My breathing was calm as I sat cross-legged in the middle of Kamar-Tag's courtyard, letting myself be immersed in the sparks of chaos pulsating through my veins.
Opening my eyes slowly, I was greeted by Tails sitting on his hind legs in front of me. His eyes were also closed and his nine tails splayed out on the ground, three orbs made out of an eerily silent blue fire floating around his head.
I didn't say anything nor did I move as I watched the three orbs be pulled into one. Tails then opened his mouth, letting the orb fall into it before he spat out a torrent of blue flames up into the sky.
"I'm guessing your Foxfire training is going along nicely?" I asked, smirking as Tails opened his eyes and nodded with a smug smile. "Good. Illusion tra-"
I stopped talking as a dozen Ancient One copies appeared around me, immediately accelerating my body and moving towards each one.
Surprisingly, I found myself pushing a finger through each one, sitting back down on front of him with a proud smile as the world resumed once more.
Tails looked miffed that I had tried to destroy his clones, drawing a chuckle from me as I ruffled his hair.
"Sorry, bud. Anyway, your fire was incredible and your speed and number of clones were great. However, I have to say that you need to work on making your clones more solid.
After all, if you're fighting someone half as fast as I am, then you're going to get your ass handed to you when they tear through your clones like it's nothing," I spoke, smiling apologetically at the glare he gave me.
"Are you torturing Tails with your 'training' again?" I turned my head as I heard a voice speak up, raising an eyebrow at Kaecilius sitting in the darkness.
It was not just him as I noticed a few other acolytes and students beside him, making me hum as I stood up.
"It's not training if it works, master Kaecilius. What about you? What are you and your students doing up so late at night?"
"Extra lessons in the mystic arts and the manipulation of dimensional energy," he replied and I nodded as I helped Tails into my jacket.
Adjusting until his head poked out from my jacket, I scratched his head before glancing behind me to see even more acolytes blocking off the path back to my room.
"Well, I've had enough training for the day so I'm going to go sleep for the day."
"Before you go, perhaps a word?" Kaecilius asked and I turned as the man walked closer.
'...Yeah, no.'
"Unfortunately, I don't have the energy for discussions right now, master Kaecilius as I've had a stressful week. Perhaps tomorrow once I've rested for a bit?"
"Unfortunately, I must ins-" The world slowed down to a snail's crawl as I sped up, but my eyes widened at the sight of hundreds of eldritch whips shooting forward from the shadows.
I immediately dashed ot the side, avoiding each one while focusing on the shadows. My eyes then narrowed as I saw the various Tibetan runes engraved onto the walls and pillars.
'I see. They're most likely activated to attack anything that goes beyond a certain speed threshold, but the fact that they're so slow means that they've been planning it since before I went to the village of the Great Protector.'
"And here I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, Kaecilius," I murmured, counting up to thirty students along with Kaecilius himself.
With a grunt, I shot towards the main culprit, a punch snapping into his jaw. Before his head could even tilt in the direction, I was gone, delivering a flurry of swift strikes to each and every one.
At the same time, I touched one of the strands and immediately pulled back as I felt it siphoning away my chaos energy. With a frown, I avoided every strand like it was the plague, coming to a standstill atop the southern rooftop that overlooked the courtyard.
Shaking my hands, the world resumed and thirty one people were sent rocketing in various directions, some with internal injuries, some with broken bones and some paralyzed from the neck down.
I did raise an eyebrow as Kaecilius recovered midair and flipped over, landing with a stumble even as his students moaned and groaned with pain.
'I'm guessing he hasn't done the Dormammu thing with them yet,' I thought with a frown, staring at the crude eye-shaped marking on his forehead and the slight cracked skin around his eyes.
Looking closer revealed that the markings were not like the one I remember Aria having on her forehead, hers being a lot clearer and more like a tattoo while his looked like it was carved into his flesh.
"You hesitate to deliver the finishing blow. Aria would not have done the same."
"Well, I do want to catch you all alive, but if you insist!" I sped up as I finished my sentence, dodging around the strands of eldritch energy trying to wrap around my limbs.
My eyes were focused on not only Kaecilius but also the area around us and that was a good idea as I felt a strange vibration to my right.
Moving away from it, I watched as space folded inwards, cracks spreading out from that point in all directions. I immediately stopped and backpedalled, but it was too late as I watched the world crack and splinter around me.
It was only a few moments before I was standing in the centre of Kamar-Taj's courtyard, which was split into halves and then split again into quarters while the buildings themselves hung from the sky like chandeliers.
At the same time, the world distorted and twisted, creating paths and roads in every direction while Kaecilius stood in front of me with his hands clasped together.
Only his index and ring fingers were curled in while the others were extended outwards. My frown deepened as I saw the cracks spreading from him and Kaecilius himself smirked when I looked at the spatial rift.
"Now, what is your next m-" My body vibrated to the point that the ground below me trembled as I shot forward, carving right through the spatial rift and delivering a swift punch to his jaw.
Reading the rapid changes within the spatial rift that protected him, I sped up and slowed down my own vibrational speeds, shifting through it and landing another kick to his neck.
The blow distorted the air and I watched as his eyes only now began to widen a few millimeters every few seconds, but my fists blurred as I unleashed a storm of rapid punches to his chest.
Each punch sent a shockwave rippling through the courtyard, Kaecilius' skin vibrating from each impact before I lunged back.
Time resumed and I watched as his body spiralled on the spot, bones audibly cracking and snapping as I watched him fall to the ground.
At the same time, I blinked as the Mirror Dimension around us turned a scarlet red, turning my head as the dimension was torn asunder.
The sight of Wanda floating into the dimension with blazing red eyes and a scarlet hue enveloping her form was terrifying in itself, but I can only think how terrifying it must be for Kaecilius when her neck snapped towards him with a sneer.
"You dare to try and attack my brother?"
'Yeah, it was nice knowing you,' I thought as I immediately raced off to the side, watching as Wanda flicked her wrist and the Mirror Dimension reformed.
The world snapped out of order as a scarlet glow bled out of the Mirror Dimension and Wanda twisted her hand with a violent growl.
The ground beneath Kaecilius warped like wet clay before he could respond, crimson energy coiling around his limbs and pinning him flat to the ground.
His limbs twisted obscenely as she descended touching down on the ground beside him. Her gaze flicked to me for half a second and her lips twitched as I gave an exaggerated bow.
"Sister, wonderful of you to come rescue me."
"Are you hurt?" she asked, pushing her right hand down and forcing Kaecilius deeper into the ground despite his struggles.
"Define hurt. Physically, I'm okay, but I am mildly offended that they thought they could get me," I replied, scratching Tails' head with a smile. She rolled her eyes at my words before her gaze hardened when she turned back to Kaecilius.
"T-The Ancient One's prized pu-"
"Quiet," she whispered, clenching her fist and closing his mouth. "You laid traps meant to capture and/ or kill my brother and you expect me to forgive you?"
"Uh, Wanda. From your loving brother here, shouldn't we keep him alive for questioning?"
"Oh, I am," she replied with a thin smile. "He's just going to wish he was dead."
With that said, her hands moved in fluid, dance-like movements that twitched every now and then, my eyes fixed on the runes that were carved into his very flesh.
The next moment, inhumane screams erupted from his lips as scarlet threads stabbed into his skin, a look of concentration in Wanda's eyes as she unravelled the dimension bindings that were connected to him.
Then, with a final snap of her wrist, his body was lifted and slammed back into the ground, a shockwave of chaos energy erupting outwards from his form.
I didn't say anything as she lowered her hands, simply racing forward and appearing in front of her. Grasping her hands that were shaking a little, I raised them up and held them against my face.
Wanda looked up at me and I could see the guilt flashing for a moment in her eyes before she smiled, hugging me as I did the same.
"You should have let me be the one to end things."
"You would have taken your time," she whispered and I shrugged.
She wasn't wrong, though.
As she pulled away from the hug, I watched as she raised her hand, twisting and contorting the Mirror Dimension until it shattered and left us in the regular world once again.
This time, though, I raised an eyebrow at the numerous sorcerers and students rushing into the courtyard. Mordo, Shang and Xialing were at the front of the group, the latter two rushing over to us while Mordo's gaze moved from Kaecilius to us.
"Turns out he has a connection to someone called Dormammu. You know someone like that?" I asked as the other sorcerers restrained Kaecilius and his students, Mordo's eyes widening at my words.
However, before he could speak, reality shattered to my left and the world slowed as I turned to see cracks spreading through the air.
An iridescent green glow was being emitted from the cracks before a figure walked through, but my eyes widened as I saw the blood staining her face and clothes.
"Aria!" I rushed over as she fell, catching her just as the world resumed and the hole in reality snapped back shut. The moment everything went back to regular speed, everyone immediately turned to us and Aria gave a tired smile as I placed her softly on the ground.
"Ancient One! Master, what happened?!" Mordo asked with a concerned tone as he rushed over, Wanda right beside him while I grimaced at the wounds littering her chest and arms.
"T-The usual torture with Dormammu."
"Anything fatal?" I asked and she shook her head, glancing at Wanda as she knelt beside me. Her hands danced as her chaos energy rippled over Aria's body.
All were silent as she scanned her body before a collective sigh of relief escaped us all when she shook her head and smiled.
"There's some residue from the Dark Dimension, but that can easily be removed."
"Like I said, it was...just the usual. Apologies, but I'm very tired right now."
"Sure, I'll get you to your room," I replied, Wanda letting Tails jump to her as I picked Aria up in a bridal carry.
"Since when...do you have...a Jiu Wei Hu?"
"Since I left the realm of Ta Lo. Also, sorry in advance, but I think I'm the reason why Dormammu was so active," I spoke with an apologetic smile and she just raised a shaky hand to smack my cheek lightly.
"We'll talk on that more later. For now, I need to sleep."
"Got it," I nodded, Mordo opening the door as I walked in and placed her down on her bed.
"I'll make sure she's dressed comfortably."
"I'll stay," Xialing spoke after Wanda did and Mordo and I nodded, the two of us leading Shang out of the room as Tails hopped onto my arms.
"You going to stand guard too?" I asked, smirking as Mordo scoffed and sat down in one of the chairs right in front of the door.
"I think I'll do the same," Shang replied and the two of us shrugged as we all sat down next to the door.
'Well, this has been one eventful night,' I thought with a smirk, rubbing Tails' head as the four of us sat in silence.
Wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring?
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"Run! Ru-!" A Skrull fell to the ground with a hole in his head, joining the many others as Ultron drones massacred everyone on the ship.
They marched through its hallways, sparing none until the only beings left on the ship were the drones themselves.
None said anything as they marched to the cockpit, immediately splitting off to man the spaceship they were in.
"Initiating search for power source."
"Initiating search for energies similar to the speedster's."
"Iniaiting search for source of chaos energy," One by one, each began their own scanning process, plugging themselves into the hardware and scanning through petabytes of data in the blink of an eye.
Soon, one paused, sifting through the scanning reports once more before speaking, "Power source of nigh-infinite energy has been found."
"Location?"
"Xandar," the droid replied and they all turned back to the control panels. "Setting course for Xandar."
"Altering course plans to neutron star in the IC 10 galaxy. Material has been found."
"Search for chaos energy has proven to be a failure. Devoting power to course planning," an Ultron bot spoke, their ship turning to a Jump Point before shooting forward.
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"No, I'll do it my own way," Loki spoke with a frown before his form distorted, He Who Remains watching him leave before shaking his head with a sigh.
Flopping back into his throne, he went to unpause Sylvie and repeat the process, but paused when her body flopped to the ground.
"...Oh, you found me," he murmured, turning his head to his counterpart sitting in the chair across from him with Sylvie's heart in front of him.
"It was hard to do so. Didn't quite expect you to use Alioth as a hiding place," Kang replied, drying the blood from his hand as HWR smirked.
"Hide in place sight, my friend. So, I'm guessing you're finally going to initiate your crazy plan?"
"Of course. That's why I let that Loki get away instead of killing him entirely," Kang replied with a scoff, making HWR chuckle as he leaned back in his throne.
"Lovely. Well, whether you or I or any of the Kangs win, we both know that it's just going to end up here, right?"
"Of course. See you in the war," Kang replied, his body sparking with crimson electricity before he vanished.
He Who Remains stayed seated with a smile, turning in his chair as Sylvie rose from the ground with a dead look in her eyes.
"See you in the war."
A/N: And the plans are being made in the background as everyone prepare for the battles to come.
How will these changes affect the greater timeline? Who knows?
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Ba-Bye~!