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?

4. Chapter 3: Graduation Gets Wrecked

Chapter 3: Graduation Gets Wrecked

Me and the team spent the next four hours on rescue patrol. The damage across the state was extensive, and the body count reached up to 412, but with our combined speed, Grant's earthbending, Stature's shrinking/growing tech, and Allyson's healing, we saved hundreds more wounded and trapped civilians. Hell, this was the perfect time to test out the Damage Control protocol. Basically, Oracle Inc. provided a whole bunch of construction firms access to what essentially amounted to worker nanites that could store an unlimited amount of raw material, and mold it as needed to construct or repair buildings. After the search and rescue was complete, the remote operators were given the green light to do their thing, with estimated time of statewide city repairs at just over a week. Oh yeah, we weren't automating. No working class joes losing their jobs on my watch. Thor lingered around to help Allyson deal with the press, while I cross referenced the identities of the dead with their closest relatives/spouses, and had Oracle Inc. set up an allotment to pay them 300,000 each. The total price tag was 123.6 million, but that's like chump change to a multi-billion dollar company, which we already were, thanks to that Roxxon 'acquisition' (thanks Agger). It didn't clear my conscience in any way. No amount of money can replace losing a loved one, but at least I could help the hundreds of families that would be goin' through that pain. The thought that there was some kid out there who was about to go through what I went through as a kid…..who had yet to get the memo that mom and dad were never comin' home…..I had to push that down. I couldn't allow myself to go to that place. Moving on, Thor took the Bifrost Express back to Asgard after everything was wrapped up, and The Elementals finally got to go home. Unfortunately, we still had to set up a night watch, as opportunists were always a factor after big battles, but Cazimir stepped up to the plate, and deployed several squads of vampires to help keep the looting under control, while me, Grant, and Allyson set up the Mansion's guest rooms for our parents. Maybe it was because I was kind of a masochist, but I kept the news blaring in my headphones for like an hour, listening to the J. Jonah Jameson Podcast, who was having a roundtable discussion with other commentators on the battle. Just take a listen to this 'fair and balanced' discussion.

JJJ: And now, listeners, we come to the main topic of the show. Thank you to Noobmaster69 for sending a 100 dollar hyperchat request that we cover it. The California Blackout as it's been dubbed by social media. An invasion of the once beautiful Golden State, by Dark Elves as i've been told, though it was in disarray LONG before these freaks showed up. With me are long time usuals, and fellow free thinkers, Gavin Tucker, Christine Everheart, Rhonda Striker, and Ben Jones. I'm gonna let them take the show, and keep you beautiful listeners in suspense as to what ol' Jonah Jameson thinks. Let's start with you, Gavin. What's your take on the matter?

Gavin: Well, thanks for bringing me on the show, John, it's always a pleasure. Sorry to say, but you're gonna regret letting me take the reins first, because i'm pretty sure i'm going to say just about everything you will. Ya know….people try to write off the Superhero Question. Does the presence of heroes actually cause more harm in the long run than if they were never around to begin with? In the case of The Elementals, the statistics are damning. California alone has experienced a whopping 300% increase in metahuman related crime. Keep in mind, this number was already considerable with the X-Men setting up shop in San Francisco a few years ago. Now we've been dealing with twice as many metahuman kids taking to the streets to terrorize our streets and neighborhoods, not to mention all the downright freaky nonsense that these….'heroes' have brought with them. Like you said, John, California was already a liberal hell hole even before all of this nonsense, but at least my concerns used to be limited to heroin addicts, homeless bums, and lunatic gender studies millennials. Now I gotta add creatures from the Black Lagoon to my list?! No thank you, sir. My movers can't get here soon enough. These damn kids are nothing but trouble, and they don't even have the common courtesy to clean after their own messes. Notice how they always need an Avenger to bail them out when shit really hits the fan.

JJJ: Strong words there from Gavin, folks. Certainly a good start to this little powwow, let's see how Christine responds.

Christine: Thank you, John. Yeah, surprise surprise, i'm going to plant my flag pretty much in the opposite camp. Anyone who knows me knows I always go hard on superheroes. I cut my teeth on reporting Tony Stark's career as both warmonger and as Iron Man. Arguably my finest moment was my coverage of the superhero Civil War, and the ramifications that followed. You'll recall I was very pro-registration during that time. My point being, I know when it's time to bring the hammer down, and ask the hard questions, but that also goes the other way. We can talk about the correlation between superheroes and the rise of meta-crime, Gavin, but it's extremely uncharitable, and in many ways outright slanderous to place every single shred of meta-related crime solely to The Elementals. If you look at history, when The West Coast Avengers disbanded, California became a hotbed for organized meta-crime. It was the worst kept secret in America. If you couldn't make it in New York, L.A. was the perfect place to set up a relatively modest, but just as lucrative crime business. Everyone knew about it, but nobody lifted a finger to help, save the occasional times things got too rowdy, and the Avengers or X-Men remembered to deal with the burgeoning crisis. Hell, the Runaways, when they were KIDS, did more for the city in the few years they were on their own than the other heroes did in a decade. Sure, The Elementals in some ways are still rough around the edges, and yes, they need an assist now and again, but all the good they've done SUBSTANTIALLY outweighs any baggage they've brought. In just the previous year, this entire state has seen a violent crime rate drop of 35%. The drop in drug related offenses is at a striking 56% drop, which is probably why you've seen less heroin addicts around your Northridge mansion, Gavin. Homelessness, a good portion of which was teens and young adults, have been going down so fast, I can't even get an accurate number. Tent cities are practically disappearing overnight due to the rising migration to New Genosha, as well as The Elementals using their acquired wealth to purchase and renovate one half of the 1.2 million empty households in the state, shelter these people, and provide rehabilitation and economic opportunities to get themselves sufficient again. And don't get me started on how they revolutionized the Damage Control corporation, and their partnership with Oracle Inc. to compensate the families of victims lost in these incidents. I could go on all day, but I think you get the picture. The Elementals are exactly where heroism should be headed, and while it's always necessary to hold some bit of skepticism, it's really damn hard with these ones.

JJJ: Thank you, Christine for that very interesting, and at least well said take on the matter. We get a lot of calls, comments, and hyper-chats asking why you're even allowed on the show, given your political and social leanings, but I will never opt to censor anyone with differing opinions. You see, chat, unlike the ivory tower snots that'll cancel ya for stepping a toe out of the politically correct line, we over here at the J. Jonah Jameson Podcast welcome all thoughts and opinions, regardless of how wrong they are. More fuel for the fire I say. Speaking of which, Rhonda, you have the floor.

Rhonda: Thanks, John. I'm actually kind of a mix between Christine and Gavin. On one hand, it is irrefutable that there is a direct correlation between the rise of meta crime with superhero activity. That is pretty much agreed upon by everyone. However, as Christine pointed out, the solution is not to go in the opposite direction. The problem is here, it's not going away anytime soon, might as well have the heroes clean up after their mess. On the other hand, I STRONGLY oppose these costumed vigilantes, who already enjoy damn near complete autonomy and impunity, interfering in matters they have no business in. These impressionable, attention seeking kids want to punch Galactus in the face? Fine. It's what you're here for. Fulfill your purpose. Economic and political policy? No, dear. That's not your lane. Who told you it was ok to sit at the grown-ups table? Of course they're Socialists by the way. Our education system has been indoctrinating our youth with Communist dogma for years now, and the current generation have been eating it up, like hot cakes. Disgraceful. I'm sure their intentions are noble, but all they're teaching people to do is abandon what they have, and wait around for Big Brother to supply all their needs. We live in a meritocracy, Christine. If you can't make it, odds are you didn't try hard enough, or made a few too many mistakes down the line. You say there are no societal negatives to the Elementals, but I beg to differ. Yesterday, I saw a kid at my daughter's school wearing a 'Storm-Lord is my religion' T-Shirt. That sums up the problem in a nutshell. The Elementals are RADICALLY changing our culture. They're like a cancer, mutating what made this country the greatest nation on earth. Based on how in bed they are with our direct competitors, i'd wager they're out to change that as well. God forbid we actually put America first in anything these days.

Christine: Gonna have to push back a little on that one, Rhonda. First off, I assume you're referencing Wakanda, New Genosha, and Atlantis when it comes to our 'competitors', are you not? Sorry to say, but it's ludicrous to even put us in the same league as Wakanda. In matters of productivity, education, healthcare, life expectancy, etc., they're so far ahead, we can't even eat their dust. You see things like an economic safety net, free education, and free healthcare as affronts to our society, but the system we currently abide by IS the one where we're facing a crisis of housing, debt, crime, drug abuse, and the list goes on. We need radical solutions, radical changes, to deal with what's truly holding the country back. Keep in mind, everything The Elementals have done has been overwhelmingly 80% focused on American infrastructure, so I fail to see the problem on that count.

Ben: If I may jump in, I think I know why. See, so far, changes and programs implemented by The Elementals have been on their dime. All well and good. Their money, their choices. The problem is this is the start of a domino effect. How long before the mob comes for the rest of the wealthy, demanding they fork over their hard earned money to the 'working class'? How long before policies are implemented to solidify this construction of the Socialist utopia? Where does it end? Like Rhonda, my gripe is that these superpowered people are influencing our society in ways that are above their station. I can't help but wonder how different our nation would be if Captain America didn't go rogue, and the Registration Act was allowed to go through as intended.

Christine: The same Registration Act that allowed Norman Osborn to become the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., and implement a reign of terror, using said superpowered people as his cronies?

Gavin: Now wait a minute! Weren't you in favor of the Registration Act, Christine?

Christine: I was. I clearly made a mistake. Like most of America, I let my fear and desire for security override the obvious flaws in such an act, which led to people like Osborn exploiting it.

Ben: Osborn wouldn't have gotten control, if Tony Stark had done his job as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. with any semblance of professionalism and tact.

Christine: And the solution was to take power from a narcissistic show off, and hand it to an unstable megalomaniac?

JJJ: Everyone, please! While I love me a good debate, and the chat is going berserk with their own discourse, I think it's time I take the floor for a little while. Everyone here, even Christine, are addressing important elements of the problem, but are thus far only tackling the symptoms. The actual heart of the problem begins with none other than the menace that continues to plague my home, Spider-Man! Now, I can see the trolls in chat gearing up to give me a hard time, but listen and learn. See, back when superheroes were making their big boom into the culture, it was an overwhelming majority of responsible, reliable adults that already had a significant amount of life experience and maturity under their belts. Iron Man, the first Ant-Man, The Fantastic Four, etc. Then came Spider-Man. This punk kid, obviously looking to cash in on the trend, and making a mess of New York City with his reckless antics, lack of experience, and chip on his shoulder attitude. Spider-Man single handedly inspired a generation of youngsters with the absurd notion that they had any business doing what the adults did. It's no wonder why in the last ten years we've seen an explosion of young people taking to the streets, with delusions of grandeur in their hearts, and Marxist ideas in their heads. We know the vast majority of young folks are impressionable to liberal dogma, that teaches them everyone is racist, America is inherently evil, and that taking from those that have is the only solution to providing for those that do not. What we're seeing with The Elementals is simply the natural conclusion of tolerating Spider-Man for all these years, and coddling a generation of emotionally volatile, lazy, socia-

My headphones were yanked from my head before I could even process anyone within my personal space! I quickly turned around to see Allyson fiddling them in her hands, before putting em' on. It didn't take long for her to figure out what I was listening to, and to frown at me. I fought the urge to feel guilty in any way, and thankfully Allyson wasn't in a chastising mood, as she softly smiled at me as she folded my Beats, turning em' off, and pausing the stream.

"How'd you know?" I asked her.

"Storm clouds," she responded. " You interrupted Kate and America's sunbath. She was this close to busting out a sniper rifle. Only…..well, actually, a lot can get you ticked off to make storm clouds, but you're a bit predictable sometimes. Why do you do this to yourself, Bolt Boy?"

"Just listening to the media chatter. Good to know how you're doing in the public eye."

"And you chose discount Fox News as your outlet of choice? Come on, Jason. I get not wanting to affirm your own biases, but J. Jonah Jameson? You're torturing yourself unjustly."

I couldn't meet her eyes. I was so f*(#!^% frustrated with it all. The Dark Elves, the way I had failed to contain it, and Jameson ragging on me. It was like night and day. Yesterday, I went to bed on top of the world, now I felt like it was crushing me. Thankfully, Allyson wasn't one to let me wallow in self pity for too long. She took my hands in hers, pressed her forehead to mine, and just kinda vibed my feelings. It was one of the many things I loved about her. I didn't have to over explain (or even regularly explain) myself to her. She always seemed to know what my deal was, and how to help.

"This job," she said softly. "We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody."

"But if we can't find a way to live with that," I continued the Captain America quote. "Next time….maybe nobody gets saved."

"But you don't give up."

She kissed me, and I returned the favor. We held and kissed each other for a minute or so, and I felt much less angsty by the end (that tends to happen).

"Do you think we're doing good?" Allyson asked me.

"For sure," I responded. "This team's one of the best things that's ever happened to me, and we're making real change. I couldn't be prouder."

"Is there anything Jameson can say to make you stop what we're doing?"

"Hell no. I'm just getting into my stride."

"Then that's all that matters, Jason. I can't force you to tune out this drivel, but if you insist on beating yourself up this way, i'm gonna spam your morpher with posts, Tweets, Snaps, TikToks, and newscasts showing the positive impact we've been making on people's lives, other than just smashing bad guys. You like to rain on your own parade, but i'm gonna shine some light in there, and make a big freaking rainbow!"

I chuckled, hugged her, and gave her another kiss.

"I love you," I said.

"Love you, too," she responded, before pushing me onto the bed. "Now, seeing as we'll have to behave once our parents get here, let's not do that for….eh, we'll figure it out!"

She pressed her body to mine, and took my lips aggressively in hers, as we proceeded to misbehave with a passion!

An hour later, me, Grant, and Allyson were outside the mansion doors, waiting for our folks. We were all dressed in workout clothes, as they always wanted to do one thing when they got here. Sure enough, just as always, our parents came through Wiccan's portal dressed for battle (while also hauling overnight bags).

Mr. Grace was rocking a fresh fade, with his blond hair a little tousled/swept to the side. He was a fairly muscular dude, with a stubble beard you'd see someone like Chris Pine rocking. It looked like Allyson got her amber eyes from him, as they damn near seemed to glow in the evening light. He was wearing a Captain America muscle shirt, blue shorts, and black Reeboks.

Mrs. Grace…..yeah, Jesus Christ, she just looked like Megyn Kelly. It's wild how spot on it was. Hell, she even had a pushed back, messy/wavy pixie cut. She was also dressed for a workout, as she had on an all black getup of leggings, a crop top, and Nikes.

Mr. Jackson was…..really f*(#!^% cool. The guy was toned, but nowhere near as muscular as Grant or his wife. Still, he had a nice chiseled face, clean shaven, neat curly brown hair (definitely not like Grant in that instance), and sky blue eyes. He actually kinda reminded me of Riley from the National Treasure movies (underrated as hell). But that wasn't the cool part. The cool part was his workout gear, which consisted of burgonde camo pants, hunting boots, and a literal Star-Lord leather jacket, with Rocket, Gamora, Groot, and Drax pins on the left side! I promise there's context for this, but let's just say the guy had developed a significant appreciation for The Guardians of The Galaxy in the last few months.

Mrs. Jackson was a bit more downplayed in her choice of attire. She had a surprisingly soft and kind face for someone as built as her. Her long black hair, which had a few streaks of gray, was tied back under an American flag bandanna. She was dressed in faded jeans, and a plain white T-Shirt, under her black leather biking vest, with black leather fingerless gloves to match.

Finally, mom was dressed in Dashiki leggings, which clashed with her tye dye T-Shirt, and dark purple hair! She looked good. I didn't realize it until now, but she had lost a good bit of weight, and was getting some tone to her body. She smiled and waved to me, looking just like her usual peppy self, but I remembered that nasty cough over the phone. I had Z.O.R.D.O.N. do a quick scan of her, just to be safe, and suppressed a sigh of relief when the test results came back normal. Nothing to worry about.

Anyway, we quickly got our parents settled in, and got the party started as we made our way downstairs to the training room.

"Hey," Mr. Grace addressed me. "Don't listen to the snobs on the news. Y'all are doin' good work out here."

"Thank you, sir," I responded. "Don't intend to. Heck, with the way your shield throw is comin' along, you might-"

"Don't you dare say something mean about Eli!" Allyson stopped me dead in my tracks.

I shrugged my shoulders in faux innocence, as the elevator dropped us off in Sub-Basement: Level 3, aka The Crater (what we called the training room). The area was 15 acres of Steel bonded with Unstable Molecules, allowing us to change and mold it as needed. I had Z.O.R.D.O.N. set the area to the 'Parental Guidance' Protocol. The northern section of the training area shifted into a series of Wipeout style obstacle course, training dummies, and a mach battleground stocked with surprise traps, enemies, and even a final boss. To the east was a shooting range, stocked with moving targets, another battleground simulation focused solely on ranged combat, and a type of Beat Saber blaster course where you had to blast flying targets before they could reach you. To the south was an area dedicated to armed and unarmed combat of all kinds. The western area was a general cooldown area to take a breather.

We started at the armed/unarmed combat zone today. Mr. Grace and Mr. Jackson paired up (as always), and went straight to work. Mr. Grace had been teaching Mr. Jackson a sort of mix between Jiu Jitsu and Krav Maga for the last few months, and to his credit, Mr. Jackson was making steady progress. He and his wife were more used to brute force/environmental fighting, so actually working to refine their combat was a bit of a challenge for them. Still, Mr. Jackson put up a halfway decent fight, before catching a roundhouse to the side of his face (everyone wore pads, so it was all good), and smacking the floor! Mr. Jackson wasn't a quitter tho, and stood up just as soon as he got knocked down. Respect.

For the armed part of their sparring, the two went back and forth between Escrima sticks and Bo staffs. They switched roles between offensive and defensive, cuz the first time we just let em' run wild, they beat the $#!+ outta each other with no regard for any sort of defense. A few months of disciplined sparring made all the difference. They weren't gonna win any fights with Daredevil any time soon, but they could at least hold their own against a street thug or two.

Grant was working with his mom on kickboxing. Yeah, Mrs. Jackson was strong and quick, but had a hard time incorporating legs into her fighting style. Over the last few months, she was getting better at using arm and leg combos, as well as learning how to dodge, rather than just tank hits. Grant sparred with her for a little bit (we all had on our Mutant power dampeners), challenging her to last five minutes per round. Two outta five times she actually managed to do it, which was a new record. Their armed combat actually varied a lot on Mrs. Jackson's end. Like Mr. Grace and Mr. Jackson, she favored dual wielding, but was strong enough to go for the big girl weapons. Axes, broadswords, clubs, maces, hammers, the works. Again, not gonna win any duels with Blade in the near future, but I could see her kicking ass in a real Vikings style battle.

Allyson was helping her mom with her sword and shield skills. Like Mr. Jackson and Mr. Grace, the two went back and forth between offense and defense, but for opposite reasons. Mrs. Grace was actually REALLY good at defense. Whether it was blocking, dodging, or parrying, Grant, Allyson, and myself almost had to put real effort into hitting her. Her only problem was offense. She was decent at it, but was a bit apprehensive. The last few months of her training were us tryna break her outta that shell. It was slow work, but she was improving, as she actually developed a decent offensive rush that blended really well with her snap defensive reflexes.

I was helping my mom with her boxing skills. She was a bit too up there in age to attempt any of the super high performance fighting, but to her credit, she was still spry, and managed to keep up with the drills. Hell, she even hit me a few times, and I coulda sworn they almost hurt.

We took a ten minute cooldown period (we could teleport to each station as needed), and passed the time via talking about our vacation plans at the end of the summer. Me and Mr. Grace got into a friendly argument over whether Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom was better (the correct answer is Animal Kingdom), Grant was tryna talk my mom into finally getting over her fear of roller coasters (had to wait till I was tall enough to go on my first one), and Allyson, and her mom were guiding Mrs. Jackson through the Sorting Hat Quiz (Another one for Gryffindor!).

After the cooldown, we hit the obstacle courses. Mr. Grace and Mrs. Jackson chose to do em' all on their own, and managed to power their way through climbing walls, swings, nets, and shifting platforms with minimal wipeouts. Mom and Mr. Jackson did so with the assistance of propulsion boots to handle a slightly different course to account for their handicap. Mrs. Grace also tried it all on her own, but….yikes. Let's just say I coulda recorded her, make a wipeout compilation, and make bank off how viral that $#!+ woulda gone!

After catching our breaths (some of us simply from laughing too hard), we shifted to the training dummies for some controlled ranged combat practice. The key being only thrown projectiles were allowed. We color coated the dummies to be red and green as they popped up to highlight enemies and friendlies respectively. Mr. Grace's choice of weapon was a shield (surprise, surprise), and he went to work throwing the thing at the reds, getting off a few really good chain hits, and catching it when he managed to get the geometry just right. He was no Captain America, not yet, but he was pretty good. Mrs. Grace actually really shined in this one, as she put axes, knives, spears, and even shurikens through the heads/chests of her targets. No misses, no civilian hits. Guess some of that Apollo magic was in her after all, as this was her first time ever doing something like this. Mr. Jackson was pretty ok with spears, but nothing special. Mrs. Jackson was on par with Mrs. Grace, favoring tomahawk axes and hammers as her projectiles of choice. Mom's projectile of choice, and I shit you not, was a Tron Disk. Hey, it worked for her. Plus, she was also learning how to ricochet it, and rack up some decent combos (tho she did nail a few friendlies).

After a quick five minute break, we hit the first mach battle simulation. The objective was simply to get from one end to the other, fending off attackers as they came. We chose Chitauri fighters as our fodder of choice, and went to work.

Mr. Grace, Grant, and myself took point. Because Mr. Grace was using a shield, I stuck to using a sword, while Grant hacked away with his axe. We were on auto pilot, just kinda goin' through the motions. The real training was for Mr. Grace, who was actually doing pretty well. Again, he wasn't Captain America, but his punch, kick, and shield bash combos, in addition to his pretty decent level of gymnastics would make him a kick ass stunt double. Towards the rear, Allyson and Mrs. Jackson were the second line that basically cut down the majority of the attacks me and the forward team couldn't get to. Allyson switched back and forth between knives and swords, while Mrs. Jackson hacked and smashed her enemy's with an axe and a hammer. Finally, at the tail end, mom, Mr. Jackson, and Mrs. Grace were watching our six. They would cut down whatever got past the first two lines, but were mainly focused on fending off ambush attacks, and warning the forward teams of blindspot traps. Mrs. Grace defaulted into her usual defensive mode, but was able to make good use of openings she got to shank her opponents. Mr. Jackson had no chill at all! Dude went at it with some taser sticks, and beat the ever loving $#!+ outta any Chitauri that even got close to him! Mom was still rocking the repulsor gauntlets and boots, and was basically Jax, as she used technologically enhanced brute force to straight up break bones, stomp heads, and put holes in Chitauri fighters. Overall, the training exercise went off without a hitch, and we moved on to the final two warm-up exercises.

First was the shooting range. This one was actually pretty close, as Mrs. Grace, Mr. Jackson, and my mom were top tier shooters with their choices of gear. Mrs. Grace favored an energy crossbow, Mr. Jackson couldn't help himself, as he chose Star-Lord's Quad Blasters, and mom stuck to her repulsors, which also had bullet shooting knuckles, and mini-rocket arm revolvers. Mr. Grace and Mrs. Jackson were not great shots. Mr. Grace was ok with a plasma rifle, but except for the energy Gatling gun, Mrs. Jackson couldn't shoot for $#!+. When it came to the interactive target practice and Blast Saber (Beat Blaster?), mom and Mrs. Grace kept swapping back and forth for first, with Mr. Jackson at a close third. Battle of the basement always came down to Mr. Grace and Mrs. Jackson, but to their credit, they somehow shot better at moving targets, so…..yeah.

Wrapping up the warm-up session was a ranged version of the battle simulation from before. The dynamics were a lot different this time around, as my mom, Mrs. Jackson, and Mr. Jackson took point. They blasted their way through the bulk of the oncoming onslaught with repulsors, plasma Gatling guns, and Quad Blasters respectively. Mr. and Mrs. Grace took the middle, as they guarded our side flanks. Grant, Allyson, and myself, stayed at the back, guarding the rear, and acting as sharp shooters with our respective powers. I was proud of the folks on this one. Mom, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Grace all kinda had a hand on the wheel, and knew how to use everyone relative to their strengths. A few hiccups and surprise curveballs here and there, but nothing we didn't get under control within a few minutes.

With the warm-ups outta the way, we took one last break, before diving into the main event. Granted, the roles of parent and child were reversed, as our folks would not SHUT UP about it!

"Come on!" Mr. Grace paced back and forth. "We're rested up! Let's get on with it!"

"I maxed out my gear, and finally synced my uniforms!" Mr. Jackson couldn't keep his legs from shaking. "I've been waiting all week for this!"

"I'm an old lady, for God's sake!" my mom continued. "If I have the energy for it, so should you!"

"All I know is I came to hit things with a hammer," Mrs. Jackson said. "Make with the bad guys to hit with hammers!"

"Should I start in the air this time?" Mrs. Grace asked Allyson. "Last time I had a hard time when I started on the ground. I'm more of a flyby shooter type anyway."

After ten minutes of the parental version of 'ArE wE tHeRe YeT?', I finally set the training room to default, and had Z.O.R.D.O.N. set up the H.A.R.M. (Holographic Augmented Reality Machine) protocols. The room flashed with a bright blue light, and a digitized version of The Battle of Sokovia constructed itself around us. As the simulation got ready, the folks pulled up the Marvelous Alliance app on their smart watches, and toggled their character settings.

Oh, long story short, Oracle Inc. and Stark Industries were partnering to make an MMORPG based on customizing avatars to be like whatever hero you wanted. Of the many play styles we were developing, one was replicating famous battles as the basis of the campaign mode. So far, the folks were helping us Beta test the mechanics. We fought through the Battle of New York, a Hydra fortress raid, and Skrull invasion over the past month. Today, it was Sokovia.

Mom's avatar of choice was a Hulkbuster suit with a black/purple paint job. Mr. Grace was in Cap's WWII suit. Mrs. Grace was in a mix of a Captain Marvel/Iron Man suit (more on that later). Mr. Jackson was pretty much already in costume. The game just added real Quad Blasters, Star-Lord's mask, and also a detachable arc reactor to his chest (kinda sorta same category as Mrs. Grace). Mrs. Jackson was rocking an all black Thor getup, just without the chainmail. Me, Grant, and Allyson were just in our supersuits (The Elementals expansion pack wouldn't drop until a year after the game released). With us all suited up and ready to go, I started the game.

Explosions immediately resounded from all over, as Ultron bots flew all around blasting $#!+. Scared civilians ran for their lives, buildings were starting to crumble, and the various S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue vehicles spawned all over the map. This was just the pre-game, as a holographic screen popped up, showing the objectives. They went as such:

1,000 Ultron Bots

the civilians to the rescue vehicles

rescue vehicles to rescue ships to the edge of the city

the Helicarrier from Ultron bots

The screen gave us 120 seconds to plan before the level started.

"You got this, Cap," I told Mr. Grace. "Time to level up. Let's see what you've learned."

Mr. Grace looked shocked. Either me, Grant, or Allyson were the ones leading, but after the handful of months they'd had under our tutelage, I wanted to see how the older ones did with the reins. Mr. Grace was the first one of the bunch. He looked a bit nervous, but quickly got on his game face, and went to work.

"Ok," he started. "That Helicarrier thing looks important. Sunbird, that's all you. Keep the robots away. Storm-Lord and Geo-Titan, you guys are on civilian patrol. You're fast. Get em' to safety, smash some bots along the way, and do what you can to keep em' off the rescue vehicles. Anna, Hugh, y'all are on air patrol. These bots are gonna keep at it here and on the Helicarrier. Run interference, and break up any ground clusters you come across. Eileen, Doris, you're with me. We keep the fight up on the ground, and escort rescue vehicles to the perimeter. Sound good?"

Everyone nodded in agreement, and although I didn't show it, I was proud of Mr. Grace. That was a banger plan.

"Alright," he puffed his chest. "Avengers/Elementals LET'S DO THIS!"

"That was really lame, dad!" Allyson laughed as she flew off.

"Better than 'we got this'! Grant responded.

"You are so on night shift for that, dude!" I said as I zoomed off to do my part.

No need to try and play up the suspense, cuz we straight up crushed this level!

Allyson was peak goalie, as she constructed an onslaught of kamikaze Powerpuff Girls, and giant weed wackers to defend the Helicarriers. Some tried to go over/under her defenses, but none could get past. Grant and I went at it, using our respective enhanced senses to find civilians that were either trapped or pinned down by Ultron bots. All in all there were 500 civilians total in this simulation (we were on Normal mode), and it took us a good ten minutes to get em' all in rescue vehicles, and on their way to the perimeter. Each van could fit 20 people, it took two minutes for the vans to reach the perimeter, and a new one spawned once the one before it made it halfway. I used the Power Grid to blast Ultron bots apart with Phantom Bolts, keeping them away from the rescue vehicles, while Grant tore em' apart with his metalbending, and created rock golems to escort his rescue vehicles to the perimeter. Up in the sky, Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Grace were hard at work blasting down airborne Ultron bots. Mrs. Grace's Captain Marvel/Iron Man Myrge was perfect for this scenario, as the already formidable Captain Marvel powerset was boosted by the strength, speed, and weapon enhancements. Half of the time she literally just engulfed herself in a Photon Comet, and body checked the bots into scrap. She also made frequent use of heat seeking mini-rockets and repulsor blasts. Mr. Jackson was a whole other story. He tried doin' his Star-Lord thing, and actually succeeded in blasting a good handful of Ultron bots down with his Quad Blasters, but was almost shot down himself too many times to continue fighting in that form. As such, he tapped the arc reactor on his chest, and was cocooned inside Tony's Endo-Sym armor. This was the difference between a Myrge and a Sync. Mrs. Grace was in a Myrge, where you basically fused two heroes together. Mr. Jackson's Sync was the ability to go back and forth between two heroes. You could only have a Myrge or a Sync per slot, but the game was gonna give all players five free slots, with additional ones costing ten bucks per slot. Anyway, Mr. Jackson actually kicked ass in his Iron Man suit. Fast reflexes, a marksmen with his repulsors, and really good at using the appropriate amount of mini-rockets in dive bombing bouts. On the ground Mr. Grace, Mrs. Jackson, and my mom were working together not exactly as a team, but somehow in sync. Mr. Grace and Mrs. Jackson stayed within close proximity to each other, smashing ground bots with their shield and hammer respectively, and spamming the 'hit the shield with the hammer' combo. Mr. Grace got some really good shield throw combos in, Mrs. Jackson made really good use outta letting her hammer just fly, while she used her bare strength to rip apart robots, and mom was just having a blast, running around, smashing/blasting any bad guy within sight!

All in all, the first half of the level ran smoothly. We all played our parts to perfection, and cleared the objectives in a snap. Of course, that was just the first half.

As soon as the last objective was complete, an emergency alert blared on our HUDs with the instructions: Get to the drill before the Ultron bots, and defend it!

Grant, Allyson, and I were the first ones to get to the drill, and form the initial defensive line, as we constructed barriers and turrets while the rest of the team shuffled in gradually. Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Grace were the next to show up, dive bombing the perimeter of our last stand, thrashing a good 100 bots, and providing some space for my mom to come in and set up shop, followed by Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Grace, the latter of which was riding on Mrs. Jackson's back as she landed rather roughly into our defensive perimeter (told him he shoulda Myrged with a Falcon power set).

With everyone present, we did the Avengers thing, and held the line against the remaining 1,500 robots! That sounds like a lot, until you account for the fact that I was trashing em' by the dozens with Power Grid surges, Grant was making the earth fold over itself to crush at least 20 of em' at a time, Allyson was raining down fiery comets from above, and Mrs. Jackson was maintaining one hell of a thunderstorm that trashed hundreds of bots with continual lightning strikes! Any remaining bots that got close were easily taken down by Mr. Grace, Mrs. Grace, and Mr. Jackson, who was so laid back, he was able to revert to his Star-Lord build.

With the remaining bad guys dealt with, the level blared one last time, as the final boss was rearing his head!

"YOU BELIEVE YOU'VE WON, AVENGERS?!" Ultron's voice blared all around. "INCORRECT! EVERY POSSIBILITY HAS BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR! FOR EVERY ACTION YOU TAKE, I HAVE TEN CONTINGENCIES! I AM ULTRON! I AM YOUR EXTINCTION!"

And with that, the level cut out, and the H.A.R.M. room powered down.

"WHAT?!" Mr. Grace protested. "No! Come on! What are ya doin'?! Come on, let's finish the level!"

"That's all for now, dad," Allyson chucked.

"Huh?" Mr. Jackson asked.

"Yeah," I said. "That's all we got on that one so far. Still working on the boss fight."

"It's gonna be really cool," Grant chimed in. "First ya fight small Ultron, then big Ultron, then he takes over the Helicarrier, and ya gotta stop it before it destroys the city. It's gonna be cool…..ya know, when we actually make it."

"Pfft," Mrs. Jackson scoffed. "Way to be a tease, guys."

"Oh, none of that," my mom said. "That was enough fun for one night. Plus, I got enough XP to get some new gear! Besides, we've got a party to get to! You did get the stuff, right Jason?"

"I did," I nodded. "And yeah, i'm kinda hungry. Let's go!"

Because I knew we'd kill a decent amount of time with training, I had the team start without us. Good thing, cuz there's nothing more satisfying than an elevator opening to the smell of cooking ribs, burgers, chicken, and the like (also some vegan options for Karolina and Jimmy). We all had our fill, washing it down with a giant fruit juice mix (had to keep the alcohol on the low with the folks around). There was also a hefty indulging of mini Mortal Kombat tournaments, a few games of Battleworld: Duel Masters (I could never beat Grant and his Thor Corps set up), and a lot of Dance Revolution, before we wound the night down with a communal Hot Caramel Surprise making, while Legend of Korra reruns played on the TV. This surprisingly became a frequent ritual amongst our team, and everyone contributed unique additions to the mix. Jack for example put rock candy in his, Xavin put living Skull candy snakes in hers' (surprisingly good), and Allyson liked to put pumpkin taffy in hers'. After everyone got their cups made, Mr. Grace raised his glass, calling for a toast.

"To the graduating class of 2016!" he said. "Allyson, Grant, Jason, Molly, Jack, and Katie, we're all so proud of what you've done, and the great things yet to come for your future! While we're at it, a toast to all The Elementals! You've worked hard, kept up the good fight, and have truly earned your spot among the world's greatest heroes! Hear, hear!"

"Hear, hear!" everyone toasted, and began to dig into their caramel.

A few more hours of revelry ensued, but before long, everyone started to turn in for the night. We had a big day tomorrow after all.

12:52 Pacific Standard Time, June 1st, Ravenwood Academy Football field

Me, Grant, Allyson, and Delilah were huddled up in a group, taking selfies, joking around, and killing time until the ceremony started. Me and Grant were in black slacks a white dress shirt, wearing shiny dress shoes, and a tie, under a our purple robes with gold trimming. Allyson was wearing a white dress underneath hers, and Delilah had on a blue, yellow, and white Native American dress, that had solar patterns, constellations, and feather designs going all about the fabric. Grant and I had on two tassels. One for honor roll, the other for our respective sports teams. Allyson and Delilah had so many tassels for so many honors, extracurriculars, clubs, etc., they could use em' to choke out a bear. Delilah was busy goin' over her speech (she was the Valedictorian), uncharacteristically fumbling over her words, so Grant cooled it on the last minute flirting.

"Delilah," Allyson intervened. "Calm down. I've heard you recite these darn things a hundred times by heart! You know em' forwards, backwards, and in circles. You know your pace, you even got your podium stance just right! You're gonna kill it, girl. Stop fretting."

Delilah blushed a little, took a calming breath, and after getting over her hesitation, gave her cards to Allyson.

"Thank you," she said. "I….I don't have many friends. Even back at home, my social circle is quite small. Thank you for being my best friend, Allyson. I've never had one before. It was nice."

"What do you mean, 'was'?" Allyson responded. "Last time I checked you have a phone, and we're still friends on Snapchat. Besides, what's a quick flight out for a visit? Don't talk about me in the past tense, Vallery. We still got lots more best friending to do!"

Delilah gave Allyson a hug, and we scrambled to our line order to do the initial walk.

The good news was all honor grads were in the front, so we didn't have to split up. Once the clock struck one, we walked out to the football field to the tune of the graduation theme, took our seats, and got the shebang started. We did the pledge, heard some words from the principal and other faculty, and then the speech from the Salutatorian (good ol' Conway). I'll admit, I was pretty checked out. Don't get me wrong, graduation was cool and all, but something was wrong. The air felt tense, my heart couldn't stop racing, and it felt like my intestines were being knit into a sweater. I just knew something was about to go wrong. I was so caught up in my own turmoil, I nearly missed Delilah's speech. Thankfully, Allyson nudged me, bringing me back to reality as Delilah got started.

"Good afternoon," she started. "First, a thank you to the teachers, faculty, parents, and guardians who helped get us to this wonderful moment of celebration. As I look back on my time here at Ravenwood Academy, especially this year, i've come to know what it is to have a family. To love and be loved in turn. This year in particular was challenging for all of us. Our way of life was put in jeopardy multiple times by forces who would seek to destroy those of us that were born different, and were marked as abominations because of it. It was in those moments of the disappearances, the hate attacks, and death threats that it felt hopeless. That the world itself was crashing down around us. However, it is at our lowest moments when we are at the precipice of our greatest change. It is when we feel we have no hope when we find out who we truly are. We made it through the darkest of times together. We held strong, stood together, and emerged as champions on the other side. In this moment of celebration and achievement, it is important to remember that we are the future of this world. In ten to twenty years, we will be the ones carrying the baton left to us, and it will be up to us to make this world a better place for the ones that will succeed us. We stand at the precipice of the greatest change of our lives. The future is full of limitless potential, challenges, struggles, glorious success, and soul crushing failure. No matter what comes, I implore you, my fellow graduating class, to meet each of these as yourselves, and when you feel alone, defeated, unable to continue, remember this year. Remember that you are at the beginning, not the end, and that your choice in that moment will define you. Choose to be brave, to be bold, to be kind, and above all, to never give up. Here at Ravenwood, we have become so much more than we thought we could, and the best is yet to come. Thank you, class of 2016."

A huge round of applause ensued, and after everyone settled down again, the awarding of the diplomas were awarded. Not gonna lie, it was nice. I never thought i'd care about graduating high school all that much, but Delilah was right. After everything i've been through, after how far i've come, this was a nice little close to the current chapter of my life. As the last of the students got their diplomas, we got ready for the turning of the tassels. Allyson straight up said f*(# that weak $#!+, and was the first to launch her hat into the air, followed by everyone else! Lots of hugging, crying, and cheering took place, and I was finally getting into the celebratory groove, until I felt it…

That subtle shift. That blending of reality, that felt like the very atmosphere was being liquefied. I looked up to see a Dark Elf warship looming down from above, and just barely had time to erect a lighting barrier around the football field as it opened fire!

I just barely managed to block the first volleys, but the warship increased its firing of Aether blasts and rockets, until my barrier gave way to the barrage!

I immediately tapped into Speed Mode Supreme, and made time slow down as much as possible! Grant and Allyson had the same idea, and after morphing into our battlesuits, hightailed it to get everyone off the football field/stands, and into the school house. We managed to clear out everyone on the football field, and just got over half of the stands into the school house, but things went south real fast as the Dark Elf warship readied another attack, in addition to getting a heaping helping of backup this time!

Materializing outta nowhere came an entire legion of warships and fighters I knew belonged to Dragon Empress (Grant's really gotta handle his exes), in addition to Dark Elves, armed with blasters, flying down on the backs of giant winged white tigers (badass, not gonna lie)!

I immediately got to work, using the Power Grid to blast em' down with Phantom Bolts and animal constructs. Grant and Allyson followed suit, and so did the rest of the team that was currently present. Energizer and Zero-G were helping us blast down fighters, while Mass Master and Lightspeed kept up the effort to get the civilians into school houses well within the campus, a considerable distance away from the battle (we had a plan once we got em' all inside). Majesdia was pulling out all the stops, as she sent out an armada of light powered drones, while also helping get civilians to safety. Princess Powerful was kinda stuck between jobs, as she was used to getting in the thick of these kinds of fights. As we were playing defense right now, her, Super Skrull, Iron Torch, and Sister Grimm also joined in the rescue effort. They managed to get everyone inside the school house, and Sister Grimm tried to teleport them to the Minecraft Dimension (that green paradise safe space I sometimes use to train all out), but based on her response, it wasn't goin' so well.

"Uhh, Storm-Lord?" she thought to me.

"Don't you say it!" I responded.

"Something's blocking my magic! It's too strong! I can't shift them outta here!"

"The Mirror Dimension?!"

"Nada."

"Limbo?!"

"Even if I could, I wouldn't."

"Ok, what can you do?!"

"Blood Seal Protection Spell! Gonna need someone to cover me for a bit!"

I created a swirling cloud bubble around Sister Grimm, and willed fifty could nymphs into the winds as a protection force. Literally nothing short of half the force of a nuke was getting through that thing! Nico immediately went to work, as she converted her entire left arm to her Witch Arm. The black metallic appendage, glowing with purple energy lines and runes, sometimes earned her the nickname 'Witcher Soldier'. Sister Grimm immediately began chanting an incantation, and the Witch Arm energy lines/runes became a dark red, as the arm drew two pints of blood from her body, into itself. A few more seconds to complete the incantation, and my Thunder Sense pinged seven different red force fields covering the auditorium, library, gym, science building, dining hall, east side dorms (aka girls dorms), and art building. This would buy us a good two hours, as Grant's hit those shields full force, using all of his power at once, and wasn't able to so much as scratch em'. Ok, civilians were safe. Now for the armada.

The sky darkened, and thunder shook the sky as I created a storm cloud big enough to cover all of L.A. I honed in a massive amount of voltage over the Dark Elf warship as I prepared a Zeus Cannon to wipe it the f*(# off the face of the earth! Grant and Allyson were following suit, as Grant summoned some All-Metal turrets to lock onto Dragon Empresses' ships, while Allyson was concentrating a lot of power into a mini-sun that would no doubt make a big boom once she let it fly.

Yeah….see…..everything went to $#!+ so fast, even I couldn't keep up!

First off, the ground literally spit apart, as something exploded underneath our feet, strong enough to turn the entire football field into the aftermath of a DBZ fight! The force of the explosions knocked me and the team all across the field, in a spray of dirt and fire! When my vision recovered, I damn near leapt out of my skin as I was almost clobbered by what looked like a mix between a giant, mutated, green gorilla, and Sasquatch! It was ten feet tall, stubby, with brown fur covering its head, chest, arms, and legs. It had three fingers and two toes each, and was armed with some kind of mace that crackled with energy, and even had what looked like double energy cannons on its back! It looked at me with a sort of dulled intelligence. I could tell this thing wasn't very bright, but it knew how to fight. It knew how to kill. That may have been the only thing it was ever taught how to do, and it was lookin' to do that exact thing to me!

As it brought its mace down, I rolled out of the way, and decked it full on with a blast of lightning from my eyes! The creature stumbled backwards, but was largely dazed if anything. Ok, these things were tough. No biggie. I summoned Excelsior, transformed it to spear mode, and after charging it with lightning, threw it into the monster's head! The spear sailed through its forehead, like a hot knife through butter, and the monster dissolved a pile of rotting flesh and mulch (okaaay?). I didn't have time to admire my handiwork, as $#!+ was popping off fast!

For starters, the gorilla monsters were crawling outta the ground like ants! Hell, based on the faint energy surge that briefly engulfed em', this had to be some kinda earth portal spell….or something. That wasn't even the worst part. My Thunder Sense picked up the Dark Elf and Dragon Empress warships letting loose a spray of blasts and canisters across the entire campus! Nico's shields held strong, but the rest of the school was toast as the canisters, which turned out to be fire/Aether bombs, exploded, turning everything around em' to rubble (Namor was gonna kill me when I gave Oracle Inc. the bill)! Things only got worse from there, as the initial explosions were just some sort of energy feedback. The real show was in the form of a dozen fire/Aether portals setting up shop in the craters they created, and unleashing an onslaught of fire demons and Dark Elf soldiers respectively! The numbers swiftly reached in the hundreds, as the portals seemingly had an endless battery life! Even worse (oh, we're gonna get a lot more of those), the Dark Elf/Dragon Empress warships kept sending down fighters from above, essentially surrounding us! Yeah, those warships had to go! Unfortunately, things got a bit more complicated. Another Aether barrier shimmered into existence, big enough to cover the entire campus in its shroud! Worse yet, from the north, south, east, and west ends, four more portals magicked into existence! Out of em' lumbered ground war machines, operated by the gorilla monsters,that were like if someone took Tundra Tanks (Fire Nation tanks) and glued a mesh of giant Gatling guns and missile launchers all across the top! Oh, and also another few armies worth of gorilla monsters, Dark Elves, fire demons, Olympus Force powered humans, and Dragon monsters! In case you didn't realize, we were so totally f*(#%^!

I immediately got in gear, and suited up inside an Olympium War Machine suit. The armor was powered by my electricity and Sea Force powers, and I wasted no time in decking out my arms and back in energy bullet/rocket shooters, and spraying a torrent of ammo at anything that wasn't a teammate! Yeah, you could forget about showing restraint, even to the humans. This was the very definition of dire circumstances, as me and the team were way too outnumbered to play with soft hands! In my case, I was mowing down monsters and goons with a variety of bullet and missiles, while also using the Power Grid to summon Phantom Bolts and lightning strikes! It was so much at once! For every two bad guys I blasted down, it seemed like ten more took their place! It felt like I was playing chess, checkers, Battleship, and Mortal Kombat all at once, and was supposed to win all of em'! Granted, I wasn't doin' to bad at the moment. I had already released a wave of Olympium nanites to eat away at the Olympium, Dark Elf, and gorilla monster weapons. Hell, if I was lucky, I might finally get some Scabrite material outta this! As far as the matchups went, the challenge came from the volume, rather than the actual skill/power of any individual opponents.

The gorilla monster tanks (Gorilla Tanks?) were durable, but a few missile barrages and lightning strikes blew em' up good for scrap harvesting. The Dark Elves were mostly light work. They were fast, so it was a bit harder to nail em' with ranged attacks, but a good voltage surge from the Power Grid was hard to dodge, and usually did the trick. It was kinda funny when they tried to ambush me with a teleport strike, only to get busted with runoff voltage from my suit. Fire demons were actually interesting. For starters, there did seem to be a 'main' race, as the common ones were humanoid, with red skin, some of which had glowing orange rune sleeves on them, hooved feet, and a tail. They ranged in size from 10-15 ft tall, and were the jobbers of the bunch, as they went down in a decent bullet spray. Others were much bigger…..like, the size of buildings bigger! Hell, I remember one that reminded me of a gorilla monster. A hulking behemoth with dark red skin, and what looked like liquid obsidian covering his arms, legs, and snaking all over his body. Its face was completely covered in the stuff, and it had six glowing eyes on its face, two glowing tusks coming down the side of its face, and glowing talons on its hands. It took me two rounds of energy bullets, three volleys of missiles, and four Mega Lightning Strikes to bring the son of a bitch down! Other demons varied in shape massively. Some were hybrid creatures that reminded me of a Chimera. One had four faces melded into one, and was made completely of tentacles, and another was literally just a lava frog man! They went down all the same, but would give me some weird dreams later on for sure.

It always hurt when I fought Olympus Force powered humans. Most of em' were just kids, or barely older than myself. They came from broken families, desperate situations, or simply just got caught up in the wrong thing, and were in way too deep. The Elementals took great care to try and help these people, and even offered them a place in the new X-Men schools when they got up and running. Now was not the time for mercy tho. Too much at stake, too many changing variables to consider. Wrong place, wrong time, but these guys ate it just like all the others. It was a bit harder with them tho, as their powers varied a lot. I was able to take out a girl that was just living Apollo Fire via using my airbending to create a vacuum around her, and literally snuff her out. Another one was powered by Death Force, and could transform into giant animals by which to attack me with. I met him on his own terms and went at him inside giant animal lightning constructs. After three rounds of lion vs. panther, gorilla vs. T-Rex, and shark vs. wolf, I exhausted his energy, and put a sword through his chest when he reverted to his human form (I was the lion, gorilla, and shark by the way). Finally, I took down a guy that was a living War Force charged rock monster. He was strong and fast, but that's all he was. I wore him down with my superior combat skills, and an unlimited supply of missiles. Once he was down, I created a giant Olympium hammer to crush him into pebbles.

The Dragon Men were the most interesting of the bunch. Sure, they were the same as before, but Dragon Empress had been busy, as they were now cyborgs! Seriously, taking em' down was no joke, as the creatures I was shooting with energy bullets and missiles could also convert themselves to do the same thing! I got into so many fire fights, and was even surrounded multiple times by em'! That wasn't anything to joke with either, as these f*(#%^$ were strong! They easily tore off parts of my War Machine armor, and it took me two voltage blastwaves to get em' off me. After that I was a lot more attentive when dealing with them!

It was definitely easy to feel isolated in a big battle like this, but thankfully I had a dedicated team that was also doing their part.

Grant and Jack were the heart of the defense as they literally became giant versions of themselves from the waist up in the form of rock and soil! Both were smashing, swatting, and burying monsters alive with their dirt forms! In Grant's case, he was literally growing plant weapons out of his body, as he bombarded the legions of monsters with pollen grenades shot outta his shoulders, razor sharp grain spears from his chest, and razor sharp flower petal shurikens! Allyson and Julie were doin' their best to bottleneck our eastern flank, as they fire/rainbow bombed the f*(# outta the monsters encroaching from that side. Alex and Katie had already combined into a Power Pony, and were teamed up with Karolina to brigade the western flank. Hell, Karolina's arsenal alone could pretty much hold the line, as she got really good with using a combination of White Hole claymores, heat seeking light plasma rockets, and wrist light Rail Guns to rack up so many kills, it was no wonder her model was already within the top ten requested skins for Marvelous Alliance. That's not to discredit Power Pony, as they were simultaneously frying/crushing monsters in droves! Molly, Xavin, and Nico were stationed at the northern flank, doing what they could to stem the tide. Molly straight up just tore through monsters with her bare hands, Xavin was using her Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic powers in unison to take out large swaths of combattants, while keeping up a defensive edge. Nico used a variety of magic attacks, and summoned a dozen dark creatures of her own to help even the odds. Chase was holding the southern flank with his Iron Torch armor, straight up spamming the flame thrower and lava spewing cannons. Granted, fire and lava wasn't all the effective when dealing with fire demons, so I decided to help him out via creating a legion of Olympium blue Power Rangers, powered with Sea Force, to help him hold the line. Overall, we weren't doin' that bad, but these guys weren't gonna stop coming even slightly. We needed backup yesterday!

"Hey, guys!" I opened the comms to all the Elementals. "We could use some backup here! All Elementals to Ravenwood Academy on the double!"

"Yeah, no can do, Storm-Lord!" Patriot responded. "We don't have the bodies to spare! Take a look!"

My HUD fed me images of L.A. in f*(#!^% chaos! Gorilla monsters, fire demon, Dark Elves, and Olympus Force powered mercenaries wreaking havoc across the city! Patriot and the rest of the team were doing their best to stem the tide, but yeah, they were in no condition to spare any bodies.

"Understood," I responded. "How you guys doin' out there?"

"Could be better, but we're making it! Sent out an S.O.S. to the X-Men. Also, Demetrion and Wiccan have pinged this Convergence Point down. It's not like a dimensional rift. This is completely natural. We have to let it run it's course, and hold off whatever comes our way until then. This one's for a whole hour, Storm-Lord."

"Copy. Do what you need. We'll hold it down over here. Let's get the job done!"

Eli and I cut our comm line, and I began one of my rousing speeches to the Elementals I had on deck.

"Alright guys," I started to rally the team. "If it wasn't obvious, we're dealing with another Convergence Point. The rest of the team is out fighting the greater invasion across the city, and I doubt we're getting another Deus Ex Machina from Thor. If we can hold em' and keep the pressure on, we can force em' to retreat at the end of the hour when the rift passes."

"I got something even better!" Sister Grimm responded. I can shut down all the mini-portals, and even the bigger ones at the edges of the dome! Gimme Sunbird, and Lightspeed, and we can thin this herd even more!"

"I'll do you one better! I just called the banners to the Moloids. We should be getting a cavalry boost right about…"

Various Olympus Force powered tanks, armory trucks, and mechanical spiders (Moloids had a fascination with spiders for some reason) suddenly sprung to full size all across the battlefield, as my Moloid reinforcements finally got the chance to try out their Pym Particle ambush tactic! Things only heated up from there as Moloids of all shapes, sizes, and weapons, ambushed the bad guys from all sides, turning this into a full on brawl!

"Sister Grimm," I continued. "I got a battalion for you, Sunbird, and Lightspeed. Get those portals under control. Be careful. Everyone else, hold your positions as best as you can, but DO NOT try and 'last man stand it'. If you need to fall back, lure the bad guys towards the football field. Alright, Elementals, WE GOT-YAAAAAH!"

Wow. I guess my battle cry is hated by beings from all over the Nine Realms! Yeah, that totally intentional, not at all panicked yelp was due to the fact that Ulik had literally just teleported in front of me, and was looking to punch me into the next Zip Code! He looked the same as he did from the dream. Ten feet tall, stocky, Orangish/brown skin and fur, inside green armor that looked like a wrestling singlet. The troll (which I guess is what those gorilla monsters were) king was wearing these sort of energy powered brass knuckles that looked like they'd give me a serious headache if they connected. Tempting, but I would have to pass, as I summoned my Sky Shield, and curled up behind it as Ulik let a mean one fly! The punch sent me careening into the distance, and just barely recovered before hitting the gym. Thankfully, it didn't look like Ulik could fly, as he was currently lumbering towards me on foot. Fast for sure, but limited in his attack capabilities.

"Hey, Storm-Lord, you alright?" Mass Master asked me in the comms.

"I'm fine!" I responded as I flew full force at Ulik. "Stick to the plan! I'll deal with big, dumb, and hairy over here!"

That statement turned out to be easier said than done.

See, I busted out the good stuff for Ulik, ala vibrating my entire body, while summoning my Power Gauntlets for a hefty Storm-Lord Special. As I flew towards Ulik, I blasted him from multiple angels with Phantom Bolts, until I managed to trip him up slightly! With his momentum off, I poured on the speed, and decked him full on in the chest! Yeah…..the results were…..less than stellar. Ulik grunted, clearly a little hurt, but even after a full on Storm-Lord Special, he barely even moved! Even worse, I learned the hard way that Ulik's speed was not to be underestimated! The troll grabbed me with one of his meaty hands, and proceeded to sling me back and forth into the pavement a few times, before decking me so hard, I flew though five buildings, and crash landed a mile away in the school's golf course, in the middle of a fierce battle between my Moloids, and a squad of fire demons! It took a good few seconds before my vision re-focused, tho every other part of me now felt like $#!+. I just barely managed to avoid the axe of one of the bigger fire demons, blow his head off with a lightning strike, and recover.

I pinged Ulik barreling his way towards me. The guy was definitely determined, and based on the way he didn't lose sight of me after sending me that express trip, he had some sort of enhanced senses. No biggie. As Ulik lumbered towards me, I summoned Excelsior, switched it to spear mode, and absolutely drowned it in Zeus Lightning and Polaris Voltage! After creating what amounted to a mini-nuke, I rushed at the troll again, and upon getting within range, slid between his legs, ducked under his frantic backswing as he tried in vain to halt his momentum, and stabbed him in his side with my spear! I willed all the energy in my spear to shoot out violently at Ulik, and the troll was lost the flare of voltage and thunder! After such a big explosion, I would've settled for anything. Ideally, a charred husk, but i'd settle for dismembering, profuse bleeding, or even just Ulik getting thrown back a significant distance. What I didn't expect, and sure as hell didn't care for, was Ulik standing there, with barely a singe on his not even scratched armor!

"Heh," he chuckled. "That tickled."

Ulik proceeded to swing at me again, but I ducked under it, summoned my Power Gauntlets, and gave him one hell of a Storm-Lord Special, uppercut style, under the chin! Before he could recover, I did a Vibration dropkick into his chest, launching myself a good 50 meters away with a lightning bolt shooting outta my feet. Once again, my attacks seemed to have no real effect on the troll, who just kept charging at me. Yeah, this wasn't working. I had to switch this up a little.

I charged Ulik again (really thinking outside the box on this one), and as he got closer, I created two lightning elephant constructs to sandwich him in from either side! The voltage pachyderms (bet ya didn't know that word) just barely disrupted Ulik's momentum, but it was enough for me to pull out an ace, and go Thunder Form Z! As I transformed into a 10 ft tall, blue lighting version of Zzaxx, I decked Ulik in the face with a blow that was FINALLY strong enough to cause a visible reaction, as the troll stumbled backwards! I kept up the momentum with a series of jabs, cross punches, and a few uppercuts, giving Ulik the business, and finishing it off with a Final Flash from my mouth! This time it was Ulik's turn to go for a crash course tour of the campus, as he crashed through three buildings, and landed in the lacrosse field! I flew after Ulik, my speed not even slightly affected, and just as I was closing in on him, he pulled out some earthbending $#!+ (cuz of course he did), and amassed two hardened boulders, each the size of football field goals, and lobbed em' at me! I simply willed a f*(# ton of voltage to surge around the boulders, stopping them in their tracks, and sending them hurling back at Ulik! The boulders smashed the oversized caveman into the ground, creating a crater big enough to bury an entire lot's worth of SUVs! Ulik was at the bottom, dazed and groaning. He looked like he was havin' a bad day, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna make it any better! I slammed into him with a downwards hammer punch, and started to wail on him furiously! Each hit caused a mini earthquake, and made the crater a little deeper! As psychotic as it was, I have to admit it was cathartic to finally get some real hits in on Ulik, who's strength and durability was seemingly dead in the water against Thunder Form Z! I hammered him with a flurry of punches that could shatter tanks, and even drew some blood, but it turned out to be a short lived advantage, as Ulik got back in the game in a BIG WAY!

The troll suddenly started to glow, as various lines of bluish-white energy snaked across his arms, and legs, with a glowing Uruz (strength) rune glowing at the center of his chest! The troll's eyes were glowing to match his new tattoos, and so were his energy powered brass knuckles. If there was any doubt in my mind as to if I was in danger, Ulik dispelled em' as he caught my oncoming punch, and held it there! Before I could even think of countering, I felt the sharp….pain...or the closest thing I could feel to it in Thunder Form Z, as Ulik decked me with an uppercut so hard, I tumbled 20ft into the air, before I managed to stop myself! I half expected Ulik to jump after me, but the troll was content to stomp around, bash his knuckles together, and shout up at me.

"COME, THUNDER DEMI-GOD!" he bellowed as he beat his chest. "COME MEET YOUR FATE AT THE HANDS OF ULIK THE INVINCIBLE! I HAVE TESTED MY METTLE AGAINST THE MIGHTIEST WARRIORS IN THE NINE REALMS! THE VERY HALLS OF ASGARD SPEAK OF ME IN HUSHED TONES! THOR HIMSELF HESITATES TO DO BATTLE WITH ME! YOU ARE BUT A GNAT WRESTLING A GIANT! MEET ME IN BATTLE, AND RECEIVE THE HONOR OF MEETING YOUR END AT THE HANDS OF ULIK, THE TRUE KING OF VANAHEIM!"

I'm willing to bet literally every word in that diatribe was wrong. Still, it was a nice speech. Sometimes I like to let the bad guys get it all out there. Everyone needs a cathartic release every now and again. Anyway, I responded by teleporting directly in front of Ulik, and slamming him in the face with a left cross punch. The good news was that Ulik grunted, and was slightly put off-balance. The downside was the punch did little more than piss him off, and he was in MAD venting mode!

The next ten minutes were a blur of punches, more punches, and a lot of dirt/rocks flying. One thing I could say was I developed a massive amount of respect for the Hulk after this, cuz knockdown drag out fighting was hard! Because Ulik and I were pretty much on the same level of speed, my only real advantage was in my fighting skill, and even that was a slim margin at best. I hit Ulik more times, but he hit harder, and wasn't too shabby in the fighting department himself. Dude clearly knew some form of boxing and wrestling, and knew how to implement em' well. For example, somewhere around the six minute mark, I turned my hands into spiked clubs, and wailed on Ulik's head, chest, and kneecaps. Ulik responded by blocking a downwards strike, giving me a nasty set of combination punches, and summoning a club to his hand to give me one hell of a strike to the head that sent me careening backwards! I felt the ground rumble, as Ulik was only just getting started. My Thunder Sense was picking up almost a hundred decently sized boulders rising into the air, and I had a pretty good idea of where they'd come down. I had no desire to be bombarded with giant rocks, so I cut Ulik's attack short via dissipating my physical form, in favor of becoming a lightning storm around the troll! I poured it on with a decent amount of voltage, and was clearly hurting Ulik, but here came the negative side of using Thunder Form Z. If I conserved power, ala using purely brute force, I could stretch the time I could stay in this form to somewhere around 15 minutes. Using this much energy the way I was, was the equivalent of turning the brightness all the way up on your phone, and playing Infinity Blade (why'd they get rid of that game?!). At the rate I was expending power, I had maybe 3 minutes left in this form, and Ulik didn't look any closer to goin' down than when we started. I maybe had one last energy burst in me before I had to revert back to my human form, and decided to REALLY go for the killshot as I consolidated my energy, and shot myself into Ulik's mouth! For the next minute, I burned off the remainder of my Thunder Form Z time as I tried to burn Ulik's brain and organs from the inside out! I broke a few ribs, and definitely caused a lot of internal damage, but Ulik was a tough son of a bitch, and literally managed to eject me from his body via powering himself up, and forcing me out!

Neither one of us were doing exceptionally well in the aftermath. On my end, I was back to normal, fighting a minor headache, dealing with a slight nausea that came when I pushed the time limit of Thunder Form Z, and trying to catch my breath. Still, I was in much better shape than Ulik. Turns out the guy wasn't all that invincible after all. He was currently vomiting up green blood, groaning profusely, and stumbling around tryna regain his equilibrium. We both more or less got to our feet at the same time, and Ulik was once again the first to charge. Based on his still considerable speed, the guy had some more energy left to burn. I was kinda gettin' over the troll portion of this whole monster buffet. I wanted to try a little more fire demons, maybe some more Dark Elves. It was time to put Ulik down for the count.

As the troll lumbered towards me, I synced up my Zeus Lighting, Sea Force, and Polaris Voltage energies together to go into an imperfect version (still working on getting it right) of what I dubbed Storm-Lord Supreme. It was supposed to be a perfect unity of the three energies, boosting me up to a damn near limitless amount of power, but in its current form, I had to settle for just strong enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Grant and America, while also being super hard to actually maintain. Hell, I usually didn't use this form unless it was an absolute emergency. The rebounding energies always caused dangerous levels of feedback that were strong enough to demolish city blocks like papers in the wind. Especially in this domed environment, this usually woulda been a no go, but I had a plan for that. I constructed an Olympium version of Mjolnir, that had an arc reactor in the base of the head. The arc reactor served the purpose of absorbing the energy runoff from myself into it, thus making the hammer stronger by the second, while also holding/boosting the absorbed energy. In just a few seconds, the hammer was packing enough energy to bring down a skyscraper! Ulik caught all of that as I ran towards him, twirling my hammer, and getting him under the jaw with a jumping uppercut!

Caveman tumbled backwards a good ten feet away, and recovered just in time to catch quick/powerful hammer strikes to his kneecaps, chest, head, back, thighs, and anywhere I could get a hit in! Ulik stumbled around tryna catch me, but I quickly found out my mans was only fast in one direction. I exploited that to maximum effect as I danced around Ulik, slamming him from all sides with about 50 hits per second! Oh, and my hammer was also absorbing his rune magic! The stronger it got, the weaker he got, the harder my hits started to land! Ulik smashed away at me furiously, no doubt getting frustrated that I was whuppin' his ass much the same way Thor probably did, but it was no use as I connected hammer blows, punches, and kicks all across his body for the next three minutes, before really ramping up the wombo combo!

I did a Matrix dodge under one of Ulik's wide swings, shimmied away from another ground pound, and extended my hammer to a sledgehammer as I spun around. I poured an insane amount of vibration into the hammer as I came back around with a massive swing, and launched Ulik so far back, he flew three miles, and skidded to a halt just short of the auditorium. Ulik willed himself to get up, and managed to put up a pathetic excuse for a counterattack as he clapped his hands together, sending a torrent of rocks and debris my way. I dodged, ducked, dipped, dived, dodged (yes, I said 'dodged' twice) the oncoming rocks, summoned my shield, charged the edges with energy, and smacked it as hard as I could with my hammer! The shield flew directly into Ulik's left thigh, and the troll howled in intense agony! Before he could try to remove it, I willed the shield to rotate as fast as it could, drilling deeper into his thigh! The troll bellowed louder, and collapsed to a knee, giving me the perfect uppercut shot. I took the opportunity, and decked Ulik in the face with a full force jumping uppercut that launched him so high into the air, he was in danger of crashing into the barrier! I wasn't gonna make it that easy for him, and did a Static Jump ahead of him to knock him downwards. What followed for the next minute or so was a move I dubbed a Static Jumping. Basically I kept teleporting around, knocking Ulik around like I was playing a one man game of badminton (the superior version of tennis). I willed the air around us to become ionized with my respective energies, and when I felt the area was permeated enough, launched Ulik upwards one last time, teleported where he would be, and consolidated all that energy into a swirling cloud ball, creating what I dubbed a Supercell Rasengan (the names are just flying today)! Ulik caught all of it as I slammed the attack into his chest, and sent him spiraling into the auditorium blood shield! Unfortunately for him, this wasn't an Invisible Woman 'don't touch me' force field. This was a dark magic 'don't touch me, or i'll melt you into soup' kind of force field! Ulik immediately found that out as dark red flames started to engulf him! He flailed around wildly, but whatever pain he was in was not indicative of any actual melting, as his magic seemed to be resisting the effects of the barrier. Yeah, that wouldn't do. We had to speed this up a little.

This was where all that energy I had stashed in my hammer paid off, as I transformed said hammer into a Proton Cannon, took aim at Ulik, and let the skyscraper destroying laser fly! Granted, I probably gave the people in this building a goddamn heart attack, but like I said, they were in no danger whatsoever. Ulik on the other hand was havin' a BAAAAAAD DAY! The troll was caught between a rock and a hard place as my blast kept him pinned to the corrosive shield! Between my blast and the shield wearing down his magic, Ulik's howls became more desperate as he was starting to feel the effects of the shield start to kick in! Dunno how long he could hope to hold out, but Ulik wasn't tryna find out. A bright flare of green magic, and Ulik The Invincible became Ulik The Invisible, as he dipped outta the fight! I immediately turned off the firepower, powered down outta imperfect Storm-Lord Supreme, and took a second to enjoy the mini-boss victory, but there was no rest for the Storm-Lord, as my Speed Sense went off like crazy!

Out of nowhere, an Aether blade sliced through the air, and was about half an inch from relieving me of my head! I rolled sideways, avoiding the blade, and summoned my Sky Shield as my Speed Sense was still on red alert due to Malekith (who else would it be?) blasting me full on with an Aether wave! The blast sent me tumbling through the sky at 150 mph, and Maletkith kept up the assault as he bombarded me with Aether blasts, and even tried to shank me with a series of teleport attacks! Had to hand it to the Dark Elf, he was fast! Dude was movin' around so much, I couldn't get a lock on him to counter attack! Hell, it was all I could do to block/dodge his attacks as is! After a good 20 seconds of just barely succeeding at not dying, I managed to get a hold on Malekith via grabbing one of his legs when he tried another teleport attack, and after spinning him around at like 200 mph, sent him flying towards the golf course! I should have heard a loud thud as he crash landed into a sand pit, but was alternatively shocked outta my wits as my Speed Sense went on DEFCON 80!

Right behind me, Malekith had teleported and transformed himself into some Lovecraftian abomination that was a giant blob of black/red goo, with twenty eyes, and a sea of teeth along its….everywhere! With no time to build up a sufficient attack, I did a Static Jump above Malekith, and immediately dissolved into my Storm-Form! The Dark Elf king had no way of knowing what was coming next, and was completely unprepared for literally being engulfed inside of an F3 tornado! I charged my tornado self with lightning, as a deep fried Malekith's monster form from all sides, in addition to the disorienting turbulence! I kept Malekith in the wind/lightning turbulence for about half a minute, driving him further up the cyclone, until he had reached the top. Once that happened, I converted my tornado form into that of a Chinese Dragon, and grabbed Malekith in my jaws! I thrashed him around for a bit, lighting my maw up with voltage, before careening us both towards the grass! Right before we hit, I transferred my consciousness to the tail of the dragon, reformed my body, and did a graceful landing, while Malekith created hole number 37. My Speed Sense went off immediately as Malekith was non-stop on the teleport attacks. For about another minute or so, Malekith did the same song and dance, but with REMARKABLY less effective results!

See, thanks to my handy dandy genius brain, and atmospheric sensing powers, I was able to better figure out where Malekith was coming from, what type of attack he was using, and how best to counter it. When I sensed a light disturbance in the atmosphere, that meant elf boy was trying for another teleport attack. I would simply pour on the speed, and maneuver around his attacks as best as I could, while getting in some counters where I could fit em'. I actually managed to stab Malekith through the right shoulder, and back of the left leg. When the atmospheric disturbance was bigger, that meant Malekith was coming back around with an Aether and/or magic based attack. These were a lot easier to counter, as I just rushed him with an even bigger attack as he was coming out of his teleport attack! At least five times, Malekith caught a voltage rush full on, and eventually just started teleporting to get away, as I bombarded him with an armada of mythical beast lightning constructs! Even worse for him, I was starting to take even that from him! While he was doing his evil Nightcrawler shtick, I used my electromagnetic powers to permeate the area with Olympium nanites. These nanites fed Z.O.R.D.O.N. raw data about Malekith's powers, and offered some suggestions as to how to neutralize them in any way we could. Essentially, after my nanites locked onto Malekith's vibrational frequency that allowed him to teleport, they gradually emitted counter vibrations that made it increasingly harder for Malekith to do his thing! Over the next few minutes, his teleport attacks became increasingly slower, easier to predict, and much more of a deadly risk to the Dark Elf, as my sword was racking up the cuts and stabs all across his body! Hell, if it wasn't for his healing factor, the dude would have at least bled out in the three minutes I was shanking him up! Granted, that wasn't to rule him out even slightly. I may have been able to take one of Malekith's cards, but the dude still had an entire deck of aces at his disposal.

For starters, our fight simply transitioned to an Aether vs lightning charged cloud storm slugfest. Malekith threw everything he had at me, from Aether blasts, to showers of Aether blades and arrows, to constructs of horrifying creatures that were the unholy union of Lovecraft monsters, and biblically accurate angels (look up how Seraphim and Cherubim actually look. They are horrifying!). I responded with a mass of lightning charged storm clouds that effortlessly worked on offense and defense. I blocked Malekith's attack with a swirling tornado shield, and responded with a barrage of ranged Vortex Rasengans, giant animal constructs, and more than a few giant fists to try and smash Malekith into a paste! Occasionally, one of us would close the distance (Malekith was still pretty quick on his feet), and engage in a short bout of sword combat, before knocking each other away with a respective energy attack, and continuing our intense ranged battle.

"Hey," I opened a conversation with the Dark Elf in one of our close quarters bouts. "I really appreciate you cutting out the bull$#!+, and getting down to business."

Malekith kicked me away, summoned another Aether blade, and pressed forward with a renewed attack. I summoned my Sky Shield to offset elf boy's new advantage, as we went back and forth in a flurry of strikes, stabs, blocks, and dodges.

"I mean," I continued. "You coulda came in with the 'YOU KILLED MY SON' revenge $#!+, even tho he was a literal genocidal maniac of your creation, but no, you just showed up, and here we are in a duel to the death."

Malekith's attack's became slightly less precise, as the Dark Elf was quite good at managing his anger. Still, I was able to get in a decent amount of cuts and stabs at his face and legs, while just barely keeping my own fleshy parts from not getting run through. After another minute of back and forth, with no upcoming victor in sight, I mixed it up with an armed version of a Static Jumping, while continuing the trash talk barrage.

"Hey…..for what it's worth…...you can start again…..be a better dad next time…..maybe not teach your next kid to kill and destroy for the lols…..hell, you could start right now…..call off this attack…..go back to your home…..reform your whole outlook….maybe put forth some policies of love and friendship."

All of this was against the backdrop of me continuing to BRING IT to Malekith. Unlike his teleport strikes, I kept Malekith in a perpetual state of confusion, as I turned on my Thunder Form (my lightning version of the Human Torch for the new kids), and created a legion of fakes that popped up all over the place via me creating/dissolving them with the Power Grid as needed! Malekith caught all the Vibranium, as I stabbed him in the back, front, legs, and arms so many times, my blade was starting to become slick with his blood. For the record, I tried to hack off limbs, and go for the head damn near every chance I got, but Malekith was just good enough to continually avoid dismemberment/decapitation. At one point, he got under an Aether barrier, but I overcharged my shield with lightning, threw it at the barrier, and forced the dark monarch out of his flimsy defense with an explosion that sent him skidding across the grass! I zoomed after Malekith with intent to finally put my sword somewhere in that neck or above area, but was denied as I caught an entire Aether wave that sent me careening backwards! By the time I recovered, some 50 meters away, Malekith was already in the middle of what looked like some sort of Summoning Jutsu. More so, he was….smiling.

"Heh," the Dark Elf chuckled. "You remind me of my fallen son. He too was amusing, sadistic, and most himself when engaging in battle. Indeed, he was among the few I hold dear. He will be avenged, young thunderer, Malekith The Accursed swears it, however….there is more than enough vengeance to share with comrades."

Malekith completed his spell, and a bright flash of red ensued. When the flare died down, a third member was added to the party, as Dario Agger, ready to go in his Minotaur form was huffing and puffing furiously! The guy had gotten another shot of Olympus Force, as I could sense the seven energies coursing violently throughout his system. Agger also had a bloody sack slung behind his back, and wasn't shy about showing me its contents as he threw the opened bag towards me. Severed, bloody heads tumbled out of the sack, and despite how selfish it sounds, a small part of me breathed a sigh of relief it wasn't anyone I knew….or at least not personally. I did indeed recognize the mangled heads of the men and women dotting the landscape. They were the former Roxxon executives and board members, all of which sold Agger out for plea deals, or abandoned ship as soon as they felt the jaws start to shut around their corrupt enterprise. I took special precautions to make sure Roxxon workers would be safe from Agger…..it didn't occur to me to lend that same boon to the ones I truly felt were accomplices to his crimes.

"Oh yeah!" Agger laughed. "You think you can just walk away from Dario Agger?! No! You don't quit Roxxon! Your employment is in perpetuity, until I decide it is necessary for termination! These leeches got rich off MY coattails, and they thought they could just walk away?! That they could betray me?! It doesn't work like that! You don't walk out on Dario f*(#!^% Agger! Look closely, you little tree hugging, soy faced, commie little brat! That's what happens when you forget your place! When you let your head get filled with silly little dreams about taking the world from who rightfully claimed it! You hid the other rats well, but after i'm done here, after i've killed you and your little rainbow pals, i'll hunt them all down one by one, and do this and more to them, and everyone they love!"

A brief pause ensued, followed by the crackling of high intensity lightning, as I powered up to Thunder God.

"Then that settles it," I said. "You're not leaving here alive."

Agger charged me full on, with Malekith not far behind, and the brawl resumed!

Agger tried really hard to be relevant in this fight, but the dude was more of an annoyance than anything else. Malekith and I kept throwing Aether/storm cloud attacks at each other respectively, while Agger just kept charging, and occasionally blowing energy balls outta his mouth. I just kept blindsiding him with Phantom Bolts, while I focused on Malekith. Speaking of which, the Dark Elf king was REALLY stepping up his game! In addition to his usual fluid Aether attacks, Malekith was incorporating rock solid constructs, such as Aether golems, and using what could only be described as an Aether version of earthbending, as he solidified formidable fortresses, and ranged attacks on a dime! Oh, and that's not counting the horrifying magical entities he kept summoning out of nowhere to try and merc me (is it weird i'm getting desensitized too almost being eaten by 5th Dimensional beings?). Things were at their usual level of 'f*(# this $#!+', until Nico gave me an interesting sitrep.

"Hey, Storm-Lord?" she asked me.

"Not a great time, Bellatrix!" I responded as I blasted my way out of some fish monster, only to just barely avoid getting trampled by Agger. "You better have a super special cheat code that makes me one-shot the bad guys!"

"What if that's exactly what I got?"

I was so slightly taken aback, I almost ate one of Agger's fists!

"Go on," I responded, punching Agger away with a Storm-Lord Special, and launching a Vortex Kamehameha at Malekith (today was a good day for my playbook).

"Oh, so now you have time? Long story short, the four portals at the barriers are connection points to more of those crystals from yesterday. The crystals power the entire dome, but they're like crazy far away in another dimension. I don't have enough spare power to close em' and it's way too risky to send anyone over, even if we had the bodies to spare."

Malekith responded with his own Aether power blast, and we clashed for a minute. He was strong, but had nothing on Thunder God, and my blast plowed through his, just in time for me to bob and weave around another one of Agger's offensive rushes.

"Got it," I thought back to Nico. "To Infinity and Beyond."

"DON'T YOU DARE, STORM-LORD!" Allyson blew up my thoughts. "LAST TIME YOU-"

Silence.

"Sunbird?" I tried to reach her. "Sister Grimm?! Lightspeed?!"

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

I scanned the area frantically with my Thunder Sense, and only confirmed my fears. Allyson, Nico, and Julie were gone! Like, they were just straight up nowhere to be found!

Yeah, any reservations I had about using the Infinity Sword were immediately dashed. Things were finally starting to get under control, but also not really. Sure, Allyson, Nico, and Julie had capped the portals all around the area, but that was a band-aid. Hell, Dragon Empress' ships just shot down more demon pods, and damn near put us back to square one! That Aether barrier had to go down, and those ships needed to be trashed. I gave my sword a sort of heads up that I wanted to use the Infinity Sword, and for what purpose. Excelsior responded with a recommendation of the Reality Stone, and gave me a time frame of five minutes to complete the task in question. Speaking of which, slight explanation.

Back when we fought Dracula, I did the whole vibrating blade thing to shatter his sword. That's how we got the upper hand in that fight. As it turned out, my sword just straight up absorbed his'. Literally, the sword dissolved into energy, and my blade swallowed said energy into itself. I didn't even realize what had happened until I did a few tests, and figured it out. I didn't actually use it until a month later, where I used the Space Stone Energy to send a defective Eternal from another universe (don't ask) into the sun. Sounds cool, right? Yeah, here was the downside….it took my team two whole days to find me, marooned on another planet, at the other side of our galaxy! See, the Infinity Sword was strong, but also unpredictable. With a little bit of practice, I figured out how to use its energies in small quantities, as well as my limits. For example, if I wanted to, I could turn all of NYC into a marshmallow. I would also die. Like, period, full stop, using that much energy at once, even for a second, would kill me. What I was about to do now…to be honest, I didn't know. The Reality Stone power was the most unstable of all. Anything could happen.

"Yo, GT?" I mentally phoned Grant. "I'm about to do somethin' that's gonna drop that barrier. When it goes, you and Princess Powerful smash those ships. You got me?"

"Bro?" Grant asked, a little worried. What are you about to do?"

"Somethin' stupid. Don't worry, I have a plan to cover my ass. Just get those ship's outta our way, and we'll go from there."

I didn't tell him about Allyson and the others, cuz honestly, I wasn't super worried myself (boyfriend of the century). Sure, I was concerned, but after everything we've been through, I knew Allyson, Nico, and Julie could take care of themselves. They'd be ok. I had to focus on the here and now.

First thing was first, I had to cut this 2 on 1 party in half. It was bad enough I was gonna do something that would probably turn me to stone; I at least had to mitigate how much power i'd be shelling out. Agger was the most annoying of the pair, but he was also the one that required the least attention. After taking a second to double the amount of Olympium nanites in the atmosphere, this second batch specifically designed to drain his Olympus Force powers, I trucked Agger with a train construct, and sent him careening four miles east, into a squad of Moloids!

"Hey, guys," I thought to them. "Keep that busy for me for five minutes. Kill him if you can, but at the very least, keep him outta my hair for a little while, will ya?"

"I GET HIS HORNS!" one of the Moloids mentally proclaimed.

"HIS EYES WILL DECORATE MY HOME!" another said.

"MEAT!" a third one mentally shrieked.

Yeah…...they were still a work in progress.

Still, they were gettin' the job done. The smaller Moloids kept their distance, using ranged Olympium weapons, while the bigger/four armed Moloids kept hammering away at Agger from all sides, inside their Olympium armor, armed with various swords, axes, clubs, and more clubs! Agger was no joke, and was givin' my crew one hell of a fight, but they returned what he dished out with interest. They'd be fine, but the sooner I ended my part of the deal, the better.

As Malekith and I ended another power blast battle (this time in a draw), I made my move, willing Excelsior to transform into the Infinity Sword! My blade grew three times it's size, and changed its shape to pretty much the Dark Knight's blade from Infinity Blade. The sword had magic runes carved into either flat sides of it, and ambiently glowed blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green. Just the act of summoning the blade filled me with an exhilarating/terror inducing surge of power! I felt like the sun itself was in my chest, filling me with unimaginable power! At the same time, I felt like that sun was ALWAYS on the verge of going supernova! At any moment, this tidal wave of power threatened to overtake me, and if I wasn't careful, everyone around me! Like I said, it wasn't somethin' i'd bust out to open pickle jars. Anyway, Malekith recovered, and even paused his onslaught as he saw I was packing new heat. The Dark Elf king aired on the side of caution, and launched another power blast at me, obviously testing what the new heights of my power was. I didn't wanna disappoint him, so I gave him a little taste.

First off, the blade was already charging up my Reality Stone hail mary, so that was a given. The good thing about the Infinity Sword tho, was that it could multitask. In this case, I willed the blade to shoot me up with a small amount of Power Stone energy. This stone had a lot of applications, one of which being controlling all the energy that will ever exist in my universe, but it also had a more passive function, ala boosting the already inherent powers of its wielder. In other words, my speed, Zeus Lightning, Sea Force, and Polaris Voltage just got a massive supercharge! I showed this off in a soft flex as I created another Supercell Rasengan, no bigger than a soccer ball, and chucked it at Malekith's power blast. Right before my attack collided with his, I willed the energies in the Supercell Rasengan to triple on top of each other, and the blast grew to the size of a building in half a second! My attack straight up STEAMROLLED Malekith's, and it was all the dark elf could do to get inside an Aether barrier, and try to ride out the storm! Spoiler alert: it didn't work! Malekith ate it big time, and skidded across the dirt, five miles away! Before he could even think about recovering, I summoned a Supercell Cannon (a combined Zeus, Poseidon, and Polaris mega blast from above) to slam into him! Credit where it's due, Malekith actually managed to get inside another Aether barrier, and even managed to last all of seven seconds as he infused his barrier with magic just long enough to actually make a break for it, and just barely dash outta the blast radius!

Elf boy summoned a couple of Aether sabers to his hands, and made a mad dash towards me, but especially with my perception being enhanced by the Power Stone energy, he looked like he was wading through jello. I decided to lend a helping hand, and used some Space Stone Energy to literally close the gap between us way faster than Malekith was anticipating, as he found his neck uncomfortably close to my sword! With no time to dodge or block my attack, Malekith did a hail mary of his own, as he exploded into pure Aether!

I constructed a Zeus Lightning barrier around myself, easily deflecting Malekith's attacks, which was good, cuz he had clearly become another Lovecraftean beast. The bladed tentacles, mass of eyes, and the straight up sea of Aether hammers, blades, and almost zombie-like constructs gave it away. Not bad, but this was clearly Malekith's last power play. After this, he was done. Might as well hurry it up.

I created an F4 tornado around myself that was shooting Zeus Lightning, Sea Force Bolts, and Polaris Voltage in every direction! It took about 30 seconds (props to Malekith for actually putting up a halfway decent attack) for my twister to break through the initial attack burst. Afterwards, I transformed the twister into a supercell storm, and bombarded Malekith from the inside out with high octane/energy charged winds, and energy blasts! Malekith fought back as hard as he could, and the two of us engaged in an elemental (pun not intended) version of Beyblade. Again, props to the Dark Elf for lasting a full minute, but I was eventually able to shake him off, and basically rag doll his massive Lovecraftean form into the distance!

What ensued afterwards was three minutes of kicking Malekith's ass as he desperately tried switching up his Aether form. He started out with one last push from his Lovecraftean form, but I grinded him down with a series of energy tornadoes crashing into him from all sides. When that didn't work, Malekith turned himself into a giant Aether tiger (Dark Elves really seem to like tigers), with intent to maul the wind….I guess. I humored him, and created a Supercell charged giant lion for a brief cat fight, where I once again proved lions are the best, forget the rest. Malekith switched it up again via transforming himself into a giant Aether demon, but got swiftly knocked down to size as I also transformed my battle feline into a giant Trypticon, and literally beat him down to where he could no longer maintain his pure Aether form. Malekith was on the ground, just barely holding on, and I was not in the mood for another round. Before the Dark Elf could do anything else, I did a Static Jump right over him, and stabbed him in the chest! Malekith roared something awful as my blade dug into his chest, but somehow had enough energy left to conjure up a spell, and make a full f*(#!& retreat. Damn. He would ABSOLUTELY be back later, most likely pissed off, but we'd cross that bridge when we got to it. For now, the Infinity Sword had charged up enough Reality Stone energy to finally blow this popsicle stand (gods, I feel old)!

My blade was already in the ground, so I couldn't do an epic ground stab, but I made up for it by willing four huge energy rifts to rocket outwards to the four portals at the edges of the dome, and send that energy into Svartalfheim (what? Mythology's my whole thing.)! Nico was right. Even with the Reality Stone energy, it felt like I was tryna run five miles blindfolded! I basically had to give the energy a directive, and hope it could deliver on a task I didn't really know how to do (why is that so true to just my life in general?). The very act stretched my mind to its absolute limits, and I was for sure gonna get MAJOR blowback for this, but I eventually managed to force the Reality Stone energy to the Svartalf Crystals, and will said energy to turn the crystals into bubbles!

The sun came flooding in as the Aether barrier immediately started to dispel, and I heard the sounds of Grant and Molly immediately wreaking havoc on the respective enemy warships above us! I wanted to get back in the fight, and finally press forward on our first advantage since these f*(#$ ruined our graduation, but my body was having none of it. Yeah….I had hoped against hope that maybe the side effects would skip me this time (or at least be less severe), but the backlash hit me like a freight train! First was the slight Power Stone backlash, as my body immediately dropped outta Thunder God, and started uncontrollably spasaming lightning, Sea Force, and Polaris Voltage! I couldn't stop the energy surges, which felt like hacking up a lung, for five straight minutes! That was the easy part tho, as the Reality Stone effects were no joke! For another five minutes, my molecular structure could not get its life together, as I was in a constant state of flux! I $#!+ you not, I literally shifted between being jello, a cactus, popcorn, cotton candy, stone, and Ramen noodles! Ironically enough the transitions were mostly painless, aside from the nausea. Thankfully, that was the end of the Infinity Sword backlash. Now, I just had to deal with the crippling fatigue, and inability to regain my equilibrium. This continued to be a $#!+ time for catching my breath, as Agger literally slammed full force into my chest with his hooves, and started beating one me relentlessly! By the looks of it, he wasn't doing too well either. His fur was singed all over, and his Olympus Force energy had been depleted to just War Force. Still, he had a sickening amount of Moloid blood and body parts, indicating that the fight didn't go all that well.

"NICE TRY!" he roared as he continued to beat the absolute f*(# outta me. "BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH! SAY GOODBYE, TREE HUGGER! AND DON'T WORRY, I'LL TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR PRECIOUS LITTLE DIRT KINGDOM! A CITY OF CRYSTALS! ACCESS TO THE WORLD'S ENTIRE OIL SUPPLIES! IT"LL MAKE A FINE ACQUISITION FOR ROXXON! YOU EVEN GOT FREE WORKERS ALL LINED UP AND READY FOR ME!"

Agger continued to beat me down relentlessly, and i'm not gonna lie, it f*(#!^& hurt! I was pretty much on the verge of losing consciousness, not even having the strength to send out a mental S.O.S. What happened in the next minute or so became fuzzy. I remember feeling a massive surge of power that was both not mine, yet eerily familiar! I remember some sort of explosion...but not really an explosion. It was like gravity had hyper focused on one spot, before expanding outwards in a violent burst of indescribable energy. Then I remember everything going red amidst the feeling of an unfathomable rage that felt as if I could burn down the entire world!

(Allyson's Perspective)

I was so f*(#!^& mad! I'm sorry, I know it's really bratty and selfish, but I don't ask for very much, and didn't think it was too much to ask to celebrate a major milestone of my life WITHOUT GOSH DARN MONSTERS RAINING DOWN FROM THE SKY!

Ok…..breathe…..breathe. Sorry about that. I'm better now.

Actually, no, no i'm not. And ya know what, it sucks to be the bad guys right now, because I was not here for their crap!

So yeah, after we got the civilians inside buildings, and inside barriers, Jason and Nico came up with our first real plan of attack, ala shutting down the portals dotting the campus. Me, Julie, and Nico were on that, and were taking no prisoners whatsoever! We operated like we'd done this a thousand times…..because Jason made us three specifically do SO MANY SIMULATIONS together! Julie and I would fly in at top speed, blasting down entire hordes of demons, Dark Elves, and Olympawns, while Nico went to work on dispelling the portals. Speaking of which, JESUS CHRIST, this girl was brutal! Nico was a master of blood magic, and while I didn't hold that against her, it was undeniable that she could get a little brutal with her methods. Case and point, her way of shutting down the portals was to literally grind the previously mentioned baddies coming out of it, as they at best made it halfway through. After creating a swirling, bloody seal, littered with severed body parts, organs, and…..ugggh….anyway, after all that, Nico completed the spell seal with a magic rune, and with one final push of her hands, dispelled the portals. Nico was able to dispel three portals at a time, while Julie and I ran complete defense. Within ten minutes, we had almost all of the portals sealed for good, but the bad guys simply fired off another round, and put us back to square one! Me and the girls went at it again with the portal busting, and Nico decided to just take the mask off, and admit she actually hated my boyfriend, ala giving him the stupid idea to use the Infinity Sword again! Yeah, i'm sure Jason's already downplayed the side effects, but the last time he used the sword, he was teleported to the other side of the galaxy, on a planet that was just barely able to sustain human life! It took Nico, Billy, Teddy, Jimmy, and Grant pooling their magic and/or chakra powers to roughly ping the area he was located, and we had to borrow a Wakandan space cruiser to locate Jason's sword. Heck, even then, it took us another hour to find him, as his sword was halfway across the planet away from him! Oh, and when we did find him, it took the rest of the day, and a crap ton of magic and Wakandan tech to stabilize his body, which was constantly in flux between tangibility! So yeah, I got a little defensive when Nico suggested Jason do the absolute sure fire thing to get him turned into a pile of Jello! Before I could really riff into him and her about it though, reality shifted, and felt the unmistakable vibe of being in the Mirror Dimension! More so, the environment folded and shifted as it shot us straight into downtown L.A.!

"This you, Sister Grimm?" I asked Nico nervously.

"Nope," she shook her head.

"You wanna get us outta here then?" Julie asked her.

"Can't," Nico responded.

"Why the hell not?!"

I almost wished Julie didn't ask, because it was followed by a huge wave of green magic, after which we found ourselves under attack from all sides! We're talking trolls, Frost Giants, Dark Elves, and Olympawns numbering in the hundreds, converging from all sides!

"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say this isn't you either!" I said to Nico as I got us inside an Apollo Fire barrier, and started letting off defensive blastwaves that incinerated anything that wasn't a Frost Giant, or an Apollo Fire Olympawn.

"No $#!+," she responded. "Whatever's got us in here is STRONG! I can't conjure a portal outta here! It won't let me! It's like trying to force a rhino to move!"

"Any idea who, what, or where it is?"

It's a person for sure, and….whoever it is, they're in the pool area of the Hollywood Tower Apartments.

"Let's say we pay em' a visit! Oh, after we handle these guys. What do you say, Kamikaze Carousel?"

"Read my mind!" Julie said.

"I'm in!" Nico responded.

"Kay. On three. One...two….THREE!"

I expelled all of the energy in my barrier outwards as one giant blastwave, giving me and the girls enough cover to start the Kamikaze Carousel. The move basically entailed overcharging ourselves with our respective energies, and obliterating our enemies via flying through em'. We all had our unique flair about doing so. Nico turned herself into a shadow wraith, and flew about through any enemies she could get her claws on, absorbing their souls into her shadow form as she passed through em'. I never got used to her doing that. I went Super Sunbird and basically did the same thing, albeit with less soul stealing, more incineration. With how fast I was moving, I doubt any of em' felt anything. Best in show goes too Julie, as this was really her wheelhouse. We figured out right away, Lightspeed was not a defensive fighter. Great on offense and dodging, but absolutely dreadful went trying to tank attacks. If she ever got cornered, it would be pretty much over, so her training was dedicated to never getting in that position. She was currently displaying her stupid powerful offense as she divided herself into seven light spectrum constructs, each with their own limited sense of consciousness, and rainbow blitzed through hundreds of baddies on her own! Me and her basically tied on the kill count, and had the goons wrapped up in under a minute! With them down for the count, her, myself, and Nico made a beeline for the Hollywood Tower apartments! I hoped against hope that we weren't brought into the Mirror Dimension because this person could do THAT thing, but let's be real, nobody chooses this place unless they had the special Dormammu homefield power up. Sure enough, the back half of the city started folding in half, before breaking apart into a kaleidoscope-like scenery. Before any of us could say any of the at least half dozen swears circulating in our heads, the mystery magician started launching buildings, cars, skyscrapers, and various other towers towards us at Mach 2!

Again, as much as it baffles me to admit it…..we were prepared for this too. Another big part of our first few months of training was Mirror Dimension training, where we had to survive the constantly shifting environment, and get to the person causing the ruckus. In the case of the training, the person causing the commotion was either Nico or Illyanna, both of which had the mark of Dormammu, and could manipulate the Mirror Dimension. Both of em' got really good at utilizing their respective powers over the training period, just as the rest of us got really good at managing to stay alive/take them down. In other words, the mystery magician pretty much had the worst of both worlds, as me and the girls didn't miss a beat!

Nico stopped their attack cold as she made a majority of the projectiles shatter into giant shards, charged them with magic, and sent them raining back at the mystery magician! The attacks were blocked by a green energy shield, but Nico was just gettin' started, and began to multiply, crush, and ball entire city sized chunks into energy charged blobs of rock, glass, and metal, in order to barrage the energy shield!

"I'll keep em' busy!" she thought to me and Julie. "The shield's strong, but the way i'm hammering it keeps it weak enough for one of you to break through! Give em' hell!"

"Lightspeed, you go around the city limits and attack from behind," I thought to Julie. " I'll straight shoot it, and draw the main defenses!"

"Next time, I'm straight shooting, Sunbird!" she responded as she flew off. "You're such a glory hog!"

"I resent that!"

Allegations of being a glory hog aside, the three of us worked together to finally get to the bottom of whoever was behind this magic act.

I shot straight forward, blasting/bulldozing my way through dozens of buildings, and blocks of the city folding upwards in order to make temporary shields, or perhaps sandwich me between the concrete. Side note, it was a little distracting every time I caught glimpses of the rest of my friends neck deep in magical mayhem. I spotted Eli, Tommy, Hulkling, and Kate basically huddled up, trying to fight their way out of a monster horde ambush, and saw America take a Dark Elf fighter blast full on, and plummet into the pavement! I constantly had to remind myself that there was literally nothing I could do for them at the moment, as well as the fact that they were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Had to keep my head in the task at hand. Speaking of which, the mystery magician started to pull out all the stops as I closed in on their location! The city streets below me splintered violently, and dozens upon dozens of green energy geysers shot upwards, reaching as high as five stories! The energy blowback slightly threw me off course, but not enough to wreck my flight path, as I continued to bob and weave around the geysers. That turned out to only be the opening act, as the geysers attracted huge chunks of rock, metal, and glass, to create an army of giant wolves, snakes, and giants, all focused on me! I'll admit to underestimating them, and getting a reality check real quick as the rock constructs took a direct blastwave with little resulting damage, and proceeded to ambush me on all sides!

One of the wolves grabbed me in its jaws, and was probably gonna attempt to make me a chew toy, but a desperate blast from the inside of his head ruined that! Granted, it was outta the fire, and into the frying pan, as more wolves, snakes, and boars were gathered to try and make a meal outta me! I managed to slowly smash and blast them off of me as they came, but Jesus Christ were these things tough! I can count on one hand the amount of times i've struggled with a fight in Super Sunbird, and at least the other times were against main or mid bosses, not supercharged minions! I probably woulda been stuck in this predicament for a little while, but this is why having teammates is always a good thing. While I was busy with the animal farm, Julie had just finished arcing around the city, and crashed into the mystery magician's barrier with a huge boom/explosion of rainbow energy! The animal constructs stopped suddenly, frozen in place, and I immediately hightailed it to the remains of the Hollywood Tower apartments, where Julie was hammering away at a smaller green energy shield. Desperately trying to keep the shield intact was a blond woman, wearing a green corset, with matching leggings, heels, and a Scarlet Witch lookin' headpiece. I remembered seeing her on one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s profiles. The Enchantress. Often associated with Loki. In other words, yeah, this was more than likely gonna ruin much more of my summer than graduation. Enchantress was no pushover, as even on the back foot, she managed to blast Julie away with a flash of green magic. Unfortunately for her, she didn't see me coming from behind! I took down her shield with one punch, followed by a roundhouse kick that sent her careening halfway across the city, with me and Julie hot on her heels!

We caught up to Enchantress in half a second, but ya girl was fast on the recovery, as she just barely stopped another one of my haymakers with a magic shield! Good for her, but she really needed to work on her 2 on 1 fighting skills, as Julie simply scooped her up from behind, and planted her headfirst into the ground via spinning piledriver! I thought for sure a hit like that would put anyone, even a goddess, down for a little bit, but Enchantress was a couple steps ahead of us this time, and me and Julie quickly found ourselves surrounded by dozens upon dozens of her clones, armed to the teeth with swords, axes, lances, and daggers!

Julie and I immediately went into overdrive, blasting down clones in every direction, while doing our best to not get shanked. That part was easy, as the Enchantress clones weren't very fast, strong, or durable. They made up for that in the numbers game though, as every time me or Julie blasted one down, three more took their place! I made the mistake of trying to one-shot them all, and get the real Enchantress with a fire blastwave….and ended up getting me and Julie caught inside a dogpile of hundreds of em'! Not my finest moment!

We continued to hold off the Enchantress army as best as we could, finding not a single modicum of success at all, while wondering where the heck Nico was in all of this. Things went from bad to worse in a snap, as the Enchantress army suddenly exploded all at once, with an amount of force that would've knocked the wind out of me if I required oxygen in this form! Heck, it was a wonder Julie was still conscious after that! That was pretty much the only thing we could count our blessings on at the moment, as the energy from the explosion was just the opening act. Currently, Julie and I were trapped in a green magic dome, that was glowing brighter by the second, and being enchanted with runes! The real Enchantress was powering the dome from above, 100 ft in the air, and by the looks of it, this was gonna do more than just tickle! Me and Julie did everything we could to break outta the dome, from trying to blast and punch the inside, to doing the same to the ground. Nothing worked! We were trapped! The dome only continued to grow in intensity from there, and while I had pretty much given up on trying to bust outta here, I sure as heck wasn't gonna let myself or Julie go down for the count. I powered down, as I couldn't use constructs in Super Sunbird, and prepared to get me and Julie inside of a solar barrier, but before I could even make the attempt, Enchantress got thrown for a loop in her own right, as Nico teleported into the magic barrier, and absorbed the entirety of it's magic into her Staff of Vishanti! Cutting it a bit close for my liking, but seeing as Nico yeeted Enchantress halfway to the edge of the troposphere with the Kamehameha version of the Bolts of Balthakk, I wasn't gonna hold it against her! Heck, Nico more than made up for lost time as she started multiplying, folding, and shuffling copies of the city, like the world's biggest set of Legos!

"Ok, here's the deal," Nico thought to me and Julie as we started to close the distance between us and Enchantress. "She's got some tricky magic in play. She's enchanted herself with some kind of spell seal in the base of her soul that acts as a sort of universal lock. As long as it's in play, I can't portal us outta the Mirror Dimension. Hell, we can't even kill her. Besides being super tough, the spell seal has a Seven Suns of Cinnabus bomb that'll trigger if we manage to off her. Maybe you can survive it, Sunbird, but me and Lightspeed don't feel like being deep fried."

"Understandable," I responded. "So what's the game plan?"

"Hard to describe it beat for beat, but i'm gonna construct the Tower of The Vishanti, drain her magic, and THEN we kill her!"

"Do we have to kill her?"

"Hey," Julie spoke up. "She tried to kill us first! Plus, she works for Loki. If this is gonna be a whole thing, i'll feel much better taking this piece off the board!"

"Ditto," Nico said. "Face it, Sun Queen, you've been outvoted!"

"We'll see," I responded. "For now, yeah, do the tower of destiny, or whatever! Do you need me and Lightspeed to stall for time?"

"Nah! I can multitask!"

Yeah, while we were having this back and forth, we were whipping butt like there was no tomorrow!

It was kinda funny how Enchantress folded at the slightest hint of physical resistance! Nico got one hit on her with her Witch Arm, setting me and Julie up to join her in a mid-air Elemental Speed Thrasher! After getting clocked in the everywhere, Enchantress managed to buy herself some space with an arcane blastwave. Before she could actually whip out a decent trick, Nico clapped her hands together, and made the Mirror Dimension go nuts! The entire city became a kaleidoscope of copies, splintered refractions, and an endless void. Heck, the ground was pretty much in every direction, EXCEPT DOWN! Things only got crazier from there, as Nico only ramped things up!

For the next eight minutes, me, Julie, Nico, and Enchantress engaged in a high octane dogfight, as Enchantress was forced to stay on the run, throwing magic blasts, copies of herself, and weapon constructs back at us, in addition to folding and reshaping matter to throw at us. You wouldn't believe how frustrating it is to fight a giant snake that used to be a skyscraper. No matter what she threw at us, it was never enough to keep us off of her for more than ten seconds, as Nico was getting increasingly better at countering, and even reversing Enchantress' Mirror Dimension attack, while I kept her personal defenses as soft as possible via mini-sun, monster truck, Powerpuff Girls, missiles, angels, and giant tiger constructs. At the worst, Enchantress was just barely able to block my continuous barrage, though I got more than a few good hits in. This left Julie wide open to press forward, and get in a thunderous physical/energy barrage, as she hammered Enchantress from all sides with a good 200 hit combo, before blasting her through five skyscrapers with a point blank Rainbow Rasengan punch! While this was going on, Nico was absolutely going to work! In addition to running interference, she was actively setting up her Tower of The Vishanti, though the 'tower' part was apparently a later step. For the eight minutes we took on Enchantress, she was copying/consolidating cities into massive lumps, 2,000 ft above us, all converging into an octagon shape that encompassed the area of an entire metropolis. For every minute that went by, each of the ever folding cities were enchanted with the runes of The Octessence: Balthakk, Cyttorak, Farallah, Ikonn, Krakkan, Raggadorr, Valtorr, and Watoomb. Each time a rune was completed, the city clusters transformed into a giant facsimile of said Octessence member; made of stone and glass. Balthakk didn't have a form exactly, as it was merely a pillar or purple/black energy, outlined by massive chunks of stone and glass orbiting its energy outline. Ctyttorak was basically a larger, more monstrous looking Juggernaut. His glass/stone statue was alight with intense red energy. Farallah's glass/stone figure was basically a Minotaur, with curved ram's horns, glowing with soft black energy. Ikonn's figure was that of a humanoid bug thing, glowing with green energy. Krakkan's figure was a man wearing armor, a sort of samurai helmet that had spikes going up along the sides, with additional spikes coming outta his back, and his shoulder pads. His energy was a cloud-like silver. Ragaddorr's figure was of a guy with four arms from the waist up, wearing chest armor and a horned helmet over his head. From the waist down, he had a serpent's tail, and his energy was bright blue. Valtorr's figure was basically a limbless dragon with a bunch of extended spikes and horns in the upper neck/head area. His energy was orange. Finally, Watoomb was a humanoid looking guy with a sort of falcon head, whose energy was a brownish gold. The giant statues were cool looking, but for the time being they were stationary. They did however give Nico MASSIVE power ups every time she completed their figures!

Balthakk turned her right eye into a glowing purple orb that was burning with energy. Cyttorak did the same for her left eye. Farallah gave her ram horns and talons. Krakkan gave her a sick set of torso armor, spikes and all. Raggadorr gave her an extra set of arms and swapped her legs for a blue serpent tail. Valtorr gave her a maw filled with dragon teeth, and by the looks of it, fire breath. Watoomb ended the set by giving Nico a nice set of brownish gold angel wings. I'll be honest, I was a little freaked out. I had never seen Nico do anything like this. I hardly recognized her, and couldn't help but do a quick read on her, just to be sure we had nothing to worry about. Thankfully, we didn't. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the arcane entities would have liked nothing more than to take over Nico's body, and turn her into a slave, but she had defenses in place to prevent this. That left her free to continue with the actual building of her tower, and hoo boy was it a doozy!

Without warning, rude by the way, Nico clapped all four of her hands together, and really shook the Mirror Dimension up! It was like someone took 100 L.A.s, put em' in a blender, and hit frappe! Me, the girls, and Enchantress were trapped in a maelstrom of glass, metal, asphalt, and stone. Initially the scene was pure chaos, with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but that initial assessment altered as I observed the environment a little more. Skyscrapers and other buildings were twisting and folding into each other, forming what looked to be some sort of foundation piece. Errant pieces of other buildings, cars, and various scaffolding pieced themselves to each other, before whizzing back and forth to contribute to the fast building construction. I felt a power that could only be described as primordial being infused into every fiber of it. It was as if I was in the eye of a sentient cosmic storm that was growing more powerful with each passing second! I felt small, defenseless, and vulnerable. Heck, I wasn't the only one feeling the squeeze, as Enchantress made it blatantly obvious her back was against the wall.

While Nico was hanging back to focus on building the tower, me and Julie continued to keep the pressure on. Upon Nico actually starting to build the tower, Enchantress, face morphed into a deer at headlights! I knew her type well enough to know that she wouldn't let a reaction like this slip through unless absolutely desperate. She was quick on the response though, as before Julie or I could throw another punch and/or blast, she threw us for a slight loop via glowing with a dark greenish/blue energy, and knocking us backwards with a pretty hefty blastwave! We recovered easily, but I couldn't help but notice my Sun Form automatically switch to Eden Inferno. That would only happen if Enchantress was channeling some SERIOUS dark magic…...and yup, that was pretty much on the money.

The formerly drop dead gorgeous goddess was now a translucent figure, glowing with a ghoulish bluish-green aura. She had traded her elegant corset and leggings for a set of armor that included ornate boots, arm guards, shoulder guards, a chainmail/fur battle skirt, with a matching battle bra, and a tattered black cape that reached down to the back of her knees. Adorned on her head was a sort of crown made of obsidian daggers, and her face couldn't even be called that anymore, as it was merely a skull staring back at me! The new Enchantress was absolutely radiating with power, and I was pretty sure me and Julie were thinking something along the lines of 'this looks bad', but we initially had nothing to worry about, as Enchantress shot straight past the two of us, and went straight for Nico!

Enchantress came down on her full force with a double strike of a giant energy axe and sword, but Nico didn't miss a beat, and summoned a blue spell shield to block Enchantress' attack! The force of the blow was strong enough to send a decent shockwave outwards, but Nico's shield held strong, and she had more tricks just below the surface, as she pulled two of her arms back, and made six identical spell seals protruding backwards from the original. I recognized this as the Seven Rings of Raggadorr, and got a front row seat as to how versatile this spell could be, as Nico punted Enchantress half a mile away with a huge power blast that emanated from the rings!

Enchantress managed to stop, and create a barrier around herself, but Julie and I were already on crashing that party, as we flew to either side of her barrier, and let loose respective full force blasts, trapping Enchantress in a triangle of pain! Credit where it's due, Enchantress held out for almost half a minute. This was no small feat, as she obviously had to keep refreshing her shield almost every five seconds. Not to brag, but i'm pretty sure that was 70% due to my Eden Inferno. Still, Enchantress couldn't keep this up forever, and quickly turned the tables on me and the girls. I just barely caught her making hand signs, but before I could do something productive, ala dropping a mini-sun on top of her, everything went hazy as Enchantress executed some kind of bomb!

I was thrown for a loop, and then another one, and another one, until I realized I was in some kind of mystic tornado, big enough to turn L.A. into a junkyard! Green energy bolts emanated from the central point of the vortex, striking me with enough force to actually sting a great deal. I shrugged em' off, but my concern immediately went to Julie, who would be ripped to shreds in this environment!

"SISTER GRIMM, LIGHTSPEED!" I desperately thought of my friends. "TALK TO ME! LET ME KNOW YOU'RE ALRIGHT!"

"WE'RE ALRIGHT, SUNBIRD!" Nico responded. "Lightspeed took a few hits, but nothing too bad! I got us safe and sound inside a Seven Rings of Raggadorr shield, but I can't shake this vortex without some help!"

"Don't worry about it! I got it covered! How's the tower coming?!"

"Still chugging along, despite the sudden bad weather! The foundation's finished, and we're almost halfway done with the rest! Hell, if we can punt her to the lobby, i'll have the home field advantage!"

"I can take care of that too! Give me five minutes tops, and we'll be in business!"

I left Nico with that vague, but hopefully optimistic note, and quickly got to work.

It took a good several seconds, but I was eventually able to build up a strong charge of swirling Eden Inferno at the base of Enchantress' mystic vortex. Things only ramped up from there, as I kept my counter vortex rising until I hit a wall, ala Enchantress starting to push back against me. The witch was just above the clashing vortexes, and was pushing with all her might to keep mine suppressed. Her emotional state made me sad for her. If I had to hazard a guess, she was using the power of Hela, the Norse goddess of the dead. She was channeling the power of the countless of the dead that resided in Hel, which wasn't a place of punishment, rather a place of gloom and dejection. Enchantress was forcing herself to bear the weight of the regret, unfulfilled dreams, and general nihilism of the dead. More so, she was trying to force it on me. The air was permeated with this aura of despondency. It was as if Enchantress' vortex was trying to convince me of the futility of it all. That I would fail in spite of my efforts. This vortex didn't know me very well, nor my friends. We were The Elementals! We eat the impossible for breakfast, and hit bullseyes on longshots, and shots in the dark! This vortex wasn't gonna break me! Enchantress was not going to break me or my friends! We were gonna kick her butt, get back to the real world, and save the day!

The force of my own hype gave my vortex a slight boost, and before Enchantress could attempt to bolster against my slight rise, I hit her with an unstoppable tidal wave via putting all of myself into growing the Eden Inferno Vortex, while charging it with the positive emotions of courage, joy, and confidence, ala singing 'I Want Everything' by Hope 7! Enchantress didn't stand a chance, and her vortex was completely evaporated by my own before the end of the chorus! She didn't even have a chance to put up any sort of defense, as I consolidated the Eden Inferno into a mini-sun the size of a plane, and turned on the gravity! Enchantress got sucked into the holy fireball, and immediately got sent on the express elevator to splatsville, as I willed the mini-sun to slam into the base of Nico's halfway done tower! The pent up energy exploded violently, and even amidst the roaring flames I could hear Enchantress screaming bloody murder! She was for sure in pain, but after getting a quick emotional read on her, I could see it was more rage than agony. The Asgardian made that ABUNDANTLY apparent as she conjured a bed of giant energy spear heads, and legions of undead beasts and warriors to throw upwards at me and the girls! None of us faltered for even a second, and zoomed down to meet her attacks!

At this point, I hoped we weren't making Enchantress feel bad. She really was a toughie, but she was either inexperienced with opponents that could actually match up with her, or we were just too good. In either case, Nico, Julie, and myself closed the distance on her in our own unique ways. Nico engulfed herself in a Cyttorak aura, essentially turning herself into an unstoppable human bullet, and straight up tanked Enchantress' attacks. Julie was more elegant in her descent, as she gracefully dodged the energy spear heads, and blasted down the zombies. I followed her example, but put a Sunbird exclusive twist at the end. As we neared Enchantress, who summoned a fresh legion of undead warriors, in addition to starting another mystery magic attack, I willed the entirety of the base of Nico's tower, which was big enough to fit all of L.A. inside itself, to become a giant Eden Inferno Sunspot! Enchantress' army evaporated into mist, and the sorceress once again crumpled to the ground, trying to fight the no doubt unbearable pain she was in. If Nico and Julie had any sort of sympathy for her predicament, they sure didn't show it, as Nico straight up landed with all her might into the Asgardian's back, before moving out of the way for Julie to do a Lions Barrage finisher on it! I wasn't even sure how I was gonna follow that one up, and Enchantress wasn't in the mood to find out either, as she rose to her feet in a sudden burst of speed, a spear in hand, ready to skewer me! I blocked the energy weapon with a shield construct, and rolled outta the way as Nico blasted Enchantress point blank with a Bolts of Balthakk/Flames of Faltine combo blast from her mouth! I totally knew she had dragon breath!

The fight was definitely nearing its endpoint, but Enchantress wasn't going down without a fight, and poured everything she had into holding on.

The sorceress somehow managed to keep up the summoning of successive waves of undead warriors, enough to halfway fill the city sized area, and even managed to manifest moderate energy storms above us, that rained down energy bolts and giant energy spear heads. None of that slowed me, Nico, or Julie in the slightest. I kept Enchantress' army at bay via making my Sunspot release tendrils of Eden Inferno, swallowing entire legions of undead warriors whole. Julie zipped all around picking off the ones that managed to survive the onslaught, and Nico kept Enchantress busy in a full on magic battle! Enchantress threw everything she had at Nico, from summoning interdimensional monsters, trapping her in a spell seal prism, and bombarding her with a series of spell seal blasts that coulda done literally anything. Nico remained unbothered, as her Octessence form easily powered through Enchantress' attacks, and threw her own combination attacks back at her. Nico spammed her Flames of Faltine/Bolts of Balthakk dragon breath, but mixed it up with a Winds of Watoomb/Vapors of Valtorr mini-storm that almost knocked Enchantress to the ground! Nico kept her momentum up by engulfing herself in Cyttorak and Farallah energy, and after closing the distance between her and Enchantress, beating the absolute snot outta her! It was as if Gorro and Medusa had a baby, and abandoned it to be raised by wolves! It was all Enchantress could do to conjure up shields that lasted from 3-4 seconds, just to keep Nico from getting that one last hit that would've at least knocked her outta her Hel Form! Enchantress tried one last hail mary of cloning herself into 100 copies, and bombarding Nico with an army of herself, but Nico simply multiplied herself into just as many copies, gave em' all four blades that I guessed were Krakkan's, and went slicing and dicing, until there was only one left. Sucked to be her, because Nico got a hold of her, opened her dragon maw, and started to suck the Hel energy right out of Enchantress! The Asgardian fought, kicked, screamed, and let loose desperate blastwaves, trying her darnedest to escape, but it was all for nothing, as Nico completely absorbed her magic, and punted her now normal self into the floor! Nico immediately bound her with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, and the Chains of Krakkan for good measure, before making the city wide platform rise to the top of the tower! Oh yeah, with all the fighting going on, I didn't realize the tower was complete. A obsidian/gold colored tower, with miniature spires in the shape of an octagon, which were in line with the Octessence figures.

"Up!" Nico thought to me and Julie, as she took to the sky. "Unless you want your soul ripped apart and sucked out of your body!

That was a no bueno for me, so I took the advice of my magical goth friend, and followed her a good 500 ft above the tower. Nico was swift to put the finishing touches on said tower, as she performed a mesmerizing mix of hand/arm signs, creating three spell seals, blue, white, and orange respectively, in conjunction with her words, which echoed as if there was a wildfire in her throat!

"BY THE AGELESS, VISHANTI!" her voice thundered for miles. "OSHTUR, HOGGOTH, AGAMOTTO, I BESEECH THEE! LEND ME YOUR STRENGTH!"

Magic always amazed and terrified me at the same time, and this was no different, as Nico quite literally summoned elemental titans to her aid! Oshtur, or I guess an avatar of her, rose as a 200 ft tall construct of a woman with a glowing jewel on her forehead, with long hair spilling out of her hooded wizard's robe. From the east, a giant pillar of fire, big enough to torch a city block, erupted, before quickly taking the form of a giant tiger. While that was going on, a massive storm was steadily brewing in the sky, until it covered every visible horizon. Once Oshtur and Hoggoth were fully formed, the super storm started condensing itself, lightning and thundering heavily, until it molded itself into the shape of a male figure, but just the figure. No defining characteristics about him, just a living template. The three elemental figures rushed into the tower, merging with it, and leaving glowing impressions of themselves along its circumference. After that, Enchantress was REALLY screwed.

The Vishanti avatars sent a massive wave of power upwards, that shot that shot into her, and quite literally started to force all of the magic out of her body! The Octessence figures were quick to get theirs, as all eight of them moved as one, and attached colored energy tendrils to the eight spires extending up from the tower. Once the energy tendrils got a hold of their attachment points, they started to reverse in flow, glowing with a bright green tinge, as they started to drain Enchantress dry! Heck, I made the mistake of zeroing in on the poor girl, and was mortified to learn that Nico wasn't kidding about the whole soul being ripped apart business! Enchantress' agony, fear, and desperation were of a level I didn't think was even possible! It was all I could do to not rush down and help her! Turns out I didn't need to. After about a half a minute of getting her powers and a good fourth of her soul drained out of her body, I felt a sudden spike in Enchantress' already overwhelming levels of desperation! I was just barely able to keep up with the preamble to the big boom, as Enchantress suddenly became lost in an ever growing wave of green energy that engulfed Nico's tower, and was swiftly growing in height towards us! Julie and I took one look at each other, then to Nico, who was still frozen in normal time! Without a word, I put Nico in a car seat construct to protect her from whiplash, and started zooming with Julie….well, towards anywhere but here!

We were really in trouble, as Enchantress' blast just kept growing in size and speed, until it had engulfed what would've been all of downtown L.A. and was swiftly coming on our heels!

"Is the magic portal blocker or whatever down?!" Julie asked me.

"I dunno!" I responded. "Lemme ask her!"

I quickly shifted into Sun Goddess, grabbed Rowenos, enchanted him with the spell for 'speed up' (επιτάχυνε), and threw him at Nico. Goth Queen looked like she just recovered from getting dunked in a whirlpool, as she was frantically looking around as if she lost her head!

"HEY!" I thought to her. "BIG EXPLOSION! WE'RE GONNA DIE! GET US OUTTA HERE!"

Nico took a look back, screamed 'oh $#!+', and snapped back around with a Sling Ring on her left hand. I barely looked around to see the smallest possible portal back to the real world, and poured on the gas to get through! Me, Julie and Nico crash landed into the cratered mess that used to be the school football field, and I caught a glimpse of Nico reverting to her normal self, looking like she was in desperate need of a nap. I was gonna make a move to give her a quick energy boost, but I suddenly felt the reality was imploding on itself, followed by a wave of explosions that rocked the ground, and sent me and the girls flying in separate directions!

(Grant's Perspective)

What else can I say? $#!+ is popping off!

As soon as Storm-Lord gave me the signal, I switched back to human form, summoned Earthshaker, and took to the sky with Princess Powerful!

I knew those warships belonged to Dragon Empress. No doubt she had picked up some new tricks since not dying when I blew her up, and I was not bout to let her show me up. While Princess Powerful went after the Dark Elf warship, I did a not so quiet knock knock on Dragon Empress' doorstep as I created half a dozen All-Metal constructs of Thor, The Thing, Hulk, Captain Marvel, and Namor. I imbued the constructs with a small piece of Gaea's consciousness, and sent em' on their way to trash and absorb Dragon Empress' toys, while I honed in on the one directly above me.

For my first trick, I flew right through the forward hull of one of the warships, all the way to the other end, creating a maelstrom of Geo-Force from my body, and blowing it to bits from the inside out! Next, I created a giant All-Metal battleship, loaded with God Steroid powered cannons, and critically damaged another dragon warship, before I collided my battleship into the remains, and absorbed the extra Scabrite into my horde. I was gonna do somethin' fancy for the third one, maybe go Mega Titan, and Godzilla smash it a bunch, but my combo train got cut short via my body calling for a Timeout as I approached said third warship! I just barely moved to the side, avoiding a giant axe that was on fire! My Timeout only increased in ferocity as I sensed a dude materialize out of thin air, holding the axe, and bringing it back around for a mean swing! My reflexes kicked in as I turned around, swinging Earthshaker to block the dude's strike! Our axe blades clashed with a muffled CLANG, and I found myself face to face with The Executioner! I remembered reading his profile a while back. Thor villain, usually a henchman for Loki, always with Enchantress, totally her lapdog. He was also rocking the axe gimmick, but it looked better on me, and there could only be one, so after a brief power struggle, I shrunk down to Tiny Titan, slammed into Executioner's chest, and sent him on the express elevator to ground city! As much fun as an axe on axe fight would've been, I wasn't tryna play with my food. The deal was only gettin' worse and worse as time went on, and I had a chance to take out one of Loki's Rooks. I went for the kill as I willed a bed of giant thorns, sharp enough to shred Titanium, to spring up just where me and Executioner would make impact. The dude was furiously swinging/swatting away, but couldn't get a solid hold of me, and got punted into the dirt!

That was as close to a win as I was getting right now, as I felt Executioner do some kinda morph at the last minute. Didn't get a good read on him, but seeing as whatever he was now was strong enough to smash though my thorn bed, like kindling, I quickly rolled off of him, grew to normal size, and held my axe at the ready. What I wasn't expecting was to be challenged on my home turf, as I felt a massive earth tremor steamroll towards me! I tried to stop said tremor, but realized almost too late that whatever kind of earth this was tumbling towards me, it wasn't natural! I quickly slammed my fist into the ground, creating a counter rockslide to block the oncoming one, and ended up creating a small earthquake that rocked the entire football field, sending splinters of dirt and rock in every direction! Before the dirt even cleared, my body called for another Timeout as Executioner launched at me again with an overhead strike. Ok, so this guy was like 30% skill, 70% brute force. Dumb and thick, just how I like em'! I took Earthshaker and gave it a good underhanded throw at Mach 2 straight into Executioner's chest…..and it BOUNCED OFF! Like, I heard a slight crack, like I hit a mountain, and my axe bounced right off the dude! Hell, the axe didn't seem to do much against him, as his momentum was barely thrown off, and I had to side step his downward strike! It was after getting a solid look at him that I realized the problem. Executioner's armor and skin had completely transformed into some kinda gray stone that had green energy coursing through them, like multiple rivers. Whatever energy it was, it sure as hell wasn't Geo-Force, and just like before, whatever rock he was made of, I couldn't control it!

Executioner kept pressing his attack forward with a wide swing to my mid-section, which I blocked with my sword, Gaea's Claw. It was at this point that I realized I needed to take this guy seriously, as he damn near doubled in strength in not even a minute. Not yet a threat, but I had no idea how many surprises he had in his sleeve. We did a little back and forth, exchanging weapons strikes and occasional unarmed combat, and on the bright side, I was technically winning. After a good minute of sword on axe combat, where I connected 25 slashes to the chest, arms, legs, and back, I summoned my axe back to me, willing it to surge with Titan Force, and timed it just right to clock Executioner in the side of the head, with an exploding energy blast no less! That did some real damage, as chunks of the guy flew in every direction, as he tumbled into the dirt! I figured that had to do it, cuz I can only count on one hand the people I know that can survive getting half their face blown off, but to my frustration, the rocks that were Executioner's face flew back to him, and reformed it, like a jigsaw puzzle! The guy was quick on the response as he started twirling his axe, using the leather thong at the base to make the weapon turn into a mini whirlwind. As he flew, cuz of course he could f*(#!^% fly, more gray stone boulders half the size of football fields manifested! Executioner hurled em' at me with surprising speed, generating another two for every one he threw. I managed to close the distance between us by flying around the boulders, smashing through them inside a blaze of Titan Force, and even managed to throw one back at him via slamming it back with a Giant All-Metal baseball bat! Executioner overloaded said boulder with that green energy, causing it to explode into a thousand pieces, but got yanked to the ground again as I created a X20 gravity spot, about 200 ft wide! Executioner managed to recover just in time to roll outta the way of another one of my axe throws, and struggled to his feet to try and defend himself against my sword/axe attacks. Spoiler alert, he didn't do super well. He managed to block a decent amount of my strikes, but he couldn't keep up with my speed and maneuverability, as I literally fought circles around him, hacking away furiously at his chest, legs, back, head, and shoulders. I kept increasing the amount of power I put into the strikes, and managed to chip away a little more chunks of rock, but the results were always the same, as Executioner healed just as fast as he got hurt, and was gradually increasing in speed and strength to match more and more of my blows!

"Gaea?!" I thought to my magical sponsor. "What's the deal here?! I'm the earthbending king! Why can't I do the earthbending on this guy?!"

"It's earth," she responded. "It's just not me. More specifically, this is a really old form of Jotun magic. He's channeling the power of the now extinct stone giants of Jotunheim. You'll have to really think outside the box to pull this one off."

"Any advice?"

"Stay alive. Keep hitting him. Don't let him hit you."

"Thanks, G, it's a wonder I ever made it without you."

"Indeed."

Yeah, Dirt Queen can be like that. Sometimes she'll give me the perfect solution to a problem, other times she'll give me a 'you got it, champ', and let me figure it out. In any case, I kept up my fight against Executioner, who was somehow feelin' himself, even tho the dude ain't touched me once.

"Ha!" he started to gloat. "And I was told you were opponents worthy of Skurge, The Executioner! Bah! Mere cubs! I have fought the likes of Thor, Balder The Brave, and Lady Sif! I have the power of the Giants themselves! I have been splitting skulls, and cleaving gods in half since before your ancestors managed to build their first huts out of mud! What hope could you possibly have against me?!"

"Please tell me you have a plan," Gaea sighed at me. "I really need this guy to shut up like ten seconds ago."

"Already got the plan down! Sit back, and enjoy the show!"

Yeah, while Skurge was on his power trip, I had already set him up for a massive play. I knew hacking and slashing wasn't gonna get anywhere, and I couldn't risk going all out in this environment, so I took a more tactical approach, and sent small waves of G-Force into Skurge via my axe and sword strikes. These successive waves helped me paint a picture of his chakra network, and more importantly, what points were essential to his current form. Essentially, I had to somehow force a massive explosion to take place in his shoulders, kneecaps, heels, and his lower back, almost exactly opposite of his navel. Tricky for sure, but I had just the play to pull it off. I kept up my usual hack and slash routine for another few seconds, blocking out Executioner's $#!+ talking, and suddenly changed the game in the blink of an eye as I created three clones of myself, gave em' my weapons, and took to the sky. Oh, by the way, I can create exact replicas of myself using a mix of Geo-Force or Nature Force with my natural chakra. Titan Clones. Gaea taught me that trick a couple months ago. My current max was 50 clones at once, but I only needed two to deal with the task at hand.

I had my clones put the hurt on Executioner, hacking him in every place they could, and keep those tears in his stone form as fresh as possible. While they kept that up, I did the hard work, creating a contained All-Metal sandstorm around the fight. I supercharged the All-Metal grains with Titan Force, and encased the swirling metal storm on the fight. My clones were fine, but Executioner ended up taking mouthfuls of sand, which only helped my cause, as I used that entry to streamline a distribution of All-Metal down to his feet soles, while the rest made it to their destinations via the continued openings my clones kept providing for me. It only took a couple minutes to build the right amount of energy charged All-Metal in Executioner's chakra points, and set the charges off, but HOO BOY was it a doozy when it finally popped off!

Executioner's stone form started overcharging with its native green energy, and eventually expelled that energy in violent, uncontrolled bursts! Significant chunks of him were breaking off in all directions, and weren't returning for the usual patch up job! I figured this was it for him, so I dispelled my clones, and hardened the All-Metal sandstorm into a solid dome to take the blast. The blast came. It was strong. The dome held. Then it suddenly started to get real f*(#!^% cold, before a literal blizzard blew my dome apart from the inside out!

It was all I could do to get myself inside a Titan Force body shield, as Executioner caught me in a small ice storm, barraging me from all sides with hail the size of minivans, and ice bolts that stung even inside my barrier! I felt like I was getting frostbite in places frostbite should never be! Executioner brought me down via giant snow fist, and damn near put his axe in my back with a downwards strike! I dodged the execution blow, had to get one of those in, via willing the ground to swallow me, before launching upwards with a Titan Force charged uppercut, knocking Executioner hard under the chin!

Gotta say, the dude had his own style. Had to respect it. Instead of the annoying stone form I was used to, Skurge had now become a literal frost giant with blue skin, red eyes, and ice armor, with his axe heavily coated in frost. The dude had grown another 3 ft, now 10 ft tall, and hitting him under the chin felt like uppercutting a battleship! He barely stumbled backwards, and was damn quick comin' back around to return the favor!

He got in a few good swings that I easily flipped/rolled around, but before I could go on the offensive again, he slammed his foot on the ground, and nailed me with a rushing tremor of ice that sent me flying 100 meters backwards! I recovered in time to deflect a shower of icicles with my axe, but a few got me in my left shoulder, and both legs! The icicles punctured my battlesuit, and hit with a decent amount of force, but didn't pierce my skin. That was the least of my worries tho, as I felt the affected areas start to develop frostbite! That was new to me. I've literally done rescue missions at the bottom of the Antarctic without getting so much as a shiver. Guess that Jotunheim frost was built different, cuz within five seconds, most of my legs and chest area were overrun with a numbing/burning sensation, as my body was slowly starting to succumb to the ice! Executioner saw his chance to finish the fight, and threw his axe at me full force. I just barely dodged it via willing the ground to swallow me again. While underground, I wrapped myself and a whole lotta dirt inside an All-Metal cocoon. I charged the dirt with Geo-Force, and willed it to flow into the holes in my battlesuit, until my suit was filed from neck to toe in the glowing dirt. It took a few seconds for the dirt to do its magic, but after an intense fling of sudden heat, the dirt poured out of my suit punctures, and left my skin feeling back to normal.

"And you said you'd NEVER need to use that one!" Gaea cackled at me.

"Yeah, yeah," I mentally mumbled back, before shooting outta the ground, just under Executioner's face, with a wide swing of my axe to his neck!

Skurge encased his exposed neck and head in an ice chainmail helm that deflected the blow, and responded by blowing me back a good 50 ft with a strong gust of icy winds. I recovered with a backflip, struck him in the face with a G/N-Force bolt from above, and rushed back into close range with a flurry of attacks!

For about three minutes, I kept the 10 ft tall dude on the backfoot as I flew circles around him, slamming him with axe and sword strikes, Titan Force bolts, and medieval weapons constructs, all while keeping the gravity on X10. That strategy was for the most part working, yet still not getting results. First off, that ice armor was really f*(#!^& strong. It was all I could do to just barely crack it, much less actually get a clean hit on Executioner's body. Hell, as time went on, things got a lot harder. Skurge condensed a blizzard storm around us, and once again started to bombard me with ice bolts, hail, and icicles. I had to get inside an All-Metal body suit to stave off the attacks, which only increased in speed and strength, as the constant cold just made Skurge stronger. Even worse, I couldn't attack his chakra points to turn off the AC, as the armor was too strong/regenerated too fast to get in any kind of hits. I definitely had to change tactics, and as always, I had the perfect play for the job.

I backpedaled off of Executioner, and began to attune my Heart Chakra with dragon spirit. The idea was to charge my central chakra point with the main stuff, and allow the other ones to get the runoff energy. Trust me, it's never good to flood all of your chakras with one kind of spirit. Anyway, for the five minutes that took, me and Executioner did a couple speed round exhibitions. After the frost giant wannabe finally got me off of him with a blizzard blastwave, we went at it in an earth vs ice slugfest, as we threw giant chunks, shards, and weapon constructs of our respective elements at each other. Nobody got the advantage on that one, so Skurge tried to get ahead via growing to 30 ft tall, and trying to crush me underfoot. In a way, I made it easier for him as I shrunk down to Tiny Titan, and proceeded to be a bigger pain in his ass than he bargained for! Sure, he was still protected by his ice armor, but Tiny Titan packed a serious punch, as it took me one hit to shatter any part of Executioner's armor, and follow up with another devastating blow before it repaired itself! I got massive hits on his kneecaps, shoulders, chest, back, and nose, before he got the memo, and shrunk down to normalish size. I guess the idea was to decrease his size so as to get a better shot at me, but that once again backfired on him, as I got one last punch on his face, shattering his helmet, and grew back to normal size, Earthshaker already coming down to split his skull in half! Skurge managed to get his axe up for a block, but he clearly didn't have time to set up right. The uppercut threw his footing off, and his center of gravity was way the f*(# outta balance. All this culminated in Skurge just barely moving his head enough to still keep most of it, but lose his right ear in the process, not to mention get an axe buried in between his shoulder!

Blue blood spurted profusely from his wounds, which froze instantly upon touching the ground/my battle suit, and Skurge responded with another blizzard blast from his mouth that sent me flying backwards. He tried to keep the pressure on me via mixing a whole bunch of ice shards into the mix, but my All-Metal armor held up just long enough for the dragon spirit to bond to my heart chakra/charge the other ones, and I shed my armor in favor of releasing a wave of dark green fire from my mouth!

The flames immediately evaporated Skurge's blizzard, and decked him full on in an emerald inferno! It was all Executioner could do to try and put up a measly ice shield around himself, which was easily melted by my flamethrower. While I started working on Executioner's armor, I willed an alternate wildfire to evaporate his condensed blizzard storm in a flaming tornado. I kept the tornado going, while making the conscious decision to lessen the intensity of the flames I was spewing at Executioner, and allow him to get his footing. The blockhead must've thought I was runnin' outta steam, but I was just gettin' warmed up as I willed the flames of my fire tornado to condense around my axe, turning it into a flaming beacon of…..well, axes are already deadly…..so I guess more death? Anyway, I got my flaming axe ready to go, just as Executioner got a firm stance, and threw it straight into his chest!

Skurge barely had a second to process the axe in his chest, before the flames exploded big time, sending him careening backwards 200 meters, absolutely f*(#€£ up! Like, his ribs, heart, and lungs were just barely contained by what little remained of his sternum, as he rocketed into the distance! Yeah, no comin' back from that. I quickly separated my chakras from the dragon spirit, and made a move to summon my axe back, when I felt the air go super staticy! Like, being on the team with a storm guy made it real easy to know when someone was about to bring down the lightning, but this wasn't my bro at all! Instead, I was treated to the delightful image of Skurge, who was very much not dead, 60 ft tall, made completely of yellow voltage! He was definitely disoriented, as this hail mary save must've took every ounce of his willpower to pull off, but that didn't make him any less dangerous! Massive runoff voltage along his body consolidated into lightning bolts strong enough to make 7 ft craters in the ground in all directions! In addition to that, the air around Executioner was steadily building into a massive whirlwind. Dunno if he was in control of it or not, but given enough time, this had the potential to become a massive problem. For now tho, the problem somewhat solved itself as Executioner finally locked onto me, and directed all of that wind and lightning in one spot, rather than scattered all over. For a good minute or so, I played strict defense, flying around his attacks, occasionally blasting back with Titan Force bolts, while I did another scan of his chakra. This time around was gonna be a little trickier as his network had more or less disbanded into a decentralized sort of nervous system that had no clear central point. Couldn't implement any real chi blocking attacks, but I had another combo play that was just as good for taking down storm giants!

I stayed on the defensive for another minute, focusing my chakra on reading my body to transform, and when the time was right, I grew to Mega Titan, while completely shifting my body into an All-Metal construct!

Skurge caught a quick 12 piece combo, followed by a G-Force arm cannon blast that sent him staggering backwards! I kept the heat on him with a mix of close quarters combat, and generating high explosive weaponry from pretty much anywhere on my body. One second Executioner was getting the Iron Fist level beat down, the next, he got floored with double arm cannon blasts! When he tried to get some momentum with a barrage of axe attacks, i'd either block or dodge his attempts, and club him with an ever changing array of spiked clubs, hammers, and other blunt objects that replaced my hands. Skurge tried to fry me with a $#!+ ton of voltage, but I was a living conductor that simply diverted the energy through my body, into an array of G-Force/voltage charged missiles and bullets coming outta my shoulders, back, and kneecaps respectively. To be honest, I probably coulda taken Skurge down just fine this way, but seeing as he'd probably scurry into another form, I decided it was best to stick with my plan to keep him busy, while I used my nature powers to concoct a bed of custom poison that acted as an incendiary agent upon making contact with an ignition source. The poison bed was just under the 18th hole on the golf course, barely a few miles away from where me and Executioner were duking it out. Once I had enough poison, I created two giant thorns to absorb it, and willed the ground to move said thorns closer to my location. It took another half minute, but eventually the giant thorns made their way just barely 400 meters away from me and Executioner, and I willed the ground to shoot them into his back, with the force of a backed up geyser!

The guy just barely had all of two seconds to scream out in pain, before $#!+ really hit the fan for him. The poison worked its magic fast, and Executioner was literally cooked alive from the inside out, as his storm giant form betrayed him! I had to trap him in an All-Metal dome to nip the inevitable rampage in the bud, and let me tell you, it was not fun to hear a man scream that way, while trying to struggle against what basically amounted to time. Hell, without even realizing it, I had prevented a much bigger disaster, as Skurge literally exploded inside my All-Metal dome, with enough force to actually rattle the cage a little bit! I cautiously dissolved the barrier, expecting either a new form, or a grizzly mess, but it was surprisingly neither. Executioner was just gone! I didn't like that. Superhero 101: no body, most likely no death. Still, the threat was over for now at least, and I immediately shrunk down, while reverting my body to normal.

I wasn't used to having to catch my breath ever since I got my powers, but stacking Mega Titan on top of turning myself into an All-Metal construct was always a trick that required some cooldown time. I only needed like ten seconds to recover and get back into the fight. I didn't even have that. I got this weird feeling in my gut, like someone put a star in my stomach, and before I even knew what was happening, I felt reality damn near collapse on top of itself, and that star inside me went supernova!

(Jason's Perspective)

I'm not proud of what happened. Hell, I couldn't remember most of what happened. I had to watch the playback on Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s feed a little bit later, but let's just say it wasn't my finest moment.

So, last time on 'Jason can't catch a break for $#!+', I had just barely managed to beat Malekith, but was now getting beat to death by a psychotic Minotaur business man. I didn't have the strength to fight back, and while it was gonna take a while, Agger for sure had the strength to beat me to death. It looked like it was over for me, but that's usually when things get interesting, and the pattern did not disappoint this time around!

It was quick. A 'blink and you miss it' moment, even for me. I felt as if a maelstrom of raw, untamed force had completely engulfed every atom of my being. The sensation was neither pleasure nor pain, merely a transition of sorts. Everything after that became like a dream. I was 95% unconscious of my actions, with just the smallest glimmer of control. What I do remember was the burning white hot energy emanating around me, combined with a sudden rage that would even give the Hulk a run for his money. I felt the power of the two nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carnage and destruction of the Titanomachy (when the Olympian gods fought the Titans), the destructive energy of the fight happening right now on the school grounds and the wider L.A. area. Somehow, the War Force had returned to me, but this time IT was the one takin' ME for a test drive!

Agger was my first victim. The Minotaur Mogul (oh, that's GOLD!) landed one more punch on my face, and found his arms trapped in my hands when he tried for another go around. The look on his face was priceless, as was his weird moo/scream when I torched him with War Force fire from my mouth! Agger immediately got off me, and retreated a good 20 meters back as he swatted his singed fur! You'd think that would be enough of a cease and desist for him, but Agger had talked way too big a game to back out now, or at least that's the only justifiable reason I could think of as to why his dumbass actively charged me again! I couldn't pretend to be much better, as my body was basically on autopilot, but at least I could say I was winning as I charged Agger back, and landed a blow straight to his head that stopped him dead in his tracks, while creating a 10 ft deep crater, and knocking several of his teeth out! If Agger had any thoughts of backing out now, it was too late, as my bloodlust was in full swing. Within the span of two seconds, I had delivered a series of punches and kicks all over Agger that broke half his ribs, dislocated his shoulders, snapped an arm, and broke his femurs in half! The Minotaur Mogul couldn't even stand by the time I was done, and I was only warming up as I unleashed a War Force blast from my mouth, sending him cratering from the golf course, back to the middle of the football field. I coulda left him alone at that point. He was done. Nothing short of Allyson's healing could save him from his wounds now, but I wasn't here for 95%. My bloodlust wouldn't allow it. I'm not proud of it, and I know this wouldn't have been me if I was in control, but I pounced on Agger like a cat, and literally beat his skull into a caved in, bloody mess! By the time it was all done, Agger's face was literally nothing but a pool of blood, fur, and bone. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was horrified by what I had done, but the rest of me was still hungry. The craving for battle and longing for death and destruction was overpowering. I couldn't stop myself from getting back into the fray!

For probably a good ten minutes, I was a beast without control, dashing back and forth, tearing Dark Elves, demons, and trolls apart. At first I was literally using my War Force charged strength to literally rip them apart, but as the fight went on, I started employing more blasts from my eyes, flame streams from my mouth, and rudimentary constructs like axes, swords, and Gatling guns. Again, I wasn't in control, but what little consciousness I had was aggressively imparting my War Force crazed body to only attack hostiles, and leave civilians be.

Oh yeah, that was the other thing, somehow literally everyone we had gotten to safety inside Nico's shields were scrambling around the battle area like headless chickens! This was bad in its own right, but it at least gave me a slight silver lining to my blood rage. See, while I was in a mostly uncontrolled frenzy, it was at least aimed. I was only drawn to conflict, with almost everything else being irrelevant to me. Cowering civilians fleeing for their lives? Who cares? A squad of Dark Elves blasting at said cowering civilians? Get outta my way! Other than the jump from one fight to the next, I had no idea what was going on, but that was pretty much due to the overstimulation of too much $#!+ going on in the background. For example, as I continued to fight on, I was aware of some kinda Aether singularity wreaking havoc across the entire school grounds. Like,it had tentacles, teeth, and was from what I could see, capable of reshaping itself. Elsewhere, I caught a glimpse of a golden fiery comet rushing all along the school grounds, blowing up a ton of buildings, before darting straight up. Then there was Grant fighting a giant God Steroid lion construct?! If I had even a speck of basic intelligence (don't even go there), I would've stopped to examine literally any one of these incredibly strange developments, but it was all about the fight. For a good while I was getting lucky. No civilians were getting hurt, or at least not by me, and I was at least trimming down the amount of bad guys we had to worry about, but that didn't last for much longer.

It all started when I took down a troll. Tackled it from behind, sent us both careening a good half mile through the dirt, cleaved its head in two with a War Force axe….and then I got shot in the head!

The bullet bounced off my forehead, as it was just lead, but that wasn't the problem. Some poor, scared security guard, just barely five feet away, had shot me in the head. To be fair, it's not like I could blame him all that much. With all the War Force blazing around me, and the constant savage growling/spewing of napalm from my mouth, it was easy to mistake me for some unholy beast from the deepest circle of Hell. Still, remember how I said I was attracted to conflict? Well…...he shot me in the face. Even with that small part of me screaming into the back of my head to not do this (and believe me, I was screaming VERY HARD), this was a direct challenge, and my War Force crazed body was not gonna pass it up. Thankfully, my conscientious objections slowed me down just enough for Mass Master to come in as a mass of rock and soil, and bulldoze me away kicking, screaming, and blowing flames in every direction (real dignified). I managed to blow apart the soft rockslide with a War Force blastwave, just barely getting free back at the golf course (man, we ended up here a lot), but Jack reconstructed himself on top of me as some kinda super dense obsidian construct, pinning me to the ground.

"STORM-LORD!" he yelled at me (not the brightest move, Jack). "WHAT'S WRONG, MAN?! WHAT ARE YA DOIN'?!"

"GRRRRAAAGGH!" I responded (War Force for: 'mad headache'), before punching him off me.

Jack went sky high, which I felt bad about for the split second it took for him to change form, and send down a barrage of sonic and cosmic powered blasts and missiles down on me!

Yeah, like everyone, Jack had stepped his game way the hell up since we've been a team! In particular, me, him, and Victor did a whole bunch of tests and trial runs to see how we could make the most of his powers. The results were MAD sick, as Jack was literally capable of converting himself into the atomic structure of anything else! After getting him used to mimicking Vibranium, Vic and I programmed the unstable molecules of his super suit with a modified version of Extremis tech, perfectly capable of melding with whatever form Jack took, and turning him into basically a mix of Astro Boy and Iron Man (as if any of you have ever heard of Astro Boy).

Anyway, the blasts and missiles hit me like a freight train, the pain jolting a little more of my consciousness to the surface, but it wasn't gonna be that easy for Jack, as I shot up at him, two double bladed axes in my hands (Grant would be proud), swinging wildly! Jack stayed on the backfoot for a little bit, dodging and blocking as much of his attacks as he could. I got in a good amount of hits, as I was still faster than him, but that Vibranium shell didn't crack easy. After a good minute of blocking and dodging, Jack finally went on the offensive via changing his arms into sonic cannons, and blasting me point blank with a massive wave! By the time I recovered, Jack had already set up the next part of his offensive push, as I was surrounded by a dozen owl drones, all of which had spawned from various points of his body. The owl drones were cute for the brief nanosec they weren't blasting me with a cacophony of sonic energy (ow, by the way), after which my murder frenzy was briefly drowned out by the catastrophic amount of pain I was in! I kept releasing desperate War Force blastwaves, but Jack's drones kept the energy inside a sonic bubble, essentially making me throw myself for a loop.

Something interesting happened as I was getting my ass kicked. Once again, I felt my intelligence rise to the surface, but it was like I was being siphoned! Rather than getting a hold of myself and NOT attacking my friends, my War Force crazed mind was gradually remembering my skills, weapons, and ways I could manipulate my power to better kill other things! It's rare to ever root for someone else to kick your ass (can't think of one off the top of my head), but I was definitely at that point, as I could feel myself charging up for something big! Thankfully (I think), I felt a dozen sharp pains all over my body, as the drones shot Vibranium spurs into me! The spurs attached themselves to the inside of my skin, and immediately started emitting massive sonic waves throughout my insides! Again, ouch, but necessary. Jack had configured the vibrational charges to roughly counteract the frequency of the War Force. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough, as my powers were now in a violent state of flux. I could barely keep myself afloat, and Jack did me another 'favor' in helping me get to the ground ASAP, ala creating a car sized sonic gun right above us, cranking that $#!+ to maximum, and cratering me into the dirt!

Believe it or not, I was immensely proud of my boy! It's so fulfilling to see your pupils exceed expectations!

Anyway, Jack decided to cut me a bit of a break, as he approached my crater from the front, arms raised in a gesture of peace (a little late for that, but the thought was appreciated).

"How ya feeling now, buddy?" he asked me. "Let off enough steam yet?"

For a split second, my confused/pain riddled face gave off the impression that maybe I had gotten a grip on myself, but that illusion was immediately dispelled as I bellowed a massive 'GRRRRRAAAAWWWGGGHH' (I think that was War Force for: 'pancakes'), and rocketed at Jack full force!

This was where that intelligence siphoning thing came into play, as I summoned a Power Gauntlet to my hand, and wailed into Jack with a full force Storm-Lord Special! Even with his Vibranium body, Jack went tumbling backwards a good 100 ft, and got punted a good ways further as I kept wailing on him just barely after he could regain his footing! I ended up slamming him into the school fountain (always hated that thing anyway), and came running for another swing, but Jack managed to turn the tables on me as he ducked under my wide swing, get me in the gut and face with a jab/uppercut combo, and blast me back into the football field via combining his arms into a sonic powered Railgun, and letting that sucker loose point blank! Keep in mind, that was like a good half a mile trip, and the blast had completely ripped open the chest part of my battlesuit! That last part was no small feat, as I had redesigned it (along with Grant and Allyson's) to a Carbon Fiber/Olympium weave. I had to question whether or not Jack knew I could take that blast.

In either case, I didn't appreciate the express trip into the end zone (nor the mouthful of dirt I gulped down), and recovered just in time to dodge Jack coming in for another hit, before clocking him in the head with another Storm-Lord Special! Fortunately (again, i'm not sure who I was rooting for at the moment), Jack was prepared for this go around, as my hit basically got absorbed into his armor, and was now visible in the form of blue kinetic energy lines snaking all across his body. Wasn't sure how the kinetic absorbing/redirecting function was gonna work out (we were still in the trial phase of that upgrade), but Jack was also a proponent of testing out new stuff in life or death situations where your very survival depended on it. Hell, as reckless as it was (as if I wouldn't do the same $#!+ in a heartbeat), at least it was working.

For the next five minutes, Jack put the brakes on me, as I kept feeding him with my hardest hits, and he kept serving em' back to me in controlled doses! Granted, Jack wasn't as good of a fighter as me (if I was a 10, he was a 4.5), but that hardly mattered. The more I hit him, the more power he absorbed, the more ammo he had to throw back at me in the form of kinetically enhanced punches, kicks, and energy blasts! I tried everything I had at my disposal, from my strength, speed, War Force constructs, and even a War Force charged Black Bolt scream (hadn't used that one in a while). Jack absorbed it all, and gave me the business while simultaneously trying to reach me in the haze of my bloodlust.

"Come on, Storm-Lord!" he yelled at me. "Believe it or not, it's not really all that fun kicking your ass! 6/10 max! What's the deal man?! Mind control?! Powers outta control?! Still mad about that time my Kree/Skrull deck demolished your Avengers/X-Men set up?!"

I was still mad about that last bit (Battleworld: Duel Masters was not my game), but I wouldn't kill him over it. In any case, the closest thing to a response I could muster was spewing a column of War Force fire from my mouth, and cranked that $#!+ up to maximum as I tried my damnedest to melt Jack to slag! Mass Master didn't appreciate the barbeque attempt, and willed the sonic inhibitors in my body to crank it up a notch! Pain racked every inch of my body, and my War Force powers damn near shut down entirely, leaving Jack open to rush me with a Piston Fist punch to my head! At this point I was pretty sure I had pissed Jack off, as he once again wailed on me, while also doing his best to console me through the ass kicking!

"Ok, all of the above!" he said. "Got it! Sorry to do this to ya bud, but I gotta shut ya down! I know you're in there somewhere! We'll get ya out in a bit!"

Jack really put the kinetic energy into that last one, as he hit me with a Piston Punch that knocked me into a 10 ft crater the punch had also created!

I wish I had just stayed down, and drifted into unconsciousness, but the War Force was stubborn as f*(#, and refused to lose to this little pipsqueak (its words, not mine)! Once again, I felt more of my intelligence rising to the surface, only to be devoured by the War Force. I could sense the energy starting to actually take hold of things like: strategy, tactics (no, those are not the same thing), adaptation, and all that other good stuff you need to not get your $#!+ wrecked in a long term fight. First thing was first, I needed to get these dampeners outta my system. No time for a proper procedure, so I used the War Force to track em' down, lock on, and violently eject them outta my body (and yes, that was as excruciating as it sounds)! Immediately my entire body was overtaken with a War Force bonfire that shot upwards as a giant column of fire and blood! Barely five seconds afterwards, I felt a sensation that was both all too familiar, yet so far in my distant past, I damn near forgot what it felt like! This was one hell of a memory jogger, as my body was converted into a full on construct of flaming, bubbling blood and flame! I could feel rocket launchers, blades, axes, Railguns, crossbows, etc., absently forming/dissolving along my body, and felt as if I had the power of every nuke ever made coursing through every atom of my being! The only other time I had ever used this form was against Doom, and while it was not the time or place, I noticed I had never given it an official name (seriously, mind, read the room). I settled on War Form 2 (I assumed I could do a War Force version of Thunder Form), and went about beefing myself up even more.

This part was where the line between me and the War Force blurred. You ever had those moments where you think of something and go: 'this isn't something I WOULD normally do….but it's not something i'd NEVER do'? Yeah, I was now having one of those moments as I slammed my fists into the dirt, and continued to power up until I was little more than a shapeless blaze of War Force! I remember chanting something in a language I didn't understand (and I can literally speak every language known to man), and feeling myself being surrounded by something solid. It was like I was water being surrounded by some kind of mold. I couldn't quite piece it together all at once, but I gradually got the bigger picture as the more solid foundations clicked into place. I could feel a rib cage and spine, at least three times bigger than a normal person, surround my War Force form. Legs, and arms, each big enough to crush pickup trucks like soda cans, made from pure bone took shape around my volatile form. It was the hooves that gave it away, followed by the skull forming around my head….that had bull horns jutting out from the sides! I…..I had summoned Agger's bones, and had restructured them around myself as armor! I was now a ten foot tall War Force blaze filling out the hollowed/modified bone structure of the man I had just killed not even half an hour ago!

I….I was disgusted by what I had done. Way, way, way in the back of my consciousness, I knew this was vile, but the War Force was absolutely loving this. It fed on the energy of my first kill under our reunion, and sought to further sate its bloodlust by finally killing that little metal brat (again, it's words, not mine). Speaking of which, Jack was currently overhead, monitoring the situation from a distance. Smart move, but the War Force had damn near incorporated all of my smarts into its combat function. This was gonna be a much different battle now.

For starters, I immediately grounded Mass Master with a Mega War Force Bolt (the names are so interchangeable), and charged forward like….well, a bull outta Hell. As I sprinted forward, the back of my bone armor adjusted itself to where I had a good nine empty holes dotting it. Perfect for mini-missile barrages. I proceeded to do so, launching a barrage of bone-covered War Force missiles at Jack (no idea where all the extra bone was coming from), who shot most of em' down with automatic sound powered shoulder cannons. We went at each other guns blazing, until we got within striking distance of each other. Afterwards, the struggle was a high octane mix of ranged and melee, as we punched, kicked and blasted at each other with everything we had! Credit where it's due, Jack coulda been the next Iron Man for as well he was holding his own. He got me with a few dozen Piston Punches, pelted me with a barrage of sonic blasts, and even succeeded in summoning a vibrating sound blade, and cutting off one of my horns (i'm gonna assume he was going for the horns, not my neck)! Still, I managed to match him as my martial arts skills finally caught up with my brute strength. Jack fought hard enough to where I wasn't able to get in a good offensive rush for very long, but I got him with my fair share of punches, kicks, arm cannon blasts, and a few good swipes of a big ass War Force charged sword made out of Agger's spine (I can't even pretend to think that wasn't badass)! For all our back and forth, Jack was still winning by default. I couldn't crack that Vibranium shell, but he had no problem cracking my bone armor with every punch and blast he lobbed at me…..until about three minutes later. See, the longer I fought, the more Jack cracked my armor, the more my armor repaired itself, and got stronger with every passing second! Jack didn't realize he was steadily giving me the keys to victory, and by the time he figured it out, it was too late.

It all happened so fast. Jack and I exchanged another round of arm cannon volleys, gave each other a quick close quarters rough and tumble, which ended up with me blocking one of his Piston Punches, and punting him into a nearby parking lot! I sprinted forward with a bull charge (cuz why not play into the stereotype?), which Jack just barely propulsed himself over, before orbiting me with a barrage of sonic blasts. I was just about done with that trick, and floored him via creating a giant War Force bazooka in mid-air, and blasting him to the ground! As Jack got up, I charged towards him again, but changed it up in a big way as I summoned Excelsior to my hand, and charged it with War Force. My blade immediately responded, drinking in/enhancing the volatile energy, but also changing significantly! The blade grew into a giant, red, crystal-like cleaver that I had to hold with two hands, before swinging it full force at Jack in an overhead strike! Jack managed to recover just in time to see the blade coming, but was unable to do anything about it, except put his arms up for a block. In any other case that woulda been a perfectly fine defense in any other case, but this was not any other case as my blade dug halfway into one of his arms! The shock of actually getting hurt in this form turned my boy into a deer in headlights, leaving me open to strike at his legs, left shoulder blade, and one really good swing to his torso, that cut him just barely under halfway!

I was SCREAMING at myself to stop! To get a f*(#!^% hold of myself before I LITERALLY MURDERED MY FRIEND AND TEAMMATE! My body didn't listen to me. Quite the opposite actually. In a move that woulda been so cool if I was using it against some dark sorcerer from a negative dimension or whatever, I stomped on the ground, launching Jack 50 ft in the air, and literally did a Transformers move as I converted by body to a giant War Force powered bone tank, and shot Jack with a salvo so powerful, it sent a tremor through the entire parking lot, and sent Jack hurtling sky high! I was almost certain he was either dead or in critical condition. Thankfully, I didn't get to find out, as a rainbow streak intercepted him. A brief white flare ensued, and before I could even process what was going on, I felt a pretty decent impact slam into my chest, knocking me back a full ten feet! I managed to recover, but that didn't last long at all as I felt a series of blows all over my body, followed by a flash of rainbow energy, along with the familiar sensation of a sonic blast, that knocked me though an entire row of cars, and right on my ass! This happened a few more times as the Jack/Julie Power Pony combo exploded outta the gate in a big way, forcing me to go on pure defense while I adapted!

I constructed a War Force shield wall barrier around myself. While Power Pony continually bashed away at my walls (that definitely did not come out right), my War Form 2 was vibrating violently inside my bone armor, syncing up with my Speed Momentum. Up until now, my speed was purely reliant on the War Force, but that wasn't gonna do $#!+ against Lightspeed. It only took 20 seconds for the energies to sync and get back in the game via waiting for Power Pony to make another rush at me, wait for them to get too close to change directions, and lure them into slamming full force into my fist as I dropped the shield wall!

The force of the blow completely decimated the parking lot, tossing cars, vans, and trucks in all directions, while Power Pony and I remained in the same position. The brief pause allowed me to get a look at their set up, which was pretty beefy. Jack was still rockin' his Vibranium set up, and that mixed with Julie's speed and light spectrum powers were a big problem! Like, no lie, Jack and Julie's Power Pony set up was second only to Power Unicorn! I guess the War Force could sense the danger, as it transformed my crystal cleaver into a giant axe (man, I was gonna be a BEAST when I got control of this!), and tried cleaving their head in half! Luckily, Power Pony flew outta the way, and summoned their Star Javelin to block my next strike. Oh, the Star Javelin was just Proxima Midnight's spear that we repurposed for Julie after we helped the Nova Twins defeat a would-be Sakarran Warlord. The spear was legit. Made in the heart of a supernova/black hole (yes, at the same time!), super dense, able to convert itself into energy, and could hit a target halfway across the world/return to the thrower's hand in five seconds tops! Proxima Midnight used Julie's power set back when Thanos tried to annihilate the entire universe (again), and Julie was no less of a beast with the weapon than its predecessor. Hell, for a good few minutes, I was actually in some serious trouble. I was just barely able to keep up with Julie's speed, and keep the pressure on with a continuous barrage of slashes and stabs from my respective weapons, but Power Pony dodged and/or parried my strikes, and immediately got to the skies, where they had the advantage.

What ensued next could only be described as getting my ass kicked by a rainbow, as I tried in vain to fly after/blast down Power Pony with about as much success me and Grant had in our last Strike Force match against Allyson and Delilah. Power Pony flew circles around me, jabbing me with their spear, and unleashing a relentless barrage of sonic/rainbow powered weaponry on me from basically everywhere! I was able to get within range of em' a few times and attempt the same, but my bone missiles, arm cannons, and various Gatling gun constructs couldn't so much as singe their tail! Power Pony did not have the same problem, as they trapped me inside a pulsating sphere of kinetic energy while throwing the Star Javelin straight up in a multi-colored flash!

I knew what was coming next, and struggled like hell to break free off the kinetic field! It was useless, as the more I hit/blasted at it, the stronger the sphere got! Ultimately, there was nothing I could do to save myself from a barrage of hundreds upon hundreds of insanely powerful bolts of light, each one strong enough to level a city block, raining down on me, and absolutely piledriving me and literally the entire f*(#!^% parking lot into a crater (Namor was absolutely gonna flip at this bill)!

Not gonna lie, that $#!+ hurt! Like, if it had just a little more oomph to it, it probably coulda put me down for the count! As was such, I had just enough power left for one last hail mary, and went all out via constructing half a miles worth of War Force missile launchers, tanks, giant crossbows, cannons, Railguns, plasma turrets, and Gatling guns rising outta the ground, and letting them all loose in a display that woulda put any fireworks and/or weapons display to shame!

Power Pony didn't miss a beat as they effortlessly bobbed and weaved though my barrage. They were probably gearing up for another Rainbow Ravager attack (if they weren't gonna name it, someone had to), but I wasn't tryin' for seconds. I knew I couldn't beat them in the skies, so I took that away from em' via filling the air with giant War Force mines! Power Pony didn't go down easy, as they zigzagged through a good bit of the mines, but quickly found themselves with nowhere left to run as I closed the mines in on them, and triggered the chain reaction explosions! The entire sky seemed to turn blood red as the mines went off, while the rest of my weapons constructs continued to unload on the plummeting man-horse! Power Pony eventually landed some 50 meters away from me, and I couldn't contain myself from rushing forward to plant my sword in the back of their head, but I didn't even make it ten meters before feeling the overwhelming sensation that was as if a million trucks were pressing down on me! I could barely move, but already knew what was going on. Another Power Pony (Alex and Katie) swooped down next to the other, and merged together for their final form aka Power Unicorn! The brief lapse in their focus was enough to free me from the gravity trap, but that hardly mattered against facing off against a 4-in-1 Power Pack, who were understandably pissed about…...well basically everything I did.

For a good ten minutes, Power Unicorn kicked my ass, and I mean REALLY KICKED MY ASS!

First off, Power Unicorn laid out a gravitational field that covered the entire parking lot, ensuring I wouldn't be going anywhere. That wasn't too big of a problem in of itself, as I was already adjusting to the force (my current record was 100X Earth's gravity), but this was just the opening act! Power Unicorn tapped into Julie and Jack's powers, and utilized their speed and matter transformation abilities to serve me up the most diverse can of Whup Ass I had every been fed since Doctor Doom! One second I was just barely keeping up with a super fast man-horse, the next I was getting clobbered by said man-horse that was now made of stone! When I tried blasting the stone Unicorn apart with a War Force arm cannon blast, they turned into a small lake, and used gravity waves to turn the water into an endless bombardment of force that actually managed to crack my bone armor in several places. I tried evaporating them with desperate blastwaves of War Force flames, but Katie's power kicked in, and my attacks were absorbed as if by an invisible sponge! After bogging me down in the water for a little bit, Power Unicorn switched it up in a big way as the water around me suddenly disappeared (never thought i'd be glad to be outta the water). It didn't take long for the next wave (pun not intended) to quite literally overwhelm me, as Jack, Julie, and Katie swarmed me in a small army of Power Unicorns made of condensed air, light spectrum energy, and Katie's standard yellow energy. There were hundreds upon hundreds of em' coming in from all sides, as well as from the air! Hell, Alex was still maintaining the gravity field, so it was all I could do to keep the equestrian horde off me!

I didn't do half bad at first as I sprouted ranged weapons from every part of my body, and opened fire on anything that moved! From Gatling guns, Railguns, missile launchers, Ion Cannons, Fusion Cannons, etc, I opened the gates of Hell, and unleashed a fury like you wouldn't believe! My blasts either hit their marks dead on, or derailed their momentum with the fallout, allowing me to get em' on the back end. Even then, it was really my strategy of raising a field of giant War Force spearheads outta the ground, overcharging em' and blowing em' up when they reached a decent capacity. This cleared a good 50% of the field and acted as a temporary buffer against the incoming sky forces. I managed to hold out for a minute or so, but Julie's constructs were too fast for me to nail em' all, and she ended up wearing me down a good bit with a continuous stream of kamikaze attacks. Katie's constructs straight up absorbed all my attacks, and while the force of the periodical spearhead field explosions kept them at bay, she eventually closed in on me as well, and aided in the clobbering! With my defensive root broken, Jack's cloud constructs also got a chance to join the party, as I was currently flailing about, swinging my sword in all directions tryna cut down my attackers! I didn't succeed very much, but then again, neither did they. Despite all the heavy hitting attacks (and they were not going easy on me), they weren't even cracking my shell. We coulda done this all day and still be no closer to the conclusion of this fight than we were right now. They were smarter than this...I taught them better than this...this…..THIS WAS STALLING!

The realization hit me a second too late, but there wasn't really all that much I could do about it anyway. In an instant, all of the various Power Unicorn constructs dissipated into thin air, and the gravity field inverted. Instead of being forcefully restrained to the ground, I suddenly found myself unable to stay put, or even control my own momentum! I spewed War Force fire around rapidly, trying to hit literally anything, but failing entirely. Power Unicorn was posted up a good 1,000 ft above me, and while I couldn't see much of anything they were doing, I quickly felt the unmistakable impact of Jack's sonic attacks, followed by a barrage of Katie's energy attacks, and even missiles powered by Alex's and Julie's respective powers! The barrage was continuous, even after I had cratered 50 ft into the ground, and that was just the warm up! I just barely caught a glimpse of a huge white flare, and felt the unique feeling that was like a small piece of the universe was turned into a bullet that was locked and loaded on me! See, Thanos was onto something when he had the idea to use Power Pack as batteries for his universe destroying bomb (it was a whole thing), as their powers in perfect harmony were literally on that level. Through a lot of practice, trial and error, and one close call where we almost wiped out a good chunk of California (we made sure to practice in different dimensions after that), we managed to get Power Pack up to that level, but they could only maintain it for a minute flat. Hell, they couldn't even do anything that creative with it at the moment, just a power blast, that resembled a mix of a black hole and a rainbow colored nebula, spurred on by Jack transforming their arms into a single Proton Cannon! Granted, that didn't make the impending attack any less dangerous, and my survival instincts immediately kicked in, as I shored up every ounce of my power to block the super attack! By the way, when I say 'every ounce of my power', I MEAN THAT $#!+. My first wave of defense was a Roman shield wall, 500 ft above me. The shield wall lasted all of five seconds before it was completely demolished! I immediately constructed another shield wall, this time made of Spartan shields, at 400 ft above me. That shield wall did even worse, only lasting three seconds, before breaking through! I immediately responded by erecting a War Force barrier just 50 ft under where it last broke, and put a good half of my power into maintaining it, while I shored up the other half in me for one wicked power blast. My barrier actually managed to hold for a good ten seconds, before shattering into a million pieces, but Power Pony's Power Bomba (again, they gotta take initiative to name their own stuff before someone else does) only made it down another 50 ft before it collided with a War Force Final Flash I unleashed from my mouth!

I put damn near everything I had into that blast, trying desperately to run down the clock, but only succeeded in buying 15 seconds before the inevitable impact! Just before the blast rocked my $#!+, I transformed my bone armor into a giant sphere, about the size of a log cabin, while condensing my actual War Form 2 to the size of a soccer ball. Only thing after that was to ride the ensuing blast, which was actually pretty anticlimactic. Like, don't get me wrong, the blast almost took me out (like I was EXTREMELY CLOSE to dying), but it was like a blink and you miss it moment. One second I was hunkered down, waiting for the storm, and then it was over, and I was left in a mile deep crater, barely clinging to life, as my War Form 2 flickered like a dying candle.

While the idea of dying wasn't very appealing (odd, considering i've lost count how many times i've been on death's doorstep) I almost woulda took it over what came next, as the War Force and my natural self-preservation instincts kicked into high gear to get back into the fight in a major way!

The War Force dug down to the deepest recesses of my brain, and permeated every part of my higher reasoning. I was no longer a snarling, rabid beast, but now my body was little more than a glorified puppet. Even worse, the War Force finally getting complete control of my mind meant the back seat view I was currently 'enjoying' was cut off. If not for those data logs in Z.O.R.D.O.N.'s memory, I woulda had no idea of what happened afterwards. Speaking of which, Z turned out to be a massive problem for Power Pack, as the War Force summoned a $#!+ ton of Olympium around my body! Yeah, this was the equivalent of hooking up your phone to the world's fastest charger, that somehow got you to 1000% battery life (I was actually working on that)! I immediately went from the brink of being stuffed out, to a colossal, unyielding, damn near formless blaze of fire and blood, just barely contained by the ever changing/growing Olympium! The metal was damn near buzzing with excitement, as it hadn't felt the energy (at least from me) in over a year! Like a kid who hadn't seen his best friend in a long time, the metal and arcane energy worked together in perfect harmony to create me a bigger, badder, better, badass suit to accomplish the job of destroying my friends, as I found myself inside what was basically a 10 ft tall Minotaur/Hulkbuster combo! My palms and knees were fitted with repulsors. My default choice of arm weapons were Ironhide Cannons. My shoulders were fitted with mini silos to unleash a hellfire of miniature rockets. On my back was a pack filled with 3 tons of liquid Olympium, ready to be formed into whatever weapon I needed at a moment's notice. In other words, I was locked, loaded, and ready to hunt!

At this point, Power Unicorn was on a massive wind down as that last attack was like doing an entire marathon in a minute. They hovered downwards, one hand clasped around their Power Blade (Power Sword was already taken), ready to strike down what little of me remained, if I tried for a last ditch attack. At least that's how I would've approached the situation. Granted, I woulda remained at a safe distance to observe and react, but everyone slips up from time to time. Besides, after getting decked in the face by an Olympium fist at 300 mph, I was fairly certain Power Pack would be more cautious of their strategic positioning going forward. Unfortunately for them, it was a really bad time for any sort of trial and error, as I was out to end this once and for all!

I converted my knuckles into giant versions of my Power Gauntlets, powered by mini War Force arc reactors, and socked Power Unicorn across the jaw two times, before planting a fist into their gut, and letting loose an arm cannon blast! Power Unicorn tumbled half a mile backwards, and crash landed into the tennis courts (those guys were jerks anyway)! I tried to finish the fight right then, as I took to the skies, locked onto their position, and dive bombed with a War Force laser blade where my right fist used to be! Power Unicorn cut it close, but they managed to dash outta the kill zone with milliseconds to spare! They were still fast, as Julie's rainbow powers still had some gas in the tank, but that was one of at best two tricks they had left. Jack's powers were spent, as indicative of Power Pony being very fleshy, rather than a living, metallic weapon. Katie's powers were also outta the game, as Power Unicorn coulda easily absorbed and dish my attacks back out. Alex's gravity powers were TBD, but I wasn't too worried about it, as right now Julie was the one carrying the team by the last few threads they had left.

Yeah, despite being low on Power, she still had enough juice in the tank to give my speed/targeting systems a run for their money, as Power Unicorn let loose a relentless wave of rainbow blasts that besieged me from all sides and ricocheted of the three Olympium shields I kept rotating around myself. I managed to deflect most of the blasts, but a good chunk of em' got through, hitting me with the force of tank salvos! I did my best to return fire with mini-rocket barrages, in addition to changing my arms to Gatling guns and bullet spraying in every direction, but I ended up with fat goose eggs while Power Unicorn admittedly started to build up momentum via keeping up the rainbow barrage, while occasionally getting in close to outmaneuver me and slice off one of my arms, stab me in the chest, and slice off a leg! If not for a lucky/reflexive repulsor blast nailing them in the chest, they coulda really done some damage! I used those few seconds to repair myself, while Power Unicorn took to the skies, but I was just about done with that number.

We did our usual song and dance for half a minute, before I sprung my trap card, ala activating the billions of War Force charged nanites I secretly spread throughout the atmosphere, and trapping Power Unicorn in a dome of volatile War Force! Sucked for them, cuz they straight up rammed face first into the energy dome, and caught a nasty feedback surge! The momentary trap gave me enough time to change into tank form, and get off a shot that coulda annihilated a city block! Power Unicorn ate all of it, and as they fell to the ground, I transformed back to Minotaur form, summoned Excelsior in giant cleaver form, and sliced Power Unicorn through! The man-horse went all white for a brief moment, before splitting off into white, red, yellow, and blue light streaks that crashed to the ground in every direction. Luckily, I was momentarily confused by the split, and something strong and fast crashed into me with the force of a missile, sending me careening into the ground! As long as it meant Power Pack would be safe, I hoped whatever this was kicked my ass.

(Allyson's Perspective)

Everything became a blur. One second I was….alive at least, the next I felt a strange buildup of power engulf me from the inside, until it had no choice but to explode!

The first thing I had to deal with was the visions.

I was no stranger to seeing the future from time to time, but those were always when using one of my animal spirit pals to do so. This was not that! Now it was as if fragments of glass were getting shot into my head nail gun style! Each fragment contained a small piece of something relative to my future, but nothing big enough to make heads or tails either way. I saw a beaten and battered Grant doing battle with whoever's first person perspective I was seeing it from, then some impossibly large viking ship looming over some kinda space empire of sorts, then me, Grant and Jason drowning in a literal sea of space and stars! Each vision came and went in a heartbeat, and was a cakewalk in comparison to what came next, as my fire flared up to Sky beam levels, and I was overwhelmed by getting a new power I would rather not have had!

On the not so bad side, my flames grew hot enough to where I was almost turning the ground to liquid! My fire became a dark gold color, resembling a really nasty piss colored look. Not my style, but nowhere near the worst part of this sudden power boost. No, the biggest, and most unwelcome change was when flickers of black mixed in with the flame! At first I thought it was a result of my fire going dark for some reason, but quickly realized that it was originating from myself! My skin was being engulfed by some kind of black growth! The growth spread throughout my entire body faster than I could stop it, and my very being was plagued by the feeling of wielding the most horrible diseases and ailments that had ever plagued mankind! Cancer, leprosy, measles, the Black Death, Hay Fever, Ebola, literally all of them! I questioned why this was happening to me, before I remembered that dear old grandpa was also a deliverer of deadly plagues!

I knew I had to stop myself! With every moment that passed, my power grew, and was vastly approaching a point that would take what little control I had out of my hands! No, not on my watch! With every ounce of effort I possessed, I started to reign myself in bit by bit, first halting the expansion of my fire, then slowly getting a hold over it, and reducing it down until I had bottled it back up. For the first time in almost two years I was sweating. My lungs couldn't seem to get enough air, but it seemed like every last one of my cells were overflowing with energy. Definitely not the best time for a power upgrade, as if I ever got one at a good time, and this time took the cake for bad timing, as I quickly became aware of an energy signature eerily similar to my own, just half a mile out, in a crater that used to be the school library! This woulda been more on the odd side if anything, but the energy signature was letting off the equivalent of half a nuke's worth of energy, and was growing at a cataclysmic rate! That was not hyperbole by the way! Whoever that was, cuz it certainly wasn't Jason, I can tell, they were about to wipe Ravenwood Academy, and at least a fourth of California off the map if I didn't get them into the Stratosphere in like five seconds!

I mashed the gas as hard as I could, zipping into the crater, grabbing my mysterious person, and shooting upwards so fast, we were halfway up the Troposphere in two seconds flat! We made it into the mid-Stratosphere just as the clock ran out, and I gotta say I was blown away both literally and figuratively! The blastwave was so intense, I was only able to absorb about 30% of it, and couldn't even hold my ground as I got shot down to the edge of the Troposphere! The energy blastwave was quite a humbling experience. At that moment I realized I was basically the equivalent of diluted lemonade. Whatever that was, its energy burned twice as hot, hit twice as hard, and was just getting started! I really wished I coulda taken the easy way out and just left it alone, but this wasn't a problem that was gonna solve itself, and seeing as I was the leading authority on solar powered matters, I shot upwards to investigate.

I rose back up to the mystery person's level to find the glowing shape of a woman, dressed in leopard print dress. She was slumped over, practically lifeless if not for the constant shifting, grunting, and labored gasps. I floated slowly towards the woman, arms outstretched to help keep her steady, hoping she wouldn't attack me.

"Hello?" I called out. "Miss? I'm Sunbird of The Elementals. Maybe you've heard of me? Look, I know you must be terrified right now. God knows I was when I got my powers. There's a lot you won't understand right away, there's a lot you might not accept right away, but I know what you're going through, and I can hel-"

I managed to touch the woman's shoulders, who shot up with a start! She didn't scream, but that didn't matter, as I yelped loud enough for the both of us, while instinctively propelling myself backwards! It wasn't that she was a hideously deformed monstrosity, or some past defeated foe returned to get even. Heck, I mighta preferred any of those to what I actually got, ala MY FREAKING MOTHER!

I shoulda recognized it from the start with the gaudy leopard print dress, and to be honest, considering my luck, I probably shoulda seen this comin'. This ABSOLUTELY added an extra dimension to the inevitable confrontation with her about grandma, but at the moment I had much bigger problems that seemed to double up with the passing seconds! Like, it wasn't bad enough that magical mayhem ruined my graduation, it wasn't enough that my mom had somehow gotten Apollo powers with dials that started at 11, for some reason. No, because I apparently didn't have enough on my plate to deal with, f*(#!^% Loki had to be involved!

Yeah, that trance-like state my mom was in? It wasn't because she needed an aspirin. Loki was up to his shenanigans, as my mom's eyes were glowing bright green, and a solar version of his stupid horned tiara formed atop her head. As soon as it solidified, all Hell broke loose. My mom's emotions, previously as blank as unused paper, were now overwhelmed with a fear that could make even the bravest of men freeze on the spot, soil themselves, and then die. Don't ask, some things just need to be taken at their word. Thankfully, my mom wasn't goin' through any of that, but it didn't get that much better for me, as I felt that maelstrom of fear condense onto me as the target! I didn't even have enough time to get my guard up, before my mom came flying at me, screaming like banshee!

The initial burst surprised me in more ways than one. First off, she was FAST! Like, we were both in standard Sun Form, but she was comin' at me at speeds I didn't reach until I hit Super Sunbird for the first time! More so, she could fight! Like actually FIGHT fight! Sure, my mom had taken up Judo and a little bit of Kung-Fu, but she certainly didn't have any aerial combat experience to come at me with the DBZ meets Iron Fist level combat she was dishing out! It was all I could do just to keep ahead of her attacks, dodging and blocking them as I retreated backwards! Oh, and on that note, HOLY JESUS WERE WE STRONG! Like, when I blocked her first spinning kick, which was strong enough to cause a shock wave that blew a cluster of clouds apart, I was afraid the adrenaline was keeping me from feeling what had to be my left arm snapping in half, but this next change was all but confirmed when I kicked my mom in the gut with a dialed back reverse kick, and sent her flying back a good half mile! Like….that wasn't just strong….that was Grant, America, Molly level OP! Ok….I guess that was a thing that was happening too.

I took off behind mom, hoping something brilliant would pop into my head about restraining and calming her down, but my darling mother was not being compliant at all, as she was currently rocketing back towards me with a slew of giant beach ball sized mini-suns at me. Not bad, but forgivably amateur. I countered by tapping into the oncoming mini-suns, which felt like trying to handle a water balloons filled with boiling, volatile lava with just my hands, making them prematurely explode, and force the bombardment of the chain explosions to stay roughly condensed around her, until I had trapped her in a mini-sun about the size of a two-story house! I willed the flames to invert, while singing a calming rendition of the Targaryen Theme. The idea was to pacify my mom, and hopefully wrench that mind control tiara off her head, but the exact opposite effect…..happened?

See, this is where it gets a little confusing. My mom released an explosive wave that completely blasted apart my mini-sun. I tumbled backwards, and just barely recovered in time to duck under a tornado kick, sidestep a downwards heel kick, and get decapitated, compliments of my mother wielding a Sun Sword!

That escalated quickly, huh? Well, here's the neat thing….it didn't.

Granted, it still gave me a heart attack, as one doesn't simply experience their own death without a bit of a shock, but from the moment the sword sliced my neck through, it was like someone hit the cosmic reset button! I was floating just ahead of the giant mini-sun, attempting to soothe my mother, barely a few seconds before she was set to blow it apart. Shoulda been a bit quicker on the proactive measures, not gonna lie, because I completely ate the explosive wave, and went tumbling backwards as I initially did. I made up for it by recovering quicker, and avoiding my mom's tornado and downwards heel kicks, while creating a shield construct to block her spinning slash to my neck, and giving her a sideways backflip kick under the chin, a spinning kick to the head when I recovered, and a pretty decent Power Gauntlet punch to the chest that quite literally sent her halfway to San Diego!

I kept up the assault, mixing up a barrage of missile constructs, giant tennis rackets, and kamikaze hawks from all sides to keep her off-balance as I gradually closed the distance. Plan B was to get in close and wrench the crown off by force, hopefully faster than my mother could react. I succeeded in getting in close and grabbing the crown by the horns, but then the thing happened again!

As soon as I grabbed the hons, mom literally did some Black Widow nonsense, got me in a Piledriver position, and quite literally floored it as we were heading downwards at Mach 5! As we careened towards the ground, mom quite literally charged herself with enough solar power to rival the Tsar Bomba! I tried blasting and forcing myself free, but I was pathetically underclassed! The strength boost I got put me in Grant's league, but mom genuinely might have been on his level! I darn near blacked out as soon as I hit the ground, but my Sun Sense, my 360 degree vision of anything natural light is touching, mapped out a devastating explosion that destroyed the surrounding cities of Oceanside, Temecula, and Escondido, taking nearly 500,000 lives!

Aaaaaand rewind!

I snapped back to the moment I grabbed my mom by the horns, and she did a Black Widow hurricanrana. Before she could lock her legs around my head, I duplicated the move, grabbed her by her ankles, went Super Sunbird, and spun her around a few times, before launching her upwards at Mach 3! Before she could recover, I closed the distance, halfway up the Mesosphere, and unleashed a slew of sound barrier breaking punches that propelled her further upwards. Yeah, at this point it was clear we had to take this one outside….like the dark side of the moon outside. Mom didn't make the transition easy one bit, as she broke free multiple times, and among some pretty brutal back and forth bouts, killed me three times ala axe construct to the chest, snapping my neck with her bare hands, and my favorite of the three, going Super Sunbird herself, and quite literally RIPPING ME IN HALF! Talk about a mother's love….

The first two deaths were easy enough to avoid. Duck a little here, shield wall construct there, nothing snapped, broken, or dismembered. The last one was a bit harder if for no other reason that my mom's power level jumps were like stacking 11's on top of each other! If Super Sunbird was my ten, it was her 22! I straight up had to go Sun Goddess, which for context's sake would be me at a 50, wrap her in a choke hold, and floor it to the other side of the moon! Thankfully, my strength/speed jump was more than enough to keep my mother restrained, and we crash landed on the aforementioned dark side of the moon. On a side note, it was kinda cool that we were the first light to ever touch this side. I kept that in mind as I quickly detached myself from my mom, and proceeded to construct successive waves of chains, manacles, cages, and other contraptions meant to keep my struggling mother from gaining any momentum, while I had a chat with my animal spirits, who were straight up rejecting my requests to help me stall her!

"What gives, guys?!" I mentally screeched at them. "What happened to BFFs?! Like, i'm STRUGGLING HERE!"

"A thousand apologies, Allyson," Rowenos spoke up. "This is indeed an unfortunate set of circumstances, but i'm afraid we cannot interfere!"

Mom was tearing and blasting her way through my constructs with greater ease as the seconds went on. Even worse, I could sense her power levels rising dangerously close to her getting the next upgrade!

"WHY?!" I desperately responded to Rowenos.

"Because just as you are our master," he responded. "Just as we are bound to serve you whenever called…..we are due her the same loyalty. Apollo himself put this restriction in place. No descendants of the sun god may use us to harm one another."

Before I could protest that edict, mom went Sun Goddess! Like me, she became a walking wildfire with Greek letters and fleeting constructs of the sacred animals of Apollo materializing in her flames. She blasted at me with a wave of fire that could melt a skyscraper, which I just barely dodged via flooring myself, running a complete lap around the moon, and slamming full force into her from behind, and repeating that process 50 times every second! Mom managed to get off more of her fair share of blasts and swings in on me, but aside from the blowback of the stray blasts, she didn't get much attacks to connect, as I routinely switched between running and flying, in addition to attacking from different angles every time, and putting up barrier constructs to impede her progress/keep her from locking onto me.

"Ok, so what else can I do here?" I asked Rowenos. "I dunno how many times I can learn from my deaths before one finally sticks! What's up with that anyway?!"

"Those 'deaths' are visions, Allyson." my raven spirit responded. "For goodness sake, you've used us on many occasions to see the future. Your awakening has allowed you the ability to harness the power for yourself!"

"Yeah?! Well it's only a matter of time until my mom gets it too! I really don't need her killing me faster, so how do we break that stupid crown?!"

"Honestly, must I ALWAYS be the one with the answers?! Use your plague powers! In the days of old, Lord Apollo could strike down entire armies with a fraction of a percentage of his power. Were he to use the full might of this ability, your world would quite literally be consumed by a scourge that could eat away at a god!"

"Okaaaay…...little dramatic, but i'm picking up what you're putting down."

I kept up my cat and mouse game with my mom, while dipping my toes, or fingers in this case, in another recently acquired power I hereby officially dub Plague Doctor.

Even using a small dose was nearly wretch inducing. It felt like my fingers were swimming in live sewage! The toxicity infecting my usually vibrant and benevolent energy was like an oppressive cancer that tinted my flames into an ugly dark gold, while the actual black growth, which apparently was alive, protested greatly against me relegating it to just my fingers! Its desire for death and destruction echoed throughout the deepest recesses of my mind! It would consume the universe if given the chance! Heck, it would have melted the very flesh off my fingers if I wasn't immune to its effects! Literally! Like, it was actually trying to do that, getting more and more frustrated as it failed! I desperately wanted to swear it off forever, but given my line of work, it was all too likely that the Plague Doctor would make frequent appearances.

Anyway, I summoned a throwing knife to my hand, and willed a small portion of the Plague to coat the weapon. After a few more laps around the moon, I threw my knife backwards without even looking, and heard the satisfying thud of the knife hitting my mom's mind control crown! An explosion of Plague Energy ensued, temporarily dimming my mom's flame. I was scared I had overdone it a little, but when I swung back around to check on her, she was perfectly fine, just as homicidal, but her crown had lost some of its flare! Unfortunately, that didn't make her any less capable when it came to trying to kill me, as she unleashed a wave of fire at me!

Instinctively, I raised a shield construct in front of me, prepping to get knocked outta the moon's gravitational field. The shield drew power from my Plague Energy, creating a sickly Roman shield, and I was surprised when I sprawled straight into my mom with an unintentional tackle, as my shield straight up neutralized her fire! Mom recovered quicker than I did, and unleashed another blast at me. Again, I raised another protective barrier around myself, this time consciously using my Plague Energy to fuel the shield, and was not disappointed as my mother's flames were seemingly absorbed into the fiery black dome! Good news, I finally had an edge over someone who hadn't even had their powers for an hour. Bad news, I now had to lean HARD into these new powers I wanted nothing to do with. Bummer, but I did it anyway.

As my mom continued to pile on the fire and constructs, I finally loosened the restriction on the Plague Doctor, allowing it to fully engulf me. I was once again reminded of the feeling of drowning in a sea of dread, sickness, and putrid sewage that caked itself to my skin. The Plague seemed to tackle me, like some monster straight out of a child's fairy tale, and sink its wretched teeth into my limbs! Everything blurred in a wave of black and dark gold, as the cancerous force enveloped me, hardening my skin into an obsidian-like subsistence, and darkening my flames into a sickly dark gold. I cried out, but willed myself not to resist the transformation. Just like a shot, I looked away, rode with the pain, and it was over before I knew it. Thankfully, my barrier had maintained itself during my transformation, which now that I think of it, was basically a plague version of Sunspot. Even my animal spirit companions weren't spared the change, as I could see black apparitions of them flicker in and out of view. A little scarring to see my previously cute and lovable friends in the form of decaying corpse-like zombies, but I stomached it down, focused on my mom, still diligently trying to smite me underneath her solar fury, and willed my Plague barrier to become an explosive wave that knocked her off-balance, propelled her to the lit side of the moon, and admittedly blew some chunks off the dark side. I had to remember to send The Inhumans an apology fruit basket for that, as they would ABSOLUTELY be fixing that. Moving on, I caught up with my mom, who was still tumbling backwards. I wasn't stupid enough to think I could take her in a close quarters fight, so I was banking on my new powers to have me covered.

Just as my mom recovered, I created a mini-sun in my right hand, and flung it at her full force! The flaming black orb pelted her dead in the chest, and expanded into a wildfire almost half a mile wide! It took darn near everything I had just to keep it relatively contained to that area! I straight up forgot about my mom, who was also not having a good time of it, as the dark flames more than kept her busy under the ever continuing waves of force, dragon heads, snake heads, scorpion tails, and emaciated corpse constructs! That wasn't me by the way! The Plague was just that freaking aggressive! I quickly realized controlling this power was gonna be a chore and a half, as it would straight up just do things on its own! For example, after getting a relatively stable hold over it, the darn thing converted itself to a barely contained half mile of volatile black molten liquid! The liquid wasted no time in trying to devour my mother, whose Sun Goddess form was just barely protecting her from getting eviscerated by sharks, piranhas, and Venom heads, because of course the Plague would emulate that psychopath! Don't get me wrong, its enthusiasm was more needed than not, but at this rate, if it managed to break through my mom's aura, it might very well kill her!

"THE CROWN!" I forcefully thought to the Plague. "ONLY THE CROWN!"

The energy fought me a great deal. Once again it resented having limits on its destructive range, but I was having none of its $#!+. If this….thing was gonna be a part of me, it was gonna play by my rules, like it or not!

"I! SAID! THE! CROWN!" I once again enforced my will on the Plague. "YOU WILL OBEY ME! YOU WILL DO AS YOUR MASTER BIDS!"

The Plague fought a little more, writhing and churning in protest, but its fight eventually faded, and I felt it submit. Begrudgingly, and I could sense it almost murmuring dirty words about me, but it nevertheless surrendered and did what I asked of it, albeit in its own passive aggressive way. It trapped her arms and legs in a semi-hardened swirling black mass, while shooting barbed tendrils at her crown. The tendrils latched onto her crown and started draining it, while the rest of the dark mass extinguished the successive waves of fire she kept spewing. For a while it seemed to be working. My mom's light was gradually powering down, but not dangerously so, and the crown itself was flickering in and out of focus! Unfortunately, just like me, it would seem my mother had also inherited that last minute save thing I do when my back is against the wall, and quite literally increased her flame by like TEN TIMES! The added power temporarily pushed back the Plague, giving her room to make a beeline straight for me! With the kind of power she had just put on, I knew I had to get off the moon! One good shot, and like half of it woulda been blown to bits, if not the entire thing! I kept my Plague Doctor powers in play as mom and I lobbed mini-suns, flame streams, and construct attacks that could lay waste to cities, all while I laid into my wolf spirit for giving my mom a boost when I had her on the ropes!

"WHAT GIVES, LUPA?!" I scolded her. "I ALMOST HAD HER DOWN FOR THE THREE COUNT!"

"She needed assistance," Lupa responded, not at all ashamed. "I am pledged to offer my strength to all worthy descendants of Apollo, so long as it is not to harm one another."

"HELLO?! SHE'S TRYING TO HARM ME!"

"Yes, but initially the call was made of desperation and self-preservation."

"I WASN'T GONNA KILL HER! YOU KNOW THAT!"

"She thought otherwise, and called out to me for aid. So here we are."

I stifled a mental scream as I continued to battle with my mom. We were just barely matching each other blow for blow, as our blasts and constructs extinguished each others', forcing us to constantly go back and forth between ranged and melee. As my attacks, traps, and defenses failed to hold up, I racked my brain desperately for some brilliant idea to knockout my insanely OP mother.

I was gonna be here for a while.

(Grant's Perspective)

What can I say? $#!+ is WILD out here!

Once the…..whatever the f*(# was goin' on with reality at the moment went down, all the energy inside me got cranked up to a billion! My Geo-Force, Nature Force, and God Steroids engulfed me and everything within a ten foot radius inside a green and orange fire/lightning tornado that seemed to be getting bigger with every second! My earthbending was outta control too! I was picking up massive earthquakes resonating through the entire city! Like, San Francisco 1906 level tremors! More so, I knew there were moments when my body straight up BECAME ENERGY! Don't get me wrong, I was used to changing the molecular structure of my body, but I had never actually transformed into pure energy before! It felt weird, like being both solid and liquid at the same time, which was not agreeing with my breakfast. Lucky for me, I was no stranger to getting a hold of myself during massive, near uncontrollable energy surges. Gaea made sure to cover that within the first year of training. I took up a meditative position, and quickly got a general grasp over the situation. Basically, this whole shebang was because of my chakra network basically exploding with a sudden burst of my usual energy. My gauges were dialed up to twenty when they were currently only set to handle a ten. From there it was a simple matter of basically expanding/contracting my chakras, allowing them to gradually grow to match the flow, until I had completely gotten the lightshow under control, and prevented a literal 2012 earthquake from ripping California apart. I took a quick half sec to give myself a once over, taking account of my slightly enhanced strength and speed, in addition to the whole energy from thing that was now in need of a name. Life quickly reminded me that I was in the middle of an active warzone, as my body called for a Timeout, as something big was about to truck me from behind! I did a backflip over it, summoned Earthshaker, and after a quick charge of G-Force, threw my axe into what looked like a giant God Steroid boar construct! The beast exploded into raw, swirling energy, out of which a dozen Hydra head constructs shot out and began trying to eat me! I slashed one of the heads with my sword on pure instinct, hoping the Hydra rules didn't apply, but they totally did, and I found myself being pursued by orange hydra heads that seemed like they had an infinite amount of neck! Even worse, the more time I spent on the run, the more the heads changed! Like, first they were pure God Steroid constructs, but at some point they started to gain flesh, and black scales! Also they shot fire at me, which was just f*(#!^& rude!

"Yo, G?!" I thought to Gaea. "You seein' this?! What the hell?! I can't do that!"

"Wow," she thought dryly to me. "Breaking news: you're not the best!"

"You know, one day i'll figure out how to use my powers while muting you!"

"And you wouldn't last a week. The whole fleshy Hydra heads by the way? It's a chi thing. Whoever's at the wheel of this is VERY in tune with the power of Hercules. Probably because they actually commit to daily meditation and energy synchronizing, instead of five minutes of half assing their training."

"I can make a one man army and literally split my power into three! Half assing my…..well, you know!"

"Maybe one day you'll actually plan more than three seconds ahead. Anyway, just scan the chakra, find the weak points, and strike."

"Sweet. Thanks. Now sit back and watch my 'half assed training' at work!"

At this point the hydra heads were comin' at me from all angles. A few of em' occasionally veered off to try and eat stray civilians, but I got their attention again by dropping G-Force anvils on their heads, while creating 14 Titan Clones to give em' something else to chase! My clones and I flew upwards in a spiral, corralling the hydra heads into a big twist as they chased us, and after finding their chakra weak spot on each of their foreheads, flew downwards to strike them all simultaneously with G-Force charged palm strikes! The hydra heads immediately dispersed into a God Steroid tornado that threw me for a slight loop, before it reconstructed itself into an God Steroid lioness construct the size of a bus! The lioness pounced at me with a surprising amount of speed, but I managed to deflect her attack with an axe strike to the side of her head. The swipe didn't hurt her, as it felt like hitting solid Adamantium, and I turned up the gravity by ten as soon as she hit the ground, pinning her to the dirt! I had to hand it to this chick, she was f*(#!^& good! Not even half a minute, and she had already solidified a flesh and blood form! A quick chakra scan revealed a weak point at the base of her neck, which I struck with a chunk of God Steroid charged All-Metal. The usual energy explosion ensued, but cuz I existed to prove Gaea wrong, I actually had a pretty kick ass plan to cut grandpa's 12 Labors refresher off at three!

So remember that God Steroid changed All-Metal sliver from like five seconds ago? Yeah, I did that on purpose. In the nanosecond the shard embedded itself in the lionesses neck, it transmitted back to me the level of energy the mystery woman was packing, giving me a rough idea of how much force to use on the containment field. That was no joke by the way! Whoever this mystery woman was, she was packing an INSANE amount of power! I had to boost the size of my All-Metal shard to the size of a minivan, and use it as an energy regulator of sorts, absorbing and redistributing the excess energy as a rough containment field, just to keep the output at a manageable level, which was still basically like a mini-hurricane! Despite feeling like I was trying to levitate a state with my brain, I found the spare brain cells to focus on syncing my chi to match the God Steroid mini-storm, and started to reign this puppy in!

Step 1 was to semi-stabilize the volatile energy via sending waves of calming chi into the flow. By the way, Gaea was right. Whoever this lady was, the God Steroids had completely bonded with her cellular makeup! She had somehow achieved a perfect energy merger, somethin' I don't think i'd ever score, which made me slightly nervous. Like, this was another big bad waitin' to happen, and I had way the hell more than enough to deal with right now. Anyway, after I casually stabilized a little over 30 trillion cells, the energy storm started to revert to its natural state, as a humanoid form started to take shape. The energy was still on the more volatile side, so i'd jump back and forth between trying to stabilize someone around 6 ft tall, and someone who was 60 ft tall. Helluva margin, but I managed to keep it under control while I enacted Step 2: balance her chakra. Yeah, forget years of meditation and practice, this chick's chakras were more clogged than Blob's arteries! She hadn't spent five minutes in a yoga class, much less in deep spiritual meditation! Again, I was a little in my feelings at how she could pull off some next level $#!+ fresh outta the gate, but in the spirit of friendship I decided to help her along the path.

With my chakra attuned to hers' it was relatively simple enough to basically get the gears turning, aka steadily pushing a controlled portion of God Steroids through her chakras, starting at the Root, up to the Crown. My focus was at an all time high, as this was like the most dangerous operation ever, but I managed to get through it ok, especially considering Loki was involved. Yeah, dude was in astral form, tryna do some kinda mind control spell on my mystery woman, but the feedback of her chakras waking up kept his magic from taking hold. It was actually kinda funny to watch him keep failing, and I wished he woulda looked my way so I could taunt him, but I settled for watching him buzz off like the annoying fly he was. Just in time too, as little miss demigod was finally coming outta the other side of her anime evolution. One last contraction and explosion of excess energy eventually faded to reveal….MY F*(#!^% MOM!

I've never rushed forward to catch someone faster in all my life! With every passing nanosec I was tryna pretend my eyes weren't seeing what my brain was telling me they were, but it was my mom alright. Same soft face with a scar on her right cheek, shoulder length curly black hair with streaks of gray, as she stopped giving a f*(# about dying it, flower/butterfly tattoo sleeves on her arms, wearing a black bandanna pattern zip up leather dress! She was out cold, but the ambient energy radiating off of her was like a small wildfire barely held at bay. Hell, she had gotten visibly bigger. Like, she grew an entire half a foot, and was now rocking calves and biceps that would give She-Hulk and Thundra a run! There was no time to move her outta the battle radius, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna just leave her like this, so I compromised ala wrapping her in a cocoon of oxygen supplying maple, with G/N-Force enhanced lotus flowers coating the inside to keep her sedated, and help her chakras recover from the sudden mega workout I put em' through. Final step was to solidify the cocoon with a surge of Nature Force, making it ten times harder than steel, and send it 100 ft below ground. I'd dig her back up after this was all over….and there goes another Timeout!

My senses sent me into Blitz mode so fast, I threw up from the vertigo, which would end up being mixed with blood, as there were three giant, razor sharp Doc Ock lookin' tentacles tryna get a hold of me!

I back flipped over one of me, rolled under another, and took off sprinting just to make sure I didn't get caught between all three! The tentacles chased me for a good bit, doing a mix of flying and tunneling to routinely cut off my flight/running space, and of course could shoot hellfire out of their centerpieces! Definitely enough to keep me on my toes, but nothing I couldn't handle. I was about to summon an All-Metal counter, and maybe get Gaea an early Christmas present, but the chase came to a sudden end as I caught a giant flaming axe comin' at me from my peripherals, and just barely summoned my axe in spear form to block the attack! I ended up missing the mark on this one, as the strike landed way the f*(# harder than I was expecting, sending me and Earthshaker flying in different directions! I ended up cratering half a mile, back in the good old golf course that had like 200 holes instead of 18. A little disoriented from getting knocked on my ass, but I got up, and summoned my axe just in time for a red blur to smash into the ground, just 20 meters ahead of me. It only took a few seconds for the dust to clear, but I could already sense who it was! I felt that unique, demonic chakra, heard her familiar throaty growl that was the perfect mix of human and reptilian, and could practically feel her hunger for my blood as the dust cleared to reveal my nemesis, who used the old but good 'not being dead when they totally shoulda been' villain trope. The Dragon Empress had returned.

She looked almost exactly like she did in our first encounter. A drop dead gorgeous Asian woman with perfectly tanned scaly skin, long, flowing black hair, with golden highlights in the mix. Her base form had gotten bigger. Before, she was around my height, but whatever workout regimen she was on shot her up to 9 ft tall! I noticed she was missing her wings, which ok, sort of lessens the whole dragon motif, but everyone needs a change every once in a while. Also, below her collarbone, around her upper bust area, I noticed four sets of glowing red light that seemed to be comin' outta her. As for her attire, Syndir was still rocking her boob armor, colored red, with gold flame outlines, but added onto the set were spiky, World of Warcraft lookin' shoulder and arm guards with the same color aesthetic. Her abs game was still on point, as ya girl was rocking a scaly six back that looked like it could tank missiles. Below, she actually decided to mostly upgrade to the modern era, as she was wearing red and gold leggings, tucked inside her golden combat boots that had dragon wings going up the side, giving her a Hermes kinda vibe. Also, strapped to her leggings were decorative plate armor that covered the sides of her thighs. Finally, it wouldn't be my arch rival without a loincloth of some kind, as Dragon Empress had one that stretched down behind her, stopping at a pointed end, just above her calves. Kinda looked like that kinda sorta skirt the Supreme Kais wear in DBZ. Stretching around her waist was a golden scale pattern belt that had a circular ruby for the centerpiece, and also had a single strap of the same pattern stretching downwards, stopping at a pointed end, just between her knees. Looked like a sick ass championship belt for sure.

Dragon Empress and I stared each other down, respective axes at the ready, dead silence that seemed to drown out the larger battle raging around us. She had upgraded big time. No way she hadn't. She knew the same about me. I got the creeping suspicion some of her upgrades were specifically designed to counter my own. Like….I just knew she had been watching, training, and waiting for this moment. This was 100% a super serious, deadly grim reunion of bitter rivals that needed to be handled with great care and sensitivity. My opening salvo? A wink and a smile.

"Round 4, huh?" I asked with all the charm I could throw at her.

She snarled at me, huffing a burst of flame from her mouth, and charged full speed at me, materializing her red/gold wings as she burst forward with an admittedly incredible amount of velocity!

I decided to turn on the upper levels of whup ass right away, as I shrunk down to Tiny Titan and gave my old friend several dozen earth rumbling wallops across her entire body, before growing back to normal with an axe swing directed at the back of her head! She blocked the swing by summoning a dragon themed helm that covered her entire noggin. Pretty impressive, as there wasn't a lotta things that could block a swing from Earthshaker. Didn't have time to admire the craftsmanship tho, as Dragon Empress materialized her tail around me, damn near at the same time my axe made contact with her head, and slammed me into the dirt! Not even a second later her tail, which felt more metallic than flesh, surged with some kind of red lightning that seemed to attack my nervous system! Bitch hurt like a motherf*(# &, and damn near paralyzed me! That was pretty bad, as Dragon Lady's tail could stretch like Mr. Fantastic, and was currently bringing me around the loop for what I was gonna take a wild guess was a decapitation. It was always decapitation with axes. Dunno why that is, but seeing as that was nowhere on my bucket list, I shrunk down to Tiny Titan again, just barely avoiding the swing. This time was a little different tho, as my body called for a Timeout almost immediately! I was super confused at first, as nothing's really a threat to me while i'm doin' my Ant-Man impression, but as my reflexes took over, I did a twisting sideflip over something exactly my size trying to tackle me from behind! My body didn't even shift me out of Timeout, as I sensed a kinda sorta metal tail, barbed all over with Scabrite spikes, whipping at me with blinding speed! I didn't have the time to try for another dodge, but I couldn't simply catch a tail spiked with one of the few metals in existence that could actually hurt me. Thinking on the fly, I quickly combined my three respective energies together to make a quick surge of Titan Force that engulfed my entire body in a shield, which I then covered with a layer of All-Metal, before catching the tail. Oh yeah, maybe the immediate danger to life and health took the wind out of the new development, but for those of you that like the more dramatic side, I gotcha.

HOLY F*(#!^& $#!+, THIS BITCH CAN F*(#!^& SHRINK!

A million questions and answers were buzzing around in my head, like 1000 puzzle pieces tryna find other ones that fit! Obviously Lizard Queen had gotten some kinda tech upgrade, hence what I assumed to be her newfound mix of flesh and metal, and if my hunch was correct, this was just the tip of the spear! Like I said, I got the feelin' my old friend had put a lot of time into gettin' ready for our rematch! Hell, as of right now she was damn near givin' me all I could handle! Just me catchin' her tail sent a shock wave through the whole damn campus, and probably out to the overall city! Tiny Titan was always one of my more dangerous powers. At full strength I coulda sent California into the sea in a hundred pieces. If the force of merely blocking Lizard Queen's half assed strike was an indicator, she was on the same playing field. I had to switch the game up before we destroyed the entire damn board.

I started bobbing, weaving, and dodging with everything I had, while Dragon Empress threw fire, brimstone, and curses at me from behind. Let me tell ya somethin', she was in a mood!

"DO NOT RUN FROM ME, YOU FECKLESS WORM!" she roared between hellfire blasts. "I WILL SEE YOUR FACE WHEN I BURY MY AXE IN YOUR CHEST! I WILL SEE THE LIGHT LEAVE YOUR EYES AS YOU DROWN IN YOUR OWN BLOOD! I WILL NOT BE DENIED!"

She sure knew how to make a guy feel wanted, i'll give her that. I decided to throw her a bone and suddenly stopped my momentum, allowing her to tumble into me. She wasn't expecting that, which I used to my advantage as I grew back to normal size, punting her almost 80 ft into the air with a simultaneous uppercut! My plan was to grow to Mega Titan and crush her between my hands, but Syndr had me beat on that front as she immediately made the jump from 7 inches to 70 ft, bringing a boot down on top of me!

I'll admit, I took that personally! There was something about bad guys tryna step on me that just rubbed me the wrong way! I straight up skipped over the fact that Charcoal Breath had copped another one of my tricks, and simply rose to the occasion, growing to 60 ft, getting a good hold of her right leg, and slamming her into the golf course so many times, the place coulda been used as a makeshift landfill!

After about 12 slams into the dirt, Dragon Empress managed to sink her tail deep into the ground, providing just enough resistance to my next throw attempt that she managed to get off a solid kick to my chest, before dousing me in a wave of hellfire that f*(#!^& stung; not to mention knocked me on my ass! I recovered just in time to do a Matrix dodge under Dragon Empress' axe throw, only to get blasted point blank in the chest by dual cannon blasts from her arm cannons! Yeah, you heard that right! Dragon Empress had gone full Omega Sentinel, and was now a cyborg capable of turning her arms into laser cannons, amongst gods knows what else! In fact, the gods didn't even have to tell me, cuz Lizard Queen was all over that! She opened fire on me again, which I blocked with a giant Titan Force Cap shield construct! The force of the blast still pushed me back a bit, but my shield held strong. Dragon Empress made me construct a whole ass phalanx around myself as she took to the sky, and unleashed a slew of hellfire loaded missiles from mini-missile silos located just about everywhere on her body! Like, i'm talking her back, shoulders, thighs, wrists, and even kneecaps! The bombardment quickly became overwhelming to where my hastily constructed phalanx was holding on by a thread, especially as Dragon Empress kept adding on Gatling Guns, grenade launchers, and $#!+ that looked like they were from f*(#!^& Cybertron! I definitely had to get my ass serious, cuz she was not f*(#!^& around!

On that note, I was about to start a sandstorm to throw her aim off, before busting out an offensive rush, but something caught my ears. A sort of high pitched whistle mixed with a surging sound, heading straight for me with the swiftness! I was eventually able to suss out that it was Dragon Empress' axe, which had spent a few minutes gaining speed and energy, on its way back to destroy my clubhouse, and probably hurt somethin' fierce, but I had a kinda sorta kick ass plan for that. As the axe inched closer to my phalanx, I covered my entire body with a layer of Nature Force enhanced vines, which I also covered with another layer of G-Force enhanced rock. Right before the axe made contact with my fortress, I willed the back half of it to dissipate, tapped into Blitz Extreme, me at my fastest, caught the axe, and while willing the rest of the phalanx away, threw the axe as hard as I could at Lizard Queen! I absolutely took a few good shots that stung even through my armor, but it was totally worth it as Dragon Empress reacted a fraction of a second too late, trying to dodge her own axe, but getting clipped on her left wing, and taking all of that built up energy in one big explosion! Too big actually! I realized as soon as the blast went off, this thing was gonna straight up decimate the entire campus if I didn't get it under control! I quickly flew a good mile and a half into the air, before putting all of my effort into using my Geo-Genesis powers to multiply the dirt, while raising it around the 200 acre course, and solidifying it into solid rock! I also made sure to put G-Force shields around the Moloids still in the area, and told Gaea to tell em' to scram once the blast had died down, and I dropped the barrier.

"That was nice of you," she told me in a voice that was like 93% sincere.

"Yeah," I responded. "Didn't know if their armor would hold up. Speaking of armor tho…"

I willed my plant and earth layers to expand and shift until I was inside a construct of the Hulk, inside an Iron Man armor from the neck down, wielding Cap's shield and Mjolnir. I finished off my Ultimate Avenger armor with an All-Metal finish, before activating my rocket boots and rushing back to the fight!

I quickly locked onto Dragon Empress, who was missing a wing, banged up, and bleeding what was either black blood, or some kind of oil. Her pride was more injured than her body, as she was gearing up for another weapons barrage, but I put a stop to that via All-Metal missiles filled with Nature Force enhanced explosive acid! My barrage completely engulfed Lizard Queen in a bright green blaze, which I followed up by supercharging my shield in Titan Force, before slamming it full force with my hammer, sending the frisbee of death aimed at her head! The shield hit its mark and blew up good, but when I tried to summon it back I got a flaming Scabrite hammer to the chest! I got blown back 200 meters, but rolled with the momentum into a recovery. This time I was successful in calling my shield back to me, but if Dragon Empress' new set up was any indicator, I was bout to have my work cut out for me!

Ya girl was decked out from head to toe in a black and red ornate dragon pattern medieval armor set! Her boots were a dark, blood red, absolutely filled to the brim with spikes. Her thighs, upper bust to neck, and biceps exposed the chainmail sublayer. She still had those ridiculous plates strapped to the sides of her thighs, tucked under another set of plates on either side that extended from her upper thighs, up to just under her chest. Her actual chest armor kinda looked like a corset, with fire breathing metallic dragon heads on either shoulders. Her arms were covered in spiked gauntlets that gave off the same energy as her boots. Finally, she was wearing a knight's helm that was basically Thor's helmet with a protective mouthpiece, a glowing red visor slit to see out of, and decorative dragon wings instead of…whatever Thor's helmet wings are supposed to be. Maybe ravens? Oh, and as for that hammer? Yeah, Lizard Queen had straight up jacked Thor's whole flow as I saw the hammer fly back to her right hand, in addition to a wicked looking scimitar in her other.

"I like her," Gaea said.

"You would!" I responded as I charged at Dragon Empress. "Before ya get too attached, can ya get a dozen nukes and the Bomb Box ready, pretty please?!"

"You forgot the pomegranates on top, but i'll let it slide this once."

I made a note to add sugar sprinkled pomegranates next time, as I focused on stalling Dragon Empress for about 15 minutes or so.

The first two minutes were relatively even, as me and Charcoal Breath unloaded everything we had at each other! On my end, I twirled my hammer furiously, creating a Titan Force charged sandstorm to accompany the constant barrages of mini missiles from my back cannons, and dual Gatling guns on my shoulders! Dragon Empress responded by taking to the sky ala thrusters in the back of her calves, and converting both her arms into Ion Displacer cannons, making it all but certain she absolutely was a Transformers fan, in addition to her dragon head shoulder guards shooting like 100 hellfire balls that locked onto and tried to nail me from all angles! The fire fight only lasted for like a minute, with both of us getting our fair share of licks in, but while this high stakes laser tag game was fun, I was aching to ramp this up, and I could tell my dance partner was feelin' the same vibe. Me being the gentleman I am, I took the first step and ambushed her from behind with a gorilla sand construct that threw off her flight pattern! The gorilla was followed up by a lion, elephant, rhino, and T-Rex, until Dragon Empress meteored into the dirt! I immediately upped the Gs to X100, trapping her on the spot, and continuing the barrage! I kept up the Animal Planet vibe with my sand constructs, burying Dragon Empress under the Circle Of Life, while adding another layer of Nature Force superhero constructs! Final wave was my God Steroids, which were a mix of 12 Labors, Naruto Tailed Beasts, and a sprinkling of bad guys who've gotten their asses kicked by me…with a little help of course. Nothing like the sweet irony of using Venom, The Serpent Society, and Nightmare Sentinels to kick another supervillan's ass!

I managed to keep that barrage going for a good 30 seconds, until Dragon Empress did a Human Torch, lighting herself on hellfire, and powering outta both my barrage and gravity spot! She charged at me with a double bladed axe and scimitar in her hands, not to mention the giant, Scabrite Doc Ock tentacles flailing menacingly towards me as she closed the distance! As much as I loved the tried and true hammer and shield combo, with the way Lizard Queen was rolling up on me, the best defense was a full on offense. Besides, there were plenty of other iconic hero weapons to choose from. Ok…I lied. There was only one. I changed my hammer to Magik's Soulsword, and just converted my shield to a double bladed war axe, in addition to adding my own Doc Ock tentacles.

What?! She'd totally wreck me without em'!

With the foreplay out of the way, Dragon Empress and I put everything we had into absolutely wrecking the hell out of each other. Yes, I know how that sounds. No, I do not regret it.

She was just as deadly with a blade as I remembered, as we both damn near fought each other to a stalemate on that front, with only a handful of our strikes actually landing. Hell, most of the damage I did to her was with my Unibeam, shoulder Gatling guns, and occasional wrist rocket blasts that bought me a little time. I say that cuz literally in every other aspect, Lizard Queen was kicking my ass! First off, she was way better at using the Doc Ock tentacles than I was! Whether it was locking hers around mine to keep me close, snaring either of my legs and making me fumble in my attacks/defenses, she sabotaged me at every angle! Hell, her tentacles and helmet visors shot out a concentrated sort of hellfire that straight up melted chunks of my All-Metal, gradually increasing my vulnerability. That's not to say I didn't respond with some hefty ones of my own! From a squad of carnivorous Venus flytraps taking a few chunks of their own outta Syndir's armor, to bridge cable thick roots holding her down, so I could get another weapons barrage in on her, and ejecting a wave of explosive spores that released waves of corrosive gas! Dragon Empress' hellfire managed to shield her from the brunt of my attacks, but at least I could say I wasn't gettin' stomped like a bitch. Not that it was a huge consolation, as Lizard Queen put the finishing touches on the remainder of my armor by sinking her tentacles, which now had blades jutting out of their centers, into weak points on my thighs and shoulders! I could already sense the massive amount of hellfire building inside of Dragon Empress' chest, and I could already tell where it was goin'! Not wanting to be a charred husk, I ejected myself outta the back of my suit, shrunk down to normal size, and pulled a small piece of the earth, plant, and All-Metal. Before I had even touched the ground, I reshaped the items into a new Mjolnir, willed the still ongoing sandstorm to condense around myself and Dragon Empress, and ramped up Plan B, aka Thor this $#!+ up!

Yup, I twirled my hammer as fast as I could, and turned this sandstorm into a hurricane that swept Dragon Empress off her feet! The high intensity whirlwind did a much better job at suppressing her hellfire aura, and the continuous stream of Titan Force bolts striking her from all angles kept her off-balance! The sand hurricane was just a stalling tactic, as my real plan was to steadily absorb it into my hammer, which was I was also overcharging with Titan Force, making one helluva bomb that would hopefully at least rattle Lizard Queen's defenses, if not send her on an early trip back to scrapsville! It only took about a minute for my hammer to absorb the sandstorm, which woulda been a problem what with tryna keep Dragon Empress in a whirlwind, but I offset the depreciating momentum by trapping Dragon Empress in a Titan Force tesla sphere, while also creating multiple waves of Titan Clones, making them overcharge with either of my three energies, and doing a mass kamikaze. Her half gurgled curses against me and my entire bloodline made me feel all the warm fuzzies. Naturally, I wanted to give her somethin' that would properly show how much I appreciated her kind words, and what do ya know, here was a condensed, supercharged sand hurricane, inside of an equally supercharged All-Metal Mjolnir! A little last minute, but hopefully it would be the thought that counted as I finally hurled the hammer upwards at Dragon Empress, who was too busy swinging her axe wildly at my clones to notice said super weapon! The hammer slammed into her chest, exploded with a very satisfying, very loud, and very explosive blastwave that obliterated what little grass remained of the golf course, and hopefully woulda took a good chunk of wind out of my rival's sail!

Yeah…..not quite. Barely five seconds later, an earsplitting roar echoed through the entire campus, and I was just barely able to process a red/gold blur heading straight towards me! I lunged backwards out of the way, avoiding becoming a red stain at the bottom of a ten foot crater, and my body didn't even have a chance to come down from Timeout, as Dragon Empress, now rocking her 10 ft full on dragon woman form, was still on my ass! This bitch was like half a foot from my face, maw open wide to either chew my head up like a grape, or char it to an unseasoned, well done meatball! I doubt she'd consider the fact that i'm more of a Medium Rare kinda guy, but I wasn't much in the mood for BBQ anyway. I had to get some distance between the two of us, and seeing as I had no idea how strong her dragon form had gotten, I pulled out a rare card and summoned a Power Gauntlet around my right hand, before connecting one hell of an uppercut that straight splintered the entire golf course grounds, and sent a small shockwave through the whole campus!

Dragon Empress only shot up a few feet, recovered almost instantly, and came down with a hammer punch I just barely managed to dodge! Lizard Queen kept up the assault, clawing furiously at the air, and just as I was just on the verge of feelin' myself a little too much, she put the brakes on it as she swept at me with her tail so fast, even in Blitz it was mostly a blur! I just barely managed to side flip over it, but by the time I realized I had just hopped into a trap, it was too late to stop it! In my case, this trap came in the form of Dragon Empress morphing her arm into a Scabrite Power Gauntlet, and slamming me in the chest so hard, I actually blacked out!

$#!+ went spotty for a bit. I remember catching glimpses of a city, then open sky, then some canyons, all while some kinda buzzing was ringing in my head. That buzzing turned out to be my partner in heroism, Gaea, who was doing a damn good impression of an alarm that had been blaring ten minutes after you were supposed to wake up.

"WAKE THE F*(# UP, GRANT!" she damn near cracked her voice bellowing at me. "SHE'S GETTING CLOSER!"

My eyes shot open just in time to see Dragon Empress barely a foot away from my chest, maw wide open to bite me in half! I just barely managed to get my hands around her jaws, stopping lunch time in its tracks, and spun for my life! A few seconds of whirling around at Mach 3 eventually got Ms. Scaly off my back, and after throwing her off me, I tried to get back on the offensive via busting out my Power Gauntlets and going at it for real this time!

Each punch I landed knocked her across at least two states! By the time she finally managed to block and counter me, we were half a mile off the coast of Virginia! She responded in kind by slapping me with a tailwhip that knocked me halfway across the Atlantic, even though I blocked it! That attack was swiftly followed by a barrage of Hellfire mini-missiles, courtesy of everywhere across Dragon Empress' body, which I had to work double time in order to block with a series of defensive G-Force constructs! Couldn't allow the possibility of a single one hitting a populated area. That of course left me open a few times for Dragon Empress to make a go at using my chest as a resting place for her axe, but I managed to keep that an ongoing dream.

Ultimately, we ended up fighting around the world two times! Each punch/kick we landed on each other moved the fight over by at least two states and/or countries! While we were neck and neck in terms of strength and skill, it was my Titan Force constructs that gave me the slight advantage! From all sides, Dragon Empress was constantly bombarded with missiles, trains, Mjolnirs, Avengers, and mythical beasts that kept her mostly on the defensive, and open to some pretty big haymakers from yours truly! It wasn't until after the start of our second worldwide rumble that Dragon Empress finally clapped back in a big way. See, I was currently kicking her ass via Titan Force Ninja/Samurai ambush, with a few tiger spirit infused chakra punches for good measure. After half a continent's worth of that, Dragon Empress let loose a Hellfire blastwave, knocking me off-balance, and shredding my constructs! I recovered just in time for my body to call for a Timeout, as a giant red buzzsaw construct was just a few feet away from cutting me in half! Yeah, she had f*(#!^& constructs now! Not happy that I wasn't split into two bloody pieces, Dragon Empress sent another wave of buzzsaw constructs incoming from all sides, forcing me to play tag for a while! After a few seconds of utilizing the five Ds of dodgeball, not to mention way too many shattered shield constructs to count, I let loose my own counter volley of Titan Force Mjolnirs, breaking Dragon Empress' offensive rush! She caught a few hammers to the face and chest, leaving her open for a blast from my Tiger Chi enhanced Proton Canon construct blast!

For the first time in the whole fight, it looked like I finally managed to take some of the wind outta Dragon Empress, as it took her a half trip over Europe to finally get back in the fight, during which time I continuously doused her in Titan Force blasts, kamikaze Iron Men, animal chi strikes, and of course, a few good swings/throws from Earthshaker to see if the previously mentioned tenderizing had softened her up to do some real damage! The answer was always a frustrating 'eh, maybe next time', as my axe would get a few chips in, maybe a decent gash if I was lucky, but nothing even debilitating, much less fatal. Oh, she also had a healing factor, so I never got anywhere past square one! When she finally did catch her bearings, she got back into the fight via assaulting me with a mix of ranged, melee and construct attacks that had me sweating big time to keep up! She was just as strong/skilled, if not more so in close quarters, and had clearly dedicated everything she had into making sure I couldn't fall back on my laurels, as she had developed chakra attacks as well! If I had to boil down a sample, out of 100 swings, we would connect on 25, while blocking, dodging, or countering the other three quarters. I was throwing my animal spirits at her. Lion, Tiger, Bear, Dragon, etc., but from first hand experience, that weak $#!+ had nothin' on Charcoal Teeth dishing out haymakers charged with Efreets, Phoenixes, and some kinda serpent that packed WAY too big of a punch to be your average garden snake!

I got put on the defensive more often than not, using a mix of missiles, Avengers, and 12 Labors constructs to quite literally give me some breathing room, as most of those hits left me winded as f*(#. Once again, the intensity of Lizard Queen's training spoke for itself, as she matched my constructs beat for beat, and in most cases managed to overpower em'! She favored a mix of fire demons, Dark Elves, and Trolls, but also threw in straight up demonic nightmare fuel interpretations of earth heroes and villains my way! Like, the flaming Man-Spider makeover she gave my favorite web slinging hero was enough to turn my blood to ice. The zombified Captain America that had a bladed chainsaw shield in his chest may have given me slight trauma. Still, I managed to push through and continue to keep Dragon Empress at bay, until she tried to go for the finisher, ala getting inside a giant Hellfire Combat Avatar of her dear old dad, Surtur, charging full steam ahead for the kill! I wasn't bout to take that lying down, and got inside my own Combat Avatar of Thor, and damn near took the head of Syndir's Combat Avatar with a solid ass uppercut from my hammer!

We continued to wail on each other well past Europe, back into the Pacific, getting closer to California. I wasn't even thinking of bringing the fight back to the school. Assuming there was any school still left, me and Dragon Empress woulda vaporized it just on crash landing! Besides, I was still putting in 110% just to keep the brawl even, and DESPERATELY needed an advantage. As was such, I let the fight veer a little more to the east, until we were encroaching over Nevada, where my real focus was taking the fight to the Gaea's Enclosure, previously known as The Great Basin Desert! Ever since my battle with Magneto back when I first got my Geo/Nature Force powers, using so much of the respective energies in one place, both from the initial battle and dozens of training bouts, had permanently changed the landscape, essentially turning it into a boost pad for my powers. For example, once I got Dragon Empress within the Enclosure's borders, I willed a tractor beam made of G/N-Force, enhanced by my gravity powers, to lock onto her, and send her plummeting into the dirt! I wasted no time in shifting my Combat Avatar into a decked out War Machine, with all the Gatling guns and missile launchers I could fit, and dive bombed my archnemesis with a weapons barrage that sent shockwaves throughout the entire Enclosure!

"So," Gaea prodded me. "Good enough nemesis for you?"

"Too good!" I snapped back. "She's got all the tricks, and I got a feeling we're just scratching the surface! How are those nukes comin'?!"

"Almost done. Gimme another five minutes, and we're all set. Play nice until then!"

I was 100% NOT playing nice, and neither was Dragon Empress, as her freaking chest split open to reveal an arc reactor! The blast happened so fast, I barely saw it coming! I just remember the feeling of getting hit with a Railgun level blast, followed by dozens of smaller impacts of a Hellfire mini-missile barrage that also sent me spiraling into the dirt just 50 meters opposite of her!

My blasts DEFINITELY packed more of a punch than she was used to, as she was much slower on the recovery this time around. By the time Lizard Queen had closed the distance, axe out for the killing blow, I was already good to go! As her axe came down, I summoned Earthshaker in axe-chain mode, wrapped it around the head of Dragon Empress' axe, and yanked that $#!+ away, while hitting her with a reverse kick that sent her tumbling back a good twenty feet! I went back on the offensive before she could recover, and socked her with some Tiger Chi punches to the face and gut, before summoning my axe again, charging it with a portion of the Enclosure's energy, and planting it deep into Charcoal Breath's chest! She roared something fierce, but before she could retaliate, I let loose a G/N-Force Final Flash level blast from my eyes! Like I said, $#!+ is cranked up to a thousand here! Dragon Empress got cratered through ten miles of rock and plants, before I stopped her in a gravity spot, and proceeded to run the clock down!

Across a five mile area around Dragon Empress, I willed the ground to destabilize into sand, and form another Titan Force charged sandstorm! I added giant cacti thorns, Titan Force animal constructs, a few dozen Titan Clones, and the spirits of hundreds of bats, foxes, weasels, mountain lions, badgers, and hundreds of other indigenous creatures that…well, got absorbed into a sort of limbo existence back when I gave the Great Basin Desert a flash greenery. More on that later, but for now turn your attention to the dragon woman who was currently getting the seven shades of $#!+ kicked out of her! The sandstorm and all its added ingredients kept her constantly off-balance, and in the rare event of her actually managing to get off a swing or a blast, she either only grazed my clones and constructs, or hit a spirit that immediately reformed itself, and resumed the ass kicking!

"So quick question?" I asked her via like thirty clones talking at once all around her. "Did you miss me?! Like, I know it's a weird question, but I actually did kinda miss you a little. So, how about it, hot stuff?! Did you catch yourself pining for me during our break?!"

It probably was stupid as f*(# to provoke her, as Gaea made clear in the strongest of possible terms, but I couldn't help myself. Besides, I thought my inquiry was reasonable, well-mannered, and mature. Dragon Empress reacted….not that way.

She engulfed herself in flames, creating a semi-stable body shield, allowing her to actually get in some decent swings, blasts, and blocks against my attacks.

"OH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA, TITAN!" she responded. "WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW ECSTATIC I AM TO SEE YOU ALIVE, HEALTHY, AND STRONG!"

The air started to heat up drastically as her body erupted into an inferno that woulda burned hot enough to liquefy the ground if it wasn't for my Titan Force enhanced sandstorm suppressing her flames! As was such, my clones, spirits, and constructs all got toasted, leaving just me using my sand as emergency fire suppressant! It was now a battle of wills, as both of us pushed against each other with everything we had!

"AFTER YOU NEARLY DESTROYED ME, MY FATHER RECONSTRUCTED MY BODY, BUT THAT WAS NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH! YOU HUMILIATED ME! SENT ME BACK TO MUSPELHEIM AS A QUIVERING, PATHETIC, WASTE OF FLESH AND BONE! I WAS NOT WORTHY TO CALL MYSELF THE DAUGHTER OF SURTUR! I WAS NOT WORTHY OF MY EXISTENCE! DESPAIR NEARLY TOOK HOLD! I NEARLY ENDED MY OWN LIFE, BUT THAT WOULD ONLY BRING MY FATHER EVEN MORE DISHONOR! NO, INSTEAD, I DEDICATED EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY AFTERWARDS TO BECOMING THE ULTIMATE WEAPON! I STUDIED YOUR HEROES! MIMICKED YOUR VILLAINS, RIPPED MYSELF TO PIECES AND RECONSTRUCTED MYSELF COUNTLESS TIMES, UNTIL MY POWER RIVALED EVEN THAT OF THE MIGHTIEST OF THE AESIR! YOU, GEO-TITAN, ARE A STAIN ON MY VERY ESSENCE! EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE IS AN INSULT TO ME! ON EVERYTHING I AM, TO THE NORNS THEMSELVES, I SWEAR I WILL CHASE YOU FROM NOW UNTIL RAGNAROK IF THAT IS WHAT IT TAKES TO RIP YOUR LIMBS FROM YOUR BODY, GORGE ON YOUR FLESH, AND PERSONALLY SEND YOUR SOUL TO THE ICY WASTES OF NIFLHEIM!"

Ok…..so we're gonna chalk that up to a 'yes' as far as the question I asked her.

"COOL STORY, BABE!" I shouted back. "TELL IT TO ME AGAIN IF YOU GET A NEXT TIME!"

Before the dots had a chance to connect, I sprung my trap card on Dragon Empress, trapping her in the Bomb Box! After the six giant, golden squares, each with a transparent oval in their centers, locked around her as a cube, I immediately launched the nukes inside! Poor Lizard Queen didn't even have a chance to register what was even happening as she was engulfed inside a silent, bright green flash that betrayed how much force she took point blank from all sides! Like that blast was enough to wipe most of Texas off the face of the earth, and certainly had to have obliterated her at least five times over! I was just getting ready to dismiss the Bomb Box back into the Geo-Nexus, but I let my guard down too soon as my gilded bomb container was blown apart, with a violent explosion of fire, and some kind of dark, weighty energy that resonated like an earthquake ripping through the very fabric of reality! I got blown back about half a mile before recovering, and was not afraid to admit the sight of Dragon Empress' new getup sent a cold wave of fear through my soul!

For starters, she was the embodiment of 'you haven't even seen my final form', as this was her second transformation to date!

Imagine a centaur…..but like, replace the horse part with a dragon. Yep….that about sums it up. From the waist up, Syndr was in her 'human' form, but with her scales changed to match the red/gold aesthetic the rest of her lower body was rockin'. Oh, and her hair was now a writhing bed of live serpents, cuz of f*(#!^& course it was. From the waist down, she was a f*(#!^& dragon. Four powerful legs attached to a giant lizard-like body that had golden spikes running down her spine, with a long barbed tail, and huge wings on her back. Oh, and she was like 30ft tall now, so that was probably gonna be a bit of a problem.

Nah, all in all, her new form wasn't all that intimidating from a physical standpoint, but she had a couple of X-factors that made me sweat a little. For one, she was emitting this weird reverse pulse rhythm that felt as if it was sucking the fabric of reality into her being. It definitely wasn't in my head, as I could sense the dirt and pebbles within her vicinity levitate off the ground, and float around her in an orbit! Something about this energy felt frustratingly familiar, and I was kicking myself non-stop for not being able to pinpoint the reason why. While the back of my mind pondered that rubix cube, I honed in on the second subtle boost I sensed in Dragon Empress; this time nailing down the exact reason why I was a little shook. See, I had spent enough time around Sister Grimm, Wiccan, and Magik to know the aura of magic quite well. Hell, after a year of fighting various magical threats, I basically developed a Scounter sense, allowing me to discern whether or not we were dealing with small timers like Hood, or big players like Clea. Dragon Empress was exuding so much raw magical energy just by existing as she was, my Scounter sense was off the charts! Yes, she was over 9,000! She was more than just a big player, she was a game changer! Like, whatever super big threats Doctor Strange was tryna keep at bay, i'm pretty sure she woulda qualified as one!

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Lizard Queen's voice resounded through the entire enclosure, like she was doing a Black Bolt impression. "A VALIANT ATTEMPT, TITAN, BUT THE HEIR OF MUSPELHEIM WILL NOT SO EASILY BE DEFEATED ONCE AGAIN! NOW, I BELIEVE IT IS MY TURN!"

A sudden barrage of dulled shockwaves, like sonics with no sound, started resonating outwards non-stop. The waves didn't hurt me exactly, but I immediately sensed the damage! Somewhere along the line, Dragon Empress had figured out I had an aura that protected me from magic, and had developed some kinda frequency to not exactly cancel, but weaken it. The frequency was coming from her cyborg body, and other than smashing her to pieces I doubted she'd loan me her manual to find the easy off switch. Shortly after the shield dampening waves started, the air heated up to damn near nuclear, as Dragon Empress lit herself on fire with the goddamn Flames of Faltine; her face morphing into the spitting image of Dormammu! She took too the sky, locked onto me in an instant, and let loose a Faltine Flame Kamehameha that woulda burned me, and probably half the f*(#!^& state to a crisp!

"Gaea," I thought to her. "Get Amalthea on the horn! Gonna need as many animal spirits as possible for this one!"

"Doubt they're in the best of moods, but i'll turn on the charm!" she responded. "Use the Seven Chakra Fusion Flash! Trust me, this is just as bad, if not worse than Juggernaut!"

I had to repress a shiver as I recalled me and Gaea's first double date with an interdimensional demon and his psycho avatar. Not the most encouraging thought, but it did the job of snapping me back into focus. I quickly centered myself, and hypercharged my chakras with Titan Force. My Geo-Force portions were left empty, my Nature Force portions were being reserved for whenever, if ever, Amalthea agreed to give me an assist, and from Crown to Root, my God Steroids were powered up with the Nemean Lion, Lernian Hydra, Ceryneian Hind, Erymanthian Boar, Cretan Bull, Stymphalian Birds, and Cerberus! The mixture of so many mythical powerhouses churning at the speed of a hurricane inside my chakras never got old, or any less dangerous! I wasted no time in raising my arms upwards, giving the turbulent energy an escape route, and letting loose my own Kamehameha-esque blast, that was the usual green and orange fire/lightning looking mix, in addition to a bunch of savage snapping and clawing mythical beast spirits occasionally manifesting violently inside, or just outside the blast!

Me and Dragon Empress engaged in a power struggle that sent tremors through the entire Enclosure, even though the actual point of contact was like 500 ft off the ground! Had to give Gaea credit, cuz she hit the nail on the head about this being a Juggernaut level threat! Just one demon, just one power boost was enough for Dragon Empress to keep my blast at a stalemate! Hell, with every passing second I was losing ground, so 'stalemate' was a bit of a generous term! About twenty seconds passed, and things were startin' to get uncomfortably hot as the Lizard Queen's blast was now just over 100 ft away from impact! My mind was a slew of cuss words that had no business merging the way they were with other cuss words, in addition to the constant focus and balance I had to maintain to keep my Seven Chakra Fusion Flash up and running. I was beginning to think Amalthea was really bout to let me catch this demonic L, but almost out of nowhere my chakras were flooded with the spirits of quite literally all of the Enclosure's animal spirits flowing through me, catching a piece of my Nature Force, and adding their strength to my blast! For the record, the Great Basin Desert was home to over 600 different species, and ALL OF EM' had decided to lend a helping hand! Dragon Empress didn't even have time to process the L as my blast octupled in size and power, steamrolling her in an instant! Don't feel too bad for her tho. As strong as the blast was, she made it crystal clear it was just a love tap that just barely stunned her. I got the message in the form of my body calling for a Timeout, just barely giving me enough time to scramble outta the way of Lizard Queen attempting to crush me under one of her feet at Mach 12! Didn't have time to celebrate not dying, as Dragon Empress was going f*(#!^& ballistic with the Doctor Strange $#!+.

First, she wrapped me up in the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, before tryna yank me into her mouth like a fruit snack! Thankfully, my magical immunity was just strong enough to where the bands took hold, but didn't get a solid enough grip to actually keep me down! A quick blastwave of Titan Force broke me free, and I subsequently shrunk down to Tiny Titan, decked Dragon Empress super hard in the nose, and immediately grew to Mega Titan! I brought my fist down as hard as I could on the now smaller opponent, but she got the Shield of the Seraphim up before I could make impact! The barrier held, and Lizard Queen Queen responded by overcharging herself with Cyttorak's energy, and leaping into a tackle that barreled straight into my gut! The demon's energy lived up to the whole 'unstoppable Juggernaut' gimmick, as Dragon Empress propelled me damn near 50 miles backwards, before I managed to think through the pain and shrink myself down to normal! Again, I was only able to buy myself a few seconds to collect my thoughts, as Dragon Empress circled back around, throwing the entire f*(#!^& spellbook at me!

She continued the magic act by summoning the Demons of Denak and the Sons of Sattinish to attack me on the ground level. The latter wasn't that bad. Just a trio of dead sorcerers bound to serve a Tekken 5 boss lookin' ass mofo for all time. A quick swipe from my axe and sword, enhanced with the always reliable Eden Inferno, sent them back to daddy with a wail! The Demons of Denak were more annoying to deal with. A horde of invisible demons comin' at me from all sides, like a pack of starving wolves! Again, not very durable, and I could sense them no problem, but they just kept comin', and so did Dragon Empress' reign of arcane fury! I damn near got turned into an ice sculpture ala Icy Tendrils of Ikthalon, burned to a crisp by a Seven Suns of Cinnabus blast, and bitch slapped by the Chains of Krakkan! It was only thanks to the dirt and plants, which, in the Enclosure, came to my defense automatically, that I didn't eat it big time, cuz even with my speed, Dragon Empress had me pinned down a few times. It was only due to her overextending herself by sending her Astral Form to attack my soul directly that I took the upper hand back.

Yeah, as soon as Lizard Queen's soul got within my personal space, I simply swiped my Eden Inferno covered axe into the air where she was hovering, and had to stifle a few laughs and nasty taunts as her soul scrambled back into her body after getting a taste of the holy fury! I knew that kind of attack would leave her disoriented for a bit, so I grew to match her size, overcharging Earthshaker with as much Titan Force as I could manage in three seconds, and absolutely wailed on Dragon Empress like she was a pinata! I got some crazy good shots all over her front, taking a few good chunks out of her left shoulder, right side of her face, and even a deep gash across her chest! If I had a minute or so to keep goin' at it, i'd definitely get to the soft, nuggety center! Didn't get that. Got another nightmare for my therapist to sort out tho, so that was cool.

See, after Dragon Empress recovered, blasting me a good bit away with the Winds of Watoomb, she took the eldritch horror gimmick to an entirely different level by fusing with the essence of Raggadorr and Shuma-Gorath! She grew two extra arms under her default ones, and her eyes fused into one malicious orb of primordial chaos and hunger! Her snake hair transformed into tentacles, and she also grew matching eyes on each of her four palms, as well as dead center of her chest! She also had seven giant, golden arm rings locked around her wrists, two on each of the top arms, two on the bottom right, one on the bottom left. The sheer avalanche of power that was absently radiating from her was nothing short of terrifying, and it took all of my willpower to jump outta the way as she barreled forward to steamroll me as a meteor of magical energy!

For the next ten minutes, I was pretty much entirely on defense, as Dragon Empress continued to throw the spellbook at me! First off, her eyes were a HUGE F*(#!^% PROBLEM! Her face eye shot Faltine flames at me, while her chest eye let her do Mirror Dimension matter manipulation in the real world! Her top left and right arm eyes shot out that vaguely familiar blackish/red energy and Dark Dimension energy powered mini-planets respectively! Her bottom two arms shot out energy from Cyttorak and Zom respectively, in addition to making constructs out of the two energies! When I tell you it was all I could do to dodge, block, and vaguely counter her attacks, I mean that $#!+. At best I was able to dodge her attacks, while using her Mirror Dimension powers against her ala burying her under an avalanche of a mountain's worth of rocks she had created. I was also able to use the plant life to erect barriers, entangle her in vine restraints, and send cacti golems at her, but nothing slowed her down even a little bit! I wasn't even qualifying as an annoyance at this point! Even when I tried ramping up my attacks via giant All-Metal constructs, Dragon Empress swatted em' aside like nothing! My Optimus Prime? Melted by a Faltine fireball. My Machamp? Blasted to bits by a ray of dark energy. My pretty accurate depiction of Tiamut, The Dreaming Celestial, taken apart by a mix of a Dark Dimension Moon barrage and the overwhelming brute strength of Zom and Cyttorak energy working together! Hell, if not for Gaea, this fight woulda been over before it started, as all the entities giving Lizard Queen her powers were also doin' their damnedest to attack my mind! Gaea was just barely holdin' em' back, but she sent me more than a few 'polite' nudges my way, telling me to get my ass in gear. Didn't need to tell me twice. Dragon Empress for sure had a premium deck of new tricks, but had a few good ones up my sleeve too!

My clapback came in the form of an old trick I had perfected over the years since I first used it. While I just barely kept ahead of Dragon Empress' relentless attacks, I infused my chakras from Root to Crown with the spirits of the Nemean Lion, Monkey, Bear, Dove, Dragon, Owl, and Tiger. I already felt the damn near overwhelming flow of power start to affect my strength, speed, and senses! My hair was getting long and shaggy, my skin was becoming hard and scaly, my fingernails were turning into razor sharp claws, I could feel the Titan Force constructing the more or less skeleton of what would be my wings and tail, a literal third eye was manifesting on my forehead, and my jaw grew to accommodate the den of fangs that used to be my regular teeth. Right before the transformation took complete hold, I willed myself to match Dragon Empress' height. A risky move. I could maintain this form for hours at regular size, but at 30 ft tall I had ten minutes max. Still, it was worth it to see the surprise flickering across Ash Breath's eyes as she took in my terrifying form! Ok, maybe 'terrifying' wasn't the right word, but with my armor adjusting itself to be completely topless, revealing my scaled flesh, as well as a pristine white set of angelic dove wings right under another set of black, dragon-like wings definitely counted as badass worthy!

I just now realized I had never actually given this form a name. Huh. How'd that slip through the cracks? Beast Titan seems right. To the point, punchy, good on action figure boxes.

I used the element of surprise to my advantage, and quickly scanned Dragon Empress' chakra network with my third eye. I was a little put off by the fact that I had to attack a multitude of other chakra points before I could make a move for any of her eyes, but I wouldn't wanna make this too easy. I focused a good portion of my animal chakra into my fist, before dealing one hell of a seven chakra strike that sent Dragon Empress flying! The first exchange was over before she had a chance to guess at what I was doing! A quick blitz around her flailing body, getting in chi blocking strikes to her solar plexus, behind her back, just opposite of her navel, and to her throat! This sequence of attacks left her chest eye vulnerable, which I dispelled with an opened palm chakra strike that sent Lizard Queen cratering into the ground both from the force of the blow, as well as the blowback from the energy disruption!

Didn't let up for a second, and targeted her forehead eye. The chi block points were on either sides of her abdomen, just below her ribs, and either side of her skull, where the temporal lobes were. I got her in her abdomen sides with two simultaneous chops to the required areas, and conked her on the sides of her head with the sides of my fist. Once her face eye was vulnerable, I blasted it with a concentrated energy beam from my third eye, expelling it with a burst of Faltine flame!

Ash Breath, whose face and hair reverted back to normal…well….normal for her this current form, wasn't tryna lose another eye, and immediately took to settin' up a proper defense. Four of her Seven Rings of Raggadorr shot outwards to cover her palm eyes, putting em' in a protective casing that also worked as a pretty kick ass energy boost, as Dragon Empress trained her four remaining eyes on me, and unleashed a combination blast of the blackish/red, Dark Dimension, Cyttorak, and Zom energies in a blast that gave me Big Bang Kamehameha vibes! The blast probably woulda knocked me all the way back to California if my wings didn't automatically curl up around me, wrapping me in a cocoon that coulda stood up against a nuke. Instead of getting cosmic tenth degree burns, Dragon Empress' blast was slowly pushing me back. As much as I love a good 'unstoppable force vs. kinda sorta immovable object' battle, I didn't have the spare time to indulge my dance partner, and regretfully had to cut her off short via erupting an equally strong Nature Force geyser underneath her feet! I figured the force of the blast would be enough to send her in an upward spiral that would give me enough time to attack her next eye, or at least do something about those rings, but Lizard Queen was quicker on the recovery than I wanted, as she was already dive bombing towards me with two huge Scabrite scimitars in hand!

I sidestepped her divebomb attack, and summoned my axe and sword to defend against her oncoming barrage of slashes and stabs. My monkey spirit once again proved itself to be invaluable in combat, as my skills and reflexes worked together in perfect harmony to easily keep up with Dragon Empress' flurry of attacks without me having to think too much about my movements. Still, Lizard Queen was nobody to sleep on, and damn near got a good shot on me with her lower two hands, charged up to give me dual Iron Fist strikes! Thankfully, my dove wings curled up to soften the blow, but I took a bit too long on the recovery, giving Dragon Empress time to charge up her next attack.

Lizard Queen had summoned two more Scrabrite scimitars to her lower arms, and was charging all four with an ungodly amount of energy from each respective eye! I just barely had time to get into a defensive stance, before she twirled her blades in hand like General Grievous, sending crescent shaped energy slashes my way!

I responded by summoning Earthshaker and Gaea's Claw, changing the former into its more sword-like form, and charged them with an equally catastrophic amount of Titan Force, assisted by the Eden Inferno jumping out to beef with the demonic energy, and countered the oncoming energy crescents with my own, until I was in the world's most intense game of Beat Saber! Dragon Empress and I matched each other blow for blow for about half a minute. Theoretically, this coulda gone on all day, but Charcoal Breath was not in the mood to challenge my high score, and teleported behind me with a backstab attempt! I did a mix of a sidestep and a twirl, while expanding my wings out to deflect her blades. With her guard way the f*(# off center I decked her across the jaw with a right cross, kneed her in the gut, and sent her spiraling backwards with a chi infused palm strike to her chest! She responded in kind by fusing the powers of Cyttorak and Zom to create a giant, fiery, blood red chain that was fused to a molten gold mace. Nothin' all that special, but it would probably hurt all the same if it made contact. Not needing an invitation to test out my theory, Dragon Empress launched the chain mace at me so fast, it broke the sound barrier! My reflexes took over as I batted the oncoming projectile away with the flat of my axe. The chain mace, now heading off to my left, sparked with a faint green glow, before it cloned itself and came back around, steadily multiplying itself three times over every other second!

I continued to dodge and deflect the ever multiplying mace chain act until I eventually ran out of room to do either. I could practically taste Dragon Empress' delight as she willed the spiked chains to close in around me, presumably turning me into a slushie. Thankfully, I got my wings cocooned around me before the jaws of death could lock in. Hurt like a bitch, but nothin' I couldn't walk off. Still, it was a little cramped in here, so I gave myself a lot of breathing room ala creating a Titan Force explosive wave! To my surprise, the explosive wave set off a chain reaction that dispelled almost 70% of Dragon Empress' chain maces! I shouldn't have been shocked, as Ikonn's energy, that green spark I saw when her chains first started multiplying, was infamous for not being able to stand up to so much as a strong breeze! I took advantage of the extra leg room, and Lizard Queen's momentary confusion to open up a hole in the earth, tunnel over to her location, and burst outta the ground, right under her dragon underhalf with one hell of a Geo-Titan Special! I kept up the momentum via lighting her up from all sides with a mix of Geo-Titan specials, swings from my axe, swipes from my claws, and occasional blasts of fire! I managed to keep that up for a good 30 seconds, before Dragon Empress eventually managed to get off a teleportation spell that only transported her a few feet away. That little bit of breathing room was all she needed to charge up another Final Flash level magic blast damn near point blank! My wings curled up to shield me, but Dragon Empress was having none of that, and broke my defense via launching three of her arm rings straight at me! It didn't sound like much, but the rings got a hit of the energy blasts Ash Breath was launching at me, and hit with a force so hard, it gave me flashbacks of my fight with Demon King! I ended up careening into the dirt, but managed to push the blast off of me with a Titan Force barrier. Not easy to maintain under the best of times given the sheer amount of power being thrown at me, and it sure as hell wasn't helped by those damn rings repeatedly ramming into my barrier! Couldn't hold my position, and I sure as hell couldn't stay here for the fireworks, so in one quick motion I dropped the barrier while getting as much air as I could! Even that wasn't much of a win, as those rings were faster than I gave em' credit for! They continued to ram into me from all sides, hitting with enough impact that bordered on bone fracturing! Little $#!+s threw off my balance, and left me wide open for another energy attack from Dragon Empress; this time a barrage of energy blasts from all sides that hit just as hard as those rings, and sent me back towards the ground in a cascade of colors and pain. Mostly pain.

Welp, that obviously didn't work out. Let's try that again with a few tweaks.

I got myself inside another dome, this one made of All-Metal, and hunkered down for another storm. I wasn't too worried about the energy blasts, instead focusing on the impact of the rings repeatedly bashing against my barrier. The damn things dented my All-Metal significantly with every impact, and it felt like they could bust through at any moment, It took all of my focus to pinpoint the exact moment when they impacted my barrier, before shooting three feathers from my dove wings outwards to intercept them, and keep em' off my ass! With those annoying little $#!+s outta my way, I focused the majority of my attention back on Syndr. In order to have the maximum advantage on my side I needed to ground her. I achieved this by transforming my All-Metal barrier into a giant ass Railgun, charged with a $#!+ ton of Titan Force, and blasted her dead center chest with a blow that actually blew off a good bit of scales! As soon as she hit the dirt I upped the gravity X100, and willed the plant life to construct roots as thick as busses to continuously form around her legs, arms, and even her tail. They weren't strong enough to keep her down for more than a few seconds, but that slowed her down enough for me to bust out my axe and sword combo to give her hell via whacking her all along her everywhere with Titan Force charged strikes! I managed to dig my axe particularly deep into her lower back, the joints of her dragon lower half, and especially in the underbelly of said lower half, which seemed to be a weak area! Dragon Empress flailed, swung, and blasted wildly at me, but I was easily able to dodge her desperate attacks and continue to make her feel the squeeze for a good half a minute! Of course, that was abruptly brought to an end as Lizard Queen remembered she could light herself on fire, and burned through my restraints! For good measure, she summoned a full body Scabrite armor set around herself that looked like it was completely made of swords and daggers. Home girl looked like a book accurate Iron Throne cosplay. The armor bristled as if it was alive, feeding off of Dragon Empress' hate. Based on how hard she came after me, that wasn't exactly a far fetched idea.

She came at me with a barrage of magic enhanced Scabrite barrages that did not stop! First it was a maelstrom of Scabrite swords raining down in a seemingly unending torrent! I blocked em' with successive waves of rock and plant barriers, but Dragon Empress quickly made it clear that defense was not the way to go, as she summoned a giant Scabrite plasma cannon that completely blew my defenses and myself 50 miles away!

Lizard Queen kept up the pressure, launching ever increasingly creative barrages of Scabrite artillery that I had to match without missing a beat. Her horde of giant Scabrite Dragons were met with a giant hundred headed Ladon All-Metal construct that basically came to life when I gave it a continuous surge of God Steroids! My Hesperidian Dragon easily soloed Dragon Empress' flying lizards, and shot straight at the big momma! Dragon Empress was not impressed, and blew apart my precious hundred headed dragon with a full power blast of her magic eye palms! We continued to throw more respective metal constructs at each other as we closed the distance. She threw demonic Scabrite Valkyries, Trolls, and Decepticons at me. I countered with All-Metal DBZ fighters, Ben 10 aliens, and Eternals. As we got within 100 ft of each other, our metallic battle gradually transferred into a mix of energy attacks with other elements we had on hand. Dragon Empress kept up her Scabrite barrages with her magical attacks, while I utilized my earthbending and plant manipulation in tandem with my Titan Force to stonewall her offensive bursts. We reached a kind of mutual understanding as the distance got so close, I could smell her ash breath again. She was gradually beefing up her armor layers, and I responded in kind by coating my body with a Triple Threat layer of rock, plant, and All-Metal. She summoned two double bladed Scabrite axes that were so big they required two arms to wield on either side. I summoned Earthshaker and Gaea's Claw in response, and we rumbled it out up close and personal!

Lizard Queen and I matched each other blow for blow for the most part, tho we both got around each others' defenses a few times and landed some solid hits! Her axes, enhanced with four forms of arcane energy, cut through my All-Metal and plant layers easily, and just barely got stopped at the final stone layer. Likewise, my Titan Force enhanced weapons chipped away at her Scabrite armor, like a sledgehammer through windshield glass! While we were up close like this, we both made use of our other gear, ala shooting each other with a f*(# ton of mini missiles, arm cannons, and other explosives we could hurl at each other. Dragon Empress unfortunately took the upper hand on this one, as her multiple forms of magic provided a formidable ballistic offense. I responded mostly with plant based weapons, utilizing acid spraying tulips, pollen grenades, and cacti shrapnel bombs. By no means enough to even match Syndir's weapons blitz, but it gave me enough room to construct All-Metal mini-missile launchers, arm cannons, and shoulder mini-guns to get back in the fight. Me and Dragon Empress continued to beat the hell outta each other for another half minute, until she up and changed the rules again by clanging her axes together, and knocking me back a good half a mile with an admittedly impressive explosive wave!

I thought that was the attack, but it turned out to be just the feedback for a giant portal spell that summoned a legion of Mindless Ones straight outta the Dark Dimension! Like, there were THOUSANDS of em' from the jump, and the portal, which was like the size of a stadium, was spitting more out by the hundreds! I almost wished Gaea woulda said somethin' snarky to break up the sudden bit of dread I felt, cuz this $#!+ was f(#!^& ridiculous!

Dragon Empress unleashed her horde on me, flying above em' as she rained down curses and triumphant proclamations. Typical bad guy speak, nothin' I hadn't heard before, and I was already over it. Dragon Princess wanted a gang brawl? I could give her that!

All it took was a single thought. Barely a snap of a finger.

"Hey guys?!" I thought to the plants and animal spirits of the Enclosure. "Can a champion of Gaea get a squad real quick?!"

The ground rumbled ferociously as thousands of dryads of various fauna sprung to life in full organic battle gear! We're talking 7ft tall, super hot green chicks and dudes built like Ivan Drago, all wielding various swords, axes, clubs, shields, etc., based on whatever plant they had sprung from. We had a nice mix of cacti, Pinyon-Junipers, Shadescale, Sagebrush, Bristlecone Pines, and other dryad spirits from plant life not originally native to the area such as Oaks, Redwoods, Venus Flytraps, Eucalyptus, etc. Even better was that Dragon Empress goofed big time by being near the center of the Enclosure! She was surrounded by legions of dryads that straight up dwarfed her numbers 10 to 1! Of course, I wasn't allowed a second to enjoy my too good to be true victory lap, as Queen Killjoy summoned reinforcements ala a giant f*(#!^& Independence Day looking saucer, from which Dragon Men and Scabrite shells rained down! My concern immediately shifted to my plant army as the demon fire rockets barraged the grounds! In fire vs plant, the former damn near always wins, but I had severely underestimated the Enclosure I had created. Not only were the plant life tanking the Muspelheim flames, they were straight up absorbing them, like photosynthesis happening at X100 speed! The Sagebrush dryads in particular added the flames to their strength, and I was detecting Dark Dimension, Zom, and Cyttorak energy infused into every one of the other nature spirits! I simultaneously breathed a sigh of release, while laughing like a madman as my forces clashed with Dragon Empress', cuz this was about to be a slaughter!

Spoiler alert, it was a COMPLETE SLAUGHTER!

The basic bitch Mindless Ones, who were basically a poor man's Thing/Cyclops combo, couldn't stand up to the sheer ferocity of my arcane enhanced dryads! Hell, the Dragon Men became treats for my Venus Flytrap spirits, and Amalthea's animal spirits got another chance to run wild with fresh chew toys! As for Dragon Empress herself, her dragon centaur form proved to be a liability in a crowded battlefield such as this. Normally she could use her bottom legs and tail to aid in her attacks, and could throw her weight and momentum around to her advantage. Now, her size was just slowing her down, and she didn't even have the option of taking to the skies, as I was still maintaining X100 Earth's gravity across the enclosure. Granted, that also meant that I also lost a weapon in my wings, which I had to keep tucked close behind my back, but those were just a bonus. As me and Dragon Empress found each other in the carnage, I opened up a mix of Krav Maga and Miyagi-Do to keep her at bay. Just within the span of 30 seconds we connected and had short exchanges of punches, kicks, and blasts that ended with one of us getting blown back into the crowd, and having to fight our way back to each other. Nearing the minute mark of our current duel, I punted Dragon Empress a mile backwards with point blank double arm cannon blast, and was tempted to follow her and press my advantage, when my senses picked up something absolutely f*(#!^& BEAUTIFUL!

The entire time me and Dragon Empress were duking it out on the ground, her rings and my feathers were zipping around like mid-air Beyblades over and over again. My goal was to find out what sequence of energy output, speed, vibration, etc., was needed to dispel the rings, and get rid of Lizard Queen's palm bands that were shielding her magic eyes from my chakra blocking! After like three minutes of constant battle, my feathers had finally found the secret code, ala flying right through the rings and emitting a hybrid high vibration/energy pulse that dispelled the rings back wherever magic goes when you're not using it! Even better, Ash Breath didn't seem to notice! My brain immediately formed a new plan of attack, as I struggled not to jitter like a crackhead!

"Guys!" I thought to my plant warrior legion. "Thanks for your help! Really appreciate it! Look, i'm bout to start a big ass sandstorm! When I give the signal, take a dive! Good job, y'all! Seriously, great work all around!"

My legion agreed, a little agitated that I was cutting the party short, and I started chagrin' up a sandstorm big enough to engulf the entire Enclosure! It only took me a good ten seconds to charge the storm, during which my plant and animal spirit companions were all but too happy to run interference against Dragon Empress as I revved up. Granted, they still got banged up pretty bad as she easily bulldozed over em', but they did their job well, and by the time Dragon Empress had closed the distance, it was too late! I gave my crew the go ahead to punch out, and the entire Enclosure was lost in an F5 level sandstorm!

Syndir's Mindless Ones were the first casualties, as my Titan Force charged whirlwind of death stripped them to dust, like an erosion timelapse on X3 speed! The Dragon Men had the very flesh stripped from their bones, and Lizard Queen must've been worried i'd do the same to her Scabrite saucer, cuz that thing teleported outta the area within the ten second mark! That just left me and her up close! I upped the speed and power of the sandstorm to keep her off-balance, while absorbing a wave of Nature Force from every plant in the Enclosure through my body, enhanced by passing through my chakras, and consolidated around my fist! Dragon Empress never knew what hit her, as I slammed a punch into her chest, and released an energy wave that blew her Scabrite armor to pieces! As she careened backwards at Mach 2, I released four feathers from my dove wings, and willed em' to lock onto her remaining Raggadorr rings! The feathers found their marks quick, and dispelled the rings before Dragon Empress even hit the dirt! She rose flailing and disoriented, which was all the better for me, as I had shrunk down to normal size.

See, her chi blocking points were on the joints of each of her lower legs, followed by one last one just ahead of the armpit of whatever palm eye you wanted to dispel. I got the first four while she was still scanning the area for me, and as she howled in pain, I grew back to her size, and struck her right arm chakra point. It was time for that Dark Dimension $#!+ to get outta here!

I struck her palm eye with the first two fingers of my right hand, and proceeded to get blown away by the energy feedback of the orb dispelling in a violent, violet explosion! I made a quick note to keep my armor around for the other eyes, cuz that $#!+ probably woulda burned off my hand if I wasn't coated in three layers of protection! In either case, my efforts had paid off. The Dark Dimension portal had fizzled into nothing, taking the remaining Mindless Ones with it. Once I recovered, I was gonna poke out Lizard Queen's other eyes, and maybe chop off the arms while I was at it.

Yeah…that recovery time never happened. In the midst of the blastwave I felt something primal erupt from Dragon Empress! That familiar energy once again rearing its head in a BIG way! I didn't have much time for 20 Questions afterwards, as something hit me with the force of a Railgun blast, and cratered me into the dirt!

I ate two haymakers to the face that stripped the area of my armor, and just barely got my arms up to block the oncoming third! I blasted the mystery combatant off me with a hefty G-Force eye blast, but she was quick on the recovery, stopping her momentum 50 ft upwards, and blasted at me with a wave of dark matter! I quickly responded with a Titan Force blast, aided by an extra kick from the Enclosure, that easily stacked up to hers, and was slowly overwhelming it. Mystery woman, I know a woman in a skin tight supersuit when I see one, teleported away before my blast could make contact, and I quickly got to my feet, scoping out the area for where she'd pop up next. I felt the ripple in the air, just behind me, and whipped around just in time to dodge a kick to my back. Mystery woman teleported away just as soon as she arrived, and I ended up blocking a knife attack from above! Three more teleport attacks aimed at my sides, legs, and neck, all blocked within a three second span, before I felt the searing pain of a Scabrite knife getting me in the right shoulder! The bitch was fast, I had to at least give her that! Over the next half minute she put me ENTIRELY on the defensive, as it was all I could do to block and dodge her strikes! Hell, I ended up catching more cuts to the back of my thighs, right under my clavicle on the left side, and a few cuts to my face! The ground immediately rushed into my wounds to heal me, so no danger on that front, but it was still annoying as hell! Once I eventually managed to catch her by the throat, I slammed into the bridge of her nose with my head, fracturing her mask, and summoned a Power Gauntlet to my hand to smash her in the face with a full power shot that sent a shockwave throughout the entire enclosure! I still had her locked in my other hand, and was already geared up for another punch, but I got a quick glimpse of the woman's face as she shook off my attack. The realization of her identity made me freeze for just a half second, but that was more than enough for Black Hole Girl to open her maw of death and hit me point black with a Black Bolt imitation!

All of my remaining All-Metal armor was shredded to bits! Everything suddenly clicked as to why that energy signature felt so goddamn familiar! Hell, it actually made the most sense that this one-night stand supervillain would also be in league with my other one-night stand nemesis! At this rate I was gonna have my own league of Evil Super Exes!

Black Hole Girl looked mostly the same as I remembered her. A drop dead gorgeous tan skinned girl with long black hair, and completely black eyes. The only change was that her face looked as if someone had stitched it back up after an autopsy. Fitting, considering how she met her 'demise' at Sunbird's hands. But yeah, she was back in a solid 2 for 1 deal. Sweet?

Black Hole Girl's Singularity Scream, yup, she gets the treatment too, knocked me on my ass, and steadily proceeded to dig a trench across the ground with my body! I eventually managed to force the ground to hold me steady, and was about to drop her into a sinkhole, but Black Hole Girl suddenly ceased her attack, and evaporated into a puff of black smoke! My Third Eye didn't miss a beat, and followed her Astral Form back to its point of origin…..and I learned two things. First, Black Hole Girl was quite literally bonded to Dragon Empress! Like, her energy merged directly into Lizard Queen's body! Dunno if it was like a Venom thing, but it gave me those kinda vibes. Second, Dragon Empress had sicced Black Hole Girl on me to stall for time. That last eye dispel had really knocked a $#!+ ton of wind out of her sails, and she needed the time to both recover, and set up what looked like a planet destroying attack!

Ash Breath had straight up overloaded herself on the remaining three energies she had, becoming a multi-colored arcane bonfire, condensed into the size of a skyscraper sized dragon centaur lady! She was reciting ancient magic $#!+ as her power continued to build, like a broken nuclear reactor! This thing coulda laid waste to just the Enclosure, or it coulda put half the f*(#!^& country underwater! I wasn't sure which it was gonna be, but I sure as hell didn't wanna find out!

I racked my brain for like five seconds, tryna think of a plan. Attacking her head on was outta the question. I've learned the hard way it's not the best strategy to jolt someone out of a spell in progress, especially one packing this much heat! Nah, had to think smarter than that. Ok, so the Enclosure was still steadily drinking in the arcane energy. While there was too much energy happening around her to try for another eye dispel, I could at the very least drain all that tasty energy and…..well, my only option was to harness it into some kind of attack that would hopefully blast her off the face of the earth. I couldn't just will the plants to expel all of that energy at once. Hell, I wasn't sure if they could absorb that much energy in such a short amount of time. Nah, had to think bigger. I knew water was a good conductor of magic, but I wasn't a…OH MY GAEA!

"Hey, beloved Earth Mother?" I thought to my dear sweet partner.

"Wow," Gaea thought sharply to me. "You must be planning something ESPECIALLY stupid, and of course, you'll need a safety net."

"Ya know me, so well. But yeah, since I can do the Sandman thing, can I also do the same thing with mud?"

"Yes. I'll have to more or less shadow you, but it can be done. But that's not the reckless endangerment I know you're capable of. What else are you planning?"

"Gonna merge with a toad spirit, split my earth and plant manifestations, absorb a $#!+ ton of Dragon Empress' magic, and throw it back at her in one big attack that will hopefully turn her into a fine red mist."

Gaea went silent for a bit. Probably too stunned by my galaxy brain level plan to respond right away.

"I'm definitely going to be working overtime on this one." she said. "Your chakras are already quite strained, so i'll have to be the primary filtration against the magic seeping in. With how dangerously low your chi is, you've got five minutes tops to gather your magical nuke or whatever, before your manifestations violently re-converge, IF they re-converge. In short, you wouldn't last ten seconds without me."

"Ya know I actually did run this $#!+ for a few good days before I knew you were real, right?" I responded.

"And I presume you could melt into living mud, during that time?"

The silence on my part was damning. I couldn't even muster a 'shut-up'. Too late to save face. I simply took a seat, powered down to normal, willed my battlesuit to fully form over my upper body, meditated for a couple of seconds, and summoned a toad spirit. The animal bonded with me via traversing through my chakras from the ground up, and syncing perfectly with my energy. The result was me basically becoming Toad. Slimy green skin, frog tongue, warts all over, and slitted, sideways eyes. I was not a pretty person at the moment, and the sooner this was over with the better. Next, I did the manifestation split, and felt the always stupid bizarre sensation of an entire third of my being split off from myself. Storm-Lord never let on how weird this was! Hell, Gaea never let on how weird this was! I'd never be able to wrap my mind around how gods just casually split themselves into many parts, being perfectly fine with the fact that they can be in like 1,000 places at once, with each clone somehow having its own distinct consciousness, while also being a part of basically a hive mind. I only split myself once, and I was damn near going insane from the vertigo of looking at me, while also looking at me, and wondering who was the real me, and the existential dread of being absorbed into the other me, and being trapped! Yeah, I tend to overthink the $#!+ outta this whole manifestation split thing. Also, no, the Titan Clones aren't the same. Those are just chakra clones of myself that have limited autonomy other than their immediate purpose. I'm not them, they're not me. Anyway, after the quick mental spaz out, I quickly disintegrated my forms, becoming one with the ground and plant life in the entire Enclosure. My plant self, Flora Titan, honed into all of the cacti in the enclosure, and willed em' to release all of their stored water! This wasn't just a few gallons of water by the way! The enchanted cacti had basically infinite wells that sucked up water in the air, from the nearby river, and had roots so deep/long, they traversed the entirety of America's underground, getting water from other rivers, drains, sewers, and Gaea knows where else! These things coulda had sea water in em' for all I knew. But yeah, a violent tidal wave of water turned the Enclosure into a giant pool party, drenching Dragon Empress somethin' fierce! Her sputtering and cursing was never not hilarious, and it was only gonna get worse from here as my earth manifestation, Earth Titan, took hold of the water, turning the Enclosure into a giant mud pit! All we needed was a few thousand monster trucks, with twice as many beer kegs, and this woulda been redneck heaven!

Dragon Empress got absolutely ROLLED by the mudslide, and even better, my plan was immediately bearing fruit! The multi-colored bonfire that was her becoming a living nuke was nerfed on the spot! Not enough to put her out entirely, but enough to indicate I could bring her down from the whole 'destroy the continent' phase she was on. As she grew weaker, Mud Titan grew stronger; chugging her energy down like it was Happy Hour! Lizard Queen's concentration was long gone, and so was the momentum of her spell. She was already feelin' the squeeze, and looked to be makin' a move to get airborne, but that was gonna be a hard no from me!

Flora Titan went to work, manifesting giant Doc Ock plant tentacles that coulda juggled elephants, and clamping down on Dragon Empress' legs, arms, and wings! The plant tentacles were also equipped with a sped up photosynthesis function, and aided in the energy draining. In addition to the tentacles, the mud below her feet were churning in a downward spiral, creating sinkholes that were aided by the enhanced gravity! Lizard Queen was all but stuck like a fly in amber, but that's not to say she didn't put up a fight in the best way she could. Funniest thing was her flailing around, blasting streams of fire and magic in every direction, tryna smoke me out I guess. Like, sure, thanks, make my job easier! Not so funny was when she summoned her Scabrite armor, and eventually managed to cut through her arm and leg restraints. The sinkholes kept her from moving around too much, and I made Mud Titan slosh her around with hard hitting waves to stall for time as Flora Titan constructed stronger restraints, but it was definitely time for a more hands on approach, as Dragon Empress needed somethin' more interactive to keep her attention. I was more than happy to be of service, and after a brief mud whirlpool that covered the entire Enclosure, Ash Breath found herself face to face with a giant mud construct of me from the waist up, along with a couple hundred Shokan warrior constructs to help with the beatdown!

Lizard Queen fought hard, and to be fair to her, she was MASSIVELY out of her depth on this one. As Mud Titan, I could harden and liquefy myself on a dime. One moment, Syndr and I were trading blows like Hulk and Juggernaut, me turning my hands into giant hammers, her launching Scabrite sabers at me, tryna melt me down with her fire, or straight up tear me to shreds. No good, especially when she also had a couple hundred four armed warrior mud constructs to deal with. Of course, when in doubt, blow $#!+ up, and that's exactly what Charcoal Princess did, as she was not so secretly building an arcane explosive wave to clear the field. Devastating by most standards, but that's where the whole liquefy thing came into play! Sure, she blew me and my four armed buddies away, but I just absorbed all that energy into my Mud Titan as we liquefied, and simply restarted the process all over again! It went on like that for a few minutes, until I had absorbed damn near all the magic I could safely digest. Without further ado, I started putting the finishing touches on this arcane smoothie.

Flora Titan, who was biding his time, creating pant restraints that would give even Adamantium a hard time, sprung the trap, wrapped Dragon Empress up like a Christmas gift, and submerged her under the now churning mud whirlpool! The mud whirlpool continued to build in intensity, while decreasing in size, until what used to cover the entire Enclosure was reduced to about a mile in diameter of glowing, swirling mud, condensed into what had to be the world's biggest ball! I kept Lizard Queen trapped in the spin cycle, until Flora Titan gave me all the energy it had stored up. With Mud Titan fueled up and ready to go, I spit Dragon Empress 5,000 ft in the air, and reconstructed myself into a giant construct of Gamabunta! Before gravity could catch up with her, I condensed all of the collected arcane energy into three blasts, and shot em' up Liquid Bullets style! Each blast went off with enough force to absolutely blow a major city off the face of the earth with the shockwaves alone! I didn't get a good look at the impact, as I had to combine my manifestations, and reform my body fast, but after the initial vertigo passed, I looked up to see a lovely shower of Scabrite and red scales raining down from a cloud of smoke. I allowed myself a brief glimmer of hope, as it was damn near a full minute before anything responded, but sure enough, the response came, and man oh man was it a doozy!

My body called for a Timeout so hard, it was like the very sky itself was about to nuke me! Hell, the reality wasn't actually that far off!

Breaking through the clouds, like a devil falling from grace, flew Dragon Empress no longer half assing her gimmick! We're talking a full blown dragon, the size of Manhattan! Her usual red/gold scale color pattern was just barely visible underneath her bristling Scabrite armor, and she still radiated with the respective energies of Zom, Cyttorak, and Black Hole Girl! Hell, she had five eyes that made inverse triangles on either side of her face! Ok, so what if it was a really big dragon? I had killed really big dragons before? Hell, just a few months ago I killed one twice as big as this one. I still had more than enough juice left to put this overgrown garden lizard-ARE THOSE MOTHER F*(#!^% ROCKET LAUNCHERS?!

Like, come the f*(# on, dude! Dragon Empress materialized an entire rocket launcher pack on her back, in addition to opening up hundreds of rocket launching holes across her entire body! Oh, and she could still shoot fire from her mouth. Like she could just casually shoot blasts that could level the entirety of New York! As she filled the sky with missiles, locked onto me, I tapped into the entirety of the Enclosure's power, and launched a barrage of Geo-Force missiles upwards to match the blitzkrieg! The sky exploded with an almost beautiful array of colored explosions that were almost loud enough to rival Syndir's manic roaring as she closed in on where I used to be. Yeah, surprise surprise, that little missile skirmish was just a smokescreen to cover my tactical retreat as I opened a sinkhole to the eastern edge of Gaea's Enclosure, and sprung the trap for the big bad dragon!

As soon as Lizard Queen made landfall, I upped the gravity to X200, changed the ground around her into quicksand, and bound her in giant plant anacondas that constricted around her body, legs, and wings! It wasn't gonna hold her long, but all I needed was long enough to pull another hail mary outta my ass.

"Gaea!" I thought to her in a no nonsense voice. "I need another animal spirit chakra infusion. We're talkin' beasts from the 12 Labors!"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" she immediately responded.

"Absolutely yes! I'm gonna go All-Metal, and conjure up a beast to match that monster! We can do it!"

"You're absolutely insane! Even at your best this would test you to your very limits! You've damn near burned your chakras out, you're panting like a dog, and your body is trembling! If you attempt this-"

"IF I DON'T I'M DEAD ANYWAY! Stop selling me short! I push myself past my limits all the time! In training, in battle, in life! Her chakras are just as f*(#^&, and if I can knock out the last of her magic tethers, she's toast!"

"You're assuming you can do all of that in five minutes at most, because that's all I can give you, Grant! If you fail, you're the one that's gonna be a helpless meal! I…..Grant, this feels like…."

"I know. I know, and i'm sorry i'm putting you through this again, but this is what I do, Earth Mom. I put my life on the line to protect those that can't fight these kinds of threats. Cuz you better believe if I fail here, Dragon Empress is gonna raise hell on a whole lotta worlds. Not just earth. I can do this, but not without you. I need you to have faith in me."

It's always when i'm about to do some $#!+ that's gonna get me killed that we drop the act, and actually have a real heart to heart. That's probably indicative of some kind of problem, but that was a conversation for my therapist.

"One of these days i'll finally say no to you. Until then, i'll settle for not letting you die. Once you do….whatever it is you're doing, you'll only have five minutes. Get a move on, Geo-Titan."

Didn't have to tell me twice. I quickly converted my entire body to All-Metal, and combined my chakras from Root to Crown with the spirits of the Nemean Lion, Lernean Hydra, Ceryneian Hind, Erymanthian Boar, Stymphalian Birds, Cerberus, and the Cretan Bull. The mythical beast spirits caused my All-Metal form to bubble, as if I was being melted down, and as I summoned the entirety of the All-Metal to myself, I became a giant mass of molten metal, big enough to rival Dragon Empress. From there, the animal spirits I had merged with kinda took control of the whole beast construct thing. Not sure whether they knew what I was goin' for, but it turned out pretty badass in the end!

From front to back, I was a three-headed beast. The middle head was a lion with a beak in place of the mouth, and bull horns atop the head. To either side of the lion head were ravenous dog heads. Oh, and we all were breathing Geo-Force fire that was mixed with gold. The front half of the construct was also a lion body, with the back half being a bull's. Giant raven wings were nestled against my back, and my tails were nine living Hydra heads, all chomping at the bit for some tasty dragon flesh! Despite the savage nature of my current form, I was still able to retain my wits, most likely due to Gaea keeping my mind isolated from becoming overwhelmed with a million different instincts goin' off at once, and I was able to lock onto Dragon Empress, and close the distance on her in just a few seconds of full blown sprinting! Granted, all the concentration that went into creating the…the Titanic Beast…eh, it'll do for now, left me with none to keep her restrained, and while I mostly had the advantage of surprise, Dragon Empress was able to at least get a few blasts off on me, before I slammed full force into her, and we literally went at it as wild beasts!

You'd be surprised how much damage you can do in five minutes. Dragon Empress and I, now completely detached from anything that resembled dignified fighting, rammed into each other again and again, swiping, blasting, and grappling with each other! Each blow broke the sound barrier, and caused earthquakes that would've decimated any major city or town within five seconds, if even that! From a melee perspective, I had the advantage full-stop, no argument. My three heads tore through Dragon Empress' armor, and dug into her flesh! Any time we charged, my horns gave me the edge, and of course, my nine Hydra Head tails were great at softening her up her more out of reach areas, as well as restraining her to dig into particularly weak areas I had previously managed to open up. Once she got the distance tho, Lizard Queen was a real bitch and a half to deal with.

First, she always insisted on fighting in the air, and I was not accustomed to flying in the air as a four-legged beast. I was awkward, slow, and got my ass handed to me every time I tried to step up in her court. Also, while I could reconfigure my form to make things such as rocket launchers, Gatling guns, Railguns, etc., it took more time and effort than it would if I wasn't bonded to seven beasts that heavily resented such changes in their hard work. They were all basically under the 'don't fix what ain't broken' mentality. Dragon Empress didn't have to deal with seven backseat drivers keeping her from changing it up, and as such, easily unloaded everything and more I mentioned I had trouble constructing. After getting doused in Zom energy carpet bombing, Cyttorak energy Railgun blasts, and Black Hole Jericho missiles, the beasts got the memo that we needed a change in attack, and allowed me to construct weapons at will, and even configure my three heads up top, as well as my Hydra head tails into missile launchers! Keep in mind, this was all within the first two minutes!

The real brass tax started once my Third Eye chakra was finally able to dig through all the noise. Cerberus, while actually a pretty good predictive/defensive spirit to use with my Third Eye, took a bit of effort to actually make him focus on a specific task. Granted, it was mostly due to the fact that Ash Breath's chakra points moved around, and even multiplied, due to her giant dragon form, but no worries. Once we got a lock on her chi, it was a wrap!

I started the cleanup with Cyttorak, cuz I may have under sold how hard it is to win a charging match when your opponent is juiced with the same energy that made Juggernaut unstoppable once he got any forward momentum. Her chakra points were on the back of her neck, behind each of her knees, on her middle back, and at the underhalf base of her tail. A lot of points to hit, and admittedly I was not in the most nimble of forms to strike em' all at once, but thankfully my Hydra head tails, the undisputed MVP of this matchup had me covered. As soon as I pinpointed the chakra points, I willed the tails to attack said points simultaneously via latching onto and stabbing em' with blades that jutted outta their mouths! Once the chakra points were breached and Dragon Empress' Cyttorak eye was vulnerable, I took it out by goring it with my horns, and braced myself for the ensuing explosion, and what an explosion it was!

I'm talkin' a blastwave that rocketed through the entire Enclosure, and put such a beating on my Titan Beast, much better name, most of my Cerberus heads were fried, I was missing my left paw, and there were gaping holes and dents going along the rest of my body! Thankfully, Dragon Empress wasn't in the best of forms either, as she was dazed, writhing in pain, and leaking from basically everywhere. Still, she was nothing if not tough as hell, and was already getting back on all fours for another bout. We both came to the same conclusion almost simultaneously. We had to put the other away now.

Great minds think alike, but one of em' was just too damn slow on the draw, as Dragon Empress got caught in my trap before she could even make her first move! See, I already had her next chakra points, for Zom, pinged. One on each of the top of her paws, two at the base of either of her wings, and the middle of the underside of her tail. In one fluid motion I used my Hydra tails to bind her legs, wrap her wings up, and clamp down on the desired part of her tail! Rinse repeat of how I dispelled the previous eye, and another, much bigger explosion ensued that straight up eviscerated my Beast Titan form, and sent the mythical beast spirits scattering to the winds! The less than amicable separation left me dazed, and in so much danger of dying as a puddle of liquid metal, I couldn't even come to terms with it. Hell, if it wasn't for Gaea taking control and more or less keeping me together, I woulda been a goner. As such, I just barely held onto consciousness to give her a hand, and reform my body, still an All-Metal construct, just in time to skid an entire mile across the ground!

Everything hurt. I didn't need to breathe in this form, but I think my lungs were burning from exhaustion. My senses were going in and out in a disorienting flux. One second I could hear and see halfway around the world, the next I could barely see five feet away from me. And don't get me started on my chakras. They felt like someone threw em' in a garbage disposal and flipped that $#!+ to max! I needed to power down to normal, and like 50 Senzu Beans. I wasn't gonna be gettin' either, as Dragon Empress was intent on goin' the full 12 Rounds!

My body never called for a Timeout. My senses just barely picked up the shift in gravity and atmospheric pressure. Too little too late as I got clocked in the head, and tumbled half a mile, before my reflexes took hold, and I managed to land on my feet, and skid to a stop. Didn't stop me from gettin' mollywhopped some more, as I got another super speed beat down from all angles, before getting uppercutted like 200 ft in the air!

That last one snapped me outta the haze I was in, as it wasn't a fist, or a foot, or a knee. It was a fucking axe!

Dragon Empress got me hard upside my head, which now had a deep gash running along the left side, with liquid green….I guess that's what my blood looks like in All-Metal form!

I was still sore. I was still slow, out of balance, and just barely hanging on by the skin of my teeth, but at least now I was alert. Also, Gaea was hard at work tryna stitch me up on the go. It was slow work due to my low chi, but it was better than nothing. It was certainly better than what Syndr and her annoying side chick were gonna get!

Yeah, I got back in the fight immediately! I played possum at first, letting it seem as if that last hit had at least made me unable to recover, and as Black Hole Girl ramped up for another attack, I turned on the ass kicking and rocketed towards her with a right hand that sent her flying back where she launched me from! That left me and Dragon Empress alone for a while, and I gotta say, I wasn't sure which one of us were having the worse day.

She was in her 'human form', and looked every bit as $#!++y as I felt. Her entire body was peppered with holes that were leaking black blood all over her pretty armor. Her tail was missing multiple chunks along its length, and pieces of her face were missing; revealing her Terminator-like skull. Multi-colored lights were glowing in her chest and legs, probably a self repair function, and due to the fact that she was charging me on foot, with a slight limp, I was willing to bet her wings were outta commission.

Dragon Empress while clearly pissed the f*(# off, attacked me with as much skill and ferocity as her damaged body would allow, as she threw some pretty hefty combos my way. I managed to block her attacks via transforming my arms into shields, swords, maces, etc. I played defense, mostly getting my attacks in when she missed, but I could sense Black Hole Girl rocketing back towards the fray. Even alone she was an issue, and if I fought both her and Ash Queen in this state, it was game over.

Things aligned for me slightly as Black Hole Girl chose to attack me from behind, probably assuming I would be too distracted from the front to do anything about her, but that was a big time miscalculation, as I created two mini-rocket launchers on my shoulders, and shot her point blank without even lookin' back! I wished I coulda savored that epic badassery for more than a nanosec, but that was only gonna buy me five seconds, if even that, and I had to do my best to stay ahead of the inevitable.

I quickly got some distance from Dragon Empress, via getting her across the jaw with a swing of my spiked mace right hand, tearing some more skin from her skull! She tumbled back 50 meters, and I turned around just in time to land a fist to Black Hole Girl's face, who was super kind of enough to run straight into it! I managed to keep this up for a little bit as I used a mix of ranged/powerhouse melee attacks to keep my two exes from converging to rip me apart. Good hustle on my part, not to toot my own horn, but the problem with this kinda setup was that it relied on being 100% perfect. One hit, one misstep, and I was toast. Burnt, crushed, torn apart toast.

I wish I could say I managed to avoid that, but Black Hole Girl's speed and Dragon Empress' versatility were an uphill battle I just couldn't shake. Black Hole Girl got the first shot in as she managed to weave under one of my punches, and give me a spinning tornado punch/kick combo, sending me hurtling towards Dragon Empress, who slammed her axe as hard as she could into my back, which sent me hurtling a quarter mile into the dirt! I forced myself to get up, and managed to fend off the two, now attacking at once, for like maybe ten seconds, until they eventually overpowered and started to beat the absolute f*(# outta me! Dragon Empress in particular had more tricks up her sleeve than she let on, as she let Black Hole Girl get her shots in for a few seconds, before she attacked via F*(#!^& CHI BLOCK ATTACKS!

Two index/middle finger jabs to either shoulders, an open palmed strike to my stomach, and a chop to my throat and head! Suddenly, my slow to heal wounds weren't healing at all! Dragon Empress cut up my chest, legs, and arms with her axe and talons, and the gaping tears and gashes just continued to leak! Dragon Empress didn't stop there, as she launched another attack. This time, her strikes were to my biceps, middle thighs, heart, and back of the head! Now I was stuck! I couldn't change back to normal until I unblocked my chakras, and good luck with that! My chi was so spent, even if I had the time to try, I doubt I coulda pulled it off, and I ABSOLUTELY did not have the time to try!

As if to emphasize that, Black Hole Girl took her turn again as she hit me point blank with a Singularity Scream, even on the verge of death I can't stop doing it, and sent me careening off the edge of a cliff! Both she and Dragon Empress weren't far behind, and while the fat lady looked like she was gearin' up for a swan song, the Earth Lady wasn't ready to throw in the towel just yet.

I felt a huge surge of G-Force suddenly rush into me. Not enough to make this fight do a 180, but enough to keep me from going under, and temporarily force my body into a Timeout.

"Her weak points are her stomach, sternum, throat, and ear drums!" Gaea desperately yelled in my head. "Take out the Tartarus spawn, and stay alive, Grant! You're not about to die alone in a glorified garden! I refuse to allow it! STAND! FIGHT! WIN!"

Gaea's voice died in my head just as soon as it erupted. Hell, the energy surge was slowly dying down as well, leaving just enough for one last chi attack. The chakra blocks must've been causing interference with our connection. It probably took everything she had just to give me even that much. Still, it was enough, and as my body shifted out of Timeout, I let Black Hole Girl rush into me, using her momentum against her as I rolled with it. The exchange was complete before we even hit the ground. In the first tumble I got her in the stomach and sternum with Crane strikes, followed by the throat and ear drums with a chop and open palmed clap to the sides of her head in the next tumble! As we hit the ground, I focused all the chi I could muster in my right fist, and slammed it into her face! Black Hole Girl dispersed on the spot; the energy blowback careening me and an oncoming Dragon Empress apart by 50 ft! The blast knocked the wind outta her, as she was breathing in raspy gulps that sounded like nails raking across a boulder. Black Hole Girl's essence slowly merged into her, because I totally cared about her well being, and she stood up almost in sync with me.

Once again, it seemed like we were on the same page. We were worn out, and this fight was more trouble than it was worth. Hell, at this point we weren't really fighting about anything, we just were too far along to stop. Still, I couldn't allow Dragon Empress to leave here alive, and her lost honor dictated that my very existence was an affront against Muspelheim. I summoned Earthshaker and Gaea's Claw to my hand. She summoned another flaming axe to her left hand. She roared to the heavens, a desperate, pain racked plea to her father for strength, and charged at me axes swinging!

We went at it like Achilles and Hector. No quarter given nor received, every swing, block, stab, slash, kick, and punch resonating like a cannon, as the simplest of movements, the quickest of mistakes could have been the difference between life or death. We gave as good as we got, as I slashed more skin off Lizard Queen's face, stuck my sword in her thighs, cleaved chunks of her chest and shoulders off, and even chopped off her tail! In turn, she left giant claw marks across my chest, lodged her axes deep between both my shoulder blades, and blasted me with so many fireballs, I was actually melting in some places!

Our fight gradually decreased in speed and ferocity, until we ended up mostly grappling and throwing hands at each other. One lucky punch on both our parts launched us another fifty feet from each other, where it took as a whole ass minute to recover and stand to our feet again. We stared each other down for another ten seconds, before slowly shuffling forward, building up speed and momentum, until we were barely five feet apart, lookin' to end this $#!+ once and for all.