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.

12. Chapter 12: Birth Of The Storm-Lord

Chapter 12: Birth Of The Storm-Lord

I charged at Goblin for what felt like (and probably was) a millisecond. Before we clashed, I used the momentum of my charge to jump into a side flip over him, and while in midair, create a giant hand construct around him. Once I landed, I made a throwing gesture, and my construct did the same, throwing Goblin a really long ways away. This was not for damage purposes, no this was to get a small opening to bring myself up to fighting condition. Yeah, despite my reignited drive to fight (mostly based on vengeance), my body wasn't exactly up to par with the memo. Sure, I had enough energy to burn, and I wasn't terribly out of it, but the thing is, running around the world will take it's toll on you. And yes, because you probably wanna know what it feels like i'll tell you. Long story short, kinda awesome. Your adrenaline is going so fast, it's like you're lost in energy. The feeling of running as fast as I could, with no restrictions whatsoever? Indescribably magnificent. Plus, considering the fact that it all happened in under a second, your brain and body gets the feeling of being faster than time, and at the same time trapped in it; yeah, it's not something you can accurately describe, but I gave it my best shot. Anyway, the very nanosec that I had to myself, I wasted no time, and patched myself up. I focused on making the electricity in my body explode inside of me, which normally took a bit longer for the process to get started, but this time it was near instantaneous. My body was engulfed in the surge, and I felt an immediate boost of strength to my legs, chest, arms, even my heart and lungs seemed to get a piece of the action. Like normal, I got an immediate burst of strength, especially in my legs, and I felt like I could run laps around the world (I already did, but not the point), lucky for me, the only thing I had to do was kill the overpowered mongrel that savaged my strongest team member like he was a baby; ain't life amazing?

Speaking of which, as soon as I was done with powering up, Goblin had recovered, and was on his way back at about 1,000 mph, which by my standards, was still very slow. In response, I shifted into Speed Mode, and tried for a new trick I had picked up on during the big zombie battle. I held my hands out, focusing on the electrons that saturated the air (especially since I was involved). As soon as I honed in on the subatomic grid, I clenched my fists and commanded the little punks to wake up, and help me kick some ass. From your perspective, this would be like going from a cold shower, to blazing hot in the blink of an eye. The electricity crackled and came to life so suddenly, it would've been like walking into an invisible electric wall. For me, the opposite was true. I could see, if not sense the sudden air heat up, the sparks crackling to life and joining together, evolving from light taser tap, to straight up this $#!+ can kill lots of people, levels. Anyway, as soon as I gave the air a jump (which again, was so fast, even Goblin couldn't perceive it), I slashed my hand though the air, and a bolt of lightning materialized and tackled Goblin from the side, drastically knocking him off course. I followed this up by creating a bunch of 'now you see me' lightning bolts, and playing a small game of pinball with Goblin. I knocked him backwards, forwards, sideways, whatever, all at the same time generating about several hundred million volts of lightning in an area that barely encompassed the area of a standard track & field. Finally, to get the ball rolling, I knocked Goblin on a collision course towards me with another surprise bolt, and when he got within a few feet of me, I blasted him with the biggest Final Flash i've ever made. Of course I knew I wasn't really making any significant process, this guy survived a fall from God knows how high, took blows from Super-G, and outlasted Allyson's Super Sunbird; plus he was jumped up on an insane amount of undead energy. I wasn't stupid, I knew I wasn't doing squat at this point. However, the air was super electrified now, meaning that the area was pretty much my playground, where I could do to Goblin what I wished, so long as I could think it up; this was gonna be fun.

Goblin immediately got up after taking a Final Flash point blank (which kinda disturbed me), and soared after me again, as if charging me head on would produce any different results the second time around. I simply focused on the residual energy in the air, made a swiping motion with my arms, and tried not to bust out laughing at the sight of Goblin getting punted into the distance by a giant lightning sledgehammer. That was the point where things started to amp up. As Goblin was careening backwards, I shot him up into the air with a powerful lightning geyser, and before he could even think about recovering, I launched a barrage of giant rocket, arrow, and sword constructs at him. The constructs caught him off guard, and exploded in his face, but that's pretty much it, nothing of game changing quality. I followed up the weapons explosion by yelling really loud, and summoning a Mega Lightning Strike, one that completely engulfed him, and should've at least dazed him a bit; due to the sudden activation of my Speed Sense, that clearly was not the case. Goblin rushed out of the voltage, glowing with the undead white hot undead hatred of…something really bad? Anyway, he was big, fast, pissed, and on a collision course with me, so I rolled out of the way, summoned my sword, and got ready for what was sure to be one hell of a struggle. In response to my construct beat down, Goblin roared, and blasted at me with a lot of his own personal (but really unnatural) lightning. Multiple tendrils spread out in many different directions, similar to my Fulminata Blast, but they were too big and slow to be too much of a threat to someone as fast as me. I simply took off straight the middle of all the voltage, bobbing and weaving through the lightning that definitely could hurt, if not kill me, and vaulted over Goblin, with a huge twisting somersault. On the way down, I tapped into SMS, slowed down my fall, and sliced Goblin's head clean off with my sword; which wasn't as easy as it sounds, maybe Grant's strength played a factor, but for me, it was like cutting through a wall of fleshy concrete. As soon as Goblin's head was chopped off (and promptly kicked into the distance), I switched my sword to spear mode, charged it with a $#!+ ton of voltage, and went back to the primitive, but all I could really think of, plan of whacking Goblin's armor until it broke. Hey, it's all I had!

So this plan (or at least the first part of it), worked for a good three seconds before it outright blew apart, nearly getting me killed. I slashed at Goblin as fast and as hard as I could, recycling the momentum from my most powerful slashes, making sure to balance out speed and power, all while at the same time thanking God for making Allyson such a good teacher. And yes, the slashes weren't really doing much better at breaking Goblin's armor, although I did manage to chip off a few finger sized slivers of…definitely not obsidian; obsidian couldn't Get through Grant's skin. Moving on, something bizarre happened in the final moments that I was trying to break through Goblin's armor. Remember, I was already in SMS, meaning that at minimum, I was already at 55% of my maximum speed, and even that was way faster than you could even think about comprehending. While in SMS, my Speed Sense actually went off. I repeat, while I was already faster than lightning, my Speed Sense, which warns me about things I might have a blindspot to, went off! Goblin's body jerked so fast with a powerful right fist coming down to smash me, I actually would've died if my immediate reflexes didn't kick in, making me dash out of the way. Goblin's body didn't stop there (he wouldn't get his head back for another five seconds), and we kinda played a game of tag, only I couldn't afford to be it. I ran forwards, getting some distance between us, although he wasn't that much behind, and when I was certain enough that I could pull it off, I focused on the electrons in the air (which I will call the Power Grid), snapped my fingers, and railed Goblin a half a mile to the side with a surprise bolt of lightning. Doing this helped me realize something, until now, I haven't been thinking hard enough about creative ways to use and mix up my powers. I mean, Sunbird said that she learned how to use the light in the air to create her constructs rather than her own power reserves, why didn't I think of that? Plus, now I didn't have to worry about shooting lightning or creating constructs while running at super speed, because as i've explained it before, using both powers at once puts a cap on how powerful each of them can be utilized, my body simply can't handle using both powers at once without suffering a few drawbacks. Don't get me wrong, I was getting fast enough to where I would soon be able to do both without having to worry about staying fast enough to not get hit, but for now, the Power Grid was a very welcome, very soon to be frequently used tool. So skipping back to the fight, after I got the drop on Goblin with the surprise bolt (I'll call them Phantom Bolts), I quickly doubled back, and started to take the hurt to him again. While maintaining SMS, I created two giant fist constructs from the Power Grid, and kept circling around him while my Thunder Fists kept pounding him relentlessly. I used the fists for more than just straight up punching, again, I was just starting to think outside the box. Instead of just constantly using the fists to only hit one section of Goblin, I had them constantly flying around him, punching him in the back, front sides, even holding him down briefly while I showered him with thunderbolts and lightning strikes; oh and by the way, none of them were used from my own energy reserves. Again, this only provided a temporary fix, and Goblin was back to his old tricks within ten seconds, except this time, he put a bit more torque in his game plan. He created a light body shield around himself (meaning he was at least feeling some of the bite of my attacks), and created a really big sword construct to whack at me, while at the same time, blasting at me with a bunch of fireballs. Most of this situation was rectified with speed alone. I used the Power Grid to make instant shield constructs in front of the fireballs, and created my own giant sword to block Goblin's strike, which was like blocking the force of a falling flag pole with your mind. At the same time, I hit Goblin in the back with a Phantom Bolt, causing him to stumble, but not fall, and managed to whack him hard with my sword, sending him flying into the distance, or at least it was supposed to. You see, that body shield must have been way overpowered, because even with a really good swing from a sword that contained enough voltage to slice clean though a skyscraper, Goblin barely flew back 100 meters, before he came back with a vengeance. He tried slashing at me with a huge downwards, cut. I would've blocked it, and engaged in a voltage construct sword fight, but then I felt something coming for me from the back. I let my sword construct dissolve, and dashed out of the way, not sure about whether or not to block the attack with a shield. As soon as I was in the clear, I took a quick glance at the object before resuming my sprint. Just like I thought, Goblin was trying to blow me away with his own surprise bolt (which now that I think of it, truly deserves the 'Phantom Bolt' title, given the circumstances of his power), but my powers sensed it. If nothing else, it confirmed the fact that while Goblin's electrical energy wasn't natural, it was close enough to my own to where I could detect it, know it wasn't gonna charge me up, and avoid it. Not too much of an advantage, but at least it rendered one of Goblin's weapons useless. That being said, the alternative wasn't really all that great. Goblin tried pounding me into the dirt with his huge sword construct, while at the same time, throwing a relentless barrage of fire, and skull constructs (kinda like Shang Tsung), forcing me to run around frantically without getting much of a chance to go back on the offensive. Don't get me wrong, I tried striking him left and right with as many Phantom Bolts as I could, but not only was he used to the impact, making them next to useless, he had already picked up on how to do the same trick himself, and apply it to better use. For example, after dodging Goblin's relentless power onslaught for about a minute, barely getting any attack time myself, Goblin managed to pull the rug out from under me by creating an entire circle of his own Phantom Bolts around me, each one of em' big enough to disintegrate a school bus. I couldn't block an attack like this with my force fields, nor did I have any space to run between any of them, so I did the obviously stupid, but again, had no choice but to do thing, and jumped as high as I could, erupting a lightning geyser under me for good measure. My Speed Sense went off so fast and hard, it was like getting punched in the head with a steel fist.

I flipped in mid air, and to my horror, saw that Goblin had made an entire wave of undead purple fire erupt out of the ground, which was surging at me like a tidal wave. This was genius, not only did Goblin get me stuck between a rock and a hard place, he had pretty much cut off any and all chance I had of recovering; again, I couldn't fly. Still, i'm never one to go down without a last minute save, so I immediately went to work. In a fraction of a second, I created a voltage body shield around myself, and for good measure, summoned my shield, and created a thunder barrier around myself. After that, there was nothing left to do but take what was coming. The impact of the tidal wave, was so hard that it completely shattered my thunder barrier within the first few seconds of impact. Hell, if it wasn't for the shield Mrs. Kennedy made for me, the tidal wave would've ripped through my body shield, and burned me into a crisp. As was such, I was completely crouched under the shield, so it took most of the oncoming damage, and I fell to the ground hard, my body shield only barely a flickering aura, but at least I was still alive. That wasn't very much of a comforting fact, considering how fast my Speed Sense went off. Immediately below me, bones, as in honest to goodness skeletal bones, in the shape of large jagged spears, started to jut out of the ground in really slow motion. The bones had already touched my armor, which held up amazingly, but if my head was any closer to the dirt, it would've been impaled. Instead of that happy picture, I managed to move my head straight up, and took a quick nanosec to survey the battlefield. My first thought was to get out of the bony area, and refocus my attacks on Goblin, but the problem was, the bone spikes were protruding out of every square inch of the wheat field (and yes we were still in the wheat field), I couldn't go anywhere if I tried. Even worse, the bones were starting to mutate even further. I wasn't in any immediate danger from my perspective (look up how long a nanosec is), but I could see the bone spikes jutting out smaller bone spikes from their sides. In other words, I was trapped in a bone field, that would eventually stab me, if not provide the perfect prison for Goblin to kill me; I swear I think i've seen something like this in some sort of horror film, can't exactly place it, but I know i've seen it somewhere. So yeah, getting penetrated with bone spikes growing out of a wheat field (that's art and poetry, and even in the face of certain death I can sorta appreciate the paradox), was not on the top 10 of my bucket list, so I decided to have none of it. I slammed my fist into the ground, releasing an electric shock wave that cleared out all of the bones within a five meter radius, and created a barrier around myself. I didn't trust the bones to just stop growing just because I gave the ground a jump, so while maintaining the barrier, I made the ground in my area surge violently; if any bones were still supposed to keep growing, they weren't gonna grow under here. As far as what my plan was after this, no idea. I mean, it's not like I could trash the entire wheat field (although that wouldn't be a bad idea), no the only thing I could do right now is play it safe, and wait for Goblin to make his next move; damn you wouldn't believe how that almost got me killed! Apparently, summoning the field of bone spikes was not Goblin's endgame, no no no, it was only the beginning. As if a huge hurricane erupted under the ground, the thousands upon thousands of bone spikes flew into the air, and created a sort of whirlwind around me; the bones were so many and so thick, I couldn't even see Goblin in the air anymore (although I could sense him just fine). Still, even without seeing him, I could just imagine his face right now. His sick smirk probably licking his chops at the thought of watching me die long and slow; that anticipation must have been way too good to resist for long, cuz after about two seconds, the bone whirlwind stopped for a second, and then homed in on me like endless missiles.

To say that the barrage was intense, wouldn't do justice to how f*(# I was. The bone maelstrom beating against my barrier felt like half ton shards of glass consecutively pounding the soon to be destroyed puny electric force field. Now that I thought of it, Goblin must have been enhancing the bone shards with his Hades magic, cuz bones, no matter how numerous, do not impact this hard. I was thoroughly trapped, no other options except for trying for a Mega Lightning Strike to knock Goblin off balance, and I was not in the best position to concentrate on anything other than barely surviving Goblin's onslaught; yeah, the notion of 'survival' took a rather hard left after a few seconds. Apparently, Goblin was just starting to get used to the whole 'power of three million souls' thing, because I felt something similar to what was probably a battleship being dropped on top of my barrier; the sheer impact alone was almost enough to break through my barrier, only my will kept it up. Oh, but Goblin didn't stop. For the next 10 seconds, lightning, and bones worked together to try and kill me. I kept the barrier up for dear life, but it was starting to hurt both my mind and body, I couldn't keep this up much longer, I had to strike back somehow. I closed my eyes, and focused on accessing the Power Grid again. Like I said, even though I couldn't see Goblin, I could sense him just fine. Right now, he was about 400 meters away from me, in the air, protected by a whirlwind of bones; guess he wasn't blind to the fact that I could strike him in the face with a lightning bolt whenever I got around to it. Still, this was something I could use to my advantage, especially for the trick I was about to attempt. I focused on four separate points below, above, and to either side of Goblin's bone whirlwind shield. I focused as hard as I could on the Power Grid, making it build up as much power in between those four points as possible. The process took about a good thirty seconds to complete due to both the strain of charging a massive attack, while at the same time, maintaining the very shield that was keeping me alive, which was also under attack by what felt like a million tanks shooting at it; also, I had to make sure the attack was strong enough not to just hit Goblin, but to make him hurt enough to get him off of my back. Still, even under these conditions, charging up the attack wouldn't be so strenuous, if Goblin wasn't in my head! Basically, after about five seconds of charging my attack, Goblin started speaking in my head, which not only was annoying as f*(#, but also felt like a black hole screaming inside your head; I dare you to try and stay 100% focused on what you're doing then.

"Why do you persist child?" he asked me in an ominous voice that reverberated around every inch of my head. "Your friend, who had the strength of a god could not defeat me, so what makes you think you could? Just give up, desist this pointless struggle against the inevitable, and accept whatever afterlife awaits you; this fight is no longer yours."

He had a point, I didn't want any of this. This whole hero thing, this wasn't for me. Gods, magic, monsters? They were only good when they were in the books, not when I was involved. Why not just let go, end the pain? Mom…. Well Grant and Allyson….. I mean...they'd be fine right? No! I had to shake Goblin out, he was manipulating my thoughts, poisoning my mind, if I didn't snap back soon enough, I would've dropped my barrier and abandoned my attack altogether. Mom, Grant, and Allyson, I had to hold on to them, keep them in my thoughts. They made me strong, they gave me purpose, and right now, my purpose was to personally escort Goblin to the gates of Hell.

"Shut the hell up!" I thought back to Goblin with as much poison as I could fling at him.

"You wish for me to be silent?" Goblin asked me in a voice that had an unnatural amount of surprise in it, like I was missing out on some big revelation. "Why would you not like to hear my gospel of death, boy? Do you think yourself above such truth? Or are you simply ignorant to it?"

20 more seconds, all I needed was 20 more seconds; until then, I had to endure Goblin's monologuing.

"Well then," he continued. "Listen to me now, child of lightning. After I kill you, I will continue my mission to extinguish the light of the Shining One, she has been deemed a threat to the plan laid out by my masters, and must not be allowed to live. After she has been dealt with, the heroes of this world will systematically fall by my hand, for the longer I exist, the more my power, the more my rage grows; even the mighty Thor will not escape my wrath!"

Ten more seconds.

"With them put down like the rabid dogs they are, I will bring an age of darkness and despair across this world, the likes of which have never been seen! The dead will rise and consume the flesh of the living, the sun will be darkened with a layer of everlasting death, every living thing that grows from the earth will wither and die, the waters will become red with the blood of the creatures of the sea, and when I have truly brought all life to it's knees, I will spread my influence across the entire universe! PRAISE TO THE-"

Time ran out.

I yelled at the top of my lungs, and the ground and sky erupted. Four huge pillars big enough to completely swallow skyscrapers rammed into Goblin from four sides. Because he was surrounded by his bone whirlwind, Goblin didn't see anything coming, so it was way more satisfying for me when he got a billion volts of lightning rammed into him from the four corners of the earth. All the bones around him crumbled to dust, and the maelstrom and thunder strikes that were barraging my barrier stopped suddenly (which felt like entering Nirvana). In the aftermath of the near atomic explosion, I reignited the electrons in the air, and trapped Goblin in the godmother of all tesla spheres. The thing was about the size of that huge Ferris wheel in London, filled with so much juice, it could've easily powered the entire east coast of U.S.A., and you better believe I made Goblin suffer. I punched downwards, and a huge bolt of lightning shot down and blasted him. I uppercutted the air and a lightning bolt tackled him from the bottom; you get the picture. I kept Goblin in a tesla torture combo for as long as I could, kinda getting the gist of how that guy felt when he was using the shadow boxing feature on Real Steel. I kept Goblin going in a continuous erratic cycle of pain, probably hitting the guy with at least 50 bolts of lightning per second (I may have tapped into Speed Mode to speed up the punching), and definitely putting a few dents in his armor. Unfortunately, this little orb of pain couldn't last for very long, not because I was incapable of keeping it together, but because Goblin eventually managed to put up a barrier around himself, and I was not keen on wasting time and energy on shield breaking. I decided to cut my losses, clenched my fist, and made the tesla sphere implode on top of Goblin, making one hell of an electric starburst (seriously, if I were any closer to the city, I might've vaporized it). I didn't think the blast would kill Goblin (no chance in God forsaken Hell), but I at least thought, or hoped, that it would at least take a bit of the wind out of his sails. I was not counting on the explosion to merely piss him off, and make him rocket towards me, roaring like a lion.

Normally, this would be the part where I panic and start running, but I had had enough of that. As Goblin started shooting bolts of lightning and fire at me, I tapped into Speed Mode and dodged them all, without moving too far from my general area; this time I was gonna let the fight come to me. As soon as he was about ten meters away from me, I snapped my fingers, and a bolt of lightning shot of of the ground, uppercutting Goblin under the chin, and adjusting him to where he was more parallel to the ground. Once he was in position, I vaulted myself upwards with another lightning geyser, and did a twisting flip (like Olympic level), and landed perfectly on Goblin's back. Before he could even think about throwing me off, I summoned my sword, and stuck it deep into a small, but vulnerable sliver in his armor. He roared loudly, but that was only the beginning of his trouble. I roared, giving Goblin a run for his money, and a split second later, a huge blast wave, big enough to swallow the empire state building (i'll refer to it as the Zeus Cannon), rained down from the sky, and swallowed me and Goblin like an appetizer. If he was screaming in pain, I couldn't hear it, although I do know for a fact that he had to be hurting a lot. You see, I didn't stick my sword in Goblin's back just for a Gladiator/Spartan epic move. No, metal is one hell of a conductor, and this Zeus Cannon, although doing mostly external damage to Goblin, was getting a portion of that voltage being transferred through the sword, and into Goblin's internal areas. Dunno how this affected the big man (or even how his anatomy even worked as of now), but it had to be doing something serious. As soon as the Zeus Cannon dissipated after about five seconds of steady impact, I was sorely disappointed to see Goblin immediately turn over, nearly battling me away with a backhand, and upon missing, blast me away with lightning from his eyes. The blast knocked me ten feet into the air, and it hurt like hell; also, it did something weird to me. No it didn't make me turn to a corpse, or dissolve my flesh, again I have magic immunity, but I did feel like a microwaved hot pocket gone wrong; meaning the blast itself burned, but I felt like I was freezing inside. Still, that was a very minor complaint compared to what soon followed. Even in mid air, my Speed Sense kicked in, and when my vision focused, I nearly leapt out of my skin at the sight of Goblin's axe, about two inches away from my chest. On a reflex, I immediately summoned my shield, and when the impact came, it was dulled by at least 50%; still the impact was enough to send me rocketing through the air at like 300 mph.

The rush was incredible (yes I know I was in danger, but still), and would've been even more so if it wasn't for the fact that it was Goblin who was the source of it. I quickly put up a barrier around myself as Goblin came rushing for another attack, pretty much getting the gist of what direction this fight was taking. Goblin rushed at me with heavy attack after heavy attack, each swing almost being the one that broke the camel's back (seriously, I had to refresh the shield every time he hit it). One thing was apparent though, Scott City was going bye bye; wherever Goblin was taking me, it was far away from there. Don't get me wrong, I tried to put up a fight under my shied, actually getting off a few poor lightning strikes that Goblin easily avoided. Hell, I launched a few missile constructs at him, and was seriously considering creating a Combat Avatar to help break the chain, but after the 20th consecutive hit (yes, he got that many shots on me), Goblin decided to mix things up a bit. He gave me one last power swing for good measure, and then fell back slightly, as if letting gravity decide the rest of the outcome. My first thought was to retaliate with a lightning strike, or construct barrage, and I probably would have, if it wasn't for the huge energy signature I was picking up directly over head. Son of a b*+(#, that bastard was gonna use my own trick against me! I slammed my foot against the inside of my barrier, and launched myself backwards with a lightning bolt out of my foot, while simultaneously dropping the shield. I shot out of range just as Goblin's Zeus, or should I say Hades Cannon, dropped out of the sky and planted itself into the road. I was safely out of the way, but if only that was the best thing that could've happened. The Hades Cannon hit a few cars in the parking lot, setting off a chain explosion that trashed a lot of cars (thank God nobody was in them). Speaking of which, I took a quick pause to take in my surroundings. I definitely wasn't in Scott City anymore (obviously), but the place was definitely reminiscent. To my left was a huge stack of apartment buildings, to my left, some type of theater that had the word 'State' on it in lights. To the back and front of me, I could see different types of buildings, winding roads, and lots of traffic and locals; in other words, this place was definitely bigger than Scott City, but that also meant that there were more people to hurt, more collateral to worry about. I tried to suppress that thought, as I summoned my sword again, and charged Goblin in a desperate attempt to keep his attention. I ran around Goblin as fast as I could, stabbing and slashing at his exposed points, like his knees, cracks in his armor, and if I could get a good shot, the arms. Goblin fumbled about trying to hack me with that axe of his (almost succeeding a few times), but was only swiping air. Still, this wasn't exactly effective to what I wanted to accomplish, which at this moment was just to give any civilians in the area a chance to get out; that $#!+ doesn't really work when you're fighting faster than people can run. My game of 'let's see how long you can poke a bear till he kills you' game continued for about another two seconds, and then Goblin brought it to an abrupt halt. He slammed his fist into the ground, releasing a huge shockwave that tore through the roads, crumbling them like asphalt cookies, and causing tremors so severe, the buildings around us started to collapse. I couldn't let this happen! I could literally feel the static fields of everyone trapped in those buildings, at least a couple hundred at minimum, even if it wasn't the main mission, i'll be damned if I stand by and let innocent people take the wrap for something that was my responsibility. I quickly erupted a lightning geyser under Goblin's feet, and then blew him away with a huge blast of Thunder Vision (the big lightning blasts from my eyes), using the Power Grid to augment the blast and send Goblin as far away from this area as possible. Granted, I only blasted him about half mile into the air, but after tapping into SMS, i'd have more than enough time to get in, save the people, and get back in the fight. I dashed back and forth between all of the buildings as fast as I could. For me, it felt like several minutes (and this was when my speed was fully amped up) as I dashed into each apartment, each store, each building, and picked up every civilian within a mile radius, and dropped them off at a local Hampton inn, about 3 miles over. Not enough off a distance to be 100% out of danger, but far enough to where I could focus on Goblin without worrying about their safety; well...at least most of them. On the way back to my starting point, aka where I blasted Goblin to the heavens, I noticed something I hadn't before, a group of five static auras in the middle of the apartment complex I had checked on my first go around. I kicked myself for not noticing them before, but then again, I was running around a lot in a small distance, my thunder trial probably electrified the air so much, their bio signatures were masked in plain sight, especially considering how fast I was going. Anyway, I raced in after them. The crumbling building was almost finished coming down, but if I hightailed it, I could get them all out of there with about .1 seconds to spare: I raced up the stairs, took the third hall on the right (it was way too risky to go phasing through walls, I might've fallen through a missing floor), and smashed my way into the apartment. The first person I got to was a boy. He looked around eight years old, with messy black hair, green eyes, wearing a red T-Shirt and blue shorts. I managed to get him to the safe zone lickity split, and made my way back to rescue his mother, father, two brothers, and sister. Again, I managed to get a hold of one of his other brothers, and his sister (who ironically enough all looked similar); this time things didn't go according to plan, not even a little. I managed to get back outside, and as far as the stop light, about 50 meters away, before my speed failed me. The air around me surged bright with Goblin's unnatural lightning. It was too fast, my reflexes only barely kicked in as I raised a body shield around myself and the kids; and not a very good one. Everything flashed bright for a second, and when I was able to see again, I found myself lying on the asphalt, staring at a boy with black hair, green eyes, a nearly singed off black shirt, and frying skin almost as black as obsidian. I could feel the absence of electricity pulsing through his body, his static aura slowly dissipating; his eyes were wide open, looking dead at me, but they were glazed over, a million miles away. I nearly lost it at the sight. This boy was dead. Even worse, the apartment complex had already been trashed, his parents and other brother were in there. I didn't save them. I had completely failed them all, if only I had been faster, if only I had kept the battle back in the wheat fields near Scott City, if only….I heard something! The small cough of a little girl over to my left, near a smoking car. I ran over to her and scooped her in my arms. She was pretty banged up. A broken arm, lightly burnt skin, and there was a nasty gash across her forehead, probably had a concussion, but she was still alive; thank God, she was alive. Still, something seemed off. I wasn't in Speed Mode, it had been at least a good twenty seconds since Goblin had last attacked. I used my Thunder Sense to scan for him, and found him hovering about 200 feet in the air directly over me and the kids. I looked up, and that was when my enhanced vision kicked in (well kicked in further, my eyesight was already 20/20, but if I need it to be, I can zoom in on objects further away). Goblin had his arms crossed, a smug look on his face that was mixed with a type of sadistic glee and satisfaction. He seemed to be gloating over me at the sight of my failed attempt to save the boy and his family, as if saying: See? Now what did I tell you? I heard his voice in my head again, the black hole actually increasing in force against the edges of my skull.

"Death always wins," he said. "And I will bring death to all."

I got a tight hold on the girl, scooped up the boy, and made a mad dash away from where I was. While I was running, I couldn't help but feel revolted at the sick feeling of dead weight from carrying the boy in my right arm. I mean, I can lift an entire ton, and this boy was still the heaviest thing i've ever had to hold. By the way, I was making a mad dash to the hospital (which was conveniently about half a mile from the Hampton Inn). Firstly, the girl needed some medical attention, and the boy deserved to at least get ready for a decent burial (yeah I know, morgue and hospital are not the same thing). As I ran, I raised a decent body shield around me and the kids, they had suffered enough damage for one day; I also found another way to use the Power Grid to my advantage. Instead of using it as just another energy source, I used it as a kind of energy sonar; if Goblin was gonna try and pull the rug under me again with my own trick, i'd sense it immediately, and be able to counter it. As was such, it wasn't exactly needed. Goblin flew after me, trying to blast me with bolts of lightning, and fire, but I was way too determined to get these kids to safety; he could barely keep up, much less get a proper shot. It only took about half a second, but I saw the hospital within sight, which meant that I had to stall for some time. I accessed the Power Grid, trapped Goblin in another tesla sphere, and launched it as far backwards as I mentally could; that would provide me with at least 5 seconds. I quickly dashed through the emergency room, and plopped the kids on the nearest set of chairs.

"SOMEONE HELP!" I shouted. "I NEED A DOCTOR HERE FOR THE GIRL!"

A few nurses and a doctor who looked suspiciously like David Hasselhoff, ran out and surveyed the scene. Mr. Kennedy said that these mask would blur my face when in public, which is why the group looked at me like I was a ghost.

"Who are you?" the doctor asked me. "What-"

"That's not important!" I quickly interrupted him. "The girl needs help now! The boy is already dead, but please take care of him, make sure he gets sent to be properly buried. I have to go now, the guy who did this is on my-"

My Speed Sense kicked in hard. Directly behind me, Goblin was already charging through the doors, his mouth opened in mid roar, and a column of fire spewing from his mouth. The path was way too narrow, and he was coming in way too hot. If I didn't get him out of the building this very nanosecond, the doctor, nurse, and the girl would die, and who knows how many more who were behind the walls, or in various other parts of the building. I was having none of it. No more deaths. Except for Goblin, no one else was dying today. I summoned my shield and charged it with a ton of voltage. Once I was satisfied with the nearly uncontrollable surge, I rammed into Goblin's face (I created a body shield around myself to take care of the flames that my shield couldn't protect me from), and discharged a powerful, but extremely focused, blast of lightning that launched him out of the emergency lobby, and sent him crashing into a couple cars in the parking lot. I kept up the pressure, determined to get this fight away from the hospital. Using my shield (which was still charged with a considerable amount of voltage), I caught up to Goblin, and while blocking or avoiding his various axe swings, I repeatedly whacked and slashed at him with my shield. In all honesty, I should've busted it out a long time ago. It was light, good on defense, and was sharp enough to easily slice through his arms and legs; I even managed to get some good shots off on his armor that actually broke off some pieces. Goblin and I went at it like this for a good 30 seconds, but after a few close calls with his fire balls, plus the weighing inevitability that sooner or later, one of us would call down some lightning, I remembered my main objective, which was to keep this fight moving. I blocked one of Goblin's swings one last time, did a quick sweeping move with my shield, slicing off his legs at the kneecaps, and with a charging train construct (I loved making those), I launched Goblin a good half a mile away from the hospital, and raced after him. At about three times the speed of sound, I rammed Goblin with my shield in his lower back, zipped around him and uppercut him with the mother of all Thunder Fist constructs. As he was flying backwards, I used the Power Grid to hit him with Phantom Bolt after Phantom Bolt, trying to keep him off balance, and cause as much damage to him as possible. This strategy worked for a while, but Goblin managed to break the cycle with a huge explosive wave, and flew straight at me like a pissed of flying piranha; I took off running in the opposite direction (did I forget to mention that we were fighting in the middle of traffic?).

For the next five minutes or so, fighting Goblin was about the same of Fast & Furious mixed with Clash of the Titans. As I was dashing in and out of traffic, I was using the Power Grid so much, i'm surprised I didn't burn out all of the electrons in the air. From giant sledgehammers, to Phantom Bolts, and missile constructs, I kept blasting Goblin with everything I had; the ironic thing was how much I was defending others from his attacks rather than myself. See, most of his blasts were, either on purpose or by terrible aim, heading towards civilian vehicles, and like I said, I wasn't letting anyone else die today. Every time I sensed one of his blasts going off course, I immediately accessed the Power Grid, and made a shield construct a good ways away from whatever it was going to hit, while at the same time, maintaining my voltage fury against Goblin. After about 20 missiles, 10 sledgehammer, and a hell of a lot of Phantom Bolts, Goblin finally lost his cool, and tried to tackle me head on. You know, if I took a shot for every time Goblin tried to charge me head on, i'd be drunk as f*(#. Still, I couldn't get so smug and arrogant, the only reason I had to fight smart was because all it would take is one good punch without any defenses or protection, and i'd be a spot on the pavement; people like Goblin on the other hand, had lives to burn. Anyway, I sidefliped over him, stuck my sword in between his exposed armor points (which were really starting to increase), and knocked us both out of traffic with a huge Phantom Bolt. A few seconds later, my Speed Sense kicked in, and I saw that Goblin and I were headed for a huge tree, that probably would've smashed me into mush at the rate I was going to hit it. I took that as my signal to get off, and I launched myself off of Goblin by hitting him in his side with my fist, and using the lightning that erupted from it, to propel me into the air, and in between the trees branches. Goblin simply smashed through it (and a few more), before crashing hard to the ground. On the bright side, that was so hilarious that it could've easily earned a million hits on YouTube. The bad side? Goblin recovered faster than I thought he would, and faced me while I was still in the air. Meaning that if he chose to shoot me with something dark, purple, and powerful, i'd be helpless to dodge it.

Naturally, Goblin started to do just that. But as his eyes started glowing, I quickly launched a construct missile barrage at him made from my own power reserves (the boys back at S.H.I.E.L.D. want me to be as thorough as possible). This mattered, because, while the Power Grid allowed me to access energy from thin air (figuratively speaking), my own power reserves both harness and concentrated electricity, making it a lot more powerful. Anyway, Goblin created a barrier over himself, and as soon as my feet touched the ground, he tried the whole tackling thing again (that's another shot). I went into Speed Mode, dodged him Neo style (Matrix reference), quickly turned around, and shot him in his side with a Phantom Bolt; P.S. more trees will die. I knocked Goblin in his side with another Phantom Bolt, and he went careening through several trees. As I ran towards him, I created two huge Thunder Fists, and started wailing on him at high speed. Whenever I swung at him, a half a million volt fist knocked him through several full grown trees. When he tried tackling me, two giants fists said Hell No, and b*+(# slapped him through three more trees, and so on, and so on. It would go on like this for a good minute and a half, Goblin actually getting better over the course of the brawl, almost managing to get a shot off on me. Still, I was faster, and more pissed off than ever. Looking at his monstrous face filled me with so much rage, so much hate, and disgust, I couldn't help but unhinge a little bit. When he retreated and tried attack with a lightning strike, I grabbed him with one of the fist constructs, recycled the energy from the other one to make a huge thunderbolt, and made it slam into Goblin with the force of a tank. As Goblin went flying backwards, I created more Thunder Fists and continued to wail on him for as long as I could. With each strike, my grief for the family I couldn't save, for my friend who almost got killed at Goblin's hand, for the agents and heroes that were probably dead because of him, all of it got let loose.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER!?" I roared at him as I kept up the pounding. "I A BIT HARDER TO KILL THAN A DEFENSELESS BOY!?"

A hard right electric fist exploded in face.

"DOES MY MY POWER RATE A BIT HIGHER THAN THAT OF A CRYING LITTLE GIRL!?"

Two fists danced around Goblin, punching every square inch of his being.

"YOU LIKE CAUSING PAIN? YOU LOVE DEATH SO MUCH? LET ME TEACH YOU PAIN! LET ME GIVE YOU DEATH!"

The fists slammed into Goblin one last time, exploding on impact, and in that moment, I realized something horrible. It wasn't just vengeance for the family that got broken because of Goblin that motivated me. Hell, it wasn't even the desire to do right for the sake of it. No, deep down, I was taking out my anger on Goblin, anger against myself. You, see I realized that it didn't matter what way you twisted it. Whether I was a S.H.I.E.L.D. intern, a hero in training, a temporary member of a temporary task force, whatever. Here and now, I was a superhero, and because of me, two little kids will never see their brother or parents again; I had become what I hate, my whole vendetta against heroes was null and void, and that left me with nothing solid to cling to. I hated that, and now Goblin was paying the price for my failures.

Moving back to the fight. Before Goblin could even think about recovery, I raised my hands, and the sky around us went from grey to almost black (different city, the sky wasn't the same like in Scott City), and after a boom of thunder so loud, a Zeus Cannon fell from the heavens, and steamrolled Goblin into the ground. The blast was so big, it would've easily swallowed two skyscrapers whole, in fact, it was a good thing I was in the middle of some abandoned park, because this blast would've completely destroyed traffic or anything else that could get wrecked. Still, I was fighting angry, I was losing my grip on my skill, and I nearly paid the price for that with my life. Goblin erupted out of the ground, and grabbed me in his right fist. Usually my Speed Sense would alert me of this kind of thing, but it required my static aura to activate, and in the presence of the Zeus Cannon, it was probably overloaded from all of the voltage. Anyway, Goblin gripped me tight with both of his hands, and I had to put all of my being into maintaining a body shield that would hold up to the pressure. As if I wasn't already f*(# % up enough, Goblin opened his mouth, and blasted me with a brutal wave of concentrated fire. The blast lasted for a good 10 seconds, pushing my shields durability, and my ability to keep it up, to the max. After the barrage stopped, and everything wasn't purple anymore, I kinda wanted everything to be purple again; it would've been 10X more of a welcome sight, than Goblin's oversized fist ramming into me.

You better believe I shot through the air like a missile from Hell. At about 200 mph, I soared through the air, my body shield destroyed after being hit with that Hulk level punch. Thanks to both the shield and my armor, I didn't have anything broken where it mattered, but I was definitely not in the best of situations to make a fighting stand; and you know what, things actually started to get worse from there. My Speed Sense went off, but this time in two different directions. I could sense Goblin's lightning blast making it's way towards me, so that was nothing new, but behind me, my Thunder Sense was picking up a giant building, and at the speed I was going at, the impact would definitely be excruciating, if not kill me. I quickly summoned my shield and curled under it, while raising another body shield to take the brunt of the impact with the building. Half a sec later, the lightning blast pushed me from going at 200 mph, to 255 mph; all that was left was to take the crash like a man. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. Thanks to the body shield, the what would be bone crushing ordeal, only felt like being rammed into a really thick layer of padding; still kinda painful, but definitely not anything health hazardous. Still, this was not the worst part of what was to come. As soon as I crashed through the building and opened my eyes, while still in mid fall (I had crashed into what had to be a college library), Goblin freaking already had a hand enclosed around me. How he flew so fast that even my Speed Sense couldn't alert me, I don't know. What I did know was that the fight had once again moved to a populated area, and I was stuck in an impossible situation unless I used my lightning powers. Yet, even in the face of certain death and destruction, something amazing happened. Whether it was sudden realization, or body reflex, I suddenly remembered my cool new ability to phase through solid objects. Now If you're thinking that I just phased through Goblin's next attack, you're wrong (although that wouldn't have been a bad idea). No, on another reflex, I charged my fist with a ton of lightning, which felt weird considering that I was already vibrating at high speed, and punched Goblin in the face with a desperate right cross. Normally, this wouldn't even be a lovetap to someone like Goblin, but this punch wasn't normal. As soon as my fist made impact, Goblin got knocked back with the force of a bomb, completely crashing through the library entrance (good thing I was wearing a vibrating mask), and at least two cars out in the parking lot (so glad I was wearing a vibrating mask); oh and by the way, he was still going, and going, and going. Usually, this would be the part where the guy stares at his hand in disbelief, and wonder to himself how he accomplished such a feat; I simply gave myself a silent whop, as well as cursing myself for not figuring this out, or at least trying it out sooner. Long story short, according to Physics (i'll keep it simple), the faster and object moves, the more kinetic energy, inertia, and mass it has; meaning it'll hurt like a b!+^#. I was vibrating my molecules at around several hundred thousand m/s (miles per second), not to mention the lightning speeding up my molecules by at least two times what they were already going at, plus the actual speed of my arm going forward. Add that up, and you get a punch with the force of about 800,100 m/s. Long story short, science rules, and so do I. I got up quickly, and made a mad dash for Goblin, only barely managing to keep a lock on him by using the Power Grid to track his energy signature. You know you really have the power to ruin somebody's day when you actually go looking for a psychopath overpowered on undead energy. Is this how all mutants come into their powers? Because if so, that's troubling to think about. Anyway, as I was running towards Goblin, I heard another voice in my head.

"That's it boy!" said some guy who sounded like he was having the time of his life, and at the same time, in a hurry. "Show that upstart ruffian the true potential of a speedster!"

"Please shut up!" I thought back to him, because I was certain I wasn't imagining it. "I'm trying to focus, plus I really don't need any more strangers in my head!"

"Ever vigilant!" the dude responded. "Very well, I shall leave you to your duties. Know that Hermes, the lord of speed, is rooting for your victory; Excelsior my friend!"

Uhhhh…...ok. A god was in my head. An actual mythological god chose to talk to me, for no other reason than to tell me that he was betting on me; i'm gonna do my best to be ok with that.

So as far as the fight was progressing, it was actually going pretty damn good. I managed to catch up to Goblin in half a sec, and while he was a bit too high for me to reach, a well timed lightning strike brought him down to ground level, and back in striking range. I made my body vibrate again, not as fast as my first time (that would be way too hard to do while running), but enough to keep putting the hurt on Goblin. While running, I hit him with several hard vibration punches (not an official name), and watched in glee as he bounced back further and further, multiple pieces of armor chipping off of him in the wind. It wasn't a strategy that didn't come with it's flaws. For one, I only struck with more force, but I was not stronger, or more durable, so it wasn't like I could get careless and start brawling like an idiot. Also, I may have been striking with a bit more power than Grant (a fact that I would have to rub in his face if he was alive), but Goblin was still stronger, on top of still having energy manipulation powers. So yeah, there were a few times where he recovered, and we had to have a battle of lightning and constructs before I managed to pull the rug out from under him again before I could go back to hitting him with some seriously amplified speed punches. After a while, or should I say after punching Goblin's ass around the town for a good two minutes, I tried something different. I punched Goblin with a few more vibration punches to the gut (tapping into SMS to make sure he didn't fly off into the distance), I ran back as fast as I could, about a good two miles or so, and came back to deliver the hardest punch i've ever dealt in my life. Seriously, the air around us boomed so much, that it shredded trees and actually put cracks in the concrete. Goblin on the other hand, practically disappeared as he rocketed off into the distance, his armor literally breaking off in chunks as he careened out of control. I followed eagerly, sensing the end in sight, but found to my horror that Goblin was heading straight towards a small neighborhood about 10 miles from where we were. I immediately, used my Thunder Sense to scan for signs of people, and breathed a little easier when I sensed only about 50 or so civilians; not completely out of danger, but if I could direct the fight the way I wanted to, I could move it away from the people easy as pie. As was such, Goblin was on a collision course with a small house that was filled with a good five people. I hit him to the side with a Phantom Bolt, ran up the length of the building parkour style, and kicked Goblin with a huge spinning vibration kick, followed by a vibration hammer punch, sending him smashing across the road like a skipping stone (aww what the hell, Vibration Punch/Kick it is, can't think of anything else). Not to downplay the awesomeness of what I just did (because it was pretty awesome), but Goblin immediately retconned everything I had done up to this moment in the very next second. He got up and hovered a few feet off of the ground, engulfing himself in Underworld energy. It didn't take long, just a small flash, a slight flare, but when it all died down, Goblin was sporting a fresh set of armor, completely repaired, no cracks, missing chunks or anything; I was pissed. Still, Goblin, didn't stop there, no no no, he was just getting started. He roared again, so loud that he actually shattered all of the glass within a half mile radius, and after glowing brighter than one of Allyson's mini-sun's, blasted me with the mother of all power cannons, as in, this mother was so big, it would've blown a trench of carnage through the neighborhood, and everything behind it, if I didn't stop it. I immediately flashed back to my first day of training, when Ms. Marvel nearly blasted me to to the great unknown with a huge Photon Blast; naturally I responded to this situation in the same way. I dug into as much electricity as I could, which wasn't even all of it, considering the fact that my body is a living generator, and blasted Goblin with at least several hundred million volts of juice. The power struggle was so real, like trying to push back thousands of tons of force with both my mind and body. On top of that, this battle wasn't exactly exclusive. Small tendrils of lightning from both our blasts, which were big enough to shatter statues, bounced outwards in random dangerous tangents. One of mine's hit a few trees, blowing them to splinters, Goblin's tore through the roads like dry clay, and once, one of my bolts almost crashed into an empty house, forcing me to derail it with half a second to spare. After those subtle hints, I kinda got the memo that Goblin and I needed a controlled environment for our battle, so I accessed the Power Grid, and used it to create a barrier around the two of us and our power battle. This was a good idea if you were focused solely on protecting people (which I was), but not if you were trying to win any battles. You see, accessing the Power Grid allows me and alternate source of power to draw on, which helps if you're doing a lot of speed combat. However, it still took a lot of concentration to access, especially if you're maintaining something as large as a 100 X 50 meter containment field; in other words, the longer I held up the field, the closer and closer Goblin's blast inched towards overtaking me. I held Goblin's blast back for as long as I could, but sooner than i'd like to have said, my vision was starting to get predominately purple; not a good sign. I had nothing left to lose. If I lost this battle, i'd not only lose my life, but also the lives of everyone that I stood in the way of; I steeled my nerves, and tried something reckless. I focused on the sky above me, making it surge and rumble as it generated thousands of volts for me. I managed to keep Goblin at bay for another 10 seconds, which was like trying to keep a charging Rhino from breaking into your house, and once I could feel the power in the sky reach the exact amount of energy I needed, I quickly pulled the energy of the barrier into myself, giving my blast a bit of a boost, and in less than a second, a Zeus Cannon crashed into me, giving me all of it's power. With that major boost, I put everything I had into forcing it all on Goblin, and in less than three seconds, the blast was already an inch away from overtaking him. Still, I needed to be smart about this. I yanked my fists at a downward angle, and the very millisecond that the blast made contact with Goblin, it moved upwards and propelled itself, and Goblin sky high. With the half a second I gave myself to rest, I realized how off I felt. It wasn't like a bad thing, where it seemed like my powers were shutting down, but something felt broken inside me, something important had just snapped. Still, I didn't have time for a physical, I had a Goblin to smash. I ran after him, keeping a pin on him with my energy tracker, and got ready for the mother of all running strikes. I kept my body vibrating as I ran, building up so much kinetic energy, I probably could've leveled a small city. Once I caught up to Goblin, I hit him with a Phantom Bolt from above, knocking him within jumping range, and leapt so high into the air, it was almost like I was flying. As I reeled my fist back for what was sure to be and epic punch, Goblin somehow recovered, dodged my punch, and summoned his sword. As he swung, I panicked and vibrated even faster, which was unnecessary considering that I was already vibrating fast enough to phase through his strike. As the blade passed through me, I quickly spun around, hit Goblin with a bolt of lightning so powerful, it even surprised me as Goblin got taser zapped through the sky at about 200mph; seriously, that was just a reflex shot, it shouldn't have been near that powerful or focused. Still, I didn't get the proper shot off on Goblin like I wanted to, when I landed back on the ground i'd have to try again. Then, in a sudden flash, I realized something SUPER important. I. Was. Not. Falling.

I looked at myself, would've leapt out of my skin, but it wasn't there anymore. Where my black battle suit should've been, not to mention my arms, legs, hands, feet, etc., all that was there, was a swirling outline of my body made from storm clouds. Seriously, my body was a swirling black and grey silhouette with lightning randomly sparking across it. I was somehow feeling the sensation of being lighter than air, and yet I could still feel my my body weight; it was extremely trippy, and I was freaking out. What if this was my new form now, i've heard of mutants who can't control the way they look, and while people like Nightcrawler weren't too bad, I couldn't be a floating cloud for the rest of my life, I was way too pretty for that! Just as I was starting to fear i'd be a storm cloud forever (when I really should've been focused on fighting Goblin), time slowed down to a literal freeze, and another voice drummed into my head.

"Calm yourself Jason!" A voice like thunder itself boomed in my head. "All will be well, if thou'st will heed my commands!"

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" I mentally shouted back at him "AND IF YOU DID THIS TO ME, YOU BETTER-"

"DO NOT PRESUME TO COMMAND ME BOY!" the voice exploded in my head, making me a bit more silent than I usually would have been to anyone else. "I AM ALL-FATHER ZEUS! LORD OF THE SKIES, KING OF THUNDER! WIELDER OF STORMS! AND I DEMAND RESPECT FROM MY DESCENDANTS!"

Yeah, even with the almost certainty that my head wouldn't stop ringing for a good few days, I was pretty sure I had heard the voice of Zeus say the word 'descendants', and use the word as a reference to me. No freaking way.

"Descendant?" I cautiously thought back to him. "As in, you're my times however many great grandfather?"

"Indeed," he thought back to me. "You are a fiftieth generation child of the All-Father, and thou art just coming into the fruition of his greater powers."

"Not to sound ungrateful 50X great grandpa, but you do understand that your stuff is running amok in the world right? Goblin has one that belongs to 50X great uncle, any chance I could get some godly backup here?

"If it were that simple child, I would've sent warriors from Olympus to retrieve them already. No, Olympus is under siege. The same dark forces that have undone our magic to keep the stones hidden, have also assembled an assault on Olympus. We cannot reach out to our allies, nor can they to us; for now, the world will have to get by without the aid of the gods."

"Yeah, cuz we reeeally needed your help the last 3,000 years."

"If only you knew boy. As such, the gods are preoccupied, and can not be of assistance, however, I sensed a sizeable surge of my power manifest itself on earth; I had to be sure that it was not one of my enemies trying to use my own power against me."

"So you have no idea why i'm like this?"

"Of course I do! As a result of both being my descendant, as well as a genetic mutation, my powers have blended with your mutant ability to increase the speed of your body and cellular structure; you are literally the result of a cross between mutant and divinity, you should be honored."

"I can barely contain my joy! But why now, and will I be able to reverse it!?"

"You are starting to annoy me child! Your current form is a result of you constantly overcharging your cells with lightning, your body is literally breaking through it's barriers that you helped to destroy! This is not something that will be permanent, nor will it simply vanish. Your new powers must run their courses, and properly integrate into your system. Though I am occupied in battle, my window of communication will remain open for twenty more minutes; assuming you will mind your tongue and heed my instructions, I will guide you through your new powers. Are you ready Jason?"

"Yeah whatever, let's just do this already."

My mind suddenly felt like it was being churned around in a blender, kinda like what the Norn-Fates did, but less mind numbing. After it was over, I suddenly knew how to use my new cloud powers. It was like Zeus had simply poured an instruction manual in my head, I wasn't scared anymore; far from it.

"Show him the wrath of the sky!" Zeus screamed into my head, as I time resumed, and I shot at Goblin like a missile.

I couldn't say that I flew faster than I ever have, because this was my first time, BUT BOY WAS IT SOMETHING! I wasn't going as fast as I could on the ground (probably cuz I needed more practice), but there was something about flying, the absence of limits, the rush of the wind, the feeling like I was on the world's greatest roller coaster that was only for me to ride, it was almost too much to take in at one time, so I focused on kicking Goblin's sorry butt out of my sky. As I approached him at Mach 5, I willed my Storm Form (official name), to change into the shape of a missile. After I exploded all over Goblin (poor choice of words), I split into four different fists, each big enough to pick up cars, and wailed on Goblin with a non stop Storm Fist barrage. Ok, Lesson 1 of Storm Form (yes, i'm gonna give you the SIMPLE rundown), my body, although now vapor in structure, is still mostly held together by a thin molecular bond that keeps me from spreading out into thin air. If I choose to do so, I can temporarily break or alter those bonds, giving me the ability to reshape, or alter my body in any way I want; essentially making myself a human construct. So yeah, after wailing on Goblin for a good while as Storm Fists, I regathered myself, and before Goblin could even spit in my direction, I blasted him with an extremely focused bolt of lightning, sending careening towards the ground. Lesson 2 of Storm Form, while in this form, my electric reserves were being constantly charged and vibrated, like an amped up version of Monster being blended with Red Bull. As a result, all of my lightning blasts were 5X as strong as they would be if I wasn't incorporeal. I couldn't create lightning constructs, but that was only a minor sacrifice, especially considering what I could also do in Storm Form. I took off after Goblin, turning into a pillar of storm cloud (kinda looked like I was Apparating), and absorbing as much air pressure as I could. Goblin crashed into a small grassy area between ongoing traffic, and as soon as he got up, I reformed my body, put as much energy into my fist as I could, making it expand 10X it's size, and uppercutted Goblin so hard, I may have accidentally blew a few cars off the road (I said I was sorry). Final lesson of Storm Form 101, my new power could absorb air into itself, and use that condensed air to make my attacks hit a lot harder; think of it as a Mike Tyson fist that could turn up the hurt dials at will.

I chased Goblin around the skies for a while, punching and zapping him with as much speed and ferocity I could dish out. He tried to fight back a few times, actually zapping me in the chest with a bolt of purple lightning, and setting every nerve I had on fire. That brings me to a few weaknesses my Storm Form had. Number 1: Outside energy strains the already fragile molecular bonds that hold me together; if I get zapped with too much hostile energy, my Storm Form will either short out, or i'll just disperse into a nonliving puff of air. Number 2: No Speed Sense. That's like three problems in one; when I can't get occasional warnings about surprise attacks, I tend to take a lot more hits than I usually do. Still, even without it I was still quick on my...air, and kept up a good fight against Goblin; after that first hit, I learned to make my Storm Form maneuver a bit better, I mean I was a cloud version (better) of Mr. Fantastic after all. I kept up the fight for a good four minutes our so, but after that, things started to hurt. My molecules felt like they were being stretched apart like taffy, and if I didn't reform myself, as in get a solid body again, i'd be in some serious trouble. Right, now Goblin and I were not in the best position for a pit stop. We were over a mildly inhabited neighborhood, a group of about twenty kids playing in the streets (this place must have had like zero Wi-fi, gangs, or drug dealers), but this would have to do, I felt like Icarus' wings in the sun. I turned into a pillar of cloud again, and tackled Goblin out of the sky. As we fell, I focused on becoming solid again, willing my molecules to compact, shut off the air, and make myself tall, black, and handsome again. As we hit the ground, I quickly dashed off of Goblin, and made my way to the kids.

"Run now!" I yelled at them, probably looking really sinister with my vibrating face. "There's a bad guy over there, he wants to get you, run!"

Gotta love the simplicity of childlike comprehension, cuz they took off running and screaming like it was another game. I almost felt proud of myself, but then I heard a roar, followed by the jerking feeling of my Speed Sense. I turned around, and faced Goblin, who was nothing more or less than a charging streak of purple energy; however, things felt weird now. I was definitely in Speed Mode, I knew that much for certain, but I felt…more. I literally could feel the air, like I was in an invisible shroud of heavy fog. I didn't know how to explain it, but I felt, connected to the air, like it was listening patiently for me to give it in order. Furthermore, I felt a small bit of power building up in the pit of my stomach. It was small, microscopic even, but it was definitely growing at an alarming rate; I was actually afraid of it. Still, that was beside the point. Right here and now, the air was waiting on me to make a move, so I moved both of my arms to the right, slashed them through the air as hard as I could and grinned like an idiot as a burst of air, strong enough to rip through an oak tree, slammed into Goblin's side, sending him tumbling sideways into the pavement. This time, Zeus' voice wasn't whispering instructions in my ear. Maybe he thought I could handle it, maybe he knew I was a huge Last Airbender fan, and would imitate everything I saw on the show; either way, he was right. I raced after Goblin, swiping my fists through the air, which may have well been like hitting him with invisible shot puts. The impacts of my air blasts, while not very effective on their own, eventually got better with a bit of tweaking. After Goblin had managed to get used to small blasts of pressurized air, forcing me to backtrack and rely on lightning blasts, constructs, and vibration punches (which weren't exactly the worst things to rely on), I dodged one of his axe swings, chopped of the hand that held it, quickly spun into a vibration reverse kick (adding the lightning for good measure), and after he crashed deep into a patch of trees, which would buy me a few seconds, I went to work. I clenched my right fist, and focused on making the air around it intensify, using the electrons in the air come to life to help it along. It took a half sec, but after a while, a mini thundercloud, about twice the size of my hand, surged to life; not a moment too soon, cuz Goblin was back on his feet and darting out of the woods. I didn't know whether or not the blast was strong enough to do any real damage, but I was out of time. I reeled my arm back, took a pitching stance, and hurled my thundercloud at Goblin for all the marbles. I said something about the blast not being strong enough to do any real damage right? I feel like I should apologize to the blast, because it proved me wrong like so hard. As soon as the blast made contact with Goblin's chest, the thing blew apart with the force of an RPG on steroids, making one hell of a thunderclap, and sending Goblin through the patch of trees, and into some type of abandoned car junkyard (why was a neighborhood near a car junkyard?). I won't lie and say he didn't cause a few minor explosions, sending cars into the distance, but I will say I used the Power Grid to create a force field around our battle to keep the people safe. The good news, nobody could get in. The good/bad news, Goblin and I were not getting out (unless he gave me a really good blow to the head). I started to vibrate, and charged Goblin for all I was worth.

Goblin and I brawled in the junkyard for a good five minutes (you gotta wonder where we got the energy from), exchanging blasts and blows without pause. I used everything I had in my arsenal. Vibration punches, lightning blasts, phantom bolts, constructs, but my best trick was my new airbending (yes i'm calling it that, deal with it). I found a way to refine my airbending, to where I could slash Goblin with electrically charged blades of air. They were so sharp, they could cut right through his flesh (and the cars). Hell, there were a few times when I got a good slash off, and actually tore through pieces of Goblin armor (which immediately repaired itself), but it was definitely not a perfect formula. I was in a closed environment, which meant that I had less room to run, or dodge (without vibrating though objects), meaning more often than not, I had to rely on close quarters combat. Now with my vibration punches, that wasn't much of a threat, but remember that power building up in my stomach? The more I vibrated, the more the power grew, the more it started to hurt, the less I could maintain vibration without sheer agony. I mean think about how screwed you are, when the one thing you have that keeps you from getting killed, gets nerfed. Still, I managed to keep Goblin at bay with my airbending and lightning blasts. One time, in a move I call Tornado Blast, I managed to focus the air and electrons into a Final Flash type move, just with storming winds surging with electricity. Goblin countered it with his own power blast, actually trumping mine, and sending me though the dashboard of an old Cadillac (pissing me off in the process), but it was still a good try. After that last shot that should've broke bones, I started to get serious. My body was starting to feel unstable, volatile even, and before I could do anything about it, the winds around Goblin and I started to pick up. I didn't know how I was doing it, but Zeus started whispering instructions in my ear again, and I knew what was happening. I focused on harnessing the winds, which were now reaching speeds of near 150 mph, and extended my hands outwards. Immediately, the winds increased in speed and ferocity, engulfing anything under the force field in a swirling black death cloud, surging with voltage (I actually had to put a force field over myself to avoid getting a stray car to the head).

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" Goblin roared at me, though I doubt he could see me through the thick haze of the rising winds. "WHAT IS THIS MA-"

I got tired of hearing his voice, so I hit him with a tangent of lightning from my whirlwind. After that, I did something so awesome, so mind bendingly cool, Zeus had to have been proud of me (not that I cared). While maintaining the whirlwinds, and my own personal force field, I made my way out of the giant containment field, that was keeping the winds from tearing through the neighborhood, and once I was out, I willed the winds to pick up, and take the form of a huge tornado. I'm not joking you guys, I literally created my own tornado! It wasn't anything F5 level, more of an amped up F3 with lightning galore, but it was definitely a sight to see. The tornado was about 30 stories tall, enough to rip through a small skyscraper. As it went up in height, I restructured my containment field to get smaller and taller, enough to hug the tornado just right, without cutting off it's air supply. I used the electricity in the tornado to bombard Goblin with blasts after blasts of lightning, even managing to make the winds pick up even more, to make the cars fly into him. I kept up the effort for a good minute or so, before things started to go….a different direction. Remember that power building up in me? Well, it didn't reach critical mass, but it did spike, as in the power hiccuped, and I felt the effects of that. My body started to vibrate and surge uncontrollably, making it impossible to maintain the tornado/tornado barrier. I dropped to my knees, feeling like my insides were being blended together, trying so hard to keep my vision from swimming. I couldn't see for anything, but I could sense Goblin, and more importantly, my Speed Sense was alerting me to the fact that he was coming in hot. It wasn't a perfect, reliable, or even probable shot, but I considered at the level I was vibrating, my punch would at least be enough to get him off my back for a little bit. So with everything I had, I pinpointed Goblin with my Thunder Sense, timed my shot just right, and decked him in his face, sending him on a nice flight anywhere away from here.

"ZEUS!" I mentally screamed at him. "WHAT'S GOING ON?! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME, ARE YOU DOING THIS!?"

"CALM YOURSELF BOY!" he screamed back to me. "YOUR POWER IS RISING! STOP RESTRAINING YOURSELF FROM REALIZING YOUR FULL POTENTIAL! ALLOW THE POWER TO RESONATE AND FLOW THROUGH YOU, LET IT TRANSFORM YOU COMPLETELY! DO NOT FEAR WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY YOURS!"

Had to give it to X50 great grandpa, he could give one hell of a pep talk; made me wonder if Olympus had any sports teams.

I steadied my breathing, and let myself go. I stopped trying to stop what was happening to me, and let my powers do whatever it was they were trying to do. The churning in my stomach intensified, bolts of lightning were firing off of me in uncontrollable tangents (making me pray that they didn't hit anyone), and just when my pain levels were starting to reach a perfect 10/10, a huge blast wave exploded around me, leaving me with the feeling of a blissful existence; like burning lead had been removed from my veins. The power in my stomach was still building, but it was still rising at a steady rate, and by steady I mean, the pot hadn't completely boiled to an exploding point yet. Still, I felt great, my vision was a little blue, but other than Goblin coming to get me, in the distance, I was cool. Speaking of which, get ready for something cool. As Goblin came in for a landing, I got to my feet, and felt that familiar sense of gravity being more of an option, rather than an inescapable law of physics. As he came in hot, he blasted me with a good handful of lightning bolts, plus a huge ball of fire for good measure; I must have been getting good at the whole flying thing, because I maneuvered through his bolts, did a flying somersault over his fire ball, and upon recovery, raised my left hand and HOLY F*(#!%& $#!+ WHAT A BLAST! For those of you that are confused, I was under the assumption that I would release an average bolt of lightning out of my hand. Instead, with only one hand (which isn't really a factor anyway), I released a blast twice the power of a Final Flash, without trying mind you, and made Goblin blast into what was sure to be the upper stratosphere. I was buzzing, how the hell did I do that; then I took a look at myself. I was engulfed in a massive surge of lightning, and not just like massive, meaning I was lost in a giant spark, I mean my body was surging with a thick layer of voltage that covered my whole body, essentially making me an electric version of the Human Torch. I wasn't freaking out as much as I was when I got my Storm Form, but Zeus pitched in his two cents about my new ability anyway. Thunder Form (official name) lesson 1: This ability was automatically jettisoning 1% of my powers, covering me in a aura that allowed me to fly at superhuman speeds. Also, while in this form, my powers were regenerating at half the rate they would be if I was normal, but because I was also absorbing electrons in the air, it kinda made up for that. I swallowed my hype, homed in on Goblin's signature, and took off faster than a jet.

Goblin had already recovered, and was currently blasting me with undead fire balls (all of which I easily avoided), a once I was close enough, put on another huge burst of speed, faster than he could even dream about reacting, and buried my right fist deep in his gut, followed by a mid air backflip kick, and another one handed Final Flash. Thunder Form lesson 2: In this form, my body was being vibrated constantly by the voltage. I could vibrate even further, making my attacks much more painful for my enemies, but that would be stupid to do at such an early time of development; the last thing I needed was to accidentally give myself more powers. Also, in this form, i'm five times as strong and durable, which is not overpowered (yet), considering the fact that i'd only be able to lift about 5 tons, and still couldn't take blows as many blows from Goblin like Grant or Allyson could. Anyway, as Goblin flew back another mile or so, I pursued with the utmost haste. I managed to get two good flying punches on him (both of which cracked his armor), but things balanced out between our fighting after that. Again, he managed to recover, started blasting fire and lightning at me (like a one trick pony), but this time, as I was near the point of decking him in the face, I felt the Power Grid surge with foreign energy, and just barely managed to create a shield construct over myself (wasn't sure I could still do that) as a Phantom Bolt barreled into me. I quickly recovered (which was weird in mid air), and felt another huge surge of power coming my way. I could feel the huge shape making it's way toward me, and again, just managed to create a Mega Thunder Sword (yes, i'm copying Allyson), and blocked the purple cleaver that was bigger than a giant flag pole. Goblin and I exchanged in what was an interesting sky battle to say the least. We exchanged a few sword strikes, before I got bored, hit him in the back with a Phantom Bolt, and assaulted him with the mother of all missile construct barrages. He took a good ten or so of em' pretty hard, but he quickly generated a body shield, and launched a barrage of giant scythe constructs at me. I bobbed and weaved through them, made a beeline for Goblin, and hit him with a furious punch and kick combo, occasionally creating a few Thunder Swords, to mix it up. The tactic of direct fighting was about a 5/10 on the effective scale. Don't get me wrong, I could fight, but fighting in mid air was a whole new ball game for me, and Goblin definitely got a few good shots on me as a result of my inexperience. For example, after I hit him a good few hundred times, he ignited a minor explosive wave, enough to throw me off my game, and then proceeded to get his own combo off on me. It wasn't as consistent as mine was, but then again, every time he hit me, I went soaring backwards at least a mile and a half, which felt just as painful as getting an anvil shot out of a cannon at your chest, and for a while, all I could do was up the power on my Thunder Form (which can also be used as a makeshift shield), to keep Goblin's fists from taking permanent residence in my chest. It took a good few seconds, but after getting punched and kicked around like an electric hackey sack, I finally managed to tap into Speed Mode (it's somehow different in flight), summon my shield (which absorbed so much electricity from my Thunder Form, it could charge a billion iPhones), block Goblin's punch, reflecting most of the impact back at him (and letting him have all of the juice in my shield for good measure), and upon catching up with him, pounded him relentlessly with my shield. Rather on accident, or subconscious malice, I sliced my shield across his throat, beheading him instantly. I don't know why I did it, I didn't expect it to work, but I created a small orb of electricity, threw it in Goblin's hole where his head used to be, and made it detonate inside of him. I didn't expect much out of that, just a way to f*(# with Goblin for a bit, but as it turns out, I just struck gold. Goblin's body started to convulse and spasm (I had to back up quick to avoid a spasmodic backhand). In the center of his chest, energy, both electric and undead, overloaded and fried what was his nervous system or whatever. His arms and legs were being electrocuted off, but at the same time, being held together by the stone. Also, in what was probably an emergency repair, his head immediately reformed over his body; he was still a convulsing spasmodic mess, barely capable of combat, but he was at least in one piece. Still, that's just a minor detail, the main thing to realize was that I had just found a way to put Goblin out of action for good, but it would take a bit of maneuvering and a hella stalling.

I eyed Goblin down for a few seconds as he started to calm down from his episode. He glared back at me, and I could actually see that hate emanating from his eyes; forget The Shining One, I had Goblin's full attention. He charged me, and after knocking him sideways with a Phantom Bolt, I started brawling. Ok, backtracking a bit, I didn't IMMEDIATELY start brawling. While Goblin was flying halfway to the next city, I quickly summoned my blade, created a sheath construct on my back, and stored the blade there. The plan was to beat up on Goblin for as long as it took to get the blade charged with enough energy, and once at near critical, i'd land Goblin somewhere unpopulated, slice his head off, put the blade in his chest, and let the puppy blow; hey, external damage wasn't doing the trick, might as well try and take him from the inside. I rushed after Goblin, and kept up the pressure. To be fair, he put up more than a decent fight, what with his superior strength, average level of energy manipulation, and occasional constructs, but I was getting the hang of my Thunder Form quicker than he could even hope to put me down. I bobbed and weaved through his blasts, countered his constructs, and made up for my lack of strength (or should I say lack of OP strength) with speed, tenacity, and skill. We duked it out for a good five minutes, in which we both got off a good few shots on each other (we literally Rocky III punched each other, and i'm sure he damn near broke my jaw), had a war of constructs, and used more voltage in this fight alone than a million electric companies. Still, Goblin was kinda f*(#d up. No matter which way you spin it, lightning comes from the sky, and given my new air and cloud powers, I was more at home than Grant, Allyson, or Goblin could ever be; I used that gravy train for all it was worth. I got another punch and kick combo started, managing to mix it up with a few Final Flashes, and some constructs to try and keep Goblin off-balance; that worked about 7/10 times, but I definitely got backhanded, drop kicked, and even railed by a train construct (copycat), a good few times. As I fought Goblin through the air, two things kept constantly running through my mind. Number one: My sword was getting close to the charge it needed to be at, but there were simply too many towns and highways in the mix, I had to work on moving the fight further and further, until I could find some open space; I mean seriously it's freaking Kansas, this place was mostly wheat farms (is that racist? I apologize if that's racist) Number two: Remember that boiling pot of power building inside me, yeah THAT puppy was getting close to exploding, so much that it hurt like a bomb going off in every inch of my nervous system; whatever this thing was, it was gonna be one hell of a spectacle when it debuted.

So yeah, after a few more minutes of fighting relentlessly (seriously I was going full throttle and wasn't even slightly winded, what's up with that?), I found a golden opportunity, as in so good and so obvious, it was almost like a f*(# you to both me and Goblin. Wherever I was, I took a quick glance down, and saw what had to have been dozens upon dozens of crop circles. Seriously, each of em' were big enough to plant at least 200 fast food joints on them, with individual parking lots and everything. Some were green, others were barren (it was winter after all), but they were all empty and unpopulated; completely safe. My mind went back to the people who died during my fight with Goblin, how they could have been avoided if the battle had been here all along, but I pushed that thought down as far as I could; right now I had a job to finish. I trapped Goblin in a tesla sphere, took out my sword, and threw it at one of the crop circles, willing the voltage to remain constant, doesn't matter where it ended up (and it's not like I could accurately point it out, unless Google Earth was involved), I could summon it back on a dime. The only trick part, was getting Goblin to the ground. No, I don't mean just a few lightning bolts, missile constructs, and Zeus Cannons (although that would've been effective as well); no, I needed to drop Goblin in a big way, so that when the dust cleared, he'd never see my endgame coming. I overloaded the tesla sphere and sent Goblin flying backwards. With the two seconds that gave me, I switched from Thunder to Storm form (which was like going from hot to cold in a millisecond), and let Goblin come to me again. He tired blasting me with more lightning, but I dissipated around it, and reformed as a giant fist, knocking him back hard. Now this is where things get a bit trippy, even for me. As I was pummeling Goblin with my morning star fists, I heard…voices. This wasn't Zeus' voice (hence voices, plural), but they were kinda familiar, like the voice of that guy you know in the background. Furthermore, they weren't really voices rather than, a kind of unique Morse code (for lack of better term), and they all kept saying the same thing: 'use us!' 'become us!' 'ignite us!'

I didn't know who the hell they were, or what the hell they were talking about, but if my life is any indicator, all you have to do is ask the mysterious, strange voices that resonate in your head, and they will answer.

"Who are you?" I thought to them. "And how do I use, become, and ignite you? Furthermore, are y'all good guys, cuz i'm not too keen to take any chances with shady folk."

"We are water in air, we are keepers of lightning, we are the very clouds that you have used to call down your mighty thunder! And now, we offer you our fealty and servitude, all you need do is accept our gift!"

"Why should I? What can clouds do for me?"

"Join us, and find out."

It wasn't exactly a perfect sales pitch (a solid 6/10 to be exact), but as I was fighting Goblin (or should I say beating on; the guy couldn't hit or blast me for $#!+), I noticed something tugging me, lightly coxing me to join it. I knew it was the clouds being evermore persistent, but I didn't know how good the deal really was. It felt like a warm bed was calling out to me, telling me to take a load off and sleep; and at the same time, it was like an extreme jolt of energy was trying to find it's way into my system, encouraging me to kick some more ass. Either way, it felt amazing, and I knew I had to give it a go; hopefully I get the edge I needed to ground Goblin for good. I uppercutted Goblin higher into the sky, which was so dark and black with thunder clouds, I just knew it was my doing. Once Goblin and I were surrounded by the swirling black mother of all F5s waiting to happen, I opened myself to the clouds, and let them absorb me. Honestly, it felt like I was joined up with my squad (i've never had a squad), like I had the power of an empire backing me up. I could feel every inch of the clouds (which were stretching out for miles), which felt so natural, it was almost like an extension of myself. I could've stayed in the sky forever, bonding with the clouds, and remaining in a state of eternal peace/adrenaline high, but Goblin was not ready to wait that long. He started roaring and spouting curses at me as he blasted fire and lightning in every direction. I was literally part of the clouds, so none of his blasts actually hurt me, but I got irritated at him for being such an ass, and when I get irritated, lightning starts to flicker; being in the clouds was no different. Lightning started to flash over a seven mile radius, and thunder boomed like an army of drummers; believe me when I tell you, there is nothing more surreal than being apart of a thunderstorm you created simply by getting annoyed. If that was what I could do while annoyed, then it was gonna be so much fun when I showed Goblin what I could do when I got mad. I focused on his energy signature, and amped up the lightning. I commanded the clouds (basically me) to swirl around Goblin with the rage of a thousand storm gods. Again, he tried blasting at the air like a jackass, so I blasted back. In the blink of an eye Goblin was pelted from all sides with Mega Lightning Strikes that were so fast, the thunder took three seconds to get with the program. I kept up the lightning, and at the same time, put a bigger up on the hurt factor. I willed sections of cloud to take the form of various constructs (fists, missiles, swords, arrows, fighter jets etc.), charged them with lightning, and sent them flying into Goblin. Honestly if it wasn't for my Thunder Sense, I wouldn't have been able to see Goblin in the explosion (well, I wouldn't be able to see anything in general, being one with the clouds puts a damper on seeing with your eyes by 100%). He kept bouncing in and out of various puffs of clouds, and occasionally got blasted a bit too low for my liking, forcing me to throw him back up with a Storm Fist; lucky for me, I could bounce my consciousness everywhere in the clouds (seriously, if the world was 90% covered in clouds all the time, I could be from NYC to Rome in a split second). But yeah, you get the picture, I toasted Goblin in the air, and while that was fun, I had to get back to business, and ground him hard.

After keeping him in a pinball game for another few seconds, I got a really cool idea to make that happen. I trapped him in a tesla sphere, and in the few seconds that followed, a moved my consciousness right above him, pulling in all of the clouds to one focal point. Then in the most amazing display of storm power ever (as in Thor and Storm don't got $#!+ on me), I decked Goblin straight into the ground in the form of a massive Storm Fist, big enough to tear through the Empire State Building like a house of cards. In the aftermath of the impact, which pretty much leveled the crop circle we landed in, and probably damaged the surrounding ones (sorry about that Kansas), I reformed my physical self about 50 meters away from Goblin. He was still in a huge crater, and was still recovering from the force of a million wrecking balls being dropping on his head, so he took a few more seconds than usual to rise up from the ground (irony); that left me with plenty of time to ponder myself. Seriously, at this point it was like I had a new medical problem for every power I got, and this one was no exception. It was like I had accidentally ingested a battleship. My body wasn't exactly hurting in a physical sense, but I felt something in me, almost like an alternate energy reserve that I had completely maxed out. Don't worry my body wasn't gonna explode, but it did feel pushed to maximum capacity; besides, I had bigger problems rising out of the dirt. Goblin hovered over the surface of the crater, clutching his chest, his armor broken in multiple places, but repairing fast. This was my best chance, the opportunity wouldn't get any more golden than right now. I tapped into SMS, and charged. Right before I reached the crater (which was about the width of an average pool, and probably twice as deep), I summoned my shield, threw it perfectly (I tweaked the trajectory a little bit), and decapitated Goblin clean. I leapt over him, and in mid flip, grabbed his head, pulled it off, summoned my billion volt sword, threw it into his chest, and slammed his head back on his neck as I landed safely on the other side, and came down from SMS. Just like I thought, his healing factor kicked in regardless of the X1,000,000,000 lightning bolt in his chest. He started on scream, and claw at his armor, which was so durable, even he couldn't scratch through it. I honestly could've watched Goblin suffer like this for a good while (i'm a little sadistic, not a lot, but a little), but I really had to put a stop to this and check on my teammates. I clenched my right fist, imagining every volt of lightning erupting in his chest like the world's deadliest nuke, and the light show began. The explosion was so...I mean it was just…. just try and think of a word that means massive X50, and you'll get the gist of how atomic (that could've worked) the boomage was. Immediately, my vision was lost in a giant flash of blue. If Goblin was roaring, it had no chance in hell of being heard over the sound of the world's biggest thunderclap. The blastwave was so powerful and massive, that I actually had to absorb a good chunk of energy, just to be sure that it wouldn't spill out into any populated areas, although I will not deny, I would not be surprised if Delta Force was banned from Kansas; seriously, we wrecked (me mostly) at least 20 agriculture fields, the people of this good state will hate us when the story of this battle gets out from second hand sources. Speaking of which, absorbing all of that energy wasn't the smartest thing to do. Sure it was mostly my energy, but it had been tainted by Goblin's energy; kinda like room temperature water, compared to a cold one. Still, I would've absorbed all the tainted voltage in the world if it meant not seeing what I did a few seconds later.

In the aftermath of the blastwave, instead of a charred (if even that), remains of Goblin, with maybe a few pieces of his armor scattered across the dirt, Goblin was still…..kinda standing. Don't get me wrong, he was pretty f*(&# up. most of his arms and legs were missing, his armor was in shambles, with barely enough to actually cover his chest, but that wasn't the most surprising part. Before I could charge him, Goblin, who was surging on and off with blue and purple electricity, started to grow. No, I don't mean like grow as in body grow, I mean he was encased in a giant purple field, which steadily grew and grew, until it was a 60ft battle avatar in the shape of what Goblin would be, if he wasn't playing the part of life support victim. Goblin was definitely out of it. Sure, I only had so much time with Combat Avatars myself, but his was like a sluggish, slow, disoriented, drunken bull trying to find the guy with the red shirt; hell, my guess was either this was somehow my fault, or the stone giving him another defense mechanism. Either way, I was screwed, Goblin locked on to me after a quick second, and I ran for my life, as he tried to trample me. Before you talk $#!+, no I did not forget that I had the power to become a mega thunder titan, I just didn't have the time to set up a Combat Avatar, what with Goblin shooting Mega Lightning Bolts out of his hands (seriously, even I couldn't do that yet). I ran as fast as I could, dodging the lightning bolts, and once I could manage it, made a sharp U turn, and ran backwards a good mile or so, before turning around again for a rebound.

"Your inability to finish your opponents will be your undoing boy," Zeus said in my head. "Why do you strengthen the forces that try to destroy you?"

"That was an accident!" I snapped at him. "I was trying to blow him up from the inside, how was I supposed to know he'd get all giant!?"

"Lightning enhances power boy! Do not presume to believe that you can destroy the stone with the divine element that gives power!"

"I GOT IT! JUST GIVE ME A SEC WILL YA, LET ME FIX THIS!"

"AND WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PLAN TO DO!?"

"JUST WATCH ME!"

I poured on the speed, using my lightning trail as energy to help me on my way. Goblin couldn't see me yet, on the ground I was way too fast for him to keep up with, so by the time I had made my move, Goblin couldn't do anything but get trucked by a giant electric man, with an eagle head. Don't ask. Just don't ask. At this rate, just accept that my Combat Avatars are random in shape, based off of things i've either seen or read, and that at one point or another, I might spit out a John Cena shaped one.

I pounded Goblin as hard as I could, my eagle man obeying my every movements with extreme precision. I wanted to say that my control over my Combat Avatar was more than sufficient to hold Goblin down, but his bull like fighting style got me off of him real quick. We both regained our footing relatively fast, and resumed beating the ever living hell out of our respective Avatars. This time, I actually did hold my own pretty well. Despite the strength Goblin had on his own, his power was cut in half, due to the fact that we were now the same size, and I knew Kung-Fu. Every punch he threw, I countered, and retaliated with ten better ones. Tackles? Easy sidestep, and kick to the back and a suplex for good measure. And don't get me started on his form, stance, or anything else. This guy threw punches so bad, even the goons at home made better sparring partners than him. I ducked one of his cross punches, blocked a wide swing that looked like he was clawing at me rather than punching, and quickly punched him in the neck (which would've been so much more effective if I wasn't hitting a lightning construct), which was followed by a swift left uppercut to backflip kick finished beautifully by a drop kick. I quickly got back up, and started wailing on Goblin's Avatar, not sure about what my plan was, or if I was even accomplishing anything, but battling furiously nonetheless. I probably would've pounded on him all day, but in the midst of my hyper beat down, I had completely forgotten one important fact; Goblin was better at this than me. Quicker than I could move, two blasts of lightning erupted from Goblin's Avatar arms, and pelted me in the face and chest. I flew up and over a good half a football field, and after restrengthening my Avatar, I got back up. Quick thing to mention, I didn't feel pain inside my Combat Avatar, but the blunt force was still enough to daze me, plus if I stopped concentrating hard enough, or was knocked with enough force, it could shatter like glass, leaving me royally screwed; just to clarify. I got up, but immediately had to roll out of the way of a another one of Goblin's lightning blasts. Again, it was all I could do to keep this oversized birdman up and running, how the hell did Goblin find the spare brain cells to use his other abilities. I dodged, flipped and rolled around for a good minute, avoiding Goblin's lightning blasts, and probably making a name for myself as an acrobat in the process. I managed to get within striking distance, but Goblin had already got another shot off. This time, on a reflex, I gave my Avatar a shield construct (something I should've remembered I could do), and blocked it; you better believe I went all Captain America on Goblin. I bashed him with my shield, swept it across his head, followed up with a roundhouse, and finished with a front kick. Goblin staggered a bit, but he was definitely not hurting, he created his own weapons, two war axes, and charged me again. I created a thunderbolt in my spare hand, and prepared for battle.

For the record, if this was a battle who dished out the most hits, rather than who could take the most, i'd win by a landslide. Goblin had next to no battle prowess, and I easily blocked his strikes, parried all of his slashes, and got off some good slashes of my own. If this were someone else, they'd be glowing Swiss cheese by now. The thing was, Goblin's Avatar refused to show any signs of damage or slowing down; even when I retreated a bit, hurled my thunderbolt at him and lit up the world with the explosion, all I really accomplished was sending him back a good 300 meters, and breaking his weapons. Goblin and I clashed again for another few minutes, but it was nothing spectacular on my end. Sure, I did the whole Jaden Smith Karate Kid thing, and kicked his ass around for a bit, but the one thing that Goblin did that really snatched the fight out of my control, was when he started using close range blasts with his melee attacks. It started with a blast of lightning from his mouth, which damn near shattered my Avatar's face, and knocked me on my back. I created a shield construct, blocked Goblin's stomp, and managed to push him off me, even squeezing in a leg sweep, but that was about all the leverage I got for the rest of the fight. Goblin upped the lightning blasts, attacking everywhere he could, and making those attacks mean a lot more with the force of a huge blast following the punch; within ten blows, my Avatar was in shambles, and I was so tired from maintaining it that I was on my knees, unable to try for another attack. Goblin zeroed in on me in a heartbeat, charged a massive Final Flash Cannon (as in big enough to cut a crater straight through a city), and nearly blew me to oblivion.

Again, this was a thing I had to do for the sake of countless others, vs myself. If I let Goblin's Hades Cannon tear through me, it would probably graze some sort of populated area, and with a blast that big, the term "graze" would probably result in about 300 deaths. I absorbed the remaining energy let in my Avatar, shifted into my Thunder Form, and charged my own Final Flash, but this time, actually giving it 100% of my ability, using both my power and the Power Grid to charge it. As I did this (it only took half a sec), I noticed how much I was hurting inside. The power building up in me was probably at like 98% rising, and it was gonna blow at any second. Now that I mention it, that could've been the reason why my Avatar fighting was so bad (yeah I know, excuses). Anyway, Goblin and I engaged in another high stakes power battle, this time, in the middle of a decimated crop circle. He was tough, and yes i'll admit it, almost beat me, but I was having none of it; I cheated, summoned a Mega Lightning Strike on top of Goblin's head, and in the fraction of a second that his concentration faltered. I poured on the extra power, and my Final Flash rammed into him with the force of a charging battleship. In the few seconds that followed my victory, I realized that with as much energy I had just used, I had probably endangered another city off in the distance. I quickly reeled in my Final Flash, making it take a hard left, rise into the air, and crash on top of Goblin in the form of a giant Chinese Dragon; by the way, doing that whole control and almost uncontrollable blast thing was about as hard as controlling a charging metro train with a chain leash. The explosion was so massive, the ground erupted in a minor tremor, sending waves of dirt in every direction about a mile out, and while I couldn't see Goblin, I knew he had to be at least winded. I mean I hit him with a lightning Shenron for God's sake, that had to have put some kind of dent in his form right? Yeah, a lightning blast that I blocked with a barely capable shield construct said otherwise. I got blasted into another crop circle and hit the dirt hard, my Thunder Form actually getting knocked out from the fall. I was disoriented, but not injured, or at least not yet. I looked up, and called f*(#!% bull$#!+, because at the point, Goblin was just pulling new abilities out of his butt. To put it into perspective, Goblin's Avatar, which was not only just slightly damaged, was falling on top of me like a damn meteor. I quickly dashed out of the way, but that was it. My body was at it's limit, starting to feel the way it did when it was developing it's Thunder Form, but 100X worse. My body (in Speed Mode), was vibrating uncontrollably, shifting in and out of Thunder and Storm Form in spans as short as microseconds, and you better believe that felt as bad as it sounded. I keeled over, struggling to breathe, to exist, to stay alive, but I felt like I was failing everything.

"DON'T GIVE UP JASON!" Zeus roared into my head. "THIS IS IT, YOUR LAST TEST AS A WORTHY DESCENDANT OF THE ALL-FATHER OF OLYMPUS, BUT YOU MUST OUTLAST THE PAIN, YOU MUST EVOLVE BEYOND IT, YOU MUST UNLEASH THE STORM!"

"WHAT FOR!?" I roared back at Zeus. "NO MATTER WHAT, HE ALWAYS GETS STRONGER, HE ALWAYS COMES BACK, WHAT CAN A PUNK LIKE ME DO TO A MONSTER LIKE HIM!?"

"YOU CAN DEFEAT HIM JASON! THE POWER HE HAS IS NOT HIS OWN, IT IS A TRAVESTY, AN ABOMINATION! IN THE END IT WILL FAIL HIM BECAUSE HE IS NOT ONE WITH IT, NOT IN THE WAY THAT YOU ARE WITH YOUR UNIMAGINABLE MIGHT! LET IT BECOME YOU JASON, LET IT TRANSFORM, AND EMPOWER YOU! IF NOT FOR YOURSELF, DO IT FOR THE MORTALS YOU HAVE SWORN TO PROTECT, FOR THE FRIENDS YOU HAVE BONDED TO, FOR THE ADOPTED MOTHER WHO LONGS TO REUNITE WITH YOU!"

That brought it all into focus.

In spite of the pain, doubt, and fear, I remembered that I had a job to do, people to protect, loved ones to get back to. I focused on how grateful I was to have Grant as a friend, and the rage I felt when Goblin had impaled my best friend with a sword. I focused on Allyson and her beautiful warrior goddess-like demeanor. I focused on how badly I wanted to make up with her, and how desperately she wanted me to finish Goblin. I focused on the family that was destroyed because

of me and Goblin, and how much I owed it to the kids to make sure this creep couldn't hurt anyone else anymore. Finally, I focused on my Mom, her crazy hair, which was probably red and green right now. I focused on her warm hugs, her delightfully goofy teenage dream lifestyle, her undying support of me, even in the face of my new circumstances; I couldn't fail now, I had to get up, I had to fight, I had to win!

"NOW FINISH HIM JASON! UNLEASH THE TRUE POWER OF THE STORM!"

I roared so loud, I knew for a fact I was changing into something, because it sounded like the call of a lion army. I felt my body expand and dissolve, like I was becoming everything and nothing. My vision started to blur as the winds picked up, and thunder boomed louder than tanks. In a matter of seconds, my vision was completely gone, as the power consumed me completely.

I don't know how long I wasn't able to see for, but i'd estimate it to at least three or four seconds. When I could see, I almost didn't know if I wanted to. I was floating hundreds of miles in the air. For miles out in the distance, black thunder clouds churned and flashed with more lightning than i'd ever know what to do with, and the air swirled with the familiar sound of a massive tornado. The only problem was, I couldn't see it; actually, I couldn't even see myself. I definitely felt where I was, and more importantly, I felt like I was in an amped up version of Storm Form, so where was I? I could see Goblin's Avatar on the ground, staring up at the sky and roaring at it like a dumb ass, but he was yelling a valid question: why was I hiding in the clouds? I felt around for myself, like the way you do when you can't see your hands, but feel for them in the dark. I flexed my fingers, which I could still feel, and when I finally caught up with the program, I nearly lost it. Near five miles away, I could feel, and literally see, a giant fist, big enough to pick up Manhattan, flex it's fingers according to my pacing. Forget being bonded with the clouds, I was one. I focused desperately, trying to piece together what was now my existence. I focused on making lightning flash, and literally felt it surge and build, more powerful than anything I had ever produced, in the miles upon miles of thunderclouds. Finally, I realized that there WAS a tornado spinning. It was beyond massive, a whirlwind big enough to swallow entire cities, strong enough to level mountains, but it wasn't in the distance, and it wasn't on the ground

It. Was. Me.

I had literally become a disaster movie tornado, it was who I was, and I didn't know how to feel about that at first; then Goblin decided that blasting the sky was a good idea. That got me mad, and before I could even think about anything else, a billion volt lightning volt Zeus Cannon rained from the sky, and thrashed Goblin on his head. I did that for a while, raining down bolt after bolt of lightning, each in it's own right big enough to trash a skyscraper, and even Goblin's Avatar was starting to crack under the pressure, but it wasn't enough for me, not yet. I focused on making myself spin faster, and descend lower. Don't get me wrong, at the current level of power I was spinning at, if I even tapped the ground, everything within a city perimeter level would be decimated, and sorry to say, but this part of Kansas, didn't have the buildings to spare. No, as I got closer and closer to the ground, the winds around Goblin's Avatar started to increase, lifting him higher and higher into the air; into my territory. The tornado around him started to close, become more intense and focused on him, while still maintaining that city wide range. I made my tornado (it's not gonna be called Tornado Form, that's just redundant), surge with thunder, spreading it all evenly though my violently swirling death cloud, and when I was satisfied with the effort, I let Goblin have it. Lightning flashed from every angle possible, trapping Goblin in what was like a monkey in the middle type game, but more electric and violent. Every second, his avatar was getting assaulted with high powered lightning bolts, leaving him with no way to retaliate or defend. Little by little, but on a frequent scale, his Avatar was breaking like sand dissolving in water, exposing more and more of the monster within, but I could go bigger, I could do better! On a hunch, I imagined an arrow, made of cloud and lightning, striking Goblin in the chest; it was like tornado me spat it out of it's stomach and hit Goblin with the a statue. From there, my imagination, and sadism took over. On top of all of the lightning pounding Goblin into a paste, he also had to deal with (ha, as if he could deal with this $#!+) giant fists, swords, missiles, lions, tigers, bears, and anything else cool and threatening I could pull off the top of my head. I at least had to hand it to Goblin, I was bashing him with enough force to devastate entire states, but he was taking it like a champ. I continued my assault by making myself swirl faster, and intensifying the lightning in the whirlwind. Next, I did something so mean spirited, and so border level torture, I was sure I was having a power trip. I decked Goblin the side with a lightning bolt, and launched him straight into the swirling, lightning infused, at least 500 mph death swirl. Without seeing it (I could still use Thunder Sense), I could tell that the winds were wreaking havoc on Goblin's Avatar, shredding it 5X as fast as I was when I was just having fun with it. I was tempted to let Goblin stay in the whirlwind until he became dust in the air, but he had other plans. I could feel his Avatar struggling against the winds, trying to get out, and I was having none of that. On a reflex, I actually grabbed at Goblin with what I forgot wasn't my hand anymore, however my powers seemed to get my drift. I felt my hand enclose around something that felt like an action figure, and pulled it back into the middle of the fray. Goblin was thrust back into the mayhem that was me, and now that I realized I could make my hands adjust to the sizes I needed them to be, I summoned my left hand, and presumed to beat the hell out of Goblin with my fists, while at the same time, restarting the lightning barrage. It took a little over a minute to do so, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly, but after constant pounding, and countless volts of lightning, I finally managed to get through Goblin's Avatar; the guy seemed so small from my perspective, it was like he was microscopic. Finishing him was gonna be easier than squashing an ant, but then I hit a bit of a snag. My body, and I could literally feel it, was tearing apart, my molecules were being spread too thin, they were dissolving into the air at an alarming rate; it literally felt like I was being brutally ripped apart.

"ZEUS!" I desperately thought to him. "WHAT'S GOING ON, WHAT'S HAPPENING!?"

"Your cells have had all that they can take from performing such an extreme power! You need to restore your physical form, now! Make haste with it, lest you be spread to the wind forever!"

I heard what Zeus was saying, and probably should've put a cap on the tornado right then, but I had come so far, Goblin was at his weakest point, I had to finish him now. Despite the burning pain that was my molecules being overstretched, I engulfed Goblin in a constant surge of lightning, shot at him from all angles of the tornado. I lifted him higher and higher into the air, simultaneously bringing, all of my mass into one focal point above Goblin. It only took 10 seconds, ten grueling, legendarily painful seconds, but the payout was beyond worth it. By the time I had managed to pull myself together in a rough Storm From, which was more black than grey, and field with the force of my F10 tornado, I used the split second it took for me to revert back to solid form, and flew into Goblin with everything I had. As I touched his chest with my fist, I willed all of the energy in my Storm Form to translate into concussive/bordering on nuclear energy, and knocked Goblin from 30,000 feet in the air, in less than a millisecond, as I flew with him for the ride. His armor completely shattered, leaving nothing left but his WWE wrestler like physique (what? armor or not, the guy was built like Hercules), and that was before we crashed to the ground, creating another shock wave so big, it was a damn good thing I was surrounded by miles upon miles of farmland, and even then, a few farm buildings (maybe some silos) probably got trashed. The very second we hit the ground, I didn't take any chances. No hesitation, no fear, I summoned my sword, and before Goblin could stop me, I ran him though and cut a line sideways though his chest, ignoring the sick feeling of dragging steel though flesh, and the thick purple slime that oozed through the wound. I thrusted my hand into the gash, and it only took me a second to get the feel of the stone, and rip it from his chest; of course things wouldn't calm down just right then. The millions of the dead that were supporting Goblin's power, were suddenly free, and were spreading out into the sky, faster than jets. Their power was overwhelming, their presence was just toxic, like rotting flesh being thrown into a power fan; they couldn't be allowed to run free, they had their turns, now it was time for them to get back where they belonged. I raised the stone into the air (purely on a hunch).

"NO!" I yelled to them, not caring about whether or not they could hear me. "COME BACK! GET BACK HERE NOW!"

Immediately, I felt the stone surge in power, and after a few seconds, in a quick black hole like move, all of the souls trying to escape were sucked into the stone in an intense surge of purple, and putrid rot stench. I breathed hard, trying to get my breath back, and I felt the stone move inside me. It was similar to the way the stone of Ares "chose" me, but a lot different this time. Instead of being pissed about my victory, the stone was giving me a type of indifferent response. It was like it was saying, "Oh, you won? Humph. Well if you're gonna put me away, it's probably for the best anyway, but I don't care." That didn't make me feel much better, but at least it was over, and now I could...I could… I

I started to cough up blood violently, and crashed to the ground. My body was starting to spaz up, and I was shaking uncontrollably, every nerve in my body feeling like it was melting. Zeus said that my whole F10 tornado thing was overworking my molecules, and I guess they weren't down with the whole instant repair thing; bummer. I couldn't move, I could barely make coherent thoughts, and it seemed like my healing factor was misguided, as if the voltage didn't exactly know how to fix me; double bummer. I remember coughing up more blood, the feeling of the stone in my hand, the pain of every molecule of my being slowly dying, and yet, in my moment of death, I remembered something cool. Lord of the Storms, that's what the Norn-Fates had called me. My brain pieced a few things together, and just like that, I had a name, a name that I liked, a name that I wanted to make official. It just goes to show, how ironic life can be sometimes; I had found my identity at the moment of my death. My vision was fading fast, the pain I was in, was starting to ebb away little by little, and I could feel my spirit being taken out of my body (I saw something that looked like a blurry angel, and some blonde chick on a Pegasus); I was so dead, even a glowing golden light was getting closer and closer to me.

(Allyson's Perspective)

Long story short, I healed Grant as soon as we got back to the Helicarrier, and the only reason I wasn't back out there with Jason, was because I had more work to do. Goblin didn't kill all of the heroes and agents back in that massive shock wave, the suits just activated their emergency protocols, and transported them all to the infirmary wing, where they were slowly dying from the death aura affects. I was working tirelessly to heal them all, singing about 30 songs, and staving off the effects of the death aura. I managed to save most of the heroes and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but there were some that were just too damaged to save, some who were already lost by the time I got to the infirmary deck; I prayed for their souls, and tired so hard not to break under the sadness of their deaths; now it was Jason's turn, and boy was he a project.

Grant and I were following his fight against Goblin with Fury's instant holographic screen. He did well on his own, despite getting smacked to Garden City, almost getting crushed to death at least 20 times, and bringing death to half a third of Kansas' agricultural district. I was impressed with his new powers, amazed at his ability to immediately adapt, and my heart broke at the sight of his face when he held that dead kid in his arms; I dismissed him for being heartless and savage, I hoped i'd be able to tell him how wrong I was. As soon as he beat Goblin, and started collapsing, Fury uploaded his coordinates to my communicator, Grant and I made our way to the deck of the Helicarrier as fast as we could, and soared to Jason's aid; the whole way there, I was breathing heavy, blinking tears from my eyes, and just praying that he'd make it, that i'd be able to save him. It only took about two seconds for us to get to Jason, and I immediately went to work. I went into Comet Speed, and sung a few notes over him, trying to sense where he needed healing. The feedback was odd. His body signs were normal, he was in no physical danger, so I had to go deeper. His vitals were a mess! His heart was being overworked, even for a speedster, his organs, were trying so hard to keep up with being demolecularized and remolecuralized, that i'm surprised they even knew what they were supposed to do anymore; still, it wasn't good enough, something else was clearly wrong with him, so I went even deeper. That's when I finally found the real problem, and I use the term loosely. His cells, which I could feel because there was still a bit of Sun Energy left in them from my enhancement, were deteriorating. His actual being was slowly withering away into nothing, and by the look on his face, plus the convulsions, Jason was dying quite painfully. There was so much work to do on him, I had to take a moment and coordinate myself.

"Calm down Ally," I desperately thought to myself. "You can do this, he is not going to die."

I summoned one of my knives, and handed it to Grant.

"What the-" he started.

"Grant," I said calmly to him, despite every nerve of my body wanting to explode. "Right now, I need you to listen to me very carefully, please don't talk, please no joking, I need you now or Jason's already dead."

"Of course," he immediately responded, his face so full of worry and willingness to help, it made me feel ashamed for talking to him like a child. "What do you need?"

"Take my knife, and carefully, very carefully cut through Jason's armor, rip it open as far as you can, and-"

Grant reached down with his bare hands, and ripped Jason's chest plate in half, like it was made of paper.

"Good enough?" he asked me.

"Super," I responded, before humming some notes under my palm, and then touching them to Grant's lips and hands, transferring the healing energy to them. "Now I need you to do CPR, breathe into his mouth deep for five breaths, and pump his chest ten times. Do that ten times, and then stop."

Again, Grant displayed an extreme level of control and maturity, by not recoiling, or making a homophobic comment at the thought of giving Jason mouth to mouth, he simply got into position, and went to work. I could feel my power spreading through Jason, healing his organs, and steadying his heart rate; at the very least, his seizure was calming down. While Grant was working on that, I steadied myself, got my songs in my head and started to sing. I started with "Father Can You Hear Me", followed my "Take Me To The King", and "He's Able"; what? I like Gospel too, sue me. After that, I literally just sung the lyrics to my seven favorite HSM songs, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. As I was singing, my goal wasn't to repair Jason's cells with my own energy; that would've been a disaster. Instead, I focused on creating a type of molecular net, that kept Jason's cells from spreading out further, and forced them together. The closer they were, the more the cells started to repair themselves, and the better Jason's situation was getting. Grant got done with his part of the healing, by the time I was still on "You Are The Music In Me", and looked at me expectantly. There was nothing else for him to do, but I did notice the stone of Hades lodged in Jason's right hand. I pointed at Grant, pointed at Jason's hand, and Grant finished the rest of the puzzle. I kept up with the singing, putting everything I had into making Jason better, never not once taking my eyes off of the goal of seeing him open his eyes again, for me to tell him how sorry I was for being such a b!+(# to him, to tell him how I REALLY felt about him. Yeah, yeah, I know, yesterday I hated him, now I love him, but that's how life works; you never know how much you love something, until you almost lose it, and I was determined not to lose anyone else close to me. After I had finished with the last HSM song, I kept up a hum, still trying to see what else was wrong with Jason. This time, it LITERALLY made no sense, his vitals were normalish, he was stable at a molecular level up to the point to where his cells were repairing themselves, so why was he still dying? I went deeper, beyond subatomic, beyond looking for biological factors, Jason was still dying, and I had to find out why. I honestly don't know how I did it, or even what I did, all I knew was that after what seemed like endless digging, I found something bright. Seriously, it was like I had reached some type of star system inside of Jason, it felt bright, vibrant, so full of goodness and compassion, but still so very full of sadness and grief. What was more troubling, was the fact that it was all going out. Jason's inner light, his soul was literally dimming, fading, being taken away; I had to stop it. Even though I could feel Jason's spirit being pulled away, even though I could feel the presence of someone way out of my league trying to pull him into the other side, I basically told that presence to f*(# off, and wait it's turn. Right now, Jason was mine, I wasn't done with him yet, and that was just that. I dug deep into all of the emotion I felt towards him. All of the anger, love, passion, compassion, and anything else I could throw in there. I wanted him to live, and I was gonna get what I wanted. I sung three songs, all of them by Demi Lovato. "Don't Forget", "Get Back", and "Give Your Heart A Break". I put everything I had into it, spreading my powers into Jason's soul, making it tether to his body again, yanking it away from the presence, and reigniting it. It took almost more strength than I had, but I managed to do it, and nearly wept in both fear and joy at the sound of Jason coughing and sputtering to life; the only problem was that he just wouldn't stop, and his seizure was getting worse. I didn't know what to do, that was all the healing I could give him, if it wasn't for his metabolism, he'd already be burning to cinders. Luckily, my communicator buzzed to life, and Mrs. Kennedy spoke through it.

"Super-G, Sunbird!" she yelled. "Get him back to base now, he's barely holding on, we need to stabilize him now!"

I didn't know what she could possibly do for Jason that could be possibly better than my Sun Healing, but I was desperate. Grant, pressed the blue button on his communicator, grabbed me and Jason, and in a flash of blue, we found ourselves back in the infirmary room. Immediately, things went chaotic, half a dozen paramedics grabbed Jason, put him on a stretcher. and started wheeling him away, leaving Grant and I to awkwardly follow. They were talking about a bunch of stuff I didn't know about as they wheeled Jason though the halls, although I did hear terms like energy levels, adrenaline, and something that had about ten syllables and to many letters in it's name. They rolled Jason into a different room, stuck some IV's in him, and started scanning him with as many flashes of slight as they could. Everyone was yelling, trying to get everything done at once, and my cries to Jason were drowned out in the noise. I tried asking what was wrong, what I could do to help, but I may have well been a child in a riot scene.

"The kid's bioelectrics are corrupted!" a guy said. "Too much foreign energy in his system, his body can't cope!"

My breath hitched, and I started to hyperventilate. I didn't do that to Jason, he was dying, I was saving him, there was no way this was my fault, oh God, please don't let this be my fault!

"We need to purge him!" another paramedic said. "Pure electricity to push the foreign element from his body, where's Storm, get Storm here!"

"She's still in room-"

"GET HER HERE NOW!"

A blue flash of light surged in the air, and Storm was between me, and Jason's stretcher. They hurriedly brought her up to speed, and she caught on fast. She started shooing everyone out of the room, and as the doors closed, metal encased them, and reinforced the windows. Thunder sounded off, and the windows were lost in the surge of lightning coming from her hands. I didn't know what was happening, but I could hear Jason's scream, his pain resonating on every level of my hearing. I lost it, and started sobbing uncontrollably, banging against the window, and screaming his name. Grant had to grab me by the waist, and carry me away from the scene, and I didn't have the heart to fight against him. I just sobbed and sobbed, as he carried me somewhere else to try and calm me down.

"Just be ok Jason," I thought to him, not sure if our telepathy was still working. "Please, please be ok."