Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Kamar Taj [August 2015]

  –Jack Sullivan.–

  “So, let me get this straight, the magic cult that you are a part of,”

  He opened his mouth to reply but before he could get a word in, Tony cut him off, “Oh, how could I fet? Silly me! Not just a part of the cult, you are the bloody freaking High authority in the cult.”

  He settled on just nodding, not knowing if Tony would let him speak or not. He had checked on the New York Sanctum and found a pretty rattled Daniel Drumms who described feelih itself approach him, f him to co himself in the Sanctum since he believed it to be the safest pce for him.

  And it was, sidering that Drumm had been the Master of this Sanctum for the better part of a decade now, more than enough time to know where the traps were id down and how ter them to trap an unsuspeg intruder. Kaecilius was not an unwitting fool though. He would do his homework and even if he didn’t, Dormammu’s powers would allow him to escape unscathed from even the most plex of traps.

  The only reason Strange mao capture him, even temporarily, was because Kaecilius was sandbagging and also because Strange had plot armour. Well, there they were now, with nonist with them. It was fortuhat Drumm had a non bat oriented relic but something that allowed him fht iure, up to a couple of minutes, depending on how much the future affected its wielder. That allowed him to get a warning ahead in a couple of minutes.

  The warning must have been quite severe as well because Drumm didn’t hesitate in severing all the es to the outside world. All in all, the New York Sanctum was safe, as was the London Sanctum. He hadn't told them to reect the work because frankly, they were better off isoted as ht now, mainly because the wartime wards mandated no portal usage.

  He was lucky that his barriers enveloping the ehing didn’t t as an attack as the Sanctum wards were capable of some pretty nasty stuff, especially to energy maniputors. He did not want energy cers that could pop up at any time and burst apart inside him, no thank you.

  “Hello? Heeelllooo! Are you even listening? Do you have any idea how big of a bomb you have dropped on our ps? What even happens if all three of these Sanctums fall? Armageddon? ’t you make more or repair any that falls?” He looked around the room and yup, everyone had the same questiarding it.

  He sighed and stood up, “All good questions Tony. Unfortunately, damage will be quite severe, quite irreparable if all the SAnctums fall. No, we ’t make more, not without some pretty serious work, work that ot be done by us. Yes, we repair those that fall but right now, we o focus on proteg the ohat are standing as repairing the fallen one will take a lot of time.”

  “Time we don’t have?” He looked at Steve and nodded.

  “Fine. Where are the Sanctums?”

  He stood up and flicked his fingers, fetg a hat had the coordinates of all the Sanctums. “These are the locations of the two remaining Sanctums. I want you to guard them but only from afar. There are only two people iwo buildings, both of them quite capable of defending themselves,”

  “You don’t think we win?” Romanoff, ever the more observant of the Avengers, quietly remarked as she saw, as did all the others, as Jarvis pulled up a map and then all the cameras around it that showed two very different but old looking buildings with the on gss on both the buildings with the logo of the Vishanti printed on them.

  He looked into her eyes and then nodded slowly, “No. As you are now, the magical enemy will crush you. Well, except Hulk,” Bruodded at that. “But that doesn’t mean that he won’t manipute the Hulk into causing even more damage.”

  There were frowns all around the room at that. Ever sihe st debacle in Australia where they both fought, he hadn’t had any iions with Banner. He didn't bme the man, he was uhe trol of Wanda who was still o be seen, and that fight didn’t result in a single casualty, well, aside from some really really old people dying of heart attacks and panic attacks.

  Even those deaths had weighed quite heavily on Banner, who refused to go out of the Tower, even for important missions, instead preferring to pilot the rge HulkBuster armour from the safety of the tower.

  “I think I’ll sit this o,” Bruce whispered and practically fled the room. He sighed at that, that was ahird of their high tier fighting prowess. With him, Thor and Bruce, they made up almost 90% of the Avengers’ fighting prowess. Thor was currently busy being King, and Bruce didn't believe in himself or the Hulk, not believing both of them to be capable of any good.

  That just left him and as powerful as he was, especially with his Power Stone, he was just one man, and there were two Sanctums as of now.

  “Think your suits hahe situation?” He asked Tony who didn’t seem even a bit surprised at Bruce’s departure. It made sense since Bruce practically lived iower for over a year at this point.

  Tony deadpa him ahe room as well. Captain and Romanoff followed suit. t was not iower itself, something about a long vacation after all the craziness he had experienced. Ah, these people hadn’t yet met the mini ts yet. That was…fine.

  He had e to realise that he had ged a lot of things and a lot of people’s fates. Some for the better, and some for the worse. He felt some fear at the beginning, of having the ability to alter the fate of some people but then he reminded himself that the fate he knew was not the predestined fate of these people.

  That was some alterimelihat he saw and knew of. This could easily be yet aimeline where things went as they went, with no fault of his own, well, aside from his direct as. Nowadays he barely cared about the so-called timeli had mostly been butchered anyway, and all he cared about was taking care of that Purple S.

  That’s it.

  Ohat was dohe world would have plenty of crises but he was not going to stay around for all of them. Maintaining a minimal presen Earth, taking a hands off approach, and semi permaly moving to a tropical utopia somewhere in the Universe.

  Now, that’s the dream.

  Seeing that everyone was gone, he spoke up, drawing the attention of the one individual who was ever present in his life, “Jarvis? Any progress?”

  “No sir. Aside from having multiple drones keeping a close wat both the Sanctums, I have not been able to find any digital evidence of the attacks happening. The digital peion iy of Kathmandu has been quite behind,”

  He chuckled at that. Wasn’t that the uatement of the tury?

  “Alright, just keep me posted. I’ll go look around,” He opened a portal a baar Taj, specifically the Library., where he met the group of Masters who had goo a to seal away a faulty demon seal. Wong was among them as well, who was looking quite stormy as he looked at the missing books of the Restricted Se.

  Teically, in the words of the A One, no knowledge in Kamar Taj was forbidden. Only hidden behind levels of petency for the sake of the safety of the Masters. Even senior Masters did not dare look too deep in some of the books in the Restricted Seost of those books were semi se and had reised the A One as their master, following her will and allowing lesser beings, acc to them, to read through them. It did create quite a few iing discoveries but nothing groundbreaking.

  In fact, iirety of the time that the A ONe had been the SOrcerer Supreme, the innovation factor of Kamar Taj had gone down by quite a lot. Inversely, the Dark Sorcerer, the magical vilins had gotten increasingly creative in their applications, sometimes stumbling upon or iiirely new ways of molding their dark magic to achieve their goal.

  He attributed it to the overwhelming power that the A One seemed to possess. The people on her side being x enough that they didn't bother doing anything new because they khat their big boss would e to rescue them, and the bad guys khat the good guys had overwhelming firepower in their hands, so they got a little creative and that was how they had 72 different ways they could use CHI to cast spell like reality ging effects into one’s surroundings, using one’s lifeforce, or others as well, given that it was given willingly.

  “Wong, I assume you know everything?” He went ahead and asked Wong, subtly dismissing all the other masters who bowed at him ahe library as well. WHile he was quite young, the you Master in the history of Kamar Taj, in fact, he was well respected within the unity. Strength was respected in Kamar Taj and more importantly, the spirit of self sacrifice was looked at with reverence here.

  It was somewhat disturbing at first but now he was used to everything.

  “Who?” Wong asked calmly and he had to admit, that was quite badass.

  “I don’t know,” He admitted truthfully because the attack was all kinds of fusing to him. He had no idea oo get leads. The only lead he had was that whoever it was, would attaother Sanctum and that was why he had both of them under heavy surveilnce.

  While the Avengers could not hope to fight Kaecilous, they could warn him and he could be at their location instantly and take care of the big bad, ond for all. He swore to the One Above All, that if this was some twist, he would go mad and hunt down every single vilin of Kamar Taj that was oh and was unlucky enough to still be breathing.

  “Once you find out, tell me.” Wong said and walked deeper into the library, a catalogue in his hands as he took stock of all the books. He did not have the heart to inform the poor man that the entire library of the Hong Kong Sanctum was gone, probably looted from it.

  Wong would blow a gasket at that, despite his mute expressions.

  That was one of the things that tipped him off that this was not a normal thing by any means. If Kaecilius had been the one behind things, what use would he have of books? And not even books from the restricted se?

  While the Sanctums did hold quite a lot of dangerous relics, the books in there were mainly copies of stuff that was not too hard h level. Basid a little bit of intermediate stuff, something that no Master worth his salt would ever need.

  Ahe books were stolen. The relics, he uood but the books?

  He ran his mind ragged as he tried to think of any possibility that made se this was not a reality where sense would run things.

  He left the library to tour the rest of the Kamar Taj and leased to find that most of the damage sustained during the attack had been reversed. The apprentices were ba their practice regimen, with a younger Master taking oies of Master Mordo whose body was burned by the fmes of the Vishanti, basically the highest hiven by Kamar Taj to its fallen Masters.

  The A One was still nowhere near in sight, and she was not accepting any unication requests, as was on during any Fae incursion. Demons and Devils always took advantage of events like this, where her eention would be on ahing, allowing them retive freedom, something of a rarity ever since he showed up, capable of pushing bad even sealing most demons and devils that got past the barrier.

  They were mostly weaker ones who were allowed by the barrier after their superiors expended an obse amount of energy to send in the weaker soldiers, who were almost always subdued with a single barrier, sharp or blunt, it mattered not.

  The ritual room’s entments held strong but he would not risk doing any ritual inside as the building looked one sed away from falling on itself. The paths were still singed with fire and some blood but the apprentices who were not iraining regiment were w hard oing it all ed up with a mop.

  Master Kei probably did that so their minds were occupied instead of allowing them time to needlessly specute and worry more and more about something they had no trol over. Hell, even he had no trol over the overarg situation.

  “Master Sullivan!” He turned around as an apprentice came running for him as if his life depended on it. He instantly fshed over to him, wary of an ambush or something.

  “What happened?”

  “Haa….Master…Wong, he called…” he didn't wait a sed as the apprentice pa the short jog he took. He o work on his cardio then, something to inform Master Kei ter on.

  He soon found himself in the library, more specifically, in the se of the library where the Infinity Stone was kept, the sed one in his close proximity. As soon as he ehat space, his eyes widened as he saw the Time Stone, sitting on its pedestal, in its green glory.

  He instantly flew to the Stone and checked all the entments. He was sure that the Eye of Agamotto was real, the energy readings of that thing could not be faked, especially without having the Time Stone in hand and having substantial reserves of the thing, something that could only be done in Vibranium Ingots.

  Ingots that Kamar Taj didn’t have many of, despite having explicit knowledge of Vibranium asteroids roaming around in Space all around them, ieroid belt. It was a trivial task for him to get those to Earth but he didn’t want to make an enemy out of Wakanda.

  Already, they had released most of their cures or atleast the way to make those cures roliferated. Their habit to hold back progress of the rest of the world was gone as well, especially as T’Chal slowly took over multiple departments from his father, something that sighat T’Chaka was handing over the throo his son, T’Chal.

  “That is real,” Wong ented from the side, hands behind his back as he toon examihe runic work on the whole pedestal. Intricate runes carved by someone and powered by the Eye of Agamotto itself.

  Very strong.

  ‘It just appeared right in front of me as I assing to Se B,” Wong informed him, and his mind paused as it sidered the situation.

  The A One couldn’t take the Infinity Stoo meet the Fae, that could be misstrued as an act of aggression but she also could not leave the damhing without any prote, well, aside from the giant thousand year old anisation who were supposed to give their life for the cause, and sadly, some did give their lives.

  “Some sort of prote cuse?” He asked and Wong shrugged.

  Well, it was just sitting here and he did need some clues about the attack. Armed with the practice of using the Power Stone, a very votile stone, and having some knowledge of using the Eye of Agamotto, he could probably use the Time Stone reliably.

  ‘I mean, how hard could it be? Strange did it on the first try,’ He thought to himself.

  …….

  …..

  Spoiler. It was hard.

  Damn, Strange was a magical prodigy.

  Word t - 2757

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