"Stephen Strange?"
Jovian looked at the man floating in the air beside him with the help of his cloak and spoke first.
"That's me…"
Stephen Strange didn't look surprised at all when he heard Jovian say his name. The fact that he was Doctor Strange wasn't exactly a secret anymore.
"Doctor Strange, Earth almost got destroyed just now, and you're only showing up now? If the Ancient One were still alive, this would've been handled already without me needing to step in."
Jovian immediately seized the initiative, criticizing Stephen Strange while deliberately making it sound like he was personally familiar with the Ancient One.
"What?"
Stephen Strange had come ready to tear Jovian a new one, but after hearing that, he locked up on the spot. He wanted to say something, but for a second, nothing came out.
"You knew the Ancient One?"
"Earth was about to be destroyed?"
"No, wait, that's not the point. You almost threw me off there. Sir, don't you think you owe me an explanation for why you slaughtered the Eternals and stole the power from their bodies?"
Stephen frowned and questioned Jovian sharply.
"How ridiculous. The Eternals were about to destroy Earth, and you're still here taking their side. I'm starting to think the Ancient One may have made a mistake choosing you as Sorcerer Supreme."
As Jovian spoke, a ball of golden energy wrapped itself around his hand.
"If you want the details, go see for yourself."
With that, Jovian flicked the golden energy straight at Stephen Strange.
Stephen was caught off guard and struck directly by the golden light. In the next second, he froze in midair as countless images flooded his mind.
They were visions of the birth of the Celestials and the mission of the Eternals…
"So you're telling me there's a Celestial sleeping inside the Earth right under our feet, and it was about to hatch?"
Stephen's eyes twitched. The moment he thought about the fact that there was basically a god living inside the planet beneath him, he stopped finding any of this remotely funny.
"Relax. I already handled it, Stephen."
Jovian looked at the spineless expression on Stephen Strange's face and sighed.
"Please call me Doctor Strange."
Stephen frowned the moment he heard Jovian call him Stephen. He didn't like people calling him that. If possible, he preferred a more respectful title—something that acknowledged his status. Something like Doctor Strange.
"Got it, Stephen. I understand, Stephen."
Jovian decided right then and there that from today onward, he would refer to Doctor Stephen Strange exclusively as Stephen.
Stephen's chest tightened. At this point, he felt like he would've been better off staying quiet. The moment he spoke up, Jovian escalated all the way to calling him Stephen and nothing else.
"Stephen, this is not the time for silence. Look up."
"Earth isn't out of danger yet."
Jovian had been staring at the sky the whole time, as though he had sensed something. He walked over to Stephen, lightly patted him on the shoulder, and reminded him to look upward.
"The sky?"
Stephen frowned, but once Jovian said it, he sensed it too. An overwhelming pressure settled over him in an instant.
The next second, the bright sky suddenly dimmed, and then six brilliant points of light flickered within the clouds.
"Stephen Strange, that is the kind of opponent you should be dealing with. Helping Spider-Man handle a bunch of second-rate villains doesn't suit your status…"
As Stephen stared at those six points of light, unease swelled in his chest. Beads of sweat began sliding down his forehead. Just as anxiety started to rise, a calm voice sounded in his ear.
Stephen recognized it. It was the voice of the man who had been speaking to him this whole time—the one who seemed to know his master, the Ancient One.
Then the clouds split apart, and a giant mechanical face appeared before Stephen's eyes.
"What the fuck?!"
Stephen froze where he was, staring at the enormous face in front of him. The last time he had seen something this huge was when he fought a dimensional overlord named Dormammu.
Back then, he'd only managed to survive by using the Time Stone to keep looping the encounter until he wore Dormammu down.
But now…
He didn't have a cheat code like the Time Stone.
"Tiamut is still asleep? Its energy is much weaker than I expected. What exactly happened here?"
Arishem floated outside the blue planet, his eyes taking in the state of the entire world in an instant. He quickly realized that Tiamut, who was supposed to emerge today, had failed to do so and was still sleeping.
"And the Eternals…"
"They're gone too?"
Arishem scanned Earth for his signal sources and found that every Eternal he had sent to the planet had gone dark. He couldn't detect a trace of Eternal energy anywhere.
"Little insect…"
"You seem like you know something, don't you?"
At last, Arishem's gaze locked onto Stephen Strange.
"So what do I do now?"
Stephen Strange shivered as Arishem's attention settled on him. He immediately turned to look for the supposed senior figure who seemed to know the Ancient One.
But when Stephen turned around, Jovian was already gone.
Only a note remained, floating in midair.
It had one sentence written on it:
"Stephen! Now this is the kind of opponent that suits your status. No need to thank me!"
In his rich, resonant voice, Stephen quietly read the line aloud. The moment he finished, his heart gave a violent twitch.
"Oh, I'm definitely going to thank you."
Stephen thanked Jovian very sincerely in his heart. This really was a surprise. It absolutely matched his status. He just didn't know what kind of grudge or personal beef that apparent senior of his had against him to screw him over this hard.
"Come here."
Floating in deep space, Arishem crooked a finger at the Stephen he had locked onto.
In an instant, Stephen felt an invisible force drag him forward.
His expression changed immediately. Faced with that overwhelming, nearly irresistible power, he threw both hands up and began casting.
The moment Stephen moved, cracks seemed to spread across everything around him. A mirrored world unfolded instantly, surrounding him and helping him deflect Arishem's force.
"What an interesting little one."
Arishem watched as Stephen manifested the Mirror Dimension, and the halo-like light around him seemed to flicker ever so slightly.
The next second, the entire Mirror Dimension around Stephen shattered at once, and Stephen himself was blasted straight out of it.
A sweetness rose in his throat, and blood came surging up.
It was the first time Stephen had ever encountered a being that could simply smash his Mirror Dimension apart by force.
"No. I'm absolutely not a match for this Celestial."
Stephen knew with complete certainty that he stood no chance against Arishem. He forced himself to calm down and began trying to contact the Watcher. He had never once succeeded in getting the Watcher's help before, but against an opponent on Arishem's level, Stephen knew he had no other option.
Just as Stephen was trying to establish contact, a blazing golden portal opened beside him.
In the next second, a bald man dressed in ancient Greek-style robes came tumbling out of it, rolling through the air in front of Stephen four or five times before barely managing to stop himself.
For a moment, Stephen stared blankly at the bald man.
Arishem in the sky froze too.
Even the bald man himself looked stunned.
"It worked?"
Stephen was stunned because he had apparently succeeded in calling the Watcher.
"No, wait. That makes no sense. I only got halfway through the spell."
What Stephen couldn't understand was how it had worked when he hadn't even finished casting yet. How had he managed to call in the bald guy already?
"Why are these bald guys popping up out of nowhere again?"
Arishem was frozen for a different reason. Up until now, everything had been perfectly normal. Then out of nowhere, a bald man popped out of an otherwise normal Earth, and that was definitely not normal.
"Where is this?"
"How did I end up in the main universe?"
The bald man was stunned too. He was standing there in disbelief because he had somehow crossed into another universe without even realizing it. The problem was, this wasn't even his observation zone.
"Watcher! Are you going to interfere with me?"
Arishem roared furiously at the bald man, and the force of his anger made it feel as though the entire solar system was trembling.
"Celestial!"
The moment the Watcher saw Arishem, he was already rolling up his sleeves.
When a Watcher and a Celestial ran into each other, things usually only went one of two ways: either a duel or an all-out brawl.
And most duels eventually turned into all-out brawls anyway.
This Watcher didn't disappoint Stephen. His bald head and body expanded in an instant until he was just as large as the Celestial outside Earth, and then he swung his arm and slapped Arishem right across his armored face.
Could Arishem take that lying down?
Of course not. He immediately returned the favor with a brutal slap of his own.
"So this is what a Celestial is like? This is what a Watcher is like?"
Stephen stared at the cosmic gods in the sky smacking each other across the face and honestly didn't know what to say.
"Stephen Strange, why were you trying to contact me?"
Just as Stephen was standing there, watching the Celestial and the Watcher trade giant slaps and wondering what exactly he was supposed to do now, a voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
Only then did Stephen realize that somewhere along the way, he had unconsciously finished the spell and actually connected to the Watcher.
Stephen heard the voice in his mind, then looked back up at the Watcher who was currently slapping Arishem around in the sky, and froze.
Which meant…
The Watcher in front of him wasn't the one he had summoned.
That made things even weirder.
If this wasn't the Watcher he had called, then who had summoned this one?
"Uh, honored Watcher, I've run into a bit of a problem…"
Stephen was full of questions, but he still addressed the voice in his head politely.
"Say no more. I have already seen everything…"
The first half of the Watcher's reply fit perfectly with Stephen's mental image of these supreme cosmic beings.
"Now let's see here… well, would you look at that? A lone Celestial."
The second half, however, went a little beyond Stephen's expectations.
Before Stephen could figure out how to respond, his connection with the Watcher in his mind suddenly cut off.
And then…
Outside Earth, behind Arishem and the Watcher who were in the middle of beating each other senseless, another gleaming bald head quietly popped into view.
Then it wrapped both arms around Arishem from behind.
"Look! I've got him!"
The Watcher from the MCU's main universe locked Arishem in a full-body hold.
"What?"
Arishem clearly hadn't expected the Watchers to fight dirty and jump an old-school Celestial like him from behind.
Before Arishem could react, the Watcher whose hands were now free rubbed his bruised, swollen bald head—Arishem had clearly smacked him hard—then started raining slaps down on Arishem's face.
One slap after another.
Each one harder than the last.
Each one meaner than the last.
"Stupid Watchers…"
Arishem was furious now, rattled and enraged by the combined assault from two Watchers.
In the next second, golden light exploded from his body, blasting both Watchers away.
"You just wait. This isn't over."
After throwing down that threat, Arishem's body erupted in a burst of red light.
A giant wormhole opened instantly and swallowed him whole.
Yes, Arishem knew exactly what he was doing.
One-on-one, he wasn't afraid.
But one against two…
A wise man doesn't take a bad fight, so Arishem chose the sensible option and got out of there.
Stephen looked up at the sky and replayed what he had just witnessed.
A Celestial showed up.
Then a Watcher showed up.
Then the Celestial and the Watcher started slapping the hell out of each other.
Then the Celestial gained the upper hand.
Then another Watcher showed up.
Then two Watchers beat the hell out of one Celestial, and the Celestial lost and chose to make a tactical retreat…
No, wait.
He probably shouldn't call it running away. That felt a little too disrespectful toward a cosmic deity.
"Tactical retreat" was definitely the better term.
"I feel like my entire worldview just shattered."
Stephen rubbed his temples. Everything that had happened today was enough to completely rewrite how he saw the universe.
Especially the Watchers.
Normally, every single one of them acted aloof around him, like they were too lofty and detached to care about worldly affairs.
But apparently they were just as petty as anyone else.
When they ran into an enemy they actually hated, they fought dirtier than he did.
"I think I need to go into seclusion for a while and get my head straight."
Stephen decided to take this chance to go back, get some real rest, and put himself back together again.
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