Case 5: The Blazing Trail

"No- stay back!" Loki shouted as he ran through the different areas of the Null Time Zone, while the woman in green and black was hot on his trail.

"You can't run forever, palace boy, I've been literally running my entire life! I'll get you, Loki!" She called back.

Sylvie continued to chase her male counterpart until he was backed into a corner. "No! Mobius, Jörmungandr, Casey, anyone help!" He yelled as Sylvie grabbed him by his shirt. "Sylvie, can we talk about this? Please?"

"You can't talk your way out of this one, Loki, and soon you won't be able to…" Sylvie smirked as she lifted his shirt higher.

"No, no-no, wait, stop her!" But Loki's protests were in vain as Sylvie began to give his bared belly a ferocious tickling! As she predicted, Loki was rendered unable to say another word as he laughed hysterically. He tried his hardest to retaliate, but it proved ineffective as Sylvie's Asgardian-style leather armor protected her weak spots. Loki continued to laugh, now pinned down on the floor as Mobius passed by.

"M-M-Mo-Mo-bi-hehehe, ehehehelp!" Loki struggled to get out.

"Whoa! I'm coming, Loki!" Mobius ran over to help, but to his surprise, Mobius tickled both of Loki's exposed sides while Sylvie kept at his abdomen.

"OOHOOHOOHOOHOO! I-I-I meant hehehehehel-help me-hehe, not hehe-her, you traitor! AHAHAHAHAHAHA-"

"I'm not betraying you. You of all people should know some deception is required in our line of work." Mobius explained as a great serpent slithered up behind Sylvie. "…now!" Jörmungandr swiftly pulled Sylvie's leather shirt in his teeth, creating an opening for Mobius to tickle her ribs. As Sylvie was caught off guard by the surprise attack, Loki joined him, and she was quickly paralyzed by the onslaught.

"You're right, Mobius, a little deception does come in handy every now and then, ehehe!" Loki grinned. "Wouldn't you agree, Casey?"

"What? Oh no…" Mobius slowly turned behind him to see Casey, who had just swiped the analyst's shoes and socks.

"He promised he'd take me to SeaWorld." The young man admitted.

"No-" Loki promptly tickled Mobius's bare foot with one hand and Sylvie's belly with the other. "HAHAHAHAHAHA, T-T-TRAITOR!" He and Sylvie both howled with laughter.

"You betrayed me first, my friend, but lighten up: at least you're getting the last laugh!"

As Mobius lost his grip on Sylvie's ribs, she ambidextrously moved in on Loki's sides and Mobius's other foot. Mobius hooted and hollered, unable to withstand a Loki variant at each foot. Thankfully for Mobius, the detective hotline started ringing after a few seconds.

"I-hehehehe, I gotta get that- hahaha!" The mischievous duo reluctantly let him go to answer it and focused their full attention back on each other. "J-J-Jörmungandr-" The giant snake carried him on his back to the enhanced phone, as his feet tingled, and he was too stunned to walk. Mobius got all the giggles out of his system and cleared his throat before answering. "Time Detectives, what's your mystery today?"

"Hello, it's our master, he's gone missing! We haven't seen him in over three months!"

"Really? Do you think someone's holding him for ransom? Is he rich?"

"Oh, very! He has over 500 servants worried for him here! As the head of the prestigious Bader household, he's by far the richest man in town!"

Mobius wrote down the information on his notepad. "Right, so do you have any clue as to who might have the most motivation to hold your master ba-" The analyst quickly bit his lip and stopped himself. "Oh, haha, nice try, I'm not gonna say that. The old dirty name joke, eh? Don't you have anything original?"

Nonetheless, the incorrigible prankster laughed at him, while Sylvie stormed up to the phone and took it from Mobius. "Listen, you idiotic, immature pain in the ass, I've give you one chance to stop these pathetic attempts at clowning, or I'll personally sew your stupid mouth shut!" She slammed the phone and hung up, making Mobius and Loki jump.

"Wow! Well, I'm terrified for him now!"

"Oh come on, Mobius, she wouldn't really do something that… graphic, not to a Loki! …you wouldn't, Sylvie, would you?" Loki asked nervously, walking up to his friends.

"Well obviously, we've still got to find him first. Let's have a listen to the background, shall we?" Loki started to play back the recording, but it was interrupted by another call. "Popular day." Mobius answered. "Time Detectives, solving any mystery throughout all of history! You got a case for us?"

"Yes, I do! There's been a string of fires across Contraxia! We thought it was natural until we discovered the same thing happened to a bunch of other planets in the galaxy! We'd like you to find this arsonist to put a stop to this!"

"Of course, and you're from the year… wow, 7450 AD! We'll come right away and get more information, see what clues we can gather on your world, okay?"

"Okay, thank you!"

Mobius hung up. "Let's put that prank caller mystery on hold: we've got a pyromaniac to catch!"

"Oh, sounds like fun! Sylvie, are you in?" Loki offered.

"Yeah, I'm in. Gotta make sure you two don't burn the whole galaxy to the ground while you're at it." She joked.

"Why, were you planning on beating us to it?" Loki coyly stepped towards her, slowly clasping her hands. "Or perhaps the two of us could play with fire together?"

"What about SeaWorld?"

The mischievous duo was interrupted as Casey stood grinning, TemPad in one hand and an old-fashioned camera in the other.

"Oh, right. Sorry Casey, we'll go after we find and stop the criminal, I promise!"

Casey's grin faded as he set his equipment down. "Yeah, okay."

Loki and Sylvie followed Mobius through the time door to the snow-capped planet, looking among the burned-downed buildings until they found their client, waving his hands above his head to get their attention.

"Detectives, over here! Look at what happened to my house!" He tapped with his foot a chunk of his charred roof from the rubble. "I hope there's something left down here that'll give you a clue."

The detectives inspected the ashes and burnt rubble, checking with their client to confirm that all the remains belonged to him and his family.

"Yeah, my partners and I can both agree that this fire didn't start by accident: this is a deliberate path." Mobius stated.

"Yet we can't determine a motive for this arsonist at this point: we definitely need to inspect the other houses that were hit." Loki told him.

"Not only that, but we'll need to know what other planets were targeted so we can find some sort of reasonable pattern." Sylvie added.

"Right, that makes sense. First, my name is Tyrus, from the Lighton family. I don't know of anyone who'd be targeting us in particular: we aren't wealthy or famous, or infamous, and we don't have any enemies."

Mobius extended his hand to greet him. "Hi, Mr. Lighton, you can call me Mr. Paradox. This young man next to me is Mr. Ouroboros."

Tyrus gave each of them a handshake. "And you are?" He asked Sylvie.

"Call me Miss Lushton." She shook his hand.

"We'll see what we can find." The trio went from house to house, getting similar answers from the other victims. One of the burnt-down buildings had no survivors, some of the injured too badly burned to answer questions, but they learned that the planets recently targeted had cold climates.

"So, you didn't see who started the fire either?"

"No, I was asleep, and my dog woke me up when he smelled the smoke." The man answered, petting the retriever who sat at his feet. "Good boy."

"Indeed." Loki smiled. "Hmm, I wonder…"

"FIRE!" They all turned toward the sudden screaming as a large building went up in flames. "FIRE EVERYWHERE! HELP!"