More stories found here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-iron-age-library-1511067/#68
Follows on from The Masters Vol 2 8-11:
8: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-iron-age-masters-vol-2-part-8-1518752/#6
9: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-iron-age-masters-vol-2-part-9-1519170/#8
10: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-iron-age-masters-vol-2-part-10-1519883/#4
**
“Daniel Warstar, Sorcerer Supreme”
I look at myself in the mirror and can’t help but laugh. Me, the most powerful mystic in this dimension! It seems like a load of stark. But then again I am rippling with Asgardian power, I have a ring of the Mandarin, the Eye of Agamotto, fought Thanos, helped stop Chthon…it’s just a long way from the Nation of the Plains.
A lot has happened, most of it bad. The world seems to lurch from one disaster into the next. I can see why Dr Strange went all nutcage! I gather up my gear and kiss my nameless lover on his forehead. It was just a one night stand, nothing more. More a celebration that I didn’t get killed by demons. Hard to believe Magni’s sister is now in charge of Hell! Who would want that job? Come to think of it, it may be like being Sorcerer Supreme. I didn’t really want the job but someone has to do it.
I click my fingers and I’m dressed…whoa! Okay something tells me that things like that are the way the people start thinking that they’re better than everyone. I take off all my clothes again, sure it may seem silly but if I don’t then I’ll just be snapping my fingers all the time.
“Bad time?”
I look up to see the Traveller standing there, dressed in what appears to be a liquid toga; all shimmery.
“Just getting dressed again. Don’t you have a whole universe to explore?”
“Indeed I do Daniel, but this little mud ball in the back end of nowhere keeps drawing attention to itself! It’s like a child that has been told it can’t have candy”
“So…?”
“Oh no cosmic calamity right now!” he smiles “Soon though. I was actually here to see how you were doing.”
“Checking up on me?”
“Kinda”
“Do you eat?”
“Not for sustenance but yes, I eat”
I give him a broad smile “Then let’s have breakfast. I know this place that serves the most unhealthy slop”
“You’re taking me to Centauri IV in 3006AD, impressive!”
“Ummm, no!”
Al-Mar Food Court, New York City
Traveller looked at his tray in disgust and then me as I stuffed my face. “You are actually eating this? And this ‘coffee’ is essentially salt and melted plastic”
“Great isn’t it!”
Traveller clicked his fingers and made his tray vanish “I have sent this to the super massive black hole in the centre of the galaxy, a fitting burial”
I go to speak when images flood my brain. Mountains, shields, barbed wire “What’s a Magneto?”
Traveller waved his finger and made my coffee leap out of its cup and form into a three dimensional figure “Max Eisenhardt aka Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto was a complicated mutant from the 20th Century with big ideas”
“He’s going to New York!”
“Impossible! He’s dead” Traveller clicked his fingers vanished and the reappeared “Yup dead! Just checked”
“Here’s what I don’t get about you!” I point a forkful of sugared bacon fat at him “You can go anywhere, do anything yet you leave this place the horrible stark hole it’s become. You can alter time right? Why not go back and set this world right? You can see the future so if your choice was poor initially you can go back and fix it. You could go back and for example bring Magneto here, or save his life, or…”
“That’s called meddling Daniel”
“Isn’t preventing Chthon from taking his rightful place also meddling? Or Thanos? Isn’t what most of what you do, technically, meddling?”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that!”
“Really? Well then explain it to me!” I grab my coffee and take a swig “I’m all ears”
“Well…” He looks over my shoulder “It seems you’re about to have a bad day. See you round!”
And with that I’m at the table by myself. I glance over to see a woman chatting to an Iron Soldier and pointing in my direction. I stand up and give them a wave, she stupidly waves back unsure of what she’s doing. I start to head over I feel like I’ve been kicked in the soul! Something old, familiar and wrong. With a wave of my hand I end up in a village, surrounded by jungle.
“Desculpa-me onde estou?" I ask a boy carrying a bucket of water.
“Impertatriz. Novo Brazilia”
“Gracias!” I say to the young boy. I don’t speak the local lingo but the Eye of Agamotto lets me somehow. I look around, I’m here for a reason…and then I spot him. Shuffling out of the jungle with a grin on his face.
“Mandarin*!”
“Warstar!” he spits on the ground.
“Didn’t I send you to the South Pole?”
“You did, for which I am very thankful” he held up his hands, wiggling his fingers, four ornate rings on them “By you stranding me in the snow I found another of my rings. Perhaps I should thank you.”
“You’re welcome”
He sneered as he shuffled forward “You have something that belongs to me!”
I look down at the trinket on my finger, the diamond that shoots ice and take it off “Here you go!”
The wizened old man looks at me suspiciously as he inches forward, his eyes dancing with delight.
“But you do know that once you get all ten, you die” I tell him. "Right?"
“I have spent over two hundred years in abject pain,” growled the Mandarin as he stood at arm’s length “Everything the Iron Army does I feel! Every injustice, every death!”
“Then why aren’t you attempting to stop them? Seriously you’ve been given a choice between death or walking the Earth feeling their pain and you choose, well both! Why haven’t you been trying to stop the Iron Army? You stop them, no more pain and you get to live forever! I mean, that sounds pretty cool to me”
The Mandarin scowls at me as he listens to my words, his hand hovering near mine.
“This is yours, I’m sorry I’ve had it for so long. But honestly, you really should pull your head out of your stark” I toss him his jewellery; he latched onto it like a seagull on a chip. He looks down at his hands and slowly drops his head.
“Your words…” his voice is muffled, oh stark I think I made him cry! Well done Daniel, first day as Sorcerer Supreme and you make an old guy cry!
“It’s oka…”
“YOU DARE SPEAK TO THE MANDARIN LIKE A CHILD!” his hands erupt in a veritable rainbow of energy.
**
*Mandarin previously encountered Daniel Warstar here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-iron-age-warstar-part-8-659139/#1
http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-iron-age-warstar-part-9-662235/#5
To be continued
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