Sanctum Sanctorum:
The kids all looked around at one another and questioned each and every one of themselves, wondering what to do when Clea came back in.
"Great. You again." Fallon groaned as she leaned down on a chair.
"You gotta get a new trick, lady." Joey told her.
"Who are you?" Robbie asked.
"You have all been chosen." Clea started off, ignoring their remarks. "For a mission that is both highly dangerous, and absolutely necessary for the continuation of life as you know it."
"Great. Mind telling us what that is?" Marc asked, pulling out a dagger. "And who you are?"
"My name is Clea. The Sorceress Supreme." Clea introduced herself to them all. "And wife of Doctor Steven Strange."
"That Dude was married?" Joey was shocked to hear.
"Never officially." Clea admitted with a sorrow look. "I have been warned by a higher power that an enemy some of you have faced in the past is planning to return."
"A higher power? You mean god?" Robbie asked her, no idea what to make of this.
"Something like that." Clea supposed that's a good way to sum it up.
"Who is this enemy?" Fallon wonders, seeing she has a numerous of assorted enemies.
"Her name is Cindy Burman." Clea tells them, shocking Robbie and Joey as they assumed she died back when they defeated the ISA and DA. But it would appear she's been alive this whole time and has been plotting her revenge. "She has entangled herself with a demon known as Eclipso."
"Eclioso?" Joey asked, feeling he's heard that name somewhere before.
"A demon that lives within the Shadow Realm and has the power to make you live through your darkest of fears." Clea recapped his power, and Joey did remember reading about him while studying the Mystic Arts. "Somehow, he has grown powerful within his prison, and if she keeps wielding it the way she is, it will destroy the world. And he isn't the only one."
"So to recap, you kidnapped us from all over the world to, what, kill this girl?" Fallon wanted recapped.
"No. If avoidable, I would like to avoid casualties." Clea said, remembering what happened to the last person to wield the diamond and none of the heroes were proud with his things ended. "I need you to get the Diamond, bring it back here so that I can keep it safe."
"And why were we well brought here?" Robbie asked. "I fought Burman before, mostly. I can take her down alone."
I thought of it." Clea admitted. "I know the Spirit of Vengeance is more than enough to bring the Diamond back, but I looked and saw that this mission would indeed require a team. The perfect combination of skills and experience that alone will triumph."
"What did you mean by not the only one?" Marc was curious to know.
"Eclipso is known to many as a Fear Force." Clea explained the best she could. "One of the many forces of the universe, holding our reality in place."
"How many are there?" Joey asked, only reading up to Eclipso and never hearing of the Forces.
"Five. Still, Strength, Fear, Light, Speed." Clea recapped them all. "And you need to find and stop them all. The Still Force has already started up some havoc in Blue Valley, meaning the other forces aren't far behind. You are not my hope to save a city, or even a planet. You're our hope to save the universe. You are...the Midnight Sons."
"Is that with a U or an O? Because..." Fallon asked as she looked around to see she was the only girl. "Never mind, I can live with it either way."
"We're in." Marc stated.
"Where do we start?" Joey asked.
After informing the entire team, also after explaining what happened in Wakanda and the AIM headquarters, it was a lot to take in for each of the parties.
Shuri becoming the new Black Panther was a lot for Peter, Hope, Scott, Nadia, and Cindy to take in. Learning they were sent back in time was a lot for them to take in. And then learning Hank Pym was actually alive this whole time was also a huge shock.
"Okay, yeah, this is a lot to take in right now." Pat admitted at hearing all of their separate stories.
"We need to find out where they've taken that mutant." Courtney immediately said. "If AIM has access to time travel, there's no telling what can be done."
"I can guess. Nothing good." Peter told her.
"Where's Hank and the others?" Peter was curious to know.
"They've gone to bring Hank back to life and meet up with Janet." Courtney said, as Avery was the one to run to their home and bring Janet into town.
"Hey, where's Joey?" Cindy wonders, seeing that there's no sign of him.
"Right here." Joey called as he walked out of the portal. "Miss me?"
"Gotta be honest, didn't even know you were missing." Teresa confesses.
"Where'd you go?" Courtney asked.
"It's...it's a long story." Joey said and knew he needed to talk to everyone. "But let's say...an old enemy is on their way back with a team and a dangerous weapon. Lucky for us, I have a team to help."
"You do?" Peter asked.
"We gotta gather up the team." Joey informed them. "Something's coming."
Then they heard what sounded like thrusters and all went outside when Riri came in and crashed down, wearing a newly developed suit with a few dozen colors due to her having to use scraps to repair it and thought it looked cooler.
"Then it's a good thing I'm back in action." Riri told them as she opens her mask. "Miss me?"
"So, what's your superpower exactly?" Chavez questions Hope Abbot, looking for clarification while Hank and Janet talked in the other room of their home.
"It's...hard to explain, I think it'd be better to show you." Abbot said and looked around. "So...who wants to help demonstrate?"
"Wait, what's she demonstrating exactly?" Yolanda asked Scott.
"Just wait." Scott replied and then had the perfect idea as he looked over and pointed to Rick. "Him. Please. I beg you."
"Wait, what's she planning on doing?" Rick asked and backed away when Abbot closed her eyes before leaping from her body and her host form scared everyone but Scott.
Abbot then flew right into Rick as he cried out. "Wait! What's she-" then he stopped mid-sentence and felt like he had a chill up his whole body.
"I feel like dancing." Rick suddenly said as he had a smile on his face, something the team had rarely seen, as he slid on the floor and held his hand out to Cassandra. "Let's dance."
Cassandra was seriously taken aback to what's happening when she got pulled in and spun around by Rick.
"Uh, what's happening to Rick?" Yolanda asked, getting a little scared.
"That's not Rick anymore." Scott tried to explain.
"So...this is like Invasion of the Body Snatchers?" Bobbie asked as he watched.
"More like Freaky Friday." Rick/Abbot told him as she/he let Yolanda go and quickly jumped out of Rick, right into Avery.
"I can jump my consciousness into anyone that I can get my hands on." Avery/Abbot told them as she sped around the room, doing a bunch of random chores around the house. "I can control anything from what they do to what they say."
"Don't ever do that to me again!" Rick demanded of her.
"Sorry, it just seemed better to show than tell." Avery/Abbot apologized as she jumped out and giggles.
"Whoa." Avery immediately feeling dizzy after that and tried to shake it off. "That felt weird.
"And that's not all." Abbot said as she flew over and picked up Beth's goggles before tossing them over to her. "I, not limited to possession. I can pick up anything, and even lift things heavier than my physical form."
"That's awesome!" Beth admitted and looked over to Scott. "Or...if I wanted to..." she then flies over and slapped him.
"Ow! What was that for?!" Scott asked as he rubbed his cheek.
"I've waited to do that for singing that song in the car the whole ride here." Abbot admitted.
Scott then went to smack her, but she just went through his hand. "Oh, come on!"
"Yeah, I can't be touched in this form." Abbot stated with a smile before then returning to her body.
"You are gonna be a valuable member to this team." Bobbie said as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "And extremely fun to use on bullies."
"Speaking of bullies..." Peter said when a portal opened in the middle of the living room and the five other heroes from the pit stop came through. "We need to be ready for an old foe."
Back with Pat, he was going to activate STRIPE after the warning from Joey of the upcoming dangers when his head started to be messed with and he hears classical music.
Issaic came out from behind the robot and continued to play, driving Pat's head crazy as he fell to his knees. Issaic then stopped for a moment before using the violin to shoot Pat up the stairs. Crawling up, Pat tried to put distance between them when someone came crawling up.
Elaine Coll came crawling up and kicked Pat, sending him toppling down again.
"Mr. Dugan, is it?" Elaine asked.
Pat groaned as he got back up and saw the scorpion dressed girl. "Come on, isn't there one normal kid in this town?"
Scorpia then went in with her tail raised when Pat dodged it and got back up.
"Wait, in not gonna harm a child." Pat promised her.
"Fine by me." Scorpia guessed as she swung and stabbed him in the shoulder.
Pat cried in pain as Scorpia then tossed him down and he landed on the table. Once down there, he rolled off to try and get away when he was hit by Fiddler lll, sending him flying into the foot of STRIPE.
"Let's get this over with." Elaine said when James sped in, wearing a new outfit to fit him. "Take down the robot."
James then sped over to it and used a giant hammer he picks up and spun around it.
By the time the heroes learned about the incident, it was when they found Pat and the STRIPE destroyed. They had Peter and Courtney bring Pat to the hospital whilst the others tried to clean up the robot parts the best they could.
"What the hell happened?" Rick asked as he was the last to arrive.
"Cindy must've done this." Cindy M. guessed as she looked around the destroyed robot.
"No, I think Isaac Bowin did this." Yolanda told them.
"No, it was Artemis Crock." Beth said. "She told me she knew who put her parents away."
"Uh, there might be someone else." Scott said as he saw the claw marks on the wall. "These are the same marks that Scorpion Girl had when me, Hope, and Nadia fought on the way to the AIM building."
"You were right, Joey." Peter saw that this wasn't the work of one person, but the work of a team. "The bad guys' kids are teaming up."
"With Cindy Burman as their leader." Chavez finished his thought.
"With an evil Diamond." Rick reminded them of what Joey said.
"Technically...you know what, sure." Joey was going to correct him, but even he didn't completely understand how the Diamond works.
Peter was walking around the halls of the hospital, Courtney visiting Pat after his patching up. But when wandering the halls, his senses went off for some reason.
Looking around to where the senses are leading him, he looked and saw there was a girl currently sleeping in a room, looking like she just ran through a war zone.
"Hey, Peter." Beth's father recognized him and walked over.
"Dr. Chapel." Peter greeted and looked over to the girl. "Who's she?"
"Oh, our little Jane Doe?" Dr. Chapel asked and crossed a few things off on his clipboard. "That's the million-dollar question. Can't find anything about her anywhere, but she claims that her name is Mayday Parker."
"Parker?" Peter asked, recognizing the name from his other universe counterparts.
"You know her?" Chapel asked him, feeling Peter knows her by the way he said the name.
"No, I'm thinking of something else." Peter denied and walked away.
But the moment he did, Mayday jolted awake due to her senses. "No!" She cried after awakening from a nightmare. Looking around, she saw she was in a hospital and had to find the Avengers or JSA. "I gotta find them. Gotta help them!"
But before she could make it out, she was stopped by the doctors. She would use her powers to escape, but it seems she's currently weakened after her time jump.
Courtney was told by Cindy B. to meet at the cafeteria at the school if she wanted to see Mike ever again. Getting all the teams together, the Midnight Sons to focus on finding where she hid the Diamond in their base, which they figured was in the old ISA and DA headquarters.
Whilst they did that, the others had to keep the other members of the team busy. Cindy, Chavez, and Teresa were tasked with the Cuckoo sisters to keep Laura and Lucky safe. Avery was also being used to search the whole school to find Mike, leaving no stone (or locker) un-turn.
Arriving at the school, they looked around to see nobody around, but could all hear the music filling the air. Giving the place an eerie presence, like a school needs help feeling hopeless and fearful.
Making it to the cafeteria, they looked to see the five of them all there. Scorpia, Fiddler lll, Shiv, Speed Demon, and Sportsmaster ll.
"And you call us losers?" Rick asked.
"Yeah, I do." Cindy said with a smile.
"Where's Mike?" Courtney asked, the staff glowing in her hands. When she got no answer, they all got ready for a fight and got into a stance. "Where is my brother?!"
"I got bored waiting." Cindy told her with a fake pity look. "He's in the ground."
Courtney was then the first to rush in as everyone quickly followed, the two "armies" of heroes and villains colliding and fighting for vengeance and justice.
Scorpia went in and tried to stab Scott, but he immediately shrank down and grew again to punch her back. Country and Shiv immediately went into a fight.
Bobbie shot a blast of ice at Speed Demon and caused him to run and slam into the wall.
Sportsmaster aimed at Beth with a crossbow, making them question why they actually decided to bring her to a fight, and Riri quickly flew up and shielded her.
"Hi." Riri greeted Sportsmaster before using a repulsers to blast her into Rick who punched her again, sending her flying into a pedestal.
Violin music then started playing, pitting Yolanda off as she was in the middle of going in to stop him.
Luckily it appeared to not have any affect on Cassandra as she flew in and used the lasso to send her flying. Scorpia then grabbed Peter by the throat and tossed him into the wall.
"This is going to be fun." Coll said as she went to stab him when her suit malfunctioned. "What the hell?"
Inside her tail, Scott was taking it down from the inside. "Oh, you're gonna have to take this into the shop."
"Who's...speaking?" Coll asked, getting a little creeped out.
"It's your conscious." Scott declared as he leaped to another section and kicked something that did who knows what. "We don't talk a lot these days."
Scorpia was getting very confused when Peter leaped and kicked her off and sent her flying. Her suit no longer able to keep her up with its malfunction.
"Nerds 1, freaks 0." Peter declared as he sensed Speed Demon running in and got out of the way as Cassandra used it as an opening and wrapped the lasso around his feet and body.
"Looks like you have your hands tied." Peter said as he shot a few webs to keep him on the wall for good measure. "We'll leave you be."
Beth sued her goggles and found Mike hanging in the bathroom and quickly went to save him.
"What took you so long?" Mike asked them.
"Seriously?" Beth asked.
They then saw an explosion go off and see Rick come flying out of the toilets. Riri flew over and used her speed to Artemis and kneed her with her suit.
"Stay down!" Riri demanded.
Courtney and Cindy were still fighting as she kicked Shiv off of a table and used the staff to fly across the room to help the others and shot Fiddler who was holding Bobbie and Yolanda down.
Bobbie took this opportunity to grab the violin and froze it over for Yolanda to come in and slice it.
But while she was distracted, Shiv went in to attack and held her down against the vending machine, which ended with Mike slamming a toaster in her face.
"Who's useless now?" Mike asked as all of them quickly regrouped all of them stood together and strong.
Courtney broke it off and hugged Mike, happy to see he was at least okay.
"Ready to give up?" Peter asked them all.
Cindy B. got up and walked towards Speed Demon before breaking him out. "This is what I get."
"They broke my violin." Issaic said as he held the frozen pieces.
"You idiot." Cindy sighed and reached to her neck. "I'll do this myself." She then showed to have the Diamond that they were looking for.
"Joey, we found your Diamond." Peter whispered. "Cindy Burman has it in her possession."
"Get her away from the others. We'll show up to take it." Joey promised.
"Got it." Peter promised when the Diamond started to glow brighter and combine the room in purple. Or specially Cindy, as half of her face becomes purple and she held the Diamond up and used its power to push everyone back.
"What the hell is that thing?" Riri asked, seeing her AI finished uploading.
"Downloading data." The voice of Tony stark filled the suit. "Oh boy, that's the Black Diamond all right."
"Figured. What's it doing?" Riri asked.
"Eclipso is trying to break out." Tony tried to explain. "He's gonna need the power of light to do that."
"And where will he get that?" Riri wonders.
"There's only two places where he can." Tony said and showed two different files.
"Oh, god." Riri said as Courtney was flying over to Cindy with her staff. "Courtney!"
But before the two of them could've connected, Peter's senses warned him of something bigger coming. "Look out!"
That's when the entire ground shook, taking them all off balance as the Cindy dropped the Diamond and Joey opened his portal.
"We'll be taking that!" Joey said as Marc used a gadget to grab it and closed the portal.
"No!" Cindy cried.
But that was the least of their concerns when a creature crashed through the roof of the school, sending it toppling over all of the Injustice and Hellfire club.
The heroes looked and watched as the dust cleared to reveal a gigantic monstrous...jolly green giant?
"What the hell is that?" Scott asked in fear.
"Hulk?" Courtney asked.
The new Hulk roared at the heroes, causing the team to react when Rick got up and charged at the monster. But it seemed this new Hulk wasn't going down without a fight as he grabbed Rick's fist and used it to send him flying back at them.
Peter shot two webs and leaped in to kick him, but it did nothing as he then started to circle around him and put him in a cocoon.
Bobbie also started to use his powers to try and freeze him, but that seemed to end in a mistake when he broke out of the webbing cocoon.
"Sorry!" Bobbie apologized.
Artemis was able to free herself from the little rubble that fell on her, due to the fact she was the furthest away. Seeing the creature, she immediately got up and ran for it.
Cassandra then got an idea as she used the lasso and wrapped it around him. "Come on. Who are you?!"
The creature snarled and fought the control when he started to slowly calm down. They then watched as their monster slowly began to shrink, and his skin turning to normal.
"Oh my god." Rick said when they all recognized the man.
Amadeus Cho looked up and panted in fear as he looked around. He saw the destruction, all of the heroes standing over him in shock, and he had no idea what caused all of this.
"What happened?" Amadeus asked.
Joey keeps the Diamond close as he closed the portal and they were far enough away that Cindy would never find them again.
"Mission accomplished." Joey said with a smile.
"Pass it here." Robbie asked of him, knowing he won't be possessed by the spirit within it.
"No problem." Joey said as he passed it over, only for it to be intercepted by a wolf who grabbed it and stopped to snarl at them.
They all then got defensive, Joey activating the shields, Marc pulling out a moon shaped weapon, Fallon pulling her sword, and Robbie took his chain out.
The wold then started to change form and revealed to be a shapeshifter. Then that's when Joey recognized what she is and deactivated the shields.
"You're a Kumiho." Joey realizes.
"A what?" Robbie asked.
"A shapeshifter." Joey explained and walked over to her, keeping his guard up. "And also a guardian of the Black Diamond."
"Yeah. And who the hell are you?" Ami asked them.
"We were sent here to bring the Diamond somewhere that it'll never be used." Joey assured her.
"My mother died for this Diamond. And you expect me to take your word for it?" Ami asked.
Joey shrugged and opened a portal back to the Sanctum. "You're welcome to see for yourself."
After everything that happened, the team all came together to see just exactly what happened with Amadeus. But it seemed that nobody had a clue on what happened with him.
"I don't..it was like I had no control, but I also knew what I was doing." Amadeus told them. "I was walking around, trying to turn back to normal when something caused me to react."
"The Diamond." Chavez guessed.
"It's possible." Peter had to guess.
"So, that explains why when we got it to Joey, he was able to cool down." Bobbie guessed.
"Let's just hope it never happens again." Riri said when they hear something drop and looked upstairs to see a familiar face.
"Or maybe you'll want his brawn for this." Kate Bishop called as she strolled down.
"Ooh, Brawn!" Cindy called as she looked to Amadeus. "That's a cool name."
"Brain and Brawn." Amadeus had to agree its a cool idea.
"Kate!" Peter was happy to see her as Kate walked up and hugged him. "Oh, it's great to see you."
"You too, Peter." Kate agreed.
"Wait. Where's Clint?" Teresa questioned.
"That's complicated." Kate sigh.
"Where have you been?" Peter wonders.
"That's...complicated, too." Kate sighed and knew this was going to be a strange story.
