Stephen sat in the library snacking on an apple as he read. He came across a depiction of the Eye of Agamotto, then spotted the relic in the rotunda at the end of the room. He then cast a thoughtful look to the Sorcerer Supremes' book before him with the torn pages and then back to the Eye of Agamotto. He glanced around the library making sure he was alone.

"Wong? Taylor?" He called out as a precaution, but received no answer. He quickly stood up grabbing the book that Kaecilius had mutilated as well as grabbing the eye placing it around his neck.

"Okay." He opened the book in front of himself. "First, open the Eye of Agamotto." He read then moved as his hands as directed and the eye opened emitting a green light. "Alright." He formed a spell that wrapped around his wrist and a spell seal formed at the end of his hand. Moving his hand one way aged his apple, bites being taken out of it by an unseen force. Then turning his hand the other way renewed the apple making it whole once again. "Oh my." He moved his hand to the extreme side once again reducing it to its core then rotting it before once again making it whole. He moved the apple to the side before placing the torn book in front of himself. He turned his hand and the paged reappeared in the book. "Dormammu. The Dark Dimension." He read thoughtfully. "Eternal life?"

Suddenly the mirror dimension started to spread out in front of him. He didn't notice Mordo entering the room along with Wong and Taylor, all three of the Master's panicking at the sight of what Stephen was up to.

"Stop!" Mordo yelled and the mirror dimension faded away. "Tampering with the continuum of probability is forbidden!"

"I... I wa... I was just doing exactly what it said in the book!" Stephen replied shakenly.

"And what did the book say about the dangers of performing that ritual?" Wong questioned him.

"Yeah, I don't know." Stephen said calmly. "I hadn't gotten to that part yet."

"Temporal manipulations can create branches in time." Taylor tried to explain calmly, but wasn't really doing a successful job of it. "Unstable dimensional openings." Taylor's voice rose. "Spacious paradoxes! Time loops!"

"You want to get stuck reliving the same moment over, and over, forever, or never having existed at all?" Mordo questioned angrily.

"They really should put the warnings before that stuff." Stephen said nervously.

"Your curiosity could have gotten you killed." Wong slammed his hand on the book closing it getting Stephen to look up at him. "You weren't manipulating the space-time continuum…" Wong picked up the book taking it away. "You were wrecking it. We do not tamper with natural law. We defend it."

"Wait, how did you even learn to do that?" Taylor asked suddenly. "Where did you learn all of spells you'd need to even understand it?"

"I've got a photographic memory." Stephen explained. "It's how I got my M.D. and Ph.D. at the same time."

"Impressive, but what you just did takes more than a good memory." Taylor scoffed sarcastically.

"You were born for the mystic arts." Wong commented.

"And yet, my hands still shake." Stephen said despairingly looking down at his scared hands.

"For now, yes." Wong nodded.

"Not forever?" Stephen asked.

"We're not prophets." Mordo shook his head.

"When do you start telling me what we are?" Stephen questioned causing the three Masters to look to one another.

"He deserves to know." Taylor spoke up, the other masters agreeing slowly.

"While heroes like the Avengers protect the world from physical dangers, we sorcerers safeguard it against more mystical threats." Wong took the lead taking them all back to the rotunda, stopping at the pedestal that held the eye. Wong used the pedestal which activated the globe above them lighting it up. "The Ancient One is the latest in a long line of Sorcerers Supreme going back thousands of years to the father of the mystic arts, the mighty Agamotto." Wong leveled a look at Stephen. "The same sorcerer who created the eye you so recklessly borrowed." He pointed up at the globe. "Agamotto built 3 Sanctums in places of power, where great cities now stand." He pointed to one door. "That door leads to the Hong Kong Sanctum," He moved to the next one. "That door to the New York Sanctum." Then pointed to the last door. "That one, to the London Sanctum." He then returned his attention to the globe. "Together, the Sanctums generate a protective shield around our world."

The depiction of the shield appeared over the globe in golden light spreading out around the world. Over New York, London, and Hong Kong a spell seal formed and the lines connected each major city one to the other.

"The Sanctums protect the world, and we sorcerers protect the Sanctums." Mordo told him.

"From what?" Stephen asked.

"Other-dimensional beings that threaten our universe." Taylor replied with her hands clasped behind her back.

"Like Dormammu?" Stephen asked surprising them.

"Where did you learn that name?" Taylor's eyes shot to his.

"I just read it in the book of Cagliostro. Why?" Stephen looked at their worried faces.

"Dormammu dwells in the Dark Dimension." Wong moved the workings on the pedestal once again, this time turning the globe dark, a strange purple fog eating away at it and strange lights floating through the space like will of the wisps. "Beyond time. He is the cosmic conqueror, the destroyer of worlds. A being of infinite power and endless hunger, on a quest to invade every universe and bring all worlds into his Dark Dimension. And he hungers for Earth most of all."

"The pages that Kaecilius stole." Stephen guessed.

"A ritual to contact Dormammu and draw power from the Dark Dimension." Wong said.

"Uuuh... okay. Okay." Stephen laughed nervously. "I... time-out. I... I came here to heal my hands, not to fight in some mystical war."

"We don't always get what we want." Taylor pointed out right before a gong sounded causing all of their head to snap up at the globe.

"London." Wong said right before the doors to said sanctum opened. A master was running at them just making it to the rotunda before he was stabbed in the back falling face first dead on the ground.

"Kaecilius!" Taylor yelled seeing the man raise a ball of light up into the air, their eyes meeting for a brief moment. Taylor shook her head, but he smirked in reply then brought it down sending out an explosion that ripped apart the rotunda. The explosion sent them all back, Stephen into the New York Sanctum. "No!"

Taylor groaned as she shifted the debris off of herself sitting up slowly as she shook her head to clear it. Mordo, who had recovered quicker than her, rushed to her side helping her up. Wong slowly rose to his feet as well taking in the damage seeing the Ancient One at the pedestal along with some other Masters.

"London Sanctum is gone." Wong said came to her side.

"He's taking them all out, he's bringing Dormammu here." Mordo helped Taylor to her feet, a bruise forming on her forehead.

"Where's Stephen?" Taylor asked looking around.

"He was blown into the New York Sanctum." Wong answered.

"Master Taylor, Master Mordo, with me." Ancient One ordered using her sling ring to open a portal, motioning for some of the other Masters to come as well.

"Yes Ancient One." They moved through the portal into the New York Sanctum.

"Master Drumm!" Taylor spotted the fallen Master, quickly kneeling at his side checking his pulse, Mordo kneeling on his other side. She looked up at the Ancient One and Mordo shaking her head sadly. "He's gone."

"Take him back to the school. The Ancient One said softly. The other Masters did as they were told, picking him up taking him back through the portal which closed behind them.

"We need to find Strange." Mordo stood to his feet with Taylor, quickly going up the stairs to the relic room with the Ancient One following them.

"Strange!" Taylor spotted Strange as soon as she came into the room. "You're okay."

"A relative term, but yeah, I'm okay." Stephen said bitterly causing Taylor's brows to furrow in concern.

"The Cloak of Levitation." Mordo commented. "It came to you."

"No minor feat. It's a fickle thing." The Ancient One came into the room.

"He's escaped." Strange said, looking to the remnants of the relic he had used to capture the zealot leader.

"Kaecilius?" The Ancient One said.

"Yeah." Strange nodded distractedly. "He can fold space and matter at will."

"He folds matter outside the mirror dimension? In the real world?" The Ancient One asked tightly.

"Yeah." Strange answered.

"How many more?" She asked.

"Three." Strange said. "I stranded two in the desert."

"And the other?" She asked.

"His body was in the hall." Stephen said darkly. "Master Drumm was in the foyer."

"He's been taken back to Kamar-Taj." Taylor said sadly.

"The London Sanctum has fallen." The Ancient One said. "Only New York and Hong Kong remain now to shield us from the Dark Dimension." Stephen turned from her pacing a couple of steps away. "You defended the New York Sanctum from attack. With its Master gone, it needs another, Master Strange."

"No." Stephen said softly at first, then his anger grew. "It is Dr. Strange. Not Master Strange, not Mr. Strange, Doctor Strange." Stephen snapped at them. "When I became a doctor, I swore an oath to do no harm. And I have just killed a man!" He pointed angrily down the hall. "I'm not doing that again. I became a doctor to save lives, not take them."

"You become a doctor to save one life above all others." The Ancient One said. "Your own."

"Still seeing through me, are you?" Stephen scoffed sarcastically.

"I see what I've always seen." The Ancient One said. "Your overinflated ego. You want to go back to the delusion that you can control anything, even death, which no one can control. Not even the great doctor Stephen Strange."

"Not even Dormammu?" Stephen challenged. "He offers immortality."

"It's our fear of death that gives Dormammu life." The Ancient One said. "He feeds off it."

"Like you feed on him?" Strange challenged walking up to her. Mordo and Taylor quickly joining them as the tension built. "You talk to me about controlling death. Well, I know how you do it. I've seen the missing rituals from the book of Cagliostro."

"Measure your next words very carefully, doctor." The Ancient One warned.

"Because you might not like them?" Strange mocked.

"Because you may not know of what you speak." She shot back calmly.

"What is he talking about?" Taylor asked glancing between them.

"I'm talking about her long life." Strange told them. "The source of her immortality. She draws power from the Dark Dimension to stay alive."

"That's not true." Mordo shook his head.

"I've seen the rituals and worked them out." Strange met the eyes of the Ancient One. "I know how you do it."

"Once they regroup, the zealots will be back. You'll need reinforcements." The Ancient One turned from him dismissively, leaving them room.

"She is not who you think she is." Strange told Taylor and Mordo.

"You don't have the right to say that." Mordo said shaking his head. "You have no idea of the responsibility that rests upon her shoulders."

"No, and I don't want to know." Stephen walked away.

"You're a coward." Mordo hissed.

"Because I'm not a killer?" Strange whirled around to face him.

"These zealots will snuff us all out, and you can muster the strength to snuff them out first?" Mordo snapped at him.

"What do you think I just did?" Stephen yelled.

"You saved your own life!" Mordo roared. "And then whined about it like a wounded dog."

"When you would have done it so easily?" Stephen said.

"You have no idea." Mordo said tightly. "The things I've done...And the answer is yes. Without hesitation."

"Even if there's another way?" Strange asked.

"There is no other way." Mordo said.

"You lack imagination." Stephen said.

"No, Stephen." Mordo replied. "You lack a spine."

"Stephen's right." Taylor spoke up, causing Mordo to look at her brows furrowed. "Mordo, if there is a way to take care of this or any other problem without taking a life wouldn't you rather do it that way?"

"There is no other way!" Mordo re-emphasized, punctuating each word.

"Then maybe we haven't been looking hard enough." Taylor said reluctantly having never gone against Mordo before, usually they were on the same wavelength. She met his heated gaze with her tired one. "I am so tired of death." There was a rumbling that reverberated through the floors from the front room breaking off the staring contest Mordo and Taylor had fallen into. "They're back." Taylor breathed out before the rushed out of the room to the balcony overlooking the main entrance. "He's going to blow this place sky high!"

"We have to end this. Now!" Mordo vaulted over the railing charging at the Zealots along with Taylor. He used his vaulting boots ramming into one of the men while Taylor slid down on a slide of ice taking out another Zealot shoving the pummel of her spear into his gut. The two masters fought against the zealots as Kaecilius made to destroys the sanctum. "Strange! Get down here and fight!"

Kaecilius raised up the giant sphere of energy and brought it down to the ground just as they were surrounded by the walls of the mirror dimension. The blast disappeared leaving behind to trace what so ever, the Sanctum stayed intact.

"The Mirror Dimension. You can't affect the real world in here." Stephen gloated while Taylor and Mordo looked up at him in horrified shock. "Who's laughing now, asshole?"

"I am." Kaecilius replied and with a movement of his hands the world around them shifted. Taylor and Mordo threw off the Zealots that held them racing for the door out of the Sanctum with Strange.

"They've got no sling ring. I mean, they can't escape, right?" Stephen asked as they made it outside, the walls of the building shifting at the command of Kaecilius. Both Mordo and Taylor shot him exasperated angry looks as Kaecilius and his followers came out of the building toward them.

"Run!" Mordo ordered running down the street with Taylor and Strange following.

"MD, PHD, pretty much a Master of the Mystic Arts, learned how to use the Eye on his own and he doesn't know the first thing about the mirror dimension!" Taylor ground out her rant. "You need to read the freaking warnings before you pull crap like this!"

"What?!" Stephen glanced at her and Mordo. "What did I do?"

The world around them shifted like a strange twisting and turning painting that made little to no sense. Things became upside down or were now on their sides with no rhyme nor reason. Cars and pedestrians alike had no trouble going over the edges only to appear in a completely different place.

"Their connection to the Dark Dimension makes them more powerful in the Mirror Dimension." Mordo told him darkly. "They can't affect the real world, but they can still kill us. This wasn't clever. This was suicide!"

"Keep going." Taylor yelled as they were being gained on. Strange tried to open a portal, but with a twist of his hand Kaecilius turned the world and they fell away before they could go though. They landed hard on the side of a passing bus, the man reading inside paying them no mind as he could not see them.

"That is hilarious." The man laughed as they struggled to get up.

They resumed their run jumping off of the bus onto the side of a building. Mordo scooped Taylor up into his arms and used his vaulting boots while Strange used his cloak to help their descent. Strange tried again to open a portal, this time Kaecilius jumping into the air and landing hard on the building sending out waves upon his impact which closed the portal.

Another movement and he had the building they were on twist and start to pull apart like a peeling banana. The whole city shifted falling and folding in on itself as they fell from one part to the other, their relics the only thing saving them from becoming splats on the other building they landed on. They ran to the edge pausing as they took in the twisted cityscape before them.

"This was a mistake." Strange said, Mordo and Taylor who were on either side of him starring openly at him.

"Way to go Sherlock!? You figure that out all on your own?!" Taylor bit off sarcastically. Suddenly the building pitched forward sending them stumbling once again into the air. They landed on shifting parts of fire escapes which Kaecilius used to separate them all from each other.

Taylor dodged and slipped through the ever changing labyrinth as one of the followers of the dark one pursued her. He jumped in front of her cutting off her route, but she was not one to go down without a fight. Thrusting her hand forward she sent out a blast of fire that had him stumbling back while at the same time she slammed her staff on the ground freezing the grating causing him to slip off allowing her to pass.

It was not long till he was on her again forming one of their strange glass like weapons about to throw it into her back, but suddenly everything shifted again. Kaecilius's followers were separated from them and under them formed a floor with the fivefold Celtic symbol accenting it. The cityscape around them churned at the command of the Ancient One who used her spell fans as she moved the world, the symbol of Dormammu present upon her forehead. Strange, Mordo, and Taylor were brought together then moved out of the way with a wave of her hand.

"It's true." Taylor gasped, The Ancient One's eye flashing to him and Taylor, pain in her gaze for her deception.

"She does draw power from the Dark Dimension." Mordo said bitterly.

"Kaecilius." The Ancient One addressed him as more of her structured formed around them closing them all in.

"I came to you, broken, lost, bleeding. I trusted you to be my teacher, and you fed me lies." Kaecilius accused as the circled one another.

"I tried to protect you." The Ancient One replied evenly.

"From the truth?" He demanded.

"From yourself." She answered.

"I have a new teacher now." Kaecilius said.

"Dormammu deceives you." The Ancient One warned. "You have no idea of what he truly is. His eternal life is not paradise, but torment.

"Liar." Kaecilius hissed as he and his followers advanced on her with their glass like weapons.

With her hands behind her back she moved to meet them in battle. With the ease of her many years of practice she fended them all of with movements closer to that of a fluid dance. Kaecilius tried to use his powers to send a wave of bricks at her, but with minimal effort she sent it straight back at him blowing him off of his feet.

The female follower engaged the Ancient One in battle, but was no match for the master of masters and was flung away. The male took up the battle, Kaecilius coming up behind him using him as a shield to hide his attack thrusting his glass blade straight though him into the Ancient One.

"No!" Taylor screamed as Kaecilius opened a portal into their dimension and kicking her through it.

Strange, Mordo, and Taylor jumped after her through the portal. She fell through the air straight down through a glass ceiling landing with a sickening thud on the pavement causing the pedestrians to scream in surpassed horror. They landed pushing through the crowd kneeling at her side. Strange wasted no time in getting an ambulance and taking her to the hospital, Mordo having to force Taylor to stay as their presence would raise too many questions.