You ever looked back at your life and wondered how the hell you got here?

  I had a death grip on Logan's back as we dropped out of the sky. Wind howled past my ears while we hurtled toward the ground, the world blurring into noise and force.

  We hit. The ground cracked, the impact rolling outward like a shockwave, and then everything went sideways. I stumbled, boots skidding, lungs on fire as I dragged in air.

  Then the screaming started.

  I turned just in time to see the sky tear itself apart. Lightning spiderwebbed across the clouds, colors bleeding wrong through the storm as Chamabra howled, the sound making my teeth buzz in my skull.

  Logan y nearby, groaning, his massive form already shrinking back down.

  Shit. Had the ability dropped when he passed out?

  I jogged over to Wong, eyes flicking between the writhing giant and the ritual ripping the heavens open. "What the hell is happening?"

  He didn't answer right away. Neither did Mordo nor Kaecilius. All three stared at Logan, then back up at the sky, expressions tight and unreadable.

  Three other sorcerers came over, throwing up spells, casting nervous gnces at the lightshow overhead.

  "That's what we should be asking you," Mordo said at st, voice sharp. "What monstrosity is that?"

  "We ran into an immortal called Selene while rescuing the sacrifices," I said, keeping my eyes on Logan as another pained sound tore out of him. Unease crept up my spine, but I shoved it down. I hoped to hell they had made it somewhere safe. "She called it a Beast of Chthon. Chamabra."

  All three of them went pale.

  The screaming overhead intensified.

  "Can we stop it?" I asked.

  Wong watched the roiling sky, face ashen, then shook his head. "Interfering with a ritual is already a foolish choice. With this much power in the air, we would likely do more harm than good."

  Before I could argue, Mordo moved. He strode to a bound figure on the ground and struck him hard enough to snap his head sideways. The man groaned as Mordo seized his colr and hauled him upright.

  "You," Mordo snarled, shaking him. "What ritual is this? You must have built in failsafes. Speak, or you will kill us all."

  The emaciated man—Kun Gath, if I had to guess—blinked blearily. Up close, he looked terrible. Skin stretched too tight over bone, eyes sunken, his smile twisted as he took in the burned reality around him.

  "What is this…" He ughed, a wet, horrible sound. "You fools. You've truly done it. Better than I ever imagined!"

  A glowing manda snapped into pce at his throat as Kaecilius stepped in close. "Answer the question."

  Kun Gath's grin widened. "Of course. Though it hardly matters now. I sought a contract with a great lord of realms. The ritual was meant to offer a fragment of reality in exchange for power. But you…" His gaze lifted skyward, eyes bzing with manic delight. "You went further. You offered the beast of a god in its entirety."

  "Who?" Kaecilius demanded.

  The air fractured.

  "He-Who-Waits," Kun Gath whispered, savoring every sylble. "The Cosmic Conqueror. Lord of the Dark Dimension."

  The world lurched.

  Everything started to go very, very wrong.

  "Dormammu!"

  —

  It was a gamble. She had known it the moment she allowed Jack to go with Wong and Mordo.

  A desperate choice, born from the quiet hope that perhaps she could still change the fate of a student she knew she had failed.

  Living without foresight again was difficult. The absence of certainty gnawed at her, dredging up a fear she had long since buried during her centuries as Sorcerer Supreme. It was terrifying, yes, but beautiful in its own way. The destined death that had haunted her visions for so long was gone. Whether that fixed point had been erased, or whether she had simply become blind to it, she did not know.

  The possibility tempted her all the same.

  She had long believed she had come to terms with her own death.

  How arrogant.

  A rueful chuckle escaped her as she watched Anna move through her exercises. In the end, she, too, was only mortal. When the chance appeared to change her fate, she reached for it without hesitation.

  What little Anna had revealed, and what she had glimpsed through the marvelous tools and abilities the young man wielded, hinted at something extraordinary, something she dared not fully grasp. The potential consequences were vast, but the gains were too great to ignore.

  She had thought she could weather the storm regardless. She was the Ancient One. She had confronted horrors that dwarfed gods and bartered with entities that preyed on worlds. Surely she could handle the shenanigans of one reckless young man.

  What a fool she had been.

  Her breath caught when her brow burned at Kamar-Taj. A sharp, visceral pain fred as the symbol upon her forehead ignited with power like never before, heralding the approach of something terrible. A shiver ran through her spine as the sensation resolved itself.

  The Dark Dimension was descending.

  A camity capable of ending the world.

  Without hesitation, she crossed her hands and opened the Eye of Agamotto. For the first time in centuries, she did not merely borrow fragments of the Time Stone's power.

  Every rule she had lived by, every warning she had ever learned, shattered as she grasped time itself and bent it to her will.

  The world slowed. Her own personal time accelerated violently beyond reality. People froze mid-motion, the world around her reduced to a near-static tableau.

  With a flick of her wrist, a portal opened, and she was gone.

  She traced her students' paths as fast as she could manage, arriving at the pocket realm moments ter. Her lips thinned as she crossed the threshold, immediately sensing the sealed nature of the space. With no other choice, she flew, pushing her accelerated state to its limits.

  Even then, she could feel the encroaching power of the Dark Dimension. Her frown deepened as the truth became clear. Whatever being had created this pocket realm had anchored it adjacent to Earth, creating a backdoor that slipped past the Sanctums' defenses. Once it devoured this realm, it would have a clear entry into the world.

  Reality was already beginning to fracture. Even in her hastened state, she could see the shimmer and splintering of the world.

  As she tore through the forest, civilians fled in blind panic. She frowned but did not slow, snapping her wrist to conjure wards around them as she passed. She could only hope that it would be enough.

  Then she arrived in Hell.

  That was the only word for it.

  At the ritual's center, distorted shapes and broken space writhed outward, colors of the Dark Dimension spreading like a sickness. Even with time bent to her will, she could feel the pull of it calling to her.

  Hundreds of darklings spilled through fractures in space, their forms twisted and demented. Jack stood at the center, carving through space with brute force and bde. Kaecilius y broken, impaled by a shard of rippling reality. Wong and Mordo stood back to back, moments from being overwhelmed.

  They were nearly frozen, like a painting suspended in time. She could see the outcome looming just beyond the next heartbeat.

  There was only one choice.

  She was the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.

  And she would defend it, no matter the cost.

  She reached out and committed the forbidden act, forcing the flow to turn back on itself.

  The Dark Dimension was a realm without time. It existed outside the current. But here, at this fragile threshold between worlds—one bound by time, the other utterly free of it—the bance could be tipped.

  Time was hers to command.

  "STOP."

  Her accelerated perception shattered as she poured everything she had into the spell. Verdant light surged outward, freezing the advance of the Dark Dimension and its crawling monstrosities mid-encroachment.

  Even with the Time Stone, it would have been impossible for anyone else. Yet like a mother welcoming her home. The symbol on her hand bzed with power as she leaned into the connection, enforcing time onto them and reversing the flow.

  Sweat ran down her spine as reality resisted, then began to yield. Light fred as time unraveled and rewove itself, thread by thread, damage unspooling even as she restored it. A strained grunt tore from her throat as raw energy screamed against her control, the walls of the world groaning as she forced them shut.

  Something noticed.

  A presence pressed against the frozen air, vast and endless.

  "CEASE THIS! YOU WIELD MY POWER AND DENY ME?!"

  Beyond the breach, she could make out a face—pnets for eyes, a head wreathed in living destruction. She felt the resistance immediately, a crushing counterforce pushing back against her will. Her teeth ground together as she held on, her body straining under the effort of channeling so much of the Infinity Stone as it tore at her from within.

  "MY CHOSEN! SERVE YOUR MASTER. SLAY THAT MORTAL!"

  Below her, dark energy surged. The captured sorcerer tore free of his bonds, power flooding him at st.

  "HAHA, POWER AT LAST—"

  No! If she were interrupted now…

  Thunder cracked. The sorcerer's head left his shoulders in a clean arc. Jack appeared behind him and sshed the corpse a dozen more times.

  Relief barely had time to register before she turned. Wong and Mordo were already at Kaecilius's side, struggling futilely as dark energy flooded his system. She could see it clearly, the corruption sinking in, spreading fast.

  Was this her destined failure? To lose him after all?

  No.

  She wrenched one hand free and pointed it at Kaecilius. Verdant light poured into him as the reversal washed over his body. Her jaw clenched as the added strain threatened to tear her apart. Pulling him back like this would exact a terrible cost, she knew it, but it did not stop her.

  "Get out!"

  The reversal accelerated. The rend in reality began to close. The presence recoiled as hundreds of darklings were dragged backward, torn from the world in reverse. Even the monstrous face vanished, severed as if a door had been smmed shut.

  The breach screamed closed.

  Time snapped back into pce.

  Kaecilius gasped as his body realigned with a sickening pull, flesh and bone rewound together before the damage could finalize.

  He colpsed, alive.

  Yet every choice had a price.

  "What have you done?" Mordo whispered, staring at her forehead in open horror.

  ***

  Sorry for the dey tax season makes everything chaotic

  Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices. If you want more, please comment your thoughts and ideas.

  I have advanced chapters on my if you wanna read ahead.