Author's note: I'm sorry for the lateness of the chapter, but at least I managed the Friday deadline! And blame real life for the delay (ugh, sometimes it can be a real handful or a real pain!). But I'm glad you guys were patient enough. And special thanks to Theodore Hawkwood for the e-mails.
CHAPTER 9: The Final Phase
"With pleasure, my Lord and Master!" Granny cackled in her deep, mannish voice as she and Big Barda aimed their power truncheon and Mega-Rod, both clubs glowing immensely with vibrant, unstoppable power, enough to destroy and incinerate all of them with one blow, before firing.
Both energy discharges combined could wipe them all out instantly, regardless of their strength, mutation, or any invulnerability. Desaad's technological advancements made sure of it. Yet Forge was more than prepared for this…
"Oh no, you don't!" yelled Forge as he took several round objects from his pack around his shoulder which looked suspiciously like ball-bearings before he threw them to the ground. And to the Joes and Misfits' amazements, the ball-bearings began to whine, vibrating softly before they released a single burst of polarized energy encapsulating the group right before Big Barda and Granny Goodness fired with their power weapons. Yet the devastating attacks that would have been enough to level a skyscraper to rubble within minutes immediately illuminated the air all around Batgirl, Supergirl, the Misfits, the X-Men, and the Joes right before the energy was reflected back at the two Furies themselves. Big Barda and Granny screamed in rage as the Mega Rod and the power truncheon were engulfed by the very attacks they sent to kill the Earthlings, and with a simple crackle and soft explosion, the energy dissipated. Big Barda was now furious as she looked at her Mega-Rod, charred and twisted into a useless piece of smoking, semi-melted metal while Granny's power truncheon, though now half as effective as it used to be because of the damage, was still slightly functional. However, she could no longer use it to its fullest extent to kill the mutant children.
"Curse you, you foul, demonic little brat!" Granny snarled at Forge.
"Forge, what did you do, yo?" Toad asked, gaping at the X-Men inventor with wide eyes.
"Polarized reflective shields, kind of similar to Magneto's shielding except it reflects all energy right back at the oppressors with twice the strength. A little something I came up with in the lab to give us some additional protection…but unfortunately, they run out of juice in thirty seconds," Forge explained, and indeed, with a faint pop and a hiss, the shields disappeared and the ball-bearings generating the force-fields died.
"Any chance you got anymore of them in that little bag of tricks you've got there?" Spirit asked hopefully.
"Hey, at least you gave Granny Loudmouth and her Fury chicks a little taste of their own medicine, Forge!" smiled Boom-Boom as she readied herself for battle. Upon seeing Big Barda and Granny Goodness failing, Darkseid showed his distasteful displeasure as he nodded for the other Female Furies to attack, which they all did keenly.
"You've all got spunk, dearies, to be willing to storm into our Master Darkseid's base like this! I certainly say you've all got guts!" laughed Mad Harriet, cackling insanely, as she leapt into the fray.
"And we're gonna spread 'em all throughout Apokolips!" Stompa said lowly as she leapt high into the air, ready to squish the X-Men, the Misfits, the Joes, Supergirl, and Batgirl all in one move.
"Oh get some new lines, Lardbottom!" yelled Supergirl as she flew up and furiously decked Stompa with a sweep-punch before she could even land and crush her opponents, "I remember you telling me that one when I tangled with you Furies the FIRST time! What, you're still using the same defective brain from before?"
"Everyone, SCATTER!" yelled General Hawk, and as one, all the mutants, the humans, and the alien girl obliged, avoiding Stompa's attack too close for comfort, automatically teaming up into factions and working together to stop each Fury. Satisfied that at least the kids have a fighting chance and that at least one Joe was paired for each Fury, General Hawk then rushed in with Beast and Low Light to stop the very leader of this group, Granny Goodness Harkness, herself.
"How disgraceful!" Granny snarled as she tried to then blast Professor Xavier in his wheelchair, "You insignificant mutants and Earthlings dare challenge the New Gods of Apokolips? You should be grateful we decide to spare you pitiful lives as our bounty to further glorify the Dark Lord of all once he regains the formula!"
"Oh, go O.D. on some Metamucil, you constipated, old prune!" Low Light growled as he transformed his body into solid adamantium, protectively covering the Professor from Granny's blast as the energy harmlessly bounced off his metal torso.
"Such insolence! Furies, defend your Granny's honor!" With that, Granny then attempted to blast the very floor Low Light was standing on, hoping it could self-collapse and send the G.I. Joe soldier to oblivion.
"Try this on for size, Granny!" snarled Low Light as he then transmuted his body into smoke, thick and ten-times more pungent than charcoal, lightweight and floating on air right before the floor gave away. With a rush, he billowed over towards the leader of the Female Furies and blinded her, with the elderly sadist shrieking and vainly trying to claw and blast her way out of the cloud obscuring her vision and filling her lungs. Taking their chance, General Hawk and Beast rushed toward Granny Goodness from opposing sides. With a judo chop, General Hawk managed to knock the power mace out of the cold-blooded and hardhearted woman's hand, sending it to clatter to the floor. With a gasp, Granny tried to scramble after her weapon, but Hawk then delivered a side kick into Granny's stomach before grabbing the very front of her uniform and flinging her out of the smoke created by Low Light and into the middle of the room, his muscles screaming a bit from the exertion. General of not, Hawk was trained in self-defense and could fight as well as any of the Joes.
"You scoundrel! How dare you touch the bosom of a lady of Apokoliptic royalty?" Granny shrieked in gall and scandal.
"Trust me, Harkness, I'm going to scrub my hands out with bleach and steel wool before I can answer that question without flinching," Hawk snarled, mildly revolted, as he picked up the power truncheon from the floor. Granny then took out her hidden trump card as she removed a gun hidden from the fold of her cape, specifically designed by Desaad to cause any matter to disintegrate down to the exact molecular structure in an instant, before she aimed and fired an intense beam.
"Shit," cursed Hawk under his breath. Gasping, Hawk rolled to the side and miraculously avoided the attack, reprimanding himself for not thinking to expect a second weapon. He then noticed that Granny instead had struck the wall, and upon contact, the gun's beam immediately disintegrated the wall without a whisper. He then realized it was a bad thing to get caught in the blast as he then tried to run from Granny getting a good shot on him again, but Beast thankfully came to his rescue.
"I believe this item is too dangerous for such a ripened gorgon such as yourself to be allowed to handle, wouldn't you say my dear fellow Medusa?" Hank said in a refined and calm tone as he suddenly sprang out of nowhere and grabbed the gun out of Granny's hands with one of his hind feet, somersaulting over the Fury's head before landing and crushing the weapon to pieces with a paw. With a snarl and showing his white canines, Beast launched himself into the air, flying in speeds of double-digits before rolling into a ball and ramming Granny directly in front and sending her flying back only to come crashing into the wall. To Granny, it was like being hit by a fuzzy tennis ball, only much, much bigger and much, much more painful.
"And the Queen of Beelzebub has finally been put down for the count," Beast said as he smiled at his literary metaphor and leapt along with Low Light and General Hawk to help the others with their battles against the rest of the Female Furies.
Meanwhile, Mad Harriet was suddenly learning the hard way why it was not such a good idea to be insolent and pompous to think that one can openly handle a G.I. Joe soldier alone in hand-to-hand combat…
"Hiya!" roared Spirit as the Native American G.I. Joe delivered a jumping spin-kick directly at Mad Harriet's head, and like a snake, Mad Harriet managed to effectively twist her body to avoid the blow, before she twirled around and tried to stab her black, power spikes directly into the man's back. Yet Spirit was quicker as he managed to whirl around and catch her hands before they could get close and threw the Female Fury to the ground. Yet Mad Harriet then delivered a powerful kick to Spirit's head as she was flipped over, and wincing, the Joes sank to his knees in pain, blood running from his mouth where she literally knocked out some teeth. Mad Harriet grinned as she then went for the kill…
"Girl, ever heard of plastic surgery? I heard it can work miracles! Although in your case, I'd say it would take more than an act of God to fix this one!" Cover Girl snapped, her anger at seeing one of the attackers responsible for injuring her and Blind Master and the rest of the Joes back at the X-Mansion intensifying ten-fold. With a snarl, Cover Girl threw herself feet first into Mad Harriet and actually managed to catch the green-haired psycho in the stomach with the heels of her boots, knocking her away from Spirit. Mad Harriet was winded for a moment before she snarled and tried to claw at Cover Girl with her spiked knuckles, the spears on her hands extending by at least a foot.
"That's it! Any more shots about my looks, and I'll rip your face out before force-feeing it to you, you skank!" the Female Fury snapped as she pounced, diving directly towards Cover Girl with hopes of trying to pin her down so she could stab her. The female Joe however simply fell onto her back in a smooth position before using her feet as leverage to catch Mad Harriet in the gut before kicking her over her head and sailing straight to the floor, face first. With an acrobatic move, Cover Girl rolled backward and landed on her feet again before taking out her rifle and fired. However, even with her face bruised and skinned, Mad Harriet managed to do several gymnastic flips and leaps, avoid the rifle lasers before she used the wall as leverage to bounce back towards Cover Girl with her claws armed and ready. Gasping, Courtney automatically raised her gun across her body as a protective block right before the alien brought down her hands at the land second.
Crack!
Cover Girl now looked at the ruined parts of the rifle, neatly severed into two useless portions before she just simply shrugged and started to join up with Spirit on attacking the Apokoliptic alien as one.
At the west side of the throne room of Darkseid…
"What's the matter, boys?" sneered Live Wire as the blue-haired mutate hurled incredible and lethal blitzes of electricity towards Bezerker, Iceman, Razor, and Nightcrawler, "Can't handle one innocent girl? Am I too much for your tastes? And I thought boys enjoyed doing foursomes with lively, energetic chicks."
Bobby did his best to dodge roll the rounds as he returned the fire with the stolen energy scimitar Blob had bequeathed to him from the fight with the Parademon armies, yet unfortunately, sharp-shooting was not Iceman's skill, especially when he was using energy blasts from a gun instead of his usual ice beams from his mutant power. All his shots comfortably missed Live Wire by several feet, yet they provided a nice distraction, allowing Ray Crisp to show his skills.
"You're full of something, I'll give you that, you psycho-witch!" Bezerker snarled as he managed to rush himself in front of Bobby, protecting his friend since he still couldn't invoke much ice to protect himself or his group and, wincing, absorbed some of the electricity Live Wire sent at him. Thanks to his mutant power, Ray felt his strength and vitality increase significantly as he managed to stand up straight, still slightly smoking to the shock of Live Wire herself.
Bezerker managed to smirk in satisfaction at the sight of the murderous, electric super-being as he charged directly at her with his fists clenched, saying mockingly, "Too bad I didn't get to show you this when you attacked Bayville back at the carnival! But surprise, Live Wire! You're not the only electric mutant around here!"
Live Wire was now a bit flabbergasted as she did her best to defend herself by dumbly sending more electrical charges at the X-Man, but Ray wasn't the least bit hindered as his body simply glowed a bit, encased with each power surge before it disappeared within his flesh, taking in the energy like a battery. With a grunt, the red-and-yellow haired teenager set himself upon Live Wire with a furious plethora of kicks and punches. The female opponent did her best to defend herself, but the mutant adolescent was clearly more experienced at hand to hand combat and Live Wire was so engrossed and preoccupied from the fight, she didn't have much common sense in her panicked mind to try to flee. Ray roared as he kept relentlessly brawling in a frenzied state, his moves almost acrobatic. Within a single minute, Live Wire was now already sporting red marks on the white skin of her legs and face before Bezerker then managed to deliver a brutal kick into her gut, causing her to stumble back. Live Wire was now furious; this was the absolute last straw for her. So if she couldn't kill Ray…at least she could cause him grief by killing his teammates.
"Say bye to your friends, chump!" Live Wire snarled, hopping mad, as she then hurled a gigantic stream of electricity at Bobby directly, and even with the energy scimitar in his hands, it could do nothing to protect him. Iceman yelped, but luckily, Nightcrawler rushed to Bobby's side and wordlessly teleported him out of danger with a puff of smoke and a soft bamf. Razor then moved as he launched several missiles with his glovatrix at Live Wire saying, "Hydro missiles…AWAY!"
At the word, "hydro", Live Wire knew those missiles contained water, and she would be damned before she let that happen to her. She wouldn't be taken helplessly a second time. With a flash, she transformed into pure electricity and snaked out of position in a flash before the missiles could hurt her, positioning herself directly behind the kat before he could react. Yet before the mutate could kill him, Live Wire then screamed as she felt the telltale pain of several capsules hitting her exposed back and covering her with…
"NO!" she howled as her entire body was now swathed with a layer of silicone dust, gray, thick and electrically resistant. Exactly like what the Misfits did to her before at the carnival, and unfortunately, the only thing that could remove it was water. She furiously whirled around to see a grinning Nightcrawler and Iceman, waving their glovatrixes in front of her face, indicating that they were the ones who nullified her powers. Live Wire then turned to the kat who solemnly just looked at her with narrowed eyes, and upon a second look, Live Wire could see that the projectiles that Razor had fired at her were not missiles at all. They were just empty casings. Lost and beside herself with anger at being stuck in this predicament, Live Wire shot Razor a poisonous look.
The kat cracked his knuckles as he and Bezerker flanked each other, explaining with suppressed steel, "There was no water in those missiles, Live Wire."
Live Wire's eyes widened with lucidness; it was a clever ruse. And now she was helpless again as Bezerker and Razor blitzed her with claws and fists ready, roaring as a team.
During the heated brawl, Kurt then spotted his six friends within the fire pit, all surrounding a large, crimson crystal of alien origin, and Nightcrawler cried out.
"Mein Gott! Everyone! Hang on! I'll teleport you out!"
"Elf, don't!" yelled Logan, but it was too late for Nightcrawler to hear the warning as he reappeared to the incarcerated mutants and grasped the energy rings binding each of them firmly. It was a terrible mistake as the energy responded to the touch and blasted the German furry mutant intensely.
"Yeow! That hurt!" Nightcrawler howled as he let go of the rings and teleported back to firm ground outside the fire pit, nursing his burnt fingers and hands by blowing on them and whimpering. Jean, in her desperation, communicated with her fellow X-Man telepathically.
Kurt, we've tried already! These rings can't be broken, and every time we tried to use our powers on them, they cause a backlash of energy! And the next time we try blasting these things, it could kill all of us! Go tell General Hawk and the Professor! They both will know what to do! Hurry! Don't worry about us! Go help everyone else!
Nightcrawler nodded as he teleported and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The raven-haired Lashina, her blue eyes colder that the North Pole, snarled at the four figures of Forge, Toad, Whitelighter, and Shipwreck, her red mouth baring teeth as she expertly uncoiled a pair of razor-sharp strips of pliable and elastic metal with a flick of her wrists.
"This is not good!" gulped Forge as he saw the bands crackle with energy, "This is not gnarly! Not even groovy!"
"Do you always use seventies terms, Forge?" Whitelighter asked in confusion, his tone leaning to being deadpanned.
"Well here's another seventies terms for you Earthling twerps: black saber!" boasted Lashina vainly as she ran at them with her steel lashes dangerously whirling around her protectively like nunchucks.
"Huh?" Toad blinked as he hopped out the path of the energy whips.
"It's basically a seventies way of saying 'you're finished'! Yeow, watch it!" Forge explained hurriedly as he narrowly evaded the metal from slicing his head off. Toad managed to grab Forge before leaping out of the way of the Fury's rampage, but Lashina then tried going for Whitelighter and Shipwreck. Justin did the only thing reasonable enough during the situation; he panicked.
"Yikes!" yelped Whitelighter as he cringed and covered his head with hands fearfully, too frightened to think about dodging as Lashina's whips snaked towards him. But luckily, his emotion of fear caused the teen to orb out of way, his body vanishing in a mass of lights, leaving the Fury to strike nothing but empty air as Whitelighter teleported to a safe distance behind the Fury. Meanwhile, Shipwreck took out his dual Eagles and started shooting at Lashina, his bullets ripping through the air.
"Leave the kids alone, you heartless sea-hag!" he roared, but obviously familiar with this sort of tactic, Lashina just smirked as she expertly rotated her whips so fast, they were a mere silver blur and as the bullets struck them, she managed to send them flying back at Shipwreck. The Joe sailor was amazed as the bullets literally knocked the Eagle pistols out of his hands before a bullet sank into the bone where his shoulder met his arm, and hollering, Shipwreck clutched his wound as the blood flowed freely, staining his shirt as Lashina rushed towards him, lashes flailing.
"You shall all die here, X-Men!" Bernadeth snarled as she charged directly as Sunspot, Magma, and Dragonfly, brandishing her Fahren knife which suddenly elongated and stretched into the length of a shining, wicked sword. Dragonfly and Sunspot immediately took to the skies as Magma started throwing fireballs towards the green-robed Fury. Dodging and distorting her body like a snake, Bernadeth managed to equivocate the mass of flaming lava as she then threw her sword directly at the Nova Roma princess. Gasping, Amara titled her torso and the Fahren knife missed her neck and throat by an inch or two. Bernadeth was about to summon the Fahren knife to attempt to stab Amara again, but Sunspot dived from his position in the skies, hurling surge after surge of sun-radiation, and Bernadeth screamed as several pulses actually winged her quite painfully.
"Watch it! That thing can fly! And it's razor sharp!" Magma gasped as she unconsciously fingered the lock of hair from her head that had been sheared off when the Fahren knife brushed past her.
"And it's got a homing ability!" gasped Dragonfly in horror as she narrowly did a barrel-roll in the air with a desperate flutter of her wings, only to find that even though the knife flew past her, missing its mark, as if guided by invisible hands, it simply rotated a complete 180-degrees before flying towards her. Now whimpering in panic, Dragonfly was zooming across the air in wild loops and strafes, exactly how Cover Girl and Roadblock had taught her for defensive purposes in order to avoid gunfire. Yet the Fahren knife still followed her and was getting closer and closer, ready to incinerate her from the inside out.
Now fraught, Dragonfly did a final resort as she then heavily landed, rolling forward twice to soften her fall as the Fahren sword flew closer and closer towards the insect-girl's body. Using her wings, Lina then crossed all four parts over her upper body as a shield, folding the appendages intricately as the knife then struck.
Pang!
To Bernadeth's amazement, the Fahren knife bounced off the thin, crystal membranes of Dragonfly's insect-wings and ricocheted to a distance harmlessly. Those wings, though fragile looking and appeared to be made of flimsy glass and plastic, were strong enough to cut through steel. Apparently, Lifeline and Cover Girl trained the Earthling girl well to protect herself due to her mutated state, and Lina was starting to become more appreciative of her physical abnormalities.
"Whew!" Dragonfly gasped as she wiped her brow in relief. Bernadeth was not at a loss in the slightest as she managed to evade Roberto and Amara's physical attacks by literally diving and rolling to the side before expertly picking up her Fahren sword and charged at the two X-Men again. Undaunted, Magma managed to summon a wave of lava from a neighboring fire pit in Darkseid's chamber before it rushed towards the demoness. Bernadeth, gasping at the column of lava and molten rock that seemed to grow alive and snaked towards her like a tentacle, neatly back-flipped to avoid the searing wave, but then she didn't see Roberto diving towards her with his foot jutting out as a stomping, heel-kick, but she certainly felt the result.
At the east wing of the throne room…
"Hounds, kill him! Kill him and rip him apart! Unus, Secondus, Tertius, Quadrus! Tear the Joe to pieces!" Artemis yelled, pointing to Roadblock, and with that command, the cybernetic hounds barked mechanically as they rushed towards the Joe army soldier, obeying the whims of their master. Roadblock was not the least bit intimidated; he had faced things much worse than this before. As the first hound, Unus punched on him, Roadblock managed to sidestep and grab the heavy canine by the hind legs before it could double-back and counterattack. Using the momentum, Roadblock grunted as he swung around right before the next tow hunting dogs of the pack, Secondus and Tertius, pounced. Like a club, Roadblock slammed Unus into the two dogs, sending them flying to the side, battered and heavily bruised from the strike, before he tossed Unus into the fourth remaining hound. Artemis was incensed at the mistreatment of her beloved pack, and she was about to fire a crossbow shaft at the Joe's heart, but then a series of miniature arrows came whizzing by and embedded themselves into the floor an inch in front of her foot. Jerking her head back, Artemis saw the mutant girl, Shadowcat, aiming the crossbow attachment on her sky-blue and pink glovatrix.
"You!" snarled the Fury, recognizing the X-Girl instantly.
"Nice pets," Shadowcat grinned haughtily as she snapped her fingers, "Like, you wanna see mine? Get her, Lockheed!" To the Alien's astonishment, a purple baby dragon the size of a house-cat immediately appeared from the skies and started to bombard the Female Fury with fire. Sensing their master was in danger, the four cyber-hounds, sensing easier and weaker prey, turned their attention to the human girl nearby their master, but Shadowcat took a deep breath before he aimed her glovatrix at the charging dog pack.
"Like glue missiles…AWAY!" she cried as she fired.
Kashooom! SPLAT! The dogs howled with dismay and wrathful consternation as they were all covered with globs and globs of specialized glue Forge had created in his lab weeks ago out of complex polymers and transmuting rubber laced with steel molecules.
"Like, enjoy you mutts!" Shadowcat said slyly with a cat-like grin, "That stuff may be glue, but it's like totally stronger than cement!"
"Good work, Shadowcat! Now let's give this Female Fury some well-deserved payback!" Roadblock said strongly, glad the teenager helped him out and thoroughly appreciative. Kitty threw the Joe a playful look, her eyes dancing with glee.
"And now that we like totally trashed those hounds, you hold Artemis while I like wallop that witch to the ground!" Roadblock couldn't help but smile at Kitty using verse as both he and the X-Girl ran towards Artemis who was calmly fitting two arrows in her crossbow before aiming them at her enemies, directly at their heads. It was a sure-shot…until she felt a powerful hand grip her arm painfully like a steel vise, nearly breaking her appendage off, before snatching her weapon out of her grasp. Artemis then found herself face to face with a livid Colossus, his white, pupil-less eyes glazed with anger.
"Let me teach you the errors of your ways, you witch. And rule number one is to not shoot any girl who has a willing boyfriend that goes completely psycho on anyone who tries to kill her!" growled Colossus, crumpling the crossbow in his hand. Artemis was not even the least bit vexed as she drew a dagger from a hidden compartment in her armband before she tried to stab Piotr directly into the heart with it. Considering the blade was made out of the same material that the energy scimitars consisted of when Colossus was nearly fatally stabbed with one back at the carnivals by H.A.T.E., it would be a killing strike. Yet before she could thrust with her arm…
"Rrreeeeeaaaaahhhh!" roared Lockheed as he descended upon Artemis, diving-bombing, and let loose a furious blast of dragon-fire directly in her face, scorching the Apokoliptic mercenary and causing her to drop the knife in pain.
"AAAAAAAAA! My face!" Artemis screamed.
Colossus looked at the dagger a bit taken aback before he grinned to the purple pet dragon in appreciation.
"Thank you, Lockheed…although this doesn't mean I've forgotten the mess you made when you marked your territory on my bed yesterday!" Colossus chuckled back before he threw Artemis towards the wall. Bracing herself, Artemis managed to use her feet as leverage to land heavily against the stone and metal surface before flipping safely towards the ground. Yet thanks to her being weaponless, Roadblock and Shadowcat were left free to attack. Roadblock, with years of training and boxing, delivered several quick jabs, his fists flying so fast, they were a mere blur and Artemis couldn't even register them in her mind. This was exactly how Roadblock was able to catch her jaw and nose painfully. Her face bleeding and her nose broken, Artemis screeched like a banshee as tried to deliver a 360-degree jump turnkick to Roadblock's head, but expertly, Roadblock ducked and moved his body to the side, avoiding Artemis' attack before executing a overhand, right punch followed by a jab, right-nook combination, sending Artemis flying back. Shadowcat then launched at Artemis, delivering a combination of a front leg spin kick, a back leg spin kick, a offensive kick and a defensive kick in quick succession, her slender legs taut with energy and speed as she executed her moves in perfect form, moving like the wind as the time between each strike was barely enough time to allow the Female Fury a chance to block. And all the meanwhile, Lockheed kept dive-bombing the Female Fury and actually started to cause even more burns on her skin along with singing her black shiny hair, which was now completely ruined and smoking.
"Colossus, go help the others! Shadowcat, Lockheed and me got this one in the bag!" Roadblock yelled. Colossus nodded as he rushed off.
"Hey, femme fatale! Pick a card! Any card!" Gambit yelled as he threw his entire deal of fifty-two playing cards, all of them shimmering with red kinetic energy, directly at Big Barda. Big Barda flew and dodged the energy projectiles before she attempted to kill Gambit, but a sudden tackle by Rogue sent her flying back. Big Barda then found herself facing three identical eleven-year old triplet sisters, all of them with black hair and matching pink and purple battle uniforms.
"Hello, Ms. Piggy," Daria chimed sweetly.
"The name is Big Barda, you insolent little twerps!" Big Barda snarled as she tried to grab them, but the sisters avoided her hands as they kept teasing her.
"Big Barda? What's so big about you? I mean, other than your butt…" Daria commented, cocking her head to the side.
"It is supposedly bigger than normal. Or it could be because of her big head…" Brittany added.
"I'll tell you one thing: she sure wasn't named Big Barda because of her breasts," Quinn giggled.
All these jokes just made Big Barda madder and madder as she then flew after the Delgado Triplets, every fiber in her body pleading to wring their little necks.
"Come back here and die, you little Munchkins!" she screamed, but now serious, Daria, Quinn, and Brittany joined hands, their eyes going white and pupil-less as they levitated in the air and sent a huge psychic attack into Big Barda.
"Yeoooowww!" the Female Fury howled.
"Bad girl!" yelled Trinity in unison as the hovered alongside in the air, following the Female Fury second-in-command and shocking her with their psychic assaults, "Bad girl! Bad girl! Bad, bad, bad!"
"Yeeeooowww! I'm warning you, you little - ! Yeowch! Cut it out, you little brats!"
Meanwhile, in the middle of the combat zone, Stompa managed to send Cannonball flying back, crashing through the wall despite Sam rocketing directly towards her with his mutant gravitational powers.
"Ow…" the country mutant moaned as he gingerly held his head, wincing. Thank God for the protective shield that generated around him due to his mutation…
"Ha! You see, you little wimps? No one can stop Stompa!"
"Then call me 'no one'!" yelled Colossus as he rushed from nowhere and delivered a brutal and devastating uppercut towards the Fury, and screaming, she sailed in an arc in the air before crashing against the wall. Stompa now lost her black glasses as her chin and lips were stained with blood, her soulless eyes now glittering with vengeance.
"That's it, Metal-Boy, cause I'm gonna have to put my foot down!" growled Stompa as she stomped on the ground, sending a growing fissure scuttling towards Colossus and threatening to bury him into the ground by the sinking faultline. Yet thankfully, Nightcrawler grabbed onto Colossus and teleported him out of danger. This enabled Supergirl to act…
"That's it, Loudmouth, cause I'm gonna have to put Freddy down!" yelled Kara's voice from above triumphantly, and the sentence was so out of the blue, Stompa actually stopped, her face a mixture of confusion and bewilderment, before she looked up to the source dumbly.
"Huh?" she said stupidly, which happened to be her biggest mistake as she saw for a fleeting second, Supergirl dropping the Blob from the sky right directly on top of the large woman.
"Geronimooooooooo!" cheered Blob as he fell, belly-flop style.
WHAM!
"OK, that is so not a pretty sight," winced Cannonball as he witnessed Blob lying directly on top of the alien Female Fury, with the New God of Apokolips screaming bloody murder about being violated (and again, that was not a pretty thought to ponder over either).
"Get off of me, you fat pig!" screamed Stompa as Blob laid sprawled out over her. With a mighty heave, the alien managed to toss Blob aside, but before she could use her Gun Boots to crush him, Supergirl and Colossus tackled her together as one.
"Blob! You OK?" Cannonball gasped, helping the Misfit back up as Supergirl and Colossus kept trying to pound Stompa.
"I am, but that big, ugly cow's not going to be in a minute! Nothing fazes the Blob!" Fred snarled as he got up without even hesitating, ignoring Sam's concern, as he charged directly for Stompa again.
"Hey, wait up!" Cannonball yelled as he used his powers to rocket and propel himself into the fray.
Meanwhile, Mad Harriet had enough as she then aimed her knuckles at Cover Girl and Spirit and like bullets, the spikes from her hands flew out, swift and sure and as deadly arrows.
"Duck!" yelled Spirit as he dragged Courtney down to prevent her from being shot to death. Boom-Boom had enough.
"Try dealing with me, green n' ugly!" Tabitha snarled. Mad Harriet then shot her power spikes at the blond mutant, but Boom-Boom was quicker as she flung several time-bombs at the flying projectiles before they could even hit her.
Paf! Paf! Boom! Kapaf! Kaboom! And thanks to the brilliant explosions, the Female fury was temporarily blinded.
"Augh! My eyes! I can't see!"
"Well, that's kind of the point, you bimbo," muttered Boom-Boom, rolling her eyes, before she delivered a jumping side-kick to Mad Harriet's face, causing her to stumble a bit. And that gave Pietro his chance to annoy his new target.
"Ha! Wedgie!" cheered Quicksilver as he actually managed to snap Mad Harriet's underwear painfully before he actually hoisted up her waistline. The Female Fury screamed in rage, now past the boiling point as she whirled around and tried to impale him. Yet thanks to his endless sessions with the Blind Master and Spirit (and countless exercises as a consequence of KP duty), Pietro wasn't even worried as he neatly managed to evade all the rods thrown at him. Then before Mad Harriet could try to fire again, she saw Pietro let fly something right before it hit her in the face.
Splat!
"A pie? You hit a bloodthirsty alien from a world run by some satanic tyrant with a pie?" Cover Girl asked, her eye twitching slightly from the awkward randomness of the event.
"Oh, really original, you dumb, pathetic hyperactive screwball!" growled Mad Harriet sarcastically, bitingly, as she furiously wiped the cream filling off her face, "Hitting me with a pie! I'll put down that you're a second-rate comedian on your tombstone after I desecrate what's left of your corpse to Artemis' hounds!"
"Not original? Moi? And I thought hitting you with a pie filled with cream of urushiol from Airtight's lab would get me nominated for 'Most Original'!"
Spirit had a very funny look on his face as he helped Cover Girl up on her feet and said from the sidelines, "Urushiol? Isn't that the chemical found in poison ivy?"
"Yep. Only this special cream I stole…er, borrowed from Airtight's lab works ten times faster and is enough to cause welts and boils the size of quarters!"
"A pie laced with poison ivy, huh? Does it even work, Quickie?" Boom-Boom asked, smiling.
"YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" screamed Mad Harriet in the background as she started clawing at her visage roughly with her fingernails, drawing blood and deep, bleeding gouges, "MY FACE! He ruined my beautiful face! I'm going to KILL that annoying, albino hummingbird!"
"I think you can see for yourselves. And that's our cue to split! Woo hoo!" Quicksilver laughed as Mad Harriet gave chase, concentrating solely on the Misfit speedster and ignoring the other three she was battling with previously.
"You live for this, don't you?" Cover Girl asked as Quicksilver dashed past her, hooting.
"Pretty much! Besides, she should be grateful I haven't gotten to the stuff on my list for kidnapping Wanda! Woo hoo, woo hoo, woo hoo hoo hoo hoo!"
"Quicksilver, you're supposed to be fighting her, not annoying her!" yelled Xavier in the background.
"Actually Prof, I think this option's a lot more painful," smirked Boom-Boom as she watched, amused, at a very puffy and swollen-faced Mad Harriet chasing Quicksilver, screaming like a insane banshee and shouting threats and curses that are in no way appropriate to be written down as tangible words.
In the throne room, at the east end…
Batgirl calmly positioned six Batarangs, three in each hand and firmly held between her fingers, as Lady Deathstrike, the mutant female formerly known as X23, charged directly towards her in a silent line. With a powerful throw, Batgirl chucked her weapons, the sharp projectiles cutting through the air, yet unafraid, Deathstrike used her claws and literally destroyed each one in midair without much thought, not even making an effort to dodge them.
"Whoa," murmured Batgirl worriedly to herself as the Fury continued to dash towards her, "this might require a little more strategy…." With that, the masked vigilante managed to impressively back-flip out of range, leaving Deathstrike to clout the girl was standing on a second ago, causing a noticeable hole in the metal floor. Impervious to the miss, the mutant girl pursued after her, and Batgirl was having much difficulty as she barely dodged the adamantium claws of Wolverine's clone by a matter of inches. Yet before she could attempt to impale Batgirl again, Lady Deathstrike, sensing an incoming attack from her blind spot, simply swiveled around and crossed her arms over her chest as an effective block before Xi's foot struck the apex of her crossed arms roughly. Growling, Lady Deathstrike pushed back Xi, causing him to flip backwards and land softly into the ground, by opening her arms before she pushed with her leg muscles and dove at Xi with her clawed foot aimed at his head. His face cold stone and emotionless, Xi managed to duck and leap back again, but Deathstrike, obviously wise enough to anticipate that sort of evasion technique, simply landed on the nearby wall, pivoted one foot and bounced back towards the lizard-like Misfit before he could even realize what was happening. Instincts rushing in, Xi jerked his chest and arched it backwards as far as he could…
Slash!
Xi winced as he touched the light yet bleeding laceration showing through the rip on his tunic where Deathstrike kicked him, but he then raised his head as he saw Blind Master calmly walk in front of the Misfit and positioning himself in front of the mutant Fury. Deathstrike sneered vainly, glancing at the telltale cane and dark glasses before she stopped, her senses tingling. Then she realized that the human in front of her possessed a great deal of cunning and strength underneath; she forgot one rule about opponents: appearances can be deceiving.
"I am ready for you, X23," Blind Master said solemnly, calmly, his legs slightly bent and the muscles in his body tense and quivering with anticipation. At the mention of her old name, Deathstrike was apoplectic and now mad with anger and hellfire, and thus, went completely berserk as she rushed at the G.I. Joe ninja master, ready to slay him where he stood in an instant. She barraged the African American Joe with several swipes of her adamantium claws, but to her amazement…he disappeared when she ceased her attack! She couldn't see nor sense him! His ki vanished entirely!
"This is not who you are, X23," Blind Master said calmly behind her, and reacting in mere fractions of a second, Deathstrike swiveled around and tried to gouge her enemy with the blade jutting out of her foot, but Blind Master wisely raised his arm and blocked the kick, his hand grasping at the junction of where her ankle met her foot and stopping the adamantium spike from cutting him by mere inches. He caught her foot? Impossible! No one could be humanly that fast! Snarling like a caged animal, Deathstrike became wild as she launched herself up in the air and delivered her other foot with three kicks, her heel pointed downward and ready to bash Blind master's head. Undaunted, Blind Master grabbed her other foot and literally tossed her aside without as much as a grunt. Lady Deathstrike was now starting to unravel, her tactical cunning and strategic mind beginning to fall apart at the seams at seeing the man wearing the black, leather trench-coat easily. Blind Master just sadly addressed her again.
"You know this is wrong, X23. This is not who you are."
Deathstrike shrieked as she tried to hack at him, but Gabriel stepped to the side, avoiding it.
"You are not a killer…"
Deathstrike jumped up and tried to bring both sets of her claws upon the Blind Master's head in a downwards, hammer punch, but the ninja master strafed at the last instant and the Fury's metal claws just chipped the stone floor. Then Blind Master lightly rapped the girl's hands with his cane, like a schoolteacher trying to administer gentle admonishment to a female student with a ruler to the palms. Deathstrike, however, was howling as if the Joe decapitated her hands from her body with a blade.
"You do not belong with these Female Furies, and you are not a slave of Darkseid…"
"SHUT UP!" howled the mutant as she delivered a flying roundhouse kick, but Blind Master ducked and threw her off to the sidelines with a simple judo move before rapping her on top of the head.
"You are a mutant girl, a girl who deserves a life of her own, a girl who needs love and friends like the other X-Men."
"Damn you!" howled Deathstrike as she flipped over the ninja and tried to impale his back, but Blind Master simply blocked her claws by pushing them to the side before delivering a kick to her kneecap, spraining it to prevent future use before hitch-kicking her directly in the center of her ribcage.
"X23, stop this. Don't you realize the implications of your deeds? You are sacrificing your father to Darkseid…a father who hasn't stopped caring for you…"
"HE IS NOT MY FATHER!" screamed Deathstrike as she charged at him, her leg slightly limping and hindering her speed a bit more.
"What is he doing?" gasped Batgirl in horrified awe as Lady Deathstrike kept trying to eviscerate the Joe.
Xi's eyes never left his sensei as he said with a touch of reverence, "He's trying to break through to her."
"Well, we can't leave it up to him! We have to help!" Batgirl declared stoutly as she took a black and yellow Batarang from her belt and attached it to a loop of thin, metal wire before she threw it at Deathstrike, intentionally missing the girl but having it ricochet off the wall.
"Xi, catch it!" Batgirl yelled, and the green, lizard-like Misfit suddenly knew what Batgirl wanted to achieve as he neatly ensnared the attached Batarang with one clawed hand, and in unison, both Batgirl and Xi pulled at the line with a vicious yank. Caught off guard, Lady Deathstrike roared with wrathful anger as the rope caught her around the knees, chaffing them while she tripped and fell hard on her back.
"What are you doing?" Blind Master demanded at Batgirl angrily, "I was getting to her!"
"We can't wait for chance to deal with that! We have to take her down now! It's the only definite way to save her if that is what you truly want!" Batgirl snapped as she and Xi teamed up as a duo to fight Lady Deathstrike. Blind Master felt his blood bubble dangerously as he glared at the vigilante's back before he exhaled wearily with frustration, giving in.
"Damn, stubborn pig-headed woman," muttered the ninja master to himself before he leapt into the skirmish.
At the same time, Big Barda, managing to evade Trinity, then found herself face to face with the lone mutant child known as Multiple.
"Back off and give us back our friends, Big Barda!" Jamie snapped.
"You and what army, you little rugrats?" Big Barda snarled. To her amazement, no sooner did she just say that when the young, brown-haired adolescent then literally multiplied before her very eyes until she was in plain view of a large throng of Jamie-clones, all of them pointing a loaded glovatrix directly at her.
Yep, it was safe to say she walked right into that one.
"Frankly…this army! Missiles…AWAY!" yelled the twenty-odd Multiple clones as they all fired a barrage of four or five miniature missiles each from their glovatrixes, every one of the shots containing enough nitroglycerin and a tiny microgram of Semtex explosive. Jake had patiently reminded the New Mutants time and time again to not fool around with their glovatrixes (if they wished to keep their hands and fingers in entirety) and to only use this ammunition as a last resort. Multiply (no pun intended) that number of explosive projectiles per mutant clone, and you had a whole arsenal of tiny, jet-propelled rockets that could even cause some tingling to the Juggernaut. And frankly, Big Barda was not on the same level as Marko Cain. Before she could even make a move to dodge, Rogue managed to grab her from behind and positioned the Fury in front of herself as a makeshift shield, and Big Barda couldn't break out thanks to Rogue's superhuman strength.
"Get your hands off me, you sickening, germ-ridden slug!" Big Barda screamed as she tried to writhe out of the goth's grip, but Rogue just smiled as he then gave Big Barda a brutal shove forward directly towards the missiles approaching them before flying backwards.
"If you insist, sugah…" she chimed as she ducked and covered her head whereas the Female Fury met the swarm of rockets at the same time.
KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!
Rogue neatly strafed to the side, allowing the alien to go hurtling past thanks to the powerful force of the explosion. And stunned from the explosion, Big Barda actually kept flying back thanks to Newton's Laws of Motion right before she collided with the thick wall of the throne room.
Crash!
"Ouch, that's gotta hurt," winced Daria playfully as they witnessed the charred and sooty Big Barda lying spread-eagled against the cracked and heavily damaged wall thanks to her impact, her golden headdress in ruins and her uniform torn and frayed.
"And this will hurt her even more," grinned Gambit as he touched the walls Big Barda had collided against with one hand, causing it to glow faintly, "Everyone, duck and cover!"
With that, Rogue, Multiple, and Cyclops used their glovatrixes to invoke Tesla shields for Trinity and Gambit to huddle behind right before Remy's kinetic buildup on the wall reached critical mass.
"Oh no…" groaned Big Barda, realizing too late what was about to happen…
KAAA-WHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!
"And there she goes again!" cheered Brittany as they all saw Big Barda go sailing past them before colliding with the wall on the opposite side of the throne room, "Wow, she really loves kissing any hard surfaces, doesn't she?"
Meanwhile, Boom-Boom then got another brilliant idea…
"Lina! Girl, can you give me a lift?" Boom-Boom cried out eagerly. Dragonfly smiled, knowing where to go, as she wrapped her hands around the X-Man's waist and took off in the sky, soaring high above the battlefield. Thanks to her army training, it wasn't too much of an effort for Lina to carry Tabitha. Boom-Boom then smiled as she made a handful of plasma bombs, each as large as marbles, glowing hotly with energy, before she scattered them and dropped them upon Stompa, Lashina, and Bernadeth. The Female Furies screamed with disbelief was they were besieged by thousands upon thousands of tiny explosions from the air as the hailstorm of time-bombs.
"Hey Furies! Since you girls smell like you could really use a bath, enjoy this shower!" Boom-Boom said as she dropped three large time-bombs as large as bowling balls.
"Scatter, girls!" Lashina cried out as she, Stompa, and Bernadeth ran for cover as all three struck the floor.
KABOOM! The force of Tabitha's time-bombs sent all three of the Furies flying, rubble and bits of rock raining down upon them from the blast.
"You know, I could feel a little sorry for them…" Lina mused, her tone a bit mocking.
"We could…" Tabitha repeated.
"…but we don't," the two finished in unison, smiling vindictively.
Currently, Nightcrawler was busy trying to evade Bernadeth as she was trying to stab him while being chased by Dragonfly, Magma, and Sunspot, all three of whom were trying to detain and incapacitate Bernadeth…
"Ach! Please, die Freudin! Can't we talk about this in a reasonable and calm manner? Yeow!"
"Fuzzy, hate to tell you this, but in this case, if a girl's trying to kill you…KICK HER ASS!" Toad snapped impatiently as he managed to wildly swivel and strafe out of range of Lashina's whip before grabbing the very end of his wooden bo and brought the other end hard across the back of the Fury's head. Lashina seethed in rage as she then snared Toad by his legs before the frog-like mutant could hope out of range, and Toad screamed, his body going into spasms, as Lashina pumped a nearly-lethal surge of energy into the Misfit's body. The cold-blooded Fury grinned nauseatingly, showing her teeth like some demented lunatic, as she raised her other hand, ready to bring down the metal whip to come bludgeoning down on Toad's neck and head.
"Toad!" yelled Forge and Whitelighter in dread, but Shipwreck flung himself into action as at the last second, he miraculously tackled the Female Fury off Toad before she could kill him, allowing the bands around Toad's legs to go slack and lessening the pain inflicted upon his body.
"Get off of me, you slime!" Lashina screamed as she knocked the Joe sailor back before she tried to strike again with a third whip she unleashed from her palms. Now Whitelighter was truly scared and truly angry for Shipwreck's behalf as he then, despite not even consciously thinking it, raised his hand out and yelled out.
"Energy whips!" With a flash, the steel band disappeared in a swarm of lights and sparks before it orbed into Justin's hands, leaving the Female Fury unarmed. This enabled Toad to spew a glob of green, thick, mucous-like slime directly into the Apokoliptic warrior's face, temporarily blinding her and impairing her vision. Justin's eyes grew as big as saucers.
"I did it! Oh my God, I can't believe this! I actually did it!" he exclaimed in excitement.
"Now's not the time to celebrate, Whitelighter! Now Forge!" Toad yelled as he managed to pick up Shipwreck by the waist and hopped him away to safety. Forge nodded as he threw several capsules at Lashina.
FLAAAASSSSSSHHHHH!
"Yaaarrrrrggghhh! What did you do to me?" screamed Lashina as she managed to prop herself into a standing position, one shoulder now heavily dislocated. Forge smirked.
"Antimatter cherry bombs," he smirked, "Came up with 'em in my lab last month, and kinda funny how just one of those is enough to blow up a whole room if the magnetic spheres that contain them should ever get destroyed by some sort of energy discharge and come into contact with actual matter outside the shell coverings. And your whips count as physical matter last time I checked…or correction, what's left of your whips."
Lashina looked down and saw that the mutant inventor was speaking the truth; her trusty whips had completely obliterated and disintegrated into nonexistent ashes and particles. Along with most of the other whips that she had lashed around her uniform, and indeed, there were at most only three or four in good enough condition to be used for combat.
"My weapons!" Lashina shrieked in rage.
Forge's voice was even smugger as he clarified, "Did I forget to mention that antimatter immediately obliterates and disintegrates anything it comes in contact with?"
"You shall pay for that, inventor!" Lashina screamed, now bent for vengeance as she took the longest steel strip and unraveled it from her torso before twirling and cracking the air dangerously all around her as a display to intimidate.
General Hawk then yelled to the background, "Forge, forget her and come with me! I need your help on something!"
"General?" Forge actually gaped at the leader of G.I. Joe with his mouth open and slightly ajar.
"Just trust me! Shipwreck, I sent Low Light to help you out! Can you four handle that Female Fury?" Hawk yelled as Forge nodded after the first sentence and made his way through the chaos and fighting on the combat zone.
"No problem! We can deal with this landlubber!" yelled Shipwreck, giving a fierce nod before he, Low Light, Toad, and a slightly fearful (and hesitant) Whitelighter then charged directly towards the Female Fury before she could strike them first.
At the south end of the hall …
"Colossus, I simply must request for a boost! Your position, seven o'clock!" yelled Hank as he ran on all fours towards the Russian X-Man with speeds rivaling a cheetah. Glancing for an instant over his shoulder, Colossus saw that the direction Beast indicated was directly towards the Fury, Big Barda. With a nod, automatically, Colossus knelt down and bridged his hands together as a footstool. Beast then took a running leap before landing a single hind paw onto Colossus' palms and the young mutant flung Beast towards Big Barda with all of his strength. Big Barda didn't even see Beast coming until she felt him tackle her brutally, spearing her, before the both of them hurtled towards the ground.
Crash!
"Normally, I shouldn't be the gentleman in this situation, but I simply must insist to thank you for breaking my fall!" Beast said scornfully as he leapt off the body of Big Barda who was still lying on her back within the deep impression she made in the floor when Beast slammed her into the ground. Thanks to the laws of physics, with Big Barda acting the go-between, Beast was spared without a bruise while Big Barda, despite her invulnerability, was stunned from Beast's body weight breaking her in the fall.
"I…am…going…to kill…him," Big Barda hissed as she managed to shakily raise herself up from her sprawled position, "You hear me, you smelly ape? When I catch you, your furry hide will be the rug for my personal chambers!"
"Try and see if you can even handle the rest of us, first, you witch!" yelled Rogue as she snatched Big Barda from the floor and flew upwards with her superstrength, high above the throne room, before she pitched a screaming Big Barda to the ceiling, once again sending the alien female to come colliding against a hard surface.
Smash!
"And what goes up…" grinned Rogue as she watched a limp Big Barda topple from the hole in the dome and drop back towards…
Crash!
"…must come down," finished Rogue, satisfied, as Big Barda made another crater due to her body falling into it.
"You know, Brittany may be right," chortled Scott, absolutely enjoying this, "She does have an affinity for walls and floors…"
By now, Darkseid was livid. Here, he commanded over all, like a king, his soldiers and minions one of the most feared mercenaries and warriors throughout galaxies and dimensions alike! And yet here were Granny and her Furies and the Parademons and Kanto, fighting with much difficulty against inferior Earthlings! Children and adolescents, no less! Even humans, life forms of no special ability or gift to make them a worthy adversary, and yet even Stompa was having difficulty eliminating them! He was so close, too close to finding that damned, elusive equation! He needed to act now if he was ever to gain control over all life and free will itself…
With a furious growl, Darkseid's face contorted with desperate and furious wrath as he invoked the Omega Effect, the energy flowing through his body that would destroy or create anything he chose whether it be a tangible object or a living and breathing being. Without fail and tossing caution to the winds, Darkseid fired a short burst of the Omega Effect into the center of the M'Kraan crystal itself. Despite the protective energy barrier surrounding the crystal, despite the numerous failed efforts of Desaad when he tried to use his mechanical talents to find a way to breach the power gem, despite the numerous warnings from legends he had received about the omnipotent Force that guards the crystal ever so valiantly…
Darkseid felt nothing but cold, cruel, triumphant satisfaction as his Omega beams tore into the surface of the mammoth red jewel in the epicenter of the circle of the six chosen mutants. With a gratifying noise, the M'Kraan crystal cracked significantly.
Immediately…it was pure chaos.
"What? What's going on?" Cover Girl yelled after she gave Mad Harriet a fabulous uppercut to the chin, decking her soundly, but then realizing the winds in Darkseid's throne room started to pick up instantly, sending a cold feeling of oppressive, inescapable doom into all of the Joes, the X-Men, and the Misfits. It was like a tornado had started to grow directly inside their battleground. Blind Master's eyes widened in horror behind his dark glasses as he felt the ki, the life force, of something truly powerful, something that transcends anything that could ever truly be aware and existing. By the spirits of his ancestors, this was not even alive to begin with! It felt like…the unstoppable might of a fire god itself.
Blind Master yelled, "Something's coming! I can feel it!"
"By the Great Spirits of the Earth," murmured Spirit, his face white with pure dread, hoping that somewhere, anywhere, the gods of the world could hear his one, blank prayer. This would surely mean their death, all of their deaths.
"Darkseid, are you insane? You'll kill all of us! The Earthlings and your minions of Apokolips!" roared Supergirl as she managed to throw Stompa off of Colossus before she could crush him.
"Correction, you young fool: I shall rule over all of you!" Darkseid cried out, his voice ringing and booming throughout the rafters of the in a mad yet exultant tone of voice as the X-Men, the Misfits, the Joes, Batgirl and Supergirl could see the M'Kraan crystal shining brightly like a brilliant nova of energy, like a nascent sun. And the intensity of the light and searing illumination was starting to engulf the entire room of the Apokoliptic ruler, bearing down on them like the wrath and judgment of God himself.
"What is that thing?" cried out Bezerker in petrified awe as he slowly could make out a form emerging out of the core of the harsh and infinite illumination, and like everyone else in the room, it was starting to grow more rapidly by the second, building and swelling freely in a midst of flames and inferno. And to a lot of the Earthlings' collective amazements, they could hear the thing, the powerful force, emitting a long, continual cry. It was a cry that seemed hauntingly melodious, like the sound of trumpets made of the purest metals and played by the chaste lips of an angel, yet at the same time, a cry that declared much power and infinite vigor and dominance that easily could trump entire solar systems and galaxies without question.
It was a cry…of a bird.
"Oh my God!" Batgirl gasped, nearly dropping her Batarangs in shock.
"By the gods of Nova Roma!" whimpered Magma, holding her hands to her mouth in dismayed panic.
"Mon dieu!" Gambit choked, sweat beading his brow.
"Holy goddamed kats!" Razor cursed.
"Mein Gott! Our Father in Heaven, saints preserve us, as of now!" Kurt nearly whimpered as he automatically crossed himself in a reverent manner with his left hand.
"Uh…this isn't good for us, is it?" Stompa asked dumbly, for once in her life, truly being a bit apprehensive and starting to lose confidence and faith in Darkseid's plans for his kingdom and for all those who lived in it. As slow and seemingly oblivious as she was, the Female Fury was no fool in thinking that Darkseid and Granny didn't always have their children's safety and well-being first and foremost in their hearts.
"Gee, what tipped you off, Bubble-Butt? The fact that we're staring face to face with some gigantic firebird?" snapped Live Wire impatiently. Undeniably, Live Wire spoke the truth. Now it was clearly evident that the spirit emerging out of the fractured crystal was a gigantic mass of flames in the shape of a elegant and powerful avian, with wings consisting of pure sunfire, powerful talons blazing with the intensity of stars, red dwarves, and supernovas all at once, eyes that were as dark, drawing and endless like the black holes, a gigantic thick neck and a curved yet distinguishable head and beak, and a long yet graceful set of elaborate tail feathers, glittering with starlight.
A colossal phoenix. A living force made from the light and darkness of all life and mysteries of space, time, and beyond. A demigod of fire. And Wolverine, Storm, Wavedancer, Scarlet Witch, Avalanche, and Jean were directly in its path, held captive and offered like sacrifices, the proverbial pure lambs to the slaughter. All six of the mutants were too scared and shaken to even move as they gaped at the brilliant force in front of them. Logan and Althea both cursed, the very blood in their veins running cold despite the heat of the fire pit and the Phoenix Force.
"Goddess, no!" Ororo screamed.
"Stormy!" roared Shipwreck helplessly, his mind trying to come up with something, anything, that could help them without endangering anyone else's life.
Shadowcat fell to her knees, yelling, "Oh no! That firebird thing's like going to attack them! It'll kill them! Lance and the others!"
"Can we stop it? Can we save them? We gotta try something!" yelled Cannonball.
"Let me! I can telepathically attempt to cease it by its inner psyche!" yelled the Professor of the X-Men as he brought his hands to his temples and tried to use his telepathy to contact whatever being he could summon and call upon the midst of fire. The ghostly, ethereal phoenix then gave out another powerful, single cry of rage as the Professor and the X-Men and the Joes and Batgirl then all screamed in unison at the furious counterattack on their minds. Even Live Wire was vulnerable to the psychic backlash.
"Aaaaahhhhhh! It hurts! It hurts!" Quinn shrieked as she brought her hands to her head and clutched her temples as tightly as she could. Even with her past experiences, this was no ordinary consciousness she had ever before come across.
"Holy son of a bitch, it's like my brain's on fire!" yelled Low Light, nearly succumbing to his knees. Surprisingly, Supergirl, Granny, and the Female Furies were the only ones who were immune to the assault on the mind.
Then to everyone's horror and astonishment, the fiery demigod then descended upon the three kidnapped X-Men and the three kidnapped Misfits. With a simple, slow motion of tossing back its head, the Phoenix Force arched, spreading its wings and sensing the eternal wells of emotion, of actual, cognizant sentiment, and like a moth drawn to a candle, the firebird drew closer to the six mutants who all had the potential and capability to absorb its might and power. To Jean and Althea's horrors, six streams of fire, branching from the unknowing, insensitive mind of the spirit suddenly snaked from thin air before plunging themselves into the bodies and hearts of Logan, Althea, Lance, Ororo, Wanda, and Jean, sending them all into new levels of pain and sensation as the universal being leafed through their very consciousness and souls as easily as flipping through a book.
It was not the least bit pleasant.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" they all screamed as one.
"Althea!" yelled Roadblock, alarmed, as he and the rest of the heroes kept fighting the Female Furies once they all quickly recovered from the intense warfare on their minds. Indeed, the Phoenix was now appearing to lose interest in Logan, Ororo, Lance and Wanda as it made its way towards Althea and Jean, sensing incredible potential and endless might and strength from these two young girls. Amazing! Such capacity and valor in such small packages of flesh and blood!
"Althea!" yelled Lance, still dazed from partially bonding with the Phoenix Force.
"Leave her alone! Don't touch Jean and Althea! PLEASE!" screamed Scarlet Witch, now sobbing and tears running down her cheeks as she then realized it could very well means her friends' demise.
"Yes!" hissed Darkseid in damning glee as it saw the Phoenix then attempt to grab Wavedancer and Jean with its talons like prey, attempting to draw the two into its very essence, but then to his shock, the Phoenix cried out in pain and surprise as some invisible force from Althea pushed it back, as if rejecting the very attempt of the god itself. By the darkest of beasts, it should have been impossible! And yet, he could not deny it; something about the black-haired hydrokinetic was preventing the Phoenix from even touching her. Yet it was not over. Darkseid then felt his fears subside when Jean, writhing and sobbing, was firmly grasped into the Phoenix's claws.
"Jean!" Cyclops hollered in dread at the background before he let loose a furious, powerful optic blast at the firebird, screaming with such anger and ire from his soul, "GET AWAY FROM HER!"
Yet the Phoenix simply screeched and gave a simple toss with one wings before the optic blast was reflected directly back at Cyclops, and had it not been for Quicksilver carrying him out of danger with his super-speed, the X-Men leader would have perished from his own attack. Now free, the Phoenix Force focused its attention on the red-haired telekinetic once again.
"IT IS DONE! THE SECRETS OF THE CRYSTAL ARE MINE!" roared Darkseid in exuberant, depraved, and wicked glee as Jean was about to by fully consumed by the universal fire spirit of the Phoenix Force…
Author's Note: Don't you hate cliffhangers? (And don't kill me! I swear I'll update on Friday as always!) Read, review, and constructive criticism welcome! Check back next Friday for the chapter "Hell Hath No Fury" when the Phoenix Force finally bonds with Jean! Or…will it? (Wink, wink) Be prepared for a VERY big twist to the Marvel-verse (thanks again Red Witch!)
Althea (groaning): Why us? Why do you people love writing us and putting us in this sort of torture? You don't see anyone else's creations going through the hell we go through!