Now, he needed to find the Time Stone and go back to his original timeline. That was the priority.
In the mutant universe, Professor X was currently gathering all the people who were planning to come to Elric's world. The evacuation was underway, mutants and their families being carefully selected and prepared for the dimensional travel that would save their lives.
If Elric could find the Time Stone first, locate it here in this timeline, he would directly go back and open the portal in his original timeline, making the transition smoother and more controlled. Otherwise, he could only take people here to Muspelheim first and then try to find the Time Stone slowly afterward, which would complicate everything.
Anyway, housing thousands of people—providing food, water, shelter, and all the necessities of life—would be extremely troublesome if they had to live here in the fire realm for a while. This place wasn't exactly hospitable to normal humans or even mutants. The environment was harsh, the resources limited.
"Hey Hela," Elric said casually, turning to face her. "Why don't you be a good girl and find me the Time Stone?"
Hela, who was still in somewhat of a daze, lost in her own thoughts and memories of this place, suddenly woke up hearing his words. Her eyes snapped into focus.
"You bastard, what did you just say?" Her voice was sharp, dangerous.
"Oh, are you angry?" Elric grinned, deliberately provoking her because he found her reactions entertaining. "Are you gonna call your daddy? Run to Odin and tell on me?"
"You..." Hela's face flushed with rage, her hands clenching into fists. "Just you wait! I will bring the entire Asgardian army here, thousands of warriors, and then let me see if you can say it to my face! Let's see how brave you are then!"
"Yeah, I'll say it even if you call ten Odins right now," Elric replied with absolute confidence, not backing down even an inch. His voice carried complete certainty.
It had been fine before when he was weak, when he'd first arrived in this universe with limited power. But after getting the Phoenix Force power, after fully absorbing and integrating that cosmic energy into his being? What was Odin to him now? The All-Father was powerful, yes, but not insurmountable. Even if the legendary Rune King Thor himself was standing there, Elric was confident he could fight him for several rounds at least. He might not win, but he could hold his own.
Anyway, he didn't care about Asgard's political power or military might now. He wasn't intimidated by their threats anymore. Otherwise, no matter how much he'd come to trust Hela after traveling with her for three years, building some kind of relationship with her, he would have directly left from here already. He wouldn't stick around in the Nine Realms where Odin could find him.
While he was thinking about threatening Odin to find the Time Stone for him, to use the All-Father's authority and resources to locate it quickly, suddenly an instinctive thought came to his mind. Knowledge from the Phoenix Force bubbling up to his consciousness.
Wait... I can time travel.
"Fuck!" he muttered aloud, his eyes widening.
How could he have forgotten about this important piece of information? How had it slipped his mind? The Phoenix Force had so many powers—matter manipulation, energy manipulation, reality warping, telepathy, telekinesis. And among all those incredible abilities, there was also time manipulation, allowing the user to travel through the timestream itself, to move backward and forward through history.
And after thinking about it more carefully, processing the implications, he felt even more dumbfounded by the previous host's actions. The sheer stupidity of it.
With the power to control time, with the ability to literally rewrite causality and change the past, the previous Phoenix Force user had directly jumped inside a universe-destroying antimatter bomb? That was the plan? That was the best strategy they could come up with?
Although, to be fair, because the host didn't have powers related to time from before bonding with the Phoenix, didn't have any prior experience or training with temporal manipulation, naturally a normal person couldn't achieve the most difficult feats like stopping time completely across a universal scale. That required too much skill, too much understanding of the fundamental nature of reality. But time travel should have been doable, should have been well within their capability even as a novice Phoenix host.
With time travel, there were thousands of options available to stop the bomb before it even detonated! Go back a day, a week, a month—prevent Ultron from building it in the first place! Kill him before he arrived, sabotage his equipment, warn the heroes earlier! The possibilities were endless!
Oh, wait... can I stop it? Elric wondered, falling into deep thought. If I go back to the past and change things...
But with that thought, suddenly another realization came to his mind, the Phoenix Force's inherent knowledge providing him with the answer he needed. The understanding of temporal mechanics flooding into his consciousness.
No. He couldn't stop it.
Normally, traveling through time with Phoenix Force power wouldn't create any paradox or alternative timeline. The Phoenix existed outside normal causality, outside the regular flow of time, so its actions didn't trigger the usual temporal mechanics that would create branching realities. But that special exemption was only when you didn't interact with your own origin, your own causal chain, the events that led to you having the Phoenix Force in the first place.
Think about the sequence of events that had occurred:
First, Ultron came to this universe from another reality. Then he took over Magneto's body and created the universe-destroying antimatter bomb. Then he fought with Elric and was killed by him, his soul obliterated. And then the current Phoenix Force user came to stop the bomb's expansion and died directly in the attempt, their consciousness wiped out, leaving the Phoenix Force scattered and weakened for Elric to absorb.
But now, if Elric suddenly went back to the past and killed Ultron the moment he entered the universe, preventing everything that followed? Stopped him before the bomb was built, before the fights, before any of it happened? Then he wouldn't have the chance to get the Phoenix Force in the first place, because the previous host wouldn't have died trying to stop a bomb that never existed. Creating a paradox, a temporal loop that couldn't be resolved, that would tear reality apart.
Really, Elric thought with deep exasperation, shaking his head, no matter how much power you have, without a brain to use it properly, you can still die choking on your own saliva.
Maybe the alien's home planet was like his previous Earth, he mused. After the Phoenix Force weakened the host's mental stability with its overwhelming cosmic awareness, with the burden of infinite knowledge and power, they were directly declared as mentally unstable and enjoyed electroshock therapy all year round before even properly bonding with the entity. That would explain a lot.
Elric couldn't think of any other reason why a psychic—someone who should be intelligent, careful, and thoughtful by nature—would be so incredibly stupid in their approach to problem-solving.
Anyway, with the Phoenix Force now in his possession, he could directly go back to his own timeline without any additional help. No need for the Time Stone at all. The cosmic entity's power was more than sufficient for both dimensional and temporal travel, allowing him to slip through reality like water.
But before going back, before returning to his own time, he had to create the rune that could restrain his power and give it to Hela before leaving. That was the entire reason he'd come to this time period in the first place—future Hela had sent him back specifically to do this task. It was apparently crucial to her development, to preventing some disaster he didn't fully understand yet.
He'd thought about staying here and developing the rune himself, working on it personally over the years. But he really didn't have time for that kind of commitment. The mutant refugees needed to be evacuated soon, within hours, and he had responsibilities in his own time period.
After thinking about it carefully, weighing his options, he decided to leave his clone here instead. The clone would work on developing the rune over however many years it took, and then dissipate after completing the task, sending all the accumulated memories and knowledge back to his main body through their connection.
"Hela," Elric said, his tone becoming serious, all traces of his earlier teasing gone. "As I told you before, multiple times now, I was sent here by your future version. By you, from thousands of years in the future."
"Although I'm not very excited to do this task, it's inconvenient and complicated," he continued, meeting her eyes directly. "But as I said before, you need to do this. It's important. Your future self wouldn't have gone through the trouble of sending me back if it wasn't absolutely critical."
"So I'm thinking about leaving a clone of myself that will develop the rune with you," he explained. "Work together on the magic, study it, perfect it."
"What?" Hela's eyes narrowed dangerously, her voice cold. "You want me to work for you? Serve you like some subordinate? Delusional!"
Elric really felt a headache coming on, the familiar frustration building. This wasn't the first time he'd explained this situation to her, not even close. They'd had this conversation at least a dozen times over the past three years. But without doubt, without fail, every single time he brought it up, he received the same hostile answer. The same reflexive rejection.
"Hela, if you don't do this, if you refuse," Elric said, his face becoming serious, his voice becoming deep and ominous with genuine concern. "You know what will happen."
Looking at his grave expression, at the genuine worry in his eyes despite his usual casual demeanor, she found herself subconsciously asking, "What? What will happen to me?"
"I don't know," Elric admitted honestly, spreading his hands.
"You... I don't know?" Hela repeated, also subconsciously echoing his words, her brain not quite processing what he'd just said.
She suddenly woke up to the absurdity of what he'd just admitted. "You bastard!"
She directly materialized two black swords in her hands, the weapons of death forming from her divine power with barely a thought.
"Okay, okay!" Elric said while dodging her strikes, dancing backward smoothly to avoid the blades that whistled through the air where he'd been standing. "Although I don't know exactly what will happen, the specific details of the disaster, I don't think either of us wants to find out, right?"
"The future version of you wouldn't have sent me back thousands of years if it wasn't critically important," he continued, still evading her attacks with practiced ease. "She wouldn't have gone through that kind of effort, used that much power, if this wasn't necessary for your survival or development."
"Just do this as we discussed, work with my clone on the rune," he pleaded, trying to sound reasonable. "And then we can just leave each other alone afterward. You'll never have to see me again if you don't want to. We go our separate ways."
Swinging her sword was just for show anyway, Elric knew. A way to vent her frustration and annoyance rather than genuine intent to harm him. So after some time, after she'd worked off her anger and felt better, she stopped attacking and lowered her weapons.
"So you are leaving?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral, controlled, betraying nothing of what she might be feeling.
"Yeah," Elric nodded, confirming what they both knew. "But it's not like we won't meet again. This isn't goodbye forever."
"Like, in a thousand years, right?" Her voice was so small that Elric almost didn't hear it, barely a whisper carried on the hot wind of Muspelheim.
"I'm leaving a clone," Elric explained, pretending he hadn't caught the emotion in her tone. "And I don't think I'm genius enough to study rune magic so quickly on my own. It's complex, difficult, requires years of dedicated study."
"And also, my clone will not be as strong as my main body," he added, which was technically true in some ways. "So I'm relying on you to protect me while I study. Can you do that? Keep my clone safe?"
Hela didn't say anything more, didn't respond verbally. Just gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.
Elric directly transformed into his Galvanian form, his body shifting and changing into the crystalline.
After carefully feeling his body, checking the energy flows and making sure everything was stable and functioning properly, he directly created a clone with his chakra. The shadow clone technique activated, and an exact copy of his Galvanian form appeared beside him. And he also left a big chunk of Phoenix Force energy within the clone, far more than would normally be necessary for a simple shadow clone. Enough power to sustain it for centuries if needed.
As a self-proclaimed ordinary person, he naturally didn't have the confidence to study ancient Asgardian rune magic on his own without enhancement. So he'd directly transformed into his Galvanian form first, enhancing his processing power and analytical abilities to superhuman levels, and then created his clone.
But as he'd said before, claiming that his clone would be weaker than him and would need Hela's protection? That was somewhat true and somewhat false. A half-truth at best.
Mainly, even though the clone was technically weaker than his own body in terms of raw physical power and total energy reserves, it was definitely stronger than current Hela thanks to the massive amount of Phoenix Force energy he'd left it with. The cosmic power more than compensated for any reduction in strength from being a copy rather than the original. The clone could probably beat Hela in a straight fight if it came to that.
So why lie about it then? Why claim it was weak?
Mainly, it wasn't like he didn't trust Hela at all. No, who was he kidding—that was the exact reason. He didn't fully trust her yet, despite three years of traveling together.
After spending the past three years with her, living alongside her, fighting beside her, he knew her too well now. This woman was absolutely crazy. Her mood swings up and down were larger than the stock market while Trump was president in his previous life. Completely unpredictable and potentially dangerous. One moment she'd be laughing, the next she'd be trying to kill him over some perceived slight.
Anyway, he needed a strong enough force here that if there was an accident in the middle of the rune development, if something went catastrophically wrong, the clone could correct it accordingly. Could defend itself, could survive whatever Hela might do in a fit of rage, could complete the mission no matter what.
And also, after carefully studying the runes—if not for a full thousand years, then for at least hundreds of years of dedicated research—the knowledge would be invaluable. Worth more than almost anything else he could gain.
So he really didn't want to waste that effort, didn't want the clone to dissipate prematurely before the work was done. So he had to leave enough Phoenix Force energy that could last for at least a thousand years, sustaining the clone's existence until it could dissipate naturally in its own time, giving him all the accumulated memories and understanding of rune magic.
After carefully arranging everything, making sure the clone had clear instructions and sufficient power, checking everything twice to be certain, Elric directly left.
His form shimmered with Phoenix Force energy, orange flames wrapping around his body. And then he was gone.
[I am writing a new story, you guys can check it out it you are interested,"Traveling To Other world Started From Marvel With Shadow Monarc Powers".]