The library, once a sanctuary of quiet knowledge, had become a cage of taut silence. The air itself seemed to thicken, charged with the unspoken power radiating from the two of us. The man who called himself Doctor Stephen Strange stood as my opposite in every way—his power was a meticulously crafted symphony, each note a rune, each chord a dimensional equation. Mine was the raw, fundamental force that composed the sheet music.
The ordinary people, the 'civilians,' continued their browsing, blissfully unaware of the reality-shattering standoff happening between the metaphysics and history sections. It was a testament to his skill; he'd woven a subtle enchantment of misdirection and apathy around us. To them, we were just two oddly dressed men having a quiet chat.
"I am Doctor Stephen Strange," he had said. The name meant nothing to me, but the title 'Doctor' suggested a scholar, which aligned with the aura of disciplined intellect he projected.
I did not give my name. Not yet. In my world, names held power, and you did not offer them to a potential adversary without reason. Instead, I focused on the core of his statement. "The fabric of reality does not scream, Sorcerer," I replied, my voice low and even. "It resonates. You are merely mistaking the frequency for distress."
His eyebrows lifted a fraction. He hadn't expected a coherent, let alone insightful, retort. His eyes, sharp and intelligent, scanned me again, and I felt the faintest whisper of a psychic probe brush against my mental defenses. It was like a feather trying to scratch diamond. My aether-forged will didn't even register it as a threat.
"A frequency that has never been recorded in the vibrational spectrum of this dimension," he countered, crossing his arms. The Cloak of Levitation ruffled its collar slightly, as if in agreement. "You appeared on our sensors not as a person, but as a localized reality breach. Who are you, and what is your purpose here?"
I considered my options. Lying was pointless; his senses, while different from mine, were clearly acute. Hostility could plunge me into a conflict I didn't understand, in a world whose rules I was still deciphering. Truth, a measured version of it, seemed the most pragmatic path.
"I am a traveler," I said, which was not a lie. "A miscalculation in a high-level spatial transposition art stranded me here. My purpose is to understand this world and, if possible, find a way to return to my own." I gestured vaguely at the atlas still open on the table beside me. "This is not my home."
"A spatial transposition… from another world?" Strange's stern expression didn't change, but I saw the flicker of profound interest in his eyes. The scholar in him was captivated. "You speak of it so casually. Interdimensional travel is not a simple 'miscalculation.' It requires immense power and specific focal points, like the Mirror Dimension or a sling ring." He held up his hand, and a spark of orange energy formed a complex, glowing ring in the air before him. "You used none of these. You just… tore your way in."
A sling ring. So that was the tool they used. It explained the structured, almost technological feel of his spatial magic. It was a key to a lock. My method was simply to break the wall.
"Our methodologies differ," I stated simply. "I manipulate the fundamental force that constitutes space itself. I do not require tools to open doors that I can simply unweave."
The Cloak on his shoulders suddenly flapped, as if agitated. Strange's own composure finally cracked, revealing a sliver of astonishment. "A fundamental force? You're talking about aether. A theoretical construct. A power source, not a manipulable medium."
A cold, grim smile touched my lips. "Theory in your world. Practice in mine." I decided a small demonstration was in order. Words were failing to convey the gap in our understanding.
I didn't move. I didn't chant. I simply willed it.
On the table between us, next to the open atlas, was a discarded coffee cup. I focused a minuscule thread of aether on it, not from my core, but from the ambient energy that perpetually flowed around all things. I applied the principle of vivum, the aspect of aether governing life.
The brown dregs of coffee at the bottom of the paper cup began to shimmer. A single, vibrant green sprout pushed its way out, unfurling a tiny leaf. Then another. Within seconds, a miniature, healthy sapling was growing from the cup, its roots gently breaking through the paper base.
It was a simple act. But the implications were universe-shattering. I had not accelerated time. I had not summoned a plant. I had instructed the lifeless organic matter to remember its potential and express it instantly, bending the natural law of growth without any observable energy transfer.
Strange stared at the sapling, his face a mask of stunned disbelief. The orange energy of his sling ring flickered and died. His carefully ordered worldview, built on spells, dimensions, and the laws of magic as defined by Agamotto and the Vishanti, had just been dealt a critical blow.
"That's… not possible," he whispered, more to himself than to me. "That's not any form of magic I recognize. There's no incantation, no dimensional energy draw… you just rewrote its biological destiny."
"I persuaded the aether within it to take a different path," I clarified. "It is a skill, like your own. Just… more innate."
The atmosphere shifted. The scholarly curiosity was now heavily laced with deep-seated caution. I had just confirmed his worst fear. I wasn't just a powerful sorcerer from another dimension. I was something else entirely. A reality warper.
"You need to come with me," Strange said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "The Sanctum Sanctorum is the only place safe enough to contain this conversation. And you."
The word 'contain' was a trigger. In my world, those who sought to 'contain' me were usually the Vritra or their lackeys. My posture straightened, and the air around me grew cold. The tiny aether particles in the vicinity stilled, waiting for my command.
"I am not a specimen to be contained, Sorcerer," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I have offered you truth. Do not respond with threats."
"It's not a threat. It's a necessity," Strange insisted, his hands coming up, fingers already moving to form a casting circle. "The energy you radiate is a beacon to things far worse than me. Entities that feed on dimensional instability. You are a walking vulnerability in this world's defensive wards. I can't leave you out here, untrained and unaware."
"I am far from untrained," I countered, my eyes narrowing. "And I am becoming acutely aware. The last person who tried to 'take me in for my own good' learned the error of his ways just before his body hit the ground."
The standoff was back, but now it was volatile. The misdirection field around us wavered. A few people nearby shook their heads as if clearing a fog and glanced in our direction with confused expressions.
"This is your last chance to come willingly," Strange said, his voice hard.
"And this is your only chance to walk away," I replied.
His hands moved in a blur, and bands of shimmering orange light, like ethereal ropes, shot from his fingertips, aiming to bind my arms and legs. It was a simple binding spell, elegantly cast. To any other magic-user in this universe, it would have been inescapable.
To me, it was an insult.
I didn't dodge. I let the bands wrap around my limbs. They solidified, crackling with restraining energy. Strange's face showed a hint of relief, which vanished an instant later.
I looked at the bonds, then back at him. "You are trying to bind space itself with… string."
I flexed, not with my muscles, but with my will. A pulse of pure aether, the substance that composed the very energy he was using, radiated from my skin. The orange bands didn't break; they simply dissolved. They unraveled into their base components, their magical structure annihilated into harmless, dissipating light.
Strange's eyes widened. "What—?"
He was a seasoned combatant. He didn't freeze. He adapted. His hands flew up, and the world around us… folded.
The bookshelves twisted into impossible angles. The ceiling stretched away into a starless void. The floor became a kaleidoscope of shifting tiles. We were no longer in the library. We were in a reflection of it, a prison of mirror-like surfaces—the Mirror Dimension he had mentioned.
"This is a realm where the laws of physics are suggestions!" Strange declared, his voice echoing from a dozen surfaces. "You can't affect the real world from here. Your warping ends now."
He began casting again, creating massive, intricate mandalas of light. Bolts of crimson energy, capable of severing souls, lanced towards me. Shields of pure force materialized in front of him.
I sighed. It was a weary sound. This was so… inefficient.
The crimson bolts passed through me. Or rather, the space I occupied became, for a nanosecond, a different space. The bolts hit the wall behind where I had been standing. I took a step forward, and the shifting, chaotic floor solidified into a flat, stable plane beneath my feet alone.
"You misunderstand," I said, my voice calm despite the visual chaos. "You believe you have moved me to a different dimension. I am still in the library. You have merely projected a complex illusion over my senses and altered the local spatial geometry."
I reached out with my aether. The Mirror Dimension was a masterpiece of spellwork, a layered tapestry of spatial manipulation. But a tapestry, no matter how complex, is still made of threads.
I found a thread—the spellform governing the stability of the floor near Strange. I didn't attack it. I simply… pulled.
The floor beneath Strange's feet lost its coherence. It became like water, then like air. He stumbled, his casting interrupted as he sank to his knees. The Cloak of Levitation flared, yanking him backwards onto solid ground.
Panic, for the first time, flashed in his eyes. He was a master of this dimension, and I was treating his mastery like a child's sandcastle.
He created a dozen duplicates of himself, all chanting in unison, weaving a net of energy designed to trap and paralyze.
I looked at the network of spells forming around me. It was a beautiful, coordinated effort. And it was full of holes. To my aether sight, the flows of energy were clear as day. I stepped through a gap in the net before it even closed, appearing right in front of the real Strange.
His eyes met mine, wide with shock.
"Enough," I said, and my voice carried the weight of true authority, the command of a king and a lance. "This is a waste of both our time. I am not your enemy. But if you insist on making me one, the next time I unweave something, it will be the spell that keeps your soul bound to your body."
I raised my hand, not to strike him, but to demonstrate. I pointed at a floating, twisting chunk of the library's reflection that was tumbling through the void beside us. I focused on the spatial boundary that defined it.
With a gentle tearing sound, like silk being ripped, a black seam appeared in the air next to the chunk. It was a void, a tear into nothingness. The fragment was sucked into the seam, which then stitched itself back together as if it had never been. I had not destroyed it; I had edited it out of existence.
Strange stared at the spot where the fragment had been, his face pale. He understood. All his power, all his spells, were constructs built upon reality. I was the one who could erase the foundation they were built on.
He lowered his hands. The Mirror Dimension dissolved around us, the world snapping back to the quiet, normal library in a dizzying rush. We were standing in the exact same spots. The sapling was still growing from the coffee cup. No time had passed for the civilians.
The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth looked at me, not with fear, but with a grim, newfound respect—and a deep, unsettling trepidation.
"What are you?" he asked again, the question now laden with a much heavier meaning.
"I am Arthur Leywin," I said, finally offering my name. It was a concession, a sign that I, too, was willing to de-escalate. "And it seems we have much to discuss after all. Lead the way to your Sanctum."
As I followed a visibly shaken Doctor Strange out of the library, I knew this was only the beginning. I had asserted my power, but I had also confirmed my status as an existential threat in the eyes of this world's protectors. I had traded a public confrontation for a private one, behind fortified walls.
The game had just become infinitely more complex.
---
S.H.I.E.L.D. HELICARRIER - SITUATION ROOM
The room was dark, illuminated only by the cool blue light of a massive central holotable. On it, a high-resolution video played on a loop. It showed a dark-haired youth in a cloak barely moving as two assailants broke their bones against his immovable body.
Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., stood with his single eye fixed on the display, his hands clasped behind his back. His expression was unreadable, but the tension in his shoulders was palpable.
"Play it again. From the beginning. Slow it down to ten percent," he commanded.
The video rewound. The two thugs approached. The youth spoke. The first one swung. The head moved, the hand was caught, the wrist broke. The second one punched, screamed, and fled.
"Analysis?" Fury's voice was a low rumble.
Agent Phil Coulson, standing beside him, tapped on a datapad. "No visible energy signatures. No tech that we can detect. His skin didn't even register the impact. Thermal scans show no temperature change. It's as if… his body has a localized inertial dampening field of incalculable power, or his molecular density is off the charts."
"And the other one?" Fury asked, not taking his eye off the screen. "The one in the magic carpet."
On another screen, footage from a different camera, this one from a bank across the street, showed the encounter outside the library. It showed Doctor Strange appearing out of thin air, and the two of them talking before both men simply… vanished. They reappeared a moment later, with the youth following Strange down the street.
"That's Doctor Stephen Strange, sir. A known associate of the Avengers, a master of the mystical arts. Their… disappearance and reappearance aligns with his known capabilities. He seems to have made contact."
Fury finally turned away from the screen, his gaze sweeping over the other analysts in the room. "So we have an unidentified enhanced individual, designation 'Sovereign,' with unknown, potentially massive physical capabilities. He draws the immediate attention of our resident wizard, who engages him in what appears to be a non-hostile manner after a brief… disagreement that our sensors couldn't penetrate."
He walked to the holotable and zoomed in on Arthur's face. "I want everything. Facial recognition, gait analysis, linguistic pattern assessment. I want to know where he came from, what he wants, and why Doctor Strange just led him into a building that our satellites suddenly can't get a clear image of."
He leaned forward, his knuckles pressing into the cool surface of the table. "This 'Arthur Leywin' isn't just another enhanced. Strange deals with inter-dimensional threats. If he's involved, then this is a Code Marigold. A potential reality-level event."
Fury straightened up, his voice cutting through the room like a whip. "Get me Tony Stark and Captain Rogers. And someone find Barton and Romanoff. Tell them we have a possible Class-10 threat who just walked in off the street, and he's having tea with a wizard. It's going to be a long damn night."
---
End of Chapter 2
Author's Note:
The clash of magic systems is underway!Arthur just showed Doctor Strange that his power operates on a whole different level. But winning a battle doesn't win the war. Now he's inside the Sanctum Sanctorum, a place brimming with artifacts that could be threats or opportunities. And S.H.I.E.L.D. is in the game, calling in the big guns! What will Tony Stark make of the 'reality warper'? Will Cap try to reason with him? The plot thickens!
Let me know your favorite moment in the comments! Your support with Power Stones and comments fuels these chapters!