Despite being mostly dismissive about technology, I still had to admit that the TVA's technology was impressive, in certain ways.
Remembering back to the Loki series, the tech was a mess. Some of it looked like future tech, while the rest looked like something out of the 1960s.
Honestly, the organisation policing the timelines and the multiverse using rotary phones? Yeah, that is just bullshit.
Still, some of their tech was beyond impressive, like the TemPad in my hand. Able to open portals to any place within the universe, including past and future, and even different timelines and entirely different universes within the multiverse.
Though the last few functions I still hadn't figured out, but then again, this damned device wasn't as easy to use as it looked when both Loki and later Deadpool stole them and used them seconds later.
Or maybe I was just bad with tech.
That was also an option.
What I found particularly brilliant was the fact that the gateways opened using these things, which were completely undetectable, no magic, no divine, no power, but sight alone could see them.
Even someone like Heimdall wouldn't notice someone opening a gate like this into the heart of Asgard.
Even back in Camelot, I only noticed before I could sense the people stepping out of them, if not for that, I couldn't have sensed them.
That was the true brilliance of these portals. And why mere humans could police the timelines, because they could hide from any threats, and use their potent reset charges to destroy the timeline before anyone could notice what they were doing,
Why else would Odin not stop the TVA from kidnapping Loki after Loki? Many taken from within Asgard itself?
It wasn't that he didn't want to; he simply never had a chance, because the TVA acted fast and with stealth.
Because, despite the agents themselves being weak, and some of their tools and technology making little sense, the reset charges themselves were powerful, though they did have a weakness.
A weakness I was personally exploiting to ensure that in this timeline, my reality wasn't cut before its time.
"And here I thought EVA was already impressive, yet here you got teleportation tech," Fantomex said, his voice breaking me out of my thoughts as he looked at the floating glowing portal.
"Naturally!" Mordred said proudly. "Father got the best shit there is!"
"Once we go through, Mordred, you will be the main force, as I will protect the others, and you will all remain close to me." I reminded everyone, before nodding to Mordred, who had changed from the racer girl outfit into her full armor.
Mordred's grin widened as she tightened her grip on Clarent. "About damn time. I've been itching for this."
Her armor caught the portal's glow, crimson steel burning like embers in the half-light.
Manon and Maxime exchanged a nervous glance. "You're certain we'll be safe with you?" Maxime asked, trying to sound braver than he looked.
"You'll be safe," I assured him. "So long as you listen. You'll see Morgana with your own eyes — but you will not face her. That burden falls to Mordred and me."
The boy nodded, his sister clutching his arm. Fantomex, still pale but conscious, smirked faintly. "I'll watch from the back. Don't worry, mon roi, I won't get in your way."
Mordred snorted. "Wouldn't help much even if you tried." Before she stepped through the portal.
"Come, follow me," I said as I followed her inside.
What met us on the other side wasn't a dark dungeon; it wasn't walls of bones and floors of skulls that greeted us. The air wasn't filled with screams or pained moaning.
Indeed, few real villains lived like that. Most liked the good life, luxury, and wealth.
Morgana was no different as we stood in a hall of what looked like an old but stylish castle.
The stone was ancient, but the walls were dressed in finery. Black velvet banners trimmed in silver hung between tall windows, each one flickering with ghostly light from sconces that burned without flame. The floor was polished marble, veined with crimson like frozen blood, reflecting us as if we stood upon water.
A faint perfume lingered in the air — roses and iron.
"...Well," Fantomex muttered, glancing up at a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes of battle and coronation, "this is a step up from the usual mad-scientist lair."
Mordred's gauntlet scraped against Clarent's hilt as she scanned the shadows. "Hmph. She's trying too hard. Place stinks of ego."
"She will know we are here, Mordred, act now!" I said, pointing towards a set of large ornate doors. The kind that just screamed final boss behind these.
Mordred clearly agreed. With a smirk, she kicked off against the floor, shattering the marble as her body blurred and the large doors exploded in a shower of wood and metal.
And beyond them, on a throne of obsidian shot through with veins of silver, sat Morgana.
She flinched when the doors burst, her poise cracking for the briefest heartbeat. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed into slits of emerald fire.
"You," she hissed, fingers curling around the arms of her throne. "Impossible. You should still be in Camelot!"
Her voice carried a tremor she couldn't quite mask. The shock was genuine. She hadn't expected me here — not now, not like this.
I didn't blame her; if she were anything like my own Morgan, she too would be arrogant and cut off from the world.
Sitting in her tower, or castle, ruling from the shadows, it would take time for news to reach her, and I hadn't given her the time. It had been less than an hour since we dealt with Amora, so she had no idea the Asgardian had fallen, and no idea that I had appeared.
I stepped into the ruined chamber with calm purpose, Mordred swaggering at my side. "Did you expect me to ignore your continued attempts at harming my people? My nation? Not to mention using my sister's name and titles?"
She rose, her gown flowing like a living shadow, her crown of black iron catching the light. "I am Morgana Le Fey! I am the rightful Queen of Camelot! You? You are the pretender, someone claiming to be my brother, but couldn't even get the sex right!"
"You always were one for denial," I replied.
"Fucking crazy bitch, claiming to be my mother? You must have a problem with your fucking head." Mordred cursed like she was a Frenchman.
Morgana sneered, her shock giving way to cold fury. "You are both pretenders, calling a woman father? And she, in turn, is calling you her son? Both of you are crazy, lusting after my loser brother and son's legacy."
Morgana chose to answer our words with some of her own, and they hit, just not as she had expected.
To her, both Mordred and I were indeed pretenders; we were not the Arthur and Mordred she knew.
But to us, she was the pretender, because Mordred was Mordred, child of Morgan Le Fey and Arthuria Pendragon. Heir to Camelot.
So her words, they didn't strike at some hidden weakness, some inner doubt; they didn't cause discomfort but ignited rage.
Mordred in particular lacked the patience to let what she firmly believed to be a pretender talk to us like that. Ever impatient, she stepped forward with a feral grin. "Enough talk. We came here to gut you, witch."
Morgana's lips twisted into a cruel smile. "Gut me? Child, you could not even gut your own doubts. You swing that cursed blade not as a knight, but as a tantrum made flesh. You think yourself heir to Camelot? You are nothing but a stain upon it."
Her words dripped with poison, and with each one the shadows along the walls thickened, curling like smoke. From the marble floor rose shapes half-formed — knights in armor black as pitch, their visors empty, their swords jagged mockeries of steel. Illusions, perhaps, but illusions with weight, each one breathing with Morgana's hatred.
"Witness," she declared, her arms outstretched, "the true Camelot. My Camelot. You stand in my throne room, Arthuria. And you—" she leveled a finger at Mordred "—you are no heir, only a mistake I will erase."
That was the end of Mordred's patience.
"FUCK YOU!" she roared, lunging forward, Clarent bursting with crimson light that drowned out Morgana's phantoms. Marble shattered under her boots as she swung with the weight of all her fury, her strike aimed not at the shadows, but at the witch who cast them.
Steel and sorcery collided in a storm of fire and black light.
Clarent's crimson blaze split the chamber, Mordred's fury making the air quake. Morgana met the strike with a sweeping gesture, her gown snapping like a banner in the wind. A wall of black glass erupted between them, shattering instantly under the blow — but it bought her the heartbeat she needed.
"Such rage," Morgana hissed, sliding back across the marble as though the shadows carried her. "A child swinging at her mother. How poetic."
Mordred spat, her grin feral. "You're not my fucking mother." Clarent came down again, sparking as Morgana caught it on a blade of woven night, the clang reverberating like a funeral bell.
The rest of us had no time to breathe. From the corners of the hall, the shadows Morgana had conjured earlier stretched long and sharp, peeling free into armored husks. Phantom knights. Their helms turned not to Mordred, but to my charges.
Manon gasped, clutching her brother's hand as a spectral sword came sweeping down. I was already moving.
To ensure that Morgana wouldn't flee right away, I didn't dare use any of my too powerful weapons; instead, I used Caliburn, still powerful, but a far cry from the likes of Excalibur or Rhongomyniad.
I split the illusory steel apart before it touched them. "Stay close to me!" I barked, shoving back a second phantom with another perfect slash.
Morgana's laugh rang over the clash of steel. "Yes, Arthuria. Guard them. Spend your strength on gnats while your little bastard burns."
Her taunt was cut short by the grind of steel. Mordred had locked Clarent against Morgana's black blade, their faces inches apart, teeth bared in mirrored rage.
"You talk too much," Mordred snarled, shoving forward with brute force. The impact cracked the marble floor beneath their boots. "Let's see how loud you scream when I split your skull."
Morgana's eyes gleamed. She whispered a word, and the very shadows beneath Mordred's feet clawed upward, seizing her ankles like tar made flesh.
Mordred roared, using a mana burst to break free as crimson lightning covered her body, but it slowed her for a single instant — just enough for Morgana's palm to slam into her chest and hurl her back through a stone pillar.
I admit, Morgana was putting up a real fight. Far better than when she appeared back in Camelot, but that was also not her true body.
Now that she was backed into a corner, she went all out and showed the power that allowed her to hide from someone like the Ancient One.
The entire world came alive with dark magic. Thick tendrils of shadow rose from all around, striking from every possible angle. Knights and monsters made of dark magic appeared from the shadows to attack both us and help Morgana fend off Mordred.
The room was falling apart, the battlefield expanding beyond it, yet the fighting was only growing ever more intense.
(End of chapter)
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