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New York Sanctum.
The air tasted of copper and ash. A suffocating sense of despair permeated the broken walls and the pulverized remains of the sanctuary.
When Strange, Mordo, and Wong arrived, stepping through a sparking portal, they were met with a scene of utter, hopeless devastation.
The sky above Bleecker Street had been torn open. It wasn't just a hole; it was a wound in reality, a festering, dark purple abyss that swirled with necrotic energy. Gravity was distorting. On the ground, cars, streetlights, and chunks of historic buildings were losing their cohesion, crumbling into dust and being sucked upward into the maw of the Dark Dimension like grains of sand in an hourglass.
"It's over..."
Mordo fell to his knees, his face ashen, staring up at the encroaching void. His voice trembled, cracking under the weight of his shattered faith.
"Dormammu has arrived," he whispered, tears mixing with the grime on his face. "But it's all too late. The Ancient One is dead. The Sanctums are fallen. There is nothing left."
Strange remained silent, standing amidst the rubble. His hands shook, not from nerve damage this time, but from the sheer scale of the threat. His eyes, however, burned with a fierce resentment. He had just made up his mind to take on the responsibility of protecting the Earth—to sacrifice his normal life for this duty.
Is this how it ends? he thought, clenching his fists. Before I even truly begin?
"It seems you need help."
A cold, clear voice suddenly rang out, cutting through the low, grinding hum of the dissolving city.
Hermione appeared out of thin air in front of the three sorcerers. She was dusting off her casual sweatshirt, looking around at the apocalyptic scene with a critical frown.
"I've only been gone a few hours," she remarked, kicking a piece of rubble. "How did the Sanctum end up like this?"
She looked up at the sky, staring at the huge, dark purple hole that was devouring the atmosphere. Her eyes widened in feigned shock.
"Frog spawn..." she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Who the hell did this?! How did they summon Dormammu?! Is this the end of it?!"
Mordo looked at Hermione, his eyes hollow and filled with despair. He didn't even have the energy to question her appearance.
"It's too late," he muttered, rocking back and forth. "It's too late..."
He was devastated not only because Earth was about to be consumed, but because his entire worldview—the moral absolutism he clung to—had been destroyed by the revelation that the Ancient One drew power from the very darkness that was now killing them.
"Hey, hey, hey," Hermione snapped, looking down at him. "Don't say such discouraging things."
She gave Mordo a disapproving look, hands on her hips. "If you want to die so badly, why don't you just kill yourself now? Save the rest of us the oxygen. I still want to live a good life."
As she spoke, the air around her rippled.
Her casual jeans and sweatshirt dissolved into smoke, instantly reforming into a set of intricate, jet-black wizard's robes. The fabric seemed to absorb the light, embroidered with silver runes that hummed with power. She held her wand loosely, looking every inch the dark sorceress.
"You..."
Strange looked at Hermione. The image of the girl in the black robes suddenly overlapped with a figure from his memory—a news clip he had seen a year ago, footage from the invasion.
His eyes widened little by little.
He finally understood Hermione's identity!
It turns out to be her, Strange realized with a jolt. The mysterious Witch who single-handedly wiped out the Chitauri army during the Battle of New York! The one the Avengers fear.
Strange felt a glimmer of hope ignite in his chest. He grasped at it like a drowning man clutching a lifeline.
"You must have a way to deal with Dormammu, right?" he asked urgently, stepping toward her.
Hermione's gaze drifted to the Eye of Agamotto hanging on Strange's chest. The green Time Stone pulsed softly within its brass casing.
"Well, there are solutions," she said cryptically.
She paused, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "However, I can't handle getting rid of that old bastard Dormammu by myself. I'll need your cooperation. And your trinket."
Strange didn't fully understand the significance of her words, but Wong and Mordo immediately exclaimed in surprise.
"Impossible!" Wong shouted, stepping forward. "Dormammu is the Lord of the Dark Dimension! He is the Dark Dimension itself! He has no physical body to kill! All the Sorcerers Supreme throughout history have only been able to banish him or bargain with him. How could he possibly be killed?"
"Even if you were that Witch from New York," Mordo added, shaking his head, "you couldn't possibly do it! You are mortal!"
The two men spoke with a tone full of skepticism. In their eyes, Hermione, though powerful enough to level a city block, was ultimately just a human. Dormammu was a primordial force of nature. He was entropy. He was hunger. Comparing the two was like comparing a candle to a supernova.
Hermione shrugged, looking completely unconcerned by their doubt.
"Since things have already come to this, there's no harm in trying, is there? Do you really want to just sit here and wait to be devoured by a giant purple cloud?"
Wong and Mordo were speechless.
Yes, logic dictated they were doomed. But survival instinct dictated they take the gamble. We can't just stand by and watch the Earth be digested.
"What should we do?" Strange asked, his voice steadying.
Hermione smiled slightly—a smile that promised chaos. She waved Strange over.
"You just need to... do this, do this, and then do that..."
She leaned close to Strange's ear and whispered a few words.
Strange's expression shifted from confusion to shock, and finally, gradually contorted into a look of pure, bewildered horror.
This... this is the plan?
The Boundary.
At the bleeding edge where the Dark Dimension met the Earthly plane, the laws of physics had ceased to exist. Space was distorted into impossible geometric shapes. Neon spheres of energy floated in a void of purples, blacks, and electric blues. Chaos churned like a boiling ocean.
Dormammu's abstract giant face, formed from rippling nebula dust and the debris of consumed worlds, slowly pushed through the breach. His eyes—two vertical slits of burning violet flame—gleamed with ancient greed.
"FINALLY..."
Dormammu's voice didn't just vibrate in the air; it resonated in the bone marrow of every living thing below. "THIS DAY HAS FINALLY COME!"
The magical energy of Earth was delicious. It was ripe. Once he devoured this world, his expansion would be unstoppable.
Just then, a tiny speck of orange light came rushing up from the ruins of New York.
Stephen Strange hovered in mid-air, his Cloak of Levitation billowing behind him. He activated the mandala shields on his hands, looking microscopic against the backdrop of the cosmic entity.
"Dormammu!" Strange shouted, his voice magically amplified. "I've come to bargain!"
Dormammu looked down at the insect. A mocking smile stretched across his massive face, shifting the stars within his substance.
"NEGOTIATIONS?"
Dormammu's voice was like muffled thunder rolling across the cosmos.
"WHAT RIGHT DO YOU, A MERE MORTAL, HAVE TO NEGOTIATE WITH ME? THE ANCIENT ONE IS DEAD. WHAT POWER DO YOU ANTS HAVE TO STOP ME?"
"There's really nothing to talk about," a clear, bored voice suddenly rang out.
POP.
Hermione appeared out of thin air next to Strange, floating without a cloak or spell, simply standing on the corrupted gravity of the Dark Dimension.
She looked up at the colossal face of the Destroyer of Worlds, a slight, arrogant smile playing on her lips.
"Even if you want to talk, I don't want to let you go, Dormammu," she announced pleasantly. "I'm here to kill you."
Dormammu paused. The churning energy of his dimension seemed to freeze for a microsecond. It was as if he had heard the biggest joke in the history of the multiverse.
"HA HA HA HA..."
He laughed loudly, a sound of grinding tectonic plates reverberating throughout the entire Dark Dimension.
"LITTLE GIRL, YOU ARE THE FUNNIEST JOKE I HAVE HEARD IN EONS!"
Dormammu's gaze swept over Hermione, his vertical pupils narrowing. "SINCE YOU HAVE TRIED SO HARD TO AMUSE ME, I HAVE DECIDED TO DEVOUR YOU LAST."
Suddenly, the laughter stopped. Dormammu's gaze sharpened, the energy shifting from amusement to scrutiny.
"WAIT. YOU... YOU ARE NOT A KAMAR-TAJ SORCERER."
Dormammu's voice carried a hint of genuine doubt.
"YOU DO NOT CARRY THE STENCH OF BORROWED DIMENSIONAL ENERGY. YOU DO NOT DRAW FROM THE VISHANTI, NOR FROM ME."
He peered closer, his immense presence bearing down on her.
"COMPARED TO THEM... WHY DO YOU FEEL MORE LIKE A DIMENSIONAL LORD?"
Dormammu's tone became somewhat surprised. "HOWEVER, YOUR POWER IS COMPRESSED. REFINED. ALL OF IT IS CONCENTRATED IN THIS FRAGILE HUMAN VESSEL. YOU ARE A SINGULARITY."
The little creature in front of him was completely different from the arcane mages he usually crushed. She felt like his own kind—a being of raw power—but trapped in flesh.
"So," Hermione said, tilting her head and batting her eyelashes, speaking the scariest thing in the cutest tone imaginable, "considering how hard I've tried to make you laugh, will you give me your life? Okay?"
Dormammu was speechless.
He had traversed countless dimensions. He had devoured endless planets. He had extinguished stars. This was the first time—the absolute first time—he had ever heard such arrogant words from a creature he could crush with a thought.
How dare a mere human demand his life?
Dormammu was enraged. The nebula clouds of his face turned a violent, angry red.
He opened his massive maw.
BOOM—
A beam of concentrated purplish-black energy—pure destruction—shot toward them. It was faster than lightning, hotter than a sun.
"Special Beam Cannon!" Hermione mentally chanted, not bothering to move.
Strange didn't even have time to react. He was engulfed by the beam of light. His shields shattered instantly. His flesh vaporized. He turned to ash in a millisecond, his eyes filled with deep confusion as he died.
She's the one who insulted you! Why are you attacking me?!
Hermione watched the spot where Strange used to be, nodding in satisfaction.
"This is the way a mage should attack," she noted, seemingly unconcerned about her ally's disintegration. "Ranged DPS. Very efficient."
Dormammu's massive face twisted into a triumphant, maniacal laugh.
"HAHAHA... LITTLE GIRL, YOU HAVE ANGERED ME!"
"SO WHAT IF YOU HAVE THE AURA OF A DEMON GOD? YOU ARE WEAK! YOU ARE TRAPPED IN THAT SMALL BODY! YOU DO NOT EVEN POSSESS YOUR OWN DIMENSION!"
"I WAS ORIGINALLY PLANNING TO KEEP YOU UNTIL THE END, BUT I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND!"
The swirling void around them began to close in.
"I WILL DEVOUR YOU FIRST! YOUR SOUL IS DENSE. YOU WILL TASTE EVEN BETTER THAN THAT SORCERER!"
Dormammu's tone was full of gluttonous greed. He looked at Hermione not as a threat, but as a Michelin-star meal.
Hermione remained silent. She simply watched Dormammu quietly, her wand held loosely at her side.
Dormammu interpreted her silence as terror. He became even more smug.
"DIE!"
He opened his massive jaws again, the energy building for a final, erasing strike.
Just then, Hermione raised her wand.
It wasn't a complex gesture. It was a simple point.
A faint, sickly green light gathered at the tip of the wand. It was small, unassuming against the backdrop of the neon cosmos, but it carried the weight of absolute death.
"Avada Kedavra, eating a melon!"