"That doesn't make any sense," said Rand, springing forward to meet the wave of green clad fanatics. He moved quickly, tossing one over his shoulder, and punching another in the head. His hand glowed at that last part, and the man's neck audibly snapped. Shang-Chi, meanwhile, was moving too fast for the human eye to follow his individual strikes, but it was clear he was cutting a swathe through the fanatics. And in any case, Dormammu's eyes were not human. "HYDRA never had any real connection to the mystical."
"Hydra? That makes sense," Dormammu said, and made a sharp motion with one hand. The entire front rank of the fanatics burst into flame. "You see, Set was the Hydra."
Johnny Blaze- or, as Dormammu had called him, Ghost Rider- was riding that inexplicable motorcycle, which, it should be noted, was on fire, straight over several of the HYDRA operatives, his chain flashing out and laying low several others. The others followed in the wake this left, fighting their way forward to the center of the HYDRA mass, where, on an altar, a great serpent was beginning to stir.
There was scarcely time to register this, however, before the mass of the HYDRA followers, still chanting, pressed in on them. Dormammu ignored them except when one got directly in his way, in which case he cast them down in fire. In this manner, he made his way to the altar, were the great serpent was beginning to unwind. "Set," he said companionably, seizing it by the throat.
"Dormammu." The voice did not come from the snake, per se, but rather from the space the snake occupied. It made on think of boulders grinding together in some unimaginable abyss, and also of snakes hissing, though it sounded like neither of those things. "Have the humans grown so powerful in my absence that they now hold even you in their thrall?"
"No," said Dormammu, "Just killing time. Among other things."
"You cannot believe that you can end me," said Set, and disappeared from Dormammu's grasp, reappearing as a huge lizard a few meters away. "Madame Hydra, deal with him."
A woman stepped out from behind the altar. She was dressed in a similar outfit to the HYDRA foot soldiers, except that it was rather tighter, and showed considerably more skin. She also had a twisting band of some greenish metal, shaped to resemble a serpent devouring its own tail, on her head. In each hand she carried a long wavy dagger.
"The Serpent Crown?" Dormammu said, stepping aside as she lunged at him. "You'd be the Bride of Set, then? Ah well, no accounting for taste." He caught her wrists as she spun on her heel and came at him again, and found his arms being forced back. "Yours, not his, that is. You're lovely." He turned into mist, and she fell through him, springing back to her feet immediately and whirling to face him as he became solid again. "So let's dance."
She sprang for him again, and he threw up a hand. One of the daggers cut deeply into it. Instead of blood, fire sprang forth from it, followed, an instant later, by a bolt of eldritch energy, which lifted Madame Hydra bodily off her feet, and flung her at the feet of Set, hard enough that it should have snapped her spine. She was on her feet again in an instant though, coming back at Dormammu.
"I have become transcendent through Set," she said, lashing out with one dagger. Dormammu moved his head back a fraction and allowed it pass a micrometer or so away from his face. "Your death is assured, for Set wills it so."
"Madame Hydra," said Dormmamu, "That is where you are mistaken." He caught one blade in his hand, ignoring the pain as it cut into his 'bone' irrelevant. She put the other blade between his ribs, where the heart would be in a normal human. "That hurts like hell," Dormammu said, twisting the blade he had caught out of her hand, and embedding it in the ground. "And I should know." She withdrew the blade from his ribs and leapt backwards, impossibly high, but landing gracefully nevertheless, and holding her remaining blade in both hands.
Dormammu stooped down, scooped up a handful of dust from the ground, and blew it at her. Somewhere in transit, it became a storm of whirling sand, cutting at her. She ignored the hundreds of small but deep wounds, which began closing almost as soon as they were formed, and advanced through the storm towards Dormammu again, throwing the remaining dagger. He caught it with one hand, and examined it critically.
"This is nice work, you know. I'll say that for Set. He doesn't skimp on the engagement presents. I understand rings are traditional in this day and age, but Set's an old fashioned sort." He tossed the blade back to her, and she caught it easily.
He glanced about as she came at him again- Rand, though bleeding from several minor wounds, was back to back with Shang-Chi, and they had cleared a substantial area of the battlefield. Blaze had left his motorcycle propped up against a tree, and with his chain in one hand and a sawed off shotgun- also on fire- in the other, was wreaking bloody havoc on the enemy ranks.
"Why these pathetic would-be fanatics?" Dormammu asked, blocking Madame Hydra's next attack by checking the progress of her wrist with his own. "I remember the Sons of Set in the day of the Pharaohs, when they had fire in their bellies, and blood up to their elbows. I admit, you yourself are impressive enough, as champions go. For example, I can't imagine you allowing a bunch of humans to lop off your head and stick you in a drawer for use as a mystical encyclopedia. But your foot soldiers leave a lot to be desired, and they are, after all, the vast majority of your forces, number wise."
Madame Hydra hissed at him in rage, and delivered a kick to his chest. Dormammu absorbed it without flinching, and shook his head. "Enough of this," he said, "You begin to bore me." He knocked the blade out of her hand and then placed a hand on each side of her head. His eyes flashed white for a brief moment, and Madame Hydra jerked as if she had received an electric shock. Then she let out a wordless cry of loss and collapsed, leaving Dormammu holding the Serpent Crown.
Dormammu turned to face Set. The others, having subdued or otherwise dealt with the last of the HYDRA foot soldiers, flanked him. Set raised himself to his full enormous height. "She wounded you Dormammu," he said, "You are not what you once were, and you cannot hope to stand against me."
"Ah, but you were banished from this realm," Dormammu said, "You cannot bring your full power to bear. Unless of course, those blades- he nodded to the blade thrust point down in the earth, and the one that the unconscious Madame Hydra still grasped, "Taste blood." He glanced at the gash in his shirt. "Shame I don't bleed, isn't it? What's more, I have this." He nodded towards the crown. "You put a fair amount of your power in this, so you could affect this world. For someone who knows what they're doing, someone like, say, me, that's a line into the rest of your power."
"We were allies once," said Set, beginning to gather his power. "There is no true need for us to fight now. Think, with our powers, who could stand before us, if we stood together. What loyalty can you have to these mayfly mortals that could outweigh that?"
"Tempting," said Dormammu, "And I have no loyalty to these mortals. I'm sure I would have accepted, in fact, had you made this offer before you set your champion on me. As it is, though?" He set the crown on his head, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible. For a long moment he and Set both stood motionless, and then Set screamed, and the sky broke apart. For an instant, all was blackness and what sounded like the buzzing of millions of insects. Then Set was gone, and the altar with him. Dormammu spun the Serpent Crown around on his finger for a moment, and then turned to the others.
"Well, don't tell me that you plan to just leave her lying there on the ground," he said, slightly impatiently, nodding towards Madame Hydra, who had now dropped the dagger, and was curled up in a fetal position, emitting a low moan. Shang-Chi picked her up with apparently little effort. She struggled weakly for a moment, but Shang-Chi put a hand on her back and put pressure on her spine. She went limp immediately.
Ghost Rider was looking at him, his expression impossible to read, what with his head being a flaming skull and all. "I think the boss is going to want to have a word with you," he said, finally.
Dormammu smiled wickedly. "Excellent. I've been wondering about this boss of yours." A large oblong suddenly seemed to detach itself from thin air, and became a mirrored surface. Dormammu stepped through it, but found himself not in the situation room as he had expected, but in a Spartan office, facing a man with close cut black hair, dressed in an immaculate business suit. He glanced up. "Ah, the great and terrible Dormammu," he said sardonically. "I'd thought you slumbering in R'lyeh."
"Medraut the Bastard," Dormammu said in identical tones. "I thought your father had left you dead at Camlann. Life, it seems, is full of these little surprises. How did you survive, incidentally? Not just Camlann, but all the way until now."
"It seems certain parties among the Fey have a vested interest in my continued existence," Medraut said, rising. "And so I found myself returned to this world, to await my part in the great game. I am rather more surprised at you. I had thought you swore never to bend you knee before another."
"Ask me to bow, and you will find that my oath is yet my bond," Dormammu said coldly.
Medraut suddenly smiled, and one could see how he could inspire men to follow him to their deaths in battle. Then the smile grew wicked, and one could see how he could inspire an entirely different sort of passion. "And if I asked to kneel?" He asked.
Dormammu's laughter echoed off the walls of the office for a good three minutes.