Metal screamed like a dying dinosaur.
Tony Stark, in full Mark VI glory, had a mechanical soldier by the torso mid-air and was literally tearing it apart with the kind of casual strength that made you forget he was still, technically, a squishy human dying of heavy metal poisoning underneath all that genius and titanium.
The machine that had been lunging at Pepper split cleanly in two. Sparks rained down like a fireworks finale nobody had asked for. The two halves crashed onto what used to be Tony's Malibu living room, bouncing off broken marble and shattered glass, and then lying there in a pathetic heap like a toy someone got bored of.
Tony didn't even look at the wreckage. His helmet snapped open and he rushed to Pepper like the world had narrowed down to exactly one person.
"Pepper!" he blurted, hands hovering like he didn't know where he was allowed to touch without breaking something. "Are you okay? Did it hit you? Are you hurt anywhere?"
Pepper stared at him, breathless and dust-covered, but alive. Her expression was a weird mix of shock, adrenaline, and that deep, exhausted affection you only develop when someone keeps nearly dying around you and insists on calling it "Tuesday."
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Tony… I'm fine."
Yeah. That was my cue to leave before I died of secondhand emotional exposure.
"Tony," I said, already backing toward the balcony and the open night air beyond, "looks like everything's handled. I'm heading out. What about you?"
Tony turned his head, and even without the helmet I could see the way his brain immediately shifted into inventory mode. He looked around at what used to be his house.
Broken walls. Melted glass. Half the floor missing. Smoke drifting out like the mansion was exhaling its last bit of dignity. The cliffside view still looked gorgeous, because of course it did. Nature always shows up even when humans turn their homes into scrap.
Then Tony looked at me.
"I'm going to clean up the disaster you helped create," he said flatly.
I blinked. "I saved your life."
"You collapsed my house."
"I collapsed the part of your house that was actively trying to kill you," I corrected. "Also, Obadiah started it. And your house was already half destroyed before I showed up. Think of it like… accelerated renovation."
Tony stared at me with the kind of expression that said he was deciding whether to be grateful or throw something expensive at my head.
Pepper, bless her, snorted. It was small, but it broke the tension like a pin popping a balloon.
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really should thank you."
"No problem," I said, grinning because humor is my default defense mechanism and also because I'd earned at least one smug moment tonight. "Happy to help."
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Don't push it."
Before he could decide to push back with a repulsor blast or a lawsuit, I opened a portal. Golden sparks cut a clean circle in the air, and Malibu's smoke curled around the edges like it didn't want to let me leave.
I stepped through.
The moment I crossed the threshold, ocean air and burning metal vanished.
Kamar-Taj always felt like stepping into a different layer of the world.
The training yard smelled like incense, dust, and old stone warmed by sun—like the place had been holding onto the same breath for a thousand years. The air itself felt thicker with history. Magic didn't echo here; it lived here, settled into corners and cracks like moss.
I arrived in the square with my hood up and my nerves still buzzing. Across the yard, Karl Mordo was drilling a group of young sorcerers with the energy of an angry gym teacher who'd discovered discipline was an art form.
His voice snapped across the courtyard. "Again. Your stance is wrong. Your breath is wrong. Your focus is wrong. Do you want to open a portal or do you want to decorate the wall with sparks?"
One of the students flinched and tried again, hands shaking.
Mordo glanced at me as I crossed the edge of the yard. It wasn't a friendly look, but it wasn't open hostility either. More like: I acknowledge your existence and disapprove of it on principle.
We exchanged a nod. Nothing more.
Then I slipped into the lab, because if my life had a safe place, it wasn't home. It was anywhere with glass vials, sealed notes, and a problem that could be solved by thinking hard enough.
Kaecilius was already there.
And he was grinning.
That was a dangerous look on him. Kaecilius smiling wasn't like Sean smiling. Sean's smile was sunlight. Kaecilius's smile was a blade polished until it gleamed.
"You got results?" I asked, and I heard the hope in my own voice before I could stop it.
"We did," he said, proud and crisp. "The substitute reagents held. The third formula is stable."
My brain snapped awake. "The six-ingredient replacement chain?"
He nodded, eyes bright with that controlled, scholarly excitement I'd come to recognize. "With enough trials, we can perfect the dosage and brew the final potion even without the rare components that we can't find here."
That was huge.
That wasn't just "we're getting closer." That was "this can actually be produced in this universe without relying on ancient stockpiles that may or may not exist."
I exhaled slowly, feeling some tight coil in my chest loosen. "Okay," I said. "Next step, we don't do by hand. We run simulations."
Kaecilius tilted his head slightly. "Simulations?"
"Stark-level computing," I said. "AI assistance. Faster iterations. Cleaner data. More precise substitution ratios. Less trial-and-error that eats time we don't have."
He didn't recoil the way some older Kamar-Taj mages did when you mentioned modern tech, like computers were demonic objects invented by bored warlocks. Kaecilius had been a psychiatrist before all this. He understood systems. He understood tools. He didn't worship tradition for tradition's sake.
"Supercomputers," he murmured, as if tasting the word. Then he nodded. "Yes. That would help."
We copied everything—one set of notes for the Ancient One's archive, one for me. We packed stabilized samples, sealed them in enchanted containers that wouldn't degrade, and for a moment it felt like the world was behaving. Like progress was real.
Before I left, I wandered past a shelf of storage implements and spotted something I'd been meaning to acquire for weeks: a palm-sized silk pouch grown from enchanted plants. It looked delicate, but when I ran my fingers over it, I felt the resistance—tougher than steel, flexible as cloth. The weave muted magical signatures, making whatever you stored inside harder to detect.
Perfect.
With an Extension Charm later, it would become my personal inventory bag. Easy transport. Hidden storage. The kind of upgrade that makes you feel like you're cheating at life.
I pocketed it with the quiet satisfaction of someone who'd just found a legendary item in a shop nobody else noticed.
Then I left the New York Sanctum after greeting Daniel—who looked like he wanted to ask where I'd been but decided it was safer not to know—and took the subway home like a normal broke teenager.
Which lasted five minutes.
Because normal never lasts with me.
My phone buzzed.
A video from Sean.
I frowned, put in my earbuds, and tapped play.
The footage was shaky, shot from a distance, the kind of grainy phone video that turns every major event into "cryptid sighting." But the content didn't need high resolution to punch you in the throat.
A giant green monster.
Smashing tanks like they were soda cans.
Helicopters spiraling out of control.
Soldiers running.
People screaming.
The Hulk.
Bruce Banner was back in New York.
My entire body went cold, then hot, then cold again, like my nervous system couldn't decide whether to faint or sprint. Canon memories slammed into place—scenes I remembered from the timeline, details I'd filed away as "interesting but deadly."
Banner's blood.
And not just "blood is blood." Banner's blood was the ultimate reagent. Radiation adaptation. Regeneration. Mutation stability. It could serve as catalyst, as enchantment fuel, as a base for things that shouldn't exist. If there was any biological material in this universe that could bend magical theory into new shapes, it was Banner's.
Under normal circumstances, trying to get Banner's blood was suicide. The guy didn't just have power. He had the kind of power that turned bad decisions into paste.
But right now?
Chaos everywhere. Military attention focused on containment. The city distracted. People running in every direction.
It was horrible.
And it was an opportunity.
My mind did the ugly thing it sometimes does—calculating benefits inside disaster—and I hated myself for how quickly I reached a conclusion.
This was my only chance.
I texted Sean a quick thanks and promised Theresa's cooking soon, because keeping my cover intact mattered and because Sean deserved normalcy even if I didn't. He replied instantly, laughing, totally clueless that he'd just triggered the most illegal potion-heist idea of my life.
I leaned back in my subway seat, heart racing so hard I could feel it in my fingertips.
Yeah.
I was absolutely going after that blood.
But as soon as the thought fully formed, a second thought arrived right behind it, cold and practical:
How do I get in and out of a city-wide Hulk incident fast enough to matter?
Portals were obvious. Too obvious. And New York was about to become a surveillance nightmare. Cameras everywhere. Phones everywhere. SHIELD, police, military—all watching.
I needed something quieter.
Something personal.
Something that didn't require leaving a glowing circular doorway behind me like a calling card.
I needed Apparition.
Which, unfortunately, was the kind of magic that came with a warning label and a strong chance of self-dismemberment.
I didn't go straight home. I reversed direction mid-ride, got off early, and opened a portal back to Kamar-Taj the moment I found a secluded spot. If I was going to try something as stupid as Apparition, I wanted the Ancient One within arm's reach.
She was waiting in one of the training grounds as if she'd expected me, calm as ever, hands folded, face unreadable.
Sometimes I wondered if she was truly seeing the future or if she was just that good at predicting my poor decisions.
I stood between two chalk circles drawn on stone, each about three feet wide. The circles weren't decorative. They were anchors—reference points, markers for space itself.
The Ancient One regarded them, then me. "What magic are you attempting?"
"Teleportation," I said. "But risky teleportation. Something called Apparition."
Her eyebrow lifted slightly, the tiniest crack in her calm. "Apparition."
"There's a side effect," I admitted. "You might leave body parts behind."
Her gaze didn't change, but I felt the weight of her attention sharpen. "Explain."
"It's called splinching," I said. "You move your whole body through space instantly. If your focus is imperfect… you arrive incomplete."
A pause.
Then, perfectly dry: "And you still wish to attempt it."
"I do," I said, swallowing. "But I may need help reattaching myself."
The Ancient One nodded once, as if I'd asked her to supervise a dangerous cooking experiment. "I will assist."
That was both reassuring and not reassuring at all.
I stepped into the first chalk circle and tried to remember the rule. Three D's. A simple mnemonic that hid how terrifying the process was.
Destination.
Determination.
Deliberation.
In my head, I added a fourth: Don't die.
I pictured the second circle. Not as "over there" but as a coordinate. A truth. A certainty. I forced my mind to accept that I would be there because I decided to be there.
Then I spun.
Space twisted. Sound cracked like a whip. My stomach lurched as if the universe briefly deleted me and then panicked and pasted me back in.
I appeared in the second chalk circle.
For one half-second, I felt triumphant.
Then my brain noticed something missing.
I looked down.
My left arm wasn't there.
No blood. No pain. Just… absence. A wrongness so profound it made my vision flicker. My shoulder ended cleanly, as if reality had decided I didn't need symmetry anymore.
My breath caught. Panic surged up my throat like bile.
"I—" I started, but my voice broke.
Before the panic could take over, the Ancient One stepped forward and placed two fingers on my shoulder. Purple energy folded through space with surgical precision, as if she was reaching into the fabric of the world and plucking my arm out of wherever it had been left behind.
There was a snap.
My arm reattached.
Sensation flooded back in a wave—pins and needles, then full touch, then aching relief.
I gasped, clutching my own arm like it might vanish again if I didn't hold on.
The Ancient One studied me. "You did well."
"I lost an arm," I wheezed.
"You recovered it," she replied calmly. "Progress."
I stared at her, breathless, and realized something terrifying.
Because despite the horror, despite the splinching, despite the fact that my body had briefly been two separate problems, the spell had worked.
And if I mastered this…
Walls meant nothing.
Distance meant nothing.
Obadiah Stane could build ten suits and hide in ten bunkers.
I could still appear beside him.
I could still put my wand to his throat.
I could still end it.
The thought was cold. Not heroic. Not noble. Just practical. And it scared me how natural it felt.
The Ancient One's gaze held mine, as if she'd heard the thought anyway. "Why do you seek such mobility now?" she asked.
I swallowed, then answered honestly. "The Hulk is in New York."
A flicker—interest, calculation. "And you intend to approach him."
"I intend to approach his blood," I corrected, because lying to the Ancient One was pointless. "This is chaos. It's my only chance."
Silence lingered between us. Not empty silence—tactical silence.
Finally, she nodded. "Then you will practice again. Until your body arrives whole."
My mouth went dry. "How many times?"
"As many as required," she said.
I looked at the chalk circles, then at my arm, now fully attached and very much appreciated. My heart hammered.
Outside Kamar-Taj, New York was turning into a battlefield.
And somewhere in that chaos, Banner's blood was spilling.
I raised my wand, flexed my fingers, and stepped back into the first circle.
Destination.
Determination.
Deliberation.
This time, I was going to arrive intact.
Because if I could Apparate cleanly, I could slip through the Hulk incident like a ghost—take what I needed, vanish before anyone could even decide what questions to ask.
And as I spun again, I couldn't shake the final, sharpened thought that cut through all the fear:
If I mastered this spell…
Then the next time Obadiah Stane tried to run—
I would be waiting where he landed.
And I would not need a portal to follow him.
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Hey guys, I'm Aurelius D. Black, your author, and welcome to Path of Arcane (or How to Survive and Maybe Craft Hogwarts in Another World).
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