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.

32. Chapter 32: Storm-Lord vs Doom

Chapter 32: Storm-Lord vs. Doom

Finally getting to this showdown with Doom was the equivalent of getting that dreaded test back. You know, that test for whatever class you're not all that good at (math), where you tried your hardest, but you're still not feelin' it? At best you're hoping for a mid C, but know in your heart you got a D. Yeah, that's what this felt like. I was terrified outta my mind, despite landing blows on Doom that literally shook the ground! I knew without a doubt he'd get the upper hand again, and I wasn't sure i'd ever get it back. Still, I made the most of the glorious 10 seconds I was in control, and punched Doom deep into Central Park! He smashed into the grass, and before I could land another punch, put up a Nature Force shield to repel my attack! The energy surge knocked me back several feet, and I took the kid gloves off as soon as I hit the ground! I powered up to Thunder God, and released a Final Flash so strong, it shattered Doom's shield, and tunneled him through a mile of pavement and grass (never liked Central Park much, anyway)! I did a Static Jump behind him, launched him into the air with a Phantom Bolt, and blasted him from all sides with a barrage of Olympus Force blasts (I call all the powers of the stones Olympus Force now)! I pulled no punches whatsoever! Every blast I shot was strong enough to decimate skyscrapers, and resounded with enough force to cause tremors in the ground! It looked for a split second that I had Doom on the ropes (as if), but he switched the tables on me real quick! The energy barrage I was dogpiling Doom with all of a sudden stopped, and started revolving around him! My Speed Sense was alerted too late, as a vine wrapped itself around my waist, which turned out to be only the tongue (insert Spongebob joke)! Doom apparently had a little more creativity than I gave him credit for, as that vine tongue was connected to a larger plant crocodile (or alligator, I don't know the difference) that also breathed War Force! Side note, how messed up was it that this gave me nostalgia for my first mission in the Amazon? Anyway, I put a Death Force body shield around me, and blastwaved the plant creature apart! Doom was literally waiting for me; barely a foot away from skewering me with his rainbow sword (which I was still kinda mad I didn't get)! I barely managed to summon my Sky Shield in time to block the stab! Doom followed his failed stab attempt up with several hundred slashes and stabs per second, for the next 10 seconds. I managed to block/dodge em' all (barely), while getting in a few good Storm-Lord Specials, Vibration Kicks, and shield swings to his face and chest. Still, Doom was a better flyer than me, and was a pretty damn good swordsman. If I wanted to stand a chance at staying alive, I had to ground him fast!

After blocking a few dozen more sword swings, I did a Static Jump to the same spot, while striking Doom in the back of the head with a Phantom Bolt. I managed to fool him into thinking I was attacking him from behind, leaving him wide open for a Zeus/God Steroid powered Vibration kick, landing him two feet deep in pavement! I wasted no time on the landing, and charged myself with every flavor of Greek God I had in my body! I merged it with my Speed Momentum (haven't used that term in forever), and took off! On the real, this was one hell of a rush! I was running faster than i've ever run before! Fast enough to where even tho there was a trial of rainbow colored lightning behind me, I was running too fast to even catch glimpses of it! Every Storm-Lord Special hit with the force of a battleship's worth of rockets, and I was givin' Doom at least 2,000 hits per second! To put that in context, by the time the punches racked in the 39,000s, the first sonic boom just barely hit in real time! Doom got smacked across the lower half of Central Park for a good minute or so, before blasting me five miles north with an explosive wave that made my vision go all white!

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Doom roared, before going ultimate rage quit!

He stabbed his sword into the ground, causing thousands of Olympus Force spikes to shoot outta the ground, like gophers, shredding the land like you wouldn't believe(the property value of this joint was gonna nosedive)! To be honest, I don't think i've faced a more challenging obstacle course in my life! I had to switch between running, flying, deflecting, blocking, and even absorbing the spikes, on a dime! Doom kept the energy volley going, and even added to the mix by adding War Force rockets, Death Force flaming skulls, and every flavor of kamikaze Doombots! It got so bad to where I eventually got pinned down; barely keeping Doom's fire power at bay with an energy shield! Doom kept pouring it on; quickly reminding me not to stay in one place for too long! If I tried to hold my position any longer, Doom would eventually crush me, and I didn't spend all that time Hyperbolic Time Training to lose in under ten minutes! I focused on making a Mega Lightning Strike, big enough to decimate a city block, and brought the voltage down on top of Doom's head! He diverted the lightning via Zeus Stone, but I expected that! What really mattered was that for a split second, Doom averted his attention away from his massive energy barrage, and I was prepared to turn it back on him the second his grip slacked! The permanent resting bitch face got everything he threw at me dogpiled on him in a skittles inferno that put a parking lot sized crater in the ground, and shot him upwards, like a bottle rocket! I wasted no time in knocking him back to the ground, via flying over, and giving him Storm-Lord special! I followed that up with some War Force charged Vibration punches to Doom's face; getting as many as I could in, before he teleported away! I tried pinging him with my Thunder Sense, but he wasn't showing up anywhere…...until he did!

Yeah, when this f*(#%^ showed up, he showed up strong! Before I could even comprehend what was goin' on, Doom had literally enveloped all of Central Park in a rainbow colored energy rectangle, which was decked out the ass with magic runes and symbols! As my mind was buzzing with questions like "how much $#!+ am I in for today?", Doom materialized just over me, charged with a $#!+ ton of Death Force, rocketing with the momentum of a jet! My Speed Sense just barely alerted me in time, and that was being generous! With maybe a nanosecond to spare, I dove outta the way, and ducked under my Sky Shield, inside an Apollo Fire barrier! I coulda skipped all that bull$#!+ for all the good it did me, cuz Doom's Death Force meteor drop plowed through my defenses, like scissors through wet paper! I skidded across the ground, like a stone over water, and tumbled into a cluster of bushes (which would take forever to get outta my hair). Didn't have time to acknowledge how much pain I was in (which was a lot), as I could sense Doom comin' at me, with a roar that could spook a lion!

Again, this dude was damn fast when he wanted to be, as he came down on my face with a fist that could shatter boulders! I rolled outta the way, and blasted him back with a tornado blast from my hands. It only bought me a little over 50 meters of space, but I was able to get a quick look at what he was workin' with. Long story short, the dude went full Last Airbender finale Avatar State! Seven orbs of Olympus Energy, about the size of basketballs were orbiting Doom, like he was an atom (dude would totally name an element after himself). The power resonating off of him was like wildfire heat smacking you in the face; tho I sensed how inextricably tied to this spell rectangle this power level was. Speaking of which, this place was about to be a fun house of pain for me! I could sense how malleable and responsive the rectangle was. The energy feedback I could trace back to Doom felt like a neural system. With a thought, Doom could make this energy do whatever he wanted, at the speed it takes for the brain to send signals to your hands! Even If I was faster than thought, I knew this was gonna be a fight and a half!

Doom wasted no time, and blasted at me with a Death Force spiral cannon, literally made out of damned souls! I slowed the blast down with sheer force of will, but Doom was pushing it further and further into my personal space! Doom was one hell of a multitasker, and immediately started putting his mystic funhouse to work (i'll use that as a placeholder for now)! In the span of half a second, Doom tried to kill me three times over (not counting the soul cannon, which is official) via, trying to impale me on the ground I was standing on, with a cage of burning thorns, and raining down Apollo Fire comets, as well as jagged shards of War Force! If it wasn't for my training with Olympus Force, I woulda ate it big time! Instead, I showed Doom he wasn't the only one who could multitask! I shot a wave of Death Force from my feet, killing the thorns, and blocked the fire comets and War Force daggers with a Sea Force Dome! After covering my ass, I willed a Phantom Bolt, as big as a Mega Lightning strike, to blast Doom from behind. He blocked said Phantom Bolt with a Death Force magic shield, but I tapped into the Power Grid hard, and assaulted him with hundreds of lightning strikes; forcing him to put more effort into keeping the voltage at bay, and less so with pushing forward his soul cannon! This was where all the bull$#!+ paid off (for once)! I asserted my control over the thousands of souls in the blast, and ran straight into it (not the smartest idea)! As I cut through the blast, I absorbed as many of the damned souls into myself as I could (a little over 9,000), before slamming Doom with another crater making punch! The blow completely shattered Doom's barrier, and sent him skidding across the grass! I followed that up by giving myself an insane charge of War Force to go with my Death Force power up (war and death compliment each other), which was already stacked up on Thunder God! By the time Doom got up, he got another punch to the chest, that knocked halfway across central park! As he passed over the lake, I blasted him upwards, via Sea Force charged water spiral, before Static Jumping under him (which felt weird with so much energy coursing through me), and drop kicking him into the top of his funhouse! I was really impressed with that kick, as Doom's mystic funhouse was about as high as the Empire State Building! Also, the lightshow! Drop kicking him into the dome caused some kinda feedback to surge across the whole thing! Beautiful to look at, and no doubt painful for Doom! I flew up after him, with intent to scrape him across the whole dome, and see what that'd be like (i'm not at all sorry for that), but Doom was quick on the recover! He dashed down, and tackled me with the force of a train! We tumbled and scraped with each other in freefall, but Doom got the final hit, knocking me into the ground with a blow that woulda shattered an elephant's skull! I was dazed as hell, but managed get up a War/Death Force barrier above me, before Doom power slammed me to jelly! One hit was enough to nearly shatter my barrier, so I made sure didn't get another crack at it. As he winded up for another swing, I trucked him from the side with a Sea Force shark construct, and tried aiming him towards the lake again. Doom busted out in 3 seconds, and proceeded to bombard me with all the Olympus Force, from all angles! Again, going completely on the defensive woulda been bad, but Doom was puttin' way to much heat on me to power through it. Luckily, I had just the Transformer construct for the job!

I tripled the War/Death Force I was hopped up on, and transformed the energy around myself as a 200ft tall Metroplex construct (no matter how many times I say it, i'll never get over how good those War/Fall of Cybertron games were)! The body and cannons were made outta War Force, while the actual ammo was a mix of War/Death Force blasts and missiles! I opened fire on Doom (who was kinda like a smaller, more annoying Megatron), who was just barely half a mile under the mystic funhouse! When thousands on thousands of War Force charged damned souls blasted the son of a bitch, in the form of a laser/rocket volley, he shot into the funhouses' limit, and got pinned against it! I poured on the heat for almost half a minute, before I felt Doom start to get a defensive foothold. As soon as I felt him start to shield himself against my assault, I flew my construct up, and smashed a Metroplex sized fist into him! Was that overkill? Yes. Did I stop? Hell no! I smashed my construct's fist into Doom again, and again, and again (definitely like Fall of Cybertron!)! Doom's mystic funhouse charged up with every punch, and I could feel the relative frailty of it! A good few more punches, and i'd smash right through the damn thing! Of course, Doom wouldn't let me get far enough to try, and believe it or not, took offense to getting smashed! While dialing back for the tenth bug smash, Doom unleashed a torrent of Zeus Lightning, strong enough to push my behemoth of a construct off balance! He quickly formed a Combat Avatar of his own (a giant him, made out of Apollo fire), and rammed into me with the white hot intensity of a bat$#!+ dictator!

He definitely put the heat on me, as he whacked my construct again and again with his fists, legs, and giant sword. Heck, the Olympus Sword (is that official? It should be) enhanced his power so much to where his construct was way more solid than any i've ever made (beginners luck)! After getting my ass smacked around for a good few seconds, I managed to get some distance between us with a volley of shoulder rocket explosions, but Doom was relentless! Barely two seconds later, he was back on my ass again, with haymakers that could shatter skyscrapers. I was more prepared this time, so the fight was a lot more even, but I definitely had my work cut out for me.

"YOU DARE?! Doom roared, as he planted a fist across my construct's face. "YOU DARE TO FORCE DOOM INTO PERSONAL COMBAT?!"

I gave him a reverse kick to the chest, followed by a massive War/Death Force blast as an answer! I launched another wave of missiles at Doom, who blocked them with a Centurion shield, and charged at me in full force! I braced against the impact, stopped Doom cold, and slashed back with a War/Death Force Chaoseater (War's sword in Darksiders)! Doom and I went back and forth for several minutes, and the dude had a mouth on him!

"YOU WRETCH!" he roared. "YOU INSIGNIFICANT, IMPUDENT, UNWORTHY SPECK OF DUST! YOU DARE TO CHALLENGE DOOM! RIGHTFUL LORD AND GOD OF ALL?! IT IS DOOM WHO BESTED IMMORTALS, AND VANQUISHED DEVILS! DOOM WHO HAS WIELDED THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSE! DOOM, WHO WILL RAISE THIS WORLD AND ITS PEOPLE TO THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACES, AS RULERS OF THE COSMOS?! I-"

Yeah, yeah, just insert generic, 'I deserve to rule everything!' bad guy speak. I was having a much more interesting mental conversation with a certain Sorcerer Supreme.

"Having fun, are we, Mr. Fuller?" Strange politely asked.

"Can it, discount Dumbledore!" I responded. "I'm tryin' to focus here!"

"I resent that, Mr. Fuller. My mystical prowess makes Dumbledore look like a magic act at a child's birthday."

"You ever do a kid's birthday party before?

"I owed Richards a favor, but that's not the point. I'm contacting you to inform you of our progress."

"Then give it to me straight, doc!"

"At the rate the battle is going, assuming you do not expire before then, Doom's comet will crash into the earth in a little under two hours. At the rate we're storing energy, the second arcane reservoir will be ready in half an hour before then. How goes your fight?"

"Just gettin' warmed up. Bout to put my plan into high gear."

"May fortune favor the foolish."

I wanted to say something clever back it him (probably woulda failed), but the good doctor shut the door on the conversation, leaving me with Doom for company (lucky me).

The guy was still railing about how awesome he thought he was; powering through some real heavy hits from my construct! That was another thing. Doom and I went at it like Titans! On average we punched, kicked, slashed, and blasted each other at least 100 times per second; laying waste to more and more of Central Park! Doom wasn't half bad! As a swordsman and hand-to-hand fighter, he was able to keep up with me, and even get in a few good hits, but me being faster, knowing more fighting styles, a brain that can predict your next move, and lots of big damn guns handy, meant Doom all but lost the construct fight! Even with his mystic funhouse constantly feeding more Apollo fire to his construct (why not just attack my construct from multiple angles?), my War/Death Force sword and ammo kept his construct from reaching full power, and after a few minutes of slashing and blasting Doom across Central Park, I managed to cripple Doom's construct via slicing off his hands, and tackling him into the ground! I trained all my guns on what was left on Doom's construct, but before I could unleash the beast, Doom went full sore loser (aka Crosby, every time I smoked him at basketball), and made his construct go nuclear! The blast blew my construct apart, and launched me almost 700 ft into the air! Luckily, my construct took the brunt of the blast, leaving my senses intact. Good thing, cuz Doom was rocketing after me, with his sword primed to run me through! Before he could make contact, I shifted into Thunder Form 2, slammed into him as a huge ass lightning bolt, and carried us both into the river! I reconstructed my body as soon as I got Doom underwater, and flew outta the river. I pointed my arms down, focused on the water, and before Doom knew what was what, turned the river into a lightning/Sea Force charged whirlpool!

I'm sure Doom was thinking of extremely creative ways to curse my entire bloodline, but I made damn sure he didn't surface to spew any of it out! Yeah, my whirlpool was one for the books! The swirling water was at 200 mph, and I kept sending lightning bolts down to keep Doom further disoriented. I also constructed some of the water into various sea predators to maul him! And while I used Doom as the ball in a SeaWorld routine (SeaWorld sucks!), he was a sitting duck! Oh, he tried to wrestle control of the water away from me, but even without my trident, my waterbending skills were enough to compete with what was left of the power he had in the Stone of Poseidon! He also tried using the other Olympus Stones, but with so much turbulent water throwing off his bearings, he couldn't hit anything for $#!+. As I tried to drown Doom (if only it were that easy), I also reworked the arena to take away as many of his advantages as possible. I started by creating a storm cloud, wide enough to cover all of Central Park from the sky to the ground! After I got the cloud set up, I made it rain (so many jokes, I can't even pick) and lightning! The lightning helped saturate the environment with electrons for me to use on a dime, and being in water doubled my strength! Also, while I was giving Doom a power scrub, I tuned into his Olympus Stones, and started setting up the seeds to trash his stupid suit. Long story short, I blocked as much of the energy flow in his gauntlet as I could, while also keeping up my other battlefield tricks. It wouldn't cap Doom's power too much, and if I wasn't totally focused on the energy block, i'd loose all my progress. So now the million dollar question was if I could focus on maintaining an energy block, and maintain a defensive stalemate inside Doom's mystical playground. If Doom had anything to say about it, the answer was a solid 'debatable'. He finally managed to summon enough power to shoot outta the water in a multi-colored blaze, with his sword raised to cut me down the middle! Before he came down with the sword (like he'd hit me with such a wide open swing), I smacked him a mile ahead with a giant cloud hand! Doom crash landed into a cluster of endangered trees (God, I hoped Geo-Titan could fix that), and I gave myself one final advantage, before heading into round 2. In addition to being in Thunder God (I was pretty much always in Thunder God), I charged myself with God steroids and War Force! I also charged my all encompassing rain cloud with Sea Force and Death Force bolts, making the triple threat god combo. Also, because when you mix Death Force with water, the results are…...wicked. Anyway, Doom came back around with a wide swing. I side flipped over it, while simultaneously blasting him in the face with lightning from my eyes! I landed a few feet on his other side, only to parry another sword swing that woulda cut me in half, purely on reflex (dude was fast as hell)! Didn't know why there was an irritating grinding sound, or Olympus Force permeating the air, like powder paint, but I eventually realized it was me! On instinct, I was making my sword vibrate; tryna cut through Doom's. Dunno if it was even possible, but Doom sure as hell didn't like me scratching his new toy (that came out wrong), cuz he tried to end me in so many ways, it wouldn't even be funny!

Before the attacks even went through, I sensed Doom about to use Nature Force to literally uproot whole trees to throw at me (endangered ones), and blast me from multiple angles with huge Galik Gun blasts, made of all of the Olympus Force! If the attacks fully went through, it woulda put me in a tough spot. However, blocking a bit of Doom's gauntlet gave me a little advantage I didn't anticipate. Long story short, I was cheating in the same way MK 2 cheats. If you don't know (cuz you're too busy having a real life), MK 2 was infamous for being hard as f*(#. Instead of reacting to the animation of your character's moves (like video games should), the computer reacted to your moves as you mashed the buttons. For example, if you hit the moves for an uppercut, the game knew what you were gonna do, and would react to the uppercut, before the animation even started. It was a cheat move too sucker kids into wasting five bucks in quarters on the game, and that's basically what I was doing with Doom. So before his set up even got off the ground, I f*(#%^ it sideways! I summoned some Death Force geysers to kill the trees (i'm almost certain Grant could fix that), and made my Storm Stadium (might as well give it a name) turn into a violent whirlwind, crashed with the big three god energy, to shield me from Doom's big laser blasts! Hell, I was already blocking 30% of Doom's blasts, so my shield easily tanked the rest! Before Doom could try another attack, I slammed him in the jaw with a god powered Storm Lord Special, almost knocking him across the length of the whole damn park! I tried to see if I could end the fight a little early, via going into my Storm-Form (when I become a human cloud and/or merge with clouds, it's been a while since I pulled this card), transferred my consciousness to where I was behind Doom, and quickly reformed my body, while summoning Excelsior to shank Doom in the back! I made sure to vibrate my sword (good things happen to those that vibrate their swords), and was completely shocked when the blade sank deep into Doom's lower right side! Yeah…..I didn't think that would work, nor did I expect what happened next! Apparently, I struck Doom where his Death Force arc reactor was, and ruptured the f*(# outta it! I'm talking Death Force bolts exploding off Doom, like he was a tesla sphere, big enough to decimate the entirety of Central Park (I had to either absorb or deflect most of it)! And that was just the buildup! Doom ended up letting loose a Death Force explosive wave that damn near knocked my lights out, and launched me halfway across the park! Yet even after that haymaker of an explosion, Doom wasn't too far behind! He teleported barely a few feet away from me, and almost smashed me to a pulp, Hulk style! I sidestepped his gorilla smash, and tired for another stab to one of his arc reactors (10 bucks says I hit the Hercules one). Doom wasn't feelin' another round of Operation, and managed to block my stab with a magic rune shield, before batting me away with a swipe from his left arm! If not for my density, that backhand woulda killed me, and to be honest, got pretty damn close! I felt my ribs bruise, and the swipe was strong enough to throw me across the whole park! If I didn't catch myself, via merging with the clouds, I woulda felt the sting of the funhouse barrier on my back. So yeah, getting hit with Doom's ungodly armor was a big no no; tho he sure as hell wasn't gonna make that easy for me! As soon as I reformed my body, he was barely a second away from trying to put his fist through my face! Again, I managed to roll outta the way, and as he tried to blast me point blank with his Olympus Gauntlet, I clapped my hands together, just barely knocking the blast back on Doom, sending him flying (and nearly dislocating my kneecaps)! After taking half a sec to heal myself, I summoned my sword, and unleashed hell!

The next ten minutes or so (hard to keep track of time when you're fighting for your life) could be summed up like so.

1: I kicked Doom's ass all across Central Park.

2: I had a chat with the Olympus Stones; trying to get them to turn on Doom.

I know the first part sounds hella arrogant, but i'm just keepin' it real! Doom had a bad time! As soon as I shot him into my storm cloud, I turned that $#!+ disaster level real quick! For a good minute, Doom got smacked around my Storm Stadium, hit with countless lightning, Sea Force, and Death Force bolts, and got punted into his stupid magic rectangle at least 20 times! I could feel Doom trying to wrest control of my storm from me, and he was failing miserably! Even if I wasn't putting a block in his power, my storm powers were on such a league of their own, thanks to my Hyperbolic Time training, that I could probably give Storm and Thor a good run for their money (imagine if I had that hammer!)! Doom was a sitting duck, up until he busted out another teleport spell. Again, he tried to smash me from behind, but I had his number this time around! I sidestepped where his punch would land, summoned Excelsior in a reverse grip, and after vibrating it, extended it to spear mode, and got Doom again in his mid-left reactor! I nailed the Zeus one (lucky me), causing Doom's suit to go haywire all over again! I got a bit of distance this time around, absorbing some stray lightning on the way, and busted Z.O.R.D.O.N. out, to give me a maintenance check on Doom's suit. Long story short, I had accidentally stumbled into genius! My stabs in Doom's armor didn't destroy his reactors, but ruptured them enough to where even his self repair functions wouldn't be able to completely heal them! Some pieces were jostled outta place, while others were destroyed. This was causing Doom's suit to gradually overheat, and reach maximum energy capacity quicker than I woulda had it! Sure, I had a lot more work to do, but as Doom launched a Kamehameha of Apollo Fire at me, I was startin' to feel optimistic about our one on one! I countered the fire blast with my own, made of Death Force charged water, which is just beast! Basically, went you mix the souls of the dead with water, you get a simulation of River Styx water, which is literally just a sea of damned souls, wailing and thrashing in a river that's acidic enough to melt through Titanium! I was fine, cuz of my Death Force control, and so was Doom (unfortunately), due to his mystic defenses, but the creativity of using River Styx water was boundless! For example, when my River Styx water cannon collided with Doom's Apollo fire blast, clawed hands of the damned reached out, and started grabbing at the fire! With each grasp, Doom's flame extinguished more and more, until he had no choice but to resort to deflecting the blast around him. That left him open for a tornado literally crashing into him from above, and decking him into the ground! I followed that trick up with a River Styx tornado, which was horrifying! Imagine a tornado of damned souls, twisted and contorted into unnatural shapes, with clawed arms trying to grab and tear you apart (delightful stuff)! Hell, I almost felt bad for him, till he summoned his Olympus Sword, boosting his powers, and dissipated it! I barely had enough time to get my shield up, before Doom slammed into me with a broad swing, causing a massive shock wave that rippled across half the park! I could definitely hold my own against him upright, but this was clearly his field advantage. Had to make him fight me on my terms. I did a Static Jump, just a hundred meters away, and bombarded Doom with War/Death Force missiles. He blocked them all, and started chasing me. Let's see if he could keep up!

Again, the fight was pretty much me dominating and/or outmaneuvering Doom on almost every turn; but Doom definitely wins the award for most improved! As we ran, flew, punched, kicked, and blasted our way across Central Park (pretty sure Grant can rebuild a small bridge), Doom got in almost as many good hits as I did; with the hit ration being 6-4 outta 10, in my favor. Again, he lacked imagination, but sheer power, and mixing Olympus Energy with Doctor Strange wiz biz, made up for that big time! While I was blasting tanks, missiles, Power Rangers, and TMNTs at him, Doom was hitting me with War Force charged Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, Nature Force charged Rings of Ragadorr, and Flames of Faltine, charged with Apollo Fire (sounds like Yu-Gi-Oh spell cards waiting to be made). Hell, if not for my speed and Storm Stadium providing me cover/maneuvering opportunities, as well as me running interference with Doom's mystic funhouse (the feedback was really startin' to pile on), i'm not sure i'd last as long as I did. And as for trying to get the stones on my side….yeah, they were petty as $#!+.

"C'mon, you magic Fruity Pebbles!" I thought to them, as Doom and I shot lightning and War Force at each other. "I'm bustin' my ass for you! Give a brotha somethin' to work with!"

Doom managed to nail me in the chest with a skull shaped War Force blast; almost punting me into the lake.

"Insults will win you no favor, little one," the Stone of Hades responded. "Especially after you were defeated, and robbed of a power that chose you."

I condensed a portion of my giant cloud around myself, making a shield, before using the Power Grid to grip Doom in the biggest tesla sphere I could make!

"That's your answer?!" I responded. "You good with playing nice dog for this asshat?!"

Doom absorbed the voltage into the Zeus Stone, and blasted a flurry of Olympus Force blasts at me, forcing me to go on the run.

"We are the manifestations of gods!" the Stone of Zeus said (really captured grandpa's pretentiousness). "We answer to no mortal! Certainly not you! You have proven you are unfit to wield the powers of the gods!"

I shot Doom from multiple sides with Phantom Bolts. He blocked them all, but I got him with his own overdone trick, and yanked him to the ground, via man eating tulip (so satisfying)! The monstrosity gnawed on, and blasted Doom with Nature force, as the doctor tried like hell to bust out.

"I'm unworthy!" I mentally shouted at grandpa (he hurt muh feelings). "Dude, I got abducted from my life, and busted my ass to get most of you! I was on the ground, fighting through f*(#!^& plant monsters, zombies, sea creatures, and demons, to collect you immortal pains in my ass! Doom sent his minions to do all his hard work for him, and were always shot down by me and my team! Hell, I hosted one of you inside me! I have the power of Olympus in me! It's damn near my birthright! Doom uses machines and outside magic to herd you, like sheep! He's a punk and a phony! He doesn't respect you! He thinks he's above you!"

In the time it took to get that mini rant out, Doom busted outta my man eating tulip, and launched an onslaught of various Olympus Force powered demons, enough to cover half of Central Park, at me! I had to make my Storm Stadium go F5 again, and strafe the oncoming demons with Zeus, Sea, and Death Force bolts!

"You just called us excrement," the Demeter Stone remarked (got shut down by a rock).

I created my own army of red War Force Power Rangers, blue Sea Force rangers, green Nature Force rangers, yellow Apollo fire rangers, and I used Death Force and Zeus Lightning for the black and sixth rangers. In less than a second, I had 20 years worth of Power Rangers (multiplied to match Doom's army) to back me up! We fought like hell, slashing and blasting through a good chunk of each other's forces, before eventually fighting our way to each other. The good news was that Doom and I were putting so much Olympus Force into our armies, I didn't have to worry too much about attacks from anything other than demonic savages (better than having the ground trying to swallow me again). The bad news was that Doom and I were going at it sword to sword, and I found out pretty quickly that he could f*(# with my set up as well on his own. Between the two of us basically stonewalling each other's powers, we could only swipe and stab at each other, while occasionally getting in some blasts here and there. For example, after a few minutes of slashes and parries (thank all the gods for God Steroids), I sidestepped one of Doom's stabs, and blasted him in the face with a War Force/Zeus Lightning blast from my eyes. He barely staggered back, but it was enough time to try for another Vibration Stab to one of his reactors, but Doom was prepared for that. He quickly put up and Olympus Force body shield, that even my vibrated sword had trouble cutting through! I mighta had a chance to see how deep I could cut, but Doom was quick on the recovery, and came down on me with an explosive punch from his Olympus Gauntlet! I managed to duck behind my Sky Shield, while making Doom's energy backfire on him as much as I could! The resulting explosion, big enough to trash half a mall, blew us both backwards in either direction of central park! I smashed through dozens of demons and Power Ranger constructs (demon blood stings), and crash landed in the lake. Usually that would be a win for me. Water helps clear my head, and give me a surge of strength. Also, when Doom came knocking, i'd have a can of watery whup ass ready to go for him! Yeah…...Doom came knockin' pretty damn strong! I felt the atmosphere of the water change around me! It felt like I was inside something. Half a sec later, the water, just a few feet above my head, transformed into jagged piranha teeth, the size of Greyhound buses! I felt a huge rush of water going upwards, and just barely reacted in time to avoid getting ground to paste, as I found myself in the jaws of some Cthulhu beast from the dimension of f*(# me! Seriously, while couldn't see what it looked like (thank God), this thing had a maw that was the stuff of nightmares! For starters, this thing had teeth in every area of his mouth! It's tongues (yes, plural), each the size of anacondas, had sharp barbs on them, and were secreting an acid that was slowly melting my armor! In order to not die (always a good goal to have), I had to summon my trident to keep big ugly's jaws from clamping shut, and put an energy shield around myself, to stop the acidic decay. Still, Doom hooked this creature up, as it literally shot a column of War Force outta its mouth (now I knew how Grant felt)! My body shield managed to hold strong, and once I got a good handle on the energy this creature was spewing out, I blocked the energy flow in its throat, resulting in the beast's head exploding like a zit (Osmosis Jones was such a good movie)! The blast of War Force and demon brains (which smell like burning mold) launched me into the sky, where my Speed Sense went off like a fire alarm! Doom had teleported just behind me, and had his sword so close to my back, I could feel the blade starting to slice into my armor! I managed to grab his head, pull myself into a backflip, and when he whirled around with a sword slash, side jumped over it, while smacking him upside the head with my trident! Doom got punted back about a quarter mile, but easily recovered, and tried to do something with his mystic funhouse. I'm pretty sure it was gonna be somethin' along the lines of summoning a horde of flesh eating pixies, but I made sure to kill that spell in its crib, via blocking as much of the energy flow as I could! Yup, Doom was definitely tryna summon something; as it started raining severed tentacles and talons (poor nightmare beast). Doom shrugged that off, and charged me again.

We went at it again, while I argued with the Olympus Stones again. Thank God Allyson and Grant taught me how to sky fight, cuz Doom was just as much a pain in the ass up here as on the ground! We were both blocking each other's energy flow, to where most of the time we could only slash or punch at each other, with occasional blasts and constructs, if we could get each other off balance. Most of the time, our fighting blurred. We could be slashing at each other one minute, before immediately transferring to mid-air wrestling (i'd watch that). For example, after a full minute of sword fighting (I was still grinding into Doom's sword, vibration style), I managed to block one of his overhead strikes, while planting a Vibration Kick into Doom's chest; sending him flying backwards! I busted out my Power Gauntlets, and flew top speed after Doom, knocking him every half sec with Storm-Lord Specials, until I planted him into the edge of his mystic funhouse, on the other side of the park! I immediately poured on the heat, constructing an onslaught of Olympus Force tanks, jets, missiles, and Bakugan, to bombard Doom like The Holy Spirit in black church (look it up)! I pulled no punches, and blasted Doom, like I wanted to shatter him through his stupid mystic rectangle! Based on the way the barrier was reacting, I mighta been gettin' pretty damn close! Still, for as much fire power as I was barreling Doom with, the dude refused to stay down for long! After maybe 30 seconds, and over 15,000 projectiles smashing into Doom (had to at least have a headache by now), Doom started to block my oncoming blasts! Before I even had a chance to cuss in my head, an Olympus Cannon (i'm willing to share my terms), big enough to swallow seven buses stacked on top of each other, crashed into me, making my body go numb with pain! Ironically enough, despite the mind f*(#!^&ly high levels of pain I was in, my mind was probably more clear than it had ever been in my life. I understood that this Olympus Cannon was hitting me way harder than anything had in my entire life. I understood that in three seconds, this blast would slam me into the other barrier of the mystic rectangle. I also understood that if this thing pinned me against that barrier for more than seven seconds, the pressure of the blast, and feedback from the barrier would kill me! I sure as hell understood that was not gonna happen!

Somehow, I managed to muster enough willpower to halt Doom's blast, and catch myself on an air current! I was barely 50 meters from the barrier, and somehow had to turn the tide against a blast that was over 2 miles long! Doom definitely refused to make it easy on me, as he amped up his blast, but I managed to hold him back, while I readied my hail mary! I deconstructed all of my Power Rangers (the runoff from Doom's blast was obliterating most of the battle anyway), and absorbed the energy into myself! While I stored and amplified the energy inside me, I also absorbed the entirety of my Storm Stadium into my body, and mixed that with the Olympus Force (this was gonna be one helluva smoothie). If Doom knew what I was tryin', he didn't let on/didn't care. Either way, his unchallenged reign in this power battle came to an end, as I released an Olympus Force charged Storm Cannon (new thing, basically a tornado Kamehameha)! Doom was so unprepared for the sudden pushback, that the initial burst put us at even odds immediately! Doom managed to catch the sudden rush, and the battle truly was on, as we both tried to out DBZ each other! I put everything I had into the Storm Cannon; not caring whether or not the energy flow felt like lava melting my insides, or the fact that my head felt like someone was splitting it with an axe! I focused every molecule of my being into beating back Doom's blast, and frying him to a crisp! Doom musta been feelin' the same way, cuz our blasts didn't move an inch in either direction! Dunno how long our stalemate lasted, but after however long that was, the energy buildup finally hit critical, resulting in an explosion for the decade! Seriously, this blast spanned the entire area of Central Park (which was certainly trashed to hell), and exploded with just enough force to shatter Doom's mystic rectangle, while causing minimum damage to the surrounding buildings. Wish I could say the same for me! I got punted a mile away, through two skyscrapers, and landed on an apartment roof in Harlem (Luke Cage was gonna lose it if I trashed this place)! Granted, I summoned my Sky Shield to take most of the impact, but I slammed into that roof, back first, and got the wind knocked outta me! I groaned, as my body tried to recover from the Olympus Force blast, while the stones started talkin' $#!+ to me again.

"Impressive," Zeus mused. "The boy does have a willfulness about him."

"Indeed," Demeter responded. "A shame he did not show such strength at the initial battle for the sword."

"I concur," Poseidon said (barnacle head). "Despite your objections, Jason, the fact of the matter is that you failed to prove yourself worthy of claiming a weapon of the were defeated in the following battle, and lost the stones you worked so hard to claim. It is Doom that stands with an army amassed of ethereal beings, machines powered by our magic, and great warriors who wield our power. True, you have internalized the power of Olympus for yourself, but that is hardly relevant. You are overmatched, outnumbered, and are barely escaping the jaws of death and defeat."

The stones started to murmur among themselves, agreeing that I wasn't $#!+, and I had just about enough of it!

"ENOUGH!" I mentally shouted at them. "Reality check, Doom's a thundering dumbass! He's had the power of gods before, and always fails, cuz he can't put his ego aside to get the job done! If he was such good $#!+, he'd have already made his dream world! Instead, he's spread his power too thin, givin' me and my forces a fighting chance to stop him! Hell, his head's so far up his own ass, he doesn't even realize i'm stealing his power right from under him! Is that what you call god material?! Ya know what, i'm bout to show y'all why that blowhard ain't got $#!+ on me! And when I do, I want my rematch!"

"Rematch?" Hercules mused in mild excitement. "What sort of rematch? And what would justify said duel?"

"His sword. Ima shatter it. Doom ain't half as good with the stones without that blade. So when I shatter it, we go at it one on one with one set of Olympus Force at a time. 7 minutes per round, y'all can be the judge of who wins. If I score more points, y'all leave him for me. If he wins, then y'all really did back the right horse."

"Preposterous!" Apollo finally said something. "The sword is an unbreakable manifestation of the eternal glory of the gods of Olympus! You cannot hope to destroy it!"

"So we have a bet? On the River Styx?"

The stones conversed for a few seconds, and eventually agreed. Just in time too, cuz using my Thunder Sense pinged Doom (who got blasted all the way to Garment District), finally getting up to his feet! It wouldn't be long before he found me, so I decided to beat him to the punch! I went Thunder God again, and slammed Doom point blank with a Phantom Bolt that coulda wrecked a skyscraper! Luckily, Doom was on the ground, and I had more control over my Phantom Bolts. Instead of plowing him through homes and business, I made the bolt zig zag across the roads (which would be a pain in the ass for road repair men), straight into Midtown East, just in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. I did a Static Jump on top of the roof (which was probably all kinds of sacrilege), and started taunting Doom.

"You really suck at this whole God King of the world gimmick!" I called down at him.

"Bah!" he scoffed as he got up. "You mean to taunt Doom into defeat, boy?"

"Seems to work for Spidey. Can't hurt, right?"

"Do not take that tone with me, you insignificant upstart."

He summoned his sword, and the air started to heat up with magic.

"I am-"

"Lemme stop you there, bub" I interrupted what was sure to be a riveting speech.

Doom was so surprised (like nobody would dare interrupt him), that he got caught with his pants down, when I jumped his arrogant as with Apollo Fire Fantastic Four constructs! I started out with a construct of Thing goin' all Clobberin' Time on his face, knocking him half a mile backwards!I placed a Mr. Fantastic construct where I knew he'd be, and made it morph into a slingshot, to catch and launch Doom into the air! The finale was an overcharged Human Torch and Invisible Woman kamikazeing him in a massive explosion, before bringing him down on E. 57th Street with a Mega Lightning Strike! Of course, I was there to talk more $#!+.

"Ooooof," I said several feet behind him. "That looked painful. Did I step on your moment? You feel all bad now?"

Doom got up with a roar and a blast from his Olympus Gauntlet, but I deflected it upwards.

"Not happening, tin can," I responded, drawing my own sword.

"You wanna take me out? Gotta catch me first!"

I took off towards Upper East Side, with Doom hot on my ass!

I'll admit, kicking the hornet's nest that was Doom's ego was gonna come back to bite me, but I needed Doom angry. He lost sight of his surroundings when he was angry. In three minutes, we literally fought our way across all five boroughs of New York! The first minute was basically Doom getting a harsh memo that his whole second rate Sorcerer Supreme gig (which he was) was incapable of keeping up with me! Doom had a small advantage back at Central Park, in the sense that as big of an area I had to work with in his mystic rectangle, it was still limited. Out here, I had endless space to maneuver and use the Power Grid! So while Doom was tryin' like hell to summon War Force pentagrams, Death Force harpies, and Zeus Lightning powered Venti to swarm me, none of it actually mattered. I was way to fast for the pentagrams to get a lock on me (also there was that whole immunity to magic thing), I used the Power Grid and Apollo fire to torch the Death Force harpies, and actually managed to turn the Venti on him!

"Guys," I thought to them. "I'm one of Zeus'. What do ya think the big guy's gonna do to y'all if I tell him you so much as gave me a static shock?"

That was more than enough for them to attack Doom, like vultures on road kill! Doom had to dispel them, while shouting a stream of curses that would make Mamma Krabs go into cardiac arrest! And that was just the beginning of his troubles! Like I said, Doom's spells and magic creatures couldn't keep up with me, but the Power Grid sure as hell could keep up with him! After that Venti attack, I blindsided Doom with a Phantom Bolt, knockin' him clear outta Brooklyn, and just barely over the water! Before Doom could recover, I used the Power Grid to unleash all kinds of electric hell on his ass! From Phantom Bolts, electric tornadoes, lions, and dragons; I smacked Doom's ass across the sky for over three minutes, before he finally managed to catch himself! Using his sword (and I guess the Zeus Stone), he absorbed the lightning into his sword, and that's where my opening presented itself! I started bombarding him with all forms of Olympus Force! Some actually rocked him pretty hard, but he absorbed most of the energy into his sword, like I wanted him too. Long story short, I was pulling the same play with him as I did with my fight with Namor. Basically flooding the sword with energy, and willing that energy to gradually ramp up, while I kept grinding down the sword from the outside. A rational person would look at their blazing sword, and question why the rainbow flames weren't stopping, but like I said, I made it my job to make Doom irrational! I had him chase me around the skies for a bit; throwing blasts and constructs at him. I'll admit, he got a little better, if not a little predictable with his tactics. Sure, he ditched trying to trap me in magic barriers, and even started using constructs, but the constructs were what you'd expect. Other than Doombots, you got War Force missiles, swords, arrows, and other war weapons. He'd also throw out Death Force skulls, and Sea Force sharks, but not bother to shape the Zeus Lightning, Apollo Fire, and Nature Force; opting to blast mini-suns (Allyson woulda been pissed!), lightning bolts, and Nature Force bolts at me. I will give him props for using the God Steroids to attack me with monsters Hercules killed in his Twelve Labors! Sure, a big ass, orange, five headed Hydra wasn't exactly the Christmas gift I was lookin' for (I was hoping for some socks actually), but the Greek Mythology nerd in me couldn't help but get a little excited when I had to fight my way through the Nemean Lion, and Erymanthian Boar (until they almost killed me that is)! Of course, I dodged, blocked, and blasted apart his constructs, while absorbing some residual energy in my sword. Doom and I kept up our aerial dogfight (which I moved closer to Brooklyn), and when the time was right, I did a Static Jump above him, and came down with a stab from my sword! I knew Doom wouldn't be fooled by a Static Jump attack, but it was enough to get him to focus on one metaphorical hand, while the other bitched slapped him into the pavement! Basically, while Doom focused on not getting skewered (however he planned to do that), I shifted into Thunder Form 2, and slammed Doom into the pavement, before reforming my body, and bursting out my Power Gauntlets! I crashed several hundred Storm Lord Specials into Doom's face, before he managed to catch them, and blast me away! I didn't even hit the ground yet, but Doom was already up and at em'; damn near skewering me with his sword! I managed to balance myself on an air current, use Doom's momentum to maneuver around him, and get another Vibration Stab into one of his reactors! I hit him in his mid right side, which was the Nature Force arc reactor (was hopin' to get God Steroids)! I'd usually let him burnout right where he was, but seein' as I was tryna not destroy most of Brooklyn, I launched us both sky high on an air geyser, while absorbing a good amount of Nature Force into Excelsior! When the big burnout was over, Doom was…..less than appreciative of my experimental acupuncture techniques! This was one of those times where I lost focus in the moment, and took one in the ass for it! Doom, even in the immense pain he was in, managed to backhand me across the face, nail me point blank in the chest with an Olympus Force blast, and send me rocketing into the ground with a War Force bolt! Yeah…...that hurt so f*(#!^% bad! I wanna pretend I was able to power through it, but even in Thunder God, I definitely blacked out for a good few seconds! It was an amazing opportunity to find out that my Speed Sense still worked when I was unconscious, and had one helluva kick! Seriously, it was like someone poured scalding chemicals into every neuron of my body! I jumped up just in time to block Doom's sword stab with my Sky Shield! I quickly blasted him away with a Phantom Bolt, summoned Excelsior, and took off in the other direction, with Doom swearing curses as he powered after me!

I lost track of time with fighting Doom across all of New York! Mostly because our fight was like a mix of Speed Racer, DBZ (always DBZ), and Yu-Gi-Oh! Doom's sword was still ablaze with the power I dumped into it, and so was mine. As we fought across New York, I focused in equal parts on trying to get Doom in his remaining undamaged arc reactors, while also grinding his sword down. To be honest, the fight was pretty even. I was in Thunder God again, and was mixing my Speed Momentum with the full spectrum of Olympus Force; giving me a level of Speed that musta been pretty damn close to a quarter of lightspeed! Doom put his armor into overdrive, tryna keep up, but just like Allyson and Grant when they first started, Doom was a total noob at maneuvering at such high speeds. For example, we'd slash and blast at each other, getting in a good 300 slashes in per second, before I sensed us about to crash through a skyscraper. I'd bail on the fight, and dash around the building, while Doom wiped out all through the lobby (don't worry, all buildings in New York are insured by Damage Control Inc.)! I was waiting for the pompous asshat on the other side, and launched him into the air with a lightning geyser! I flew up after him, my sword ready for another arc reactor stab, but Doom was way better at adapting than I gave him credit for! He rolled twice, and right before I made contact, blasted me point blank with an Olympus Cannon! I went rocketing back to the ground, but managed to catch myself right before crash landing! I managed to force Doom's blast a little over halfway on willpower alone! I was gonna go for a Static Jump behind him, but Doom changed his attack plan real quick! He split the blast up, constructed them into kamikaze Doombots, swords, missiles, and all manner of Storm-Lord crushing constructs; forcing me to go on the run again! Yeah, that was one thing i'll give Doom props on. He caught on quick! While he wasn't able to pin me down, or get any solid hits on me (tho he got pretty close), he turned every step I ran on into an obstacle course of death! Around every corner, I was subject to getting skewered by sword constructs, blasted by Phantom Bolt knockoffs, or run into energy barriers! Hell, the dude took to creating spikes in mid-air, tryna skewer me where i'd be, in addition to tryna catapult my ass with energy geysers! From above, Doom kept up a constant stream of rapid fire blasts and bolts, which made flying just as dangerous (in addition to so much property damage)! My saving grace was the fact that I could sense his Olympus Force attacks coming (with an occasional Speed Sense kick to the ass); allowing me to disrupt the energy flow, dodge certain attacks, or use the Power Grid to make shields! Still, at the rate of Doom's attrition style of attack, he'd eventually get me; especially considering he was setting up the arena to where I was solely zipping through Brooklyn! Whether it was a lucky shot, or eventually maneuvering me outta all possible options, Doom was cutting my thread shorter by the second! I racked my brain, tryna figure out a way to knock Doom off-balance, and then it hit me! Granted, it wasn't gonna be the finest plan I ever thought up, but it would get the job done. I zipped my way over to the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel, Doom still hot on my ass, only to have my path blocked by War Force spikes! Doom was definitely on top of his game at the moment, but he was focusing his attention on the wrong thing! I used the Power Grid to momentary trap him inside a tesla sphere, which Doom easily absorbed into the Zeus Stone (probably not a great idea to go Thunder Form 2 too much with this guy). Once again, he was focused on the wrong thing! Before he could comprehend what was going on, I trapped him in a vortex ball, charged with all of the Olympus Force! Doom tried to power his way out, but in addition to my iron will over the storm, I transformed my Olympus charged Vortex Ball (I like it, it's official now) into a Cannonbolt construct (gotta love Ben 10), and rolled Doom into the middle of the tunnel! I quickly barricaded the tunnel exit points with War Force turrets, and let loose on Doom with 1,000 rounds per second! Hell, that was just the opening act! I used my Nature Force powers to overrun the tunnel with thorned vines, giant Venus Flytraps, giant Beyblades made of grass, vines, and thorns, and some explosive pollen grande shooting flowers (Grant should take notes)! Doom was caught off guard for a moment, and by the time he got close to regaining his footing, it was already to late, as I summoned a torrent of water, big enough to flood the tunnel (i'd drain it later), from the nearby river to flush us both into Manhattan!

We landed in Battery Park, where I quickly used Nature Force to expand the tree branches, stringing Doom up, before trying for another Vibration Stab to one of his reactors! Doom cut my momentum in half, via making the grass grow big and thick, to slam me into the ground, while he broke free of my tree branches! He set his sights on me, with a face that could be easily translated to "I'm gonna f*(# you up big time!", and I responded by blasting him with an Olympus Force blast from my eyes! Not the best offensive defense, sure, but it actually ended up working better for me than I coulda hoped for! Doom clearly didn't give two f*(#$ about my attack, and absorbed it into his Olympus Gauntlet. From there, the energy went to Doom's arc reactors, but that's when $#!+ went sideways! The damage I did to Doom's arc reactors were more extensive than I gave myself credit for, cuz the damaged ones overloaded and made small explosions in Doom's armor! He dropped to the ground; cursing and roaring in pain (I don't feel bad about grinning)! His grass bonds wilted off me, and I wasted no time in getting on my feet, and slamming Doom in the head with a Storm-Lord Special; knocking him clear of Battery Park, through so many buildings (that I feel bad about), and landing him just in front of the New York Stock Exchange buildings (they could take the hit). I summoned Excelsior in spear mode, and did a 300 leap (THIS IS STORM-LORD!), coming down on Doom with a Vibration Stab! Doom, in an admittedly badass move, spun around, parried my spear with his sword, and grabbed my whole face with his left hand! I sensed him about to stab me with his sword, and just barely phased in time for the blade to not actually run me through! That wasn't exactly a win, as Doom opted to cook me alive with Olympus Force! The dude literally tried to overload my body with the stuff, hoping i'd….I dunno, explode? Dry out? Didn't matter, it was painful as f*(#! I was barely able to work through the agony of feeling like my molecules were being ripped apart!, and managed to channel enough energy into my left fist, and knock Doom off me with a desperate blast! I wanted to chase after him, but that energy roast f*(#%$ me way up! It took a good 2 minutes for my organs to not feel like slushy, and thank all the gods, I was able to use the Power Grid to hold him off with some giant electric Spartans (I was feelin' in a Spartan mode all of a sudden). He powered through them relatively easily, but when I got my $#!+ together, I piled on the energy blasts and constructs, while I reconfigured Z.O.R.D.O.N. Long story short, I needed instant updates on the condition of Doom's armor, and it would be kinda hard to keep my intentions secret from Doom, if me and Z were just blabbin' our business all out there. Instead, while I kept Doom busy with another Olympus Force Power Ranger army, I recalibrated Z's mainframe to merge with the same energy burst that gave Delta Force our psychic link. Took a little while to get the system ready, and when it came time to launch, Z was a little trigger shy.

"Sure you wanna do this, man?" he asked me. "This'll hurt like hell, and leave you wide open for an ass whuppin'."

"Good point," I responded. "Gimme a sec."

I reconstructed my ranger army into a huge flame of volatile energy; trapping Doom in the Skittles Inferno (that never gets old)! I grew a series of vines and branches around him, which I eventually constructed to a cannon as big as a stone pillar! I let the energy build up for a few more seconds, and when the blast was at critical, I blew Doom sky high in a July 4th blaze of glory! That would buy me about 15 seconds, give or take, so I mashed the gas on that mental link! The pain was just as excruciating as the first time (ah, memories), and i'm not afraid to admit I screeched like a banshee! My vision went black for a sec, and it felt like someone dropped me in the middle of a whirlpool! The pain and vertigo lasted just long enough for Doom to recover, teleport right in front of me, and try to crush me with a stomp (rude as hell)! I blocked his spiked boots with my Sky Shield, but Doom trucked me from the side with some kinda battering ram made of War Force, sending me smack dab into one of the NYSE pillars! Before I could even fall to the ground, Doom slammed into me with a shoulder charge, smashing me through the pillar, and through the NYSE walls! I crashed into a room full of computers and monitors, and before my Speed Sense could give me fair warning, Doom blasted me sky high with an Olympus Force geyser so strong, I was almost certain he trashed 75% of the NYSE building (talk about a recession)! Doom followed up his f*(# you to Wall Street, buy trying to body slam me into the ground, but my Speed Sense gave me the heads up, and I was able to use the wind to maneuver my body over his tackle! I thought i'd have a good 3 seconds to catch my breath, and maybe revise my battle plans, but Doom had a big fat L for me to hold, as he teleported back in my path, and slammed into me with enough force to knock the wind outta me!

Doom smashed me through a few skyscrapers (ouch), before I managed to shake him off just enough to knee him in the gut. It didn't get him off me entirely, but it gave me enough space to summon my Power Gauntlets, and wail on him for my life! We fought our way through a dozen skyscrapers, give or take, both of us landing some good hits on each other for a good three minutes. While I put up a good fight, Doom's punches really f*(#!^% hurt! By necessity, I shifted into Storm-Form, turned myself into a tornado, and crash landed Doom atop the Metlife Building in Manhattan (had to land somewhere). I tried shifting back to my body, but Doom was blocking me in mid transformation! If you've never experienced what it's like to have your body trapped between two fundamentally different states of being, I highly advise against it! Being held halfway through a transformation was excruciating! My body was tryna reform all its inner workings, and it's kinda painful when your lungs aren't developed enough to breathe air! It felt like I was always on the edge of exploding into chunks, which may have been Doom's intentions! For maybe 20 seconds, we were locked in the struggle, and while I was gaining ground, Doom's will over me was too much to fully fight. It was like tryna swim against a riptide; you can't fight the ocean! Instead, I used my half body to my advantage (so good, I never wanna do it again), by touching the building, and in a split second, attuned myself to the millions upon millions of voltage in the building's power grid, and made it all rush to the top in a massive blastwave! Doom went airborne, allowing me to finally reconstruct my body! Again, I was barely able to get 3 seconds of rest, before my Speed Sense went off like an atomic alarm clock! Doom had easily recovered from that voltage geyser I just let off, and was dive bombing me, with intent to pile drive me straight through a hundred skyscraper floors (no regard for property damage, this guy)! In the state I was in (I wasn't in Thunder God at the moment), Doom slamming me through several tons of metal at Mach 3 would at least break a few bones, and assure he'd knock me outta the fight earlier than intended (pretty sure the stones were laughing at me right now)! I was currently splayed out on the skyscraper roof (lookin' very intimidating), but I was just playing possum; waiting for the right moment. The right moment was apparently half a second before getting pounded into jelly, cuz just as Doom was literally inches away from slamming into me, I phased through the roof, and propelled myself downwards! I phased through 10 floors, before I stopped phasing, and dashed out one of the skyscraper windows! Doom was barely two seconds behind me, so when he crashed through the floor I exited, I blindsided him with a flying tackle (after I upgraded to Thunder God again), through the other side of the building! Before Doom could recover, I busted out a Power Gauntlet, and hit Doom with a Storm-Lord Special, and a one handed Final Flash (really proud of that one), planting Doom into the ground so hard, he almost punched a hole into the sewers! I summoned Excelsior, and while launching Doom back to mid-skyscraper level with a lightning geyser, I flew at him, transforming my sword to spear mode, and tried for another Vibration Stab (I know the definition of insanity, I just don't care)! Once again, Doom thwarted my goals by doing an admittedly badass Matrix backflip to avoid my flying stab, summon his sword, and recycle his momentum to come back around, and almost slice me in half! I managed to parry his sword away, leaving his face open to take a lightning blast, big enough to obliterate a subway car! Doom flew back a good half a mile before he recovered, absorbed my voltage, and launched a 360 degree Olympus Force blade storm at me! Definitely an improvement on his tactics, but i'd been in this position so many times, I figured out a good escape plan in barely half a second. I used the Power Grid to sense all of the incoming projectiles, and construct lightning shields a few feet where they were going to be. Before Doom could counter, I slammed him into the ground again, via War Force boxing glove spring gun, and did a Static Jump in front of him, and actually managed to get a Vibration Stab through! If only Doom didn't get an energy shield up, stopping my momentum cold! Doom looked at me, like I slapped him in the face (which I kinda did), and probably wanted to smite me with the wrath of all the gods! That didn't sound all that appealing, so I smacked him across the face with my sword (had to keep him angry), and zoomed towards the Upper East Side!

Doom and I did our usual dance; tho I added a few more steps to the mix. For one, I was able to use the buildings to either phase through, or maneuver around, to strike Doom from multiple positions, and cut into his momentum. Hell, if it wasn't for his energy barrier, i'd have knocked out Doom's remaining arc reactors in 3 minutes tops! We kept throwing constructs and blasts at each other, tryna cut each other off at every turn, and I made sure to mix up the battlefield; choosing when the fight was grounded or airborne. The key was to not let Doom get comfortable in the fight, or let him dictate the terms of the battle. Z.O.R.D.O.N and I would decide that for him.

"Alright, Z," I thought to my A.I., as Doom and I battled it out over the Hudson "What's the deal so far?"

"Well, ya f*(#%& his Nature Force, Zeus, and Death Force arc reactors!"

Doom and I exchanged a few hundred sword swings, before I punched him clear into Wave Hill Garden, in the Bronx (now I was gonna tear up home)!

"No $#!+, Jimmy Neutron, but what's the hook?"

Doom literally charged the flora and foliage around him with War Force, and constructed a 60 ft tall plant force giant around him, fashioned after himself (cuz of course it had to be all about him). He summoned some War Force demons to back him up, as he charged me with a roar for the ages!

"Damn, no respect for the A.I. Ima hafta renegotiate work conditions with you, dude. Anyway, you really did a number on ya boy's super suit. With me keeping his self repair function from goin' all out, his damaged arc reactors are steadily deteriorating. The energy buildup will eventually blow the suit apart from the inside out. Especially if you keep it up with the stabby stab stab routine!"

I created some Sea Force charged water turrets to shoot down the oncoming War Force demons, did a Static Jump into the clouds, and willed them to form around me, to make my own badass giant construct!

"What about his sword? I kinda have a bet with the magic rocks. If I break Doom's sword, I get a winner take all rematch, so how am I lookin' on that end?"

I came down on Doom inside a giant Wild Force Megazord, charged by all the Olympus Energy at my fingertips, aided by my own army of cloud nymphs (a few of em' thought I was cute).

"Believe it or not, you're makin' it way harder than it should be! You're on the right track, fueling his sword with a constant loop of Olympus Force. And tryna grind the sword's exterior, until it can't sustain the amount of energy held within it? Good plan."

Doom and I exchanged Godzilla power punches; tryna rip each other outta our respective Combat Avatars.

"But….."

"You gon' need a massive energy field around your sword to have enough power to crack that shell. Otherwise, you'll be hackin' away at his sword all day."

Doom and I went at it for a good few minutes. He was good, but even when he got some good blasts and jabs in on my avatar, I easily repaired it. When I took massive chunks outta his plant construct, those took more time to repair.

"How bout I blow another arc reactor?"

"That'll do. But it looks like Doom's covered his ass pretty damn good. How you plannin' to get past his energy shield?"

"Watch and find out, Z!"

While my A.I. and I discussed strategy, I gradually moved the Megazord battle between me and Doom to lower altitude, before dropping my avatar, and swallowing Doom into the Hudson, via huge ass water geyser! Once under, I quickly transformed into my Sea Form (better than breathing in the Hudson), and tore what was left of Doom's Combat Avatar as a Sea Force charged whirlpool! Before Doom could catch his balance (definitely didn't want another round of getting caught between two forms), I spat him outta the water, reformed my body, and shot after him with a voltage charged water torrent following close behind me! Doom was already on the rebound, comin' in hot inside a huge War Force comet! I constructed my water torrent into a huge fist, and shot it up at Doom, causing one hell of an explosion! The blastwave knocked Doom sky high again, and woulda sent me to the bottom of the Hudson, if I didn't Static Jump to the sky, just before the explosion went off! As such, I was hovering about 100 ft above where Doom would end up careening. As funny as it was to watch the asshole spiral outta control, I knew it would only be a matter of seconds for him to regain control of his momentum. Instead, I busted out my Power Gauntlets, gave myself a huge sure of voltage to stack on top of my Thunder God strength, and bolted downwards! Before Doom could recover, I slammed him in the back with a Storm-Lord Special at Mach 5 (hurt my hand a little bit)! Doom crashed down just as quickly as he blasted up, but instead of letting him crash into the Hudson again (the water was polluted enough), I slashed my hand across the air, and smacked him across the river via water spiral! As Doom skidded across the water, I kept up the wombo combo (I wombo, you wombo,...) by smashing multiple water fists into Doom (like super violent dolphins), and keeping up a wide range of Olympus Force blasts and constructs (mostly Gatling Guns, missiles, and Code Lyoko characters), while I found a good spot to Static Jump downwards, and add some more Storm-Lord specials to the mix! I was actually kinda proud of myself, as I kicked Doom's ass from Bronx County, to the mid point between the end of Manhattan and Staten Island (I may have gotten a bit carried away)! After taking the 3,000th hit, Doom finally got tired of getting his ass whooped, and managed to get back in the fight, via almost making me take an Olympus Force blast point blank to the face! I managed to duck under it, but had to get my sword up to block Doom from vertically cleaving me in half! We struggled in a gridlock; neither one of us wanting to give up any ground. Our respective swords were giving off so much energy at this point (made worse by my vibrating blade), that we were causing the water to ripple with 6 ft tall waves! Ultimately, I got the better of Doom, by summoning a Sea Force Great White Shark spirit to clamp him in spirit teeth, and thrash him all the way into Brooklyn, with me following close behind!

The shark thrashed Doom all the way to Bay Ridge, where the shark spat him onto the pavement. I thanked the shark (his name was Largos), and proceeded to keep the pressure on Doom. We fought around Brooklyn; blasting, slashing, and punching our way across the city. Unlike the other times, I was a lot more on the offensive this time around. Most of our battle boiled down to super punching and stabbing at each other, as I was putting most of my energy into killing Doom's energy attacks in their cribs! Using my speed, strength, and predictive brain, I was able to outmaneuver and hold Doom at bay in our battle of swords. I lost count of how many times I blocked, dodged, and parried Doom's powerfully sloppy slashes and stabs. Don't get me wrong, he had raw potential (reminded me of when I started out), but he was angry, arrogant, and fought me like it was a given that I would lose (hope he didn't get the same future vision I did). Because of that, I was easily able to get around his attacks, use maze-like streets to my offensive/defensive advantage, and casually build a Power Grid trip mine, in the heart of Sunset Park. Oh yeah, I was silently flooding several billion volts worth of juice, waiting to blow Doom sky high, while he hacked away at me, like a drunk gorilla (there's something i'd pay to see). It took a good five minutes to get ready (among another ace I had planned), but as soon as I was satisfied with the amount voltage I was gonna blindside Doom with, I gradually moved the fight towards the park, causing an uncomfortably high amount of property damage along the way (sorry Brooklyn!). As for Doom, he feel for the trap, like a sack of potatoes! I had him chase me to a grassy area, about the size of a high school track and field area, in the center of the park. As soon as he was in position, I did a Static Jump about 1,500 feet in the air, as I let the Voltage Mine (I like it) go off! From where I was floating, it looked like a small blue ping. In actuality, we're talkin' bout an electric surge, big enough to swallow a skyscraper, and then some! Doom didn't know what hit him, and rocketed up to me, where I had part two waitin' on his ass! See, the only roadblock in the way of me nailing more of his stupid arc reactors, was his body shield. Even with my Voltage Mine, I could still sense his barrier still barely clinging to life, but that wouldn't last long! While Doom and I were havin' it out, I was preppin' a Black Bolt (simple, and respectful to the OG), via vibrating and electrifying my vocal chords (not as painful as you'd think). It was hard not to clap back at Doom's insufferable jabs (If he called me an insignificant speck of filth one more damn time…..), but I managed to keep my cool. Now, when using a power like this, when you can crack mountains with a yell, you wanna be on point with what you say. Gotta go with something timeless, intimidating, awe inspiring, and iconic! As Doom got into position, lining up my shot just right, I let my voice be heard. In a scream so powerful, it could be heard from an entire state away, I blasted Doom with the Goofy yell! Sure, I coulda come up with something better, but the way I saw it (besides the fact that it was hella funny!), Doom didn't deserve the dignity of a serious Black Bolt. Doom was an egotistical asshat, who was high on the smell of his own $#!+. His vision of a 'better' world, was too destroy everything, and make it his own. He didn't deserve to be respected on any level, so I would take every chance I could to do the former. Back to the fighting, I wasn't kidding when I told you I had a voice box on me (maybe i'll audition for Sunday Best)! My Black Bolt scream rocketed Doom from Brooklyn, all the way to the edge of Wakefield, Bronx, and that's cuz I had to kill his momentum at full force! If I didn't stop him, he'd probably end up in Canada (they didn't deserve that)! I literally had to do a Static Jump to where he'd end up careening (with barely three seconds to spare), adjust his trajectory and speed with a complicated air current (thank you Storm, and my genius brain) to where Doom was racing toward me at just the right position to get a vibrating spear blade into his lower left arc reactor! I lucked out on this one, as my blade pierced Doom's Sea Force reactor! Sure, the explosion was just as violent as the other two (thank God we were high enough to avoid destroying my hometown), but I was easily able to divert most of the energy into my blade, and after knocking Doom away, transformed Excelsior back to sword mode, and shattered Doom's sword in mid-air with one swing! Well, I say one swing, but in reality I unleashed the torrent of Olympus Force in his sword, while also striking it from the outside with a full force vibrated blade! Still, I shattered the thing into pieces, and after surviving the explosive wave that ensued (like someone dropped a hurricane on my chest!), did a Static Jump to a neighborhood rooftop, just a few yards away from where Doom put a crater in the pavement. He floated outta the pit (hunched over and outta breath), glaring at me somethin' fierce.

"You petulant little fool," he sneered at me, warming up a power blast. "You thought a trinket was the crux of Doom's power?! You've accomplished nothing!"

He reared his fist back, and i'll admit, I got a little scared. I mean, I held up on my end of the bargain, and the stones didn't seem to realize or care! Just as Doom looked to let one rip, the power flow suddenly cut off, leaving him looking pretty stupid! The stones, who were working completely on their own now, shot out hazy colored tendrils, that gradually wrapped around Doom, and snaked their way around me. They tickled/itched, and I could feel them messing with my god powers. Not sure if I liked what was goin' on here, but Doom's rage quit was so worth it!

"WHAT IS THIS?!" he roared at me (still tryna blast my head off). "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, BOY?!"

I was gonna say somethin' snarky and mean spirited, but the stones beat me to it, as they spoke as one to me and Doom!

"DOOM!" they're voices exploded into our minds! "YOU HAVE DISGRACED YOURSELF IN THE EYES OF OLYMPUS, BY ALLOWING YOUR ENEMY TO SHATTER THE GIFT BESTOWED UPON YOU! THE PRIVILEGE OF THE MIGHT OF OLYMPUS IS NOW FORFEIT! YOU MUST PROVE YOURSELF STILL WORTHY OF WIELDING OUR POWER!"

"YOU DARE TO PRESUME COMMAND OVER DOOM!" Doom roared aloud (almost had the magic rocks beat). "THE GOD KING OF THE EARTH DOES NOT BEND TO THE TRINKETS OF BYGONE PANTHEONS!"

It was good to know I wasn't the only one here who was over Doom's bull$#!+, cuz they cut him down to size quick! Doom suddenly crashed back into his crater, roaring in pain! He clutched at his chest and lower sides; indicating energy overload in his damaged arc reactors, and his gauntlet hand was flailing about, like it was tryna tear his hand off!

"YOU WILL BE SILENT, MORTAL!" they scolded him, like a child. "YOU PRETEND TO BE A GOD, BUT WE ARE THE WILL OF GODS! ANCIENT, ETERNAL, All-POWERFUL! YOU WILL LEARN RESPECT, OR SHALL BE EVISCERATED INSIDE YOUR ARMOR!"

Doom looked like he wanted to protest so bad, but had more than enough sense to realize he wasn't the one holdin' the whip anymore! He begrudgingly stayed silent, while the stones continued dropping the new rules. The colored haze that was engulfing us both suddenly intensified! I felt like a giant fire hand was clamping down on my rib cage! Gradually, I could feel my Olympus Force powers, all but the War Force, being reduced down to the point to where I couldn't even feel my other six god powers (so weird to feel cut off from my lightning)!

"THE RULES OF THE TRIAL ARE AS SUCH," the stones continued. "BOTH COMBATANTS WILL HAVE ACCESS TO ONE OLYMPIAN POWER FOR A PERIOD OF SEVEN MINUTES! VICTORY COMES BY JUDGEMENT OF THE STONES, OR DEATH! SHOULD YOUR ENEMY BE THE VICTOR, DOOM, OUR ALLIANCE WILL BE TERMINATED. SHOULD YOU WIN, OUR ALLIANCE WILL REMAIN INTACT! THE FIRST TEST IS FOR THE STONE OF ARES! BEGIN!"

Doom was already hovering outta his crater, and was damn near eye level with me. Upon the stones setting the stage, and ringing the bell, I launched the son of a bitch sky high, with a War Force geyser, quickly went War Bound (think Thunder Form, but switch the lighting for red fire and blood), and flew after him with the wrath of 1,000 wars!

I slammed into Doom with a powerhouse punch to the gut, following by several hundred kicks and hits per second! The good news was that even with the limits the stones put on me, they left me with my natural speed intact! Makes sense, as my speed wasn't tied to my Zeus heritage (although maybe Hermes had somethin' to do with that), and I was grateful as hell. Also, I found out in my Hyperbolic Time Training, that I could mix Olympus Energy with my Speed Momentum, and each one had a special advantage! War Force was f*(#!^& insane! When mixing it with my speed (on top of enhancing my body durability and strength), I basically went Kaio-Ken! I was strong enough to where all my hits were creating sonic booms, and I could bring down a skyscraper, like a house of cards! My body fought on auto pilot; naturally mixing martial arts, energy blasts, and constructs, all based on my instincts and imagination. For example, I gave Doom the Wing Chun/Kara Magav/White Lotus beat down from Bronx to Central Park, before slamming him downwards with a huge ass war hammer construct, and continuing to put the pressure on with two Gatling Gun constructs, and shoulder cannons that shot War Force grenades and missiles! I got close to cratering Doom into what was left of Central Park (again, nothin' that couldn't be fixed!), but a minute into the fight, he finally found his footing! He managed to get up a War Force charged spell seal that absorbed my oncoming attacks, and reflected them back at me. Under normal circumstances, I woulda blocked/averted the blast, but I got blasted back, while failing to power through it. That was the one downside of letting War Force fuel me. The bloodlust tended to guide me toward an attrition style of warfare, and I clearly was not gonna outlast Doom in a straight up fight. The blast didn't hurt all that much (tho it pissed me off), but I had to quickly refocus my grip on the War Force. The best relationship I had with it was when we both had a hand on the wheel, and I decided where we were going (hopefully Disney World). I focused on martial arts styles that blended power and strength, with flexibility, getting around your opponents attacks, and using their strength/momentum against them. Good thing, cuz I was learnin' the hard way that Doom was no slouch!

He dashed up with an uppercut so fast, my Speed Sense hit me like a sack of bricks to the forehead! I managed to spin outta the way, using the angle of my side flip to get a kick upside Doom's head, followed by a right elbow to the face….which proved to be a mistake! Before I could spin around to nail Doom in the face with a War Force blast, he grabbed me with his left arm, constructed a War Force dagger in his right hand, and tried shoving the blade into my face! I managed to get my right arm out, catching his knife hand, but Doom was gradually getting closer and closer to running my face through! Once he got to the point to where the blade was literally at my forehead, I got a quick burst of inspiration that helped me not die (my best ideas usually come from life threatening situations)! I basically turned myself into a War Force comet, and shot upwards, while spinning around. Doom was barely able to hold on, so when I let loose a War Force wave, he got thrown off completely! I was able to appreciate not having my face ruined forever (cuz my personality sure ain't a magnet) for about two seconds, before getting another Speeds Sense memo, that Doom really wanted to put something sharp through my head! I blocked a sword construct with a Roman Shield construct, busted out my Power Gauntlets, and after giving Doom a hit to the face, knocking him clear though Central Park, gave chase!

For the next three minutes (totaling to about 5 outta the 7 minutes we had in round 1), Doom and I went at it non stop! Unlike when I was tryna break his sword, I was up close and aggressive with the fighting, landing hundreds of blows per second everywhere I could get a kick or hit in on Doom. I maintained a strength/durability stalemate with Doom, by charging my body with War Force, which hurt…..a lot (like someone injected molten into my veins)! Despite it being 30 degrees out, I was sweating like a pig, and my head was pounding with the sounds of war (cannons, tanks, bullets, the sound of steel going through flesh, the screams of the dying…)! It was also a lot harder to focus on my more flexible style of fighting, as the War Force kept urging me to go full berserk. The only way I was able to keep myself steady, was focusing on Doom's moves, as well as my mom and my friends. The best way to keep yourself from getting lost in the war, is to remember who your enemy is, and what you're fighting for. Anyway, I mixed up my attacks with War Force weapons (swords, hammers, machine guns, etc.), projectile constructs, and the occasional War Force Final Flash (gotta think of a better name for that). That's not to give Doom any disrespect, cuz he made me earn every hit! He was just as fast, on top of being way stronger than me, so even with my enhanced strength and War Force aura, I couldn't afford to straight up block his attacks. Hell, for all my talk of martial arts/DBZ fighting, Doom took it up a notch, matching me blow for blow, blocking my combos, and getting in some wickedly painful hits and knees in on me, which also broke the sound barrier, and sent me flying damn near to Jersey! Construct battling was the most even of our fights, but I was able to hold a slight advantage. Unlike before, the Ares Stone wasn't letting me block Doom's attacks as they came. Sure, I could still sense them coming, but that was about it. That's not to say I was defenseless tho (have you been paying attention?), as I was definitely better at this than Doom. For the most part we blasted each other with basic missiles, jets, machine gun fire, and occasional constructs that highlighted our personal tastes (Power Rangers and Bakugan for me, demons and Doombots for Doom). Still, Doom's biggest problem was that he fought too big, and wasn't all that good at fighting in 360 degrees. See, one of the things I learned when I got access to the Power Grid, and especially fighting underwater, was that when using constructs, the battle was everywhere; not just where your enemy is. Doom's biggest problem was that he was mostly trying to shoot me down with a plethora of war machines, while occasionally trying to block my way with walls, barriers, and dome constructs. Good for a few seconds, but easily bustable. Besides, while my Thunder Sense was muted, I could still sense Doom's attacks coming, and more importantly, where they were coming from. That leads into Doom's problem with his scale. I understood the notion of making the biggest, explosive, over the top constructs to attack enemies, but in a one on one fight, less is more. Doom kept throwing the biggest, baddest, tanks, jets, Doombots, helicopters, machine guns, and all manner of Storm-Lord killing constructs at me, and I was easily able to get around/sabotage his onslaught. For example, nearing the end of the three minute mark (we were fighting so fast, a minute was more like five to us), Doom shot a volley of missiles at me, and I dispelled all of em' with just a well placed grenade construct in the center of the volley, makin' one hell of a red explosion over Harlem! Doom followed up by trying to construct a giant Doombot to crush me, and I just nailed him in the face with a giant War Force fist, throwing that completely under the bus! As Doom was reeling, I honed in on him with an army of kamikaze Red Rangers, missiles, jets, helicopters, Bakugan, and Ben 10 aliens! Unlike Doom tho, I was attacking from all sides! Even when he managed to power through my construct barrage, I had a whole nother set of blasts and constructs ready to pummel him back into a corner! It got so bad to where Doom had to shield himself under a Spartan Phalanx (the badass one, where it's a dome of shields, with spears jutting out), and fire hordes of overcharged spear constructs out to thin my assault! Yeah, for some reason, Doom's constructs were stronger than mine! Just his spears were enough to devastate my construct army, and even when I got shield constructs up, the spears were always just on the edge of breaking them down! Doom mighta had a decent chance to bust out, and finally get some momentum back, but I managed to really get one good one in on him! Sure, he was firing hundreds of spears at me, but most of em' weren't even flying anywhere near me, and the ones that smashed into my constructs, exploded in a violent red heap. I managed to collect all that runoff War Force, adding some more fuel to the fire to speed up the process, until Doom was in a War Force inferno that was rebounding off of itself, barely held at bay by sheer force of will! And what did I do with this red ball of blood, fire, and destruction? I constructed a sick ass giant Proton Cannon construct (best weapon Iron Man ever made!), with Doom's War Force prison as the core, pointing outwards towards Randall's Island Park (don't worry, I wasn't gonna nuke it)! Dunno if Doom could fight back in the Proton Cannon, but if he could, he was too late! I fired my Proton Cannon; letting loose enough power to obliterate three city blocks! Doom was shot into the distance, like a bottle rocket, inside an actual rocket, that got shot from a volcano! Doom probably woulda got shot outta the state, but just barely a mile away from where I shot him, I created another giant Proton Cannon, and shot another blast into the oncoming blast! The boom was easily enough to engulf most of the Manhattan sky! I assume Doom shot upwards from the blast, before crash landing in a grassy part of Randall's park, only creating a crater big enough to stack several cars in! I took half a sec to revel in the fact that I had round 1 in the bag, before flying at breakneck speed to put some more hut on Doom! I got within half a mile of crashing a supersonic punch into Doom's chest, before I sensed a massive attack about to shoot outta the crater! I barely had enough time to dash outta the Final Flash X10 level blast that shot outta the crater, but still got thrown for a loop just on the energy feedback! The flare died out as quickly as it started, but Doom took to the sky, like a bat outta hell, and…..oh $#!+.

Yeah, Doom went full Iron Man on steroids! Were talkin' Power Gauntlets similar to my own, mini machine guns and rocket launchers on his arms and shoulders, repulsors in his hands that were emanating so much runoff energy, I could barely see his arms, energy spikes comin' outta the bottom of his boots, and knee blasters! F*(#!^& KNEE BLASTERS! I barely had time to think of how f*(#ed I was, before Doom blasted at me again with his repulsors, while shooting a barrage of missiles and bullets at me!

The remaining two minutes (which was about ten for me) of this fight was literally me just tryna stay alive! I managed to get myself inside a barrier, and put everything I had into not dying! I succeeded, but only barely! Doom ended up blasting me from Randall Park, all the way to East Harlem, before smashing a rocket construct into my shield, shattering it entirely, and knocking me into the pavement! My Speed Sense helped me shake off the pain just in time to dash outta the way, as Doom almost slammed his fist where my chest was! With the half sec I had to recover, Doom had already trained his repulsor on me! I managed to side step the blast, and slam some full power hits and kicks into his face and chest, but I didn't account for how fast his upgrades made him! I barely managed to get 50 hits in on him (low for a speedster), before he blocked one of my strikes, and smacked me across the face with a backhand! If not for my War Force aura (which Doom damn near snuffed out), he probably woulda snapped my neck! Still, knocking me through 7 brownstones, and into someone's car (Damage Control covers vehicles too) was one hell of a consolation prize! Usually my lightning would help me shake this off, but with only the War Force available to me, I had to settle for pure rage and adrenaline to struggle back to my feet. Not a moment too soon either, as Doom came rocketing after me, with all the guns blazin' white hot! Didn't wanna cause any more property damage, so I bolted straight up; blocking and dodging as many of Doom's arsenal as I could!

We did our usual dance, but almost entirely in blasts, constructs, and ammo! I did my best to put up a decent fight; launching all kinds of rockets, Bakugan, Beyblades, and Transformers at Doom. I probably threw 500-600 constructs at him in total, and maybe, generously, 20ish or so actually hit. Yeah, Doom's second wind was one hell of a kicker! His repulsors and guns shot down damn near everything I dished out, and because his shoulder guns were self automated, I couldn't even use 360 degree maneuvering! Doom had no such problems f*(#!^% me over! The rockets and bullets I didn't block, dodge, or shoot down, hit so hard, I almost passed out after taking 3 missiles to the back! Doom's magic was also a bigger problem, as now I had to slice and blast down War Force powered creatures from the Cthulhu Verse (it's shocking that's not an official thing), on top of all the other mystic shit Doom threw at me (hate those Demons of Denak!)! Again, I was able to temporarily stun Doom with some surprise walls, Final Flashes, and compactor constructs, but he eventually got tired of chasin' me around, and almost ended the whole thing, via teleporting just ahead of me, and tryna impale me on a spike he jutted out from his right hand! I was packin' way too much momentum to stop, so I summoned my Sky Shield to take the blade for me, and recycled the remaining momentum into a flip over Doom's head. He swung around with a wide swipe, but I was already crouching under it, and before he could blast me with another War Machine style barrage, I unleashed War Force Hell from my hands and eyes! We're talkin' bot a blast big enough to completely obliterate ten Central Parks, and crumble a mountain! Doom clearly wasn't expecting me to rise like this, as he got blasted from East Harlem, all the way down to Chinatown (God forbid any damage befall my favorite dumpling place!)! It looked like I might blast him into Staten Island (weird we haven't battled through there yet), but my surprise attack was only good enough for a temporary reprieve! Doom's momentum suddenly stopped, and he started zoomin' back at me; cuttin' through my blast, like a hot knife through butter! I was able to hold him back a little longer via upping the juice, and adding War Force blood clots into the blast (nasty, I know), but I was just stalling to get a better offensive defense against Doom. As he charged closer and closer, I upped my War Force aura, and constructed it around myself into a huge ass War Machine construct, big enough to tangle with Doom! I chose War Machine because:

A: His armor is a way better design than Iron Man's (fight me).

B: I was about to give all of myself to the War Force's rage, and the thought of how Doom killed so many of my allies, all of whom were good people, was the rage I needed to give my attacks some more bite!

By the time Doom smashed through my blast, he had only my construct's fist to greet him! Even with all the momentum he had built up, I stopped Doom cold, with a glass shattering (fixable) sonic boom to go along with it! A big reason was that this was probably the most solid construct i've ever made! The blood and fire had hardened ten times stronger than steel, and my blows were enhanced by juicing myself with War Force, as well as my Power Gauntlets! I built upon my fist to the face by summoning a whole buncha mini guns and rocket launchers to blast Doom straight into Staten Island (had to finish the five), where we finished the rest of round 1!

Doom and I went at it all out, not giving each other an inch! We're talkin' at least 300 punches, 100+ blasts, and God knows how many bullets and missiles, per second! I was so deep in War Force rage, I couldn't tell you what happened for at least 60% of the last minute of the fight! I remember constantly keeping a mental mantra going (attack, adapt, attack, adapt, and on and on), so my body would fight accordingly. Some things I do remember were: crashing through dozens of houses, bridges, tunnels, and skyscrapers (fixable!), hitting, blasting/getting hit and blasted with enough force to rock the ground. Also, getting my $#!+ wrecked over and over again, and replacing it with whatever I could think of to not die! I'm so serious! At best, my War Machine armor helped me maintain a brutal stalemate, but just barely! Every two hits, Doom knocked off a piece of my armor, which I had to immediately grow back, or make something new in its place! For example, with just under a minute left in the round (the stones kept the clock floating around in our heads), I was wailing on Doom with punches and bullets galore, until he stopped one of my combos, and slammed a fist into my construct's chest, smashing it to pieces, and sending me flying into a Greyhound bus (as if New York transportation wasn't bad enough)! Doom came soaring after me, so I reconstructed my chest piece to include nine rocket launchers and an arc reactor, and blasted him full force, until I got back to my feet! I slammed into Doom with more bullets and missiles, than the National Guard; basically fighting for a tie at this point. I landed several hundred fists and blasts, with Doom matching me blow for blow; except his attacks hit harder! After getting in a few hundred good strikes, Doom managed to catch my hands, and break my construct's fists! I quickly reconstructed battering rams in their place, and hammered Doom with everything I had…...only for him to blast me with his repulsors, and destroy most of my guns and the battering rams! Doom kept the pressure on, and I scrambled to construct literally anything to keep me in this fight! Of the created (and destroyed), spiked tentacles, shuriken shooters, plasma cannons, bladed angel wings, and a bladed yo-yos were in the mix. Doom gradually smashed through them, and kept the fight more melee based. I coulda dealt with that, but the War Force had been doing something that I hadn't accounted for, and was too late to stop. Long story short, my War Force rage was directed at, and inherently tied into how much of an asshole Doom was. The bad part was the fact that it was radiating off of me, and being received by Doom, like some kinda mystic Snapchat (is that how Snapchat even works?)! Everything from him kicking my ass at the Canyon, to him wrecking the Helicarrier, and…...all…..all the way back to when he made me an orphan, ten years ago. Yeah, I never gave it much thought (life or death takes priority), but I was literally fighting to the death with the man that murdered (indirectly, but still) my parents. I wished the War Force didn't relay that information to Doom, but I at least expected some sort of respect outta the f*(# %. No, he straight up started howling once he got that piece of information! No words could describe how my rage meter shattered in half a second! My War Machine construct literally tripled in power, which I used to fuel a barrage of bullets and rockets; blasting Doom from Greenridge to Emerson Hill! I took off after him, guns blazing, and rammed him straight into an intersection in the neighborhood! I slammed several hundred punches and bullets into Doom's face, up until he got his guard up, and countered with a strong uppercut, launching me 500 ft in the air! It was his turn to tackle me this time, but I accepted the impact, and used it to flip him. We exchanged punches, blasts, bullets, and missiles, before I punted Doom into the dirt, in Wolfe's Pond Park (we always find our way to the parks)! The annoying thing was that he never stopped laughing! I tried to put an end to it, via burying his face in the dirt again, but Doom teleported away, and came back around with a strong kick to my back, almost knocking me into a nearby pond!

"IS THAT TRULY WHAT LIES BENEATH ALL THAT RAGE, BOY?!" Doom roared, as he smacked me just above the middle of the pond.

"VENGEANCE?! FOR THE DEATH OF INSIG-"

I didn't let him finish that, as I blindsided him with War Force Kraken tentacles, and slammed him around, before throwing him into a cluster of trees!

"DON'T YOU DARE, YOU MURDERING BASTARD!" I roared (mom was gonna put me on punishment forever); unleashing an onslaught of missiles, bullets, and grenades on his ass. "YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO-"

Doom got a War Force barrier up, and before I could generate enough energy to blast through it, he smashed his fist into the interior, releasing a blastwave that knocked me on my ass! By the time I got up, Doom was already givin' me the works; slamming crater making blows into me with every word he uttered!

"I! HAVE! EVERY! RIGHT!" he roared, as his fists tore through my War Machine construct!

I replaced the damaged parts with as many guns and sci-fi blasters I could think of, trying to give me some time to recover, but Doom was on a roll here! He tore through my blasters, spiked tentacles, and dragon headed boxing gloves (I was scraping the bottom of the barrel, don't judge me), as he went on a very angry bad guy rant!

"I AM DOOM! I AM THE ONE TRUE SAVIOR OF THE EARTH!"

He smashed my face helmet, but I reconstructed it as an alien sniper gun (thanks Transformers 4), and unloaded on Doom's head (that came out so very wrong)!

"YOU ARE NOTHING! YOU COME FROM NOTHING! YOU'VE NEITHER THE INTELLIGENCE OR IMPORTANCE TO CHALLENGE DOOM, YET YOU AND YOUR COMPATRIOTS HAVE BEEN A THORN IN THE SIDE OF MY PLANS FOR DAYS NOW!"

He ripped my face gun off, but I used a small move, and put War Force stoppers in his guns and missile launchers, causing a massive explosion to ripple down Doom's arms and back! It launched him into the pond (while damn near burying me in the dirt), and with his self repair function not working as well, i'd have a break from the constant weapons barrage. I quickly upgraded my suit to supersize, adding some Ironhide cannons on my arms (again, I have Bayformers to thank), spikes under my boots, kneecap blasters (surprisingly effective), and big ass laser swords on my back! Doom upped the ante by shooting outta the pond, riding a War Force charged demon that was literally a collection of spines, organs, and dragon heads (so nasty!)! No way to properly prepare myself for that one, so I barreled forward, guns blazing! I shot Doom with hundreds of rounds per second, which he blocked with some magic shields. As I got closer to his nightmare beast, I created a Kraken construct behind Doom's nightmare beast for a surprise maul attack, while Doom and I went at it one on one again! I held my own a lot better, now that most of his guns were trashed, but he was still gettin' in some good blows with his repulsors and knee blasters. And of course, his hits were still enough to crack my armor with every punch!

"PATHETIC!" he roared, as he sliced off one of my constructs arms, and tackled me into the dirt! "CHILDREN'S TOYS, SUPER HEROES, AND CARTOONS! THIS IS WHAT YOU FIGHT DOOM WITH?!"

I reconstructed my arm into a piston hammer, and slammed a few good jabs into his chest, before blasting him off me with a cannon blast! I floated upright, and blasted everything I had at Doom! Ironhide cannons, bullets, missiles, knee blasters, all of it! For about 5 seconds it looked like Doom was in trouble, but just as soon as it started, Doom clapped back with a massive repulsor/knee blast that bulldozed through my barrage, like it wasn't even there! I got punted through several trees, before Doom teleported up close and personal, to give me one hell of a beat down!

"SLOPPY! INADEQUATE! INFERIOR!"

Each punch shattered a piece of my armor, and Doom tackled me to the ground, making sure I didn't have a fighting chance on my feet!

"DO YOU WISH TO KNOW WHY YOUR CONSTRUCTS FAIL AGAINST THE MIGHT OF DOOM?!" he kept on, as I refocused all my power on keeping my armor from shattering! "FOR ALL THE ANGER YOU HOLD FOR ME, YOU HIDE BEHIND FEEBLE CONSTRUCTS BASED ON YOUR CHILDHOOD DISTRACTIONS! ALL YOUR SUPPOSED PAIN, AND YOU USE IT TO STRIKE AT ME WITH A TRANSFORMER?! YOU KNOW NOTHING OF PAIN, OR SACRIFICE! YOU'VE NO FRACTION OF THE EXPERIENCE OR DISCIPLINE TO CHALLENGE ME; TOO WIELD THE POWER OF THE GODS! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, CHILD! GO TO YOUR PARENTS AS PATHETIC AND WEAK AS THEY SURELY WERE!"

Leave it to Doom to give me a much needed second wind! See, with about 30 seconds left in the round, I was prepared to run down the clock, take the L, and make it up in later rounds. This son of a bitch had to come at my folks tho, and I wasn't bout to let that slide! Up until now, I kept a hand on the wheel with the War Force. Now, I let loose, and exploded into Doom with a massive skyscraper shattering War Force blast, launching Doom 1,000 feet in the air! I got to my feet, feeling like somebody lit every atom of my being on fire! I was absently aware of the fact that my body had converted to a living construct of War Force fire and blood, and the fact that my body was absently forming guns in my chest, blades where my arms were supposed to be, and Gatling guns shaping out of my back! Hell, I could feel myself radiating with the collective War Force energy of the entire Titanomachy (when the gods went at it with the Titans, way back forever ago)! The overwhelming rage and desire to destroy everything in sight was blinding! If not for the fact that the Ares Stone was literally ticking down the clock in my head (basically warning me to finish Round 1 strong), I woulda ran off the rails! Luckily, that didn't happen, as I honed in on Doom, who had just recovered from my rage quit! I remembered what he said about me not getting how to use the War Force, and that I was using my various pop culture passions as a crutch to hide how weak I was. I decided to give him the biggest f*(# you possible, and created an entire army made of my inner geek! We're talkin' every Red Ranger ever, a legion of Dragonoids and Omega Leonidases, all the Autobot and Decepticons I could remember (G1 and Bayformers), giant Beyblades, all the Mortal Kombat characters, and just to put an extra middle finger up, I transformed myself into a giant version of War, from Darksiders, before launching me and my whole army at Doom! He looked a little taken aback, but responded in kind by launching a volley of conventional war machines at me, while wrapping himself in a giant Doombot (so creative), and charging at me! Our construct armies collided with each other, creating a War Force nuclear explosion, just barely above city destroying range! The blast hit me like the world's biggest sack of bricks, and sent me careening back into the park (luckily crashing into the pond), with the force of a comet! The water helped clear my head, as I swam to shore, trying desperately to catch my breath! I wondered who won the round for a good few seconds, before the stones literally spelled it out for me. For a split second, a holographic scoreboard, with amazingly accurate face shots of me and Doom (they were kind enough to leave my mask on), popped up in front of me. A red tally mark appeared under us both. Tie score. Ok, better than I thought. Not great, but at least I wasn't in the red. The scoreboard disappeared as quickly as it came, and the stones moved me over to the next round (oh, my body got knocked my War Force form)! I swapped my War Force rage, for the power of Hades, and the souls of the damned (God, they whine so much!).I was starting to wonder where Doom was (maybe I knocked him into orbit), and you know what they say about speaking of the Devil. Doom teleported back to earth, trying to crush me under a giant comet, made of 1,000 flailing damned souls (now that was style)! My Speed Sense helped me out, as I dashed ahead of the impact zone (barely), and busted out Excelsior! Doom walked outta the purple inferno, pissed as $#!+, summoning a wave of death that gradually killed all of the green in the whole park, as hundreds of wraiths clawed their way outta the ground, and rallied behind Doom in a buzzing hive of death! He absently shot half a dozen on me at a time; probably to test how competent I was, or stall to get in a speech/prepare a stronger attack. Either way, as I snatched souls away from Doom's control (why banish free pawns?), he had a hissy fit about how his perfect day was being ruined!

"YOU INSIGNIFICANT, IMPUDENT, UNDESERVING SPECK OF FILTH AND SCUM!" he roared (shoulda got into the greeting card business). "YOU THINK IT AMUSING TO FORCE DOOM TO PLAY YOUR CHILDISH GAME! YOU THINK ME AS WEAK AS YOUR PREVIOUS ENCOUNTERS?! THAT YOU WILL BEST ME OUT OF THE RIGHTFUL GODHOOD DOOM DESERVES?! FOR THIS AFFRONT, I WILL TORMENT YOUR SOUL FOR ALL ETERNITY! THIS GAME ENDS NOW!"

He slammed a fist into the ground, and a wave of thousands of wraiths volcanoed outta the ground, gathered into a huge swirling mass, and tried crushing me under a sea of the damned! Sucks for him, cuz while he was busy yapping away at how butthurt he was (seriously, it was a tie, dude!),I was preppin' my own attack! With a yell, I stuck my sword into the ground, and summoned my own wave of damned souls outta the earth! My band of murderers, thieves, rapists, and a few genocidal maniacs banded around me as a giant dome, and blocked Doom's wave! This was supposed to be the part where I overwhelmed Doom's control, wrested his army from him, and mauled him with an army of Hundred Handed Ones, Cyclopes, and Chimeras, all made of Death Force (I had it all planned out). As it turned out, Kruger face (why else would he always wear a mask?) had a different plan in mind! Not sure what it was, but our power struggle resulted in an intense stalemate, where I was more or less trapped under my shield, while Doom and I were playing tug-o-war with thousands of souls! Hell, it got to the point to where most of the pressure wasn't even on my barrier, as the souls just kinda buzzed about violently; going crazy tryna figure out who had the biggest dick! Doom and I struggled for dominance for about half a minute, before the souls literally exploded from overload, leaving us both without an army! Doom was visibly fuming, and before I could make a sarcastic remark, he created two spell seals above his hands, slammed them into the ground, and started a whole new party! The spell (whatever it said) made the ground shake, and before my Speed Sense could comprehend what was even happening, I got sucked up in what I think was some kinda giant worm, made of a bunch of damned souls! The beast had like a thousand arms and fangs, all trying to tear me apart! I managed to keep em' off me for a few seconds, but one of the souls managed to grab me, and sink its fangs into my neck! My armor helped keep the teeth from ripping into a vein, but with my Holy Waters of Eden spell MIA (more on that later), I got a steaming dose of Death Force injected into my body! It burned like ice and salt, on top of feeling like every atom of my body was suffocating! It was all I could do to not pass out! I forced myself not to give into the pain, and through a mix of fear and adrenaline, managed to override Doom's control over the souls, and send them back at him in full force! I noticed how the wound on my neck didn't heal, and how it gradually hurt more as I continued to use Death Force. Doom was still on the ground, standing with his arms crossed, and as the blast flew closer and closer, he simply waved his hand, and dispersed the souls! He did another spell with his hands, creating a giant spell seal that covered the whole park! Again, my Speed Sense didn't really know what to make of this, so I charged my Speed Momentum with a $#!+ ton of Death Force (which made my neck wound flare up, like a Christmas tree), waiting to get a better picture of the next rabbit Doom was about to pull outta the hat. The end result was a mix of not as bad as I thought it was gonna be, but still pretty f*(#!^% bad! Out of the pentagram, a horde of several tens of thousands of damned souls, all with Millena/Xenomorph mouths (yes, even the mouth tongues) shot up at me, like a geyser made of bodies! There were too many to force back with my willpower alone, and I would need access to a Static Jump if I wanted any chance of getting outta the blast radius. Hell, I couldn't even get under a barrier, and ride out the storm! Wait a minute….maybe there was something good in that last one! I quickly went to work, creating a 7 ft tall bone armor construct around myself, in the shape of Shao Khan (dunno why I chose him, it just seemed right)! I made the horns on his helmet more pronounced, put more armor on his chest and legs, and of course, made a sick ass war hammer that woulda gave Thor a rock hard erection (you know it's true)! As the soul geyser started to envelop me, I absorbed as any of the souls into every crevice of my armor (especially the hammer), and at great personal pain, absorbed a few into myself! Besides the mind numbing pain this caused in my wound, the 1,000 souls I managed to absorb into myself (14,000 into my armor) gave a massive boost to my already massive strength and speed! With my set up ready to go, I decided to take it up a notch, and absorb the rest of the souls into my hammer! The good thing about the massive soul geyser, was that Doom meant for it to be a one and done; leaving his grubby little hands off the parental controls! I took advantage of that, and exerted my will over the remaining 7,000 souls, and made them circle around me as a hurricane of death! I could feel Doom tryna dispel the souls, but it was already too late! I reshaped them into a giant skull, and sent it flying at him! He did manage to dissipate the skull, but I counted on that, and as he was stumbling back, I was right behind the blast, and gave him what for! I hit him over the head with my hammer, smacked him upside the head, rolled the momentum over to strike him in his right knee, and as he crumpled to the ground, charged my hammer up, and smacked him clear outta the park!

The next three minutes of was mostly an even fight, with a slight edge in my favor! I kept the pressure on Doom; keeping the fight up close and personal as much as possible! I battered Doom all over with hammer strikes to his head, body, back, and legs (I also added spikes to the hammer)! Doom managed to keep me at bay with his repulsors and knee blasters, but I managed to take that strength, and use it against him! Every time he blasted me with his Death Force blasts, I absorbed the energy into my armor, and summoned a horde of damned souls to maul him just enough to get me back in hammer time range! I got Doom several hundred times in the everywhere, before he managed to grab my hammer! It looked like he was tryna break it, but I had way too many souls stashed in this thing! It was strong enough to make a tank look like wet paper! Instead, I gave Doom a headbutt; stunning him just enough to launch a volley of soul charged bone spurs at him! That may not seem like much, but went each spur hit with the force of a tank shell, it gave me a decent enough punch to blast Doom halfway to Brooklyn! The bone spur barrage didn't last too long, as Doom managed to summon some underworld tentacles (didn't even wanna think about what this beast actually was) to string me up by all four of my limbs! The beast was either tryna pull me apart, or hold me in place long enough to devour me, which…...yeah, how about no? The beast's face was coming outta a portal, just 50 meters above me, and yeah…..it was just a collection of maggots with piranha teeth! Probably one of the worst ways to go, period! I quickly made some bone spikes jut out from my arms and legs, piercing the beast just enough to make it loosen its grip, and give me enough time to make some chainsaw constructs out of Death Force to cut my way free! For good measure, I sent an overcharged soul into the beast's maw, and blew it back into whatever hell pit Doom summoned it out of! Of course, Doom was just using that nightmare beast to stall for time, as he was now charging full steam ahead at me with a World War Z avalanche of damned souls flanking him on all sides! I charged in response, creating a giant bladed propeller (I had to keep making new ones every time they got trashed) to grind down as many souls as I could. Speaking of which, time to explain the difference between Death Force, damned souls, and why my Holy Waters of Eden spell was dead in the water.

First, Death Force is basically the residual energy of the Underworld. Kinda sorta like an ambient energy mined from the Underworld's souls, monsters, and the River Styx. It basically worked as spooky playdough. You could use it, shape it, and do magic with it, without actually summoning one damned soul. Damned souls on the other hand…..well, that's what they were. Wraiths from the Fields of Punishment, bound to serve whenever called as part of their eternal torment. They also acted as putty, but a lot harder to control, as you had to bend them to your will. And as to why my Eden Water spell was dead? I couldn't do both at the same time. By using the Death Force, I cast my lot in with embracing the energy of literal damnation; the opposite of God. As long as I was using this energy, the Eden Water spell wouldn't work for me. Depressing, sure, but don't play the sad violins for me yet. I still kicked ass with what I had on me!

After grinding Doom's horde down to a little over 60%, he started to get more aggressive in his charge (we were about 2 miles apart and closing)! He started releasing soul scatter bombs, each of which had about a hundred souls splintering outta the ten or so bombs he lobbed at me. I trimmed them down with some Gatling gun constructs, while absorbing the rest into my body (I could feel myself getting closer to unlocking my Hades Form…. whatever that ended up being)! Before Doom and I collided with each other, I blasted a Death Force Final Flash at him point blank, launching him straight into Brooklyn! I barreled ahead, tryna get him with a few hundred hammer swings, but Doom was quicker on the recovery than I hoped! Before I could land one blow, he got an arcane shield up, just barely holding the hammer at bay! Before I could try anything else, Doom floored me somewhere in Prospect Heights (great, I get to trash another rich people county) via creating a giant spire of souls to yank me to the ground! Doom created a huge ass broadsword outta obsidian, charged it with some Death Force, and flew down to shank me, while the souls tried holding me down. I also noticed how he seemed to be making my neck wound flare up, but I had already tuned that pain out a long time ago. Anyway, I absorbed the soul mob into myself, caught and shattered Doom's blade, and blasted him sky high again with a Death Force eye blast!

Minutes four and five were a bit more balanced between me and Doom, but I still held it down. It mostly boiled down to Doom throwing all the souls and magic spells at me, me absorbing the souls/shaking off most of his attacks, and proceeding to whip ass! I mixed up my hammer attacks with some Death Force kamikaze hellhounds, as well as the occasional damned soul horde to distract Doom long enough for me to get off some sick hammer combos to his head, chest, back, and shoulders, while blasting him all over with Death Force bolts! Again, Doom's biggest problem was that he went way too big, thinking he could just out muscle me with the sheer amount of souls he assaulted at me! The more he threw at me, the stronger I got; eventually not even needing to summon my own army of souls to counter Doom! I straight up carved through a blast of 3,000 souls, and smacked Doom to the middle of the Brooklyn bridge, before getting frustratingly close (not close enough) to smashing his head, like a watermelon (what? He started it!)! Doom teleported away just in time, and rematerialized on the other end of the bridge. He immediately started blasting a whole plethora of demons, damned souls, and various other Death Force charged spells at me. I charged forward, knocking down/tanking through Doom's attacks, slowly making my way to him, while simultaneously trying to cut his momentum off from the other side, via summoning a wall of souls behind him, with intent to bury the pompous ass alive. To my shock, the soul wall literally scattered to the winds as they approached Doom! It was like someone yanked the reigns from me entirely! As the souls dissipated, I could feel their terror. Something Doom was doing scarred the $#!+ outta them, that they preferred to get back to whatever eternal punishment I dragged them out of, rather than f*(# with whatever Doom was conjuring up. Hell, as his incantation got louder, and the effects started to play out, I couldn't really blame them! While I couldn't understand most of what Doom was saying, one word kept ringing out as loud as an alarm clock.

Tartarus.

The more Doom uttered the spell, the stronger, and darker (literally) his spells and demons became. Instead of wading through water, battling past his armada, which had completely engulfed the entire bridge, as well as anything within a three mile radius, felt like tryna fight through a hailstorm, if the hail was the size of minivans (ah, when Fairly Oddparents was good)! The temperature dropped like a rock in quicksand! I'm almost certain it was below 20 at least (or most?)! The terror inducing sounds of the wails of souls evil enough to get the MVP treatment, monsters that sounded ferocious enough to make the Hulk cry for mommy, and an extremely loud grumble, that sounded like a giant sleeping and having an asthma attack all at once, started to fill the air! I could actually feel the malevolence of something in Tartarus setting its sights on me personally. Like it wanted nothing less than to maul me to ribbons, piece me back together, and maul me again! I was a Greek Mythology nerd, I knew about the big bads the Olympians had locked away in the pit, and you better believe I was on the verge on $#!++!^% my armor! I started fighting harder, overloading myself with souls, tryna put a hammer into Doom's skull, before he could finish whatever bad news he was conjuring up, or at least get my Hades Form before he did! I put in work, slamming down demons and tanking through spells, and while I wish I could say I got close, by the time Doom finished his spell, I didn't even get within 2,000 ft of him! The good news was that I did reach my Hades Form! The bad news: Doom got a massive upgrade as well!

On my end, the Hades Form wasn't half bad. I basically became a sort of nexus point for the whole Fields of Punishment (think Ermac from Mortal Kombat). I had the strength of damn near a billion souls, and like Thunder Form 2, I was basically see through putty; able to shape my body into whatever I wanted. Kinda cool, and a nice boost, but Doom was on such another level, it wasn't even funny! His purple repulsors and aura now had a thick layer of black shadow, so thick you could actually touch it. The shadow energy formed around Doom like a black hole, tryna suck everything in! If that wasn't scary enough, the shadows briefly would form hands, heads, and various other body parts of humans (and maybe Titans) and monsters. They'd scream, howl, and roar for half a second, before getting sucked back into the void. Oh, and Doom permanently damaged the Hades Stone. As in, I could sense it fractured from top to bottom, like a crumbling roof! I could actually sense the damage in my chest, and felt the stone's fear!

"What did you do?" I said to Doom aloud; my voice sounding like an army. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Doom created a shadow scythe in his hands, with snakes coiling up and down the shaft. He converted his legs to a mass of shadow fire, and made four giant octopi tentacles, and four spider legs sprout outta his back! He turned his shoulder guards into black snarling dog heads, and his chest armor into a lions maw, that snapped, roared, and breathed f*(#!^% fire! Not gonna lie, the dude leveled up pretty damn hard!

"What I have done," he responded, sounding like death itself. "Is what you 'heroes' refuse to. I have far and above exceeded what can be done with the powers of gods! I have harnessed what even Olympus fears, and have bent the depths of Tartarus to the will of Doom! And now, boy, I will do to you, what Zeus did to Cronus!"

He blasted me with a wave of shadow fire, that LITERALLY MELTED HALF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE (I dunno if we could fix that!), and I countered with a wave of damned souls in a Death Force blaze! Our blasts clashed with each other for maybe 20 seconds, before I realized this was doin' me no good! Doom's shadow fire straight up smothered my blast, like a giant fire extinguisher. Whatever Tartarus had, it was waaaay stronger than what Death Force was dishin' out! I barely managed to dash to the side, before his blast extinguished mine...as well as the other half of the Brooklyn Bridge! I had half a sec to sigh in relief, before Doom unleashed pure nightmare fuel! He expanded his form from a Darksiders boss fight, to a billowing cloud of death, fear, and hopelessness (dramatic, I know)! Basically, imagine a billowing storm of black fire and smoke, with occasional flashes of purple in the mix. The cloud made giant shapes of various monster heads and body parts; tho Doom's head was always visible as it raced towards me!

"DON'T RUN, BOY!" he roared at me "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE DOOM!"

Dunno if that was a pun, or if he was just high on his own hype (probably both), but if he wanted a fight, i'd give him one! I copied him, and expanded my form to a purple haze of Death Force and damned souls, big enough to compete with Doom! Believe it or not, it actually wasn't as stressful as you might think. Like I said, I was Ermac on steroids. For me, this was the equivalent of stretching out of the cramped back seat (hate that feeling)! Granted, I just became a massive cloud of thrashing and screaming souls, but I had to make do. Doom and I clashed into each other, in a battle that was like if two hurricanes fought each other Beyblade style! Doom attacked my soul mass with dog heads, spider pincers, lion heads, and hundreds of clawed arms! I responded in kind with dragon skulls, Gorgon heads, Balrogs, dinosaurs, and various other animals and monsters that had sharp teeth! Doom and I literally bit, stabbed, and scratched each other over 1,000 times per second, as we fought across the sky! We were pretty even for the most part, but mainly because I used more creative attacks, and maneuvered around him better. For example, after tearing into each other for a good half a minute (super speed rules still applied), I molded my form into a bladed tornado, and gave Doom the blender treatment! I made sure to turn up the Death Force bolts, and rapid fired skulls into Doom's form, before literally constructing myself into a cannon, and blasting Doom down towards the water! That stunt bought me just enough time to brace myself for Doom's counter attack, as he stormed back at me as a whirlwind of scythe blades! We went at it again, giving each other 50 shades of hell, and all the while, I could feel the Hades Stone crying out in pain!

"DOOM!" I roared at him, while also tearing into him with a hundred hydra heads. "THE HADES STONE! YOU'RE DESTROYING IT! YA GOTTA SHUT THIS DOWN, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"

"YOU SEEM TO BE CONFUSED, BOY!" Doom responded, while turning himself into a thousand handed demon. "YOUR DEATH IS EXACTLY WHAT I DESIRE!"

"HOW ABOUT DESTROYING ONE OF THE STONES?! IF THAT THING SHATTERS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE EXPLOSION COULD DO! YOU REALLY WANNA RISK MAGIC RADIATION?!"

"DO NOT PRETEND TO KNOW ABOUT ARCANE MATTERS! AND DO NOT WASTE YOUR BREATH ON TRYING TO APPEAL TO MY 'BETTER NATURE'!"

I shifted my form into a mass of T-Rex heads, Minotaur hooves, and Chimeras, as Doom ramped up his attack, as well as one of his signature monologues!

"UNLIKE YOU AND YOUR FELLOW 'HEROES', DOOM DOES NOT HIDE BEHIND DELUSIONS OF MORALITY AS AN EXCUSE TO COWER AWAY FROM DESTINY! WITH ONE STONE, I HAVE FAR EXCEEDED THE POSSIBILITIES OF MAGIC! I, DOOM, WHO HARNESSES POWER SO GREAT, EVEN THE GODS FEAR IT! YOU HAD FOUR, AND WITH THAT ABUNDANCE OF POWER, WASTED IT ON FUTILE WEAPONS AND ATTEMPTS TO SABOTAGE THE RIGHTFUL REIGN OF DOOM! EVEN NOW, YOU STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND! LOOK AT YOU, A LITERAL EMBODIMENT OF THE WRATH OF THE UNDERWORLD! YET YOU STRIKE WITH BANAL CONSTRUCTS AND HALF HEARTED ATTEMPTS TO MIMIC THE TRUE TERROR OF THE UNDERWORLD! THIS IS WHY YOU SHALL NEVER BE WORTHY OF GODHOOD! YOU'VE SHACKLED YOURSELF WITH LIMITATIONS BASED ON YOUR NAIVE SENSE OF GOOD AND EVIL! THE REALITY IS THE ONLY GOOD IN THE WORLD IS DECIDED BY THOSE WHO HAVE THE STRENGTH TO TAKE THE POWER, AND DECIDE SUCH MATTERS!"

The guy woulda made a great motivational speaker. Seriously, he had a certain charisma about him. Anyway, the chaotic, form changing fight made its way close to the Empire State Building. Doom and I were currently going at it as giant Chimera and Ichthyocerberus respectively. We bit, scratched, and breathed fire at each other, running down the clock on round 2 (we had about a minute and some change to go)! I was pretty confident that we'd either tie, or the point would go to me (Doom shoulda been disqualified for the Tartarus play), but Doom pulled out one last hail mary that completely f*(#%$ the round for me! I guess he was doing some sorta summoning spell, cuz without me even knowing it, Doom literally brought the f*(#!^% Furies outta Hades! Yeah, i'm talkin' bout the three she-devils who punished the wicked for eternity! I was ready for horribly shriveled hags, with snake bodies, bat wings, and blood soaked fangs…...but they were actually kinda hot! Real talk, the tormentors of Hades were legit smokin'! Alecto was this red headed chick with tan skin, a Gina Carano level build, wearing silver greek armor, a golden arm pauldron with spikes, and was rockin' a golden Katana (weird)! She had talons on her fingers, and fangs that would make a lion turn tail and run! Her roar made my whole form shudder and shrink, as the souls that made me cowered in her wake! Oh, and as to how I knew the Furies' names? The damned souls were well acquainted with them, and their fear resonated through every fiber of my being! To Alecto's right was her sister, Tisiphone, who was even hotter, tho i'll admit I was probably a little biased. Tisiphone was a similar build to Alecto, but with long blond hair, and rockin' a total dominatrix meets Mortal Kombat vibe. Seriously, she had a black choker that connected to what was basically a black swimsuit over a full body fishnet suit. She had matching black arm gauntlets, black knee high boots, and had a ridiculously long white cape flowing behind her. She wasn't wielding a weapon, but based on how she was racing towards me, I was gettin' a hard I-can-crush-you-like-a-grape-with-my-thumb vibe. Last one was Megaera, who was basically a hot mummy lady. Seriously, her clothes consisted of linen wraps across her torso area and wrists. Her skin was grey, and looked like a mix of gravel and rocks from the neck down. She had white hair, pupiless eyes, fangs, and was wielding a spear made of spines and a sharpened tooth from some ungodly huge beast! Her face was really pretty tho. Like, her skin on her face was smooth, and she looked like a runway model. Again, good looking gals. I tried to take that as a bit of solace, as they wrecked the $#!+ outta me!

Yeah, for all the fight I put up against Doom, none of it mattered with the Furies. It wasn't just that their strength was ridiculously OP, I literally could not fight them! My body basically shut down, and I ate a flying tackle from Tisiphone, who gave me an express ride to the Empire State Building balcony! The furies wasted no time tearing into me, like lions devouring a downed gazelle! Alecto stuck her Katana in me, before ripping into me with those cat fangs of hers! It was like she was tryna tear out my intestines, but all that came out were wailing souls! I wish I could say they were the only ones feeling the claws, but I was getting all of that! Like a million nails being driven into my stomach! Tisiphone literally ripped my head in half, and proceeded to smash down the erupting souls, like she was playing whack-a-mole! Megaera just kept stabbing her spear into my chest. Tho she did light her spear on fire, and it felt like a nuke in my chest, so there was that. I had no idea how long they savaged me, but I know the pain was enough to almost drive me insane! I knew as long as I lived, nothing would ever compare to this level of agony! As the Furies mauled me, my Hades Form dimmed gradually, until my body reluctantly reformed itself. Luckily, soul damage didn't transfer to flesh and blood (even my neck wound had completely healed), tho I still felt like someone replaced my insides with molten cement. I didn't have the strength to fight off a rat, much less three she devils, and I was bracing for death, when they suddenly stopped! Seriously, they just straight up stopped, and confused expressions were plastered all over their faces. Alecto sniffed me (ok?), while Tisiphone grabbed my face, looking for something that was just there just a second ago. A few seconds passed, and the Furies started to growl, while turning their anger towards Doom.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU FOOLS?!" Doom yelled at them. "KILL HIM!"

They didn't take well to being talked to that way, and attacked Doom, like a swarm of hornets! Made sense. Their jobs were to punish the wicked. With my Hades form outta the picture, I didn't fit that bill anymore (guess they didn't count selling Skittles under the table at school as a sin). Doom on the other hand, even without the damned souls, fit that bill in almost every aspect! And hey, with them all on Doom's ass, that was the perfect time to dip! I started phasing, falling straight through the balcony, as round 2 came to a close. Yeah….I lost the round. Score was 2-1 in Doom's favor. Round 3 was Nature Force, and man was I in it deep! While I was able to phase, round 2 did a number on me. My whole body felt like someone injected every one of my cells with snake venom, and if Doom caught me in this state, he'd one shot me no problem! Speaking of big, green, and scowly, I could sense him rocketing towards me, tearing through floor after floor to catch me (coulda waited at the ground floor, but whatever)! I immediately started charging myself with Nature Force, in addition to my phasing. No idea whether or not this would work, but I needed to heal after the ass kicking those Furies gave me, and Nature Force seemed like the perfect opposite to do it! The good news was that it was working. After a few seconds, my head cleared up, and my body only felt like someone did full body acupuncture on me with hot nails. Bad news was that I still had a long way to go to get back in fighting shape. My insides still felt like someone put em in a freezer (which did not help my breathing), and that mauling I got from the Furies messed up my Olympus Force connection. Usually when switching between power sets, I was at a 10. With Nature Force I was at a 3.5 at best. With enough time, I could charge myself back to fighting shape, but with Doom literally five floors above me, closing the gap with every second, I had to take this show on the road! Just as I phased through the 62nd floor, I summoned my shield, and propelled myself out the window with some Nature Force blasting from my feet! Even with my enhanced durability, a fall from 62 floors would still hurt like hell, so I immediately positioned myself to where I ran down the length of the building for the rest of the way. Not a strong start at first, as my body still felt like it was half asleep, but I was able to catch myself, and finish the run to the ground. Not a second after I made it to the front of the building, Doom came exploding outta the lobby, with the white hot fury of 1,000 red giants, with me running like hell literally anywhere he wasn't!

For three minutes, the fight between Doom and was just a big chase! Doom blasted me with so many Nature Force charged spells, tried ambushing me with plant demons, and tried blocking my path with various thorn walls, acid spraying monster Venus Fly Traps, and vine cages that would spring up every now and again in the roads. Gotta admit, it was a pretty decent obstacle course, and if he caught me a few days before, it mighta been enough to wipe me out. As was such, I zoomed in and out of his traps with ease, and sliced through his plant demons (never thought corn could be so vicious!), while using the streets, tunnels, and subways to constantly outmaneuver Doom. The Nature Force had pretty much worked its magic at the two and a half minute mark, but I kept running. Like before, I was mixing my Speed Momentum with the Nature Force, almost getting into a meditative state, as I felt the Nature Force start to overtake me in all the best ways. Every second that passed opened my senses to the trees, flowers, and various other plant life in the city. It became easier to counter Doom's surprise attacks, as I once again started to sense them coming way before they got off the ground. I found that the Nature Force was similar to the Sea Force, in the sense that it works better when you tap into and ride the current, rather than try to beat it into submission. That's where Doom was f*(#!^% up, and how i'd take my first round win! By mixing Speed Momentum with Nature Force, I was pretty much 90% of the way into unlocking my Nature Form, but something seemed off. With my other forms, it always felt like something was about to explode inside me, and blast me into whole nother one felt more tame; like I was shifting into something that needed another half to complete. It took a few runs through some parks and gardens, where that energy surge spiked, before I finally got the memo! With the path to victory clear, I made a conscious effort to zoom back to what was left of Central Park! Doom was never too far behind, doing his usual shtick, but was so frustrated to the point to where he was trying to goad me into stopping (admitting I was too fast for him!).

"ENOUGH RUNNING, YOU WHIMPERING CUR! STAND AND FACE DOOM'S JUDGEMENT WITH WHAT LITTLE DIGNITY YOU CAN MUSTER!"

First off, why was this dude always yelling? Second, I had his dignity right here, as I created a giant Nature Force hand behind me, to flash a gesture my mom would 100% not approve of! Doom went ballistic, and poured on the speed, almost managing to tackle me from behind! I backflipped over him, just barely avoiding intense spinal injury, and as he careened into the park, finally activated my Nature Force form! Like I suspected, it was kinda weak on its own, but with all this plant life to work with, I was about to wreck Doom's whole day! I jumped into the ground, and my Nature Form surged into the environment! I completely restored all the plant life in the park, and merged my consciousness with it! It felt like finally waking up from a dream! Going into the ground, I felt connected not just with the park's greenery, or even the city's, but almost the whole damn state of New York! I consolidated all of that power into my consciousness, and began to form myself into a Nature Titan (Grant and I could share this one)! It was basically a mix of grass, roots, vines, and trees formed into a 100 ft tall construct of myself from the waist up, hovering over Doom, like he was a snack! Hell, just waking up sent a surge of Nature Force throughout the park; pretty much waking up all the plant life! Doom just barely had enough time to turn around and see how f*(#%^ he was, before I unleashed a harvest of pain on him!

I started by holding him down with vines thick enough to strangle an elephant, while I slammed my giant sized fists into him; damn near burying him ten feet deep in the dirt! Doom managed to break free of my vines, and blasted me with a wave of Nature Force, big enough to slice through a bridge. I simply absorbed the energy into myself, let it flow back into the ground, blasted Doom up to eye level via his own energy blast, and flicked him to the other end of the park (I enjoyed that a little too much)! Doom landed in a grove of trees, but there was no rest for the wicked! I willed the nearby trees to give him a beat down, Whomping Willow style, while creating an army of plant golems, shaped like Hulking (I really liked that guy) to dogpile the $#!+ outta him! Once again, Doom managed to fight and claw his way outta the frier, but I had one helluva frying pan to drop him into! On my back, I created a Gatling gun/rocket launcher hybrid, filled with explosive pollen ammo, and after getting a lock on Doom's position (kinda sorta using the ground to eyeball it), unleashed ballistic hell on his ass! We're talkin a thousand rounds per second of Nature Force charged pollen ammo; each hitting with the force of tank shells! Don't feel too bad for the people with pollen allergies, as the saturation would dissolve after a few hours. Anyway, Doom had no escape plan, or defense against the barrage! For literally four minutes (in addition to more Whomping Willows, man eating snake vines, and plant warriors shaped like Ben 10 Wildvines) I stomped the absolute $#!+ outta Doom; no breaks, no mercy! By the time round 3 was over, I was halfway positive Doom was missing a limb. Unfortunately, no such luck. Doom struggled to his feet, while I dissolve my Nature Titan into the ground, and reformed my body. I noticed how tired I was physically, mentally, and spiritually speaking. My muscles were starting to ache, my head was pounding, and something inside me, my chi maybe, felt like it was gettin' stretched too thin. I had to take a sec to breathe, as the scoreboard tied 2-2 for me and Doom. My rest lasted for a few seconds, as I could feel the shift from Nature Force to God Steroids. I felt my second wind kick in hard, along with the strength to crush an island! Doom must've felt that kick to, cuz he took to the air, and barreled towards me. I wasn't ready for another long and drawn out energy battle just yet, especially with me not able to make constructs with God Steroids, so I decided to try and ground this fight. I timed Doom's trajectory just right, and brought him crashing to the ground with a God Steroid bolt! Doom got to his feet almost immediately, only to get a flying shield to the face. The shield throw barely fazed him, but it stunned him in the way a slap would stun a person. Doom looked at me with a "did you really just do that?" kinda vibe. I called my shield back to me, and paced a little bit. Doom followed, not knowing what I was up to, but ready to strike on a moment's notice. I took a page outta the supervillain book, and started monologuing.

"I think a lot about Hercules," I started. "Of all the demigods of legend, I think he's the best of the bunch. I mean, what's not to love? Good lookin' dude, super strength, an underrated Disney classic; I could go on! But ya know what I really respect about good ol' Herc? He solved his problems with his fists, cleverness, and tools he had available. No magic blasts, no reality warping, just good old fashioned strength mixed with human ingenuity."

I made myself surge with God Steroids, and summoned Excelsior.

"So how about it, Doom?" I continued. "How about we cut the lightshow, and see what we're made of? Or is the measure of Doom's strength dependent on a fancy suit, and some cheap parlor tricks?"

I could practically see Doom fuming behind his mask! I had just called him out to the whole world, and he couldn't turn down my challenge, without lookin' like a chump! Like a TV re-run, Doom's pride was 100% predictable and reliable. He held out his hand, and in a move that looked similar to how Ant-Man shrinks/grows things, summoned a wicked looking silver blade, which absorbed and hummed with God Steroids! To try and one up me, he also used his magic to create a force field; trapping us inside Central Park (again). Doom wasted no time (I did waste a good minute on my little speech!), and charged me, like a bull outta hell! I returned the favor, and the battle was on!

Of course, I wasn't stupid enough to collide with someone twice my size and strength, and slid between Doom's legs, as he barreled over me! I ditched my sword and shield (wouldn't need em' at the moment), and busted out my Power Gauntlets! By the time Doom managed to stop his momentum, I was slamming his lower back with Storm-Lord Specials galore, launching him into his own damn force field. Side note, that force field literally glowed orange (it was usually a light blue) when Doom made contact with it, and based on how much his armor was smoking, was magma level hot! I made a mental note to not get punted into the barrier, as Doom once again tried to trample/stab me to death. I pulled the same card again, and used Doom's momentum against him; darting to the side of his bull charge. I rolled to a crouching position, summoned my Sky Shield, and threw it at the back of Doom's left knee! He went down, like a sack of bricks, leaving his back wide open to get a sword in one of those arc reactors! I summoned Excelsior, and made a beeline for Doom's top right arc reactor! I did a twisting flip over him (perfect form), while vibrating my blade, and extending it to spear mode. I woulda nailed Doom in his arc reactor if he were just a little slower! Unfortunately, the dude was a lot faster than I wanted, as he spun around, just barely avoiding the spear tip! I barely had time to land, before Doom came charging in with his blade, coming down with an overhead swing! I got my spear up just in time to block his attack, but now had to fight to keep Doom from crushing me into the ground! We held the power struggle for a good seven seconds, before I managed to barely push Doom's blade to the side, while getting in a good kick to his left knee (almost felt bad for his left knee). Doom faltered a little, but was able to get a wide swing on me, nearly cutting me in half! I back flipped over it, and upon landing, had to duck under a stab! As Doom pulled back, I summoned my shield, charged it with God Steroids, and threw it at his face! The energy blowback gave me some time to bust out my Power Gauntlets again, and go to town!

I slammed Doom with so many Storm-Lord Specials and Vibration Kicks, I lost count after getting in the upper 5,000s! Like usual, Doom and I were fighting in super speed, allowing me to rack up godly combo counts, while Doom couldn't even find his balance! To be fair, he was playing on my terms, and his bulky ass wasn't built for maneuvering! As such, I was able to use my speed and combat skills to block/dodge his attacks, and use his momentum and weight against him. 6/10 of my hits on Doom were because he telegraphed damn near every attack, and gradually let his anger get the better of him! While he was swinging his sword at me, lookin' like a lumberjack tryna hit a squirrel, as well as tryna smash into me, like a blind gorilla, I was attacking him from all sides with coordinated Storm-Lord Specials, knockin' him into his own force field so many times, his cape was halfway burned off! Doom tried his best to get back into the fight, as we reached the end of the three minute mark. He hacked, slashed, and stabbed at me, as I dodged/blocked his attacks with my shield, while countering with some Storm-Lord Specials and God Steroid charged shield throws to Doom's head! I was really banking on Doom's pride and vanity to keep him from using his suit/magic to turn the tide, but it's hard to be honorable when you're the one losin' the fight. After a few hundred more Storm-Lord Specials and shield attacks, Doom reached his breaking point, and damn near tried to blast my face off with his left repulsor! Seriously, his hand was barely a foot from my face, and I could hear the repulsor charging for a Final Flash level attack! On instinct, I summoned Excelsior, vibrated the blade, and shoved it into Doom's palm! In concept, this was a good idea. The blowback was definitely gonna f*(# up Doom's suit some more, and give him a much needed foul for cheating. What I wasn't ready for, was the degree of the blowback! Even with my shield up, the blastwave was big enough to cover 80% of the park, and send me careening back first into the force field! The crash burned holes in the back of my armor, in addition to the massive headache it gave me! If Doom was in a better place, he mighta had the chance to shove his absurdly huge sword (mine wasn't half bad) into my back, but Doom was far from a good place, and may have been the epitome of f*(#%& up right now! The dude was literally screaming his head off, as orange flames cooked him alive! I honestly thought he was gonna burn up and die right there, but respect to Doom (despite my urge to hurl), he wasn't bout to go out like no bitch. He clenched his Olympus Gauntlet, and started chanting mystic gibberish. His burning gradually started to get under control, but he was smart enough to realize I wouldn't just let him heal up. He summoned a wave of several hundred God Steroid charged demons outta the ground, putting a wall of monsters between me and him. I summoned my sword and shield, and smashed into the demons full force!

For a good minute, I cut down enough demons to fill a lake sized hole in their blood! I slashed, stabbed, whirled, and threw my shield out enough times to give Captain America a run for his money! Slicing through all these demons made me a little jealous of Allyson's spear, as I had to constantly switch between spear, sword, and shield mode pretty much every other few seconds. I was hoping to put a sword through Doom's face this time, and I did get pretty damn close this time, but Doom managed to get his $#!+ together, and in a move pretty much outta my book, achieved some version of a new form as an upgrade! As soon as Doom finished his spell, a God Steroid energy wave exploded out, almost knocking me into the force field again. Doom rose in the air, entirely bathed in God Steroid flames; like he was made outta it! The amount of power radiating off him was almost on the same level Allyson was on when she went Super Sunbird (i'm startin' to realize how OP my kinda sorta girlfriend is), and yeah, I was in total pants $#!++!^& mode! I barely had a second to contemplate how f*(#%^ I was, before Doom went full Shao Khan on my ass!

His speed was unreal, as he almost put a fist into my face without a fight! I just barely got my shield up, blocked the hit, and responded with a couple hundred Power Gauntlet punches to everywhere I could get my jabs in. Before, this kinda beat down woulda had Doom flying like a pinball. Now, I barely even got him moving a few feet. I pretty much got the message that this was useless, but Doom made sure to literally pound the message into me! He clotheslined me, damn near breaking my neck with my own momentum, and as I was getting up, kicked me under the face so hard, he broke my nose (woulda caved my face in if I wasn't juicing God Steroids), and catapulted me up to his face! He followed that up with a punch to my chest so hard, I felt three of my ribs fracture, and I smacked into the force field so hard, I didn't even feel the heat! I collapsed to the ground, trying my best to breathe somewhat normally. Good news was that I didn't have any broken ribs, so punctured lungs weren't a threat (yet). Bad news, God Steroids were more of an adrenaline boost than heal up. Juicing was good for strength, durability, and to keep going, but it was doin' jack for my cracked ribs. To make matters worse, Doom was just gettin' started with the comeback! He created a Kamehameha-like power blast set up, which didn't seem like much at the start, but was just the tip of the iceberg! When the blast finally let loose, it was clear Doom was on some $#!+ I wasn't at all prepared to deal with! Long story short, imagine a power blast in the shape of a lion's head! Got it? Ok, now, Imagine Hydra heads circling that blast, lookin' like the world's deadliest party streamers! Oh, and just for good measure, add a flock of several dozen Stymphalian Birds (monster birds with razor sharp beaks that Hercules had to deal with for his sixth labor) to circle the outer edges of the blast! I….I never did anything close to that in Hyperbolic Time Training! Common sense was screamin' at me to get outta the way, and try for another attack, but curiosity and stubbornness won out. I wanted to see if I could take his Hercules Cannon (gods I wished I was the one blastin' that thing!). I supercharged myself in a bonfire of God Steroids, going way over what I could feasibly control, and just barely managed to get a counter blast off! For about…...three or four seconds, Doom and I were at a stalemate. I had just enough of a glimmer of hope that I could do this, before Doom shot that $#!+ down. He was more or less at the halfway part of the park, while I was at the edge of the northernmost part. His blast literally ate my blast, like a snack! The lion and Hydra heads were literally chomping my blast down, while the birds pecked at it. The more Doom's blast ate of mine, the stronger it got! I was barely able to dash outta the way, as the blast slammed so hard into the force field, I know I woulda got fried to death! The impact was still enough to keep me grounded, and Doom took full advantage of that, as he blasted at me with his good repulsor. I got my shield up in time to take the brunt of the blast, but Doom was up in my space, finally swinging that sword like he had some sense! For a good ten seconds, I was completely on the defensive, as Doom effectively used his height, weight, and sword length to almost cut me in half/take one of my legs! I thought it was his A.I. doing the hard work for him, but Z.O.R.D.O.N. wasn't pickin' up $#!+.. I did eventually notice something weird around his waist (after Doom almost shoved his sword into my pelvis!). A kinda sorta holographic belt that looked strikingly similar to the WWE Tag Team Championship belt, but replace black leather with intricate maze-like designs. Musta been Hippolyta's Girdle, which was given to the Amazon Queen by Ares, and also magic. Yeah, the myths are pretty vague on what it does, but given Doom's sudden Achilles level fighting skill, i'm guessing it gave him +500 on his attack skill. And yeah, it was hell on me! I was still struggling to get enough air, on top of tryna keep nose blood outta my mouth, and ignore the racking pain in my chest. I managed to get in some good shield attacks and Storm-Lord specials on Doom, but I knew I was fighting for a tie…...and at this point, my f*(#!^% life. Doom put some more of the swift moves on me; slashing, stabbing, and blasting away at me, while I danced around him, chanting 'keepmovingkeepmovingkeepmoving!' in my head! Doom eventually managed to grab my shield, and looked ready to yank it (and my arm) off me! I dismissed the shield, but had to roll outta the way of one of his knee blasts! He tried cutting me to ribbons with his sword again, forcing me to do the five D's of dodgeball again, before I managed to block one of his downward strikes with Excelsior in spear mode.

"You do realize you cheated, right?" I grunted at Doom.

Quick bit of advice: don't piss off the bad guy when you're losing. Doom went full rage quit mode, and gave me the ass whoopin' of a lifetime!

"INSOLENT BOY!' he roared, before nailing me full on with a knee blast that knocked what little air I was able to suck in outta my chest!

I careened near a lake, and just barely managed to roll outta the way, as Doom came down with his spiked boots! He came in hot with an uppercut, which I tried to block with my shield. Yeah, that backfired. Not sure what Doom put around his fist, but I catapulted into the air, like someone lit a mountain of TNT under my feet! I remember hearing a lion's roar as I rocketed upwards, and if it wasn't clear Doom was using Herc's Twelve Labors as ammo, getting slammed into the dirt via giant orange Erymanthian Boar totally hammered that message home (if he dumped Augean $#!+ on me….)! He was taunting me at this point. I couldn't so much as make an orange fist, and here he was makin' mythical constructs like nothin'! Doom added a significant amount of pain to that insult, by spawning a whole buncha Hydra heads around me for chow time! And yeah, they went in! Two of them chomped down on my thighs, one bit into my left shoulder, and another tore into my right arm! My armor and durability provided enough protection to keep me from not dying, but it still hurt like hell (I totally screamed), and I could feel blood drenching the various pierced parts of my body! In a burst of desperation, I managed to blow the Hydra heads off me, and just barely rolled outta the way of Doom's spiked boots! I slashed at me relentlessly with his sword, while I blocked them with my shield; trying frantically to regain my footing! I managed to get into a crouching position, and rolled through Doom's legs. As he turned around, I did a twisting backflip back to where I started (had to keep him confused), giving him a kick behind the head to make him a little mad (cuz I can't even follow my own advice). Before he could turn around, I blasted him point blank with a God Steroid Final Flash! The blast caught him off guard, and damn near knocked him into his own force field again! Just a little over two minutes left. Even in Speed Mode, time would fly. I could still pull off a tie. I've been in worse spots before. Doom made sure to put that to the test! He stopped the momentum of my Final Flash, and forced it back at me! I didn't even have a chance to get outta the way, as the blast rocketed me straight into the northernmost force field barrier again! My vision was startin' to blur at this point. My legs and arms felt unsteady, and I couldn't tell if the head pounding or chest pain was worse. It was a struggle to get to my feet, but I knew I had to keep moving. To my surprise, Doom wasn't attacking; preferring to take a small moment to gloat (on second thought, not that surprised).

"What was that you droned about several minutes ago?" he asked me, while summoning giant constructs of Cerberus, The Nemean Lion, and Geryon (big dude with three heads, six arms, and six legs). "Something about the true nature of strength? Celebrating Hercules' human ingenuity? Interesting thoughts i'm sure, but allow Doom to correct your fallacious position!"

He sprung his constructs on me, and I summoned my sword.

"You tried to shackle Doom to the limitations of your own shortcomings!" he started on another of his sermons (I think this was number five?). "But Doom cannot be held down by the whims of an ant!"

Cerberus pounced at me (do dogs pounce?). I easily slid under it; driving my sword from its neck to its gut. It disintegrated into orange powder (guess it was semi real?).

"True strength is rising above, and crushing those that would stand against you, by any means necessary! It is bending the very elements to your will, and making the gods themselves tremble at your might!"

The Nemean lion tried to take a bite outta my chest. I changed Excelsior to spear mode, and buried it into its eye (didn't know if its skin was invulnerable or not)!

"You commend Hercules' human ingenuity. I struggle not to wretch at the very thought! Human ingenuity is nothing more than basic intelligence to not perish under environmental circumstances. It's cavemen using fire, stone tools, and primitive language. It is an under qualified candidate using whatever connections they have to secure employment they do not deserve. It's that hair brained oaf, Hercules, using basic intelligence to outwit a Titan into taking back the weight of the sky!"

Geryon slashed at me with six swords. An interesting challenge; especially with me being torn to $#!+ right now. Probably woulda been fun, but I wasn't in the mood for a training exercise. After regaining my footing, I gave Geryon a quick shield bash, getting a healthy amount of distance between us, and cut him in half with a shield throw! I might've made a half assed attempt to attack Doom, but he already pulled another monster outta his bag, and sent the Cretan Bull charging into me! Geryon exploding into dust momentarily distracted me, leaving me open to almost get trampled by the SUV sized cattle! I barely managed to grab it by the snout, and flip it over me. Still, Ramon (he looked like a Ramon) wasn't goin' down easy! He bucked and thrashed around, while I tried my best to subdue and put him down. Doom continued his speech, while most likely laughing inside at how stupid I looked.

"Look at you!" he shouted. "On the ground, bumbling amongst the four legged beasts! No wonder you wished to challenge Doom to a simple battle of combat! You do not possess the strength to truly wield the full power of Hercules!"

I managed to get my arms around the bull's neck, summon my shield, and slice its head clean off! While I was busy bullfighting, Doom made a God Steroid mural in honor of himself. There was an image of him defeating some weird demon, with spiked hair and a cape, him disassembling Iron Man's suit (Tony looked scared $#!+less), him riding Silver Surfer's board, wielding some other kinda godly power, various times where he managed to beat the X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and just to get me a little pissed off, him beating me and my friends at the Grand Canyon.

"For all his simplistic, borish, self aggrandizing demeanor, Hercules truly has accomplished great feats! That is what this power is! The physical manifestation of great strength and Herculean achievements! Notice how I, Doom, shape this power to my will! My feats of superiority easily on display! You, child, who have done nothing to earn such an honor, cannot even begin to competently wield it!"

He reshaped his mural to a flock of Stymphalian Birds, and sent those little $#!+$ on a murder swarm! I barely managed to construct a barrier around myself, but it really was bare bones stuff. It was so bad, some of the birds actually managed to get through, and pierce me in the back of my legs, a few times in my shoulders, and a few to the sides of my face! I dropped to my knees, doing everything I could to not die! Just a minute and a half left! I knew I couldn't stay inside my half baked shield to run down the clock, but mythology gave me an out. I timed it just right, and after dropping my barrier, did a quick succession of small thunder claps (the ones Hulk does), creating a significant amount of noise that scared the birds away. Of course, that left me with Doom, and that was nothing to smile about.

I wished I could say our remaining fight was close, but in the shape I was in, it was all I could do to keep my shield up, and avoid Doom's attacks. Hell, I couldn't even get that right! With all my wounds, my speed and reaction time were all kinds of off! In the last minute of the fight, Doom got in so many punches and kicks on me (tho never any stabs), i'm pretty sure I was nothin' but a purple bruise under my armor, but it was at the 20 second mark that things really went to $#!+. I was just barely hobbling around, blocking as many of Doom's attacks as I could, but fatigue finally set in. Doom kept hammering his sword into my shield,, like he was tryna break it, before switching it up; opting to swing horizontally, and knocking my shield arm way off to the side! He spun with his momentum, and cane back around with a stab deep into the right side of my chest!

The surprise of getting stabbed was almost enough to distract from the pain! The blade completely ran me through, cracking at least three ribs! I started to cough up blood, and as I was forced to my knees, my vision almost went completely black! I could feel Doom tryna shove the blade deeper into my chest, and I instinctively grabbed the ridiculously long (and pointy) wrist guards, struggling with all the strength I had left to…..I dunno. Could I even come back from this? Doom tried to see that I didn't, as he made his blade surge with God Steroids; shooting a wave of pain down my body! I woulda yelled, but it came out as a strained, bloody gurgle. Still, I had just enough feeling left in my arms to try for one last hail mary, tho it was more likely to kill me than anything else. I let my left arm drop, feigning complete muscle failure (which I wasn't too far off from), and let my arm slump behind my back. I had to really push it with my right arm too keep that blade from using my chest as a tunnel, and with everything I had left, vibrated my blade. Doom was too busy going on some victory charged tangent (somethin' about me always being a boy, failing to play god), to notice me position my sword just right, and extend it to spear mode! The vibrating blade sunk deep into his naval positioned arc reactor, and blew up a War Force storm!

Yeah, if it wasn't obvious that Doom's suit was starting to show wear and tear, this explosion cemented it! Doom's suit overloaded, and let off an explosion that tore through all of Central Park (turning it back into a smoking crater)! I just barely summoned my shield in time to take the brunt of the blast that most definitely woulda killed me! That was great news for me, but I still got blasted from Central Park, all the way to the Queen's Museum of Art! I did not land gracefully…...like at all. I crashed into the road, crating a Jason sized crater, and hurled up blood. I didn't even have the strength to turn over, so my blood just kinda violently ran down my face (nice little image for mom there), as well as blood soaking me inside my own armor. Of course the scoreboard gave Doom the point for Round 4, and in a rare bit of good luck, Round 5 was about the Poseidon Stone! A wave of Sea Force rippled through me, healing me just enough to halfway mend my ribs, and give me enough strength to not pass out! Still, Sea Force alone wasn't gonna do it. The energy was doing it's best, but it was a half completed puzzle. I needed to get some water. Dunno how long it would take for Doom to recover from another ruptured arc, but seein' as I was in no condition to run, I summoned my trident, and quickly drew up a teleport spell back to Long Island beach (the gazebo we hashed out the beginnings of today's plan to be specific). Again, the rush of Sea Force I absorbed during the teleport gave me enough strength to finally turn over, spit the excess blood outta my mouth, and use my trident as a crutch to hobble my way to the water (your hero, ladies and gentlemen). As soon as I made contact with the ocean, I dissolved into my Sea Form, becoming one with the water. It felt like a billion pounds being lifted off my shoulders, as I felt my strength return and then some! In ten seconds, I was back in fighting shape, and reformed my body! I was on such a high, I wasn't even thinkin' about waiting for Doom to find me! Time to put his ass on the run for once! I did a quick search for a Sea Force signature, and pinged Doom still in Central Park! I did another teleport jump in front of him (he was just now startin' to get up), and uppercutted him so high, he woulda been lookin' down at the Chrysler Building! I was gettin' my Nightcrawler on right now, as I teleported to Doom again, and smacked him with the flat of my trident; teleporting us both about 100 miles off shore of Long Island Beach, 2,000 ft above the ocean! Doom barely had enough time to think 'oh $#!+', before I did another teleport smack, transporting us both 3,000 ft underwater!

From there, it was another slaughter, as Doom was completely unprepared for how OP I was in the water! I blasted Doom from all sides with Sea Force charged water constructs! Everything from sea animals/monsters, Power Rangers, Bakugan, Ben 10 aliens, and Star Command characters, enough to make a sizable mini army, all bombarding Doom with the force of rockets! For two minutes straight, no interruptions at all, I brought Doom all the pain the sea could give in a mile radius! I noticed Doom kept trying and failing to get up a Sea Force barrier around himself (reminded me of Violet in Incredibles). I laughed it off at first, thinking the Sea Force was rejecting him (which it totally shoulda), until I realized how much Doom was struggling. Dude looked like he was trying not to explode from the inside out, and I remembered that one of the arc reactors I ruptured was the Sea Force one! Every action Doom took to even conjure up a spark musta been causing him unbearable levels of pain (which I didn't feel bad about in the slightest)! It looked like i'd get an easy win this round, but Doom was in no mood to give me an easy meal. I didn't notice it until it was too late, as Doom was huddled in a fetal position, lookin' like he wanted to be anywhere but here. While I was distracted by all the winning I was doing, Doom prepped a massive Sea Force explosive wave, and let it loose, literally creating a shock wave that rippled for over two miles! I managed to hold my ground enough with a mix of water walls, and absorbing excess Sea Force into my trident. When Doom's blastwave subsided, he changed a bit. He wasn't writhing in pain anymore (tho he definitely looked slightly uncomfortable), as he kinda sorta solved the problem by turning off the safety locks on his arc reactor. His knee and hand repulsors were overloading with energy, as well as his eye and mouth pieces (which was low key kinda funny!). It wasn't nearly as bad as last round, but there was always the fear in the back of my head that Doom mighta just pulled the rug out from under me. He was in way too much pain to make any bull$#!+ grand statements about how much he loved his own dick (thank God), so he just opted to blast me full force with all his arc reactors! Common sense woulda led me to either dodge or go into my Sea Form to avoid the blast, but stubbornness and curiosity won out (again). I spun my trident at the same level of speed Thor usually twirled his hammer, and created a circular water shield, big enough to take the blast. Before the blast made contact with the swirling water, I drew up a spell for absorb /.'|..-_..(_)|.. and merged it with the shield. Doom's blast barely moved me, as my water shield took the energy like a champ! I probably coulda kept this up for the rest of the round, but there was no fun in that. Besides, Doom was clearly stalling, and I wasn't bout to let him summon anything not from this dimension! I let him feed my blast for a few more seconds, and when the time was right, blasted his own energy back at him, in the form of a giant Megalodon spirit! The Sea Force beast chomped and thrashed Doom around with several truck smashing chomps, before dissipating back into the Sea Force. I bolted after Doom, my trident primed for some intense stabbing action!

The following two minutes were the same as the first, but with less water constructs. Seriously, Doom was straight dead in the water (pun intended) this round! While he did his best to keep me at bay with Sea Force blasts, and water constructs (he sucked at the latter), I was dashing in and outta his attacks, smacking him around with my trident, giving him the business with some Storm-Lord Specials, and keeping him off-balance with well placed current changes, and a few whirlpools. Doom legit did not land a single punch or blast on me, and his waterbending form was straight ass! His instincts and reaction time were all off, as he suddenly had to deal with millions of pounds of pressure, as well as the fact that his 'bend the universe to my will' mentality was at odds with a force that required you to be more of a conduit. So yeah, I continued my streak of dominance almost unchallenged all the way up to the end of the four minute mark; tho Doom did manage to break up my combo, via trying to summon a wave of Sea Force charged nymphs to attack me. They surprised me enough to make me fall back on my assault, but just as quickly as they were summoned, they took a look at me, and dissipated back into the water! Doom looked just as dumbfounded as me, but it took me a millisecond to realize what was going on! The nymphs served Poseidon, and like it or not, I was the real champion of his sacred city! Doom barely had a second to contemplate how deep in the $#!+ he was, before I amped up the ass kicking!

I shifted into my Sea Form, and blasted Doom down another 3,000 ft, to the ocean floor, as a Sea Force charged current that was strong enough to wreck a bridge! Doom slammed into the ground, and I upped myself into an underwater whirlpool, filled to the brim with Sea Force bolts, that woulda leveled all of Manhattan! I only had to physically be the storm for about ten seconds before I reformed myself in the eye, and kept it going with my will (and a small assist from my trident!), before transporting a few hundred feet above the hurricane to round up my squad! I created a three pronged spell seal around my trident, with the spells being: summon -_..-../|./|.(.| strengthen -_.|_-.|./.,/. ] | [-| / and disrupt ]'.-|-_._).-.|.\.-| My summoning spell was a call to all the sea spirits and animals around me. In ten seconds, I was surrounded by an army's worth of sea nymphs, Great White and Hammerhead sharks, swordfish, electric eels, and even a few whales! Unlike Doom, they weren't here by force. My summoning spell was more of a request than a command. All my undersea buddies where here cuz they respected and admired me (they more or less told me this). My strengthening spell was for them. They were gonna be a little distraction for Doom, while I prepared somethin' that would hopefully end his entire existence. The disrupt spell was to keep him even more cut off from the Sea Force and waterbending. Couldn't have him killing any of my sea buddies (they had families to get back to). With my set up ready to rock and roll, I consolidated my hurricane into a tornado, smacked Doom onto the ocean floor again, and let my squad at him!

I legit could not have asked for a better undersea team! The Great Whites took turns chomping and thrashing Doom, before letting him loose for a nearby hammerhead pass Doom onto another one! The electric eels and swordfish waited between passes to give Doom a jolt/stab up his ass (sometimes literally), and the whales took turns (after giving the others fair warning) belly flopping Doom to the ocean floor again! The nymphs added to the mix, by constantly throwing explosive sea shells (enough force to rival grenades) at Doom. The explosions didn't faze their fellow teammates in the slightest, but Doom was gettin' all kinds of f*(#^% up! And it was only gonna get worse! I started drawing up a spell, about half a mile in circumference. This was gonna be a big one, and even with the trident, was gonna drain the hell outta my Sea Force attacks! As such, I rightfully saved this trick for the final act. The spell went as such:|..'/ |. ] | [-._|..-._/.'-_.|-_..(.\/|. ] | [-._|\._)/.'|\.-| /]'.-|./|-| /-_.-|.(.|.(.|..|._-|. | - .-_)/.'. | - ../|'/ |-| /-._./|'/ | By the beasts of the Kraken Dimension, obliterate my enemy. It took a bit of time to get it set up, and seeing as I hadn't done a grandiose speech yet, I figured i'd give it a shot.

"Ya know, Doom?" I started (like all the greatest speeches did). "I thought a lot about the meaning of true strength, while I was bleeding out on the cold pavement. Thanks for that by the way. But seriously, I get it. You started off with nothing, and rose to be one of the smartest and most powerful men in the world. I respect the hustle, don't get me wrong. Heck, I started out that way too. You know how spirit breaking it is to keep asking your babysitter for almost two days: 'when's mom and dad coming to get me?' How about the cops showing up to explain they won't be coming home, and you're going to live in a foster home for a good while?"

The animal's and spirit beasts musta been feeding off my rising anger, cuz they started tearing into Doom even harder!

"Yeah, you taught me your meaning of 'true strength' a long time ago. But ya know what? We were wrong. I'm 17 years old, and i've beaten up twice as many dudes, all to prove that I was stronger than anything they could throw at me! I shut myself off from my foster mom for years, tryna prove to myself I didn't need her to piece me back together! I spent close to ten years friendless and alone of my own volition! I cut myself off from people so long, I forgot why I was even doing it! But you wanna know the truth, Doom? Anyone can make it alone with anger and spite, but that can only get you so far! You've clawed your way up to godhood more times than billions of people get to in a lifetime, but you always fail regardless! You've had the power of the Silver Surfer, Galactus, Odin, and I think the Infinity Gauntlet? Not sure if that last one was real, or a fan art. And even now, you've got the power of the gods of Olympus, power you stole, on your right hand! Yet here you are, getting your tin can kicked by a rookie! Difference is, I know who I am, and who got me here! My mother, the one that chose me, raised me to be a good man, and tempered my anger! If it wasn't for her, i'd probably be dead! My friends and teammates, the best friends i've ever had, were by my side every step of the way of this stupid Stones of Olympus crap. If it wasn't for them, I would've died day one against Venom! That's where my strength comes from! Not these powers! Not this trident! Not my lineage! My friends and family never gave up on me, and as long as i'm breathing, I sure as the sea won't give up on them! That's why you I won't let you win, Doom! For the first time since I was seven years old, I finally feel like i've got somethin' other than myself to live for!"

A sappy speech, I know, but it's the truth. These past several days changed me for the better. I wouldn't say I was a completely new man, but I sure as hell was a lot better than I was the day I first got my powers. Anyway, with the spell seal complete, I finally let Doom have it! The ring blazed bright with Sea Force, and the spirits of the Kraken Dimension came roaring out! Everything from the different types of dragons, Ichthyocerberi and Ichthyominotaurs, Leviathans, Piranhaoids, and Krakens, all ambushed Doom in a geyser of pain! The flare lasted for well over a half a minute, and I could sense Doom struggling to hold it all together! This was it! This had to be it! His armor was compromised to $#!+, and he wasn't in any way adept at harnessing Sea Force! This was the part where he burned away into cinders and I saved the day! Yeah….nice little day dream for you, but as we all know, life never makes it that simple for me. Instead of being obliterated, Doom was annoyingly intact for the most part. His armor was definitely rough looking, as his cape was more or less a tattered green rag, with various chinks, dents, bite marks, as well as missing/loose pieces starting to break away from his chest and shoulder areas. His lower left side, where his Sea Force arc reactor was, had a small, finger sized crack; exposing a beam of blue light. Yeah, Doom definitely cheated in some way.

"Z.O.R.D.O.N.?" I asked my A.I. "The hell just happened?"

"Dude's insane!" he responded. "The damaged arc reactors have safety protocols that keeps them from going nuclear. Doom overridden them, and absorbed damn near 60% of your attack into his body!"

"No way he should be alive! The Sea Force has to be rejecting him!"

"It more or less is. His vitals are critical, but he's forcing himself to internalize the energy!"

"Dude's got heart for sure. Too bad I couldn't make it stop. Gotta take the fight upstairs now."

Yeah, with five seconds left in round 5 (which I totally won), I had to take this to the land. I scrounged up enough power to do one last teleport smack, sending me and Doom to Long Island beach. No surprise, I got the point for round 5, evening the score at 3-3. Round 6 changed me and Doom to Apollo Fire, and man was that such a jarring shift! I didn't realize how much I exhausted myself with all that Sea Force magic! Without the energy tether to help with the hangover, my energy dropped, like an anvil tied to a boulder! The kick of the Apollo Fire helped me stay conscious, and I gave myself a kick of Solar Steroids (not too hard to replicate) to clear my head. Hell, if nothing else, Doom's reaction to the shift was well worth the hangover! Ok, I say that, but I was low key kinda horrified! Allyson proved Sea Force and Apollo Fire were polar opposites, and it showed! As Doom's body was tryna adjust to the major influx of Sea Force, the Apollo Fire cranked up to 11, and violently fought against Doom's transformation! I'm talkin' engulfed in a bonfire the size of a junkyard, and the fire just kept rising! I kinda hoped that the fire would cook him to death, but Doom was too proud to die that simply. He had me fooled for a second, as the bonfire suddenly exploded into a fiery tornado, about as high as a skyscraper, before dying down. I wanted a charred husk, but had to settle for Doom going full Sun God on me. Yeah, just like with the last two arc reactors, Doom had unleashed the safety, and flooded himself with the power. He didn't go full Super Sunbird, but i'd say he was about 60% of the way there. His armor looked like it was one with the fire; tho he walked like someone dropped an elephant on him. We gave each other a quick 'I hate you' stare, before unleashing holy hell. Doom was gonna go for the power blast. Hell, I wanted to go for the power blast; it's a tried and true opening act. Instead, as Doom's blast got no more than five feet away from him, I trapped him in a mini-sun, and used his own attack against him. I had to struggle a little to contain the blast, but after charging up my mini-sun enough, I catapulted Doom into the air in a massive fire tower, and flew after him, guns blazing!

I wrapped myself in the Ninja Storm Battlizer armor, and created a giant Gatling gun on my back that shot mini-suns rapid fire at Doom (I was so gonna rub that in Allyson's face)! It worked for a good 10 seconds, as I shot Doom high above the clouds, but he recovered, started deflecting my blasts, and dogpiled me from all directions with a swarm of sword, dragons, and Doombot constructs! I quickly wrapped myself in a fire tornado, and shot myself at Doom. He responded by shooting another power blast at me. Right before I collided with the inferno, I dipped outta my tornado, and barraged Doom from all sides with an assortment of missiles, various birds, and exploding Sesame Street characters (imagine a kamikaze Elmo as current nightmare fuel for your day)! I managed to knock him back enough to where he had get inside a shield, but as soon as he did, I created a giant set of sledgehammers and ping pong paddles to knock him all around New York! I charged up a mini-sun knuckle sandwich around my right fist, and once it got so powerful to where I was ripping off roofs during flybys (fixable!), I sledgehammer smacked Doom back my way, and smashed his bubble with one punch! Doom got a left uppercut under the jaw, a spinning right backhand, and a Final Flash chest blast point blank in that order! I kept at him in close quarters and distance, throwing hundreds of punches, kicks, blasts, and various constructs at him per second. He quickly got his balance back, was able to block and counter a good amount of my attacks, and to my surprise, actually started to integrate constructs into his attacks! As we went at it DBZ style, Doom ducked under one of my punches, and came up with a chainsaw blade that damn near cut my face in half! Sure, it wasn't super creative, but the fact that he did anything with constructs that wasn't medieval, military, or based on him, was a bit of a shocker (almost wanted to give him a fist bump). I dodged his chainsaw blade, and blocked another oncoming strike with my hawk sword. We slashed and stabbed at each other for a few seconds, before I ducked under one of his swings, and blasted him away with some shoulder and arm guns/missile launchers. Doom managed to get a shield up after getting blasted back, and retaliated by sending a wave of wicked looking alien ships! The barrage was so strong, I had to duck under a shield, and create a mini army of armored tigers, archers on flaming chariots, and G1 design Bumblebees. That army bought me enough time to prepare an explosive wave to clear the field, and lock onto Doom again for single combat. It went on like that for the whole fight. Both of us weaving in and out of melee, ranged, and construct fighting. None of us held an advantage over each other for very long, which gave us plenty of time to have a halfway decent talk.

"A little overdue for one of your long winded speeches about godhood, eh?" I taunted Doom, as we had a quick sword construct exchange. "What, run outta material?"

"Insolent gnat!" he responded, blasting me away with a small explosive wave. "You have been a thorn in the side of Doom for far too long!"

I recovered, and blasted a volley of flaming angel feathers at him rapid fire.

"And you've been a pain in my neck for like a week now! How about we make this easy, and you give up the stones, call of your stupid world domination plan, and spend the rest of your life in a cell in the center of the earth!"

Doom blocked my volley with a shield construct, and created a giant combat avatar in the shape of a giant fire demon with goat legs. I expanded my Ninja Storm Battlizer to match his new play, and we duked it out for a little while.

"AN UNLIKELY OUTCOME!" Doom responded, as we clashed giant swords. "THE DESTINY OF DOOM IS TO RULE OVER ALL, AND LEAD HUMANITY INTO AN ETERNAL AGE OF GLORY! THAT DESTINY WILL NOT BE DETERRED BY A PETULANT CHILD!"

We locked our giant fire blades in a power struggle, and I went for the jugular with the verbal sparring.

"RULE OVER ALL?! LEAD HUMANITY INTO A GOLDEN AGE?! THAT'S A FUNNY WAY OF SAYING HOW MUCH OF A BOTTOM YOU ARE FOR YOUR OVERLORDS!"

That got under his skin super hard! His combat avatar flared up, like someone poured gas on it, and his guard slacked enough to where I was able to push his blade to the side, and slam an elbow into his avatar's face! He staggered backwards, and I slashed his avatar apart with my sword! That woulda been a lot more satisfying, if Doom didn't pack his avatar to the brim with explosive energy! The ensuing blowback shattered my combat avatar, and sent me flying over what was left of Brooklyn Bridge! I managed to recover in time to just barely avoid Doom slamming into me, and launched him towards Manhattan via giant boxing glove construct! I flew after him, slamming mini-sun barrages and giant flaming chariots into his body, before he wrapped himself in a giant Minotaur construct, with an axe Grant woulda killed for! I barreled forward, and wrapped an Ingrim (six winged female Bakugan that looks like a mix of an angel and falcon) combat avatar, and tucked it into a flaming ball that slammed into the Minotaur constructs gut, like a cannonball!

"DOOM ANSWERS TO NO ONE, BOY!" he roared, as he smacked me away with a freehand.

I recovered, and attacked Doom with a series of wing slashes and talon strikes; keeping him on heavy defense!

"REALLY, DUDE?!" I responded. "TWICE, THE SHADOW GODS CALLED YOU TO ANSWER FOR YOUR WEAK PERFORMANCE! TWICE THE STONES HAVE FORCED YOU TO COMPETE IN CHALLENGES TO PROVE YOUR WORTH! YOU'VE BEEN ON STRINGS SINCE DAY ONE, AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE SELF AWARENESS TO REALIZE IT!"

Doom managed to get his axe around my combat avatar, lock me in a backbreaker, and squeeze! I tried clawing into his avatar's sides, but Doom was takin' me for a ride, as he flipped me upside down, and started careening us both towards Battery Park!

"I WIELD THE POWERS OF THE GODS, BOY! WHILE THE INSIGNIFICANT OLYMPIANS STRUGGLE AGAINST OBLIVION, I HARNESS THEIR POWERS TO THE FULLEST POTENTIAL!"

I made my construct explode, allowing me to get some distance from Doom, and damage his construct enough to where one more good strike would do him in! I quickly wrapped myself in a phoenix construct, about the size of a small house, and smashed into the Minotaur's chest! I had Doom in my flaming beak, and decided to finish what he started!

"AGAIN, YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE THE PICTURE FOR WHAT IT IS! YOU STOLE THE STONES, AND COULDN'T EVEN DO IT WITHOUT YOUR MASTERS! YOU HAD TO CREATE A SUIT TO HARNESS THEIR POWERS! I'VE HELD THEM IN MY HANDS! I'VE USED THE STONE OF POSEIDON WITHOUT A SUIT TO DO THE HEAVY LIFTING FOR ME! I HAVE THE BLOOD OF THE GODS IN MY VEINS! YOU'RE A FRAUD AND A LIAR, THAT BUILT HIS REP ON STEALING FROM BETTER PEOPLE! YOU'RE NOT A GOD! YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER BULLY WHO'S ASS I'M GONNA KICK!"

Mom was gonna ground me forever for cussing (was tryin' to not do that with the whole world watching), but assuming i'd live long enough to see her, i'd gladly take it! Anyway, I smashed Doom into Battery Park, creating a flaming crater in its center! Doom was stunned enough to where I was able to slam a few hundred Storm-Lord specials into his face! The clock was winding down to a little under 30 seconds (time really flew this round), and I was desperately tryna keep him down! If I could bag this round, the battle was over! Next round was for the Zeus Stone, and no way was Doom gonna outclass me in my home turf! I created a series of chains, anvils, and shackles around Doom's body, as I kept up my barrage! I created a Sun Spot under him, doubling the gravity, as I went ape$#!+ on his face! Doom struggled and fought as hard as he could, nearly breaking through almost every other second! Still, I was able to just barely hold on….all the way up to the five second mark! So close, but not good enough! Doom managed to get his right fist free, and was clearly building up a haymaker, as he launched a mini-sun covered fist into my face, blasting me sky high! Seriously, the only thing missing was a YEET sound effect! I managed to recover in time for the round to end, which the Apollo Stone scored a tie. Not what I wanted, but better than losing the round entirely. Still, with the score at 4-4, I was about to get the last second win with the Zeus Stone! I felt the energy change course through me, and created a cloud big enough to blanket all of NYC just off the initial energy surge! Oh yeah, this was gonna be fun!

I shifted into Thunder God mode, and scanned the area for Doom…..who seemed to be in full on hide and seek mode. Yeah, I couldn't ping him for $#!+. Aside from a huge saturation of Zeus Lightning in Battery Park, Doom was nowhere to be found! I must've been getting frustrated, as I could feel the storm cloud getting bigger, and more violent. A few more seconds, and I was genuinely confused. Doom was a lotta things, but i'd never peg him as a coward. He wouldn't have been sitting this one out, unless he was planning a huge ace up his sleeve. That's when it finally hit me. That storm cloud was getting into mega thunder storm level territory, and that wasn't me! I could feel it when I made storm clouds billow, and lightning flash across the sky. All of that was happening, but none of it was me. I just barely realized what was going on at the last second, but by then it was too late! The massive storm cloud shaped a large part of itself into Doom's face, and swallowed me inside!

For a good minute and a half, Doom smacked me around in what I have to admit was a pretty damn impressive storm cloud barrage! He kept me spinning around in 300 mph winds, and was constantly barraging me with a mix of cloud constructs and giant pieces of hail! Even in Thunder God mode, the barrage hurt like hell, and Doom was relentless! Just like me, he knew I was in my element, and that this was the worst possible place to be in for the game ending tie breaker. I could practically feel his desperation as he piled on the hail, storm fists, razor sharp sleet (ouch), but absolutely no lightning whatsoever! It was almost cute how hard he tried to keep me down, cuz as soon as I got my balance back, it was on! I got myself inside a barrier of lightning and air, to give myself a quick breather. Doom tried to break in, but I was able to deflect most of his attacks, while everything else bounced off my shield. It was my turn to wreck Doom's set up, but that immediately proved to be harder than I thought. Again, major props to Doom, cuz the dude refused to give me an inch! He obviously broke the safety on his Zeus arc reactor, and it gave him a major boost, as even in Thunder God mode, I couldn't overpower him! At best, I could hold up the stalemate, but Doom had already expanded his Storm Form (too good a term for an asshole like him) to a raging storm cloud, the size of the state! He'd eventually get the upper hand, unless I took it to him up close and personally. With that being said, I transformed into my Storm Form, and merged with the clouds. And yeah, it was one hell of a battle!

The first three minutes of the fight were the equivalent of how I imagined telepaths fought each other. Doom and I didn't take on giant Kaiju level forms to duke it out (that came later), rather than try and force each other's will out of the clouds. The state sized storm cloud thundered and lightninged so hard, i'm pretty sure the folks in Maine could hear it! The winds reached up to 400 mph, and as much as I hate to say it, several stray bolts of lightning trashed more than a few buildings below. I'm not entirely sure how or where we were fighting, but the idea of being merged with Doom was vomit inducing enough to be more than grateful when we finally got into the big boy battles at a little bit past the four minute mark.

Yeah, the whole way through the mental battle, Doom and I occasionally formed parts of our bodies in the clouds. A fist here, a face there, but nothing concrete enough to get a full on Megazord-like battle going. After four minutes, we both kinda realized that this mental thing wasn't working (and super boring), and upgraded the fight big time! Like I said, Doom and I were a storm cloud big enough to cover the whole state of New York, and when we formed our bodies (think us from the torso up in giant cloud form, big enough to use skyscrapers as toothpicks) there was no pause to contemplate our next moves, no speeches, no taunts, just straight non-stop battle!

For the remaining four minutes of the fight, Doom and I hammered into each other relentlessly! From the bottom, it must've looked like the sky at war with itself, and that's basically what it was! Doom threw lightning charged fists at me, and I threw fists, spiked clubs, hammers, and blades at him! Yeah, Doom was in my house now! Oh, and as to how fighting worked as cloud beings….on the real, i'm not entirely sure. I know pain was more or less non existent, as Doom's hits on me distorted my form, and jostled my mental control over my Storm-Form, but it wasn't painful. Winning would more or less come from either of us hammering the other's form down to the point to where we could scatter their atoms to the wind (sorry not sorry, Electro). Again, not sure what the terms entirely were up here, but five bucks says Doom didn't know or care either. Speaking of which, he held his ground pretty damn strong. His biggest problem was inexperience and a lack of imagination. He hammered me with his fists, but I was changing my hands to the previously mentioned weapons, changing my shape to various dragons, animals, and insert TV shows I grew up with. Doom eventually managed to change his form into a giant billowing demon head (lame), but I was easily beat that down with a giant cloud Kraken form. For a hot second, it looked like I had this one in the bag, but Doom called in the cavalry at the last second to save his ass! Almost outta nowhere, a horde of Venti swarmed my whole Storm-Form, like someone dumped an ant hill on me! Again, pain wasn't exactly a thing, but I could feel them eating away at my form, and chipping away at my consciousness! And that was on top of Doom starting to get in some good hits! The surprise attack was so much, I had to drop my Storm-Form, retreat my consciousness to the easternmost part of the storm cloud, and come back around with somethin' special for Doom! Long story short, after sending a quick S.O.S. to a group of cloud nymphs, I came back with my own army to challenge Doom! It was kinda weird to come back at an army of shape shifting wind demons, with an army of super hot cloud women, but now that I heard that sentence aloud (risking Allyson's wrath in the process), I think I was on the better end of the deal! Anyway, Doom and I collided our armies into each other, and damn was I not ready for nymph/venti war! As good as I was in Storm Form, the venti and cloud nymphs were completely in a league of their own! They twisted and reshaped their forms on a dime; fighting each other as dragons, snakes, eagles, and various mythological beasts, all in the span of three seconds! Hell, two or three of Doom's Venti were enough to make me change my form from Optimus Prime, to Fourarms, Kintaro, and Raiden, just to hold them off! The speed and ferocity they fought with had me on edge 100% of the time! I made a note to train with them, if I lived to see a few hours from now. Hell, the battle was so big and explosive, it wasn't until the last ten seconds of the final round that Doom and I got a visual on each other. I had just finished dispersing a group of Venti (with an assist from a cloud nymph named Zephri), via turning my arm into a blender (effective at least), and he raked lightning claws through a poor cloud nymph. Once again, we didn't waste a second, and immediately went at it! We were able to get a good round of punches and blasts on each other, trying desperately to pad our stats before the final decision, but it was no good either way. As the clock hit zero, the Zeus Stone literally sent me and Doom to our corners, as it retracted the mega storm cloud, and sent us both crashing to either end of Central Park; both of us in our physical bodies again! That was super weird to me in its own right, as i've never been forced out of a form before. Still, that was the least of my worries, as the scoreboard showed the final tally. Doom and I tied the last round, keeping the score even at 5-5. I had no idea what that meant for the future. The rules were winner takes all, but I didn't account for a tie. Before either of us could make any assumptions, the stones did the work for us! I felt a surge ripple all over me, like my whole body fell asleep, and could feel the stones messing with my powers! It lasted for a good half a minute, and when it finally stopped, I felt myself on the verge of vomiting! My Olympus Force powers were suddenly outta balance, based on the fights I won, lost, or tied in. My War Force, Apollo Fire, and Zeus Lightning were cut in half. My Nature Force and Sea Force were unchanged, but my Death Force and God Steroids were capped at a quarter of what I could usually pull off. In addition to the high levels of vertigo the energy correction gave me, all the fighting of the last 49 minutes (damn, that's a good while) caught up to me in one crashing second! I was suddenly aware of how sore my muscles were, and how drained my actual soul was! It took every ounce of strength I had to roll over and struggle to my feet. My only real consolation was that Doom looked equally as $#!++¥ as I felt. His armor looked more like a salvage job at this point, rather than the intimidating war lord vibe it used to give off. Cracks and holes peppered his entire torso, and the amount of various Olympus Force spewing out of the tears made it look like he was on the verge of blowing up (one can dream). His breathing sounded like someone stuck gravel in a blender, and he couldn't even stand upright; having to hunch over, and use magic to keep him barely standing. Like me, he immediately sensed his power change, and did a quick check, via making the Olympus Stones glow. The Ares, Apollo, and Zeus Stones were dimmed to half. Hercules and Hades were bright as ever. Demeter and Poseidon were barely flickering. This made him a little upset.

"What have you done to me?" he growled at me, before yelling at the stones themselves. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

"No use, God King Dofus!" I yelled at him. "The game's over. The stones ain't givin' no more special treatment. It's just you and me now!"

His breathing morphed into something resembling a bear in heat (I watch too many documentaries). The air around him was starting to heat up with Olympus Force, and a voice in the back of my head was screaming to shut the hell up. Doom was on the verge of havin' a panic attack, and I was nowhere near good enough condition to actually stand a chance of winning.

"NOOOO!" he roared. "THERE IS NO YOU! ONLY ME! ONLY DOOM! YOU ARE A BIOLOGICAL ACCIDENT! AN ORPHAN GUTTER RAT, NOT WORTHY OF THE DIRT ON WHICH I WALK! YOU'VE BEEN A THORN IN MY SIDE, AN ANNOYANCE THAT HAS PLAGUED MY MASTER PLAN, AND ASCENSION! NO LONGER! NO MORE TRICKS, NO MORE GAMES, DIE, LIKE THE INSIGNIFICANT BUG YOU ARE!"

He charged himself with a massive amount of Olympus Force, and shot at me like a bullet! I was way too tired to make an elaborate block/evasion attempt, so I literally let my weight drop to the ground, as Doom's rocketed straight over me! The ground was so soft and inviting. I wanted nothing more than to just crash here for the next two weeks, but I still had a fight to win. With every shred of energy I had left, I started to charge my Speed Momentum with Olympus Force! It felt like tryna do a 5k, after you just finished a brutal workout session. My body was screaming no, but I forced it to get up, and run after Doom. Before he could recover from his overshot, I slammed a Storm-Lord Special into his back, launching him straight into the Avengers Tower lobby! I zoomed after Doom, ignoring the pulsating pain I felt in every atom of my body. As I got closer to the makeshift backdoor I made in the tower, I felt reality slightly warp around my mind. It was like someone took off a veil I didn't even know was there. It was a little disorienting, but nothing compared to Strange's voice booming in my head!

"STORM-LORD!" his voice echoed through my head. "ANSWER ME!"

"OK!" I responded, as I nailed Doom over the head with another Storm-Lord Special. "DIDN'T HEAR YOU BEFORE! TAKE IT DOWN!"

I tried to get another Storm-Lord Special in on Doom, but he summoned a War Force shield, and blocked the strike.

"Apologies," Strange continued. "Your mind was shielded from me for almost an hour."

Doom blasted me backwards, and shot out some kinda War Force spear hook at me.

"Bummer, I guess? Musta been the stones. See, I-"

I ducked under Doom's spear hook, summoned my Sky Shield, charged it with lightning, and threw it into his chest.

"Gambled with the stones. Compromised your arcane immunity, and severely weakened yourself in the most crucial moment of the battle."

Dude was a total buzz kill. Anyway, Doom faltered back enough for me to serve him up another can of whup ass, Storm-Lord Special style! I got in some good hits to his body and head, but he already put an Olympus Force body shield around himself. Hell, with my body nowhere near in good enough condition to maintain my usual speed, I had to keep my Sky Shield out to tank a good number of counter attacks and blasts from Doom, as we fought for a little while, tearing all of Stark's nice things up.

"So I experimented a little," I thought to Strange. "Sue me. I'm still kickin', so that's gotta count for something."

"It says a lot," he responded. "Nothing exceptionally good about your logic and reasoning. But at the very least, your determination and ingenuity is commendable."

"So you called me up to give me a performance review? How about some four headed, lightning shooting wombats? I could use an assist here, dude!"

"You think I haven't been trying? The stones are blocking my magic. They want this fight to stay between you and Doom."

"So i'm screwed?"

"Not necessarily. As insipid as that stunt you pulled was, it did wonders for the second energy reservoir. We're about 70% of the way there, and rising."

"How long till we fill it?"

"Depends. Still, time is not on our side. Doom's comet will strike the earth in just under an hour's time. We must accelerate the energy harvesting process!"

"Any ideas, Doc?"

"Those arc reactors. Every time you've pierced one, the energy output has been enough to fill the reservoir by 5%. If you pierce the remaining ones, the surrounding battles will be enough to fill the remaining quota of arcane energy."

"You know that ain't as easy as you make it sound."

"Neither is combating demon infested cereal. We all have to make do."

If that was the case, I really was screwed. In between all the talking, Doom and I were going at it relentlessly! I was able to hold my own against him, and even succeeded in rolling between his feet, and upon recovery, vibrated my shield, and threw it through Doom's right knee blaster, and before the blast even rippled through Doom's armor, I willed it to boomerang back, and take out his left kneecap! The double energy overload rippled through Doom, rather than explode outwards, but it did send him to his knees! Perfect time to stab another one of those arc reactors, so I dashed forward, summoning Excelsior. I was aiming for the top left arc reactor, but Doom was havin' none of it. I mistakenly took Doom's inward surge of power as a suit malfunction, but Doom had clearly absorbed the blowback into himself (that had to hurt), cuz he slammed his fists into the floor, and my Speed Sense hit me like a damn hurricane! The entire lobby floor blazed with blinding light, and I barely had a chance to jump, summon a barrier around myself, and ride out the violent energy geyser that shot through all 100+ floors of Avengers Tower (Stark was gonna blame me for this)! I shot outta the roof, and Doom teleported just above me, smashed a charged up Olympus Gauntlet into my barrier, completely shattering it, and sending me crashing into the Quinjet landing pad! What was left of my armor kept me from injuring my spine, but Doom wasn't done by a long shot! He summoned some kinda black sword, and dive bombed at me! I managed to roll backwards, just barely avoiding the blade, but when I got a good look at it, my heart froze! It was nothing too special. Just a pure black hand and a half sword, big enough for Doom's size. The guard had a black skull on it, and the blade felt like a mini black hole; like it was tryna suck in everything in sight. I immediately knew this was the blade that Doom wielded in the vision the Norn-Fates gave me! The blade that could potentially be the thing that ended my life! As if knowing what I was thinking, and wanting to erase any doubt in my mind about whether this actually was the blade I saw in the vision, Doom sent a surge of War Force through it, that made the skulls eyes, and the blade edges to light up bright red with War Force. Not gonna lie, I felt intense fear for a moment there. Like, I literally couldn't move for a good while. Nothing like a dude tryna cut you in half with a shadow sword to snap you outta being frozen solid in fear!

Doom swung and missed at me for a good few seconds, before I had to summon my Sky Shield to help with the defense. I noticed how the blade was slowly sapping my energy (what was left of it). Magic wasn't supposed to affect me, but like Strange said, I kinda compromised it. At best, I had a strong resistance to the sword's effects, but I had to really dig deep and pull an ace outta my sleeve if I wanted to survive, much less win. I danced with Doom for a bit, weaving in and out/blocking his attacks with my shield. Doom kept ramping up in attack strength and speed, so I had to work quickly, as I tried desperately to go Thunder God. Yeah, that was a big problem, as pretty much all of my energy was either spent, being suppressed, or both. With only half of my Zeus Energy, going Thunder God was like tryna break through a wall with a foam bat. After about a minute of failing to break through, I tried something admittedly stupid and risky, but that could be the title of my autobiography of the events of the last several days. I started overcharging myself with as much Olympus Force as I could, tryna get…...something. Yeah, I know, not a great plan, but at this point it was better than where I was now. I had to resort to using Excelsior in spear mode to hold Doom back. I dodged most of his swings and blasts, while tryna pierce any of his arc reactors. Even with my brain analyzing and breaking down Doom's attacks, I rarely had any chances to go for a stab, and when I did, I was getting nothing but air. Despite all my flips, feints, and fancy maneuvers, Doom managed to block and parry all of my attacks, and actually used his speed and size to pummel me down to my knees. He brought his sword down again in an overhead swing to my head, which I just barely managed to block with my spear. At this point, my overcharging hail mary play was starting to show, as bolts of Olympus Force were starting to surge around my body. Doom's sword drank the energy into itself, and Doom himself charged the blade even more; seemingly tryna snap my blade in half. If nothing else, it looked like he was gonna flatten me against the landing pad if I didn't do something quickly! Desperation really is the foundation of some of the best ideas! In another one of my many moments getting caught between a rock and a hard place, I realized I wasn't the only one who's magic barriers were compromised, as I could sense Doom's damage arc reactors! The unpierced ones were blocked from my senses, but the pierced ones were more open than Mrs. Fisher's (friend of my mom) Uno hand! I quickly locked onto the energy signatures, got a good grip on the power flow, and before Doom could comprehend what was happening, I made his damaged arc reactors flare up big time!

What happened for the next minute and a half can only be described as a giant magic barbeque! Yeah, my energy overload came in the form of multi-colored magical fire literally cooking Doom alive from the inside out! He dropped his sword and flailed around, before tripping over his over his own feet, and writhing on the landing pad in what i'm sure was unimaginable pain. Yeah, this was the one time I wasn't enjoying hurting the dude. He may have been an egomaniacal son of a bitch, but that didn't mean I wanted to torture the bastard. Well, karma is a cold bitch, cuz even in the immense pain Doom was in, he still managed to do the same thing to me, be it at a much lesser extent! It was like someone put a tornado of white hot nails in every part of my body, while repeatedly slamming my head in with an anvil! I don't recall screaming, but I was so busy trying not to black out, I don't think I could've told you my name at the time! Doom and I kept each other in this magical vice for a bit, and surprisingly enough, this actually ended up helping my breakthrough efforts! While it definitely hurt like hell, Doom was basically giving me a magical push. I felt a strange power rise in me gradually. It was like an avalanche had a baby with a Pompeii level volcanic explosion! So much power welling up inside me, I was halfway certain I was gonna explode into a million pieces! Oh, and it didn't help that Doom had managed to get to his feet, heft his sword, and was now inching his way over to remove my damn head! I was still kinda sorta paralyzed, but as Doom swung his sword overhead, I willed his magical oven to increase; making him drop to a knee! I managed to summon a Power Gauntlet, give my arm a vibration jolt, and knock Doom into the penthouse with a Storm-Lord Special! That's when it hit me! That little jolt of vibration accelerated my…...whatever the hell this was. For a quick second, my limitations were kind of ignored! With that little cheat discovered (really shoulda figured that out sooner), I buckled down, and vibrated for my f*(#!^% life! Again, I felt like a volcano on the verge of going full Pompeii, but if you dumped a $#!+ load of TNT down its hole! I radiated multiple colors, like I was Goku going goddamn Super Saiyan, and the vibrations I was giving off was enough to crack half of the glass on Avengers Tower (i'll admit this was kinda my fault). Doom tried to stop me, as we both ceased tryna cook each other alive. He powered up his Olympus Gauntlet as much as he could in a two second window, and tried to knock my head off my shoulders with a charging punch! Props on just missing it by an inch, cuz I exploded into what i'll call Olympus Prince (a little pretentious, I know) just before Doom's fist collided with my head! The transformation set off an explosion big enough to knock Doom completely across the other end of Avengers Tower; giving me a few seconds to process what I was now. And I gotta say, I was f*(#!^% awesome!

All around my body, bolts of Olympus Force, powerful enough to fry a bus, were absently surging off of me! I felt my Speed Momentum and the Olympus Force truly merged together in perfect sync! I felt stronger, faster, and more powerful than I ever felt in my life! To put it in perspective, in Thunder God, I could make a tornado big enough to swallow Manhattan. As Olympus Prince, I could easily create a thundercloud big enough to cover half the whole state! That's basically what Olympus Prince was. Because it was in sync with my Speed Momentum, my power was basically ten times what they were at base level! Hell, this wasn't even me at max! The rounds I lost/tied on were still capped, but I still half as powerful at the weakest, if not right where I was supposed to be! The only downside was the hell it was gonna be on the comedown. With so much energy ramping up inside me, constantly being at 12, my body couldn't sustain this form for too long. Based on the strain I could already feel, I gave myself ten minutes tops before I crapped out. Lucky for me, Doom was ready for an ass kicking, as he was flying at Mach 5, sword at the ready, prepped for another round. I poured on the speed, and rocketed into Doom's chest! I slammed the dude so hard, the sonic boom shattered all the glass in a mile radius, and we ended up blasting all the way down to Greenwich Village! From there, it was nothing but a full on battle of who could overpower who!

Doom and I had interesting differences in our battle strategies. I opted to use my powers in combos, constructs, and an attempt to balance my speed and strength. Doom decided to go full tank mode, and went into an entirely new god mode, made of a mixture of that overpowered God Steroids form that almost killed me a few rounds back, a whopping amount of Death Force infused into his body, and a good chunk of War Force surging from his arms! He locked onto me, and blasted a volley of hundreds of Death Force skulls, War Force rockets, and God Steroids Stymphalian Birds at me. I responded by cookin' up a massive storm cloud, charging it with Zeus Lightning, and strafing the sky with lightning bolts galore! The voltage took down most of Doom's constructs, but that was just cover fire. I was in it for those sweet arc reactors, and decided to try and grab me a fifth one via Static Jump behind him, and trying for a Vibration Stab! Good news was I got him in his upper right arc reactor area. The problem was Doom's aura! The damn thing was so overpowered, my sword bounced off his back! And believe me, he was pissed about me almost gettin' another cheap shot in! He whirled around so fast, I barely had enough time to duck under his wide sword swing! He followed that up by coming down with an overhead swing while I was still slightly off-balance, but I managed to maneuver to the side, and get my shield up. Good thing, cuz Doom blasted me with a Final Flash level God Steroids charged Cerberus Cannon! You wouldn't think a Death Force/God Steroids charged blast would have as much bite as it did, but then I remembered one of Herc's 12 labors was to bring Cerberus back from the Underworld. Anyway, the blast propelled me back a mile and counting. I woulda loved a power blast fight right now, but I couldn't risk burning through my Olympus Prince energy too fast. Instead, I played the Static Jump card again, and teleported behind Doom's back again. He was ready for it this time, and I knew he'd be ready. He sidestepped my stab, and we ended up locking swords for a bit, as our collective anger made the stormy skies go wild with white and purple lightning! I made sure to keep my sword, still ablaze with the Holy Waters of Eden spell, vibrating. Not only did it enhance the flame, but it kept Doom's energy sucking sword at bay. After a brief power struggle, I flew in full reverse, with Doom rocketing after me. We had sword exchanges ranging from 50-75 slashes and stabs per second, while occasionally going into construct/energy blast battles. Doom would always spam using Death Force/God Steroids blasts and constructs; all of which were 12 Labors related, or a mass of screeching souls. I played defensive for a while, using a massive expanse of Sea/Death Force, and Zeus Lightning charged clouds for defensive constructs (walls, Hydra heads, ballistae, turrets). I added fuel to the fire by summoning a legion of cloud nymphs to bombard Doom. He responded in kind by summoning an Olympus Force powered demon horde. A massive sky battle ensued (think the ending of Immortals), and while i'm sure it was epic and $#!+, I was busy tryna end Doom's whole existence. See, while Doom was busy fighting my decoys, I was floating over a thick layer of storm clouds, creating a massive tornado charged with Zeus Lightning, Sea Force, and Death Force. The energy flashes in the clouds hid my surprise hand, and before Doom knew what was going on, an energy charged F4 tornado smashed into him; sending him straight into Battery Park! I kept the momentum going, and poured on the lightning and Sea Force, amidst a brutal shower of pitchfork sized sleet! Doom did his best to defend against the shower, but he never had any time to make a decent barrier around himself. It didn't help that I kept undermining his efforts on the ground level via Nature Force explosions, and thorned vines, thick as Pythons, stringing him up from all angels. Granted, the absurd amount of Death Force coating his armor wasn't all that good for the plant life, but my bombardment was enough to grind his power down to where I could eventually get some thick Nature Force charged vines to hold him down. In a bit of good luck, Doom was trapped in a kneeling position, aka the perfect position for an arc reactor stab! I vibrated my blade, and did a Static Jump, landing just a foot away from Doom! Just like I thought, the Holy Water spell flared to life, enhanced by the vibrations, and I made a stab at Doom's upper left arc reactor! Doom blasted me back with a small explosive field, that got dangerously close to breaking my vine traps! Luckily, the blast only knocked me back a quarter mile; allowing me to zip back for another stab attempt in no time! Unlucky for me, Doom got his good repulsor hand free just in time to charge up a point blank blast to my f*(#!^% face! Dude was literally half a second away from blasting me to New Jersey (really startin' to pile up bad experiences being related to Jersey)! Instinctively, I jammed my vibrating sword into his last good repulsor, got inside an Olympus Force barrier, and rode out the blast! I landed in the river, about a mile off from the park, which was a nice refresher. I didn't think Doom would have the balls to face me in the water, but good God in Heaven was I wrong!

My Sea Sense picked up a massive…...something in the water (lots to go on). It took a few seconds for whatever it was to gain shape, but when it did, oh lord was it somethin' to worry about! Imagine something as big as the Empire State Building. Now imagine if that something was as burly as Brock Lesnar, with an exoskeleton that formed a rib cage breastplate, arm and leg guards made of protruding bone spikes, and giant spider-like bone spines coming outta this beast's back! The beast also had a dome shaped head, kinda like Juggernaut's helmet, with fangs and a serpent tongue comin' outta its mouth. Most of it was made of Death Force (Doom stay spamming that Death Force), but all the various Olympus Energies were coursing through its exoskeleton armor, like a disco of death. I could sense Doom in that monstrosity, and knew he had to be laughing his ass off, as he grabbed at me with one of those big ass monster hands!

I immediately summoned my trident, and conjured up a small Sea Force charged water storm, as I prepped my best effort against something like this! Again, I remembered some cool tricks from the Poseidon Stone, and this was the best time to try a specific one out. The spell went as such: |.\.(.\ /.-_).(.\/|. ] | [-._.,/_-./.'.-||\._)/.'|\.-| / Power of the Great Kraken, and literally took as much Sea Force to make as it would take me to conjure up a tidal wave! My body automatically converted to Sea Form, charged with a ridiculous amount of Sea Force (my trident basically served as a tether/heart), and I grew to match Doom's skyscraper height! Despite him blasting multi-colored magic fire at me, I solidified my Great Kraken form just fine. Speaking of which, apparently Clash of The Titans had it mostly right, as the Great Kraken form was almost a one to one translation, save for the extra two arms, and the fact that I could convert my lower half between legs that could crush an airplane, and a mass of eight tentacles as thick as three bridge cables put together! Also, I could sprout four equally impressive tentacles from my crustacean-like back, and breathe Sea Force fire! I was a f*(#!^% monster!

Anyway, Doom and I duked it out in the river, like a pair of savage monster gorillas going at it! No strategy, no finesse, just brutal claw swipes, tentacle slaps, bone protrusion stabs, and lots of fire breathing! Doom and I were pretty evenly matched in this part of the fight. For every brutal claw swipe and massive bite I took outta Doom, he paid it back by severing tentacles, stabbing bone spikes into my torso, and even managing to slice off an arm! Still, I fought with everything I had to give! I didn't waste a single thought on survival, retreat, or even the ticking clock. I put every last ounce of my being into battling Doom…...until I didn't. Yeah…...this is where $#!+ gets weird, even for me! At some point during our Kaiju fight, my Great Kraken form literally split itself off from me...yet it still was me. This ain't some metaphorical, slam poetry $#!+; i'm being deadass serious! I literally split off from my Great Kraken form, becoming a spirit of sorts, and while I was separate from the giant water monster, my consciousness was still one with it! It was like being two different people, sharing the same brain, yet completely able to be autonomous from one another! It was trippy as f*(#. One one hand, I was all in on my savage fight against Doom. I could feel the phantom pain of him digging his bone spikes into my Great Kraken form's neck, and the savage joy I got from cracking his dome skull with a good bite from my massive jaws! Yet at the same time, I was literally in Battery Park, hovering a few feet off the ground, watching the coolest monster fight of all time (I stand by that)! I looked at myself, and took quick stock. What I was now reminded me of my Storm-Form. I was a white, vapory version of myself, with multi colored energy beams zipping through me. The only color missing was blue, and I had a pretty good idea why. Hell, if my formulating idea was anything to go by, i'd be getting rid of a lot of the other colors soon! Still, I had to give this a test run, so I decided to try my hand at extending my Zeus Power away from my Olympus Prince form. Just like last time, I focused every once of my concentration on transmitting my consciousness into the clouds, and just like last time, that concentration took on a form of its own! Yeah, at this point, I was internally buggin' out! Here I was with my consciousness split three times! I was still 100% in on my ongoing fight with Doom, chillin' out in Battery Park, watchin' the show, and flexing a giant form of myself from the torso up, above the clouds, where Doom couldn't see me! It didn't make any sense! How could I be split in three, have total mind sync with my three forms, yet at the same time, have complete autonomy in three places?! It was almost too much to chew on, but then I went back to the myths (or history, I guess?). I remembered how gods could be in many places at once. How they could split their consciousness up, and that it was rare for a god to have all of his/her essence in one place. This had to be it! While I wasn't full god (I could just tell), this was me getting a taste of it, and Doom was about to get a taste of premium, five star, Gordon Ramsey level of whup ass on a silver platter!

I split my forms up one by one over the course of a minute and a half (really nothin' to it when you get the hang of it)! I didn't construct my Nature giant form until last (didn't wanna give up my position too early), but above the clouds, I formed my Sun God form in the shape of a giant Apollo Fire Dragon, Death God in the shape of God of War Hades, War God in the Form of War, from Darksiders, and Strength God in the shape of the Wild Force Megazord (the first God Steroids construct I ever made), and when my Nature God form showed itself, it would be in the form of a giant Nature Force breathing mecha hydra, with rocket launchers (because you can never have enough rockets!)! All in all, I was bout to ruin Doom's whole day!

He didn't see it coming, and it was so satisfying when my Storm God constructed a thunderbolt, and threw it on top of Doom's head so hard, I split the water (and slightly overflowed it into the surrounding boroughs)! I wished I could see the look on Doom's face, but dogpiling him under a wave of god forms was a decent consolation prize! My War, Sun, and Strength God Forms descended from the sky, like angels of death, and attacked Doom with the white hot fury of Olympus itself! War God slashed endlessly at Doom with Chaoseater, Sun God kept a stream of bright yellow fire trained on Doom from above, and Strength God hammered away at Doom with the shark and tiger arms! Nature God kept raining fire with Nature Force balls, and 150 rockets per second! Doom didn't stand a chance! Not a goddamn snowball's chance in Hell! My god forms savaged his monster so bad, it was a crime scene in the making! War God smashed Doom's exoskeleton breastplate in with a wide swing from Chaoseater! Great Kraken tore into Doom's construct in the now weakened torso area! Strength God was now beating Doom's construct to a pulp, and Storm God kept raining down lightning charged air spirals on top of Doom's head! In a little over ten seconds, Doom's combat avatar was reduced to an energy mass, barely resembling any kind of shape at all! It looked like I might finally get the upper hand this time, but Doom pulled a last second hail mary, and unleashed all his remaining construct energy in an explosive wave that coulda blown a canyon sized hole in the middle of Manhattan, but settled for completely obliterating all but two of my god forms! I expected the blowback to be similar to how it is when my constructs get destroyed, but this was WAAAAAY worse! It was like someone set me on fire five times at once, and then proceeded to beat my mangled body to death with a spiked sledgehammer! Hell, I couldn't even keep my other god forms up, as the mind numbing pain of being obliterated five times at once snapped my forms back into my Olympus Prince body (reminded me of defeated Bakugan), before I immediately reverted back to normal!

I felt like absolute $#!+. My head was pounding, like a drumline. I was heaving almost uncontrollably, even tho every breath felt like a bowling ball was lodged in my chest! I could feel my Olympus Force powers nearly burnt out, and every single limb in my body felt like lead! I was a damn sitting duck, while Doom seemed to catch a second wind, as he exploded outta the water, engulfed in an Olympus Force inferno! While he was still slightly confused, I gave myself another electric/vibration boost. It wasn't much of anything, and felt like tryna walk with a broken leg, but it was enough to get me on my feet, and run outta the way, as Doom rained fire on the whole of Battery Park!

Doom chased me all across Manhattan, blasting multi-colored fireballs at me with reckless abandon! Seriously, this dude couldn't give a f*(# less about collateral damage, as he torched homes, skyscrapers, and businesses (take another 'we could fix that!' shot)! I managed to dodge Doom's attacks, but I was hanging on by a thread! I was just barely running in SMS, and I honestly haven't run this slow since day one training! Granted, Doom wasn't exactly a spring chicken either, but at the rate I was just barely holding on, all he needed was one well timed and/or lucky shot to derail my momentum. Doom did just exactly that, as he basically planted an energy mine just below the pavement of some random street in Hell's Kitchen, and let it loose as soon as I set foot under the spot! I shot into the air, my armor scorched to the point of melting down to the Kevlar in the shoulder, legs, and back areas! That was the least of my worries tho, as my Speed Sense picked up Doom about to ram into me at spine breaking speed! I was runnin' on fumes at this point, and had no way to effectively dodge Doom's attack. Instead, I timed his attack right, and summoned my Sky Shield just in time to stop his momentum, flip over his head, and kick off his back with a Vibration Drop Kick! That was enough to buy me a few seconds to bust out a Power Gauntlet, and slam Doom in the face with a Storm-Lord Special! He rocketed through a few skyscrapers, and landed into the pavement. Good for me, but I was so burnt out, I couldn't even muster up a gust of wind to float! I started to plummet to the pavement, and for the first time in a while, remembered why most people fear heights! Granted, the fall wouldn't kill me, but i'm a descendant of Zeus; this was about me maintaining my rep! I quickly tapped into the Power Grid, and absorbed as many electrons into myself as I could! Right before I smacked asphalt, I felt my body flip a switch, and I activated my Thunder Form! My lightning covered body hovered a few feet off the ground, and I was able to steady myself just in time to get hit in the back of my head with my Speed Sense! Doom was back at it again, tryna tackle me from behind at Mach 5. I simply backflipped over his charge, and flew after him! Doom managed to stop his momentum, and twist around with a wide sword swing, but I simply lowered my altitude, and slammed another Storm-Lord Special to his gut! Before he smashed through the Worldwide Plaza lobby, I erupted a lightning geyser where I knew he'd be, and sent him above skyscraper height again! I kept at him, and hammered him with more Storm-Lord Specials, propelling us both above the clouds! When I got a chance, I summoned Excelsior, and tried for another stab at one of Doom's arc reactors. Didn't even get close this time. Even with Doom's Death/God Steroids form completely burnt out, he still had more than enough magic left to set up proper defenses. He conjured up some kinda silver barrier, which absorbed my attack, before blasting me downwards again! Doom finally managed to tackle into me, but I was able to turn us into a rough tumble, which kept him from getting an upper hand. We punched and kneed each other as we tumbled to the ground, but I was able to get a few good Storm-Lord Specials in quick jab form, which was enough to get me some breathing room. That didn't last long at all, as Doom came down with his sword, with a slash that coulda cut an elephant clean! I blocked it with my Sky Shield, but that was just the opening act, as Doom's hands charged up with Olympus Force, and he nailed me with a Final Flash level blast that knocked me upwards, until my momentum was broken via grazing the tallest of the Orion Towers, and collapsing on the roof! I managed to get to my feet, but Jesus Christ did I wanna be anywhere else but here!

Yeah, this was the one time I wished I didn't have total recall, as I realized I was standing on the tower I was probably gonna die on! Literally down to the shape and size of the rooftop, I was standing on my deathbed! Everything in me wanted to run away, but Doom, being the asshole he is, put a force field around the rooftop as he landed. I didn't have the energy for a Static Jump, or a lightning strike. Phasing through the roof was tempting, but in the state I was in, i'd probably pass out, and end up spit between a floor. Not enough room to do any crazy maneuvers, and even if there was, I was just barely able to stay in SMS. I was cornered, and Doom knew it. He swung his sword leisurely, as he stepped up for what had to be the final round.

"Doom will admit," he taunted me. "You've put up more of a fight than expected. Almost worthy of respect. I almost pity your impending death. In a better life, you'd be a suitable lieutenant in my regime."

I readied my sword, and started pacing, lulling Doom into accepting my sword fight challenge, aka the last stand I had a chance in hell of holding down.

"First off," I responded; making my eyes light up with voltage. "I'd rather eat a bowl of maggots, than have any part in your loser club. Second, you ain't won yet. For all your showboating, i'm still alive, and your rip off Iron Man suit is on its last legs."

"A mild inconvenience. All you've done is agitate the lion."

"You're more kitten to me."

"And you're out of energy and time, boy. Prepare for-."

I launched myself at Doom, with a surprise sword lunge! He sidestepped my stab, and almost cut me in half with a wide swing! I rolled under it, and just barely managed to recover, as Doom pressed forward in his attacks! He got in some good strikes that kept me on the defense for a good while, and if my brain wasn't breaking down Doom's moves, he woulda took my left leg in a really good feint attack that looked like it was headed for my arm! I kept on the defense, dodging and parrying Doom's strikes, until he overextended one of his wide swings, enough for me to block it with my Sky Shield, and get frustratingly close to piercing one of his arc reactors via vibrating my sword, and extending it to spear mode! Doom barely managed to side step it (hilariously stumbling over himself in the process), and damn near blasted me into the force field with a blast of God Steroids! He looked ready to bulldoze me into the force field, so I bought myself some time with the biggest lightning blast I could muster up! It was kinda pathetic, and most of it got absorbed into Doom's sword, but it was enough to regain my footing, bust out my sword, and fight for my life (oh, and the world too)!

I gave it everything I had, and i'm proud to say I made Doom bleed! I attacked almost in an unconscious frenzy. Slash, block, stab, parry, dodge. My body felt like a rock, but it somehow kept going; trying desperately to keep Doom on the defensive. Unfortunately, for all my fancy maneuvers, Jet Li style attacks, and relentless combos, Doom's size and speed eventually started to win out. He gradually started blocking and countering all of my attacks, and eventually forced me to my knees again, as I desperately blocked his attacks with my Sky Shield! He wailed into my shield a good five times, before I quickly maneuvered around his legs, and on instinct, charged my shield with lightning, and cut at his thigh. It was a useless move…...is what I thought, until my shield sliced through Doom's crumbling armor, straight into his flesh! Doom roared in pain, and flailed around, swinging his sword like a blind lunatic (no offense to Daredevil). I dodged his strikes, as he started to back me up against the force field. Using those few seconds to scan his armor, I could tell the ares in his biceps, legs, and even his mask were deteriorated enough to go for strikes! If I timed this right, I could end this fight here and now! With that spur of hope, I kept up my dodging; looking like a perfect mix of Spider-Man and Nightcrawler. I sidestepped a downwards slash, did a twisting flip over his wide swing, and slid between his legs, before driving my sword into his left calf, and cutting all the way up to his upper thigh! Doom howled in pain, and dropped to his knees! I tried to take another arc reactor (he was wide open!), but Doom knocked me back with a small blastwave, and turned around with a charge. He clearly had some kinda healing factor, as his running gradually got better, but it wasn't Wolverine level, as he still had a slight limp in his step. I charged him back, my sword at the ready, and before we collided, I slid under his legs again, and as Doom turned around, extended my sword to spear mode, used the momentum from my slide to get to my knees, and turn around with a wide slash across Doom's face! If I landed just half a foot closer, I woulda sliced his head clean, but only succeeded in ripping off his mask for half a second, before Doom shrieked, blasted me into the force field (ouch), and quickly called it back to him! I've never seen Doom act like that, but seeing his face for the first time, I could see why. The dude looked like somethin' out of a Jason movie. His face was covered in blisters, with a gaping hole where his nose shoulda been, and his upper lip almost completely burned off. Granted, it looked like he was quite handsome before whatever happened to him, but now…...well, it was easy to see why he always wore a mask. I almost felt sorry for him. No doubt the whole world saw Doom's true face, and that had to dent his ego. Doom was not in the mood to hear any of it.

He started to surge with Olympus Force, and without a word, went back to hacking away at me. His rage was palpable enough to cut through with a knife. An anger i've never seen from him before resonated in every slash. Shame converted into 'righteous' vengeance for daring to show his true face to the world burned in his eyes. Hate fueled every strike, as Doom barreled into me without an ounce of restraint! His rage woulda been enough to put me on the ropes, even at full strength! Now, it was all I could do just to keep his sword from slicing me in half! I was able to hold out for another minute or so (even managed to stab his right bicep), but fatigue eventually won out. My grip slackened on a wide swing, and Doom smacked my sword outta my hand, before flooring me with a blast of War Force. After that, the vision of the Norn-Fates came to pass. Doom held me down with thick vines, and before I could even attempt an escape, thorns as thick as 24 oz cups pierced my thighs, biceps, hands, calves, and feet! I screamed so hard, my voice eventually became a high pitched squeal! Then came the War Force surging through the thorns! I didn't think it was possible to scream any louder, but Doom proved me so wrong! He conjured his sword again, red highlighting the edges, and stomped his spiked boots into my chest! I felt ribs crack, and struggled not to black out! He raised his sword, which was primed to stab me straight in the face!

"Count yourself honored, boy," he sneered. "Few have seen the countenance of Doom. But none may look upon the face of God and live!"

He brought his sword down, but only succeeded in burying his sword in a giant mass of brambles! Yeah, somehow I managed to muster up the strength to fight back! It felt like someone shooting me rapid fire with a nail gun, but I was no stranger to agony! I made the brambles extend and twist around Doom. While he was caught off guard, I willed the throned vines to release me, latch onto him, and squeeze with everything I could will them to do! The pain of taking all those puncture wounds out at once was worth downing a cup full of Advil, but the voltage Kevlar (thank God it was still working) was already healing those wounds. Still, I was only able to keep Doom at bay for so long. Even when I made the brambles and vines pin him up against his own force field, he was able to break through with a surge of Death Force! My bag of tricks was dangerously empty at this point, and Doom wasn't f*(#!^& around after I unmasked him! He pointed his left hand at me (probably to turn my insides out), but before anything could come out, I felt my Speed Sense hit! Something was about to ram into Doom's force field at Mach 10! Before I knew what was happening, it was already over! Something shattered Doom's force field into a million pieces, and trucked into him so hard, the gust was enough to carry me damn near off the edge of the skyscraper! I faintly remember Doom careening through several nearby skyscrapers, and a glow descending on me as I passed out.

"STORM-LORD! STORM-LORD!" it shrieked.

I wanted to yell at it to stop, but that would take way more energy than I had left.