Chapter 31

"So, any chances of you telling me where exactly we're going?"

"Ahh, but the destination is far less important than the journey. Or do they not teach that on your planet?" Illyana said with a smile as she kept pulling me further and further away from the rest of the people on the island, till there were nobody in sight.

"This is good enough." And then she pulled her sword from her back and stabbed the ground, causing a glowing white circle to appear under out feet and start to rise up, making everything beneath it disappear. Until it finally went over my head and our surroundings were changed to…

"The hell?"

"It's called Limbo actually, but close enough." Illyana laughed at me but I was far more focused on the fire and brimstone over the giant pits of lava, which was pretty much everything I could see when one didn't count the grotesque monsters of all shapes an sizes moving around. From the most cartoonish looking demons to giant worms and even more biblically accurate looking ones with several heads. If this was where Illyana grew up then it was no wonder that she was so fucking messed up in the head.

"Calling my power 'portals' might not be wrong but people just assume that I can portal to anywhere I want. The truth is, I can only portal in and out of this place but I can portal out to anywhere so they aren't exactly wrong I guess." She said with a shrug as she placed her sword on her shoulder, uncaring of the small demon that had crawled towards her and reached out to her before she kicked it off into a lava pit; screaming all the way down. "You know, maybe I can leave you here for a while."

"You can, and I'll be running this place within a month." I stared down at her, unafraid of her teasing threat even though I could see in her eyes that a part of her was genuinely considering leaving me here. She really was crazy.

It was so hot.

"Heh, I have a half mind doing it just to see if you can but it wouldn't be worth the headache of Cyclops bitching to me about morals again." She said with a shake of her head. "Anyway, no reason to stay around any longer." She then stabbed her sword in the ground once more and a new portal took us out of the Limbo.

This time we appeared inside some sort of mansion with lots of weird looking furniture being displayed around. Like lots of floating books that likely contained unspeakable arcane knowledge, something that looked like the combination of several eyes of Horus, an ancient Japanese looking book with a footprint on top of it and even some sort of chandelier that looked like a three headed serpent that had it's heads cut off. It felt... powerful.

"Please do not touch that." Yet before I could even think about reaching towards it, a voice from above came and its owner floated down with his iconic cloak billowing in the nonexistent wind.

"That's the Artificer's Argot. A maddeningly clever device created with the express purpose of killing magic wielders. It's an artifact that is uniquely lethal to us." Doctor Strange was in the house.

"Why do you have something like that out on display?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, that sounded like a health hazard to any magic wielders and therefore even more dangerous in the house of Sorcerer Supreme. It could take one lucky intruder to cause the man's death and leave our dimension open to extra-dimensional arcane threats.

"It's pretty." Well that was a good reason as any. "Pardon me, it seems that I have forgotten to introduce myself. My name Stephen Strange, and I believe you are Hiro Kala."

"The son of Hulk." I confirmed with a nod, already liking how the sorcerer still kept his neutral face in front of the son of the man who shattered his hands. "I believe Cyclops informed you about me?"

"Yes, he believes that you would do well learning under my guidance. Now that I've seen you, I believe that he might be correct." The Sorcerer Supreme said as he stroked his beard. "Speaking of learning under my guidance, I wish to tell you that my offer is still open miss Rasputin."

"And as I've always said each time you offered, I'm not interested." The blonde Russian said with a roll of her eyes.

"Maybe not now, but you will one day accept some proper education. It is inevitable." He said with a calm look on his face, uncaring of the glare Illyana was giving him as he snapped his fingers and conjured a cup; from which he took a sip. "But if you wish to be stubborn this day as well than I bid you farewell my dear."

"Whatever." With a huff, Illyana stabbed her sword into the ground and activated her power. "You can have the old man bring you back, see you later nerd." And then she was gone.

"Lovely isn't she?" He said with a chuckle but it lacked any kind of positive emotion in it. "Shame about what happened to her, I consider it to be one of my greater failures; and that's saying something." Oh, he was talking about how she spent years trapped in a hell dimension under the control of a demon. Not sure if I could call what happened truly his fault but I also doubted he would listen.

"Now then, you are here to learn, so let's begin." The Sorcerer Supreme said with a smile as his eyes started to glow and two magic circles appeared on his hands.

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