"Alright mister, time to get up,"

"Just five more minutes, mom,"

Frigga laughed, "you said that five minutes ago, Loki,"

"But, mom, Thor isn't up yet so why do I have to be?"

She laughed again, "because Thor isn't going to learn how to create fireworks with magic this morning,"

Loki jerked up, "fireworks?!"

"Yes, fireworks. Now go get dressed, I'll be waiting for you in the library," Frigga got up and walked to the door.

"Wait mother! I have a question," she stopped and turned around. Loki was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking like he wanted to say something but didn't know how to say it.

"Well, out with it," she said after waiting a few moments.

"Why am I so different from the other kids?" He asked quietly.

Frigga was silent for a moment, contemplating how to respond. "Different in what way?" She finally asked

"Every way, mom. I look different, I'm smaller, I think differently, and none of the other kids use magic. Why am I different?" He said, a little louder this time. Frigga sighed. She'd known he'd inquire about this at some point, she had just hoped it wouldn't be this soon.

"Come here, son," he ran over to her, still in his night clothes, and wrapped his arms around her neck as she lifted him up into the air and carried him to a chair in the corner of his room. She would frequently read stories to him there before he went to sleep.

"First off, if everyone looked the same, it would be boring. Second, sometimes different people are good at different things, Loki. Some people are smarter than others, some are stronger, some are better at magic, and some are better at swordplay. Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses. They're what make people unique and what makes things work. If everyone was good at building things but no one understood farming, everyone would starve. Similarly, if everyone was big and strong and focused only on fighting and showing off their muscles, and no one was more focused on honing their mind and their magical talents, we would never have any new technological achievements, wouldn't have magic, wouldn't have-"

"Okay, okay, I get it now," Loki interrupted

"Do you?"

"Yeah mom, I get it." He smiled up at Frigga, "can you teach me to make fireworks now?"

She chuckled, "Yes, but you have to get dressed first. Go on," Loki jumped off of her lap and bounced over to his wardrobe and Frigga left, probably to go to the library and prepare his lesson.

"Loki, your trial is in twenty minutes," his eyes snapped open and the dream was gone. It was a bit odd, he hadn't dreamt of his childhood in a very long time, but he had other things to deal with right now so he brushed it aside for the moment. "Come on pal, it's time to get up," Loki sighed, he hadn't gotten nearly enough rest as he still felt exhausted, the bed had been terribly uncomfortable so it had taken him a while to fall asleep in the first place, and he really wasn't a morning person, so this day was of to an absolutely wonderful start. He rolled over and stood up, he really didn't want to be awake right now.

"Why does it have to be this early in the morning?" He asked Mobius.

"Because he wants to speak with you as soon as possible,"

"Wait, who's 'he'?" Loki inquired, already knowing the answer but asking anyway because if this really had been his first time here, he would be curious about this and probably not just ignore it.

"He'll introduce himself during the trial, he told me not to tell you before he sent me in here to collect you," Mobius responded. Yeah this definitely wasn't the same Mobius. He looked and sounded the same, but he acted a little differently.

Loki let out a sigh of frustration and followed Mobius out the door, down several hallways, past the man named Casey, and into what was, in his timeline, the room where he and Sylvie found out that the timekeepers were fake.

In this timeline, it was more like a throne room than anything. The setting sort of reminded him of Odin's throne room back on Asgard, the room had gold floors, white marble walls, and small artificial streams that ran along the lengths of the walls on his right and left side. There were also several benches set up in the back of the room. Then, at the front of the room, there was a golden staircase leading up to a throne that appeared to be made of the hands of millions of clocks. And of course, there was only one man instead of three ugly robotic space lizards.

That was when he noticed something else, something potentially disastrous. None of the hunters that were evenly spaced across the edges of the room appeared to possess pruning sticks. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen a single one since he'd arrived here. Crap, did they not use pruning sticks in this timeline? It was then that he realized that if his theory was correct, and he was hoping and praying it wasn't, he was utterly and completely screwed.

Mobius motioned for him to continue walking and sat down on one of the benches in the very back of the room while Loki began to walk, head held high and back completely straight, toward the front of the room. Outside he was calm and collected. Inside, however, he was panicking. As he approached this alternate version of He Who Remains, the man stood up and said to Loki, "So you're the one who made all of this possible," okay, so this new He Who Remains knew that this wasn't the sacred timeline.

Loki smirked, playing along, and simply said, "Indeed,"

"Well then I think we can all agree that thanks and apologies are in order, right guys?"

"Well gratitude could certainly be expected, why the apology though?"

"Well, that's… um… cause I have to kill you,"

"And why would you have to do that? I could be of great use to you," Loki said, this situation was going south very quickly, so he did what he always did when he was in trouble; he tried to appeal to his enemy and make them think he could help them.

"You'd be of better use to me dead," the He Who Remains variant said. Okay, backup plan failed. time for the backup backup plan. Loki stared straight at him and said, "I'm sure we could work something out,"

"Nope," He Who Remains said, leaning back in his chair and looking like he had just been relieved of something that had been causing him a lot of stress.

Loki realized two things then; one, he was going to die unless he figured something out very quickly. Two, the variant wanted him dead because he was just like the robotic timekeepers, scared of Loki and wanting to finish him off before he could realize that fact. A slow smile spread across his face at the revelation. He began to laugh and took no small amount of satisfaction from the fact that several of the minutemen around the room flinched when they heard it.

"I get it now," he said, looking defiantly up at the variant. He was just a middle aged man who was trying to keep up the illusion of being in charge. A look of nervousness flashed across the man's face, but it was covered up so swiftly that Loki doubted anyone but himself noticed it. He laughed and asked, "what do you get?"

"I understand what your minions here don't. You are a coward. You don't want me dead because you have no use for me, you want me gone because I killed your other self and you know I can do the same to you. You are a coward. And another thing, you're a liar. Watch, I'll prove it!"

Loki pointed to the minuteman closest to him and said, "you! Who created you?" The guy took a couple seconds to get over the shock of being directly spoken to before hesitantly saying, "Mr. Kang did, variant,"

"Now hang on a minute-" Kang tried to interject, but Loki interrupted him before he could finish speaking.

"Wrong!" The minuteman flinched back as Loki leaned toward him, "He didn't create you! That's just a lie he's come up with to instill gratitude and a sense of loyalty in all of you. You," he said, gesturing around the room at all of the people there, "are all variants. You used to have families! Places on the timeline! Lives!" Some of them were starting to look uncertain, normally he would be annoyed that they were so easily persuaded and led into doubting something they'd believed for for probably hundreds of years, but right now it was helping him so he was grateful.

"And all of that was taken from you by that man." He pointed at Kang as he looked around and met the eyes of every person in the room, "he has taken you from your real homes and stolen your memories to create what is probably the largest manipulation I have ever seen. And he's done it all to give himself power over the Multiverse and-" Loki was interrupted by Kang as the man tried to get the situation back under his control,

"Alright, enough of this nonsense, Loki. He's just lying to try to save himself and I've grown rather tired of this performance of his. As leader of the TVA I hereby sentence you to death for your crimes against myself and the TVA, and for starting another Multiversal war," some of the Minutemen around the room were now glancing nervously at each other as they seemed to come to the conclusion that maybe Loki had been telling the truth. It was only a few, but it was enough to make Kang a little nervous. Loki siezed the opportunity and continued his campaign against Kang by saying, "see! Even now, when the truth has been revealed to you, he continues to lie to your faces! It's all a part of his grand illusion. I'll leave it to you to decide wether or not to believe his ridiculously obvious deception" with this, he looked around the room again, watching the reactions of all of the people in the room.

"I mean really, have you ever actually seem him create anything? Kang, if you really are powerful enough to create the TVA and everyone in it, please, give us a demonstration. Prove your right to sit upon the throne you've constructed," Kang's eyes were bright with barely concealed rage now, and Loki could tell that if he pushed much further, Kang was going to lash out in rage. Perfect.

"Anyone willing to make a wager? How about this, thirty gold coins and a magic lesson with me if you win says that this fraud couldn't even make an illusion of a person, let alone an actual intelligent human being," that did it. Kang launched himself up from his seat and down the gold steps while simultaneously pulling a hidden dagger from inside of his cloak and aiming it right at Loki's heart. He had been anticipating something like this though, and dodged out of the way of the blade before it could do any damage, which set Kang off balance.

He was fast, unnerving fast actually, that could be problematic. It was important that he didn't hurt Kang during this fight though, it would help him win over the Minutemen because they would see Loki as a victim/hero who had been trying to deliver the truth to them when their evil master attacked him for it, so refusing to fight back would make his victim/hero charade more convincing. Kang quickly recovered his balance and came at him again, this time when he jumped back to avoid the dagger though, another one, held in Kang's other hand was waiting for him and Loki barely managed to avoid it. If it appeared that Loki was winning the fight, there was a chance that some of the Minutemen who still weren't convinced would step in and try to help Kang, and that would be very bad.

Their dance of death continued, Kang slashing, stabbing, and sometimes throwing his seemingly endless supply of dangers, and Loki ducking, dodging, and weaving around the deadly weapons, until finally, Kang managed to get in a slice to Loki's cheek. They continued to move around the room and eventually, with Loki being weaponless and tired, his focus broke for a split second, and sadly it was enough for Kang to send his blade straight at Loki's neck.

A.N.

dun, dun, duuuuuun, -Belt, The Croods

Hey peeps! How's it going? Yes i know, it's a major cliffhanger, but since Loki's the main character there's this thing called plot armor that sort of protects him from death, the question is, how does he survive? I'd love to hear any theories, criticisms, suggestions, or questions you have in the review section! Anyway, since only one person shared their opinion on which day of the week I should aim to update on, the day is... Saturday! I love Saturdays btw, they're awesome! in the future I will try to update every one to two Saturdays, it really just depends on my mood and how many assignments my teachers give me (and wether or not I'm binge watching/reading a good series) so this will probably be the last time I update this series on any day other than Saturday. I've also decided to do a section at the beginning of every chapter to respond to any comments that are posted on this fanfic for the previous chapter. Idk why I just thought it would be an interesting thing to do. Hope you liked the latest chapter and see you next time!

p.s. thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited my story, and I know everyone says this, but it seriously does mean a lot to me that my writing is actually being enjoyed by some people. :)