The "G" Shield

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The In Between dimension [August 2015] 

–Ancient One.–

It was always cumbersome dealing with the Fae, in ways most frustrating because her advantages that allowed her to effectively single handedly defend Earth, were meaningless in front of the Fae.

Having overwhelming power in the universe meant almost nothing to the Fae who could casually set into motion a chain of events that would have even the strongest of beings in the universe dead. Only those outside the chains of fate could have a chance at defying the Fae and live to tell the tale. The ones that did live came out so broken that it would probably have been better to die.

In the entirety of Kamar Taj, only she was uniquely capable of handling the flowery language that belied the dangerousness of the conversation that the Fae used as their primary weapon. A single word misspoken, a single phrase misunderstood could mean the difference between heaven and hell when it came to the Fae and their regular treaty signings that she had to because having Fae come to Earth unrestricted was a nightmare.

Then there was the matter of the treaties. She was the signee from Earth's side and the Winter Court usually sent a different person every time, to try and confuse her, which would have been fine if not for a single detail. The timings of these treaty signing events.

They were, as far as her knowledge went, completely random, without any rhyme or reason, at least on their side of the universe. Who knows what went on in the minds of the Winter Court? After all, they were the ones to decide everything and while the Fae certainly did come with the sincerity to sign the treaty as written, it did not mean that they didn't take every opportunity they had to add something extra to the written treaties.

That was why she had to be the one to read it personally, go over it multiple times, and show it to the representative of the Winter Court, who then conveyed his thoughts back to the Winter Court, who then debated amongst themselves and gave the representative either an agreement or instructions for another round of negotiation, usually the latter.

All in all, it was a very tedious affair, one made even more inconvenient for her because it was conducted in a dimension that was halfway to the Winter Court and halfway to Earth, in dimensional terms. It made contacting Kamar Taj all but impossible, with the Sling Rings and the formation carved into the Shield building units of the Sanctum being the only thing that could reach her this far, allowing her to know the rough status of all the Masters in Kamar Taj and the status of the three Sanctum buildings, respectively.

She was also not given much time to prepare Kamar Taj for any invasions and usually, the Time Stone did warn her about an unavoidable event, even though it could not accurately map the Fae so she usually did give the Masters in Kamar Taj a little advance notice though this time, that was unnecessary because Jack was there. She was more than relieved that he was there because he was the strongest one in Kamar Taj, even more so than her who was only this powerful because she was borrowing the power of the Dark One, power that would also render her useless if Dormammu ever managed to make his way into the material universe.

Her eyes narrowed as she saw the representative of the Winter Court's hands almost twitch the second she thought of the Dark One's true name. A bad feeling appeared in her mind as she once again said Dormmamyu. There! Her eyes narrowed as she once again saw the same thing happening.

Sighing, she spoke up, "I suppose you are new, then?"

"What?" The Fae questioned her but she was all out of patience at this point. A quick check had her eyes widening as she saw one of the Sanctums destroyed with most of the Masters intact and alive. That second part was confusing but the first part was much more damning, she had to get to Earth soon.

"Nothing. Just this point will appeal to the Winter Court, I am quite sure," She said while casting any and all spells she could to communicate with Earth, knowing that most of them would be useless without summoning an exorbitant amount of power. Power that would be misconstrued as an act of aggression by the Fae, something that she would not stand for. It would just undo a lot of work and also put Earth in terrible danger, especially right at the edge of her leaving.

It would just be unfair for her successor to deal with such a huge mess right in the beginning of their tenure. She still didn't have any idea as to who her successor was actually going to be. It was clearer when Jack hadn't arrived in the universe but after he did so, it became so much more murky, the Time Stone didn't show her nearly as much of the future that it did before.

As her thoughts ran wild inside her mind, she didn;t break stride in her negotiations with the Fae, only this time, knowing that there was a threat to Kamar Taj back on Earth, she abandoned a few of her objectives and made sure that the Treaty was signed quickly, something that the representative did not seem to like, if his reactions were anything to go by.

Ofcourse, it was a Fae, so the reactions were not even visible to the untrained eye but she had dealt with Fae and more of their ilk far more times than they could have possibly imagined. With the aid of the Time Stone, she had spent countless years in countless timelines dealing with various Fae, resulting in multiple outcomes.

In body, she might be a thousand years old but in spirit? She was hundreds of thousands if not millions of years old if she counted the time she spent living multiple timelines before returning to the main timeline. 

"Thank you for this," She said to the representative before flicking her fingers, sending a wave of orange energy that seemed to transcend space and time, arriving right in the middle of the Winter Court, for the Fae to read. She smiled coldly as the representative paled at her action, well as much as the Fae could lose color, anyway. That should be enough for the Fae in front of her to be dissipated and then dismissed. After all, interfering with the dealings of the Winter Court, especially with an outsider, was a much bigger crime than outright killing another Fae which brought with it the death penalty.

With the crimes committed, the representative would get something much worse than the death penalty, with the Winter Court using all their creativity and cruelty to deliver a truly gruesome fate on the Fae.

With a mocking salute, she pulled on her side of the contract, three pieces of paper appearing in the air before one of them flew to her. The second her hand made contact with the paper which was more akin to energy, the dimension began shattering, as she was being pulled back to Earth.

Securing the contract, she braced for the journey because the Fae always liked to leave her in a different place every time. Sometimes, it was a public washroom, sometimes it was on top of an active volcano and sometimes within as well, sometimes in the middle of a city, sometimes at the bottom of a lake or the ocean, she could never know.

She knew that they derived no small amount of joy from seeing her get inconvenienced, especially since she didn't allow them any room in matters that seemed to matter to them. Since it made them happy, she didn't fight it much because it was a trivial matter to protect herself, especially since the Fae promised to deliver her on Earth itself. 

So, as she had already cast a solid barrier over herself, she found herself stumbling a bit as she landed on green grass. Stunned at the hospitality, she dispelled the barrier and found herself overlooking a cliff with the moon shining in the sky. She was about to open a portal when she realised that she didn't have her sling ring on her. Also, the Fae always insisted on her not having her dimensional storage spell on her during the negotiations so she did not have anywhere to put the papers as well, not that anything could happen to them. They were more than durable and also not really material to be harmed, but energy taking a physical form.

She sighed and was about to float up to get to the closest city when her eyes narrowed, her surroundings rippling for a moment before three individuals appeared in front of her, where there were none before.

Holding the treaty papers behind her, she projected an air of calm even as her senses told her of the dense barrier that now covered the entirety of the cliff, stinking of a familiar energy that did not bode well for her.

'So, this is it then.'

"Kaecilius." She greeted the one in the lead, sadness, and regret in her voice as she looked straight into his hood, wanting him to know that she knew who it was and why he did it. Kaecilius paused and removed his hood, revealing the scars that one got whenever they overdrive on the energy of the Dark One.

For someone as powerful as Kaecilius to draw that much energy meant that he had come awfully close to becoming the second strongest Dimensional Energy sorcerer on the planet.

"Ancient One." Kaecilius greeted back, his voice tinged with anger and bitterness. Though they were far past the point of talking it out now, she still tried.

"Why do this Kaecilius? You know how this all ends."

"It is far beyond words now, Ancient One. Your deceptions ran deep but I know the truth now. I know what I must do." 

She sighed, put the folded treaty papers into her robe, as dimensional energy pumped through her body, multiple eldritch constructs already taking shape in front of her body, without even moving her hands an inch. That was the skill level she had already reached and yet, she knew that she was not coming from this alive.

Not with the way things were set up for her. She did not have her weapons with her, courtesy of the Fae, no way to use the Sling Ring. The barrier was built with Dark Energy, and more likely, Kaecilius had many of his acolytes burning their bodies powering the barrier, which meant it would be an uphill battle getting out of this space, especially with Kaecilius on her back.

She mentally noted the invisible space shards that Kaeciloius had taken as his weapons, with his much lesser skilled accomplices drawing on Dimensional Energy constructs before empowering them with energy from DOrmammu, toughening them and also giving them a poisoning attribute.

"Quite a show." She commented as she took a single step forward, the entire space around them rippling before a wave of dimensional fire sprouted from the hexagon in front of her, drowning the area in front of her with Hellfire.

Her hand snapped up as she caught a nearly invisible shard of space inches away from her eyes. Crushing it with her hand, she kept an eye on the area in front of her. It was still covered in fire but she knew that they would not die with just this spell.

She leaned to the side as another shard grazed her robe, her eyes making contact with Kaecilius's completely dark orbs as she closed her eyes, having no choice but to call on the energy from him. When she opened her eyes once more, her eyes were dark as well with a purple tattoo appearing on her forehead. Drawing on her energy, she created a shield and bashed it right against Kaecilius, the shard breaking upon contact and pushing Kaecilius dozens of feet back.

She waved her hands behind her negligently, dispelling the fire, revealing the forms of the two people mid lunge. Reality seemed to glitch before the acolytes folded in on themselves, as if struck by a massive force, launching them right back at the barrier, their forms unmoving with multiple bones sticking out of places.

All this time, her attention was on Kaecilius who was standing back up, his arm that she had shattered, snapping back into place as Dormammu's energy worked overtime in making sure that Kaecilius' body remained whole until his purpose was finished.

"You see, Kaecilius, I might be trapped here but please do remember who you are dealing with. I am not some Master who can be dealt with just some zealots jumped up on Dark Energy." She took a single step forward, space rippling around her feet before she appeared right in front of the motionless Kaecilius, her hand drawn back holding onto an eldritch construct of a fan, a passable imitation of her favourite weapon. Her first relic.

With the speed granted to her unaging body, she stuck with her fan, her fan sinking right into Kaecilius' chest before her eyes widened, jumping back as she felt a mass of Dark Energy erupting straight from Kaecilius.

Kaecilius moved like a man possessed as he crushed her fan construct before his body was covered in Dark Energy with just two red eyes staring her down. Her face grim, she called on more and more of Dimensional Energy, trying to prepare for whatever Kaecilius-no-Dormammu had in store for her.

Her way of using the Dark Energy differed from what Kaecilius had done to his soul. She only used it to prolong her lifespan and even that made her feel dirty all over. She didn't use it to do much beyond empowering her DImensional energy spells and constructs. She didn't hand over her soul to Dormammu who had apparently flooded Kaecilius with so much Dark Energy that the space around them was beginning to warp.

If it went on any further, she would not be able to control the space in a wide enough range to matter. It would be like walking in a witch's domain all over again. It would not be pretty but back then, she had energy to spare and also the Time Stone in her possession, pretty much guaranteeing her win.

Now? Now she had nothing and that?

That made her grin, finally something to excite, something that was new, something that she didn't know the conclusion to. A feeling long lost emerged in her chest, a warm feeling that made her focus razor sharp.

She smiled as sweat gathered on her brow, not from fear or from exertion but excitement.

If I have to go today, let it be with a boom, as the kids say

Word Count - 2542

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