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- Mirror Dimension -
- London, November 2, 1939 -
Merlin's breath came shallow, each inhale a struggle as the black lattice tightened around him. The cage wasn't just binding him; it was eating into the fabric of who he was, siphoning his magic like a parasite feeding on the marrow of his soul.
But Merlin was not one to surrender. Not yet.
His fingers pressed against the length of his staff, sparks of gold light flickering as he whispered words older than the stones of Avalon. His mastery over space and time had freed him from prisons before. This one, too, he would break. With practiced calm, he shifted the currents around him, folding one thread of time against another, trying to weaken the bars from within.
For a moment, the dark lattice shivered. A sliver of hope.
But then came the cries.
They weren't simply sounds; they were memories, feelings, torn pieces of a million broken souls pressed against his mind. Grief poured into him — mothers calling for children, warriors lamenting lost battles, innocents weeping in silence. The sorrow was endless, dragging him down like a tide. And beneath it all, a rot, a whispering hunger that clawed at his thoughts, promising release if he just let go.
Merlin gritted his teeth, his body trembling. He had faced horrors across centuries, but this corruption was different. It was intimate. It wanted to wear him like a mask.
A sharp laugh broke through his struggle.
"I warned you, Merlin," Morgan's voice rang, smooth and cutting. "I knew you wouldn't just lie down. That's why I prepared something… special."
She stepped closer, her form gleaming in the fractured reflections. Her beauty was sharpened by cruelty, her eyes burning with victory.
"Even if you manage to tear through this spell — which I doubt — you will not save yourself. You'll rip apart the seams of reality itself. And do you know what waits beyond those seams?" She tilted her head, lips curling. "The Dark Dimension. Its creatures hunger for this world, and my lattice is their doorway. Break it, and you invite them in."
The words struck him like a blow. This wasn't just a prison. It was a trap layered upon a trap — resistance itself could doom the plane.
Morgan leaned in, voice a whisper of velvet and venom. "You see now, don't you? I am not bound by the Darkhold. It bends to me."
Her pride shimmered in the air, but the truth of it was more terrible than her boasting. She wasn't lying. The spell was too precise, too deliberate. No ordinary wielder of the Darkhold could hold such clarity.
What Merlin didn't know — what she carefully hid — was how she had come to this mastery. In her silence lay the darkest truth: Morgan had traveled into other worlds, hunted down her own selves, and devoured them. Each version, each alternate self, folded into her being, feeding her knowledge, her power, her cruelty. She had become something far greater than any sorceress of this realm should have been — a convergence of Morgans, a singular dominion.
And so the Darkhold did not consume her. She consumed it. She consumed everything.
Merlin's staff quivered, his strength faltering as the prison drained him further. His heart ached, not from pain alone, but from sorrow at what she had become.
"Once… you might have been the world's salvation," he whispered, voice hoarse.
Morgan only smiled. "And now I am its evolution."
She turned her back on him. With a single gesture, the Mirror Dimension rippled like glass under water, and she stepped out. Her cloak trailed like a shadow, carrying her back into the world above.
—
- Savile Row, London — The Real World -
The polished wood and fabric of the tailor's shop reformed as though nothing had happened. The Kingsman agents stood frozen, their sharp suits now looking oddly fragile under the weight of Morgan's presence. Their eyes were glassy, their bodies obedient. She had charmed them, bound them like puppets waiting for her command.
Morgan's smile widened as she moved among them. "So loyal… so well-trained. And now, mine. A fortunate gift, don't you think?"
The Kingsmen did not answer. They could not. But deep inside, their wills screamed, each man fighting chains invisible and unbreakable.
And yet, one pair of eyes blinked differently.
Eggsy.
He had felt her spell slip into him, coiling through his mind, pressing down like a storm. And for a terrifying moment, it had held him. He had almost drowned in her control. But somehow — by instinct, by stubbornness, by sheer will he couldn't explain — he had shaken it off.
He wasn't free, not truly. He was powerless against her. His friends were trapped, their bodies enslaved before him. If he acted, he'd be cut down in an instant.
So he did the only thing he could.
He pretended.
His eyes glazed over. His stance stiffened. He mimicked the charmed state, standing among the others like another broken pawn. But beneath the mask, his mind was alive, watching, waiting.
'I'll find someone', he promised silently. 'Someone who can fight her. I'll bring them here. I'll get my mates back.'
Morgan passed by him without a second glance, her satisfaction blinding her to the spark of rebellion in the boy's heart. She only saw soldiers — hers to command.
And as her laughter echoed through the shop, Eggsy clenched his jaw. A single ember of resistance burned within him, small but unyielding, as shadows thickened around them all.
—
- Kamal Aasthaan, Ujjain -
- November 2, 1939 -
The lamp on Aryan's desk burned with a soft golden hue, its light catching the edges of parchment scattered before him. He leaned back against the chair, shoulders relaxed, pen tapping lightly as he sketched flowing lines that curved into half-formed costumes.
Shakti's design was bold, weaving strength and elegance together. Nalini's leaned toward grace, with patterns that spoke of calm authority. Karna's carried the weight of a warrior — a look meant for someone who commanded the battlefield. His own was unfinished, more idea than garment, while a separate set of outlines for the Hidden Flame agents lay nearby, their cloaks and masks shaped to be both practical and intimidating.
It was a rare moment of calm, one where he could simply create without thinking of politics, wars, or multiversal storms. But such peace never lasted long.
A faint pulse ran through his mind — the tug of the magical link he had woven across his networks. His hand froze over the parchment. Information poured in, urgent and unsteady.
London. A presence stirring there. Agents of the Hidden Flame had picked up Morgan le Fay's trail, shadowing her movements through the city. She had entered a shop — not just any shop, but one carrying a name Aryan recognized immediately.
Kingsman.
His brow furrowed. He knew that name. Not from this world, not from this timeline. It was stitched into another universe, another story. And yet here it was, planted in London as if it had always belonged.
He set down the pen, the unfinished costumes forgotten. Something about this didn't sit right.
The arrival of Morgan alone would have been enough to demand attention. She was dangerous, steeped in the power of the Darkhold. But Kingsman? That meant the reality was shifting again, pulling in fragments that had no business in this world.
Aryan's jaw tightened as he pushed the sketches aside. This is no coincidence. Something bigger is moving pieces behind the curtain.
He stood, the calm of his chamber falling away with the weight of decision. He had tried to leave smaller matters to his networks, to let the Hidden Flame handle what they could. But this… this had the stink of multiversal interference all over it. If he ignored it, London could easily become the spark for something much worse.
And Aryan knew from experience — when shadows refused to stay in their lanes, they often bled into firestorms.
"Enough," he murmured to himself, his voice steady. "This one needs me directly."
He placed a hand on the desk, eyes flicking once more over the half-drawn designs. They would have to wait. The future he was building could not afford to be derailed by old enemies or foreign pieces stitched into his reality.
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