Chapter Text
“Did you ever find a variant like yourself?” Loki asked as they walked through the halls of the Sanctum Sanctorum in London. The building bustled with multiversal activity. The sound of their boots clicking against the floor was drowned out in conversation and miscellaneous sounds of people interacting.
It was nerve-wracking, although Sylvie would rather take a punch to the gut than admit so. As they walked along the Sanctum’s crowded halls, she caught snippets of conversation from all the visitors. From a simple meet-up to see old friends, to urgent exchanges of information to protect their universe from Kang. No matter how fervent their conversation, however, everyone kept glancing down at the watches on their wrist from time to time.
An apparatus similar to a temp-pad, although many were designed like a watch. She caught a glimpse of them sometimes. People who stopped midway in their conversation, set course for a different universe’s Sanctum Santorum, and left. It was necessary, according to Strange, to reduce the chances of an incursion.
That was a new word for everyone, including the TVA. Incursions. Something that neither she nor Loki had to worry about. That thought had affected Loki more than herself, the fact that their timelines no longer existed- and that no universe was chasing them.
“A variant like myself?” Sylvie repeated the question with a raised eyebrow. They made a hard left into the main library where the vaulted ceilings were crowded with bookshelves and loose pieces of paper.
Was Strange not worried that these precious pieces of information would be trampled to death? Loki navigated the area with expertise, having visited many Sanctum Santorums like this one before. At this point, it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Sylvie had done her part. She’d discovered the mechanisms of the multiverse, so to speak. Through observation, trial, and error, she’d found the Kang. Planted a tracker- although they had no means of fighting him, or preventing his variants from infesting new universes.
Loki waved his hand in front of him, trails of his green magic dissolving in the air.
The library grumbled in complaint like it usually did when it encountered his foreign magic. Loki clicked his tongue and tried again. This time, the library complied. Albeit reluctantly. Books were yanked from the shelves by an invisible force, slamming dusty tones on top of the nearest unoccupied table.
“Yes, you know. A variant that’s most like yourself. A Loki, in a sense, but perhaps a bit more Sylvie.”
Sylvie furrowed her brows and pulled up a chair together with Loki. She picked up a dusty tome and cracked it open, sneezing at the dust clouds the pages produced.
“Well, I did find versions that looked like me. Although none of them were… variations.” Sylvie said that word hesitantly. No one had ever asked that before. She was always the variant, never the original.
“Really? Not a single one?” Loki asked offhandedly as he expertly flipped through the books stacked before him. Sylvie traced the edge of the page she was currently on with her forefinger. Not fast enough to cut, but just enough to feel .
When she thought back to it, she’d always tried to avoid her variants if she could. Especially her more feminine ones. There was no quicker way to cause a nexus event. Even if an occasional moment of weakness had her visiting Asgard as a common Asgardian, she’d never known any variants of herself as intimately as she knew her Loki.
But there had been a girl she’d traveled with for a few universes. The memory of that girl, her wide brown eyes and obnoxious laugh, made her gut twist. “There was a girl. She was just a child.” Sylvie admitted, closing her book. “For me, it must’ve been a few centuries ago. A human. She had this… power to traverse universes.”
Loki paused for a moment. The library was silent, and his green eyes raised to see hers. “She was meant to travel the multiverse,” Sylvie supplemented. Chavez had been free to interact with any timeline they traveled to. That was perhaps the unfairness of it all, Sylvie thought as she leaned back in her chair.
“Was she our variant?” Loki asked, his low voice and light press of his arm against hers were comforting.
She was getting better at this. Talking about her past.
“No. She was uniquely herself.”
Sylvie sat by a fire in the middle of the desert. The arid night was almost biting in its cold. Not a soul for miles. It wasn’t her favorite place to visit, but it was quiet. Quiet with only the faintest signs of life, and apocalypse free. The bugs sang their songs beneath the sand, and Sylvie let herself marginally relax in their company. Sometimes even she got tired of the relentless pursuit of apocalypses. This was her deserted oasis of sorts, a good place to take a break and just think. She bit off a piece of granola, and strawberry cheesecake, and let the flavor wash over her tongue.
This sucked. How long had she been running, a thousand years?
She tossed another dead tree branch into the fire and tracked the embers that shot out with her gaze. Centuries of killing minutemen- and she’d barely put a dent in the TVA. They were like a hydra. She’d kill one, and two more would take their place.
Sylvie licked her fingers and pulled out a worn piece of paper. It detailed her next, more sophisticated plan. She needed a plan because she was tired of running.
It’d taken years of studying, years of slinking into libraries and enchanting the right minutemen to put together this piece. It was a loose plan, an insane plan, but a plan nonetheless.
A tired sigh escaped her lips and she rubbed her eyes. Just thinking about the number of minutemen she’d have to kill made her head hurt, and her hands ache. Not only that but there was also the trial and error part of all this. Teaching herself how to actually program the TVA’s technology all into a sequential time bomb wasn’t exactly an easy task, and she still had so much more to learn…
As she mulled over the shit hand she’d been dealt with, Sylvie felt something shift in the air. Like a vacuum forming in the immediate area, she leaped back from her extinguished fire as a portal ripped through space in the shape of a… star? That was new.
She had her sword out at the ready, all senses on alert, and waited for the… child? It defied all comprehension when a child tumbled through the portal. Midgardian, Sylvie could automatically detect by her style of dress. Black sweatpants and a pink shirt. She didn’t look to be more than 12 years old.
The portal closed and left the desert in its dark quietness once more. It seemed like the universe had given her a pest.
“Who’re you?” Sylvie warily asked. She wasn’t a monster, she wouldn’t just kill the kid. That being said, she also knew better than to simply lower her defenses. The child, instead of answering, merely curled up in the sand and began to sob. Sand clung to her face as she tried to stifle her crying.
“I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to- this always, always, always happens!” The girl gripped her hair, and Sylvie froze. “I hate this!” Her screams pierced the gentle buzz of insects around there. She licked her lips and slowly lowered her sword as the girl slammed her tiny fists into the sand.
How does one comfort a crying child?
Sylvie stumbled up to the nearest stranger- tears in her eyes as she tried to make sense of where she was. These people were chasing her, and she didn’t know why- other than she ‘deviated’ from something. A quick glance at the square buildings. The ambient energy of the area felt like Midgard, and she could tell she was still in the nine realms, but the realm was more advanced than she’d ever known it to be.
“Help, I don’t know where I am,” Sylvie pleaded to the nearest stranger.
The person looked down at her, a man with a blurred-out face. “Did you escape from Juvie? Beat it, kid.” The man sneered before he briskly walked away.
Sylvie stood, dumbfounded. Her ears felt numb, and she looked to the sky- about to call for Heimdall.
“Jesus, what a terrible guy. Hey, kid. What’s up? Where’d you come from?” Another man approached her across the street. It wasn’t terribly busy, some basic buildings lined the road with some primitive vehicles parked along it.
Fresh tears sprung into her eyes and she accepted his soothing back rubs. “They’re chasing me, and I need help. Can you take me to your… leader? Your King?” Sylvie hiccupped- her fierce facade already fading under his familiar kindness.
The man had a troubled expression on his face, but dug into his pockets and produced a blue piece of candy. Sylvie took the offered item and sniffed it. It smelled synthetic and fruity. The writing along the side read ‘Kablooie’.
“I know a place, the police station down the road. Come on-” The man froze in place, his eyes wide in shock- and he was gone. Pruned. Sylvie stumbled backward, her hand now cold, and she was face to face with that awful woman.
Renslayer.
“Variant! Get back here-”
Sylvie slapped the temp-pad and threw herself into the orange portal. The relative buzz of a populated city had been replaced by an eerie sort of quiet. The planet was scarcely made of anything other than rock and ash, but it was breathable, and it was quiet. It took a few minutes for her to catch her breath- for her tears to come silently, and for her to bring her knees to her chest.
Mechanically, she popped the piece of candy into her mouth and closed her eyes as she slowly chewed it. It tasted awful, but the texture was nice.
Sylvie sat there for a while, on the sand-like ground. When the candy was finished, all she could do was stare at the ground.
She was alone. And she was grateful that she was being left alone.
Sylvie shook her head and rummaged through her cloak. When her fingers wrapped around the familiar packaging of the candy in question, she waited until the girl cried herself out. It didn’t take very long until those tiny shoulders silently shook, and her visitor was gasping more than crying. Taking that as her cue, Sylvie threw a blue piece of wrapped candy in front of her.
The Kablooie audibly thudded in front of her, as well as spraying a bit of sand in her direction. When that didn’t get a reaction, Sylvie threw another piece at her. It harmlessly bounced off her arm, and the girl turned her head to stare at it.
“Are you hungry?” Sylvie asked as nonchalantly as she could. Her sword was away, and she sat cross-legged across her now smoldering fire.
The girl, however, didn’t respond. She simply curled up and began a fresh wave of tears, but to Sylvie’s amusement, ate the piece of candy. It was impressive how the girl didn’t choke, given how violently she sniffled, and Sylvie threw another piece of candy.
And the girl took it.
Sylvie kept this up for a while as if she were feeding some stray pigeon, until the girl picked up the seventh piece of candy from the ground, rolled over to reveal her puffy red eyes, and sat up with sand all over her.
“What’s your problem?” She hiccupped, and furiously her face.
Sylvie winced when she did so and offered up her own handkerchief. It was some random checkered cloth she’d pilfered a few timelines ago, but it was brand new. And it was green.
“I’ve got a lot of problems. What about yourself?” Sylvie leaned forward to place the fabric in the girl’s outstretched hand and poured some of her drinking water onto the cloth.
“More than you. What, are you going to ask where I came from?” The girl muttered angrily. Her face was slightly puffed from tears and from the sand.
“Naturally.”
“I actually liked that universe. And then I went to a haunted house, and then poof. Here I am.” The girl angrily stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket and tore open the last piece of candy between them.
“You can travel the timelines?” Sylvie asked with just a hint of doubt. It was hard to believe, but it wasn't the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard.
The girl nodded.
“Through those star-shaped portals?”
The girl nodded once more, and she hugged her knees to her chest. “I can’t control it, though. I wouldn’t be able to go back home, even if I really wanted to.”
Now that was a sentiment that Sylvie found eerily familiar. “What’s your name?” Sylvie found herself asking, violating one of her longest-standing rules.
Don’t get invested. It was difficult not to, though, given how dramatically Chavez had entered the scene.
The girl crinkled her nose and gave her a suspicious look up and down, which looked ridiculous given how waterlogged her face was.
“Why?” She asked with a hint of bite in it. Her reaction made Sylvie smile. Something strange warmed in her, and she rested her cheek on her hand.
“Well, if you just want me to call you ‘girl’ or ‘grey sweatpants’, then by all means. Stay silent. I’m Sylvie, by the way.”
The girl’s eyes, despite herself, seemed to light up at the bit of information. “I like that name,” she said and scooted closer to her. They were an arm’s distance apart now, and the girl whispered like her name was some sort of Universal secret.
“I’m America Chavez. Just turned eleven a couple months ago. You’re just Sylvie? Don’t you have a last name? How old are you?”
Sylvie was not prepared for the barrage of questions that followed. What was her favorite color? Her favorite animal? Her favorite dessert? How long did it take her to poop without a toilet? Had she ever been bitten by an Alligator?
Sylvie scarcely had time to collect herself enough to tell Chavez that she needed to leave before something reached for the child. Chavez sensed it, though, and flung herself back.
“Stupid, ugh. Leave me alone!” She shouted at the creature. The ground beneath her trembled as a hideous five-legged creature emerged from a tear in reality. It made the hairs on the back of Sylvie’s arms raise, and she automatically took a step back from the monster.
The beast roared in their faces, stirring up sand and dust, and then that star portal appeared behind the girl.
Chavez’s eyes widened, and of all the things she did- she looked at Sylvie. Her brown eyes were still puffy from earlier, her lips just the faintest hint of blue from the candy they’d shared.
Sylvie didn’t think. For once, she didn’t think- and she grabbed the girl by the hand. Only to get sucked into the portal with her.