You couldn't quite say the Ancient One's command of magic was unmatched in all of history—that would be laying it on too thick. But as the guardian of Kamar-Taj and the keeper of the Eye of Agamotto, she'd spent centuries piecing apart the mysteries of time itself. With or without the Time Stone made little difference. Having it was convenient. Not having it was fine.
The spell she was now casting—her own Eye of Agamotto, which shared the artifact's name—was something new: a spell built on the operating principles of the Time Stone, dismantled and reconstructed from scratch.
Bella knew an opportunity like this wouldn't come twice. She forced her mind into perfect stillness, every detail of the casting under her microscope.
To let her see every stage of the mana flow, the Ancient One moved slowly, step by step.
She also left a gap open in the spell itself. Bella didn't hesitate—she sent her consciousness straight in.
Time. She saw time.
Maybe because the spell was derived from the Time Stone, the world inside it was a deep, dark green, filled in every direction with tangled, shifting streams of thought and memory.
People wept here. People laughed. Some burned with rage, some drowned in grief. But above all she saw the long slow churn of seas into fields, the drift of sun and moon and stars across uncounted ages.
Time had been recording all of it, quietly, the whole time.
In this place Bella had no body. She was just a bead of pure, creamy-white energy. Along the edge of the horizon, mana was weaving itself like a loom, using countless intricate geometries and mana nodes dense as stars to rapidly construct a highly abstract image of an eye.
And then—that eye began extracting fragments from time itself and dissecting them in depth.
The purer Bella watched, the more baffled she got. She wasn't asking for polite and gentle, exactly, but did they have to go about it like this?
She was a total novice when it came to time, and even she could tell: this Eye of Agamotto spell was powerful. Overbearing, even.
It was roughly the spellcasting equivalent of grabbing time by the collar, beating the ever-loving daylights out of it, and then rifling its wallet.
Did they really have to be this brutal?
Meek and polite with the extradimensional dark gods, but full-fisted assault on the laws of time? Bella felt she'd seen the true heart of Kamar-Taj's magic: you people are just bullying time because it can't manifest as a person and hit you back, right?
The Ancient One's demonstration ended quickly, and Bella's consciousness withdrew on its own.
At her current level, watching the Ancient One take the spell apart and walk her through it once was enough to burn the routing into her memory.
Reproducing it through her own psionic energy, though—that she couldn't manage yet. A spell like Eye of Agamotto, which viewed timelines and peered into past and future, would be at least an eighth-circle spell in her psionic framework. Maybe higher.
At her current level and understanding, she simply couldn't parse a spell that advanced through psionics. But mages were a famously adaptable bunch. She could take the whole spell apart, borrow pieces of its inner logic, and develop lower-tier spells she could actually use now.
There was no rush on spell development. Her gaze drifted up to the Ancient One's forehead—a little like Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, with the faint shadow of a third eye visible there. Once the mana fully dissipated, that phantom eye faded too.
"Teacher, there aren't any hidden costs to this spell, are there? It looks like it's drawing on power from past images of Agamotto..."
The Ancient One looked back at her, unmoved. "Miss Bella. What spell doesn't have hidden costs? Does your psionic power have no costs? Use it when you need it. Let me walk you through the theory—this is a time-class spell. For most of Kamar-Taj's master sorcerers, this spell is hard to grasp. But a Nomad's whole class identity is about playing with time, controlling it. Learning this spell shouldn't be difficult for you."
"Time, for us, isn't a straight line. It's more like a lattice. With the right spell, we can step outside the lattice for a moment and peek at a specific node..."
The theory behind Eye of Agamotto was simple enough. But without the Time Stone—relying purely on her own ability to understand time, observe it, and use its rules to empower herself and weaken enemies—Bella still found it a steep climb.
She'd need to work out the knack of it piece by piece.
Two days later, she left Kamar-Taj. The Ancient One couldn't do much more for her. She'd have to figure out the rest on her own.
How do you kill a monster that might be over a hundred meters (330 feet) long, has wings, can fly, and breathes fire?
As a modern woman, the first answer that came to mind was: use a gun.
Ordinary firearms obviously wouldn't do the job.
Bella had been paying attention. Thorin Oakenshield and his dwarves had bone density and skin toughness well above what Earth humans packed. Earth firearms would barely scratch them. Earth weapons were designed to kill Earth humans. Pull them out of that context and their effectiveness drops by more than half.
Earth guns wouldn't cut it. But that didn't mean all guns wouldn't.
Bella had friends across worlds. A little adjustment, and she'd find what she needed.
She teleported to Natasha's side and spent the first thirty minutes smoothing over her little vinegar jar of a partner. Three months at Kamar-Taj, another ten-plus days in Narnia, months apart on top of Vanaheim—the two of them hadn't seen each other in close to four months. Dry wood and open flame. Training! Heh heh heh!
It wasn't until the next day that she finally tracked down Ironhide, who'd been running missions with her little sister lately.
Ironhide was Optimus Prime's weapons specialist. No other talents worth mentioning—but he was a master of building weapons.
Bella planned to have Ironhide build her a laser rifle. Not too big, or her pocket dimension couldn't fit it and carrying it around everywhere would be awkward—but not too small either, or it wouldn't pack enough firepower.
"Can fly? Armored scales? A hundred-meter (330-foot) monstrosity? Easy!"
Ironhide didn't waste a word. He got straight to work.
After Bella spent another day sparring with Natasha, Ironhide delivered to spec: a slightly oversized, slightly ostentatious rifle.
The base was the French FAMAS assault rifle. Behind the main body, Ironhide had integrated a Cybertronian energy cube—enough to let Bella fire continuously for twelve hours. The barrel was extended. At the bolt, an energy conversion unit. Behind the grip, a small backlit display showed current energy reserves and let her toggle between firing modes.
Two modes: standard burst, and a full-power continuous laser sweep.
Laser weapons were a joy to use. No recoil. Hit hard. Hit far. Hit accurately. Paired with her Hawkeye Vision, a headshot from five miles (eight kilometers) out wasn't a fantasy.
The one downside: a laser rifle couldn't carry her poison coating, and her fight with the White Witch had driven home just how useful poison could be. Against low-tier opponents poison wasn't necessary—but against things like the White Witch and Smaug, poison made all the difference.