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The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 74 [October 2010]
Kamar Taj
–Karl Mordo–
“Are you sure about this, Wong?” He asked one of the strongest Masters of Kamar Taj, on par with himself, and as much as it pained him to admit it, Kaecilius as well. Three of them were seemingly on the same step as each other but even then, the gulf between them and the Ancient One was more of a chasm than a step.
That was why he had chosen to faithfully follow the Ancient One. Because she was the one who kept the realm safe and without chaos.
“Yes, those were the orders straight from the Ancient One. If you want, we can go and confirm them,” Wong suggested and he gave him a look. There was no need to go that far when he was just asking a question.
Still, the requirements for this ritual were somewhat odd. Then again, rituals themselves were odd, not odd in the sense that they were out of order because the principle of equivalent exchange was still followed in most of the rituals. Odd because the ritual also took into account esoteric properties, like the love for an object, feelings held towards an object, memories, etc.
That was why he was shocked when the Ancient One asked the Staff of the Living Tribunal to be borrowed, so that she could conduct some kind of ritual.
“No, if these are the orders, then, by all means,” He said as he parted with the relic that had saved his life more times than he could count.
“Thank you. Now, come, we need to draw the ritual circles once again,” Wong hurried back to the massive underground ritual room that was situated right below the training grounds of Kamar Taj.
“What? Why again?” He found himself asking Wong as they sped towards the ritual room, the urgency in Wong’s movement evident.
“Because, I forgot to connect a line before I sneezed, alright?” Wong said to him as he continued walking. Meanwhile, he almost tripped at the reason.
“Very well. What is the ritual for? And why is the Ancient One doing it herself? Last I remembered, the only time she did something–”
“Was when one of the leylines under the Hong Kong Sanctum had misaligned due to some foolish Atlantean mages, I know. But, if I am not wrong, this has the potential to turn into nearly the same level of tragedy, so we better hurry,”
Wong’s words shocked him. He could still remember the state of panic that Kamar Taj had fallen into when one of the major ley lines, out of the seven that criss crossed the planet, one of them had been thrown out of natural alignment by the actions of a supposedly rouge mage of Atlantis.
The Ancient One had to go personally to Atlantis to school the people there and then had to conduct a massive ritual, over the course of an entire week, where she communed with Gaia to restore the natural alignment of the leylines, allowing the planetary shield to function at its full strength.
Soon, they had drawn the entire ritual circle, the complexity of which was mind boggling.
Just as he had stood up from the ritual, he heard her speaking.
“Great work, Master Mordo, Master Wong.”
The Ancient One had arrived in the ritual room.
“Now, please guard the ritual room. There are nefarious entities that will stop at nothing to hamper our efforts,” with those ominous words, she snapped her fingers and he found himself outside the ritual room, facing the closed door which glowed orange for a moment, then seamlessly melded right into the wall, such that there was no viable entry point into the ritual room now.
A small part of him wanted to question her on what the hell was going on but the larger part of him was glad that he had his orders that he could follow.
A rigid structure. Order.
Some of the favourite things in his life.
So, he stood guard.
For hours on end.
After the fifth hour, there was an alarm that rang throughout Kamar Taj, a shrill voice echoing throughout the complex. He exchanged alarmed looks with Wong as they both realised something had gone wrong with one of the Sanctums.
This was a specific alarm that could only be raised by a Sanctum Master and should only be raised when the Sanctum itself was in danger of being destroyed.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“We need to go, now!” Wong said as he snapped at him incredulously.
“Are you foolish? The Ancient One has given us clear orders. We need to guard the Ritual Room. IT could be a ploy to get us to leave her here. Besides, Master Drumm is a capable Master, and no doubt, other Masters of Kamar Taj must be rushing to help him. What we need to do is follow orders,” He said and then stood guard, his wary gaze inspecting every corner of the surroundings.
He knew that he came off a little rigid in his ways but that was the only way he knew how to live his life now. He was broken when he came to Kamar Taj and Order, that was the one thing that he clung to as he tried to rebuild himself, resulting in this semi broken person known as Mordo.
Oh, he knew that he was not healed, not by any stretch of the imagination, but at least he had a purpose now. At least, he could rest easy knowing that he did all he could for his family. He now knew that there was no feasible way of bringing back his family, not without desecrating their memory in ways most foul.
Multiple Masters approached them after they had realised their location but they were under express orders to not leave, so they ordered all the available forces to reinforce the New York Sanctum and then told the rest to stand vigil over Kamar Taj itself.
______xx_____
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, things had heated up.
Axle Riddle, having finally released all the blockers, or rather, limitations of his powers, stood atop a towering beast made up of material scavenged from the surroundings, standing in front of an eldritch monstrosity made up of dark green and purple tentacles.
The Monster was still growing but Axle had had enough of this farce. He flooded his presence on the avatar that he had created and to his visible surprise, his entire body along with the entire avatar gained a blue hue as he could now feel as if the avatar he had created was an extension of his limb.
“Well, that was new,” Axle muttered to himself as he experimentally punched the monstrosity. He did not know if this was the right approach or not, especially since all his attempts at closing the portal or sending in enough barrage of things to overwhelm the caster of the portal had gone unsuccessful.
But since all the surrounding areas had been evacuated, with thousands of people finding themselves standing in Central Park with his COngregation having standing orders to help the people there, he didn't have to worry much about collateral damage.
All he was worried about were the people…and Bruce.
The timing was completely suspicious and his mind wandered to BRuce and his connection to the Guy Below.
A chill ran down his spine when he realised that if he was involved in this, then he was way out of his league. It was a small mercy that he was unable to enter that portal. Who knew where it led to?
He probably would have been dead now. He was powerful, yes, but it was his mind that was more powerful. His body, while still stronger than most, was woefully inadequate when it came to foes such as the ones he was fighting with.
His punch had clearly pushed the tentacled monstrosity through a couple of buildings behind him but there was no visible damage done.
He winced as he saw the portal had disappeared as well.
Due to his newfound powers, it was as if he had teleported, when he came to the warehouse with Jarvis’ suit along with the SHIELD guards, standing guard over a room that housed the scientists as well as Bruce and Betty.
He was just in time too because a small green mist had appeared in front of the warehouse, out of which a long green limb came out, followed by more and more of the same limb.
He didn’t wait around for the portal to open even wider, as he took the excess vibranium that they had, and infused it with his power. His eyes revealed a surprised look as he could feel some sort of connection with the small piece of Vibranium before it too began glowing blue.
He thrust the Vibranium at the portal’s limbs, the sharp edge of the Vibranium shedding through every little piece of it, throwing dark green blood all over the warehouse floor. The blood melted through the flooring as he threw all the SHIELD security inside the warehouse into another room, separate, from Bruce and Betty.
“Jarvis? Where is Tony?”
“Sir, is in LA. He has sent an additional two suits to assist you and is in the process of convincing Ms.Potts to let him go,” Jarvis’ voice filtered through one of the suits which continued to fire beam after beam at the limbs, doing some damage but not enough.
Meanwhile, he was piloting the avatar on the other side of the city, both giants duking it out in one corner of the city. He couldn’t let the eldritch monstrosity further into the city but he also couldn’t let it get out of his range. So, he was in a stalemate, at least until the masters arrived.
“Oh, come on!” He shouted in frustration as the limb seemed to go on forever. In a fit of frustration, he threw the vibranium at the edge of the portal itself, the green mist giving way to the blue celestial material.
He blinked in shock as the vibranium seemed to do some real damage to the portal.
Well, it would seem that he had a new weapon now.
Not wasting time, he threw the vibranium at the edges, making sure that the limb stopped using his powers, even though it was gaining ground slowly due to the sheer power behind the limb.
He could feel the limb fracturing as it hit a wall made out of pure psionic energy but even then, it seemed to push.
Thankfully, the vibranium came in clutch as it seemingly cut through the portal, destroying it slowly until the portal became too unstable to maintain and winked out of existence.
His shoulders slumped as he relaxed. But the fight was not over yet, he thought to himself as he watched another portal open on top of the eldritch monstrosity, another series of purple tentacles coming through the portal.
Just where in the hell were the Masters of the Mystic Arts?
“Jarvis, stay here. Make sure that only Bruce and Betty are in a single room. Once those two suits arrive, task them to Bruce and BEtty only. They are the priority, understand?”
“Yes, Mr.Invisble Man,”
He nodded at Jarvis and then set off towards the tentacle monster, resolved to end it now, armed with his newfound crude albeit effective weapon.
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