Your name is Stephen Strange, and despite what Loki may think, tactical retreats are not dishonorable if they mean that you will live to try again on some other day. In your opinion, anything that can take out a god with little to no effort is very firmly Out Of Your League, and you should put as much distance between yourself and it as possible.
Hela, after all, does not seem like the type of person that you can annoy into submission with unending loops of Time. Not to mention that the Eye will do its level best to smack you if you try. Messing with Time, it has informed you via vehement flashing and several pointed rewinds, is reserved for world-ending emergencies only, and the world had better be literally ending around you before the Eye will let you use it in that way again.
And yes, there is in fact a very significant difference between time and Time. Namely, that manipulating time is readily available in your repertoire, albeit at a high magical cost, whereas manipulating Time is... well.
It's complicated.
But, since Hela is not, in fact, literally ending the world around you and thus not justifying the use of Time manipulation, your next best option is a tactical retreat. No, that's not an alternative name for running away. Shut up, Loki.
It takes longer than you would like to achieve what you decide to be a safe distance. Asgard's army did not take Thor's disappearance lightly, and even though the numbers are several thousand to one, Hela was winning and doing it handily the last time you checked, which was all of ten minutes ago. Still, it should be enough to keep her occupied even if it won't last long.
You turn to Loki, who has finally seen fit to stop teasing you about your tactical decisions and say, Can you track your brother?
Can't you? Loki returns.
Yes... but also no. You have Thor's signature, and you know his power; it's how you tracked him to Hela, after all. But trying to find him now just results in the trail fizzling off into confused wisps. Wherever Thor is now, he doesn't seem to be within your ability to find him.
And given the size of your available magic reservoir, that really says something.
Loki lets out a sigh that is actually more worried than it is irritated and, much to your surprise, proceeds to actually get down to business. With Thor gone, he says, Asgard is more or less entirely vulnerable in the face of an opponent like Hela. Odin is still missing and who knows where he might be. Frigga is dead and Heimdall will not and cannot leave the Bifrost Gate unless there is quite literally nothing else to be done. Asgard does hold a substantial number of warriors, but only a few are in the top tier that Hela resides in and right now Loki appears to be the only one available. This in itself is a problem because Loki's skillset is focused on misdirection, illusion, and magic, while Hela is Death Incarnate and as such can see through such paltry phantoms like they are vapor. Death, after all, cannot be fooled and cannot be escaped.
In other words, Loki says, welcome to the Asgardian army, Doctor Strange.
You sputter. Did Loki just draft you? And what even makes him think that your own skill set is any better?
Loki lets out an aggrieved sigh, the kind that says 'I'm surrounded by idiots', and you automatically bristle at being included in 'idiots'. There are approximately four people whom you will accept being called an idiot by, and two of them are your relics.
The others are Wong, who has been calling you an idiot in one way or another since day one and is unlikely to stop anytime soon; and Christine, who quite frankly deserves to be able to call you an idiot and much worse if she feels like it, even though she probably never will.
Loki is not on that list. However, Loki also does not seem to care. In fact, he simply ignores your protests entirely, grabs you by the collar of your tunic, and all but drags you behind a pile of rubble right as another pulse of golden energy tears across the ground. Stop wasting your breath, he tells you. Save it for the main problem.
How, you demand, is this possibly not the main problem?
Loki looks at you square in the face. Quietly, seriously, he asks, Where do you think more of the dead reside? Asgard, or your Earth?
The implications hit you like a slap. Asgard is huge, yes, but it is only a city. Earth is a planet. A vast, massive planet where the number of the dead outweigh the number of the living by the millions, and if Hela decides to use it...
She won't stay in Asgard forever, Loki says. Quite frankly, Asgard has already fallen. Midgard, on the other hand, she hasn't touched. Yet.
You frown, then deepen the expression into a scowl. The barrier, you say. The one you tampered with-
Fortified, thank you, Loki interrupts.
-when we first met, you continue, pointedly ignoring your amused companion. Can that keep her out? Is that why you were there that day?
Loki tilts his head, considering. It could, he allows. The barrier is designed to guard against extra-dimensional beings, and Hela definitely hails from a separate plane of reality. But the power required to keep out something like Death would be astronomical.
You nod absently as your mind races. If you were to gather all the magic-users of the world, everyone who practiced the Mystic Arts in some form or another, and if everyone were to funnel their power into the shield... would it be enough? Loki looks thoughtful and thinks it might be, but you want to gather Wong's opinion on the subject just in case Loki is being... well, Loki.
His name is the god of mischief for a reason, you are not going to simply trust him on word of mouth alone.
The Cloak raises you into the air and you speed as fast as you dare back to the Bifrost Gate, with Loki sprinting along the ground behind you. Heimdall says nothing as the two of you make a beeline for the passage to Midgard; aside from activating the device, he does nothing at all. Only when you are already slipping away does he say,I will hold her here for as long as I can.
And then Heimdall, and Asgard, are gone.
The Bifrost conveniently deposits you and Loki on the street right outside the door to the New York Sanctum and you waste no time in barging straight through the doors and yelling out for Wong. Your fellow sorcerer materializes from around a corner with his mistreated-book/favorite-apple expression already fixed on his face. What, he snaps, could possibly be so incredibly important that you need to yell in the middle of a lesson!?
You pause. You blink. We teach lessons now? You ask.
Wong glares. The Sanctums, he informs you pointedly, are picking up the Ancient One's remaining students since she is no longer around to teach them. And Wong is currently in the middle of teaching the beginners how to access their magic and he is very annoyed at being interrupted. So what, he repeats, could possibly be so important?
It takes you a good five minutes to explain the entire problem to Wong, but once you do he is considerably more understanding. He also thinks that your idea is going to get the entire population of Earth-based sorcerers killed. But better the portion of the world's people, he admits, than all the world's people.
I'll get in touch with the Masters of the other Sanctums, Wong says. He eyes you, then adds, And in the meantime, you're going to get yourself something to eat. You look terrible.
You open your mouth, intending to protest that this is not the time for something like food, but then Wong fixes you with a pointed stare and what you actually end up saying is, Sounds like a plan.
You sweep off to the kitchen in what you hope is a dramatic fashion and studiously ignore Loki's trailing snickers.
You are too tired and too stressed to even consider trying to make anything complex, so you dig some thick white bread out of a cupboard and scavenge an assortment of cheese from the fridge, and leave the Cloak to shred it all while you let the Eye determine how long you should leave the bread on the griddle before it starts to burn. The Cloak only ends up shredding some of the cheeses, which you take to mean that those are the ones that will taste good together and dump it all in one large mess on the bread slices. The end result is some highly un-aesthetic but very tasty grilled cheeses, which you slide onto a platter between you and Loki and eat with only part of your attention actually on eating. The other parts of your attention are being devoted to processing everything that just happened, and trying to stay awake, because you have not slept in at least a day if not more and in the wake of your adrenalin, your exhaustion is crashing down on you in its place.
You shake it off determinedly; there will be time to rest after the threat of Hela has passed. You also make a mental note to not, under any circumstances, let Wong see how tired you are, because he will bench you without another thought if he catches wind of your condition.
Maybe you really would be good at this whole Sorcerer Supreme stuff, you think to yourself. You've already got the stubborn need to sacrifice yourself for others down pat.
Loki has eaten his share of the grilled cheeses in dubious silence, although he has stopped giving his food such a wary look now that he has learned of it's flavor. Now that both of you are finished eating, he stands up and says, We should go.
You follow him out of the kitchen willingly enough, though you do insist on stopping and letting Wong know where you are going. He is in the middle of arguing through a gateway, but he pauses long enough to wave his acknowledgement at you before getting right back to it. From the sound of things, the other Masters are having issues accepting the validity of the threat when all the information is currently coming from the god of lies.
It's a valid thing to take issue with, you admit as you carve your own gateway to the only site you know of where the barrier is generated. You really should look into the locations of the other three, you think to yourself.
You step through the gate and Loki follows on your heels, and while the sparking vortex closes behind you, Loki strides up to the barrier's source and looks at it critically.
...It will do, he decides. He beckons you over and points out the places where sorcerers can feed their magic to the source, and you pay close attention with the intent to go over it later with Wong to make sure it's actually correct. Wong himself shows up only a few minutes later with several initiates in tow, having apparently found a way to counter Loki's involvement that satisfied the other Sanctum Masters, and he quickly takes charge. The plan, he says, is to take it in shifts. Unless Hela launches a direct assault, at which point it becomes all-hands-on-deck, there is no reason to exhaust every sorcerer right off the bat. The first shift, he adds, giving you a direct, disapproving stare, does not include you. You, he continues, are going to portal yourself right back to the New York Sanctum and you are going to rest.
You send a glare at Loki and demand, Did you tell him? Loki just looks smugly amused.
Loki, Wong says, did not tell him anything. The dark-as-night bags under your eyes, on the other hand, told him everything.
Stephen, he continues, a bit softer now,you can't run yourself ragged every time the world tries to end. It's not healthy. Then his face and voice sharpen like a knife, and he says, Now go put yourself to bed before I knock you out and do it myself.
Your name is Stephen Strange, and even you know better than to argue with Wong when he sounds like that.
The problem with trying to follow possible Thor:Ragnarok canon is that it's mostly going to revolve around Thor, and I'm not writing Thor.
...It's a lot harder than I thought.
But, with any luck, I can get to where I'm going with minimal issue. I think I've hit on a plot point that will let me have a lot of fun in the future, so look forward to that.
Changeling
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