Chapter 7: Circe

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The Ancient One smiled and said "It must be because you are new. By the way, who is your master?"

Edward replied "Richard Dragon." The old man nodded and said "Student of O-Sensei, you have a good master. There are many reasons as to why martial artists don't like magicians, one of which is a war from long ago. Many martial artists also tried to contact dark forces to break through the human body's limit, and so we were forced to deal with them. The thing is, in many cases, their friends can't even see the changes, and blame us when everything is over."

Edward nodded, and said "I understand. I do not mind such things myself, and although I would like to learn magic too, I can't right now, I already got a lot to do with my work, my training and… well, life basically."

The Ancient One nodded and said "I understand, I expected such an answer. When your master deems you good enough to stop your training under him, which will probably when you will become a Chi Master, don't hesitate to come here. Who knows, maybe studying magic could enlighten you on how to surpass the limits of a Chi Master."

Edward cupped his fists and slightly bowed in thanks.

The Ancient One smiled but said nothing as he waved his hand, and Edward suddenly felt the area around him change before the doors were opened by Stephen, who was followed by Diana who dressed in her armor, with her shield and sheathed sword on her back, and her weird lasso on her thigh.

Edward looked at the Ancient One with surprise, who simply winked at him. Edward suspected the Ancient One had just accelerated time around themselves so Strange and Diana would arrive quicker… Was the Ancient One as afraid of awkward silences as he was?

Unaware of what was happening, Stephen looked at Edward and asked "Ready to go?" Edward nodded and got up, walking next to Diana.

Stephen opened his palm toward the empty air in front of him, and Edward couldn't help but notice a ring on this hand. Stephen then drew out a circle in the air, opening a portal in front of him.

Stephen entered through the portal and turned around, asking "You coming or what?" The two rolled the eyes and nodded at the Ancient One before entering the portal themselves. Still, Edward was a step behind as he waited for his clothes to fully change before entering.

Since the Armor of the Ancients provided resistance to magical and physical blows, he had it cover his whole body… and because of, it wasn't hard to admit but it was the case, his inner fanboy, he made himself a superhero suit. He was covered in a white suit with dark blue strips which converged to form an S in his back. He also had a white mask on, that completely covered his head.

They appeared in what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. Diana and Stephen both looked at Edward with surprise, and Edward said "While I wear this, please call me Serenity."

Ever since he saw how Diana tried to protect him despite being in danger herself, his thoughts had been in disarray. He had always wanted to help people, but he never really had any power to do so in the past so he fell to biology, but now that he had the power to, he felt it would be a shame not to use them. And so, he decided he would help them.

Still, he didn't want to implicate his closed ones with his own choices, and so from now on, he would cover his identity while helping others. Today, was his first day as Serenity.

Although the two were surprised, they soon looked away, their costumes weren't really normal either so they didn't really have much to say. Diana took the lead, but Stephen said "Allow me." before raising his arms.

With several gestures of his hands, a big magic circle appeared above their heads, and the ground under them began shifting. Soon, a staircase leading deep into the ground appeared. Stephen lowered his hands and said "Done."

Diana didn't react in the slightest and began walking down, quickly followed by Stephen and Edward.

The stairway was unusually long, and dark, but thanks to Stephen's summoned lightbulb, they could see about ten meters in front and behind them. As the more vulnerable magician, physically that is, Stephen was walking in the middle, between Diana and Edward.

After several minutes, they reached the ends of the stairs, and arrived in what seemed to be an enormous cave. From what Edward could see, there were several other dark entries, probably other stairways.

The cave was mostly empty, except for the middle of it. There, a long red-haired woman was floating in the air, a book in front of her with chains coiled around it. A red energy was being emitted from the red haired woman continuously, slowly corroding the chains.

As they arrived, her eyes eerily turned toward the three. Suddenly, Edward heard a soft voice, as if it was right next to him "Princess, I see you came to retrieve your power… Well, you chose your timing well. Now, who are your two little friends?"

Edward said nothing, but Stephen seemingly couldn't help himself and said "I am Stephen Strange, disciple of the Sorcerer Supreme! Circe, I read about your evil ways in the Odyssey, and I am here to stop you from doing any more evil!"

Circe seemed amused as she said "You read the Odyssey? Let me remember, what did that buffoon say about me… right, metamorphosis. Well, here you go."

As she said that, figures began flooding out of the stairways, and looking more closely at them, Edward recognized various kinds of animals.

Diana looked at Edward and whispered "Cheetah is Circe's masterpiece, her other creations are less powerful. However, they are completely submitted to her. If you can avoid doing so, do not kill them, they are merely being manipulated."

Edward nodded, he wasn't too keen on killing either. He never killed, and this wasn't something he wanted to experience.

Diana then addressed both Stephen and Edward as she said "See the hairpin she has in her hair? You must destroy this. As long as you are able to, then I will regain my powers and we will be able to stop her."

Edward nodded, and Stephen, who Edward thought would say something arrogant once again, surprisingly nodded seriously too. Maybe the doctor wasn't as useless as he sounded.

As if feeling Edward's disdain, Stephen snorted and weaved his fingers together. A bunch of ropes appeared out of numerous portals in the air, and Stephen said "Those are the bands of Cyttorak, they will not be able to break free of them."

Some threads seemed to be connected to his fingers too, and Stephen passed all those from his right hand to the left, and asked "Can you fight blinded?"

Both warriors nodded, so Stephen muttered "Mists of Munnopor." A heavy mist suddenly exited from his right hand, quickly enveloping the whole animal army.

Across the room, Circe clicked her tongue and said "Tch, annoying Sorcerer." As she said that, a clone of her appeared next to her, and her clone summoned a powerful wind to swipe away the mist.

However, Stephen clenched his fist and held on, and said to the two next to him "Quick, I won't be able to hold this for long, she is too powerful. Take out as many as you can while the mist is still there."

The two nodded, and not wasting another second, they jumped into the animal army.

Meanwhile, Circe squinted her eyes and said "Is that all Yao's disciple is able to do?" She released another burst of power, making the mist tremble and Stephen cough, however, he and the mist held on.

An arrogant smile on his face, he said "Quite good, aren't I?"

As the sorcerer and the witch began fighting over the control of the mist, Diana and Edward swept through the animal army.

For Diana, even though she lost a major part of her powers, she was still an Amazon who trained with the strongest female warriors in the world for centuries, so her fighting skills were unquestionable, and fighting while blinded wasn't much of a feat for a true warrior, especially against similarly blinded animals.

As for Edward, he was even better than her at fighting without his vision. In the past three months, Edward trained his Chi Sense by blinding himself, so he had learned to fight blinded even without his Chi Sense. Adding his Chi Sense in it, which now enabled him to feel the presence of those nearby and their intentions, he maybe was an even better fighter in this smokescreen than out of it.

Edward arrived next to a lion and punched it's head, instantly knocking it out. The last three months of training really did bear fruits, especially his Chi training as it had strengthened his body by quite a bit.

Edward and Diana shifted between the animals, knocking them out at a quick speed. Moreover, everytime they hit an animal bound by one of the bands of Cyttorak, Stephen's spell, the band would bound another animal, showing Stephen wasn't all show but had some actual power.

In merely a minute, the two warriors managed to knock out a good part of the army, but Strange unfortunately couldn't hold on anymore as the mist was finally blown away. Circe coldly sneered when she saw the animals that were defeated, and faced her palm toward Edward and Diana.

A bunch of yellow crystals was fired toward them, which they did their best to dodge. The animals that were hit dropped to the ground the moment they were hit though, and Stephen said from behind "Careful, if you are hit by one of those crystals then it is instant death!"

Both Diana and Edward were shocked by the revelation, Circe clicked her tongue as she once again waved her hand. This time, a literal sea of fire appeared around Stephen, who widened his eyes and did his best to protect himself.

Then, Circe looked at Diana and Edward as she said "Now, to deal with the two of you…" As she talked, the two began running toward her, splitting up.

Circe snorted "How rude." As she said that, the animals all suddenly started running toward Diana. This time, they didn't even try to fight, they simply jumped at her, overwhelminging her with numbers. However, she was stronger than that, and it was obvious she would be the winner.

However, the fact this was a diversion was just as obvious. Circe turned to look at Edward and said "Now that princess is stuck with the animals, should we play?"

Edward paid no heed to her words though, he had called himself Serenity because he would always do his best to remain calm while wearing this suit. He wouldn't fall for her words.

Circe waved a hand, sending a fireball at Edward while saying "Why are you helping her? Is it really worth it? Did the princess promise you a kiss?"

Using his Chi Sense, Edward was able to dodge the fireball, including the blast it created afterwards. Circe tilted her head and clenched her fist as she said "Don't you want to join me? We will get some fun together, much more than with that prude princess of yours."

As she said that, Edward once again felt her intent, and knew her next spell would be trying to entrap him, so he jumped. A moment later, the rocks around him suddenly formed a dome. Had he not jumped, he would have been trapped.

Circe whistled and said "That's some jump, you should definitely play basketball. Unfortunately for you, you can't dodge now that you are in the air."

Five rays of light appeared around her and fired toward Edward. However, he already knew they would be coming, and using the earth dome under him as a support, he once again jumped to the side, avoiding the five rays, before landing on the ground with a roll and sprinting toward Circe.

Circe clasped her hands, forming two ethereal hands on Edward's two sides, trying to crush him between them, but Edward suddenly burst in speed, running out of the two palm's range, and arriving in front of Circe.

She looked angry now, and said "Slow." With that word, Edward suddenly felt the world around him become much faster, or rather, he became much slower. Was she able to control time like the Ancient One?

Although he was surprised, Edward remained calm as Circe prepared for her next attack, probably a deadly one.

However, as she was about to launch it, Edward threw dirt at her face. Although he was slowed down, he still moved relatively fast, and the dirt wasn't slowed down as it got into her eyes.

With the dirt, the spell slowing him down vanished, and with his regained speed, Edward sent out a bunch of jabs at several vital points. Although she was only a magical construct, and those strikes couldn't be said to be deadly, they were still enough to disable her for a moment.

Using said moment, Edward used both his fist as well as all of his strength to punch her stomach, sending her flying backwards.

A few meters behind, Circe, who had fallen to the ground, suddenly coughed as she said with a rough voice, probably because of her crushed throat "You… will… pay… for… this."

As she said that, another clone appeared next to her real body, and flew down toward him with a grim face. However, before she could curse him, a bolt of ice flew toward her. Although it was stopped by a shield of hers, she turned to look at the one who attacked her, Strange.

The Sorcerer had dealt with the flames, and was standing somewhere behind Edward as he said "Come on, two versus one isn't fair." As he said that he summoned several other ice bolts, firing them toward the still valid clone.

Edward felt lucky Stephen managed to free himself from the fire. He knew he wasn't a match even for one clone, not to say two. He managed to disable the first one because he was underestimated by her, but if the other used the time spell straight away then it was game over for him. Moreover, he didn't even know if she had other spells she could use.

Now left with the damaged Circe, Edward jumped toward her, but although she wasn't able to use her arms nor her voice, she still managed to turn the ground under them slippery. However, Edward easily balanced himself on the ice and swiped his leg toward her head.

The strike was powerful enough to completely destroy her already damaged head, finally destroying the clone. However, the moment he did he immediately jumped away, dodging a rock spear that was flying his way.

He had to jump around to dodge the following spears, all were powerful enough to kill him with one hit, seeing the damage they were doing to the ground when they hit it. Each one of them looked more powerful than a sniper rifle's bullets.

When the onslaught finished, Edward was able to see Strange had been bound up by leather stripes coming from Circe's clothes. Now that the Sorcerer was being held down, she focused her attention on Edward, sending another wave of rock spear, as well as a bunch of mystical flames, completely covering all escapes.

However, Edward saw something from the corner of his eyes, and so he decided to take a gamble. Time to see how resistant that armor of his actually is.

Edward jumped toward Stephen, and even though a rock spear was flying in the direction, he simply moved his body so his left thigh would take the hit, and grabbed the leather strips with both hands.

The rock spear hit him in the thigh, and the armor proved itself worthy of it's reputation as it held down, the spear breaking apart as it came in contact with it. Still, the impact wasn't completely nullified, and Edward felt a terrible pain in his thigh, fortunately there didn't seem to be anything broken.

As Stephen Strange and Circe both wondered why Edward had grabbed the leather strips, on the other side of the room, a golden lasso suddenly hit the real Circe, grabbing her hairpin on the way.

Circe's eyes, be it her real body or her clone, widened as she cried "No!" However, while her attention was somewhere else, Edward looked at Stephen straight in the eyes, although the later couldn't see his eyes, and pulled all the strips.

While he didn't see his eyes, Stephen seemed to understand the message as he used whatever little remained of his mobility to jump forward.

Their efforts allowed Strange to fly up to Circe, smashing into her. The clone looked at them in fury as she said "What the fuck are you doing!"

However, as she tried to raise her hands to curse the two into oblivion, she realized she couldn't. Looking down, she saw the leather strips she had used to bind the Sorcerer were now binding her to him, the two were entangled together and it actually looked a little erotic.

"Shit…"

She barely had the time to curse when a sword went through her forehead, and an explosion to sound behind her.

Diana had crushed the hairpin into pieces, and her powers returned to her. All she had needed was an instant to destroy this clone, an instant they wouldn't have gotten if Edward hadn't used Strange to bind her up in her own clothes.

Diana smiled at Edward and said "My time to shine now."

As she said that, she once again disappeared, appearing right next to the flying Circe, punching her.

Circe, who was trying to unseal the book, was sent flying into a wall. However, what Edward couldn't see was that Diana hadn't really hit Circe, but rather her magical shield.

Circe flew out of the hole her shield made in the rock and fired several overpowered spells at Diana. The rock spears she fired were as big as cars, and the fire she summoned was white. From tens of meters away, Edward could feel their heat, which made him sweat.

As the spells approached her, Diana crossed her arms, firing a powerful force that countered all the spells and even turned Circe's shield visible as the dust formed a strong wind around it.

Circe produced a beastly roar as she yelled with anger "I will wipe out all you damn Amazons one day!" As she said that, she teleported away, putting an end to their fight.