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.

25. Chapter 25: The Best Laid Plans

Chapter 25: The Best Laid Plans

Things never fail to go from bad, to worse, to absolute $#!+ for me. First I get mutant powers in the worst way possible, get drafted to a mutant strike team whose purpose is to almost die routinely trying to collect magic rocks. And of course, I even fail at that! Because of me, Doom had two more pieces, and was closing in for the final checkmate! Still, I wasn't one to give up. If I could come back from that fiasco of a start of that dodgeball game against Crosby, and come back from plucking 24 cards in Uno (Uno night at the salon is war), I could make the best of this. The good news was that Fury already had the teams in place. Doom's ship was getting closer to ours, but the Sea Force transport spell was still ready. Even without the stone (which felt like heartbreak) I could still activate the spell with my trident. Good thing too, cuz Doom began his attack in full. My Thunder Sense was picking up hundreds of Doombots and villains, all powered by various Olympus Stone energies, runnin' up on the Helicarrier like a plague! None of them had any Poseidon or Demeter Power, meaning Doom was still trying to get them under control, or just didn't think it necessary to use more energy. Probably the latter. Again, hundreds of Doombots and villains; he had more than enough of a decent fighting force to take the Helicarrier. I summoned my trident, tapped it on the floor, and activated the transport spell, moving the Helicarrier two miles away from Doom's oncoming forces. Didn't buy us a lot of time, but it gave us some distance. In the meantime, I unleashed the wrath of the sky down on our attackers. The sky darkened, and dozens of lightning strikes rained down on the enemy, taking them down by the dozens. While I was doing so, I felt the storm increase in power, and smiled to myself. Glad auntie Storm had my back. Still, there was my unconscious teammates to worry about. Fury informed me that the Doomslayer was on the deck, ready to open fire on Doom's shield, but no way in hell was the attack gonna work without Grant. Ready or not, both him and Allyson had to get up right now.

I zapped their neurons with a quick charge of voltage, waking them up instantly. Yeah, I was almost certain they were still gonna be war crazed, so I made sure to put a Sea Force dome around them. Grant woke up roaring, swinging wild, and blasting Geo-Force from his eyes. Allyson burst into flame, making a shockwave strong enough to make my Sea Force dome flicker. They freaked out for a little over ten seconds, before calming down.

"Jason!" Grant shouted. "The stone! He got-"

"It's ok, man," I stopped him, giving him time to breathe. "It's cool. He took mine's too. It's all my fault. I made a bad call."

"That's not true, Jason," Allyson said, after healing herself with a few lines from Circle of Life.

"It is. I messed up. No excuse. Look, that don't matter now. Doom's brought the fight to us. The defensive teams are in place, but we gotta join up with our crews. Doom's not getting anymore of these stones, aight? Let's tear his flying castle down!"

Grant and Allyson nodded.

"Ok then," Fury said. "I'll send ya'll to the deck. Don't get too down on yourselves; Doom's a tough bastard to get the drop on. Fight's not over yet. Show the tin can asshat what you got."

And with that motivating speech, he pressed his clicker (aka God's remote), and teleported us to the deck. Grant and I quickly joined up with our team, who were right by the Doomslayer, and set up shop. I powered up the cannon, activated the Sea Force enchantment on it, and fired away at Doom's barrier! Just like in testing, the Doomsayer worked like a charm! The Sea Force enchantment ripped through Doom's magic shield, while the heat beam and Vibranium nanites ripped through Doom's kinetic and electromagnetic shields. The blastwave ripped through a decent chunk of Doom's attacking force, leaving a good opening for me and Grant to fly through. He grabbed Ross and Nightcrawler, while I grabbed Quicksilver and Northstar. Gotta admit, Mrs. Kennedy hooked them up nice. Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, and Northstar were wearing Tron-like armor clearly inspired off of their classic suits. I remember a fan art I saw a while back where someone drew a whole buncha heroes in Tron outfits. Looking at everyone (Ms. Marvel especially), i'm pretty sure Mrs. Kennedy took that for the aesthetic inspiration. Hell, even tho Ross didn't have a unique design (guess ripped jeans didn't translate well to Tron), he still a cool Tron outfit that had the red lights shaped to have a flame type of design around the chest, shoulders, and torso. Anyway, quick designing props outta the way, we had a ship to invade.

"Good luck, Sunbird," I thought to her. "Stay safe."

"Back at ya, Bolt Boy," she responded. "You too, Green Bean."

"We'll be back," Grant thought to her. "Promise."

With that, Grant and I grabbed hold of our teammates, and shot towards Doom's ship at Mach 4! I was a little scared that going Thunder Form might accidentally fry Quicksilver and Northstar, but knowing Mrs Kennedy, she already thought of that. Besides, looking at General Ross and Nightcrawler, Mrs. Kennedy also accounted for hypersonic travel. No way would they be alive if not for their suits. Anyway, we got to Doom's ship in half a second, and I quickly instructed Grant to phase through the side. Again, huge risk here, but I had faith Mrs. Kennedy thought this through. We phased through the wall, quickly flew the path to Doom's control room, and rather than try and hack the entry panel, we phased through the door. The place in real life looked a little different from the simulations. Sure, the power core was in the center, inside of a giant Wakandan Crystal dome (unbreakable). The room was around the size of a high school gym. Hell, the main servers three floors beneath us. Other than the power core, flanked by the two computer interfaces, there was nothing but empty space. Plenty of room to run around/make constructs.

"That wasn't the plan, Fuller!" Ross barfed out (literally).

"Plans change," I shrugged at him. "Besides, you're a Hulk. You've faced worse."

"Hulk or not, he's still slow," Quicksilver said.

"I'll remember that," Ross growled at him.

Grant and I laughed a little, before quickly getting to our stations. Hacking went more or less how we thought it was gonna go. The security was off the charts, but thanks to Z.O.R.D.O.N. getting his foot in the door a little while back, we were able to bypass a few security measures here and there. Hell, I plugged Z.O.R.D.O.N. into the system via copied A.I. I stored on a S.H.I.E.L.D. hard drive a few days back, and had him do a digital version of dropping a dot of ink in a cup of water. Long story short, because Z.O.R.D.O.N. had integrated so much of Doom's operating system into himself, the system wasn't registering him as a threat. I got the idea to have Z.O.R.D.O.N. fully integrate into the system, and take it down from the inside, just in case Plan A blew up in our faces. It'd take a while, but because Doom's entire system was basically a glorified hive mind, when I Z.O.R.D.O.N. was fully one with the system, i'd have Doom by the balls! Granted, this was a really good, really cool thing I had going for me, so it naturally had to have something bad to balance it out. This bad thing came in the form of the alarm going off. Doom's people finally caught on that we were in the heart of their base.

"Hey, guys?" Northstar nervously asked us. "Blaring alarms are going off. That means trouble. Not to rush ya, but…"

"Ten more minutes," I interrupted him.

"What?!"

"Yeah, dude," Grant said. "We got through the main firewalls and defenses, but this ship has a ten minute shutdown sequence that we can't speed up. Also, Storm-Lord's dicking around with the hardware; permeating Doom's system with his own A.I."

"That wasn't the plan, Fuller!" Ross roared again, transforming into his Hulk form.

"It's called compartmentalization, Hot Tamale," I responded. "Besides, i'm the only reason the system hasn't locked us out yet. Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s running interference with Doom's safety protocols. Still, it'll take ten minutes for the shutdown and Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s integration to complete their courses. Also, the process can be reversed if anyone smart enough manages to take control back from the main interface."

"So we're on guard duty," Quicksilver said.

"Yup. We got multiple inbound. Doombots, Doctor Octopus, Rhino, The Wrecking Crew, Abomination, and so many others, all powered by various god energies. Hell, even i'm gettin' nervous."

"What of Doom?" Nightcrawler asked me.

"Not on the ship," Grant said.

"Are you sure?" Ross asked him. "Where the hell would he be?"

"Dunno. He's just not here. He's not even on the Helicarrier. Must be between dimensions, or something."

"Why does that not make me feel better?" I sighed. "Anyway, look alive boys! I'm running interference with the oncoming attackers, but they'll be bustin' the doors down any minute. Also, there's a squad of Doombots and villains trying to bust in through the ceiling. Grant, can you bottleneck it?"

"Sure thing. I'll keep a barrier around the front door too. See if I can stall em' a little longer."

"Cool. We'll bottleneck the doorway when they get through. Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, and Northstar, back here with me. Once the bad guys get through, don't stop running/teleporting. Go guerilla warfare on their asses. Red Hulk….well…..smash."

The doors and rooftops started to rumble.

"Alright, maggots!" Ross roared. "Time to fight! Fight smart! Don't pick the battles you can't win! Move around if you can! Find your enemy's strengths! Use them to your advantage! Failure means the end of everything you hold dear! Don't fail!"

The front doors blew off their hinges, and I created a whole buncha gun turrets made of lightning and Sea Force, and opened fire! Grant added to the artillery with a shower of Geo-Force mini rockets, but nothing we had could keep out the attackers for long; mainly cuz Abomination was leading the charge! He busted through the doors, absolutely surging with Hercules and Apollo energy! Red Hulk and Grant intercepted his charge, while I stayed focused on bottlenecking the doorway. On the plus side, most of the Doombots got absolutely shredded! For every ten that tried to make it through the doorway, only four made it through. Hell, even then they were just cannon fodder. Nightcrawler, Northstar, and Quicksilver easily cleaned up the remains. The villains were an entirely different matter altogether. They were packing on way more god energy, and always made it through; albeit with less power than they'd have if the came in unopposed.

The first one I took out was Rhino, charged with Hercules energy. He charged in like what he was named for, making a beeline straight for me. I had no idea whether or not I was strong enough to stop his charge, so I decked him in the side with a Phantom Bolt, and barraged him with a dozens of Vibration Punches! I knocked him all over the place, like he was a pinball; my hits havin' an extra kick due to Hercules Energy exposure. I realized I broke my rule about vibrating near foreign energy sources, but the Hercules Energy, thankfully, didn't incapacitate me. Just like before, the energy gave me a quick surge of strength, and left as soon as it came. I took Rhino around the room, exhausted all his energy in three seconds, and knocked him out with one last Vibration Punch. Yeah, I know I made a big deal about playing for keeps, but I wasn't gonna go outta my way to butcher people. Rhino was just an overpowered schmuck; Abomination was a whole 'nother ball game.

First off, if the dude didn't scare you even a little, you got my respect. He was like ten feet tall, and had veiny muscled flesh that looked a sickish pale green. He had cloven hooves with spikes jutting out of the back of his goat-like legs, knees, elbows, and a long line of them coming outta his spine! Hell, Grant had already drained the Hercules energy outta him, and the guy was still a beast! The Apollo energy made him just as fast as Grant, and despite Grant's strength and skill, even I wouldn't rank him stronger than Hulk (the green one). Red Hulk had already gotten smacked around so often, Grant told him to pick another battle. I made a note to help Grant out as soon as I could. He was doing fine with his axe and Power Gauntlets, but something seemed off about him. Anyway, I had other problems to deal with. For starters, Doctor Octopus, powered by Zeus energy, was just entering the mix with the Wrecking Crew not far behind. Quicksilver, Northstar and Nightcrawler took Wrecker (tall white guy, green jumpsuit, purple belt, gloves, and ski mask, powered by Zeus Energy, wielding a f*(!^& crowbar) and Pile Driver ('nother white guy, blonde hair sticking over his red face mask, wearing white tank top, jeans, boots, powered with Hercules energy. These guys were no pushovers, but Mrs. Kennedy hooked my guys up. Their suits dispersed powerful energy blasts with every impact, keeping the muscle heads at bay. That left Thunderball (black guy, wearing boots, jeans, black tank top, yellow face mask and gloves, ripped as hell, wielding a wrecking ball on a chain, powered by Apollo Energy), and Bulldozer (huge while guy with orange pants and tank top, wearing big iron boots, gauntlets, and a mask that looked like a mix between Juggernaut and The Destroyer,powered by Hercules Energy), along with Doctor Octopus, coming straight for me.

I took Doctor Octopus out easily. I absorbed his Zeus Energy, and lightly punched him (still sent him flying) out. The rest of the Wrecking Crew were relatively simple to take down. For starters, they barely had any fighting training whatsoever. The only real danger to me was Thunderball, and that was only because the Apollo energy gave him a speed advantage. In any case I took them all out at the same time by going into my Storm Form and wrapping them all in a swirling ball of wind and lightning. I zapped them all with a million volts, before spitting them out, and finishing them off the same way I took Rhino down. I was feelin' pretty good about myself, until the ceiling finally cracked, and Doombots, Hand ninjas (cuz ok), and a buncha henchmen in Yellowjacket suits (think Ant-Man, but with flying and laser pincers) flooded in by the hundreds!

Grant was still busy with Abomination, but he still had enough spare energy to bottleneck the roof like I asked him. The poor bastards got shredded by the dozens once the Geo-Force bolts hit. Granted, a good chunk of them actually did make it through. Grant was still at least 70% focused on fighting Abomination, meaning the Geo-Force bolts were a bit lacking in power. Still, the goons that made it to the ground got absolutely no mercy from , this wasn't like the previous cases where I could afford to pull my punches. With the hundreds of enemies pouring in, I had no choice but to be absolutely ruthless. I tapped into SMS, busted out Excelsior, and went hacking and slashing away.

The Doombots were the easiest to break apart. I either absorbed their Zeus energies, or overloaded their circuits, blowing them to bits. The same could more or less be said for the Yellowjackets. They were usually powered by Zeus Energy too, but they had their own power supply to cover for the loss of said energy. The ones that weren't ant sized got the sword though the head, neck, or back. When they tried tried shrinking down and blasting me with lasers (man, that stung), I accessed the Power Grid, got a lock on them, and bug zapped them. The Hand ninjas, who usually favored Apollo Energy, were a bit harder to kill (more skill and speed). Still, if I couldn't do them in with the sword, I blasted them with voltage until they were fried crispy, or canceled their power entirely with Sea Force, before giving them the blade. Yeah, I don't like to think about the amount of people I butchered. Some of em' coulda had families and children. They might've just been guys and gals suckered into whatever twisted new reality Doom sold them on. The only thing I could hide behind was the fact that it wasn't personal. I didn't wanna kill them, but that didn't make them any less dead. Still, had to push that outta my mind. I knew what I signed up for, and I had a job to do.

So yeah, ten minutes of that. Brutal, grueling, heart racing battle that seemed like it was never gonna end. Five minutes in, Grant managed to uppercut Abomination through the ceiling, and kept him going up via giant Mjolnir construct, removing him from the battle. Good thing too, cuz a few minutes after that, Doom's crew opened the f*(!^& floodgates of pain! The east, south, and west walls blew apart, and the Doombots, ninjas, and Yellowjacket poured in like a tidal wave! It had to be at least 300 just on the initial burst. All pissed off and ready to kick me and my team's collective asses!

"GUYS, FALL BACK NEAR ME!" I thought to them (Mrs. Kennedy had the suits link us up telepathically).

As they closed in, I created a huge lightning/Sea Force charged whirlwind around the breach points, more or less creating a storm cube. Again, when outnumbered, bottleneck the enemy. Don't get me wrong, more than enough of the bastards got through. We had to fight like hell for the last three minutes. Quicksilver, Northstar, and Nightcrawler were all over the place with me and Grant, thinning the enemy ranks even further. Any that made it through us only had Red Hulk's fists to look forward to. After battling through waves of enemy combatants for three minutes, Doom's ship shut down all at once! Doombots started to drop like flies, and I could feel the ship start to lose altitude.

"Uh, Z.O.R.D.O.N.?" I asked him. "Just for reference, where the hell are we?"

"50 miles off the coast of Long Beach Island," he responded. "At its current trajectory, the ship will crash harmlessly into the ocean."

"Good. Alright everyone, let's get the hell outta here!"

Ross powered down, as me and Grant grabbed our respective passengers for transport. After phasing through the ship, Grant wrapped us all in a giant Iron Man construct (it was way too dangerous to navigate the sky battlefield while carrying passengers.) We flew to the Helicarrier, and resumed the fighting; which seemed to be going our way more or less. Don't get me wrong, the deck was a warzone, littered with a depressing amount of bodies on both sides, but for the most part our defenses were holding strong.

"Fuller, report," Fury contacted me over the coms. "A bunch of Doombots just went dead. Is that you?"

"Affirmative," I responded. "Doom's ship is falling into the water as we speak. How's the interior defense?"

"Coulda been worse. Aside from the soldiers that made it through the aerial and deck defense, someone on the other team had the bright idea of teleporting a whole squadron of fighters directly inside the ship. Attacked us on all levels.

"Need any help? I can send Northstar and Quicksilver down to weaken the attack."

"That'd be much appreciated, thanks."

I sent my speedster pals down, and focused on protecting the deck with Grant and the other heroes. Grant and I ran around, hacking and blasting our way through dozens of enemy fighters, which now just consisted of various villains, Hand ninjas, and Yellowjackets. I sensed Allyson doing her thing pretty well up in the air too (her, Ms. Marvel, and Storm were a surprisingly good team). But remember that rule when it comes to things going my way? Yeah, all good things come to an end.

I felt it before the assault even began. A wave of demonic magic so strong, someone may have been summoning all of Hell itself! In less than a second, the Helicarrier, all of our fighters, and any open air space within a five mile radius, were neck deep in Dragon Men, huge medieval and Chinese-like dragons, and black demonic fighter jets shaped like spear heads mixed with thin octopi-like cables. Those things were wicked fast too! In just one second, they broke the sound barrier twice, and went full blown kamikaze on the Helicarrier deck, sides, and under side. Some of them just exploded with enough force to rock the battleship, like we were in a f*(!^% hurricane, while others literally drilled into the hull, depositing dozens of Dragon Men into various levels of the Helicarrier.

"GT!" I thought to Grant. "ARE THESE-"

"YUP!" he responded. " I THOUGHT I HANDLED THESE FOOLS BACK AT THE AMAZON! DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE SORE LOSERS!

"SOMEHOW THIS IS YOUR FAULT! NOW HELP ME FIX IT! WE GOTTA KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE TURBINES! ANY CHANCE FOR AN ARMY OF ALL METAL FIGHTER JETS?!"

"Yeah…..uhhh….about that. See, my G-Force powers are a little off. When Doom knocked Gaea outta me, he knocked the connection off sync. I can obviously still do G-Force blasts and constructs, maybe even earthbending, but anything other than that, forget about it!"

"So your powers are broken?! Well that's just convenient! How do we get em' fixed?!"

"Gaea says I gotta make contact with the ground. Even then it'll take like five minutes for the connection to get back to normal."

"And we don't have that kinda time. Whatever. We gotta mitigate this ambush. I need you to keep barriers around the turbines and thrusters. If one of those goes, we're f*(#%&. Sunbird? Please tell me you got another Super Sunbird in you."

"That's a big no, boss! It takes a good hour or two before I can do that again! Heck, I don't even got that high from the Apollo Stone anymore! Also, great job, Geo-Titan! Another one of your exes is out to kill you and us!"

"It was one time!" he responded. "And in my defense, all I did was rip off her wings, leave her for dead, and trash her whole army. She tried to kill me first. I am absolutely not to blame for this. Don't worry, i'll be sure to kill her this time.

"A little extreme, but i'll take it. Anyway, what's the plan, Storm-Lord? We're kinda getting hammered out here!"

"Just hold the line as best as you can. Lemme make some calls."

I made the sky darken and thunder! True, I didn't have my white hot bolts of Zeus, but my regular blue ones still packed enough of a punch to blow up the Dragon Army. Didn't matter what size they were, they all fried just the same. Those fighter ships were a bit of different story tho. While my lighting strikes could knock them off course, the metal the ships were made from was ridiculously strong! Like, Adamantium strong. Still, I managed to get around the ship's durability. The first time was by accident. I knocked an enemy ship off course, and by luck, it crashed into another. They both went boom, and plummeted down in red fiery heaps! After that, I got more creative with where I aimed my lightning. I brought Phantom Bolts, constructs, and tesla spheres into the mix, as I forced the Dragon ships to crash into each other. Grant and Allyson followed my lead, and after a while, the trend caught on with everyone (Blue Marvel straight up threw fighter jets at each other like Frisbees). Guess that made me the cool kid. I was gonna contact Fury about the problem, but it seemed to be solving itself. Still, he contacted me, and blew up my comlink!

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS, FULLER?!" he roared at me. "I WENT FROM WINNING THE GAME, TO UP TO MY ASS IN DRAGON TAILS!"

"NOT MY FAULT!" I roared back. "THAT DRAGON EMPRESS CHICK GRANT FOUGHT BACK IN THE AMAZON WANTS PAYBACK!"

"WELL ISN'T THAT JUST DANDY?! WE GOTTA KEEP THOSE SHIP'S OFF OUR TURBINES!"

"Already got that covered. Grant's got barriers over them, and i'm running interference with the rest of the heroes. We're a bit cramped, but we're getting our groove back.

"Good for you. Still, that doesn't help the fact that I have a damaged engine and a several dozen f*(#!^& Dragon Men invading my Helicarrier! Do you know how much this thing costs?! I just got a bar put in here! I ain't got insurance for this thing!"

"Ok, ok, calm down! I'm doing stuff on the second level where the brunt of the attack is."

By that, I mean swatting Dragon Men and Yellowjackets down via Power Grid shenanigans. Even without the Zeus Power, my refined control over the Power Grid remained intact. As such, I shot finger sized arrows through dozens of Dragon Men, and fried entire squads of Yellowjackets without being anywhere near them. Again, things seemed to be going good, so I needed some bad to balance it out. The Dragon People were way ahead of me on that, cuz another wave of attackers materialized outta thin air!

No. No. Nope. No Bueno. No sir. Not again. F*(# this $#!+. Not again!

I tapped into my Storm-Form, and merged with the greater thunderstorm above me! I quickly expanded the storm, reaching five miles, and straight up rained down holy f*(#!^& hell! I'm talking enough voltage to trash small towns, and shatter skyscrapers! Hundreds of lightning bolts raining down, killing everything that looked even a little bit like an overgrown lizard! While some of the lighting derailed enemy ships into each other, I took a more personal approach with that. Just like with that battle with the Serpent Society, I constructed myself into hundreds of giant cloud hands, and sent them down to slap, throw, and crush enemy ships into each other. I wasn't able to get all of em', but at least 90% of their ships (the second wave was around 300 fighter ships) went down in flaming heaps. When I reformed on the deck of the Helicarrier, even tho I was proud of straight up eviscerating that second wave, I quickly realized I had missed out one some major details. For starters, I just barely caught a glimpse of Allyson fighting….a tan girl in a purple T-shirt and black leggings? Don't get me wrong, the girl was giving Allyson a good ass run for her money. They were punching, kicking, and blasting at each other almost faster than even I could pick up. Hell, when their blasts or constructs collided with each other, a quick, but extremely powerful burst of gravity ensued; like a giant had just taken a huge intake of air. Their battle was all over the place, and while this was definitely something I hadn't planned for, I had confidence in Allyson. She was gonna be fine. Grant…..well, it was too early in round 2 between him and Abomination to tell. All I could see was that Abomination was powered by way more Apollo Energy (guess Doom was back in the picture). I got one glimpse of Abomination punching Grant through the Helicarrier deck, and two floors, before flying after him. In any other case i'd help him out, but I had my own problems (plural) to deal with.

My Speed Sense went off like a tank, as I detected a shower of bullets coming in hot from basically nowhere off the starboard flank of the Helicarrier! These weren't normal bullets either; they were absolultley bathed in Apollo Energy! Hell, my Speed and Thunder Senses were working overtime just to track them all. All of em' were aimed at the me, the other heroes, and the remaining S.H.I.E.L.D. agents still duking it out with the various enemy combatants on the deck. There were 114 bullets flying across the air, but I just barely managed to get an overlapping Sea Force barrier around the runway, blocking all of the bullets before they got within 20 ft of their targets. Good thing I used Sea Force, cuz the bullets were rigged to blow! The boom probably woulda blown out the starboard turbines if Grant still didn't have his Geo-Force domes up around them. Hell, my Sea Force barrier just barely held together against the impact. I held it up for a little while longer, concerned that there might be a second wave, but my troubles were already on board.

I felt reality warp in three different places across the Helicarrier deck. The first was about 50 meters behind me. The second and third were 50 and 100 ft ahead of me. My Speed Sense immediately went off behind me as Bullseye shot at me with another Apollo Bullet. I found it funny that of all of Doom's cronies, this guy was either so arrogant, stupid, or on Doom's $#!+ list, that he didn't have any kind of god energy surrounding him. As such, there was nothing that could save him when I encased him in a Sea Force dome, locking him in with the bullet's explosion; which didn't make it even 10 ft away from him. By the time the explosion died down, there was nothing left of him at all. I probably woulda felt bad about it if the guy didn't try to shoot me in the back, like a bitch. The guy 50 ft ahead of me, Crossbones, was busy duking it out with She-Hulk; tho that didn't last all that long. Crossbones was radiating Hercules and Apollo Energy. Plus, he was a pretty good fighter. She-Hulk got uppercutted so hard, she flew 20 ft in the air! She would've crashed face first into the pavement if I didn't break her fall with a small vortex. That definitely got Crossbone's attention, as he tried to shot me in the face with an Apollo Bullet. I trapped him in a Sea Force barrier with the explosion, but only succeeded in knocking off his Hercules Energy aura. Not to worry tho. I simply summoned my trident, gave it a quick Sea Force surge, and threw it through his head. If I sound unattached to the fact that I just killed a man, well…..i've had a very long, very bad day. Besides, he hurt She-Hulk…..who seems nice, I guess. Anyway, with Crossbones and Bullseye down, all that was left was the guy 100 ft away: Taskmaster (stupid name).

Gotta admit tho, he looked pretty sick. He was rockin' a black and silver battlesuit, similar to mines, with a hoodie over his skull mask. The dude was armed as f*(# too. He had two guns strapped to his sides. A medieval sword and circular shield slung across his back, and seeing as his suit jutted out fist blades Assassin's Creed style as he killed a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent (poor guy), i'm betting there were all sorts of nasty surprises waiting for me. Yeah…..f*(# that $#!+. I blasted him with a Final Flash (been a while since I used that trick) while he wasn't looking. In my defense, he was gonna go after another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and I couldn't let that happen. Didn't make a difference either way, cuz his suit straight up absorbed the whole damn blast! Dude barely even flinched. Instead, he turned around, and after looking at me for half a sec, pressed a button on his wrist, and shot out a pulse of…..something. I felt it permeate the Helicarrier deck; like a million fire ants swarming about in every direction. Even worse, I felt them inside me! Yeah, millions of em' managed to get inside my body, and they were interacting with my cells in a way I definitely didn't consent to!

"Nanites," he said in his discount Darth Vader voice. "Designed to prevent electron, moisture, and wind hyper activity. Go ahead, kid. Try and zap me again."

Hey, he wanted it. Who was I to deny him? I tried blasting him with another Final Flash….and nothing happened! Well, not exactly nothing. I mean sure, I was barely able to get a spark off, but that was the least of my worries. The nanites in my system hit me with some kinda nerve shock at a cellular level. Literally everything started hurting, like someone was slowly sawing my cells apart! Nowhere near as bad as what Lothrook did to my soul, but even he'd have to give Taskmaster props, as his nanites had me spazzing and convulsing on the ground like a fish outta water.

"Oh yeah!" he laughed at me. "Forgot to mention that those nanites are linked with your cerebral and neurological patterns. Can't exactly explain the science, that was never my strong suit, but the guys at Hydra told me the little bugs link to the parts of your brain responsible for activating your powers, and attack you at a cellular level when you even think about using em'. Yeah, can't have you going all sparky on me. Oh, and that blue energy crap? I wouldn't suggest using that either. Anything too foreign, and the nanites blow you up from the inside out. Also, the nanites are gonna cut your speed way down. That vibrating thing you got goin' on? Forget about it. There is some good news though. While the nanites will definitely slow down your speed, you'll still have enough to put up a fight. This suit of mine can only boost my speed and strength so much. Gotta make it fair, right? So let's see…..got a good minute or so before your body recovers from the shock, so lemme make this quick. Doom wrote me a check with a nut busting amount of zeroes on it. All I gotta do to ensure I retire to my own private country, is kill you. Now I usually don't take jobs against kids, but again, so many zeroes. Besides, you're…..17….18? Your close enough to manhood. Besides, you killed my boys. Sure, Bullseye was an asshole, and Crossbones was a schmutz, but they were the closest friends I had. Can't let that slide. Still, like I said, i'll be fair. You and me. One on one. Let's see if you're actually worth what Doom's paying me."

As he finished his monologue, the nanites stopped causing me pain, and I bolted after him! I was hoping he was bluffing on that speed thing, but he wasn't. I couldn't even crack SMS! As I charged towards him, Taskmaster took aim at me. I was pretty sure he had Apollo Bullets in there, so I darted to the side, not wanting any more of my allies to get hurt. Taskmaster emptied his clips trying to shot me (and yeah, they were Apollo Bullets). I was just barely able to dodge them, and that was no small feat. Besides just being super fast, Taskmaster was smart about where he shot. After evaluating how fast I was, he started shooting at places he predicted I would be, or used the bullets to direct me where he wanted for the final blow. For example, as I was zig zagging around, he shot the ground to my right, blowing me backwards. He shot at me again as I was plummeting to the left, but I twisted over it, and summoned my Sky Shield when I landed, knowing he'd shoot me again. The explosion knocked me into Red Hulk, who was fighting a squad of Dragon Men. I quickly shook off the hit, and sprinted after Taskmaster, whose suit shot up new clips outta his utility belts, which he caught by swiping the gun butts across the air, catching the clips as they fell (badass). He took aim at me again, but I quickly threw my shield at his head. Taskmaster rolled under it, and shot at my knee caps. I side stepped the bullets, while calling my shield back, hitting him in the back of the head! Again, I sprinted towards Taskmaster, and just as he recovered, knocked his right gun away from his hand with a sweeping kick, and used the remaining momentum to spin into an upwards slash, trying to slice off his left arm. Taskmaster moved his arm outta the way, and shot at me again. This time, I summoned my Sky Shield to take the blast. Sure, I got knocked like 50 ft in the air, but the explosion knocked Taskmaster backwards, and completely shattered his gun (and maybe fractured his hand). Anyway, I recovered, and sprinted full force again at him.

"Damn it, guy!" he shouted at me as I closed in on him. "Those things ain't cheap!"

I ignored him, and attacked with a running high knee. He sidestepped and retaliated by trying to stab me in the back with one of his hand blades, but I ducked, elbowed him in the ribs, grabbed his head, and flipped him on the ground. He quickly transformed his arm blades to arm turret guns, and shot upwards, forcing me to abandon my attack. He quickly got up and pulled out a laser katana.

I went full retard. Like, Peter Griffin retard.

"That is awesome." I simply said.

"You like it?" Taskmaster asked. "Thanks. Thought it might be a little much, but-"

I charged forward with a shield bash, knocking him back, and pressed forward with the attack. Don't get me wrong, it was a cool sword, but only an idiot doesn't take advantage of a villain on, or about to start a monologue.

Anyway, I battled Taskmaster shield to sword, and I gotta say, this guy was nothing short of badass warrior mode! I read his file. He basically had the same ability I had; that being the ability to see and copy any moves he sees. The guy learned every martial art on the planet, and it showed! Every slash of his sword was a mix of something. Kendo, Ninjutsu, Kenjutsu, Shaolin, the works. His strikes were swift, hard, and above all, misleading. I can't count the number of times in one minute he almost sliced off a limb (mostly legs). Every strike, dodge, feint, and lunge were fluid like a dance. Even when I managed to break up the combo, Taskmaster flowed with the rhythm, and always managed to get the upper hand back. It was like he was playing chess with me. Seriously, here's how I almost lost my head! Taskmaster managed to off-balance me with a combination of quick kicks and sword strikes, followed by a quick Apollo Bullet shot from his wrist gun. The explosion knocked me backwards, and as I was rolling to recover, my Speed Sense went off like crazy! Taskmaster managed to throw his blade sideways at the exact trajectory to where it woulda lobbed my head off, before I even got to my feet! Yeah, the blade was significantly less cool when it was gonna decapitate me! I just barely managed to push myself upwards (thank literally Poseidon for my leg strength), clearing the blade by ten feet. As I landed, Taskmaster drew his other blade from across his back, and attacked again. This time, I made sure things would go differently.

Like my practice battles with Grant, I focused on making sure I didn't play defensive so much to where Taskmaster could pick my style (and me) apart. I pressed forward with my shield attacks, mixing every single fighting style I memorized, while analyzing how Taskmaster fought down to a microscopic level of detail. Whenever I saw even the slightest of openings, I took it with a desperate sword slash or stab, before quickly discarding it when I failed. Taskmaster kept pressing forward with his laser katana, and I kept treading backwards, giving of the illusion that I was getting overwhelmed by his attacks. I kept up that charade for half a minute before using Taskmaster's momentum against him, by ducking under one of his thrusts, while hitting him in the gut with my shield. This was either a really lucky shot, or a really skilled one. Taskmaster, if nothing else ,was completely in control of his power and momentum. Every strike and movement was no more or less powerful than he wanted them to be. So yeah, getting that hit in was no small feat. I followed it up with a backflip kick under his chin, strong enough to knock out a gorilla, launching myself 10 ft in the air. I did another backflip in mid-air to regain my equilibrium, and summoned Excelsior. I quickly transformed it into a spear, took aim at Taskmaster's chest, and threw it down at Taskmaster as hard as I could. Taskmaster was still in midair when I threw the spear, so he was completely helpless as the spear ran him straight through, just under his rib cage. I was aiming for his heart (my spear throwing needs some work), but i'm pretty sure a punctured liver would kill him eventually. Plus I threw the spear so hard, the blade punctured the pavement under Taskmaster! I was both proud and horrified at that. What same afterwards was doubly shock inducing.

Taskmaster straight up pulled the spear outta his body, and rather than a puddle of blood spilling out from his stomach, he jumped straight up with a completely healed wound.

"Gotta love nanotech," he taunted me. "Keeps the body all nice and not dead."

"Bet it can't fix a severed head." I responded as I called Excelsior back to me.

"You'll never find out."

Again, Taskmaster pressed forward, this time drawing his medieval sword from behind his back in addition to his laser katana. I switched Excelsior to a sword again, and summoned my shield to defend/retaliate against his attacks.

If the gloves weren't off before, they sure as hell were now! Taskmaster attacked me with a flurry of slashes, stabs, and kicks. Again, I wanted to pretend that I was some great master swordsman; that my sparring sessions with Nightcrawler, my victories in Atlantis, and my further training with Grant and Allyson made me something special. In truth, Taskmaster showed me I was nothing special at all when it came to sword fighting. I mean, the guy was nothing short of dangerous with one sword. With two, he was an absolute beast! He slashed away at me like I was a glorified training dummy. The only reason I was still alive was because I was a little better at using my shield than I think he was expecting me to be. Don't get me wrong, I was putting in my fair share of parries, counter slashes, and even brief attack chains in, but 70% of the time I was keeping that shield up, down, sideways, and wherever else Taskmaster was trying to stick holes in me. See, Taskmaster was playing a game with me. Because he didn't know about my Thunder Sense, he assumed I needed my sight to fight him. As such, a lot of his throwaway attacks were meant for me to move my shields in certain positions as to leave me vulnerable in various torso and leg areas. A good plan, one that almost worked way too many times for comfort. Still, my Thunder Sense managed to keep me in the game while I played my own in my head. I knew Taskmaster analyzed and broke down fighting patterns. If I wasn't the very definition of careful, he'd kill me via knowing my next moves before I did, and countering them. Still, so much of my fighting was based in defense. Taskmaster hadn't seen everything I had yet. If I could make a big offensive push against him, I might just have a chance at winning. First, I had to get rid of one of his swords. No offense to Sunbird, but this guy was significantly better than her with dual wielding blades.

For the next five minutes me and Taskmaster went at it relentlessly. Taskmaster fought with mainly speed in mind, trying to either outmaneuver, or tire me out. He fought with intent to distract me from his overall movements. Making me focus on his sword strikes, while doing something with his feet to off-balance me. I was already over that $#!+, and easily powered my way through his attacks. Taskmaster started using a lot more flips, twirls, and rolls in his attacks, trying to take advantage of my seemingly static fighting style. Hell, I actually had to revert back to only using my shield for defense and offense. With the way he was moving around, I couldn't get a decent sword swing in to save my life. As Taskmaster relentlessly slashed and stabbed at my shield, I gradually retreated backwards (getting a little too close to the edge of the Helicarrier), using quick kicks, punches, and shield swipes to keep Taskmaster at bay. He attacked with a sideways tornado slash attack, followed by a sweeping slash of his laser katana. I blocked the tornado slash, backflipped over the katana slash, and just barely blocked Taskmaster's double sword slash to my chest. And this is where he f*(#^% up! It wasn't the ideal position, but Taskmaster was in a good enough spot for me to disarm, and maybe even knock him off the Helicarrier! I summoned my right Power Gauntlet, and just as Taskmaster's blades collided with y shield, I hit the inside of it as hard I could! The momentum blew the son of a bitch away! His weapons went flying in either direction (I made sure to crush the laser katana, which only landed a few feet away from me), and he just barely landed on the edge of the deck, about 50 meters away! I pressed forward as fast as I could towards Taskmaster, hoping to get to his head with my sword before he could recover. No such luck. Taskmaster got up, and in a quick attempt to take me out, summoned his medieval sword back to him. My Speed Sense alerted me that it was about to stab me in the back at 100 mph! I really wanted to give him a gigantic f*(# you via breaking his sword in half with a vibration swing of Excelsior, but that was a no go. I simply backflipped over his sword, and pressed forward with my attack.

I feinted a swing at Taskmaster's legs, and followed through with a slash to his right side of his midsection. Taskmaster easily parried the slash, and pressed forward with a flurry of quick slashes, stabs, and kicks. I let him move me backwards, careful not to let him get too much control, and after parrying two slashes, dodging a stab, and just barely missing a swipe at Taskmaster's head (so f*(#!^& close!), I stopped Taskmaster's slash chain by timing a parry with a high knee to his gut, and slamming him in the head with a hit from my left Power Gauntlet! Taskmaster flew across the deck (there were barely any fighters on any side left to get in the way of), and just barely recovered enough to avoid my spear throw aimed at his chest. I summoned my sword back to me, and pressed forward with my own slash combo. I mixed everything I had from my fights with Nightcrawler, Grant, Allyson, and the good chunk of fighting experience I absorbed from my bonding ritual thing with Namor. My main strategy was to cut off Taskmaster's reversals and counters, while pressing forward with strikes that blended my speed, fluidity between sword and spear transitions, and my newfound incredible strength. To be fair, this was a kinda sorta stupid thing on my part. While it was effective at keeping Taskmaster mostly off-balance, not to mention getting a few good stabs and slices in his legs and abdomen, this wasn't a style I had completely perfected. I was sloppy, and needed to refine my control of momentum and weapon transitions. It was mainly my strength that kept Taskmaster off the offensive/recovery. Every dodge was vital to him, as parrying one of my swings was like blocking a baseball bat with your arms. Will it work? Yeah, but you'll feel it in the morning.

Anyway, the fight kept going up and down the length of the Helicarrier warzone. My constant slashes, and stabs usually catching air or opposing metal. Taskmaster was nothing if not adaptive. I attacked with a constant barrage of slashes and stabs mainly aimed at his legs and chest, while moving around in either direction to wear down his stamina. If he pushed back, I busted out the spear, stopping his oncoming attack, and resumed my attacks. The spear attacks got so bad for Taskmaster, he had to bust out his shield just to keep from getting impaled. That gave me more confidence as I pressed forward with more hits; focusing on diverting his shield away from his vital areas, and trying my luck striking there. I wasn't as good as he was in that regard, but I did get a few strikes of my spear butt to connect with his thighs and ankles. I couldn't capitalize on those strikes, but they were something at least. I did manage to disarm him of his sword when I kicked his shield with a front kick, did a twisting sideflip over him, and crouched low. Afterwards, I quickly did a horse kick, getting his shield again, and launched myself forward with the hardest overhead sword strike I could. I landed the blow against Taskmaster's shield, shattering it into plate sized chunks! Taskmaster stumbled backwards like a drunk penguin, but just barely managed to roll outta my way as I brought the sword in for a stab at his chest. By the time he recovered, he had another laser sword drawn; this time a medieval blade.

"Seriously?!" I said to him as our swords clashed (he completely discarded his other sword). "Star Wars again?!"

"You keep breakin' all my $#!+, man!" Taskmaster responded. "You ain't exactly leavin' me with a lotta options here!"

He pressed forward with his attack, and were were back at it again.

This time, it was was a toss up between who had the advantage. None of us landed any slashes or stabs on each other for a good while. For three straight minutes it was a constant cycle of stabbing, slashing, dodging, parrying, counters, reversals, punches, and kicks. For every punch or kick I got in on Taskmaster, he returned it in kind just as fast. I slashed away at him furiously, trying my damndest to get at that head of his, but he was gradually adapting to the way I fought; countering my moves almost playfully. I still got in some elbows to the face via deflecting his blade to the side, and elbowing him in his jaw. I followed one of those up with a Power Gauntlet hit to his face again (that mask was hella durable), knocking him backwards. Taskmaster rolled into a recovery, and came up with a wide upswing, halting my momentum. After another set of blows, I tried stabbing him in the gut via extending my sword into a spear, but he deflected it with his sword, gave me a good side kick in my gut, and followed that up with a jumping roundhouse to my head, flooring me. He came at me with a downwards stab, which I deflected with my shield, while rolling to my feet. Again, a quick exchange of blows, kicks, and slashes ensued, but things took a turn for the worse when Taskmaster managed to dodge one of my high knees, and stab me in the side of my thigh! So much pain shot up and down my leg that it actually went numb sometimes! Taskmaster quickly stabbed me again in my right shoulder, shooting another equally painful sensation down that entire arm! I stumbled backwards, trying to shake off the pain. Taskmaster let me try as he advanced slowly. He attacked again, but deliberately slow and choppy. He was mocking me! He attacked with wide strikes, simple stabs, and only occasionally attacked my bad leg, which always sent me to the ground. I didn't get it; my healing factor shoulda took care of this in its sleep!

"Yeah," Taskmaster droned at me. "Ain't nanites great? Had those made just in case I ever got another contract to kill Wolverine again. They keep those pesky healing factors from kicking in. Pretty cool huh?"

I took another swing at him with my sword, and he easily disarmed me. He put away his laser sword,and attacked me with a flurry of punches and kicks from least five different martial arts styles. I did my best to keep up, but I was at half of my peak mobility at best. All I could do was defend, and I couldn't even do that properly. Taskmaster got multiple kicks and punches in at my chest, and legs, keeping me off-balance and disoriented.

"For what it's worth," he said as he wailed on me. "You're not half bad."

He punched me in the throat, elbowed me in the face, and reverse kicked me backwards.

"Just a little basic."

Several gut shots, two high knees to my head, and an uppercut that made my vision spin.

"Probably cuz you're like me. You can replicate anything you see. Good skill to have. Saves a lotta time."

Throat chop, backflip kick, Shawn Michaels style recovery into a double kick in my chest that sent me flying.

"Still, can't rely on that alone. I've killed several cyborgs, photographic memorizers, and martial artists that knew every style on and off the books."

He summoned his sword back to his hand, and sliced away at me while I did my best to keep my shield up.

"Y'know what was the one thing all those idiots had in common? They fought like computer simulations. They thought knowing how to do the moves meant they were actually good at fighting."

"Like those idiots who think they're pros in Mortal Kombat, cuz they spent an hour in practice mode?" I responded.

'Yeah, exactly!"

He kicked my shield hard, and I stumbled to one knee. Damn those nanites. I could feel blood streaming down my arm and leg. I was sweating and breathing hard, and it was getting difficult to stay conscious. Taskmaster continued to wail on my shield, and in a desperate attempt to get back in the fight, I batted his sword aside with my shield, summoned my sword, and tried desperately to slice off his head. Taskmaster parried the blade, hit me in the face with his sword pommel, and stabbed me in the chest! I was too shocked to feel the pain; to cope with the fact that I was literally gonna die! I headbutted Taskmaster as hard as I could, and hit him in the chest with a Power Gauntlet swing to his chest, sending him soaring 100 meters back. I immediately fell down; didn't even have the strength to remove the sword from my gushing chest. As I coughed up blood, my Thunder Sense went into overdrive. I remember sensing Falcon swoop in to try and defend me. He lasted for maybe 30 seconds against Taskmaster, before losing an arm, followed by his head. A few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tried to to stop him, and collectively lasted a grand total of five seconds before they died. Hell, even Red Hulk got zapped with some kinda disk that I assume attacked his nervous system, cuz he fell to the ground a spazzing mess. By the time Taskmaster got to me, I had completely lost consciousness; only barely feeling a huge blast of wind right over me.

(Grant's Perspective)

All in all, today sucked balls. I got my as kicked by Doom, lost the Stone of Demeter, and was getting my ass kicked by Abomination right this second! Under normal circumstances, this guy would be a bit of a problem, but not a full blown threat to my existence. Yeah, I think we can all agree this was a far cry from normal circumstances. Hell, normal was something of a myth these days. But yeah, Abomination was radiating Apollo energy out the ass! Well…..nah, you know what I mean. The guy was easily fast enough to keep up with me, and hit like an army! I dunno if he was stronger than me, but my throbbing jaw said he was close enough! Oh, and did I mention that my powers were outta whack?! Yeah, I gave Storm-Lord the short and sweet version of it, but it was way worse than that. It was getting harder and harder to channel G-Force. I couldn't summon my All-Metal, or use the G-Force to enhance my speed or strength. Even worse, I could feel the connection to Gaea getting weaker. If I didn't get to the ground ASAP to re-sync the connection, i'd be in danger of losing my G-Force powers entirely. Oh, and lucky me, I had just taken a punch from Abomination that sent me slamming through the deck of the ship, and two whole floors of the Helicarrier. Gaea made a hissing sound; like the hit actually stung her.

"That had to hurt!" she almost laughed at me.

"Shut up!" I thought back to her.

"Hey, don't get uppity with me! I'm not exactly loving this either. You take a few more hits like that and our connection is done. Get to the ground and reaffirm the connection!"

"Can't just leave!"

"Yes, you can! Hell, you alone can tear this ship in half. If you and that thing fight in here, you'll tear it apart; completely defeating the purpose of defending it!"

Abomination flew down after me, roaring "GIVE ME A REAL FIGHT, PUNK!"

"Damn." I thought to Gaea. "I hate it when you're right. Where are we over again?"

"50 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Don't worry, I got a spot where you can battle your monstrous friend!"

She projected an image of a kinda sorta clearing, or something super close to it. It was a huge patch of land, at least two miles worth of it, mostly empty, except for a few buildings that resembled red warehouses, or maybe churches. The area was near the road Green Bank Chatsworth road, making me a little nervous about civilians. Gaea confirmed that this was a small community though, and that the amount of traffic would be minimal at its worst. Besides, on the other side of the small road was just miles upon miles of forest. If I needed a safe place to move the fight, there were multiple options to take it. I gave Gaea the ok, and focused on Abomination. The guy was clearly all brawl, no skill. As he charged down at me, I flew to the left side of his attack, before coming back around, slamming full force into him from behind. We crashed through the bottom of the ship, and I rocketed us both as far away for the battle as I could, on our way to Green Bank.

I managed to get about 25 miles off the coast of New Jersey, before Abomination slammed me in the back hard enough to make me break my grip. He slammed another fist into my back, knocking me halfway to the water, and flew after me. I managed to recover before I went splash, and knocked Abomination across the sky with a giant G-Force fist! I quickly followed that up by busting out my Power Gauntlets, and flying after him. I hit him square in the chest so hard I made a sonic boom, and launched Abomination three whole miles forward! Gotta give it to Storm-Lord, when he's right, he's right. I never thought i'd need anything like these; I was the baddest, strongest thing on the planet. Now, I don't know what i'd do without em! Anyway, I hit Abomination about seven more times, until I was just a few miles off the coast of New Jersey. Green Bank was about 35 miles inland, but anything could happen between getting there. To help guarantee me and Abomination didn't end up duking it out in the middle of a highway in rush hour, I put him in a G-Force baseball construct, and kept hitting him as hard as I could with Power Gauntlet Punches. Pretty sure everyone and their mother could hear me makin' my way through town, but maybe i'd trend on Twitter again! Kidding. I know this is serious business. Anyway, after seven punches, a giant G-Force baseball bat swing, and one final hit to the ground with a giant G-Force sledgehammer, I landed Abomination in the clearing Gaea picked out for me, well enough away from the buildings. Had to be careful through. Even though they were empty, i'd hate to have someone come home and see an Abomination sized hole in their roof.

"Alright," Gaea thought to me as I landed. "The connection will take ten minutes to reaffirm, but only if you stay touching the ground."

"I can't fly?" I asked her.

"You can, but it'll stop the reconnection process. What should only take ten minutes will take a lot longer."

"Ok, stay grounded, got it."

"Also, don't get angry, but your Geo-Force powers will be cut off during the reconnection process."

"WHAT?!"

Abomination stumbled around to his feet, roaring like a confused dragon. He locked onto me a few seconds later, and I felt the fear of God in my stomach!

"Don't worry, you can take him, my champion! Surely there's more to the great Geo-Titan than just his power!"

"The hell do you mean? I got that name AFTER I got my G-Force powers!"

"Oh. Well. That is…...your problem. Be back in ten minutes. Try not to die."

"GAEA!"

No good. I couldn't hear her anymore. The good news was that I could feel the connection getting stronger almost instantly! It was like a wave of warmth spreading through my whole body from the ground up. It didn't necessarily give me strength, but it was a huge confidence booster. Good thing, cuz i'd need all the confidence I could get to fight spiky Hulk with sun god power.

"THAT ALL YOU GOT?!" he roared at me.

"You ain't seen nothin' yet, bro," I calmly replied.

He charged at me faster than a bullet, but I sidestepped his charge, grabbed his huge ass ankle, and swung him around a few times, before letting him fly back the way he came! Yeah, I realized this a while back, but all Abomination had on me was speed and strength. You may think that's a lot, but without any skill and discipline to guide it, your strength becomes weakness. Abomination was pure charge, wild swings, and absolutely no coordination. Still, I took a few hits from the guy, and I can tell you he had more than enough muscle to put me down for the count. That Apollo Energy would only add to that. If I wanted to get outta this in one piece, I had to play this smart and strong at the same time. I charged after Abomination on foot, man I missed flying, summoned Earthshaker, my axe, in case you forgot, and whacked Abomination across his head as he was just starting to get up. I followed that up by summoning my sword with a solo Delta Speed Thrasher, pounding the $#!+ outta his back, knees, head, and chest. Wasn't easy; like I said, the dude was fast, but I managed to keep him occupied for a good minute and a half. I was hoping my blades would cancel out Abomination's magic aura, but I was still happy with what I ended up getting. While my weapons didn't cancel the magic, it temporarily cut through it, dealing damage to Abomination directly. Sure, his healing factor canceled that bonus, but at least I was hurting him. Besides, every time I got a hit in, a good chunk of power left him. That'd be amazing if this dude wasn't a bottomless pit of fire power, but at least I was gaining some ground. Yeah, Abomination let out a huge blastwave hat put a 30 ft crater in the ground, and sent me tumbling back into the nearby forest. I felt myself crash through at least 30 trees, before tumbling into the ground. I felt like someone had dropped a herd of rhinos on top of me, while simultaneously hosing me with a flamethrower. I definitely ate a mouthful of dirt, and my vision was blurring. I wanted nothing more than to just call it a day, but my body called for a Timeout.

I opened my eyes to find Abomination about to slam into me from above like a f*(#!^% comet! Definitely not something you'd want to wake up to, so you better believe I got the absolute $#!+ outta dodge! I propelled myself backwards with a quick jump, and backflipped to my feet again. Really wish I had the G-Force to enhance my speed, cuz Abomination was up in my face faster than I was ready for! He threw a punch, and on instinct I tried to make a giant shield construct. So I failed cuz I couldn't use G-Force, right? Nope! Well….half right. I couldn't use G-Force, but because I was panicking big tie, I tried packing the shield with Geo-Force AND Nature Force. I wasn't able to use G-Force, but swap the G for an N, and now we were cookin' with fire! The shield just barely held up, but Abomination was in for a world of hurt. I mean, we were in a f*(#!^& forest! Maximum home court advantage! I willed a few trees around me to reshape into giant tree golems and pound the $#!+ outta him, while I got ready to do some hardcore battle. Couldn't summon the full Titanic Avenger suit, but I could make do. I summoned a 10 ft tall bark, vine, and grass construct of Hulk, inside an Iron Man suit, wielding Mjolnir, and a Captain America shield, and powered it with enough Nature Force to turn half of New York into a rainforest. I woulda called my tree golems off, but Abomination had just ripped the last one in half. I dunno why that made me mad, but I promised to hit him twice as hard now. After he finished tearing apart my golems, he took one good look at me…..and laughed.

"What, kid?!" he bellowed out. "You think that getup'll make you punch harder?! You think Banner's gonna save you from me?!

"Don't need him to handle lightwork like you!" I responded. "I just thought you might need a little motivation! Y'know, maybe if you get a little angrier, you might actually hit worth a damn!"

He roared and charged at me, only to get a flying hammer to the face at Mach 2! I willed my battle construct forward while summoning my hammer back to me, and brawled it out with Abomination Rock em' Sock em' style!

We both went at it like bulls! No real strategy, just keep attacking till the other guy can't get up! Abomination got more than his fair share of hits in; each blow creating a 6 ft crater. Still, even in my Titanic Avenger construct, I was a way better fighter than him. Whenever I could manage it, i'd block one of his wild swings with my shield, swipe my hammer hard at his kneecaps, forcing him down, and clobbered him across the back of his head for as long as I could. Abomination usually powered outta my attacks with a blastwave or desperate charge, but he couldn't sustain a decent string of attacks for long. The massive amount of plant life around me was the real game changer. A little after the five minute mark, Abomination managed to knock me off-balance by catching one of my hammer swings, and slamming a left cross into my constructs face, knocking the jaw completely off. I guess I shoulda been careful what I asked for, cuz Abomination probably took that whole, "use your hate as fuel" thing to heart. He wailed on my Titanic Avenger like Rocky in the last part of a boxing match. Every blow shredded more and more of my construct. By two hits, I lost my head. Another two to the gut, only a few feet of vine and bark kept my body protected. Hell, Abomination musta really hated me, cuz he slammed into me with a tackle, forcing to the ground, before wailing into chest with his fists. It wasn't that I couldn't defend myself, I just had a plan ready. When I constructed my Titanic Avenger, I put Earthshaker in the base of the right foot, and willed Nature Force to constantly flood into it. At this point, I had enough energy around my axe to destroy at least ten city blocks! Abomination's name was all over that $#!+.

"COME ON!" he roared at me as he continued to tear at my construct. "THAT ALL YOU GOT, CAPTAIN PLANET?! DOOM TOLD ME YOU'D BE A REAL FIGHT! DON'T WASTE MY TIME, YOU LITTLE-"

I blasted him in the face with a Unibeam blast, and ejected myself from the remains of the construct with a rising double kick right under his chin! I recovered with a backflip summoned a Power Gauntlet, and sent Abomination airborne with the hardest left uppercut I could dish out! The impact made a breeze so hard, the trees around me practically bent backwards, and I created a crater big enough to make a swimming pool. Before Abomination could recover, I called Earthshaker back to my hand, and hurled it at him with the force of a speeding jet! Good thing, I launched him airborne, cuz the explosion was big enough to crumble a small mountain! I recycled the runoff energy into giant hands, and smashed Abomination in like a fly, before willing the hands to knock him back to the ground with a hammer punch. From there it was a breeze for the remaining four minutes I had to burn till the resync.

Again, gotta love Abomination's one track mind, cuz he made this too easy! I used my speed to run about two miles outta sight, popped a squat in front of a random tree, and played games with Abomination! Seriously, I brought the forest alive just to piss him off! Dozens of tree golems, bears made of vines and Nature Force, Dragons shaped outta plant life that breathed Nature Force fire, and dozens of kamikaze Iron Men constructs to bombard Abomination like there was no tomorrow. Believe me, it was quite the lightshow! The kamikaze Iron Man kept Abomination off-balance, while the bears, dragons, and tree golems mauled the absolute $#!+ outta him! Sure, Abomination managed to tear them apart eventually, but for every two golems or bears he ripped apart, four more took their places. If he tried jumping outta dodge, i'd knock him back to the ground via whatever I felt like at the time. Sometimes it was a giant hammer, other times it was a kamikaze jet. Hell, just for laughs, I dropped a giant ass Nature Force gorilla on him, just cuz I could! Even when he went all nuclear and blastwaved all of my constructs to hell, his troubles were only just beginning. I pulled out an old favorite, and clamped Abomination up in a giant man eating, N-Force fire breathing tulip!

Classic.

By the time Abomination managed to break free of my monster, it was too late! With one last surge of G-Force into me, followed by a small tremor in the ground, Gaea and I were officially back in business!

"Miss me?" she asked, her voice sounding clearer than ever.

"Like you need to ask, Earth Mamma?" I responded. "Ass kicking just ain't the same without you backin' me up!"

"Glad to hear it. Shall we dispose of this cretin?"

"Damn straight."

I flew straight for Abomination, who was screaming at the top of his lungs how much of a punk ass bitch I was, and decked him under his chin with a vibration charged Power Gauntlet uppercut, sending the bastard above the clouds! Oh yeah, it was good to be back! I flew up after him with a G/N-Force Blazer, and opened up a can of whup ass all over his face! Hundreds of hits and kicks per second across his back, face, chest and exposed joints, before slamming him back to the clearing we first landed in with a hammer punch! I flew down after him, but before I got within 200 meters, he shot a huge column of flame up at me! My G/N-Force blazer protected me from the brunt of the attack, but Abomination was back up on my ass in no time. My body called for a Timeout just as he tried tackling me head on, and I rolled over his back spikes, grabbed one of his legs, and slammed him back to the ground. I created a G/N-Force panther head cannon, shout out to T'Challa, and blasted Abomination with an anime sized power blast, planting him firmly in the ground, before slamming into him full force a few seconds later. I wailed on his face as hard and as fast as I could, slamming him with 200 Power Gauntlet punches per second! I made sure to enforce the ground with G-Force so I didn't end up tunneling him into the dirt. The constant punches were absolute hell on his power reserve. He used to be a blazing monster that looked like he was plucked from hell; now he was just kinda soldering. He managed to get me off of him with another explosive wave, not to mention deck me hard in my side, sending me skidding across the dirt, but when I recovered, he barely had even half of the power he used to, and was breathing a little heavier than before. Still, this guy was hella persistent, and raced after me again. I lightly tapped my foot on the ground, and a giant snake made of tree bark cables burst outta the ground and thrashed him around a bit, before launching him into the air. What came next was simultaneously either the most spectacular or horrific thing i've ever done with my powers ever.

I summoned a large portion of All-Metal, and transformed it into dozens of shapes aimed right at Abomination. First he got sandwiched between two trains, then hit over the head with a giant fist. I followed that up with a huge bear paw swipe across the guy's chest, then a giant ram slamming into his back, and smashed him in repeatedly with two eighteen wheelers. It was maybe a good two minutes of that. Monster trucks smashing him in, giant hammers whacking him around like a golf ball, and more Mjolnir hammers than even Thor could handle, smashing his face, chest, and everywhere else in, before I sent him to the ground with a bolt of G-Force. I willed the dirt to rise, break up, and swirl around him, while infusing giant G/N-Force charged spurs, thorns, and All-Metal spiked balls into the mix, while upping the gravity around Abomination, keeping him struggling to get to his feet. I finished creating my G/N-Force charged sandstorm with extra pain, and encased Abomination in it completely, while forming an All-Metal dome around him. All in all, the sandstorm was about the area of an average high school football field. I willed the sands to swirl around at like 300 mph, pumping more and more G/N Force into it; absolutely smothering Abomination in as much pain as I could. Based on the multiple clangs and thuds, like a blender full of nails, Abomination was taking an absolute beating in there. Again, I trapped him for a good two minutes, before blasting the dome apart with a huge bolt of G-Force from the sky! When the dust cleared, Abomination was still standing, but didn't have an ounce of power left in him. I debated whether or not I could afford to keep him alive. I sure as hell couldn't knock him out any time soon, and if I just left him here, he might rampage into some civilians just to get my attention. Besides, Abomination looked pissed as f*(#! He was not gonna give this fight up anytime soon. He made that painfully clear as he charged at me one last time. I simply flew at him, threw my axe sideways, and sliced off his head. I know, kinda casual and heartless, but I was on the clock; didn't have time to lament his death. I did bury him in a deep enough crater, before regenerating the ground back to normal. Hopefully, nobody would go digging here anytime soon. I shook off the bad vibes I got from literally murdering a dude, and set my sights back on the Helicarrier. I tuned in just in time to see SOME HOODED DUDE WITH A LASER KATANA GETTIN' READY TO SHANK MY BOY, STORM-LORD!

Hell no! Not today!

In less than ten seconds I was already within spitting distance of the Helicarrier! Half a second later, I slammed into Taskmaster's back with the force of a speeding train, Just barely keeping the bastard away from Storm-Lord. I was mad. Really, really mad! Maybe it was because I was still butthurt about getting my ass kicked by Doom. Maybe I was letting a bad day get to me. Still didn't change the fact that I slammed into this guy with enough force to shatter half of his ribs, even through his armor. I heard every one of those ribs shatter, and I didn't give a damn! I slammed him into the pavement, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed a fist into his face!

I…...my fist…...i didn't mean to….I punched right through his face. My fist literally broke his mask, and sunk into his face like a hot knife through butter. I couldn't unsee the absurd amount of blood spilling from what was left of his head. Chunks of brain, bone, and teeth were still on the my fist. In a split second, I went from shook, to panicking ,to straight up on the verge of shutting down! Sure, i've killed, way more than I want to think about, but this wasn't necessary. Hell, this wasn't even survival; just rage. I wanted to cry and puke all at once, but Gaea snapped me outta my head.

"Move on, Grant!" she desperately thought to me. "He's dead, nothing left to do about it, but your friend is still just barely alive! You can save him, but you have to hurry!"

Yeah, that did it. Storm-Lord, my friend, was in trouble. Had to help him. Had to shake this off. I pushed the last five seconds of my life to the back of my head, and flew over to my friend. He was unconscious, but still breathing.

"I don't get it!" I quickly thought to Gaea. "His healing factor shoulda patched him up by now! Wait a minute…."

I was sensing metal inside him. Microscopic, but still a heaping amount of it all across his body. I looked deeper, down to the microscopic level, and found nanites; millions of em, interacting with Storm-Lord's cells….doing something. My guess was they were slowing him down. Not just his healing factor, but his speed too.

"Gaea," I thought to her. "These nanites…...give me that dude's memories on how these nanites work, but ONLY THAT!"

"Don't worry, Grant," she thought to me, her voice uncharacteristically sympathetic. "I wouldn't scar you with memories of his multiple escapades to strip clubs."

After a mild headache, I finally got the info I needed, and thank God I waited till I got a better understanding of the nanites, cuz if I tried anything stupid, like healing Storm-Lord with G-Force, I woulda killed him. The nanites were programmed to violently reject any forms of foreign energy, so I made sure to access Taskmaster's control pad on his right arm, so wrong on so many levels, and shut them down. Still, Storm-Lord wasn't healing!"

"Damn it!" I mentally shouted at Gaea. "What the hell?!"

"His body's in state of limbo," she responded. "The nanites have slowed down his natural metabolic and healing processes. You will have to stabilize him yourself."

"Wait! Why not just call Sunbird? I-"

I felt a huge burst of energy, followed by a slight change in gravitational intensity, about half a mile above me. A few seconds later,the same thing happened over to my left, and it just kept going on and on, until it felt like someone was punching the sky. I barely managed to get a lock on what was going on, and found Sunbird duking it out with….wait a sec…..BLACK HOLE GIRL?! I thought I killed her, or at least damaged her essence beyond a quick repair. Didn't matter, Sunbird was duking it out with her with the fury of a goddess. She was doing pretty good, but it was clear she was just barely equal to Black Hole Girl's speed. Also, while she was getting in some good Power Gantlet hits, by the way she was desperately avoiding physical confrontation, she was nowhere near as strong or durable. All I was seeing was her too busy to help, and in way too deep to afford a distraction. It was up to me to save Storm-Lord. I took a deep breath, put up a G-Force barrier around us, and started attuning myself to his chi. Like Gaea said, everyone on earth is born with a small connection to her. To heal Jason, I focused on his small connection to the G-Force, and simply created a G-Force body aura around him.

"There," Gaea stopped me. "Hold that energy level there."

"What?!" I thought back to her. "I just barely got going!"

"And this is where you need to stay. Your friend is not like the other humans you healed. His energies are much more complex, especially with his recent contact with the various Olympus Stone energies. All he needs is for his energies to set. His body's healing systems will naturally recover on their own."

"You sure?"

"See for yourself."

I looked through his body, and was relieved to see his organs slowly start to heal. They were lightly surging with voltage, and Storm-Lord groaned in pain, but at least he was actually recovering! I wish I coulda sighed in relief, but my comlink started to blow up!

"THIS IS DIRECTOR FURY TO ANY AVAILABLE COMBATANTS!" Fury shouted. "LOKI AND SOME DRAGON CREATURE ARE TEARING THEIR WAY TO THE VAULT! ALL AGENTS AND HEROES ON THIS WING ARE DOWN! I NEED BACKUP NOW!"

"Geo-Titan here!" I responded. "On my way now!"

I picked up Storm-Lord, and ran through the Helicarrier entrance. I bobbed and weaved through several brawls, and made my way over to my room. I couldn't power down to get my card, and the last thing Storm-Lord needed was to be vibrated in his unstable condition, so I kicked down the door, and plopped him on my bed. I propped the door back up as I left, and ran towards the vault on the bottom floor at the rear of the ship. I used my enhanced vision to see through the floors, and caught sight of Loki and a super beefed up Dragon Man with curved horns, wielding a giant axe that was lightly smoldering with flame, with two scimitars strapped to its back. Musta been a general or somethin'. Anyway, I was about to slam through the floor, and cut them off from the vault from above, when Gaea gave me a quick memo.

"Just a quick note of caution," she said to me. "You should refrain from using Geo-Force for at least the next twenty minutes."

"Whyyyyyy?" I almost growled at her.

"Do not take that tone with me, boy! You know how hard it is to use Geo-Force to heal! Your friend is an especially dire situation. I can keep the healing process steady while you fight, but any use of Geo-Force on your end puts the procedure in danger of being interrupted. If that happens, we won't be able to start another cycle. Even your friend wouldn't be able to survive the strain. Twenty minutes, Grant.

"Alright, alright. Nature Force it is, G."

I tunneled down right above Loki, and tried knocking his stupid helmet off of his head! Loki was either faster than I thought, or his jeweled spear was giving him more power, cuz he parried my axe with a twirl, as he retreated backwards. I realized I put myself between a dragon monster, and a literal god of mischief, so I blasted them both in opposite directions via N-Force blastwave. Loki got launched 100 meters in the direction where Fury was desperately entering in the passcodes to get into the vault. Last thing old eyepatch needed was a god with a stupid horned helmet slamming into him. I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and tried slamming them into N-Force spiked wall constructs. Again, these bad guys were way more resilient that I give em' credit for, cuz Loki managed to get a pretty strong body shield around himself, delaying his impalement. The dragon monster actually didn't get blown back a whole lot, and managed to catch itself before it got impaled. Still, I was never one to leave a job unfinished, except for a few Algebra assignments I had to eventually make up back in September, and tried slamming another spiked wall into each of them! Loki's body shield held up, though he was not happy at all about being the filling for an N-Force sandwich. The dragon monster was having absolutely none of my $#!+. It straight up punched the oncoming spiked wall to bits, and charged forward with its axe, which all of a sudden decided to ignite into a roaring flame! At the same time, Loki blasted my wall constructs apart with a small but powerful blastwave of whatever energy was coming from his spear. He was still disoriented, and that dragon monster was charging on pure rage. I took advantage of that, and strung them both up in the tentacles of a giant octopus made of spiked vines! I thrashed them around for a good thirty seconds, as I made my way over to Fury.

"You throw one helluva house party, Fury!" I said once I got a few feet in front of him.

"Expensive too!" he shouted. "You know how much this Helicarrier costs?! I just got a bar built in this place! It's not even fully paid off yet!"

"Dude, your credit's gonna be in the Underworld by the time this is over!"

"Nothing to do with me, Jackson, but it'll add another 30 million or so on top of the U.S. debt!"

"Boo hoo. So what are you doing?"

"Backup plan. We can't win here; gotta figure out how to not lose."

"Cool. Do your thing. I'm on bad guy patrol."

In that moment, Loki and the dragon monster shook their vine tentacles off! I thought it was due to their strength, but then I realized why I was getting such a weird vibe off of Loki for the longest time. On first glance he just looked like he always did. Golden armor with that stupid horned helmet, green cape, slick black mullet hair, and a look in his eyes that said he'd slaughter entire cities just for fun. It was his spear with the jewels that was the real kicker. The first two going down his staff were crystal clear, but the other five were bright yellow, orange, white, green, and blue in that order. Doom had given Loki a pretty sweet toy powered by all of the Olympus Stones he had. This was gonna be just dandy. To make matters worse, that dragon monster was creeping me out big time. For starters, it was clearly a her. She was about 8 ft tall, just barely a few feet under the roof. She had two layers of scales. The bottom layer was all red, while the outer layer was gold. The gold scales made shin and arm guards, not to mention a giant flame pattern going up her legs, arms, and torso area. She also had black talons coming outta her fingers, that weird wing talon usually on dragons, and her feet. She also had a giant tail, as thick as an anaconda, that had a black spike jutting out the end. Her eyes locked on me with the white hot hatred of 1,000 tumblrinas, and in a split second I knew who she was!

"Dragon Empress?!" I almost laughed at her!

She was having none of it, and breathed a column of fire at me! I blocked it with an N-Force shield, and busted out my axe and sword, ready to rumble with my old friend.

"Whoa!" Loki put his hands between her and me. "No need for such barbaric behavior!"

"Dude!" I shouted at him. "You're the one tearing up our $#!+!"

"A necessary unpleasantry, I assure you. You have two items I need. Give them to us, and we shall depart as quickly as we arrived."

He was full of $#!+. Not just because he was lying through his teeth, but because he was doing that illusion magic he was known for. It was a quick blink and you miss it kinda thing, but he projected an image of himself as he stepped back and made himself invisible. Hell, even if I didn't pick it up with my super speed, I heard the change in air pressure, and heard Loki trying to tiptoe around me. I played along with it, waiting for the perfect chance to strike him directly.

"Speak for yourself, Trickster!" Dragon Empress roared at me. "I will bite his head off! He will pay for humiliating me!"

"You do that all on your own, sweetheart!" I taunted her. "And there ain't gonna be nothin' different this time around!"

Her entire body lit up a little, and she slammed her axe into the floor, growling intensely.

"Come now," Loki, chided both of us. "There has been enough battle for today. Many of our allies are dead or wounded. Your flying fortress barely retains its airworthiness, and your defenses are beyond penetrated. You have fought valiantly, but you are defeated. All you can hope for is to regroup your forces to fight again tomorrow.

"The hell you mean by that?" I asked, a little curious.

"What? You think Doom is just going to gather the stones, snap his fingers, and make the world as he wishes it to be?"

"Think I saw that in a cartoon, or something."

"Hmm. In any case, that is not to be. The good doctor has something much more public and grand in mind for his victory celebration."

"And you're here to pick up a few party favors?"

"Indeed. Hand them over, and live to fight another day."

"Yeah, see, I would, buuuuut-"

I swung my sword across my left side, getting so close to taking the dude's head off! He just managed to lean back enough that I scratched one of his horns, while making him drop his invisibility spell. I kicked him through two walls, and covered myself in an N-Force Iron Man construct, just in time to shield myself from Dragon Empress' fire blast. Good thing, cuz she wasn't f*(#!^% around. This fire was so hot, the metal around us melted into slag! The force of the blast was like taking a speeding eighteen wheeler to the chest. Someone's definitely been working out, but so have I! I flew at her at the speed of a missile, slamming her in the chest, and pinning her to a wall. I slammed her in the face four times with my fists, before she blocked the fifth punch, and headbutted me so hard my construct shattered. She came back at me with a rushing flurry of punches and claw swipes, genuinely impressing me with how fast and strong she was. Those four punches I gave her coulda put down elephants, but she shook them off like nothing. Her counter hits, when she did manage to get them to connect, hit with the force of charging buses. Thanks to my martial arts skills, she didn't get much on me, but that's not to say she wasn't good. She was super effective at using her weight as a weapon. Her attacks were like if a rhino knew MMA. She kept pressing me back with fast punches and slashes of her talons, one of which raked y cheek, drawing blood. She blasted at me with quick shots of fire from her mouth and wing flaps, forcing me back, before slamming me in the chest with a tail whip so hard, I crashed into the vault door at like 100 mph; my lungs feeling like they had just got skipped on. Dragon Empress was on me like a squad of linebackers, and tried snapping at my head, while clawing at my body. I barely held her away with an N-Force shield construct, before batting her away with a Power Gauntlet punch. As she stumbled backwards,I threw Earthshaker at her, hoping to nail her in the head, but she moved her head to the side, dodging it.

"You missed!" she laughed at me.

"Man, you got a $#!+ memory, "I responded.

Before she understood what I was talking about, I THUNK sorta sound echoed through the hall, as my axe flew into her back, courtesy of its boomerang function. This is the part where I say something clever as my enemy fell dead, but something was off. First off, the axe didn't fly through he, like I thought it would. I couldn't even see puncture points from her torso area, where the axe hit. Hell, Dragon Empress looked more annoyed than hurt, and literally pulled my axe from her back with her tail, like it was just a barb she accidentally stepped on. She growled at me, and I quickly called my axe back to me, before she got any funny ideas. We were about to go at it again, but I heard Loki start to stir.

"Oh yes," Gaea mused. "He was here at some point."

"Yeah," I thought back to her, as I charged Dragon Empress. "Gotta move this fight to the deck."

"You do that. Just checking in to give you a quick memo. Your friend is doing fine. Ten more minutes and he'll well enough to sleep off his if you need him that bad, give him a quick shot of electricity to wake him up."

"Thanks, G. Now watch this."

I juked around Dragon Empress, whacked her upside he head with my axe, which barely made a dent, and drop kicked her 10ft forward. I quickly caught up to her, grabbed her by the tail, and slammed her against the walls a few times, before throwing her at though the hole Loki made when I punted him into what looked like the room for weapons, and assault vehicles.. Dragon Empress tumbled into Loki, who was just getting up, and I quickly sent them both crashing up through three floors via N-Force geyser! I launched them 10 ft over the deck, quickly caught up with them, and slammed them into the pavement with a giant N-Force fist. Loki groaned something fierce, while Dragon Empress magiced her axe back to her hand, and flew at me with a war cry! She took a swipe at my head, which I dodged, while kneeing her in the gut, uppercutting her with my axe, and giving her a backflip kick, followed by an N-Force bolt that pelted her back into the pavement.

I quickly locked onto Loki, who was gearing up for a big time fight. He was powered up with an aura mixed with Hercules, Zeus, and Apollo energy, and was makin' some kinda magic rune circle to attack me with. F*(# that $#+. I hit him with a barrage of N-Force blasts, while flying down to remove that head from his shoulders. Loki blocked my axe swing with his spear, and with his free hand, summoned a dagger to shank me with. I summoned my sword in a reverse grip, and before he could do anything with his knife, slashed at his head. Loki managed to duck under the blade, and slam me in the chest with a combination blast of the four Olympus energies he had. The blast kinda sorta hurt in a way I didn't expect. The energies were mixed with whatever magic Loki already brought to the table, making it feel both enhanced and corrupted. It wasn't especially powerful, only knocked me back 5 ft, but it shattered any hopes I had for absorbing attacks of his that were compatible with me. Loki followed up his cheap shot with a pretty boss set up. He did his trademark illusion of himself, $#!+, except these were clearly anything but illusions. They were constructs, all in the shape of him, made by all the Olympus energies he had in his spear. There were Apollo fire Loki's, water Loki's, and Loki's made outta plant life, lightning, and Hercules Energy. There were at least 30 of em' and that wasn't even the least of my troubles. Dragon Empress sprang back to life, and engulfed her whole body in flames. She roared, hefted her axe, and leaped at me with an overhead swing. Yeah, didn't like these odds one bit. I quickly tapped into a $#!+ ton of N-Force, and created a construct army of all the superheroes ever. I sicked the Avengers and X-Men on Loki's gang, while I had the Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, Young Avengers, and a whole lotta street level heroes sicked on Dragon Empress. That would at least keep her busy while I hunted Loki down like a deer. Yeah, if I wanted to get outta this alive, I had to attack the main brunt of the attack. Dragon Empress was blinded with hate; she'd just battle my constructs until the sun exploded. Loki was a lot smarter than than that. Hell, even now he was trying to blend in with the other energy constructs. Props on a near miss, but even with all this energy, I still had an iron clad method of nailing that twerp. It took hella concentration, but I managed to keep my sights on him, as I tore through construct after construct with my axe and sword.

Wasn't easy. Loki created new constructs just as fast as I tore them up, and was constantly moving around the battlefield. Hell, he was somehow using magic to corrupt my construct army, so I had to focus on recharging my forces; especially the ones holding Dragon Empress back. After about two minutes of slashing his construct army to bits, not to mention getting dogged on with lightning strikes, water fists, and blasts of Apollo fire, I finally realized I was doing this all wrong. I was chasing Loki around, but it was like trying to chase down a cat. All Loki did is avoid actual fights; he'd never put himself where he might get hurt. Nah, I had to time it right. Instead of gunning after Loki, I stayed as still as I could in the middle of the battle, and focused on keeping tabs on Loki. I kept slicing and dicing his constructs for another minute, making sure to get a rough estimate of how he moved. Finally, after biding my time, I pinged Loki at just the right time, and threw my axe as hard as I could at him! The axe shattered through ten constructs, both mine and his, and slammed into the the dude like an arrow! Then he blew up!

Yeah, no bull$#!+. As soon as the axe hit him, he, and all his constructs blew up in a great Skittles explosion that sent me airborne. That was way too easy. It's never that easy, even on a good day. Loki was either never here, or somewhere else, but I had bigger problems to worry about at the moment. Specifically, an 8 ft flaming she-dragon flying at Mach 1 to murder me with her flaming axe! I quickly managed to recover, avoid the swing, and put an N-Force body shield around myself, before knocking her to the ground with a giant N-Force fist. I was gonna slam her again with a giant boot, but she decked me over the head with some kinda magic blast from the sky! The blast floored me faster than I could blink, and felt like a whole buncha elephants were continuously falling on top of me. I managed to break free of the beam, but only had the edge of Dragon Empress' axe to greet me! I managed to roll under the blade, summoned Earthshaker, and when Dragon Empress came back around for another swipe at my head, I shot my axe chain out, wrapped it around her axe, and pulled it away from her! She didn't appreciate that, and flew straight at me. You better believe she was gonna catch these hands!

She came at me with some fast jabs and kicks, but I easily dodged them, and hit her across the face with a backhand, followed by a reverse kick to her chest, knocking her back a few feet. Yeah, I quickly realized I couldn't hold anything back against her. Whatever she did to herself, she was an absolute tank. As such, when She-Lizard came back for round 2, I busted out all the stops for her. We went at it for keeps, ya'll. We were straight up out for blood! She attacked with a flurry of punches, claw swipes, and kicks that even kept me on my toes. Like I said, she practically made an entire fighting style based on her weight, and being a dragon. Her body was always on fire, which she used as both an offensive and defensive weapon. She attacked me with some quick jabs and slashes, followed by a tail whip that woulda tore me in half if it hit. When that didn't go through, she flapped her wings hard, hitting me with a wall of fire. As I stumbled back, she shot at me rapid fire with blasts from her mouth. She wasn't messin' around neither, there were like ten fire balls per second comin' outta that maw! A good 20-30 of em' pelted me dead in the chest, knocking me back a 100 ft before I managed to get an N-Force barrier around me. I quickly disrupted her rapid fire with an N-Force boxing glove uppercut to her chin, before shooting an N-Force Kamehameha at her. Dragon Empress was way faster than I remember, cuz she clapped back quick, fast, and in a hurry. She shot not just a column of flame back at me, but an entire swirling blast that could swallow ten charter buses in a row! Where does she keep all that fire?! How'd she make it swirl?! Whatever, the blasts collided, and cue DBZ battle music!

Our power blasts clashed with each other for a good ten seconds, going back and forth constantly. I poured everything I had into my blast, but I just wasn't cutting it. As much as I loved Nature Force, especially the mutated plant stuff, it couldn't hold a candle to the raw power of the the Geo-Force. Still, at best this would end in a tie, so it was only natural that the worst thing would happen instead. Dragon Empress' fire blast suddenly doubled in power, and just kept rising! In five seconds, the fire was all up in my face, just barely held back by my downright pathetic remnants of my power blast. Up close I at least understood how Dragon Empress was cheating. Magic. It may have been demonic mojo, but after enough exposure to Storm-Lord casting Sea Force spells, that one bit with Doctor Strange and the zombies, not to mention my last battle with Queen Lizard, I got a rough feel for how magic at its base usually feels. Still, I was not gonna become a charcoal lump today. If Lady Reptile was gonna cheat, so was I!

I quickly uppercuted her under the chin with an N-Force fist construct, and slapped her across the face with a giant thorned vine. A little much, yeah, but she had me mad! Anyway. With her concentration broken, her flame blast died immediately, and my fist was across the side of her face in half a second! I managed to capitalize on that sucker punch with some quick hits to her stomach and throat, some kicks to her kneecaps, and a reverse kick into her chest! A good combo to start with, but Dragon Empress shook it off like nothing. This time, she attacked first, and we went at for a couple more minutes. Our fighting styles were more or less even, damn she could fight, but I ended up getting in more hits. Mainly because of how much she was telegraphing some of her attacks. Seriously, if her neck didn't move back every so often when she was trying to roast me, I woulda took 100 fire blasts to the face. Also, I learned on the fly to use small fist constructs aimed at joints, the back of the head, and the sides. They were little advantages that went a long way, cuz I was averaging 100 hits and kicks per second, while Dragon Empress was barely managing 30. Despite getting dogged on particularly hard with my Power Gauntlet hits, she literally managed to conjure a black sword outta nowhere, and damn near skewered me in the gut! I managed to side step the blade, but nearly got my head lobbed off with Dragon Empress' flaming axe! I ducked under it, and kicked her in her right kneecap hard enough to knock out a rhino. She stumbled, and I came up with an axe uppercut right under her chin. She managed to spin outta the way, batting me away with her wings, and came charging at me with her flaming weapons. I busted out my sword as I recovered from her wing swipe, and parried some oncoming slashes and stabs as I regained my footing. All in all, we only fought for few minutes, but I don't think i've ever had anyone take it to me this hard with weapons. Again, she used her weight as a weapon, but somehow managed to combine brute, lumbering strength with the grace and fluidity of a trained assassin. She hacked away at me hard with her axe, but that was usually a bait and switch. While I was so focused on not getting butchered with the axe, she would get super close with poking me fulla holes with that sword of hers. I parried and dodged her strikes, while swiping back at her with my axe and sword. I focused on hacking and stabbing at her arms, legs, neck, and her chest whenever I could get between/around her defenses. The major problem with that was her dragon hide, which was as strong as the Adamantium/Vibranium I was hacking away at her with! I managed to whack her a good 100 times in the everywhere, before she got me offa her with a giant flame blast. She of course followed me like a predator, hacking and slashing away at me with her weapons.

"Y'know," I said to her as we fought. "We keep getting off on the wrong foot."

She roared at me louder than a T-Rex.

"Okaaaaay," I responded. "See, I was thinking something more like you and me catchin' a movie and some dinner. Maybe get a chance to know each other better. I mean, sure, you're a scaly, violent, blood crazed, daughter of a Norse demon giant, but we can't be all that different on the inside."

"Keep talking, boy!" she roared at me, as she parried my axe and sword combo. "It'll make it much more satisfying when I sever your head from your body!"

"Geez, violent much? What's your deal? Was daddy mean to you as a kid? Is there really just a fairy princess inside that hard scaly exterior?"

Yeah, this was the one time I wish I woulda kept my mouth shut. Until now, she was at a controlled rage setting. After that princess line, she went full on Hulk mode and then some! She shot out awave of flame big enough to evaporate an Olympic swimming pool, and by the time I recovered halfway across the Helicarrier deck, my body called for a Timeout as a sea of black blades were flying at me faster than bullets! I managed to get an N-Force shield up, blocking the blades, but that was just Lizard Lady's opening act! She flew at me, her whole body on fire, and an enough black metal constructs behind her to supply an army! Seriously, this chick had it all! Swords, axes, missiles, razor edge throwing disks, knives, giant fists, the whole nine yards! She attacked me with a vicious construct attack, and I did my best to counter with my own. I managed to block her axes and swords with a good amount of well placed Roman shield constructs, and deck her a few times with some giant fists, but she quickly wised up, and used her black metal constructs, which she also charged with magic, as a predictive shield. They were tiny shards of black metal, each about the size of a finger, shaped like rhombi, swirling around her like a swarm of bees. There were so many of those shards flowing around her, I could barely even see the flames around her body. Whenever I tried attacking her directly with my own shower of constructs: missiles, swords, hammers, or kamikaze Iron Men, her metal swarm activated like a guard dog, and shot out pieces of itself at my constructs. Those little suckers had hella big ass booms, man! I mean damn! One of em' flew right through five Iron Men constructs, blowing them up, and flew straight for me! The little sucker was wicked fast, and while I managed to dodge it a few times, it eventually pierced my left thigh! As if that wasn't bad enough Dragon Empress sent a whole swarm of those things at me! I can't count the number of times I those shards flew through my legs and arms, only that I woulda bled out in minutes if I didn't have N-Force coursing through me, healing my wounds. Also, I used my sword to deflect the shards away, while keeping my counter constructs up and at em' against Dragon Empress'. I managed to get a body armor made of vines and thorns around me, and charged at Dragon Empress like a bull seein' red. We fought up and down the Helicarrier deck, throwing blows hard enough to cause sonic booms, exchanging quick blasts of fire and N-Force, while also hacking away at each other when we could manage it. Dragon Empress was absolutely vicious. Every time we got close to each other, she changed her weapons into something more mean spirited than the last. Axes, spears, chain whips, knuckle claws, spiked jaw clamps, maces, and a gauntlet shaped like a snake head.

"YOU DESTROYED MY FIRST ARMY!" she roared at me. "DISGRACED THE GLORY OF MUSPELHEIM, AND SHAMED ME IN THE EYES OF MY FATHER! MY SCABRITE ARSENAL WILL CLEAVE YOU IN TWO; AFTER WHICH I WILL SEE YOUR SOUL BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY, BOY!"

"THE NAME'S GEO-TITAN!" I roared back at her, giving her a good pop in the jaw. "AND YOU AIN'T DOIN' $#!+!"

Dragon Empress laughed at me, as she smacked me across the head with her mace.

"HA!" she snarled at me. "SECOND HAND POWER FROM AN OBSOLETE PANTHEON MEANS NOTHING TO ME! I AM THE DAUGHTER OF SURTUR! THE EMPRESS OF DRAGONS, SCORCHER OF WORLDS, AND THE END OF SOULS!"

"Yes, yes, Syndir," Loki cut her off….while cutting me off too.

No, seriously, I dunno what he did, but everything felt weird. For one, I could barely feel anything around me. We were in a warzone, but everything sounded dull. Like I was hearing it from inside bunker. Sure, everything looked the same, but when I reached out to touch Dragon Empress, I couldn't. It was like I was a ghost. Sucked extra hard for me, cuz Loki had my boy, Storm-Lord, who was barely conscious, by the throat, with a dagger pressed to his back!

"GRAAH!" Dragon Empress roared. "BRING HIM BACK, TRICKSTER! I WILL HAVE HIS HEAD FOR A TROPHY! MY FATHER DEMANDS HIS BLOOD!"

"Hush, monster," Loki softly shut her up. "Or else your 'father' will hear that you still use that ridiculous title you fancy. Pfft. Empress of Dragons. And they call me pretentious. In any case we are done here. The stones no longer reside in this vessel. Doom has already begun to pull back his forces. We will depart."

"But the boy-"

"Will live to battle you tomorrow, creature. He is necessary to the grander scheme at work. By all means, kill him tomorrow, but he lives today."

Dragon Empress looked like she wanted to bite Loki's jugular, but managed to restrain herself. Even powered down to her kinda hot scaly, Asian chick form.

"Fine, Trickster," she growled. "It will be as you say. What is to become of this one?"

She looked over at Storm-Lord, and my pulse quickened. I summoned Earthshaker, but quickly realized it wouldn't do any good. Wherever I was, I was an observer in a different plane of existence. Loki looked at Jason with a wicked smirk, and stabbed him in the back!

"NOOOOOOOO!" I roared, trying desperately to catch Jason as he fell to the floor.

"He has served his purpose," Loki said. "Come. This fortress is not long for this world. Fret not; your prey will be pulled from the Mirror Dimension in an hour's time."

Loki transported himself and Dragon Empress off the ship, as I was on my knees fighting back tears!

"F*(#!^% DO SOMETHING GAEA!" I roared at her. "SAVE HIM!"

"I CAN'T!" she responded. "Loki interrupted the healing process!

"THEN GET ME OUTTA HERE!"

"AGAIN, CAN'T! The only way out of this dimension, other than a specific spell, is for you to get to the ground, and enter a gateway to the Geo-Nexus! I could spit you back out in your dimension, but several minutes would pass by then! Your friend does not have that much time left! I am so sorry, Grant.

I blocked the thought outta my head. That was my best friend right there; no wasn't an option. Still, I had bigger problems literally on the horizon. In the distance, I saw Doom's ship rise over the Helicarrier, about two miles away from us, and the sky darkened. Thunder boomed, and white lightning flashed across miles upon miles of storm clouds. Before I could even cuss excessively, a huge bolt of lightning struck the Helicarrier dead in the center! The explosion knocked out two of our turbines, and split the ship into falling chunks! As everything straight up went to $#!+, I was helpless to do nothing but watch on the sidelines. Today really sucked balls.

(Allyson's Perspective)

Well, isn't today just a slice of apple pie? We lost two Stones of Olympus, promptly got out butts kicked by Doom, and were in the middle of getting our house wrecked by superpowered hoodlums. Believe it or not, i've actually had worse days than this.

Anyway, once Jason, Grant, and there team took off for Doom's ship, I flew forward with Ms. Marvel, Blue Marvel, Pepper, and ten various Iron Men suits on autopilot, a mile out from the ship, and took up our post as first defensive wave. Looking at the onslaught of super powered Doombots and villains, I kinda did a gulp, mixed with a mouse whimper.

"Don't get soft on me, junior," Ms. Marvel said to me. "I've seen you stare down zombies without blinking an eye. This is cake compared to that."

"Speak for yourself," I squeaked out. "I don't think i'll ever get used to this."

"Give it some time, kid, you will. Ok, Storm, let's start rolling out the welcome wagon!"

"It would be my pleasure, Carol!" Storm responded.

The sky darkened as Storm made thunder clouds. About three seconds after that, the sky was lit with lightning bolts crashing into the oncoming Doombots and super villains. Storm upped the ante all on her own, and blasted the enemy with whirlwinds and hail strong enough to decimate cities! To be honest, while i've heard of how powerful she was, I was breathless watching her in person. Even in training she wasn't this fierce with her powers! I could definitely see why she was once worshiped as a goddess. Between her almost divine beauty, pupilless eyes, white hair, and commanding demeanor, she looked like she was born to be worshiped. Ok, ok, lemme halt my gal crush before Jason gets jealous! I'm just sayin', ya girl was a beast! She managed to hold the oncoming enemy forces back for a good three minutes, before I got involved. Ms. Marvel gave me the command to make my "pixie sticks", and I assaulted the villains and Doombots with kamikaze fighter jets, giant hands, various wild cat constructs, and giant eagle constructs. Storm's storm didn't step on my attack too much, but I did have to focus on keeping my constructs from getting lost in the whirlwinds. Between the two of us, we were taking out Doombots by the hundreds. The villains were a much different story. They usually had two or more god energies surging around them, and were sportin' at least double of what the Doombots had. Also, Doombots are easy to break. Just sayin'. Unfortunately, while we were taking Doombots out by the hundreds, hundreds more took their places. Even when Blue Marvel got involved, blasting anti-matter bombs strong enough to make my bones rattle, we were still outnumbered so bad, it was almost depressing. To put it in context, our total aerial support rounded out at about 300 fighters, along with the turrets on the Helicarrier backing us up. Yeah, we were facing down an army count in the low thousands at least. Also, they were coming in from all oncoming sides. High, low, left, center and right; trying to envelope us completely. I remedied the situation by focusing more on attacking at the four areas that weren't the center, and managed to by our side an extra minute and a half of time, but eventually we just couldn't keep it up. I dunno if Storm was getting tired, but I do remember feeling a wave of magic spread through the five mile area like a plague. Kinda strange that I could just feel what magic generally feels like, but that's not the point. What really mattered was that Storm's defensive maneuvers fizzled out like almost instantly. She could still fly, and while the magic against her was strong, she was still able to blast wind and lightning outta her hands, but there went the big gun in our defense. Me and Blue Marvel did what we could to keep the assault at bay, also Doctor Voodoo was doing his best to counter whoever was blocking Storm's mojo, but in less than thirty seconds, Doom's attack force descended on us like a swarm of bees.

I wish I could say I handled battle gracefully, but I was about as prepared as a shaking gerbil. Heck, my first genius move in the face of battle was to put myself in a giant fireball, and ram my way through a whole buncha Doombots. Not exactly a strategy worthy of Napoleon, but it got the job done while I collected myself. Once I got a feel for the chaos of the battlefield, I willed my fireball to explode into a huge blastwave, taking out a good 50 Doombots, and reconstructed the residual energy around me into a Seraphim construct. I made the six wings razor sharp, and created a whole buncha constructs to help with the defense effort. Basically, I used my Sun Sense, I think? Not sure if I named it yet. I should really write this in a manual. Anyway, I did the thing where I use the light in the atmosphere to sense things around me, and made calculated decisions where to drop certain blasts, mini-suns, and constructs. For example, I dropped a huge mini-sun straight in the heart of the enemy attack; cutting the assault in half. While that was going on, I made a giant dragon construct, big enough to slice a skyscraper in half, to attack the east flank, while a giant Gundam robot wreaked havoc on the western flank. I also shot out few ricochet arrow constructs that shot through ten Doombots per second, before moving onto another set. I made sure not to place my constructs too close to my allies, and while I was pretty adamant on not killing anyone, I distinctly remember my dragon biting into a cluster of Doombots that had Vulture somewhere in the middle. Vulture had a good amount of Zeus Energy around him, but my dragon was packing way too much power. One clamp of its jaws ended thirty Doombots…...and an elderly man in a green bird suit. I…..i'm a bad person. Ok, no, i'm not, I do charity work at animal shelters, plus i'm a nice person at heart, but I still killed an old man, and that is not ok! I hate the fact that I had to push it to the back of my head, but I had a job to do. Hopefully, that would be the last of old man murders for the day.

For a good five minutes I was on top of my game, blasting down dozens of Doombots on my own. Still,the battle had gotten way outta hand. Doombots and villains were flying about, battling heroes, Iron Men, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with no care for boundaries or layers. Ah well, we knew this wouldn't last long; no use crying over spilled tea. Anyway, I kept to it, trying hard not to enjoy the battle too much, but truthfully, this was fun! It was like those Star Wars space battles, with TIE Fighters and Star Destroyers. Oh, and that totally makes me the Millennium Falcon! The battle was intense! I had to focus on both what was around and in front of me. I made it a little easier on myself and others by specifically focusing on the Doombots with Apollo Energy, and breaking them apart in small explosions. I definitely caused a a few heroes and agents a bit of trouble, but the battle was remaining at the barely neutral ground; they'd have to deal. But yeah, I was completely on top of my game, barely a care in the world; besides the fate of the planet and all that of course. Still, there's always some party pooper out to ruin the fun. This one had a big grey head, red eyes, and was almost completely one and the same with his flying chair, that had missile launchers and Gatling guns. I didn't even notice he was about 200 ft over me until he went guns blazing right on top of my head! He shot of a huge volley of missiles, bullets, and a huge laser from his forehead, all enhanced with various energies from the Stones of Olympus, probably strong enough to put down a tank! I shifted the wings of my Seraphim construct around myself, wrapping me in a ball shield. I could still sense the grey little turd, and was about to hit him with an appropriate construct to vent out my frustrations, but M.O.D.O.K. had other plans. I felt a sudden sharp pain in my head; like someone was drilling into it with an ice pick! I heard a raspy/electronic voice in my head, shifting around my brain, as if it were a supermarket.

"Spare yourself a great deal of pain child," the voice urged me. "Yield to your intellectual better. Drop your shield, and attack your allies."

I had to force myself not to obey. Kinda like the Imperius curse, but without the trance-like, bubbly feeling, my body almost jerked to obey M.O.D.O.K.'s command. His voice was so loud in my head, like static noise blaring as loud as possible around my skull. It was only by hiding away in the deepest places of my head, while humming a Disney song in my head that I was able to hold out.

"No," I thought back to M.O.D.O.K. "I don't think I will."

The psionic attack intensified, and I felt something strike my barrier from below. Now I was getting pissed!

"You do not make the pronouncements, girl!" M.O.D.O.K. "I have broken the wills of telepaths, as well as individuals with far stronger cerebral defenses than yourself. I calculate you have a 1.2% chance at best of repelling my attack."

"Get outta my head!" I growled back at him.

The cute little Disney song I was humming in my head turned into a screamo cover of Starships. Yes, the Nikki Minaj song in screamo form. Dunno why, but screamo always got me angry, or at least aggressive. M.O.D.O.K. was doing this just fine on his own, but my screamo song was fanning that flame like you wouldn't believe!

"What is this?" M.O.D.O.K. thought to me. "Amygdala neurotransmission skyrocketing. Anger specifically. Somehow shielding my telepathy. How is this-"

"BECAUSE SCREW YOU!" I yelled back at him.

I tapped into Comet Speed, dropped my barrier, and flew upwards, giving M.O.D.O.K. one heck of a punch to the nose when I caught up. I gave him another punch to the face, knocking him a good 100 meters away, but I was not done with him just yet. I wrapped him in a volatile mini-sun, one that kept dousing M.O.D.O.K. in flames, and attached it to a paddle and string construct. Yeah, i'd give the egghead plenty of time to rethink his life inside a toy construct. Didn't have time to gloat, unfortunately. My Sun Sense picked up on another attack by a very peculiar assailant. She was the epitome of what people see goth as. Black hair, lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, a tight black chainmail dress, and more skulls around her neck, wrists and waist than any sane person should've had. Then again, if the red glare in her eyes was any indication, this chick didn't know the meaning of the word. She conjured a pure black sword outta thin air, and tried slashing me from behind. Yeah, I was so over backstabbers; high school is overflowing with those. I quickly turned around, summoning one of my swords, and parried the blade away. I was about to kick her as hard as I could in the gut, but she teleported away. I tried to sense for her, but as far as I could tell, she hopped to another dimension. Yeah…..that may have actually been the case, because she came back with a whole buncha dragons and various demons that definetly weren't from Kansas!

They were all black, had green eyes, and spewed green flames from their nostrils and mouths. Some were shaped like harpies, others like medieval dragons, but they were all at least 15 ft tall, and certain to be a pain in our butts. Oh yeah, Goth Lady, aka Morgan Le Fey, like the actual one from King Arthur legends, summoned a good 200 demons right in the middle of our set up! Our defenses took a hard hit, but they managed to recover gradually. I was in a different state of mind. Again, I know that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, but like I said, i'm a bit of a perfectionist. I hate it when things don't go my way, and I hate the people in particular who ruin my fun! When a group of four dragons and eight harpies swarmed me, they got Mega Sun Sword in their heads so fast, witch lady was forced to keep her eyes on me.

"Hmmm." She mused. "You must be one of those children that gives my beloved such trouble. Your death will please him greatly."

Eww. Her and Doom were a thing?! Well….that actually makes a lotta sense. Oh yeah, she also threatened me. Not cool.

She started speaking in Celtic, and her eyes started glowing bright green. Two purple light disks with magic symbols flashed over her wrists, and two more red ones the sizes of shields materialized in front her fists. She started chanting louder, made strange gestures with her hands, and after a surge of energy, she emerged looking like Christmas decorating gone wrong. She had a huge aura mixed of the various energies she had just compounded. Magic symbols flashed on and off around her, like magic gophers, and energy weapons/monster materialized and dematerialized around her arms absently. She didn't waste any time trying to take me out, and attacked me with a huge energy blast! She was fast, almost fast enough to surprise me, but I managed to get a shield construct up, putting a good 20 meters between me and the blast. She was strong, no doubt about it. Heck, keeping this shield up took everything I had. I quickly realized I to cut the cord on M.O.D.O.K., and sent him careening into several dozen of his fellow villain buddies. Pretty sure he was alive, but Morgan was not gonna give me the time to check up on him. She created a whole buncha magic disks, about 20 in total, all around me. Not a second after they were in place, they shot out a torrent of giant energy knives at me from all angles. Yeah, I was in no mood to become a pin cushion, and I learned way back went about letting yourself get boxed in. I cranked up my speed, zipped around the knives and power blasts, and decked Morgan across the face with a flying punch so hard that i'm pretty sure that energy barrier of hers was the only thing keeping her jaw intact. She careened sideways, but I wasn't done with her. I popped out my Power Gauntlets, and flew after my playmate.

For a good minute, I kept smacking Morgan around with Power Gauntlet punches, pretty much playing soccer and volleyball with her. Seemed like this was a classic for Delta Force, and it was working in spades. I got Morgan's shield down to 50%, before she managed to teleport away from my 100th hit to her head. Again, she tired shanking me in the back, but my Sun Sense was way too on point for that crap. I did a quick somersault, extending my legs out to give her a double kick under the chin, then spun around on the recovery. Morgan stabbed at me again, but I turned side face, grabbed her wrist, and twisted hard. She dropped one of her swords, but teleported away from my sidekick. She sicked a good handful of her demons on me, but they were barely even a thought to dispose of. Again, Morgan reappeared just barely 50 meters away from me, but she changed her game up. She launched a volley of magic blasts and beast constructs at me, most of which I blocked with several shield constructs. Gotta admit she was a bit better at the long game stuff, but after fighting the battles I did, this was barely a training exercise. I decked her in the back with a charging ram construct, while slamming a charging train construct into her goth face. I poured on the speed, and resumed Villain Volleyball. That's official by the way; Grant and Jason WILL be using that from now on.

I added more constructs into the mix this time. Hammers, pinball springs, giant hands, and a few kamikaze phoenixes for good measure. The constructs kept her off-balance, while I gave her at least 300 punches of pure Sunbird power per second. Morgan did manage to pull the disappearing act a few more times, not to mention sic her demons on me, but I got a lot better at using my Sun Sense to ping and attack her quicker. At most, she was able to get a 10 second break, before getting some form of a sun based beat down. Heck, she ended up exhausting most of her magic trying to keep me at a distance. And believe me, she busted out all the magic tricks. From casting illusions, summoning the power of various demons with more syllables than any word should have, to actually trying to pull my soul from my body! By the time she had spent it all, she tried one last desperate trick of trapping me in a ball of darkness. I could feel wailing spirits trying to claw at my soul; to use my fears and insecurities against me. I really do feel for Morgan. Her act wasn't bad, i've just seen it all before. I shifted into my Blazing Sun Form, stirred up a blastwave, powered by Survivor by Destiny's Child. Love me some Destiny's Child. All that fear and dread melted away like snow on a summer sidewalk, and I burst outta the fear dome in a fiery starburst of joy! I shot straight up at Morgan, who was saying more Celtic words, while making a weird gestures with her hands again. It was in that moment I realized something so simple, I kicked myself for not figuring it out sooner! Magic users always vary. Some can just do it with no verbal words or hand gestures needed. Others need objects of power. Others need words and hand gestures. Morgan was option C! I quickly binded her hands with l ribbons made from Sun Energy, and did the same for her mouth. Her mystic mumbo jumbo was put on hush mode!

"No offense," I said to her as I summoned one of my swords. "But your act got a little stale. How about I show you a magic trick of my own? Now you see her….."

I drove my sword into her gut, and lit it and her ablaze. She evaporated into purple pixie dust. Don't worry, the file on her said she was basically immortal. She'd pop up again. Hopefully after a good 70 years. So yeah, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I just dispelled an all-powerful sorceress of legend! This day was starting to turn around! Then an ear splitting, bone shattering, brain numbing pain literally washed over me! It was so fast, so unexpected, I had no way to prepare for it. I instinctively curled into a ball, trying to scrape up enough willpower to make some kinda shield to block the sound waves out, but that was the problem. It was like someone somehow found a way to make sound malleable. The intense waves actually constructed themselves into a ball around me. The sound kept rebounding off itself, hitting me harder and harder with every passing moment! To make matters worse, it felt like the sound waves were being charged with electricity! No, scratch that, they were definitely begin charged with electricity! I felt like I was being microwaved and crushed all at once! Pretty sure I was screaming, but I wasn't aware of anything but the pain. I used my Sun Sense to try and find whoever was doing this to me, but I couldn't focus. Heck, when the pain suddenly stopped, I wasn't sure if it was because someone came to my rescue, or if I just died. I remember the falling, not a good sign if I actually was dead, but felt someone catch me.

"I GOT YA, JUNIOR!" I heard Ms. Marvel yell at me. "HANG IN THERE, YOU'RE ALRIGHT!"

"Isssss ok," I kinda whispered to her. "Lemme go. I'll recover."

"YOU SUR-" she got interrupted by a shot to the back from a Doombot.

"Lemme go," I repeated. "You need to focus on the fight."

"Alright, Tinker Bell. Don't die, we still need you."

She let me go, and as I free fell, I started humming Let It Go. In a few seconds, I was back up and at em'! Also, kinda on a revenge quest. Whoever it was that did that to me, gave me the biggest migraine of my life! I was gonna give him/her double in return! I had to fight a few more minutes against Doombots, but I felt the familiar pulsing waves in the distance. I used my Sun Sense to locate the origin of the sound waves, and got something….bizarre. It was a guy…...I think. He was in a red and purple jumpsuit, with some kinda satellite looking gun where his right hand was supposed to be. I had S.E.R.A. do a quick info dump on him, while I kept busy trashing more Doombots. The guy was actually kinda beast. He was a construct completely made of sound, could convert his form into computer data, and of course use sound as a weapon. He was obviously enhanced with Zeus Energy, ow by the way, but he was weak to Vibranium. I actually licked my lips when S.E.R.A. told me that last part. A little vindictive, I know, but I was still salty about that sound bubble. Klaw was currently fighting Storm, who was holding her own pretty well. I knocked him away with a giant fist construct.

"Sorry," told Storm on the comms. "I hold grudges."

"By all means," Storm responded.

I disposed of Klaw in less than 10 seconds with about 500 shanks all across his body from my knives. His form blew up good, and I….almost got shot in the back of the head! Again, I hate the fact that Grant and Jason have their own knockoff Spider Sense. I have to actually focus on my surroundings just to have a chance of not dying. If I was even one-tenth of a second slower, my brains would be free falling! Luckily, that didn't happen, and I just barely jerked my body to the side, avoiding the bullet. I was about to search around for whoever tried that cheap shot, but that bullet wasn't done with me yet! It flipped its trajectory on a dime, and came sailing back at my face! I managed to deflect it with one of my knives, but I dunno if that was luck or adrenaline. I'd have plenty of time to find out, cuz someone was shooting the entire clip at me! It all happened so fast, you'd literally miss it if you blinked. I summoned both of my swords, and deflected five bullets from various angles. The bullets all had a portion of either Hercules, Apollo, or Zeus energy. The bullets must've been normal, because they stopped dead against my swords. This was more apparent when one of em' actually hit me. I made the mistake of thinking a shield construct would be enough to keep them off me. Sure, the bullet was deflected, but it quickly darted around the shield, and hit me in the back of my thigh! Thank God my Sun Form and armor held up, because the thud I felt against my leg implied that coulda really hurt! If nothing else, I was finally able to get a lock on my teleporting attacker. He was a guy with black hair, wearing jeans, boots, a white dress shirt under a black leather jacket, and a tattered red hooded cape. I remember reading about this guy too. The Hood, he called himself. Basically a guy who used magic clothes and weapons to run a criminal empire. Figures he'd be on Doom's payroll. Anyway, after I was able to get a lock on Hood, I shot him outta his teleportation frenzy with a quick blast. As he spiraled backwards, I caught up to him, and gave him a super speed beat down the way only Sunbird could! Well….until he teleported away that is. Yeah, he wasn't terribly fast, but he had a body shield around him that dulled my hits enough for him to teleport away, and try shooting at me again.

He was a squirrely one, i'll give him that. He'd shoot at me a few times and kept transporting away; never staying in the same spot for more than two seconds. The bullets were also way more strategic in their flight pattern. Rather than going in a straight line, they whizzed and zipped around me, going for my neck and head, rather than my protected areas. Not a bad strategy, but I easily adapted. I flew about the battlefield, blasting Doombots outta my way, and whacked the bullets down as they followed me. Also, while Hood was good at keeping on the move, he was also painfully predictable in his teleportation jumps. You could've just drawn a circle around me, and be 75% right about where he'd show up next. As was such, it wasn't hard to break up Hood's attack. I focused on the surrounding area, sensing for where he was gonna be next, then shot out two small light pebbles at him. By the time he shot his gun at me, the pebble was inside the barrels. The guns exploded in his hands, but his body shield protected him from mangled hands. Still, his problems were just beginning. I flew down at him, decking him hard in his gut, while creating a mini-sun around us. Hood could forget about that teleporting nonsense. I made sure to keep the inside of mini-sun pulsating with waves of fire that were strong enough to put down tanks. Heck, I barely had to touch him; I just let my mini-sun fire waves burn him dry, before knocking him out with a right cross to the head. I put some power dampening cuffs on him, and made an eagle construct to carry him to the Helicarrier deck. That wasn't so bad, but oh look…...some butt head is literally about to throw about 200 missiles at me and mine's!

Ok, now i'm just plain annoyed. Using my Sun Sense, I could tell he was a guy, probably in his late 30's or early 40's. He had long black hair, wearing blue and white armor with three red disks across the chest, as well as a cape. The guy was practically drowning in Hercules Energy, and based on how that missile volley kinda came outta nowhere, he probably had some kinda Pym Particle stuff goin' on somewhere. Again, I really didn't have the patience for this. I'll never tell Jason this, but sometimes I wish I was as willing to kill as he was.

"S.E.R.A.?" I asked her. "That guy levitating the missiles. Gimme a quick rundown.

"Franklin Hall," she started. "Codename: Graviton. Abilities: Immeasurable control over gravitation. Powerful enough to create force fields strong enough to trap Thor. Side abilities also include gravitic flight, force blasts, and enhanced strength and durability."

"Thanks, S.E.R.A., you're a doll."

Well, that kinda sucks. Here was a guy clearly meant for the likes of Grant, but Green Bean was nowhere in sight. Don't get me wrong, I was working up ways to get around this guy's power; plus there were a lot of theories I had to try out regarding how his gravity powers affected me specifically. Still, all the coulda, woulda, shouldas would have to wait for later. If I didn't stop this guy right now, our defenses were gonna take a MASSIVE hit. My first instinct was to create a massive mini-sun on top of him, and make the missiles float into it harmlessly. The problem with that was that this guy's gravity powers were not to be underestimated. I've never seen him in action, but if experience has taught me anything, guys like these are usually way above first time power estimates. If we got into a tug-o-war, I wasn't even 70% sure I would win that one. My next idea was to wipe a wave of fire across the missile volley, and while that one was a bit more plausible than the first idea, I didn't wanna put any of my people in danger. I had no idea how powerful those missiles were. They coulda been powered by regular…...whatever's in missiles that make them go boom, or with Olympus Stone energy, or some kinda alien flesh eating virus. In either case, I couldn't risk the blast radius affecting my teammates. Finally, after the third try, I came up with the more or less perfect strategy. Also thank God for my speed! Two minutes of hypothesizing crammed into a second and a half! Anyway, I honed in on Graviton's energy signature, and with everything I had, created a mini-sun right around him! I made the inside pulsate with fire waves hot enough to melt asphalt! That was just to keep his concentration off. The real ploy was turning up the gravity to a million; bringing in his missile volley crashing into him from all sides! When the first explosion went off, I knew they were Olympus Stone powered. The first wave, made of at least ten different explosions, had every flavor of Olympus Energy Doom had, not counting the other two stones he took from us. The first wave of explosions coulda easily took out the Helicarrier, and if I wasn't so focused on keeping the gravity up, the blast would've definitely spilled over into our side of the battle. Heck, I had to make my mini-sun not so mini, as I had to make it bigger to absorb the streamline of skyscraper destroying explosions. And don't get me started on how much effort it took to keep the not so mini-sun intact! It was like trying to give a cat a bath; hate when I have to give Dinah a bath. By the time all the missiles were absorbed into the blast, the not so mini-sun was so volatile, it was all I could do to direct the ensuing blast, which easily coulda but a crater in a third of Manhattan, outward and away from the main battle. In a perfect world, Graviton would be out of it entirely, but i've never been that lucky since this whole Stones of Olympus crap. I hiked up my skirt, put on my mean face, and shot at Graviton; tearing through dozens of Doombots as I rocketed forward!

I was at least pleasantly surprised to find that the blast bombardment had significantly weakened Graviton's energy aura. Instead of drowning in god energy, it just felt like he got repeatedly baptized in it. Still more than enough of it to be a certain pain in my neck, but i'd manage. I started off by knocking Graviton in his head with a flying Power Gauntlet punch! I felt kinda guilty about the fact that it gave me joy to hit some guy I didn't know, but that missile mess was a job and a half to deal with. I had a lotta stress to vent. Anyway, the first hit went off with a cannon sized pop, launching Graviton a good 200 meters away; well outside the general battle area! I managed to stop his momentum with a wall construct, and rammed into him again inside a speeding eighteen wheeler construct! I quickly knocked him over the head with a hammer punch to stun him again, and did a signature one gal version of Delta Speed Thrasher. Again, dunno why we always fall back on this move, it just feels right. I slammed Graviton with at least 300 Power Gauntlet charged hits per second. I made sure to pull my punches a little; making sure he didn't fly away every time I decked him. I attacked his face, neck, chest, gut, and got a good chunk of decent kicks to his legs, arms, back, and head. It was slow work, but I was definitely grinding down his body shield gradually. For second, it seemed like this was gonna be easier than I thought. Probably shouldn't have jinxed myself, because a few seconds later it got a little bit harder to fly.

It felt like someone turned the air into syrup! I wasn't too terribly slowed down, but it was enough for Graviton to start dodging my punches; not to mention actually throwing a few my way. His first punch made it clear that he was not a fighter. He projected his right cross so much, I felt like I was about to take advantage of him! I'd take the time to feel bad about that later. For now, I ducked under his swing, gave him a quick set of Power Gauntlet jabs to his gut, and followed it up with a backflip kick under his chin. As I recovered, I slammed him in the face with a fist construct, but quickly put up a shield construct as Graviton tanked it, and came back with a flying punch! My shield shattered like fine china! It was like trying to use a sheet of glass as a shield against an elephant! Graviton kept up the momentum by blasting me with one of those gravity force blasts S.E.R.A. was telling me about, and man was it a real kick in the head! Forget elephants, it was like someone dropped the whole Jurassic Era on my head! I got rocketed half a mile backwards, before I felt something like a giant rock slam into me from above, sending me plummeting downwards. Yeah…..that went on for a lot longer than I wanted it to. What goes around comes around, and I really got the firsthand experience of being a pinball! I was knocked around the battlefield more times than I care to count, got dangerously close to tossing my lunch, before finally managing to put myself inside of a mini-sun. I cranked up the gravity of the sun up to the point to where Graviton's force blasts were just kinda lightly pushing me. As such, I could get a good lock on him with my Sun Sense, and deck him in the face with a blazing truck construct! I tried slamming him with more of those, even a few tanks for good measure, but Graviton had hit somewhat of a stride in this fight. Any time I threw a construct his way, he'd put up a quick force wall, or crush the construct with gravity compaction. Meanwhile, he tried everything he had to get me outta my solar safe space. Gravity compaction, force blasts, throwing compacted Doombot debris at me, real resourceful on that last one, but I managed to hold strong. We kept doing the equivalent of having a mid-air snowball fight, until I ended it by creating a mini-sun right around Graviton's face. I admit that was a little brutal, but I was running outta f*(#$ to give at an alarming rate.

In any case, it actually worked. Graviton's influence shut off like a slight! I quickly condensed my mini-sun around my fist, and shot after him. I decked him in the face with quite the explosive flying punch, and reconstructed the energy into another mini-sun; trapping Graviton inside with me. I brought back the pulsating waves of fire, but I decided to try a different approach other than beating him to unconsciousness. This guy was a powerhouse. We coulda fought all day and still not get anywhere close to an end. Yeah, i'm thinking no? Instead, I kept wrapping Graviton in layers upon layers of solar ribbons; almost like an angelic mummification. Graviton struggled and fought against it, but his spirit gradually lessened as I sung him a calming lullaby. I infused the song with the pulsating fire waves. Rather than hurting him, the waves were lulling,,comforting heat, easing him into a deep sleep. It took a few minutes to get done, but his energy aura eventually went out, following by Graviton himself. I quickly put power dampening cuffs on him, before putting him in the talons of a giant eagle construct to take him over to the Helicarrier. I felt kinda good about what I just did. It was nice to solve a problem without hitting it. Still, all good things have to come to an end. In this case, discount evil Doctor Strange, Baron Mordo, tried sucker blasting me from behind with magic he stole from the Stones of Olympus.

I put up a barrier to block it, put Sun Ribbons over his hands and mouth, stopping his hocus pocus, and clobbered him over the head with giant bat construct, knocking him out, and also giving him the eagle express ride back to the Helicarrier with a nice set of power dampening cuffs as an early Christmas gift. Off course, no sooner than I had a chance to catch my breath, something else was speeding behind me. This something was a Japanese woman with long black hair, a black body suit, spindly claws for fingers, and powered by Apollo Energy. My Sun Sense picked her up, and I backflipped over her lunge, absorbed all the Apollo Energy outta her, and blew her into a million pieces! Yeah, she was a cyborg with a healing factor and Adamantium skeleton. She'd probably come back in some form or fashion, but I hoped what we left of her sunk to the bottom of the ocean. A bit harsh from me, sure, but after reading her rap sheet, I woulda fought with the gloves off, even if Lady Deathstrike didn't have a healing factor. Same thing for Grimm Reaper. He was some dude in a black bodysuit with a skull and crossbones on it. He also had a purple cape with a hood, and a giant scythe surging with Zeus Energy. He tried slashing me in half from behind, but I slammed him between two giant hand constructs, wrapped a Solar Ribbon around his neck, and yanked him into my fist. Again, I gave him a nice pair of bracelets and an eagle ride to the Helicarrier deck.

For a few minutes after that, I just kinda coasted by. I destroyed a few Doombots here, took out a few minor villains there, and managed to re-up my massive construct army to push Doom's army back. It was almost kinda relaxing in a terrifying, stressful, try not to die kinda way. Still, i'll be darned if I can actually get a moment's peace around here, because what came next was one for the books regarding sleeper hits. It happened so fast, so organized, I had to at least give it to the attackers for organizing the effort. A green mist, covering a mile radius, just burst into the atmosphere, covering everything in a haze. The mist was infused with traces of Apollo Energy, but I barely had time to process what that meant until it was too late. The mist started to surge with heat, and before I could even think of stopping it, someone in the distance blasted it with a ray of energy. It was the equivalent of throwing a match in a fireworks warehouse! Everything went boom so fast I felt myself go weightless within a second; barely aware of myself or surroundings. I barely caught a few glimpses of shattered Doombot debris raining down, injured heroes either shooting up like rockets, or falling like flies. The blast was such a rock to my senses, I could barely stay conscious, let alone try and help them. Oh, and if that wasn't bad enough, I felt something that had to have been as strong as at least Jason hit me with enough force to create a sonic boom, and send me careening into the side of the Helicarrier! I dented the hull, my Sun Form barely holding up, but got tackled through it, and got pinned to the floor with a knee as big as a tire! I managed to make myself stay awake so I could get a good look at my attacker. On first glance, it looked like Colossus. The guy was easily 7 feet tall, with pecs, abs, and arms big enough to make Grant look scrawny. He was shirtless, only wearing black Kevlar pants, and had gleaming metal skin, accompanied by a thick layer of Hercules Energy around him. I had to thank Jason for making me and Grant sit down for hours and study our potential enemies. If nothing else, I liked knowing who's teeth I was about to kick in. He was Ironclad, one of the members of the U-Foes. From what I read, he could adjust his mass to make himself as light as a feather, or as heavy as an elephant. He smirked at me as he raised a fist to crush my face; like he was waiting all day to pound a defenseless girl to death. Unfortunately for him, I was anything but!

As he brought his fist down, I stopped it with a shield construct, and shook him off me with a blastwave that launched him an entire floor above me. I quickly hummed the chorus to "Go The Distance", shaking off the impact of the gas bomb and this guy's hits. He crashed down shortly afterwards, but was completely caught off guard when he got a face full of a Blazing Sun Fist! He careened backwards, and I kept up the assault, launching hammers, boots, lions, tigers, bears, and tennis rackets! Ironclad tried barreling through my constructs, increasing his mass so much to where he fell though the floor we were fighting on! I almost laughed at him as he fell, but quickly held it back as he flew back up to try and tackle me! I dodged his lunge, and knocked him upside his head with a Blazing Sun Bat. Ironclad tried flying at me with a set of wide swings and jabs, making it apparent he had little to no experience fighting in the air. I easily dodged his swings, and beat him back with a combo of Power Gauntlet jabs, quick blasts of fire that were each as strong as grenades, and the occasional giant fist construct to the gut and face; taking the fight outta him went he was getting a bit too uppity. Heck, even went the fight was on the ground, Ironclad just couldn't keep up. I slowed down his already lumbering, untrained, abysmally awful fighting style by making small bear traps, Venus flytraps, and rungs sprout up every now and again to trip him up, and slam something heavy on top of him when he fell. These heavy things ranged from truck constructs, to tractors, SUVs, and various wild animals. Ironclad didn't lay a single finger on me for the three minutes I kicked his but all up and down the second floor of the Helicarrier. After I exhausted his energy aura, I knocked him out with a few….ok several Power Gauntlet hits to the head. The power dampening cuffs wouldn't fit him, so I had to leave Ironclad where he was as I flew out to rejoin the aerial battle. Hopefully he'd stay out for a good few hours while I helped clean up the mess him and his friends made. Oh yeah, it was not pretty out in the skies for us.

We had roughly lost at least 50 agents, all of our Iron Men, and I couldn't sense War Machine! Pepper's suit was damaged beyond repair, and was getting an escort by Doctor Voodoo to the deck of the ship. Storm's suit was damaged, but she was still in the fight, using strong winds and lightning try and beat back Doom's now advancing forces. Ms. Marvel, Blue Marvel, and Rogue were also holding strong, but they had their work cut out for them. Vapor, that green mist who was actually a lady, was popping up everywhere, dissolving into gas clouds and blowing herself up, throwing more and more of our forces into disarray. If not that, she would take the form of a giant green gas lady, and wreak havoc on even our heaviest hitters. Ms. Marvel and Blue Marvel were struggling with the two other members of the U-Foes: Vector and X-Ray. Vector was a guy in an orange jumpsuit that had red and yellow sun patterns all over it. Ok, before I continue with the serious stuff, I gotta highlight this guy's style! I was in love with his outfit. The patterns reminded me of African Dashikis, mixed with the perfect representation of a sunset. The way the colors were arranged…..omg! I couldn't even! I had to get something like that! I'd tear it off his unconscious body if I had to! But yeah, he could create telekinetic shields and blasts strong enough to give even the Hulk trouble. He was enhanced with Apollo Energy, and was taking on Blue Marvel and Ms. Marvel at once. They could be doing better, but I could afford to let them keep fighting while I dealt with the bigger threats. Speaking of which, X-Ray, literally a guy made of bright pink energy, also enhanced by Apollo Energy, he was also a pain in the neck. He was fast enough to make me actually try to keep up, and was constantly blowing more holes in our defenses. In terms of the biggest threat, him and Vapor were tied. I could deal with Vector later, but they were top priority. First thing was first, had to stop little miss cloud girl from doing her cheap exploding trick.

"Storm," I contacted her on the comms. "How are you feeling?"

"I will live," she responded. "And I am still able to fight."

"Good. I mean, i'm glad you're ok and all, but can you help me out with something real quick?"

"I may have a moment to spare. What would you have me do?"

"That green mist. Do you think you can contain it?"

"You read my mind, child. Watch the sky."

I looked over at Vapor, who was wreaking havoc on a squad of agents as a giant fist. A few seconds later, she was enveloped in a cyclone that took her for a laundry spin! She tried to fight it, but Storm had her under lock and key; managing to convert the cyclone into a condensed ball, about the size of a jumbo beach ball. Vapor immediately tried to bust out, but I was having none of it. I reached out and absorbed all of her Apollo Energy away from her. Next, I focused on X-Ray, who was really about to have a bad day. I caught up to him, and provoked him with some rapid fire blasts, goading him to chase me around the battle. He shouted a slew of profanity at me as he tired blasting me down with rays of energy. I either dodged his blasts, or put up obstacle constructs for him to stumble around and/or through. By the time I got him near Vapor, he was too worked up to notice. I quickly stopped and did a small backflip, letting X-Ray's momentum rocket him under me. Barely a second after he was under the the air sphere, I manipulated the Apollo Energy that was mixed with his own,and shot him into the sphere with Vapor. I immediately followed that up by wrapping them in a mini sun, and overcharging the inside with fire waves. In barely half a minute, the inside of the sun went nuclear! X-Ray and Vapor were definitely trying to break free of the mini-sun, but I had a lot of experience in wrestling people, and a few animals, down. I kept X-Ray's energy fluctuating and doubling in on itself, never giving him a moment to build any momentum. Vapor's flammable gaseous form just kept blowing up on itself, up to the point where the explosions were gradually getting smaller. X-Ray on the other hand kept blowing up bigger and bigger. It was all I could do to keep the blast contained as he went critical. After several big booms, followed by one last boom that I just barely managed to keep down, I let my mini-sun drop. Vapor and X-Ray were nowhere to be found. Did I kill them? I dunno, but the scary thing was how little I actually cared right now. Vector was still on the loose, and I don't care how pretty his outfit was, I had to finish the set.

I sensed around for him, and still found him holding back the Marvels about a quarter mile up. They kept pounding away at his barriers, but he held up strong, and blasted them away with several T.K. blasts. No offense to my respected older heroes that have been kicking villain butt longer than I have, but they were doing it wrong.

"Hey, Ms. Marvel?" I asked her. "Mind if I take that one? I think I can finish him off a little quicker."

"What, you think you can hit harder than me and Blue Marvel?"

"Not necessarily, but not everything can be solved by just hitting it."

"It solves who gets the TV back at Avengers Tower. Still, if you think you can do better, have at it, Sunbird."

Her and Blue Marvel abandoned their assault on Vector, who was so confused, he didn't see me coming. I quickly absorbed all of his Apollo energy, busted out a Power Gauntlet, and knocked him out. I don't even think he had time to process any of it before it was too late. I quickly put power dampening cuffs on him, and sent him on his merry way to the Helicarrier.

"What happened to hitting doesn't solve everything?" Ms. Marvel asked me over the coms.

"I said JUST hitting," I responded. "Hitting solves plenty when you're fast enough."

"You calling me slow?"

"Well, no offense, but you are gettin' up there."

"You better be talking about altitude."

I laughed at her, and we started to focus on taking the fight back.

It was hard work, but over the course of the next several minutes, we managed to get the battle back to a timid halfway point. Ms. Marvel, Storm, and I took the bulk of the fighting, shredding Doombots in every direction, while our forces recovered and reinvigorated the defense. Storm and I spread our powers out as far as we could, which was easier for Storm, now that her powers weren't getting dulled. I did my standard angel construct army to help put more umph into reviving our defense. Ms. Marvel was just really good at tearing through Doombots and lesser villains, so we just let her do that. Together, we took easily took out more than 300 Doombots, and beat Radioactive Man to a glowing green pulp. The true turning point was when every last Doombot, and even Doom's ship, dropped like rocks! In a split second, the fight was no longer like trying to fight a crushing wave, but it was still kind of depressing when I actually surveyed the damage. Without the Doombots, the fight was about 200 fighters strong on either side, but there were too many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and heroes either dead or injured for my liking. What lifted my spirits as I fought on, was the image of a giant Geo-Force Iron Man construct! Thank God, my idiot friend and idiot soon to be boyfriend were still alive! Also the other guys they were teamed up with…..yeah, glad they were ok too. They landed on the deck of the Helicarrier and did what they were good at: knocking the piss outta bad guys! For a nice few minutes, things were looking up. I actually dared to hope that this was gonna be a good day after all. Then I felt a wave of fiery, demonic anger wash through the atmosphere, followed by a wave of black obsidian looking fighter ships, and various dragons and dragon/men hybrids! Funny, I seem to recall a certain friend who ran into a dragon army about a week back…

Oh, yeah, Jason and I gave Grant plenty of crap for his…..let's say estranged friend coming to wreck the party. Heck, I was actually a lot more pissed than I let on. Just when the battle was almost completely ours for the taking, here comes little miss lizard lady to ruin everything! Jason obviously shared my sentiments, because after dealing with the first wave of Dragon Men, he showed absolutely no restraint with the second wave. He made the sky darken to where it was almost black, and became one with the clouds! Half a second later, lightning blasts rained down onto enemy ships as if Zeus himself was throwing them down! The thunder shook me down to my very bones, and made my heart skip several beats! I would've been breathless if I actually needed to breathe in my Sun Form. Heck, if he didn't accidentally figure out that crashing the demon fighter jets into each other did the hard work for us, we'd be screwed. As such, I spent a lot of time trapping two or more ships in mini-suns, crashing them together with giant hands, compactors, and walls. Things went back to a relative state of normalcy after that, but then I felt reality shift in a way that gave me chills!

It was like someone put a key into another dimension, opened the door, and let out the the killer cosmic dog, before shutting the door again. Granted, this wasn't a killer cosmic dog, but for all intents and purposes it didn't really matter. It was the same girl I saw in the vision the Norn-Fates gave me. Tan skin, black hair, wearing a black domino mask, black leggings, and a purple T-shirt. She radiated dark matter like she was on fire! She flew faster than anything i've ever seen! I was just barely able to perceive her, and had to force myself to speed up enough to keep up with her. God, I wished I could go Super Sunbird; this chick was no cake walk. She barreled at me faster than a hypersonic jet, but slammed into a shield construct . Dear Jesus! The amount of gravity pullback that ensued was outrageous! Every hero, villain, and Dragon Man within a 10 ft radius were pulled in like water in a drain! Most of them were fine, their armors held up, but that was just a taste. I shuddered to think how much damage we'd inflict if we kept the fight in one place. Anyway, I created a giant fist construct, and slammed it into Black Hole girl, as Grant calls her, knocking her a quarter mile backwards. My adrenaline kicked in, and I slammed giant fists, rockets, trucks, hammers, and tanks into her from all sides! Yeah, screw fate; I was not getting sucked dry by that thing. She had other plans.

As I launched my next volley of construct missiles at her, she enveloped herself in a black matter barrier. The barrier didn't even block my constructs, it straight up distorted and absorbed them. Similar to a black hole, the light just kinda got sucked in without a fight. Black Hole Girl didn't waste a single second, and shot outta her barrier straight at me. She slammed into my gut with the force of a train, and sent us plummeting downwards! Again, it was a good thing I didn't need to breathe in my Sun Form, because I woulda been completely helpless. Heck, even now, that hit made my guts feel like someone poured hot lead down my throat. I managed to get a few good elbows in on her back, but it was like throwing stones at a bear. Even when I pumped myself up with Solar Steroids, I could barely get her to move. Again, I was not in the mood to get drained, so I brought out a knife, and stabbed it deep in her back! It was official she was some kinda demon, because as soon as I brought out the knife, it caught holy fire real quick! Black Hole Girl wailed like a banshee, and immediately let me go. I used her left over momentum against her, and slammed her in the face with a Power Gauntlet uppercut. I woulda buried my knife deep into her face, but she was flying too fast to get a good bead on her. After knocking her back about 50 ft, I kept up the attack by launching giant fist after giant fist, keeping her off-balance, for as long as I could. It wasn't long at all, barely even a minute, and Black Hole Girl ended up dodging the 50th fist, and circling around back at me.

I launched a volley of mini-suns at her, but she was havin' none of it. She slashed her hand through the air, and a wave of dark matter rippled through the air, absorbing all of the suns. She blasted her own volley of dark matter blasts at me, but I was a lot less graceful in my defense attempt. I just launched a fire Kamehameha at her, succeeding in swallowing her blasts, and generating enough energy to theoretically burn her to a crisp. Black Hole Girl coulda just laughed at me, because she EASILY matched my firepower! Imagine a gravity field strong enough to crush a skyscraper like a soda can. This power blast wasn't even that conservative. We were at least half a mile above the main battle, and the vacuum was sucking up Doombots and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents like dust mites! They could barely get within 400 meters of our power blast without getting ripped into a hundred pieces! I dunno how many agents died, but a few seconds was enough for me. No more agents were gonna die because of my battle with Black Hole Girl!

I quickly created a mini-sun on around her head, and made it blow like a volcano. A cheap trick, but a cheap trick that did the job. Black Hole Girl's power blast dropped, and mine's steamrolled her not even two seconds later! I figured that'd be enough to at least knock the wind outta her, but she had the stamina of a horse! She recovered and flew at me like a missile, leaving me with no option but to face her up and close. We fought back and forth all across the sky, trading each other blow for blow. Well…...that's what I tell myself to make me feel better about it. In truth, even though I got a decent amount of Power Gauntlet/Solar Steroid enhanced hits to her face, back, and gut, she shrugged them off with almost laughable ease. Just one hit across my jaw almost knocked me outta my Sun Form, and sent me on the verge of blacking out. I had to double my body shield output just to fight though the pain of each blow she landed on me. From my face, neck, gut, back, and my sides, it felt like someone was shooting cannonballs rapid fire at anywhere they could hit my body. Pretty sure I had some nasty welts on my skin, even with my armor providing an extra layer of protection. Other than that, I quickly learned that I was not gonna win this fight in close quarters. Even with my blades, Black Hole Girl was too fast and ferocious for me to get a good stab in. She learned from that dagger in her back, and obviously wasn't keen on repeating the experience. I did manage to find some success with giant constructs. Several times I managed to stab her with at least 100 giant swords, whack her around with several giant sledgehammers, and once managed to trap her inside a not so-mini sun with me for a few minutes. I made the inside pulsate with with fire, and fought my little heart out for as long as I could. The flames kept Black Hole Girl off-balance enough for me to get several stabs in with my daggers, but never anywhere near her face or neck. Again, close quarters wasn't really my thing when it came to this chick, but this was as good as I could do. Heck, all the hits in the world didn't amount to jack once Black Hole Girl opened her mouth!

I'll be honest….I panicked. I've never run away from a fight so fast in my life. Not proud of it, but I got spooked. Heck, I dare you to face down the weapon of your destined killer and not flinch. Besides, it's not like it was for nothing. Black Hole Girl's mouth was a bottomless pit! She sucked in the entire sun like it was a muffin! The gravity was so intense that even I felt a slight pull as I retreated backwards. Forget the concept of light or heat being what would do this chick in; she just had a sun for an appetizer. She looked at me with her blank, soulless eyes, created an array of at least 100 black matter blades, and shot them at me three at a time. Again, we played our back and forth game, but with a lot more constructs involved. She would only construct blades, but that made her no less deadly. For all the shields, fists, angels, dragons, and mini-suns I conjured up to beat her back, she bounced them off, and kept advancing with her army of blades. She was smart about how she directed them, shooting some at me, some where I would be, and others to out to kill my maneuvering room. She'd launch a blade out into the air, seemingly missing me, only for her to bring it back at Mach 7. Can't count how many times I almost got a sword in the back because of that. Heck, She made sure to keep her physical attacks very much a part of her strategy; never giving me too much time without a proper up close challenge. Again, for all my speed and skill with constructs, Black Hole Girl somehow managed to take them away from me. Every time I blew her blades apart with a fiery explosion, she either created new ones, or pressed her close quarters attack with more ferocity. One time she made a dagger to use, and almost cut me to ribbons, getting a small gash across my cheek, a good stab in my thigh, and when I tried to block a stab to my side, got me through my left bicep. I summoned one of my swords just as the blade sank into my arm, just managing to gut the demon. She wailed, she retreated, but she healed and resumed her attack in seconds. Me, I wasn't so lucky. The wounds weren't deep, nor were they bleeding, but I felt like someone put what was basically a soul eating virus inside me. The stabbed areas were gradually numbing, and I could feel the cold spreading to the rest of my body! I counteracted the sensation by humming SAO's Crossing Field theme to heal myself. It was far from instantaneous, again, I was basically trying to beat back a disease. What little I could reverse of it made the afflicted areas get that pins and needles sensation, like when your feet are waking up. Sucked for me, because Black Hole Girl was hot on my butt with her attack.

Without proper use of my arm, I learned how to keep up a good construct attack/defense real quick. Black Hole girl's blades were always stopped by a sun shield or blade construct. Giving me more time to patch myself up and keep ahead of her. I couldn't sense any emotions in Black Hole Girl, but after a while, she just created a giant black matter sword, and launched at me like a rocket. Guess even the emotionless can get frustrated. I blocked her attack with a Mega Blazing Sun Sword, both of us being knocked back by the gravity explosion that ensued. We kept hacking away at each other at least ten times per second, crating a gravity minefield, as we tried to put a giant sword into each other. Our gravity feedback was causing havoc through the battlefield, which took ages to catch up to my perception, and was only made worse by the fact that we were still trying to shank each other with a volley of blades. We were both getting extremely creative with that last bit, constructing blades from every angle, trying to get them in from the back, bottom, top, and even constructing them barely an inch from each other. It got so intense to where I just created a mini-sun around myself, and kept it pumping out fire to destroy the blades. Speaking of which, that gave me an idea! I played the dance of blades for a few more seconds, before doing an oldie but goodie, and dropped a mini-sun on Black hole Girl's head. Her blades went haywire, and I was able to run her through with mines! I didn't stop there, I transformed the flaming blade into a mini-sun, trying desperately to blow the demon up from the inside out….but i'll be damned if she would just do me the courtesy! Instead, she absorbed the explosion into herself like some sorta cosmic vacuum…..huh, guess that's what a black hole is in layman's terms. But yeah, she gobbled it all up with hardly any trouble at all. I tried making the mini-sun expand, but she completely held in down, and absorbed it into her stomach. Again she wasn't exuding any emotions, but by the way she slammed into me, knocking me outta my own mini-sun, I think she was angry.

We did our familiar dance again, fisticuffs and blades, for a few more minutes and I don't think i've ever been more afraid of anything in my life. This chick was like the Terminator mixed with Jason Voorhees, The Predator, and insert whatever other horror villain that just wouldn't quit! No matter what I did, no matter how many times I stabbed, smashed, hit, or mini-sunned her, she just kept coming! Eventually, she caught up to me, and gave me the beat down of a lifetime. She got me several times in the gut, hit me across the face with five hard cross punches, and after a hard knee to my face, sent me rocketing skywards with a black matter power blast. That last one made my Sun Form flicker, which reflected my state of consciousness perfectly. Heck, I was just barely able to blindside Black Hole Girl with a giant Sun Fist. Good thing, because she was definitely about to serve me a second can of whup ass.

I managed to recover enough to kinda sorta get my bearings, but that was of little consolation. I felt the temperature drop like a rock. The sky darkened, and white lightning streaked across the sky like you wouldn't believe. I immediately got chills, but before I could do anything about it, a huge bolt of lightning slammed into the Helicarrier knocking off two of its turbines, and splitting it into three fiery chunks as it fell to the ocean!

I froze. Jason and grant were on that ship, hundreds of agents and heroes were on that ship! The vision was coming true, just like the Norn-Fates said! Wait, that meant…...uh oh.

Before you say it, yes, I know, dumb move on my part. I got caught in the moment, and didn't think about the fact that the vision wasn't finished yet. Too late. Black Hole Girl ran up on me like a plague, and grabbed me by the throat! Not gonna lie, I got scared $#!+less, and bucked like a wild horse! I spewed a slew of flames from my hands and mouth, trying desperately to get her off me! Black Hole Girl wasn't havin' it. She opened her ebony maw, ebony is black, not brown by the way, and started sucking me dry! Over a year of solar energy was getting siphoned outta me faster than I could even keep up! In five seconds, I was at 75%, down to 50% in ten seconds, and by 15, barely at 25% It was all I could do not to break down into tears! My friends needed me! God knows what state Jason and Grant were in if neither one of em' stopped that lightning blast! Yet here I was, bleeding solar energy like a stuck pig. My head was telling me that it was over, that I should just give up and except it, but those were my friends damn it! My crisis quickly turned into anger! My anger surged a wave of resolve in me.I was not dying today,and nether were my friends!

After frantically trying to figure out ways to break Black Hole Girl's hold on me, I realized that I could still sense the solar power inside her! More importantly, I could probably still manipulate it! I focused on creating a block in her throat, which quickly manifested. Black Hole Girl started choking, or at least what I think was choking. I quickly put a clamp over her mouth once her mouth stopped sucking, and constructed the energy already inside her into an exploding mini-sun! Well, it was in there at least. Truth is if I didn't feel the flames blowing her up from the inside out, I wouldn't have been able to tell….aside from the fact that Black Hole Girl looked like she ate some bad sushi. Yeah, she was trying hard not to double over, but she was feeling the pain! Still, I needed her up to finish the job. I slammed a Power Gauntlet uppercut into her face, standing her up, and she tried to stab me with a black matter dagger. I dodged it and ran her through with one of my swords! The exploding solar energy was now bursting outta her like an overheating furnace, and the demon was flailing about, trying desperately to hit me! I summoned a throwing knife to shove deep in her left side! More fire spewed outta her, and I poked her with two more knives to speed up the process! Finally, when she was just barely holding together, I summoned one of my daggers, and slit her throat. That was the final nail in the coffin, and Black Hole Girl exploded with enough force to level three New York City blocks! Ok, not exactly how I pictured it, and I couldn't even fall back on the argument that at least it was over, because my friends and allies were still free falling to the sea!

That explosion rocked me to my core! I got knocked backwards two whole miles, and everything hurt! My body may as well have been one giant bruise. I was also free falling, trying my darndest not to blackout as I healed myself by humming the theme song to Drake & Josh. In five seconds, I was up and at em' again, zooming towards the falling chunks of the Helicarrier!

I was conscious about how little energy I had left, but I couldn't let that slow me down. At its current altitude, the Helicarrier chunks were about 25,000 feet up, but there were at least 200 agents and heroes free falling in the air. On a positive note, some of the still conscious heroes were doing their best to round up the free fallers. Ms. Marvel had two agents in her arms, another two holding onto her legs, and another one clinging around her back for dear life. Blue Blue Marvel actually was actually using a curved chuck of the hull of the Helicarrier to scoop up several dozen agents and heroes. Angel and Storm were working together pretty well in their rescue efforts. Storm was creating small whirlwinds to scoop up falling heroes and agents. The ones she couldn't get to were rescued by Angel two at a time. I sighed in relief when I sensed Jason in one of those whirlwinds. Still, we were far from the clear. There had to be at least another 500 people inside the Helicarrier rubble that the other heroes weren't getting to. That's where I came in.

I poured on the speed, and shot though the first small chunk of the left hand side of the Helicarrier. I quickly zoomed across every available area of the damaged chunk, finding 15 agents, Wolverine, Black Panther, and Colonel Fury. I quickly put them inside light bubbles three at a time. After finding all the people on the platform, I quickly pulled them outta the wreckage, and left them in a controlled descent while I searched the next biggest piece of the wreckage, that was slightly lower than the first. I rescued 32 heroes and agents from that piece of wreckage, and left them in controlled descent along with the others. Finally, I took on the head of the beast; driving straight into the biggest chunk of the Helicarrier. I scoured through every floor, every room, closet, bathroom, training room, weapons room, infirmary, whatever, I wasn't leaving this hunk of junk with one person still inside. I placed over 400 people in drill head constructs. I put them in drills first so they could dig their way up and outta the wreckage of the ship, before I converted them into bubble form. Getting them all out was hard work. If I had my full tank of gas, it woulda been much easier, but with my energy as low as it was, I was rationing it out at the bare minimum, going as fast as I could without burning through the 15% of energy I had left. Heck it was hard enough to see the faces of the injured and dead, but to top that off, all the villains were gone. I remember exactly where I put Iron Clad down, and he wasn't there when I flew by. He didn't fall outta the hole, I would've sensed him falling, he was just gone. Also, Grant was nowhere in sight. This boy already did this to me once, now I wasn't gonna rest until I put a tracker in his neck! Still putting that aside, I did indeed manage to get everyone out, just as the ship dropped below 5,000 feet and guided the bubbles down to the coast of Jersey Shore. Luckily not a lot of people were there, as it was way too cold to be on the beach. I quickly let the bubbles drop, and started giving medical attention to the injured. All in all this was a $#!+ day, but it coulda been worse.