_magichands (_magichands) wrote in newalliance, @ 2017-03-08 21:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | doctor strange, james rogers, ll houston, loki, speedy ii, superboy, winter soldier |
Who: Stephen Strange, Dormammu
When: 3/1 (and ALL times!)
Where: Skies of New York (and EVERYWHERE)
What: An epic battle between the Sorcerer Supreme and the Dread Lord leads to unintended consequences involving time and space. But mostly time.
Notes: This officially throws open the timeline for shenanigans, if you so desire. Make your own threads to keep the timeline settings distinct!
Dormammu only caught him unaware by technicality; he'd been preparing for months for the Dread Dormammu to work his way through the path to the mortal realm that Loki had showed him. It was only the exact day and hour he hadn't known, and, as it happened, Dormammu wasn't exactly what could be called subtle.
"Sorcerer Supreme! You summoned me! Now face your destiny!" Leaning on the Seal of the Vishanti for strength as he looked down at the fiery head melting the asphalt around him, Stephen felt the weight of that statement settle over him, very much as the Cloak of Levitation settled on his shoulders. It was true: he had summoned Dormammu. He had meant to summon him into a circle of containment, but in his state then, there was no guarantee he wouldn't have been tricked into letting Dormammu roam free regardless. This way was bad, but he was free to fight.
He also wondered if they all made such grandeous statements. Still, the moment did call for them.
The Cloak lifted him from his workroom floor, and he passed through the Seal as if it was a bubble, and some of its protections clung to his own Sphere of Seraphim as he did. "You will return to the plane from whence you came, and stay there forevermore!" he announced.
He probably deserved the fireball Dormammu hurled at him for that one, no matter how traditional a response it was. The Shield absorbed it, but he felt the force of it stagger him even in the air. Then Dormammu rose to meet him, and the battle was joined.
He should have expected it, really. He'd merely been desperate, and if it had been a different sort of desperation than what had lead him to summon Dormammu in the first place, well, he could be forgiven for wanting to gain any edge in a battle that was unfair by definition; it was possible that he had an edge on Dormammu in the way of magical power and flexibility, but Dormammu had been more than happy to throw himself into civilians who clustered on corners to gawk at the spectacle above them, forcing Stephen to defend them rather than strike at the exposed demon, forcing him to split his attention and pour out his power like water into sand.
He needed time. And so he cast the spell that would give it to him...forgetting that Dormammu had such spells of time worked around him as well, and that such spells were delicate things, not something that should be cast in the heat of a moment, or behind battle-shields.
The spell worked, though hardly as he'd intended: instead of time merely slowing for everything around him to give him time to cast his next spell, a pulse of shimmering air twisted out from around him, like a wave of heat without fire. Dormammu vanished. That was hardly a good thing: as Stephen looked about him, he saw magic flare up out of street corners and parks and midair, twisting and rippling strands colored with his spell, and closed his eyes as he understood what he had done.
He hadn't stopped time. It had already been a tangled knot, and by slicing it apart, he had sent all the ends flailing away. Now, there were places in the world where time itself was thin, where one could step off the curb and end up in Victorian New York, or Medieval London, or Ancient Rome, or far worse.
First, he would need to repair the spell, and then he could worry about when he had sent Dormammu. Or perhaps he would need to do both at once.