Wong poured himself a generous helping of Chai, grabbed a thick tome of spells about magical pacts and settled in for quiet night of studying.
It had been a week since the disastrous fight with the five. The same length of time it was since Boudicca had left Wong in charge of them, whiles she attended a pressing matter.
And in that time things were mostly uneventful at Kamar Taj.
The five had initially tried to bait him into more fights or outright intimidate their new jailer. Presuming him to be less of a threat than his Master.
But their attempts were highly ineffective on Wong due to a combination of a language barrier and previous experience, teaching Wong a lesson against freeing the prisoners under any circumstances.
The later reason, was still unbeknownst to the five due to the nature of the forget-me-not spell.
So the five, continued to try and provoke Wong. Even going as far as to try and overcome the language barrier by ad libbing gibberish and gestures to their goading. In the hopes that they would conveniently land on an insult that Wong would understand and be enraged by.
But unfortunately for them, it had yet to yield any result.
After awhile, they gave up and settled into bored silence.
And it was this silence Wong was seeking to exploit in order to learn, as he sat on a short bench right in the middle of the surrounding cells.
Wong gently blew on the hot tea before taking a noisy sip from the cup. He opened the tome to where he had last left off and began to read.
He quickly became completely engrossed with the book forgetting all about his tea for a while.
When he eventually returned his gaze back to the chai to take another sip, what he saw caused him to jump in surprise and drop the ceramic cup.
The cup shattered into pieces and it's liquid content spilled out, forming a sizeable puddle.
The captives, who until then had all been dozing off, perked up upon hearing the commotion.
Wong ignored them for the time being, instead staring intently at the puddle of chai he had inadvertently created.
He weaved his fingers together to perform a series of hand signs in order to cast a spell on the puddle. Afterwards he stopped as if expecting a reaction from the puddle.
Sure enough, a reaction occured, with the puddle surface rippling and becoming more animated.
Soon a murky green image of the The Ancient One's face appeared in the puddle. Followed by distorted but mostly audible sound.
"I've been trying to scry you for close to an hour" Boudicca exclaimed immediately, not bothering with formalities.
"Sorry, I'm currently in the dungeons containing the captives. The wards here must have interfered with all your previous messages " Wong explained.
"What's the matter you sound strained" Wong asked, trying to get a better look at Boudicca and her surroundings but the Chai infused water made it hard to do so.
"I need your help. Drop whatever you are doing and dispatch whatever available sorcerer's you can to join me at mount Fuji." Boudicca ordered.
"There's ... I thought I could handle it on my own but... I can't believe we missed this for... people are..."
Her words kept getting cut off mid sentence by the water rippling. Implying that whatever was going on at her end was causing her scrying water to shake.
"Hurry.." was her last words before the projection completely cut off. The puddle of tea hissed and bubbled with heat from the scrying spell being so violently ended. Eventually evaporating completely into a chai fragrant steam
Wong wasted no time and quickly opened up a portal out of the dungeon and into the courtyard of Kamar Taj, leaving the captives intrigued and confused.
He rushed to a large gong that sat in an alcove on courtyard and repeatedly banged it.
With each bang an orange shockwave of energy was pushed outwards, travelling across magical ley lines and directly to any available sorcerer.
Sling ring portal's quickly began to manifest as Sorcerer's who received the alert dropped everything and rushed to Kamar Taj to respond to it.
The courtyard quickly became crowded with sorcerer's of all races, gender and looks from across the earth.
They immediately began to chatter among themselves as they waited for Wong to finish the summoning and explain what was the cause for it.
After a few more beats, Wong stopped and turned to the gathering of mages.
"Quickly head to largest mountain in Nippon, our Sorcerer Supreme faces a threat she cannot handle alone" Wong yelled to crowd.
There was brief moment of stunned silence as all the sorcerer's present tried to wrap their heads around the idea that their almighty leader needed assistance.
They were quickly snapped out of their shock by Wong bellowing "Go!!!" punctuating his shout with a savage hit to the gong.
Portals were quickly reopened as mages aware of the location of mount Fuji, opened portals large enough for themselves and others to follow.
Other's rushed into the into Kamar Taj itself to grab powerful relics and weapons that might be useful.
Wong himself quickly confiscated an engraved sword from a passing sorcerer without asking or being polite about it.
And then he opened up a portal to the foot of Mount Fuji striding through it without hesitation.
Despite the time difference between the location of Kamar Taj and the location of Fuji, being only about an hour, Fuji and it's surrounding environ was so well lit, it looked it was day instead night.
The source of the light was a massive mechanical spire that stood were, mount Fuji once stood. As if the mountain itself had been transmuted into it.
It was gold colored with a sleek design and glowing blue lines running across it's sides.
At the tip of the spire was a large bright white flame which bathed the surrounding area in it's light light a mini sun.
From an opening at the base of one of the spire's side came an unending wave of snarling and pushing monstrous beings.
These creatures vaguely resembled predatory animals such as wolves, leopards etc. But they were all an oily skinned black color. And much bigger than they naturally tended to grow.
As soon as these creatures crept out of the spire's base they dashed in all directions with no clear coherency or reason.
The only thing keeping them at bay was several Boudicca look alikes who were working together to maintain an orange hued energy barrier to keep them back.
Wong immediately recognized these lookalikes to be clones borne from the images of ikkon spell, likely cast by Boudicca.
The clones were clearly struggling to keep the monsters at bay as cracks snaked across the barrier.
Wong himself frantically looked around trying to identify which clone was the real one.
He soon spotted one Boudicca lookalike slightly separated from the rest and engaged in a pitch battle against a tall humanoid creature.
Wong barked orders at the still incoming sorcerer's to fortify the dome or try destroy the spire. As he himself rushed to real Boudicca's aid.
As he drew closer, he couldn't help but be mesmerized by the display of power he was bearing witness to.
There was a sharp difference between the fight that happened between the five and Boudicca at Kamar Taj and this one.
With more room to cast spells and without the need to cover for another, she could go all out.
She cast lightning that ricocheted of surfaces in search of it's true target. Summoned tentacles of a elder God. And at one point launched a fractal glass lwave which Wong recognized as a gateway to the mirror dimension. Clearly trying to banish the creature.
She fired off other advance spells Wong had only read off. And others still he didn't even know existed.
But each one was unfortunately deftly countered by the creature using speed, power and whirring gadgets that hovered around it.
As Wong drew closer to the clash of titans, he got a better look at the creature.
It was about ten feet tall, lanky and looked like it was made from a thick mass of shadows.
It had large white eyes and an unnatural large mouth full of large white teeth.
It was completely naked and devoid of human features and accessories with the exception of a gold band around his wrist.
It's appearance wasn't particularly terrifying to Wong, who had faced many magical beings. Some of whom were fear incarnate. But the pure malice this creature exuded was like nothing Wong had ever experienced..
So potent was the evil coming from this creature, that Wong could almost taste the sourness of it at the back of his throat.
Despite this, he bravely soldiered on, swiftly activating the enchantment on the sword he was carrying and then throwing it at the creature.
The creature was so preoccupied with Boudicca that it didn't see the attack coming and it was hit right in neck plunging deep into it. The enchantment triggered shortly upon impact resulted in a massive explosion that knocked the creature to the ground.
Using the lull in action, Wong rushed to Boudicca's side to see how she was doing.
She had sustained some superficial scratches and bruises across her face and arms, but was on the whole relatively fine, though extremely exhausted.
"You made it" Boudicca said weakly offering a tired smile to Wong.
"Of course" he said as he quickly weaved a hand sign to cast a healing spell upon Boudicca.
"I can't replenish your energy, but this should patch you up for now and relieve some pain" Wong said as he caused her torn flesh to knit back together.
"Thank you" she said with a sigh of relief.
"What's going on here" Wong asked staring at the creature from before. The explosion had nearly torn it's head off it's body. But already it was slowly regenerating from Wong's attack.
"I don't know, I was here investigating claims that people were being killed in ritualistic manner. I thought there might have been a coven of witches here or something, but I came upon all this instead"
Boudicca explained.
Frowning slightly at this Wong simply said, "Whatever this is, we are here now and we can stop it together"
Boudicca was about to reply to this when a shooting pain ripped through Wong's shoulder and Boudicca's gut almost simultaneously.
Shock numbed Wong's pain long enough for him to turn to see who caused it. And it was none other than the creature. Now pointing at them with a single finger, whose tip was smouldering with smoke, from the energy beam it had just fired. The creature had shot through Wong just to land a solid hit at Boudicca.
The pain from the attack was manageable to Wong, but unfortunately it was so great for Boudicca that she lost control over the images of Ikkon spell. And her replica's quickly faded away alongside the barrier they had been powering
The calvary of sorcerer's tried their best to step in and take over for the clones, but weren't fast enough to re-erect the barrier.
Thus the creatures spread out mauling and attacking the sorcerer's.
Wong cringed at the sight of carnage around him as sorcerer's he knew and trained fruitless tried to stand their ground only to die grisly deaths.
Wong tried to cast another healing spell, but he was so panicked and in pain that he kept messing up the right sequence of hand signs. Healing magic was extremely rare and uncommon and those gifted enough to use it needed a calm and collected mind to do so.
Behind him, he could hear the creature slowly walking towards them clearly intending to finish them.
"That woman" the creature said in a chilling voice. " Give her to me and I might spare you. Her power would be a great addition to the rest"
Scared but still determined not to let themselves get captured or worse, Wong cast the one spell he could even in his panicked state.
With a quick swish of his hand, a portal opened beneath the two of them taking them away from the battlefield.
They crashed onto the hard cobbled floor of the dungeons of Kamar Taj startling the captives once more.
In his panicked state, Wong had reflexively portaled to a place he had been to recently.
Ignoring the captives for the time being, Wong tried once more to cast the healing spell, this time succeeding.
"We...we have to go back" Boudicca begged Wong weakly as he continued to channel magic to her wound
"No" Wong said resolutely. "You heard what that creature said. It wants your powers now. It's already a match for you as is. It would be unstoppable if it also acquired your power on top of what it has"
"But... it's going to decimate Nippon and much more. I think...I think that's the true cause of the end of the world. Not the five. You were right" She said.
At the mention of five, Wong looked up to stare at them. They all stood at the edge of their cells watching their injured captors quietly.
Zarda had an sadistic smirk. Bashenga looked nervous. Hyperion and Thor looked serious. And Wenwu looked strangely bored by the whole thing.
"No, these people are still dangerous. That creature is just more dangerous" Wong assured.
"But we have to do something about it.." her words trailing off as she fell unconscious. Having lost too much blood and energy.
"We do need to do something " Wong said to Boudicca's unconscious form.
He turned to look once more at the captives. Then resolutely, he gently laid Boudicca down on the ground and walked over to the abandoned tome he had been reading just before he had to rush out.
The tome was still open to the page, he had been reading.
Absolute Order. A spell that forced those afflicted by it to fulfill a mutual promise at risk of death.
Wong knew he wasn't thinking straight. He was scared and traumatized by the fight. And this was leading him do something incredibly reckless and stupid. But he told himself he had too.
He quickly cast a spell to allow the captives to hear and understand him easily.
"Let's make a deal." He began.
"In exchange for your services in helping us take down a great threat. I promise to set you free...Agree?"
There was a long pause of silence before Wenwu moved first to lift up his hand and place his open palm on the surface of his barrier.
"Agree" he said.
The others slowly followed suit afterwards. Each lifting up their hand and placing their palm on the barrier. All seemingly in agreement.
Wong slowly went through the motion of casting Absolute Order whiles explaining the repercussion for not obeying to the captives.
The five all seemed unfazed by the penalty for breaking the oath.
Wong paused briefly to consider what he was about to do. The spell wasn't full proof and there was many loopholes to it. But at the same time, they needed soldiers who wouldn't be felled as easily as the standard sorcerer. Plus if the five died in the process that took care of one problem at least.
Satisfied with this reasoning Wong finished the spell.
The spell quickly took effect and almost immediately a large "A" shape encircled by another "O" shape burned itself onto the still outstretched palms of five.
"It is done. You all will help us deal with this threat and avenge our fallen brethren. Do otherwise and the consequences will be dire"
