Bob lifted out of the Sun's core and near the corona sped up. He shot out at a speed that surprised himself, leaving a solar flare that arced out brilliantly for a moment, then shuddered under its own strength and settled back down to the sphere.

He would be back home in eight minutes.

An eternity.

Six months ago:

There's the Super-Skrull, back on side with people he should hate by now, for all they've done to him. People who didn't even recognize him for saving what was left of their empire. Twice.

And there're the Young Avengers, a contingent of them anyway: the little brunette calling herself Hawkeye, Patriot, the mage and his boyfriend, the latter in his Hulkling form. And there's you, Bob. And Carol Danvers in her sluttiest Ms Marvel jumpsuit to date. And Ares, God of War. And Stark. Always Stark.

There's Kl'rt giving some winded elegy about coming to serve the interests of his people once more. It's more of the same from him: ladder-climbing tripe from an anachronism given life, with no real plan as to how really get what he wants.

Then there's Kl'rt and Hulkling diving for each other, and the force is enough to shatter every window in three blocks. Strangely, none of the heroes seem affected.

There's Hulkling knocking Kl'rt a mile up the street, to the very front of the Baxter Building. Before the Super-Skrull could even stand, Teddy slammed into him and ripped his arm off, tossing the flaming remnant away indiscriminately. And then Teddy unleashed. Started beating Kl'rt to death.

With an unstoppable fury.

Like never before.

You know what that is, Sentry.

Teddy, the Kree-Skrull hybrid, stands away, and Kl'rt supports himself on one elbow, still laying down on the entablature.

"This world," Teddy says. "Is not yours to conquer. It never was."

"Fool," Kl'rt says, and his remaining arm bursts into flame. He lifts it slowly so Teddy can see it. The Super-Skrull's flaming arm went pliant for a moment, and he was at once both Reed Richards and Johnny Storm, and then wrapped itself around Teddy's throat.

And constricted.

Teddy's eyes bulged, and the tears came almost instantly, and burned away in Kl'rt's flaming grip.

"How wrong you are," Kl'rt said, and watched life leave Teddy Altman. Watched him burn and suffocate. Tightened his grip, and his lips thinned. His teeth gritted against each other, and he was silently begging the hatchling to die.

Kl'rt released his fiery grip, and stood. He raised an alien eyebrow and tiny slivers of light materialized in the air. He bent them to the right light, and Teddy, quickly dying, saw them for what they were. Kl'rt's the Invisible Woman now.

Kl'rt willed one of the light blades forward, and it caught Teddy across the neck. He spun in place so that he landed on his back, reverted to his human form, and made a horrible gurgling sound, and clutched greedily at his neck, trying desperately to contain the blood spilling out.

(Stop it.)

Stark lands a second later: Carol Danvers and Ares, God of War are behind him, and all three have streaks and spots of green blood all over. The three of them are standing uneasy on one side of Teddy's curled and dying body, you and Billy the Mage on the other side.

Billy runs to Teddy's dying side immediately, and wipes the blood and sweat away from his lover's face. He starts rocking back and forth with Teddy in his arms, and that's the end of all things for you. When Billy starts saying 'come back, come back'. When you don't do anything, Sentry. You know precisely why, too.

You felt me inside you, and that absolutely terrified you, because you're afraid to embrace it.

(I said STOP IT.)

At the time of Teddy Altman's death, though, Ares pulls off his Attic helmet and drops it on the ground, his axe too. You swear you see his lips quiver for a moment, swear you see the humanity in a god, but then it vanishes as quickly. Carol Danvers in her slutty Ms Marvel suit focuses her weight on one leg and wipes the tears away from her eyes—her domino mask long since obliterated by battle.

And Stark. Poor Tony Stark pulls off his helmet too, and takes Carol in his arms and holds her close so she looks away like a crying damsel.

They all know what's about to happen, having recently seen it with another talking anachronism, this one full of Americana and patriotic mucous.

Do you see what I'm getting at yet?

(STOP!)

There's you, back in the past, grabbing a lamppost with such lazy aim and throwing it at Kl'rt and it hits him anyway, because you're the Golden Guardian and marksmanship is an added bonus. The broken end of the lamppost strikes true indeed, and goes right through the Super-Skrull, almost precisely in the center of the sternum or it's Skrull equivalent. He looks at the thing sticking out of his chest and then at you, and coughs up blood, and doesn't believe what's just happened to him. You grab the lamppost and pull it up in the air and toss it up once. You hover there for a second and when the Skrull-impaled post falls again within your reach, you grab the killer by the bloody stump that was his right arm. Your other arm you lock around his neck so your fingers dig deep into the intersection of his neck and his spine.

Then you rip his fucking head off, the hard way, where the tendons just refuse to snap free, but since you're the Golden Guardian you keep pulling anyway.

The body, you let fall back in the river. The head, you toss in your hand like you're weighing an apple at the damn market. You look into the dead eyes, the expression was Kl'rt's last: a grin, but only on one side of his mouth, the grin of self-satisfaction, despite or maybe even because of his own death.

You crush the head in your hands and wipe the brain stew on your leg, and you have a scowl on your face that'd do even me proud. But you're not scared of me showing up because, hey, it's righteous anger and how could that possibly be the province of The Void?

Think! You justified killing a guy, Skrull or otherwise, because he had it coming.

Do you see my point yet? You see why I'm here? What I'm trying to do?

Then you fly back to the Baxter Building's front steps, just in time to see Billy unleash. Just enough time to see him use his mind and his powers to melt every Skrull in ten blocks into piles of bubbling green goo. He falls to his knees and runs a shaking hand through his hair. You sit down next to him and its all you can do to give him a hug.

Now:

And that's how it is, Sentry.

You didn't do anything to stop Teddy or Kl'rt and it just about destroyed you. You could have made Kl'rt into a green-colored Slurpee long before he even started talking to Teddy, and you didn't. You blew through Attuma once, hell, what's another would-be conqueror? But no, you just sit there and hang out and look powerful because you're a fucking moron, you know that?

Tony Stark built a suit of iron in a cave, from scraps! The first thing he did when he got out was to kill his captors, burn them alive for what they did to him.

Steve Rogers punched Hitler in the face and did his fair share of Nazi-killing back in the Greatest Generation, and even that's okay because everyone loves to hate a Nazi.

And the very first thing you did after you found out you had powers? You ran off and freaked out and maybe even cried a bit.

You could have rocked some worlds before Teddy Altman died—not to mention after what happened to Lindy—but you sat there and played the hero role. Too afraid to unleash, to afraid to lighten up even for a moment.

Too afraid to live.

You spent so much time being a hero that you forgot what it was to be a human!

Are you even listening?!

Jason Wyngarde stole your mind! He took your life away from you, and you never got to strike back for that. A more rational person would go Cromwell on his dead ass, Sentry. Dig him up and drag him through the streets. Use some more of that justified anger, and not just because you know it sustains me.

The Void materialized out of nothing in front of Bob, high above Venus' ecliptic: a body the same size of Bob's, with the same face and the same frailties, staring at him with apologetic and stern authority. Eyes black as aces, skin the color of burned ash, enveloped in a horrible black penumbra.

"Do you understand yet?"

Bob locked eyes with the reflection. "No."

The Void lifted its devil-black hands, outlined in veiled ephemera and darkness, and touched Bob's face, and the grip was paralyzing and cold. The dark reflection leant forward and kissed Bob. When it pulled away and spoke Bob saw the lips move, and only heard the voice in his head, like broken glass, like nails on a chalkboard, like the anguished screams of an animal in its death throes. The fury of a hurricane in the body of a man.

"You can't run away, Bob. You never could. And now you know what has to happen. You must go back, because you feel you must. "

"You don't control me anymore."

"You only allowed me to. You could have shut me out just as easily as you let me in. Do you get it yet?"

Bob exploded and matched The Void's penetrating darkness with an aura of blinding yellow that made the shadow shrink back. And suddenly he was The Sentry, in his brilliant form and unexplained function. Thunderously, he yelled, "What?! There's nothing to understand!" Quieter, exasperated, rubbing his temples: "There's nothing left…"

"There is me. Stare in, Sentry, and I stare back. Nietzsche. You thought I was the end of the world? What foolishness. You have only believed me to be the end of your world. Do you see?"

Weakly, Sentry said, "No."

"You have only believed me to be your greatest villain. I am only your greatest asset."

"I don't believe you," Sentry said and his eyes glowed straight yellow, the color of suns and life.

"Robert Reynolds is a weak man, an emotional cretin. The Sentry is a capable hero, a savior, humanity's only hope. The Void is all else and nothing else. Alpha and Omega. Capable and frail. I too have good and bad days, as Robert does. And you know something?" The ephemeral face seemed to lengthen, depressed. "I have only tried to make you what you should be, Robert. You have cast me out like an unwanted gift." Contemptuously, it added: "Golden Boy."

Sentry's eyes took on their natural blue color again, and he looked into the shadow with a sickly gaze. "What?"

"I am your greatest asset, Sentry. I tried to make you better. Tried to turn you from a cringing man-god into a thing of beauty and power. This is therapy that surpasses anything Dr Worth can do for you. Anything Tony Stark can do for you. I am you, Sentry. And since I've been in your head these past six months while you finally succeeded in finding yourself, some remarkable things happened, didn't they?"

"Yes."

"Do you feel mentally diseased? Anymore?"

"It doesn't just go away," Sentry said. "You know that."

"But you're in a better place now."

Sentry had to agree with that.

"And you think now that you have no further use for me?"

Sentry looked up to his shadowy reflection. The dark face was emotionless, the red eyes unmoving.

"I…do."

The ash-burned face smile thinly and slowly, and the black veil dissipated. The gritted-chalkboard voice, the sound of death and misery, the quiet fury, spoke in a sinister and tempered rhythm.

"Agreed…"

Bob hovered about Venus' ecliptic for another two hours.

That had really just happened. Didn't it?

He frowned when he didn't hear a voice back, and his jaw slackened an inch.

"Is it over?"

The vacuum gave no response.

Continued...