The streets of New York buzzed around me like an electrical current, the hum of traffic and distant sirens blending with the chaotic rhythm of the city. I walked with purpose, my new height and broad shoulders letting me tower slightly above the crowd. It felt strange, exhilarating—like seeing the world through new eyes, a version of me that I'd always dreamed of but never imagined would actually exist.
Destination: the Sanctum Sanctorum.
I had memorized the address months ago from research, from hints and whispers in old texts, and now, standing in front of the imposing brownstone, I felt a mix of excitement and caution. The building itself was deceptive—a three-story Victorian-style brownstone with a Mansard roof, typical of French Baroque architecture, its exterior elegant but unassuming. From the outside, it was just another building, blending in with the streets of Greenwich Village, unremarkable except to those who knew.
I raised my hand and knocked on the massive door, once, twice… three times. Silence.
I waited, my patience thinning as the seconds dragged. Knocked again, this time harder. Nothing.
"Okay," I muttered to myself. "We can play politely. But only so long." Knocked again. And again. And again.
Finally, the door cracked open, and a man appeared—a tall, lean figure dressed in the traditional sorcerer's robes. His expression was one of pure annoyance, eyebrows arched, lips pressed in a thin line of disdain.
"You should have taken the hint," he said, voice clipped, low. "Walk away when no one answers the door."
I smiled, just slightly. "I'm here to see the Ancient One."
He squinted at me, unimpressed. "There's no one by that name here. Now leave," he said, slamming the door in my face.
I blinked, my smile faltering slightly before twitching back into place. Of course he wouldn't understand. Of course he'd be skeptical. The Ancient One doesn't just hand over lessons to random kids who show up on the doorstep. But she was here. She had to be. The second I stepped onto this street, my spider-sense had prickled with subtle hints, a constant hum of her attention weighing on me.
"Alright," I muttered under my breath. "Time to make it easy on them all—or I do things my way." I called out, loud enough to echo against the doorframe, "Ancient One! You're making this unnecessarily difficult. Let's not waste anyone's time."
No response.
I waited. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Half an hour. My patience, razor-thin as it was, snapped.
"Hard way it is," I said, and before anyone could react, I stepped back and kicked the door with a strength I hadn't fully tested yet. The massive oak shuddered, splintered slightly at the edges, and then gave way entirely.
I entered.
Inside, the manor seemed… normal. Depressingly normal. A polished wood floor, modest rugs, plain walls. A fireplace. A few chairs. No magical energy pulsating, no hints of the vastness that had to exist beyond the walls. And yet, I knew better. I could feel it. This place, the sanctum, was bigger on the inside. Infinitely bigger. Somewhere above me, the real Sanctum stretched beyond comprehension.
Before I could even take a step further, the sorcerer from the door came running from the second floor, eyes wide, pointing a finger at me.
"You! Get out of here! Or I will remove you by force!"
I smirked, feeling that familiar thrill of adrenaline surge through me. "I don't think so," I said, leaning back slightly. "You're going to have to try harder than that."
He growled, rolling his shoulders and raising his hands in an intricate pattern of hand signs I barely recognized—though my brain cataloged each movement, filing them away for later analysis.
"Then you'll be removed at once," he said, voice now tinged with fury.
Before I could respond, the floor beneath me shifted. Suddenly, the walls stretched away and melted into infinite space—the mirror dimension. My spider-sense screamed as my body instinctively ducked, rolled, and leaped, dodging a series of jagged, glowing spears of energy that lanced out at me.
"Ah," I whispered, impressed despite myself. "Eldritch magic. Real sorcery."
The sorcerer's hands moved faster, drawing sigils in the air, conjuring whips of light and energy that shot towards me, curling and snapping like living things. Tao mandalas bloomed, floating wheels of energy that tried to crush and entrap me. I twisted midair, my enhanced agility letting me flip and twist, narrowly avoiding each strike.
I grinned, letting my instincts guide me, letting my spider-sense lead the way. "You've got to be kidding me," I muttered, swinging a fist towards an energy whip, which dissolved in sparks on contact. Then, emboldened, I reached out with a hand and swiped a floating mandala towards him, making it collapse before it could form fully.
He let out a frustrated roar, eyes blazing. "You insolent child!"
"Playful!" I called back, flipping over his head and landing gracefully on a floating fragment of his conjured energy. "Fun's more my style than serious attacks, sorry!"
He tried to strike with a whip again, this one longer, thicker, snapping toward my torso. My talons extended instinctively—just a thought—and I sliced through it cleanly, sparks flying.
"Okay… yeah," I muttered to myself, adrenaline pumping, "this is definitely going to be a memorable first day."
I vaulted from one shard of conjured energy to another, moving through the surreal, infinite space of the mirror dimension, dodging blasts, weaving between whips, and occasionally tossing a web to trip him up or block his attacks.
"Cease this!" he shouted, his voice echoing and distorting through the dimension. "I will not tolerate your insolence any longer!"
I laughed, spinning and kicking off a floating fragment to launch myself toward him. "Insolence? Nah. I call it… training!"
He froze, hands snapping in a complex pattern, summoning a wall of black sigils that spun like gears. I landed just behind it, rolled, and backflipped over his head, letting the momentum carry me to the other side of the vast mirrored space. I touched down, fingers brushing against what felt like infinite air—but my spider-sense calibrated it instantly, giving me a mental map of the attacks, the dimensions, the trajectories.
"Alright," I muttered under my breath. "Time to see what I can really do."
I extended my wrist, the organic spinneret opening with a soft click. A blast of web shot out, weaving into a net of intricate design in midair. It caught one of his Tao mandalas before it could form fully, destabilizing the flow of energy and causing it to collapse in a flicker of sparks.
His eyes widened, a flash of genuine surprise passing over his face before it was replaced with rage. "Impossible! You—"
I jumped, flipping over a whip, shooting another web at his wrist in a playful flick, just to test the limits. It stuck. I pulled, yanking him slightly off balance in the mirror dimension.
"Oops," I said, grinning, letting him fall back into a surge of his own conjured energy. "Clumsy."
The fight stretched on. Minutes, hours… time felt distorted in the mirror dimension. I leapt, swung, dodged, and struck, barely letting him regain his footing between attacks. Every spell he threw, every sigil he conjured, I countered in some way—through webs, agility, reflex, or simply exploiting my enhanced instincts.
Eventually, he stopped mid-gesture, breathing heavily, glaring at me like I had shattered the natural order of things. "Enough!" he hissed. "You will cease your antics before I remove you permanently!"
The fight escalated faster than I could have imagined. One moment, I was dodging spells, weaving through the mirror dimension like it was some kind of playground, testing my reflexes and agility, and the next moment, he'd had enough.
Before I could even react, he drew his weapons. Two scythe-shaped daggers on long chains, spinning them with a speed that made my head spin. The sound of metal whirling through the air was sharp, metallic, almost musical, like a twisted dance. But it wasn't just a dance—it was deadly. Each spin, each sweep, carried the force to cut, to slice, to kill.
I jumped back instinctively, my spider sense screaming, my heart hammering in my chest. The scythes whipped past me with a velocity that made the air hiss, snapping dangerously close. His spells had grown more violent too—crimson energy blasts, jagged whips of light, spinning mandalas that tried to crush me midair.
My mind blazed, every thought in sync with my spider-sense. The world slowed into sharp frames—his scythes whirling, chains rattling, sparks flying as metal carved the air. I ducked under one strike, rolled, then fired a web, catching a chain mid-swing. The pull jolted him, just enough for me to dart in.
Kick. Pivot. Strike.
We moved like combatants in a brutal dance, each motion countered by another. He spun, his chained blades singing as they cut the air in vicious arcs. I answered with webs, flips, strikes—the kind of fight I had once only dreamed of reading about in comic books.
And God, the rush.
Every punch I threw, every dodge, every spring-loaded kick carried an electricity that set my veins on fire. My muscles sang with strength I'd never known, my reflexes sharpened to a razor's edge. This wasn't just survival—it was exhilaration. This was being alive.
But then—one moment changed everything.
I launched forward, fist cocked. Just a punch. Nothing special. Just enough, I thought, to stagger him.
When it connected, something inside me unleashed—raw power I hadn't meant to call upon. My fist met his skull with a wet, concussive CRACK.
The world froze.
His head burst like overripe fruit, an explosion of force and matter I couldn't take back. For a split second, crimson mist hung suspended in the air, illuminated by fractured light. Shards of bone, glistening and white, spun outward like shrapnel. The sound—a horrible, echoing rupture—rattled inside my skull.
Then time lurched forward again.
His body stood, headless, twitching like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Blood sprayed in violent arcs before gravity claimed him. The corpse crumpled, collapsing in a heap that stained the floor with spreading red.
I stood there, fist trembling, heart thundering, breath ragged. The thrill that had filled me only seconds ago still surged through my veins—yet twisted now, warped by the shocking reality of what I'd just done.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
I dropped to my knees, hyperventilating, hands trembling violently. My lungs couldn't keep up with the sudden panic, my chest burning, my stomach twisting. My mind screamed over and over: No. No. What have I done? No… why? Why did I…?
I couldn't stop shaking, staring down at the body, my own hands still tinged with crimson. My spider-sense screamed in protest, a warning that I hadn't expected—a moral alarm I had no idea how to manage. I had killed someone. A real person. Not a villain, not a robot, not some abstract obstacle—someone alive, with a life and a path, a future I had just obliterated.
I started rocking back and forth, knees pressed into the cold, glassy floor of the Mirror Dimension. My breath came ragged, bile burning my throat. The metallic tang of blood hung heavy in the air, sharp and suffocating. My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
"No… no, no, no, no," I whispered, voice breaking into jagged pieces. "I didn't mean… I didn't… I didn't—"
The body lay in front of me like an accusation, motionless, silent, final. My stomach twisted. My chest constricted. I had wanted power, control, understanding—not this. Never this.
And then—footsteps.
Slow. Measured. Echoing with authority that didn't belong in this fragile, shattering reality.
I forced my eyes upward, every nerve in me screaming to look away.
A figure emerged from the kaleidoscope of broken reflections—a bald woman in flowing yellow robes. She walked with the unshakable grace of someone who had lived through centuries, seen empires rise and fall, and found no reason to hurry. Her face was calm, ageless, but her eyes… her eyes saw everything.
She stopped, gazing at the ruin before her: me, broken and shaking; Kaecilius, sprawled in defeat.
Her lips pressed into the faintest frown. Not of grief. Not of horror. Something worse. Disappointment.
"Well, Peter," she said at last, her voice as soft and steady as a blade against the throat. "You've just killed one of my top students. Kaecilius was one of my best."
The name hit me like a punch to the chest. Kaecilius. Younger. Leaner. Hair cropped shorter. But it was him. The man who, in another story, would become Doctor Strange's first great enemy.
And I had ended him here. Now.
My breath caught. The Mirror Dimension warped and spun, but it was nothing compared to the storm inside me.
She stepped closer, folding her hands behind her back, her tone like a teacher scolding a child who had failed to grasp a lesson. "His path was already set. He would have fallen. Perhaps not today. Perhaps not by your hand. But he was destined to betray me."
Her gaze pierced me—unblinking, unrelenting. "And yet, here you are, reshaping the board before the game has even begun. Causing me… work."
I wanted to speak, to explain, to beg, but the words turned to ash in my throat.
The Ancient One tilted her head, studying me like a puzzle she wasn't sure she wanted to solve.
"Come," she said finally, her voice neither invitation nor command, but something between. "We need to talk."
Her robe swayed as she turned, walking deeper into the shimmering labyrinth.
I sat frozen, staring at Kaecilius's body, at my bloodstained hands, at the cracks forming in the future I thought I knew.