Mischief and Enchantments

Chapter 6: Hunting for the Variant

Mobius put Loki to work right away. He told Loki that he needed to be prepared if the Variant showed themselves again. So, he gave him what seemed like hundreds of videos to study. About what the TVA is, what it does, how a nexus event is created, and lots of other topics that Loki barely remembered.

Loki had been at this for a while now. He couldn't tell how long it had been. He had lost all sense of time since he got to the TVA. And now, Miss Minutes, the TVA's mascot, was his tutor. But Loki wasn't really interested in what she or the TVA's propaganda had to say. Which is why he read some of the magazines at Mobius's desk. But they were all about jet skis. That man was really into jet skis for some reason.

"Okay, y'all, let's review what we've learned." Miss Minutes said one day. "What happens when a nexus event branches past red line?"

"Very bad things," Loki replied unenthusiastically, not looking up from the magazine he was reading.

"Come on, Loki." Miss Minutes urged. "What is it?"

Loki sighed and looked up. "It's when the TVA can no longer reset a nexus event." He answered. "Okay? Boring."

"Right." Said Miss Minutes. "And that would lead to the destruction of the timeline and the collapse of reality as we know it."

"Can you hear me?" Loki asked. "Are you a recording? Or are you alive?"

"Uh, sorta both." Miss Minutes replied.

Loki turned around to see if anyone was coming. Once he knew no one was watching, he started to hit Miss Minutes with the magazine.

"Watch it!" Miss Minutes exclaimed as she dodged him. "Where's your manners?"

Loki grinned as he continued to hit at Miss Minutes. She had to keep dodging him until she went inside the screen of the computer that was on the desk.

"You can't hide—" Loki started to say until a voice from behind him cut him off.

"Training going well?" Mobius asked.

"Yeah," Loki replied, trying his best to act natural.

"Is that my jet ski magazine?" Mobius questioned. But he didn't wait for Loki to answer. "Put it down." He told Loki, giving him what seemed like a wrapped-up jacket. "Gear up. There's been an attack. Let's go."

Loki got up and followed Mobius as he started to unwrap the jacket.

"Put it on," Mobius instructed. Loki did as he asked.

"Good." Said Mobius. "Yeah. Smart."

Eventually, they got to what Loki assumed was the rest of their team. He wasn't pleased to see Hunter B15–the hunter that arrested him—there, but he didn't say anything.

"C-20 and her team went dark shortly after they jumped into the 1985 branch," B15 explained to the team. "All signs point to another ambush. We've gathered enough temporal aura to know that it's our Variant."

Ah yes. The Variant.

The TVA didn't even know who they were. They just assumed they were a Loki Variant.

Mobius had explained to Loki that this had never happened before. The TVA always knew what type of Variant they were hunting, so this was new to them. Loki said that the TVA might not be as perfect as Mobius thought, but Mobius refuted him by saying that the TVA was as old as time itself and they kept getting frequent updates as time on the Sacred Timeline progressed, so they were practically flawless. Besides, if there was a flaw in the system, the Time-Keepers would know about it and fix it right away.