Chapter 331: Natasha's Resurrection, and a Problem With Your People
"Cloning can't possibly be that simple," Tony shot back, his expression darkening at Strange's dismissal.
Maybe Tony wasn't exactly fluent in the magical side of things — but when it came to science, everyone else in the room was working with garbage compared to him.
And it wasn't like Tony had never dealt with this universe's own Strange before, either. He'd never once heard that Strange mention magic capable of anything like this.
"Difficult? Sounds like you know absolutely nothing about our magic. Or Ethan's actual power level, for that matter," Strange replied coolly.
He didn't bother saying another word after that. He just stood back and watched Ethan get to work.
Truthfully, Strange wasn't particularly fond of this world's superheroes. For one thing, the Avengers struck him as arrogant — constantly assuming that if something didn't exist in their world, it couldn't exist anywhere.
By comparison, Strange found the crowd back in Hell's Kitchen genuinely refreshing — they never once questioned something new just because it was unfamiliar. Probably because they'd already seen so much of it.
For another thing, these particular Avengers were reckless to a fault — every one of them charging off to fight their own battles, running purely on gut instinct and good intentions.
Zero contingency planning whatsoever. Just look at their body count and it told you everything you needed to know.
Ethan, for his part, didn't bother arguing with any of them. Between his mastery of dark magic and the full Compendium of Harry Potter Magic sitting in his inventory, cloning a body wasn't exactly a difficult problem for him.
He drew in a slow breath, his focus locking entirely onto Natasha's soul.
He extended a finger, a faint shimmer of magic flickering at the tip.
At the lightest touch, a blinding streak of white light shot out like a falling star, tearing through the air, arrowing straight toward Natasha's soul.
The white light met her soul and instantly wrapped around it, engulfing it whole.
Inside the glow, Natasha's soul seemed to be drawn in by some overwhelming force, growing steadily fainter and less distinct. The Avengers held their breath, eyes fixed on the scene, not daring to blink.
Then, suddenly, faint pinpricks of starlight began blooming in the air around Ethan.
They glimmered like stars scattered across a night sky, carrying some deep, unknowable light.
Slowly, they drew together — first taking shape as a blurred human outline, then sharpening, lower body first, then the upper body, until finally Natasha's complete form materialized out of thin air, right in front of everyone.
The Avengers stood stunned, utterly floored by what they'd just witnessed. None of them could quite believe they'd just watched a soul get reborn with their own eyes.
"This... this actually worked!" someone muttered.
"My god!" others gasped, one after another.
But even with Natasha's body restored, she still lay motionless on the ground. The group rushed forward at once — Clint, without a second's hesitation, stripped off his own jacket and draped it over her.
Because, of course, Natasha's newly-materialized body had come back with absolutely nothing on.
Steve looked down at her, worry creasing his face, and turned to Ethan urgently. "What's happening here? Why isn't she waking up?"
Ethan had truly reached his limit with this group's endless questions. "Come on. Did you honestly think she'd just spring right back up and start doing jumping jacks the second she came back? The soul needs time to settle into the body. It needs a bit of time to recover, that's all."
"Get her somewhere to rest. She should wake up in a day or two." Ethan dropped himself onto a nearby couch, entirely unbothered.
At his answer, every Avenger in the room let out a collective sigh of relief.
Clint scooped Natasha up immediately and carried her off to rest in one of the rooms.
The rest of the Avengers turned toward Ethan, faces full of gratitude.
"Thank you. You saved our family."
Right on cue, a flood of System notifications started chiming in Ethan's head.
「Congratulations, Host! Steve Rogers has successfully added the Host as a friend!」
「Congratulations, Host! You've obtained Indomitable Will!」
「Congratulations, Host! Steve Rogers's Friendship Level has risen to ★2!」
「Congratulations, Host! Bruce Banner has successfully added the Host as a friend!」
「...」
「Congratulations, Host! Scott Lang has successfully added the Host as a friend!」
「Congratulations, Host! You've obtained: 1x Ant-Man Suit!」
「Congratulations, Host! Thor Odinson has successfully added the Host as a friend!」
「Congratulations, Host! You've obtained: Stormbreaker!」
「...」
Ethan looked over the dense wall of Friendship notifications with a faint smile. The Friendship Levels alone told him plenty about exactly how each of these Avengers had actually felt about Natasha.
First off — Clint had shot straight to max, becoming Family instantly.
Which prompted a quiet observation from Ethan: Guess Clint's wife really was the side piece, huh.
Next up, Banner and Thor had both jumped straight to four stars.
Ethan already knew Banner and Natasha had history together. Thor's high score made sense too — the man was just straightforwardly loyal, and Natasha had been a comrade he'd bled alongside through everything.
As for Tony and Steve — their Friendship Levels had only climbed to three stars.
Ethan shot Steve an unimpressed look, feeling a little offended on Natasha's behalf. This woman had treated all of them like family, had died for them — and Ethan was the one who'd just brought her back.
And Steve was only sitting at three stars? Made you wonder how much she'd actually meant to any of them.
But the most absurd part of all: one of the Avengers hadn't registered any Friendship gain toward Ethan whatsoever.
Right then, Strange leaned in close and murmured quietly in Ethan's ear. "That one over there — her temporal signature doesn't match the rest of this group. Something's off about her."
Ethan looked closer. It was Nebula.
If the System hadn't flagged it, Ethan might genuinely have forgotten Nebula was even standing there.
Not entirely his fault, either — Nebula had an absurdly low presence, or maybe she was deliberately suppressing it.
From the moment he'd arrived, Ethan had been consumed with the Soul Stone, then with reviving Natasha. He hadn't spared a single glance for anything else going on in the room.
If the System hadn't given him a headcount, he'd have completely forgotten she existed.
Honestly, even in the source material, Nebula had never exactly been a scene-stealer.
Nebula not registering any Friendship gain wasn't strange on its own — she'd never had much of a relationship with the Avengers to begin with, having originally been part of Thanos's own camp before switching sides late.
So Natasha's life or death genuinely meant nothing to her. They'd barely known each other.
But if Ethan was remembering the source material correctly, the Nebula standing here right now wasn't actually this universe's Nebula at all.
She was the 2014 version — planted here by Thanos as a mole.
This timeline's real Nebula had already been eliminated by the 2014 version of Thanos.
There was nothing Ethan could do about it now — it was already too late to intervene. And if his memory of the plot served him right, that meant the 2014 Thanos was already on his way here.
Which, as it happened, was part of exactly why Ethan had come here in person. He wasn't about to leave anything from his own universe in the hands of a group like this to safeguard.
With that thought settling in, Ethan turned to address the Avengers. "All right. Natasha's situation is handled. Now — why don't you tell me exactly what your plan actually is? We did bring our universe's Infinity Stones with us, after all. Time to get moving."
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