"You would do well to show proper respect."
Her gaze shifted, tracking downward.
To Luv.
The child had hidden behind the Ancient One's legs, his small hands gripping her robes. His blue eyes were wide with fear, and Bonk had moved to stand protectively beside him, growling in a way that the friendly dinosaur never did.
The Power That Be's expression shifted, and recognition flashed across her divine features. "Interesting. The child carries threads I do not recognize. Reality itself seems... uncertain... around him."
The Ancient One's blood ran cold. No. Please, not this. Anything but this.
The entity raised one hand, crimson light gathering around her fingers. "Luv Thurman. Her voice carried the weight of absolute pronouncement, each word falling like a judge's gavel. "You have been summoned to stand trial before the Living Tribunal. Your right to exist as an entity outside cosmic law will be determined in the Court of Manifestations, where all things that should not be are evaluated and judged."
The red light shot toward Luv.
The Ancient One moved faster than thought, her hands blazing with power as she threw herself between the spell and the child. Her counter-magic crashed against the Power That Be's working, and for a split second, the two forces held in perfect equilibrium.
The cosmic entity's eyes widened in genuine surprise. "Are you truly out of your mind? You dare oppose a summons from the Living Tribunal's court?"
The Ancient One didn't answer with words.
Instead, she grabbed Luv and pulled him into a fierce hug, her other hand already weaving the gestures for emergency teleportation. She didn't care where; she just needed to get him away, to Jay or Domino or anywhere that wasn't here.
Suddenly, the spells fizzled uselessly.
A crimson dome had materialized around them, nullifying all magic within its boundaries. The Ancient One could feel it, the connection to the Vishanti suddenly cut off, her link to the dimensional energies severed as cleanly as if someone had amputated a limb.
"Since you wish to oppose me," the Power That Be's voice carried cold fury now, "you forfeit your right to use magic at all. Consider it educational. A lesson in what happens when you forget your place in the universal hierarchy."
She clenched one massive fist.
And every sorcerer in Kamar-Taj collapsed as one.
Mordo hit the ground hard, gasping like a fish out of water. Wong's scream tore from his throat, raw and agonized. Kaecilius convulsed, his body going into shock. Even unconscious students jerked and twitched as something fundamental was ripped away from their souls.
Their source of magic, simply... gone.
The Ancient One felt it too, the connection she'd maintained for centuries suddenly absent. She reached desperately for the Vishanti, for Agamotto, for any mystical entity that might help.
Nothing.
She even tried the Dark Dimension in her desperation, willing to pay any price.
Dormammu didn't answer.
"You might have domain over magic," the Ancient One's voice came out strained as she shielded Luv with her body, "but that doesn't mean you have domain over THIS!"
Her hands made seals to open the Eye of Agamotto, ripping it open.
The Time Stone blazed emerald green, its power flooding through her. This was different from magic, this was a fundamental force of the universe itself, beyond even the Power That Be's authority. She raised it high, channeling its might, preparing to reverse everything that had happened.
The Power That Be laughed.
It was not a kind sound.
"Dear, dear child," she said, amusement evident in every syllable. "We cosmic abstracts exist beyond time itself. Did you truly think—"
She snapped her fingers.
The Time Stone's power simply... stopped. Not negated or countered, just frozen mid-activation. The green light dimmed, flickering like a candle in a hurricane. The Ancient One poured more power into it, centuries of practice and discipline focusing through the artifact.
It didn't matter.
Time meant nothing to a being who existed in all moments simultaneously.
Desperate, the Ancient One reached for the other Stone she'd been holding in reserve. The Mind Stone materialized in her other hand, its yellow glow joining the green. She knew this was dangerous without Jay present to heal her back, knew wielding two Infinity Stones simultaneously could kill her.
She didn't care.
Luv's life was worth any price.
Power beyond mortal comprehension surged through her body. The Time Stone and Mind Stone working in concert, their energies intertwining. She felt her cells beginning to break down from the strain, felt her consciousness expanding beyond its normal limits. The pool of life energy Jay had gifted her months ago activated automatically, trying to keep her alive through the assault.
She threw everything she had at the cosmic abstract.
Golden and emerald light exploded outward, a wave of temporal and mental force that would have unmade lesser beings. The Power That Be actually took a step backward, her expression shifting from amusement to genuine interest.
"Impressive," she acknowledged. "Wielding two Infinity Stones simultaneously is no small feat for a mortal. You have more strength than I credited you with, Sorcerer Supreme."
She raised multiple arms, weaving patterns in the air.
"However, this would be a completely different story had you mastered all six Stones and used them at their full potential. As it stands..."
Reality rippled around her, and something materialized in one of her many hands. It looked like a shard of absolute darkness, a fragment of void that seemed to eat light itself.
"I gift you a piece of the Black Winter," the Power That Be said conversationally. "The entity that keeps Galactus himself as its herald. I thought it might prove... educational. A demonstration of the gulf between mortal power and cosmic force."
She hurled it.
The Ancient One saw it coming and knew exactly what it would do.
She didn't try to dodge.
Instead, she turned, covering Luv completely with her body as the Black Winter's fragment struck her back.
Pain beyond description flooded her nervous system. Cold so intense it burned, freezing her flesh and bone in an instant. The black ice spread across her right side, creeping up her arm, across her torso, reaching for her face.
She could feel it trying to unmake her, to reduce her to nothing.
Slowly. Very slowly, it began freezing her emotions, her soul.
With her last burst of Mind Stone energy, with the final dregs of power available to her, the Ancient One did the only thing she could think of.
She reached into Luv's mind and tore away every limitation Jay had placed there.
Every null field, every suppression, every carefully crafted barrier designed to keep the child's powers dormant until he was ready. She ripped them all away in one desperate gamble, praying that Luv's awakened abilities might be enough to save him where she had failed.
Then darkness took her.
The Power That Be looked down at the fallen Sorcerer Supreme with something that might have been respect. Foolish, perhaps, but admirably devoted to her student.
She raised her hand again, red magic wrapping around the crying child. Luv began to float upward, still miraculously awake through the Ancient One's final working. The teleportation would take him to the Dimension of Manifestations, to the court where his fate would be decided.
That was when Bonk roared.
The Pachycephalosaurus, who had no magic to be stripped away, who had been lying injured and dazed from the cosmic entity's initial arrival, launched himself at the spell.
His domed head, designed by evolution to withstand impacts that would shatter normal bone, slammed directly into the teleportation light as Bonk grabbed Luv's overall strap in his teeth and held on with every ounce of strength in his body.
The teleportation activated anyway.
Red light consumed both child and dinosaur, yanking them across dimensional barriers, through the spaces between spaces.
Bonk's desperate roar echoed through Kamar-Taj as they vanished, a sound of protective fury that would haunt everyone who heard it.
Then silence.
The Power That Be stared at the empty space where they'd been, her expression unreadable. After a long moment, she looked down at the Ancient One, at the black ice covering half her body.
"You sorcerers," she said quietly, "are far more stubborn than is wise."
She vanished, taking her oppressive presence with her.
The dimensional barriers flickered back into partial existence. Magic slowly began seeping back into Kamar-Taj's unconscious defenders, though weakly, like blood returning to a limb that had fallen asleep.
The destruction remained.
The Ancient One remained frozen.
And Luv was gone.
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