Loki and Wanda were gone. Sylvie watched Wanda get pruned and she immediately got down from the stage that the fake Time Keeper bodies were on. She ran at Ravonna just after Loki was pruned and kicked her down.

Ravonna stumbled and Sylvie pulled the prune stick from Ravonna's hands and pointed the stick at her.

Ravonna's hands were up in surrender and Sylvie gave a look of anger.

"Do it." Ravonna said, staring at the golden end of the prune stick.

"No." Sylvie stated. "You're going to tell me," She pushed Ravonna into the ground with her foot. "Everything."

Ravonna gulped, not liking that she was being helded at death point by a Loki variant.

Sylvie leaned down and grabbed Ravonna by the collar. She dragged the woman out of the room, in and out of the elevator, ignoring everyone looking at them.

They weren't going to do anything with their precious Judge Renslayer's life at stake now were they?

Sylvie dragged her into the judge room and threw her down, against one of the long benches for any bystanders to watch.

No one else was in the room though.

"Give me your Tempad." Sylvie demanded.

Ravonna did as she ordered and handed the Tempad to her.

"Who's really behind the TVA?"

"I'm as in the dark as you are." Ravonna said.

Sylvie stepped on her chest and pushed her into the floor as Ravonna tried to keep herself up, propped on her elbows. Ravonna let out a groan in pain.

"Poor Judge Renslayer. Your whole reality's been destroyed." Sylvie mocked.  "Tell me,"

Ravonna looked at Sylvie with honest fear in her eyes as Sylvie pushed the heel of her foot further into her chest.

"How does it feel to be on the other side of it?"

Sylvie did one last push of a foot then moved her shoe off of Ravonna. Ravonna let out a groan of pain and did her best to roll over to get herself up in the least painful way as possible.

"This is it, isn't it? This is where you dragged me after you stole my life."

Ravonna got herself up, breathing heavily as she looked at Sylvie.

"A fitting place to take yours." Sylvie said.

She stepped towards Ravonna, holding the prune stick towards her threateningly. Ravonna stepped back, hands slightly up like before.

"What if I said that Wanda and Loki aren't dead. Not yet anyway."

Sylvie stopped, gripping the stick.

"I'd say you were lying." She replied.

"Maybe. Or maybe we want the same thing."

"How are they still alive? And how will saving them get us closer to who's really behind the TVA?"

"It's.. complicated."

Sylvie stepped towards her again and Ravonna flinched.

"I'm telling you this willingly." She continued.

"Why?"

"Because I want to know who's at the top of this. I want to know who lied to me."

She sounded sincere, so Sylvie kept a threatening look but lowered the prune stick and turned it off, still capable of turning it back on in an instant if need be.

"When we prune a branched reality, it's impossible to destroy all of it's 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." Ravonna explained.

"To where?"

"A void at the end of time. Where every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops."

"Why?"

Ravonna sighed.

"I don't know. The dogma states that the end of time is still being written, that the Time-Keepers are transforming it into utopia."

Sylvie scoffed.

"That's nice. Super believable."

"Whatever the real reason, nothing ever comes back from there."

Sylvie bit her tongue to keep from showing how she felt about that sentence.

"I can help you if you trust me." Ravonna said, hoping Sylvie wouldn't change her mind about this and just prune her in the moment.

Sylvie glared at her, not taking her eyes off the woman, but she took the Tempad from her pocket and handed it back to Ravonna.

Ravonna gave a small nod and took it, walking towards her judge stand as Sylvie went and sat down in one of the rows of benches.

It was Asgard, long long ago. That was where she'd been taken. She was about 9, but she remembered that day so clearly.

"The dragon swoops towards the palace, the Valkyrie flies over, defeats the dragon, and saves Asgard."

She'd just been playing with toys, a dragon miniature, a pirate boat, a few soldier like figures, and a Pegasus figure.

Then the TVA orange door opened up behind her. She turned around and saw four soldiers walking towards her.

The lead one was Ravonna.

"There's our variant." The woman stated.

Two soldiers went and grabbed her while the third placed a reset charge on the ground where she'd just been sitting.

"On the authority of the Time-Keepers, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline."

Little Sylvie was dragged away and pulled towards the door, watching the strangers infiltrate her home.

"Reset it." Ravonna ordered.

"Wait!" Young Sylvie shouted.

They ignored her, handing her off to Ravonna. Then she pulled her through the TVA time door.

Sylvie remembered looking down at the ground, seeing a time symbol pained on the ground, words saying TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY, FOR ALL TIME, ALWAYS.

Hell, she hated those words. The only time they were good was when B-15 said it before Sylvie was given her sword and she fought against the soldiers.

Young Sylvie was forced through the hallways. She remembered seeing a man, just a regular man being forced down by one of the soldiers. He was obviously in pain and the soldier was only inflicting more pain.

"HELP HIM!" Sylvie shouted, only to be ignored.

She struggled but Ravonna held her securely.

She was forced through the variant process, being striped then forced into the TVA jumpsuit. A strange man made her sign a stack of papers.

She had to verify that she wasn't a robot, then she was brought into the court room.

"Next case!" The man called.

Ravonna brought her in, but Sylvie had had enough. She bit on the woman's arm and stomped on her foot.

Her small hands swiped the Tempad from Ravonna's jacket while Ravonna was temporarily caught of guard.

"Next case!" The man called again.

"Right here!" Ravonna said, turning as young Sylvie clicked buttons on the Tempad.

A door opened behind the girl and Ravonna watched as Sylvie disappeared into the portal.

The girl had no clue where to go, so she first went back home. It didn't work, then to Midgard, it didn't work, then to the frost giants, then more and more different places. Nothing worked. Until she found the apocalypses.

Sylvie cringed at the memory, propping her legs up on the bench in front of her.

Ravonna clicked a few buttons and the orange, electronic clock appeared.

"Miss Minutes, I need you to remote access a series of files from the archives."

"Ooh doggy! On what?" The computer asked excitedly.

"The beginning of time. The founding of the TVA."

"Right away."

"Wait." Sylvie stopped them.

She stood up from the bench.

"What about the end of time?"

"It's just a void." Ravonna replied.

Miss Minutes began scrolling through more electronic files, standing on the podium.

"What if the void isn't the end? What if there's something beyond it?" Sylvie asked.

Miss Minutes stopped and glanced at Ravonna, who gave a small nod to the clock.

She scrolled a bit more, then stopped. A file appeared and popped up, looking like a hologram of the timeline. Miss Minutes scrolled down it until the timeline stopped and branched off into a bunch of different colors. She couldn't scroll any farther.

"Hiding in the shadow of apocalypses obscured me from the TVA because I couldn't create a diverging branch there, right?"

Ravonna nodded.

"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's the only place they could be."

Ravonna and Sylvie looked at Miss Minutes and her hologram.

"So how do we get past The Void?" Sylvie asked.

Ravonna opened her mouth to speak but didn't really have an answer so it just came out as a bit of a sigh.

"It's impossible." She said. "There's nothing for the Tempad to lock onto. No destination."

"Then we go through it." Sylvie shrugged.

Ravonna's sigh turned to a bit of an annoyed glare.

"That's suicide."

"Then I guess my need for you has passed."

Sylvie flipped her prune stick around, ready to turn it on. Ravonna took a step back.

"Wait! What about The Void spacecraft?" Miss Minutes said.

Ravonna turned to her, fear plastered on her face.

"Yes, the prototype." Ravonna said, trying not to sound afraid.

Sylvie glanced to Miss Minutes.

"Great. I'll get the file.."

Sylvie turned back to Ravonna with a questioning look.

"It's a spaceship designed to withstand the temporal void. It could conceivably take us to the end of time."

"Fine Wanda and Loki." Sylvie continued.

"Find the man behind the curtain."

"And kill him."

"Together." Ravonna held out her hand to shake and Sylvie looked down at her hand, then shook it.

However when Ravonna went to let go, Sylvie gripped her hand tighter and kept her still.

"Miss Minutes, where are the files on this timecraft?" Sylvie asked, not taking her eyes off of Ravonna.

"Still lookin', hon."

Sylvie cocked her head to the side, not letting go of Ravonna.

"Nothing?"

"Hmm. Buried pretty deep." Miss Minutes said nervously.

Ravonna glanced to the clock then back at Sylvie, fear forming on her face once again.

"It's highly restricted. I might not even have clearance." Ravonna tried to come up with excuses.

"Oh, no, I think you would. If it's real."

Sylvie gripped her hand tighter and Ravonna winced, glancing to Miss Minutes.

"How long?"

"Any second now.."

Suddenly the doors to the court room swung open, one of the guards shouting.

"GO, GO, GO! MOVE IT!"

Miss Minutes vanished and Sylvie shoved Ravonna away, slipping her hand into the woman's jacket pocket before jumping up and over the stage where the judge section was.

There was a wall around the stage that Sylvie had to climb over, but she used the brick wall that covered the room to help herself climb over.

"You hurt?" The lead guard asked.

There were four soldiers in total, plus Ravonna.

"I'm fine, but she took my Tempad."

Sylvie ducked under the wall so the soldiers couldn't see her. She hadn't a clue what to do in the moment, but she needed to think fast.

"Sylvie? Not thinking of going on the run, are you? We know where you hide. Sooner or later, we'll catch you. You can thank your variant friends for that." Ravonna spoke.

Sylvie gripped her prune stick and glanced down at the Tempad. She had very little options.

"It must be so exhausting." Ravonna continued.

Sylvie rolled her eyes.

"I'll admit, you had me fooled there for a minute. Or did you get a little real?" She asked, still not showing herself behind the stage's wall. "Did Judge Renslayer really feel betrayed by her beloved TVA?"

"Why don't you come back out and we can talk about it?"

"Sure! Just tell everyone else to piss off and we can settle this between us."

"Works for me."

It didn't sound like any of them pissed off.

"What happened to finding the man behind the curtain?" Sylvie asked.

"Tell you what. You come out with your hands up and I'll put you in a time loop. Something not so bad. You can live out your days in a good memory. Do you have any good memories?"

"Just one, really." Sylvie mumbled to herself, not loud enough for the guards to head.

She looked down at the prune stick, then at the Tempad. She took a breath then put the Tempad in her pocket. She turned on the prune stick and stood up for the soldiers, and mostly for Ravonna, to see her.

Then she stabbed herself with the prune stick, closing her eyes as her body disappeared into sparks.

The soldiers stayed put for a second, then slowly turned and looked at Ravonna.

"She self pruned?" One said, confused.

"Good. That means she's dead too." Ravonna nodded, a breath of relief escaping her lips.

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My favorite quote of this chapter: "Then I guess my need for you has passed."