Quirks and magic

20: From Izuku to Marcus

"Izuku," Strange spoke without turning toward his student. "I want you to get yourself to safety immediately. If this is Ikiji then it would be best if you were nowhere near this location. You are not ready to confront him again. Either return to the Sanctum or return home posthaste."

"That is an order, Izuku," Strange sternly added when he sensed that the boy was about to object in some way. Strange briskly opened another portal and promptly entered through, closing it behind him.

Forgive me, my student, Strange thought as the fizzling of his closing portal left him enclosed in a dimly lit wreckage. Your safety is absolutely paramount to me.

When Strange strode into the remains of Project Pegasus's laboratories he bristled with caution, unsure of what to expect. The destruction wrought upon the room was not surprising to him in the least, with glass panels and flickering lights hanging from the ceiling and ominous claw marks etched on the walls. A pungent odor of blood also hung in the still air, and Strange quickly found the corresponding bloodied stains on the wall and floor that birthed the foul smell. He very well might have gagged if his years of experience as a surgeon were not so thoroughly ingrained in his brain.

What was surprising, however, was the complete lack of debris to be found. The floor was completely clear of any rent pieces of metal from the torn walls and ceilings. There were no shards of glass on the floor despite the obvious fact that all of the lab's windows had been blown out from a terrible force. The room seemed stripped of any electronic components or equipment, though Strange could see indentations on the floor that indicated they were present before. And to top it all off, there wasn't a speck of dust to be found. Aside from the remnants of damage and blood, it was as if the entire room had undergone a deep cleaning of sorts. Thoroughly perplexing.

But aside from the blood, there was another foulness lingering on the floor and in the air of the room. It was something Strange recognized almost instantly. This lingering malignance carried a familiarity with it that Strange did not savor in the slightest. It was imprinted all over the room, and Strange followed a particularly thick trail until he came across the first oozing puddle of shadows hidden away in a darkened corner.

Energy from the Dark Dimension, Strange thought worriedly as he gazed down at the slowly shrinking pool. Ikiji...what have you done?

This was clearly a premeditated strike, Strange could see as much. The attack on Kamar-Taj was proof enough that Ikiji operated on planning rather than impulse. But what was Ikiji attempting to accomplish by unleashing Dormammu's ritual upon a laboratory owned by Project Pegasus? The group was renowned for experimenting on and researching with theoretical energies. Their mission statement, as far as Strange could remember, was to discover increasingly renewable sources of power with different kinds of energy. Was this an ideological attack by Ikiji then? Had he assaulted the labs to make some kind of statement?

No, I'm definitely missing something here, Strange thought as he summarily zapped the shrinking dark puddle with a few weak bolts, watching with disdain as it evaporated into a sickly miasma. There was a deeper purpose to this attack, no doubt about it.

Strange glanced over as another fledgling pool crawled out of another corner of the room. It slithered silently across the bloodstained wall toward the ground, leaving a perfectly spotless trail in its wake.

"I see!" Strange said aloud. "These pools are not just remnants of energy from the Dark Dimension, they are literal conduits, temporary and diminutive passageways from our dimension to his..."

Not wide enough for Dormammu or any creation of his to forcefully enter through, but more than enough for his corruptive influence to seep in. That also explained why they were shrinking on their own and why his bolts obliterated one in an instant—the White Magic that formed the base of his powers and the Seal of the Vishanti that protected the planet were a direct counter to Dormammu's dark magic. The sheer amount of White Magic on this planet and at his disposal was more than enough to passively eat away at the shriveling apertures until they were no more.