Tony wanted his questions answered first. Busy preparing for something to happen, I hadn't so far looked into the superhero scene of this world. Therefore it was greatly appreciated when he introduced himself as Tony Stark and saved me the trouble of not pretending that the guy with the exact same arc reactor as Iron man on his chest wasn't the Iron man.

Tony's facial scanner or AI had picked up my face and he knew who I was. It wasn't like my face was secret or I had bothered to cast an illusion to hide it.

"There's one, no two more important things to be done. The sorcerer supreme is dead along with a good portion of our sorcerers in training, we lost a sanctum and Earth is extremely vulnerable at the moment. I will answer everything I can when I have the time to breathe."

"I heard Earth is vulnerable and that's where I stopped listening. I want to know what's happening and so does the government who will come snooping soon. I will take anything, even if the answer is that you have magic avengers. And you lost the magic-me."

"Look, here's the cliff notes, I am part of a secret cabal of sorcerers that have existed for millennia protecting Earth from all kinds of mystical threats. We had rogue sorcerers try to make deals with our enemies and by extension earth's enemies. They are taken care of as you just saw."

"And the building that's frozen in time?"

"I swear we will get to it in a few minutes."

I touched down on the road and come face to face with Wong and the surviving sorcerers from Kamar-Taj.

"Kamar-Taj greets its Sorcerer Supreme," greeted the group with a slight bow. They all looked morose, there wasn't anyone here who hadn't lost someone important today. Not to mention the loss of the Ancient One, the person most of these people owed their lives to.

You guys make decisions awfully quickly, I wanted to say but I held it in and didn't ask about why or how the decision was reached in front of Ironman.

"I graciously accept the title." I bowed back and Tony had the grace to not speak up.

"How are the other sanctums holding up?" I asked the most important question I had.

The one to answer was a girl I had seen around Kamar-Taj before. She was teary-eyed, if I had bothered to learn anything about what had bought her to Kamar-Taj then I would know why she was. But I did not so all I could do was listen to her report.

"London has fallen. I am told that around fifty of our number are dead. That's without—" I could hear a tightly held-in sob. I admired her bravery when she managed to power through. "That's without mentioning that she—the sorcerer supreme is dead."

I hated rushing to just the important information in a situation like this. I wanted to let her know that I won't let the ancient one's death for nought. But time was of the essence and I had to know.

"And the Hong King sanctum?"

She looked up in sudden shock.

"I apologize, sorcerer supreme. The Hong King sanctum is held, we have repelled all attackers."

"Did any of them flee or did we get them all?"

"We got them all. Every single one of those bastards. We won't even let their souls escape."

Then I could see the fury in her eyes, in all of their eyes. It was easy to disassociate myself from everyone around me. Especially when disassociating was objectively better for me to achieve my goals and for my own growth. But it was when looking at those eyes that I remembered it.

The reason for doing anything.

I was going to make a straight beeline towards London's sanctum and repair it without wasting a single second. But now I had something else I had to do.

I flew up. Not towards the sky but up just enough that they had to look up a bit from their sunken postures. And once I had their attention, I started speaking.

"I don't have to tell anyone here that we have suffered a great loss. Our beloved master, The ancient one, our brother Mordo and many of our other brothers and sisters are no longer with us. I know it's a tragedy we will never forget, but we must not let it defeat us."

I look around and I can see that they are looking up. Everyone even, Tony Stark. Their eyes were of people who has to listen to a speech and not of people who are getting anything from listening to one.

"We are sorcerers, the best on this planet. No, not just on the planet, the entire fucking Galaxy, and I know it. And that's not for nothing. It means that we have the power to make a difference, to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and to stand up against those who would do us harm. The ancient one, she believed in us, and we cannot let her down."

They were still imploring for a point to my speech, but I had to build up to it. I took off the illusion I had layered on my hands of a steady hand and showed it to everyone.

"When I was a broken man with broken dreams and searching for a purpose. Searching for something—she was there for me. She showed me something more than healing. Something unquantifiably more than what I was searching for. My hands still shiver, if I had searched for a remedy to it, then I would have already stopped its shaking. I did not because I found something more with her. I found something I cared about more than fixing my own illness."

"And I know I am not the only one who did find it. You all did. Everyone who was part of our—temple did. If you hadn't you would not be here."

I didn't see who it was that spoke up then. But one voice from everyone who was gathered there broke the speech. It wasn't rude or a mockery of what I was trying to do just a simple interruption. An inquiry about what I was doing.

"Shouldn't you be fixing the sanctum? Do we have the time for this?"

I didn't have to even respond before that person was shushed by everyone around him.

"Yes, the sanctum will be saved but I had something important to tell you. Something that I don't think should wait. It's a simple declaration that I wanted to make. No, let's call it a suggestion, my first as the sorcerer supreme."

That was what bought up wary glances between the arrayed disciples. They fidgeted, expecting something horrible no doubt.

And if I was being honest what I had to say was indeed horrible.

"I am declaring war on Dormammu. Dormammu and anyone who follows that demon will taste the wrath of everything I could bring to bear. I pledge upon my magic today that I will take on the abomination that devours universes, the cosmic conqueror and I that will see it on its knees. I will break it. I will kill it if death would come for it and I will erase its existence from all of possibility. And I will do it alone if I must."

That got their attention. And so did Tony's, I could tell. But that wasn't what I was building up to.

"But I do not want to. I do not want to do it all alone. I want your help. And I think you want to help me too. So I ask you this—do you?"

One would think there were more than just the twenty sorcerers arrayed here by the resounding yes I heard. Wait—

I activated [Astral Sight] and saw that there were indeed a far larger number of sorcerers here than I had thought.

I grinned and spoke louder.

"Let's not forget the grief or our mission. We will honor our master's memory by continuing to be the best damn sorcerers we can be, and by fighting to save our reality first and all."

"But, Let's not forget that it was he who started this. It wasn't brainless spirits or the armies of hell. It was the one asshole who wasn't happy with how many realities he had subsumed. So let us sharpen our skills, let us prepare ourselves for the inevitable war, and let us fight with all our might. We are sorcerers of Kamar-Taj, and we will not be defeated."

Then came the chants, words both physical and astral repeating my name. Repeating the sorcerer supremes title and even one cheeky shout that said I should have waited till an actual assembly.

I had no real reason to declare the war and in the grand scheme of things it might not mean much. Sure it lifted their spirits, sure now they had a purpose and sure my position as sorcerer supreme was even better guarded now. But none of that was the real reason I had declared what I did.

It wasn't for a chance of learning Dormammu's tricks or because I was particularly proactive.

It was because I had seen the fury in that girl's eyes and learned what I was missing in my real pursuit of magic. It was a revelation I was building up to from my studies, the missing piece that truly set apart the highest tiers of magic from the lower tier practitioners or—science.

Passion.

[Skill Upgrade: Group Casting - Greater Chained Casting]

I was rewarded with a skill affirming that there really was a magic to passion, to humanity. However honestly, I would have been fine even if a skill wasn't created. I knew from my magical senses that I was right.

Also, It was really pissing me off that the Skill wasn't called [Greater Group casting]

"I will go to London and repair the sanctum to the best of my ability. At this moment you know what you would be best suited to do than I do. I will trust your judgement."

It was better to let them take care of the funeral that would have to be had, the rituals and everything else than to pointlessly try to insert myself into the preparations. I knew that they knew more about Kamar-Taj's culture and needs more than someone who was a relative outsider to it all, like me.

"You can't just go to London. There is a process and law to it all now." Spoke Tony to my left he had somehow managed to remain shut till now.

I frowned as I looked at him.

"What process? They have laws for wizards?"

I was happy to hear a few chuckles.

"The UN dammit. I know for sure that you were here for all that fiasco." He asked spreading his arms wide. There was an edge to his voice now. It felt like something he cared about. He had helped me a lot so I decided to play along.

"Are you saying I should wait to repair Earth's shields and risk an interdimensional invasion?"

The sorcerers were leaving. From my astral sight, Wong was naturally stepping up to group them for their tasks.

"An Interdimensional Invasion? That—might change the laws." He spoke with—smugness? Man, what was going on with him? He wants me to follow the laws a second and the next he is acting all smug for getting to bypass the laws.

I snorted.

"Thought so."

"Are you flying all the way to London then? I can take you there because however you are flying now doesn't look very fast. And I don't mean to brag—" He started, bragging.

I created a portal before he even started listing the options at hand.

"Come with me, I might be able to use your help."

"Might? Do you know who I am?" He starts with feigned indignity but switches tracks soon after looking at the portal. "Is that at a portal to—London? And you bought that up by what moving your hands funny?"

I had wasted enough time, I flew through the portal to London.

Only to be met face-to-face with a ruined sanctum. It was broken, both metaphysically and in the normal sense of the word. Debris lay all around me and police had already cordoned off the area.

"This is the building you were saying was important to stopping invasions? Can I ask, If you have one of these in new-york then why did the invasion of new york happen?"

I didn't know what he was referring to, all I could respond with was a shrug.

"Before my time."

I really had to bother reading the news, it seems. If he was asking me the question that meant that there was one invasion of New York and not like a hundred as I was expecting. It was New York the capital of the Marvel universe. In the old comics I read, invasions happened every damn Tuesday. That was also the reason I hadn't bothered learning the history of the world till what had just happened, happened.

Tony had more to say. He always did, it seemed. But I cut him off before he could ask any risky questions.

"I am going to try and reverse the damages. All I need from you is to make certain nothing attacks me as I do."

I floated up without waiting for him to nod. I had a lot to learn about this world, but I knew how important the sanctums were.

I bought up my arms, looked over at the burning ruins of the sanctum and focused on the infinity stone on my chest. That stone which was the dial and origin of time in the local universe. I let its power channel through me and released a tiny drop of its truly infinite power through my hands.

Pieces of the broken sanctum began to stir as if they were alive. They started to shift and move on their own. Concrete, wood and everything else that made up the building rose. Slowly, but surely, the building began to come together like reversed footage.

Shattered concrete slabs lifted themselves up and reconnected with each other, while twisted metal beams straightened out and realigned themselves. Shattered glass and twisted rebar began to reform as if they were being pulled back together by an invisible force.

The process was slow at first, but as it progressed, it seemed to pick up speed. I focused on my magical senses and saw that the protection runes and enchnatments were going through the same effect.

I was on the lookout for any magical anomalies and I trusted the legend of Ironman enough to look out for any mundane problems. Though one look at his metal visage was enough for me to learn that he was barely paying attention to anything else other than at the time-reversal effect.

"Harry potter's got a time turner." Spoke Tony and I chuckled.

Soon the sanctum stood once more. My insight told me that the protections around Earth were back. I could finally take a deep long breath of relief. I flew down.

"Earth should be safe now. Or as safe as it could be with the last sorcerer supreme dead. I am certain that I have more duties to attend to but I can take some time to answer your questions. If only for the sake of people knowing of what happened."

I knew of a worldwide memory-erasure ritual. What more, it was stupidly easy to cast. It had been developed and used in the past to keep the secret of magic away from the world. And it was the only reason people didn't know magic existed. Most books I read argued that since way too much sorcery (for everyone, not me) was dependent on dimensional energies and entities that had their own agendas, keeping the knowledge to just a few was the only just way to keep it from being misused.

I—didn't trust it very much. Sounded like the bogus people made up to keep power to just themselves but if that was the reason then the sorcerer would have been living a far grander life than what I had seen in Kamar-Taj. It was something that required further study before coming to a conclusion.

I sat down at a cafe with him answering and dodging his questions. Mostly to soothe worries till I could figure out something for the time-locked people. I didn't have too much time to speak then. Minor invasions should have started by now and the sorcerers would need my help. Some part of my mind told me that I hadn't even started on fixing my hands yet but I left it for later. Shaky hands would have to do till I got a real chance to rest.

—

[Skill Learned: Lesser Magitech Crafting]

[Craft Learned: Greater Mana Core]

Tony's suit had magic in it. Or something close enough to qualify for my gift. And I was fairly certain that his arc reactor was what had taught me how to craft [Greater Mana Core]. I would follow up on both when I had actual time.

He learned a lot about me and the sorcerers from the conversation. He was sceptical, which I found strange. Should he have encountered or worked with other Magic heroes and villains? Especially since he had mentioned Thor.

The conversation went on for around ten more minutes. Enough time for me to be sick of Tony Stark's brand of humour.

It wasn't just because he was funnier than me, I swear.

The most important part of the conversation and how I ended it was by explaining that the building was stuck in a timelock till I can figure out how to get them out without causing a magical accident. It was certainly on top of my list of things to do and I assured him of that.

Stark in turn assured me that he would take care of the public till I had a solution. That—that I appreciated more than the Skill and Craft I had received.

I promised to keep in touch and left to start patching the most immediate holes in reality.

AN: Expect some messing around with timelines. Mostly because I am bad at them.