Jason Fuller & The Elementals: The Stones Of Olympus (Book 1)

by Andarion The Storyteller

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.

8. Chapter 8: Rumble Agianst The Jungle

Chapter 8:Rumble Against The Jungle

12:00 P.M. December 13, 2014, en route to South America

Here's some free advice. If you ever need to get over a major disappointment, try flying in a jet that can move at 3x the speed of sound; it's a real pick-me-up. I don't know how I knew this, but I could just feel how fast the jet was going, as in, it was like a second nature thing. This jet was going at 2,310 mph exactly, I didn't even know how that was possible. At this speed, assuming we had departed somewhere from New York, we would arrive at the Amazon in around 20 minutes. The sheer novelty of being in a machine that could move as fast as I could, was awesome. Even better, were the reactions from Grant and Allyson. You see, because I have super speed as a power, in one day, i've pretty much grown used to this type of speed, so even though the ride was exhilarating, it wasn't mind blowing. Grant and Allyson on the other hand, were flipping $#!+. Grant was screaming so loud, he reminded me of Joe Swanson, from Family Guy. Allyson was screaming her head off too, but she was laughing hysterically at the same time. The sound of it made my unbelievably conflicted. On one hand, I loved her laugh. It was warm, kind, and full of energy. On the other hand, Allyson hated me now, and I couldn't allow myself to enjoy certain awesome qualities about her; so basically everything. Anyway, after 25 minutes of flying, the pilot said over the intercom that we were approaching the edge of the Amazon. Unfortunately, because the arcane field was so wide, he could only bring us this far, and that we would be dropped from the jet immediately. Before I had time to try and tell him that some of us don't do flying solo, I felt my seat being swiftly pulled out from under me, and I fell through the floor of the jet.

Yeah I won't lie to you, I screamed and cussed like a little baby pee pants. As soon as I dropped through the jet, everything went crazy. I couldn't get my bearings, I was constantly off balance, and I had no idea where Grant and Allyson were. Before I had time to try and adjust my situation, I felt Grant grab me by my waist and rearrange me until I was in a standing up position. Normally speaking, this would be a very emasculating thing, but considering the fact that I was on a free fall course to splatsville, I didn't complain. Grant flew me safely to the ground, and Allyson landed shortly afterwards. A few seconds later, our watches started bleeping. I pressed the black button, and Fury spoke through the communicator.

"All of you, press the blue buttons on your watches," he said.

I don't know why he wanted us to do it, but I had high hopes. Maybe it was a weapon upgrade, or an armor boost, or something even more awesome. We pressed our blue buttons, and instead of gear upgrades, a sharp, excruciating pain shot through my head. It was as if someone had shot a spear through my head, and was weaving my brain onto some kind of keychain; if I had enough brain power to go around, I probably would have screamed. After a while the pain subsided.

"Man that was brutal," said Grant.

Sure was, I thought to myself.

"Whoa, how'd you do that?" Grant asked me.

"How'd I do what?"

"I heard your voice in my head, bro,"

"Really, how?"

My communicator buzzed.

"The blue button released a small dosage of shared psychic energy between the three of you," said Fury. "You can now communicate with each other telepathically, it'll save time in battle, and keep your enemies in the dark about your next moves."

We tried this out for a few seconds, telling each other hi, and saying random stuff to each other in mind speak. After we got used to that, we turned, and faced the edge of the Brazilian Amazon. To be honest i'm not much for nature stuff, but even I could appreciate the sheer size of the Amazon. From left to right it was nothing but lush green foliage, and this was only the perimeter, the real beauty was inside the vast expanse of trees, vines and other stuff.

"How are we supposed to find a single rock in this giant forest?" I thought.

"Dunno," Grant thought to me. "Let's find out,"

He sprinted into the forest in super speed, leaving Allyson and I to follow after him.

Grant and I made sure to only go fast enough so that we were making good time, but slow enough so that Allyson could keep up overhead; so we were only going at 150 mph. We ran for like 5 minutes running through narrow paths, weaving through trees and vines, and occasionally ducking or jumping over logs. Now I know you're probably wondering how we were going to find the stone, even with our super speed. The truth is, as soon as we crossed into the Amazon, I felt this intense surge of aggression and rage, I just wanted to blast everything around me to dust. The deeper we went into the Amazon, the more those feelings increased, in fact, I had to stay completely focused on the task at hand so I wouldn't end up attacking Grant or Allyson (Allyson especially). Also, I could feel that this aura came from one source in particular, like a homing beacon. When we turned certain directions, or went in certain angles, the energy source felt either farther, or off course. So how was I going to find the stone? I was gonna follow my inner tracker sense, and hope for the best. At first, I thought this was gonna be pretty easy. My homing beacon would lock on to the source, we would get there in around thirty minutes, and we could head back to the Helicarrier lickity split. That was before my Speed Sense (that thing that happens when time suddenly gets really slow when i'm in danger) kicked in.

To the right of Grant, I saw a massive animal-like creature suddenly charge at full force. More so, that thing was on a collision course with Grant, who was completely unaware.

"GRANT, JUMP NOW!" I mentally screamed in his head.

Thankfully, Grant listened to my random emergency call, and jumped sky high, before the creature could trample him; although it did take out two trees, before stopping and turning around to face me and Allyson. I was expecting something like a bear, or a rhino, or something realistic; this thing did not fit any of those descriptions in any way. The creature was a giant bull, or at least it was shaped like a bull. I say that, because the creature was made completely of plant life. It was extremely massive, the size of a school bus, and made mostly of tree bark, although it did have vines weaving in and out of it's body structure, like veins. Its horns and hooves were made of some type of black rock, that I assume was obsidian, and they were sharper than knives. As if this wasn't bad enough, the bull was quite literally glowing with red energy. Its veins were coursing with the stuff, when it snorted, red fire burst from it's nose, and it's eyes were glowing like red hot ingots. Looking into it's eyes, I could tell that this beast had no sense of intelligence whatsoever. All it knew was rage, hate, and destruction. There would be no reasoning with it, no calming it down, either we had to destroy it, or it would destroy us. The bull stared straight at me, doing that thing bulls do when they're about to charge. I figured if nobody made any sudden movements, I could blast it would a super powerful bolt of lightning, turn it to tinder, and move on my way. Then Grant landed on the ground, created a big crater, and startled the bull into charging.

Naturally, the bull completely ignored the super strong, almost invulnerable, football jock falling out of the sky, and charged straight at me. My Speed Sense kicked in, and right before the bull hit me, I backflipped over it (no that was not necessary), and it crashed into another few trees. I didn't anticipate it getting up so fast, because when my Speed Sense kicked in, the bull was already touching me. Lucky for me, I quickly recovered, rolled along the length of its back, and landed in a crouching stance. Again, the bull charged at me (this thing must have really hated me.), but this time I had something special for him.

"GRANT, TAKE IT DOWN!" I mentally shouted.

The bull was completely surprised when a super powered football jock slammed into it with the force of a truck. Grant and the bull tumbled in a power struggle for a few seconds before Grant got on his feet, and started clobbering the bull. He hit it with a powerful right punch followed by a brutal uppercut, and an awesome drop kick, sending the bull crashing through other trees. At first I thought the bull was history. I mean seriously, what could survive that kind of attack? Apparently, a magical bull made of tree parts could, because it was charging at us with a vengeance.

"Guys, get clear," Grant thought to me and Allyson.

We did as he said, and rolled out of the way. Once we were clear, Grant intercepted the bull, grabbed it by the horns, and after a few seconds, managed to use it's momentum against it to lift it in the air, and smash it to the ground. Grant didn't let go of the horns, and body slammed the bull two more times, before spinning it around in a circle multiple times, and launching it straight into the air.

"All yours bro!" he said aloud.

"Allyson," I thought to her. "Shields out, were gonna blast it to bits."

True to her word, Allyson didn't question my orders, and activated her sun shields. At this point, I realized this whole armor business thing was directly related to thought. As long as we thought what we wanted the suit to do, it would do it for us. Anyway, we busted our shields out, took aim, and unleashed two powerful bolts of thunder and light. Mrs. Kennedy was right, these shields were great for focused shots. Now to be fair, I could have hit the bull on my own but the shields did help focus my lightning bolts. Furthermore, the shields definitely enhanced the power of my thunder; as the power coursed through my arms, my shields surged like crazy, and the result was a lightning blast as big as a school bus; the same could be said for Allyson's sun bolt. Anyway, our blasts hit the bull with some serious force, I didn't exactly see what happened to it, but it had to have vaporized on the spot after a hit like that. A flaming blob of bark fell to the ground, making a huge crater a few feet from where me and Allyson were standing; that thing had to be totally dead at this point.

My Speed Sense kicked in so fast, it completely caught me off guard.

Out of the giant crater, the bull was charging straight at me and Allyson. The thing was smoking, and had holes in most of it's body. One of it's horns was broken, and one of it's eyes were blown out, but it was still very much alive, and very, very, pissed off. Even with my speed, I shouldn't have been able to avoid it. I was too close, and it was charging way too fast, but like I said, my Speed Sense really kicked into gear. The good news was, I managed to tackle Allyson, and we both shot out of the way, avoiding the bull by an inch, as it crashed deep into some other trees (just for the record, a lot of trees will get hurt in this chapter). The bad news? I was seriously out of it. My Speed Sense really did kick into gear, but unfortunately, that little stunt had some side effects. I was seriously nauseous, way too dizzy to get up, and I felt like I was gonna puke. Also, I realized that I had probably tackled Allyson way too hard, because she was still on the ground groaning. Even worse, I could hear the bull coming back, ready to trample us. I tried to get up, but my body wouldn't allow it, oh and just because life wanted to be a total dick to me, my vision was restored just in time to see me get steamrolled by plant made livestock. Again, Grant intercepted the bull just in time, and saved our butts. He grabbed it by the face, used it's momentum against it again, and threw it far into a cluster of trees.

"Thunder Man!" Grant thought to me. "Help me get rid of this thing!"

He super sprinted in the direction of the bull, leaving me behind. Now, I was feeling better, but I was still out of it. I needed to heal, fast. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the voltage constantly flowing through me. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I willed the voltage to flow through me, and fix it. I suddenly felt a large surge of voltage surge through my head, and when it died down, I felt better, faster even. I raced after Grant, and found him smashing away at the bull. Grant was doing a good job fighting the beast, but obviously, we needed a new plan of attack. Blasting and hitting it were somewhat effective, but ultimately, it wasn't getting the job done.

"Grant," I thought to him. "Try and knock it back a little more, we need to regroup and rethink our strategy."

"Gotcha," he thought to me before grabbing the bull by its horns, and kicking it hard in the snout, sending it soaring backwards.

"Ok dude," I said while running towards him. "Blasting and crushing isn't working, this thing is a trooper, we need to take it out where it counts."

Now under the current circumstances, having a chat with my buddy wasn't all too smart, but like me, Grant had super speed, which meant that we could talk in Speed Mode. Now Grant wasn't as fast as me, but he was fast enough to stack up to my terms. On the speed charts I was a solid 10, he was an 8.5 and rising. Anyway, Grant and I were talking super fast, saying entire sentences every second. The bull was up and charging, but it was moving at the speed of a glacier; we had plenty of time.

"Well, then let's try slashing and hacking," said Grant as he summoned his axe.

"Great idea," I said summoning my sword. "Take out the right legs, i'll do the same on the left, then we'll give it a final strike together."

We looked in the direction of the bull, who was now several feet away from us, and charged at it. To be honest, if i'd known it would have been this easy, I would have told the team to bust out the weapons from the beginning. Grant and I rushed at the bull, and right before impact, I crouched to the side, and slashed it's left front and hind legs out from under it, like they were made of wet paper. Grant did the same, and we both shifted out of Speed Mode letting the bull crash into a large tree. I almost felt sorry for the thing, now that it was so defenseless, but not sorry enough to where I let it live. I channeled a lot of voltage through my sword and stuck it in the side while Grant simultaneously decapitated it. The bull dissolved into a pile of mulch, topped with a large obsidian horn.

"Tell me it wasn't that easy all along," said Grant.

"Afraid so man," I responded. "Hey, lesson learned right? Come on, we have to regroup with Sunbird."

We dashed back to our original spot, and found Allyson waiting for us, with a very pissed off look on her face.

"You alright?" I asked her.

"You tackled me into the ground, ran off to fight a tree bull, and left me to die; screw off," she snapped.

"That's one way to thank me for saving your life," I responded.

"Don't you turn this around on me you-"

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH YOU TWO!?" Grant mentally shouted in our heads, causing us to stop in our tracks.

"Look, just whatever it is, please let's just pull together, we can't find the stone if we kill each other first."

"Well maybe next time," thought Allyson. "You two won't run off and leave me behind again."

"We're sorry about that Sunbird, we just saw an opportunity, and we took it. But you are right, that's no excuse for leaving a teammate behind, it won't happen again. Right Thunder-Man?"

"Of course not." I thought to them.

Allyson's glare slowly melted like an ice cube, and she nodded with a bashful smile on her face. Grant was really good at this stuff.

"Ok then," she thought to us. "So what's the plan now?"

Grant and Allyson looked at me expectantly.

"We keep going forward." I told them. "If it wasn't clear beforehand, it's pretty obvious that we're after the stone of Ares, and it is seriously bonding with the environment. We should be on guard for more attacks from mother nature; the closer we get, the worse it'll probably be, so let's be on our A game, ok?"

Grant and Allyson nodded.

"Alright then let's go, Grant i'll take the lead this time so-"

"Wait a minute," he interrupted me with a rather hostile tone. "Why do you have to lead, you think i'm not good enough?"

"No man it's just-"

"Am I not fast enough for you, is that it," he said stepping closer towards me.

"Grant it's not like that, I just think-"

"It doesn't matter what you think! I am way stronger than you, I can crush-"

"GRANT!" I mentally screamed in his head, because he was reeling a fist back to hit me. "What are you doing!?"

Grant stopped, and for a moment looked really confused, like he woke up in a completely different room than the one he had went to sleep in.

"I…," he hesitated. "I don't know, what just happened, why do I feel like I was so angry?"

"It's ok man," I hesitantly told him. "It's the stone of Ares, I felt it's power as soon as we crossed into the Amazon, it's making us more aggressive, and clouding our judgement; we need to stay focused on the mission, that's the only way we'll get through this."

"Alright…yeah i'm cool"

"So it's ok if I take the lead?"

"Yeah man, be my guest."

"Ok then, let's move."

We zoomed through the Amazon for a a few more minutes, constantly keeping on the alert. I knew we were getting closer to the stone, because my inner rage was steadily building. As this rate, I was worried about whether or not we would tear each other apart when we found it. We zipped around a lot of trees, traversed down a steep cliff (gotta love super speed, and running down cliffs horizontally), and took a bunch of turns as my inner radar guided me towards the stone. Just when I thought the bull was gonna be the last of our worries, my Speed Sense kicked in again. This time the danger was behind us. I looked back, and saw something that made the bull we just fought, look like a pygmy puff. It was a giant boar made of tree bark and vines, with red glowing eyes, just like the bull. This pig had obsidian tusks coming out of it's mouth that had to be at least seven feet long. To make matters worse, the pig had obsidian horns growing all over its face. Three large ones were jutting out from both sides of his face, one large one was sticking out of it's forehead, making it look like a freaking unicorn, and it also happened to be coated with obsidian plates on his body and legs. In other words, this wouldn't be a simple slice and dice thing, we were gonna have to target it's weak points, and I didn't think porky, or veggie pork, was gonna let us stick him with blades, and smile about it.

Anyway, I was about to mentally scream at Grant to get out of the way, but as it turned out, he was just as aware of the threat as I was. Grant had also felt the monster's presence, and was rolling out of the line of trample ground. Allyson was airborne, so while she was very surprised, she was totally safe; that left me. I decided that it would be better to take it down a peg now, and finish it off with the team. I summoned my sword, stepped to the side, crouched, and swung hard at the boar's left knee cap. The plan was to take out the boar's leg, send it tumbling forwards, and while it was down, stab it multiple times in the back, and blast it with lightning while Grant and Allyson helped me. Yeah…so here's what really happened. I slashed at the boar's legs but apparently, he was a lot tougher than I thought. My blade bounced harmlessly off of his exposed inner skin, and was carried away due to the boar's momentum. The boar must have felt something, because as soon as he turned around, he set his sights on me. What he did next was so surprising, and so unexpected that it's only thank to my reflexes that I survived. The boar let out a massive REEEEEEETTTTTTT!, and spit a giant ball of blazing red fire at me. Time slowed down for me like it always does when i'm in danger, but I didn't dodge the fireball. This was because Grant was right behind me; I couldn't risk dodging the blast and letting him take the fall, so I quickly created a huge lightning shield and braced myself for the impact.

The shield held up beautifully, but the impact was still enough to send me flying backwards. Luckily, Grant caught me before I could crash into a tree, although I doubt my armor would have let me feel anything. The boar took this as a sign to attack, and charged. Before it could get within a few feet of me and Grant, a giant fist made of light slammed into him from the side, and sent him soaring into a cluster of trees.

"Weapons out team," I thought to Grant and Allyson. "Stab it in it's weak spots while it's down, and get out before it regains it's footing again."

"What about me?" asked Grant. "Battle axes aren't much use at stabbing."

"Just swing hard at it's face dude, I thought to him. "Try and take out it's face spikes."

Grant and I took off after the boar, and Allyson managed to keep up overhead. Either we were slowing down or she was speeding up; and as of a few days ago, I didn't do slow. We caught up to the boar, who was thrashing around on the ground. Before we got around to stabbing it, the boar stood up, and did a massive war squeal; there was no way we could attack it now. As if in an act of defiance, four sun constructs in the shape of metal clamps suddenly solidified around the boars legs. It thrashed, and pulled, and squealed until it was green in the face, but it wasn't going anywhere for now.

"Nice one, Sunbird," I thought to Allyson.

"Yeah I know," she said in a thick sarcastic mental tone. "Now let's hurry up and kill it, I won't be able to hold him for long."

The three of us charged the boar, and took our offensive positions. Allyson busted out her spear, and started stabbing deep into the weak points of boar's left side. I ran around to it's right side, willed lightning to set my sword ablaze (or asurge I guess), and started stabbing at all of the available weak points. I'd like to tell you that we were taking it down, but in truth, only Grant was actually doing any real damage. He swung his axe across the boar's face twice, hacking most of his face off, plus all of his spikes, excluding the unicorn horn. I was about to tell him to just go for the kill already, but before I could, Allyson mentally screamed in our heads: "GUYS GET BACK NOW!"

I wanted to protest, but in Speed Mode, I could clearly see that Allyson's constructs were starting to crack and crumble. Veggie porkers was gonna be free in just a few moments, and considering the fact that he was probably pissed about being poked and prodded, we all did the smart thing and got clear. The boar broke free of his constructs as soon as we were several feet away but that wasn't the worse part. As soon as it broke free, a huge surge of red energy engulfed the thing, and when the flare died out, the boar was completely healed. His cuts and gashes were completely sealed up; even his horns were completely restored.

"OH, COME ON!" Grant screamed aloud.

I wanted to scream the same thing. I mean seriously, how would you feel if after so much time and effort you put into killing something, it didn't die (that sounded a lot less psychotic in my head.)? Anyway, the boar opened his mouth and took aim at Grant. Before I could think to him to get out of the way, the boar fired a red hot blast of energy. Grant jumped out of the way, and before the boar could shoot at anything else, Allyson and I started pelting him with a barrage of lightning and sun. I hit the thing with everything I had, thunderbolts, lightning blasts, lightning strikes; nothing phased it. Allyson wasn't doing much better either. She blasted it with sun bolts, sun balls, even a few explosive blasts; nothing happened. Although I will admit, the boar looked pretty flustered when it got hit over the head by a giant solar sledgehammer, like a giant whack-a-mole. After that, the boar went ballistic.

He squealed a massive war squeal, and all of the spikes on his face shot off in multiple directions, like super sharp death missiles. The spikes kept regenerating as quickly as they left the boar's face, so there were at least six projectiles flying off every half a second. They were coming in at such high speeds, even I was almost skewered. Luckily, my Speed Sense kicked in, and I managed to grab Allyson, and put her behind a large tree for cover. Before you get worried about Grant, don't. I admit I was a little worried, but the spikes harmlessly bounced off of his armor, and didn't make a dent on his face. After the barrage of spikes had ended, the boar decided to go back to blasting fireballs at us. It wasn't very accurate, but the explosions were very deadly and I ordered the team to stay covered. Then I got an idea. Those fireballs were extremely volatile. If I could use them against the boar, and make them detonate inside of it, I could take it down from the inside out. I peered over the edge of the huge log I was taking cover under. The boar was settling down for now, but I couldn't let him rest up. I stood up straight and screamed at the top of my lungs: "I ATE YOUR MOTHER FOR BREAKFAST!"

Whether or not he understood me, I don't know; but at least I got his attention. He squealed loudly, and reeled up to blast me. Before the blast even left his mouth, I went into Speed Mode, pulled out my Thunder Shields (yeah, that's what I'm calling them now) and blasted the boar point blank in the mouth with two supercharged lightning bolts. The one thing that I didn't count on, was making a bomb. Yeah, my plan worked a little too well for my liking, because the boar was swelling up with so much energy that I knew the explosion would blow us into the next continent.

"GRANT, GET IT OUT OF HERE!" I mentally screamed to him.

Thankfully, Grant got my meaning better than I did. He grabbed the boar by it's tusks, and took off into the air. And when I say he took off, I mean he soared upward so fast, even I barely saw him move. He flew so fast that he broke the sound barrier, and didn't stop flying until he passed the clouds. What he did next, I didn't know; I couldn't see him. Although I took a wild guess that he threw the boar like a hot potato, and then flew back down at the speed of 10 race cars. The explosion from the boar was so massive, that if it was on the ground, it probably would have taken out ⅓ of the Amazon; i'm not even kidding. If this was meant to be a stealth mission, that ship has sailed, and crashed into an iceberg.

"Nice thinking, Super-G," I congratulated Grant after he landed. "You really saved our butts."

"Yeah, no thanks to you," said Allyson. "Nice shooting, bolt boy, you almost got us killed."

Now usually, I would have shrug this off, but considering the fact that she called me "bolt boy", not Thunder Man, I snapped back at her.

"Look," I started. "I didn't know that thing was gonna explode like that, I just thought the blast would be enough to kill it, get off my case will ya?

"No I won't." she responded. "You need to think before you go into things, you need to-"

Whatever she was going to say next, I didn't care, because at that moment, my Speed Sense went on red alert. I didn't bother to see what it was. All I knew was that it was behind me, it was dangerous, and that I was gonna die if I didn't kill it. I summoned my sword, did a 180 slash and decapitated the head of a giant cobra made of lots of tree vines. At first I thought that would be it. Of course, I keep forgetting that when something is too easy for me, it's usually just the opening act. Out of every tree that I could see in the Amazon, giant snakes made out of vines started to slither down and surround us. Almost all of the snakes were about the half the length of an average school bus and as thick as telephone poles. Most of them were the shape of cobras, with evil red eyes, energy flowing through their bodies, and sharp obsidian fangs ready to take a bite out of our necks (well maybe not Grant's). I ordered the team to stay still and not to make any sudden movements. My plan was to silently build up power, release and giant electric wave, and then go to work with the team slashing down snakes. Unfortunately, three of the snakes were having none of it and lunged at me. I quickly thrust out my hand, and three lightning bolts shot out, striking them all in the face, and blasting them to bits. So much for a surprise attack, now it was gonna be an outright brawl.

The snakes hissed loudly, and attacked all at once. I kicked into Speed Mode, pulled out my sword and went to work. Even with my speed, the snakes were moving kinda quick. I sliced three in half with one swing, sliced my sword in mid-air, creating an electric crescent, and taking out another ten; I also sliced down a few more on my left and right. 18 down, more than 200 to go. I know what you're probably thinking. We took out an army of robots in no time flat, why was I freaking out about some puny snakes that didn't even have laser cannons? The truth is, robots are not like, snakes. Robots have a system, robots have programming and stick to them. As long as we kept them apart, they were basically useless. Snakes were a little different. They were natural predators. Things like divide and conquer didn't mean much to them so long as they eventually got their fangs in your flesh. The fact that these snakes were made of vines, infused with the power of the Greek war god, and were attacking us in a flash mob, did not improve my morale. While I was busy slicing the things up, I caught a few glimpses of Grant doing his thing. Like me, he busted out his weapon, and was taking at least 10 snakes out by each swing of his axe. Occasionally, a few snakes would wrap around him and bite his armor, but he would simply throw his axe, taking out an entire line of snakes, wrestle the snakes off of his body, and crush them. Then he would call his axe back, and go back to work. It was Allyson that truly worried me. She didn't have super speed, and by extension, couldn't fight in speed terms. I slashed my blade in a huge arc, releasing a massive electric blast wave, taking out another 30 snakes on my side; that was enough to allow me some breathing room to check up on Allyson. As it turned out, she was doing just fine on her own. She was in her Sun Form, her golden light more fiery than usual, and was hacking down snakes left and right with a sun construct in the shape of a scythe. Anytime a snake got a hold of her, it caught fire and burnt to a crisp. She kept swinging her scythe and released multiple solar crescents, taking out snakes by the dozen; now that I was reassured, I could go back to doing my part.

We fought hard for 5 minutes taking down snakes, and basically destroying so much nature, Hannah would have never forgiven me (she's a girl from school, big nature enthusiast, we worked together on a science project one time). Yet even with all of our combined efforts, we were still being slowly overwhelmed. For every snake I chopped up and electrocuted, two more took it's place. Plus, in space terms, the team wasn't very well placed. If we were on compass points, Allyson would be on the north, I would be on the south, and Grant would be on the west. This meant that our entire eastern flank was left open. It wasn't as bad as you think it might be. Whenever things got dicey in that area, I shifted into SMS (Speed Mode Supreme), and took out a good chunk of the charging force, or Allyson blazed the living crap out them. Still, at the rate we were going at, the snake army would have us pinned down in 5 minutes. In fact, after about 3 more minutes of fighting, things got really bad. In that moment, it was like nature had suddenly had 1,000 snake babies, and from all four sides, an avalanche of nature serpents charged our small, and if I may be honest, downright puny team.

I immediately tapped into SMS, but I put way more energy into it this time. In my perspective, time was basically standing still, giving me enough time to survey the battlefield and plan accordingly. Again, Allyson proved she didn't need any help. Either on purpose, or because of her reflexes, Allyson was releasing a huge wave of golden fire on her aggressors. I could already see the ones burning, and I knew that all of the other ones were doomed to die in a blaze of solar fire; the north side was covered. Grant on the other hand was not doing good at all. He was already being constricted by three huge cobras and was fumbling around with his battle axe. I did the good friend thing and cut him loose, then went back to figuring out a way to get the team out of this mess. I knew I didn't have much time, using this much energy, even with my suit on, was way too much to maintain for long. I figured I could probably hack a lot of these things to shreds alone, but a lot wasn't enough; I needed them all dead within the next four seconds. The only problem was that I was the only person here that had super speed, besides Grant; and even he was no comparison when I was in SMS.

Suddenly, I got an idea. Grant wasn't as fast as me, but what if he was? I ran over to him and put my hand on his shoulder. I could sense that he was moving at about half the speed of sound; amateur, I was moving at half the speed of light (exaggeration). But by touching his shoulder, I could see why. Both of our speed powers generated from our mutant ability to enhance the speed of our cells. Grant's cells were moving way faster than a normal person's, but still, my cells were moving MUCH faster. That's when it hit me, maybe his cells just needed a bit of a jump start. Honestly, I would never try this on anyone but Grant, and even then I was sort of ashamed about what I did; but at least it worked. I willed my hands to surge with about 100,000 volts of electricity (yeah, I know that's a lot of power), and touched Grant's shoulder again. I willed the voltage not to supercharge Grant's body, but his cells; of course his body was still gonna take a jolt. At first the voltage did nothing, but I could feel the electricity speeding up Grant's cells. After about 2 seconds in real time, his body started to vibrate, up to the point to where he was just a blur. Then a second later, his body solidified, and he was on the ground gasping for air, and whining about the pain in his shoulder.

"Welcome to Speed Mode Supreme," I told him.

"Ohh, dude my f*(!^& shoulder!" he moaned. "What the hell did you do to me?!"

"Super charged your cells, made you able to travel faster than thought itself. Now stop whining and get up, we got snakes to kill."

After he stopped moaning, and stood up, I created a huge Thunder Axe for him to use, and a Thunder Blade for myself.

"So, i'll take the ones on the right, you take the ones on the left?" he asked me.

"Unnecessary bro," I said. "Just run around and kill whatever isn't wearing a battlesuit."

Between the two of us being armed with two weapons, we mopped up most of the snakes easily. I decided to follow Grant's suggestion and stick to certain sections. After we both cleaned up our respective areas, we took out the oncoming barrage of our serpent aggressors coming from the east side; cleanup probably took less than a second in regular people speed terms.

"Think we need to help Sunbird out?" Grant asked me as soon as we were done.

"Nah," I said. "She's got this."

"What's with you two anyway, bro?".

"I'll explain later dude."

"Cool, but uhhh, I can't slow myself down, what now?"

I closed my eyes, stuck my hands out, and focused. I could feel all of the electrical energy I put into Grant's cells still pulsing around like crazy. What I was about to do was going to be 10x more dangerous, and 10x more painful for Grant, than actually putting the electricity in his body. I willed all of the electricity to stop surging around in his cells, and very, very, carefully, I willed the voltage to leave his body through the same way it entered: his left shoulder. Grant screamed loudly as the voltage left his body for like half a second before his voice stopped working. At first, I was scared I might have killed him, but when I opened my eyes, his face still had an excruciating look; he was just moving slower. The process was way faster than giving him the voltage, and in about three seconds SPT (Slow People Time), Grant was back to normal, or as normal as a teenage mutant superhero can be, and was crashed out on the ground. I shifted out of Speed Mode, and walked over to check on him; meanwhile, Allyson was blazing the living *^%$ out of the oncoming snakes on her side.

"How you feeling there, Super-G?" I asked him.

"I'll live," he said through gritted teeth. "Next time, let me get faster the old fashioned way, bro."

Allyson flew over, and landed next to us shortly after her snake BBQ.

"What happened?" she asked Grant with a really surprised look on her face. "Where are the other snakes?"

"Thunder Man supercharged me with a million volts," said Grant. "Helped make me faster, then we mowed them all down together. Afterwards, Thunder Man super drained me, now I am in serious pain; please, for the love of God, help me."

Naturally, Allyson only heard: "Thunder Man supercharged me with a million volts,-now I am in serious pain, etc." She turned towards me and glared fiercely.

"You electrocuted him," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. This time it wasn't out of fear, it was out of being straight up pissed off.

"Yeah, but in my defense, it was only 100,000 volts not a million."

"ONLY 100,000!?" she screamed at me. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED HIM!"

"Yeah but I didn't I made him faster."

Before Allyson could blow my head off with more megawords, Grant spoke up.

"Uhh guys?" he started. "Not to be rude here, but I am still in serious pain, a little sun power would be welcome."

Allyson shot me one last murder stare, and knelt next to Grant. After 10 seconds of Sun Healing, the big guy was back on his feet. Allyson glared at me again, but before she could resume her death rant, missive vines, the size of bridge cables, wrapped around me, her, and Grant.

I didn't know what was more surprising, the fact that I was being strangled to death by vines, or the fact that my Speed Sense didn't pick up on the threat. I looked up at the vines strangling Allyson, and realized that they weren't just random vines trying to crush us to death. These were giant cobras, made of vines, tree, bark, with huge red eyes, ten foot long obsidian fangs, surging with the power of Ares, and big enough to wrap themselves around the statue of liberty. This was not a good place to be in. Try as I might, I was pretty much incapable of freaking out. I know that I probably should have, but after fighting a bull, boar, and an army of snakes, all made of plant life, this didn't surprise me. I wasn't scared, but I was definitely pissed off. Apparently, Grant and Allyson shared my frustration, because the looks on their faces made it clear that they were having none of this bull. Grant strained against his cobra, and after a few seconds of struggling, managed to slice his way through the cobra's body with one swing of his axe, and took to the air to chop it's head to shreds. Simultaneously, Allyson screamed really loud, and blazed in golden fire. The fire grew, and grew, and grew, until Allyson and the giant snake were consumed in a blaze of fire about 150 ft tall, poor thing never should have messed with her. All that was left was me.

For some reason, my cobra, looked down at me with his gleaming blood red eyes and tilted it's head as if it was asking me a question. Now I don't speak parseltongue (In sorting quizzes I usually get Gryffindor or Hufflepuff), but i'm pretty sure the snake was saying something like: "Sssssssoooooo, what are you gonna do, little sssssuper hero?" That made me mad. The snake started to squeeze his body really tight around me, but for some reason, I wasn't being crushed. I looked at my body, and saw that I was covered in a very thin electrical barrier. It was small, and I don't know how my body generated it without my command, but it was keeping me alive; I had to get out, before it cracked under the pressure. I closed my eyes and concentrated on a lightning strike. Not just any lightning strike mind you, I needed a large amount of thunder, big enough to blow that oversized snake head to mulch. I imagined all of my power big transferred into a huge thundercloud, and striking the snake dead in the face in the form of a huge and deadly lightning strike. I felt a constricting feeling in my chest, like someone put me in a lead jacket. Suddenly, the air turned cooler, the sun was blocked out by something, and I heard the sound of thunder claps, louder than two football stadiums full of screaming fans. I opened my eyes, and yelled at the top of my lungs. A moment later, a massive lightning bolt ripped through the clouds, and struck the cobra dead in it's face. The beast's head was blasted to bits, and it's limp body dropped me to the ground. The only bad news was that summoning that lightning bolt had exhausted me completely; luckily, I was wearing a battle suit that was filling my body with 1000 volts per second. My energy returned quickly, and I was on my feet in no time. I looked up and found no trace of thunder clouds anywhere; good thing, I really liked the sunshine.

Grant and Allyson found their way over to me, and checked to see if I was okay. After waving them off, I gave the team a 2 minute break to catch their breath (we weren't tired), and we continued our trek through the dangerous, plant-monster infested, Amazon.

I wish I could say things got easier from then on out, I REALLY wish I could tell you that. The truth? It only got worse. Over the course of the next hour we faced off against a giant plant-made rhino, lion, and I kid you not, an honest to God, plant made dragon. The rhino and the lion weren't so tough, or maybe the team was getting better at facing eco-monsters. The way we beat the rhino? Grant and I summoned our weapons, I supercharged both of them with lightning, and as the beast was charging, we went into Speed Mode, and took out it's front legs. Allyson finished it off with a death-from-above blazing spear stab to the head, and it burned into nothingness. The lion was a lot more difficult. Unlike the rhino, he was a lot faster, and had much sharper battle reflexes. Grant, Allyson, and I tried to hack it to shreds with our weapons, but it was way too quick for that; the lion even got one good scratch across the chest on Grant. Allyson and I also tried blasting it, but the lion was fast, as in Speed Mode fast. We couldn't get a lock on it to save our lives, literally. Finally, after like five minutes of getting slashed at, we managed to trick the lion into running into a net made of Allyson's Sun Energy. The lion was burning pretty good in that net, but he was thrashing around too much for my liking. I created a Thunder Whip, and slashed it in half, putting it out of it's misery. The dragon was the last straw for me. It's not that I was scared of a ten foot tall, giant reptile with huge bat-like wings that could breathe fire (I was totally terrified), but still, really nature? Anyway, it's not like I did much in the battle. I blasted it with lightning, and I stuck my sword into it's back a good few times, but ultimately, the battle would be decided in the air; and guess who couldn't fly? After a good few jabs with my sword, a good few swings from Grant's axe, and a few stabs from Allyson's knives, the dragon got the gist that it wasn't wanted on ground level, and took off into the air. After a spectacular aerial battle, that involved a lot of fire breathing, and a large amount of roaring, Grant and Allyson finally managed to slash of it's wings, and as it was falling down, I hit it with a Final Flash, vaporizing it before it could even touch the ground. To be honest, that was just a summary. Over the course of that battle, a lot of fire was blasted, a lot of trees were torched, and a lot of swear words were shouted by me and Grant.

After the dragon fight, things got quiet for a while, and we were able to make some good distance through the Amazon. I could tell we were getting closer to that giant river that splits the Amazon in half, but something seemed off. We were moving fast, too fast; it almost felt like we were running/flying straight into a trap, so I ordered the team to halt, and take cover behind some trees.

"Why are we stopping, Thunder Man?" Allyson thought to me.

"Just hang back for a sec," I thought to her. "Let me check something out."

I tapped into SMS and ran forward.

If it wasn't for my super ultra speed powers, I would have died at least ten times over. For starters, my Speed Sense kicked off almost every few seconds. I I had to constantly jump over, or duck under lots of trip wires. I sensed lots of pitfalls that probably had spikes at the bottom of them; luckily, moving super fast means gravity is irrelevant. I also ran through entire platoons of plant made soldiers. They were shaped like humans, but of course, they had blood red eyes, and were surging with war god energy. They had sharp obsidian teeth, like sharks, and their bodies were basically massive amounts of tree bark held together with vines and probably mulch for internal organs and junk. They were all equipped with obsidian armor, weapons, and shields. In short, these guys knew we were coming, and they were ready to take us down. I ran through the entire fighting force, and after while, I found a break off. The plant warrior army expanded for miles, but then the army stopped, and for miles ahead, it was nothing but clear running ground. I ran a bit further, just to be safe, and to my surprise, found out I was totally wrong. At the river that breaks the Amazon in half, was a massive obsidian fortress with hundreds of tree soldiers patrolling the top of the wall, armed with crossbows. The fortress also had a defense team on the ground; five platoons of soldiers all dressed in armor, and armed to the teeth with obsidian weapons. I knew I couldn't blast the wall down, neither could Allyson, but maybe Grant could break it. However, our real trouble was in the river. I didn't see it, but my Speed Sense went nuts when I got closer to the water. Something big and powerful was in there, something that was a last stand guarantee, to make sure Delta Force did not get any further. You wouldn't believe how fast I ran back to my friends.

"So what do we do?" Grant asked me, after I thought to him and Alyson what we were up against. "Wanna charge in and smash stuff?"

"We can't do that, Grant," I thought to him. "There are way too many trip lines and booby traps, we can't charge through without risking Allyson's life."

"What do you mean 'Allyson's life'?" she defiantly, thought to me. "I can defend myself just fine."

"I didn't say you couldn't." I thought to her. "But this isn't a question about strength or skill, it's about speed, and you're just not fast enough to avoid so many traps, and now that I think of it, even Grant might have trouble keeping up."

"Dude!" Grant thought to me indignantly.

"Sorry bro, it's just facts, unless you want me to jump start you again."

"I'm good."

"Anyway, there's a break in their defense, if we run around their ranks, and reach the calm area, we can attack the fortress and just maybe get across before the army realizes were deep in their territory."

"What's the plan for attacking the fortress?" Allyson asked me.

"I'm gonna run up the wall and take out the patrolling force, shouldn't take more than a few seconds. While I'm doing that, I need you to create a mini sun and trash the ground forces. Grant, while that's going on, I need you to smash through the obsidian wall, can you do that?"

"Of course, I can rip through steel, obsidian is nothing. But why break through it, why not fly over it?"

I told them about the monster, lurking in the river; they took it surprisingly well.

"If we go over," I thought to them. "The thing might attack from below, it'll be safer to take it on from the shore, where we at least have the element of defense."

"I still think we should do an upfront attack," thought Grant. "Running around the battle like a bunch of pansies is not cool."

"Too bad," I thought to him. "I'm team leader, and I say we go around."

"Well I say…." Grant clutched his head and for a moment, his eyes went red.

"Whoa, you alright there buddy," I asked him cautiously.

Grant shook his head a few times, and after holding his face a little longer, his eyes lost the red glare.

"Yeah," he thought to me. "It's just, that stone, we should get moving, we're going around their main defense, right bro?"

"Yeah," I thought back to him "But we're gonna need to move really fast."

"Not a problem bro. When you de-supercharged me, my body still kept some of the power. I'm way faster now, in fact when we started running again, I almost ran straight into a tree; didn't know my own speed. So I may not be as fast as you, but I can definitely keep up."

"Ok then well I guess you'll have to carry Ally-"

"NO HE WON'T," Allyson screamed into our heads. "For your information, I can use more sun power to fly faster, I just choose not to, because it takes a lot of energy to keep up. Now that I have this suit, I can kick up my flight speed a few notches. By the way: IF YOU EVER CARRY ME AGAIN LIKE A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS, I WILL BLAST YOU INTO THE NEXT GALAXY!"

Grant and I did the safe thing, and said we were sorry and stuff like that. Then, after a quick stretch, we took off sideways, heading around the plant army. Just like they said, even in SMS, Grant and Allyson were keeping up with me just fine. Grant looked like he was straining a bit, but I figured he'd never let me hear him say he'd quit, so I kept going. Allyson on the other hand was doing just fine, she looked like a blazing comet, and I could barely make out her body figure, but at least she was fast. At first I was worried that the light might give us away, but then I remembered, I was basically a trail of lightning. Plus, we were going so fast, I doubt anything could have seen us anyway. We ran for like ten minutes through the path I chose. Just as we were about to make a turn and head towards the break in the plant soldier's army, something big and fast tackled me really hard, and I tumbled for a while before I hit a tree. That's when everything went red, and I completely lost it.

(Allyson's Perspective)

I didn't know what to think. One minute, they were getting along fine, being stupid boys. The next minute, it was all I could do to stop them from murdering each other. Hey readers, it's me again, and right now I have to save Thunder-Man and Super-G.

It all started after, the team decided to take the long way around some death traps, and attack the enemy from the inside of their defensive base. At first, I thought this was a bit stupid, but considering the fact that I do not look good when i'm being killed by spike beds, I decided to go along with the plan. We raced through the Amazon at top speed, and I gotta say, I was loving it. I had never tried to go this fast before when I was flying, because I never had the energy to pull it off. With this suit on, things were different and I was able to soar through the Amazon at God knows how fast. Except for Jason and Grant, everything seemed slower in this speed, like the world was holding it's breath. I could see the wind blowing against the leaves on the trees, but it was like they were going through syrup. I felt more aware, focused, and stronger than I had ever been in my life. However, I was so caught up in the excitement of my new found speed, that I didn't notice Grant leaping into Jason, until it was too late. The two of them crashed into the ground, tumbled a good ten feet,then Grant grabbed Jason by his back and threw him into a tree. I was so surprised, my voice seemed to stop working.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Jason screamed at the top of his lungs at Grant when he got up.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? HOW LONG ARE WE GONNA RUN AWAY? I WANNA HIT SOMETHING!" Grant screamed back at him.

"WE WERE LITERALLY ABOUT TO TURN DUDE! WE WERE LIKE FIVE MINUTES AWAY FROM THEIR BASE, WHY ARE YOU SO STUPID?!"

"WHY ARE YOU A TERRIBLE LEADER?!"

"BOTH OF YOU STOP IT!" I screamed at them.

Don't get me wrong, the last thing I wanted to do was get in the middle of a bro fight, but this was an exception. Grant was not the type of guy to Edge spear someone for no good reason. Jason may have been an unbalanced psycho warpath, put he at least knew the difference between his enemies and his friends. Something was wrong with them, something I was overlooking; then I looked at their eyes. Pure. Blood. Red. The answer was so obvious, I started kicking myself for being so stupid; we were getting closer to the stone of Ares, which meant Grant and Jason were going to be more aggressive and reckless. Unfortunately, their anger was being directed at the wrong people.

"I DIDN'T WANNA BE A PART OF THIS STUPID TEAM!" Jason yelled at Grant, completely ignoring my existence. "BUT I AM TEAM LEADER, AND YOU WILL OBEY MY ORDERS!"

"LIKE HELL I WILL!" Grant screamed back at Jason. "YOU DON'T BELONG HERE OR ANYWHERE FOR THAT MATTER, GO BACK TO BEING A NOBODY!"

"GRANT, STOP IT, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" I shouted.

I didn't have much love for Jason anymore, not after that whole thing back at the Helicarrier, but I did know that Grant was the closest thing to a best friend Jason had ever had. I couldn't let some stupid rock tear them apart.

"YOU'RE ONE TO TALK, BENCH WARMER!" Jason continued. "HOW'S IT FEEL TO KNOW YOU GOTTA BUY TICKETS TO EVER BE NEAR A FOOTBALL GAME EVER AGAIN?!"

Grant's eyes flared dangerously, and he summoned his battle axe. I instinctively stepped out of reach, but I still racked my brain desperately, trying to think of a way to keep them from fighting. I started to hum in my head, the way I do when I get nervous.

"You think that scares me?" Jason asked him, his voice deadly calm. "You may be strong, big, and fast, but you will never have my skill."

"Don't need it to kill you," Grant responded.

Jason summoned his sword. I didn't say a word, I doubt I could have. Jason and Grant yelled furiously, but before they could charge at each other, I trapped them in solar constructs shaped like giant containment cells. It was mostly on instinct, and I wasn't thinking of those cells in particular but I wanted to create something that would keep them apart. Needless to say, it didn't work for very long. I already knew Grant could break through my constructs, so it didn't surprise me when he swung his axe, and shattered it like glass. Jason however, was a different story. Because he didn't have super strength, I didn't think too much on him; so I was way more than surprised when he yelled really loud, and broke my construct from the inside out with a huge electric blast wave, knocking me off my feet.

When I got up, I was terrified, because I couldn't see Grant or Jason. Then, as if the air just plopped them from an invisible portal, Grant crashed to the ground, and Jason was leaning against a tree. They didn't stay down for a second, and almost immediately got back in the fight . Jason was right about one thing, Grant didn't have his skill. Grant swung his axe at Jason's head, but Jason simply dodged it, and caught the shaft of the axe on the flat of his blade. Jason then kicked Grant in the chest and Grant went soaring backwards due, to the fact that a lightning bolt shot out of Jason's foot. Jason charged at Grant again, but this time, Grant dodged him, countered, and the two suddenly disappeared. It took me a while to figure it out, but eventually I caught on to the fact that they weren't disappearing, they were just going at speeds faster than I could see. This didn't sit well with me, they could be slashing at each other ten times per second, and I wouldn't be able to tell. At this point, they were following the same rhythm. Fight in super speed, crash to the ground, fight in super speed again, but it would only be a matter of time before the rhythm ended, and one of them came back with their head missing. I thought on how the world seemed to slow down when I was flying at Comet Speed, yeah that's what I'll call it. I focused on getting there again. I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply, and willed my body to speed up. For those of you that don't know, light is very fast. I couldn't hit lightspeed just yet, even with a year of training, but at least I was good enough to hit 3,000 mph. My body was engulfed in light, and I felt my insides heat up and vibrate, like they were being microwaved. I was scared at first, but I kept going until my body felt normal again. At first I thought I had failed, but when I opened my eyes, I could keep up with Grant and Jason's death match. For some reason, while in Comet Speed, everything was surrounded in a beautiful golden light, but I couldn't focus on that right now; Grant and Jason needed me.

When I managed to shift into Comet Speed, I saw Jason, on the verge of stabbing Grant in the gut with his sword. I quickly created a sun shield to protect him, and the sword bounced harmlessly away. Then I created a sun lasso, threw it around Jason's body and yanked him away from Grant. If you wanna know what the plan was, well, I didn't really have one. My main focus was just keeping them apart, and even that wasn't working out so well. When I yanked Jason away, Grant regained his balance, and charged forward, his axe raised for the killing blow like an executioner. I created a giant solar hand, and slapped him sideways into a few trees, but when I looked down, Jason wasn't in the lasso; how'd he get out? For the next few minutes I was in a frantic struggle to keep the two idiot warriors from killing each other. Believe it or not, I honestly have never had to deal with anything harder in my life. It seemed like the more I helped, the worse the situation became. When I shielded Grant from a lightning hammer, he charged Jason, and tackled him to the ground. When I shielded Jason from a fatal axe swing, he blasted Grant with a bolt of lightning and continued his relentless assault. The only good thing I can say about them was that they were extremely dedicated to killing each other. Good thing too, it kept their focus off of me, who was actually fighting more than the two of them put together. Finally, after lots of broken constructs, lots of close shaves, and occasional lightning strikes, I managed to subdue my teammates in an effective manner. I call them Sunspots. They're basically solar pads that amplify gravity, like an actual sun, but I made sure to leave out the part where they burn you into ash. Just so you know, doing this was not as easy as it sounded. For all of you muscle heads out there, imagine lifting 300 pounds at the gym. Maintaining these solar pads was about the same as that, even with my battle suit giving me more power, I was still struggling to keep it together. Even worse, somehow Grant and Jason were slowly rising to their feet. That didn't make any sense whatsoever, the sunspots were like 30x the earth's gravity, even Grant shouldn't have been able to get up; but that wasn't stopping them at all. I tried to make the gravity more intense, but it wasn't doing anything except tiring myself out even more. Jason and Grant stood tall, and summoned their weapons again, I didn't know if they could actually walk or anything, but that didn't matter. Jason's blade started to surge with lightning, and he slowly raised it for a slash, at the same time Grant lifted his axe, and reeled it back for a throw. Right before they could kill each other, or should I say right before Grant killed Jason, the unthinkable happened; they both suddenly dropped to their knees. I was so relieved, that I stopped concentrating on the solar pads and slowly walked toward them. They seemed to be shaking something off, like a fly was on their heads. Their eyes shifted from blood red, to electric/sky blue; somehow, they were fighting off the stone's influence, but how? Then it hit me so suddenly, I started kicking myself, mentally speaking, because the answer was so obvious I overlooked it. While I was trying to maintain the Sunspots, I was simultaneously singing. This may not seem like much but, when we crossed into the Amazon, I felt the power of Ares wash over me like a wave at the beach. The only reason that I didn't go into a war frenzy, was because I was silently humming a song to myself. You see, my songs have more to them than just physical healing qualities, they can also cure mental illnesses, and are very good for calming down someone with high anger levels. This entire time, I was protecting myself from the stone's influence with my hums, but now Jason and Grant needed the same protection.

I ran over to them, and spread my hands over their heads. Don't ask me how, but I could sense the war energy in their heads, like it was a massive red cloud. I could sense that their subconscious was trying to reject this energy, but didn't have the power to expel it. I took a deep calming breath and started to sing my favorite song ever covered by Glee: Lean on Me. Don't judge me because I like Glee, i'm pretty sure their are at least 20 of you that like My Little Pony. Anyway, I sung the first few verses and the chorus. Also, one thing you should know about my songs, is that I have multiple voices when I sing. The first one is all me, but the other ones are basically my thoughts. For example, you know how there are always backup singers to a performer? Well, I basically have mental backup singers. When I sing, if I imagine another voice breaking off for background vocals and such, it'll actually work, and be heard all coming from my mouth, so to make it simple, I sing, and then mentally project the background vocals. Make sense? That's because it shouldn't.

After, I finished singing, Grant and Jason unsteadily got up too their feet, so I created floating solar couches for them to sit on, until they recovered from the residual effects of the stone. Now I know you're probably asking how they were going to maintain their freedom from the stone without my help, and the truth is they couldn't, and they wouldn't have to. I kept mentally humming to protect myself, but now, I spread the influence over to Grant and Jason. It wasn't like a melody screaming in their heads all the time, but it was a light hum deep in the background of their skulls. Simple, but effective; they wouldn't turn into warbound creatures anymore.

"Uhhh," moaned Grant. "My head is killing me, what happened."

I quickly retold the events of what happened after he tackled Jason.

"I really did that?" he asked with a horrified look on his face. "Oh man, Jason, I am so sorry bro."

"It's fine man," Jason responded. "I lost control too, luckily Allyson was there to save us."

He shot me a thankful glance, and I politely nodded back at him, biting down my giddiness.

"No it's not," said Grant. "I could have killed you, plus all those things I said to you while I was out of it, i'm starting to remember…. dude you are not a terrible leader, and I was totally behind your plan of attack, it's just-"

"Don't mention it bro," said Jason. "I said some harsh things that I didn't mean as well. Grant, I don't know how, but I know you will get another shot at being a superstar. You won't have to watch football games, you'll be in the starting line-up in them."

Grant and Jason nodded, but avoided eye contact. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and just plopped them on the ground.

"Oh my God, just hug already! Honestly how can men be fearless in the face of certain death, and at the same time, terrified of talking it out with their best friends?"

Grant and Jason laughed, got off of the couches, and gave each other a short hug. Of course because they were the epitome of stereotypical guys, and had to prove they weren't "gay", there was lots of back patting.

"Oh, and guys?" asked Jason after it was over. "About that whole stupid team thing, I just want you to know that I really like being on this team. Sure this wasn't on the top of my to do list, but i've had more fun with you guys than I ever had back at my old school; i'm gonna see this thing through with you guys no matter what."

"Don't worry about it Thunder-Man," said Grant. "By the way, I know it's safe to think our real names to each other, but can we use our code names mentally and vocally while wearing the suit?"

"No problem, Super-G," Jason thought to him with a huge grin.

At this point, it was all I could do to stay mad at Jason. How could someone so violent, be so sincere and sweet at the same time? Grant and I said thank you and stuff, but I tried not to hold Jason's gaze for too long. Anyway, Jason asked us if we were ready to go, and after a small yep, followed by a "hell yeah!" from Grant, we took off towards the obsidian fortress.

The run/flight only took about two minutes and we took cover behind some trees that were a good 10 feet away from the fortress. Jason was right, the soldiers were armed to the teeth with armor and weapons, there were so many guards keeping watch on top of the wall, I was surprised we weren't spotted yet. After a few seconds, Jason mentally asked Grant and I if we were ready to attack. We both thought yes back to him, and suddenly, he was on top of the wall with the obsidian soldiers. Before they had time to react to his presence, two huge bolts of lightning shot left and right from Jason's position, blasting anything within range to bits. I was so surprised, I almost forgot that I was supposed to be doing my thing too. I snapped back into focus, and concentrated on creating a mini sun ten feet in the air above the platoon of soldiers. At this point, creating suns was an easy task, all I had to do was imagine and extremely hot ball of fire, with enough gravitational force to lift 300 pounds off of the ground, hovering in the air. In 3 seconds, the platoons of soldiers were being lifted from the ground, and into their fiery deaths by the lot.

"Super-G!" I frantically thought to Grant. "Do the thing, now!"

"On it!" he thought back to me, before dashing off to smash the wall.

He summoned his axe, and started hacking away at the wall. At first, it seemed like he was wasting his time, but I could see pieces of the wall crumbling away, it would take some time, but Grant would eventually carve us a path through the wall. Now, I know you probably think we were stupid for going through the fortress rather than over, or around it, but the truth was, we couldn't. Jason forgot to mention this but, in every direction where the river cuts through the Amazon, a red barrier guarded the borders, and was only broken off at this small point. So there was no way to go around or avoid the fortress. Anyway, Grant was making some good progress, and Jason had pretty much mopped up all of the soldiers patrolling the top of the walls. Just when I thought we were going to get through an easy one for once, I heard the sounds of an army charging behind me. I turned around and saw, to my most absolute horror, that the army that Jason had warned us about were charging straight at us. Our plan for getting through the fortress before we were noticed had failed, now we had to fight on two fronts.

"SUNBIRD!" Jason screamed. "PUT UP A BARRIER AROUND YOU AND GRANT, I'LL HOLD EM' OFF UNTIL HE'S DONE SMASHING THROUGH THE FORTRESS!"

Apparently, he was aware of the oncoming threat as well. Still, even with his speed and skill, he couldn't hope to hold off a force of that size, so I pitched a different suggestion.

"No," I thought to him. "Even you can't hold off an army of that size for very long. I'll put up a barrier around Super-G, but i'll stay outside of it, and help you defend Grant; don't worry, i'll protect myself too, but you won't have to fight alone."

"Sound's like a plan, let's do it, but be careful." he thought to me, as he zoomed toward the oncoming army.

I quickly raised a shield around Grant, informed him of the plan, and took to the air. I created a small outer body shield to deflect any projectiles, and started blasting at anything that wasn't human, Grant had better hurry up, because even with the two of us, we couldn't hold out forever.

(Jason's Perspective)

I zipped down from the top of the fortress, my sword in hand, and counter charged the avalanche of plant warriors. Don't ask me what my plan was, because the only words I have for you are: slash, blast, run, and stab. The army spanned at least 100 meters wide and had hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers stacked behind each other. Charging head into them would be outright stupid, so instead, I willed a lot of voltage to build up in my blade, and when I slashed at the air, a huge arc of lightning shot out of my blade, and vaporized five rows of soldiers. Not enough to make a difference but it was something. I ran around for a while, slashing down soldiers left and right, and occasionally blasting them with lightning, but that still wasn't enough; i'd have to dig deep, and really use some thunder power to make a real difference. I focused on a massive thunder storm, I wanted lightning flashing in every direction possible, and blasting the living crap out of these plant soldiers. Thunder boomed, storm clouds formed several feet in the air and the lightning came down. When I say the lightning came down, I mean multiple bolts of lightning shot out of the thunder clouds, and blasted anything in reach that wasn't me. The good news about this was that a lot of soldiers were being taken out, probably about 30 per second, plus the other 5 per second with my sword slashes. I probably could have taken out more with my sword, but remember when I said while using lightning, my Speed Mode access was slightly limited? Well, I was maintaining a massive lightning right now, it wasn't hard to maintain, especially with my new battle suit, but it still put a cap on how fast I could go. Believe me, I almost got skewered a good few times. It was during this time that I really appreciated Allyson's offer to help me hold these guys off. I didn't see her, but every second, in addition to my lightning strikes, golden balls of fire rained down from the sky, taking out 10 soldiers with every volley. I had to hand it to her, Allyson knew how to use those things. One time, a sun blast was on a direct course with me, but before it made impact, it swerved around, and pelted a random plant soldier that was behind me. In fact, now that I think about it, all of the sun blasts were doing that, shooting one way, and changing directions if they weren't aimed at a soldier; they were basically like heat seeking missiles.

After about five minutes of fighting (Grant sure was taking his sweet time with that wall), Grant sent me a mental message saying that he had finally broken through the wall, and that we could come through. The only problem with that, was we were still neck deep in plant soldiers; there would be no way we could escape them, especially when we still had to deal the the Amazon river monster.

"GO!" Allyson screamed in my head. "I'll open the barrier so you can get in, but you need to hurry!"

"I can run faster, than a race car at top speed, the word 'hurry' means nothing to me anymore," I thought to her as I released one last electric blast wave, taking out another 100 soldiers for good measure, and raced inside the small opening in Allyson's barrier.

Allyson flew down from the sky and entered the barrier via a small hole at the top. The soldiers collided with the barrier and started to bash on it. They didn't make any progress but Allyson couldn't keep the barrier up all day. Before I could think of something, Allyson, ran to the edge of her barrier, created a solar fist around her right hand, and struck the barrier with all of her strength. I knew what was gonna happen, I did the same thing myself just yesterday. Ok, i'm just gonna say it, the blastwave burned down, most of the army, as well as a lot plant life. I did feel bad about that; I mean i'm not a nature freak but i'm also not a nature destroyer either. Allyson and I looked at each other, looked at the aftermath of the blastwave, and looked back at each other. The message was clear: keep going forward, don't look back, because it's not gonna be pretty. We ran after Grant, who was already at the edge of the lake, looking intently into the water.

"I can't see anything down there." he said when we caught up to him. "Thought you said there was some type of massive monster down there, Thunder-Man."

I ignored his doubtful statement; my Speed Sense was going crazy right now, so the monster was definitely here. However, I did see Grant's point. I read somewhere that the Amazon river can be as deep as 300 feet. Take that and add it with the murkiness of the water, and you get a pretty decent place to stash a killer plant monster.

"Super-G, go and get a huge chunk of obsidian for me." I ordered him.

"Why?"

"Just do it, I have a theory to experiment."

Grant gave me the 'dude you're insane' look, but still ran back to the wall and returned with a chunk of of obsidian about the size of a golf cart.

"Now what bro?" he asked me.

"Throw it high in the air, over the lake." I told him.

Again, he flashed me with the look, but did as he was told, and launched the obsidian high into the air. My reputation for being right at the worst times was reinforced. Quicker than my Speed Mode could alert me, a huge, bulky, monstrous figure, soared out of the depths of the river with the speed of a missile. It swallowed the obsidian in it's massive jaws, and then looked straight at us. To be honest, I don't know what the thing was exactly. It was kind of a mix between a sea serpent and a humanoid dragon. It was 60 feet tall, made completely of vines and tree bark, with huge arms and obsidian talons that could impale a pickup truck. It's eyes were blood red, and it spewed fire from it's mouth and nose with every breath. It's face was similar to the Namekian Shenron, for those of you that follow DBZ, and now that I mention it, the monster almost looked like Namekian Shenron, right down to the massive serpent tail extending from it's torso on down. After, eating the obsidian, the monster, turned it's gaze to us, and his eyes seemed to gleam at the sight. If he could talk, I imagine he would have said something like: 'yummy, some tasty mini heroes to eat.' I should have been extremely terrified and panicking, but at this point, I really was beyond that. It's not that I wasn't afraid, I mean, this was a 60 feet tall plant-made dragon monster getting ready to destroy me, who wouldn't be scared. But, after all i'd been through in the past couple of days, from the robots, to the exam, and especially the plant monsters trying to kill us every step of the way, fear had no power over me anymore; if anything, I was more annoyed than scared. Seriously, this was a long day, I just wanted to get the stone, get back to the Helicarrier, and take a shower; this dragon thing was not gonna get in my way. I thrusted my arms into the air, focused on a Mega Lightning Strike, and with a yell, thrusted my hands in the direction of the monster. The air turned colder as thunderclouds blocked out the sun. Thunder boomed really loud, and a second later, the dragon was lost in a huge bolt of lightning, that struck it from the head, and engulfed it's whole body.

Summoning that much thunder made me realize one thing, I was getting stronger. The first time I summoned a bolt of lightning like that, it drained the hell out of me. Now, I was only halfway, drained, like the feeling you get when you run a considerable distance, but still have a good amount of fuel left in the tank. Good thing too, the team still had a ways to go before getting to the stone. Grant and Allyson flew over to the other side of the river, while I simply ran across the surface (I was scared I wouldn't be able to do that). Afterwards, we traveled deeper into the Amazon. To be honest, I expected it to be more dangerous as we got closer to the stone, but everything was surprisingly calm. We traveled for about 10 minutes, until I felt such a huge surge of hate and violence, that I ordered the team to stop immediately while I shook of the feeling. Over in a small clearing surrounded by lots of trees, vines, and leaves, was a massive power signature, I could feel it affecting me. I knew immediately that we had found it, the stone of Ares was ours for the taking; and yet, something felt off. I telepathically ordered my team to slowly drift towards the clearing, and to not make any sudden movements. If only the clearing would have followed the same instructions. As soon as we got within 10 feet of the clearing, multiple, massive roars, erupted from under it, and a huge beast suddenly, burst from the ground. At first, I thought it was a bunch of monster cobras tangled together; if only it were monster cobras. Instead, when the massive school bus sized, necks unfurled, the image of a 20 foot tall, 5 headed-hydra, made of tree bark, vines, and pulsing with a mother load of war god energy, came together. Now I was freaking out.

The hydra's eyes were all blazing red fireballs, it's heads had massive obsidian teeth, and each head was snorting blood red fire. On the forehead of the middle one, was a gleaming red shiny dot, aka the stone of Ares. Well, at least we found it.

"Guys," I thought to Grant and Allyson. "Don't freak out, I have a plan."

"Cut it to shreds, take the stone, and have a party back on the Helicarrier?" Grant asked me.

"Close," I responded. "You and I are gonna bust out our spears, we'll take out each of it's heads in Speed Mode, and then Allyson, who will be hovering high over the trees, will swoop down and burn the rest of it's body, sound good?"

"Why do I have to stay in the air?" Allyson asked me. "I can create a huge solar blade, swipe off all of it's necks with one swing, and then burn it to a crisp. If anything, i'm more useful in this fight than the two of you combined."

"True," I told her. "But we don't know how fast or powerful that thing really is. Plus, it can breathe fire, we can't take the risk off you getting burnt, crushed, or eaten. Super-G and I have the speed to pull this off, you'll be the blazing airstrike that'll finish the job."

Allyson, smirked at the idea, and accepted her position with minimal grudging. Lucky for us, the Hyda was really courteous, and let us finish our mental planning. It seemed to be watching us with a challenging glare. It was definitely intelligent, and by the looks of it, knew exactly what it was dealing with; and it was very much pissed off. It's many heads seemed to be saying: 'Just try something, I dare you.' Grant and I carefully, inched slowly towards the Hydra, not bothering to summon our weapons, unless absolutely necessary. Finally, after we had taken our fifth step, the Hydra roared, charged at us, and spewed red fire from it's many heads.

Grant and I immediately went into Speed Mode, summoned our spears, and dashed to either side of the Hydra, while Allyson went airborne. Even in Speed Mode, the Hydra was pretty fast, I had to weave in and out of lots of trees to avoid the blaze, before running back towards it.

"NOW SUPER-G!" I screamed in his head. "LET'S TAKE IT DOWN!"

I raced towards the far Hydra head on the right side, while Grant simultaneously charged the left. I willed the tip of my spear to surge with thunder, did a running leap that propelled me 10 feet in the air, and slashed the head clean off of the Hydra; Grant also took off one of the Hydra heads with a leaping power slash. Before I could turn my attention to the other heads, I noticed something horribly wrong; even in Speed Mode, the Hydra heads were growing back impossibly fast, and yes, there were two more for each one cut off. The Hydra, now sporting nine horrible heads, snapped viciously at me and Grand with tremendous speed, I was lucky I didn't get snapped up; Grant wasn't. One of the middle Hydra heads managed to trap him in it's mouth for a short time, before he manually opened it's mouth from the inside out, cussing with the force of a thousand sailors. However, right before he could fly out, the Hydra head's mouth blazed with a ball of red hot fire, essentially frying Grant.

"SUPER-G!" I screamed out loud like an idiot.

Grant came flying out of the Hydra's mouth screaming: 'hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!', and engulfed in red flames. He did the smart thing and did the whole stop,drop, and roll routine, smoldering the flames. Afterwards, the Hydra charged at us again, and started snapping at us with the speed of a race car. We couldn't risk cutting it again, so Grant and I leaped backwards, dodging the heads, and trying to think of an effective plan. Then, out of nowhere, a giant bulldozer made out of Sun Energy, trucked the hydra from the right side and pushed it through a bunch of Amazon plant life before stopping, rising into the air, and smashing straight on top of the Hydra. A few seconds later, Allyson landed next to us; a very smug grin was plastered on her face.

"Cut off it's heads, and burn to a crisp huh?" she said to me in a super sarcastic tone.

Before I could say something smart like, 'yeah, whatever,' the Hydra, who was supposed to be a pancake, roared really loud, and got up with an indignant, and very pissed off look on it's many heads. It charged us again, it's many mouths blazing away.

"SCATTER!" I mentally screamed to the team, as the Hydra unleashed a red hot blast of fire.

Grant and Allyson soared to the right, and I sprinted to the left of the Hydra. We dodged it effortlessly, but I didn't count on it's recovery time. My Speed Sense kicked in, and when I turned around, one of the Hydra heads, was literally, a few feet away from my body, it's head open and ready to chow down on some Jason flesh. I sprinted forward, and took cover behind a large tree. Apparently, Allyson saw that I was in trouble, because when my Speed Sense wore off, the Hydra got blindsided by a giant solar fist, and flew sideways into another patch of trees. Before it could get up, I summoned another Mega Lightning Strike, which at this point, wasn't even too hard to do anymore, and blasted the hydra with at least a million volts of electricity. Before I could think something smug back to Allyson, the Hydra simply, got back up, roared really loud, and charged at us again.

At this point, I was the one who was pissed off. This monster had the stone my team had searched long and hard for, not to mention, left a wake of destruction through the Amazon, and he just wouldn't die. I didn't care if what I did would most likely kill me, I summoned my blade and counter charged the damn thing. I was in Speed Mode, so it wasn't like I was in too much danger but still, i'm pretty sure Grant and Allyson wanted to put me on suicide watch for the next few weeks. As soon as I got within a few feet of the Hydra, I slid on the ground, which probably would have left me with a serious grass burn had I not been wearing my battle suit, and while sliding, stuck my blade in it's underside and willed the blade to surge with a huge amount of voltage. My intention was to cook the Hydra from the inside out with my electricity, but I was going way too fast. Instead, I slid straight under the Hydra, cutting deep into it's under body and sliding to the other side. I quickly realized the the Hydra also had a tail, a huge tail, thicker and stronger than an oak tree. My Speed Sense kicked in as soon as I saw it, and even I could guess why; I was about to get crushed. I quickly kick flipped onto my feet, and although I could have simply ran away, I really wanted to do some damage to this creep. I side stepped the tail, activated my spear, willed the tip to surge with voltage, and when the tail hit the ground, I jumped and sliced it off.

The Hydra roared in what I guess was pain, assuming plants can feel pain. It turned around really fast, and it's faces said something like: 'No you did not'. It was probably gonna do something like charge at me, or blast me with fire, or try to eat me, but before it could choose all of the above, Allyson did something really stupid for once. She thought that, just because the Hydra's attention was on me, it was somehow distracted. She created a giant Sun Blade took to the air, and willed the blade to fly through the Hydra's many necks; again that's how it it was supposed to go. Like I told her, the Hydra was way faster than it looked. The monster's far right head caught the blade in his teeth, and snapped it in half. Now that Allyson had it's attention, the Hydra faced her and reared it's heads back for a fire blast. I didn't know whether or not Allyson would be able to survive the blast up close, even in her sun form, but thankfully, Grant wasn't gonna take the chance. In an extremely fast blur, he tackled Allyson from the ground, and they soared 20 feet into the air, faster than a bullet. It was in that moment that I realized how much of an idiot-genius Grant was. Let me explain. At this point, it was painfully clear that the only way we'd be able to kill the Hydra was the traditional way, meaning we'd have to cut the heads and burn the stumps. The only problem with this was the fact that even in Speed Mode, the heads were growing back sooner than we could burn them. Then it hit me, we just needed to cut and burn faster.

"Super-G, Sunbird, you two ok?" I mentally asked them.

"Yeah, were all good," Grant responded. "But man, is that thing strong or what?"

"Definitely bro but don't worry, I have a plan."

"What kind of plan?"

"Get me in the skies and I'll tell ya, this thing is looking at me funny."

Grant swooped down in a second, grabbed me by the arm, and rocketed me into the sky. Once we were 100 feet up, he stopped next to Allyson, and she created a Sun Disc for me to float on. The Hydra was clearly indifferent towards this, because it just looked up at us with a WTF expression.

"So what's the plan bro?" asked Grant.

"Wait a minute," Allyson interrupted me before I could get started. "Why does he get to make the plan again? His last one ended in disaster."

"You can't win em' all Sunbird," Grant responded. "Besides, we're all in one piece, we're regrouping, and Thunder-Man is team leader. I have faith that this next plan is gonna be a home run."

Allyson obviously didn't like it very much, but she grudgingly agreed to hear me out.

"Ok," I started. "My first plan failed because every time Super-G and I cut off the heads, they grew back faster than we could keep chopping them off, but now I realize all we have to do is go faster; but we also have to do two things at once."

"What do you mean by that?" Allyson asked me.

"Me and Super-G are gonna slice off all of the heads in Speed Mode Supreme, while were doing that, you simultaneously have to blast the Hydra in a blaze of fire. We can kill it, but we have to be faster than it's regeneration process."

"But if you're in the way, you'll get burned."

"No we won't," said Grant. "I'm guessing Speed Mode Supreme is when you go really fast, and basically become a blur of lightning. While I think the name is stupid, I understand what he's talking about. Don't worry Allyson, we can move really really fast, you wouldn't be able to BBQ us even if you wanted to."

"Ok then," she said. "But i'll need you guys to keep it busy for a while. It won't take me long to get the blast ready, but i'll need it distracted; i'll signal you two when it's time."

"Sounds like a plan." I said. "Ready, Super-G? Our buddy looks pretty lonely down there."

Grant grabbed my arm and we both flew down to meet our flesh eating Hydra friend. Before reaching the ground, I summoned a Mega Lightning Bolt, and struck the Hydra dead in it's faces, giving Grant and I a good opening for a preemptive strike. After Grant put me on the ground, I created a giant electric sledgehammer for him to use, and he went to work. Because we only had to stall the Hydra, Grant was free to be reckless, but then again, he always was. For 2 minutes he wildly swung on the Hydra, knocking it's heads together, smashing it into the ground, and occasionally dodging blasts of fire. I just chilled behind a tree, and watched the show. Finally, Allyson gave us the signal that she was ready, and was on her way down. I figured we had about 5 seconds before she got at ground level, another 2 seconds to get into position, and an extra second for shooting. I ordered Grant to bust out his spear and get ready; I also summoned mine, and got back in the fight. We couldn't slash at it's heads yet, so for the most part, we played defensive. We kept backing up, and dodged the Hydra's strikes; sometimes, Grant would swat them away with the flat of his spear. We kept this up until Allyson reached ground level. After a three second count she screamed: "NOW!" into our heads; Grant and I went into Speed Mode Supreme.

I looked behind me for a quick micro sec and saw a huge, or what was soon to be a huge, blaze of golden fire erupting from Allyson's hands, slowly overlapping her body. Grant and I ran to either side of the Hydra and went to work. I went around the Hydra, jumped on it's body and ran across it's back until I reached it's necks. I slashed off the far left one, and immediately moved on to the second one, while Grant slashed off the two on the far right. Even in SMS, the stumps were already growing back. It was super slow, and moving at the speed of snails, but the necks were already growing back, plus extra ones; good thing we were moving faster than their regeneration process. Grant and I quickly slashed off the remaining three heads, and then, once the golden blaze was within a few feet of the Hydra, we ran behind Allyson, the safe zone, and shifted out of Speed Mode. In normal speed, the golden blaze quickly engulfed the remains of the Hydra, but Allyson didn't stop there. She kept the blaze going for like 5 more seconds, and then turned it off. In the aftermath, there was nothing left of the Hydra, but a few trees also took a bit of the damage. We searched around for the stone, and found it buried under a few inches of soil. However, before we could message to Fury about our success, something black and heavy hit us in the chest, and launched us backwards into a few trees. Once, I got over the shock of my Speed Sense not activating, I tried, I repeat, TRIED, to reach for my sword. I couldn't move, my body was encased in some type of dark black webbing, even Grant was having trouble getting free. Suddenly, I heard a loud raspy roar, and a few seconds later, Venom, as in Spider-Man's arch nemesis, Venom, busted through the greenery, and landed several feet from where we were trapped. Venom looked at us, tilted his head, and then started to survey the ground. He didn't say it directly, but the meaning was clear: 'I don't know you, I didn't expect to see you, but i'm busy right now, i'll deal with you later.' He scanned the ground until he found the stone, and picked it up. A red wave of energy flowed through him, and disappeared just as soon as it generated. Venom clutched his head, and, though he didn't show any signs of concentration, it was clear he was communicating with someone.

"Yes," he said in a deep raspy vicious voice. "I have it in my hands."

He paused again, listening to whatever it is the person he was talking to had to say.

"No, no trouble, bunch of plant animals got in my way, but I killed them, we got a situation though."

My heart started hammering in my chest, I knew what was coming up, and for the first time in a while, I was actually scared. Sure i've faced a few robots, took on some plant monsters, and beat up a few superheroes, but this was different. Venom, was a supervillain, as in, he would kill me, move on to the next day, and not lose any sleep over it. Yeah, the monster's could have killed me also, but they were just mindless creations, Venom was not. Anyway, Venom paused again for a few seconds.

"Some...kids" he finally said. "They have powers, and they look like S.H.I.E.L.D agents, should I take care of them?"

I heard Allyson struggle against her bonds.

"Don't struggle," I thought to her. "Don't draw attention to yourself, we'll get out of this but we need to stay calm."

"Don't worry guys," Grant thought to us. "I pretty much tore through, the under layers of the webbing, it just looks like i'm restrained pretty good, if tar boy wants to get rough, he'll have to deal with me first."

I suddenly felt so good, it was if a wave of pure relief washed over me, and I could suddenly think clearly again, all we had to do was play the waiting game. After, a few seconds, Venom finally spoke.

"Yes, alright, i'm on my way no-"

Suddenly, Venom shuddered, the wave of red energy coursed through his body again and this time, it was here to stay. His eyes turned blood red, his spider design on his body also turned blood red, and it's appendages started moving. His claws started to surge with blood red fire and he was breathing the same flames out of his mouths with each heavy breath. The black goo that he was made of started to shift and morph into different weapons of war. Sometimes a sword, sometimes an axe, but still meant for killing. Venom looked at us with an evil glare, and I knew we were in for a fight; it was unavoidable. The stone was nowhere to be found, probably absorbed into Venom's body, not a great sign.

"No," he said in a deeper, powerful, less raspy voice. "I will slaughter them, rip them to pieces, and gorge on their flesh."

Whatever the guy on the other end was saying, Venom interrupted him.

"NOOO!" he bellowed so loud, it would give the Hydra a run for it's money. "YOU DO NOT CONTROL ME DOOM, I WILL KILL, I WILL FEAST, I WILL HAVE BLOOD!"

Shadows formed in between his right hand. A second later, he was holding a black battle axe with red highlighted edges, just like the sword I saw in my vision. He raised his axe, and with the speed of a bullet, charged straight at me.