"I can't believe you, Cassie. After everything I've done for you and then you just go out on the streets alone, trying to fight crime!" Tony had just come back from India, already pissed at her. "What were you thinking?"
"That I need more practice with my powers if I want to get home!" She told him. "This was before you agreed to let me train I didn't think I was getting enough practice at the sanctum."
"But going out fighting crime with Peter? You're supposed to be looking after him, not getting into trouble with him."
"I'm sorry, Tony. Peter is gonna go through a lot this year and I thought that it would be better to help him than let him suffer!"
Tony crossed his arms over his chest, trying to think of what to say. "I just wish you would have told me first."
Cassie looked up at him. "You would have let me?"
"Maybe. I asked you to train to be an Avenger didn't I?"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you... you've just been so busy and I should not even be on this earth in the first place-"
"Hey," he interrupted her, walking across the room. "I don't care if you weren't meant to be here. You are now and that's all that matters. My life would be a lot worse if it weren't for you, right?"
She smiled. "Yeah, way worse off believe me." A ding sounded from her pocket; it was her alarm. She pulled it out and turned it off. "I have to get to Kamar-Taj."
"Be careful," said Tony.
Cassie nodded as she opened a portal. "Always."
When she got to the training room floor, it was busier than ever. Stephen has been getting better at his sorcery and Cassie knew that Dormammu would become a threat soon. She saw the Ancient One in the courtyard, watching over people train. On the other side, he and Mordo prepared to fight.
Stephen reached down to adjust his shoe, he looked up as she approached them. "Hello Cassie," he said.
"Hello Stephen, Mordo." Mordo gave a nod as he fixed the waistline of his pants.
Stephen turned back to talk to him. "So just how ancient are they?" he asked, referring to the Ancient One.
"No one knows the Age of the Sorcerer Supreme, only that they never talk about their past," Mordo told him.
"They are about 500 years old," Cassie said blatantly. Both the men towards to look at her in shock but all she did was shrug her shoulders. "I told you, I know things."
"And just how do you know these things?" Stephen asked her.
"I'm from another earth, I thought they would have told you this. Once your strong enough, you're mean to help bring me home."
Stephen raised an eyebrow and looked at Mordo for more information. "Cassie is right. In her universe, we are nothing but movies and comic books."
"Movies huh? Have I been in anything interesting?"
"Oh loads of stuff, though most people know you for playing Sherlock. You're British where I come from."
"Huh... anyways," he said, turning back to Mordo in a ready stance, trying to catch him off guard. It didn't work.
"You must trust your teacher, and don't lose your way," he told him. He looked towards Cassie. "You want to join?"
She put her hands up and walked backward. "No, no, I want to see where this is going," she said with a smirk.
The two men circled each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. "Don't lose your way," Stephen repeated. "Like Kaecilius?"
"That's right." Mordo took the first move, swinging his foot up, but Stephen dodged it just in time. He lunged forwards at him, causing Mordo to retreat backward, locking their arms together.
"You knew him?"
Mordo swung his arms around, putting Stephen in a hold behind his head. "When he first came to us, he'd lost everyone he ever loved." Stephen struggled to break free but his attempts were going nowhere. "He was grieving, a broken man searching for answers in the mystic arts."
"Aren't we all?" Cassie chimed in sarcastically earning her a glare from Mordo.
He continued, "He was a brilliant student, but he was proud, headstrong. He questioned the Ancient One and rejected their teaching." Out of nowhere, Stephen elbowed him in the side, making him grunt and lose his grip. Stephen walked forward upright, touching his neck slightly. "He left Kamar-Taj. His disciples followed him like sheep, seduced by false doctrine."
They began to circle each other once more. "And he stole the forbidden ritual right?"
"Yes."
"What did it do?"
"No more questions."
"Don't worry," Cassie started, making Stephen turn to look at her. "You'll find out soon enough."
"Don't listen to her," Mordo instructed.
"Well, I wouldn't do that. Ignoring me will only make things worse. I will turn all big, green, and angry like the Hulk."
"She can't do that."
"Oh, I most certainly can."
Mordo grabbed a staff from a nearby shelf. "What's that?" Stephen asked.
"See that's another question," Mordo said, pointing the staff at him. He turned it on its side. "This is a relic. Some magic is too powerful to sustain so we imbue objects with it, allowing them to take the strain we cannot."
"It makes an excellent bookmark," Cassie chimed in with a smirk.
"Cassie," Mordor warned.
"Sorry."
He turned back to Stephen. "This is the staff of the Living Tribunal." He twisted his hands around it and pulled, causing magic to swear out until he shot it to the side like a whip. Stephen jumped back as the magic went back into the staff. "There are many relics. The Wand of Watoomb, the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr..." he clicked the heal of his boots to show that they were his.
"Just roll of the tongue, don't they?"
"My personal favorite is the Daggers of Daveroth. They throw so easily," Cassie told him.
"When do I get my relic?"
"When you're ready."
"I think I am, why does she get one, and I don't."
"The relic decides when you're ready or else I wouldn't have gotten mine with training to Baby Got Back."
Stephen gave out a chuckle at her story. "For now," Mordo told him. "Conjure your weapon."
"All right," he said hesitantly.
He started to pull his fingers apart, putting all his energy into it when Mordo lunged forward with the staff. The streaks of magic stopped it from connecting with Stephen. "Fight like your life depends on it!" Mordo dragged the staff across so Stephens spell broke. He stepped back, readying himself to use his boots to walk over and hit him from behind. Stephen fell to the floor without a fight. "Because one day, it may."
The Ancient One walked over to stand next to Cassie as Mordo lent a hand to help Strange up. "Was it a good show?" They asked her.
"Only the best I could have gotten," Cassie smiled. "He's getting better."
"Good. He'll need it to help open that portal for you."
They sat there in silence for a moment as Cassie contemplated something. "Can I ask you something?"
"Depends."
"It's about the multiverse and well, my reason being here... how is this allowed to happen? I mean, I know that I am not a part of the sacred timeline and yet I'm here."
"The world works in mysterious ways... maybe someone is looking out for you, someone that Kang can't give orders to."
She tilted her head to the side skeptically. "Am I thinking of whom you are thinking of cause I don't know if I should say-"
"Uatu cannot interrupt our business on Earth-199999 but that does not mean that I don't know he is there," they said with a smirk. "In fact, I can sense his presence now."
Cassie's eyes widened. "Really?" She shot her head up to look at the sky. Why am I doing this, of course, I can't see him. "If you are there Mr. Uatu I'd just like you to know that I am a very big fan of your work as a Watcher and as actor Jeffrey Wright on my earth!" She said to the sky.
The Ancient One laughed at her words. "Strange is almost ready. Let's hope we can return you safely."
Later that night, a storm has started, drenching the whole courtyard in inches of water. All the sorcerers had moved inside and training was canceled for the day. Stephen had wandered off somewhere while Cassie sat with Wong in one of the business centers.
"Okay, now this one is called Say My Name," she told him as she pressed play on the mini speaker she brought.
After his talk with Strange, Wong had come to her asking more about Beyonce and other pop icons; she happily told him that she would show him more things in pop culture. The song started to play, seeping through the room and echoing off its walls. As the beat of the song kicked in, Cassie looked over at Wong. He was swaying his body back and forth to the song.
"It's good right?"
Wong gave a nod. "It is. What are other one-name artists?"
She laughed. "Well, there's a lot. Prince, Rhianna, Cher, Adele -"
She was cut off by the sound of the doors slamming open. Baron Mordo rushed in making both of them turn to face him. "He's got the Eye of Agamotto," he told them.
Both Wong and Cassie shot up to their feet, following Mordo out the door and to the library. They entered just in time, as the walls of the mirror realm began to fracture in front of Stephen on the other side of the room.
"Stop!" They all screamed.
Strange lost his focus, causing the mirror realm to suck back into nothingness. "Tampering with continuum probabilities is forbidden!" Mordo shouted.
"I-I- I was just doing exactly what it said in the book," Stephen stuttered over his words.
"What did the book say about the dangers of performing that ritual?" Wong questioned him.
"I don't know I haven't gotten to that part yet."
Mordo chimed back in. "Temporal manipulations can create branches in time. Unstable dimensional openings. Spatial paradoxes! Time loops! You wanna get stuck reliving the same moment over and over forever... or never having existed at all?"
"Time loops can be important sometimes," Cassie murmured in his defense. The two sorcerers turned to look at her baffled. "But disrupting the sacred timeline will only end with you getting pruned and believe me, you do not want that."
"They really should put the warnings before the spells," said Strange.
Wong reached forward and slammed the book shut. "Your curiosity could have gotten you killed. You weren't manipulating the space-time continuum, you were breaking it." He moved to put the book away before tuning back, still angry. "We do not tamper with the natural law. We defend it."
"How did you even do that?" Mordo questioned. Stephen furrowed his brows confused. "Where did you learn the litany of spells required to even understand it."
"He's got a photographic memory," Cassie said. "It comes in pretty handy when he does surgeries."
"Did surgeries," Stephen corrected her. "It's how I got my M.D. and Ph.D. at the same time."
"What you just did takes more than a good memory," Mordo told him. "You were born for rite mystic arts, just like Cassie. It's why you are her only hope in returning home."
"And yet my hands still shake."
"For now, yes," said Wong.
"But not forever?"
Mordo continued. "We're not prophets."
"When are you gonna start telling me what we are?"
Cassie interrupted their conversation. "Well, I'm kind of like a prophet. It's why my hero's name is Pythia." They turned to look at her confused. "What? I fight crime too. Dr. Strange, your hands will not be shaky forever I do know that."
Mordo took back the conversation. "Follow me."
He and Wong led them into another room, surrounded by closed portal doors and a spinning globe above them. In the center of the room stood a pedestal where the Eye of Agamotto usually was placed.
"While heroes like the Avengers protect the world from physical dangers, we sorcerers safeguard it against more mystical threats." Wong placed his hands on the pedestal, causing the globe above them to light up. "The Ancient One is the latest of a long line of Sorcerers Supreme... going back thousands of years to the father of the mystic arts, the mighty Agamotto. The same sorcerer who created the eye you so recklessly borrowed."
"To be fair, the eye does house the time stone," Cassie added on. "He didn't create that but it was brilliant how he was able to hone its powers."
"Agamotto created three sanctums in places of power where great cities now stand," continued Wong. He motioned to the door behind Stephen. "That door leads to the Hong Kong Sanctum." He motioned across the room. "That door to the New York Sanctum.." He looked behind him. "That one to the London Sanctum. Together, the sanctums generate a protective shield around our world."
"The Sanctums protect the world," added Mordo. "And we the sorcerers protect the sanctums."
"From what?" asked Strange.
"Oh too many things," Cassie said.
Wong elaborated. "Other dimensional beings that threaten our universe."
"Like Dormammu?" Strange asked.
The two sorcerers shot their glares towards him. "How do you know that name?"
"I read it in the Book of Cagliostro why?"
Wong touched the pedestal again, making another diagram appear on the globe above them. "Dormammu dwells in the Dark Dimension... beyond time. He is the cosmic conquerer on a quest to invade every universe and bring all worlds into his dark dimension. And he hungers for earth most of all."
"The pages Kaecilius stole..."
"A ritual to contact Dormammu and draw power from the Dark Dimension."
Cassie let out a yawn from the corner of the room. This was all interesting to her but she knew it wouldn't matter. Strange would defeat him and it would never be mentioned again. The three men turned to look at her. "Is this boring to you?" questioned Mordo. "The possible destruction of our world is just another Monday morning?"
"Oh no I know it's awful but you guys forget I know what happen in the future. Trust me, everything is gonna be fine."
Just then, a bell rang out from above them, alerting them of an intruder. Wong looked up to identify it. "London," he said, as the London Sanctum door opened to reveal followers or Kaecilius running towards them."
Cassie cursed to herself. "Shit," she said. "Maybe I spoke too soon."