The mundane eyes lied.
The structure that housed the headquarters of the sorcerers, the Sanctum, looked just like any other building. It was made of aged stone, reinforced by steel, with a wide and massive window that formed geometric shapes above the ceiling which allowed light to slip in.
The building was built like a regular house, but to anyone with the spark of the mystic in their veins, it was a fortress of mystical might. Wards and protections wrapped around it much like a newborn baby wrapped and swaddled in cloth. Unfortunately, sensing the spells and wards was the limit of my understanding. Seidr had never been of particular interest to me despite Odin's initial efforts.
Regardless of that, I'd learned of it in my own way. True to my title, I learned a way to destroy it, and there were few things brute force, when applied by me, could not overwhelm.
The wards came to life as I drew closer, like a proximity alert.
The closer I grew, the more I recognized it. It was vaguely familiar, but the little I knew told me it was good work. Gold and red energy came to life, layered upon one another, each ward reinforcing the ones beneath it, the whole thing clearly designed not to stop the first hit but to survive the second and third.
The wind had been the sole thing whipping my hair back, but the closer I got, the more something else acted upon me. I could feel the wards pushing back against me as I descended. I responded with a booming laugh that cracked the air, and then I dove in faster.
It had been too long since something actually had the strength of will to push back against me. Something told me that this was the Ancient One's work. One of the few beings that Thanos had been worried about. Worried enough that he had waited until she died and her successor was a man with not even a quarter of her experience before he decided to wage his war for the stones.
I hit the first ward a second later. The outermost ward bent rather than broke. It tried its best to redirect me sideways, but this was a simple structure. It did not have the Ancient One behind it to bolster it. Against any other person, it might've been enough, but I was not any other person.
The second cracked. The third folded inwardly, but in the end, the wards had held, right until I decided to act. The three wards were pressed together, and my momentum was nearly spent. I put my will against them in the way I put my feet against the earth when I did not intend to move, and I gripped the wards on the sides, pitting my magical nature and physical nature against it. There could only be one result.
It broke in a scattering of magical energy that sent gold light scattering across the street below. The wards had done their work regardless. They had slowed my momentum enough that when I finally hit the Sanctum, it was less an atomic bomb detonation and more a grenade throw.
I slammed into the wide window. Reinforced as it was, it did not matter. The window did not survive.
I went through it, sending shards of glass down the street and making it a problem for others. Then I rolled and came to a stop, my body forced into a crouch in the center of a room that smelled of old books and older wood and something underneath both that I knew was seidr, or magic.
Glass settled around my feet, and blue eyes looked around, my hand hovering above Mjolnir in expectation. I waited for a full second, and when Stephen Strange did not appear before me, I straightened and looked around.
He was taking his time. I had been prepared for the tricks he had played on Thor and Loki, and yet despite standing here for close to ten seconds, I'd seen hide nor hair of him.
I turned my focus back to the room. The inside was what the outside had refused to be. Magical in an obvious sense that saw no reason to hide. Staircases that went in directions staircases had no business going, although I spotted one clearly going downstairs. A globe floated somewhere to my right, and even with a simple glance, I could tell it held the new shape of the world, with all the changes our arrival had brought.
Some part of it glowed red, which I could only imagine was some supernatural creature or another causing trouble. My attention drifted once more, this time to the artifacts arranged carefully across walls and behind clear display glass, but I could feel the mystic protections layered under them, as well as the wards and traps set.
I liked it.
Huginn came through the window after me with a squawk, caught a current, and landed on the globe stand with the ease of a bird that had grown comfortable laying claim to everything in sight.
"Drafty," he said. "Could've used door."
The bird crowed after giving the room a glance.
"The door was less interesting."
"It was also less broken."
I raised a brow at the bird. "You were not this mouthy when you were with Odin."
Huginn was silent for a moment before he spoke.
"You are not Odin."
I took that as a compliment and turned back to the window. Intact enough in my opinion.
Review done, I turned away from the bird and began to walk, one hand comfortably resting on the head of Mjolnir on my hip while examining a tapestry that looked like the Ancient One fighting, who I was going to guess was Dormammu. I frowned. Was she fighting him or making a bargain? The perspective changed depending on the angle you were looking at it from.
I had caught perhaps four other interpretations before I heard the footsteps, followed by the huffing and panting of a man running up them.
I turned just as the figure crested the stairs that led downstairs, and I beheld the chubby Asian features of a familiar man dressed in familiar robes.
Wong.
The chubby Korean man and Master of the Mystic Arts was out of breath and had to take a second to stop at the top of the stairs and catch his breath. His eyes had sleep bags beneath them, and his sclera was red. I must've woken him up, so I allowed it, simply watching in silence as he recovered enough to finally look at the broken window before he trailed a path from it to me.
The moment he set his eyes on me, I could almost physically see the sleep flee him.
"Would you believe me if I said I came here to talk?"
There were no words, no reply, no questions, and I didn't blame him. His interpretation of things was clear. The Sanctum had been attacked, and he was going to respond the way he had been taught. Regardless of that, his first actions were a mistake.
Wong slammed his hands together, and a circular geometric sigil came to life, and out of that circle came a whip. A whip made of golden energy that crackled. He sent it at me with a swing, aiming for my throat, but my hand snapped out, intercepting it midway, and it coiled around it instead.
Wong stared at my unimpressed form in surprise as I simply stood in place, then he made his second mistake.
He tried tugging at it.
Once more, I remained firmly in place.
Only this time, I didn't wait for him to realize his mistake. Instead, I tugged back.
He came flying at me, releasing the magical whip in time for a full-faced backhand that sent him flying backward.
It was a testament to the effort I'd put into restraining that blow that the only injury he suffered was a split lip as he was sent flying backward, but Wong was not a seasoned sorcerer and Master of the Mystic Arts for nothing. His hands moved even midair, and a portal appeared behind him, swallowing him before winking shut.
Unfortunately for him, it had remained open long enough for me to catch a glimpse of its exit point.
Above my head and behind my neck.
I spun faster than he could've expected and caught the arm holding the glowing energy knife in a single hand, then gently slammed him into the ground before putting a foot on his chest to pin him in place.
"I suppose you don't," I noted as he squirmed beneath me.
"No, I don't."
Then his hands moved again, his fingers coming to life, and the portal opened beneath him, sending him through, my foot alongside him.
I remembered how that ended for Obsidian Cull.
I jumped up a second later, my second foot pushing me upward just as the portal snapped shut beneath me.
Wong was crafty, which should've been no surprise. He was a sorcerer. Unfortunately, he was a sorcerer fighting in close combat against the God of Strength. The only reason he wasn't a smear on the ground was because this fight was my fault.
I felt the portal appear somewhere behind me as a construct shot out from it, a giant glowing nail with inscriptions around it. I spun again and slapped it to the side, sending it flying with enough force that it destroyed the side of the wall and went hurtling toward a skyscraper in the distance.
Hit-and-run tactics.
The portal closed, and another opened behind me, and Wong repeated the same trick. I spun again, but this time I didn't deflect it. I shifted to the side just enough to dodge, then my hand snapped out, and I caught it in the middle just in time for another portal to open behind me. Using the momentum of the projectile construct, I spun again, and this time I hurled it right into the next one before a surprised Wong could even send the next projectile.
The two constructs struck each other in a violent cascade of magical combustion that destroyed them both, disrupting Wong's portal and sending him flying back first into a wall.
By the time he recovered, I had crossed the distance, wondering if he still had some fight in him.
He did.
His hands moved, but mine were faster.
The giant mittens I called hands lashed out, and I got my fist around both his wrists before he could do more than twitch. I gripped them hard. Not hard enough to break anything. Just hard enough that nothing was going to move unless I decided it was going to move.
Then I lifted him up and over a foot into the air to put him on the same height as me.
We stood there for a moment. His feet were a few inches off the ground, which was a side effect of my grip rather than intention, and his expression was squeezed into a mixture of anger and confusion.
"If I release you," I said, "are we going to continue this?"
He said nothing for a second.
"You've got good instincts," he said instead. "Most people don't account for the portal edge."
"Call it divine inspiration."
It was a more believable excuse than the truth.
A sound came from the broken window. The familiar whine of repulsors cycling down, and then Iron Man floated through the gap in the glass with his faceplate melting back to reveal the annoyed frown he was sending my way.
He looked at the scattered glass. At the dissolved constructs. At the man I was holding midair by his wrists.
"You know," Tony said, "most people simply knock."
"The wards were in the way."
"The wards were the point," Wong grumbled.
Tony landed, shook his head in exasperation, and murmured something vaguely uncharitable.
"Am I not the one who's supposed to be the troublemaker? When did I turn into the voice of reason?"
Then he looked at the suspended sorcerer with the narrowed-eyed recognition of someone placing a face from memory.
"Wait." He pointed at Wong. "I might be wrong, FRIDAY, but is that not the Hogwarts reject who told us to leave when we were handling the ice zombies situation?"
"Yes, sir," a synthetic voice replied.
Wong's expression shifted.
"Hogwarts reject? How dare you!"
"Well, what else am I supposed to call you?"
"They call themselves sorcerers, I believe," the vaguely robotic voice replied once more in a British tone.
"What?"
"They have a website and an email, sir."
While Tony was left looking flabbergasted, I turned back to Wong with a raised brow and a chuckle.
"You can put me down."
My other brow rose, and he gave a sigh in response.
"I promise I won't attack you again."
I nodded, then I dropped him, and with agility at odds with his chubby stature, he landed well. Then he straightened, taking the time to dust his robes as he looked around with a pained grimace at the destruction he had unleashed in his bid to put me down.
"So who are you, and what do you actually want?" he said, turning back to me.
"I'm here to talk."
He looked at me in a way that told me there were better ways to hold a conversation than breaking into someone's house.
"My name is Thor Odinson, and I'm looking for the Sorcerer Supreme."
Wong frowned.
"You're not..."
"He's a Thor from another universe," Tony cut him off. "This is going to get tiring after a while, isn't it? Hey, ginger, what do you think about a postcard or signboard with..."
I gave him a look that didn't exactly silence him, but the endpoint of that sentence was a murmur and a frown. He was not used to not having the biggest stick in the room.
"I see," Wong said in complete understanding. "That makes sense. Now what do you want with the Sorcerer Supreme exactly?"
I blinked. That was quick. Most people showed some level of doubt... but I suppose this is not the strangest thing, a master of the mystic arts had seen. The Ancient one had barely blinked at the Hulk and the time travel shenanigans in Endgame.
"I need a portal," I said. "To Asgard."
Wong stared back in confusion.
"What?"
"A portal to Asgard." I gestured at the room around us. "I was told this was the address."
"A portal to Asgard..." He looked at me. "I suppose you're right to ask for the Sorcerer Supreme. That's not something most sorcerers can manage. The Nine Realms sit outside our standard navigational framework. Unfortunately for you..." He paused. "The Sorcerer Supreme is not here at the moment."
Before I could ask why, a bird flew in from below, trailing after him.
A different bird compared to mine. Golden and obviously constructed from magic. It landed on the sorcerer's shoulder with the familiarity of something that had done this before.
Wong's expression changed into a frown.
"This is the last message we received from him," he said. "About a day ago."
The bird opened its beak, but no sound came out. Instead, it changed, its shape shifting, reforming into something that was not quite an image and not quite a projection but carried the clear outline of an amulet, and within the amulet, turning slowly, a green stone was revealed alongside a grasping hand that reached for it.
"That stone looks familiar," Tony said quietly.
The sorcerer looked at him.
"The stone in that amulet," Tony said. He looked at me briefly, then back at the sorcerer. "What is it, and why does it look like the gem I put in Vision's head?"
Wong gave him a confused look before speaking. "I don't know this vision you speak of, but the stone in the amulet is known as the Time Stone. One of the Infinity Stones born with the creation of this universe. It governs the concept of time," the sorcerer said. "In the hands of the Sorcerer Supreme, it can be used to view possible futures, reverse events, and manipulate the flow of moments. In the wrong hands..."
He did not finish that sentence because he did not need to.
Tony's jaw tightened as he remembered my words.
"Vision," Tony said.
The sorcerer looked at him in confusion.
"That name again. Who is this Vision you speak of?"
"A synthezoid. He has a similar stone in his head. Different color, but they look alike." Tony looked at the golden bird, still holding the shape of the amulet and its contents. "Same family of object, I'm guessing."
"What does this have to do with Strange?" I broke the silence, pushing the story along.
Wong looked at me like he was judging how much he could reveal. Then his eyes drifted to Mjolnir on my hip, and he made his decision.
"This is the end of the recording, but this bird was sent to warn us. A group of strangers attacked him while he was returning home. They were after the amulet." He looked at me. "And the stone inside it."
Huginn shifted on his globe stand.
"So the alien children are collecting."
Every head in the room turned to him.
The bird looked back at all of us like we were stupid for not understanding what he meant. He was the only one present for Loki's debriefing.
The sorcerer turned back to me.
"If you want a portal home," he said, "you'll need Strange to open it. And to get Strange, you'll need to help me find him."
He looked at the golden bird, at the shape it still held, at the soft pulse of the stone within the amulet.
"They took him, which means they're going to try to take the others."
I looked at Tony.
Tony looked at the bird.
"Vision," he said again, and this time there was worry in his voice. "We have to get to him now."
A/N: A power surge caused me to lose a very big chunk of WDKY 17 and Allfather 29. If you've dabbled with writing, you'll know it is harder to get yourself to rewrite a chapter you lost than to write a brand new chapter. Anyway, I was in a funk, and it took a few days to get out of it, but I'm back again to regular updates.