Bella now held a Divine Portfolio, but because she did not have a Divine Body, many special abilities were completely unavailable to her. Mages had a term for her current state: Demigod!
Some Demigods could kill gods as easily as slaughtering chickens, while others were pathetically weak. The gap within this rank was enormous.
Bella sent the Flying Dutchman away first. A mature ghost ship could already fight monsters by itself and repair its own damage, so she no longer needed to worry about it.
"Huff, huff... I'm exhausted!" Bella herself fled back to Kepler Station in a sorry state. Faced with Nick Fury's questioning gaze, she obviously was not going to tell him that she had killed Calypso.
Gloomy winds swept through that region, and the aura of the dead was far too dense. It might not dissipate for decades, perhaps even centuries.
Whether it was her Spirit Dance, O'Rin of the Water's Funeral Song, or even the Ghost Cannonballs fired by the ghost ship, all of them had turned that area into a Forbidden Zone for the Living. On top of that, a god had died there at the end. If an ordinary person entered and faced that overwhelming aura of the dead, five minutes would be enough to transform them into undead.
"What exactly happened? Is the enemy dead?" Namor had awakened as soon as he returned to the station and now asked anxiously.
The Atlanteans took a sea goddess far more seriously than surface dwellers did. They understood a sea goddess's temperament better and knew perfectly well that if you failed to kill the snake, it would come back to bite you.
Bella deliberately kept him hanging. "Hold on. Can't you see I just got back? Let me catch my breath! You people ran away that fast—is that how allies behave? And now you're questioning me?"
"My head hurts! Can't you see?"
"I might be poisoned! I'm dizzy!"
After stalling for more than ten minutes, Bella finally waved a hand. "You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? The battlefield was such a mess. All I saw was Namor cutting that woman's arm off."
You don't need to tell us that. We saw it too!
After the three discussed it for a while, they all concluded that Calypso had been badly injured. The Atlanteans were deeply worried. They believed that if the sea goddess recovered from her wounds in the near future, she would definitely retaliate, so they hurried back to the royal capital to prepare for war.
Bella had business of her own. She needed to hurry to Vanaheim and tie the Secrecy Portfolio to that realm so that she could eventually ascend within Asgard's system.
She brushed Nick Fury off with a few casual remarks, then used Teleportation to leave as well.
Nick Fury was unwilling to let the matter drop, but with both Namor and Bella leaving, he could not forcibly keep them there. The situation gave him the idea of forming a superpowered team under S.H.I.E.L.D.
***
Bella stayed in Vanaheim for two full months. Through an inexplicable intuition, she knew that the Secrecy Portfolio from that unknown pantheon had now been registered within the Asgardian system.
The matter of obtaining a Divine Body would have to be handled slowly. There was no point rushing it; more importantly, rushing would not help. She needed to plan carefully.
Once her condition stabilized, she returned to Earth. Without realizing it, she had been away from home for almost three months.
"Elsa, did you miss me? Come on, give me a kiss! Mm, Kitty Pryde, you've been a big help too. Come here and let your big sister hug you."
When Bella got home, she first picked up her precious daughter and kissed her twice. She looked around. Natasha Romanoff was unsurprisingly not home, and Samantha had gone to work as well. At the moment, her precious daughter was being watched by Kitty Pryde...
Kitty Pryde sat in a large stroller and occasionally reached out to push the smaller stroller beside her. Elsa was inside the little stroller, happily giggling away.
A three-year-old taking care of a one-year-old. Just saying it out loud sounded ridiculous!
Still, both children were highly intelligent. Kitty Pryde could express herself very clearly, and Elsa was clever as well and rarely cried or fussed. As a result, the adults... the adults had all gone off to handle their own business.
"Come on, come on. I'll watch TV with you!" Bella first lifted her daughter high into the air and played with her for a while, then rubbed Kitty Pryde's head to show her appreciation.
A three-year-old had already begun forming lasting memories. If Kitty Pryde looked back on this scene someday and said, "Are you people even human? I started helping you babysit when I was three!" how awkward would Bella feel? She had to treat her little sister better right now!
Electrical appliances were still somewhat dangerous for children. When Samantha left, she had given the two children toys but had not turned on the television.
With Bella present, there was no problem. She switched on the TV.
Elsa still had no real concept of television. She only knew to burrow into Bella's arms, rub her face against Bella's, and giggle. Kitty Pryde, on the other hand, knew what television was and, more importantly, knew it was a source of happiness. Her two big eyes sparkled as she waited for Bella to switch to her favorite cartoon channel.
Bella held one child in each arm and let both of them lean against her before picking up the remote and pressing buttons at random. Sports, finance, social news—she flipped past several channels one by one. When she reached CNN's news channel, she froze.
CNN was broadcasting a press conference live, and the central figure was Tony Stark.
Tony Stark looked rather bedraggled. His right arm was in a sling across his chest. He pulled out a hamburger and took a huge bite.
Then he simply sat down on the floor, leaving Obadiah Stane behind him so awkward that the man did not know what expression to make.
Tony Stark waved to the reporters. "Hey, why don't you all sit down? That way I can see you, and you can see me. Come on, everybody, loosen up a little. Sit down, sit down..."
Already? Isn't this happening way too early? This can't be the thing I know about, can it?
Bella was deeply shaken. She had thought she still had some time.
Kitty Pryde had been waiting for cartoons for more than a minute. When it became obvious that Bella had no intention of changing the channel, she tilted her head and studied her beautiful big sister. Memories of being bossed around by her sister in early childhood were still fresh, so she did not dare cry or make a fuss. She could only tug very lightly at Bella's sleeve, looking meek and exceedingly cautious.
Bella completely failed to notice her sister's tiny movements. She was utterly focused on Tony Stark's press conference.
"I woke up. I realized that what I can contribute to this world is about more than making things explode and killing people. Because of that, I am shutting down Stark Industries' weapons manufacturing division, effective immediately."
Tony Stark's voice was neither forceful nor impassioned; his tone was perfectly ordinary. Even so, the statement caused an uproar among the reporters. On the screen, Obadiah Stane visibly turned his back to the camera, and then the scene descended into chaos. Obadiah Stane rattled off a few bits of nonsense, and the press conference ended there.
Bella's hand holding the remote had gone a little stiff. Only when she looked down did she notice the two poor little things staring at her eagerly. She hurriedly apologized, switched the television to a cartoon channel, then walked aside and called 006.
The world was changing too quickly, so quickly that she almost felt as though she had fallen decades out of touch.
She said into the phone, "Mr. Trevelyan, have you seen the news? Send people out immediately. I want every piece of information about what happened before and after Tony Stark escaped. Everything."