The next day started with Kal once more trying some different Jewelcrafting exercises and disenchanting the results as he sat on top of the garage after making breakfast.
Coulson had delivered most of Jane's stuff back, and she was excitedly putting it all back together with Erik, Darcy, and Thor, who was busy being useful as the muscle of the whole moving process.
As he finished disenchanting another 'failed' product without much use, Kal saw four people dressed in armor walking toward the garage with eager steps.
Sif and the Warriors Three.
Finally, people dressed in what his elven sensibilities told him was appropriate. Though, their weapons looked really feeble compared to some of the master-crafted weapons the leading warriors of Azeroth used. They clearly weren't made out of the vaunted Asgardian Uru metal that he planned to take a bit of from the Destroyer that would come for Thor soon. Odin surely wouldn't hold it against him if the armor was missing a few fingers.
"Hmm, I'll need to wait for those four getting their asses handed to them, which will make Thor realise his folly and reclaim his powers. Then, I'll be able to step in without breaking canon. How much do I show without alerting Loki, who can see through the eyes of the Destroyer? Too much, and he'll tell Thanos about me when he joins the mad titan," Kal idly pondered. "Many of my schemes don't work if Thanos is too wary of my powers. He needs to get the Soul Stone for me and deliver it to Earth..."
As Thor hashed it out with his buddies down below, the Bifrost suddenly opened in the desert where Jane ran over Thor for the first time, and Kal landed in this universe.
They all walked outside to see the spectacle as Jane was having an aneurysm for not being able to record this phenomenon of an opened Bifrost fully because she wasn't finished setting everything up.
A huge explosion was seen in the distance, a second explosion was seen before the first one was heard, and suddenly, the Destroyer was at the small town's entrance walking down the mainroad straight toward Thor.
The Asgardians started valiantly fighting their own defender after it jumped to the city's edge but failed, even as Sif managed to impale the Destroyer with a sneak attack.
"Help them!" Jane shouted as she finally spotted Kal sitting on top of the roof.
"Almost," Kal responded as he raised his hand and cast Devotion Aura to bolster anyone's defenses - of those he recognised as friendlies at least.
Then, Kal shot the holy paladin spell Holy Prism into a house that the Destroyer had just destroyed. That should give the Asgardians the time to get everyone out alive before they suffer too much.
Jane looked completely baffled at Kal's actions, not sure how a beam of light was going to help, but a sigil appeared below her feet and everyone close to them just before then, so clearly Kal did something.
Then it finally happened, Thor stepped forward and got bitch slapped by the Destroyer despite the godling pleading for leniency with his brother controlling the piece of armor from the throne room in Asgard. Kal hopped down from the roof he was on and appeared between Thor and the Destroyer with large strides as he used the hood of the cape to conceal his features.
He equipped his large two handed weapon and stabbed it into the ground in front of him.
"Just a second, your majesty," Kal quipped 'sincerely' as he looked at the Destroyer and turned back to Thor whose hands and eyes started emitting electricity.
The clouds turned dark and thunder began to rumble in the skies above.
Unsure of what was happening, Loki ordered the Destroyer to shoot another of its face beams, but a crimson golden shield appeared where Kal's sword was stabbed into the street.
[Skill used: Blood Bulwark]
A grin appeared on Kal's face. A spell of his own creation that combined the priest classes' Bulwark spell with his Blood Knight teachings. If the Destroyer was an evil creature, it would burn in holy fire damage at this moment - sadly the magical automaton wasn't sentient enough to be considered evil by the Light.
And suddenly, Mjolnir shot from the sky and firmly landed in Thor's outstretched hand with a giant lightning strike. When people could look in the direction once more, Thor stood there fully armored with his black breastplate and red cape.
"Told you I can do the armor thing, too," Thor quipped as he walked past Kal in the direction of the destroyer.
For good measure, Kal finally used Greater Blessing of Kings on the god of thunder to give him an all-encompassing boost to his bodily stats.
After the first swing of Thor's hammer put the Destroyer on its back, Kal took the opportunity to take the piece of Uru he wanted to experiment with for his Jewelcrafting.
The giant metal construct stood up with one hand on the ground to steady itself, and Kal appeared next to it and used Crusader Strike on the ground.
"Woops," he excused with a grin and collected the four fingers he cut off as he retreated to the other Asgardians and healed them casually.
"I saw that," Sif accused with narrowed eyes as her cuts and bruises disappeared.
"What?" Kal asked innocently.
"You better hope the Allfather doesn't hold you accountable for the theft of the precious Uru and destroying the... Destroyer," Sif huffed and looked back at the one-sided fight of Thor vs the Royal Asgardian Vault defender.
"If he does, he better be prepared to come himself to collect the debt," Kal countered with a bright, entirely unconcerned smile.
"You dare question the might of Asgard?" Fandral, the fencer of the Warriors Three, asked in a mockingly exaggerated tone of voice.
"I could take all three of you no questions asked," Kal scoffed and reached out to pat Hogun's head.
"And me?" Sif inquired with narrowed eyes.
"You I'd much rather take on in a different kind of combat," Kal offered as he removed the hood over his head now that the Destroyer was gone and Loki couldn't see his features.
Hogun had dodged his hand but found himself stunned regardless as Kal patted his head with a big grin.
[Skill used: Repentance]
"See?"
Thor soon landed near his friends as all of them, except for Hogun, had their weapons drawn.
"What is going on here?" The god of thunder asked with a weirded out expression as Kal had his hand on his unmoving friend. The rest had their weapons pointed at the elven warrior that Thor started to befriend during their past two days of interactions.
"He blasphemed the might of Asgard and cast a wicked spell on Hogun!" Volstagg boisterously exclaimed, wildly swinging his shield and sword around.
"Why are you antagonizing my friends, friend?" Thor asked with a lifted brow.
"They'd think me weak otherwise, no?" Kal asked back with a tilted head. "How about you take a blow from me now that you have your powers back so your friends and family don't get any funny ideas?"
Thor gained a cocky smirk for a moment before it faltered a little, "Make it fast. I must make haste to return to Asgard to stop my brother's dastardly schemes!"
[Skills used: Blessing of Summer, Retribution Aura, Avenging Wrath: Bloody Fire, Judgment, Final Verdict]
Several colorful auras appeared on Kal as the air turned heavy before resplendent bloody golden wings materialized behind the paladin. He cocked his arms back above his head with both of his hands holding his comically large greatsword. Then, an ethereal golden hammer materialized above Thor and struck down on him, before he could react to a second weapon coming his way.
And just as that hammer connected, Kal switched the grip on the greatsword to a backhand grip as he swung down - which admittedly looked ridiculous - and stabbed the sword into the ground in front of him. The greatsword left a trail of golden and fire-red specks in its path. Another ethereal golden weapon materialized above Thor, a copy of Kal's greatsword but larger still, and crashed into Thor.
Completely caught off guard, the Asgardian crown prince was unable to block the attacks fully and crashed into a heap of limbs on the ground.
Kal turned around to the Warriors Three and Sif with a cocky smile, and the three men shuddered a little.
"Still think I questioned the might of your home?" He sarcastically asked as he raised one of his hands and aimed it at the groaning Thor to the side.
[Skills used: Holy Shock, Word of Glory]
The wings on Kal's back turned entirely golden for a short moment before he dispelled the Avenging Wrath spell on his own to save his energy and Thor stood up with difficulty before the thunder god finally noticed - he was able to stand up as if he wasn't injured. No, he actually wasn't injured at all!
"When next we meet, I shall offer a more formidable form to spar with you," Thor proclaimed awkwardly before he coughed into his hands with a small blush. "But now we shall make haste and return to Asgard!"
Everyone finally snapped out of their stupor and looked at Thor with wonder in their widened eyes.
"What just happened?" Volstagg asked with his mouth hanging open wide enough to fit an entire apple inside.
"I let him win," Thor explained and hurried away after grabbing Jane's hand, who had hurried over to check on the Asgardian.
Outside the city, the group gathered once more, and Thor eventually called out for Heimdall after giving his goodbyes to Jane - someone he very obviously fell for in their short time together. And just as obviously, she fell for him just as much.
"Remember to send postcards," Kal waved toward the Asgardians and summoned his charger. "Darcy, I'll call you when I have managed to settle somewhere."
"Okay," the bespectacled research assistant / political science major mumbled with a smitten expression.
Erik looked like his entire world view was shattered. Jane looked jealous, and her eyes darted between Kal and Thor, hoping he would say something similar despite his already nice goodbye from before. Sif softly bit her lip as she saw Kal sitting on his armored steed like a warrior god with his equally godly armor. The Warriors Three looked impatient, ready to leave, and never come back.
Kal threw a last blessing on all Asgardians before he threw a pendant attached to a fine chain to Darcy.
"Keep it on you at all times," he advised and flew off.
[
Back in the world of Azeroth, professions were far from exact like they are in the games. There were no guaranteed, numerically quantifiable stats, no way to find out if the desired effect had been achieved, and no reaching the exact same outcome twice for the more complicated crafts unless you solely focused on that particular recipe or blueprint for a long time.
As such, Kal got lucky as he changed into his paladin self just as the sun rose and captured the sunlight as he tinkered with a small piece of gold he had looted from Stark's home the day before. He had created an item he had never seen in either life, with a description he had never seen before just the same.
He just hoped it wouldn't turn into a beacon for the more supernatural powers of this world and make Darcy a target.
Kal shook his head as he landed outside the S.H.I.E.L.D. base and waited for Coulson to come out and give him the clothes he had asked for. If something did happen to Darcy, he was a retribution paladin. Avenging loved ones is how a Blood Knight Paladin starts on their journey and where they get their strength from, as callous as that sounded.
With his more extravagant armor pieces unequipped, Kal twirled his phone in his hands until he heard footsteps.
"Mister Dorei?" Coulson asked politely.
"Yep, I'm here," Kal offered with a wave. "I knew you'd track my phone and find out I'm here for you."
He pointed to a sports bag in the agent's hand and asked, "Are those for me?"
"Getting these things in your size proved to be quite challenging out here in the desert. I would certainly appreciate it if you could repay this small favor by looking at two critically injured agents of mine?"
Kal took the bag from Coulson's hand and found a black hoodie with black training gear and three pairs of sneakers inside.
"We didn't know your size, so we found the three most common sizes for people of your stature among this planet's athletes," Coulson explained curtly.
With a shake of his head, he pulled his shirt off and wore the hoodie. Then he did the same for the pants and shoes, finding that all three matched relatively okay though the biggest pair was definitely too large, and looked at Coulson, who had watched everything intently.
"I hope this little lesson in biology is enough to satisfy your curiosity over my exact physiology? I can assure you, I'm more human than you think. Except for one small detail, our organs, blood, muscles, tendons... it's largely the same as regular humans. Our reproductive organs are a match, too," Kal explained with a deadpan.
"I don't suppose you'll share this small detail with me?" Coulson asked as he started walking back to the base with Kal who was finished changing clothes.
"Wait!" Kal exclaimed calmly.
"Is there something you need before healing my agents?"
"First of all, getting me some gym clothes isn't payment enough for my help. But I'll do it anyway on one condition to build our trust: I'm not going in there to show off my healing to a bunch of hydra sleeper agents. Point out where they are, and I'll work from here," Kal demanded with a shake of his head.
"You can do that?"
"Just assume that my limits are much, much higher than you originally believed," Kal countered with an exasperated expression.