Hey everybody! Sorry this chapter may feel like it ends abruptly, but it's because what I originally had was SUPER long and I decided to split it up. I do want to let you know that I'm really excited for the chapter after this one and I may 'accidentally' post a little early next week so keep a lookout for it! Once again, please leave me a review or a message to let me know how I'm doing so far! Thank you :D
When we reached the library room upstairs, we found that the stack of reading material Wong had set out before had doubled and nearly tripled in size. In addition to the sticky-note filled books and scrolls, a bright green Post-It was stuck to the top of the nearest stack with a message from Wong.
"It says, 'Meditating in the Mirror Dimension. Keep an ear out for signs of danger and study up on the new pages I've marked for you. Pop quiz when I get back. Wong.' Okay, so I guess our assumption was right to come up here." I said quietly. Dan shrugged and grabbed the closest book on the top of the stack and collapsed into one of the comfy armchairs.
"I doubt we'll get through all of these tonight…" I said slowly after a few minutes spent in silent reading. Dan made a noise of acknowledgement and the room was shrouded in stifling quietness only broken every few moments by the sound of pages turning or the shifting of the armchairs we were both in.
"I want to learn how to do those portal things. That sure could be pretty convenient." Dan said after another ten minutes or so. I nodded and then mimed out the motion we had seen Wong do several times.
"Did you see how many times he used it? Must be pretty high-level stuff." I said thoughtfully, glancing back down at the scroll lying over my lap. We were thrown back into studying mode once more for several minutes and when I finished the noted sections of my first scroll, I rolled it back up and reached for another one.
"This section talks about the ability to wield magical relics…" Dan said, thumbing through a couple of pages in his marked book. "It says here that there are all sorts of staffs, cloaks and even boots that sorcerers can use to aid them in their battles and whatnot."
"Well…I guess that could maybe explain my fire staff but I didn't really wield it. It literally appeared in my hand, I'd never seen anything like it before that moment." I said thoughtfully. Dan read to himself silently for a moment and nodded knowingly. Then his eyes grew wide with recognition.
"Hey! There's a staff here that can turn into a snake! That's gotta be the one that's in the cabinet downstairs!" He said excitedly. I got up from my chair to look at the section that he was reading in his book and nodded in amazement after I read the short section.
"Yeah…hey what's this 'Cloak of Levitation'?" I asked, reading it as well.
"It 'gives the wearer the ability to levitate'…duh…" Dan read out loud. When we were finished I looked up thoughtfully and then snapped my fingers.
"Strange had a cloak…" I said slowly. I flipped curiously to the next page, wondering if there was a picture of the relics but there was none. "Think that could be this one?"
"Well, if that snake staff thing is in here, it very well could be." Dan shrugged. He scanned over the next few paragraphs, with me looking over his shoulder.
"You've certainly had some good luck with your reading…my scrolls so far are just about meditation techniques and ways to calm your mind and look inward." I said, blanching to show my slight irritation. Dan glanced back up from his book and turned to face me before I could return to my armchair.
"Maybe you need to work on that. You were able to talk to Doctor Strange in that dream before, weren't you?"
I plopped back down in my armchair and looked at the scroll in front of me thoughtfully in an attempt to hide my suddenly worried gaze from Dan. After a moment he finally glanced back down at his own book. I took a breath and finally answered him.
"Yeah…I did." I said slowly. Dan looked up at me patiently. "But…I don't think that'll work anymore."
"Why not?" He asked gently. I raised my eyes levelly back up to his and shook my head worriedly.
"Proxima Midnight said something to me down there in the tunnels today. I asked her where Doctor Strange is and she said that if he turns up without the Time Stone he'll be killed. I think that's already happened because…I haven't heard from him again."
Dan and I fell into silence as the tension built in the room. Neither of us looked at our studying material, we only stared into space thinking of the possibilities.
"Then…then that means that Tony Stark would…I mean…he went with him, right?" Dan's voice broke off sharply with frightened emotion. I nodded slowly. The Time Stone suddenly seemed like a heavy weight on my chest.
"God…" I breathed.
"We can't think about that…it can't be for nothing…" Dan tried to say after another moment spent in long silence. Then I heard him laugh uncertainly and I glanced up at him in worried silence. "Besides…Proxima Midnight didn't know, right?"
"Well…no…" I admitted softly, fingering the edge of the scroll in my lap. "But she seemed pretty sure that if he wasn't already dead then he would be."
"Then why not try talking to this Doctor Strange guy again?" Dan suggested. I frowned over at him and shifted my gaze around the room heatedly.
"What did I just say? He hasn't been in contact with me since that first night!"
"Yeah…but that contact is still there. What if…" Dan leaned over and touched the scroll in my lap. "You read up on that inner mind and meditation stuff and you were able to trace that contact back to the source?"
I stared at my friend thoughtfully for a moment and wondered if he was being serious. If he was, then maybe there really was a chance that I could figure out a way to reach Doctor Strange. And if I actually was able to reach the man who had bestowed the burden of protecting the Time Stone on me, the question was, what exactly would I need to say to him?
"I guess…I guess it's possible but Dan…I really don't know if that's a good idea. What if, like Wong said before…what if he's busy?"
"Busy?" Dan repeated with an odd confused expression. I nodded and then waved my left hand in the air as I elaborated.
"Busy as in, he's diverting the threat from us at the moment."
"You might need his knowledge to help figure out what we need to do to better prepare for the next time those freaks decide to attack us." Dan retaliated.
"True…but I think Wong has done pretty well to train us this far." I said. I glanced back down at the opened scroll in my lap and scanned the few worn paragraphs thoughtfully. I slumped my shoulders, cringing as my right one disturbed the throbbing pain of what had earlier been my impaled bicep. "Besides…I don't think I can reach Strange anyway."
"Why not?" Dan asked again gently. I clenched my jaw and then looked up at the ceiling worriedly.
"When we were trapped under that cave-in…I tried calling out to him for help. And…there was nothing."
Dan stared into space silently as he processed my words. When he finally did glance back up at me, his eyes were hardened.
"So you think he just left you and us to fend for ourselves then?"
"I don't know." I shook my head solemnly.
Dan shut the book in his lap with a dull thud and then reached for another book from the towering stack. He flipped through the yellowed pages quietly and stopped at one of the sticky notes. I watched him carefully for a bit before deciding that I should get back into my reading as well.
When I did finally look back down the waiting scroll, I forced myself to breathe deeply and calm my mind like the sections repeatedly tried to tell me. After breathing in and out for about ten seconds, I closed my eyes to the scribbles of words in my lap and tried as hard as I could to make my mind blank. I thought about Doctor Strange and how afraid I was about the magic and situation he had decided to put me in, and how I wished that he would come back and give me clear instructions on what I needed to do. I felt my heart race with the amount of anxiety that was building up and I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut tighter against the library around me. I forced myself to breathe in and out once more and then after a few seconds, my heart rate slowed, though the anxiety was still very much present.
Through the darkness behind my closed eyes, I mentally pictured a pathway leading away from my own mind. Feeling only a little stupid for trying this way of thinking, I mentally moved in that direction. There was no sound emanating from around me, only a suffocating silence that made my ears feel like they were clogged. Trying to hold on to my mental journey, I consciously kept up my slow and calming breathing technique.
"Alright, let me ask you this one time….what master do you serve?!"
I felt myself mentally stop as I heard a somewhat familiar voice through the silence. I nearly lost my control over the mind journey but quickly recovered from my surprise.
"What master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?!"
Mentally I stayed frozen where I was, listening as yet another voice responded to the familiar voice's irritated question.
"You're from Earth."
My eyes widened with instant recognition in the darkness and I felt myself drift closer towards my destination.
"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri."
I could dimly see a warm light forming around me and the voices grew closer. Feeling dizzy and slightly confused I blinked several times against the growing light. I could vaguely see the silhouettes of people standing around on what looked like the ruins of some ancient city. Before I could focus in on what I was actually seeing, a sharp blast of energy seemed to push me back and a door seemed to slam shut, barring me away from the light once more. I cried out mentally and reached out to hold onto something before I lost contact with my mental wandering.
"No – wait!" I cried out desperately as I mentally clawed to stay where I had somehow mind – drifted to. There was a split second of silence and then a hand gripped mine through the darkness and there was suddenly a soft golden glow cast around me. I was floating lazily in midair, and that only did more to add to the confusion in my strained mind. I chanced a glance up to see that the hand grasping my wrist led up to none other than Doctor Strange himself. When I noticed his stern gaze on me, I immediately started babbling, having forgotten literally everything I had planned to ask and say to the magician.
"I can't believe it…Doctor Strange?! It's really you right? I mean…I was trying really hard to reach you and all but I didn't think it would really work…It's probably not working but I don't – listen…there was this alien woman named Proxima Midnight, right? And she was after this Stone around my neck here…and she was really close to getting it and probably killing us all and then Bruce Banner showed up and War Machine and somehow we were able to get her to leave – but she'll definitely be back…"
"I see you've found a way to finally make contact with me. I must say, you took me by surprise. There are very few, if any, who can even attempt to penetrate my mental defenses." He said bluntly, interrupting my incoherent explanation of what our battle with Proxima Midnight had been like.
"Y-yeah…" I said, frowning to myself. "I don't really know exactly how it worked, but Dan told me to try…so I…so I did…"
"I'm impressed." Strange said with a tiny smirk. I scoffed ironically.
"Sir…I'm utterly failing at protecting this thing you gave me…can't you take it back or something?" I asked quickly, reaching with the hand that Strange wasn't currently holding to touch the Eye floating a few inches above my chest in the supernatural zero-gravity going on around me.
"You seem to have survived your first encounter well enough." He said. I grabbed the pendant from the air in front of me and pushed it back down to my chest lightly, nodding down to where my right arm was still wrapped up from my injury in my mental state.
"Right…" I said sarcastically. I looked up at him pleadingly. "You have to tell me what to do…I'm trying to learn the tricks Wong has been teaching us, and it's really challenging, but somehow I end up being able to do things that he hasn't even taught me! Even Wong is questioning how and why I'm managing to do things that I shouldn't be able to do… Sir, I just don't feel ready enough to…"
"Alexander…I wouldn't have chosen you to protect the Time Stone in this reality if I didn't think that there was some slim chance that it was possible for it to stay out of the wrong hands. Just keep doing what you're doing and things will turn out how they're going to turn out…I've already done all that I am metaphysically able to do to help you. " Strange said seriously. I stared up at him desperately.
"You can't teach me anything else? Please, I'm begging you!" I said, suddenly embarrassed at how much I was sounding like the kid I was. Strange regarded me carefully for a moment and then shook his head.
"It looks like you're already well on your way to becoming a full-fledged sorcerer. You're already conjuring mystical elemental weapons, acting on impulse, and even meddling with Time. You really do catch on pretty quickly."
I blinked up at the seemingly omniscient wizard floating in front of me. He was reading me and my actions like a book and he thought that I was totally and completely ready for whatever threat was about to hit me. I suddenly felt my anxiety well up once more as if in reply.
"You can't just send me away with nothing! Look how far I've come to ask you for your help! Where exactly are you right now? And was that Tony Stark I heard just a minute ago?"
"Yes…and at the moment we're all fine. Some others have joined our ranks to fight off the threat…"
"What's the threat? Who is behind all of these alien people attacking us?" I blurted out. Strange regarded me thoughtfully for a moment and then sighed as he tried to condense the situation.
"Okay… so Bruce Banner told you that there are more Infinity Stones similar to the one I entrusted to you. Currently, we know that this guy, Thanos, has two of the six Infinity Stones. We're attempting to prevent him from retrieving all of these Stones, because if he does…"
"Then everything is lost." I finish for him slowly in realization. I took a deep breath as I suddenly realized how dire the situation was and how much bigger it was than I had originally thought. The whole time I had thought it was all up to me and me alone…
"Right." Strange confirmed softly, tightening his grip on my wrist. I looked back up at him and noticed that his stern expression had softened to understanding. "You need to get back now, Alex. We both have our own battles we need to prepare for."
"Right." I repeated.
"Do you need help with your return?" Strange offered. I shook my head numbly and then looked up to him one last time.
"Promise you'll still be here if I need you? That Proxima Midnight woman said that Thanos would kill you if you didn't have the Stone…" I said, my hand still wrapped tightly around the pendant on my chest.
"I'm sure he'll try." He chuckled darkly as he released his hold on my wrist. The faint golden light that had lit the space around us winked out of existence and I felt myself shoot backwards the way I had come. The darkness and overwhelming silence sped by so quickly that it felt like my ears would pop and my lungs would burst. When the dizzying intensity worsened to the point where I thought my mind was going to tear apart, the feeling was over and I was motionless once more. I chanced a small inhale of breath and my chest hitched painfully, pulling me forward and onto the hardwood floor in front of me.
"Alex?" Dan asked, shoving the book that he had been reading into the armchair he had just leapt up from. "Alex, what happened?"
I gasped in lungfuls of air, finally opening my eyes to the warm light of the lamplit library in the Sanctum Sanctorum.
"I uh…I did what you suggested…" I stammered uncertainly. My mind was a whirl of dizziness and I blinked several times to try and clear the sensation from my head.
"You got through to him?" Dan asked in disbelief. I nodded then immediately squeezed my eyes shut as the movement jarred the dizziness back with a stab of pain.
"What's going on? What did he say?" Dan pushed me after a moment. I finally focused my gaze on the wall in front of me and when I was sure that I had my hyperventilating under control, I slowly climbed back up into my armchair and began to relate the encounter to him.