Chapter 118: Ancient One

A/N: The more things change, the more they stay the same. No Strange, and yet still the Ancient One's path brings her to this moment.

-x-X-x-

Kaecilius is about to cut down both Mordo and Wong with a Space-Time Shard when she finally intervenes. A flex of will and a spike of power drawn from the Dark Dimension sees the rogue Master of the Mystic Arts and his Zealots pushed away from his former comrades and her other students.

As the battlefield reconfigures itself based on her Will, all eyes turn towards the Ancient One, her presence drawing their gaze… and the symbol of the Dark Dimension etched lightly upon her pale brow holding it there. Mordo and Wong's eyes widen in shock and horror, neither of them having known the Ancient One's secret.

Kaecilius, meanwhile, beneath the damage he's done to himself through the rituals he stole from the Book of Cagliostro, is undeniably smug, a victorious grin spreading across his face even as his eyes are filled with pain, grief, and accusation.

"Mistress, what have you done?"

Karl Mordo's voice is broken as he stares at the symbol already fading from her brow. He had always been too rigid by half, but all of her attempts to help him see past his own need for control over the years had been only partially successful at best. Even now, he probably thought she was only drawing on the Dark Dimension for the first time, believing that she had felt driven to this by the threat posed by Kaecilius and his Zealots.

This was not the case. The Ancient One had drawn on the Dark Dimension for centuries, utilizing it sparingly and in careful and considered ways. All for the defense of Earth, all in the name of protecting this dimension and plane from the forces that would do it harm. She did not serve Dormammu as Kaecilius and his followers now did, but rather stole away fragments of the Dark Lord's power, a thief in the night.

For someone of unyielding moral fiber like Karl Mordo, even that much would have shaken his faith and belief in her to its core. And so she'd kept it a secret from him, knowing that nothing good would come of him learning too early just what she did to carry out her duties as Sorcerer Supreme.

At least Wong in comparison looked more concerned with Kaecilius and his Zealots. Having stepped into the shoes of the last Librarian of Kamar-Taj after Kaecilius and his followers murdered the man many months ago, Wong had so far proven to be more… adaptable.

Both men were Masters of the Mystic Arts in their own rights though, trained at her feet and capable sorcerers each. Which only went to show just how dangerous the power that Kaecilius and his Zealots now wielded, that they were almost undone before her arrival.

Unfortunately, that power came with a cost… one far too high for anyone sane to ever pay.

"I came to you broken and afraid. I put my faith and trust in you and did my best to embody your teachings."

A spike of pain, emotional in nature, fills her chest as Kaecilius finally speaks. She cares for all of her students, even the ones who stray.

"Kaecilius…"

But he cuts her off with a swipe of his hand.

"In turn, you lied to me! Deceived me! I took you as my teacher and you stifled me, keeping from me the things I most needed to know!"

There is a kernel of truth to Kaecilius' words, but only on a surface level. She understands why he's upset. She understands why he's angry. But his rage is twisted, coming from a place lacking in comprehension of the forces he's toying with. Not that it matters now. It's too late for him… for all of his followers.

"I only sought to protect you from yourself, Kaecilius. Your grief has blinded you. Your sorrow has left you unable to see what is right in front of you even now."

Had she kept secrets? Certainly. That was the nature of the relationship between the Sorcerer Supreme and the Masters of the Mystic Arts. The Masters trained the Initiates, but they answered to her. And she… she answered to no higher power than her own. That did not mean she was infallible… far from it. There was a reason she was 'the Ancient One'. There were reasons she was forced to draw upon the power of the Dark Dimension to extend her life.

"You kept the truth from me! From all of us! All while squirreling away the power of eternal life for yourself!"

In the centuries that she had been Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One had faced setbacks, even failure. She'd made sacrifices for this world, for this reality, that many would balk at. She did not regret a single one thing. It didn't mean it didn't hurt though. She, the protector of the Eye of Agamotto, who could see into a million-million futures, still couldn't perfectly predict what would come next in the only future that mattered… the real future.

"You weren't ready for the truth, Kaecilius. You still aren't even now. Look at what you've done to yourselves. You've taken on a mercurial Master, one who sees only the value you hold as doorways into our world. The eternal life that the Dark Lord offers is not paradise… it is suffering."

Perhaps she should have chosen differently, back when Kaecilius first came to Kamar-Taj. It was not as though she was ignorant to the dark path he held the potential to walk. However, for every path his life took that led him to the loveless embrace of Dormammu, there was another where he remained a loyal and faithful Master of the Mystic Arts, where he used his sorcery for the good of the world, to be one of reality's greatest and most spectacular unspoken heroes.

There were even timelines where Kaecilius was a potential successor, the next Sorcerer Supreme chosen to watch over reality after her. The Ancient One might have lived for centuries, but she was no immortal. She'd always known she would not remain Sorcerer Supreme forever, and across the vastness of time, this was always the period in which another would take her place.

Unfortunately, in case it wasn't already abundantly obvious, this was not a timeline where Kaecilius was that successor. Nor was this a timeline where he went on to become one of the world's greatest protectors either. No, this was one of the darker timelines for Kaecilius, one that for all her power and all her effort, she had not been able to stop from coming to pass.

"Lies!"

With his marred face contorting into a snarl, Kaecilius and his remaining followers all deploy Space-Time Shards and rush forward to fight her. The Ancient One responds in kind, dodging one attack and blocking the next. For all their power, the Zealots who have followed her wayward student are still untrained. Among them, only Kaecilius was a Master of the Mystic Arts before their betrayal. His followers simply aren't a match for her and never will be, no matter how much Dormammu imbues them with his might.

Still, as she treats them like the children they are, the Ancient One's heart aches all the same. She had failed Kaecilius. Totally and utterly.

First through her inability to stop him from taking pages from the Book of Cagliostro. Then, her subsequent failures to prevent the rituals that Kaecilius and his Zealots had performed to bring themselves to their current levels of power. They drew upon the Dark Dimension far more deeply than she ever had, basking in its power continuously and wielding it with a readiness she'd always lacked.

Unfortunately for them and the rest of the world, the connection they'd made was both ways and could not be cut off. They had made themselves into conduits for the Dark Dimension and its Master. Purposefully, willfully, and eagerly, they had submitted to Dormammu, turning themselves into vessels for the Dark Lord to be able to carry out his will upon this plane of existence.

Then, there were her failures to prevent the attacks on the Sanctums. London fallen. New York almost destroyed. Hong Kong was all that remained, and even if it stayed standing, even if they managed to defeat Kaecilius and his Zealots today, they would struggle to hold back the weight of the Dark Dimension for decades to come.

Kaecilius slams his hands into the ground, sending a ripple through the surreal floor of the Mirror Dimension designed to take her off of her feet. Both Mordo and Wong off to the side stumble from the attack, and they weren't even it's primary target. The power of the Dark Dimension, a power not of their world, makes it all the easier for Kaecilius and his Zealots to manipulate the Mirror Dimension, which is also not truly of their world, all the more easily.

But lest they forget… the Ancient One was nothing to be trifled with. All of them were little more than children before her age and experience… and the Dark Dimension was not some unknown entity to her anyways.

The ground ripple does nothing to her, but the one she sends back Kaecilius' way a moment later in return definitely does something to him. Bowled over backwards, ass over teakettle, Kaecilius goes tumbling away. Even as he's recovering though, his followers are already leaping back into the fray.

They're unkillable as they are now, she well knows. But immortality does not mean invincibility. Summoning a Tao Mandala as one of the Zealots rushes her with a Space-Time Shard, she easily catches him by the wrist, halting his attack while the edge of her own begins to grind. She'll remove his head and then-

Kaecilius arrives back in the fray faster than anticipated as well, and she's forced to halt her initial attack in order to block his overhand blow as well. She will-

SHLINK!

Eyes widen as Kaecilius stabs right through his follower with the Space-Time Shard hidden behind the Zealot's body, taking her in the gut and spearing out her back. She meets his blackened eyes for a moment over the shoulder of his follower and sees his hatred and contempt for her, even as he proceeds to ruthlessly twist the blade of Space-Time inside of both of them.

As she chokes on her own blood, the traitorous Master of the Mystic Arts pulls back and pushes his follower out of the way, before sending a powerful kick right into her wounded abdomen. The Ancient One goes flying through the air, only to stiffen as she passes through a portal, back into the real world, and rapidly begins to fall through the air a hundred stories up.

She cannot right herself in time, cannot do anything to break her fall. The damage to internals is already making her lightheaded, and no amount of magic or mystic might is enough to focus her mind back on the task of survival before she'll slam into the merciless pavement of the New York Sidewalk down below.

But then, before she can actually hit, something else happens. A portal opens under her falling back, terminating in her dropping onto a large inflatable cushion of all things. She bounces rather gently, but also rather wetly, blood still pouring from her gut as she finds herself on her back on the cushion for a brief moment.

Then, needle drives itself into the side of her neck and the Ancient One gasps as fire alights through her veins. Not magic, but pure science, proceeds to heal her in a few blinks of the eye.

As her perforated and shredded organs regenerate and her body repairs itself, the Ancient One hears the sound of another portals opening, and other people falling through. She lifts herself up into a seated position just in time to see Kaecilius and his Zealots on one side of the roof, and Mordo and Wong on the other.

Before either group can react however, orange lines appear… inside of Kaecilius and his followers. Like expanding nets, these orbs of orange spread out and cut, slice, and cube their bodies too fast for any mortal to ever react to. It's an ingenious use of the eldritch magic that Masters of the Mystic Art draw upon, but also relies on a degree of fine control and focus that no biological being could ever hope to achieve.

Of course, even reduced to bloody chunks of flesh in less than a second, Kaecilius and his Zealots still aren't dead. The deal they made with Dormammu ensures it. Eternal life in exchange for their service. Normal methods of killing, even via magic, simply won't work.

Fortunately, they're in the presence of someone with very abnormal methods of killing.

"Oh no you fucking don't."

The moment that Tony Stark sees the diced pieces of Kaecilius and his Zealots begin reforming, he steps forward. Eyes glowing with purple light, Stark raises his hands and pure, raw power flows out of them, followed by a touch of the truest feeling of reality that the Ancient One has ever experienced.

The power of the Power Stone reduces the chunks of flesh to ash before they can finish reforming, and the reality of the Reality Stone asserts itself over Kaecilius and his followers, banishing their ash from this dimension, likely sending it to where it now belongs… the Dark Dimension.

Kaecilius and his Zealots will have their eternal life in service to Dormammu. And Dormammu will have his new followers. But with their banishment from this plane of existence, the potential for them to break into this reality has diminished significantly for the time being.

A brief silence falls after Kaecilius and his followers have been dealt with. They're on the roof of Stark Tower in the middle of New York City, and the Ancient One can see from the expressions of disbelief and confusion on Mordo and Wong's faces that they don't understand what's happening or what they've just witnessed.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark only has eyes for her, the purple glow fading a bit but not entirely as he stands there tensely, seeming quite on edge in her presence.

… There is no way to 'look cool' while descending off of a large inflatable cushion like the one that broke her fall and allowed for her life to be saved. Though that does briefly have her wondering who exactly jammed the needle into her neck that saved her… someone who did not wish to be seen, no doubt.

Regardless, knowing there's no helping her image as the powerful and all-knowing Sorcerer Supreme here, the Ancient One doesn't even try. Instead, she bounces her way over to the edge of the inflatable cushion under the eyes of both her subordinates and the billionaire Tony Stark, before dismounting and landing on revitalized feet in a completely healed body.

Clasping her hands behind her back as she stands before Stark, the Ancient One pauses for a moment… before letting a mysterious smile spread across her face.

"Well now. It's about time."

-x-X-x-

A/N: What do you guys think? Is she simply acting the all-knowing role, or did she truly know all along? Hmmm~

Find out tomorrow!

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