The elf planned to insert the Mind Stone into one of his bracelets at a later date, but the Infinity Stone in his palm had a different plan. Just as Kal'thal managed to throw down another Smoke Bomb and use Vanish, the yellow gem snapped into one of the sockets of his legendary creation
Immediately, something in his mind snapped open as his eyes began to glow fiercely through his closed eyelids.
The elf cursed under his breath as he ignored the tens of chat messages that were created in his bastardized system screen. This would gain him too much attention. He hoped the change wouldn't take too long.
Without feeling any pain at all, Kal'thal was sure his very essence began changing into something more. His skin started shining in the colors and magic of the Holy Light. His eyes changed from gold to silver and back to gold again. His armor was unequipped as he stood there entirely naked amidst the smoke bomb he created.
From outside it all, Romanoff on the roof itself and Stark up in the air watched as a cloud of smoke suddenly exploded among the portal device and contained itself under an invisible dome. From inside that smoke dome, golden holy light began to shine through the smoke as the two could faintly make out the outline of a tall person inside the smoke with the help of the light.
They were still fighting off an entire army, but Stark still took his time observing it all as he whispered under his breath while flying away to where he was needed, "What are you up to now, elf boy?"
A good minute later, Kal finally slumped onto one knee. He took a deep breath and began to concentrate on the chat messages that appeared once the Mind Stone settled into the socket of his bracelet.
[Cornerstone of creation of this universe detected in user's possession.]
[User determined to have appropriate capacity to house the energies of the object.]
[Mind Stone socketed into
[
[
[Race permanently changed to: Lightforged Elf - Quel'dorei'alah - Highborne Child of the Light]
[Race bonuses merged with title
[
[Paladin class permanently changed into
[Subclass lost in favor of new perks]
[Perks:
[Coexistence of classes:
[Perk
[New perks created for as long the Mind Stone remains in user's possession:
With nothing but a ring, Ilterendi, and a bracelet, Salan'din Selama'Dorei, on, Kal watched his hands closely. His very skin brimmed with power. His muscles were reforged with Holy Light to be even more powerful than they originally were. His already otherworldly senses were once more dialed to eleven.
His paladin armor reappeared on Kal's body as the smoke from his earlier smoke bomb slowly dissipated.
"Kal? What happened to you?" Romanoff asked as she gingerly stepped forward with Loki's scepter in hand. Fearing that he might have gotten himself turned by accident, the spy cautiously aimed the scepter in the elf's direction.
"Small power up," Kal replied to evade telling the truth and looked around.
"Your hair... I've seen gold and green. Silver is new," Romanoff commented without letting her guard down.
"Oh?" The lightforged elf wondered and brought a strand in front of his eyes. "Curious..."
As Kal pondered his changes, Black Widow began to circle around him toward the portal machine.
"Oh, my bad. Stay safe. These frost giants here were hidden by Loki's magic," the newly minted High Exarch of the Holy Light commented when he realised the wariness in Romanoff's actions and gaze.
"Hey, Selvig. Your mind snapped out of Loki's spell, right?" Kal shouted over to a bleeding physicist.
A quick Word of Glory not only healed Selvig - the man looked like he turned back a few years as his skin gained a healthy luster, color, and smoothness.
"I... yes," Selvig answered as he was shocked to feel the changes to his body.
"Then tell Agent Romanoff here about the failsafe you put into the portal device. You know, to turn off the Tesseract and rid us off this gate to damnation," Kal ordered as he first pointed to the portal device and then up into the air.
Without another word, the elf summoned his mighty steed and mounted it as he shot into the air.
[Skills used: Blessing of Summer, Retribution Aura, Shield of Vengeance, Seal of Righteousness, Avenging Wrath: Crusade]
Giant resplendent wings appeared behind the mounted warrior of the light as he rose into the air. He raised his greatsword into the air and began to cast his first damaging skill the moment some Chitauri dared to come close to him.
[Skill used: Divine Storm]
A giant whirlwind of golden particles rose up in the air as every shot upon him from the Chitauri energy blasters was returned as a holy projectile. As the storm slowly gained altitude together with its caster, it reached almost half the distance between the portal and Stark Tower. All Chitauri near it were slowly worn down and died before falling to the ground.
[Skill used: Divine Hammer]
When the High Exarch reached the portal, two hammers bathed in golden light appeared next to him and slowly started to spin outward, back in, outward again and stayed there as a millstone that killed anything that passed by.
A leviathan that passed through the portal at that moment was immediately killed as Kal swept his sword in its direction and cast Blade of Justice at it, almost entirely cleaving it in two.
When the blade made of Holy Light landed on its gargantuan target, the Divine Storm surrounding Kal intensified for a short moment. The portal was now essentially blocked with no new enemies able to pass through.
Kal held this position for several minutes until it finally happened, Iron Man approached with a missile on his shoulders. The elf retracted the Divine Storm even if it wouldn't have hurt Stark, it might have had a negative impact on the nuke - not detonating it early, but disabling the trigger process altogether.
The moment he passed through, Kal looked down instead of up. Black Widow was pointing the scepter inside the protective shield of the Tesseract, just like it happened in canon. His removal of the Mind Stone hadn't negatively impacted this scene.
With his wings still domineeringly visible, Kal rode his flying mount down toward the ground.
[Skill used: Holy Nova]
The first priest spell that came to his mind created a big sphere-like explosion of holy energies around the High Exarch. In a radius of half a city block, all Chitauri stragglers were wiped out while the humans had their small cuts and bruises healed.
Repeating that feat several times, Kal reached the first field hospital. His hand pointed at the many injured people as a second holy priest spell came to him when he wished to know a spell that would heal all these people.
[Skill used: Holy Word: Sanctify]
A golden light washed over the people present. Skin knitted itself back into one. Broken bones mended together. Bruises disappeared.
"Kal! Come with me! Quickly!" Gwen suddenly shouted as she appeared on a lamp post close to his position.
The elf looked at her, nodded, and rode his royal charger in her direction. Spidey#2, as the elf called her, quickly swung back into the more destroyed part of town until they reached a burning apartment.
"Here, there's kids trapped inside. We can't move them. They are too hurt!" She shouted desperately.
[Skill used: Sacred Shield]
A golden bubble gently wrapped around Kal, and he pointed a hand toward Gwen.
[Skill used: Power Word: Shield]
Inside the fiercely burning apartment, he saw Peter desperately trying to distract a screaming boy who was burned beyond recognition. It made sense that the two didn't want to touch him and hurt him even more. On the other side was a teenage girl with barely even a breath left in her. The left side of her face was almost completely scorched off. One of her limbs was crushed, the leg's skin flayed and grotesquely burned in dozens of places. It was a wonder she hadn't died long ago.
[Skills used: Blessing of Light, Cleanse Toxins, Holy Light, Word of Glory]
The boy stopped screaming almost immediately. With furrowed brows, he cast another spell for him and tested out if he could really use spells and skills from his Moon Sentinel class without changing it.
[Skill used: Lifebloom]
Slowly, pink new skin regrew as the old burnt skin flaked off.
"Get him somewhere with food. He'll be starved once his adrenaline wears off," Kal ordered Peter and turned to the girl. The healing magic could only do so much, the needed building blocks for the healing process still needed to come from somewhere. So for wounds as big as these, hunger would come all too quickly after they were healed.
"You shielded your brother, did you not?" Kal whispered in a compassionate tone of voice after kneeling next to the dying teenager.
Gently, he rested his hand on the burnt side of her face, but before she could hiss in pain the moment before her life finally faded, all pain she felt stopped.
[Skill used: Lay on Hands]
A miracle happened in front of Gwen as the girl's body restored itself while bathed in golden light. Bones mended, skin regrew, flesh pieced back together. It all happened much more rapidly than it ever did before. Even Kal was caught off-guard a little.
"You're an angel," Gwen whispered in awe.
"You've seen my wings just now. The cat is out of the sack," Kal quipped with a mischievous grin, stood up, and patted Gwen's head as he towered over her.
"You all did well today. Bring her out once she's good to go. She'll need food, too. I have something to do."
Just as he wanted to go back to Stark Tower to get the Space Stone out of the Tesseract and make sure Ironman was okay, a dagger tried to plant itself in his neck.
Kal caught the hand despite there appearing several at a time.
"Ghost?" Kal pondered out loud as he got a good look at the one who tried to assassinate him. "No... Ava Starr? You're S.H.I.E.L.D., why would you try to kill... oh. Hydra figured out who and what I am?"
The woman, for the first time in forever, couldn't use her 'Quantum Entropy' to get out of the grip of the armored man. She shifted all over but was still unable to wrestle her freedom back.
"Let's see if the Holy Light can put you back together," Kal mumbled in Thalassian and reached for the Ghost suit's eerie face mask.
[Skills used: Purify, Cleanse, Blessing of Light, Flash of Light, Holy Light, Holy Shock, Word of Glory]
The assassin tried everything to get away from the elf, but nothing seemed to work.
"Stop struggling and tell me how you feel, Ava," the High Exarch, whose eyes shone with the golden warmth of the sun for Ava Starr, demanded.
"It stopped hurting... it never stops hurting..." the woman whispered more to herself than to him.
"If it starts hurting again, find me in Malibu," Kal offered as he gave the woman his full address.
He had an inkling that she could become a one of a kind rogue now that he could grant classes to beings in the MCU. He just hoped he didn't give HYDRA an invitation to come mess with him... but they would be hard-pressed to truly bother him. Especially with this newest power up he had just gotten.
The elf left the phase-shifting 'Ghost' agent standing where she was and made his way up to Stark Tower after summoning his mount.
"Who are you?" Captain America guardedly asked, shield raised.
"Relax, he's a friendly," Stark quipped jovially as he sauntered over to the elf. "Love what you did with your hair!"
Kal shook his head, "You got it covered, or do you need me to clean up some more?"
His eyes rested on the briefcase now holding the Tesseract. He wondered how they got it up here so fast - though maybe Selvig brought it with him as they set up the portal.
To distract the Avengers - especially Hulk and Captain America who never officially met him - he healed all of their wounds as he walked over to Romanoff holding the briefcase.
But before he could step closer to it, the Space Stone inside the Tesseract reacted and blasted the elf to the other side of the room.
Everyone got battle ready immediately - but there were no enemies. The brief case merely reacted to Kal's presence.
The newly minted High Exarch's face settled into a grimace for a short moment until he read his chat panel.
[Second cornerstone of creation detected in user's presence. Please be advised that you cannot obtain a second stone before you unearthed all benefits from the first one and grew the necessary capacity to house another.]
"What in the stars is up with that restriction? It feels like the lazy writing of an author with no creativity..." Kal mumbled in Thalassian.
Everyone looked at him, wondering why the Tesseract had reacted as it did. To ease the awkward atmosphere and to vent his frustration, Kal turned around and walked to the balcony.
"I'm going to kill a scientist. Stark knows where to find me if you need more help."