"Okay, Hela, you can beat him later," Elric's voice cut through the scene, stopping Hela who was currently in the process of beating Loki black and blue with methodical precision.
Loki was curled in a defensive ball, arms wrapped around his head, whimpering slightly as Hela's boot connected with his ribs for the seventh time.
"But I was just getting started!" Hela protested, pulling her foot back from another kick. "He hasn't even begun to properly apologize yet! This is barely the warm-up!"
"You can beat your brother later," Elric said with amusement, floating over through the debris field. "First, let's capture this guy and secure the situation."
He gestured toward Thanos, who was still sitting defeated on the wreckage, watching the sibling abuse with the detached interest of someone who no longer cared about anything.
After thinking about it for a moment, weighing various factors and potential consequences, Elric decided not to kill Thanos outright.
After carefully removing the two Infinity Stones from his damaged gauntlet—the Soul Stone and Mind Stone both pulsing with residual power—they directly threw the Mad Titan into Asgard's underground dungeons. The deepest, most secure cells, warded with magic that had held cosmic threats for millennia.
It wasn't like Elric's heart had suddenly melted after witnessing Thanos's tragic defeat, Elric thought pragmatically. He didn't feel particular sympathy for the genocidal warlord.
But there were practical considerations.
In the MCU timeline Elric remembered, Thanos's story had been a little different from the comics version. Instead of being a pathetic simp desperately seeking Death's attention, he'd been portrayed as something of a straight man—focused entirely on his goal of universal balance, driven by twisted logic rather than romantic obsession.
But what if after getting killed here, Thanos's soul directly encountered the cosmic entity Death in the afterlife? What if, stripped of his physical form and logical facade, he fell deeply in love with her the way his comic counterpart had?
And knowing Death's personality from various sources, the goddess absolutely wouldn't reciprocate those feelings. She'd probably find his obsession annoying, pathetic. She might directly banish him from her realm entirely, refusing to let him die properly.
That would mean the concept of death would be directly erased from Thanos's existence as a fundamental aspect of reality.
It wasn't as simple as mere immortality or conventional resurrection, Elric understood. Death itself would be removed from his life's conceptual framework.
He literally couldn't be killed at all by any normal means. Even attacking him with conceptual energy or reality-warping powers should prove impossible—he'd simply exist outside death's dominion entirely.
If the universe was destroyed, Thanos would survive floating in the void. Only a causality-manipulation skill that could directly erase his existence from having ever been, something that rewrote history itself, could potentially work.
And Elric definitely couldn't do that kind of timeline manipulation. Not reliably, not without catastrophic side effects.
So keeping Thanos alive and imprisoned seemed like the safer option. Better a contained threat than an unkillable enemy wandering the cosmos.
Loki was also thrown into the dungeons, placed in a cell directly beside Thanos's.
The God of Mischief limped along between guards, one eye already swelling shut, several ribs clearly broken, his dramatic cape torn and singed.
"This is completely unfair!" Loki protested weakly as they dragged him away. "I demand legal representation! I want to speak to Father! I invoke my rights as a prince of Asgard! I—OW! Don't pull my hair!"
The guards were notably unsympathetic.
As Loki was being hauled toward his cell, still protesting, suddenly Elric's communication crystal activated. The voice of his clone monitoring Earth came through urgently.
"Boss, something unexpected just happened," the clone reported, tension clear in the tone.
"What?" Elric asked, immediately focusing. "Did Natasha already take action? Did she—"
"No, boss. Although Natasha Romanoff already escaped from Sokovia's prison facility approximately one day ago exactly according to your prior instructions, she still hasn't reached the SHIELD headquarters to deliver her intel."
"But suddenly, a spacecraft has entered Earth's orbit," the clone continued. "And it's now heading directly toward the battlefield. Their intended target is likely the confrontation zone between Earth's forces and the Asgardian army."
"A spacecraft?" Elric's interest sharpened. "Show me."
Suddenly, a holographic screen lit up from his watch, projecting a three-dimensional image of the approaching vessel.
"Oh!" Elric's eyebrows rose with recognition and delight. "Isn't that the spacecraft of the famous Star-Lord? The Milano!"
What were the Guardians of the Galaxy doing here? Elric wondered. They should still be dealing with Ronan the Accuser and the Power Stone situation. That whole mess should be keeping them occupied for at least another few weeks.
"I don't know exactly why they're here, boss," the clone admitted. "But what should we do now? We didn't plan for this variable in our scenario."
"Don't worry too much about it," Elric decided after a moment's consideration. "It won't fundamentally change anything important. Just follow our established plan. I'm coming back to Earth now to observe directly."
He cut the communication and turned to Hela. "Something interesting is happening on Earth. Want to come watch?"
"Will there be more fighting?" Hela asked hopefully.
"Possibly. Maybe. No promises."
"Good enough!"
Manhattan Battlefield - Earth
Inside the devastated remains of Manhattan, Tony Stark looked at Thor standing calmly among the ruins, and his face had become completely ashen with despair.
What should he even do now? Tony's mind raced desperately through impossible scenarios. Earth had thrown everything at them—conventional weapons, enhanced technology, even nuclear weapons—and accomplished exactly nothing.
They probably won't accept surrender at this point, right? Not after humanity tried to nuke them.
There was nothing left to lose. Absolutely nothing. So Tony directly decided to swallow whatever remained of his pride.
He began to kneel, the most difficult physical action he'd ever attempted in his entire life.
But suddenly, JARVIS's voice interrupted through his helmet's speakers.
"Boss, an unknown spacecraft has just entered Earth's orbit and is heading directly toward this location at high velocity," the AI reported with characteristic precision.
"Spacecraft?" The first thought that came to Tony's mind was that it must be another Asgardian vessel, perhaps reinforcements or a command ship.
But after thinking about it for just a moment, he quickly abandoned this theory.
Asgard had already won the war decisively. There was no conceivable need for reinforcements—they'd barely even been challenged.
And more importantly, Asgardians always arrived via that rainbow Bifrost light, instant teleportation across any distance. Using conventional spacecraft would be completely redundant for them, like a billionaire taking a bus.
"Boss," JARVIS added helpfully, "this might be the reinforcement Director Fury mentioned before the battle commenced."
"Fury?" Tony's mind scrambled to remember. "Oh! Yeah!"
He suddenly recalled Nick Fury had indeed mentioned something about a potential ally, some off-world contact who might help if things got desperate enough. But at the time, Tony had honestly thought the old spy was just making something up, trying to boost morale with comforting lies.
But now it seemed that Fury hadn't been bluffing at all. There was an actual thing, an actual ally arriving.
Before Tony could process this information further or develop any real hope, the spacecraft quickly entered visual range of the battlefield and began its landing sequence.
The vessel was distinctive—asymmetrical design, clearly customized, painted in orange and blue patterns that suggested its pilot had... questionable aesthetic taste.
Thor, who hadn't been taking the fight seriously at all until now—he'd basically been going through theatrical motions, putting on a show—suddenly changed his expression completely.
His eyes drifted toward the newly arrived spacecraft, and for the first time since the battle began, genuine wariness crossed his features.
He recognized that ship, Tony realized. Or at least recognized what it represented.
The spacecraft's door slowly began to open with a hydraulic hiss, landing ramp extending.
And before Thor could clearly see who or what was emerging from the vessel's interior, before he could raise Stormbreaker defensively or call out a warning—
A brilliant golden light suddenly shot up from inside the ship like a missile launch, moving faster than Thor could track.
The energy beam hit him directly in the chest.
SONIC BOOM!
With a sound like reality tearing, Thor was directly blown backward, the golden light carrying him like a meteor.