Before Loki had infiltrated the Roxxcart Mall in 2050, The Variant projects an emulated memory into the captive Hunter C-20 to collect information about the Time-Keepers' location. While the TVA responds to the crisis striking the Sacred Timeline, The Variant, emerging from the 2050 Timedoor, fights Minutemen while being pursued by a dagger-wielding Loki. The two enter a knife fight; Loki again unsuccessfully proposes for them to work together to reach the Time-Keepers. Ravonna Renslayer arrives, prompting The Variant to threaten her with the death of one of the TVA's own. However, Loki activates a TemPad, transporting both of them to a bunker elsewhere. The Variant attempts to teleport out of the area, but finds that the TemPad has run out of power. Loki then hides the device within himself using his magic.
Before The Variant can attack Loki again, a meteor lands in between them. Heading outside, she realizes that he had taken them to Lamentis-1 in 2077-- a moon doomed for a crash course with a planet. With the TemPad stuck in Loki's heart, The Variant, revealing her alias as Sylvie, is forced to work with him to find a power source on the moon sufficient enough to recharge it. With twelve hours to doomsday, they arrive at an abandoned town, but find insufficient power sources. The two come across a hut with a villager inside and find themselves unwelcome at first; when the villager is asked about the location of the locals, she points them towards the Ark, where the people are awaiting evacuation. However, getting there would require a ticket to ride a train. Concluding that the Ark would be a sufficient power source for the TemPad, the two set off for the train.
To bypass the necessity for a ticket, Loki disguises himself as a guard and Sylvie brainwashes a suspecting one, allowing them to board the train. While relaxing in the lounge, the two take the time to get to know each other: Sylvie, who is self-taught in magic, had always known of her true heritage and barely remembers her mother while Loki, growing up with a mother who taught him magic, had to eventually know of his adoption. Later, while Sylvie was resting, Loki gathers the crowd and sings an Asgardian song for her, dropping his guard uniform in the process. When the real security come into the lounge for a fare-check, Loki attempts to summon the train tickets, but brings up a magic display instead. A brawl ensues between the guards and the Gods, ending when Loki is tossed out of the train. Sylvie is forced to follow him, but finds that the TemPad was broken in the fall.
After throwing a fit of rage, Sylvie then informs Loki about the impending apocalypse: as the planet collides with Lamentis-1, the Ark is unable to escape due to its destruction, and everyone as a result perishes. Loki then gets the idea to hijack the Ark early and fly away, a plan that Sylvie agrees to go along with. Along the way, Sylvie reveals to Loki that while probing C-20's memories, she had to project a memory from hundreds of years prior to her joining the TVA. Challenging the narrative of them being created by the Time-Keepers, she insists the TVA's workforce consists entirely of Variants. Eventually arriving at the launch base, the two find themselves facing a large crowd unable to access the spacecraft due to limited capacity.
The planet inches closer to the moon with every passing second, leaving Loki and Sylvie little time to waste. Fighting through the guards and the crumbling environment, the two race to the Ark, only to see its destruction to a meteor. Their sole method of escape obliterated, Loki and Sylvie are stranded, and all the people of Lamentis-1 can do is accept their fate.
Written by TomislavMuskovic on Oct 28, 2023