Arc IV Ragnarok - The beginning of the end

It's been two weeks since Eli recorded his video. A lot has happened since then. Antonia Dreykov has been given Extremis, so her scars are gone, and she is more powerful than ever. She wanted to change her name. She had a new identity as Anya Miller... Eli's new butler. Whenever possible, she wouldn't leave his side. And she was really into wearing formal suits.

Tandy and Ty had moved to New York with their families, and they started learning to wield their powers under Eli's guidance. It would take some time until they fulfill their potential.

All the widows that joined W.I.B.E. received some cool magical knick-knacks that helped them become even better spies, even if less than half of them wanted to keep living that kind of life.

Jessica moved back in with her sister, Trish, because she felt like a burden to Misty and Eli. That decision was a real tearjerker for everyone involved.

Eli and Misty had moved. Though, only one street over to throw off anything Tony or anyone with access to Tony's file could try. He was hidden by magics anyway. He also had a beautiful redheaded neighbor, too. Because Natasha and Eliza moved in next door. All of them now lived in the same street as Barbara Kaminska, who used to be Maya Hansen. The woman was so paranoid nowadays that she didn't even want to keep her first name. She arrived at that new name through a random name generator, by the way. It was a polish website.

Maya, or Barb now, had finished Extremis for Asgardians. However, it turned out, that the variant she had created would strip him of his magical blood. Since it was magic and science, they didn't come to a scientific explanation. Only that his connection to magic would be used up by Extremis as a different kind of energy. Eli didn't like the trade off, so he didn't take the Asg-Extremis.

He went to Wakanda, alone. Different from the last time with Jessica he was allowed inside and Eli was celebrated as some sort of national hero. Something he didn't feel like right now. So he left almost immediately after saying hello.

His grandmother had visited their new house a day before for the first time. She stayed over half a day, and she had a lot of wisdom to share. Especially about Eli's current situation and his outlook in life.

And what was Eli's current situation? He was sulking in Central Park, playing music, and not paying attention to anything around him. Tony was still in his Eli-induced daydream, where he was learning of Bucky's deeds and beating up both him and Steve Rogers, ultimately losing. Not only the fight, but also one of his best friends. Tony would snap out of it a good week later.

It was late at night, when out of the corner of his eyes, Eli finally saw something that broke him out of his unfocused state. A guy dressed in a full red-and-blue skintight costume stopped a car that was wildly driving through traffic. There was a man with a revolver in his hand glued to the side of the car with...spider webs? And that's what stopped the car, too. The guy shooting the spider webs did a backflip from the car that suddenly stopped and ran toward the driver's seat to drag the driver out of the car before sticking his hands to the car, too.

Eli stood up, ignored all the people who complained that he no longer continued playing and disappeared in the crowd. He followed the young spider-themed hero he had recognized as Spider-Man.

Floating along with his invisibility spell on. Spider-Man eventually landed on the roof of a building back in Brooklyn and started resting.

"What made you come all the way to Manhattan for a car chase, Peter?" Eli asked as he sat down next to the young hero.

"P-Peter? Who's Peter?" the young man stuttered as he quickly pulled down the mask he had moved up to reveal his mouth so he could eat.

"Calm down. I won't reveal who you are. I had considered myself something of a hero myself. I know how important a secret identity can be," Eli said in a calm voice as he lifted his invisibility.

"Woah, how did you do that? Is that some kind of light refraction?" Spider-Man asked, as if completely forgetting Eli knew his identity.

"Uh, I'm no scientist, sorry. It was magic, and I could give you an explanation on the magical framework I used - would that help?"

"No way! Magic is real?"

"Y-yeah, it is Peter," Eli said, getting swept up in the boy's enthusiasm.

"That is so cool! What are the principals based on? I mean, you're defying physics with energy - wait, what kind of energy? No way, is it energy from different dimensi-"

"Hey, Peter? How about we shelve the magic lesson for when we are properly introduced to each other. I'm Elias, though everybody calls me Eli," Eli interruped the rambling crime-fighter as he raised his hand for a handshake.

"I'm Spider-Man, though I guess the cat is out of the bag and you already know I'm Peter. When we're alone I guess you can call me Peter," Peter said as he shook hands with Eli.

"So? Why move to Manhattan today? Is Queens and Brooklyn not big enough a playground for you anymore with that Stark tech suit?"

"How do you know so much about me, Eli sir?" Peter asked instead of answering.

"Drop the sir. I'm what? 4 years older than you? Oooh, exactly 4 years older, we share the same birthday," Eli laughed.

"How do you know, are you looking up files online about me? Are you with S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"Magic, that's the answer to the first question, too," Eli winked.

"Woah, so what, you can read minds? Please don't look! I swear it was an accident when I saw Liz in th-"

"Hey, hey, I can only do surface thoughts when I'm not breaking into a mind, so just stop thinking about the gym store room," Eli stopped with a laugh.

"And no need to jump into the ocean. It stays with me, no worries."

"Um, Eli. This is really creepy. Can you stop?"

"Pretend it's Jedi mind tricks, those are cool, no?"

"Haaa, I'm not getting out of this, am I? I was in Manhattan to listen to this guy play the guitar in Central Park, Liz was there... so I..." Peter mumbled on.

"Oh, your crush is a fan of mine? Want me to come play at your school and tell everyone we're friends?" Eli asked. He was starting to like this kid. All his thoughts were genuinely good. Even the typical hormonal teenager ones were very tame.

"You can do that? You would do that? Wait you're that super famous guitar god?"

"Yeah, sure. School starts in 5 weeks - how about I come first week of September?"

They continued talking about this and that when Eli asked about why he did what he did.

"Uh, I.. I have these powers, right?" Peter asked as he looked at his hands. "It's like I told Mr Stark. If I have these powers and if I don't use them to help, then the bad that happens around me happens because of me."

"Are you saying with this great power comes great responsibility? To all those around you?"

"Yeah! Wow, that's a great way of saying that. That's the answer I'll give next time someone asks me," Peter gushed.

"You have a good heart, Peter. Just make sure you live a life of your own. You can't just keep giving. It's not sustainable."

"Hey Eli, I was wondering. You're Tempest, right? I mean the flying, the blonde hair, the spells? There's a lot of threads on reddit speculating that you know magic," Peter asked a few moments of silent contemplation later.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"Did you really... kill all those people that they say you did?"

"Yeah, I guess I did."

"Why? Couldn't you have let them live? Their lives were already over when B.O.T. released all those files on them later..." Peter sounded sad.

"B.O.T. needed to get those files first, though. I killed those people, not because I enjoy it. Everyone I killed, I made sure they did not value the lives of others. Mind magic, remember?"

"Still, we have prisons for that..."

"You're right. But you're also wrong. Most of the people on my list were those in power. Some of them I could have put behind bars, others would have weaseled their way out. And it's always the worst ones that are weasels."

"But what if they still have good in them? Even Darth Vader turned out to be the good guy at the end, no? What if Obi-Wan had killed him? Luke would have never beaten Palpatine alone," Peter argued.

Eli stared at Peter with narrowed eyes. He felt like the only reason that logic would work was because it was a movie plot. A very questionable movie plot.

"I'm sure you raise a good point there somewhere," Eli offered with a sigh. Peter nodded as if he had just given sage advice.

"Thanks, Peter. This talk was way more fun than I had hoped. Guess we should split now, though. It's getting late."

"Holy crap, it's 9pm already, May is gonna kill me! I said I was going to be home by 7!" Peter shouted as he started jumping off the roof, ready to swing away.

Three days later was Eli's second meeting with his grandmother. It was a horrifying experience. Eli stared at the back of his grandmother in terror as she left. And it wasn't even the fun typical 'when are you going to marry or give me grandchildren talk' that a grandmother would inflict terror, no Frigga knew about what happened to Jessica so she left these kinds of topics alone.

The last time they talked, they talked about Hela and the coming Ragnarok. This time around, Eli wanted to start where they left things, but Frigga not only acted as if she never talked about it with him - no she allowed him to read her mind and he was sure her mind was missing hours of conversation.

As he watched his grandmother leaving, Eli saw the memories slip away from her. Something about it all was very wrong.

When he met his grandmother a week later and explained again, he tried to show her the memories of their talk, but the second they entered her mind, they vanished. Eli had to consult every book his mother had left him to find a clue. It was only a single passage, and it talked about fate. If he was right, it meant that fate had something to do with Ragnarok happening.

He even met with his grandfather to confirm, and even the mighty Odin lost his memories of the conversation. It was frightening indeed. At least Odin confimed a few things for Eli. For example that that Hela was coming soon, less than a year, and that she was actively weakening Odin. It took Eli a lot of time maneuvering the conversation in the right direction to get that information out of the stubborn old man.

Several months later, Eli was on Asgard with his grandmother. Under the pretense of learning magic under her, Eli and Frigga spent weeks in the library that Eli used to find out more about fate. And when he read a chapter in a book called 'Strings of Destiny' that talked about the legendary Norn, fateweavers of the Asgardian pantheon, that according to this book were fictional, Eli realized he was involved, too.

He felt stupid only realising it now, but Thor never met up with him on Midgard. He learned from Heimdall that Thor simply went off-planet to resume his 'quest' a day after his talk with 'Tyr'. So the fates wanted Thor away from Asgard and Midgard and stopped Eli from dragging his father back. At least, that was Eli's conclusion.

Eli remembered many weird inconsistencies. For example, the warning his mother gave to Frigga. Eli had always assumed it simply hadn't reached his grandmother. But if fate willed it so the news couldn't reach Frigga, that made more sense. But then his blood ran cold. That would mean his mother's death was probably fate's design, too.

However, a day later, Eli stopped thinking about all of that, not that he knew he did.

Back on Midgard in the middle of January 2017 and the middle of the night, Eli was floating through New York while invisible, thinking about his plans to defeat Hela. Something in the back of his mind told him he had already thought about all of it, a kind of deja vu.

"Do you think it will snow, Elias son of Thor?" A voice rang out behind him.

"Hmm, possibly. I could probably force the clouds to make snow if it doesn't. Who are you?" Eli calmly asked as he stopped his forward momentum and landed on a roof below. From this roof, he had a view toward Metro-General hospital.

"People called me the Ancient One."

"Called? And what do they call you now?"

"Oh, nothing, I suppose. I just died after all," the Ancient One mused while arriving next to Eli in an astral form.

"Did I do you wrong while alive? Are you going to haunt me now?"

The Ancient One began laughing at the question.

"Rest assured, my form will dissipate soon. I just finished my talk with my most promising disciple and, by chance, saw you floating about. Your mother, though, had once stolen a book from the London Sanctum. It was before my time as the Sorcerer Supreme, so I hold no grudge."

"Tell me the name. If it's still in her library, I could gift it back," Eli offered as he turned to the Ancient One's astral form.

"I would have thought your mother to have taught you to stay away from Midgardian sorcerers," the Ancient One mused with a smile.

"Well, she did. But then again, she died, all alone. Not even Misty or I on her side. Forced by fate to fight a losing battle," Eli said with a vacant look.

"Ah, I was wondering how I could best steer our conversation to this very topic."

"My mother's death?" Eli asked.

"No, fate. You are on the cusp of realizing something very profound. Yet you will not find solace in it. Instead you might even despair at the overwhelming odds against you. I would like to offer you some advice," the Ancient One explained with a patient smile.

"Let's hear it then. Someone 'ancient' probably has a lot of wisdom to share."

"Fate is not something you can easily change. Take me, for example. It was my fate to die today and leave my position to my successor. Had I changed my fate and stood in his way, he might not become the best of us," the Ancient One explained, ignoring the fact that Eli just called her old.

"So you're saying I should let fate run its course because it will lead to the best outcome? Best outcome for who? And how could you be sure?" Eli asked with a frown.

"Usually fate is a correcting force of the universe. Our very existence."

"The universe decreed it was in its best interest to let my mother die, and then the universe willed it so?"

"Let us look at the bigger picture instead. Ragnarok, you directly skipped trying to prevent it over the last three years and instead focussed on trying to end Hela. By any means necessary."

"How do you know that?"

"You're not the only one who's able to read minds, Eli," the Ancient One chuckled. "But rest assured, I didn't read yours. Because I can't."

"Okay... Ragnarok then, is that why my mother had to die? Because of Ragnarok? And is that why everyone keeps forgetting what's important?"

"Yes and no, the fate of Ragnarok is a little peculiar, I have never seen it work on so many people in such direct ways as altering memories and thoughts. I suspect there's a driving force behind it, but I wouldn't know. It's an Asgardian problem. And that's my advice to you: Don't seek out that driving force, not before you are much, much stronger than your grandfather. Let fate run its course for now, but stay true to your heart," the Ancient One explained in a serious manner.

"So I should simply prepare as best I can, but not force anything to happen because I can't?"

"Yes. Survive, grow, and you may yet break the cycle," the Ancient One nodded as she began to fade into motes of light. "Best of luck to you, Eli."

During the summer, Jessica went missing for a few months. Trying to jog her memory, Jessica and her sister investigated IGH, a mysterious organization that had 'paid' for Jessica's hospital bills back when Jessica had lost her family in a car accident, leaving her as the sole survivor. It turned out her mother was still alive the entire time, had powers similar to Jessica, and worked for the man behind IGH's inhumane trials. Thinking that revealing her past would only hurt more, she broke off most of the contact she still had with Eli after losing her mother... again. Not that she remembered the first time.

Eli had spent a lot of time with Peter, who was enjoying his newfound popularity at school thanks to Eli, but still didn't have it in him to ask out Liz. Eli taught Peter martial arts, which Peter picked up at a crazy speed thanks to his powers and superpowered acrobatics.

However, he didn't teach Peter magic. Eli would always stall and tell him to grow up a little first. Eli did that because he had a feeling Peter would find something in life that would suit him better than magic. He couldn't explain what that was.

But not only Peter changed in this friendship between him and Eli, the Asgardian did, too. He remembered why it felt so good to be with Jessica initially. It was because he wanted to break free from the selfish thinking of his mother and be a force of change for good in the world. The same thing Jessica had wanted. And then there was Peter, who didn't even question that belief in the first place. All the goodness in Peter was entirely natural, Eli needed that in his life right now.

It was late October when Frigga came to Eli remembering most of their conversations about Hela and Ragnarok. Eli told her about some of the things he discussed with the Ancient One, who Frigga fondly called Yao, and they began to hatch a plan. Not to stop Hela or prevent Ragnarok. It was already proven to them that they could not stop that.

A day later, Frigga, Heimdall, who was exiled by 'Tyr', and Eli began silently moving away Asgardian civilians to a hidden location in the mountains surrounding Amora's mansion. To keep as many of them away from harm, they even put some of the more unruly Einherjar to sleep.

According to Frigga, her husband's passing was still a week or two away, so Eli only brought over Misty instead of all the helpers Eli had gathered over the years. But he had miscalculated, they all did. Because a day after they had started gathering the civilians, Eli had seen his father return with the skull of Surtur and half an hour later leave with Tyr, who turned out to be Loki. It was what started everything, Hela had returned.

There was a shift in Eli's 'source' an hour after his father left Asgard. Its quality didn't change. He didn't gain any new fancy abilities, but his capacity ballooned and continued to grow. Sadly, Eli had no time to contemplate on this because only a few minutes later, Hela stepped foot into Asgard while his father didn't.

"She's here," Heimdall said looking toward the Bifrost.