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❛ ᴇᴡᴛʀᴛᴡ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐒𝐈𝐗 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴊɪᴍɪɴ ʀᴇsᴏʀᴛs ᴛᴏ
ᴘʟᴀʏɢʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴇᴛɪǫᴜᴇᴛᴛᴇ ꒱


❝ LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE! ❞

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After rather unexpectedly losing a sort-of wrestling match for Mobius' chair, Jimin stood in a disgruntled silence behind the man's desk with her arms crossed.

Once Loki had returned to the projector room and had seen what would've been his fate— a strangely moving experience for her— they'd been interrupted by the guard's return only for the god to free himself from the collar during his fight with the T.V.A. employee. Begrudgingly, he'd allowed Jimin to free herself as well and that was how Mobius had found them. Then, the gray-haired man had shown them to sleeping quarters that offered them a change of clothes. Both the agent and Asgardian changed into the light-blue-gray button down collared shirt, black tie and black pants.

Mobius had then set them the task of learning about the T.V.A. which was where they were doing now. Together, they watched the anthropomorphic clock that was deemed 'Miss Minutes' quiz them about the pamphlets and brochures they'd read. Jimin did her best to pay attention in an effort to learn more about the organization she was wary about while Loki took the lessons lightly, hardly giving them a thought at all.

The Asian woman watched from her spot behind him as the god gave a half-hearted answer before he changed the subject. "Can you hear me? Are you a recording? Or are you alive?"

"Uh, sorta both," the clock responded with a southern accent.

Loki let out a sound of acknowledgment and he leaned forward to swat the hologram with a rolled-up magazine. Jimin pressed her lips together. "For someone who's supposedly older than me, you certainly don't act very mature."

"For someone who's supposedly an atheist you pick a lot of fights with a god."

"You're an ass," she grumbled, folding her arms more tightly across her chest.

He turned around to send her a charming grin. "Why thank you."

"Training goin' well?" Mobius' voice caused them to spin towards him.

"As well as it can be," the Asian woman reported.

The man nodded in understanding before he noticed what Loki was holding. "Is that my jet ski magazine? Put it down, you two need to gear up. There's been an attack. Let's go."

He handed them each a plastic-wrapped package. Jimin prodded it curiously. "What is this?"

"Just put it on."

The parcel turned out to be identical tan jackets with the word 'VARIANT' spelled out in bold orange letters. The agent gave an internal sigh as she slid it on, adjusting the material so it fit properly.

"Good," Mobius said approvingly. "Yeah, you look smart."

Before she could stop herself, Jimin moved to fix Loki's collar— that he'd purposefully left up— and smoothed it down. "Now we look smart," she corrected the gray-haired man.

Once the Asian woman had followed Mobius, the god sent her an annoyed look and popped the collar again in an act of rebellion.

✧ ✧ ✧ 

"C-20 and her team went dark shortly after they jumped into the 1985 branch," their guard— that Jimin now knew was called Hunter B-15— explained to the gathered group. "All signs point to another ambush. We've grabbed enough temporal aura to know it's our Loki Variant but which Loki remains unknown."

"They're the lesser kind, to be clear," the present Loki clarified.

The Hunter sighed. "Let me see the back of that jacket."

The pair turned, showing the letters stamped on the back. Of course the god had a comment to make about that, too. "Very subtle, well done."

"I don't want anybody out there to forget what you two are," Hunter B-15 continued.

"Oh, your only hope of capturing a murderer."

She shook her head. "No, a cosmic mistake."

"That's enough," Mobius cut in. "Here's the deal. When we get out on the branch, we're not just looking for a Time Criminal, we're looking for a Loki, a variation of this guy, a type we should all be very familiar with."

A hologram appeared in the center of their circle with a picture of a similar Loki to the one that stood next to Jimin, except blue. Mobius carried on: "because the T.V.A. has pruned a 'lotta these guys, almost more than any other Variant and no two are alike." The image changed to another Loki variation, this time the figure wore a bright yellow shirt, bike shorts and was holding a trophy.

Jimin smirked. "I like the look of that guy." She nodded to his waving hand. "He seems a lot more friendly, why couldn't I have been stuck with him?"

The Loki next to her only shook his head, most likely out of embarrassment as the gray-haired man resumed speaking as if he hadn't been interrupted: "slight differences in appearances or not so slight." This time, a much more bulked-up version of a horned figure was shown. "Different powers, although they generally include shape-shifting, illusion-projection and my favorite—"

"Duplication-casting," Loki cut him off.

Mobius turned off the hologram. "Illusion-projection."

"No, they're two completely different powers."

"How?"

"Illusion-projection involves depicting a detailed image from outside oneself which is perceptible in the external world, whereas duplication-casting entails recreating an exact facsimile of one's own body in its present circumstance, which acts as a true holographic mirror of its molecular structure, but you already knew that," the god explained in one breath.

"That makes absolutely no sense," the Asian woman remarked bluntly.

"Well, maybe it would if you were smarter," he retorted smoothly, ignoring the burning glare she sent his way.

"Okay, noted," Mobius said. "We're gonna break into two teams including myself, Agent Hui and Professor Loki."

"Why?"

"Because whoever this Variant is, we haven't been able to find him, so let's bring in an expert."

"That's me," Loki added unnecessarily, pointing at himself as he gave a pompous wink.

✧ ✧ ✧ 

"Do I get a weapon?" the Asgardian asked Mobius eagerly as they walked to the exit point.

"Nah."

"Well, I'll have my magic back, is no one concerned about that?"

"Of what?" the man seemed confused.

"Me betraying you."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you know that we can catch you," Mobius explained, "and how's betraying us gonna get you any closer to the Time-Keepers?"

Loki paused. "An audience with the Time-Keepers is on the table?"

"Keep that focus."

"You have no reason to mistrust me," Jimin spoke up. "Do I get my weapons?"

"Not this time," he answered unhelpfully.

✧ ✧ ✧ 

On the other side of the portal, a renaissance-styled setting greeted them as they stepped through the barrier. One of the guards kept tabs on their position. "Apex of nexus signature located, ma'am."

"Let me ask you this," Loki said as the trio trailed behind them. "Why don't we just travel back in time before the attack when the Variant first arrives?"

"Nexus events destabilize the time flow," Mobius answered. "This branch is still changing and growing so you gotta show up in real time. Didn't you watch any of the training videos you were supposed to?"

"A fair few," Jimin replied.

"As many as I could stand," the god added. "Your T.V.A. propaganda is exhausting."

"And what do these do?" a Hunter behind them asked.

Jimin sent him a look of irritation as she explained in a purposefully monotone voice, "they're reset charges. They prune the affected radius of a branched timeline, allowing time to heal all its wounds."

"Sounds like a nice way of saying 'disintegrate everything in its vicinity,'" the Asgardian remarked.

Mobius nodded in approval. "They're on it."

"I watched the videos," the Agent said pointedly. "I don't know about him."

"I watched them!" Loki insisted, earning a disbelieving expression from the woman.

"But did you pay attention?" she asked before she ducked into the nearby tent as she followed the gray-haired man.

"To some of them," Loki admitted as he entered the tent as well.

The lead guard, Hunter B-15, had already surveyed the area and waited for everyone to circle around her before she announced her findings: "so he's taking hostages now?"

"The Variant's never taken a hostage before."

"Maybe he's upping his game," the Hunter suggested.

"Or he pruned her," another man offered.

"A Loki couldn't have gotten the jump on C-20," she countered.

As the guards— minutemen, according to the videos Jimin had watched— spread out around the dimly-lit space, Loki spoke up, "though you underestimate, actually—"

Hunter B-15 ignored him (and Jimin began to respect the guard a little more.) "Fan out and search for her, and hurry up because we're at three units until red line."

The minutemen began to follow her orders only for the Asgardian to stop them. "Wait. . . if you leave this tent, you'll end up like them."

"What do you see?" Mobius asked.

"I see a scheme and in that scheme, I see myself," he replied, beginning to pace. "We have a saying in Asgard, 'where there are wolf's ears, wolf's teeth are near.'" He crouched down. "It means to be aware of your surroundings which is absurd because my people are, by nature, gullible fools. A trait that I, the God of Mischief, exploited time and time again simply by listening. My teeth were sharp but my ears even sharper."

The Asian woman crossed her arms. "Yeah? Well, on Earth— sorry, Midgard— we have a saying too, commonly used among elementary and middle schoolers, which is 'liar, liar, pants on fire.' It means you're telling a big, fat fib— and you are. There's no one out there."

"We're running out of time, Mobius," Hunter B-15 reminded him. "I'd prefer to believe Agent Hui than a pathological liar."

The man looked between the two variants, weighing his interest in Loki to the Agent's known affinity for telling the truth. He sighed. "Just give him a chance."

Jimin stared at him incredulously. "Really?" she demanded.

Loki gave her a smug look and then he continued his speech: "you remind me of them. The Time Variance Authority and the gods of Asgard, one and the same. Drunk with power, blinded to the truth. Those you underestimate will devour you. You underestimate me, just as you underestimate this lesser Loki which is why you walk into one wolf's mouth after another."

The Hunter's device beeped and she glanced down. "Two units. He's wasting our time."

"We should look for C-20," Jimin pressed. "The only one drunk on power is this hypocrite." She gestured to the Asgardian.

"That's exactly what the Variant wants you to do," he countered. "It's a trap. He's waiting for you outside this tent."

"Should I secure the reset charges?" a minuteman asked his leader.

"No, he wants me," the Asgardian insisted. "I'm the key to his plan—"

"Good God," the Agents exclaimed, only to be interrupted.

"I tend to consider myself more on the malevolent side, but yes?" Loki asked.

Jimin closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing herself not to respond. "He's doing everything possible to waste time. He just wants to mess the timeline up again."

This time, Mobius took a moment to consider her words before he nodded. "She's right, there's no one out there."

"Reset the timeline," Hunter B-15 ordered, turning away from the two men.

Once the charge had been set to purple, everyone filed out of the tent while Jimin followed more slowly, casually bending down to pick up one of the fallen Minuteman's blade that had been dropped during the attack. She hid it carefully in the fold of her leather jacket before she quickly caught up to the rest of the team as the purple light began to spread over the nearby area.