Hearing the strange figure in front of him reveal his identity, Loki stood still. He turned Helen's head to one side and then looked up and down at the group of people with a keen gaze.
"Who did you say you were just now?"
"The Time Anomaly Management Bureau; you can call me B15." The dark-skinned leader extended a hand, adjusted her helmet, and reached out to Loki.
Loki, unsure of her intentions, instinctively backed up, squinting his eyes. Suddenly, a light screen lit up in the palm of B15, displaying Loki's warrant.
Loki didn't scrutinize the warrant closely, because B15 only held it up for about a second. She retracted her arm, picked up her shield, made a gesture to her subordinates, and all of them began moving towards Loki.
First, Loki held out a hand, stopping them mid-action. B15 looked puzzled but refrained from acting rashly. The next moment, a flash of light crossed Loki and the dark-haired youth disappeared. In his place stood a young girl with black hair.
Around her temples, she had several braids twisted and secured at the back of her head with shiny hairpins. The rest of her wavy hair hung loosely behind her.
She was donning a white chiffon dress common among goddesses in Asgard, baring one shoulder, and wore an unfinished wreath of flowers on her head, with vines falling down around her ears.
Female Loki looked like a goddess who had just stepped out of an oil painting. A stark contrast to the strange figures in black explosion-proof suits and shields. Therefore, they were all stunned when they saw her.
B15, who claimed to be the female leader, gaped at the girl in front of her. She extended a hand, and the light screen in her palm reappeared, showing the wanted notice, which bore the likeness of male Loki.
At this point, a subordinate wielding a strange magic wand approached and murmured to B15, "I just scanned her. It's not a blind eye technique or an illusion technique. Boss, did we get the wrong person?"
"The problem with Female Loki is a bigger one." B15 said gravely, her eyes moved from Loki to Helen's face.
"I'm sorry, but I believe you've got the wrong person," Loki said with a slight smile. "As you can see, I may not be the Loki you're in search of."
"Take her away!" B15 said without mercy.
However, Loki hesitated for a moment, a flicker of thought crossed her eyes. She looked up at B15, "Don't act rashly. So you plan to arrest me even though you've realized I'm not the male Loki on the wanted notice? Is that in your orders?"
B15's lips moved slightly, but she didn't answer. Instead, she pointed her wand at Loki and warned, "You'd better leave with us without making a fuss, or it'll be worse for you."
"I'd like to see how you're planning to make it worse." Loki sneered, a halo lit up behind her. With a slight lift of her hand, a ray of light shot towards B15.
However, B15 was unruffled. A golden ray shot out from her wand, but instead of flying towards Loki, it attached itself to the shield she was holding, instantly covering the surface of the shield in a layer of golden glow.
The light column emitted by Loki disappeared the moment it touched the golden glow.
Before Loki could raise her hand again, Helen whispered in her ear, "Don't try again that power can dissolve our divine power…"
Loki's pupils shrunk, but she did not lower her hand. Instead, she gently stretched out her fingers and said to B15, "Alright, I get it, you're very powerful. No need to make this any uglier. Especially when there's a child present."
"Helen, leave quickly, go find your grandmother." Loki patted Helen's back, whispering to her. However, Helen shook her head vigorously, saying, "No way! I have to go with you!"
Loki was about to argue, but Helen swiftly climbed onto her neck and whispered in her ear: "Haven't you noticed? They are here for you! You can't think of leaving alone!"
Loki saw that persuasion was futile and could only resort to force. She stretched out her hands, grabbed Helen's wrists, and tried to remove her hands from her neck.
At first, Loki didn't dare use too much force because Helen's arms were so thin. The little girl may have grown a bit since her birth but remained very slender. Apart from her face resembling Loki's, her build was more akin to a human little girl.
However, when Loki gently applied force, she realized Helen's small arms had the strength of a large crab's claw trying to escape from a pot, the strength Loki applied seemed to be sucked into a black hole, unable to move Helen.
Loki widened her eyes, looking down on the innocent-faced little girl. She gritted her teeth and tried once more, but Helen remained inert.
Loki took a deep breath and sighed, "Alright. Lately, everyone seems to be against me…"
"You can't take my mom away!!!!!!!!"
Under Loki and B15's astonished gaze, Helen suddenly cried out, her tears flowed down within a second of appearing in her eyes.
"You cannot arrest my mom!! You cannot arrest my mom!!! You bunch of villains!!!" Helen started crying loudly.
Loki was somewhat flustered, trying to cover her mouth. Among the crowd watching from the side, the subordinate closest to B15 stepped forward and questioned doubtfully, "Are we sure we didn't get the wrong person? Loki's file clearly states he is unmarried and has no children."
B15 initially wanted to mention that Helen might be Loki's adopted daughter, but seeing their nearly identical faces, she couldn't bring herself to say it.
When Loki was male, he only bore a moderate resemblance to Helen. Since his transformation into a female, their similarity was at least eighty percent. No one would believe that they had no blood relation if they looked at their faces.
Moreover, the crowd had special inspection methods to ensure that Loki was not using the blind eye technique, and they could even discern whether she was telling the truth.
B15 glanced at her magic wand emitting a golden glow, and then at Helen, who was clinging to Loki and crying incessantly, a mysterious light flickering in her eyes. Without her notice, she lowered her voice and said to Loki,
"This is my duty, please cooperate. I can give you five minutes to send your child away, but you have to come with us."
Loki, who was completely inept at dealing with children, said frustratedly, "Then could you please get this child off me?! I would be endlessly grateful!"
Seeing his subordinate wanting to approach, B15 extended a hand to stop him and handed the shield to someone behind her.
She took out her magic wand, walked forward, and said, "I advise you against taking any hostile actions. Believe me, no time offender can escape punishment..."
After speaking, she gently gripped Helen's shoulders, trying to take her off Loki. But B15 faced the same situation as Loki - Helen seemed glued to Loki, completely immovable.
B15 tugged harder, but Helen didn't budge. Instead, her cries got louder, headache-inducing even to the robust Time Management Bureau staff standing behind B15.
The original serious and slightly horrifying arrest scene had completely turned into a domestic drama of appeasing a mischievous child. B15, Loki, and the subordinates combined couldn't manage to pry Helen off Loki no matter what they tried.
Physical force didn't work; this little girl seemed incredibly strong - when she decided not to move, no one could budge her. Spells didn't work either; any magic cast on her blinked for a moment and then vanished as if it had never existed.
In the end, B15 pulled out a small square device and pressed it against Helen. However, the scene she expected to see in her mind, of Helen being separated from Loki due to the reset of her own timeline, did not appear.
Helen, with her big round eyes, stared at the woman, looking as if she had no clue what was happening.
The halo on Loki's head had completely fallen apart, Frigga's carefully braided plaits unspooled. Loose and shapeless on one side, the other side wasn't held in place by any hair accessory and now hung over her shoulders.
To put it nicely, her style had gone from Academic to Fauvist. To be blunt, she looked like a madwoman right now.
"Very well, Helen Stark!" Loki, hands on her hips, stood in the center of the room and said to Helen, "I really should let your father and grandparents come and see what you look like now!"
Loki then raised both hands as if in prayer and said, "You must have inherited Tony Stark's damn temper! Stinky and stubborn! Totally oblivious to the atmosphere, oblivious to the situation, and stubborn to the point of being a pain!"
"Once I come back, I will definitely send you to your grandfather, let him take you to Asgard's army for training, and get rid of your bad habits that come from that bastard Stark's poor upbringing!!!"
B15, holding the magic wand, was taken aback. She turned to her subordinate and asked, "Did you hear that? She just mentioned... who?"
"Tony Stark?" The subordinate swallowed and said, "Iron Man?!! The child's father is Iron Man?!!"
"Boss, how about we go back and recheck the content of the arrest warrant? I seriously suspect we got the wrong person!" The subordinate said doubtfully, but B15 shook her head and said,
"Impossible, the information on the warrant was updated only a decade ago. For the gods of Asgard, ten years is no more than the blink of an eye. They are of the Immortal Species, not like those races with only a few decades of life, who have to compress their dating, marriage, and childbearing into a few years... "
Having said this, B15, too, looked at the strenuous situation before her with a slightly headache. She glanced back at her subordinates, noting their cold gaze and tightly gripped weapons. B15 came up to Loki, weighing the magic wand in her hand and said,
"This is your unavoidable fate and my responsibility. If your daughter does not want to leave you, then you both shall come with me."
Hearing this, Helen immediately stopped crying. As B15 turned around to leave, she raised her eyebrow at Loki and said, "I told you, she's soft-hearted when it comes to kids. See, I told you it would work!"
As Loki followed B15 through the portal, she said,
"Did I ever tell you that in addition to being like Tony, you're also a lot like Shiller."