THE APPRENTICE (DOCTOR STRANGE STORY)

35

When Hazel woke up, all she could feel was a pounding in her head. For some reason, she felt a lot more rested despite the fact that she had just fainted, but nonetheless clueless.

"Hey!" Hazel woke up to the sound of a gentle voice, making her jump and open her eyes wide. "O-oh, I'm sorry, did I scare you?,"

"Bruce Banner" She sighed at the sight of him and put some fingers on her temple. The girl looked down on her hand and realized she had been confined and unconscious all along. "W-"

"-you fainted 3 days ago, a lot of us thought you were dead or in a long term coma," He explained.
Hazel got up from the bed forcefully, in the well furnished room and tried to process everything.

The girl opened up the sliding door and walked towards the living room, where a couple of them were staying. 

"Bruce, where are my tunics?," Hazel questioned as they made their way to the table, making people turn their heads.

"We had to take them off and change you since we needed to-,"

"-those are tradition!" Hazel breathed and ran a hand through her hair. Did they really just take a part of her identity from her? "Give them back,"

"We will, don't worry" Steve butted in the conversation, pursing his lips together at her. "Hazel, we think we should let you know that...Well, the stones are gone,"

"Gone? Gone? What do you mean they're gone, they're infinity stones, they can't just be gone!," Her brows knitted together at the news

"Thanos used each stone to destroy another, now it's maybe about the size of an atom," Bruce expounded "and...And he's dead,"

There was a thick silence in the air while she tried to process everything they were trying to tell her.
"So what do we do now?," Her voice was breathy and almost desperate.

"We...we move on," Steve answered. As if it were a reflex, Hazel quickly turned her head at him with a glare "we've tried everything we can, but this time, it's impossible-,"

"Impossible? You're gonna tell me about impossible?," The sorcerer scoffed and shook her head "I've travelled through dimensions! The multiverses! Did you know that aliens exist?  Cause imagine my surprise! Steve, I do magic. Trust me when I say that nothing is impossible,"

"We tried when you were gone," Natasha butted in "trust me, if we found another way, then we'll be on it right now,"

"Does Tony know? That you're all giving up?,"

"We're not giving up," Steve defended. Hazel ignored his claim and refused to speak until he answered the question "He left before it all happened,"

"Oh," Hazel breathed and tapped her foot. "Move on, huh," she scoffed and clenched her jaw

"I know it's gonna be hard to move on-,"

"No, it's not. Because I'm not gonna try at all," Hazel shook her head and shut her eyes, focusing long and hard. She gathered all the strength she could foster and made a portal to the New York sanctum.

"That's- that's a portal,"

"Steve Rogers, this is our planet! An alien, an outsider does not get to decide when it's time for us to go." She stood in front of the golden ring "Stephen is all I have, and I'm gonna fight till my very last breath until I get him back, even if I have to do it alone. I'm a warrior, Steve, and I protect your reality every single day. Now it's time for me to bring back mine."

Hazel stepped inside the portal and closed it up, feeling the silence eat her up completely.

"Who's there?!," An aggressive, husky voice demanded, making Hazel smile.

"Wong!," she cheered and climbed up the stairs, meeting eyes with the man who was guarding the sanctum.

"Hazel?!," his eyes went wide, running towards her and wrapping her in a hug. "I thought you were dead!,"

"I thought you were dead!," she pulled away from the hug. She has never felt so happy seeing him.

"Stephen, he-he,"

"Not for long." She shook her head with determination "we're not having a funeral, Wong. We're gonna bring him back. He had a plan."

"He did?," Wong asked and she nodded her head with the upmost seriousness "I believe you,"

"Thank you,"

"Where's your ring? How did you get here without your ring?," Wong asked "have you been practicing drawing magic from within?,"

"It was an accident, really. It lead to a very confused Steve- look, er...Do you have Stephen's spare ring?,"

"I do," Wong nodded

"Let me wear it, please" Hazel asked and the man walked out for a short time, then came back with the ring.

She wore the ring, sadness, determination, anger filling up her veins.

"Wong, I'm gonna go and train."