My Way of Life
Just as the portal behind you closes, a young student appears in front of you.
"Miss, the Sorcerer Supreme wants to see you." he bows a little to you, and you grit your teeth together. What is that fucker still doing here?
"Thank you." you nod and taking long strides, go inside the building. Mordo is standing, his back turned to you, looking at the painting of a famous sorcerer on the wall.
"What?" you ask just as you walk up the last stair.
He turns around with a grimace on his face, which probably is supposed to look like a smirk. Eyes quickly look up and down your attire, staying longer on your AC/DC shirt. You raise your eyebrow and wait until he opens his mouth.
"I thought I will see you here much earlier. Something happened?" voice now sweet as honey, he is definitely playing a game.
"Even if the moon crashed into Earth, I wouldn't be the one to tell you that," you answer, anger flashing in your eyes.
"Oh, that's a bad attitude for future Sorcerer Supreme. You know how they say, sharing is caring." He walks a bit closer to you, hands behind his back.
"Well, does it look like I care about you?" you scoff. Fingers tightly grasp the sling ring in your pocket.
"Y/n, it will be an honour to give you the title of the Sorcerer Supreme. Truly." not even a single muscle on his face moves. Does that man even have any feelings?
"Oh, really? I thought that you wanted to hold onto the title for as long as you can. But I guess after there are no Illuminati members to support you, you have no reason to fight, right?" you begin pacing, and he does the same. Circling together as hungry vultures fighting for the last bite of meat, you try to guess what's on his mind.
"Oh, y/n, y/n." he sighs, shaking his head a bit. "There once was a time when I would've died for you. But now? You're just a bitch. I can't wait to see how everything crumbles in your hands."
The statement makes you smile. "Mordo, if you ever saw anything further than your nose, you would have been a great mentor."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Although the Ancient One used to praise me for my combat skills." he looks around, and you do the same, a plan already forming in your head. This whole interaction could end in two ways. Either with a fight or an argument.
"Yeah? Well, when Stephen was in charge, he praised me for a lot more than combat skills," you smirk, watching him bite the inside of his cheek.
"I think that my, as still, the Sorcerer Supreme duty is to check your competence," he says after a moment.
"Yeah? I wonder how you're going to do that."
"There is one way." he stands in a fighting position, drawing his hands in front of him, balled into fists.
You do the same without waiting, knowing Mordo, he was quick to attack, without giving the opponent time to prepare. "Hand-to-hand combat? Haven't kicked your ass in a while." you take off your jacket, secretly securing your sling ring in the pocket of your jeans.
"Don't be so full of yourself, I think you know how that ended up for Strange," he tells, stepping closer to you and swinging his fist immediately, merely missing your face by an inch.
You get annoyed instantly, stepping aside and throwing a punch to his stomach. A groan escapes his lips but he doesn't move much, almost punching you again.
"You think you can beat me? I had to peel your ass off the floor after every fight," he smirks, thinking that he's got the high ground now.
"Maybe I didn't want to give you a small dick complex? Never thought of that?" you say, trying to distract him with words.
"Your cockiness is what's going to get you killed," he says, carefully placing his feet, as if afraid that the floor might crumble.
"Yeah? Well at least I'll have something you don't," you say and attack him with your whole body weight, both of you falling on the hard floor. "You bastard, Stephen died because of you!" you say sitting on his waist, punching him in the chin.
"He was lost before he found this place. There was no saving." He spits some blood out of his mouth and rolls around, you now lying under him, shoulders tightly pressed into the ground.
"It's not up to you who deserves to live or die, you were just obsessed with me, you sick cunt." You try to free yourself from his grasp but he just pushes you into the ground more. Your hand grasps the slingy in your pocket, as you try to put it on as quickly as possible with one hand.
"He never deserved something so good like you but turns out, you're just a regular bitch." he says, hands suddenly grasping your neck. You're taken by surprise, eyes wide and full of panic. Is he going to kill you now? Air is not reaching your lungs, and the face above you becomes almost blurry.
Finally, you put on the slingy and pulling out your hand, you punch him in the face. The impact is not as strong as you wanted but the sharp edges of the sling ring cut his cheek. He lets go of your neck, almost rolling to the side, but you push yourself away from him, quickly getting on your feet, taking a deep breath and grabbing the long training stick that was resting near the wall.
"You son of a bitch!" You say, watching him get up as well, but before he can grab a weapon, you punch his thigh with the stick.
"Ah, there's the fire!" He laughs, falling on one knee as the impact with the stick turns off his nerves for a bit. Wiping his cheek, he notices blood and looks you in the eyes.
He conjures a magical whip, and it grabs your leg, knocking you down. He pulls you towards him and puts his leg on your stomach, putting a lot of pressure on your injured side.
"I thought we were fighting hand to hand, and this doesn't seem fair," you say and quickly grab his leg, knocking him on the ground as well.
Both of you sit up at the same time, you're quick to grab the training stick and set it against his throat, applying slight pressure.
"That does count as a win, yeah?"
Mordo smirks, grabbing the stick and punching your chest with it hard. You get sent flying to the wall, the impact knocking the air out of your lungs for a moment.
"Never leave your opponent with a chance to attack you. Didn't you know that?" He comes closer, creating another whip from magic. Grabbing your hands and pulling them together he leaves you with only one way out. Without thinking, you get as close to him as you can and kick him in the previously harmed leg. He stumbles a bit, and the whip disappears into thin air.
"Oh, I knew that." you lower his head, punching it with your knee. A crack is heard. Either your weak knee or his nose.
A shout near the stairs distracts you both but you try to focus on the man before you, pushing him onto the floor again. Grabbing the training stick once again, you sit on his waist with your full weight, and put the stick on his shoulders, dangerously close to his throat. Leaning a bit towards his face, you say, "Hand-to-hand combat, and you still had to use magic against me? Pretty pathetic for a Sorcerer Supreme." You stand up, and while doing so, push the stick onto his throat a bit, hearing him choke for a moment. You brush the dust off your shirt and look at the three trainees standing there with mouths wide open and simply say, "Training session. I believe you have one to attend too."
They quickly nod and skedaddle away from your sight. Mordo gets up, groaning slightly, while you take your precious time to regain your breath.
"I believe that your skills are competent enough for the title of the future Sorcerer Supreme. However, as I leave, I suggest that you find yourself a training partner. Don't get too lazy and sleep on your victories." Mordo says, fixing his attire and heading towards the main yard.
" Wow, a victory AND a piece of advice? You're truly treating me today!" you shout after him, wiping the corner of your lip and noticing some blood on your hand afterwards. "Fucking cunt." you whisper to yourself and head towards your old room in Kamar-Taj, where you were actually going before this shitshow.
"Testing your combat skills." you silently mock Mordo, words echoing with an indistinct murmuring through the long corridor.
Finally reaching your room, you twist the handle and the door opens with a creak. Everything's exactly how you left it. With an order from the Sorcerer Supreme, aka Stephen Strange, your room was out of the 'free for accommodation' list. You close the door, looking around. The magical flowers on your table were emitting a mystical glow, as you noticed, they started doing that after Stephen died. Magic is truly magnificent.
Walking closer to the mirror near the wardrobe, you see a postcard stuck on the corner of it, with a picture of the Greenwich Village. You flip the card and notice Stephen's neat handwriting. Although you can physically hear him saying that this is the worst handwriting he had since the accident. You read the simple sentence, written in the middle of the card, " 'missing you terribly' - 4-S. "
4-S was the joke between the two of you because at first, he used to sign letters and notes with 'S. S. S. S.' but in the end, writing 4-S became easier.
"Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange" you read out loud to no one in particular. You place the postcard in its previous place and look at the mirror. Hair out of place, the black shirt still dusty in some spots, lip now swelled up a bit. Even though you look and feel like half of the corpse, the feeling of beating Mordo at his own game was unmatched. You look around the room again. It's time to move out of it into the Master's chamber. Although it was a room where you and Strange spent some precious moments, now after it was inhabited by Mordo, you'll have to deep clean that place. Possibly twice.
So many things happened today that you got lost in time until the ray of sunshine from the west side blinded you for a bit. Time to go home. Or sleep here. With all the memories still present in the atmosphere. You don't think much before dropping to bed with all your clothes, too lazy to even change, and fall into the desired slumber.