Capítulo 63: Sise-Neg
A/N: Pat-reon: HelloDarkness07
A short chapter, sorry for this! This chapter fulfilled everything I wanted to include here, and extending it more would have been unsatisfactory.
Sorry!
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Three Sorcerers Supreme.
Three Eyes of Agamotto.
Three Time Infinity Stones.
And me, the only person who has no idea what the fuck is happening over here.
"Was there a Sorcerer Supreme convention planned or something? If so, I'd like to say that I am not a Sorcerer Supreme, hell, I'm barely a Sorcerer." I ask, after Doctor Strange and Karl Mordo walk forward with their hands glowing orange with the Tao Mandalas, both of them staring at the floating head in front of us.
Dr Strange glances back at me, and says, "If you're not a Sorcerer, then I suggest you to take a few steps back, Mr..?"
The way he understood my Ancient Greek words, and the way his own answer came to me in English, Greek, and Egyptian all at once, I understood that a translation spell was at work.
"Atharva Joshi." I answer, introducing myself while not doing as he told me. The name was because my face was currently of my Atharva Joshi persona, and that is what I'm staying as for a while now. And I'm not defenseless, despite not having an Infinity Stone around my neck.
I'm a Wizard, a Sorcerer, and a Mutant. I'm anything but weak.
"Right.." Dr Strange says, frowning a bit at me.
The female Sorcerer Supreme walks forward, her hand crossed in front of her chest, and she says, "Might I suggest first dealing with the Magic Thief, fellow Sorcerers? We can have a conversation later, if we want to."
She then spreads her fingers apart, and pulls her hands away from each other, casting gestures to open the Eye of Agamotto. Nodding, Dr Strange does the same, and says, "Mordo, stay back. I might need your Magic to succeed."
Mordo stands behind Dr Strange, and puts his hand on Dr Strange's shoulder. All the while, I look on in curiosity. Hey, I might not be weak, but these are three Infinity Stones, or three copies of the same Infinity Stone, and I have zero experience with them.
The floating head opens his mouth, having not stayed idle, and shoots a green beam of Magic, the same colour as that of the Time Stone, at us. Seeing that the two Time Stone users weren't ready, and were still in the middle of casting gestures to complete the spell, I drop down and slam my palms on the ground, pushing my Magic into the sand.
The piece of land underneath us suddenly solidifies, and floats up, taking us with it. The beam of Green Time Magic that the floating head had thrown at us harmlessly passes from underneath us, and slams into the ground. The spell hits more sand, and causes said sand to completely disappear.
If my guess is right, it was erased from Time itself, which is.. scary to say the least.
"Thank you, Mage Atharva." The female Sorcerer Supreme says.
"Wait.. he's a Mage? I never thought I'd get to see-" Dr Strange begins, as he turns back to look at me.
"Later, Strange! Deal with Sise-Neg first! I can feel my Magic loosing weight!" Karl Mordo says, interrupting whatever Strange was about to say.
And then, as one, the two Sorcerers Supreme on my side point their green glowing hands towards Sise-Neg, and shoot two beams at the floating head. The floating head opens his mouth, and sends another beam at us.
The three beams of Green Magic collide in the middle, two against one, but surprisingly enough, the single beam was more than strong enough give the two beams a tough fight.
For a few seconds, nothing happens, and the beams just collide into a single spot in between us, forming into an orb of concentrated Magic. Just by fighting with one another, these beams were causing the surroundings to be messed up. It was as if we were.. out of Time. Out of the flow of time.
One moment I would see myself looking at myself through a thin glass, and the next I would see myself and Tatiana cuddling together. Then I saw myself dodging black daggers thrown at me, and the next moment I saw myself talking with the female Sorcerer Supreme, both of which… haven't happened yet.
Judging by the glances given by the other Sorcerers present, I'm guessing even they're seeing moments of their life, of their past, or future.
The Three Time Stones fighting with each other, had connected with each other. They were resonating, and causing us to phase out of the Time Stream, to look at our own lives from out of Time.
With the three beams fighting for dominance, and going nowhere, I decide to help out, and gently land us back down.
Taking my Staff, which had remained floating to my side when I'd dropped it, in my hand, I point its head towards the floating head of Sise-Neg, and whisper, ~~Lightning!~~
WHHOOOOOSSSHHH!
A thick puple coloured lightning bolt exits from the Eye of my Staff, and blasts from underneath the orb of Time Energy coalescing in between us, and towards Sise-Neg. The lightning bolt slams into his cheek, causing him to wince as he's covered by my Lightning.
Unfortunately, while the Lightning bolt is at just half the strength of a true Lightning bolt dropping down from up above, Sise-Neg is more than durable enough to tank it. Which means my attack barely bothered him.
Frowning, I point my Staff head at the dark Green orb of Time Energy, and shoot a beam of pure Magic at it, putting my all behind the attack. It joins the two Magic beams of the Sorcerers Supreme in fighting the single beam of Sise-Neg's magic, and slowly pushes it back.
While my Magic is not nearly powerful enough to contend with the fucking Time Stone, it has enough potency to give the other two Time Stones a chance to fight back.
Bit by bit, as our surroundings keep showing us windows to our Past, and some into the future, Sise-Neg's attack starts getting pushed back, more and more, until finally, it hits the floating head right in his mouth.
BOOOOM!
The orb of volatile Time Energy explodes with a bright green flash, and there's a great shockwave, as all four of us Sorcerers are thrown back. I land on my feet, twisting in the air as I fly back to do so, as Dr Strange floats with the help of his Cloak of Levitation. Karl Mordo jumps on air with the help of his Magical Boots, Vaulting Boots of Valtorr, if I'm not mistaken, and the female Sorcerer Supreme just goes through a portal to land right way up.
As the green in my eyes disappear, I see that the floating head was nowhere to be seen. But, I've already seen him return from the dead once, so I'm not dropping my guard yet.
"You don't have to worry, Mage Atharva, he's gone." The female Sorcerer Supreme says, and I really need to ask her name.
Glancing at her, I say, "I killed him once before, exploded his entire body, and he returned as that floating head. I'm not taking any chance."
Smiling, she says, "I'm saying it because he's not dead. We banished him out of the Time Stream."
Banished?
I turn around to look at her, and see Dr Strange and Mordo joining us. Dr Strange nods when I look at him, and says, "Sise-Neg won't be able go enter the Time Stream for 500 more years."
I frown, a bit confused. That doesn't even make sense. If he's out of the Time Stream, what decides 500 years have passed? But, I'm ignoring it for now.
Instead, I ask, "Now, gentlemen, lady. Who the fuck was that?"
Dr Strange looks annoyed towards me, and says, "That was Sise-Neg, a Sorcerer from 3000 years into the future from now. He found a spell that would allow him to change time without any consequences towards himself. He modified the spell to take him backwards from his time, to the moment that Time came to exist, at the beginning of the Universe. He wants to absorb all Magic, and become God, the Creator of the Universe, to recreate the Universe in his own Image."
Oh, damn. That's why I felt my connection with the Universe getting loose with every moment I spent with him. He was literally sucking the Magic from all around him.
Dr Strange then opens his Eye of Agamotto again, and says, "I would love to talk with a Mage, but I'm afraid I need to follow Sise-Neg, to ensure he doesn't cause any more damage to Time. Goodbye."
As he starts creating a portal with the energy of the Time Stone, I glance back, at the place Sise-Neg exploded in, and turn back. Then I turn right back, ignoring the casual Time portal that Dr Strange just created, and start walking towards Sise-Neg's place of explosion.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" The female Sorcerer Supreme says, seeing me admire the view in front of me with a lot of fascination in my eyes.
There, right in front of me, was something I've been looking for for as long as I've been here. 5 years, I've been in the Past, and I find it now.
The Sands of Time.
I could feel it, this is what I was looking for, even if the colour didn't match. Where the Sands of Time are Golden, this sand in front of me was Green.
Five years, I sought this Sand, and I find it because a Time Travelling Sorcerer Supreme sensed a Temporal Abberation in me, and fought another Time Travelling Sorcerer Supreme with the help of the current Sorcerer Supreme which caused an explosion leading to the creation of the Sands of Time. And I was here because of an explosion of said Sands of Time, that happened 2000 years into the future.
What a magnificent Time Loop. I caused the creation of the Sands of Time, and I came to the past because of the Sands of Time. Causality, a wonderful phenomenon.
"Yes." I say, answering the female Sorcerer Supreme's question. "I'm guessing you're the actual Sorcerer Supreme of this Time period?"
As I turn back to look towards the woman, turning away from the sand for now, she nods and says, "My name is Ayesha, and yes, I am the Sorcerer Supreme. It's not ready yet, by the way. The sand."
"What do you mean?" I ask, looking back towards the green patch of the Desert, as opposed to the Golden of the rest of the Sahara.
Smiling, Ayesha walks a few steps forward, and says, "What you see now is just the start of the process. The chaotic Time Magic within the Sands need to settle down before you can use them, at least for a decade or two. If you use even a single grain now, then.."
She leaves the statement open, as both of us stare at the green sand with open wonder. She doesn't have to say anything, though, because I understand it very well. ".. then I could be sent careening forward or backwards in time, Centuries or millennia off my mark, no matter how precise my calculations may be." I finish for her.
Fuck.
These tiny green grains of sand are basically supercharged Sands of Time, which is exactly what actually brought me to the past. If a Time Watch meant to travel a maximum of 30 days in the past can send me 2000 years back, what might happen if I use the Time Stone's direct energy, which can already go back 2050 years or something, judging by Dr Stephen Strange's presence here?
Yeah, I'm not messing around with them yet.
Turning towards Sorcerer Supreme Ayesha, I ask, "Can I secure this area then? You're the expert in Time Energy here, currently."
Nodding, the woman waves her hand towards the green patch of land, and says, "Have at it. This isn't the only place it has happened, anyway, so you aren't going to change a single thing for your past."
I frown, easily making connections this time. I ask, "The resonance between the Three Stones caused such spots to appear everywhere on the planet?"
Chuckling, she says, "Not everywhere, no. I cannot sense exactly how many points there are on Earth, but there are at least a dozen that I know of, on the surface. There may be more, not to forget the spots that are under the surface, or even underwater. But none of them are as large as this spot, so don't worry."
I nod, and raise my staff up a bit. With a single tap on the ground, I cast the Fidelius charm on the patch of green sand, with myself as the Secret Keeper. Tapping the staff once more, I cast a ward to prevent the green sands from leaving the Warded area.
The area wasn't that large, barely four meters wide at the largest point, in a roughly spherical shape. I turn back towards the Sorcerer Supreme to see her eyes glossed over, as she looked around confused. I get happy for barely a second, before the Eye of Agamotto around her neck glows green, and she snaps her head right back towards the spot that contained the Sands of Time.
Bugger, there goes my hope of the Fidelius charm working on the Time Stone.
"That.. was unpleasant. I don't know what spell you used, Mage Atharva, but I can tell you that it worked. I doubt anyone but me even knows about the spot here." Ayesha says, looking a bit impressed.
Huh, the Fidelius isn't invented yet, or what? Could be, the spell does include a Latin invocation, that I no longer need to use.
Nodding, I say, "Yes. Anyway, can you explain what exactly happened a minute ago in more words than the future Sorcerer Supreme?"
Ayesha chuckles, probably at my language, and says, "I myself do not know much. Even with the Time Infinity Stone, I cannot peer through time too much. Usually it is impossible to see anything beyond my own death, but I suppose this moment was deemed important enough by the Time Stone that it allowed me to see exactly what the threat is."
"Sise-Neg? Right, the future Sorcerer Supreme gave me some idea of the issue, but what else can you give me?" I ask, ignoring the fact that the Time Stone can apparently decide if a matter is serious enough to allow seeing into the future or not.
Smiling at my impatience, Ayesha slowly explains, "Sise-Neg is a Sorcerer from a time, where almost three quarters of the entire human population can use the Mystic Arts. But, the Magic that the Universe has allotted to the planet is finite, and hence, the most these Sorcerers can do is float a few things, and create some sparks to appear."
"Huh." I say, a bit surprised. "I didn't know there's a limit on how much Magic everyone can use through Sorcery. I always thought that the Magic of the Universe is infinite, sort of like the Universe itself."
Is this why there's only a few thousand Sorcerers on Earth at any given time?
Nodding, Ayesha says, "The highest number of Sorcerers present on Earth without them being weakened was in the times of Atlantis, 10,000 years ago. The number was just under 120,000. Any more than 150,000 and Sorcerers start getting weakened little by little. The higher the number goes, the weaker the Sorcerers get."
When I nod in understanding, she continues, "Sise-Neg first found a spell that would have allowed him to absorb all the Magic that is near him. He used this to drain a few hundred Sorcerers of their powers, and then used another spell to throw himself through the Time stream, backwards. He did this so he can absorb all the Magic from all Time, to become what might be the truest anyone can define as.. God. He can get out any time he wants, but he cannot return to the future until the purpose of his spell is complete. So, banishing him for 500 years means that he cannot enter the real world for 500 more years of his travels, also disallowing him to absorb anything more than the bare minimum of Magic from these years."
Well, this explains the 500 year remark.
"Which also means that if the Sorcerer Supreme from the future and his friend don't succeed in defeating him, which is highly unlikely, then Sise-Neg will become an actual God. And then.. no one will be able to stop him from recreating the Universe in his own image." As Ayesha finishes it, I suddenly get a shiver on my back, wondering what posseses people to actually use spells like this?
Become The God? No thank you, I'm comfortable in my mortal, if long living, life.
Seeing me shiver causes Ayesha to smile, and she says, "Now, you don't have anything important to do, do you?"
I frown, and shake my head. My Dragons are pretty much independent now, while Kultur and Holar have the Island pretty much handled by themselves. They'll bring more Elves if they find them anyway, to work on the Island.
Smiling, now a bit menacingly, Ayesha says, "Good, then you can complete your Sorcery training properly."
"Excuse me?" I ask, because mind you, I am a proper Sorcerer!
Ayesha scoffs, and waves her hand at me. Instead of an attack, however, a simple spell hits me, with its purpose unknown to my senses.
As she starts circling me, Ayesha says, "You're a strong Mage, right amongst the strongest in the World, but your Sorcery is laughable at best. You have bonded to the Universe very well, I must say, but you haven't used the connection properly. You use your Portals well, but you've barely scratched the surface when it comes to Tao Mandala spells. I can't blame you for that, since you probably didn't have the study materials necessary to learn properly. But what, may I ask, possessed you to hold yourself so far back by not learning any Dimensional Spells?"
Her first sentence causes me to smile a bit, in pride. Her next sentences however bring all my pride down to the ground. When she asks the question, I become agitated, and say, "I didn't want to allow any Demon the chance of corrupting a Mage Soul, alright? I've already witnessed Set and some tentacled Demon become hungry at the thought of possessing my soul, a Mage's soul, so I know I was in the right there."
Surprisingly, Ayesha scoffs, and asks, "You think I allow these Demons access to my Soul when I use their Magic, Mage? Dimensional spells only allow the Demons to corrupt my Soul if I myself allow it. Sorcerers are in no danger of getting their Souls corrupted as long as they stick to the agreements between the Realm and the Sorcerer."
I pause, and think for a moment. What she said makes sense. Even when the Ancient One used her connection to the Dark Dimension to become immortal, Dormammu held no sway on her soul. Did Salazar's words in the journal just.. colour my opinions?
I saw him say that Wizards don't use Dimensional Magic, and I said, "Makes sense, don't want our Souls to get corrupted by those nasty demons."
Sighing, I nod at Ayesha, and say, "You're right. I've held myself back, and I haven't learned Sorcery properly. What do you suggest I do, Sorcerer Supreme?"
Ayesha squints her eyes at me, probably suspicious at seeing my opinions change so soon. But, she must've found truth to my words, as she says, "Come with me to Kamar Taj. I will teach you properly, begining with the start, the same way I teach any of my new acolytes."
New acolytes. This.. might be the stupidest idea I've ever had, but if this works, this will turn me into the best Sorcerer I could be.
"What if.. I turn myself into an actual new acolyte?" I ask, taking a moment to think this through.
"How so?" Ayesha asks, frowning in confusion.
Smiling wide, I say, "Kultur?"
With a pop, the Elf appears in front of me, and looks up in expectation. I smile at him, and say, "For the next.. five years, I will be indisposed. If you face any problem, I want you to come to Sorcerer Supreme Ayesha, who will help you in any way she can."
"I agreed to no such thing." Ayesha drily points out.
Waving my hand, I say, "I will owe you for whatever help Kultur needs of you. Five years of support is all I ask."
With a sigh, Ayesha nods, accepting the request.
I turn towards Kultur, and say, "If anything requires my attention, you will come to her. Do not, under any circumstances, come to me unless I call for you. Tell the same to Holar, and keep up with the duties I've assigned you. You may continue with the Recruitment process if you find any more Elves, binding with them in my stead as the Head Elf."
"Head Elf?" Kultur squeaks, a bit overwhelmed. To be fair, I barely trusted him before these years of working together, thanks to his work for Herpo.
Nodding, I say, "Yes, from now on, you're my Head Elf. You may go back home."
With a pop, a tearful Kultur leaves us alone, as Ayesha looks at me in expectation. She says, "What is this plan of yours, that will leave you incapacitated for five years, while still allowing you to learn Sorcery?"
Smiling, I say, "Easy. I'm going to lock away all of my memories, of myself, Magic, Sorcery, and even my gifts, up until this moment, making me a completely blank slate, for five years. Then, either you unlock those memories once my training is complete, or the memories get unlocked by themselves after exactly five years."
Of course, there will be redundancies in cases of extreme danger, but still.. this is definitely the stupidest decision I've ever made in both my lives.
Well, time to shed the identity of Athreos Aetos, and even Mason Aves. Time to become Atharva Joshi completely. An Atharva Joshi with Amnesia.
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A/N: This was not planned. This happened because I realised that if Mason, as he is now, tries to learn Sorcery again, he will subconsciously sabotage himself to prevent his Soul from being corrupted.
He knows it won't happen, but his previous beliefs will interfere in his training.
If I do write the years of his basic training, it will be two chapters at most, and probably not through Atharva's POV. I can't exactly write "I" when it won't even be "I".
Anyway, thank you for your support! Thank you for the love you guys show me, and thank you for your money, even if its not the reason I write!
Tata!
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