[Natasha Romanoff POV]

It's like every single time we get the chance to just kick back and enjoy some downtime, the world absolutely loses it and throws the most annoying and irritating shit our way.

I have powers; that alone was enough reason for me to trip out for the entire week and the next, but what happens? I get called out of fucking nowhere to fight some fanatical idiots cooperating with demons.

My ability wasn't the most direct one in the house, it was actually the least direct one. Steve, Draul and Bucky were just tailor made to brute force their way into any situation with zero fucks about subtlety. Ororo was basically a walking and flying homing explosive, just light 'em bastards up. Even Yelena had super speed. She was fast, direct and precise – it was the basic culmination of her abilities.

Mine however were just too… broad. Yes, I was a bit good at it given the impossible time I've had it but when compared to the others, mine really needed a lot of work. It also didn't help that I was facing a bunch of sorcerers and demons who were quite adept in magic. It was like they could do what I could, but with more ease, flair, and myriad ways of implementation.

They sometimes used spells that could cut through the force field that I used in protecting myself. It was like a novice with huge magical powers fighting an experienced magician… Thankfully I wasn't all magic.

Despite them being more experienced than me due to how similar some facets of my abilities were with magic with things like force fields, telekinesis and even energy blasts, their experience didn't save them due to the simple fact that I could just overpower them. It was like a veteran soldier who fought in both world wars suddenly coming face to face with an atomic bomb. Being fucked was an inevitability.

"That was a bit harder than I expected." Thankfully, this was not the first time I've fought against someone with abilities nor was it the first time I've fought against someone using magic. At least their spells were nowhere as torturous as Draul's.

Looking at the rather apocalyptic scene before me which was caused due to our fight spiking out further than originally intended, I finally understood why Draul stresses the fact that I had a lot to learn when it came to using abilities. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a little bit, just a weeny bit, jealous over the fact of how easy to use everyone's abilities were. Having trained in chi and being an assassin actually helped a lot as my abilities were more on the lines of actively focusing on it as opposed to someone like Yelena who all she basically had to do was run… like every other human being on the planet did.

"Next stop is Texas." The swirling blue portal swallowed me and I found myself on a ranch, welcomed by a scene of carnage.

This place wasn't an obscure one as the line was directly underneath a ranch with houses nearby which made the demons and their occult friends slaughter every single person and animal in sight.

"The news's gonna go crazy about this. Well, it's not like we can do anything about it." I could feel that there was something, something like a barrier, obscuring my view or at least diverting my view from something.

Regulating my energy with the same meditation exercise I trained with, I focused all my energy and tried looking at what had been hiding itself from me and what I saw almost made my stomach retch.

Bodies upon bodies of half eaten and crudely mangled humans were heaped up upon a pile. It was as if someone had cast a spell that would divert people's attention from the place.

Looking at it now and based on how large the pile was stacked, I reckon this is where the whole townspeople were gathering, or were gathered. The demons had slaughtered an entire town just because it was a populated area which made me wonder how the other locations that were unfortunate enough to be in the middle of civilization were. After this event makes the news, because it absolutely will as there was no way for us to wipe this under the rug, people's eyes will become a lot clearer.

I walked in silence, erasing my presence to the best of my supernatural abilities and stalked towards where the demons and humans were gathered. There were fewer cultists here as opposed to demons and most of the demons were feasting on the corpse of their recent hunt why the humans just stood off to the side in boredom, not even the least bit repulsed by what the demons were doing.

I maintained my camouflage as I got closer, easily weaving my way as I got nearer to where the humans were located. The demons were easier to deal with, at least these types were, but it was the humans that were the problem. These ones were dressed differently than the others I've seen and if the dress code of any organization were to go by, those who dressed differently from the majority were usually high up the hierarchical ladder.

"I applaud your stealth but unfortunately the same can not be said about your intelligence." A voice spoke behind me which caused me to jump sideways and attack where I pinpointed the voice came from.

The person wasn't fazed a bit by the close range attack as they were all stopped by the magic shield in front of him. "You certainly are quite dangerous, attacking someone who just came to say hello."

It was at this point that I finally got a good look at who was speaking. "Baron Mordo." I remembered Draul speaking about him a few times and also because he was the one who actually helped Draul get started with magic. Draul also said something about how he left Kamar-Taj after the Hong Kong battle that apparently never happened.

"Oh, you know of me? Forgive me but I don't think we've ever been acquainted. I have quite the memory so trust me when I say I would remember if we had once crossed paths." His tone was the only indicator of his surprise. His body had been relaxed since the beginning, a sign that he probably didn't see me as a threat, and all I could read from him was just a fleeting curiosity of how I knew of him. Right, Draul did mention that he was as strong as Stephen Strange and the Sorcerer Supreme. And given that both people Draul compared him with were the only people he personally knew that was on par with him when it came to magical knowledge was not a good sign for me.

"A friend of mine told me about you in passing. Draul." I said that in hopes of gauging his reactions and that I did.

His countenance changed as soon as I mentioned Draul's name. He was frowning in distaste as he spoke. "So the coward came out of his shell. I half expected him to slave away at his mansion even after knowing what was going on. How is he doing these days?"

The way he was talking was actually getting on my nerves and also the way the others didn't even react to the noise my attacks made were all sending me wrong signals. "He's been trying out different things recently. I'm sure he would have loved it if you dropped by at least once in a while after you disappeared."

"Ha, funny. The only reason a person as selfish as Cross would involve himself in this is only one of three reasons: One being the Ancient One or Strange practically begged him to. Two being that whatever we are doing personally affects him in a bad way and he is trying to nip it in the bud. And three being he has something to gain from this. Out of these three options, the first one is the most natural while the third is the most unlikely, though it's still a possibility. The second however is where I, as Cross would put it, place my bets on. So would you mind enlightening me on what the fearless Cross is actively worrying about?"

Honestly, it felt as if I was looking at Draul, a feeling that sent the coldest chill down my spine. This man was dangerous, absolutely so. And it was not just his deductive intellect as he was actually correct as even I knew that Draul had an uncanny connection to this dark dimension place they were all talking about. I still vividly remember the night he had a nightmare since it was the first time I've ever seen Draul actually terrified.

Despite the mental turmoil going on in my head, I kept my movements as natural as possible while trying to call out to Draul with the mental link we had but it wasn't working, the situation growing dire by the second. "Well I don't know anything about any of that but what they actually made stressfully clear was that someone was trying to bring about an apocalypse by summoning two different versions of the biblical Devil. I never thought that someone like you would betray what you once stood for and side with the demons."

"I didn't betray anyone, little girl. You could say in fact that it was they that betrayed me and in doing so they opened my eyes to the truth of this world. The Ancient One preaches about the vileness of drawing powers from the dark arts and yet she uses it every passing moment of the day to extend her life, cheating death and accumulating karmic debts which we undeniably have to point at some point in time. Did I betray her or did she betray me by stepping on how she taught me to live?" He asked but I knew a rhetorical question when I saw one.

"What of Strange? The one she chose was one of the most unscrupulous sorcerers I've ever met. One who had no respect for the arts and would skirt the lines as long as it benefitted him, having no respect for the teachings and the rules in which all we sorcerers live by. And yet she had the gall to pick him as the next Sorcerer Supreme. Even the Eye of Agamotto chose him and now he has the Time Stone in his hands, giving him the power to pervert time as he wishes. He's done it more than a couple of times in the past so I know what I'm talking about." Maybe I should not have mentioned Draul's name in hopes of gauging his reactions because the dangerous air I was feeling from him was getting heavier by the second the more he spoke.

"And then there's Cross. If I say I absolutely loathed the first two people I mentioned with all of my being then Cross would be the person I despise the most. Everything about him is something I will never bring myself to like or respect. I respect both Strange's genius and the Ancient One's wisdom and strength but despite the fact that Cross has all these qualities in abundance, he still refuses to act. At least in Strange's case, it could be argued that it is his greed for knowledge that propels him to overlook traditions and try to avoid the consequences but Cross doesn't do this. He has the power, the knowledge, the wisdom, to act and yet he simply does nothing. He didn't call out the Ancient One when she was exposed nor did he rebuke Strange's actions of rewriting the flow of the universe. He did not even make a comment about Kaecillius' betrayal, even his intervention in that battle was due to the sole fact that Kaecillius had attacked him first. He didn't even help us in our fight against Kaecillius, only focused on his battle with Doom. I wonder, will he come for you if you call out for him or will he come for me? With Cross you can never know."

Natasha impacted the ground and used her body's rebound to balance herself before sending weapons, logs of wood and cars towards Mordo but the renowned sorcerer was weaving through it all with ease.

Natasha felt frustrated. She just had to be the one that came face to face with a Master Sorcerer who could do everything she could and highly surpassed her in mastery and implementation. If not for the fact that she was highly attuned with her abilities and the fact that she was actually progressing with it, she would have been dead the moment Mordo made his move.

She floated backwards, dodging the dark green lightning that would have hit her if she had remained even a second later at her previous spot. Despite her struggling with his attacks, Natasha was absolutely sure that the Master Sorcerer was just toying with her and that realization was making her panic by each attack but she held down whatever negative effects it would have on her performance.

Extending her influence towards the burning ground, she grabbed the flames and magnified it, a trick she managed to pull off recently after Mordo almost hit her a few times. Controlling the flames and increasing its output to enormous degrees, she wrapped it around her in a protective fire dome and a secondary means of attack as she floated midair.

"You are quite indigenous in your applications but it still screams novice!" Mordo rushed at her, hands stretched out with dark magic circles over them, and punched at the flames that covered Natasha, but different from what Natasha expected, the flames not only did not hinder Mordo in the slightest but they also dispersed as soon as his magic came in contact with them before his fist proceeded to punch Natasha in the stomach, causing the recently empowered young woman to cough out blood as the magic destroyed her inner systems.

Natasha flew away due to the impact and force behind the punch, crashing into the ground at blitzing speed. She staggered back up and cleaned her lips of the blood staining them.

'If not for my all-round improved physique that Draul insisted we get from the Power Stone, that punch would have most likely killed or majorly maimed super soldier me.' Natasha thought with a grim expression.

She was getting worried as time went on since she couldn't contact anyone. The link between them that had been a constant sense of security as her family could feel each other's general location and situation, except if they were planets away, was now dead. Not dead in the fact that it was cut through but more like they all changed numbers. It was the same network but the direct contact was lost.

If that had been all then maybe she wouldn't be panicking as she was now but she could also feel that she was someplace different than where she had teleported to. A hidden dimension maybe, which would explain why Draul wasn't here because he would have felt Mordo's magic as he was sweeping the planet at different intervals.

It was not a stretch to say that Mordo might have used magic to hide from Draul as the latter did always complain about there being no absolutes when it came to magic in correlation to the wider universe.

"You survived that and came out relatively well. You are more durable than I give you credit for." Mordo complimented but Natasha didn't feel the least bit flattered by his endearment. "If you are thinking about Draul finding you here then I'm sorry to inform you that you'll have to squash that hope."

Natasha's brows furrowed at Mordo's words. "What do you mean by that?"

"Despite Cross' accomplishments in the Arts, there is no way he would be able to locate this dimension that is cut off from Earth. This place is as much as your death bed as it can be considered any's, might as well lie in it." The entire landscape changed according to Mordo's whims, setting the graveness of the situation deep into Natasha's mind.

"Well you would have to kill me for that to happen." Natasha said as she faced off against the sorcerer.

"I intend to do just that, little girl." Mordo cracked a wide smile and brought his hands down, commanding the surroundings to twist in on itself before hurtling it towards Natasha who didn't twitch a brow at the incoming attack.

Raising her hands, she made a few hand motions she'd seen Draul do a couple of times during their frequent sparring sessions. Unlike the ease at which Draul performed the motion, Natasha had to focus entirely on it, paying no mind to the certain death that was quickly approaching her.

As the black hole vortex neared her, she completed the motion and her energy just flowed through her body on its own and projected itself in front of her in the form of a dark tinged purple shield.

The vortex crashed into the shield and it cracked in the next moment, a reaction that extended Mordo's lips upwards by a few centimeters only for it to depreciate downwards a second later as the crack on the shield extended outwards away from it and connected to the fabric of the dimension they were in, shattering it to a flurry of flowers.

Natasha looked at Mordo, eyes determined even as she stared at the clearly superior foe. This was not the first time she had fought people way out of her league and it certainly won't be the last. If she couldn't stand up against a vastly superior opponent then it was better if she changed her goals at this moment. "If you want my head, then you better be fast about it as I'm still on the clock. I have a job to complete after all."

It wasn't a boost in confidence in Natasha's mentality that made her challenge Mordo, it was just coming to the fact that she was against a foe that outclassed her and realizing that there were only two things she could do.

Fight to the death or die without fighting as running away was not possible since she was still in whatever dimension was this. And of the two options, there was only one she could choose. 'How fucking ironic. It's always two options.'

"Hoh? I see you've gained some confidence. How about I rectify that?" Without waiting for an answer, not like she was going to give him one, Mordo descended on Natasha. Spells after spells were cast in quick succession, pushing Natasha back with every hit, even as struggled to defend against them.

Not wanting to be on the back foot and let Mordo determine the tempo of their fight, Nat endured taking a few hits as she made to return attacks of her own.

Creating a purple construct, she hurled it at Mordo but the seasoned sorcerer kicked himself into the air, dodging the projectile by a considerable distance.

Before Mordo's feet could touch the ground, Natasha sent a few attacks of her own towards the man; energy blasts, fire torrents, raising the earth around them and extending them at the man as he fought his way forward.

Mordo deflected the attacks aimed at him with masterful grace as he came ever closer to Natasha. He was a few meters away from Natasha when his senses alerted him of danger from behind, trusting his intuition he refrained from subduing Natasha at that point in favor of teleporting himself to a safe distance as his previous location was blasted by attacks from behind, attacks he had dodged but Natasha had called them back for a last second flank.

"You are surprisingly talented in your applications even though you have yet to touch upon the precipice of your potential. I have a proposal for you: become my student and I will give you power beyond you-"

"Dude, you ever gonna shut up? We're fighting to the death or did you forget?" Natasha unapologetically cut him off mid speech and without waiting for him to reply her audacity, she commenced the next session of attacks.

While she hadn't in any way practiced the Arts, she had seen Draul use a lot of spells during the years since he's learnt magic, and if there was ever anything Draul drilled into their skulls it was how they could control the energy inside their body for optimum utilization. With her near-perfect memory, she's seen him use multitudes of spells and even knew the effects of most of the lower leveled ones that Draul used most of the times, and replicating the motions and letting the energy flow through her unimpeded allowed her to do things like…

Hands locked, fingers crossed atop their parallel, changing and locking into each other with fluid motions, psionic energy burst out from her as magic circles covered her arms up to the elbows. "You know, I'm something of a sorcerer myself."

Seeing the travesty being concocted in front of him, Mordo couldn't help but marvel at the height of indigenous intellect in front of him. He could tell she was in no way accomplished in the Arts as it was pretty clear from the shoddy spell she weaved around her. The only way the spell materialized was that she just brute forced it into stabilizing but even that wouldn't hold for long.

At that thought, a profound hate spewed forth from his heart as he remembered that the girl in front of him was associated with Cross. The same man who refused to act except for convenience should in no way nurture a talent like her. A pity he would have to kill her soon as the sacrifice was moments away from starting.

"As an acknowledgment to your appreciation of the Arts, I will grant you a swift death. Prepare yourself, girl." The figure of Mordo burst into mist and pervaded the entire landscape they were both in.

Reducing her heartbeat to the most optimum state, Natasha focused all of her senses in everything else other than her eyes. She extended her abilities forward into the most in hope of picking up either a stray thought or intent but it was as if she dipped her mind inside a void space, nothing reverberated back to her.

What she felt next was something impacting her and she was sprawled on the ground spitting out cups of blood. The Vibranium suit she wore didn't reduce the damage as much as she would have hoped, it even felt as if whatever spell that was completely bypassed the suits and attacked her bare flesh.

Not letting the attack bring her down, she focused most of her attention on the internal wound and tried to do anything to alleviate the damage. Summoning a pillar of flame, she wrapped it around a magnetic field construct and shot it to the mist surrounding her but nothing happened, the attack seemingly drowned in the mist.

She kept on attacking while still focusing on the wisps of energy that was eating away at her internals. Having mapped out the area of the damage, she tried using her own energy to draw the wisps of dark energy away from her system but something surprising happened – she absorbed the wisp of dark energy she was focused on.

She wasn't given a chance to expatiate on the new discovery as another attack slammed into her back as she lost her focus for a moment. "Arrrghhh!"

The attack broke some of her bones as she crashed into the ground with gritted teeth. Seeing as how she was an attack before the edge, she focused everything she could on alleviating the damage she suffered. Even though she finally concluded that she could absorb the residual energy inside her, she still couldn't do anything about the damage she had already sustained, only stopping the dark energy from spreading.

She turned her head in time to see the attack a few centimeters from her face, an attack impossible to dodge given the distance.

Her eyes remained open as she refused to shut them in the face of possible death, glaring at the dark curse that was already burning away her brows, a few tenth units away from destroying her face…

Before it fizzled out.

"That was a close one." Unlike other times, the all familiar voice didn't bring her security but a sense of doom with its frigid tone.

"Come out Mordo… or I'll come get you myself." The wave of his voice blew the mist away, revealing a stumbling Mordo who had a disgusted scowl on his face.

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