1 Arc I Battle of NY - Eli

NY, Astoria Park water front, just east of Manhattan. Friday. May 4th 2012. Roughly 3pm.

A small group of people was gathered around a young man skillfully playing the guitar. As he was tall and fit, most would think him around 16-18 years old - but he was just a 14 year old.

Not any 14 year old though, this young man was special. He sat there with golden blonde hair in a messy pony-tail reaching slightly past his shoulders. He had handsome, rugged features, much more rugged than any 14 year old had any right to have. His bright emerald green eyes gently looked down at his hand playing a melody for his little audience.

He barely paid any attention to his surroundings though.

He was dressed in a simple green shirt matching his eyes, that softly faded into white toward his legs. His cherry-wood guitar rested on crossed legs that were dressed in charcoal grey chinos and black sneakers.

Most eye-catching about his outfit were his two accessories though. A leather-band necklace with what looked like an ivory triangle twice the size of a guitar pick hanging from it upside down and a piercing hanging from his left ear.

The necklace he had since birth, according to his mother, his grandmother had unknowingly gifted it to him.

The piercing was a gift from his late mother from just before her death. A golden ring with a short, thin golden wire that had a small green 'flag' hanging from it. This 'flag' silently swayed in the wind so nobody could make out the symbols drawn on this little flag.

He played and hummed along to a song that brought forth a tranquility that was sorely lacking in a busy city as New York.

Mid-song, he suddenly stopped and looked up. The audience around him was wondering what happened, until the first one followed his line of sight toward Manhattan and saw a gigantic blue portal in the sky, right above where the Stark Tower was supposed to be. This first person's loud gasp made everyone look there too.

"Oh my god, what is that?" "Do you see those things falling out of it?" "Look, look! Are you seeing that?" "Holy! What is that gigantic worm falling out of that hole?"

Most people were shouting in disbelief at the sight. It was either a huge hologram demonstration by Stark Industries, or the end of the world was coming.

By the time the first huge worm smashed into a skyscraper, it was clear to all. This was probably the world ending instead of a publicity stunt.

Some took out their phones, some turned and ran away from the waterfront. One girl turned towards the handsome musician, only to find him missing.

At the same moment, far above the park a figure was hovering in the air looking towards the portal. The pendant on the necklace was faintly glowing and the little green flag fluttering on his left ear was too.

Slowly the flag changed, grew. It covered his face from his nose down and covered his shoulders in a sort of green scarf with golden rune-like stitching.

The necklace slowly grew too, the ivory elongated until a double-edged short sword was formed with the leather of the necklace band wound around the grip. It was roughly as long as his thigh bone with a slim cross-guard and pommel the same shape as the original pendant - a triangle.

Curiously, the narrow and straight blade itself looked like it had cracked in many places, into many little pieces that were barely holding together in a fragile equilibrium.

"Did mother foresee this? Is that why she gave me this earring to hide myself as I fight off an invasion?" The young man pondered while floating steadily midair.

He softly shook his head. "I can't just ignore that. She knew," he softly whispered to nobody.

He didn't have full control yet over all his powers, but flying in a straight line unhindered was fast enough. He reached the first... invaders. Yes he was gonna call them invaders in mind.

He reached the first invaders, scaly aliens with futuristic weapons. They were throwing what looked like grenades everywhere, shooting their energy blast weapons at anything that moved. Some chariots were dropping off footsoldiers.

Those footsoldiers were firing their guns into crowds of people, there were screams everywhere. He was trained by his mother, but they were simple spars. This, this was war. The young man wanted to turn around and run away. This was simply too overwhelming. He froze.

He froze until he saw a mother shielding her child with her body from an explosion. One of the invaders turned toward them ready to shoot.

"NO!"

With a shout, he shot into action. He didn't even fully think it through.

In one swift motion, the young man arrived next to the invader on the ground and cut them in two pieces from the waist to their shoulder.

His first kill. He turned towards the bisected corpse for a short moment. These invaders have a weird feeling to them he felt in the short time he observed them.

They feel weirdly disconnected with their surroundings. It made it easier to stomach the kill. The invader barely reacted before dying.

He looked at the mother and little girl. They looked to him too.

In but a whimper, the mother spoke to him, "th-thank y-you. Thank you so...so..-"

"That's okay, take your little girl and run!" he shouted as he pointed away from the fight and towards a subway station. The mother nodded heavily and ran away with her child. That felt good, but he got to get his head into the game quickly.

With a turn, he looked towards other invaders and got to work.

In swift, elegant moves he dashed from one invader on the ground to the next. His sharp sword never once failing to fully bisect its target.

He was wondering though if that was enough. Sure there's other heroes, he heard them fight back, but are they this slow too? This army seemed endless.

And so it was, that the young hero took a deep breath and closed his eyes after he was done clearing the street of invaders.

He reached out his free hand in front of him, palm facing down and moved it over his sword he held horizontally before his chest, below the other hand.

His mother described it as a divinity he could tap into, but growing up in what his mother called 'midgard' left him entirely disillusioned that he was actually divine. Sure he was so much more powerful than every other human he met, so much more long-lived, but a god? That was a weird notion. He still had to eat and sleep like everyone else after all.

Eventually he found his inner balance and the short sword split apart into hundreds of smaller shards. His 'divinity' or as he would like to call it simply his 'source' controlled those shards as winds picked up in a radius of roughly a bus' length around him.

He slowly opened his eyes, his pupils had turned a pale, glowing green, and he looked up ahead. He made out a huge worm barreling towards him with several flying chariots accompanying him. With the shards forming a literal tornado around him, he lifted off the ground and flew in the direction of the invaders.

The worm-thing opened its mouth wide, the humanoids opened fire on him, but nothing hit the one at the literal eye of the storm. The moment he passed the mouth of the worm, he slowed down his flight, but increased the speed of the shards. He held this concentration for a full minute before the worm moved out of his shard-field with a deafening cry.

The result of his move was all the invaders falling apart like they were thrown in a blender. The worm however simply took massive amounts of damage, with bits and pieces falling off all over the body. It survived though.

"Phew, that thing can take a hit. Or you know, hundreds. I guess 'Death by a thousand cuts' is an unfamiliar concept to them, huh?"

He turned and followed the worm in its increasingly unsteady flight and shredded it as best he could with all those shards flying around him. In the time it took for the monster to fly past six more buildings, it eventually lost all signs of life and crashed down into the thrashed but empty street below.

"Unbelievable, I should switch to big hits for these the next time," he sighed as he looked for more enemies.

'Wait, no I shouldn't. One spell big enough for that thing will leave me utterly exhausted,' he thought as he got back to killing the other invaders.

Fifteen minutes later, Iron Man flew past him while the young man was killing the invaders midair in elegant movements, but immediately Iron Man circled back around.

"Shit kid, are you a wizard? Bitten by a radio-active blender?" Iron Man said in a robot-y voice.

"Uh, no Iron Man, sir. Just woke up like this one day. Mom always told me I was special," the young man said in a joking tone.

J.A.R.V.I.S. had long since scanned the surroundings and informed Tony about the impressive kill count this unknown powered individual had.

"Great job jester-boy, ridiculous body count. Can I hand you an ear-piece so you can coordinate with the other heroes?" Iron Man flew closer towards the flying youngster when he realized the shards retracted towards the handle in his left hand.

"Okay, throw it over. Those worm things-" "Leviathans," Tony interrupted.

"Like I said those worm things are kinda hard to kill with my powers so its best to send me towards masses of those scaly puppets-" "Chitauri, wait you said puppets?" Tony interrupted again.

"Yeah, not really sure about it, but none of them feel like an individual. They all are kinda disconnected with everything around them. Feels like they are all puppets on the same kind of string," the young man mused.

"You guys hear all that? Any insights you guys can share?" Iron Man asked, but it was obvious he wasn't talking to the young man.

A few moments later Iron Man threw over an earpiece. "Got a name, kid?" he asked as he gained altitude.

"Uh, hero name? No, but friends call me Eli I guess."

"Guess we're friends then Eli, keep it up," Iron Man while flying away at full speed.

The young man, Eli, put in the earpiece and heard a voice.

"*-have to be controlled from somewhere if it's true. My best guess? That huge ship behind the portal? That thing just screams mothership to me.*"

"*Clint got a point,*" a female voice answered him.

"*Hey widow, no human names in the field,*" the first voice sounded again.

"*Concentrate on the enemies. Hawkeye got a point though,*" a third voice sounded.

"*Cap's right. About his first point. So how do we take out a gigantic alien mothership beyond the gigantic magical portal?*" This voice definitely belonged to Iron Man.

"*Have J.A.R.V.I.S. work on a solution, we need to take out these leviathans faster,*" Cap...guessing Captain America answered the question.

"*I am about to smash another, sadly I only have one mighty hammer,*" yet another new voice sounded out.

Eli took a deep breath hearing that voice, it was not how he imagined his first meeting with the 'god of thunder'.

"Uh hi guys, new...guy here. Wow I suck at this. Iron Man threw me an earpiece. I'm really good at dealing with lots of little guys. Anybody need a hand?" Eli scolded himself inwardly for messing up his first message in the voice chat.

"*Who's this? Tony did you recruit a kid for this?*" Widow asked, anger clear in her voice.

"*I thought no human names. And Eli may be a little green behind the ears, but his Chitauri body count might even exceed Thor's and mine combined. Kid got some magical shards cutting everything around him. That body count is him fighting on the outskirts where I found him*," Iron Man defended himself.

"*Alright Eli, I know which direction Iron Man flew to, so I need you to move towards the Stark Tower from there. Run by as many subway stations as possible. Many New Yorkers have taken shelter down there,*" Captain America patiently explained, it was a little more detailed than he usually was in this situation.

"Okay, I can do that. What do I do once I reach the tower?"

"*Iron Man, can we get him towards the portal with a thruster or something? If his firepower is as spectacular as you say it is, maybe we'll get him right on the source. Like putting a stopper in a bathtub. A first line of defense. That way Thor and Hulk can move on the big ones,*" the captain inquired.

"*No need Cap, the kid's the whole package. Hey Eli, think you can do that? Need me for some defenses, so they don't get you from long range?*" Iron Man asked, there were explosions in the background while he was talking.

"Uh if they don't have any bigger fire power, I think I can close up the portal just fine. Those worm things-" "*Leviathans,*" Iron Man interruped once again. "Yeah those worm things will still get through though. Takes me a good three to four minutes to chip 'em down. I have enough in me to keep up the portal defense a good 10 maybe 15 minutes, I think."

"*Okay Eli, get to it. Lets hope we have a solution ready until then,*" Captain America concluded with a heavy tone.