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❛ ᴇᴡᴛʀᴛᴡ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ɢᴏᴅs ᴍɪss ᴏᴜᴛ
ᴏɴ ᴘᴏᴘ-ᴄᴜʟᴛᴜʀᴇ ʀᴇғᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇs ꒱


❝ IF ANYTHING,
HE'S MY BACKUP ❞

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Jimin stumbled after the gods as they made their way through the portal and she cursed under her breath as she almost lost her footing. She ripped her arm from his grasp and glared at him. "What the hell?"

"You're welcome," he answered flippantly.

The Asian woman snarled at him as he moved over to the lockers where his weapons were stored. "I can manage just fine on my own. Unlike you, I mean it when I say I don't need help."

"If I had left you behind," Loki started calmly as he opened the door to retrieve his daggers, "they most likely would have held you as ransom in a desperate attempt to have me return. Bringing you along saves me the trouble of that ordeal."

He closed the locker gestured for her to follow him, daggers in both hands. Jimin took another calming breath and refocused, not deigning him a reply as she pulled out her own blades, her sai. The god eyed the short sword. "Well, at least you have a decent taste in weaponry."

"Whatever," the agent grumbled. "Let's go."

They slowly stalked down the passageway in silence, intent on finding out where the Loki Variant went. They passed several guards lying motionless on the ground, a clear indication that the blonde woman had been there. She wasn't being stealthy at all as the pair heard more fighting up ahead, easily placing her at the end of the hallway. They rounded the corner to see her just outside a pair of gold doors, another guard collapsed by her feet. Loki dramatically flipped his daggers as she pulled out her own blade while the god spoke: "a few questions."

"Have you really got nothing else to do? And do you truly need backup?"

"If anything, he's my backup," Jimin retorted, offended.

"Are you sure you're a Loki?" Loki asked, choosing to ignore the Asian woman for the time being.

"You're in my way," the blonde stated.

"You're in my way," he countered, his weapon nearly touching the woman's chest.

She reacted quickly, using her own blade to knock his out of alignment, easily locking the Asgardian's arm behind him to send him stumbling forward. As he recovered, Jimin launched her own attack, short swords held aloft as they made contact with the Variant's. The two women locked together before the brunette used a rather dirty tactic (though since she was fighting a Loki, Jimin deemed it fair) by swiftly kicking the blonde in the shins. This caused her to lose her grip as she tried to avoid the contact. They separated the three regrouped as Loki spoke up. 

"I thought perhaps we could work together," he offered, holding his arms out. The woman ignored his suggestion and ran at him. She aimed for his stomach, causing the god to bend over from the blow. When he'd straightened, he continued, "but now I see you lack vision."

She gave a mocking tilt of her head before the blonde turned away, only to be face-to-face with Jimin who stood firmly in front of the doors. Her lips curled. "You're no match for me, mortal."

"We'll see about that," the Asian woman replied before charging at her.

The Loki Variant easily deflected her attack and parried her blow, causing the agent to take a few steps back. As Jimin blocked the counter, her eyes flicked to where Loki was slowly approaching the blonde from behind. She kept the other woman occupied long enough for the god to grab her by the shoulder so that she was then sandwich between the two of them as he said, "so either you'll come with me willingly. . ." He grunted as she fought his grip. "Or you won't. Either way, that's how I get to the Time-Keepers."

"We," Jimin corrected him as she fought the blonde's efforts to free herself.

"Oh, God, shut up!" the Variant exclaimed, shaking free from the agent so she could easily flip the Asgardian over her shoulder.

Renslayer and two Minutemen appeared at the entrance to the hallway. "Hey!"

The trio froze as Loki made to punch the woman. however, the pause allowed her rearrange them so her blade was to Loki's neck. "Come any closer and I'll kill him."

"Go for it," the judge said carelessly.

There was a beat before Renslayer rushed at them, her baton held aloft and Jimin stepped in front of the pair (though why she'd make such a sacrifice for a Loki, she wasn't sure), and braced herself for the blow— but it never came.

Instead, she was suddenly falling through another portal as they landed heavily in a small, dark room. Jimin grunted from the impact and took a moment to recover. The blonde did so more quickly, rolling over to reach her arm out for the fallen TemPad. Loki scrambled to his feet to block her access, pulling the woman by the ankles away from the device. She turned on him. "Get off my leg!"

She shoved the god towards the table as his hand grasped the tablet. The Variant stood as she sent him to the ground with a well-aimed hit that caused his grip to slip on the device. "Goodbye, Variant."

The blonde tried to summon a portal, but Miss Minutes' voice rang out jarringly from it: "'you're outta juice!'"

"It's not working."

"Great," Jimin sighed, finally standing on her feet. "Now what?"

Loki jumped up from the floor, still not finished with the fight. The blonde pulled out her sword and took a stab at him, though the god disappeared in a flash of green, emerging behind her to push her away as he retrieved the TemPad.

"Give it to me, you don't know how to recharge it," the Variant ordered.

"Of course I do, you're not the only tech savvy Loki," the Asgardian argued.

"Don't call me that," the woman snapped.

"I don't blame you," the agent said with a nod. "I'd hate to be a Loki too."

She received a glance her way in response before the woman reached for the device, only for Loki to make it vanish as he smiled.

"You're just fully a magician then?"

"Fine. For my next trick, I'll make you disappear," he summoned his daggers.

Before he could launch an attack, a blaze of purple light entered through the roof to land with a small explosion between them. The Asian woman looked between the two gods. "Was that either of you?"

"No," the Variant answered slowly before she turned to Loki. "Where did you send us?"

The three exited the tent to get a sense of their surroundings. Jimin froze at the sight of purple rock and lavender-pink sky, her eyes widening at the sight of something so. . . "Toto, I don't think we're on Earth anymore," she breathed.

"Who are you calling a Toto?" Loki demanded. "Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"Who cares, alright?" the Variant exclaimed. "You idiot! This is Lamentis 1."

"I don't know what that means!" the Asgardian shouted back as another asteroid landed near them.

"The moon that planet is about to crash into and destroy!"

The trio took off, racing along the uneven terrain as more moon rock fell around them. The blonde woman continued to complain, "of all the apocalypses saved on that TemPad, this is the worst! No one makes it off here!"

"When the Bible mentioned the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, it never said anything about planetary collapse or meteor showers!" Jimin called over the noise.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Loki yelled.

The woman huffed. "I guess when it doesn't have to do with your own heritage, who cares!"

"Watch out!" the Variant warned as a rock landed dangerously close to them.

They slid under the safety of a vehicle held up by huge tires, taking a momentary respite from the fray as Loki added, "by the way, I thought you wanted us dead?"

"I don't know where you hid that TemPad but if you blow up, it blows up and then I end up blown up," she rose to her feet and pointed to a nearby lit-up shelter. "There!"

Jimin groaned internally as she scrambled to follow the Lokis, the god asking, "so we're a team now?"

"Oh, God no! I don't need your help!"

A flash of light appeared above them as more small impacts landed nearby. The Asian woman raced after the pair. "This is worse than all the running that Forrest Gump had to do!"

"I still have no idea what the hell you're talking about!"

She ignored the god as she darted around the craters, the shelter just within reach. Loki was the first to get to the door and he tried to force it open. It resisted until the blonde woman joined him and the trio all but fell into the protected surroundings. They took a pause to regain their breath, though Jimin remained tensed as she watched to the two interact in case they fell back to fighting.

The Variant approached Loki and, once she was close enough, raised her hands slowly to his neck as a spark of green magic appeared between her fingers. The Asian woman suddenly felt very awkward as the Lokis' eyes met, though she was relieved that the original Loki only asked, "what are you doing?"

"What are you doing?"

"You trying to enchant me? It won't work."

"Why, because you're a magician?" she questioned him mockingly, dropping her hands as she turned away from him.

"No, because my mind is too strong."

"Fine, what about her?" the Variant nodded to the brunette.

"I'm good, thanks," Jimin said quickly as she backed away. "I don't want Sabrina the Teenage Witch messing with my head."

"Fair enough," the blonde allowed despite not understanding the reference. She pulled out her sword as Loki copied her with his daggers.

The Asgardian sighed. "Look, are we really about to do this here? Again?"

"What do you propose instead?"

"I don't know, a truce?" She scoffed as Loki continued, "listen, none of us are getting off this rock if we can't turn that TemPad on."

"Where do you have it hidden?" she snapped.

"In my heart," the god replied tauntingly.

"Well then I'll cut it out."

"Oh, how lovely," Jimin grumbled. "Look, even if he does have the TemPad, none of us are going to be able to charge it if you keep trying to kill him, alright? As much as I agree with your efforts we sort of need him right now."

"Hey!" Loki cut in, offended.

The women ignored him as the Variant replied, "you need me to get it recharged. That's the only reason you saved me out there!"

"Well, you're also less irritating than he is so that helps your case, too," the Asian woman offered.

"Okay, so there's a possibility she's right," the god said. "The other option is that we could all slaughter each other here in this abandoned mining shack. What do you say?"

"Good for me," the Variant answered. "The plan you interrupted was years in the making. Years!"

"Yes, we get it, it's the disappointment of the century or whatever," Jimin interrupted them, "but I think you're both forgetting something."

The gods turned to look at her. "What's that?"

"We can't do anything if we die, so maybe our top priority should be finding a power source? That way you won't have a deadline for trying to kill him." She nodded to the female Loki.

The blonde woman gave her a considering look before she sighed and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" the Asgardian asked.

"The mortal's right. There's power somewhere on this moon. We just need enough to travel through inter-dimensional time and space," she answered.