The Final Initiative

40.

      Her blue eyes went wide as she looked down to her hands, being able to see the ground through her own body. She floated above in the air as her lifeless physical body collided with the floor by the pot of green plants "oh my God oh my God oh my God" she said frantically, examining her transparent floating body "w-what did you do?! What the-" she dropped down to her feet, being able to stick her hands inside of one another like some sort of hologram.

"Are you ready to listen now?" The woman questioned, putting her arms down at her side.

      Jessi gritted her teeth, the heart in her chest beating a mile a minute when she saw her physical body laying passed out on the ground "listen?! No, you listen here-!" she was about come up with some random, offensive nickname like Caillou or Charlie Brown, but her common sense got the best of her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, knowing full well that this person has far more authority then she ever could in her lifetime "Look" she said slowly, opening her eyes back up "My name is Jessi Stark"

      "I know" she crossed her arms "and you're here for Doctor Strange, whom I haven't met quite yet, so you must be from the future" Jessi pressed her lips into a thin line and gave a shrug in response "and I'm only assuming that something has gone wrong where you're from, meaning that you must come to the past to try and correct the mistakes that were made"

      "I've come for the time stone" she stepped forward, clasping her hands together "We need it, to bring back all of the people who were killed in my time, billions and billions of people!"

"I cannot"

"Please!"

      "I'm sorry" she turned and began to walk away around the bed of flowers "I can't help you, Jessica. If I give up the Time Stone to help your reality, I'm dooming my own. I cannot, I'm sorry"

      "Wait, whoa whoa hold on, wait-" Jessi chased over her, hopping over her own body on the floor "I've done some research on time travel, watched some movies too. And I don't think that's- that's correct. Your reality won't be doomed, we're just-"

      The sorcerer supreme halted her, extending her hand out as Jessi skidded to a pause. With a swift movement of her other hand, she created an orange, visual demonstration of the infinity stones. The long line of orange energy shot across the roof and out into the city. Jessi watched it weave through the buildings "The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time" the sorcerer began, and as she spoke, the six stones appeared and circled around the orange stream "Remove one of the stones, and that flow splits" she picked up the green stone, and a dark stream of energy emerged out from the orange one like the branch of a tree "Now this may benefit your reality. But my new one, not so much. In this new branched reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world will be overrun. Millions will suffer"

      Jessi understood all of what she was saying. She saw how this new dark, alternate time could destroy an entire timeline. She had never even began to think that there were timelines other than her own, the thought never crossed her mind. She wasn't the only Jessi out there "Okay, well... It's not like we're going to keep the stone" Jessi lifted her finger "How about this, once we're done with the stone, we can return it back to you, we'll return each one into its own timeline at the exact moment that it was taken. So... it'll be as if it never left. Would that work?"

"I suppose it could, but you're leaving out the most important part" she allowed for the orange demonstration to fade, and the line dispersed into the thin air "In order to return the stones, you'd have to survive" she said gravely.