The footage continued.
Loki, furious, stood up from his chair and walked to the corner of the room.
Like a cornered beast, he suddenly spun around and asked Mobius:
["What exactly do you want?"]
Mobius replied:
["I want you to honestly tell me why you did those things."]
Loki snarled:
["You're lying!"]
["I'm serious."] Mobius also stood up from his chair.
["I just want to dig deep… into the true thoughts hidden within the mind of the terrifying God of Mischief."]
Loki seemed on the verge of breaking, tilting his head back and muttering to himself:
["I know what this place is."]
["Everything here is an illusion!"] Staring at Mobius, Loki's voice and expression turned grim.
["This is a cruel and meticulously designed trap, manipulated by someone as weak as you, made to instill fear."]
["You're doing all of this just to control me!"]
Loki spread his arms, a defiant smile on his face:
["You all walk around here, pretending to be some supreme arbiter of the universe."]
Mobius nodded solemnly:
["We are the arbiter."]
["You're not."] Loki said firmly.
["All my choices are made by me, myself."]
["OK! Your choices are yours, no problem. Let's continue."]
Mobius seemed completely uninterested in arguing with Loki—he just wanted to pull him back into his psychological game.
["I think this will excite you."]
Mobius pressed a button on the machine, and the projection on the screen immediately changed.
A group of men and women appeared, kneeling before Loki with terrified expressions.
["The allure of freedom has robbed you of the joys in your life."]
Loki, wearing his horned helmet, was giving an impassioned speech:
["Driving you to obsessively pursue power…"]
Seeing this version of himself seemingly at the peak of his life, Loki's face contorted with frustration:
["Yes… I… I was just a hair's breadth away from getting everything I deserved!"]
["And I did all this because I wanted to, not because of fate!"]
["Not because of you, nor because some Time Variance Authority set a path for me!"]
Increasingly enraged, Loki glared at Mobius:
["Honestly, you're pathetic."]
["You're an insignificant pawn, just a pebble in my path forward."]
["Are you done talking?"]
Mobius' expression suddenly grew serious:
["You should take a good look at what you've done in your past."]
["If you hadn't taken the Tesseract, you wouldn't have ended up locked in Asgard's prison."]
Mobius pressed the button on the machine again, and the projection shifted.
Loki appeared, chained and shackled, walking before Queen Frigga.
["What?"]
Seeing this scene, Loki in the otherworldly livestream suddenly changed expression.
What the hell is going on? In the future, I've been reduced to a prisoner?
Loki swallowed hard, feeling a sudden unease in his chest.
"Damn it… is there not a single good thing in my future?"
[Looking at Frigga in front of him, Loki said proudly:]
["Mother, have I ever made you proud?"]
[Frigga's face was full of worry: "Loki, don't make things worse."]
In the Time Variance Authority, since Loki had never seen the future, he initially scoffed at everything in the projection.
["What is this nonsense? No, this is another trick, none of this ever happened."]
Mobius pointed a finger at Loki:
["For you, these things just haven't happened… yet."]
["Loki, the TVA knows not just your past, but even your future—we know what is destined to occur."]
["This is ridiculous."]
Loki shook his head in disbelief, clearly refusing to accept Mobius' words.
But the projection continued.
[Queen Frigga: "Am I not your mother?"]
[Loki, wearing chains, replied coldly: "You are not."]
"!!!!"
In Asgard, Odin and Frigga exchanged a tense glance, each able to see the shock and horror hidden deep in the other's eyes.
Odin's lips curled into a bitter smile.
In the future, Loki indeed learned the truth about his origin.
However, the outcome was completely opposite from what he had imagined.
Loki did not go on to rule Jotunheim. Instead, he ended up at odds with Asgard, and turned against his own family!
~~----------------------
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