Stealth and Shadowmeld remained powerful enough for Kal to be invisible even to Tony Stark's inventions. He was left unbothered as he waited in the penthouse of Stark Tower and he, in turn, didn't bother Loki, Selvig, and Loki's minions as they set up the portal machine with the Tesseract inside.
Like he mentioned before. The Avengers needed to happen. And short of an alien invasion, that wouldn't be likely. Not in the capacity that was necessary.
He ignored Fury's call once more. This time around, the spymaster gave up and followed it up with a text message: 'If Coulson dies because you didn't pick up the motherfuckin' phone, I'll bury my foot up your ass'
With a smirk, Kal texted back, 'I called in several credible bomb threats for the NYPD. Aid in the evacuation around Stark Tower. Coulson's gonna live. I gave both you and him a ring, no? Feel free to use both charges for his recovery once the Avengers get together as a team.'
Kal took out his bow and stood up the moment they were done setting up the portal machine.
"Times like these, I wish I had listened to Uncle Lor'themar and learned some fire spells. Had I learned how to cast 'Living Bomb', I could have wiped out the whole lot the moment they stopped out of the portal… Maybe I should have made a holy fire version of it this past year? If only I had a talent for spell creation…"
Stark entered his tower after he tried and failed to get into the barrier around the portal device as Jarvis took off a battered Iron Man suit from the superhero. That same superhero started to have some choice words with Loki, as Tony bought some time until a new Iron Man suit was finished for him.
When Loki finally had enough of all the jabs and jokes and threw Stark out of the window, Kal merely looked on in disinterest. The timing was a little different from what he remembered in the movie and the armor caught him before he even fell down five stories - so Kal didn't have to order Whitewing to catch the man before he fell to certain death.
But Kal did order Whitewing to pick him up as he jumped to the highrise next to Stark Tower now that everything happened as it should.
The portal was opened, Stark flew up and played defense, Thor confronted his brother at Stark Tower's penthouse, and Loki managed to hit the Quinjet carrying Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
"The stage is set. Time for all of you to die," the sentinel whispered to himself.
[Skills used: Aspect of the Hawk, Salvo, Volley, Trueshot, Rapid Fire, Volley]
A veritable rain of ethereal arrows started raining… up toward the Chitauri leaving the portal. The use of the skill Salvo made every single arrow in his Volley an Explosive Arrow as each Volley shot five arrows that multiplied into ten each thanks to his legendary bow, Thori'Dal.
Trueshot was a talent only a select few hunters were able to learn. It vastly increased his concentration on the task at hand and allowed his use of Rapid Fire to shoot almost a hundred arrows in less than four seconds. The last Volley was just for good measure as he aimed at stragglers he made out in the crowd that might have survived the first Volley by dodging at the last second.
And despite shooting all these arrows, Kal hadn't missed a single one yet. Those that were able to dodge merely managed to doom the Chitauri behind them in the portal or make the arrow hit a non-lethal part of their bodies.
With the second of two waves of the Chitauri dealt with, Kal started picking off the lone survivors of the first wave by picking them up one by one with the use of Steady Shot and the occasional Chimaera Shot - an improved Arcane Shot that dealt nature damage to a second, close target upon impact. Those Chimaera Shots made sure that one arrow was enough to deal with a Chitauri charger that had two warriors on it.
Several hundred meters high up in the air, the first Leviathan left the portal momentarily discouraging all present Avengers. Kal, however, was different as he merely narrowed his eyes and gained a savage smile.
"I take back my wish to have learned fire magic. Finally decimating foes again after a year of idle boredom is so much better," Kal mumbled to nobody in Thalassian.
[Skills used: Aspect of the Hawk, Trueshot, Aimed Shot, Aimed Shot, Explosive Shot, Salvo, Volley]
Both Aimed Shots took out an eye each just as the distant Leviathan fully left the portal, the Explosive Shot was aimed at the gaping maw of the beast and the Salvo-enhanced Volley took out most of the stragglers next to the Leviathan.
Kal began to smirk at the damage he did and noted that a well placed Explosive Shot followed up by an Aimed Shot was all it would take for the next one.
Just then, Stark finally reached him - the source of all the arrows that took care of almost a third of all aliens that had invaded by this point.
"What the hell, Kal! Where have you been?"
"Told you that you needed to do this on your own," Kal countered with a wide grin plastered on his face, never stopping his bow arm from drawing another arrow.
"Our own? You literally killed more than any of us!"
"I also told you I wouldn't allow any of you to die doing this," Kal argued with a taunting grin as he finally looked at Stark and released another Steady Shot.
"Is this what the scavenger bots are for!?"
"Of course it is. Can't have Chitauri grenades and energy sources fall into the wrong hands en masse. Release them already," the archer quipped.
"Barton's on the line telling me to tell you to lend him that bow," Stark joked as he shot an energy beam at a Chitauri charger.
"I'm afraid Thori'Dal is one of a kind, and I'm not parting with it. Had to help kill a literal demon god to get it - though, admittedly, Kil'jaeden didn't die in the end and merely fled…"
"Demon god? Buddy, pal, be real with me," Stark quipped sarcastically.
"I mean. The closest thing to it. He was originally a mortal Eredar, but the leading titan of the pantheon of creation of my world, Sargeras, turned him into a demon to lead his armies of the Burning Legion for him. If that isn't a demon god, nothing is," Kal explained with a shrug of his shoulders - which didn't stop him from still perfectly aiming his arrow to kill another Chitauri.
"So this all is just a kid's game for you?" Stark asked with a deep sigh as he watched Kal take out another Leviathan just as it left the portal.
"Pretty much. But you guys needed to become the Avengers, or this world is toast. So go mingle with your buddies and figure out how to close the portal. Can't do everything," Kal ordered with a grin as he unequipped the bow for a moment and ate something.
[
While using Steady Shot actually helped him in using up less mana for every Marksmanship skill he used to kill Chitauri in the long run, he still started to run a little low since the elf didn't bother pacing himself. Just for any unforeseen circumstances, however, Kal wanted to have more than half of his mana pool.
"Kal, is that you?" An excited teenager suddenly shouted a small distance away.
"Spidey#3, didn't I tell you guys to stay away and help people in a radius and work yourself toward the action in a circle?"
"I did! And stop calling me Spidey#3!"
"Come on. I know I said the other two were smarter than you, but you gotta at least know what a circle is. There's no way you got everybody out before coming here," Kal quipped as he shot Miles a disdainful look.
"I... I saw you here and wanted to make sure you were okay!" Miles argued when he saw that Kal didn't take his earlier statement seriously.
[Skills used: Salvo, Volley]
"Does it look like I wouldn't be okay?" Kal quipped as he didn't stop looking at Miles with a smile as the costumed teenager watched him, mouth agape, while perching on the ledge of the building the two were on.
"I'll be honest here. This was the coolest thing that I have ever seen. And I'm a superhero who got his powers after getting bit by a spider," Miles praised reluctantly after another group of Chitauri fell out of the air. "How is your bow doing that with the arrows?"
"Legendary artifact, forged inside a star. Or forged out of the fragment of a star... either way, it's as old as my own civilization," Kal casually explained with a shrug.
The Chitauri started scattering in pairs after Kal took them out in droves whenever they grouped, so Kal had to switch up his tactics a little.
[Skill used: Aspect of the Wild, Chimaera Shot x3]
He repeatedly used Chimaera Shot together with the hunter aspect that would allow him to target even more of them with a single arrow.
"Swing back to your friends. There's people stuck beneath rubble everywhere. You have the strength, the speed, the agility, and the brains to get people out without hurting yourself or them. It's important work. I trust you to do it and bring the most critical patients all to one spot just like I told you guys," Kal ordered when Miles was entirely lost in thought and just watched what the archer was doing with an open mouth beneath the mask.
Miles didn't move, seemingly reluctant and wanting to fight, too, until Kal added, "Trust me. Killing these puppets is no noble task. Saving lives, that's what will allow you to sleep after a day like today. You'll see enough carnage without having to do the job of the adults here. Fighting villains will come soon enough for you three."
As he watched the black-clothed webslinger swing away, Kal cleared the way for Miles until he was fully out of his line of sight.
"Whitewing!" Kal suddenly shouted and unequipped his bow.
His owl was quick to follow his order and caught him midair as the elf jumped off of the building with a full sprint.
"Bring me to the roof of Stark Tower," Kal instructed despite his companion already flying in the right direction.
The elf stealthed up mid fall as he landed on the roof where he had spotted a deviation from the MCU.
Someone was guarding Selvig and the portal device and almost kicked Romanoff off of the building when she finally managed to reach the top.
Equipping both of his shortswords, Kal made quick work of the offending parties - three cleverly hidden frost giants from Jotunheim that Loki had hidden with his magics.
[Skills used: Ambush, Shadow Dance, Ambush, Eviscerate, Smoke Bomb, Blade Dance]
Two frost giants were almost immediately dealt with as Kal ripped apart their backs and stabbed their hearts. The first with two uses of Ambush, the second was eviscerated, quite literally.
The third, however, stood a little further away. The sentinel first used a Smoke Bomb, closed the distance, and killed the frost giant with a head-on Blade Dance that left the giant gruesomely cut into several chunks of meat.
[Skill used: Stealth]
After once more disappearing from sight within the scattering smoke, Kal walked toward the dropped scepter containing the Mind Stone.
Now was as good a time as any to swap out the first Infinity Stone. His plan wouldn't stop the scepter from being usable as the key to close the portal device. He was… almost sure of it.
From behind a ledge where nobody could see him, Kal used another Smoke Bomb and took out his Jewelcrafting tools.
He got to work as he delicately opened the crystal containing the mind gem, pried it out of said crystal, dropped in the yellow fake he had crafted and closed the crystal back up with the use of mana and his skills as a Grand Master Jewelcrafter.
He threw the scepter back from roughly where he got it from and kept the Mind Stone resting in the palm of his hand.
"1 down. 5 to go," Kal'thal whispered to himself in Thalassian.