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.

23. Chapter 23: Plan, Train, Wait, Repeat

Chapter 23: Plan, Train, Wait, Repeat

It felt weird to go straight into the water again, especially now. I didn't realize it as we went along, but the nanites must've been adapting our bodies the deeper we went into the water. I felt practically weightless this high up. Me, Grant, and Allyson swam to the dive chamber (still open), and climbed up inside. Never have I been more glad to be on dry land…..that is until Mrs. Kennedy's face popped up on the flat screen. She was on the phone with somebody, and looked genuinely annoyed that we picked this moment to show up.

"I'll call you back, sweetie" she sighed. "Work and all that. Ye-, I know, I know but I have to go now. I miss them too. Tell them mommy will be home for Christmas; pinky swear. Alright, make sure you check Adrian's math homework, and he doesn't go to bed until he writes his spelling words three times each. Love you, be home soon."

Allyson mentally awwwed, and put her hands over her chest. Hell, even Grant and I couldn't muster up a mean spirited joke. As long as I knew her, Mrs. Kennedy didn't seem capable of love; I often wondered what poor sucker got blackmailed into marrying her. Now, thinking about how she probably spent at least 4 months away from her family, just to keep tabs on me, made me all uncomfortable and stuff. I could tell she was a little strung up (well, more strung up), so I made a conscious effort to play nice for now.

"You have the stone?" Mrs. Kennedy asked us, reviving her trademark stern demeanor.

I held it up for her to see.

"You didn't steal it did you?" she asked me.

"Nope," I said.

"Didn't kill, maim, and/or piss off the king of an underwater nation that has a tentative tolerance at best for the surface world?"

"Tempting, but still no. Me and elf boy are tight now. We're besties."

"You didn't even fight him?"

"Oh I did, but we worked it out in post,"

"Hill owes me five bucks. Put the stone on the floor and get in the tubes, I need to extract those nanites from your bodies to get a fresh diagnosis."

"What do you mean, diagnosis?" Allyson asked her as we settled into our tubes.

"Oh." she casually said. "Well, these are prototypes; completely experimental. I'm surprised they even worked as well as they did. Even if I did invent them."

"PROTOTYPES?!" we all shouted.

"YOU LITERALLY COULDA KILLED US!" I yelled at her.

"You all do that just fine on your own," she barely even blinked at us. "And calm down, the technology had a 93% chance of success. You all gave me the perfect chance to field test it. I wouldn't risk your lives if it were under 75%. Now deep breaths everyone, time to give me my toys back."

"That right bitch!" Allyson thought to me and Grant.

"WHOA!" we thought back to her.

Sure, not exactly R rated stuff, but for Allyson it might as well have been!

"No!" she continued. "She's the absolute worst! It's bad enough we're risking our lives to get magic pebbles for them, but now we're her lab rats too?! I'll have none of it!"

"Jeez, Sunbird," Grant thought to her. "Take a chill pill. Sure, dick move on her part, but we were the ones who insisted to go swimming a million miles under the sea. She hooked us up as best as she could."

"Humph."

"You always so articulate?" I thought to her.

She flashed me a begrudging smile.

"I guess i'll let it slide," she thought to us. "God knows she doesn't need anything else to worry about."

It took a few minutes for the nanites to get out of our system…..but things had to be predictably difficult.

"Ok," Mrs. Kennedy said. "Allyson and Grant are all clear, but I have some questions for you, Jason."

"You would," I shot back.

"Grant's nanites have a disturbingly high level of electricity saturation. Care to explain?"

"Eels. Really big electric eels, about the size of anacondas. We had to fight a couple of em' on the way to Atlantis."

"Liar. The energy signature is completely identical to the energy readouts we collected during your training sessions. Again, what did you do to my nanites?"

"Yeah, i'm fine," Grant blurted out. "Thanks for askin'."

Mrs. Kennedy ignored him; her eyes boring into me.

"Ok, guess i'm caught," I breathed out. "Long story short, after we saved the day, there was this huge feast. We were guests of honor, and it all ended with a Royal Rumble for this here trident necklace. Me and Grant were the final two. You finish the rest of the puzzle."

She sighed.

"Any of this true, Allyson?" she asked her.

"Almost exactly," Allyson replied. "What can I say? Boys will be boys."

"You say that like it's a good thing. In any case, you and Grant are clear, though getting an untampered diagnosis from Grant's nanites has gone out the window. You, Jason, like always, have to make things more difficult for me. The nanites distributed to you have basically bonded with your cellular makeup. Due to the same energy readings resonating from the Stone of Poseidon, the nanites have almost entirely melted into your bloodstream. I can barely make out where they used to be."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"For me, yes. Those things took three years and over 12.5 million dollars to develop. You may as well have hit the jackpot. The nanites are no longer online, which means they can't reverse what they've done to your body density. The stone's energy has made the effect body is 100X the density and strength as before. Forget the armor, your body alone can tank shells from a fighter jet. That's not to mention bone density, how much stronger and faster your body has undoubtedly become….wait, did any of you get any new powers and/or abilities in Atlantis?"

"I can control water now, understand and command sea life, and I have a connection to something called the Sea Force; some kinda spiritual interdimensional energy tied to Poseidon."

"Hill owes me five more bucks! In any case I suppose I can't do anything about your situation, but i'd recommend you let S.E.R.A. do a diagnostic on you. Then again, you always do the exact opposite of what I tell you, so maybe I should tell you not to do it. You're all free to go. Report to debriefing as soon as you get back to base."

Our tubes opened, and we made our way back to the living room, where Wyatt was watching Game of Thrones (I'd eventually get into it). He was eating some stir fry, and was relaxing in a recliner chair. I actually felt bad about barging in; he had a pretty good setup here.

"Oh," he said, pausing his show. "You're finally back. Thought i'd have time to finish one more episode."

"Sorry, man," I said. "I'd like to stay down here, but i've got a heaping plate of I told you so for Fury."

"In that case, we'd better get going,"

"Hey, how long have we been gone, sir?" Allyson asked him.

"About ten hours," he whistled. "It's 7:23 P.M. right now. You guys better moisturize after you shower. Wouldn't want your skin to prune up."

We laughed for a bit, and after Wyatt quickly wrapped up the remainder of his dinner, made our way to the Quinjet.

"Y'all really didn't want anything to eat?" he asked us as we got strapped in.

"We're good," Grant said. "Whale steaks really take the hunger outta ya."

I'm not certain whether or not Wyatt thought Grant was joking, cuz he just chuckled, and commenced with getting us the hell outta the water. We made it back to the Helicarrier in a little over an hour, and made our way to the briefing room. I noticed an unusual amount of medical staff running about, carrying dozens of wounded agents, and a few heroes (War Machine, Rogue, and Captain Britain). They looked like they had been burned, but I could feel the semi familiar form of voltage resonating off of them; like the purest white hot lighting every to crack the sky. The wounds weren't PG either. We're talking limbs blown off, half burned faces, 3rd degree burns and blisters, and of course, the inhuman wails of pain echoing through the hallways. It was like that for almost two floors, not counting the infirmary. The Helicarrier was littered with the mangled bodies of what was without a doubt Fury's failed attempt at nabbing the Stone of Zeus! Son of a bitch couldn't listen just once, and sit a fight out! Grant almost hurled at the sight. Allyson was muttering a prayer, and I was literally sparking like aluminum in a microwave.

"Calm down, Storm-Lord," Allyson whispered to me. "They're not dead, at least not most of them. Lemme do what I can for them. You and Grant report to Colonel Fury, and for God's sake, please watch your tempers."

"Actually, you'll need me, Sunbird," Grant said. " A lotta these guys have broken armor clamping down on their bodies. I can get them off, and Gaea's walkin' me through the steps of using Geo-Force to heal wounds."

"You can do that?" I asked him.

"Yeah, but not as effortlessly as Allyson does it. I gotta attune the G-Force to level with their chi, and make sure I don't go overboard."

"I feel left out."

"Don't do that to yourself, Bolt Boy," Allyson said. "Even you can't do everything. Just get the stone to Fury, and please don't blow anything up. I know you're mad, but he's the guy callin' the shots."

"Then I know who to blame," I responded.

"That's not fair, Jason. Look…..just hear him out, ok? I gotta get to work, these agents aren't getting any better on their own. See you later? After I shower that is."

Her smile was the ultimate disarmament. You'd have to be blind not to fall for such a sweethearted look.

"Alright." I sighed out. "I'll be somewhat nice, but you gotta admit none of this woulda-"

"I know," she interrupted me. "But what's done is done. We just gotta roll with it. Later, Bolt Boy, and think of a cute pet name for me too, while i'm gone! I swear I do all the heavy lifting in this almost relationship."

She walked away with Grant, healing three people before I even made it around the corner (lotta bodies flooding the halls). I finally made it to the briefing room, and after doing some deep breathing to calm myself, opened the door. Fury, Hill, and Kennedy were all waiting for me, and didn't even seem to notice Grant and Allyson's absence.

"Where's the rest of your team?" Fury asked me.

"They're preoccupied," I shot back. "You left quite a mess for them to clean up."

"What makes you think I did this?"

"Don't bull$#!+ me Fury, I know you went after the Stone of Zeus!

"Colonel! It's Colonel Fury! Director Fury if you wanna be less formal, but it's about damn time you show some respect, you little rodent!"

"Respect?! You want respect? Ok, Colonel, mad respect for you trashing almost two full floors of agents and heroes on a suicide mission!"

"You really thought I was gonna stand by and let Doom take the stone without a fight?! And here I thought you were smart."

"And I thought you understood basic tactics. We have four stones, he only has three, we hold the majority of the cards."

"You truly have no idea what you're dealing with, do you?"

He pulled out his clicker, and after a few button punches, put a holographic TV up for display. It was only for a few minutes, but Fury managed to get some good highlights of the battle for the Stone of Zeus. First off, it was way worse than I had imagined. Fury sent at least 300 agents into battle with discount Iron Man armor, not to mention as many flying heroes as he could muster. They fought hard against the Doombots and superpowered villains, holding their own well enough, but were absolutely helpless against the big man himself. When he stepped out to play, $#!+ got real! Even with just two stones, he trashed almost everyone there with the Stone of Apollo alone, raining down golden fireballs, blast waves, and even mixing the stone's power with his own magic, creating some kinda hybrid demon/sun fire army. Most of our people couldn't even get close to him, and those that did got smacked down in under 30 seconds. Ms. Marvel, who managed to fight her way past demons and Doombots alike, only got two swings at Doom, before he switched to the power of Hercules, and knocked her out with one hit! Storm was too busy trying to fight past the Venti, and defuse the tornado patch, to watch out for attacks. She also tried blasting Doom's ship outta the sky, but he had a pretty strong force field covering that thing. Sucked for her (not joking), cuz Doom was just getting started. He tapped into the power of both Apollo and Hercules, and went into a more violent version of Allyson's Blazing Sun Form. After finishing his Super Saiyan cosplay, he flew straight into battle, and just WRECKED EVERYONE! He flew so fast, even I had trouble keeping up with the playback! When all was said and done, it only took him about ten seconds to mow down every last agent and hero Fury musceled up against him. As they fell, the emergency teleportation tech activated, getting them outta there. Doom then turned his full attention to the giant storm cloud surrounding the Stone of Zeus. Again, he took a page from Sunbird's book, and created a sun big enough to fit half of Manhattan inside of (i'm not even sure Sunbird could do that). From what I was seeing, he was creating waves of fire inside the sun to bombard the storm; essentially drying it out. It took a few minutes, and the storm definitely fought back hard, but when it was all said and done, Doom bled it dry, and took the Stone of Zeus for himself. Lightning flashed across the sky like goddamn fireworks, as if Doom knew I was watching him show off.

"YOU'LL HAVE TO DO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT, FURY!" he roared. "LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I, VICTOR VON DOOM, POSSESS THE POWER OF THREE GODS! UNLIKE YOU, I DO NOT FEAR POWER, FOR WHY WOULD ONE FEAR WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY HIS?! WE SHALL HAVE WORDS IN DUE TIME, COLONEL, I BELIEVE YOU HAVE A FEW ITEMS THAT BELONG TO ME! KNOW THAT NOTHING WILL STOP ME FROM CLAIMING THOSE STONES! NOT ALL YOUR MILITARY MIGHT, NOT ALL THE SUPERHEROES OF THE WORLD, NOT EVEN YOUR LITTLE LAPDOGS!

The feed cut out, and I was left with a sinking feeling in my gut. Not all the motivational speeches in the world could get me from feeling all cold inside. Fury was right, even with just two stones he was almost in a league of his own. Now with three…..$#!+.

"Sure likes to talk a lot," I spoke up, trying to keep a measure of control about me.

"This is not the time for joking, Fuller," Hill spoke up. "You know what he can do, what he's capable of-"

"Which is why i'm already trying to come up with ways to get around that," I interrupted her. "Fury, be honest with me. You knew this was gonna be a bomb, so why'd you do it?"

He pressed another button on his clicker, and the hologram switched to a 3-D scan of Doom's ship. Not just the outside tho, Fury somehow got some hefty infrastructure detail. Power cables, hallways, Doombot holding/construction rooms, the power core room of the ship, even bathrooms and kitchens.

"I managed to get a man on the inside," Fury said. "You know of Ant-Man, right?"

"Guy that shrinks/grows," I said. "Grant can do that too now."

"Do ya'll get new powers off Amazon? Damn. Anyway, Mr. Lang managed to put a microscopic tracker on Doom's fancy cape. The tracker did a quick and in depth analysis on anything within 5 miles of it; surface, below surface, energy readings, the whole 9 yards. It managed to send us the intel, before shorting out. We may not be able to hurt the bastard yet, but we can figure out how to bring his flying castle down around him."

"You want me to get on that?"

"If it wouldn't be too much of a bother. Despite what you may believe Mr. Fuller, you and your friends are not the center of my universe. I have over 50 other operations to oversee, assign, and brief/debrief. Still, I understand you could use some help, and we need to prepare for the assault on Doom's ship."

He pressed another button on the clicker, and my watched bleeped like crazy.

"I sent out a word to any and all available superheroes we could get out hands on. Most of them are for muscle, but I got in contact with this super smart kid, just a little bit older than you, called Amadeus Cho. Him, agent Kennedy, Scott Lang, agents Fitz-Simmons, Blue Marvel, Hank McCoy a.k.a Beast, Forge, and even King T'Challa himself, will be a sorta think tank unit to develop gear to combat Doom's power, as well as the tech on his ship. As of now, all we know is that Doom's ship resides in another dimension unknown to us. S.H.I.E.L.D's sorcery division is working overtime to explore new and dangerous dimensions, trying to find the rat.

"You got a sorcery division?" I asked him. "What do you call it, The Order of the Eyepatch?"

"The point being," he stressed on. "You will need to set aside time to attend meetings. You can set the time, but you'll need to read up on engineering, chemistry, physics, and all that good stuff."

"I got homework now? You want me to type a ten page paper with sources while i'm at it?"

"Are you capable of taking anything seriously?" Hill asked me.

"Why don't you ask Goblin and those snake losers," I responded.

She went silent.

"Moving on," Fury said. "You and your team will be working with General Thaddeus Ross, a.k.a Red Hulk, in coordinating the attack and/or defense regarding Doom's ship."

"Grant's gonna bust a nut," I responded. "Guess I better add Sun Tzu to the reading list."

"It wouldn't hurt. Again, you manage your schedule any way you like. Also remember to show respect, and refer to the general and king by their titles. I still need a review about the Atlantean mission, not to mention what your friend snuck out to do last night. Record them on your watches and send them to me before 1800 hours tomorrow."

"So we do have a paper due. You want that double spaced, Times New Roman Font,size 12, with 10 sources?"

"Gimme the stone and get the hell outta here!"

I tossed Fury the canister, and drew a trident head outta Sea Force. I converted the energy into water, willed it to swirl in mid-air for a few seconds, and dissipate it into the atmosphere.

"Just so you know," I said before leaving.

I went to my room, demorphed, and striped to take a shower. Like last time, I noticed how much stronger I felt when I was in contact with water. Hell, I accidentally bent the shower bar when I almost slipped on the way out (what, like you've never tripped in the shower?). I put on a white T-Shirt, some PJ pants, and picked up my watch again. Apparently Allyson had figured out how to send messages too, cuz I had one in my inbox that was 20 minutes old.

"Hey, Jason," the recording started. "So me and Grant just wrapped up with healing the injured. There were a few deaths, a lotta close calls, but almost everyone made it through ok. So look, Grant and I, ok I thought it'd be a good idea if we had a sleepover in his room. I don't think those are your kinda thing, but I think we should just hang out, have some fun, and ya know, talk about some stuff, or whatever. I already guilt tripped Grant into it with puppy dog eyes, so you should come too and not be a jerk. We smell like seawater and fish, so we're gonna shower, but if you wanna come, pretty please come with rainbows on top, meet us in Grant's room at 10:30. Bring your covers and pillows, we can snuggle! Not all of us, of course, wait, you know what I mean. So…..yeah…..bye."

The message ended, and I started getting my stuff. Allyson was right about sleepovers not being my thing, but this was just crashing at a friend's place; nothing girly about it. After getting some socks and shoes on, I left for Grant's room. I showed up at his door at 10:35 (always be late to everything that doesn't require punctuality), and knocked.

"You're late!" Allyson playfully yelled. "You gotta stay out there for five more minutes!"

I phased through the door, and threw my pillow at her.

"Did you just forget I could do that?" I asked her.

She stuck her tongue at me, and I took a spot on the couch. Allyson was comfortably nestling up in the bean bag chair, wearing her hair down, a white tank top, and some purple PJ pants. Grant was chillin' on his bed, wearing a matching black hoodie and PJ pants combo. The TV was on Adult Swim, and we all were enjoying an episode of American Dad.

"So, what's the deal, boss man?" Grant asked me.

"Long story short," I responded. "We're in some deep wang."

"Did you really just use a joke from Transformers 3?" Allyson asked me.

"I did. Weird, huh? You like the Transformers movies?"

"Guilty pleasure."

"Interesting. But yeah, we really got our work cut out for us."

I showed them the footage of Doom taking Fury's squad to pound town. Needless to say, they were pretty spooked.

"He doesn't look that tough," Grant tried to play it off. "Hell, anyone can do a giant sun. I did it with G-Force, and you make giant tesla spheres, so close enough."

"Grant?" Allyson asked him.

"And taking out an army on his own?" he continued, totally zoned out. "Pfft. I've done that twice now….well, mostly. But the three of us can do it, so that keeps it even."

"Grant?"

"Sure, he's got ship that makes the Helicarrier look like booty, control over three super god stones, and God knows what else, but-"

Allyson flicked a marble sized ball of light in between Grant's eyes (nice shot), stopping his rambling in its tracks.

"Th-th-the-hell you do that for?!" he managed to stammer out.

"It's ok to be scared, Grant," Allyson responded. "You'd be an idiot not to be. I mean look at what we're dealing with here. He makes Jason look like a monk."

"I will never shave my head," I blurted out.

"Not the point. The point is, just like always, we'll win this as a team. Besides, we haven't lost yet."

"We've only had to deal with one stone a time tho. Not to mention we've only just been able to pull through by the skin of our teeth."

"Shut up Rain Cloud."

"What happened to Bolt Boy?"

"You guys are cute," Grant interrupted us. "Are you together yet? Wait, I don't care. But thanks for the encouragement, Allyson. Truth is, even after everything we've been through, everything i've been through, I still got game day jitters. I knew this would come sooner or later, but now it's almost here. And here I thought punching demons would be as bad as it got."

"Oh, dude!" I said. "Cool story, but Fury still wants mission reports for your night out, on top of the Atlantis thing. Wanna get that outta the way now?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, whatever."

He activated his recorder, and gave us the rundown on what it was that made him leave the ship. Everything from his powers acting up, to him spending 6 years in Gaea's version of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to train with his new powers, then waging a one man war against three demonic entities and their army to save the world. Well…..damn!

"Wow," I said. "That's….that's somethin' right there. Uh…..good work?"

"What your articulate friend means to say," Allyson spoke up. "Is that we're proud of you, and we're glad you're safe. Also, daaaaang! Way to work it, honey! So what else can you do?!"

"Nothin' else yet!" he laughed with her. "But Mother Earth's got me hooked up! Soon i'll be able to change my skin into metal, convert my body into Geo-Force, rock, plant life….oh, and with enough practice, i'll be able to bench press and crush planets!"

"I don't think Doctor Doom and Gloom can do any of that."

"Actually," I started.

"Don't care!" Allyson interrupted me. "Dang it, Jason!"

"What? Just trying to be realistic."

"Well, you're bumming me out. No more downerness!"

"Downerness ain't a word."

She flicked a light marble at me, which I blocked a face shield.

"Denied!" I shouted at her. "OOOOOOHHHHH!"

She looked at me with an "i'm so totally done with you" face.

"And on that positive note," I continued. "Gather round, we gotta do the Atlantis mission report."

It took a half hour to go through all the stuff leading up to the battle, the actual battle, and what happened after the battle. That wasn't even counting when Allyson took over to explain her parts of the battle of Atlantis. Also, we kinda just quickly brushed over the Nethertrench part, and I couldn't help but feel that wasn't accidental. Allyson kept her eyes firmly locked on a muted episode of Family Guy, and Grant was drumming his fingers on his knees, looking absently at a wall. After finishing our report on the Atlantis mission, we watched the rest of the the Family Guy episode in silence. During the commercial break between the next episode, I tried breaking the ice a bit.

"So," I started smoothly. "Fury's got us workin' with some of the smartest heroes starting tomorrow at 3 P.M. in something called The Garage. He doesn't have faith in our natural ability to beat Doom, so we're gonna see if we can use tech to get around it."

"You think he's right?" Allyson asked me.

"I don't see the harm in preparing. It's not like we only have one way of beating Doom. Best to use every advantage we got."

"You got some ideas?" Grant asked.

I pulled up the 3-D blueprint of Doom's ship on my watch. I zoomed in through the first two floors, and focused on the ship's power core. It was basically a bowling ball sized core made of Plutonium and Vibranium.

"So we got nuclear power, mixed with a magic enhancing metal," Grant spoke up, surprising me and Allyson. "Yeah, I know things."

"Ok," I continued. "As far as the energy signature goes, the scanners detect magic, nuclear power, and electromagnetism. It's either one, or all of these things powering the shield."

"So we can't punch our way through," Allyson said.

"Speak for yourself," Grant said. "I doubt there's anything I can't punch through."

"Remind me which one of us beat Goblin?" I asked him.

"Same guy who lasted all of 10 seconds against Magneto."

"Guys!" Allyson tried not to laugh. "Stop being mean!"

Maybe it was because of her contagious laughter, but she single handedly managed to dissolve the testosterone based tension between me and Grant.

"But anyway," I continued. "Punching the shield won't work. Here, look at this."

I showed them a playback of a few heroes who actually did manage to get close enough to the shield to try and do some damage. Ms. Marvel, War Machine, a few agents in flying armor, and even Spider-Woman of all people.

"Check out the energy readings on the feedback." I said.

"It's getting stronger," Allyson said. "Like some sorta kinetic energy shield."

"Exactly. And those idiots kept pounding the it so much, it'd take nothing short of a few nukes just to get through the damn thing."

"I can do that myself," Grant said. "So what's the problem?"

"We most likely won't be playing offense when the fighting starts. And unless you can nuke him, while not destroying the Helicarrier in the process, that's out."

"Can you phase through it?"

"Against a constantly vibrating energy field? Assuming I could even reach the right frequency, i'd be a sitting duck once I got on deck."

"So what are you thinking?" Allyson asked me.

"I don't know how to exactly word it, but we need some sort of frequency nullifier. Long story short, for every frequency, there's an opposite frequency that cancels it out. We've got the energy readings necessary to experiment with various counter frequencies, but we need to build a power cell strong enough to propel the sonic emitters with the speed and force necessary to at least breach the shield."

"How about a miniature sun?" Allyson offered.

"That's a good start, but we gotta see what type of energy conversion methods we need to make whatever this is work."

"And I take it you have an extensive knowledge of engineering and physics?"

"Not yet, but that'll change soon."

"Huh?"

I pulled up S.E.R.A. on my watch.

"Yes, Master Jason?" she said.

"Hi, S.E.R.A.," I said. "Do me a favor and compile everything you got on engineering, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and computer science. Anything that'll make me a black Tony Stark."

"You're more of a Reed Richards to me," Allyson said. "And how do you plan on getting PhD levels of knowledge on five different subjects in one night?"

"My brain got an upgrade. Anything i've ever read or seen, I remember perfectly. Same goes for whatever I read going forward. It'll feel like hours of boring reading to me, but it'll stick."

"I can do better than that," Grant said. I'll just download everything Iron Man knows about said subjects into my head!"

"Ok, what?!" Allyson almost screamed.

"What? You think changing copper to aluminum is like baking a cake? I gotta switch the number and placements of atoms to make that $#!+ happen. But yeah, to speed along the process, Gaea downloads the information of everyone who is or was super knowledgeable about the subject into my head."

"Ok….Krypton. Tell me about Krypton."

"Discovered in 1898 by William Ramsey and Morris Travers. Noble gas. Colorless. Atomic mass: 83.80. Density: 0.003.708 g/cm3. Melting point:-157.36 degrees Celsius. Boiling point: -153.22 degrees Celsius. 36 protons and electrons. 48 neutrons. Mainly used in fluorescent lights. None of this matters by the way. I can only transform earth elements into other earth elements, so Krypton is pretty irrelevant. Also, you don't know anything about Krypton, so I could say anything, and until you checked it on your phone, you'd have to believe me."

I burst out laughing with Grant! I really didn't mean to, but that was so unintentionally hilarious, I couldn't help it! Allyson threw pillows at us, followed by light marbles when she ran out.

"Stop laughing at me!" she said between hurling projectiles at us. "I'm not stupid!"

"Nobody said you were!" I responded. "And to be fair, we're not geniuses."

"Yeah right. He can recite the Periodic Table like ABC's, and you can read and memorize anything. What do you call that?"

"Cheating," me and Grant said at the same time.

"What?"

"All I have is a good memory now," I said. "Anyone can remember stuff, it's applying the info that's the real work."

"Yeah, and I literally just have a secretary upload info into my head," Grant said. "She doesn't like it when I call her that, but yeah. If not for her, I wouldn't be all Jimmy Neutron."

"Still," Allyson said. "You two are as close to super genius as you can get. You guys will be the one's holding your own with the smartest people on the planet. What am I gonna do? Should I even show up?"

"Yes," I said. "No matter what, we are a team. Something this important, no way you're sitting it out. Besides, we're gonna be building stuff, we'll need your help. Think of it as an…...internship."

"An internship? Really?"

"Hey, how many people can say they've built a whatever the hell we're gonna build, with the king of Wakanda, a blue furry Einstein, and Ant-Man of all people."

"Heh. Not many i'd imagine. Wait, are you still sour on super heroes?"

"It's complicated."

Before she could follow that up, S.E.R.A. notified me that all the information I requested had been downloaded into my watch.

"That's our cue," I said to Grant. "Let's start with math. You wanna race?

"You think you can cheat faster than I can cheat?" Grant asked me. "You're on!"

I pulled up the data on my watched, and after Grant got set, we both started the ultimate cramming session. First off, I hate math. No, I f*(#!^$ hate math! It's the only thing that I actually have to work at to understand. Hell, before this, my math skills were up to the point of Algebra 1, basic Statistics, and maybe Geometry. This $#!+ right here? This was way above my paygrade! I had to read through entire textbooks of Calculus, differential equations, probability and statistics for engineers, linear algebra for engineers, numerical analysis, advanced math for engineers, complex variables, partial differential equations, nonlinear dynamics and chaos, and of course cryptography. God, I wanted to shoot myself! It took me about three seconds to read about ten textbooks of information, but it felt like a f*(#!^$ eternity! My head was pounding and spinning, and I had something that was like the worst brain freeze mixed with a migraine that would keep a giant in bed all day. Grant sounded like I felt. He was holding his head with two hands, while rocking in a sideways fetal position on his bed. Allyson was laughing her ass off at us.

"Wow!" she said. "And who says learning is always fun?! Ya'll ok? Gettin' them brain juices flowin'?!"

"Complex variables make my brain sad!" Grant moaned. "Tony Stark graduated from freaking MIT when he was our age! He had to know this $#!+. He can't be human!"

"I hear that, bro," I managed to speak. "I'm solving nonlinear equations with geometric solutions!"

"That doesn't sound even remotely right," Allyson said.

"It's not. I'm still reeling from the shock. I'm gonna need a minute…..or 30, before we hit the books again."

"Can we make that an hour?" Grant asked. "Gaea says I need at least an hour between downloading sessions, otherwise my brain will melt outta my ears. I'm not even kidding."

"Then it's settled," Allyson said. "Study break!"

"Whatever," I said. "I need to dumb my brain down with more Family Guy anyway."

"Yeah, we're not doing that."

"Excuse me?" Grant asked.

"Can't we just….ya know….talk to each other?"

This time, it was me and Grant's turn to have the perception advantage. Allyson was trying to hide it, but something was bothering her; probably something related to Atlantis (and I thought we were over that). We looked at each other, shrugged, and got ready to listen to some emotionally charged baggage.

"It's about Atlantis, isn't it?" I asked her.

She hesitated, but nodded eventually.

"Not just that," she said. "Coming back from the mission, I was mostly over everything, but after that whole deal with the wounded…..I...I just didn't wanna be alone."

"I can understand that," Grant said. "It wasn't pretty down there."

"Understatement. But hey, no better time to realize you can regrow limbs."

"Wait. What?!" I yelped out.

"Yup," Allyson nodded. "That's a thing. It's not pretty either. You know how hard it is to focus on singing, when the person you're healing is wailing in agony? How about watching an arm grow back from a stump, like a dang bloody, fleshy flower. Yuck."

"Didn't stop you," Grant said. "Yo girl handled it like a badass. Besides, didn't you say you might wanna go into medical care?"

"Yeah, for nursing and caretaking. Maybe i'd consider being a veterinarian. Besides, stitching someone up is a heck of a lot better than seeing what's inside them."

"Is this all coming from healing the injured?" I asked her. "Your shakiness I mean. Or does this have anything to do with the Nethertrench? Did it get inside your head too?"

She looked a bit defensive, but the word too disarmed her.

"Wait," she said. "You….it showed you stuff too?"

"Besides a whole buncha black blob monsters?" I responded. "Yeah, the trench got in my head too. Mostly it was constructs of dudes like Crosby and his goons, and Mrs. Kennedy trying to remind me of what they think I am. You and Grant made a guest appearance too. Also, mom. Yeah, the trench tried to use my mom against me. Not gonna lie, it was a struggle to push past all the BS. But I know who I am, and I know who ya'll are to me. The trench didn't rattle me too much, so again, what it show you?"

I didn't wanna be too pushy with her, but I could see how much this was eating her up. I was the last guy who'd line up for hosting a therapy session, but Allyson (and maybe Grant) was the exception.

"Why do I feel like this is payback?" Allyson asked me. "Ya know, for prying stuff outta you?"

"No prying here," I assured her. "You don't wanna talk, I won't make you. Still, I don't need emotional sensing powers to know that what you saw is eating you alive. If you wanna talk, no matter what it is, I won't judge. I just wanna be here for you, like I know you'll always be for me."

She blushed so hard, I thought she was gonna burst into flame. Instead, she flicked another light marble at me, which reformed into a small golden heart. The construct only lasted for a few seconds, but it gave me the feel goods.

"Ok, she said. "The main thing that got me was when the trench reenacted the whole Stanford explosion thing. It was meant for Namorita, but I…...I had family in Stanford. You're not the only one that's got a bone to pick with supers, Bolt Boy. But yeah, I made my peace with what happened a long time ago. I know it wasn't Namorita's fault, so that helped me get us through it. The trench did make constructs of my parents, and that was pretty crappy. They said some nasty things about me. For being a mutant, for defending Namorita, for…..last night."

We all giggled a little on that last part.

"Yeah," Allyson continued. "To be fair, i'd get in so much trouble if they ever found out, but I know they wouldn't use the words the constructs used. Still, I shook all that off pretty easily. I know my parents love me no matter what, and don't worry, Jason, i'm pretty sure they'll like you."

"Really?" I breathed out. "You sure?"

"What's not to like?" Grant said. "Smart, strapping young man such as yourself? Just be sure to look dad in the eye, give a nice firm handshake, and be sure to keep the PDA down to handholding."

Allyson and I threw lightning/light marbles at him.

"What?!" he said, putting up a Geo-Force shield construct. "Just tryna be supportive!"

"And you're doing a fabulous job, Rocky," Allyson said.

"So i'm Rocky now?"

"Rocky, Rock Man, Green Bean, Jolly Green Giant. I gotta get a notebook just ta to list em' all."

"I'm flattered."

We all had a good laugh again.

"But yeah," Allyson said. "They'll like you. Just keep the violence and the swearing down. So yeah, the last thing that really got under my skin, was the constructs of our enemies. Venom, Magneto, Doom. They all agreed, kept whispering in my ear, how useless I was to this team."

"Oh, please!" Grant sucked his teeth.

"Get outta my face with that nonsense!" I said at the same time.

"Wha-?" Allyson tried to get out, completely flabbergasted.

"You literally regrew a guy's arm!" Grant said.

"I can't sing, let alone heal someone with voltage!" I said.

"You're not that bad," Allyson blushed again. "You just gotta breathe between lines. Also control what key you're in; you fluctuate a lot."

"I'll keep that in mind. Still, for a while you and Grant were the powerhouses of the team. All I could do was shoot lightning and run fast. We all do different things with what we have, but this team wouldn't be the same without any one of us."

"What he said," Grant jumped in. "Besides, you taught us the basics of fighting, kept us from killing each other, and you routinely bail us outta trouble with authority figures. I mean, how ironic is it that the chick with fire powers is the most cool headed of the group?"

"That's because I don't wanna hit all my problems," Allyson said. "No offense, guys, but when the only solution you have to a problem is to hit it, you need to rethink your strategy. Maybe your life while you're at it."

"Hitting my problems has worked pretty good so far," I said. "Besides, I can play nice when I have to."

"I had to guide you through a simple meet and greet!"

"Add that to another reason you're invaluable to the team! You'd be great for our PR division."

"You mean like our official Twitter?" Grant asked.

"I hate Twitter." I responded.

"You would." Allyson said.

We giggled a little, and then Allyson turned her attention to Grant.

"So what about you, big guy? she asked him. "You in a sharing mood?"

Grant almost immediately retracted into himself. I've never seen him go from happy to petrified so fast. He was fiddling with his bed sheets, and suddenly wouldn't look either me or Allyson in the eyes.

"No." he said. "I can't. Skip me. Please. I don't wanna."

The poor guy looked like he wanted to hurl, cry, and pass out all at the same time.

"It's ok, Grant," Allyson spoke softly, like she was trying to calm a bear. "You don't have to say if you don't wanna, but whatever it is, it's probably not as bad as you-"

"You don't get it!" he interrupted her. "It's not what's happened to me, it's what i've done to someone else!"

I could literally sense the tears welling up in his eyes (new water powers and all that).

"I…." he tried to continue. "I already told Jason, but I haven't always been the guy you see. Hell, just last week I was someone you'd hate."

"I don't hate anyone," Allyson said. "Hate's not somethin' I practice. Ok, MTV and Oxygen are the exception, but that's not the point. Look, my offer still stands. You don't wanna talk, we drop it. But if the mere mention of what you saw can shatter YOUR good mood, it's somethin' you need to get off your chest. I know it may be hard to believe me when I say it, but i'm not here to judge you. Who you were, no matter how recent, is not who you are now. If I didn't think you were a good person….well, Jason knows."

"Love you too, Flame Princess," I said (thank you Adventure Time).

"See?!" Allyson smiled at me. "I knew you had it in you! You totally stole that from Adventure Time, but at least you tried! Anyway, the ball's in your court, Grant."

He breathed heavily, and levitated; flying around the room a few times. He eventually landed back on his bed, and managed to look Allyson in the face.

"Would you believe me if I told you I killed someone?" he asked her.

That'll make you pay attention to a conversation real quick!

"No," Allyson sincerely dismissed the question. "I can sense a heavy amount of guilt in you, but it's not for murder. If I had to hazard a guess, you did something that caused the death of someone close to you."

"Understatement. Like I said, I wasn't always a good person. I…..I was always good at attracting girls. I just kinda stopped caring altogether about trying to pursue long term relationships. I've cheated and slept around so many times, you could play a drinking game off of it. I thought it didn't matter because I was always upfront about what I wanted. Most of the girls I was with knew they were just the girl of the week; nothing more. One of them, and this is all my fault, didn't. Her name was Lindsey Ellis. She was sweet, kind, funny, smart, supportive, and just way too good for me in every way. I really screwed the pooch with her. Like I said, I tried to keep things simple with her, but I guess I liked her a bit more, cuz we were involved from early August to mid November. I kept telling myself that it didn't mean anything, but I really meant it didn't mean anything to me. I ghosted her for two weeks, and hit up some other girl. On December 8th, word got around that she died. It…..I didn't find her suicide note to me until the 10th."

He started crying, and my heart broke for him. Don't get me wrong, that was a $#!+ move on his part, but you'd have to be made of stone not to feel for the guy. This was a damn big screw up on his part, but the fact that he was this broken up about it proved he wasn't all bad. Hell, this was way too complicated for me to judge period. I wasn't a part of this, and despite how recent, it was the past. I only hoped that Allyson was feeling the same way, cuz she flew over to Grant, and her expression was deadly (scary even) calm. She cupped his chin in her hand, and stared at him long enough for it to be uncomfortable.

"C'mere," she said, reaching for a hug.

This stunned the hell outta me and Grant, who were expecting something a bit more explosive.

"Wha….W-w-what?" he stammered out. "Y-y-you're n-not gonna-"

"Nope." Allyson said plainly, looking up at him. "I'm done judging. Nobody's perfect, certainly not me. Besides, I knew you were a womanizer since I first met you. With that nice bright smile, the way you carried yourself. It was like you never lost at anything in your life. I almost dismissed you as shallow on the spot, but then you talked to me. Besides being funny, I could see so much raw goodness in you. You really were born to be a hero. Sure, you're at a very rough start, but like I said, that was the old you. Heck, Christianity is all about washing away all your sins based off of believing in Jesus' sacrifice. Not a great comparison, but i'm perfectly fine with who you are now. The past is past. Still, you better not do this again. God forgives repeat sinners; I have a limit."

"You don't gotta worry about that," Grant said. "Like I told Jason the other day, i'm done playing games with girl's emotions. Until i've taken some time to truly reflect on who I was, until i'm clear about who I want to be, I won't be seeing anyone for quite a while. No promises on flirting; i'm a flirtatious person by nature."

"I can deal with that. But like I said, i'm not as tolerant of repeat offenders. You get one freebie Grant. You may have been the inspiration for it, but you did not kill her. She made her choice, and that is not your fault. I mean, you didn't try and end it all after getting booted off your football team-"

"I did actually. Broke three knives, a cinder block, and swallowed half a bottle of sleeping pills with antifreeze to wash it. down. That's how I knew I had some measure of invulnerability…..and an iron stomach."

I almost leapt outta my seat! I mean, I know you can never judge these things on from a surface level, but Grant was the last person I expected to try and go out that way! I managed to keep my shock inward, but Allyson had her hands over her mouth (and she was crying a little). She wrapped him up in a huge hug, and didn't let go for some time (no, I wasn't jealous).

"Jason?" Allyson asked me. "Why aren't you over here giving your friend emotional support?"

"You seem to have it covered," I responded. "But real talk, I got your back, Grant. You messed up, you know you messed up, so fix it. You need me for anything, i'll be there. No matter what, you'll always be my friend. It's not like i've got any others."

That got a good chuckle outta everyone.

"Ditto." Allyson said. "Now, back to threatening. I may be your friend, but I am not your enabler. You ever relapse into your….degenerate behavior, i'll castrate you myself, and won't grow it back for a year. And don't you ever try to hurt yourself again! You die, i'll haunt your spirit! Don't ask me how that's possible! I don't make sense when i'm emotional!"

"Ok, Fire Heart!" Grant said. "I cross my heart, swear to the gods, and all that other good stuff! No more sleeping around, no more self harm. Thank you. Both of you. I couldn't ask for better friends, and i've got at least 50."

"No problem. And see, Jason?! Completely original pet name! You should take notes!

"Not original." I said. "He totally stole that from Mystic Force."

"He did no-"

Grant nodded his head. Of course, Allyson was speechless; couldn't get a single word out.

"Both of you get back to studying," she eventually gave up, going back to the bean bag chair. "I'm the only one that cares about originality."

"Actually," I said. "Bolt Boy was a line from that Disney Hercules movie. Love that movie."

"Shut up. I hate everything."

We all laughed again, and then me and Grant dived into nuclear and particle physics. While not as bad as cramming 7 degrees worth of math in my head, this was still hell to deal with. Nuclear physics was simple enough (as if). It was just studying atomic nuclei, and their reactions. Me and Grant had to delve into atomic, molecular, and optical physics to fill in some gaps. Besides being interesting (you won't be laughing when I can build an atomic bomb in under a minute), it gave me some cool ideas for how to counteract Doom's force field; not to mention weapons for me and the team. Seriously tho, we really had to pack on the reading for this session. With nuclear and particle physics, we had to study the Standard Model of particle physics, which led into studying elementary particles, and the three known fundamental forces of the universe (look it up). Next came quantum mechanics, and a whole bunch of theories and terms about space-time, colliding atoms, and the universe in perfect balance (or some $#!+ like that). I made a note to punch Doom extra hard for forcing me to read any of this. By the time Grant and I finished with what was supposed to be a quick study session, we both had zombie looks on our faces. Grant had to nurse his headache again, and I was rubbing my eyes, trying to process all the different ways I could use electromagnetism in battle.

"Ya'll sound smarter already," Allyson taunted us.

"Uggh," Grant and I said together.

"Hey! No talking in foreign languages! If you're gonna insult me, at least do it in a language I understand."

Me and Grant threw energy marbles at her. Actions speak louder than words.

"Fair enough," Allyson said. "So, study break?"

Me and Grant nodded.

"Cool." Allyson said. "Now we can get to know each other better!"

"What?" I asked her. "What do you mean? We know each other fine."

"And we literally just had a group therapy session less than a two minutes ago." Grant said.

"Oh yeah?" Allyson asked us. "What's my favorite color?"

"Uhhh," me and Grant said.

"Jason? What's the name of Grant's school?"

"Now how would I-" I tried to get out.

"Grant? I'll give you five bucks if you can tell me what's Jason's favorite hobby."

"Beating people up?" he tried (near miss).

"Nope," I said. "That's number two. My favorite hobby is a tie between reading and listening to music."

"See?" Allyson said. "If you two had your way, we'd only talk about depressing dark evilness, or different ways to hurt people. I wanna know who Jason Fuller and Grant Jackson are. I've had enough of Storm-Lord and Geo-Titan for now. Look, i'll start."

She got up off the bean bag chair, and cleared her throat.

"My name is Allyson Tabitha Grace," she started. "I am a superhero known as Sunbird."

Me and Grant didn't have the spare brain cells to laugh at her, so we decided to play along.

"Hi, Allyson," we said.

"Before…..all of this," she continued. "I was just a normal girl from Montgomery, Alabama. I am the only child of my two loving parents, James and Anna-Marie Grace. I also have a ginger cat named Dina. I'm a junior at Carver Senior High, and literally one of maybe 20 white kids at a majority black school."

I smiled a little at that last part. It was of course a no-brainer, considering what part of Alabama she grew up in, but it made me feel some typa way.

"Yes, Jason," Allyson continued. "Feel free to let your mind roam with all the "once you go black" jokes. FYI, of the four boyfriends i've had, only one was white, soooo…...yeah. But seriously, thank God for my friends, because my parents can't even do the Cupid Shuffle right. Everything I learned about rhythm, coordination, and grace on the dance floor, all thanks to my best friends Monique, Tyresha, and Namoi. Also, a few dozen dance classes at Tonya Speed's Dance Connection didn't hurt. I'm a straight A student, and captain of the cheerleading team since sophomore year. #WolverineNation!"

Grant busted up (idiot).

"Knew you'd get a kick outta that one, Grant," Allyson chuckled with him. "By the way, because I know you two probably don't think much of cheerleading, our squad actually qualified for national competitions four years in a row. Last year we got 3rd place."

Grant and I clapped, and gave her props. Sure, I wasn't big on cheerleaders, but i've seen some amazing routines that would make you question if those chicks had super flexibility or something. Besides, 3rd place in a national competition deserves some credit.

"Thank you, thank you," Allyson bowed, and made cutesy poses. "Let's see….my favorite color is gold, because of course it is. I like pop, rock, country, hip-hop, R & B, gospel, and Disney music. My fav artist is Demi Lovato, but Ellie Goulding is a close second. My favorite sport is football, but only college football. Other than baseball, I couldn't care less about any other sports. As you both know, I am a Pottermore certified Hufflepuff. As such, I try my best to be fair, kind, inclusive, empathetic, and accepting of all people from all walks of life. I already know i'm hard working; again, straight A student, cheerleading captain. Finally, I live in Green Acres. I go to church at Morningview Baptist Church, and my hobbies consist of listening to music, singing, horseback riding, watching anime, mini-golf, swimming, dancing, and shopping. Any questions?"

Grant and I paused for a few seconds, until I raised my hand.

"Yes?" Allyson said. "You with the hair?"

"Yeah," I said. "Hi. Thanks. Cool story. So, tell me about your parents. If it's not too personal that is. Y'know, what are they like? What do they do?"

"It's fine, Jason. So…..my parents. Not much to say. My dad's originally from Virginia. He moved with my grandparents and uncle down to Alabama for work at Dublin Farms Market. Also because housing was cheaper when he was a kid. Over time, they saved up enough money, not to mention got friendly with the owners, and got some shares. It's like...maybe 2%, but it was enough to put my dad well through college He went to Auburn University, same as my mom, to be a pediatrician. Yeah, he was so good at patching local kids up when they did something stupid, he decided he wanted to make a career outta it. He met my mom when they were seniors, and through the extra schooling and training it took him to get certified to practice his craft, they dated, found Morningview, got married, and had me. My dad's been doing what he does for 16 years now. He likes literally every sport ever, likes to golf, taking trips to Disney World, and is a huge DBZ fanboy. He'll humor me, and watch sitcoms, and obscure anime with me, but he mostly sticks to stuff on Animal Planet, ESPN, and occasional stuff from the History Channel. He's stern at times, but he's super easy to talk to. I always feel like I can tell him anything, and he'll do his best to at least understand me. Heck, he had to basically fight my mom tooth and nail just to extend my curfew past 8 P.M., and let me pick out my own clothes when we went shopping. Mom practically fainted when I picked out legging, shorts, and crop tops! And don't get me started on Harry Potter! I saw movies 3-7 in the theaters, but it took FOREVER for him to convince her to rent, just rent, the first two! I try not to use him every time I need him to bend the Adamantium rules my mom sets in place, but he's the only one who can. Other than all that….he's also really into MMA training; one of the reasons I got into martial arts as a kid. You'd like him."

Allyson paused a bit, like what she was about to say next was a bit on the uncomfortable side.

"My mom's from Geneva," she said. "Waaaay down at the bottom of Alabama. She….well, I don't exactly have a clear picture on what her background is. I know she never talks about her dad; he up and left her mom….who went crazy I think? She's dead now, so….whatever. Anyway, my mom moved up to Montgomery right after high school. She went to the same college as my dad, while staying with her friend Patricia's family, who kinda took her in. She went to school to be a music teacher. Growing up, she learned how to play the piano, violin, guitar, flute, clarinet, and sing. She made me learn piano, guitar, violin, clarinet, but I got to pick the drums for last! So yeah, she's a bit of a perfectionist. Then again, so am I. She got her masters in music and teaching, and got a job at Faulkner University, a private Christian university. Go figure. She's kinda strict, traditional, doesn't take excuses, and really turns her nose at non-Christian behavior."

"So...she's homophobic?" Grant asked.

Allyson did that thing with her hand where you say something's iffy.

"Don't get me wrong," she continued. "She's not one of those pray the gay away, bible thumping, science deniers. I mean, mutant daughter, Thor exists, Asgard was literally on earth for a little while, aliens, inhumans, and God knows what else exists in this universe. It's obvious that hiding behind a book that's open to interpretation will get you nowhere. No, my mom doesn't hate gays, or anything like that, she just has a more polite/silent…..aversion isn't the right word, but close enough to how she feels about the LGBT community. She won't shun anyone who identifies in that spectrum, but she won't exactly make leaps and bounds to be inclusive of them. Heck, until my powers activated, she probably wasn't fond of mutants either. Still, she's not like the evil stepmother or anything. She's really sweet, kind, funny, and when put in the right environment, can be a lotta fun. Game night is absolutely insane with her! Seriously, you haven't lived until you've seen my mom play Jenga, Uno, Apples to Apples, and Twister! Wait….on second thought, nothing can be worse than watching your parents play Twister; it's way worse than you can imagine. But yeah, she'll like you Jason. So long as she doesn't know about a few details about our interactions. She'd burst a vessel if she knew I had alcohol, not to mention almost….ya know."

"Banging!" Grant shouted. "Having sex! Intercourse! Doing it! Knockin' boots! Bumpin' uglies! Come on Ally, we're not PG here!"

We all busted up!

"Ok, Green Bean!" Allyson focused on Grant. "Your turn! Who is Grant, whatever your middle name is, Jackson?

Grant shrugged, stood up, and did a power pose. Leave it to him to own something as simple as what was basically an AA meeting, minus the AA.

"My name is Grant Ulysses Jackson," he said. "I. Am. Geo-Titan!"

"Hi Grant," me and Allyson said.

"And are you sure you're not hiding a Lincoln, Johnson, or even a Washington in that name, buddy?" I asked him.

"Dude," he responded. "That one's so old, I could get rich off of it. You gotta do better than that. Anyway, before I was a superhero, and before I was a douchebag, I was just a kid from Hastings, Nebraska. I was born to Hugh and Eileen Jackson; their only kid. I'm a farmer boy, the farm, Brooks Farms, being passed down from my mom's side of the family for five generations. Yeah, she was the oldest, and the only one, even with five younger brothers, who could do farm work worth a damn, so she ended up getting it. Besides, these muscles didn't come just from football training. Hay bailing, pulling weeds, shoveling dung, fixing the tractor, and harvesting really helps you pack it on. You both know how much of a football nut I am; loved it since I was little. It was the one thing that unilaterally untied me, my mom, uncles, aunts, cousins. I remember always playing threeway catch with my parents after we were done with work for the day. It didn't take long for my mom to sign me up for rec football when I was eight. After that, well, four time season champs during my entire rec career, joined County Jr./Sr. High's football team in the 8th grade, turned the team into a two year straight state championship winning crew between freshman and sophomore year, and then…..this. Still, football isn't all I am. I didn't get rhythm from my father, and mom was a terrible teacher, so being on the step team really helped. Workin' on a farm made me appreciate what I had growing up; instilled a hard working spirit in me. I know full well i'm a blowhard pretty boy, but most of the time that's just an act. In truth, i'm a lot more humble than I let on. I'm a go with the flow kinda guy, so long as the flow's going my way. I'm all about workin' hard so I can play even harder. I try to be fair, honest, and a team player. No matter how good I was as a QB/defensive linebacker, i'd be nothing without my team. Same goes for you guys; I wouldn't wanna do any of this without you two backin' me up. I know i've made some bad decisions, but i'm lookin' forward to making them right. Other than football, I like hockey, baseball, basketball, anything X Games related, and paintball/laser tag. I don't watch much TV anymore, but I loved all the classic Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Jetix. While not as big a fanboy as Jason, I got a soft spot for Power Rangers too. I love DBZ, Naruto, the first two seasons of SAO, and Spirited Away. That's where I draw the line at anime. I don't exactly have a favorite kinda music, just anything not country or K-Pop. Other than that, the only show l I keep up with is Supernatural. My hobbies consist of playing football, baseball, running, mudding, pumpin' iron, grilling, flirting with hot girls, and sleeping. I'm really good at those last two."

"I bet you are," Allyson stared him down.

"Yeah," Grant scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "So….yeah, that's it for me. Any questions?"

"What teams you like?" I asked him.

"For football," Grant started. "The Raiders. Basketball: Spurs. Hockey: Red Wings Baseball: Yankees. Guess we got some common ground on that one, eh bro?"

He tried to dap me up.

"I hardly watch baseball," I said. "And when I do, the Angels are my team."

"Me too!" Allyson squealed, giving me a high five.

"Not all New Yorkers are Yankees fans," I said to Grant. "But nice try."

I gave him a fist bump to lessen the epic fail, and continued questioning him.

"So you said you're a Power Rangers fan?" I asked him. "What seasons you like?"

"Ninja Storm," he started. "That's my favorite. Then everything from that to RPM was Power Ranger gold. I saw bits and pieces of Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force, and Wild Force, but Ninja Storm and up is where I got into my stride. The current seasons are ok, but they don't compare to the older stuff. Hey, you ready for the movie comin' up?"

"Hell yeah! Bout time the Rangers get the silver screen treatment again! I couldn't agree more about your season picks, man. I'm a Wild Force guy, and i've seen all the seasons, but Ninja Storm and up was a great time for Power Rangers."

"You two are gonna drag me to that movie, aren't you?" Allyson asked us.

"What you got against Power Rangers?" Grant asked her.

"Nothing. Just not my thing. I saw my fair share of it growing up, but it never hooked me. Still, I can tolerate it."

"Would you marathon it with us?" I asked her.

"Only if you marathon Steven Universe with me."

"The hell is that?" Grant asked her.

"Super awesome! It's on Cartoon Network, it's about discovering yourself, embracing what makes you unique, and subverts traditional societal expectations on various topics, like gender and masculinity. Heck, even my mom likes it!"

Grant gave me a WTF look.

"I saw a few episodes of it," I said. "My mom's head over heels for it too. I haven't seen enough of it to make a fair judgement, but it's worth a shot."

Grant mulled it over for a few seconds.

"You'll marathon Power Rangers with us?" he asked Allyson again.

"Cross my heart," she said.

"Fine. I'll give it a go."

"Yes! Ok, so I gotta question for you. What are your parents like?"

Grant whistled.

"Where do I start? Mom, I guess. Ok, she was born and raised on the farm. Like I said, she was the only one of my grandpa's kids that could hold the farm down, so she got it when he passed away. She's been running it for about five years now. My uncles Wesley, Miles, Abraham, Adam, and Jericho help out; not to mention crash in the spare rooms half the year."

"Big house?" Allyson asked.

"My grandpa had 10 children, and had to build addition after addition to make room."

"Nice. Please continue."

"Kay. So yeah, my mom was born to farm. She's only two inches shorter than me, built like Gina Carano, and has been in more bar fights than she has teeth. Me and my dad had to back her up a few times over the years. Growing up, she was always kinda the outsider. Mainly because she was built like an ox.. Guys don't exactly line up to dance with a girl that can sling them over her shoulder. She graduated from high school, went to tech to get an associates in engineering, but decided to stick with farming. She's headstrong, and stubborn to a fault, but she's got it where it counts. Ya know, hard working, protective, wise, all that good stuff. She's actually a softie when it comes to me, my dog Brentley, my dad, and Disney movies. She's always found time to come to my games, help me train, study, and give me a good kick in the ass when I needed to straighten my head. Besides drinking and getting tattoo sleeves, she likes workin' on cars, sitting out under the stars, and blaring the most God awful country music. We bond over Transformers movies, Call of Duty, sports, cookouts, arm wrestling, 2K video games, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter, and watching superhero battles on YouTube."

"I love her already," I said. "Especially that part about her slapping you upside the head."

"Be nice, Jason," Allyson playfully scolded me. "But yes, Grant, she sounds very nice. I'm lookin' forward to meeting her one day. So what about your father."

Grant cheesed so hard. I could relate. When it was my turn to start sharing, I could probably gush forever about Doris.

"Yeah," Grant started. "My dad's cool too. He's funny, charming, smooth talking, and probably the most polite guy you'll ever meet. He's the kinda guy that'll put his jacket over mud, give you his coat if you're cold, and will fight to the death to be the one to pay for dinner. Where do you think I got my charm from? Like my mom, he was born and raised in Hastings. They actually went to the same schools growing up, but never knew each other. Apparently, their families hated each other, cuz my dad comes from a upper middle class family. Almost everyone from his side are either doctors, lawyers, accountants, salesmen, and a whole bunch of other white collar jobs. This didn't sit right with my mom's folks. They were more 'salt of the earth', get your hands dirty kinda people. Also there was something about my dad's great grandparents screwing my grandpa out of a huge sum of land. I never really got the full story, just that my dad's side of the family had some of the best lawyers in the state, and they steamrolled my mom's side in court. Fast forward however many years later, my dad went to University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and got a masters in accounting with a business minor. He worked freelance for a few years, before running into my mom's family in a less than desirable way. Long story short, the Timmerson family, who were trying to buy off our farm, were trying to steal it from my grandpa based off of tax evasion, corrupted animal meat, and using illegal herbicide that was damaging/poisoning the crops. None of that was true, but legally speaking, my mom's family had to defend themselves in court, to the IRS, and a whole buncha agricultural inspectors. The farm had to go through a massive audit, and was facing a whole lotta upcoming legal battles. If they couldn't find anything on us, the Timmersons were gonna bleed us out financially, till we had no choice but to sell. In comes my dad, who heard about the dispute around town. He came to my mom's family, offered his services at half price, and brought his older brother, a lawyer, to help them fend off the legal battles. It literally took a year and a half to get through all the legal loops and corkscrews, but my dad and uncle Jeremiah managed to get my mom's family through, while mending the rivalry between the two families. Hell, grandpa actually said "They had nice firm handshakes. Sure as God's gravy, they were trustworthy."

We all laughed so hard at that one (God's gravy?!)!

"Yeah," Grant continued. "Over that time, my mom and dad got closer. It started with her teaching him how to fix his car, then him teaching her how to do her taxes. She taught him how to fight, he taught her how to not fight all the time. Guess dad found stronger women attractive. Don't get me wrong, he's not a shrimp; you don't become part of my mom's family without proving you got the chops for it, but compared to her, he's tiny. Taller, but just toned enough to look like he can bike really good. Anyway, my dad wooed her with his sense of humor, smooth talking, and chivalrous nature. It was by complete accident, but after working late nights with my mom, meeting over coffee, lunch, and dinner for business, not to mention going to church together, my mom started to like him. My dad didn't even notice until she asked him out. They dated for like two years before getting married. So, after the attack on the farm was thwarted, my parents, my uncle, and my grandpa went to the bar for drinks. Unfortunately, a few of the Timmersons were there, and they were not happy. A fight broke out, and my mom got hit pretty hard over the head a few minutes in. My dad…..dude, my dad went berserk! My mom only caught flashes of it, but it was like he was a Hulk. Him, my uncle, and my grandpa, fought off like ten guys. Stools were smashed over people's heads, bottles went flying, my uncle got hit in the head with a chair WWE style, but they managed to hold the line, till my mom got back up to help them finish the fight. My dad's side of the family earned their reputation right there. For years and years, I was always wondering what people meant when they said "you take a hit like a Jackson". My dad and uncle got knocked on their asses over and over during the fight, but they got up so fast, it was almost like they didn't feel the punch. Hell, my dad got a broken nose, bruised lip, two black eyes, and a busted head that night, but that was the moment my mom truly fell in love with him. Hell, she literally said, as she cleaned and stitched him up: "I tell you what, Hugh. If you don't ask my to marry you, i'll buy a ring, put it in your hand, and force you on one knee."

Allyson awed, and fluttered her eyes (so emotional). Hell, even I was feelin' some kinda way. Not exactly a Cinderella story, but close enough.

"Grant," she squeaked out. "That is so beautiful. Most romantic thing i've ever heard. One last question, I promise. You're the biggest superhero fan outta all of us. Who's your favorite?"

"Thor," Grant said. "I love whole winged helmet, viking theme, Shakespeare talkin', lightning blasting. He's one of the strongest heroes out there, and the fact that he has to be worthy of his power, like he can't just have it, has always been a guiding principle for me. No matter how strong I am, I never try to throw my weight around just cuz I can, ya know?"

"I get it. I think Thor would be proud of who you are, big guy. Like you're mom, you've got it where it counts. And just like your dad, you always get back up when you get knocked down. I'm proud to call you my friend."

Grant blushed, and sat down. All eyes were on me know.

"I really gotta do this?" I asked them.

"We all did it, man," Grant said. "It's not that bad. C'mon, bro!"

"What he said," Allyson said. "C'mon, I wanna know what lies behind that brooding bad boy face. Will a kiss be enough to make you talk?"

"Sure," I eventually said. "Just….can we leave out any questions about my birth parents? I'll give you a quick synopsis of who they were, but please…..I don't always wanna remember them. Sometimes I wish I didn't know them; it'd be easier that way."

Talk about killin' the mood. Leave it to me to ruin what was a perfectly fun hangout/study session.

"Yeah, man," Grant said. "No worries. Your folks are a no-go. Simple. Got it."

"Same," Allyson said. "Whatever you feel like sharing is good enough for me."

"Ok," I breathed out. "Here we go."

I stood up, stretched (i've been sitting for a while), and started.

"My name is Jason Thaddeus Fuller," I said. "For however much longer we'll be doing this, I go by Storm-Lord."

"Hi, Jason," Grant and Allyson said.

"I was born and raised in New York City. Same as my parents. Not much to say about them. They knew each other when they were kids, went to the same schools together, got married right after college, and became electrical engineers. Fitting I guess, with me being all….you know. My mom's name was Tovontra, and my dad was Perry. Overall, they were...the best. My mom would always read Dr. Seuss, Winnie the Pooh, Bible stories, and all that stuff to me before bed. My dad got me into Power Rangers when I was six, and that stuck with me….forever. They were kind, honest, super religious, funny, and extremely loving. Like I said, it hurts to remember them sometimes. Moving forward, I was in an orphanage for a year after they died. I had to repeat a grade cuz I didn't behave in class. After Doris found me, things changed. She helped me deal with my grief; helped me move forward one step at a time."

I paused for a bit. Couldn't dwell on my parents to long. Had to move on.

"So," I continued. "I live in the Bronx with Doris. Assuming I haven't been expelled, and assuming there's a school to go back to, i'm a junior at Abraham Lincoln High in Brooklyn. I fought/pissed off so many people in the Bronx, Doris thought I might get shanked in a Bronx school, so she arranged for me to go to school elsewhere. I don't have a lot of friends. Before you guys, I only had one, and she moved to Montana a few months ago. I just kinda cruise through school. No teams, no clubs, nothing like that. I did play rec hockey when I was younger, even won a season in 2005, but I stopped midway through middle school. My fun times are with Doris. We cook, clean, watch Netflix, cartoons, Power Rangers, play video games, and go on summer and spring break trips together. You guys already know i've got a bit of a temper, but that's not all there is to me. I like to have fun, laugh, joke, relax, read, listen to music, and all that stuff. I just like doing that stuff alone. Only you guys and Doris are the exception. Up until now, I haven't really had a sense of purpose about me. I'm smart, my GPA's solid, but I haven't given any thought about college. I've just been living one day at a time. Hell, even now I still don't know what i'm gonna do. It seems only natural that I be a superhero, but I still got my….reservations about that. I guess we'll see. Anyway, while i'm not Pottermore certified, I know i'm full blooded Gryffindor. I'm brave, I guess, or maybe that's stupidity. I'm….uhh…..I...I don't know.

"Smart," Allyson spoke up.

"Funny," Grant said. "In a sarcastic, dry, sometimes ironic kinda way."

"You can be really sweet sometimes."

"You got a bit of protectiveness to you. I mean, the way you put the smackdown on Goblin."

"Stubborn. A bit standoffish."

"Tactical. Perceptive."

"Obviously not introspective. Hey, Bolt Boy, you should be writing this down. Or will that big brain of yours be able to process that you're not a complete screw up?"

I blushed hard, and stared at the floor. I didn't wanna show how much I was cheesing, but you couldn't hide it in a pitch black room.

Yeah," I said aloud. I get it. Anyway, I like running, reading, playing video games, watching whatever on YouTube, action movies, and music. My favorite series are: Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, Harry Potter, Left Behind, Hunger Games, Inheritance Cycle, and Chronicles of Narnia. As far as music, I like pop, rock, hip-hop, some rap, dubstep, chillstep, a little K-Pop, and anime music. Granted, the only anime I watch is DBZ, the first two seasons of SAO, Zatch Bell, Vanguard, Bakugan, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Well, up until GX; everything after that is garbage. Actually, most TV is garbage these days. My favorite food is Chinese, pizza, and subs. My favorite Chinese place is Foo-Hing on on 2706 3rd Avenue, Bronx. My favorite pizza place is the one I took you guys to, and my favorite sandwich place is Defonte's on 379 Columbia street in Brooklyn. I like basketball, football, soccer, baseball, hockey, and X Games sports. My favorite show is Ridiculousness, and….yeah, that's about it. You can ask questions if you want, but please don't."

"What's Doris like?" Allyson immediately ignored me.

"Knew you'd ask that," I sighed. "Yeah, she's great; the best really. She's 63 years old, but either someone forgot to tell her that, or she doesn't care. She's super sweet, funny, free spirited, gives the best advice, knows how to calm me down without patronizing me, and can somehow pull of a 13 hit combo in Mortal Kombat. She's more active on social media than me. All I have is a Facebook and YouTube account. She's got both of those, a Twitter, Snap, Instagram, and a Skype. She dyes her hair every other month, and actually struck a deal at her favorite salon, a.k.a. her job, to get half priced hair dye. She's originally from Buffalo. She moved to New York City after she finished serving in the Navy for like 20 years, and now works at a salon just a few blocks from our house. She likes pop, R&B and gospel. Her favorite playlist is a mix of Britney Spears, BTR, One Direction, Donnie McClurkin, Deitrick Haddon, and Yolanda Adams songs. All in all, she's the only reason i've lasted this long. She made me find a reason to smile, especially when I didn't wanna find one. Hell, I might've made all the wrong decisions if I didn't stop and think about what she would want me to do. I…..I feel bad about doing this to her. Sure, me being a mutant's not my fault, but the way she looked at me.

"I think she'll come around after it's all over," Allyson said. "She doesn't strike me as the kinda lady who'd turn her back on you. After she hears what you've been doing with your powers, how you're a hero, she'll be cool."

She said that so casually, I almost thought she was being sarcastic.

"What she said, man," Grant said. "You're ma sounds amazing; I wish she was my grandmother. I doubt she'll hold this against you, especially when you helped save her life. I'm in the same boat as you, and I literally know that my parents couldn't give a collective $#!+ about my powers; they just want me to come home. That has to be at least double for you."

A few tears actually streamed outta my eyes. I quickly wiped them away, but yeah.

"Any other questions?" I asked.

"One last one from me," Allyson said. "Your only friend? Who was she? What was she like?"

"Oh, Hannah," I said. "Hannah Willows. She's actually taller than me by a few inches. Red head, tree hugger, sweet, vegetarian, Taoist/Buddhist hippie kinda vibe to her. We met in 6th grade, and just like Doris, she was the angel on my shoulder. We had science class together every year, and while we never dated, we had the hots for each other. We were….kinda on and off friends with benefits, just without sex."

"Where's the fun in that?" Grant blurted out.

"Kissing under the bleachers at football games?" I shrugged. "It wasn't anything deep, just mutual attraction that managed to bleed into the friend zone. But yeah, she moved to Montana for reasons she never told me. Hell, she didn't even tell me she was leaving."

Allyson was doing a pouty face.

"Really, it's nothing," I assured her. "I moved on well enough, and i've got no regrets. Now, if we're done with the therapy session, we gotta hit the books again, Grant."

"Fine," Allyson said. "This was fun. I feel closer to you guys already. When you finish with studying the angle of the sun or whatever, let's see if we can get you to accept your true Hogwarts Houses!"

Me and Grant looked at each other, and came to a silent agreement. We were Gryffindors through and through. Allyson was gonna learn that in a few seconds. With that out of the way, we jumped into the surprisingly easy to digest info that was condensed matter physics. At this point the reading was starting to get easier, mainly because I had enough exposure to the stuff to start connecting new material with stored information. It was like learning a new language; after a certain point, you start completing sentences by using every other word you know to help figure out what the gaps are. Applied physics is basically what me and Grant were really here for; physics meant to be used for technological/practical use. Applied physics consisted of subjects like solid-state, high pressure, low temperature, surface, nanoscale, mesoscopic, and polymer physics. Some pretty cool (and insightful) concepts were things like phonons, semiconductors, and superconductors. Other than that, it was just a double down of already familiar concepts like magnetism, and electrical conduction. Solid-state, high pressure, and low temperature physics in particular got me thinking of ways to get past Doom's pesky force field. Anyway, Grant and I got through the info in about 3 seconds, and after getting over the now minor headaches that came with it, started to argue for the validity of our Gryffindor statuses.

We argued back and forth for like half and hour! Grant and I stood on the fact that since we took the comprehensive test, other tests that accounted for personality and scenario decisions, instead of vague magic questions, that the Sorting Hat would take our desire to be Gryffindors into account, and that we matched the Gryffindor criteria to a tee, we couldn't be anything other than the red and gold lion. Allyson countered with the fact that since the test was sample size, and less likely for us to get questions we could answer with sure fire Gryffindor responses, that made it much more reliable. Also, that I was hardworking, and fair, like a Hufflepuff. Grant (who was sorted into Slytherin), was clever and cunning, and obviously had good leadership skills to match ambition of turning his football team around over the course of one summer. We went at it relentlessly, until we decided to put Allyson's Hufflepuff status to the test. Basically, we all were gonna take the comprehensive test on our phones (iPod for me, I was getting a phone soon), and settle it once and for all. Overall, I guess the argument really did go to Allyson, but we goaded her into taking the test that favored our argument, so I consider it a draw. I got Gryffindor (cuz of course I did) with an 89% match. Ravenclaw was 80%, Hufflepuff 66%, and Slytherin 58%. Grant got Gryffindor with the same match percentage (go figure). For him, Hufflepuff was 58%, Slytherin 43%, and Ravenclaw 36%. Finally, Allyson (drum roll please)...got Hufflepuff with 92%. Gryffindor with 90% (ok what?), Ravenclaw was 69%, and Slytherin was 41%.

"HA!" she shouted after we compared results. "I'm Hufflepuff, and still more Gryffindor than both of you!"

"Yeah," Grant shrugged. "By one point."

"One point higher than you!"

Grant and I uncomfortably laughed (we were never gonna speak of this again) until Allyson had her fill of embarrassing us. Afterwards, we decided to take a break and chill out to some music. We debated about creating a playlist, but we eventually decided that due to our desire to get mellow, and being too lazy to make a playlist on Spotify, we'd just throw some chillstep on. I found a random mix on YouTube, and after Allyson grabbed some covers, and crawled onto the couch with me to cozy up (Grant just lied upside down on his bed), we let the music play for almost a full hour. It felt nice to just cuddle with Allyson. She was soft, smelled like strawberry moisturizer, and was tracing her fingers across one of my pecs. I was absently kinda sorta lightly scratching her back (don't ask), and she seemed to be enjoying that too.

"So why does being Gryffindor mean so much to you?" she whispered to me. "You and Grant don't gotta prove anything to me. I've seen your bravery and daring firsthand."

"It's an ego thing," I whispered back. "Confession time for me too, I read all the Harry Potter books, and saw all the movies in 9th grade. It's the only thing Doris wouldn't let me do. I latched onto Gryffindor not just because it was Harry's house, but cuz it felt so natural. I mean, before even getting my powers, i've been standing up to dudes twice my size, fighting off three people at a time, and I haven't been afraid of anything since I was 12."

"What were you afraid of?"

"Dogs."

Allyson chuckled at me.

"Ok, I get it," she said after calming down. "But bravery isn't all you are. It's certainly not all you have to be. You got the brains and creativity for Ravenclaw, you're hardworking, loyal, and fair, so Hufflepuff, and while not ambitious, I can see enough cunning and leadership for Slytherin. If being Gryffindor makes you feel happy, go ahead, but you don't need it to be brave and daring anymore than I need Hufflepuff to be loyal, hardworking, and accepting. Just be the person you wanna be. You'll always be a lion in my eyes."

She looked at me with those insanely beautiful eyes, and gave me a smile so heartwarming, I forgot all about mocking her for that unbelievably cheesy motivation talk.

"Just be the person I wanna be, huh?" I asked her.

"Yup," she nodded, using her light powers to trace an outline of a heart with on my shirt. "Same goes for me. And right now? I really wanna be the girl that kisses you."

My face must've looked pretty priceless, cuz Allyson looked like she was tryna swallow the biggest laugh in history!

"Wow, I breathed out. "To be fair, I want you to be that girl too, but we made a pact that-"

"Screw that," she said seductively, closing in for a deep kiss.

We held it for a good minute, lightly kissing as we rotated our heads to either side. I held her a little tighter (tho I had to be careful of my new strength), and she lightly clawed my chest. Unlike last night, where we basically tried to foreplay each other to death, this was gentle and loving. We laughed into each other's mouths (good thing I brushed), and I felt a whole lotta tension lessen off me. I never realize how much a mission like Atlantis weighs on me mentally. We're talkin' undersea monsters, magic, interdimensional demons, and a whole buncha stuff I loved reading about in the books. Living it….not as fun. This right here with Allyson, this little slice of peace and happiness, hit all the right spots.

"Wait," I managed to pull away long enough to say. "Shouldn't we….you know….be polite?"

"I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be bold," Allyson whispered back.

"Yeah, but we're in someone else's room. You don't think this is a bit rude?"

"Dude," Grant said (so he could hear us). "I couldn't care less. You two like each other, and i'm having fun with a lady named my nice warm bed. If you wanna be modest about it, just pull the covers over your heads. Ya got 10 minutes, then we hit this last stretch of science jargon, and start workin' on some ideas for whatever. We got a date with the smartest heroes on earth. Let's show em' we can roll at their level."

"You're the best, Grant," Allyson said.

"Don't you forget it.10 minutes. Suck each others brains out."

Allyson whipped the covers over our heads, and the game was on! Ok, maybe not as intense as that makes it sound. We definitely proceeded to try and suck each other's brains out, but with only half of the effort we put into it last night. It was mostly a series of deep kisses, a little tongue here and there, and necking (that last part mostly me).

"You're holding back," Allyson whispered to me between kisses. "What's up? Am I not doing this right? Look, if it's about us, here's the deal. I like you, you like me, and i'm very impatient. During missions, training, and all that other stuff, i'm your friend and teammate strictly. When that's over, i'm your kinda sorta girlfriend until we make this official. You're not backing out on me, are ya?"

"No," I chuckled. "Just enjoying the moment. Not to get sappy, but this…..everything, it's heavy. A lot to digest. With you, it's like all that weight doesn't even exist. Don't tell Grant, but he makes me feel safer too."

"Happy to help, bud," he called out. "By the way, 5 minutes left. Wrap it up. 3rd and 10, let's hustle!"

"You heard the man," I said, pulling Allyson in close. "Let's get a move on."

Again, rinse and repeat, just with a bit more effort on my part (I aim to please). We spent 3 minutes doing our usual routine, until I felt Allyson reach her hand under my shirt! If this were last night, I probably would've fried her hand by accident. Ironically enough, it seemed like Allyson was trying to do that exact same thing to me right now. I felt her nails heat up (return of the solar claws), and lightly scratch down my chest and abs. Not nearly as painful as last night, but enough to make me grunt into Allyson's mouth.

"Remember this?" she huskily whispered, kissing the side of my face.

"How could I forget," I grunted out, trying desperately to focus. "What about you? You remember this?"

I put a light layer of static over my fingers, and traced them down her arms. She gasped, laughed, and moaned all in one second! I laughed rather deviously, and we both came to a silent agreement: truce. We spent the last two minutes just lovingly kissing and caressing each other.

"That was fun," Allyson whispered to me.

"Yeah," I said. "Wish I could spend all day doin' this with you."

"Ditto, but the world ain't gonna save itself. Time to hit the books again, Bolt Boy."

I gave her one last kiss, and pulled the covers off.

"Ready to knock this out?" I asked Grant.

"Damn straight," he responded. "Let's get this crap over with."

With that, we jumped into applied physics. Under that umbrella were things like accelerator, chemical, engineering, laser, plasma and materials physics. We also tackled optics, optoelectronics, nanotechnology, photovoltaics, physics of computation, quantum electronics, quantum chemistry, and quantum informational science. We were getting back into headache territory, but at least it was over now. On the bright side, I could skip college entirely now.

"Thank God that's over," Grant sighed. "If I had to download one more thing about photons, electrons, and whatever ons, I was gonna lose it."

"Same," I responded. "Still, the fun ain't over yet. Let's take a look under the hood.

I had S.E.R.A. pull up the schematics of Doom's ship.

"Ok," I told her. "Give me a complete rundown on the energy shield. Known energies natural or otherwise, frequency, strength, everything you got."

"At once, Master Jason," she responded.

The scan took a few minutes, which was just enough time to get over my headache.

"Scan complete," S.E.R.A. said. "It seems that the shield is a mixture of electromagnetic, nuclear, and magical energies. The energies originate from the ship's power core, and are distributed through the ship's power grid."

The schematic zoomed in through the ship, and focused on some sorta computer room.

"All signs indicate that this room is the control and regulation center for the ship's power. Assuming you can get inside the ship, this is where you need to go to disable its energy field for good."

"Noted," I said. "Zoom out please. Let's focus on the energy readings."

"As you wish."

We got back to the deck of the ship, and S.E.R.A. resumed the briefing.

"From what i've gathered on the information available to me about mysticism, the inscriptions on the power core are an energy transfer and conversion spell from the Darkhold."

"Darkhold?" Allyson asked.

"A tome of spells rooted in dark magic. Doom is the second most powerful sorcerer on earth, so this was to be expected. The inscriptions on the core match the same inscriptions on the bottom of the ship. Doom is using the dimensional energies of wherever his ship inhabits to power his shield. The shield is also littered with nanites attuned to the various energies. They act as kinetic absorbers and distributors."

"Can you get a read on the nanites' programming?" I asked.

"Negative. The various energies are preventing me from being able to specifically lock on to their electronics."

"Damn." Grant said. "We coulda hacked the system and really have some fun."

"Indeed," S.E.R.A. said. "However, my scans indicate something interesting about Doom's ship. While the nuclear and mystical energies are created and distributed from the ship's core, the electromagnetism does not."

She pulled up a projection of the ship in relation to its surrounding atmosphere. Immediately, I understood. The electrons that made up the ships electromagnetic barrier were being excited from the ship itself. The electrons just outside of the ship's range were getting traces of electromagnetism, but were too far out of range to be excited. More so, the flight pattern the ship was currently on indicated that the shield was like a conveyor belt. It used the electrons in its immediate vicinity to add power to the shield. After it was out of range, it left the electrons alone. The ship was literally making the electromagnetic part of the shield as it went along.

"Like the nanites in the energy shield," S.E.R.A. continued. "The electrons in the atmosphere are being excited due to nanotech emitters on the ship."

"Then we just heat the atmosphere up," Allyson said.

Grant and I looked at her with a bit of shock plastered on our faces.

"What?" she asked us. "I know a thing or two about magnets. If you heat em' up, they lose most, if not all, of their magnetism."

"So whatever we end up building," I said. "We gotta make sure it makes the immediate area around Doom's barrier super hot. That's at least one problem solved. Wait a minute…..S.E.R.A.? The inscriptions on Doom's ship and power core, is there a counterspell for it?"

"There are many counterspells," she responded. "Doom uses dark magic. All that is needed is enough magic from the discipline of order to disrupt the energy flow."

"I can take care of that."

"You can?" Allyson asked me. "How?"

"Atlantean magic," I responded. "I need to get Fury to lend me the Stone of Poseidon one more time. See, a sorta satellite gun thing keeps popping in my head. If we hit the shield with the right amount of force and frequency, we can at the very least breach it long enough to get inside, and shut the it down manually. Then of course try and steal the stones Doom has, or blow the thing outta the sky, or all of the above. Anyway, the pulse blast we need to dispel Doom's magic? Atlantean magic can do the trick. I can engrave the right spell into the dish gun thing, but I need the stone to make it work."

"Why?" Allyson asked. "If you can use the Sea Force on your own now, why do you need the stone?"

"Cuz his body and spirit aren't properly attuned to channel magic," Grant said, earning some shocking looks from me and Allyson. "Yeah, I know. Gaea explained it to me. The only reason you could do as much magic as you did, was because of the stone. If you try to access even half of the amount of power necessary to make this work, you'll drain your life force out."

"What he said," I looked at Allyson. "If I can engrave the enchantment with the stone, I can set it to voice activate when I say the trigger words. No different that setting up a bomb."

"Except for the witchcraft," Allyson said. "No judging."

"Ok," Grant said. "Another one down. But what about the nanites on the ship's shield, and transmitting network? Lookin' at these readings, even with the most powerful satellite gun whatever, the shield will still have the kinetic enforcers."

"We can use nanites laced with Vibranium," I said. "Use that to rob the nanites of their kinetic energy. Maybe even use it against Doom. As for the system…...S.E.R.A., did Ant-Man's info have anything on Doom's computer system?"

"Negative." she said. "The computers were quantum level encrypted. Nothing was able to be hacked from the servers."

"Damn. That means we gotta get in, and hack it manually."

"Can you?" Allyson asked.

"Assuming we get there in one piece," Grant said. "I doubt Doom will roll out a welcome wagon to his operations network."

"Yeah," I followed up. "Then we gotta hack into quantum computers, which probably has like a billion firewalls."

"Not to mention algorithms that'll change the goalposts every few seconds."

"Which means we gotta hack the system faster than it can change,"

"And that's not counting the fact that someone will have to hold off Doom and/or anything he throws at us, once we're on board."

"Also, it's a one way ticket. Unless I can phase us outta there, or we bring Nightcrawler to bail us out, we only leave the same way we came, or not at all."

Allyson had a dumbstruck look on her face that was too priceless!

"Oooookay," Allyson said. "That sounds….hard."

"Damn near impossible," I said. "S.E.R.A., retrieve the most complicated quantum computer security trials you can. Firewalls, anti-spyware, advanced coding, changing algorithms, the works. Me and Grant gotta practice big time."

"As you wish, Master Fuller." she said. "Trial runs in preparation, completion time expected in about 4 hours."

"Four hours?" Grant asked. Wait a minute. "What time is it now?"

We checked the time: 2:25 A.M.

"Dang," Allyson said. "Time flies, eh? You guys wanna try and hit the sack?"

"You don't sound tired," I said.

"I am…..well, kinda. See, I can sleep when I want too, but my sun powers can keep me energized for days. I was able to pull a buncha all nighters a few weeks after I got my powers. Really helped with getting ahead of projects, studying, and binge watching."

"Smart!" Grant said.

He created a Geo-Force fist, and Allyson created another outta light. Using constructs to fist bump. Why didn't I think of that?

"Same goes for me now," Grant said. "Now that i'm connected to Gaea, I don't need sleep, or food. All those months training in the Geo-Nexus, that was all non-stop."

"Whoa," me and Allyson said together.

"Anyway," I continued. "We gotta draw the blueprint for this satellite gun; let's just call it that. After that, I got an idea for a new weapon we could all use. It should only take me and Grant a few seconds to complete it. Hey S.E.R.A. do you got a 3-D blueprint drawing function?"

"Yes, Master Fuller. Would you like to read the tutorial?"

"How long is it?"

"200 pages exactly."

"Sure why not?"

Me and Grant breezed through the tutorial in a nanosec, and it became evident to me that S.H.I.E.L.D. is just as bad as Doom. This blueprint thing was absolutely exceptional. It could draw up 3-D buildings, city plans, power grids, vehicle designs, and even run simulations for fire fighting, military operations, surgeries, and building things as complex as space shuttles. Why this thing wasn't a public commodity (minus the weapons design function), was absolutely unforgivable. Anyway, after me and Grant finished the instructions, we got to work. To help her get acclimated to the system. we had Allyson help is with drawing out stuff, and moving holographic equipment around. We worked for a good….10 minutes in real time. From our perspective, it was at least three hours. We had to experiment and change how the shape of the satellite dish gun would broadcast the signal, draw, scrap, and redraw the weapons heating function, and do the wiring over at least ten times. We eventually settled the magic problem. Regular metal couldn't channel the energy like we needed it to, so we needed Vibranium. The heat gun was a bit trickier, but we eventually figured that out too. We were trying to heat up the atmosphere around Doom's shield, when all we had to do was heat up the shield. We reconfigured the design to a more simple heat ray that would cause the atoms that made up Doom's shield to vibrate fast enough to where they were overheating themselves, and nullify the magnetism. The power source was also extremely tricky. Essentially, we had three options. We could either use Allyson as a constant solar battery, but she ran the risk of overheating and destroying the gun. Grant's Geo-Force, and my electricity were options two and three, but Grant's energy was too unstable, and I couldn't guarantee that any amount of electricity could power this thing at all. We considered more magic, but we had no way to convert it, or understand what effect it would have on the device until building the prototype. Eventually, we just settled on building our own arc reactor to power the weapon. After we got the basic design and inner workings done, we set up a simulation to see how the weapon might work against Doom's barrier. The first time didn't work at all ( we needed more power to keep the heat gun active). The second time almost made it, but we had to modify the amount of Vibranium in the nanites. They couldn't absorb the amount of kinetic energy needed, unless we supercharged them with magic. I'd just use the stone to enchant them. Guess third time's the charm, cuz with the extra modifications the simulation worked.

"Yes!" Allyson squealed, giving us high fives. "Go us!"

"Yeah, yeah," I chucked. "But that's only part one of the battle. We still gotta-"

"Dude," Grant stopped me. "Winning the season is always a priority, but you gotta take time to celebrate a few individual game wins."

"All we've been doing is winning. It took a lot, but we're four for four. Besides, Atlantis was the pinnacle of celebration, now it's the finals. Good job, really, I mean that, but i'll celebrate when we knock Doom's head sideways."

"You are such a bummer," Allyson said. This is why you're Rain Cloud."

"Just being honest," I shrugged. "Besides, you're the optimistic one. Do your job."

"Ok. Because I know we'll pull through, what do you guys think about the team's future after this whole Stones of Olympus business?"

"We totally gotta stay together!" Grant said. "I mean, The Avengers are getting up there; the superheroes need some young blood to keep the good fight going."

"Ehhhh," I said, causing Grant and Allyson to roll their eyes." "Don't get me wrong, i'd like the team to keep going, but what purpose would we serve?"

"What do you mean?" Allyson asked me. "We'd be superheroes. It's pretty self explanatory."

"Yeah, but what use is that? We can't operate in New York. To many heroes already have a thing going on there; we'd just be getting in the way. Besides stopping cow tipping in Nebraska, or some petty thieves in Alabama, all we could do is wait for the next world shattering disaster."

"That's not entirely true," Grant said. "My super hearing and Geo-Sense, that's my ability to sense anything touching the ground, can stretch for miles. I can also ask Gaea to keep a lookout for drug dealers, sex traffickers, smugglers, and every other criminal under the sun. Plus with our speed, we can act faster than most heroes could even dream of. We don't gotta be The Avengers, they handle all the world ending stuff. We can be the guys on the ground level. Ya know, look out for the little guys that get overlooked."

"Exactly!" Allyson said. "See, Jason? We can do a lotta good together. Why don't you believe in us anymore?"

"It's not you guys," I sighed. "It's me. I'm still tryna figure out what my life as Jason Fuller's gonna be like after this. As Storm-Lord….I don't wanna be responsible for anyone else. For so long i've blamed superheroes for not saving my parents, but then Goblin happened. Those kids….they lost so much more because I wasn't fast enough. What if I…...I don't wanna fail like that again. I can't be everywhere at once."

"Nobody's askin' you to, Jason. You're only human, well mutant, but close enough." Besides, you think you're the only one who has to deal with the weight of not being there to help? That's the story of every cop, firefighter, EMT, and superhero who were either too slow, or just weren't there to help. We can't save everyone, Jason, we can only do the best we can, and keep moving forward. You still feel guilt? Good. It means you have empathy and compassion. You can be a force for good to help change lives for the better. Stop the bad guys before they hurt someone. Rush someone to the hospital before it's too late. Talk someone off a ledge, get supplies to those in need. You can be so much more than someone who just hits stuff. We all can. Please, Jason, let's at least try."

Try as I might, I couldn't stop the smile from forming.

"And this is why you're the optimistic one," I said. "A damn good saleswoman too. Look, right now I just need to take it one step at a time. Getting home to my mom is the only future I care about. After that…..we at least need to get that new team name up and running. Delta Force is not gonna fly."

"I hear that!" Grant laughed with Allyson.

We took a five minute break, before getting started with the new gear I thought up for the team. Essentially, I was taking mine's and Allyson's Thunder/Sun Shields, and retrofitting them. I took the basic design Mrs. Kennedy set up, and added knuckles at the end, based off of Shocker's gauntlets. In the blueprint, I added a coating of Reverbium (metal that amplifies vibration/kinetic energy) to the arm pieces. After going back and forth with Grant on how to power the knuckles, we finally agreed on a magic/science fusion. The knuckles would be powered by a temporal loop of nuclear energy double backing and multiplying on itself. The loop would be caused by magically charged Vibranium ringlets causing a loop of nuclear fusion and fission, then transferring that energy out of the gauntlet as pure kinetic force. The Reverbium was to double the force of what was already sure to be punches that would make Thor see rainbows. Hell, that wasn't counting things like my vibration powers, Grant's already Thor-level strength, and Allyson's solar powers. We made sure to add Vibranium fiber padding to dampen the force going up our arms, otherwise we might shatter them. Just like the satellite gun, it took is a few redesigns to get it right, but we eventually figured it out.

"So what's the most fun thing you two have ever done?" Allyson asked us (she was bored outta her mind). "Mine's was when I snuck outta the house last year to go to my friend Tamara's pajama party. Before you give me disapproving looks, my curfew was frigging 8 P.M. This was a few months before I got my powers. Tamara's parents were away for the last weekend before school started, so we decided to have some fun. It was so exciting to climb down from the second floor via the drainpipe, climb the community gates, and get picked up half a mile away, and then drive 40 minutes across town to get to the party!"

"Isn't there something in the bible about obeying your parents," I joked with her.

"Somethin' like that," she shrugged. "It's either before or after the part about he without sin casting the first stone. I forget. Anyway, the party was great. Loud music, cute boys, dancing with cute boys to loud music. Tons of ice cream, popcorn, funny movies. Heh. I had ta sneak back into my neighborhood before the guards showed up, climb back up the drain, and just barely beat my 7 A.M. alarm. In my defense, I repented at church that day."

"Never thought you of all people had a dark side," Grant laughing.

"Dude, i'm a teenager, we're like 70% dark side. Besides, sometimes it's fun to be bad. So what about you, Green Bean? What's the funnest thing you ever did?"

"The greatest mascot stealing of all time!" Grant grinned. "Ok, so for homecoming, me and the team not only stole our opponents mascot, an actual mustang, and put it in their locker room, we did the same for all the other high schools in the division! You know how hard it is to get a buncha roosters in a locker room?! We put a "Gotcha" banner in the rival school's colors, to throw off suspicion. It took two weeks of planning, building paper mache mascots for eight schools, not to mention coordinating ten trucks all across the state! I personally helped my friend Dale tie a mustang to Sutton's locker room! Guys, it was the stuff of legends!"

Grant and Allyson were beside themselves with laughter! I chuckled a little bit too, but I was too busy testing the new gauntlets on holographic dummies. Seriously, this tech was amazing! The video game prospects alone would make anyone a mint.

"Guess that means it's my turn, huh?" I asked after they calmed down. "Aight, it was a skateboarding accident. I thought it would be great to go down the steepest hill in my neighborhood on my board. I made it like 75% of the way down, before I wiped the hell out. I skinned up my elbow, my back, a few of my toes, and got a nasty gash on the side of my hip. The scars are gone now, yay for healing factors, but yeah. For half a minute, it felt like I was the fastest thing alive, like I was invincible. Till I couldn't stay on my board, and smacked the pavement."

Grant and Allyson looked at me like I slapped them in the face.

"Is that really your best?" she asked me. "The time you hurt yourself?"

"Either that," I shrugged, now starting on the battle plans, "Or the time I got caught in a street brawl. I was heading home late from helping Jimmy at the shop, didn't realize the Avon Gangster Crips and the Decepticons, yes really, were goin' at it that night. I was wearing a blue shirt, so…..yeah. I couldn't make it to my train. I got backed into an ally, and had to fight off three guys. I got hit in the head with a chain, but just barely managed to beat them all unconscious with a trashcan lid and an iron rod. At least a dozen more guys tried to take me out, but Iron Fist and Luke Cage showed up to break up the brawl. Iron Fist saved me, healed my head, and after he believed my story about me being at the wrong place at the wrong time, paid for my cab home. Guess him and Nightcrawler would be tied for my favorite superhero. But yeah, exciting night, I look back on it and laugh."

"Badass!" Grant dapped me up. "And when did this happen?"

"Two weeks ago."

Allyson gasped, and covered her mouth.

"Ok, ok, ok!" she shook her head. "Clearly, you can't even have regular teenage rebellion fun, so let's try one more time. You and your mom together. What's the most fun thing you've done with her?"

"Well there was that one time we beat up someone someone who tried to mug us," I joked. "Nah. That did happen, but no, not our best time out. The most fun thing i've done with her would have to be the first time we went to Hershey Park. That was when I was 14. I wasn't big on chocolate, but the roller coasters alone were worth it. Especially Storm Runner The tour of the chocolate factory was pretty fun and informative, and there was this cool laser game ride where it was team chocolate vs. peanut butter. My mom gets super competitive at shooting games! You do not wanna see her in Call of Duty! We won a giant blue cheetah after blowing ten bucks on a claw game, rode an actual giant swinging claw, went to see Transformers, and played guess the flavor with multicolored Twizzlers. Better, Allyson?"

"Much. Really sweet. Well, i'm kinda done for the night, unless you need me for whatever it is you're doing?"

"Nah. Just doing a rough draft on how to attack/defend against Doom's ship. We already got a plan to kill the shield, and after that, it's just a matter of surviving until we shut Doom down."

"Whatcha thinkin'?"

"No way we get the drop on Doom. He'll be comin' for us. When he does, we gotta get some distance between us. We should get a teleportation spell ready to activate at the drop of a dime; get us at least a few miles away. After that, we scramble all the fliers, all the jets, everything. We form a perimeter; try and get a curved defense around the ship. Low fliers attack high, high fliers attack low. We box Doom's attackers for as long as we can, while we disable that shield. After that, it's me, Grant, and maybe Nightcrawler and Quicksilver. We get in, hack the ship, see if we can either cut off it's power, or get it to self destruct."

"That'll cause a nuclear explosion, not to mention kill everyone."

"I can make a dome strong enough to take the blast," Grant said. "We'll be fine."

"And Doom?" Allyson asked.

"If we're lucky, he'll get blown to Hell," I said. "And yeah, we're not taking any prisoners on this one. You don't have to kill….maybe, but the kid gloves have to come off. All the chips are on the line. You can bet Doom's gonna play accordingly."

"And if Doom survives?"

"That's where all the weapons, training, and powers come in. If I can convince Fury to give me and Grant the stones of Poseidon and Demeter, we can fight fire with fire, but until then, we'll have to train to take him head on. We've come this far, let's take it home."

"Sounds like a plan!" Grant pumped his fist. "By the way, you guys know we're trending on Twitter?"

"Huh?" me and Allyson asked.

"Yup," Grant said showing us his phone. "Check it out. It started after our battle with the zombie creatures. We got some good news coverage, and some cell phone footage of me and Jason fighting Goblin. We were number 7 on Twitter that day with the hashtag #newkidsontheblock. We got some more good news coverage after saving all those people in the bank, and beating the Serpent Society on the bridge. One of the hostages remembered me saying your code name, so #Stormlordandfriends was trending at number 1 for that day. Finally, after saving the kids at the dance, and fighting Magneto, #Stormlordandfriends hit number 2, with #Greenfireman at number 3. What I did to the Great Basin Desert is still at number one with #Greenthumb. Nice start for our team, eh?!"

I was too dumbstruck to reply, and Allyson was laughing herself red!

"This is amazing!" she said. "We're gonna be famous! We should use that fame responsibly, and to promote truth, justice, and heroism, but we're gonna be famous!"

"Dude!" Grant said. "We gotta get our names out there! I gotta see #Geo-Titan at number 1!

I let Allyson and Grant gush about being internet famous, becoming memes, making their own official pages, and even merchandise! Don't get me wrong, the idea of fame had me all giddy inside too, but I hated social media. You weren't gonna see me leap for joy cuz of a being a temporary Twitter trend. Anyway, Grant and Allyson talked themselves out for a good 10 minutes, before settling down. Now that we were all done with planning, we decided to call it a night, and get some sleep. It was 3:30 A.M., and we had to be up and at em' by 7. Me and Allyson cozied up together, told Grant goodnight (he was gonna put himself into a sleep-like state of meditation), and after a goodnight kiss, knocked out for the next several hours. We got up at about 6:30 A.M., and went back to our rooms to shower and change. I met them at our table for breakfast and said good morning (had to remember my manners). We were all dressed in our usual workout gear. Black sweats and tank tops for me and Grant, black shorts and a pink tank top for Allyson (cuz of course she'd be different). She looked good, and she probably knew I was thinking that, but I focused on my Cinnamon Toast Crunch to take my mind off it.

"So I got our schedule planned out," I said after inhaling my muffins (didn't know if I was hungry or missed muffins).

"For real?" Grant asked, turning away from his toast. "You did that before or after you brushed your teeth?"

"Just as I got outta the shower, actually. I think better in that split second when you get out, and the cold air hits you. Anyway, we're gonna do martial arts and weapons training from 8-12. I'm gonna sit out for a few minutes. I'll have S.E.R.A. ring up everything in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s databases on combat."

"You're gonna cheat again," Allyson said.

"Yup. You and Grant can maybe do something with Kung-Fu."

"I could use a warm up, but i've recently dipped my toe in Wing Chun, Judo, and Taekwondo. Wanna help me practice with that, Green Bean?"

"Sure, Grant said. "But we gotta go at it spear style; that's gonna be a good fight!"

"Deal."

"You think that'll be good?" I smiled at them. "Wait till I know all the fighting styles ever, just like you. That's gonna be some Mortal Kombat stuff right there!"

"Right?!" Grant dapped me up. "So when do we eat?"

"From 12-2:59 is rest time. We gotta get on those hacking trials tho. Maybe 30 minutes or so in our spare time to really get the feel for it."

"I hear ya. Don't worry bro, by the time we're done, Doom won't be safe anywhere. His phone, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram? We gonna wreck everything he's got!"

Usually Grant's joke's are barely passable, but this one genuinely made me laugh pretty hard; Allyson too.

"Ok," I continued after we calmed down. "After that, we meet with the brainiacs in The Garage."

"Huh?" Allyson said.

"Some kinda interdimensional storage for some of the most advanced tech in the universe. Most of it's stuff S.H.I.E.L.D. collected from battles with aliens, future tech, stuff that Richards and Stark built, and the list goes on. Apparently the place is stationed in a tachyon current. For every hour out here, we spend the equivalent of six in there."

"Been there, done that better," Grant waved it off. "Still, I get to spend….how long we workin'?"

"3-6."

"18 hours with Black Panther and Ant-Man? This is too good to be true! I gotta take some pics with Ant-Man! I know Panther ain't got time for it."

"Still," Allyson said. "18 hours with Mrs. Kennedy?"

Me and Grant hissed like we skinned our knee Peter Griffin style.

"Ooooo," I said. "That's gonna be legendary levels of suck,"

"Yup," Allyson chuckled at us. "Have fun with that."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Like I said, i'm not an uber genius. Rather than get in the way, not to mention be bored outta my mind for the better part of a day, i'll put 3 regular hours to good use."

She activated S.E.R.A.

"Yes, Allyson?" S.E.R.A. asked.

"Hey, S.E.R.A." Allyson said. "Set up some training exercises for that virtual reality thing we did the day before. Give me a wide variety. Stuff like one-on-one, three-on-one, search and rescue scenarios, fighting in populated areas, thwarting meteor showers, and things that'll really challenge my abilities and situational responses."

"Creating training scenarios. Whenever you are ready to begin, report to any of the training rooms to begin."

"Thanks, S.E.R.A., you're the best."

"Points for initiative," I said. "I'll give you that."

"Thanks, I try. So after you're done making stuff that'll blow Doom back through time?"

"Dinner and rest from 6:30-7:30."

"My favorite part of the day," Grant said. "Can we just skip everything and stick to that?"

I glared at him with the white hot intensity of ten thousand volts.

"Didn't think so," he put his hand up. "Can't blame a guy for tryin'."

"Uhhh, Grant?" Allyson asked. "First, you're an idiot. I love you, but you're positively stupid. Second, didn't your eyes used to be blue? They're green now."

"Huh?!" Grant almost squealed (how'd I not notice that?).

He pulled out his phone, and looked at himself in camera mode.

"Gaea!" he growled under his breath. "The hell did you do?!"

He made a pouty face while listening to whatever it was that Mother Earth saying in his head (that wasn't strange at all).

"Ok," he massaged his forehead after a while. "It's a secondary characteristic of getting Geo-Force powers. Gaea thinks it's a great honor or some $#!+, chicks'll totally dig it, I can deal."

"You look very handsome," Allyson assured him.

Grant blushed a little bit.

"Well, shucks," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," I stomped on his moment. "You're a grade A hunk; front page material. Anyway, we meet with General Ross in the briefing room from 8-10 P.M."

"Red Hulk?!" Grant actually squealed. "Dude! Yes!"

"Get it together, man! Look, get your autograph out the way quick, and focus when we get in there."

"I got you, bro! Trust me, i'll be cool. It's just, right under Thor, Hulk is my second favorite hero. With the green one out in space doing whatever, this is the best I can do."

Allyson awwed at him, and even I couldn't stay mad at him. The guy was a big softie when it came to superheroes, and his heart (if not his head) was in the right place.

"Alright," I sighed. "Don't get misty eyed on me, dude. It's just that this is the foundation of our attack. No plan survives contact with the enemy, but we gotta think this through as best as we can. Besides, we got a whole lotta heroes joining in for this house party. You'll have more than enough new signatures to fill your book."

"Wait," Allyson said, "Who else are we getting?"

I had S.E.R.A. pull up a list of heroes Fury had down for immediate response when we needed to fight against Doom's ship.

"Ok, here we go," I said. "We got Falcon, War Machine, Storm, Ms. Marvel, Angel, Rogue, Spider-Man, Colossus, Beast, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, Northstar, cool, another speedster! We also got, Pepper Potts, who's gonna use an Iron Man suit to help us out. We got She-Hulk, Red-Hulk, A-Bomb, Beast, Wolverine, Daredevil, Tigra, Doctor Voodoo, Psylocke, Iceman, The freaking Punisher, Gambit, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Cloak, Dagger, Cable, Blue Marvel, and finally, Squirrel Girl?!

"Don't underestimate her, dude," Grant warned. "I saw a superhero thread on Reddit saying she beat Doom with an army of squirrels, and fights as good as Wolverine."

I'll admit, I didn't know that.

"Fine," I said. "An any case that's what we're working with here, not to mention any available combat ready agents. We'll discuss strategy, placement, patterns, follow up plans, retreat plans, and all that other stuff with General Ross."

"Sounds fun," Allyson said. "And after that?"

"One last thing from 11-1. I call it power practice. You and Grant have a lotta experience with aerial combat. I don't think I have enough time to get to DBZ status, but anything helps."

"Don't worry, bro," Grant said. "There's really nothing to it. It's mostly using your speed, fighting skills, and momentum to your advantage. Our constructs have definitely given us a crutch to stand on, but as someone who fought a triple fusion demon, aerial combat is just about striking hard, fast, frequent, and having decent enough improv skills to cover your ass."

"I agree," Allyson said. "It's not like my folks taught me how to fight with my powers, I had to practice out in the middle of nowhere on my own. Besides, I could afford learning how to fight on the ground running. We can all improve in some way."

"Ooooo," I said. "That's gonna be a bit harder."

"Why?"

"Fighting on the ground speedster style is almost entirely improv, but it can go south quick. In the air, unless you're in New York, you don't have to worry about obstacles. Walls in particular. On the ground, if you let your speed get away from you, you get taken advantage of easy. It's way more about control than anything else."

"Again, we can all improve, and I gotta start somewhere."

"Ok then, we'll split the session up by the hour. Hour one for flying, hour two for running. Cool?"

"Cool." Grant and Allyson said.

"Alright," I said. "Training in ten, and as always, we got this."

"That's should be on a shirt," Allyson chuckled.

We finished eating, made our way to the training room, and started at 8 A.M. sharp with martial arts training. Grant and Allyson warmed up with 10 minutes Kung-Fu practice, (after Allyson activated her Sun Form so she didn't break her hands), which was more than enough time for me to learn all the fighting styles ever.

That's not hyperbole at all. S.E.R.A. had downloaded everything from Kung-Fu, Capoeira, Wing Chun, Taekwondo, Longfist, Silat, and we could be here all day listing over 100 different styles of fighting. Even at super speed (a second for you is a minute to me), it took 5 minutes in real time just to watch all the positions, strikes, reversals, locks, kicks, and everything associated with each individual fighting style. I watched Grant and Allyson fight for the next five minutes, while my brain processed all the info I dumped into it (I think I actually felt it scar). Anyway, those two were absolute monsters. Allyson was clearly holding back when we previously sparred, cuz she was nothing short of Mortal Kombat level, using her size and flexibility to just barely hold Grant at bay. Yeah, she was good, but Grant was just a little better. He was bigger, and had more reach. He kept forcing Allyson to keep a distance, or try attacking up close. If she did the latter, he'd either suplex, or flip and pin her when she tried to rake his face, or slam a fist into his throat. She was quick on the recovery, and got more than her fair share of hits, kicks, and counters in, but I don't remember seeing her actually manage to get the upperhand on Grant for more than ten seconds.

"Phew!" she said, after they finished. "Way to make me feel bad, Grant! Ten years of training, and I get beat by-"

"Someone who didn't learn how to fight in a safety first dojo," Grant finished. "Don't beat yourself up, you actually did really good. Your agility and flexibility would be more of an advantage against someone like Jason, or people actually your size. I'm a beef mountain with Jet Li kickass. It's almost unfair."

"In any case, good fight. Jason, you wanna get warmed up? I know you and Grant have your epic battle coming up, but you should loosen up a bit first."

I smirked, stretched a bit, and took up a defensive stance. Allyson attacked with wide swing, followed by a roundhouse kick to keep me from capitalizing. She followed up with a few quick jabs to my face, easily blocked and dodged, before getting me in the gut with a rising knee, and slamming me in the face with a fist. I staggered backwards, but was able to keep up the defense. As Allyson came at me with a relentless flurry of kicks and punches, my brain broke down her style, and I countered accordingly. She thrived on quick attacks and dodges, so I focused on even quicker counters, grabbing her arms when she struck, and twisting them and her into a submission hold. Like she did with Grant, she didn't make any of this easy (she flipped me at least 4 times), but I was pretty satisfied with myself after our our sparring.

"Humph," she playfully sighed. "Guess i'm not needed anymore."

"Don't say that," I said. "Every team needs a cheerleader."

She glared at me with a "don't go overboard" look, and played with her watch. The few seconds later, a hologram of a masked S.H.I.E.L.D agent popped up.

"I'm gonna practice at super speed with tall, masked, and handsome," she said. "You two have your Mortal Kombat fight. Tell me when it's time for weapons practice."

She didn't wait for a response, and started her own training session.

"Think I made her mad?" I asked Grant.

"Nah," he said. "Nobody likes to lose, just let her vent a little."

"Kay. Alright, let's hit each other."

"Wait. Grab my hand, and squeeze as hard as you can."

"Why?"

"Wanna see what your strength is at now. Gotta gauge how hard I can afford to hit you."

I grabbed his hand, and squeezed as hard as I could. He winced a bit, which made me feel good, but easily gripped me back with enough force to make my hand feel like it was getting slowly crushed under a safe.

"Ok." Grant said after he let me go. "About 35% of my strength."

"Only 35%?" I asked, kinda insulted.

"Dude, I can lift continents now."

"35 sounds pretty good."

We both took up a fighting stance, and after a few fakeouts, I attacked him with a reverse dragon palm, followed by double kick to the chest, and and a jumping roundhouse. Grant blocked and dodged all my strikes easily, and came back with a vengeance. He attacked with a mix of Bafaquan, Water Boxing, and snake style Kung-Fu. Oh, and that was all in his first offensive push. Seriously, the guy was a monster. He switched and combined so many styles of fighting, my brain and reflexes could only barely keep up. I used a bit of snake and crane style to get inside his strikes, and get some good hits to his face and chest, but they were flea bites compared to what he had in store. He grabbed one of my next few strikes, flipped me, but I landed on my feet, and swept his legs out. He came down with an elbow that knocked the wind outta me, and followed up with a fist to my neck and face. He got on top of me, started wailing on my head, but I managed to get my arms up, block some if his hits, and quickly grab his head. I got him with a headbutt to the bridge of his nose, kicked him off of me, and got back to my feet. I let him come at me in an attempt to learn how he fought, but that was probably the stupidest thing I could've done. Somehow, the math genius that studied probability and statistics at a college level, didn't see that there is an almost infinite way over 100 different martial arts can be mixed and matched. Grant came at me with every fighting style under the sun, and while I could defend against most of his first set of hits, he seamlessly switched and mixed too many styles together for me to read and breakdown. I took five reverse kicks to the gut, five elbows to the face, at least three dragon palms to the throat, and even got slammed, before I realized i'd get nowhere by defending. I managed to put some distance between me and Grant, defending as best I could against his follow-up attacks, before doing a twisting flip over him, and kicking him in the back of his head before I hit the ground (some Jet-Li $#!+). I kickflipped to my feet, and pressed forward with my own attack. Grant easily defended against me better than I did against him, but I was able to break through his defenses more than a few times by using his own strategy against him. The key was to use his mass and momentum against him, switching as best as I could between fighting styles, and surprising him with unexpected moves. I realized that I had been using my analyzing function (can't think of a better name) only for defense up to this point. Offense was much different. Every strike opened up hundreds of follow-up combinations; so much so I found myself mixing and matching fighting styles instinctively. When Grant was too focused on defense, i'd ease up, give him a false opening, and capitalize when he fell for the bait. When he reversed the tables (getting more than his fair share of hits in), i'd barely fight him to a standstill, and get the advantage back with a hard kick, or dodge, and dictate the fight on my terms for however long I could. I'll admit, Grant was a 10, while I was a 7.5 at best. I learned a lot about improv, offense, and defense from our almost four hour fight (super speed and stubbornness is not good for your health). By the time we were finished, I collapsed to the ground. My whole body felt like a bruise, and I was having trouble breathing (too many kicks to the chest). Grant didn't have a scratch on him, and looked like he could keep this up forever. Way to make me feel bad. I quickly willed myself to heal up, and Grant gave me a hand back to my feet. I tried to be mad at him (i'm a sore loser), but there was something about his face that couldn't keep me from eventually smiling and laughing with him. We dapped each other up, had a quick hug, and regrouped with Allyson.

"Had a good practice?" I asked her.

"I guess," she shrugged. "I'm well past the basics, and according to the hologram, I fight on a green belt level."

"Cool. That's awesome. So….sword fighting and stuff?"

"Yeah," Grant said. "In fact, I got a challenge for you two, but we're gonna need to use constructs to be 100% safe."

Me and Allyson gave each other worried looks, but Grant insisted it wouldn't be too dangerous.

"Here's the deal," he said. "We'll use our constructs to create replicas of our weapons. That way, we can switch between the different functions, and hack away at each other without actually putting ourselves in danger."

"Smart," Allyson nodded. "I'm likin' this already."

"Yeah, but here's the thing. You two gotta fight against me, and i've been trained by the spirit of Achilles himself."

"Big deal," I said, creating my construct weapons. "I beat Nightcrawler."

"And I learned how to fight with knives when I was ten," Allyson said, making her daggers. "Bring it, Green Bean!"

Grant shrugged.

"Can't say I didn't warn ya," he said, creating a Geo-Force axe and sword. "Let's begin."

I inched forward with my sword and shield, and started the attack with a sword stab. I changed the sword to a spear as I stabbed at Grant, but he easily deflected it, and pressed forward with a savage attack. If I didn't study footwork so hard during that martial arts dump (not too mention my sessions with Nightcrawler), Grant woulda knocked me on my ass in three seconds. Hell, even then he wasn't kidding when he said he was the real deal! His strikes were quick, precise, and almost like chess, he had an endgame mapped out. I had to be super careful not to not be too predictable. I interrupted his flow with shield charges, rolled outta the way of his axe swings, and unbalanced his footwork as best as I could via slashes and stabs at his legs. Allyson was eyeing the fight closely, staying within a 10 ft range, but never got involved. She was gripping her daggers tight, so it's not like she was sitting on her hands, just waiting for the right time to strike. I was hoping that would happen sometime today, but I hear it's impolite to rush a lady.

Anyway, I kept Grant at bay, but just barely. Unlike with hand-to-hand combat, I didn't study up on every sword fighting style ever (it sure as hell was on my to do list now). I had less room to work with, only using what I could incorporate from the hand-to-hand stuff. Hell, I was certain Grant was taking it easy on me. His attacks were fluid as water, like the weapons were part of him. His movements flowed into the next, and he kept changing his attack pattern, making it hard to get a good read on him. I don't know how long we fought, just that I was always one wrong half step away from losing. Suddenly, my Speed Sense went off just in time to warn me of a solar knife about to hit the back of my head! Helluva time for someone to finally get involved! I sidestepped the blade in tandem with one of Grant's strikes, and slashed down at his legs. Grant simply lifted his foot over my sword, blocked Allyson's knife with his sword, and brought his axe down hard on top of me. I blocked it with my shield, and Allyson helped bail me out of a $#!+ situation. She threw constructs of her mini knives at Grant, forcing him to roll outta the way, giving me and Allyson enough time to regroup and attack together.

You'd think our combined skill would be enough to take him, but you'd be dead wrong. The guy fought us while backtracking, using an offense/defense fusion to keep me and Allyson from gaining too much momentum. I fought him as hard as I could head on, while Allyson tried fast, low, and distant attacks with her knives. Sometimes it seemed like we were winning, but that was Grant luring us in for the kill. Using our own momentum was his favorite way of taking us down; by the time we realized what was happening, it was too late to stop it. An example of this was when Allyson busted out her spear, and took the heavy offensive, leaving me to try and flank him as best as I could. To be fair, Allyson put the hurt on Grant with her spear. She had a natural fluidity and fierceness with it. I tried throwing Grant off-balance via shield throws, but Grant was way too good for that. Hell, when I tried it again, he deflected it with his axe straight to Allyson's face! She fell back, and Grant stabbed (well, tapped with a dull energy construct) her in the gut, taking her outta the fight. I called my shield back to me, tried to end the fight myself, but if you've seen Achilles vs. Hector (that fight was dope as hell), you have an idea of how bad Grant whopped my ass.

"Not too bad," he said, allowing us to take a breather. "Now get up and come at me again."

"You enjoy kicking our asses, don't you?" I asked him.

"Gotta get my cardio for the day somehow," he shrugged. "Besides, you two gotta learn how to properly fight with those. Now get up, and fight me like I slapped your mothers."

Can't exactly stay down after that kinda motivation. Me and Allyson got back to our feet, reconstructed our weapons, and had at it again.

I'll admit, we only managed to beat Grant four times. He beat us nine. The first few fights were more of the same. He outmaneuvered us, and while we were getting better with our teamwork, weapon switching, and individual fighting, Grant always managed to break us down in some way. First, he beat me by throwing my balance off, and slamming his axe into my shield. My legs were open, so he stabbed one of em' with his sword. Allyson was next, but she held him back for a good while with her spear. Again, that was clearly her best weapon, as Grant finally looked like he was giving two $#!+$ about the fight. She got a couple close calls in, but she made the mistake of going where Grant was taking her. After a while, I noticed him becoming too lax on defense, luring Allyson in like a snake dance. When she tried for another stab to his chest, he sidestepped, and caught her next slash by the staff. He kicked her in the chest, dropping her to the ground, and extended his axe into spear mode, resting the blade at her throat. And that was just the second loss. He beat me again by using his axe chain to hook my shield, and floor me. He actually did face Allyson in spear combat, and ended beating her via sweeping at her legs, forcing her to jump, and after converting the spear back to and axe, shot out the chain, wrapped it around her legs, and slammed her to the ground. He threw his sword at her head, but stopped it a few inches from her face. Again, we took a lotta losses, but with every fight we got better.

We realized the best way to fight him was to keep him occupied from two sides. In the upcoming fights, we went out of our way to flank him. We also realized we had to be quicker than he was. My shield and her spear was slowing us down. Unless I needed to block a hard attack, or try for a shield throw, I started fighting sword only. Allyson did the same, dropping the spear act, and relying on her knives and swords. Together, we managed to keep Grant off his game, me usually keeping him busy in the front, while Allyson threw knives at him. She tried to be precise with her throws, aiming for the arms and legs rather than the face. It wasn't always effective, but I remember taking our first win via taking Grant's knees out with a quick set of kicks, and extending my sword into a spear to his chest as he fell down. That win was all because Allyson threw him just a little bit off as he tried dodging a couple of knives aimed for his gut and thighs.

As we continued fighting for what felt like four hours, Allyson and I really found our groove. She got better at incorporating fencing into the fight, using her finesse and flexibility to work around Grant's power and speed. For me, it was just a matter of learning from experience and failures. I couldn't break his fighting style down, but I was learning bits and pieces of it, and merging it with my own. I got better at faking and redirecting attacks, and switching between sword and spear more fluidly. Like I said, me and Allyson lost the game, but we were all the better for it.

"Alright!" Grant said after we were done. "Now ya'll startin' to look like fighters! I'm proud of you guys! You don't make me sick anymore!"

Me and Allyson gave him murder glare, but his smile was practically like cancer. After a while, the disease spread, and we were all trying our best not to laugh.

"So, food?" Allyson asked.

"You need to ask?" I responded, helping her up. "I'm craving anything with bacon."

We ate for an hour, before heading back to Grant's room to rest. We all agreed that it'd be a waste of time to shower so soon (plus S.H.I.E.L.D.'s deodorant was super effective), so we just chilled in the room. Allyson switched the TV to Cartoon Network (Steven Universe was on), while me and Grant popped out those hacking trials S.E.R.A. prepared for us.

I'm not gonna lie, this was probably the most infuriating thing ever. The encryptions were Pentagon, NORAD, and NSA levels of hard. It was security on top of security, inside security, in a safe covered in cement at the bottom of the security ocean. The first few encryptions we had to solve were just basics. Simply working around the firewalls, creating and inserting viruses to crash the system, and using an advanced Trojan horse to trick the system into letting us in, so we could corrupt it from the inside. I say simple, but me and Grant were doing hours worth of coding in the span of 3-4 seconds. After that, we moved into speed trials, starting with trying to hack into a system in under two minutes, then one, the 30 seconds. Two minutes was easy, one minute was kinda hard, and 30 seconds took me and Grant at least ten times to actually get right. Even then, S.E.R.A. had an infinite amount of ways to keep me and Grant on our toes. One exercise was basically the equivalent of being trapped in a Labyrinth of replicating security that isolated and destroyed any virus we put into it. Grant had to stall the system with whatever programs he could, while I created a malware program to take the system down like the Black Death. We came up against a defense system that was so airtight, the only way we got in was by creating a code that automatically inserted every combination of letters and numbers into the password bar (the password was Mountain Dew85). The hardest system to crack by far was the one that actually fought back. As soon as Grant and I connected to its mainframe, the system classified us as a threat, and sent a malware system into our interface. You know how hard it is to code what was basically McAfee X100 in about ten seconds to keep your system from getting devoured by malware that can decimate 100 supercomputers?! It's not fun, like at all! Grant and I managed to get through the system ( I defended, he attacked) via finding the source of the malware, and changing the code to where it saw itself as an enemy, and attacked itself. We spent a grand total of two hours relative to us (30 minutes real time), before we called it quits.

"Damn!" Grant breathed out. "This beats Xbox by a long shot!"

"Tell me about it," I said. "I feel like I played chess with God. Did I win? I'm pretty sure I won."

We laughed about it, and reclined on the couch to watch Steven Universe with Allyson.

"Ya'll had fun?" she asked us.

"If you define hours of meticulous coding and hacking fun," I responded.

"I can think of worse ways to spend my day. Besides, now I don't need to call tech support when my computer acts up."

"I don't work for free."

"Oh, i'm pretty sure we can work out some sorta special arrangement. I can be very persuasive."

"Look," Grant said. "It's cool to see ya'll being all gaga and $#!+, but let's not turn this into a porno, okay?"

There was this deathly silence for a few seconds, followed by a few sniggers, which graduated into full blown heaves of laughter. Good thing too, cuz this coulda went south so easily!

"Ok, ok," Allyson said. "I'll keep it PGish for you, Grant. So, real talk, how do you guys think you're doing?"

"With the hacking?" Grant responded. "Killin' it. We got next level skills to pay the bills! Doom ain't gonna know what hit him!"

"Ehhh," I derailed his hype train.

"Again with the eh?" Allyson said. "Now what? Why can't anything just be simple?"

"Cuz it never is," I said. "Grant's right about our hacking skills. I could hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. right now if I wanted to, but I need to stay in the grey area between Fury's good and bad side. Still, we can't underestimate Doom. Aside from Reed Richards, he's the smartest man alive. He'll undoubtedly have a system at least twice as good as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s The encryptions are probably gonna be airtight in a safe, in the core of the planet. No way we can we just hack the system without some help."

"What kinda help?" Grant asked.

"Something we can boot into the system that'll help ward off the advanced firewalls, and soften the encryptions up for us. In fact….S.E.R.A.?"

"Now i'm starting to get jealous," Allyson joked. "What's she got that I don't?"

"100 terabytes of processing power per second," I said.

"I'll tera your byte!"

I gave her with a "do you even know what that means?" look, before turning my attention to S.E.R.A.

"Record and replicate me and Grant's hacking trials," I said. "Send me a separate file of those, and give me all the info you have on creating A.I. systems."

"At once, Master Jason," she said. "Beginning information transfer."

It took a a few seconds for the download to finish, and after reading another semester's worth of computer science info, I hung my head back, and relaxed. We had a good 30 minutes left before The Garage, and I was so mentally done, I soaked up the current episode of Steven Universe, not saying a word. About 10 minutes till, me and Grant walked Allyson to the training room, and went along our way to room 167 a.k.a. the interdimensional teleporter room. Everyone was already there waiting for us. Mrs. Kennedy, Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Amadeus Cho, Beast, Scott Lang, agents Fitz-Simmons, and Forge. King T'Challa was wearing a dashiki patterned suit that was so many colors, I thought he washed his suit without taking the packs of skittles outta the pockets. Mrs. Kennedy was wearing her standard S.H.I.E.L.D. jumpsuit, and those were all the people I knew (well, I knew of Black Panther, we weren't on a first name basis).

Getting on with all the other guys and gals, Blue Marvel, or Dr. Adam Brashear, was this Black Guy, probably in his mid-fifties, who looked like a buff Bill Cosby with Reed Richards style grey hair. He was wearing a blue polo shirt, long khaki pants, and a white lab coat. Apparently, this guy was stupid powerful on top of genius. Amadeus Cho was this Korean dude who looked like he was in college. He was wearing jeans, a red shirt, green leather jacket, and red converses. He had beats around his neck, and looked like he was silently buzzing with every energy booster under the sun. From what I read, the guy's brain worked same as mine did, but he was born a genius. He looked friendly enough, kinda like the guy I wouldn't mind being paired up with on a school project, maybe even be friends with, assuming he wasn't too annoying. Beast, Dr. Henry McCoy…..well, he was a big blue furry man beast, wearing a three piece silk suit (tailors must've either loved or hated him). He looked like a college professor that wasn't too pretentious, just aware of how smart he was. Hell, he had a copy of Plato in his hand, so make of that what you will. Scott Lang was just this white guy with messy brown hair, who looked like he was in his mid-thirties. He was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and brown boots. He wasn't a genius level guy, but he was a good engineer, and we needed all the hands we could get. His daughter was a Young Avenger called Stature, who could also grow. Agents Fitz-Simmons, were this couple who went to S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy together, were apart of Coulson's special team the dealt with stuff like Hydra, Inhumans, and dark magic sometimes (and I thought my team was on the cutting edge of weird). The guy, Leopold (stupid name, glad he went by Leo) was a Scottish guy with curly blond hair, wearing a plain button up shirt, tucked inside his slacks. His wife, Jemma, was a brown haired English woman, wearing a maroon sweater over a white button up shirt, black skinny jeans, and brown boots. Like Mrs. Kennedy, she wore glasses, and had her hair in a pony tail. Unlike Mrs. Kennedy, she had a friendliness about her that was on par with Allyson. I knew i'd like her the most out of everyone here. She was having a debate with her husband about the potential use of dark matter for interstellar space travel. Finally, Forge, Jonathon Silvercloud, was a Native American dude with black hair, and a thick mustache. He had a cybernetic leg and arm, and was wearing a black muscle shirt under his X-Men leather jacket (which Grant was probably willing to peel off of his corpse). So this was it, a group of some of the smartest people in the world. Even though not everyone was dressed like they were from Harvard, I felt a little underdressed showing up with my workout clothes.

"It's about time you got here," Mrs. Kennedy said.

"We're three minutes early," I responded. "Only you would find something bad to say about that."

"Just get on the platform. Some of us have other things to do."

"I like how you casually forgot that you pulled us outta our lives to go scavenger hunting for you."

"So!" Grant interrupted us. "It's a real honor to be here. King Black Panther, a pleasure to see you again. Blue Marvel, I need an autograph and a couple rounds with you. Amadeus, I hear you and Herc are best friends. I'm a descendant of his, sooooo, I dunno, does that score me a few points?"

"Nah," Amadeus said. "But you seem like cool people. Try not to get in my way. I need space to let my genius thrive."

Huh. Guess i'd be putting this guy on my $#!+ list instead. Anyway, Kennedy activated the teleportation sequence, and after a few seconds to power up, we were transported to The Garage. The place itself looked unremarkable from the outside. Just a mansion sized metal looking bunker. To be fair, we were in an interdimensional space that was moving so fast, the sky (relatively speaking) looked like it was filled to the brim with multicolored stars that vibrated. The Garage had its own oxygen source, otherwise we wouldn't be able to breathe, and was guarded by laser canon drones circling the base. Mrs. Kennedy entered the passcode, did a retinal scan, voice scan, thumbprint scan, and said the right passwords in the correct order to get the drones to stand down, and let us inside. After getting past the absurd amount of security, we shuffled inside, and I got a good look at the base. The inside was the size of an airport! There were a lotta spacecrafts, hi-tech weapons, atomic fusion/fission devices, something that looked like chamber for creating energy spheres, and a whole buncha other stuff I can't even begin to describe. Mrs. Kennedy pressed her tablet a few times, and a giant conference table and chairs literally popped outta the floor for all took our seats, and Mrs. Kennedy started the briefing. It was more of the same stuff i'd heard before. Doom's insane power level, the ship's insane defense system, and how he was hiding out between dimensions. I understood why she had to do it, not everyone was up to speed, but it took everything I had to stay tuned in.

"So that's what we're dealing with here," Mrs. Kennedy finished up. "You'll all been gathered here to help analyze, and discover ways to penetrate Doom's shield and disable his ship. I've done some investigating of my own, and-"

I raised my hand, trying to be polite while interrupting her.

"Yes, Mr. Fuller?" she asked me rather snappily.

"We did some research of our own," I said, gesturing to Grant.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Amadeus asked in the most condescending way possible. "You two are like public high schoolers. What could you possibly have to say that she can't?"

"Amadeus." King T'Challa spoke up. "You are aware of what Mr. Fuller can do, are you not?"

"What does that got to do with anything?"

"The fact that if he ever decides to hurt you, no one here would be fast enough to stop him. Not even you can think that fast. I'd advise you to hear him out, wisdom can come from the unlikeliest of places."

To be honest, I was almost disappointed King T'Challa saved his ass; I would've enjoyed beating him into the floor. In any case, Amadeus shrugged, and allowed me to continue. I pulled up the schematics of the ship, and ran through the findings on the ship's power core, energy shield, and our theory on how everything functioned. It was so satisfying to see Amadeus' smug look melt like ice on a summer pavement; even Mrs. Kennedy gave me a look that might've been something like pride mixed with shock. Everyone just kinda went along with the presentation, taking notes and asking questions (always knew i'd make a good teacher). After I ran through the analytics of what Doom's shield was made of, I pulled up the satellite gun device, explained how it operated, how to build it, and the power sources we would need to make it work. I also pitched the idea to Black Panther about inventing Vibranium nanites to steal the kinetic momentum from Doom's ship.

"Wakanda invented that before you had, cell phones," he responded. "If this is what is needed, I will see to the arrangements."

"Cool," I said. "Thank you, your highness."

I continued on with my presentation, getting some encouraging nods and such, with a few suggestions thrown in here and there.

"Yeah," Leo said. "Not a bad plan. It's a solid concept, but electricity won't give the gun the boost needed to fire even one shot, much less keep the blast up for a long period of time."

"Why not try dark matter?" Jemma sarcastically said to him. "It's got more than enough energy to go around."

"You know damn well dark matter would just cause an energy singularity when mixed with unstable atmospheric energy."

"You're the one who wants to use it for interstellar space travel."

"Yeah, condensed dark matter."

"I can provide the energy," Blue Marvel spoke up. "Judging by the materials it will take just to construct this machine, i'm the only one that has a shot in hell of actually pulling it off. To put it simply, i'm an antimatter reactor. I can channel exotic particles generated by a stable event horizon, caused by the interaction of positive and negative matter universes."

"So you blur the lines between this universe and the Negative Zone," I said. "And that generates your exotic particles. Cool, but how much of it will you have to generate to power the….I dunno, let's call it the Doomslayer."

"What is it with you kids constantly needing to name everything?" Mrs. Kennedy asked me.

"It makes everything cooler," Grant said. "In any case, Mr. Brashear doesn't have to generate a massive truckload of exotic….yeah, i'm not calling it that. Marvel Particles. That's better. Anyway, all he has to do is generate enough of it inside of that molecular energy replicator. That big glass ball thing way over there. The one that could solve the energy problem if we reverse engineer it."

Mrs. Kennedy's eyes looked like they were gonna pop outta her head Looney Toons style!

"How the hell did you figure that out so fast?!" she almost screamed. "Did you steal the catalog?!"

"There's a catalog?" Grant asked.

"There's over 100 different kinds of future and alien technology in here; most of which has the potential to decimate galaxies. Of course there's a catalog."

"Can I read the catalog?" I asked. "I feel it's necessary for me to read the catalog."

"I'll decide what you need to know!" Mrs. Kennedy snapped at me. "This isn't your average workshop, alright? The information about the technology in here has to be of the utmost secrecy. All it takes is one peep, just a single whisper about even one of these devices, and we'll have mercenaries and armies from this world, and God knows how many others, trying to get at them. You two already have way more access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources and intel than most agents can ever dream of getting cleared for. And despite what you think, you don't get to strut about like you own the place, peeping into every cabinet, because you think you deserve it. Now again, Grant, how did you know about that device?"

"Long story short," he said. "Since we're all connected to Gaea, like it or not, I can use the Geo-Force to download any information in my head from anyone alive or dead. I got the smarts of Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and the leading minds on physics, chemistry, engineering, etc., jumbling around in my head."

Everyone in the room looked at Grant like he was the plague. I understood agents Fitz-Simmons and Mrs. Kennedy's worried looks. If Grant could download any intel into his head, imagine all the government secrets he could swipe right from under them. King T'Challa was looking at Grant with special daggers. I knew how sensitive Wakanda was about their privacy, and Grant's mental downloading thing was absolute death to that.

"Ha!" Amadeus spoke up. "I get it now! You're not a genius, you just cheat!"

"That's true," Grant shrugged. "But I worked hard to be able to lift continents, and split atoms. You really wanna test me, Chi?"

"C-cho."

"Who cares?"

"The point being," Mrs. Kennedy said. "I can't just give you free reign to whatever information you want. I understand you wanted to be prepared to hold your own, but you have to consider the implications of what happens if this information gets into the wrong hands."

"It's not like we're gonna sell S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets to the highest bidder," I said. "I'm just here for the same reason we all are: to beat Doom. Hell, all me and my team have been doing is no more or less than what was necessary for the mission. Well….shopping and parties not included. We did stop the Serpent Society tho, so I consider that a wash. Anyway, everything we do is for the sake of completing the mission; alive preferably. I'm gonna need to know how to use the equipment i'm working with here. You wanna keep us on a tight leash? Fine, I'll only use what's needed, and won't go poking around with anything I don't. Sound fair?"

"Very fair. In fact, I daresay that was actually mature and well said. Who are you? What have you done with my pain in the neck student? Are you a Skrull?"

"Ha ha. Now can I get that catalog or not?"

"Depends. I'll put it to a vote. Grant, you don't get a say, but everyone else raise your hands if you agree Jason should have access to this information."

I honestly wasn't sure I was gonna get the majority vote, but I guess i'm not as hateable as I thought. Aside from Jemma and Beast, everyone voted for me. King T'Challa had some words to say to Grant tho.

"To you, Geo-Titan, as I hear you like to call yourself," he started. "I understand you desire to use your abilities for good. Indeed, you seem a very honorable man. However, your ability to acquire information from the living and the dead-"

"Could potentially mean me getting a hold of Wakandan intel," I said. "I know you like to keep it super hush hush regarding your kingdom. I'll make you a promise right now, on the River Styx, cuz that's actually a thing, I swear not to use my mental download ability to gain intel on Wakanda or S.H.I.E.L.D.'s business. We cool?"

King T'Challa nodded, and Mrs. Kennedy reluctantly accepted. She gave me the digital catalog, and after reading through it (did not know there were machines that harnessed supernovas), we all got to work on the redesign of the Doomslayer. First off, if we were gonna use Marvel Particles (it really was a better name than exotic particles), we had to completely redesign the arc reactor, not to mention the power cables and wiring for the gun. Luckily, Xandarian metal, which we had an abundance of, could channel Blue Marvel's energy just fine. The arc reactor redesign was a bit more challenging, but after running a few simulations, we figured out that my idea for the new gauntlet knuckles was actually the perfect fit for the Marvel Particles. By using a tachyonic ring, excess energy would loop infinitely throughout the power source, providing just the right amount of power necessary for the gun, without threatening to overload and blow it up. The way Xandarian power cables and wires were uniquely made, meant that we basically had to redesign the inner workings of the Doomslayer from scrap. Hell, we basically had to redesign the whole gun, which meant reducing the satellite satellite dish to the size of a car hood. To make the heating part of the gun work, we designed a beam that would lay out a subatomic grid meant to excite the atoms around the radius of Doom's ship. Finally, I negotiated with Mrs. Kennedy for custody of the Stone of Poseidon. After the initial no, I softened her up with the "we gotta do this to save the world" speech, and gave her a thank you in advance for the loops she'd have to hop through to get Fury to agree to it (and the whole using the stones to battle Doom), she conceded. After the redesigns and stuff, we split into groups to work on separate parts of the overall whole. Scott, Leo, Beast, and Grant were on constructing the power cables, satellite dish, and wires. Jemma, Amadeus, and T'Challa were on the nanites/constructing the the heat beam part of the gun. Finally, me, Mrs. Kennedy (yippee), and Blue Marvel were on arc reactor, and power gauntlet construction.

The construction of the arc reactor was actually really frustrating. We had to construct it out of Vibranium and Xandarian metal, using this giant vat-like machine that could break down, add, subtract, and reconstruct anything on a molecular level (this was how Mrs. Kennedy constructed our armor and weapons). Apparently, this thing wouldn't be invented until 20 years later, tho the file was lacking any other information. We had to draw out the arc reactor design down to the intricacies like wiring, electromagnetic cables, tachyonic particle layers, a miniature turbine, and the palladium core to stabilize the irradiation of the Marvel Particles. It took us several hours just to get the concept finished. Luckily, the machine did all the work for us.

"What?" Mrs. Kennedy looked at me. "You thought I forged a Vibranium/Adamantium sword that can change its shape? I work smart more than hard. Now let's see those designs for your…."

"Power Gauntlets," I said plainly.

"That's all? What, run out of cheesy names? Matured even more than I thought?"

"Nah. Just Keeping it simple. Sometimes less is more."

"Whatever. Just let me see the designs."

I pulled up the schematics I drew up, and after inspecting them, Mrs. Kennedy entered the data into the Infinity Vat (yes, i'm calling it that). The thing couldn't create more than one thing at a time, and it was gonna be at least ten minutes until the arc reactor was ready, so we worked on refining the gauntlets specific to each member of my team. It was in these moments that I realized just how much our battle suits invaded our privacy. The things had trackers, audio and visual monitors that were fed to Mrs. Kennedy's info banks, as well as diagnostics on our strength, speed, energy output/intake, heart rate, breathing, etc. The suits always updated and sent new data to Mrs. Kennedy every time we demorphed out of our suits. Because Allyson was doing her individual training simulations, Mrs. Kennedy couldn't get a precise read on her, but because her energy and strength levels didn't massively spike between missions like me and Grant, we could use a general middle ground for her. Like I suggested, we went with a Vibranium fiber-like lining inside the gauntlets to reduce the recoil, Reverbium metal and the smaller, easier version of tachyonic rings to cause the whole endless cycle of nuclear fusion and fission. We did some simulations to see what the effect of our respective energies would have on the inner workings of the gauntlets, but ultimately found no problem. We'd have to use Xandarian wiring to be sure the gauntlets could handle the amount of voltage I could shill out, not to mention withstand the heat of Allyson's solar power and Grant's Geo-Force, but everything worked out relatively fine. All that was left to do was enter the designs in, and move on to powering the arc reactor.

For this, Blue Marvel did most of the work. He played around on the holographic menu of the molecular energy replicator, and caused it to do all sorts of Star Trek nonsense. The inside of the chamber shot up some kinda spire, about the size of a mail post, with a connection point at the top specific for the arc reactor. Blue Marvel attached it, and after some more preparations, came back out, shutting the door behind him. He put his hand on some kinda pad, and let a small bit of his Marvel Particles surge into it. The floor inside the dome surged with the same energy, but with a lot more of a bite. Blue Marvel adjusted the power output to a more steady build. Mrs. Kennedy and I kept a close eye on the energy readings, warning him when he was feeding too much or too little into the arc reactor. We were only at risk of antimatter meltdown three times, not to mention one close scare of actually creating a black hole, but we managed to knock it outta the park in half an hour. With the arc reactor done, and the gauntlets on the way, I (under Mrs. Kennedy's supervision) went over to what was basically the most advanced quantum computer in the universe (from like the year 4,000) and got started on creating my very own A.I. Most of it was relatively simple. I entered in the hacking trials me and Grant did, let the computer scan and integrate my brainwaves, and after having the algorithm literally learn everything available on the internet, let it process and form at its own pace (about 5 minutes). I made sure to put safeguards on it, didn't want another Ultron running around, and after naming it Z.O.R.D.O.N. (Zeta Offensive Research and Decryption Operations Network), began to sync it with my battlesuit.

"Zordon?" Mrs. Kennedy asked me. "That's a reference to something stupid, isn't it?"

"Power Rangers," I shrugged. "And that's just your opinion."

"Whatever. By the way…..good job. You and Grant have proven to be exceptionally competent today. Assuming you could actually learn to respect authority, i'd offer to have you stay on full time."

"Don't get soft on my now Mrs. K. You got a reputation to maintain. Ditto for me."

She chuckled a little, causing me to do the same. It was weird. We immediately stopped. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate her, but at best we would have a weird limbo relationship between like and despise. Anyway, I finished the A.I., synced up me and Grant's Power Gauntlets to our suits (Allyson needed to power down before her's updated), and then split off from Mrs. Kennedy and Blue Marvel to help where I was needed.

At this point, we were working for about five hours now. The arc reactor was finished, Mrs. Kennedy was entering the schematics for the Vibranium satellite dish Scott drew up for her, and the heat beam was just getting off the ground. At the same time, the overall frame of the gun was being made, while Hank, Scott, Leo, and Grant were getting tools, wires, and power cables ready to work on the circuit and such of the Doomslayer. Because we had nothing else to do, I joined them, while Blue Marvel went over to help with the heat beam construction. While we worked, we talked about science stuff; specifically inventions we were all thinking about. Leo harped again about using condensed dark matter and tachyons to enable interstellar space travel. While his ideas were impressive, unless he reverse engineered Shi'ar and Skrull tech, then merged that with Wakandan tech (they haven't even figured it out yet), it would take earth another half century to even get to the prototype phase. Grant was thinking about finding a way to summon and harness Nature Force energy to speed up farming. While the monetary aspect was undeniable, Grant mainly wanted to use the potential tech to help with ending world hunger. The guy's heart was bleeding all over my shoes. We also talked about sports (even nerds like that stuff), video games, movies, and our favorite hero adventures. While it's hard to choose a favorite outta the many times you're faced with death, I had to say Atlantis was by far the best one. Good fights, good food, some cool souvenirs, and new powers. It didn't get any better than that. Hell, Hank was so impressed with us (especially managing to deal with Namor), he offered us a place at the X-Men summer camp. All ages, another planet, good food, exotic nature, and mutant capture the flag. It was a good sales pitch. We at least decided to think it over. Anyway, we worked hard on connecting cables and wires, building a power center, and after the outer layer of the gun was ready, connected it all inside the giant metal shell.

We kept the top open while we waited for the heat beam to finish construction, but it would be hours before we finished getting all the inner work of the weapon done anyway. Yeah, we all worked for 11 hours straight. Because of The Garage's unique position in space-time, our bodies didn't age, tire, or hunger. Good thing, this place didn't look like it had a vending machine nearby. As I was working on integrating the now finished heat beam into the gun, I couldn't help but notice King T'Challa's unnerving looks at me. I never looked directly at him (Thunder Sense, so helpful), but I sensed him taking a few glances at my neck. It took me a few seconds to get it, but I eventually realized he was staring daggers at my necklace. My souvenir from Atlantis. I knew the guy had major beef with Namor (for more than good reasons), but i'll be damned if I gotta take heat for it.

"Is there a problem, your highness?" I asked him.

I did my best to keep it as non-threatening as possible, but it's hard not to be a little brash when you suddenly, and without looking at them, call someone out.

"Your necklace," King T'Challa said calmly. "The trident in particular. How did you acquire it?"

"I earned it," I said. "Big battle royale till the last man standing. That was me."

"And you understand what that necklace means? What that title means?"

"I do."

He paused for a moment, clearly not wanting to offend me (jeez, wasn't like I was gonna swing on him).

"Like your friend," he continued. "I believe you to be an honorable warrior. You earned my respect in the battle for the Stone of Hades, especially when you defeated that monstrosity by yourself. You did the right thing by helping Atlantis. You chose to go out of your way to defend a nation you owed no allegiance to. Namor would not do the same."

"Uhhh," I responded. "Aren't you and your's super stingy with your resources? Who are you to talk about altruism for foreigners?"

"Mind your tongue!" Mrs. Kennedy spoke up. "You're talking to a king!"

"It is fine, Morgan," T'Challa calmed her. "Let the young thunderer speak his mind. You are right, Jason, Wakanda does not share its resources with the world. Look around you. Here we are, surrounded by the most advanced technology in the universe. Devices that, as your friend said, can solve energy problems, transfuse matter, and give us the means to explore the stars. Yet here we are, using it to prepare for an upcoming battle. Not the first, not the last, but until the mindset of civilization has evolved, do you think they are ready for what Wakanda has to offer them? Without extorting their fellow man? Without waging war on each other?"

"Ok, fair enough," I said. "But what's this got to do with Namor?"

"Are you kidding? You are aware of the times he's attacked the surface?"

"On more than one occasion, not to mention flooding your city. Believe me, I know who i'm dealing with."

"You clearly do not if you would still trust him."

"That's where you're wrong, Panther. You know anything about Atlantis' joining ritual?"

"I do. I take it you have completed this ritual with Namor?"

"I have. Look, I get it, the guy's a total dick. After the team and I saved his city, he held us at knifepoint for the Stone of Poseidon. I had to fight him tooth n' nail just to get him to listen to half a sentence. Still, he wasn't always like this. He was shaped by years of betrayal and pain. No excuse for his actions, but after our whole save the world thing, I can tell you that he's close to…..well, not a change of heart, but maturity at the very least. I literally know the guy better than my mother. So believe me when I say that he has a different plan going forward for his people."

"And what is this new direction our friend has in store for Atlantis?"

"Can't say. Gave him my word i'd be on hush mode about it. You understand, right?"

"Actually, Jason," Mrs. Kennedy spoke up. "You're under obligation to brief us on anything and everything of value you came across on missions."

"What Atlantis is doing isn't of value. Just healing and repairing their borders after the battle."

"Why do I not believe you?"

"Why do you think I care?"

"And on that note," Grant said. "The wiring for the heat beam is done! Who wants to program the control panel? Can it be me? Please pick me!"

Everyone (except me, Mrs. Kennedy, and T'Challa) laughed. I didn't realize until just then how the room was holding its breath. Me and T'Challa glanced at each other, and I knew right then we'd never be friends. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate him, and I certainly wasn't super close with Namor, but Namor at least gave me a chance. We fought, ate, and drank together. I wasn't gonna sell him out, even if he did need an ass kickin' every now and again to set him straight. Anyway, Grant, Mrs. Kennedy, T'Challa, and Scott programmed the control console, while Blue Marvel, Beast, Leo, and I programmed the trial run. We used these energy replicator nanites, and programmed them to make barriers similar to what Doom was packing. The magic, electromagnetism, kinetic absorbers, everything, and willed the nanites to form the barrier outside of The Garage. It took us a good 2 hours to get everything situated, which was more than enough time for me to finish up some loose ends. I morphed into my battle suit (and struck a bolt of lighting a foot away from Amadeus when he laughed at me), and got acquainted to Z.O.R.D.O.N.

"Hello, Master Jason," he said. "How are you doing this evening."

"Fine, Z.O.R.D.O.N.," I responded. "By the way, call me Storm-Lord when i'm in the suit."

"As you wish, Storm-Lord. What do you require of me?"

"Just a few basic tests, and training runs. In case you don't know, I created you to help me takedown a bad guy with a big ship."

"Sounds inviting. When do we start?"

"Right now, Z. Let's shift into turbo."

I practiced some hacking trials with Z.O.R.D.O.N. based on both me and Grant's trials, and some other ones he and S.E.R.A. created together. Yeah, apparently when I used S.E.R.A.'s operating software as a basis for Z.O.R.D.O.N., it almost linked the two together. Everything S.E.R.A. was capable of doing, so was he. Hell, because I was turning him into a digital weapon, I would say he was the superior version. Anyway, we ran through a good 10 hacking trials, and I gotta say, Z.O.R.D.O.N. was a fast learner. As we worked, he analyzed what I was best at, what I usually did first, and would automatically react in a way that complimented my approach, or give me tips on different ways of attacking a system. He was also a beast at creating viruses and malware (like in 1.3 seconds). We switched offensive and defensive positions, and after a while, even came up with our own virus, which Z.O.R.D.O.N. named the Putty Patrol virus. Basically, depending on what type of system we tried to hack, the virus would corrupt and change any defenses we got through, basically creating a malware army as we went along. The defending system couldn't change fast enough to adapt to its corrupted and reversed programming, so it fell pretty fast. We also created the Scatter Bomb virus, a Trojan virus that was programmed to get as far into the system as it could, before detonating an advanced malware, eating the system inside out, and the Hydra Virus (an original version), that doubled and adapted to the system, every time it met resistance. Z.O.R.D.O.N. was also kinda fun to talk to. He asked me what my favorite things were, about my powers, some stuff about my personal life, and even tested me on Power Rangers trivia.

"It's cool how you named me after a Power Rangers character," he laughed (didn't know A.I.s could laugh).

"Glad you like it," I said back. "And dude, how'd you learn to talk like that."

"I analyzed the way you talk, ran an algorithm to find as much info as I could to replicate it, and here we are. Studies show partners with similar lingo work better together, and trust each other 36% more."

"Why do you wanna earn my trust so bad? You're a computer program."

"True, but I read everything S.H.I.E.L.D. has on you. I'm sorry you lost your folks at such a young age, but I know they'd be proud of what you've done. Maybe you could work on the attitude, but you straight everywhere else."

"Uhhhh, thanks, Z. And for what its worth, glad to have you on board."

I shut him off, kinda feelin' some sorta way, and busted out my newly developed power gauntlets. I threw a few jabs to test out the weight, which surprisingly wasn't much. I couldn't test them out on anything punching bag related right now, but I sure as hell would get to that as soon as I could. Anyway, after everything was set up, Mrs. Kennedy had a gift for me. It was in a canister, blue, and was practically shouting for me.

"Director Fury agreed to lending you this after the 5th attempt," she said. "You'll have to talk to him personally about that other proposition, he wasn't so receptive to that, but this is the best I could do right now."

I reached for the canister, but she yanked it back (like she could really keep it from me if I wanted it).

"What do you say?"

"Thanks for getting the stone for me," I said.

"You're welcome."

"Can you get me some Fruit Roll-Ups while you're at?"

"I wish I could hope Doom kills you."

She handed me the stone, and after letting it out, it immediately jumped into my chest! The power…..DUDE THE POWER! I didn't know how much I missed it, how good it felt to be a god again! Hell, the stone was basically throwing a party in my chest! The thing actually missed me!

"Missed you too, buddy!" I thought back to it. "I need to make some magic. You got me?"

The stone fed me this spell: |./.(.|..|._-._-_.|.\-|-)-|.-|-_..(.\/|. ] | [-._-._/.'\ /.-|. ] | ['| |.(..-._)./|-|.,/].[.-||._-._.-|./|-._'.,/.'-_.|]'..(.\ /.|./. ] | [-._|.\.(.\ /.-_).(.\/|./|'/ |-| /-._./|'/ | Noble spirits of the sea, with your might, let me cast down the power of my enemy. Oh yeah, it was good to be back! I measured the power of the magic shield, willed enough energy for two blasts to fuel the spell, and engraved it around the rim of the Vibranium dish. And with that, the Doomslayer was finished. It looked like a mini jet turbine with a satellite dish at the head, but aesthetics wasn't the main focus. Me and Grant carried the thing outside (it had to have weighed at least 2 tons, but it felt like a pillow!), set it up, and fired away! We let the Sea Force charged magic blast, doubled by the Vibranium, go first. It ripped through the magic shield like nothing! T'Challa released the Vibranium nanites at the same time the heat beam fired, and after a bit of fireworks, the kinetic and electromagnetic shields were down! It was almost like a dream; nothing ever worked out this easy on the first time! Everyone else must've shared the same thought, cuz it took Grant's over the top celebrating to snap us outta the shock.

"YEAH!" he shouted. "WOOOOOO! OH YEAH! WE ROCK! DOOM IS SO TOTALLY SCREWED! COME ON GUYS, WE DID IT! CELEBRATE!"

He dapped me up, gave Cho a fist bump, and in no time, we were all shaking hands, giving high fives, and clapping for our success. We had much longer to go, but for now, I was really startin' to think we could actually pull this off. The last thing we had to do was set up a teleportation link from The Garage to the Helicarrier. Cho did that real quick, and after saying our thanks and goodbyes, not to mention Mrs. Kennedy hawking me down to get the stone back, me and Grant left The Garage, and went straight to dinner. Allyson joined us about 30 minutes later, and boy did she look like she went through the wringer! Her armor looked like it got sandblasted, her face had ash all over it, and her hair was caked with asphalt.

"Hey," I waved to her as she went to get some food.

"Hi," she halfheartedly waved back.

Grant tried to hold in a laugh, but failed spectacularly. Hell, even I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

"You think she had a good workout?" he asked me.

"Good may be subjective," I said. "But I guess we'll never know till' we ask her."

"Let's at least give her a little bit to cool off. She deserves some time to collect herself."

"Fair enough."

Allyson came back with a full tray of burgers, fries, and a chocolate milkshake. She didn't say anything, she didn't power down her suit, she just ate in silence with a look of calm anger plastered on her face. It was unnerving to see her not smiling for so long.

"So," I extended an olive branch. "How'd your training go?"

I was expecting her to snap at me, but she was way too burnt out to try. Her face got angrier, then a bit sad, then just kinda gave up. She sighed, collected herself, and put on a face that didn't look like she wanted to drown in a tub of ice cream.

"Honestly," she sighed. "It was everything I asked for, just a little more than I chew. S.E.R.A. started me off easy. Just a few one-on-one fights on the ground, in the air, in the air without constructs, with weapons, and a few regular hand-to-hand fights."

"How'd you do with that?" Grant asked.

"Please," Allyson smirked. "It was so easy, I was almost insulted."

"That's my girl! Well, not MY girl. I mean….uh, please continue."

That one earned a good chuckle outta all of us.

"So," Allyson continued. "Next, S.E.R.A. took everything I did, and turned it into three on one. You know how hard it is to fight three flying laser blasting, fire breathing, lighting shooting robots on the ground, without constructs?"

"I'd just break them apart with lighting," I said.

"And i'd crumple them like soda cans." Grant said.

"Hey, remember how this conversation was about me?" Allyson asked. "Let's get back to that. And for the record, I did blow them apart from the inside out with fire…..eventually. I gotta learn to think better under pressure. Also fighting three on one Kung-Fu style is hard, but not as hard as fighting you, Grant. Thanks again for the training."

"No sweat, Sunbird," he said. "That's what friends are for. So why do you look like you lost your favorite shirt? From what i'm hearing, you're off to a pretty good start."

"Yeah. The fighting wasn't half bad, but fighting AND trying to save people? Man is that a whole different ballgame! Well, the first one wasn't fighting, just saving people from burning buildings, then putting those buildings out."

"Should be easy for the girl who's powers come from the sun," I said.

"Oh believe me, I wanted to cuss S.E.R.A. out when she set that challenge up, but I did tell her to make it hard for me. Besides, it was actually pretty easy when I really thought about it. I put out the fires by putting a giant lid construct over them, cutting off their oxygen."

"Smart." Grant said. "Hell, I wouldn't know what to do. G-Force isn't exactly a substitute for water."

"Dude," I said. "Just run around the building as fast as you can. Make a vortex that cuts off the oxygen flow."

"Oh. For real? Huh. Well, ya learn something new everyday. So, moving on with you being badass, Sunbird?"

"First," she laughed. "Thank you. Second, here's where things really did get hard. The next challenge was trying to keep the Golden Gate Bridge from collapsing, while trying to keep the civilians safe. The roads were cracking apart, bridge cables were snapping apart, and I had to face off against an army of opponents with super speed, energy projection, super strength, rocket launchers, and pretty much everything under the sun. I failed the first several times. I was trying to do too many things at once. Sure i'm fast, faster than you two for sure, but against respawning enemies, there was only so much I could do. So yeah, after failing like a million times, I finally got wise. I figured out I kinda have this extra sight I can use. Basically, if I focus on the light in the atmosphere, I can sense anything surrounding me."

Me and Grant nodded.

"Just like me," I said. "My static aura is so big, I can use it to sense anything around me. Same thing when i'm in the water, and even with the air, tho I gotta practice with that last one."

"Yeah," Grant said. "And I got that earth seismic sense on lock. Anything on the ground? I can feel it coming a mile away. Plus super hearing and sight, so…."

"Can you divas let a girl have one thing to herself?"

"You can go Super Saiyan, or something," I joked with her.

"Super Sunbird, genius. You can remember quantum physics, I know you can remember names?"

"It's called a joke bab-uh, Ally...son,"

A brief pause ensued, followed by a roaring laughter so hard, we had to apologize to all the other agents in the cafeteria. I kept my head low, and prayed this would blow over. I felt Allyson take my hand.

"Babe, is fine," she said. "Sweetie, sweetheart, pumpkin, and buttercup will work too, but work on the pet names. Ok, Bolt Boy?"

"Yeah," I smiled at her. "Sure thing, Fire Heart."

"Thanks. So, back to the bridge rescue thing. I used my Sun Sense to map out the area, then put myself in a bunker construct, surrounded by a dozen Gatling Guns. I created giant angel constructs to lift the falling cables, and support the crumbling bridge support. For the falling cars and people, I shot out eagle constructs to catch and fly them to shore."

"You seem to have a thing for birds and winged creatures." Grant joked.

"You got your gimmicks, I have mine. So yeah, that challenge wasn't easy, dang near brought me to tears, but I learned a lot about multitasking."

"Again," I said. "Really failing to see the downside. Sure, you failed a lot, but you learned from them, and you're all the better for it."

"Guess you're right," she eventually sighed. "It's just….you guys would've been so much better at this. I guarantee it wouldn't have take you half the century to finish just one lousy training mission."

"Yeah, cuz i've never failed to save people from danger."

I tried to be light about it, but there really is no way to make light of the death of two kids and their parents.

"Omigod, Jason," Allyson shook her head. "I'm so stupid. I shouldn't have-"

"Don't sweat it, Ally. Look, I get that you wanna be the best that you can, but there's no shame in trial and error. You tried and tried again until you finally got it. Sure, maybe I could get it done, God knows Grant can, but we're a team. We're strong alone, but stronger together. Never forget that."

"Well, look who's getting better with the motivational speeches. Keep sweet talkin' me like that, well….we might have to go back to my room instead of Grant's."

"Don't let the door hit ya on the way out," he said. "So, that wrap up your training regimen, Sunbird?"

"Just a few more minor stuff," she shrugged.

She quickly went over the rest of her training routine. There was saving 800 passengers falling from 3,000 ft from a shredded plane, while fighting off laser blasting robots. She beat that one first try, by honing in on the robots, and quickly blowing them apart. As she did that (they kept respawning), she cast a really wide net construct, and caught all the civilians. She was really proud of that one. After that, she stopped a runaway bus, then a runaway train, then faced the Sinister Six (Spider-Man's usual punching bags) in New York, while trying to keep the civilians outta danger. Again, she soared through it. She cleared the civilians of the battle in 3 seconds, went Super Sunbird, and trashed the villains in the blink of an eye.

Her next challenge that took (in her words) a century and a half for her to finish, was trying to fight off a horde of ninjas, and free their prisoners that were trapped in a warehouse. Only she was restricted to martial arts and weapons to do it. She got a spear through her gut in 45 seconds flat. Part of her problem was learning how to adapt to fighting multiple opponents at once. Facing that many guys alone, especially in small spaces, was difficult for her. Eventually (after getting killed over a dozen times) she adapted to the circumstances. She stopped trying to attack with her swords, and started using her opponent's momentum against them. When an opponent swung a sword at her, she'd dodge, break their wrist, and stab them with their own weapons. She'd use bodies for cover against knife throwers and arrow shooters, while using her own throwing knives to take out opponents from a distance. When fighting up close, she, in her words, "started fighting meaner". She used her environment to her advantage, smashing her opponents heads against walls, into glass, even through doors. She forced herself to start breaking limbs more often, and dislocating knees, elbows, ankles, and shoulders. Fighting to finish, rather than to win a training point. She ended up crying for a few minutes after that. S.E.R.A. counseled her through her dilemma (she has PhD psychology files in her database). I'll admit, I felt a little bad about her having to go through that, but as someone who's been in more street fights than he has fingers, I know that life and death fights require a lot more ferocity than what you learn in a dojo. Either way, she had to learn that lesson sometime.

Finally, for Allyson's last combat mission, she had to stop The Brotherhood from tearing up a populated airport. She couldn't move the civilians, but her first step was getting The Brotherhood out of the terminal. She blasted Juggernaut into the air, constructed a rocket around him, and launched him into space. She quickly knocked out Toad, Avalanche, Mystique, and Pyro, but had a helluva time taking down Magneto. The main part of her problem was that The Brotherhood members were scattered throughout the terminal. Avalanche was at the base of an escalator, Toad was crawling on a wall. Pyro was in the food court, and the only way Allyson found Mystique was using her Sun Sense, and waiting till Mystique pulled a gun on a civilian. Magneto on the other hand, he liked to go big. He was already on the airfield, and was throwing a plane at the terminal. Allyson made sure to check that the plane was empty, before blowing it to hell. After that, she went Super Sunbird, and wailed on the old man till he checked out.

Finally, to wash down all the violence, S.E.R.A. had Allyson flying all around the world as fast as she could, trying to stop various meteor showers from hitting major cities. Again, Allyson had a knack for the whole rescue thing, cuz she didn't let a single space rock hit the ground (tho she throw a few of them in the ocean).

"So yeah," she finished. "That was my little slice of training. Sounds a lot less negative when I say it out loud; guess that's my perfectionist attitude keeping me down. What about you guys? How'd the satellite gun building go? Was everyone cool? Did you threaten anyone, Jason? How many autographs did you get, Grant?"

"Whoa," I stopped her. "Ironic coming from me, but slow down. First, the gun building went great; it's already finished.

"Tho it's the Doomslayer now," Grant chimed in. "Satellite gun was just a working title. And no, Ally, I did not get any autographs. I'm saving that for when we get all the heroes in one place for the whole training to raid Doom's ship."

"Of course you are," she laughed at him.

"Also, no, Allyson," I continued. "I didn't threaten anyone. Well…..Black Panther and me….we won't be friends….like ever.

"What did you do?"

"Why do you always assume I started it?"

"Usually you always do. But, I can feel your defensiveness like a thunder storm. So let me rephrase. What happened between you and Black Panther?"

"He came at me for my necklace, for being kinda sorta cool with Namor. I understand why, I mean Namor did mess with the dude's home turf, but I don't like being talked down to."

"Kay."

"Wait, seriously? We're cool? Just like that?"

"Yeah. You didn't lose your cool, and it coulda been a heck of a lot worse. So…..meh."

"Oh, ok. So…...we made those Power Gauntlets. You gotta power down so your suit can update to the changes. Also, are we gonna name those too?"

"What for?" Grant asked. "Power Gauntlets already got a nice ring to it. Subtle, yet attention grabbing."

"I agree." Allyson said. "Power Gauntlets it is."

"Hey, hey, hey," I said. "I'm team leader, I decide what it is."

I pretended to think on it for a good few seconds (I really didn't care), trying not to break character.

"Power Gauntlets it is," I finally said. "Also one more thing. I created an A.I."

I pulled up Z.O.R.D.O.N.

"Oh hey, Storm-Lord," he said. "What's up? We raiding Doom's ship already?"

"Nah, man," I said. "Just want you to meet the team. Team, meet Z.O.R.D.O.N., Z.O.R.D.O.N., meet the team."

"Sup, boy and girl," Z.O.R.D.O.N. said.

"What's happening?" Grant responded.

"Wait a minute," Allyson put her hand up. "Zordon? Really?"

"Well," I started. "It stands for-"

"No, no, no, no, no, it doesn't matter what it stands for. You coulda named him strawberry cream pie, and make an acronym outta that. But you chose Zordon. Jason…..you have gotta be the biggest geek on the planet."

"That's objectively false. I hate Star Wars and Star Trek, and you gotta love one or both of those to even apply for full geekship."

We all got a good laugh outta that one, and I put Z.O.R.D.O.N. away. Me and Allyson finally demorphed outta our suits, and we ate for a few more minutes, before heading back to Grant's room to chill for the remaining half hour we had before meeting with General Ross. We watched that Spongebob Christmas special where Sandy tells everyone about Santa. Me and Grant sang along to that whole "this Christmas feels like THE VERY FIRST CHRISTMAS TO ME!". That last part was Mr. Krabs, who always had me dying. Allyson actually snorted at our duet, while dying from silent laughter. Grant actually recorded her while she was balled up on the couch.

"That," she managed to breathe out. "Was….the most….dreadfully awesome thing i've ever heard!"

"Glad I could entertain you," Grant said. "Cuz you are gonna light up my Snap for the next few days."

"Send that to me! I gotta post that on mine's too!"

"For sure, i'll add you. What's your username?"

"Ally_fun/sun12."

"Figures. I'm Football Avenger87. Sending you a friend request now."

I stayed as far away from this as possible. I had no place in a Snapchat conversation.

"Ok, sent you the snap." Grant said. "By the way, what do you guys think of Earthshaker? Ima name my axe that."

"That's more of a Poseidon thing," I said. "He was called the Earthshaker."

"For real?" Grant went all wide eyed.

His face went all shocked, and I could only guess Gaea was chewing him out for not being knowledgeable about his godly family.

"Ok, Earth Queen!" Grant said. "Damn. I didn't read Greek Mythology, so what?"

He doubled over, clutching his head.

"And now I know all the mythologies. Literally all of them. She even uploaded six different translations of the Bible into my skull."

"What my mom wouldn't do to get the same thing for me," I laughed at him. "And if it means that much to ya, Earth Shaker's a badass name for an axe. But i'm totally renaming my sword/spear. From this day forth, it'll be known as Excelsior."

"The hell does that mean? And you already named your gear. We didn't establish a rename clause."

"It was in the fine print. Like i'm gonna have Storm Sword, while you have Earthshaker. And Excelsior means "ever upwards". Plus it's New York's official motto. Besides, Excelsior: The Storm Sword-"

"Sounds like the name of a CGI overloaded, mindless action movie." Allyson finished. "One that I would gladly see!"

Me and Grant nodded in approval.

"And what about you, Allyson?" Grant asked. "You wanna jump in on this name reset?"

"Sure." she shrugged. "Why not? Uhhhh…..lemme see…..ummmmmm…...Corona! There we go! Corona!"

"Hey, Grant?" I asked. "What's a Corona?"

I had the smuggest grin smeared across my face. Grant tried to stay strong. But he didn't know. I knew he didn't know. And he knew that I knew he didn't know.

"It's," he started. "Something related to the sun. And as soon as you tell me what it is, i'll know."

"It's the outer layer of plasma surrounding the sun and other stars," Allyson said. "Like, if you look up a solar eclipse? The white ring around it? That's the sun's corona."

"Oh," Grant said. "Cool. I'm learning everything today. Oh, guys, we got that meeting in like 10 minutes."

"Oh boy," I said. "Me in a small room, debating war tactics with a guy that turns big and red when he gets mad. This is gonna be just dandy."

"Indeed it will," Allyson said, giving me a hug from behind. "Never fear, Allyson's here."

She turned me around, and gave me a quick kiss.

"Promise to behave," she said while pulling away. "And there'll be plenty more where that came from."

"Got it," I nodded. "Well then, let's not be late."

We made our way to the briefing room, where General Ross was already waiting for us. He was already sitting in the head chair on the opposing side of the Holotable, dressed in an Air Force dress blue uniform. He was a white guy, probably in his mid-sixties, with all grey hair and a mustache so thick, he could use it as a wallet. The guy had so many ribbons and medals of honor, he was guaranteed at least one freebie if someone shot him where they were. He had a stone cold "i'm not in the mood for your $#!+" look plastered on his face, and I already knew we were gonna hate each other. Don't get me wrong, I was gonna do my best to be polite (Allyson gave me a very compelling reason to do so), but this guy's face alone made me long for Fury's scowl. Still, maybe I was wrong. He couldn't be as bad as Namor (that's a low bar), so that automatically put him a few points in the green. I reached a hand out as he stood up.

"Evening, General Ross," I started. "It's an honor to meet you."

"You don't really mean that," he said, shaking my hand. "You don't wanna be here anymore than I do."

"Well, if we're being honest."

"And we are. See, I don't believe in beating around the bush, like some smarmy up and coming politician. I hit hard, fast, and true. Besides, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can get back to a bottle of Scotch. So let's see….."

He pulled out a folder and started going through our stats.

"Jason Fuller," he started. "Lightning, wind, and water manipulation. Enhanced speed, flight, not too bad with a sword, and not half bad with strategy. Allyson Grace. Solar absorption and manipulation. Flight, a background in martial arts, and you can heal the injured with singing. Do me a favor. If i'm in critical condition, and the only thing you can think of singing is that crappy excuse they call music these days, let me die. And finally, Grant Jackson. Enhanced strength, flight, energy manipulation, control over the earth, matter manipulation, and you gotta mean spiral. Fury warned me about you and your…..interest in superheroes. Bah, let's just get it outta the way. Gimme the damn book, i'll sign it."

"R-really?!" Grant stammered out, pulling the book outta thin air. "Thanks a lot, I really am a huge fan!"

"Who do you like more, me or Banner?"

"Banner. No disrespect, but ya know."

"No, I don't. Banner's not a hero, he's a menace and a threat to the very planet. Still, i've seen what you did to Magneto, so i'm not gonna fight with you over it."

Grant's face did look something along the lines of "ima kill this sonuvabitch", but he wasn't the kinda guy to get mad over petty $#!+, so it was all good. After signing Grant's book, General Ross took a seat, and we followed suit.

"So," he said. "Doom's ship. Fury told me you have the schematics, knows how it runs, and how to stop it."

I pulled up Z.O.R.D.O.N., and had him transfer the schematics to the Holotable. For a good 15 minutes, me and the team explained the ins and outs of Doom's ship that we discovered. We pulled up the Doomslayer and explained the affects it would have on Doom's shield, as well as our plan to get a small group of fast moving people in the ship and take it down from the inside.

"The thing is," I finished up. "No way we get the drop on Doom. We don't know where he is, or when he'll strike, so we gotta be ready to move on the drop of a dime."

"You have a counter plan? General Ross asked me. "Because if Doom already has the advantage of surprise, then we're ten inches deep in screwed already."

"Not necessarily," I said. "Using the magic from the Stone of Poseidon, I can teleport the ship as far away as we need. Doom's most likely banking on dropping in hard and fast guns blazing. We get outta range, he has to send his foot troops out."

"Not a bad start. But i've seen what he can do with those stones. You think you can take him?"

"We haven't lost yet," Allyson said. "Besides, you haven't seen what my friends can do with the stones we have. If we can get Fury to play ball, we'll be on more or less equal footing."

"How disgustingly optimistic," Ross chuckled. "But let's talk brass tacks. Assuming we break the shield and get in, someone's gotta play defense while dreadlocks and pretty boy tour Doom's ship."

"We more or less got that covered," Grant said. "Fury already sent out a mass invite to every available hero to this little house party. We got a general idea of where to put them, but seeing as you've had actual contact with most of these guys, not just reading about them on fan pages, we figure you might help us out with setting up the defensive line."

"What he said," I chimed in. "Here, i'll put up a list of everyone we got on standby."

Ross looked at the list for half a minute, which was more than enough time for me to think laps around whatever he was gonna put up. No offense (hell, I was wrong about hating him), but speedster brains are way better at this. Plus with all that studying of probability, and the quick reads I did on all the heroes we were getting, I had plans A, B, C, and a full retreat plan ready to go. I thought hard about who would be good help for me and Grant while we were inside Doom's ship, about the multi-level defenses we would need to have around the stones, and what pairings and teams would most likely work better together based off of powers, skills, and previous experience together. Still, I at least heard Ross out. Hell, his initial plan wasn't all that bad. Essentially, he had the non-fliers on the deck of the Helicarrier to take what made it past the initial defense he set up in the air. He had Ms. Marvel, Blue Marvel, Sunbird, and Pepper acting as the first wave of defense against Doom's onslaught. Right behind them was Storm, Rogue, and Doctor Voodoo, who would shoot down as many of the combatants as they could that made it through the first wave. Angel, Falcon and War Machine were the last wave of air defense guarding the Helicarrier, but even if the bad guys made it past them, the set up on the Helicarrier's deck would make them long for dodging bullets and energy blasts again. Along with himself, Ross put Spider-Man, Colossus, Beast, She-Hulk, A-Bomb, Iceman, Cloak, Dagger, and Cable on deck defense. With all that muscle, nothin was getting in through the front door. Still, there was a big chance more than a few brave souls would try the direct approach, and fly through the sides of the Helicarrier. Ross had that covered. Across all three floors leading to the vault where Fury kept the stones, Wolverine, Daredevil, Quicksilver, Northstar, Tigra, Ant-Man, Punisher, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Squirrel Girl were deployed.

Like I said, I had to give it to him. He put the major power houses on the front lines to soften the attack, and a pretty stacked defense for anything that actually managed to make it through the first two waves. Hell, if me and Grant didn't have our own mission, we might've been up in the air with Allyson. Still, I just needed to make a few changes here and there.

"Good set up," I said to Ross. "I just need to tweak it a little."

"You need to whistle at it?" Ross chuckled at me (can't tell if he was joking or not). "Sure, kid, what do you think needs to be whistled around?"

"Just need to take a few members from the Helicarrier defense for me and Grant's little infiltration. Hacking Doom's mainframe is gonna take everything we've got. We're gonna need a team to watch our backs while we get the job done."

"Who do you need?"

"Quicksilver and Northstar for starters. Their speed will be of more use in one room than a big crowded hallway. Also you didn't put Nightcrawler anywhere. We could use a quick getaway if we need it, plus his fighting skills and previous interactions with Quicksilver and Northstar will make for a good team. Finally, we'll need you."

"Me?"

"Yes sir. Red Hulk Smash, and all that good stuff. Like I said, me and Grant will be on tech duty. We'll need some real muscle to watch our backs."

"You're not just trying to sweet talk me, are ya?"

"I'd never insult you like that. Just figured you might wanna get to the real fight. Doom's bound to have a ton of magically supercharged goons guarding the ship. Ok...now that I think of it, we may need some power suits for this mission."

Ross laughed at me.

"Alright, alright," he said. "Butter me up anymore, i'll have a damn heart attack. You get your task force."

"Thanks," I said. "Now let's talk simulations and strategy."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Everything."

For the next hour and a half, we drew up battle plans for every possible scenario we might be faced with. We planned optimistically first, pretending the first three waves of defense would be enough to keep Doom's forces out. We planned scenarios where every inch of our defenses was being slowly overrun, fighting to a standstill, or just barely holding Doom's forces off. We planned for a potential blindside attack, where Doom summoned more troops than we thought he had, and we came up with a last ditch effort to get the stones away from the Helicarrier in the event that we couldn't hold the fort. We worked with S.E.R.A. to set up the simulations, and got the memos to everyone involved to meet up in the training room at 8 P.M. the next night. Again, I was super surprised by how much I actually liked General Ross. He had a kinda warmhearted yet stern grandpa sense to him. Hell, I never knew any of my grandparents, so this was comforting to me in ways I never even knew I was missing. I didn't get misty eyed over it, but it was a nice thought. Anyway, we wrapped up the meeting five minutes ahead of schedule, and headed back to Grant's room. That was the plan at least. Allyson hit for the second floor on the way up.

"You goin' to take a shower?" Grant asked her. "Kinda pointless don't ya think? I mean, we got power practice in an hour."

"And we'll be there," Allyson said. "Right on time. But I promised Jason he'd get a reward for good behavior, and I believe in being swift on my promises."

Grant cheesed as the elevator stopped on our floor.

"Damn," he said. "I'm already feelin' like a third wheel!. Ya'll have fun, but I don't wanna hear any "we lost track of time" bull$#!+ if you're late."

"We'll be right on time!" Allyson said, pulling me outta the elevator. "But not a second earlier!"

We walked to her room, and not a second after she closed the door, she was already all over me. Yeah, I learned the hard way that Allyson did not waste any time with easing into this part of the relationship. A bit nerve racking at first, but i'll be damned if I wasn't a fast learner! I picked up the pace with my kissing (easily outmaneuvering her with my tongue), picked her up, and pinned her against the wall. Immediately, I turned my attention to her neck and collarbone, while tracing some static across her right thigh.

"AHHHHH" she cried out. "No fair! You...oh my...omigod you're such a cheater!"

"This ain't kick ball," I said, taking her mouth. "But if you can't take it, we can slow down."

"Don't...uhhh...don't patronize me Bolt Boy! When I-"

I cut her off with a kiss, and even when I let it break, I was making her gasp and moan so much, she couldn't even construct a sentence. She eventually gave up with trying to threaten me, and tried to fight back as best as she could, grabbing me by the back of my neck, and kissing me as hard as she could. She eventually got the upper hand by yanking a fist full of my hair, activating her Sun Form, and flying us both to her bed. She pinned my arms back, and wrapped my mouth in another tongue locked battle. She tried to pay me back for that whole pinning her against the wall thing, but her fire kinda gradually died down to a deep, slow, gentle pace. She let my arms go, opting to caress my face and feel my chest. A few minutes in, she started grinding her hips into mine, forcing a gasp outta me. She stuck her tongue in my mouth, and picked up the pace with her kisses. It was almost like she had a hunger that could only be satiated by my mouth. The problem was that the more we kissed, the hungrier she seemed to get. I was low key nervous she'd try and bite my lip off. While she didn't do that, she did ease up off of me, teasing me to chase her lips. We ended up on our knees, playing that game where we chase each other lips for a while, before actually making contact. As we continued, Allyson reached down for my shirt, and broke the kiss long enough to pull it off me.

"My, my, my," she huskily whispered in my ear as she felt my abs. "Someone's been working out."

"Yeah," I breathed out. "That deep sea-"

Anything I was about to say was cut off as Allyson heated her hand up. I moaned while grabbing her by the waist, and pulled her close to me. That didn't stop her from using her heated hands to rub and scratch my shoulders and my back. This time it was my turn to reduce to a quivering mess of moans and gasps. She kept that up for a while, pushing me on my back again, and alternating her attention between my pecs and abs, before slowly crawling back up to greet my lips again. Her eyes were practically glowing with lust. I swallowed hard, trying to be cool about it, but I must've been more into this than I thought, cuz I started sparking.

"Ah," Allyson smirked, breaking the kiss. "So you are excited to see me. I thought I was doing something wrong."

"Only you would say a lack of sparks is a failure."

"I have high standards. And I always aim to please."

"Don't worry, Briquette, you're above and beyond."

"Briquette? Your first original pet name for me, and you call me a piece of coal?"

"I was thinkin' something more smokehouseish."

"Well…...it'll grow on me."

We kissed and felt up on each other for a few more minutes, before Allyson asked me to do something strange.

"Pick a song," she said, pulling away for a bit.

"What?" I responded.

"Pick a song. See, I like to listen to music when making out for long periods of time. It just makes it better for me."

"That's…...uh….ok. Sure, why not? You like screamo/punk rock?"

"I do actually. Never woulda pegged you for the type."

"My mom went through a phase last year. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. I got playlist that starts with a metal version of Bad Romance."

"Already off to a good start. Let's make some music."

We pulled up YouTube on her TV, signed into my YouTube account (fullerawesome1), and pulled up my screamo/punk rock playlist. I didn't think i'd particularly care about making out to music, but Allyson totally made it worth it. She settled into this medium speed of deep kissing, that had me constantly on the verge of suffocation. I no longer had to use her neck as a way of getting the upper hand on her. Every time I went there, she'd sing bits and pieces of whatever song we were on, using her singing powers to stir passion (more passion) in me. I found myself doing things I….well, things i'd do if I wasn't cautious. Anytime Allyson sang, it was like all of my inhibitions faded away. A few songs in (Black Widow, Part of me, Problem, screamo/punk makes everything better), I turned her around, removed her tank top, and buried my face in her neck, while tracing static up her abs. She clearly wasn't expecting that, but by the sound of it, this is where she wanted me to get.

"Ahhh, yessss!" she hissed. "There….yeah baby….mmmm...right there. Now we're gettin' somewhere!"

I pulled a bit of her hair back, and gave her a deep kiss. She reached behind me, and also grabbed some of my hair, while grinding her butt into my pelvis. Her breathing was a bit ragged and hitched, but for the most part, it was still under control. I aimed to make that a thing of the past. I pushed her on her her stomach, and removed her shoes and socks. I made static tingle up her feet, legs, torso, arms, and stop right at her neck. She grabbed two handfuls of her sheets, and writhed a bit, but I held her legs down.

"Y-y-oh $#!+!" she cried out. "You can cuff me if you want!"

Whoa! Ok! That's a thing that was said! I let her legs go, killed the static, and started kissing my way up to her face, starting from her feet.

"Mmmmmm," she moaned peacefully. "Guess you're not a bondage guy."

"Not really," I said, flipping her over. "This is the most i've ever done with a girl. I don't know what I really like, just making you happy."

"Look who's a sweetheart," she smiled at me, giving me a kiss on my cheek.

"That's me. Ummm, if I can ask, how do you-"

"Know I like bondage? Only because of minor stuff. Light choking, hair pulling, a blindfold and fuzzy cuffs once. Yeah, i've done a lotta exploring in the past year and a half."

"You are a Christian right?"

"I am. And i'm so glad my heavenly father forgives me on Sunday for what I did Friday and Saturday. But yeah, I got a bit of a thing for bondage. I feel like you do too, but only when it's being inflicted on you."

"I did enjoy it last night. The one time your controlling nature is actually endearing."

"Oh, you think i'm controlling!"

She wrapped her legs around me, and turned me on my back. She wrapped my mouth in a kiss, and after luring my tongue out, started sucking on it! I didn't electrocute her tongue this time (barely), but Allyson was clearly full of surprises. She broke the kiss for a few seconds, and played around with some sun energy in her hands. She created a pair of cuffs, blindfold, small whip, and even a ball gag (a huge f*(# no). She absently scratched my pecs with her solar claws, while looking at me with a questioning face. Kinda hard to not get a little scared when someone with glowing eyes is questioning whether or not to chain you up.

"Mmmmmm," she contemplated. "Nah. Don't wanna spook you."

"Little late for that, Allyson," I breathed out.

I didn't mean for it to come out as bad as it did, but I guess I was a bit more scared than even I thought. She eased off of me, her face looking like I deflated all the joy outta her.

"No, no, no," I quickly stammered out, taking her hands. "That's not what I meant! It's just….this is all so new to me."

"And i'm a little much," she said.

"Only a little. Like, just a smidge and a half too much. Don't get me wrong, I like this, I like you, I just...I mean…"

"Jason, it's ok. If anything, I should be apologizing to you."

"For what? It's not like you knew. Besides, I was cool with everything up until then. I guess we just gotta trial and error with this."

"Get to know what we like and don't like. Right, of course."

"Plenty of hands on experience. Great for stress relieving. Good way to strengthen the relationship."

"Oh, definitely. But maybe a little easier on my part."

"Emphasis on a little. I don't wanna make it boring for you."

"Only you would consider making my whole body tingle with static as boring."

"Was that too much?"

"No! God no, it was great! You're better at this than you let on, Jason. And the fact that you're still modest, gentle, and sweet?"

She gave me a gentle kiss, and I returned it in kind. We kept that up for a good five minutes, then lied back to cuddle for a while, listening to a punk rock version of Starships, Burn, Love Me Like You Do, and What Makes You Beautiful. We kissed each other lovingly on the cheek, poked each other in our ticklish areas, and even gave each other neck and back massages (don't know why we did that last part). Time burned away like crazy, and it was five minutes to 11 faster than I wanted it to be.

"Gotta go," she sighed at her phone. "Do this again tomorrow? The gentle cuddling and kissing that is. I've burned myself out of what comes before that."

"Too hot for you, Briquette?" I laughed at her. "I might have to take back the name."

"You say that like it's a threat. And don't test me, Electro. I always have time to make you moan my name."

"Uh-huh."

"You think i'm kidding. You think you can play me? I-"

I broker her off with a kiss, and bit her lip while breaking it. I tried my best to give her a sexy/scary look. By the way she gulped and went all wide eyed, I think I pulled it off. Anyway, we put our shirts back on, and hightailed it to the training room. Grant was already there waiting for us, trying so hard not to smirk.

"You weren't kidding about being right on time," he said. "A few seconds later, you'd have been late."

"Sorry," Allyson laughed.

"Yeah," I laughed. "What can I say? Guess we-"

"Don't you f*(!^% dare, dude!" Grant laughed at me. "I know you heard me when I said I don't wanna hear that!"

"Oh, I know. But I don't care. So, we're doing, flying combat first, right?"

"Yeah. We'll make a fighter outta you yet."

"Cool. So…..how do we do this?"

"What do you mean?" Allyson asked him.

"We've just been winging it since we got here, and I don't think a few sparring lessons with Ms. Marvel is enough to teach anyone."

"That…...is a really good point."

"We could just pull up Z.O.R.D.O.N." I said. "He can pull up footage from all the hero fights. Probably some good stuff we can use."

"You just want an excuse to use your new toy."

"True as that is, we can still use the help. It'll at least give us a place to start."

Grant and Allyson shrugged at each other, and I had Z.O.R.D.O.N. pull up the footage. We watched about an hour's worth of footage in about two minutes, before realizing just how pointless it all was. Aside from a few maneuvers that used an opponent's momentum against them, there wasn't anything concrete in the sense of a particular fighting style we could use. We just had to take whatever we already had, and try and translate it as best as we could into aerial combat. With that outta the way, we had S.E.R.A. beam us into a simulation of NYC (always NYC), and get us started with a warm up. We flew above the skyscrapers, and S.E.R.A. threw and endless swarm of energy projecting fliers at us. Only problem was that me and my team were on such another level with our powers, the warm-up (only five minutes long) wasn't even fun. It was basically me, Grant and Allyson absolutely wrecking anything within a mile radius with lighting, wind, sun, and Geo-Force. The only two things the fight was good for, was me getting a little more practice with my airbending powers, and us setting a rule that prohibited using constructs and energy blasts for the first 30 minutes. Way too much of a crutch.

"Ok," Allyson said. "I gotta challenge for you two."

"And that is?" Grant asked.

"You two against me."

Me and Grant laughed at her.

"No offense, Sunbird," Grant said after we stopped. "But even if Storm-Lord isn't used to fly fighting, the two of us-"

"Are nowhere near as fast as me," she interrupted him. "Hey, if you're so confident you can take me, then this should be over fast. What are you scared to get beat by a girl?"

Grant and I looked at each other, and shrugged. Hey, she called us out. What were we supposed to do, not fight her?

We spread out, getting ready to take her from both sides, but Allyson wasn't big on playing defensively. Faster than my Speed Sense could even warn me, I felt her slam a flying kick into my chest, and a fist across the side of my face, sending me spiraling through the air. She was clearly using her Solar Steroids, cuz those two hits alone almost knocked me outta my Thunder Form entirely. Hell, even with my head feeling like a spinning top, I could sense Allyson giving Grant the same treatment. To be fair, he was doing a bit better than I was, but that wasn't saying much. In the span of five seconds, he had thrown 100 punches, and 50 kicks. None of them landed. Allyson only threw 1/4th the punches and half the kicks he threw out, but they all landed with the force of a truck. She couldn't launch him away like she did to me, but she was practically dancin' around him, which was just as embarrassing. I did my best to get back in the game, but I think I ended up making things worse. For starters, Allyson's Sun Sense (I named it for her, she liked it) meant she was in no danger of getting caught by surprise. I tried tackling her when there was an opening, but she backflipped over me, dodged Grant's swing, and slammed him with a volley of punches and kicks. For the few seconds that they went at it, Grant got better and blocking, dodging and countering her. Outta 200 hits, Allyson only got 50 to connect. Grant on the other hand, while only managing to get the same amount of hits in on her, was better at countering and putting pressure on her. The whole thing was a back and forth battle, Allyson only barely managing to maintain a slight advantage. Immediately I got it. Grant was surging with runoff Geo-Force, without even using his G-Blazer (God, that's a stupid name). He was surging energy into himself to make him faster; similar to what Allyson did with Solar Steroids. I didn't know if I could do the same thing for me, but it was at least worth a try. I started absorbing electrons in the area, and directed them to my cells; using the electrons to boost the rate they interacted at. It took a good minute and a half (forever in speedster time), but I could eventually keep up with the speed Grant and Allyson were fighting at. I kept watching for a few more seconds, to get the basic gist of how they fought, before entering into the fray.

At first, my contribution added up to jack $#!+. Even against the two of us, Allyson had more than enough speed to outclass me and Grant. She seemed to like kicking me in the face a lot. Still, as we kept going, I caught on and countered little things that went a long way. She never blocked any of our hits. She was constantly weaving around our attacks, and countering with quick jabs, kicks, or elbows. She was almost always moving backwards (me and Grant at least kept the pressure on her), and was careful to prevent me and Grant from flanking her. This was where I could work some magic. Me and Grant kept up the pressure, still gettin' Molly Whopped, but gradually getting better. I got a few good hits to her sides, Grant got some reverse kicks to her gut, and at least 30 jabs to her face. He did get one throat chop in, but he learned the hard way that Allyson didn't need to breathe when she was in her Sun Form. Anyway, after a few minutes getting Allyson comfortable, I faked side kick to her stomach, forcing her to dodge...right into Grant's fist! Yeah, she wasn't the best at predicting patterns. Her maneuvering was a solid 8/10, but that was still at least a little bit left to be desired. Grant knocked her a good 10 feet back, but I intercepted her, clotheslined her, and hammer punched her down into a skyscraper. When she crashed through the roof (not to mention seven floors), I knew I hit her too hard! I didn't mean too, I swear, but Mrs. Kennedy wasn't foolin' when she said I was way stronger than usual. That was barely me at 60%, and I sent her almost 1/4th through a tower. I was about to fly down and see if she was ok, but she gave me visual confirmation she was just fine. By that, I mean she flew outta that skyscraper at Mach 30, looking absolutely pissed the f*(# off!

My first instinct was to throw down some lightning, but since this was purely hand to hand, I had to refrain. The good news was, in Speed Mode Superior (me at my fastest), I could keep up with Allyson and Grant just enough to actually have a measure of presence in this fight. As Allyson came up, me and Grant counter charged her, but at the last moment, she spun around Grant, slammed me in the face with a rising uppercut, and drop kicked me through a skyscraper. I recovered in time to avoid crashing into the pavement, but by the time I got back in the air, Grant and Allyson were DBZ fighting all over the damn place! I was actually kinda hurt. They were flying through skyscrapers, kicking each other into the road, slamming cars into each other, and punching each other with enough force to cause mild tremors in the ground! Allyson used her speed advantage with the environment extremely well. She'd have Grant chase her around tall buildings, in parking areas, and would use his momentum against him at vital moments to swing the fight her way. At the same time, Grant was no pushover. What he lacked in speed, he made up for with skill, maneuverability, and durability. When he managed to get a few swings to connect with Allyson, that was when the game swung immediately in his favor. His Iron Fist meets DBZ skills took over, and he waxed Allyson for a good seven seconds at the very least. She'd always get out of danger via retreating as fast as she could, and make him chase her around like a golden snitch (we should so play Quidditch!). Hell, even then, Grant was getting wise to how she moved, when she was getting ready to bolt, and more often than not could put a stop to it via forcing her into a tight corner, or grabbing her by her shirt or legs when she tried to get away. I sensed them fighting a good few miles away from me, anticipated when Allyson was gonna bank around the next skyscraper, and flew as fast as I could to intercept her. I almost (so f*(#!^$ close) got her, but she just barely corkscrewed over my punch, and kicked me into Grant, who steamrolled over me. Again, I recovered, and this time I wasted no time getting back in the fight.

For half an hour, me and Grant fought Allyson tooth n' nail. In terms of style, total hits, skill, and improv, Allyson took the win. Me and Grant got in some shots, counters, and even some decent combos every now and then, but in the air, Allyson's speed alone f*(#!^$ owned! Plus she was scrappy as hell! I did manage to nail down and counter her style whenever I could. For example, when she kicked at me or Grant, either of us would catch it, spin her around a few times, and throw her. One of us would catch her, punt her back to the other, and then we basically played kickball with her for as long as we could. Other times, Grant would wrap her in a bear hug to keep her from flying away, and ram her down an entire skyscraper to try and take the fight outta her. I even managed to use her pressure points against her when I could get some decent shots in. Still, at the end of the session, Allyson got outta all our attempts to contain her, and wailed each of us three times over. By the time we were done, I was on the ground panting, Grant was floating with a dumbstruck look on his face, and Allyson was gloating at us.

"WOOOO!" she celebrated. "HOW YOU BOYS LIKE THEM APPLES?!"

"Whatever," I mumbled.

"Awww, come on, Jason, don't be like that."

"I'm not mad at you. I just don't feel like I added anything major to the fight. You and Grant were beasts, I was struggling just to keep up."

"Babe, I can move at lightspeed when I want. As far as speed, you're never gonna catch me."

"Rub it in why don't ya?"

"No, really dude," Grant said. "You're not bad. Against me, you'd actually stand a chance. I think Allyson should train alone when it comes to flying combat. You and me can actually compete with each other."

"What he said," Allyson nodded. "Honestly, Jason, it is ok to lose sometimes. Be a good sport, you can't be best at everything."

"Humph." I shrugged, trying not to smile.

"You always this articulate?"

I flicked a spark of lightning at her, she flicked a light marble at me.

"Well that was utterly pointless," Grant said. "If you wanna throw stuff at each other, let's get to fighting with constructs."

"I handed you your butts with my fists alone," Allyson said. "You really wanna test me when i'm throwing giant solar knives at you?"

"If all you got is giant knives, this is gonna be a short fight."

"How about giant boxing gloves? Is that better?"

We all took our usual spots in the sky, giving Allyson a 50 meter space, and when S.E.R.A. rung the bell, all hell broke loose!

I mean it was like DBZ, Harry Potter, July 4th, New Years, and Transformers had the most epic action orgy of all time. Allyson launched hundreds of missile constructs at me and Grant. We launched counter missiles at her, and I also created a giant hand to slap her outta the sky. She dodged it, and amidst the chaos and confusion of the missiles exploding into each other, I sensed Allyson literally launching mini-suns the size of vans at me and Grant from a giant cannon. Grant created a giant Mjolnir outta Geo-Force and rock, and launched it at Allyson in retaliation. The hammer blew apart most of the suns, the blast backfiring on Allyson, and I slammed her into the ground with a giant snake made of cloud. Allyson blew it apart with a pillar of fire, and my Speed Sense went off so hard in every direction, it was almost nauseating. Yeah, remember how we joked about Allyson using knives and boxing gloves? She made us eat those words right up! Literally from every inch in every conceivable direction, knives and bullets were coming in like the end of times! Grant and I teamed up to make a barrier, but Allyson's constructs were hitting as hard as a falling truck of bricks. She kept the pressure on, and was literally creating a giant sun right above our heads to crush us? Burn us? I don't know exactly, just that it was gonna hurt big time.

"Dude!" I shouted at Grant. "We gotta split!"

"Don't I know it!" he responded. "I'm gonna charge her in the biggest Iron Man construct I can! You….."

"Dragons! Giant Dragons made of lightning, thundering down from the sky, like the wrath of Zeus!"

"Badass! Let's go!"

Grant took his part of the barrier, and flew forward. Over the span of 1.2 seconds, he expanded and reshaped it into a 30 ft tall Iron Man construct, and flew full steam ahead at Allyson. She flew over him, but only had 20 giant lighting dragons swarming down on her to look forward to. This time it was her turn to hide under a barrier, as the dragons gnawed at her like she was a bloody steak. She was surprisingly good under pressure tho, and used the giant sun above our heads to almost take me and Grant out entirely. In my Thunder Form, the heat didn't bother me. Still, I forgot suns have gravity. Allyson flipped on the gravity switch, and reminded me of that in full!

It felt like my whole body was being hooked and dragged. I poured on the speed, flying down as fast as I could, but I was fighting an extremely uphill battle (I think that's a pun). Besides fighting gravity, Allyson's sun was pulling buildings apart disaster movie style! I had to dodge and blast my way through skyscraper chunks, just to barely avoid getting pulled into the heart of her sun. Grant and Allyson were on the ground, not even bothered by the gravity. They were still fighting as hard as they could in their giant avatars (Iron Man vs a seraph). It was kinda cool to see a giant green Iron Man vs a giant yellow six winged angel with a sword, but I was not getting sidelined out of another fight! I went into Thunder Form 2, and struck Allyson's construct as a Mega Lightning Bolt, knocking her off-balance, and making her kill the mini-sun. Grant knocked her on her ass with a unibeam blast, giving me enough time to turn myself into a giant Fourarms in gladiator armor. Allyson got up, took one look at me and Grant, and rose to the challenge big time. Because of her nonsense with that giant sun, we were in a crater as big as a football stadium. Allyson filled her half with hundreds of giant constructs of tanks, Marines, bird headed Egyptian warriors, a few Transformers constructs here and there, and pitbulls. That was just on the ground level. In the air, she had a whole fleet of jets, angels, dragons, Iron Men constructs with Gatling guns and missile launchers all over their bodies, and flaming warrior women on pegasi. I looked at Grant, and knew we both had the same thought: challenge accepted!

For our construct army, I contributed every iteration of the Power Rangers Megazords (22 in total), as many Ben 10 Aliens as I could fit in, Greek Warriors, Vikings, Egyptian Warriors (lion headed), and mythical creatures like Minotaurs, Centaurs, a Nemean Lion, and and a Chimera. In the air, I had a slew of a Dragonoids, Hermes-like fighters, and lighting wielding riders on chariots made of cloud. Yeah, I went all out. Grant added his usual shtick. Giant heroes mostly, but he also added some other cool stuff. Giant football players in spiked pads, hockey players wielding scythes, at least a dozen of those Fox NFL robots that used to be on Sunday games, and twice as many Optimus Primes. In the air he had…...an army of him…..in Thor costumes….wielding a hammer and an axe. For what it's worth, I really hoped he got to meet Thor. The guy clearly wanted it more than air. So yeah, this was it. Two armies of various energy constructs ready to face off.

"Ok," Grant said. "Before we do this, can we just all agree this is the coolest thing ever?"

"Yup," I said.

"Agreed." Allyson laughed.

"Cool. NOW SOMEBODY HIT SOMEBODY!"

What ensued next, was the coolest version of smashing a bunch of action figures together! I slashed apart several of Allyson's Marines. Her tanks blew apart several of Grant's Optimus Primes, and her jets shredded the hell outta Grant's psycho sports jocks and my mythical creatures. Still, her paper airplanes were no match for my Hermes fighters, and Grant's….hammer wielding daydream warriors. Her angels, dragons, and Iron Men threw themselves at my thunder gods, Vikings, and Megazords, but my boys held strong. Wish I could say the same for the flaming warrior chicks on pegasi; they tore through my Ben 10 aliens like wet paper. Me and Grant warred against Allyson for about 25 minutes straight, the fight always at a brutal standstill. Out of all the constructs I smashed, I only fought Allyson once, and only for half a minute. Her seraph construct provided an infinite level of versatility. The six wings acted as both defense and offense. I had four arms and four long swords, and I couldn't get a strike to hit the seraph's body. Those damn wings kept parrying my blades, while the angel's actual swords sliced me up like a turkey. Hell, I had to call down a lightning bolt just so I could get away. But yeah, other than that, it was just a brutally awesome fight to the finish. While Allyson kept it close, me and Grant gradually overpowered her army. She had to focus on both of us, while we had a healthy split of effort being split between the two of us. It's a wonder she lasted as long as she did. Still, she was nothing if not a sore loser (unlike me). As her construct's dwindled down, she overcharged what little she had left, and made them explode with enough force to decimate the entirety of Manhattan! Grant and I just barely survived, but our army was nothing more than a fond memory. We were all just lying on the ground, dazed, kinda winded, and in shock of what just happened. I sensed Allyson groan and sit up, about a mile and a half away. Me and Grant zipped over to her, to find her laughing. It was almost maniacal, like her sanity snapped a little, but full of pure joy and childish excitement. Hell, it was contagious, cuz after a few chuckles, Grant was laughing right along with her. I tried not to fall into the same trap, but there really was no fighting it. Looking around at all the destruction we caused, how good it felt to cut loose without the fear of some monster trying to eat our soul, it was definitely a decent stress reliever.

"Hey guys?" Allyson asked after she calmed down. "I'm so glad none of you are bad guys."

"Same," I said. "I mean look around. No wonder Fury wanted to keep an eye on us. Me especially."

"Meh." Grant said. "He's still a punk."

"That's not nice, Grant," Allyson scolded him.

"The truth hardly is," I said.

Me and Grant laughed, and gave each other a fist bump. Allyson tried not to, but eventually she couldn't help but give in. We all took five minutes to cool off, before moving to the running portion of training..

"So did I win again?" Allyson asked as we got up.

"What?!" Grant laughed at her. "Please! At best, you get a half-assed, cop-out, tie!"

"Aww. Are you mad I broke you favorite toys?"

"You blew everything to $#!+ when you were about to lose. Dick move."

"I wasn't losing, it was apart of my master plan."

"So your master plan was to blow up a whole city?"

"It wasn't real. I'd never do this in the real world. I'd lure you into space…...then i'd blow you up."

"What is it with you and blowing things up?"

"I made a volcano for my science projects three years in a row when I was in elementary. I prank my friends with Pepsi bottle rockets, and have you seen how many tanks and guns I create? You finish the puzzle, Green Bean."

"You got issues, Grace."

"Don't we all?"

With that, we dusted ourselves off, had S.E.R.A. reset the city, and we went for a run. After a few laps through the city, on the water, and scaling a few buildings, it was super clear that we had a lotta work left to do. Grant was shaky when running at super speed, and was absolutely dreadful when running on water. Allyson kept slamming into vehicles, couldn't scale down a building worth a damn, and had horrible speed control. It was anyone's guess whether or not she could actually make a turn around a corner without slamming into a taxi. If she needed to make a snap change of course, forget about it. By the time we finished with a three minute warm-up run, Allyson and Grant were muttering cuss words under their breath, looking like they wanted to burn everything.

"Ok," I said. "That didn't totally suck.

"Oh," Allyson sighed. "Now you get to rub it in?"

"Nah, legit, you two at least have a decent leg to stand on. Look, I get it, flying in open space is a lot tougher than running in a maze of a city. When we do the same in the air, I imagine i'll suck at it too. We just gotta work on control, then work our way up. S.E.R.A., do you have a program to train speedsters?"

"Indeed, I do, Master Fuller." she said. "Mr. Maximoff himself compiled this when he trained here at S.H.I.E.L.D. I am uploading the program now.

"See?" I said, giving my teammates an encouraging look. "We'll make track stars outta you yet."

We got through most of the exercises in the time we had left for training. The first few exercises were speed trials. Me and the team ran around the city, hitting markers in the allotted time (usually between 1-3 seconds). After that was speed control. We basically just kept running through the city at the speed the program told us to run at. We had to follow a specific trial led out for us, so Grant and Allyson got more than their fair share of time to learn how to bank turns. We escalated that by properly learning how to scale buildings up, down, sideways, all the way around, and even using our momentum to jump from rooftop to rooftop. After that, we ate up our remaining time learning how to vibrate our bodies for different purposes. I was already good at vibrating through solid objects, as well as increasing the mass of my punches, but there were other uses of vibration that I had never even considered. Depending on the frequency I was vibrating at, I could make myself invisible, rupture someone's organs, excite atoms in the air, disintegrate matter, make matter explode, solidify the air around me, make my hand as sharp as a blade, break bones, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I only managed to learn the first two on this list (vibrating at the exact speed to excite atoms is super hard), but it was nice to see how much more I could do with one ability.

The team and I decided to pick up with the remainder of the training tomorrow, and headed back to our rooms to shower, get into sleeping clothes, and head back to Grant's room. Yeah, we had pretty much decided that sleeping over was so much better than sleeping alone in our own rooms. Grant's room was the new home base (he didn't mind). We watched Adult Swim for a few hours, I checked a message on my watch from Storm, regarding training with her, and after nailing down a good time to practice, I cuddled with Allyson, and we traded stories about our favorite Disney movies. Grant's was Hercules (cuz of course it was), Allyson's was The Lion King (tho she adored Hercules' soundtrack), and mine's was Meet The Robinsons. I….yeah, that movie helped me get through a huge bulk of my whole being adopted issues. I remember seeing that movie with Doris, and literally bawling on the way home. We talked for hours regarding my abandonment issues in the park, hugged it out, got ice cream, and went ice skating later that day. It was a good day.

"Jason?" Allyson asked me, blinking tears outta her eyes. "Why can't you have favorite Disney movies like normal people?"

"Cuz it's me," I shrugged. "And up until recently, almost everything I took enjoyment in had a deep rooted connection to my parents, dealing with my parents, or moving on from my parents."

"That's so sad and sweet at the same time."

"You talkin' bout the memory, or me directly?"

"Not sure."

We laughed a little, kissed each other good night, and went to sleep.

The next day was pretty much a rinse a repeat thing. Breakfast, martial arts/weapons training, and lunch. Since we were done with the whole Garage thing, I used that time to train with Storm, while Grant and Allyson worked on team building simulations, similar to what she did on her own. Storm was an…..interesting teacher to say the least. For starters, we met in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s swimming room. Literally a room the size of a high school auditorium filled with water. She was floating right above the water, and her first test for me was to float just opposite of her, using only my airbending.

"But I don't know how," I complained.

"Learn," she said plainly. "Focus on the air currents. Meditate on them. Feel the way I move the wind around around my body. Replicate the same phenomenon with your abilities. You have tremendous raw power, and you've done a commendable job learning to temper your ability to control your lightning. Now let us work on harnessing your control over the air. When you can face me in the sky, we will continue."

That was such a dick thing to do. Still, up until this point, I could only make violent bursts of air, or tornadoes. A bit of control might go a long way. I tried doing as she asked, and meditated on the wind in the area. It took me about three minutes to even get a read on the level Storm was controlling the wind around her. Actually getting to Storm's level was a wholly different ballgame that took me ten minutes to get right. First off, when I tried using soft currents, I failed epically. I could barely get a gust of wind to get going, much less an air current to lift me off the ground. After trying and failing at that, for three minutes, I decided to work backwards. I propelled myself up inside a tornado, and promptly freaked the f*(# out when when I almost slammed head fist into the ceiling! I bailed out right before I kissed the plaster, but now I was free falling to the floor! I made two cyclones burst from my hands Iron Man style, and just managed to keep myself in the air. I gradually reduced the amount of wind power I was using to make myself hover, until I was at the exact level Storm was at. It felt weird, like I was barely balancing on a bed being pushed up by geysers. It was hard too. Like trying to find a seat on a Greyhound in midday hard. If my concentration faltered for even a second, i'd lose everything I built up. Still, I was in the air. After moving myself up, over, and down a few times to get a feel for flying, I tried flying up to Storm….and fell in the pool. Yeah, I learned the hard way that this type of flying had to start at a crawl. I tried flying fast, and I couldn't keep up the wind power to support my body weight. I created a small wave to take me to shore. I calmed down, ignoring Storm chucking at me, and brought myself into the air again. This time, I pulled it off, and hovered just opposite of Storm.

"Very good," Storm said.

"Y-yeah," I stammered out (talking and concentrating was a bit harder when flying). "Congrats on me not sucking. Now what?"

"Now, we fly."

Before I could yell at her for asking me to do something I clearly wasn't ready for, I felt myself jerk to the side, like an invisible giant gave me a push. My reflexes helped balance me out, so I wasn't tumbling through the air like a retarded bird (dunno why I said that). I won't lie, I panicked like a little baby pee pants. Even after I realized Storm was the one taking me for the ride, I didn't like flying at 60 mph, doing corkscrews, loop-de-loops, playing chicken with the floor and ceiling, and the weightlessness that made my stomach feel like it was being twisted and stretched. Ultimately, I hated not being in control. I almost wanted to blast Storm outta the sky for even doing this to me! Hell, she started flying next to me after a while, making it hard not to wanna lunge at her.

"Focus, Jason," she calmly said, not caring that she was swinging me around like a yo-yo. "Like last time, focus on the way I move the current to support us. People mistake my ability to fly with flyers in the usual sense. I cannot will myself to float in whatever direction I please, I have to manipulate the air around me to support my weight. The same goes for changing directions. You must focus on manipulating the wind current ahead of time. Visualize where you want to go, and manipulate the current the way I do. Let me take you around a few more times, then i'll let you take control for a few turns and loops."

Maybe it was the all white pupiless eyes, her charming African accent, or the fact that she was willing to give me control of the wheel (metaphorically speaking), but I suddenly forgot about being mad at her. Besides, after a few minutes to get used to flying this way, I actually kinda enjoyed it. It was like bungee jumping in every direction. I constantly felt like I was in freefall, but would never hit the ground. It difficult to concentrate when I was having too much fun. A few close calls with the ground snapped me outta that quick.

"Ok, I get it!" I yelled at Storm. "Gotta concentrate at all times! Enough with the collision scares!"

"What are you talking about?" Storm asked me (I knew she was f*(!^% with me). "I'm just trying to show you the appropriate space to make hairpin turns when recovering from a freefall. I expect you were paying attention?"

"Yea-, I mean yes, ma'am. Totally focused."

"Good. Because a demonstration from you is due. Take control for a minute. I am in your hands, Jason."

"Wait, WHAAAAAAT?!"

She just dropped the current, and let us freefall! She looked so calm, like she actually trusted me to not f*(# this up! Believe me, her trust was very misplaced! I tried to control the current exactly as she did, and succeeded in just barely not letting us slam fast first into the water. I knew that I had to adjust the wind speed and pressure to support our wright, but I was panicking so much, that's all I could do.. I panicked so hard, sparks were firing off my body machine gun style. I was basically a one man fireworks display.

"Very good," Storm calmly said. "We're still in the air, that's a good first step. Now, l believe you were supposed to be flying us around. We'll keep it full rings around the interior. Let's go."

I was thinking of some very choice words for this lady, but they wouldn't get me any closer to finishing those laps. Instead, I visualized the path I wanted to take, accounted for speed, pressure, momentum, and all that stuff. I willed the wind to lift us up another ten feet, and shoot us off towards the other side of the room. It wasn't until I made my first lap around the room that it really sank in: I was totally doing this! It was terrifying and heart stopping, but I was flying me and Storm around the room! Not once did I panic, or feel like I was gonna lose control. By the time the third lap was over, I felt disappointed that Storm was gonna-

"Now across the water," Storm interrupted my thought. "Zig zag just above the surface. Please try not to get my hair wet."

I was too excited to make a remark (like how she could fly at jet speed and still keep her hair intact). I simply adjusted the air current to shoot us straight down, over, and across the water as she asked. After that, she just kept giving me a series of tasks to do. Some loops, corkscrews, sharp turns, detailed flight plans, all that stuff. By the time we got done, I was zipping through the air like a natural.

"Not bad," Storm said, after I set us on the ground. "Your banking needs work, and you need to work on your takeoffs and landings, but as far as flying goes, you're the best student i've trained so far."

"You've never trained anyone with your specific skill set how to fly, haven't you?"

"Ouch. Try to give a man a compliment. Anyway, for homework, I want you to practice on moving common objects with wind currents. Record yourself moving pins, paper clips, wadded up paper, anything you can find in your room that isn't nailed down. I expect to see a gradual increase in mass and flight pattern complexity. Meet me in room 120S at the same time. Your recording is due an hour beforehand. Now off you go, you must have other matters to attend to."

I don't know what was more shocking, the fact that I was just given homework, or the fact that I got shut down before the struggle could even begin. Seriously it was no muss, no fuss, do your homework, and that's all there is to it. I just kinda walked away, feeling like I just lost a huge portion of my manhood.

I met Grant and Allyson for dinner, and we traded stories about our training. They did the same simulations Allyson set up yesterday. Together, they completely trashed all the training simulations. They swore up and down that if I was there, it would've been almost unfairly easy. I congratulated them, and then went in detail about my training with Storm. Despite the knowledge that I could use air currents to fly, and maybe increase my running speed, Grant and Allyson only took away the fact that Storm gave me homework. They laughed so hard at me.

"Well," Allyson said, after getting over her laughter. "At least you're learning. Just remember to do your homework. Wouldn't wanna, I dunno, get detention, lose a gold star, or-"

"This stopped being funny five seconds ago," I cut her off.

She laughed, flashed me a cute smile, and focused on eating.

After dinner, me and the team chilled in Grant's room until the big training session with the superhero club at 10. While we waited, Grant and Allyson helped me film my homework. Like Storm instructed, I started small, then worked my way up. Starting with paper clips, then pens, then wadded up paper, a desk lamp, the remote, Grant's iPad, and anything not nailed down. That took about 20 minutes, and we spent the rest of the time just kinda laying around and doing whatever. I was watching American Dad, Grant was practicing absently with his Nature Force powers, and Allyson was playing Candy Crush on her phone. We left for the training room 10 minutes before, so I could practice the briefing.

"Ok," I started. "First I go over the ins and outs of Doom's ship."

"Then the Doomslayer," Grant continued.

"Then the plan to take the ship down," Allyson continued.

"Gotta give details about our attack and defense plans," I said.

"And be sure to loosen up, dude," Grant said.

"Exactly," Allyson agreed. "A smile never hurt anyone."

"Yeah, yeah," I waved them off.

We walked in the training room to the roar of 20+ heroes jabbering about $#!+ I probably didn't care about. There were sitting pull up chairs in single file, in front of a podium. There weren't any chairs on the podium, which gave me a sense of dread.

"Don't panic," Allyson said to me. "You'll do fine. Just think of it-"

"Please," I interrupted her. "Not the whole "imagine the audience in their underwear" thing."

"Fine, i'll bring it to your level. You could destroy them all if you want to. Why be afraid?"

"A bit on the villainous side, but I gotcha. Make sure Grant doesn't try and ask Punisher for an autograph."

"Why? That's comedy gold waiting to happen!"

"I can hear you both," Grant said. "And for the record, i'm getting Iron Fist's autograph first."

A microphone sound went off, and Fury's voice blared through the speakers.

"Attention," he said. "Attention everyone. Thank you for responding to the call. You all know what we're dealing with, so I won't keep you long."

"Better not!" Spider-Man shouted. "Do you know how hard it is to get a WWE Elimination Chamber set this close to Christmas?! Knew I shoulda done my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving."

"Shut it, Webhead. This ain't the time or place for your quips. One more, and i'll drop you in the middle of the Atlantic."

"Suddenly I can't think of any quips. I'm completely quipless. And in front of Punisher? Talk about embarrassing."

"Good. In any case, the head team that I assembled to deal with this threat has constructed a plan of attack when we go at it with Doom again. All of the stones have been found, and it's only a matter of time before he comes knockin'. Let's throw him a house party for the century. Mr. Fuller, you have the floor."

I took the stage, doing my best not to choke under the pressure.

"Hey, everyone," I said. "Uh, i'm Jason. Some of you already know that, but yeah. So, uh, here's what we know so far."

I pulled up the presentation I had Z.O.R.D.O.N. create for me, and went through all the notes. The shield, what powered the shield, and the device we had to counteract it.

"We've tested the weapon," I said. "And it's been proven to work. What we have to worry about now is the offense/defense once the shield is down. Me, Grant/Geo-Titan, my code name's Storm-Lord by the way, Red Hulk, Quicksilver, Northstar, and Nightcrawler will be the attack team. Once the shield is down, we'll fly into the heart of the ship, and fight our way to the control room. Me and Geo-Titan will hack Doom's mainframe, and shut him down from the inside out. The others will watch our backs while we do our thing. Everyone else will be defending the Helicarrier. On air defense, Angel, War Machine, and Falcon, assisted by a dozen autonomous Iron Men suits, will be on the immediate Helicarrier defense. Anything that gets past the first two waves, gets shot down. The wave before you guys consists of Storm, Rogue, and Doctor Voodoo. They'll act as a second blow to an already softened up attack force. Ms. Marvel, Blue Marvel, Sunbird, and Pepper, or Iron Lady maybe, will be the first wave of defense. Sunbird's use of constructs, mixed with Ms. Marvel's Binary form, and Blue Marvel's raw strength will take a huge chunk outta the first wave. Assuming anything does get to the deck, we got Spider-Man, Colossus, Beast, She-Hulk, A-Bomb, Iceman, Cloak, Dagger, and Cable on defense. I've seen almost all of you in action at least once. I know ya'll can take care of yourselves. Watch each others backs, and kick some ass. Assuming Doom doesn't play fair, and manages to get his guys on the inside, we got that locked down as well. Along with every agent that can shoot a gun, we got Wolverine, Daredevil, Tigra, Punisher, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Squirrel Girl on the inside."

I was so shocked that nobody laughed even once at the fact that Squirrel Girl was gonna be on a super serious military mission. In fact, I saw Wolverine, Tigra, and even Daredevil give an encouraging nod. If they were confident in her, it was good enough for me.

"Again, you guys are on T-Shirts and lunchboxes, you can take care of yourselves. I'd advise you to take a look at where you'll be stationed, and use your surroundings to your advantage. Punisher, you'll be with other sharpshooters overlooking an area above the lunchroom. You guys are getting X-Ray goggles, and armor piercing bullets. Try not to shoot the drink machine, I need my 12 different flavors of Sprite."

That got a few good laughs outta most people.

"Tigra, Wolverine, and Squirrel Girl," I continued. "You guys'll be in a cramped hallway. Again, i've heard stories of what Wolverine did to a group of like 50 Purifiers on Broadway, by himself. if you're even half of what you were then, we're golden. So yeah guys, these upcoming simulations are gonna press our backs pressed against the wall. Those of you that don't play for keeps, figure something out. Your only mission is to make sure nothing gets to the containment room. At all costs, no matter what you have to do, nobody so much as lays a finger on our magic rocks. Any questions?"

"Why the hell are we takin' orders from some punk kid?" Punisher said. "Also, you got plans on plans for takin' out the ship, but what about the big guy? Did that just slip your memory, junior?

There's always one of those guys. Has he not seen my file? I was about to rip him a new one, but Wolverine had my back.

"Kid's tougher than he looks, Frank," he said. "Ain't squeamish about doin' the hard jobs neither. Oh, and he's got a helluva temper. A warehouse of tanks wouldn't save you from him."

"Besides," I said. "I didn't forget the big guy. After we take out his castle, he'll be comin' to us. He won't have an army at his back, and he won't have any support. That's what we use. I'm still talkin' to Fury about specifics, but the main plan is for you to stay outta the way. Let the big boys handle the hard part.

Punisher stared me down, and I didn't move an inch. I thought about making my eyes glow, or make it thunder, but I didn't wanna overdo it. Besides, I learned how to end fights only with a look in my eyes. After a brief staring contest, he shrugged, and the briefing moved on. Mrs. Kennedy took the wheel for a little, as she explained the battle suits that she was building for the heroes. They looked like Tron suits, and were even color coded to each heroes' main aesthetic. She explained that the suits were gonna be designed to negate magic energies, enhance natural abilities, and have special ancillary weapons to suit the individual heroes. After getting all that situated, we had S.E.R.A. send us into the simulation, and we got to practicing.

I couldn't speak for anyone else, but for my group, it was just a constant rush. First, after the shield was down, we flew straight into the heart of the beast. Through all the chaos of the air battle, Nightcrawler couldn't get a clear look at the ship to teleport us there, so we had to do it old school. Grant wrapped us in a giant Iron Man construct, and flew us through an army of Doombots, enhanced super villains, and artillery fire. I struck down the turrets with some lighting strikes, and Grant launched us fell steam ahead into the side of Doom's ship. From there, it was zero-super sonic, no questions asked. We all remembered the path to the control room, so Grant took Ross, I took Nightcrawler, and we ran as fast as we could to it. We knocked a few guys out on the way, blocked some gun fire, oh, and we had to hack the door to get into the control room (took me two minutes to crack the encryption), while fighting for our lives. Ross, who went full Red Hulk, was having the time of his life. After getting in, me and Grant found the main two computers, and did our thing. S.E.R.A. really put us through the wringer with this one. This mainframe had so much security, i'm pretty sure even Jesus would've broken a sweat getting in. It took us 7 minutes to crash the system, and you better believe our other teammates had to haul ass to keep us in the clear. To be fair, our team was pretty stacked. Quicksilver, Nightcrawler, and Northstar easily kept all of the shooters off our backs, while Red Hulk tore through whatever supervillain managed to get through the door. And you better believe S.E.R.A. dumped the whole supervillain index on our asses! Doctor Octopus, Rhino, Executioner, Iron Monger, The Mandarin, Loki, The Wrecking Crew, The Brotherhood, and even the Serpent Society. Red Hulk wrecked a good handful of them by himself, but me and Grant also helped a bit. Using the Power Grid, I sent out some Phantom Bolts, giant fists, and trapped a good few villains in tesla spheres. Grant summoned some of his All-Metal, shaped them into football players with clubs, and sent them out to help Red-Hulk too. Overall, the mission went better than expected. With Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s help, me and Grant managed to get a Trojan into the system, detonate it, and work from the outside, while the Trojan ate the system from the inside. We didn't have any time to celebrate our victory tho. As soon as the training simulation was complete, S.E.R.A. reset it, and we were off to the races again!

We did this at 15 more times, with each progressing simulation getting harder and harder. The villains kept getting stronger, the system's security kept getting harder and harder to crack, and the stronger the villains, the bigger the pile up. I remember one time where the battle was raging around me and Grant so hard, we had to put up a barrier around us, just to make sure a ricochet didn't pelt us in the head. We kept up our end of the effort, throwing out energy blasts and constructs, but it was getting increasingly harder to divide my attention, when the workload just kept increasing. To be fair, we always managed to pull it off. Sometimes, we had to make the hard calls, and leave our team to their own devices, but like I said, they could hold their own pretty damn well.. I wanted to call it a day after that, but me, Grant, and Allyson had a date with those speed trials. On a positive note, Quicksilver joined us for the workout, and helped give us pointers in certain areas. He helped Allyson get her form right (me and Grant did track & field at some point growing up, so we knew how to run). When we got to speed fighting, he helped us practice with fighting in open/closed spaces, using our opponent's momentum against them, choke holds, exploitative tactics, and defensive speed fighting. Me and him walked Grant and Allyson through phasing, and mass increasing techniques. We stayed up for another 2 ½ hours, not even considering sleeping until we knocked the rest of the training outta the park.

"Impressive," Quicksilver said after we finished. "Wish I had this stuff when my powers kicked in. You youngsters don't know how good you have it."

"I'll be sure to count my blessings," Allyson breathed out. "Ya know, after a shower, and a good sleep."

"I hear that," Grant said. "What a day. I swear, when I get my hands on Doom, his head's gonna be my new football."

"How delightfully violent," Quicksilver said on the way out. "You three get your rest, and remember to stay light on your toes. Tomorrow we practice running on water."

We all said our goodnights, went to our rooms to shower and get changed, before converging at Grant's room to sleep.

The next four days were the same stuff over and over again. Me and my friends practiced martial arts and weapons (me and Nightcrawler went at once a day), and I went to practice with Storm, while they fought each other half to death in a simulation. Storm pushed me hard in training. With airbending alone, she had me creating multiple cyclones at once, creating wind speeds strong enough to lift eighteen wheelers, slice through something as dense as an oak tree, and even use air pressure to cause someone pain in their ears, or pop someone's head like a melon! I'll admit, I was annoyed at first. As cool as all this airbending stuff was, I wanted to get into the real $#!+. Controlling lightning, wind, and water all at once. Storm smiled at me, like she knew i'd eventually ask for this, and showed me something beautiful. She created three cyclones, made the water erupt as a giant geyser, big enough to swallow an apartment complex, and created a thunder storm right above our heads! Lightning flashed all around, like someone blew the world's biggest fuse! Not a single bolt came near us. Even without a shield, Storm kept them all away. It was the most terrifyingly beautiful thing i've ever witnessed in my life (and i've seen some pretty weird $#!+ in the last few days).

"Now you try," she said, after she calmed the area down. "Do exactly what I just did."

I knew exactly what she was playing at. I didn't have any experience controlling all the elements at my disposal. Hell, I wasn't even sure how capable I was at controlling water. Still, I had to at least try. I stretched my hands out, and focused on everything. The thunderstorm was easy to conjure up; I had more than enough experience to make the room surge with voltage. The cyclones…..ok, this was where I was shot. It wasn't that I couldn't do it, but with so much of my focus on keeping the thunderstorm up to Storm's expectations, I barely had anything left to create anything on her level regarding the cyclones. I managed to conjure up two of them, but they were half the strength of her's at best. Oh, and forget the water! I think I might've made a third of it rise into a downright pathetic geyser you'd find at a park. Nothing near what Storm did. Hell, controlling what I could, I tired myself out. My vision spun like a Beyblade, and a felt myself losing consciousness. Storm caught me before I fell over, and gave me a jump of lighting to the back of my neck. It took a few seconds, but my vision and equilibrium balanced out again.

"Not as easy at it looks, eh?" she asked me.

I was grateful for the lack of condescension in her voice. This wasn't a "you'll never get to my level" moment for her, just her letting me come to my own realization of my own limits.

"You can say that again," I sighed. "Sorry. I just wanna-"

"Be the best you can be? I understand, but believe me, it will take time. You can do things with the elements even I can only dream about. I can create a hurricane strong enough to devastate the east coast. You could potentially become a hurricane. Still, you have to learn to fly before you can soar."

"You say that like we'll still be able to do this after this is over."

"Jason, do you really think i'll let someone with as much potential as you and your friends not at least take a summer course at the X-Mansion? If I have to fight the goddess herself, by my ancestors, you will be my student."

I blushed a little….ok, a lot. The only people who've ever wanted me this much were my mom, Allyson, and Grant. Storm was like the cool auntie I never had. If I could spend a summer learning how to be a better Storm-Lord, that would be all kinds of epic! How the hell did black kitty cat score someone like her? Why the hell would he let her go?! Anyway, me and Storm hit the training regimen hard in the four days we trained together. It was only with airbending, but I learned some pretty neat tricks. Besides training myself to tap into the raw power of wind speed and tornadoes, I learned how to literally take someone's breath away, block a pocket of air in their lungs, and use the air to launch debris at machine gun speed at my opponent. She also taught me her own signature flying fighting style. She called Soaring Panther style. It was basically a mix Kung-Fu, Taekwondo, and Wakandan martial arts, used in tandem with airbending to increase impact and speed, while simultaneously off-balancing your opponent using air currents, and slowing down their movements with varying degrees of air resistance. This fighting style could be used in the sky and the ground, and she even mentioned in passing that she had a style for water, lightning, and all three at once! Again, I was REALLY looking forward to training with this lady!

Finally, me and my friends worked like crazy during power practice. Whether it was practicing flying, running, construct fighting, or simulations, we hit it as hard as we could; fighting every battle like it was against Doom himself. I stayed up afterwards to practice my own thing. Due to my in depth study of electromagnetism, I started experimenting with being able to actually use it. Long story short, it took me three days to figure out how to adjust the polarity of my lightning, not to mention tap into the electromagnetic spectrum, just to be able to blast the stuff outta my hands. On the bright side, my lighting bolts turned a cool shade of purple. The downside, I passed out instantly. Yeah, electromagnetism didn't come naturally to me. While my body didn't necessarily reject it, it was super clear this was something I had to get it used to. Hell, forget lifting cars, I could barely lift quarters. I also practiced with combining vibrations and electrons to do a synthetic version of Black Bolt's quasi-sonic scream. I did it by tapping into the Power Grid, disrupting a small path of electrons, and charging my throat via vibrating and supercharging it with voltage. I felt like someone shrunk a hurricane, and put it in my mouth! I started out small, just a whisper, and ended up blowing a hole through five walls (Fury hadn't even finished repairs from the last time I blasted ten walls down)! You better believe I got shredded by old eyepatch! He made me run laps for a whole hour around a virtual planet!

Other than that, me and the team just kept training and waiting for whenever Doom decided to show his face. I got around to testing just how strong I actually was (my max was 200 tons), and how much damage I could take (you could literally drop a tank on me, and I could shrug it off no problem). I practiced waterbending and swimming whenever I could, and dipped my toe into harnessing Sea Force energy. I had to meditate in the water, allow myself to feel its power, and let it strengthen me. The more I practiced with my trident, waterbending, and swimming, the more Sea Force I could control without hurting myself. I ended up being able to harness the power of an average lake in the time I trained. I had to haggle like a motherf*(#^ with Fury to back my plan of fighting Doom, but after no, hell no, and get the hell outta my face, he finally buckled. Long story short, he gave me and Grant permission to create a direct link to us and the Stones of Poseidon and Demeter. Essentially, if we were ever in a jam, all we had to do was hit the blue button on our morphers, and the stones would be directly transported inside of us. Mrs. Kennedy gave me dirty looks after that (she had to program the arrangements), but I was too happy that things seemed to be going our way for once. Still, as me and the team kept training, there was this increase of sadness creeping up on Allyson. She started talking less, she was less aggressive with our makeout sessions, and she'd go straight to sleep when we cuddled at the end of the day. No sweet talking or anything. Hell, at lunch, she was barely eating. She looked like she was fighting a battle in her own head.

"Uh, Allyson?" I asked her. "Are you ok?"

"Huh?" she snapped outta her stupor. "What? I'm sorry, what was that, Jason?"

"Are you ok? Y'know, are you feelin' alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, i'm fine."

"You sure?" Grant asked her. "Jason can't say this, but I can. You've been a real downer lately. You're more pissy during training, and by the looks of it, you and Jason haven't been hitting it as hard as you usually do."

We all laughed a little, but Allyson ended up crying a little after we stopped. I gave Grant a "What did you do?!" type of look, and he went all wide eyed.

"I dunno," he said, putting his hands up. "Dude, I legit don't know. You were there, you saw. Whatthe hell happened?"

"No, no," Allyson said, wiping her tears in a napkin. "You guys are fine, you're great….it's just….it's December 23rd."

It took me and Grant several tries to realize why she was so upset.

"What, is it your birthday?" Grant asked.

"No, Grant," Allyson chuckled. "That's July 18th."

"Parent's birthday?" I asked.

"Nope. Mom is April 28th. Dad's May 17th."

"Cool. He's four days before me. When's your birthday, Grant?"

"March 3rd" he said. "Still, we're getting nowhere. Allyson, what's the big deal?"

"Thank you, Grant," she said, sniffling a little. "It's that tomorrow's Christmas Eve. I've...i've never spent Christmas away from my parents. Now i'm gonna spend it on a damn flying battleship."

That cut a little deep. I once spent Christmas in a orphanage. The only presents I got were a pair of pants, and a basketball. This would be the first Christmas for me without Doris. I felt bad for not considering that.

"Omigod," Allyson said. "I'm so selfish. Here I am complaining, but you guys are going through the exact same thing. Besides, the mission-"

"Means jack $#!+ when it comes to family," I finished her sentence.

"Yeah," Grant said. "I feel for you, Ally. I miss my folks too. I can already smell mama's barbeque. The sound of all my cousins, aunts, and uncles roaring and cussing over the Christmas football game. Also, I miss my dog. We'd play fetch outside when it felt a bit crowded in my house.

"Nice." Allyson sniffled. "It's usually just me and my parents on Christmas. We go to the holiday service, open presents, watch Christmas specials, and help out at the local soup kitchen. Mom was never all that good at cooking anything that wasn't microwavable. My dad on the other hand? The thought of missing out in his baked chicken, ham, turkey, cornbread, and oh dear God mashed potatoes, grits, and potato salad! Guys, if I miss that, i'm gonna roast Doom alive!

"You wanna try calling your people?" I asked her after I finished laughing. "Maybe give them a holiday shoutout?"

"Can't. Tried already. S.H.I.E.L.D. blocks all unauthorized communication in this place. My phone's locked for the next 12 hours."

"Yikes," I said. "Sorry. But hey, just cuz we're stuck up here, don't mean we can't have some Christmas. We can watch some cheesy movies, sing some carols, Grant can grow and decorate a tree, we can grab some hot chocolate from the cafeteria, and-"

"Bless your heart, Bolt Boy," she smiled at me. You are the sweetest thing."

"Nah, it's just….I get it. I haven't had a Christmas with my folks in ten years. Don't shed any tears for me, Doris and I do it Godzilla big on holiday season, it's just….I don't want you to feel lonely. I know it's not much, but for what it's worth, you still got me and Grant."

She blinked a few tears from her eyes, and took my hand.

"Jeez," she laughed. "And I thought I was cheesy. Thanks, Jason. You too Grant. It's worth more than enough that I can celebrate Christmas with you lovable dorks."

Not sure if that was meant to be a compliment, but i'll take.

"So what about you and your mom on Christmas?" Allyson asked me. "Explain to me this Godzilla bigness you two bring to the holidays."

Ok, maybe Godzilla big was a bit of an exaggeration. In truth, we just exchanged gifts, cooked dinner, watched football, and made hot caramel surprise. I was gonna fess up to it, but before I could get a word out, something strange and painful happened to me. I felt dizzy. The room started spinning into a giant black hole. I felt like my soul was being yanked outta my body (I remember what that feels like) and whisked somewhere that didn't even exist. Before I completely lost my sense of body, I felt my head crash into my fries, while Allyson frantically tried to shake me awake.