"So, just how ancient is she?" Stephen asked Mordo as they prepared to train.
"No one knows the age of the Sorcerer Supreme. Only that she is Celtic and never talks about her past." Mordo replied.
"You follow her even though you don't know?"
"I know that she's steadfast, but unpredictable. Merciless, yet kind. She made me what I am. Trust your teacher. And don't lose your way."
"Like Kaecilius?"
"That's right."
"You knew him."
"When he first came to us, he'd lost everyone he ever loved. He was a grieving and broken man, searching for answers in the mystic arts. A brilliant student, but he was proud, headstrong. Questioned the Ancient One, rejected our teaching. He left Kamar-Taj. His disciples followed him like sheep seduced by false doctrine."
They started sparing. Mordo locked Stephen in a headlock, but he responded with elbowing him in the ribs. They circled each other with smirks on their faces.
"He stole the forbidden ritual, right?" Stephen asked as he threw a punch, which Mordo easily blocked.
"Yeah." Mordo grunted as he dodged Stephen's next few blows.
"What did it do?"
"No more questions."
"What's that?" Stephen pointed to the short staff Mordo was holding.
"That's a question."
"Heh."
"This is a relic. Some magic is too powerful to sustain, so we imbue objects with it. Allowing them to take the strain we can not. This is the Staff of the Living are many Wand of Watoomb." Mordo grabbed the ends of his staff and pulled, revealing a whip made of electricity. "The Bolting Boots of Voltor!" Mordo clicked his heels.
"They just roll of the tongue, don't they? When do I get my relic?" Stephen asked.
"When you're ready."
"I think I'm ready."
"You're ready when the relic decides you're ready." Mordo smirked. "For now, conjure a weapon."
"Are relics alive?" Peter asked.
"In a way, yes." Wong said. "But not all of them are. For example, the Cloak of Levitation is alive in some way, but The Wand of Watoomb is less so."
"Its artificial intelligence, obviously." Tony said. He reached over and touched the end of the Cloak of Levitation. "However, I'm confused on how you can fit a fully functioning AI chip in something so- ow!
The Cloak of Levitation had slapped Tony's hand. Hard.
"You need to teach your cloak some manners." Tony sniffed.
"You need to be nicer to Levy." Peter scolded.
"Uh… What's a Levy?" Stephen asked.
"Its my nickname for the Cloak. Levy. Its short for Levitation." Peter grinned.
"Yeah." Stephen brought his hands together and slowly separated them, revealing an orange rope made of electricity. He jumped back when Mordo brought his staff down and began hitting Strange, which Strange was able to block.
"Fight! Fight like your life depended on it!" Mordo shouted as he jumped up. As he stepped his boots made little platforms for him to step on. He darted in the air and ran above Stephen, before dropping down and kicking him in the back. Stephen fell to the ground and tried to scurry to his feet, but Mordo knocked him back down. Stephen turned onto his back and tried to crawl away on his elbows. "Because one day, it may."
"Okay, that was not a fair fight." Clint said. "You should demand a rematch now that you got Levy."
Peter beamed when Clint used the nickname he invented, and Stephen scowled.
"Okay, there is no way we're calling the Cloak of Levitation Levy-" Stephen scowled.
"Awww, but he likes it." Peter whined.
"No, it doesn't. Go ahead, tell them you hate it." Stephen said. The cloak shurgged its shoulders. "What do you mean you dont mind?" Stephen asked. "Its stupid."
"It has been decided. The cloak shall be named Levy." Clint said as he slammed a gavel he made out of a pencil, tape, and a match box on the table.
"When did you even have time to make that." Nat asked. "Or better yet, why do you even have it."
"The question is, why dont you have a homemade gavel? Youre just jealous." Clint grinned. This earned him an elbow in the ribs from Nat.
The rain was pouring out hard outside. Stephen walk by the window and gently picked up his watch looking at the engraving on the back. He set it aside and opened up his laptop to email. He began typing a new email:
"Christine
I'm emailing you one more time to"
Stephen stared at the letter and shook his head. He stared at it for a few seconds before closing out of the email.
Stephen grabbed his books and ran across the courtyard, getting wet because of the rain. He darted into the empty library and took the Forbidden book from its place on the shelf.
"You're taking the forbidden book! Oh my gosh! This is just like that one Harry Potter movie!" Peter squealed.
Bucky gave Steve another confused look.
"It's about this boy who finds out he's a wizard." Steve said.
"Hey, that's actually right!" Sam said surprised.
"And then he finds out he has to go to space because Aliens are attacking America, and he fights this blue guy with a space sword called Yoda in a spaceship called the Enterprise." Steve finished.
"That sounds about right." Bucky nodded.
"No, Steve." Sam groaned as he facepalmed. "Just… just no."
He casually started flipping through it well eating an apple. He stopped on one page to loot at a red picture. He looked a little closer and then looked up in front of him. The picture matched the strange Relic sitting in the middle of the library.
"Wong?" Stephen called. No response. He shrugged his shoulder with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He grabbed the relic of the center dial and put it around his neck.
"What part of 'forbidden' don't you understand?" Wong sighed.
"Hey, I tried to call you. Not my fault you didn't answer." Stephen smirked.
"Okay. First, open the Eye of Agamotto." Stephen said as he read the book. He made a quick motion with his hands and the necklace slowly started spinning. The eye of agamotto opened up the center of sphere to review a glowing green light.
"Alright."
Stephen put his hands together at the wrist and slowly began spinning them. A green disc materialized as he spun his hands. He pulled his hands apart and little spinning green bracelets of appeared on his arms.
Stephen glanced at the half-eaten apple on his desk. He slowly moved his hand to the right and the green disc start moving. Has he did this more and more bites were taken of the apple until only the core was left. He slowly moved his hand the other way and the apple slowly started forcing in time, all the bites that had been taken from it were undone until it was a whole apple again.
"AWESOME!" Peter shouted.
"Oh my."
Stephen moved his hand to write again and more pieces of the apple disappeared. He kept going until the core became rotten. He moved his hand to the left again and made it a whole apple once more.
Stephen stared at the eye of agamotto for a moment before raising his head up. It was obvious from his expression that he had just gotten an idea. He flipped the pages of the book until he got to the ones that were missing. He slowly moved his hand and the pages that have been torn out or restored. He pick the book up and started to read the contents.
"Dormammu… The Dark Dimension… Eternal life?" Stephen read.
"Stop!" Mordo shouted. "Tampering with the continuum of probability is forbidden!"
"I... I wa... I was just doing exactly what it said in the book!"
"And what did the book say about the dangers of performing that ritual?" Wong growled.
"Oooooooooh. You're in TROUBLE!" Peter sang.
"Yeah, I don't know. I hadn't gotten to that part yet."
"Temporal manipulations can create branches in time. Unstable dimensional openings. Spacious paradoxes! Time loops! You want to get stuck reliving the same moment over, and over, forever, or never having existed at all?" Mordo screamed.
"They really should put the warnings before that stuff." Stephen smiled weakly.
"Your curiosity could have gotten you killed. You weren't manipulating the space-time continuum, you were wrecking it. We do not tamper with natural law. We defend it." Wong slammed the book shut and Stephen took a hesitant step back.
"How did you learn to do that?" Mordo pointed an accusing finger in Stephen's direction. "Where did you learn the litany of spells required to even understand it?"
"I've got a photographic memory. It's how I got my M.D. and Phd. at the same time." Stephen said with his head down.
"What you just did takes more than a good memory." Mordo argued. "You were born for the mystic arts."
"And yet, my hands still shake." Stephen growled as he lifted his hands.
"For now, yes." Wong said.
"Not forever?" Stephen looked up hopefully.
"We're not prophets." Mordo said.
"When do you start telling me what we are?" Stephen growled. Mordo and Wong traded uneasy glances.
"While heroes like the Avengers protect the world from physical dangers, we sorcerers safeguard it against more mystical threats." Wong said.
"Honorable shoutout!" Tony cheered.
Wong walked over and pressed a button on the center dias. A replica of the earth spun over their heads, with thousands of small orange lights flickering on it. "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. The same sorcerer who created the eye you so recklessly borrowed. Agamotto built 3 Sanctums in places of power, where great cities now stand. That door leads to the Hong Kong Sanctum, that door to the New York Sanctum. That one, to the London Sanctum. Together, the Sanctums generate a protective shield around our world. The Sanctums protect the world, and we sorcerers protect the Sanctums."
"From what?" Stephen asked.
"Other-dimensional beings that threaten our universe."
"Like Dormammu?" Stephen asked. Wongs eyebrows shot up and Mordo flinched back.
"Where did you learn that name?" Mordo asked.
"I just read it in the book of Cagliostro. Why?"
Wong and Mordo traded anxious expressions.
"Dormammu dwells in the Dark Dimension. 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." Wong said.
"The pages that Kaecilius stole."
"A ritual to contact Dormammu and draw power from the Dark Dimension." Wong nodded.
"Have you guys ever had to fight him before?" Wanda asked.
"Not face to face, but we've fought his minions." Wong replied. Stephen shifted uncomfortably in his seat; he never told Wong about his 'bargain' with Dormammu.
"Uuuh... okay. Okay." Stephen laughed humorlessly with a frantic look in his eye. "I... time-out. I... I came here to heal my hands, not to fight in some mystical war."
Before anyone could say anything else a bell chiming rain out. Wong looked up at the replica of Earth a look of horror on his face.
"London." He whispered.
The door that led to the London sanctum flew open, and someone tried to run through but fell down dead. Another person walked through with his arms stretched out wide and a smirk playing on his lips.
"Kaecilius! No!" Mordo shouted.
Kaecilius brought his arms down and a huge burst of power flow through the air, strong enough to throw all of them off their feet. Stephen was thrown back and rubble from the ceiling piled on top of him. Stephen gasped for air and started shoving the pieces of ceiling off of him. He quickly scrambled to his feet and frantically looked around.
"Wong? Mordo?" He called. He tried to move rubble around to look for them but more Dupree's started to rain down. He jumped to the side just in time to avoid being crushed by a giant piece of ceiling. Stephen through open the door and dived through just before the rest of the ceiling came tumbling down.