The Atlantic Ocean…

Doctor Strange pulled his jacket around him tightly with his hand and gripped it gently. His hand’s dexterity and strength were almost destroyed by the car crash years earlier which had nearly ended his life, so he lacked the power to grip it shut for long. The short term heat saved was enough however for him to keep doing it when he felt a chill.

The rain was beating down on them from above that plus the vast expanse of cold water and the fifty knots they were travelling in the small boat provided quite a cold chill.

Wong sat resting against the side of the orange boat. His eyes were closed as he listened to the sound of the bird above and the crashing of the waves around him over the roar of the engine. The gentle rain which patted down on the side of the boat was a very calming sound to him.

The other man in the boat with them was from the fixed oil platform itself cheerfully named ‘The One fine day in the middle of the night’ oil rig after a fixed platform in a book of the same name which was besieged by terrorists.

Doctor Strange had gained access to the rig via his associate Tony Stark who owned 47% of the company who owned the rig.

Strange had been sitting in the study of his Sanctum Sanctorum reading tomes of forgotten ancient law, which talked of the 1,267 contract between John Uskass AKA The Raven King and the Faire folk inhabiting the British Isles at the time.

He suddenly felt a tingle ripping up and down his spine; he was being alerted to something. Throughout the years of his study of the mystic arts Doctor Strange had taken the natural ability of all beings, the ability to sense magic (shivers down the spine or a cold chill in the air in a haunted house) and refined it to an almost laser precision.

He pushed a large book away from him and stood to his feet. His head turned to the side of the room to look at the large covered globe in the corner of the room. His senses were telling him something was going on, something he wasn’t sure of yet, but the globe would know.

The globe was one of those old world globes with the different sections of the world divided up and the names etched in tiny letters next to it. This globe however was different than the normal ones…this globe was alive. The globe changed and altered itself along with the real world.

Strange pulled the metal cover of the globe back revealing the actual browning globe beneath it.

Inside the globe was a very powerful mystical artefact, a crystal ball. The ball was more commonly known as the Orb of Agamotto the sister piece of Strange’s eye of Agamotto as it was empowered by the same mystical force. The Orb was given to Strange by The Ancient One his master and ex-Sorcerer Supreme. The spell on the globe which housed it was by Strange’s own design.

Strange’s spell meant that the power of the orb was passed through the globe allowing it to pinpoint where the occurrences are which were shown in the glowing ball.

Strange’s eyes scanned the globe as it spun gently before his eyes, he watched as the mountains and countries of the world rotated from beyond the horizon until they fell directly under his eyes and then away again. The globe rotated three times before his eyes fell on the location of the disturbance.

A soft green glow flickered like a flame in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where the disturbance of the mystic plane was. Strange tightened his eyes sending creased wrinkled crows feet across the side of his temples and looked into the ocean. He looked at it and it was almost like a zoom function which allowed him to view the oil rig where the disturbance was occurring.

It had taken little over two days for Strange to gather knowledge on the rig and to contact Tony Stark, awaiting as Tony arranged for his private boat to come pick up Doctor Strange. He had offered to accompany Strange in the guise of Iron Man as always to help with problems caused or within his own company. Doctor Strange declined, this was a mystical problem and so was his problem.

The boat clinked gently against the side of the jetty which jutted out from the oil rig. The man who had come out to meet them at Stark’s boat tied off the boat with a double ‘oxo’ knot. Strange stared up at the imposing structure of the oil rig all around him.

There were four massive struts; one was right next to the jetty and was connected to the elevator they would soon take to the top. The other three were spread out over the distance of several football fields which held up the thousands of tons of concrete and steel.

Strange looked down at the dark churning water that lapped against the side of the boat as he hauled himself out. The water was understandably dark below the oil rig but it somehow seemed more. The water was almost perfectly black but with white foam that shifted and moved with ripples on the water. The sun’s effect on the water was completely cut off by the huge oil rig and so he thought little of it.

Wong followed Strange onto the dock, hoisting the large rucksack filled with Doctor Strange’s equipment onto his back. The large man made an attempt to help Wong but was rebuffed with a strong palm splayed out and a sympathetic smile from the Tibetan monk. The burden was his to bare. He also did this because no one without the correct training should come so close to one or two items which were in the bag.

The man shrugged as he passed Strange and heaved open the metal shutter over the front of the lift. He stepped in and the others followed. He slid the clattering door shut over the gap. The door was like a wire mesh accordion meaning the three could stare down at the black water as the lift began to rise.

---

The galley was the main meeting area for the drillers on the platform. It was technically not a galley since it was a few hundred feet above sea level and on solid ‘ground’ but the term Galley had passed over from the sailors of old like many of the terms on oil rigs such as Captain and First Mate.

There were four hundred men on this night crammed into the galley. They drank and smoked, those who had just finished the last shift of the day ate whatever meals were left for them by the others. There were cards and gambling as well as stories of things that happened to the guys or a friend of a friend. There are however others who were reading their books or writing a letter home to be sent out on the next boat, not every man aboard the rig was a rowdy stereotype…the majority however were.

The heavy metal door to the galley opened slowly, all the while the large circle wheel used for locking it reset itself to its normal position. Through the hole stepped first the man who had met the Doctor and then Doctor Strange and Wong themselves. The man closed the heavy door behind him and turned the wheel again. Every door on the rig was solid and water tight when sealed.

Silence fell across the galley. The men stared at the two newcomers. The Doctor was dressed in his blue suit. The cape of levitation tucked and folded carefully between his jacket and shirt.

“You must be the health and safety inspector Mister Stark sent?” asked one man. He was in his late thirties and clean shaven. He was wearing a polo neck jumper and his hair was combed forward with little care. Strange nodded. “I’m Captain Bradford,” nodded the man as he motioned for the men opposite him with a handful of cards to move sideways to let the two men sit down.

Doctor Strange was the Sorcerer Supreme, the last line of defence against magic maladies of the world…in many cases it was a good idea that he remained unknown. He and Tony Stark had come up with the cover that he was a safety inspector.

“I am Doctor Strange,” said Strange as he lowered himself down.

“Doctor?” questioned the Captain with a raised eyebrow.

“They’ll give you a doctorate in anything nowadays…mines in risk assessment.” Strange smiled. There were a few beats as the Captain seemed to size him up.

The Captain trusted his gut, there was no other way he could describe it. He hired, he fired and he drilled on his gut. Sure he would listen to the experts who gave him an area but the exact location of his drill as well as when to go heavy and when to go light on the drill was all down to his gut. It had not failed him yet. His gut was telling him to be wary.

“Look, as much as I know you’re doing your job and as much as I respect Mister Stark I really don’t think we need…”

“Three dead in two days?” Strange raised his eyebrow in question. Three men missing and presumed dead in three days is by anyone's count a bad safety record.

There was a silence which seemed to emanate around the room. The lack of talking in the formerly vibrant room echoed around the room making every movement seem immense as Strange waited for noise.

“Oil rigs are dangerous places,” said the Captain. The men in the room remained silent; their drinks left alone as they glared at Strange.

They had lost three friends in the last two days and they mourned them in their own ways; they mourned them in private or with a thought when drink touched their lips as they remembered their friends. They wouldn’t cry and they wouldn’t be silent because that’s not what their friend would have wanted, but what had happened to them was a tragic accident as happens in the dangerous job and they didn’t like the thought of blame being assigned.

“I understand the bodies haven’t been found?” Strange focused only on the Captain for a reaction as he tried to shut out the growling and staring members of the crew who were throwing daggers with their eyes.

“Oil rigs are dangerous places, especially just when we hit oil. A lot of very powerful machinery whirring and a lot of pressure…”

The Captain was cut off as Doctor Strange began to speak again.

“You hit oil two days ago and there have been three deaths since? I need to see your storage tanks.” His voice was urgent and filled with conviction and commanding authority.

The members of the oil rig crew did not respond well to authority. While it is true that there were those who did not conform to the stereotype of burly overly masculine alpha males, there were still those who did.

Three of the larger men on the crew happened to be sitting on the table directly behind where Doctor Strange had taken a seat. They were all over six feet tall; two were bearded and had long thick hair while the other was bald. They all had huge square jaws and massive arms covered in tattoos. The Captain eyed them as they rose to their feet but decided not to warn them away. They would not hurt Strange but a little more respect for the crew and their ways would not hurt and the threat of violence may help.

“We don’t know who you think you are but what kind of risk doctor needs to see an area that hasn’t got anything to do…” the hand of the largest of the three men moved towards the shoulder of Strange.

“Do not touch him,” Wong’s voice was polite and quiet but in the almost silent room it carried and with it carried power.

The three men stopped and looked at the small man. They were three meatheads who looked at themselves and their huge builds and muscles and then at the tiny Asian man and the thought never crossed their minds that he could possibly warrant a threat to them.

The man’s hand slammed down on the shoulder of Strange much harder than he originally intended but now he had a point to prove. Strange wobbled sideways due to the weight.

The muscles in Wong’s legs and all the way up his back tightened. He shot a quick glance to his master for some sign to stop but Strange gave none.

Strange and Wong both abhorred any type of violence if it was necessary to avoid but they knew there were cases when it was a necessary evil especially when trying to remain incognito as Strange was. He could have acted himself in ways unimaginable and painful to these men but it did not do well for large portions of society to know of the Sorcerer Supreme’s identity.

Wong’s hand planted firmly on the table as he released the tension in his muscles. His legs vaulted from the bench forcing his body up. He pivoted on his hand and flipped over his head to land on his feet.

He dropped down instantly to slam his back onto the table. His feet flew out to either side of Strange’s head. The first foot caught the arm of the ‘attacker’ while the other caught the gut of one of his accomplices. Strange didn’t even blink, he trusted Wong implicitly.

Wong flipped up to his feet and with one swift move grabbed the arm of the man who had ‘attacked’ Strange. Wong rotated his wrist towards him and tilted his weight before yanking downwards dragging the man into the table by his shoulder.

The man’s head bounced off the table. Wong floated over his body while keeping the wrist twisted, hammer-locking the man’s arm up behind his head. His spare hand flew out into a plate full of food which he had spotted as he slid across the man’s back. His hand was covered instantly in beef stew but Wong thought nothing of it as he flung his hand forward hurling the plate like a discus into the face of the third and final man which knocked him to the floor.

The silence which reverberated around the room was now of a very different quality. The men stared in disbelief at the scene which had just unfolded before them.

“I wish to see the storage tanks,” said Strange. His voice carried no threat with it but the Captain nodded slowly.

The Captain within two minutes was leading the two men down a series of metal and concrete corridors and down wire mesh stairs passing huge chunks of machinery or long pipes covered in dials measuring the pressure of various things. The sides of the walls were lined with similar oval doors with the circular wheel handles for sealing in case of a breach.

It took the three a few minutes to reach the largest of the four storage tanks on the rig. “The oil gets pumped from the drill pump to one of the four tanks. We’ve near on filled this one now.”

The Captain grabbed hold of the handle and began to turn the wheel. His face was one of concentration as he strained to open the door.

The door finally budged with a hiss as the air of the tight lock was released. “There are gas masks in the locker to your right before we go through the airlock.”

Strange’s face was locked with a look of complete concentration. He could sense something. He had spent half a life time studying the worlds of magic and his senses of such were as acute as any being in the world.

He could feel something on the other side of the airlock. The door was made of solid iron. Cold iron is one of the best defences against magic and so it was obscuring his senses but he could feel something.

Whatever was on the other side of the door was an ancient power, unlike anything Strange had ever felt. It was from another plane of existence to be sure but Strange couldn’t tell which or where. He could feel the sharp hot energy of the being thrashing against his own which was so powerful and finely tuned to our plane of existence.

Strange personified the ideas that represented humanity, hope, love, anger; everything which made humanity what it was held within him. Within the Sorcerer Supreme it was from that raging power that he channelled his magic and it was this that was reacting violently with the entity beyond.

Strange’s hand flew out in front of him as he recited ancient words in his mind. The handle on the door began to spin freely at an alarming rate. The door popped open almost instantly leaving the Captain in awe as Strange strode forward forgetting the safety equipment.

“He’s not really a risk assessor is he?” The Captain looked at Wong as he spoke. Wong grinned almost deviously to himself as he followed Strange. The Captain waited a few seconds and then followed on himself through the double airlock.

The three stood on the wire mesh walk way overlooking a huge tank. Strange stared down into the pitch black of the oil while the others looked at him. The smell and fumes of the oil were already making the heads of the three spin.

Strange begun to mutter in ancient Lemurian as he moved his fingers in arcane movements and arcs and he accessed ancient power. Whatever force had killed those three men, whatever purpose it served bleeding into the world was concentrated in this room and since Strange entered the vibrations against his aura had become more serious and violent.

This was of course unseen and unknown by Wong and the Captain who could not sense the auras. Strange was as quickly as he could summoning the power held within him and the universe that he could access so that he could dispel the entity.

The two men who flanked him saw the next act of magic clearly. Arcane symbols seemed to flow down the length of his arms as they span around and glowed a bright red. The symbols shot forward doing one last turn of his fingers before hurtling towards the black mass.

Strange sensed, even before the power struck, that its effect would be negligible at best. Strange quickly altered the position of his body and fingers and began to speak in the tongue of the gods which had not been spoken on Earth for over forty thousand years. A green ball of energy coalesced on his palm before spiralling outwards towards the oil.

The men watched as the ball of energy pounded into the black oil. They turned to see Strange’s face ripped with concentration. His face was red and the vein in the side of his neck was bulging. His mouth was opened wide as he screamed the last word of the incantation he had been reciting in his mind. He brought his hands together sending a crack of blue energy like a bolt of lightning towards the oil. It remained unmoved.

The three men stood in silence. Strange stared at the oil with a look of quiet bewilderment on his face as he tried to think what to do. The others stared at him.

The tank screamed as it began to shake. The sound of metal straining filled their ears as the mesh walkway began to vibrate and shudder.

The three men grabbed hold of the rail which ran along the walkway. The bolts that held the walkway steady one by one began to pop out of the wall causing the walkway to spill sideways. Captain Bradford jumped backward through the still open door into the airlock.

Doctor Strange instinctively took to the air as he let his cloak of levitation do the work for him, holding his weight in the air as the walkway slid from the wall completely.

It took him a second before he realized that Wong was unable to remove himself from the walkway meaning he had spilled along with it into the oil.

“WONG!” screamed Strange as he plummeted down. He could see only the head, shoulder and one arm of Wong who was being carried under by the force he had hit the oil with.

Strange’s hand flew out as he reached the oil and grabbed the wrist of Wong. He began to rise as his cloak pulled him skywards. Wong’s hand slipped through his grasp sinking him further under.

Strange’s hands were racked with pain. The accident which had ruined his surgeon career had done so by damaging his hands so much that he was unable of some of the simplest tasks. The power required to hold Wong while the cloak lifted them skywards was too much. He plunged back towards his friend regardless.

Strange caught Wong’s hand which was almost completely submerged. His face was just pushing barely above the thick black viscous liquid. “Leave me!” commanded Wong. As he spoke his mouth filed with oil and his face began to sink.

“Never! WONG, NO!” screamed Strange, the oil which now covered both of their hands was making the grip between the two even harder to hold.

Doctor Strange’s arm was slowly sinking into the oil as Wong was being pulled down. It briefly crossed the mind of Strange that the speed and force which Wong was being pulled with was not normal. It was as if something was holding him and pulling him.

Strange suddenly felt his wrist being snapped to the side, pain ripped through his body. He knew it instantly it was a nerve pinch Wong had tried to teach him as a means of self-defence. He was trying to save his master. Strange tried to hold on as long as he could but the pain ripped through his hands, making him release his friend. The cloak of levitation did the rest as it ripped Strange free of the oil and skywards.

Strange hurled one last enchantment at the oil in an effort to free his friend but it seemed to bounce off the surface.

Strange hung in the air staring at the oil. The blackness which had just taken his closest friend.

The expanse of black below him was honestly hard to see, he barely noticed as it started to rising towards him. The first indication was as a large black tentacle of oil shot from the surface and streaked towards him. Strange hurled himself back through the open airlock as he escaped the tentacles’ grasp.

Strange’s body collided with Captain Bradford, spinning him backwards out of the second door into the corridor on the other side. The two men were aching as they tried to right themselves, Strange’s hand flew outwards.

The two doors swung shut simultaneously and the two wheel handles began to whir with almost super speed to the locked position. The handles locked with a loud ‘CLANG’. The sound reverberated around the hallways until it was drowned out by a banging. The tentacle of oil could be seen through the thick glass of the double doors slamming hard against the door. Slowly a black line rose from the bottom of the glass to the top.

“Run!” commanded Strange. “Get to the men in the galley and seal yourselves in. I’m going to stop it!”

The Captain’s jaw hung loose as he forced babbling sounds through his mouth as he tried to clear his mind and speak. He was a strong man who had been independent since he was sixteen, he started working oil rigs at seventeen and had his own business by twenty five. He was a millionaire in his own right and was not used to following orders and especially not used to letting other people handle things for him.

“Go!” ordered Strange. He was already turning his attention to the doors from which the loud banging was ringing out. He was motioning with his hands as he summoned a mystical shield across the door. It shimmered gently in the light of the bulbs in the hallway. The Captain summoned up his remaining strength and began to run back to the galley.

Strange began to walk in the opposite direction. He was going to lead whatever the creature was away by bleeding magical energy in his wake away from the galley.

Strange was forty feet away from the door when he heard the first great clanging as the inner door crumpled below the power of the oil. Strange turned and glared at the second door which bubbled outwards as the oil hit it with some force.

The glass in the door took only one last thrust before it exploded outwards. The oil fired out of the door like water from a fire hose where it bounced against Strange’s magical shield.

The oil splayed out in all directions as if a spoon had been placed curved side up under a powerful running tap. The shield caved in an instant. The black oil cascaded against the wall and then altered its course to head down the corridor away from Strange.

Strange furloughed his brow and extended his hands as he began to whisper a spell. His plan had not worked well so far, the creature seemed not to be interested in following Strange’s magical trail.

A streak of energy crackled across the hall again to in front of the oil where it formed another wall. This one was connected directly to Strange and his power source unlike the last one, so it would not be so easy to break.

The pain of the pressure from the oil on the invisible wall ripped through the body of Strange, crippling him to his knees. The gallons of oil which were in the tank were almost done pouring through the door. He could feel the blood vessels and capillaries in his head popping as he strained to concentrate. His teeth were gritted together while the sweat literally poured down his face.

He was hit suddenly with a blast from the oil. He could feel his body being covered and crushed by the powerful black liquid. He flung his arms outwards and with a mighty scream which channelled his power he forced the oil from the surface of his body.

Strange flung himself backwards with all of the strength in his legs. His cloak picked up the slack as he willed it to do so powering him backwards with the power of levitation. The wall of oil followed lashing out with tentacles. Strange could feel the wall he had erected was still holding which was why the oil had changed tack and decided to go after him.

The liquid surged forward in another giant lunge. Strange couldn’t get out of its way fast enough and so summoned another domed shield which deflected the oil in random directions which allowed him to move further back.

Strange fired another blast like he had in the tank. He poured everything he had into this blast. His magic was channelled from the key building blocks of humanity, from the emotions and the drives inside each and every human. Humans like his closest friend and confidant Wong, his friend who had been dragged down to his death by the oil which was now giving chase. The blast he was about to fire was filled with all the pure rage and hate that Strange could muster; in his life he had been through a lot and so the rage and hate were immense.

The wrists of his hands were pressed together with his palms outstretched towards the being. Purple energy fired from his hand in a thick beam that was the width and height of his hands. The energy pounded into the front of the black oil sending some of it splaying outwards for a few seconds but then it seemed to recover and move forward again, unstopped by the blast of energy.

Strange gasped as he tried to breathe deeply while allowing the power of his cloak to take over dragging him through the air at its top speed away from the ever chasing oil. His head was killing him because all of the energy he had expelled during the fight. It was only now when he had a slight reprieve from battle to breathe and collect his thoughts he realized that every blast of energy that had hit the creature, and even the shields he had created, seemed only to drain his own energy and do nothing to it.

He rotated his body so he was horizontal to increase his speed and get more distance between him and the slick. He flew through one of the open doors of the corridor. He motioned behind him with a spell he had already used that day. The door slammed shut and the wheel began to whir until it locked. The oil once again slammed into the door with massive blunt force.

The doors of the rig seemed to be more effective in keeping back the oil than any of Strange’s spells had been. He needed to think.

He didn’t really get much time to think as the oil began to slowly seep through the edges of the door. The door was in need of repair, due to a fracture in a sealing coil there wasn’t a vacuum at the join meaning the oil could very slowly leak through in little trickles.

The trickles began to leak out towards Strange while others moved up the door flowing like a liquid rolling down hill until they reached the handle and began to snake around it. The door handle slowly began to turn. Strange took flight again.

He made it to the end of the corridor and was flying up the large square gap which was ringed with flights of stairs when he heard the cascading power as the oil flowed down the corridor.

Strange flew up another two flights before he glanced down at the rising liquid below. It was rising much faster than was natural as it was being forced upwards instead of spreading out like a liquid naturally should. When he reached the top of the stairs the Sorcerer Supreme flung out his hand again forcing open the door to what he found was one of the many bunks which were on the upper level of the rig.

The room was lined with bunk beds next to which rested bedside cupboards and large trunks at the bottom of each bed that were filled with personal effects of the men. Pictures of the men's families, girlfriends and topless women clipped from magazines lined the walls mixed together in an inexplicable collage.

Strange prepared himself as he knew what he had to do. He dashed to the closest bed while he motioned towards the door to seal it. He began to rummage in the trunk at the bottom of the bed tossing clothing and books to the side, chocolate, bottles of alcohol.

He was routing through for something specific…which he couldn’t find.

He moved to the next bunk and proceeded again. He was half way through the trunk when there was a pounding on the door as the oil finally reach him. Strange was really hoping he could find the thing he was looking for without magic so that he could retain some of his mystical power that was already waning due to the battle.

He thrust his hand back into the trunk and with a heave tossed a pair of boots out of his way. Under where the boots had rested he saw what he had been searching for.

The door to the room exploded inwards hurtling across the room to the far wall followed by a long thick column of the oil. His hand thrust back into the trunk one last time as he grabbed at the object and hoped for the best.

The oil was still pouring in with the large column of its body splitting the room in half. The power of the oil was knocking over the beds in the room as it turned towards him. With his magic in the fragile state it was at the moment and the negligible effect it had on the oil he knew he had to take a different route.

He turned his back on the oil and began to recite words first uttered by high priests of the Lava Men. He thrust out his hands from his chest. His index fingers and his thumbs formed an L and its reverse. A large blast of force and power exploded outwards shattering the thick steel and concrete wall before him.

The two foot thick wall exploded out into the corridor that ran along next to the room. The wall on the other side of that exploded outwards as well as the next two afterwards showering the rooms beyond with debris of concrete and metal. Water pumped from broken pipes through the hole. Strange wasted no time as he hurtled through the holes at his top sprint.

He had managed to bore a hole straight through the side of the rig to the outside world. He reached the final room before the outside, it was pitch black as it was just a storage room and Strange’s attack had destroyed the electrics on this area of the rig.

A crash of lighting outside illuminated the room. His arms and legs pumped before hurtling himself through the final hole. He exploded outward, the waves roared and crashed far below him and the rain pounded down on him as his cloak caught his body and they began to soar upwards.

The rain that was starting when Strange had entered the rig was now pelting down with torrential power. The rain experienced on land was rarely as powerful as that over the middle of an ocean. Each and every drop was hurled with the power and felt like it was cutting his skin. He was drenched from head to toe in seconds. He manoeuvred his body back to the main deck of the rig. He glanced down one last time before he cleared the gap and prepared to land. The oil had formed itself into a huge snake or serpent and was spiralling upwards to meet him.

His feet hit the deck for a few seconds as he summoned the will to fly again. The cloak of levitation was linked to his mind, his subconscious and his soul at times. It seemed to be alive and have a mind of its own but it was always reliant on its current owner.

Strange exploded upwards again, the oil creature seemed to bounce on the deck as it cleared the edge and then hurtled upwards again forced on. Strange turned to face it in the air before dropping down and letting it cascade past him back to the deck.

The oil swerved as it hit the deck and again shot at Strange in a concentrated beam. It splayed out and separated itself away from him following the lines of a giant dome…a dome not of Strange’s doing. The oil itself had chosen to remain a safe distance from the Sorcerer.

The last drops of oil splayed outwards to the otherwise of Strange leaving him standing there completely visible to any watching…none were. His face and upper body gently lit by the flickering light of a match. He had of course made sure a protective spell was over the match so the rain and wind that tore around him would not blow out its flame.

“Who are you?” came a familiar voice from behind the doctor. He turned in disbelief but stared at the form he knew as Wong.

Wong appeared to be flanked by three other men and all three were standing in a large patch of oil which itself seemed to be once again unalive as it trickled away gently.

“Who are you?” growled Strange, he didn’t even attempt to disguise the contempt and hate in his voice for whatever was talking through his friend.

Wong’s head cracked to the side. “You are the Sorcerer Supreme,” his voice laughed gently. He had obviously just accessed the memories of Wong. “We have met your kind before…We have clashed with The Ancient One!” Wong and the others began to advance on him telling him a story all the while.

---

The Atlantic, 1700…

The man known simply as The Ancient One stood aboard the deck of the ship. Sea faring had changed much during the 237 years of his life but many things remained. The smell of salt in the air and the feeling of spray upon your face, the noise of the creaking and wet timbre below your feet and all around you so at times it sounded like the ship was tearing apart even on the most calm of days.

This was not one of those moments.

The ship was tossed into the air on the crest of a wave tossing the sailors to the side sending them crashing into the corners of the deck or one another before they recovered and returned to their stations.

Two men remained unmoved as the tempest roared around them. The Captain was one Captain Teach. He gripped the wooded beam which stretched before him and steadied himself as he barked orders to his crew.

The other was the nameless man known only as the Ancient One. His life had begun in Kamar-Taj 237 years ago, in his youth he was much like his fellows, a simple farmer preparing to work to stay alive until the day of his death and then he discovered magic. Kaluu was the man who sparked the power inside of him. The two explored magic as they discovered its rules and how to bend the universe to suit their needs. Kaluu took it a step to far, he used magic to subjugate the people of their land and to try and rule the world and The Ancient One stopped him.

He left a few days later. He knew he had to earn the respect and trust of his people back. He knew there were others like Kaluu out there who would seek to abuse the greatest gift the universe had to give. He travelled the world and the countless dimensions he could find learning all he could, writing wrongs and protecting those in need.

It was on one of these quests he discovered the ancient order of sorcerers and mystics set above man from his earliest days known as the Ancient Ones. He trained and studied under them for decades until he was inducted into their service and became himself An Ancient One.

There are not many in this world that the Ancient Ones consider old. There are less than ten thousand humanoid beings alive on Earth who remember the turn of the millennia. There are less than a thousand who walked the streets of Atlantis and Lemuria in all their beauty. There are less than two hundred who can remember when the Celestials cut the Eternals and Deviants from the human stock. There are less than forty beings on Earth today living human lives, working and loving like a normal being who can remember the universe before Earth formed.

Aged Ghengis was one of these old ones. No one knows how old he is even to this day but it is known he is old enough to count the god Vishanti as a personal friend. Ghengis was charged in the millennia gone to select one among all who would protect this plane of reality from magical problems, attackers and beings. He once a century holds a contest summoning the greatest sorcerers in the universe to battle to become the Sorcerer Supreme.

It was over a hundred years ago that The Ancient One bested the other Ancient Ones in the contest. He showed the qualities needed in a Sorcerer Supreme, power, knowledge, intelligence, force of will, compassion and love.

He set out that day from the home of the order to better protect the world, it was then he cast off his name and became known to the world as the Ancient One.

From that day to this The Ancient One had put his life on the line day after day as he protected the world from magic that existed just a hairs breadth away, whose power would drive any normal man insane. It was for this reason he was here.

Through the tempest of the storm he stared into the night sky, above him glowed the energy which came with a break in the dimension. The energy shot green sparks amongst the stars.

Days earlier chunks of space debris had fallen into the sea boiling thousands of gallons each as they hit the sea filling the air with chlorine gas which had thankfully dissipated. The Ancient One immediately set about gaining transportation. He had found it in the port of Tortuga, the final stop before the pirate Captain Teach took the remainder of his crew back to their home port.

The captain was what could only be described as a pirate, he was one of the last remnants of the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean and had been relaxing in Tortuga when The Ancient One offered to show him treasure beyond compare.

The Ancient One knew of a small island sunk below the Bermuda Triangle created by the Elder Gods with treasure. The treasure would be Teach’s if they left immediately. It took less that two hours before they found themselves underway. Two days had passed up until this point and it had been uneventful until they had sailed directly into this storm.

The green glow shone above them streaking through the heavens like green lightning. The Ancient One looked up to the sky surveying it with his old eyes measuring and calculating what may have occurred using his uncanny knowledge of the magic world.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a shout of fear. He turned his head and watched as ten or twelve crewmen left their positions and moved slowly backwards towards him. One or two stumbled over ropes or barrels which were strewn across the deck.

The Ancient One’s eyes moved away from the crewmen and fell upon what they were fleeing from.

The bodies of the dead crew men were stumbling forward. The wounded limbs and the ripped flesh which killed them hung from their bodies. Their carcasses were riddled with holes from lead and the rotting boil infested flesh from the weeks they had spent locked away in the hold.

These were the crewmen who had died during the four month spate of piracy that Teach had embarked upon. Teach was one of the more respectable pirates around; everyone knew that if you died on one of his voyages your body would be returned for proper burial.

The zombie-like creatures grunted and groaned as air forced its way up through their windpipes. They came into contact with the crew swinging their arms ineffectually in front of them or lunging forward with their mouths open.

The Ancient One watched as their flesh brushed against that of the living causing the them to change. Their hands seemed to jerk up to their faces just at the same point their heads jerked to the side as if he were breaking their own necks. They then joined in the broken and shallow stumbled towards the other crewmen.

It was one of the two crewmen that this had happened to who first spoke. “We are the Karakas!” it spat through teeth which were not its own using a tongue which it obviously had no experience with.

“What is your purpose here?” Ancient One’s voice was strong and commanding, he was not asking for an answer, he was demanding one. These creatures had broken through to his plane and had taken over and defiled corpses of dead men…they even seemed to move onto live ones.

“We fall, burning through the sky in billions and billions from a dying plain.” The creatures head twitched as it gazed into the glowing green miles above it’s head. The Ancient One now noticed the zombies had stopped completely and hovered around behind the speaking man as if waiting for orders. They seemed to loll a little as if a string had been cut on a marionette.

“You have stumbled onto our plane, I will aid you in anyway I can,” The Ancient One’s eyes remained fixed on the bodies which seemed to be sinking lower and lower.

“We need a new home, we need to live…we need flesh to live on this plane. Your star dissipates out natural forms, your water reduces our gaseous bodies…need shelter in life forms…alive or dead.”

“You can’t just come here and take over my crew…my dead crew! You can’t infect the living!” The Captain surged forward, the hand of The Ancient One splayed out behind him and held the Captain back with the palm of his hand.

“I think you’ll find we can!” the eyes of the man glowed as the dead bodies dropped. The living seamen who stood before The Ancient One turned, their eyes glowed with a bright light of the same green hue and intensity as the other man’s.

The Ancient One instantly knew what had happened. The Karakas had inhabited the dead bodies which he assumed were easier to control, as they began to understand the bodies more they transmitted themselves via touch to a living host. Once in the living host they adapted further until they were able to transmit themselves via the astral plane to the other humans aboard. The Ancient One was unaffected due to his powerful mystical shields.

“I will not allow you to take them!” The Ancient One’s hands glowed a deep shade of crimson as he silently summoned the crimson bands of Cyttorak. The crimsons bands of energy shot from his fingers and looped and swirled around the bodies of the men before him.

A closed fist slammed into the back of The Ancient One’s head causing the 237 year old to buckle to his knees. He turned to face the glowing eyes of Captain Teach as he raised his musket. The Ancient One’s hand flew outward blasting the form of the Captain away.

“We can live in peace!” he yelled at the advancing men whose eyes glowed showing they had been infected. “We can come to an arrangement. Take the dead and leave the living.”

“There are 100 million of my people streaming into this universe, do you think you can provide enough bodies to satisfy us?” the man laughed. “We take what we need.”

The Ancient One gritted his teeth and began to mutter as he pushed the breath through his teeth and his moving lips as he formed words. A spell, an incantation to banish the beings from his sight and from the men of the ship.

“By Raggadorr's Seven Rings!
By Cyttorak's Crimson Bands!
Let yon demons feel Valtorr's Stings --
So The Ancient One commands!”

The men who had closed in on The Ancient One reeled back, their heads twitched backwards as their orifices glowed before a green shoot of light emerged from them and hovered in the air.

The green light from above them moved down and joined that the Ancient One had controlled. The ball grew and swirled before him and he regarded them with pity. They were scared and in pain, running from their home when they found a chance to survive and had taken it. He would show them compassion.

“I banish you to the bowels of the Earth! The sun burns you…you shall never see its lights again. Forever in the darkness you will dwell!” The glowing ball almost seemed to scream as it was hauled into the water. The green glow picked up intensity in the water for a few seconds as the beings reacted with the water before the depth and the cold killed the glow and the creatures were dragged downwards.

---

The four men advanced on Strange. He pushed his hand out in front of him to try and stop them. It was only as they got closer to the light he noticed their black eyes and inside of their mouths, the oil also seemed to move forward with their footfalls.

“STOP!” he commanded. His mind was trying to take in the knowledge that had just been given to him. These creatures had met his master, The Ancient One, the greatest Sorcerer Supreme ever to inhabit the universe, and the first mortal who had ever met Eternity, the sum of the entire universe.

He had shown these creatures compassion in its truest form and allowed them to live when he should not have but for The Ancient One to do such a thing surely it was right. Surely there was wisdom behind the act which Strange could not agree with.

Strange’s mind was also filled as his brain attempted to piece together from what he knew to figure out what he could do other than what he had planned. It was obvious to him that these necro-living creatures were like parasites housed in dead bodies, like those of the plankton millennia old who make up oil but need to feed off the living. The time they spent trapped in the oil below the earth had stripped them of the power or knowledge used to transmit via the air to the living they had shown when they faced The Ancient One but it was only a matter of time and by then it would be too late. They would sweep across the world in no time and no one would be safe.

It was at this point that he came to his decision.

He trusted The Ancient One more than anyone else in the universe…several universes but he knew he had to go against his wishes…if his hand was forced.

“I tell you now, release my friend and return to your prison or I will not be responsible for what I do,” Strange growled again. Wong laughed.

“You are bluffing!” spat one of the other men.

“We have met the last Supreme do not forget,” chimed in Wong again. “We know you are compassion personified, love and harmony is what you are all about…you will not hurt us.”

Strange smiled, it was an involuntary smile like the devious grin of a child. “I am not my master!” he growled. The words he spoke chilled him to the bone as he spoke them, he knew they were true. His master was the greatest Sorcerer Supreme ever and personified all the best qualities of humanity. Strange did not.

“I do not believe you are so far divorced from him! You will not hurt us!” he paused as his head tilted. “You expect us to believe you will drop the match? You will kill your friend? You will kill the whole crew? Burned alive…one of the worst deaths imaginable as they are slowly cooked alive inside this mass of metal. Do you really expect us to believe that?”

Strange’s eyes reflected the fire that danced in front of his face from the match. The beings stared into them and it was like staring into the depths of hell themselves. “Let them burn? Let them die in insufferable pain? Innocent men and my best friend…rather than let you have them?” Strange paused.

When he began to speak again his voice was quite but carried over the wind. “In a heartbeat! In a second and without another thought. You expect me to let you leech from them and spread across the world? I would rather burn it all away!”

The creatures paused preparing to speak as they weighed up their options and accessed Wong’s mind trying to find some weakness in the Doctor trying to see if he would follow through with his threat.

Strange didn’t give them time to think as he cut across them. “You have one last chance, return to your prison…release these men and I will let you live!”

The creature stared at the flickering flame in the eyes of Strange. Wong’s face smiled. “You have the darkness in you, boy!”

“You have no idea…” spat Strange. He knew and Wong knew that what he was saying was the truth. He would damn himself to an eternity in hell for the murder of every man aboard the rig rather than let the creatures win.

The creatures and the oil paused for a second before the body of all three men began to move forward.

---

The men in the galley had been a clamour of noise since the Captain arrived back and sealed the door. He had had to fight three of the men away when they wanted to open the door but a few threats with a knife had been enough to keep them back. He had tried to explain to them what had happened but he realized it sounded like the ravings of a mad man.

Then there was silence as they heard the various explosions of shattering metal and concrete during the fight.

More time passed.

The sealed room was getting hot. The men were getting restless.

The door to the room suddenly flew open letting in an ice cold blast of air that had moved down from the main deck of the ship and through the corridors thanks to the many holes.

In the doorway stood Strange. Strange’s eyes were filled with watery tears which seemed to refuse to fall. A smile wider than any of the men had ever seen stretched across Strange’s face.

There was a hushed awe around the room as Strange began to speak. “In my job I have to make the tough decisions. I have to decide where the line is drawn in the sand and deal with any who choose to cross it. They are hard decisions which most often end in death of someone in some way….Unfortunate and regrettable deaths which slowly eat away at me. They have done for years and they will for many more.” His smile spread even wider. “Tonight I made a decision against those who crossed the line…it wasn’t a hard decision and tonight…for once in a long time…it’s been too long honestly,” sighed Strange wistfully. “It doesn’t happen very often at all,” the tears seemed ready to surge forward but he held them back again.

“EVERYBODY LIVES!”

Wong and the three crewmen stepped from behind him and into the room. The men seemed wary at first but at the sight of their friends all misgivings were forgotten as they rushed to greet them.

“Wha?...Wha?” the Captain was lost for words as he approached Strange.

“Tomorrow you pack up everything and leave,” commanded Strange. “I have sealed their prison but your drilling would endanger its safety. I will clear it with your boss but this area is out of limits.” Strange stared into the Captain’s eyes.

“What happened? What was that?”

‘Shhhh’ hushed Strange. “No questions; now is not the time. Now is the time for celebrations…Everybody lives!”

The power of those two words washed over the Captain. The power Strange put in them and the happiness with which he spoke them could do nothing but make another smile. The joy was infectious.

“Everybody lives!” repeated Strange mostly to himself as he cast one last glance at Wong.

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The End

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