Sigyn trips through the Time Cell door Hilda opens in the middle of the room and lands somewhere she didn't expect to be. Her home. It's exactly as she remembers it. The furniture is all arranged in the somewhat chaotic fashion her parents always kept it. The windows are slightly cracked open to allow the cool breeze of sea salt-smelling air to disrupt some of the woody mildew scent in the house. The many windows also show the cliffs she'd missed so often over the years, a constant feature of her dreams, as seagulls fly off them and down to the beach below.

Suddenly, Sigyn realizes another feature of her dreams that would probably be here. She runs to the banister and calls up the stairs, "Mum!" No response comes. "Mum, I'm home!"

Instead of the reply she's expecting, a voice calls from the kitchen. One Sigyn isn't expecting. "Your parents are out at the moment. Have a seat."

It's Dr. Nemisis. Not only that, but Sigyn recognizes his words. It's exactly what he said to her the first time they met. This is precisely how it went after she returned to her house after running off to London. She makes her way towards the kitchen, and of course, Dr. Nemisis is there in the flesh, sitting at her table just like he did those few years ago. "You're supposed to be dead. I killed you."

"You must have me mistaken. I'm afraid we've never met. But I do have something of interest for you. I think you're in terrible danger. Please, take a seat."

Sigyn finds herself obliging and taking a seat across from the man. Perhaps if she plays along, this whole thing will be over. "Alright, show me what you've got."

"I'm afraid your parents aren't who you think they are, my dear." He pulls out two manilla folders from his briefcase and gently passes them across the table. Each contains a bio on each of her parents. "I'm sure you've found out, they aren't your biological parents. And I know that because I was the one who employed them. They worked at my lab to try and figure out how your unique abilities work."

Knowing what she's supposed to say, Sigyn feeds the man a line to spur him on. "But they're better than you. They rescued me."

"They did take you away from the lab. I cannot deny that. But your parents are scientists first. They understand the nature of things, how they work. But they will always see you in the context of that lab—a dangerous variable. One that needs to be contained."

Even though she's had this conversation before, Sigyn feels genuine emotion arise. "You're lying."

"Sadly, I'm not." He then passes across another manilla folder, one containing blueprints. The blueprints that haunt Sigyn still to this day. This must be why Hilda sent her here. To punish her. To make her heart drop faster than a rock tumbling off the cliffs next to her home. A moment in time that, to this day, she tries not to think about. "Yes, I may have had my people track you here from London. But this is how I knew to even look for you in London. Someone submitted a patent for a very particular type of containment cell that can withstand extremely large surges of energy and withstand amplified brainwaves. I saw the application and thought to myself, my, my, doesn't that sound similar to what one of my scientists who ran off with our subject had conceptualized? The patent was then sold to the London office of S.H.E.I.L.D. if you're at all familiar with the world's intelligence agencies."

She shrugs in response, not trying to let the words get to her. She instead veers off script to try and defend her parents. "I don't want to look."

"You cannot avoid the truth, Sigyn! You can only discover it," he says, his voice more raised and forceful than the cool and calm demeanour that he exhibited before. "The technique used to temper the glass to give it its energy-resistant properties was only discovered in 2008, so, I hate to say it, but this is a brand new design, Sigyn." He points to a date on one of the patent papers containing information about the patent sale. "And do you see the date here?"

She doesn't have to look at it to know what it says. The image has always been permanently burnt into her brain. It reads February 14th, 2009. Exactly one week after she had run away to London, her father registered the patent and sold it to S.H.E.I.L.D..

"Your parents are afraid of your potential, Sigyn. They view you as a monster, incapable of controlling the abilities she's been given. They want to hide you away from the world, make you stifle a part of yourself and pretend to be a 'normal' human. They want to cage you," he points to the blueprints again to make his point very clear. "If you come with me, I can help you learn about what you are. The part of yourself that they've made you hide away all these years is not something you should be made to feel ashamed of."

Not being able to take it anymore, she gets out of her chair and storms out the back door in the kitchen, expecting to be met with a strong and chilly sea breeze, but instead finds herself walking through the front door of her house.

The voice of Dr. Nemisis calls from the kitchen. "Your parents are out at the moment. Have a seat."

Sigyn's face blanches as she starts to feel like she's getting the idea of what Hilda meant by time loop. This is going to be one hell of a day.

~~~

Hilda knows the TVA like the back of her head. It's for that reason, that she can take a pretty accurate stab as to where they're housing the main Variant Loki they've been chasing. But, as voices echo through the halls, she realizes she might not be the only one who's had an idea.

Mobius' voice carries around the corner. "...we've brought in Kree, Titians, vampires. Why is it the two orphan demigods are such a pain in the ass?"

Hilda turns the corner, revealing herself to Mobius, Hunter C-15 and her team. "If we're talking about pains in the ass, Xandarian's with unresolved biological parent issues are also a bit of a problem."

"Yes, well, who do we have to blame for that?" questions Hunter C-15.

Mobius glances over to Hilda. "I'm happy to share credit for the idea."

Hilda rolls her eyes and shakes her head. Realizing that there's no way she will be able to sneak in to talk with the Loki Variant, she decides to pretend she came looking for Mobius. "Can we talk for a sec?"

He nods, and they go to take off down the hallway, but Hunter C-15 stops him by calling his name. "Did Loki say anything while you were in there?"

"He said the TVA's lying to me," he says with an almost amused tone. His words spark something in Hilda's brain. Sigyn had said that to her as well, and something isn't sitting right with her about that. It doesn't seem very likely that Loki and Sigyn would have had the forethought to try and deceive them like this. They seemed pretty surprised when the TVA had shown up on Laminitis-1. "Why?"

Hunter C-15 shakes her head, giving Hilda even more reason to find the topic suspicious. "Just doing my job."

Hilda and Mobius walk away from the theatre door the minutemen are guarding in a brief moment of silence, both waiting until they are out of earshot to say anything. After a minute of walking, Mobius finally breaks the silence. "Did Hunter C-15 seem like she was acting weird at all to—"

"—Mobius, Sigyn said the same thing to me. That the TVA is lying to us. She told me that we're all Variants."

"Loki didn't mention that part. Said the TVA was lying but didn't say about what."

Hilda lets out a low-toned hum. "You weren't kidding when he said he likes to be mysterious."

"Something here doesn't feel right, Hilda."

She shakes her head. "What's bugging me is that they wouldn't have had time to coordinate a lie between them. They both seemed pretty shocked when we showed up on that moon. And then, there was the spike in variance just seconds before we rescued them. I know Ravonna wants to get to the bottom of what caused the spike before we prune them, but it feels like something bigger is happening here. We need to get to the bottom of it."

"Ravonna told me to stick to interrogating my Loki...but she didn't say you couldn't come with me too," he says through a smirk.

~~~~~

Mobius steps into the Time Cell to retrieve the Loki as Hilda sits herself at the lone table in the room, setting up three chairs, two facing towards the other, and pens and notepads to write on. Mobius walk out of the cell door and takes a seat to the right of Hilda, and a few moments later, Loki emerges.

He looks worse for the wear. Whatever loop Mobius put him in, it must've been one where he got roughed up a bit. Not that Hilda minds. After what's happened lately, she can't help but wish he actually looked even worse than he does now. Perhaps sending him to a "Hulk-smash" time loop where he's constantly being thrown around like a ragdoll would be more fitting.

"Of course, you brought back up with you," says an exasperated Loki as he plops down into the chair across from the TVA pair. "Fancy technology. Threatening interrogation tactics. Seems we are in a time loop of our own Mobius."

Mobius gives a facetious. "Well, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then."

Loki agrees, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "Certainly has."

But Mobius hardly gives him a beat before launching into the real reason he and Hilda are there. "Okay, you said the TVA is lying to me. Go ahead. Or is that just a cockroach's survival mechanism kicking in?"

"Let me out of this place, stop beating me up, and I'll tell you."

Mobius gives a short nod. "Cockroach. Got it. How long have you been working for the Variant?"

Hilda notes the genuine perplexion on this Loki's face. "Me working for her? Please."

Once again, Mobius hardly gives Loki a moment before continuing with his line of questioning. "If you're not working for the Variant, what is it? You're partners? With Sigyn you make, what an evil trio?"

"Absolutely not. She's difficult and irritating, and she tries to hit me all the time."

Hilda decides this is her moment to step in, "Which one are you referring to, the Loki Variant or the Sigyn?"

"Both."

"Yeah, I guess you don't do teamwork. Unless, of course, it benefits you, and you intend to betray them at some point," says Mobius. The disdain in his voice earns him a subtle look from Hilda, who can't help but notice he seems genuinely offended by this Loki's betrayal.

"It was a means to an end, Mobius. Welcome to the real world. Down there, we're awful to get what we want."

"Now I gotta have a prince tell me how the real world works? Why don't you just tell me what caused the nexus event on Lamentis?"

Loki leans forwards in his seat toward his two interrogators. "Let me say this again. I'm not going to tell you just so you can turn around immediately afterwards and prune me. "

Mobius sits back in his seat and drops his pen. "I guess we've reached a dead end then."

"Okay, it's over." Loki shrugs.

"I'm going to miss these little tete-a-tetes."

"Me, too."

Collecting their clipboards, Hilda and Mobius stage their exit and begin to stand up from the table and Mobius punches in the numbers for the Time Cell to re-open. "One guy playing checkers, you, old Mobius playing chess, but, yeah, give my regards to Lady Sif."

What... No. What?" A slight smirk plays along Hilda's lips at Loki's sudden backtracking at the mention of being sent back into the Time Cell. "No, no, no. Please, not... Well, just wait, wait, wait.

Mobius looks up from his time device, "Yeah?"

"Of course it was me pulling the strings all along." Mobius shoots Hilda a glance as if to ask for approval and she gives a curt nod. Both of them return to their seats across from Loki as he continues. "She came to me on Asgard a long time ago, and then she took me to one of her apocalypses, and that's where we hatched our plan together."

Mobius narrows his eyes. "Which is?"

"Coming along very nicely, thank you."

"And the Sigyn Variant?"

Loki shakes his head and shrugs. "Doesn't matter. She's a pawn. Something very, very big is going to happen. And when it does, I'll dispose of her."

"Well, we saved you the trouble there. She's already been pruned," says Mobius casually, as if he were saying his order at the lunch hall. But he quickly moves on to the next topic. "So assume I do set you free—"

Loki holds his hands out, and the usual smugness on his face instantly falls into something Hilda can only describe as worry. "Hang on, wait. What'd you just say?"

"What? Assume I do set you free."

"Sigyn. She's gone?"

"Yeah. Not before she took out two of ours. Yeah, she was going to her Time Cell, broke free. Hunter B-15 stepped in, popped her. So you might want to fire off a thank you note to Hunter B-15 for helping you dispose of her. Or Hilda. She gave the order." Loki's eyes fly around the room wildly at Mobius' words. They've definitely got him now. "Why else do you think Hilda's free to here right now?"

After a pause, Loki shrugs, clearly trying to put on a brave face. "Good riddance."

But after a mere few moments of watching the Loki pretend not to care, Mobius can't hold it together any longer and starts to chuckle.

Loki's face turns completely sour. "What's so funny?"

"Come on. Look at your eyes," he turns to his friend beside him and points at the Loki. "You like her."

"What?" Flabberghasted is perhaps not a strong enough word to describe the look Hilda sees on the Loki's face.

"You like her. Does she like you?"

Loki's face grows dark and severe. "Was she pruned?"

"No wonder you have no clue what caused the nexus event on Lamentis. Both of you were swooning over each other."

Not getting the answers he wants out of Mobius, Loki turns to Hilda, "Tell me the truth."

But Mobius continues to stoke the fire. "But what's really remarkable is that it didn't take very long for you to fall for her, did it? In the Sacred Timeline, it takes years. Maybe that's what caused the spike in energy. Your relationship was so doomed to fail, that it existing outside of its short timespan could break reality. It's breaking my reality right now."

Not able to put up with the teasing any longer, Loki raises his voice and yells in his demanding voice, "Is she alive?"

Hilda nods. "She is. For now."

Loki lets out an obvious sigh of relief as he sinks back into his chair, the tension leaving his body. The worry he feels for Sigyn almost makes Hilda feel guilty for playing along with tricking him. He seemed to be...genuinely worried. Non-selfishly worried even. However, Hilda knows she needs to get this information out of this Loki, so she continues to press the sore spot. "But she's been trapped in a Time Cell this entire time. A rather...emotionally volatile period in her life. If you continue to hold out information from us, that's fine. She'll be physically intact, that we can guarantee. However, the longer she stays in the less we can guarantee that she'll still be...mentally intact."

"Is that supposed to be a threat?"

Mobius sticks out his hand to divert the ire of Loki away from Hilda. "No, she's just telling you what will happen. We're not in charge here. We just want to understand what's going on."

Loki considers his words for a second, trying to decide what to say, or rather, whether or not to give into their demands. He finally settles on something he's not used to feeding people; the truth. "Mobius, listen. If what Sylvie--"

"Wait, wait, wait," Mobius waves his hands around to get Loki to stop speaking, "who is Sylvie?"

"The other Variant of me, do keep up Mobius."

"Oh, sooorry."

"You're all Variants. Everyone who works at the TVA. The Time-Keepers didn't create you. They kidnapped you from the timeline, and erased your memories. Memories Sylvie can access through enchantment. I bet Sigyn could muster up some memories as well if you let her try. So before this, you had a past, maybe you had a family, a life."

A tense moment goes by as the two TVA agents process what Loki's just said. As unlikely as it sounds, Hilda cannot help but feel alarmed that it aligns exactly with what Sigyn said. And she knows Mobius is aware of that as well. So she casts her eyes to the side, waiting for him to react to the information.

"Nice try," says Mobius in a small voice. "That was good. You guys, what a team! Gosh! Unbelievable." Hilda looks to him in a bit of a shocked state, considering his complete and visceral rejection of the idea that the Loki has presented. "Wherever you go, it's just death, destruction, the literal ends of worlds. Well, I'm gonna have to close this case now, 'cause I don't need you anymore." Mobius pulls out his tempad to begin to plug in the access to the Time Cell. And this time, Hilda knows he means it. "Yeah, or as you might say, our interests are no longer aligned.

Loki, who has simply been shaking his head in defeat the entire time, finally speaks up as the minutemen come to grab him out of his seat. "You know, of all the liars in this place, and there are a great many, you're the biggest."

"Why? 'Cause I lied about your wife, girlfriend, infatuation—whatever you want to call it?"

"Oh, no. That I can respect. I mean, the lies you tell yourself." And with that, Loki disappears through the door of the Time Cell.

Hilda is left in a state of shock. She doesn't know who to believe. She doesn't know what to believe. But if there's one thing she knows for sure, it's that Mobius is wrong. This case should be anything but closed. To her, it's just been blown wide open.

~~~~~

After a quick briefing with the minutemen, Hilda trails down the hallways after Mobius, her heels angrily clacking against the floor. "Hey, Hilda, you really should go check on Sigyn in her Time Cell. It seems a little extra cruel to make an Avenger Variant go cuckoo while we're waiting to prune her."

"Mobius," she whispers angrily. "Are you really going to close this case? You know just as well as I do that everything he said lines up with what Sigyn told me!"

"Hilda, I am your supervisor. When I say the case is closed, the case is closed. We figured out what caused the spike."

Hilda's jaw drops. "You know what, maybe Loki was right. But be my guest, go climb your greasy pole and tell Ravonna the case is closed."

"I will," says Mobius firmly.

Hilda halts in her track and changes directions, not wanting to continue walking with the man. "Call me when you decide to grow up."

~~~

"Your parents are out at the moment. Have a seat."

"I'm not listening, la, la, la, la, la," shouts Sigyn as she walks up the stairs to the second floor of her house, only to have her appear and come up the stairs from the basement.

"Your parents are out—"

"—at the moment. Have a seat, I know!" Sigyn makes her way towards the front of the house to walk up the stairs again with her hands over her ears. But a figure, a new one, stands at her front door. "Nice of you to join me. I suppose I have you to thank for this?"

"I'm sorry," says Hilda seriously. "We got the information out of Loki. You can come out now."

Sigyn haughtily crosses her arms over her chest. "What if I don't want to come with you."

Hilda raises her eyebrow as if to say, really? But Sigyn remains firmly planted in place.

From the kitchen, Dr. Nemisis calls out to Sigyn, "I have something of interest for you—"

"Shut up!" she screeches as she stops her foot wildly. "Just shut up!"

Hilda quirks an eyebrow in amusement. "You were saying?"

~~~

Hilda walks towards a table in a room that looks nearly identical to the one she and Mobius interrogated Loki in. She has two steaming paper cups of coffee and places one in front of Sigyn who pulls it towards her chest as a source of warmth. She begins to take small sips as Hilda stares at her expectantly.

"I'm not gonna talk first," whispers Sigyn into her coffee.

Hilda takes a deep breath as she tries to gather her thoughts. "Loki had the same story that you did."

Sigyn's eyes flick up from her coffee. "And?"

"I don't know what to believe."

Sensing the woman across from her might believe them, even just a little,  Sigyn places her coffee cup on the table and leans forward toward Hilda. "Trust me, I know it's hard to believe him, especially with something that seems so outlandish, but he's telling the truth. We're telling the truth. Sometimes, the truth is even more bizarre than the lies."

"You have to understand," Hilda leans in closer so anyone listening from outside won't be able to hear. "You're asking us to throw away everything we've ever known. to be true."

Sigyn frowns. "I know."  A moment goes by as neither really knows what to say. "I...Just make sure, whatever you choose to believe, make sure you don't have any doubts."

Hilda nods and stands from her chair, signalling the minutemen from out in the hallway to come in. "I won't be putting her back in the Time Cell. Keep her in here until I come to collect her."

Unsure of what to make of things, Hilda wanders aimlessly through the halls of the TVA. Could everything be a lie? She finds herself at the spot Sigyn had stopped to marvel at the TVA, looking out upon the vastness and the statues. If what they claim is true, who was she before? What kind of person? Did she have a family? Friends? Love?

She's brought out of her spiral by a familiar voice calling over to her, "I thought I might find you here."

"Mobius, I really don't want to talk to you right now."

"I know," he shoves his hands into his pockets, but much to Hilda's surprise, he pulls out a tempad. "But I think you might want to hear what Hunter C-20 out."

Hilda's face contorts in confusion. Hunter C-20 died. She's dead. Mobius pulls her off into a corner as they huddle around the tempad. He makes sure to double and triple-check around the corners before pressing play. "You're not hearing me. I was there. This was real, what I saw. This is a place that I've been. This wasn't the TVA. This was a memory. I lived down there. I went to that bar. I had friends. I had a whole life on the Sacred Timeline."

"Calm down," says another female voice, one behind the camera.

"'Calm down'? I'm a Variant. So are you. So is every single person in this place!"

"They weren't lying," breathes Hilda.

"Just wait," says Mobius pointing to the screen.

"I'm ending this." The voice behind the camera reveals itself to be someone very familiar to Hilda: Ravonna.

Hilda's eyes widen. "Oh, shit."

"Oh, shit is right." Mobius grabs onto Hilda's shoulders. "We're going to need backup. So you go grab Sigyn, I'll grab Loki, we'll meet back here and then rescue Sylvie. Okay?"

She gives a short and curt nod. Then, knowing what she needs to do, she takes off towards where she left Sigyn to stage her rescue.

~~~

Having had a heart-to-heart with Loki, Mobius exits the Time Cell with the demigod, only to find themselves face to face with Ravonna and a large group of minutemen. "I think you have something of mine," declares Ravonna.

He tries to play things off as casually as possible. "Yeah, I got all the way down there before I even realized I picked up yours." Yet, Ravonna says nothing in response. So Mobius tries again. "What's going on?" Again, she stands there saying nothing. "What's the problem, Ravonna?"

"Mobius, it's over," she reaches her hand back and one of the minutemen promptly hands her a tempad. She begins to type into it, not looking at the two in front of her as she speaks, "We pruned Hilda and the Sigyn Variant just a few minutes ago."

Sure enough, Ravonna projects a video. It has no sound, but Hilda seems to be talking to Ravonna and the minutemen. Hilda and Sigyn suddenly leap into action to fight back against the minutemen, but they're quickly overpowered by the sheer difference in numbers. Sigyn is the first to go; she lunges in front of a yellow-glowing baton meant for Hilda. Not long after, Hilda finds herself surrounded, kneeling on the floor. Ravonna walks to the forefront of the circle, and appears to say something to Hilda before unceremoniously pruning her.

Loki's heart drops instantly. She's gone. The woman he was finally warming up to, finally starting to figure things out with, is gone forever. Pruned. Never to be recovered. Dead.

Knowing that the jig really is up, Mobius decides to at least go out having said what's on his mind. He's lost Hilda, truly the person he now realizes was the closest thing he's had to a friend in the TVA. And Ravonna snuffed her out like a candlelight, as if it meant, no, as if she meant nothing. But Mobius wasn't about to let that fly. "You know where I'd go if I could go anywhere? Wherever it is I'm really from. Yeah, wherever I had a life before the TVA came along. Maybe I had a jet ski. That's what I'd like to do. Just riding around on my jet ski."

"Prune him."

"The Sigyn Variant had to be pruned before she could answer to the Time Keepers. Make sure this one lasts long enough to pay his dues," says Ravonna bitterly.

Loki doesn't let her comment go unanswered, issuing a threat of his own. "You are going to regret what you did to her." But even to him, his words feel empty. And for perhaps the first time in his life, he realizes revenge and vengeance cannot be applied to the situation like a bandaid. It won't bring her back. But he's damn we'll going to try to cover the wound with the façade of rage.

Things start to feel like a blur to Loki. They're dragged into the elevator and then are finally in front of the Time Keepers. Ravonna gloats to Sylvie about pruning Sigyn, and the two launch into an argument about why Sylvie was brought into the TVA in the first place.

But all he can think about is the blonde woman who died.

They're dragged in front of the Time Keeper, inching closer and closer to their deaths. That is until one of the Hunters he recognizes barges into the room and tosses Sylvie a sword.

The room erupts into chaos—something that is usually his forte—yet he still feels completely and utterly numb. Even as he fights back against the minutemen, he feels as if he's simply going through the motions to survive. Something that really should be a default state to him now feels like a foreign territory. He's in survival mode, but for what purpose? The person he was previously fighting to save, even if he wouldn't admit it, is gone.

That is until the head of the Time Keeper comes off. Sparking. Sylvie can't seem to believe it either. She goes through all the stages of grief at once. "Fake. Mindless androids. It never stops."

Loki is equally as confused on top of the dazed and hazy feeling he's had since seeing Mobius and Sigyn be pruned. "Then who created the TVA?"

"I thought this was it," cries Sylvie in rage.

And in the moment of confusion and grief, Loki fails to notice Ravonna advancing toward him with a time stick. "Sylvie, I think—" Before Loki can even finish his sentence, he begins to disappear and debilitate, the world going black before him. The feelings of grief, despair, and confusion disappear along with his physical body, giving way to the nothingness.

And it stays black.

Until it doesn't.

That's all for this chapter folks! What's left for Sigyn and Loki now that they've been pruned? Who might they find? And who might find them? Find out next chapter!

This one turned out a bit longer than I wanted, but due to the events of the show, I realized I'd have to show the revised version in order for it to make better sense when read.

Only one meme today because this chapter was a bit more serious in tone, but nevertheless, onto the thing that rocks my socks, the chapterly meme: