Chapter Summaries

Peter Parker balanced school and neighborhood patrols while researching improved web fluid with Malorne’s help. After he stopped criminals using Chitauri weapons, Ned discovered Peter was Spider-Man, and Peter admitted the truth.

• Peter researched web fluid at school, collected supplies from the Benevolence Society station, and told Malorne he wanted to join the Avengers.
• Malorne urged Peter to focus on school and keep his identity hidden, so Peter went on patrol and helped people around Queens.
• Peter stopped four masked criminals robbing an ATM, then disarmed their Chitauri weapon after Malorne warned him of its energy reaction.
• Malorne identified the weapons as stolen alien technology and told Peter to leave while he reported the incident to Mr. Stark.
• Peter returned home and found Ned in his room; Ned saw his suit and powers, and Peter admitted he was Spider-Man.

Malorne assigned Peter an Avengers-level assessment: investigate a weapons deal involving Chitauri-tech weapons without help from the Avengers. Peter recruited Ned as technical support and discovered the mission conflicted with Liz’s party, leaving Oaks embarrassed after Peter joked about his love life during the monitored livestream.

• Ned learned Peter was Spider-Man and met Malorne, promising to keep Peter’s identity secret.
• Malorne assigned Peter to investigate a suspected weapons deal and warned him to protect civilians; passing could earn him a place in the Avengers Alliance and a senior researcher position at Oak Environmental Technology Company.
• Peter agreed to let Ned provide technical support because Malorne would monitor the mission but would not supply additional intelligence.
• Peter decrypted the mission details and learned the weapons deal would take place in Queens on the night of Liz Toomes’s family party.
• Peter chose to miss Liz’s party to pursue the mission, then realized Oaks, T’Challa, and Princess Shuri could hear his joke about the president’s love life.

Oaks showed T'Challa and Shuri Spiderling's assessment to demonstrate the Benevolence Society's capabilities as Wakanda considered opening up and forming new partnerships. T'Challa proposed refugee aid and a technology partnership, backing his offers with generous funding and transport.

• Oaks explained that Peter Parker's assessment showed Wakanda how the Benevolence Society handled problems, while Shuri questioned him about its AI and magic.
• Shuri's team became interested in soul research after learning how Oaks had resurrected T'Challa.
• T'Challa described his plan to open Wakanda to the world while preserving its independence, and Oaks cautioned him against sharing too much too quickly.
• T'Challa asked the Benevolence Society to help Wakanda resettle incoming refugees, offering global transportation support in return.
• T'Challa proposed a joint laboratory between Oak Environmental Technology Company and Wakanda's Science Division, offering one billion dollars to start, and Oaks accepted.

Oaks and Malorne discovered that Vibranium could bond with magical plant cells to create a living body capable of wielding Nature Magic, and Malorne decided to make himself a Vibranium stag. As Oaks left to meet Nick Fury, Malorne asked Peter Parker for discreet help designing his new form.

• Peter Parker passed his Benevolence Society assessment after capturing Adrian Toomes and his gang without serious damage or innocent casualties, then joined Avalon as an Avenger and senior researcher.
• Oaks showed Malorne a supply of Vibranium and proposed using it to give him a permanent, freely moving body.
• Malorne tested Vibranium fused with magical plant-cell nanomaterials and confirmed the resulting lifeform could carry a soul and transmit magical power.
• Malorne chose to keep his deer form and began designing a Vibranium Stag as a signal arrived from Nick Fury.
• Oaks left Avalon to meet Fury, while Malorne messaged Peter with odd design problems about an elephant in a refrigerator and a stainless-steel teddy bear.

Oaks met Nick Fury in Hawaii, where Fury asked him to help identify Skrulls living aboard a cloaked spaceship. Oaks offered to help them find a suitable uninhabited planet, while Fury revealed that he and an old friend were preparing S.W.O.R.D., whose true headquarters was aboard the Skrull ship.

• Oaks confronted Nick Fury for vacationing openly in Hawaii, and Fury praised the work Coulson had done rebuilding S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Benevolence Society.
• Fury asked Oaks about aliens, and Oaks described the Skrulls’ ability to imitate people and their DNA.
• Fury revealed that he had befriended Skrulls who came to Earth over twenty years earlier and asked whether Oaks could detect their disguises.
• Oaks said he could test whether he could identify them and offered to help build ecological domes for them on an uninhabited planet if they could live there and stayed away from Earth.
• Fury revealed that he and an old friend were preparing S.W.O.R.D. as an independent extraterrestrial intelligence agency, with its real headquarters aboard the Skrulls’ spaceship.

Oaks and Malorne investigated Australia’s Great Victoria Desert and discovered two Eternals living in an abandoned farm. They met Gilgamesh and Thena, whose past connection to Avalon surprised Oaks, and settled in to talk over food.

• Oaks and Malorne surveyed the desert while searching for traces of brief Cosmic Energy eruptions.
• Oaks and Malorne detected two Eternals and tracked them to a dilapidated shack.
• Gilgamesh answered Oaks’s call and recognized him as the Druid, then mistook Malorne for a gift of meat.
• Thena appeared, and Oaks recognized her as the Lady of the Lake who had given King Arthur the Sword of Kings.
• Gilgamesh welcomed Oaks and Malorne inside and offered them food, while Malorne explained that he did not eat grass or need to eat.

Oaks met the hidden Eternals Gilgamesh and Thena, learned they were waiting for Arishem’s orders, and asked them to spar. He and Gilgamesh began a fierce fight in the desert while Malorne faced Thena.

• Oaks shared a meal with Gilgamesh and Thena, discussed their secrecy and Arishem, and learned they had detected no Deviants.
• Gilgamesh and Thena explained that they avoided humanity and would not reveal the other Eternals, while Oaks decided it was better to leave them alone for now.
• Oaks invited Gilgamesh and Thena to spar, and Malorne volunteered to fight Thena.
• Oaks transformed into a Golden Giant Bear and traded powerful blows with Gilgamesh, then shifted into a Flame Leopard and shattered Gilgamesh’s energy gauntlets.
• Gilgamesh rose excitedly and agreed to keep fighting, while Oaks told him to attack without worrying about killing him unless he landed a single fatal blow.

Oaks fought Gilgamesh to study how he used Cosmic Energy, while Malorne sparred with Thena and discovered her unstable mind. After Malorne calmed Thena and Oaks gave her an Acorn Necklace, Malorne reported that the target had appeared in Louisiana, prompting Oaks to leave.

• Oaks matched Gilgamesh in a fierce battle while analyzing his use of Cosmic Energy.
• Thena and Malorne fought, and Malorne used his Vibranium body, phasing, flight, and Thunder Light against her weapons and arrow barrage.
• Malorne sensed Thena's chaotic mental state and used Nature Force to calm her.
• Oaks gave Thena an Acorn Necklace that stabilized her mind, and Gilgamesh thanked him for helping her.
• Malorne reported that the target had appeared in Louisiana, and Oaks opened a teleportation portal to leave.

Oaks met with Maria Rambeau, Monica Rambeau, and the Skrull impersonating Nick Fury to discuss S.W.O.R.D. and Earth's efforts to study extraterrestrial civilizations. He revealed that the Gaia Mirror could now identify Skrulls and other known alien visitors, then began briefing them on the Nine Realms.

• Monica questioned Nick Fury and Maria about S.W.O.R.D., Carol Danvers, and how they would handle extraterrestrial life.
• Oaks arrived riding Malorne, introduced Malorne's avatar, and greeted Maria, who explained S.W.O.R.D.'s plans to organize old records and build observation equipment.
• Oaks sensed that the Nick Fury before him was actually Talos, the Skrull leader, and identified him as a non-Earth life-form.
• Oaks explained that the Gaia Mirror could mark Skrulls and other recognized alien visitors within its range, though it struggled to identify Eternals without strong Cosmic Energy.
• Oaks began sharing information about extraterrestrial civilizations, starting with the Nine Realms.

After Strange discovered Kaecilius’s plan to bring Dormammu’s Dark Dimension to Earth, he fought the traitor and learned the truth about Ancient One’s longevity. Kaecilius regrouped with his Dark Disciples and attacked the New York Sanctum, where Strange’s attempt to contain them in the Mirror Dimension made the battle more dangerous.

• Strange used the Eye of Agamotto and learned from Wong and Mordo that the Sanctums protected Earth from dimensional invasions.
• Kaecilius attacked the London Sanctum, and Strange battled him at the New York Sanctum before the Cloak of Levitation helped restrain him.
• Strange explained that Ancient One’s longevity came from a gift of Natural Magic, but Kaecilius remained convinced Dormammu could grant immortality to the world.
• Kaecilius’s disciple wounded Strange, who escaped to a hospital with the Cloak’s help, received treatment from Christine, and then returned to the New York Sanctum.
• Ancient One and Mordo arrived, and Strange told them Kaecilius could manipulate physical space outside the Mirror Dimension; Ancient One then returned to organize the mages.
• Kaecilius and the Dark Disciples regrouped with greater power and attacked the New York Sanctum, while Strange drew them into the Mirror Dimension and began a fierce battle.

The Ancient One fought Kaecilius in the Mirror Dimension, then gave her life to make Strange her successor. As Dormammu’s power invaded through the fallen Hong Kong Sanctum, Mordo went to join Strange while Oaks assured him that the Sorcerer Supreme had foreseen their victory.

• The Ancient One confronted Kaecilius, drawing on Avalon’s Nature Force as he wielded Dark Magic from Dormammu.
• Kaecilius fatally wounded The Ancient One after she deliberately dropped her magical defenses and stopped the Nature Force from healing her.
• The Ancient One froze time in her and Strange’s soul forms, explained her foresight, and taught him that he was not important before dying in the hospital.
• Mordo reached Oaks, who told him The Ancient One had died and that Dormammu’s power had overwhelmed the Hong Kong Sanctum.
• Mordo chose to fight and opened a Portal to join Strange, while Oaks said The Ancient One had foreseen their victory.

Oaks visited The Ancient One’s soul after her death and discussed Strange’s defeat of Dormammu, Earth’s growing threats, and his preparations for the future. The Ancient One gave Oaks a way to counter the Darkhold by explaining the Multiverse and the Book of the Vishanti, then joined him for tea.

• Oaks found The Ancient One’s soul bound to her body by his Nature Rune and learned that Strange had trapped Dormammu in a time loop to negotiate with him.
• Oaks urged The Ancient One to recover at his Life Sanctuary, but she accepted her death and named Strange the new Sorcerer Supreme.
• Oaks told The Ancient One about threats including the Celestials, the Darkhold, and Ragnarok, and warned that Odin and The Ancient One’s departures would leave Earth vulnerable.
• The Ancient One revealed the Book of the Vishanti as a counter to the Darkhold and explained that it existed across most parallel universes in the Multiverse.
• After time returned to normal, Oaks opened a Portal and invited The Ancient One to talk over tea.

Oaks learned from the resurrected Ancient One that the Darkhold was only a copy and that the Book of the Vishanti might help protect Wanda from becoming the Scarlet Witch. Since the Book existed in the past and obtaining it seemed to require the Time Stone, Oaks revealed he had another possible way to travel through time.

• Ancient One explained that the Darkhold was a copy of spells translated from the walls of Darkhold Fortress, and that only the Book of the Vishanti could destroy it completely.
• Oaks realized the original Darkhold might still awaken Wanda as the Scarlet Witch despite the copy being sealed, while Ancient One warned that Chaos Magic could complicate destroying the original.
• Oaks proposed that the Book of the Vishanti might erase the Scarlet Witch imprint in Wanda, and Ancient One revealed that the book was in the Lost Library of Cagliostro in the past.
• Ancient One said reaching the library would require the Time Stone, but Oaks refused to involve Strange and explained that the Stone could not be used casually.
• Oaks told Ancient One that experts were studying another method of time travel and left to ask about their progress.

Oaks asked Dr. Pym to develop a way to use the Quantum Realm’s shifting time flow for precise time travel so they could retrieve the Book of the Vishanti. Pym agreed to study the Quantum Realm’s temporal laws while Oaks contacted Tony about joining the project.

• Oaks visited Dr. Pym at Oak Environmental Technology Company, where the Pym family was researching the Quantum Realm and a biological Quantum Computer.
• Dr. Pym explained that time in the Quantum Realm could move quickly, slowly, or in sync with the outside world.
• Oaks proposed controlling the Quantum Realm’s time flow to travel between specific points and explained that Earth needed the Book of the Vishanti to defend against threats from other dimensions.
• Dr. Pym agreed that time travel might work, but warned that creating a parallel timeline had to be avoided and that locating a point in time would be extremely difficult.
• Oaks persuaded Pym to focus on mapping the Quantum Realm’s temporal laws while others worked on time-travel theory, then called Tony to invite him to join the project.

Oaks persuaded Tony to model a way to navigate time without creating branching timelines, and Tony began designing a space-time travel navigator. As Oaks prepared to search the Lost Library of Cagliostro for magical knowledge that could let him safely adapt Mystic Arts spells to his own power, Ancient One began to fear that something bad was coming.

• Oaks showed Tony a Möbius Strip model for combining forward and reverse movement through time, and Tony used Jarvis to successfully model a closed-loop time tunnel.
• Tony set out to build a space-time travel navigator, though Oaks reminded him that Dr. Pym’s experimental data was not ready.
• Oaks sent Ancient One’s body, disguised by the Cradle of Life, to a hospital morgue and began studying Mystic Arts incantations with her.
• Oaks reasoned that knowledge from the Lost Library of Cagliostro might teach him how to alter mystic incantations to draw on his own magic, nature, and astral power.
• Ancient One taught Oaks while sensing that something bad might soon happen.

Oaks tested Tony and Dr. Pym’s time-travel device, retrieving an ornament and recording the 1949 Founding Ceremony before Tony volunteered for the final test. Tony traveled to Long Island on his own birthday, leaving Oaks and Dr. Pym waiting for his return.

• Oaks traveled three days into the past to his office, retrieved a small ornament, and returned without any apparent harm.
• Oaks noted that passing through the Quantum Realm seemed to make his Transfiguration Magic slightly smoother.
• Oaks traveled to Beijing on October 1, 1949, and recorded the Founding Ceremony with Tony’s miniature aerial filming system.
• Oaks returned with the footage and uploaded it to Malorne’s Server after he, Tony, and Dr. Pym watched it.
• Tony volunteered for the final experiment, set the destination to May 29, 1970, in Long Island, and vanished into the past.

Oaks traveled to the ancient Lost Library of Cagliostro to find knowledge about safely changing mystical spell incantations and the Book of the Vishanti. Librarian Oben welcomed him and led him into the vast library, where Oaks began searching for the incantation knowledge first.

• Oaks traveled through time to a primordial jungle and changed into his newly forged Nature Heart Battle Robe.
• Oaks reached a rune-trapped ancient city, triggered its magical defenses with vines, and fell safely into the passage below.
• Oaks met Oben, the library’s sole librarian, and explained that he sought knowledge about altering mystical incantations and the Book of the Vishanti.
• Oben confirmed that the library contained the knowledge Oaks needed and that the Book of the Vishanti was there, though finding it would depend on luck.
• Oben brought Oaks into the immense library, and Oaks began searching for knowledge about incantations.

After a year of studying Cagliostro’s books, Oaks adapted Mystic Arts spells to Nature Force and Astral Force and gained new control over the Mirror Dimension. He then used the Darkhold’s lingering influence to locate the hidden Book of the Vishanti and pulled it through a Portal.

• Oaks studied Cagliostro’s books and concluded that Mystic Arts spells drew on personal, Cosmic, or dimensional energy.
• Oaks created Nature Force and Astral Force versions of the Rings of Ragadorr and opened Portals without a Sling Ring.
• Oaks entered the Mirror Dimension and reshaped its landscape, though sustaining his magic required considerable power.
• Oaks returned to the library and searched unsuccessfully for the Book of the Vishanti using spiritual and magical methods.
• Oaks activated the Darkhold’s lingering influence, sensed the Book of the Vishanti, and pulled its golden-covered form through a Portal.

Oaks returned from the lost library with the Book of the Vishanti after spending a year there, while only a minute passed in the present. At the Avengers base, he told Agatha he had come to stop something harmful before it began, and she revealed that she had discovered Wanda’s true identity.

• Oaks thanked Master Oben for his guidance and learned that Oben had dreamed of a half-souled Mage Armani seeking a way to break an Absolute Time Point with Black Magic.
• Oaks told Oben that the Book of the Vishanti had removed the last trace of Darkhold power from him and promised to return it without altering the timeline.
• Oaks emerged from the Quantum Channel after one minute in real time, carrying the Book of the Vishanti, which Tony and Dr. Pym could not see clearly.
• Odin sensed the Book’s appearance, noted that the Sorcerer Supreme had fallen, and wondered whether Oaks could use the artifact against an approaching threat.
• Oaks went to the Avengers base and found Wanda and Agatha waiting for him; Agatha confirmed that she had discovered Wanda’s true identity.

Oaks revealed that Wanda was the Scarlet Witch and used the Book of the Vishanti to draw the dangerous Scarlet Witch Personality out of her while preserving her Chaos Magic. Just as Oaks prepared to destroy the manifestation, Agatha turned against him under Mephisto's influence.

• Agatha identified Wanda as the Scarlet Witch, and Oaks explained that her Chaos Magic could release Chthon through the Darkhold.
• Oaks brought out the Book of the Vishanti and told Wanda its power could remove the Scarlet Witch mark from her soul.
• During the ritual, Wanda remembered that the Mind Stone had awakened a presence already hidden within her.
• Oaks and Agatha helped the ritual draw the Scarlet Witch Personality out of Wanda as a red magical figure.
• Agatha contained the figure while Oaks prepared to destroy it, but a dark blast interrupted him and weakened the Book of the Vishanti.
• Oaks saw Agatha's blackened fingers and recognized Mephisto's aura coming from her.