The "G" Shield

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Kamar Taj [August 2015]

–Jack Sullivan.–

"Aha! Finally!" He shouted in jubilation as he was finally able to, after hours of continuous practice, open the Eye and cast just a single spell, the one spell that trumps them all.

The Time Loop spell. Good Lord was it hard, and even then, he hadn't even mastered the spell. That would have opened all of its functions but also taken a lot longer.

Theoretically, casting incomplete spells or even spells without learning all of its functions was dangerous but then again, letting Dormammu spill into their reality was even more dangerous.

Sighing, he put the Eye back on the pedestal. He did not have a death wish to try and take it out of the library. There were a mind boggling amount of spells cast onto the Pedestal that would no doubt do horrendous things to the person who tried to take the Eye out of the Library, not to mention being faced with the possibility of being hunted down by the Ancient One who, so far, had a 100% success rate.

After all, in their line of work, a single failure means death. Especially if you were the Sorcerer Supreme, your failure meant Kamar Taj's failure and Sorcerer Supremes don't back down from fights. Fight till death, taken literal form.

He went out of the Library and nodded at the restoration work going on. THis was not the first time that Kamar Taj was attacked and damaged, although he wagered that it happened for the first time in centuries since neon of the MASters had any idea how to go about the process without compromising the entire ward scheme.

Thankfully, the overarching Ward scheme of Kamar Taj was fine. Kaecilius did not have the authority or the power to destroy the ward completely. All he could do was temporarily disable it using his authority as a Master of the Mystic Arts. So, the Masters were now breaking down rubble and restoring the older buildings as much as they could while they awaited the return of the Ancient One.

"Jarvis? Any updates?"

There was a beat of silence before Jarvis replied into his comms as he waved down the Masters who were calling him and went into his chambers which were thankfully intact, "No, sir. There have been no confirmed sightings of any suspicious person as well as the perimeter around the Sanctums have not been breached by any energy signature. Also, the shifts have been rotated now,"

He nodded at that. Made sense because it had been over 8 hours since they began observing the Sanctums. The Sanctum Masters must be exhausted as well because they were all expecting an attack to occur at any time and they had to be awake for longer periods of time.

Still, they were trained for this so being awake for days at a time was not that hard. What was hard was the stress, the anticipation, the tension in their body as they waited for an attack, and he could understand that. There were spells to reduce the body's need for sleep but they always had a drawback, being that once the spell cleared off, they would crash much harder than necessary. He'd read reports of one such Master going into a coma because their brain couldn't handle such things.

While he himself had no such limitation, owing to his enhanced body, even he was starting to feel frustrated at the entire thing. At the Ancient ONe's absence, at Kaecilous' inaction, and his own inability to find out what the fuck happened in Kamar Taj while he was away. NO magical residue attacks meant that someone from the normal world might be involved, which would be disastrous, for all the wrong reasons.

He knew that magic as a whole would be outed to society at large, eventually but for that to be accepted properly, humanity as a whole also had to learn a lot of other bitter truths as well. As they were now, he might just have to start shutting down a whole lot of crusader type shit that sought to prosecute the magic users.

He nodded at the Masters and left Kamar Taj, arriving in the crater that was once the village where the majority of the active Inhumans on the planet lived. THis was basically their base. Jiaying's crusade was always going to end in tragedy, the only question was would it be her tragedy or the tragedy she was going to inflict on humanity. This….was not what he had in mind when he was going to stop her crusade or disarm the entire conflict.

He was either going to vote for reunification with the Attilan Inhumans, obviously after killing Maximus but not this. Devoured by a Demon for some ritual that ended up being used by Dormmamu? 

He winced as his senses alerted him about the heavy presence in the surroundings. He was deep into the village and there we go, heavy lights flooded his side as the Chinese Authorities no doubt converged here.

"Halt!" He knew at least that one word for Mandarin and despite their wishes, he could not actually halt in this place. He had a lot of other places to be, he was just checking in on the barriers. Topping it up with another charge, he made sure that the barrier would last for days, hopefully enough time for the Dark Energy here to fully disperse.

With a boost from his barriers, he flew right into a portal that led him to Greenwich Village. He had not yet entered any of the Sanctums, mainly because the Wartime wards were active and he thought it prudent to maintain caution but the wartime wards weer extremely energy expensive and while they did have what was essentially unlimited energy in the form of dimensional energy, the wards needed a much more concentrated energy source.

The energy itself was almost limitless but they could not feed that energy directly into the wards. The storage mechanisms for that energy density were very few in number and the ones installed in the Sanctums were always going to be temporary ones, meant to stall any would be invaders long enough for the Sorcerer Supreme to arrive.

The ones in Kamar Taj were made of Uru, making them infinitely reusable. The ones in the other Sanctums? Not so much.

Sooner rather than later, they were going to have to drop the wartime wards and Kaecilius would no doubt be waiting for that, ready to destroy any Sanctum that did not have the presence of Jack. 

He could have laid down a trap in the library before Kaecilius had all the knowledge he needed but now that he had no idea what exactly Kaecilius was after, he could do nothing but wait.

The Time Stone was one such thing but the protections on it made any move he could make useless.

He sighed and walked right up to the Sanctum, and knocked on the door, watching as that made a visible ripple of magic all around the Sanctum. IT also sampled a piece of his magic, which he let happen, and then watched as a voice came from the door.

"Master Sullivan."

"Master Drumm, I think it is time we drop the wards. Kamar Taj has regrouped."

"Has the Ancient One returned?"

He sighed at that, "No. We have not been able to contact her but I have no reason to worry. The Fae negotiations have always taken time."

There was silence on the other side before, with a resounding click, he watched as the visible protections faded away, revealing the brick wall of the Sanctum. At the same time, the door opened and Master Drumm, haggard and tired, stepped out, took a deep breath, and said, "I need a Bagel."

He grinned at that, "Spoken like a true New Yorker. I'll fill in for you," He said and entered the Sanctum.

"Be careful," Drumm said as he was metaphorically handed over temporary control over the wards by Drumm, in an instant. Damn, that was some good skill. Well, he had been Sanctum Mater for a long time now.

His subtle barrier that molded around Drumm drew his attention but he didn't react aside from a subtle nod as Drumm disappeared from his vision.

___xx__

Eastern Europe

–HIVE–

They were ready, he knew that and yet, for some reason, he was hesitating. The teams had been formed, and while he was saddened to know that none of the knowledge as well as the magical items from these two Sanctums would be available to him, he knew that he could not push further on that topic.

Two teams had been formed and they were already on their way to London and New York. According to Kaecilius, the Ancient One would remain busy until the last moment. That would give them more than enough time to blow up one Sanctum, with his team and then they would call on something more special to deal with the retribution that would undoubtedly be coming their way.

The knowledge in the books he had read so far gave him glimpses into the structure of the Sanctums and how they were operated. An invisible planetary shield capable of repelling enemies older than Earth itself. It was distressing, how much he was unaware about his future kingdom.

A part of him feared what would happen should all the Sanctums fall, which is why he would be going to the London Sanctum himself, to sabotage this mission. The New York Sanctum would fall, undoubtedly, there is nothing that can stop the Ghost, now that she has completed her Inhuman transformation.

Kaecilius will be overseeing the destruction of the London Sanctum as well so he should be able to stall Kaecilius long enough for the heroes to arrive. His lips curled in distaste at the necessity of the act but he knew that should the shield fall, beings much worse than him would try and capture his kingdom, something he could not allow.

"Sir?" He looked up as one of his minions entered his voice, a tablet in his hand. Now that he had a good enough number of minions from his own species, he had begun relegating the monkeys to lesser jobs like cleaning the bathrooms as such. He undoubtedly enjoyed putting the monkeys in their place.

"Yes?" he turned his attention back to the book, which was in his hand but he was not reading that at all. He was feeling a sense of unease about the whole thing and yet, after going through the entire plan with a comb, he could not find anything that might indicate that he was going to be in any danger. 

"Sir, we have received confirmation from their side. They are about to engage this Ancient One who will be returning soon," 

"Hmm, leave." 

He could feel him leave hastily. As soon as the door shut, he snapped the book shut and went to the window in his office, overlooking the training as well as the modifications being done to the base. Sure, the Elephantised Inhuman was grotesque and incomplete to look at but his strength was undeniable.

With two more of his brethren who were unable to become perfect like himself, they were well on their way to making his first lair, according to his wishes. It would be the start of many such lairs, spread across his Kingdom.

____xx___

–Kaecilius–

"She will return soon. At this location," He opened his eyes from his meditation as a message was received from his Liege. He bowed at the invisible air until the pressure from the area receded. They were in one of the many natural air chambers that had formed beneath the ocean. Detection at this depth was next to impossible using technology, like the one that Stark has, who is undoubtedly roped in to defend the Sanctums by Jack Sullivan.

And he has cloaked this cave, along with many others, to make sure that none of the Dark Energy scent leaves it. He had to be careful in storing some of the more volatile Dark Ones in one of these caves but it had been worthwhile to do that, to deal a surprise blow to the Ancient ONe.

"Inform the leech," he ordered as he stood up, making preparations for the battle. 

For one, they had a pre chosen location for the Ancient One, to push her in that place so that they would have the home field advantage. His liege has given him the entrance to the Fae Palace so that he could prepare to ambush the Ancient One.

After a long last, he would be one step closer to Eternal Life, to immortality. All he had to do was kill a thief and a liar. He would have loved to have her loyal Masters in front of them when he exposed her hypocrisy but alas, that would mean Jack being there to support her and as powerful as he was, he was not confident in defeating that infernal man's barriers.

His liege would be the one to deal with that pesky insect once his liege descended on the world and made it timeless.

Word Count - 2238

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