[ Location: New York City - Bleecker Street ]
[ Date: May 4th, 2012 - 5:30 PM ]
"You are quiet," Esdeath noted, snapping her sword back into its sheath.
Click.
"The battle is over. We crushed them. You should be... Happy?!."
"I'm thinking," I mumbled, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.
Thinking wasn't the right word.
My head felt like a stadium during the Super Bowl.
The Mind Stone upgrade hadn't just given me a bigger battery; it had ripped the limiter off my brain.
I wasn't just thinking my own thoughts anymore.
I could hear a couple arguing in an apartment three blocks away. I could feel the atomic vibration of the asphalt under my boots. I could sense the residual heat of every Chitauri blaster shot fading from the air.
It was too much.
It was loud and crowded.
And underneath the noise... underneath the city... I could hear Pennywise.
He wasn't giggling like always.
He was... humming this time.
A low, wet, satisfied sound vibrating against my spine. Like a cat purring after it just ate the canary.
"I need help," I said, stumbling.
My foot caught a piece of rubble. "Not for my body but for my head."
Esdeath caught my arm. Her grip was iron. "So are unstable? Where do we go?"
I looked up the street.
I knew this city because I'd watched the movies.
I knew exactly who could fix a broken mind.
"177A Bleecker Street," I breathed, leaning on her more than I wanted to admit. "The Sanctum. Let's go."
[ Location: The Sanctum Sanctorum ]
To a normal person, it was just a brownstone. To my new Divine Psychokinesis senses? It was a fortress.
I could see the shields. Layers of golden geometry woven into the brickwork, humming with energy.
I raised my hand to knock.
The door swung open before my knuckles touched the wood.
A bald woman in yellow robes stood in the foyer.
She was holding a teacup and she looked annoyed.
The Ancient One.
She didn't look at my face. She looked at my chest, where the Aether Core was thumping like a second heart.
Then her eyes drifted up to my forehead.
"You're Dangerous," she said flatly. "Your mind is unstable too."
"I need your help," I said.
"Can we come in?"
She looked at Esdeath. "The woman stays in the lobby. You... come with me."
Esdeath's hand went to her rapier. "I do not take orders from—"
"It's okay," I touched Esdeath's arm. "She's the Sorcerer Supreme. She punches dark gods for a living. Wait for me."
Esdeath's eyes widened a fraction. She respected strength. "Fine. But if you scream, I am freezing this building."
"Deal."
I followed the Ancient One.
We entered a meditation room. Empty. Just a mat.
"Sit," she ordered.
I sat.
She walked around me, inspecting me like a mechanic looking at a busted engine.
"You touched the Mind Stone," she stated. " and It forced your evolution."
"Yeah," I said, trying to stop my hands from shaking. "I'm stronger."
"You're leaking," she countered sharply. "You have too much power and no containment. Your energy Core is strained. Your Psionics are leaking out of your control because of sudden power up. And..."
She stopped in front of me.
She leaned down.
"You have a cosmic being in your body?!."
My blood ran cold. "He is under control."
"He's eating the controller," she said bluntly. "You think you trapped that being? You didn't."
"I beat him," I argued. "I used the Eight Trigrams Seal. I have him in a cage."
"Wrong."
She moved.
Fast.
She hit me in the chest with her open palm.
BAM.
My body flew backward into the chair, limp.
But I didn't.
My spirit was knocked loose.
I floated in the astral plane, transparent and glowing.
"Look," The Ancient One said, pointing at my astral chest.
I looked down.
It was cracked.
Deep, jagged fissures ran through my spirit.
Violet energy (Psychokinesis) pulsed through the cracks, holding me together like superglue.
But that wasn't the scary part.
Wrapped around my core—tangled into the violet energy like vines—were Orange Tendrils.
The Deadlights.
They weren't trapped in a cage. They were woven into me and were pulsing.
Feeding.
"The Deadlights," The Ancient One whispered, her face grim. "I have read of them in the Book of Cagliostro. An entity from the Macroverse. The Eater of Worlds."
"You know him?" I asked, floating helplessly.
"The Sorcerers Supreme watch the multiverse, boy," she said. "The Macroverse borders the outside our universe ,multiverse and dimensions. An Infinite and chaotic void. Even Dormammu and other gods avoids the Deadlights. It is a hunger that cannot be reasoned with."
"So kill it," I said. "Help me kill it."
"It cannot die," she said. "Not in this plane and you did not beat him, Vivan. He let you seal him."
The words hit me harder than the soul punch.
'He let me?'
"He realized that fighting you was hard work," she explained. "But living inside you? Inside a dimension-hopper? That is a buffet. He isn't your prisoner but he's your passenger."
'He wanted to travel to other dimensions...'
I felt sick. "Why haven't you banished me?" I asked, looking at her. "I brought a world-eater into your reality. Why are you helping me?"
"Because you are the Cage," The Ancient One said, her eyes flashing. "I have looked at your timeline. If I kill you, the seal breaks. The Eater is released here, in 2012. He would consume this Earth before the Avengers could finish their shawarma."
She stepped closer.
"I am not helping you out of kindness. I am reinforcing the lock. Because if you break... we all die."
"And my soul?" I asked. "Why didn't I explode?"
"Because it is dense," she said, peering closer at the violet cracks. "You have lived before."
"How?" I admitted.
"Forget it, That is why you survived the Stone," she nodded. "Normal souls get scrubbed clean between lives. Yours kept the weight. It makes you durable, but it also makes you a beacon. You shine too bright in the dark."
"So I'm a target?"
"You're a lighthouse," she corrected. "And the monsters are ships looking for a port."
She snapped her fingers.
SNAP.
I slammed back into my body.
I gasped, clutching my chest.
The air rushed back into my lungs.
"How do I fix it?" I asked, my voice shaking. "How do I get him out?"
"You don't," she said, pouring tea calmly. "He's woven into your energy now. If you rip him out, you die. You have to Dominate him."
"I tried! I have Occlumency!"
"Shields are just walls," she said. "He's already inside the walls. You need to starve him. Stop being afraid. Stop doubting. Use his power, but don't let him drive. Treat him like a Energy, not like a Friend."
She handed me the tea.
"He is waiting for you to slip. So don't slip."
I took the tea.
My hands were trembling.
'How foolish Vivan, How foolish, Pennywise isn't in a cage and he is waiting for me to fall asleep.'
'Well Now, he's going to wait a long damn time.'
"Thanks," I said, standing up. "I needed that."
"Go," she said. "Your wife is getting impatient. She's starting to freeze my floor."
I give a small smile and walked out.
Esdeath was waiting in the hallway.
She looked bored. A layer of frost covered the antique table next to her.
"You took too long," she complained, flicking ice off her nails. "Did you learn the secrets of the universe?"
"I learned that I'm an idiot," I said, grabbing her hand. "Come on. Let's go steal some tech."
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