Chapter 7: Sylvie Witnesses a Monster
Just outside Valkyrie's apartment
Sylvie eyed the metal door to the apartment as she checked the straps of her black, ill-fitting Minuteman outfit.
At the end of this alien condominium's corridor, behind that non-descript metal door painted a dull green, was the target of her and the TVA's interest. The cause of one of the biggest Nexus Events in the Sacred Timeline's history was just in that room.
Sylvie pitied the poor sap.
With nineteen TVA Minutemen crowding the corridor, Sylvie was certain that regardless of whoever or whatever this thing was causing the Nexus Event to be- they weren't going to last long against all of these TVA goons. She doubted that she could have handled them herself if they had arrived with this large of a force in her own hideout.
There were even more Minutemen downstairs and in the neighboring skyscrapers- providing surveillance. The rest had holed up and fortified that warehouse that they had Time Doored into. Combined, this operation for a single variant was, without a shadow of a doubt, the largest operation she had ever witnessed the TVA undertake.
She didn't even know for certain who or what was causing the Nexus Event, and she didn't think it mattered.
Either the Variant puts up a fight and downs several Minutemen where she could help with killing a few more Minutemen, or it doesn't and she gets a free ride to TVA HQ. But she was truly hoping for the former to be true. Dead TVA personnel can only help her in the long run.
"C-20, how's that door hack coming along?" Hunter C-15, a dark-skinned woman who was their team leader, called out to the one who was busy hacking the door panel that led to their mystery Variant.
"Give me ten seconds." the petite and slender C-20 whispered back as she hacked the door access panel with her wrist-mounted Tempad. A constantly changing sequence of numbers holographically displayed over the door lock as she brute forced every possible combination with technology that was made possible by TVA technology.
C-15 only nodded in acknowledgement- a grim frown on her dark-skinned face.
"Everyone, weapons up. The Variant is inside that apartment. Set batons to lethal." she notified the rest of the Minutemen as she raised up her own TVA baton- making the tip glow orange.
The seventeen other Minutemen's batons lit up the corridor with similar orange glow on their tips.
"I've got it." C-20 announced before backing away from the door and readying her baton.
Sylvie raised her own TVA baton that she knew was capable of erasing someone from the Timeline with just a tap on its orange, glowing tip. Or if she was so inclined, the baton was also capable of slowing a person's time to 1/16th of the normal speed- making her target appear to move in slow motion.
This poor deviant wasn't going to stand a chance. But in the event that he did put up a fight, Sylvie was glad that she was at the very back of the formation- far away from any violence could possibly happen and with nineteen bodies between her and the variant.
With a hiss, the green metal door slid open, and a figure stepped forward- past the threshold of the recently opened doorway.
By the Nine Realms, did he look intimidating!
Armoured for war and armed for it too- clad as his seven foot tall form was head to toe in exotic armour.
His armour was made of some gargantuan creature's bones- the yellow-white of the bone plate somehow looked even more formidable than castle walls.
Mysterious black metal trimmed each massive bone plate and covered whatever the bone did not with an expertly forged chainmail that would have had the dwarves of Nidavellir green with envy.
A great horned full helm made of the same bone and black metal covered his head. A dark shadow hid the giant's eyes while bone and metal and chainmail hid his features.
The heavy footsteps he made were accompanied by the scrambling footsteps of the Minutemen in the front, closest to the giant, staggering back. The batons in their hands were no doubt feeling puny in their hands compared to the wickedly spiked monster of a mace that the giant held in his hand.
Tar-black metal- almost a meter long and as thick as her thigh. Viciously spiked and flanged like a weapon out of a nightmare. Demonic faces inset with red jewels for eyes were molded all around the metal shaft- an expression of sadistic glee on their horridly fanged faces.
She could see how the others quaked in fear- recoiling in fear. And they weren't the only ones. The giant's mace. It was unnatural.
Just focusing her blue-green eyes on the grisly weapon made it feel like she was about to be mercilessly tortured and brutally violated. Her stolen black boots couldn't help but take a hesitant step back- away from the bone-clad giant and his cursed weapon of evil.
"By the- the order of the Timekeepers, you are hereby s-sentenced to erasure from the time stream, variant!" A TVA Minuteman in front declared right to the giant's face. This Minuteman was apparently the only one equipped with massive steel bollocks.
In response, the giant only rested his mace on his shoulder- the mere sight of cursed mace making her wince. Her panicking blue-green eyes glanced at her 'fellow Minutemen.' Was she the only one affected by that mace? Do they not see that it's made of pure evil?
But with her heart beating in her chest out of anxiety, she couldn't take it anymore. And at that moment, she was willing to put aside her life-long animosity with the TVA just long enough to banish that mace from existence.
"Prune him!" Sylvie- adrenaline coursing through her veins- shrieked aloud and goaded her meatshields on. She'd rather see him Pruned from the timestream than be in the presence of that cursed mace any longer.
"YEAH!" Her nineteen would-be compatriots roared in assent as four brave Minutemen- brandishing their TVA batons- lunged forward at the giant.
With a valorous cry, the four Minuteman jabbed the glowing orange tip of their TVA batons to the giant's midsection.
The same standard-issue TVA baton that no being to her knowledge had ever been able to withstand being erased from the timestream. Four different TVA batons made contact with the bone plate and the chainmail- their glowing orange tips striking the bone with loud crisp taps of metal on bone.
They had won!
And Sylvie expected the bright sparkly wave of non-existence to claim the giant.
But long seconds passed, and all the TVA Minutemen in attendance could only look on with increasing dread as the TVA batons that had clearly made contact with the giant, failed to Prune him from the Timestream.
And then... the giant shouted.
"ZUN!"
It was like the lightning bolts of a great storm had formed a mouth to speak- its words rumbling through their bodies like rolling thunder.
She felt the foreign magic pry open the grip she had on her own TVA baton- weakening her fingers under the force of the shout, followed by the magic yanking the baton out of her hand and sending it flying away.
And she was not alone- a full twenty TVA batons flew down the corridor where they clattered. Leaving only nineteen Minutemen and one disguised Sylvie Laufeydottir defenseless against the mage giant.
"Ah, the Time Variance Authority." The giant's deep voice boomed with idle amusement- having ignored the TVA's formidable Time-bending technology like they were but human children playing magic with piddly sticks. "I wonder how much your souls will be worth after I pulp your bodies for meat."
Sylvie 's blue-green eyes widened in grim realization: nineteen TVA Minutemen couldn't win against this giant, and neither could the rest of the TVA personnel that were stuck on this Gods-forsaken planet.
She took it all back- They were fucked.
And then the massacre began.
A metallic whoosh punctuated by the squealing of metal and the cracking of bone signalled the arrival of violence.
The Minuteman's legs were pulped under the mace's swipe and his pained screams followed a second later, but by then, two more metallic whooshes howled out in the cramped corridor- followed by more painful screaming.
Sheer panicked desperation fueled the other Minutemen into action, roaring wildly as they tried to jab their TVA batons at the giant only for skulls and rib cages to collapse under the horrid mace's terrible strikes.
Despite the size of both the giant and the mace, he swung that titanic rod of cursed metal as if it weighed nothing.
The massive instrument of cruelty whooshing through the air like a homing missile directly onto fragile limbs and bodies.
More and more screams began joining the chorus as the giant continued his relentless assault- bones crunching underneath every swing of his mace that became increasingly red with fresh blood. His other hand raised up as if he was about to cast a spell.
Sylvie thought it was a great time to run.
Turning on her heels, she tried to bolt, but the plan was cut short as she barely managed to stop in time from impaling herself on an icy wall of spikes. The entire corridor was blocked off by that barbed wall, and it was certainly not there when they had first arrived.
The bright white and blue icicles jutted out in every angle as a pale mist of condensation wafted from them.
First, some kind of compulsion magic and now cryomancy? They were hopelessly outmatched right from the start!
Sylvie brought up her hands to try and use her own magic to shatter the ice. Shining green wisps of her magic began drifting off the black gloves that covered her hands as she poured more and more of her power into the ice.
The blood-curdling screaming behind her was very good motivation to dig deep and apply every ounce of her magic to getting out of here alive.
"C'mon!" She grunted through gritted teeth as she exerted her magic to undo the giant's ice magic. Enchanting weak minds was her forte, not physical force. She had always thought this brutish use of good magic was beneath her.
And what was even with this ice?! She was the one with Frost Giant blood! The ice should be shattering by now! He couldn't be a Frost Giant himself, can he?
There! She saw an icicle wall start to crack, but a horrifying realization struck her: the whooshing and thumping of giant's mace had stopped. Leaving nothing but the anguished moans and cries of pain from the TVA Minutemen.
The glowing green lines of magic fizzled out from her shaking hands, and Sylvie felt a cold bead of sweat run down from her forehead and along the side of her face.
"Please, don't be right behind me. Please don't be right behind me." She couldn't help but mutter- almost in prayer- as she slowly turned around, and found the giant towering over her- a veritable wall of armoured bone and steel wielding that horrid black mace dripping wet with fresh blood. "Please…"
"... don't hurt me!" Sylvie shrieked as a gigantic bone-covered gauntlet shot forward and grabbed her by the lapels before lifting her off her feet and pushing her a few inches back… her unarmoured head and neck dangerously close to razor sharp icicles. "I'm not one of them!"
Her desperate shout came just in time, it seemed- the chill of the icy spikes behind her tickled the skin of her neck just under her shoulder-length blonde hair.
"Loki Laufeydottir." His voice rumbled with recognition like tumbling rocks, "I did not expect you to be here- working for the TVA."
And just like that, she had been found out.
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