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Memories
Veles ducked under a burst of laser fire. A Chitauri landed in front of him, only for Veles to drive his Time Stick's blade up into its head, pivoting around the Chitauri and adjusting his grip before ripping the blade back out before driving the Pruning end into another Chitauri's chest. As the Chitauri burned away, Veles spun, hurling the Time Stick across the battlefield to Val, who caught the weapon and spun, slashing another across the throat.
As a small army of Sakaaran soldiers swarmed toward Veles, he yanked his daggers out, darting forward and ducking and weaving through the Sakaarans. He slashed two, stabbed one, hurled a dagger into another. He push-kicked a Sakaaran in the chest, hurling it backward into several others. A Sakaaran leapt onto his back, only for Veles to grab it, flipping it over his shoulder and slamming it to the ground, then stabbed it in the face. As he stood, he hurled the remaining dagger before sweeping his arms out to the sides, forming a pair of blades along the outsides of his arms and past his fists, both of them having a hollow fuller along their middle. He began to spin and twirl through the Sakaarans, his blades flashing and ringing musically as they carved through the Sakaarans' bodies. Finally, just as he finished them off, Val crashed down in front of him, finishing a Chitauri with one of the two Time Sticks' blade.
"We only have two-" Val was cut off by a wall of debris slamming into her.
Veles swore as Ebony Maw floated himself toward them, hands clasped in front of himself. Veles swung his arms forward, sending his arm blades flashing toward Ebony Maw with his telekinesis, only for Ebony Maw's much stronger telekinesis to catch them. However, just as he did, a dozen duplicates of the blades appeared in a wave of greenish-gold light, all flashing toward Ebony Maw. He caught them as well, then sent them all flashing away from himself. Except, just as he did, a Time Stick spun through the cloud of blade duplicates, the Pruning end slamming into Ebony Maw's face as the blade duplicates vanished. Then, a Timedoor opened beside him, and Veles grabbed Val, fleeing through just as a reset charge finally went off. As he reached the TVA, he set Val down, sighing and nodding to the others.
"We figured you might be too busy to open your own Timedoor, but leaving you there to be Pruned sounded rude," Daredevil said. "She okay?"
Veles glanced back down at Val in time for her to groan, her eyes fluttering for a moment before finally opening. She groaned, holding a hand to her head, then smiled.
"You won?" Val asked.
"Of course I won," Veles scoffed. "And then carried you to safety. You're welcome."
Val laughed. "I appreciate it." She allowed Veles to help her up. "I'm going to go and rest now."
The others all nodded, also all heading to their rooms. Veles lay down heavily, groaning as his body ached, feeling like lead now that the battle was over.
Loki narrowed his eyes, staring at the glowing, orange rectangle, then whipped his daggers out as people began to emerge from it, dressed in black armor with orange highlights, all of them holding batons with glowing ends.
"Variant identified," one of them stated.
"Variant?" Loki scoffed. "Who are you?"
"Loki Odinson?" one if them a pretty human with wavy brown hair with blonde highlights and a clipboard asked.
"That's right," Loki nodded.
"We're from the Time Variance Authority," the woman explained. "My name is Heather."
"What are you doing?" the one who'd spoken first asked.
"Trying something new," Heather said. "If it doesn't work, we can Prune him after. We have ten minutes, there's still time."
"You can what?" Loki asked.
"Prune you," Heather said. "It means erase you from existence. But we might not need to. As I said, we're from the Time Variance Authority. We monitor the flow of time and keep things moving according to the proper order. Each time someone deviates from what is meant to happen, that person is referred to as a Variant, and it creates a branch in the timeline. Normally, we would arrest you for it, but I think you can still correct the mistake. If you do, we can allow you to remain."
"And if not you'll, what, incinerate me?" Loki asked.
"Not just you," Heather said. "We'll Prune everything. You, Thor, Odin, your mother, Sif."
Loki's eyes narrowed.
"We'll erase everything you know, and then the timeline will recreate everything the way it should be, resetting itself," Heather explained. "So we'll give you the choice. Either you can follow our instructions and follow the correct order of events, or we'll Prune your entire life."
"I don't believe you," Loki decided, stepping forward.
Before he could take another, Heather swung her baton around, pressing the glowing end to a tray of uneaten grapes on Loki's room's table. Instantly, there was a snapping, popping, hiss and the entire tray vanished in a wave of orange and blue light starting at the point of contact, not even leaving a pile of ash. Loki stared at it for a moment before turning back to Heather, who held up a small, glass container with a copper frame around it, swirling orange gas inside of it.
"This starts a chain reaction that will erase everything," Heather said. "So, the choice is yours."
Loki swallowed hard. "What did I do wrong?"
"That prank you decided not to pull on Sif," Heather said. "You have..." she checked a small device on her forearm, "three minutes to pull it."
"So...you want me to be cruel?" Loki asked.
"It's the way things are meant to happen," Heather said. "Oh, and one more thing. If you ever say anything about us, we'll be forced to Prune this timeline immediately."
Loki hesitated, then nodded, hurrying from the room. He went to Sif's room and stopped, staring for a moment before drawing his knife. Carefully but quickly, he cut off all of the hair on one side of her head, then returned to his room. As he arrived, Heather and the group with her were staring at their machines.
"Well?" Loki asked.
Heather removed the device and turned it toward him. "This white line is the correct timeline. The correct flow of events. These red lines," she pointed to a pair of pulsing red lines above and below the white line, all three of which ran straight across the screen, "are the limits for where Pruning a branch timeline is too late, and the timeline can't be stopped. We will not allow a branch timeline to reach that point. This orange line represents the branch timeline we're in, which was caused by your deviation from the proper order of events."
Loki watched as the orange line, which was heading up the screen, becan to curve, first leveling out, then curving back toward the white line. "So...it worked? You don't have to...Prune us all?"
"That's right," Heather nodded. "If you deviate from the Sacred Timeline again, we will be back, and it may be to Prune you all."
"But how am I supposed to know if I deviate if I don't know the future?" Loki asked.
"I'll give you a hint," Heather said. "Your role on the timeline is to always plot to rule, and to always take your jokes too far."
"That tells me nothing," Loki said.
"You'll see," Heather shrugged. "For now, you get to stay."
She and the others turned, walking through the same, strange, orange doorway.
It was wrong. Everything was wrong. It wasn't supposed to be this way. He stumbled as Thor shouted in agony, the massive, mutated Dark Elf's fist colliding with the side of his head. Thor's neck snapped loudly as his head spun around backward, collapsing. Sif shrieked in fear and dismay, then lunged for the Dark Elves she was facing, hacking and slashing. But then, as she struck from her left, a laser flashed past, slipping under the shield she was holding out of her sword's way, and punched into her chest. Loki sank to his knees, staring at their lifeless corpses. They were gone. The Dark Elves had killed his mother. Odin had died of a broken heart when her death had been announced. Now Thor was gone. And Sif. Sif, who he'd frequently been hesitant to be cruel to. Who he'd forced to hate him by following the TVA's repeated instructions. Sif, who Loki had loved more than anyone. They were all gone. Everyone. And a moment later, the TVA was there in force, Pruning any Dark Elves who attacked them. Multiple of the TVA's forces fell, but Heather knelt in front of Loki, ignoring the chaos around them as she watched him in silence for a moment.
"Why?" Loki asked. "Why did this happen?"
"Because of you," Heather said.
"You should have just Pruned me," Loki said, staring at Sif. "At least then..."
Heather sighed. "Come with me. We can't save your timeline this time, so I'm placing you under arrest for crimes against the Sacred Timeline."
Loki nodded mutely, standing and following her to the doorway. The rest of the surviving TVA soldiers had left, and at the door, Loki turned, looking back as the wave of destruction spread from the container. As he watched, it consumed Thor, then Sif.
Veles opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling for a moment before reaching up and wiping his eyes. He pushed himself upright, then wiped his eyes again. He hated remembering. He hated reliving his mistakes.
He looked over at the door as someone knocked. "Come..." He cleared his throat so that his voice would be less of a broken croak. "Come in."
The door hissed open and Val walked in, instantly able to see he'd been remembering.
"You alright?" Val asked.
"I'm fine," Veles said. "Just a bad dream."
Val nodded, sitting beside him. "You wanna talk about it?"
Veles shook his head. "I'm fine. Nothing that matters anymore."
Val nodded. "You know, I'm here if you ever need to talk."
"I know," Veles nodded. "I appreciate it."
Val nodded, then stood, taking his hand. "I want to show you something."
Veles frowned, following her to the armory for their TemPads, then through a Timedoor. A moment later, they stepped out into a deserted field surrounded by glowing, green and pink trees, and the sky overhead filled with stars. Once the Timedoor had closed, both shut off their TemPads, sighing.
"So, we're able to be on the Sacred Timeline as long as there's no one around," Veles noticed.
Val nodded. "This field only looks like this for twenty four hours on the entire Sacred Timeline. In a few hours, the planet will be destroyed as collateral damage in a war between several Celestials."
"That's too bad," Veles said, staring up at the stars. "It's beautiful here."
Val nodded. "Yes, it is. So, what's been haunting you?"
Veles sighed heavily before speaking. "My name's not Veles, first of all. It's Loki. And in my old life, I caused a Nexus Event by being hesitant to pull a cruel prank on Sif, one of my brother's friends, who..."
"Who you were in love with," Val finished.
"Yeah," Veles nodded. "I chose not to be cruel, and it caused a Nexus Event. But instead of Pruning the timeline, my analyst, Heather, tried something different. She told me about the TVA and the Sacred Timeline, and told me how to save my timeline. And then, just in case that didn't work, they threatened to Prune everything if I didn't do what they said. Very carrot-and-stick. So, I did what they said, and it worked. My branch timeline corrected itself, so I got to live."
"That works?" Val asked, surprised.
"No, it doesn't," Veles said. "After that first Nexus Event, there were others. Every few months or so, there was another issue. It was always that I didn't do something cruel. I wasn't nearly cruel enough to follow the timeline properly. Unlike the perfect Loki, I wanted to be a better person for Sif. Instead, I forced myself to be cruel, and to make her hate me. But for the most part, we followed the timeline.
"But there were smaller issues. Ones that, alone, didn't register. They were negligible. But my reluctance to act as cruelly as they wanted was a spark that caused small changes. Invisible ones. A strengthening of a will to survive here. A weakening of one there. An instinctive tendency to strike from the left instead of the right. Ducking instead of dodging. That spark eventually became a sudden and terrible bonfire or explosion. Sif struck from the wrong side. Thor ducked instead of dodging. Odin's will to live weakened. A Dark Elf named Kurse's will to live strengthened. And suddenly, everyone was dead. An irrecoverable branch. Everything I loved was gone.
"The TVA Pruned my timeline and I was brought here. But instead of being put on trial, Miss Minutes offered me the opportunity to protect the Sacred Timeline, to ensure nothing like that ever happened again. After I agreed, they tried to erase my memories, but I have the ability to brainwash people, and I can see people's memories, as well, or force them to relive one, so I'm immune to it. Once it didn't work, Miss Minutes instead showed me the life Sif was meant to live. She survives long past the death I caused, and she eventually falls in love and gets married. She's happy. So I agreed to serve and keep the TVA's secret. And now, I protect the Sacred Timeline."
Val nodded. "And you never met me?"
"You were meant to come later," Veles said. "As an enemy, then a companion until I die, then you'd have lived a long, happy life as well."
Val frowned. "Could...Could you show me?"
Veles hesitated. "Do you...Do you really want to know? It will make it harder, and even though it's you, it's also not. It's your memories that make you who you are. If I make you remember your old life, it may change who you are. And...as I understand it, your past isn't pleasant."
Val frowned, but nodded. "I want to know."
Veles nodded, reaching up to cup the sides of her face. She raised an eyebrow, an amused smirk on her lips, only for it to vanish as a shimmering green light emanated from under his hands and was matched by a light glowing from her eyes. And Veles had been right. At first, the memories were okay. Life as a Valkyrie were filled with pride and the joy of belonging. Nights with her blonde lover from among the Valkyrie's number were filled with love and joy. But then, Hela rose, and the Valkyries were wiped out, all but Brunnhilde. Her lover died shielding her, and that pain haunted her for centuries as she left the world to hide on Sakaar.
But then, when Thor finally arrived, the Nexus Event happened. It was a day or two later, when the Loki of her timeline had done the same as Veles just had, forcing her to relive her past. She'd been in so much pain, and so angry that he'd forced her to feel that pain, that she'd killed him. Crushed his skull under her fist. And then, the TVA had arrived, Heather in the lead. Val had been taken directly to have her memory wiped at Miss Minutes' order. She got to keep her abilities, but she lost herself.
As Veles withdrew from her mind, Val let out a shuddering breath, tears rolling thickly down her cheeks. Veles pulled his hands away, and Val sniffed, wiping her eyes.
"I'm sorry," Veles apologized.
Val shook her head. "Thank you. I understand how you feel, now."
Veles nodded, raising a hand. In a wave of light, a shortsword with a beautiful, blue blade appeared in his hand. A Dragonfang, the weapon of a Valkyrie. Val smiled, accepting the weapon.
"Thank you," Val smiled.
They sat in silence for a time, watching the stars. After a few minutes, Val bumped her shoulder into Veles'.
"For what it's worth, you're a good man, and you're a great friend," Val said. "I'm happy I got to meet you."
Veles smiled. "Thank you." He looked back up at the sky just as flashes of light began to flash past. "A meteor shower."
"No, that's the beginning of the battle," Val sighed, pushing herself up, then pulling Veles up. "We still have a couple hours, but we should get back."
Veles nodded, reaching for his TemPad, only for Val to pull him into a hug. He blinked in surprise, then hugged her back.
"I'm so sorry," Val said. "If you ever need anything, I'm here."
Veles smiled, stepping back and nodding. "I could use some alcohol."
Val smiled as they both turned their TemPads back on. "I couldn't agree more."
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