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"Avada Kedavra, eating a melon!"
The incantation was absurd, but the magic was absolute.
An eerie, sickly green light, sharp as a scythe and cold as the void, slashed through the kaleidoscopic darkness. It didn't travel like a beam of energy; it traveled like a cancellation of existence.
The light faded.
"AHHHHHHH!"
Dormammu let out a piercing scream that didn't just vibrate the air; it shook the very foundations of the Dark Dimension. The nebula clouds that formed his face twisted and boiled, his expression deforming in immense, unfamiliar pain.
"WHAT KIND OF MAGIC IS THIS?!"
Dormammu's voice carried a tremor of genuine fear and disbelief.
He felt it. A part of his soul—a fragment of the sentient dimension itself—had been torn away by that green light. It wasn't an injury he could regenerate from. It wasn't a burn or a cut. It was complete annihilation. That part of him simply... ceased to be.
Impossible, the entity thought. I am the Lord of the Dark Dimension! My soul is one with this reality, vast and boundless!
Even the Ancient One, the mightiest Sorcerer Supreme, could only siphon his power or banish him. She could never harm his essence. But now, a human girl, a speck of dust, had used a strange green light to erase him.
It was a rule-based force. It ignored his size, his magical resistance, and his immortality. It struck directly at the concept of "life."
Dormammu's heart—or the cosmic equivalent of it—surged with rage and panic. Fortunately, his mass was infinite. This injury, while agonizing, was not fatal.
As long as I don't give her a second chance...
"I ADMIT," Dormammu's voice boomed, deep and resonant like shifting tectonic plates, "I UNDERESTIMATED YOU. THAT SPELL IS INDEED POWERFUL. IF YOU POSSESSED MY MAGNITUDE, I WOULD HAVE PERISHED."
He rallied his energy, the purple void darkening. "HOWEVER, YOU ARE STILL A MORTAL. YOU ARE TOO WEAK. THE DIFFERENCE IN VOLUME CANNOT BE BRIDGED BY A TRICK."
Hermione nodded, her expression unbothered.
"I knew that attack wouldn't kill you," she said casually, twirling her wand. "And I didn't intend to finish you off like that. That was just a stress test. I needed to confirm that the Killing Curse was effective against a 12th-dimensional entity."
She smiled, a shark-like baring of teeth. "The real action is yet to come."
Dormammu was puzzled. What cryptic message was this ant trying to convey?
Suddenly, a blur of orange light shot up from below.
"Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
Strange hovered in the air, his hands shielded by mandalas, repeating the line with fierce determination.
Dormammu paused. The cosmic gears in his mind ground to a halt. Why does this scene look so familiar?
Then it dawned on him. Didn't I just vaporize this gnat? How is he back?
"The Dark Dimension transcends time," Hermione's leisurely voice rang out, explaining the nightmare. "It sounds wonderful on paper. Eternal life. No aging. But it has a huge drawback when introduced to a Time Stone."
She pointed her wand at the giant face. "Because you exist outside of time, you don't reset like the environment does. The injuries you sustain? The pain you feel? They cannot be reversed or scrubbed away by the loop."
"And also…"
She paused, raising her wand again.
"Avada Kedavra, eating a melon!"
FLASH.
"AHHHHHHH!"
Dormammu screamed again, the sound tearing through the fabric of his reality. He felt another chunk of his soul crumble into nothingness.
He had a vague, sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong. He had walked into a trap.
This cannot continue!
Dormammu roared, opening his mouth to unleash a beam of concentrated purplish-black destruction toward the two tiny figures.
CRACK.
Hermione Apparated instantly, vanishing from the path of the beam.
Strange, however, stood his ground. The beam hit him.
BOOM.
Strange was torn to subatomic pieces.
...
Three seconds later.
Green runes spun on the wrist of a re-formed hand.
"Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
Strange flew back into position, unharmed, looking grim.
Dormammu: ???
BOOM. Special Beam Cannon.
Strange died.
...
"Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
SPLAT. Strange was crushed by a giant spike.
...
"Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
CRUNCH. Strange was eaten.
...
"Dormammu! I've come to bargain!"
Strange repeated the sentence over and over, like a broken record player stuck on a track of defiance. Each time, Dormammu blasted him to smithereens without hesitation. But each time, the green time-rune would spin, and Strange would reappear, fresh and ready to die again.
Dormammu felt like he was going insane.
This was more torturous than any hell he had ever devised. He was trapped in a moment that wouldn't end. When had he, the Destroyer of Worlds, ever suffered such humiliation?
"LITTLE GIRL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Dormammu roared, his voice tinged with panic. He felt the phantom pain in his soul throbbing.
"ENOUGH! I AM LEAVING!"
He turned his massive consciousness away from Earth. I don't want your planet anymore! Keep it!
He tried to withdraw into the depths of his dimension.
CLICK.
A green light flashed on Strange's wrist. Time reversed.
The three returned to their original positions.
"And also…" Hermione smiled, continuing the sentence she hadn't finished in the previous loop. "You'll be reset to your original position in the time loop. You can't escape."
She looked up at him with pity. "You transcend time, but not completely. Like a fish in a bowl, you can see the outside, but you can't leave the water."
Dormammu's vertical pupils widened. He felt stifled. For the first time in eons, he felt claustrophobic.
He looked at the two mortals. One was a sacrificial lamb willing to die a thousand times. The other was a predator slowly eating him alive. He shuddered at the sight of the color green.
"YOU CAN HURT ME, BUT YOU CANNOT KILL ME IN ONE GO!" Dormammu roared, trying to regain his dominance. "I CAN REPAIR MY SOUL FROM THE ENERGY OF THE DARK DIMENSION! IF THIS IS A WAR OF ATTRITION, I WILL WIN! WE SHALL SEE WHO COLLAPSES FIRST!"
He refused to believe that a human girl had the stamina to outlast a dimension.
Strange fell silent. He had been excited when Hermione injured the beast, but Dormammu was right. If the monster couldn't be killed instantly, the loop could theoretically go on forever. Strange was willing to suffer, but Hermione was mortal. She would tire.
"You're right," Hermione nodded, confirming Dormammu's analysis.
"HA! SEE?"
"So," Hermione continued calmly, "next, I will simply kill you all at once."
Dormammu was stunned for a moment. Then, his giant face contorted into a wild, mocking laugh.
"HAHAHAHA! THAT GREEN LIGHT WAS YOUR STRONGEST ATTACK! EVEN THAT COULD ONLY SCRATCH ME! WHAT OTHER TRICKS DO YOU HAVE?"
"STOP DREAMING, LITTLE GIRL! LET US MAKE A DEAL."
Dormammu made a seemingly reasonable suggestion, his voice dropping to a persuasive rumble. "I WILL LEAVE EARTH. I WILL NEVER RETURN. YOU RELEASE THE TIME LOOP. EVERYONE WINS."
Strange's heart skipped a beat.
He's breaking, Strange thought. This... this is the canon ending. This is a good option.
Dormammu's power was unfathomable. Pushing him too far might break the spell or destroy reality. Strange turned to look at Hermione, his eyes questioning. Should we take it?
Hermione shook her head. Her expression was resolute, cold as ice.
"No."
"No matter what you say today, Dormammu, you must die here."
She looked at Strange. "Keep the loop steady."
Strange opened his mouth to argue, but looking at the "Miss Witch's" confident face, he swallowed his doubt. He trusted her. Before they came, she had told him: Just keep looping. I'll handle the heavy lifting.
Strange nodded, gripping the Time Stone.
Hermione stepped forward, floating in the void. She raised her wand high above her head.
Suddenly, the space around her shimmered.
POP. POP. POP. POP.
One Hermione appeared. Then ten. Then a hundred. Then a thousand.
Countless Hermiones materialized out of thin air, filling Strange's entire field of vision. Up, down, left, right—everywhere he looked, there was a girl in black robes holding a wand.
What kind of magic is this?! Strange stared, his jaw dropping. The Mirror Image spell? No, these felt real. Each one radiated power.
Dormammu froze. For the first time, he felt the icy grip of inevitable death.
"YOU..."
Dormammu only managed to utter one syllable.
Ten thousand Hermiones opened their mouths in unison.
"Avada Kedavra, eating a melon!"
The next second, an endless ocean of green light erupted, completely engulfing the Lord of the Dark Dimension.