Time, in the Ancient One's hands, bent like silk. Using nothing but the Time-Turner's core mechanics, she stripped it down into a series of teachable spells and handed them to Li Ming. Step by step, she promised, he'd one day slip into the past without relying on the delicate hourglass hanging at his throat.
But her method wasn't the Eye of Agamotto—not even close. The Eye let you flick through futures like channels on a TV, whole galaxies away, infinite timelines. The "third-act" timeline where Strange watched Tony Stark snap on Titan? That was Eye work. Omniscience, omnipresence.
Li Ming's version was leaner. Cruder. He could watch the past and a single thread of the future—limited strictly to what lay in his direct line of sight.
An apple on the table: he couldn't target just the fruit. He had to cast across the whole scene. Time sped, unfolded, played out—until "future-Kreacher" carried the apple into the RV, turned it into a pie, and "future-Li Ming" ate the last slice. Everything inside the RV during that interval was blank. The walls blocked his sight.
Same with the past. The apple didn't heal itself. He simply saw himself lean in and take that first bite. If he wanted more, he'd have to keep rewinding, walk the apple's journey back to the store, the distributor, the orchard—until the fruit rejoined the branch.
Useful? Maybe. But time was time. A win was a win.
After too many days sealed in the RV's wardrobe farm, Li Ming felt mushrooms might sprout from his head. He needed air. He slung his staff into his bag and told Kreacher to watch the house.
He'd given up on the "baton" phase. The Ancient One had dismantled and rebuilt wands until she cracked their design, then re-forged the craft as staves. Her adepts didn't want delicate batons; they wanted something that doubled as a weapon when the spellwork stopped. The staff was stronger, sturdier. And Li Ming's staff? Hollow, lined with an Extension Charm. His Dementors had a new address. With the staff across his back, he carried an army.
He stepped through a portal into Portland. Movie night.
The air felt wrong the second he hit the street. Metallic tension. Outside a music hall, men crouched in cover, muzzles aimed at the doors. Not rifles—long-barreled UV rigs. Vampire hunters? In this world? New. He opened the Sight and looked inside.
No vampires. Just a woman onstage, hands poised over an invisible cello. And clinging near her—something stitched wrong, a revenant soul, the shiver of the resurrected dead.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s handiwork. His gift.
Li Ming's smile went sharp. Coulson was there too, holding the front. Cellist girlfriend, maybe? Perfect.
He drifted down a side street, pulled a cloak over his clothes, glamoured himself, and slipped into the hall through the rear like a shadow.
First glance: Coulson, holding position. Second: Bob Mantner, the resurrected operative. Li Ming curled a finger and folded Bob straight into the Mirror Dimension.
The space warped. Bob's gun was out in a blink. Bullets spun in the air inches from Li Ming's face, then clattered to the mirrored floor.
Bob holstered, drew a knife, eyes narrowing. "Mutant?"
Li Ming circled him slowly, studying him like stock on display. When he'd first read the resurrection protocol, it had been science-heavy, runes-light. He'd considered cracking textbooks, maybe even taking a class. Then he'd done the math. Time spent in a lab was time not spent making himself unkillable.
So he'd handed it to Fury. Let S.H.I.E.L.D. bear the cost. Let Fury's own resurrected climb ranks, win trust. When Li Ming bent them later, he'd have agents deep in the Triskelion. Fury would never suspect.
He whistled low. "Took long enough, didn't it? Name? When'd they drag you back? How many more like you has Fury printed?"
Bob clamped his jaw shut, tracking the mirrored edges, feinting confusion. "Who are you?" Then he lunged, knife flashing.
A meter out his face hit an invisible wall with a smack.
"Ouch," Li Ming said cheerfully. "That's gotta sting." He tapped the staff. Stone-gray crept across Bob's skin. "You thought silence would keep secrets? Cute."
He knelt, carved sigils into the mirrored floor—anti-demon lines sharp and precise. A cut across his fingertip, a smear of blood on Bob's brow.
One last check. Perfect. He cracked a slit in the dimension, venting into the theater's shadows, and spoke a name that wasn't a name.
A soul-flame streaked through the gap and dove into Bob's body.
The aperture snapped shut. Bob's eyes opened—different. He looked at the faceted sky of the Mirror Dimension, then at the etched array, then at the hooded figure before him.
"Kamar-Taj's mirror realm?" the voice inside Bob said, amused. "Didn't know their kind summoned demons. State your purpose."
The demon's tone set Li Ming on edge. It knew Kamar-Taj too well. That was never good.
The order there was simple: demons didn't get warnings, they got erased. If this thing could name-drop their sanctum, it was either a high lord or the kind that had already wriggled through a noose more than once.
Neither was what Li Ming wanted. He'd aimed for a weakling—an obedient little spy inside S.H.I.E.L.D. His binding was boilerplate Hell-contract stock, dressed up in Voldemort's aesthetics. Perfect for small fry. The last thing he needed was a clever demon picking loopholes in the fine print.
If he could've summoned ghosts, he would have. Ghosts were dumb, pliable, perfect middle management. But Hell didn't do refunds.
Fine. He'd work with what he got. If it failed, he learned something. And odds were, no one could see through his hood anyway.
He palmed a little wooden box lined with faux-angel feather, knotting a ward behind his back. "And you are…?"
The demon rifled Bob Mantner's memories, lips quirking. "Mephisto."
Li Ming's eye twitched. Oh, hell. He snapped the box open and hurled it, ripped a portal wide, primed to bolt.
A scream tore the Mirror Dimension raw. Smoke rolled off the body. Too real, too ragged. A fake angel feather wasn't supposed to drop Mephisto—just stall him. Unless the thing was lying.
Li Ming froze at the threshold, then turned. The demon sagged, skin blistering, shrinking back from the faintest glow.
"I'm—Mephisto's subordinate," it wheezed.
"That's more like it." Li Ming strode back and started swinging. Pure staff, no arcane burn. He beat the demon until the body was mottled with bruises.
"That's for posturing. That's for the dramatic pause." Crack. "That's for nearly giving me a heart attack. Mephisto? Seriously?" Whack-whack. "And 'devoted subordinate'? Please. Who down there isn't devoted when it'll save their hide?"
At last he planted the staff like a cane, holding the wooden box a hair open. "Here's how this goes. We talk. You breathe wrong, I open the box. You melt. I summon another. Got it?"
The demon curled on itself, nodding fast. "Yes, honored sorcerer. Ask, and I will answer."
Li Ming didn't trust it—never would. But the thing was blistered, smoking, and weak. Good enough.
"Name first."
"Names are long and unpleasant," it croaked. "Call me… Bob."
Li Ming squinted. "After the body's name?"
A miserable nod. "Yes, master. Bob Mantner. He's here with his handler, Phil Coulson, to apprehend Marcus Daniels."
No bell. Li Ming twirled a finger: go on.
"Daniels was a lab assistant. An accident gave him unstable absorption powers. Damaged his brain. He's fixated on a woman—Audrey Nathan, a cellist. Coulson plans to use her as bait."
"So you've got the body's memories. Sharp ones."
The demon blinked. Understood the angle. "You want to know if I inherited his mind."
"What else?" Li Ming tapped the staff against Bob's chest, sketching a sigil in smoke.
Panic flared in the demon's eyes. "You would slave me?"
"Option A: serve. Option B: die." Li Ming's tone stayed pleasant. "And this is the Mirror Dimension. Die here, you don't go home—you go out."
The demon hesitated, then signed.
Li Ming exhaled—only on the surface. Trust was for amateurs. He rolled the box in his palm. "Your rank?"
"None. I'm weak. I once served a lord. Learned just enough to recognize your contract."
Truth or lies didn't matter. One accurate line in ten was a win.
"Here are the rules," Li Ming said. "You go back to being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. You don't reach out unless I pull you. No freelancing."
He started to turn, then stopped. "Head down. Don't peek. Bad for the eyes."
The demon frowned but obeyed.
Li Ming opened a slit in the Mirror. "Kreacher. Hand, please."
The elf stepped through, eyes bright. "Yes, boss?"
Li Ming pointed at the demon's back. "Unbreakable Vow. You and him. I witness."
Kreacher clasped its hand. Li Ming set the staff between them. Vows spilled out: no revelation, no betrayal, no undermining orders. The staff hissed, flames twined wrists, sank into skin.
Binding done.
"You can look," Li Ming said. "Break it, and you don't even get Hell. You get nothing."
The demon swallowed hard. "Master… may I return? If I linger, Coulson will know."
Outside the Mirror, a man drifted toward the stage, eyes closed, lost in the cellist's music. Marcus Daniels. Who else walks into a half-locked theater?
Li Ming flicked a portal open. "Back to work."
The demon slipped out. Li Ming took a different door—back to the RV.
So much for movie night. He needed Kreacher's cooking to wash the brimstone out of his mouth.
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