[2010]
[Queens, New York.]
[Stark Expo.]
Eddard was feeling excited, nervous and apprehensive about the upcoming operation, mainly because this event here would tell the world of the presence of a god amongst themselves. A being of such presence that the world will take heed of its existence and move either towards it or against it.
Eddard watched as War Machine enters and Hammer continued giving his cringe speech, and finally, as Stark arrived and Rhodes immediately said something, to which Stark replied to and then both of them started waving at the audience.
Then Stark starts asking questions that Justin tries to play dumb to, but as they are talking, the Gattling gun on Rhodes' armor takes aim at Stark and Stark immediately takes flight outside as soon as he is about to exit the dome, the drones and Rhodes fire at him.
"I see the birds in the sky, boss. We will move in to capture a fallen one in a minute." came the voice of Draco through Eddard's earphones. Eddard decided it was time to get to action as soon he saw the drones move.
" Come…", he growled.
Motes of light started converging around him.
The drones seeing such a blinding light immediately started focusing on him instead of going after the running crowds. As soon as the light dimmed enough for the drones to aim their guns and repulsors at Eddard, they started raining down lead on him.
As soon as the debris kicked up by the lead and repulsor blasts cleared, Eddard was standing there looking exactly as one would imagine a god would be.
He was unharmed from the earlier volley of the drones, one could see the bullets scattered around him. Even his hair was perfectly fine. He was wearing all his weapons and armor. The
E X C A L I B U R etched on his sword was glowing as the sword pulsed with light, tempting Eddard to release its primary ability.
Mia's voice came through the comms, "You know, I am recording this to send to the press, right? That was one of the most badass things I have seen in my life. Anyway, Nathan said that the 'Pretty Woman' has arrived with Stark's head of security on Hammer's Headquarters."
Eddard grunted and tossed the Excalibur at a group of drones that had started to power up their repulsors. The sword struck two drones while Eddard grabbed another drone by the head and pulled out the arc reactor out of its chest. He then turned towards another group as he called Excalibur to himself, which floated to Eddard's hand rapidly before he tossed it at the new group he was facing, taking out three bots at once while pinning the leg of one of the drones to the wall.
The drone immediately powered its repulsors to detach itself from the wall. Eddard called his sword back to himself again, which lead the drone to overshoot towards Eddard who grabbed the Excalibur in the air and split the drone in half by jumping in the air.
"We got a fallen secured and are moving out from here." came the smooth voice of Draco.
"May the force guide you." Eddard commented.
"Shut up, asshat." came the reply.
"Mia guide me, how many more of these, aluminium men?"
"Let me ask Nathan." came the voice of Mia.
Eddard knew it was a go ahead to start moving towards the backstage where the expo technician and NYPD would be.
As he arrived there he saw Pepper Potts and the police along with the technician. They also saw Eddard and immediately tensed when they looked at his sword.
"Fear not, I am the one that helps you." he smiled slightly as he saw them relax slightly.
"How can you help us? Shouldn't you be helping Tony?" Pepper Potts questioned rapidly as she remembered of her boyfriend.
"Mr Stark does not require my assistance, I am here to help you. And for a small task I have set up for my own self." Eddard said as he moved towards the desktop, "Hello, Miss Rushman? Or do you now prefer Ms Romanoff more?"
"And you are?" came the calm voice of the black widow.
"I do not believe my red-haired, green-eyed self would be so forgettable, Miss Rushman." chuckled Eddard.
"Eddard Clarke." came the understanding voice of the widow.
"Ah! The one-eyed spy has looked into me. I am complimented by his attention, but perhaps you all did not look into me too much. After all Gods don't fall from the sky everyday, thankfully they are not the Mayans or Aztecs deities. Your organization has been running around a lot these days."
"You are awfully well informed for someone even Shield has no clue about." Eddard realized the attempt at baiting and bit it properly.
"Well being the God of Light helps in that regard." Eddard could feel the stares at his back, "I would like to ask you to not shoot the people you saw in your camera feed. They are my people and I would have to kill everyone in SHIELD to prove that I take their protection responsibly- I hope you understand."
Eddard then asked through his comms, "Mia?"
"They will soon start cleaning up everything and copying the arc reactor and drone schematics before they wipe the place clean since Romanoff has tried everything they could have thought of. In Nathan's words 'Fair Goddess good at fighting and hacking. Would thy grace this lowly mortal with your hand?'"
"What about the physical assets?"
"That's done, though according to Jessica they are third grade copies. Not completely useless but nowhere as useful as Stark's own. She is also requesting you to grab Stark's armor because the arrogant drunk 'asshole' doesn't deserve it."
"Tell Paige to keep an eye on the widow, we don't need such information in the hands of anybody. Just don't kill her using the shotgun and I won't complain."
"Will do."
As Eddard was talking to Mia, Pepper approached him and asked, "Is everything fine?"
He answered, "Yes, all is fine Ms Potts. Well this place is going to become a big fireball in some time."
"What we all need to get out of here then." she exclaimed and Eddard saw many of NYPD people either tensing or slumping.
"No need, no harm will come to you all, I am here." Eddard shrugged. Pepper looked skeptical but then paused and looked at his attire before sighing out, "Thank you , Mr Clarke?"
"Eddard is fine Miss. Eddard Clarke, 221B Bleecker Street, if Stark wants to thank me for the mess he caused today."
Eddard heard from Mia, "Stark and Rhodes just killed the Russian. The drones's self destruct has been activated. He has been informed by the Widow to move away from your current location since Ms Potts is secure."
Eddard began pulling massive amounts of Light from his reserves as he began activating the active ability of his strongest weapon. " Come… "
His words were answered by a Scabbard which was golden in color and had blue etchings that were pulsing with golden light as it materialised in front of Eddard. The only word that could define what the people were feeling due to the presence of the scabbard was Hope and Protection.
" Protect those behind me as does the sword which you hold, Avalon. " The feelings of protection intensified in the room.
As Eddard finished speaking the walls of the room they had been standing in were blown away by a massive explosion but the room's residents were not even touched by the debris. The same happened with the following explosions.
Around three minutes of continuous explosions later they were standing in what looked like fields that were burned instead of remnants of a building, the explosions had been massive, hell if not for the people running out of the expo during the fighting, many people would be dead.
As all the explosions seized, Eddard looked around and said ,"Well that is going to be a lot of money that was wasted." and then he released the pull on his divine energy.
The officers were looking at him as if he was a monster while the technician was recording what he had done. Finally Pepper Potts was looking at him contemplatively. Finally as if she had set her heart on something, "This was not Tony's fault."
Eddard did not at first understand what that meant but then he realized she was talking about, "I know but this could have been handled better if he was not acting like a moron due to his dwindling days."
"D-dwindling?" The woman whispered.
"Oh he is fine now, let him tell you the story. I have to go home."
Mia as if she had been waiting said, "Nathan and Harry are done with the job and are back at 221B. Paige also tells me that the Widow has told her to tell you that her superiors will be contacting you tomorrow morning."
Eddard said that ,"Ask her to tell her superiors that they most probably won't be free for the next few days."
Mia said, "….Okay." but Eddard was sure she was trying to process the implications of his statement.
Eddard, on hearing confirmation, released everything other than his shoes to their metaphysical state.
He then jumped as hard as he could to propel himself before running towards Bleecker street at breakneck speeds.
He arrived at 221B Bleecker street as he was feeling tired.
[Three Days Later]
[Harlem.]
Eddard was standing on the roof of Grayburn College, he had just killed Dr. Samuel Sterns by punching throgh his head and then erasing his dead body up using his gauntlet.
He was watching the fight between the abomination and Hulk from far away and standing beside him was the infamous Black Widow who had just climbed up the roof after she had witnessed Blonksy transforming.
"Miss Romanoff." He greeted.
"Mr Clarke."
"What do you think of what has happened in the past week?" He fired a question.
"That Gods walking among us again was not a jest that you made, we met the Norse God Of Thunder yesterday."
"So he got his hammer, huh? Good for him, but Natasha I did not mean about whether I was correct about saying that I was a God or not but what you think of what that means for humanity." Eddard stated.
"We aren't the highest in the pecking order now, which is going to scare a lot of people, and fear makes people stupid." She observed as if seeing what he was implying.
Eddard nodded and added, "And scared people with nuclear weapons are a bad combination, an arms race is what the world will be heading towards, but most of the world does not have something that SHIELD has, the Tesseract."
"The Tesseract?" Natasha was surprised. Eddard realized that the Russian spy is not informed of the cosmic cube. Well the cube was a source of infinite energy so it made sense to keep it hidden.
"Tell Fury that I can heal any wound an arrow could cause but I am not capable of stopping the arrow from releasing itself. The Tesseract is a can of worms he does not wish to open."
"I will; Are you going to stop them ?" She asked.
"Yes Miss Romanoff, the world has seen enough in the past week to understand that monsters exist, no need to burden an innocent man any longer."
"You know I was reprimanded for allowing the schematics for the drones and arc reactor to be erased but after yesterday, Fury has been thanking me for my good judgement." Natasha chuckled.
"You are a good person Ms Romanoff, I hope you find solace in what a God believes of you as a person."
"You don't know enough about me to say that." Natasha bit back.
Eddard looked back from the edge of the wall and said, "Don't I?" and jumped off the roof and called his battle attire.
He ran up to the Hulk's and Abomination's fighting. He saw the Hulk pushing past the Abomination and clapping his hands to generate a shockwave. The shockwave helped Betty Ross survive the fiery hell that the helicopter was about to become.
Eddard commented, "Ah! Love, a superhero's power-up potion."
Deciding it was time he killed an abomination Eddard moved.
He grabbed the hilt of his sword tightly and threw it on the abomination with as much force as he could muster.
The Excalibur found its mark in the abomination's shoulder. The sword penetrated through his skin and muscles and when he tried to take it out, it stubbornly stuck.
Eddard meanwhile, had also moved to attack the abomination which he did by punching at the giant's knees. The abomination forgot about the sword completely when he fell and grabbed Eddard's head who in turn poked the abomination's eyes using his thumb to gouge them out and deliver as much pain as he could while his head was grabbed.
Their wrestling was interrupted by the Hulk who had tackled the abomination.
"Damn should have learned to fight." Eddard wheezed.
He called the Excalibur which flew back to him immediately making the abomination cry.
"I will kill you all!!!" The moron was too far gone.
He called out to the Hulk,"I want you to move away when I ask you to Hulk."
The Hulk grunted at the strange puny human who had helped him save nice Betty. Then he slowly nodded while simultaneously pinning the Abomination to the ground.
Eddard seeing the man's acceptance, started gathering light into the Excalibur to activate its abilities. He could feel nearly half his reserves getting sucked up in the Sword that was thruming with power.
The Excalibur had started emitting golden light, he could feel that he could activate its ability any moment he wanted.
"Get away!" Eddard bellowed at the Hulk who scrambled out of the way feeling the massive power that had built up behind him and as soon as he moved away, Eddard shouted as he swiped Excalibur in the general direction of the Abomination," Excalibur! "
The world was covered in golden light as the pillar of light hit the ground and vaporised most of what was standing there almost instantly.
As the light from the attack dimmed, one could see the destruction caused by the attack. The ground had melted from where Eddard stood to where once the Abomination had been pinned on the ground.
Eddard had vaporised the Abomination.
He looked at the Hulk who was looking at him as if he was his Best Friend.
He approached the big guy and asked, "You are going to leave, aren't you?"
"Yes, puny humans hate Hulk."
"All the best for your journey." Eddard said as he patted the Hulk's arm, "You aren't going to say goodbye to Betty?" He asked looking towards where the woman was.
"Hulk hurt Betty, Nice Betty hate Hulk." the Hulk said somberly.
Eddard knew that the Ross guy was Betty's father and another confrontation was not going to go favourably for Ross so he just nodded.
The Hulk took it as his cue to leave.
Eddard looked around the destroyed area and sighed. Calling upon Avalon, he manifested the scabbard and used his remaining divine energy to send out a healing pulse using the scabbard that would help anybody with mortal wounds to live and heal most smaller injuries immediately.
He then ran back towards his home. Soon he would be facing the press and meeting the director of SHIELD.