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Dante arrived back at his dorm room in a great mood. He might've gone a bit overboard with the healing treatment earlier. What started as fixing Psylocke's exhaustion and injuries spiraled into a session of fixing her internal injuries accumulated from decades of stressful physical treating, optimizing her body, and functions. This wasn't as deep and extensive as Felicia, and honestly, a pretty small price to pay for the unintentional ass show she had put on for him while running around in a thong and doing the stretches.
He sat down on the bed in a meditation pose. With Emma in charge, he didn't have to worry about Logan and Laura going anywhere. The White Queen might be manipulative, calculating, cold-hearted, and sometimes insufferable, but she wasn't unreliable. The only reason he was back in his dorm room instead of returning to Silver Sable International was the travel time. Driving back from Massachusetts would probably eat up three hours, minimum, and that was assuming he encountered little to no traffic.
The time sitting behind the wheel would be better put to use in learning Doctor Strange's teleportation. Most sorcerers in this world needed a Sling Ring for portal creation but that tool didn't even exist in the comics. And even in MCU, the rings were only a focusing tool rather than a requirement. Opening portals without the ring was possible, just more mentally straining.
Thankfully, he wasn't limited by rings because he wasn't planning on creating a portal. What he planned to do was much more fundamental.
The first step was learning the constructs of energy to comprehend the flow and ebb of mystical energy.
He raised both hands and began tracing the precise gestures he had absorbed from Doctor Strange's memories. His fingers left glowing trails in the air. Golden light bloomed and expanded into rotating rings of complex spheres. He added layers of mystical energy to the sphere constructs, each one adding interlocking mandala patterns rotating in various directions like gears. It finally took his desired shape—a two-meter-wide shimmering barrier made of complex geometric shapes pulsing with deep orange glow.
It wasn't quite as strong as the legendary Shield of the Seraphim, but it could save his ass in a pinch. More importantly, it proved he had the capability to maintain stable constructs without the energy collapsing or fragmenting.
"That wasn't hard."
Frankly, he would be embarrassed if he had failed in basic constructs after having near-mastery in Astral Projection and many mystical wards, which were higher on the difficulty curve.
He closed his fist, and the barrier shattered into a thousand firefly sparks before dissolving into nothing. Then he drew his hands together before his chest and pulled them apart slowly. A thin thread of orange glowing energy formed between his palms, which then thickened into a burning rope. It grew longer as he spread his hands wider.
With a final yank, he found himself gripping a two-meter eldritch whip.
"Sick."
He brandished the whip and struck the ground. The whip moved like it was responding to his thoughts as much as his physical movements.
'Felicia is getting this if she ever tries something stupid again.'
Dematerializing the whip, he brought his hands together again. The mystical energy flowed with his intent. When he pulled his hands apart, a bo staff came to life. He spun it a few times and slammed it down to destroy it. Its energy returned to the universe.
He spent half an hour practicing weapon construction to have an intuition-level understanding of mystical energy. With the right imagination, he could create any weapon. Of course, they wouldn't function exactly as their real world counterparts, still more than enough to fulfill the need for a weapon.
With Photographic Reflexes, he had fighting styles for nearly every weapon known to man and could copy a new fighting style he desired. With Biokinesis, he could optimize his muscle composition and skeletal structure to bring out the maximum potential of any fighting style.
'Even Bruce Wayne can't have a contingency plan against my flexibility.'
Then he moved onto the real challenging task—teleportation. Unlike the MCU's sorcerers who drew circles in the air, he only had to channel mystical energy through his body, visualize his destination, and direct his intent to teleport there. He was essentially surrendering himself to the currents of ever-present mystical energy.
Teleportation required him to have spatial awareness of his destination. Doctor Strange of 616 could completely ignore that limitation by using the Orb of Agamotto—an artifact that let him scry any location across space and time. Dante had to abide by the standard rules until he found a suitable substitute.
With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and visualized Silvija's bedroom with perfect clarity. He had been there only two or three times, but he had quite a few memorable moments there. He channeled mystical energy through every cell of his body until he felt saturated, then released his intent with a mental push.
'Go!'
The sensation was like being grabbed by an invisible cosmic hand and launched through a kaleidoscope of dimensions. Colorful nebulas of pure mystical energy exploded around him. Galaxies of color that existed outside normal space. He flowed with the currents rather than fought them. This "flowing" speed matched the velocity of his Astral Body during projection—fast enough to cross the entire planet in mere seconds.
The space morphed into gray and black, and then he found himself standing in Silvija's room. Before he got to appreciate his achievement, his physical form violently slammed back into his Astral Body. A wave of nausea rolled through his gut, and he was hit with an urge to throw up. He quickly tapped into Elixir's Resonance Link, using biokinesis to settle his stomach.
'That was unpleasant.'
Only after stabilizing himself did he realize his entire body was bathed in an orange-gold glow—the signature visual of high mystical energy concentration. Every inch of his skin was utterly saturated with ambient mystical energy. The amount flooding his system was enough to cast a high-level spell without drawing from external sources.
'Fuck. This isn't good.'
Having that much mystical energy available was objectively useful. The problem was his spirit wasn't ready for this level of oversaturation. He couldn't safely contain this much mystical energy without consequences. It was like trying to pour a river into a teacup.
He quickly dropped into a meditative sitting position and directed the excess energy outside of his system. The process took five minutes of full concentration then the glow finally faded.
'This never happened to Strange.'
Like astral projection, his Astral form temporarily moved faster than his physical form, creating brief dissonance until both synchronized. That was expected, but the mystical energy saturation wasn't mentioned anywhere.
'Maybe I overlooked something. Ah, a vessel. Shit.'
Doctor Strange of 616 was always so stacked with artifacts and relics that he never had to worry about being in mystical currents. Those artifacts absorbed excess energy for him. Dante had nothing.
'Should I steal some from New York's Sanctum?'
The thought made him smile. Felicia had taught him that sometimes the easiest way to acquire something you needed was simply taking it. And Felicia would be proud of his idea to steal from the mystical defenders of reality.
Unfortunately, antagonizing Ancient One over any artifact wasn't worth it. She was one of the few beings on Earth who could legitimately threaten him. Stealing from the Sanctum would put him on her radar in the worst possible way.
Which left him with the alternative—create his own artifactions once he decided to tap into Invocation Magic. After all, his knowledge came from Sorcerer Supreme of Marvel-616, one of the greatest sorcerers in his universe. Doctor Strange knew hundreds of powerful mystical artifacts, their construction methods, the right entities and energies required, and the exact rituals to bind those powers into physical objects.
'Time, time, time.'
With how much he wanted to accomplish, maybe building a base with time compression wouldn't be such a terrible idea.
'For now, I can't teleport long distances until I get a vessel.'
Otherwise, he would risk blowing up from carrying too much mystical energy.
On the bright side, he could use this oversaturation effect to cast a high-level spell and rain down destruction like no other normal sorcerer.
'Useful in a pinch.'
Covered in a thick blanket, his lover slept peacefully on the bed. She was so exhausted from work that she hadn't even changed out of her silver tactical suit. Touching her shoulder, he purged her fatigue and cleared stress hormones from her system. A good eight hours of proper rest would fix the rest.
After making sure she was comfortable, he teleported to Felicia's room. The short-distance jump barely exposed him to mystical energy. He still felt the whiplash as his astral and physical forms briefly desynchronized. It wasn't as severe as before. The teleportation would feel off until his spirit adapted and built resistance to the fast travel. Only a dozen or so tries at most.
Felicia was curled up under the blankets. The faint silver light from the window caught the tear marks glistening on her cheeks, telling the story of her ongoing struggle. She had accepted reality and boldly chosen not to rescue her father, but that choice was haunting her dreams.
He sat on the edge of the bed, making sure the mattress didn't dip too fast and alerted her. With a thumb softer than he felt, he brushed the wet from her skin, then took her hand. Her fingers were cold, despite the warm temperature here.
She winced with a frown before waking up. Those vivid green eyes seemed wide and disoriented as they locked onto his face.
"Dante…?" Her voice was a sleepy whisper. She squeezed his hand tightly as if testing whether he was real or just a product of her imagination. Then she scrambled up and crawled into his lap, pressing her whole body against his chest. A shuddering sigh escaped her. "You're real."
"Bad dream?" he murmured into her hair. "It's alright now."
"Mhmm."
She burrowed deeper, hiding her face. He could feel her conflict about which mask to put on at this very moment.
"It was… Dad. And you. Both of you were saying mean things," she spoke hesitatingly, choosing to be vulnerable and honest. "You called me a burden. He called me a failure."
She had almost kept it to herself. The old Felicia would've changed the topic with a sexy or mean joke. But she was really making an effort to be honest now.
He rubbed her back comfortingly. "I'd never be so cruel to my kitten."
"Is that so?" She pulled back just enough to look at him, a trace of her usual playful smirk touching her lips. "Honestly, I want to punch you for what Dream-Dante said to me."
"It wasn't me…"
"He had your face. Your voice. Your scent…" She took an exaggerated sniff, then suddenly frowned with suspicion. "Wait up. Why do I smell blood on your sleeve?"
Even though he had washed his arm with water after healing the damage, the faint iron scent of blood apparently hadn't completely vanished. There was also no denying how sharp her senses had become through the unsealing of her hidden genetic traits.
"I had a sparring match with Psylocke."
"You don't bleed an arm in a spar," she said, exasperated. "When will you stop doing stupid shit, huh? Don't you know how worried I become?"
"Sorry?"
"Okay, I forgive you for this." She flicked his forehead and smirked. "Did you record it?"
"Well, Emma should have the footage."
Surveillance cameras were everywhere in the training facility. Emma would've watched him live and then saved the footage for later analysis. Even her ally wasn't safe from being studied thoroughly.
"Good. I'm getting that footage from Emma." She nodded, pleased. "Gonna watch with Silver later."
Suddenly, his phone started ringing. The screen flashed UNKNOWN NUMBER, but he knew for sure it was Natasha calling.
"I have to take this. It's important."
"Of course." Felicia patted his shoulders and moved back to lean against the headboard. "I'll be a good girl. Promise."
Her eyes, however, told an entirely different story. That familiar mischievous glint had returned—the look of a cat who had spotted something interesting. She was already planning something ridiculous to reassert control and drive the nightmare out of her mind.
***
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