I'm apologizing in advance for how short this chapter is...I've been super busy trying to plan for my favorite time of year - Halloween - but I think I'm nearing the 'good part' so hopefully this will start getting more interesting or action-packed. Let me know if anyone has any ideas and I'll try and fit your suggestions in! I need all the help I can get! :D
Spiderman instantly leapt back in surprise as Dan and I materialized right before his concealed eyes on the stair landing.
"Wha-!" The masked figure exclaimed, and then it was my turn to stumble backwards as four mechanical limbs sprouted instantaneously from the back of his suit in defense.
"Woah!" I shouted as Spiderman acted out, trying to get control of his seemingly new suit. The limbs disappeared with a series of clicks and then Spiderman tilted his head to the side in confusion when he realized that we weren't going to attack him.
"W-Who are you guys?" He asked breathlessly, turning his masked face in first my direction and then in Dan's.
"We're Doctor Strange's new recruits." Dan said quickly, his expression strangely calm. He narrowed his eyes at the hero that stood in front of us. "…where are the others by the way?"
Spiderman looked frozen to the spot for a moment before he slowly shook his head and the large white eye pieces in his mask grew smaller with a kind of mechanical emotion on his masked face.
"I…Thanos…he…" He struggled for how to word what I assumed was something truly horrifying. I grew panicked as I studied the frazzled stance of the known hero before me.
"Where did you just come from?" I asked him as gently as I could while still prodding him for information. He stopped with his hand mid-scratch on top of his covered head and slowly shifted his mechanical gaze to me.
"A…We were on a planet called Titan. We were there to meet Thanos before he made his way to Earth for the last two Stones…" He broke off in midsentence, pointed a gloved finger at me and his voice grew suddenly lower. "T-That's the one Strange was telling us about, isn't it? The one that he pretended to have on him to trick Thanos."
"…Yeah." I said slowly, frowning at him in confusion.
"You were with Doctor Strange and Iron Man on that planet just now, weren't you?" Dan pressed on hurriedly. Spiderman nodded and then to make things easier, his mask retracted back into the suit to reveal a teenaged boy not much younger than Dan and I. His face was stained with sweat and what looked like red dirt and his brown hair was wild and littered with the same grimy substances. As soon as his face was unmasked I squinted at him in surprise and even further puzzlement.
"I know you…" I said slowly and he looked at me hesitantly before his shoulders slumped. "You go to school with us."
"Yeah." He confirmed softly, rubbing at his arms worriedly.
"Isn't your name Percy or something?" Dan asked him gently.
"Peter." He corrected, rolling his eyes lightly. Then he grew panicked again as the direness of the situation hit him again. "But that's not the point guys…we need to get help. Where exactly…"
"You're in Doctor Stephen Strange's home." Wong's voice spoke loudly from the floor above us. The three of us on the stair landing instantly turned in the direction of the intrusion to see that Wong stood on the next floor surprisingly alone despite the numerous sorcerers that had been scattered about in the large mansion.
"…Right." Spiderman murmured, turning to look behind him at the window as if to seek out the portal he had come through. "So…I take it that you're Wong?"
"Yes." Wong said, gesturing for the three of us to join him on the next floor of the building. Dan was the first to move towards the next set of steps, followed by Spiderman and then me. Wong's gaze stayed on the newcomer warily as we steadily climbed the stairs. "Strange sent you with a message?"
"Well…not exactly." Spiderman said once we'd reached the final few steps before the staircase broke off on the next floor. Wong raised an eyebrow in surprise and I noticed that his casual, all-knowing demeanor faltered just a tiny bit.
"Oh?"
"They…we were all supposed to come through the portal…" Peter said softly, his voice cracking at the end. I stiffened as a cold chill ran down my back and then I noticed that Wong froze as well before he nodded curtly at the news.
"So it was more than just you, Strange and Tony Stark up there…" I said slowly to Peter as I tried to understand. He looked at me confusedly before nodding in confirmation.
"Yeah…this other group of heroes from space was waiting on Titan for Thanos and when we got there, they thought that the three of us worked for him. After that scary scuffle we all sort of teamed up and…and then we fought Thanos." Peter said, ending abruptly. His eyes widened and grew distant for a moment.
Dan and I exchanged careful glances, and I could tell that Dan's mind was calculating how much time we all had before our battle was upon us. I turned back to ask Spiderman how exactly their confrontation had gone with the infamous Thanos we had all been warned about, but Wong beat me to it.
"So Strange survived your battle long enough to send you here." Wong stated slowly, trying to piece together what had gone down on the alien planet. Peter tore his gaze away from the remembering distance and he took a heavy breath before he tried to answer the sorcerer.
"H-He was hurt pretty bad…but he wanted to be sure that we all got away before Thanos destroyed…" Peter broke off once more, emotion welling up in both his voice and his bruised and battered face.
"Destroyed…what?" I asked hesitantly. Peter swung his shining gaze to me before he blinked the building emotional tears away.
"Thanos was planning on destroying the whole planet. He said it held too many bad memories for him." Peter frowned thoughtfully and then shook his head and brushed a hand through his hair in an attempt to hide the tears that had crept back up on the hero.
"Then…Stark…and Strange…" Dan said distantly. I looked at him through my own panicking gaze, not believing what I was hearing. I chanced a look at Wong where he stood motionless with his gaze staring down through the floor at his feet. I tore myself away from our small cluster at the top of the staircase and started stumbling backwards down the hallway, clutching at the Time Stone on my chest.
"I…I don't…" I stammered, not really knowing what I was even trying to say. Peter and Dan looked after me, the same disbelieving expression on both of their faces. Wong had turned away and was looking down the staircase and out the large window on the landing below in thoughtful silence. I whirled around and started to run away as if I could escape the horrible news that Spiderman had brought with him.
"Alex…" Dan called after me wearily. I didn't turn around to acknowledge him, I just kept running. I rounded curves and dove through doorways, attempting to get myself lost in the maze of the Sanctum. I finally stopped as I burst through a room, hearing the familiar sound of cannon fire before I dove past the shadowy cold blast of air into a room that was cast in pitch blackness despite the bright morning sunlight outside. I turned over my shoulder and shot a mandala of golden light at the door behind me and heard it slam shut satisfyingly before I collapsed against the wall opposite of the door.
"Strange…Strange you can't be gone…" I muttered to myself repeatedly, feeling my head tighten with the pressure of an awful migraine. The Time Stone began to glow vividly in the darkness of the room and I shook my head against it, clasping my hand over it and squeezing the pendant threateningly against the heat rising from inside of it. "Please…let this Spiderman kid be wrong…"
I sat with my back pressed painfully against the wall and my breaths hitched with emotion as I kept my eyes squeezed shut to the dark room around me. The mansion was silent without even the sounds of footsteps from Dan or Wong or even Peter following me throughout the hallways, which gave me the feeling that they hadn't. I clenched my jaw as I continued to stare at the darkness behind my eyelids, searching deeply for the mental pathways that had previously connected me with the sorcerer. I wandered for a long time in the pitch darkness separated from my body but the harder I looked with no results, the more fearful I began to feel.
"Doctor Strange…please tell me…are you there?" I called out for what felt like the hundredth time. My voice bounced around in the darkness for several seconds and I tried to conjure up my golden mandala shields to light my way. Even with the glow, every direction I tried to turn was shrouded in blank darkness. I could faintly feel the warmth of the Time Stone resting against my chest but I refused to even look at the cursed thing.
"Get it together, man."
Dan's voice brought me back from the black void that I had been wandering in and I could suddenly see that the light from the hallway outside the room revealed that I was in a dorm-like room lined with half a dozen beds and dressers. I looked around at the large room wonderingly and then imagined that Strange had probably trained several apprentices in here before, some of them even around mine and Dan's ages.
"Dan…he's gone." I said distantly, my head trying to make sense of the stifling darkness that had once been a way of communication. Dan offered me a sad smirk.
"Haven't we been through all this already?" He asked, joking gently. I sighed in defeat, my back still braced against the wall behind me and my head bowed. Dan moved to sit beside me on the ground, growing thankfully silent for a moment.
"So this thing is really about to start, isn't it?" I said as I looked up from the wood floor and towards the sunlit hallway outside the room. From the corner of my eye I could see Dan nod serenely.
` "Pretty soon, yeah." He admitted softly.
"And you know every move and every decision we're going to make up until this whole thing is over and done with?" I asked him almost pleadingly. He shook his head and I turned to look at him as he explained.
"What the Orb showed me was the gist of the coming fight. It's like I saw main things in the event happening, but I didn't see enough to know like, for instance, who was involved where or the outcome of individual scuffles or even where Thanos and his minions are going to show up for the said battle." Dan said quickly. I blinked in confusion as I tried to understand what he was saying.
"So you can't tell me who's going to die or when?" I asked, not really wanting to know either of the answers to those questions. Dan was silent as he looked back down and shook his head.
"It's like it's all…jumbled up possibilities. Part of it I felt like was my imagination and my worries about what could and most likely would happen if we were faced with the situations that we're going to be facing. But the Orb directed me to certain important points in the situation and it was revealed to me that if they didn't happen then it would throw everything out of whack."
"What if I was to go and look into the mystical crystal ball? Do you think it would tell us how to beat this?" I asked only a little sarcastically. Mixed emotions clouded my ability to reason logically, whereas before I had half-convinced myself that we would come out on top. Now that Doctor Strange – the one who had been secretly helping me out with my training and knowledge – was out of the picture however…I wasn't so sure anymore.
"I don't think it'll work like that…" Dan said wearily. My shoulders slumped in defeat and I cringed at the soreness that ran down to my right elbow.
"Then I guess all we can do is wait, huh?" I said deeply, my hands on my knees as we sat together on the floor.
"Wait, and continue your training." Wong's voice said. I looked up, unsurprised at his ability to teleport to see that he stood in the hall outside the dorm room. "We will use every last second we have until Thanos' arrival to prepare for this."
"Mr. Stark…Tony…said the same thing." Peter piped up as he stepped into the room after Wong, and then he shrugged. "Well, almost the same thing. He was mainly trying to outdo the leader of the space heroes. That guy was kind a jerk…you know it's really his fault that we didn't…that we weren't able to get the other Stones away from him."
"How many others did he have?!" I asked hurriedly. Peter blinked and then frowned, worry creasing his bruised face.
"He had four of the six. He came to meet one of his buddies, thinking that he had the Time Stone. This Ebony Maw guy had kidnapped Doctor Strange and me and Mr. Stark stowed away on his ship to try and rescue him." Peter explained.
"He just needs two more Stones…" I repeated in realization, pushing myself up to my feet and looking down at the Time Stone still glowing faintly on my chest. "Where is the other one?"
"With Captain America and the other Avengers." Wong said, as if the answer was obvious. Dan stood up behind me and I threw him a worried glance as he nodded knowingly towards Wong.
"…Where do you think he'll go first?" I asked, looking at Wong for more answers. The sorcerer thought for a moment before shaking his head.
"It's hard to say, but we're staying in close touch with the others. If Thanos comes to Earth, it'll be one of these two places." He said, somehow keeping his voice even despite the heavy weight hanging over all of us. "And we'll have access to some of the most skilled sorcerers available to aid us."
"What if he chooses to go for the Avengers' Stone first?" Peter asked quickly. Wong flicked his gaze to the unmasked Spiderman and sighed deeply.
"I've told Bruce Banner that if that should be the case that they will have their chance to stop Thanos and if they are unable, we will step in." Wong said carefully.
"We will?" Dan asked in confusion, turning to give the man a critiquing stare. Wong returned the look accusingly and then shook his head.
"Not you two. It would be too dangerous to let the two Stones be too close together."
"How close are they from each other now?" I asked him demandingly.
"It would be unwise to tell you out loud where the Mind Stone is." Wong said, narrowing his eyes distrustfully down at me. I frowned at him in disbelief and then looked at Dan who was mimicking the sorcerer's expression and aiming it at him too.
"Well, Captain America has it so it's in good hands, right?" Peter asked, trying to get some assurance from Wong. The man didn't answer which left us three kids even more uneasy.
"We don't have time for this discussion right now…" Wong said as he turned back to the hallway behind him.
"You're right." An eerily familiar voice spoke up from behind me. A shimmering portal was bubbling into view and the darkened dorm room was cast with a swimming dark blue glow. I looked at the materializing portal just long enough to see a tall, muscular woman emerge from the darkened part of the portal before I summoned a golden portal for the four of us to retreat through. Proxima Midnight had returned.