Hey, guys. Back with another chapter.
Before we get started, I'd like to officially set this down. Dormammu himself will not be in this story. Ilan and his followers will be defeated before he can come to Earth-1.
Let's get to it.
Chapter 6- Battle in Los Angeles
Barry sighs as he walks back into the Sanctum, a bag full of Subway sandwiches in his hand, having been sent out by the team to get lunch.
"I'm back. I've got the food!" Barry calls out. A moment later, Wally races in, grabs his sandwich, and races off. Barry chuckles a bit as he goes to find Strange and Constantine. Wong had gone to the Tokyo Sanctum soon after his arrival to help Caitlin and Clint prepare to fight sorcerers, and to reinforce them.
It's been over a month since the destruction of the Athens Sanctum. There's been no sign of Ilan and his followers since then, and Barry has been getting worried about their lack of activity. And it's made him wonder if they should try and change their strategies for trying to deal with them.
Barry walks into a side room, and sees Strange teaching Constantine how to use a Sling Ring. Constantine had expressed interest in the rings, and Strange had agreed to give him one and teach him how to use one.
"Hey, guys. Got the sandwiches," Barry says.
"Good. I'm starving," Constantine says impatiently. Barry walks over and sets down the bag, and the three of them pull out their sandwiches and start eating. Ralph soon joins them, grabbing his own sandwich.
As the four are eating, mostly staying quiet, Barry looks at Strange and asks, "Strange, what do you think that we should do now? Ilan and his sorcerers haven't showed themselves in a month and a half, and our team at STAR Labs hasn't had any luck finding them. If they don't show themselves soon, we're gonna need to start thinking of some new ways to try and find them, or try and figure out a good way to draw them out into the open."
Strange looks over at Barry as he takes a bite out of his sandwich. He takes a few moments to swallow it, then says, "I'm not sure, Allen. I don't want to leave the remaining Sanctums with little protection, but at this point, we may have no choice but to send a bigger team out looking for them. The risks are high, but we may have no choice. Still, we don't want to make a decision we'll regret later."
"But how are we going to find them?" Ralph asks.
Strange is about to respond when they hear the front doors open. A moment later, Wally calls out from the lobby, "Guys, I think you should-"
He's suddenly cut off by a strange noise, followed a second later by the sound of a body slamming against a wall.
In an instant, Barry, Ralph, Strange, and Constantine are on their feet. They rush together into the lobby to find Wally lying unconscious against the wall, and Ilan standing in the entrance, with four of his followers behind him. Ilan looks over at them and grins. Barry mutters under his breath, "I had to open my big mouth."
"Dr. Strange. We meet at last," he says.
Strange steps forward and conjures small golden shields in front of his fists. "Your plan stops here, Ilan. Kaecilius failed to help Dormammu conquer Earth-99. You're not gonna help him conquer Earth-1," he says fiercely.
Ilan laughs. "Really? I've already beaten one of your group. And your friend Elongated Man has already shown he can't beat us," Ilan says, making Ralph glare at him.
Constantine steps forward. "You're not bringing Dormammu to this Earth, mate. We're not gonna let ya," he says, assuming a battle stance.
Barry glares at Ilan and says, "You should've given up when you had the chance." With a mental command, he then activates the Iron Flash suit. As it finishes expanding, Barry races right at Ilan. Ilan is slightly caught off guard by just how fast Barry is, and Barry manages to grab him and run him out of the Sanctum into the street.
Constantine, Strange, and Ralph rush the evil sorcerers, and the battle commences. Two sorcerers try and attack Strange, while Constantine and Ralph each engage one.
Outside, Barry throws Ilan into the side of a building. Ilan grunts in pain, then gets back to his feet. He looks right at Barry and smirks a bit. "You're faster than I thought, Flash. Good. I like a challenge," Ilan says, chuckling a bit as he assumes a battle stance.
Barry looks at him fiercely. "I'm gonna stop you, Ilan," he says angrily. He then starts running, but Ilan rapidly conjures a shield and deflects off the shield.
Barry skids along the ground. He looks at Ilan and whispers, "Jocasta, find me an advantage. Analyze this guy's fighting style and his shields, and find me a sweet spot."
"On it, boss," Jocasta replies, as Barry dodges a Space Shard that Ilan throws at him.
Strange conjures two shields, blocking strikes by Space Shards. The two sorcerers attacking him growl with frustration. Strange instead conjures two whips and uses it send them flying back. He quickly focuses on the more dazed of the two, and uses his sling ring to open a portal under him, sending the guy falling into an endless space.
The second sorcerer regains his feet and rushes right at Strange. Strange conjures more shields and rushes to meet the attack.
Across the room, Ralph is fighting fiercely against his enemy. The sorcerer is trying to slash at him with a Space Shard. But Ralph has mastered using his powers to morph, shrink, and twist out of the way of attacks. Every time the sorcerer tries to attack, Ralph bends his body of the way, or shrinks it down under the blow, usually following the dodge up with a punch.
The sorcerer is growing increasingly frustrated. He lets the Space Shard disappear, then conjures up multiple tendrils of energy and sends them shooting right at Ralph, knocking Ralph flying back. Ralph goes sliding across the floor. Luckily, he's able to stop himself from going flying into the wall. He pops back up to his feet, ready to continue the fight.
Up at the top of the staircase, Constantine is fighting fiercely with the last sorcerer, a woman. She's trying to use energy whips to restrain him, but Constantine is using a spell he learned a long time ago to deflect the whips away from him.
"You'll never win!" she shouts at Constantine.
"Never say never," he says. She growls and attacks him again.
Then, Constantine gets an idea. He allows the lady to lash her whip around his arm. Then, he grabs hold of the whip, before whipping around. Caught off guard, the sorcerer goes flying through the air until she slams into the wall.
Constantine utters a few quick words in Latin. Immediately, his hands burst into dark flames. He raises his hands and throws the flames right at the sorcerer, who is trying to get back to her feet. The flames hit her right in the face. She collapses to the ground with a scream, the flames blistering and burning her face, and catching her hair on fire. She soon stops breathing.
Constantine looks down at her, breathing a little heavily. "Okay. That was harder than I thought," he says, before looking around for some kind of weapon.
Barry races around Ilan as the sorcerer conjures multiple Space Shards to throw at him.
"Please tell me you've found me a sweet spot, Jocasta," Barry says as he dodges another Space Shard.
"Try hitting one of those Space Shards. If you can cause an explosion, you might be able to use the explosion to distract him and land a blow," Jocasta replies.
"Worth a shot," Barry says. Right then, Ilan launches another Space Shard at him. Barry turns towards it and fires his repulsors. Sure enough, the resulting collision causes a small explosion.
Instantly, Barry races at Ilan. To his delight, Ilan is slightly dazed, and Barry lands a punch.
But, as he circles around for another blow, thinking Ilan would still be dazed, he suddenly runs into a conjured shield and gets knocked into the air.
He looks down and sees Ilan looking up at him, a golden whip springing into existence in his hands. He then lashes it up, and uses it to slam him into the ground. He then whips Barry up into the air and starts swinging him around in a circle before letting him go and sending him flying into the side of a building. Despite the vibranium protecting him from the worst of the blow, the force of the impact is enough to knock Barry unconscious.
Strange blocks a Shard strike from the sorcerer with a shield. The sorcerer tries to strike with a shard in the other hand, but the Cloak of Levitation blocks the blow. Strange then grabs a staff off the wall and smacks the guy across the head, knocking him out.
Meanwhile, across the room, Ralph manages to dodge another strike from his opponent by shrinking under it, then wraps his arms multiple times around the guy's legs, then yanks his arms back, yanking his feet under from under him.
Then, a portal opens above him, with Constantine on the other side, holding an axe he grabbed off the wall. He throws it through the portal, and it embeds right in the guy's chest.
Ralph untangles his arms from around the now dead sorcerer's legs as Constantine steps through the portal, and it closes behind him. The two look at each other, then over at Strange, who's looking at them.
A groan hits their ears, and the three look over at Wally, who is starting to come to.
"Help him. I'll go see if Barry needs help," Ralph says, and starts jogging towards the front door as Strange and Constantine start walking over to Wally.
Constantine kneels down next to him. "Hey, West. You okay, mate?" he asks.
Wally groans as he slowly sits up. "Ugh. Yeah. Man, that hurt," he groans as he runs his head.
After a moment, Wally looks right at Strange. "Did you guys beat them?" he asks.
"I sent one falling into endless space, and knocked out another. John and Ralph together killed two more. Barry took on Ilan himself, and they're fighting outside," Strange responds.
"We've got a problem!"
The three turn to face Ralph, who is striding back into the Sanctum. He's looking alarmed.
"What is it, Ralph?" Wally asks.
"Barry. He's gone. So is Ilan," Ralph says in a very worried tone.
Everyone looks worried. Ilan has captured the Flash. Things have gotten a lot worse.
I hope you liked this chapter. I hope I did the fight scene okay. And, just so you know, Barry won't be captive to Ilan for long.
One of my favorite bits of humor from Thor: Ragnarok was what Dr. Strange did to Loki. Since I'm not covering that part of the movie in Arrow: Ragnarok, I had to have Dr. Strange do it to someone in this story. Except this time, he's not gonna let that guy out.
Also, just a quick notice. I've finally planned out all the chapter contents. There's gonna be a total of 12 chapters to this story. I know that's short compared to the last one, but there's not as much material to include as the first story.
I'll end here. As always, please review and let me know how I've been doing, as well as what you'd like to see in the future of this story.
Until next chapter, stay tuned!