Prologue : Titan

The orange sky above the planet of Titan rumbled, and a certain sorcerer is seen kneeling in front of five people.

The man kneeling is Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme of their world. Beside him is his younger brother, Matthew Strange, resting with his older brother as they finally defeated the Mad Titan, Thanos on his home planet.

Stephen is a tall individual and has jet-black hair with grey strands on the edges near his ears, he is wearing blue sorcerer's clothes and has the blue Cloak of Levitation, held by Matthew in his arms.

Stephen's fingertips start to show some black color, from his nails to half of his fingers.

Matthew, on the other hand, has the same appearance as his brother, a younger version and bluer eyes than him, but he is shorter by some centimeters, had both grey hair near his ears and he has a horizontal scar below in his left eye.

Matthew knelt next to his older brother and Stephen quietly looks at him.

Smiling, he ruffled Matthew's hair to reassure him that it was okay. Matthew looks to the far left, seeing the Mad Titan's corpse lying on a rock with his giant double-edged blade impaled on his stomach.

Then to the people that he knew as his second family; Professor Charles Xavier, Captain Peggy Carter, Captain Marvel, Black Bolt, Reed Richards, and Baron Mordo, the group was also known as The Illuminati.

Mordo arrived shortly after the fight and he quickly noticed the black fingertips from Stephen's hands.

"You used it..." Mordo stated with clarity in his voice. "You used the Book of the Damned."

Stephen only stares at him and he looks back to the ground.

"T-This was not the plan, Stephen," Matthew added to Mordo's point. "You promised me not to use the Darkhold or neither borrowing the power of the Dark Dimension!"

His eyes starts to blur with tears falling down his cheeks. "Why... W-Why use it?"

Stephen continues to stare at the ground, ashamed. "I need to do it for you, Matthew,"

Stephen stated, resulting in a state of shock for him and for the rest of the Illuminati. "When I saw millions of possibilities of defeating Thanos, I gave you the answer, ONE answer... The only chance that we've won...

Is to use it."

"You're lying. No..." Matthew shakes his head in denying the truth about his brother's sacrifice, and he knew what will happen to him after he uses the book.

"Then, all we have learned from the Book of Vishanti are all worthless?! Please, tell me that you are lying to me, Stephen. P-Please..." Mattew tears up as Mordo approaches him.

"There is no other way," Stephen said. "It is inevitable. I can't let myself drown in guilt if Thanos succeeded in killing the entire population of the universe in a snap.

But I know that you will uphold my duty, Matthew. From the first day, you pushed yourself to enter Kamar Taj as a sorcerer, believing in yourself that you could do it through hard work and training-- I knew that you have it.

A pure heart and a determined will become the next Sorcerer Supreme."

Mordo flinched just by listening to the news from Stephen and he couldn't help himself but worry. But he kept himself silent to think about something.

Stephen looks up at Mordo and faintly smiles. "From now on, I declare Matthew as... The new Sorcerer Supre-"

"NO! HE IS NOT READY! I DON'T WANT TO ACCEPT IT!" Mordo angrily stomps his feet and tries to attack the unguarded Matthew with Eldritch Magic.

Stephen, already figured out his move and was quicker than him, and by that, he created a fast one-handed gesture to restrain Mordo down.

Thick and purple spike chains emerged from the ground and entangled Mordo, plus denying his ability to cast some spells at the two.

Mordo is squirming on the ground while he fumes in anger, not even accepting that Matthew is going to be the next Sorcerer Supreme.

Stephen, meanwhile, is seen panting as half of his fingertips are now black, because of his usage of the power of the Darkhold from earlier.

"Stephen! Are you okay?" The younger Strange helps him and Stephen responds with a nod.

"Matthew, listen to me." Stephen's ragged breath can be heard by him as Matthew places him down not far from the Illuminati.

"I need you to go away from them," Stephen whispered in his ear and this made Matthew's eyes widen. "Why?"

"I don't trust them. Especially Charles. They're having a conspiracy with Mordo and that could be the reason why Donna went missing two months ago."

"Charles knew where Donna was?" Matthew's voice hushed down.

"No. But Mordo have the information."

The Illuminati starts to get suspicious of what Stephen did to Mordo and by the way of their talking, Charles knew something was wrong.

So he tried to secretly invade their conversation through the mind of the younger Strange.

This made Matthew get angry and realize that his brother was right.

"Don't invade our privacy, Professor!" Matthew shouted as he cleared his mind by using a protection spell.

"Stephen's gone rogue!" Charles pointed out and this caused a fight between the Illuminati and the brothers. "Restrain them!"

Stephen put up a strong dark magic dome around them to protect themselves from either Charles or Captain Marvel.

Black Bolt is conflicted on helping the team because he knew that the two are innocent.

He also doesn't want to fight against the Illuminati alone because this will spark another superhero civil war if this was detected by the others like Tony Stark or the Guardians.

"Matthew, I'm going to send you away from here, do you hear me?" The grunting Stephen Strange said to his brother as Matthew wants to help but Stephen ordered him not to.

"This is what I've seen, the chance after Thanos. And this is the only way to trigger it."

Stephen whispered inaudibly at himself as the blue Cloak of Levitation unattached itself to Stephen, morphing itself into a coat, and strapping itself around Matthew's neck.

"Wa-Wa-Wait, what are you doing?!" Stephen opens up a purple portal behind him and he sees this. Matthew tries to fight back but Stephen raised his hand to cast a gravity spell, pushing Matthew further to the portal.

Before Stephen could finally push him, he gave him his smile.

"I am proud of you, Matt. I wish I can go with you, see you perfecting your skills, becoming happy, interacting with other people, and us watching the sunset like we always do some years ago. Heh, and I wish that I could meet your future wife." Stephen muttered with a chuckle.

"But now, this is a goodbye. Good luck, kiddo. I love you so much and your older sister."

Stephen's eyes teared up a bit as he pushed the weakened and pleading Matthew deeper into the portal, as he falls from it with the poor teen screaming for his name.

"STEPHENNN!"

The sorcerer released his dome and fought the Illuminati one by one.

Minutes later, a tired Stephen Strange can be seen kneeling in front of the Illuminati as the leader, Reed Richards hesitatingly settled the final verdict for him, and with Black Bolt dealing the execution as he whispered his words.

"I'm sorry."

As the scattered ashes of the dead Supreme Strange, Mordo was furious that all those times Stephen knew his plans to be the next Sorcerer Supreme, but with the young Strange still alive and somewhere, he can't help himself but to throw a fit.

"Damn it, Stephen. What have you done?"

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