Chapter 48: The Tree
Tony P.O.V
I walked to the mansion's guest room and opened the door.
Inside the luxurious room bathed in morning light, Sylvie was lying on a large white bed.
I walked over to the side of the bed and sat in an armchair that was there.
"You've slept quite a bit. It's been a day since you've been asleep. Running nonstop and living amidst apocalypses hiding can take a toll on anyone's mentality." I said with a hint of admiration in my tone.
In truth, I admire this woman.
In all worlds, Loki is a villain, but this version of Loki is the only one who has never been a villain.
On the contrary, she is full of empathy and a sense of justice, dedicating her life to stopping the massacres that the TVA was carrying out by pruning entire timelines, just as they did with hers.
I suspect that the reason this Loki became a variant is... because she has a good heart.
Perhaps her hatred for the name Loki stems from the fact that Loki in all universes is associated with a villain and a selfish person, which she is not, which is why she renamed herself Sylvie.
Of course, these are just my thoughts.
Even though I spoke to her when I entered the room, her eyes showed no signs of movement and waking up.
"Sylvie, my entire house can be considered a technological apparatus, including the bed you're using, so I know you've woken up. It wasn't a coincidence that I arrived when you were about to wake up." I said, leaning back comfortably in the chair and intertwining my fingers.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes and stared at me.
"Where am I, who are you, and how do you know my name?" She asked me with a serious look.
I looked at her playfully.
"I don't think that's how the loser should act." I joked, unfazed.
"I didn't lose, it was a strategic retreat." She refuted without blinking and continued, "One more question, how did you stop me from leaving?" She inquired with a serious gaze.
I shook my head, amused, and decided to stop teasing her.
"My name is Tony Stark, you're in my mansion, and about you not being able to open the portal, it's because I swapped your TemPad for a fake one when you entered." I said confidently and with a serious look.
She looked at me surprised.
"You? Tony Stark? Impossible!" She said with narrowed eyes and incredulity.
This time it was me who was surprised.
"Oh? Why can't I be Tony Stark?" I asked, confused.
"If I interacted with a Tony Stark, the variance energy that would emit from that would lead the TVA to have already sent a squad to catch me and prune this timeline. Now tell me, who are you?" She said, rolling her eyes at me, and continued asking for answers.
"I'm not joking, I am Tony Stark. And about the TVA, I also don't understand it very well, but my wife should know, and she should be about to arrive." I said, shrugging.
Yao didn't tell me anything last night. She said it was best to tell everything at once when Sylvie woke up.
"Ah! There she is." I said, as a portal of golden sparks appeared in the middle of the room, from which Yao emerged walking.
I saw Sylvie look admirably at the portal.
Hiding in apocalyptic worlds and always running since childhood probably didn't give her many opportunities to see magic happening.
"This is my wife, Yao. She is an extremely powerful sorceress, and she will answer our questions." I said with a smile and introduced her.
"Hello, Princess Sylvie. I'm Yao." Yao nodded and introduced herself.
"I'm not a princess anymore. And how do you know about me? Are we at the TVA?" Sylvie asserted and then asked, bewildered.
Well, she doesn't have the demeanor of a princess... maybe just the way she speaks.
Yao walked to my side and conjured a chair to sit next to me.
Normally she would sit on my lap, but there are strangers in the room, and she wouldn't do that.
"To answer your question, we first have to talk about the enemy you're facing." Yao said, looking at Sylvie, who was now looking at her with a serious and attentive gaze, and continued.
"The TVA was created by a man popularly known as Kang the Conqueror. He was a scientist who learned about the multiverse, met his variants, learned from his variants, and went to war with these same variants. The first Kang who encountered the multiverse and interacted with it eventually found a weapon that allowed him to win the war against all his other variants, killing them. Being the last one left, he earned the title 'the one who remains.'" Yao explained succinctly.
Sylvie looked at Yao for a second in silence, but before she could speak, Yao raised her hand and continued.
"The Time Keepers are fake. They are just androids designed by Kang to help him control the TVA while he remains anonymous." She answered the question that Sylvie didn't even need to ask.
This time Sylvie's reaction was more intense. She gritted her teeth with hatred against Kang, but she still didn't fully believe us.
"He said he's Tony Stark. If it's true, why didn't the TVA come when we met?" Sylvie asked, raising an eyebrow.
I also looked curiously at Yao. If the TVA exists, why didn't they take me when I arrived?
"When 'the one who remains' won, he feared his variants, so he gathered the time energy from his sector of the multiverse where he was born, created the TVA, and charted a path that all those universes should follow, pruning all those that deviated from his vision, thus preventing the birth of new variants of himself or anyone similar to him." Yao explained solemnly. Although she didn't answer Sylvie's question.
Sylvie looked surprised at Yao.
"What do you mean by sector of the multiverse?" Sylvie looked at us strangely.
"Well, let me make an analogy to help with the visualization. Imagine the entire multiverse as a gigantic tree. From its trunk, branches sprout, and from the branches, more branches. What Kang did was isolate an entire branch back to its origin in the trunk." Yao said simply.
I manipulated the nanobots to bring her a glass of water. She has been talking non-stop, she must be thirsty.
Yao accepted the glass of water with a smile and drank it.
"You still haven't answered my question, why hasn't the TVA come yet?" Sylvie asked the question she had been asking from the beginning.
This time Yao smiled at her and answered.
"Because we're in another branch on the trunk." Yao said amusedly.
Sylvie's eyes widened.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone