Thanks to the everyone who's responded to this story, especially Fanatic2018 for the review!

I'm going to try to update once a week until I run out of pre-written chapters. When I actually get chapters up will depend on my constantly changing schedule and how much of an adult I have to be during the day.

This all belongs to Marvel, not me.

Chapter 2

Stephen Strange, as a rule, hated most people. Sorcerers and wizards alike were no exception to that rule, especially at times like this. This particular sorcerer, a man named Darrell Machin, earned Stephen's ire by being a power hungry megalomaniac who had an annoying talent for combining magic and technology. Stephen had never seen or heard of such a successful hybridization of technology and magic outside of alien groups like the Asgardians. The sheer ingenuity and diversity in the inventions' function made fighting this particular opponent frustrating.

Stephen ducked down as another one of the devices shot past him and wrapped around a support pillar in the warehouse. Machin cursed and jumped to reset another machine. Stephen used the lull in attacks and opened another portal. It failed to drop him in the exact location he wanted, just like all other previous portals. He thought one of the devices running somehow shifted any magical portals away from that specific local so no one could surprise the inventor.

Muttering his own curse, Stephen ducked, half pulled by the Cloak, behind cover to avoid another spinning cable device. Stephen was not only on his own in the fight, but had to be mindful of collateral damage to the surrounding area. Something in Machin's arsenal of inventions blocked Stephen from creating a mirror verse so Wong was outside the warehouse, ensuring no one came or left during the fight. Almost all standard forms of magic, especially for combat, seemed to malfunction when used in the warehouse. He might need to go back to the basics and good old-fashion violence. Stephen ducked through another portal, also not to the intended destination only to have to once again dodge seconds later.

This was a pattern. Each time Stephen used a portal Machin knew where he was going to land and used that to target Stephen. His opponent must know where he would appear, either by determining the destination beforehand or a signaling device afterward. He could use that pattern to his advantage.

Ducking out of sight again, Stephen picked up a wrench laying on the ground with other scattered tools and spare parts. He conjured another portal and sent a replica of himself through. The replica started fizzling before more than a few steps and in a couple minutes it would dissolve entirely, but it was enough for quick distraction. Machin turned in anticipation for his target's arrival, but Stephen used that moment to strike. The Cloak carried him forward and into close range with the Machin. Once near, it was almost comically easy to knock Machin with the wrench. Actually, it was almost embarrassing.

"Good thing Wong didn't see that, I'd never live it down," Stephen muttered, shaking out his aching hands and looking around the mess of a workshop. "It's over Wong!" he called, prompting his friend to drop the protective barrier around the warehouse. Wong, poked his head through the door and whistled at the scattered debris surrounding Stephen.

"Well, this place is a mess," Wong said, stepping further into the room.

"His fault for throwing things around," Stephen said, nodding at the unconscious inventor on the ground as Stephen put the final touches on restraining the man. When the magical restraints warped, he sighed and grabbed a length of electrical wiring instead. They needed to get these machines turned off.

"We're going to have to pick all of this stuff up, aren't we?" Wong sighed.

Stephen straightened and looked around at the scattered inventions and devices, some of them sitting on shelves, others laying on the floor and wrapped around pillars where they'd missed their target, and still others smashed into pieces from the fight. "I'm afraid so. They're all magical devices that can't fall into the wrong hands. Half of them I'm not even sure what they do."

Actually, it was intriguing what the man had been able to invent. The portal redirection device might be useful to defend the sanctum from unwanted magical travel. The other, more harmful devices needed to be examined and quarantined, if not destroyed entirely.

Stephen moved around the room, heading to the workbench by the wall. Notebooks, schematics, papers, tools, and parts sat in piles over every flat surface and a shelf next to the bench. Stephen opened a few of the notebooks and found sketches of ideas, notes on magic, scientific formulas, and ways to combine them. Machin was imaginative if nothing else. Too bad the man decided the best use of his talents was gathering more power for himself.

Wong stepped up beside Stephen, picking up another notebook. "This one looks like an inventory of the things he built, might help us to make sure we got it all."

"Better these things don't get out into the streets," Stephen agreed. "We might need to bring in some help if possible."

Wong nodded. "I'll go check if they'll be able to spare anyone from Kamar-Taj to help organize and catalogue this stuff."

"Don't use a portal in here, do it outside. He has some kind of device that interferes with landing at the final destination. I don't know what the affects will be on leaving this place," Stephen said in an aside, immersed in reading some of the notes. Really, they were fascinating concepts, the ones that weren't horrifying, that is.

Wong collected Machin and disappeared through the door, probably to deposit the man in a more secure location. Stephen concentrated on combing through the space, first for any remaining booby traps. There were several. Then, he went through to try and separate out the different inventions and turn them off. Finally, he started matching them with the inventory written out in shaky, splotched handwriting. The more he examined the room, though, the more Stephen frowned. The fight with the inventor had been fierce and had gone on longer than Stephen thought it would, but the level of damage in the room did not match their short confrontation.

"Let's get a bird's eye view of the room," Stephen said and jumped, letting the Cloak bring him up near the ceiling. He ran over the fight in his mind, matching up scorch marks and damage to his own actions and Machin's counter attacks. Really, he could only account for less than half the damage in the warehouse. Stephen was just trying to determine how that could be when the door opened again.

"We've got a few trainees to help," Wong announced when he came back through the door.

Three hesitant and awestruck students followed him. They glanced around the warehouse wide eyes finally coming to rest on Stephen. They looked at Stephen with the same level of shock as they looked at some of the inventions. Stephen took a moment to hope their shock was more about being brought to do "field work" so soon in their training than meeting the man who had defeated Dormammu. He really wasn't in the mood to deal with fawning hero worship. The night had been long enough and dawn was rapidly approaching.

Stephen waved Wong over to him. "Are we sure beginning students are the best ones to be doing this?" he asked, silently wondering what the person in charge at Kamar-Taj was thinking.

Wong shrugged. "They're too new to magic and freaked out by what could go wrong to do anything foolish. And they're not going to understand anything they might see in the notebooks. The head trainer is worried about any more students going astray so he's trying to limit the exposure to negative influences the intermediate students have and all the advanced students are busy. We just need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't kill themselves or do anything permanent." When Stephen just stared a moment, Wong shrugged again. "They said they'll send some more senior, trustworthy people when they can."

Stephen huffed. He thought he was through with institutional incompetence when he'd left traditional western organizational structures. He was just going to have to treat them like resident doctors just barely on the edge of incompetent. He jumped up again floating above the recruits so they could clearly see him and clapping his hands to draw everyone's attention. "Alright, you're here to help clean up the surrounding inventions. Many, if not all, of these items are extremely dangerous. Mishandle them and you could easily get yourself injured or killed, or worse, someone else. Do not touch anything Wong or myself have not authorized you to touch. If anything happens that is unexpected or you see something you think is out of place tell myself or Wong. If you have any questions ask Wong."

Wong rolled his eyes and glared at Stephen. Stephen ignored him. He certainly didn't want to deal with any of the ridiculous questions these new students could ask.

"Now, wait there and don't touch anything until given specific instructions." Stephen let himself down to the ground and turned back to the work bench.

"Thanks for that," Wong grumbled as he stepped next to Strange. "How do you want to start this?"

"We'll first determine what's safe to handle and transport, then bring it back and store it in a secured location at the Sanctum," Stephen said. "I already went through and deactivated the remaining booby traps I could find and turned off any machines still running including the device affecting our portals." He pointed out one bulb-like device sitting off to the side. "That should be safe to transport."

Wong nodded. He opened a portal to the sanctum and stepped through then back. "Just checking," he said with innocent, wide eyes when Stephen leveled a look at him. "I'll have the students move that and the un-assembled parts into the vault. We'll isolate them from the other magical items. You work on getting everything else ready and safe to transport?"

Stephen nodded, attention already focused back on the notebooks and the earlier puzzle of how half the workshop had been destroyed even before he'd arrived.

Cleaning up the mess from the workshop took the rest of the morning. Eventually, a few senior wizards arrived to help and Stephen directed them to the more dangerous devices he still wasn't sure were safe for students to touch. Stephen focused on piecing together the night and determining what had happened at the workshop before he'd arrived.

Stephen had tracked rumors for weeks of a disillusioned scientist turned wizard turned wizard inventor with less than benign intentions. Despite the ongoing rumors, finding the workshop proved impossible since each time Stephen thought he'd discovered it, the place was deserted by the time he'd arrived. Tonight, however, a sudden surge of magic alerted Stephen to the workshop's location and, instead of finding an empty warehouse or basement, he walked right into Machin fitting together an array of some kind. The previous failures proved a disadvantage since Stephen had not expected to actually find the workshop this attempt.

Stepping over to the original device where he'd initially found the inventor, Stephen flipped through notebooks and schematics. It was difficult to say which of the drawings matched the smashed device and Stephen hesitated to put it together until he knew exactly what is was supposed to do. After several minutes, though, he thought he knew which one of the schematics matched the broken machine. It seemed like it was meant to cloak any magical output from any and all magical detection. Stephen bet he would also find something that allowed Machin to detect other magical signatures nearby, giving him an early warning. Clever, really, but very inconvenient.

While that solved why Stephen had difficulty finding this place, it did not explain why this time he succeeded. He frowned, crouching down to sift through the broken pieces. They were dented, broken apart from some blunt force. It could be difficult tracking what happened during a battle, but he was certain this hadn't happened during his own fight. That meant someone had been here before Stephen and Wong appeared. Cataloging everything and making sure it was all accounted for took on new importance.

"Wong," Stephen called out. "We have another problem."

"Then we have more than one," Wong said coming over to Stephen. "One of the trainees found this in all the mess." He held up a billy club colored black and red. "There are no other weapons like it here. It's not magic, and it doesn't match this guy's style."

"Probably not his," Stephen agreed. It would fit his own conclusion. "Someone was here before us. I think the magical cloaking device Machin had was destroyed in the initial altercation and that allowed us to finally find this place."

"So now we have to worry about previous visitors taking anything," Wong sighed. "It's going to be a long day and it's already been a long night."

"We should be able to track any magical signatures that appear now that his cloaking device is destroyed and they're probably out of range. Do you think you could finish cleaning up here?" Stephen asked.

Wong nodded. "You go get started searching for anything more out there connected to this guy we haven't picked up yet. Don't forget to get some rest, too."

Stephen opened a portal to the Sanctum. He had to start it twice since the first one fizzled out. He really did need some rest. "I'll take a nap while the tracking spell is running," he agreed. He stepped through to his private quarters. Hopefully, whoever came through the workshop before him didn't get their hands on anything too dangerous. They could do a lot of harm with some of those devices. Stephen frowned as he considered another equally likely possibility. Hopefully, if they were innocent parties in this whole mess, they didn't get the wrong end of any of the magical inventions present. Stephen didn't know if he would be able to fix anything the devices did, yet. Sighing, he set the tracking spell in motion then sat down in a comfortable chair. He'd catch a short nap, while the spell ran then get back to finishing this thing once and for all.

TBC…

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review and let me know what you think, ideas for what you'd like to see happen, critiques, anything!