Stephen's eyes widened once he entered Kamar-Taj.
His eyes wandered the place, he was in awe of everything. They passed to the courtyard and Stephen saw others, dressed in different robes. Some were training, using some kind of fighting style while others sat on the side, reading a book or talking to another.
Lenore and Mordo glanced at each other, sharing a confused look after they looked at Stephen. Lenore took the lead, directing Stephen towards the Ancient One's study.
"The Sanctuary of our teacher, the Ancient One." she declared while gesturing her arm towards the room. Stephen followed her arm and gazed at the room right beside them.
"The Ancient One? What's his real name?" Stephen questioned, looking at Lenore and Mordo for answers. Neither of them spoke, instead, Lenore looked away while clearing her throat while Mordo kept a deadpan look upon his face.
"Right. Forget everything I think I know. I'm sorry."
Stephen stepped inside, slowly taking in the room and how it looked. It was overwhelming for the wild-haired man. But as he inspected the room more, he soon saw a man sitting on the right side of the room. He lifted his gaze off of the book his This must be the Ancient One— he thought.
"Thank you for...huh!" He flinched when two students had approached him and suddenly stripped him of his coat and took his luggage, "Okay, that's, uh...a thing...Thank you—"
He was cut off once again when someone else approached him, offering a cup to the unknowing man. Seconds after, he was approached by someone else again, this time, they poured the tea onto the tea that was handed to him.
"Hello, uh, thank you, Ancient One for seeing me." He turned his head towards the man sitting in the chair who stood up. He tucked his book underneath his arm and began walking away, leaving Stephen confused, his words trailing off.
"You're very welcome." The woman in front of him answered, a smile growing on her face. Stephen quickly turned his attention to the woman in front of him, giving her a perplexed gaze before he looked over his shoulder. He spotted Mordo and Lenore, standing a few feet apart from him.
The two masters bowed their heads to her. Only adding to his confusion.
"The Ancient One." Mordo introduced her, confirming it.
"Thank you, Master Mordo, Master Lenore. Thank you Master Hamir!" She called as the man who was once sitting on the chair walked off and left the room while both Lenore and Mordo remained, standing by the entrance with their hands clasped behind their backs.
"Mister Strange." The Ancient One brought her attention back to the man in front of her.
"Doctor, actually." He corrected, slight annoyance evident in his tone. He glanced down at his cup hesitantly before drinking it down, bringing moisture to his once dry throat and quenching his thirst.
The Ancient One blinked, "Well, no, not anymore. Isn't that why you're here? You've undergone many procedures. Seven, right?"
She walked away from the man and further into the room, approaching a small table where she prepared three more cups of tea.
"Yeah...It's good tea." He said, looking down at the half-empty cup.
"Yes." She raised her head for a brief second before she returned her attention to the there cups she set before her, now pouring the tea in them. Stephen grew more perplexed and he turned around, starting at the two standing behind him. Lenore was amused by his awkwardness and was trying hard to refrain herself from smiling while Mordo stared back at him silently.
"Did you heal a man named Pangborn? A paralyzed man?" he inquired, walking up to her slowly.
"In a way," she replied, not looking up at Stephen.
"You helped him to walk again."
"Yes," she answered, glancing up from the tea she was stirring before bringing her gaze down to it once again.
"How did you correct a complete C7-C8 spinal cord injury?" Stephen questioned while approaching her with long strides. Stephen was perplexed on how this was fixed when he knew that this was untreatable.
"Well, I didn't correct it." she retorted, stirring another cup of tea, "He couldn't walk. I convinced him that he could."
"You're not suggesting it was psychosomatic?"
"When you reattach the severed nerve, it is you who has it back together? Or the body?" she inquired, standing up straight as she continued stirring the tea in her hand.
"It's the cells." he answered quickly.
"And the cells are only programmed to put themselves back together in very specific ways," she said while tapping the spoon on the rim of the cup.
"Right."
"What if I told you that your own body could be convinced to put itself back together in all sorts of ways." she waved the spoon around in loops as a way to demonstrate it to Stephen.
"You're talking about cellular regeneration." he walked up to the Ancient One with long strides and settled his cup down on the small table in between them. "That's bleeding edge medical tech."
He followed the Ancient One as she walked over towards Mordo and Lenore, handing them their tea. Lenore offered the Ancient One a grateful smile before she brought the cup to her lips.
He continued, "Is that why you're working here? Without any governing medical board? I mean how experimental is your treatment?"
She smiled coyly, "Quite."
"You've figured out a way to reprogram nerve cells to self-heal?" he said incredulously.
Taking a few short strides, the Ancient One approached Stephen and stood in front of him.
"No, Mister Strange. I know how to reorient the spirit to better heal the body."
"The spirit...to heal the body?" Stephen took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he tried to comprehend what the Ancient One was telling him. He refrained himself from saying anything about it, even though he didn't agree with everything she said, he was getting desperate.
"Al-Alright, how do we do that? Where do we start?"
When Stephen reopened his eyes, the Ancient One was turning around, holding a book in her arms. The book was opened on a specific page. He glanced up at the Ancient One, expecting something more from her. The Ancient One just smiled.
"Don't like that one?" she asked, the smile remaining on her lips.
"Oh, no. It's... it's very good. It's just...you know, I've seen it before." Stephen shot her an annoyed glare as his voice became a bit louder, "In gift shops."
The Ancient One chuckled softly, seemingly playing with Stephen while she flipped to another page, showing him another photo.
"What about this one?"
"Acupuncture, " Stephen fought really hard not to roll his eyes at the moment and he says through gritted teeth, "Great."
Lenore found Stephen getting annoyed amusing to the point that she could not stop herself from letting out a giggle, in which the Doctor had noticed. When Stephen briefly looked at her direction, her smile dropped and she averted her gaze, but soon found herself smiling once more for she couldn't hold it.
The Ancient One spun around and stood in front of Stephen with her back facing him while she flipped to another page, finally bringing Stephen's attention back to her.
"What about that one?" she asks once more, now tapping the photo with her finger.
"Showing me an MRI scan. I do not believe this." Stephen said in disbelief as he stepped away from the Ancient One after rolling his eyes.
"Each of those maps was drawn up by someone who could see in part, but not the whole." she explained to him after she settled the book down on the small table behind her.
"I spent my last dollar getting here on a one-way ticket, and you're talking to me about healing through belief?" Stephen said in disbelief, his hands were on his head, frustrated. He wanted to be able to operate again so that he could have everything back. But he was so impatient.
And the three Masters could see that.
" You're a man who's looking at the world through a keyhole, and you spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole. To see more, know more. And now, on hearing that it can be widened in ways you can't imagine, you reject the possibility?" The Ancient One questioned Stephen while rooting her head.
"No, I reject it because I do not believe in fairy tales about chakras, or energy, or the power of belief." Stephen was closing in on the Ancient One, his voice increases a volume louder, "There is no such thing as spirit! We are made of matter, and nothing more. We're just another tiny, momentary speck within an indifferent universe."
"You think too little of yourself."
"Oh, you think you see through me, do you?" Stephen hissed, his anger now evident in his tone as he walked towards the Ancient one with long strides, "Well, you don't. But I see through you!"
Stephen jabbed his finger against the Ancient One's chest, only allowing her to take it off before she struck him on the chest with the palm of her other hand. As his physical form fell, his natural form came out of it, floating upwards. Stephen's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion before looking down at his hands.
Mordo walked past Lenore and approached Stephen's body. He put his hand on his back, keeping Stephen's physical form up. Lenore watched in awe as the Ancient One closed her hand and brought Stephen's astral form back in his physical form.
"What did you just do to me?" Stephen took a couple of breaths, still couldn't believe what just happened.
"I pushed your astral form out of your physical form." the Ancient One explained.
"What's in that tea? Psilocybin? LSD?" Stephen asked, his eyes frantically glancing over the teapot behind her.
"Just tea. With a little honey." she answered.
"What just happened?" Stephen asked before looking around. He met Lenore's gaze, shooting her a questioning look in which she responded with a shrug of her shoulders. She then jerked her head at the Ancient One's direction, prompting him to return his attention to her.
"To show you just how much you don't know." she approached Stephen as her arm slowly rose, "Open your eye."
The Ancient One placed her raised hand to Stephen's head, her thumb pressed softly against his forehead. His eyes went wide as a powerful forced pulled him back. Stephen screamed as he flew upwards towards the sky.
"No! No... No! Shit! Oh god! Oh god! Oh God!" he screamed as he went further and further up to the sky until he could see himself getting further from the world itself.
"This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't—" he paused as a monarch butterfly flew by in front of him–in space. His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as he reached out to it before another powerful pull caused him to fly backward again. More screams erupted from his throat as he flew inside a tunnel of different colors.
"His heart rate is getting dangerously high." a male voice sounded and he quickly recognized it as Mordo's. The colors of the tunnel blurred as he whizzed by before landing on a chair. It almost keeled back for a moment, if it hadn't been for Lenore who placed her hand in the back of it. Stephen breathed heavily, seeing a motion on his peripheral, he turned and met Lenore's eyes.
Her lips curled into a soft smile before she pushed his hair out of his face. "He seems all right to me, Master."
The wall behind her stretched out and once again, he was launched backward, Stephen let out another scream.
You think you know how the world works? You think that this material universe is all there is? What is real? What mysteries lie beyond the reach of your senses? At the root of existence, mind and matter meet.
Stephen braced himself as he approached a dark portal, he reopened his eyes when he was inside, floating freely. He let out a gasp when he felt something grab onto him and when a dark cloud moved closer to him, something had reached out and pulled his arm inside of it. Soon, the whole place was filled with hands.
Thoughts shape reality
His eyes darted to his hand, which grew smaller hands and his eyes grew wide in horror. The hands soon engulfed his body and his face. Looking up, Stephen found himself looking at his better self and he was being sucked into his eye. His arms flailed as he has entered a place that looks like it was made out of diamonds.
This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end. Some benevolent and life-giving, others filled with malice and hunger.
Stephen now floated into a dark void. Flying forward, he came face to face with a large being. Malice was evident in his eyes as Stephen grew closer towards the large figure.
Dark places, where powers older than time lie... ravenous... and waiting.
He yelled until he suddenly became very still, his body floating.
Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr. Strange?
He continued yelling until he fell on the floor, the wind knocked out of him due to the impact of the fall. Stephen took a couple of breaths as he sat on his knees.
"Have you seen that before in a gift shop?"
The Ancient One was now in front of him, shooting him a stern look.
"Teach me." he said as he lifted his quivering hands.
"No."
Lenore's eyes grew wide as the students picked up Stephen and dragged him across the halls and down to the entrance. She could hear his desperate pleas once they had thrown him out in the street.
"Okay..." she drawled awkwardly, exchanging looks with Mordo. "That was not what I expected."