An Entity Within | Stephen Strange

17 - A Test

Pressing her lips tightly together, she refrained, praying that all would be okay.

As Master Bawa and Master de Leon cast the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak and the apprentices and Mordo all cast sparkling golden whips of their own to hold the girl steady, Tessa began to panic.

"Hey, no - no fair! The Ancient One said no sorcery!"

"You are very skilled, Tessa," Ishir complimented her.

Idha finished, "But even adults get competitive."

"Think of it like another test," Luciana said, "How will you get out of this one, niña?"

"If you do work out how, please go easy on us though." Henry said.

All seven strained against the girl which they found disturbing considering she appeared to resist with a minute amount of ease. As Tessa struggled, the sorcerers found they had to widen their stances.

"Christ, child, chill!" Liam turned his attention to the Ancient One, "Are you training her to be the next Sorceress Supreme or something? But straight out of the womb?"

The Ancient One did not reply although all were eager to hear her answer. All the fighters could see the potential in the girl and most, if not all, were perturbed by her power.

"Let me go!"

Sura said (with some apprehension), "Get out of it yourself."

"Let go! Let me out!" The girl struggled still, on the verge of tears.

The Ancient One was about to intervene again when Makarov spoke up instead.

"I think we can all agree," Ivan said, stepping into the fighting area, "That you are one of the most impressive fighters out of us all. But we deal with mystical threats - if you are in a bad situation and you ask a big bad monster to stop using its magic, it won't. If you sense sorcery is your weakness, then you have to be clever about it. This is all part of the challenge, Tessa. Think."

But the girl wasn't listening, she was too upset, too overwhelmed and that was only more of a cause for concern. This had to end or there would be a consequence, the Ancient One could sense it.

"That's en - "

"I said let me go!"

The girl shrieked sharply, bringing her arms in, tugging the masters towards her as she fell to her knees before throwing her arms back out. A pool of shadow shot out from her fingertips, knocking everyone in the training area off their feet, destroying two of the pillars that held up the cover in the outdoor space.

Mordo was the first to recover, to see little Tessa fall to the floor, out cold. Scrambling over to her, he knelt beside her, checking for her pulse and to see if she was breathing or not.

"Tessa? Tessa, wake up."

The other sorcerers and sorceresses came to, all except for Idha who lay on the floor by the low wall of the small garden area. She had been closest to Tessa during the girl's snap. Luciana was the first to notice the apprentice's lack of response and rushed over, gasping softly when she learnt that the young woman would not be returning to them anytime soon.

Sura and Ishir raced over to help Henry and Liam while the Ancient One stood, surveying the distressing outcome, before traipsing over to offer Master Makarov a hand up.

"What - what was that? What is she?" Ivan questioned, not often fearful, "Ancient One, what did she do?"

"I - I don't know - "

She knew, of course.

"Tessa won't wake up." Mordo said, still holding the frail-looking girl in his arms.