CHAPTER SEVEN | " MAKE THIS A NIGHT TO REMEMBER "

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Stevie's thrilled eyes reflected the seventeen flames blazing on the butterfly-themed cake. Originally it was supposed to be a red velvet replica of the infamous Captain America's shield but Stevie's mom messed up the order at the pastry cook. The superhero fever ran in the family, even Taehyun preferred them more than the brush-footed butterflies Fariza chose in the end. Heroes or not, the cake surprise made their daughter happy anyway.

Birthday parties were kept only in the closest family circle. Although most of them weren't present in person — grandparents from dad's side had the party facetimed right to their hometown in South Korea and Fariza's side was overwhelmed by the crashed wedding — it didn't stop them from having a good time.

Since Stevie was half Korean she followed their traditions when it came to becoming older. Of course, she counted her age as it should be in the Western world, however, they held a bigger celebration for all of the members on New Year's since that is the exact moment when they become a year older.

In Korea, birthdays and age weren't related to one another.

Applause and cheers resounded in the room soon after Stevie blew the candles. Once the cake was sliced, the atmosphere changed drastically. A bit of sugar cleared all the evil thoughts and it wouldn't change anything, even if the world was supposed to end. That was life among all the supernatural and disasters.

Mankind was entirely prevented from being afraid, even though the danger was lurking around every corner.

"If you did the famous Stevie cry, the one she did every time she had to go to school, I'd probably guessed that right away," Taehyun exclaimed as he instead of being embarrassed thought of being cold. They played charades. He was in a team with his wife. Formerly he was supposed to be teamed up with Veronica but she ditched before they even started playing with words: games are for kids.

"Dad!"

"I had to stay in the class till you stopped, remember?"

"Maybe it's for the good that I forgot," Stevie grinned, realizing that her dad shared one of her suppressed memories. She angrily dug the dessert fork into the marzipan butterfly, elbow bumping into her teammate.

It took a while for Nicholas to bring all his senses back and perform a pantomime. His heartbeat was ceasing each minute as he pondered about what occurred in the pizzeria. Here and now they didn't remember, but he will because the name-drop resonated in his head. 

The fact Stephen lied to him, made him furious but knowing himself the fury faded quickly. Regardless the unawareness remained, making him sick. There was a peril out there hunting his friend which he had to stop as soon as possible before it gets worse.

"What should I bring with me?" Stevie asked as something light hit the chair next to her desk. A sharp hissing sound unzipped the backpack.

Mjölnir keychain jingled as she struggled to fit in a bunch of necessities she thought she might need in Kathmandu. Knowing from her studies that the temperatures during autumn were mild, it was hard for her to choose what to wear.

"For how long we will be there? Also shouldn't we tell my parents? Like I'm sure they will let me go to Nepal. Going on a trip to catch a monster that is trying to absorb the powers that I haven't even the chance to tell them about is surely more believable than going on a spontaneous trip," Stevie ironically blabbered till she realized that she wasn't getting any response whatsoever, "I don't even need to pack, do I?"

"You looked excited so I left you at it," Nick shook his head. He continued obstinately scanning the corroded piece of metal. The dark liquid was filling the inside of a symbol on the mysterious pendant.

"Great, you should've said that earlier," she muttered, throwing the half-folded clothes back to the cupboard's shelves.

"Vie?"

"Yeah?"

"How did you get your powers?" Nick asked out of the blue, finally looking at her, realizing that he should do a bit of research before theorizing. He squeezed the pendant and hid it in his hand.

She stuttered as her mind was doing its best to recall the moment, "I dunno. I suppose it happened when I was at my grandma's. I felt this dire energy luring me... I think... I don't remember it that well."

"You've never been followed by a demon before?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course not!" Stevie exaggerated, "Your turn! So, Nicky, how did you get yours?" A pom-pom pen swiftly spun in her hand and touched the lined paper, scribbling to get out of the boredom.

His stare became expressionless, and his muscles tensed in a second.

"Come on! I know almost nothing about your abilities. You're full of surprises, no doubt about that. It's just a known fact that darkness is no good, only corruption. And that makes me wonder how's possible that you're able to make it the exact opposite. Tell me thy secrets, prince of darkness." Stevie wanted to preserve the never-ending questionnaire, giggling, although a loud knock from the inside of the walking closet resounded in the room likewise the pen scratching the paper.

"I— I guess I don't have any. It's just me and my fear that tames it." As much as this conversation was making Nick uncomfortable, he tried to bear with her inner fangirl as usual. After everything, he couldn't help but notice what was happening around them. Stevie's absent-mindedness was getting on his nerves.

He depicted the discerning blend of each tapping sound, "You hear that, right?"

"Hear what?" She picked up the pen from the journal's paper.

Stevie finally took turns to the door covered in superhero posters where Nick was pointing. Nothing happened. She laughed because of his skepticism, not hearing anything at first. Just as soon as something muffled hit the door she jumped from the seat with chills running down her spine with a bawl slipping out of her lips. She tripped over her own leg as she strived to get as far as possible from it.

"I swear to god, if the demon was in my closet this whole time, I'm throwing everything away!"

Nick attempted to calm her down by standing in front to be the first one to approach the possible danger. Lights flickered as darkness summoned a dagger in his hand. Knock. It echoed. Something was trying to break through. Wham. It hit the closet door harder than before.

"Nope! I'm out!" Stevie bit nervously the bottom lip. She instinctively backed away because she knew that the creature hidden inside was going after her only.

Right away Nick stepped forward to the hell's gates, she briskly picked up a lamp for the bedside table to protect herself instead of being weaponless.

The tapping faded just like the handle creaked and let Nicholas in. A hand was covering his eyes to shield his sight from such exposure, a blinding glow. Once he got used to the distorted light, the confusion got him. Normally it was a very cramped space with hanging jackets and seasonal clothing, however, the walking closet was now spaceless.  The closet was an exact copy of the world outside of it. Yet Stevie's room was different. It was colorful, the outlines were warped, streaking out as the surroundings rippled completely defocused and blurry. 

Objects were deformed by the erasures taken on reality through the journal. The dizziness got him quickly, same as vertigo as the non-existing ground underneath deepened. He looked down at the unfolding stories. People's faces were smudging by the number of journal rewrites. The imaginary constantly shivered, exploring new deformations till the world was unrecognizable. This dimension was a glitch hidden within the current reality. 

Wiggly matter shifted as if the dimension agnized the presence of an intruder. Door shut.

"Can you for god's sake quiet down a little?" Veronica entered her sister's room. Luckily she had the room at the end of the hallway but that didn't change a fact she heard everything they uttered. She frowned a little bit, confused. Not only she was there alone but also with the opened backpack, and t-shirts lying on the floor, holding a lamp, "What are you doing?"

"I'm just cleaning out stuff I don't like anymore," she shrugged, having a spasmodic smile on her lips, back leaning against the closet's door, "The lamp too. It doesn't work anymore."

Ronnie glared at her irritably and leisurely headed for the exit, "Maybe if it was plugged in, it would do something. Whatever, Steve. Just keep the volume down, okay?"

"Sure thing, big sis!" Stevie's grin was getting unnatural every second, and finger guns showcased cringe rather than encouragement to be better from sister's complaints.

Instantly as Veronica rolled her eyes similarly as she rolled out of the room, Stevie opened the closet. Stevie's eyes were squinting, expecting another blast of light, however, the twisted prism was gone. Stuffy air hit her nose. She pretended to rummage through the hangers like mad, striving to find the hidden dimension, and then turned to the boy, "Gosh! Are you alright? What even was that?"

"Wrinkle in reality," Nicholas explained simply, "It's like a grouping of all of the changes hidden between the walls. I don't know to describe it... It's like a mistake, erratum, in the universe's writing. If the dimension is freed, it could shape the world to anyone's likeness. Whoever is going after you clearly knows you're able to open it."

"Hold up! Me?" She blurted out, not getting a single thing. Possibly it was just a lot of information thrown at her at once, or she wasn't ready to admit this side of her powers.

Her journal was summoned by Nicholas. Flipping through pages, he pointed at the doodle she drew just minutes ago. It was something that hazily reminded a lightning bolt overlaid by a filled rectangle.

"And where is it now?"

Nick slowly nodded forward. At the end of the closet, there was a distorted reflection weakly shining through. Dark mass vaporized, sealing the lightning fracture and splitting the two worlds apart.

Yet some wounds can't be healed, and the main problems continued to be forgotten. There was no time to spare. Not anymore.

Nepalese wind was hitting visitors' faces, just like the golden sparks from the portal. Stephen Strange led the way to the temple as a guide. Training grounds of the masters of the mystic arts were busy as always. The eyes of the sorcerers tried to scan every bit of the supreme's movements; what was going through his mind and where he was heading. Passing the cloister led them to a planning room.

"Not gonna lie, I imagined the date very differently," Peter Parker uttered, annoyed rather than excited to finally properly explore the Kamar-Taj. Actually, he had seen it multiple times, because his girlfriend sneaked him through Wong's omnipresence.

"Mindblowing, huh? Who would have guessed that saving the universe is way more important than the new Star Wars movie," the redhead smiled playfully as her eyebrows rose.

River was high-spirited and full of beans, just like her sort of quieter counterpart. They complemented each other perfectly. They lived for fun and understood the sides of them the others haven't seen yet. Interestingly enough the meaner she got, the more he adored her. Peter and River were crazy together but still cautious about their relationship, wanting to keep their status as high school sweethearts.

"We didn't find anything new," Stephen began talking to the topic they came here for, "She was the former pupil of Merlin, the adversary of King Arthur, and allegedly one of the greatest sorcerers of her time as the legend goes. Most definitely she's trying to enslave the whole Multiverse just like she did with the City of Death in Italy. We didn't give her what she wanted, so she punished us with slow death which we have to stop in time."

"Holy shit! There's an underworld in Italy?" Peter expressed surprise.

"Not anymore, I've just said it."

"No. I'm pretty sure you didn't."

"Next time start to listen with your ears, buddy, it's in the context. Now I finally know what led me to cast the forgetting spell," Doctor Strange mumbled, deranged by this misunderstanding. It's spending too much time with Tony Stark that made poor Peter not listen to other people and make his own assumptions.

"What spell?" Peter leaned toward his red-haired girlfriend. River's bright smile and shrug assured him that she didn't know either. Maybe it was better not to know.

"If the Breach opens sooner than my calculations, which is by the end of the week, by the way, we're doomed," Stephen shared with a bitter tone and serious expression. This wasn't something that people should make fun of, mainly because they use the chaos as a form of escape from their nefarious deeds. No one had anything to say about it which scared him a bit.

"The problem was in front of you this whole time." Enigma joined the fuss on the spur of the moment when everyone was lost. By clearing her throat, she was instantly the center of attention.

"What do you mean?"

"It's neither the breach nor the rotten witch. It's Nicholas with the Split Essence. He knows how to seal the Multiversal fractures, he did it before, if not, the world would have fallen apart a long time ago, at the very first moment he reached Chaosverse." Enigma added to their ignorance.

River's face turned red in disbelief, joining the protest, "That doesn't make any sense. Why would he even do that?"

"Trust me, I didn't want to believe it either yet I saw what I saw. His mind is very complicated for us to understand, the proof is real, his rage was just the only beginning of the dark age..."

Unknown turquoise fog rose from the ground above, following Enigma's hand's motion. Blue clouds covered the room that eventually dwindled, sending the group to the past, where Bloomsfield was still a happy place.

The night has just begun. They stood on a patio. Wind moving the hanging lamps sped up, complementing the fury stirred up by whimpers. Motors of passing cars fell silent; introducing the calm before the storm. River was ready to call his brother's name when a blast of obscure energy hit the surroundings. The lights went out. Everyone had to catch on to something as the ground quaked, the energy eruption hadn't backed down.

It was hard to take a glance at the middle of the road where Nicholas was shrouding, doing his best to hold the destructive power of darkness inside of him.

Still, he couldn't hold it forever. The power pulsed from his chest, firing towards the skies and then bursting into an explosion. Screams echoed and dissolved once the town was shrouded in eternal darkness.

Stephen Strange looked to the heavens, which looked falling apart for a moment, with colorful prism lights sprawled from the skyline's cracks. A loud booming sound resounded, as the sky quivered, increasing the ruptures stretching beyond the horizon. They expanded, letting the distortion slip through, however they were closed up by the dark whirl, dissolving and sealing these fractures, as if they were never there.

Right after the cloud dissipated, the boy was standing up, closer to the abyss in the ground created by the uncontrollable energy, leading the darkness to fill the chasm as a waterfall. A gesture of Nicholas' hand collected the dust and bones. Completing it with a soul he harvested from the Realm of Death until she came back.

"You took the time, huh? Excellent. Now prepare for all your dreams to come true," Morgan Le Fay stated as soon as her rotting body fully healed.

It wasn't an accident.

It wasn't just this one universe that was engulfed by a burst of darkness. The tear was Multiversal, it continued to open and close dimensions concealed out of sight. Blue fog showed the affected areas, and how they grew and faded as the dark mass filled the broken.

They followed one of the few fractures which were pulled by the universe that was Sacred, originally cut off from everything around it.

The universe mirrored their original one perfectly, but at the same time, not at all. There was no Bloomsfield on Staten Island, only Bloomfield, into which wandered a breach that was pulled like a magnet and opened in a middle of a street.

Stevie Jeon was walking her dog, when he broke free from the leash, fully startled. Bingsu barked and ran away from the dreadful energy radiating from an opened crack. Stevie stayed as she couldn't move. She was drawn in by the temptation of the unexplored. Fascinated, she outstretched, dipping fingers into the reflective iridescent prism.

She felt the ominous energy defining her as it tinted her fingers dark.

By mentioning the Split Essence, I'm making a big shout-out to my dearest friend -lxcifer, for letting me crossover with her absolutely amazing and well-thought universe. I'm so thrilled! Stay tuned for our future collab project called "The Split Essence" 💙 But now go and check her books.  

Anyways I hope you like the new chapter, introducing Stevie's origin story when it comes to her powers.