"The Ancient One has been defeated?" Wong asked.
"She was stabbed," I said. "She'll be alright." I waved his concern aside. "We need to move. Only Hong Kong is left. Gather the students — and it might be worth bringing our friends."
Wong nodded. "Agreed. I was thinking the same thing." We went our separate ways — him toward the main hall while I reached out through Jean's telepathic connection.
"Jean?"
"Peter! Oh thank God — we've been so worried."
"I'm fine. I'm good, actually. Where is everyone?"
"Your room. Come now."
I cut the connection and ran.
I threw open the door to find Jean, Wanda, Ben, Tandy and Felicia all waiting.
"Kid, you okay?" Ben asked immediately.
"I'm fine," I said, stepping inside. "But we have a problem."
Felicia closed her eyes. "What now?"
"There's an interdimensional entity who wants to consume the Earth," I said. "His followers are going after the Hong Kong Sanctum right now. If they succeed, we'll all be pulled into what is essentially a living hell. We need to stop them."
Jean blinked. "Oh. Is that all?"
"Honestly, every day it's something new," Wanda sighed.
"Peter — is that a sword?" Tandy pointed.
I glanced back at the Ebony Blade rising above my left shoulder. "Yes. Long story, but it's useful. Look — we need to suit up. Right now." I looked around the room. "Wanda, Felicia, Jean — you have your suits?"
"Right here," all three said.
Their robes shimmered and shifted, transforming into their costumes. Felicia became the Black Cat — sleek and precise. Wanda was in her skin-tight black suit with the small accessory pouches across her hips, the long red overcoat settling around her with its hood drawn back. Jean had updated her look since I'd last seen her suited: a black suit now, a green overcoat, and a green 'X' across her chest.
Tandy stared. "What the...how — what?!"
"UMF suits," I said, bending down and pulling a chest out from under my bed. I tossed one to Tandy and another to Ben.
"Thanks, but no," Ben said, tossing it straight back. "Don't need it."
"Ben, these suits can keep you from bleeding out and transform into whatever design you want," I said.
"They stretch," Felicia confirmed.
"They don't, actually," Wanda said.
"They do," I corrected.
"No offence, kid," Ben said, "but I don't need the protection. And I'm not exactly a fashion model."
"This is incredible," Tandy whispered, turning her suit over in her hands. "It really becomes any design I want?"
"Scan a picture and the suit does the rest," I told her. "We don't have much time — get changed and meet us outside."
Tandy nodded eagerly. The rest of us filed out and found Wong waiting in the corridor with a assembled group of monastery students.
"Is this everyone?" Wong asked.
I shook my head. "Tandy's coming."
Wong looked at his assembled fighters. "We cannot wait. We'll go ahead — follow when you're ready." He nodded to his students and they moved toward the library at a march.
A few minutes later Tandy came sprinting into the courtyard. She wore a white full-body suit with a grey cross down the centre and a quarterstaff across her back.
"You know how to use that?" I asked.
She nodded. "Been practising."
"Then let's move," Wanda said, already heading for the library.
The portal to the Hong Kong Sanctum was open — but before any of us could step through, an explosion ripped through from the other side and the portal collapsed.
I pulled up short. "Kaecilius got through already."
"What do we do?" Felicia asked.
"I—" I stopped as a new portal opened in the middle of the room. We raised our weapons and readied ourselves — but out stepped Strange and Mordo, and behind them, leaning on a cane and moving carefully, was the Ancient One.
I exhaled. "Thank God."
She smiled. "I should be the one thanking you. Or perhaps pitying you."
"I told you, I'll deal with it," I said. "Right now we have bigger problems. Kaecilius is already in Hong Kong. They need us."
"Then there's not a moment to waste," Mordo said, opening a portal to Hong Kong without further discussion.
We stepped through.
The world on the other side was rubble and ruin.
The street we arrived on had been torn apart. The Hong Kong Sanctum at the end of the road was leveled — just wreckage, crumbled stone and broken architecture. The bodies of several Kamar-Taj students lay before it.
"We're too late," Mordo said, barely above a whisper.
I looked up. The sky above the city was shimmering and wrong, shifting at its edges as a window began to open — a rent in the fabric of reality, and through it, a glimpse of the infinite darkness of Dormammu's dimension.
"Not yet," the Ancient One said firmly, stepping forward. "Hope must never die. Strange — you know what to do."
Strange looked down at the Eye of Agamotto around his neck, his expression tight with reluctance — and then something settled in his face, a kind of unhappy resolution. "Yes," he said. "I think I do." He stepped forward and activated the Eye, a ring of golden time energy spiraling outward from his outstretched arms.
"No!" Kaecilius emerged from the ruins of the sanctum at a dead sprint, spear in hand, eyes wild. He was going straight for Strange.
The Ancient One, Mordo and I all moved at once, stepping into his path and releasing three simultaneous blasts of energy.
BOOM!
Kaecilius went flying, hit the ground and rolled. Strange's spell took hold.
Time reversed.
Slowly, then with gathering force, the world began to run backwards. Debris lifted and reassembled. Walls rebuilt themselves from nothing. The dead breathed again, rising from the ground in reverse, returning to where they had stood before the attack.
"Look out!" Tandy cried.
I spun. The zealots were beginning to shimmer, their reverse motion stuttering as they fought the current of Strange's spell. One by one they broke free of it, moving forward through the rewinding world.
"Did they just push through a spell cast by an Infinity Stone?" I said, genuinely taken aback.
"Dormammu's influence is nearly limitless," the Ancient One said tightly. "Strange — hold the spell. Keep the reversal going until the sanctum is restored. Everyone else — cover him."
Strange's face was already slick with effort. "Understood."
"CLOBBERIN' TIME!" Ben roared, and tackled two zealots to the ground.
"Jean, Wanda — help him!" I called. "Tandy, you're with me and Felicia."
We split and moved into the fight.
Felicia and I took on two zealots fast, going straight to hand-to-hand. They drew their crystal blades. We didn't slow down.
Felicia caught her opponent's outstretched arm, wrapped around it in a lock and drove him to his knees. She flexed her fingers — claws extending from the tips — and raked them across the zealot's neck. The claws glowed neo-blue on contact.
The zealot convulsed, shocked unconscious.
I love an upgrade.
I drove a kick into another zealot's chest hard enough to send her sprawling, then webbed her to the ground before she could recover. My spider-sense fired. I turned and brought up the Ebony Blade without thinking.
CLINK!
Crystal halted inches from my neck. I growled and began to push back, the blade slowly cleaving through the shard. The apprentice saw what was happening and disengaged fast, jumping clear.
He pulled a second blade and was about to charge — then stopped, stumbled, and pitched forward with several glowing light daggers buried in his back.
I looked up. Tandy stood behind him, calm. "Watch yourself, Pete."
I grinned and kept moving. More zealots came, and more of the street was coming back together around us. I caught a shift in the rubble and recognised Wong a moment before the last of the debris cleared and he sat up, gasping, life flooding back into him.
"W-what happened?" he asked.
"Strange," I said, gesturing. The sorcerer was focused entirely on the spell, sweat running down his face, accelerating the reversal to twice its previous speed.
Around us the tide was turning. Ben and the others had put down the last of Kaecilius's forces. The man himself was tangled in the Ancient One's binding, pulled down to his knees, unconscious.
Hong Kong was coming back.
The sanctum rebuilt itself, stone by stone. The darkness above began to recede. The window to the Dark Dimension narrowed. And as the Hong Kong Sanctum reformed completely, the opening to Dormammu's realm sealed and vanished.
Then Strange's spell died out.
The window reappeared.
Strange looked at the Eye, at his own trembling hands, at the fracture of reality above us. The Ancient One started forward — and then stopped with a sharp intake of breath, one hand pressing to her side.
"Dormammu is refusing to yield his foothold," she said, breathing carefully. She raised her magical circle. "I'll deal with him—" She gasped, her spell dissolving as the pain overtook her.
Strange looked up at the rift. Then he looked down. Something decisive moved across his face. He activated the Cloak of Levitation and rose into the air, heading straight for the Dark Dimension.
"What's he doing?" Wong asked.
"Saving us all," I replied.
Then:
Reverse.
"What's he doing?" Wong asked.
"Saving us all," I replied.
Reverse.
"What's he doing?" Wong asked.
"Saving us all," I replied.
...And on, and on.
We waited in a loop that had no end and no beginning, the same six seconds repeating. Strange was in the Dark Dimension, striking the same bargain over and over again — an infinite cage made of time, forcing Dormammu to negotiate not out of weakness but out of simple, inexorable repetition.
Many cycles later:
Strange descended from the rift, and the darkness above Hong Kong began to fold inward, humming, shrinking.
"No!" Kaecilius screamed from the ground, writhing against the Ancient One's restraints. "We were so close — no!"
And then he and his remaining apostles rose into the air. We didn't try to stop them. The Dark Dimension pulled them upward — their forms stretching, hollowing, the colour leaving them — and then they were something else entirely, and then they were gone. The rift closed behind them.
The Ancient One looked at Strange. He was on his knees, spent, his hands shaking. She crossed to him and placed a hand briefly on his shoulder.
"Well done, Doctor Strange," she said. "The Earth is safe. Thanks to you."
"But at what cost?" Mordo said, stepping forward, his voice tight. "What he did — what you've been doing — it defies the laws of nature. It breaks every rule of balance we hold—"
"Mordo," the Ancient One said. "I know you feel betrayed. I owe you an explanation — I owe you all an explanation. But right now," she gestured to the students of Kamar-Taj, stepping out of the rebuilt sanctum, bewildered and alive, "we tend to them first."
Mordo looked at her for a long, hard moment. "Fine," he said at last. "After this. We will speak."
She nodded. "Indeed we will."
A few days later:
We stood together in the inner library at Kamar-Taj — myself, Jean, Felicia, Ben, Wanda and Tandy, alongside the Ancient One, Mordo, Strange and Wong. The other students had finally recovered, the mental strain of their brief deaths having slowly eased over the course of several quiet days.
"He seems to have calmed down," Jean murmured, nodding toward Mordo.
"Apparently he and the Ancient One had a long talk," I said.
Tandy leaned in. "I bet they totally—"
Wanda rolled her eyes. Felicia gave Tandy a quiet high five. Apparently the two of them had found common ground in the most unlikely of places.
"Doctor Stephen Strange," the Ancient One said, her voice carrying cleanly across the room. She stood on the raised dais at the far end, fully restored — no cane, no hesitation.
Strange walked toward her, the Cloak of Levitation sweeping at his shoulders.
"In our hour of greatest need, you rose to the challenge," she said. "As a reward — if you wish it—" She took the Eye of Agamotto from around her own neck and held it out. "I will restore your hands."
Strange's eyes widened. He looked down at them. He started to reach forward — and stopped.
He looked at his hands for a long moment, then pulled them back and shook his head. "No. I...no."
The Ancient One smiled — genuinely, warmly, in a way I rarely saw from her. "It seems I was wrong about you, Master Strange. I'm glad."
Strange made a sound that was almost a laugh. "I live to defy expectations."
"The New York Sanctum still needs a master to protect it..."
Strange considered for barely a second. "Yes," he said. "I accept."
"Wonderful," she said, then turned to me.
I blinked. "I'm not nearly skilled enough to call myself a master."
"And yet you are more than qualified to serve as the sanctum's defender for now, wouldn't you say?" she raised an eyebrow.
I thought about it. "I mean...yes. I'll help until someone more qualified is found."
"Understandable," she said. She smiled again, slightly warmer now. "And if you wish, you may have someone from the monastery assist you. Ms. Grey and Ms. Hardy, perhaps?"
I felt my face warm. I covered it with a cough. "Ah — yeah, sure."
"Hey!" Tandy cried out. "What about me?"
The Ancient One's expression shifted to something that could charitably be described as magnanimous. "You have not yet mastered control over the Life Force. You have improved, but you have a long way still to travel — and the distance requires more than skill. It requires maturity. As such, you will remain here until your mind is ready to bear your powers as they deserve."
Tandy opened her mouth.
The Ancient One looked at her.
Tandy closed her mouth. "...Yes, Master."
"Also," the Ancient One added, with the quiet weight of someone who has had centuries to perfect a certain tone, "you wouldn't happen to know anything about an ongoing wager regarding Master Mordo and myself, would you."
Tandy went pale. "I — yes, Master."
"I would very much like to hear about it."
Strange chuckled and shook his head. "That is simply cruel."
After the ceremony the rest were dismissed. Strange and I were asked to remain so the sanctum wards could be keyed to us both. When that was done the Ancient One left as well, and Strange and I stood together in the quiet library.
"You're something," Strange said, opening the portal to the New York Sanctum. "When you appeared all those months ago I couldn't place you. I had never heard of you, and yet you were clearly not a novice. Who was your master?"
I smiled. I opened the portal to the London Sanctum. "His name was Doctor Stephen Strange."
A beat.
"Oh, I see — wait. What?!"
I stepped through the portal, laughing. "A story for another time. See you soon, Master Strange." I let the doors close behind me.
That would give him something to think about.