished examining the portal and waved her hands in front of it, causing it to vanish. Within a few seconds, she was already taking off in the opposite direction.
“Where did you go?”
“To get you, of course,” Amora chuckled.
“Won’t that be a bit of an issue since we’re here and you’re there?”
“No. Because I can rewrite it, so it never happens.”
Amora created a small distance between her and Loki. Slowly and methodically she conjured a line of what looked to be magic. She stretched the line past both of them and traced her fingers through the white magic.
“Here,” She pinched a section of the line and grabbed Loki’s hand. “Hold on. I haven’t worked out the kinks yet”
“What?”
Before Loki could protest, Amora wrapped the line around them both and pulled them both through the magic. Loki felt a shift in his body that lasted a few moments before fading.
The two of them were no longer standing in the alcove, they were in Amora’s bed chambers. Books were strewn about, some open and others tossed aside carelessly and among loose papers and miscellaneous items. Amora must have been draining herself just to figure out the spell.
Candles were almost burned down to their base and a strangely comforting smell wafted through the chamber.
Loki smacked his lips together, noting a strange taste in his mouth.
“What is that?”
“Oh yeah. I’m not quite sure but it tastes tropical.” She plucked some leaves from a nearby plant and handed them to him. “Here, eat this to get rid of the taste”
Loki accepted the leaves and placed them in his mouth. Mint. He should have expected as much, Amora has always had a palette for mint.
Amora had completely brushed past the recent event and was standing over her cluttered desk and flipping through the pages of a spellbook. Loki carefully rediscovered his footing and walked over to see what Amora was reading. The young girl’s eyes were focused and trained on the script in front of her.
“What now?”
“Shh!” Amora held up a finger to silence Loki, pressing it against his lips.
Without another word, Amora stepped away from her desk and took one last glance down at the book before lifting her hands up in front of her. With a deep breath, Amora closed her eyes and began muttering an incantation. Her hands moved in circular patterns, and Loki could swear that he heard the subtle ticking of a clock, but it could just be the words Amora was speaking. As Amora neared the climax of the incantation a bright green light exploded from her hands and flooded the chambers before disappearing.
Loki was so in awe of what had happened that he didn’t notice Amora collapse onto the floor until he heard her let out a grunt of pain.
“Amora!” He rushed to his friend’s side, helping her sit up and trying to keep her conscious.
“I’m…” Amora struggled to speak. “I’m fine, Loki”
“You’re not, you-“ He paused, lifting Amora’s arm and noticing what looked like bruising underneath her sleeve. “Amora?”
Amora quickly pulled herself to her feet, stumbling, but distancing herself from Loki.
“You need to leave. Thank you for your help but you need to go”
“Amora I-“
“NOW!” Never before had Amora raised her voice to Loki as she did.
It startled the prince, and he could see the fear behind Amora’s eyes that mixed with her urgency to get rid of him.
*********
“What I didn’t know at the time was that she got rid of me because Karnilla was going to return at any moment” Loki spoke.
The group had remained quiet as he told his tale, but some seemed to have more questions than answers.
“How did she know Karnilla would return? Was she keeping track of her schedule?” Hunter B-15 asked.
“No. Karnilla had cast a sensor spell in Amora’s chambers. Each time Amora used magic in there, Karnilla would know, and if it was something that shouldn’t be occurring, then…” Loki didn’t want to finish his statement.
“You mentioned Karnilla before, she was Amora’s mother yes?” Mobius asked.
Loki scoffed, “Odin was more of a father to me than Karnilla was a mother to Amora” there was venom in his words. “You said you’ve seen her file, Mobius, you should know what that monster did to Amora”
Mobius nodded silently, “Is there anything else we should know about Amora?”
“Well, I can tell you how she’s been evading your units.”
“Please do”
“Amora learned the sensor spell and managed to find loopholes in it and create blind spots for herself, your units are tripping her sensors somehow and letting her know where you are and what you’re doing”
“But that spans across timelines” Hunter B-15 looked shocked.
“Exactly. Like I said, Agent Mobius. Amora isn’t stupid, and she isn’t weak, you’ll never catch her” Loki smirked.
“Well that’s why we have you now isn’t it?” Mobius chuckled.
*********
The team stepped through the time portal, being met with blistering below freezing temperatures and a vicious snowstorm, unlike anything Mobius had experienced.
“Okay Loki, we need you to-“ Mobius turned around and saw that the god was nowhere to be found. “Loki?”
Mobius scanned the tree line, trying to see through the darkness and snow that was around them.
“Sir, should we hunt the variant?” One of the Minutemen asked.
“No need” Loki’s voice echoed through the woods. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m still here”
Mobius was still looking, “We need to keep sights on you Loki, come out.”
“No.” Loki’s voice wavered.
Loki looked down at his hands in the moonlight, he hated what he saw and even more so knowing that others would see him. The steady streams of moonlight illuminated his blue skin, even in the darkness he felt like everyone could see him.
“Go search for the lost unit, I’ll handle Loki” Mobius ordered.
Loki heard the Hunter and Minutemen create distance between them and he gave a sigh of relief. However, Mobius was still lingering around waiting for Loki to emerge.
“Come on Loki, we don’t have time for this, we need to find the unit and then reset the timeline” Mobius sighed.
“I’ll meet you back here. Just go.”
“Listen, I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that we’d be going to Jotunheim. That’s on me.”
“It’s not the realm”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s me.”
“I really don’t have time for the dramatics Loki. Now either you tell me what is going on or I call the unit back and get them to take care of you”
Loki sighed, he just wanted to be left alone. Taking a few more minutes for himself, Loki finally stepped into the moonlight to face Mobius. The agent’s face looked shocked but interested as it seemed to examine the many markings that were visible on Loki’s face.
“I know. I look like a monster” Loki mumbled.
“You’re not a monster, Loki. You’re a frost giant, there’s nothing monstrous about that or your appearance” Mobius shoved his hands into his pockets. “I think you look pretty cool”
“You’re not afraid of this?” Loki motioned to himself.
“No, because I know it’s just you…but blue”
Loki smiled softly to himself, no one had even told him that before.
Walking closer to Mobius, Mobius motioned for Loki to follow him as they went after the Hunter and Minutemen. Loki put his hands in the pockets of his pants and kept looking forward as they walked.
“You really don’t find a problem with this form?” He inquired.
“Nah” Mobius chuckled. “As long as you don’t turn me into a popsicle we’re all good”
“That’s refreshing to hear”
Mobius nodded as they came upon the clearing where the Hunter and Minutemen were. Bodies of the former unit were mangled and twisted in unnatural positions in the center of the clearing. They looked as if they had been ripped apart by a wild animal, which, given the fact that they were in Jotunheim, wasn’t that much of a stretch.
Hunter B-15 eyed Loki with suspicion and curiosity but said nothing, only approaching Mobius to give their report.
“She killed them before they were mangled by the time magic” Hunter B-15’s eyes followed Loki as he approached the pile of bodies.
“What happened to them? Amora isn’t this vicious.” He asked.
“This is what your little friend has been doing when she rewrites the timelines.” She said, a slight bite behind her words. “Each time she rewrites a timeline and leaves our units there, the timeline doesn’t know how to function properly with unknown entities within it that weren’t present before, so,” she motioned to the piles of bodies. “It tries to manually fix itself and in the process viciously mangles any foreign entity within it”
Loki glanced over the mangled corpses and sighed to himself, Amora couldn’t have known this was going to happen, could she?
“You said she killed them before?” Mobius asked, walking over to examine the corpses with Loki.
“Yes, signs show that they had their throats cut before she fled” Hunter B-15 looked down at her tempad. “The timeline is reaching red line; we need to reset it”
“Loki. See anything that could lead us to Amora?” Mobius looked over at Loki.
“Nothing of importance” Loki shook his head.
Loki paused for a moment, rethinking what Mobius had just asked him. ‘Lead us to Amora’ made him feel sick. To think that he was helping them track down his former best friend in exchange for his own life was what gave him pause.
“Then we’re done here, reset the timeline please,” Mobius said. “Come on Loki”
Loki stood up, a pit still in his stomach but followed Mobius out the clearing and waited for him to open the portal back to the TVA. Once more, Loki glanced down at his hands, their blue colour didn’t seem as ugly now.
The portal opened and Mobius placed his hand on Loki’s back, guiding him through the portal.
“If it's any help” Mobius spoke. “Blue is my favorite colour”
*********
Loki’s head was beginning to ache from going through all of the files in front of him. Mobius had ordered him to go through all of the files they had on Amora and her actions. The only reason that Loki even stayed in the TVA archives was that he didn’t want to get lost in the confusing halls and corridors. That, and Loki was curious as to what Amora had been doing since she left Asgard. As he flipped over one of the papers there was a list of offenses that Amora had allegedly committed. The first one that caught his eye was “murder”, in fact, it appeared multiple times throughout the list. Most of the offenses had years or brief descriptions of what occurred next to them. Many of the murder offenses were bandit-related or the occasional TVA Unit. Except one. One of them, the first one on the list just had OMITTED next to it. Right below that was ‘Rewritten Timeline’.
Could Amora have omitted her own files?
It didn’t make much sense, but it was something to go off of. But that would mean that Amora had been able to infiltrate the TVA and get them to omit things from her file.
Maybe Amora had seen the timekeepers.
Loki chuckled to himself imagining Amora sweet-talking her way into seeing the Timekeepers. Magic not working in the TVA was not a problem for her, Loki had seen her get into the weapons vault with nothing more than batting her eyelashes at the guards. Loki remembers often admiring Amora’s tactics and being reminded time and time again that she wasn’t using her magic when he suspected she was. It wasn’t outlandish to suspect that Amora is more involved with the TVA than Mobius suspects.
Pushing away from the table he was sat at, Loki looked around, not knowing where to start his search. The archives seemed to go on forever. Suddenly his eyes landed on what he assumed to be a male analyst sitting behind a desk. As Loki approached the analyst he could hear him typing away on a computer and see but not make out the orange text on the screen.
“Excuse me” Loki spoke up.
The male analyst either didn’t hear him or was pretending not to hear him because he continued typing away.
“Excuse me” Loki spoke a little louder but still no response.
After rolling his eyes, Loki noticed a small desk bell with a note on it.
“Ring for assistance”
Surely they couldn’t be serious? Loki thought to himself. Carefully, Loki reached out a touched the bell to which a small ding came from it. The analyst stopped typing and slowly looked up at Loki who was giving him a cheeky grin.
“Hello, um, I was wondering if you could get me all the files on the beginning of the TVA and the Timekeepers, specifically who has seen them”
The analyst just stared at Loki.
Clearing his throat, Loki tried again. “It’s just some TVA stuff, you know how it is” Still nothing, so much for being nicknamed ‘Silver Tongue’ in his youth. “It can be our little secret”
Loki winked at the analyst and slowly gave him a once-over glance, hoping that he could get some reaction.
“Come with me,” The analyst said, getting up from their desk and heading back to the many shelves of files.
“Thank you. You really have no idea how much this means to me” Loki smiled. “Perhaps I can make it up to you? Lunch? Something?”
The analyst stopped in a section of shelves and pulled down a large file, handing it to Loki. Loki grinned and glanced down at the file, his shoulders fell and all the confidence he had completely vanished.
Written on the file was the name ‘Loki Laufeyson’.
“Happy reading” The analyst smiled, giving Loki a once over himself and then heading back to his desk.
“How does Amora make that look so easy?” He mumbled to himself, heading back to the table he was at with his file.
Slouching back down into his chair, Loki tossed his file to the side and tried to focus back on Amora’s file. His fingers grazed down the side of the folder as he flipped through the papers with his other hand. Once again, nothing stood out to him, and he set Amora’s file aside to look through his own file. There was much more included in his own file, skipping past the frost giant linage and assault on Asgard, Loki noticed a folded paper sticking out. Carefully removing the paper from the confines of the file Loki examined it before unfolding it. There was something about it that didn’t fit in with the rest of the file, then it hit him. The familiar scent he had long attributed to Amora.
Mint.
The paper smelled heavily of mint.
Quickly unfolding the paper, Loki was met with two words scrawled in runes in green ink.
“Hello Trickster”
Falling back into his chair, Loki smiled and stared at the paper, deeply breathing in the earthy mint scent that was left on it. Quickly, Loki took off out of the archives and rushed to find Mobius.
*********
Mobius continued to eat his salad, not believing a word that was coming out of Loki’s mouth.
“Amora would not have made it into the archives, Loki” He spoke with his mouth full. “It’s not possible, especially not with our level of security, and not to mention she can’t use magic”
Loki rolled his eyes, pointing at the note on the table between them.
“She left me this note. Amora has been here or is still here and you and your little company have been none the wiser”
Mobius continued to shove his lunch into his mouth, and it was beginning to annoy Loki. If there was one thing he hated more than being told he was wrong, it was being ignored.
“Mobius, please, you have to believe me”
“I have no reason to, Loki, I asked you to find Amora’s hiding spots, not write yourself notes”
Loki scoffed, “You think I wrote this note to myself?”
“Yes because it is physically impossible for Amora to have been or still be in the TVA without us knowing”
Taking a deep breath Loki composed himself and grabbed the salad that Mobius was eating.
“Hey!”
Loki quickly flung the bowl across the café, hearing it knock into an analyst before clattering to the floor.
“Listen Mobius”
“That was my lunch, Loki” Mobius sighed.
“I did not write this note and it has her signature scent on it” Loki held the note to Mobius’s face.
Mobius quickly grabbed it from Loki’s hand.
“I’m not gonna smell the note, Loki, what about scent? Are Asgardians a people that rely on scents like animals?”
“Amora always smelled of mint, it was difficult to miss whenever someone interacted with her, and she used to eat mint leaves to get rid of the coconut taste that came with time jumping”
“What does mint have to do with finding her?’
“If she is anything like how I remember, she will be carrying a bag of mint leaves around with her to consume whenever she jumps, so she’ll have to be replenishing it somewhere, and wherever that is, is where we will find her”
“Why mint?” Mobius looked down, examining the note.
Loki hesitated, “It’s more of a habit she couldn’t get rid of as a child…mint and its scent as well as its taste, calmed her from…” he paused. “Certain affairs”
“Karnilla?” Mobius placed the note back on the table.
“Yes.”
Loki thought back to Amora’s file, more specifically back to the list of alleged offenses that she committed.
“Mobius”
“Yes?”
“Amora had a paper of offenses in her file, one of them was ‘murder’ but the description was omitted…who did Amora murder that warranted you deleting things from her file?”
“No one is ever allowed to delete anything from a file without proper authorization, and if I’m remembering her file correctly…Amora didn’t kill anyone of significance outside of bandits and our units”
“This was omitted though” Loki pressed.
“You probably misread it”
“Then show me Amora’s file in the Time Theater”
Mobius laughed, “That is not happening Loki”
“And why not?”
“Showing another file to someone else is not allowed, it’s for the variant’s eyes only”
Loki put his head in his hands, he needed to somehow convince Mobius of his truth, something that was rarely successful.
“How can I convince you of my truth?” Loki asked, taking back the note that was on the table.
“Well, first you can buy me a new lunch” Mobius quipped. “Then you can show me of this alleged omitted file, and we’ll see how you stand from there, deal?” Mobius extended his hand out to Loki.
Loki quickly accepted the handshake, “Deal”
**********
Loki had managed to sweet-talk his way into getting Mobius another lunch, whether he owed the cook something in return or not, was not important to his mission. Once the two of them had arrived back at the archives, Loki presented Amora’s file with confidence that Mobius could believe him.
Mobius examined the file as they stood in one of the many aisles of shelves in the archives. Mobius’s expression of exhaustion from Loki’s persistence vanished in an instant upon looking at Amora’s file.
“This doesn’t make any sense…these offenses are in chronological order from when they happened, I don’t remember seeing Amora murder anyone when watching her file”
Loki smiled to himself, “Well, it seems like we need to watch that file”