A spaceship

The ground was metal, diquietingly cold under her feet. Sylvie gasped instinctively, jumping on the spot, then quickly looking around to try and see if she'd been spotted. This was too out in the open.

The chamber was larger than most homes, smooth, cold grey metal underfoot. A dome stretched up overhead, made from the same metal, arches of steel dotted with hooks and lights and odd bits of machinery. On the far side of the room, there was a huge sheet of glass - out through it, Sylvie saw stars.

She was on a ship. Given a couple more seconds, she probably could have guessed that; the ground under her feet was shuddering slightly with the thrum of an engine. It figured that her spree of ending upon Midgard would have to end eventually.

Large as it was, the room wasn't remotely empty. At a guess, it was some kind of factory floor: there were conveyors that stretched from one side to another, half-built bits of detritus riding across the chamber. Sometimes cranes descended to add or take parts, and sometimes hulking figures stood by the conveyors reached on to take some piece of ephemera from one belt to another.

But between those belts, the floor was mostly empty, leaving Sylvie stood without even an ankle-high obstruction near her. She quickly familiarised herself with how the room looked, turning on the spot - and then started to move in a hurry.

She was still in just the jacket she'd stolen, comparatively recently. The dark leather reached her waist, and when she held it shut with one hand, outlined a generous view of her cleavage without fluttering too much. Below that, though, she was bare, a strip of blonde hair visible - she didn't even try to cover with her hand just then, too intent on running quickly to a sizeable crate.

The only people in that chamber were the workers overseeing the belts all around here. There were maybe half a dozen in front of her, and more behind, with no features to the room save those belts. Whatever this factory was doing, it was dedicated to that task - and honestly she didn't care what the exact end goal was. This sort of technology was primitive by Asgardian standards, and so she expected useless for dealing with the TVA. Just some random ship in the middle of nowhere.

There was nowhere she could crouch that hid her from all sides. The crate she was by was adjacent to a conveyor, one side adjoining the belt - it was filled to the brim with discarded relics, a worker occasionally walking over to empty a plastic box into it. Sylvie crouched low by the crate, keeping away from the side that worker seemed to come from, all too aware that a worker on a different conveyor would just have to turn around to see her.

Still, she stayed low, face warm at the risk she was taking, but catching her breath. At least it was less hectic than the school.

She peered out, tentatively, along the belt she was beside - all the workers were focused intently on their task, looking around occasionally, but mostly staying intent on their duty. It made it a little easier to hide, anyway.

Still, Sylvie turned up her nose at their garments - they were tagged, fitting into cybernetic implants that the workers all seemed to have. Even if she got close enough to enchant, and if her magic would work on potentially machine-enhanced minds, she wouldn't be getting anything in the way of clothes she could actually wear. Great.

The TVA hadn't shown up yet anyway. Good. She slipped both TemPads into the jacket's pockets, letting herself recover. This place wasn't useful to her, but it was a short respite, and she'd learned to be grateful for those.

She knew a few apocalypses anyway, for places she could hide. She didn't want to risk returning to the same location too much, but if they didn't catch her...

The ship floor beneath her trembled again. Sylvie stumbled, midway through looking around the crate, shoulder bumping into the side and making it rattle. Flushing, she stumbled back, quickly hurrying further down the crate's length as a worker turned.

The crate itself was several times larger than she was. It was out in the open, but at least it prevented her being seen from the one direction - that was more than she'd had when she was away from it. Nervously, she eyed the workers on the more distant belt, content at least that they were focused enough on their duty to not look back.

Quietly, she adjusted her jacket, conscious of it slipping open. Mentally, she cursed the fact she'd broken the zip.

And then she felt a tug. Something pulled the jacket's collar up; Sylvie bit her lip to keep from making a noise, but twisted her head, trying to look up - a hook had descended from the distant ceiling, a pincer grabbing the back of the leather. Eyes wide, Sylvie struggled, trying to loosen its grip.

Don't make a noise, don't make a noise...

If she were to make a guess for how this factory operated, she'd assume that there was some kind of audio or visual cue for whatever junk was on the belts. There were hooks and pincers adjusting the objects up and down the chamber, taking away loose parts or moving them to help the workers - Sylvie, looking up at last, spotted a few unattended tracks suspended from the distant roof as well.

Had the system misread her jacket as detritus? There probably wasn't much else in this room. She wriggled, trying to get the thing to let go-

It started to lift her up. She bit her lip, not wanting to cry out, silently lifted up a few inches by the sole item of clothing that she had on. It was sturdy enough to not break, but still, she was squirming uselessly under it, the jacket riding up her bare abdomen.

And then her arms slipped free. Sylvie fell to the floor with a thud that definitely did draw attention, face warm and flushed, and last article of clothing lost. Several taller workers turned their broad heads towards the source of the sound, to see the flushed blonde sprawled out on the ground, staring up at the ceiling as the hook drew her jacket up, up and away.

And the TemPads were still in its pockets.

She wanted to curl up and hide somewhere - there had to be somewhere she could hide in the wide-open room, even if she couldn't see it, but the last thing she needed was to be stranded here.

Hastily, Sylvie snatched her legs inwards, trying to stumble to her feet. The ship shuddered again, making her almost fall, throwing her arms out for balance; it was a moment before she managed to stand, an arm over her breasts and a hand over her core, contrasting against the dark plastic of the crate behind her.

And her jacket was getting further and further away. Sylvie bit her lip, psyched herself up as much as she could in mere seconds, and **** herself to start moving.

Conveyors stretched like rafters across the roof of the factory, presumably for things that didn't fit the mould of whatever the belts at ground level were doing. It was completely out of reach, but other hooks were coming down to lift up pieces from the conveyor.

Which meant... Face hot, Sylvie leapt onto the conveyor belt, hearing mumbled, shocked reactions from the workers, and **** herself to ignore them. She needed that jacket, and definitely needed the TemPads, and-

The ship shook again. She saw the jacket flutter, still firmly clasped in the pincer, but two golden boxes fell down from its pockets, clattering on the floor. Sylvie hesitated a second.

And kept running down the conveyor belt - no, she had to get that jacket. She'd learned all too well how irritatingly infrequent it was to actually get wearable clothing - even if that wasn't a complete outfit, she wanted it. She could get the TemPads after; the jacket was en route to going out of sight, if it made it to the uppermost belt.

Worst case, she could rob the TVA agents that inevitably came to this place again. Speaking of, she was surprised they hadn't turned up yet.

A small, magnet-tipped limb stretched down from the roof, picking up a thin sheet of metal. Still blushing, Sylvie grabbed it - the metal bar was as sturdy as it looked, carrying her weight, even if it was too spindly to offer much in the way of modesty. Each hand could wrap around it individually, and she clung on, bare legs squeezing the pole tightly as it carried her up to the factory roof.

She squeezed it harder than she necessarily needed to, trying to distract herself from how many angles she could be seen from. It took a bit more effort to hold on as there was another shudder.

Huh, that didn't feel... entirely normal.

Slowly, a huge, red orb came into view in the window at the far side of the room. There was a planet straight ahead, filling the screen a little faster than seemed entirely normal. Sylvie held on nervously as the ship trembled.

The ship turned slowly, the world swinging into view, and beginning to swell. Sylvie bit her lip, looking down - workers were definitely staring at her, detritus from the belts going ignored as they were understandably distracted by the sight of the new blonde. And despite that change, the TVA still hadn't shown up.

She faltered. Slowly, she was starting to understand what that meant.

No TVA meant no variance. And she was on a ship getting alarmingly close to a world, alarmingly fast. If that meant-

If the ship was to crash, she'd only be able to cause variance if she averted the crash, which she definitely wasn't doing from some random factory deck without a jacket or without TemPads.

The hook reached the ceiling; Sylvie swung, jumping and landing on the uppermost conveyor, scrambling to snatch her legs fully onto the belt. It was relatively smooth, but had enough friction for her to grab it; her jacket was at the far side of the thing already. She crawled, without enough room to stand, hastily crossing the narrow pathway, ducking under pincers.

The ship shuddered, a little more urgently. Flushing, Sylvie **** herself to keep moving - reluctantly, she poked her head off the edge, trying to gauge where the fallen TemPads were. Thankfully they didn't seem to be far apart.

None of the workers had moved from their posts. Vaguely, Sylvie wondered if they could - she'd seen the cybernetics in them, and had no idea how far the modifications went. Certainly they'd turned their heads to look at her, but none had taken a step save what the job required.

On a ship that was bound to crash. Sylvie quickly pulled her head back into the cover of the conveyor belt, and crawled a little faster, trying to ignore the constant, noticeable shift of her bare breasts with each step.

The jacket reached the edge of the room a second before she did - Sylvie crawled up to it, peering through the hole that led out to...

To a maze of more, faster belts: she saw her jacket whizz away. She faltered.

She could reach it - she knew she could. She was just a second behind. She'd get on, get carried closer, and she'd have it wrapped around herself within a minute.

And she'd have no idea where she was, without a TemPad, on a crashing ship. Certainly, she'd be a long way from the factory. Away from the hundreds of workers mundanely going about tehir duty as the ship crashed into a planet.

A piece of junk bumped into her butt. Sylvie squeaked and, reluctantly, rolled sideways.

She had to prioritise - and that meant getting her TemPads, and getting out of here. The ship trembled again, and she grabbed at a pincer, letting it carry her back down to the ground floor with her blush renewed as the workers took in the view of the nude, fleeing blonde.

The ship was shuddering more now. Her hair brushed against her skin, shaking with the overall movement, though she tried to wrap her arms around herself to keep from any more unwanted movement. Dozens of eyes looked up at her as she descended, holding her breath.

She leapt to the floor as soon as she could, feeling all those people watching her as she ran half the length of the room - the TemPads were rattling on the ground. She quickly scooped them up, holding one in her hand as she tried to cover her breasts, and fidgeted, fumbling with the other. She hated how wide open this place was.

Quickly, she opened a portal, almost dropping the pad at another judder. She stumbled forwards, completely exposed, at least hoping that her destination would be safe...

And she emerged in the open air, somewhere notably less stuffy than the ship. Going by the smell of the place it was Midgard, again - typical. She was in a front garden, a small patch of grass with a house at one end, and a brick wall at the other - hastily, face still warm, Sylvie crouched.

She felt a cool breeze brush by her, a stark reminder that she was no longer in the sterile environment of the ship. She shivered, not uncomfortable but still feeling the cold, pressing her legs together. Grass-blades tickled her side.

Then she looked up. She almost did a double-take.

There was a washing line - a cheap, simple thing, a strand of string stretched out from the side of the house to the wall, with half a dozen items of clothing hanging on it. Two shirts, two pants, and a few extra layers.

There were voices on the road. Sylvie held her breath, crouching out of sight by the wall and staring disbelievingly up at the clothes. No weird strangers, no looming crash...

Though she could still hear people on the street. Carefully, Sylvie put both TemPads down in a patch of long grass, wanting both hands free, then crouched, adjusting herself. There was nothing to stop her getting an outfit from this line, right?