Official warning that Endgame spoilers are starting in this chapter.
Walking through a forest, deep in rural China, is not how Michelle Jones expected to be spending her day. Wong didn't give her a whole lot of detail about why she's here other than to say that there was some kind of "disturbance in the fabric of reality" in the area. She couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at how dramatic it sounded, but the man seemed confident that she could handle the problem. It doesn't take her long before she finds it. After climbing through thick brush, Michelle comes to a ledge. Down about twenty meters below her is a small, pristine lake and hovering above it is a literal crack in the air as if someone had punched a window. A dimensional rift.
The land and trees around the rift are horribly warped and twisted from its influence. She's seen this kind of thing once before and admittedly was hoping to never see it again because of how screwed up it was. Back when she was first starting out, she had troubles comprehending the idea of other dimensions to which Strange "helped" her by literally sending her around the multiverse. One of the dimensions he showed her was an unnamed one that morphs everything inside of it in fractals. In the 10 seconds she was in there, she saw her hands growing other hands in infinitely repeating patterns. Really fucked up stuff.
Michelle shudders for a moment. That was... not a great place. Unfortunately, that seems to be where this dimensional rift leads to and it's trying to distort reality around it. Trees are growing smaller trees off of them in such a way that they look like really bizarre branches. The wildlife near the edge of the lake that she can see is- The girl looks away. That's a memory she would rather wipe from her mind.
After taking a moment to assess the area and make sure there's no imminent danger, she climbs down to get a better look. It hasn't grown very large yet and seems to be expanding very slowly. In time, it will start affecting nearby areas and entire cities would essentially twist in on themselves.
"Okay, Michelle," she speaks to herself while rubbing her hands together. Her crimson robes designating her as an apprentice of the Mystic Arts flutter in the wind. "Time to put your training to use."
Finding a clear spot to work without getting too close, Michelle begins to poke and prod at the rift. It appears to be mostly stable for the moment so there's no immediate risk and if she can't figure it out, it'll likely be weeks before this gets out of control. Wong could step in-
No. She can't just pass this up the chain. This is her responsibility now. Wong had faith that she can do this and she doesn't want to let him down. Nothing is trying to kill her out here so she has time to figure this out.
In theory, closing this kind of rift is a lot like forcing another sorcerer's portal to close. It's similar to mending a tear in clothing, but instead of a needle and thread you use magic. Starting her first attempt, Michelle gets about halfway through before it destabilizes and the spell fizzles in the air. Sighing, the girl settles in for the long haul. This might take a while.
And it does. A full four hours later, she finally pulls it off. The crack begins to seal itself back together with a rumbling noise and winks out of existence as if it was never there. Backing up to a safer spot, Michelle watches as the world around the lake slowly returns to normal now that the rift's influence is gone Thirty minutes later, the damage is fully reverted and she heads back to Kamar-Taj feeling content and accomplished.
Officially, her new job is to act as the Kamar-Taj librarian, but it has only been 48 hours since starting and she doesn't really know what she's doing yet. The responsibilities include the kind of stuff you would normally expect for that role such as tracking loaned out books and such, but she's also required to defend the place with her life. The novices come and study with her in the library, but she doesn't talk to them very much. It's not that Michelle hates them or anything. She's just not in the mood for a lot of human interaction these days. It's easier for her to forget the world when she's by herself.
It's the nightmares, Michelle thinks, that really get to her. In a morbid sense, being so far away from home has helped to not think about the deaths of her family and friends, but that doesn't stop them from begging her to save them in her dreams. When the sun goes down, she can feel it coming like something clawing at the back of her mind. Unable to get proper rest, she ends up spending all day and night studying and training. The work is all that keeps the guilt of her self-perceived failure away.
She's about to get started learning how to conjure types of weapons other than a whip when Wong comes by. "Come with me," he says. "I have realized that we've never trained together and I would like to see first hand more of where you are in your studies. No spells for now. Just whatever weapons you can make and shields."
Michelle shakes herself out of her thoughts about the world back home and follows him out to the training area. She could use another distraction and she's never actually seen Wong in action before.
It shouldn't be a surprise, but it blows her away that Wong can throw down. Apparently he's more used to taking on a supporting role and it's immediately obvious as to why because he can make the strongest shields she's ever seen and he's phenomenal at adjusting the size of them on the fly. His base fundamentals are amazing. This skill of his leads him to take a rather defensive and opportunistic fighting style.
Keeping at the edge of her whip's range, Michelle tests out lashing at Wong, but the shields are too strong and too large for her to get through. Hell, Wong doesn't even need to move the shield to block. It's literally the size of his body. On one of her attacks, the man lunges forward and is able to catch her right arm mid-swing and pulls it towards him. The move throws her off balance and Wong takes the opportunity to counter with his own attack. Using the momentum from her stumble, Michelle allows herself to fall to the floor to dodge and swipes her arm out at Wong's legs to snag him with the whip and make him fall over as well with a tug. The two of them race to stand back up, but it's essentially right back to where they started from. A stalemate.
There's no immediately apparent way to break through the shields, so Michelle tries to get around them. Taking inspiration from the time that Mordo attacked her, she runs at Wong and uses the abilities of the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr to leap around him with great speed, hoping to catch him in an unguarded spot. Accidentally executing the move a little close to her opponent, Wong counters this by simply reaching out, grabbing her leg while she's in the air, and throwing her on the ground. Dropping his shields, he conjures his own whip and ties Michelle up in it as she gets up.
She lost.
Except, why are her instincts screaming at her to try and break the binding? She's never been able to do anything like that before.
But that was against Strange, a voice tells her from the back of her mind. You can do this. Don't give up. Don't run away.
Wong is talking, likely some form of lecture about things she did wrong, but Michelle ignores it and starts to struggle. Ever so slowly, she can feel herself stretching the bindings away. Squirming her arms around, she slowly pulls her right hand free millimeter by millimeter. With a final pull, she manages to get her hand out and the bindings fall apart around her like a loose belt. Taking it, she grabs her end of the magical whip that was binding her and yanks it to the side which interrupts a surprised Wong and tosses him to the floor. Conjuring her own whip, she quickly strikes and wraps it around him before he can stand, effectively doing the exact same thing to him that he did to her just moments ago.
Holy shit, I just overpowered the strongest sorcerer still alive. What does this mean?
After releasing him, Wong gets back up and brushes himself off. "Interesting," he comments with a long look at her, "Stephen used to speak about you, but I wasn't sure if I entirely believed his assessment until now. You clearly have some talent. Need to work on your technique however."
Still stunned by her own success, Michelle remains silent.
Nodding to himself, he finishes, "Yes, I believe there are some things I can teach you."
Some days are worse than others when her thoughts drift off to the world back home and Michelle thinks she may never fully get over it. News reports indicate that rioting isn't as much of a concern anymore now that people have moved on past the anger phase of grief, but civilization is an utter mess. Governments are in shambles, logistics systems are virtually non-existent due to highways still being blocked by wrecks, and overall crime rates are through the roof. Probably the least shocking thing she learns is that schools are closed until further notice.
It's... hard. Perhaps she was just being selfish, but she never really thought much about the novices having troubles of their own. It's not uncommon to see someone suddenly break down after checking some news and Michelle doesn't know how to help. How can she help others when she's having the same issue too? Before things settle, the whole world will have shed enough tears to fill an ocean. Michelle includes herself in that.
Despite her dwindling hope that Peter is alright, she never crosses off his name. It's perhaps irrational and illogical at this point, but marking him off feels like it would be giving up. It's something to hold on to when she gets into one of her darker moods or after waking up from another nightmare. There isn't a whole lot left to be optimistic for.
After a particularly bad day where she couldn't get Cindy's younger brother out of her mind, Michelle decides to grab her sketchbook and try drawing something. Taking a seat in the library, she begins to draw one of the trainees on the other side of the room. It's a woman, about 30 years old. Michelle's hands fly across the paper, catching as many details of the woman that she can like the hunch of her shoulders, the unkempt and messy hair, and the look in her eyes that shows she's clearly not reading the current page of her book.
Finishing the shading, Michelle studies her progress in the drawing. It's actually one of the better things she's done, but it's the face etched in misery that she focuses on. Suddenly feeling like she's lost her appetite, she rips out the page in a burst of anger and crumples it up, not wanting to see it again. Drawing people in crisis isn't funny anymore and that's all anyone looks like these days.
The thing is, Wong drops by as much as he can, but he kind of has other obligations. When he's back at the Sanctum, Michelle is the highest ranking person in the complex and that leads the novices to look at her like she has all the answers. It's weird and a little uncomfortable considering some of them are over two to three times her age. Thankfully, the kinds of things they ask her about are usually for help on learning something. Apparently she does a good enough job of tutoring that Wong ends up asking her to start leading some group training sessions.
Standing there in the training area, in front of the novices, might be the hardest thing Michelle has ever done. It brings back the same feeling as when she would start up practices at school. In their faces, she sees her friends that she'll probably never see again. A monumental effort is required, but Michelle manages to swallow back her regrets and get the session going. If anyone notices that they simply stood around for five minutes before starting or that Michelle had run off to retreat to her dorm room after finishing, no one said a word.
Back at the desk in her room, Michelle pulls out some notebooks she brought with her and begins to write. She writes about anything and everything. With her hobby of drawing people just highlighting bad memories, she turns to making her own stories. The endless number of books she's read in her life have taught her much about what makes for a good narrative. It helps. The couple notebooks she brought with her are burned through at a rapid pace and she quickly runs out. Michelle heads back to her apartment to get more and bring some of her things she had previously left behind only to find that her home was ransacked. There's virtually nothing left.
She wishes she could say she was surprised.
Wong starts bringing Michelle along to some field work.
She sharply looks over to the man with a stupefied look, "That's a gargoyle. Like, a real gargoyle. Are all mythical things real?"
He shrugs, "Not all, but many legends are based on at least a little bit of fact." Geez, that's kind of crazy to think about. Then again, the first time she met Strange, he mentioned a fight against a literal dragon. This is pretty normal compared to that.
The two of them are on a rooftop in London, observing a nearby cathedral where the creature seems to have taken up residence. News is still a bit disorganized, but there's scattered reports of someone being attacked in the area by a "large animal" which Wong seems to believe is this gargoyle. It wouldn't surprise Michelle. From what she can tell at this distance, it cuts a rather intimidating figure. The thing is probably a couple heads taller than herself.
"Go on now. I'll assist if I need to," he says as he waves her off.
Michelle narrows her eyes at the man. "Is this your idea of mentoring me or are you just being lazy?" He doesn't respond aside from quirking an eyebrow so she raises her middle finger to flip him off as she walks through a portal.
After dealing with that particular issue, Wong strikes up conversation with Michelle while taking a break on a nearby rooftop in the cool, night air before heading back, "Would you believe it if I told you I actually have very little idea what I'm doing?"
The comment is so out of nowhere that Michelle almost trips on her own feet, "Don't worry, I'll keep your dark secrets," she bemusedly replies with a small grin.
"The Ancient One handled many responsibilities for so long that no one else truly knew how to fill her position."
The name baffles Michelle and her face comically twists in confusion, "What the hell kind of name is that? Sounds pretentious."
The man lets out a small nostalgic chuckle and with a wave of his hand he projects an illusion much like when he was giving Stark and Banner a lesson on the Infinity Stones. In the projection is a bald woman, maybe 50-ish years old. "We never knew her real name, but she was the Sorcerer Supreme until she died a couple years ago. An example of what I'm referring to would be for promotions. Virtually all changes in rank were hand picked by her. I know of no consistent logic that was used for it."
Michelle looks over to Wong, "You guys seemed pretty clear-cut when you moved me to Apprentice," she comments.
"Yes," he nods and elaborates, "That was a much easier line for us to make, but promotions to Master were always very vague. The Ancient One would sometimes choose new and relatively inexperienced people. Stephen was one of them. Did you know that he was named a Master before he was even fully aware of the dangers in the multiverse?"
That's... odd. How could he have somehow not known? "Why wasn't he? He was always pretty upfront with me about it."
Wong frowns slightly, "I don't believe I could give you an entirely accurate answer, but I later learned that The Ancient One frequently consulted the Time Stone to better prepare for future dangers. Stephen originally came to Kamar-Taj to heal his hands and nothing more. I assume she knew that telling him would scare him off so she let the information drip slowly. The Time Stone is possibly also how she knew who to name as Master."
That sounds suspiciously like how Strange admitted he had used the Time Stone to know how to convince her to continue training in the Mystic Arts. Michelle never really decided how to feel about that. The whole thing sounds manipulative, but she made all her own choices, right? "So now you're just flying blind?"
"Essentially. I have been considering offering you the title of Master for the past few days."
Michelle chokes on air and coughs for a good fifteen seconds. Wong actually turns and smirks at her, the bastard. "So, what, are you asking for my opinion?" she eventually gets out.
"No," Wong firmly denies. "I've already made up my mind because I believe I now see what Stephen saw in you. Would you like to be a Master of the Mystic Arts?"
Michelle is silent for a time and looks around the city of London. So many buildings are left unlit. People seem to be converging together near the central areas of the city and leaving the outer edges completely abandoned which serves as a perfect reminder of why she's staying in Kamar-Taj. She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths.
"Would my responsibilities change?" she asks for clarification.
"Not particularly. What will change are your own expectations out of yourself. While neither of us will ever be as gifted as Stephen was, I believe you will surpass me in time. Our reality needs protecting and I would like your help."
She understands what he means. Even now, she has always had the choice to just walk away. There's no particular obligation to be here and it's not like Wong is blackmailing her into staying. Michelle stays because she now knows that this is the right thing to do. The burden he wants to place on her shoulders isn't one she knows how to carry, but wasn't this the whole point to it all?
"Yeah, I can do that." She has to.
And so roughly three weeks pass since Thanos arrived.
Life as a sorceress is a cycle of learning, protecting, and teaching. Emphasis on the learning. The quietest place Michelle has found to study and write when she wants some privacy is nearby the section of the library typically reserved for the Sorcerer Supreme. Behind those shelves is the room containing a spherical model of Earth and the three doorways that lead to the Sanctums. Michelle isn't too familiar exactly with how the model globe (confusingly named the Orb of Agamotto) works, but it is supposed to be showing the status of the shield protecting the world. Somehow, it also notifies of other threats.
Two days after her discussion with Wong about being promoted to Master, the Orb makes a noise.
"What the hell was that?" Michelle mutters to herself as she looks around. After a few moments, she notices a change in the Orb. Something powerful caused a literal ripple in the shield generated by the New York Sanctum. A red dot of sorts shows the source coming from upstate, right where the Avengers compound is.
She almost runs off to grab Wong before she realizes, oh wait, she's the person now that people would grab. Unsure how exactly she's supposed to handle this, Michelle puts on her sling ring and opens a portal to the home of the Avengers.
It feels like there's an earthquake. The ground is rumbling. Walls are shaking. Things are falling off of shelves. Stumbling for a moment as she steps through, she can see Banner and a few others racing outside, likely to see what's going on.
"Dr. Banner! What the hell is happening?" Michelle shouts out to him. The man nearly trips and turns around, not slightly surprised at her appearance.
"We're picking up something entering the atmosphere," he replies as he keeps running.
It's night outside and everyone starts to slow down in the grass which gives her the opportunity to look around and see who all is here. It takes her a moment to recognize some of them. Steve, Colonel Rhodes, Pepper Potts, and that might be the Natasha further away. None of them pay her any attention and possibly just haven't noticed her.
Up in the sky is a huge spaceship, slowly being lifted to the ground by a glowing woman.
Seconds drag on like hours as everyone merely watches as the woman slowly places the ship down, then looks around as the orange glow recedes, revealing blonde hair and a blue/red outfit. The ramp of the ship begins to lower with the sound of depressurization.
Slowly and unsure of his footing, Tony Stark steps foot on to Earth.
Michelle's heart is in a vice grip. There's no one else. No one else is coming down. No one else is coming down.
Pepper runs over to Tony, but Tony's not looking at her. He's looking around for someone else and stops when he spots his target. "Bruce!" he weakly shouts with an apparent frail condition. "Come here!"
Banner jogs closer and as he does, a woman with blue skin comes down the ramp. She's carrying an unconscious Peter Parker.
"Oh my god," Michelle gasps to herself and is at their side in an instant. She shakes him, but there's no response. His skin is freezing to the touch, but there's a pulse. "What's wrong with him?" she demands of Tony.
Tony looks between her and Bruce, "I think the kid's gone into some kind of hibernation due to lack of food. Get him inside and warm."
Immediately after his explanation, he faints and collapses against a panicking Pepper.
He's thin. Too thin. Frankly, he looks like he'd fall over in a stiff breeze.
"You know dork, if you were going to take on enough weird spider traits that hibernation was a real concern, I would have liked to have known about that ahead of time," Michelle talks to a sleeping Peter.
He's wrapped up in several layers of blankets with an IV hooked up. Tony is rigged up similarly in another room, but at least he's awake. They came back from space last night. Michelle didn't give much of an explanation to Wong as to where she is other than to say she's busy so hopefully he'll forgive her.
Through the window of the room Peter and she are in, Michelle can see Tony wheeling himself out to a common room to talk with the other Avengers. He doesn't look particularly happy.
It probably says a lot about how strange her life is now that she takes the presence of aliens in the other room in stride. The flying woman is actually pretty nice and Michelle chats with her briefly. Her name is Carol Danvers which Michelle makes sure to take note of that because anyone powerful enough to actually ripple a dimensional barrier is important. The blue woman is Nebula, though she hasn't spoken a word with her. Apparently she's part cyborg or something. There's also a talking raccoon, which is, well, it's something. Michelle has a really hard time taking him seriously. He's even dressed up in clothes! Like, what the hell?
The group outside seems to quickly devolve into an argument after Tony starts shouting. He also starts pointing into the room that she's in with Peter, but it's soundproof so she can't make out the words. Tony is pissed though.
"Could really use some of your bottomless optimism right now," she tells Peter as she looks away from the window. She checks his temperature. He's warming up slowly. Maybe tomorrow he might wake up.
"They say it helps to talk to people when they're in a coma. You're not really in a coma, but close enough. I wish I had some good stories. I got into a fight with a huge gargoyle on top of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. It punched through a few walls. Hopefully no one notices."
Michelle reaches under the covers and entwines one of his hands with hers.
"I hope Ned had a nice date with Betty."
Some time later, everyone files out to do... something. She doesn't actually know where they're going. The ship that came in apparently belonged to the raccoon (there's a lot to unpack there) so he started working on repairs almost immediately after the landing. He must have finished already because everyone just got in it and left.
After Michelle sees Pepper leaving Tony's side, Michelle steps into his room to chat with the man.
"Hey Sabrina," he greets, clearly trying to force a more positive mood than before.
She tilts her head slightly in confusion, not catching the reference. "I just wanted to thank you for bringing him home," Michelle tells him.
Tony brings a hand up to scratch the side of his head for a time, "He's a good kid. Better than I ever was. I think I have you to thank though."
"What did I do?"
His movement is a little restricted from the bed, but he shuffles slightly in place, unsure how to phrase his words, "Pete had some bracelet or something. Said he got it from you. I saw him turning to dust, but then the thing turned on and stopped it."
Michelle doesn't get it. "Uh, what are you talking about?"
"Are we talking about the same thing here? He said you gave it to him for Christmas."
"Yes," she confirms slowly, still uncomprehending.
"Did you do anything weird to it?"
Shrugging, "I tried to. It was a dud though and broke. Didn't you see how messed up it was?"
"Whatever you did saved his life. Some kind of magic thing came out of it and stopped him from turning to dust, then it turned to dust instead."
But it broke. What the hell? The spell she was trying to place on it wasn't even all that powerful. How could it have stopped the power of 6 Infinity Stones? It was supposed to maybe deflect a single bullet away from him.
A memory of the artifact display room in the Sanctum flashes to the front of her mind. Relics of all kinds had turned to dust because they were sentient. The bracelet didn't somehow have the power to stop a universe altering power, it took his place. It jumped in front of the bullet and turned to dust instead of Peter.
So many times Michelle had offered to replace the damn thing with one that wasn't damaged. Each time, Peter had refused for no reason other than sentimentality. Dumb luck saved his life. Her mind reeling, Michelle takes a seat to recollect herself.
"Pepper's been locking me away from the news," Tony's voice cuts in. "How bad is it out there?"
Still a little lost in her thoughts, Michelle knows she probably shouldn't give him the complete truth. He looks absurdly frail, just like Peter. Still, he deserves to at least know some bad news.
"May's dead," she tells him. Peter won't take it well and she'll need to learn to be strong for him.
He takes a minute to absorb the information. "Shit," he whispers to himself then looks directly at Michelle, promise in his eyes. "I'll take him in. Do you need a place to stay?"
She shakes her head, "I'm staying with Wong in Nepal. I haven't had any reason to stay here."
"Nepal. That's a hell of a commute."
"It helps to have a really fancy ride made of orange sparkles," she dryly reminds him. "Where did everyone go anyway?"
He shuffles again uncomfortably, "New girl claims she's strong enough to fight Thanos. They all left to try again for round two."
Michelle blinks, "But, he has the stones." That sounds like a suicide run of the highest order. This must be why Tony was pointing at Peter and her earlier. He was trying to keep them out of it. Part of her is annoyed by this. If she's honest with herself, she would have been tempted to go too if Peter was dead. Maybe Tony knew that.
Tony doesn't comment, instead just staring at the ceiling with a scowl on his face.
"Wong promoted me to Master. I don't think you've ever met him. I'm supposed to make my own robes now and can make them look however I want, but I haven't had time. What color should I use?" Michelle asks Peter.
Of course there's still no response. She lets out a sigh.
"I was thinking blue, but I wonder if people will think I'm copying Dr. Strange. Maybe that's why I want to do it. I don't know."
Not once did she ever ask about her former teacher, but she doesn't need the confirmation. There seemed to be an informal understanding between herself and Tony to try and not talk too much about the dead.
"Do you think we'll still have to take finals for the current school year? I think I saw they might be trying to reopen in the Fall."
"MJ?" comes a quiet voice. Sharply, Michelle looks up to see Peter finally awake, but still looking weak. "Space is really boring."
Michelle takes in the moment for as long as she can before she starts to laugh. It's probably the first time she's really felt okay in weeks. "You idiot. You stupid idiot."
A few hours later, the Avengers return from space, sorrow written all over their faces. Their mission was accomplished. Thanos is dead. The Infinity Stones, however, are destroyed and forever lost to the universe.
The half of the universe that died is never coming back.