Out of touch (1)

s i x t e e n

- p a r t  s i x -

Anita walked down the halls of the TVA, power radiating in every one of her steps. She had been struck with large waves of grief but she channeled it into the very thing she strived not to be controlled by.
As Ravonna and Sylvie walk towards the court room, the raven haired girl makes her way towards the room she had found her coat to be in. As she opens the door, she walks in and looks about for anything that will feel more like herself.
She snatches up a pair of leather gloves and a black cape with gold on the side closest to her back, to attach to her jacket. If she had power, she wanted others to know it as well. She would hold onto her grief and she would use it to her advantage because she knows that if she was ever to show her vulnerability, she would fall back into being the scared little girl.
She would not let that happen. Vulnerability was what took her two closest allies. She would carry them with her and bring down the place that took their lives from them. She would fight for their free will.
She made her way back to where the pair were and sat in the seats, she would not beg. She was better than that.
"Give me your TemPad" Sylvie growls at the woman who frantically pulls it out of her pocket and gives it to her.
"Whos really behind the TVA?" Anita asks coming to stand by the blonde.
"I'm as in the dark as you are" Ravonna tries to tell them but they are both unconvinced.
"Poor judge Renslayer, your whole reality has been destroyed, tell me how does it feel to be on the other side of it?" Sylvie asks her harshly as she pushes her foot further down onto the lady's chest.
The assassin stares down at the dark haired woman and feels her heart almost pounding out of her chest. She is in so much pain from what she has done to the people she cares about. She is ready to kill the woman.
"This is it, isn't it?" The woman next to her asks, disappointment lacing her voice.
"This is where you dragged me after you stole my life"
"A fitting place to take hers" the younger girl smirks.
"And what if I said Loki wasn't dead?" Ravonna panics making Anitas heart stop.
She didn't want to believe what the woman was telling her. She didn't believe he was still roaming about. She didn't want to get her heart broken again.
"Not yet anyway"
"I'd say you're lying" Sylvie cuts in.
"Maybe"
But she knows that Loki is the girl in the widow suits weakness. She can bring her down.
"Or maybe we want the same thing"
"How is he still alive?" The assassin snaps.
"And how will saving him get us closer to who's really behind the TVA?" Sylvie adds.
"It's complicated"
They both take a step towards her.
"I'm telling you this willingly"
"Why?"
"Because I wanna know who's at the top of this, I want to know who lied to me"
They stare at the lady for a while, both of their minds wanting two different things from her.
"When we prune a reality, it's impossible to destroy all of its matter so we move it to a place on the timeline where it won't continue growing, basically the branched timeline isn't reset, it's transferred"
"To where?"
"A void at the end of time where every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops"
"Why?"
"I don't know, the dogma states that the end of time is still being written, that the time keepers are transforming it into a Utopia"
Sylvie scoffs. The time keepers were all a lie.
"That's nice, super believable"
But Anita wanted to believe it. She wanted to get to the man she had come to care for so much and she wanted to run with him till the ends of time. She wanted to save them both.
"Whatever the real reason, nothing ever comes back from there"
"But that's where my Loki is? Correct?" The raven haired girl asks, desperation practically dripping in her voice before Ravonna nods at her.
"I can help you if you trust me"
Anita looks to Sylvie and they look into the others eyes and try to work out what the other wants.
They know they both need Loki back, they cannot take this place down without him. And with that, they hand over the TemPad and decide to half heartedly trust the woman.

•••

"Miss Minutes, I need you to remote access a series of restricted files from the archives"
The girl and the blonde sat together on the bench, the latter sat stroking the younger girls hair. She knew how much pain she was in. She might never get to see the man she had grown to love, whether she realised it or not.
"Ooh Doggy, what on?" The holographic image asks her.
"The beginning of time, the founding of the TVA"
"Right away"
"Wait" Sylvie calls as she stands up to walk towards the woman.
"What about the end of time?"
"It's just a void"
"What if the void isn't the end, what if there's something beyond it?"
Ravonna looks at her for a minute before she turns to the small clock figure and nods her head but Anita isn't convinced. She doesn't know whether or not to trust her.
"Hiding in the shadow of apocalypses obscured me from the TVA because I couldn't create a diverging branch there, right?" Sylvie asks.
Ravonna nods timidly.
"So if all of this is still being written, whatever happens is just a new timeline, it would be impossible to start a nexus event there, you could be completely undetectable"
"That's it! That the only place they could be" Ravonna smiles as if she isn't kidding them on.
"So how do we get past the void?"
"It's impossible" the dark haired lady sighs.
"Theres nothing for the TemPad to lock onto, no destination"
"Then we go through it" Anita announces as she finally walks up to the pair.
"That's suicide"
"Then I guess our need for you has passed" she says turning to the lady who steps back slightly scared.
"Wait, what about the void spacecraft?" The small orange figure says next to them.
"Yes the prototype"
"Great, I'll get the file" Miss Minutes says from next to them.
"It's a spaceship designed to withstand the temporal void, it could take us to the end of time"
"Find Loki" Anita breathes out.
"Find the man behind the curtain"
"And kill him" Sylvie snaps.
"Together"
She reaches out both of her hands to shake their own which they do before she tries to pull away and they both hold onto her tighter.
"Miss minutes, where are the files on this timecraft?"
"Still looking hon"
"Nothing?" Sylvie asks.
"Hmm buried pretty deep" the orange glow says.
"She's lying, there's nothing" The youngest girl whispers to the blonde she had come to care for so deeply.
"It's highly restricted, I might not be have clearance" Ravonna tries to defend herself.
"Oh no I think you would, if it's real" Anita smirks making the woman's face hall.
"How long?"
"Any second now"
From behind them, they hear guards walking in and the two variants push the judge away before they jump over the bench to hide away from them all.
Anitas heart is racing, she is losing the facade of her power. Sylvie forces her to look up at her face and helps her to calm down.
"Do you trust me?" She asks as she holds the girls shoulders.
She nods.
"I do"
"When you get there, you keep running until I find you, and I will find you" the blonde says and the raven haired girl leans her forehead against the other woman's.
And with a final few breaths, she feels Sylvie stab the stick into her before she fades away into the unknown.