Luxzaria, Liaria, Threever, Orcos and I spent the next week traveling to a place where we would be able to get a spacecraft from. Unfortunately Demstar IV's rapidly changing weather was just as random as ever. We'd walk in 100+ degree weather and suddenly find ourselves in raging blizzards where we couldn't see more than a few inches ahead of us. To make matters worse, the planet was pretty much deserted except for Delku's kingdom. We were starting to run low on food which worried me.

"Is it just me or do you guys see a light over there?" I pointed into the snow we would soon find ourselves walking into. Currently we were walking through a nice, warm meadow.

"I see it too," Orcos said.

"We're here that means. We'll be off this foresaken planet once and for all," Luxzaria exclaimed as we entered the blizzard. This was the worst blizzard we'd walked into so far. I felt my exposed skin starting to frostbite as we inched closer and closer to the light. I didn't see how anything could live in this. As we got closer I was able to make out the outline of what appeared to be a cabin. Were we really going to be getting a some sort of ship from here?

Luxzaria knocked on the door to the cabin. About a minute later a small man who reminded me of some sort of gnome cracked open the door and surveyed his visitors, "Luxzaria... I was wondering if you'd ever show up," he opened the door and allowed us inside. His cabin was small and humble. There was a fireplace with some sort of dog creature resting in front of it, a bed, a table, what looked like an armchair, and some sort of wardrobe. Clearly we weren't getting our ship from here.

"It wasn't exactly easy getting 5 people out of my father's kingdom, especially considering 4 of them were gladiators. It took some time. Nevertheless, we're here now and we need a ship," Luxzaria explained.

"Prefferably something fast. We need to get to Earth," I added.

"And you are?" he asked me.

"Aracnor."

"Rod. Now you're gonna have to tell me exactly what you want because all of my ships are fast," he told me.

"Something stealthy. And it needs a teleportation unit. Something we can use to get on and off of a planet without having to get too close to it. And it has to be big enough to accomadate a few dozen of us. Oh yeah, and some sort of weapons system, prefferably long range," I told him.

"Hmm..." he seemed to be thinking. "How is it you speak without a mouth?"

I pulled off my mask, "Were you paying any attention to what I said?"

"Of course," Rod replied. "Step this way."

Rod led us to the fireplace. He pushed on one of the bricks in the fireplace and it started to move to the side, revealing a staircase going down to some sort of basement. He led us down the stairs, his dog creature at his side, until we reached a door with a keypad. After punching in the code the door opened and we were in a hanger. Clearly the rest of his house was a decoy to throw off anyone who suspected him of having this type of technology under his house.

"I think this one should do," Rod stopped in front of a ship and began to admire it. "The Wing-Canon D40. She's got everything you asked for: speed, stealth, weapons, a teleportation unit, enough room for a small army. I coulda gotten you faster or more powerful ships but none of them accomodate more than half a dozen so this is your best pick."

"Guess we'll take it then," I said.

Luxzaria and Rod started to discuss the business matters of it and within a few minutes she paid him and we were in the ship being taught how everything works. It was a pretty simple concept, I got the hang of it pretty fast. So did Threever, it was like breathing for him. Orcos was the only one who seemed completely lost. His planet's technology for the most part was pretty primitive, at least for the centaurs. I guess it'd be something we'd have to teach him.

Knowing we were so close to getting back to Earth and stopping Reshef was slightly overwhelming. I'd been away for nearly 3 years, who knew what condition the Earth was in now? I tried not to think about it. The worst case scenario for me was getting to Earth and finding out Reshef killed or exiled and we had absolutely no way of winning with just 5 of us.

One of the first things we needed to do was get supplies. Extra fuel, food, weapons. Luxzaria wasn't sure where we could go for this but Threever was. There a planet near his homeworld where we could get some things called Nava XXI.

*Nava XXI* Threever was able to use some of the ship's computers to produce some money for us to buy our supplies with. I assumed this may have been one of the reasons he was sent to Demstar IV. We landed the ship on the outskirts of a city and walked down a street with an assortment of vendors and shops selling things. We decided that we would spend an hour shopping before returning to the ship.

I tried to figure out what I would need the most other than food. A new sword wouldn't hurt, I wasn't a fan of weapons but I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to hold on to one just in case. I found a seller with some weapons and started to look them over.

While I was looking through the swords I noticed something. A bow. I remembered Kate. I picked it up and started to examine it.

"Ahh, I see you have an eye for craftsmanship," the shop owner said to me. "Most can't appreciate the power of a bow and prefer those fancy blasters but this bow is special."

"How so?" I asked curiously.

"It allows the arrows to target specific DNA. Basicly if you fire at someone and they move out of the way the arrow will follow them. Rather useful for jumpy targets," he explained. I looked at it some more before deciding Kate would find use for it when I found her again. I bought it and a sword from the store owner.

I ended up seeing another vendor who had something that caught my eye. It was a nanobot-based fabric. It reminded me of a mix between something that Mr Fantastic would make and a symbiote. I bought some figuring I needed a new costume anyway. Essentially after I designed my costume the nanobots would be able to form my costume after I release them from their case(I put it on a chain so I could disguise it as some sort of necklace).

I ended up doing the basic set up of my costume like this: The mask would be just about impossible to rip off of my face by someone else; it would be weatherproof for the most part; it could shoot stingers without webshooters; and it would be able to link up to whatever communication system we end up using when we get back to Earth.

A few weeks later we made it back to Earth's solar system. We slowed down the ship and stopped on one of Saturn's moons. We didn't want to get too close. Just in case.

"Threever, can you hack into Earth's satelittes? I need to know what's been happening during the past 4 years," I asked.

"No sweat," he replied. Threever got to work on the computer and moved at lightning speed going through every bit of information he could get his hands on. Within a matter of minutes he had found everything we could use and even categorized it. "We've got deaths, captures, and some stolen intell from Reshef's files;" Threever explained proudly.

I sat down at the computer next to him and figured I might as well get it over with and look at the list of deaths. I took a deep breath and opened it. "Ares, Wonderman, Sentry, Hank Pym, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Collosus, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Hulkling, Karolina Dean, Beast, Daredevil, Ms Marvel, Winter Soldier, Spider-Man." I stopped reading the list. It was overwhelming. They were dead. Some of them were my friends. Some of them were my role models. Some of them I didn't know. I looked down and closed my eyes, wishing I could unsee what I saw.

After I managed to compose myself I scanned over the list of captured heroes. It was about three times as long as the list of dead heroes. I was worried. We needed more than 5 people if we planned on taking Reshef down. I went through the hacked files from Reshef next. Info on the members of his army, locations to prisons and weapon storage, and a file on heroes he was trying to track down.

"X-Force?" I said outloud. I opened the file and stared at it. Looks like we were in luck. Wolverine put a team together and had taken down a number of Reshef's soldiers in the past 2 years. Wolverine, X-23, Warpath, Domino, Deadpool, Vanisher. It was a start. If only we could find them.

"Okay... I've got a loose idea of what we can do. We can send Reshef a message," I explained.

"A message?" Liaria asked unimpressed.

"Yeah. We'll break into his weapons' storage, steal everything, and leave the guards dead. I think that'll send him the message I'm aiming for," I explained.

Two days later Orcos, Luxzaria, Liaria, and myself found ourselves on Earth outside of the warehouse where everything was being held in the middle of New Mexico. Threever was still on the ship, operating our teleporters and hacking security for us. I was wearing my new costume that I designed to closer to Spider-Man's costume than my old one. One of the main things I didn't include was the webbing on the costume. It was just red and blue with a spider symbol on the chest.

"Okay... two guards. Super Skrulls..." I observed. From the looks of it one had the Sinister Six's powers and the other looked like it had Iron Man, Captain America and Thor's powers. "Shouldn't be too hard. Luxzaria, help me with the one on the left[Sinister Six Skrull]."

"Jamming their communication in 3... 2... now," Threever told us and signaled us we were clear to move in. Luxzaria and I moved swiftly towards our Skrull while Orcos and Liaria did the same. Luxzaria was using two tonfa blades and I was going in with my sword slung over my back. I shot a load of webbing at the Skrull's face and punch him hard in the gut as Luxzaria slashed both tonfas across his neck.

The Super Skrull swung an arm at Luxzaria who hopped back and tried to grab me with 3 of his mechanical arms that I barely managed to dodge. I'd never fought Doc Ock before and was wishing I had. Maybe it would have been a good idea to have shadowed Spider-Man a bit more often when I had the chance.

"Reshef, we have a perimeter breach. I think it's X-Force," he called over his communication headset, not knowing that his call would go unanswered.

"Sorry pal, but you've gotta deal with us before making any personal calls;" I said as I kicked him in the chin.

"Spider-Man's dead you phony!" he yelled as he shot an electric blast at me. I ducked under it.

"Doc Ock, Electro... who else?" I thought to myself as shot a webline at his legs and missed. Luxzaria tried to attack him from behind but his tentacles swatted her away.

"How long have you been here?" I asked as I drew my sword. "No one stays dead around here for that long." I swung at him with my sword but he turned his arms into sand and blocked the hits. 3 more mystery powers to find out about.

We needed a new stradegy. I jumped over the Skrull's head and made a run for the door of the warehouse. I sensed him flying at me(Vulture) and he had a horn on top of his head now(Rhino). I had to time this just right to work.

I dropped to the ground and thrusted my sword upward into the Skrull as he flew overhead. I cut a huge gash from the side of his chest down to his leg before he ended up crashing through the wall to the warehouse. I turned and saw that Orcos and Liaria who had dismembered their Skrull completely. Damn, they were good.

My spider-sense went off. I spun around and saw the Sinister Six Skrull starting to get up. He shot a blast of electricity at me that I sidestepped easily. I would have went for a counter attack but Luxzaria was already on it. She decapitated him after sneaking up on him from behind while he attacked me.

"Nice one," I said.

"Not something you expected from a princess, huh?" she replied.

We entered the warehouse and found the motherload. EVERY weapon I'd ever encountered or heard of was here from the looks of things. It was overwhelming. How were we going to get this out of here? We could always grab as much as we can, teleport back, leave it, and go back for more until we got everything we needed but that would most likely take too long. We needed something beter. We needed- "Leapfrog..." I gasped when I saw it in a corner behind an assortment of S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons.

"What?" Orcos asked.

"We're going to put as much as we can into that ship," I pointed to Leapfrog, "Then we're bringing it back to the Wing-Canon. Come on." We spent the next 20 minutes grabbing anything that I thought would be useful: Mandarin's rings, Hawkeye's bow and arrows, Captain America's shield, Patriot's shield, Punisher's guns, and a few of Iron Man's armors(Extremis, War Machine, Hulkbuster). So far, so good. If we kept this up we'd clean Reshef out in no time.

After we sent the Leapfrog back we started packing weapons into the X-Jet. It was the only other vehicle in here so after this one we'd have to carry what we could by hand but by that point I figured we would have everything we could possibly need. By that point I was wearing an Ant-Man helmet, a S.H.I.E.L.D. jetpack, and a variety of swords, knives, and guns. We had more than enough to supply an army. Perfect.

That night I was thinking about Miu. I wanted to see her again more than anything but I knew I couldn't. Not yet. I couldn't try contacting her or she'd be in danger. I knew that. After a while I convinced myself that going on Facebook to look at her picture wouldn't hurt. I figured a new social networking site would have taken its place by now anyway.

Sure enough, I was right. The most recent post on my home page was from 2 years ago. I went to my profile and immediately noticed something different. My relationship status said "Single" not "In a relationship with: Miu Sugimoto". My heart sank a little but I remembered it was probably for the best that she did that. We didn't need to have it on Facebook, I knew she still loved me. I clicked on a post she left me before Reshef invaded to go to her profile. That's when I saw it.

"In a Relationship with: Ryan Millar". She was with someone else. She'd forgotten about me. At least that's what it seemed like. I logged out, not caring anymore. The girl I loved wasn't mine anymore.

Our next step in defeating Reshef had two parts to it. One would be increasing our numbers. The other would be decreasing his. This one would require a lot more stradegy. Reshef's army was huge and scattered across the planet. We'd have to go after them one at a time. Like X-Force, who we would have to track down to join us. Pretty difficult considering they have a teleporter. They could be anywhere on the planet.

As I pondered this I remembered something: Wakanda hadn't been invaded. They could have gone there. Maybe. I knew it was a longshot but if Black Panther and Storm could help somehow, and I knew at the very least they could help with the final battles of the war, then I needed to talk to them. Immediately.

"Threever. I need you to get a communications link going. Wakanda, it's the continent Africa. I need to talk to the King and Queen;" I explained.

"Roger that," Threever replied.

After a few minutes of waiting a Wakandan appeared on screen, "Who is this?"

"Jason Wheeler," I answered pulling off my mask. "I'm a friend of the king and queen. I need to speak with them."

He stared at me for a while before replying, "Very well."

The next person I saw appear on screen was T'Challa. "Is it really you Jason?"

"Yeah. Reshef sent me off planet a few years ago. That guy pretending to be me is just a clone. The one that looks like a spider*;" I explained. "But I'm back now. I'm not on Earth but I'm planning a huge counter attack on Reshef. I have most of the weapons he confiscated. We just need more heroes."

* - See Chapter 4

"How many do you have now?" T'Challa asked.

"Five including myself. I met them while I was off the planet... I heard about X-Force. Do you have contact with them?" I asked.

T'Challa shook his head, "Unfortunately I do not. I know where a few are though."

"Great. Can you send me a list?" I asked.

He nodded, "Keep in touch." The transmission ended and Threever recieved the list of heroes that Black Panther knew the locations of. I looked it over. Nico, Molly, Xavin, Wiccan, Captain America, Luke Cage, Moon Knight, Ronin, Pixie, Surge, Cloak, and Dagger. This could work.

"Threever, can you teleport me to see Wiccan? He's an old friend and I wanna get someone before I go to sleep," I explained. It was 4pm where Billy was so I assumed he'd be wide awake. I, on the other hand, was dead tired since I hadn't slept since we got back to this solar system.

When I arrived on Earth we were at the base of a mountain. Apparently Billy was staying somewhere near the top. I started climbing and found ourselves at the peak of the mountain in about 20 minutes. I saw Billy meditating in front of a fire chanting.

"Umm... Billy?" I asked as I took a step towards him. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to break his concentration. "Billy?"

"I heard you the first time Jason," he replied. "I sensed you when you arrived at the mountain."

"You can do that now?" I asked.

"You'd be surprised what a few years of training and the Eye of Agamotto can do for you," he stood up and faced me. "You changed."

"Yeah... being on a different planet for a few years does that," I replied. "Look. I'm getting ready to launch a counter attack against Reshef and-"

"I'm in. They killed Teddy. I've been waiting for a counter attack like this to avenge him."

"He won't know what hit him."