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.

31. Chapter 31: I Sing A Lotta Lullabies

Chapter 31: I Sing A Lotta Lullabies

(Allyson's Perspective)

Ok, before I get to the fighting, singing, and bragging about how amazing my new teammates were, can we take a sec to acknowledge how adorable Grant was when he called in the rest of the army?! I mean, I could literally sense the joy radiating off the guy as he raised his axe, and said the magic words! I wish I could take a pic of his face, and make it my screensaver. Heck, for his birthday, i'll draw him a pic of him leading some kinda charge with his top five heroes! Anyway, onto the action!

As soon as backup arrived, I took to the lower skies, aka, around skyscraper range. For a good few minutes, I blasted my way around town, taking out some Doombots and demons, all until I got an S.O.S. from America!

"Sunbird!" she yelled at me through our squad's private channel. "I got the drop on Venom, but this sucker's tough! We're in front of Midtown Comics! Wanna help a lady out?!"

"On my way, Chavez!" I responded.

"S.E.R.A.?" I asked her.

"Uploading directions to Midtown Comics." she responded.

I loved that A.I.

I zoomed to America's location, and I gotta say it, I feel bad for those of you that can't do constructs. Don't get me wrong, Chavez was holdin' her own, but barely. She and Venom were pretty much equal in terms of strength, so when they got into it with fisticuffs, it was a fair fight. Heck, America was dashin' around Venom, using her totally awesome star portals, to hit and kick him from all sides! Every one of her hits had enough force to crack pavement, and one even dislocated Venom's jaw! Still, Venom wasn't one to go down easy. He recovered, shot up a tendril of black goo, and after catching America, slammed her through the side of a skyscraper, and planted her into the ground! Venom grasped her with his big monster claws, and snatched her way too close too his jaws for my liking! I clogged his pie hole with a mini-sun, which blew up in his mouth! I thought that mighta at least blew his face off, but he barely stumbled backwards. At the very least, he let Chavez go when I flew into him with a Power Gauntlet punch to the face!

"KEEP! YOUR! JAWS! OFF! MY! FRIEND!" I roared at him with every punch!

I probably shoulda gave myself a Solar Steroid boost, because my hits barely registered. In any case I blasted him upwards with a flame geyser, and rocketed after him with America!

Ok, let's talk about Doctor Strange's spell seal, and how it was gonna make my life so much harder! First off, the spell seal was both invisible and intangible to those who couldn't see magic, or didn't have Strange's permission to access it. Me and Task Force Skittles, which I renamed Rainbow Force, had permission, so I could see it just fine. It was about 10 miles above the city, so wide, it stretched slightly across the edges of Midtown, and had seven circles specifically designed for the various villains they were meant to hold. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, Strange linked the gateway spell to me; meaning I had to personally open the spell seal to all seven of the villains, while the rest of my teammates covered for me. And finally, the icing on the cupcake, when putting a villain into their spell seal circle, they got launched into a world of there own making, based on their wants, fears, experiences, etc. In that world, they'd have their powers practically doubled, and in order to trap them, I had to beat them on their turf! To be fair, I was packing at least seven times as much power as I used to, thanks to grandpa Apollo, as well as was some extra tricks up my sleeve. Also I got to choose Alohomora for the gateway spell! With that being said, back to the butt kicking!

Venom's magic cubie was south of us, about 4,000 ft above Madison Square Park. This is where America was really gonna come in handy. Unlike Nightcrawler, who needed to see where he was going, no offense to the blue sweetheart, America's portals kinda acted as a cosmic GPS. She could travel distance, dimensions, and even time with those babies; tho that last one was unpredictable. While we're on the subject of Ms. America, I gotta bring up her fashion sense real quick! The girl was the only one in the whole superhero army that wasn't wearin' some variation of a battlesuit. Instead. She was rockin' a red and white stripe T-Shirt under denim overalls that had a missing strap, and a white star smack dab on the chest, and both kneecaps! She had her hair in a ponytail, star studs in her ears, and after an hour of begging, bargaining, and eventually demanding her to do so, agreed to wear special gauntlets and boots that absorbed residual energy from her portal jumps, and saved them to enhance her punches, kicks, and provide her with a small aura of protective energy. The girl literally did not have a piece of clothing not related to the flag, and had no shame in her…..let's call it unorthodox sense of fashion. Still, she was a lovable showoff, with a little sweetheart inside; kinda like Grant. I was glad to have her on my team.

Anyway, because I know i've been a bit light on the butt kicking parts, America flew up, and punched Venom so hard in the gut, it looked like her fist was gonna come outta his back! Instead, Venom liquidated his form, and looked like he was gonna try and absorb and/or eat Chavez! Yeah, that was a big no! I created a turbine construct, and set the blades going so fast, they coulda ground an elephant to fish food! Venom got scooped into the whirlwind, and I slowly raised him off of America.

"Portal to Madison Square Park!" I shouted to her.

She nodded, and literally kicked a star shaped portal in the fabric of space-time! That is so badass! I threw Venom through it, and we followed hot on his tail! I managed to keep Venom in the turbine construct, and flew up as fast as I could! I was so close to the spell seal, but Venom busted out at the last second, and slammed into me as a mass of War Force charged black goo! I tried breaking free of his grip with some explosive waves of fire, but he managed to absorb the blasts, and tried to bite me in half with his jaws! On a reflex, I blasted him apart with a mini-sun! It was enough to finally get him off me, but he quickly reformed into a giant black fist, and socked me into the grass! I barely managed to get up in time to block a giant War Force spear construct with a shield construct of my own! Whatever Venom was gonna follow that up with, was stopped by America, who put her boot upside Venom's jaw via flying kick out of a star portal!

"No way, hombre!" she shouted at him, hitting him into the ground with a hammer pound. "The lady's not on the menu!"

She slammed him with a barrage of punches so hard, she made a crater big enough to bury an SUV in. For a hot second, it looked like she had it all under control, but Venom blasted her point blank with a War Force blast from his mouth, rocketing her upwards! He stretched his arm out, his fingers converting into long talons, but before he could get a hold of Chavez, I slammed a falling train into his face, making that crater of his a little deeper! I was about to light him up, but the ground started to rumble, and I went airborne, as a field of War Force spikes shot outta the ground! I was only safe for a second, because Venom created an arsenal of giant blades, axes, rockets, tanks, and freaking war elephant constructs! I barely had time to get a barrier over me, before the fireworks began, and boy were they a doozy! The first wave of blasts nearly blew my barrier apart, and put me in a crater of my own! Venom kept up the barrage for a few more seconds, before admittedly trying something very smart. He tunneled under the ground, and wrapped himself around my barrier! He put on the pressure; clamping down with jaws that woulda made a great white shark jealous! Again, I was havin' none of his Jaws routine, so I blasted him off me with a 60 ft fire tornado! He reformed his body quickly, but not fast enough to dodge another sound shattering punch from America! She sent Venom plummeting down, and an idea popped in my head!

"GET CLEAR, CHAVEZ! I shouted to her, as I went Super Sunbird!

I blasted Venom with everything I had; aka, nuclear! The blast shot him upwards at over 300 mph, and straight for his spell seal! I quickly thought the gatekeeper spell, and the spell seal glowed all white, letting Venom in, like a stone in water.

"Into the rabbit hole?" I joked to America, as we flew after him.

"Do we have to," she joked back. "Sure we don't got any extra blue pills lying around?"

"I'm shocked, Ms. America! Never thought you'd wanna stay in The Matrix!"

"Swap Matrix for my home dimension, blondie, and i'd scarf down a bottle a day."

Ouch. Yeah, long story short, America was basically the lone survivor of a doomed alternate earth. Broke my heart. Moving on from that, inside Venom's safe space was….triggering.

The place had a hazy red sky, and a field of black symbiote matter as far as the eye could see. The ground was literally shifting and molding itself into hideous monster faces. The ground made sloppy churning sounds as it morphed, and it smelled like burning tar, mixed with sewage! Gotta agree with Chavez. I could use a few blue pills right about now. Heck, that was the easy part. When Venom started to manipulate the mass of goo, things went ugly real fast! He started making horrible pikes with various heroes, writhing in pain, stuck on them. I saw Spider-Man, an obvious one, Namor, Thor, and even me, America, Jason, and Grant! And if that wasn't creepy enough, the bastard started singing!

"The itsy bitsy heroes flew into Venom's web….down came the symbiote to eat their little heads…..down poured the blood, and the heroes cried in pain…...and the itsy bitsy heroes died as VENOM ATE THEIR BRAINS!"

The heroes on spikes morphed into various snake-like monsters, all with Venom's face! They were as fast as bullets; forcing me to get inside a Beyblade construct, and mow them down as they came! As I grinded the Venom snakes, about five at a time, I shot out some giant fire spikes, taking out twice as many on the side! America was doing pretty good on her own too. While she was less graceful, she easily tore apart the Venom snakes, and easily trashed the various symbiote Baraka soldiers Venom shot at us in addition. Of course Venom would be into Mortal Kombat. Anyway, he was sure to give us more of a challenge, eventually ditching the Venom snakes and Baraka soldiers, and turning the environment into a living war zone! Venom started by wrapping a clump of tentacles around Chavez, stronger than even she could break out of, before almost gulping her down with a Venom great white shark! Ok, on the list of "things I never wanted to see", Venom shark should've been on top, in a red circle, with arrows pointing to it! The darn thing was the stuff of nightmares! I almost let Chavez get eaten outta shock and fear! Right before the jaws shut, I managed to get a mini-sun around her, and blasted off a few waves of fire to put the shark down. After that, I cut her loose with some scissor constructs, and turned around…...to see a literal Venom wave! Don't know what that is? Lucky you! A Venom wave is skyscraper sized mass of symbiote matter, with a wall of jagged teeth, rushing towards you, like water! I quickly flew over to Chavez, and enveloped us in a solar bubble!

"HOLD ON!" I yelled at her.

"TO WHAT?!" she responded.

Apparently it was me, because when the turbulence kicked into high gear, Chavez latched onto me for dear life!

Venom put us through the ringer for almost 5 minutes! First it was a standard series of really hard waves crashing into my bubble, but Venom progressively got more vindictive/creative with his bubble bursting attempts. He slammed great white and hammerhead sharks into every side of my shield, barely half a second apart from each other. When that didn't work, he bombarded it with giant Ursula tentacles that had teeth spikes in them; each striking with enough force to rip apart an airplane! I just barely held up against that, but Venom was just gettin' started! He basically played pinball with me and America, as he bounced us around with giant fists and missiles, before forming a giant version of his head, to gnaw us like a chew toy!

"LITTLE PIGS, LITTLE PIGS!" he roared. "LET THE BIG BAD SYMBIOTE IN!"

I turned the barrier into a mini-sun, flooded it with as much power as I could, and kept blasting waves of fire into Venom! The blasts managed to damage his form, but he easily reconstructed it, faster than I could break it down!

"NO?!" he continued. "NOT BY THE HAIR OF YOUR CHINNY CHIN CHINS?!"

I amped up the blastwaves; determined to blast his jaw across a ten mile radius!

"THEN I'LL HUFF, AND I'LL PUFF, AND I'LL"

"SHUT UP!" I roared at him, as I released a blastwave so strong, it literally could've taken out half of Manhattan.

Yeah, that was another thing about grandpa's early Christmas gift. It took my base power, and amplified it to 11 at all times. Heck, just the night before, I almost blasted America through a wall in a warm-up, with a shot that couldn't have been more than 50% of what I regularly blast out! It was like that for everything now, and just as always, the learning curve was steep! Still, nothin' bad about blasting apart a cannibalistic, war crazed, psycho! At least for the precious five seconds he actually stayed down! Venom reformed just over me and America, and by God was he just a pain in the neck! The guy was a 20 ft tall, hulking monster, who now had jagged teeth protruding from his knuckles, back, knees, and shoulders! His tongue and jaws were dripping with fresh blood from God knows where, and just like the first time I fought him, his body kept merging and shifting; forming various weapons of war on his arms, legs, and chest! He opened fire on me and Chavez with a War Force cannon from his mouth, at what may as well have been point blank range! I stopped it with a giant shield construct, but if Chavez didn't fly around, and almost kick Venom's jaw off his face, the blast eventually woulda broke through! Chavez kept wailing into Venom's face with blows that woulda leveled a skyscraper, while I hammered his body with charging trains, missiles, sledgehammers, and fighter jets. We managed to keep the monster off-balance for maybe a little over a minute, before he grabbed Chavez, and punted her skyward, like a football! I retaliated by blasting Venom full force, no restraint, with a blast that could almost certainly carve a canyon right through Texas! Venom responded in kind with another War Force cannon to match! Our blasts collided with each other for about 15 seconds, before I got the memo that I wasn't gonna win this! Venom was surprisingly adept at using the War Force, and he was straight up about to steamroll me! I resorted to cheating, and dropped a mini-sun on top of his head; causing an explosion that woulda made Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like firecrackers! I wasn't stupid enough to think that the blast put him down, because that was a fairy tale, but I expected him to stay down for at least a few seconds! That was a big fat no, as the symbiote sea wrapped itself around me! I tried flying away/blasting the darn thing off me, but it was as resilient to damage as Venom was! Speaking of that problem, the monster was barreling at me at breakneck speed; jaws wide open for a bite of Sunbird flesh! I bombarded him with every kinda construct, from every angle, but all I managed to do was slightly knock him off course a few times! Venom managed to get his jaws dangerously close to my face, but at the last second, America came up under his chin, via portal, and hit him with one of the hardest uppercuts i've ever seen in my life! The blow knocked Venom skyward, and set me free of his webbing!

"We gotta keep him in the air!" I told Chavez.

"Noted." she said, before portaling up to punch Venom some more!

We managed to work out a rough fight pattern, as America slugged Venom with sound breaking punches and kicks, while I stayed in the back, blasting him with mini-sun barrages and constructs! Gotta give it to grandpa, this new accuracy boost was one heck of a gift! Under normal circumstances, especially with America portal jumping all over the place, I woulda accidentally blasted her into friend crispy! With this new perception Apollo gave me, I sensed the world a lot differently when it came to using any kinda projectile. Long story short, imagine trying to trick shot a ball of a wall, roof, floor, and into a basket. With the way I sensed my environment, like I had invisible protractors, rulers, and speed gauges in my head, I could do it with my eyes closed. I was already pretty good with my throwing knives, but now, missing any kinda shot would darn near be a myth! Anyway, as America gave Venom the works up close, I kept close behind, keeping him off-balance with ranged attacks. We did pretty well for ourselves with all things considered, but Venom was a special kinda pain in the butt! First off, he was big and fast, meaning America could only get so many hits on him, before he either managed to catch her, or land a hit. I would fly in and knock his grip loose with a jaw breaking punch, or hit him with a really big sledgehammer construct, until he let go! Still, that was just the tip of the spear. Remember that part about Venom's body absently forming weapons of war? Well, Venom quickly figured how to do that full time, and used it against me and Chavez in full force!

First, he turned his arms into huge scythes, that coulda sliced a cow in half, and went after Chavez! She was fast enough to barely weave in and outta his slices, but if I wasn't putting up shields/giving Venom a good blast every…...other second, America woulda been more red, than white and blue. Heck, after a few minutes of that, I had to join the fight full time, as Venom took to using War Force constructs, blasting mini missiles outta his chest, and even getting Chavez with a few good blasts from some sorta laser cannon from his arm! The poor girl got put through the wringer, and I couldn't stand back and watch anymore!

I flew in, blasting Venom with mountain shattering blasts, before slamming him across the jaw with an exploding mini-sun around my fist! The blast blew off half of his face, but didn't come close to dazing him! He tried blasting me with a War Force cannon from his mouth, but I dodged it, and blasted him back with another nuclear level sun blast! Before he could get too far, I brought him back via ramming him from behind with a flaming train! I sandwiched him into another one, and knocked him towards the ground with a hammer punch from a gorilla construct! Chavez was on her way up, so she uppercutted him back to me, before Venom could plummet too low. We tried another round with Venom, and did surprisingly well! Like I said, I was a lot more hands of with the fighting, while also incorporating blasts and constructs into the mix! America was still keepin' up her usual pace, and was getting a lot more strategic with her portal jumps; hitting Venom in his face, back, stomach, and various arm and leg joints! We put the hurt on Venom for sure, but with every passing second, I noticed how he was getting a lot faster, and our hits were effecting him less and less. He was getting more hits in on Chavez, and was even able to keep up with me in Super Sunbird! In just a little under a minute, it was all we could do to keep the fight at a stalemate; and even that didn't last long! As Chavez and I came in for another hit, Venom deconstructed his body, and attacked us as a giant blob of goo and teeth! Our body shields held up against his constant gnawing, but I noticed how he was plummeting us down towards the sea of symbiote! I quickly wrapped America and and myself in a solar bubble, transformed it into a drill, and got us outta Venom. Yeah….maybe Venom's insides weren't so bad after all. The guy may not have succeeded in dragging me and my companion into his black depths, but if there was ever a reason not to let Venom play in his good box, now was a big one!

For miles on miles, Venom turned the symbiote sea into a collage of every kinda gun, missile launcher, laser cannon, and even freaking X-Wings; all guns turned on me and America! I barely had time to get us under a barrier, before holy heck was barraged at us! I barely managed to keep me and Chavez safe from the barrage! Every second, a thousand bullets and missiles crashed into the shield, and every second, my barrier was just a holding on by a thread! Venom was not showing any signs of slowin' down, so after half a minute of barely holding the defensive together, I tried for the mother hail mary!

I transformed the barrier into a mini-sun, giving America and I a little more protection, before blasting down a column of flame, big enough to completely engulf five city blocks, and hot enough to literally light earth's atmosphere on fire! As soon as the flames hit the symbiote sea, I willed the blast to ripple across the landscape, like a plague! I put pretty much all of my Super Sunbird energy into that blast, and the result was a beautiful, bright yellow bonfire, that looked like the perfect mix of Heaven and Hell! Venom's arsenal went down in flames, but while I hoped the same could be said for him, that was a big nope, as I sensed him rocketing upwards to hit my mini-sun! I tried countering him with another nuclear level blast from what little Super Sunbird energy I had left, but he literally multiplied his size to 60 ft, tanked my blast with one hand, and snuffed my mini-sun out between a huge clap of his hands! That dazed the heck outta me; especially because I forcibly had to come down from Super Sunbird. I remember falling, barely conscious, but snapped back into it when I heard an ear bursting sonic boom, as Venom literally flicked America away nearly 10 miles! I saw a whole buncha dementor lookin' wraiths fly in her direction, but with a 60 ft tall Venom barreling down at me, I couldn't help her. Heck, America could handle a few Venom Ghouls; I was runnin' outta options for holdin' off the main guy!

I managed to catch Venom slightly off-guard when I slammed a giant fist into his teeth, and planted two giant boots into his chest! I quickly formed a combat avatar around myself, one that was the perfect mix of an angel and Iron Man! I slammed Venom with a few more punches and kicks, before he eventually blocked me, and kicked me backwards.

We went at it for a few minutes, giant constructs to giant constructs. Not to brag, but I held my own pretty good. I mixed up melee attacks with surprise mini-gun barrages from my arms and shoulders, and some repulsor blasts from my chest and hands. My favorite move was when I used my bladed wings in a fiery tornado spin so strong, it ripped chunks outta Venom! Granted moments like those were few and far between, as Venom upped his own arsenal to match mines', but ya had to enjoy your wins where you could get them. Yeah, Venom was a quick study, and wasn't one to be outdone! After a few minutes of me having the slight edge on him, he converted his arms into giant axes, and started slicing away at me furiously, while also breathing War Force fireballs at me! On their own, the axes and fireballs wouldn't have been much to worry about, but Venom used them more effectively than I thought he had the brain cells to devise. He came at me hard and fast, forcing me to counter with my own set of sword constructs, and while he was never able to get a clean slash in, he would strike often with fireballs to my avatar's face and chest; causing a lotta damage! I had to constantly put in more solar energy to keep the construct together; so much, that I was barely able to fire back any counter shots. And Venom just kept hacking and blasting away! Within two and a half minutes, my combat avatar was on the ropes, and of course, started talkin' crap!

"Don't worry about your friend," he playfully assured me. "Our little ghouls won't kill her. No fun eating the dead, ya know? Blood isn't fresh, the body gets too cold, and ya miss out on the screamin'!"

"YOU DISGUSTING-" I yelled at him

"Ah, ah, don't knock it, till ya try it, little girl! Despite the hang up, people taste good! Don't let anyone tell ya differently!"

He shot out tendrils of black webbing from his sides, and started enveloping me in some kinda cocoon! I lit my combat avatar on fire, but the damn webs wouldn't burn!

"Hell," he continued. "Gods are like the prime rib of people! They have this kinda tangy/spicy taste to them, that we can't get enough of!"

I barraged him from all sides with torrents of mini-suns, and combined them all into one huge mini-sun, the size of a football stadium! I made the sun pulsate it's fire inwards, and succeeded in stalling Venom a little ways, but that wasn't gonna last long at all!

"You kinda smell like god!" he said as he inched forward. "Not Asgardian, but still good! Probably Greek! Wonder how they taste!"

He kept barreling forward, almost as if the flames weren't even there! I finally realized I coulda hit him with the full might of Apollo, and he'd probably shake it off without missing a beat. Beating him physically was clearly not going to work, so I tried a different approach. I focused on his emotional state, and really dug deep. The surface was what you'd expect: a huge torrent of violent impulses and aggression. Unlike last time, this was less of a War Force frenzy, rather than a controlled War Force boost. Venom was controlling the power this time around. I dug deeper, and eventually found something I could possibly exploit. Venom and Eddie, I read his file, were in perfect sync. They were literally bonded together down to the cellular level now, and acted almost as one mind. A strong pair no doubt, but they had one little bit of resentment and pent up anger at the core of their relationship. If I could get them outta sync, maybe even split them apart, i'd have this fight in the bag! Based on their history, and with the right amount of prodding, I was about to do some major home wrecking!

I started by going Sun Goddess, which was that super form I gained when I drained that Apollo construct dry, back at the Grand Canyon. The specifics of going Sun Goddess were…..complicated. For starters, I could use it without going Super Sunbird; it wasn't a next level thing. Also, it was less of a form that gave me more power, rather than unlocked what I already had inside. When using my powers, even in Super Sunbird, my powers had a sorta usage cap on them. When I went Sun Goddess, the blocks were removed, and I could really amp up my blasts and constructs! Also, because it was my power now, I didn't get tipsy on the high. Still, this wasn't about how hard I could blast. As Sun Goddess, my powers of effecting emotions through song was also greatly enhanced, so as I upped the blastwaves, I started singing. For about six minutes, I sang a medley of Competition, by Little Mix, Goodbye, by Kristinia Debarge, For A Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic, by Paramore, Problem, by Ariana Grande, and 7 Things I Hate About You, by Miley Cyrus. I poured in resentment, anger, and a sense of mocking into the medley, as Venom, who was slowing down, got closer.

"DINNER AND A SHOW?!" he laughed. "YOU SURE KNOW HOW TO SHOW A FELLA A GOOD TIME!"

"Shut up, you pathetic bunch of losers." I said with a broken off piece of my voice. "God, no wonder Spidey dumped your pathetic ass!"

That momentary stunned Venom. Not much, but enough to know that my plan could totally work. I really didn't wanna be this mean, but if I wanted to get myself and America outta this, I had to cut deep and fast!

"YOU LITTLE BITCH!" Venom roared at me. "WE WILL EAT YOU SLOW FOR THAT!"

"Blah, blah, blah!" I responded. "Eat people this, feast on their brains that! Do you two ever stop drowning your broken hearts in other people's insides?! Are you considered fat slobs on your home planet, Venom?!"

Didn't expect that to get under their skin as much as it did, but I was glad they were too busy trying to fend off my psychological attack, too go for an effective physical one!

"Shut up!" they roared, Eddie's voice starting to be distinguishable. "You can't confuse us! We are Venom! We are strong!"

"Oh, Venom," I chided him. "You're confused all on your own. I mean look at you! You used to be Spider-Man's suit! You hit the big time on your first shot, and you got thrown away, because you were absolutely mental! Spidey tore you off, and threw you in a gutter! How could you expect poor Eddie to fill shoes so big?!"

Venom's form was starting to bulge and overload with War Force! He was still able to keep it together, but he was slipping!

"Lies!" they roared. "We don't need the spider! We are better, stronger! We-"

"Shoot webs," I stopped him. "Have a giant spider emblem on your chest. Basically copied his eyes, and crawl walls. Heck, is there anything about you that isn't connected to your ex?!"

That one really drove him nuts! He blasted a War Force cannon at me; which I blocked with a shield construct. I made the fire waves intensify, as I honed in on the psych torture!

"I mean, really, Eddie," I focused on him specifically. "How does it feel to get Spidey's sloppy seconds?! To be a half rate rebound, for Spidey's jealous ex-girlfriend?!"

That one did it's job especially well! Eddie's head, made completely of black goo, momentary shot outta Venom's chest, before getting sucked back inside!

"Not true!" Eddie's voice rasped out. "The symbiote loves me! We belong together! We're all that we have!"

Oooooooo. I mean…..wow. The hurt and desperation that permeated every octave of his voice….even without my empathic abilities, I woulda felt that like a ton of bricks to the face! Forget heroics, I was goin' full on villain now! Still, no matter how much it hurt, I had to finish what I started! Even if it meant shattering Eddie's relationship with the symbiote into a million pieces!

"Love?!" I mocked him. "Look at you?! You're a hideous aberration of what Spider-Man and the symbiote had! I don't remember Spider-Man havin' giant piranha jaws, or an obsession with eating people! Face it, Eddie, the only things you and the symbiote really bond over is your hatred of Spider-Man. Nothing of subsistence has grown from it; just a constant festering of your failures! Especially you, Eddie. Did you ever get over being kicked from The Bugle?!"

Venom lashed at me with his axe arms! I let him rage quit chase me, as I threw supercharged mini-suns at him. A little while ago, this would been the equivalent of bombarding an Adamantium door with pebbles. Now, Venom was lightin' up, like the 4th of July! I wished I was less gleeful about the fact that two beings were writhing in pain, literally being burned alive, but it was way too late to quench the fires. Yeah, i'm not just saying that to be mean. Strange told me that in these spell seals, the villain of choice would be in a world based on their subconscious desires, fears, etc. What he didn't tell me, was that once they start losing, that world turns into their own personal Hell. For Venom, it was just his symbiote world turning to fire around us. There was no real heat coming from these flames, so Chavez was safe, but Venom was freaking the fudge out!

"NO, NO, NO, NO!" they roared. "STOP THIS! STOP THE FLAMES!"

"Wish I could, hun," I said. "But i'm afraid you brought this on yourselves. One last thing you should know, Eddie, just to clear any remaining delusions that the symbiote was ever truly yours'. The symbiote has a name. It told Spider-Man what it was. Did it tell you?"

That was the last straw. A black goo version of Eddie, from the waist up, broke free, and started strangling the other half of Venom; who scratched, bit, and fought back just as good! I dropped the mini-sun, and let the flames take their lovers quarrel. As they descended into the bright yellow flames, America flew next to me, lookin' a little worn out, but still in fighting shape. The War Force spell seal flashed bright red for a sec, and ejected us from it!

As we flew up over it, back in the real world, I looked down, and gotta admit at how impressed I was. The spell seal was draining so much War Force, so fast, I wondered if Doom would even have enough to spare in five minutes. One down. Six to go!

"Sunbird to Rainbow Force," I said into comms. "Status report."

"This is Zero-G," Alex responded. "Lightspeed, Energizer, Princess Powerful, and myself are engaging against Magneto, above the Rockefeller Center!"

"How's that going?"

"Molly just walloped him into the ground with a flying drop kick, and i'm currently trying to keep him grounded with G-Force, while Energizer and Lightspeed are blasting him with a pretty impressive volley."

"Keep me posted on the battle, Zero-G. Call in for backup if you need it."

"Will do. Also, Mass Master is fighting Hydro-Man in the West Channel. Both of them are towering water men."

"That's gonna get memed. How's everyone else doing?"

"Nova Twin 1 reporting!" Kirakiraboshi phoned in.

"Why are you number 1?!" Sutadaiyamundo protested. "We're twins, and i'm 9 minutes older than you!"

"I'm a better flyer, and fighter!"

"I taught you how to fight, and had to hold your hand the first time we flew in space!"

"Whoa, ladies!" I stopped them. "Can't fight the bad guys and each other at the same time. Kira, you're Starlight, Daiya, you're Starbright. Those are placeholders, feel free to change them later, but let's nip that Nova 1 or 2 thing in the bud. Kay?"

They agreed, and continued with the briefing.

"My sister, Karolina, and I are fighting Green Goblin, 100 ft above the Chrysler Building." Daiya said

She said that as if it were the same as driving to the store to get some milk!

"And y'all are fine?" I asked her.

"Perhaps "fine" isn't the right word, but we're holding our own. Starlight and I are using the Nova Force to enhance our strength and speed, while Karolina attacks with her laser weapons. The magic from Doctor Strange is very effective in keeping the monster at bay. We can handle him for now."

"Thanks, girls. I won't leave ya hangin' for long. Wait, is that everyone?! What about the other three?! Anyone have eyes on a huge green dragon, Anaconda, or Jimmy?!"

"Don't know about the last two," America said. "But Hulkling's takin' on the dragon, just above the Empire State Building!"

I looked over, and sure enough, could see bright yellow flames searing downwards, being stopped by some kinda force field. Hulkling did something, and caused a wave of lightning to strike Fin Fang Foom, which i'll shorten to FFF, in the chest, and even managed to fly up, completely untouched by the flames, and stab him in the chest! FFF, roared in pain, actually shouting curses at him, and tried to swat the Young Avenger off of him.

"Well, that answers that," I said. "Ok, Rainbow Force, listen up, I have a plan! We know we can't put the bad guys in their magic cubbies all at once, it'll overload the spell, but if we organize when we put them in, it'll be easier on all of us! I'll take Fin Fang Foom into his spell seal, and lock him up."

"By yourself?!" Zero-G almost choked.

"Don't act so surprised, Powers," I responded. "I'm a literal solar battery, who can hit like a nuclear bomb. After today, you'll be callin' me dragon tamer!"

America rolled her eyes, and I continued with the plan.

"While that's goin' on," I continued. "America's gonna portal around, and move your fights roughly to where your villain's spell seal is. You guys are doing a great job of holding your own, so when it's time to pass the baton, I wanna make it fast and easy. Once we start knockin' these guys down, we can steadily link up, and make this more fun for us. Any questions?"

"Yeah, is that Geo-Titan hottie single?!" Molly asked. "I'd love to make the ground shake with-"

"Ok, 3,2,1, let's do this!" I interrupted her, as I flew towards Find Fang Foom!

I decided not to tell Grant about that! The guy needed his head as clear as possible. Also, with how strong him and Molly were…..actually, I don't even wanna think about it!

I quickly flew towards the Empire State Building, and politely took FFF from Hulking's hands! By that, I mean I literally reversed one of the dragon's fire streams back at his face, launched him skywards with a giant spring construct, and trapped him in a ball, before knocking him south, via giant baseball bat swing!

"Thanks, Teddy Bear," I smiled at Hulkling. "I'll take it from here."

I flew after FFF, and after launching him forward with a giant boot, tennis racket, and hockey stick, I did a backflip kick in a giant soccer player construct, and launched him into his spell seal! Dunno what an alien dragon's version of paradise was, but i'd find out soon enough.

I flew into the spell seal, and i'll admit it, I was blown away by the atmosphere! We were on what I assume was his home planet, and the massive Manhattan sized city we landed in was absolutely breathtaking! Giant multi-colored domed buildings, twice the size of skyscrapers, danced across the landscape! Most of them formed strange, but beautiful mashups of reptilian themed architecture. I couldn't tell what buildings were homes, stores, or schools. The entire city seemed to be connected by a series of giant stone branches, big enough to use as landing perches for FFF's kind, and the city was so high up, I could see a blanket of stars, nebulas, and galaxies! To be honest, this woulda been an ideal visit spot to put on my bucket list, but FFF clearly put his spin on what was already perfect without him. In the distance, on top of what was clearly a palace, was a giant statue to FFF. The statue was standing on its hind legs, wearing decorative dragon themed armor a Targaryen would wear, holding an elaborate long sword, with fangs bared, and yellow fire streaming from its mouth. For almost half a minute, the city morphed from a peaceful, serene environment, to a more militaristic look. The various buildings transformed into more rough looking structures, with turrets, half the size of skyscrapers, on the roofs. Dragons, similar to FFF, all made of yellow fire, started to materialize on the walkways and stone perches; all armed to the teeth with armor and weapons. Heck, barely 1,000 feet above me, hundreds of warships, literally in the image of FFF, materialized, with the main dragon at the head of the biggest one. Just like his statue, he was wearing fancy armor dressings, and was wielding a sword that coulda cut a skyscraper in half. His body was absently burning with yellow fire, and I think he was a little taller than usual.

"HEAR ME, GIRL!" he roared down. "HEAR ME, AND REJOICE! YOU ARE THE FIRST TO WITNESS THE TRUE GLORY OF MAKALU! THE ULTIMATE KINGDOM OF HE WHO-"

"YOU'RE DREAM SUCKS!" I yelled up with a megaphone construct. "THIS PLACE WAS AND IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOUR LAME ADDITIONS!"

"YOU DARE?!"

"I DOUBLE DARE! LEMME GUESS, YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT ON YOUR HOMEWORLD, SO YOU TRIED CONQUERING OURS! HOW'S THAT WORKED OUT FOR YA?!"

"INSOLENT WRETCH! MY KIND WERE PEACE LOVING FOOLS THAT SPURNED MY VISION OF A GALAXY RULED BY SUPERIOR BEINGS!"

"HA! KNEW IT! A REJECT, TRYING TO MAKE IT ELSEWHERE! PATHETIC!"

FFF growled, and his army stood at arms. He readied his sword, and his flames started to burn brighter.

"YOUR INSOLENCE WILL BE YOUR UNDOING, GIRL!" he roared. "IT IS I THAT MAKES THE PRONOUNCEMENTS HERE! IT IS I THAT HAVE THE FIRE OF A GOD COURSING THROUGH MY MAJESTY! I AM FIN FANG FOOM, HE WHOSE LIMBS SHATTER MOUNTAINS, WHOSE BACK SCRAPES THE SUN! I HONOR YOU WITH DEATH AT MY HANDS!"

He roared, and his warships opened fire on me, while his fire dragons flew up to attack me from below! I'll admit, I was scared for a second. If my assumptions weren't dead on, i'd be so freaking screwed, and I honestly shoulda brought back up anyway! Still, as the shots rained down, and the fire dragons charged for my death, I outstretched my hands, and made them all explode prematurely! YES! I KNEW IT! FFF, was talkin' all that mad trash about who he thought he was, but he shoulda realized who I was! It didn't matter that we were in his perfect fantasy, or that his power was doubled! His power was my power, and I was way better at using it!

For about 15 seconds, I let FFF throw everything he had at me! I recycled the energy of the premature explosions into a bonfire that coulda turned Manhattan to a pile of ashes, and before FFF knew what was happening, I released a wave of fire in every direction, tearing apart his constructs, and blowing him half a city away! Yeah, I didn't just throw back what he dished out; I straight up quadrupled it with my own fire! It. Felt. Great! Like I said, I never knew how much my body was holding itself back, until Sun Goddess took the child blocks off! Being able to release so much power from my body, and the knowing that I had so much more to dish out…...well, let's just say it was empowering! Anyway, I kicked into high gear, and flew after FFF. When I caught up, I sensed just how big of a number I actually did on him! Just from that one blastwave, I knocked his power down a 4th, and dazed the heck outta him! His fire was burning low, while mine's hadn't even begun to burn! I quickly wrapped myself in a 70 ft tall Huntsgirl construct, Rose from American Dragon, and continued to put the hurt of FFF!

All in all, we fought for a good six or seven minutes. FFF did everything in his power to beat me, but I stopped him cold on every turn. He attacked me with his huge sword, but I blocked it with a spear construct, and then broke it in half with some giant scissors. He didn't like that very much! He attacked me with a ferocious set of claw swipes, and fire blasts, but all he succeeded at was tiring himself out even more. Every swing I either blocked, dodged, or countered, and whenever he expended fire, I absorbed it into myself! Heck, most of the fight was basically me bleeding his power dry, singing Just Fine by Mary J. Blige, and countering everything the big lizard threw at m. And make no mistake, FFF gets an A for effort. As we fought, he kept changin' up his form. Oh, FFF was also a shapeshifter. I had to beat down a dragon, giant serpent, a giant, more scaly Hulk, and even a Godzilla-like Kaiju. It was a good workout, but fruitless for the big green dragon. In the end, it came down to fuel. He eventually ran low, while I could literally do this for a year.

"CURSE YOU!" FFF roared. "THIS WORLD IS MY RIGHT! I DESERVE TO-"

"BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!" I interrupted him again, as I proceeded to drain what was left of his energy. "Ya know, you talk a big game, but delivered on none of the goods. Let me spell it out for you, chump: you were never gonna win this. For all of your talk about grand destiny and power, you're nothin' but a bully and a liar! You claim the power of Apollo, but it was never yours to claim! The fire that you failed to wield, that leaves you even now, is mine! I am the granddaughter of the sun god! The sun is my birthright! It's power is in my very veins, and will lay you low where you belong!"

A little high and mighty, I know, but don't dish out what you can't take! Don't worry, unlike bad guys, I know when to shut up, and get to business. After absorbing all of FFF's power, I blasted him into the city below, which was now on fire, with a blast that woulda put a stadium sized crater into the ground! Instead, FFF's nightmare scenario finally came into play! The fire just burned away his ugly additions, and when the flames died out, FFF was in a giant golden cage, shaped like a dragon head, made of his own stupid statue!

"NO!" he roared. "RELEASE ME! I AM-"

He went on about his usual rhetoric, but I got booted from the spell seal before he could really get going; thank God.

"Just put Fin Fang Fool in his cage," I contacted my team.

"Wait all day for that one?" Molly laughed at me.

"So what if I did. How's things on this side?"

"Just got all the groups to their spots!" America said. "I got Anaconda! She's mine!

"What?! Chavez, wait! You can't open the portal without me!"

I flew over to Anaconda's spell seal, just over 10th Avenue and 48th Street, as America launched up out of a portal, trading blows with Anaconda! Those gals didn't give an inch, as they pummeled each other furiously! America was takin' shots to the face and back, while also dishin' out some nasty jabs and knees into Anaconda's sides, as well as a few throat chops. I had to shout the gatekeeper spell while dashed outta their way! Also, while i'm not fluent in Spanish, I knew enough to follow along with most of what America was saying. To think she used told kiss her mothers with that mouth! Anyway, I flew after them, and man was I starting to miss Venom's dreamscape! Don't get me wrong, his mind was a crazy mind melting Hell world that i'd never wanna re-visit, but at least it was original compared to FFF and Anaconda!

I landed next to America, Anaconda nowhere in sight, but lookin' around, this was definitely her scene. We were in a space bigger than five stadiums, that was like a Cathedral and Medieval castle merged together. Green and gold snakeskin designs decorated the walls and roofs. There were hundreds of elaborate pillars in what I guessed was the throne room, each decorated with a golden serpent wrapped around them, and a lotta stained glass windows depicting Anaconda brutally killing various heroes; one of which was me. The floors were made of silver, and had ornate snake designs engraved in them. Finally, about 400 meters in front of us, was an elaborate throne, shaped like a serpent head, atop a cartoonish level of stairs! Anaconda was sitting on the throne, absolutely drowning in God Steroids, with a wicked grin on her face. I didn't realize it at first, but I noticed the orange light flooding into the room from outside. While I definitely wouldn't put Anaconda on a powerhouse level, there was that same level of synergy she had with the God Steroids, that Venom had with the War Force. If this was anything like that, then I was glad that the ground wasn't a living construct this time.

"Like my new place?!" she shouted down to America and I. "Always wanted to settle down in Vegas! Some renovations needed, sure, but it don't get no better than Sin City!"

As she talked, the palace room filled with…..interesting things. First were Serpent Society grunts, no surprise there, then a Queensguard, made of men and women in golden snake scale armor, with long green capes, spears that had a decorative golden snake twisting up the shaft, and snake head helmets. For good measure, Anaconda threw in some giant snakes, slithering in from various hidden doorways and tunnel entrances. Most of em' were Anacondas, go figure, but I saw a few copperheads, cobras, cottonmouths, and rattlesnakes. Now comes the weird part. I wanna pretend that these were just assassins with a weird gimmick, but….yeah, the were totally sex slaves! The men were these hulking Arnold Schwarzenegger type dudes, wearing nothin' but scale patterned speedos, while the women ranged from petite to muscular; wearing scale patterned bikinis, with green loincloths you'd see on belly dancers. The men were armed with longswords, maces, spiked shields, and clubs. The women had daggers, bows and arrows, thorned whips, and spears. All em' had collars with an attached chain around their necks! It was kinda hot, though very, very, very creepy. All in all, I was kinda impressed with Anaconda's set up. The palace was a Slytherin's paradise, and unlike other constructs, these ones looked like actual people. The only way I could tell they weren't, aka why I wouldn't feel guilty about tearing them apart, were the all orange eyes that indicated that they were indeed constructs. I wanna say it was about 100 on 2, but that was only from what I could see. This palace stretched on for miles, and the reinforcements kept piling in. It was probably more like 2,000+ on two. Seeing as this was probably the last time i'd see something this bizarre, I stalled for time with questions.

"So you're dream fantasy is to be a queen?" I mocked her. "How original."

"Don't hate what you ain't, kiddo," she laughed back. "Green ain't your color. I'm more than just a queen! imagine being the pope, Kingpin, and President all at once! Besides, who doesn't wanna be the queen of their own world?!"

"Is that why you got concubines?" America growled at her. "Dios mio, you would be the kinda batshit insane chick to go all Prima Nocta, wouldn't you?!"

"Their warrior strippers, bitch!"

"Do you plan to f*(# them?"

"Well, not them! But when I make this real-"

"Sex slaves," I interrupted her.

Anaconda roared, and leapt at me and America! Gotta say, her leg day routine musta been killer, because she cleared 300 meters in one second! I had to blindside her with a train construct, sending her tumbling through two walls! America probably woulda went after Anaconda all on her own, but her snake army rallied to their queen's defense! In less than 10 seconds, we were up to our necks in well armed, extremely strong, snake themed soldiers and sex slaves. Not lettin' that last part go!

The first 30 seconds of the fight were a decent warm-up for what was to come. One thing I was worried about when fighting in an arena where the energy of freaking Hercules was doubled, was that I wouldn't have the strength to hold my own. I was half right in the sense that Anaconda's soldiers were about half as strong as Jason was. I slashed a few of em' down with my swords, burned a good handful with some mini-sun grenades, but when I kicked one of the Queensguard in the chest, he barely stumbled back. I put a blade in his chest, before he could counter, and gave myself a quick jump of Solar Steroids, to put myself on more even footing. America on the other hand, had absolutely zero problems keeping up in the fight! She portaled around, knocking pawns, Queensguard, and sex slaves around, with enough force to break the sound barrier, and Anaconda's ridiculously elaborate pillars. Heck, at one point, she took two maces, and went all Conan The Barbarian on the snake people! Things were lookin' pretty good for us, until the the wall behind Anaconda's throne started to crack! The psychotic blockhead charged in on the back of a giant Anaconda, big enough to swallow a bus, aiming straight for America!"

"BEHIND YOU, CHAVEZ!" I shouted.

America looked back just in time, and opened a portal just a few inches from the snakes mouth! She made it through, came back around just behind Anaconda, and kicked her across her face so hard, I actually felt bad for the psycho! Chavez planted several good jabs into Anaconda's lower back, but Anaconda got her Mr. Fantastic on, and wrapped herself around America! She started squeezing America, like her namesake, and this was how I gauged Anaconda's strength in here. I've seen America bench press the weight of 100 battleships, like it was nothing, yet here she was, struggling to break Anaconda's vice grip! Dunno if America coulda broken out, but I wasn't gonna risk it. I hit Anaconda in the back of the head with a soccer ball sized mini-sun, which loosened her grip just enough for Chavez to elbow her way out, slam Anaconda to the floor, savagely pound her face in a bunch, and then backflip kick her under the jaw, through the roof! Yeah, if it wasn't clear enough, America has a whole lotta rage issues she was struggling' through. The amount of hatred radiating off her was overwhelming, and no way was I gonna let her fight Anaconda alone in this state. First thing's first, had to deal with the charging giant serpent, who was targeting me now. I quickly launched a mini-sun grenade down its mouth, and took off after America, as the bomb blew a wave of fire outta the snake's body, and through Anaconda's whole freakin' throne room!

To say that it was a bit difficult keeping up with America and Anaconda would be an understatement. Not because I couldn't keep up, although I noticed a significant speed downgrade in Sun Goddess, compared to Super Sunbird. No, it was a mix of their fight being so all over the place, as well as Anaconda's minions butting in every chance they could! America and Anaconda punched, kicked, slammed, and suplexed each other across so many miles, through so many rooms, I almost felt bad about wrecking Anaconda's place. Seriously, they fought through a feasting hall, bath house, ballroom, and even a dungeon! America was holdin' her own as well as she could, but Anaconda's strength boost was outta this world! For every five hits of damage America got in, Anaconda did twice as much with one! America maintained a slight edge, as she was the better flyer, and also had the portals, but Anaconda was gradually countering that with her stretchy powers. America started missing more and more, as Anaconda twisted and contracted her body where America's hit would've landed. More than that, Anaconda got more creative with her constrictor gimmick; actually enlarging her fists, to give America one heck of a fist volley to the face! Chavez had to ram Anaconda repeatedly into the ballroom floor, just to get free! If you're askin' where I was in all this ruckus, it was keepin' thousands of soldiers, Queensguard, giant snakes, and sex slaves outta the battle! Yeah, I wasn't the only one trying to help out her buddy! In every room America an Anaconda fought in, their were hundreds of Anaconda's forces waiting to ambush America and I! I kept most of em' at bay with Gatling gun constructs, cannons that shot mini-sun grenades, a whole lotta giant lions! Still, it's hard to keep thousands of super beings away all on your own. So many times, I had to let America fend for herself, as Anaconda's forces closed in on me! One time, I found myself pinned down in the palace weapons hall, with thousands of Anaconda's forces. Again, I kept them at bay with lotsa constructs, and fire waves, but they seemed to be getting stronger by the second! After a few minutes, I was fending them off with constructs and my spear! The only thing that was keepin' me ahead of the fight was my speed, and just as I was about to release one more blastwave of fire, enough to give me the space to keep movin', I heard a voice in the back of my head.

"You gonna bother to use me any time soon?" The raspy voice asked. "I'm wastin' away here, lady!"

"Hush now, Orpheus!" a deep, female, almost grandmotherly, voice responded. "You'll scare the child!"

"Because i'm a serpent?! You prejudiced heifer!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I thought to the voices in my head…...which wasn't weird at all. "First of all, be nice to each other! Second, who the actual heck are y'all?!"

"Oh yeah!" a squeaky, chipper, voice joined the party. "Sorry, Allyson, forgot this is our first time actually meeting! We're your guardian spirits! My name's Pip!"

"Uhhhhhhhhh…."

"Oh, great job, rat!" Orpheus hissed at him. "You talk and talk for millennia, but choke on the delivery! Now i'll never get any action! I'm gonna swallow you!"

"You've been tryin' for 5,000 years, ya loudmouth! You couldn't catch a dead snail!"

"Ok!" I interrupted them. "Pip, Orpheus, be nice to each other or…...I dunno, i'll punish you…...somehow! Now, will any and all unaccounted voices in my head make yourselves known, and give me a straight answer on why i'm goin' crazy?!"

For half a sec, seven animal figures, about the size of PS4 controllers, buzzed around in my general eyesight, before fading back into my blaze. There were seven in total: a snake, mouse, doe, wolf, cow, raven, and a crow. Yeah, ravens and crows aren't the same; common misconception.

"Greetings, granddaughter of Apollo," a deep, scholarly voice echoed in my head. "Apologies for my compatriots; they're intellectual inferiors that have been waiting countless millennia to be let out for a walk. I am Rowenos, the raven figure. Worry not, I shall explain away your doubts after my fellow compatriots have introduced themselves."

"This ought be good!" a female, Whoopi Goldberg-like voice cackled. "Get ready for a show, y'all! Beak Brain's gonna crack! Oh, i'm Mnemosyne, the crow, Ally. Nice to meet ya. Please don't die; we've waited 50,000 years for a descendant of Apollo to be this strong to manifest our forms. It's been soooooooooo borrrrrrrrrring!"

"What she means…" the grandmotherly voice said. "Is that we are at your service, and do not wish to see you harmed. I'm Martha, the cow, and I'm looking forward to aiding you on your adventures."

"Ugh," a gruff, feminine voice growled. "Useless sentiment. I am Lupa, the wolf, girl, and I thirst for enemy blood! Let me loose upon these cretins that assail you!"

"She's a feisty one," a soft and sweet voice almost sang. "But she's a real sweetheart inside. She just needs a good scratch behind the ears! I am Elle, the roe doe. While not one for combat, I am useful for healing, and illuminating dark and unsure paths. You should really use Orpheus and Lupa on this one. You're gettin' swamped!"

"I was going to suggest that," Rowenos said. "But before I guide your tutorial, a brief backstory. As you know, or should know, we are the various animals sacred to the sun god. In this form, when your fire and spirit burn as one, it unlocks an evolution that can only be described as godly. You are quite literally, as close to being a goddess as mortally possible. We are eternal extensions of the sun god's will and power, bound to serve his descendants whenever called upon."

"With no benefits, pensions, or paid leave!" Pip squeaked.

"Quiet you! It is our honor to serve! As I was saying, we are extensions of Apollo's will and power, meaning we are an extension of your will and power, Allyson."

"Ok," I thought. "I dig this so far. If nothin' else, y'all are more fun than Monday night wrestling! Ok, so how do I sic ya on these goons here?! My friend needs me!"

"Calm yourself. That is the first step. Anger, fear, even various forms of excitement distort the flow energy and information. Second, attune yourself to the energy of the animal spirits you wish to command. Orpheus and Lupa are up first, yes? Let us start with them."

I did as he said, and focused on Lupa and Orpheus' energies. I expected them to feel the same, but they were almost radically different, save for the fact that they were made of my fire! Lupa's energy was a bonfire of protective anger, and thirst for violence. I got the sense that she was a sweetheart, so long as there were no enemies around to threaten me. Orpheus' energy was that of a calm and calculated flame, waiting for the right moment to show how dangerous he really was. I predicted he'd be a more effective and dangerous fighter than Lupa. It took a few seconds to get in sync with my new spirit pals, but I was able to lock onto their energies, and get ready for the next step.

"Alright," Rowenos continued. "Now, construct the command 'attack' with the letters phasing in and out of your general vicinity! Merge them with Lupa and Orpheus, and they'll do the rest!"

"You mean the Greek gibberish floating around me?!" I responded. "Sorry, Ro, I don't get the language!"

"A fact I find troubling. You should learn, as it is the superior alphabet. Nevertheless, you do not have to. Will the words into being, and the letters will obey your command. Be sure that you truly mean them, girl. Like the son of Apollo that perished, driving the sun chariot, the words will not respond to the will of the weak!"

"No sweat, Ro! If I can ace Mrs. Videl's midterm, I can do anything!"

Can't tell if Rowenos was feeling pride, or laughing at me, but I was too focused on my work to figure it out. I thought really, really, really, really, hard about spelling attack, and after about 15 seconds, I actually managed to do it! Ro wasn't kidding; those letters were as stubborn as donkeys! I practically had to reign them in, like rowdy children! Still, I managed to get the command up and running (επίθεση) merged it with Lupa, and oh my goodness was it so worth it! In half a sec, Lupa went from the size of a plush toy, to the size of a bus! Her form was more solid than even my constructs! It was like an actual giant wolf was on fire! And don't get me started on how she fought! For the first time in a year, I had trouble keeping up with something! She slashed and bit down hundreds of enemies by the second! I barely even needed Orpheus in the fray, but he'd whine about it if I didn't let him loose. One thing I did notice was how summoning my spirit animals drained me mentally and spiritually. On top of a fleeting migraine, I felt like someone made my soul do a 5k run! Also, and this was the most troubling part, I finally felt a decline in my Sun Goddess power; roughly by 20%.

"Ah, yes," Rowenos said. "I thought it best if you experienced it for yourself. Summoning our might takes a toll on your spirit, and ripples into temporary mental discomfort."

"Thanks for the heads up," I snapped at him. "Also, I just felt-"

"A decline in your newly discovered power, yes. As previously started, this power is a result of spiritual balance with your natural power. To summon us in battle is to upset that balance, and a decline in your near godhood form. Worry not, as this will not affect your base power level; especially since you've absorbed the power of seven suns. You will just phase back into your normal power level."

"I better get a shot at the big time, before that!" Mnemosyne butted in.

"Quiet, crow!"

"Don't start!" I interrupted them. "Ok, I need to find America and Anaconda…...Elle, you're up.

"Yay!" she squeaked, as merged her with the Greek word for find (εύρημα).

Like Orpheus and Lupa, Elle grew to enormous size, and didn't waste a second in leading the way to my friend! Again, it was refreshing to actually have to try to keep up with something in a while! As Elle dashed through dozens of rooms, I was barely able to keep up, via following her trail of destruction, and eventually, the seismic booms from America and Anaconda's fight! When I did eventually find them, in some kinda bedroom, Elle reverted back to mini size, while Lupa and Orpheus jumped Anaconda! They worked together, almost using the woman as a ball! Lupa whacked her about with her paws, while Orpheus crushed her under his tail, and passed her back to Lupa over and over again. That left me with the buckets of fun that was Ms. America. Yeah…...she was a wreck. First of all, while they were trading blows back and forth, America obviously wasn't winning the fight against Anaconda. Her body shield was barely active, she was sweating and panting furiously, and she was growling like a lion! Again, the pure rage radiating off this chick was overwhelming; I had to calm this down, before she got herself killed. She definitely didn't make that easy, as she tried charging Anaconda again and again! I wasn't stupid enough to try and restrain her, and while i'm certain she was gonna chew me out for this later, I dropped an elephant construct on top of her, before singing her calm with some lyrics from Silent Night. Yeah….she broke down in tears! I hadn't even known this girl for 12 hours, but I knew she was tough as nails. If something could get her to shed tears, it had to be a big deal. I decided to take a time out with her, to get to the bottom of whatever this was. I set a dome of fire around the area of the fight, keeping out Anaconda's forces, and as Lupa and Orpheus wrestled with the snake lady, I had a heart to heart with my friend.

"Come on, Chavez," I said as I hugged her face. "You're out of it, girl. What gives?"

"K-K-Katie-" she sniffled. "That ass hurt my best friend!

"Wait, Hawkeye? What happened? Where is she?"

"The snake bitch got the drop on her. Slammed her through five floors, and damn near beat her to death! I barely got to her in time!"

"But she's alive?"

"Yeah. Got her to a room in the Plaza. She's in bad shape. Dunno if she'll make it."

"She will! I promise you that, America. After we finish up with dumb and ugly, portal me straight to Kate, and i'll take care of the rest. But I need you, girlie. I need you at your best. You gotta snap outta this, and get your head back in the game. If for no other reason, do it for Kate. She needs you."

America's face slowly morphed into her usual defiant self, and I sung a few bars of Now or Never, from HSM 3, to help boost her resolve. She got to her feet, and pounded a fist into her palm!

"Alright, what's the plan?" she asked me.

"Gimme a sec," I responded, as I honed in on Anaconda's emotions.

Like I said, she was just like Venom, in the sense that she was almost perfectly suited for her respective god energy of choice. Venom's Achilles Heel was his repressed emotions he had towards Eddie and Spider-Man. Anaconda….well, Anaconda didn't exactly have one. With Venom, there was a core of negative emotions I could use to pry his relationship apart. Anaconda was the opposite. She was original Maleficent, bad for the sake of bad, with no regrets, shame, or remorse. More so, she liked power, and liked hurting people with that power. We could try beating her into submission, but that was an unsure option at best. Even if me and Chavez did have the muscle to take her down, it would undoubtedly take more time than we could justify spending on one baddie. Had to tackle this from a different angle. I let Lupa and Orpheus fight with Anaconda for a little longer, as I summoned Elle and Rowenos into the fray. I merged Elle with the Greek word for boost (ώθηση), and dream (όνειρο) for Rowenos.

"Since when-" America started.

"Five minutes ago," I answered. "Long story short, they're little helpers, with big mouths. Ok, plan time! So, we can't out punch her. Sorry, I know that gets under your skin, but it's true. Don't worry, you'll get to hit her a bunch, but we're more putting her to sleep than knockin' her out."

"Got it. No fun."

I laughed at her, as I called off Orpheus and Lupa, and charged Anaconda with America!

Together, we gave Anaconda a decent run for her money. America was a pretty good fighter, mixing her flying and portalling with some decent MMA/DBZ moves. In that area, she completely decimated Anaconda, who was more of a street brawler. As America fought Anaconda hand-to-hand, I stayed in the background, running interference. I blocked as many of Anaconda's oncoming shots with pop up shields, as well as getting a few good shots to her back, face, and joints. I also kept her off-balance as much as I could via restraining her arms and legs with ball chains, solar webbing, and giant Care Bears! While all that was going on, I sang calming Christmas songs. By the time I got through Believe and When Christmas Comes to town, Anaconda was up against the ropes! It was taking everything she had just to stay up, and America was not in a chivalrous mood, as she kept pounding the crap outta her! Seriously, I eventually had to turn my sleepy time song on my own teammate! She woulda bashed Anaconda's face in! Speaking of which, Anaconda tried like heck to stay in the fight, but my silver tongue mixed with my golden voice, finally put her down.

"Shhh," I gently pushed her on a giant pillow construct. "It's over, babe. You won. Those other girls never stood a chance; not against arms like those."

I dunno what kinda dream Ro was feeding her, but she smiled like she was in paradise.

"Yeah….." she muttered. "Stupid…sun bitch. Try singin' with no teeth, ya…"

She dozed off finally.

"What a violent and deranged woman," Ro said "The things she dreamed of doing to you and your friend are horrifically vile! She resembles a mad dog more so than an intelligent human being. Are you sure it wouldn't be best to put her down?"

"We don't kill when we can help it, Ro," I responded. "Besides, her bark is way worse than her bite."

"Rest assured," Lupa spoke up. "I have a bite worthy of my bark!"

I chuckled and rolled my eyes at her, as the spell seal spit me and America out.

True to her word, Chavez grabbed me by the arm, and portaled me to Kate ASAP. Hawkeye was lying on a queen sized bed, in a room that reminded me of the one Kevin rented in Home Alone 2. America wasn't lying about the damage either. Kate's armor, was pretty banged up, and while it prevented the worst, the girl was still in rough shape. She had a nasty welt on her forehead, and her breathing was crackly and labored. I could tell she had bruised ribs, maybe even a few broken. Also, her left arm, as well as both her kneecaps, were completely dislocated. It pained me to see her this way, so I wasted no time singing a few notes over her, and getting her back to fighting shape. Her ribs mended, and the welt on her forehead disappeared, but her joints violently popped back into place! Kate woke up with a weird gasp/yell, and almost socked me in the jaw! I managed to duck under it, and before Kate tried again, America grabbed her from behind with a huge bear hug!

"It's ok, it's ok, it's ok," she kept muttering to Kate. "You're ok, girl, you're alright."

Kate eventually managed to catch her breath, get her bearings, and calm down.

"Sorry," she said to me.

"No worries," I responded. "I get it. Reflexes. I'm just glad you're ok."

"More than ok. I'm pissed off and ready for round 2!"

"Like hell you are, loco!" America protested. "Your armor's busted, you almost got beaten to death, and i'll be damned if I let you get yourself killed!"

"Try it, Chavez, and i'll shoot an arrow up your ass! You know better than to stand between me and a fight. I got my bow, a quiver full of trick arrows, and a backup pair of shades. I'm good to go. So unless you want me to use that star on your sexy overalls as a target, get outta my way."

Dang. I'll give it to Kate, she was a feisty one. Heck, I almost woulda bet money on her against, Chavez! That's how much badass she projected! I expected the two of them to do a little back and forth, before Kate's will eventually won out over Chavez, but that didn't take long at all! Chavez grabbed Kate's face, and pulled her in for a kiss so deep and passionate, my face went cherry red immediately! Not that you could see it, as I was still on fire. Though I somehow wasn't burning the floor. Anyway, Kate was definitely surprised, even a little hesitant at the start, but gradually kissed back with as much passion as America. I couldn't exactly blame America, ya never know how much you need something, until it almost gets taken from you, but we kinda had a tight schedule to get back to.

"Ahem," I spoke up.

The two girls managed to pull away from each other; Kate just as red in the face as I was.

"Sorry," I continued. "Y'all are adorable, but we still have a world to save, so….."

"Yeah," Kate said. "Of course. Sorry."

"I'm not," Chavez said."

"And you shouldn't be," I responded. "I get it. But if ya don't mind putting a pin in that for now. If we win the day, that was just the first of many."

They managed to pull themselves into work mode, and quickly changed the subject!

"Ok, so what now?" America asked.

"First off," I started. "Drop Hawkeye off back at the battle. Somewhere high, where she can camp and snipe."

"I resent that," she responded. "I shoot up close just as good!"

"I'm sure you do, but you're on Sniper Team, so sniping it is. America, you portal over to Magneto, and help our team out with him; they're starting to lose ground. The Nova Twins, and Karolina have Goblin under control for now, and after I handle Jimmy, i'll give them a hand."

"Whoa, whoa, pump the brakes, blondie!" America spoke up. "That sucker destroyed a mountain in one punch! At least take me for backup!"

"I don't plan to fight him. He's a friend of Storm-Lord's, and he's rightly miffed. The world's given him such a short stick, no wonder he gave in to the dark side. Still, I can save him, I know it. And if not, I can handle myself, Chavez. But seriously, thanks for the backup; you totally get the rainbow MVP star!"

She sighed, but quickly realized she was not gonna gain any ground on this one, making her 0 for 2. Jeez, Kate was gonna have no problem getting her way with this girl!

"Ok," she said. "But how you gonna find him?"

I turned on my comms.

"Sunbird here," I said. "Anyone seen a white dude with long dreads, and a really big axe? I'll take him off your hands now, pretty please."

"Azuri, of the Wakandan Special Forces, responding," an African voice responded. "Subject is in front of Pierpont Morgan Library, engaging in combat with my squad. We need assistance as soon as possible!"

"On my way!"

I flashed America and Kate a smile, and flew off to save the day!

Yeah…so, if I was wrong on my instincts, I was really gonna be in it deep, because Jimmy was nothin' short of a beast on the battlefield! He was strong enough to where he was shattering the Wakandan Special Forces force field gear, and was currently using vines to strangle them to death! If I was a second later, 30 lives woulda been snuffed out! Thank God, I arrived just in time, and trucked Jimmy from behind; clearly making my peaceful intentions known. I put Jimmy into a catapult construct, and launched him as far as I could towards 34th Street. Afterwards, I knocked him west, with a really big ping pong paddle construct, and followed up with subsequent paddle smacks. I managed to get my new acquaintance about a mile away from Madison Square Garden, before he blasted free of my ball, with a huge Nature Force wave, and hurled his axe straight at me! I managed to get up a giant shield construct in front of me, but Jesus Christ, that axe hit my shield with the force of a tank! I just barely managed to keep my shield intact, but that didn't matter, as Jimmy favored a more direct approach. He called his axe back, and dashed towards my shield. For what it's worth, he finished the job, smashing though my shield, and made a beeline towards me! I summoned my spear, and as Jimmy came in for a swing, dashed downwards, completely dodging it. Just as I thought he would, he barreled after me, blasting waves of Nature Force. It went on like that for about two minutes, as I always stayed on the move, with sparse moments of having to deflect attacks, and parry axe strikes. When I managed to lure Jimmy just a few miles below his spell seal, I slammed him from behind with a monster truck construct, chained him to the hood, and diverted the constructs path upwards. As you can see, my diplomatic approach was going perfectly.

I flew in the spell seal, after Jimmy, and was immediately at a loss for words with how beautiful his paradise was! First off, it wasn't based on vain self gratification, or horrific pent up feelings, but an actual nice place! I dunno where we were exactly, but it was a large meadow, with the most beautiful of flowers dotting the sea of green. Rolling hills decorated the far distance, and the sunset was painting the sky a beautiful pink and blue mixture. Barely half a mile behind me, an elaborate drawing studio, the kind you'd see on a celebrity owned secluded ranch, stood. From what I could see, there were half finished statues, paintings, and pottery pieces that looked like someone merged classic Greco-Roman vases with crazy straws. It was a crazy, beautiful, explosion of ideas, and I loved them! That made me all the more resolved to not fight Jimmy; even when he came in guns blazing at me!

I'll give it to him, the guy had raw talent! Jimmy literally exploded outta the ground, in a giant avatar of himself, made completely of thrones vines, with four huge Doctor Octopus tentacles lifting him 20 ft off the ground, and his axe, which could apparently grow to fit his size changes! He came at me with a flurry of axe swings, and tentacle lashes, but as fast as he was, I was easily twice as fast. That's not to say that Jimmy didn't have a lotta really good tricks up his sleeve. His tentacles shot out some kinda weird pollen haze, that when ignited with Nature Force, created an explosion that knocked me sky high!

"You're strategy of finding a peaceful resolution to this conflict seems to be failing," Ro said.

"No $#!+, nerd," Mnemosyne responded.

"Language!" I chided her. "Also, i'm just getting started! Martha you're up!"

I merged my cow spirit with another boost spell, and enveloped myself in a lesser version of a mini sun, where it was basically a really big hard light orb, radiating sunlight. As the waves of light rained down, I sang Take Me To The King, trying to calm Jimmy's aggressiveness. And believe me, the guy was plenty aggressive! Even in the air, he fought like he was always on home turf. He reshaped trees into makeshift catapults that flung different kinds of cannon balls at me. Some were the same variant of his pollen haze explosives, while others were giant spurs, that scatter shot thorns. I had to put a lotta energy into keeping my shield up! Thankfully, as the song went on, Jimmy's fighting spirit went down. He flung less Nature Force blasts at me, and his tree catapults reverted back to normal. Heck, he even dropped his combat avatar, and his axe. In response, I put away my spear, and slowly descended to meet him on the ground; my hands outstretched in a peaceful gesture.

"Hey there," I said. "Are we feelin' a little less stabby?"

"Y-yes," he said, clearly trying to fight my calming vibes. "B-b-but…..this is…..your doing. Y-you're…..in my mind."

"Unfortunately. I hate forcing you to do stuff you don't want, but you're confused."

"N-no. I am free. My lord Doom has given me power. You wish to take it away."

"Your lord wants to build his empire on a foundation of skulls."

"All are welcome to join him in the new world. Those that perish do so of their own choice."

"Join or die is not a choice."

"Then why are you making the wrong one?"

"So you're fine with millions, possibly billions of lives being snuffed out? Countless people who only committed the crime of refusing to bow to a tyrant?"

"It is not as you say, girl."

"I disagree, but i'm also kinda bored now. Hey, wanna play around in your art studio?"

"Art studio?"

He looked past me, and saw the warehouse sized art building behind me. His face lit up. I don't think he knew it was there.

"Erm," he started.

"Yup," I smiled back at him. "It's a beauty. Some really good stuff in there. A lot of em' are unfinished. How about we not try and kill each other, and make some art. I'm not too bad with a pencil and paintbrush myself; and I start pottery as an elective next semester!"

A confused smile flashed across Jim's face, as he really wanted to play in his art room, but obviously didn't trust me all that much.

"And the battle?" he asked.

I summoned Rowenos again, put a speed charm on him, and merged his enhancement with Martha's, because apparently I could do that. I had them both hover over the art studio, and turned back to Jim.

"Now we have time," I said. "So how about it? Truce?"

I extended my hand, and after a bit of an uncomfortable silence, Jim finally shook it. We walked into the studio together, and after getting a brief lay of the area, started at the drawing station. Jim and I kinda got into a little bit of a competition, as we moved across various topics. Whether it was backgrounds, people, buildings, animal's, etc., we were silently seeing who could do what better. After drawing a beach, meadow, mountain range, city from a high point, a couple holding hands, and a pug face, it was clear Jim was the better drawer. The guy had a talent for detail, atmosphere, and perspective, that I was still trying to learn. He gave me some tips here and there, so I did improve some in the relative ten hours we drew. Oh yeah, about that last bit, the speed/boost charms I was running made it to where two hours in here were the equivalent of one minute in the real world. So yeah, as long as I minded the time, my little art room break wasn't gonna be the death of anyone! Jim and I worked though the paint and pottery stations in about 8 hours. He pretty much dropped the whole competition aspect of our dynamic, and just focused on his work/helping me out here and there. As we worked, he lowered his guard, and let me in on how he came to be such a good artist. It was mainly a mix of free YMCA classes, as well as free drawing whatever he saw on newspapers, magazines, and billboards. He would dumpster dive for paper and half empty paint buckets, and used those to practice his painting. Also, whenever the Y offered free pottery classes, he was there from dawn to dusk, working on his vases, pots, cups, clay mosaics, and eating as much blueberry muffins as he could stuff into his mouth. Again, the guy was kind of a savant. He made pots reminiscent of Greek, Roman, African, and Polynesian designs. He liked to merge the styles whenever he could, and made super creative variants on even the simple stuff. I….made a lumpy cup.

"Ok," I laughed with him. "Not bad for my first piece, but i'm definitely gonna be taking lotsa notes come next semester."

"Do not be too hard on yourself," he chuckled at me. "For a journeyman artist, you are quite adequate. Those for example…."

He reached over for some sketches I did of an imaginary city I kept building. Dunno why, I just liked to do it. This part was meant to be the capital, being a mix of Meet The Robinsons future tech, mixed with some of the towers i've seen in pictures of Wakanda, as well as some of the more impressive cities in Star Wars. I imagined my city to have roads similar to a labyrinth, where the roadways shifted and changed based on the user's destination. It was also a city that merged with nature, rather than overtake it, with thick redwood trees being a network for advanced apartment-like buildings, and zipline transportation. In the skies were flying creatures ranging from ordinary birds, to Dragons, and those weird bird creatures from Avatar.

"These are quite impressive," he continued. "Your imagination and eye for organization makes up for your inexperience. Indeed, this is a worthy city. Under my lord, Doom you would flourish. In fact…"

He was as giddy as a kid on Christmas, as he quickly sketched a city on a blank canvas. He got barely under halfway through, before balling it up.

"Sorry," he said. "That wasn't right. Let me try something else."

He started another sketch, going pretty fast, even by my standards, before once again balling up his work in mild frustration. He did this a few more times, and I decided to check out what was his problem. To be honest, they weren't bad at all. The outlines and varying detail Jim managed to draw into the various city structures were good. The kinda reminded me of Tron, mixed with the War/Fall of Cybertron games. The various designs struck a sense of reverence and terror in me; kinda like a supermax prison, fortress, or one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarriers. I admired the work and ingenuity that went into them, but they were not high on places I actually wanted to be.

"No, no, no," Jim muttered. "This keeps coming out wrong!"

"What are ya trying to make, bud?" I asked him.

"The perfect world. The world my lord has promised us all under his reign. I feel his will guiding my hands, but this….."

"Do me a favor. Close your eyes, and use your nature powers. Create what you feel. Don't change or fight it. Let's see what this brave new world has to offer."

Jim was fighting me a bit on this, but he eventually did as I asked. Again, the guy was a natural creative. Using Nature Force, he created miniature constructs of various cities and landmarks in Doom's 'glorious' new empire. Again, the various cities looked more like fortresses, rather than living spaces. Big and intimidating structures that, while showing off the glory of Doom's new nation, lacked heart and variety. I couldn't tell the difference between a school, apartment, or lumber store. Also, think of any monument. Seriously, any one ya want. Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Monument, Mount Rushmore, all that jazz. Yeah, apparently the answer was 'add more Doom', as the various monuments morphed into variations of his ego. Before: Statue of Liberty, After Doom clenching a fist. The Lincoln Monument had him on the throne, rather than Honest Abe, with the words "In Doom We Rise" in big bronze letters behind him. Same thing with Mount Rushmore, the Atlas Statue, and every other monument in the world. Doom literally put his stamp over the whole world, and Jim didn't look too pleased about that.

"No," he said, as he looked on with horror. "This….this isn't what I wanted. This isn't what he promised."

"It's EXACTLY what he promised," I responded. "Doom is the ultimate egotist, who wants the whole world to kiss his butt. It was a happy ending for him first, with you being so far below, you can't even call yourself second."

Jim was starting to breathe rapidly now, so I hummed a calming tune to keep him from freaking out.

"He promised…..he lied. This isn't freedom. A world that looks like this cannot be free. No diversity of style or architecture. No soul or heart. But….he made me whole. He made me a god."

"He gave you a bone," I said. "And in return, he knew you'd be loyal, so long as you didn't see the truth. I mean no disrespect, but an old proverb says evil preys on weak, because it fears the strong."

"A harsh truth, but a truth nonetheless. Doom deceived me. Even now he enthralls millions under his false paradise. Millions willing to give up their individuality, just to grab a free salvation; be it a false one."

He Held out his right arm, and his axe materialized in his hand. God, him and Grant would get along!

"We must stop him!" he yelled. "I'll cleave his head in two!"

"No!" I yelped. "Don't get me wrong, I love the enthusiasm, and yeah, unfortunately Doom does have to die, but you have to stay here. The spell seal we're in is a part of our plan to stop him. If you wanna help, just sit tight and make more art."

"But…...i've killed. Good men, innocent men. They did not deserve to die. I must atone for my crimes."

"And you will, but I need you to start by staying here, and making more art. Heck, draw your city. The city of tomorrow you'd wanna build. I dunno if you'll be able to keep it, but draw it. Sometimes the best thing to do, even if it's the hardest, is nothing."

Again, Jim wanted to fight me on this, but my puppy dog eyes were more than he could handle.

"Alright, girl," he sighed. "As you wish. I…..I suspect I will be imprisoned, should you win this battle?"

"Yes, but I promise, it won't be for long."! You made a mistake in a moment of life or death. I won't see you indefinitely imprisoned for that. Even if I have to fight all of S.H.I.E.L.D. myself, you don't deserve to be in a supermax prison with the worst of the worst villains. We'll work something out. I promise."

Yeah, Jim was a good guy, and I immediately got protective of him. Fury might use him for experiments, black ops, or any number of secret things. I wasn't gonna let my new friend be a pawn for him!

"Thank you," Jim said, as he gently grabbed my shoulder. "What do I call you?"

"Sunbird," I said, as I felt the portal start to spit me out. "I'll see you around!"

I rejoined the main fight, and darn near had a heart attack, as I giant sea dragon was flying up towards the sky battle, barely a few feet in front of me! Heck, there was a tidal wave splitting chunks of itself off, and flying into the main battle, while Atlantean warships and fighter vessels were battling Dragon Empress' forces! I A bit of a shock, but I saw it as a good sign. Namor and Atlantis were ok, pissed off, and fighting back like bosses!

"Sunbird to Rainbow Force," I said to my comms. "Just put another of the seven in their cubie. Moving onto Goblin now!"

"About time!" Karolina said. "This guy's freaking nuts for you!"

"Still?! Huh, i'm flattered. Comin' in hot now!"

I dashed over to The Avenue of The Americas, and found Goblin holding his own against the Nova Twins, and Karolina; all empowered with the Holy Waters of Eden spell. The Nova Twins were good. They used their speed to deal quick melee attacks, while also mixing in some good blasts to Goblin's face and joints; throwing off his blasts and claw attacks. Karolina….bless her heart, was doing the best she could! Yeah, I found this out in training last night, but the girl was a good flyer, not a fighter. What little combat training we managed to get in proved she had potential, and needed to keep at it, but she clearly never received proper aerial combat training, nor did she even try to teach herself. She flew around the battle, blasting at Goblin with her amazing ultraviolet light blasts. Normally, her blasts wouldn't do much in the way of damage, but her suit enhanced her powers. She also had these cool alien baton things that focused her through them to make weapons! She was currently goin' ham upside Goblin's head with some ultraviolet light maces! Sure, her form was terrible, she was abysmal on managing her momentum/recovering from diving, but she was trying like crazy! I definitely made a note to help train her after this was over. Anyway, I slammed into Goblin, inside a giant ram construct, and rocketed him into his spell seal, with my gals following after me!

I didn't know what to expect with Goblin's dreamscape. The guy was basically a reanimated husk, acting on the will of some other influence. For all I knew, he didn't have a paradise. Boy was I wrong! Karolina, myself, and the Nova Twins found ourselves on the exact same field that Jason, Grant, and I first battled the undead army. It was actually creepy how much this place was an exact replica of the conditions we faced that day. Me and the girls were on the same level of the field that Jason, Grant, and I fought the zombies. The air was chilling, with the only sound being the wind rustling the field. Also, the sky was a dark purple, with thunderless lightning flashing every so often. Before I could take a guess as to what was coming next, a purple meteor crashed into the ground, about two miles away from us! The land behind the meteor went ablaze with purple fire, and Goblin's monstrous form rose from the flame! Before, he wasn't wearing his black armor. Now he was. He also had a new axe, blazing purple eyes, and a voice that resonated down to my very soul!

"The shining one!" he laughed at me. "We meet again! Welcome to your final battle!"

The flames behind him transformed into various Death Force wraiths, that looked like a mix between Dementors and medieval knights. The kinda stuff that wouldn't look outta place in Lord of The Rings/Darksiders. Just like last time, the army numbered in the thousands, but their had to be at least twice as many now, and I was lacking an army of my own. Also, Goblin's death aura was still a thing. In Sun Goddess, the power didn't dampen my flames too much, but this was definitely not gonna be an easy fight. Still, I wasn't one to throw in the towel so soon, and anything that pumpkin bomb throwing imp could do, I could do better! I focused on the remaining charges I had for my guardian spirits. I had one left for Lupa, Orpheus, and Martha, with Pip and Mnemosyne on two full charges; Elle Rowenos tapped out. Although I could still talk to Ro for advice.

"Hey, Ro?" I quickly asked him. "If I wanted to make an army-"

"The enhancement would work, yes," he said. "For each charge, you would guarantee a thousand fighting soldiers each. A word of caution, Allyson. This will tax you the most, mentally speaking. Also, the soldiers' fighting spirit and physical manifestation will be tied directly with your own will and constitution. If you should become too distracted, their forms will perish."

"Thanks for the heads up, Ro. I'll be sure to nail this creep extra hard for ya!"

"Much appreciated, my lady."

I thought about Ro's advice, and decided to cheat a little bit. First, I used one on Mnemosyne's charges for a boost enchantment. I had her boosting everything. My powers, my speed, the effect of my songs, and most important, the number of troops I had to work with! Yeah, Rowenos promised me 1,000 each per charge, but with Mnemosyne boosting me, I was able to stretch that number to 1,500! Speaking of which, my solar army was freakin' awesome! I expected my reinforcements to simply be bigger clones of my animal spirits, but they really dressed to impress! Orpheus was the biggest of the bunch, transforming himself into 1,500 basilisk-like giant snakes, as big and long as 10 school buses lined up! Martha multiplied into 1,500 cows that could stand upright, kinda like Back at the Barnyard, and were wearing Samurai armor, with Katanas in hand. I guess you could call the Samoorais?! That was funny, and you know it. Anyway, Lupa multiplied into 1,500 versions of herself, about the size of a single bus, all wearing armor suited to her body. Finally, Pip multiplied in 1,500 versions of himself, all a foot taller than me, wearing armor suited to their form. All in all, it was 6,003 vs….I dunno, probably double that with Goblin's army. This was definitely gonna be fun.

"Alright!" Kira pumped her fist. "Star power for the win!"

"Haven't won yet," Daiya killed her joy. "He still outnumbers her at least 2 to 1."

"Should we go Super Nova, then?"

"Nova Prime."

"Same deal!"

"Not yet," I said. "See that purple haze coming in? That's Goblin's death aura. I'm countering it with my own sun aura, but we gotta work double time to get the odds back on our side."

I paused for a sec, and pushed my doubt as far away from my head as possible. It didn't matter that I wasn't comfortable with leading, I seemed to be pretty good at it. Goblin was just another relic of the past. He almost took Jason and Grant from me, and now he was gonna feel my fury! I used that anger and determination to bury my fear. My friends were counting on me to finish these spell seals. The sooner I finished up, the sooner I could give Jason some backup.

"Ok," I said." "Here's the plan. Starlight and Karolina, we gotta get you a cool name, y'all are gonna be in the main battle, with my Sun Knights, yes, that's what i'm callin' em'. Like I said, we gotta turn the tide on this death aura, so unleash holy hell!"

"Does that mean I can finally use my ultra Nova blaster with plasma shrapnel rockets?!" Kira asked.

"Go nuts, girl! Starbright, you're with me. We're gonna take Goblin on directly, and keep him away from the main fight."

"What is the purpose of that?" Daiya asked.

"I'm gonna do my best to keep him in one of my mini-suns, except it won't be so mini. My crow animal spirit will help me with that. If we can box Goblin inside a power source opposite to his, then maybe we can cut him off just enough to take the advantage, and end him quick."

"And you really think that'll work?"

"I'm 80% sure it won't, but we gotta start somewhere. now, CHARGE!"

I surprised my teammates so much, they almost got trampled as my army blazed forward! As we charged at Goblin, I created waves of catapults, tanks, and crossbows, almost half a mile behind us, and kept the long range artillery firing! I could keep constructs like those going, with minimal concentration, as I got up close and personal with Goblin. Speaking of big, green, and ugly, I erupted a flame geyser under his feet, and launched him high above the clouds, via giant spring construct! Daiya following me, keeping pace with my speed almost effortlessly, and as we approached Gobin, about 30,000 ft high, I busted out the not so mini-sun! Seriously, this was the biggest one I ever made, ever! The ball of fire was easily big enough to fit half of Manhattan inside of, giving Daiya and I roughly 17 miles of fiery room to work with! Oh, and don't worry about my teammates. Daiya and Kira's Nova suits could take the heat of red giants, while Karolina's power came from solar absorption. Anyway, as soon as I got Goblin trapped in my sun, Daiya and I went to work!

First matter of business was shock and awe; not allowing Goblin half a second to recover! We used a move the Nova Twins called Rocket Racer. Basically, Daiya and I charged ourselves with our respective energies, and kept slamming into Goblin repeatedly, like flying bumper cars! We did that for about half a minute, both of us slamming into Goblin several hundred times, before Goblin managed to break free of the pain train with a Death Force explosive wave! The fire of my mini-sun suppressed how bad that blast coulda been, but it still hurt a lot! Even in Sun Goddess, I felt like someone took a tire iron to my head! Daiya got knocked off-balance as well, but Goblin was way too focused on me to give half a crap about her. He summoned his axe, and tried to cleave me in half! I ducked under his swing, blasted him five miles forward, and finally started putting the mini-sun fire to use!

I slammed him from all sides with an array of fireballs, giant lions, Angry Birds, and giant hammers! Again, I was makin' good use of the area I carved for myself, but it was only good for stalling Goblin for a minute, before he managed to completely power through all my tricks! Heck, this time he wasn't playing around! He covered himself in a Death Force body aura, that was almost on the same level as my Sun Goddess form, and started blasting back at me with jack-o-lantern shaped Death Force. Guess some things never change. I dodged and/or countered his blasts, while slamming him from all sides with well timed missile constructs. It was a nice little dance, but Daiya had a more direct approach in mind! As soon as she recovered, she willed some missile turrets to form over her hands, her and Kira had an arsenal of Nova Force powered weapons they could call on,via nanotech, and opened fire! Nova Force powered missiles woulda been enough, but like I said, Strange powered my group up with the Holy Waters of Eden spell; which also spread to their weapons! The bright blue explosions hit Goblin with the force of trains, and for the first time, he actually screeched in pain! I almost felt bad for him, before remembering what he almost cost me a while back. Still, it was gonna take more than that to keep Grinch face down. He managed to power through Daiya's missile shower, and shoot a power blast from his mouth, big enough to crater a school! Daiya was on that in no time, and countered with her own power blast to match! When her power blast collided with Goblin's, she willed her missile guns to shoot out another scatter shot, that honed in on Goblin, and hit him with another metric crap ton of Nova Force! By the way, the Nova Force is a near limitless pool of energy based off of the various gravity and electromagnetic spectrums of planets under the Nova Empire; now expanded to almost the entire known universe. More on that last part later, but just know that Daiya and Kira were total tanks! Anyway, Daiya's missile barrage threw Goblin for a loop, and she completely swallowed him with her power blast, and darn near shot him outta the mini-sun! Goblin managed to recover, overcharged himself with Death Force, and let out an explosive wave so strong, it rippled though the entirety of my mini-sun! And yeah, it hurt a lot!

"THAT IS ENOUGH! he roared, while summoning his axe back in hand. "ARE YOU THIS WEAK, THAT YOU HIDE BEHIND YOUR CHEAP TRICKS TO STAVE OFF THE INEVITABLE?! YOUR MALE FRIENDS FOUGHT ME LIKE WARRIORS! ABANDON THIS FUTILE SPHERE OF FIRE, AND FACE YOUR DEATH!"

I gave the notion a quarter thought, before responding in a really loud megaphone!

"YA GOT THE WRONG GIRL, GREMLIN!" I shouted at him. "DICK MEASURING DON'T WORK ON ME! NOW LET'S GET THE RECORD STRAIGHT! YOU ALMOST TOOK TWO MEN I'VE COME TO CARE FOR DEEPLY AWAY FROM ME! THEY HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF HAVIN' TA FIGHT YOU ALONE! YOU DON'T GET THAT ADVANTAGE THIS TIME!"

I busted out Corona, and transformed it to spear mode! The Holy Water spell blazed to life, mixing with my own fire!

"STILL," I continued. "IF YOU WANT ME TO BE MORE HANDS ON, I'D BE HAPPY TO OBLIGE!"

I dropped an anchor construct on his head, giving me and Daiya an opening to attack!

We started out by doing the Rocket Racer maneuver, but with a lot more dismemberment. On my first pass through, I sliced off Goblin's right arm with my spear, while Daiya sliced off his left with a jagged light sword. I was gonna slice off his head on the come around, but Goblin's axe hand boomeranged around, nearly slicing me in half! I managed to backflip over it, and just barely caught a glimpse of Daiya side dashing past Goblin's other arm, that was also flying back to give her a good wallop upside her head! The severed limbs managed to find their way back to Goblin, and man was he pissed! He almost slammed into me with a tackle that woulda shook my organs up, but I managed to roll over his back, and blast him downwards with a column if fire I shot out from my feet! As he careened downwards, I created a pack of giant wolves to maul him, while Daya fired a volley of Nova Force blasts at him. We managed to keep him pinned down for another minute, only for him to eventually power his way out of the dogpile, and fire back with a volley of Death Force pumpkin bombs, and freaking bones! Yeah, he actually shot out bone spears, from his body, charged with Death Force, in mass at me and Daiya! The scatter shot was so wide, Daiya and I had to hide behind energy shields! The pumpkin bombs hit like rockets, and the bone spears, while not as strong, felt like a constant rain of hail against a sheet of glass. That wouldn't have been that bad, but Goblin recycled the deflected, often shattered, bone spears, charged them up with Death Force, and enveloped me and Daiya in our own personal bone tornadoes! Goblin also took to blasting us with Death Force bolts; which i'll admit was always just a hair shy of breaking through the barrier I had to make for myself!

"Starbright!" I messaged her. "You alright?!"

"Holding steady!" she responded. "Got any more good ideas?!"

"I got one just for the occasion! Keep your shield up!"

I willed all the fire inside my mini-sun to burn bigger, and sent multiple explosive waves out, all of which rebounded and doubled on each other! For Daiya and Goblin, i'm pretty sure it was like an unholy union between an earthquake and tornado, but it got the job done. I blasted the bone tornadoes apart, briefly threw Goblin off, and bought me and Daiya enough time to get back in the fight!

We went at it with Goblin for almost seven minutes, with neither side giving half an inch! Goblin was a lot more aggressive with his attacks, using his fist, axe, Death Force attacks, and bone weapons in deadly combos! I learned the hard way not to try and block one of his swings! As he kept attacking me, swing after swing, he kept missing, while I got in small shots to his face and arms via throwing knives. Still, there was one swing of his axe that was too quick for even me to dodge; forcing me to block it with my spear. The Vibranium in the spear just barely negated the impact enough to where it only felt like someone sent a wave of voltage though my arms! Still, that was enough for my grip to give out, and put me in so much pain, it distracted me from dodging a huge punch to the face, that knocked me against the edge of my own mini-sun! For a second, the flames flickered near death, and if Goblin got one more attack in, he woulda snuffed out my mini-sun and my Solar Knights! Yeah, Ro wasn't kidding when expressed how crucial it was to maintain focus. Just one good hit to the head, one brief moment of fading consciousness, and I my entire army flickered like a fading dream! Good thing Daiya managed to buy me enough time to recover, or Kira and Karolina woulda been in trouble! Speaking of which, they were doing fine. Kira was a great fighter, like her sister, and used a mix of several Kung-Fu styles with her Nova Force and weapons. She really loved her giant blasters that had the heat seeking plasma rockets! Karolina was doing as good a job as I expected of her, and to be honest, was exactly where she needed to be. With so much rampant battle around her, she was in the perfect place to cut lose with her light weapons and blasts, without having to face the big boss of this level. I know that sounds mean, but again, she wasn't trained, and didn't have an ounce of natural fighting ability in her. She mostly swung her giant light sword around, hitting several of Goblin's forces with each sloppy swipe. Still, she was able to use flying to her advantage, and was great at taking out his soldiers bomber style. Save for a small hiccup on my part, the rest of Rainbow Force was doing great. Speaking of which, it looked like Daiya had struck gold with Goblin! She had these weird pulsating nubs over her hands, that generated seismic energy. A good hit from those, and your internal everything would be a liquid mess. I wasn't that lucky with big, green, and ugly, but I finally found out how to end him! Daiya's Seismic Nubs, that's official to me at least, pulsated Nova Force/Eden Holy Water into Goblin's body, causing tremendous internal damage! Seriously, I knew this guy had serious allergies to the spell, but as the energy literally pulsated through his body, he screeched so loud, he woulda shattered all the glass in a skyscraper! His body went from solid, to a Death Force construct on and off! When he was all translucent, I could see some kinda Death Force core in his chest. Daiya's Seismic Nubs were pouring Eden Water directly to the source of the problem! Hot dog! Granted, Goblin was far from helpless, and in a lotta ways was way more dangerous! His body kept discharging massive waves of Death Force, strong enough to level tanks! Daiya had to up her body shields, and thrusters just to keep her pace up. Also, Goblin was slashing and swinging wildly at her, forcing her to constantly stay in motion around him. One good swing and her jig was up; so I decided to cut in on her dance. I chained up one of Goblin's hands as it was gearing up for another wild swipe, and chained it to his other hand! Goblin kicked, bucked and roared, but I quickly put giant manacles on his legs, and placed a smaller mini-sun, with an emphasis on gravity, around his hands and feet. Goblin struggled to keep up, but my mini-mini-suns kept him sinking, until he hit the base of my bigger mini-sun! Daiya kept up the pressure, and after combining a lot of my own fire with the Holy Water spell that was constantly radiating off my spear, I flames into a giant drill, and slammed it into Goblin's chest! The blastwaves of Death Force intensified, and his screeches were like glass shards in my ears! Still, it looked like it was gonna be worth it! His form was barely a mass of Death Force, just barely holding strong against my drill. Daiya and I kept the barrage going! We were so close to ending this! Heck, Goblin's army was feelin' the effects, as they started to loose their shape! So close! So freakin' close! But of course, that's when things go the most wrong!

I barely felt it coming. Heck I barely had time to block it, as a huge bolt of Death Force lightning, big enough to where Jason might get a little insecure, blasted my mini-sun apart! Daiya and I didn't have a second to prepare, and I just barely got myself inside a personal barrier, as I careened to the ground! Luckily, I was able to keep my army intact, but that was just an island of good, in a sea of royally screwed! Again, I hate that I don't have a Spider Sense rip-off, like Grant and Jason, because without em' you get slammed from behind by an insane, roided up Gremlin! Yeah, Goblin was about as one track as it got! Besides the fact that the Nova Twins were more of a threat to him than me, if I was somewhere, he was never far behind! He slammed me with a punch so hard, even in Sun Goddess I could feel it! I skidded across the ground, and Goblin caught up to me, dragging me further and further into the dirt! It's good thing I didn't spend any time on hair or makeup today, or i'd be even more pissed than I already was! I turned up my flames, and blasted down into the ground, tunneling just a few feet under the dirt, before resurfacing 50 meters ahead! Goblin was fast enough to where I didn't have a spare moment for long, but before he could get his scaly claws on me, I smashed a giant sledgehammer construct into his head, and blasted him with a enough fire to burn a city to ashes! Goblin was completely unaffected! Yeah, one of the biggest blasts of fire i've ever let out, and he was unmoved, unburnt, and unimpressed. Without a word, he dashed forward, almost landing a blow that woulda put me several hundred feet into the ground! I managed to dive outta the way, and bombarded Goblin with several uber powerful mini-suns, which barely made Goblin flinch! He responded by launching at me again, almost faster than even I could follow, nearly taking my head off with another swipe!

For the next 3-4 minutes, we went at it one on one, where it was painfully clear I didn't stand a chance alone! Goblin's swings alone were causing sonic booms, and one of his Death Force pumpkin bombs were the equivalent of half a mini-sun explosion! For most of the fight, which was like half an hour in Comet Speed, I was mostly dodging and blasting the biggest constructs I could, just to stall Goblin. Seriously, you'd think after ramming a flaming jumbo jet, giant rhino, and several hundred mini-suns into him, he'd at least have a scratch on him! The opposite was true!. To my credit, I did manage to gain a little momentum, when I used all of my throwing knives as homing missiles. Basically, I charged them up with fire, getting another good mix with the Holy Water Spell, and launched them all at Goblin in one throw! I wasn't aiming anywhere in particular, but if I wanted, I coulda jammed five of my knives in each one of his eye sockets! Instead, I controlled the fire around the knives, and kept them going in and out of Goblin's exposed biceps, thighs, and face! They were more of annoyance to him, but they tripped/ weakened him just enough to where my other attacks were starting to slightly add up. For starters, I gave myself one heck of a Solar Steroid jump! That combined with my Power Gauntlets, equaled punches actually worth a crap against Goblin! I also busted out Corona in spear mode, and did to it what I was doing for my throwing knives! I know I shouldn't get joy from repeatedly jamming a spear through someone's face, especially when this was a person who used to be alive, but….I dunno, something about Goblin brought out the rare side of me that has no sympathy. Oh, and if you're wondering where my friends were in this mess, don't judge em' too harshly; they had their hands full as well. Just as Goblin was stronger outside, his forces seemed to gain strength when their master was in contact with them. My own Solar Knights were now having trouble against his wraiths, and were starting to lose fights more often than before. Daiya was darn near fighting by herself, as the mini-sun explosion placed her so far away from Kira and Karolina, she only had my constructs as help. Speaking of Kira and Karolina, they were working together better than expected. I may have to retract what I said about Karolina, because if nothing else, the girl was a fast learner as well as resourceful. She turned her slight swords into whips, and combined them with her flight skills, to twirl, spin, and pirouette slash her enemies to death. While she was doing that, Kira busted out this huge blaster, as big as a van, that shot enemy seeking Nova Force blasts in 360 degrees! I know guys back at home that woulda dry humped this gun! But yeah, while things weren't exactly going the best, they were at least barely under control. Anyway, back to Sunbird vs Goblin, I wasn't doing half bad! The knives and spear stabs were really starting to get to Goblin; especially when I went for the heart! Yeah, it finally occurred to me to direct my knives straight to Goblin's power source, once I dug them into his skin! Just like Daiya's Seismic Nubs, the direct exposure of Holy Water to Gobin's core was straight death! Still, with him more connected to his powers out here, the effect was lessened, forcing me to drop a Sunspot just under him, and upping the gravity to an absurd level! Goblin dropped to his knees, but that certainly didn't make him helpless. Even in the immense pain he was in, Goblin bombarded me with Death Force Pumpkin bombs from his mouth, a horde of bone shrapnel shooting up from the ground, and Death Force lightning from the sky! I couldn't dodge a thing, so I settled for hiding inside a mini-sun, and charging my spear up with more fire, with intent to dive bomb it into Goblin's chest! I musta took too long to get ready, because without warning, something grabbed my mini-sun, and dragged me down into the dirt!

Ok, confession time, i'm terrified of being buried alive and/or going to Hell, so this was a double Yahtzee of totally sucking! I tried bursting out with several solar flares, but whatever this thing was, it was strong! It kept dragging me so far down, I didn't think i'd ever see the sky again, but just as soon as it started, the pulling stopped. I didn't let my mini-sun drop, and it was probably for the best, considering Goblin put me in a Death Force furnace! Yeah, I had no idea what level of space I was workin' with here, but if the shear amount of energy was any indication, it had to be around the space of a football arena! The tons upon tons of fire were like a giant hand squeezing on my mini-sun! It took everything I had just to keep it intact!

"Nobody to help you now, Shining One!" Goblin's voice echoed in the roar of the flames. "All alone, and too weak to fight back!"

I felt hundred of bone spears barrage my mini-sun at the speed of missiles! And yes, they were charged out the butt with Death Force! Between them and the Death Force fire, I was barely a gnat's breath from drowning in the purple inferno! I felt fear grip my heart, and a desperate scream just barely stifled in my throat! I was out of options, had no backup, and no way out! Goblin's taunting didn't help in the slightest!

"I'll admit, defeat at the hand of your friend was unexpected!" he continued. "The boy had a willful rage that proved to be a useful tool in the face of certain death! You on the other hand, your fire burns small and pathetic! Not nearly enough rage, hate, or malice to be effective in the slightest!"

The pressure continued to pile up on my mini-sun, and I felt myself hyperventilating a little. Yeah, I was definitely gonna have claustrophobia after this.

"You haven't the strength to fight me, girl, so why not give in?! Life is pain anyway. Your friend already knows that, or at least he thinks he does! When your fire is snuffed out, i'll teach him true agony! Starting with a presentation of your charred corpse!"

I didn't know if I was yelling in anger, despair, or pain, but a guttural scream excited my mouth, as I felt my mini-sun on the edge of breaking!

"Calm yourself, Allyson!" Rowenos finally spoke up.

"CALM?!" I thought back. "I'M ABOUT TO BE ROASTED ALIVE!"

"Because you are not calm! Listen to me, that hooligan is, as you humans say, speaking out of his ass! Why would he, on the orders of higher powers, be so persistent on causing your death? Why so adamant in his flawed view of the living? Yes, life can be pain and strife, but it is not without its many joys. Beauty, wonder, love, joy, music, food, and limitless other examples! This monster's power comes from the hatred and pain of the damned! People who decided to use their time above to cause misery and pain to their fellow man. That power is strong, but in the end it can only fail, because it works against itself. Love and justice will always overcome hate, and you are a pillar of those virtues! You cannot defeat Goblin by corrupting his mind, as it's already beyond saving or changing. The power to best him is already within you! Embrace and project the true potential of life through your powers! Your strengths have never been founded upon negative emotions anyway! You can overcome this, Allyson! You've come too far too accept anything other than success!"

I loved that spirit bird.

I took his advice, and tried my best to calm down. I took deep breaths, steadied my mind, and started to sing. For five minutes I sang Can't Give Up Now, by Mary Mary. The last song I sang with my parents, and the perfect motivation to rise over the fear overloading inside me. I prayed as I sang, thanking God for bringing me and my friends this far, and asking him to give us the strength to defeat our foes once more.

"Please, Lord," I prayed. "I refuse to accept this as the end of my story! I refuse to let this evil run rampant in the real world. But I can't do this alone. Please, give me the strength to show this monster what the power of life can truly do!"

Last time I prayed with Jason and Grant, the Eden Spell glowed over our suits. I remember feeling a sense of calm and courage wash over me. This was like that, but way cooler! Usually magic doesn't affect me, but after these last few days, I think it's safe to revise that to harmful magic doesn't affect me. This was one of those good cases, where my body accepted what was happening, as it didn't register it as a threat. The Eden Spell collapsed into me, actually merging with my soul! I immediately felt my instincts sharpen, my strength double, and any trace of fear washed away entirely! My flames went grey, with small flecks of yellow, and I could feel the transformation spread to my Solar Knights, who were now shredding Goblin's forces like wood in a chipper! My barrier I was struggling so hard to keep alive? Yeah, now the roles were reversed! Goblin was doing everything in his power to break my walls down, but my new Eden Powers, i'll call this Eden Inferno, held strong with medium effort. I could sense Goblin 200 ft above me, and he was not havin' the best time with my various Sun Knights, who were givin' him Heaven's wrath!

"Ask and ye shall receive," I heard a gentle, yet thunder-like voice. "Go."

I nearly cried on the spot! I've heard God's voice before, but i've never felt him like this! I've never felt such love or safety in my life! I just wanted to stay in his presence forever, but just as soon as he came, he left. Of course he didn't really 'leave', as he was always with me. I said a quick thank you, hefted my spear, and shot upwards, like a missile! By the time I surfaced, Goblin was just finished slicing through one of my wolves, just in time to get a charging spear through his chest! Well…..almost. While I was below, Goblin gave himself quite the makeover. He was now covered from head to toe in Death Force charged bone armor. His legs were adorned with bone plate armor, with spikes jutting out the armor pieces, like a biker jacket. He had spiked gauntlets over his hands and lower arms, and was wearing a skeleton helmet, perfectly suited to work around his massive Minotaur-like horns. The sick part was his shoulder guards and breastplate. On his right and left shoulder, his guards were shaped like the wailing heads of Jason and Grant, with screams of the damned echoing from their mouths. The sane could be said for my face on Goblin's breastplate! Yeah….it about was time for bad guy to go night night. I cranked up the fire on my spear, and Goblin blasted off, like Team Rocket! He doubled back around, blasting a huge wave of Death Force at me, which I responded with my own in kind! Our blasts collided with each other for a few seconds, and while Goblin was no cakewalk, my Eden Inferno gradually annihilated his blast, until he was forced to abandon the fight, and charge at me directly! As he flew downwards, he constructed a Death Force charged bone scythe. I was really tempted to meet him head on, but me getting a boost from God did not go to my head that much. Instead, I barraged him with an onslaught of Eden Inferno mini-suns, missiles, and Phoenixes. Goblin put up a decent body aura, but by the time he got to me, it was barely holdin' up! He managed to get one swing on me with his scythe, which I ducked, before I launched him skywards with a giant fist construct, and floored him with a Sunspot! The Eden Inferno was melting his bone armor to oatmeal, and for all his bucking and screaming he wasn't goin' anywhere! I did a quick 3 minute hum of Hallelujah in five seconds, super speed for the win, gathering all the Eden Inferno and positive energy I could, before launching it into another massive mini-sun in the air! At this point, Goblin barely managed to break free of my Sunspot, and charged at me! I flipped over him, blasted him to the ground, and kept the pressure on with a flame stream, while I called for backup.

"Sunbird to fantastic gal pals!" I said. "If you can hear me, your assistance would be greatly appreciated in regards to finally putting a creep down for good. Please rendezvous at the base of the giant pillar of holy fire. Also, Nova Twins, let's bust out the Nova Prime, pretty please and thank you?"

"Sunbird!" Karolina squealed. "Thank goodness you're alive! I'm on my way!"

"Ditto!" Kira said. "Incoming now!"

"About time," Daiya said. "I like you, Sunbird, but you're a bit too unorthodox as a leader."

"Glad you're ok too, Starbright!"

As soon as I got done rallying the troops, Goblin got the bright idea to tunnel under the ground, and try launching a volley of bone spears at me. The spears shattered against a barrier I quickly constructed, and before Gremlin could get any more bright ideas, I dug him outta the ground, via giant hand, and spanked him with a giant paddle!

"No!" I playfully chided him. "Bad Goblin! We don't throw sharp objects at people!"

This was needlessly petty and degrading, which is what made it such darn fun! Besides, with my allies comin' in hot, I was able to loosen up on Goblin a bit.

I let him charge, blast, and slash at me with everything he had; dodging/blocking his attacks with relative ease. I let loose all of my throwing knives, and controlled them with Eden Inferno! Try as he might, Goblin couldn't block the knives from doing extreme acupuncture on him! I doubled the damage with my spear slashes and stabs, which reduced Goblin's physical state to be little more than a living Death Force construct. This went on for two and a half minutes, before Nova Prime, aka Richard Ryder, gave me the heads up to duck outta the way!

Ok, story time. Richard Ryder was the first human to be inducted into the Nova Corps, who are basically space cops. Him, and the majority of the Nova Corps were wiped out in an event called the Annihilation Wave, where Annihilus, some evil on and off emperor of the Negative Zone, invaded our universe, and proceeded to f*(# $#!+ up. Yeah, no other way to say it. On the first day, the monster's forces slaughtered trillions of beings across five million planets! Anyway, the only way Richard could help stop Annihilus, was by absorbing the Xandarian Worldmind, the entirety of its eons of knowledge, and the Nova Force, into himself. Richard became Nova Prime, stopped Annihilus, but was thought to be destroyed in the final battle. Instead, he literally became the Nova Force, and was existing for years as such. In the most recent cosmic destroying event, where the Avengers, Runaways, Young Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Nova Twins had to stop Thanos from literally turning the universe into nothing, because he was the ultimate edgelord, Daiya and Kira absorbed so much Nova Force, that they accidentally woke Richard up, which caused a chain reaction that led to the two girls fusing into the original Nova! They could only fuse once every 12 hours, and only for 20 minutes, but the power they had at their disposal was unreal! They were capable of flying at speeds up to 10 times the speed of light, destroying meteors the size of Texas, enhancing their strength to where they could probably give the Hulk a good fight, absorb and manipulate various energy fields, and even technopathy! On a side note, think how stressful this has gotta be. You think you're fighting the most important battle ever in the history of the world, only to find out the entire universe was half an inch from going bye bye, just the day before!

Anyway, Nova Prime crashed into Goblin with the force of an entire battleship of missiles; tunneling them both into the ground! I felt him, or maybe them, not sure who's in the driver's seat when this is a thing, get a series of punches so fast, the ground felt like someone put a giant dishwasher under it, and set it to max! If you offered me a million dollars, I couldn't have told you how many punches Nova Prime got in, before he blasted Goblin sky high!

"He looks like he's havin' fun," Karolina laughed.

"Hell yeah!" Nova Prime said, his voice sounding like Richard, Daiya, and Kira in one. "Still got it! So, now what, Sunbird?"

"You know me?" I asked.

"Cosmic Awareness. We know everything."

"So it is we? All of you got a hand on the wheel? Cool. So we're just gonna wrap this up real quick. Your Nova Force is cool, but try some Eden Inferno out for size!"

I grabbed their hand, and his suit analyzed, absorbed, and amplified the energy into itself in 3 seconds!

"Whoa!" they said. "This is trippy."

"Not how i'd describe it," I responded. "But yeah, it's somethin' else!"

At that moment, Goblin recovered, and was on the way back. Gotta hand it to him, he was the embodiment of perseverance! As he rocketed downwards, he summoned a horde of various bone giants, T-Rexes, and dragons! He was hopped up on so much Death Force, I could barely make out his body. As much as I hated to ruin a perfectly good set up, this guy was kinda askin' for it. I turned up the gravity on my new Eden Inferno mini-sun, absolutely shredding Gobin's bone constructs apart, with Goblin just barely able to stay ahead of the gravity pull!

"Mind if I sing a little?" I asked Nova Prime and Karolina.

"Fine by me," Karolina shrugged.

"I could go for some tunes," Nova Prime said.

"Sweet!" I responded. "Watch this!"

I went back to my favorite hype song, Dare You by Hardwell, and sung the first set of lyrics, before the chorus beat! I poured in every positive emotion I could into charging the mini-sun up even further. My love for my friends and family, my happiness when I was jamming to my music, or playing with my cat, my determination to beat Doom once and for all in regards to this stupid comet he had crashing down over our heads! Peppermint pumpkin pies! By the time I got to the beat drop, my mini-sun was bright enough to permanently blind a normal person, and on the brink of going supernova! Before that happened, I dropped the beat, and rained down Eden Inferno meteors all across the battlefield; causing a reverse Armageddon heaven fire shower! Goblin actually caught one of the meteors to the back, and plummeted into the ground, about five miles ahead of me and the gang. Elsewhere, Goblin's forces were getting annihilated across the field! The Eden Inferno meteor shower were like rapid fire nukes, that only affected Death Force! Me, Nova Prime, and Karolina were completely immune to its effects or kinetic impact! Also, while I thought I only dropped the beat in my head, the music was actually playing in the real world! I definitely couldn't do that before, and I assumed it was another gift from my grandpa, but I was stoked nonetheless! The remaining fight against Goblin was nothing more than a beat down! Granted, Nova Prime was the one doing most of the work, but Karolina and I got some good shots in. With Goblin just barely clinging to life, swiping wildly at everything, I put him down with my super cheesy finisher! I broke the remainder of my mini-sun apart, and transformed it into multiple constructs of my friends and family! Everyone who's ever loved, supported, and believed in me! All the people who made me who I am came crashing down on top of Goblin, causing an Eden Inferno nuke that coulda leveled half of my home state!

When the fire cleared, everything looked a whole lot different! The sky was clear blue, even without a sun present. The ground was now a field of golden wheat, with the only semblance of Goblin's existence in a bowling ball sized Death Force orb, atop a decorative fountain made of bone. Not exactly the piece I woulda picked for a space like this, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyway, the spell seal spit me and the team out, and I called in to see how the rest of the team was doing.

"Ok," I said through comms. "Goblin's down. How's Magneto, guys?"

"Not great," Zero-G responded, clearly trying to catch his breath. "America's a big help, but Magneto activated some kinda chainmail enhancement suit! It's taking everything we have, just to keep him at bay!"

"Copy. Sending in Nova Prime and Karolina for backup!"

"But that still leaves Hydro Man to be dealt with!"

"Don't sweat it! I got that covered!"

"Do you really, tho?" Nova Prime asked me.

I gave the iffy hand sign, and dashed off to the West Channel, before him or Karolina could call me on it.

To be honest, I was kinda stumped. In hindsight, it woulda made more sense to go after Magneto first, put him away, and focus on Hydro Man later. To put it in context, my best plan was to scoop Hydro Man and Mass Master into a giant bucket, throw them both into Hydro Man's spell seal, and either lullaby or evaporate Hydro Man into submission. Absolutely stupid, without a single chance for success. I'll admit, I got a little panicky as I got closer to the water. My Eden Inferno wouldn't be of any help, as even though the power was now mine, I had no control over the turn on/off. Like my weapons, the fire would spring to life when needed, and Hydro Man wouldn't make the silver flame burn. Still, for as crazy as life can get, sometimes it works in your favor! Needed to get a psychotic water elemental under control? Life would find a way! This way came in the form of Namor careening towards Manhattan at Mach 3! I managed to catch him with enough giant pillow constructs to cover a city block, inside a reinforced net!

"You alright there, King Namor?" I asked him, as he steadied himself in the air.

"I am well," he responded. "My thanks, erm…..?."

"Sunbird. No sweat. Uh, where did you come from anyway?"

"A battle against the vile trickster, Loki! The wretch managed to strike my person in the conflict! I must return at once! Your lover is also involved in the fight!"

That alone was almost enough to make me let him go! Sure, Jason had proved time and time again that he could handle himself fine, even when punching above his weight, but the thought of him fighting anyone who could knock Namor that hard? Yeah, that scared me.

"Actually," I said, fighting hard to get the words out. "Can you help me with something? Trust me when I say Jason can handle a petty mischief god on his own. I can't exactly do this other thing without your help."

Namor looked uncomfortable at the idea of leaving Jason by himself, but after explaining my deal with Hydro Man, reluctantly agreed to help me. We flew over to the West Channel, and Namor started to spin his trident overhead. His trident glowed with Sea Force, and Hydro Man, still fighting it out with Mass Master, was deconstructed into a rush of water, which Namor quickly formed into an orb, and started flying over to Hydro Man's spell seal on 53rd street. Jack, looking like I took his favorite shoes off his feet, transformed into cloud form, and confronted me.

"The hell, Sunbird?" he asked me. "I had that creep!"

"I know, Double M," I responded.

"Mass Master! Come on, it takes the same amount of syllables to say the full thing!"

"Alright, Mass Master. Look, sorry for cutting in on your fight; you really did have it handled. You're not being demoted, I promise. In fact, while Namor and I handle this lightweight, the team needs your help against Magneto. We had to bust out Nova Prime, and we might need Power Unicorn in the mix pretty soon."

"Why'd I let Energizer pick that stupid name? Alright, i'll give them a hand."

He flew off towards Bryant Park, and I caught up to Namor, who was just arriving under the spell seal. I opened the door for him, and we both flew in together.

In all honesty, Hydro Man wins second place for least insane personal heaven. Sure, standing atop a half destroyed skyscraper, over flooded Manhattan isn't exactly a spa day dream, but at least the water wasn't filled with the bloated and half eaten bodies of various heroes and people Hydro Man hated. Speaking of the water man, he definitely was into the whole 'shock and awe' strategy, as he formed his water body from the torso up, rose to disaster level height, with a roar that coulda spooked a kraken! Namor scoffed at Hydro Man, drew up an Atlantean glyph -_.|._.._|.\ and after casting it onto his trident, threw the spear into the water. There was an intense, blinding surge of Sea Force, and after the glow died down, Hydro Man was just a glorified lake! Seriously, the water was still disaster level high, but had the raging intensity of one of those lazy rivers you'd see at a waterpark. Heck, that seemed to be good enough for the spell seal, as it spit us out a few seconds later!

"Was that really it?!" I almost laughed.

"Of course," Namor scoffed. "The fool believed he could command the Sea Force. An absurd notion, on par with trying to use fire to kill a dragon. The Sea Force belongs to Atlantis! That imbecile should be grateful I only put him into a temporary slumber!"

"Ok there, He-Man. It's ok, you won. Now, if I could ask another favor of you. We got one last bad guy to put away."

"Magnus."

"I thought it was Erik."

"It actually started as Max."

"Huh. Well, let's go with Magneto. At least that's a constant we can use."

"Agreed. You require further assistance?"

"Yeah. Last time, even without the Stone of Zeus, he almost took me, Storm-Lord and Geo-Titan out by himself. Even with all the fire power we got on him now, he's still a huge threat. If his personal heaven is anything like I think it'll be…..yeah, we're gonna be in for a fight."

"Doubly so, considering his helmet protects him from mental influence."

"Good pep talk, your highness."

"You're welcome. And while I do not look forward to harming my long time friend, I will do what must be done."

On that positive note, Namor and I flew towards Bryant Park, which was probably a nice place pre-Magneto fight. Based on the debris, I assumed there was an ice rink, but they were scattered across the whole park, i'm not entirely sure. The entire park was riddled with giant holes, big enough to bury SUVs in, and Magneto actually ripped chunks outta the surrounding buildings to use as weapons against my team, who were not doing terribly well right now. Nova Prime was actually doing alright; using his powers of energy manipulation to absorb and redirect Magneto's bolts of Zeus Lightning, and magnetism back at him. America was also doing alright; getting in some good punches and kicks in with her portal jumping. Molly was just a brute force brawler, who was able to get in some good hits in on Magneto, but was usually knocked away with some metal or energy bolts. Also, it seemed that Energizer and Lightspeed fused into a Power Pony, i'll explain later, making an anthropomorphic horse that could fly with a rainbow trial, and convert various forms of matter and energy into herself, and expel them as yellow concussive force. They were probably second best under Nova Prime in terms of effectiveness. Mass Master and Zero-G get a shoutout for semi-effective tactics as well. Zero-G managed to use some of Magneto's toys against him, by cancelling the momentum of some of his metal projectiles, and launching them back at him. This wasn't too effective, as Magneto mostly willed the metal away from him, but due to some good punches and kicks from the heavy hitters, Zero-G was able to land some good throws in. Mass Master was in his cloud form, flying into Magneto various times, enhancing his mass to be that of a falling train car! Yeah, Rainbow Force was doing pretty good, but Magneto was way above even them. His armor was some next level stuff. It was taking hits from Nova Prime, America and Molly, barely moving him 50 meters, and it gave him one heck of a punch! Every time one of my teammates got in a few good hits, they'd get one really good cross punch across the jaw, if they weren't fast enough to dodge it! Nova Prime was the only one who could stand against Magneto for more than a minute. America was able to use her portals effectively, but Magneto's armor gave him an impressive speed boost as well. It was only a matter of guessing her next move, before she got a sound shattering haymaker across the face, sending her flying through several buildings! Had to get this fight inside the spell seal and fast!

I cranked up the speed, and got around Nova Prime and Magneto, striking the latter in the back with some quick Solar Steroid charged Power Gauntlet jabs! Again, I was too much of a lightweight to send him flying, but he was way too slow to get any kinda retaliation. Nova Prime and I managed to fight him to a rough stalemate, as the rest of my team recovered, and waited on instructions. I balled Magneto inside a mini-sun, assisted by Nova Prime putting a Nova Force field around it. Magneto kept trying to bust out, not to mention rained down lightning bolts in every direction, but Nova Prime managed to absorb and store it into himself.

"Ok, team!" I said through comms. "End of the line! Just a heads up, we're probably gonna tap into some deep emotional trauma with this guy. I can't sing him to sleep with that helmet over his head, and he's gonna be insanely powerful in his magic cubie. We're gonna need all hands on deck! Power Pack, we'll need the Power Unicorn ASAP! Molly, Karolina, and America, stick together and do lots of portal punches! King Namor, no killing and/or brutal dismembering, please!"

He didn't have a communicator, but with those ears, he could definitely hear me. I just had to trust he'd listen to me, despite previous events and established personality traits he was known for. Anyway, I had America and Molly Portal Punch Magneto sky high, and opened the spell seal just before Magneto careened into it. Me and the team flew into the portal behind him, with me praying this wouldn't be the one that would end us all.

So, here's the thing. Doctor Strange said that the environment of the spell seals would be contingent on the person's hopes, wants, and fears. Up until now, I had only seen what the other villains wanted to see. This time….yeah, this was waaaay different. We were on the destroyed remains of Genosha, but if Genosha had just been destroyed! The capital city, Hammer Bay, which used to be a shining city, with advanced tech that would give Tony Stark a run for his money. Now, the gleaming towers and buildings were burning and crumbling around us. I could hear dying screams and sobs all around us! I could smell the tidal wave of burning flesh in my nostrils, but there was nothing I could do! Despite the rubble being solid, despite sensing the hundreds of Sentinels laying waste to the rest of the island, the actual people were mere ghosts. A girl, just barely 20 meters ahead of me, trapped under a slab of concrete, crying out for her mother, had all the collective mass of air. She was barely a memory, and there was nothing I could do for her. Still, and not to be insensitive, I had problems of my own. Magneto was floating just above us, and even though his helmet kept me from reading him, I could tell he was at a fever pitch mix of rage and sadness. The sky darkened. White, red, and purple lightning flashed across the storm clouds, and the thunder boomed so loud, it drowned out the sounds on the lightning blasting the sentinels to pieces.

"Steady, Magnus!" Namor tried to talk him down. "This is not real! It is only an illusion!"

"Tell, me, Namor," Magneto darn near growled. "Would this be a mere 'illusion' if this were Atlantis? Would you disregard the dying screams, and putrid smells of 16 million of your people being exterminated?! This is real! This is my reality every night when I lay to rest. I hear their lamentations. Their fear. I was supposed to protect them! This was to be a place of refuge for them! Instead, my beautiful kingdom lies in ruin! A MUTANT HOLOCAUST, BECAUSE OF THE HUMANS!"

"And what do you think will happen once that asteroid hits?" I asked him, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "How many more mutants are you willing to let die, to keep the rest safe?! How many regular people, families and children, are you willing to throw into the furnace?! You're own children fight against you, Magneto! Would you let them perish as well? What kind of father would let his own children die, to achieve any means?!"

I struck a nerve with that last one, as Magneto blasted at me with a bolt of lightning. I easily dodged it, #lightspeedFTW, but it was very clear this was not going well.

"Do not speak to me of suffering, girl," Magneto spoke in a dangerously calm voice. "You know not what it is to be herded and branded, like cattle. You have never seen the horror of your people being decimated before your eyes. You've never experienced true helplessness, as you've watched everything you've fought and killed for ripped from you. Do not presume to judge me. I have lived and witnessed a lifetime of suffering at the hands of the bigoted, and I would move the heavens to rebuild the mutant paradise that was stolen from me. Mere nights before, I was willing to kill you and your friends to preserve that dream. Now, I am willing to finish what I started. If my children choose not join me in the new world, they die in the old one."

"Not happening," I responded.

"We shall soon find out,"

I realized too late, Magneto was stalling for time, as he literally summoned enough Sentinel scrap metal, big enough to cover half of the island, over our heads, and rained down the lightning charged heaps of metal down on me and the team!

I'll admit, not the best start, and we weren't exactly quick on the rebound. Magneto kept the metal and lightning raining down on us, and we kinda….panicked. Namor immediately flew into the water, and shot up a wave of water tendrils at Magneto; which always got blocked by magnetic force fields and sheets of metal! America and Molly were makin' light headway, using Portal Punches to knock Magneto off-balance every so often, but his reflexes were double what they were before! Heck, one time, America got blasted point blank with lightning, before half her body even emerged from a portal jump! That dazed her for a while, and Molly had to use her flying and strength to try and get some more hits in. She wasn't able to get any good hits in, but she darn near powered through several hundred tons of electrified metal, and lightning bolts, without slowing down much at all! Power Pack and Karolina were actually holding their own to a surprising level. Energizer and Lightspeed were still fused into a Power Pony, which…...ok, time for one last story.

Power Pack, a.k.a. Jack, Julie, Alex, and Katie were kids when a Kymellian, anthropomorphic horse aliens, named Aelfyre Whitemane, came to Earth to prevent their dad from activating an invention that could provide Earth with clean, renewable energy…...if the darn thing didn't crack the planet in half. Whitemane was followed by a hostile race, called the Zn'rx, which were like a mix of reptilian humanoids with a matching spider lower half, and was fatally wounded when his ship was shot down. In his last moments, he passed his Kymellian sorcery to the Powers kids, giving them their powers to stop the Zn'rx invasion. Jack could manipulate his mass to be lighter than air, or harder than steel. Alex could manipulate gravity fields around himself and others. Julie could fly just a little over super sonic, and teleport, leaving behind pretty rainbows when she did. Katie could absorb energy and matter, and convert it into yellow energy blasts. Rewind to a little over a week ago, Thanos was trying to wipe the whole universe away, with a more advanced version of the device the Kymellians made, because he got rejected by Death, and was now in love with the idea of nothing. Power Pack, Avengers, Young Avengers, Runaways, and Nova twins stopped him, and in the process, Power Pack got Grandmaster sorcerer powers, which doubled what they already had, and gave them the ability to fuse into Power Ponies and/or Power Unicorn, to combine their powers, and reach a level strong enough to give Sun Goddess a good run. At the moment Katie and Julie, were fused together, into a feminine Kymellian, wearing an orange Power Pack uniform. They were actually doing pretty alright, maneuvering around Magneto's slabs of metal, absorbing his lightning, and when faced with a huge slab if metal, converted it into energy, and did a rainbow teleport behind him! Before Magneto realized who was where, he got an energy charged horse kick to his back! The kick exploded with the force of several lightning blasts, knocking Magneto down towards the sea! Namor took advantage of that, and sent up a water tentacle to ensure the old man went for a dive! Still, as strong as Namor was, I knew it wouldn't be long until Magneto gained his balance. Heck, by the way the metal sheets were diving into the water with him, it wouldn't be long at all! I quickly instructed the rest of the team to stand ready, while me and Nova Prime plunged after Namor and Magneto.

It honestly didn't take long to find them! With so much Sea Force, water constructs, lightning, and metal flying about from one area, you couldn't advertise a position more, if you put a sign over it! Once Nova Prime and I weaved in and out of the various battle objects and blasts, I could see Namor, clearly channeling the spirit of an eel, absorbing and reflecting Magneto's electric attacks. He may not have been fighting to kill, but based off how he dented any slab of metal Magneto used as a shield, as well as the explosive ripples in the water, he definitely wasn't pulling any punches! Still, Magneto was no pushover, and was matching Namor blow for blow! Heck, even with the Sea Force, Magneto was still a good deal faster than Namor, and got in more hits! At the rate they were going, Magneto would eventually overpower the Atlantean king, so Nova Prime and I stepped in. Nova Prime tackled Magneto, and started hitting him with Nova Force punches that made such explosive ripples, I had to put in effort to not get my flight path thrown outta balance! Magneto managed to blast Nova Prime with some voltage, but they simply absorbed it into his battle suit, and blasted it back at him with double the force! Magneto plummeted lower into the water, but managed to recover just in time to get a soaring drop kick to his chest from yours' truly! I made sure to give myself a jump of Solar Steroids, so you better believe I got my own explosive blastwave from that kick! As he sailed even further down, I caught him in a giant cannon construct, and shot him back up in a ball of fire! Magneto shot straight above me, and got a spinning kick to the back from Nova Prime, and shot sideways, faster than a torpedo! I put up a wall construct several miles where he was gonna end up landing, and managed to stop his momentum cold! I poured on the speed to catch up, and hit the old man with some quick Power Gauntlet jabs, before having to spin outta the way of a desperate swing. He followed that swing by blasting me with a wave of lightning, just barely held at bay with a desperate shield from me! Before Magneto could capitalize on that, Nova Prime darted around him, and got in a punch to his kidneys that looked really painful! And Ryder-Seiun, Kira and Daiya's last name was Seiun, didn't stop there! They assaulted Magneto with some quick and powerful jabs to his chest, arms, legs, and back. The punches didn't look like much, but I noticed how Magneto was having trouble using Zeus lightning afterwards. Still wasn't enough to put the old man outta the fight, as he recovered, and gave Nova Prime a good little tussle, before suddenly getting yanked downwards in a spiral of water, and getting a legendary uppercut to the jaw from Namor! Magneto flew upwards at the speed of a jet, and Namor floated up to Nova Prime and myself.

"I could have handled him myself," he thought to me.

"Debatable, and irrelevant, your highness," I responded. "A whole team is waiting above to help put Magneto down. I know it's not your style, but teamwork is the name of the game."

"And I suppose you have a plan?"

"Surprisingly, yes."

Before I could continue, Magneto, who recovered from his torpedo uppercut, was comin' down, wreathed in lightning, and armed with hundreds of jagged metal pieces.

"I'll explain on the go!" I said, as I threw several mini-suns at Magneto!

Magneto blocked them with a wall of metal, but didn't account for the fact that these were more grenades than anything else! As soon as the mini-suns made contact with the metal wall, they exploded with enough firepower to decimate ten city blocks! The metal wall shattered, and Magneto rocketed backwards, with Namor, Nova Prime, and myself hot on his heels!

For the next three minutes or so, the three of us took on Magneto as best as we could, while I explained my plan to Namor; 45% of which was made up on the spot. This time, Magneto was a lot more prepared, as he wrapped himself in an electromagnetic body shield. This shield, in addition to his armor, was a total buzzkill on our offense, as even our strongest hits barely moved him anymore. This made him an absolute tank, as he either dodged and/or absorbed most of our hits, and retaliated with massive blasts of lightning, or nearly skewering/crushing us with his metal cascade. Namor and I had to bow out of close quarters combat, and focus on either deflecting the metal projectiles, or getting in some good hits on Magneto when we could. Namor did the former, creating massive water currents that kept Magneto's metal from converging on Nova Prime. Speaking of which, Nova Prime was taking it to Magneto pretty hard! I'm not exactly sure what he was doing, but whenever he got the chance, Nova Prime hit Magneto with those quick energy jabs, and threw Magneto's electromagnetic aura into a fit! It got so bad, Magneto started avoiding close quarters combat; opting to use more blastwaves and power blasts. Nova Prime matched him strike for strike, and I added to the effort with some mini-sun barrages, and fist constructs. Not exactly MVP material, but it helped keep Magneto off-balance, and give Nova Prime a slight edge.

"So what of this plan of your's, Grace?" Namor asked me.

"Oh yeah," I responded. "Thanks. Kinda forgot for a sec. Ok, first thing's first, we gotta get our communication on point. Namorita did this to me back in Atlantis. Can you do the same for the rest of the team?"

"I could, but it takes a considerable amount of focus and effort to adapt a foreign mind to telepathic communication. It would take more time than it's worth to do it one at a time, and i'd be likely to give your teammates brain damage if I attempt to perform the procedure in a wide capacity."

"Any alternatives?"

"I suppose I could channel the dolphin spirit. I'd act as a telepathic transponder for you all."

"Should've led with that! Could you, please?"

Namor took a sec to switch animal spirits, and once settled in, started projecting sonar waves out of his head! It kinda tickled when it interfaced with me, and as more of my teammates joined the chat room, it got noisy real fast!

"The hell?!" America thought

"Language!" Alex responded.

"Tool," Jack scoffed.

"Wait, who's voice is that?!" Karolina panicked.

"A mental protrusion?" Nova-Prime asked.

"Be calm!" Namor projected to the group. "I, King Namor, Emperor of the Deep, am responsible for this! Your leader, Sunbird, has asked me to arrange this, to optimize our communication, and relay her plan of attack. Ms. Grace, you may speak."

"Thanks." I said. "Alright Rainbow Force, here's the play! Power Pack, form the Power Unicorn! Start converting the entire island into energy, and be ready to do the same for Magneto's metal shower. You, Namor, Nova Prime, and myself will be at the forefront of the fight against Magneto. By the way, Nova Prime, what's that thing you do, where you punch Magneto, and make his powers go haywire?"

"After analyzing the structure of his armor," they said, clearly taking on more of the Supreme Intelligence's personality. "Nova Prime detects flaws in the mutant's energy capacitors. By using a mix of sonics and controlled bursts of conflicting polarity, we are breaking down the molecular bonds and magnetic energy that hold his armor together. We sense that you wish for this one to not be fatally injured, so we will refrain from obliterating his physical form."

"Uhhh, thanks? Anyway, Karolina, Princess Powerful and America? Y'all are gonna act as surprise attacks. As soon as Magneto's in the air, start flying in any direction as fast as ya can! When you're ready, portal back, and deck Magneto as hard as possible! Then rinse and repeat, till we get this puppy on lock! By that, I mean as soon as we get this armor off, i'm gonna nab his helmet, and work my Sunbird magic on him. Don't ask what that means, Chavez can vouch for me; it totally works!Anyone got any questions?"

Everyone agreed with my plan, and we got underway!

Nova Prime, Namor and I had to fight Magneto for a few more minutes, while Power Pack formed the Power Unicorn, and literally converted Genosha into energy! Over the course of the fight, we learned a lot on how to handle Magneto, via trial and error. First off, while Nova Prime was able to take Magneto on hand to hand, as well, as use his lighting against him, Magneto was pretty good at fighting on the defensive. He would randomly bolt in any direction, with Nova Prime chasing after him, and lob electrified lobs of metal at them. Namor and I would put up water/fire constructs, rough him up with some flying/swimming punches, and let Nova Prime take the wheel again. Nova Prime went to work, doing his energy jabs and kicks to Magneto's armor. It kept getting harder form them, as Magneto kept upping the voltage shield around himself. Even though Nova could manipulate electromagnetic fields, this was kinda Magneto's thing. Nova Prime was adept taking on a grandmaster. Again, Namor and I helped our friend find a way around this; a.k.a., drop a bomb in the middle of their fight, and throw Magneto for a loop! Nova Prime was in on it, so they just absorbed the brunt of the blast on their end, and kept fighting on. By the time we got the go ahead to move this fight airborne, Nova Prime was about 45% done with destabilizing Magneto's armor. In anycase, Namor, propelled him upwards in a spiral of water, and Nova Prime and I launched him sky high with a combined power blast!

The gloves came off immediately, as Rainbow Force dogpiled the crap outta Magneto! Power Unicorn slammed into him multiple times at Mach 5, before energy horse kicking him sideways! Namor flew an uppercut into his chin, knocking Magneto back above the clouds, and before he could hit the upper troposphere, I heard a boom so loud, it darn near burst my eardrums, followed by a gust of wind strong enough to blow away a section of clouds, and send Magneto plummeting into the water, like an anvil! I saw Molly, America, and Karolina do a 90 degree turn, and fly off into the distance, prepping for another flying punch. Magneto didn't stay down for long, and rocketed outta the sea with an avalanche of metal and lightning shooting up at me and the team! I barely had time to get myself behind a barrier, and took several slabs of metal, as well as some lightning bolts, super hard! I was blasted high above the clouds, while Namor, Power Unicorn, and Nova Prime got the situation under control. With the plan being set, Namor could revert back to his electric eel spirit, and took a good chunk of the brunt of the electric wave. Nova Prime took another chunk, and in addition to absorbing the last of the voltage, Power Unicorn, converted Magneto's oncoming metal cascade into himself. Oh,Power Unicorn was an all white anthropomorphic unicorn, in silver armor, with a shining Cavalier sword strapped to his back. Anyway, he converted all the scrap metal into energy, via yanking them away from Magneto with his anti-gravity powers, and mass converting them into himself. Without his onslaught of metal, Magneto didn't last too much longer. Oh, he definitely wasn't a pushover, my face and every other part of my body can attest to that, but he had a lot less to work with now.

Even before I recovered and rejoined the fight, Namor, Power Unicorn, and Nova Prime took it to Magneto hard! Namor socked Magneto across the face with a Sea Force charged punch to the face, sending him flying! Nova Prime dashed into Magneto a few times, leveling him out, and went back to business, hitting his armor with those polarity reversing punches, or whatever. He was able to get several hundred punches in on him, before Magneto stopped him cold, and blasted him back with some lightning. Before anyone else could attack him, Magneto let off a wave of electromagnetism, knocking Namor, Nova Prime, and Power Unicorn back; before blasting them with individual lightning power blasts. Namor blasted back with a spiral of Sea Force charged water, Nova Prime with with a Nova Force power blast, and Power Unicorn with a bright yellow energy blast. The four held each other at bay for a good few seconds, while I thought of a good way to break Magneto's focus. To be honest, I gave it way more thought than I needed to, and even considered hitting him in the balls with a boot construct. Not proud of that, and glad I didn't go through with it. Instead, I made a bow and arrow outta fire, charged it up to nuclear level, took aim, and after giving Namor fair warning, he couldn't absorb and redirect fire, launched it at Magneto! A blinding flash of bright yellow fire, big enough to decimate an entire borough of New York, engulfed the area where my teammates were! Namor put himself inside Sea Force shield, and let the impact throw him into the sea, while Nova Prime shielded themselves and Power Unicorn in a Nova Force barrier! Magneto once again went soaring upwards at atmospheric exit speeds, and once again, Karolina, Molly, and America decked him downwards with a punch that could crack a city! Magneto plummeted into Nova Prime's fist, who wasted no time resuming his armor breaking punches. I zoomed down to give the rest of the team a hand, which we needed several of! Nova Prime went at it with the punches, and Power Unicorn took up an elastic form, which he promptly used to restrain Magneto's arms and legs! That gave me an idea, as I summoned mini-suns on Magneto's hands and feet, to keep him from struggling as much! It worked like a charm, but Magneto wasn't one to be held down, as he started blasting off waves of electricity, in addition to bringing down a thunderstorm that even Jason would have to give props to! Power Unicorn and Nova Prime did their energy absorption thing, but it was Power Unicorn who got the MVP for creativity! While continuing to keep Magneto locked in his Mr. Fantastic impression, he stretched his head as far as he could to the sky, and used his horn as a lightning rod; keeping most of the voltage off us! Still, Magneto was gettin' desperate; releasing voltage waves getting more and more powerful! I had to triple my body aura, just to keep a foothold in this fight, as well as call America, Molly, and Karolina to the main fight, to whack and/or hold Magneto at bay! This made Nova Prime's job a little more difficult, but after five minutes of grueling work, he was able to completely blow apart Magneto's armor!

I didn't waste a single second, and used one of my last two Sun Goddess charges on Pip! I merged the mouse spirit with the greek word future (μελλοντικός), yanked off Magneto's helmet, and crashed the mouse of the future into his forehead! So what was my plan? Well, considering the fact that Doom's version of utopia didn't do it for Jim, I hoped it wouldn't do it for Magneto either. With grandpa Apollo also being the god of prophecy, this seemed doable. Also, and this was a little selfish of me, but I wanted to see for myself what Doom's rule would look like, and whether or not I truly was on the right side of this. Don't get me wrong, Doom was holdin' the world at gunpoint, and calling it salvation. I was gonna whack him across the head with a big hammer, but I wanted to at least see his side of the story. Yeah…...somehow Doom managed to exceed my worst expectations.

For starters, when the comet crashed into the planet, the devastation completely decimated the world. The most beautiful landmarks, and grandest cities, all blown away, like sand in a fan! The death toll was sickening! At best, most countries lost about 60% of their overall population. Worse case scenarios were countries like Wakanda and Atlantis, which became ghost towns Doom would eventually pillage for their resources. Oh, and the mutants? As of right now, there are roughly 7 billion people on this planet and rising. Of those 7 billion, 2.5 billion are mutants. After the comet, that number was reduced to 240 million! Doom followed up his mass holocaust by going down into the microverse, to cull the rest of the New York population. I thought he'd give them the chance to accept his offer of 'salvation', but even then I underestimated his cruelty! He lorded over them, like the god he thought he was, preaching a damn judgement day speech! As families and children cried, scream, and begged for their lives, he condescended over them, like they were dogs.

"Know that Doom takes no pleasure in this," his voice mentally carried out to the millions of people. "Doom understands that you fled to save yourselves and your loved ones. But in your faithlessness, you fled Doom's blessing, and forfeited your place in his kingdom. I grant you a swift death, as is the infinite mercy of God King Doom."

What followed afterwards was truly heartbreaking. As the people screamed and cried, begging for their lives, Doom clenched his fist, and disintegrated them all! I wish that was the most disgusting part of the ordeal, but remember the demonic blood magic Doctor Strange was goin' on about? The one that held his god comet together? Apparently, Doom made some Shadow Man deal, that gave the souls of those that refused Doom's offer to those entities! The vision didn't show much of that; only horrifying image of billions of souls being divided up against various flame headed demons, who laughed gleefully. That unlocked such a deep anger in me, a burning desire to cause as much pain as inhumanly possible on Doom, that I hoped he'd get ten times the eternal torment he was gonna damn billions of people to, once we ended him! Believe it or not, things somehow managed to get progressively worse from there.

Doom rebuilt the world his his image, and Magneto restored Genosha to glory. Doom's new breed were capable defenders of the planet; knocking away any would be invaders away with ease. Still, trouble in paradise couldn't help but brew. After years of worshiping Doom as a god, when they themselves were now gods, many decided to stake out kingdoms and religions of their own. Doom didn't approve of that, and after blackmailing Magneto's kingdom into the fight, waged a series of civil wars and rebellion quashing! Countless millions would die in the years of war that followed, not counting future, more dangerous, alien invasion attempts. Doom would eventually rally the world into a universal campaign to conquer other civilizations. With the magic and advanced tech at his disposal, he easily conquered Attilan, the rest of the Inhuman kingdoms, the Madjestenians, and the Brood. Each world he conquered got the same treatment Earth did. Big shiny comet, big battle, comet crash, billions dead and given to demons, billions recruited to Doom's side. Heck, Doom was such a royal jerk, the Skrulls, Kree, and Shi'ar empires, all of whom hated each other, eventually formed an alliance to stop his virus-like spread across the cosmos. The galactic war spanned decades! Trillions dead! The earth destroyed! The mutant population decimated to the low thousands! Incalculable loss of treasury and resources! All for a pyrrhic win! Yeah, Doom did eventually conquer his enemies, but at the cost of endangering 7 species, and the destruction of over 1,000 planets! And if you think it couldn't possibly get any worse than universal war mongering, again, it can always worse.

Magneto, enraged with the near extinction of his people, spent years inciting infighting and rebellion in the various empires Doom had conquered. Before long, another galactic level civil war broke out. This one, along with trillions more dead, ended with the complete extinction of mutants, Inhumans, Kymellians, Zr'nx, Kree, and Skrulls. And after literally hundreds of years of bloodshed, Doom established a permanent peace across his empire. Whether or not this empire would last forever, I couldn't say. The vision ended, and I awoke next to Magneto, both of us levitating in some kinda energy entanglement fueled by my power. Magneto didn't say anything, nor did he attack. He just kinda sat there in disbelief.

"How?" he asked. "Why?"

"Because Doom's an egomaniac who only cares about himself," I said. "A true leader, motivated by the good of the people, doesn't ask for worship. Look, I get that you wanna keep us mutants safe. You don't see us working together with humans. Heck, you might even be right. Maybe the Inhumans were ahead of the curve. Think they'd like neighbors up there on the moon?"

Magneto chuckled. It was uncharacteristically deep and sincere, but also kinda forced and reluctant. This guy didn't know how to be happy. That pained me. He shoulda been a grandpa by now.

"I've no way to answer that, child," responded. "Yet I sense you are not sincere. Much like Xavier, even after witnessing how cruel humanity can be against those they've othered, you still believe in them."

"I do," I responded. "Heck, just last year I was one of those humans. I know we've had a bad track record of being forward thinking on things that shouldn't even be a question, but I also know, given enough time, humanity eventually comes around to the right decision."

"Some of us are too busy being hunted down and killed to wait on humanity to 'eventually' stop murdering us."

"I agree. And I also agree that maybe Xavier's way wasn't the best either. Until humanity gets the memo that mutants and humans can coexist, we need to have a place we can call our own. We need another Genosha."

"Because that worked so well the previous time."

"I read up on that. That was Cassandra Nova, Xavier's twin sister, who slaughtered them. Yes, humans, even one, are capable of great bigotry and violence, but I can attest to the fact that there is another side to that coin. It's been no secret to my town about what I can do. Heck, they'll probably throw me a victory party when go back! They could've outed me, ran me out, but they knew me, and through my actions, saw they had no reason to mistrust me."

"And we should roll over and do tricks for the humans? Placate their intolerance by begging for treats?"

"That's intentionally misleading, Mr. Maximoff. Trust has to be earned, no matter what side of the fence you're on. No, i'm not saying we submit to the humans, but we should definitely remove the 'us vs. them' mentality. When, and I do mean when we build Genosha, I want in on this. It should be like last time, a haven for mutants, but with a lot more security measures. I do believe humanity can change, but you're right, we shouldn't have to bend over and take it, while waiting for them. Still, a mutant only nation only locks in that 'us vs. them' mentality. So if we rebuild Genosha, we should make it a land where mutants and humans are welcome. Xavier dreamed of a world where co-existence was possible, so let New Genosha be the light to show everyone the way."

Magneto gave that one a good deal of thought.

"You are an optimistic one," he said. "Still, you presume much. Assuming the world would be so gracious as to gift me Genosha again, how would we rebuild it? How would we convince mutants, much less humans, to repopulate a land that has the stench of death on it?"

"Well," I started. "For one, the United Nations gave you Genosha way back when. After holding a press conference, and scheduling a meeting with the UN, we could reaffirm the sovereignty of Genosha, and ask for aid in the rebuilding phase."

"Aid that Atlantis would be more than willing to provide!" Namor spoke up behind us, making me jolt a little. "Our glorious nation is currently in the midst of a great rebirth, and will gladly support and defend our allies. After all, I, Namor, the Avenging Son of Atlantis, am a mutant. Yours is mine, and will be treated as such!"

Magneto looked a little stunned, but nodded with a small smile.

"Even after I betrayed you, you'd fight for me?" he asked.

"We've all made mistakes, Magnus," Namor responded. "I have recently been forced to confront my own. The girl and her allies fought for me, even after I was less than grateful for their initial support. They believe I can guide Atlantis to a better path, rather than constant war with the surface. If I can change, you can as well."

"What he said," I chimed in. "And hey, New Genosha should be a collaboration of the very best the world has to offer. If we can convince them, I wanna get Mr. Stark and King T'Challa in on this. I know you don't exactly get along with Black Panther, King Namor, but maybe working together for a greater good might alleviate some of that bad blood between Atlantis and Wakanda."

"Hasn't worked thus far."

"Worth a shot. And as for convincing people to take another shot on Genosha, Mr. Maximoff, well I can think of a number of people who'd flock to an opportunity to make a better life for themselves. And yeah, it'll be a little bit of an effort to get people to give New Genosha a chance, but we'll have to put together a bangin' sales pitch. Put someone who can inspire people to believe in tomorrow on the poster board."

"And I assume that won't be me?" Magneto asked.

"No offense," I quickly said. "You've done more for mutants than most people will ever know. I'm not dismissing you're involvement in rebuilding your dream, but…...you have a certain label about you. Plus, you literally siding with Doom to end the world as we know it….yeah, sorry, Mr. Maximoff, but it'll be best for everyone if you take a temporary back seat on this project. Maybe head of border security? I can draw you up some real intimidating posters! Pretty sure you get full benefits!"

He chuckled again.

"I appreciate the gesture." he said. "Will you send these items to my cell?"

"Dunno if i'll have to." I shrugged. "Cyclops was adamant on you goin' back with him. You might not spend time in a cell, but if you could kindly not throw bridges at people, that'd be nice."

"I will refrain. However, my duties as a protector of my kind will not be impaired. I can only promise you will not see what awaits prosecutors of mutants on the news."

"Works for me. Thanks, Mr. Maximoff."

"One more thing, child. You speak about this dream as if you yourself intend to take a back seat. As much as rebuilding Genosha is my dream, it is your vision that may be the guiding force to making it a reality that would honor my friend, Charles. Join the X-Men. Experience the hate and fear most mutants face every day. See if you are still brave enough to believe in humanity, after you've seen what evils they are capable of. And if your fire still burns after that, you should be that face on the poster."

I got extremely flustered! I was thinkin' Storm, Rogue, or Nightcrawler! Me?! I was nobody, I hated public speaking, I couldn't be the face of a new nation!"

"I, I mean, that's nice, but-"

"You can inspire the people, girl," Magneto insisted. "I see so much of Charles in you. You have a compassion and strength that would rival even his. Please, at least consider it. It's your vision. If you do not see it through to the best of your ability, who will? Besides, you will not be alone."

He held out his hand, and after swallowing the lump in my throat, I shook it. That wasn't a yes or no, but I wasn't completely shutting the door on his offer.

"Thanks again, Mr. Maximoff. Now if you'll excuse us, we've gotta go save the world. Please stay here."

He nodded, and the spell seal locked him in. A storm brewed overhead, and lightning flashed like crazy, but Magneto stayed in a meditating position, as the spell seal spat me and the team out.

Just like that, the spell seal round up was done! I almost wanted to celebrate, but Grant mentally shouted at me, his voice all panicky and rushed! Jason was in trouble! A skyscraper in Hell's Kitchen! Doom about to put a sword through his chest!

"STORM-LORD'S IN TROUBLE!" I shrieked at my team. "GOTTA GO!"

I took off in Jason's direction, with my team following behind! Nova Prime had timed out, so the Nova Twins were separate, I had no idea if Power Unicorn could fight Doom with the Olympus gauntlet, and I only had one Sun Goddess charge left. Still, that self righteous son of a bitch was not gonna steal my kinda sorta, soon to be boyfriend away from me! I pumped on the gas, and flew as fast as I could to hit him across the head with the biggest hammer I could make!