Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00058. Testing an idea to see the future.

Tao met Itachi at the portal room and pulled him into the mirror dimension before she made a portal to go get Theo. They appeared in Aunt May’s house and found Theo in the living room reading a book. Tao moved right next to Theo before she started a spell and then whispered into his ear, "It's time to switch."

Theo placed his book down on the couch and then walked towards the back of the house towards the bathroom. After he closed the door, he was pulled into the mirror dimension where Itachi tapped his forehead transferring information. Itachi then transformed into Theo and Tao put him back into the real world. A portal was then opened to Kamar Taj and Theo who was now transformed into Ezekiel walked through it with Tao.

As Ezekiel followed Tao he asked, "So what are the chances of this working?"

Tao smirked as she said, "Sixty percent, probably less. Yao and the others before him never tried it to my knowledge. But your theory does have merit though, so I am willing to try it out. I assume the idea was from comics you have read?"

Ezekiel smiled back as he said, "Actually no, it wasn’t. It just made sense that the future is cloudy because the One Above All wanted to hide me. But if I try to look into the future, I should be able to see it clearly because I can’t hide from myself… I think." Tao nodded her head in understanding and they fell into silence as they walked.

They walked through dimly lit hallways till they made it to the inner sanctum where the Eye of Agamotto was kept. Tao released the seals keeping it in place and took it with her as she walked to her room with Ezekiel. Once they made it to Tao's room, she set up two patterns on the floor.

The first pattern was large and shaped like a star burst inside a circle with an inverted triangle on the outside of it. The tip of that triangle connected to a smaller circle which had another star burst pattern in the middle of it. She directed Ezekiel to sit in the smaller pattern as she sat in the other one and said, “Remove your transformation, I am not sure how it will affect the spell.”

Ezekiel nodded his head and dispelled his henge. Theo looked back at Tao who began to weave her hands in a pattern as she chanted, “Unconnected become connected. My eyes become your eyes.”

As she chanted the starburst patterns lighted up and started to pulse slightly. Tao lifted the Eye of Agamotto as she said, “Show us what the future possibly holds, allow us to see our future mistakes before we make them.” She unlocked the Eye of Agamotto and the entire pattern ignited in orange and green before both Tao and Theo went into a trance as a sphere of orange and green enveloped them.

Theo looked around himself for a few moments, he was floating in a dark space with the only light coming from different clouds floating around in the distance. Each cloud was like a rainbow of color that had a picture in the middle of it. The pictures were blurry and would switch randomly, each one was a single moment in time that was frozen.

“Beautiful isn’t it?”

Theo turned to the voice to see Tao floating next to him, she was ethereal and he could see the clouds floating behind her through her body. He nodded his head as he said, “It almost reminds me of when I met the person who sent me here. It makes me feel small, like I don’t really matter.”

Tao nodded her head as she said, “Not all people who discover magic feel the same way. It’s good that it humbles you, it’s another reason you should learn magic, you won’t take it for granted.”

Theo frowned slightly as he said, “I still have so much I need to learn about my own powers, I have barely scratched the surface of them. If I have to learn magic it will just take me longer to master my own powers and I honestly don’t wanna read a bunch of old magic books.”

“A pity, you would make such a great student.”

Tao looked around for a few moments and then said, “First we should make sure that Strange comes to Kamar Taj, if not we will have to adjust things to make sure it happens.”

A cloud moved closer to them and as it approached them it flickered rapidly through different pictures before it stopped on a man in scrubs. The man appeared arrogant like everyone around him wasn’t that important. As the cloud stopped in front of them, Tao said, “Let’s see what your actions have caused for the timeline.”

As they watched the cloud, it quickly played through events that were similar to the movie. But after the accident when Strange was trying to find any way to heal his hands, Theo hurriedly asked, “Can you pause it!?”

The cloud paused on Strange talking to a man in a warehouse, a warehouse he was very familiar with. “Pangborn works for my dad?”

Tao nodded her head as she said, “Yes. I was a little surprised when I went to speak with him. But it turns out he used to work for your father and Ben before his accident.”

Theo glanced away from the frozen picture for a moment as he asked, “You went to speak with him?”

“Yes, just after I met you. I had sent him out of Kamar Taj with a mission to find you. But it turned out I didn’t need to.”

Theo shook his head as he said, “Ya, Fury helped you out with that. I still don’t see how you and Fury even knew each other. It never happened in the main MCU or in a lot of comics.”

“We ran into each other a few times over the years and I decided to exchange emails with him. A quirk of fate in this timeline I think.”

Theo smirked as he said, “Ya, you baldies need to stick together.”

Tao flicked out her hand and smacked the back of Theo's head hard which made him start to flip over forward extremely fast as he floated in space. He grabbed the back of his head as he said, “Why the hell does that hurt?”

“Because you have no respect.”

Theo rubbed the back of his head as he continued to rotate around. After a few more moments he asked, “How do I even stop this?”

Tao reached out again and Theo’s forehead slammed into the back of her hand. It caused his rotation to stop, but he started to rub his forehead now. Theo glared at Tao for a moment before he looked back at the cloud in front of them. It hadn’t actually paused, but was moving in slow motion. As he watched he noticed something in the background behind Pangborn and Strange and asked, “Can we change angles or zoom in?”

Tao flicked her right hand out and then pinched two fingers together which made the image zoom past Strange. In the back corner of the warehouse stood two young men who were talking and looking into the engine bay of a car. As the view focused on them, one of the young men with black hair raised his hand behind the other person's back and gave a thumbs up.

“Wait? I can tell we are watching?”

“Yes, I still have no idea how you can do that though. Maybe something to do with how you were brought here.” Tao frowned slightly as she finished talking.

Tao moved her hands and the images sped up again as she said, “Let's get back on track, this is more taxing than normal and we have much to check.”

Theo nodded his head as they watched Strange on his journey to learn magic. Time passed quickly for them as they looked for different things that might have been affected by Theo’s actions. From events with Thor, Tony, Hydra and many others. As they watched different timelines, time passed outside in the real world.

The light from outside the room slowly brightened as neither moved inside the sphere of orange and green that swirled around them. Master Hamir arrived at some point with some tea and breakfast. After he watched the orange and green sphere for a little while, he set up the tea and food on the table. He then placed a stasis spell to keep the food and tea fresh for Tao and her guest.

It was past noon when the sphere collapsed to release Tao and Theo. Theo looked a little out of it and continued to stay seated as Tao got up. Tao released the spell over the table and poured two cups of tea. She waited for a few minutes before Theo finally stood up and recast his henge as he said, “That was… different.”

Tao nodded her head as she said, “It was a little weird but not much different then when I use The Eye of Agamotto alone.”

Ezekiel sat down next to Tao and picked up one of the cups of tea. He took a sip before he said, “I'm not a fan of tea, but this is enjoyable."

Tao nodded her head but before she spoke, Ezekiel grinned as he said, "Yes, I know… You know."

Tao gave Ezekiel a flat look before he smiled brightly as he said, "I couldn't help myself… Anyways, so at least we know it works now.”

Tao frowned a little as she said, “Yes, but I am not sure if we should rely on it. It was very taxing to keep up the spell with two people. I will need to rest for a while to recover properly.”

Ezekiel nodded as he said, “I just wanted to make sure the timeline wouldn’t be ruined. Now that we know, we shouldn’t need to do this again. It was kinda fun to see certain things always happen though.”

Tao smiled as she said, “It’s good to know Strange will still come to Kamar Taj.”

Ezekiel smiled as he said, “And that Tony will become Ironman.”

Tao drank some more tea before she said, “Do you want to eat before we go back?”

Ezekiel looked over the food on the table before he said, “Sounds good to me.”