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.

16. Chapter 16: Bonding

Chapter 16: Bonding

The ride back to S.H.I.E.L.D. was surprisingly fast. Seriously, we were in Nevada, and I was expecting an at least four hour flight, but the guys up front must've really been mashing the gas on this one, cuz in just a little over an hour, we were already coming down for a landing at HQ. Once the jet touched down, the loading deck opened, and a squad of heavily armed agents came inside to escort The Brotherhood to their cells. I was gonna see if I was needed, but at the edge of the crowd, I saw Agent Coulson look directly at me, and I knew I had a different destination for me. I quickly got off the jet, made my way over to him, and gave him the canister; hopefully the stone wouldn't fly away this time. Coulson looked at me, looked at the canister, and started walking back to the Helicarrier entrance.

"And here was me hoping we'd actually get a quiet night," he said while escorting me inside.

"Well, you know," I responded. "Sometimes surprises come with the job description."

"Nevertheless, good work, Geo-Titan."

"Wha-, how'd you-"

"Heard it over the communication lines, catchy name by the way."

"Thanks….so what now?"

"You know the drill. We have to debrief you, get an in depth report on the circumstances of your battle, and uh…..new abilities."

I went silent on that last comment; I could read between the lines. It was the same type of line delivery that my parents gave me when they found out about my powers; especially mom. That same, 'this isn't a good thing, but let's wait and see if it'll get better' type of undertone, that always made me feel guilty for being…well, me.

Anyway, Coulson and I remained silent for the rest of the way to the meeting room, which was like a five minute walk, and an entire flight of stairs down. Using my X-Ray vision, I could already see that Jason and Allyson were already waiting inside, still in their battle suits, along with Nick, Hill, and Kennedy. They didn't look all to happy, but then again, the party don't start till Grant walks in. Coulson handed me the canister.

"Might soften them up a little bit," he explained. "Besides, i'm pretty sure they want proof that the stone is back at HQ, you…it, gave us quite a scare."

"Thanks, Coulson," I responded, shaking his hand. "I just might live to see the next day."

He smirked, took a long walk around a short corner, and after taking a deep breath, I walked inside the meeting room, not even bothering to try for some comedic relief. Yeah, it was almost as bad as I pictured it. For one, Jason and Allyson looked like hell. Their faces brightened up enough, but Allyson got demolished by Magneto, and Jason was essentially one-shot by him; their morale was a little on the low side. Still, they looked glad to see me, and probably would've jumped up to hug me, if not for the super serious meeting that was taking place. Speaking of which, Fury and company were either really pissed, impressed, or frightened; hell their faces were almost meme worthy. Fury kept his eye on me as I sat down, and seeing as I couldn't really think of a good way to start the conversation, I simply put the canister on the table, and flicked it to him. He caught it without breaking his composure, and even rotated it around in his hand for a little bit; probably checking it for authenticity.

"So," he finally said. "Geo-Titan. Catchy name, how'd you come up with that?"

"Well," I started. "It all started just after I managed to keep the team from dying by virtue of metal shards."

I quickly, or as quickly as I could, rehashed all of the stuff that I went through just a little over an hour ago; and I do mean all of it. I told Fury and company how I was a descendant of Hercules, chosen to be the champion of Gaea, why the stone flew into my chest, and of course, the major blockbuster that was my siege on the Brotherhood. The only thing I left out, was the fact that the Norn-Fates gave me a vision of the team almost getting offed by Magneto. For one, that had freaked me out, and would be a gateway to a lot of unwanted questions. Plus, the vision had proved harmless, and there was really no reason to start up more trouble. Fury seemed like he was totally cool with this info as I talked through it, but quickly rubbed his forehead, like he was having a migraine about it afterwards.

"I've dealt with some crazy stuff over the years," he said. "But this, you being the earth's champion, getting buddy buddy with her, plus being a descendant of Hercules? Dealing with HIM is already a headache; not to mention Hulk, and Thor. Now you?"

"Actually," Jason said, raising his hand. "Me too."

He spilled his guts about his divine lineage as well, even going so far as to explain the vision of the Shadow Gods, Doom's relationship with them, and his precognition of our battle with the Serpent Society. Clearly the guy was trying to take some of the heat off of me; I totally respected him for that. Then again, with the daggers Fury was giving him, maybe he should've been quiet about that for a little while longer. Still, Fury looked at the stone, and kinda realized that railing into Jason, especially after what was sure to be one of the best nights of his life was ruined, was not a productive way to improve a working relationship.

"Well," Fury started again. "You two are descendants of gods, one of whom is now the host for the personification of the earth…..any other stuff you wanna dump on this crazy train, Ms. Grace?"

"Don't look at me," Allyson said, her voice an odd mix of drowsiness and amusement. "I haven't had any gods talk in MY head; or at least not any of the polytheistic ones. Still, i'll be sure to alert you if and when they come knockin'."

"Thank you very much, that's extremely considerate."

"You're very welcome."

"Don't mock me girl, I don't like to be mocked."

Fury turned his attention back to Jason.

"Well, Delta Force, it looks like I can congratulate you on a job not completely screwed up. Not good, not great, but not a complete disaster; hell, your primary objective was to go to a Christmas Ball, and have some fun, how do you muck that up?"

"A handful of Doombots, and a Magneto could be a part of the problem," Jason said. "Not to mention the fact that there was a stone hidden somewhere underneath my school; any ideas how that got past you handy dandy EM sensor?"

That was a good shot. Even Fury showed signs of relenting, which just confirmed a nagging feeling that was taking root in the back of my mind. That stone was not supposed to be in that school, one might argue that it wasn't there to begin with; and Fury was bending over backwards inside to come up with an answer.

"It could've been a number of reasons," said Mrs. Kennedy. "Low energy levels for one, remember, we find the stones based off of their power surges. However, just as it's energy signature did register on the sensor, Magneto was already on the scene; you were already in the fire."

"Well," Allyson asked her. "How did Magneto find it before we did? I mean, he had to have flown a good distance to get to the ball, does he have better trackers than we do?"

"Not likely. Doom's gear is impressive, but not advanced enough to outmode us. It's likely that he's been using teleportation tech/spells to transport his associates to the various locations of the stones, otherwise we would be chasing our own tails trying to catch him."

"Which leads me to my next point," Fury said. "Mr. Fuller, we, by which I mean our best hackers, trackers, and everything in between, are trying to locate Doom's flying fortress, similar to the Helicarrier. I've already sent a mass notification to every abled bodied superhero and level 4 S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to be ready to transport to the Helicarrier, all with intent on storming Doom's base, and retrieve the stones in his possession. As of now, the score is 3-2 in our favor; only two others are left outside either's control. When the time comes, you'll have had the most experience dealing with this, as well as enough combat time to lead the siege against Doom. My question is, are you ready to take the fight to Doom? Can I trust that you will be able to lead another strike team to victory?"

Jason looked shaken, sickly even; Fury was pressuring the guy way too much, way too soon.

"Well how about some sleep first?" I joked around. "I mean, come on Fury, it's been a long night, we're tired, ready to get some z's! Besides, he did fine last time, he'll do it again; ain't that right Storm-Lord!?"

I clapped Jason on the soldier, and he glanced at me for half a second. The message I was sending him couldn't have been any clearer: Play it off!

"What he said," Jason quickly responded. "I mean, it's not like we're gonna sit on our hands until the next stone pops up. Tomorrow we wake at 7, get food, and hit the gym at 8. We'll keep training, get better, get stronger, improve our fighting, and then we'll just improvise when it comes down to the rest; again, we don't know where Doom is, what his base structure is like, or how many other villains he has in his clubhouse. So, until we get some more intel, we're gonna stick with what we can do, and hopefully, get those other stones before Doom does."

Fury didn't seem to be all that on board with that plan, but he at least seemed to be able to see Jason's point of view. Plus, at least Jason was giving him a rough draft of a plan.

"Hopefully," he started. "Is not an option. Two stones is two too many. We have to obtain the other ones, and hopefully, get a lock on Doom; take him down before he gets any funny ideas. In the meantime, yeah, go train, you guys are getting better, but you need the practice. Oh, and sorry about your night, I know I made it sound like it was your fault, but I really am sorry that work got in the way of your well deserved night out."

We all nodded, saying stuff like "that's ok", or "no problem", and then took our leave; just as I walked through the door, things went nuts inside my head.

"Coordinates are 33.56516° N, -7.59091° E," said some guy about four rooms down.

"You will be expected to be able to perform-" said a lady about two floors up.

"This is gamma team," said another dude an entire floor under me. "Reporting for drop off."

That wasn't even the worst of it. I could hear the turbines of the Helicarrier work, even through Titanium enforced walls. I could hear the deafening noise of over a million people talking, screaming, laughing, etc., even from about 10,000 feet in the air; and the noise kept getting louder, and louder, until after 30 seconds of straight up pain and confusion, it just suddenly stopped.

"Grant," Allyson said, her hand on my shoulder. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah," I quickly responded. "Just a hiccup with my powers. It's ok, i'm better now."

"You sure, man?" Jason asked me. "You looked like your head was gonna explode."

"I'm fine bro," I said. "No worries. Now let's power down, I feel like a freaking terminator squad."

We all laughed, powered down, and got on the elevator. On the ride to the third floor, I realized, or should I say processed, just how drastic the night had changed for us. I mean, here was me and Jason, looking like models in our fancy suits, and Allyson looking super sexy with her dress; who would've thought that we just got back from a fight, instead of a ball for rich kids? Speaking of which, that reminded me of something. I thought about the stuff I told Gaea to drop off at the infirmary, Jason and Allyson obviously didn't get them, and summoned them to my hand via Geo-Portal.

"Here guys," I said, giving Jason his jacket, and the tablets for him and Allyson. "It'd be a shame to let such fine stuff go to waste."

"How'd you get these?" he asked me. "Did you fly all the way back to New York just to get our stuff?"

"Nah, just told Gaea to transport our stuff in the infirmary, you know, like ya do."

"You didn't manage to get my heels too, did you?" Allyson asked me.

"Oh, right!" I said, smacking myself in the head. "You ditched them on the side of the school. Hold on for a sec."

I extended my consciousness back to the side of the school, located Allyson's heels, and warped them into my hand.

"Here you go," I said, giving them to her.

"Thanks, Grant," she said, as she quickly put them on her feet; didn't think about the fact that she was barefoot until now.

The elevator finally landed on my floor, and I made my way out, telling Allyson and Jason bye. Right before the door closed, I heard a hand stop it.

"Grant?" Jason asked me.

"Yeah?" I asked him, turning around.

"Thanks, you know, for saving us back there. Sorry you had to go through that fight all by yourself."

"Well, not entirely by himself," Allyson chimed in. "I maybe helped for a good…..one or two minutes; maybe."

We all had a small, slightly uncomfortable laugh.

"But seriously," she continued. "Thanks so much for saving us, Geo-Titan."

Damn. Her voice reeked of so much heartfelt sincerity, even I couldn't keep myself from blushing.

"No problem guys," I told them. "Now get outta here, go be cute together somewhere else, i'm going to bed."

They both went eyes wide, blushing furiously, and on that positive note, I took my leave. hopefully those star-crossed lovebirds would be able to put two and two together without me.

(Jason's Perspective)

After Grant got off on his floor, Allyson and I took the elevator back to our floor (never thought about the fact that we lived on the same floor). We didn't talk. We barely even looked at each other. Even though I wasn't running, I could feel my heart racing, my body getting hotter, my breathing getting heavier, and my thoughts becoming a jumbled mess as the elevator dinged, dropping us off on our floor. We walked together in silence, my body obeying the unspoken rule to always walk your date to her door. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we reached her room; that did not make me feel any better. My brain went even fuzzier, my heart was hammering fiercely. I wanted to say so much to her, but knew I would never have the courage to get it out.

"So..," Allyson started. "This is my stop. Thanks for the night out, Jason, I had fun."

"Me too," I blurted out. "And look, I'm sorry about everything. The jerkwads who ruined our dance, Magneto completely wrecking our night, I just-"

"Don't blame yourself for that Jason," she said, getting ever so close to me. "It wasn't your fault, sometimes things just happen, you know? None of what happened tonight changed how much I enjoyed just being a regular girl in the city, a regular girl at a party; none of it changes…it dosen't change how I feel about you."

I inhaled slightly, almost out of breath. I wanted to say something deep and meaningful too, but it came out as "uh..thanks". Still, even in the face of awful conversation skills, Allyson smiled, and turned to open her door. She looked back at me, and it looked like she was gonna wish me a good night, but then I heard something, like a crack forming in the door frame. Allyson and I looked up, and I swear to you, saw an honest to God clump of mistletoe. My brain was on red alert, like so high, wondering how the hell mistletoe just formed on top of a door frame, that I didn't even see Allyson reach out, grab my face, and pull me in for a deep kiss. Oh. My. God. It was…..life. One second, I was neck deep in worry, the next, everything was so calm and focused, my shell shocked nerves gradually fading away every second my lips were dancing with hers. We kissed for a good ten seconds, our heads rotating to either side, my hands wrapped firmly around her waist, while her hands were deep in my hair. I thought that I was golden, that it couldn't get any better than what it was now; that was until Allyson pulled me inside her room, not even breaking the kiss, and I closed the door behind us. It would take a while, but I eventually figure out who put the mistletoe in the door frame.

Quick question. Have you ever been in that position where you're so focused on what you're doing, so caught in the moment, and so determined to enjoy every second of it, that it seems like everything else in the world just becomes irrelevant, meaningless, almost like a distant dream? Well, if you've ever felt something like that, then you'll have a rough idea of how it felt while I was kissing Allyson. Her lips were warm, tender, yet still rough and challenging, like she was declaring a war of kisses. I did my best to keep up (don't usually say that anymore), yet at the same time, didn't try to overpower her; I kinda liked it when she fought for control. I dunno how long we kissed, but for a while, that's all we did, standing and kissing while clinging to each other for dear life. Was this spontaneous burst of passion an after effect of almost dying? Probably, but we'd deal with that later. Right now, I needed Allyson's warmth, the feel of her hands on my face, the taste of her spearmint, vanilla, cinnamon, cherry flavored mouth (not kidding, I could literally taste all those gum flavors). But more importantly, I felt how much she actually needed me too. We were both on edge, scared even, we needed this; after all the fighting, we just needed a small slice of peace. I moved my hands to her face, as she moved hers to my chest. I poured on the pressure of my kiss, reveling in the small moans Allyson breathed into my mouth, loving how hot and heavy her breathing was, burning even. We kissed for a bit more, before I did something so stupid, my name would be synonymous with mood killer for quite a while. See, i've never had that much experience kissing before (no, not because I suck at it!). Hell, the only girl i've ever kissed was Hannah Williams (might've told you this already, but we were a friends with benefits, but no sex, thing), and that was usually under the bleachers at football games. Anyway, the point was, i'm super behind in small gestures that are apparently common knowledge to more experienced kissers. So, when Allyson suddenly slid her tongue across my lips, I kinda gasped, opening my mouth, which was basically an invitation for Allyson to come inside; the only thing was, at the time, I had no idea that was how things went down. So, when her tongue made contact with mine, even though a small part of my brain liked it, most of it was on red alert, and I maybe, sorta, kinda, in a way that's totally not my fault, electrocuted Allyson's tongue with a small bust of voltage from my own.

"YOWW!" Allyson shrieked, pushing away from me. "Tayton! You shtocked ty thoung!"

"OH MY GOD!" I yelled. "I'M SO SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN IT, YOU SURPRISED ME, I JUST...I MEAN….I DON'T-"

She held up a hand, stopping me dead in my tracks, and started humming the background music to "When Christmas Comes to Town", from The Polar Express. The inside of her mouth lit up for a few seconds, before dimming down. She put her hand to her tongue, and felt it for a little bit, probably trying to get the feeling back; afterwards, she turned her attention directly at me.

"I'm so sorry," I started. "I-"

She started laughing. No seriously, she was laughing at me, what the f*(#!? I was both confused, and a little offended at the same time; but Allyson reached out for a hug, and I forgot about being mad at her.

"Oh my God, Jason!" she said, still softly laughing. "You are such a dork!"

"I resent that," I said, chuckling a little. "My mom thinks i'm pretty cool."

"Oh does she?"

"Yeah, she does!"

Allyson backed up slightly, but without breaking the hug, just enough for us to see each others faces. Her eyes were so warm with compassion and happiness. Her smile, the perfect mix of innocence and seduction; I had a feeling I wasn't gonna win much fights against her, or at least non-physical ones.

"You don't have much experience with this, do you?" she asked me. "Being…passionate that is."

"You'd be the first," I said. "The first girl i've ever been passionate with."

"Really? That's surprising. I mean, you have the looks for it-"

"Accompanied by a personality as rough as sandpaper."

"You said it, not me!"

My face must've been priceless, because Allyson laughed so hard until she actually snorted.

"It's ok, Jason," she finally said, after recomposing her sexy/innocent, perfect posture, rubbing my back to make me feel better. "I was inexperienced once. We can go slow, I don't wanna rush anything if you don't feel comfortable."

Ok, wow. Not only was that the greatest act of understanding i've ever experienced, but totally backwards; usually, this is what the guy says to the girl, and maybe it was the irony, humor, or straight up feels, but I suddenly lost my jitters. I pulled Allyson in slowly, and after going 90% of the way (Hitch was a great movie), Allyson came the other ten. We kissed deeply for another few minutes, neither of us willing to let go of each other; that was until Allyson removed my jacket and vest. My heartbeat escalated a little, but I calmed down, and focused on kissing her; not wanting to accidentally fry her hands off. After a little longer, I felt Allyson's tongue dash across my mouth again, but slower, as if asking "are you ready this time, or should I insulate my tongue before entering?" I let her go a full circle around my lips before nodding ever so slightly, and letting her inside. I had never tongue kissed before, and while I wouldn't say I was good at it, I could say that I was learning. In the meantime, I just enjoyed the taffy taste of Allyson's tongue; the slimy, wet, somehow perfect clash of tongues, only made better as our moans of pleasure echoed in each others mouths. I completely forgot about being scared, and while I was still gonna have a semblance of politeness and restraint, I was now all into this; giving it 110%, and putting as much fire and passion into what I was doing as Allyson. We tongue wrestled with each other for at least 3 minutes. I was so outclassed though; she overpowered me, and moved my tongue in every direction she wanted it to go. Hell, I could feel her satisfaction of being in control over an inferior opponent, but I didn't care; the battle was still young, and even then, who was really winning or losing anything? As we continued, I felt my body heat up from the inside out, my mind reduced to little more than an organ whose only function was to make me feel the sensation of pleasure, my hands taking permanent residence around Allyson's back. I thought I was finally getting the hang of it (even my tongue game was improving), but as it turned out, things were only starting to heat up. Allyson's hands traced lined patterns across my chest, leaving me with a both ticklish/invigorating sensation; I wished I could do the same, but my only response was holding her tighter, kissing harder, and moaning in unison with her. She moved her hands around my collar, and unfastened my tie, breaking the kiss for a moment to bring it over my head. I looked into her eyes for a split second, and was almost scared. That innocence Allyson usually had was a glimmer, an ember in the middle of a roaring bonfire of savage lust, hunger, and thirst. Still, even though it was sudden, the look she gave me, it kicked me into high gear, and as we clashed our lips together again, I could feel flame building inside me too.

As we continued our hot, wet, sticky tonsil battle, I felt Allyson's hands move towards my collar again. Big mistake. I took control of the kiss, holding her face as I finally started to get the upper hand. I didn't think anything of it at first (I wasn't thinking of anything at all per se), but then I felt her start to unbutton my shirt. I instinctively froze, gripping Allyson a bit too tight. In response, she also stopped. It was definitely scary, like I said, I had never been in these types of waters before, but I remembered who I was with, how much I trusted her, and slowly, resumed kissing; nodding my head slightly, telling her it was ok to continue. She slowly continued to unbutton my shirt (probably cautious after my first reaction), and I eased up on the aggressive kissing, giving her some time to do her thing. After she unfastened the last button, she slowly traced her fingers up my sternum, along the length of my arms, and after prying my hands away from her face, intertwined her hands in mine and moved them down to our sides. We stayed in this position for a few more seconds, deciding to take a gentler route rather than an aggressive one; that maybe lasted for 20 seconds, then we got hot and heavy again. Allyson's hands made her way back up to my chest, and removed my shirt from the collar down. She didn't hesitate to take advantage of my bare skin, and while still keeping a sizeable advantage over our tongues, clawed at my pecs, abs, back, and everything else, like a cat at a scratching post. Again, this tickled more than hurt, I mean I was bullet resistant after all, but it was still enough to make me moan/laugh into her mouth, causing her to do the same. I'll never understand how we could be aggressive, tender, and humorous all at once. A few seconds later, I felt Allyson grab my hands again, and move them to her back. I faltered for a bit (giving her ample opportunity to force her tongue even further down my mouth), suspecting where this was going, but not knowing whether or not I was ready. Allyson seemed to sense this, and adjusted her demeanor accordingly; removing her tongue from my mouth, and wrapping her arms around my neck lovingly, as she kissed me soft and sweet. She kept at it like this for a while, not even hinting at the thought of anything else, but a few minutes later, she removed her heels from her feet, and I knew that our night was about to speed up; the only thing now, was that I was 100% ready.

I moved my hand up to her zipper, and slowly moved it down about two inches before stopping. Allyson nodded with an 'mm hmm', her kisses heating up again drastically. I inched the zipper down further, and after reaching the endpoint, Allyson reached her arms up, and I helped her remove it. I didn't think I was gonna get all animal-like, but after the first inch of contact with her bare back, the soft, tender, skin resonating with every level of pleasure my body was capable of feeling; well….let's just say I wasn't exactly as modest as a gentleman should have been.

I immediately drew her close to me, like no space between our bodies close. Her breasts pressed pleasantly against my chest, and after kissing her fiercely for a few more seconds, I moved my attention to her now exposed neck, biting, kissing, and sucking on it for dear life.

"Ohhh!" Allyson cried out, hissing like a cat. "Oh yeah…...oh God….that's it…keep going!"

Her cries of pleasure filled me with more energy than a bolt of lightning could ever give me. I grabbed her by the waist, and lifted her off the ground. She immediately wrapped her legs around me, and as we kissed with the passion of something romantic and cheesy, I pinned her against the nearest wall, alternating my attention between her neck, collarbone, and lips. Her breathing was labored, unsteady, hitched, and for the first time in this entire burst of passion, I was the one in control, Allyson was the one trying to keep up with MY whims; I was enjoying that way more than I should've. She clawed at my back, trying desperately to disrupt my focus, biting and kissing at my neck and collarbone, but I was in a mild frenzy, and her futile attempts to take control from me were to no avail (I should seriously get checked out, I may have slight control issues); besides, in addition to my extensive kissing all over her upper body, I was simultaneously poking her in her sides with my fingers, taking in her sultry flowery scent, and occasionally, moving one of my hands to her exposed thighs. Believe you me, she was a jumbled hot mess of moans, laughs, hot breathing, and gasping my name. I continued my relentless streak of pleasure, starting from her sternum, and planted a long line of kisses up to her neck, then under the chin, and finally back to her lips. She was still as good as ever with her tongue, so this time, I decided to cheat, using my super speed to outmaneuver her, and force my tongue deeper down her mouth. We stayed like that for a minute (while I was still attacking her sides and thighs); I didn't even give Allyson a chance for breath, until Allyson frantically patted me on my shoulder, essentially tapping out. I quickly unlocked my mouth from hers, and moved them back to her collarbone, nipping at it lightly.

"Oooh!" she moaned out, her breath heaving, trying to take in as much air as she could. "The bed!"

I didn't need to hear anymore. I scooped her up bridal style, kissing her with a roughly balanced mix of intense passion, and tender affection, and plopped her on the bed while quickly climbing over her and pinning her arms over her head. I traced my fingers down the lengths of her arm, using an EXTREMELY light pinch of static in my fingertips (like half as powerful as a static shock). I also traced my fingers down her neck, sternum, abdomen, thighs, right to the edges of her feet; again, while I wasn't hurting her, I was definitely treading lightly on her sensitive nerves, causing her to laugh, moan, and occasionally cry out. Hell, by the time I got to her feet, there was no need to pin her down, she was on Cloud 9, trembling and lightly spazzing. I looked on her with great lust, and now that I mention it…she definitely paid a visit to Victoria's Secret! She was wearing a dark red lace bra with matching panties, and believe me, that image, mixed in with the matching nail polish, makeup, and the look of her being consumed with pleasure and ecstasy (shivers); well, let's just say "self-control" was the order of the night. I traced my way back up to Allyson's abdomen with a trial of slow kisses up her legs. Oh, and because I had outlined her body in a sheet of static, my eyes were kinda picking up a resonating sense where her most sensitive nerves were located; basically, I cheated, and made myself a map of Allyson's erogenous zones, and i'd be lying if I said I didn't take advantage of that. I stayed mostly in her abdomen, kissing and licking it fiercely, while keeping a good hold on her thighs. I must've been doing something right, cuz Allyson gripped my hair like it was a blanket.

"Mmmm!" she moaned. "Oh yeah, get it, get it, get it, mmmmm, oh yes, aww f*(#..."

I kept up my efforts, reveling in Allyson's cries of pleasure, and occasional swears. After a minute, I resumed my trial up to her face, slowly kissing and biting at her pressure points. I kissed up her chest, moving my hands up to fondle with her breasts for a minute or so, and found my way back to her mouth. Kissing while being on top of her was different in a totally awesome way. Maybe it was the feeling of her under me, the way our bodies were naturally pressed against each other, the way she moved her hands soothingly along my back, arms, and shoulders, or sometimes just grabbing a fistful of hair and pushing me down; whatever it was, all I can say was that it struck all the right notes, and I was lost in the feeling. In an unspoken agreement, we were taking it down a few notches, adopting a fast, but steady pace of lip locking. Tongue was rarely involved, and when it was, it was only for a brief moment. Still, Allyson seemed to enjoy it, and as she moved her attention to the sides of my face, kissing them with small moans, I hungrily kissed and sucked on her neck, almost losing it every time I felt a moan resonate through it. Allyson lifted my head up over hers, and kissed me hard, pushing me up slightly. I let her up, and as she gripped my face, I wrapped my arms around her, embracing her as she wrapped her legs around me, sitting on my lap as we kissed each other fiercely. If she was trying to suck all of the oxygen from my lungs, i'll give her props on a near miss, cuz I definitely had to suck face a lot harder in order to keep conscious. I moved my hands up her back, and they found a way to the clasp of her bra….that's when we both froze. I guess I never thought of it while we were in action, but the road we were on led to something beautiful, exciting, and memorable; but at the same time, something we couldn't take back. We looked into each others eyes, that fear crawling back up in my chest, and I knew I couldn't do it, I just couldn't. I hugged her tight, and ducked my head under her chin. We stayed like that for a few minutes, just holding each other, trying to slow our breathing down, and thinking of what the hell we were doing.

"Sorry," I finally whispered to her. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok," she whispered back to me, combing her hands through my dreads. "Besides, it was me too, not just you. In any case, I still enjoyed myself, I enjoyed this…..I like you Jason. I like like you."

"I like like you too, Allyson." I said (who says like like anymore?), looking straight into her eyes.

"Buuuut…?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow along with her smirk.

"But….it's just….I can't...with you…..right now. Believe me, i'd like to, and hopefully we can, but right now, while we're surrounded by aliens, monsters, gods, magic, and evil dictators? Right now, we need to focus on that, on being a team that can fight together, and if we're too focused on keeping each other safe, especially in battle, when we both can look after ourselves, we'll put each other in danger, Grant too."

"Ever the leader boy scout."

She laughed, sighed, and gave me a kiss to the forehead.

"But seriously," she continued "I understand, and I really am sorry if I rushed this. I just….i've been scared. Ever since I got on this stupid flying battleship, i've been scared, excited, terrified, and exhilarated all at once. You….well, you had a particular stability about you, in theory, that's kinda why I locked on to you. Don't get me wrong, Grant's ok, but I can sense a womanizer, even a former one, right from the get go. Besides, football players were never my type anyway."

I laughed, and Allyson laughed with me.

"For what it's worth," I started again. "I kinda locked on to you because of how different you were. I mean, I can sense a popular girl, and while you definitely are, there was a sorta downplay about you that i've never seen in anyone before; then again, after watching you mow down zombies like it was nothing? That beautiful fearlessness perfectly embodied? It was a no brainer; are you sure you're not mad at me?"

"Of course not!" she said. "In fact, I kinda find it attractive that a guy would deny sex. I mean, i've never had sex before,yes really, despite how good I am the stuff that comes before it, i'm still a virgin. Yeah I was willing to have it tonight, but the fact that you were the one who halted it….that's something special, especially from a guy."

"Oh...well…thanks. I guess….I guess i'll just-"

"You don't HAVE to go, Jason. We may not be having sex, but i'm not gonna force you to take the walk of shame back to your room, especially when you didn't even go all the way. You can still share my bed, we can cuddle and sleep for the night. Tomorrow, we go back to business."

"I like that plan better."

"It comes with a condition though."

"Oh? What is it?

"One more round of kissing."

"Is that what you call it?! I thought we were sparring with our mouths."

"That's one way to put it, but come on, you pretty much had your way with me back there; let me at least go out with a consolation prize."

Her eyes were big, seductive, and pleading; there was no way I could say no.

"Deal," I said, as I reached for her face, kissed her tenderly, and gently laying her down on her back.

For a good 2-3 minutes, we just kissed in a nice soft fashion, no tongue, no restraining, no pressure points. I thought that was gonna be all it would amount to, but apparently, Allyson had a score to settle with me. Her hands were already rubbing and softly clawing at my hair and back, so I didn't think anything of it at first; plus, my body was already hot and sweaty (both of ours), so I didn't think much of the extra heat flowing through me. In other words, all of the pieces were in perfect position for a sexual ambush (not the best term to describe it), and Allyson took advantage of that in its entirety.

Quicker than I could've anticipated it, I felt a burning (but not scalding) sensation claw down my back. I was so caught off guard, I gasped right in Allyson's mouth, who quickly wrapped her legs around my waist, grabbed me by my shoulders, and flipped me on my back. Her face was glowing with a triumphant smile (and a light layer of Sun Energy). She quickly consumed my mouth again, and I felt something loosen my belt buckle, and yank my pants right off of me, which meant that Allyson was somehow so fast that she managed to de-pants (and de-shoe) me without letting go of my arms, or she was wicked good at making solar constructs. As she greedily took my mouth, I could feel her grip on me getting stronger, the strength in her arms increasing by twice as much and rising; hell, when I stole a glance at them, her veins were literally coursing with golden light. This time, she was the one driving me wild as she subdued my tongue with hers, attacked my pressure points with solar tipped fingertips, which stung in a good way, and rubbed her burning hands all over my chest, which made me moan for dear life into her mouth. Between kisses, I was allowed maybe 20 seconds or so between the times she moved her attention away from my mouth to focus on my neck, pecs, and abs, and the sides of my face; kissing and licking them, giving me the feeling of being doused in soft, liquidy heat.

"MMMMM!" I nearly screamed out. "Awww! Oh my God! Oh s#!+, f*(#, ohhhh, easy, please, easy!"

"Easy!?" Allyson loudly murmured into my abs, before starting to trail hot kisses up my chest.

"Where was that easy?" she said between kisses. "Where was it...while you...were savaging my thighs...consuming my stomach…eating up my neck…and trying to swallow my mouth?

She licked and kissed the side of my face, scratching down my chest with her solar claws (that should be official).

"No, I don't think I will take it easy." she said, her eyes almost laughing at my pleas for mercy. "In fact, I think i'll play with you for a little while longer."

She gripped my face, and took my mouth with no mercy. While it was fun to see her in control, plus I kinda liked being dominated a little, I decided to make her earn her win. I focused on making voltage course through my muscles, making my body a hell of a lot stronger. Just as Allyson was getting comfortable, I gripped her face, kissed her harder, and forced her up to a kneeling position. She instinctively wrapped her legs around me, and redoubled her efforts to suck the oxygen from my face, meaning I had to do the same and more. I tipped my hands and fingertips in a light static aura, and scratched down her back (not too hard, not even remotely hard). She gasped, and instead of forcing my tongue down her throat, I went straight to her neck, putting static on my lips, and burrowed into it. She moaned something fierce, her strength waning for a bit, but managed to keep herself in the game by scratching up and down my back, forcing me to relinquish my grip on her neck, after which she scooped my mouth back in hers. We continued, and continued for what had to be at least an hour and a half. Our glorious mix of savage lustful kissing, licking, grinding, and scratching. The static and sun, lit up the room until we just couldn't any more. I fell back, and Allyson collapsed on top of me, wrestling with me, and laughing furiously while we scrambled to get under the covers. Allyson straddled me again, her eyes lit up like an excited cat. Her breathing was all over the place, I could basically feel her heart beat through my chest, but she almost seemed like she could catch a second wind. I quickly reached up, and wrapped her up in a deep, slow, passionate kiss. She still breathed heavily into my mouth, so I went slower, trying to adjust to her breathing, trying to steady it. It took a good minute, but eventually she slowed down, and gently set her head on top of my chest.

"Does this mean I win?" she whispered to me.

"I'm pretty sure it's a draw," I responded.

She shrugged.

"Fine by me," she said.

She moved to the side, gave me one last kiss, and we embraced each other again, as sleep basically swallowed us up. I thought there was no way that life could take this moment away from me, but life had dreams, and sometimes dreams can f*(# with you.

My consciousness left my body, phased through the Helicarrier, and shot off into the distance. I flew at what had to have been Mach 10 over the Atlantic Ocean, up to the point where I couldn't see a thing, but could sense the water below me. I maybe thought to myself for half a second "Not in the water, not in the water!", before I suddenly stopped, froze for three seconds, and was shot straight down in the middle of the Atlantic. I held my breath as I was shot down into the water, traveling so fast, it was a wonder I didn't crumple like a can from the pressure. Then again, I held my breath for five minutes before remembering the fact that I was dreaming, and didn't need to breathe (duh!). Anyway, as I shot down deeper into the ocean like a torpedo (still couldn't see for $#!+), my vision began to ripple and change. One second I couldn't even see an inch in front of me, a few seconds later, my vision began to clear up, everything was layered in a shade of light blue, and I could see everything for miles; then again, I don't exactly know if I wanted to see anymore. Look, i'm not afraid of the water, I love going to the beach, but drowning is one of my biggest fears. So when my vision cleared up, and I saw myself at the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by reefs, hundreds upon hundreds of fish, and the sight of nothing but water in every direction, I kinda had a small panic attack. I quickly got over it by remembering this wasn't real, but I still was on edge. Moving on, my body drifted at about 100 mph along the ocean floor, and I gotta say, now that I was under here, it wasn't so bad. As I torpedoed along the ocean floor, I was kinda dazzled by the various rocks, reefs, and long stretches of sand that shot through my vision. I passed through a few creepy trenches, and could've sworn that I saw an eel as big as my body swim by, but that's besides the point. The swim through the trench (it was a long ass trench!) lasted a good 5-6 minutes. As I swam by, I noticed how I seemed to be going further and further down; as in like, deeper than anyone has ever been in the ocean ever. Again, I have to point out that I wasn't affected by the pressure of the ocean, simply because I was not physically here. However, I could feel the potential pressure that was around me, and knew with complete certainty that if I actually was here, i'd be so totally dead now.

As I finally made it through the trench, I got this beautiful, damn near breathtaking, view of what had to be underwater mountains. An entire range of extremely tall trenches combined in one area, gave off the illusion of the Rocky Mountains, all under the sea; each of them shimmering (from my point of view) as the water swayed back and forth around them. Hell, the mountains seemed to be magical, because rays of blue energy were shooting across the bases of the trenches, lighting them up beautifully in the night; that was what I thought until I actually got a look at what those blue rays actually were. One of em' shot super fast into the air, followed by another one that shot directly through one of the trench rocks, blowing off the top, like a bottle rocket. Now, I was no expert on underwater dealings, but I was pretty good at spotting fights (high school will do that to ya), and this had the words 'midnight brawl' written all over it. As if hearing me, and wanting to prove me right, a huge explosion, one that destroyed an entire mountain, reducing to to pebbles, erupted. The flash was almost blinding, but amidst the flare, I was able to see a small figure, roughly humanish in appearance, come rocketing out of it like a bat out of Hell. The figure started to plummet in my direction, and I nearly rushed out to help it (or get out of the way), before remembering that I wasn't really here; there was nothing I could do for it. Too bad for him (it was a him); the poor soul crashed at the base of the mountain I was standing over. I floated down next to him, and was not at all surprised to find that this thing wasn't really all human. He was about 7 feet tall, built like a NFL player, and was even sporting some pretty long dreadlocks. Still, this guy was blue (not Nightcrawler dark blue, but more of a sky blue). He had weird, but kinda cool looking, white tattoos all over his face, arms and chest. None of them looked like anything in particular, just lines that sometimes ending forming squares, zig zags, and circles, the guy actually had the same etchings in his dreadlocks. I noticed that he had talons absently growing and retracting from his fingertips, also some wicked sharp fangs in his mouth. He was wearing some type of black and gold chest armor that looked like a bunch of fish scales weaved together, which matched with his black pants, that I assume was the underwater equivalent of leather. His all white eyes were glazed over (if that's even possible) and weary. He was bleeding through four pierced points in his chest armor, and his right thigh looked like it had shark bites in it. This guy had been in the thick of whatever this was for a long time, and it didn't look like he was gonna last much longer. Even worse, he didn't really have the expression of a person trying to run away from a fight, but someone who was trying to get help, willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good of his team. Whoever this guy was, he was obviously a soldier, and I was looking at his desperate attempts to win the war for his side. I found myself rooting for him to get away, to get that help he needed, and to come back with a Lord of the Rings style cavalry screaming "WHAT'S UP NOW, B!+(#^$!?" In retrospect, I was probably the one that jinxed his small, if even that, chances for survival/success.

A second later, five blue streams of energy darted out from under the rocks. I almost thought they were some sort of underground heat seeking missiles, cuz those things were flying out in five different directions, and turning in perfect unison, making a perfect arcing formation, heading straight for Eric (I named him Eric. What?! I didn't know who he was, and I couldn't just call him light blue guy!). Eric looked like he was down for the count, hell, I didn't even think he was aware that he was getting shot at; boy was I wrong. Right before the missiles could end Eric, he quickly grabbed the base of the rock I was just on, shot up wards like a ballistic missile, and did a flip in the water that got him into a position giving him a downward view of the mountain, which was crumbling like a house of cards. His talons were fully outstretched, his fangs were bared, and he was actually hissing and roaring at the same time; impressive in my book. Not a second after the missiles had crashed into the ground, something, lots of somethings shot up at Eric…..and they were DEFINITELY not missiles. For starters, they were obviously a water based form of life, and these things were so far from human looking it was actually scary. They were about the same height as Eric, with dark grey skin, gills clearly visible from the sides of their torsos, and blood red eyes. Their faces looked like elongated piranha heads (with the teeth to match), and their hands and feet were heavily webbed and equipped with talons. There wasn't really anything else to them, other than the fact that they were all glowing with an aura of blue energy; that spelled trouble like so hard. Three of the five piranha men shot straight at Eric, who managed to dodge two of them, roll right over the third one's back while singing his talons into it, but quickly got trucked by the fourth one, who quickly sent Eric crashing into another rock. The piranha man tried to bite Eric's head off, but Eric quickly moved out of the way, and as hard as he could, bit into the piranha man's neck. He savagely thrashed his head around, making the water around him swirl with blood (i'll never drink Kool-Aid again), and after thrashing around for a good 10 seconds, way longer than it should've taken for any other beast, Eric ripped the piranha man's trachea out, and quite literally ripped his head off with his bare hands (can anyone spell fatality?). The remaining four piranha men ambushed Eric, but that wouldn't turn out to be all that big of an advantage for them. Eric shot upwards again, evading them all, and as one of them recovered and shot straight up at him, he grabbed his head, flipped over him, summoned a sword that appeared after a quick flash of gold, and stabbed him in the back. Apparently a stab to the heart wasn't a killing blow for these guys, cuz the piranha man thrashed around trying to get at Eric's head; Eric simply brought the sword up, vertically slicing his head in half, but still, these guys were kinda resilient. The remaining three tried rushing him again, but after a few quick whirls, stabs, and slashes, they were all missing heads, limbs, and adding to the death Kool-Aid swirl. I let myself believe that Eric was in the clear, and that he would get away safely, but then I heard something that sounded like rapid fire cannons; I looked up and saw not one, three, five, but twenty shots of blue energy flying at Eric. Each one represented a piranha man (obviously), and in the state Eric was in, it didn't look all that good for him right now.

For what it's worth, the dude put in work! He immediately turned on the jets, swimming and outmaneuvering his attacker with almost unchallenged ease. He was extremely brutal in his fighting methods, resorting to sinking his fangs/claws into his opponents, ripping out handfuls of their vital organs (sometimes ripping out parts of spines), using his sword (which could also convert into a trident) to impale heads, slice of limbs, and decapitation, lots of decapitation. Granted, he had to earn every kill, cuz these piranha men were definitely no pansies. For every bite, slash, and stab he got on one of them, they inflicted a bite or stab in return; one actually managed to get him in a headlock, and stab him with his talons, before Eric elbowed him in the ribs, flipped over him as another piranha man barreled into his friend, and while they were both occupied, threw his trident through both of them. It was a blood fest for both sides, but Eric did eventually manage to brutally dismember all of his attackers, even if he wasn't looking all that well from the fight himself. There were twice as many puncture wounds in his armor, his legs had nasty gashes on them, and he was bleeding from a bite wound to the right shoulder. I honestly didn't think he'd even have the strength left to sit, let alone swim, but he had heart, like lots of heart He tried to keep going, but after he got blasted in the back with a hard ray of energy, I knew it was over.

Eric lied barely conscious on the sea floor, and just behind him, a mysterious figure with a gun was swimming towards him. After swimming closer, I could see most of him, and I didn't know whether to be impressed, scared, or laugh. The guy was blue, just like Eric, but lacked the facial/body tattoos. He was wearing a full body battle suit, kinda like mine's, just golden, and with fish scale/fin designs on it. He wore a golden helmet that was molded like a sea serpent's head, that had a visor coming down just short of his nose. This guy was definitely loaded with some state of the art gear to. His hands had some kind of repulsor technology, he was equipped with a golden sword by his side, two laser guns (one was already in his hand), a trident on his back, and a couple of knives strapped to the sides of his exposed biceps, and the side sheathes in his golden armor boots. The guy kinda looked like a blue skinned Chinese man, and had the demeanor of a person who's usually on top of the game; why did I have the sinking feeling that we'd end up fighting sooner or later? Anyway, the golden armor guy swam over to Eric, drew his trident, and stuck him in the side of his lower back, lightning the trident up with voltage, and probably deep frying Eric's organs. Eric screamed a horrible cry of agony, and thrashed around wildly. At that moment, I wanted the dream to end. I knew a torture session when I saw one (movies), and I was squeamish about that type of stuff; killing was easy (in theory that is), torture was a whole different ball game. Still, my dream kept me in the loop, and I had to endure Eric's cries of pain for another 10 seconds, before golden armor guy decided to stop. Eric's breathing was rapid and painful looking, he was starting to cough up blood, and his body wouldn't stop convulsing and spazzing. I will say to his credit, when golden armor guy flipped him over, he tired for a desperate trident summon n' thrust, but his attempt was dodged, and he was shot with a small burst of voltage, sending him back to the ground in an even worse state of spazzing. Golden armor guy stomped his right foot on Eric's chest, and began to slowly taunt him.

"Janus, Janus, Janus," he started, his voice a cold, cocky, ruthless, slur. "How far we have fallen from grace, my friend. I know not where you were heading, usually you are not one to stray from the battlefield, and I hate not knowing things. So here is what is going to happen. You will tell me everything you know about your mission, Namor's attack and defensive maneuvers, and anything else I may need to ensure the conquest of Atlantis. In return, your death will be swifter than a second. Keep in mind, I WILL get the information out of you. You WILL die today. But you have a choice between giving it to me willingly, or giving me the pleasure of taking it by force."

In response to that generous offer, Janus (at least I know his name now) grabbed a handful of silt, and threw it at golden armor guy's face. Golden armor guy didn't seem to like that too much, and gave Janus another shock to the head (that guy was tough, I mean, being electrocuted under the water would be a one-shot even for some superheroes). While he was spazzing, golden armor guy grabbed a small black pebble looking thing from his utility belt (he had that too), and inserted it into Janus open side wound. A second later, Janus started screaming again, his body looked like his bones were trying to puncture him from the inside out, and his skin was bulging with prickles in every inch of his being. Finally, the first spike emerged from his abdomen. It was a simple spike, pure black, about 4 feet long, nothing really all that special; however, more spikes start to come out of Janus, each more painful looking, and inducing more horrid wails than the last. Before long, Janus was practically covered head to toe in spikes, almost resembling a porcupine. There were no spikes jutting out where any important organs might be, hell, it looked like the spikes were designed to not pierce anything like arteries, veins, and insert other vital parts of the anatomy needed to live. Too bad for Janus, it only seemed like golden armor guy was just getting started; he hovered his hand over Janus, and he started to rise off of the ground, until he was hovering in a standing up position, his breathing barely even audible, most of his body hidden in a swirling aura of his own blood. Golden armor guy touched one of the spikes with his gloves, sending a small (but probably excruciating) surge of lightning through Janus' body, and through the other ends of the spikes.

"Amazing things you can do with genetically enhanced sea urchins," said golden armor guy (ugh..just say your name dude, bad guys love the sound of their own names). "Now, Janus, you were saying...something about Namor's military strategies?"

Janus coughed up a heaping load of blood, but managed to raise his head, and look his torturer dead in his face.

"I will never betray my people!" he said in a thick African accent through gritted teeth. "Unlike murderous swine such as yourself!"

Golden armor guy zapped the spikes a few more times, making Janus grunt with pain.

"I believe you," he said to Janus. "But I also said that I would get that information out of you one way or another."

Golden armor guy grabbed Janus' forehead, and a small surge of voltage resonated through his armor gauntlets. Janus spazzed, gurgled on his own blood, and shouted muffled screams from his mouth for 30 seconds as golden armor guy supercharged his head. I noticed that his visor flashed with what seemed to be data, pictures of Janus memories, and so on as the ordeal continued. Finally, golden armor guy let Janus fall back to the ground, and proceeded to mess with his helmet/visor, sorting through all of the information. That took maybe another 30 seconds, but afterwards, it looked like he had gotten all of the information he needed. He pulled out a black sea shell, said some gobbledygook over it, and after a blue aura shimmered across it, a screen if light appeared, and a monstrous figure answered from the other end. He looked just like Beast. That was my first thought when his face appeared on screen; this mother f*(#&$ looks just like Beast from the X-Men. He was big, bulky, blue skinned, wearing golden armor, some type of golden crown/war helmet that looked like a big jagged U, and had a wicked looking sword by his side, and a badass golden trident in hand. What really threw me off, was the insane amount of blue energy that was surrounding this guy. He didn't exactly look like the hero type, so if he had what I think he did, Fury was gonna burn a hole through his eye patch.

"Krang!" the guy shouted in a thick, brutish voice. "Report! Were you successful with apprehending and interrogating Janus?"

"Indeed, Attuma." Krang calmly responded (at least I knew what to call him now). "Namor is currently trying to weaken the bulk of your vanguard forces with a full out frontal assault. At the same time, he has dispatched his mightiest champions to bottleneck your secondary assault force of colossal octopi, sharks, sea demons, and Leviathans. However, he has retreated to his throne in order to amplify his control over sea creatures; which explains the reason for the sudden surge in the Great White sharks, swordfish, and sea serpents fighting for his side."

"The fool!" Attuma gloated. "With him out of the way, my victory is assured, especially with him using the stone!"

"Yes, clever of you to employ Llyra to your cause; how ironic that the source of Namor's downfall will be from the seat of his own throne, his death a result of being impaled by his own trident!"

"Indeed, but in the meantime, my forces are being taxed, Namor's lackeys will not give up the fight easily, what should I do to thwart him?

Krang thought for a moment.

"Keep the vanguard pressing forward, but hold off on the reinforcements; Namor would expect that. Save the Antarctic Leviathans, Cretan Sea Serpents, Roman Sea Dragons, the bulk of your sea demons, piranahaoids, and eel men, for a second wave. In the meantime, deploy a small fragment of your reserve forces to the fray. Focus their efforts on bottlenecking Namor's outer flanks, and constricting his maneuvering abilities; use no more than 5 of the Sea Dragons if you have to."

"Will this give me the victory, Krang?"

"No, my lord, but it will cripple Namor's forces severely, perhaps even enough to lure the false king out into battle. Should that happen, not only will you publicly shame Namor in defeat, but you will weaken his grip on the sea life, thus giving you an opening to exploit. Once Namor is defeated, Llyra can take his throne, assert her absolute control over the sea demons, and send in the the remaining waves of your army; trust me sire, by this time tomorrow, we will be celebrating the dawn of your reign."

Attuma contemplated on this for a bit (I get the feeling that he wasn't exactly a tactical genius).

"It shall be done," he finally said. "Anything else, Krang?"

"Now that you mention it," Krang said, looking at Janus with a sly expression. "I would advise you to spare four Antarctic Leviathans, two platoons of piranhaoids, and eel men, and four Cretan Sea Serpents from your cavalry force."

"And why should I do that, Krang? Do not presume yourself a king, that role belongs to me!"

"Of course not, Lord Attuma. However, while I was interrogating Janus, I came across a rather odd thought; something that may involve reinforcements that even I would not expect him to call upon."

"Are you certain of this?"

"Not entirely, but I find it a bit too suspicious that a warrior spirit such as Janus would venture so far from the battle, especially in a direction that seems to be more surface dweller friendly."

Attuma thought on that notion for a few seconds, and I noticed how him and Krang seemed to have a relationship that was both at arms length, and on a tight leash. They reminded me of the way certain gang bosses (yeah, I knew a few) treated their crew members; that same grudging respect, mixed with a trigger hand ready to shoot if they felt threatened, or wanted to take the top spot. Obviously Krang and Attuma were on the same side, but I doubt they actually trusted one another even a little bit.

"Very well, Krang." Attuma finally grumbled. "I shall relay the orders to Llyra, you be sure to take the royal palace; Llyra will need to sit on the throne if she is to command the full forces of the Nethertrench."

"As you command, Lord Attuma," Krang said, before switching off the communication line, and turning his attention back to Janus.

"You will loose," Janus managed to get out, his voice barely reaching above a gravelly whisper.

"Oh?" Krang asked him. "And why is that? My plan is coming into fruition as we speak, your defenses are compromised beyond repair, and once that idiot Attuma is on the throne, i'll slit his throat, and become the king of the oceans; where exactly is my disadvantage?

"Your disadvantage, just like the dozen times before, comes in the form of you not being able to see past your own ego. You think me defeated? You think your victory assured? Don't be so arrogant, Krang; the great sea god has spoken to me, and he will deliver the savior of Atlantis."

"And you, Janus? What did your 'god' say about your fate?"

"That I will live on in his glory, as a guardian spirit of his royal court."

"Then happy tidings, prince of Atlantis."

Krang pointed a fist at Janus, and a small golden arrow shot out of his wrist, and impaled Janus in the head, killing him instantly. I figured that this would be the end of my dream, but things were just getting started.

I was pulled forward another hundred miles, swimming at the speed of sound. As I soared along the ocean coast, I noticed how the ground became littered with sunken ships, yachts, submarines, and even battleships. I also noticed how the area was just a f*(#!^& warzone. Sharks of all kind were tearing away at what I assumed to be giant blue fluorescent sea serpents, big enough to wrap around ten flagpoles. Eels as long as school buses, were attacking giant stingrays, big enough to wrap around SUV's, and honest to God Atlanteans. I wasn't able to get a good look at them, but I noticed how some of them had Janus' exact same appearance, while others were a darker shade of blue, with more fish-like appearances (gills near their ribs, scaly skin, talons, fins, webbed hands, you get it). Hell, there were more of those piranhaoids in the fray too, biting, scratching, and fighting the Atlanteans tooth n' nail. Don't ask me who was willing the fight; amidst all the chaos and blood, I really couldn't tell you. Besides, it didn't seem like my dream wanted me to linger on this battle anyway. I was drifted further and further through the water, and was getting really worried when all I could see was blackness. Seriously, my eyes were already adjusted to the current setting, so it didn't make sense for my vision to be all not working and stuff; that was until I got to the edge. Again, not afraid of the water, and damn sure not afraid of heights, but from where I was standing, I was starting to get a little anxious about both. It wasn't a trench, i'd be able to at least see the rocks if it was. Hell, even the most appropriate word, chasm, didn't cover the scope of how dark this thing was. In every direction looking forward, it was just nothing but liquid darkness, no other landmasses, no signs of anything beyond the darkness; if I didn't know better i'd swear I was at the edge of the earth. Again, I maybe had half a second to think 'no, no, no, no!' like Cleveland, before I was rocketed down into the depths of what I pictured to be the underwater version of Hell.

I was panicking. I was scared. I was absolutely 100% out of my element. The only piece of solace that I had, was the fact that this was a dream; and even then I had to keep reassuring myself of my safety.

"It's ok, Jason," I kept telling myself as I descended hundreds of miles into the chasm. "It's only a dream. You'll wake up eventually. Freddy Krueger dosen't exist, you'll be ok, nothing can hurt you right now, just be chill."

I kept up that mantra for a good five minutes, almost had myself convinced that I was completely safe; then, out of the complete darkness, almost as soon as I shot the bottom of the chasm, a giant growling dog head, big enough to to a chubby bunny contest with SUV's, tried to swallow me whole (that's what my first thought was). That was such a jump scare for me, it's a good thing I didn't have my powers; I would've blasted the thing with so much lightning, Storm, Thor, and Zeus would be ashamed of themselves. Anyway, my fear seemed to be misplaced, because the dog wasn't attacking, it was crashing into the ground. I drifted towards it slowly, not wanting to startle it (like I could have), and I have to say, after getting a closer look, I so wanted one of these things. Like I said, it was massive, and my vision was just starting to adjust to the chasm's depths, so I could appreciate the size of the beast even more. I estimated it would be around 30ft tall/wide if it was standing, with a maw big enough to swallow a small house whole. It's body wasn't covered in fur, but black scales. The thing had a mouth full of shark teeth, glowing neon green eyes (that were starting to dim), and as it breathed, I noticed how it's mouth glowed with a subtle green flame (which was basically a giant roaring oven from where I was standing). I actually felt sad for the poor beast, I wanted to help it; but as a flaming green fireball, about the size of a truck crashed into the ground in the distance, the ground beneath the dog and I started crumble, the beast fell even further into the darkness of the chasm (this thing went down forever). I maybe had a few seconds to feel sorry for the thing, before I was pulled across the floor of the chasm even more. Quick thing to note, the ground in this place was about as stable as a trampoline with holes in it. As I soared along the chasm floor, I noticed how they were basically just plates just barely held together by their connection to each other. The chasm floor spread out like this more miles, I couldn't see the end of it; however, that's not where my dream wanted my center of attention to be. I noticed, almost from out of nowhere, green fire being spewed wildly in every direction. Instinctively, I looked up…really wish I didn't.

Another one of those sea dogs (until I know what they are called, that name's sticking), was a good 50ft above me, and boy was he having a time of it. I saw him spraying green fire everywhere, and I almost thought he was just losing his mind, until I saw little man sized things being burned to a crisp. One of those things actually drifted in my direction, and I identified it as the broiled remains of a paranoid (sucks to be that guy). The sea dog was definitely putting up a hell of a fight, swiping wildly at his attackers (there were hundreds of the little $#!+$), swallowing them in his mouth, and broiling more and more with his green fire. Now that I mention it, the sea dogs were much more badass than I gave the dead one credit for. For starters this one (and I assume every other one of it's kind) has giant bat-like wings about the size of an airplane's (obviously hydrodynamic). Jutting out of its back were four huge octopus-like tentacles, thick enough to crunch a pickup truck, with huge pincers attached to the ends; and believe me, the dog was definitely making use of them. Anyway, just when it seemed like the sea dog was getting a lock on the fight…a dragon barreled into him. I'm not joking you guys, and honest to God, bluish green dragon (whose aurora-like skin actually contrasted beautifully in the bluish black darkness of the deep sea), with a giant fish tail in place of hind legs, tackled the giant underwater dog with bat wings, and octopus tentacles; if any of this actually makes sense to you, i'll get you first class tickets to whatever vacation spot you want to go to. So yeah, the sea dog and water dragon duked it out for a good minute or so, displaying a fierce, actually quite terrifying battle. They scratched, clawed, bit, blasted fire even, but at the end of the day, and even though it cost him half a tentacle, the sea dog did manage to snag the win by biting deep into the the water dragon's neck, thrashing it around for a bit, and then blowing his head into a burst of bloody chunks with a close range blast of fire. With no other enemy in sight, it seemed like the sea dog was finally in the clear, but just like Janus, this thing couldn't seem to catch a break. Out of the hazy dark background, I noticed a huge figure, like 5X bigger the the Titanic huge. Once I got a clearer view of it, I wanted to crawl into a trench and stay there forever. This thing was basically the result of a fusion between a monster whale, and Great White Shark. It's brown scaly skin made it look like a mutated trout had gotten into the mix somehow, and it's eyes…nothing but two black marbles of indifferent savage nature. The sea dog barely had a chance to look back (I swear I heard it whimper), and make a half assed attempt to flee, before the monster whale/shark thing opened it's maw, revealing a pearly set of razor sharp whites (which went perfectly with it's 'able to swallow ten yachts at once' mouth), and with more speed than I thought a beast of that size could have, grabbed it in it's mouth, and chewed it down to hamburger meat; smearing the water with more blood than I ever cared to see in my lifetime. As the beast munched on its midnight snack, I noticed the shimmer of a few more water dragons, as well as the scuttling of hundreds of piranhaoids. They scurried around in their own respective areas, but for the most part, kept to a fairly traceable pattern; almost like a set patrol unit. I would've inquired on this, but I was apparently on a tight schedule, as my dream whisked me even further into the ongoing ocean (seriously, the only reason this didn't completely suck, was the fact that "Under The Sea wasn't playing in the background).

I didn't know exactly how many miles I swam out, but I was kickin' it double time, barely able to see anything other than a few vague glimpses of rocky spires in the bluish black water. After what seemed like forever, I noticed something in the distance, only a mile or so out, and glowing as blue as neon paint. I braced myself for the mother of all monsters, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the source of the blue light was actually from what seemed to be a city (yeah, Atlantis, but what else could it be, L.A.?). I rocketed into it, or should I say over it, and I gotta say, this place was legit. I always pictured Atlantis to be a small, broken, old, rundown piece of Greek/Roman-like buildings and statues. I pictured it's inhabitants living in broken temples, and living all primitive (with spears and stuff). Looking at this place from above, my imagination owed this place an apology. The kingdom was definitely no stranger to Greek/Roman architecture, but it definitely had a modern type of vibe to it as well; small temples, and villas were accompanied by sweet looking underwater mansions (the kinds you could only get if your last name was Trump, Gates, Depp, or Bloom), there seemed to be a sort of tubular transportation network snaking it's way along and under (lots of what I could see of the kingdom were on top of barely connected plates either held up by technology, magic, or both) the ground. In every direction, there was at least some sort of statue dedicated to guys holding tridents. The place was definitely beautiful, lights hung in tall posts, illuminating the city in a nice vibrant shade of sky blue, the coral gardens (which were f*(#!%& everywhere) were sparkling rainbow colleges of marine plant life, and I could literally see door sized seahorses, multi colored fish, and sharks with saddles, toting heavily armored Atlanteans, swimming about. Oh, and notice how I keep using the word kingdom, instead of things like city or village? Well, that's because this place was massive; like, bigger than I could see, massive. I once read that Atlantis was about the size of Australia, and I definitely would not be surprised if that was the case for this Lost Empire (slow clap for me). To bad the city life was depressing as hell. Nobody was out in the roads, unless they were carrying weapons, wounded, or dead; and this was happening in every direction, millions upon millions were either preparing for battle, getting first aid, or taking a dirt nap. I won't go into detail about it (my dream had no time for it anyway), but yeah, this was definitely not a Disney playland. Anyway, I was whisked forward, the entire kingdom of Atlantis flying by in a blue blur, and once I stopped, I was basically in the middle of another war zone. Don't get me wrong, i've been in a small scale battle before (the zombie thing, you remember?), but as I hovered about a mile over the current skirmish, I kinda felt like a little kid when they first realize that the world is a lot bigger than them.

Now get this. Atlantis was really big, Australia big. I never contemplated on the thought, but it takes a pretty big force to assault a continent, especially Lord of the Rings style. Looking at the assaulting force of Attuma's army, basically embodied the exact amount of intensity a person should have when assaulting a kingdom of Atlantis' size. The army consisted of pretty much everything I heard Krang talk about, piranhaoids, water dragons, Leviathans (I guess that's what that jumbo whale/shark thing was), as well as some rogue Atlanteans dressed in golden armor. The army was massive, I mean I was looking in the distance, and I still couldn't see the end of it; and by my estimation we were already at about 500 million (not an exaggeration) and rising. Namor's side, the ones with the black armor, were definitely no slouches either. Looking back we were probably a good 50 miles from Atlantis' border, but it didn't even matter, cuz almost every spare inch of land and water between here and there was occupied with soldiers, sea monsters, and warring sea animals. The water was filled with the clanging of weapons, firing of lasers (there were actually highly intense rapid fire green energy blasts coming from some point inside Atlantis taking out, or at least distracting some of the big sea monsters), the sounds of death cries, flesh being ripped apart, and the water was definitely red enough for the occasion; seriously, after three Great White Sharks took apart a sea serpent, the water was basically a paint ball cesspit. Again, I could definitely kill if the situation called for it, but watching all of this…..this…slaughter, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to just skim over all of this, practically begging my dream to take me somewhere else; naturally, my dream would give me a hardy f*(# you, and keep me surveying the battle for not one, not two, but FOUR F*(#!&$ HOURS!

In retrospect, even if I didn't like watching the battle, I guess I could see the purpose. For one, I had to see Krang's plan come into fruition, and boy was it working. It was definitely slow work, like I said, Atlantis was definitely no pushover, but the way Krang was maneuvering his forces...well, it was a smarter approach. While the Atlanteans were focusing on being an unmovable wall, Krang was manipulating his army to climb over that wall. Instead of pressing his army forward, they seemed to be holding their ground, only pressing forward as much as they needed too. Occasionally they released a volley of hundreds of black tridents over their enemies, to give off the illusion that they were hell bent on going through their opposing army. At the same time, Krang was bulking up the outer flanks of his army, and having them really put on the heat; actually pushing the Atlanteans back, and almost making a crescent over their entire force. Mind you, this happened over a course of four hours, and spanned the perimeter of a continent, but from a strategic standpoint, Krang was kinda of a pro. After a few more minutes of fighting, a huge blue flare from way deep in the attacking army's bulk, erupted, and took off like a comet, charging straight towards me. Ok, now was the moment I wake up, right? Something big, had obviously spotted me, it was time to dip out before I was killed Nightmare on Elm Street style, right? RIGHT?! Well, my dream gave me another f*(# you, and didn't let me wake up. was so totally dead, so unbelievably murdered, as the blue comet flew right through me, not even noticing/harming me (phew!), and crashed in the heart of Atlantis' army. Upon impact, the comet exploded, creating a crater where at least 3,000 Atlanteans used to be. Once the dust cleared, I got a good view of what that 'comet' was, and damn was it something! Even while the dust was still clouding my vision, I could hear the SHUNK!, SLICH!, and THOCK! sounds, as whatever it was, went on a killing spree. Occasionally i'd see another blast of blue light, and for some reason, felt the water around me change into some pretty violent currents. Finally, the dust cleared, and I got a good look at whatever was so badass (other than me), it could tear though armies.

It was obviously Attuma. Guy had the blue skin, golden armor, stupid helmet, and everything. Looking up close though, I was slightly more afraid of him (only slightly!). For starters, the dude could fight, and not just fight, fight, I mean he could REALLY fight. As he slashed, stabbed, and thrusted his trident through any poor Atlantean in his reach, he displayed a rage controlled fighting style (I used that on Crosby too many times to count). Perfectly balanced strength, speed, skill, with a little bit of unpredictable rage to spice it up. He quickly thrusted his trident through another Atlantean, planted him and the spear into the ground, and did a 360 degree spin kick, creating an energy charged whirl wave, and blew apart everything around him that was in a 20ft radius. Afterwards, he took his trident out of the mangled flesh of the Atlantean he impaled (poor bastard), and after charging it with a $#!+ ton of blue energy, swept it across the water like a baseball bat, and released one hell of a crescent wave, completely obliterating a good 300 (or more) Atlanteans in about three seconds. Attuma continued his slaughter for another 3 seconds, killing over 100 Atlanteans, and three great white sharks. Finally, after he seemed kinda bored with what he was doing, he twirled his trident, and the water spun around him at super high speeds, rising higher and higher (taking a few Atlanteans for a ride) until it reached a good 20 feet. The whirl wave took the form of Attuma, he basically created a water Combat Avatar, and resumed to hack down Atlanteans like wheat in a field.

"NAMOR!" Attuma shouted, his voice reverberating across the ocean depths. "THE TIME OF YOUR FALSE REIGN IS OVER, HALF-BREED! COME, COME AND FACE LORD ATTUMA, THE TRUE KING OF ATLANTIS!"

He slammed his foot on the ground; 400 Atlanteans were snuffed out like candles.

"NAAAAAMOOOR!" Attuma roared.

Another blue comet, this one actually brighter, flew out from behind Atlantis' borders, and I could feel the power vibrating from it; like the sea had collapsed in on itself, and was coming at me in one focused shot. Attuma growled at it, and his Combat Avatar dispersed, and reformed into about 100 jagged pieces of energy charged water; yes, pieces, Attuma was somehow making the water solid without freezing it. Attuma roared, and the jagged water spikes flew at the comet quicker than bullets (I would know). Dunno why I was surprised by it, but the spikes liquefied after getting within 5ft of the comet, and in response, the comet glowed brighter, and doubled its speed, dead set on steamrolling Attuma. Attuma quickly created a water shield, but he may as well have held up a wall of paper for all the good it did him. The comet barreled into Attuma, completely shattering the shield, and he was rocketed upwards so fast, I thought he might be in danger of getting shot out of the water. The glow of the comet dimmed a bit, and I got a glimpse of the guy inside of this one. He was dressed in black leather pants, which were also covered with armor plates that was patterned after fish fins. His chest plate was the same type of black metal as the other Atlanteans' armor, but his was lined with golden highlights. He wore shiny gold arm gauntlets, had honest to God wings sprouting out of his ankles (so, he was an Atlantean son of Hermes?), and had slicked back hair, slanted eyes, tan skin, pointed ears, and kinda looked like a Greek elf. I'll never say that to his face though, cuz my God, this guy was a beefcake...like Dwayne Johnson level beefcake. Anyway, He soared after Attuma, manipulating the water around him to take the form of an energy charged Great White Shark (so badass), while roaring something in Atlantean (probably F*(# YOU!). Attuma was still out of it, so he had absolutely no chance to defend against the shark construct opened it's jaws (Namor, yeah I know who Namor was, kinda slipped out of the construct, while still keeping it intact), and clamped down on him, going critical as it exploded like a gas tank. I figured Attuma had to be dead, problem solved for Atlantis, but something weird happened with the explosion. Instead of the explosion spreading outwards, the blast kinda folded in on itself, like something was vacuuming it up. After the bubbles cleared, Attuma was fine. His blue aura was actually glowing brighter, the etchings on his golden armor were almost humming with power, and he had a 'i'm about to enjoy myself' look plastered all over his face. Either for another test, or because he just didn't get it, Namor blasted at Attuma with a ray of blue energy. Attuma simply twirled his trident with one hand, and as the blast made contact with it, absorbed the energy like a sponge; I noticed how the energy was absorbed though the trident, and seemed to be going directly to the armor, rather than inside Attuma. After that, Attuma charged Namor, who charged him back with even more speed.

I'll say this, those guys fought like...well, gods. Every punch, slash, block, and kick sent ripples in the ocean floor; hell, Namor actually seemed like was trying to keep Attuma in high waters, so that his army was less affected by the battle. Namor's strategy seemed to revolve around trying to gut Attuma with his trident, performing some extremely good spearmanship, but when he was able to keep his distance, Namor launched constant volleys of small, but wicked sharp, spear points made of hardened water. I get that he was going for precision over power, trying to get Attuma between the weak points of his armor, but Attuma was just as good at fighting, and manipulating the water; so yeah, Namor would have to try harder.

My dream kept me in the midst of the fighting for a few more minutes, which was basically a big stab, blast, and waterbending fest (I found it disturbing how Attuma seemed to be getting more powerful just by being near the stone), before I was basically yanked backwards into Atlantis. At this point, I was just sick of this. I mean, I got the point; big fight in Atlantis, bad guys winning, stone of Poseidon involved, I needed to warn Fury. I just didn't see any point in my dream continuing any further; that was until I realized where I was going. Like I said, I basically skimmed over Atlantis when I was being propelled through the water, so I may have missed a few things; boy was this a big something! I was propelled back to the edge of Atlantis, which confused me at first, until I noticed something strange in the distance, something that looked like a floating mountain just outside of the main city, and about half a mile over it. I shot upwards like a bullet, and once able to get a clear view of it, stopped just at the gates of the palace complex. The palace was a giant dome, about the size of four cruise ships lined up, with lots of spires, balconies, and aqueducts decorating the landscape. Blue lights decorated the courtyard, which made the coral gardens in this place amazing sight to see. Hundreds of Atlanteans, and various marine life, were swimming about (probably on guard duty), but that's not where my dream wanted me to be. I phased between the palace doors, and floated along a bunch of corridors and hallways (this place must have been built inside the infrastructure of the mountain, cuz we went down way too many staircases for it to be kept solely within the dome), passing by hundreds of guards, until I made it to the throne room; oh, just in case you wanna know what the interior looked like, just insert lots of golden walls, stupid looking paintings, a ballroom, a feast hall, and a bunch of other royal stuff I couldn't care less about. However, once I got to the throne room, things got a lot more interesting, a fun way. For starters, only six people were alive in a swirl of blood and dismembered bodies. One of them I recognized as Krang, three of the others were piranhaoids (who were savagely eating up as many bodies as they could get their claws on), but there were two other faces I didn't recognize. One of them was male, had blue skin, wore a red cape, and unfortunately for me, armored red underwear; only armored red underwear. He had a brown mustache and beard (like, bad guy cliche style mustache and beard), was wielding a golden trident (those things must've been a dime a dozen),and was wearing a red battle helmet; just like Krang, he was glowing with blue energy. The other new player was a girl, who was sitting on an elaborate stone throne shaped like a seashell. She had blue skin, red hair, and was wearing a long red cape, and traditional Greek armor (of course it was red, and had fish scale patterns on it). She was also holding a golden trident, but this time, it seemed like she was actually using it for a purpose that didn't involve stabbing people. She was swirling with blue and green energy, weird glyphs, Egyptian and Greek, were shimmering around her. I dunno how I felt it, but I could feel her brain wave pattern, like a stereo going at full blast. Whatever it was she was doing, it was obviously hell on her; her breathing was almost nonexistent, her face was contorted in stress, and whatever she was chanting, I could tell it was dangerous, like, defusing a nuke dangerous. Krang and the other guy simply stood guard over her.

"Ughhh!" the guy in the red armor muttered. "Tiger Shark and Orka get to be in the glorious heat of battle, while I remain trapped on the fringe with you and the she witch!"

"Shut up, Byrrah," Krang said, calmly cleaning off one of his knives. "My scanners indicate three platoons of the royal guard making their way to the throne room as we speak; you will have more than your fill of blood. And even then, you will not leave your post; Llyra's control over the great sea monsters of the Nethertrench, is vital to the defeat of Namor. If I have to chain you to this floor, I will do it."

"Easy, dear cousin," Byrrah chuckled. "I know my duty, I simply grow bored with it. Besides, since when have you had such devotion to Attuma?"

"I don't, but if that bumbling idiot takes the throne, it'll get me closer to it as well. If it means becoming king in the long run, I will play second to Attuma. For now that is."

"Always thinking three steps ahead, eh Krang?"

Krang shrugged, just as the doors of the throne room blew apart. Hundreds of Atlanteans in black and gold armor flooded through the gym sized throne room, each of them loaded with swords, spears, blasters, etc. The two piranhaoids didn't stand a chance, and were immediately killed off, but Krang extended his palm, and a huge blast of Poseidon energy (it was obviously from the stone) wasted twenty Atlanteans at once.

"GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, BYRRAH?!" Krang roared to his partner.

"IT'LL DO!" Byrrah roared back, throwing his trident though 5 of the guards, and charging deep in the fray

I watched them go at for about ten seconds, grudgingly admiring Krang's discipline, and Byrrah's raw power (remind you of any other people), as they continued to waste the palace's forces. After that, I was gone. Literally, I wasn't yanked anywhere else, and unfortunately, I didn't wake up; I simply flashed from one place to another.

Ok, i've been through the roughest neighborhoods in New York, i've rode on the same subway as the Royals (big gang, not the people to f*(# with), and didn't bat an eyelash. In the place I was at right now? Well, let's just say...no, I can't even play this off. This place made me wanna $#!+ myself.

It was more than just darkness, that was easy. It was literally a trench filled with living, liquidy, despair. The shadows seemed alive, aggressive, filled with nothing but the desire to destroy and consume. I heard wailing, shrieks, and roars; each one so horrible i'm pretty sure it was sending shiver down my body's spine in real time. Every so often, a monstrous face or limb would form in the darkness, each more horrible than the last. I looked in every direction, and nearly panicked when I couldn't find my way out of the darkness. Hell, the voices I heard in this place were basically feeding me paranoia. I wanted to wake up, I wanted to wake up so bad, but the darkness still had something beautiful (sarcasm) to show me. The inky substance started to bubble violently, and after looking like my 6th grade science project (don't ask), the darkness finally exploded. Right in front of me, a colossal, monstrous silhouette emerged. It looked like a Minotaur; dead serious. I couldn't see it's finer features, but I did see it towering high enough to use the empire state building as a baseball bat, I saw it's burning red eyes, impossibly large horns and claws (that looked sharp enough to impale airplanes), and four huge tentacles, easily strong enough to crumple a bridge. The beast stumbled around for a few seconds, looking like someone who just waking up from and unpleasant dream (lucky), before roaring a guttural, cow-like roar, louder than Times Square during New Year's. The beast flung itself upwards, making me feel like Spongebob and Patrick when their patty wagon was swallowed by that huge eel with road patterns in it (you know what i'm talking about, don't act like you don't); after he went wherever, the party really got started. Out of the murky shadows, hundreds upon hundreds of figures, each seven feet tall savage looking, rocketed after the sea Minotaur. Occasionally, i'd see a few mini-sea Minotaurs, about 8 feet tall, something that looked like a sea version of a Balrog, just as big as the big sea Minotaur, and the list went on and on; an entire armada of monsters from ocean Hell swimming from God knows where, to rip Atlantis a new one. I finally, realized why I was having this dream, whoever sent me here, they were sending out distress beacon, they needed my help! Just like that, I opened my eyes, and was almost blinded by the view.

Sunlight was flooding into the room (a welcome sight), illuminating the little things like Allyson's TV, work desk, and chandelier; but after the things I had seen, I may as well have been in Heaven. I almost forgot about what had happened before (before I went to sleep), but then I remembered who my arms were around, and it wall came flooding back to me. She was still sleeping, her light snore actually kinda pleasing to my ears. Not to be all like Twilight (f*(# that movie), but I kinda liked watching her sleep; her face had this kind of natural angelic serenity to it, and she had this cute way of breathing in through her nose, and out of her barely open mouth. I could've stayed like this forever, but Allyson's alarm clock had other plans. The blaring alarm almost gave me a heart attack, and it took everything I had not to blast it to bits. Allyson on the other hand just kinda stirred lightly, reached over, and turned the alarm off. She turned back to me, snuggling up slightly, but then, after looking at me, she plastered a blank, but serious, expression on her face. She studied me for a bit, the worry very much clear in her demeanor (I was seriously starting to think she had mind reading powers).

"Uhh.." I started (I STILL suck at this!). Hi?"

Allyson tilted her head, smirking slightly.

"Really?" she retorted. "Hi?"

I didn't know how to respond (did I mention I still suck at this?), but thankfully, as Allyson wrapped my mouth in a deep, slow, long, sweet, kiss, I didn't have to.

She pulled back slow, playfully biting my lip, and laughing at my dumbfounded face.

"Sorry," she said. "I promise that was the last one, i'm totally all business-like now. It's just...you seemed worried; you needed that, and I wanted it."

I smirked at her, and sat straight up, groaning slightly. Oh yeah, I remembered last night.

"Mm-hmm," Allyson continued, sitting up with me. "I know what that feels like; look what you did to me."

I turned around, and put my hand over my mouth, just barely stifling my gasp. Allyson's skin was basically a giant bruise. All of her stomach was purple, her thighs looked like a child went nuts on them' with a paintbrush. Her arms actually had hand shaped bruises around them; I had done that!

"Oh my God!" I said from underneath my hands. "Allyson, I-"

"It's fine, Jason," Allyson interrupted me. "I can't exactly say i've looked worse, but I do heal fast. Besides, I did some pretty rough things to you too; I can still see some purple areas on your chest."

I looked at myself, and chuckled; it was only the first date and look what happened!

"But seriously," she continued. "What's up, you look like you've seen a ghost, and don't you dare lie to me, Jason."

She scrambled over to my side, looking me in the eyes for emphasis. Like I said, through either will or cuteness, if it wasn't a physical confrontation, i'd never win anything with this girl.

"It's nothing," I halfheartedly lied. "Ok, not nothing, but...a dream, that's all, it was just a dream."

"Just a dream?" Allyson asked me. "Last time you 'dreamed' you saw evil gods, and predicted how our day in the city would end with us fighting snake fashionista rejects; I think I wanna hear more about this dream, please."

"Why? It's no big deal, besides, it's not like we can actually do anything about it."

Allyson turned her head, and sighed.

"Jason," she started, her speech clear and curt. "I am trying to be patient with you, I really am. And i'm saying this not as your sorta, kinda girlfriend, but as a member of the team that you lead. You need to communicate with me and Grant more. Think about yesterday, about how disastrous that could've went if we were caught off guard, think about the people who are most likely suffering in your dream, because you are too afraid to act. We. I can't help you, if you don't tell me what's wrong. So if you want this team, and this relationship to go anywhere, please, tell me what you saw."

My initial thought (and i'm so glad I didn't say it) was "screw you, I don't have to tell you $#!+, get the f*(# off my back!" However, I gave it a good second, thought about it for a good hundred times, and grudgingly came to an agreement that I did owe Grant and Allyson some foresight to what we as a team might be up against.

"Ok," I finally breathed out. "You wanna know? Fine."

I quickly explained the contents of my dream to her, what happened to Janus, the battle taking place outside Atlantis, what it took to get there, the monsters involved, everything. Afterwards, Allyson kinda stared at me, her face all like: "da f*(#!?".

"Wow!" she said, her face spontaneously bursting with a smile. "It's a start. Maybe we'll eventually get to the deep stuff."

"Very funny," I responded. "Maybe if you can-"

I stopped myself, not wanting to let my anger to bleed into my speech.

"It's ok, Jason," Allyson said soothingly. "Look, I know it may seem difficult-"

"Difficult!" I interrupted her. "When's the last time you dove a billion feet under water? How long can you hold your breath in the ocean?"

"I don't need to breathe in my Sun Form."

Now it was my turn to give her a "da f*(#!?" look.

"What!" Allyson said. "It's a part of my power! Look, Jason, I get it. You're scared, and you care about the people getting hurt. Plus there's the stone to think about; can't let the bad guys get it.

"But again," I said. "How are we supposed to get it, when we have to go scuba diving for it; not too mention fight off an entire army."

"In case your memory is fuzzy, we literally did the latter, like two days ago. And this is S.H.I.E.L.D., the biggest center for all things weird and freaky. If anybody's gonna get us to Atlantis of all places, S.H.I.E.L.D. can do it. First, we have to tell Colonel Fury what's going on; we can't get help if we don't ask for it."

"Aw man. Once Fury hears that another stone is basically on the verge of being taken, he's gonna burst a blood vessel."

"Maybe. But he'll go ballistic if you don't at least let him know what's going on. Which one would you prefer?"

"I'd prefer option C; spend all day with you and Grant."

"Oh? Is my company not enough for you, Jason?"

"Trust me," I said while standing up. "You're more than enough, maybe too much."

"Then why do you love it so much?" Allyson asked me.

I grabbed her hands, pulled her to her feet (she was wincing a bit), and gave her a firm kiss. We both let it happen for a good twenty seconds, and then slowly broke it off.

"Double standard!" Allyson nearly shrieked. "I thought we agreed to put us on hold!"

"Well," I playfully started. "You got a freebie, I get one too."

Allyson thought with that for a few seconds.

"Ok," she finally said with a shrug. "I'll let you have that one, but no more; you set the rule, you have to follow it."

"Fine," I chuckled, hugging her one last time.

She winced as our bodies squished together, and kinda pushed me off her.

"You should probably heal that already," I told her.

"Don't worry" she said. "I will, but i'll do it in the shower."

"Why?"

"Because, I love shower singing. And when I shower in unison with solar energy covering my body, ooooh!"

"Sounds fun, maybe I should join you sometime."

"You better."

She walked into her bathroom, and I quickly got dressed, putting on my pants, shirt, and shoes. I grabbed my jacket and tie, left the room, and made a beeline to my own, not even bothering to look at the stares some of the agents were giving me. After I was safe behind closed doors, I quickly undressed, took a quick 10 minute shower, and went to my closet to get dressed. I grabbed a pair of blue jeans, an orange T-Shirt, and my blue Wild Force leather jacket (what? I really wanted to wear it. Afterwards, I put my morpher on, and decided to contact Grant; had to let him know about the Atlantis situation.

"Yo, Grant," I said. "We got a situation, come in."

I waited for a minute.

"Grant?" I tried again.

I waited for another minute.

"Grant, dude, where the hell are you?! Pick up!"

Yet another minute; still no answer. Now I was starting to get worried.

"Allyson?" I messaged her. "You there?

"Yeah," she answered. "What's up?"

"Have you tried contacting Grant yet?"

"No, why?"

"He's not answering his morpher, and i've tried calling him three times already."

"Maybe he's in the shower? Already at breakfast? Decided to hit the gym early?"

"He'd still answer me though; i'm starting to worry."

"Here, let me give it a go."

Our communication line went silent for a few minutes.

"Ok," Allyson said once messaging me back, her voice etched with anxiety. "He hasn't messaged me back yet…but it could be for any number of reasons, no need to panic."

"No need to panic!" I almost screamed back at her.

"Yes! He might still be sleeping is all. Just meet me at my room, we'll go up to his room, and see if he's there."

"Ok," I said, trying to get my breathing under control. "Alright, i'm on my way now."

I quickly exited my room, jogged over to Allyson's, and knocked on her door. She quickly opened the door, and whoa, cute getup. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, was wearing a long white shirt with black stripes, and tight blue jeans tucked into her brown boots; good thing I could react faster than she could see, cuz I damn near had to remember that mouths are suppose to be closed when you're not talking.

"Nice jacket," she said as she stepped out of her room. "Ready to go?"

"Uh, yeah" I said. "Thanks, you good, I mean, you look good too."

She smiled, rolled her eyes, and started walking to the elevator, leaving me to follow behind her. We quickly made our way to Grant's room, and Allyson knocked on it a few times.

"Grant?" she called. "You in there?"

No answer for like 30 seconds.

I tired again, actually banging on his door.

"Grant!" I called. "Bro, you there?!"

Still no answer.

"Alright," I said. "Time to let myself in."

I made my head vibrate really fast (that'll do wonders for your brain), and stuck it through Grant's door. I looked around for a few seconds, and aside from his unmade bed (I never made mine's either), nothing else was here. The TV was off, I couldn't hear anything coming from the bathroom, and nothing indicated that Grant was here.

"Nothing there," I told Allyson, as I pulled my head back.

"You know that was rude, right?" Allyson scolded me. "What if Grant was-"

"There's only a few things you can privately do in bed by yourself, and I do not need that image in my head, Allyson."

She gave me a 'why would you say that?" face, and we both headed over to the cafeteria. Just before we went inside, Allyson stopped me.

"Wait a minute!" she said. "I just thought about something!"

"What is it?" I asked her. "You think you might know where Grant is?"

"He has to be working out, Jason, there's nowhere else he could be. Still, that's not the point. I just realized that we have no idea where Fury is right now; how are we supposed to figure out a plan to get to Atlantis if we can't clear it through him first?"

Damn. Didn't think that part through.

"Well," I started. "I mean, I guess we could…."

It hit me like a bolt of lightning (pun intended). The Helicarrier obviously operated on electricity, and if I could sense the entire infrastructure of a skyscraper, what was to say that I couldn't do it here?

"Hold up," I told Allyson. "Lemme try something."

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Last time I did this, I used the fuse box, but I didn't have that luxury right now. Instead, I took a few deep breaths, and let myself feel the electricity surging through the ship. It took a good ten seconds to achieve, but I was eventually able to sense the voltage around everything inside the ship, and used that to map out Fury's location. It only took a few seconds to lock onto him (he was examining the stones in the Helicarrier vault with Mrs. Kennedy), so I tried to find Grant, before logging out of the Helicarrier's power grid. Believe me, I searched up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards. I could sense every last person on this ship, what they were doing, and where they were; Grant was nowhere to be found on the entire thing.

"Well, here's some good news," I said to Allyson, as I detached myself from the grid. "Fury's in some kinda vault with Ms. Kennedy; probably trying to study how the stones work. The bad news, and this is not an exaggeration at all, Grant is literally not on this ship."

I tried to break it easy to her, but come on, how 'easy' is it to tell someone "hey, our friend is missing, and he might be injured, kidnapped, or maybe dead!" Yeah, Allyson's face morphed into a display of angry, scared, confusion; she was having none of it.

"What you mean he's not on the ship!?" she basically shrieked/hissed at me. "He has to be here, where else could he be!?"

"I dunno, Allyson!" I said, biting down the worry I felt myself. "But I combed every inch of this ship, and I swear to you, he's simply not on it!"

"But, but, where would he be? He can't have just left on his own, and there's no way he could've been taken; where in God's name could he be?"

She started breathing really fast, her eyes went out of focus, and she put her hands to her temples, as if having a migraine. I couldn't blame her; I was actually feeling the same way, just keeping it bottled up.

"Look, Allyson," I started, trying to calm her down. "Let's just-"

"Don't you tell me to calm down, Jason!" she stopped me. "That never, EVER, works!"

"Ok, I won't say it. But all we can go to Fury; hell, that's the only thing we can do."

"But what about Grant?"

"Why do you think we're going to Fury?"

"To tell him about your dream of Atlantis."

"Well, let's add Grant to that list. Follow me-"

An alarm, the same one that alerted us to the stone of Hades being in Kansas (such fond memories), blared to life; cutting off my sentence, and attacking my eardrums. Before I could make sense of anything, Allyson and I were quickly transported away (starting to hate that), probably to another super supreme meeting place where we'd have to save a city from flesh eating mutant gerbils.

(Grant's Perspective)

Ok, two things guys. Number one: Don't sweat it, i'm fine. I wasn't kidnapped, I'm not hurt, I just….well, we'll get to that in a sec. Number two: we're rewinding back to last night, just after I left the two lovebirds a present on the door frame; seriously, did I have to do everything for those two? So yeah, now that we're on the same page, let's kick it!

So yeah, I was the one who made the mistletoe grow on Allyson's door frame. A little cheesy, yes, but they needed to get a move on, even if I had to push them. Rest assured, I didn't see/hear what they were doing once behind closed doors; although I had a pretty good idea! Anyway, my work was done, so I decided to go out on top, with a good sleep. I mean, not that I don't make it look easy, but kicking ass and taking names on a large scale actually takes a lot out of a guy; I was ready to hit the sack. I stripped out of my suit, loved the thing, dived into bed, and wrapped myself in the covers. Usually it took me about 10 minutes to get to sleep, should've taken a lot less with al the physical activity I did, but I was still wide awake by then. I grabbed my remote, flipped on the TV and watched some Adult Swim for half an hour; usually a good episode of Family Guy, Robot Chicken, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force will put me right to sleep. Yeah, that still didn't work. I flipped off the TV, and rolled around, trying furiously to fall asleep, actually getting kinda frustrated with myself. Still, after an hour of tossing, turning, and staring at my ceiling, I still wasn't tired. Seriously, I actually felt like I could stay up forever! I put my hands behind my head, and sighed.

"Ok, Grant," I thought to myself. "No biggie, just a side effect of your powers, that's all it is. So I loose a bit of sleep, big deal. I may not even need to for a while, maybe it's one of those extended energy things. Just relax, be chill, and wait it out."

Yeah, that's the stuff. Nothin' like a good old self pep talk to soothe the nerves. I mean, if this seriously became a problem for me, all i'd have to do is talk to Gaea about it anyway; what could possibly go wrong? Well, give it a whopping 3 minutes, and i'd find out.

It started in small doses at first. One second I was enjoying the solace of my room, the next, I could hear 100 different voices at once; some on the Helicarrier, some from extremely far away. Let me tell you something, that $#!+ hurt! It was like someone jammed a stereo set in my ears, and put it on full blast, I could barely hear myself think. I tried controlling it. I plugged my ears, focused hard on making my ears not hear so good, and curled in a fetal position. None of that helped in the slightest, in fact, the more I tried to turn it off, the more voices I started to hear. I heard some guy talking in Arabic, a fireworks display happening somewhere in the world, the screams of a woman being mugged, Jason and Allyson getting busy; it just wouldn't end! Then, in a moment of clarity, it all stopped in a grinding hault. No more voices upon voices barraging my eardrums, no more hearing things from millions of miles away, just complete silence. I've never been more thankful for that word before in my life. I was just about to phone Gaea, she had some serious explaining to do, but just as soon as they stopped, my powers started to act up again; this time with a double whammy. Now, in addition to my hearing basically opening up by 100, letting in the voices of millions of people and sounds; my sight was also joining in on the fun. All of a sudden, my eyes start to burn with a burning hot pain; like someone put searing glass shards in them. The pain was so bad, I couldn't even keep my eyes closed, and that was where the root of the problem began. It wasn't just the fact that I could see straight through the Helicarrier walls, that was kind of a given. No, it was the fact that I could literally see 500 miles past the ocean, and was looking at the Eiffel Tower, like I was three feet in front of it. Even worse, my vision wasn't ever focused on one place. One second I was staring at some random apartment in Germany, the next I was looking at the molecular structure of the Sydney Opera House. Hell, there were more than a few occasions where I was seeing things that weren't even in my line of sight. I caught clear flashes of my high school football field,Avengers Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, even my parents watching TV in the living room of my house. My eyes were straining more than was humanly possible, like they were being stretched to the limit of my sockets. To add more pain to the mix, my ears opened the floodgates, and let in all the noise. So in addition to getting an all around the world tour from the comfort of my own bed, I could hear the noise/voices of the entire world flooding into my ears at once. Plugging my ears didn't help, though I did my damnedest to try, and no matter how hard I tried to stop myself, my eyes would not stop seeing everything. Hell, I started to levitate off my bed, even though i've never had a problem with flight control ever. My body spontaneously burst in green fire, my gravity powers were out of wack; yeah, I was just having a bad time of everything right now. I honestly felt hopeless at this point. Nothing I did to get myself under control was working, in fact, it was steadily getting worse; I just didn't know what to do anymore.

"GRANT!" I heard Gaea's voice roar in my head over the millions of others. "GRANT, FOCUS! I NEED YOU TO FOCUS ON MY VOICE!"

That was kind of a big order to ask, what with the millions and millions of sounds in my ears, but I gave it my best shot.

"I HEAR YOU!" I responded. "BUT WHAT'S GOING ON?! WHY ARE MY POWERS F*(#! $ UP?!"

"Just listen to me," Gaea said, her voice getting lower, starting to drown in the sea of the world's voice. "I shielded you from the full effects during your battle with the Brotherhood, but now your body is starting experiencing the full scale of your powers."

"NO $#!+!" I responded. "NOW HOW DO I TURN THEM OFF!?"

"You cannot turn them off Grant, they are a part of you now. The only thing you can do is learn how to control them; let me help you."

"HOW CAN YOU HELP ME, YOU DID THIS TO ME, I CAN'T EVEN HEAR MYSE-"

I stopped suddenly. Maybe it was because I was to angry to realize it, but I wasn't hearing, or seeing anything that wasn't in my room. The only voice I heard was Gaea's.

"How did you do that?" I thought to her.

"It was nothing I did, Grant," Gaea responded. "I simply offered my voice out to you, and you listened, used it as a tether, and blocked out everything else. This is the first step to mastering your enhanced sight and hearing capabilities."

"So what's the next?"

"Focus on my voice, search for it in the earth, and set your sights on the place I am speaking from."

I did as she said, completely terrified of letting myself see anything outside of my sphere of comfort again. But as I coordinated my sight and hearing together, I managed to block out all other sights and sounds, focusing on Gaea's transmission like it was a lifeline. Sure, some other visions occasionally got in the way, but I focused harder on Gaea's voice, focused on locating that voice, and suppressed the other sights. Eventually, I found where she was broadcasting from; The Great Basin Forest.

"Found you," I told her. "Now what?"

"Come to me, my champion," Gaea said. "Come and experience your birthright."

"You mean, go back there? Leave the Helicarrier….sneak out? AGGGH!"

The pain in my eyes began to surge again, and my vision bounced back and forth between seeing random houses in various locations, and the molecular universe. My ears were starting to pick up the sounds of cars, jets, cell phones, and everything else. The sudden pain quite literally brought me to my knees.

"Do not push your luck, Grant," Gaea said. "Your abilities will continue to grow, even if you're body isn't strong enough to manage them. You can either suffer for days trying to stumble around with your powers, putting you and your friends at risk, or come to me, and let me help you through this."

"Gimme a sec, i'll get dressed," I thought back to her.

I stumbled over to my closest, grabbed a pair of sweatpants, a green T-Shirt, and my Jordans. I quickly got dressed, grabbed my morpher, and left my room. Based off of the looks that I was getting from various agents, I was probably walking like I was drunk, high, and stoned all at the same time. My vision was still burning, and don't even get me started on my hearing; I caught a few bars of what was probably two Hispanic people getting it on. I managed to climb the stairs, make it to the deck of the Helicarrier, and after locking onto the forest I created, took off.

In all seriousness, Fury was gonna kill me when I got back, but that was gonna be totally worth it. Flying the way I was, unrestrained, and not on the way to a battle, was completely out of left field for me. It had only been a few days since I got my powers, and I never really got the chance to enjoy flying, to enjoy how it feels to just soar. Hell, while flying, since I could already see where I was going, I managed to solve my hearing problem by focusing on the roar of the wind. Sure, it was still the equivalent of a thunderstorm f*(#!^$ my eardrums, but at least it drowned out the rest of the world. I soared at about Mach 50, passing entire states by in under a minute. As I flew, I thought about my parents, and how they were doing at home without me, and my senses adjusted accordingly. Well, at least I knew I had some degree of control over this. While not losing sight of the forest, I caught glimpses of my parents lying in bed, just finally getting to sleep. Oh, I just remembered, I never told you about my parents. Long story short, they're nice people. My dad's an accountant, kinda on the skinny side, and my mom's a farmer; which is probably why she's built like Gina Carano. They were cuddling under the covers, my mom laying her head on my dad's chest. By they way, I am not enjoying describing this.

"Hugh?" my mom asked my dad. "You think Grant's alright?"

"I'm sure he is, pumpkin pie," my dad responded. "Grant's a tough boy, he can take care of himself just fine."

"I know he can, it's just….remember that news story about the superheroes fighting the zombies lookin' things?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I know this is me just being paranoid, but I could swear one of the kids….I think those bastards dragged my little boy into this!"

She started crying, and my heart just shattered. I wanted to punch myself in the face. Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. came to my place, and drafted me for the team, I rarely gave my parents a second thought. It literally didn't occur to me that they might actually be worried about/miss me. I wanted to just fly down to them and give them both a hug, but I knew I couldn't. For one, I had passed Nebraska about 3 seconds ago. Also, I knew I had a responsibility to get my $#!+ together before interacting with other people again. I hated myself for it, but I passed my parents by.

"You don't know that, Eileen," my dad said, trying to calm her down. "That could've been anyone they were talking about."

"But what if it wasn't!?" my mom still sobbed. "What if Grant got hurt?! What if he's dead!? Hugh, he needed me to be there for him, and all I could think about was how he wasn't gonna get that football scholarship!"

"Eileen calm down! I understand, baby. Believe me, all i've been thinking about is the way I looked at him when I found out he was a mutant. I'm just as disgusted with myself for not immediately rallying behind him. But we can't do anything about that now. Grant will be fine, he will come home; all we can do is keep him in our prayers."

"I just want him to know that we still love him, and that he'll always be our son."

"He does know that. I know he does. He'll be fine, trust me. And when he comes home, we'll figure this out as a family, not as a problem we have to deal with."

He leaned over to kiss my mom, and I cut my focus back to the forest. What? Parents kissing each other is still gross. Oh, and just for reference, I was flying really fast, and the wind was hammering my eyes. I wasn't crying, it was wind shear. If you say otherwise, i'll kick your ass into space!

Anyway, I arrived at the forest a few moments after tuning my parents out. As soon as my feet touched the ground, everything felt different, focused even. All the sounds that I was trying hard to block out, seemed to stop existing. My out of whack vision balanced out; I couldn't see anything accept the trees, grass, and vines in front of me. I was actually in awe of how silent everything was, how the only sounds I could hear was within a mile radius, nothing more. I took a deep breath, savored the moment, and got back to business.

"Alright Gaea!" I shouted. "I'm here, now what?"

The ground beneath me started to rumble, but not like in a 2012 way, more like a 3.0 on the Richter Scale. A huge chunk of obsidian, about the size of an average closest, rose out of the ground like a flower. It started to chisel itself until it was a tube, a perfect fit for me, and opened an entry slot for me.

"Get in," Gaea told me.

"Do I have to?" I asked her.

"Yes,"

"Ok."

I stepped inside, the tube closed behind me, and then $#!+ got real! For those of you that like those death drop type rides at theme parks, you'd either absolutely love, or absolutely hate this. The obsidian tube shot into the ground like a bullet, except so much faster. Even though I was technically moving through entire layers of rock, water, and probably entering the earth's mantle, I couldn't feel a hint of resistance or pressure. My tube zoomed further and further into the earth, increasing in both speed and temperature; seriously, it was starting to get over 200 degrees in here. A few seconds later, the inside of my tube started to surge with Geo-Force, a lot of it, and my tube hit hyperspeed. I honestly couldn't tell where the hell I was anymore, just that I was moving super fast, and that I was heading somewhere that definitely wasn't a place you could find on a map. Finally, after feeling like I was in the most heart attack giving, seizure inducing thriller ride ever, my tube hit something hard, and the entry slot opened. I spilled out of it all drunken-like, and crashed head first onto the obsidian floor. To say that I was disoriented wouldn't even begin to cover it. I felt like puking, passing out, spazzing up,and then puking again; all in that exact order. I did manage to pull myself up, and came face to face with Gaea. She was still in the form of Gabrielle Union, but this time, wearing a long white strapless dress that had diamond embedded depictions of Greek warriors stabbing each other

"Oh, hello, Grant!" Gaea said with a wicked smile on her face. "Welcome to the Geo-Nexus, your new home!"

I managed to lift a finger, stutter out something completely incomprehensible, and pass out completely.

When I woke up, I noticed a couple of things. Number one, I actually managed to sleep! At least I knew I could still do that, cuz I still love me some naps. Number two, I was in a ridiculously oversized bed. I mean, go ahead and google Shaq's bed, multiply that by 10, and you get a rough picture of how big my bed was. Seriously, I could have 10 girls on here, and it wouldn't make a dent in how much space I had at my disposal. Hmmmm… Anyway, I got out of bed, and took a look at my new digs. Honestly, this place was actually kinda nice. Firstly, the room was bigger than my entire house. The walls were all black, but covered in elaborate golden Greek mosaics. Not even ten feet away from my bed, was this elaborate spread of fancy furniture. Chairs and couches that looked more expensive than my school's lunch program, a coffee table made of marble, a shelf full of small Greek artsy statuettes, and a huge mahogany door. I quickly got out of bed, put on my sneakers, and got out of that room as fast as I could. Immediately, I went down an elaborate staircase, quickly noting the same black and gold paint job in every direction, the living room set to my left, the huge space behind me, probably leading to a kitchen, ballroom, or other rich people stuff, and headed for the exit. Don't get me wrong, I like mansions just as much as the next guy, but i'm allergic to getting sued by multi millionaires for trespassing. As soon as I got out of there….well, let's just say I had to force myself not to pass out again.

Everywhere was green. No, I don't mean my vision was green, everything was literally green. I was standing on a huge patio, about the size of a McDonald's parking lot, and in every direction, the sky was literally a grass green shade, with fire/lightning bolts flashing every half a second. I could vaguely see some island-like figures in the distance, but I didn't know what they were for, or if i'd live long enough to find out. What did Gaea call this place? The Geo-Nexus? Speaking of which, where the hell was-

"Hello again, Grant!" said an awfully familiar voice. "How are we feeling?"

I turned to my side, and saw Gaea wearing the same dress, with a matching sun hat. She was sitting at a glass table under a huge umbrella, drinking something green out of a clear glass tea cup. Her smile was warm and welcoming, in a psychotic "mommy knows best" type of way. She gestured for me to take a seat in front of her, and I did.

"So?" she asked me. "How do you fare?"

"I dunno if I can honestly answer that," I responded. "But you've got a lot of answers to cough up; let's start with telling me where the hell I am."

"I told you, the Geo-Nexus. Want something to drink?"

She snapped her fingers, and a small chunk of the patio crumbled into pebbles, floated over to me, and after a flash of green, transformed into a glass tea cup. The tea cup then proceeded to fill itself with the same green drink that was in Gaea's cup. Dunno if I wanted to try it.

"Oh, go ahead!" Gaea insisted. "It's not poison, just a bit of Geo-Force distilled into a liquid substance, with a lemon/lime flavor for taste. It's actually quite energizing to mortals, you should look into marketing this; Gatorade wouldn't be able to hold a candle to it."

I lifted the cup, took a small swing….and then proceeded to chug down the rest. The lemon/lime taste was on point, like Sprite and Sierra Mist had a perfect baby. Furthermore, the drink seemed to revitalize me in every possible way. Small traces of hunger? Gone. Lingering nausea? Forget about it. I felt better in every possible way, almost made up for that death plunge it took to get me here.

"I know, right?!" Gaea smiled. "Divine!"

"Yeah, yeah," I responded, trying to play it off. "Now let's get to the brass tax."

Gaea put down her drink, sat up straight, and looked at me all serious-like.

"Fair enough," she said. "I promise to answer all of your question fully and truthfully."

"Really?" I asked her.

"I swear on the River Styx."

"That's real?"

"Yes."

"Cool. Ok then, first question. This place? What is it exactly?"

"The Geo-Nexus. The focal point in which all of the Geo-Force derives from, as well as the central hub of my consciousness. It's not exactly a physical place, nor is it entirely on the astral plane; more of an amalgam if you will. In this realm, I am omnipotent, you will learn to be the same. Also, time works differently than the way mortals perceive it."

"Wow, talk about an upgrade! Uh, speaking of time….how long have I been out?"

"Technically, you've been asleep for eight hours, but like I said, time isn't the same here. In human terms, you've only been away for maybe eight minutes."

"What!?"

"Calm down, Grant. I'll make sure you get back to your precious little hero cosplay, but we have some work to do with you first."

"What do you mean by that? And don't give me any half truths. You think I forgot about what Cyttorak said to me? Tell me everything from the beginning, including your big endgame, and how it relates to me."

Gaea paused for a second, probably regretting her promise about not keeping me in the dark about anything, before speaking again.

"Well," she started. "Judging by your rude comments about my history with my the gods, Titans, and Giants, you already know the basics about me. Born from Chaos, had kids with the sky, helped my kids overthrow him, helped Rhea's children overthrow Cronus, tried to overthrow the gods as payback, by sleeping with Tartarus, and using the Giants as a counter force…..you get it, i'm a really messed up mother."

"That's an understatement," I said.

"Didn't ask you!" Gaea snapped back. "Anyway, after a millennium to think it over, I came to terms with the fact that I was not gonna find satisfaction in futile attempts to overthrow the status quo, so I decided to make my own way of coping."

She snapped her fingers, and the air shimmered with high def images of a ripped blonde dude, wearing Greek battle armor, wielding a huge sword, slicing down what looked to be every mythological monster in the book. Seriously, the guy was slicing up snake women, impaling Minotaurs with earthen spikes, by stomping his foot on the ground, blasting G-Force bolts at Chimeras, and basically beasting the onslaught of monsters like a champ.

"Damon," Gaea mused. "My first champion. You see, Grant, after I called it off with Tartarus, he didn't like that, and decided if he couldn't have me for his personal monster creating machine, he'd destroy me, and everyone who walked the earth. He would send waves after waves of monsters to attack every corner of the earth, trying desperately to find the entrance to the Geo-Nexus."

"My tube?" I asked her.

"Not exactly. The entrance to the Geo-Nexus, as far as mortals are concerned, is in the center of Mount Othrys."

"The Titan's base?"

"Yup. Don't look at me that way, I like being in familiar places!"

"No judgement, just keep going."

"Humph. Anyway, after years of Tartarus' forces ravaging my surface, the humans barely putting up a fight, and the gods doing f*(# all to aid me, I decided to make myself a protector."

"Damon."

"Yes. From birth, Damon had a greater connection to me than most mortals. At first I didn't know how to go about this, but as he grew older, I began seeding him with Geo-Force. He didn't die, which was more than what I hoped for, and once he reached 20, I activated his powers, and bonded to him, thus making him my champion and defender."

"Was he good?"

"He was amazing! Granted, he was the exact same as you. Too focused on protecting the citizens, too naive for his own good, a complete, total, insufferable meathead. But he was a damn good warrior! Took him a while to get any real traction, but after a few rounds of training, he was traveling the world, taking down entire armies all on his own."

"So...what happened to him?"

Gaea turned stony, pun not intended, and the images of Damon kicking ass, morphed into a different view. Now, Damon was in some kind of underground temple, just barely lit by the torches inside. Everything was made of black marble, had statues of Greek figures I didn't recognize, as well as golden mosaics depicting Cronus cutting up his father all violent-like; not fun. Anyway, that's just the scenery of the place, but the real show was with Damon. He was beaten, bloodied, barely standing, and his armor was in shambles….but my God, what a beefcake! He roared something in Greek, and summoned a glowing green sword. He leapt into battle, fighting a multitude of creatures that looked like a mix between solid-like shadow, blood red fire, and octopus tentacles? Yeah, I didn't know what to make of those things, but one thing was certain, they were kicking Damon's ass. Don't get me wrong, dude was putting up one hell of a fight. He blasted G-Force in every direction, taking waves of demons down in a flash, created G-Force charged sandstorms that grinded more of the demons into nothing, and his skills with his sword were nothing short of on point. But still, the demon army was relentless, and even though he had heart, I knew Damon was a goner.

"Tartarus managed to strike an alliance with Cyttorak," Gaea said through gritted teeth. "In exchange for dominion over what would be left of the earth, Cyttorak lended his strength to Tartarus, creating a new breed of demon. They managed to find the entrance to the Geo-Nexus, and I summoned Damon to my aid. He fought with spirit, Grant, but I made the mistake of assuming he would never be at a disadvantage, that he would never want for strength or power. I didn't push him to be stronger, to be ambitious enough to wield the full power of the earth. I...just watch."

I directed my attention back to the projection, and man was it hard to look at. Damon was getting his ass handed to him like crazy. One demon managed to get a good shot off on him dead center of his chest. Damon managed to recover, and take down some more baddies, but it wasn't long until another demon quite literally, stuck its claws through him, causing him to vomit up blood, and plant him into the ground. Damon tried to use his earthbending to get free, but it was already too late. The demons began to swarm him, sticking their talons into whatever part of him they could reach, basically crucifying the poor dude. He screamed in both agony and defiance, and I could almost feel Gaea welling up. It looked like one of the demons was about to step up to the plate and finish the job, but it paused, contorted in weird, painful looking ways, and changed it's whole structure. Now it was big and beefy, with dark red skin, wearing black demonic armor, with huge red tentacles jutting out of it's back. Its head was the same mix of black/red billowing shadow, but with a skeleton face occasionally forming in between the dark fire.

"I APPLAUD YOUR EFFORT, GAEA!" the thing spoke, and boy did it represent.

It's voice was like someone had roughly mixed the voice of Cyttorak, I remembered what that f*(#head sounded like, and the voice of pure blackness. The voice was beyond death, it was like the deepest darkest level of Hell had gotten deeper, letting this thing out.

"10 YEARS YOU'VE MANAGED TO SUPPRESS MY POWER, BUT OH HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!"

Damon was quietly chanting something in Greek, his eyes flickering between dark brown and green, but Tarttorak, best fusion name I got, didn't seem to notice or care. As he did his classic bad guy monologuing thing, talking about how inevitable Gaea's defeat was, how the world would soon bow to him, and his unstoppable legion, Damon was having a conversation of his own.

"Mother Earth," he thought to Gaea, his words somehow being translated to english. "Please hear my prayer."

"I hear thee, my son!" Gaea actually said aloud, her voice resonating across an at least five mile radius. "Stand fast, I shall revitalize thee!"

"No, Gaea, I am finished."

"Thou are not! I can save thee, I can-"

"No! It is too late for me! We thought we had more time to prepare, we were wrong. The only thing we can do now, is be certain that Tartarus and Cyttorak will be delayed in their evil desire for conquest!"

"Damon!"

"I would thank thee, Gaea. Thou gave me the opportunity to be a great hero! Though I may not have my praises sung like the great Heracles, or my feats immortalized like the great Perseus, I will always be grateful to thee, Gaea. Together, we felled mighty demons, saved countless lives, and paved the way for humanity to survive. Find another, my sweet Mother Earth, do not mourn for me, I go to the fields of Elysium."

Before Gaea could respond, Damon shouted an enchantment in Greek, and the ground shook. I dunno what he said, but i'm pretty sure it was somewhere along the lines of F*(# THESE MOTHER F*(#&6 UP!

Damon went from zero, to ten billion in like half a second. His body glowing with so much G-Force, even I knew it would've killed me if I tried harness that much energy.

"FIND ANOTHER, GAEA!" Damon roared to her. "MAKE HIM BETTER THAN I WAS!"

The pent up energy exploded, and the projection was blown apart. I looked over, and saw Gaea crying; Gaea was actually crying. I started to get up, everything in me screaming to just give her a big hug, but she put a hand up.

"I am alright, Grant," Gaea said. "Just reliving painful memories is all."

"I'm sorry, G," I said. "I'm sorry about Damon, he was a cool dude."

"Yes, yes he was, and it was those foul abominations that took him from me!"

"Is that what Cyttorak was talking about? What happened to Damon?"

"Yes, and I thank you for destroying his link to the physical world."

"I didn't enjoy that, Gaea, I just did what I had to do to keep the stone out of Magneto's hands."

"Irrelevant,I have my vengeance. Anyway, with Damon's dying breath, he managed to use 10% of the G-Force, to blow Tartarus and Cyttorak back to their realms. They were too busy celebrating their victory, that they forgot the fact that they were not properly anchored to this world. When Damon destroyed their army, they were left without hosts, and more important, the strength to try another assault. Tartarus hasn't been able to find the strength to visit this dimension since that day; Damon saved the world, at the cost of his own life."

"That's what heroes do, Gaea. We fight, and are willing to die to protect the people."

"How insufferably stupid."

"Whatever. So, why do you need me?"

"I told you, the dilemma with Stones of Olympus is only the first of many more trials to come. I needed a champion to fight for me. So here you are."

"Gaea, don't play with me. You brought me here for a purpose. And while I do realize that you can actually care about people, you still don't strike me as someone who does something purely out of the good of her heart. So spill it, what's your endgame here?"

She raised her hand, and several clumps of stone formed into perfectly round balls, all orbiting around a green mini-sun. One of the balls glowed green, while the others remained brown.

"Expansion." Gaea plainly said, as the brown rocks started to turn green one by one. "You see, while I didn't know it then, I can expand my consciousness, my power, to other terras. I need you to master the full spectrum of the Geo-Force first, not to mention actually bond with the entire planet, but afterwards, I can use you to spread my power across entire galaxies; you will be my beautiful centurion that will spawn my glorious empire."

Damn, this chick had some big time goals.

"Don't get me wrong," I started. "I'm always up for a good planetering, but...why the hell should I listen to you?"

"Because it's good for the both of us," Gaea responded. "It works out in my favor, because i'll be able to exist without any being rivaling my power. Tartarus and Cyttorak will never challenge me again once I have the power of a legion of solar systems at my disposal. At the same time, the stronger I get, the stronger you get. You could be a god to the mortals, but you seem content to serve, rather than rule. Still, i'll play along; you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Deal?"

"I don't see why not."

I shook her hand, and her eyes flashed bright green. Before I could attest to it, Gaea had me warped somewhere else. It wasn't anywhere special, just a long flat land mass, about the size of a small college campus. In the distance, I could see what I assumed to be my mansion, which was WAY bigger than I originally thought it was; the thing was literally built into a mountain the size of the Alps! As much as I wanted to make googly eyes at my new place, somebody else had other plans. I noticed that the ground beneath me was intensifying in gravity, way more G's than I was used to. Before I could ask Gaea, who was nowhere in sight, what was going on, a mountain, yes a literal mountain, materialized about 10 feet over my head, and dropped on top of me. I instinctively raised my hands to keep it from crushing me into jelly, but OH MAN WAS THIS THING HEAVY! It didn't strike me until that moment, but my limit was still about 100,000 tons; this mountain, even though it was a small one, was at least twice that weight. Oh, and the fact that the gravity was keeping me in place...the icing on the cake. Hell, I probably would've just blasted the damn thing off of me, or use my earthbending to toss it away, but none of my other powers seemed to be working.

"GAEA!" I desperately thought to her. "WHAT THE HELL?! WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?!"

"I need you stronger," Gaea simply said. "At your current state, all you can manage to harness is a measly 2% of the earth's power."

"I'VE ONLY HAD THEM FOR AN HOUR!"

"No excuse! You desire to be a hero, fine! But i'll be damned if I let you suffer the same fate as Damon! Before I let you continue that dead end, self-righteous, spandex clad lifestyle, i'm gonna make sure you have the grit to pull it off!"

" First off, I wear armor, not spandex. And Careful there, Earth Mama, you almost sounded like you cared for a second there."

"Debatable."

"So what happens now?"

"Now, you stay under that rock for as long as you have to. I've set a marker about 100 feet in the air. When you become strong enough to resist 75X the earth's gravity, find the strength to lift a 300,000 ton rock, and fly 100 feet into the air, then we can take a step forward."

"So you're just gonna leave me like this?!"

"Basically. Have fun!"

She cut off the connection, and I was left with the weight of a continent on top of my head. How long was I under that rock? Too. F*(#!&$. Long. It was a slow process actually finding the strength to get up off of the ground. First, I had to endure what felt like hours of trying to stand up in 75X earth's gravity. After that, since I couldn't fly, much less jump, I did squats. Yes, with a mountain over my head, I did squats. At least I knew my kicks would be on point after this. I did that for like 2 hours, until I felt like my legs were gonna burst open. I actually had to sit down for a bit, and carefully lay on my back while I waited for my legs to recover. In the meantime, I did bench presses. Lifting 300,000 tons with just my arms was definitely hard work; like, impossibly hard. At first, it took me a full minute just to do five reps. If I never remembered having to work for anything else in my life, i'd remember that for months to come. It took about five minutes for my legs to get back up to shape, which was plenty of time for my arm game to get its act together. By the time my legs were back up to scratch, I was able to reps like nobody's business. Finally, after like a bazillion hours, Fury was gonna murder me, I stood up, did one last squat, and leapt into the air. You'd think it take me a good few leaps to break 75X the earth's gravity, but after spending hours doing lifts, squats, and being a pedestal for a giant rock, gravity wasn't $#!+ anymore. I took off, actually breaking the ground beneath me, and reached the 100 foot mark in less than a second.

"YEAH!" I screamed aloud. "WHAT YOU GOTTA SAY ABOUT THAT, GAEA?!"

She might as well have attached a battleship to my ankles, cuz I plummeted back to the ground hard.

"Now," she said, actually squatting next to me under the mountain. "Do the same thing, at 100X earth's gravity, and with 50,000 tons added on; have fun!"

She patted my face, and flashed away.

Doing this again, while definitely more than a little stressful, was a piece of cake; in theory that is. See, I had it all down to a formula. First came the hours it took to get back to my feet, followed by hours of squats, another solid hour of bench pressing, and finally, the leap to success. Which was quickly followed by Gaea turning up the G'S by 25, adding another 50,000 tons to the mountain, and the whole process started all over again.

"Yo, Gaea?" I asked her while I was on my third set of gravity training. "Maybe i'm going crazy, but I kinda feel like i've been here for like, half a day. Not that I don't enjoy your training, but I do have a life to get back to."

"Don't worry about that?" she thought back to me. "Like I said, time works differently in the Geo-Nexus."

"How different?"

"The way I want it to, different."

"Huh?"

"I can manipulate the G-Force to condense time and space, which is why entire mountains can exist in the same place, yet still be hundreds of miles apart. Regarding the way that works in the sense of time? Well, let's just say that i'm manipulating the Geo-Force to such an extreme degree, that for every hour in your world, an entire year goes on in here."

"SAY WHAT?!"

"Yup, and if you do the math, which I did, we have only six short years to train."

"Six years?! Gaea, i'll be a million years old by the time i'm done with this!"

"Do not be so dramatic, Grant. You will not age in the Geo-Nexus, and mere hours will have passed in the physical world. You have nothing to worry about, now keep on lifting."

I wanted to argue with Gaea so bad, but I could tell that she was having none of it at all.

To her credit, she didn't keep me in gravity training forever. After I was able to escape 300X earth's gravity, and lift over 700,000 tons, she let me off the hook. Still, it wouldn't be Gaea if she actually gave me a second to rest. I was transported to some type of coliseum, which gave me a really bad vibe. I noticed that the G's didn't get any lighter, in fact, I could swear Gaea had bumped it up just a little. Still, that was just a nitpick. What really got me weirded out, was when a bald Chinese guy, wearing a shaolin robe, flashed in the coliseum just a few feet in front of me. He seemed….dead. Don't get me wrong, the guy looked healthy enough, but his eyes were blanker than humanly possible, almost robot-like.

"Gaea?" I asked aloud. "Why? Just….why?"

"Because," she said, materializing on one of the stadium seats. "You need to learn how to fight; like, a lot. Monk, what's-his-face here? He's a construct, a physical manifestation of all knowledge Kung-Fu related."

"My friend already taught me Kung-Fu," I responded. "I don't need some old dead guy to show me the ropes again."

"You don't have a choice, Grant. I didn't give you one. Besides, your friend taught you ONLY the ropes. All the other good stuff? She hasn't taught you that yet. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to learn everything about Kung-Fu ever from this guy, then onto every other martial art the world has to offer; or at least a lot of them. Your training has increased your capacity for Geo-Force manipulation only by 3%. And mastering the full power of the earth relies on more than just strength and skill. It takes being of a calm heart and mind, something martial arts practice helps you learn. So get your pants off the ground and get ready, you are in for a rough couple of years."

The guy motioned for me to follow his movements, and I did my best. He didn't talk as we trained together, but either because he was connected to the G-Force, or I was just good at reading body language, his speech didn't need to be verbal. For entire days in G-Force time, we worked on my flexibility, balance, and base level agility; all of which involved heavy duty stretching, sit-up, push-ups, and lots of laps. We did a lot of yoga/meditation, trying to increase the flow of my chi to my chakra points of rainbow magic, or some bull$#!+ like that. Oh, and I was still cut off from using the G-Force, in addition to the gravity upping itself by five every other day or so. Anyway, after an entire week of warm-up, Monk Gyatso, yeah, I gave him a name, started to work with me on the five basic forms of animal Kung-Fu. In case you didn't know, cuz I sure as hell didn't, the five basic forms of animal Kung-Fu are based on the tiger, leopard, crane, snake, and dragon. For the next week, without rest, food, or water, Gyatso taught me the basic tiger forms. The first was Golden Tiger Fist. Golden Tiger, just like all of the different Tiger forms, was about using your fingers and palms to inflict extremely fast and powerful hits on opponents. Tearing/clawing gestures were used in vulnerable areas, like the neck and face, but I preferred the direct strike to the chest. Gyatso taught me different types of counters, blocks, usually involving circular hand motions, and once we got to Black Tiger Fist, extensive footwork. It would take me a week on average to completely master a new form, and since I don't have that much time to explain EVERY form of fighting I learned, i'll just give you the basics.

Leopard style was about using quick strikes and with the leopard paw, to inflict pain in vulnerable parts of the body, followed by the kill; yes, I actually learned how to kill with my bare hands. Crane style was about using distance to your advantage. It was about using your reach with the arms and legs to get in fast strikes, and use the crane punches to block and attack, while also using the legs to help your movements flow into each other. Snake style to me, was the most infuriating to learn. Rather than relying on power, snake style was about using quick and accurate had and feet movement. It was about blocking/dodging, and using your speed and flexibility to keep your opponent off-balance, and capitalize. I prefer a direct strategy, but I at least recognized how important it was to learn this style. Finally, Dragon style utilized the dragon talon and circular movements, as well as the full fist, forearms, and quick kicks to get the drop on your opponent. Oh, and it was really effective when you used moves from other animal styles to add to it, so cool for that.

At first, even though learning how to fight was kinda crucial to the whole hero thing, I didn't really see the point to all of this. Hell, one of the most frustrating things about this training, was that I couldn't move to another form of fighting, unless I beat Gyatso in the one he taught me. That may not sound like much, but trust me, this guy was the ultimate boss battle on steroids. Take our fight with tiger style. In the first fight, I threw one claw punch, and after blocking it, and twisting my hand, Gyatso brought an elbow down on my forearm, hip tossed me, and hit me dead in the chest with a tiger claw, sending me careening into a wall. He never gave me a moment's rest, and even though I managed to block, dodge, and counter a good handful of his moves, I still got my ass handed to me more often than I would've liked to admit. Finally, after like three days of losing, I finally manage to beat him, by using quick and powerful kicks to his knees, blocking his counter strikes, and while mixing a few wrestling moves in there, managed to suplex Gyatso, give him a powerful reverse kick, and rush in with a powerful tiger strike to the chest.

Now, keep in mind, I was still cut off from the G-Force, and I had no intention of doing this whatsoever, but when I hit Gyatso with that last punch, an honest to God green tiger head shot out of my arm! It even roared for cryin' out loud! Gyatso flew into a coliseum wall, actually cracking it, and I made a move to run over and help him.

"Don't bother!" Gaea called down to me. "He's not alive, he didn't even feel that!"

"Oh," I said plainly. "Right, forgot about that. But quick question? You saw the tiger come out of my hand right? I'm not going insane, right?"

"Nope, that was all you; i'm actually impressed."

"But how? You cut me off from the G-Force."

"But I can't cut you off from your own chi."

"Huh?"

"Just because you're employed by a Greek Elder Goddess, dosen't mean that you can't dabble in practices from other cultures. I'm actually known as many other names to the Romans, Norse, Chinese, you name any spiritual practice, there is most likely a name for me. Chi is a natural form of energy everyone possesses, Grant. By engaging in martial arts, you're learning how to access it, and increase your Geo-Force manipulation capacity. And regarding the whole animal thing? Humans aren't the only ones born with a connection to me. Animals make up a small percentage of my collective power, which is why your chi strikes take the form of the various studies you are training under."

"So, how much did I improve?

"By 0.5%"

"What!?"

"What? Strength isn't the only thing to mastering the Geo-Force, but it is the main thing. And do not throw a tantrum, boy; this will help you in the long run, now go back to fighting."

So yeah, you get it. After mastering all the other animal forms, I managed to spit out some kind of animal head with a kick or punch; and even then I was only getting started.

Over the course of countless weeks, and yes, about two years, I mastered more forms of martial arts than most people will in there entire lives. I learned Preying Mantis, horse, bull, wolf, eagle, bear, and lion style Kung-Fu. I learned Bafaquan, BaYingQuan, Chāquán, Long Fist, Dragon Fist, Jeet Kune Do, and basically anything that had a quan, bao, zi, chang, or do in it's name. I learned weapons based martial arts too. Kendo, Bojutsu, Silat, and Eskrima, just to name a few. I learned some popular American fighting styles such as S.C.A.R.S., Shuri-ryu, and Marine Corps Martial Arts. Yeah, I know. Basically, by the time my three years were up, I had literally learned almost 100 different styles of martial arts, and even without my powers, could probably kick Jet Li's ass in a fight.

After that was over with, I thought things might calm down a bit, but after my last master faded away, Gaea would always give me masters that matched the cultural origin of the fighting style, someone else popped up.

He was tall, about six feet, with a tan, long flowing black hair, and huge muscles. He had one of those familiar faces, like the ones you see on TV. I don't wanna call him Samoan, Hawaiian, or Middle Eastern, but let's just say he looked like Jason Momoa and Roman Reigns made a very beautiful He-Man together.

"Grant," Gaea called down. "Meet Achilles."

My jaw dropped to the floor.

"Achilles?!" I almost shouted. "As in, Greek legendary badass, dude that got shot in the ankle, Brad Pitt played so good, Achilles?"

"First off, that movie was garbage. Second, yes."

"Oookaaay…..why is he here?"

"Achilles is the greatest warrior whoever lived; no other hero, Greek, Roman, or any other of any pantheon comes close to his prowess with weapons."

""What about Ares, Thor, Athena, or any of the other war gods?"

"Gods do not count!"

"Ok, gezz!"

"Anyway, Achilles is here to tutor you in every style of armed combat there is, besides modern day fire arms."

"But I already learned all that stuff during martial arts practice. I could out duel Nightcrawler with a sword, kick Allyson's butt with a spear, and I know how to shoot a bow and arrow; sure, i'm no Hawkeye, but i'd get by with the skill I have."

"Irrelevant. Achilles developed strategies and tactics with combat that were buried along with him; skills most warriors would dream about possessing. You may be an adept fighter now, but there is always room to improve; so start improving."

A golden knife flashed into Achilles' hand, as well as mine's. He motioned for me to follow him, and we got to work.

I'll say this about Gaea….she's usually right about stuff. For one, I never learned how to fight with a knife, until I learned military martial arts. Yet even then, Achilles would've carved any modern day Marine into a Christmas him. His style of fighting was quick, precise, and deceptive. Rather than trying to lodge my knife into the heart of my opponent, Achilles taught me about more effective ways of killing. For example, instead of going for the chest, the wrists, arms ,thighs, and legs were much better options; can't wield a knife if you're out of blood. He taught me multiple ways to make my opponents over reach and leave themselves open. Also, how to fake my opponents out, and use their own momentum against them. We practiced knife fighting for maybe a week or so, before Achilles challenged me to a final duel. You'd think that it'd be extremely hard to shank a master of weapons, but Achilles didn't have about three years of martial arts skill. He managed to swipe at me once before I ducked, grabbed his arm, punched his elbow, breaking it entirely, and swinging around for a savage stab to his head.

Over the course of half a year, I really sharpened my weapons skills. I learned how to effectively fight with a sword and shield; which was frustrating as hell, can't see how Jason does it. I learned sword and spear fighting, which was just as frustrating, if not more. I learned dual wielding with knives, swords, axes, clubs, morning stars, even mixed combinations like my signature axe and sword thing. I'll admit, I got my ass handed to me more often than i'd have liked to, especially with that sword and shield combo, but I eventually managed to get my flow right.

Training only got more intense from there.

Now that I was done with all the preliminary stuff, Gaea took me off of G-Force rehab, and immediately put me to work. The first month involved constant earthbending training. I quickly learned that moving my arms and legs weren't exactly a necessary part of that power, just a crutch I gave myself. In fact, Gaea made sure that I was not allowed to use my body to move the rocks; and they ranged from the smallest of pebbles, to an entire mountain. She challenged me in ways like creating sandstorms, and creating hundreds of rock soldiers, which could be used to host small parts of Gaea's consciousness, essentially giving me a one stop army shop.

Gaea didn't bother to test my prowess with wielding G-Force. She said that I had the construct business down packed, and that I was no slob in the imagination department. Besides, once she saw my ability to wipe out small states, like Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maine with the maximum effort of G-Force I could fit into a single energy ball, she was satisfied.

Now comes the really cool part. I'll try to dumb it down, cuz Gaea sure knows how to be all super smart talkin' when she wants to be. First off, I had the ability to increase or decrease my size; like Ant-Man. Whoa! Now before you call bull$#!+, foul, or OP, please just hear me out. I was able to adjust my size through a convoluted process of using G-Force to lock onto a certain element, like a pebble, grain of sand, or molecule of sand, and adapt my size to fit it. Yup, if I focused on the rocks beneath me, I could become as small as they were. At least that was the crutch I had to use until I could just shrink to whatever size I wanted to on my own. Growing was a bit tougher. To do that, I had to make my molecules expand with G-Force, which I had to gauge by using a light layer of G-Force, only visible to me, to create a stencil/measuring figure. Doing this was not only hard, but EXTREMELY dangerous. See, it wasn't just my size that I had to increase/decrease, it was everything inside too. We're talkin' bones, blood, organs, brain matter, everything. If I didn't increase my blood to match my bigger body, i'd go into cardiac arrest. If my heart didn't shrink enough with me, it would be too big for my body. Hell, if my ribs weren't properly adjusted, they'd either be too thin, or too hard. To prepare, Gaea had me work on changing the size of pebbles for days at a time, before letting me work on my body. First we started small; toes and fingers. After I got the hang of that, we moved on to the whole picture...kinda. The next day or so was about getting in touch with myself, and not in the dirty way. I used G-Force to perform an X-Ray, for lack of better term. Every blood vessel, bone, artery, vein, I did a complete analysis. Once I had a complete understanding of what should be what, I did my first shrink test. It was a minor one, only decreasing myself by about 3 feet, but by was it an experience. It was like condensing myself through a tube that I should've been way too big for; and don't get me started on the nausea. Still, it worked. Nothing was missing, too big, too small; I was golden. We practiced this power for a few more days, while I pressed the limits of how big/small I could grow. As it turns out, I could reach 60ft without hurting myself in the growing factor, and shrink down to the size of a grain of sand without going subatomic; that was a whole different ball game. While I was small, or should I say at my smallest, my strength, and durability increased by a good 40%, making me strong enough to lift mountains, even as grain sized Grant. While growing, my strength basically doubled; I could probably chuck a skyscraper into space. The only catch with these powers were that I could only stay grown/shrunk for about 10 minutes at a time without hurting myself. According to Gaea, the more I used these abilities, the longer i'd be able to maintain those forms, but as for now, I was on a ten minute leash.

"Let's see," Gaea mused to herself. "We still have a good year left before I have to send you back."

"Oh, joy," I sarcastically said.

"What is the matter, Grant? I thought you liked spending time with me."

"Can we just get on with this please?!"

"Ok, fine, Mr. Snappy Pants, whatever."

Why the sudden attitude you may ask? Well...it wasn't sudden. Look, i'm not gonna come in and say I wasn't grateful for Gaea giving me all these pointers, and helping me master my abilities, but….five years is a long time. During that time, I didn't age a single second. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't rest; I didn't need to. That was kind of the worst thing about it. I felt inhuman, not even in the mutant sense, but more of the 'i'm way too powerful to actually be from earth' sense. I knew who I was, I didn't exactly change as far as personality went, although being trapped in time limbo did make me feel awkwardly older, trapped, under house arrest, and claustrophobic; that didn't sit well with me. So yeah, I was a bit cranky, but I don't think Gaea gave a damn.

"This ability," Gaea started again. "Requires complete and total knowledge of all earthen metals, precious and other. So, sorry not sorry, but i'm going to upload the information to your brain."

I didn't even have time to brace myself before a library of info hit my brain like a truckload of bricks. Immediately, I knew everything about every metal ever. Not just what they were, but other nerdy things like their atomic structure, atomic mass, number of electrons it had, boiling point, melting point, even the date it was discovered. I collapsed to a knee, rubbing my temples until they proceeded to top hurting like the dickens; chalk up one more thing I disliked about being trapped with Gaea for years at a time.

"Before you chew me out," Gaea stopped my rant. "Let me explain. One of the best things about being Mother Earth, is that everything that is beneath me, everything that has to come out of the ground, is unbreakably tied to me….and Hades. In any case, glass, precious metals, Titanium, Steel, Ore, everything with earthen elements, are yours to command and create."

"Huh?" I asked her. "I get the control part, but what about the creation thing?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. Much in the same way you can make a tree spring out of the ground, so to can you generate metals. The only difference is it works through transmutation. You think I was throwing darts when I uploaded the knowledge of the top 100 metallurgists in the world to your head? Nope. In order to transmute one metal or rock to another, you have to have a complete understanding of that element, and adjust the atomic structure, mass, and electrons to change it. We're gonna have to work on that very thoroughly though. Like I said, you have the capability to split atoms that relate to earthen properties, and I really don't want an atomic explosion in my prime space; it disrupts my Feng Shui."

Oookay. Not gonna get into why Mother Earth gives a $#!+ about Feng Shui.

Anyway, you probably get the gist. Another year of new power training. Honestly though, this one was the most stressful. First, changing rock to copper, is no easy feat. I had to train my vision to subatomic levels, which was the only time Gaea had ever bothered to help me master my vision. The way that worked was through a mix of muscle contraction, and mental focus. If I strained/relaxed my eye muscles, while making it very clear about what it was that I wanted to see, my vision would be fine. Oh, and because we finally, got around to it, Gaea got me started on a on a good hearing training same principles of my enhanced vision applied to this too. Gaea tested me in many ways to get used to it. First, she multiplied her voice hundreds of times over, letting them all echo throughout the air. After getting used to the roar, Gaea instructed me on how to block them all out, focus on certain voices, and even hear things from 100 miles away; oh, and this was all while I was trying to master my King Midas ability. Changing one element to another was the hardest thing ever. First, I had to lock onto the neutrons, electrons, etc., and with a microscopic layer of G-Force. Next, I had to pull them away, while simultaneously moving others in. To put it in perspective, if you've ever had to unlock the small clasp of a necklace, and put it around someone's neck, struggling physically and mentally not to let the clasp close to early, you get a gist of what I was going though; just on a wider, smaller scope. I changed rock to copper, Titanium to gold, sand to glass, even glass to diamond. Gaea worked me through all the other complicated stuff such as multiplying the atoms to make more of the material I wanted, bending the material into any shape I wanted, and changing the material to liquid/solid form.

"Hey, G?" I asked her while I was controlling two streams of liquid diamond. "Speaking of metal, how come i'm immune to getting stabbed by everything except Adamantium, Vibranium, and that black metal that Dragon Empress, and Goblin stabbed me with?"

"Ahh," she started. "Ok, that's the problem with your age. While a lot of your powers does stem from personal training, age does increase power, and give certain attributes. Regarding the Adamantium, you just aren't old enough, and won't start to develop resistance to that until you are at least twenty. Vibranium, which gets stronger with the more vibration it absorbs, tears at your molecular structure; the same can be said for extremely powerful magical metals such as Uru, Scabrite, that black metal, and Adamantine, Olympian/Heavenly metal. These metals unlike magical blasts and spells, are unaffected by your magical resistance, and can cut you simply on the merit that they are extremely durable metals; only the heat of dying stars can melt them."

"So, i'm screwed?"

"Not necessarily. In time, you'll be able to manipulate these elements as easily as you can manipulate the earth; but the amount of G-Force needed to do that is beyond you at the moment. Once you become strong enough, you'll be able to break them down, rearrange their structures, even create body shields strong enough to protect you from their fatal stings; but for now, just don't piss of any Asgardians, Wolverine, or Wakandans."

"I'll put it on my gold standards. Oh, and one more question. I'm totally ok when lightning strikes me, i'm totally cool when magical undead lightning strikes me, how come electromagnetism gives me the business?"

"Oh. Well. Ummm…. When Ouranos and I were together, he would use that to... make my being unfocused."

"Oh my God! Electromagnetism hurts me, because it turns you on?!"

"That is a crude, accurate way of putting it."

I shut of the conversation immediately, not knowing whether to laugh or throw up. Anyway, after I was done with the whole liquefy/solidifying metals, Gaea was gonna teach me how to actually change my skin to whatever metal I wanted it to be. This would improve my durability, strength, allow me to manipulate my body on a molecular level, which I could use to change my arms into weapons, although it would cut my ability to fly/run super fast; although I would still be able to leap over tall skyscrapers, and out run a Lamborghini at top speed. But before we could get around to that, thunder, unnatural thunder, sounded off, and the Geo-Nexus started to change from green, to fluctuating black n' red, as a dark haze started to pollute it. Even though I was in the Geo-Nexus with Gaea, I felt her spirit droop and weaken, almost like she was coming down with a cold.

"Gaea!" I desperately thought to her. "What's going on, what's wrong"

She didn't answer. Even worse, the dark haze was spreading all over the Geo-Nexus like a virus; I usually don't get afraid, but this was freaking me the hell out. The dark clouds started to rage, getting so fast and loud until they almost started to sound like a roaring monster. Red lightning started to flash violently, one of them almost striking me in the head, as humanoid shaped shadows started to rain down like a hailstorm. Suddenly, as quickly as she vanished, Gaea came back with a vengeance. The skies fluctuated green, and bolts of G-Force started to fight back against the dark clouds, and shadow people.

"GRANT!" Gaea almost gasped at me. "I NEED YOU TO LISTEN TO EVERYTHING I'M ABOUT TO SAY! NO JOKING, NO SARCASM, JUST LISTEN!"

"OK!" I responded. "WHAT'S UP?!"

"I was a fool. I thought Tartarus done with me for good... but he has never halted his desire for my destruction. I used all of my consciousness to keep the Geo-Nexus stranded from time, t-to give you more time to master your abilities…. but while doing so... I left the entrance to the Geo-Nexus vulnerable...unprotected. I don't know who Tartarus has j-j-joined with….but he is clearly not alone. Grant...the Geo-Nexus is not just your base of operations...it is me, my heart. If you are killed here….the earth itself will die...and everyone on it. I-I-I can combat the portal enchantments that Tartarus is using to invade...but I need you to survive. Tartarus will….will send the most vile, the most powerful monsters out of himself to kill you….fight them off….you have the power to defend yourself...to save the world. Please….do not fail me."

With that, Gaea went silent, the black n' red clouds started to overtake the atmosphere, and portals literally cracked the sky.

I remember watching footage about the time The Avengers first fought in New York City 10 years ago. How they had to fight those alien things from the big portal that shot out of the sky; it was all over TV every year for Avengers Day. Why did those guys get to have it so easy? Yeah, I know, they hauled ass to keep the city safe, but from where I was standing, their battle looked like a water gun fight. Out of the sky, I kid you not, ten demonic portals made a mile long hexagon, spewing out hundreds of demonic creatures every second! This was gonna be a hoot and a half.

I created a double blade axe out of stone, changed it to Titanium, and after igniting it with G-Force, slashed down some kind of six foot Cthulhu mother f*(#$^. I would've morphed, and used my own battle gear, but my morpher didn't seem to work while stranded between space and time; looks like i'd have to improvise.

One thing I learned in my….wait for it….. 9 WHOLE MONTHS of fighting, was that all of these demons came in various shapes sizes and forms. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't taking selfies with them or nothin'; I was moving way too fast for that, but I did notice that these demons were like snowflakes. No two were exactly alike. I remember killing one that had spider legs coming out of its back, another that had a scorpion pincer, hell, one of em' actually was a scorpion version of a centaur. I slashed down a few Minotaurs, Hydras, had to remember to burn the heads, Chimeras, and every other mythological monster you could find. And again, this wasn't just some 10 minute warm-up battle back at S.H.I.E.L.D., from my perspective, I was battling nonstop for nine months!

So how did I survive? Well, first off, I was strong, fast, and had over three years of martial arts practice; so there was that. However, for the first month of battling, there was a HUGE emphasis on speed. I was running/flying around non stop, slashing maybe 300 demons per second. Thanks to Blitz Mode, none of the could touch me, and thank God none of them seemed to be able to go faster than a golf cart. If you're wondering why I didn't just use the G-Force to waste them, well….I kinda couldn't. This was a complete shot in the dark. Because the Geo-Nexus was so polluted, so….more black than green, my connection to it was corrupted. Meaning no city destroying level blasts. I could still earthbend, transmute substances, and use my plant powers, but G-Force energy blasts….not happening; I learned that the hard way. Yeah, after running around in circles, slicing and dicing anything within reach, I got the cool idea that involved me setting off a few explosive waves to give me some breathing room. The problem? I basically channeled toxic demon energy into my body, making it shut down after a huge spasmodic ordeal. Oh, and if you don't think the 1,000++ demons didn't make me suffer for that, then you need to start reading bad guy 101. The monsters swarmed, and tired to savagely slaughter me. I use the word try, because they were no closer to tearing through my flesh than an average butter knife was. Don't get me wrong, it prickled a little, but I was in no real danger; that was until I took a few red lightning bolts to the face. Those f*(#*%$ hurt like hell, and for a good five minutes, I wasn't able to do a damn thing about it; my body was still trying to recover. When I did manage to get up, it wasn't without work. I had to create an earth bunker around myself, and after creating a spiked rock dome, send it flying in every direction; the spikes would hit something. I called my titanium axe back to my hand, and struck the ground with it. Spikes erupted out of the ground, impaling may be a good 500 demons at once. I willed the spikes, enough to cover a football field, to launch into the air, like missiles. Another 500 or more demons were snuffed out; yup, I would definitely say that I got the upper hand back. For the rest of the first month of battle, with the exceptions of a few earthbending moves, zoom, zoom, zoom was the name of the game. No time to show off, no time to dwell on a single fight, just a simple run/fly, slash, and then rinse and repeat. Was I scared? Yup. $#!+less in fact. I had heard stories about people who had died, went to Hell, and came back. Usually they told stories of horrendous tortures, grotesque monsters, and the feeling of hopelessness. While I couldn't say that I had it worse than they did, I can definitely say that I saw some demonic faces that would haunt my dreams for a good few years; why else do you think I was so adamant about moving fast?

After the first month was up, and she sure took her sweet time doing it, Gaea managed to shut down one of the portals. It happened explosively, like a demonic fireworks display, followed by the portal collapsing in on itself, putting on a tremendous amount of gravity, sucking in any nearby demons, and stranding the ones that were closer to the island I was fighting on. The Geo-Nexus lessened in black/red ash clouds, and while I still couldn't safely use my energy blasts, the place definitely was getting back on track. Hell, for a a few seconds, the demons actually stopped trying to swarm me, and looked up at one of their precious portal being dismantled. I thought that might be the end of it, that the demons might just say f*(# it, and go back home; one of these days i'll be right about these things. From a probability standpoint, I have to be right at least once.

Unfortunately, now was not one of these times. The demon army bored their eyes into me, I made a half hearted attempt to look fierce, and the demons attacked in a huge unrelenting wave. I quickly flew under the island I was under, used my earthbending powers to split it apart, and reconstruct the two land masses into giant hands. I moved my arms, and the hands followed suit, clapping themselves together time and time again, killing at least 1,000 demons at once like mosquitoes. I had to do a lot of backhands, swatting away, and use my giant rock hands for shields whenever the lightning bolt started to act up again, but for the most part, I made good on the small advantage I had; managed to keep it up for a whole day before I had to retreat into what would keep me in the fight for a whole 4 months.

I flew around slicing up demons left and right, just barely avoiding most of the lightning strikes, and managed to find my way to another huge landmass; seriously, this place has more islands than the Caribbean. This one was big. Like, insert biggest football stadium you can think of, big. As I landed on the surface, sending a volley of spiked rocks up to impale another handful of demons, I got an idea. First, I opened a hole in the ground, sinking straight to the middle of the island, and before the demons could try mining me out of there, I did some hardcore renovating. See, once Gaea closed one of the portals, it opened up my powers just a little more; and while I couldn't do anything drastic, like energy bombs, I could still to some good old fashioned Geo-Genesis. Sucked for these guys, cuz when you have a year to master earthbending, you really learn how to make rocks multiply like bunnies. In less than a second, my stadium sized slab of rock, multiplied to the size of Central Park. Oh, and that wasn't the worst of it. I willed vines, huge vines, big enough to wrap around skyscrapers, with wicked sharp thorns in them, to sprout out of the island. I was only able to make four of them, but I immediately put them to work, making the swing back and forth, killing any poor demon caught in their reach. In addition to that, because I learned how to mad multitask down here, I used small pieces of my giant rock fortress as ammo. They were small pieces, about the size of butcher knives, but I sharpened them to a fine point, and shot them out with extreme speed and accuracy. And this wasn't just one at a time either, I was shooting off maybe hundreds of makeshift daggers per second; making sure to use Geo-Genesis to replenish the broken off pieces of the island. If for some reason a demon did manage to land on my island, i'd give it half a thought, and the son of a bitch would get spike up the one place the sun doesn't shine. Hell, I didn't even have to move my arms to make most of this work. Aside from moving the vines, I was commanding my island to do all the fighting with my mind. Don't get me wrong, it took hella concentration, which didn't get any easier what with the demonic lightning trying to break through my new man cave. Hell, my fortress actually got wrecked about five times, forcing me to hack and slash for a few, while I made myself a new one. Still, with the occasional island hopping every month or so, sometimes less, I managed to kill…..probably well in the 400,000 number of demons.

By this time, Gaea had shut down four more portals, making the battle a lot more favored towards me. For starters, I could now use the G-Force; just a kinda distilled, less powerful version. Still, that didn't stop me from f*(#!^% $#!+ up. I less than a second, I supercharged my fortress with enough G-Force to incinerate a small city, and let it explode. The rocks, all of which were sharpened to a tee, took out maybe a good thousand demons in one swoop; not to mention the countless others that were getting caught in the residual blast energy. In that moment, the battle odds tipped to my favor in an extreme way; and I was just getting started. I equipped my Titanic Avenger, the Triple Threat Combat Avatar fashioned after Hulk, Thor, and Captain America, and proceeded to f*(# some more $#!+ up.

Due to the still heavily corrupted G-Force, I couldn't make it 60ft tall, so I had to settle for 20ft; still powerful, but not unstoppable. To help me out, I used the remains of the exploded island, reshaped them into 20ft tall constructs of Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor, and gave them enough G-Force to last for a year. I had to keep them on task with my sheer willpower, but other than that, they fought pretty well. I fought like this for four months straight, not even breaking a sweat. With every month that went by, Gaea was closing more and more portals, and I was getting stronger. Hell, after two more months of fighting, I transformed my construct Avengers into missiles, and sent them flying off in whatever direction was thickly populated with demons. I was able to focus on more energy based attacks, and was pleased to say that I killed maybe 5,000 demons at once, using a super powerful Unibeam blast.

As the portal count dwindled to a lone one, I thought I was home free; but then came another surprise.

This one was fast; even I didn't have time to defend against it. Before I knew what was going on, I felt something launch into my chest, my actual chest, and rocket me out of my Titanic Avenger. The punch hurt a lot, and that's saying something, especially after all of the training I went through. The mystery monster planted me hard into a nearby island, and tried to continue the beatdown. This time though, my body called for a Timeout, and I was able to ID and counter my attacker. I'll say this: I just can't catch a break with the super powered ladies. This chick didn't look like anything special, just some girl with caramel skin, black hair, wearing a purple T-Shirt, black leggings, and a domino mask; but my God, what a beast! She was super toned, almost had as much muscle as I did. When she threw a punch at my face, I just barely caught it, even in Timeout, and that $#!+ still hurt my hand. I quickly blasted at her with a huge ray of G-Force from my eyes, and just barely managed to get her off of me. She came back strong, managing to get me with a hard right cross to the face, followed by a roundhouse to the side of my head. As if that wasn't enough to convince me that this girl was a bonafide badass, she blasted me with some kind of dark energy blast, launching me straight through a small mountain on the island we were fighting on. This was gonna be fun in all the wrong ways.

I felt her rocketing towards me again, but this time, I was having none of her at all. I recovered, dodged her flying punch, and turned up the gravity to X300. That may seem a little extreme, but trust me, she could totally take it. In fact, the extra G's only seemed to cut her speed down by a quarter; she was still in great shape for a fight. She tired blasting at me with a wave of some kind of black fire, but I quickly made a shield construct, and after blocking the fire, transformed it into a fist, and sent it barrelling into her. Thanks to the absurd amount of G's, my mystery woman didn't go flying off, which set me up just perfect to deliver her the ass whoopin' of a lifetime. Oh, and before you rag on me for hitting a girl….just don't. She could probably kick the crap out of an Avenger, so she was more than my equal.

Before we collided, I made a spire of rock come out of the ground, uppercutting her in the chin, and wrecking her flight pattern. Oh yeah, trust me, after more than five years of battle experience, your playbook expands from just the notion of "punch the bad guy super duper hard". Anyway, I activated my G-Blazer, owned her in the face with a reverse kick, and quickly planted her in the ground with a hammer punch. She recovered quickly, tried to lunge at me, but failed amazingly, as I moved to the side, grabbed her legs, and slammed her back to the ground. I was gonna land on top of her, and continue to beat the everliving $#!+ out of her, but she opened her mouth, and an honest to Jesus BLACK HOLE came out of it! Quick reminder for those of you that forgot….BLACK HOLES HAVE EXTREME GRAVITY! Hell, if I had actually been flying towards her, it would've been game over for me. As was such, it still wasn't a breeze getting away from the damn thing; and this is coming from the guy who could walk on Jupiter for an average mid-morning stroll. I hauled ass to get away from the black hole, my skin actually feeling like it was getting slowly ripped off of my bones. I was flying at like a zillion miles per hour, and it still felt like I was in the same place as I was; even worse, I was starting to wear down. There are some limits that are meant to be pushed, and some that I never want to find out about. Figuring out whether or not I could survive in a black hole without being ripped apart atom by atom? Not exactly on my workout list. While flying away from Black Hole Girl, official name, I used my earthbending powers to break off the small ledge of land she was lying down on; if I couldn't get away from her, i'd get her the hell away from me. As she started falling, and my body started to feel more free, I looked down, created a supercharged ball of G-Force, enough energy to level a battleship, and gave Black Hole Girl an early breakfast meal. To be honest, I didn't really expect it to do much, just a last second f*(# you to her, but something weird happened. Like I said, black holes were supposed to be these unstoppable forces of gravity, the kind of stuff that could digest stars, but as soon as my G-Bomb flew into it like a ski ball, going off with a big boom, Black Hole Girl did not respond accordingly. Her entire face went unfocused, and not just in a "HOLY $#!+ THIS HURTS" type of way. No, her entire face dispersed into unfocused black tendrils of energy, etched with small G-Force flares. She managed to put her face together again, coming at my life one more time, but she definitely seemed shaken. At least I think she did. I'm still not certain whether or not she was human.

She blasted at me with a wave of black fire, but I wrapped myself in a G-Force Iron Man construct, flew through it, and socked her hard in the head.

"Don't suppose you'd answer a few questions?" I asked her while...assaulting her.

"How about who the hell are you?" I blasted her with a Unibeam.

"What do you have to do with Tartarus?" I kicked her hard under her chin.

"Would you consider giving me your number?" I got her with a hard tiger knee to the chest.

While she wasn't answering any of my questions, I did get at least one useful tidbit of info out of it. Remember her black hole mouth? That whole swirling vortex of terror thing she had goin' on? Yeah, as it turned out, that wasn't gonna be much of a problem anymore. See, as we fought back and forth, I was winning, she occasionally opened her mouth every other time I got a hard hit or kick in. She didn't make any sounds, but I guess that was her way of expressing pain. Anyway, when she opened her mouth, the black hole was still there, but it was super small. Oh, right, you don't get it yet. The first time she made a black hole, the thing was about the size of a basketball backboard. Now, it was just the size of….however big people's mouths usually are. Oh, don't get me wrong, the gravity was still OP enough to rip a regular person's atoms apart, but for me, it was manageable. Still, I couldn't have that messing up my flow, so I decided to shut her up for good. Guys, I swear, I was not enjoying this. Anyway, after knocking her away, I found a piece of stray floating rock, grabbed it, and changed it into liquid Titanium. I ditched my Iron Man suit, wrapped the liquid metal around my hand, and charged after Black Hole Girl. Once getting close enough, I willed the liquid metal to jump off of me, cover her mouth, and harden into a solid state; no more black holes. She seemed a little pissed about me shutting her up, but that was understandable. Her rage quit tho? Jesus!

She made a wall of black fire swirl around her, which ironically enough, was not a heat source. She went to work, blasting at me left and right with the stuff, occasionally taking the time to create construct barrages, like skulls, dragon heads, and clawed hands. I was able to block, dodge, and counter most of her attacks, but a few occasionally made it through. They stung like the dickens, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Still, Black Hole Girl wasn't done yet. Still in her swirling blaze of terror, she rocketed into me way faster than I was ready for. As I was engulfed in the blaze, she continuously punched me left and right, actually getting off some pretty hard hitting blows. I fumbled around trying to block her hits, but I was in way too deep; the pain of the fire was almost too much. However, in a last attempt to get back in the fight, I activated my G-Blazer, and as the pain immediately subsided, I managed to grab one of Black Hole Girl's strikes, and headbutt her hard. She recoiled, but I was just getting started; and yeah, I was pissed!

I took the kiddie gloves off, and went all out. I know sometimes that's what I should do from the get go, but at this point holding back is just a force of habit. Besides, if I went all out all the time, i'd never learn control. Anyway, I decked her in the face with a hard right cross, and tapped into Blitz Extreme; didn't want her flying away too soon. I hit her in the throat with a leopard paw, released a flurry of punches to her midsection, and topped it off with a G-Force charged backflip kick, followed by a drop kick. Black Hole Girl probably didn't even have the time to register how much pain she was in, before she went careening into wherever, faster than a bullet. I raced after her, continuously punching her as hard as I could, each blow strong enough to level half a state. I noticed a small landmass in the distance, dime a dozen they were, and punched Black Hole Girl straight through it. From a distance, I multiplied the fragmented rocks, made them clamp around her arms and legs, and brought her back to the surface of the island. Next, I tried something extreme. While flying straight at her, I used my power to shrink down to the size of a pebble, and smashed on top of Black Hole Girl as hard as I could.

Ok. I don't usually get serious like this, but sometimes certain experiences make you grow up for a few seconds. Now I smashed into Black Hole Girl with just my base strength. No G-Force enhancement, just me the size of a pebble, hitting her as hard as I could. As soon as I made contact, the island shattered like breakaway glass. The impact of the explosion was so massive, I knew I had struck with the force of several atomic bombs. Hell, the reverberation just kept expanding across the Geo-Nexus. I knew I was in a kind of virtual reality, a place where I could've gone all out, without fear of hurting anyone, but that still didn't negate the fact that I had just struck with enough force to level Maine. That scared the $#!+ out of me, and I immediately promised myself i'd never use this out in the real world, unless it was for emergencies only; or at least until I figured out how to keep a cap on the maximum damage.

Anyway, sorry for that bring me down, just had to get that out there. I looked around to see if Black Hole Girl was still alive, but only saw a thick black cloud of smoke fly up to the one remaining portal to Tartarus. Now that I thought of it, time seemed to stop for my fight with her. Not literally, but there were no other demons coming out of the portal; not a one. Still the portal remained open. It fluctuated at times, but it looked like Gaea was having trouble with this one.

"G?" I asked her, after growing back to normal size. "What's the deal up there?"

"GRAN-" she said, her voice breaking up like bad cell phone reception. "NOT-, WAY-, CHA-, TAR, TY- , FUSION, COMING!

Did you understand any of that? No? Okay then, so i'm not crazy. Yeah, I have no idea what Gaea was talking about, but the fight obviously wasn't done yet.

Of course the universe would be swift on its delivery of my daily $$ f*(#!*&.

The portal shook violently, and the demonic thunder amped up to a billion. What happened next went by in a blur; literally. I didn't get a clear image of what was coming, but I did see a streak of red and black fly down out of the portal, and make a sharp turn towards me. My body called for a Timeout, and I had maybe one tenth of a second to spare, as I side flipped over the black blade that would've struck me dead in my neck. I didn't even have a chance to recover, but my body called for another Timeout. This time, I barely had time to create a shield construct to block the oncoming blade. Still, the impact of the strike broke my shield, and sent me careening away. And yet, this thing just wouldn't stop! I felt the mystery thing swing its sword at me again. I managed to dodge it, and tap into Geo Blitz Extreme; obviously I was in for another equal fight. The guy, whoever he was, was big; like a lumberjack on steroids. He had long flowing hair, a thick beard, and dark black skin. His eyes were empty sockets filled with blood red fire, and he was wearing a black classic Greek armor set, with a gorgon head design engraved all the breastplate. He had a matching cape, and dark black, probably Scabrite, sword that just wouldn't quit. Still, the most interesting part about the guy was his legs. No, not because they were hot; although he could definitely scissor an anaconda to death. It was because snakes, actual black snakes, were coming out of his legs; almost like maggots. The snakes would always go back into other parts of his leg, and seemed to be made entirely of an inky/shadowy substance; somehow both solid and gaseous, weird word, at the same time. He had a evil, ancient, and eternal type of feel to him; except it was multiplied? I couldn't really explain it, but I felt multiple entities at work, like the accumulation of several malicious beings that have, and always will exist. I took all of that in, in half a second, before I came up with a hard uppercut; not even bothering to tone down the punch. I couldn't afford to. This guy was the real deal, and I was gonna give him the VIP treatment. The punch was strong enough to level several skyscrapers like they were houses of cards, shatter the glass of anything that was within a 30 mile radius, and hurl a tank into orbit. The dude I punched, might've flew back 10ft before stopping naturally, not even looking remotely injured.

He started to laugh, and I damn near pissed my pants. His voice was a mix of three dark, evil entities, all from the pits of my darkest nightmare. Seriously, i'm not afraid of much, although i'm developing a phobia to Adamantium, Vibranium, etc., but this guy was definitely making his way onto the list. His voices triggered all of my childish fears i've ever had. The fear of the dark, under the bed, the closest, the tractor; all of it came rushing back into my head. A cold feeling worked its way into my bones and almost froze them solid; I had to force myself not to lose my will to fight.

"IS THIS THE BEST YOU CAN DO, GAEA?!" the evil guy shouted. "A puny boy, is the best you can summon to stand against your doom?!"

Nothing like some good old fashioned $#!+ talking to get your blood riled up, cuz I forgot all about being scared.

I blasted at him with a huge Geo-Wave; one that was strong enough to vaporize a city. Mystery dude was lost in the wave pretty good, but when I stopped to check on my progress, the dude wasn't fazed at all. I saw flickering dark purple energy sparking around him, so he obviously blocked the blast. Still, he was strong enough to shrug that off, with little to no effort; I was gonna hate seeing this guy go all out.

"Humph," he said casually. "You are much stronger than Gaea's previous dog, i'll give you that much."

"You ain't seen nothin' yet, dude!" I said, trying my damnedest to sound tough. "Speaking of which, just who the hell are you; I like to know the names of the people I stomp into the dirt!"

Good job, Grant. Great grandstanding.

Mystery dude laughed at me; hard. His body started to swirl with red, purple, and black energy. Damn, this guy was SO totally the real deal. His face morphed from the black skinned caveman, to a roaring red ball of red fire. I'm pretty sure a skull was in there somewhere, but the flames were overshadowing it by a mile and a half.

"I BELIEVE MY BELOVED HAS ALREADY TOLD YOU OF ME!" a deep bellowing voice roared out of the flame.

"Tartarus?" I managed to squeak out, my voice as pitiful as a sick mouse. "You're looking…flamboyant?"

"FLATTERY WILL NOT GRANT YOU MERCY, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS AS IDIOTIC AS THAT!"

Tartarus sounded like he wanted to rip me a new one, but his fiery face went all distorted, and dark inky fire took its place. The black fire solidified into dark tendrils, until it for me a face straight out of a horror movie. The thing looked like the Predator, made entirely of ink. His hair whipped around like snakes, and dark matter oozed off of him like sweat. From what I could see, this guy wasn't very serious minded, but he felt like more of a threat than Tartarus could every be.

"Come now, Tartarus," the new face chided his other face. "How am I supposed to strike fear into the boy's heart, when you already have him on the brink of voiding his bowels in his trousers."

His voice was somehow both forebodingly deep, and annoyingly raspy; still, it was enough to keep that grip of fear on my spine.

"In any case," the face continued. "I am Amatsu-Mikaboshi, God of Evil, King of Chaos."

"Amatsu Mishi boliski?" I tired to say, but ended up butchering the name. "Japanese god? You guys actually exist?"

Ink face didn't seem to like that comment. He roared at me, said something about eating my soul, but was quickly reigned in by the last, and ironically enough, base face; the one that looked like a charcoal soaked caveman.

"Enough of this!" He shouted, his voice sounding like a booming stereo being echoed through a canyon. "I am Typhoon! Father of Monsters, Storm Giant, The Last Son of Gaea!"

"Ugh," I responded. "Does that make you my step-brother? I disown you like so hard."

Typhoon didn't like that, and apparently, the other faces of him really wanted to get to the punchy kicky stuff. Demon King, yeah I refuse to alternate between all the names, summoned his sword, roared with his three in one demonic battle cry, and nearly stabbed me to death.

Yeah, one thing I gotta mention, as far as speed went, I had to keep it at 110% at all times. Demon King only lunged at me once, ONCE, and almost ran me through with no effort. Luckily, my body called for a Timeout, and I sidestepped, while managing to punch Demon King in the throat, and bat him away with a blast of G-Force. Again, this guy was tough as hell. I only repelled him a good 15 feet before he came at me again; although I made sure to go into Geo Blitz Extreme before he came back around. He slashed at me with his sword, and I dodged, rather than trying to make a weapon construct. First off, I missed my axe. The fact that I couldn't morph while in the Geo-Nexus, would be a big factor in this fight. Also, as I learned from my years of combat training, it's never EVER a good idea to fight your enemy in any aspect where they're comfortable. In other words, I was gonna get this guy to fight on my terms, not the other way around. Anyway, I dodged his first strike, blocked the next with a shield construct, and made the construct explode in Demon King's face. The explosion maybe knocked him back two feet, but it was only meant to be a distraction. I quickly wound my fist up, charged it with an ungodly amount of G-Force, and slammed it into Demon King's face. Oh, and just so we're clear, I was always at 110% with everything I threw at this guy. Even though it felt like I had just punched a mountain made of Titanium, I was proud to say that I had launched Demon King away at terminal velocity. I quickly flew after him, activating my G-Blazer, making sure to send extra juice to my arms and legs. I'll hand it to Demon King, the guy made me earn every inch. The plan, after knocking him into next week, was to keep up the punches, juggle him around a bit, and make him frustrated enough to ditch his sword for good. Instead, I managed to hit him maybe two more times, before he managed to recover, use my own momentum against me, and nearly take my head off with a wide swing. Hell, the only reason I didn't die was because I just barely ducked my head, and barreled into his breastplate with a flying headbutt; and even that $#!+ almost cost me my ass. First off, running straight into dark hellish metal is only good for two things: getting headaches, and pissing off the wearer. Demon King pounded me in the back with a single hammer punch, launching me downwards. Before I could even think of stopping myself, I felt some type of cable latch onto my back, and pull me up like I was attached to a bungee cord. The cord burned with energy, none of it feeling natural in any way, but that's beside the point. The cable yanked me up just as quick as Demon King pounded me down, and you better believe I went into Timeout faster than you could blink. Again, I just managed to scramble out of the way of Demon King's sword, hit him with a G-Force charged uppercut, and blast him away with an eye blast strong enough blow NYC away like sand hitting a fan. Whether or not it was actually hurting him, I dunno. As long as I was back in the fight, that was all that mattered.

For a good hour or so, I played a dangerous game of tag with Demon King. Every time I managed to outmaneuver him, and build up some momentum, i'd go right back to punching him super, duper, ultra, mega, hard; occasionally using G-Force blasts, and constructs to extend my combo. Still, Demon King was a f*(#!^& beast. No matter how hard, or how many times I decked him, the dude always found a way to recover, and bite back. Don't get me wrong, I would put the mad juking skills on full blast, and more often than not, i'd manage to avoid all of his blasts, and swings; but when they connected, boy did they connect! Hell, forget Goblin, Juggernaut, and even Magneto, when this guy decked me in the gut, I actually coughed up blood! That. Should. Not. Happen. Don't worry, I managed to work through the pain, get out of the way of his weird magic mouth blast, and get the pain train rolling again. Oh yeah, another thing about Demon King: his power set was all over the place. For starters, and I noticed this when we occasionally got into a blast wave power battle, his energy signature was a three for one deal. Every blast was a fusion of Amatsu's blackish grey fire, Tartarus' red flame, and Typhoon's ugly face. Demon King rarely used constructs to oppose mine's but when he did, I could tell that was Amatsu in action; especially when huge ink-like spider arms shot out of his back, like he was Ares from the GOW games. Still, I managed to keep up a good hit ratio, even getting in some pretty solid combos in on Demon King; but when I f*(# % up, boy did I f*(# up.

I happened after I got a pretty long combo off on Demon King, about 50 direct punches to the chest, sides, and throat. Yeah, yeah, I know it's not "long" compared to my other fights, but believe me when I say getting five hits off on this guy was an achievement, let alone 50. Anyway, Demon King managed to block one of my cross punches, but I blocked his counter punch to my side, and gave him a hard sock to the face. That threw him off-balance for a bit, and I assaulted him with a barrage of G-Force charged punches and kicks, until the guy managed to stop me dead in my tracks. He caught one of my wide swings in his arm, and instead of giving me a hard chop to the wherever, my arm started to get stuck in Amatsu's inky webbing. Before I could try getting out of it, Demon King grabbed my other arm, and the entire process start on that end too. I tired struggling out of it, even activating my G-Blazer, in the vain hope that the good worked the way Venom's did, but that hope was immediately dashed. Suddenly, just as the goo enveloped me from the neck down, a tingling sensation spread over my whole body. It felt ticklish, but I could tell it wasn't supposed to; Demon King actually looked kinda confused. Maybe I accidentally laughed at him, smiled, or gave off the impression that I was just unimpressed with his power, cuz Demon King cranked the dials up to 11. He opened his mouth, and a black, red,and purple bonfire erupted from his mouth, bathing me thoroughly in the inferno. Again, I had to keep myself from laughing, because this was almost like a joke. I could tell that the fire was supposed to be burning the $#!+ out of me, but it honestly felt like a gentle warm breeze. Still, I was kinda done with being this guy's fireplace; it was time to rip this dude a new one. I pretended to be in agony, screaming and writhing slightly to keep up the illusion. Behind the scenes though, I was building up a massive amount of G-Force, prepping for the mother of all explosive waves. Thanks to Gaea's intense training, I could use 10% of the G-Force without hurting myself, and Demon King was about to feel the full explosive force of that. Hell, he didn't even have to go through the long wait that usually comes with it. Maybe it was all that chi training, or I was just starting to get the hang of it, but flowing G-Force through my body came a lot easier now. Anyway, you get the gist. In the blink of an eye, the fight went from Demon King reveling in his delusional advantage, to me blasting him away with the force of a nuke. Despite the fact that I had just expelled enough energy to destroy a good chunk of Texas, I had to admit how much I enjoyed that. It was like every cell in my body had exploded, like someone had shot me up with enough adrenaline to keep me running forever. Still, I did not account for Demon King's recovery time. Quicker than even my body could call for a Timeout, I felt him sock me hard in the face, rattling my skull, sending me shooting backwards at like Mach 3.

Yeah. That one hurt. Oh my God, that one hurt! Seriously, my vision went yellow and white for a second there. I felt another punch find it's way to my chest, followed by another to the head, and a blast of fire point blank to my back. I tried to recover, to get back in the fight, but Demon King kept me off-balance in every way possible. Hell, I remember getting struck in the back with a bolt of demonic lightning, and that was not something I liked. I quickly put a barrier around myself. It was hastily made, and shoddy at best, but when Demon King came around for another punch, it held it's own. I immediately activated my G-Blazer, overpowered it with even more G-Force, and went back to the punching, kicking, and hair pulling. Demon King and I went at it FURIOUSLY. Every second we were exchanging at least 500 punches and kicks, with a good handful of blasts and constructs to mix it up. I'll give Dirt Momma props where props are due; she had some mad crazy preparation skills. Seriously, I can't even count the amount of times Demon King would've killed me, if I didn't go through the training I did. He was just a little faster, a good bit stronger, and a hell of a lot tougher; but he couldn't fight for $#!+. Oh, he got a few good hits on me, and I wasn't strong enough to block all of his hits, but overall, my years of martial arts training gave me the slight edge. I got him good with some pretty satisfying hits and kicks, every blow going off like a sonic boom. Demon King managed to get me off of him with a counter explosive wave, and even though it didn't hurt all that much, the flying punch he gave me afterwards hurt in full.

I rocketed back maybe three miles, but luckily, crashed through an island, shattering it into fragments, to break my fall. Crashing into the island didn't hurt too bad, but it was definitely one of those "walk it off" types of pain. As soon as I felt myself stop, I immediately tapped into Geo Blitz Extreme, just managing to stay ahead of Demon King's attack, and got him hard with a reverse kick to the chest, followed by a G-Force charged backflip kick. With every blow, the broken island got even more broken; at this point it was just a collection of above average boulders floating around. Demon King tried hitting me with a blastwave, but I created a vase construct around him, and held it together as tight as I could; essentially making his blast backfire in on itself. After activating my G-Blazer again, I charged Demon King another time, and the battle resumed. As I was fighting him, like super hardcore, DBZ on steroids fighting, I noted two things. First off: I missed my axe! I know I keep bringing that up. Yes, I know that's kind of a small thing, especially now that I had G-Force access, but my axe gave me more versatility; plus it was a lot stronger. I say this because as I was fighting Demon King, I changed the matter of the floating rocks around me into liquid Titanium. I had to condense it, to make it usable with my hands, but let's just say it wasn't exactly the solution to my problem. Demon King's sword was unbearably OP, the damn thing sliced through my makeshift sword and axe constructs like butter. I was always able to recycle the dismembered metal, but I had to pump it with a $#!+ ton of G-Force to give it even half a chance of surviving more than three direct strikes. If I had my axe, I wouldn't have to worry about that; Adamantium and Vibranium hold up real well. Second thing: I really missed my team. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't afraid of Demon King, or at least not terrified of him, but almost every time I had to fight without my friends it ended in disaster. Venom. Goblin. The first training session. I knew that I was alone, or at least as alone as you can be with Mother Earth, I knew I had to rely on my own strength, skills, and power; but I knew i'd be 1,000 times more secure if Storm-Lord and Sunbird had my back. Anyway, as I continued my brawl with Demon King, Gaea finally got back in contact with me.

"GRANT!" her voice slammed into my head, almost panting for breath. "HOW DO YOU FARE?!

"WHOA!" I thought back to her, just managing to dodge one of Demon King's swings. "DON'T DO THAT! I CAN'T FIGHT, AND DEAL WITH YOUR YELLING! But i'm fine, thanks for asking. Oh, and WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?! NAPPING?!"

"Not funny. My consciousness was temporarily trapped in Tartarus, the physical place. I had to fight my way back to the Geo-Nexus; Tartarus has had a lot of time to plan this assault."

"No $#!+. Speaking of your evil ex-boyfriend, and his other friends-"

"Do not underestimate them, Grant! That's not just Tartarus you fight against-"

"Yeah, yeah. Your evil son, Typhoon, total tool by the way, and Amatsu something Japanese I can't pronounce. Really bad dudes, really strong fusion. Trust me, G, I know that first hand. But how do I get rid of them? Also, what's up with that portal not closing?"

Oh yeah, Ms. Dirt Queen didn't fulfill her part of the bargain. Sure, there weren't any demons raining from the skies, but that portal was still wide open. Made me uncomfortable and what not.

"Ah yes," she started, as I quite literally crushed Demon King in between two G-Force charged islands. "You see, about that…"

"Gaea!" I almost growled at her. "If the next words are anywhere close to "what had happened was", i'm gonna….well, just don't say that! But seriously, what are we dealing with here?"

"The portal is connected to Tartarus, Amatsu-Mishabolski, and Typhoon-"

"Call it Demon King."

"Why?"

"Cuz it's easier to say, and I came up with the name, so that makes it badass."

"I despise your inherent nature to name everything with absurd aliases."

"Too bad, it's part of the package."

"So be it. The portal is connected to Demon King, and the only way it closes is if you defeat him."

"So, just punch him till' he doesn't get up? That might take a lot longer than you think, but I think I can do it."

"It is not that simple, Grant. This form isn't something you can hit hard enough. To put him out of commission, you have to disrupt the fusion, make it implode in on itself."

"And how exactly do I do that? You didn't exactly give me a tutorial for this."

"As of now….the only thing you can do is keep fighting. I sense a latent energy buildup inside of Demon King. If I can find a way to use that against him, we can take him down; hopefully for another good 5,000 years."

"You're making this up as you go, aren't you?"

"I could say the same thing about you, boy. Just keep fighting, I'll be in touch."

So that's what I did.

I lost count of how long I fought Demon King. Maybe five months, probably more. But I did remember the hell I paid for every second. We flew around like bullets, always going at it relentlessly, never getting the upperhand on each other for too long. I pulled my best tricks out of my sleeve for him. For starters, with every island we crumpled, a lot, I transmuted the rocks into a different type of metal, and added it to my liquid metal mix. Hell, at a certain point, I forgot how many metals I didn't have in the mix. I mean, I already had Titanium, Gold, Platinum, Steel, Copper, Magnesium, Aluminum, Copper, Nickel, Zinc, and pretty much everything else you can imagine. The thing weighed about 100,000 tons since it was basically compressed mass, and I still had to put some G-Force in it to make it sturdy, but after all the work I put into it, it was starting to hold up real well. As me and Demon King continued our fight, not only did I school him in swordplay, but I ripped him a new one with my ever changing liquid metal. For example, one time, after I managed to cut his hands off with some twin daggers, he healed fast, I reshaped the metal around my fists, and gave Demon King a wombo combo for the ages. After knocking him away with a quick blast of G-Force, I rearranged the metal again, and quite literally rammed a silver/gold battleship into him; oh yeah, this liquid metal stuff was dope! That's not to count out Demon King, that guy definitely didn't give an inch. When we weren't locked in hand-to-hand, sword, and construct battles, Demon King was saturating the air with atomic bomb level blasts. Seriously, every blast he hurled at me was more than enough to level Hawaii ten times over. I managed to dodge, block, and counter a good bit of his attacks, but i'd be lying if I said I didn't eat more than my fair share of demon fire. The good news, and I found this out after I took three direct shots to the chest, his attacks were obviously magical. The blasts didn't exactly bounce off of me, they definitely hurt like hell, but after taking a quick glance at my arms, I noticed how the fire seemed to be burning over me, like I had a barrier just over my skin. I realized this was my magical immunity working in over time, and I couldn't be more grateful to have it. I quickly got back in the fight, wrapped myself in some Triple Threat Armor, and went all out some more. Demon King tried to keep nuking me, but not only did my armor hold up against him, I was able to get more creative with my attacks. I reshaped the armor around my right arm into a spiked club, and whacked Demon King across the face. I changed it again, this time into a hammer, and bashed him away. Then I summoned my All-Metal, official name, changed it into a spear hook, launched it into Demon King's chest, brought him back Scorpion style, and gave him an uppercut so hard, his face went all distorted in fire and darkness. I kept up my attack, only now feeling like I had a chance to actually win.

"Excellent, Grant!" Gaea cheered. "Keep it up, you are doing amazing!"

"F*(# off!" I responded, kinda miffed that she was contributing zero effort to the battle. "Where the hell are you in this fight?"

"Grant! You are so rude and unappreciative! Is that any way to thank me for bottlenecking the portal?"

"What?"

I stole a quick glance to the portal; it was in my general direction, so it wasn't too much of a distraction. The portal was still big and portaly, but huge bolts of G-Force were crossing the portal entrance like magical barbwire. My enhanced vision and hearing kicked in, and I saw a huge horde of black demons and monsters trying to get through. They burned into ash within three seconds of contact with the barrier, and I could see literally thousands of them trying to get through the portal. Damn. She actually WAS helping.

"You were saying?" Gaea taunted

"Ok, ok," I said, as I fought with Demon King again. "You've been doing more than your fair share, i'm sorry. But plan "punch the bad dude a lot of times", is not working."

"One day. One day, i'll teach you to see with more than just your natural senses, boy. Until then, you are going to have to trust me. Demon King's overuse of his power is taking a toll on his form."

"Which means?"

"Do you have any idea how much strength and magic it takes to keep those three entities together? Every second together is like trying to force three like magnetic ends together. As such, their collective chi-"

"That thing has chi?!"

"Everyone does, Grant. It's a natural life force; hell, all I am is a big expanse of living chi. Anyway, their collective chi points are being overloaded, making it harder for them to stay together. That face shattering punch you delivered a while back, that wasn't just a lucky shot. Demon King is weakening."

"So, just punch him till he burns out?"

"Not exactly that simple. If Demon King is defeated, that is to say, if he is allowed to lose his overall form in an explosive wave, while in the Geo-Nexus, the rolling darkness will pollute my consciousness beyond repair; it will be the end of me, and a very long sleep for him.

"So, let's just launch him back into the portal, shut the door, and call it a night."

"Again! Not! That! Simple! His consciousness is tied to the portal, in order to make it unstable enough for me to close it, he needs to be defeated!"

"But if I defeat him, he'll blow his load all over you."

"That is a crude, but very accurate way of describing it."

"Ok….so you said his chi points were reaching max, right?"

"Affirmative."

"Then let's make em' overload. I know I can't see them, but you can. Together we can wreck this guy."

"And what of the fallout?"

"We'll send him back to wherever; let him blow up there."

"Even if we could, the amount of damage Demon King has to take is astronomical, even for you. There is no way this can be done quickly, and keeping this portal under control is getting harder by the second."

"Don't suppose you'd know any way to speed the process up?"

"I could possess you."

Ok. This is the part where my brain shuts down, and I lose all sense of disbelief. The shock factor was so real, I actually ate one of Demon King's fists, the punch shattering the first layer of my Triple Threat armor.

"Gaea?" I cautiously thought to her,while making my tree armor sprout G-Force charged thorns, before paying Demon King back for that shot to the face.. "Please tell me 'posses' means something different to your seriously messed up brain?"

"I do not have a brain," she responded matter-of-factly. "And do not fear, I will not COMPLETELY inhabit your body; you could not handle all of me anyway."

"I'll tell you like I told my last hook up, I am not down for pegging."

"You unbearable, insufferable, immature…..just shut up and listen, Grant! I can put some of my overall consciousness inside of you, the same way I did when I gave you your new powers. The only difference is that I simply passed through you on the first time; to inhabit your body is a whole different story. Depending on how much of me you can take, which should be around the same level of G-Force you can safely use, your powers will increase exponentially, but the after effects will wreck your body."

"So, a Kao-Kein?"

"Basically."

"Ok, then that just leaves the whole blowing him up thing to worry about, and don't worry about that, I have a plan."

"Grant?"

"Just trust me, G, I know what i'm doing, I won't let you get all corrupted."

Gaea seemed a little hesitant to let me take the reins, but even she knew when I was being serious.

"Fine," she said. "Do what you must, it will take me a little while before I can enter safely inside of you."

"Again," I thought to her. "Not down for-"

"Shut up, Grant."

And on that polite note, she left me to my own devices.

Oh, and make no mistake, while that conversation was going on, I was locked in the most brutal fight i'd ever been in. Hell, if I actually added all of the "oofs", "umphs", and swear words into the conversation, i'd never finish one coherent sentence. Anyway, after another quick back and forth exchange of punches, kicks, and energy blasts, I managed to get the drop on Demon King; hard.

I wrapped the All-Metal around my fists, charged them with G-Force, and after getting inside his guard, punched him a good multiple hundred times, sent him rocketing into another nearby island, caught up with him, and pinned him to the ground. We wrestled around for a little bit, which was awkward as f*(#, before Demon King blasted me off of him, and tackled me in the gut. We flew around the air for a bit, fighting awkwardly, as I tried punching him in the back to get him off of me. It took a few good shots, but I eventually managed to bat him away, and launch him back onto the island. We fought around for a good minute or so, before Demon King started monologuing and…..just take a look.

"IMPRESSIVE!" he roared at me, while we slugged it out. "GAEA SEEMS TO HAVE FOUND HERSELF A STRONGER DOG FOR ME TO SLAUGHTER!"

His weird three in one voice sent chills down my back; still couldn't get over it.

"YOUR BLOOD WILL SATISFY MY HUNGER FOR MILLENNIA TO COME!" he roared, as he changed his arms into blades. "YOUR DEATH WILL BRING IN A ETERNAL ERA OF DARKNESS FOR THE EARTH!"

Damn! I wanted to talk some smack back to him. Maybe rag on his breath, his stupid shadow powers, or the fact that it took three of him to take on one of me. But at this point, my life's goal was to keep my life. Seriously, Demon King was starting to bring it. His speed increased by….a lot. He was starting to get more hits in, although his magic fire was still useless as ever. I kept him on as tight a leash as I could. I used a $#!+ ton of G-Force to keep the rock we were standing on intact, upped the gravity by 100, and used my nature powers to summon a barrage of tree made beasts to help me keep him under control. Still, he was either really, really confident of his victory odds, or really desperate to put me away before he tired out. After a quick intense battle, we ended up grappling again, which is a really odd thing to do in general, and Demon King started to talk more $#!+.

"Tiring boy?" He asked me. "Why not just give in? You know you cannot defeat me, you know you cannot succeed in your quest. Cease to fight, and I will make your voyage to the afterlife a swift one."

I was really, really, really, tired of bad guys offering to kill me nicely!

"As good of an offer as that it is," I responded through gritted teeth. "Size matters!"

On a positive note, that comeback was so stupid, even an overlord of evil gave me a WTF face. Before he could retaliate though, I shrunk to the size of a pebble, absorbed all of the G-Force I put into the island, which took less than half a second, and with all of my might, gave Demon King a huge jumping uppercut.

Yeah, remember how the last time I did this, I probably struck hard enough to make a handful of atomic bombs look like firecrackers? Well, now that I had just used my full force, plus a considerable amount of G-Force into this one…...well…...let's just say I probably could've leveled the entire east coast with that last blow. Demon King was launched so high into the air, if this was the outside world, he'd already be in orbit. I quickly turned on the jets, caught up to him, and hit him with another string of super fast, super mega atomic punches and kicks. Demon King was just having a bad time of it. Within three punches, his breastplate was shattered, and his form was getting more and more unstable; there were times when I could practically see Amatsu and Tartarus in between all the smoke and distorted energy. He tried fighting back a few times, swatting at the air wildly, roaring curses at me fluently. Yeah...let's just say that tactic was not effective in any way. Hell, after punching him so many times, really should've started out with this bit, I had to change sizes, by about 60ft, and resort to smashing my fist into Demon King, decking him into another landmass. I completely decimated the island, but I used my Geo-Genesis to create two skyscraper sized rocks, charge them with G-Force, and smash Demon King between them. Oh yeah, quick fact, I can still manipulate G-Force when i'm big/small; but when i'm big, my control over it basically multiplies by ten. Anyway, Demon King sputtered out with a small wisp, and then exploded into pure darkness. This wasn't just a small cloud of smoke mind you, it was a thick fog of dark, fiery, ink. It quickly enveloped me, and I had to haul ass to fly out of there.

I maybe had about three seconds to shake off the weird vibe that fog gave me, before my body called for a Timeout like so hard. I turned around fast, and damn near $#!+ myself. Demon King, was a freaking giant serpent. No, I mean that. I giant black serpent, who somehow had the ability to spew flames from its mouth, I could see them forming, was half a second away from chomping down on me. I never liked the movie all that much, but the sight of Demon King this way, gave me flashbacks of Dragon Wars. Anyway, I quickly flew up, just barely avoiding being a midnight snack, if it even was midnight. I made my All-Metal increase to my size, changed it into a spear, and lodged it deep in the serpent's head, summoning an explosive bolt of G-Force for good measure. The bolt wasn't as effective as I would've liked it to be, but at least it made the son of a bitch shriek in pain. He writhed and thrashed, spewed fire everywhere, and while I was eventually thrown off, I made sure to summon a few more G-Force bolts on top of him. He tried snapping me up again, but I blasted a huge wave of G-Force into his mouth, getting him off my ass, so that I could fly like hell.

I spent the next few minutes dodging the serpent's blasts of fire, creating giant hammer constructs to swipe him across the face, and just generally trying to get my act together. After nearly getting barbecued twice, having to pry myself out of the serpent's jaws, and a stream of cuss words later, I got an idea. I summoned my Triple Threat armor, made it grow, and changed it into the form of a giant medieval dragon; thanks Dragon Empress. Demon King looked a bit surprised, but he quickly got over it, and resumed attacking me savagely.

Another quick fact, controlling a dragon made of rock, tree, and earth energy is not all fun and games. No, it wasn't exactly hard, just extremely different. Plus, I was used to controlling things that had were humanoid; controlling beasts was a completely different story. It was weird, clunky, and took way more concentration than I usually had to put into anything. Naturally, I got my ass handed to me on the first few minutes of the fight. Demon King's snake form decimated my dragon with vice grips, flames, and pretty intense bites; had to deconstruct and reform the whole thing altogether. On the rebound though, I got my groove on. I remembered that controlling the rocks, bark, and energy, was more about fast thinking; in other words, I had to think as fast as Demon King moved. I got back in the fight, clawing and bellowing fire at the serpent. Demon King was fast, definitely faster than I could move my dragon, but anytime I felt trapped, i'd rearrange the form of my dragon, and now Demon King was fighting a giant cobra. When my cobra started to overwhelm the serpent, Demon King changed into a giant bear; in retaliation, I transformed my armor into a giant lion. It went like that for a good while, Demon King and I going through the entire damn animal kingdom, trying to get a definitive advantage over each other. I got a few good swipes in with my lion form, pulled the rug out from under him with a rhio charge, and even pelted him in the face with an armadillo roll attack. Still, even though I adapted pretty well against Demon King's attacks…...all it took was one focused, point blank blast to the face, and my armor was history. I tumbled backwards, trying desperately to get my balance back, but ended up getting smacked around for my troubles. Demon King apparently was done with the whole animal fighting, and wanted to make things personal again. He decked me a good hundred times, threw in some fire, lightning, and slashed at me with his dark talons. Hell, the bigger question here was how my clothes weren't in tatters; probably made of unstable molecules or something.

Oh, and when I did get back in the fight, it was not exactly a graceful comeback. After getting blasted for like the trillionth time, I managed to spin around, getting in a midair crouching position, and I kid you not, Demon King's sword was barely an inch away from my chest. I've never jumped into Geo Blitz Extreme so fast, and you better believe I wrapped the All-Metal around my chest, charged it with a $#!+ ton of G-Force, and braced for the impact. Thank God, Gaea, the gods, and the freaking dirt, cuz the armor held up like a champ. I immediately blasted him in the face with a wave of G-Force from my eyes, grabbed his sword, yanked it from him, and stabbed him in the gut with it. I hoped that would do it, but I will never forget the lesson I learned my fight with Goblin: some people don't die from getting shanked. In response to that, I punched him hard in the chest, and continued to fight.

"Alright, Grant," Gaea finally said, after Demon King and I slugged it out for a few minutes. "I'm ready for you, and do not give me any of your idiotic sexual jokes, they do not amuse me."

"Damn!" I thought back to her. "I had a good one ready. Speaking of which, why does it take you so long to prepare? What do you have to do to get ready for me?"

"Adjust my consciousness to fit the amount of G-Force your body can handle, asses your chi, and how I can integrate myself into it without killing you, account for brainwave activity, and make sure I don't accidentally erode every organ in your body; believe it or not Grant, that actually takes preparation time."

"Good stuff, so how do you want me to take you?"

"From above."

I had no idea what that meant, until I heard a distant rumbling, followed by a BOOM! loud enough to shatter a million eardrums.

Demon King also seemed confused by the sudden burst of if thunder, so I took advantage of it, and punched him hard in the face, sending him sprawling away. At that moment, a bright flash of green fire/lightning, which was in the familiar shape of a woman, came down at like a…..damn, i'm all outta comparisons; never realized how many times the word lightning gets thrown around. Anyway, on a complete reflex, I changed the All-Metal into a sword, raised it, and took about 10% of Gaea. I thought it was gonna be just another slightly exhilarating boost of energy, but even a tankard of Monster laced with crack couldn't compare to this high! Every cell in my body, literally every cell, was filled with enough energy to tear through a tank. My strength and speed was off the charts, I felt like I could pick up a mountain as if it was a golf ball, run/fly around the earth in a second, and one shot Juggernaut; in other words, I was so f*(#!^$ ready!

I heard, saw, and felt Demon King fly back towards me. That was another thing about Gaea possessing me, my senses were enhanced beyond belief. I could probably see the Asteroid Belt from earth, and hear the roar of the sun. Oh, and while in here, the G-Force, I was pretty much God, or at least half of God. Wait, would that make me Jesus? Maybe an angel? Ah whatever, back to the fight stuff. Anyway, Demon King flew back to fight me, but came to a complete halt once getting within half a yard of me. Somehow, I got the feeling he could sense Gaea inside of me.

"Heh," he almost casually remarked. "You are just full of surprises, aren't you Gaea? I suppose a bit of credit goes to the strength of your lackey, but still, you never disappoint."

I opened my mouth, ready to cuss Demon King out, but something weird happened.

"YOU VILE, DISGUSTING, ABOMINATION, SPECK OF SHADOW FILTH!" my lips moved, but Gaea's voice came out. "I HAVE DREAMED OF THIS MOMENT SINCE THE DAY YOU SLAYED DAMON; I WILL HAVE RETRIBUTION!"

I could feel the hate resonate through my body, millennia of it just building and festering without end. To say that I didn't like it, would be an understatement. I didn't know it was possible to hate so much for so long. I felt it eat away at my insides, poisoning my emotions, and I was helpless to control it; Gaea was taking the wheel on this one.

"Do not be so dramatic, my beloved," Demon King responded, Tartarus' voice coming more to the surface. "I am the incarnation of evil, despair, and pain. It is in my nature to destroy, just as treachery is in yours."

"You know nothing, I have-"

"Changed? Evolved? Revised your habits? Gaea, you are the same woman who killed your husband, just to put your even worse children in charge of the earth. The same woman who overthrew said children, to give way for an even worse pantheon to take control; and even then, you laid with me in a vain attempt to overthrow your mistake. Even now you use this boy as a tool for your 'righteous' vengeance. Did you give him a choice in the matter, did you-"

"SHUT UP!" I, and I do mean I, shouted.

I simply couldn't take it anymore. Gaea's hate was overflowing inside of me, I was shaking with rage for some immortal douchebag that I didn't give two $#!+$ about. I had to end this fight soon, not just for the sake of the world, although that was super important, but so I didn't lose my sanity.

"Yeah, she's a piece of work," I admitted to Demon King. "Hell, her 'gift' was more of a threat than an offer. But she's still not as much of an immortal pain in my ass as you. I'm really tired of this, I just wanna kick your head off your shoulders, get Gaea out of me, and get back to the world above. So let's cut the $#!+, and resume killing each other!"

Oh, and just in case he might've misunderstood me, I rushed him, hit him in the gut with stiff jab, knocked his head with a left uppercut, and blasted him away with a wave of G-Force so strong, I immediately knew that it wasn't all me contributing to that blast.

"So," Gaea said, as I pursued Demon King. "You think i'm a piece of work?"

"That's and understatement," I responded. "You're like the accumulation of every bad thing in every girl i've been with."

"Well, it's not like you were a saint either, Grant."

That response was so jarring, so precisely on point with spite and disapproval, I knew that she knew every bad thing I did to every last girl i've either dated, flirted with, cheated on, or banged. First came shock, then sadness, then anger; all of it finding its way to Demon King's face with explosive rage.

"What do you know about anything?!" I asked her, my mind swimming with rage.

"Melissa," she started. "Carmen, Betty, Adrian, Kara. All the best of friends, till you and your raging hormones caused them to fight over you in a cafeteria brawl. They haven't spoken to each other since."

"That was a different me, unlike you, I actually have changed."

"That you, the one you claim to be different from, existed barely a month ago. And even then, why did it take Lindsey's-"

"NO!" I screamed aloud, actually putting my fist through Demon King with that last one.

That was something I wanted to bury, and run away from. I would not let Gaea bring that one back to the surface.

"YOU DON'T GET TO DO THAT TO ME, NOT EVER!"

"THEN DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ASSAULTING ME, JUST FOCUS ON SAVING THE WORLD, HERO!"

In case you're a little confused, just know that Gaea and I were probably always destined to have a love/hate relationship. Anyway, I was probably better off this way, cuz I was hopped up on so much rage, all of it focused on Demon King, that there was literally no way he could even have a chance of walking away from this in one piece. However, just because I was giving it 112%, didn't mean that the fight would be a one hit knockout. Demon King came back explosively, his body completely engulfed in purple, black, and red flames. He came at me with a powerful wide swing, and even though I blocked it, the force echoing from it was enough to cause tidal waves. I blocked another one of his wide swings, kneed him in the chest, grabbed him by his throat, and rocketed him forward. I used my Geo-Genesis powers to create walls of rock for him to slam into as we flew. Dunno why, but it sure felt good. Demon King managed to pound me in the back once, but I got him back with a hard uppercut, grabbed his legs, spun him around a bit, and threw him like five miles away. I tapped into Geo-Blitz Extreme, caught up to Demon King, and started a new kind of pain chain. I charged my fists with G-Force, hit him hard in the face, and then hit him hard in the everywhere else. I got a flying start, came back around, and hit him with a flying punch to the back. Oh, and just so you know, the shot I gave him to the face, was enough to eject him at the speed of sound, I was just faster than the speed at which his body could fly away. Basically, I crushed Demon King in between two sonic booms, causing God knows how much damage to his insides. I let Demon King fly forwards, but I quickly got ahead of him, and hit with a winding shot to the gut; again, my hand went through this mother f*(#& . This time, when I ejected my hand from his stomach, I noticed that his form didn't patch up. It was trying to, but it looked more like a discount Venom trying to awkwardly wake up.

"He's weakening!" Gaea shouted in my head, her gleeful hatred electrifying my nerves. "Keep up the assault, you're nearly there!"

"Don't gotta tell me twice!" I responded.

I continued my fight against Demon King, and boy was it a slugfest. Even with his not so healing stomach, dude fought hard. He tried to keep me at bay with a barrage of magic fire, but I blocked it with a giant Triple Threat shield construct, and sent it slamming into him. I deconstructed the shield, wrapped it around myself, reconstructed in into a Triple Threat armor, and continued to beat the ever living $#!+ out of him. One of the best things about this fight, was that Demon King seemed to be unable to change his form. For example, after hitting him with a good wombo combo, Demon King managed to dodge my double smash kick, got me good in the face with a right cross punch. The punch barely even registered at a 3/10, and pretty much only cracked my face armor, but Demon King tried to stab me with his blade hand. Not only did I catch it, but as soon as I crushed it in my hands, it basically dissolved, and rushed back into his body. Hell, when Demon King tried to shape shift into some ungodly beast thing, I could see his three forms breaking apart, before he aborted the effort, and tried to come at me with brute force. I dodged his first swing, hit him with a backflip kick, and summoned my All-Metal. I changed it into a sword, charged it with G-Force, and stabbed Demon King in the chest with the sword. Now, I was expecting it irritate him, may be hurt him a little, but it was basically silver to a werewolf. Demon King started smoking, greenish black smoke to be precise. He started wailing, his form more unstable than a rabid squirrel, and you better believe he got away from my sword faster than Quicksilver. Oh yeah, he was hurting; he was hurting bad. I charged him with my sword, as Demon King stood his ground, summoning his own sword. He slashed at me with a wide swing, but I blocked it, hit him with a power kick to the chin, and sliced Demon King straight through the stomach with a spinning slash. His body started to smoke even more, and he deteriorated into a collection of blackish purple fire, with sporadic bursts of flames, and purple lightning, all held together in a rough outline of a man. He actually reminded me of Carnage. Again, he tried slashing me to bits, but I changed my sword to a shield, still charged with G-Force, and took his blow like it was nothing. Hell, even further, his blade actually shattered against my shield. Apparently, the sword was charged with energy, cuz when it snapped, it exploded, like missile barrage level of explosion. I'll admit, the boomage threw me for a loop, launched me back a good mile or so, but nothing serious. Now that I had a good second or two to myself, I tapped into Geo-Blitz Extreme to get a better look at my All-Metal. I mean, I knew the thing was durable, but it was never able to just shrug off a slash from Demon King.

Yeah, this thing had gotten a major upgrade. From just a visual standpoint, it was engraved with Greek, Norse, Chinese, Egyptian, and Roman inscriptions. The metal felt alive, like an extension of myself, and….Gaea?

"Impressive," Gaea mused.

"No doubt," I responded. "But how?"

"When I merged with you, I entered through your sword; don't know why you raised it to catch me, are you that desperate to be like Thor?"

"Ignoring. But what's up with the runes, hieroglyphs, and Latin? Aren't you a Greek Goddess?"

"I swear, it's like words go in one ear and out the other with you! I am Gaea to the Greeks, Jord to the Norse, Terra to the Romans, and I am not all that different from Geb, of the Egyptians. In my purest form, I am all, belonging to no one religion or culture. The sword is a reflection of that. It's infused with the strength of multiple incarnations of myself."

"Oh….well that's cool."

I heard Demon King's guttural roar, and saw him flying towards me in the distance. The guy definitely wasn't all there. Sure he had increased in mass X2, and was little more than a blob of energy, but the guy was definitely struggling to keep it all together; I could feel the Gaea's glee at the sight of his pain. Seriously, I was gonna be so glad when she got the hell out of me.

"He looks terrible," Gaea said. "We should do him a favor, and put him out of his misery."

"On it," I responded. "Can I make my Titanic Avenger suit as big as that?"

"That's not even an interesting question."

"Good. Give me a sec."

While striking him with more brute force was definitely an entertaining prospect, I actually had a long term plan in place. I used my Geo-Genesis powers, stretched them to max, creating a landmass about the size of Manhattan, pumped it with an insane amount of G-Force, and hurled it at Demon King. Just as you'd imagine, the boom was on and atomic level. As soon as it went off, I summoned my Titanic Avenger suit, which repaired nicely after the incident with the Black Hole Girl, and locked onto the huge chunks of rock shrapnel that were flying everywhere. I didn't get all of them, just a good handful. Still, I rearranged them into huge cannonballs, changed their atomic structure to gold, I like gold, and kept them floating in the air, absently charging with G-Force.

"What exactly do you plan to do with those?" Gaea asked me.

"You'll see," I responded. "For now, how close am I to filling Demon King's chi points?"

"One more good tussle ought to do it."

"Cool, let's get back to work."

I locked on to Demon King's energy signature, rocketed towards him, and started to put the heat on. I launched a volley of shoulder rockets at him, made of rock, bark, and G-Force, while using my hammer to summon a f*(# ton of G-Force bolts. Demon King took them all to the chest, flying back a little, and I closed in on him with a huge hammer swipe to the head. The blow was enough to shatter a mountain, and Demon King's head reacted the same way a slinky does when you stretch it too long. He came back around with a right hook, but my shield absorbed most of the impact, and I blasted him with a Unibeam cannon. The blast went through him, and disrupted his form even more, but now he was acting like a blood sucking tick; he was starting to grow. We fought for like…...a long time. Demon King was barely putting up a fight, although he definitely was giving it his all. While he couldn't refine his abilities anymore, he still hit me with waves upon waves of magical fire; I had to wrap my Titanic Avenger in a layer of G-Force, just to keep it from burning away. And when Demon King actually did manage to get a good swing in on me, he knocked away the barrier. Still, I hit him with relentless missiles and Unibeam blasts. I threw my hammer at him, smacked him around, and actually trapped him in a G-Force whirlwind, taking a page out of Jason's book, and ambushing the mother f*(#%^ with lightning/fire. Still, Demon King just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. At a certain point I wasn't fighting a man shaped monster, rather than a bulging black and red cloud that roared back.

"YOU THINK ME DEFEATED, GAEA?!" Demon King roared, his voice more of a collection of three guys with a sore throat. "YOU THINK YOU HAVE WON?! MY VERY PRESENCE CORRUPTS THIS PLACE! IF I AM UNDONE HERE, I WILL PERMEATE YOUR VERY CORE! IN THE END, I WILL WIN GAEA, I HAVE WAITED TOO LONG TO EVEN ENTERTAIN THE POSSIBILITY OF LOSING! SO GO AHEAD, CONTINUE TO FIGHT, I WILL RETURN, AND YOUR WORLD WILL BE MINE!"

Gotta admit, dude had the evil monologue thing down pack. Even worse, he kinda had the firepower to back it up. Like I said, the guy was more or less a big looming cloud that looked like a piece of roadkill spread over a flat surface. While he was boasting, he was also sending down waves of fire and lightning at me; I had to hide under a barrier to plan my next move.

"He is right you know," Gaea helpfully inputted. "If he overloads and combusts on his own power, he'll pollute me beyond repair."

"Gee," I snapped at her. "Never would've figured that out!"

"Oh hush, you were the one who said that you had a plan!"

"And I do! But I need to know how close he is to reaching his maximum!"

My eyes went unfocused for a few seconds, seriously, everything went blurry, before suddenly refocusing."

"See for yourself," Gaea plainly said.

I looked up at Demon King, and yup, this would do fine. Instead of looking at just a big blob of red and black, Demon King had lines going through his entire structure, almost like veins. I could see the energy pulsating through them, and I could see four big balls of….electricity? Fire? Wind? Plasma? All of the above? Yeah….it was really f*(#!^$ weird. Anyway, I could see five of these points were Demon King's head, shoulders, chest and kneecaps were; or at least by process of mapping. On the very edge of those whatever balls, like around there circumferences, was a type of shadowy barrier. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed….or maybe I am, I can recite the entire damn periodic table in detail by heart. Anyway, I put two and two together, and guessed that those were his breaking points; and they were dangerously close to the edge of bursting.

"So what do you call this, G?" I asked Gaea. "Spirit Vision?"

"For a dumbed down version?" she responded. "That will suffice."

"Cool. Now lemme ask you something, is it possible to set off explosions, multiple, really big explosions, while wrapping those explosions in energy vacuums?"

"And energy singularity? I do not even think that is possible. What exactly are you planning?"

"After busting outta this shield, i'm gonna go all beast mode on that oversized smog cloud, and after bringing his whatever the f*(# those energy balls are, to the brink, I'm gonna use these gold balls i've been storing G-Force in, launch them into his energy buildups, and nuke him…..five times over."

Guys, I just want you to know, a goddess screaming into your head is not fun; it's not fun at all.

"ARE YOU MENTALLY INCOMPETENT ON EVERY LEVEL?!" she roared into every corner of my poor head. "NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS IMBALANCE MY ENERGY, I WILL BE QUEASY FOR WEEKS! ALSO, BECAUSE IT IS OBVIOUS FOR ALL OF YOUR HEARING CAPABILITIES, YOU STILL CANNOT COMPREHEND THE MEANING OF WORDS, IF HE IS UNDONE HERE, I WILL BE INDEFINITELY POISONED!"

"Okaaaay," I softly responded back to her. "First off, I got all of that. Second, I WASN'T DONE, LET ME FINISH, WILL YA?! If I can use that energy vacuum like you suggested, I can keep the explosions compacted inside of him, redoubling in on themselves, and because they're originating from G-Force energy, I should be able to control it better. I'll launch him back into the portal, which is starting to get super unstable, and then let him explode in his own dimension; problem solved."

"You speak this as if it will be an easy feat."

"I may be a rookie at being a hero/champion of earth, but i'm pretty sure easy doesn't come with the job description. Hell, sometimes 'possible' might be a little far fetched. Still, we can't just roll over and take the L; we gotta try."

"You and your inspirational words of courage…...fine, let's get this over with."

"Alright! Green Team for the win! I only wish Thor was here to see what i'm about to do!"

"Imbecile."

"Killjoy."

Now that the groundwork had been set for the homestretch, I focused on getting Demon King ready for his home going extravaganza. Without taking down my barrier, I generated a lot of sand; enough to make my own Sahara Desert. I manipulated the G-Force around Demon King into a huge mesocyclone, and added the sand into the mix. Again, one of those rare moments where I actually had to thank Gaea, cuz there was no way I had the strength to control all of this on my own; seriously, this storm was more of a hurricane. Now that Demon King was distracted, I dropped my barrier, flew into the cyclone, and started thrashing him. I made the sand surge with G-Force, while simultaneously striking him with G-Force bolts from all ends. I tired aiming exactly at his energy points, as they seemed to fill even faster from direct attacks, but that didn't stop me from blasting him everywhere else too. Demon King definitely tried to fight back though. He started swirling himself, forming a cyclone inside of a cyclone, and started spewing demonic fire and lightning in all directions. They were easy enough to dodge and block. If I had space, i'd just maneuver around or over them. If not, I took a handful of sand from the cyclone, made a shield construct, and let that take the blow. I kept up the cyclone effort until Demon King's energy points were at their peak; it was time.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Demon King started to laugh. "GO AHEAD, FINISH IT! MY VICTORY IS ALL BUT ASSURED NOW!"

"YOU KNOW WHAT, DUDE!?" I shouted back at him. "YOU'RE RIGHT! THIS IS YOUR DAY, LET'S HAVE A BALL!"

I summoned the ten gold balls, about the size of shotputs, via Geo-Portals, and willed them to rocket into Demon King's energy points. I willed the cyclone to get more intense, swirling fast enough to rip the flesh off of an elephant, and flew outside of it. I ditched my Titanic Avenger suit, soared as fast as I could away from the blast zone, and once I was a good 300 miles away, started the big boom.

When Gaea said that it would be easy to break atoms, I assumed she was just exaggerating, just trying to scare me into being careful. Yeah, for those of you that have ever ripped a paper in half, you know how easy it was for me to break atoms. It was the same process used to transmute elements, but instead of covering the atoms with a microscopic layer of G-Force, I cut the atoms with a microscopic G-Force knife. Oh, and just so we're clear, it wasn't just one, two, or ten bombs going off. I sliced maybe a good 20-30 atoms at once. I could've ended all the wars in half a second…...that's either super awesome, or super terrifying. Anyway, the bombs went off, and everything went bright; like all white bright. I immediately focused my attention on containing and circulating the blast, making it stay within a 300 mile radius. To say that it was hard, is an insult to how close I was to failing at it. Imagine trying to push back ten different asteroids at once, now imagine doing that, while trying to deflect a tidal wave that could swallow the east coast for breakfast. Keeping the blast contained, keeping the pollution of Demon King's combustion, it was nothing to joke about. I willed the cyclone to pick up in speed, and while keeping the blast circulated, I willed the G-Force that was now mixed with Demon King's formless body. Through my tears of excruciating strain, the roar of the explosions/Demon King's guttural roars of pain, I could sense the last portal to Tartarus or whatever closing rapidly. I couldn't take it slow, I didn't have time for patience, either Demon King went back to hell in a hand basket, or Gaea was f*(#& . With all of our combined strength, Gaea and I compacted the cyclone into Demon King, and basically cannonballed it into the portal just as it closed; I kid you not, we maybe had a millisecond to spare. I didn't see the explosion, and because it was taking place in an alternate reality, I couldn't even sense it, but I had a hunch that Tartarus and friends wouldn't be a problem for a while. I immediately felt Gaea leave my body, and the shock was so sudden, so jolting to my senses, that I immediately passed out.

I probably would've fallen to….infinity I guess, but by the time I woke up, I was back at my mansion. Gaea sat me down on one of the patio chairs, and was sitting just in front of me. Her face was something of a mix of pride, humor, and 'what the f*(# am I gonna do with you?'. She snapped her fingers, and another glass of G-Force Gatorade materialized on the table. I drank it all, and my energy gradually started to return. Still, something felt off with me. I guess I never thought of it while we were bonded, but I was like a glass that was only 1/10th of the way full. Gaea was the rest that topped me off. Now that she was gone, I felt so much weaker, less awesome, and more importantly, almost devoid of emotion. Gaea's thousand year rage fest kinda burned away the rest of my emotional neurons; I was struggling just to care about anything really.

"Well," Gaea said aloud. "That was something."

"Yeah," I said after a brief pause. "Let's never do it again."

"No promises."

"Whatever."

Gaea twiddled with her hands a bit. Guess even goddesses get nervous.

"I…..I apologize for what I said," she said. " The truth is, you were right. After five thousand years, I have barely changed. Just angry. Forever vengeful at everything. I have not learned from my mistakes, nor have I tried to correct them. Sometimes I am in awe at humans. At how many mistakes you make, how many times you fail, yet still find a way to overcome your shortcomings. In all honesty, if you humans could grasp the concept of immortality, maybe change up a few of your behaviors, you'd be better rulers of the universe than us gods."

"Thanks," I responded. "I'm sorry too. I just…...I can't…...I never meant…..I just want to be better. And you were right too, it shouldn't have taken-"

A surge of sadness erupted in the center of my chest. It was like someone had dumped ice cold water right in my heart. The emotional change came with a vengeance, I almost started bawling right on the spot, but I felt Gaea take my hand, before pulling me in for a big hug. First off, the fact that Gabrielle Union was hugging me, that was in itself a pick me up. Still, Gaea felt warm, safe, grandmotherly. I've never met my great grandmother, but i'm pretty sure hugging her would've felt exactly like this. My sadness ebbed away, and as Gaea backed away from me, I felt more emotionally stable.

"Sorry," she said. "You were never meant to feel the pain of a goddess, the burdens of immortals were never meant for humans to bear."

"Kinda late for that," I responded, actually finding enough emotion in me to chuckle. "Do you not remember, like, the last billion years?"

"Humph. Nice to see your terrible sense of humor is still untouched."

"Yup, can't take that away from me."

"We'll see."

Gaea and I shared our first laugh together, and then went silent again.

"So," I said after a while. "What now?"

"Now," Gaea said. "I send you back, it's getting close to 8 A.M., and I imagine people will start to realize your absence. We won't be able to do another one of these sessions for a while, but i'll get on teaching you how to convert your skin into metal after you've emotionally recovered."

"You're gonna turn me into a multi metal Colossus?"

"Colossus will wish he was you."

Gaea stopped talking suddenly, her eyes went wide, and she seemed to be a million miles away.

"Oh," she finally said, looking dead at me. "No rest for the weary today."

"What are you talking abo-"

The ground beneath me changed, and I found myself inside the same tube that brought me to the Geo-Nexus

"You'll see," Gaea managed to say before I shot off. "Have fun!"

For the record, exiting the Geo-Nexus is as heart stopping, butt clenching, and seizure inducing, as entering it. Probably would've vomited after the tube ejected me, but their was nothing to vomit up. Besides, as soon as my feet touched actual ground, my morpher went off, and I was teleported out of there.