“Strange!”

From her favorite perch beside the glass stained window of the Sanctum Sanctorum, Mina closed the ancient tome in her hands and turned her head to see Jae climbing up the stairs with urgency.

“I’ve been waiting for a good hour already and I’m an inch away from starving to death!” He cried with a puff of his chest. “Are you sure you ordered from the place in 3rdstreet and not the one across town?”

Snapping her fingers, the book levitated out of her hand and into its respective shelf, neat and precise as everything else in the room. “I’m sure they’ll arrive soon enough. Maybe there was a hold up with traffic. Besides, if I were to recall, you were the one always preaching about patience when I was still a novice in Kamar-Taj.”

Jae rolled his eyes with a smirk as the duo walked down the corridor to the main entrance. “That was then, and I had seniority, but now it’s about food. If I shrivel up from hunger, who else is going to help you do all the important stuff around here?”

“Yes,” Mina replied slowly as she nodded her head. “Important stuff such as playing the guitar and serenading all the lonely relics in the Sanctum. How could I ever run this place without you.”

Her biting sarcasm paired with her sharp wit might have intimidated any other person but the softness in her tone was unmistakably playful.

“I dunno, but I’m pretty sure your cape can probably string a few chords if it really wanted to—"

Before he could finish, the infernal cape smacked him on the head with the force of a Sumo wrestler’s hand despite the fact that it was, after all, just a piece of fabric. Enchanted objects were weird like that.

“Ouch! Mina, are you just going to let your cape bully me, your favorite disciple, like that!”

Though her face remained passive, her eyes were definitely smiling. “I didn’t see it, therefore it never happened.”

“Oh, come on! What are you, a third grader!”

“I could say the same thing about you. You surely act like one.”

A scandalized gasp left his mouth. “Now that’s just rude.”

The young woman replied with a melodic hum and halted her steps to stare at the busy New York streets through the large window reminiscent of the relic that securely hung around her neck. The Eye of Agamotto felt heavier lately and she didn’t know whether it was a disruption from the stone itself or if the gravity of her responsibilities had finally set in. It had only been three months since she received the position of Sorcerer Supreme, but she felt that the accident that set her destiny on course had been a lifetime ago.

Her eyes focused on one speck in the skyline, deciphering its size and shape, as Jae mutely babbled on. It seemed as though it was small…but…

Why was it getting bigger?

Squinting at the object, she murmured under her breath, “What in the world?”

The Cloak of Levitation pulled her away from the window as a figure in bright red crashed through the glass with a grunt. A second figure flew past the gaping hole of the Sanctum, screaming a villain’s monologue to the dazed individual on the ground.

Mina coughed from the debris and dust that scattered to the wind and analyzed the situation, deciphering friend from foe. From her position on the second level, she saw the first one, a short female cladded in a red skin-tight suit, attempted to apprehend the attacker using string—webs, perhaps?— while the second one, wearing cybernetic wings of all things, fought back by dodging through the air.

She was mistaken when she thought nothing crazier could happen after she defeated Dormammu.

Well, regardless of which side they were on, their fight was making a large mess of the Sanctum and she absolutely abhorred cleaning up after others.

Jumping over the railing, the Sorcerer Supreme calmly yelled at the intruders, though she knew her voice lacked enough gravel to be intimidating, “Can you two please take this fight outside. You’re damaging our priceless artifacts.”

The woman in the red costume with a spider emblazoned on her chest shouted a hurried “I’m sorry!” as she swung up to grab hold of one robotic wing while waving at Mina in apology.

The counter balance caused the two to crash into the grand staircase with the smaller one taking the brunt of the impact. Even without her years of medical knowledge, Mina knew that amount of force had a high chance of resulting in a painful injury or even death, and yet the little spider got up all the same to fight her opponent head on like it was just a light tap.

At that second, the vulture produced a gun from his jacket and whipped his head to Mina.

I see, he’s fighting dirty now.

Fully prepared to create a portal in front of her, she was caught off guard when something, not the Cloak of Levitation this time, pulled her to the side and away from the bullet’s path. The wizard looked and saw the red spider-person stationed in front of her protectively.

“Don’t worry, Miss! I’ll make sure nothing happens to you!” Mina heard the voice confidently reassured her, but there was a waver in her tone and a hitch in her breath that cou