A/N - The weather changed and I caught the cold. Now, instead of protecting me from the virus, my immune system decided to just burn it all up to hell, hedging bets on whether I would survive or the virus.
Which, understandably, incapacitated me. Seriously, I would rather take a broken bone over this. Atleast, it won't make me miserable every single day.
Anyway, I am in better condition now so regular posting schedule should commence.
Sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoy it~!
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. As the corporations say these days, you will own nothing & be happy. I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or Disney or any of its characters. With that out of the way, let's goooo!
Siberian Taiga[1998]
–Damian Hawthorne–
Sighing, he drank the tea once more, overlooking the beautiful scenery in front of him. Any other day, this would have been quite the nice start to his day.
This day, however? It was absolutely miserable, with this tea being the only minutely good thing about it. He had woken up, not because his body was done resting, or because the morning sun hit his face. No, he was woken up by a replay of the horrible nightmare that was last night.
He never thought getting High Magical Talent, as a perk, would have this effect on him and his mind. Despite having Calm Mind active, he was overcome with such an intense urge to protect a pure creature of magic, that he would consider that state of mind to be a compromised version of himself.
Before yesterday, he had barely entertained the thought of having to kill people, and even then, he imagined his first kills to be mass manufactured Chitauri clones, with their minds an entire galaxy away in a ship.
He had expected to kill when there was absolutely no other choice, and even then, he would have let the adults handle it. Killing Thanos? Necessary but not by his hand.
Now, here he was, nursing a headache from killing vampires, under the influence. Of magic, but even so, he could freely say that he was under the influence of something else. Shaking his head, he gulped down the rest of his tea, and, after washing it, walked out of the cave.
The sun shone above him, not brightly but enough so that he knew that the vampires he knocked down, who might have been alive, were most definitely dead. Sighing, he set about his food routine, sneaking glances at the mountain in the background, feeling the urge to visit that place once more.
Now that he had a mind that was not under influence, he could feel the disappointment in himself as his past self had just left that place, leaving behind an entirely new range of enchantments he had seen, both in that barrier and in that altar.
Those chains shattered on their own, leaving behind nothing but what they had to be something special, to be able to restrain the damned Unicorn. Now that some time had passed since then, he most definitely did not think that the Unicorn was cute.
Suppressing the urge to move in that direction for the time being, he went about his day, restocking on the explosive pebbles, and also experimenting with the new thing he discovered about his magic last night. The ability to flood an enchantment with his internal magic, to create an entire new effect.
As much as he tried, he could not get his Shaped Forcefield to expand as much as it did last night but he was satisfied with the results he got, something that should get better with practice.
He understood that there was an emotional component to last night's on the fly magic infusion into the enchantments but he did not think he would be able to summon that much rage and disgust on his own, not without seeing some pretty grisly shit, and after last night?
He was going to avoid stuff like that with a ten foot pole of vibranium, once he got his hands on that stuff. There were plenty of other people, whose entire role in this world was to deal with stuff like that. He would just help them do their job.
No need to just jump into the thick of it. If last night was any indication, he might just end up making things worse, no matter how deserving the crime might be.
Once half of the day was gone, he finally firmed up the resolve as he dashed towards the mountain, now armed with a lot of explosive rocks and also another surprise in the form of the thermal battery rock, which now rested in a backpack of sorts, made up of hide, just in case he needed a big enough BOOM!
He took his time, but even so, he was at the edge of that clearing within hours. Only this time, his senses told him something else, informing him of multiple people present nearby.
Suppressing his presence as much as he could, he began creeping near the place of the battle, subtly dispelling the enchantment on the piece of hide he had hidden in the ground. No need to tie things back to him just in case some rogue sorcerer got his hands on them.
Marvel had a pretty vibrant rogue sorcerer gallery but most of them were toothless in front of the Iron Baldness of the Ancient One, so he either had nothing to worry about because there were very few evil sorcerers or very much to worry about because the sorcerers who did do evil shit, managed to keep it hidden very well.
Both sides to the overwhelmingly powerful magical enforcer coin.
Using the trees as cover, he remained hidden, as the noise finally reached his ears. Multiple voices, overlapping with one barking orders, along with the sound of boots. They spoke in a foreign language?
Russian? He wanted to say but could not confirm it. Empowered by the fact that he could take care of himself, and in the worst case scenario, just flee as far as he could while throwing the thermal battery and letting it explode as a distraction, he began moving forward.
Within a minute, he was past the place where the barrier from last night was placed, kneeling to hide better within the greenery around him.
"Sderzhíte étu mérzkuyu mágiyu!" [Contain this foul magic!]
Creeping further, he heard the person giving orders, because he could recognise that tone from anywhere. Slowly, he pushed himself up to finally get a look at his surroundings, only to see about a dozen people, moving around the clearing, inspecting the holes in the ground as well as the areas where the vampires he had killed yesterday.
He squinted to take a better look, as his eyes widened at what he saw in every person's hands.
Wands!
He immediately ducked down, eyes widening as he tried to ascertain if what he saw was true or not. Getting back up, he saw the same, only this time, he saw the wizards use the Wands to perform spells, with colourful lights spitting out of the tip.
His memory flashed to that note he got when he was placed here over a year ago.
This was the surprise?!
No, calm down.
This doesn't have to be the worst case scenario. Plus, he already knew he was in some variation of the Marvel universe, which was already a death world.
What difference would it make if the Harry Potter universe, a deathworld of a lower level, was also smashed into his life?
A vision of Voldemort, instead of Thanos, holding onto even a single Infinity Stone flashed through his mind, with scores of humans dead, both wizard and muggle alike, the world burning in the background, as he stumbled, barely holding onto the ground and the contents of his stomach.
He hissed at the vision, feeling as if that image was seared into his mind by some outside entity, the noise alerting the wizards in front of him.
He was on his feet in a second, and bolting away from the clearing, not using the giant avatar because he did not want to be seen as even more suspicious than it already was.
Once he was out into the woods, and down the mountain, he could just dash through everything and disappear. In his haste, he dropped the thermal battery, the lack of weight on his back being a pretty good indicator.
Nothing to worry about, that was just a piece of rock he had lying around for months without being used. He resisted the urge to make that explode as he continued to run.
He heard voices shouting behind him, some in panic and some in anger, as he felt a dull impact on his back, the forcefield enchantment neatly absorbing most of it, and the rest he barely even felt, as colour arcs of energy fell around him.
Some exploded on impact, some made flashes of light meant to blind him, but he powered through with his extra sensory magic cloud spread around his body, some flashes liquified the land itself and more.
As someone who only read some Harry Potter fanfiction here and there, simply because of the uproar made by the author, he knew some spells. Also, the osmosis of trivia through his college roommates also helped.
He knew that they had some spells that could knock out people with a single impact. They also had spells that could kill people on impact. No ifs or buts about that. One touch of the Avada Kedavara spell and you're out, dead, soul leaving the body dead.
Now, if only he knew the colour of those spells, he thought to himself as he desperately tried to dodge every single spell thrown at him, failing at some of them but that was fine because his forcefield was holding up nicely.
There were some perks to keeping the magical cloud around his body active, as it told him a vague purpose of the spell. Some spells screamed danger, which he dodged immediately, not knowing if they were the death spell or not.
There was something about the Instant Kill spell that said it could not be cast silently?
Slowly, using clever jumps, ducks, and a slight boost in speed, he'd left the wizards behind, their voices trailing behind him. Once that happened, he confirmed that they were gone and no spell was attached to him, like a tracker spell, and then zoomed off, using as much magic he could burn to get back to his home safely.
This changed things, immensely so. Now, the danger on the horizon was not the Chitauri Invasion but something else entirely.
It also explained his internal source of magic.
He was a wizard as well.
He grit his teeth as he recalled her words. No wonder the Ancient One told him she would formally hand him over to the relevant authorities.
She must have meant the magical ministry?
Shaking his head, he entered the cave after activating the highest level of defenses once more. Twice in 24 hours, that was a record.
Taking in deep breaths, he sat down on the ground, ready to change the plan once more.
Whatever his fear of jumping into the grisly stuff might be, he was not about to rely on a single boy to save a magical country.
On the other side of that incompetency spectrum, he was also not about to rely on bumbling old fools with too much power and too little conviction to save an entire country.
Which only left him with a few options, rather a single option if he was being honest with himself.
"Damn it!"
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