Jason Fuller & The Elementals: The Stones Of Olympus

by jmawesome

This story is about the adventures of a young mutant named Jason Fuller and his friends as they embark on a journey to save the world from Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil. Lives will be changed, destinies will be fought, ancient magic will resurface, and for Jason, a question that has plagued him since his parents death, about what it truly means to be a hero, will be answered.

21. Chapter 21: We Fight Our Demons

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Chapter 21: We Fight Our Demons

Getting a full on assault ready for attacking the Nethertrench took a little over an hour to complete. The hardest part was reigning in the resurrected Atlanteans. Sure, they were happy to be alive and powered up, but there was a sense of confusion that they were telepathically giving off. It was like their brains weren't all there. Hell, Namor basically had to come in and balance their brainwaves (literally millions of people).

"Jason," he thought to me. "I need your assistance."

"What's up?" I thought back to him as I swam over.

"The telepathic wave, it is too small. I cannot address all of these citizens."

"You need the stone back?"

"No. It has chosen you, nothing will change that. Nevertheless, we exchanged experiences when we took part in the joining ritual. It will take a bit of practice, but through my memories, you have a good foundation for using mass telepathy. Just focus on the frequencies I am sending out, and replicate them. We have to get the resurrected Atlanteans under control; their endorphin levels need to be regulated, and we must ease them through the shock of being resurrected."

"That sounds a lot like doctor stuff, and I don't think i'm qualified for that."

"Trust me, it is easier than it sounds. Are you ready?"

"No, but let's do it anyway."

I opened my mind to Namor's telepathic wave, and studied its particular pattern. Unlike telepathic conversations, this was just a repeat of a kinda high pitched "vuv vuv" sound rattling around in my brain. Speaking of which, Namor was right, this was actually a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be. All I had to do was remember the exact repetition of the broadcast, and make my brain send out the same signals. Again, I love having a 100% use of my brain capacity. I took what Namor gave me, and ran with it, effortlessly broadcasting the signal across the entire nation. As the signal washed over the people of Atlantis like a wave, I felt their brain patterns gradually decline down to normal; almost like putting a cup over a candle and watching the flame slowly fade out. There was a kind of blip that went off when an Atlantean was brought down from their high, as well as an automatic signal broadcasting from them. By the time I was done, literally billions (roughly 1.3 to narrow it down) telepathic waves were bouncing off of each other, enhancing the mental reverberation to make a broadcasting system around the entire kingdom.

"I will take it from here," Namor said.

So much for a thank you.

"ATLANTEANS!" he mentally roared to get their attention. "Your king, Namor The First, Lord Emperor of the Deep, the Avenging Son, and Supreme Commander of the undersea legions, call you to arms! The witch, Llyra, has bonded with the Nethertrench, and has created an anchor that will plague our waters with its vile stench. She presumes us weak, broken, and defeated. She is wrong! Father Poseidon has proven that he is with us this day! He has blessed us with victory against Attuma, thanks in no small part to our new surface allies! He has reimbursed our ranks, and gave us the power to defeat those who would see us brought to ruin! I ask you once again, my brothers and sisters, stand with me, and let us purge the abomination of the Nethertrench from our waters. Let us lift our weapons to the black witch, and show her that we are not frightened children waiting for death! Let us prove ourselves worthy of Poseidon's strength, by sending her into the pit where she belongs! ATLANTIS, DO YOU STAND WITH YOUR KING?!"

How funny would it be if they just said no? Like, that would be the best thing ever! Actually no, that would suck. It would be funny for the moment, but in the long run, that would blow chunks. Anyway, the Atlanteans gave a war cry for the ages, and the water absolutely illuminated with their glowing tattoos. I'll hand it to Namor, he knew how to give one hell of a speech.

After the mini pep rally, we seriously went to work. There wasn't much for me, Grant, or Allyson to do, except go over what the overall plan was. For the most part, Atlantis was a well oiled machine. Namor telepathically brought his people up to speed on what we planned while in Poseidon's Court, and added more layers to the plan, like positioning, and attack patterns. He sent all of the resurrected Atlanteans to various armories across the kingdom, and had them gear up with golden Tron-like armor (which was also kinda standard issue), a trident, sword, shield, and even laser cannons. While that was going on, Namor sent his cousin to activate the Atlantean warships, and oh my good God, they were badass! For those of you that actually remember the movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire (great movie), this would definitely be right up your alley. Literally thousands of warships, about twice the size of average battleships, all made of gold, powered by Sea Force, in the various shapes of sea animals (Great Whites, hammerheads, whales, stingrays, etc.), rose from the city. I mean that as literally as you can take it. Spread out over the entire kingdom were giant buildings patterned after the various sea animals mentioned. I thought they were just there for show, but apparently they were warships in plain sight just waiting to be activated (why didn't they just use them in the main battle?). I did notice that in a crater that was left in the departure of one of the whale warships, was a motherboard looking pad, constantly channeling Sea Force. I'm guessing these ships had a short battery life. While the ships were floating higher and higher, getting into battle formations, Namor started opening dimensions. Yeah, apparently there were multiple dimensions Namor could open up with his trident, where Atlanteans stored and bred sea animals for war, food, and pets. As of now, due to the previous battle, we were lacking in sea animal power.

Namor opened up the dimension to the normal sea animals first, via a Sea Force portal that formed a mile out from the city wall. Out of the portal came a slew of giant stingrays, all kinds of sharks, piranhas, swordfish, crustaceans, etc. On a side note, the Atlanteans must've been feeding these things absurd amounts of Sea Force, cuz almost all these sea animals were building sized! That put me on edge just a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I was pretty sure I could control as many sea creatures as needed (emphasis on pretty sure), but I was also pretty sure this would cause me to have a delayed aneurysm. Lucky for me, Atlantis had that covered. All over the city, there were spires, domes, temples, even statues that enhanced a person's telepathic range and strength. Granted, these points were used to issue notifications to the nation, or for worship purposes, since not a lot of Atlanteans had the telepathic strength to actually control sea life. Post me and Namor's bro fight tho, after every dead or alive Atlantean got struck with Sea Force from the feedback that resulted from us grabbing the stone at the same time (yeah, that's how this all happened), they all got a major strength surge in their telepathy. I helped corral the thousands upon thousands of sea creatures, until enough Atlanteans were at the enhancement points to take it from there. While the animals were just kinda swimming about, the elders, mages, and basically everyone now, were focusing on building and maintaining a Sea Force Barrier around them. Oh yeah, that reminds me. Just like with the telepathic enhancers, there were a bunch of temples, domes, statues, and spires spread out though the kingdom that enhanced the ability to conjure and wield Sea Force. These points were usually used for spiritual and training purposes, but could be retrofitted for artillery (the spires in particular could transform into a giant version of those badass turrets from the wall). With more Atlanteans actually attuned to wielding Sea Force (every Atlantean trained for it, but rarely did any have the ability to actually tap into it), these points of access could finally be used in full. I took a while to get the animals powered up and put into battle positions, but they were cake compared to the sea monsters. Oh yeah, after we got the animals in place, Namor opened the Kraken dimension, and the whole process started all over again.

First off, there were way more sea monsters, as well as variations of sea monsters that I had seen, out there. For starters, I couldn't count the many different types of Sea Dragons, based on looks alone. There were plenty of Roman Sea Dragons (the blue/green glow in the dark ones), but the variety was endless. Most of them were light blue in color, but came in all assortments of sizes. There were some that looked like Chinese Dragons, with varying degrees of spikes, fins, and leg length. Others literally looked like Imoogis pulled out of Dragon Wars (love that film), given a dark shade of blue, with glowing red eyes, layers of fangs going as far a the sides of their jaws, and bone spikes jutting out of their backs. Other dragons looked like giant eels with elaborate green scale patterns. Some looked more reptilian with smaller arms attached to their wings. Hell, some of em' had three heads, tails, and arms big enough to smash school busses. There are way too many other variations to describe, but let's just say there were a good amount that looked like they were plucked outta World of Warcraft, Skyrim, and Bakugan respectively. You haven't known true terror/fanboyism when a Helix Dragonoid look alike comes roaring out of an interdimensional portal.

Finally, the Leviathans came out looking mostly the same as far as size went; that unholy mix of a giant monster whale, and a Great White shark. Their differences came in their colors, which ranged from different shades of brown, green, and black. Also, some leviathans had teeth on the outside of their jaws, as well as having up to three pairs of eye (or sometimes none at all). The same could be said for the Sea Serpents, who came in the same colors, looking like skyscraper sized eels, with fins attached to their sides, and going down the back of their heads. Also, there was an outpouring of ichthyocacerberi. Oh, but get this, the ones with one head were just the babies! There were a good bit that had two heads (adolescence), and others with the full three heads (full maturity). They also got bigger with each head; the biggest probably the size of Central Park. Yes, THE WHOLE PARK! That was just the stuff I had already seen tho. Everything else was a whole new ballgame.

Starting off, in addition to summoning piranhaoids (hate those things), there also existed a race of octopus people (like Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean), called Cecaelias. Yeah, this is an actual thing. Octopus, Vilgax looking people actually exist. Lastly (for real this time), Namor summoned Krakens! Granted, they weren't what I wanted them to be (I really loved the 2010 Clash of the Titans Kraken), but I couldn't fault them for being puny. They were around 60 ft tall each, all either green, black, or blue. The looked like a mix of a serpent and a dragon. Basically, they all had dragon-like heads, with giant fins going down the back of their heads. They had glowing yellow eyes, a full mouth of fanged teeth, and four huge arms with four webbed fingers and talons. Also, they didn't have legs. Yeah, they were just a massive tail from the waist down. It took a bit longer for us to reign them in (sea monsters are not easily tamed), but between me, Namor, and the other contributing Atlanteans, we got them calmed down, pumped with Sea Force, and into attack positions around the warship fleet. With all the sea monsters and animals in position, the Atlanteans locked and loaded, and a solid attack plan in place (more on that later), all that was left was for me and my friends to get on board our respective warships with our partners, and a $#!+ ton of other Atlantean soldiers. Up until now, we were kinda just floating around in the same place, trying not to be in anybody's way. Now it was time to get this show on the road.

"Well, guys," Allyson said to me and Grant in super speed. "Be careful and stuff."

"Don't worry, Sunbird," I said. "We got this, same as always."

She chuckled, and reached out to touch me and Grant by our shoulders.

"Sorry, not sorry," she said. "God, it's us again. We quickly ask for your protection, and strength, as we fight for the future of the world against an Atlantean witch, and her army of darkness. Something I never thought i'd ever say. Please, if you could get us, and our new friends through this, without getting skewered, i'd really appreciate that. Thanks for all you've done, and all you will do. In the name of Jesus, Amen."

Grant and I said amen, we all group hugged, and then Grant said something stupid to break up the excess of sappiness.

"Maybe I should suck up to Gaea a little more," he said. "I mean, she's always in my head, so there's no need to pray to her."

"Oh, shut up, GT," Allyson said.

"He's not wrong," I chimed in. "I mean, i'd probably give my divine extended family a shout, if they weren't busy."

"Same bro," Grant kept it up, both of us having a bit of a laugh trolling Allyson. "Besides, if we're the descendants of pagan gods, does Christian God even care? Are we even still eligible for Heaven?"

"Oh we are. Trust me, I know firsthand we still are. Also, Valhalla too."

"Dude, i'd so pick Valhalla! That's straight up bad-"

Allyson turned her Sun Form into the golden fire version. She had a stern look on her face, and her arms were crossed. I could tell she knew we were joking, but this was her nice way of saying she was not amused.

"Huh," Grant said. "Suddenly I feel like being anywhere that's not right here. See you guys later."

He flew off towards the hammerhead shark warship, where he was stationed. Leaving me and Allyson alone.

"Yeaaaah," I started. "I think i'm gonna go too. Evil ain't gonna defeat itself. In all seriousness tho, be careful."

She turned off her flames, and gave me another quick hug.

"I'll punish you later," she said as she flew off to the whale warship.

"Good punish, or bad punish?" I asked her.

"Not sure yet."

Never have I been more afraid, and attracted to someone at the same time.

I activated my Thunder Form, and flew to my own assigned warship, a big Golden Great White Shark, because of course Namor would choose this one to ride in. The loading bay was basically just its stomach opening up, which thousands of Atlantean soldiers were also boarding. I was a bit hesitant at first. I mean I get the fact that war and comfort aren't exactly hand in hand, but I kinda had a bit of a pet peeve being mashed up against lots of people; it's why I avoid taking the subway when I can (at least during the day). Props to Atlantean tech and/or magic for preventing me from feeling uncomfortable. Inside, the space of the warship was big enough to pack two full sized football stadiums. Granted, it's not like all this space was unwarranted. Decking the walls were hundreds upon hundreds of missiles, all of which were engraved with Atlantean runes. There was a control panel at the head of the ship that stopped right before an honest to gods Sea Force furnace that could roast a statue. In the middle of that furnace was a spinning golden ball that was probably the power source of the ship (why put it in the front?). While the chambers holding the power was closed, I without a doubt knew this was a giant ass blaster waiting to go off. No time to survey the awesomeness though. The warship was apparently adaptive, because save one seat that popped up at the helm of the ship next to Namor, the ship created enough rows, 100 seats each to accommodate all the soldiers. Everyone quickly got buckled in, and after we got the all clear from the other warships, I worked my magic. I willed the water across the entire length of the nation, and swept up 3,206 miles, 2,000 warships, and 1,000 sea monsters in a massive tidal wave, on its way to wreck Llyra's new crash pad.

Llyra's Nethertrench stronghold was about 400 miles dead ahead of Atlantis, which we surfed in the span of like 20 minutes (cowabunga). As we raced towards the Nethertrench stronghold, I pumped the wave to the umpteenth degree with Sea Force, giving the already city destroying wave the power of several atomic bombs. As the Nethertrench got closer and closer, it was very clear that Llyra was expecting company. For starters, there was a certain point where I couldn't feel the ocean anymore. Oh, the water was still physically there, but it was corrupted with so much Nethertrench energy, I knew for a fact I couldn't manipulate it. Also, about 10 miles ahead of the stronghold, was a legion of sea demons so many, so large, so diverse in form, it was like we were about to slam into a wall of ink covered giants.

"MAGES!" I thought back to the elders still in the Atlantean power domes. "NOW!"

The wave our army was riding on suddenly quadrupled in its Sea Force charge, and I willed the wave to coast over and ahead of us. While the army was working on slowing its momentum, I willed the overcharged tidal wave to increase in speed (600 mph), and slam into the legion of Nethertrench monsters like a freight train!

Immediately, 3,000 miles wide, half a mile deep, Nethertrench monsters were cleansed like a stain off of my favorite jacket. Granted, there was a lot of Nethertrench to cut through. The fact that the wave basically just grazed it, was a testament to how much power the Nethertrench anchor was radiating. The monsters didn't waste a second, and came charging at us in retaliation. I didn't miss a beat either, and with the help of the mages, sent waves upon waves of Sea Force charged water at them. It wasn't exactly a good offensive start, but at least it was something to get us started.

"Legion!" Namor telepathically shouted. "Ready the artillery! Soldiers, prepare for combat! Hold strong, Atlantis, we will have victory this day!"

My ship (I wish it was mine) converted its structure, revealing fully functional rocket launchers coming out of its back, sides of its face, and even the eyeballs. The missiles on the walls tumbled around like they were on invisible conveyer belts, and were shot out ten at a time with a sound loud enough to burst ear drums. This was happening thousands of times over, releasing at least 20,000 Sea Force charged missiles at minimum. That was the boring part tho. The real fun happened once the missiles made contact with the Nethertrench matter. The initial explosion was strong enough to devastate half of the eastern seaboard; and that was without me enhancing the blastwaves. Yeah, as soon a the missile went boom, I willed the explosions to double up, creating a ripple effect. When all was said and done, after we blew every missile we had, we bought ourselves another half mile of Nethertrench decimation. With that, Namor ordered the ships to use the giant laser cannons (slow to shoot, but packed a punch), and rallied the troops.

"Remember, Atlanteans!" he thought to everyone. "The Nethertrench will try to fool you! It will whisper poison in your ears, and take the shape of your worst nightmares! Stay strong, fight hard! In the name of the seas, we will cast this abomination back to the aether! IMPERIUS REX!"

The collective roar of over 50 million Atlanteans filled every space of my head. The warships opened their bellies, releasing the soldiers (including Namor) to join up with outside forces, and meet the danger head on…...while I was stuck with bench warming duty.

Ok, maybe bench warming was a bit of an exaggeration, but it didn't change the fact that me, Allyson, Grant, Oroco, and Namorita, were still being held up in the back, while the rest of everyone else were getting into the thick of things. For Grant and Allyson, their roles were vastly different from mine. While I was using my waterbending/Sea Force manipulation to help out the battle effort, they were charging themselves up with their respective energies, essentially turning themselves into living missiles. Namor was doing the same, just in the heat of battle. I didn't agree with that on a tactical level, but I understood that a king had to inspire his people. What better way to do that than by slicing up multiversal demons like a badass? Speaking of which, the battle wasn't going half bad. Our attack plan consisted of three different strategies piling on top of each other. Namor, the Atlantean army, and the legion of sea animals and monsters, were fighting ferociously at the head of the battle, relying mostly on waterbending, and Sea Force blasts. The monsters and animals were allowed to go nuts, and straight up fly right into the bulk of the Nethertrench forces. They went wild, tearing up anything within reach. Biting, scratching, clawing, and if they could, breathing blue, red, or green fire around, like some weird paintball game gone wrong. Don't worry about them tho, they had more than enough Sea Force around them to last being in the thick of the battle. Besides, it's not like we were just gonna let the beasts just fight on until they ran outta juice. While the Atlanteans, the animals, and monsters were fighting up close, I was using my waterbending to pick up the heavy hitting of the fight in ways they couldn't. For starters, I created and maintained at least 3 million Sea Force charged mermaid warrior constructs, each about ten feet tall, which bolstered our ranks. In addition to the giant Sea Force cannons, I added on some extra artillery via Sea Force bolts, big enough to swallow city blocks, thundering into the Nethertrench army from above. While that was going on, with the help of the mages, I would throw in a Sea Force overcharged, 2012 (disaster film) level tsunami to crash into the fight like a cavalry force, revitalizing the army's strength, and earning us another half mile of territory.

For a good…...30-35 minutes, it was a rinse and repeat cycle. Namor and the infantry forces were fighting their hearts out, while I was using more and more water for Sea Force charged constructs, spiral blasts, crescent waves, etc., to provide more muscle to the effort. The cannons were also going off, which helped a little bit, but most of the pushing factor came from the 2012 wave me and the mages would send into the battle every ten minutes or so. Granted, the trench wasn't a pushover. There were more than a handful of times where it would change its form into an overwhelmingly large wave of darkness, and I had to struggle to just barely holding it back with a water wall big enough to make the Great Wall look like a table top play figure. We ended up losing a handful of our sea monsters because of those sudden rushes, but we kept inching forward. Over the course of 30-35 minutes, we closed the distance from ten, to four and half miles. After using the Poseidon stone for that long, even I was starting to feel something similar to fatigue. Don't get me wrong, I could keep this up all day, but the stone was straining in my chest. Guess these things weren't infinite in power. Still, at least I was keeping myself busy with making sure our forces didn't get swallowed by a multiversal ink bolt; Grant and Allyson were getting frustrated having to wait on the bench for so long. Believe me, our psychic link wouldn't let me hear the end of it. Still, we had a much bigger problem on our hands. Llyra's stronghold was getting dangerously close to the blowing up point. We weren't there yet, but I could feel the dark energy building more and more; whatever it is it was supposed to do, it was getting ready to do it any time now. In other words, no time left to inch our way forward little by little.

"Namor!" I thought to him.

"I know, Fuller!" he thought back to me. "We are running out of time! Are you ready?!"

"All day!"

I sent one last 2012 wave through the Nethertrench army, clearing up another half mile, and built another Sea Force charged water wall, while Namor ordered the army to fallback into more friendly territory. Like I said, we were slowly beating back the Nethertrench, and now six out of ten miles of water belonged to us. I projected a $#!+ ton of Sea Force around myself, turning myself into some sort of blue Super Saiyan, and after Namor gave the signal, I created the biggest Sea Force charged crescent wave I could, while exiting the ship and flying to him. I caught a flash of gold and green comets (almost literally) racing towards the Nethertrench just as fast as I was going, but I decided not to think anything else to Grant and Allyson. They already knew what to do, what was at stake, and I trusted them completely. I found Namor in the midst of the defensive retreat, and once getting close enough, wrapped him in a comet with me, and we raced into the darkness full throttle! We weren't abandoning the rest of our forces to die; far from it. The reason Namor ordered them back, was to extend the Nethertrench monsters further and further into pure/Sea Force charged water, making them weaker. Besides, I was still maintaining the mermaid warrior constructs, and added a few 60 ft tall War/Fall for Cybertron designed Trypticon, and Metroplex, constructs (f* #!*% love that game! Fall of Cybertron too!) to add to the muscle. I also threw in the Wild Force, Mighty Morphin', and Dino Thunder Megazords for good measure. Plus the 2012 waves were still gonna come in on schedule, and even with almost no time, the Atlanteans were pretty good with waterbending combat. All in all, they were in very good hands, and it was up to me, my team, and our partners to stop Llyra where it counted.

(Allyson's Perspective)

Hey guys and gals! Sunbird here, and thank God I finally got something to do! Seriously, how bored out of your mind do you have to be to where you actually WANT to fly straight into the heart of a monster army?! In hindsight though, I do get why I had to take a back seat for a while. The time I took to build up energy was crucial, because after Namor gave us the signal, it was pedal to the metal for me and Namorita. For starters, Namorita and I agreed that it was probably better for her to piggyback off of me for a while, until we reached our designated dark magic center thingy. Don't get me wrong, she had built up a sizeable amount of Sea Force around her, and could probably hold her own just fine, but I had built up enough light and heat around me to set half of my home state on fire. If I wasn't strictly keeping it contained around my immediate body, not to mention willing the flames not to burn Namorita and the ship…...well, what I just said would've happened. Talk about dodging a bullet! Anyway, as we flew out of the ship, I created a comet of flames around us, and shot straight into the far left side of the Nethertrench army.

Flying through a legion of evil incarnate monsters was surprisingly easier than you'd think. Well, that is if you had my specific power set. Sure, flying under these conditions was like trying to run on a windy day with a parachute attached to you, while hail the size of boulders slammed into you from all sides. Still, not a problem for me. My flames, accompanied by my flawless singing of Piano by Ariana Grande, was death on a stick to the Nethertrench. Sure, there was a bit of turbulence every now and then, due to a bigger than average monster getting in our way, but for the most part it was smooth sailing to the fortress for us girls. Speaking of which, even though I could barely see in front of me, what with the churning darkness around me and all, I always knew where I was going. Much like Delta Force's first mission to get the stone of Ares, the concentrated darkness deep in Llyra's stronghold was a beacon you couldn't miss even if you were blind and deaf. That being said, in less than a minute, I had muscled my way through the army, and flew straight through a Greek temple-like entrance into the palace.

I honestly don't know what I was expecting. A Disney princess style castle made of black marble? More of the same shifting and turning madness, with the interior shifting between being solid, gas, liquid, or other? Well, yeah…..that's right on the money. The inside of the palace was massive, like Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves big. No time to admire the scenery of massive corridors with elaborate columns, arches, ceilings, and living mosaics of monsters, demons, and such shifting on the walls. Nope, we had to keep moving as fast as possible. I poured on the speed of my comet, and hoped that I wouldn't face any real adversity of any kind, until we got to our destination. How nice would it be if I actually got my way for once?

Yeah, after taking multiple lefts and rights, cruising down corridors longer than football fields, and flying through an empty ballroom, a portrait room, fountain room, and sitting room, the palace finally thought to fight back against my intrusion. On a side note, why would demons need a ball room, fountain room, and sitting room? How did Llyra have time to conjure up a portrait room, which was filled to the inch with I assume was her family and/or allies? So many questions, no time at all to answer them. Anyway, after flying down another corridor, the walls started to melt, and out flew Dementors. Ok, confession time. Dementors freaked me the heck out when I first saw The Prisoner of Azkaban. For a whole year I slept with a nightlight, and was obsessed with eating chocolate. Ok, that last part was kinda a little Ally hidden agenda! Mom and Dad fell for it hook, line, and sinker! Anyway, it seemed like the Nethertrench was focusing on my fears specifically, because Namorita didn't even flinch at the sight of an army of soul stealing wraiths the size of flagpoles. Too bad for the trench, I got over my fear of dementors when I was nine. Still, there was no way me and Namorita could effectively combat attackers that big. It was time to get creative with some constructs.

I let loose a good 25% of the power I was saving up, and enveloped me and Namorita in the granddaddy of all monster trucks! This baby was big enough to mow down the Dementors like bowling pins! I tricked it out with spikes on the tires, longhorns on the roof, gatling guns on the hood, and a stockpile of missile constructs loaded in the trunk. Confession two, i'm probably the only girl in my hometown that had a love of monster trucks. I think it started when I was ten, after my school took us to a field trip to a monster truck show, and I had the time of my life watching them smash cars, and do cool tricks. After that, I remember asking for Barbies and the biggest RC monster truck toy my parents could get me for Christmas and birthdays, until I hit 7th grade. So yeah, it was guns, trucks, and Elvis Presley for a while; just like a good southern girl! Besides, if I used my Patronus, me and Namorita would be charging guns blazing into darkness in the form of a giant bunny, and that so not happening!

My construct mowed the Dementors down like grass, and I turned on the Gatling guns as more and more piled on. The light, fire, and lyrics to Rubberneckin' was like acid to them; this was almost too easy! After getting down the corridor, the palace interiors started shifting again. The walls melted together to make barriers, and the floors twisted and turned into a Labyrinth-like setup. From above, flying harpies, I think, were swooping down to attack my truck. From every opening the Labyrinth had, a huge hulking Minotaur, Hydra, centaur, insert other mythological monster, was closing in on me and Namorita. There were plenty of turns I could've made that would lead me away from crashing into walls, or colliding with monsters. If I played my cards right, drove around an area I didn't know, with no idea of how to get to my destination….yeah, screw that noise! Like I said, I could still sense where the dark magical epicenter was, and it wasn't over, under, or around, but dead ahead. I fueled more energy into the construct, changed the tune from Elvis, to Britney Spears, Toxic to be precise, and poured on the speed! Every monster in my way became roadkill, every wall that tried to twist, turn, and box me in, became rubble. It was honestly like nothing here could touch me. Too much positive energy for the haters to deal with. I'll admit, the feeling probably went to my head a little bit more than I should've let it. Maybe it was because I had hyped this mission up in my head so much, that it was gonna be the hardest thing ever, only to be pleasantly surprised when it really wasn't. Namorita was having none of it. Again, this was easy for me, but there was a bit of turbulence, and the occasional getting smacked around to deal with, which Namorita did not deal very well. Seriously, if this was a real truck, my dashboard would've been splintered with how hard she was holding it.

"HOW CAN YOU BE GLEEFUL IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES?!" she roared. "IF YOU STOP CONCENTRATING WE COULD DIE!"

"Chill, Namorita!" I broke off a part of my voice to talk back to her. "My happiness, confidence, and peace of mind is death to these monsters. Haters can't stop what they can't touch!"

"YOU SOUND LIKE A TACKY SLOGAN ON A T-SHIRT!"

"Thank you!"

I drove through a few more walls, blasted and/or rammed a whole lotta monsters outta my way, all while singing the first half of OMG by Usher. After another minute of demolition driving, Namorita and I had finally reached our destination. Well, kinda. Right below us, maybe 20 ft, maybe 2,000 ft, this place was way bigger on the inside than it should've been, was the swirling evil epicenter thingamajig that Namorita and I had to bust up. The way down was through a series of multiple stairwells, so long, so unstable, so constantly changing, shifting, and turning into death traps, they made the stairwells at Hogwarts look like escalators. Y'know, I could risk my life trying to navigate all that bullcrap, but screw that noise. I changed my monster truck into a huge drill construct, keeping the seats and a protective dome around me and Namorita. Again, it was just a matter of rinse and repeat as I tunneled through God knows how many layers of Nethertrench; managing to get to the bottom just as I finished my song. Once we hit the "bottom" I unleashed the power I had built up in the construct all over the place. I had already reimbursed the energy I expelled from my Sun Form, although I can't stress enough how much I missed the sun. This was the longest I had ever used my powers without being in contact with it. Don't get me wrong, I still had more fire inside to last at least a year and a half, but I never like to leave things to chance. Probably why all my school projects are in at least 3 days in advance. Anyway, we had reached the center of the darkness, and I wanted nothing more than to be any place else.

Again, I had no idea what I was expecting, nor was I sure if the reality was better or worse than what I hyped it up to be. Again, the only thing I was certain of, was the fact that there was a bottom, even though I could barely distinguish it from the vast whirlwind of darkness. Yeah, being inside this place, I felt more of a disconnect between reality than the Nethertrench usually gave me. Everything around me seemed like it was shifting in a mirage of chaos, my sense of self and area were all thrown out of whack. It was kinda like when you try to walk down a long hallway with your eyes closed; even though you know you have more than enough space to spare, you feel like you're gonna hit a wall after a few steps. I felt the coldness inside me again, and my Blazing Sun Form activated on its own again. Still, the growls, wails, and moans of the Nethertrench souls were reduced to a kind of occasional whisper in the wind, rather than a deafening roar. Must've been one of those eye of the storm scenarios. Another bit of good news, my song charged construct explosion sent a ripple of positive energy through the area, reducing the initial effect it had on my…phantom sensory I guess? The effects of the wave didn't last very long, as the coldness started to envelope around my heart again, so it's not like I could keep the flame throwers going indefinitely. Still, that posed an important question. If I couldn't burn this thing out with a charge from a Top 40's song, how were we gonna stop this thing?

"What now, Namorita?" I asked her.

"We wait." she responded.

"What?! Why?! We're supposed to be attacking this….thing! You want us to just sit on our hands and do nothing?!"

"This thing is a person, Sunbird. When Llyra constructed this palace, she used a soul to create this, and probably the two other focal points that drive the spell she's maintaining."

"Still not seeing the bigger picture here."

"Your solar energy, as well as my Sea Force, are agitating this force. That wave of fire, along with that insipid song, most definitely will bring it out of hiding."

"Then what?"

"We subdue the soul, corrupt both it and this energy basin with positive energy, and get the hell out of here before this place explodes."

"I like that plan. It so totally won't be that easy, but good first draft. So, I guess…."

The….let's call it the darkness bubble, started to rumble, as if it were a bear waking up. The whispering growls, moans, and wails, were starting to pick up in volume, but I noticed other voices in the mix. They sounded like deep and reptilian; what I imagined demons actually sounded like.

"Useless," they murmured in my ear. "Whore. Slut. Hypocrite. Disobedient. Murderer."

I didn't know if Namorita was hearing the same things, but it looked like they were bothering her just as much as me. Granted, the voices wouldn't be plaguing me for long. Just like back with my first mission, I started humming a song in my head, and the voices weren't even a factor anymore. I extended the same protection to Namorita, who looked like she was gonna blow a gasket.

"Thank you," she said to me. "Looks like this thing is starting to wake up."

Boy howdy was she right on the money! All around us, the darkness started to shift and take form. Immediately around us was a ring of children who couldn't be any older than 12.. Overall, there were about 50-60 of them, and the number of human constructs kept rising well into over 300 people. They all varied from early teens, to probably late 40's; some even older. These people meant nothing to me, other than a really extensive conversation with a therapist sooner or later, but Namor did say that the trench would take the shape of our nightmares. I got the dementors, which weren't all that scary, so 20 bucks and a brand new car says this was all for Namorita. I defensively summoned my Sun Swords to my hand, and saw the familiar burst of blue flame. Yeah, remember that holy waters of Eden spell Dr. Strange had put on us when we were fighting in Zombieland? Apparently, the spell didn't wear off my weapons. When I was fighting with these Nethertrench things off after Namorita and I took the throne back from Llyra, even though I did pretty well for myself with my sun and song combo, my weapons were just as, if not more helpful in battle. This was because while it took a substantial size of power, as well as constant focus on fueling them with positive emotion, one slice and/or stab from any of my weapons, even my itty bitty throwing knives, one shot them entirely. Heck, just by holding these things I could sense the Eden water spell vibrating the immediate space around them, cutting the darkness down just by existing. If anything, the dark constructs got a bit apprehensive when the blades came out.

Huh. Probably should've let the guys in on that bit of info. …...Meh, they'll be fine.

Anyway, the darkness bubble seemed really intent on getting into Namorita's head, because instead of just having the constructs attack us all at once, the environment around us started to shift and take form. When it was all said and done, we were in some kinda suburban area replica, stretching out for a few good miles as far as I could see. Right in front of us, there was an elementary school, the basketball courts and playground and the forefront. All around us, the hundreds of people had been dispersed across the area, acting all casual and stuff. The children were silently playing in the schoolyard, adults and teens were either walking around, sitting on benches, or just standing without purpose. All of a sudden right in front of Namorita, a bus with a huge dent in its side materialized. There was a brief pause, swiftly interrupted by a humanoid construct flying out, and ramming straight into Namorita! She rolled with the momentum, recovered, and flew the thing into the damaged bus. It all happened so fast, I didn't even have a chance to intervene. Looking at what she rammed into, it was just some guy with long hair, either white, or Native American, but I still wasn't putting my finger on what was going on…..until I looked at the sign on the elementary school gates: Stanford Elementary.

"Oh no," I said aloud.

Namorita was paralyzed with fear and guilt; I could literally sense the guilt and despair gripping her like a vice. It didn't help that the construct, a.k.a. Nitro, started to laugh all dark and evil-like.

"Hey there, baby," he said. "Ready to play with the big boys again?!"

His eyes started glowing with black flame, and with a millisecond to spare, I put up a barrier around Namorita. It wasn't a well made barrier, and even under the best circumstances it would've cracked under a decent amount of pressure. Yeah, this was that X100. The explosion blew apart ten blocks of the neighborhood, hitting me so hard, I almost blacked out. I felt a huge rushing sensation over me, like a hurricane had just formed a few feet over me. Despite my head feeling like it got slammed through a lot of brick walls, I instinctively put up a barrier around myself, only to later realize that I was not the one who needed protection. Yeah, that huge wind I was feeling? That was the hundreds of dark people constructs, now just a mass of skeletons swarming the heck out of Namorita! From what I could see, her body shield was holding up pretty well, but she was an emotional mess! I was flooded with her debilitating pain, regret, self-loathing, and depression. She wasn't just hit really hard; the trench was stripping her of her will to fight! I gave myself a quick healing for my head, summoned my swords, and flew as fast as I could too help her.

As I flew, I willed a sun barrier to form around her, blasting the mob away in the process. They tried to pound their way through, like rabid zombies, but they were just running into their own destruction. After a few seconds of literally throwing themselves at the fire, the skeletons got the message, and turned their attention to me. Lemme tell ya'll something. It's so hard to think positive thoughts when you're at the wrong end of an army of darkness. Heck, when they all swarmed me, my inner three year old wanted to scream and hide under some covers! Granted, I put up a mini-sun around myself, so I kinda went above and beyond that sentiment. The skeletons pounded away relentlessly at it, and while they were burning, without my songs to influence positive energy, I was only cooking with half of my gas. As the skeletons bashed against my shield, their wails of anger flooded my head like a virus.

"Murderer!" they shouted. "She killed us, she burned us, she deserves death! Why do you shield her?! Why do you burn us too?! Why won't you help us find justice?! Let us in, let us take her!

It's not easy to drum up positivity in the midst of being bombarded by shadow skeletons who want revenge. Still. I found a way to brighten the place up. I focused on projecting happiness, peace of mind, confidence, and love of myself and others though another one of my favorite songs ever: Burn by Ellie Goulding. If I went into detail about how much I loved that song, how much it resonated and fit me, especially after I got my powers, we'd be here all day! Let's just say it was the perfect remedy for all the doom and gloom in the atmosphere. As I sung, I willed my mini-sun to shoot out solar waves every ten seconds, burning the skeleton army to cinders by the time I got to the second chorus.

"Namorita!" I thought to her while I was barbecuing. "Talk to me, girl! What's up?!"

The mental feedback I got was just loud and incoherent. The only thing I could pick up was the tidal wave of fear, self-loathing, depression, and regret. Yeah, the trench was really getting to her; no way was she getting through this without my help. After burning away the skeletons, I took in the energy of my mini-sun, and hightailed it over to my partner.

That was the plan at least.

Just as I was about to enter, I got slammed in my side with the force of a speeding truck. My Blazing Sun Form took the brunt of the damage. Heck, I didn't even get knocked off key of my song. What I was faced with after I recovered though….yeah, I was not feeling it.

Floating about 20 feet, in U formation around me, were dark constructs of Venom, Green Goblin after he got monstered up, Magneto, Dr. Doom, and my parents! I wish I was kidding about that last part, but no. The trench had somehow managed to perfectly capture my parents in darkness formation. My dad looked like a handsome doctor in his late 30's, with a well trimmed beard, and a side part hairstyle. Think Brad Pitt, but less pretty; slightly more rugged though. My mom? Well, just google Megyn Kelly, and you'd swear they were sisters. It wasn't even like she was the less pretty version, my mom straight up looked like Megyn Kelly with short curly hair stopping at her neck. My parents were wearing exactly what they were the night S.H.I.E.L.D. took me away. My dad had on camouflage themed boots, jeans, and a jacket; though I can count on one hand how many times he's ever been hunting. My mom was wearing a purposely tacky holiday sweater, and skinny jeans inside her boots. Before I could even go WTF in my head, the constructs attacked me all at once with a savage fury!

I dodged them by flying straight up when they got close. I created a mini-sun over my head, and brought the fireball down on them like a nuke. I figured that had to be the end of them. The fire was charged with positive emotion, so they had to be dust, right? Nope! A gooey tendril shot up, wrapped around my legs and slammed me into the ground three times, before tossing me into someone's yard like a newspaper. Before I could get up, I felt something hit me in my right side, sending me skidding across the floor again, followed by something big grabbing me by the abdomen with one hand, and uppercutting me so hard, it felt like my brain was rattling around in my head. Before something else could wreck me, I encased myself in a medieval knight armor construct, twisted in mid-air, and recovered in time to use the momentum to punch fake mom and dad in the faces. I blasted them away with two columns of flame, and while starting a new song, Outside by Ellie Goulding, tried my hand at taking down six living constructs who probably could've given Grant a run for his money.

I did pretty well for like the first 30 seconds. I willed my construct to be as durable as I could make it, while pumping a fair bit of Solar Steroids in my system to give an extra boost to my punches. Still, these constructs were fast, so 30 seconds felt more like half an hour. Again, I brought the pain pretty hard. Flying around as fast a I could, hitting anything in the face that wasn't glowing. Goblin ate it first. Then Venom, Magneto, Doom, then my parents again in that order. They each got more than a few good licks on me, occasionally managing to dogpile me to the ground, but I always managed to power out from under them via explosive wave, and took it from the top. I tried everything to take them down. From stabbing them with sword constructs, trapping them in a mini-sun, changing my armor construct to a giant dragon, and even trying to smash them with a crucifix construct. Facepalm as long as you need to. No matter how hard I fought, no matter how many constructs I smashed over their heads, not to mention burning through at least seven different Ellie Goulding songs in half a minute, these biscuit heads refused to go down. Then again, I didn't try bringing out my weapons for a second time, and a blade still enchanted with holy water seemed pretty good right about now. Of course, before I got a chance to test that theory, the darkness around me started to rumble like a pot about to boil over. I had half a second to get inside the sun barrier with Namorita, and bolster it with as much Sun Energy as I could before crap hit the fan. A wave of darkness clashed against my barrier like a giant spinning top; I just barely managed to keep it steady. By the time it was over, my predicament didn't get any better…...like at all…..it actually got worse to the nth degree. Now, on top of the constructs built custom for me, the skeletons were back, and attacking from all sides!

This time, and I know i'm not making this up, they were at least twice as strong as before. Each bang against my barrier was like a truck slamming into it; I had to refresh the thing with more power every half second, just to make sure Namorita and I stayed safe. Speaking of my blue friend, she was not doing so hot. Whatever the trench was doing to her emotionally, was starting to affect her physically. There was literally a black cancer-like infection inching up her body, swallowing her Sea Force body shield. Her emotional state was still a whirlpool of depression, confusion, and anger. Also, the further the infection creeped up her body, the stronger the skeletons seemed to get; like they fed off of her descent into oblivion. Granted, that gave me a bit more incentive to hurry up and try helping her, but it just seemed like all the problems ever were starting to pile up on top of me. The voices started to pile in my head again, calling me names, and trying to shatter my confidence. As someone who's almost done with high school, i've heard my fair share of insults, and just like Taylor Swift, I was a pro at shaking it off. I was humming that in my head. Wanted to make a clever segway into that, but it didn't work out. Anyway, insults like slut, whore, weak, bitch, etc., that didn't phase me at all. If I had a dollar for every time someone called me that, i'd be able to get my own car. Still, it wouldn't be the Nethertrench if it didn't find a weakness or two, and manage to squeeze.

"Why not just give up?" I heard fake Venom's voice in my head. "It's not like you've been useful up to this point. Your allies won't be that much worse off without you."

I almost laughed out loud. Considering the fact that Jason and Grant would've been killed by something or other, if not infighting, yeah, I was pretty useful. MVP in fact.

"Are you certain of that?" fake Goblin's voice rang in my head.

The shadows in front of me started to shift and change form. First, it formed into an image of the multiple times Jason beat me in practice sessions. Then him having to catch me back in the Amazon, after I felt the after effects of going Super Sunbird for the first time. I saw the shadows mock me for having to fight from a distance against the zombie army in Kansas, while Grant and Jason were in the thick of things for the majority. The shadows depicted me and the team scrambling to take Goblin down, me trying desperately to save the heroes and agents caught in the blastwave of Hades energy. I managed to save a lot of them, but one never forgets how someone screams when they're being eaten alive by death energy. They showed me getting knocked out by Magneto, Grant getting stabbed in the chest via Goblin's sword, and Jason lying on the ground, making those awful choking sounds as he was slowly dying after he beat Goblin singlehandedly. No, this wasn't right, this isn't how things happened. I saved him. I saved Grant. I saved as many people as I could. I fought as hard as I could against the bad guys.

"And it's never enough," fake Magneto's voice whispered in my head. "Perhaps you'll make a decent medic, but when it really counts, you've never been able to hold the line. How many of us have you actually defeated on your own? How many times have you needed to be rescued because of your inadequacy?"

"If you cannot defend yourself," fake Doom spoke up. "How can you hope to be any threat against me?"

Those ones cut me a little. Maybe it's because i'm a low key perfectionist, making me my own harshest critic, but I couldn't deny the truth in that last statement. From Venom to Goblin, and Magneto, I had never actually had that "hero" moment. The moment where I singlehandedly won the day. I'll admit, that was a chink in my armor, but not enough to throw me off. Sure, I may not have taken down Goblin or Magneto by myself, but I did the heavy lifting holding of Venom back on Delta Force's first mission. Most, if not all of our battle plans had a decent focus around my powers and abilities. I taught Grant and Jason how to fight….well, at least the basics. And again, if not for me, Grant and Jason would've gotten killed by monsters, or killed each other. Heck, throw that all out the window; it didn't matter. We are a team. When one of us wins, sure they may get top billing, but that also means the team wins. Whatever I can say about my two lumbering hypermasculine teammates, I could always count on them to have my back. The same could be said in reverse. When Jason's mom was being held hostage, not even God could save those bastards from my wrath if they so much as scratched her. When we took down the Serpent Society, the Doombots that ruined our night, the Nethertrench army, not to mention so many of the other nameless goons that we often had to wade through to get to the stones, that was all of us. I didn't have to be alone! I was never alone!

My barrier glowed brighter, and started heating up drastically. The waves resounding off of it pushed the shadow constructs back, making them wince in pain. I didn't realize it till after it was done, but I was humming Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson aloud, adding to the positive vibes I was already putting out. Nice try, Nethertrench, but you'll have to do a lot better than that to break Sunbird! Dear Jesus Christ, why did I think that?! The very next second, the darkness bubble, every last space of it, vibrated and shook, like every atom was experiencing an earthquake. Directly ahead of the barrier, about 30 ft away, a spire of darkness shot upwards, radiating waves upon waves of feedback, forcing me to double down on the effort of keeping the barrier up. This lasted for a good 10-15 seconds before the spire gave off one last wave, going for the long haul on that last one, and I was left with the pleasant image of Byrrah reborn!

Oh man! Seeing him again brought a whole cascade of conflicting emotions; the most important being damn, damn, damn it all to Hell!

Had to say, for being dead, the guy wasn't looking too bad. His head was back in one piece, so that was something. Also, unlike the constructs, he was in full color right down to his blue skin and red armor. His eyes were pure black, and the veins, which couldn't be any more visible, had so much Nether flowing through them, it was like bad syrup. The power radiating off of this guy was almost nauseating. It was like someone put me on a Tilt-A-Whirl, then forgot that I was supposed to get off at some point. Heck, just by him taking form, the darkness bubble had a bit of an awakening. Before now, the energy was mildly active, only spiking when constructs were forming. Now, the darkness was constantly rumbling, like dog on permanent attack mode. I figured the area was probably tied with Byrrah's emotional state, cuz when he locked onto my barrier, it was like a bull seeing red. The darkness around my barrier started to pick up in speed and intensity. More skeleton constructs started raining on me and Namorita like cats and dogs, which was directly tied to Namorita's ever growing darkness cancer over her body…...I swear I didn't forget, I was just trying to multitask. Anyway, Byrrah converted the surrounding darkness into a series of skeleton infested waves crashing into my barrier so hard, the reverb alone was rattling my insides. Yeah, there was no way this midget fort would protect me for much longer, it was downright puny. Instead, I decided to step it up by several hundred!

I upped the power of my barrier by at least a thousand, turning it into a mini-sun. I kept feeding the sun insane amounts of energy, making it strong enough to protect me and Namorita, while also countering Byrrah's waves of darkness with song charged golden flames. Just like with my first confrontation against the Nethertrench, the light and darkness clashed and mixed with each other in a beautiful and terrifying abstract cosmic painting. With the defensive offense squared away, I could finally make good on healing Namorita. I turned to her, held my hands over her head, and tried getting an accurate read on her emotional state. The good news was that by her getting worse, it was actually better for me to help her. Before, her anger, guilt, and depression were fluctuating to such a high degree, even I would've had trouble setting her straight again. Now, she was in the last, fatal stages of the darkness. Similar to someone who lost too much blood, there was nothing left for her to do but let the coldness overtake her. She was buckling hard under crushing guilt she felt for what happened in Stanford; for something she did, but also didn't do. I wouldn't find this out till later, but while Namorita did indeed die in Stanford, this Namorita was time displaced. Still the same person, just taken out of the past, and put in the present. The problem with this, was that her memories were adjusted to be in sync with what had gone on in her life, up until her death. By all accounts, this Namorita was still the same, just in a slightly younger body. This is exactly what Namor said the Nethertrench would do: pry the deepest fears and insecurities of someone, and use that against them. It tried to do that with me, but i've got significantly less baggage than Namorita. Even further, this wasn't just a matter of her being forgiven. Sure, forgiveness is key to moving on, but it wasn't like Namorita could resurrect the people that had died, and beg them for forgiveness. It's not like she could find all the broken families and relationships left in the wake of the disaster, but she at least had one. The truth was, my mother's sister, auntie Tamara, her husband Marcus, as well as my cousin Jessie, were in Stanford when that happened; barely a block away. I remember my mom's screams, her wails of grief, when she saw the news on TV. I remember coming to terms with the fact that Jessie wasn't gonna be coming over for Thanksgiving or Christmas again. I'd never hear uncle Marcus talk super fast in Spanish, he was Latino, making me giggle uncontrollably because I couldn't understand what he was saying. That hit me like a falling boulder to my stomach, and i'm ashamed to say that for a while, I actually had my own grudge against heroes for a while; that if I actually understood what was going on at the time, in my immediate grief, I would've supported Iron Man and the Superhuman Registration Act. Still, as time moved on, I forgave, and healed. It still hurt to think about the future memories me and my uncle-in-law, aunt, and cousin would've shared, that were ripped away from me. It hurt to think about so many people who were also suffering just as much, if not more, because of what happened in Stanford. Still, I healed, picked up the pieces, and moved forward. It may not have been much, but if Namorita was to forgive herself, it would probably help her along if she knew one of the victims of the incident she was involved in had forgiven her.

I focused all of the emotions I wanted to instill in her: forgiveness, comfort, assurance of a better tomorrow, courage, etc., and put them into one of my favorite Disney songs growing up; Aloha, E Komo Mai from Lilo & Stitch. This was another one of those songs that found me in the right time, and helped me get through really hard times. Over the years, if i've ever felt bummed, left out, forgotten, or like nobody was listening, this song would wash all that away in an instant. Dunno if it was strong enough to wash away a creeping cancer of darkness and despair, but it's not like OxiClean would've worked any better. As I sung over Namorita, Byrrah and his constructs did everything in their power to try and distract me. The villain constructs shouted more of the same at me, but I was so far in the zone, so over their crap, I could barely even hear them. My fake parents on the other hand…...well, let's just say the thought of stabbing Byrrah multiple times in the face was enough to keep me on track.

"We're so disappointed in you, Allyson!" fake dad shouted at me. "All we wanted was to raise you right! To love God, respect your parents, yourself, and others. To be the smart, beautiful, and outstanding woman we knew you'd be since the day you were born!"

Gotta admit, sure sounded and talked like dad. Dang thing even knew who I was.

"Yet what have you been doing?!" he continued. "Associating with these other, these false gods! Parading around like a love sick puppy who can't think for herself! Shacking up with thugs like some ten dollar whore! What happened to my little girl, what have you done with her, you heathenous, spineless, senseless, slut?! You are no daughter of mine!"

This got me more angry if anything else. Oh, there was some truth here and there; couldn't deny that. On one hand my parents would flip if they ever found out what happened, or what almost happened between me and Jason last night. On the other hand, my dad had never yelled at me for anything. He never had to. I'm not sure if he'd ever raise his voice at me, other than when he needed to get stern, but I know for a fact he wouldn't slut shame me. I knew that when I saw him again, he couldn't give two solitary screws about where i've been, or what I did, just that I was back in his arms. I already knew this, but this was not my father. My father loved me, and I would always be his daughter, no matter what. That was more than enough motivation to tune him out, and continue working on Namorita, who was starting to come around.

"Listen to your father, Allyson!" fake mom yelled at me, her voice reeking of desperation. "And for God's sake, stop trying to help that….that thing! Don't you remember what she and her D-List superhero friends did to us?! I lost my sister, my niece, because they wanted to be famous off of their stupid T.V. show! She's a murderer, a freak, an abomination…..just like you! Why did you have to be this way?! You could've put our family at risk, had an angry mob on our doorstep, all because you just couldn't be normal!

Yeah, excuse my language, but that was complete horseshit. Putting aside the fact that my mom loved me unconditionally the same as my father, she was my rock when my powers first developed. I was so scared, paralyzed even, that everyone was gonna treat me like a freak, and that my social life was over. Even worse, what if people started attacking us? What if my parents got hurt because people were afraid of me? I was seriously bringing up moving to another state into the matter, before my mom sat me down, held me close, and comforted me while I cried into her shoulder. She told me that I was the most beautiful thing God had ever created, that I was an angel, and that my powers were a gift from him. I'd hate to burst my mom's bubble, because if anything, due to all the divine lineage being thrown around, I had a creeping suspicion that my powers were from another particular god. Still, you have no idea how much her words helped me through the shock. I remember laughing hysterically with her about the idea of being hunted down for being different, in Montgomery, my hometown, Alabama of all places. She was fairly certain that citizens of a major focal point of the Civil Rights Movement would be more keen to being tolerant of different people. Also, that if I thought about it logically, my powers getting revealed in a small Baptist church, in the middle of a play, where the audience had no idea what was really going on, wasn't exactly gonna be on the front of the next morning's paper. It took while to see things from her point of view, but after two weeks of going to school, cheerleading practice, church, games, and still hanging out with my friends, I finally got the memo that my secret was safe. Heck, if she and my dad couldn't get any more awesome, they considered getting plane tickets, and flying me all the way over to New York to go to the Jean Grey School For Higher Learning to get help with getting a handle on my powers. It was only because I begged them not to, that I ended up staying home, and learning how to control my powers via them kinda training me/me kinda training myself. Through all of that, my mom never wavered in her support of me and what I had become. Not once had I ever got the feeling that she resented me for being what I was. I got mad again at the construct for using my mother's image to spew these lies at me. After I was done with healing Namorita, I was gonna rip it in half! Speaking of which, I was finally making some decent progress in with Namorita.

She was starting to come back to her senses, but the rush of sadness was too much for her to handle at once. To make matters worse, instead of focusing on trying to throw me off, Byrrah redirected my fake parents, as well as the skeleton constructs, to start throwing hurtful words at Namorita. Guess if they couldn't take me, they'd go for someone who was already down. They called her a murder, wailed about how it was her fault they were dead, and that she'd never wash the guilt from her person for as long as she l

"Don't listen to them," I said in a broken off piece of my voice. "They are not real. You didn't damn these souls here, they're just a construct of the guilt you still carry."

She was crying almost uncontrollably, and without pupils I had no physical way of knowing she was responding to me. Still, she held onto my hand tight, mumbling like a scared child.

"You are more than your past," I continued. "You don't have to carry this guilt around with you forever. I know you can't forget, but you need to forgive yourself. Let the past be past. You may not think you deserve it, but everyone deserves to be forgiven. Besides, you didn't kill those people, Nitro did. For what it's worth, I forgive you, Namorita. I had loved ones who died in Stanford, and in my youth I blamed you, just like everyone else. I know now it wasn't your fault. Even if some of the victims still hate you, even if you feel that the world is bearing down on you relentlessly, know that you are not beyond forgiveness, nor have you been beyond redemption. You're still a hero, girl. You're still a badass underwater Amazon with attitude, one that i'm proud to fight beside. This is not the end for you, Namorita, don't let it be. Forgive yourself and move forward with your life. you start by getting your blue skinned, pointy eared, winged feet, rear in gear, help me kick some Nethertrench butt, and save the world!"

Again, Aloha E Komo Mai was a great song to be the background of that pep talk. I had to finish the entire song to help Namorita get through her grief, but it's most important to remember that I only helped, only partially got her through it. My song my have inspired her to get back on her feet again, to face her demons, but all it was, was a hand reaching down to help her from drowning. She could've chosen not to take it, she could've chosen to let the darkness take her, yet her she was, hugging me tight, and wiping her tears away. On a side note, Atlanteans were really strong

"Than you, Sunbird," she said. "Praise Poseidon that I have you watching my back."

"No problem, sister," I casually responded. "That's what friends are for. Now, if we're done here, I think our friend over there is much long overdue for a bruisin!"

"Agreed. And sing that song about letting things burn; I liked that one."

I grinned, started Burn again, and released a good portion of the pent up energy in my mini-sun out in an absolutely radiant, and extremely hot blastwave. My theory about these constructs feeding off of our negative emotions to stay whole was proven correct, as without their hold over Namorita, the skeleton constructs scattered like dust to the wind. The same could be said for the fakes Byrrah had geared towards me. I was so over them anyway. This left Byrrah all by his lonesome. As Namorita and I changed him, I brought out my Sun Spear, and converted my mini-sun into a giant Sunbird construct, making it flap its wings, and spread the positive emotionally charged flame around as violently as it could. With Byrrah's home court advantage swept out from under him, we could make with the butt kicking posthaste.

I wanna be nice to him, I really do. He fought as hard as he could, and actually got some good attacks in. Still, at the end of the day, facing off against me and Namorita at the same time, he had nothing to offer here. Heck, it was almost pathetic. I came in hard with a giant spiked fist construct, ramming him into the ground, and converting it into a flaming twister. Namorita came from above, and as I dissipated the flame, stabbed Byrrah dead in his stomach with her trident, flooring him again. This would've killed literally anyone else, but Byrrah was more of a spiritual being, so I had to excuse him. As was such, it's not like he got off scot free. The Sea Force wreathing he trident was absolute death to….well, him. His form fluctuated and flickered for a tenth of a second, before he deconstructed, and presumably tried to take shape elsewhere. I say try, because my Sunbird construct was making sure his options offensively and defensively were limited. With so much flame going around, mixing and clashing with the trench energy, he was maybe able to get ten feet away, before his discombobulated form had to bring itself together, or be lost entirely. Namorita and I didn't waste any time, and pounced on him again like the lionesses we were. We used the base level tactic of circling and attacking, but adding a little more to the mix. For starters, I slashed at Byrrah with my flaming spear twice, before converting it to my swords, and settling for quick and moderately powered slashes and stabs, while also throwing in some giant cat constructs to throw him around when he got uppity. Namorita on the other hand, had no problem using a long range weapon in such close quarters. I actually got embarrassed watching her slash, stab, and whirl around like a ballerina of death. Sure, she probably had more training under her belt, and I had only recently been using weapons in life or death situations for less than a week, but it was humbling to see how much further I still had to go regarding spear fighting. On top of that, Namorita was shooting Sea Force bolts out of her trident, hitting Byrrah mostly in the head, and destabilizing his form every other second. The fight was definitely leaning towards me and Namorita, but like I said, Byrrah wasn't entirely defenseless. While my flames were limiting his options, he managed to use as much of it as he could to revitalize and keep his body up and running. Heck, we were only fighting for about a minute and a half, and he was gradually getting stronger and faster, blocking more strikes, and tanking blasts, until he was finally able to go on the offensive.

He managed to catch one of Namorita's trident stabs, and yanked it away from her, leaving her wide open for a punch to the face. I managed to get a shield construct in between the two, but man was that a close call! Namorita didn't miss a beat, and brought out a hand gun, shooting him point blank in the face with way more power than something of that size should have reasonably had. I picked up on her momentum by putting my weapons away, giving myself a Solar Steroid boost, and gave Byrrah a cross punch for the ages! I made sure to keep a bit of explosive fire on my hands and feet, giving some extra oomph to my attacks, as I went all Mortal Kombat on his butt. I'll say this, while definitely not as good as Krang, Byrrah had some skill under his belt. He would've made a decent sparring partner for me. Anyway, while I was holding him off with some flying Kung-Fu, Namorita busted out her knives, and was getting in some really effective slashes and stabs in on him. Again, I hated how much better she was at this stuff than I was. We kept Byrrah under control for another half minute, but it was evident that his whole soaking up the darkness strategy was quickly becoming a problem. He was getting too fast, too strong, and way too resilient. Namorita and I were gradually losing ground in the fight, taking more and more hits, while getting less to connect with him. This all came to a head when Byrrah almost used Namorita to take me out!

Yeah, I was recovering from getting an elbow to the face, thank God for my Blazing Sun Form, and was coming back around to pay him back with interest. At the same time, from opposite sides, Namorita was still up to her slicing and dicing. She went for a stab, and Byrrah intentionally destabilized his form just long enough for the blade to almost cut into my face instead! I managed to just barely veer out of the way, but Byrrah to advantage of our disrupted flow, and kicked Namorita away hard when he collected his form again. Her Sea Force body shield was still up and running, but she was dazed like you wouldn't believe! I'm actually surprised she managed to stay conscious. I on the other hand, was so totally screwed.

Byrrah turned around and tackled me like a bullet! If I still needed to breathe, I wouldn't be able to right now. Still didn't change the fact that my stomach felt like I had just eaten a bowl of molten lava. Byrrah planted me into the ground, and quickly bought a fist down to the side of my face. I shrugged off the punch, blocked the next with a shield construct, and slammed him multiple times in the head with lots of flying boxing glove constructs. As soon as there was enough space between us, I summoned my Sun Shields, charged up a good one, and let it loose! It was a pretty decent sun blast, but I knew Byrrah wouldn't be off-balance for long. Before he could get back in the fight, I floored him with a Sun Bolt, trapped him inside a barrier, and quickly created a mini-sun, doping it on his head, making a very satisfying boom! Again, I knew he wouldn't be down for long, so by the time he came charging at me with a Spartan yell, I was already airborne and waiting for him. He tried tackling me again, but ended up smacking into a wall, followed by me sticking one of my Sun Knives in his chest, and s cutting up until I reached his neck. My weapons, charged with both fire and Eden water, had a much more lasting effect than just using Sea Force or Sun Energy. Not enough to actually matter too much, mind you, but at least it was something. Still, a girl's gotta improvise a little, am I right?

I cranked up my Comet Speed as high as I could, reaching up to the point to where everything around me was paused. Also, I felt like I was tearing myself apart from the inside out. In the span of 3-5 seconds, I had circled Byrrah at least 300 times, and slashed and stabbed him everywhere just as many times, before slowing down to a manageable speed to continue the fight. By that time, Byrrah's form was so damaged and barely held together, it was like fighting a ghost; I could probably blow him away with a good blast of fire. In fact, I tried that…..multiple times. Unfortunately, Byrrah wasn't too keen on me killing him again. Out of the three fire sprays I gave him, only the first one got relatively close to ending him, and that was with the Sun Shields out. In less than ten seconds, he managed to pull more Nethertrench energy into him, and reconstruct his body.

He wasted no time coming after me, forcing me to double back, turn the Solar Steroids back on, and take him hand-to-hand, with a little help from ballistic constructs. As we fought again, I was surprised by how silent he was. He could clearly speak, or at least grunt in pain and/or roar in anger, but he didn't say a single word to me. Nothing about revenge for me killing him, which I really was sorry about. No slurs or attacks against my character. No calling me a coward for basically blindsiding him with a knife to the eye. Not even so much as being angry with me for basically damning him to underwater hell. I wasn't gonna complain too much, but it was a bit curious that he had nothing to say. Granted, his eyes and actions spoke louder than words ever could. He was starring a truck full of daggers and me, and while he wasn't exactly fighting wild, it was easy to see that he was trying hard not to lose control. Points for self-control, but that wasn't gonna give him the win. See, I had finally come to the conclusion that fighting Byrrah like this was not working. He was constantly regenerating. Always getting stronger at a rate faster than I could break him down. If not for my Sunbird construct polluting the trench energy around us, this might've been completely one-sided in the other direction…..and just like that, I had an idea. Of course, Namorita would pick now to get herself together, and get back in the fight. Granted, she came back quite literally with a bang; changing her handgun into a awesome looking plasma cannon that had the firepower to match its appearance. Namorita hesitated though, not wanting to blast me too.

"Go ahead!" I thought to her. "I'll be fine! Hit me with your best shot!"

Again, Namorita was hesitant to hit me with a Sea Force cannon blast, but managed to suck it up and pull the trigger. The blast was huge; like put a hole through a battleship huge! Thank God for Comet speed, because from my perspective it was still slow. I simply jumped over it, let Byrrah take a hit that probably would've knocked the breath out of even Grant, and created a wall construct for him to hit; stopping his momentum dead. He was about 100 meters away, but I quickly yanked him back via spear hook construct, and blasted him at an upwards angle towards my Sunbird construct.

"Get that destabilizer spell thing, or whatever it is you call it, ready!" I thought to Namorita, as I flew after Byrrah. "I'm gonna take the fight outta this guy for good! On my signal, work your magic!"

"What do you-" Namorita started, before cutting herself off. "You know what, I don't care! Just get it done, i'll be ready!"

I rammed into Byrrah full speed, wrapping myself in a set of medieval armor beforehand, and we both flew into the Sunbird together! You'd think that ramming the literal focal point for an otherworldly dark energy into the heart of a positive energy construct would be counter productive, but I had built this thing up with so much light, heat, and positive energy, that bringing Byrrah inside of it was the equivalent of throwing a tray of ice on top of a bonfire. Byrrah roared in agony, making me feel all kinds of awful. I mean, it was bad enough I had killed him once. Now I was literally burning him alive….or after life…..maybe undead? Doesn't matter. Anyway, Byrrah fought hard to get away, punching, kneeing, head butting, and clawing at me for dear life. This is why we have protective constructs around our bodies. All I had to do was keep him under lock and key. Heck, after getting hit so much, I eventually wised up, and wrapped him in chain constructs.

"I want you to know how sorry I am for this," I spoke to Byrrah with a broken off voice. "Killing you, no matter the reason, is something I can never forget; something I can't wash off. I'll always regret it because maybe there was another way that I wasn't smart enough to see. Still, you tried to kill my new friend, you tried to take Atlantis by force, and now you're directly putting everyone I love, and the whole world in danger. I'm sorry I killed you, i'm sorry i'm basically killing you again, but you make really bad life decisions, even when you're dead."

A weird speech to make on the last chorus of Burn, but I had to get that off of my chest. I shot Byrrah out of the Sunbird construct, flooring him hard, and held him down with a giant hand construct, while trapping him under dome.

"THIS IS THE SIGNAL!" I mentally yelled for Namorita. "NOW, DO THE THING NOW!"

We both zoomed towards the barrier, and I opened up spaces for us to quickly get through. Byrrah was fighting hard against my hand construct, but was having no luck getting out. Without pause, Namorita started chanting something in Atlantean, and a circle of runes formed just below her right palm. The circle was about the size of a frisbee, with a hollowed out center, as well as four smaller hollow circles in the outer rune circle, each placed Cardinal direction style. As she kept chanting more of the same, the circles started to fill with different symbols. In the center was a trident head. A shark and swordfish in the top and bottom circles respectively. In the left and right circles, a whale and seahorse. Once the circle was complete Namorita slammed the rune circle on top of Byrrah's head, and his already damaged form almost poofed out on the spot!

"Let him go!" she thought to me. "Drop the dome too!"

I did as she said, and gave her space to do her thing. She kept chanting in Atlantean, her voice tuning to an impossibly loud roar, and the rune in her hand expanded; stretching long enough to cover the space of an average classroom. In about three seconds, the rune doubled in brightness, and a huge Sea Force vortex, with the animal symbols taking full form around it, busted out! I gotta admit, Hogwarts had nothin' on this type of hocus pocus! The vortex gradually got wider and wider, though it passed over me harmlessly, until I was in the eye of the storm with Namorita.

"Help me!" she thought to me once I was inside the vortex. "Your flames combined with my Sea Force spell will make the corruption of this energy matrix all the easier!"

"Oh, well why didn't you say so?" I asked her. "I can totally do that!"

I focused on my Sunbird construct, willed it to loose its form, and kept the raw flames bombarding across the area in sync with Namorita's Sea Force vortex. I just kinda casually hummed as I did it, not wanting to annoy Namorita too much.

"How long do we do this for?" I asked her.

"Until I sense we need to leave!" she responded.

"Kay."

Dunno how long we stayed put. A few minutes? No more than five for sure, but we kept up the energy flow, turning the area to a yellow, blue, and black abstract painting. After a certain point, the area started to rumble and shake. The shadows started to twist and billow violently. They faded in and out, and I noticed I could see actual water ahead; not to mention the Atlanteans and Nethertrench monsters doing battle with each other.

"WE NEED TO LEAVE!" Namorita thought to me.

"KINDA FIGURED THAT!" I responded.

Without asking for her permission, meaning I could never rail at Grant or Jason for this ever again, I grabbed her by the waist, and flew us both out of the palace as fast as I could.

(Grant's Perspective)

When Oroco and I got the signal for game time, I was never as hyped to fly into danger as I was right then. Don't get me wrong, I can think of a million things i'd rather do than fight underwater shadow demons, but if i'm gonna have to fight underwater shadow demons, at least don't bench me for a million years! So yeah, when the whistle blew, me and Oroco were so f*(&!^$ ready! We bolted outta our warship, and after creating a giant Iron Man construct around us, I slammed the gas straight for the right wing of the palace.

After making roadkill out of several hundred trench monsters, we entered the place via the giant hippodrome right on the edge of the border. Don't know why someone would put NASCAR's X1,000 grandpa at the entrance of an evil fortress, but whatever. So yeah, here I was in my giant Iron Man construct, flying with my buddy Oroco, not knowing what to expect at all, when all of a sudden the arena opens up, and we get sucked into a black hole! Talk about a welcome wagon, this place basically rolled out a red carpet for me! I doubled down on keeping my construct together, not wanting me and Oroco to get separated. Then again, what was waiting for us was so freaky, I wouldn't get out of this thing if you paid me a million bucks. Going down in a seemingly forever tube of darkness big enough to fly a plane through, skeleton arms, tentacles, and spider legs, I think, were flailing around from all angles, trying to grab at me like I was the last slice of pizza. I stayed calm of course, and was able to navigate the friendly waters with relative ease. On top of creating and shooting mini-missiles out of my construct's shoulder, I created a whole bunch of giant G-Force shurikens, swords, butcher knives, and lawn mowers, to go out and cut a path for me. It was actually kinda pathetic how easily I was basically swimming through the defenses of this place, but I had something else on my mind. I usually didn't get bad vibes, mainly cuz I can count on one hand how many bad days i've had, but this was definitely adding to the count. I don't know how, but I could feel the straight up rage radiating off of the trench. More so, this thing was specifically pissed at me. Don't know why that was, other than me previously bombing it with G-Force like it was f*(#!^& Vietnam, but it made me a bit suspicious. It almost seemed like I was being intentionally lured deeper into the rabbit hole. I wasn't scared, Geo-Titan don't get scared, but if this thing was actually inviting me to its bed, it must've been waiting to show me one helluva time.

"What's going on, Geo-Titan?" Gaea asked me.

"Just coasting through an underwater palace of evil," I thought to her. "The defense here is garbage! If it were a football team, it would never make the playoffs. Wait a sec, why you askin' me?"

"No earth, nothing to sense. Hell, i'm lucky I can still sense you. Foreign energies like this can really mess with the connection."

"Yeah, cuz that's exactly what I need to hear right now."

"Exactly, now you'll put some hustle in your step."

"Yeah I-, tha-, ac-, breaking up, ba-, rec-, can't hear ya, tunn-, bye!"

Yeah, I just faked bad reception to shut Gaea up. I have no regrets. I will not apologize.

Anyway, going through this place was more of the same, with a few surprises here and there. For starters, the tube twisted, turned, had corkscrews, and had even loop-de-loops. Don't know when it turned into a roller coaster, but I can guarantee it was not gonna pass any safety inspections. I easily cut through all of the attacking limbs, but got a decent surprise when giant shark constructs, easily able to bite my Iron Man construct in half, started forming outta the walls like nightmare shadow puppets. Besides being creepy as all hell, it was happening from all sides, just like the hands. For a hot second, I actually got dogpiled in the filthy beasts gnawing at my perfectly good construct; no respect for the paint job. I blew them away with an explosive wave, created G-Force constructs of Thor, Namor, Mermaid Man, and Barnacle boy, to watch my six, and chugged ahead. Why Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy? Cuz why not? So yeah, I chugged on, not entirely bored anymore with the security of this place. My missiles and construct crew kept me going ahead at a pretty good pace, though I did have to double back, and fight my way outta the occasional ambush. One thing to note, was that Oroco was pissed! I was struggling not to laugh at him, cuz he was so mad that he had to ride passenger seat while I was doing all the heavy lifting! Real talk though, being on the bench f*(#!^$ sucks. I can definitely relate to what Oroco was feeling. It was basically the story of my life for my 9th grade football existence.

"Don't worry, buddy!" I yelled over at him. "Won't be long now, I can feel it! You'll get some action soon!"

"I had better." he basically growled under his breath. "The place of a warrior of my caliber is not inside something else doing all of my battles for me."

"Just chill, Oroco. Wait, better yet, don't chill. Stoke those flames, get hype, we'll need that later!"

It took me about two or three minutes to powerhouse my way through the house of horrors, before history repeated itself again. After taking a downwards dive, about half a mile below us, a huge ass monster head, looking something like the bastard offspring of a dragon and a mutated octopus, formed with its mouth open, and started sucking us in hard. To be fair, I sensed something like this on the horizon. The more I plowed through the defenses, the more I felt the hate towards me increase and intensify, until it felt was like there was an angry rabid mob trying to tear my head open. While I couldn't exactly predict that a monster head from the black lagoon was gonna eat me for dinner, I knew for a fact that this was just a whole bunch of shock and awe. Damn it, now Storm-Lord has me saying it! Anyway, I knew that at the end of this monster mouth was the darkness vortex thing me and Oroco were after. Again, I found it extremely suspicious that I was basically getting welcomed in, but if whoever they were wanted to get their ass kicked Geo-Titan style, I was more than happy to deliver!

"We are near!" Oroco spoke up. "Finally, a chance to prove myself worthy of the armies of Atlantis! Listen carefully Geo-Titan, this energy basin is powered by a soul, not just raw energy!"

"And that means?" I asked him.

"In order to disrupt the flow of Nethertrench energy in our assigned sector, we have to draw out, subdue, and counter the soul's dark energy with positive energy."

"Not gonna be a problem for me, I got Geo-Force for days! Besides, I know how to piss off teams when I play in their home; especially Central City!"

"Sometimes I find it amazing that you weren't born with a football in your hand," Gaea chewed me out. "Now get serious, boy! You can't afford to mess this up."

"I'm gonna be stuck with you in my head forever," I said, sighing at her. "Can I at least get some intel on future chicks I wanna pick up?"

"It's like you want me to let you die."

I laughed at her while Oroco and I flew into the mouth of the beast.

The speed of our decent when from 10-100 real quick! It was like someone had shot us through one of those mail tubes, if those mail tubes were engine pistons. Before I knew it, we had smacked down, literally, on the floor of the energy basin. The Iron Man construct protected us from the impact, though I ditched my hero entourage and flying weapons. Before we could get our bearings though, more tentacles formed out of the ground, and started strangling my construct like a gang of anacondas! Usually this would be no problem for me; just a hop, skip, and a slash away from freedom. This was way different, though. These tentacles were insanely strong! I had to double the G-Force, and summon an army's worth of giant sword constructs to try and get free. Yeah, that wasn't happening; like not at all. No matter how many times I broke free of, or cut the tentacles, more would grow back and keep me down. I struggled and struggled as much as I could, but in the end, I was strangled, strung up, and lifted into an embarrassing upright spread eagle.

"That could've gone better," Gaea lightly teased me.

"Shut up," I grumbled at her.

I figured i'd have to blastwave myself outta this, but the bad guys were just starting to show their hands. Maybe 100 ft ahead of me, hard to tell distance when it's nothing but shadow realm energy to go off of, hundreds of giant shark construct formed out of the surrounding trench energy, with Tiger Shark himself at the center. He looked the same, just in all black, and without the whole beta male shtick he had a while back. Guess the lack of a master actually forced him to grow a pair.

"Oroco?" I asked him. "Is he the soul we have to take out?"

"No," Oroco responded. "He still lives. He is merely harnessing the power of the Nethertrench. Probably serving under Llyra."

"So the other soul still has to show itself? Cool, watch me work."

"Sup, Tiger Shark?" I asked him. "I'm diggin the new look. It's badass."

"You killed my friends," he casually responded, his voice sounding like Darth Vader lite. "You destroyed our army, and crushed our plans to take Atlantis!"

"You mad, bro?"

He roared like a Kraken, actually rattling my construct, and for the first time in my life, I actually thought twice about antagonizing someone. If his bite was anything like his bite, I was in for a doozy. He started monologuing, cuz of course he did, but I was barely paying attention. Their was something about him hating me for forcing him to rely on Nethertrench energy to exact his revenge. How it caused him constant pain, and the sins of his past were stuck to his soul forever. Like I said, I spaced in and out. Me and Gaea were having a much more interesting conversation.

"Hey, Mamma?" I asked her.

"Yes?" she sarcastically responded.

"So, i'm kinda stuck here. I keep trying to cut my way outta these tentacle constructs, but more keep strapping me down. Also, this guy's a wingnut; I really wanna throw my axe at him."

"Use a blastwave, dumbass. Do I have to do all the thinking for you?"

"I can't just keep blastwaves going forever! That'll take more energy than I have in me!"

"Ugh, no wonder you suck at history! Remember, the Geo-Force is not energy taken from you; you are just the conduit. Still to help you out with your problem, if focus a core of energy inside you, and open yourself to a constant energy flow, I can pump Geo-Force into your body constantly. Yes, I know, you can only handle so much at one time, which is why after you reach 0.5% of overall capacity, the Geo-Force will automatically expel itself from your body in a violent explosive wave. With all the Geo-Force corrupting their power basin, their offensive capabilities will be almost cut in half."

"Good plan, glad I thought of it!"

Before she could rip into my head, I cut her off, started making that energy core inside me, and opened myself to the flow of the Geo-Force. And here I thought all those meditation lessons were never gonna come in handy. As I got myself ready, I quickly relayed the plan of attack to Oroco, who was all for it, so long as he actually got to finally hit something. Everything was shaping up for a grand slam, all except for the fact that the main soul we were after had yet to reveal itself. Now, I wasn't exactly gonna swear that I knew Tiger Shark had any real measure of control over the it, but I knew Tiger Shark was a total pussy. The punk ass probably swam away after I trashed Orka, cuz he was nowhere to be found during the rest of the battle. This was the kinda guy that only played a game so long as he thought there was no risk of him losing. After seeing what I could do to three people on my own, not to mention the fact that I was pretty sure he was the one letting me get this far so easy, I knew he wasn't far from backup. All I had to do was convince him that he was fighting on my terms to smoke his reinforcements out.

"Look, man," I finally cut off his monologue. "I don't give two $#!+$ about yo plans. Point is you got stomped like a pair of muddy boots; ain't no amount of bitchin' and moanin'll change that. I suppose the real question is, what do you plan to do about the fact that I beat yo boys into the dirt?"

Low blow using dead people for smack talk, but I had to hit Tiger Shark where it hurt.

"I'm gonna make you eat those words, you little punk!" he roared at me, willing the tendrils around my construct to tighten. "Right before I bite your heart out!

"You couldn't take a bite outta me even if I were blind, deaf, and slow! You think you're actually holding me here?! Dude, you and your buddies couldn't even make me break a sweat! You especially didn't even touch me, not even once! You think you somethin' special just cuz you got a new paint job?"

I planted him to the floor with a quick bolt of G-Force, and dropped a Hulk construct on his ass. To my surprise, the tendrils around my Iron Man construct dissolved into nothing. Guess Tiger Shark was only in control so long as something wasn't smashing him into the dirt. Hell, the plan had worked so good, I compartmentalized my first one, and after absorbing and converting my giant Iron Man construct into a G-Blazer around my immediate body area, I summoned my axe, and flew after Tiger Shark with Oroco. And oh my lord, f*(#!^& Oroco! The dude was like a bat/bull outta Hell that was seeing red! He summoned something that was a mix between a war hammer and an axe, and yelled an Indian-like battle cry that put the fear into my very bones. This guy must go to bed early for this $#!+. Also, I noticed that along with the G-Force I was covering my axe in, it had a temporary burst of something other; like a secret power source.

"What the-" I thought to myself.

"The Holy Waters of Eden spell," Gaea answered. "One thing most people don't know is that Vibranium can enhance mystic energies. The Adamantium and Vibranium alloy that your weapon is made of, can hold a mystic charge. It's not much, and you can't activate it on your own, but when in a hostile enough situation, the magic will spring to life."

"Good to know...I guess."

After receiving that semi useful info, I focused on bringing the hurt to Tiger Shark big time. Apparently he had more bite than I realized, cuz he blew apart my Hulk construct with a blastwave of trench energy. Joke was on him though, cuz after the wave died down, he had the pleasant image of my axe, now in spear mode, almost three inches away from his face! The trench definitely gave him a speed boost, because he put up a barrier real quick. Still, that's when that G-Force explosive wave thing started to kick in. As soon as my axe made contact with the barrier, BOOM!

Not to be disgusting or anything, but the blastwave leaving my body felt orgasmic! The blast was so strong, it straight up ripped through Tiger Shark's barrier like it was made of wet toilet paper, and flung him back almost 200 ft. Oroco was fine by the way. My G-Force wave gave him a bit of turbulence, but his Sea Force body shield was completely unaffected. I quickly closed the distance on Tiger Shark, and brought my axe down again on top of him. He pulled off the barrier card again, though this time it actually held up under the force. That was until another G-Force wave exploded from inside me! Yeah, these things were on a two second split from each other. That shows you how fast Gaea was force feeding me the stuff. Again, Tiger Shark got blown away, but I quickly locked onto him, and hurled my axe at his chest as fast as I could. The good news was that even he wasn't fast enough to avoid a supersonic axe throw. The G-Force charged, Doctor Strange enchanted weapon, flew right into his chest! The bad news? That Nethertrench body armor was some kinda strong. The blades managed to puncture pretty deep into Tiger Shark's chest, but he pulled the axe out, and the darkness was already starting to heal his wounds. He smiled for a quick second, and the trench energy started to swirl like a tornado. Yeah, no. Sorry, no. Another G-Force wave exploded outta me, which I promise you was better than sex, cutting Tiger Shark's power buildup in half. At the same time, I created an entire defensive line's worth of G-Force football jocks to dogpile on top of him. Afterwards, I teed him up with a G-Force geyser, and started playing hackey sack with him. In retrospect, I probably should've made a team of soccer players, or a whole bunch of boots, cuz there was absolutely no hands involved. Until me and Oroco got involved that is.

Yeah, we weren't gonna let the constructs have all the fun. I summoned my axe back to my hand, while Oroco hefted his axe/hammer thing, which I low key wanted, and started whacking the hell outta Tiger Shark. Granted, Oroco had to adjust to the G-Fore waves, especially fighting up close with me, but he was having so much fun playing whack-a-mole with Tiger Shark's head, he was able to ignore it for the most part.

"At last!" he roared in my head. "Battle, the way it was meant to be fought! Though I wish you didn't have to spew out those waves every other second, boy!"

"These waves are helping to keep Tiger Shark off his groove!" I responded. "So unless you're into tentacle bondage, I suggest you learn how to deal!"

"Humph. I will manage."

We have fun together.

So yeah, for about two and a half minutes, me, Oroco, and the football locker room, beat the ever living $#!+ outta Tiger Shark. Aside from a few clever dodges and counters against my constructs, Tiger Shark was getting his ass handed to him. Hell, if we were talking realistically, the guy should've been dead at least twenty times over. Unlike with other body shields, the Nethertrench wasn't treating Tiger Shark with the same level of unbreakable protection. I actually stuck four giant G-Force swords in him, before I finally got the memo. Rather than a shield, the trench was basically giving him a Wolverine-like healing factor. He could take a few shivs here and there, but the shadows would repair him in between seconds.. Still, I was certain getting stabbed in the face wouldn't feel too good, so I called his bluff. I recycled my football team into a giant sledgehammer, and slammed Tiger Shark into the ground. Before he could even cry out, I flew straight on his chest with a hard knee, and trapped him inside a G-Fore dome with me. Half a second later, another G-Force wave blew outta my chest, knocking the water outta him. I summoned a jagged piece of all metal to my hand, raised it all dramatic-like, and screamed DIIIIIIIEEEEEE!

Was I really gonna shank Tiger Shark in the face…..well that was up to him. I had logged so much training hours in the Geo-Nexus, especially with Achilles, that if I were serious about taking a shiv to his face….. actually, I would more likely to go for the throat. But hey, if the guy was too scared stiff to defend himself, he was gonna get what was coming to him. Lucky for him, his fight or flight reflexes worked in his favor. Maybe a little too well for what I was going for. Tiger Shark shrieked like a banshee, and somehow managed to hit me with a trench energy explosive wave hard enough to make my vision spin for a good few seconds. I don't recall exactly what happened after that to a tee. I remember the force of the wave being strong enough to break my G-Fore dome. I remember the feeling of the trench energy going nuts; like I was in a washing machine, inside a tornado. What I remember clearly though, was the giant fist, so big that one of its knuckles was as big as I was, slamming me into the floor! Yeah that felt about as good as skyscraper getting dropped on my head. Half a second later, it felt like a gorilla had literally done frog splash right on top of my chest! My armor and G-Blazer took the brunt of that, but it did knock a bit of wind outta me. Thank Gaea for the G-Force waves though, cuz not even two seconds later, a huge one, way bigger than the norm, exploded outta me, knocking King Kong off, giving me a bit of a heal up from the inside out, and giving me a chance to go into Blitz and take in my surroundings.

Oroco was alright. He got taken for a ride too, but my G-Force wave prevented Tiger Shark from taking the upper hand. Speaking of Oroco, the guy managed to get his axe/hammer back, and was charging at Tiger Shark like bull. Dunno who was actually the better of the two; they were both kinda weak and slow compared to me, but I had much bigger problems on my hands. With enough distance to see who hit me with that wombo combo, I could safely say that the sins of my past didn't take long to bite me on the ass. The gorilla that landed on my chest was none other than Orka; who was looking surprisingly not dead for someone who was cut in half. Unlike the constructs Tiger Shark made, Orka was in full color. Same Big Show lookin' ass wrestling gear, blue skin, and everything else. Behind and towering 60 ft above him, was Tyrak. Again, same golden chainmail under purple robes, a golden discount Thor helmet, and an axe big enough to slice into a yacht. They looked angry, especially Tyrak; who was radiating billowing shadows around his body and axe. The amount of concentrated darkness in Tyrak was almost nauseating. No doubt he was the anchor soul me and Oroco were looking for.

"Gaea?" I thought to her.

"Hmm?" she casually responded.

"You can tap into Nature Force energy too, right?"

"Yes, and I absolutely love it! The-"

"Yeah, yeah, earth and nature, good stuff. Look, ima need you to start feeding me that stuff along with the G-Force. Orka and Tyrak are back, and they seem a little pissed off that I killed them."

"Ah. Can't imagine why they'd be upset. Meeting their ends at the hands of the champion of Mother Earth, is as close to an honorable death as they would've received. Also don't worry, i'll give you your fix, GT."

Couldn't tell if she was joking about the part where she said it was an honor for people to get killed by me, but I decided to push it to the back of my head. Faking or not, there were a lotta things not right about Gaea. Anyway, I slowed down enough to talk to Oroco, who was having the time of his life fighting Tiger Shark.

"Yo, Conan The Barbarian!" I thought to him.

"MY NAME IS NOT CONAN!" he responded. "AND I AM NOT A BARBARIAN!"

"Alright, damn, geez! Look, the plan worked, and i'm guessing Tyrak is the soul tied into the wiz biz; am I right?"

"Indeed. It shouldn't take me too long to dispose of this cur, Tiger Shark. Meanwhile, hold off Orka and Tyrak for as long as you can. Watch yourself, Geo-Titan, they may try to distract you with illusions. Whatever they show you, it isn't real."

I wanted to think a hefty 'no $#!+, Sherlock' at him, but I got his concern. Also, due to the fact that I know he's seen me tear an army apart, and take on the three stooges all on my own with no problem, I'm gonna assume he was joking about me needing to hold out until he came to my rescue. As if. Anyway, I summoned my axe, and counter charged Orka; who was already coming back around for Round 2.

Before we collided, I batted him away with a giant G-Force hand, and turned my attention to the jolly gold, purple, and blue giant. I quickly summoned all of the All-Metal I could muster in about half a second, and sent it up at him in the form of a giant spiked fist. Apparently the Gaea blessed metal had the same effect on creatures of the darkness as the waters of Eden. As soon as Tyrak got a full sized serving under his chin, especially after the small G-Force discharge, his entire form went fuzzy for a moment; turning pure black. It was just for a moment, and he recalibrated just as fast as he went fuzzy, but I was just getting started. I transformed the fist into a giant All-Metal Jetfire Optimus Prime. By the way, those movie f*(#!$ rock, I don't care what anyone says about em'. But yeah, I willed Prime to start blasting at Tyrak with his engine cannons, stabbing at him with arm blades, and giving him the Real Steel version of Wooden Monkey Kung-Fu mixed with Long Fist. On a side note, me and Iron Fist had to go at it sometime! Anyway, while the head honcho of the Autobots was playing Rock em Sock em with Tyrak, I turned my attention to Orka, who was trying the same damn strategy of tackling me; like that would work on the 50th attempt. You'd think a guy might learn a thing or two after his death.

"Yo, G," I thought to Gaea. "That double whammy blastwave ready?"

"Sure enough," she responded. "Is it time to bust some heads?!"

"Oh yeah! On my mark, serve me up!"

I summoned my axe, lit it up with G-Force and Nature Force, and threw it Thor style at Orka's head. The axe slammed into his face, and sent him to the floor like a comet. I flew down after him, summoned my sword, and after soaking it in G/N-Force, short for when I use Geo and Nature Force at the same time, I sunk my blade into his chest. His form went absolutely insane, and he roared like a bear in pain.

"NOW!" I thought to Gaea, who released the massive G/N-Force wave like it had burst through a dam!

I didn't realize how much energy was being held up in my body, cuz the feeling of letting it all go was like taking a breath after holding it for….I dunno, as long as you can. The wave straight up burned away at Orka until he was just a black construct of his former self. The wave was so strong, Tyrak, Oroco, and Tiger Shark felt almost all of it too. I ignored Oroco's curses at me, and went to work on Orka. First, I created a domed coliseum, about half the size of a football field, and decked it out big time with G/N-Force constructs of tigers, lions, bears, and Thundercats in the main arena floor. Lining the spectator seats were hundreds of Iron Man constructs; their repulsors trained on Orka. Yeah, I quickly caught on to the fact that him and his buddies were milking their home court advantage for all it was worth, and that if I wanted to re-kill them, I had to take that away from them. That's why I was straight up cutting Orka off from the Nethertrench entirely; even the coliseum floor was a green sheet of G/N-Force. As for the outside battle, me and Gaea managed to work out an extended delivery service between her, me, and Optimus. Basically, by using me as a conduit, she was transferring the energy from me, to the All-Metal construct, which was basically an extension of the both of us. It was kinda complicated, and made my insides feel like I had ate some bad tuna, but it got the job done. Until I was done with Orka, the G/N-Force waves would be exiting from Prime, which meant Oroco wasn't being left out to dry. Sure, the guy was tough, but if Tiger Shark got to making shadow constructs again, it was game over. Switching back to the task at hand, Orka was swinging wildly at my face, so I jumped off of him, landing about 50 meters back, and giving him the chance to survey how royally f*(#^& he was.

"YOU THINK THIS FRIGHTENS ME, BOY?!" he roared at me. "YOU KILLED ME! SLICED ME IN HALF! TRUE, I NOW ROT IN THIS HELL, I FEEL NOTHING BUT PAIN, HEAR NOTHING BUT THE SHRIEKS OF THE DAMNED, BUT ALL IS NOT LOST FOR ORKA! I CAN STILL THINK, AND I'VE THOUGHT OF NOTHING MORE THAN SQUEEZING THE LIFE OUT OF YOU! I AM TWICE WHAT I WAS NOW THAT I AM PART OF THE TRENCH, AND WITH THIS POWER I WILL AGGGGGH!"

Yeah, I wanted to be polite and let him get his monologue out, but I was getting annoyed. Seriously, it's like bad guys all read the same speech book, cuz if you've heard one villain monologue, you've heard em' all. Anyway, I willed a few of my tiger and lion constructs to jump on his ass, and start tearing away at him like he was a giant prime rib. Almost immediately afterwards, I willed the rest of the animal constructs to join the mauling, followed by the Iron Man constructs to opening fire with hundreds upon hundreds of shoulder rockets, unibeam blasts, and repulsor blasts.

Try as Orka might, and he really tried hard, he couldn't get a spare second to so much as spit in my direction. Sure, he was able to throw off a few animal constructs every now and then, but with so much ballistic force backing them up, Orka was maybe able to retain his freedom for half a second, before feeling the wrath of the jungle again. I kept Orka under fire like this for about a full minute, before I made some real fireworks! I supercharged all of the animal and Iron Man constructs with G/N-Force, and after each of them had the boomage to put a torpedo to shame, I willed them to go all kamikaze on Orka's ass! The explosions were so massive, so packed on top of each other, I had to let the runoff out through the dome ceiling; otherwise the entire arena would've been blown apart. Orka survived the explosion, because of course he did, but the dude was straight up out of it!

While he still had a solid form, it was dissipating by the second; kinda like aspirin slowly dissolving in water. For a moment he looked scared, like he almost wanted to plead for his life. I gotta admit, I felt bad for him. Sure, he was a bad guy, but I barely knew him, I had no real measure of beef with him, and the only reason we were here right now was because of a magic blue rock. We looked at each other, and in the span of maybe half a sec, we kinda got the memo. No matter what the circumstances were, our goals were in opposition to one another, and there was no room for negotiation. If he had his way, the world gets flooded in dark liquidy evilness. If I got my way, him and his went back to dark liquidy hell. Orka roared a desperate battle cry, and charged me like a rhino.

Real talk, this fight was so one-sided it was almost unfair. Before Orka could get within 10 ft of me, a launched him into the air via G/N-Force geyser, and smacked him down with a G/N-Force bolt. Before he was even up, I had summoned my axe and sword to my hands. For maybe a minute or two, I absolutely put the beat down on Orka, like you wouldn't believe! With my G/N-Force charged weapons, I slashed, stabbed, flail whipped, and spear thrusted Orka into the ground. If they ever decided to do another Troy movie, I should've been a shoe in to play Achilles. With this face, body, and fighting skill, i'd blow Brad Pitt outta the water! Anyway, Orka was trying his hardest to keep up, he really was, but the odds were not on his side at all. To be fair, I had to keep up a decent amount of effort to keep my hit streak up. Hell, if I had fought without mass bombarding him with G/N-Force suicide bombers, this fight would've been much more even. Still, without access to Nethertrench to revitalize him, wearing him down was just a matter of time. I alternated between weapons, and unarmed melee fluently, while keeping G/N-Force bolts crashing down on him at all times. By the time I was done with him, he was a basically a collection of dust that somehow wasn't getting disintegrated.

"Draw this with Geo-Force," Gaea thought to me.

She projected this word: εξορίσει into my mind. Yeah I don't read Greek.

"It means banish," she elaborated. "Orka's spirit has to be sent deep into the Nethertrench, lest he regenerate once you let this glorious coliseum fizzle out."

"So what is this, magic?"

"A rudimentary form, but yes."

"I can do magic?"

"You have the potential to, but at the moment no. Your body, mind, spirit, and chakras have not been properly developed to do anything advanced. So no, you cannot pretend to be Doctor Strange."

"You just wanna suck the joy outta everything. So if I can't pull it off, how's this gonna work."

"Simple, while not properly developed, I can still bypass your shortcomings. This expanse of Geo-Force is enough to temporarily invoke my presence; not to mention the energy of Demeter there to help. Just draw the word out in big letters, throw them at Orka, and i'll do the rest."

I just realized that this was basically Symbol Power, from Power Rangers Samurai; just with the Japanese, substituted for ancient Greek. I drew out the word with a giant G-Force pencil, just cuz I could, and flung the letters at Orka. The letters broke apart and hit his body in random place, before lighting up like firecrackers. I felt a shift inside my body, like something had crawled up of my stomach and out of my mouth. Before I could make sense of the feeling, Orka shrieked like a wounded lion, and the letters burned away at his form, until he basically evaporated into nothing.

"Damn, G," I thought to her. "A bit savage don't ya think?"

"I invented savage," she almost growled at me. "Now focus on the big one. Your giant toy is getting its ass kicked."

She wasn't wrong. When I checked in on my big Autobot buddy, he was missing a wing, most of his face, and an arm. This was partially my fault. I had spent so much energy maintaining the coliseum, constructs inside, not to mention battling with Orka, that I didn't spend as much attention that was probably needed to help Optimus take Tyrak on. Granted, Tyrak wasn't a pushover. He was hacking, punching, and kicking at my construct like it was a punching bag. He was also yelling some not so very kind things down at me.

"-KILL ME," I heard as I tuned him in. "SLAUGHTER MY BRETHREN! NOW YOU HIDE BEHIND A GIANT TOY! SOME INSIPID CONTRAPTION! THIS IS NOT HONOR! THIS IS NOT FITTING OF A TRUE WARRIOR! LEAVE YOUR BUBBLE, YOU FILTHY CUR! AT LEAST PRETEND LIKE YOU ARE MORE THAN A SIMPERING CASTRATED DOG! FIGHT ME-"

"What a jerk," Gaea said to me. "How would you like to defeat him?"

"I'll give him what he wants," I thought back to her. "Time to go big, or go home!"

"Well, you certainly can't go home yet."

I quickly absorbed the G/N-Force into my G-Blazer, G/N-Blazer now, and disassembled Optimus. To cover my growth spurt, I willed all of the G/N-Fore in him to go off all at once, knocking Tyrak back a few feet. I grew myself to 60 ft, and reconstructed the All-Metal into battle armor and weapons. Only my flaming green head was left free, which either made me look like a badass golden knight with a flaming head, or that guy that tries too hard when he goes to a convention.

"Hi there," I greeted Tyrak. "So I hear you've been saying some pretty unflattering things about me. Wanna say that $#!+ to my face?"

For a hot second, Tyrak looked genuinely scared. He probably would've scraped up the courage to attack me, but a G/N-Force wave exploded outta me, knocking him back even further, and I went on the attack instead. Yeah, me and Earth Mamma still had the timed explosive wave thing goin' on, but that was chump change compared to what I had in store for Tyrak. See, with the extra G/N-Force I took into my Blazer, I was able to go rapid fire with the explosive waves. Instead of waiting two seconds between blastwaves, they were coming off the conveyer belt like lighting. Even if you put aside the mad slicing and dicing I was doing with my All-Metal axe, getting a combo score of X200 in under 3 seconds, Tyrak couldn't so much as throw a single swing at me. And for those of you that might say I was fighting selfish, my success extended to Oroco too. With all the extra positive energy flying about, Tiger Shark faded out fast. I didn't exactly keep tabs on the fight, but my total time hacking away at Tyrak was at 55 seconds. Oroco beheaded Tiger Shark at least ten seconds sooner.

At that point Tyrak should've just lied down and take what was coming. No way was he winning this. Well, he had one last hail mary shot up his sleeve, and man was it a dozy!

Just as his form was getting into that stage to where he was starting to look like a connect the dots drawing, the dude literally exploded! It was like a sack of grenades going off in my face, while a wall of ink swallowed me whole. I tried getting up, to get back in the fight, only to find out I was completely alone. No, really, in every direction, for a far as I could see, it was just black on black on black. Oroco was nowhere to be seen, my G/N-Force waves, as well as my armor and weapons, were gone. Hell, I couldn't hear anything other than the swirling darkness around me.

"Hey there, Big G," I heard a voice say behind me. "Been a long time. How you been farmer boy?"

It was like Sub-Zero had reached into my back, and was squeezing my spine. It couldn't be her, how could it be her? But I know what I heard. The same Midwestern farm girl accent that was a trademark of someone from Hastings, Nebraska. That mix of pep, modesty, and shyness in her voice; like she was gonna ask me for permission to sneeze or something. I turned around, my insides feeling like lead, and my fear was as good as confirmed. She was all black, made completely of shadow, but she looked the same as she did since I last saw her. Same short flannel shirt, tight kakis inside cowgirl boots, and long flowing hair that reached just over her mid back. She was about 5'10, and a bit muscular for a girl. No duh, considering she was a farm girl. Still, she had this weird balance of cute to sexy ratio, like she was the perfect samurai sword. I always thought she looked like a 16 year old version of Maria Kanellis. Seeing and hearing her, even if it was just a construct, shut me down hard.

"L-L-Lindsey?" I stammered aloud, my voice sounding strangely scrambled.

"In the flesh," she almost squeaked. "Well….no, not really. I guess I have you to thank for that, Jackson."

Her smile melted into a scowl, and her bottom half turned into a billowing black cloud. She flew towards me, then circled me like a twister. All I could do was try and remember how to breathe.

"Oh yes, former lover," she continued. "If you thought my appearance would be to absolve you of your sins, you are tragically mistaken."

There goes another kick to the heart.

"I'm sorry," I barely whispered out.

"Not good enough," she whispered back as she landed next to me. "You think after what you've done, you can be forgiven?"

She drifted behind me, put her hands around my waist, and rested her head on my right shoulder.

"How could you ever think i'd forgive you?" she continued. "You strung me along as your lovesick puppet. Played my emotions like it was one of your games against Central City. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I actually fell for you? That I meant every sappy love note I stuffed in your locker? How about when we kissed? When I risked my parents wrath to let you in my room, in my bed, in the late hours of the night? How many other girls were you thinking about while you were inside me? How many girls have you hurt, simply because you wanted to have a good time?"

Again, that cold grip on my spine was so intense, it almost seemed real. It didn't help that this construct sounded, smelled, and even felt like the real Lindsey. Even though a voice in the back of my head was chanting that this wasn't real, my emotional state, which was still a wreck, had overridden logic and reason. Now, it was all I could do to keep myself from breaking down. Try as I might though, I couldn't keep the tears from streaming down my face as I fell to my knees.

"No, no, no," Lindsey continued whispering. "Don't give up on me yet, Geo-Titan. We're not even halfway there."

The shadows around me started to take form, taking the shapes of pretty much every girl i'd ever been with. To be honest, you could fill a school bus with the amount of girls i've screwed over; something i'm not proud about at all. Again, these were just constructs, but with so many surrounding me, I was starting to feel like I was drowning in ice water.

"Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?" Lindsey went on. "Anna Graceling. Tall, blond, cute girl; plays outfield on the softball team. I believe you dated her for about 4 months in Freshman year, bragging about your sexual exploits to your team, before you cheated on her with Amy Cho. Why did you do that?"

Nothing. No way could I justify that. There was nothing to justify. I just got bored, and I thought Amy was hot. That's the extent of my reasoning.

"Nothing?" Lindsey mocked me. "Fine, let's keep going. If I recall correctly, Anna and Amy were the best of friends along with Carmen James, who you also rounded up in your bid for as many sexual conquests as you could rack up. Your deception wasn't found out until the beginning of the next year. Now, even two years later, they still hate each other, and you. Did you learn anything from this? Did you feel any remorse for what you did? No, of course not. You did nothing wrong, right? Hmm? Nothing to say for yourself? Not even another half assed sorry? No? Ok, on we go."

She basically went rapid fire through these next several girls; making constructs for them as she listed them off. Yeah, my Sophomore year was just a long line of one offs with girls that would barely last for two weeks, assuming it lived long enough to see three consecutive nights. Why the big upswing in booty? Cuz my football career basically took off in Sophomore year. Beforehand, Adams County Jr./Sr. High's Varsity football team was lucky if they could even get more wins than losses. After the previous QB Sheldon Walter graduated, I got promoted to top spot, and by working closely with my coach and teammates, we created a two time state championship winning team over the course of one summer break. Because of that, by mid-season Sophomore year, you couldn't pay me to keep the girls away. Seriously, me and the team were gods to the school, the hometown heroes; Hasting's football Avengers. I'll admit, it went to my head, and the fact that I could get any girl I wanted, for however long I wanted, didn't help. Here's a little glimpse of how much action I was able to get in just Sophomore year.

Hannah Thatcher: Tall, blond, cheerleader. We hooked up on and off.

Maria Fullmore: Hispanic, a little shorter than me, a bit pudgy, but extremely hot. We f*(#$ twice, then I never talked to her again.

Abigail Thompson: Black, tall, had poofy/curly hair, played on the basketball team. We were on and off, but always on after a party.

Denice Prather: Tall, brunette, gorgeous blue eyes, played on the lacrosse team. We hooked up once, but she wasn't all that good.

Charity Daves: A little shorter than me, about a 6/10 in looks, but she had that cute nerd look going for her. It was a one and done thing. Well, one and done for me.

Tamara Fullmore: Hispanic, tall, toned as hell, played on the soccer team. Maria's big sister. I would go to her games, take her out for burgers, and then drive in the woods so we could f*(# in my truck. I would call her up frequently over the school year.

Patricia Sandsmark: Cute, petite, a little shorter than me, with dark red hair. Always dressed like a cute hipster. We hooked up a few times, cuz she was the only reason I made it out of History with a B-.

Pamela Johnson: Black, thick, and curvy. Had that whole gothic aesthetic to her. We f*(#%$ once, just because.

Yeah, I think you get it; I got around pretty well. Hell, Lindsey went through at least 20 girls. To be fair, and this is the only time i'll ever defend anything of this time of my life, I didn't intend to hurt any of these girls. After the stunt I pulled the year before, after my mom tanned my hide, I never cheated or intentionally lead any of these women on. For the most part, the girls I was with knew what I was about, and were about the same thing. Sometimes my relationships with them lasted a bit longer than I intended, but I always tried to end them as best as I could, before moving on to someone else. For me, if they caught feels, that was their fault. Heartless? Yeah, maybe. I just wanted to have fun, and didn't see myself settling down anytime soon.

"Lemme guess," Lindsey kept going, upping the sarcasm in her voice to 11. "Still nothing to say? No apologies to these beautiful women you treated as pawns in your game? Don't you think they deserve just a modicum of remorse from you? Do you even feel guilty? Wait, what am I saying? You're Grant Jackson, star quarterback of Adams County; Go Patriots! Of course girls would want to be with you; they'd be out of your mind to refuse your advances.

The ghosts of hookups past started to circle me, shouting down at me pretty harsh.

"F*(#!^$ PIG!" Hannah shouted at me.

"DISGUSTING PRICK!" Maria shouted.

"YOU WEREN'T EVEN THAT GOOD!" Abigail shouted.

"I THOUGHT I WAS MORE TO YOU, THAN JUST A PIECE OF ASS!" Denice shouted.

Each insult was like someone slamming a ton of bricks on top of my head. I knew I deserved them, and that's why no matter what they said, even if it was untrue, I never fought back. I felt myself falling deeper and deeper into the darkness and depression. Something inside me was trying to fight back, to shake off the barrage of my previous sins, but it was like trying to start a fire with damp leaves. I just didn't have it in me.

"Mmmm," Lindsey basically purred. "Delicious. Don't feel too good huh, big boy? But this is so impersonal. Let's see what a significant other might have to say about the matter."

The legion of demon girls melted away, only to be replaced by my mom! For the first time since this started, I tried to resist. I hated when my mom yelled at me, when she was disappointed in me. I would do 100 laps for her if it meant staving off that face she gave me.

"No, no, no," Lindsey shut me up. "Let's listen to what mother Jackson has to say!"

"GODDAMN YOU, GRANT!" she sonic roared at me. "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO STOP FOOLIN' AROUND WITH THESE GIRLS?! YOU AIN'T A DOG, BUT I'LL NEUTER YOU IF I HAVE TOO! MAYBE IF YOU SPENT HALF AS MUCH TIME STUDYING AS YOU DID BEING THE TOWN'S DOORKNOB, YOU'D HAVE A HALFWAY DECENT GRADE IN HISTORY! HOW DO YOU CONFUSE THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, WITH THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS?!"

She melted away, and I was left feeling like a husk. I remember that small snippet of what ended up being an emotional ten minute lecture. I'll never forgive myself for making my mom cry. See, my grades weren't so hot at the end of 1st semester freshman year, and I was on the edge of getting booted from the football team. I remember feeling like I was absolutely nothing. My dad was a bit more lenient on me, though he put me on a sorta parole for the entire 2nd semester. You better believe anything less than a B was nowhere to be seen on my next report card. Anything to never hear my mom speak to me that way again. Now…..it was like someone took a sledgehammer to my guts, and didn't stop swinging until you could spread them on a sandwich.

"HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!" Lindsey busted up. "Oh, the look on your face will entertain me for generations. I've had a great deal of fun with you, Grant, but let's get to the good parts!"

Shadowy figures of myself and Lindsey formed in front of me. They acted out a whole bunch of things we did over our fling that started in August of this year; ended by me at the start of December. I didn't mean to let the relationship go on for so long, but Lindsey was so much fun. Not just the sex, but because she was always so cheerful. She always showed up to my games, helped me maintain a solid B in chemistry, and even cheered me on in practices. She was great to talk to, serious matters or stupid $#!+. She was an amazing partner to have while playing Call of Duty, could watch any show or movie with me, regardless of how dumb, and was as big of a superhero fanatic as I was. I remember making half-hearted plans to go with her as a male/female Thor couple at some convention in Omaha. I…..I never deserved to have her in my life. She was too good for a f*(#boy like me. I never really cared about her; she was just another game that lasted longer than I thought it would. Probably because I was enjoying myself too much. I admit it, I led her on hard. I thought of her as just another lucky fangirl who had the privilege of being with me. As the shadow depictions of us reenacted our time together, making out after practice and games, hanging out in the library, doing homework, eating lunch with the team, and yeah, the sex, I kept thinking those thoughts i've been trying to repress. I never deserved this girl. I had my head too far up my own ass to really appreciate her. What happened to her was all my fault.

"We were good together, weren't we?" Lindsey continued, stroking my face lovingly with her ice cold hand. "At least I thought so. I thought we'd be together forever, that I was finally the one who was gonna get to keep the guy everyone wanted to have. You made me feel like I was the queen of the universe, Grant. Guess I had this coming in a way."

The construct of her melted again, and was replaced with a construct of Emily Landsdown, a hot redhead freshman. We only lasted for a week, only had sex once, but I didn't exactly break things off with Lindsey. Like I said, our relationship lasted a bit longer than most, but we weren't official. I tried very hard to remind her of that when she seemed to be getting too attached. Still, I basically ghosted her for two weeks, before barking up the redwood tree. That was Emily's nickname. I don't remember seeing Lindsey again…...only hearing around town that she died on December 8th. At first I felt bad, but not horrible. Nobody that knew the specifics of her death said anything, and I had no reason to believe that it had anything to do with me….until I found a note fall out of my locker when I was grabbing my books at the end of the day. December 10th to be exact. Here's what it said:

Dear Grant,

I hope you're happy. I hope you squeeze every last drop of fun you can out of that redwood whore bitch, before you move on to someone else. I'm so sorry I wasn't enough for you. I'm sorry I wasn't worth the hassle of simply telling me that what we had was over. A part of me wants to believe that you'll miss me, but maybe that's the fear talking. Me just wanting to believe that I actually mattered to someone. If this letter finds you, know that I enjoyed every moment I spent with you. Know that for the first time in forever, I felt like someone actually could love me for who I am. I now know that nobody ever will, so what's the point? Goodbye Grant. No matter what happens to me, you not being in my life would've been a thousand times worse.

Maybe it was the guilt starting to drown me, but I almost heard her voice as I recalled the letter. Like I was reading it again for the first time. Back then, I had a mixture of confusion and shock stirring inside me, now it was full blown remorse. Lindsey must've felt the shift in me happen, cuz the construct changed again; now showing me at my last football practice, right before I got my powers.

"I suppose I can't say you got off unscathed," she said as construct me trucked Dean Thomson 100 yards. "Ha! I mean look at you go! That's gotta be a record! I don't think anyone's been able to screw themselves so hard in such a small amount of time!"

The construct fast forwarded to the most humiliating experience of my life.

"No, coach!" I was yelling. "Please! Look, I don't know what happened! That...I mean..I-"

"I'm sorry, Grant," Coach Dawson said. "I wish it didn't have to be this way, but you know the rules about enhanced people."

"I can control it! Find a way to shut it off, keep it under wraps! Come on, coach, you can't do this to me, i'm the best QB you got!"

"Grant, please don't make this harder than it has to be. We'll keep your secret, but you know you can't be on the team anymore."

He was terrified of me; they all were. When I dipped outta there, they basically parted like the Red Sea for me. I ran back to my truck, trying not to cry, and drove home as fast as I could, without crashing into stuff. You know the rest. My multiple attempts at suicide, getting recruited onto Delta Force, and so on. Lindsey was absolutely beside herself with glee. There was something in her demeanor that changed, like a lioness getting ready to pounce, after stalking her prey for so long. She was fixing to finish me off, and I was so wrapped up in her web of sorrow, it was like I was paralyzed.

"Kicked off of your team, like a fallen king. Ousted as a mutant, because let's face it, this won't be kept under wraps. Be it because of loose lips, or fake friends who'll be glad to see you fall, your secret will be out by the end of the month. And the suicide attempts! I'm flattered Grant! Pretty sure that note on your conscience helped pushed you over the edge. Still, you didn't die. You had to be invulnerable, and immune to poisoning yourself. Perhaps the universe wanted you to live a little while longer; make your last moments much worse."

"I'm sorry," I finally managed to whisper out. "I'm so sorry for what I did to you. I-"

"Shhh," she silenced me, dipping me back and cradling me, while she stroked my cheek. "I told you, there is no forgiveness for you here. You puff your chest out and declare yourself a new man. You claim to use your powers for the good of others, as a way of community service to wash your hands of the guilt. Grant, you are probably the most selfish person on this earth. You don't care about the fate of others, you just want to be adored by people again. You wanna be an actual hero, like Thor or Captain America, but come on Grant, be reasonable. Do you really think if he found out what you've done, Captain Rogers would be able to stomach the sight of you? Do you think in any lifetime that you'd ever be worthy to even touch Thor's hammer? No, Grant, just no. You'll never be free of your sins; I'll never allow it. All you can do is submit, and drown in them. Forget this whole hero nonsense, you weren't very good at it anyway. Your friends and family will be all the better off without you. Relax, breathe, and close your eyes. You should've died a while ago anyway. Let me at least give you one last kiss before you go."

Her words cut me deep; I had no defense against them. She was right, I just wanted to be like The Avengers. I had no idea what it really was to be a hero. Heroes wouldn't do bad things to good people. They wouldn't play with people's emotions like toys. I….I didn't deserve to be a hero; that would imply I was capable of putting others first. For the first time, Lindsey's freezing shroud almost felt comfortable. Her hands felt good against my face. Her lips were probably as soft as her hands. She held me close, and started to lean in for a kiss. I felt my eyes close, me suddenly getting very tired. Before she could kiss me though, a sharp pain ripped through me! My eyes jerked open, as green lightning/firebolts flashed around the darkness like a laser lights show; one of which pelted Lindsey in the head, knocking her away from me. I heard someone's voice in the distance. It started out low, barely above a whisper, but eventually graduated into a roar.

"GET UP, GRANT!" Gaea's voice boomed. "THIS ISN'T REAL! GET UP!"

A G-Force bolt struck next to me, and expanded into a barrier. Just in time too, cuz Lindsey was absolutely pissed about her moment being ruined! Her face….her everything, morphed into some kinda Gorgon thing. Her face went all scaly, and her hair turned into billowing braids with snake heads at the end. She grew fangs, talons, and constructed scimitars into her hands. Not the scariest thing i've seen, but probably not the best thing to see in my current condition. For all I can rag on Gaea, she pulled through for me when I really needed her. Right after the barrier constructed, she shimmered next to me in full color. Same brown skin, long curly hair, red lipstick, and stunning brown eyes. She was wearing a strapless black dress this time, with green peacock feather patterns etched all over it. Her being next to me reminded me what it was like to feel warm again. Hell, this was the first time i've seen so much concern plastered on her face.

"NOOOO!" Lindsey bellowed. "HE'S MINE! HE DOESN'T DESERVE HAPPINESS! GIVE HIM TO ME!"

She flew at the barrier, slashing it hard with her swords, but the shield held up. A look of annoyance flashed across Gaea's face, and the barrier launched Lindsey away via G-Force bolt.

"Come on, Geo-Titan!" Gaea urged me, shaking me a little. "This, all of this, this isn't real! When Tyrak self destructed, when he knocked you on your ass, he infected your mind with Nethertrench energy. He's using your worst memories, your mistakes, against you. Meanwhile, he's literally creeping up your body as a blob of goo! If you don't shake him off in the next 30 seconds, he's going to devour you whole! Come on, my champion, you can break through this illusion! We'll do it together!"

Her words were bringing me back, but I still had a lot of baggage hanging over my head. It wasn't gonna be that simple to just shake this off. Lindsey used that to her advantage.

"YOU CAN'T SAVE HIM!" she roared at Gaea. "YOU KNOW JUST AS WELL AS I DO WHAT HE'S DONE! HE CAN'T RUN FROM WHO HE REALLY IS! STOP LYING TO HIM! HE'LL NEVER BE ANYTHING MORE THAN A LIAR, A CHEAT, AND ABOVE ALL, A DISGRACED FORMER QUARTERBACK!"

Inside Gaea's dome, Lindsey's attacks didn't hurt as much, but Earth Mamma was havin' none of her $#!+. More G-Force bolts shot off of the barrier, snaring Lindsey in energy tendrils.

"Much better," Gaea said. "Now to deal with my quivering mess of a champion."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have….I could've-"

"No, you should not have, and yes, you could've. Bottom line, what's done is done. I know you Grant, I know everything about you. Yes, you were a colossal promiscuous dick; worthy of your ancestor Hercules himself. You should've listened to your elders, but you adolescents think you have all the answers, when you really know nothing. You made a lot of mistakes, Grant, but you're still in high school; that is all a part of the experience."

"All those girls-"

"Learn to keep it in your pants. True, you've broken many hearts, but as you humans put it, cry me a river. The girls you surrounded yourself with, they chose to be with you. Some didn't know what they were getting into, but most did. You've already learned the consequences of toying with people's emotions. Though it's unfortunate the girl had to lose her life to teach you the value of a relationship, I am relieved to see that you have taken that lesson to heart."

"That was all my fault, Gaea. No way I can let that slide."

"Then don't. Keep that as a reminder whenever you want to think with your dick, instead of your head. Besides, my champion, all is not as you think it is. What you did to that girl may have been the push over the edge, but she was there way longer than you think. Her parents were neglectful, if not abusive. She had immense self-esteem issues. No matter how many compliments you gave her, she never saw herself as beautiful, or worthy to be your companion. She pushed herself into madness trying to juggle her school work, and farm chores. She was actually a victim of very severe bullying by members of your school's cheerleading team. I am not justifying your actions, but it's important you know that her death is not solely on your shoulders. Billions of you emotionally volatile youngsters go through similar, if not worse levels of stress. If she did not have the strength and the foresight to push through, that is on her."

"That's a harsh way to look at things."

"Mother Earth don't play. I apologize for using this against you previously, but you have to realize that you didn't kill her. Only the person committing suicide decided whether or not they wanted to die. You've done the same thing to many a girls, and they found a way to move on. You may have hurt her feelings, but you didn't force those pills down her throat; the same way you coach didn't force you to attempt suicide four different times in under two hours. Lindsey is dead; she cannot forgive you, but that thing over there is not her. It's just a construct, a manifestation of everything you think she'd say to you. You have to forgive yourself for this, Grant; you can't be a better person if your story ends here."

The more she talked, the warmer I felt. Even if this was just in my mind, her being her felt so real. Her voice was encouraging and inviting, her grip on my shoulders were like bear paws weighing me down. Hell, when she stood me up, she was the only reason I didn't fall right back to the ground.

"Yo, G?" I asked her.

"Yeah?" she responded.

"It hasn't even been a full day yet. How come being your champion comes with a heaping load of monster baggage?"

She chuckled.

"Comes in the job description; the fine print to be exact. Better man up, Geo-Titan, it is not gonna be an easy ride."

"Lookin' forward to it. Just answer me one last question. My parents? My team?"

"Your parents love you very much, Grant, nothing about that has changed. Your father misses your presence; he needs his gaming buddy. Your mother needs your strong hands back on your farm; she has quite the plans for you when you return home. Every night since you left, they've prayed to The One-Above-All for your safe return. Sometimes it's all your mother can do to not cry herself to sleep; for your father to keep her from breaking down. Believe me when I tell you, their love for you has not deteriorated an iota. Regarding your football team, despite what this illusion will tell you, your teammates are just as loyal to you off the field. Nobody knows, or even suspects your secret. If you ask around town, you're just sick, and had to take an early leave of absence from school. I can't promise you your life will be back to normal when you get back, but at least it'll be there for you in one piece."

That gave me such a relief, it pretty much washed away all of the gloom and doom Lindsey threw at me. More than that, I was finally pulling myself together. I was Grant Jackson, Geo-Titan, the best quarterback to ever come outta Hastings, Nebraska! I made a lotta mistakes, hurt a lotta people, but I was on a complete turnaround. The cheater/liar part of me was done; it was the straight and narrow for me from now on.

"One last thing, Geo-Titan," Gaea said. "I know the last time wasn't the best experience with it, but-"

"You wanna possess me again?" I asked her.

"I do. Last time I did so mostly out of a desire for vengeance. I'm sorry for that, I know how much damage I caused you. Still, I need you to trust me just this once. I can only maintain this mental construct for a little while longer, and I cannot defeat your demons for you. You must find the strength to deal with that, but you'll need my help on the physical plane. Tyrak has been feeding greatly off of your despair, becoming more powerful by the second. Possessing you will give you the strength you need to end the fight quickly; you don't have much time before the Nethertrench anchor goes off."

"And my emotions?"

"I promise to tread lightly. I won't burn you out again; promise."

I thought about it for a quick nanosec, and begrudgingly accepted that I had super limited options. Like it or not, I had to take Gaea up on her offer.

"Guess I do kinda owe you one," I said to her. "Fine, we can tango again, but i'm on top, and we need to establish a safety word."

"Sometimes I just wanna kill you myself, and hope the next champion doesn't talk as much," she responded. "Just wrap this up, and meet me outside."

Her form, as well as her barrier, dissolved, leaving me alone with discount Medusa. Lindsey charged at me like a demon possessed snake lady. She was hissing, snarling, and swinging her swords around, like a drunk banshee. At the risk of a "no $#!+ Sherlock" moment, this was without a doubt not Lindsey. Lindsey was kind and sweet. She couldn't even cut into a frog at lab class, much less try and take someone's head off. She was the girl that wouldn't rest until he could knock the sadness outta you; who would smile even if she wasn't feeling all that great inside. I'll always hold her death close to me; it'll remind me always to strive to be a better man. As the so not Lindsey construct slithered at me menacingly, I held my hand up and willed her not to get anywhere closer than a few feet of me. This was my mind, she was just a figment of my fears, what I imagined she'd say to me if she were here. Not to be rude, but it was time to put her on hush mode.

"NOOO!" she bellowed at me. "IT'S NOT FAIR, IT'S NOT RIGHT! YOU DESERVE TO DROWN IN YOUR SINS, TO MMMMPH, MMMPH, MMMPH, MMMPH!"

Like I said, she was a figment of my imagination, and I imagined she didn't have a mouth anymore. I willed her to start breaking down, to start crumbling away like dust in the wind.

"You're not real," I told her. "You're just a construct of my fears; a product of the Nethertrench messing with my head. I want you to know that you were right, and I believe every word you said. I've made a whole bunch of bad decisions, hurt a great deal of good people. I may deserve to drown in my sins, but my friends don't, my parents don't. The world shouldn't drown in darkness because I let my past hold me back. Maybe one day karma will come around and kick me in the balls, but until then, i'm gonna do everything I can to atone for the things i've done. Sorry to spoil your plans, but you gotta go."

I imagined her form exploding into a million pieces, and willed myself to wake up in the real world; though you really couldn't tell the difference. The first thing that came to mind was the creeping black Nethertrench parasite thing crawling al over my body, reaching just over my neck at this point. My G-Blazer, not to mention Oroco, were holding it off as best as it could, but the thing was creeping up fast. Before I could start panicking, I got the feeling like a nuclear bomb was in my chest; like someone was holding it back from going off. I remembered that Gaea was streamlining G/N-Force into my body to be used as rapid fire blastwaves, so either she was holding them back, or I just couldn't get them outta me while I was in my head. Either way, I needed to relieve myself, and this was the perfect time to let loose. I roared out loud, warning Oroco to get back, and released all of the G/N-Force inside me, which I promise was strong enough to put a crater where a metropolitan city used to be. As soon as the G/N-Force was outta me, I summoned my All-Metal sword, stuck it deep in the ground, and reabsorbed all the remaining G-Force I had just let out. Like a surfer getting caught in a wave, Gaea had put her consciousness in the energy, and using my sword as a conduit for me to channel her straight into my body. I was terrified at first. The first time this happened, she f*(#^& me all up emotionally; I was afraid she'd permanently damage me this time. Surprisingly, it was quite the opposite. A wave passed through me, and not just because a bit of Gaea was inside me. I felt myself, my emotional state balance out entirely, like I was a half way completed puzzle that was finally getting the missing pieces put in. I felt whole again, better even; like someone had hooked me up to whatever it is gods feel like every day! This is how Cap must've felt when they put that Super Soldier Serum in him!

"Gaea?!" I thought to her, my voice overflowing with happiness. "What did you do?!"

"I told you, my champion," she almost laughed back at me. "I fix what I break. I overloaded your emotional state the last time we did this, but I found the gaps, and helped you bridge and strengthen them. Thanks for making it easy for me, because I couldn't fix this mess if not for the work you put in conquering your own past. I know this will be me sounding like a broken record, but I am so proud to have you as my champion. You may be annoying, immature, and obsessed with living up to the legacy of spandex clad vigilantes, but you've got it where it counts. I'd go on, but i'm ruining my reputation enough as it is; can't have you expecting this kind of treatment."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Dirt Queen! Let's save the world!"

To be honest, it was way easier than I thought it was gonna be. Tyrak, while he definitely got his fix off of my negative emotions, had extended himself to far. After I blew him off of me with that last blastwave, I was able to get possessed by Gaea, have that sappy conversation, and the guy still didn't reform himself! Well fine, if he wasn't gonna get his act together, I wasn't gonna wait up for him. Me and 10% of Gaea winded up, and re-opened the blastwave conveyor belt! Again, I promise you each wave would put a crater where Manhattan used to be; and that was at minimum! Wave after wave kept slamming into the trench energy, blowing the inky stuff around like a tornado, inside a sandstorm, inside a hurricane. I loved channeling this much power, it made me feel badass; but this time was especially different. Instead of feeling like I was pumping Gaea's molten vengeance out, I was feeling a surprising sense of comfort and safety; like when me and my parents would get together and watch sports, movies, or TV shows together. Ironic that I would feel so safe while in the middle of a battlefield, but I liked it.

"Oroco!" I thought to him. "You good?!"

"I am well, Geo-Titan!" he thought back to me, "And thankful that you are finally on your feet again!"

"Glad to be back, bro! Listen, that magic stuff you gotta do? Start doin' it! Tyrak isn't getting back in this one, as you can clearly see!"

"Affirmative, friend! Give me a moment, this will not take very long! Also, I need you to let Tyrak take form, just for a moment. The spell requires that a portion of his body be accessible!"

And after all the hard work I was doing to made sure that DIDN'T happen! Oh well, guess I put myself in this situation. I released one last explosive wave for good measure, and turned off the fireworks. Surprisingly, it took way longer for Tyrak to get his form back than I thought he would need. The guy left me and Oroco hanging for a good two minutes before he showed his face. Hell, Oroco had his rune disk spell thing ready by then. When Tyrak did get back in the game, it was pretty much the equivalent of a half assed jump scare. He formed right in front of me, all 60ft tall just like me, axe raised, mouth open for a battle roar, but his body had the same collective integrity of a pile of sand. Hell, my body called for a Timeout, so even if he wasn't coming at me with the force of a feather, he wouldn't have been able to hit me. I simply created a G-Force outline around him, let him cook for a few secs, and slammed him on the ground.

"He's on the table, doc!" I yelled to Oroco. "Get to operating!"

My Atlantean pal threw his rune disk thing on Tyrak's wisp cloud of a body, and $#!+ got real! Well, first Tyrak just kinda poofed outta existence, which was anticlimactic. But then, HOO BOY! That's when we shifted into overdrive!

The rune disk exploded into a Sea Force vortex that probably would've made Storm-Lord a little jealous. Around the vortex were four different animal constructs: a hammerhead shark, a great white shark, a whale, and a sea turtle. The vortex steadily got bigger, until it straight up engulfed even my 60 ft ass.

"Keep up the Geo-Force energy waves!" Oroco thought to me. "Our combined energies will corrupt this energy basin even faster!"

"I got you, buddy!" I thought back to him. "Speaking of which, when do we bail outta here?"

"I will informed you when we need to depart. My senses have never failed me."

"You've got about 3 ½ minutes," Gaea spoke up. "Not to show up your friend, but he's not exactly as capable as he thinks he is."

I laughed in my head, and for the next 3 ½ minutes, went supernova with the amount of G-Force I was shelling out. Again, with me and Gaea in sync now, I could do this all day, and feel like I was eating a tray of mom's lemon pound cake. After our time was up, signaled by the Nethertrench breaking down around us, revealing actual sea water in the distance, I shrunk down to normal size, grabbed Oroco, and shot us the outta this godforsaken hellhole.

(Jason's Perspective)

So. Here we go. A mutant/part god kid from Bronx County, and an undersea elf man swimming towards a Nethertrench fortress trying to destroy the world. Grant was right about one thing. If we ever decided to try joining the major superhero teams, we'd have one hell of a resume to submit! Anyway, Namor and I soared through hundreds upon hundreds of Nethertrench monsters; my Sea Force comet burning them to nothingness. It maybe took us a few minutes to break through the monster blockade, set our sights on the Parthenon looking entrance to Llyra's personal Nethertrench pit, and busted the gates open. It took all of five seconds before our plan (if you could call it a plan) fell apart at the seams. As soon as we were inside, pulsing Nethertrench waves, like sonic blast, bombarded my comet until it straight up went poof. Namor and I crashed into the floor, grunting and cussing furiously (Atlantean cussing is interesting). We quickly got up, but before we could even think about getting our bearings, the walls literally started to close in on us. Completely opposite to what I was used to, the inside was way smaller than the outside would lead you to believe. Hell, by the time the walls stopped closing in, Namor and I only had a width of 8 ft and a height of 25 ft to work with. The real kicker was that the length of this long ass hallway was a mile and a half long. At the end of the hallway was what I assumed to be the entrance to a throne room of sorts. The gilded images of Llyra striking a wicked pose, a trident in her hand, Namor's head in the other, and a legion of Atlanteans kneeling to her. Oh, and did I forget to mention that the hallway was filling up with Nethertrench constructs of piranhaoids, mutated man-sharks, ichthyominotaurs, ichthyocentaurs, all types of sea dragons, and every other mythological creature of the deep Llyra could throw at us. So let's see here…..outnumbered, maybe outgunned, completely unprepared, in a hostile environment, surrounded by guys who wanted nothing more than to rip us to shreds. Yup, business as usual.

"She certainly has rolled out the welcome wagon for us!" Namor thought to me.

"You say that like it's a good thing!" I thought back to him.

"It means I get to have some fun with these appetizers, before the main course!"

The monsters charged us all at once, all several thousand of them, but it was my turn to f*(# up their formation! I summoned my trident, fueled it with enough Sea Force to level a city, and slashed the trident in front of me, creating a small but deadly crescent wave. The wave cut though a good 1/4th of the monsters, but the sheer amount of Nethertrench in the area was wearing the energy down. It didn't even get halfway through, before it fizzled out entirely. The good news was that I managed to give Namor and I a few more seconds of breathing room, via crescent wave rapid fire. Thanks to my trusty stone of Poseidon, I was able to give each wave the same amount of strength I was able to give the first. Hell, if these monsters weren't getting replaced just as soon as they were getting mown down, we'd have been at the throne room gates by now. As was such, I had to make do. I created an army of sharks, man-sharks, piranhaoids, blue Wild Force rangers, and mermaid warrior constructs out of Sea Force. I didn't have as many as constructs as the amount coming at me and Namor, but I had them made with so much Sea Force, they were able to one-shot the Nethertrench constructs as soon as we were close enough to do battle Lord of the Rings style.

Namor was having the time of his life, shouting his trademark IMPERIUS REX! Battle cry, before slashing through ten monster constructs at once with his trident. He stayed in the forefront of the battle, slashing and stabbing down monsters left and right, like they were training dummies. I stayed in the background, maintaining the constructs, and streamlining the crescent waves. Occasionally a monster construct would get close enough to hit me, but i'd take em' down with a quick stab, and continue on my way. Together, it maybe took Namor and I five minutes to get almost halfway there (cue SpongeBob joke). Wading through the rest of these goons probably wouldn't have been super hard to do, but since Llyra was losing the game, she re-wrote the rules (like my mom when we play Uno). The monster constructs melted into a collective black liquidy sludge, and retreated to the end of the hallway. My first instinct was to say f*(# it, and try to get to the throne room before Llyra could do whatever it is she was trying to do, but it was too late. The sludge reformed into a giant ichthyocerberus head, one that took up the space of the entire end of the hallway, and breathed a column of black fire at me and Namor! I quickly ditched the constructs, and created a Sea Force wall; just managing to stop the fire just barely a few feet away from me and Namor. Jesus Christ, dear Poseidon, and holy Zeus, this chick was strong! I was using enough Sea Force to put a barrier around Atlantis several times over, yet this fire breathing dog head was this close (like 98% there) to busting it down! Of course it couldn't be as simple as just one fire breathing dog head. On the other side of the hallway, Llyra created a second fire breathing dog head! How b-e-a-utiful!

I managed to create another overcharged wall construct, just barely keeping the fire at bay, but man was this a strain on….me? The stone? I knew that the energy was coming from the stone for sure, but I could feel a level of strain coming from either me or it; like we were both getting our cardio for the day. Anyway, it seemed like Namor and I were absolutely f*(#*% (which was more frustrating with elf boy was screaming at me to not give in to the pressure), absolutely done for, but then the stone did something completely outta left field. My mind was flooded with images of how to do a certain spell. At first I had my doubts about this, I knew for a fact I couldn't do magic, but through unspoken words, the stone explained to me in a mix of images and something like a magical Morse Code, that it would be the one doing the heavy lifting. What that meant, was that all the power, energy, and mental focus to perform the spells would be coming solely from it. The stone would walk me through the hand movements, give me the spell I would need to pull off whatever action I would need to do at any moment. Right now in particular, the stone was feeding me the spell for disperse: ]'.-|-_.|.\-_)_-._ Oh, the stone was feeding me Atlantean, which is a pain in the ass to spell out, so here's their full alphabet (and then some!).

A: /.' N: |./ AN: / . | NT: |.-|

B: |.. O: .(. ED: -'. ON: .(.|

C: '., P: |.\ EE: .._ OO: .().

D: ]'. Q: ^/. EN: -| / OR: .(_)

E: -._ R: _) ER: -_) RE: _-.

F: \/| S: -_. ES: .-_ SE: _-._

G: .,/ T: .-| FF: \|/. SS: -_.

H: ].[ U: .-. HE: ] [- . ST: -_.|

I: -| V: /]\ ING: -|. TE: . | - .

J: )=| W: \ /. IN: |-. TH: . ] | [

K: |\. X: /[ LL: | | _ TR: |_)

L: |._ Y: '/ | ND: |.]' TO: | .(.

M: ./| Z: -|_ NE: |-._ VE: /-\_

Yup, real good stuff there. Thanks to the one-two punch of our memory exchange, plus my photographic memory, I could understand and write in Atlantean pretty easily, even without the stone telling me how to do it (though I was thankful for the help). I quickly made a clawed West Coast-like symbol with my hand, drew the symbol for disperse out in front of me, and willed the spell to enchant the two walls I had set up around me and Namor. Even though the energy wasn't coming from me, doing magic felt super freaky. It was like an energy whirlpool was churning in my stomach. Things like reality, physics, and the laws of nature, became small, almost insignificant details that I could simply skirt around. To be fair, I got kicked in the gut pretty hard recently, so it could be my body reacting to that, but whatever. Anyway, after the walls were charged with the spell, I slammed my trident into the floor, willed the walls to transform into energy waves, and sent them in either direction. To be honest, it was like a real life delete button, cuz the flames, dragon head, and dog head, were wiped out of existence so easily, it was like they weren't there at all. That spell took a lot though. Not from me (I love this stone), but I felt something like a shudder from the stone; like it just did laps. Some part of me wanted to exercise caution before I opened the floodgates, but there was evil to kill, and I don't care what Pottermore says (Hufflepuff my ass), i'm Gryffindor goddamn it! I created a hammerhead construct around me and Namor, and took off full throttle towards the throne room gates. I put a decent amount of Sea Force into this construct, and while I was relatively sure I could break through the gates without help, better safe than sorry. I called on the stone for more energy, and constructed another spell: -_../|/.'-_.].[ (smash) to enchant the shark construct as we closed in on the doors.

"Since when could you do magic, boy?!" Namor thought to me.

"Since a few seconds ago!" I thought back to him. "This stone's one hell of a teacher!

Two seconds later, we smashed through the doors like a S.W.A.T. team…..and got blasted with another Nethertrench wave!

Ok, I am so over this whole surprise blastwave thing! Just when I think I found my balance, some asswipe (it was totally Llyra) swept the rug out from under me, and i'd have to build a new set up. Speaking of which, even though I had the stone of Poseidon in my chest, the Nethertrench was giving me a run for my money. The oncoming waves kept hitting me like a truckload of sandbags, and I swear I could feel something like claws trying to rake me to pieces. After getting tossed around for like ten seconds (not my shining moment), I felt something like a giant hand slam me into the floor, before raising me upright. I quickly shifted into Speed Mode, and took in my surroundings. From what I could see, this place was an exact replica of the Atlantean palace throne room, just in all black. There was more than enough space to move around and fight, but since an army of cannon fodder was the standard for all super villains (or at least the A level ones), this space was probably gonna bite me and Namor in the ass. So yeah, Namor and I were kind of knocked off guard right now, and things only got worse from there. First off, another blast of Nethertrench energy erupted right under me and Namor (because that's what I was craving at the moment). It wasn't violent tho; more like intrusive. It felt like a cat was clawing into my head, and didn't stop until it had found whatever it was looking for. That took another five seconds, after which the wave stopped, and me and Namor fell to our knees. Stone or no stone, mental intrusion really takes the fight outta ya. The sound of Llyra's laughter gave me a second wind tho.

"Not as strong when you play by my rules, eh, child?" she taunted me. "Fear not, my qualms are not with you. Though you deserve long and slow torment for daring to hurt me, I will see to it that your death is merciful. Namor will wish I could say the same for him."

Pardon my language, but f*(# this bitch! Seriously, I am so over this underestimate Storm-Lord bull$#!+. She wanted to talk all that good $#!+, huh? Let's see her talk with a trident jabbed into her neck! I tapped into Speed Mode, got up, and took a quick look at where the voice was coming from. She was 200 meters away, sitting on a pure black throne, flanked by two guys in hooded robes. I was betting that they weren't fast enough to see me throw the trident, but just in case, I launched a couple Sea Force missile constructs at them. Figured i'd test if they were more loyal to themselves, or their mistress. Turns out I wouldn't be finding that out anytime soon, cuz Llyra had an invisible barrier around them, that was strong enough to tank my hits! Ok, maybe invisible wasn't the word to go with. More like transparent. See, my trident and missile constructs didn't reach within 10ft of them, cuz they ran into an energy wall that didn't show itself until the projectiles hit. I managed to see the spell (that was as long as a billboard) for a half a sec, before it faded away: |../.'_)_)-|-_) That meant barrier. I called my trident back to me, and from what I could see, I amused Llyra.

"Hmmm," she said casually "Perhaps i'll retract that mercy. Depends on how much I enjoy hearing you scream."

A giant rune circle formed outside me and Namor. It had an inverted pentagram in the center, followed by another ring with Atlantean writing in it. I managed to do a quick 360, and read the entire inscription. |..'/| .-|][-. |.\.(.\/.-_) .(.\/| .-|][-. ]'.-._./|.(.|-_. .(.\/| .-|][-. |-._.]|[-_)|_)-|/'.,].[ |-.\/||._-|'.,.-| |.\/.'|-. .-.|.\.(.| ./|'/| -|/-._./|-|.-_. By the demons of the Nethertrench, inflict pain upon my enemies. Outside of that was another ring (you'd think I was dealing with The Mandarin) that had etchings of various demon heads, claws, and horns; presumably the ones Llyra wanted to attack me and Namor. Sing it with me, Oh Hell noooooo, oh naaaaaaw! I quickly put up a counter spell: '.,/.|'.,-._| for cancel, and put as much Sea Force into it as was needed. I was pretty certain that the spell wasn't gonna effect me (magical immunity and all that), but Namor definitely needed the save. Also, I had to get a handle on what I was dealing with. Me and Llyra could both do magic. She was drawing on the Nethertrench, while I was relying on the stone. Not sure who had the power advantage, but I had to test out the waters to get a rough guesstimate. As was such, I was pretty sure we were on about equal footing. Oh, Llyra wasn't going all out, not by a long shot, but countering her spell required the same effort I would use to jog (without my powers). She was gonna have to do much better than this to throw me off (why did I say that?). As was such, she looked at me with a mix of amusement and annoyance.

"How cute!" she laughed at me. "We have ourselves a young magician! I have to admit Namor, you certainly now how to find the diamonds of the surface filth! Still, i'm in no mood to play with you; i'd rather tune in to the destruction of your friends and allies. Don't worry, I am a gracious host, and have prepared some entertainment to help pass the time!

She tapped her trident on the ground, and a Nethertrench ripple washed through the throne room, creating another army of constructs. This time tho, things were way more personal. For one, there were constructs that related specifically to me. Ethan, Allyson, Grant, Mom, Mrs. Kennedy, Goblin, Venom, the Shadow Gods, etc. Namor's ones were much more broad, because he had apparently pissed of every superhero ever! Seriously, Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, hell, even most villains, you name it. There was a construct for almost everyone with a superpower ever showing up for this guy!

"Crush them!" Llyra shouted, releasing the hoard on us.

"GET BEHIND ME!" I mentally roared at Namor, as I prepared another spell.

I quickly made this symbol: |../.|-|-_.].[ for banish, and made it all big and spread out. Oh yeah, this throne room was easily half the size of a standard New York City block (about 2.5 acres), so Llyra was able to fit hundreds upon hundreds of constructs into attack formations. Anyway, with my spell in place (I was starting to get the hang of this), I willed it to activate, and…..didn't exactly get what I wanted. With a banishing spell, I expected the monsters to go poof, but at best they looked like they were going to explode from the inside. Sea Force and Nethertrench energy fought with each other, definitely slowing the constructs down, but not getting rid of them completely. Also, the damn things were talking in my head (I hate that)!

"Why did you have to leave me, Jason?" my not mom echoed in my head. "I miss you so much! I worry about you everyday! Worry that you're bleeding out in a gutter! That you'll never come home! Why did it take you so long to accept me as your mother? Did you only say that so I would let you go?"

Ok. That hit hard and fast. I knew even when I called her mom it was so she would let me go, but I didn't know that I would mean it just as soon as the words left my mouth. Oh God….my first genuine act of moving on from my birth parents death was so that Doris would give me her blessing to leave her!

"Really, Jason?!" not Allyson shrieked in my head. "What happened to all that love and affection you supposedly had for your mother?! Do you really care about her? Are you capable of caring for anyone other than yourself? Can you put your anger to the side long enough to try?"

That just rubbed salt on the wound. Even if she was fake, she sounded just like Allyson; said things Allyson would say when she got mad at me. We may not have been together, at least not yet, but she was one of the few people on this earth whose opinion mattered to me. Hearing her voice in my head, saying things that were at least half true, definitely jumbled my thoughts even more.

"Well of course he's angry, Sunbird!" not Grant chimed in. "I mean, think about it. The guy can't lead a team worth a damn. He's basically been coasting by on beginner's luck. He can't stand up to either of us in a battle, much less fight any heavy hitters, and he's always pretending like he's some sorta badass, when he's just a punk kid still mad about his dead folks. Why'd you get busy with this fool again? I mean I know i'm not yo type, but you sure as hell ain't gotta go dumpster diving for bottom of the barrel trash like him."

And now I really was getting into anger territory! Grant basically sounded like Ethan, and the fact that they were both jocks did not help. Hell, while Grant was laying down the harsh words, I had to endure the same $#!+ from Ethan too. It all just kept coming in a gradual roar. First Ethan would throw in his cheap jabs about me being an orphan (which was just background noise at this point). That was followed by Doom and the Shadow Gods attacking me for being way in over my head; for being a boy, trying to lead other kids to fight gods. Crosby's goons kept jeering at me for how pathetic I was for trying to pretend that I could actually have friends. They kept shouting over and over in my head that I would be forever alone, that even my mom would leave me sooner or later. Mrs. Kennedy also had her two cents to put into the discussion, but I had learned to block her out a long time ago (probably why she kept calling on me so often in English). One by one, I could've probably navigated my way through all the bull$#!+, but this was so much, so fast, and so hard, that it was all I could do not to cave under the pressure. Hell, considering my coping mechanism was to drop to my knees, and hold the sides of my head like it was gonna explode (also screaming shut up as loud as I could), I wouldn't say I was doing the best. I was just managing to keep the spell up, but was getting more and more frustrated that it wasn't working.. Now, not Grant's words about my leadership skills were starting to mess with my head even more. Here I was with the power of a god, and I couldn't even get rid of discount Ursula's henchman. How was I supposed to stop her, if I couldn't even get close? What about my friends, how were they doing? I was the idiot who thought splitting up would be a good idea. If they got hurt because of me…...I…...I feel calm?

Yeah, I know that's outta left field, but it was literally that quick in my mood change. One second I couldn't keep my super brain from drowning in fear, the next I was in a state of almost Zen. I didn't know how I knew this (either memory exchange, or the stone filling in the blanks), but with the spirit of a dolphin circling around me (not kidding), things like peace, love, and came easily.

"Focus, Jason," Namor thought to me. "You have to focus. Remember, the Nethertrench tries to prey on your weaknesses, but it can't take away your strength. Focus your spirit, dismiss the lies that these devils whisper in your ears. Remember you are, and what you are striving towards. Use the noble animals of the sea to help steady and guide you. Don't worry my friend, we will not know defeat this day!"

Huh. Namor can actually give a halfway decent pep talk. Who knew? Still, the guy provided one hell of a guide to recovery. Since my speed allowed me all the time in the world to sort myself out, I took a bit of a timeout (no, i'm not stealing that from Grant) to get myself in order. I started out with small stuff. Tackling the $#!+ Crosby, his goons, and Mrs. Kennedy kept throwing at me. Y'know, school stuff. All that noise about me being an orphan, an outsider, and all that, sure it was true. Still, so what? Doris eventually found me, and helped me heal at my own pace through my grief. Up until I allowed myself to remember what friendship felt like, I was fine being an outsider; other people annoyed me anyway. And no matter what Mrs. Kennedy threw at me, I had proved her wrong about me being unfit to lead a team, about me being overly emotional, and no matter how much she liked to rail on me back at school, I was one of four people that actually had an A in her class (#suckit). Doom, and the Shadow Gods were next, and this was tricky territory. On one hand, Doom scared the hell outta me. I'd never admit that out loud, but there was a reason why it took all hands on deck to beat this guy when he was making too much noise. I had no idea what his endgame was with The Stones of Olympus, but he was more than willing to kill hundreds for them, and now that I was on his radar, even I couldn't pretend to not be scared. The Shadow Gods brought a whole new level of weird and pants $#!++!^% to the table. Sure, I was new to this whole gods of whatever thing, but aside from the capital G one, I had always imagined that Zeus and the Olympians were the mightiest gods of all time (sorry Asgardians). Even though I only saw them for less than five minutes, I knew that these Shadow Gods could easily wipe the floor with Olympus. I was actually afraid for uber powerful gods, so what was I doing in all this mess? How could a kid from The Bronx, even with all my powers and gear, stand up to something that was inconceivably…...out there? As much as I tried to manage my fear and confusion on my own, I ended up going back to something my mom had told me when I was having trouble with Algebra, or trying to talk to Hannah Willows.

"Jason," she would always say. "A problem is never as hard as you think it is. It's just numbers, simple math, and changing variables. Start with what you know, and then work your way up. The same with that girl. She's just another person; you've just built a podium so high, that she seems further away than she actually is. Don't overestimate a situation, baby. Nothing is unsolvable. Let's go get Chinese food."

Seriously, we would always get Chinese food when I had a long night of math ahead of me! But yeah, that's how I was able to mentally fight off Doom and the Shadow Gods. Doom was definitely nothing to sneeze at, but everything he's been throwing at us so far hasn't been cutting it. Some attempts for more successful than others, but after a war crazed Venom, a death crazed Goblin, some super strong villains with a snake gimmick, and f*(#!^& Magneto, me and my team were still standing. Doom may be a big deal, but techno/magic dictator or not, he had Delta Force to deal with, and we have a Geo-Titan! That segwayed into my friends, which was way too easy to deal with. Maybe it was because we had squashed this $#!+ like five times already, but I had already knew that Grant had my back 100%. This was a guy that had stood up for me time and time again when nobody believed in me. He helped me deal with Allyson's hunt for the perfect dress (that was somethin' else), and picked up the slack for the both of us when Magneto knocked my ass out. We may not have known each other long, but you don't fight monsters, have near death experiences, and collect magical rocks with someone, without forming some kinda bond. Ditto for Allyson. I could tell there'd be more times when we both wanted to kill each other, and I couldn't tell you I was sure where this thing between us was going, but that was beside the point. As of now, Allyson was at the very least a reliable teammate and fighter. I exclude friend because she disowned me that one time, and let's face it, we were clearly more than friends at this point. Still, she had my back, and I had her's. Even if I ever wanted to kill her in the future, i'd kill anyone else who tried to harm her first. Not exactly the best sentiment, but at least it was one I knew we both shared about each other. Sure, we both had issues to deal with, but I wouldn't change a thing about her; she's too much fun the way she is. Finally, I had my mom to deal with. With her, most of what I had to deal with was guilt. I felt guilty for never showing or telling her how much I loved her. How grateful I was for her taking me of all people in. For ten years she was always in my corner, always behind me 100%. Sometimes it was easy to take someone like that for granted, but if there's one good thing that came out of S.H.I.E.L.D. taking me away from her, it's that now I would never consider taking her for granted ever again. Even for just this short time away, I missed watching TV with her after school. I missed playing Uno, Wizard101 (she loved that game; I was Storm, she was Life), Mortal Kombat, and other games with her that she should've been way too old to get. I was terrified of the mere idea that i'd never hug her again, or make height jokes with her, or live to see what her hair color change would be next, or have her drag me outta bed every Sunday morning for church. Hell, her being taken hostage yesterday was a wakeup call that she wouldn't be around forever. As terrifying as it was for me to potentially die without seeing her again, that prospect actually gave me renewed strength. I loved my mom, I needed her, she needed me, and I was gonna see her again! I was not gonna die at the bottom of the ocean!

Taking advantage of Namor's knowledge of Atlantean magic, I tapped into more Sea Force, used the stone of Poseidon to help me, and got to work. First, I used this technique called the Neptune wave. I spelled this out: |..'/| .-|][-. |.\.(.\/.-_) .(.\/| .-|][-. _-._/]\-|/ _-._/.'-_. -| -_..-../|./|.(.| .-|][-. \/._)/.'.]|[ .(.\/| |-._|.\.-|.-.|-._ (By the power of the seven seas, I summon the wrath of Neptune). I slammed my trident into the floor (i've been doing that a lot lately), and the words burned like a flare on steroids. Directly behind me and Namor, a huge Sea Force wave, big enough to slam into half of a skyscraper, formed. This wasn't just a regular wave of energy, mind you. The thing that made this spell special, was the fact that it was infused with ten different animal spirits that were both a part of the wave, and at certain points, separate from it. For example, I infused the wave with a great white, hammerhead, and megalodon. Each of those sharks represented something different. The great white was for strength, the hammerhead was for perseverance, and the megalodon was for power. Aside from them, the wave had the spirit of a dolphin, Roman Sea Dragon, Cretan Sea Serpent, sea horse, stingray, whale, and a killer whale. In the exact order as listed, the animals represented: love, steadfastness, cunning, harmony, peace, wisdom, and courage. I know this sounds like I was attacking the darkness with Care Bear power…..cuz I essentially was. Don't get me wrong, can't f*(#!^$ stand Care Bears, but they would be pretty damn effective if they were here right now. See, the Neptune Wave itself was just that; a giant wave of power that was blessed in the name of Poseidon/Neptune (they were interchangeable to the Atlanteans). The animal spirits were the fuel to the fire. Any sea creatures, mythological, current, or prehistoric would do, but these were the ones that came off the top of my head. While I could've summoned any of these animal spirits independent of the Neptune Wave, it was by summoning them all in tandem with the wave that made everything come together. The spell highlighted and enhanced unity; the power of strength in numbers coming together for a noble cause. All these concepts like love, harmony, peace, and wisdom, united under the power of Poseidon, was straight poison to the Nethertrench. Again, it sounded like some Care Bear bull$#!+, but that's magic for ya.

Anyway, the wave slammed over me and Namor, tho we were able to keep our balance, and crashed into Llyra's constructs. Hell, if Llyra didn't double down on her shield (and she was really putting in effort), we probably would've washed her away. As was such, we had to settle for pretty much all of the constructs directed at me getting wiped off the map. A few of em like Doom and The Shadow Gods stuck around, but at least most of my demons didn't survive the mystical OxiClean. Namor's constructs, and i'm not exaggerating here, all survived the splash! Hell, I wasn't even surprised; his memories and knowledge of the Nethertrench helped me fill in the gaps. See, while the Nethertrench used your past and your fears against you, the constructs were only as powerful as you made them. I was just a high school kid that didn't give a f*(# (mostly), so it was easy to wash my constructs away. Namor on the other hand, even though he could care less about the horrible things he's done, still had more than enough built up sins to make his constructs strong enough to survive the wave. They took a hit, and they definitely weren't gonna survive long term exposure, but how bad did Namor f*(# all these heroes and villains over? I'd actually be impressed if it wasn't life or death right now. Like I said tho, Namor didn't give a f*(#. He threw his trident at the Black Panther construct, which went poof on impact.

"Guess I have to be more thorough!" he said.

He charged the construct army, and I backed him up.

Again, Namor's the type of guy I can respect, even if i'm not too enthusiastic about the guy. He flew full throttle at an army of hundreds, and with his sheer strength alone (with a little help from his Sea Force body shield), smashed through like 20 at once. While he was smashing his way to his trident, I was manipulating the wave, which was basically just a really big energy lake with animal constructs at this point, to thin the herd. I made the wave splash around, separating the majority, and then lumping together groups about ten constructs to take out. Most times I would have an animal construct do it for me (I loved watching giant sharks eat Nethertrench constructs), but I was more than willing to gut them with my trident, or mow them down with my Storm Sword. On another note, my Storm Sword still had the magic that Doctor Strange put on it back with that whole zombie nonsense. This was useful, cuz holy water was pretty much an instant K.O. for these constructs. I managed to balance my use of the Neptune Wave, my trident, and my sword, taking out at least 100 constructs on my own. Namor had already reclaimed his trident, and was doing his own thing not too far away from where I was. We weren't a tight knit team, but we worked well enough together to clean up his mess. Of course Llyra couldn't help but talk $#!+ while we were trying to have fun.

"You continue to surprise me, surface dweller!" she called out. "Never would I have thought such remarkable skill and finesse could be displayed from a member of such a barbaric race!" Indeed, you may be a more worthy advocate to the throne of Atlantis than Namor himself!"

"Sure as Hell more worthy than you, witch!" Namor yelled back at her.

"Awww. Did I strike a nerve, dear king? How entertaining it is to see the mighty Namor as a petulant child throwing a tantrum in the twilight of everything he has every loved!

"I have no plans to die this day, Llyra! But I will enjoy banishing you to the Trench for all eternity!"

"Namor, Namor, Namor. How do you seek to kill what is already dead? Was the first time not enough for you?"

Ok, timeout. I had lived Namor's entire life, and never once did I see him kill Llyra in any form or fashion. All of a sudden I was interested in this soap opera.

"I suppose not." she continued. "After all, letting me and all of Lemuria die, after we begged for your help it isn't as enjoyable as doing the deed yourself, is it?"

"Your actions led to your own demise, Llyra! I warned you time and time again about the dangers of invoking the Nethertrench. You and your people prayed to demons and false gods, to malicious spirits that only want for death and destruction. Your fate is not on my conscience."

"It is not? You believe yourself free of the blood of millions of my kinsmen? My brothers and sisters, whose screams still plague me for every moment of everyday? That is just like you Namor. Come Hell or High Water, even if you have to wade through a river of blood, you will do anything to secure the fate of your kingdom. In many ways I respect that; I would not have lain with you if you were not a great man. Still, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You let my kingdom die, you let me die, and now i'll repay that kindness one hundred fold. You see, in death, i've never been more alive, more powerful, than I am right now. I am the master of the Nethertrench; the monsters, the damned, the aberrations and abominations of your nightmares answer to me. I will enjoy breaking you in body and mind for centuries; only killing you when there is nothing left to torture. Of course you'll be with me for all time. All mine forever and ever. Even now I cannot comprehend how many different ways to bring you pain in here; nor how sweet your wails will be to my ears."

Ugh. Now, i'm not interested anymore. Don't get me wrong, this whole revenge of the ex was definitely juicy, but now that I had run outta stuff to hit, I didn't have enough of an attention span to listen to anymore of this (I can't even replay video games without blasting background music). While Namor and Llyra were having their little shouting match with each other, I was moving the Neptune Wave for a different kind of assault. I quickly condensed the wave into a giant fist, really put my back into enchanting a smash spell over it, and slammed it into Llyra's barrier as hard as I could! The first hit straight up rocked her barrier with the force of a tidal wave, causing the spell to flicker momentarily. Still, credit where credit's due, Llyra held the line. I recycled the wave, reformed the fist, and tried again. I did this over and over ten times; hitting the barrier as hard as I could, getting so close to pulling it off, but not quite managing to seal the deal. Hell, after the fifth attack, I tried mixing it up; using a hammerhead, school bus, Minotaur, battering ram, an actual ram, but nothing was getting through. Llyra must've had some crazy willpower she was putting into the spell, cuz if I couldn't smash through after ten hits, she was either really good, or I wasn't good enough. Looking back on it, it was probably the latter, cuz even while hunkering down, Llyra was workin' on a side project. I noticed two mini cyclones of either side of her, which looked like she was tryna steal my gimmick. I didn't consider that she was building up a counter attack, and man did me and Namor take another hit because of it!

It happened so fast. I got one last hit on Llyra's barrier, reeled the wave back for another (I was really feelin' it this time), and got another blast of Nethertrench to the face! Seriously, if someone splurged Nethertrench on me again, I was gonna go ape $#!+. As was such, I had bigger things to worry about. The Nethertrench blast was annoying as hell, but I distinctly remember getting hit in the head with a chain of all things. How'd I know what it's like to get hit with a chain? Cuz New York can be real unfriendly at night. You never forget what it feels like to get busted in the head with a chain (I won that fight by the way). Anyway, after the surge died down, and my vision came back into focus, I was treated to one of the most terrifying attack force i've ever seen.

Ok, maybe terrifying was a stretch. The attack force was only two people; tho Llyra was goin' hardcore on the mind games now. The two guys were Llyron and Kamar, aka Namor's villainous sons. They were in full color, same as Llyra, so they obviously weren't constructs. Kamar was almost the spitting image of his dad. Same face, tho it looked more sunken. Same burly physique, but a bit slender than his father (yet still more burly than me). He had long flowing hair, which made him look like a surfer, and was wearing a black Kevlar body suit with gold arm guards, gold leg guards, and a gold belt with a trident engraved in it. He also had a purple cape attached to his armor, and had nothing but two long chains with hooks at the ends for weapons. The guy didn't look as threatening as his dad (more like a daddy's little rich boy), but I definitely couldn't underestimate him. He was radiating power like a goddamn generator. Llyron on the other hand, was nothing short of a beef mountain. Let's put aside the fact that he was giving off the same aura of power that Kamar was; even by regular standards, this guy LOOKED like he could kick Namor's ass! He was at least double the muscle mass of Namor, a foot taller, had arms and legs thick enough to strangle an anaconda, and had blueish/green skin. He had wings on his ankles (like father, like son), tho instead of Hermes wings, they were more like fleshy fish fins mixed with bat wings. Unlike Kamar, the guy was only wearing a blue speedo (you can't unsee that $#!+) leaving his Arnold Schwarzenegger (when he was a body builder) body out for display. Hell, the guy's trident was more badass than mine. It was basically a spear with axe blades on the sides in place of traditional trident prongs; this thing was made to mow people down brutally! Behind the both of them, a Nethertrench version of a Neptune wave was roaring behind them., Theirs had things like an ichthyocerberus, piranhaoid, various sea serpents and dragons, and stuff like that. If they were trying to make me jealous…...it was working. Of course, Llyra was laughing her ass off (f*(#!^$ hate her).

"Look upon your legacy, O great king!" she gloated. "See where your loving care and guidance has landed your sons! You of course remember how you chained Kamar to your throne, and left him to die at the hands of the killer of your own cousin. I assure you, he's been dying for a reunion with you. And you of course remember our son, Llyron. He's not dead, not yet anyway, but the boy wanted to see you one last time before one or both of you goes!"

"I am not a boy, mother!" shouted Llyron, without breaking eye contact with his father. Also, his voice was like Onaga, from Mortal Kombat, but if Onaga was also jacked up on steroids. "Do not refer to me as if I am under my father!"

"You were never my equal, witchborn!" Namor countered. "And your mother is correct about one thing. One of us will die today, but it will not be me!"

Llyron started monologuing, and I was about to throw my trident at him just for the sake of shutting him up (f*(#!^& hate villain monologues), but Namor stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Don't attack, Jason," he thought to me. "Give him a few minutes to get it out of his system. We need the time to prepare anyway."

"Why?" I thought back to him. "If he's not dead, then Kamar obviously is the soul we need to destabilize this area. You hold off beef mountain, i'll take Kamar. Obviously Llyra will step in when she's losing, but we can cross that bridge when we get to it. What's the hold up?"

"Kamar is not the soul we need, it's the throne Llyra's sitting on. Even worse, it's not one soul we have to worry about; the throne is composed of hundreds of thousands of souls. I don't have the power to disperse that much evil energy, and I doubt you have the experience to do so."

"The stone is giving me all the info I need, buddy. I can totally do it, we just need to get close enough."

"That presents a challenge. Llyra won't attack us directly, even if we dispose of my sons.

He said that like he had a cinder block on his chest, and it immediately clicked in my head. This wasn't just a king defending his people and his dominion, this was a father whose hand was being forced to destroy his own sons. Again, Namor is a master of looking hard and remorseless, so much to where you could almost swear the dude had no heart at all. Moments like the prove how wrong you'd be.

"Actually," I quickly moved the conversation along. "I have an idea. Llyra's gonna look at this as sport; at this point, she's just in it for the fun. She'll keep the barrier up, but her guard'll be down."

"What are you suggesting?"

"After we take care of your boys, i'll use a teleport spell, and bring her outside of the barrier."

"But her guard will return in force once her guards have been disposed of."

"Yeah, but it'll be focused on keep us from forcing our way in. I doubt she's considered us yanking her out.

"Why not just teleport her out now?"

"Because I like the odds of a 2 on 1 fight in our favor, rather than a 3 on 2 fight in theirs."

"Fair enough, though I doubt Llyra will go down without a decent fight."

"I'm countin' on it, man. Oh, and here's a bit of moral support for ya."

I willed my Neptune Wave to attune to Namor's chi (more or less). Now he could manipulate the wave same as me.

"I'll take Kamar," I told him. "Big, blue, and talkative is all yours."

"Here's to a good battle, surface dweller," he responded. "Watch yourself, my son is almost as good a fighter as me."

In response, I hit Kamar in the chest with a Sea Force Blast from my trident, flooring him just as good as a bolt of lighting would've.

"I'll manage," I thought to Namor, and rushed at Kamar.

Kamar immediately got up, and shot at me with his chain hooks. The hooks were obviously controlled telepathically, cuz as soon as I dodged them, they did a 180. I dodged the hooks a few more times, before cutting this game of tag short via slamming a piece of the Neptune Wave (along with the shark construct) into Kamar's side, wiping him out. I wasted no time trying to finish the fight, and threw my trident at him as soon as he hit the deck. The trident hit him square in the gut with a loud THUNK!, and Kamar wailed like a thousand banshees coming out of one mouth. Usually this is that part where people die, or in his case, disintegrate back into the Nethertrench, but I knew it wouldn't be that easy. Like I said, him and Llyron radiated power; power that came from them being shot up with a boatload of evil souls. I could feel that my enchanted trident had distorted Kamar's form just a bit, but not enough to where this would be a cakewalk. Kamar literally blew my trident off of him via blastwave, throwing me for a spin as well, before decking me back with his own wave blast. One thing to note was that my Speed and Sea Senses were almost dead in the water (yeah, yeah, water puns). Deep in this Nethertrench $#!+, there weren't any electrons in the atmosphere, and the Nethertrench wasn't exactly water, so my eyes in the back of my head were sewn shut. The only thing that helped me retain my edge was the Sea Force around me. See, with the Nethertrench and Neptune Waves crashing and mixing with one another, everywhere was a battlefield, but at least half of the war zone was familiar territory. As was such, I was able to find my way around without too much trouble. Anyway, Kamar was lookin' to get some payback, and summoned another wall of Nethertrench energy to smash me. I created a dome around myself, blocking the wave, and hit Kamar in his back with a giant Sea Force fist, knocking him towards me. I pulled a recent trick I used to fight Attuma, and created a giant Sea Force crossbow, put my trident on the launcher, and shot the damn thing at Kamar at 100 mph! The trident flew right through him, tearing his form up somethin' fierce, but that was the least of his worries. I took two of the animal spirits, the great white and hammerhead sharks, condensed them around my arms, along with a bit of raw Neptune Wave energy, and socked Kamar in the face with the most epic Vibration punch you've ever seen! The dude flew back so fast, he hit Llyra's barrier spell, and collapsed to the ground all pathetically. I released the spirits to maul him some more, but this guy could take a hit. He shielded himself with a Nethertrench barrier, and blasted the sharks away with a spiral blast aimed at me. I gotta look into what it is with Atlanteans and spiral blasts; it seems to be a hallmark of their fighting strategy. If you think I was gonna flinch at somethin' as basic as a spiral blast, you don't know me at all (well, you don't know me anyway, but that's not the point). I was all about the evolution, adaptation, making way for the future…..also the stone gave me this sick ass spell to try out. Here's to cheating!

Translated to English, it was called a three pronged spell seal. It worked kinda like a revolver gun, if the revolver gun had a big bang at the end of it. Basically, I conjured up a circle big enough to drive a truck through, with a giant trident head smack dab in the middle of it. On the three trident prongs were three different spells. From left to right they were shield: -_.].[-|-._|._]'. bind: |..|-.]'. and burn: |...-._)|./ I used the shield spell first, stonewalling Kamar's spiral blast, before using the burn spell to set him ablaze with blue fire. Again, the guy had a wail like an army of banshees, so it was no fun to even see him in pain. I maintained the burn spell while activating the bind spell, tying Kamar up (at least he'd stop flailing around now). Of course I wasn't gonna just leave him there to burn; that would be inhumane. Here's where the real kicker of the three pronged spell seal got its time to shine. See, the spell seal worked as a method of enhancing whatever spells you used through it, while using the energy to cast said spell in a sort of energy reserve. After the three spells were used, the residual energy was basically a bomb waiting to go off. Of course I had to go for some style points along with the boom. I brought the great white shark back around (love me some sharks), and had it scoop Kamar up in its jaws. I let it crunch on him once, before having it toss Kamar up, after which I fashioned the leftover spell energy into a trident, and stabbed him God of War style in the gut with it, bringing him back to the ground. On a side note, I think I broke the record of how many times a person can be stabbed with a trident in under five minutes! The construct exploded with the force of a truck of grenades, but Kamar must've been powered by thousands of souls, cuz he managed to recover and finally get the drop on me!

I felt his chains wrap around my legs, snake all the way up to my chest, and watched as the hooks dangled in front of my face like cobras in a trance. The chains burned away at my body shield, but they weren't enough to get through it. Kamar simply got up, and gave me a "got ya now" type of look. Ugh, I hated this guy. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't bad of his own accord, he just had the misfortune of getting raised by someone who put lies in his head, and poised him against Namor, who really did love him. Still, he had this smug daddy's little rich boy look that i've really come to hate over the years. Kamar was the kind of guy i'd beat up cuz he looked at me wrong (don't tell Allyson that), so I had almost no sympathy for what I was about to do to him.

"You won't be doing that again," he told me in a distorted voice. "Now it's my turn!"

He flailed his chain hooks around, and shot them at my face. I probably should've warned him about the whole super speed thing I had goin' on….but he looked like a smart guy, I was sure he'd figure it out. As the hooks approached my face, I constructed a Shao Kahn helmet around my head to deflect them, and busted outta Kamar's chains via explosive wave. Those chains must've been apart of him, cuz Kamar did his signature wail of pain, which I quickly shut up by socking him across the head with a Vibration Punch. From there, me and Kamar went full throttle!

He recovered from my punch, manipulated a decent chunk of the Nethertrench wave, and shot it at me with the piranhaoid spirit attached to it. I blocked it by using a chunk of the Neptune Wave to construct a vortex around myself, and disperse the momentum of Kamar's attack. Before he could conjure up another one, I consolidated the vortex into a spiral blast, and shot it straight at him. Kamar dipped to the right, but I redirected the wave to come around and hit him in the back, but in the form of a giant python. I had the python bit and thrash the poor dude about so much, he didn't have the spare breath to scream. I managed to keep him down for a good ten seconds, but getting attacked by a giant serpent can help you discover the strength to do some amazing things (I know all about that). Kamar busted my python construct up explosive wave style, and went all Super Saiyan to the billionth degree. He literally absorbed the spirits of the Ichthyocerberus, piranhaoid, and Ichthyominoutar, and shot at me like a bat outta hell! I managed to derail his attack by blindsiding him with an attack from my dolphin spirit, but I may as well have it him with a foam bat for all the lasting disorientation it gave him. Kamar quickly recovered, and resumed his murder charge. I waited until the last half second to flip over him, and blast him to the floor again. I flew upwards, while casting the spell for banish: |../.|-|-_.].[ with intentions to push the monster spirits outta Kamar. Yeah, that didn't work out so well. Kamar being made of a lot of souls complicated the exorcism. The spell was having trouble figuring out which spirits to target and expel. When the soul did manage to single the target souls out, I kinda realized how I had actually shot myself in the foot. With all the strength and power that came with the stone in my chest, it was a bit hard to remember that the stone's power wasn't limitless, and that I was getting dangerously close to using all this sucker could give. Don't believe me? Here's a bit of a rundown. At this moment I was still maintaining my Sea Force constructs outside of the Nethertrench anchor, while at the same time, conjuring up Sea Force charged tidal waves to help Namor's forces. Believe me, that wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Oh, and this Neptune Wave? Yeah, you're talking about a spell that usually took the collective power of thirty mages to conjure up, not to mention maintain. Oh, and all of that was on top of me keeping up this ridiculously overcharged body shield around myself, while using the stone to cheat and occasionally use magic that was way above my paygrade and power level. Not saying that I had nothing in the tank, but to banish the spirits that Kamar had took in would take more than a substantial amount of energy; and that was if he lied still and let me do it. With him fighting my spell, there was a good chance the stone might burn out before I managed to do away with Kamar. Yup, looks like i'll have to do this the old fashioned way.

I took advantage of Kamar's discomfort (the spell at least bought me some time while he writhed for a bit) and created a giant Sea Force sword construct to stab straight in his chest. I managed to get the stab to connect, but I may as well have been stabbing him with a pin, cuz he snapped the blade in half, slammed me to the floor with a Nethertrench wave, and charged at me again (third time's the charm). I recovered enough to summon my Sky Shield, charge it with Sea Force, and just barely block Kamar's punch, and noticed a special kinda wail he gave this time. I looked at my shield, which was glowing with the bluish grey flame of the Holy Waters of Eden spell, and gave Doctor Strange a silent thank you. Kamar came back for another go around, but was gearing up for another set of attacks with the Nethertrench. In this case offense was the best defense, so I chucked my shield at him (I knew he'd deflect it), and used the Neptune wave to fashion two giant hands to smash Kamar in like a mosquito, and hammer pound him to the floor. I dashed towards him, setting off a volley of Sea Force blasts to cover my assault, and after getting up close, I phased through him, summoned my sword, and sliced him across the neck. Of course decapitation doesn't have the same impact on spiritual beings as it does on flesh and bone, but I made do. I gutted Kamar and brought the blade up, slicing his head in two vertically. The damage never lasted long enough to get a decisive advantage, but I could definitely feel the deterioration of Kamar's structure. Sure he had more than enough spiritual fortitude to take what I was dishing out, but I could defeat him…..in time…..something I didn't have very much of. Yeah, I couldn't exactly put a timeframe on it, but every second that I wasn't punching Llyra in the face, the closer this ticking time bomb was to going off. Still, I couldn't worry about one problem while another was trying to hack me to pieces.

I kicked Kamar like 50 feet backwards and pursued; my only plan being attrition warfare. Kamar shot his chain hooks at me, but I quickly did a corkscrew dodge, and sliced the chains in half again (they always regenerated). I got up close, and started slashing and stabbing away at Kamar as much as I could. Times like these made me really envious of Sunbird's daggers, cuz if I knew how to use those things, i'd own this guy so freakin' much! Still, I did alright with what I had. My sword attacks were constantly off-balancing Kamar, who was actually a damn good hand to hand fighter when he got his momentum back. I didn't dare try to brawl with him and his monster spirit strength, but I was able to use the Neptune Wave, well timed Vibration Punches, and occasional uses of my sword, shield, and trident, to work around the fact that he'd ring my bell pretty damn hard if he got a hit on me. Still, I forgot about those f*(#!^& chains!

Kamar wrapped them firmly around my legs, and swung me around like a yo-yo before I could break outta them. Props to the guy for trying to make up for lost time, cuz he put the hurt on me with all kinds of mean and hate. First I felt myself hit a Nethertrench spiked wall construct (my body shield help up), which felt like falling into a field of steel fists. While my shield held up, the water was knocked outta me, and it took everything I had to keep concentrating on maintaining all the offensive and defensive maneuvers I had set up. Kamar constructed another spiked wall directly beside me, but I managed to put up a barrier around myself before he started the whole smash me into paste thing. I allowed myself to catch my breath for half a sec, but Kamar was out for blood.. The spiked wall constructs started to melt around my barrier, and I got the feel like they were trying to squeeze me like a stress ball. I managed to hold up for a good few seconds, but a sudden pain shooting up what felt like my soul practically took the water outta me all over again. It felt like a snake made of frost was strangling my spine; it was all I could do to not pass out from the pain and shock. Kamar yanked me back to the ground, and his chains also did the whole melting thing, but the shadows were going a more swallow me whole route, rather than crush me to a smoothie. Again, I may have been a little out of it, but I knew better than to let some shadow cancer thing swallow me whole and suffocate me!

On a complete reflex, I shot off a few waves of Sea Force, strong enough to fend the shadows off, but not for long. I didn't understand. The Sea Force was clearly hurting Kamar (he wailed like a little baby pee pants), but I couldn't shake the damn thing off of me. The growth inched up my body at the rate of syrup, but it was at my chest now, and I was getting more and more desperate to shake it off (no, not like Taylor Swift!). The more desperate I got, the less and less the waves seem to work; it was like the Sea Force was diluted by my fear. Of course Kamar took advantage of this. I felt a tugging sensation in the back of my mind, like someone had installed a pulley system in my head, and memories, all bad ones, kept pouring out. I felt the pain of losing my parents all over again, the years of grief and anger that followed. I felt all the hate I had for all the would be bullies in my life who tried to make things harder for me than they were; not to mention the sadistic pleasure I got from the many fights I had with them. I felt the raw fear of pretty much anything that had frightened me over my life. Dogs (only when I was little), Freddy Krueger (don't laugh, Krueger is no joke), Jason Voorhees (I still don't like the woods at night), drowning/suffocating, the first time I got my powers, when S.H.I.E.L.D. took me away from my mom, when Grant almost died, when I almost died, etc. The bombarding fear and hate slowly engulfing me whole was almost paralyzing, and it didn't help that my Sea Force waves were becoming more and more useless against Kamar.

"Shhhh," I felt Kamar's voice whisper in my head. "It is alright, it is better this way. So much pain, and for what? What good do you think you can manage to carve out for yourself in this world, boy? Left alone by the heroes who couldn't be bothered to save your parents from a falling building, overlooked and unloved by your peers, left to the care of an old woman, whose health will surely fail her shortly. Oh sure, you believe yourself to be on the road to a better life. You have your new friends, these amazing powers and abilities, even a few heroic exploits under your belt. But really think about it, Jason, what were the circumstances of your newfound friends and abilities. Your powers manifested in a manner that almost killed that Ethan boy. Assuming you actually manage to succeed in your quest to stop Doom, which is unlikely, you will surely be expelled from school at the least. What happens to you and your adoptive mother…..that is, as you surface dwellers say, up in the air."

I tried blocking him out, to keep his words in the back where they belonged, but he wasn't wrong. To be fair, Grant had pretty much assured that nobody was going back to school anytime soon (him and Magneto wrecked the place), but Kamar was right about one thing. Rumors spread, people talk. Whether the story got distorted or not, it was only a matter of time before the whole school knew I was the lightning freak that almost killed Crosby. Hell, if S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't keep the authorities off my back, I would've been on the run, and Doris probably would've been put under surveillance or something. Being on Delta Force was a decent distraction, but after it was over, assuming I lived to see the end, what was waiting for me at home?

"And these friends of yours?" Kamar continued. "If not for you all getting abducted from your lives, and dropped into a fight you were unprepared for, you never would've met them. You think your little team can last outside of the confines of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Do you think your friends want it to last outside the necessary time frame? Admit it, this is a temporary boost of morale. After it's over, assuming you still have your lives, you will go back to having nothing again."

"No!" I managed to get out, a little of my fighting spirit coming back. "That's not true! I'll….i'll have my mom….she's….all i've ever needed!"

I let loose another burst of Sea Force, but this time I was able to bring the pain again! The shadows practically ran away from me, and in that one moment I think both me and Kamar realized how royally f*(#^% he was! To get back to the whole Care Bear, power of love, and all that bull$#!+, Kamar had inadvertently overextended himself. He had spent so much time and energy getting into my head, I was able to use a backdoor of sorts, and get into his. I found out that the Nethertrench wave him and Llyron were using (Namor was doing fine, by the way) was the other half of the same coin as the Neptune Wave. Where I used spirits of love and all that junk, Kamar was using spirits of hate and other negative stuff like that. The spirits of the Ichthyocerberus and piranhaoid represented fear and hate respectively. Aside from that, I realized what I was doing wrong in regards to the fight. Kamar's form was constantly healing cuz it was always in contact with enough Nethertrench energy to patch up any damage I was doing to him. I could go all out all day and still not make a dent against his healing factor. Finally, and this may have been the corniest thing of all, but I had managed to get brief glimpses of Kamar's life from his point of view. Me and him weren't so different when you compared us side to side. He lost his parents way younger than I did, and was raised by a single adoptive parent. What f*(#^& him up was that his adoptive daddy filled him with poison about Namor, putting a chip on his shoulder, and filling him with more teen angst than a dystopian young adult novel. Hell, it made me wonder what life would've been like if Doris hadn't adopted me, or if people like Hydra (those guys have stupid uniforms) had found me before S.H.I.E.L.D. What if scenarios aside, what Kamar really needed was a little love in his heart (feel free to vomit), and I knew just how to make that happen.

First, I slammed my hand on the floor and created a spell circle, about the size of an average school classroom, around me and Kamar. The spell circle had a giant trident head in the center, which had another ring outside of that filled with a huge collection of enhancements I had quickly set up. First I set up the positive energy enhancements needed to counteract Kamar: love: |._.(./-\_ courage: '.,.(..-._)/.'.,/-._ and compassion: '.,.(../||.\/.'-_.-|.(.| After the enchantments were set up, I moved on to the more specific spells I needed to take Kamar out. The first was: '.,.-..-| .(.\|/. .-|][-. \/||._.(.\/. .(.\/| |-._.]|[-_)|_)-|/'.,].[ -|/-_).,/'/| Cut off the flow of Nethertrench energy. A bit specific sure, but from what the stone was telling me, more powerful spells with more specific purpose required clarification, otherwise the Sea Force might not respond correctly. Finally, I added the spell needed to drain Kamar of his built up power: \/.-|.]|[ |._.(./-\_ '.,.(..-._)/.'.,/-._ /.|]'. '.,.(../||.\/.'-_.-|.(.| ]'.-|-_.|.\-._|._ .-|][-. -._/]\-||._ -_.|.\-|_)-|.-|-_. .,/-|/]\-|/ \/|.(_)./| With love, courage, and compassion, dispel the evil spirits given form. Again, one hell of a mouthful, but necessary. This final enchantment was the proverbial final shake that completed the cocktail of pure energy guaranteed to ruin Kamar's whole day. Hell, to give myself one last power up, I took the spirit of the dolphin and killer whale (love and courage) into myself, putting me just under Kamar in terms of raw strength. I managed to set all this up in under seven seconds, but I was using so much power at this point, that I didn't have enough spare magic left to do a card trick. Still, it was enough, and Kamar was feeling all of it.

The enchantments were burning him from the inside out, causing him to look like a black and blue lava lamp. If you looked at his legs (can't believe I said that), you could see the dark energy being stripped away like it was dry ice. Of course Kamar did his signature wail, making me wish I had enough magic left to do a spell to shut him up. As was such, I had to rely on beating the literal hell outta him; tho he didn't make that very easy. I hit him with a few flying cross punches, got him in the chest with a reverse kick, under the chin with a backflip kick, and slammed him to the ground with a flying kick from above (I had dem legs for days!). I summoned my sword to stab him in the face, but Kamar moved his head out of the way, and blasted me away with a dark energy blastwave. This did Kamar no favors. His form was decaying so fast, he needed to conserve as much energy as possible. Still, it gave him enough space to work with, and that was good enough for him to try and get back in the fight.

He shot his chain hooks at me, but I had something special for him. I did a little sidestep, grabbed them, and shot a column of Sea Force up them, giving Kamar a little energy prod. Afterwards, I pulled the chains as hard as I could, bringing Kamar flailing towards me. I was gonna hit him with a Sea Force blast from my eyes, but he flipped into a dropkick, and promptly knocked me on my ass. Again, while I was almost as strong as Kamar, the guy still had me beat. Hell, I got flashbacks to my fight with Namor, cuz Kamar's kick felt just as horse-like as his dad's. Kamar landed on my chest with a falling knee (as if I wasn't having enough breathing problems), and socked me in the head a good few times with his fists. My body shield was probably the only thing keeping me from getting a concussion, but I was pretty sure I could feel my heart pounding in my head. After a few more shots to the head, I managed to summon my shield, and block the next swing. I got him off of me via Sea Fore blast from my eyes, and slammed him back to the ground with a bolt Sea Force. I quickly got up, put my shield away, and rushed at Kamar again.

I'll say this, if nothing else Kamar was a damn good fighter. For the five minutes we went at it, this guy was like the perfect blend of Chuck Norris, Jet Li, and a little bit of Iron Fist sprinkled in (I met him once before I got my powers, he was pretty chill). Hell, if you took away my speed, body shield, Sky Shield, and Sea Force, Kamar would've trashed me for warmups. Still, I managed to hold my own, tho I doubled down on my promise to get more fight training when I got back to the surface. Still, I managed to hold my own, and slowly move the fight in my favor. For one, the draining spell was constantly weakening Kamar. He'd be at a 10 in speed and skill for one minute, then would steadily drop to a 7 over the course of another. Even without that, I was getting better and better the longer I fought Kamar. Just like with Attuma, my brain was analyzing his fight patterns like a super computer. Combine that with the fact that I used Namor's martial arts memories to help break Kamar's fighting style down, and it was only a matter of time before I was able to work around his fighting style, and start getting off some pretty good counters and combos. For example, a big part of Atlantean martial arts was about swimming around, and using your opponent's momentum against them. For a while, Kamar swam circles around me, getting off punches and kicks to my back, head, and putting me in choke holds. I always managed to phase out of them, and after managing to break down his fight patterns, used his precious fighting style against him. I'd swim after him again and again, pretending to lose my temper, and overextend my strikes. When Kamar would try to take advantage of my "slip up", i'd quickly phase through, or dodge his attack, and exploit whatever area was available to me. I got a good handful of hits to his gut, a couple good strikes to the back, and so many punches, kicks and knees to his head, throat, and chest, that I felt like a UFC fighter. Another way I put a wrench in Kamar's flow, was keeping him relegated to the floor whenever I could. Atlanteans did in fact have a type of style that they used in waterless environments, but since Kamar preferred fighting off the ground, I routinely found ways to keep the fight grounded. I would routinely use lightning strikes and Sea Force constructs to slam Kamar back to the ground, even shackling him to the floor with lightning chains (I found that poetic). After that, I pretty much found my groove, and it was open season on elf boy junior! I slammed him again and again with Vibration punches/kicks, summoning my sword and shield to get in some good stabs and slashes to damage his form even more. As Kamar started fading more and more, he started to fight a lot more desperate, making it almost laughably easy to counter and capitalize on him. It actually would be funny if it the situation weren't so damn sad. The amount of hate and fear exploding off of him was almost mind numbing. This guy hated everything because he never knew his father, and he was afraid of going back to an eternity of pain and suffering.

"IT'S NOT FAIR!" he shouted as he swung like a windmill. "I DESERVE VENGEANCE! I DESERVED TO RULE! MY FATHER ABANDONED ME, HE LET MY MOTHER DIE, AND LEFT ME TO ROT! HE'S THE REASON I'M ROTTING IN HELL! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME, JASON?! YOU OF ALL PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO HAVE YOUR FAMILY SNATCHED AWAY FROM YOU! HOW CAN YOU DEFEND MY FATHER AND HIS ATROCITIES AGAINST SO MANY?!"

This is one of those times when even I realize I don't have a heart made of stone. Sure, Kamar was a bad guy, he made the choices that landed him here, but at the end of the day he was just a son that was robbed of a relationship with his real father. I felt so bad, I let my guard slack for a little bit, earning me a good left cross to my jaw. Rather than return the favor (and I really wanted to), I took a step back, and literally used love as a weapon. I did a quick hand sign similar to a summoning jutsu (I hate Naruto), and willed the dolphin spirit to search my mind in the blink of an eye. I had it locate and find every last memory it could associate with Namor's feelings towards Kamar. From his birth, the attempt on his life, Namor's decision to send him off for his own safety, to their $#!+fest of a reunion after so many years. I wasn't making anything up when I say that Namor had nothing but love for this boy; i'm 100% certain nothing came close to the longing he had to be with his son, not to mention the regret that came with having to put him down for good. I compiled all of this raw sappy love, and willed it to physically manifest as bombarding explosive waves. The waves weren't meant to be a violent force (though they were plenty of that), rather than a kind of sedation technique. As the waves kept slamming into Kamar, he became quiet, more still, and almost completely defeated. Again, I felt bad for doing this, as I was pretty much using love as a weapon, but it wasn't all bad. Kamar's entire being was based off of hate for a father he thought didn't love him, for a heart gripping fear of going back to underwater hell. I couldn't do anything about that last part, but I could at least give Kamar the relief of knowing that his dad truly did love him. Hell, he must've felt like he was getting a hug that he never wanted to let go of. I willed the dolphin spirit to leave me, and circle Kamar. He was fading more and more by the second, almost getting hard to see, but at least he looked at peace. Ok, maybe at peace is a bit much, more like entranced, but it was the best I could do for him.

"I'm sorry Kamar," I spoke to him. "You're right, I do know what it's like to lose my family. I know what it's like to be angry at the world, to want to burn everything for daring to happy while you have to suffer for what seems like forever. I know what it's like to cast the blame on others, whether it's fair or not. Believe me man, i've been exactly where you are, and i'm still learning to let go. I got lucky. If I didn't get adopted by the sweetest, most loving, most amazing old lady on the planet, I probably would've ended up just like you. Hell, I might've been dead before I even got these powers. You got a bad deal getting raised by someone who stoked the flames your feelings of hate and neglect, rather than try to quell them and replace them with something better. Still, you made the choices that landed you here, and that's all on you, man. We may be alike in a lot of ways, but even on my worst day i'd never even think of harming innocents just to get back at those I thought were the reason for my folks' death. There's more to life than hate and vengeance, and i'm sorry you didn't have someone to teach you that. Me, i'm just thankful I have my mom and my friends to remind me why i'll never go down the road you did. At the very least, now you know how your father truly felt about you. That's not exactly a good enough consolation prize to counter going back to a formless state of torment, but it's all I got. Goodbye Kamar, i'm so sorry."

He looked up at me for half a second, the first physical reaction he had since the sedation waves, and his expression was hard to read. Something of a mix of regret, remorse, peace, and almost happiness. I didn't pause for too long to study it. I willed the spell circle to release a blast of energy straight up from the center, and Kamar was history. I felt hella conflicted about what I did, but I couldn't let myself get distracted. As much of a fight as Namor was putting up, I could sense he wasn't any closer to taking Llyron down without a spell circle as I was with Kamar. I quickly shrunk the circle down to frisbee size, located Namor and Llyron, and after willing the thing to float with me, shot at them like a bullet.

They were both going at it like demons; constantly flying around, and using their respective energy waves to try and slam each other from different angles. Unlike me and Kamar, these guys were basically falling back on the idea of using their waves to make constructs, and use the animal spirits as much as possible. One second they were trying to whack each other with tentacle constructs (creepy, I know), then Namor would try and deck Llyron with the whale spirit, forcing Llyron to defend with a sea serpent spirit. They were fighting so hard, it would've been suicide to try and squeeze my way into the conflict. Nah, I just bided my time, waited until there was enough distance between the two of them, and floored Llyron via lightning/Sea Force Zeus Cannon from above. As soon as Llyron hit the deck, I threw my spell circle at him, and made it expand. The poor sap reminded me of Venom every time Allyson decked him with some fire. Llyron's Nethertrench body shield went haywire, and without his connection to any outside power, he was so totally screwed.

"Thought you could use some help," I thought to Namor. "C'mon, let's whup his ass!"

I flew down at Llyron, and Namor wordlessly followed, both of us a little bit blood thirsty. Let me just say, at the very least you couldn't take away the fact that Kamar had held his own for a while. Sure, Llyron was doing pretty well against Namor one-on-one, but he promptly got his ass beat on a colossal level against the two of us. First, I slammed into him in a falling Sea Force rhino construct. Afterwards, I separated him from his trident (he didn't seem to have a telepathic connection to it), and shot him straight up via Sea Force geyser. Namor rushed in with a trident stab to his gut, but Llyron's body shield was still too strong at this point to get through. To his credit, Llyron managed to get one good counterattack off, and throw me and Namor for a loop via Nethertrench blastwave. Still, all that did was give him a little breathing room, which I shut down by slamming him across the jaw with a Sea Force fist. After that, it was history.

Namor and I alternated between punches and kicks to anywhere we could reach. We found a bit of an unspoken rhythm between our two fighting styles. Sometimes we'd circle Llyron in a flurry of punches and kicks, other times Namor would be the one doing all the physical damage, while I would use the Neptune Wave to throw a barrage of different weapon constructs at Llyron. Overall, it took us less than three minutes to completely strip this dude of his Nethertrench body aura, and I felt no sympathy for pounding his face in. At the very least, Kamar was misguided, vengeful, and had a hole in him where his father's love should've been. Kamar was affected by the dolphin spirit because even in death, even in underwater hell, he still had a spark, a scrap of goodness in him that allowed him to be vulnerable to the power of love (just shoot me now, I can't bear to live with the knowledge that I just said that). Llyron on the other hand, was just a colossal dick. The guy wasn't so bad to where he felt no remorse for his crimes, he just didn't feel anything. For him, slaughtering a town filled with innocents was the some as taking a casual stroll through the park. I knew this, because while the enhancements I had placed in the spell circle did it's job of purging the energy off of his body, they didn't effect him on anything other than a surface level. This guy didn't love anything, had no regard for life, liberty, or even loyalty. He would've sacrificed the world, everyone on it, and even his mother, if it meant getting a sweeter deal. Like I said, I had no sympathy for beating the hell outta him, but I was gonna let him live. Maybe it was because Kamar's deal really yanked on my heart strings, but I wanted to give Llyron the chance to change, the chance that Kamar never really got. Namor didn't feel the same way. As soon as Llyron's body shield was down, he created a Sea Force knife construct, and stabbed Llyron in the neck! Hell, that was the nice part of Llyron's execution! Namor drove the knife across the guy's throat, knocked him to the floor with a punch across the jaw, and summoned his trident to his hand. He slammed the trident into Llyron's chest, a stomach churning SHILK sound echoing off. All I could do was look down at the poor bastard choking on his own blood, gurgling curses up at his father. I don't know what I was expecting to feel. Revulsion? Pity? Anger? Cuz none of those came up. Overall, I was too shocked to feel much of anything (my face was just slack with…..something).

"Die, you abomination!" Namor yelled down at Llyron. "You are unworthy of the blood of Atlantis! You are unworthy to be called my son! May you rot forever in the Nethertrench!"

Ironically, Llyron just smirked. Yeah, really. He cocked his head to the side, and gave Namor an arrogant f*(# you type of smile. A few seconds later, his body went limp, and he dissolved into Nethertrench energy. His form slithered out of my spell circle, where clawed hands and tentacles grabbed and dragged him into the darkness. Now I remember what feelings are, and I felt absolutely scared $#!+less. No time to dwell on that nightmare inducing image tho; time for the boss battle. Right now, Llyra was clapping at us (still can't stand her), making fun of Namor for managing to kill his family twice in one lifetime. I was already burning inside with anger, so he must've felt like a wildfire of rage.

"You get first crack at her," I thought to Namor. "Make it count."

"Gladly!" he responded.

I tapped into the reserve power I was saving for the transportation spell, but in a quick change of plans, decided to do something else with it. I created a miniature three-pronged spell seal behind my back (you could adjust the size no problem), and lined up the spells for transport: |_)/.|-_.|.\.(_).-| block: |..|._.(.'.,|\. and barrier: |../.'_)_)-|-_) You'll see why I decided to go with this route, but just go with it for now. Anyway, I activated the transport spell, and put as much effort as I mentally could into it. The spell itself was using the power comparable to half of the Atlantic Ocean (Llyra was at least that powerful), I was not pulling any punches. Hell, if this didn't work, if Llyra bounced this off, I had no qualms in admitting that I had no other backup plans. Lucky for me (thank f*(#!^$ Poseidon), the transport spell worked, and Namor socked Llyra in the jaw not even a full second later! Now before you scream domestic abuse, keep in mind that she wasn't alive anymore; it doesn't count. Besides, I believe in equally kicking everyone's ass, regardless of gender and race, if they got it comin'. Anyway, Namor decked her across the face, giving me a narrow time frame to set up my other spells. I quickly activated the block spell, which would prevent Llyra from teleporting back to her throne, and a barrier spell, which would block Llyra from physically getting back to her throne. Here's where I got into Doctor Strange levels of magic (I guess that would make me Intern Strange?).

First, the three-pronged spell seal was actually more multi-purposeful than I had originally thought. While the seal did do the default thing of enhancing the used spells, I was basically experimenting with the notion of what happened when you activated a spell that was meant for continual use. Sure, the transport spell did it's job, and added the fuel to the fire, but the barrier and block spells kept going, and as such, kept feeding the energy buildup of the spell seal. I had guessed that this would happen (hence why I did a last second tactic change up), which was gonna be all the more sweet when this finally paid off big time! Keep in mind, this energy wasn't coming directly from the stone. No, this was just a case of the Sea Force being streamlined and stored almost entirely of its own accord. The only downside was that I had to use every spare inch of willpower I had to keep the Sea Force contained to the spell seal. The seal may have been able to be used for more than one thing, but this was experimental at best. Anyway, as good as this deal was, I couldn't hold it up around my hand for long. Well….I guess I could, but that would make fighting much more difficult. Instead, I tapped into the information the stone was giving me, and pulled a new tactic outta the magic hat. This particular one, while it didn't have a name, was just what I was looking for to keep the spell seal up and running. I basically enveloped the spell seal in a ball of Sea Force, and enchanted it with this spell: |..'/| .-|][-. -_.|.\-|_)-|.-|-_. .(.\/| .-|][-. ].[.(.|._'/| -|/-_).,/-|.-_ .(.\/| |.\.(._-._-|]'..(.| |._-|/]'. ./|-._ '/|.(..-._) -_.|_)-|/.,/.]|[ By the spirits of the Holy Energies of Poseidon, lend me your strength. The spirits must've really liked me (they could've chosen to not help me), because I felt them flock to the orb in mass. Hell, when I looked at it, I could see little fish, whales, sharks, etc., swimming around it like a portable aquarium. Anyway, with the spirits helping me, the strain to keep the Sea Force in check was cut almost in half. I did another quick transport spell on it, and teleported the orb behind the Sea Force barrier, right next to Llyra's throne. Speaking of which, in the seven seconds it took for me to finish that up, Namor was still releasing however many years of pent up rage against her. He kept slamming her again and again with his fists; which was all the more damning considering she was still in my Care Bear love, courage, and all that, spell seal. Every punch destabilized her form a little more and more, and Namor sure had some words to get off of his chest.

"YOU DARE TO USE THE MEMORY OF MY SON, KAMAR, AGAINST ME, WITCH! YOU DARE TO PRESENT THAT MEWLING BASTARD SON OF YOURS AS MY EQUAL?! FOR THAT AFFRONT, NAMOR, THE FAVORITE SON OF ATLANTIS STRIKES YOU DOWN IN THE NAME OF POSEIDON!"

Quite the drama queen that one; he should pick up acting in Shakespearean plays in his down time. Anyway, while I was eventually gonna jump into the fight myself (after I figured how to do it without getting hurt for trying to cut in on Namor's rage quit), Llyra was having none of this at all. She screamed like a banshee (these Nethertrench bad guys tend to do that a lot), and exploded in a blastwave so powerful, Namor was knocked outta the spell seal. I barely managed to hold my ground via Sea Force barrier, but Llyra wrecked my spell seal! A quick nanosec to examine it showed multiple tears and cracks in the formation; not to mention a busted trident head in the center. Maybe it was because I had worked so hard on this spell, or the fact that Llyra was strong enough to suicide bomb it into disrepair, but I was feeling a rising wave of anger inside me. Luckily, the stone gave me a bit of a consolation before I went buck wild on Llyra's face. Apparently, I could send my spell seal into the Sea Force, and have it repaired and charged till I needed it again (I love Atlantean magic); kinda like a garage. Sure, I had to focus on repairing and enforcing the enchantments to make sure it came out right, but I have to watch my popcorn to make sure it doesn't burn (four times outta ten of my popcorn attempts end in charred disasters). I quickly drew up a repair spell: _-.|.\/.'-|_) , imagined throwing my spell seal into the Sea Force, and we were off to the races. With my Care Bear spell seal getting repaired, my three-pronged spell seal still drinking in Sea Force energy, and Llyra getting ready to reform (cuz they never stay down the first time), I was 100% ready to whup some Nethertrench lady ass. Yeah…..I may have felt a little less strong about that after Llyra actually got done reforming herself.

First off, it wasn't like she just got her form back, and that was it. No, Llyra really pulled out the big guns for me and Namor. All of the spirits that were apart of her Nethertrench Wave (a piranhaoid, two Ichthyocerberi, two Ichthyominotaurs, an Antarctic Leviathan, Norwegian Kraken, megalodon, Chimera, and a Manticore), she absorbed all of them into this big ass vortex, and melded them together in a big glob of monster heads and body parts roaring and clawing; trying to get free from one another. I don't think i'll ever not be scared from that. Llyra reformed herself, but she gave herself a bit of a wardrobe change. First off, she was at least 10 feet tall, so that was a thing. She ditched her legs for a single snake tail big enough to crumple an SUV like a soda can. She had the hair to match her snake theme, making me really wanna give her a shape up with my sword, and she had wicked sharp talons on her feet. She changed her red and blue color palette for a more camouflage green getup, and had a big ass trident on her back. Other than that, I could still see monster faces bulging out of her skin. Occasionally, something like a claw or tentacle would come out of her skin, before getting sucked back inside like it had just gotten vacuumed. The woman radiated power like some sorta dark Super Saiyan, and even with the stone inside me, I wasn't sure if I had enough power to take her.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" she laughed at me and Namor, her voice sounding like ten demons on a mix board. "YOU'RE A CLEVER LITTLE MAN, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT, SURFACE DWELLER! BUT, I'VE COME TOO FAR TO END IN FAILURE! YOU WISH TO THROW YOUR LOT IN WITH NAMOR?! FINE, THEN YOU CAN JOIN HIM IN ETERNAL DAMNATION!"

She threw her hands out, and the mother of all shockwaves tore through the ground, throwing me and Namor for a spin (you'd think we'd be touching the ground less often under water). We managed to recover, but it was not a pretty sight when my vision realigned. Llyra had summoned up a massive house party of all kinds of demons. More mythological stuff like manticores, hydras, and chimeras, but also hybrid demons. One of them looked like a scorpion version of a centaur (like The Rock in The Mummy Returns), another was just a human head on a giant anaconda, and another was an Atlantean and some type of dragon monster thing split down the middle. There was a whole slew of other nightmarish $#!+, but that's about all I can take without wanting to blow chunks.

"Just so you know," Llyra resumed talking. "I enjoy your fear! Yours, surface dweller, is particularly sweet! So before I end your time in this life, let me give you something to contemplate. You have a little bit under…..seven minutes before my beautiful palace reaches critical mass, and casts a shadow of death and despair over your world for the rest of time! And your friends? Well….let's just say they could be doing a bit better than they currently fair!"

She charged me and Namor with her mutant demon army, but I could barely hear her over the roar in my ears! I had no idea of whether or not she was telling the truth, whether she knew if Grant or Allyson were actually in danger, but she sure as hell wasn't gonna let her make light of it! I took hold of the Neptune Wave, and rushed it at her and her army, drowning them all in a neon blue spirit water splash! Llyra's demons got washed away immediately, and she screamed like I had dipped her in a chemical bath, but she wasn't anywhere close to being down for the count. She shrugged it off like it was a love tap, and summoned another demon army like they were minute rice.

"Well," Namor thought to me as we charged the revived army together. "That didn't work out,"

"Stow it, dude!" I thought back to him. "You heard the lady, we got under seven minutes to work with, before everything goes to $#!+. We gotta make this count!"

"And your plan, boy?"

"You see that orb behind the barrier, near Llyra's throne? That thing is soaking up Sea Force like a sponge. While that's going on, the spell seal I used to….banish your son, is repairing itself in the Sea Force. We don't have to beat Llyra, we just gotta keep her distracted long enough until it's about time for the place to go off. When we get close, i'll use the Sea Force buildup to corrupt the souls in her throne, and bring back the spell seal to banish her."

"So we just fight seemingly with no purpose in an effort to throw her off? Smart. Her misguided rage will be her undoing!"

"She should really think about anger management therapy. Tho you gotta give her credit. She started an entire war just to get back at you. I doubt anyone would care enough to do that for me."

"I cannot tell if you are joking or not."

We shared an uneasy laugh, and focused on the fighting; which was getting more intense by the second. Getting rid of Llyra's putty patrol was easy enough (I have no shame in admitting I was basically a Power Ranger), they went down with a blast of water from the Neptune wave, or from a slash/stab from my sword, shield, or trident. Still, for every monster me and Namor put down, three more sprung up in their place. Then there was the queen of darkness herself. I honestly couldn't tell if she hated me or Namor more, cuz she sure as hell distributed the punishment equally. Aside from trying several times to impale me with her trident, she had such a handle on controlling the Nethertrench, it was ungodly. She kept changing the structure of the throne room, constantly trying to crush me and Namor with pillars, spikes, and tentacle constructs that kept springing out of the ground. If I wasn't dodging her attacks, I had to worry about getting stabbed with some scorpion/shark demon; which isn't easy when the structure around you keeps changing. Lucky for me, Namor bought me enough time to cut her advantage in half. He managed to pelt Llyra in the head with a small blast of Sea Force, and tackled into her, while changing into that Ichthyocerberus hybrid. No matter what, i'll never get used to the wings and tentacles coming out of his back, or the fact that he was spewing green fire from his mouth. Still, with Llyra distracted, she couldn't summon demons like she used to. As long as we kept her full attention, she was at half power at best. I quickly broke off a good chunk of the Neptune Wave, and spread it over the throne room floor (the structure went back to base when Llyra wasn't manipulating it). Not only would that keep Llyra from raising a demon army, but it gave me some leg room to use Llyra's strategy against her.

"Namor!" I thought to him. "Get clear, i'm gonna blast her to the floor!"

"Don't stop on my account, boy!" he thought back to me. "I can take a blast of lightning! The power of an eel still courses through my veins!"

"Ok. If you say so, but don't say I didn't warn you!"

I blasted both Namor and Llyra to the floor with a Mega Lighting Strike, and it was so hard not to laugh at them. Don't get me wrong, I didn't wanna hurt Namor, but watching his wings and tentacles flail about was too priceless for words! Anyway, with the Sea Force covering the floor like a blanket of snow, Llyra may as well have fallen into a pit of fire, cuz she screamed accordingly. She punched Namor away from her, and tried to swim up, but that was where, I used the Sea Force floor to really ruin her day. I willed a burst of Sea Force to shoot off of the floor, and fashioned it into a giant chain that wrapped itself around Llyra's tail. I made two more chains wrap around her arms, and pulled her back to the floor, tho i'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard. Namor, who recovered almost immediately, willed what was left of the Neptune Wave, and the spirits in it to relentlessly attack Llyra attrition style. Every time she was hit, she struggled harder to break free, so all of my concentration was stuck on keeping her bound to the floor. Still, and this was my bad, she found a way to power through. See, even though I had covered the Nethertrench floor in a blanket of Sea Force, that didn't mean I had cancelled it out forever. Llyra took her hits for as long as she needed to (about 30 seconds), before managing to get enough Nethertrench energy to break through my Sea Force floor. She didn't break through all of it, just a handful of pockets here and there, but it was enough to get a Nethertrench tentacle around me, and slam me into the floor over and over again. After getting slammed into the floor like six times (not fun), I managed to phase through the tentacle, but that was about it. Llyra was charging at me, looking like Medusa's big sister, and swept at me with her talons. I blocked the strike with my Sky Shield, and managed to get her hard in the face with a Sea Force charged Vibration Punch. She staggered backwards, and I sent her careening back to the floor via Sea Force Final Flash. Namor and I jumped her again with renewed strength, alternating between using Sea Force blasts, the Neptune Wave, and our respective weapons to get the drop on Llyra. She was strong and fast, but she wasn't all that good when it came to fighting up close. Don't get me wrong, she gave us a decent amount of trouble, what with the tentacle constructs she kept conjuring outta the pockets of Nethertrench she could keep up, not to mention the fact that she still had an entire the Nethertrench in the atmosphere to work with (so many monster, and weapon constructs flying in all directions), but I was able to keep up the Sea Force constructs to counter her at every turn I could. Besides, she had to concentrate to form anything, something me and Namor made sure she didn't have much time to do.

We kept her busy for as long as we could, just barely managing to not get killed ourselves. Like I said, me and Namor were constant pains in her ass, but when she did get the ball rolling, it was pretty hard to stop. For example, after beating her down for a full minute, Llyra got us off of her with a blastwave of Nethertrench, and unleashed the beast within. Similar to Namor's Ichthyocacerbeus hybrid form, she sprung big razor tipped black wings, four spiked tentacles out of her back, and added a spike to the end of her snake tail. She slammed her trident head on the floor, and a shock wave ripped through it, just enough to where she could access most of the Nethertrench again. Guys, when I tell you it was hard to get the momentum back, that's me understating the situation. Llyra turned the place into a mirror house of death! The floor twisted, turned, folded in on itself, and morphed into monster parts so much, me an Namor could barely find each other, much less her. Every half second was the one that almost did me in, as I flew around desperately trying to avoid every spike, pillar, tentacle, claw, wall, and pretty much anything Llyra could throw at me. The Neptune wave was still floating around in the atmosphere, and I was able to use it to defend against various attacks, not to mention get some occasional shots in at Llyra, but I was relegated mostly to the 5 D's of dodgeball for like a full minute.

When I did manage to get a glimpse of Llyra, there were too many spikes and extended claws in my way to make a decent charge for her, so I dipped into the mystic arts again. I hit myself with a teleport spell, imagined myself reforming right behind her, and I was on my way! The cool thing was where I went when I disappeared. I literally passed through the Sea Force, staying there for a half sec (more than enough time to take it all in), and reformed right where I wanted to. I quickly decked Llyra in the back of the head with another Sea Force charged Vibration Punch (she was starting to show signs of wearing down). Going through the Sea Force had its perks. It was definitely unconscious, but I soaked up a decent chunk of Sea Force around my body shield; giving me one hell of a charge on the come around. Hell, Llyra got decked so hard, her magic redecorating trick stopped immediately. I knew I couldn't stop there, and I only wished Nightcrawler could've been there to see what I was about to do.

I basically put the transport spell on loop (you can do that), and rode that horse for all it was worth! We're talkin' bout constant transportation at least twice a second, for the next minute without any interruption whatsoever! Every time I went into the Sea Force, I willed myself to drink in as much of it as possible; usually coming back with enough energy to put a fleet of tanks to shame! I kept attacking her from behind, front, sideways, slantways, and basically everywhere I could. I tried hard not to be predictable with my moves, tho when you're hitting someone twice a second every second, I bet it gets hard to project future hits. After 30 straight seconds of brutal teleportation warfare, her body was deteriorating into a blob of flailing monster heads, tentacles, claws, and all the other nastiness that Llyra absorbed into herself. It was like fighting my school's taco day filling (not kidding, taco day is death on a plate). Since I couldn't hit her anymore, I condensed the Neptune Wave around her, barraging her with a combination of Sea Force an animal spirits. You'd think attacking an ethereal equivalent of a messy room would be easy, but even as a blob, Llyra was holding her own like a boss!

Her discombobulated form kept blasting waves of Nethertrench energy like she was throwing candy at a parade. It wasn't gonna work out for her in the long run, but it was fending off most of the Neptune Wave. My animal spirits were able to get in close and damage her, but Llyra managed to fend them off with her big bag of monster limbs. For example, a whale would slam into her a few times, before getting wrapped in a giant tentacle, and thrown aside. Namor would try attacking her with the shark spirits (yeah, he was still trying to put in some work), and was maybe able to get in a few hits on Llyra's blob sphere, before she swatted them away with a sea serpent tail. We kept up the fight against Llyra for a good few minutes, getting closer and closer to the Armageddon deadline. Even without counting down in my head (I do that a lot), I could feel the pockets of Sea Force in the places where Grant and Allyson were instructed to attack. Besides the sweeping relief I felt knowing that they were ok, I could feel the pockets of Nethertrench energy starting to speed up to almost hurricane levels. We maybe had a little under three minutes to hold out before the entire palace went boom.

"Running out of time, boy!" Namor thought to me (apparently he could sense it too). "Are you ready?!"

"Just another minute!" I thought back to him. "Gotta make sure she-"

Without warning, Llyra's blob of a form went nuclear, setting off the great grandmother of all blastwaves (seriously, this was one for the books). Namor and I got rocketed back so hard, we hit the throne room doors at like 100 mph. It didn't hurt too much, but compared to what we had to deal with, I might've preferred getting knocked out. All the monster spirits Llyra took into herself had burst free, and were going on a rampage. Llyra herself was floating in mid air, looking like she had just been through a few cycles in a dryer. I knew the meld of those spirits had to be hell on her; they were basically screaming how much they didn't belong together. Still, her loss was my gain. With the clock getting dangerously close to hitting zero, Namor and I had to make every second count. We weren't gonna make much progress with a buncha big ass sea demons running amok, so I had to improvise hard. I dialed back on some of the other ways I was dividing up my Sea Force energy (the tidal wave, giant robot constructs, etc.), and used the good chunk of energy to strengthen my Sea Fore spirits. I went for broke and willed the spirits to attack the Nethertrench monsters full force, eventually spreading the fight out enough to get a clear shot at Llyra.

"Namor!" I thought to him. "Ram her into the barrier! Hold her there till I tell you to get outta the way!"

"I find your tone to be lacking the proper respect one should show a king!"

"Fine! Namor, your highness, PLEASE do what I said earlier, if it's not too much trouble!"

He didn't seem to like that much better, but sarcasm was at least better than barking at him (what a baby). He flew at torpedo speed into Llyra's gut, and flew her straight into the Sea Force barrier. Namor didn't just hold her there, he started wailing on her furiously! The shock of hitting the barrier must've put some fight back into Llyra tho, cuz she managed to get her guards up, and start fighting back. They were almost evenly matched, tho Namor got more swings to connect. With those two at each other's throat, a spiritual Royal Rumble happening all around everywhere, and just a little under two minutes to make a last play, I put up a barrier around myself, and went for broke. I reached into the Sea Force, and pulled my Care Bear seal back out. Gotta give the Sea Force credit, cuz the seal was as good as new (hope my warranty didn't expire). I summoned my trident, and focused on the Sea Force points burning away where Grant and Allyson were. I got a little sentimental. Y'know the power of teamwork, three is better than one, and all that jazz. Anyway, I had to take care of the disturbing lack of Sea Force in my area; meaning Namor had to chill with the fighting.

"Namor!" I thought to him. "I'm ready!"

He jumped straight up, and I threw my trident at Llyra like a badass! Keep in mind, I was at least 200 meters away, meaning I was hella strong and accurate!

The trident impaled Llyra in the chest, and sent her flying onto her throne like I put her in timeout (I willed the barrier spell to drop). Now was the time to cash in on all of the Sea Force energy I had been saving in my three-pronged spell seal buildup. I willed all the energy to go nuclear, setting off a blastwave big enough to vaporize a mountain! All of the Nethertrench spirits were reduced to shadowy husks, and Llyra was so ghost-like, it was hard to see her. I quickly put the finishing touches on my Care Bear seal, by taking the ten Sea Fore animal spirits, condensing them to marble size (tiny but mighty), and infusing them into my spell seal. This type of spell usually only needed four animal spirits, but Llyra was a special case I refused to take any chances on. After the spell seal was upgraded, I teleported over to her, put it on her head, and she went poof. Anti-climactic sure, but the fireworks display shortly afterwards made it worth it!

The spirits burst free of the spell seal in a Sea Force tornado that made even me jealous; tearing up the throne room like a frat party! I let them roam free for as long as we had left (30 seconds exactly), before the signs of the buzzer goin' off were too big to ignore. The area around Namor and I was deteriorating; I could see actual water mixing with the liquidy darkness.

"Time to go!" I thought to Namor. "Grab on!"

I stuck the trident in the floor, and after Namor grabbed it, I zipped us outta there with a teleportation spell. I poofed us back to the warships, and was relieved to see Grant, Allyson, Oroco, and Namorita rocketing back to safety too. Granted, they had to fly through the hoard of Nethertrench monsters, but that wasn't much of a factor as of now. Because their anchor to this plane of existence was going to $#!+, they were losing the weight behind their forms. Grant and Allyson were basically flying through a cloud of black paint. As soon as they were in the clear, the Nethertrench bomb finally went off, and all hell broke lose!

The trench energy collided with the Sea Force corrupted energy basins, creating a sorta energy singularity. I was of the mindset that I would have to force the Nethertrench energy down, when all I had to do was hold the Sea Force points together, and add on to what was already there. See, the Nethertrench energy and the Sea Force weren't destroying each other, just cancelling each other back to their respective places between dimensions. The animal spirits helped out a bunch, but they could only do so much until they had nothing left to give. In other words, I had to constantly pump out Sea Force to keep the Nethertrench from spilling over. Easier said than done. I had to basically call the weight of the entire ocean to keep the trench under control. It felt like a million trucks were being smashed across my body. My head was pounding so hard, I could use it for a drum set. I had to keep my eyes closed, cuz I was tearing up like wind was constantly getting blasted in my face. Still, I didn't give up; I COULDN'T give up! I can't even remember how long I had to hold the line. Every second felt like an eternity, and I was too busy trying to hold everything together to keep track of time. I do remember the relief I felt when things finally started getting easier. The Sea Force started overtaking the Nethertrench; I didn't have to fight so hard to keep the positive energy constantly flowing. Things were finally starting to go my way, which was the perfect time for things to go to $#!+ again.

Just as I was sure that the Nethertrench was done for, Llyra tired for a last minute comeback. She burst outta the Nethertrench from the waist up as a giant. She had to struggle against a cascade of Sea Force, but she was just as determined to raise hell as I was to stop it. She struggled and fought against the Sea Force, willing the Nethertrench to push back against it had hard as she could. I had to double my efforts just to keep her at a deadlock, much less try for the win. To be honest, I didn't know if I could do it alone. Sure, I could probably find the strength to release a big enough attack to K.O. Llyra, but she was fighting like a cornered animal; I couldn't find the strength to even try for a last big push. This is where I have to thank every god out there for Sunbird and Geo-Titan! I felt the familiar strangeness of Grant's not quite lightning/fire Geo-Force, and Allyson's blazing golden flames (accompanied by an amazing rendition of Yolanda Adam's song, Victory). The power clash dipped so far to my favor, I actually gasped aloud; not realizing that I was holding my breath. Without opening eyes (Sea Sense for the win), I knew Grant was barraging Llyra with missile constructs the size of flagpoles; enough firepower to wreck Manhattan. Allyson was pelting Llyra with huge Sun Bolts, and dive bombing her with giant airplanes, exploding eagles, and flaming arrows. Between the three of us, Llyra was maybe able to hold out for a minute or two, before she started sinking like the Titanic (Rose totally coulda moved over for Jack). Well, it was more like Ursula's death, as she basically slowly liquidated into nothingness. Still, it wouldn't be a villain moment if she didn't get the last word in.

"THIS IS NOT THE END, NAMOR!" she roared. "I WILL NOT BE DORMANT FOR LONG! I WILL RETURN TO TAKE EVERYTHING FROM YOU! TO MAKE YOU EXPERIENCE THE HELL YOU DAMNED ME AND MY PEOPLE TO! AS FOR YOU, SURFACE DWELLERS, YOU HAVE MADE A POWERFUL ENEMY THIS DAY! YOUR WAILS OF TORMENT WILL ECHO THROUGHOUT THE NETHERTRENCH FOR EONS TO COME! DO YOU HEAR ME JASON?! GRANT?! ALLYSON?! THE TRENCH TOLD ME WHO YOU ARE! YOUR FEARS, WEAKNESSES, HOW TO HURT YOU THE MOST! I WILL-"

She finished dissolving not a second too soon. Not just because of the terrifying threat on the lives of me, my friends, and presumably our loved ones, but because the stone had reached the tap out point. I literally felt it explode inside of me, like a computer dying right before your eyes. The energy feedback exploded inside of me so violently, I basically upchucked the stone outta my body. The feeling of so much power being ripped away from was disorienting for sure, but it was what I felt before the stone left me that had me worried. It was like a fracture, a crack, formed in its structure. I didn't know if that was possible, but I knew for certain I had pushed the stone to near max, and if this was any indication…..well, let's just say I wouldn't be using that thing for the rest of the day. Hell, Grant had me beat, and put the thing in a canister, while Allyson rushed over to me to make sure I was ok.

"Storm-Lord!" she almost screeched at me. "C'mon, don't do this to me again! Please, I can't handle another near death experience with you! I'm already gonna need to see at least twelve shrinks after today!"

"I'm fine Sunbird," I groggily responded. "Just…. No, nevermind….i'm not fine at all."

"You're not gonna explode are you? Because again, I need lots of therapy. Do me a favor and don't add anymore to the pile, will ya?"

"Don't worry, I just need a minute to adjust. Coming down from being a god gives you one hell of a hangover."

"I bet."

It actually took about three minutes for my body to balance itself out, which was just enough time for the Atlanteans to halfway finish celebrating. Seriously, these guys wouldn't stop cheering for me and my friends; not to mention Namor. Hell, him and Grant were basically bonding over getting treated like they had just scored the game winning goal in insert whatever sport. Me and Allyson got our fair share of love too, but based off of the way we were holding each other (an awkward kinda sorta hug while we were floating diagonally) most Atlanteans got the memo that we were good as we were. We shared some laughs together, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek; trying desperately to keep up the business agreement we had made (and broken) this morning.

"You know," I said. "We did just win a major battle. And a victory kiss, technically speaking, is just customary."

She wasted no time in pulling me closer, and giving me another one of those long deep kisses that I was starting to get addicted to. It wasn't short either. For at least three minutes, while everyone else was having a SpongeBob victory screech party, me and Allyson kissed each other as if we were the only people in the world. A kiss at the bottom of the ocean? Eat your heart out Percy Jackson!

We eventually broke away from each other, just in time to hear Namor's victory speech to the troops. It was the same old stuff about bravery, strength, honor, and praising Poseidon for our victory. Hell, me and Allyson were too busy playing handsies with each other; I barely heard a word of it. What I did hear loud and clear was the victory feat happening in the palace, and that me and my team were to be the guests of honor! Don't know what it is Atlanteans eat, but I was absolutely starving! Allyson can tell you I was one of the first people to get back on the warships, as everyone packed up to sail back to the city.