"Me?" Wanda asked.
"Yes," the Ancient One said. "This spell is somewhat special. It can locate anyone across the universes, but the person using it needs to know the individual very well, have strong concentration, and sufficient magical talent."
"Otherwise?" Jill asked.
"Otherwise the spell opens unstable holes across multiple realities simultaneously, forcing other realities to bleed into this one," the Ancient One said simply.
"Realities crashing?" Alice asked. "Like vehicles crashing into each other?"
"Not exactly," the Ancient One said. "It simply opens small holes between realities. But from those holes dangerous individuals from other universes can slip through into this one and cause considerable trouble."
The room went quiet for a moment as everyone processed that.
"So no pressure," Selene said, looking at Wanda.
On Luke's side,
Luke was sitting on the roof of Kamar-Taj alone, looking out over what remained of Nepal under a sky that had no business looking as peaceful as it did given everything wrong with this universe.
"It has been a long time since you talked to us," Red Queen said, materializing beside him. "You even forgot we exist."
"You totally forgot about us," White Queen added, appearing on his other side.
"You two should always be watching," Luke said. "My life for the last two months has been a complete mess."
"We can see that," Red Queen said, looking out at the same horizon he was looking at.
"It's definitely beyond mess. I sometimes wonder what your life even is. It looks like a dog chasing its own tail."
"You cause trouble with women, sometimes you chase men, sometimes trouble chases you, you are always running toward something or away from something."
"You know the chasing men part might be misunderstood," Luke said. "I should clarify I'm the sort of weird person who gets chased by every gender. Not the same thing."
"We are AI," White Queen said. "We don't know the difference."
"You two are really a good pair," Luke said, looking between them. "Pulling the AI card the moment it's convenient. "
"You two have bodies, you can interact with the physical world, you understand human behavior better than most humans do, but suddenly when gender comes up you two can't understand anything."
Neither of them responded to that immediately.
Which was its own kind of answer.
"It's fun to watch you squirm when topics like this are brought up," Red Queen said, the satisfaction in her voice completely undisguised.
"Wow," Luke said, looking at her. "Red Queen you have really changed. Before you were polite, composed, proper. Now you've gone from Red Queen to Sadistic Queen."
"I learned from observation," Red Queen said simply.
"Observation of who?" Luke asked, already knowing the answer he didn't want.
"You," both of them said at the same time.
Luke looked out at the horizon and said nothing for a moment.
"You seem to forget," Red Queen said, "you cause many people's blood pressure to rise. Honestly you might be personally responsible for several people's mental health conditions at this point."
"I prefer to think of it as keeping people on their toes," Luke said.
"You prefer to think of many things incorrectly," White Queen said.
Luke looked at her.
"You two have really gotten comfortable."
On Wanda's side,
The room was closed off from the rest of Kamar-Taj, circular engravings covering the floor in patterns that caught the light in ways that didn't quite make sense, a single bowl on a raised platform at the center of it all.
"These engravings will assist the spell," the Ancient One said, guiding everyone outside the circle before stepping back herself.
"And remember, do not let your mind wander to anything else. Not for a single moment."
Wanda nodded and looked down at the book, then at the circle around her, then closed her eyes briefly before she began reading.
The engravings on the floor responded immediately, light tracing through every carved line from the outside inward, building toward the center, the patterns beginning to rotate slowly like rings around a core as the magic recognized what was being asked of it.
Sparks began forming in front of Wanda, small at first, crackling at the edges of her fingers as the spell pulled on her power, the light from the floor engravings reflecting off them and filling the room with a red gold glow.
The circles flickered.
"Concentration," the Ancient One said quietly from outside. "Don't lose it."
The sparks in front of her grew steadier, no longer scattering at random but gathering into a focused stream of energy.
Beneath her feet, the engraved patterns on the floor spun faster, their light brightening with each word she spoke, the chamber responding to the spell as if something long dormant had begun to wake.
Then the air in front of her distorted.
At first it was only a ripple, subtle and thin, like heat bending the space between worlds. But within seconds it widened into a fractured veil, unstable and shifting, its surface unable to hold a single shape.
Scenes began flashing through it.
Ruined buildings.
Broken streets.
Fires still burning in places where nothing should have remained.
Then corpses.
So many that they looked like a moving wall, staggering over rubble and through the remains of the city, their numbers impossible to count.
The chamber trembled.
Dust fell from the ceiling as the force of the magic surged outward, the stone walls shaking under the pressure while the distortion continued to widen, showing more of whatever world she had reached.
*****
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