Chapter Text
“So why exactly should we help you again?” Carol leaned back in her chair.
Mobius sighed.
“Because we have a common enemy. Look, guys. You don't know me and you don't know if you can trust me, but I'm telling you... if you help me defeat all these raging versions of He Who Remains... or Kang or whatever he's calling himself... you don't only save me and my people. You're saving yourselves.”
Doctor Strange took a step next to Wong's chair.
“But your request has a deeper purpose. The safety of the multiverse is a noble goal, but if I remember correctly, you want to free-”
“Yeah... I want to free the god of time itself.” Mobius looked around the room filled with superheroes from every branch of the multiverse, which he had been able to reach. Hulk, some Spider-Men, X-Men, Moon Knight, the Guardians of the Galaxy and so many more had come to his call.
“I want to free Loki. And for that I need your help.”
Well, dear reader, you are probably wondering how we could end up in such a situation. Please take a seat, get comfortable and let me tell you.
“Let time pass...”
In the vast darkness at the end of time Loki listened to Mobius' words echo through the branches of time. A sad smile appeared on his face as he felt his heart break a bit more.
To watch his friends live their lives... that seemed to be all that was left for him. Sylvie. Mobius. He couldn't quite see the others in the TVA. Maybe it would take some... time for him to figure out how to see a place, which was outside of time itself, but for now he could only watch Sylvie jump from one branch and time to another, looking for a good place to stay and he could see Mobius standing on the driveway near the house he could have lived in.
In another life... Sometimes you did the right thing and still didn't get nothing but pain in the end.
A small shock ran through Loki's body as he suddenly lost track of Mobius. Where was he? Had he gone back to the TVA?
Loki tried finding Sylvie, combed through the timelines, but his fellow variant was – as always – too good at hiding. He gasped, as he realised that right now at this very moment... he was completely and utterly alone.
A tear slid down his face and he tried to hold the pain in... but what for? There was nobody left to show a brave face to.
He was alone.
And he would be alone.
For all time.
Always.
Another tear. His heart felt like it was strangling itself. It was all too much.
Too much pain.
Too much space around him.
Too much...loneliness.
Loki opened his mouth and at first he exhaled only a tiny whimper. Then he breathed in again and screamed.
His cries didn't even echo in the endless void as he screamed out all of his pain. Hands gripped tight the strands of time. Tears and tears ran down his face as he sat on his golden throne...
Mobius took one last look at the neat white house with the jet ski parked in the driveway and then he turned around and opened a door to the TVA.
Stepping through didn't feel like coming home anymore, but it was still a place where he could stay for the moment until he had figured out where he wanted to go from here.
Bright orange alarm lights greeted him as soon as he tried stepping out of an elevator and the still somewhat emotionless voice of Ms. Minutes repeated again and again:
“Warning. Fluctuation in the energy levels of the Tree of Time. All senior TVA employees please report to the control floor.”
Mobius felt his heart miss a beat as sirens seemed to scream louder and louder around him. Frantically he hit the elevator button for the control floor.
A blinking monitor awaited him there and a very concerned B-15 in front of it.
“What happened?”, he asked out of breath. “How long has this been going on?”
The monitor showed the newly named Tree of Time, formerly known as the Sacred Timeline. Indeed the energy levels were all over the place, but the timelines themselves didn't seem affected by that, none were dying and none were branching more than usual. It was just a soft but steady outpour of energy from the very centre of the tree.
“I don't know”, B-15 admitted. “It started only a couple of minutes ago. The timelines are steady, but... I've never seen something like this before.”
“Well, we never had a god at the heart of time before, hadn't we?”
“You think this is Loki's doing?”
Mobius shrugged and watched the monitor.
“Mobius' theory doesn't sound that absurd.”
They turned around to see O.B. sitting on one of the computers tipping as fast as usual with Victor Timely standing next to him as usual.
“The energy isn't temporal radiation, it's something else. It might come from Loki, but I don't have the parameters of his magic. If I could measure the magic of another Loki, I might-”
“What does that all mean?”, Mobius interrupted him. “Is Loki... hurt? Is he fighting something in there? Can we help him?”
“W-We don't know right know”, Timely said timidly.
“Then figure something out! Build a sensor or open a damn way to-”
“Mobius.”
“WHAT?!”
“Mobius... look.”
He turned to B-15, who pointed at the screen. The mysterious energy slowly faded back to normal. The alarm stopped.
Exasperated Mobius lifted his hands towards the monitor.
“And what is that supposed to mean?!”
“We don't know...”, O.B. answered quietly.
“We don't kn-now yet”, Victor corrected and laid a hand on O.B.'s shoulder. “B-But we will.”