Negotiations with the Ancient One.

My tentacles tightened around Stark ready to crush him when a golden light flashed beside us, and a figure emerged.

"Stop!" They said, in a tone as if they already knew I would.

If that tone didn't already give me an idea of who it was, the androgynous looks certainly left nothing to speculation.

"Ancient One. What a surprise, you know, you picking the last possible moment to show up to save him. Guess even the sanctums need some moolah from time to t-"

Something hit me.

A slap.

How in the fuck?! My forcefields are still up-

Another slap.

"Alright, Ancient One, if you do that one more-"

Slap!

"Fucking he-"

Slap!

Immediately, I teleported a dimensional anchor beside me, activating it, just as her hand disappeared into the mirror dimension.

The sound of a mirror shattering rang out, and she hastily pulled out her hand from a fractal distortion mid air, just as it zipped and crackled shut, clipping her nails, barely missing her fingers.

"Ooh, almost got you there!"

"Yes. Your technology is....marvelous." She said, eyeing the dimensional anchor, curiously.

"Thank You! Now, where was I?" I smiled, tightening the tentacles around.

"If Stark dies!" She lifted the Eye Of Agamotto, housing the Time Stone, and tapped it, revealing a spell.

Strange's spell. From infinity war.

I frowned, gripping Stark harder.

"What's to say I won't just take it here? Kill Stark, kill you. I can just learn magic later and break it." I shrugged.

"You'll find breaking a dead sorcerer's spells quite ... difficult." She said with a serene smile, letting go of the Eye.

"Funny you say that. I have achieved the impossible before. Difficult is a mild Tuesday for me." I replied.

"Yes. But you won't. You hate magic. You would never bring yourself so low as to learn the mystic arts-"

I cut her off.

"I wouldn't say hate. That would mean I actually gave a fuck about magic." I clarified.

She sighed in annoyance.

"....And you won't have to. If you let Stark go. I'll give the stone to you." She said.

"You'll just give the Time Stone to me? I'm supposed to believe that.

You'll probably try to trap me in some time loop prison thing and throw me out of the universe or something.

Don't think I'm some naive daisy, you old hag. I know a thing or two. If I get trapped in a spatio-temporal anomaly my ship is rigged to collapse whatever cluster of realities I'm in at the time. So choose wisely." I warned.

"I wouldn't." She said, "Besides, for all your theatrics about villainy, you still abhor needless death. Isn't that why you let Thor go? You're not a mad man. And I'm here to negotiate. Come." She turned around and opened up a portal.

I looked at Stark, and narrowed my eyes.

"You better behave." I warned, as I picked up the dimension anchor.

"In the meantime." I turned to Star and Riley.

"Star, Riley. Why don't you go and help rescue people in the city. I'll beam down the Shoggoths for assistance."

I turned to the camera.

"Everyone, don't worry when you see the Shoggoths, they just sound and look scary, but they're actually battle medics. They're there to help you out and heal your wounds. So don't be scared and let them do their jobs okay.

And Nick Fury and any of his dumbass cronies listening to me right now.

If any and I mean any of my Shoggoths, technology, my children or even a spare pack of medicine go missing, I'm going to hunt down every single member of Shield and their families and their friends' families and put them on the virtual reality torture computer for the next thousand years.

And if they don't kill themselves after that, another thousand years. Till death begins to seem like a mercy. I'm extending an olive branch here and offering my medical help to this planet for free. So do not fucking abuse it. Capische?" I smiled genially at the camera, before undoing the van's forcefield to let the kids out.

"Riley, leave the Space Stone in the van. I'll be back in a couple of minutes so keep an eye on Star for me till then okay?" I said.

She nodded and dropped the Tesseract onto the back seat, jumping out.

I reactivated the forcefield on the van and stepped into the Ancient One's portal, disappearing into the sanctum.

.

I appeared in an eastern style room with rustic furniture and matted floors.

It felt...prickly yet somehow calming. In a eerie way.

"Tea? Coffee? Something else?" The Ancient One offered.

"No thank you." I politely declined.

"I'll take a Bourbon, on the rocks. If you please." Tony replied.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"What? She offered!" He said, as a crystal glass appeared before him.

"Nice trick." He said, taking a sip, "And wow, that drink. Where did you get it from?"

"A magician never reveals his tricks." The Ancient One bantered.

"You know what, it doesn't matter. Come be a bartender at my tower. I can offer a great package." Stark offered eyeing me.

Want to get a weapon against me, do you?

I smiled.

"With all the drinking you do Stark, I highly doubt it. Though, I do have the pill...." I snarked.

"Why don't you suck it and find out?" Stark shot back.

"There has to be something to suck first." I countered.

"Boys, boys. You can measure dicks later. Let's discuss terms. A city needs saving." The Ancient One interjected.

"You say that as if you care about the city. While you hid in your sanctum all along." I took a seat by the table as she poured some coffee for me anyways.

"I do. I just deemed it the best option to defend the sanctum first and foremost. It is humanity's last defense against extradimensional threats. I cannot allow it to fall." She said eyeing me.

"If that was a concern, I wonder why you didn't just push out my astral form and shift me through the many conjoined dimensions around or even trap me in the mirror dimension?" I asked, curious.

She just smiled, knowingly.

"Who says I didn't?"

A realisation struck.

"You already tried it, with the Time Stone. And in all other possibilities, I retaliated."

"That and ...." She snapped her fingers, as the wall around us fractured and reality seemed to warp, as we arrived in the true sanctum.

"We were in the mirror dimension all along huh?"

She once more just smiled.

"Perhaps I treated magic too harshly." I said, scrathing my chin.

"No take backs." She wagged a finger at me.

"I wasn't going to ask to learn your stupid magic anyways." I replied, sticking out a tongue at her.

"Good. Because you have no talent for it." She said nonchalantly.

"Talent shmalent. It can't be that hard. Bet I'd be better than you at it in a year."

The Ancient One raised an eyebrow.

"A year? You're more humble than I thought."

"High praise coming from you. But you still won't initiate me will you?" I said, before clarifying, "Not that I want you to. I can do it myself if I tried."

I'm not going to beg her to teach me magic. I can do it myself with a little bit of data. I'll just place some micro-cameras around here and learn it when Strange or someone else gets taught.

"If I did agree to teach you, would you trust me not to trap you in a hellish dimension? Or give up control?" She asked.

"Nope. Not in a million years." I replied almost immediately.

"Exactly." She pointed out.

"Great." I muttered, "Now what do you want for the Time Stone? Aside from Stark's life obviously."

There was no way she was going to give me the Time Stone just for Stark. No way I'm going to believe that.

"Nothing else. Quite literally. I want you to preserve the timeline as it was supposed to happen. Do nothing to change it in any appreciable manner.

At least until my successor arrives on the scene. After that, I'll hand the Time Stone over to you. No strings attached."

"After your successor arrives, but not after Dormammu invades Earth, huh?" I mused.

"Make of it what you will." She replied.

So Dormammu will try to affect me in some way. She's probably expecting me to deal with it.

"And what of the subsidiary artifacts?" I asked.

The Staff Of One, and the Berserker Staff, among others were objects of interest for me and given that I planned on recruiting Wanda to be the magic expert on my crew here, they would serve as a potent lure.

"You can take them if you find them. I care not so long as you don't pose a threat to-"

"Excuse me. I think I should have a say in what happens here." Stark interrupted.

I shushed him.

"Shhh! The adults are talking." I said, as a swarm of nanobots covered his mouth, shutting him up.

I turned back to the Ancient One.

"I have one more condition. A trade of sorts." I said snapping my fingers, as a handful of long metallic boxes fell on the table.

"Demon sealing boxes. I know you deal with demonic incursions onto this plane of existence fairly often.

These would serve you, quite well.

They work on genies and other spiritual beings too, most of the time. Just don't expect them to hold the Ghost Rider or anything."

The Ancient One put down her cup, her serene smile finally disturbed for the first time, as she carefully examined the boxes, flipping through the user manual that came with it, like a child on christmas.

"This is ... Incredible. And very useful. What do you want in return?" She asked, hopeful for a deal.

I smiled. Hook, line and sinker.

"I want you to train one person of my choosing in the mystic arts." I answered.

"But not you?" She tilted her head in confusion, or was she using the Time Stone?

I spotted the faint green aura wafting out of her eyes as she spasmed.

Yup. She's looking at the future. While we're sitting right here.

"Is she, you know?" Stark signed, rolling a finger over his head.

Wait Tony Stark knows sign language?

What?!

I shook my head.

"No she's not mad. She's looking into the fu-"

"Yes." The Ancient One interjected.

"I will teach her."

I gave her a deadpan look and she furrowed her brows.

"First things first." I said, "Looking into the future when you have guests over....very rude."

"Sorry." The Ancient One apologized.

I was surprised she did.

I nodded politely and continued.

"Secondly, I have a condition. You will not indoctrinate her into your ideology while she's here. I don't want her getting soft and moral and all that gooey bullshit. Just magic. That's all."

"I don't understand what you mean by ideology. The principles and the philosophy.....they are an integral part of the mystic arts." She explained.

"Then keep it to a minimum." I insisted.

"I will try. And worry not. Our interests align here." She smiled, like she knew something I didn't.

"Okay what DID you see?" I asked.

"That is secret only time will reveal." She answered with a teasing smile, as I fell through a hole.

A portal, back onto the roof of the Avengers tower.

"Ugh!" I groaned, falling hard onto floor.

I stood up, rubbing my butt, and saw Stark trying to get away.

Immediately, I grabbed him with my tentacles, and pulled him close.

"Wait! You promised. That lady-"

I shut him up again as I pulled out a flask of mega seed juice and downed it all.

"Yes. I promised to not kill you. But I also promised to set the timeline right, so I can't have you making any portal tech either." I replied, as the world around me dissolved into maths and logic, strings of formulae and paintings of causality.

A cold, harshness emerged within me as my logical side took over, and for the first time in a week, I unlocked my shard, awakening it.

I reached out and grabbed Tony by the head, and pushed my power to it's fullest.

A kaleidoscope of colors burst forth from within me, shimmering around me like beautiful fireworks, lighting up the roof and I pulled on a handful of concepts, enchanting my hands with them, before pushing that power into Stark's brain.

With one smooth move I set up an enchanted geas in his head that would forever prevent him from accessing portal tech. Even thinking about it won't be possible for him.

Stark's eyes rolled back from the strain.

And by the time my enchantment wears off in a good 300 or so years, he'll be dead anyways so no problems there.

I let Stark go, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Now I have work to do, and a timeline to set right.

And a thought occurs. Why not enchant my own body?

I pushed my new power into my body and watched as it began to glow in technicolor, my bionics whirring with newfound vigor.

Then slowly, I lifted off the ground.

Yup. I had enchanted myself with flight!

And I flew!

Up, up and away!

_____________________

MC begins experimenting with his shard.

The Ancient One has seen the official ship of the second waifu of the series and she likey!

And I'm sorry for the subpar chapter.

I had planned such and awesome banter and cutting remarks and so much more but I forgot them awesoem dialogues while I was having dinner. TToTT

So here is the lesser chapter.

Also, extra chaoter for the 700 powerstones!

Neat!

See you guys later.

Next extra chapter at 100 powerstones, maybe. I'll see.

Am tired. Nighty night, fellas!

Thanks for reading!

Also, if you want to support me, buy me a cup of coffee or read ahead go to,

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