After Loki stepped through the teleportation gate, she didn't feel anything unusual, just a flash of light before her eyes. In a mere two seconds, the environment before her had completely changed.
As she stepped out of the teleportation gate, Loki first noticed a sudden brightening of her field of vision. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she realized she was in a magnificent and vast grand hall.
The entire hall was a round shape, not only vast but unfathomably tall too. But what caught her eye the most, was a massive statue standing in the center of the hall.
Narrowing her eyes to see the statue, Loki noticed it was carved of smooth yet robust rock, displaying a majestic male figure with short hair, wearing a somewhat unique uniform. Over this uniform, he wore a long cloak, one hand resting on a sword at his waist, and the other arm stretched upward to a slant.
While gazing at the statue pose, Loki squinted her eyes. At that moment, Helen jumped off from Loki's arms, took her hand, and followed her forward.
B15 leading the pack, her subordinates surrounded Loki and Helen. Upon reaching the statue, B15 guided them to the right side of the hall. As they traversed the grand hall, Loki kept turning her head, watching the similarly uniformed employees coming and going.
All the staff members were humanoid, but their skin tones varied widely. Apart from white, yellow, and black, there were also those with blue or green skin, and even transparent ones. Their appearances were even more varied, not all having the standard one nose and one mouth.
Of the few employees who brushed past Loki's group, she noticed some with only one eye and some strange creatures with eight eyes on the sides of their face.
The group halted in front of a door. Loki thought B15 was about to lead them inside, but B15 paused, preventing Loki and Helen from stepping forward. She moved up to the door and picked up a communicator, speaking into it:
"I'm Hunter B15. We've encountered some irregularities here. Could you come over, please?"
After ending the communication, B15 waited in place briefly. A man in a suit ran over with a large group of guards, shouting as he ran, "Alert! Be on alert! Where is the non-compliant prisoner?"
The man in the suit moved forward to B15 and asked, "Is it a dangerous cosmos mission this time? Where is the prisoner? Do we need to request a higher level of force as backup?"
"No, Mobius." B15 named the man before her and explained, "The irregularities I mentioned aren't about the prisoner resisting. It's that... the information we have about the prisoner significantly differs from the bounty details, PLUS she brought a family member along."
Mobius adjusted his tie. The middle-aged man's manner was refined and elegant. However, from his slightly haggard face and dark circles under his eyes, one could tell he had been quite busy lately.
"I can understand a discrepancy between the prisoner and the bounty information. Our bounty isn't updated in real-time, and these weird criminals might cause some trouble during the update interval," Mobius shook his head as though such situations were commonplace.
He then looked somewhat puzzled at B15 and asked, "But what did you mean by saying she 'brought a family member along'?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
B15 extended her hand, pointing toward Helen behind her. Mobius widened his eyes in surprise when he saw such a young child in the crowd, "Oh my! There really are time criminals this young?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Mobius appeared to realize something and awkwardly stopped talking. He exchanged a glance with B15, both of them approached Helen and bent down to her level.
Helen shyly retreated as Loki, helplessly smiling, steadied her from behind, encouraged her forward. She spoke to B15 and Mobius, "I apologize. She's a bit shy. Helen, say hello to the officer…"
Helen blinked with wide eyes and hid in Loki's arms. Mobius didn't mind; he straightened up and turned to B15 asking, "Are you sure the mother and child committed the crime together?"
"She's Loki." B15 dropped yet another bombshell, causing Mobius to choke with shock.
As he stepped back, his eyes opened wide at Loki, who was now scolding Helen for tugging at her braids. Meanwhile, Helen was completely ignoring this, attempting to grab Loki's hair. Loki avoided her reach while reprimanding her.
Mobius furrowed his brows as he watched this mother-daughter scene play out and deeply inhaled.
B15 turned her head to speak with a hint of frustration, "When we arrived, the situation was just like this. I wouldn't believe it either... that the culprit was Iron Man from her world."
Mobius's face, previously scrunched up, quickly relaxed, astonished, and his eyes practically bulged out of his skull.
"Helen Stark! Stop that at once!" Loki clenched onto the last strand of her braid, "Your grandmother spent over an hour braiding my hair, so if I go back and she sees that I messed it up, I'll tell her it was you who did it!"