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Strange Tidings
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For the past few hours, rain had trickled down the streets of Manhattan. It looked to be a miserable night, lightning and thunder crackling every couple of minutes to let those know who braved the storm that they should have stayed indoors and curled up with a book or a movie. Horror movies were the best, because they matched the frightening aspects of the storm itself. Illyanna Rasputin decided that it was right for her to be out on a night like this. Bad storms did not bother her. Spending her times in Limbo was not that much different from Earth. The planet and world of her birth had many horrors similar to that of Limbo. Her apartment was not that far away. Her eyes glowed bright, crimson fire, and she was about to transport herself to her apartment. But she noticed that the streets had turned to ice. She pivoted on one foot, a graceful pirouette, and saw the terror that was Cold War, standing proudly on his ice slide. He looked like Ice Man on acid, she thought. She looked around her and saw that the entire city block, in fact the city as a whole had been reduced to so much congealed snow and ice, almost freezing it in time. “This will be my kingdom, my frozen kingdom,” Cold War said, releasing a bolt of ice from his fingertips, encasing her feet in a block of ice. “I don’t want to kill you, Magik, just deliver you to my master, Erlik Khan. But I did not come alone, dear Ilyanna.” From a
nether region, Magik swung her sword, smashing the ice block into ice
cubes. “It doesn’t matter if you are an ersatz Ice Man,
you will never take me anywhere. Too bad my big brother Colossus isn’t
here, his metal skin will shatter you to bits and pieces, like I just
did to that block of ice.” “Avalanche,” she breathed. Cold War shot a bolt of psionic ice out of his fingertips, knocking her sword out of her hand, embedding it in a stone block. Then, Avalanche created an earthquake, swallowing up poor Magik. Underneath the earthen core, a dimensional rift was opened to transport the New Mutant elsewhere. She screamed all the way there. As Magik mentally summoned her sword and Cold War and Avalanche entered another rift, a man in an alley witnessed this whole display. Just a man and his tiny maggots. Maggott traversed to Greenwich Village on Bleeker Street by taxi. He drove the cab himself because he didn’t have the money to pay the driver. Once he entered the vehicle, he let his tiny maggots eat the driver alive, watching him die. It was not a pleasant sight. He hated to see innocents die but his enemies, that was another story entirely. And this looked like to be the end of the world. He walked up to the entrance of the grand penthouse apartment that was the Sanctum Sanctorum. He reached to open the wide door but someone had opened it for him. Had Cold War gotten here first? Was Erlik Khan’s plan to not only kidnap Magik, but the Sorcerer Supreme, too? “Maggott, I presume?” the man with the cloak of levitation around his back and the Eye of Aggomotto on his neck asked kindly. “Dr. Stephen Strange, I need your help. Magik has been taken by Cold War and Avalanche. They mentioned a being called Erlik Khan.” “How do you know so much about this? I only just saw this through a hazy fog in my crystal ball,” Strange asked, with a tinge of curiosity. “Don’t sweat it, doc. I was in the alley. I knew I couldn’t fight them on my own with my tiny maggots. I needed help. I needed magical help.” Strange brought his cloak over his body. “What do you want with me?” “We should team-up. Your magic could wipe them out all at once.” “No,” Strange responded, coldly. “Actually, I saw the fight through my crystal ball and put a spell on you to come to me. I will need your help on this one, I need your—ahem, maggots to save the day.” “You have gotsabe kiddin’ me, Stephen.” “No, ‘tis true, mortal. Your maggots will go down in the annals of history and sorcery as legends for all time. They will prove that e’en the littlest creatures can save this paltry planet from the largest of sorcerers.” “That’s a big mouthful, doc.” “Come, O Maggott, come with me to the other side of the city where Cold War has transferred the streets and skyscrapers to ice-forms,” Strange said, wrapping both himself and his newfound ally in his cloak, teleporting them elsewhere.
A magical portal was opened and out forth came Dr. Strange and Maggott. They had traversed to many miles and city blocks into Manhattan proper. The city entire had been transformed into ice, courtesy of Cold War. Atop one of the many tenement buildings, on its roof, cackled Cold War. “Yer the leader-man, doc. What do we do now?’ Maggott asked, ready to begin his frontal attack on Cold War. He would like to think that his tiny maggots could save the day but he sincerely doubted it. Magic, he knew, would win this day. “By the crimson bands of cyttorak, I bid thee back, monstrosity of evil!” Doctor Strange said with an ancient incantation, as he gestured with his hands, drumming forth red magical beams to encase Cold War to break his ice slide. The villain, caught completely unawares, started to plummet to the waiting maw of earth below until at the last moment of impact, he formed a snow cushion to break his fall. “Couldn’t you just cast a spell to change the city back to its normal self, instead of fighting this joker?’ Maggott asked. “Or I could just sic my maggots on him while you distract him?” “Excellent, Maggott, that is the perfect plan. Prepare yourself whilst I—“ In the blink of an eye, Strange was transformed into a block of ice. The Eye of Aggamotto, which had always been lit, had now grown dim. The doctor was down for the count. Now it was up to Maggott to do his end of the plan. “Now, this is great,” Maggott said. He concentrated to his utmost, communing with the two maggots that were his best friends besides Dr. Strange, the human popsicle, and commanded them to devour Cold War. Cold War waved his hands in the air and the streets below him turned slick as ice. The maggots just flew back to Maggott’s waiting and loving arms. “You are useless without your insects or whatever they are,” Cold War said. “Here is a note to bring you to the next step. We will be waiting for you.” Cold War disappeared. Maggott opened the note. It read, Avalanche is next. Your fate is sealed. Erlik Khan. There was a crack in the block of ice that was Dr. Strange. The eye of aggamotto was lit, burning bright, once more and the ice melted. ”You okay, doc?’ “It seems that Cold War has the ability to cause fear in his victims. I was quite literally frozen with fear.” “He left us a note. We have to face Avalanche next.” Strange twirled his mustache. “I do not like the sound of this.” Dr. Strange’s magic had teleported Maggott and his tiny friends to the desired location. Maggott was still confused how he and his maggots could save the day, let alone the universe. His only concern was to find the lost female Rasputin. Strange didn’t seem the least bit worried. He seemed so confidant and self-assured, while Maggott was the novice and neophyte here. “Where are we, doc?” Maggott asked. “The downtown district. Past the Village and the theater district. Cold War has been here. See this long sheen of ice on the ground. It could the remains of his ice slide.” Maggott harrumphed. “But the note said that we would fight Avalanche next, not Cold War.” “I sense a surprise attack here. While we are battling Avalanche, Cold War could be in hot pursuit, if you’ll pardon the pun.” “Doc, I think you just cracked a joke. No harm, no foul. What’s the plan?” “I will try to see where Illyanna is. Maybe we can bypass these villains and free her.” Dr. Stephen Strange closed his eyes and went into a trance. The Eye, his Cloak, and his entire body started to glow a hue not known on this planet. He shifted in between dimensions and planes of existence. Strange screamed on a decibel level and volume that Maggott had never heard in all his travels. The Sorcerer Supreme collapsed and when he rose, he was out of breath and sweating bullets. “Doc!!! Doc, are you okay?” Maggott rushed to his friend’s aid. “Yes, I am well. I know where Magik is. Erlik Khan is keeping her in a prison in his home dimension. We must go there immediately.” “What about Cold War and Avalanche?” “They’ll keep. Once we defeat Khan and free Magik, they will be no trouble.” They were gone in a flash. All that was left of their presence on Earth was a wisp of the wind and smoke.
Beneath the caverns, in the dungeon that Erlik Khan kept all his prisoners, Magik stirred awake. She was weak and drained. Khan had punished her the whole time that she was here. He had somehow drained her of her powers. The magic abilities were within her but she couldn’t seem to conjure them. She was as useless as a normal human on earth would be against a being such as Erlik Khan. She was chained to the dungeon wall, her New Mutant uniform torn and ripped asunder. She didn’t know how she would be able to get out of here or defeat Erlik Khan and his army all by her lonesome. She looked down and saw a row of maggots crawl to her, eating away at her chains. She would be thankful if the whole display wasn’t so disgusting. She faced the man whose mental commands controlled the insects. She fell to the soft, wet ground. Maggott stood, with Dr. Strange in tow. “You looked like you needed rescuing,” Maggott said. “Stephen, Erlik took my powers away, he absorbed them into his person,” Magik said. “Can you use the Eye to restore them?” “I can try.” The Eye of Aggamotto soared onto his forehead and a yellow beam of light probed into the fiber of her very soul. When it was over, Strange looked into Rasputin’s heart and said, “They are no powers for me to restore. It is, as if, they never existed. You are no longer a mutant.” Atop the long staircase, the dungeon door opened slowly. Cold War and Avalanche walked inside down the stairs and made their presence known. Cold War shot twin blasts of ice onto Magik, encasing her. Without her powers, she would need assistance to free her this day from her allies. “We never did have our little rendezvous,” Avalanche said, causing an earthquake. Dr. Strange’s Cloak of Levitation caused both him, Maggott, and Magik to fly over the chasm that was formed. They landed on clear ground. Cold War and Avalanche were about to launch another attack when Erlik Khan appeared between the two warring factions. He used a spell to close the chasm that the mutant caused. Erlik Khan used counter spells to retrieve Dr. Strange’s Cloak and Eye. Then, he captured Maggott’s maggots in a glass jar. “Now your prized possessions will help me dominate the paltry planet of Earth and every dimension heretofore therein,” Erlik Khan cackled. |
