The Variant's Shadow - LokixOC - ONGOING

* It never ends *

Ophelia opened her eyes. She wasn’t dead yet. Or maybe she was. She looked around her and sat on the floor. A whole field of nothing. Something that looked like a city far behind her. 

She remembered what happened, but not how she got here. She got pruned, and the next thing she knew she was there. Was it where all the pruned people went ? She always assumed they were just dying.

It didn’t look very welcoming. Everything was destroyed. There probably weren’t many people living there. She stood up and tried to get a better look of the place. 

She heard a growl. Or something scarier than a growl. She turned around and noticed a huge purple cloud in the sky. And it seemed to have… eyes. Eyes that were looking at her. She immediately ran in the opposite direction, decided to put as much distance between the cloud and her as possible. 

When she thought it was far enough, she found a broken bench and sat on it. 

She saw Mobius, and she got pruned. At least she was right, he was in the archives. It was a poor consolation, but it was still better than nothing. And it meant that whatever Loki told him, Mobius wasn’t satisfied with Renslayer’s explanation, because he decided to do some research on his own after meeting her.

He wanted to hide. He probably found something. 

Ophelia had no idea what it could be. And now that she was sitting in the middle of nowhere next to a giant angry cloud, she didn’t really care. For a second, she just hoped it was all over. That she could rest here. She desperately needed to rest. 

If it was how it all ended, she deserved to rest. And all she could do now was hoping that she’d never see any of her friends here. 

Now they all had to trust each other if they wanted to make it out alive. Ophelia laughed at herself. ‘Trust each other’. B-15 and Sylvie needed to trust each other wherever they were. And Mobius needed to trust what Loki told him. And if Loki could trust anyone for a second, it would be great too. 

Ophelia sighed and closed her eyes. The time loop. She didn’t know how long he had been there, but they were created specifically to break people. And from what she knew about Loki, he had probably been broken enough already, he didn’t need that Time Prison on top of it. 

Tired of running, Ophelia stared at the cloud. It seemed to be resting. Just like her. She stood from her bench and walked to a shed nearby. She made sure no one was following her and curled up on the floor. 

Her fight was over, and she deserved to rest.

__________

📍LAMENTIS 1 - 2077

“Come on, she’s leaving.” 

Ophelia was still on the ground. Still holding the radio. Still staring at the Ark. What was left of it. 

Her plan was supposed to work. She was so sure of it. One more minute, and it would have been done. She’d be home already. She just needed one more minute. 

She looked behind her and accepted the hand Loki was offering her. Once she was back on her feet, she walked with him, following Sylvie across the city. They didn’t need to be there when it would happen. 

And Ophelia didn’t want people screaming in fear to be the last thing she heard before her death. 

“You should talk to her.” Loki looked at her and scoffed. 

“She thinks it’s all my fault because I broke the Tempad. You talk to her.”

“She’s not my friend. But she’s you.” They both stayed behind. Sylvie probably needed some time alone anyway. To process the fact that after all she’d been through, she was going to die with another fugitive variant and a TVA agent. “Do you think it’s true ?”