Jason Fuller & The Elementals: The Convergence Crisis (Book 2)

by Andarion The Storyteller

Over a year after the destruction of the Stones of Olympus, the Convergence of the Nine Realms approaches, and ancient powers long thought buried rise with it. Jason and his friends must work with new allies to uncover the secrets of the Nine Realms, and save them from annihilation. Can The Elementals pull together to save the day, or will the universe collapse under their failure?

2. Chapter 1: What We've Been Up To

Chapter 1: What We've Been Up To

(Allyson's Perspective)

3:30 P.M. Eastern European Standard Time, May 30th, 2016, Bagalia, One day before the siege of Asgard

Hi, everyone! Welcome back! So, it's been a little bit since when we last left off, sorry about that. Jason'll catch you up on what's happened. Right now, I got stuff to blow up! Yeah, long story short, Roxxon sucks! They're the epitome of crooked business, and pretty much have their hands in everything shady. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, money laundering, wire fraud, tax evasion, medicinal malpractice, and the list is so dang long, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it! Naturally, these guys had the best lawyers ever, so they were able to weasel their way outta everything. Even after Victor hacked into their servers and leaked entire terabytes of info of the, pardon my french, f*(# up #! they did, nobody had the balls to go after one half of the two biggest energy industries in the world. Well, their luck finally ran out! Long story short, Roxxon was caught funding anti-mutant terrorist groups that almost destroyed the entire planet with advanced Sentinels from an alternate, now deleted, future timeline. I'll let Jason explain that. More recently, they were caught trying to drill into Subterranea to steal their natural resources, and were connected in a failed attempt on King Namor's life. So, now that the idiots were connected to attacks on Subterranea, Atlantis, and Genosha, the latter of the trio being allies of Wakanda, the U.S. govt. was now under threat of a literal war on their hands. And trust me, Namor and Magneto needed little motivation to launch an assault on humans. In response, the U.S. gave S.H.I.E.L.D. permission to raze Roxxon to the ground, and allow Oracle Inc., Jason and Namor's developing company, to liquidate and absorb their assets. So that's what we're doing right now. Three teams. Three objectives. A whole lotta fun! My...well, Iron Man's team consisted of: him, me, both Hawkeyes, Black Widow, Hulk, Lightspeed, Zero-G, Energizer, Majesdia, Stature, Demitrion, Iron Torch, Patriot, and Speed! For the better part of an hour, we were busting up Roxxon power plants, warehouses, manufacturing/distributing joints, and 'secret' facilities/shell companies Roxxon used to conduct their shady business. It was a nice little tour over the world. We busted up Roxxon stuff in California, Mexico, Argentina, Siberia, Russia, and even Madagascar. Now, we were on our final raid of Bagalia.

Bagalia was this island nation, just 100 miles south of Africa, that was basically Wakanda for supervillains. Advanced tech, limitless access to black market goods, everything was legal. The place was mostly in ruins, a result of The Elementals' prolonged conflict against Morgan Le Fay, and Victoria Von Doom, but Roxxon bought it, and was currently renovating. For what, I dunno, and couldn't care less. All I knew was there was a bunch of expensive crap to demolish, and the day wasn't getting any younger! Me and the team approached the island from the west side. The island was filled to the brim with illegal energy devices, power plants, warehouses, and of course, hordes of enemy soldiers, bunkers, turrets, and various tanks, all powered by Olympus Force. In other words, practice.

I came in first, drawing enemy fire with my hard to miss Sun Form. Hundreds of blasts fired at me were easily dodged/blocked, while I blasted down enemy Yellowjackets, and discount Iron Men, and dropped mini-suns on whatever bunkers were in my flight path. I coulda handled the air battle alone, but I was grateful for Iron Man, Lightspeed, Zero-G, and Iron Torch giving me some backup. Together, we cut through dozens of squads, while Tony organized the rest of the team, according to what we needed.

"Can I get something big, green, and angry to take out those bunkers?" Iron Man said into the comms.

There were about 12 bunkers dotting the jungle landscape, each equipped with Death Force powered Railguns, that easily woulda ruined our day. Hulk sprang into action, and smashed two on his own. Stature grew to 60 ft, and crushed four more bunkers under her feet, but ended up taking some Railgun blasts point blank! She toppled backwards, and was in danger of collapsing on her teammates, but she prepared for this, as her suit detected her fading in and out of consciousness, and automatically shrunk her down to normal size. Speed took out the rest of the bunkers via running in, and expelling kinetic shockwaves outward.

"You ok there, Stature?" I asked Cassie.

"Super duper, Sunbird!" she responded. "Though if it's all the same to you, i'm done being a target."

"Shake it off, Ant-Girl," Tony chuckled. "J.A.R.V.I.S. is picking up two enemy ground squads comin' at...ok, nevermind.

I stifled a laugh, as both Hawkeyes, driving a commandeered Humvee, took out 100 enemy soldiers, and 7 tanks with a trick arrow that was really 1,000 explosive arrows shrunken down into a small capsule arrowhead, waiting to be triggered. It was like a magic trick. Now you see an army, they shoot their arrows, big boom, now ya don't!

"Useless Avenger my ass!" Hawkeye shouted into the comms.

"Language!" I shouted back.

Him, Tony, Hulk, and Black Widow all laughed at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it," Tony said. "Inside joke. Nat, this is your stop."

"Got it," she said, as she zoomed to a seemingly ordinary building. "Patriot, Stature, and Speed are with me. Clear out the building, carve me a work space, and watch my six."

The Young Avengers mentioned diverted to Black Widow's leadership, and set to besieging the building. This being a S.H.I.E.L.D. op, I understood this was probably a special request from Director Fury. Part of me wanted to question it, but this wasn't the time or place. Now especially wasn't a good time, as we were approaching the REAL entrance to Bagalia. Yeah, Roxxon was just renovating the upper part, but the real villain nation was underground. Only way to access it was this big Stargate lookin' thing, that cut into the ground, as big as a race car track. Tony had already hacked the system, so the portal was revving up for us, but we had a bigger problem on our hands. Barely 400 meters away from the portal, a horde of Olympus Tech Sentinels, numbering at, or just below 100, were locked, loaded, and ready to go! My mind raced with potential scenarios, as I considered going full Sun Goddess, but Demetrion was way ahead of me! Before the Sentinels could even get a single shot off, they found themselves either being crushed by tree cables, clobbered to bits by Tree Golems, swallowed whole by giant Venus Fly Traps, or being assaulted by a barrage of giant Nature Force powered grass blades! Had to give it to Jimmy, the guy had really improved his skill set over the last year. Heck, this was just him goin' easy. The guy was capable of some real Sage Mode stuff! Yes, I watch Naruto. Fight me.

"I got this," he said. "Go finish up, i'll cover your exit!"

"Good on ya, Jiraiya!" I encouraged him. "Don't worry, we won't be long!"

"Alright everyone," Tony said. "Stay tight, strike sharp, and let's...why are you hotter, thermally speaking, and what is that?"

While Tony was constructing what was sure to be a riveting pep talk, I tapped into Sun Goddess, grabbed my always ready to fight wolf spirit, Lupa, and enchanted her with the word for attack (επίθεση).

"Go get em', girl!" I encouraged her, before sending her soaring down to bust some heads!

"Uhhhh…." Tony said.

"Eternal spirits loyal to Apollo and his descendants," I explained.

"Fierce little #!, Kate backed me up.

"Give her a minute. Whatever's a problem down there, won't be a problem for long."

Lupa didn't let me down, as when the team and I finally descended into Bagalia proper, the wolf spirit had all but trashed Roxxon's up and coming….ok, i'm not exactly sure what it was, but if Roxxon was building it, odds are it was illegal. Still, me and the team had our hands full with rounding up several villains that were hiding in plain sight under the ruins/industrial renovations. Things actually went pretty smoothly for a good bit, until the atmosphere turned blood red, and a sudden wave of War Force powered Olympium, in the shape of a nanite swarm! The swarm was clearly being operated by some kinda central intelligence, as the nanites hardened into mini-Sentinels, Smileys, Sapien League bots, and Bastion models! I quickly found myself surrounded by a War Force Olympium horde, and even in Sun Goddess, had to expend a good amount of effort to get myself outta the pile of deathbots. If it was even mildly difficult for me in Sun Goddess, I couldn't imagine how difficult it must've been on my teammates! I quickly located them duking it out in the ruins of Mephisticuffs, a demonic UFC-type establishment. I blasted my way to their circular defense, and found I was kinda worried for nothing. Tony's suit was currently emitting a tachyon field, about 200 meters in circumference, that slowed down the speed of the robot onslaught just enough for the heroes to just keep up with the thousands of bots that were flooding in by the seconds! Both Hawkeyes were going ham with a series of 1,000 explosive arrows in one shot. Hulk was ripping apart Smileys and Sapien League bots by the dozens. Lightspeed was easily in the running for MVP, as she also was on the glow up powers wise! Instead of just being able to fly at supersonic speeds with a light trail behind her, her abilities had evolved to where she was able to harness the Visible Spectrum, and use it to create blasts, constructs, as well as enhance her speed and strength! At the moment, she was literally cloning herself into multiple light clones, and using them to kamikaze the crap outta incoming Sentinels and Smileys! Zero-G and Energizer combined into a Power Pony, and trashed hordes of Sentinels via crushing them like soda cans with his gravity powers, or blasting them apart with her Photon barrages. Keeping up the showcase of everyone's vast improvement, Karolina was thrashing dozens of incoming fighters left and right with her solar powered weaponry. From her light swords, to shoulder rockets, to star shaped kamikaze drones. Iron Torch was kinda on the same energy, except he was bigger on missiles, napalm bullets, and magma grenades! Victorion was probably tied with Julie for MVP, as his strategy was literally just to assimilate the oncoming tech horde into his system, and use it back at em'! While taking in tons and tons of Olympium, he transformed various parts of his body into cannons, missile launchers, mini guns, etc, all of which let loose torrents of War Force ammo! I almost felt bad for comin' in to show everyone up, as I engulfed us inside a fire barrier, and kept the shield letting off blasts that torched anything they touched!

"Anyone got the rundown on what this is?" I asked in the comms.

"I got it," Victor immediately answered. "It's some kinda hive mind A.I. piloting the horde. I'd shut it down, but its programming is scattered. I need most of it in one place before…..oh, nevermind, here it comes!"

Before I could ask Vic what he was on about, the Olympium horde suddenly parted like the Red Sea, as something bulleted towards us at Mach 3! After getting a good look, I realized it was Leper Queen. She was in her usual getup of army fatigues, and a mask covering her charred face, but she was different in a few ways. For one, Leper Queen didn't usually fly. She certainly didn't used to have afterburners literally blasting out of her feet and back of her calves. She also didn't have the ability to change her body into a giant mesh of sonic cannons, missile launchers, Gatling guns, and a whole mass of other explosive crap that mutant hating bigots shouldn't have access to. She was currently revving up her sonic cannons and missile launchers to barrage the heck outta us. Yeah….that was gonna be a no from me.

"Lupa!" I thought to my wolf spirit, who was currently using a Sentinel head as a chew toy. "Something strong and dangerous! Get it!"

I love my spirit wolf. At the drop of a hat, she spirited towards Leper Queen, who found herself trapped in the jaws of the flaming wolf construct, the size of a Greyhound bus! Lupa was such a tryhard drama queen, as she was muttering curses as she gnarled on Leper Queen, but since her mouth was full, it all came out as a garbled 'CURHSORNTHRRISVIBCURR'!

"No decorum," Rowenos, my raven spirit, admonished her.

"Lay off, Ro," I responded. "She hasn't been let out in a while. You know how she gets."

Speaking of my wolf spirit, Leper Queen had somehow managed to blast her way free, and the two crashed into some kinda apartment complex. Both parties quickly recovered, and resumed previous warfare. Had to hand it to Leper Queen, she was putting in the work. It was apparent she had converted herself into a cyborg, and her augmentations were strong enough to where she was fending off Lupa. Granted, she was busting out all the stops to do so, but not many people could do much of anything to hold back my spirit animals when I gave them the order to wreck your set up. Heck, as much as I loved Lupa, I knew I had to step in. She definitely needs to be let out, but she also needs a tight leash, or she…...tends to go a little overboard with the collateral…..and the murder…...we've had some incidents. Anyway, I caught up to their battle in a quick burst, and punted Leper Queen through a dozen buildings. Before Lupa could whine about me 'stealing her glory' or whatever, I found myself besieged by Leper Queen's ENTIRE Olympium horde! Seriously, all the bots completely abandoned the rest of my teammates, and started to focus on me and Lupa specifically! Lupa was glad to have a challenge all to herself again, and I easily kept the horde at bay with consecutive fire bursts. Thankfully, my team wasn't keen on leaving me to fend for myself, as backup swiftly arrived, and we found ourselves doing the same song and dance again in a new environment.

"Ok, I got it!" Victor said through the comms. "I've locked onto Leper Queen's programming! It should only take a minute or two to wipe her out, and disable the horde, but I need someone to keep her busy!"

"Leave that to me!" I said. "Everyone else, keep her helpers off of me! In fact…."

I summoned my remaining animal spirits, Orpheus, Rowenos, Mnemosyne, Martha, Elle, and Pip, and enchanted them with the spell for defend: (υπερασπίζω). Orpheus transformed into a giant basilisk, Rowenos, a raven man-beast, Mnemosyne was the same, just as a crow, and yes there is a difference. Martha morphed into a Samoorai, and Pip morphed into a Reepicheep, that mouse from the Narnia movies, construct. Elle, my roe doe spirit, was the only one who didn't take a combative form. She wasn't much for violence, and instead acted as the eyes in the back of my head.

"Excuse me, my lady," her soft voice rang in my head. "That big, ugly mortal woman is about to charge you."

"Thanks, Elle," I responded. "I'll handle it."

Yeah, my version of handling it was to allow Leper Queen to fly as close to me as possible, backflip over her at the last second, kick her in the back, forcing her to the ground, and activating a Sunspot to keep her pinned down. I was able to enjoy her squirming for a few seconds, until her machinery adapted, and began to resist the gravitational pull! I thought about upping the gravity, but Victor said he needed a good two minutes, and given the enormous amounts of hell this bitch had given me and my friends over the last few months, I was down for some slow and methodical payback! I created a Blazing Sun Sledgehammer, and brought it down on Leper Queen's head! She scorpioned into the ground, but recovered with incredible speed, and came up with an upward swing of a laser blade jutting out of her wrist! I sidestepped the attack, and converted my sledgehammer to a Blazing Sun Sword, as Leper Queen slashed at me again. I blocked the swing with my sword, and exchanged a quick set of various sword strikes with Leper Queen. I had to stay in the air, as she literally a 10 ft tall technological monstrosity, and to her credit, actually had to somewhat try. Sure, Leper Queen wasn't anywhere near fast enough to keep up with me, but she knew how to handle a blade. I solved that problem by slashing off one of her hands, followed by the other when she tried her luck with another laser blade. Leper Queen was quick on the draw though, and converted her damaged hands into laser cannons that i'm sure woulda stung a little. I clogged em' with mini-suns right before she let loose a blast, and the resulting backfire sent a ripple of War Force energy violently ripping through her body! Leper Queen collapsed to the ground in a heap of half melted slag. Not a moment too soon, as Vic was just a few seconds away from purging her outta existence. Leper Queen was a sore loser though, and in the last second, tried to take me, and presumably my team with her! In a split second, all the missiles she had on hand sprouted all over her body, with a timer rigged to blow in half a second! I froze, but thankfully Elle had me covered. She grew to giant size, and literally laid flat on top of Leper Queen. The ensuing explosion didn't even faze her! Leave it to my most peaceful spirit to be the one to save the day! With Victor's purge complete, the Olympium horde collapsed into a shower of metal bits. Couldn't leave this just lying around, so I fiddled with my morpher, until I found the temporary program Jason installed.

"Activate Hygieia protocol," I spoke to my voice command.

My morpher screen turned light blue, and began to emit a soft beep. After about five seconds, the program started to do its work, as a tidal wave of Olympium suddenly started to cascade towards me, like moths to a bonfire! Thankfully, my slightly less angsty boyfriend actually thought this through, as the Olympium dissolved into a kind of powdery substance. Even then, I didn't wanna clean metal shavings outta my hair, and was thankful Jason thought of that too, as the Olympium sandstorm shot 100 ft up in the air, dead center of the portal we entered Bagalia in. It took several minutes, but the Hygieia protocol scoured both below and above the island, until the Olympium sand condensed into a ball, and was subsequently encased inside a container that flashed into….wherever our gear goes when we're not using it.

"Welp," Tony sighed, "There goes my Olympus buster suit."

"Oh please," I rolled my eyes at him. "We all know you managed to nab something. You're Tony Stark. You're not gonna let anyone have better toys than you."

Even if I didn't have the ability to sense a person's emotions, and thus tell Tony was guilty of my charges, his silence was all I needed.

"Nat, status report," Tony said.

"Not gonna bail you out, shellhead," Black Widow responded. "But data retrieval was a success."

"Nice. You good up there, Jim?"

"I'm chill," Jimmy responded. "Did we win? Can we go home now? I have baskets to weave."

While everyone did a last sweep of the area, throwing in playful jabs here and there, I tried to get in contact with Jason and Grant. Not that I was worried about em'...ok, I was a little worried. Contrary to belief, you never get used to the idea of the ones you love flying headfirst into something that can easily get them killed for any number of reasons. I needed to be sure my boys were ok.

(Grant's Perspective)

Hey, what's up?! Thanks for returning for another pulse pounding tale of the Mighty Geo-Titan, and his amazing friends! Ok, a little dramatic, but it really is great to see you back. Sunbird caught you up on a good bit, and Storm-Lord's gonna fill you in on the rest, so let's just cut the bull#!, and get straight into the action, eh?!

As part of operation f*(# Roxxon, me and my team were on search and destroy of leftover Sapien League, Purifier, U-Men, and Friends of Humanity cells all over the globe. The Friends of Humanity Cells were easy to deal with, as Victorion used his internet hacking powers to track down the various small business shell companies and warehouses Roxxon either bought, stole, or blackmailed into his possession. We didn't even need the full team for those. Captain America, Cyclops, Wolverine, Black Panther, Colossus, and America portaled to Idaho, Nebraska, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, and Kentucky. My teammates had em' all in handcuffs, and the Olympium gear confiscated in less than an hour. Once they finished that up, they broke into two teams. Team 1 was: Cap, Wolverine, and Panther. Team 2 was: Cyclops, Colossus, and America. They finally jumped into the same game as the other two teams. Team 3 being: myself, Princess Powerful, and Captain Marvel. Oh yeah, Ms. Marvel changed her name to Captain Marvel at the beginning of 2015, had a bitchin' new red, blue, and yellow suit, and had a helmet that turned her hair into a badass mohawk! The upgrade was real! Anyway, Team 4 was: Magneto, Storm, and Wonder Man. This part of operation f*(# Roxxon, which unfortunately didn't get picked up as the official name, was about busting up U-Men labs and strongholds all over the world. This one took a good hour, as the U-Men set up roots everywhere! My team alone took down labs in Washington state, Brazil, Guatemala, Egypt, Cambodia, Monaco, France, Spain, and Portugal. Their bases ranged from underground strongholds, to in plain sight warehouses and buildings, to undercover operations in schools and universities. That last one made me sick to my stomach. My team had no problems with the various cleanup sights, as we were the muscle crew! We had fun tearing through hundreds of baddies in the strongholds and warehouses. We let S.H.I.E.L.D. agents handle the fake teacher arrests, as we didn't wanna cause too much of a scene, but we handled the extraction and teleporting of test subjects to various medical facilities in New York, L.A., Wakanda, Genosha, and Subterranea. Specialists and trained personnel under the leadership of big brains like Reed Richards, Princess Shuri, Valeria Richards, Susan Richards, Blue Marvel, Spider-Man, Amadeus Cho, Helen Cho, Beast, and Hank Pym would see to their recovery. The victims were pretty messed up. We sent a lot of em' to morgues instead of hospitals, but the ones that were still alive had a decent chance of making a full recovery. If I had my way, the monsters that did this to them wouldn't, but the game plan was to take em' alive.

Moving on, we all wrapped up our divide and conquer missions at around the same time, and portalled to Alaska, just a few miles outbound of Mount St. Elias. Magneto kept Colossus afloat, while Storm kept Captain America and Black Panther in the air. We sped towards the mountain with caution, as this was the motherload of baddies. Sapien Leaguers, Reavers, Purifiers, U-Men, and two entire industries worth of mutant hunting tech, including prototypes for a new kind of Sentinel. Even worse, they were backed by Hydra, so they REALLY had the resources and manpower to do some damage. I woulda kicked myself, The Avengers, and the X-Men for letting this operation go on for so long, but in our defense, the bad guys had a killer hideout! I always get a surge of vindictive glee when bad guys have hideouts underground, or in mountains. That's like tryna hide from a shark in the ocean. Under normal circumstances, I simply coulda forced the mountain to implode, and take out the whole set up, but that wouldn't have done anything. The mountain was just a shell that was covering….something. I couldn't properly sense it, and even when I tried to read whatever chakra I could pick up off it, it was strange and muffled. One thing was for certain, of the undoubtedly thousands of people inside the mountain, I couldn't detect any of em' with any of my senses. This entire mountain was a blindspot. As I was contemplating what the hell could possibly be going on around here, Black Panther's suit started to glow.

"Careful everyone," he said in the comms. "My sensors indicate our enemies have taken refuge inside the husk of a deceased Celestial. I cannot say how long the being has been lying dormant here, but if Hydra has taken notice, they have no doubt been using whatever they can salvage from it to develop weapons I cannot even begin to imagine."

"Seriously, Gaea?!" I mentally yelled at the literal manifestation of the earth. "You just FORGOT a dead space god was chillin' under your skin?! Way to look out for me!"

"Hey," she snapped back. "Celestials die here all the time! This one's been here for five million years! I forgot! And I will not be lectured by a boy who cannot even remember to put his name on a test, before turning it in!"

Before me and Gaea could get into our fifth argument in ten minutes, the enemy recognized me and the team coming in, and rolled out the welcome wagon! Hydra and company actually had a killer defense system, as the entire side of the mountain we were flying towards sprouted rotating Railguns, and opened fire on us with hundreds of volleys per second!

I kicked into action quick, and wrapped me and the team inside a barrier of All-Metal. The first volley of hits immediately put me on red alert, as the blasts made huge dents in metal that could literally stand up to nuclear blasts! Not to worry, improv's the name of the game! I added a #! ton of All-Metal to the mix, and gradually shaped it into a giant missile, about the size of a battleship, with multiple Geo-Force powered rocket silos along its length, and a drill at the head. Not my most creative work, but it would do. I created chairs for the team, strapped em' in, and had my missile silos open fire on the mountain! I had to keep the missiles constantly flowing, as the enemy Railgun blasts were no joke! My missiles oftentimes barely hit their targets, and even when they did, the missiles were only strong enough to slightly damage/dislocate the Railguns. The real test was redoubling the All-Metal with G-Force, and bracing for a crash!

"T'Challa!" Captain America said in the comms. "Do you have the schematics?!"

Everyone's wrist devices glowed briefly, and Cap took a quick look, before laying out the playbook.

"Alright, Avengers!" Cap continued. "Looks like we're gonna land somewhere in the chest area, second floor. Based off of this map, the enemy has divided the Celestial body into multiple compartments of interest. The head is where the databases are. Shoulders and arms are weapons storage, and barracks, Top floor from chest to foot is aircraft weaponry. Mainly useless in close quarters, but we could do without a lot of escapes. Second floor from chest to foot is one big industrial machine. Everything from armor and weapons, to drugs and artificial organ generating, to mutant hunting mechs. Finally, bottom floor is human testing. From the amount of containment and…...disposal areas, I doubt these are voluntary. We're shutting this down for good. Ms. America, you're going to be our initial hub of transportation. Wolverine, Black Panther, and myself will take out the databases in the Celestial head. Absolutely nothing survives. S.H.I.E.L.D. has enough toys to play with. Cyclops, Magneto, and Storm are on top floor duty. Geo-Titan, and Princess Powerful are on floor two. Captain Marvel and America are on the arms. You take out those weapon caches fast, and backup second floor team ASAP. Colossus and Wonder Man are on bottom floor cleanup. Get the victims out, and destroy the damned place."

"Quick addition, Cap," I spoke up, as we got close to impacting the mountain. "It's a good plan, but the only way to make sure this thing never sees the light of day again, is to take it off the board entirely."

I created six palm sized All-Metal disks, and floated them to each of the teams.

"Your plan kicks ass, but rather than destroy as much as we can, and hope the remains are unsalvageable, this will solve the whole problem for us. Long story short, once you get in your various mission zones, drop those disks wherever, and stall for nine minutes and fifty seconds. After that, emergency teleport outta here, unless you wanna get swallowed in an avalanche of liquid metal, straight into the Geo-Force!"

"You can do that?!" Princess Powerful damn near shrieked.

"I can do that, right?" I asked Gaea.

"Oh yeah!" she sounded giddy. "I've always wanted a Celestial!"

I didn't bother to unpack that one.

"Of course," I shrugged to Molly. "No biggie. All good with you, Cap?"

"Better with you than Hydra. I'm in. Look alive, Avengers, here we go!"

My drill missile finally made contact with the mountain, and drilled through it and the dead Celestial! Yeah, 'dead' was the word of the day, as these things were as tough as they came when they were alive. Anyway, we drilled straight into the mid chest, just as Cap predicted, and before anyone in the vicinity could get any bright ideas, I let loose a G/N-Force blastwave; destroying three whole miles of weapons construction!

"Now, Chavez!" Cap ordered.

Ms. America did her thing, and sent the various teams on their way, before portaling with Captain Marvel. Not even ten seconds after the initial blastwave, the welcoming crew started to line up outside. I was picking up several dozen U-Men with flight, fire, and super strength powers, a few dozen more Purifiers, Hydra Agents, Reavers, and Sapien Leaguers. I was also picking up a squad of Sentinels starting to wake up!

"Ready, Princess?" I smiled at Molly.

"Let's kick some bad guy butt!" she fist bumped me.

I willed my All-Metal to shoot out in all directions as jagged spears! The entire squad that came to meet us were toast before they even knew what hit em'! More squads started to roll in, but they didn't last much longer, as I willed my All-Metal to form into an army of Avengers, G1 Autobots, vikings wearing spiked football pads, and a bunch of hybrid superhero constructs. Spidey Thor, Hulk-Thing, and Wolverine/Ghost Rider were my top three combos. Between the dozens of All-Metal constructs cleaning house, me and Princess Powerful actually didn't catch that much action. I summoned Earthshaker and Gaea's Claw, my axe and sword, and went to town! Any Purifiers and Sapien Leaguers stepped up to get swatted down. Reavers lasted two seconds. Three if they had Olympium armor. Ironically enough, the U-Men went down faster than the Reavers. Yeah, when you're on my level, a little bit of super strength and energy powers isn't much of anything. It's like giving a baby a foam bat. The only real challenge was when a Sentinel occasionally got close enough to where I had to take a good five seconds to tear it apart So yeah, I racked up a decent kill count, and that was tame compared to Princess Powerful! Unlike me, she was goin' full offense, and actively flew around the entire 300 miles, yeah, the Celestial was THAT F*(#!& BIG, wrecking people and property alike. I loved how she had over a year of extensive combat training with the team, but still preferred to fight like a WWE wrestler in a street fight! The amount of flying DDTs, RKOs, Spears, Batista Bombs, and Pedigrees were astounding! I freaking loved Molly! Down to earth, helluva Running back, great at Battleworld: Duel Masters, wore jeans and a pink jersey as a uniform, and a worthy sparring partner! We thought about dating for a bit, but it always felt weird. Sure, we were buddies, sometimes we'd get a little frisky, but after hitting it a few times, we both agreed it was a lust thing we had to burn out of our systems, and remained as friends. Besides, I was actually crushing hard on someone else….anyway, back to the ass kicking! Princess Powerful and I kept up the battle for ten minutes, and got a boost when Captain Marvel and Ms. America finally wrapped up their munitions busting. Ms. America and Princess Powerful paired off to take the top half of the Celestial, while me and Captain Marvel, and took the bottom half.

"Databases are eliminated," Captain America's voice buzzed in the comms. "Metal charge is placed, and we're holding the line in the Celestial head! Talk to me, Avengers! What's your status?!"

"Captain Marvel here," Carol responded. "Me and Chavez took out the gear, and set the charges. On the second floor with Titan, and Powerpuff now!"

"I hope Chewie eats you!" Molly responded.

"Cyclops reporting in," Scott continued. "Storm, Magneto, and I have successfully destroyed the enemy aircrafts. No one's going anywhere. Charge is set. Holding the line against Hydra now."

"Wonder Man here!" Simon reported. "Colossus and I have successfully evacuated the unconscious test experiments, but we have a bit of a problem. Hydra panicked, and unleashed the motherload of lab freaks on us! They're not all that strong, but we're dealing with hundreds of em'! We may need to use deadly force!"

"That's a no go, Wonder Man!" I immediately responded. "Those 'lab freaks' are people that didn't ask for this, and deserve a shot at being saved! If you need backup, that's cool, take Ms. America and Princess Powerful, but we're not killing victims. Period."

A bit of an awkward pause, as I broke ranks on that call, but thankfully Cap backed me up.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, GT," Steve responded. "America, Princess, get on it!"

America and Molly portalled away, leaving me and Captain Marvel to keep up the fight on the second floor. We chugged along smoothly for a good three minutes, kinda phoning it in to be honest, until #! hit the fan in an instant! The waves of bad guys suddenly backed off and retreated. Shortly afterwards, dozens of silver pods, each 10 ft tall, made out of something that was definitely not metal, rose outta the floor. The pods transformed themselves, sprouting, legs, arms, and by the time the heads had formed, I was on the verge of #!& my pants!

Their technical names were Sentinels Mk X, but we called them Nightmare Sentinels. An advanced version of Sentinels, created by Trask Industries, in what was supposed to be the next 20 years of this earth's future timeline. These Sentinels were created by a mix of harvesting the DNA of Darwin and Mystique, and programming a synthetic non-metal material to recreate their transformative abilities, and create ultimate killing machines that could adapt to combat any mutant's powers. In what was supposed to be our future, these things wiped out all of mankind. I keep saying 'what was supposed to be', because last month, in a war against the usual anti-mutant groups, led by a combination of Bastion, Nimrod, and a Mother Mold, inhabited by a resurrected William Stryker, we did some time travel shenanigans that wiped that future timeline, and everything with it out of existence! Those things weren't supposed to be here, but taking another look at em', I realized maybe they weren't. Sure, same Sentinels, but they were modified. For starters, they Grimm Reaper faces with horns on top of their heads. They also had repulsors coming outta their hands, and were glowing with a f*(# ton of latent Celestial energy. I fought thousands of these things in that deleted future timeline, and in all honesty, i'd rather fight Doctor Doom again.

The Sentinels scanned me and Captain Marvel, and started to shift their forms. I immediately made my move! One of the tips that kept me and my teammates alive when we fought against them in the future was to attack the hardest when they were changing. Their bodies were more vulnerable when they were in that in between stage, and you could take em' out without much of a hassle! I made my move by willing all my All-Metal constructs to transform into spikes, and launched em' all at the still molding Sentinels! Before they could finish solidifying, I willed the G-Force in the spikes to explode, and reduce the Nightmares to scrap! I didn't wanna take any chances, and willed globs of All-Metal to form over the scrap, and take it to the Geo-Nexus. Maybe Gaea could make something new for me! Before Captain Marvel could make a 'you coulda saved some for me joke', the universe granted her wish, as a dozen more Nightmares teleported into the area, surrounding us on all sides! We had half a second to contemplate how f*(#%& we were, before the Sentinel horde rushed us all at once!

I immediately let loose a G/N-Force blastwave, and split the horde in two! Captain Marvel pressed a button on her suit, and was flooded with a surge of energy that pushed her to Binary, which was basically her Super Saiyan. I tested the strength of the Sentinels by throwing my axe at one of them. The axe landed square in its chest, and cut deep, but not enough to remotely slow it down. Damn, these things were tough! The previous model, while tough, couldn't stand up to Adamantium or Vibranium. Must've been the Celestial energy. Ok, so I had to work a little harder to take em' down. No biggie. First thing to do was bottleneck the opposition. I took care of that by erecting a wall of G/N-Force powered All-Metal, splitting me and Captain Marvel in the chest down area of the Celestial, while the other Sentinels were trapped from the chest up. I focused the majority of my attention on keeping them trapped back there, and giving them as much hell as I could muster! I kept a constant G/N-Force energy storm going, and willed the All-Metal wall to shoot out an unending storm of shrapnel. I'd use the storm to create holes and tears in the Sentinels, and once a decent amount of All-Metal got into those crevices, I willed the metal to basically eat them from the inside out, and give Gaea some more material for whatever. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel and I took out the Sentinels on our end the old fashioned way. The robots definitely had some bite to em'. In Binary, Captain Marvel was strong enough to give me and Princess Powerful a good run, and even she was havin' a hard time taking these things apart. Her favorite way was to beat them to pieces with Photon Punches, but she found more success by getting into power battles with them, and after overpowering their blasts, melting them to slag! She definitely took her licks tho, as she took more than her fair share of punches, kicks, and blasts. There were a few close calls, but Carol pulled through, and kept fighting. I had a better time of it than her, as I used my speed and weapons to REALLY take it to the Nightmare Sentinels! While the Adamantium/Vibranium combo wasn't enough to completely do away with em', I used the vibration trick Storm-Lord taught me to make the blades sharp enough to slice them straight through! Most of the time I chopped off their limbs, before decapitation, but I sometimes managed to cut them in half at the torso, or even get a headshot straight from the jump! It was definitely a cat and mouse game tho, as the Nightmares adapted to my speed, and kept the heat on with cosmic blasts and rockets! Their favorite strategy was to keep me surrounded, and box me in with their blasts. I got around that by shrinking to Tiny Titan, and either letting their blasts hit each other, or flying straight through their heads as they got their blasts revved up! I couldn't do Tiny Titan for long tho, as it took a decent bit of focus to maintain that, and I needed every spare brain cell to keep the Sentinels on the other side of my All-Metal wall at bay! Another way I dealt with them was implementing small chakra bursts out to block their laser blasts as they left their hands, mouth, cannons, etc., which did wonders on softening em' up for me and Captain Marvel. We fought hard for four minutes, and Captain America chimed in shortly afterwards.

"I take it we're not the only ones dealing with these new Sentinels!" Cap roared through the comms. "How we doing, people?!"

"Magneto's wounded!" Cyclops responded. "Sending him back for emergency medical care, but me and Storm aren't gonna last much longer up here!"

"Had to send Colossus back too!" Wonder Man said. "Damn things blew his legs off! You can take America and Princess Powerful! I'm more than strong enough to keep these creeps busy!"

"Don't be stupid, Wonder Man!" Cap responded. "This isn't Hollywood! You don't have to show out for the cameras!"

"Trust me," America said. "He ain't bluffing! Johnny Cage over here took out five Sentinels before I took out one! Me and Princess Powerful got the victims out anyway! Had to shove a lot of em' in the Negative Zone, but I gave Blue Marvel the heads up. He'll get em' out. Backup's on the way, Cyclops!"

"We're also good," Captain Marvel wrapped up the sitrep. "Takes more than some tin cans to keep this Warbird down! What about you, Army boy?"

"We're holding the line here," Cap said. "Gotta thank Tony for giving me the Iron Patriot upgrade, despite my wishes. Still, what the hell's going on around here? I thought we erased these monstrosities from time itself!"

"You did," a chillingly familiar voice hacked our comms.

The Nightmare Sentinels suddenly backed off me and Captain Marvel, as Karima Shapandar, aka The Omega Sentinel, teleported onto the second floor; hovering barely 200 ft away from me and Captain Marvel. She looked the same. Indian woman, fine as hell, with long black hair, wearing white and red armor, with black spandex covering her arms. Her smile and eyes were the perfect mix of warm/welcoming, yet inhuman and sadistic. It was like she was saying 'Hey! OMG, it's been FOREVER! I missed you so much! Do you have any idea how bad I wanted to exterminate you?! Come here!' Last time we fought, she was connected to an entire network of advanced Sentinels and future tech. I managed to bet her into a scrap heap then, but she must've transferred her mind to a new body. Didn't know how strong this one was, but I prepared for the worst.

"Shame on you, Avengers," she continued. "Almost taking away such nice toys. Wiping away my future. Taking away my world. I'm almost hurt. Still, i'm not one for holding grudges…..that would imply taking no action for a significant length of time."

The Celestial started to rumble, and lines of cosmic energy snaked up and down it's interior as far as the eye could see!

"Gaea?!" I thought to my partner in heroism.

"The Celestial's waking up! I don't know how, but she's reviving it!"

"You take away my world," Omega Sentinel continued. "I take away yours! Geo-Titan, I understand you're trying to take away my Celestial. Your 'All-Metal' charges should absorb it in a little under five minutes. I just programmed this Celestial to instantaneously teleport over Genosha, and exterminate your precious flea breeding grounds in less than thirty sec-"

I acted immediately. Omega Sentinel wasn't bluffing, and every second counted! I flew into her, getting a good grip around her waist, and thought "Activate Operation Cyberchase!" to the generic A.I. in my morpher! Omega Sentinel suddenly spazzed out, as her programming was flooded with a rival, and VERY combative network! The original shock delayed the Celestial take off by another two minutes! The network needed help tho, which is why we kept Agent Kennedy and Amadeus Cho on standby for emergencies like this, with every super genius around the world on standby to join in. In addition to Kennedy and Cho, we had Blue Marvel, Black Panther's A.I., T'.C.H.A.K.A., Storm-Lord's A.I., Z.O.R.D.O.N., Mr. Fantastic, and Shuri lending their support! Omega Sentinel's programming went from three minutes to just over five! Granted, it was making a bit of a comeback, but at this rate, my friends were slowing her down just enough for me to focus on kicking her ass for the remainder of the time we had left!

I punched her into the roof, slammed her back to the ground with a G-Force bolt, and flew down after her with my axe ready to slice some circuits! She blocked my attack with a force field, and responded by turning her arms into energy cannons, and blasting me with a decent sized Power Cosmic blast! I managed to recover, and come at her again, dodging her blasts and mini-rockets. Once I was close enough, I scanned her force field with my Kairīdā, my chi reader, and found the weakest point near the top of the dome. I waited until I was close enough for a perfect shot, and after I dodged another of Omega Sentinel's blasts, I charged my chakras from Root to Crown, did a spiral dash, and stopped my momentum just as I reached my arm out, and struck the barrier with my right index and middle fingers! The chakra burst easily shattered Omega Sentinel's barrier, and as she reflexively lashed out with another blast, I shrunk down to Tiny Titan, before enlarging to 60 ft tall Mega Titan, uppercutted Omega Sentinel, and smashed her back to the ground with a downwards punch! I was about to smash her #! in, but Omega Sentinel teleported away, and to my surprise, Nightmare Sentinels started flying backwards, towards the Celestial feet area, like homing pigeons. I took a risk, and dropped the All-Metal wall/G-Force Storm that blocked off the other half of the Celestial. Granted, there wasn't much left of the Sentinels I was keeping at bay, but even they managed to fly at top speed towards Omega Sentinel, who was melting them down, and reforming the pieces around herself, until she was a 60 ft tall, scaly, grey version of herself! She wasted no time in closing the distance, and the two of us engaged in another brawl!

"I got her!" I shouted to Captain Marvel. "Get to the head, and help out the others!"

Carol looked like she wanted to tear my head off at the mere suggestion of keeping her outta this fight, but she begrudgingly backed down, and retreated. Granted, I didn't give her that much hope I could hold my own, as Omega Sentinel gave me a brutal three piece combo, followed by a point blank plasma cannon blast, but I recovered, busted out my axe and sword, and came back for seconds! I definitely had to give it to Omega Sentinel, cuz she fought hard! She kept her Nightmare Sentinel armor charged with Celestial energy, to where even my vibrating weapons couldn't damage her that much. Even worse, the Celestial energy gave her one helluva speed boost, and this was not a good time to realize I was not very fast in Mega Titan! Omega Sentinel hit me with a flurry of blasts, energy bullets, rockets, and blades to really give me a close run for my money. I managed to not become Titan chunks by getting inside All-Metal armor, and putting all my attention on blocking and dodging, while I scanned her energy network for weak points. I hit the jackpot, as it seemed the machinery, as advanced as it was, was struggling to keep up with the Celestial energy. I was picking up weak points in her kneecaps, shoulders, forehead, and shoulder blades! Perfect seven points for a Seven Chakra Strike! As Omega Sentinel came around with a wide swing, I shrunk down to normal size, and ran circles around her attacks as I charged my Chakras with the trifecta: Geo-Force, Nature Force, and God Steroids. Titan Force for short. Once I hit critical mass, I shrunk down to Tiny Titan, and attacked Omega Sentinel's weak points. Each punch hit with enough force to decimate half a city, and that was before the Chakra bombs absolutely f*(#& the #! outta Omega Sentinel's set up! The cyborg could barely hold herself up, much less put up a halfway decent defense! In either case it didn't matter. I had stalled long enough for the All-Metal mines to get charged up, and I dipped outta the Celestial just before it was swallowed whole by an entire mountain of gold, and dumped into the Geo-Nexus!

"Thank you," Gaea said. "With a Celestial on our side, we'll be all but untouchable…...in about a year or so."

"What?!" I responded.

"Hey, it's a fixer upper! It's gonna take some time!"

I rolled my eyes, but my spirits immediately picked up when I heard my morpher bleep. Sunbird was calling for a chat with me and Storm-Lord. I did a quick look over to Bagalia to make sure it wasn't an emergency call, and after confirming she was ok, answered the call.

(Jason's Perspective)

Hey. Welcome back. $#!'s goin' down. Let's get to it.

My part of operation f*(# Roxxon (best name as far as I was concerned) was both the best and the worst. Agger and his cronies had been setting up energy harvesting stations all along the ocean floor, and while we took them out almost as quickly as they could get em' set up over the year, those were apparently the little fish used to distract us. The real ploy happened all at once sometime a few days ago, as Roxxon established what amounted to underwater M.A.R.S. bases (the first G.I. Joe movie was actually pretty great) in the Atlantic, Pacific and both Arctic waters. Each base was as big as Hawaii, and armed to the teeth with Olympium warships, submarines, and militarized armor suits. Roxxon wasn't picky about what Olympus energy he employed, and ran the gamut between the War, Death, Nature, God Steroids, Apollo, Zeus, and Nethertrench Forces. That wasn't the sucky part. These guys were 'armed' in the same way a child is technically armed with a bean bag gun. Even on our worst day, Atlantis could run through these chuds, like tearing down a house made of cardboard. No, I wasn't worried about winning. It was the fact that after these Roxxon assholes had almost killed Namor (the sea elf grew on me), and tried to pillage Subterrania, MY F*(#!& KINGDOM, me and Namor were required to grant them an offer of amnesty! Allyson basically begged S.H.I.E.L.D. to offer them a chance to 'do the right thing', and 'throw off the shackles of corrupt business moguls that made them wage slaves', so we could avoid as many casualties as possible. I mean…...she was right (she's almost always right), and even I voted in favor of the motion (hey, I wanted kisses), but it still made my skin crawl as Namor said the words into the shared intercoms of our warships to Roxxon's bases.

"Thralls of Roxxon," Namor's voice bellowed across four different legions across the world. "You stand before your annihilation. The overwhelming might of Atlantis, Lemuria, the mighty beasts of the sea, and the monsters of your legends and nightmares. Your empire is collapsing around you as we speak. Roxxon's resources are destroyed. Their stocks fall. Their legal teams, aiders, and abettors abandon the sinking ship. Many of you did not wholeheartedly choose such employment. Be it desperation, blackmail, or a debt, you have been shackled, abused, and forced under the threat of incarceration, or even death, to commit atrocities in the name of Dario Agger and his cabal. I offer him no peace terms. He will be fortunate if I allow him to see another day. You on the other hand, his pawns, are offered amnesty. Surrender now. Mentally profess your acquiescence, and you will be immediately teleported from the vessel you reside, back to a S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse. You have the word of Namor that your crimes will be pardoned, your identities protected, and your financial situations taken care of. You've nothing left to fight for, and there is no shame in living to see a better tomorrow. You have thirty seconds. Choose."

Our magicians had to work over time, as a flood of Roxxon's goons leapt at the opportunity to escape death and justice. Of the 20,000 grunts split between Roxxon's four bases, 15,000 bailed on the spot! The others…..welp, we gave em' a chance. Namor gave the call, and the slaughter began!

It would be quite the sight to see. 100,000 troops, comprised of Atlanteans, Lumerians (half Atlantean/Deviant population), Meramecians (aquatic Moloids that established a kingdom in the Atlantic Ocean, between South America and Africa), nomadic Atlantean tribes from either Arctic Oceans, and over 1,000 different sea animals, dressed in armor, descending on the Roxxon hordes! It was like attacking a half asleep infant, as the idiots that stayed behind to pilot the few subs, fighter drones, and turrets couldn't withstand the sheer force of our assaults! Hell, the battle was damn near over after the Atlantean warships released several Olympium salvos that dissolved into nanites, piloted by Z.O.R.D.O.N., that ate away all enemy Olympium. Thousands of Roxxon goons became fish food, as the wrath of the sea was unrelenting! Of the four battles going on, Me, Namor, the Nova Twins, Oroco, Mass Master, Xavin, Namorita, Hulkling, Wiccan, Sister Grimm, and Rogue were attacking the base in the Atlantic! Again, the fight was so one sided, we didn't even have to be here, but no way was I gonna turn down a chance to knock Agger's head off his shoulders! Not wanting to miss a second of the action, me and the team rushed ahead of the army!

First thing's first, no need to worry about Wiccan, Sister Grimm, Hulkling, or Xavin (as if they needed to be worried about). Wiccan and Sister Grimm cast water breathing spells on themselves, Hulkling and Xavin adjusted their anatomy to where they could naturally breathe water, oh, and Rogue sapped some power from Namor to where she had developed his water breathing, waterbending, ankle wings, and the desire to shout IMPERIUS REX, MANURE HUFFERS (Rogue was always a must have). We cleaned up pretty quick. Mass Master and the Nova Twins were on warcraft destroying. In Jack's case, he became the water, and had developed his skills enough to where he could perform multiple attacks at once. At least a dozen subs crashed into each other via water spirals because of him. Starlight and Starbright added to that mix via Nova Force weapons. Kira decked her arms out with missile revolvers that locked on to targets and took em' down with a big ass boom! Daiya took down fighters, subs, and turrets with a bit more style (a rare thing), as she was surfing a giant Nova Tech Chinese Dragon that shot Nova Force bolts at its targets, while she wielded a Nova Tech Naginata Spear that flew through dozens of Roxxon goons foolish enough to be in the main fight, before flying back to her. Speaking of which, I gotta give the twins props. Instead of staying in their standard Nova Corps uniforms, they modified the suits to fit their individual styles. Kira's suit was now a gold sports bra (she liked to show midriff skin), under a black leather jacket, with golden arm gauntlets at the end, and black leggings, with gold tiger stripes going down them, tucked inside her black boots that had gold trimmings. The Nova Corps symbol was embedded on the leather jacket back, and her helmet was converted into a black snapback, with the red cross on the hood. Her eyes glowed pure white while in costume, so her identity was still safe. Also, when she was Starlight, her hair was half black and gold! Daiya took a much different route, as her redesigned uniform was a Qi Pao dress, with a golden Chinese dragon coming up from the hem, and stopping in the torso area, cut wide in the leg area to retain maneuverability, colored black and gold. She was wearing black leggings under the dress, with black/gold combat boots, and a gold chainmail weave covering her arms. Her right arm was covered with a golden fingerless glove gauntlet, while the other hand was free. Her helmet largely remained unchanged, tho she let her long hair flow down the back, and the red cross was extended further along the length of the helmet. Overall, I approved of the designs, and so did the customers (they were always in the top 20 in superhero merch sales).

Anyway, Wiccan and Sister Grimm were on turret destroying. Wiccan did a water style-water hydra jutsu (I don't care if he's annoyed, the shoe fits), and made the water dragons attack various turrets across the base's structure. Sister Grimm cast a spell that turned the turrets into giant shadow piranhas that ate as many enemy combatants as possible (Nico's always so extra). As for me, Namor, Namorita, Oroco, Rogue, Hulkling, and Xavin, we took it straight to the heart of the fight, and cut a swath through Roxxon's fighters. Hulkling and I used our swords (we dubbed ourselves the Excelsior Crew) to cut down dozens of enemy combatants. Namor liked to be more hands on with it, and savagely beat the f*(# outta any poor soul unfortunate enough to get in his way. Oroco was the same, but he never passed up a chance to club someone's face in with his hammer/axe. Rogue and Namorita had a bit more grace to their movements, as they mixed martial arts with waterbending attacks, and used their opponent's momentum against them. It was a beautiful mix of offense and defense. Xavin gets MVP for style points, as homegirl turned into a giant flaming Megalodon, and literally chomped her enemies into a pulp (no way that didn't give her the runs tho). Together, we cut our way through the heart of Roxxon's defense, and busted our way in via an overcharged Sea Force trident bomb from yours truly! Agger's personal defense squad ate a torrent of seawater, and the bad times just kept coming, as me and the team stormed the base, cutting down anyone who crossed our path. I gotta hand it to Agger, he must've been offering some serious bread, or had a landfill of dirt on these guys, cuz they fought hard for their boss! Hundreds upon hundreds of bad guys attacked us from all directions, as the base was a maze of hallways, that pretty much all connected to each other. There were several moments where me and the team were boxed in, and had to fight back to back in a circle, as the rent-a-cops lined up to get slaughtered by a various hardwater constructs, and Fire Domes (when Hulkling and Xavin combined their Human Torch/Invisible Woman powers to cook enemies to a crisp in a force field dome). It took us a good ten minutes to clean house and locate Agger's office. I knew his type. A mob boss that was all too happy to let other people throw their lives away for him, but not willing to get his hands dirty himself. I didn't sweat him an ounce as I walked towards his office, and promptly got hit with a Speed Sense warning so hard, my brain couldn't even calculate what the hell was even going on! The situation made itself clear in a split second, as a massive wave of Nethertrench Energy blew the doors off Agger's office, and something big tackled me like a goddamn truck! The hit dazed me, and I was taken for a bit of a ride as whatever this was crashed me through four walls, before a torrent of Sea Force charged water hit us both from above, and slammed us though three floors, until we landed in some kinda lab (someone needs a crash course on what the word 'rescue' means)! The whatever it was recovered fast, and charged me again! I barely had enough time to summon my Sky Shield, and block it's attack! It recoiled from slamming full on into an Eden Force charged shield, and before it could attack again, I did a Static Jump onto it's back, summoned Excelsior, and shoved the Eden Force covered blade deep into its back! The creature howled loud enough to shake the foundations of the base (or maybe those were the lasers of the Atlantean fleet), and blew me off him with a Nethertrench blastwave! I recovered with a backflip, and stuck to a wall (thanks again, Spidey) to observe the situation. The creature's Nethertrench aurora faded down into nothing, until all that was left was a….Minotaur?! Yeah, an honest to gods Minotaur, 7 ft tall, with brown fur all over, curved horns, with its veins glowing ,multi-colored from all the Olympus Force drugs it must've been hopped on. The Minotaur looked at me with it's glowing red eyes, that burned with equal mix savage hatred and razor sharp intelligence! This thing was a brute, but it was cognizant! It knew what it was doing. Before I could even entertain the idea of talking it down (I have a soft spot for mythical creatures), it shouted 'YOU BASTARD!', and launched at me inside a comet of War Force!

I did a twisting flip over the Minotaur, and landed on the floor, as the beast barreled through the wall. The thing clearly didn't have any momentum control, and I used that to my advantage, as I flew after him, busted out my Power Gauntlets, and slammed him with a dozen Storm-Lord Specials that sent the bull man careening across the base! It managed to recover via Death Force blastwave (I missed being able to do that), and charged me again, but I grabbed it by the horns, used its momentum against it, and flipped it over into a hard slam! I rolled over, still keeping a tight grip on his horns, and spun him around a few times, before letting him fly through some more walls. I underestimated his recovery time tho, as my Speed Sense alerted me to the fact that I was about to get trampled by an energy charged bull man not even two seconds after I threw him! I backflipped over the charge, and landed just in time to start bobbing and weaving around his attacks.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST STEAL MY COMPANY?!" the Minotaur continued to rage at me.

I managed to catch his punches, grapple with him for a few seconds, before trapping him with me in a Tesla Sphere! I fried the beast for a few seconds, before his Zeus Lightning Powers kicked in, and he started absorbing my voltage (probably shoulda seen that coming)!

"THINK YOU CAN TAKE MY EMPIRE, AND TURN IT INTO SOME TREE HUGGING CHARITY?!"

I let him go, busted out my Power Gauntlets again, and fought him hand to hand. He was strong, fast, and tough, but his overall strategy (if you could call it that), was to swing wildly, and occasionally charge through #!. I landed hundreds of blows on him, before he got lucky, caught one of my punches, and kicked me hard in the chest. I flew though some more walls (man this guy was cheap), and started to freefall way more than I was comfortable with. I caught myself on a gust of air, and did a quick look around. I was in some kinda hangar for the underwater fighters, extending the entire length of the base. I liked this place. Wide, yet enclosed, with plenty of water around to manipulate. Minotaur Guy had rocks for brains if he thought he was gonna catch any wins here. Turns out he did, as he literally flew into the hangar via War Force aura.

"I WRESTLED THIS COMPANY OUTTA THE COLD, DEAD, HANDS OF MY BOSSES! I BRIBED, BLACKMAILED, OR KILLED THEIR FAMILIES TO TAKE WHAT WAS MINE! I AM ROXXON! NOTHING WILL TAKE IT FROM ME! LEAST OF ALL SOME SNOT NOSED, TREE HUGGING, LIBTARD BRAT!"

I was still kinda reeling at the fact that this Minotaur was talking…..then it finally hit me. His voice….it was heavier, laden with growls, grunts, and slight moos, but I recognized that voice!

"AGGER?!" I basically yelped out. "THAT YOU?! DAMN! Wait…..you know I just recorded you right?"

Agger flew straight at me, and before I could do something badass and cool, Namor and the rest of the crew finally decided to actually gimme some support! His royal elfness slammed Agger with a Sea Force powered punch, and sent him flying through five enemy fighters! Agger got up, and flew at us again, but Hulkling teleported on top of him, and stabbed him in the back! Agger's War Force aura flared bright for a sec, and then fizzled out! Hulkling teleported away as Agger crashed to the ground. Good thing too, cuz Mogul Minotaur (that was good) went hard on Death Force, as he let loose wild blastwaves that rocked the entire bay! Everyone either ducked for cover, or got thrown backwards. Hulkling and I got neither, as we were on the same page. We both got under respective Eden Force barriers, and I cut Agger's Death Force rage quit short as I splashed him with a torrent of Eden Force charged water! He bellowed in pain, but it was only for a short while, as Hulkling came in again with another Excelsior stab, and cut his Death Force flow off! Agger was getting desperate now, as he socked Hulkling in the chest with a hit that woulda sent my man into a wall if I didn't catch him! Namor, Rogue, Oroco, Xavin, and Namorita pounced on Agger, but Mogul Minotaur was now sporting a raging God Steroids aura. Namor got in a few punches, but got swatted away. Oroco didn't even connect an axe swing, and got kicked into the water. Xavin went full Fantastic Four and attacked Agger with a Thing/Mr. Fantastic/Human Torch combo (her favorite), as she slammed Agger with giant flaming rock fists, and slammed into him as a giant flaming boulder! Agger responded with some real haymakers, but her elastic body absorbed most of the impact, and she was able to hold him off while me and the others came back around. Hulkling was dazed, but not out, and I set him down to rest; putting a Sea Force protective barrier over him. Afterwards, I tapped into Thunder God, and made my presence known via slamming Agger with several dozen punches that rocked the entire bay! Namor, Rogue, and I kept up the heat, as we slammed Mogul Minotaur from multiple directions with flying punches. Xavin and Namorita occasionally jumped in to add some punches into the mix, but mostly stuck with ranged attacks. Xavin launched Fire Bolts (compressed fire bombs inside force field pods), while Namorita busted out a Sea Force rifle, and sniped Agger with blasts that could trash tanks! My man didn't stand a chance, as we kept changing up out attack patterns, kept him from gaining any kind of momentum, and unbeknownst to him, I had Olymium siphoners, only about the sizes of apples, peppering the entire bay! The longer we fought, the weaker he got, until we were damn near playing ping pong with his ass! Hell, Oroco wasn't bout to miss out on his licks, as he exploded outta the water with an explosive uppercut, and smacked Agger so hard in the chest with his hammer, I could hear ribs crack! Mogul Minotaur landed halfway across the bay, and crumpled in a heap of fur. I was worried Oroco might've killed him (we needed him alive for publicity purposes), but Agger coughed, grunted, and rose to his hoofs. He snarled at us, before bellowing loudly, and started to glow bright with Apollo Fire! I was worried he was either healing himself, or prepping to blow this entire base to hell, and try to take us with him, but I woulda preferred those options to the one we got. That being Agger let off a minor explosive wave, and teleported away!

"DAMN!" I punched the ground.

"Do not worry," Namor brushed it off. "He has no resources, no allies, and nowhere to go."

"Yet he's gone somewhere. Hell, I just had Z.O.R.D.O.N. do a scan of the entire planet. He couldn't find Agger's energy signature."

Namor seemed to consider this, before the base ruptured again. We could hear the entire structure starting to collapse in on itself!

"Gentleman," Xavin said as she rescued Hulkling. "Perhaps a better time to discuss such matters would be AFTER vacating the premises?"

Namor and I had a short laugh, before everyone huddled up, and we teleported back to our warships.

The other attacks on the various Roxxon bases also went off without a hitch. I relaxed as me and the team headed back to Atlantis, but tensed up a bit when my morpher bleeped with a request from Allyson for me and Grant to join a chat.

"Hello?" I answered; trying not to sound worried.

"Relax, Bolt Boy," Allyson laughed. "Everything's good here."

"Same."

"All Gucci," Grant said. "Tho can't say the same for Colossus. Ima need you to give him a new set of legs, Sunbird.

We traded stories about our missions. Omega Sentinel still having Nightmare Sentinels worried me. No way Grant destroyed her. Her programming had to have transferred to another body, which meant we still had that to deal with. Between her and Agger, I was getting a little frustrated. Couldn't seem to get any clean wins with these guys. There was always a caveat.

"Hey now," Allyson lightly chided me. "We rescued a lot of innocent people, took down a lot of bad guys, and nobody got hurt…...well, no, that's not true, but nothing that can't be fixed. I see nothing but wins here."

"Also I have a Celestial now!" Grant whooped. "Better watch out, Storm-Lord! I'm creepin' on ya!"

"Yeah, yeah," Allyson said. "Enjoy your Megazord battles or whatever, but let's get this wrapped up. We got much bigger fish to fry. Or did you forget?"

(Two hours later)

"DUDE!" I screamed at Grant as bullets whizzed past us. "GET TO COVER! WHERE'S OUR AIR SUPPORT?!"

"COMMUNICATIONS ARE JAMMED," he responded, as he scoped out the area for our enemies. "THEY USED A SCRAMBLER BACK AT THE MOUNTAINS! SIGNAL WON'T DISPERSE FOR ANOTHER FIVE MINUTES!"

Bullets started to chip away at the brick wall we were hiding behind. My scanners indicated we had about ten guys bearing down on us. Assuming we could pick a few of em' off, and outlast the five minute wait time, maybe we could pull this off. I prepared to lay down suppressing fire, while Grant sniped em' off (he was surprisingly good with sniper rifles), until I heard the sounds of bombers, that 100% were not ours ,enclosing on our location! Grant and I looked at each other, and bolted!

"WHERE'S THE SAFE ZONE?! WHERE'S THE SAFE ZONE?!" he screamed at me.

"NO TIME!" I shouted back. "GOTTA GET OUTTA RANGE NOW!"

We didn't even have the time to do that, and the incoming bombers scorched the field, and us with it. In other words, Allyson and Delilah kicked our asses in Strike Force again.

"Damn!" Grant swore. "What was that, five games?!"

"Seven," I facepalmed. "Seven in a row."

"And somehow it never gets old!" Allyson laughed, as she gave Delilah, her roommate, a high five.

"Hey now," Grant said, looking up at Delilah (we were sitting on the floor). "We were kinda close on that last one. So maybeeeee…?"

Delilah looked at him with a mix of amusement, disgust, and something that resembled pity. She was this Native American chick, wearing a red cashmere sweater, tight blue jeans tucked inside her ankle high boots, with her long black hair tied in a French braid. I honestly didn't know what to make of her. She and Allyson were besties, me and her tolerated each other, but she treated Grant like a bad case of fleas. The only thing I knew for sure about her was she was Mojave, had a perfect 4.0 GPA, and was going to Academy of Art University to major in fashion designing (she did make some bomb ass outfits). Other than that, she was a blank. She rarely talked, always had her face in a book (non-fiction….yuck), and pretty much only hung out with us due to general association. I dunno what Grant saw in her, but he was hooked like a mofo.

"Maybeeeeee," Delilah mocked him. "If you focused on the game, you'd actually get that kiss. Too bad that was your last chance."

"Ah, what?!" Grant threw his hands up. "You mean that's it?! You're just gonna leave it like this?! On these terms?! After everything we've been through, after all the good times we've shared, you're just gonna bail on me?"

"We worked together on one science project, Grant. I went to homecoming and prom with you out of boredom, and after that craziness last month, a movie date with you was almost, keyword ALMOST, a pleasant break. You're a good guy, which is more than I would have said about you at the beginning of the year, but for the 112th time, yes, I counted, I don't like you that way."

I could practically see Grant's spirit deflate, but it was momentary. He was definitely humbled, but he managed to keep his spirits up.

"Welp," he responded. "If it ain't happened by now, then it just ain't happening. Thanks for everything. I'm sorry you didn't feel the same way about our time together as I did, but for what it's worth, you're really cool. Smart, beautiful, regal almost. Plus, you helped me perfect my Shield Bash play. We wouldn't have won state without it. Hell, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have realized I liked to write. I'm gonna be an English major of all things when I go to Alabama State. I wish we had more time together. You're guarded, mysterious, and elusive, but also kind, disarming, and honest in a way that makes me feel like I don't gotta put on an image. You see right through me, and that's forced me to take a look at myself, see what works, what doesn't and self improve. Mostly. I'm used to getting what I want with no effort, and you were the much needed wrench in that machine. So whatever you think of me, I think you're amazing. I'll miss you, DMV."

DMV was an inside joke (that Delilah hated). Delilah's full name was Delilah Miriam Vallery, or DMV for short. Anytime Grant called Delilah that, you could damn near see the desire to sew his mouth shut without anesthetic. This time it wasn't there. Delilah almost looked…..happy. Grant said something to her…...and she looked like she appreciated it. The weirdness only doubled from there, as Delilah uncrossed her legs, turned herself upside down on the sofa, and after turning Grant's face to meet hers, gave him a kiss on the cheek! That might not sound like a big deal, but after a year of Delilah basically oozing 'I don't f*(# with you' vibes Grant's way, this was the equivalent of Agger suddenly becoming an environmentalist! Grant's eyes beamed as he blushed. He was now VERY interested in the replays of us losing our match against the girls.

"I want you to hold on to that," Delilah said plainly. "Let it soak into your very being, and permeate your DNA, because that is all you are getting."

"Fine by me," Grant shrugged. "This is the greatest day of my life!"

Three sets of eyes rolled at him, before my alarm went off.

"That's our cue," I said as I got up, and dusted my jersey off.

Oh yeah, in addition to Grant joining the Ravenwood football team (Molly too), Allyson joined the gymnastics team, and I joined the hockey team. All of us won state championships, I earned an Alternate Captain spot, and we all earned scholarships to our respective universities we got accepted to (more on that later). Now we had to go to a sports showcase to show off our skills, and determine whether we would be starters or benchwarmers come next season. I really liked my jersey. Basically a beat for beat version of the first Mighty Ducks jersey, but swap the green for purple, with black and gold stripes, and a raven in hockey gear on the chest, with RAVENS below it in big gold letters. I was proud of it. I also got to pick my number (96), and keep the jersey (going to a rich school had its upside)! Anyway, we packed up our stuff, and headed out to the tryouts.

Allyson was first. Me, Grant, and Delilah sat in the stands and watched her and 20 other girls do various intense ballet, twisting backflips, cartwheels, etc. They also did routines where they flipped, twisted, and jumped between bars. The competition was fierce, but Allyson had a bit of an edge, as gymnastics training was one of the basic training regiments required on the Elementals. Also, she trained with Spider-Man, Black Widow, and Captain America. Her routines got damn near perfect scores all around. She was a shoe in for the team.

Grant was next. We hightailed it to the football field, sat in the stands, and watched Grant throw footballs to receivers, do some plays, and execute some drills. Just like Allyson, the guy was a monster on the field. We couldn't know exactly how he was doing, as his performance was just being recorded to be analyzed by the coaches at Alabama State, but I wasn't worried for an instant.

I was last. After changing into my gear, me and the Ravens took to the ice. Our tryout was just one last game against the L.A. Bandits (Minor League Team). The goal wasn't to win, just for our respective scouts to see how we stacked up against pros, and how we handled ourselves under the pressure. Naturally, that meant me and the team took this as a challenge, and prepped ourselves accordingly. For the last month, Cameron (team Captain), Blanchard (other Alternate), and myself kept the team going with practice, studying our opponent's season, and adjusting our game plans accordingly. Not gonna lie, these guys were good. But like I said, I had no plans to lose. Especially not in front of packed stands.

First period was intense, but nothing game deciding. Cameron, Robins, Sheppard, Cullen, and Banks took the first half of the quarter, with a few change ups. After ten minutes of brutal checks, running the puck up and down the ice, and several shots on goal on both ends, it was still 0-0. I finally got in, along with Choi, Pugh, Hussain, and Hall. Not tryna brag, but it was a pretty significant difference when I stepped on the ice. My brain was constantly analyzing the situation, positions, and projected trajectory of the puck; allowing me to passively control the game by either setting up chances to score, or being in the right position to capitalize. For example, after five minutes of the usual back and forth, I got a goal in by driving the puck down the ice, and passing it to Banks, who tried to slapshot it in from the left. The trajectory of his shot, mixed with the way the goalie blocked it, ricocheted the puck to where I was waiting, barely a foot away from the goal, and I shot it in right between the goalie's legs! This strategy wasn't perfect tho, as the game was always moving, and opportunities could close and open on a dime. Hell, for all my analyzing and proactive measures, I couldn't control everything. As was such, the Bandits managed to get though our defense, and with a well placed slapshot, scored a goal in the last minute of the 1st period.

Second period was more of the same. I started this time, and immediately got us back in the lead via driving the puck down the ice, passing it back to Conway, and circling around the goal. Conway passed the puck to Anderson, who faked a slapshot, passed the puck to me, and I tossed it in the net stick side with a backhand shot! We held out 2-1 lead for most of the second period, but lost it at the 3 minute mark, when a straight up offensive blitz in our defensive zone eventually overwhelmed us (16 shots on goal has that effect), and the Bandits got one in. We managed to hold the line after that, tho we failed to capitalize on a Power Play (refs got one of the Bandits for Hooking), and went into the final period tied up.

Third period didn't start out in our favor. Our starting lineup lost a man three minutes in for Interference, and the Bandits capitalized IMMEDIATELY. As soon as they won the face off, numbers 12 and 98 on their team faked our goalie out with a quick set of passes that ended with a slapshot right into the net! Great play for sure, but now we were down 2-3. Five more minutes of play, and we managed to get back in the game with a great play from Fulton, Bassett, and Clemons. The Ravens drove the puck into the offensive zone, and after an intense blitz to get the puck in, Bassett and Clemons set Fulton up to get one hell of a slapshot into the net! Fulton for sure was one of our best players, as his slapshot was just as accurate as it was powerful. Dude had the best shots on goal to goals scored average of the entire state. The game stayed at a standstill for the next five minutes, until we got another change up. This time it was me, Cameron, Robins, Hall, and Avery. Me and the boys exploded, as we hammered the Bandits with a relentless offense, and proactive defense. I got a goal in at the 9 minute mark, as I managed to get out on a breakaway, and after luring the goalie into making the first move, shot it around him as he did the splits! 4-3 now. Two minutes later, we got another one in as I drove the puck halfway down the ice, and passed it to Avery. Avery was in danger of getting pinned down against the boards, so he shot the puck along the wall, until it landed in Cameron's stick on the other side of the net. Cameron faked out the goalie, pretending to set up a backhand shot to glove side, but passed the puck to Avery, who used the confusion of the jumble of bodies to set up the perfect sleeper shot! The goalie didn't even see the shot fly between his legs! 5-3. The game stalled after that. An intense back and forth, but we managed to hold the line there, and ran down the clock until the buzzer declared our victory! When I tell you the scouts from my school (University of California, Berkeley) basically tripped over themselves to offer me a position of Alternate on the team right away, I mean they may as well have been tryna stuff the contract down my throat! If they didn't have a pen and pad handy, they probably woulda had me sign it in blood! I was happy to see the rest of my teammates get the same treatment from their respective scouts, and after handling my business, headed back to the locker room. Me and the team had one last locker room bash, listened to the coach give us a motivational speech about the future, and after changing back into jeans, a white T-Shirt, and my Letterman's jacket, I met my friends outside the stadium.

"There he is!" Grant dapped me up. "Number 96, Jason 'Houdini' Fuller! Mr. Hat-Trick does it again!"

Yeah, halfway into the season, I earned the nickname 'Houdini', cuz I managed to pull off a Hat-Trick (scoring at least three goals in a game) every game in the season and playoffs. Hell, the scholarship was small peanuts in comparison to some of the offers I was getting from NHL teams to go pro right off the bat (I really struggled to not accept the Ducks' offer).

"A splendid job, my love," Allyson said as she gave me a kiss.

I was still wearing my power dampening bracelets (not worth playing if you're gonna cheat), which was good, cuz even after over a year, Allyson's kisses never got old. Hell, after everything we've been through, we learned to appreciate moments like these whenever we could get em'.

"You did good," Delilah shook my hand. "I suppose this calls for celebration? Sushi? Pizza? Shawarma?"

"All of the above," Grant said. "We can order in."

"I'm down," I said. "But I gotta dash. Last day of my Stark Internship. Meet you guys in few hours?"

"That's fine," Allyson said. "One last movie night at ten?"

We all agreed, and I went back to my dorm to set my gear down, before doing a Static Jump to a random alley in the city, and sprinting to New York. So yeah, we've been up to some stuff in the little bit of time y'all checked out. Maybe one day i'll go into detail about it, but for now, here's the cliffnotes.

The first nine months of The Elementals was pretty standard compared to what we would end up getting into. We were able to really focus on our goals, as we busted up drug cartels, stopped Olympium drug/weapons dealing, busted corrupt business, did a few space missions with the Nova Twins, stopped illegal alien experimentation cells, and helped out with a ton of social issues. Something we hoped to spread beyond just California. We were also able to locate and plug a majority of the dimension tears that resulted from the battle against Doom. We dealt with more than our fair share of Cthulhu beasts in the last year alone, we helped fund and maintain a bunch of centers up and down the west coast for homeless and drug rehabilitation. Oracle Inc. in particular, as part of a goodwill gesture to the surface (which took A LOT of convincing on Namor's end), was offering hundreds of thousands of jobs to people tryna get back on their feet. It was a pretty chill deal, but September 2015 brought a whole new set of problems.

Remember that Victorious chick that swore she'd get her revenge for me offing her god emperor? Yeah, she sure as hell did her damnedest to make good on that. Early September we were flooded with a bunch of new metahuman threats one after the other from all over the world. They didn't seem to be connected at first, other than the fact that Alex Wilder (old teammate of the Runaways, who betrayed them) was recruiting the strong ones, but things ramped up as we fought major battles in Washington State, California, Texas, North Dakota, Maine, Florida, Canada, and Mexico. All of these battles revolved around destroying dark magic crystals, each as big as a skyscraper, from destroying the respective population. The crystals produced new metas by the thousands, and we had to team up with the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and any magic users we could get just to maintain some semblance of control. We managed to take down all the crystals, but each time we were met with a mysterious hooded wraith that was strong enough to solo half the team, or Morgan Le Fey, who got over being dead. Also The Hand were involved, cuz when magic #! is goin' down, The Hand ALWAYS gotta be at the party. When the crystals were destroyed, they left a glowing glyph in the ground, about as big as a high school football field. Wiccan recognized them as the marks of Dormammu, Mephisto, Zom, Nightmare, Cyttorak, Chthon, Ikthalon, and Agathon. We weren't able to scrub the glyphs out of the ground, and that came back to bite us in the end. The glyphs in the various locations formed a circle we didn't pick up on until it was too late. With the spell seal complete, the glyphs produced flying crystal fortresses, each of which was powered with enough dark magic to wreck a continent! The good news was that Wiccan could now discern what the spell seal was for. The bad news was the spell seal was designed to power a central catalyst that would nuke the world in magical energy, and sacrifice the entire human race to the demons Doom owed his debt to! Victorious was tryna get her king back, and was willing to throw us to the wolves to do it! More so, that central catalyst turned out to be castle Doom, which teleported about 5,000 feet over Kansas. It was all hands on deck, as all available heroes scrambled to action. With the crystal fortresses now in full display, Wiccan could negate their magic at the roots, but he needed us to take the fortresses before he could implement his counter spells. We split up in teams of 10, accompanied by platoons of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and Atlantean battalions, and managed to fight our way into the various crystal fortresses. The main teams were as such to each demon powered crystal:

Dormammu:

Nico

America

Clea

Wolverine

Captain Marvel

Blue Marvel

Iron Man

Deadpool

Gambit

Iceman

Mephisto:

Wiccan

Wong

Thor

Cyclops

Storm

Black Bolt

Medusa

Crystal

Karnak

Gorgon

Zom:

Hulkling

Majesdia

Xavin

Victorion

Rogue

She-Hulk

A-Bomb

Red Hulk

Red She-Hulk

Beast

Nightmare:

Magik

Geo-Titan

Stature

Magneto

Luke Cage

Iron Fist

Daredevil

Jessica Jones

Spider-Man

Cyttorak:

Black Panther

Demetrion

Starlight

Starbright

Wonder Man

Nick Fury

X-23

Giant Man

Moon Knight

Psylocke

Chthon:

Scarlet Witch

Sunbird

Speed

The Blood Magic Twins

Quicksilver

Spider-Woman

Domino

Vision

Blade

Ikthalon:

Doctor Voodoo

Iron Torch

Princess Powerful

Hulk

Nightcrawler

Wasp

Beta Ray Bill

Captain Britain

Shang-Chi

Havok

Agathon:

Namor

Zero-G

Lightspeed

The Energizer

Mass Master

Mr. Fantastic

Invisible Woman

The Thing

Human Torch

Franklin Richards

While they handled that, I took my team of: Patriot, both Hawkeyes, Black Widow, Captain America, Colossus, Oroco, Namorita, and Photon to take on Victorious at castle Doom. Each team at the main crystal points had to take on a sizable portion of the power of the demon in question, not to mention some sort of champion/guardian of the crystal. Props to Nico, Billy, Grant, The Nova Twins, Allyson, and Power Pack for taking on Mordo, Blackheart, a resurrected Taskmaster (that mysterious wraith), a temporarily resurrected Juggernaut, Morgan Le Fey, and Alex/The Gibborim (six fingered Elder Gods) respectively. As for me, my team took on Victorious herself, who was powered by all the other demons, and also Doom's f*(#!% daughter! Daddy's girl was every bit as much of a pain in the ass as her father, as we beat each other to a bloody pulp (the rest of my teammates were preoccupied with the Doombot/demon armies). Ultimately, her plan came crashing down around her, as my friends took out the demon crystals, which gradually stripped her of most of her powers, and allowed me to take her out, and Castle Doom with her.

That was our second time saving the world, and this was that 'big break' we needed for The Elementals to establish ourselves as a legit team. It paid off, as our social media presence and merch sales shot up to where we were rivaling The Avengers, and sometimes even beating them! Oh, i'm stupid rich now, by the way. Like…..I could rent an island if I wanted to.

Anyway, there was no rest for us, as October brought another major challenge with it. Word on the street was that homeless kids were being lured into vampire cults to be turned. We investigated these claims, and found ourselves involved in a vampire civil war! Long story short, Dracula (yes, THAT Dracula) was tryna make a move at the big time. His plan was to use the remains of the demon crystal fragments (which we locked away in the Sanctum Sanctorum vaults), and a forbidden spell from the Darkhold (basically the grand encyclopedia of dark magic), to take over the world by turning all humans into mind controlled vampires. We had the crystals under lock and key, but the Darkhold was currently in the hands of…..well, The Hand (didn't mean to do that). That came later tho. For the first two weeks of October, we did our best to curtail the abduction of vulnerable teens, sex workers, and the homeless. We used our various social media accounts to let the public know (vampires are surprisingly on the low end of #! people freak out about), and went super hard on taking down human trafficking rings (Dracula wasn't picky about his army being volunteers or draftees). Things got wild when we were busting up a particularly big trafficking ring in Texas. At first it was just me and the team vs a horde of vampires. We held our own pretty well, as we developed a series of anti-vampire weapons (crucifix brass knuckles, stake guns, holy water blessed weapons, etc.), but the vampires kept comin', and we were starting to get overwhelmed. Things popped off even more when another squad of vampires joined the party! These guys were decked out in goddamn S.W.A.T. gear, with fire bombs, garlic gas canisters, stake shivs, holy water bullets, and swords that had crosses engraved along the flats of the blades! They were the real deal, as they started pickin' off enemy vampires left and right with speed, precision, and teamwork. Before The Elementals could effectively combine forces with the S.W.A.T. vampires (needed a quick placeholder name), the battle popped off again, as Hand ninjas busted onto the scene! The Hand ninjas attacked the S.W.A.T. vampires (us too), and unlike last time, the Hand ninjas were rockin' demon powered weapons and jutsus! Like, imagine going from fighting what amounted to Putty Patrol fodder, to Neji/Orochimaru/Kabuto level ninja! The S.W.A.T. vampires were barely holding their own, and even my team was havin' a rough go of it. The battle popped off for the last time when Blade, Moon Knight, Iron Fist, and both Ghost Riders popped onto the scene, and at that point the battle devolved into a goddamn free for all! We may as well have been in the Royal Rumble! The battle eventually burned itself out, as The Elementals and our de facto allies beat back the Hand/rival vampires enough to perform a quick rescue of the hundreds of victims they had holed up. With their operation fully useless now, our enemies made a hasty retreat. Likewise, Wiccan portaled us back to Elementals Mansion, where the S.W.A.T. vampires tended to their wounded, while my team, their leader, and the other hero team, traded notes.

First off, the vampire leader unmasked to reveal a pretty good looking Spanish dude, with his long black hair tied in a ponytail. His name was Cazimir Azzerad, and he was the head of the rebellion against Dracula's empire. As it turned out, vampires weren't all, or even mostly bad (tho Blade probably had words to say about that). They didn't usually go around turning anybody into one of their kind (apparently it was a very lengthy application process), but Dracula had recently put out the mandate to expand his army by any means necessary. Cazimir recognized how dangerous this was to the delicate socio-political balance in the vampire community, and with a splinter cell of European vampires houses (they really were on some Game Of Thrones #!), started a resistance. For the past few months, him and Dracula were going at it in a war of small, mostly unnoticed skirmishes, as well as trying to gain support from the other vampire houses worldwide. Too many to list, but there were fifty respective vampire houses in the United States and another fifty in South America. 50 more in Canada, 20 in Mexico, 20 in Europe, 100 across the entire Asian continent, 10 in Africa, and 30 in Australia. Dracula was in the lead, having support from 15 of the European houses (the other five were with Cazimir), and the entirety of the Asian houses. Of the ten houses that were in Africa, Cazimir managed to help 4 escape what was a slaughter in the first major battle in the vampire war. The other 3 were completely wiped out, and the remaining 3 were forced to bend the knee to Dracula. Cazimir got lucky breaks with Canada (good ol' Canada) and Australia (best accents), and added 80 more houses to his cause, but all of Mexico and South America were Dracula's. The United States was an even split, so both parties got an additional 25 houses. Overall, Cazimir had 109 houses (each house had about 2,000 vampires), while Dracula had 193. He also had thousands of Hand warriors, and even Hydra agents (something about the Black Sun prophecy that would ascend humanity to their true, divine forms…..or something). More so, the battle lines in the U.S. weren't exactly clear cut. The states that had Dracula supporting houses went as such:

1. North Dakota

2. West Virginia

3. Texas

4. Virginia

5. Vermont

6. North Carolina

7. Connecticut

8. Indiana

9. Washington

11. Mississippi

12. South Carolina

13. Tennessee

14. Kansas

15. Nevada

16. New Jersey

17. Ohio

18. Nebraska (Grant immediately called his folks and friends to warn em')

19. Georgia

20. Wyoming

21. Kansas

22. Arkansas

23. Florida

24. Minnesota

25. Michigan

Yeah. Cazimir was really behind the 8 ball on this one, but we weren't completely out of the game just yet. For one, A quick call to Namor and the X-Men factions (the east and west coast teams still weren't feelin' each other) gave us a few thousand more troops to work with. More so, Dracula couldn't make his big play without the demon crystals, and we took solace in the fact that the Sanctum Sanctorum had big time magical defenses. Still, the Sanctum in New York was just one of three. The two others were located in London and Hong Kong, deep into Dracula territory. Each Sanctum was connected to Kamar-Taj, basically the Hogwarts/HQ of the most powerful magicians in the world. So barring a full on assault on the New York Sanctum, Dracula would have to launch attacks on either the Hong Kong or New York Sanctums, fight his way though them, and the Kamar-Taj magicians to set foot into the New York one from the inside out. Since no attacks had happened so far, it was safe to assume they either didn't know we had the demon crystals stashed in Strange's home, or weren't brave enough to try and take em'. In either case, this was definitely a big deal. Blade wouldn't team up with vampires unless it was an emergency, both Ghost Riders were on edge from the dark principalities that were stirring in between the dimensions, waiting to be unleashed, Iron Fist was literally given this mission by the K'un Lun (think Olympus meets Mortal Kombat) Elders, and Moon Knight was given this mission by Khonshu…..the f*(#!% Egyptian moon god! So yeah, we were in for a fight.

We set up a meeting with our other allies, and after a bit of strategizing, determined the best course of action was to take a relentless offensive. Sure, we were outnumbered, but our only hope was to attack hard, fast, and often. Hack away at Dracula's numbers before the inevitable final battle, while keeping our bases well protected. After some maneuvering and coordination, we took the fight to Dracula in a big way via a full on assault against his U.S. vampire houses. Dracula's forces didn't stand a chance, as they swiftly found themselves besieged, isolated, and gradually picked off, until the few survivors had to flee to friendlier lands. We didn't let up on the assault, as Mexico and South America caught the smoke too! Again, it was a straight up slaughter, and we wrapped up easily. We freed thousands of captives, and had Emma use Cerebro to mine any useful info we could get (bad guys usually spill their plans around the seemingly doomed captives). Only thing we were able to gleam from them was the fact that Dracula did indeed know we had the demon crystal fragments stashed in the Sanctum Sanctorum, some bits and pieces about the Black Sun ritual, and something called the Montesi Formula. Cazimir winced at that last one, as it was a spell designed to obliterate all vampires, even Dracula himself. If he was tossin' that around, he was either desperate, or knew a way to use the spell to work for him exclusively. Either way, we all agreed it was best if we didn't give him the chance to use it, and started to plan for an assault on enemy territory.

We rightly assumed Dracula would try and pick off Australia, as we ended up fighting a decent sized battle around its perimeter. Namor had stationed Atlanteans there, as well as around Hawaii, so no way was Dracula thinking about trying anything like that again. Our next move was to take Africa. Dracula had replaced the fallen houses with his own soldiers, so we definitely had a full fight on our hands. Still, we took it just the same, as we assembled an army of mostly Atlanteans, with a few Canadian and American Vampire houses pitching in to help. Sunbird and Geo-Titan led the assault from the air, while Namor and I attacked from the sea. Once again, the vampires couldn't withstand our assault, but aside from the houses that were forced to bend the knee (who were more than happy to join our side), we didn't leave any alive. Now that we had a foothold on Dracula's doorstep, we started to roll out the big guns, as our allies at home were starting to gear up for the big one. Again, we set up an expansive defense network, as there were literally legions of Atlanteans on standby between Africa and the Americas. Also, I had a great expanse of cloud nymphs and Venti patrolling the air, on the lookout for any enemy vampires tryna make big moves undercover. For a few days, we planned a four way incursion on the Asian vampire houses. The plan was to attack from five sides. One legion would attack from the Pacific, another from the Arctic, a third from the Indian, the fourth as a big aerial assault, and the fifth being a Moloid attack coming from underground! Like always, fast, hard, and relentless was the name of the game. We wanted Dracula on the ropes before he even knew what was going on. Problem was old fang face was done with playing defense, and clapped back to getting his ass kicked so far in a big way! One night, October 18th, my cloud nymphs and Venti alerted me to the fact that a MASSIVE vampire army was hightailing it across the Atlantic! They had to have been going for the Sanctum Sanctorum, so we responded in kind; sending a quarter of every American Vampire house out on the counter attack. Every Elemental that could fly also joined the party, as we had ourselves a big sky brawl! The fight was a bit of a challenge, but nothing major. I started to wonder why Dracula would waste so many of his focus on a fool's errand, but the plan became clear enough when we started getting reports of vampire/Hydra hordes suddenly descending on our American strongholds, as well as an onslaught of Hand Ninja and vampires attacking the London and Hong Kong Sanctums! Dracula was really goin' for it! Even worse, he decided to attack our home when most of us weren't there! Jimmy radioed in an emergency backup request, as Hand Ninjas, vampires, and Hydra agents, led by The Hood and Black Widow (a sorceress, not Natasha) stormed Elementals Mansion, and proceeded to wreck shop. Jimmy, Victor, Kate, Speed, Moon Knight, Iron Fist, Blade, and both Ghost Riders managed to hold the line, and drive the attackers back, but that was pretty much the only real silver lining of the night. Sure, we held the aerial assault back, but again, that was the diversion. Dracula and Lilith (vampire sorceress) led the assaults on the London and Hong Kong Sanctums respectively. The magicians managed to hold the line against them too, but just barely, and at a high cost. Even worse, we were now reduced to half our vampire forces, and lost our foothold in Africa. Dracula also lost quite a chunk of his army, so it was by no means a total loss, but the fight had reverted back to anyone's game. Not a great position as far as i'm concerned.

We regrouped and consolidated around the north eastern American vampire strongholds, while leaving just enough in other locations to act as scouts. We also loaded up all the Sanctums with as many bodies as we could get. Still, Cazimir and I knew this defense couldn't last. We'd either lose the war of attrition, or have to sacrifice the demon crystal shards in favor of a desperate assault on Dracula's Asian forces. We shopped the idea around for two days, and got the biggest shock when we were invited by Dracula to a parley. His meeting place was at Stavanger, Norway. On the edge of his territory, but right on the coast to where it wouldn't be worth it to attack and draw the ire of 100,000 Atlanteans waiting to strike. We had a back and forth about if we should go, and if it was even worth it. We settled on the idea of me, Cazimir, Namor, Grant, and Allyson arriving with a small guard force to at least issue a single combat challenge, as no matter what terms Dracula offered, nothing would be worth handing over the demon crystal fragments. The parley itself went as expected. Dracula offered amnesty and an end to the conflict if we handed over the shards. We told him to get bent, and Cazimir issued a challenge of single combat, with me as his champion, winner takes all. Dracula tried to goad Cazimir into taking the challenge himself, but we all knew if we did this by Dracula's terms, he'd win. As was such, Dracula went with option three, and proceeded to f*(# us into the dirt!

While we were busy playing nice, Dracula actually did something productive, aka cheating like a motherf*(#%&. Black Widow was a thousand miles away, using the Darkhold to recite the Chthonian incantation of possession, while Lilith used the book's magic to take control of the wills the guardsmen in the Sanctums (she branded them in the initial battle to get past the magical defenses), and have them teleport in hordes of enemy combatants by the hundreds! The fight was over before we even realized what was happening, and Dracula was the cherry on top of this amazingly terrible day, as he suddenly let loose an explosive wave of dark magic, and proceeded to kick our asses, trash our Atlantean legions, and on his way out, kidnap Allyson!

We regrouped at the Sanctum Sanctorum after that, and did our best to figure out what the hell had just gone down. Wiccan was the only one who was able to put the puzzle together, as he finally figured out what the Black Sun spell actually did. Long story short, it was a spell that could only be powered by Chthon himself. It turned the sun into a black orb of darkness and evil (never woulda guessed that), that made vampires twice as powerful, and would gradually convert the world into their kind. The demon crystal shards were for extra power needed to keep the spell in line, and Allyson was what was called a 'sun totem'. They'd basically drain her powers and her life force as a sacrifice to turn the world into a hellscape. That mixed with the fact that Dracula had the power to bend people to his will, and the threat of the Montesi Formula at his fingertips, and you had a perfect empire of evil just waiting to explode to the surface. In either case, both spells took a lot of time and effort to cast. Dracula would no doubt consolidate his forces around himself for protection while doing the spell, and since the spell had to start at noon of the next day, we had enough time to mobilize. Downside was the fact that Dracula could be anywhere. We tried tracking Allyson through her suit, but I guess he was blocking the signal with magic. In either case, we called in The Avengers, X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D., Atlantis, Subterrania, and the remainder of Cazimir's forces. Wiccan, Hulkling, Magik, Wong, and Sister Grimm were on standby to teleport us to the first sign of world ending dark magic as soon as it popped up.

Elsewhere, Allyson was really going through it. Dracula had to fight her for a bit, but eventually managed to demorph her, and bind her with Black Hole chains, to a sacrificial altar! The more she fought, the more the chains drained her powers, so she was in it deep. Apparently they were on a secret island dedicated to Chthon, only able to be found by those that already knew where it was. Dracula didn't talk much at all to her, as he was too busy preparing the necessary conditions and defenses to perform the spell. Allyson held out hope that we would rescue her and stop this before it got too far. I wish we coulda. After almost a whole day, Dracula returned with a knife, and some European girl that was fighting, screaming, and crying the whole way. Allyson tried one last time to break loose of her bonds, but it was no good, as Dracula trapped her on a black hole disk. Allyson was helpless to watch as that poor girl was gutted, and had her blood drained into urns that fed the blood into the maze-like floor Allyson was lying on. Dracula then proceeded to cut her clothes off from the waist up, and literally carve the Black Sun symbol into her back! After that was done, he started the spell, which drained Allyson's powers at an alarming rate! The sudden spike of dark magic, followed by the sun turning a dark red/black gave away Dracula's position. We were on his gates in an instant! What followed next was a pretty epic battle. Me and the team fought for two hours against the seemingly endless horde of enemy vampires, demons, Hand ninjas, and Hydra agents. Not gonna lie, those f*(#%& were strong. Easily one of the toughest fights of my life, just to set foot on Chthon's island (which was kinda sorta in it's own dimension?). The island itself sent out waves of Chthon clones (who looked like a shadow version of a Balrog, with lobster arms extending across his back) to defend the main fortress. Again, though creatures, but our Eden Force powers/weapons helped us carve though them, and into the main temple. It seemed like the battle was goin' our way, but the vampires on our side suddenly started convulsing like crazy! Cazimir managed to gurgle out 'Montesi' and I immediately understood. Dracula was playing THAT card! Without the vampires, our forces were taking a bit of a pounding (Emma actually got bit by one of the enemy vampires), so me, The Elementals, Namor, Cyclops, and Namorita had to press through against Nobu (who was being possessed by The Beast), Black Widow, Red Skull in a Darkforce powered Iron Man suit (why does everyone have an Iron Man suit these days?), and Lilith! It literally took all of us to take on the four of them, and even when we beat them, Dracula came busting outta the room, possessed with a fraction of Chthon's power, and gave us one hell of a fight! In addition to his Darkforce powers, Dracula's sword was apparently imbued with a fraction of Infinity Stone energy, so we were REALLY in for it! I honestly lost track of how long we fought, but we only managed to win by me using my vibrating blade to shatter his sword, while Hulkling, Wiccan, and Geo-Titan attacked Dracula's chakra points, to force a separation of Chthon from Dracula long enough for Blade and Moon Knight to strike the final blow (apparently Dracula owed Moon Knight money), and destroy Dracula. He was like Morgan Le Fey, in the sense that he'd reconstitute at some point in the future, but that was the least of our worries, as this fight was far from over!

Chthon was a sore loser, and basically started a new game, as Allyson's solar energy was drained completely, and replaced by Darkforce! Chthon possessed her, and used her body to kick our asses! Seriously it took Grant being possessed by Gaea, Wiccan, Sister Grimm, and Magik going Djinni, the Nova Twins going Nova Prime, and all of our heavy hitters throwing everything we had at her, just to fight her to a standstill! It was no use tho, Chthon had access to all of Allyson's powers in dark form, and we got our teeth kicked in by Dark Super Sunbird, before realizing that Chthon could literally do this all day, as he was the Black Sun. That was the problem. If the Black Sun set, the spell would become permanent. Only way to take it out now was to expel Chthon outta her. We weren't even considering the permanent option. Not gonna happen. Still, we had to put a lid on Chthon's power level, and Wiccan was the man with the plan. He basically figured out how to make the Black Sun spell reverse itself, and while me and the rest of the team kept Chthon distracted, him, Sister Grimm, and Magik performed the counter spell. Chthon's energy suddenly started to drain from Allyson's body, but we weren't in the clear until every last ounce of him was outta my girlfriend, and he certainly wasn't gonna take that lying down. It took two hours, another appearance from the Djinni, Power Unicorn, every weapon in the Nova Twins' arsenal (Nova Prime timed out on em'), Moon Knight getting a full power up from Khonshu, Iron Fist using the full power of Shao-Lao (the dragon he killed to get the Iron Fist), both Ghost Riders unleashing their full powers (never underestimate those guys!), Power Unicorn, and Hulkling using the full might of Excelsior to keep the fight even. Me, Namor, and Namorita were forced to use the spells in the tome of Oceanus. Basically, it was a long ass series of spells that summoned the sword, crown, and trident of the sea Titan, and combined the spell casters into a giant water construct, imbued with his powers! The upside was we had the entire power of the sea, but absolutely had to perform a series of five spells back to back, or the power would overwhelm and consume us. Those five spells were:

1. Oceanus Storm (A Sea Force charged sky/sea storm that could literally destroy half the planet)

2. Titan Wave (a series of tidal waves converging on one point around our target)

3. Oceanid Onslaught (summoning the spirits of Oceanus' 41 kids to beat the #! outta the target for five minutes)

4. Horn of Dagon: (summoned the Elder God, Dagon and his army of Deep Ones to our aid)

5. Oceanus Roar (that blast Namor used in the battle against Doom to banish Shuma-Gorath)

We took it to Chthon hard, tho he fought somethin' fierce, and just barely managed to hold off our attacks. Me, Namor, and Namorita were completely spent, but our distraction gave Wiccan and Grant the time they needed to prep the final blow. Gaea apparently had magic shields that kept Chthon from waltzing into our dimension whenever he wanted, thus why he needed to be summoned. With a little reconfiguring, Wiccan made that magic collapse into itself as waves of Geo-Force, big enough to engulf the entire world, using Grant as the focal point. Grant basically bear hugged Allyson as the waves continued to bombard them, and when he absorbed all of the magic into himself, laid one last blow into Allyson that released all that energy, and restored the magic barriers in one move. Chthon was holding on by a thread, which was swiftly cut as Wiccan, Magik, Sister Grimm, and Hulkling did a banishing spell that sent him back to his dimension.

The day was saved, but Allyson wasn't doin' so good. With no solar energy left in her body, and Chthon really doing a number on her soul, she was fading fast. I was still out of it, so thankfully Wiccan (my man always pulled through for me) got on the job. He used his magic to summon another Seven Suns of Cinnabus stone, and locked it onto Allyson's palm. Only thing left to do was get her enough solar energy to restore her life force. The Nova Twins were on that, as they literally flew her into the sun, and let her charge up inside the core! 20 minutes later, I was greeted with my smiling, non-demon possessed girlfriend. We hugged, cried, kissed, and professed our love for each other at the same time. That honestly made everything worth it.

In the aftermath, Cazimir was named the Lord of all Vampires, and dedicated him and his forces to our causes if we ever needed him. He was happy that the war was over, but now had to deal with replenishing the vampire population, aka pushing through a lot of applications. The girl that was sacrificed in the summoning ritual was the first of many that were gonna be turned (hey, it was better than being dead). The S.H.I.E.L.D. medics/magicians were able to stop Emma from going full vampire, but she was turned enough to where she got enhanced speed and strength, could fly, had heightened senses, fangs (that was hot), and was more susceptible to sunburns. Again, can't win em' all, but this coulda been a whole lot worse. On the bright side, Cyclops was gonna have a vampire for a wife (they tied the knot in November).

The next five months returned to our usual routine (tho Jimmy was goin' all in on learning magic). A nice break for sure, but things picked up again in March.

The five month interval was filled with a whole bunch of political/construction work to rebuild New Genosha. Allyson was the lead of that project, and was forged in the fire of endless U.N. sessions, rallies, debates, etc. Finally, in February, the U.N. recognized New Genosha as a sovereign nation, and with the help of Atlantis, Wakanda, Stark Industries, and Subterranea, the island nation was rebuilt, bustling with humans and mutants wanting a chance at a better life. Naturally, this didn't sit well with the Purifiers, U-Men, Church/Friends of Humanity, Sapien League, and The Right, who launched an all out war on Mutant kind, led under the resurrected William Stryker (mutant hating televangelist). The Elementals, X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D., and The Avengers all had their hands full with weeks of rescue missions, defending New Genosha, and going after enemy bases whenever we could find them. It was a pretty uphill battle, as the bad guys were really good at covering their tracks, and the attacks ramped up in scale and tech with every attack. First we'd get Olympium weapons, then souped up Sentinels, until we got hit with Nightmare Sentinels. The Nightmare Sentinels were the moment we realized the bad guys were getting future assistance, and we narrowed it down to Bastion. As the attacks and rescue missions got more frequent, me and Allyson kinda developed a bit of a wedge in our relationship. She was all about the peace and love bull#!, and being an inspiration to the people, while I was more about attacking and putting down our enemies for good. We exchanged a lotta harsh words between each other, as Allyson sided more with Wolverine's X-Men, while I was firmly in camp Cyclops. Thank God for Emma (who actually made decent money being a shrink), as she gradually brought us to a few sit downs over the months to bring us back from the edge.

Anyway, we got a lucky break (kinda) when we figured out mutant kids were being kidnapped and carted off to some kinda prison that we couldn't find no matter what. Grant volunteered to get captured and taken, and found himself in a mutant concentration camp in the middle of the sea, that managed to be undetectable by staying two seconds ahead of the present (time travel rules are a bit out there). I didn't envy him, as he was subject to a week of torture, and gladiator combat against other mutants, until we were able too finally ping his location, and create a temporal device that would catch us up to his time, and descend on that prison with the wrath of God! One destroyed prison later, and we finally had an edge over the bad guys, as we downloaded all of their intel. The next few days were a scramble to bust the hundreds of anti-mutant strongholds all over the world, rescue captives, and pick up on more of Bastion's end goal as much as we could. We were hitting dead ends left and right, and honestly woulda been caught with our pants around our ankles if it wasn't for Nick Fury, from 20 years in the future, literally teleporting into one of his safehouses in a surge of energy that alerted us to his presence. The old man was already dead before we got to him, but had a futuristic hard drive tucked into his coat. We had Mr. Fantastic decode the encryption, while we continued to hold the anti-mutant threats at bay (also gave old Fury a nice funeral). The info Dr. Richards was able to get from said drive was literally the difference between winning and losing a war we weren't even able to fully comprehend! Bastion was up to some real time shenanigans, as he was setting up Master Molds in the past, present, and future. Time travel is apparently even weirder, as when you go back to the past, you don't 'change' the future, rather than create a new world where events diverge from the original timeline. In essence this made time traveling useless, but Bastion was setting up avatars in each era to stabilize our timeline into one continuous loop, effectively setting us up for one big domino effect. Bastion's plan was to set up the master molds inside these Technodrome Cathedrals (think a death fortress that assembled/reassembled itself as needed) that would produce a potential infinite amount of Sentinels, but were also programmed to emit a version of the Legacy Virus (basically Mutant HIV) that attacked the X-Gene on a cellular level. The three Technodrome Cathedrals would be placed in the present, and 5,000 years in the past and future to cast the widest range of effect, and ensure the X-Gene, and the potential for it to be reborn, was utterly snuffed out. More than that, Bastion was more than just himself, as he was currently (and for like the last year) going all through the multiverse, absorbing Nimrods and Master Molds into his system, and merging that tech with Stryker to become the Alpha-Omega Centurion (badass name). Based on the fact that 20 years from now was an utter wasteland, it was safe to say we got our asses whupped somethin' fierce. We weren't keen on messin' up the redo.

While we continued to take out anti-mutant threats, we had every hero, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on the job. Me and the brainiacs did some experimentation with time, Bastion's source code, and The Ultimate Nullifier. On the time travel front, we figured out how to take Alpha-Omega Centurion's time field and use it against him. Basically, we figured out how he managed to lock in a part of the space time continuum, blow it up, and reform it as an ever expanding rubber band more or less, that would snap back once it reached max length, and release a temporal wave that would wipe Bastion, Nimrod, and Master Mold from the entire timeline! In order to do that, we'd need a mix of tachyon/kinetic energy moving insanely fast throughout the loop to ensure maximum effect. The decision was unanimous before the idea was fully formed. Me, Quicksilver, and Speed were goin' on a race through time! As for how we'd ensure the the temporal snapback only affected Alpha-Omega Centurion, I worked with Mr. Fantastic, Victor, Blue Marvel, Vision, Amadeus Cho, Beast, and Agent Kennedy to develop a virus for Bastion, dubbed the Alpha-Omega virus, that would underline his programming with what was basically a temporal GPS that would lock onto Alpha-Omega Centurion's forces, and wipe them out when the charge snapped back. Also, to make sure we actually stood a chance against the Sentinel horde, in addition to the anti-mutant factions gearing up to storm the world, we reverse engineered enough of the Ultimate Nullifier to create God Particle weapons, which essentially just nullified the Higgs field around an object, thus rendering matter incapable of existing. Yeah, in addition to the Technodrome Cathedrals being a Sentinel creating fortress, the devices were imbued with the ability to scan and detect mutant and Inhuman genes. The anti-mutant chuds were too bloodthirsty to just wait for time to finish the job, and they wanted a piece of the action. The Inhumans took that personally, and after moving their city to Mars to keep their citizens safe (I respect the effort), Black Bolt teleported to Earth with several battalions of Inhumans ready to kick some ass. As for how we'd divvy up the heroes on Operation Time Force (me and Grant actually spammed Fury's email requesting that name), we all agreed that since Alpha-Omega Centurion would personally set up shop in the present, we'd leave the majority of heroes here, with the entirety of the Atlantis and Moloid armies to aid them. The S.H.I.E.L.D. forces would be split in three, and would be accompanied by teams of 20 heavy hitters in the past and present. The teams went as such:

Past:

1. Mr. Fantastic

2. Human Torch

3. The Thing

4. Invisible Woman

5. Hulk

6. Hulkling

7. Stature

8. Demetrion

9. Thor

10. Iron Torch

11. Iron Man

12. Rogue

13. Xavin

14. Beast

15. Gambit

16. Scarlet Witch

17. Hawkeye

18. Hawkeye

19. Majesdia

20. Deadpool

Future:

1. Geo-Titan

2. Iceman

3. Storm

4. Cable

5. Bishop

6. Captain Marvel

7. Blue Marvel

8. Photon

9. America

10. Princess Powerful

11. Victorion

12. Zero-G

13. Mass Master

14. Lightspeed

15. Energizer

16. Black Bolt

17. Karnak

18. Crystal

19. Wonder Man

20. Wolverine

As the time drew closer, it seemed like everyone was mending. The X-Men factions were starting to squash their beef, me and Allyson were less hostile at couples therapy (it was totally couples therapy), and every night was movie night at Elementals Mansion. Finally, on April 29th, the big day came. I called my mom to let her know what was up, told her I loved her, and she told me to stop talking to her as if this was the last time we'd speak. I'll always hand it to her for that. Her faith in me and my friends was unshakable. I gave a rousing speech to my team, said some genuine heartfelt stuff to Allyson, gave Grant a hug, and proceeded to the Triskelion with Quicksilver and Speed. The attack was set to start at 9:05 A.M EST. at that second, the three of us had to enter the timestream via a tachyon Time Ramp me and the brainiacs helped develop. Literally 1,000 miles relative to what that would add up to in the Microverse, the Time Ramp would build up tachyon energy around our Quantum suits, and violently launch us into the timestream, where we'd be running for hours tryna build up that snapback. The past and future teams would be time traveling much simpler routes, as Thor could use Mjolnir to time travel (God I wish I was worthy of that thing), and the future team would piggyback off of the future Technodrome Cathedral's signature, and zap to the future. Finally, the clock struck 05, and the battle kicked into high gear!

Me, Quicksilver, and Speed zoomed into the timestream, breaking Alpha-Omega Sentinel's time loop, and ran as fast as we could, making that expanding time band. The bad guys knew what we were up to, and we'd frequently get unwanted running companions in the form of Nightmare Sentinels. Thankfully, we were prepared for this possibility, and fitted our suits with God Particle wrist blasters, Power Gauntlets, Halo swords, mini rockets, and shields. We had to bob and weave for our lives, and watch out for attacks from all angels, but we managed to stick together, watch out for each other, and continue to build the temporal loop.

The past team landed in ancient Egypt, and not to degenerate their efforts, as everyone was hauling ass against the Sentinel horde, but they got a damn lucky break, as Apocalypse (one of the first and most powerful mutants), and The f*(#!& Eternals (god-like experiments, created by the Celestials) got in on the action! Apocalypse was all in on testing whether or not he deserved to survive against this threat, and the Eternals were bound to protect the Celestial's experiments, so everyone was on the same page. Together, they fought their way to the heart of the Technodrome Cathedral, where Mr. Fantastic programmed the Alpha-Omega Virus, while Thor, The Eternals, and Apocalypse fought against Cassandra Nova (Professor X's evil twin sister), who was now a cyborg, and completely bonded to Bastion's programming. She was already a tough cookie, but this fight turned real ugly real fast, as Nova had the ability to duplicate and create artificial bodies for the DNA she collected. So imagine having to deal with adapting Sentinels, and an army of god clones! A tough fight for sure, but my friends and the other heroes managed to pull through, and outlast Nova enough for the virus to screw with her programming, and destroy her body. They still had to hold off the endless waves of Sentinels, but after the literal god clones, the adapting Sentinels were cake.

The future team landed in post apocalyptic San Francisco. The good news was that they weren't immediately under attack from an army of Sentinels. Bad news was that the Technodrome Cathedral was in L.A.! The fortress must've caught onto their attempted incursion, and sent them off course. I feel like that was the answer, cuz as soon as they landed, a loud ass alarm blared, and hundreds upon hundreds of Nightmare Sentinel carriers started flooding to their locations, and released legions of the suckers. I was as worried as I could be for them, but not really. I knew the future Technodrome Cathedral would probably be one of the hardest fights of the whole operation, which is why I stacked the team up with nothin' but heavy hitters. Also, with no civilian population to worry about, none of em' had to hold anything back! We're talkin' Grant crushing battalions with entire cities, Storm bringing down the wrath of God, Black Bolt reciting Shakespeare at his enemy's (to be or not to be indeed), Iceman creating an entire army of ice giants to take out carriers, Blue Marvel, Princess Powerful, Ms. America, and Photon being straight up unstoppable, and Power Unicorn slicing through entire Sentinels with their sword! It was definitely a hard fight across 382 miles, but the team managed to pull through, and fight their way into the Technodrome Cathedral. Omega Sentinel was the guardian of this one, and while she was no Cassandra Nova, she gave Grant, America, Molly, Photon, and Captain Marvel a good run for their money, while Vic uploaded the Alpha-Omega Virus into the Technodrome Cathedral. Omega Sentinel couldn't keep up with the sheer power, and was subsequently grounded into robot bits (for the time being). Once again, the future team was left guarding the Technodrome Cathedral until the snapback was charged up. Based on the way they described it, it wasn't anything more than a training exercise. More than what I could say for the heroes in the present.

Alpha-Omega Sentinel set up shop right above right above Genosha, and released the Sentinel hordes on the island. Not only that, but they guy had 30 Master Molds orbiting the globe, that were sprouting Nightmare Sentinels, Nimrods, Wild Sentinels, Tri-Sentinels, Stealth Sentinels, Sentinel Hounds, Mark ISO Sentinels, Exonims, Neo Sentinels, and Sentinexs. I didn't realize that many Sentinel variations were possible, but Bastion was a busy boy, and unleashed em' all on the earth with orders to take out anything mutant, Inhuman, and for good measure, anyone with the potential to produce genes that could lead to future mutants/Inhumans. In short, Alpha-Omega Sentinel was targeting at least 70% of the human race!

I didn't envy the heroes, as they had a huge fight on their hands! God Particle weapons or not, the Sentinels outnumbered, and in certain cases, outgunned them. Still, the heroes, S.H.I.E.L.D. forces, Atlantean armies, and Moloid armies, stood strong enough to hold the line, and keep as many civilians as they could safe. It was hard to decide who got MVP, as everyone put in more than their fair share of keeping the world safe. The Nova Twins unleashed all their drones, to help with the defense effort, as they went Nova Prime, and attacked the Master Molds by themselves. Out of the 30 Master Molds, Nova Prime was only able to take out 10 before they timed out. Keep in mind, these Master Molds were the sizes of moons. And to their credit, they were smart about it. After destroying five on raw power, they realized this was a lost cause, and took a more tactful approach. Basically, Nova Prime was able to infect, and override the programming of five Master Molds, before converting them into Nova Prime weapons (slick black/gold paint job and everything). They took out one more Master Molds by summoning the Dreadnought Orion to completely blow it off the face of the universe, and with their expanding Nova Sentinel army (I love it when bad guys have their #! thrown back at them), they continued taking down the remaining Master Molds.

While that was goin' on, Allyson was puttin' in big time work. She went Sun Goddess, and stretched her powers for all they were worth, as she cast a spell on six of her animal spirits to multiply them to 100 each, as extensions of her will. Yeah, she mentally piloted 500 constructs all over the world, helping fill in defense gaps, protect civilians from collateral, and rescue wounded comrades. While doing all that, Allyson, Wiccan, Sister Grimm, Magik, Cyclops, Wolverine, Namor, Vision, Magneto, and Emma Frost all assaulted the Technodrome Cathedral together. Before you count Emma out, keep in mind her new vampire powers. Also, she was one of the mutants that got kidnapped by the U-Men, and experimented on (Cyclops literally cut the dude that did that to her in two). Whatever they did to her, it took her secondary mutation, her diamond form, and expanded it to where she could now construct diamond armor, and weapons around herself. She did the work to get into a good enough fighting shape to be an active combatant in missions, so give the lady her due. Anyway, the team fought their way into the heart of the Technodrome Cathedral, where Stryker was waiting for them. He started quoting scripture at em' as they attacked, and it was honestly kinda embarrassing how at first he wasn't really fighting, so much as swatting the attacks away. His armor was always adapting and shifting to the environment to where he was damn near invincible for a little bit, until Vision managed to infect the Technodrome Cathedral with a specialized version of the Alpha-Omega Virus. Instead of just corrupting the programming, Vision's systems were gradually taking control of Styker's fortress, and the old geezer was finally startin' to have a bad day! Allyson and the team took it to him with everything they had, as the guy was still more than enough of a powerhouse to take em' all on, but he was fighting a losing battle, as me, Quicksilver, and Speed finally managed to set up the snapback, and let it rip!

This was supposed to be the part where we won the day, had a sappy reunion, and went out for Shawarma, but things didn't exactly tie themselves off that easy. Alpha-Omega Centurion was tuned in to our efforts, and at the last minute managed to reconfigure his Technodrome Cathedrals to harness/trap all the temporal energy we put into them! The guy was nothing if not adaptive, as he now had a new plan: overcharge the cathedrals, and release a time shock wave that would destroy the entire timeline! He was either thinking of remaking a new world in the 'perfect' image of God, or perhaps was such a spiteful bastard that he just wanted to nuke it all, and call it a day. Either way, when me, Quicksilver, and Speed landed on Time Ramp, we tuned into the situation, and I immediately started planning.

It was too late to disperse the temporal energy, but it still had to go somewhere. I had Z.O.R.D.O.N. run me a couple simulations, tweaked some designs here and there, and came up with a reconfigured Technodrome, kinda in the shape Thanos made the Galactron, that would absorb and condense the temporal energy from the past, present, and future Technodrome Cathedrals back into the timeline, and take Alpha-Omega Centurion and his goons with him, in what was essentially a temporal black hole. I had Vision implement the designs, while Sunbird and her team were tasked with keeping Stryker the hell away from it, while me, Quicksilver, and Speed made our way inside the dome, and started the running all over again! We really had to push it, as our reverse momentum generation would be the only thing that kept the black hole from falling apart. Elsewhere in the past and future, the two teams were still on Sentinel patrol. Nothing significant changed about their situations, other than the fact that the Technodrome Cathedrals were slowly starting to come apart, as them and the various Sentinels were starting to be absorbed into the time singularity.

Alpha-Omega Centurion was really not havin' a good time of it at all! Stryker was desperately raving about how it was his mission from God to exterminate the abominations that plagued his earth, and that his failure to do so in his first life was what caused him to go to Hell. Allyson and crew beat the #! outta him, and she countered with straight facts. That the only person to blame for Stryker's damnation was himself, that someone who was willing to use God's name in vain to commit so many atrocities had no place in Heaven. More so, God's will would prevail no matter what, and if Stryker was always on the losing side of his 'righteous' crusade, perhaps he really wasn't on the right side of this. A nice rebuttal, and unfortunately for Stryker, the last word of the debate, as me, Quicksilver, and Speed managed to reel in all the temporal energy, and suck everything of Stryker's (except for the Nova Twins' new gear) to be scattered to the winds of time! The only thing that remained were the Technodrome parts, which fell into the ocean. Me, Vision, and Vic would divide the tech between us later.

With the anti-mutant war just barely in our rear view mirror, now was the time to heal. The X-Men finally squashed their beef, and while still maintaining their respective east/west coast presences, agreed to be united again. Allyson delivered another rousing speech to the U.N., abhorring the violence and near destruction that was wrought at the hands of bigotry, hatred, and intolerance. With her support, and the governments of the world for once deciding to not be stubborn jackasses, some major changes were implemented. For starters, the Mutant Protection bill was passed, which made unprovoked attacks on mutants a federal crime, punishable of up to 20 years in prison, in addition to officially recognizing the anti-mutant hate groups as terrorists. More so, the data we collected from the prison Grant was locked in was now public info, with the gloves being off on taking out the trash. All over the world, politicians, police, teachers, pizza shop owners, and anyone who had a hand in contributing to the abduction, torture, and death of innocent mutants were getting rounded up and thrown in the slammer. Magneto and The Brotherhood were given pardons. The crown jewel of the bunch was the executive order, signed by President Boseman, called the Mutant Aid Bill. This bill would allocate govt. funds (with some generous donations from a whole bunch of companies that wanted to hop on the pro-mutant bandwagon), to open hundreds of schools across the United States, just like Professor X's. These boarding schools would serve as both public institutions of higher learning, and training grounds for mutants far and wide to learn to control their powers. I'm not sure if this was a perfect win, as we definitely would have more struggles in the future, but this was one hell of a moment to take in.

As for me and Allyson, we managed to mend our relationship. It was a slow process. First we had to truly reconcile our differences, keeping the fact that we loved each other at the center of all our conversations. We had a lotta talks with Emma and Scott, my mom, and her folks. We started to open up to each other slowly but steadily, until we were finally back where we were, following a date to Paris (overrated af).

Finally, and this was for Grant, the biggest thing we achieved was becoming full fledged members of the Avengers and the X-Men. Cap inducted all of The Elementals into The Avengers at Elementals Mansion, givin' us keycards and everything, while Cyclops inducted me, Grant, Allyson, Molly, Wiccan, and Speed into the X-Men, and officially offered us jobs as assistant teachers at the various X-Academies. We accepted all the above! Speaking of which, we updated our suits to reflect our new position. Beforehand, our battlesuits had the Elementals E on the right shoulder, with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the other. Below the E was now the X-Men's X, with the Avengers' A below the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo.

So yeah, that's what ya missed. Oh, one last thing. Emma and Scott had a kid now! Yeah, April 12th, 2016, Nathan Christopher Charles Summers was officially the newest member of the X-Family (this was before Emma got kidnapped and experimented on). The other Cable was from a different future timeline, so it didn't count…..or something. So yeah, happy days all around.

Back to the present, I zoomed into the lobby of Stark Industries, and went over to a special elevator. I swiped my key card, took the elevator to the bottom floor, went to the third door on my right, and entered my personal lab. Yeah, as part of my resume to get into MIT for my Masters in engineering, Tony took me on as an apprentice for the last year. I did stuff like help him with new projects, solve equations he set up for me, build things he commissioned for me, and as a final project, repair the War Machine suit in my own image (nearly blew his head off the first time he sprung it on me). Over time, I built five custom Iron Man suits, each with a different gimmick, which helped pad my resume even more. Today was just putting the finishing touches on the Red Chimera, Battle Seraphim, Beast Warrior, and Lombuster suits. I was halfway into my groove when my phone buzzed. Mom was calling.

"Hey, ma," I answered her. "What's up?"

"Just wanted to check on ya, son," she responded. "How was everything? Beat the bad guys? Win your game?"

"You know it!"

I described my day to my mom, who encouraged me with a lotta 'good job', 'you go, boy', and 'that's my baby' compliments.

"So what's up for the summer?" she asked. 'You and Ally gonna do any-"

She started coughing. Like really bad coughing. Like, I was one second from rushing her to a hospital, she was coughing so bad.

"Mom?" I asked her as she calmed down. "You ok? Need anything?"

"I'm fine," she said as she gulped down some water. "I'm fine. Just caught a little cold. Been drinking a lotta tea to fight it. Nothin' to worry about."

"Oh. You wanna stay-"

"I know you not bout to suggest me missin' your graduation, Jason. I told you i'm fine. Nothin's gonna stop me from seeing my boy graduate! Get that thought outta your mind, son, i'm not hearing any of it."

I don't get how i'm the one that can make the sky thunder, but she's the one that puts the fear of the gods into my bones.

"Ok, mom," I said. "Just tryna look out for ya. But yeah, me and Allyson got a pretty sweet summer planned. We're doin' a big summer program on Genosha to hype up the new mutant schools. Basically a public dry run on what the institutions will have to offer. We also gotta jump through all the wheeling and dealing, construction contracts, and all that. Last two weeks of July, you, me, her, and her parents are all takin' a two week Disney World/Universal Studios vacation. We gon' hit every park and attraction. Already got the plan written up."

"Of course you do," mom laughed at me. "So when you pickin' me up for your graduation?"

"Tomorrow night. Billy's gonna open a portal from there to one of our guest rooms, so be ready by 8, ok?"

She started coughing again, tho shorter, and not as bad.

"Got it, baby. I'll bring enough caramel surprises for everyone! Alright, just wanted to check on ya. I love you, son. I'm proud of you. Don't work too hard, ok?"

"I won't. Almost done anyway. Got a movie night to get to."

"Same. Well, replace movie night with revival service."

"Revival. The dreaded weekend killer. Have fun. Love you, mom."

"Love you too. Bye. See ya soon."

She hung up, leaving me with my robots and K-Pop.

(Allyson's Perspective)

11:30 A.M. Eastern Eastern Standard Time, May 31st, 2016, Westbrook Assisted Living, Geneva, Alabama

"I got accepted to Stanford," I continued.

"Yes, Apollo," my grandmother mused. "I see the gods in shadow. I hear you, but why are you far away?"

"I'm gonna double major in Biology and Chemistry."

"There's a message for you, if you look up."

"Gonna be a lab assistant after that, while working on being a full doctor."

"Can I have the applesauce today, Sharron?"

"I wanna take another look into Extremis. Perfect the science, and make it easily available to amputees, cancer patients, and people with terminal brain diseases. Maybe my powers can play a part in it too. I was able to cure you…..for a while."

Grandma went silent for a little bit. When she grabbed my hand, I almost screamed! She looked at me, like, REALLY looked at me! I leaned in closer as she opened her mouth, desperate to hold on to anything she was gonna say.

"I don't like cereal," she uttered.

I slumped slightly in defeat, but continued to talk to my grandma about myself, my friends, what I wanted to do for the summer, and sang her a few songs from Hercules. I loved watching her peacefully lull whenever I sang to her. It was like a kitten nestling down for a nap. She looked so peaceful, so at ease. In case you're wondering, my mother abandoned grandma right after high school, and dumped her here in this nursing home. In my mom's VERY flimsy defense, she thought grandma was crazy. It is kinda far fetched to believe that your deadbeat dad was actually the sun god, Apollo. Still for 16 years, I was robbed of the chance to know and love my grandmother, and that wasn't ok. Now I was using every spare moment I had to try and make up for lost time. I was able to use my healing powers to restore her mind once, but only once. We had a great time, as I caught her up on my life story, affirmed the fact that she wasn't crazy, and showed her some of my powers. That was a great day, but it was only for a day. Her mind was too deteriorated for the fix to be permanent, and from then on I was dependent on luck of the draw. Sometimes there were good days where she and I had darn near perfect conversations. Other days it was harder for her to focus, so I had to keep her on track. Today was one of her bad days, where almost every sentence she said had nothing to do with what I said, or even the last thing she said. It wouldn't be so bad…...if we didn't have so few days left. I heard a knock on the door as I finished up 'Zero to Hero'. Sharron, a brunette nurse, walked in, and gestured for me to come out to see her.

"Brb, grandma," I kissed her on the cheek.

"Allyson," she breathed out just before I stepped out the door.

I looked back with fleeting anticipation, as the grandma's glassy stare said it all. Not today.

"You really do brighten up her days," Sharron told me. "She's gotten a lot better all year, and the elders really like it when you sing for them. You've really livened this place up."

"She's dying," I said, tryna fight back the tears. "She won't make it past the summer."

It was a fact. I knew it. A blessing and a curse from my granddad, the god of healing and medicine. I could sense what was wrong with a person. It's why I wanted to be a doctor. I could sense my grandma in the late stages of the Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. She's had it for the past year and a half, and there was nothing I could do to cure it. My powers could only cure brain diseases if said brain was healthy enough to sustain my treatment. Grandma was way past that. Still, I couldn't tell Sharron that. It might freak her out if I told her grandma would give out somewhere in mid to late June.

"You don't know that," Sharron gave me a hug. "Tabitha's a fighter, she can pull through."

I started crying. I couldn't help myself. It was just so f*(#!& unfair! What kind of daughter could just leave her mom to rot, miles away from anyone who cared about her?! If not for Apollo telling me the truth, my grandmother would have died alone, unloved, and God knows what mom was planning to do after that! Sharron darn near tackled me with a hug, and held me for a few minutes. I always liked Sharron. She was one of the few nurses here that actually cared about the elders.

"What's gonna happen when she goes?" I asked her as I pulled myself together.

"Cremation. Your mother was very clear on that, but only after she's allowed to see the body one last time."

Wow, so mom actually kinda cared.

"Can you shoot me a text when it happens?" I asked Sharron. "I need to be there, for grandma…...for my mom….I can't let her slide this under the rug."

"I promise," Sharron said. "But please, try not to be too hard on your mom. She comes to see your grandma on the 5th of every month. She even sings to her sometimes. I understand their relationship is complicated….perhaps more than even you know. This is gonna be hard on you both, and I don't envy you in the slightest. Work it out. Don't let your relationship crumble. You both love each other too much to let it be destroyed.

I wanted to respond, but before I could get anything out, my morpher blared a code red alert! This alarm was only for real emergencies! Like, Omega-level threats from another dimension emergencies!

"Gotta go!" I shouted as I dashed outta the nursing home, cut behind a nearby tree, morphed, and hightailed it to L.A. as fast as I could!