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.

24. Chapter 24: Battle For The Rainbow Sword

Chapter 24: Battle For The Rainbow Sword….Yes, Really

You know what really sucks about getting you soul dragged outta your body? You can't tell your idiot friends to shut the hell up! As I was getting dragged across the….dream space…l could still hear them yelling over me.

"FREAKING DO SOMETHING, GRANT!" Allyson shrieked at him.

"YOU'RE THE ONE WITH THE HEALING POWERS!" he bellowed at her. "YOU DO SOMETHING!"

"I CAN'T! HIS BODY'S FINE! I CAN'T FEEL HIS SOUL! HELP HIM!"

"ALLY, HIS EYES ARE PURE BLACK! SMOKE IS COMING OUTTA HIS MOUTH! THE F*(# DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?!"

I wanted to slap them both upside their heads, but I was too busy freaking the f*(# out. My soul was forcibly dragged from my body! Last time I was almost dead, so I can let that slide. I was very much alive this time around, so someone had a lot of explaining to do! Careful what you wish for, cuz as soon as my soul stopped flying, I wanted nothing more than to not be here.

The first thing I noticed was Doom. He was just a few feet in front of me! 6'7, in his armor and green cloak (and a lame skirt), with a frown literally etched into the mask. As I was just in a red tank top and black sweatpants, I felt super under dressed. My first instinct was to blast him with as much voltage as I could, but I was completely frozen; couldn't move a damn muscle! I noticed in the heaping load of shadow monsters in background. Snake people, monstrous centaurs, trolls, giants, and things that looked like humans mixed with scorpions, snakes, spiders, and various tentacle monsters. As far as I could see there were millions of them. That was when I noticed the floor. I thought the tiles were just projecting the image of a black hole, but even my soul felt the incomprehensible pull; like I was gonna crumple like a soda can. I knew where I was, and I wished more than anything to be somewhere else.

"Turn." a voice simply said.

I shuddered. First at how easily he was controlling me. No amount of willpower I had could deny him. It was like trying to wrestle against a planet. Game over before it starts. Second reason why I shuddered, his voice. Even while being chill, this guy's voice alone could destroy a state. It was Lothrook, the head of the Shadow Gods. He was wearing his usual getup. Bulky viking armor, a helmet that made Thor's wings look like little Cupid feathers, but was now wearing a fur cape and boots (what do Shadow Gods hunt? Do they eat?). He was alone, none of his siblings in sight, which implied this place was much bigger than just one great hall. Still, none of that mattered in the presence of this dude. He radiated power like a sun. My soul felt like it was somehow being roasted over a cold flame, while my atoms were being simultaneously ripped apart, and compressed. Again, if I was actually here, i'd probably be dead already.

"Kneel," Lothrook said, and my soul obeyed.

I hated him for this. I hated not having control. This guy was now #1 on my $#!+ list.

"Victor Von Doom." Lothrook continued. "Jason Thaddeus Fuller. This game has gone on long enough. On behalf of the Ones Who Sit Above In Shadow, I Lothrook, King of the God of gods, harbinger of darkness, and breaker of souls, decree that it ends."

"YOU DARE DISRESPECT DOOM'S AGENCY!" Doom roared at Lothrook (points for bravery). "RELEASE ME AT ON-"

"SILENCE!" Loothrook roared out, his voice louder than a whole city.

Doom's soul suddenly split apart into several hundred pieces. He roared in agony as his soul was compressed to the size of a marble, before reforming back to normal. Yeah, I was really getting a don't speak until spoken to kinda vibe here.

"Seven stones collected," Lothrook continued. "Yet the majority of them lie in the hands of children. Perhaps this one deserves the power you so desperately crave, little ruler. What say you, boy. Will you-"

"Be your bitch?" I interrupted him. "Yeah, i'm thinking hell no."

So much for holding my tongue to avoid torture. Not a second after I lashed out, I felt like every atom of my being was getting ripped apart slowly. My soul writhed on the floor, constantly breaking apart and reforming (not a good feeling). The sheer agony was unbearable. Like all the worst tortures put together, and ramped up to a billion. I know I screamed, but I couldn't even hear myself. The pain flooded everything out. Nothing mattered, save for the fact that this was my existence now. Thankfully, as quickly as it started, the pain stopped. I was left feeling drained and broken beyond imagination.

"Mortals," Lothrook casually kept talking. "So willfully ignorant of the greater powers that be. So sure that you are in control of who you are, of who you shall become. I have seen entire pantheons of gods rise and fall over and over since the dawn of time. Each time, their petty squabbles becoming more and more predictable with every rebirth. You mortals are no different. Your squabbles for power, minuscule concepts of morality, I have witnessed it all before. On either side, it never ends well. Still, you two have a purpose to serve, and as you mortals say, halftime is over. You have both displayed similar levels of cunning and determination to achieve your respective goals. Win, lose, live, die, it matters not. Still, I am intrigued about which of you is superior to the other. Perhaps the victor will serve me again. If you will not play on your own terms, you shall play by mine!"

The room shook, and I heard Lothrook grunt. It was like the dude just did a full workout, cuz her started breathing heavy.

"Now go, dogs," he said. "Play your little game for me."

"I'll kill you," I muttered out.

"Excuse me?" Lothrook asked, like I was speaking a foreign language.

"You….you did this. You ordered the attack on someone I care for deeply, you almost got my best friend killed. Somehow, i'll find a way to beat you."

Lothrook made my soul hurt again (this time it felt like I was getting a thousand swords jammed into every available area of my body), before sending me and Doom away.

"Little thunderer," he chuckled. "I cordially invite you to try."

My soul flew a million miles per hour across wherever the hell the Shadow Gods' realm was located. Before I knew it, I felt my soul crash into my body like a sack of bricks. I wish I could say I played it off smooth, but getting my soul yanked outta my body was terrifying. Getting it slammed back into my body was nothing short of legendary disorientation. I shot straight up, blasting lightning outta my eyes, and creating strong blasts of wind. Grant had to hold me down, while Allyson sang a song to calm me down. She gave me a hug, wiping away a tear, and looked like she was about to say something corny. Before she could, a familiar alarm blared across the Helicarrier, and we were teleported into the war room. Ok, sudden teleportation at best was annoying. In my condition, I was seriously thinking about frying Fury alive!

"GRRRRAAAHHH!" I roared out.

"And a good afternoon to you as well, Fuller," he barely even blinked at me. "I assume you know the drill at this point."

He pressed some buttons on his clicker, and the giant Holotable projected an image of the Grand Canyon. I've never been there, but I could appreciate the view. Giant redstone hills carved from erosion, with a nice long river snaking through it. The only difference was there was a huge rainbow beam big enough to swallow two skyscrapers slamming down into its heart. I knew without a doubt it was the Stone of Olympus doing this, but I had no idea why. Sure, this was Lothrook speeding the game up (whatever that means), but what did this have to do with anything?

"Wait a minute," Allyson said. "The stones, are they-"

"Still in containment," Fury said. "But I guess that means jack, considering they seem to do what they feel like doing."

"I can relate," Grant said. "So what's the deal with this? I mean, this is obviously the best Skittles commercial ever, but what does this mean?"

"Shadow Gods," I said.

Everyone either sighed, rubbed their heads, or facepalmed. Kinda disconcerting when the biggest response you can get outta "hey, I was in the presence of an all-powerful malevolent deity who's playing a cosmic game with me and Doom as pawns" is a resounding "this $#!+again?!"

"What do those assholes want now, Jason?" Fury asked me.

"Not entirely sure," I shrugged. "All I know is this whole Stones of Olympus thing is just a game to them. Like a stepping stone to their much larger scheme. Me and Doom are at the center of it."

"What makes you say that?"

"My soul's been yanked outta my body twice now. Both times I went to God knows where to see what they were up to. Not to brag, but i'm pretty sure i'm a big deal at this point."

"And soooo modest," Allyson responded.

"Totally. I responded. "Anyway, I think we should check it out. Best case scenario, it's nothing to worry about, but draws Doom out nonetheless. Worst case scenario, Doom gets some uber god weapon completely unopposed."

"Where was this sentiment yesterday?" Fury asked me.

"Under the sea," I clapped back. "But yeah, this is an open invitation to me and Doom. I say we go for it. Fury, while we're gone, you should assemble the troops. Uh, please. Just in case, ya know?"

"Took the words right outta my mouth, Fuller. Be careful. You need a ride?"

"We can manage on our own," Allyson said. "Thanks anyway. So, you guys, morphin' time?"

"Hell yeah!" Grant whooped.

We all morphed into our battlesuits, and Fury teleported us to the deck of the Helicarrier.

"Ok, guys," I said. "We goin'"

"That way," Grant and Allyson pointed in a general southwest direction.

"How'd ya'll know?"

"I can see the rainbow Kamehameha from here." Grant said. "Plus I can feel the energy from Demeter's stone. Like getting slammed in the face with a whole farm. Hercules too. That one makes me feel even stronger than I am."

"Same thing for me" Allyson said. "The Stone of Apollo, I mean. It feels like the sun itself is firebombing me. I'm guessing you feel the stones of Poseidon and Zeus?

"Yeah," I said. "Just add Ares, and Hades to that list."

"What?!" Grant and Allyson almost shrieked.

"Yup. Feels….weird. The energies keep mixing in my radar. Sometimes I get a Zeus/Ares combo, and I wanna rain down lightning and F5's on my enemies. Or right now, a Poseidon/Hades combo. I wanna drown the world, and collect all the souls for myself."

"Did you go through an emo phase?" Allyson asked me. "You seem like you would."

"Nah, even the emo kids smiled more than me. Anyway, let's get goin'."

We took of from the deck, and a few hypersonic booms later, were clear of the Helicarrier altogether.

I gotta admit, this kinda flying was fun! Sure, we were on our way to prevent God knows what from falling into the hands of an evil dictator (again), but this feeling right here was totally worth it. Grant and Allyson were still naturally better and faster than me at flying, but I used a few tricks to help me keep up. I was constantly absorbing electrons into myself, and using them to double my speed. On top of that, I was maintaining a wind funnel around me, cutting the air pressure down to nothing, and boosting my speed by another X2. Again, Grant and Allyson were able to keep up at leisure, but it still felt great to go all Fast & Furious air style! We ended up getting to the Grand Canyon in a little under seven minutes, and landed 50 yards away from the rainbow spire. At this point, I had no idea in hell what we were supposed to do. Hell, I was struggling just to hear myself think over the thrum of the various energies reacting to my…..spirit….I think. Lucky me, I got a sudden (and unwanted) visit by my old friends, the Norn Fates. The hags made me and my friends blackout, and put us in some kinda dream state. They circled over our the mental dream sky (which was as black as the beginning of everything) like vultures, and kept spouting off nonsense.

"Destiny approaches," one said. "The sword to kill what is immortal must find its master."

"Darkness and light will dance together in battle," said another.

"The gods will sleep under a blanket of darkness," said the last. "The destruction of what cannot be destroyed, will usher in the beginning of the end," said the last.

They honed in on me, and spoke in unison.

"Child of the gods," they chanted. "Your destiny approaches. Success or failure, the universe will shake in the consequences of your battle!"

I felt myself fall, like some kinda universal sinkhole, and I woke up with a gasp. I was on the ground, same as my friends, breathing heavy, feeling like someone had deep frozen my organs.

"Hate those things!" Allyson wheezed out.

"I hear that!" Grant said, "Those f-"

Whatever Grant was gonna say, got interrupted by the sudden boost in the intensity of the rainbow spire. It was like the beam was tryna dig into the earth itself. Me and the team just kinda watched it unfold for a few more seconds, not wanting to accidentally make it worse, until the spire suddenly stopped (musta ran outta juice), and a huge explosion blew us away! It was like getting slammed by a crate of pillows to be honest. Sure, the impact threw me and my friends a good 50 meters back, but with all the compatible energies in the mix, it felt like getting assaulted with something kinda feel good. I rolled back on my feet, expecting to see some kinda hybrid demon monster from Hell, but again, nothing of the sort. The multicolored spire was now a pure white bonfire, with multicolored cinders flying upwards. The flame was big enough to burn a building, pulsated like a heartbeat, but had no kind of heat resonating off of it. Beautiful to look at, but again, I had no idea what do make of it. I was thinkin' bout blasting it with some lightning (at least I might get a reaction then), but the flame took the first swing again. I felt like someone impaled my soul, and yanked a piece of it into the fire. All the air in my body left me, and I slammed to my knees, wheezing and coughing. I thought it only happened to me, but, when I looked over, Grant and Allyson were more or less as f*(#%$ as I was. Whatever it was that just happened, it only lasted for like ten seconds, but at this point, I wanted to drown that damn fire!

"Okay," Grant said, after we got up. "This sucks."

He actually made a huge chunk of rock slam into the flame, and started yelling at it!

"HEY!" he shouted. "WHATEVER YOU'RE GONNA DO, JUST GET ON WITH IT!"

Leave it to him to find a way to make me laugh after feeling like someone yanked a lung outta me with a meat hook. Still, I didn't expect the flame to respond the way that it did! Seven orbs of energy, one for each respective signature, floated out, lined up, and started to take form. As they did so, I noticed how the energies were transforming into crystal. Weird, but…...ok? It wasn't until they finished constructing themselves that I realized how much this…..whatever this was, was specifically meant for me. The energies of Ares, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, Apollo, and Hercules, were all constructs of their God of War (video game) designs.

Ares was an all red construct with a long mane of fire for hair. His armor had shoulder guards with growling dog heads on them, and he was wielding a flaming sword that looked like it could slice a bus like butter. Hades was an all purple crystal construct that looked like he was both fat and strong (kinda like Blob). His flesh looked like it was burned, and he had spikes jutting out of his body (I still don't get why they used that design). He was also sporting that badass furnace looking helmet with horns that had purple flames spewing out of it. He was of course wielding his claws of…..well, him, that looked like someone bent two prongs, and attached them to chains. Poseidon and Zeus basically had the same aesthetic to them. Both had dreads that reached down to their mid to lower back. Both were wearing something like a toga. The only real difference was that Poseidon had his tattoos glowing all over his body, and was wearing a small crown, had decorative jewelry in his dreads. Oh, and Poseidon was all blue crystal, and wielding a trident, while Zeus was all white crystal, wielding a lightning bolt the size of a spear. Apollo was a bright gold crystal construct, wearing Greek armor, a cape, and a Greek helmet with a fire plume (badass). He was holding a bow, and had a quiver filled with arrows slung across his back. Finally, Hercules…...looked a lot like Grant. Never thought of it that way, but GOW Hercules could be Grant in like 30 years (assuming we lived that long). The construct was built like a mountain, with pecs half as big as I was. He was wearing a loincloth, some shoulder guards, and a Roman Centurion helmet with a sideways plume, fashioned after a lion head. He was of course wearing his Nemean Cestus gloves; big metal gauntlets similar to boxing gloves, fashioned after growling lion heads. The only construct that didn't have a GOW aesthetic, was Demeter. Granted, she never made an appearance in GOW, so that made sense. Still, she got her share of the badass battle fashion. She was a green crystal construct, wearing a breastplate shaped like leaves, with a battle skirt woven outta grass. She was sporting four angel wings, each made of sharpened leaves, and a Greek helmet that had a long bent leaf for a plume. She was wielding a scythe. Hell, now that I think of it, she looked more like GOW Persephone.

So yeah, here were were. Three mutant kids facing off against seven godly constructs.

"Maybe they're friendly?" Allyson shrugged, hoping for the best.

Yeah, the constructs gave her the biggest f*(# you they possibly could. Up until then, they were just solid crystal statues holding their weapons. As soon as Allyson finished her sentence, they powered up like f*(#!^% Super Saiyans! The sheer level of power assaulting my senses were overwhelming. It was like invisible missiles bombarding my soul rapid fire. The constructs launched themselves at us at level of speed we weren't ready for, and in the heat of the moment, me and the team just kinda panicked and flew in separate directions (serious strike against my leadership record).

For the first minute and a half it was straight up pandemonium. I was getting chased around by the Hercules, and Demeter constructs (yeah, they could all fly). Grant was getting kicked around by the Apollo and Zeus constructs, and Allyson was flying as fast as she could away from the Ares, Poseidon, and Hades constructs. For a minute and a half, we all just kinda did the best we could. I blasted at my constructs with some Kamehameha blasts, buying myself extra half seconds when I slightly knocked their momentum awry. Grant, was definitely struggling against the Apollo and Zeus constructs, who kept raining down balls of fire and lighting at him, but he busted out his axe, activated his G-Blazer, and slowly got back into the fight. Every blow he landed sounded off like a sonic boom, and after a while, he started summoning his All-Metal, as well as using slabs of earth, to help smack the constructs around. Allyson was either doing better or worse than both of us. While she was easily able to keep ahead of her pursuers, they kept raining down constructs and energy blasts on her. The Poseidon construct created a giant swirling water sphere around her, and zapped her with a s#!+ load of Sea Force! That had to have hurt, but Allyson busted out via giant mini-sun, and slammed into her pursuers inside a charging ram construct, flooring them all.

Again, none of us were doing terrible, but we were never in control. These god constructs were fast, strong, and relentless. While I was flying closer to the ground, the Demeter construct shot a long tendril of grass at my leg faster than my Speed Sense could alert me. Once it got a solid grip, she slammed me into the ground twice, and flipped me around to see the Hercules construct descending on me like a falling ice cream truck! I summoned my Sky Shield on a reflex, and yeaaaaaaaaah….this was not gonna be easy. The shield held up against the falling power punch, and the reverb knocked him away, but the ground shattered like china! My arm felt like someone slammed a truck into it, and I practically got buried alive under two tons of rock! I sensed the Demeter and Hercules constructs coming back for seconds, and I busted outta the ground via blastwave, knocking them back a few feet. I slammed Hercules with a charging triceratops construct, ramming him though several canyon walls, leaving me alone with the Demeter construct. She tried to do something with growing ivy plants outta the ground, but I was thinking hell no. I summoned the biggest Mega Lighting Strike I could muster, tunneling her at least 50 ft into the ground. I felt good about myself for a little while, until my Speed Sense went off (where the hell was it when I was getting ragdolled by a giant grass blade?), alerting me to giant thorns about to impale me from the ground up! I jumped outta dodge, anticipated Demeter's uppercut, and when she came at me from behind, I spun around, summoned my trident, and slammed her across the head with the meanest baseball swing ever! The hit was so hard (without even using my vibration powers), I knocked her half a mile away! Despite the urge to celebrate how much I loved my new strength, I had other things to deal with. The charging Hercules construct coming back around to pummel me was top of the list.

I waited till he was 50 meters away, before accessing the Power Grid to lay the hurt on him. I created two spiked walls (always a favorite), and smashed him in a good few times. I slowed him down a little, even looked like I may have damaged him, but he literally punched my constructs apart, and resumed his charge at me. I did the stupid thing and phased through his tackle. Oh dear lord, I should've learned from Atlantis not to phase through energy attacks! The rush of the Hercules power burned like hell. It felt like someone injected a god version of steroids into every cell in my body. I'm pretty sure in the split second that the energy was still active in my system, I could lift two battleships stacked on top of each other. The sucky part was that the sudden energy surge more or less paralyzed me (I was literally having a seizure). I sensed the Hercules and Demeter constructs coming back around for round 3. I wasn't gonna be able to recover in time to get away. I was screwed. Then I felt the Zeus and Apollo constructs rain down from the sky and slam into Herc and Demeter. A few seconds later, they got pulled off the ground, and into Allyson's mini-sun, about 100 ft in the air. I found it funny that she spit the Apollo construct out (made sense), and sent it careening into the rock.

"Do the gravity thing, Geo-Titan!" she thought to Grant while flying down to us.

Grant snapped his fingers, and the construct might as well have been trapped under a whale.

"So," he said as he landed next to me. "Good warm-up, right? Sure, we gotta work on the whole plan of attack thing, but it coulda been worse."

"Sure," Allyson said as she also landed next to me. "Storm-Lord? Anything? I mean these constructs are really strong. It's taking everything I have to keep them contained.

"Don't worry," I said, shaking off that energy surge. "I kinda sorta have maybe half of a plan. We gotta drain these things of their power. Every time we hit them, a little of their power gets chipped off."

"I feel that too! But they're too many and too strong. We can't fight them all off."

"I kinda feel like we could, especially if we fight together, but don't worry, we're gonna try and cheat."

"Meaning?"

"Ok, so you can absorb solar energy, Grant has some kinda connection to the Hercules and Demeter constructs, and the Poseidon construct is just Sea Force. Right there, we just eliminated three combatants-"

"If we drain their energy!" Grant finished. "Genius!"

"Exactly," I continued. "Sunbird, since you got Apollo separated, you go first. GT, we gotta keep the other constructs contained. No matter what, they don't get any room to breathe!"

"Got it."

"You cool with this, Sunbird?" I asked her.

"Not really, but i'll play ball. Get ready…..and….NOW!"

She dropped her mini-sun, and dashed toward the Apollo construct like she was a starving lioness. I quickly created a thundercloud bubble around the constructs, and cranked up the wind speed. Thanks to my training with Storm, I was able to get to 300 mph, keeping the constructs relatively contained. I could feel the Zeus construct fighting for control of the winds, but Grant was lighting the inside of the vortex ball with Geo-Force bolts. Hell, when the constructs actually managed to break free of the bubble, he wrapped them in a giant All-Metal ball, and wrapped that in several layers of tree and rock, while still keeping up the Geo-Force lightshow on the inside.

"Yo, Sunbird!" he thought to Allyson. "How you doin' over there?! Not to be a dick, but you sure takin' a while. Can't hold these gods, and your gravity spot forever!"

I understood where he was coming from. We had been holding these constructs off for a minute and counting. Sunbird was draining the Apollo construct as fast as she could, but it wasn't fast enough. I was about to check on her myself, but those god constructs really did not like being cooped up. I guess they managed to regroup and combine their energies, cuz in a split second they shattered Grant's containment orb like glass with an energy blastwave! Me and Grant got a great view of a charging group of pissed off god constructs coming right at us. I summoned my trident, but before the battle could resume (I was totally gonna win), two giant hands made of fire smashed them together like flies! The flames reconstructed into a giant spring, and launched the god constructs into the air. Dunno what was in that Apollo construct, but it made Allyson hella strong! Her constructs hit with the force of like five sonic booms combined in one. I got a brief look at her, and I gotta admit she kinda looked scary. I had seen her Blazing Sun Form more than a handful of times, but this time was way different. Even from 200 meters away, it felt like she was a white hot black hole of energy! Her flames looked like a bright yellow wildfire just on the brink of being uncontrollable. Her flames absently made shapes of animals sacred to Apollo (roe deer, snake, wolf, etc.), and she had a look on her face that suggested she was pleasantly thinking of burning everything around her. Again I was gonna check on her, but she was way over my $#!+. She snapped her fingers, and the Poseidon construct plummeted to the ground a good 50 meters behind me and Grant.

"Handle that!" she thought to me. "Geo-Titan, you're with me!"

She took off guns blazing into the air, creating a legion of angel constructs to fight with her against the god constructs.

"You good here, bro?" Grant asked me.

"Yeah," I said. "No problem. Help her."

He gave me a quick nod and took off, leaving me with the Poseidon construct. My Speed Sense alerted me that he was already up, and about to stab me in the back with his trident. I backflipped over it, and slammed Poseidon in the head with a backwards (or maybe upside down) dropkick. He went soaring backwards, but before he could get to far (and he was movin' at just under the speed of sound), I tapped into SMS, and ran to intercept him. I whacked him with my trident to experiment, and besides knocking him back in bounds, I felt a huge surge of energy transfer from him to me. Maybe it was because I had seen Allyson's look of euphoria from her power surge, but I was disappointed with the feeling on my end. Then again, I had the Poseidon Stone in my chest a few times. Guess I couldn't get the same high without it. Anyway, I smacked Poseidon around a few times before slamming the trident over his head, flooring him, and clamping him to the ground via lightning cuffs on his hands and legs. That didn't hold him down long (not even for a full 3 seconds), but I managed to construct a giant hand made of thunder cloud to buy me some more time. I stabbed my trident into him, and started draining his energy like a mosquito. The energy surged into me, and while it didn't feel like I was gonna get that same high as Allyson seemed to have, I got something a lot better. My Sea Force storage (kinda like a flashdrive) kept expanding as it was filled. I went from being able to control a lake, to a small river, to at least half of the Hudson. Again, the amount of Sea Force I can control is about equal to about the amount of water I can control, so i'm not even gonna try to calculate that. Anyway, I managed to drain almost 60% of the construct's energy, before it burst free of my thundercloud hand, and tried to get the upper hand on me. Maybe it was because it was just a kinda sorta robot, didn't know me, or was just plain stupid, but the dumbass created a giant orb of water, and "trapped" me inside with him. There were so many ways I kicked his ass, it was actually laughable!

First, I unleashed a huge voltage surge in the water, bombarding the Poseidon construct with enough voltage to power a small city. That knocked his power down by a good 10%, and held him back for a good minute. When he did manage to get back in the fight, it was abysmally easy to take the advantage back. He came stabbing at me with his trident, which a dodged and countered with a Vibration roundhouse kick to his face! He got punted outta the water, and after absorbing it into my trident (cuz that was a thing), I chased after him. Finishing him off only took another minute and a half. I kept circling around him, smacking and stabbing him with my trident, absorbing large chunks if his power by the half second. He sometimes managed to bust out via blastwave, but that worked against him, as I absorbed most of the released energy into myself. Soon enough, he was barely flickering with what remained of his power. I busted out my Power Gauntlets, charged up a massive Vibration Punch, and after getting a running start, slammed the construct with a blow that could literally trash at least two city blocks. Hell, I created a crater the size of a high school, while also destabilizing the surrounding land (wonder if the government could sue for this). Anyway, the Poseidon construct was destroyed, but now that we were two constructs down, I noticed something strange. Deep in the ground, yet at the same time not even on this plane of existence, a huge power was combining and forming something. I assumed it was the sword the old hags were on about, but I couldn't worry about that now; my friends needed me.

Ok, maybe needed was an overstatement. Don't get me wrong, they could definitely use an extra set of hands, but they had this $#!+ on lock. Allyson alone was taking on all but one of the remaining constructs, bathing them in streams of fire, slamming them with every violent construct she could think of, and when they got too close, batting them away with a good hit enhanced by her Power Gauntlets. Hell, she was getting bombarded with lighting bolts, weapons constructs from Ares, wraiths from Hades, and took more than a few good hits from Hercules, but she got back in the fight in like she was only getting hit by pillows. Grant had knocked the Demeter construct to the ground, and was keeping her in place via gravity control, while siphoning her power away.

"Well look who finally decided to rejoin the party!" he thought to me as I flew up to help Allyson.

"Shut it, dude!" I thought back to him. "I had to actually fight my construct, not that gravity bull$#!+ you do!"

"Jeez. And I thought green was my color. By the way, you should watch it with ya girl. She's a bit…...murder crazy at the moment."

"Good to know. I'm gonna take the Zeus construct; have a little quality time with gramps. You got the Hercules construct?"

"No prob. Good luck."

"Same."

As I got closer to Allyson's warzone, I shot her a quick courtesy memo.

"Yo, Sunbird!" I thought to her. "Points for effort, but I need the Zeus construct to myself. Help a brother out?"

I was expecting a lotta things. Her to tell me to piss off, that she had this, or even a sarcastic "what took ya so long" typa comment that was her standard lingo. Ummmm…...she growled at me. Not kidding. It was a low, beastly, primal growl; like a mother bear protecting her cubs.

"WAIT!" she almost immediately followed up. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, i'm so sorry."

"No sweat?" I uncertainty responded. "You ok?"

"Yeah. I'm fine, it's just…...Storm-Lord…..the power! I've never felt anything like it. It was like I was a glass half full. Now I feel like i'm overflowing! Is this how you and GT felt when you bonded with the stones?"

"Probably greater. You just got a taste. Me and Geo-Titan had the whole thing. But yeah, I like the enthusiasm. Now if I could just have my gramps all to myself please?"

"Oh yeah! Sure thing, boss. I softened him up for ya. Have fun."

She isolated the Zeus construct in a mini-sun, and sent it high above the main battle. I flew up after it, and decided to get Allyson back later for that backhanded remark of softening it up for me (like I needed a soft pass). Anyway, grandpa and I had one hell of a time playing catch. He started by making the clouds all dark and gloomy. White lightning flashed across the sky rapid fire, thunder ringing in my ears louder than fireworks. I almost smiled at the situation. I was completely in my element here. Gramps was just gonna give me a taste of that sweet pure god power. In half a second, ten different tendrils of lightning converged on me like I was a lightning rod. I didn't attempt to fight or dodge them. I absorbed all the energy into myself, 100% sure that I was gonna get the mother of all power boosts! On one hand, I was kinda right. The energy was definitely compatible with me on some level, as it did flow into my body. Still, I expected to feel good. Maybe even a whole new form if I was lucky. Nah, what I got was pain. So. Much. Pain! My mind and body were both paralyzed with how much pain I was in. It was like someone had broken, boiled, and smashed my bones all at once! I couldn't see, hear, or sense anything other than how much my body was convulsing! Hell, I didn't even remember feeling the impact of a hit, but I felt myself plummet into the ground. Shortly afterwards, I felt a Mega Lightning Strike (what goes around comes around) completely engulf me in a billion volts. Beforehand, I thought I was in as much pain as I could possibly be. Thanks for proving me wrong, gramps!

Now, it was like I was getting dunked in an acid bath X1,000! I dunno if I was screaming, but above the roar of thunder, I doubt anyone could've heard me. The worst part was how much the energy was actually affecting me. Usually, tanking an energy blast is just that. The energy impacts your body, it hurts, but assuming you're not dead, you just shrug it off and keep going. This was SO MUCH DIFFERENT! The energy from the Zeus construct just kept pouring into me. I actually felt the energy flood into me at a subatomic level; like every atom in my body was getting eaten by fire ants! I don't know how long I stayed under the lightning bolt, just that it felt like forever until it finally stopped. I was seriously concerned that I might actually be dead this time, but I was still convulsing from the energy overload, so no such luck. Now I felt like a frog getting zapped constantly by a cattle prod. The lightning had soaked so much of every fiber of my being, that I was bursting at the seams. I did the only thing I could do, the only thing that proved to work when I was in situations like this. I vibrated like a mother f*(#^&.

This time felt different from when I did it to adjust to the Poseidon energy. Then, it felt like a mashup of five different sensations at once. This one just felt….itchy; like I was shedding at a microscopic level. As I vibrated, my body automatically adjusted to the energy, which came with some interesting side effects. My cells were moving so fast, even I couldn't keep track of the massive overdrive they were in. Thunder was roaring inside my head, and I felt several bolts of lightning surge across the sky just because I was slightly annoyed. My Thunder Sense had multiplied by several times (I could sense everything as far as the entire area of the five boroughs), and my connection to the Power Grid was…..weird to say the least. Beforehand the Power Grid just felt like a layer of energy around me; like a thin upper layer of the world I could tap into. Now, it felt like the Power Grid was slowly becoming one with me. There was a whole buncha stuff that I probably was gonna scan myself for later on, but I had to get back in the fight.

Right now, Grant was duking it out with Hercules all over the damn place. They started in the air, then Grant got slammed to the ground. Hercules joined him shortly afterwards, as Grant floored him with a huge bolt of Geo-Force, and started wailing on him with a combination of his axe and Power Gauntlets (good combo). Allyson was still doin' her thing, taking on two constructs at once (we really were knockin' em down), barely even breaking a sweat. Again, because i'm a glutton for punishment, I wanted Zeus all to myself again, and willed myself to fly up and at him. I decided to use the air to propel me upwards, instead of going into Thunder Form, and in doing so, found another way the Zeus energy had enhanced me. While I was definitely ok at using air to fly, I wasn't anywhere near Storm's level beforehand. Now…...guys, I literally broke the sound barrier just on my take off! I couldn't tell you how amazing it felt to be able to fly this fast without Thunder Form. Using that felt like flying in a safety net; like hang gliding. Now, it felt like flying without the training and exhilarating all at once! I zoomed past Allyson, slammed into the Zeus construct (which still felt like ramming into a pillar of acid), and flew him back above the clouds for round 2.

This time was a lot different. Rather than trying to absorb everything he could throw at me, I busted out my Power Gauntlets, and started wailing of Zeus like there was no tomorrow. I slammed Zeus away at the speed of sound, and caught up to him about a second later. I kept smacking him around, not daring to give him a second to recover. As I continued on, more and more of his energy kept transferring to me; making me stronger and faster by the second. Maybe it was because I was in control (more or less) of the energy surging into me, but this time didn't feel like a bunch of fire ants trying to eat my insides. It definitely wasn't easy to keep the effort up. Zeus was no pushover. There were several times when he'd recover, and straight up unleash holy hell!

After smacking him around for a good minute and a half, he managed to conjure a tornado outta nowhere, and suck me inside! Ok, I know what goes around has to eventually come around, but I was so not feeling this at all! I felt like someone had dropped me in blender filled with marbles. The wind was laced with electric sleet, which stung my face like an army of wasps (thank God for my armor). If your asking why I didn't just take control of the tornado from him, I already tried that! Trying to take control if the tornado from this guy was like trying to pull a banana from an ape (do apes really eat bananas?). It was at this moment that I really regretted not getting further into my training with Storm. We were gonna work on fighting for environmental control sometime in the future. Now, I was all but a sitting duck. And as if things couldn't get any worse, Zeus started wailing on me with lightning bolts! My Speed Sense always picked them up, but there was nothing I could do to avoid the blasts; just absorb them. On the bright side, they didn't hurt this bad this time around. Oh, they stung like a mother f*(#€^, but I was constantly vibrating; always forcing my body to adjust to the energy. I don't know how long I was trapped in the vortex of terror, no idea how many volts slammed into my body, but after a while I could feel something building inside me. It was like a dormant volcano in my chest suddenly going active! Every nerve in my body was going nuclear! My muscles itched like I was in the biggest pair of long johns, and my heart was hammering like a mockingbird on meth! Thunder kept ringing inside my head, louder than a marching band, and my Thunder Sense was going off the charts! Eventually, my body couldn't adjust anymore. Every atom in my body was overcharged. That metaphorical volcano in my chest was well past critical, and my body felt like it was gonna explode! And ya know what? It did!

It was like a supernova had slammed outta the deepest part of me; places I didn't even know I had! I roared louder than the thunderstorm the Zeus construct had me trapped under, and my power levels skyrocketed! I felt strong enough to take Grant on in a fight, fast enough to give Allyson a run for her money, but the $#!+ that really got me was how strong I felt in my control over the sky. I could feel every cloud from Nevada to New Mexico. Creating massive city destroying thunderstorms felt as simple and involuntary as sneezing. Making the sky thunder was easier than breathing, and at this point, I could feel every electron in the air. Most important, me and the Zeus construct were more or less on equal playing terms now! I quickly willed the winds to stop swirling me around, and shot after it with a vengeance!

I slammed him in the face with the hardest Vibration Punch I ever threw; making one hell of a sonic boom (or maybe that was thunder). The construct flew like five miles in half a second, but I easily caught up with it with speeds that surprised even me! I slammed the construct again with an uppercut, knocking it above the lower troposphere, and after catching up with it again, hammer punched it back down. It was when I just barely managed to kick the construct back into the air, before it hit the ground, that I realized something super important: I wasn't flying! Well, I sorta was, but not really. See, every time I caught up with the construct, it was because I predicted its trajectory, and wound up in the place I needed to be to stop it. I knew I was flying so fast it almost seemed instant, but my vision always blacked out as I was in motion. On that last hit, where I stopped the construct from hitting the ground (literally inches away) that I realized I was more or less teleporting! Again, not exactly, but kinda. Without even knowing it, I was breaking myself down into electrons, traveling along the Power Grid way faster than I could even run, and rematerializing myself right where I needed to be to intercept the construct. Pretty sure it was the Zeus Energy giving me the boost, but i'd take anything I could get right now.

Anyway, finishing of the Zeus construct didn't take long at all. I teleported right under it, slammed it with a Vibration Uppercut, and followed up with a backflip kick. I spun sideways, summoned Excelsior (never dropping that name), and managed to get a good slice across the construct's face. Dude…...I shoulda started with that! Sure me punching/absorbing the energy outta the construct was working, but bringing a sword into the mix was a f*(!^% golden ticket! It was like the last strike before hitting oil! The Zeus construct hemorrhaged so much energy, the thing flickered like a light bulb for a half a sec! Had to spread the word to my teammates, but for now I had to finally put grandpa in a nursing home! I flew full speed ahead at him, stabbed him in the gut, and absorbed all the remaining energy outta him like I was a vampire (the non Twilight kind).

I absorbed so much energy, I almost lost my entire sense of self. It was like Jason Fuller was a speck; an insignificant fragment in an ocean of power. I was one with a force of nature, I WAS a force of nature! If I wanted to, I could lay waste to everything! Those were just a few of the insane thoughts scrambling around in my head before I got a grip on myself! I understood how Allyson felt now. Sure, I had tasted full godhood when I was bonded with the Stone of Poseidon, but this Zeus energy felt so much more natural; way more than even the Sea Force ever could. If this is how gods feel all the time, no wonder they're usually dicks. I mean, I felt like I could have anything and everything i've ever wanted with a snap of my fingers. Once you feel that way, you start to wonder why you shouldn't just rule everything…..I mean, it's not like anyone could stop me. Yeah….like I said, the high was a little hard to get over. I kept myself grounded by focusing on the mission and my friends. Speaking of which, Allyson was doing pretty good on her own. The Ares and Hades constructs were putting up a hell of a fight, but she had already shifted into Super Sunbird (which had a ridiculous boost now), and was wailing away at them faster than they could even sneeze.

"Sunbird!" I thought to her. "Hitting them with my sword drains them faster. Maybe it works the same for you!"

"Noted!" she thought back to me. "Help, Geo-Titan, he's having a rough go of it!"

Didn't think that was possible. Grant was a powerhouse even without Geo-Force. It was almost ironic that the moment I managed to find him via Thunder Sense, he got his clock cleaned by a literal earth shattering cross punch from the Hercules construct. The guy flew ten miles, through God knows how many tons of rock, before landing near a river. The guy definitely got his bell rung hard, cuz he was struggling to get back up. Hell, if I didn't slam into the Hercules construct as a huge lightning strike, he would've continued to get the absolute $#!+ kicked outta him. I immediately rematerialized myself, busted out my a Power Gauntlet, and gave the Hercules construct an uppercut for the ages; knocking the bastard into the clouds. I kept it busy via supercell thunderstorm (loved making those).

"Get up, Geo-Titan," I taunted him. "It was only a few hundred tons of force, you big baby."

"I'll remember that when I knock you to the next galaxy," he said as he got up slowly. "Damn Hercules construct is faster than I thought!"

"A good handful of hits from your axe might help with that. I took down gramps with Excelsior."

"I can see. You rock the whole thunder god thing pretty good."

I looked at myself, a little confused, and was absolutely shell shocked with how badass I looked! White lightning was absently surging and sparking across my body like I was a human tesla sphere. I usually don't like taking selfies (I have maybe three pictures of myself on my iPod), but I bet I was screensaver worthy right now!

"Cool beans," I thought to Grant. "Now, I believe you have a score to settle with your ancestor?"

"No $#!+," he growled. "Gimme a sec."

He summoned his axe, and I felt the earth tremor! A wave of Geo-Force flooded into Grant like he was a black hole! Other than the Stone of Poseidon and Hades, i've never felt anything even close to this level of power. Grant's eyes filled with Geo-Force. His body had a natural gravitational pull that was raising dirt and pebbles. He hefted his axe, and looked at the sky.

"Set me up, bro?" he casually asked me.

"No problem," I responded, trying so hard to keep my cool.

I shot Hercules down via Mega Lightning Strike, and Grant hit the construct as hard as he could with his axe. Yeah….the hit was so strong, it caused a series of cracks to form in one of the mountain formations. I felt a blast of wind strong enough to blow an entire parking lot of pickup trucks away. And you better believe after a hit like that, I was getting showered in Hercules energy (and dirt)! Hell, now that i think of it, the energy seemed to gel with Grant, like the Zeus energy did for me. So many questions, not enough time to answer them all. I just followed after Grant, who was barreling after the Hercules construct like a bullet.

He got a few more good hits off on the construct, before I caught up and took a slice at it with my Sky Shield. Yeah, I had learned my lesson about vibrating near foreign energy sources. Until we had wrapped up the rest of these construct, my Vibration Punches were on indefinite hold. Still, I had more than enough tricks up my sleeve to compensate. Me and Grant used Hercules as a makeshift Bludger (i'd totally be a Chaser, not a Beater) for a while, smacking him back and forth between ourselves, and throwing in a few hammer/baseball bat constructs to double up on the effort of keeping him off-balance. The game ended once we were back near Allyson, and Grant created a giant man eating tulip to gnaw on Hercules for a bit, before spitting him onto the ground. Before the construct could even turn around, Grant threw his Geo-Force charged axe at its back. The explosion that ensued created a crater big enough to bury half a skyscraper in (I feel like this is vandalism). He flew down after the Hercules construct, and I immediately felt tremors from the blows he was throwing. I flew down after him, charging my shield up with a ton of lighting (now a mix of white and blue).

"Heads up!" I thought to him.

He kneed the Hercules construct in the gut, and threw him up at me. I threw my shield down, hit the Hercules construct in the chest, and sent it crashing down again.

"Delta Speed Thrasher!" I thought to him.

It was like a well oiled machine. I slashed at the construct with my shield, bobbing and weaving around its desperate swings, while Grant sliced the thing up with his axe and sword. Again, getting showered in god energy wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience, but the Hercules energy seemed to work as a temporary boost. I felt my strength almost double as the energy radiated my body, but the power always left as soon as it came. Bummer, I kinda liked the feeling of being able to juggle mountains. Anyway, me and Grant wrapped up the battle in 2 minutes, and shattered it with a final axe/shield hit.

"That was fun," I thought to him as we flew to help out Allyson. "How ya feeling?"

"F*(!^% amazing!" he responded. "It's not showing on the outside, but i'm so next level, bro! Like, I can already lift a continent. Now I feel like I could crush one to bits with just my bare hands!"

"Good for you. And hey, we still got two more punching bags for you to unleash the beast! Make it count, dude!'

"You don't gotta tell me twice, Storm-Lord! Hey, Sunbird, i'm comin' in hot! Toss me one of those, will ya?!"

"Well it's about dang time!" Allyson thought as she punted the Hades construct at us. "You two deal with that! If anything's left of Ares when you're done, don't take your sweet time gettin' over here!"

"Nice to see you're not dead too," I thought to her.

I launched the Hades construct further in the air via Phantom Bolt; setting Grant up for a major hit. Yeah…..this dude gave a whole new meaning to the whole taking a mile when given an inch thing. From what I could see, he didn't use his Power Gauntlets, no Vibration Punches, and didn't even enhance his punch with Geo-Force. His punch was so strong, even 100 ft in the air, the punch sounded off with enough force to literally create another crater just as deep as the last, but wide enough to fit an entire college campus in! The Hades construct immediately lost half of its energy (talk about a disappearing act), and was literally punted outta the grand canyon in half a second, probably on its way to the next state! I knew Grant didn't mean it, but now I had to clean up the mess. I tapped into the highest level of Speed Mode I could, and honed in on the Hades construct, which was just barely still in my range of "teleportation", and did a Static Jump (official) just 100 meters ahead of it.

My Thunder Sense pinged the Navajo Reservation directly below me. No way I was gonna ground this construct. Had to take the fight to the clouds. I busted out my left Power Gauntlet, vibrated my arm as much as I could, and charged it with lightning and Sea Force. Hell, for an extra kick, I condensed the moisture in the air, and showered myself with a quick flush of water. This was another power I got from absorbing all of that Zeus Energy, but I guess I could always do something close to it; clouds aren't made outta cotton after all. Anyway, the quick flush of water doubled my strength, but I was still kinda embarrassed that even with all these enhancements, I still couldn't match up to that monster punch Grant just dished out (i'm competitive like that). Still, my uppercut to the Hades construct was more than enough to launch it safely into the clouds, while only sending a light breeze down over the reservation. I flew up after it, but now I was scared. When I hit the construct, the Hades energy left it, and merged with me. Not in that Hercules way where it was just a quick flush of power, but in that Zeus/Poseidon way, where I could feel the energy merge with me as if it was natural! It felt colder than the bottom of the ocean, and I felt a ethereal tether to the underworld The Fields of Punishment to be exact. I felt a small echo of their pain and suffering, and felt a sick sense of glee take over me. I relished in the pain of the sinful. I felt as if a marionette was extending from myself to them. They were just puppets for my use/entertainment. Yeah, I IMMEDIATELY pushed those thoughts far outta my head. Compatible or not, I wanted nothing to do with this power. Sucked for me, cuz i'd have to take it either way.

I created a huge thunderstorm, and struck the Hades construct with a billion volts of lightning from every direction, while also burying my sword deep in its head! The mix of lightning and Hades energy flooding into me felt like taking an ice bath in the Antarctic, if said ice bath was surging with enough voltage to power a city. Good thing I chased the Hades Energy with the lightning, cuz aside from the soul crushing chill, I felt a HUGE urge to raise the dead, and wreak havoc on everything in sight. Good, bad, in between, it didn't matter; I just wanted to raise Hell, and take everything back down with me! Yeah, the voltage chaser kept me focused, and not murder crazy. It took me a few seconds to get my $#!+ together, but after doing so I quickly did a Static Jump back to Grant and Allyson, who were putting the finishing touches on the Ares construct. It was kinda funny to see them repeatedly smash it into the ground with giant sledgehammer constructs. I brought their fun to an end by smashing into the Ares construct as a lightning strike, and stabbing it with my sword. The little bit if Ares energy flowed into me like just like the Hades energy did. Still, I had experience with it, and i'm usually great at suppressing my anger (except when dealing with Crosby). This was just another surge of all too familiar anger. Oh sure, there was that bloodlust again, the desire to wage war on everything, and an unhealthy obsession with mixing axes with shotguns (I dunno), but Allyson quickly came to the rescue with a few calming lines from Colors of the Wind (I hate Pocahontas).

"How about we not repeat that again?" she said as she landed next to me. "You're already like 70% teen angst."

"Then what does that make you?" I responded. "A Powerpuff girl with extra sugar?"

"And spice!"

"You two make my heart melt," Grant said. "But seriously, I can feel a massive surge of power like 50 ft deep in the earth. Whatever's going on, it won't be long till it's done."

"Yeah." I said. "I feel it too. The energy….it's building something. Something powerful. The Norn-Fates did say something a sword."

"So now what?" Allyson asked. "We just wait it out?"

"Not really seeing the choices here. Besides, looks like the worst part is-"

Just beginning. Always remember that. Keep that close to your heart. No matter how many times you win, no matter how happy you are, no matter how hard fought your successes were, your troubles are always just beginning.

In this case, ours were a horde of several dozen orange four eyed snakes sprouting outta the ground like weeds! The things were so fast, my Speed Sense barely caught them. I quickly slashed the heads of six of the snakes. I noticed that my sword ignited the whole Holy Waters of Eden spell again, completely incinerating them. Allyson and Grant had the same idea, but like me, their weapons amounted to jack $#!+ too. Like I said, these snakes were fast as hell, and multiplied like rabbits. We lasted for maybe five seconds, before the snakes coiled around our arms, legs, and torsos, then proceeded to pull us to the ground. I fought with all my strength, tried blowing them apart with lighting, wind, and Sea Force blastwaves, but the creatures stood firm; barely even flinching. The telling sign was Grant struggling to break free. There were several moments when it seemed he'd get free, but the snakes around him got big enough to crush houses as he struggled. Also, while these things had to be some sorta demon things (you notice similarities when you've already fought a interdimensional demon cancer), they were clearly mixed with the Hercules Energy. More so, the energy was corrupted and almost foreign. I don't think Grant coulda absorbed it even if he wanted to. Hell, Allyson went Super Sunbird, and couldn't make the damn things budge. The snakes coiled around us, positioning their fangs within biting distance of our necks, but stopped. Suddenly, a portal made of greenish shadow matter popped up overhead. After a few seconds, the big man himself flew out, hands behind his back, long hooded green cape flowing, a permanent scowl etched into his mask.

Doctor Doom.

He looked different than normal. Usually the guy clocked in at around 6'2. Now he was at least 8 ft tall. His suit was barely anything like his usual getup. The armor was bulkier and super intricate; more like a bunch of flexible armor plates interlocking like a puzzle. His lower half looked like everything ever outta Darksiders and GOW. I mean he had spikes on his kneecaps, with bear trap looking cleats on the bottom of his boots. His green tunic and skirt was gone (good riddance), but it was his right gauntlet that got my attention. It was like any other medieval knight's glove, but with seven holes (four where the knuckles were on the front, a big hole on the back of the hand, and two knuckle holes on the thumb). On three of the four front knuckles (right to left), he had the stones of Apollo, Hercules, and Zeus in that order. The suit was obviously meant to regulate the immense power through the suit, hence the yellow, orange, and white lights flowing through Tron-like lines around the sides of his armor. The dude was radiating power like a Super Saiyan, and if these demon snake/Hercules Energy hybrids were any indication, he had a better handle on this stuff than me and my friends did. I figured he'd try and kill us or something (his lackeys couldn't), but he seemed to be completely uninterested in us altogether (dick).

"This power," he said to himself. "It calls to Doom. Is this why you infernal rocks won't leave me be? Is this a necessary tool to solidify my conquest?"

"The stones talk to you too?" I called up to him. "Ditto. How about you let us go? We can talk this out."

He ignored me. So much for diplomacy. I tired option B: blasting him with a $#!+ ton of lightning! I brought down a Mega Lightning Strike down on his head. Doom just lifted his right hand, caught it, and redirected the energy at me and my friends. I was fine, but Grant and Allyson ate it big time.

"Do not seek to challenge Doom again," he dismissed me. "Your death will come soon enough, young thunderer."

"So he's not playing nice," Grant thought out. "Good to know. Now what the hell do we do?"

"We don't play nice either," I thought back. "He most likely needs concentration to keep these demons up, so we don't let up for a second."

"And how do we get out?" Allyson asked me.

"I got this new more or less teleportation thing I can do. If I can get a really good hit in, it'll knock him off enough for you guys to join the fight."

"And the plan?"

"Keep hitting him till he doesn't get back up."

"Good plan."

The ground suddenly rumbled a bit more, and I felt the power core of various god energies start to compress.

"Mmmm," he mumbled aloud. "Well, this is a curious alignment of interests. You said the stones converse with you? It appears that whatever this power is, it calls out to both of us, thunderer. More so, these Stones of Olympus have yet to fully submit to my authority! The Stone of Apollo yearns for the girl, Hercules for the one that defeated Magneto, and Zeus for you! And now I, Doom, he who would be the true savior of this world, must lower himself to dispatch you children for the sake of gaining the favor of what is already his!"

"Uh, Storm-Lord?" Allyson asked me.

"Wait for it," I thought back to her. "Gotta time this just right."

Doom raised his fist, and the whole canyon shook with thunder (not bad, but totally cheating). A white lightning bolt, big enough to shatter a mountain, rained down from the sky. That was my que. Before the bolt could even make it halfway to the ground, I did a Static Jump into it, merged with it via transferring into Thunder Form 2, and took Doom's control of it away from him without him even knowing it. To be fair, he wasn't exactly trying. The guy didn't know what I could do, or how fast I could react. Odds were I wouldn't be able to get this sucker punch in again as easily, so I was determined to enjoy it as much as possible! Anyway, I changed the course of the bolt right before it hit Grant and Allyson (pretty sure they were close to $#!++!^% themselves), and rammed myself into Doom as hard as I could from the side. I crashed him though several tons of rock formations until we landed in a ravine with a huge river snaking through it as far as the eye could see. It was comprised of a bunch of mountain formations lining the river, so not a lot of solid ground to run on. Also, if Doom summoned an army of his demon hybrids, me and the team could potentially be surrounded. Still, between the various ways we could use our powers (not to mention the secret weapons me and Grant had on standby), it shouldn't be that big of a problem. Anyway, back to the action. I quickly regained my form, busted out a my Power Gauntlets, and slammed Doom in the chest with a Vibration Punch, slamming him halfway through another rock formation, before quickly blowing it to bits with a Mega Lightning Strike. I hoped Doom would be free falling into the river, but his reaction time was better than I thought. More so, he was way better at wielding those stones than I thought he'd be. That was like a billion volts I just dropped on his head, but he either blocked it, absorbed it into his suit, or dispersed it relative to his body area. Either way, the Stone of Zeus was shining awful bright, indicating that he had practiced his ass off with that thing.

"YOU DARE TO STRIKE DOOM?!" he roared at me, the sky darkening/thundering with his mood. "YOU WILL SUFFER TEN TIMES OVER FOR SUCH AN AFF-AGGGH!"

Yeah, didn't catch that last part. Getting slammed in the face with an axe going hypersonic tends to step on the toes of monologues. Hell, Doom got smacked through another mountain formation, skidded to the top, and still went skipping along for another half a mile while the team and I rushed after him.

"You cut it pretty close with that chicken stunt, back there, Storm-Lord!" Allyson thought to me.

"Still worked," I shrugged back. "Also, heads up. Doom can block my lightning attacks, he probably can block yours too. Grant, you'll have to be our main attacker when it comes to energy attacks."

"Good thing Geo-Force is an exclusive perk!" he smiled. "Besides, when am I not the main attacker?"

"When you're-"

"Don't finish that," Allyson calmly said. "You can joke about near death experiences when we're not heading straight for one. Anyway, what's the plan of attack? Besides hitting him repeatedly."

"Fair enough….on that other thing too. Yeah, we gotta hit him from all fronts. Use our speed, and don't give that asshole an inch. He can absorb our attacks, but only if he's ready for them. If we rush him, and keep on him, he might not be able to cope. I'll try the easy options first, that being trying to phase him outta the suit, or using Z.O.R.D.O.N. to analyze and shut his suit down. Or maybe GT can control it?"

"Nope," he said. "Way to much magical energy flowing through that thing for me to control. Shame. It's Titanium."

"Well, that just leaves options one and two. I'll let you guys know if they work. For now, let's kick Doom's ass Delta Power Chain style! WE GOT THIS!"

"Damn straight!" Grant said as he went low.

"WOOOOO!" Allyson thought as she went above the clouds.

The attack was so fast and smooth, Doom never stood a chance. Grant got him just as he got to his feet with a massive uppercut in his miniature form (which is so cheating), knocking Doom above the clouds. Allyson was in Super Sunbird, and while she couldn't match Grant's strength while standing still, she got a flying start (at f*(!^% lightspeed), and shoulder tackled him back to the ground with enough force to absolutely shred a small town. Doom plummeted to the ground like a meteor, and I rocketed after him. Had to hand it to the guy, he was hella resilient. By the time I rammed into him, he was already halfway to his feet. Also, that armor must've been able to take nukes, cuz he barely had a scratch on him. Also…... yeah…... I say rammed into him, cuz me vibrating him outta the suit was a no go. The thing not only had a subtle, but extremely durable body shield made outta runoff energy from the stones (genius), but he also had a frequency canceler of sorts constantly going through the suit. Vibration Punches were ok, but phasing through that armor would be next to impossible. And yeah, you better believe Doom made me hurt for that little stunt. He managed to increase his speed using the Stones of Zeus and Apollo (the stones always glowed extra bright when being used specifically), and pounded me into the ground, before kicking me away with the force of a charging truck.

"Amateurs!" he roared. "Did you not think Doom prepared for such an obvious attack?! I've studied you since-"

Doom was talking all that trash while flying towards me, but Grant caught him with a vine the size of a bridge cable, and started slamming him across the ground. He managed to get in a good seven slams in, before Doom burned it down. This time he went soaring after Grant, but my boy was having none of it. He slammed a pillar of rock in Doom's gut, launching him a few feet up, before slamming him back to the ground via giant ass Geo-Force bolt from the sky (that's not how weather works, but ok).

"Sunbird," I thought to her. "Option one's a no go, i'm going option two. Grant needs you down here."

"On my way," she thought back to me. "And for God's sake, "please" is not a dirty word!"

I didn't bother responding to that. Hell, before "please" she had already shot down on top of Doom's chest, and was slamming him repeatedly with Power Gauntlet punches. She and Grant were pretty good, but for all their strength, they could only keep Doom down for a good ten seconds. He got a huge boost from the Hercules stone, and powered away from them. That only bought him a good half a second before Grant and Allyson were back on him, slamming him with a variety of animal constructs, punches, and axe swings. That's not to say Doom didn't get more than his fair share of swings and blasts in. He gave Grant a good few Hercules charged punches, and managed to get Allyson a few times with some lightning bolts (she dodged like 21/25). Still, my team were never down for more than a few seconds, and always quickly got back in the fight. I felt bad about taking so long with Z.O.R.D.O.N.

"Come on, Z.O.R.D.O.N.," I urged him. "What do we got here?"

"Nothing good, bruh," he responded. "The suit's mainframe is too fast for me to hack. Every virus I attack it with doesn't even last half a second. If I extend myself any further, his A.I. will either delete or absorb me."

"For real?! The amount of processing power…..no way one suit can support a firewall that large. Wait a sec…..do a scan up its mainframe. Find the main server."

"Already done. The suit's mainframe is one and the same with Doom's ship. Somehow the connection can withstand the distance between dimensions, and is at least twice the technological capabilities of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"So hacking the suit's a bust too. Still, I got an idea. If you can copy a good amount of data to integrate into your system, we can get a feel for how Doom's tech works, and shut it down faster once the big home invasion starts."

"But if I overextend,"

"You won't have to. Just keep trying to hack the suit. Trick the system into thinking you're trying to take it all down. You're already balls deep inside; just record and replicate as much of it as you can in a backdoor file."

"Good idea. Alright, i'm starting the download. In the meantime, you should really help your friends."

He wasn't kidding. I was only outta the fight for a minute, but Doom had stepped his game up big time. He was calling on the power of all the stones to make him as stronger than Grant, and almost as fast as Allyson. Never a good combo. Grant was still holding his own, and Allyson was still faster. Between their collective speed strength and skill, they were just good enough to keep Doom at bay, but nothing more. He was getting more swings and blasts in. Allyson looked like she didn't have a whole lotta Super Sunbird left in her, and even though Grant was still supercharged with Gaea (I still don't get that), Doom's armor was able to take his blows. Yup, this was gonna be fun. After getting a feel for the fight, and planning my attack, I joined the fun. I got a running start, and threw my Sky Shield at the back of Doom's head. He stumbled forward, and got a good axe swing to the face from Grant, sending him stumbling backwards. I got him the back of his right knee with a drop kick at Mach 3, which woulda shattered anyone else's knee 100 times over. Doom's armor protected him from that (unfortunately), but he dropped to one knee all the same. Grant and Allyson teamed up for a brutal Power Gauntlet double uppercut, knocking Doom above the clouds. As if we were all just one brain, we brought Doom back to the ground with a huge energy bolt made of all our respective energies, making one hell of an impact.

"Up the gravity, Geo-Titan!" I quickly thought to him. "Delta Speed Thrasher too!"

Before Doom could get to his feet, Grant upped the gravity by ten, slowing down his recovery. The team and I assaulted him with the fury of the gods! Everyone was slamming him every which way with hits enhanced by our Power Gauntlets, literally shaking the earth with our attacks. Grant and I mixed it up at times, using our respective shield and axe to get in some good swings in at Doom's head, kneecaps, chest, and back. Allyson stuck to wailing on the guy with 300 hits per second.

"So I take it option two tanked?" Grant asked me.

"Not necessarily," I responded. "The suits operating system is one and the same with the entire mainframe that runs Doom's ship. Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s analyzing and copying as much data as he can to integrate into his system later."

"And that helps us…...how?" Allyson asked.

"When it comes time to take his whole operation down, a hand already on the wheel is a hell of a lot better than trying to take it from the driver with two hands on."

"And for now?"

"Option three. We saw his hand off."

"What?!"

"Hey, we gotta separate him from the stones. His armor's too tough, and he has a subtle frequency shield that keeps me from phasing through him. Best way to end this fight is to cut the power source!"

"We're not savages!"

"Maybe you're not!" Grant chimed in. "But i've literally slaughtered armies by myself. I agree with Storm-Lord. I mean, you can grow limbs back, so what's the problem?"

Before Allyson could answer, Doom teleported away (smart move). I pinged him just a little above the clouds, probably getting ready to rain down holy hell. Yeah…..no. Not today, son. I did a Static Jump right behind Doom, gave him a spinning kick upside his head, and slammed him back to the ground as a Zeus Cannon. I reformed on top of him, and relentlessly pounded the hell outta his face via Power Gauntlet Vibration Punches. Allyson wasn't on board with the whole sawing Doom's hand off plan, but as she didn't have a better one, she didn't stop me and Grant from trying. Grant summoned a chunk of All-Metal, and wrapped Doom in a body cast. Only his head and Olympus Gauntlet (cool name, I know) were free. We didn't make any operating jokes or anything, Grant just started vibrating his axe, and brought the blade down on Doom's wrist. There was a terrible grinding sound that followed, but I think it was working. For one, Doom's armor was shedding various stone energies. The Hercules energy made my hits even stronger, the Zeus energy of course melded with me, but the Apollo energy just burned. Speaking of Apollo, while Allyson wasn't helping with the sawing effort, she was doing a damn good job of keeping the projectiles off of us. Yeah, while Doom was down, he was far from helpless. He hurled down the mother load of lighting, and fire down at us, while trying desperately to flood himself with enough Hercules energy to bust outta the All-Metal cast. Allyson was keeping up a barrier, shielding us from the projectiles, while I did my best to keep Doom's concentration off.

"GRRAHH!" he roared in defiance. "UNHAND ME-AGGH-RELEASE-AGGH!"

Yeah, kinda hard to talk when getting decking in the face 200 times per second.

"How we doin', GT?" I asked him.

"Dunno," he responded. "The shield keeps regenerating faster than I can cut it. We could be here forever and still not make a dent!"

"Keep at it bro! Until Z.O.R.D.O.N. hits me back about them cheat codes, we gotta-"

Before I could finish that sentence, Doom teleported away, just barely missing the 10,024th punch to his face. I was already over this whole disappearing act. I tuned into the air, felt for air disturbance, and pinged Doom again, just a mile away from where we were. I did a Static Jump to him, with intent to deck him in the head as hard as I could. As it turns out Doom was over that trick too! He decked me across the face so hard, if I was any less durable, he woulda snapped my neck. Hell, that was the least of my worries, cuz he slammed me with an energy blast from all three of the stones he had, rocketing me back at least five miles! I crashed into a rock formation, and tumbled down the far side of a ravine, just stopping just at the Colorado Riverbank. Again, I would've been so dead if I had taken a hit like this yesterday, and even now I was absolutely reeling from that blast! Everything hurt, my head felt like it had been bashed in repeatedly by a pickup truck. I was gasping and wheezing for air, and my vision was all kinds of f*(#ed up. Colors were mixing and twisting like a fever dream. On top of that, a huge ass explosion that was clearly not Grant or Allyson's doing rocked the area. I sensed hundreds of…...somethings flooding the area where they were. Either they had learned a new power, or Doom had called in more reinforcements. Break time was over; I had to get back in the fight! I gave myself a quick wake-up surge, and flew upwards to check out the scope of what just happened. Overall, it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

Doom was up to his old tricks again; summoning hoards of demons of all shapes and sizes, powered by the energies of the stones he had. We had four armed raptor looking demons charged with Hercules Energy, Venti, and things that looked like satyrs mixed with reptile men, who also had horns, powered by Apollo Energy. Hell, the smallest of them were at least seven feet tall. And the height gauge ranged from 7ft-30ft. They just kept piling on by the hundreds, tho Grant and Allyson kinda sorta had the situation under control. Allyson was frying almost all of the Venti, via not so mini-sun. She kept making it give off small solar flares, trying desperately to evaporate the storm clouds. Ineffective, but creative. For the ones that did get through, they maybe lasted 3 seconds against her, before evaporating. Grant was faring a little bit better than Allyson. The Hercules and Ares demons were popping outta the ground like daisies, and Grant probably woulda been hopelessly surrounded, but he conjured up and was maintaining a Geo-Force charged sandstorm that extended two miles wide and high. Hell, the only reason I could keep tabs on Allyson or Grant was my Thunder Sense. In the eye of the storm, Grant was duking it out with Doom to mediocre success. As far as skill goes, it was no comparison; Grant was mauling Doom with his martial arts skills. Still, Doom was using more and more energy from the stones to make himself stronger and faster, not to mention using cheap magic tricks for teleportation, constructs, and shields, to really kept Grant on his toes. To be fair, Grant was using the sandstorm to his advantage to two fronts. I couldn't count the amount of times he used the surrounding sand to create giant hands and shields to curb a good portion of Doom's attacks. In all honesty, the two of them could probably do this all day, but we'd still be getting nowhere. More so, that energy cluster was maybe ten minutes away from completing formation. If we were caught with our pants around our ankles, Doom would have no problem snagging it away from us. Yeah, I think it was time to call in the big guns.

"Geo-Titan!" I thought to him. "I'm thinkin' it's time to get a power boost. You in?"

"Hell yea, man!" he thought back to me. "Just gimme a sec to wrap this whole sandstorm business up. Uh, wait a sec, without it i'll be up to my ass in weird demon $#!+."

"I got that covered, bro. Give me half a minute, and i'll wash all your troubles away!"

"That joke was so bad, it was absolutely delightful!" Allyson thought to me. "Also, can you gimme some of that action? These cloud demons are annoying."

"Don't worry, Sunbird, I got ya covered."

I finally pulled my ace, pressing the button on my morpher to transfer the Stone of Poseidon directly inside me! Yup…...even tho this was the fourth time bonding with this thing, i'd never get tired of that rush of unimaginable power! Going from zero to mother f*(#!^& beast mode in half a second! And again, the stone welcomed me like an old friend (we've been through so much in just under a week). I immediately got to work, using the spell to summon the Neptune Wave again: |..'/| .-|][-. |.\.(.\/.-_) .(.\/| .-|][-. _-._/]\-|/ _-._/.'-_. -| -_..-../|./|.(.| .-|][-. \/._)/.'.]|[ .(.\/| |-._|.\.-|.-.|-._

It was nice to get the old Care Bear pack together. Yup, the megalodon, seahorse, stingray, dolphin, great white, hammerhead, whale, killer whale, Roman Sea Dragon, and Cretan Sea Serpent were back for one more gig. Apparently they missed me two. And they could talk…..

"Glory to the one blessid of Poseidon!" the hammerhead trumpeted.

"May he use our might to crush any that would oppose the will of the sea!" the megalodon roared.

"Though he must temper the rage of the sea with wisdom, lest he drown in his own storm," the whale mused.

Yeah….I wasn't gonna talk to the nice sea spirits. This day was weird enough as is.

"All set back here, Geo-Titan!" I thought to him. "Whenever you're ready."

The sandstorm suddenly picked up in speed, while also condensing. In about three seconds, the sands constructed into an at least 100 ft tall serpent, and slammed into Doom, who was currently pinned to the ground. I'm pretty sure that was enough force to crumple a skyscraper like a soda can, but Doom was a trooper; he was fine. Those damn demons were the problem. Even with just a second to recover, they sprouted faster than weeds. I could already tell this had to be the work of some kinda spell on permanent replay. I couldn't sense it, but i'm pretty sure the Poseidon Stone could find it for me. I'd have to do it on the fly tho, so I summoned my trident, and willed the 70 ft tall Sea Force wave forward. As the wave raced forward (i've never seen Grant fly up so fast!), I did a quick locate spell: |._.(.'.,/.'. | - . to find the source of where all these demons were coming from. The result was far out from what I was expecting. I knew (well, found out) that magic was just another way of seeing/manipulating the world, but it was like someone put a VR set over my head, and set it to acid trip! I could see the wind! Literally taste the sun, and sense the ethereal energy around me.

The first thing that got my attention was the energy cluster. It was like a nuclear bomb condensing on itself. It was only the size of a soccer ball, and was getting smaller by the second. I quickly pushed it to the back of my head, and focused on the other arcane points of interest the Poseidon Stone was actually directing me to. The first was in the sky. A silverish white swirling vat of Zeus energy. The same thing could be said for two other red and orange portals located directly underground (well, between the folds of dimensions). Even just by eyeballing it, this was a job way bigger than a simple cancel spell could achieve, so before the Neptune wave washed away all the demons, I created two three pronged spells to set up what I needed to keep an upper hand on the fight. The first was exclusively about taking down those demon portals. I used spells for disrupt: ]'.-|-_._).-.|.\.-| scramble: -_.'.,_)/.'./||..|._-._ and disperse: ]'.-|-._|.\-_)_-._ While I knew i'd have a better shot at winning the lottery than getting Doom's enchantments to fade on the first go, I could keep the spells going for as long as I needed to, and milk that final energy attack at the very end. The second spell seal I created was specifically for Doom's body shield. I could sense that the armor was hella strong against magic, but not immune. If I could at least disrupt the shield and his access to the full power of the Olympus Stones he had, me and the team might have a chance to take his hand off (yeah, still wasn't dropping that). For messing with Doom's setup, I used the spells for block: |..|._.(.'.,|\. degrade: ]'.-._.,/_)/.']'.-._ and dismantle: ]'.-|-_../|/ . |.-||._-._ Block to prevent Doom from using the stones as much as I could. Degrade, to constantly siphon energy away from Doom's shield (blocking the power of the Olympus Stones would probably help with that), and dismantle to try and break Doom's Olympus Gauntlet apart. A bit much I know, but I didn't have time for subtlety. Anyway, after setting up my magic disks, I slammed the Neptune Wave into the demons (or at least let it happen, I did all that magic in like two seconds), washing them away in the most painful way possible for them.

Seriously, the poor bastards were like snails slowly melting. One of them survived enough to try and take a swipe at me, and said something in demon (I skipped that class) that was probably sailor worthy by even their standards. I stabbed him through the head with my trident to end his suffering, and focused on Doom. He was about 30 ft under the Neptune Wave, swirling about in the most uncomfortable manner possible. I shot him up in a spiral of water, and uppercutted him into the sky!

"Keep that warm for me," I thought to Grant and Allyson. "Gotta keep the monsters under the bed!"

"Yeah, yeah," Grant shrugged. "Always gotta pick up the slack for you, Storm-Lord."

I knew he was joking, so I ignored him. Seriously tho, these demons still kept popping outta the ground. The Neptune Wave could drown them, but I needed 90% of it for another purpose. To compensate for the loss, I conjured up this spell: |..'/ ||_)-|| .(.|./-_../|-|.,/].[.-||.\_-./-\_|.-|.-|] [- .|.\_)|-.'.,-||.\/.'|._-|.-|-|.-_.(.\/|./|'/ |-| /-._./|'/ |\/|_).(../||.._-./.''.,].[-|.. ] | [-|-_._-./.'|._./| By Triton's might, prevent the principalities of my enemy from breaching this realm. Basically, I was summoning glorified spirit mermen to handle my light work. It didn't matter how much water I left them. They could be as big as skyscrapers, or as small as marbles depending on the circumstances. In any case, they'd be below the little bit of Neptune Wave I left for them, fighting Doom's demons away from the surface. I took the 90% of the Neptune Wave I broke off, and condensed it into a sphere around my two three pronged spell seals. Similar to what I did with Llyra, I was using the condensed wave to power the spell seals, while I focused on Doom with my team. As soon as I was done with that, I signaled for the team to drop Doom headfirst into the ground, and brought them up to speed on what I was planning.

"So you're going all Harry Potter Gandalf Dumbledore on Doom?" Allyson asked me.

"Basically," I responded. "It'll take a little wearing down to get the full effects, but if we keep up the pressure, we might be able to get Doom's stones away from him."

"And on that happy note, it's clobberin' time!" Grant roared, plowing full steam ahead into Doom.

The next ten minutes were literally the longest of my life. Me and the team cranked up the speed as high as we could. Doom did the same. I converted the storm clouds into water, and while I was at it, made another three pronged spell seal to cover some more of my bases. I needed to be able to see the magical ins and outs of what was going on all around me, so the first spell was see: -_..._ (obviously). The second spell was to bring more water in from the clouds and the river. I used the spell for more: ./|.(._-. to expand the amount of water I was getting from both fronts. Also, this was the best way to f*(# over those Venti, cuz draining the clouds faster than Doom could make them absolutely slammed their formation process. Finally, the last spell I used was distract: ]'.-|-_.|_)/.''.,.-| to keep Doom more unfocused than he already was. Realistically, this was just to complete the seal, but it was funny watching river nymphs literally spring up every so often and smack Doom in the face with their tail fins! When that wasn't happening, me and my friends were putting the hurt on Doom like we've never done before. I was a little worried that all the water I was piling on would step on Grant's toes, but he grew bridge cable vines, some of which were hurling giant Nature Force charged spurs, on top of the All-Metal and Geo-Force constructs and blasts he was firebombing Doom in. Allyson had long since powered down from Super Sunbird, but was literally just raining down mini-suns rapid fire at Doom. Each were only the size of a soccer ball, but had enough power to blow half a city block. If anything, she was stepping on my toes. I was doing my usual shtick. Lightning strikes, water constructs, Sea Force blasts, and a series of voltage charged whirlpools. At times it was almost unfair. Doom was absolutely getting mauled under our collective might, but he quickly proved time and time again that we'd have to work for the knockout.

He was constantly teleporting all over the place, sometimes using body double to trick my Thunder Sense. Whenever he had even a second to himself he went hard at work in the magical realm, and it was never anything fun. Whether it was summoning more god energy demons, various other magical attacks completely separate from the Olympus Stones, or straight up going ham old school style, Doom was no pushover. How'd he fight against several hundred tons of Sea Force charged water? He summoned waves of demonic fire that canceled it out, and could even be constructed into various stuff like animals and weapons (you've never felt true fear until you see a giant fire wolf about to swallow you whole). Anytime the fighting got up close, it was almost never on our terms. Hell, the only reason why we managed to hold Doom off was because of Grant's strength, and our Power Gauntlets. Even then, Doom did a great job at separating us. For all my magic, Doom was using so many different methods of attack; my spells were getting stretched too thin. Between replenishing the water he burned away, continuing to funnel energy into the cancel spell to compensate for the new demon portals Doom kept conjuring, and maintaining the original enhancements meant to compromise Doom's armor, I barely had any energy left to keep on the attack. Ultimately things took a big turn for the worst when Doom completely removed himself from the battle, leaving me and the team up to our necks in seven headed fire demons.

"I tire of this trivial game," Doom's voice magically resounded through the atmosphere. "To think that Doom, the rightful ruler of all, must waste his time reclaiming what is his from children. Doom notes your role in retrieving what was stolen from even took it upon yourselves to bring two of the Stones of Olympus to me. It does not completely spare me of the inevitable task of taking the rest from Fury, but your gesture is noted. For that, you are granted a swift death for the Flames of Faltine!"

I was gonna say something smart, like "no way", or "you wish", but Doom had already set the fires in motion via a giant ass blood red comet of scorching fire raining down from the sky! The heat was so intense, that the atmosphere easily had to be in 200's. And that was just residual heat. Even at 200 ft in the air, the water I had conjured up was boiling. Also, I had like no time to prepare a decent counter measure. The comet was literally soaring down at like Mach 7. My instinct was to make a dome outta all the water I could, enchant it with the biggest barrier spell I could conjure up, and tell the others to brace for impact. I did that, and I can confirm that the outcome was….let's say less than favorable. The comet exploded on impact with the force of a Nuclear bomb. Twice the heat too. My dome absorbed just enough impact to take the initial collision, but couldn't stand up to the tidal wave of fire that engulfed me and the team. I quickly wrapped myself in a Sea Force body shield, and prayed to still be alive when I stopped tumbling.

By the time it was all over, I was covered in burnt dirt, barely able to breathe, and disoriented as all hell. My Thunder Sense was reeling, but I could sense that a good third of the canyon was just a collection of boulders now. We had successfully destroyed a significant chunk of a natural wonder of the world. The good news was that the Faltine Fire didn't leave a mushroom cloud, just miles upon miles of cinders and smoke. The bad news was I had no idea where Grant and Allyson were, and to add insult to injury, my Speed Sense hit me in the back of my head by alerting me to Doom's trying to grab my head like a stress ball! I ducked under him as he barreled over me, and just barely got a Sea Force shield up, as he came back around for seconds! I slammed in both his sides with two huge Phantom Bolts, and hit him over the head with a giant lightning sledgehammer construct. That didn't keep him down even a little bit, and he retaliated with the mother of all Big Bang Kamehameha blasts of all time. He had to have put at least a third of each of the stone's energy into this blast, cuz I had to put everything I had into a Sea Force shield just to stop it! That wasn't gonna be enough tho; I needed to take the fight back to him. I had no idea whether or not Grant or Allyson were conscious or not (I wasn't gonna entertain the notion they were dead, they've survived worse), so it was all up to me.

I put everything I had into transforming my shield into something I called a Sea Force Spirit Kamehameha. Basically it was a Kamehameha X100 made of Sea Force, powered by every sea animal spirit ever. And yes, I do mean ever. From plankton, starfish, and crabs, to sharks, whales, and octopi. Everything modern, like sea horses, clownfish, and jellyfish, to mythic/prehistoric creatures like mermaids, megalodons, and krakens. Without a doubt, I was shilling out enough power to destroy a continent (had to be careful how I handled the blowback). Doom clearly wasn't expecting this much of a pushback against him, cuz he just barely managed to crank up the power to match me back. And yeah, I felt the struggle! I mean think about it at. I was fighting against the power of someone who held up the sky, the power of the sun, which is way stronger than the sea, and Zeus, who was arguably the strongest of the gods! I did everything I could to keep ahead of the game. I brought down the wrath of Zeus on Doom, via Mega Lightning Strikes and Phantom bolts, but he eventually put a barrier around his body. I tried this spell: -| /].[/.'\./'.,-._|..'/ |.-|-| / enhance by ten, multiplying my attack by the described amount. Why ten? Because the Stone of Poseidon couldn't handle anything more. I mean, I was already going ten times over what the sea could give, so I was walking a pretty tight rope. Even then, Doom was putting out the power to match/slowly start to overtake me!

"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, BOY!" Doom roared at me. "YOU'VE WASTED ENOUGH OF DOOM'S TIME! DOOM, WHO SEEKS TO SAVE THIS WORLD FROM ITSELF! TO PREPARE IT FOR THREATS YOU CAN SCARCELY IMAGINE! I CARE NOT WHAT FEEBLE ASPIRATIONS OF GREATER IMPORTANCE YOU HAVE, DOOM IS SUPREME OVER ALL! EVERYTHING THAT IS, BELONGS TO DOOM! SURRENDER THE STONE, OR DIE!"

The guy could definitley give a rousing speech. Almost had me buying into it. Hell, I was pretty sure I was done, until a yellow fire version of a Zeus Canon (Apollo Cannon,I guess?) crashed down from the sky, right on top of Doom's barrier! I've never been happier to see anything in my life!

"WHY DON'T YOU DROP DEAD, TIN MAN?!" she blared through a giant megaphone construct.

"Sunbird!" I thought to her. "Thank God you're alive!"

"Indeed," she perkily responded. "Sorry for being so late. I was knocked out for a little while."

"Just hearing your voice is good enough. I wouldn't be able to stand it if you died. Wait! What about Geo-Titan?!"

As if on cue, I felt a huge blast of Geo-Force mixed with Nature force slam into doom from the opposite side of my attack.

"Over here, bro!" Grant thought to us. "Anyone need help stomping down a creep?!"

"We won't deny any help!" Allyson almost squealed. "Glad to see you're still kickin', GT!"

"I've survived worse! No way i'm goin' down to this asshole!"

"GRAAAHHHHH!" Doom roared. "CEASE THIS AT ONCE! YOU CANNOT DEFEAT DOOM! THIS POWER WILL BE MINE, AND THE WORLD WITH IT! DOOM HAS SEEN WHAT WILL BECOME OF THIS PLANET IF HE DOES NOT TAKE IT'S DESTINY INTO HIS OWN HANDS! NOT YOU, OR YOUR SO CALLED HEROES CAN POSSIBLY STAND AGAINST WHAT IS TO COME! DOOM WILL NOT FAIL!"

If he was using half of the power he had, he must've cranked it up to at least 80%, cuz he fired off three equally powerful blasts back at Grant and Allyson. Grant had to double his output, and add a swirling sandstorm around it, just to keep it even. Allyson had to get inside of a mini-sun to prepare herself for impact. Sure, she was putting out more and more energy to try and equal Doom, but he was way stronger than her (to be fair, she didn't have a god stone).

"YOU SEE?!" he continued to gloat. "TO WHAT USE ARE THE POWERS OF GODS TO MERE CHILDREN?! COUNT YOURSELVES FORTUNATE! YOU ARE BEING GIVEN THE HONOR OF MEETING YOUR ENDS AT THE HAND OF DOOM!"

I wanted nothing more than to make him eat those words raw! Luckily, Z.O.R.D.O.N. had finally finished that scan, and was getting back to me this very moment.

"Hey, boss," he greeted me. "I can see you're busy, so i'll make this quick. I managed to get a bug in Doom's suit that gives up to date info. Doom's suit is operating at maximum capacity right now. The suit can adjust to handle more energy, otherwise it'd be stupid for him to try and get more power, but right now, the suit's giving as much as it's programmed to handle under the circumstances. If you can find a way to overload that energy back at him, you could cause some real damage. Also, based in the data his suit provided me, he's aware of some kinda energy pocket identical to the energy coming from the Stone of Poseidon. If that's you, ya might wanna do something with that. Ok, i'm out."

Dear freaking Jesus! I totally forgot about the built of three pronged spell energy seals still waiting to be used! Sure, Doom, burned the water away, but the Neptune Wave orb around the spell seals must've been just enough to keep them from being burned up. That built up energy had to be way more than enough to send Doom's already at full operating capacity suit over the edge. Thank you, Z.O.R.D.O.N.

"Guys!" I thought to Grant and Allyson. "I got an idea, but we gotta work fast! I think I can get Doom's suit to overload with another spell. If it works, Doom'll get blown to bits! Ok, probably shouldn't sound that excited, but you get the point. Still, there's gonna be some major blowback. Like, nuclear level blowback. Any ideas on how to not blow ourselves up?"

"I got that, Storm-Lord!" Grant thought to me. "I got the design in my head. An All-Metal reverse bomb shelter. As soon as you say go time, I got the rest. Trust me."

"Always, man. Even if I didn't have a choice. Sunbird, you-"

"OH MY GOD, I DON'T CARE, JUST DO IT!"

"Alright! 3,2,1, NOW!"

I quickly recycled the Sea Force energy pocket into another dismantle spell aimed at Doom's Olympus Gauntlet. His arcane shield was still hella strong, but my spell was just strong enough to break though it, and cause a Y kidna crack in Doom's Gauntlet! The dude immediately started to burn up in a multi-colored bonfire; not to mention the fact that his power blasts immediately started failing. As his power blasts started to get pushed back at him in a two second tie frame, Grant immediately went to work. A layer of Nature force charged vines, followed by rock, Geo-Force, and an All-Metal finish, all combined to make a giant ball. It didn't look like much, but I remembered that Grant once made a flaming battleship outta that substance. Grant launched the thing into the air, about midway into the troposphere. He informed me and Allyson that Doom went boom real good, and while the blast did make it through the orb (way to go, Grant), it was only enough energy to destroy half a city.

"Sooooooo…" Allyson thought to us. "Is that it? Did we do it? Do we get his body? Do we wait for it to fall? I'm so confused he-"

There was no way for me to prevent what happened next. I was so winded from that power battle, so ready to believe that we really did just win, that I let my guard down. Doom was far from dead, and faster than a bat outta hell, he flew down and decked Allyson across the face with a blow strong enough to cause a shock wave that could rock Times Square! Allyson didn't see it coming, and got knocked out like a light! I've never felt such a mix of rage and fear in my life! I wanted to catch Allyson, but I also wanted to beat the living hell outta Doom! Luckily I wasn't super war crazy; I compromised. I let Grant go after Doom, while I flew up to catch Allyson. Thank God for Storm. No way was I gonna risk catching Allyson in my Thunder Form. When I did, I almost cried for joy! She was breathing; she was alive. The left side of her forehead was a nasty bluish purple color, but assuming she woke up anytime soon, she could fix that herself. Which brought me to problem of her not waking up for a while. Yeah, Doom did a number on her; she wouldn't be waking up for at least another 20 minutes. She was done for now. I hit her emergency teleport button, and sent her back to the Helicarrier. Now to give that son of a bitch, Doom, double what he did to her!

Grant was duking it out with the fury of the gods against Doom, who I gotta admit, was kinda pants $#!++!^& scary looking! His armor was basically one big wave of orange, red, yellow, and white fire! His voice resounded louder than a full football stadium, and he was just…..off. The guy was fighting like a dazed gorilla. Kinda sorta in control, but not really. That didn't make him any less dangerous tho. The huge surge of energy doubled back on him had the reverse effect of what I wanted. Instead of blowing him to hell, he was almost faster than both me and Grant put together. He was already at or above Grant's strength, but now there was no competition. Even in god mode, Doom was hitting harder than Grant ever could. The only reason Grant was hanging in there was because he wrapped himself in an All-Metal Iron Man construct, that was taking a good chunk of the force. Also, while Doom wasn't doing anything fancy or controlled, he was still firing off wild blasts of energy, and summoning lightning from the ridiculously huge supercell storm he was absently conjuring up in the background. Still, I wasn't gonna let Grant have all the fun. I busted out my Power Gauntlets, and did a Static Jump behind Doom's head.

I was beyond pissed off! I've never wanted to hurt anything as bad as Doom, and my body responded in either the best or worst way. I felt the familiar surge of rage brought on by the Stone of Ares, and the gluttonous desire for death from the Stone of Hades! When I clocked Doom in the back of the head, it was with the force of four different gods raging from the deepest level of my soul!

I felt like I was being possessed, yet at the same time, still in full control. I was aware that red and purple flames were spewing outta my mouth, and that I was summoning a barrage of red and purple axe and skull constructs to bury Doom in, but I didn't care. Hurting Doom made me feel good! The amount of strength I was dealing with was insane! On the Ares front, I was channeling the power of an entire war; the Civil War to be exact. See, the Ares energy was made of conflict in general. From petty schoolyard fights, to full blown D-Day level $#!+. Every action done in the name of war fed into the overall pool of the War Force (yeah, official name). So attacking Doom with the collective energy of the bloodiest battle in American history? Yeah, that packed a decent wallop. The other half was the Hades energy, which was just the general energy of the Underworld's damned and monsters. I was channeling the force of the 1,000 damned souls, and the Furies, who I promise you were not the ones to f*(# with! I slammed Doom with thorned whips that damaged the body and soul, a devil pitchfork that served the same purpose, and literally summoned a pack of ghoulish hellhounds to maul him. Doom was definitely more durable, but he still felt the bite of both my attack, as well as Grant's. He could still throw more than a halfway decent punch, not to mention his at or near Kamehameha blast he threw out as casually as sneezing. Still, Grant and I kept circling around him, mixing up our attack patterns, and keeping Doom even more off-balance than he already was. Hell, after our brief little double team, Grant went all Ant-Man again, and hammer punched Doom into the ground, creating a crater big enough to bury the Epcot ball in. He flew down, and grew 60 ft tall, smashing Doom in with a fist big enough to tear apart buildings.

"BASTARD!" he roared as he kept pummeling Doom into the ground. "YOU DON'T DO THAT TO MY FRIEND! NOBODY DOES THAT TO MY FRIENDS!"

The dude was absolutely livid! Every hit he landed caused tremors, and shot up a small flair of Geo-Force that was no doubt giving Doom a good roasting. I let Grant vent a little, while I prepared a different attack.I called it an Olympus Canon (guess why), and I suppose it was only a half finished version of its full potential. I basically mixed a Sea Force Spirit Kamehameha with all of the Ares/Hades energy I had left (didn't exactly have a full tank on either), with a Zeus Cannon for good measure. I'm pretty sure this was city destroying, but I could count on one hand how many f*(#$ I had left to give.

"Geo-Titan!" I thought to him. "Toss him up, and send a blast after him. Let's sandwich his ass!

Grant shrunk down to normal and gave Doom one last punch to the head, before grabbing him by the throat, and uppercutting him skywards. Not a second later, we both unleashed our respective city destroying blasts, sandwiching Doom in between. For like the first five seconds, it seemed like things were finally going our way, but then I noticed something off. Our blasts, they were curving around something. Before I could even think of the obvious, a counter energy blast, made up of way more than just the energy from Doom's Gauntlet ripped though my blast (and probably Grant's), sending me into the troposphere with the feeling as if someone hit me multiple times in the face, chest, and gut with a shotput. My consciousness faded in and out, but I managed to keep myself in the game via shocking myself back to full capacity. I immediately did a Static Jump to the ground, and got one hell of a surprise (and not the good kind). Grant was totally knocked out, in every sense of the word! The light gravitational pull I used to feel when he was hosting Gaea was completely gone! I think Doom literally punched the goddess outta him. More than that Doom was just getting done with extracting the Stone of Demeter from him. There were no visible tearing marks in his armor, plus Grant was still breathing, so I could only assume Doom took it via magical means (duh). I didn't like the way he was looking at Grant, so I slammed him in his side with the biggest Phantom bolt I could muster up, and launched him as high as I could with a lightning geyser. I quickly pressed Grant's emergency transport button, sending him back to the Helicarrier, and flew up to take Doom.

Before I could even get halfway to him, I felt that energy cluster that had been building for so long finally complete its form, burst up outta the ground, and fly straight to Doom!

$#!+, $#!+, $#!+, a thousand times $#!+!

Yeah, it was a sword. A rainbow sword composed of all of the energies the Stones of Olympus fed into it. As soon as it landed in Doom's hand, the sword (which was a leaf blade default) reformed into a classic European Longsword that only had a rainbow colored edge. Even worse, it seemed like the sword was repairing the damage me and the team did to the suit! Doom gradually got his demeanor and control back, and the various energies around him got under control. He flicked his wrist, and shot me back to the ground with a casual burst of power that knocked the wind outta me! I felt him float down while creating an energy dome around us stretching about 50 yards in width and diameter. Smart. I couldn't get any water in here from the river, and the energy output distorted my electron path. I could definitely move around the area, but unless I phased through the ground, it was either victory, full surrender, or death. Doom knew this, and he wanted to have a little fun, before finishing me off.

"I believe the correct phrase is "I told you so?" he taunted me.

I summoned my trident and Sky Shield to my hand, and put on my brave face; my Thunder Form mixed with Sea Force. I didn't summon any water; had to save that for…..something.

"Come now, boy," Doom chided me. "Surely we are past this nonsense now. Your allies, the last one much stronger than you, are defeated. I now wield the power of four gods, and possess a weapon fashioned from their very cosmic power I will soon possess the full might of. This sword chose me, boy. It saw your weakness and ineptitude, and thus, naturally came to one worthy of its power. Lay down your arms now, and Doom may spare you a long and painful death. You deserve to write for eternity to daring to strike Doom, but Doom has more important matters to attend to than the life of a gnat."

He held out his left hand.

"The stone," he simply said.

I banged the butt of my trident into the ground, making the air ripple.

"Come get it," I responded to his request.

Doom barreled at me with a wide swing of his sword, but I used a transport spell, absorbing as much Sea Force as I could, and slamming Doom upside his head with my trident when I came back around. The force was huge; as expected. Doom went sprawling around the dome, and ended up almost full circle. While he was still dazed, I kept the transport spell going, dunking on Doom from every angle with Sea Force charged teleportation punches and kicks. It sucked that I didn't think to use my Power Gauntlets to add to the hurt, cuz after ten teleportation punches, Doom managed to block one of my hits, and slam me into the ground! I tried teleporting away, but Doom must've been suppressing my magic. Even further, I felt something pulling the stone from my chest, like an invisible hook, and I got a clue as to how Doom extracted the stone from Grant. I blasted him with a huge blast of Sea Force from my eyes, and after getting him off me, summoned enough water to fill the dome completely. Again, I slammed Doom from everywhere, with whatever I could/ giant water fists, sharks, rockets, and a ton of Sea Force blasts. It worked for maybe a minute, but Doom eventually evaporated all the water with a huge wave of Faltine fire (hated that), and quickly strung me up with Nature Force enhanced vines. I noticed how he seemed to be struggling to do so; like the Demeter Stone didn't want to obey him. I tried busting outta the vines via lightning blastwave, but these suckers were strong. Even worse, Doom constructed several spears outta the various energies he possessed, and launched them at me in a volley. Before they hit me, I transformed into Thunder Form 2, and struck Doom as a giant Thunder Fist, before reconstructing my body again. Didn't want him to twist me around like a pretzel. I tried stabbing Doom in the chest with my trident, but he caught the middle prong, and almost took my head off with a whole bunch of sword constructs. I had to risk going into Thunder Form, just to get a mobility advantage, as well as a body shield.

Me and Doom duked it out for several minutes construct style. I gotta say that his imagination was lacking severely. He made medieval weapons, Doombots, and the occasional rockets and giant hands to try and swat me down, but I countered almost everything he threw at me with well placed/struck shields, lighting, Sea Force/lightning Power Rangers, Megazords, Autobots/Decepticons,and sea animal constructs. Doom powered though almost all of my constructs, but even when the fight was up close, I wasn't half bad. I dodged most of his swings, and countered with Vibration Punches, or trident whacks. Doom was a brawler for sure, and had a little finesse with a blade, but he was no Nightcrawler. Once, as we fought back and forth near the ground, after parrying his sword slash away with my sword, I caught it with a downwards stab of my trident, planting the edge on the ground. I tried a previous method, and slashed down at his blade with Excelsior, which I vibrated as much as I could, hoping to break the blade. I definitely grinded at it a little, proving the blade wasn't indestructible, and even got a tasty surge of all seven god energies. Still, Doom was not happy about me trying to break his new toy. He threw an earth shaking punch at me, which I blocked with my Sky Shield, but still ended up sprawling backwards. Before I could recover, I felt an invisible force pin me to the ground, while that same hook feeling started ripping the Poseidon Stone from my chest again! I tried fighting back, summoning repeat lighting strikes and Sea Force comets to nail Doom in the head, but he had already put himself in a barrier of his own that was way stronger than anything I could throw at him. Ten seconds later, Doom ripped the stone outta my chest, causing a huge explosion, making another 30 ft deep crater!

I was completely outta breath, I felt like someone shanked my heart a good few times, and everything hurt. In the distance, I could see Doom floating above me, and felt the stone begrudgingly join his Olympus Gauntlet.

"One probably shouldn't enjoy taking the life of children," he mused. "But your death will satisfy me greatly."

He sent down a giant sword made of Hercules Energy, but I quickly pressed my emergency button, and flashed to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s infirmary before I got impaled. Fury and Kennedy were waiting for me, and started barraging me with a buncha questions.

"Fuller!" Fury yelled over me. "The stones! Did he get the stones?!"

"S...s-sorry," I managed to get out. "I'm sorry. He beat me. I failed. All my fault."

I fully expected him and Mrs. Kennedy to barrage me with heaping piles of I told you so lines, but we had bigger problems to deal with. I felt it just as the Helicarrier sounded the alarm. Doom's ship had just teleported 800 meters away from us. He was here to get the other two Stones of Olympus.