Chapter 11

An: It occurs to me that I never properly described how MC looks like. Heres a picture I made using avatar maker.

We spent the next few moments in semi awkward silence as Dr Strange tended to my wounds. As he casted his healing spell, my eyes were locked on to the spell circle he had formed on his hand. Spell circles were only used for the more advanced spells as both the amount of focus and Manipulation over mana would be too time consuming to be used in a combat situation. Even the healing spell he was currently using was actually a small cluster of smaller spells that couldn't be maintained without magic circle keeping the spells stable.

Once he made sure that my wounds had stopped bleeding, he summoned a bandage out of thin air before wrapping injured arm and abdomen with it.

"So, you seem to have knack for getting into fights with the mystic threats. This is the second time I have rescued you isn't it?" Strange quipped as he sat down on the ground next to me.

"Yeah. Just unlucky I guess." I muttered.

"I see. Well after what happened during our first encounter, I have been keeping an eye on you incase Doom tried anything. Speaking of which do you know why he came after you?" he asked.

"I don't know really. He said he saw me train and I apparently dropped the notes on the spells I was practicing when I was making my way back. He wanted to know where I had learned them. Wait you were watching me?!" I asked a little too loudly than I meant to.

"Well 'watching' is a little too strong, I simply placed a few wards on you that would alert me if any anamolous activity occurs around you. Looks like I made the right call. " He replied with a chuckle while looking at the spot where he had obliterated the pack of demons.

"Why didn't I notice this? " I asked incredulously as I wasn't really comfortable with people placing spells on me without my knowledge or consent. To which Strange merely chuckled.

"You still have much to learn girl. Well, I'm going to make sure they isn't any more of these creature running about. You should head on home." he said as he got up.

Now a sensible person would have heeded that advice. Heck two months ago, I would gave hightailed it out of there even if he didn't say it. Not to mention the fact that I was still pretty low on mana so I was more or less going to be dead weight. But instead I got grabbed his cloak causing him to look back at me in confusion.

"Wait. I want to go with you." I said in a soft tone. And sure enough the good Doctor's eyes widened at my words.

"Are you crazy? You almost got killed by a single one of them. Who knows how many of them are still here. Not to mention, you barely have any mana left, how do you plan on even fighting them." I gestured to Lux and he let out a sigh. "I was afraid of this. Look at your arm." he said gesturing to the one which held Lux.

I followed his gaze and looked at my arm which was stained by the blood of the creature. Yet when I looked at it, I found several black veins on my skin instead of the blood.

"Those creature were never meant for combat. Their true purpose lay in their blood. Coursing through them in a liquid miasma meant to infect mortals. The miasma lies dormant for hours before it spreads to the rest of the body turning them into thralls."

I panicked at his words until he suddenly grabbed my hand before swiftly casting a spell. The black lines suddenly stopped spreading but were still present nonetheless. I turned back to Strange who simply looker at me with a serious expression.

"That should delay the miasma for a few days so long as you don't get infected any further. Long enough that we can treat it with Alchemy. Which is why you should go home." was all he said before the cloak suddenly slapped my hand away and he floated up and flew out of my sight within seconds.

I could only stare at where he had left before my gaze turned to my arm, the miasma still visible. I let out a grunt in frustration before heading home. He had a point, I was less than useless at the moment. Even after all the time I spent training, I had no choice but to run away with my tail between my legs.

I froze as that thought ran through my head. It was true. I trained a lot so that I could never be as helpless as I had been that night. If it weren't for Strange and Peter, who know what would have been my fate. And now the same thing was happening once more. And there was no way I could let it end like this.

But on the other hand, he had a point. I can't get close to them I had to attack from afar and I couldn't do that without mana. Even Ullr's Reprieve needed mana to be used. If only I remembered to bring my potions with me.

But then it hit me. I didn't need my potions. There was another way to regain my mana. The Breathing Technique. And so I foolishly began trying master something even the masters of arcane arts fail to do so in their life time in the span of an hour or however long it would take Strange to find the..... fissure was it? To be honest I didn't really know what he was talking about.

I didn't even bother sitting down as I closed my eyes and tried to forcibly absorb the nearby mana. Minutes passed but not one speck of mana seemed to approach me and I began to feel lightheaded. Any other day, this would have been where I stop. But tonight, I was determined to either master it or die trying and so I doubled down even as pain started spreading throughout my body.

And then suddenly, I felt a heavy pressure around my body like I was being crushed by hydraulic presses from all directions. I knelt down in pain and soon even my legs lost their strength as I fell on my back. The last thing I saw was the starry sky above me. And then my vision went white.

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When I came to, I found myself staring into the staring the sky once more but something seemed different. The pain I felt before seemed to have disappeared altogether as if it never existed in the first place. More over, I had fallen on to solid ground before I lost my consciousness yet somehow, I felt water flowing up to my cheeks.

I quickly got up and surveyed the area and I found myself no longer among the wilderness but in an barren and empty area. There was not a single thing around me as far as the horizon went. The only thing accompanying me was the unfamiliar sky above me. Suffice to say, it was clear that I wasn't on Earth at the moment.

I looked up, engrossed at the breathtaking scenery when I suddenly felt the breeze shift. I looked around to find a large structure where there were none just a minute ago. As my eyes fell on the large structure, which seemed to resemble a large tower, I suddenly felt a force drawing me towards it. In a panic, I attempted to combat it inky for it to pull me even harder. Before I knew it, I was violently being pulled through the air towards the base of the tower at an acerlerating rate while all I could do was still continue my futile attempt to get free. As I got closer to the base of the tower, I noticed a doublesided door in my path. Yet there was no change in the speed at which I was pulled as I was on a collusion course with the door. But just as I was about to hit the door, my vision turned white once more.

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I woke with a start, gazing at the sky, and immediately looked around and found myself back inside the woods. After it was clear that I was back on Earth, I let out a sigh of relief but found myself unable to relax. What had just happened to me. I wondered. It seemed so real at the same, it was like I just woke up from a dream. And then I realised something.

My mana. It was almost full. I took my cellphone and looked at the time to find that only mere minutes had passed since I had fallen unconscious till now. Since not enough time had passed for me to gather it naturally, it only left one possibility, that I manage to successfully master the breathing technique.

After that, I pretty much forgot about what had just happened to me as I yelled out with happiness before I remembered why I was trying to recover it in the first place. A began chanting and donned my Valor ensemble once more. All I had to do now was catch up to Strange. Levitation was out of the question and so I went with the next best thing. I took Lux and began chanting. Soon, a light green wind enveloped me. This was one of the first spells I learned from the Adjutant's school of magic called the [Mistral Aura]. The spells harnesses the power of the wind to enhance the casters speed. At my current level, I can run up to 40 km/hr and maintain the spell for an hour. And hour and half if I push it.

Once I felt the spell's effect over my body? I began running in the same direction as Strange had flown off to. During my short trek to find Strange I became aware of simple yet potentially deadly flaw of the [Mistral Aura] spell as I kept on tripping over the roots of trees, rocks and trash. I managed to get 5 bruises bruises by the time I saw the man's stupid cloak. I skidded to a halt around 10 meters away from the man in question be for looking over the situation. Strange was battling an entire horde of demons numbering around 30 or so and he was doing pretty well. Each of his attacks thinned the enemy's numbers by half yet more seemed to arrive by the minute. I followed the direction that they were coming from with my eyes and found what looked a crack formed on midair. The creatures seemed to be emerging from that.

Remembering Strange's warning, I dispelled Lux and took out Ullr's Reprieve. The bow hummed to life as my mana flowed into it. I then ran a finger over the arrow rest of the bow while chanting and a thin translucent arrow materialised as I pulled my fingers back while grabbing the string. I kept kept the bow drawn while supplying more mana into the arrow. I then aimed at a cluster of creatures who were far away from Strange's recent spell loosened the arrow. The arrow flew past Strange before impaling itself on the throat of the creature before it fell lifeless amongst its brethren.

Strange turned his head and faced me just as I walked up to him, with my bow drawn with another another in place.

"We will speak of this later." he muttered as he refocused his efforts in culling the creature while began picking on the ones he misses.

We continued this particular song and dance for minutes until I got sick of it and asked. "These things keep on coming. Shouldn't we close that portal over there." I pointed at the crack from which the creatures were emerging.

"First of all, thats not a portal its a fissure. A portal is a controlled gateway a fissure is something that occurs due to the reaction between mana from two separate dimensions." Strange lectured as he cast another spell. "Secondly I already tried that. Something big is entering the fissure from the other side and messing with mana fluctuations of the fissure. To stop it we'll either need to create and equal but opposite amount of fluctuations from this side without messing up the..... "

" Or we have to wait until that emerges from it then take it down. " I interrupted him.

" Yes. " Strange sighed." By the way. When did you change your outfit. " he added.

" After I regained my mana. "

" And how did you do that... "

A roar suddenly echoed through the area which caused the creatures to freeze in place. I looked at the fissure and saw a large arm emerge from it before it dug its claws into the ground. I then saw a large head bigger than the fissure squeeze through using its arm as a leverage followed by a it's torso and remaining arm and finally the rest of its body. Its then stood up on its legs as its eyes fell on us. It looked like a paler version of the creatures we were fighting, only bigger as it rose upto 5 meters. It then began squealing causing the smaller creatures to resume their assault only for them to be wiped out by the combined efforts of myself and Dr Strange.

After seeing its footsoldiers get dispatched, the larger creature began running at us. Sensing the danger we were in Strange suddenly grabbed my shoulder before flying up, just as the creature released a red beam of energy on where we were standing. It was at that moment I saw something peculiar about this creature. Hanging from its neck was an ornate necklace with a red Ruby in the center.

"Strange? Do these creatures normally have jewellery on them." I asked while pointing the necklace to him.

"No. It seems there something else going on around here." he muttered as he conjured magical chains that held the creature in place.

Using this opportunity, I conjured an arrow and shot it at the creatures head only to see it break off much to my surprise.

" Damn it. This thing is too tough. Do you have a plan?" I asked.

"Yes." Strange replied as he flew away from the creature and set me down.

"Stay here and don't move. I'll handle him." he said before flying back towards the creature who manages to break the chains. I then watched as the creature attempted to swatt at the flying form of Dr Strange only to miss him while the latter counter attacked with spells that seemed to harm it.

It was all going well until the necklace started glowing. The creature let out a another beam of energy which Strange couldn't dodge in time. He however, managed to conjure a barrier that blocked the attack. However just as the attack ended, the creature shot another beam and then another until Strange was forcibly grounded and had to focus on maintaining his barrier.

Seeing things going south fast, I prepared another arrow. However, this one was quite different from the rest as I imbued it with a stronger version of the explosion spell I used to kill one of the creature's thrall in the beginning. I then aimed it at the creatures neck where the necklace lay and released the arrow just as the creature finished its barrages.

The arrow flew through the air before hitting the creature's collarbone, with chain of the necklace just a few inches away from the point of impact. The arrow exploded upon impact, throwing the creature off balance. Dr Strange used this opportunity to take to the air once more and began a barrage of attacks on the creature's Achillies tendon causing it to kneel down in pain before conjuring another set of chains and binding it in place. The creature made a last ditch effort, trying to shoot at Strange only to see nothing happen. It was then that it realised that the necklace was no longer there, just as Strange casted one last spell and pillar of light engulfed the creature causing it to scream bloody murder. By the time the pillar faded, their was nothing left of the creature.

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I sat down on a rock as I watched Strange approach me after closing the portal. He looked like he had multitude of this to say yet as he came up to me, he sighed with slight weary smile before speaking.

"It's getting late. We'll have that talk another time." He then took out a small piece of paper and handed it to me. "Go to that address tommorow. The miasma is still in your body and we have purge it." he added before taking out an odd shaped ring and placing it on his finger. He then began rotating the arm in a circular motion until a portal began forming infront of him.

He then turned to me and said. "This portal will lead to an alleyway near your house."

I stood up marvelling at the portal. I was about to ask him to teach me that when he cleared his throat before extending an open hand. I alternated between looking at him then his palm until it hit me. I sheepishly chuckled as I took out the now damaged necklace the creature was wearing before passing it to Dr Strange. I then entered the portal as the Doctor watched with a smile on his face.