Wong let out a heavy sigh of relief as they stepped into the main chamber of Kamar Taj, feeling as if he'd left some of the chaos in the sanctum behind. Even if the same people who had been giving him a headache had followed him through. It had taken quite a lot of persuading, and the promise of another night-in together, to get Madisynn to leave, though she'd warned him that she would be video calling him later to get all the juicy gossip. She didn't want to miss out, after all. Wong hadn't had the energy to fight her on it; in truth, he was growing to like her so much that he didn't really want to in the first place, something which might have troubled him if he wasn't dealing with a crumbling reality.

Dan nudged the Doctor in the back. "I think I just saw a giant bull walking on its hind legs."

"It's rude to stare," she reprimanded him. "Are you telling me that you've never seen one of those before?"

He gave her an incredulous look. "No! Of course I haven't! What do you think my life was like before I met you? The strangest thing I ever saw was this old guy running starkers across the pitch during a Liverpool game."

"That's Rintrah," Wong explained. "He's used to the staring by now, though most people who train here have learnt not to be so surprised by his presence. And I would always ask you not to talk about Liverpool whilst you're here. It brings bad energy, at least for me." He did a little shiver.

"Finally…someone else telling him off for going on about them all the time," Yaz quipped, much to her friend's annoyance.

"You're back!" America came charging over towards the group, doing her best to ignore the sharp pain in her right knee whenever she moved it. She wasn't that good at hiding her wince from those who were watching her closely. "You've been ages! I started to think that you'd forgotten about me, or benched me. That'd be cruel, you know? Pushing me to the sidelines after I did all the hard work."

Wong stared at her with a steely gaze, the one he had been practising for moments when he needed to act as her guardian. He'd been watching any media he could get his hands on - tv shows, films, youtube videos - so that he could see what parents normally did. He was just glad that he'd missed the diaper-changing phase. Even with magic at his fingertips, that would have been a ghastly affair. One he probably would have left to Stephen.

"You're supposed to be resting," he said pointedly, observing how the scratches were still on her face, not fully healed. With the physicians they had on hand in the Nepal stronghold, it was rather alarming to see that they hadn't completely mended her. It spoke of a great power that they were being pitted against.

"How can I sit still when I know what's going on? What did you expect me to do? I saw you arrive. I was obviously going to come running."

"We would have come to you."

"See, I was just trying to help you. I'm that nice. And I'm not hearing any thanks…after all you bang on about making sure I use my manners, and you pull this on me."

Marc folded his arms. "Who's the girl?" He was feeling as if there were too many people to keep track of at the moment.

America wasn't one to back down, even when the other person looked rather intimidating. "Who's the mummy?"

The Doctor shivered, leaning closer to Yaz. "I just got a flashback to when I was in wartime London, chasing a young boy in a gas mask," she whispered quietly.

Her companion could only give her a bemused, sideways look. "You know, if I wasn't surrounded by superheroes, I'd probably ask you to elaborate on that story."

"Miss Chavez is the one who first brought this threat to light," Wong explained. "As you can see, she only just managed to bring this information to us with her life still intact."

The young woman pouted. "I didn't think that I looked that bad."

"It makes you look cool," Kamala assured her. "Everyone needs a few battle scars so that they've got something impressive to show people."

Carol patted her on the shoulder. "I'm going to ask you not to purposefully go out and get injured just so that you can show off at a later date."

"I'm not making any promises."

"Do you know who attacked her?" Layla asked, trying to bring everyone back on track. It seemed like an almost impossible task.

"That's what we were trying to discover," Wong outlined, grateful for her intervention. "All we know for sure is that they were from another universe."

"So…Captain Marvel wasn't lying when she told us about that," Katy said, her eyes wide.

Carol glared at her. "Do I look like the sort of person who tends to lie?"

"I don't know whether you want me to answer that."

"You're being awfully brave for someone without powers."

Katy lifted her chin in defiance. "That's because I've got my best friend here who can protect me from any of you. You're no match for him. I've seen what he can do."

Shang's face went pale when he quickly realised who his friend was talking about. He held out his hands, looking pleadingly at the others. "Don't listen to her! Whatever you do, don't listen to her. I really don't want to fight any of you. I couldn't, even if I wanted to! I'm not that impressive."

"You do a disservice to your abilities," Wong told him. "You would make a formidable opponent, for sure. And I've battled quite a few."

"As much as I'd normally like to hear the Sorcerer Supreme bigging me up, I'd rather you do it under any other circumstances."

The Doctor coughed loudly into her hand. "If I may go back to Layla's question…" She waited for someone to argue against that, though no such response was forthcoming. "The one clue we had about the origins of this threat was the phrase 'Kang'. Now, thanks to your help in Egypt, we can start to assume that Kang was actually a name. Perhaps the person who attacked America."

She looked to Moon Knight, allowing him to take over. "Using some intel that I'm not comfortable with disclosing the source of, we discovered that this Kang has visited Earth before, in the guise of a pharaoh multiple centuries ago. He managed to infiltrate Egyptian civilization for a certain time, though we can't know for sure what his intentions were before he was eventually rooted out."

"So he's got the power to travel between universes," America summarised gravely. "Like me. I didn't know that there was anyone else like me." It was strangely comforting. If he hadn't attacked her, she might have considered seeking him out for advice on how to control her powers.

"For all we know, those abilities may not have come naturally to him," Wong hypothesised. "Perhaps a spell assisted him. Or a machine."

"Could a machine really do that?" Yaz asked. "It sounds like it'd take a lot of power."

"The vastness of the multiverse means that we can't assume what technological advances may have occurred in his reality."

"Not to mention that the Tardis did it," the Doctor pointed out. "Albeit less than gracefully."

"That's putting it lightly," Dan quipped.

"We're not focusing on the right thing though," Carol said, stepping forward. "If it's really the same guy that got to this Earth in the past…if he has that capability…then why hasn't he done it again?"

"He might not be able to," the Doctor suggested. "It might have been a one time thing. Like with us. It could have been an accident."

"Trust me, as the person who was getting shot at, it didn't feel remotely accidental," America told her.

"Perhaps he wasn't expecting the level of resistance he faced," Marc proposed. "He probably assumed that it'd be an easy process. But then the gods stood against him and expelled him."

Kamala raised a hand. "Did he just mention gods? And no one's really batting an eyelid? I feel as if we should be prioritising that information a bit more."

"They're really not worth your time. I'm speaking from experience."

The Doctor was tapping the side of her head as she thought. "So maybe it was accidental. Maybe he was licking his wounds after such a heavy defeat. Or maybe he's just been waiting to come back…waiting for the perfect moment."

Yaz looked at her. "And do we know when this perfect moment is happening?"

"It might have already started."

"What could one man do?" Katy was sounding rather sceptical. "Seriously? We've got a bunch of superheroes standing in one room…with a few people I've never heard of before." She gestured at the Doctor and her companions. "One man against that? I don't know why you're sweating so much."

Once more, Shang-chi smiled awkwardly at the group. "Again, I'd just like to apologise for her butting in so repeatedly. She obviously doesn't know what she's talking about."

She shrugged off his attempts to pull her back. "They're supposed to be Earth's mightiest defenders! I'm sorry if I was just believing the hype."

"I think you're mistaking us for the Avengers," Kamala responded. "We haven't reached that level yet." Her eyes lit up. "We need a group name! Something just as good."

Marc put his hand over his masked face wearily. "Are we really going to think about that right now?"

She wasn't put off by his resistance. "I just think that it'd bring us together even more and help us win."

"I'm thinking… Super Fam! " the Doctor proposed, gesturing with her hands theatrically. "I like the sound of that."

Yaz winced at her suggestion. "You really need to think of a new word. You can't keep reusing it."

"Why not? It's a good word. A great word! You're just jealous because you didn't think of it."

"Excuse me?" She folded her arms whilst giving the Time Lord a dangerous look in warning.

"It's alright to admit it, Yaz. I won't think any less of you. You're brilliant at lots of other things."

"Can you keep the flirting on the down low until we've figured all this out?" Dan asked, though he was enjoying the spectacle. He just felt now wasn't the time for them to be entering that territory. He pictured such a romantic confession in an equally romantic setting, not surrounded by a group of people they barely knew whilst they discussed battle plans. It wasn't as if he'd been planning the perfect moment for them to finally get things out in the open. Definitely not.

"We're not flirting!" Yaz growled.

"It kinda sounded like flirting from over here," Kamala added. "Or at least the beginnings of some heavy flirting."

Wong turned to Katy. "Are you starting to see how even one man can pose such a threat to us? We're constantly getting distracted by trivial matters."

"Says the one who was on a date less than five minutes ago," Yaz argued, feeling rather tetchy that he'd considered them trivial .

America's eyes were like Dalek saucers when she heard that. "You were on a what ?!" She shouted so loud that some of the other occupants in the temple stopped to look at them, further adding to Wong's embarrassment.

"I thought we'd moved past this."

"Not a chance! This is the first time I'm hearing about this! I want all the details. Who is she? Where did you meet? Where's she from? Does she have powers? Oh, can she use magic? Does she know that you have magic? How long have you known her for?"

It was such a heavy barrage of questions that the sorcerer felt he was under some sort of agonising spell. "Barely a day!" he growled, mainly to get her to stop. The mental strain had caused him to let it slip, when he'd been planning on avoiding all of her queries. His standards were slacking.

"Wong, you sly dog! I didn't know that you had it in you! I'm actually impressed. And here I was, thinking that Stephen was the one getting all the female attention."

It was a step too far, playing on his ego. "You do realise that, when you met him for the first time, he was coming from the wedding of the woman he loved? As a guest ? I'm much more of a lady killer, I'll have you know."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Okay, maybe this has gone too far. I didn't need to hear you saying that. At all . Please, someone…talk about anything else other than this. I can't stop picturing it."

"Possibly the wisest choice anyone's suggested today," Wong agreed hastily. "Shang. The rings if you would."

The man in question seemed surprised about being put in the spotlight, but he dutifully did as instructed. He outstretched his arms and the ten individual objects gracefully flew off, floating in the air as they danced in a golden circle. The Doctor stepped closer to the spectacle, her eyes reflecting the magnificence before her. She had seen some wondrous things over her many years but she never stopped being amazed by what the universe had to offer. What every universe had to offer.

"They're beautiful," she whispered, reaching a hand out and feeling the warmth of the hovering rings.

"You're going to make me blush," Shang replied, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

"There was a reason why we sent Carol and Kamala to collect you," Wong outlined, creating an intricate pattern with his hands as he cast a spell. "Events have been unfolding since the Ten Rings were activated. Carol's investigations brought her to Kamala, after Kamala was brought to the Doctor and her new friends. The only indication so far that the boundaries between realities have been fatally weakened."

"That doesn't sound too good."

"Precisely why we need to take a closer look at them."

He completed the incantation and the rings fell onto a nearby table, rendered inert by whatever he'd done. A projection appeared, an enlarged picture of one of them, showing it in all its glorious detail. Again, the Doctor was straight over to examine it closely, marvelling at the power being demonstrated. A gentle flick of Wong's wrist sent the hologram diving further into the inner workings of the ring, showing the blaring signal that had first attracted his attention to Shang.

"That's what I saw," America murmured, standing next to the Doctor.

Wong peered at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"When I was searching through the multiverse…when I stumbled across Kang or some people connected to him…I saw that. I told you that there was a sort of…beacon. It looked exactly like that."

"Are you sure? America, you need to be completely certain. This could be of the utmost importance."

"It was definitely the same. It was like they were monitoring it or something. I wasn't able to get a long look at it, because I was spotted soon after and chased out of there."

Carol appeared to be just as interested in this development as Wong was. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

The sorcerer nodded his head. "I would presume so. It seems that we've identified the target of the signal. Upon activation, this message was relayed to those people. To Kang."

Not for the first time, Shang had a guilty look on his face. "Sorry, guys!"

"It's not your fault. Not technically."

"That 'technically' is doing a lot of heavy lifting," Katy said, not easing any of her friend's concerns.

"But why?" Shang-chi wondered. "Why was it connected to him? Why would he want to know when I claimed the rings?"

"There's more to it than that," the Doctor told them, still staring at the projection. She had everyone's attention now. "This isn't just a beacon. It's a map!"

"It doesn't look like a very good map," Dan argued. "What's it supposed to look like?"

"Space! Look more closely!" She waved her hand, tracing the tendrils of magical energy. "You almost zoomed in so much that you didn't understand what you were looking at. It's not an ordinary pattern that magic could create, though there's nothing very ordinary about that. It's the cosmos! And that …is a coordinate for whoever was receiving the message. Our friend called Kang."

"Is there anything there?" Yaz asked. "Anything of note? Do you recognise it?"

"Not really. This isn't my universe. It all looks slightly different to me. I couldn't properly place it."

"But I could." Carol was already preparing herself. "If someone can send me those coordinates, I should be able to get there fairly quickly and examine if there's anything special about it. Maybe I'll even intercept whoever's been tracking it."

"Be careful," the Doctor instructed her. "Like we keep saying, we don't know the capabilities of what we're going up against."

"I'm always careful!" She got a few doubtful looks. "Well, sometimes. But that's not the point."

"You're a part of a team," Kamala reminded her.

"The Super Fam," the Doctor said quietly, getting a nudge from Yaz.

"You don't need to do everything by yourself. If you do find something, come back straight away and tell us. Then we can all deal with it. That's the point of bringing so many people together."

"I'll consider it, kid," Carol allowed. "And that's all you're getting."

She was about to walk out the room when the display changed. Not by a lot. The image remained the same, besides the small beacon that they were so intently focused on it. Along with its periodic flashing, it was now emitting a small, high pitched tone. Everyone looked between one another, trying to figure out what this meant. It didn't feel like it was going to be good.

"Let me guess," Marc began. "It hasn't done that before."

Wong shook his head. "Your assumptions are correct. I can't know for certain…but it appears as if someone is responding to the message."