Master Wong

Trained eyes watched as the animals in the park’s pond picked at the surface of the water, small ripples appearing in the water and disrupting his reflection. It was soothing simply watching the repeating pattern appear then disappear. But it was hard to even recognize the man he had become. He was no longer a soldier for the US military. He was no longer a victim to the mutant relocation center. He was no longer a weapon created for Sentinel Services to aid mutant captures.

He was Augustus. Pulse. Someone he hadn’t been in such a long time. But it had been so long that it was hard to remember what that life was like.

His fingers traced the Hound tattoo forced onto his wrist, a small tinge of fear lingering in the back of his mind that they would find him– that they would take everyone he cared about and turn them into a weapon like they did him. It was crazy to even think that he was actually living his worst nightmare not too long ago.

Hearing footsteps approach, he didn’t turn to them but began to speak. “I can do a lot of damage here.” He admitted without any particular reason. “I can nullify most of the mutants here with the mere flicker of my eyes, leaving the island defenseless against an attack.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be here.”

“I don’t doubt it. You probably could do a lot of damage,” Wong replied easily. So many mutants here, so many people with powers crammed into a small space -- we survived the misuse of the reality stone, but will we wipe each other out? “But you probably shouldn’t.”

He stepped closer. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we have much of a choice at the moment. We’re stuck here for now. You can nullify mutants, you say? What power is that?”

His gaze fell on the tattoo on the man’s wrist, the way he touched it - it didn’t seem like it was something that he’d picked or was fond of. “Is that a symbol of some group?”

CONFUSION.

that is the primary feeling that washes over gamora as she takes in her surroundings. the guardian doesn’t remember much. and anything that she does remember—–she doesn’t want to. and it’s not comforting that she has not a clue of where she is. it doesn’t seem like terra. but, then again, gamora has never been there before. the poor woman can only pray that this isn’t some sort of trick by the person that she hates the most.

she’s walking with purpose yet full of caution. somehow gamora managed to have her sword so, that is one less thing she has to be weary of. her fingers extend around it tightly as she continues. there must be someone around. hopefully someone that isn’t trying to cause harm.  though the assassin can easily use force she’s simply TIRED.

hearing movement, gamora stops in her tracks. maybe she should be more concerned than she really is. she stays silent, turning around to see if she’s just imagining things or if someone is really there.

There are new people turning up every day here, and Wong’s not at all surprised to see someone looking -- not lost, she’s doing a good job at hiding it if she is lost, but wary. Like she’s never seen this place before.

“Hey,” he says, making sure that he doesn’t get too close, because she looks like she’s on a hair trigger and he doesn’t really fancy ending up a kebab. “You’re probably wondering what happened.” Moving slowly, he steps into her field of vision. “You’re on an island named Genosha, which is currently trapped in a ... different world, sort of.” 

He offers up a small smile. “You’re a mutant, I’m guessing?” 

scarletmutant‌:

wanda half expected him to laugh when she realized he noticed her near-hug – but instead he closed the space between them and wrapped his arms around her. the show of affection startled her but she welcomed it graciously, returning his hug. for the first time since lagos, she knew she was safe and understood – and she tried to memorize that feeling, the warmth and comfort that came from it, knowing she couldn’t store it to think of whenever she wanted but wishing she could anyway. “you’re a good man, stephen strange,” she said when they separated, and hoped he understood that his small act of kindness meant more to her than he could’ve known.

at first, wanda couldn’t pin exactly why she felt such great comfort in stephen’s words; he spoke highly of her in a way that would typically make her uncomfortable, but when he finished talking and held her eye contact, it felt like a warm release of pent up anxiety. like she’d been waiting for someone to say it. it took until he was on to the next sentence that she realized what it was that struck her – he didn’t talk about her like a monster, or a thing. he didn’t talk like he expected her to become one. her mutation was a part of her very being, and when people feared their powers, they feared her – even her friends and family. so few of them considered it as a real opportunity to do something good. to protect rather than destroy. she’d begun to realize that even vision hadn’t seen or understood that.

“thank you,” she said quietly and smiled. the longer she spent here, the more confident she began to feel – in her powers and in herself. “wong is a sorcerer like you, right?” she asked, and shrugged off her jacket, letting it hang down at her elbows. “if we’re right – if something is happening – the more of us we have, the better.” she could feel herself getting excited – a funny thing, since what they were facing could be annihilation… but the idea of working with two of the best magic users in the universe, of being able to actually help something rather than hinder it – she was finally starting to feel like she might really, one day, be worthy of the title of hero.

“when the stone in vision’s head was at rest, to me it felt like… like a pulse, almost, a heartbeat,”  she explained, starting a small pace in front of the library shelves. she moved her hands as she spoke, a gentle red light of energy surrounding them and weaving through her fingers. “at first i thought it was him, until i felt this. because that’s not what’s happening with the reality stone right now.” she stopped, sighed, looked back to the sorcerer supreme. “as powerful as they are, an infinity stone won’t really do anything unless it’s under the influence of something or someone, right? so it has to mean that someone has it. and that someone is not one of us.”

with everything that was going on, she didn’t know whether that was a good or bad thing. she knew that, if she’d gotten to the reality stone after the destruction of the compound and the school – she might have done something catastrophic, too. she’d have tried to change everything, to fix it. but she knew, even as she considered that option, that the other side would be thinking the same thing. she kept that thought to herself, trying to avoid the bias of the situation. and besides, it didn’t make sense. the friends of humanity were just that. humans. normal, average humans. “in its pure, unharnessed form, an infinity stone is too much for any regular being to handle. it would tear them apart.”

When Wanda told him that he was a good man, Stephen merely smiled. He’d been called many things in his life, but good wasn’t necessarily at the top of the list. Arrogant? Yes. Stubborn? Certainly, but the only way good would have been related to him was if it was intended to be about his work. And for that, he wasn’t even good, he was excellent. He fixed her with a curious gaze, happy that the hug had given her some needed affection and comfort. He hadn’t realized that what he’d said to her could have helped – because the truth to him was that he really did see a woman with an extraordinary gift.

Wanda was not her powers, and they were not her. She was Wanda, and he wasn’t going to hold her to anything but herself. “Yes, Wong helped train me, he’s also my best friend.” He smiled, thinking about the man in kind thoughts before turning to focus back onto the conversation. “I couldn’t agree more, and Wong is quite the expert on the Infinity Stones, he’s dedicated most of his life as a Sorcerer to study them.” He coughed, shifting a bit as he listened to what she had to say.

“Suggesting that the Stone had a pulse means that there is a possibility that they’re all actually… alive.“ He whispered the last word, casting his gaze down to the floor with a determined look of concern and apprehension. Stephen watched from the corner of his eyes with impression as she wielded her magic - or rather had it dance around her fingertips. “That’s quite true, which is highly concerning - we are going to have to scry, which will require the three of us–we don’t and won’t know where the Stone is, but if you can feel it, and I can feel it, then it’s surely to be on Earth.“

It was troublesome and he was worried. But he didn’t want Wanda to know just how badly he was worried about all of this. “I only know of one man who was able to hold the Power Stone in his bare hand, albeit it was for a short time and he claims he is half celestial, but…. it means it’s not impossible.” He turned to face her, “I hear Wong coming, I’ll introduce the two of you and then we can get to work.”

@wandofwatoomb​

Wong had been meditating when the interruption happened. 

The flicker of power had confused him for a moment, mostly because he hadn’t expected to hear from the Infinity Stones for a very long time. But it wasn’t long before he realised that it was a Stone, and more worryingly - which stone it was.

All the stones were far too powerful, but the reality stone - the Aether - was particularly so. Wong was immediately spurred to action, making his way to the New York sanctum with due haste.

“Stephen,” he said, entering his friend’s tea room, then paused in surprise when he realised that Stephen wasn’t alone. It took a moment, but recognition hit. “Wanda Maximoff?” he gave her an even nod, not familiar with her and not entirely sure what to make of her yet. “I would say hello, but something has happened.” He locked gazes with Stephen. “We need to talk. Immediately.”

It was inconvenient that Stephen had a guest, just when this happened--

--wait. What if it wasn’t a coincidence? He glanced back at Wanda, suddenly guessing at why she might have turned up at the exact moment that the reality stone had started to act up. “You sensed it too?” he asked, probing for information while trying not to give away too much. 

@wandofwatoomb

“There is no I, only We.”

Two voices narrowed in on one, the one that had been trying to fight back. A struggle for individuality, to make her own choices – to love her sisters but not be her sisters. It didn’t matter though, that isn’t why they were made.

“You don’t matter. You’re nothing, you’re replaceable.”

The room was large with bright medical lighting, walls and floor white and sterile – cold. It was the first thing they ever knew. But now they looked through a glass window into another room, where there were a thousand just like them – more clones, waiting in tubes. Replaceable. Did any of them mean anything when more could be created? Were they even real? Or were they just the weapons they were made to be?

You have a job to do.

They knew that voice. The scientist that controlled them when they were children, fresh out of the test tubes they were made in. Do what he says or the consequences – they could see Celeste and Mindee, watching them from across the room. They were still the children they died as, eyes sunken and a lifelessness to them. Yet, they could feel the blame coming from their deceased sisters, dead because they didn’t follow orders.

Their gaze moved in unison to their target, a sorcerer. A master of the mystic arts. They didn’t care much as they pushed on to invade his mind.

“What secrets do you have to hide?”

Wong wasn’t sure where he was, or what he was doing here, but he didn’t have time to reflect. The next moment, his mind was under attack, and his training kicked in. 

He wasn’t capable of telepathy, but he had experience in shielding himself from telepathic attacks, and the shield that he cast was similar to the physical ones that he used to defend from magical attacks. It wrapped around his mind, warding off the attack from--

Not one, but three, yet somehow moving in unison. The force of their attack nearly caught him off guard, but he fought back, flinging them out, trying to trap them in turn. 

a groan escapes bucky’s lips as he comes to. he isn’t sure how long it’s been since the blast. as he opens his eyes he racks his brain in an attempt to recall the moments before. he… he’d been standing in one of the rooms with natalia. he heard the blast before it reached them, and in the mere seconds before he knew the building would come crashing down on top of them, he runs to her, jumping on front of her in an attempt to shield her from getting hurt too badly.

that’s the last he could remember before he passed out. now, as he slowly woke up and got a look at the rubble around him. immediately he notices natalia – not far from him in the wreckage, but still unconscious. he starts to move, attempting to move rubble to try to get to her and then get the both of them out, when he feels a sharp pain in his right arm. he groans again, wincing in pain as he quickly realizes his arm is injured. broken, probably. dammit.

on edge, he’s slightly startled when a voice unfamiliar to him calls out to him. ‘don’t move, keep talking,’ is part of what the man says. bucky sighs quietly. “yes – i’m here. stuck under rubble. there’s someone else with me but she’s not conscious.” he replied, though he didn’t exactly listen to the man as he started to move again under the rubble, using his left arm to push rocks away. 

“i think my arm’s broken.” he said, pain shooting through said arm whenever he moved it, even if it was ever so slight. above the wreckage, a bionic hand appears in the midst of it.

It would have been so easy to open a portal, except for the small problem that he couldn’t open a portal to a place that he couldn’t envision. So... it was back to trying to lift debris and move it aside, except that that ran the risk of shifting other things and making them collapse.

If Stephen had been here, Wong would almost have been tempted to ask him to use the Time Stone to freeze time - but even for something like this, even with this many lives at stake, it was still dangerous to use that much magic.

He paused when someone actually replied. “Hang on,” he said, weaving a spell to pinpoint them -- except that before he could do that, the idiot started moving.

“Generally, yes–“ Stephen started, raising his brow as he looked Wong over. “But I’m to assume it’s not just my pleasant face that you came to see this time,“ he sighed, slinking further down into his chair, allowing his face to rest into that of natural dismissive passiveness.

He knew Wong was kidding, it was how their friendship and their dynamic worked, but with the given unfortunate surroundings of everything that had been happening around them, he didn’t quite have the time to play their usual games. Which is why in that moment of honesty that Stephen had relented and admitted a hard truth about himself to his faithful friend.

“It’s fear that is driving the bulk of them, Wong. They’re hunting down enhanced and mutant people, anyone who isn’t deemed ‘normal’ by societal standards.“ He pinched his expression and slumped further down into his chair. “They have resources which suggests to me that someone powerful is backing them, someone more than Olivia Trask and Thaddeus Ross.“ The names burned on his tongue as he spoke them, making him visibly wince. 

“We infiltrated one of their prisons, it was awful conditions, awful… all over. We took down the prison and released the people within, even had Magneto open up his home for safe passage, but it’s going to become a war and I am not sure we will be able to prevent it.“ He inhaled sharply, disguising the almost show of raw emotion into a dry cough. Momentarily though, he was distracted by a happier thought when Wong noticed the ring.

Holding up his hand, he looked at it and smiled fondly. “Tony Stark proposed to me, which now I suppose is as good as time as any to ask you to be my best man?”

“I heard that it was in response to an attack on a prison that was made to house mutants,” Wong said. “And while the arrests of mutants -- and non-mutants too, I heard -- wasn’t legal, it looks like everyone’s overlooking that part. I’d say it’s more than just fear. It’s fear and a specific agenda.”

He frowned when Stephen mentioned the conditions in the prison, guessing it was the same one that he’d heard about. “We don’t usually get involved in non-magical events like this, but if this does turn into war, then Earth won’t be safe,” he muttered, stating the obvious but using it as a means to buy himself time to think. “It’s not like we can just move all the mutants to an island and hope that the world will forget about them.” Frowning, he conjured a few scenes of a different universe for Stephen. “Have you scryed on this universe? Mutant registration is followed by mutant sterilisation, concentration camps...” 

Sighing, he stared at the images for another long moment. “I don’t have any bright ideas. Turning his attention to the ring, he raised an eyebrow. “You said yes, I’m taking it.” He shook his head, laughing a little. “So I was right. You did fall for him the moment you set eyes on him. Let me guess, if I ask about the Cloak of Levitation smacking his ass, you’re going to say that ‘the Cloak did it’.” He snorted. “Of course I’ll be your best man, seeing that you have no other friends.” 

He did pause to clap Stephen on the shoulder. “I’m glad. You need someone to keep you out of trouble--”

thor was on the other side of the demolished compound when he felt the distinct disturbance of magic in the atmosphere. raising his brow, he gripped his axe (technically and currently an umbrella) tighter before moving through the debris to find the source. 

admittedly, he thought it could have been loki – especially after hearing that his brother was very much alive and lurking about. something that he’d have to talk to him about with both a sense of disappointment and relief. disappointment for the very fact that loki remained locked away from him, hidden.

but when he moved around he noticed that it was not his dear brother, but someone else entirely. “no, i am not within the rubble, but if there is someone trapped inside then i can aid you.” he stated, setting the umbrella aside but close to himself as he moved to help the robed man.

“your magic, i sense it.“ he started, eyeing the sorcerer, “similar to the magic i’ve sensed from another sorcerer.“ he decided, nodding thoughtfully as he moved to pick up large and heavy debris. “i am thor, by the way.“

Wong could sense someone under the rubble, and the large man stomping around outside it wasn’t helping. He was trying to concentrate when the other started speaking, and he had to resist the urge to sigh. 

However, before he could even glance over, he too caught a sense of the other’s - unusual magic. “Yes,” he said carefully. “I know you.” His gaze travelled to the umbrella, sensing that it wasn’t all that it seemed. “Oh, yes. You. Stephen’s mentioned you. I’m Wong. Master of the Hong Kong sanctum. You’ve met my ...”

Friend? Pain in the ass? Fellow sorcerer?

“...colleague, Stephen Strange. By the way, the next time you see him, remind him that he needs to return the Book of the Invisible Sun. He’s currently accumulated $1230.21 in library fines on it.”

Wong had never seen the New York sanctum filled with so many people. Stephen had opened it up to those who needed a place to lie low after the attacks on Xavier’s school and the Avengers Compound, but there also seemed to be a number of people who had already been staying there before the attacks. 

And one of them had a child. Who was apparently being attacked by a demon.

At the sound of the infant’s cry, Wong apparated over to the infant’s side, already readying spells to confront the demon, when he realised two things. First, it was Stephen’s resident demon - a rather friendly one by the name of Bob, and second, Bob was playing with the baby, cooing to her and rocking her gently, making funny faces in an attempt to get her to stop crying. In his many years of being a Master of the Mystic Arts, Wong had never seen a more bizarre sight.

Hush, you’ll scare her, Bob shushed him, giving him a glare, and Wong nearly spluttered. “You’ll forgive me for thinking that you were the one scaring her half to death with your ugly face. Faces,” he said.

My ugly faces? That’s just rude, Wong. Your ugly mug is far more likely to terrify her, Bob shot back, and they exchanged glares. 

“Look, you should be guarding the Sanctum. Shoo. I’ll look after the little one,” Wong said, reaching for the child and taking her from Bob’s arms. She seemed to take a liking to him, though that might have had something to do with him casting a spell to make little glowing tigers dance around her. It definitely wasn’t cheating - it was just using his skills appropriately.

Wong stood by the wreckage of what had once been the Avengers Compound, and shook his head slowly. Whoever had done this had done a thorough job - the Compound was huge, and the blast (or multiple blasts?) had ripped through almost all of it. They hadn’t just been aiming to take out people inside, they had aimed to tear apart the entire place. 

Definitely trying to make a statement.

Things here were clearly going from bad to worse. And while this wasn’t a mystical threat, it was definitely fast becoming a threat to the entire planet, one that he couldn’t very well ignore. And given that the Avengers were involved, and given Stephen’s involvement with a specific Avenger -- suffice to say that there was no way Kamar-Taj was staying out of this entire conflict. 

@wandofwatoomb

Too many things were happening at the same time and if Stephen wasn’t a man who could easily ground himself in some of the most dire situations, he would have gone fully insane by now. Luckily though, and less so what Stephen would admit to, is that he now had a network of friends and family that would support him in case his fortitude decided to reset itself to zero.

When Stephen finally had the time to return to the Sanctum though, he was exhausted and all he wanted to do was find a nice corner in his tea room to pass out in. Except by the time he dragged himself into his favorite room in the entire mansion, he soon realized he wasn’t alone and he was met with his second favorite person.

Though him admitting to that would never happen.

“Wong,“ he stated, tiredly heaving himself into his chair and broodily staring at the window opposite. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?“ his words dripped a sarcasm that he didn’t really mean, but expressing any sort of other emotion in that moment would have been… exhaustive. And given the current climate with the attacks…. “I’m assuming you saw or heard about what happened?“ 

Finally he looked up at his friend and met his gaze, “Wong, I don’t know what to do.”

Certain things in life didn’t change. The cycle of violence and hatred. The tendency of the world to attract world-ending events.

Stephen’s lack of manners.

“Whoever said I was visiting you?” Wong said, poking through Stephen’s tea supply. “Or did you assume that just because I was in New York, it had to be about you?”

Just like Stephen’s faux-sarcasm, his words lacked any real bite. They both knew that he was here to lend a helping hand to a fellow sorcerer. It didn’t need to be said. Naturally, he knew what had happened at the Compound and the School - he had, in fact, already checked both out. And while he was tempted to get straight down to the business of fixing things, the obvious fatigue in Stephen’s voice made him realise that his friend was worse off than he had expected.

A sarcastic retort was on the tip of his tongue when Stephen glanced up, a rare, unguarded look of painful, honest, uncertainty on his face. The retort died unspoken at the bare admission. “Tell me everything,” he said, taking the chair opposite. “What do you know of the attacks? Who’s behind it?”