Author's Note: Honestly… at this point the entire series is going to be rewritten with the inclusion of Mobie, and I am not objecting to this. (I promise I am not doing this to procrastinate on my other outstanding projects … it is because I am procrastinating on my other outstanding projects… [hides]).

Word Count: 980

Owns the Cat

Loki barely paid attention to the video that played overhead as he waited in the very empty room that was roped off with a zig-zaggy maze. He watched with mild concern as the other person dressed like him got turned to dust with a tap of a glowing stick, instinctively pulling the purring feline closer to him. She mewled in reply, looking up at him, pawing the air, asking to play. He shifted Mobie so he could hold her with one arm without causing discomfort, which she gladly adapted to settling with her belly across his forearm and hand against her chest, back feet tucked under her. He used his free hand to pull the paper ticket from his pocket to avoid the same fate as the other person had.

Mobie soft-paw swatted at the paper ticket when Loki held it up to show the guard, and when they simply pointed to a side door to walk toward before resuming their serious stance behind him, glow-tipped weapon in hand and ready to guide him through. Loki half-rolled his eyes, but proceeded toward it anyway while waving the paper ticket around in front of Mobie, who was happily swatting the air, trying to grab it from his hand.

When they entered a very intimidating chamber that was obviously set up and designed to look and feel that way. Loki glanced around the space as he walked down the rows of empty benches toward the tall, towering podium where a woman sat staring expressionless straight ahead. Three ridiculously large alien heads were mounted on the wall behind her, and the room was very, very brown and beige and boring and infuriating all at once.

"This place is astronomically preposterous, isn't it, Mobie?" he whispered, getting a quiet mew in response.

Loki fluttered the paper close to her, and she successfully caught it with a skilled swat and pulled it to her face to sniff and nip at. A guard stopped behind him, and he was prompted to stand in a strange looking circular space with bars surrounding him from the waist down. Mobie dropped the paper from her mouth, watching it drift to the floor before she looked up at the person in front of them. Loki could feel her quiet growl grumble in her chest.

"Loki Laufeyson, Charged with sequence violation 72089," the woman said, her voice reaching all corners of the carefully crafted room. She looked at him, raising a brow. "What are you holding?"

Loki tilted his head slightly at her, placing a hand on top of Mobie's back and lifted her up ever so slightly. "It's a cat."

The woman tisked, flagging a guard. "Remove the cat."

When the guard approached and attempted to grab Mobie, she pushed her back against Loki's chest, striking the person's hands with its sharp claws, and spit hissed. Her emerald eyes darkened and her chest grumbled threateningly. The guard pulled their hands away, narrowly missing her claws, and instead went for their staff at their side. Loki's eyes narrowed at the gesture, and Mobie's growls only continued to grow more hostile.

"She is a support animal," Loki explained, shifting Mobie to guard her as best as he could with his arms now.

"Support… for what?" the woman asked.

"Well, she gets anxious if left alone in a foreign place," he responded, albeit sarcastically, "and doesn't bode well with being mishandled by strangers in armor and glowy sticks."

"Who authorized this?" she demanded, looking out into the very empty room.

"The one in the room with the red scanner," Loki supplied, smirking with amusement when the woman glared back at him.

"Get me the paperwork immediately," she snapped at a guard.

While waiting, Loki saw the plaque in front of the woman looming over him written in gold lettering: Judge Ravonna Renslayer. So, this place was intending to sentence him to something without even bothering to tell him what it was he was being imprisoned for. He continued offering calming pets to Mobie, who remained tense and alert, but leaned into his touch. Her ears twitched to take in the sound of the door opening behind them, and her slight incline of her head told Loki she was taking in a new scent.

The black figure he saw in the corner of his eye approaching was dismissed, who he was more interested in watching—and was pretty sure was the one Mobie was responding to as well—was the new arrival that was dressed far differently than everyone else around him. They took a quiet seat near the middle, making it somewhat easy for Loki to observe with the slightest move of his head and side-glance toward the floor. Gaining an audience was certainly a new thing for him, usually it was quite the opposite.

When a guard approached the Judge with a slip of paper, Judge Ravonna deflated ever so slightly. Loki stood at attention when she looked back at him, silently mocking her by mimicking the guard's stance behind him. Mobie seemed quite proud of herself too, puffing her chest out slightly and looking up at the judge with her own emerald, smug gaze.

"Fine," the Judge said almost venomously, "Your companion may stay…"

"Well, that is certainly a relief to know you honor your own rules," Loki replied boredly. "Now, if I may be so inclined to know what all of this is about and why I am here… wherever here is, I am sure we could then proceed to sort out whatever misunderstanding this charge is you are attempting to sentence me with and could potentially be fairly easily smoothed over."

Keeping his little bundle Mobie was a small victory for him, at least. Hopefully things would continue to go in his favor, and he felt like this new arrival might be that key to this otherwise madness unfolding around him.