Trick 38: Not making friends!

He turned to the people and nodded before climbing onto his broom and flying away, disappearing into thin air as he turned invisible.

The people were shocked beyond measure as they had never seen such a thing before!

Ace flew into the sky and heard an explosion going off nearby. He turned to a huge glass dome and flew over on his broom, seeing Ivan Vanko, Tony, and Rhodey in a biosphere.

Ivan was on the ground and his suit started blinking red.

Ace frowned and looked at him, slowly coming down into the biosphere as Rhodey said "All these drones are rigged to blow, we gotta get outta here!"

Ace was stunned and slapped Ivan's suit, the front of it turned to dust as Ace destroyed the power source required to explode. He then turned around and shot off into the air, flying back to the last place he saw Pepper.

Before she could say anything, he picked her up and flew away as Tony arrived right behind him, chasing him to a roof.

Ace put Pepper down on the roof and floated in front of her as Tony landed, taking off his helmet, pointing his palms at Ace, saying "Who are you?"

Ace looked at him and Pepper, but stayed silent. He turned around, but Rhodey pointed his arms at him, saying "I'd like to know too." Pepper raised her hands and said "Wait! Wait! Hold on! He's Mr. Snuffles!"

Ace clenched his fist, throwing the collar to the ground. Tony and Rhodey looked at the collar and back at Ace, who said "My name is not Mr. Snuffles." is a distorted voice.

However it was noticeably less distorted as Ace was running out of mana quickly. Using his Tarot cards consumed Mana depending on how much he put into it and he was almost empty after using the Strength card on the globe.

Luckily, flying a broom barely used any mana at all as it was a magical device with its own means. He only needed to activate it.

Tony looked at Ace and asked "Well, I think I'm entitled to know who you are, Mr. Magician? Since you posed as a cat in my life! Who do you work for!?" Rhodey frowned and Ace looked at them silently for a few moments before saying "My task is complete. Farewell, Tony Stark."

Ace turned to Pepper and looked at her with glowing purple eyes before seemingly melting into the air and disappearing.

Tony looked around and said "Where did he go?" Rhodey put his arms down and looked around, muttering "Oh boy, this is gonna give me a real headache…" Pepper patted her chest and said "As long as you're alright!"

Ace floated in the air above them before flying off into the night.

Unfortunately, he ran out of Mana and plummeted to the ground away from the Expo. However, a golden portal opened up under him and he landed on a mat, breaking his fall.

He groaned and the Ancient One looked at him, smiling, "Congratulations, Ace." as she waved her hands.

A ball of orange light came out of Ace's back and there was a line coming out of it, but the line was slowly disappearing as the Ancient One continued, "You have severed your Karmic Ties." she spread her hands and waved as Ace's soul floated from his body.

She frowned and gestured a few times, the orange ball suddenly fizzled and exploded into golden particles, disappearing completely.

Ace closed his eyes in pain and the Ancient One sent his soul back, explaining "You will have to recover in Kamar-Taj. This is a good opportunity to study while you recover the damage to your soul." she hummed and added "This is a good opportunity for you. Once your soul recovers, your inherent Magic will be slightly stronger."

She raised a finger and smiled "However, do understand that the soul is very difficult to heal once. You cannot keep hurting your soul and healing again. There are no shortcuts to power, Ace."

Ace groaned on the ground and she smiled "Excellent. Have a nice rest!" before walking away.

The following weeks, Ace spent most of his time in the library. He strangely felt much more clear! He didn't have to read the same book more than twice to absorb the information! He couldn't understand it and went to ask the Ancient One who told him that his soul was clearer now, not held down by Karma therefore his learning would naturally increase.

Ace was stunned, he didn't know about this side effect! What he took from that was that as his soul healed he would keep getting more and more efficient at magic!

How great was that!?

However, this didn't mean that he would skimp out on the work! Quite the opposite, Ace took down even more notes, assembling them in his notebook and even copying them into normal notebooks and categorizing them!

It was currently the end of the semester at Hogwarts, the task with Tony only lasted a couple days or close to a week. He still had loads of time to study at Kamar-Taj before he had to go back to Hogwarts for the 3rd year.

Ace was enjoying life at Kamar-Taj but that didn't mean he was ignorant of the outside world! He heard that Ivan Vanko was found in the Biosphere, since his bomb was destroyed he could only lay there until the Police arrested him.

Ace also heard that Tony and Rhodes got a medal from the Senator that bad mouthed Tony on the plane! Ace laughed happily at this during the times he was alone. But the piece of news that interested him the most was the new Superhero!

Apparently people got hold of a picture of him at the expo!

He was wearing the cloak and floating in the air with his bandaged arm pointing forward.

Ace was sure it was a picture of when he was throwing the Tower Card at the end, but he didn't know how they got a picture of him! At any rate, he looked pretty cool, and they even gave him a name!

'Black Cloak'

It wasn't very creative, but it was a name!

And Ace was happy with that!

He showed the Ancient One like an excited child and she rolled her eyes, telling him that it was nice.

After that, Ace continued studying as the time passed.

And just a few months later, his injuries were all healed and he was in perfect condition! Even stronger than before, his mind was much clearer and his learning speed increased multiple times over!

He even figured out that he could morph his cloak into another article of clothing! So he normally kept it in a hoodie form.

Today, Wong was sitting in a chair in a daze as Ace asked him dozens of questions in a row. He finally couldn't take it anymore and said "Go ask the Ancient One, I don't know!" Ace looked at him in confusion, asking strangely "This is the basics of Astral Projection, how do you not know?"

Wong waved his hand annoyingly, replying "I just don't know." before leaving the room. Ace watched him go and pouted to himself before sighing as he packed his things and walked out of the library, going to find the Ancient One.

He came to her chamber and knocked on the door. It opened and Ace walked in, sitting down at a table, opening his books and saying frustratingly "Am I annoying? Nobody wants to be around me here."

The Ancient One was looking at a disk as she replied "Why do you say that?" Ace looked up and explained "Normally when I talk with someone they push the question to someone else and leave. Sometimes they just walk away when I approach them!" he scratched his head and asked "I just want to learn, why does nobody want to help me?"

The Ancient One turned around and looked at his sad face, sighing as she walked over, saying "Perhaps you ask too many questions, making them uncomfortable. I thought you were a mentalist." Ace sighed again and rested his cheek on his palm as he replied "I am, that's how I know they don't want to be around me. I just don't know why? Doesn't everyone love magic? Why can't we learn from each other?"

The Ancient One held her chin and sat at the table, muttering "Yes, why can't we. Hmm…" Ace changed the topic and asked "Anyway! I was wondering if you could possess someone with your Astral Projection. There was nothing in the library on it…" The Ancient One looked at him and smiled, "Of course you could."

Ace perked up and started writing down notes as the Ancient One explained, "However, this is normally taboo. As possessing someone with a soul will eradicate the weaker soul, while possessing a corpse is against the natural laws and is therefore forbidden."

Ace looked up at her in confusion, asking "Natural laws?" The Ancient One explained "There are rules to Magic that even I cannot break. One of them being that trespassing into the Boundary of Mistress Death is forbidden to most mages."

Ace was even more confused and the Ancient One continued "Mistress Death is the Ruler of Death in the Universe. A being of ultimate strength. You would be wise to not interfere with her. Understood?" Ace swallowed and nodded, writing down everything the Ancient One had to say as she explained Mistress Death's role in the universe along with the natural laws.

She even went into a History lesson on Agamotto, Gaia, Set, Oshtur, and Chthon as well as a normal lesson on Eternity, Infinity, Galactus, Master Order, Lord Chaos, Mistress Love, and Master Hate.

Ace's head was spinning as he wrote extremely fast, keeping up with the Ancient One's words.

Lesson after lesson, Ace wrote down everything before finally, hours later…

Ace closed the book and smiled excitedly with tired eyes "Great! So much knowledge!" The Ancient One smiled and suddenly said "I have an opportunity for you to learn different magic, are you interested?"

Ace perked up as though he had drunk a gallon of coffee and asked "New Magic???" The Ancient One sipped on her tea, explaining "It would do you best to help the Prince of Asgard, their magic is just as ancient as ours."

Ace closed his books and asked quickly "Asgard?! The mythological Asgard?" The Ancient One nodded and said "We have good relations with Asgard. It just so happens I need to notify Odin of something." she waved her hand and a letter appeared in between her fingers.

She handed the letter to Ace and smiled "Can you deliver this to Odin for me?" Ace snatched the letter and nodded frantically with starry eyes. The Ancient One smiled in amusement and said "Off you go."

Ace grabbed all his things quickly and stuffed them in his bag before falling through a portal under him once again! The Ancient One chuckled to herself and sighed happily.

Ace plummeted towards a town in the middle of the desert. He was stunned and draped himself in his cloak before turning invisible diving into a shadowy alleyway.

He teleported behind a garbage bin and morphed the cloak into a hoodie, patting himself as he smiled. He looked down at his outfit before snapping his fingers and changing into jeans, sneakers, a white t-shirt, and sunglasses.

He had just recently learned that he could travel through shadows with his cloak and after the Ancient One helped him figure it out in more detail he practiced with it, fortunately it wasn't too difficult!

Ace sorted himself out and walked out of the alley onto the sidewalk. He looked up at the sky and covered over his sunglasses with his hand, cursing "Damn it's so hot here… Where am I even?"

He fished in his pocket before taking out a flip phone and playing with it for a minute, not getting any results. Finally, Ace decided to look around, maybe even get something to eat.

It had been a few hours since he had eaten anyway, it wouldn't hurt.

He put his phone away and walked on the sidewalk for a while before looking up at a sign for a diner!

He smiled to himself and walked inside, sitting down as he looked around. He felt so fresh being in the normal world again! For the last while he was a cat and all before that he was at Hogwarts and Kamar-Taj. It really wasn't often that he could just want around in the normal world, especially not in the US since he was still wanted.

Or maybe not, he didn't know.

Last time he checked he was wanted in 3 countries!

He didn't even know why he was wanted in Norway, it's a mystery to everyone, especially since he had only been to Norway once…

Anyway!