Marvel: A Tale of Shadows

Ethan had clocked the pair following them a while ago. He held off on confronting them because there was no hostility in their eyes.

"Hey Ethan you know those two-" Felicia started asking while looking at a pair of glasses.

"I know, let's just find you an outfit." Ethan interrupted her.

After leaving the sight of the superpowered brawl they ended up walking and taking the subway until they reached a shopping mall. It was large and filled with various clothing departments. They were enjoying navigating and roaming aimlessly. But in the time that Ethan has been watching their tail he notices the woman would look curiously around at the clothes every once in a while.

"I think we should introduce ourselves. What do you think?" Felicia asked. As she led the way. Ethan obediently followed and grunted in response. Less than a minute later they disappeared from the mother & son duo's sight.

"Excuse me?" Frigga turned to her side in surprise to see the woman from the pair they were following before had somehow snuck up on them.

"Umm… how can I help you?" Frigga asked as she quickly glanced around when she felt a shiver up her spine she glanced behind herself to see that the guy had snuck up to the other side.

"I mean after following us for so long I figured we should ask you two that question." Felicia clarified as she looked closer at the pair.

Loki was stunned, he did not think it was possible to sneak up on gods like them. Especially since he is the god of mischief himself and his mother taught him most of what he knows. He had to up his game apparently.

Frigga's facial expression went through several motions before she settled on one. Amazed, "honestly I was hoping to talk to this one since he is an apostle of the Weaver." Frigga pointed at Ethan.

Ethan tilted his head and pointed at himself. "Me?" Frigga nodded.

Ethan looked at Felicia who shrugged, just as confused as he was.

"Who are you? And what is an apostle of the weaver?" Ethan asked.

Frigga tilted her head in confusion, "hmm… I am Frigga the Goddess of Marriage and a few other things. An apostle of the weaver is one of the hosts chosen by a child of the weaver to possess powers and abilities that connect them to the great web."

Ethan's expression changed as he nodded. "Okay makes sense." No it did not, but he would look into it later. "How long has it been since you have visited Earth?"

Frigga tilted her head in confusion, "how did you know?"

Ethan nodded at Felicia who only shook her head, "your outfit is straight out of the seventies." She then looked around, "luckily for you we happen to be clothes shopping. We will talk while we shop. I assume one of you knows how we pay for goods in the modern day at least?"

Loki raised a black card, "I have it covered."

Frigga frowned as she looked at Loki, "why do you not lend that to your brother?"

"Because he would lose it or make all my hard work to acquire the money for naught." Loki explained. Then proceeded to pocket the card.

Ethan just shook his head then pointed at the ceiling, "up one floor." He then started walking towards the stairs that were towards the center of the floor.

Felicia followed quickly after, "he means we are looking for the floor above."

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Ethan struggled through several hours of clothes shopping, while Loki was introduced to the pain of accompanying one's mother to do clothes shopping for the first time. While Felicia managed to pick up a few formal pantsuits and then went and got herself a few new outfits alongside Frigga.

Once they were done they were making their way toward Loki and Frigga's hotel. "So to sum it up, you can't talk about stuff related to the 'Weaver' without the 'Weaver' herself or an apostle of hers being present? Which is why you came looking for an apostle." Felicia summed up their conversation.

"Basically, but technically the 'Weaver' is never anywhere. Instead she uses vessels as a go between, is this the right place?" Frigga answered, corrected, and asked in a single sentence.

Loki nodded while frowning.

While they followed Frigga into the elevator they felt out of place in such a high end hotel. It wasn't every day where you walked into a hotel that had gold trimmings.

"Vessel?" Ethan asked as Loki pressed the penthouse button.

"Ahh… I feel like I should explain all of this about the gods, their apostles and a bunch of other stuff you are supposed to know. But when a god needs a vessel to appear in the world it means one of three things. The god is too powerful to exist on the normal plane or sometimes even the cosmic plane of existence, for example the Creator-of-all-things. Or it could be that the god is sealed away, trapped, or being contained in some way, like Mephisto. The final way is that the god exists or was born in a place beyond the normal or cosmic plane and can not exist in them, which in this case would be the Weaver." Frigga finished just as the door opened up. They quickly walked into the penthouse as they thought over Frigga's words.

"So…" Felicia seemed at a loss for words. "Forget it. I don't need to know this stuff and it is almost lunch time. So I am going to grab some tasty sandwiches from down the street. I assume you two don't have allergies so I will just grab you something." Then she pointed at Ethan. Then waved him off without even saying anything.

As Felicia walked out, Frigga nodded at Loki. "Go help her dear, I will have to explain other stuff before I get to the Weaver. Honestly we might not even get there today." Loki nodded in understanding. He was not in a rush.

As they left Frigga brought him to a table and then pulled over a notepad and a pen. "Oookay… So let us start off with the gods. There are several branches and even one place where the majority of them congregate called Omnipotence City. You don't want to go there ever, they are all stuck up pricks with sticks up their asses."

Ethan was stunned. He did not think a deity would talk like this. But apparently they did.

"Each branch is a religion you know, like the Greek pantheon. Of course most of these pantheons have up and left this world. In fact the only ones you will run into on Earth still are the Egyptian gods mainly because they are on the Cosmic level and bound to this world. Of course there are a few outcasts that are sealed away like Hercules, Ares, and a few others I honestly don't want to try and pronounce." She wrote gods then three lines branching off and wrote normal under one.

"The pantheons are mostly made up of normal gods. Then at the next level you have Cosmic gods, who can quite literally shape and morph this reality temporarily with their raw power. They have an agreement to not actively participate in reality, so instead they appoint apostles to do things." She wrote Cosmic under another of the lines.

"Honestly they mostly appoint apostles to either strengthen their own power or for entertainment. Being one of their apostles means torture and being treated like a plaything." Frigga sighed as she thought about the sad reality of most apostles she had met.

"The next level are the Dimensional gods," Frigga wrote Dimensional under the last line. "There is only one of these. Mostly because they exist between all existing, not yet existing, or already existing moments and realities."

"What?" Ethan was intelligent but he felt that the statement she just said needed clarification.

Frigga smiled, "so… in existence there are several realities or universes which compose existence or better known the multiverse. For instance in another universe you or I could not exist and those realities will be completely different. Those Dimensional gods live between those realities and can easily look into them. But because they exist between realities the rules of the universe don't allow them to exist in reality."

"So instead they use vessels tailor made for them since the dawn of time, and then they go appoint apostles."

Ethan nodded in understanding, "So then what type of gods are you and Loki?"

"We are Semi-Cosmic beings. We are normal gods who with enough training and effort are able to possess Cosmic powers for insistence there is Heimdall who can see anything in the universe as long as nothing is blocking him." Then Frigga started using her finger to draw golden figures in the air.

"Most Asgardians can use magic which is a cosmic power while also possessing the strength of a Normal God. Which puts us somewhere in between." Frigga explained.

"Huh?" Ethan nodded as he stared at the fading symbols. "Okay give me a second to process this." A few minutes passed in silence as Ethan stared off into space.

He then nodded, "So Zeus/Jupiter or Zeus and Jupiter?"

"Zeus/Jupiter, but the majority of them hate their roman names." Frigga clarified.

"Got it, so he exists and is a serial rapist?" Ethan asked.

Frigga hesitated before she nodded with a frown, "yeah a lot of those gods went around sticking it in any hole they saw they could fit in. Zeus more than most… and he's a total prick."

Ethan raised an eyebrow, "Grudge?"

Frigga nodded, "fortunately the majority of the Olympic gods have abandoned Earth since Earth's ideals and philosophy went against what the gods wanted."

Ethan frowned, "you mean freedom, equality, and rape being illegal?"

Frigga nodded while chuckling.

"Okay… I am ready, hit me with the next thing." Ethan leaned forward putting all his focus forward. Frigga nodded.

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A few hours later Ethan was being dragged out by Felicia since he was so exhausted from just listening. He listened for hours and even got through part of what she wanted to teach Loki.

To sum it up, gods are mean. Weaver is not that different but in this particular universe or reality she does not hold as much power. Something about this universe makes it so the borders of this reality can not be breached for too long. So they have less pull here then they do in other universes.

So it is a version mostly untouched by Dimensional beings. Making it also a good place to store knowledge and information. Which is how Frigga came to know about the Dimensional gods. Because they decided to store hidden knowledge and information in Asgard.

Now he had unwittingly become an apostle of one of those gods. Or more specifically the Weaver, fortunately he only had to worry about apostles of other dimensional gods but there are not many of those around. Or probably any at all.

Either way he now had a whole list of things to think about.

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By the time they got back to the apartment Ethan was already shaking off his drowsiness.

"So what are you getting out of this besides a headache?" Felicia asked as she tossed some leftovers into the microwave.

"I asked her to teach me the basics of all magic." Ethan explained. "They really are gods." He stated with a stunned expression.

"So how did you become an 'apostle of Weaver'?"

"Not knowingly, a spider bit me and now I started developing weird powers." Ethan stood up and walked over to his bedside drawer. Opening it up he took out the notepad he hid inside. Then walking back to Felicia he tossed the notepad to her.

Felicia raised an eyebrow as she looked at the list. "So that Spider-Man…"

"Yup… he is probably an apostle too. But I don't think we need to hit him with the blob of information that came with the title. We can save him from the pain." Ethan explained. "Besides, I doubt that kid is old enough to drive. Let alone old enough to worry about interdimensional gods."

Felicia nodded. "Welp… neither do I. So we work out tomorrow with Paine and Tuesday is my interview with one…" Felica seemed to check her phone for a moment, "Jean Gray, I swear I have heard that name before."

Ethan just chuckled and shook his head, "you really should pay more attention when Paine lectures on supers to be weary of. I am almost done with the telepathy blocker. It will be done by Monday."

"Hmm… Okay… It will be fashionable as well as functional right?" Felicia asked with a straight face.

Ethan chuckled again, "sure, I will make it into something you can clip to your ear, like an earring."