17 Arc IV Ragnarok - The end...of Hela

"Where are Thor and Loki?" Frigga asked in worry.

"They were the ones to call down the Bifrost, but only Hela stepped out. I'm afraid they are stranded in space," Heimdall explained with a frown.

"Can we still use the passage we designed to move the Asgardians to Midgard and move my helpers to here?" Eli asked, matching Heimdall's frown.

The question resulted in Heimdall looking toward a particular mountain peak and shaking his head.

"Hela's grasp over Asgard is too strong. She has unconsciously closed all passages just by being here."

"Space ship rescue, and we all leave before I cause Ragnarok?" Eli asked.

"All the ships with enough capacity are in the dock between the Bifrost and the palace. We wanted to move them later today. I'm afraid we won't get that chance now without taking heavy casualties," Frigga explained with a sad smile.

"So we continue evacuation while hiding until Heimdall sees Thor and we wait for my father to come?"

"That is the best course of action I can think of right now," Frigga agreed with a nod.

Two days later, Eli could be seen floating about the biggest marketplace of Asgard. Countless corpses of Einherjar were scattered everywhere. A risen guard of Hela, an undead Asgardian soldier with withered skin and glowing, flaming green eyes, had just stabbed another illusion to death.

Though these risen guards 'killed' stragglers left and right, they hadn't killed a single Aesir in hours. Eli used up all his considerably increased reserves to cast an illusion of - for him - unprecedented scale and time.

In the meantime, Misty and Heimdall were gathering up more civilians, smuggling them out of the city by small and hidden alleys. Heimdall looked a little out of it when Eli floated down to him, giving him the signal that he was out of magic and couldn't keep up the illusion.

"Your father is stranded in a place called Sakaar," Heimdall said when they led the people out of the city toward their camp.

"Never heard of it. Can he come back here anytime soon?" Eli asked in a worried tone.

"It's going to be tricky, but it looks like he picked up a formidable ally and a mighty friend over there. And, he has access to a wormhole that, should he live through passing it, will take him straight to Asgard."

Eli looked at Heimdall for a short moment in contemplation. All of it sounded very unsure, Eli had to pray for the best outcome. Though, he wondered if there even was anyone that would listen to his prayers.

Another two days later, Eli could be seen fleeing through the forests of Asgard close to the ground. Fenris, Hela's gigantic undead wolf companion, was chasing Eli for seven hours now. However, if Eli simply left with his invisibility or by flying too high, Fenris would find the civilians. They had recently started moving toward the bifrost because of something Heimdall saw and left plenty of scents behind for the wolf to find them. Eli ran interference until Frigga gave her signal that she was done hiding everyone.

"Come then, you mutt! Now that your mommy's too far away to help, I'm no longer afraid of you!" Eli shouted as he unleashed Shatterstar. His armor had long been released in its full form.

The wolf didn't wait to be told twice, so it lept to Eli, fangs bared. Eli moved to the side and dodged its claws by a hair. He swung his sword in a backhand grip and cut open an arm's length of Fenris' flank. The wolf yelped in pain and growled in anger.

Fenris stayed close to Eli now and kept trying to swipe him with his front claw or bite him with its vicious fangs. Eli was faster and a smaller target, so only Fenris kept gaining wounds. Wounds that didn't matter Eli concluded half an hour into the fight. He needed to do something big to get rid of Fenris.

Eli's eyes started glowing a pale green, and he shattered his sword after he moved to Fenris' back for a short pause in the fight. The winds started to pick up sharply. The sword's handle he still held in hand grew an energy dagger about as long as his hand, middle finger to wrist, an upgrade Eli had made when he gave himself inspiration when he enchanted his vambrace. It consumed a lot of energy, so he couldn't keep it up for long, even with his recent capacity upgrade in his 'source'.

The fight between wolf and storm grew fiercer. Eli was panting from keeping up his high speed for such a long time, and he had a deep gash below his ear moving horizontally to his cheekbone. Fenris had uncountable small cuts all over its body. Its left front leg had such a deep cut the wolf no longer put any weight on the leg. Eli's latest attack had cost Fenris an eye, though Eli had to pay too with a bloody, four-clawed cut on his left arm.

Fenris and Eli stared at each other for a short moment until they heard four dull thuds ringing throughout Asgard. Both of them looked toward the source, Asgard's palace. Instead of continuing to fight, Fenris shot Eli one last glare before it sprinted back to the palace. Eli floated up high to the clouds to see what was happening and made out a weird circular spaceship painted in a gaudy orange, yellow, black, and red. If anything, it looked like the spaceship someone would use to have an orgy in, not fight a space battle.

Fenris had run to the outskirts of the city, stopped for a short time, and then made its way even faster toward the Bifrost Bridge together with hundreds of risen guards.

Eli overpowered his illusion spell and floated into the palace where he saw his father fighting Hela. She had just overpowered him, cut out an eye, and complained to him that he reminded her of Odin now.

She dragged Thor toward the balcony as Eli began charging up two spells. One spell is the one he had used on Ultron all these years ago, where he charged up his sword with magic in a sort of super powered magical drill.

From point black range, he waited until a gigantic blue spaceship with Loki on top gained Hela's attention. She stabbed his father, reminded him of her being the goddess of death.

"What were you the god of agai-" Hela gloated but was interrupted by a sword drilling into her side. At the very last moment, she had moved to the side, even managed to conjure one of her swords to deflect the blade a little more.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up, you brat. You're not the only one who can charge up an attack. Using so much magic and thinking yourself invisible?" Hela spat as she created two swords and threw them at Eli at blinding speed.

Eli deflected both, but they were just a feint for Hela to conjure a giant sword from the balcony to either stab him to death or smash him to mush if the size is to be believed. And she would have succeeded, but that's where Eli's second spell came in. He overcharged his armor pieces to tank one large hit.

Just like that, Eli was pushed away toward the bifrost instead of getting bisected by his aunt. He landed behind the group of the risen that came from Asgard to box in the civilians on the Bifrost Bridge with a heavy thud, shattering the bridge where he landed.

Eli felt like all his organs were turned to mush, and he felt like sleeping now. But the risen were creeping toward him in an endless wave. He used his connection to Shatterstar to summon the sword to him as he pushed himself in a kneeling position.

When the sword reached his hand and his eyes were starting to glow in a pale green, the biggest lightning storm Asgard had ever seen struck the palace, destroying most of it. His father shot toward the civilians and landed on the bridge, same as him, though Thor landed much closer to the ship the Asgardians were all entering.

Hela wasn't there, so Thor and Eli began taking down the risen guards in big area attacks instead of killing the guards individually. Eli launched his Shatterstar with fast, arching throws that took out several guards in its way and back. Thor seemed to have fully awakened his 'source', it truly looked like a divinity now. Lightning was following his every move, chaining to enemies, blasting corpses away.

He met up with his father, Loki, and a beautiful woman in valkyrie armor. They were all breathing hard.

"New haircut, old man?" Eli asked as he took a deep breath.

"Yeah, would you believe me if I told you it was done by that weird guy who told us about the 6 other infinity stones in Battleworld back on Xandar?"

"I would not believe that you still remember that," joked Eli.

"Well, it suits you. Sorry I wasn't fast enough to stop her from doing, you know," Eli awkwardly apologized as he pointed to his eye.

"No matter, it was my own strength that failed me. Not sure you met him officially yet, but that's your uncle Loki. And she's... uh, a valkyrie. I call her Val in my head, haha. Guys, this is my son Eli I told you about," Thor introduced.

"Brunnhilde, pleasure to meet you," Eli greeted as he nodded toward the valkyrie. "You should meet Misty, or you'd know her as Krista, before you both die here in a few minutes. She should be with Heimdall over there."

The valkyrie looked open-mouthed in the direction Eli pointed at and saw a warrior with a dragonfang walking through the risen guards in a flurry of steel and death. A moment later, 'Val' ran toward Misty and killed the risen guards even quicker than before before enveloping the other valkyrie in a crushing hug.

At the same time, another ship arrived on the bridge to house more of the fleeing Asgardians. It looked like an ark instead of a spaceship, but that's just Asgardian technology and aesthetics. He had commissioned the ship over half a year ago off the books with Frigga's help. Frigga was currently flying it. She had lost an arm and a lung in the Dark Elf invasion years ago and could no longer fight.

"Uh, well, I did tell her to do it before we all die. You guys got any plans?" Eli asked as he scratched his head, looking at Misty and Brunnhilde hugging it out while crying tears of joy on the floor.

"Hit her with a lightning blast," Loki suggested as he pointed to Hela, who was slowly walking towards them on the bridge.

"I just hit her with the biggest lightning blast in the history of lightning! It did nothing!" Thor cried out.

"In that case, we should consider causing Ragnarok," Eli suggested in a quiet tone. Thor nodded, Loki looked confused, though.

"As long as she is on Asgard, Hela will only grow stronger. If we flee, she will only hunt us down. It will never end. We need to stop her here and now," Thor offered.

"Asgard's not a place, it's a people. That's what grandfather told me the last time we met," Eli added.

"Loki... this was never about stopping Ragnarok. This was about causing Ragnarok. Surtur's crown, the vault. It's the only way." Thor shot Loki a meaningful look.

"Bold move, brother. Even for me," Loki said before running to the circular space ship that had crash landed on the bridge.

"So we're on another classic 2on1 duel to the death? Remember that Flurgariar on Blimu VII? That ugly thing with the bladed tentacles we had to fight underwater?" Eli asked, looking at his father.

"Alright, give me your energy blade vambrace, I don't have my hammer anymore," Thor said as he looked at his sons armor in envy. He had similar armor, but his son had all these cool enchantments. He was kind of mad at himself he never bothered to learn magic from Frigga.

Without a word of complaint, Eli took off the vambrace from his right arm along with the bracelet from his mother's hidden vault. The one with the jagged arrowhead-like black Uru ingot. Thor looked at it in confusion.

"I need you to survive this, dad. Use it as a good luck charm," Eli winked as he readied Shatterstar to hover beside him. His eyes started glowing in emerald green. Thor wore both bracelets and unleashed the vambrace. He immediately readied a lightning blue, crackling energy edge at his knuckles as his only eye began glowing in the same lightning blue.

Eli shot his sword toward Hela, who effortlessly parried it to the side. Thor used this to get closer to Hela and delivered a punch with his armored hand that his sister managed to dodge - however, the lightning from Thor's arm chained to her anyway, hitting her side. She conjured two more swords mid-air. But as she was pushed back by the chained lightning, Eli's Shatterstar came back and ran through her leg.

Eli caught the sword in a backhand grip, like he usually does, and ran toward Hela for a melee bout together with Thor against Hela. Hela grunted in pain as she dropped to one knee and crossed her arms to channel her powers.

Now Thor and Eli were on the backfoot, dodging blades that shot out from everywhere toward the two. Thor managed to punch most of the blades out of the air with lightning, but Eli wasn't as lucky. He couldn't use his winds to divert the blades lest he sweeps them toward the civilians behind him.

With a quick thought, he shattered the blade of his sword into several big pieces and used his telekinesis combined with his connection to the sword to cut down as many of Hela's blades as he could, but he missed two. One couldn't pierce his breastplate, it shoved him back instead. The other blade pierced his calf through and through.

As he grunted in pain, two figures rushed past him toward Hela. Misty and Brunnhilde joined the fight and fought in perfect coordination amongst the two of them. It looked like an elegant dance, but Hela didn't just take a beating. She tried to stab the two valkyries and Thor as many times as she could.

The civilians had filled the two ships by now, and the two ships started lifting into the air with a shout from Thor. After she had pushed back Thor, and smacked Misty and Brunnhilde down to the ground for a short moment, Hela turned back and conjured another gigantic blade that grew from the waters below the bridge in an effort to pierce the spaceships, hindering them from escaping.

Eli, who had somewhat patched up the cut muscle in his calf, threw Shatterstar with all his might toward the gigantic blade and managed to damage it enough so it wouldn't reach the spaceships.

From below the bridge, Hulk, who Eli didn't even know was here, suddenly lept up and punted Hela down the bridge.

"ENOUGH! You know you can't defeat me!" Hela shouted angrily as she stood up.

"Yeah, we know. But he can," Thor quipped as he pointed behind Hela with a light chuckle.

"No, what have you done!?" Hela screamed.

Thor, Brunnhilde, Misty and Eli watched on as Hela started flying toward the gigantic fire behemoth that had just shattered the palace in the middle of Asgard.

"Hulk smash?" Hulk asked as he turned back to Thor.

"No! We need Surtur to cause Ragnarok! No more smashing!" Thor discouraged Hulk loudly.

"But big monster," Hulk said in a questioning tone as he pointed to Surtur.

"We need to get out of here. Brunnhilde, Misty, come over. Hulk, pick up Thor and jump to one of the ships!" Eli gathered everyone's attention. Misty quickly dragged her friend over, made the other valkyrie hug Eli from behind as she hugged him from the front.

"Hurry up, Eli. Don't daydream just because you're sandwiched by the two hottest chicks you've seen. And call her Val. She no longer likes her beautiful name."

"Ugh, I just met her. Don't ruin her impression of me, Misty," Eli breathed out a sigh and started to lift off, quickly picking up more speed.

"So Misty raised you? You're pretty good with a sword. Makes sense if you learned from the second best," the valkyrie on his back spoke up.

"Second best? And you're number one in that scenario?" Misty asked with a raised brow.

"Could you shelve this discussion for after we escaped the end of the world?" Eli sighed... again.

"Also, I've been single for over a year now. Please refrain from feeling each other up while I'm sandwiched between you. And so help me if you two start kissing before we land, I'll drop you," Eli added a moment later.

"We just caused Ragnarok, probably finally ended that murderous bitch who slaughtered all our friends, fought side by side for the first time in almost two millenia, and learned of each other's existence. If I want to feel a hottie up, you will not be able to stop me," the valkyrie on his back countered and used one hand to caress Eli's neck softly and grabbed Misty's ass with the other.

He might accept these advances if it didn't involve a threesome with Misty, his second mother figure, so he dropped off the two valkyries on the blue ship and headed toward his grandmother on the viking spaceship.

Thor and Hulk had landed here, too. As Eli and Frigga started healing wounds for everybody on the ship and Eli himself, they watched as Surtur slowly decimated Asgard. They could even see the gigantic blades Hela conjured, but at one point Surtur lifted his sword high and pierced downward into the heart of Asgard. Mere moments later, the whole plane exploded in a fiery, mesmerizing spectacle.

Eli and Frigga patted Thor's shoulder, one on each side.

"Asgard's not a place. It's a people," Eli reminded softly, as if trying to console Thor and Frigga.

"Grandmother, can you cheer up father a bit while I go over to heal the rest of our people?" Frigga teared up at the question.

"What's wrong, grandmother?"

"You just said 'our' people, little Eli," she answered as she caressed Eli's cheek. Eli hugged his grandmother shortly with a smile and left.

Before he borded a little pod to fly over, he shouted to Thor.

"When you're done sulking, come on over and we'll discuss where to fly our ships. I was thinking Earth. But you're king and I'm just a measly prince. Our destination is for you to decide."

Three hours later, Eli was done healing the cuts of most people and managed to stabilize the few people in critical condition.

He was slumped on a step in the ship's main room as the rest of the royal family and the 'generals' met up to discuss what to do next.

The agreed upon the destination remaining Earth. As the Asgardian ship was much faster, they decided to split up. Frigga, Val, Misty, Miek, Korg the Kronan and half of the Einherjar would head to Earth first as a sort of Vanguard, while Heimdall, Thor, the Hulk and Eli remained behind as their heavy hitters. Their stolen ship from Sakaar would have much worse chances escaping possible danger. Never put all your eggs in one basket.

"Can't believe uncle Loki died. Again. Do you think he's secretly Skurge? I wouldn't put it past him," Eli said as he sat with his father in one of the bigger cabins of the ship to rest.

"He made it out, something like that wouldn't kill him," Thor said, moving his hand over his new Odin-style eye-patch.

"It suits you. Space Pirate and all that," a third voice rang out in the room.

"Maybe you're not so bad after all, brother," Thor replied with a fond, longing smile.

"Maybe not," Loki shot back with a smirk.

"Thank you. If you were here, I might even give you a hug," Thor mused, throwing a bottlecap at Loki.

"I'm here," the god of mischief replied, catching the cap.

"So, you're uncle Loki, eh? Did fate tell you to kill Grandpa Odin and cause Ragnarok, or was that just you being an ass?" Eli inquired in a joking tone.

"Wow, you're immediately my least favorite nephew. Are you always this crass?" Loki asked with a lifted eyebrow.

"Not only is he your only nephew - well, I hope. He's also a little cranky. He didn't sleep in a week and constantly overdrew his magics. Did I tell you yet? His illusions are even better than yours. He's truly a gifted sorcerer."

"Yeah, likely story," Loki said in amusement.

"I'm not joking. He might even steal your divinity one day on account of all the pranks he always pulls with his magics."

Loki glared at Eli with narrowed eyes.

"I always wanted a disciple, how about it little Eli?"