A magical diversion

Sylvie found herself returning to Xialing. As it was, she raised surprisingly few eyebrows there while in her bra, even is she preferred to keep her arms crossed. Sports' bras were all the rage for fighters; appearing out of nowhere to spar briefly with Xialing seemed to qualify.

After one bout of one-sided training, she headed off again. She found herself smiling oddly - okay, Xialing had no idea who she was upon every return, but it was a kind of consistency Sylvie hadn't really had in this life. It wasn't often the same person recurred.

Well, not unless she took them with her. Sylvie's smile slipped off her face.

Her next few trips were shockingly uneventful. Punctuated by brief trips to Xialing, Sylvie saw a lot of nothing. She saw the crazy blonde a couple of times and promptly fled, and more giant monsters than she expected, but nothing in the way of advanced, usable technology.

She recuperated on a plain until the TVA showed up, and quickly opened a portal back to Xialing's club.

"Hi again," Sylvie said.

They were in the same back-room. Xialing was wiping her brow after a fight, before frowning.

"Who are you?" Xialing said tiredly.

"Kinda bored of answering that," Sylvie said. "Let's do this."

She adopted a fighting pose, and let Xialing respond. They traded blows, dodging and striking, for a minute or so before the inevitable interruption, and Sylvie swiftly left her to be pruned. Again.

Sylvie stepped into the SHIELD base again, closing the portal behind her. She definitely felt like she was improving anyway - hopefully it would add up to something. Tired, she sat on an abandoned chair, trying to take stock of the situation.

She adjusted her bra. It was a dark blue, and perhaps unavoidably didn't perfectly fit, but it was at least sufficient. She tugged it down, as if willing it to do a better just at covering her breasts; as it was, it squeezed them a little uncomfortably, pushing them up. She grimanced, adjusting his pants. They, at least, were completely decent, if tight.

She was halfway decent at hand-to-hand, had a lead on advanced technology even if it meant running into a terrifying warrior with light-weapons, had a spare TemPad, and a SHIELD base to hide out in. It was more of a start than she'd had for a while.

She opened a portal back to Xialing. The woman gave her a by-now very familiar, dispassionately confused look.

"Why are you back here?" Xialing said.

Sylvie didn't have the energy to banter. She sparred for a moment, proud of herself for calling and dodging a few blows, before there was a flash of orange from outside.

"Seriously, why does this place keep calling us?"

A muffled, annoyed TVA agent's voice carried through the door. Sylvie faltered. That was a good point; she probably couldn't keep coming back here without drawing undue attention.

She felt oddly sad about that. She did miss the consistency.

She drew back; Xialing still eyed her, arms raised guardedly, even if she briefly glanced back over her shoulder. Sylvie hesitated, then sighed.

"Alright, fine," Sylvie muttered to herself.

Xialing raised an eyebrow, still regarding her watchfully.

"I'll save someone," Sylvie said. "That's... something, right? Would make a change."

"What are you talking about?" Xialing said, impatiently.

Sylvie made a grab for her. Xialing reacted, of course, but she just needed a brief touch to enchant; Xialing's mind shone to her, flickers of an alarmingly dark life passing through her thoughts for scant seconds before Xialing drew back, already slipping out of her loose, practical martial arts uniform, jacket and top falling to the floor to reveal a well-tones body, before she slid down her loose pants to reveal slender, toned legs.

Sylvie quickly drew back into a portal as the TVA agents checked the office. For a second, she saw Xialing, nude, suddenly realising that she was naked; for half a second she tried to cover up with her arms, slim limbs barely adequate to cover her body, before her face darkened in evident, mostly-concealed embarrassment and she resorted to lashing out at the latest intruders. A long leg kicked at one as she whirled in the air, her nudity not much of a physical obstacle to her skillset.

The portal closed. Well, hopefully she'd give the TVA a few bruises, and they had been collecting naked variants, so...

Sylvie faltered for a second. She'd saved someone. That was what mattered, she supposed.

Forcing herself to focus, Sylvie turned her attention back to the TVA. She'd glimpsed something intriguing in Xialing's mind; a magical realm, called Ta Lo. She didn't know the way to it, but her mother had told her stories, apparently. Magic itself didn't appeal to Sylvie, but if they had weapons, as it sounded, that could still be beneficial. She'd take a well-made spear that could outrange one of those pruning batons any day.

You'd think it would be easy to find what she wanted over all of time, but with how random her destinations were, it could be challenging.

Still, magic was something she knew. A magical realm connected to Earth, supposedly, was just a coordinate away. She had a fair idea how TVA coordinates worked by now too, at least generally - that referenced galaxy, that referenced distance from centre, that was one angle relative to a plane, that was another angle, that was time-coordinate, which left that slot as dimensional level.

She opened a portal to Midgard again, then adjusted the last number. As soon as a portal formed rather than sputtering out, bracing herself, she made a note, and started looking through past portals stored in the TemPad with the same coordinate. Once she found one, she opened up a doorway and walked towards it.

She quickly tested it with a stray clipboard, poking it halfway through the portal before pulling it back. When it didn't come back smoking, she braced herself and stepped through.

There usually weren't that many overlapping magical dimensions, in her experience. One or two godly realms, a magical plane, a pocket dimension, and maybe the occasional parasite-space; that was all she'd heard about on Asgard anyway. Magical planes would be the closest to reality, so the odds were probably 50/50 that this was the Ta Lo Xialing had thought about.

It looked like a forest. Sylvie frowned, looking from side to side; there were trees, a clear sky, and no immediate signs of magic.

And then a bird that seemed to be on fire spiralled through the sky, visible through the leafy canopy. Sylvie raised an eyebrow. Well that was something.

She pocketed both her TemPads, and slowly began to walk, cautiously crossing her arms. Presumably there was a settlement here, if the TVA had been here. Empty woods didn't just sprout nexus events.

Eventually, she heard a distant murmur. Carefully, she walked closer to it, keeping behind trees when she could. She peered out, looking for any movement. So long as she saw them before they saw her...

"Er, hi?"

Sylvie whirled around, cheeks flushing a little. She still had her bra on, she told herself. Still had a bra.

There was a woman a few steps away from her, wearing red with a quiver on her back. She had dark hair, down past her shoulders, brown skin, and wide, perpetually-delighted eyes.

"Er. What happened to your shirt?" she said.

Sylvie fidgeted.

"Long story," she said.

She paused for a moment, eyeing the stranger. The red looked like an odd kind of armour, if she were to guess - maybe mail. Still, it was better than nothing. Maybe...

"Er, hi, I'm Katy!" the stranger said brightly. "New here. Obviously. And you? Weird clothes. Er, I mean normal clothes, but weird for here, you know. At least I think they're weird for here, like I said, new here, don't really know what's normal... No, Morris!"

Before Sylvie could step closer and interrupt Katy's (admittedly impressive) babbling with an enchantment, something that looked like a ball of fur suddenly barrelled past her. It was small, squat, a round fluffball a little larger than a head, with pudgy legs and tiny, apparently-useless wings fluttering on its backs.

It squeaked, and jumped up at Sylvie; Sylvie caught it, bewildered. It wriggled in her arms as she lifted it up,apparently now resorting to using stray furry creatures to keep her modesty.

"Um," Sylvie said.

"Oh, that's Morris," Katy said. "He's affectionate, I guess. Yeah. I don't get it either."

Sylvie stared down at it. Light brown fluff stared back at her. Presumably.

"Hey, you should get back to the village. Coming battle, all that," Katy said. "You do know, right? Probably need some dragonscale rather than, er, all that. Not that you don't look good - body confidence, all that, but probably not the most practical if..."

Vaguely, Sylvie noted the mention of a battle. That ought to cover her tracks with the TVA if it was happening. Still, she was undeniably distracted. 'Morris' wriggled, squeaking happily at her.

"Why doesn't he have a face?" Sylvie said, eventually.

Morris squeak-harrumphed.

"Oh, wait, he doesn't like it if you say-" Katy began.

Morris leapt aggressively out of her arms, making her stumble back. Unfortunately, through its wriggling, one of its ting wings had gotten hooked in the front of her bra; Sylvie yelped as she felt it tear, and saw Morris tear off into the forest, cups and straps trailing behind it.

"Hey!" Sylvie said.

She suddenly reddened, crossing her arms and glancing, embarrassed at Katy. Katy quickly shut her mouth, averting her gaze - or at least turning her head, though Sylvie was pretty sure she was being watched out of the corner of her eye.

Cupping her breasts, a palm on each, Sylvie started hurrying through the forest.

"Stupid rat-thing," Sylvie muttered.

"It's not a rat!" Katy called after her. "It's a... I don't know what it is actually."

Sylvie sped up, eager to put Katy behind her. Topless, she went off in the general direction Morris had, hoping that the TVA wouldn't detect any variance for a little time yet, muttering to herself.

All that effort and a squeaking, faceless rodent had ended up revealing her breasts to the world. Again. She kept moving, craning her head to look around trees, slowing as she reached a wilder portion of the woods. Leafy twigs brushed the bare skin of her side, and she slowed, half-unwilling to go deeper, and half just self-conscious.

Maybe she should just have enchanted Katy. Ugh. If she could find her again...

"Sylvie."

She froze. Bright red, she turned around, prepared to be embarrassed and prepared to enchant in equal measure-

And she saw Ava standing among the trees. Sylvie faltered. Ava was dressed in the same clothes Sylvie had first seen her in, the grey-and-white outfit; for a moment Sylvie thought it was an Ava from this time, but no, that Ava didn't know her. But her Ava wouldn't wear that anymore. And...

She couldn't be here. Sylvie faltered. 'Ava' stepped closer, placatingly.

"I can help you," she said.

"You're not her," Sylvie said. "You can't be."

It paused.

"No," 'Ava' said. "I don't need to lie to you - I needed a form that you would talk to."

Guardedly, Sylvie turned. It was, she reflected, simultaneously very awkward and annoyingly familiar to have deep conservations while not fully dressed.

"What are you?" Sylvie said.

"An ally," the... thing said. "You have enemies that you cannot fight - and I have power, power which could be turned against them, if you wished it."

Sylvie hesitated.

"Sounds a little too good to be true," Sylvie said slowly.

"There is a seal in Ta Lo," not-Ava said. "It keeps me captive. If you help free me, I can help you. Your TVA is not beyond my reach. Will you?"