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).

  New York [October 2014]

  –Jack Sullivan–

  His form stayed stationary for a moment too long, in mid air as he held the rest of the Avengers afloat behind him. His gaze stayed on the explosion and the blood red fmes for a moment too long before things exploded into motion.

  He could not see any sign of the Purple Dark Overlord in the sky so the Sanctums were not all promised, he thought to himself as his form accelerated to the maximum he could without creating a soni, as he headed straight towards the red fire.

  He retty sure that the Sanctum was right in the area. He just hoped that the Sanctum was not pletely gone. Partially damaged, he could work with.

  He reached the Sanctum and almost colpsed in relief when he saw the Sanctum pletely intact, and more importantly, the vigint figure of Daniel Drumm was more important than the sanctity of a building that could always be rebuilt.

  The Avengers, along with Tony in his suit, tio float behind him as he surveyed the se in front of him. There were people, predictably with their phones out, rec the ehing.

  Just exactly what they were rec was a mystery to him as he could see no damage doo the Sanctum. her the sidewalk nor the streets in front of the Sanctum were affected in any way so it could not have been an explosion of any sort because the signs of damage would have been immediately visible to him.

  He slowly nded on the rooftht in front of Master Drumm who, while l his jured ons, still maintained a vigint bat pose in front of him.

  Good. It meant that he was still cautious of him, even though his signature green barriers should be enough as proof. Still, if he wanted more proof then…

  “Hey, Drumm, you want any more of that French pastry from downtown?” He hollered as the Avengers, still unscious, were dropped on the rooftop, obviously still covered in one of his barriers.

  That statement finally made Drumm rex as he dispelled his shield and stopped the flow of energy to his relic, a mean staff capable of shattering jured barriers as if they were made of gss. Now, the relic could not breach his green barriers, no, it was not high enough to do that but it retty good when it came to fighting fellow Sorcerers and rogue magis who mostly relied on magic to create defeo pensate for their retively weaker bodies.

  “So you heard the explosion as well?” “Yes, I did,”

  It art of the reason why he was always dispatched to apprehend Agatha Harkness whenever she ns of her magic being used, were spotted by Kamar Taj. She always seemed to know he was ing though and fled before he could e into tact, her stealth skills meant that he was uo locate her before it was too te, and she was out of his range.

  The moment he heard of her being active, she would always, without fault, be oher end of the world. Never repeating the same location, same MO, nothing was ever repeated with that paranoid woman.

  Holy, if he could have just gotten his hands on that woman and found some way of sealing off the Darkhold forever, he might not have had to deal with the situation unfolding today.

  Wanda Maximoff.

  No…Scarlet Witch.

  He didn’t enter Wanda Maximoff, a budding magic user, no, he entered the Scarlet Witch today, someone capable of casting spells so great that even the Sorcerer Supreme would falter in front of her sheer might. It was no wonder he was uo sense his sling ring being damaged and the portal that he opened, being hijacked by the Scarlet Witch.

  He still didn’t know if the portal ened by him and the ring was damaged ter on, or if she simply cut off the inscriptions on the sling ring ter on. That reminded him, that he still had to secure that Quihat was staying in that forest area around Novi Grad.

  Jarvis was somehow out as well, robably attag him with her agic as well. With the reality ing aspect of her powers, she could attack even digital lifeforms, someone who should have beeically immune from normal sorcerer spells unless someories something tailor made for beings with no physical bodies but still possess a soul of their own.

  “I have lost tact with Kamar Taj. The portals have stopped funing and I have lost my sling ring as well. I don’t know how that happened. I never even saw my attacker. Do you have any idea about it?” Drumm rapidly fired the questions as they desded into the Sanctum, his barriers fring out and rapidly traversing through the vast spatially expanded space of the New York Sanctum to see if Wanda left any nasty surprises behind.

  “Yes, I have a hunch who this is. It is most probably the Scarlet Witch,” His words made Drumm choke on his words as he was rooted to the spot.

  “B-but that is supposed to be impossible without the Darkhold and st we khe Darkhold was still in–”

  “Agatha Harkness’ hands, I know. I was there at the briefing too, remember? It’s too bad the A One signed a paot to hunt down the Old Mystics herself in exge for the demons limiting their influeo magical hotspots,” He chimed in as they tio walk towards the portal room.

  There was a ce that he could get the Portals w, especially if he could someho into the tent Space Stone energy that his barriers probably still tained. He had to do something, otherwise, the only other option was to actually fly to Kamar Taj and while that wouldn’t take long with his top speed, he could not afford to let his focus be so single minded.

  He had to make sure that the Avengers were fine and protected from the brainwashing capabilities of Wanda. He still didn’t know if they were out of the danger zone or not.

  “Damn! If only we had some spare Sling rings on hand,” He cursed as they ehe portal room, the doors that normally showed the hallways of all the other Sanctums and Kamar Taj were not pletely see through, the runes cast on them fizzling out, and dimming down as if they were not powered anymore.

  “You know that the only one who make them is the A Ohere are no sling rings iehat are unated for. In the wrong hands, they are a dangerous on so her keeping tabs on every single ring is uandable,”

  He made plenty of se that did not help them right now. The Avengers were still floating behind him, coed in his barriers.

  He had to do something without having to resort to cerebral recalibration, or, in Romanoff’s terms, hitting them hard on their heads.

  He created a barrier and made sure to fill the tiny grooves carved into the door that led to Kamar Taj, the barriers fitting into the runes like a glove. He tried to get the sense of any remnant energy that might still be there from the inal runes but no, it was all fizzled out.

  “Damn. Damn it all to hell,” He began pag bad forth as the runes refused to be activated, even whearted p all the types of energy he could muster.

  The Space Stone energy was unavaible to him otherwise he would have just teleported himself straight to Kamar Taj.

  “Alright, Master Drumm, take care. I have a delivery to make before I go to Kamar Taj. I will call you on the Sanctum ndline.” He said before he flew out of the Sanctum, the Sanctum behind him went on lockdown as the wartime wards were drawn up.

  Apparently, the only reliable method of unicatiht now was…teology. Damn, way to show up the mystical side of things.

  That was the problem with Reality ers, he thought to himself as he nded in front of a library and demanded a world map from the librarian who was too shell shocked to move. The moment the Reality ers flex their powers, the other party turns powerless, no matter the myriad of ways they could flex their strengths.

  Especially since Wanda had some uanding of Sorcery, she could make most magivalid without even trying hard. Now, the Time Stone robably out of her scope of powers and he had plete faith in the A One’s ability to ward off any attack that Wanda could mount on Kamar Taj at such short notice.

  “Thank you,” He thahe librarian and dropped a crisp 100 dolr bill oable as pensation since he doubted the map was ever going to make its way bato the library anytime soon.

  Taking a single look at the entire map, he memorised the ehing aally charted a path straight to Wakanda. He had to make sure that the Avengers were safe and sound because no matter how easily they fell to Wanda, the Avengers were people who could make or break entire tries, depending on how much time was given to eae of them.

  He could not afford them waking up from their brainwashing and using their abilities to wreak even more havoc. Tony alone was a nightmare to at for, especially if he had prior knowledge of his abilities, which he did.

  He secured the Avengers in a pod formation with cuffs on all of their limbs for their own safety and rocketed straight towards Wakanda, a stealth spell. While he would have to warn the wovers at some point, he would like some more crity ouation himself before he could tell them anything.

  They were cruising just below the satellites as the Afri ti came into view. He rocketed down, takira care to make sure that the Avengers’ necks were not broken because of the whipsh of accelerating and decelerating abruptly.

  His eyes sed the ti before he found the ndmark that was the downtrodden lone airstrip that Wakanda owned, along with a few other poorer Afriations. God, they were so extra, to make this fake airport.

  Reoriented himself using the airport, he rocketed towards the mountain rahat was actually a hologram that hid their capital city. He purposely let the stealth spell go a his barriers burn brighter, so that they would reise him and not, you know, shoot him out of the sky.

  He smiled as he saw two small Dragonfly units making themselves visible to him as all of their ons were primed, but not poi him. That was good.

  He came to a halt in front of them as his face was revealed, “Quick! Get me to T’Chaka. There is an emergency,” He warned with severe urgen his voice.

  The urgency might have gotten to them or someone higher up had ordered them, it mattered not. What mattered was that they began esc them and when he simply kept ahead of their slow pace, they took that as a challenge and began rocketing forwards.

  Soon, the hologram’s various yers peeled off as they ehe try and then their capital.

  Ohe pace was in sight, he rocketed towards the Royal Pad nded in front of an already there T’Chaka and T’Chal.

  They were about to say something but he cut them to it, “There’s been an attack. Someone who is extremely dangerous. I don’t know if I beat her. They have been subjected to a mental attack. Keep them all locked up and preferably in stasis until I e back. I have to go deal with her,” He said in a hurry, deposited the Aveo the ground, and simply rocketed up.

  A portion of the barrier hastily opened up as he passed through the opened yer and simply reached the es of the atmosphere.

  He looked at the Himayan Range and hit the throttle on his flight speed, the clouds parting away as he reached the huge expanse of white in mere seds. If he had looked back, he would have seen the clouds parting because of the soni he made as he broke all his previous records.

  He looked to the side and after firming the poputiore, he flew to the small town, and to his relief, found himself iown of Kathmandu. He immediately flew to the cliff where Kamar Taj was located.

  He refrained from flying from the top because of the effects of the wartime wards that he was very much familiar with. He did not want his Astral Form violently ejected from his body while his body was subjected to eldritch strings burning at thousands of degrees, cutting up his body into perfectly sliced cubes.

  He simply nded in front of the door and “knocked” on it. Or rather, fred the dimensional energy in the password that was given to him. The door opened up to reveal…chaos.

  Tinges of Red energy that tio fre up randomly, were ever present on all the walls. There were burn marks on the roads and more. Thankfully, he could not see any bodies so that ted for something.

  His form swiftly flew through the courtyards, barely pausing to aowledge the bows of the trainees as they tio up the mess of the battle that had probably occurred here.

  His flight faltered as he almost dropped himself as he saw the state of the primary training grounds that were used to train the new initiates.

  A huge gaping mahat was left of the training ground, the end of it not visible to his eyes. The outer walls of the hole were pletely e, signifying the heat.

  The flickers of Red energy at the edges of the hole gave him clues as to what or rather, who had made this huge hole in the ter of Kamar Taj, the seat of power of the Master of the Mystic Arts.

  Doing something like this could only meahing…

  “Shit,” He muttered in dismay.

  “Shit indeed,” He turned around to see the A Oanding behind him, her face singed in pces but overall, he could see that she was in fine shape.

  The thing that worried him was not the slight scratches on her but the bright Green glowing neckce that was fastened around her neck. The Eye of Agamotto was being used by the Sorcerer Supreme, in the open. This could only meahing.

  “This is war, Master Sullivan,”

  Shit indeed.

  Word t - 2513

  A/N - Shit indeed.

  If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

  I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.