Infinite Justice: Beyond (Marvel,DC,DBZ X/Over, IC, Open)

[Tomia]

Mars
Mars frowned when Kiris clearly contradicted him and told Red Arrow their names and everything. He clearly wasn't happy being contradicted, but before he could even think of something to say about it Red Arrow smiled at Kiris' response and spoke. "Well its good to meet you Dragon Mage. As for the enemy, I've been scouting their movements quite a bit. They're both locked up in a gunfight inside the factory. Black Mask's crew is controlling the warehouse, while Bain is held up in the production facility. We should go after Sionis first and then we can head inside after Bain."

"If you know where they are, then what are you doing out here?" Mars question, clearly not liking the fact that Red Hood knew so much more than him about the situation. Red Hood didn't seem fazed by it though. "I heard some of Bain's goons saying that they had some scouts here, thought UI would pick them off first. Now come on, let's get to the factory." Red Arrow said to the two of them before heading off toward the other end of the forest and expecting them to follow him.

Mars reluctantly followed behind with Rocket and Kiris, before turning to Kiris and speaking quietly. "You shouldn't trust people so easily Kiris. We have no idea who this guy is or what he's actually intending. He could be working against us for all we know." Mars said to her, still not happy about being contradicted in front of a stranger.

[Charmera]

"Now I have a response. EWWW!" Otis replied slightly grossed out from the idea. backpedaling away from the slime woman. "No way, no how am I becoming someone else's lunch. Been there, done that, not doing it again. Sentient Jello is not the way I wanna go out!" He needed an idea and fast. The things were made of slime, from his experience with goo, it might as well be water. Hitting them wasn't going to work. He got an idea, but he wasn't too keen on hurting anyone. "Alright hammer... Umm... Yeah. What was that thing Thor does. Spin!" He shouted to himself, planted his back firmly against the wall behind him. "I've waited my entire life for this pun, I'M GONNA ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE!" He shouted, grabbing the leather strap at the base of Mjolnir and spun it as fast as he could, creating a powerful gust of wind. "I'm sorry! But y'all are being pretty rude! I have friends here! Friends who don't wanna be lunch!"

The wind was mildly effective. It managed to blow most of the smaller Xyrixmas back, sending the already chaotic battle-line into disarray. The bigger ones were able to resist it however, and the largest simply seemed to big for something like a gust of wind to matter a whole lot. But there was a downside to this, as the now very heavy smaller Xyrixma slammed into the walls of asgard like the balls of a cannon, they broke down the gate with their now magnified force.

The lead Xyrixma turned over. "Hey! What's your problem? Stop with the wind!" She shouted, and then attempted to backhand the inhuman into Asgard. Though, if she thought it through, she would realise it would likely unite him with the other defenders of asgard.

[Charmera]

"Katie." spoke the shorter one, smiling. "Yeah, I've been meaning to speak to you..." She spoke. "One, were you the one who sent for us? and two could I possibly have a look at your hammer, if that's not too much tro-"

"No time. I think they're already here..." Spoke Zaki. "Hopefully more of the people I summoned would show up. But for now we'll have to make do with you four..." She spoke.

Katie chuckled. "Make do... You make it sound like we'll be fighting things the size of planets..."


The Xyrixma stood on the ground around the golden city of asgard itself. They had actually shrunk for the sake of their mission, and would be a little bigger normally. As it stood, the tallest was about nine times the size of a building, and the shortest was about half the size of a large building. The slimed began to slam against the wall, when suddenly someone new came in.

One of them, the largest, turned around. focusing on him. She frowned, squinting as if looking at a fly. "Sorry hun. We got orders. And we got to eat." She spoke. "Though, if you want to be part of the buffet, be my guest." She reached out for him, using her slimey hands to hopefully grab the tiny thing.

"Wait," Simon interjected into what was surely a fascinating conversation, holding his index finger up. "D'ya hear that?"

Boom. Boom. Slap. Boom.

"If I know anything," he continued, "that's the unmistakable sound of massive slime babes trying to bust down the walls of Asgard. Lady Valka," he said, turning to her, " muster the forces of Asgard. I'll take…you…an'-look, if you aren't Fem-Thor, come with me! We've got some Jell-O to boil."

And with that…dire? pronouncement, Simon ran for the door, almost getting trampled by two fighting Valkyries, and took to the air, heading for the spot the sound was coming from.

Cora
Cora listened to Valka introduce herself. She seemed quite nice, but there was clearly a lot on her shoulders. "My name is Cora ma'am. It's nice to meet you. Whatever is threatening your home, Katie and I are willing to help." Cora said sincerely.

Suddenly there was another flash off light and a young man and woman appeared in Asgard. It was Darian and Serene Astarious, looking around appearing quite confused. "Where the hell are we?" Darian asked to no one in particular, his sword slung over his shoulder as he looked around cautiously. His sister was a little less on guard and was amazed by how beautiful Asgard seemed. "Wow!" She exclaimed. "Whatever this place is its amazing!"

"The humans are right. It sounds like they breached the walls..." Spoke Zaki. She made her way to the nearest gates to the outsides. "We need to counterattack, or lives could be lost, we're lucky they don't have someone who can eat earth at the moment." She spoke, quite obviously stressed.

Katie was a little confused. She sighed. "I suppose we should follow her." She did exactly that, knowing it was best to act in a situation like this rather than wait.

Meanwhile, a girl apeared next to the two siblings. She smiled as she apeared. "Wow, I should get randomly teleported with you two more often, this place just screams colour!" She exclaimed. Her excitement making her hair change colour rapidly.

Glacia rolled with the kick, grunting as she hit the wall of the dojo. She felt as if her ribs were cracked, though there was no way to check. She returned to the shadows, not allowing herself to let out even a groan. She could feel her body repair itself, and the pain was great. She quickly force the ground of the dojo to freeze over, so that people running now would trip. When Hiroshi next attack, she would be able to react.

Though, as she tried to get up she found her body begin to betray her. She looked to see no blood, but her arm was broken. She grunted, trying to reset it so it could heal.

Did she actually FREEZE me?!

Myosai was shocked. It wasn't really that cold, but not being able to move, especially with her personality, was rather irritating.

Her sword still emitted ki energy, hot enough for her to get a grip and accelerate it's burn. The aura of energy around the sword burned with a much larger flame, hot enough to melt the ice around her body, allowing her to escape from the trap.

"Hey!"

Myosai rolled across the floor, grabbing her sword as she quickly sheathed it, holding it above her head to charge an attack. If Glacia were to turn around and see her, she'd go pale for a split second, before resuming a serious state.

"Dodge this, Glacia!" She said, a serious glare on her face as she looked back into her memory, for the name of the attack. Something about some.. Yamcha guy or whatever his name was, using this Spirit Ball thing. Sounds cool enough? Powerful, too?

Boy, was she wrong. The golden energy sphere appeared in her palms, radiating with sparks of her own powerful energy. Myosai was going to put a twist on this otherwise weak attack: every time Glacia dodged or deflected it, she'd pump more energy into the ball, much like her Power Ball or Death Ball or whatever she'd named her attack. This way she could gain an upper hand in the fight, and so that Hiroshi was not doing all of the work.

Myosai loosened her grip on the golden sphere, lobbing it at the Frosty lady as she guided it on an erratic path towards her target.

Glacia obliged, dodging the golden ball. Though she noticed every time she did so it's energy grew. She found herself having to quickly dance around the balls weird path, her warrior reflexes being the only thing keeping her alive. Then she had an idea that might save her bacon. She used the darkness to her advantage, crafting a ice scuplture of herself so that the other two might thing she's still there. And then with amazing speed, she went behind Hiroshi, predicting the path of the ball would cause it to colide with her sparring partner. The now powerful ball was strong enough to put Glacia out of comision, but now it was headed for Hiroshi.

To additionally make sure he didn't move, she froze his legs in place and placed a vortex to keep him stationary. Then she took cover behind the Saiyan.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

As she flew away from the Herald and the Phoenix, a curious feeling reached the one titled Eternal Night. As an outsider to this universe, she could feel a curious disturbance, something that was wrong... something, she reasoned, like what an inhabitant of this universe would've felt, had they been nearby when Horizon had crossed the boundary between the universe and the nothingness beyond with her in tow. However, this event felt far more tangible, with a much greater impact, as if they weren't merely two beings, but several; she didn't know how many they might've been, but in any case, they were far more than just herself and Horizon. To add onto that, her presence was innocuous, as she had no particular intent within this universe, malicious or otherwise, but the presences currently crossing were tangibly maleficent, or at the very least, there was something they sought without regard for the life or material integrity of this universe. Now, Eternal Night had developed a peculiar strain of apathy during her long life, and as such, she was not exceedingly incline to assist, for moral reasons at least; but on the other hand, she believed that this would undoubtedly provide her with some amusement, and so, she decided to head towards the place where she could feel the disturbances, driven almost solely by her curiosity.

Concentrating, the masked woman summoned Horizon once again. It occured much like what the Empty Phoenix and the Herald of Naught had seen, except in reverse: this time, her left eye suddenly lit up with an azure fire that did not seem to hurt her or spread to the rest of her face, and then, the flame flew out, quickly forming into the shape of a horse. Afterwards, the azure blaze disappeared, and there stood Horizon, Eternal Night's loyal steed. The tireless Phantom Horse, stoic as ever, did nothing as the blonde woman patted it and then sat on it. There were no words between them, for the bond they shared allowed them to tacitly understand each other far better than any number of words could allow, and so, as soon as Eternal Night was sitting on it, Horizon took off, piercing through the boundary between dimensions in order to reach the destination chosen by its mistress.

Less than a second later within the universal timescale, though it happened a tad more slowly from Horizon and Eternal Night's perspectives, the Phantom Horse and the Nameless One arrived at Asgard, just in time to witness the gates of Asgard being thrown open by an invading force of slime women.

"...Horizon, do you see the same as I?" She asked her horse, clearly puzzled at the absurd scene. Nonetheless, she noticed that the underdog here was Asgard, and so, she headed towards the breached gates, Horizon galloped towards the air, zooming past the Xyrixma effortlessly before coming to a halt within the golden city of Asgard, quite a bit of distance away from where the Xyrixma stood. There, she dismounted Horizon, contenting herself with just floating in place. Horizon's entire body suddenly turned into a mass of azure flames which gradually shrunk to the size of her eye, and the flame then flew straight into said eye, lingering there for a moment before being fully absorbed into it. With that done, Eternal Night turned her attention towards the approaching Xyrixma, raising her hand, her open palm pointed towards them. From the empty air around her, gargantuan torrents of solid darkness, each one easily the size of a train, fired up into the approaching Xyrixma in order to drive them back.

---

---

Kirisvala listened to Mars' stern words, and a sad expression drew itself on her face as she heard him chide her about being too trusting and possibly jeopardizing the mission. She hadn't wanted to draw Mars' annoyance with her words, after all, she had only wanted to be polite to the new person now that she knew that he wasn't one of the bad guys, and she wanted the mission to go as smoothly as possible, something that seemed more likely if it was three of them fighting against the gangs than if it was only two; he also seemed like he knew what was going on in the place, something that seemed helpful. Regardless, she saw her friend's point, and that only made her feel bad about it. "Sorry..." She said, just as quietly as he had spoken earlier. "I didn't mean to be naive, I just thought he might help us, he said he was..." She spoke, and then trailed off, realizing that having the man's word was probably not enough for Mars and shouldn't be for her, either. "...Nevermind. Sorry." She said. She thought of saying that they couldn't really do anything now that they were teaming up with him, but she didn't know if that would make Mars angrier. They were getting into some very risky business here after all, so perhaps she would only draw more of Mars' ire if she joked about it.

After a moment, however, a thought crossed her head and she put on a determinate expression, looking back at Mars. "If he turns on us, I'll get us both out of here safely. You can count on that." She said and then nodded energetically, convinced of her words.

[New Neros]

The Mad City Saga
Recruitment Drive

Mad City

There was much exploring to do in his new city, but Mir had mental maps and neural connections no being on this planet could ever have. A simple, encrypted database was all he needed to find out who lived in his city, where, what they did, and what they could do. With this in mind, he started on projects and gave his people meaningful work, monuments were to be built for Morningstar and his consort, defenses upgraded, technologies researched, all of those things and more. A feature of the Dome in which they lived in was that - at will - the City could slow down or speed up time within it's own enclosure, like a large Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Mir smirked at this feature, realizing Max damn near thought of everything.

At a laboratory Max had left for Mir to continue research and do his own, Mir tried his hand at learning how to be technologically adept. Yet, he could only begin with logically disassembling and reassembling odds and ends to gain their knowledge. From here, the Daxamite downloaded much of the human's internet to his own mind to apply their collective knowledge to his own, steadily increasing his overall technological expertise with a steady foundation. Still, he struggled to produce wonders like Max had done, and figured he wasn't up to chops with such feats of brilliance. "Mir." The static voice of Maxwell played out from a hologram, the Daxamite barely moving his head to listen.

"You've struggled to pursue your own research, and perhaps you feel inadequate compared to my own. That's why I'll let you in on a secret of my technology." The blurry Maxwell began, Mir a bit more interested, turning to the Mad God and looking at the small holographic figure. "I stole and reverse-engineered a large majority of my pieces, even my armor. If it had any use, I tore it apart and remade it to suit my needs. Aliens, magical beings, other humans, it didn't matter. I made a lot of enemies doing that, but I learned, and had technology comparable to those enemies. What I excelled in was strategies, politics, nation building, and robotics, believe it or not, I was never an electrical engineer, but I could take one's work and call it my own."

"If it serves a purpose, make it your own." Max said, fizzling out once more, leaving Mir with more information, and an idea. He walked over to Maxwell's holographic display, turned it around, and pried into it's innards. He found some projectors, a crystalline power source, and other unrecognizable technology - non-human. He rebuilt it as quickly as he tore it apart, and it started to play the message once more. Mir narrowed his eyes, wondering what the Mad God had hidden from him. It wasn't a taunt, no, Max was trying to point him in the right direction without explicitly telling him. "...Make it your own." The message said once more, Mir nodding as it clicked.

He tore into the device once more, already fully aware of how it worked, but began to rearrange the parts and mechanisms to run it. He would have a net loss of energy with the set up he put the device in, but Mir had a million ways to put it back together, and all the time in the world to figure it out. He pressed the button to activate it, a small spark flashing where the hologram was supposed to appear. Mir waited for a moment, a small screen popping up with "Accessing..." displayed. In nanoseconds, a flood of unintelligible codes and lines of script began to fill the screen - alien symbols. Mir acted quickly and plugged the device into an industrial-sized computer Maxwell had provided.

Sure enough, it contained the vast libraries available to alien nations across the cosmos, with an easily crackable code to decipher the languages and make sense of them. Standing before the greatest concentration of knowledge in this sector, Mir's eyes almost struggled to keep up and make sense of all the information on technological wonders that wouldn't cross the mind of Earth's greatest inventors for millennia. He cracked a smile, knowing full well that he simply cheated and jumped the learning curve for this kind of thing. Now, he had all the knowledge needed to execute his recruitment drive operation, and drag the needed personnel to his side.

---

Jump City

Mir arrived at the bustling town on America's west coast, the cityscape reminding him of San Francisco. He's never been, but he's read enough about it to get the general idea. The Sovereign of Mad City sat outside at a table, a normal cafe with some quirky name he didn't care to read. He ordered a simple coffee, nothing fancy, and was dressed in casual clothes for the occasion. Sipping on the beverage, he narrowed his eye brows, wondering why the hell Humans liked such a scalding hot thing to drink. Regardless, he downed the cup quickly, the waitress standing there with her mouth agape. Mir raised an eyebrow, thinking it strange, but remembering that Humans had more delicate mouths and innards than he did.

"Ah, um," Mir explained, "I'll have another." He said with some charm, the waitress shaking her head for a moment to wake herself from the trance, and graciously nodded, a polite smile on her face. As she scurried off, Mir leaned back in his chair, and quietly began a countdown in his head. "He should be showing up any minute now..." He thought, trying to draw out his real prey. Suddenly, a building across the street tore apart, sending pieces of rubble flying in all directions. Its source was a large monster, who simply looked like a collection of various animals but mixed together and scaled to two stories tall. It roared, sending the nearby populace into a panicked frenzy, all running away, terrified.

All except for one man. A strong, athletic youth, lean yet brimming with both muscle and confidence from the very look of him, stood face to face with the danger. He stood up, sitting three tables away from Mir, and casually began to take off his shirt, revealing his toned muscular physique beneath. Mir sat straight, transfixed on the youth, who didn't seem to notice that someone else didn't run away, no, this boy was transfixed on fighting this monster and protecting lives. The beast snarled and wheezed with some terrible sound, the young man standing right before it, chest bare and proudly showing defiance to the wild animal conglomeration. "I don't know who you are or who sent you, and frankly, I don't give a shit." He bellowed, "Because there's two things I know."

"First, my name is Van Zant," The youth proclaimed loudly for all to hear, not caring to hide who he was or what he did, "And second, I'm going to kick your ass." The monster took no time in attack Van Zant by slamming both of it's hands down onto the youth. The shockwave it created and the cracked asphalt that sprang up would lead you to think Zant was simply crushed, but upon closer inspection, the youth caught both fists with his own hands, and without even trembling at that. "Is this supposed to be a challenge?" He asked, griping down on the beasts' limbs and yanking the colossus forward, throwing it off balance. "Because I've fought waaaay too many better opponents to let you get the slip on me."

With the beast stumbling on it's feet, Van stood his ground and delivered a straight punch to it's midsection, tearing deep into it's innards with force and impact, much of it's internal organs simply pulverized from the amount of power Van put into that one strike. "I'd say I'm going to turn you into dog food, but it looks like a dog already chewed you up and spit you out." Van took a step forward and threw his fist up in the air, connecting with the beasts' head in a stunning uppercut. Several of the animal's vertebrae snapped during the whiplash, and the hunkering monster fell over with a meaty thud. "Welcome to Jump City, bitch." Van Zant said, turning from the battle completely unscathed, returning to his coffee table, and sitting down promptly.

His eyes cut over to Mir, who remained at his own seat for a while, finished his own drink, and slowly got up. "Hey!" Zant called out to Mir as he started to walk away, Van finding the whole situation rather peculiar. "Why didn't you run like the rest of 'em?"

Mir turned to look at Van briefly, searching the boy over, finding him fueled with adrenaline and confidence. "Perhaps fear froze me in place." He said casually, an incredibly see-through lie.

"Oh, okay." Zant nodded, apparently taking the comment at face value.

"Are you serious?" Mir thought, shaking his head almost in disappointment at the aloof youth. "How about...How about we have some coffee, though?" Mir said, turning around and approaching Van's table, taking his own seat across from the shirtless man and staring upon him intently. "Though, the waitresses seem to have fled with the rest of the people."

"They do that. Really though, Jump City doesn't have these things happen a lot, you know. And besides, they have their own team of capes anyways. I'm pretty much useless because they got most of it, Young Bloods they call themselves. I was offered to join, but I passed. I'm looking for something better to come along." Van said, explaining the city a bit, Mir nodding along and listening to what he had to say.

"You're looking for something better, right? What if I told you that, well, I'm looking to start something better." Mir explained, "You see, I'm not really from around here. Earth, I mean, but I came here after a long, dreary battle. I lost some people in that fight, but I want to carry on with their vision. The people I lost, they...They came from Earth, and they wanted to make this planet the best that it can be." Mir said, recounting his loss of Maxwell and Valerie, both of whom came from Earth, "To that end, I want to make a large team that operate globally and end this senseless, superpowered violence. Maybe even take it beyond Earth, you know?"

Van listened to the man speak, finding a certain level of sincerity in his voice when he spoke. "It does sound a bit better and bigger than the defenders of Jump City..." Van said carefully, "So, uh, how'd you find me, anyways? I know I don't keep a low profile, but I've been in hell trying to apply for membership with the big names. JLA, Avengers, things like that."

"One of the ones I lost directed me to you. Do you know the name Maxwell Morningstar, or Valerie Valentine?"

"I'm sorry, I don't. But...tell me some more about this project you want to start."

"There are beings of high power on this world, and they've remained away from institutions that manage such power like the Justice League, X-Men, Avengers, and other national hero organizations. I see fundamental flaws with the approach of those organizations as well, they have no aim nor purpose but simply to stop 'bad guys'. I think people like us should have a place where our voices matter equally, and our protection extends all across the globe, and maybe even the galaxy if things pick up. Simply put, Van Zant, I want you on this team." Mir finally said, popping the question to the youngster.

"Heh...Alright, I'll bite. You have a name for this...not-like-a-hero-organization-but-totally-one-anyways, er, organization?"

"I do." Mir said, putting on a serious face, "Mad Gods."

"Ominous, don't you think?" Van said, "Cool name either way."

"Good men should have no fear of mad gods, Van." Mir answered poetically, "What do you say? I'm not going to say what we can do, but I want to show you what can happen if this works out."

"Simple enough." Van said, rising up from his chair, "I have nothing of value left in this city. Take me to wherever your base is, and I'll join. I'll become a Mad God."

[Tomia]

Mars
Mars saw the frown on Kiris' face as he chided her and started to feel a little guilty. He realized that his friend's mistake was an innocent one, and he shouldn't have been so quick to judge. "It's okay Kiris, and I'm sorry if I snapped at you a bit. I know you were just trying your best." He told her, before seeing her expression suddenly change to a look of determination. The Hadrian girl then promised to get them out safely if things went wrong with a strength and confidence that Mars hadn't seen from her yet. "I believe you." Mars said simply, before the reached the clearing and were on a small cliff, outside the forest.

Red Arrow shushed them as they looked over the entrance to the factory, Black Mask's men had made a camp right out side the entrance, with about half a dozen armed men keeping guard outside.

"Damn, they increased the guard count outside. I need to a vantage point to take out the guards, but I need a distraction. Any ideas?" Mars thought for a second, they needed something that wouldn't alert the attention of the guards outside, he then thought maybe magic might be the best answer to this problem. "Ki- I mean Dragon Mage, do you think you might know a song that could put the guards to sleep or disorient them? I can get you a bit closer if you need to." Mars said, wondering if Kiris would have an idea to take out the guards.

Asgard
Meanwhile Darian and Serene looked at the woman next to them with confused expressions. She was speaking as if they were familiar with each other, but it was clear they had never even met before. "Uh ya, who are you exactly? And why is your hair changing color if you don't mind me asking." Darian said to the woman, still quite confused about what was going on.

Cora nodded to the woman who apparently knew the most about this threat, though they hadn't really been introduced yet. Cora followed Katie to go help defend the city, she was a little nervous for the battle, as from what she had heard their goes were quite strong, but she kept up brave face as they ran forward. She needed to be strong for Katie. They would fight together, and when they were together, nothing could stop them.

[Charmera]

The Mad City Saga
Recruitment Drive

Mad City

There was much exploring to do in his new city, but Mir had mental maps and neural connections no being on this planet could ever have. A simple, encrypted database was all he needed to find out who lived in his city, where, what they did, and what they could do. With this in mind, he started on projects and gave his people meaningful work, monuments were to be built for Morningstar and his consort, defenses upgraded, technologies researched, all of those things and more. A feature of the Dome in which they lived in was that - at will - the City could slow down or speed up time within it's own enclosure, like a large Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Mir smirked at this feature, realizing Max damn near thought of everything.

At a laboratory Max had left for Mir to continue research and do his own, Mir tried his hand at learning how to be technologically adept. Yet, he could only begin with logically disassembling and reassembling odds and ends to gain their knowledge. From here, the Daxamite downloaded much of the human's internet to his own mind to apply their collective knowledge to his own, steadily increasing his overall technological expertise with a steady foundation. Still, he struggled to produce wonders like Max had done, and figured he wasn't up to chops with such feats of brilliance. "Mir." The static voice of Maxwell played out from a hologram, the Daxamite barely moving his head to listen.

"You've struggled to pursue your own research, and perhaps you feel inadequate compared to my own. That's why I'll let you in on a secret of my technology." The blurry Maxwell began, Mir a bit more interested, turning to the Mad God and looking at the small holographic figure. "I stole and reverse-engineered a large majority of my pieces, even my armor. If it had any use, I tore it apart and remade it to suit my needs. Aliens, magical beings, other humans, it didn't matter. I made a lot of enemies doing that, but I learned, and had technology comparable to those enemies. What I excelled in was strategies, politics, nation building, and robotics, believe it or not, I was never an electrical engineer, but I could take one's work and call it my own."

"If it serves a purpose, make it your own." Max said, fizzling out once more, leaving Mir with more information, and an idea. He walked over to Maxwell's holographic display, turned it around, and pried into it's innards. He found some projectors, a crystalline power source, and other unrecognizable technology - non-human. He rebuilt it as quickly as he tore it apart, and it started to play the message once more. Mir narrowed his eyes, wondering what the Mad God had hidden from him. It wasn't a taunt, no, Max was trying to point him in the right direction without explicitly telling him. "...Make it your own." The message said once more, Mir nodding as it clicked.

He tore into the device once more, already fully aware of how it worked, but began to rearrange the parts and mechanisms to run it. He would have a net loss of energy with the set up he put the device in, but Mir had a million ways to put it back together, and all the time in the world to figure it out. He pressed the button to activate it, a small spark flashing where the hologram was supposed to appear. Mir waited for a moment, a small screen popping up with "Accessing..." displayed. In nanoseconds, a flood of unintelligible codes and lines of script began to fill the screen - alien symbols. Mir acted quickly and plugged the device into an industrial-sized computer Maxwell had provided.

Sure enough, it contained the vast libraries available to alien nations across the cosmos, with an easily crackable code to decipher the languages and make sense of them. Standing before the greatest concentration of knowledge in this sector, Mir's eyes almost struggled to keep up and make sense of all the information on technological wonders that wouldn't cross the mind of Earth's greatest inventors for millennia. He cracked a smile, knowing full well that he simply cheated and jumped the learning curve for this kind of thing. Now, he had all the knowledge needed to execute his recruitment drive operation, and drag the needed personnel to his side.

Why are you here? You have things to do Ashy. Responsibilities to tend to.

'Shut up." Muttered the Vokornian as she walked through the streets of the Mad city. There was a frown on her face. She now understood the downsides of having a voice in your head, and had renewed sympathy for Max.

Let me guess. The word responsibility ticked you off didn't it? Muttered the voice. You're not going to solve anything by screwing around on earth

That is where you are wrong. thought Ashy. I have allies to gather. And this is the place to do it.

Why not talk to the Guardians then? Go to the Avengers? The JL? Better yet, rally your people, work on the return serum. Something. Spoke the voice. Admit it. The only reason your here is because you want to find your boyfriend. The Daxamite. You let your lust and emotions control you.

Ashy would have laughed had she not been annoyed You're not wrong. But from what I've heard, they won't be good enough. She replied. Now I do not nee dyour micromanaging. You chose me as a host for a reason.

Because out of all the Returned Vokornians, you're the only one who isn't insane or in a coma. And I have serious doubts about the first with you.

I am perfectly sane.

I agree to disagree on that point. Remarked the voice. A male one. It had a lot of snark for a voice supposedly unclouded by emotion. Cut your ties with this Mir. Let him go. Devote yourself to your people and defeating Mother Skin. Or we will loose.

Ashy ignored her, then sighed. She knew Mir wasn't here just yet, but he would be back. And then she could make her entrance properly. For now she had to wait and endure the new voice in her head.

I traded my magical power for a snarky bitch in my head. All I got left is telepathy and my normal physical boost over humans, though severly diminished at the moment... oh and whatever powers I got from my brain tenant She sighed, Totally a fair deal.

[New Rnclave]

"Wait," Simon interjected into what was surely a fascinating conversation, holding his index finger up. "D'ya hear that?"

Boom. Boom. Slap. Boom.

"If I know anything," he continued, "that's the unmistakable sound of massive slime babes trying to bust down the walls of Asgard. Lady Valka," he said, turning to her, " muster the forces of Asgard. I'll take…you…an'-look, if you aren't Fem-Thor, come with me! We've got some Jell-O to boil."

And with that…dire? pronouncement, Simon ran for the door, almost getting trampled by two fighting Valkyries, and took to the air, heading for the spot the sound was coming from.

Cora
Cora listened to Valka introduce herself. She seemed quite nice, but there was clearly a lot on her shoulders. "My name is Cora ma'am. It's nice to meet you. Whatever is threatening your home, Katie and I are willing to help." Cora said sincerely.

Suddenly there was another flash off light and a young man and woman appeared in Asgard. It was Darian and Serene Astarious, looking around appearing quite confused. "Where the hell are we?" Darian asked to no one in particular, his sword slung over his shoulder as he looked around cautiously. His sister was a little less on guard and was amazed by how beautiful Asgard seemed. "Wow!" She exclaimed. "Whatever this place is its amazing!"

"The humans are right. It sounds like they breached the walls..." Spoke Zaki. She made her way to the nearest gates to the outsides. "We need to counterattack, or lives could be lost, we're lucky they don't have someone who can eat earth at the moment." She spoke, quite obviously stressed.

Katie was a little confused. She sighed. "I suppose we should follow her." She did exactly that, knowing it was best to act in a situation like this rather than wait.

Meanwhile, a girl apeared next to the two siblings. She smiled as she apeared. "Wow, I should get randomly teleported with you two more often, this place just screams colour!" She exclaimed. Her excitement making her hair change colour rapidly.

Did she actually FREEZE me?!

Myosai was shocked. It wasn't really that cold, but not being able to move, especially with her personality, was rather irritating.

Her sword still emitted ki energy, hot enough for her to get a grip and accelerate it's burn. The aura of energy around the sword burned with a much larger flame, hot enough to melt the ice around her body, allowing her to escape from the trap.

"Hey!"

Myosai rolled across the floor, grabbing her sword as she quickly sheathed it, holding it above her head to charge an attack. If Glacia were to turn around and see her, she'd go pale for a split second, before resuming a serious state.

"Dodge this, Glacia!" She said, a serious glare on her face as she looked back into her memory, for the name of the attack. Something about some.. Yamcha guy or whatever his name was, using this Spirit Ball thing. Sounds cool enough? Powerful, too?

Boy, was she wrong. The golden energy sphere appeared in her palms, radiating with sparks of her own powerful energy. Myosai was going to put a twist on this otherwise weak attack: every time Glacia dodged or deflected it, she'd pump more energy into the ball, much like her Power Ball or Death Ball or whatever she'd named her attack. This way she could gain an upper hand in the fight, and so that Hiroshi was not doing all of the work.

Myosai loosened her grip on the golden sphere, lobbing it at the Frosty lady as she guided it on an erratic path towards her target.

Glacia obliged, dodging the golden ball. Though she noticed every time she did so it's energy grew. She found herself having to quickly dance around the balls weird path, her warrior reflexes being the only thing keeping her alive. Then she had an idea that might save her bacon. She used the darkness to her advantage, crafting a ice scuplture of herself so that the other two might thing she's still there. And then with amazing speed, she went behind Hiroshi, predicting the path of the ball would cause it to colide with her sparring partner. The now powerful ball was strong enough to put Glacia out of comision, but now it was headed for Hiroshi.

To additionally make sure he didn't move, she froze his legs in place and placed a vortex to keep him stationary. Then she took cover behind the Saiyan.

Hiroshi:

Blinking, Hiorshi wiped his forearm across his forehead, the entire area suddenly very hot. Stepping forward, he found the second problem. His feet were frozen to the ground. Sighing, he went about Turing to break the ice, until the world became very bright. Covering his eyes, he looked out at the colossal bolt of energy speeding towards him.

Damn it! Myosai, learn to control your damn attacks!

Drawing his arms back to his sides, a savage look warped his features. The golden fire around him burned brighter and brighter every moment he pushed onwards. This was a test, and he wa going to face it as he did any other. His frame almost hunched over as fiery power roared through his veins, the thrumming of his aura almost as loud as the bolt careening toward him.

Howling like a wild animal, the Hybrid drew his power back, his skin glowing gold with the power of Ascended Saiyan. His hair sparked wildly, standing straight before the gale. In a burst of raw power, his aura blasted back outwards, the boltof energy slowing in its path. The burned and ruined land around him shuddered and blasted forwards. Gritting his teeth, Hiroshi felt the orb almost drop into his waiting palms.

Huffing, Hirshi stared into the center of the blinding bolt of ki, pushing all of his strength forward in an effort to shove it off of him. The heat was both scorching, and int he same moment, amazing. The churning mass of power lifted only inches away from him, and then feet, twin bolts of azure ki burrowing into the orb. Sweat poured down his cheeks as he readied himself.

In one swift motion, Hiroshi pulled the bolt towards him, the entire attack shifting dramatically, tension and energy built up in Huroshi exploded outwards with one great heave, Hiroshi throwing the attack towards the heavens, the attack exploding above them.

[Charmera]

"The humans are right. It sounds like they breached the walls..." Spoke Zaki. She made her way to the nearest gates to the outsides. "We need to counterattack, or lives could be lost, we're lucky they don't have someone who can eat earth at the moment." She spoke, quite obviously stressed.

Katie was a little confused. She sighed. "I suppose we should follow her." She did exactly that, knowing it was best to act in a situation like this rather than wait.

Meanwhile, a girl apeared next to the two siblings. She smiled as she apeared. "Wow, I should get randomly teleported with you two more often, this place just screams colour!" She exclaimed. Her excitement making her hair change colour rapidly.


Glacia obliged, dodging the golden ball. Though she noticed every time she did so it's energy grew. She found herself having to quickly dance around the balls weird path, her warrior reflexes being the only thing keeping her alive. Then she had an idea that might save her bacon. She used the darkness to her advantage, crafting a ice scuplture of herself so that the other two might thing she's still there. And then with amazing speed, she went behind Hiroshi, predicting the path of the ball would cause it to colide with her sparring partner. The now powerful ball was strong enough to put Glacia out of comision, but now it was headed for Hiroshi.

To additionally make sure he didn't move, she froze his legs in place and placed a vortex to keep him stationary. Then she took cover behind the Saiyan.

Hiroshi:

Blinking, Hiorshi wiped his forearm across his forehead, the entire area suddenly very hot. Stepping forward, he found the second problem. His feet were frozen to the ground. Sighing, he went about Turing to break the ice, until the world became very bright. Covering his eyes, he looked out at the colossal bolt of energy speeding towards him.

Damn it! Myosai, learn to control your damn attacks!

Drawing his arms back to his sides, a savage look warped his features. The golden fire around him burned brighter and brighter every moment he pushed onwards. This was a test, and he wa going to face it as he did any other. His frame almost hunched over as fiery power roared through his veins, the thrumming of his aura almost as loud as the bolt careening toward him.

Howling like a wild animal, the Hybrid drew his power back, his skin glowing gold with the power of Ascended Saiyan. His hair sparked wildly, standing straight before the gale. In a burst of raw power, his aura blasted back outwards, the boltof energy slowing in its path. The burned and ruined land around him shuddered and blasted forwards. Gritting his teeth, Hiroshi felt the orb almost drop into his waiting palms.

Huffing, Hirshi stared into the center of the blinding bolt of ki, pushing all of his strength forward in an effort to shove it off of him. The heat was both scorching, and int he same moment, amazing. The churning mass of power lifted only inches away from him, and then feet, twin bolts of azure ki burrowing into the orb. Sweat poured down his cheeks as he readied himself.

In one swift motion, Hiroshi pulled the bolt towards him, the entire attack shifting dramatically, tension and energy built up in Huroshi exploded outwards with one great heave, Hiroshi throwing the attack towards the heavens, the attack exploding above them.

Glacia might have been impressed by the show of sheer power, had she any time to be. She had to exploit the advantage, and so she did, aiming to slam into Hiroshi with crippling icy punches. With each of them she felt pain as her body protested. Though it got duller and duller the more she fought. She aimed to disengage once more after attacking. Hopping back into the darkness, she prepared a blast of icy energy which she shot towards her advesary. Perhaps she was being too greedy getting that extra strike in, but Glacia was ever a risk taker.

[New Rnclave]

Slavery is Freedom Part Four

" He's leaving tomorrow right?" Tomia asked breathlessly, shaking slightly in her shoes. The wedding was over. Everyone told her it was lovely. Some said it with polite smiles, born of a need to appease Lord Broly, some smirked wickedly, mostly mithers she'd noticed.

" Yes." Cassandra answered uncertainly. " But he'll be back after winter."

Tomia breathed shallowly as she sat down, falling into the velvet chair that had been gifted to her. It was a bribe. She just knew it. Lord Broly would do anything to ensure the gifts he'd given to himself were happy. If only to make the sex better she supposed. Tomia clasped Cassandras hands tightly as a large shadow looked over her. Husband or not, she wasn't ready to meet his gaze yet.

" Such a polite wife." He muttered queitly enough for onyonehr to hear. It wa supposed to be reassuring, happy even. But all she heard was dark cackles as a man she barely remembered screamed.

" Thank you for behaving so well. You have earned my praise." He murmured, stroking her cheek with a thick finger. The touch made her shiver, wanting to movie away but knowing it meant death.

Linking his arm with hers, he moved to the front of the room, his steps long and purposeful, making the shorter Saiyanness stumble several times. Clearing his throat, Broly spoke " Guests. We have enjoyed your company enormously, but I must take my tired bride to bed." A chorus of jeers and dirty laughter echoed from the court room, met only by an evil smirk from the Large Saiyan. " Feel free to continue enjoying the party."

Broly quietly led her away, leading her up the stairs and almost tossing her in her bed when they entered her room. Tomia was on the verge of tears now, hot fury filling her veins. But no matter her hate, it wouldn't stop the large Saiyan, who finished pulling off his tunic and stepped towards, a menacing smile on his features.

" Well?" Broly asked impatiently, putting a thick finger under her chin and pulling her face to meet his eyes. " Are you going to undress or should I do it for you?"

Tomia couldn't help the fury now. Shooting to her feet, she slammed her fists on his chest, hot tears spilling from her eyes. She hated him. She hated his thick chest and evil smile. She hated this place and all it meant. She hated like and it's injustices. Bawling now, she felt to thick palms grasp her dress, yanking it to her feet and shoving her down on the bed in one motion.

" That's enough of that." He said finitely.

Tomia would cry though the whole night.

[The Fallen Jedi]

Dark God Saga
Part Twelve: Endgame Pt.4: Lord Satera Confronts The Gods of Darkness

Or Heroes of The Galaxy United!

Lord Satera sat quietly, the sounds of battles seemingly bouncing off of his ears, he could quite literally feel the presence of the Dark Gods beginning to surge forward and try to corrupt his very body, but he quite literally willed this feeling of the overbearing darkness that surrounded his being out of reality, his power as the sole guardian of the Galaxy made this very much so. As Satera opened his eyes, he watched as the Thirteen Gods of Darkness formed a circle around him, apparently intent on stealing his powers, just as they did with Spera once before, but now this time, it was different, when they tried to absorb his energy, they found that they were unable to do such a thing to Satera "You cannot absorb the energy of a higher being, for I have transcended the natural boundaries of existence, in my home, you cannot do anything to harm myself, but rather..." Without even moving a portion of his body, Satera quite literally willed his energy to be absorbed by the Dark Gods, which then proceeded to set them aflame "I can desire my energy to grief you with the pain that you've given the entire Galaxy..." Satera stated darkly, his eyes began to glow, indicating that he was beginning to fall into Alastir's Malevolent Personality, his eyes dancing with cruelty and entertainment.

"I see..." One calmly stated as he came forward to face Satera, his eyes layered with an undying rage towards the Godly Entity that meditated before him "You really think that you would be able to defeat Thirteen of us, even in your 'Omnipotent' state? We would crush you within an instant with our numbers and our mastery of darkness, it is our destiny to turn this Galaxy into our playground, it is an inevitability that must be seen, even from someone like you." One chuckled, watching as Satera calmly opened his eyes once more, rising from his meditative position and merely stared at the entity before him "Your show of force has failed, Spera, Alastir, you may think that by having defeated a large portion of our army that we would give up and surrender?" One chortled as he continued talking "You don't know the depts. of how long we took to plan this out, generation after generation, we were on the verge of involving you, but when we saw your actions after the destruction of Sigma, we threw that idea out of the window and decided to proceed with our plans anyways..." To One's annoyance, he saw that Satera was not phased by his taunts whatsoever "Huh, It seems that you aren't phased by my words, so I guess that I should give you an example of our far superior power!" Followed by this, One, II, and III lept up into the air, fist-like constructs growing over their hands as they intended to make their ambitions known to the Galaxy.

However, the Three Most Powerful Dark Gods would never have their fists impact Satera, as Asumar, Shimura, and Arctico surged forward, all three of them delivering gut wrenching kicks to the Unholy Trinity (What is referred to the Three Main Gods of Darkness) Causing then to be quite literally propelled feet away from them "You're ambitions shall never be known to this Galaxy, because you will not be allowed to rule over our home and destroy it from the inside." Shimura replied, slowly rising from the ground, his jade eyes staring deeply into One's void-filled eyes, Shimura's hair began to slowly rise up as his peaceful aura began to wrap around his body "This is the final battle that has been seen through the Immortal Prophecy, when the Fourteenth Sons of Light and Darkness shall be forever bound by a common goal, Survival, and that is the destiny of this battle, we shall survive against this onslaught and against all others that grace us, the bright age of this Galaxy shall begin anew, and so will the endless era of Strife come to a final end, never to plague us no more!" At this, Ryuichi and Kazuko approached and stood alongside the group once more.

Arctico let out a chuckle as he cracked his knuckles together, having transformed into his Ultimate Evolution State once more "Well, well..." Arctico took a step forward, and without even flinching, his aura burst to life in a combination of gold and crimson red "It looks as if the ground is reunited once more, it is about time." And with this, Arctico watched as XIII, the most recent God of Darkness move up to approach him "I've been waiting to let loose for a very long time, I hope that training my father gave me is worth it..." Arctico closed his eyes, calling upon the Power Cosmic, as his eyes opened, they turned black with small star like specks, and a white square indicating his pupil, his aura then shot up like a mighty explosion of energy, the vast knowledge and energy of the Power Cosmic being bestowed to him. Arctico then looked down to his hands in shock "This, is the power cosmic?!" Arctico didn't even need to be aware of the impending danger of XIII, as his body reacted almost suddenly, catching the Dark Gods fist in mid flight before he looked up towards XIII and sent him flying with a psionic burst of energy "Now this is what I'm talking about!" Arctico exclaimed with joy before he took off in pursuit of XIII.

"Let's do this!" Asumar cried out, back flipping away from two Primordial Daemons, jumping up into the air while in mid-stride, followed by swirling his entire body forward, two energy constructs crashing into the two Daemons, he then propelled himself forward towards VI, the two of them clashing with their fists, Asumar's face maintaining an expression of stern determination while VI stared at Asumar with downright disgust, how a mere demi-god such as him could lay a hand on a God of Darkness was beyond him, but Asumar was now able to keep up with his foe's movements, to see every step that the Dark God made, to be able to respond to an attack from the extremely powerful dark god, he was no longer weaker than VI, but he was getting stronger and stronger with each passing moment as his body connected with the Primordial Cosmic Force, the power that stemmed directly from the predecessors of the Immortals, a Cosmic Force that ruled unopposed in the Galaxy, the true guiding force that could not be hindered by no other, for all intents and purposes, this Cosmic Force was virtually invincible in it's home realm, and Asumar's body was getting increasingly accustomed to such a presence of such authority that flowed throughout his body.

[Anowa]

[Ignore this]

[The Rebel Alliances]

Ralph the Rat-16 Yrs-Gotham City

The loss could have been felt no matter where I happened to be. Max...was dead. And with him the Chaos Emeralds were once more released into the world. The closest one was in a place known as Gotham City, the place is dark, even during the day it seems, and has had its share of trouble in recent months. Although right now, the sun was long gone but it is hard to see the moon through the thick clouds in the sky tonight. The lights did not do much to penetrate the darkness and the defender of this city seemed to use the perfect guise for his job, that of a creature of the night. I stepped through the narrow streets and thought back to how I had parted ways with Ashley the Hedgehog a while back. After running into captain cold, she decided to go back to Mobius and continue racing with her extreme gear. So for now I am travelling alone. Clearing my senses, I focused on the presence of the chaos emerald as I lifted myself off of the ground in a telekinetic flight, rising to the roof tops of the residential neighborhoods.

Touching down lightly on one of the buildings, I could hear a alarm wail off in the distance from what appeared to be some type of Museum. Signalling that something was very recently stolen from the location. Plumes of smoke from chimneys filtered into the air as I made my way lightly across the skyline.

I searched the various directions for anything or anyone out of the ordinary. As I could feel that the emerald was nearby. It was then that I spotted a woman who held up a very bright yellow jewel in her hand, inspecting it in the dim moon light, turning it around softly and delicately as if being careful not to even smear its surface. Her leather clothing was skin tight and she had a pair of violet goggles which were pulled up to her forehead. A whip hung from her side as a black cat purred as it perched itself upon her left shoulder. Her fingers were tipped with what resembled the claws of a cat and her height was obviously far taller than myself, marking her between 5'6 or 5'8.

It was as I got closer to her that I realized that the sun flower colored jewel in her clutches was in fact the Chaos Emerald I had been searching for. Her cat took notice of me and then alerted the woman, where she spun around and at first had to look back and forth before she finally just looked down, as my short stature marked me as harder to spot at first.

"Oh, I thought you were the bat for a second there. Although...I am not sure what you are." The lad remarked as she placed the jewel in a pack which she placed across her back.

"My name is Ralph the Rat, I am a Mobian. And that emerald which is in your possession is a Chaos Emerald, it's dangerous and I will need that back."

She analyzed me before responding.

"Call me Catwoman. You know what they say. Finders keepers and all. So, I think I will just be holding on to this for now. Catch you later." AS she turned to leave, her bag opened up and the Yellow Chaos Emerald was lifted from it, as I used my psychic power to move it away from her.

"You can go wherever you like. Just not with this." I said as I reached out to take hold of the jewel. But her whip cracked out and slammed my gloved hand, I pulled it back in a quick shock.

"Now now, keep those paws where they belong." As I dropped focus on the jewel it fell and Catwoman was quick to retrieve it as she sprinted off of the roof top and out of sight.

I walked to the edge of the roof top and looked across, I could not see her, with her black skin suit and the abundance of shadows and hiding places. But as long as she has the emerald I should be able to track her.

"Well, some things never change..." I sighed, as I levitated off of the building and began my search for the thief.

[The Starlight]

-snip-

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She frowned at Doombringer. "Watch your tone, husband of Astrid. You and your son dwell here only by my lenience. Do not tempt my patience," she warned, looking up at the approaching slime creatures. She had no idea why Odin had allowed the Asgardian Godess of Magic to marry a Midgardian who could regenerate.

She next turned to Katie. "It was not I, nor do I have Mjolnir currently in my possession, though you may ask whatever you wish after this battle, should we prove victorious." Seeing several new arrivals along with Otis, she waved them over, or they traveled to her as the mustering horns were heard. "There is little time to explain, but welcome to Asgard. What you need to know is that today we face a potentially universal threat. They must be stopped here. These slime creatures can absorb most things, including planets and living beings." Valka said, the vanguard of Valkyries joining her as the rest of Asgard mustered themselves. Striding quickly towards the gap in their wall, the All-Mother's Valkyries followed her before Valka led them in a charge, summoning liquid metal and launching it one of the creatures to hopefully envelop it while the Valkyries started a bombardment with high powered energy staffs and cannons.

[New Rob Halfordia]

In a warehouse located Harlem, there was a strange activity. The warehouse had been more or less abandoned for years now, and was a hotspot for petty criminal activity, like drug deals, arms trading and as a hideout for various gangs. But, the current occupants weren't mere thugs, but instead members of the De Rege crime family, an up and coming, but powerful new mob in NYC. Each one was armed with an AKM assault rifle, an old, but reliable weapon, and one that was devastatingly powerful. They weren't there for arms or drugs, but instead were holding a hostage, a 23 year old girl. She was tied down to a chair in one of the warehouse's locked storage rooms, accompanied by a single guard, whom she glared at, leaned forward slightly. However, the glare was one of somebody who was annoyed, rather than angry. She suddenly smiled as the guard looked over to her, "I give you a second after he get's here, maybe two, if he's having a off day." She said, confidently. Right as the guard was about to retort, he found himself fading into unconsciousness, his head slamming into the ground. The girl gave a sly smile towards the figure standing where the guard once did, "Took you long enough, Everett. For somebody who can stop time, you seem to have a habit of showing up late.", she said, sarcastically.

The hero chuckled, "I had to help an elderly woman cross the street.", he said, in an equally sarcastic voice, before walking over and untying his girlfriend, Hayley. Getting up, she gave Everett a hug. Despite her own cockiness and sarcastic nature, she was still relieved to see Everett, and in knowing she was safe. The two embraced each other for but a few moments, before finally releasing each other, the hero turning around and making his way to the door. "Stay in here while I take care of them." Everett said, looking back at Hayley, who had both of her hands on her stomach. The hero smiled one more time, "I wouldn't want either of you getting hurt."

"Be careful." the girl said, slightly nervously.

As Everett nodded, his surroundings suddenly took on a blue hue, and time around him slowed to a halt. He approached the storage container's locked door, simply phasing through it as he walked. On the other side, he saw 20 armed men, all of their guns pointed at the door. They clearly heard the commotion in the storage crate, and were preparing to ambush. Everett sighed as he approached the first one, briefly unfreezing time as he delivered a brutal uppercut. On the second one, he hit the man's jaw with a incredibly strong right hook. He repeated this process on all the thugs, until each one had been hit.

Everett suddenly backed up, standing in front of all the mobsters. Satisfied, he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. Time returned to normal, and all of the men suddenly fell, knocked out cold. That's when, suddenly, a shot rang out. Everett heard it, but, it was two late. He dropped to the ground, the bullet having passed through his knee. He pushed an AK behind a one of the shipping crates in the warehouse, before freezing time. The pain in his leg was immense, and he was having trouble focusing on anything but the pain. After confirming the sniper's location, he made his way to the cargo crate and unfroze time. He would have to finish this with a gun, something he didn't like to do, but, accepted as sometimes being necessary. Lifting the AK, he stuck out his hand, baiting a shot. As expected, the sniper took a shot, and, directly afterwards, Everett tossed the AK out into the open, freezing time as it entered the air. The bleeding hero made his way to where he predicted it come, and unfroze time after crawling out to where it would land. Catching the AK, he took advantage of the surprise, lining up and taking a shot at the sniper. A direct hit.

With that, Everett passed out, his head hitting the ground. When he woke up, he was in his bed, his girlfriend standing over him. Before he could say anything, she spoke, "I did my best to patch it up. The bullet passed right through, so, I didn't have to take anything out. The police took care of everything else. I didn't stick around to talk to them, but, they assumed that there was some kind of gunfight, it was in the news." she said, before switching to a scolding tone, "I thought I told you to be careful. You should have looked around some more before exposing yourself like that!" she said, worried about her boyfriend's well being.

Everett smiled, "It's not the first time I've been shot."

[The Republic of Atria]

"Now I have a response. EWWW!" Otis replied slightly grossed out from the idea. backpedaling away from the slime woman. "No way, no how am I becoming someone else's lunch. Been there, done that, not doing it again. Sentient Jello is not the way I wanna go out!" He needed an idea and fast. The things were made of slime, from his experience with goo, it might as well be water. Hitting them wasn't going to work. He got an idea, but he wasn't too keen on hurting anyone. "Alright hammer... Umm... Yeah. What was that thing Thor does. Spin!" He shouted to himself, planted his back firmly against the wall behind him. "I've waited my entire life for this pun, I'M GONNA ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE!" He shouted, grabbing the leather strap at the base of Mjolnir and spun it as fast as he could, creating a powerful gust of wind. "I'm sorry! But y'all are being pretty rude! I have friends here! Friends who don't wanna be lunch!"

The wind was mildly effective. It managed to blow most of the smaller Xyrixmas back, sending the already chaotic battle-line into disarray. The bigger ones were able to resist it however, and the largest simply seemed to big for something like a gust of wind to matter a whole lot. But there was a downside to this, as the now very heavy smaller Xyrixma slammed into the walls of asgard like the balls of a cannon, they broke down the gate with their now magnified force.

The lead Xyrixma turned over. "Hey! What's your problem? Stop with the wind!" She shouted, and then attempted to backhand the inhuman into Asgard. Though, if she thought it through, she would realise it would likely unite him with the other defenders of asgard.

"Stop the wind? Now why would I want to do that? You're trying to eat my friends and friend's home!" He said intending to just take the backhand head on. It was slime. How much could it really hurt? Quite a bit as it turns out. He would have been killed had Mjolnir not increased his durability. He flew more into Asgard where he crashed and saw several others. The only one whom he recognized being Valka. "Hey Valka! I'm back to help! These slime things are stronger than they look." He said and rubbed his cheek. "Also. I have no idea how to fight living slime. I made a mini vortex and one of them got kinda mad at me. I could try and make another one around Asgard, but I'd need some serious speed and time to get it going." He explained.

XAnder and Naja: Empire

Naja and Xander flew north to the U.N. to get their country finally recognized as a real country. Xander had agreed not to say much lest he run the risk of losing his temper and patience. In either order. Already, the U.N. was discussing the massive plot of land that was given to the Kryptonians. And how it got there. The room fell silent as the two supers entered the room. They were immediately given the floor. "Umm... Hi. My name is Naja. This is Xander. We're here to talk about that plot of land you guys were just discussing. It's ours. Sorry we didn't say anything earlier. Things were kind of heated and we never really had the time. Anyways. It's a country that we've been working on for some time. And we want to make it official. We have people. Lots of them. And we intend to make our borders as open as possible." She explained.

"Anyone from any background is welcome. We already have population numbers, landmass, ambassadors, all that stuff. Hopefully we can open trade with all of you. We've got a bunch of stuff that everyone here could use. And we also intend to help smooth things out in the third world. All of our citizens are as physically capable as me or Xander. For right now, our human population consists only of Xander. We want to fix that. We have space. We have technology. And we want to share it with everyone on this planet. In my days as a hero. I've learned how all the aliens view us. They all have almost the exact same opinion. Primitive. But with incredible potential. These last few weeks have been hard on them. A war that nearly left them extinct. Had we not interfered, they would be dead. We showed our potential to them." She explained.

"We want to show them everything us Earthlings can be. The galaxy is a mess. It's not getting any better. We want to help make it a better place to live for everyone. We want to get humanity into the stars. Show them that we're not violent and primitive. That's our goal. And this is the first step. We are called Praetorians. All are welcome to Praetoria. Human. Mutant. Inhuman. You will not be looked down upon because of your past. We look towards the future. And the best that everyone can be." She gave her speech with all of her heart in it. When she finished, they were applauded. Even Xander was impressed. He couldn't have come up with that on the fly. Once the applause died down, they awaited the judgement of the political system. "If you have any questions. Please don't be afraid to ask. We'll answer it to the best of our ability."

The room filled with them. Naja picked one at random. "I have a few." One of the ambassadors said. "What are your military capabilities? How does one join your country? And do they all gain the same... Abilities you have?" he asked. "And what would you do in the event of a rogue member of your nation?"

"In order. I really don't know how to answer that. But we have like... a few hundred people who could give Superman a run for his money. As for joining. Well, you just ask. As long as you can be a functional member of society, that's about all we ask. They do. A small injection is given and the powers follow immediately after. Well. We have the capabilities to remove the power from anyone quite easily. After their power is removed, they'll be returned to their home country." She explained. "And, before anyone asks. The serum we use for the creation of our superpowered beings is... What's the word? Confidential. We have the means to produce and regulate it's use. Though it would be extremely difficult to reproduce without proper knowledge. We're not taking the risk of releasing it publicly." She explained. "Any other questions?" Most of the hands went down. They all wanted the know how to make the serum, but their welcoming of anyone from anywhere seemed to pursuade the U.N. to allow Praetoria to be a nation.

Which made Xander a very happy man.

[Arngeir]

As the battle raged in Asgard, an entity full of rage was nearing. If anyone bothered to look up, they would've noticed a bright, red light getting bigger and brighter by the second. A primal cry filled the air as the being flew low to the ground, slicing some of the creatures. The warrior in red planted his feet firmly in the ground, sliding to a stop and turning to see the damage he had done. To his surprise, there was nothing. On closer inspection, he saw that these beings were made of slime, which only made him angrier. The sword and shield in his hands, made of red light, grew brighter and stronger as his fury intensified.

If they looked at him, they'd probably notice that his armor was very similar to the armor of a Spartan or Roman soldier. The biggest difference would be all the red, as well as the symbol on his helmet. They'd likely also notice the red power ring on his right hand. A quick look and they would easily recognize him as a Red Lantern.

"What in the name of the Wild Gods are these things." he growled, his anger visible in his weapons.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

They came at night, while the ivory city slept. Thousands and thousands of beastlike maidens clad in scale armor as obscure as the abyss, the plates of black diamonds darker than the stewards of the spirit of the night. I was the only one awake as they approached, observing, ever watchful, but even then, their ghoulish armor caused them to blend in with the mantle of the moonless Shamran night, hiding them from my eyes, letting them march in shadow. They were not able to penetrate into the ivory city without revealing themselves, but by the time the torches surrounding the outer ring had the opportunity to cast their light upon the invaders, it was far too late. As if they had been aware of the exact moment when they gave their presence away, they shot forth towards the walls, scaling them with ease, their devilish claws tearing into the stone as if it was the soft flesh of a sleeping lamb. Soon there was more empty air than wall, and at that moment, the black maidens howled into the dry, cold air of the night, their roar echoing like the sound of thunder, with such power that the stone fell apart without objection. By then, however, we were ready, or as ready as we could possibly be before such a brutal siege. The horns of the city blared at my command, and I rallied the hundreds of thousands of wizards that inhabited the ivory city, leading them to stand against the invaders. The other eight lords, they joined me as well, brothers and sisters not in blood but in duty. However, it was to no avail, for the battle was a slaughter, and it was not us who shed the most blood. The black maidens were swift, and tore into our ranks with ease, cutting down countless magi in the time it took a man to breathe. Their nightmarish armor was such that nothing in our arsenal seemed able to pierce them, but even then, some of our magical weapons, and we had many of those, had the ability to bypass their armor and strike at their fragile, unguarded insides. It was thanks to these weapons, and thanks to the power of my brothers and sisters, that we were able to drive back the initial wave of invaders, but at an enormous cost. A few hundred enemies lay before us, broken but still complete, dead and yet untouched, but most of the wizards at my command had been annihilated, and the worst was yet to come. Another wave, even greater than the last, marched in through the breached walls, and this time, it was the nine of us who took the vanguard. The cruel Erlinmaar caused the enemies to sink into the ineffable abyss of darkness at her command, and Lucismaar smote them with bolts of light so bright that whenever she attacked, many of us believed that the break of dawn had come. Even my most hated brother, Isdragaar, joined arms with us, his inexorable waves of white mist freezing countless enemies in place, causing them to shatter moments afterwards. But it was to no avail. Unbeknownst to us, though many were the invaders who charged in through the walls, many more were the ones who remained behind, singing songs whose power I was wrong to underestimate. It was these songs that spelled our downfall, for these singing maidens, whose magic was individually far less powerful than our own, numbered in the thousands, and their choir of destruction overpowered us, slowly but surely. One by one, my brothers and sisters fell, and the last to be put on his knees, was I. I saw that accursed creature, Mirennú of the Dragon Lords as I would soon come to learn, and he threw us into a prison from which we would never be able to escape. The last sight that graced my eyes before I too was imprisoned was that of the black maidens slaughtering the last of the defenders of the ivory city, just as white fire rained upon the land like an apocalyptic starfall.

The Shattar fell that day, and Mireshar fell with us.
-Arnulgaar, Red King of Mireshar

Where Dragons Rule

A Rock Floating Around A Dismembered World

Oa was, indeed, a dismembered world. It was the place where the Lanterns had made their last stand when the Dragon Lords had come from beyond the darkest space, seeking to stop the endless tide of carnage and subjugation brought by the merciless invaders. The children of Maltus took to the field that day, their power far outshining that of their viridian paladins, Lantern and Guardian alike fighting against the all-consuming threat. But they were all erased in an instant, in the blink of an eye, when The Tyrant arrived. An all-powerful creature of pure horror stared at Oa, and as Oa stared back, it sealed its fate. When the slaughter was over, the world at the center of the universe was shattered into nineteen pieces that orbited around an artificial gravitational singularity carefully crafted by The Tyrant himself in order to keep them as a reminder of his victory over the Maltusians. The entirety of Oa's population had been completely annihilated by the leader of the Dragon Lords, or so it had appeared. Now, there was nothing noteworthy in that place, nothing that could possibly interest anyone in the universe, or so it was thought. Further, the devastation that The Tyrant had wrought in that place made it an unspoken rule to never venture near, if one could even travel freely; the area was thought to be cursed, irrational as that might have been.

It was precisely for this reason that it was the perfect meeting point for a pair of dissidents.

"Some place you've gotten yourself, sister!" Spoke one of them indignantly. The speaker seemed to be quite young, though her appearance was clearly not indicative of her true age, for reasons entirely opposite to the ones that would be given for a World-Dragon's looks not matching their age. After all, this was one of the eleven Dragon Lords, or more accurately, a lady. Born shortly after the disappearance of the previous generation of World-Dragons, none of the Dragon Lords were over five years old; yet, they hailed from the Dragon Force that had existed since the dawn of time, the same as their predecessors, and so, though their bodies and identities were young, their minds were ancient, and their knowledge great.

The emerald-clad figure, completely oblivious to the irony of the color of the attire she wore on that accursed location, sat lazily on a throne made of precious metals and adorned with precious stones, none of which were present on that dead rock, meaning that they had been acquired elsewhere; forced into reality by the will of the Dragon Lady herself, most likely. A frown of annoyance was on her face, her nails tapping the gold of her armrest rhythmically as she swung her legs forward at regular intervals, all of these symptoms of the impatience that was ever present on her mind.

"You complain too much, Astillis." The first Dragon's sister stated, her voice soft and apathetic, but not quite emotionless. Her attire was far simpler than her sister's, but equally as lavish, much like the golden tiara on her head. Unlike Astillis, the second Dragon Lady was standing on the shattered shard of what had once been Oa, gazing upon the rest of the macabre revolving puzzle with unparalleled attention. "Captivating, don't you think? The way this vista captures the true essence of our rule." Spoke the second Dragon with some sort of twisted affection.

"Your sick compulsion to study the destruction of our youngest brother has none of my interest, Irkallis! Why don't you tell me why you called me here already? I could be undertaking all sorts of interesting endeavors with my little part of the Empire instead of hanging out in this dead rock!" Astillis complained as she jabbed an accusing finger in Irkallis' direction, but the dark-haired Dragon Lady did not seem to acknowledge this; she did not even bother turning around.

"I take it you are discontent with our dear Tyrant's rule?" Irkallis asked suddenly, not turning her gaze from the artificial black hole. Astillis did not seem surprised.

"Humph. Well, obviously." The younger-looking of the two sisters replied. "What does he do? Destroy-destroy-destroy! He hardly cares about what we want to do, he only takes what he wants for himself and then scurries back to his sector, and if anyone disagrees with him they're either ignored or intimidated into shutting up. That's awful, you know? We may be the Dragon Lords, but he's the only one who gets to have his fun." Astillis complained. "I mean, look at this place! What do you make of it? It was a perfectly nice planet. It was ruled by a bunch of creepy old guys, but it had some interesting tech and it was chock-full of nice jewelry. But instead of just a little show of strength to knock them off their high horse, what does he do? He kills everyone and rips the whole thing apart." The viridian-haired girl fumed, slamming her pale fist into the golden armrest for emphasis, causing it to shatter, though her powers quickly forced it to reform itself. "And the worst part? He could easily cause all of our enemies to surrender and save us a lot of effort, but instead he stays in his little cosmic cave and lets us sort things out and crack our heads when things get too hard. Say what you will about our power, but Mirennú still hasn't managed to destroy the New Gods and Dar... Darcy... whatever his name is." She stated, crossing her arms and leaning back on her ostentatious seat.

"Yes, indeed, it is just as I thought." Irkallis spoke, and paused for a moment. "He is not fit to rule. He should be deposed." Astillis paled.

"Wha-wha-what?" She stuttered. "That's... you're completely, entirely, one-hundred percent sure that we're the only ones here, right?!" She asked, bewildered.

Still Irkallis refused to turn her gaze away. "It is as you say. There is no one." The dark-haired Dragon responded laconically. Astillis settled down, though her sister's next comment irked her. "It is strange, though. You worry about this after your rant."

"That's because I have the freedom to speak my mind, but I never talked about standing up to him!" Astillis shouted, pointing again, before sighing and leaning back. "...But, yes, he should be deposed. At this rate, he will either destroy the universe or at the very least go mad and kill us all. He's mad already, anyways. But not a single one of us is strong enough to fight him; not even all of us together. He... I have no idea how the hell he's so strong... to tell the truth, I don't even remember meeting him, only that he's always been there." The Dragon Lady rested her chin on her hand, thoughtful now.

"Yes. There is no guarantee beyond his might that assures he is our brother." Irkallis nodded. Astillis sighed.

"...Like I said, though, any sort of uprising is suicidal." She stated with some resignation.

"And what if I told you that there is a way to defeat him?" Irkallis said. Astillis did not seem entirely convinced about it, and looked at her sister suspiciously. It was only then that she seemed to believe that something was amiss in her sister's behavior, and the frown on her face was accentuated.

"Something bothering you, sister? You've been looking at that thing for far too long."

Irkallis nodded once again, and then began pointing at the different fragments of the shattered world. "One, two, three..." She spoke as she pointed to each of them individually, counting all of them and going in a full circle until, eventually, she found herself simply pointing downwards.

It was only then that Irkallis finally looked towards her sister.

"Eighteen."

---

---

Enforcer Headquarters, Ark

The planet of Ark had been created shortly after the enslavement and indoctrination of the race that became the Enforcers, created by The Tyrant himself with a wave of his hand, and was destined solely for the housing, outfitting and coordination of the Muses and Banshees that imposed the will of the Dragon Lords all throughout the myriad galaxies under their command. It was a hollow planet held together by the forces under The Tyrant's command, created that way so that there would be ample space for the Enforcers to live in. Yet, it had been left up to the Banshees and Muses themselves to adapt the planet to their needs. Thus, the mighty Banshees crafted the infrastructure of the world, while the powerful Muses procured the materials required with their magic. It was quite often that the Enforcers left on raids out of their own free will in order to acquire what they needed to turn Ark into an acceptable headquarters. Soon, there were tall metal structures dotting both the inside and the outside of Ark. But that was not enough. These Enforcers needed to eat, and so, they created farms and fields, and brought along several individuals from other races in order to force them to tend to these farms, creatures enslaved by slaves. However, the Enforcers were not entirely without support. Knowing that they may be needed in any point of the universe at any given moment, the Dragon Lords developed a portal matrix of sorts, regulated by complex machinery, that allowed the Enforcers themselves to program the exit point of a single, enormous portal at the heart of the planet, powered by the Dragon Force and manipulated by an intrincate mechanism that was quite difficult to master, though it was also a very useful tool, for whomever learned to utilize it.

It was to this place that the Muse leader returned after her successful campaign on Shamra. After speaking with the Dragon Lord Mirennú and being instructed to inform the other Muses that they were free to return, the Muse leader had lingered around the ruins of Mireshar a bit longer, for reasons quite private, before finally stepping through the portal that had been opened not far from the ruined landscape. As such, she had been completely alone at the moment of her return, pausing before the enormous gateway for a moment before stepping through at last, finding herself standing on Ark after just an instant. The enormous habitational complex of Ark soon greeted her eyes: tall grey buildings that would have seemed like they could pierce the sky, if only there had been a sky to pierce. Instead, however, there was another ground above, causing the impression that one was in an enormous, barely fathomable cavern; such an impression would not be mistaken, not entirely, for that was the inner side of the Ark.

The Muse leader walked. To an untrained observer, she would seem the same as any other, but to those who knew her, that is, to the other Muses and Banshees, she was clearly someone of a higher rank, one of the many lieutenants that commanded those who belonged in the lowest rungs of the Enforcers. There were little details in her armor, and in her helmet in particular, that betrayed her position, and every Banshee and Muse that came across her knew this so well that they were able to spot these differences with but a momentary glance, realizing who she was and immediately stepping away from her as if to allow her enough space to move comfortably without being bothered. Now, it was not that she came across other figures too often; those under her command were, naturally, housed in the same sector as her, and so, most of the Enforcers who would logically be nearby had all been present in the battle of Mireshar, and as such, they were all too exhausted to do anything other than head straight to their sleeping quarters and rest until their bodies had replenished all the energy spent. That was for the ones that survived, anyway; the ones that died in that battle, whether by the enchanted weapons of the Shamran wizards or at the hands of the nine Shattar, were not given any sort of honor after death, were not even allowed to return to the home that had been crafted for them. Their dead bodies were stripped of their armor, which was sent back to Ark to be stored for later use, and the corpses were left to rot in the fields, forgotten by the Dragon Lords, forgotten by the Banshees and Muses, and forgotten by the very enemies they had fought to annihilate, for dead men keep no memories.

There was a strange machine that seemed to descend into the ground, with a small terminal that had several slots present. The Muse leader stabbed her claws into them, and removed them after a moment. Her normally black claws were now coated in a translucent white substance that seemed to nullify their sharpness and their hardness, a substance that had been crafted specifically so that the Muses and Banshees could perform day-to-day activities when off-duty without accidentally destroying everything they touched in the process, as their claws were made of dragon fangs. It was quite the useful invention, and many of the Enforcers were thankful for it. Naturally, some had thought that it might one day be used against them, if acquired by an enemy faction, but there was a simple solution to that, too: there was a small change in its molecular structure, and now the substance burned easily.

The maiden in black armor then stalked off towards a different place, not heading towards her own residence yet. She walked at a leisurely pace, having no particular hurry beyond that dictated from within, as the crusade against the ivory city was now over, but her martial gait made it seem like she clearly had a very specific time and place to be. Regardless, it did not take her very long to reach her new destination, though this time, it wasn't so much the location as it was the ground. In front of her were a pair of parallel magnetic bands in constant movement in opposite directions, acting as if they were enormous conveyor belts of sorts: one could easily jump over one and onto the other, regardless of which side they were on, but they were still large enough to allow a pair of Enforcers to stand comfortably in the same horizontal axis. There were many such pairs all around Ark, in order to allow for simple transit from one part of the planet to another. They were currently empty, for the most part, and so, there was no one to bother the Muse leader in her short trip. Hopping onto the belt, she positioned herself expertly so that the sudden change in velocity would not knock her on her butt, and just like that, everything around her became a blur due to the high velocity of the magnetic band in relation to everything else.

Thankfully, she knew Ark like the palm of her... claw, and so, without even bothering to look to the sides, she hopped off. She had memorized the time it took for the bands to take her from the residential area to this place, and her count was impeccable, as she was exactly where she wished to be. The building that now stood before the Muse leader could most accurately be called a warehouse, with a small booth in front of it. There were many establishments like that one all throughout Ark, certainly many that were closer to her own residence, but this one was her favorite. She walked towards the booth. There was no need to stand in line, as it was not the hour when these locations were usually flooded with Banshees and Muses of all sorts, but the place was still forced to offer service at all times. Inside the booth- that is, behind the counter, was a terrified young girl, presumably human, who watched the Muse leader approach. There was a list, and she pointed at an item in it. The girl nodded, and quickly set to work. Really, there was not much to do: there were four different containers around her, and all she had to do was put everything together. From the first container, she took a plastic bag. From the second, she took a metallic cylinder. From the third, a small cardboard box, and from the fourth, a circular object wrapped in paper. She placed the last three objects inside the first and then handed it to the Muse leader, a process that took only seconds to complete.

The Muse took the bag from the girl's hand, the white coating of her claws preventing her from slicing right through it and spilling all of its contents on the ground. However, instead of turning around and leaving, she spoke. "Another." She commanded, her voice soft, yet full of authority. The girl jumped slightly, and nodded, repeating the previous process before handing the second bag to the Muse. This time, she nodded, and then walked back to the magnetic bands. She hopped onto the one that she had not yet used, and once again counted the seconds, before hopping off again, arriving at the exact same place she had been before boarding the belts for the first time, only a meter or two to the right.

With her desired items in hand, the Muse leader finally headed towards her abode. She penetrated into the gray complex, finding her way through the identical buildings before eventually walking into one and taking the elevator to the top floor. Once there, she walked past the rows of doors until eventually reaching the one at the very end of the hallway, a door that was slightly larger than the others, slightly more separate from the others than they were from each other. "Open." She spoke, and the metallic door seemed to recognize her voice, for it immediately slid into the wall, allowing her entry into the room. It was dark, and the lack of light caused her silhouette in the doorway to appear quite ominous. But this effect soon disappeared, as she walked inside and the door slid closed behind her, the lights activating. At that moment, the Muse leader removed her helmet, revealing her pink hair and red gaze, and placed it on a nearby table, before tossing one of the plastic bags into the room.

"I brought food."

---

---

Gotham City, Earth

---

The general nodded, even though there was no one with him to see it.

"I will forgive your outburst..." He spoke slowly, deliberately, coldly. "...and consider it." He stated, and then hung up abruptly.

Of course, such a thing hadn't been necessary, not at all. But if not like that, then how was he supposed to respond to The Runner's insolence? He was only doing the right thing in these times of tribulation, he was making the sacrifice that no one else was willing to make. He was the darkened face behind the insurrection, the one who planned while others went to die at his command, he was the devil- no, he was a measly crossroads demon, hoarding souls and trading them in exchange for his wish. He was the necessary evil that the Rebellion needed in order to succeed, their dose of foresight and intelligence, and of coldness and cruelty as well. Such a role was not easy to assume, but he had done it so that the sacrifice of those who had fallen before him would not be in vain, and he did not see why that was such a bad thing. Everyone under his command, every man, woman and- he paused- child knew that they were risking their lives by involving themselves with the Rebellion, but they all believed that it was a life better spent than if they remained under the yoke of the Dragon Lords, collapsing half-starved on the streets. It was true that, in the end, there was a very small chance that the Rebellion would succeed at all, but what did it matter? He was the only one trying. If there had been others...

"...But I'm letting the words of a scared man get to me." He shook his head. A scared man, yes, that was what the general thought of The Runner at the moment, a scared man. Perhaps he was being too unfair and hasty in his judgment, but on the other hand, was it unfair to call a man scared? In these times, blessed was the one who lived without fear, blessed with the gift of insanity. Every human under the rule of the Dragon Lords had permission, had the right to be afraid, what with the future so uncertain and the present so bleak. And besides, at no moment did General Graham think that Boxer wasn't doing his best to help his people. A scared man doing his best was perhaps an admirable thing; courage could not exist if there was no fear in the first place, and the truth was that the risk was great for those who dared to stand up against the Dragon Lords.

Finding himself in this train of thought, the general plopped down on his chair, idly passing his fingertips over his black eyepatch as he chuckled softly, alone in the command room. "Director Fury, sometimes I wonder, will I end up just like you?" He asked of the empty air in the chamber.

But in the end, such things did not matter. It had to be done.

...

The general walked down the streets of Gotham City. Darker than it used to be, for the dark times humanity traversed were such that not even the evildoers had the will to act anymore. Much like the Kryptonian and the Asgardian, but for entirely different reasons, there had been some 'villains' that had attempted to fight against the tidal wave of destruction, be it to preserve their autonomy or to protect the world that they sought to rule over. All of them had been crushed without fail. Both the Dark Knight, his entire League, and the warriors of evil that had once plagued the world were all dead now. Nowadays, nobody dared to do anything that could bring any attention to them, most preferred to live out their lives discreetly, suffering in silence. That was the reason that explained the emptiness of the streets of Gotham City, one of the reasons that the general fought.

He was, for the most part, unafraid to show his face. He was certainly notorious, as most men tended to have both of their visual organs, but aside from that, there was no reason to be afraid. There was no one who could, or in any case would, peg him as the infamous Eye of the Rebellion, mastermind behind the insurrection; he had been approached by the Enforcers several times in the past, and every single time they had left empty-handed. There was no reason to be afraid now.

After a relatively long walk, the general finally strode into the Ace Chemicals building.

[Charmera]

Asgard
Meanwhile Darian and Serene looked at the woman next to them with confused expressions. She was speaking as if they were familiar with each other, but it was clear they had never even met before. "Uh ya, who are you exactly? And why is your hair changing color if you don't mind me asking." Darian said to the woman, still quite confused about what was going on.

"Oh, I'm the living embodiment of colour in the universe. Like... all of it. Ever. Pretty sweet to be honest." She spoke with a smile. "I've been watching the two of you for a while now. Mostly out of curiousity. You see I love contrasts, and you two contrast quite nicely. An angel and a demon... that's not something you see every day."

-snip-

-snip-

-snip-

-snip-

-snip-

-snip-

She frowned at Doombringer. "Watch your tone, husband of Astrid. You and your son dwell here only by my lenience. Do not tempt my patience," she warned, looking up at the approaching slime creatures. She had no idea why Odin had allowed the Asgardian Godess of Magic to marry a Midgardian who could regenerate.

She next turned to Katie. "It was not I, nor do I have Mjolnir currently in my possession, though you may ask whatever you wish after this battle, should we prove victorious." Seeing several new arrivals along with Otis, she waved them over, or they traveled to her as the mustering horns were heard. "There is little time to explain, but welcome to Asgard. What you need to know is that today we face a potentially universal threat. They must be stopped here. These slime creatures can absorb most things, including planets and living beings." Valka said, the vanguard of Valkyries joining her as the rest of Asgard mustered themselves. Striding quickly towards the gap in their wall, the All-Mother's Valkyries followed her before Valka led them in a charge, summoning liquid metal and launching it one of the creatures to hopefully envelop it while the Valkyries started a bombardment with high powered energy staffs and cannons.

"Kewl. Trying to lift Mjolnir is definitely on my bucket list. Here's hoping I don't kick the bucket before I tick that one off." Remarked Katie.

---

"Gah! Yazzi! Help!" Shouted the slime being that was being attacked, about two buildings large. She took the brunt of the assault, groaning as she felt her insides begin to be fried by the energy. She was in luck though (And the defenders weren't) For another red slime being reformed her body and slipped between the other giants legs and stood before the barage of energy, soaking it in and growing slightly with each blast.

"You okay Jazx?" She asked.

"Yeah. Keep pushing. I'll catch up."

The red one nodded and then burped. Before annoy cpould realise what that expell of gas could mean, she discharged absorbed energy in a massive blast from her mouth. The laser aimed at the Valkyries and it's power equal to the combined might of the energy beams once sent against her.

The wind was mildly effective. It managed to blow most of the smaller Xyrixmas back, sending the already chaotic battle-line into disarray. The bigger ones were able to resist it however, and the largest simply seemed to big for something like a gust of wind to matter a whole lot. But there was a downside to this, as the now very heavy smaller Xyrixma slammed into the walls of asgard like the balls of a cannon, they broke down the gate with their now magnified force.

The lead Xyrixma turned over. "Hey! What's your problem? Stop with the wind!" She shouted, and then attempted to backhand the inhuman into Asgard. Though, if she thought it through, she would realise it would likely unite him with the other defenders of asgard.

"Stop the wind? Now why would I want to do that? You're trying to eat my friends and friend's home!" He said intending to just take the backhand head on. It was slime. How much could it really hurt? Quite a bit as it turns out. He would have been killed had Mjolnir not increased his durability. He flew more into Asgard where he crashed and saw several others. The only one whom he recognized being Valka. "Hey Valka! I'm back to help! These slime things are stronger than they look." He said and rubbed his cheek. "Also. I have no idea how to fight living slime. I made a mini vortex and one of them got kinda mad at me. I could try and make another one around Asgard, but I'd need some serious speed and time to get it going." He explained.

Katie was about to leave to fight when she heard Otis. The girl paused and then moved towards him. "I can help!" She paused and thought. "You're fast right? Well I have a cool thing where I can join with someone and make them even faster with my powers." She smiled. "Cora can help too! After all we could use help if anything goes wrong and they attack you." She spoke. She waited for Otis to agree or disagree with the plan.

---

Meanwhile, the last person summoned by the spell cast by Zaki was summoned. A green girl with a green ring. She gasped as she looked around. 'Wow. This place would give Oa a run for it's money in terms of architecture in view. Is this... Asgard...?" She then frowned when she noticed something at the edge of her vision. She walked to the edge of the wall she was on. She saw quite the sight. Slime people had punctured the outer wall and were now pushing into the city itself. More walls were being punctured, and more slimes could come flooding in.

[The Rebel Alliances]

Ralph the Rat-16 Yrs-Gotham City

It did not take long, tracing the power of the Chaos Emerald to find Catwoman, she seemed more annoyed than anything else. Although she had a hint of distaste on her face, as if she was about to take a shot that made her wince or something. She lightly tossed the Yellow Emerald over to me. "Better to cut my losses....tonight." And with that she was gone, as I placed the emerald in my own bag I began to feel that creeping feeling that I was being watched. I did not have to wonder however, as I glanced upwards at what had shocked me at first, standing upon a roof top above me, another Mobian toward over me. Gripping a Chaos Emerald in each hand, at first I let a feint smile slip forward, as I thought that he had come to help me gather the Emeralds, but the expression on the Mobian's face. Told me that he had his own motives. Although I had no time to ponder the question, as he simply said two words.

"Chaos Control!"

With the power of two emeralds he slipped through reality and teleported to my own back, sending a crushing kick into my spine as he warped around me in rapid secession, each time throwing a kick or a punch into me. Struggling to focus, I simply erupted with a blast of psychic force, in all directions psychic energy threw back anything in it's path in a small radius. Gaining me some form of distance from my target. The battle had taken to the skies, as I lifted myself up. Analyzing my opponent, the unknown attacker seemed to shift through the darkness beneath me, almost as if he were a part of them. But he did not seem to rise above the reach of the shadows without the use of Chaos Control. So, he cannot fly?

With that thought once more, he warped me to the ground and before I knew what was happening a solid blast of energy slammed into me. The blast hit with enough force as to separate me from my bag, and the Chaos Emerald went spiraling off into the distance.

"No!" Was all I could manage before he appeared before the glistening stone and hastily picked it up. Marking his own count as 3 Emeralds, and my own as nothing.

He was about to shift back into the shadows once more but was stopped from me lifting out a telekinetic punch which slugged him in the back of the head, causing his collapse. By now, our fight had been taken notice of and bystanders had begun to scream and run off into the distance.

Picking myself up I used my psychic force to pick up various odd objects around me, such as a soda can, loose screw and a rock as I threw these common items with bullet speed at my adversary. AS smaller objects can be propelled as far faster velocities. The Mobian countered swiftly by forming a large shield construct from the darkness around us.

So, this being can manipulate dark energy...an interesting ability. And whats more, unlike me, he seems to have mastered this ability of his. I began to project a force field around me to buy me some time to figure out my next moves. However, the young Mobian stared with empty eyes at me, as he simply stated...

"You dont understand, I need these Emeralds. The Black Doom is coming, there is nothing you can do to stop it. But if you join me, then maybe we can ensure the survival of New Mobius. I would think that a hero, dedicated to saving and protecting his world, would stop at no cost to ensure its survival." The words he spoke...they were desperate. And only the desperate could believe a thing that he said.

"Do...you actually believe that garbage? I do not know who...this Black Doom is. But I will find out, and when I do I will make sure that he never threatens another world with the powers that I am supposed to keep safe again!"

With the end of the negotiations, we both blasted back into the battle.

I began to channel power as I was hit by a sudden strike. Knocked off balance, I threw my eyes around to and fro. But I could not see the source of the attack. Then came another hit, this one put me on my knees. As I could hear my opponent taunt me from the shadows.

"They call me Shade. A accurate title as I can hide my own attacks within the shadows around you. Meaning that you will never see where I will strike from next. I cannot believe that someone like you managed to actually defeat and calm the spirit of Perfect Chaos."

He was right, I was lucky with that battle. Using the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Here, it is only me. My own abilities.

I needed to think, I need to focus. If I cannot see his attacks, then...I can still find him.

With three Chaos Emeralds with him, he is easy to spot. I can sense his presence. I then threw one open palm out and grabbed him in a telekinetic grip. His own shock was evident.

"But...but how?"

"I can sense you....the power of the Chaos Emeralds. I am linked to them." I was just about to rip the emeralds away from him, when all of the sudden the very sky seemed to open up. Tears in the fabric of reality occurred just as the darkness of the night was penetrated by a deep red void.

It was then that both of our attention was drawn to the event. As I watched hundreds....no....thousands, of alien like creatures which seemed to pour through the rifts like swarms of angry wasps. Shade was just as astounded as I was.

"It's...happening."

With that, the blasts from the aliens shattered around me, giving Shade the chance he needed to counter attack as his reinforcements arrived. He then materialized a massive blast of dark energy and crashed it into me, the pain shot from my own chest like a epicenter of a earthquake. And radiated throughout my limbs, with a very deep numbing sensation.

Dozens of the enemy surrounded me quickly, as Shade recovered and prepared to finish the job. As I battled my way back to my own feet, I saw that through the screams of the humans in Gotham, opposing this unprecedented invasion...

I am utterly alone.

[The Silhouette of Adventure]

"And the worst part? He could easily cause all of our enemies to surrender and save us a lot of effort, but instead he stays in his little cosmic cave and lets us sort things out and crack our heads when things get too hard. Say what you will about our power, but Mirenú still hasn't managed to destroy the New Gods and Dar... Darcy... whatever his name is." She stated, crossing her arms and leaning back on her ostentatious seat.

On the other side of the Universe, a massive boom-tube opened from the Negative Zone. Manifest strode forth, electricity sparking from his armour as he did. He idly glanced around. Boom-tubing out of the Zone is so inaccurate. Where am I? He turned around and, with a chuckle, found himself beside a long dead world. Ah, the Throne of the Universe. I cannot return quite yet, throne. Not quite yet.

He turned around once more as Annihilus's flagship entered the Universe. Manifest summoned a small datapad, a design stolen from the Oans before their demise, and entered the flagship. "Alter your flightpath approximately 20 by 8 by 63 degrees to begin our approach to New Genesis, Annihilus. After the subjugation of New Genesis, Apokolips will follow."
Annihilus, having been humbled by Manifest several times before, simply followed his orders in silence.

[[Next post will be fall of NG, post after that will be fall of Apokolips]]

Gotham City, Earth

---

The general nodded, even though there was no one with him to see it.

"I will forgive your outburst..." He spoke slowly, deliberately, coldly. "...and consider it." He stated, and then hung up abruptly.

Of course, such a thing hadn't been necessary, not at all. But if not like that, then how was he supposed to respond to The Runner's insolence? He was only doing the right thing in these times of tribulation, he was making the sacrifice that no one else was willing to make. He was the darkened face behind the insurrection, the one who planned while others went to die at his command, he was the devil- no, he was a measly crossroads demon, hoarding souls and trading them in exchange for his wish. He was the necessary evil that the Rebellion needed in order to succeed, their dose of foresight and intelligence, and of coldness and cruelty as well. Such a role was not easy to assume, but he had done it so that the sacrifice of those who had fallen before him would not be in vain, and he did not see why that was such a bad thing. Everyone under his command, every man, woman and- he paused- child knew that they were risking their lives by involving themselves with the Rebellion, but they all believed that it was a life better spent than if they remained under the yoke of the Dragon Lords, collapsing half-starved on the streets. It was true that, in the end, there was a very small chance that the Rebellion would succeed at all, but what did it matter? He was the only one trying. If there had been others...

"...But I'm letting the words of a scared man get to me." He shook his head. A scared man, yes, that was what the general thought of The Runner at the moment, a scared man. Perhaps he was being too unfair and hasty in his judgment, but on the other hand, was it unfair to call a man scared? In these times, blessed was the one who lived without fear, blessed with the gift of insanity. Every human under the rule of the Dragon Lords had permission, had the right to be afraid, what with the future so uncertain and the present so bleak. And besides, at no moment did General Graham think that Boxer wasn't doing his best to help his people. A scared man doing his best was perhaps an admirable thing; courage could not exist if there was no fear in the first place, and the truth was that the risk was great for those who dared to stand up against the Dragon Lords.

Finding himself in this train of thought, the general plopped down on his chair, idly passing his fingertips over his black eyepatch as he chuckled softly, alone in the command room. "Director Fury, sometimes I wonder, will I end up just like you?" He asked of the empty air in the chamber.

But in the end, such things did not matter. It had to be done.

...

The general walked down the streets of Gotham City. Darker than it used to be, for the dark times humanity traversed were such that not even the evildoers had the will to act anymore. Much like the Kryptonian and the Asgardian, but for entirely different reasons, there had been some 'villains' that had attempted to fight against the tidal wave of destruction, be it to preserve their autonomy or to protect the world that they sought to rule over. All of them had been crushed without fail. Both the Dark Knight, his entire League, and the warriors of evil that had once plagued the world were all dead now. Nowadays, nobody dared to do anything that could bring any attention to them, most preferred to live out their lives discreetly, suffering in silence. That was the reason that explained the emptiness of the streets of Gotham City, one of the reasons that the general fought.

He was, for the most part, unafraid to show his face. He was certainly notorious, as most men tended to have both of their visual organs, but aside from that, there was no reason to be afraid. There was no one who could, or in any case would, peg him as the infamous Eye of the Rebellion, mastermind behind the insurrection; he had been approached by the Enforcers several times in the past, and every single time they had left empty-handed. There was no reason to be afraid now.

After a relatively long walk, the general finally strode into the Ace Chemicals building.

Strangely, the lobby of the Ace Chemicals building was entirely empty. Those who had been in the memorable place before would know that it was smaller than before, but such alterations weren't unusual of a former Muse base of operations. After a brief moment, a metallic voice suddenly called out, "Hello, Sir. You've been expected." The voice was reminiscent of the Brother Eye tech of old, but that was impossible. Right?

Regardless, almost immediately after the machine said that, the hard-light hologram that was the walls of the lobby shut down, revealing 20-odd fully armed soldiers with ready weapons, as well as Cassandra Cain (in her Black Bat costume with the mask ripped off) and Damian Wayne, in his League of Assassins outfit. "This is the right guy, right Runner?" Damian remarked snidely. "One-eye here is kinda scruffy."
"Shut up, Damian." Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Lower weapons." She turned around, motioning towards the soldiers to follow her orders, and then to the General to follow her. She entered an elevator that had been behind the hologram as the soldiers began returning to their previous positions with military efficiency.

Once the General had passed through the barrier where the hologram was before, Damian called out, "Reinstate security grid Alpha-Zero-Charlie. Activate guest protocol Tango Oscar Romeo Four." Should the General happen to have been glancing at Damian when he said this, he would find that the young Wayne was speaking into a hidden communicator on his wrist. "And someone get Logan something to punch. He's getting angsty."

Anything further would be cut off after the elevator doors closed and it began moving upward.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Kirisvala scratched her head (carefully, so as to avoid damaging her hair or her skull) as she mulled over the question, wondering if she did indeed have something like what Mars requested in her magical arsenal. Finally, she found the answer and took a deep breath before responding to the question.

"Nope." She said sincerely. "I have nothing like that. If you wanted me to, I could burn them, but they would scream so that would probably not work very well. And if I throw magic blasts at them, the whole forest will hear us, so that's not a good idea either." She said, placing her fist under her chin, clearly thoughtful. "If what you want is to take them out without being hit then my magic can protect you from any attack, but if what we need is stealth then I think the most I could do would be to cover them in crystals so that they can not speak or move anymore." She offered.

"In the end, if what you need is only a distraction, then perhaps I could just sing?" She gave a bit of a sheepish smile. "My singing tends to distract humans, I've noticed. We Hadrians happen to have that gift." Dragon Mage nodded, before looking towards both Mars and Red Arrow, waiting for an answer.

---

---

---

Eternal Night ceased her attack as she heard the rallying horns of Asgard sounding behind her. She had apparently succeeded at least partially in driving back the looming tides of goo and death, but as she heard the horns, she decided that it was better to head off to meet whomever it was that would lead the defense of Asgard against this peculiar threat. She was quite surprised, however, to see that, instead of Odin, it was a young-looking blonde woman. Of course, she was well aware that Asgardians aged more slowly than human beings; whether this universe's version of the Norse Gods owed this longevity to their own genetics or to the golden apples of the goddess Idunn, she did not know, but then again, that was hardly the most important thing at the moment. Strolling towards the All-Mother of Asgard, the masked woman stopped a few steps from Valka, keeping a respectful distance.

"Potentially universal threat..." The Nameless One mused to herself after hearing the debriefing, chuckling as she caught herself wondering if this was the threat that the Herald of Naught had spoken to her about. However, that was unlikely. These creatures did not seem particularly bloodthirsty, they only wanted to eat, a bit like that planet eater she supposed, what was his name? Galactus. Though she suspected they didn't give anything back.

Looking towards the All-Mother, she spoke. "Pardon my curiosity, but is Asgard not supposed to be ruled by a cool old man with one eye and a beard?" She asked. She then noticed that one of the slime women attacking Asgard had absorbed the energy of the weapons of the Valkyries and had released an enormous, concentrated blast back towards them. Frowning slightly beneath the mask, Eternal Night abruptly raised her hand.

"Abyssal Maw." She spoke, and all of the sudden, an enormous wall of darkness rose from the ground, forming into the shape of an enormous beast's mouth. The abyssal maw devoured and swallowed the entirety of the blast before disappearing, protecting Valka's Valkyries from it.

"These enemies are quite bothersome." She sighed, before launching another train-sized torrent of darkness towards the red Xyrixma.

---

---

Yet it turned out that, rather than utterly alone, Ralph was utterly wrong. It had not been evident at first, for the entirety of his battle against Shade went on without any outside intervention. Still, he was not alone, and the first indication of this was the distant shout that reached his battlefield.

"Power Shift: Runic Core!"

Then, lightning bolts began to shoot forward, striking at or at least distracting the dark Mobian and the armies of the one called Black Doom. If nothing else, the lightning bolts at least stopped them from striking down Ralph, which was more than enough for the time being. Soon the thundering ceased, and instead, a new figure appeared all of the sudden, rushing past the invaders surrounding the telekinetic rat, coming to a stop next to the fallen guardian of the Master Emerald. It was only then that the figure became visible. Clad in red and silver armor and wielding an ornate greatsword, the stranger looked fairly menacing.

That wouldn't last much longer, though.

"Walking animals fighting each other for jewelry. Now I've seen it all." Came a female voice from within the armor. Suddenly, the helmet seemed to split down the middle, and the horned halves slid down in order to form into shoulderpads, leaving the face of the newcomer fully visible. Blonde hair and emerald eyes greeted all those present, along with a confident expression. "Now then, I have no idea who you guys are or what you want, but I know that you're causing a lot of trouble around here, and I'll have none of that. Everyone's been working too hard to keep Earth safe for the past few months and you think you can just come along and ruin it? Don't think so." She said, pointing her sword at the one called Shade.

However, rather than spring into action immediately, she looked down at the fallen rat. She had seen him try to fight off the black coyote, he definitely seemed helpful. Extending her index finger towards him, she jolted him, energizing him and filling his cells with power so that he would begin recovering faster, his stamina replenished. "I don't know who you are, either, but it looks like we're on the same side here." She smiled at Ralph.

Then, charging her sword for a moment, Etla released a dozen lightning bolts at the enemies in front of her.

[Anowa]

-snip-

-snip-

Anthony Cross/The Eternal Wanderer
As I floated through the soul sucking abyss of the void between universes I thought of one thing: How to kill the geneticist who engineered Adamantium shelled crabs. Mostly because he was an asshole for creating such an unkillable abomination, and mostly because he made me so angry when I died, that I forgot where to focus on my reincarnation, so instead of waking up in my bed, I woke up in black beyond black, and a silence so loud my ears hurt. I sighed knowing I'd have to start my life over for the umpteenth time, after that asshole couldn't keep his own experiments contained.

I felt my body ripple a bit, and suddenly I was thrown from the void at an unhealthy speed, I materialized about three kilometers above a planet, one that looked startlingly like Earth. The fireball of reentry took me, and the sweltering heat of the vent made me rather uncomfortable, after a few dozen seconds I had slown to my terminal velocity, and was now sailing quite slowly towards the ground, or rather a city. I braced for impact as I reached the city's skyline. The resulting crash was loud, louder than the sound of my left shoulder dislocating and my groans of pain. "You couldn't have thrown me into space? Or at least a hospital? Fuck me..." I rolled over onto my back and sat up, grasping my shoulder as I did. With a loud pop I shoved it roughly back into place. The dust that was kicked up from the impact slowly settled, revealing that I was in fact surrounded by buildings and a large crater. I certainly hoped I didn't squish anyone.

I plodded my way out of the crater, only to see a mass amount of rifts opening up and some odd, black creatures pouring out, a fair distance down the street I spotted a few of said creatures surrounding a...Rat... Honestly I shouldn't be surprised anymore. With the rat was an armored crusader of sorts Judging from the obscene amount of screaming coming from around the city, I figured I'd fallen into a good opportunity to save the day. A situation I was honestly getting tired of. Seeing as they were the only form of sapient life within my sight I decided it would be best to help them.

With a decent spring in my step I hopped over to them, and landed on a black creature, black ichor splattered all over my legs, but I paid it no mind. My posture slackened a bit after I realized they probably wouldn't speak any language I knew, "I don't suppose either of you speak English?"

[The Starlight]

-snip-

She looked upon the woman who had arrived, and yet had not given her name. But this was no time for introductions, and she allowed a brief nod and smile. "Indeed, Asgard has been ruled by one-eyed Odin Borson for millenia. But in the Last Great Ragnarok, before the End of All Things, Odin fell in battle. I, Valka Silverhand, by Odin's commandment, became All-Mother. So it has been since." she said.

Valka, right about to raise a shield before Eternal Night took care of it, nodded her thanks, as the Valkyries considered their assault as the Einherjar and other warriors began to converge upon their area. "Indeed they are," she said in agreement, looking at Oathbringer which was around 5 or 6 feet in length. Looking at the size of the slime warriors, she shook her head, holding out a hand, the giant Odinsword which was at least 9 feet in length appearing, all the Valkyries behind her backing up a bit. Bending her knees, she jumped in a powerful bound, slashing at the other Xyrixma at the speed of light, zipping around it as the Valkyries focused most of their energy cannons upon it.

[The Starlight]

Previously in Renascence Eternal... And so it was, upon that day, Valka Silverhand, All-Mother of Asgard, died.

Valka Silverhand
Renascence Eternal - Descent into Hell

In the midst of a battle that had raged on for months, Brunnhilde felt the call of the slain. The All-Mother had morphed the Valkyries into a group of female warriormaidens, but she had never been able to rid herself of that title: chooser of the slain. And now she felt that whispering, cold call of death that could not be ignored anymore. Summoning her Pegasus, she forged a path for herself with blood, not heeding the calls of the Asgardians as she rode to the World-Tree. Circling the area, she saw a prone, still figure, and she dismounted, her blood running cold. For there laid Valka Silverhand, the one upon whom all of Asgard's hopes lay, and she was dead. Her own sword was bloody and the Valkyrie looked around for enemies, and found none. "Why have you left us, Valka? What made you do this?" she murmured, as she lifted the body, preparing to carry it to the halls of Valhalla.

"We shall speak of thee in our halls," she said, beginning the rites of the dead. "Our children shall be taught of Valka the Eternal whose lamp is no longer with us. We shall write thy name upon the Wall. Truly, you were mighty. Truly, you were All-Mother, and we children shall be lost without thee. What called you away, Silverhand, what called you to that shining realm of warriors? Asgard shall remember. This is the rite of the slain. Never forget. Always remember." she said. Wrapping Valka in her cloak, she prepared to carry her away, before a voice sounded in her head.

"Cease, child. The story of Valka Silverhand is not done. And what she must do cannot be done in those great halls of Valhalla. Nay, Valka must descend into Hell itself."

"No!" Brunnhilde shouted. "That which descends into Hell cannot be reborn! She will be lost, forever, wandering in Hell. The All-Mother has a great many enemies she has sent there, and they will not hesistate to make her afterlife Hell."

"You forget yourself, child. We speak of Valka Silverhand. She who speared the tyrant Darkseid in the eye and then hammered it in with Mjolnir, she, who cast Zeus' broken body upon Olympus after a battle of five days and five nights. Valka, who returned from a battle beneath the stars against an ancient foe victorious, Valka, who inspired a free universe, Valka, who drew a hammer to her from a galaxy away. Have faith in your All-Mother, child, and I, and it shall be rewarded. Leave the body here, for Valka shall return." Yggdrasil whispered into the mind of Brunnhilde, who looked upon Valka once more and set her down, departing to battle once more.

---

The All-Mother of Asgard awoke, with Oathbringer in hand. Getting up quickly, her eyes adjusted to the red all around, and then, she realized where she was. And it was no place that she had ever wished to visit. Muspelheim, realm of Surtur, one of Odin's and now her greatest foes. The very air here was supposed to be toxic, and yet, it had no effect on her, looking down at herself. She had the same body, senses, and yet, something was different. She was outside of her body somehow, and she only had a mind and a soul now. Along with a sword, an orb, and a scale. And, Valka checking to make sure, her powers as well, as power lay within her being and not her body.

Soon she heard many footsteps, and a sizzling of fire. The Fire Demons had come. They examined her curiously, hissing and speaking to each other in their tongue, before her scent was smelt. Though, how she had a scent, with this being only her soul and mind, she knew not. "Asgardian!" one hissed out, their eyes beginning to glow. "Correct," Valka said, quite cheerily. "The name's Valka, Valka Silverhand. I presume you good Demons have heard of me?" she asked, a twinkle in her eye. Shouts of rage echoed all around her in this realm of fire and brimstone, for she had slain many of them, many times. "You...die!" the one who had smelt yelled, Valka raising an eyebrow. And then there was a flash of metal, the All-Mother not even seeming to move, the Demon who had condemned her to death toppling to the ground, his head gone. "Who's next?" she asked, before being engulfed with an assault of flames, which the Demons kept up for quite awhile, Valka cleaning her sword calmly in the meantime. Once they finished, she looked up again. "All of you, I suppose." Oathbringer flashed about a dozen times and she was alone once more.

Hearing pounding footsteps that she recognized all too well, she sat upon a nearby stone, awaiting him. The Lord of this realm, King of Fire Demons. And he came, his sinister laughter chilling her soul despite the fire all around. "You did not expect to find yourself here, did you, All-Mother?" he mocked. "When the news circulated that you had been slain, Hel agreed to allow me, and many others to have a few hundred years to torment you. You have made many enemies here, little Asgardian, for your putting down of the Gods of the Underworld and Hell. Only doom remains. And though I am surprised that your precious Valkyries did not bear you off to your little version of Heaven. But before we begin, do tell me, who was it that slew you? For I wish to congratulate them!" he said.

Valka made no reply, quietly sharpening her sword upon a whetstone, the sword getting even sharper than it normally was, while she processed this news. It was both good and bad, for she would have trouble finding her way to her own, Asgardian Hell, but, none knew the true manner of her death nor her motives.

Surtur peered down upon her, shrugging. "I suppose I shall have to find that out when your torture begins. Which is now, by the way," he said, summoning his giant sword and setting it aflame, before bringing it down upon her. She looked up, holding a hand up, sighing. "When will you learn, Fire Demon King? A metal sword? A metal sword? And as for the flames," she said, snapping her fingers, the flames disappearing as well. "And so the lesson begins, oh King. What you possess is a perversion of true fire, your hellfire. It burns all that it touches, and is volatile at the touch," she commented, pointing to his blackened hand as evidence. "True fire burns its enemies, but not its wielders. You have no true mastery over true flames, King, and I have no mastery over your accursed hellfire, thus why neither of us are able to control each others fire for long," she explained quite patiently as the flames upon his sword reignited. "But this contest of ours isn't really fair, because of metal. All metal is mine, Surtur, all of it. Yours possesses many impurities, but it is what it is," the All-Mother said, clenching a fist, the sword of Surtur breaking in twain. "Now, enough of talking, she said," holding Oathbringer up to her eye and seeing it gleam.

Jumping to her feet, she raced around Surtur as he shot fire at her, Valka landing several slices as she went, the cuts being more painful with the Valkaforce. And then, summoning two swords, she began to climb up his body, using the two swords as both handholds and weapons as she stabbed into his rocky skin over and over again. Then, reaching his stomach, she summoned Oathbringer and, using two hands, stabbed him in the heart with a yell while all of Surtur's subjects watched in shock. Landing, she began to walk away, planning to look for an exit. However, she frowned, and turned back, expecting the Fire Demons to be charging at her in revenge for their fallen kings. Her eyes considerably widened, however, at the giant sword that was coming down upon her, Valka diving to the side just before she was split in half.

"You should be dead!" she exclaimed, looking up at the chuckling Surtur. "I stabbed you in the heart!"

"You know so little of Fire Demons, All-Mother. None of us have hearts. That was a very nice tickle, by your toothpick, but you will have to do better than that." he said, the air growing hotter around him. Valka, growling, rushed him again, and there in the pits of Muspelheim, a Demon and a Mother fought. This fight was longer than all the ones before it, for they were surrounded by their element of fire, and there was plenty of it. Despite the boasts Valka had made, she fought for her life, upon that day, or perhaps it was night, for she could not tell. But while Surtur fought for vengeance, she fought for another, other than herself. She fought for a daughter whose name she did not know, and that fact awoke a fire within her and finally, after they had fought in the midst of volcanoes and pits, Valka cast the King into the deepest pits of his realm.

He would not be dead, Valka knew that, but the Fire Demons, Valka turning to face them, did not. "By the ancient rites of combat, and by the slaying of thy king, I should be queen of thee. But I have no need of thee, Fire Demons, and I doubt thou hadst need of me." Valka said, accessing her cosmic power and attempting to teleport to Hel. But as her form disappeared in a shimmer of light, and reformed, Valka found herself in a place that was distinctly not her Hel. That much was obvious by the animal carvings and pictures of human sacrifices. By this she deduced that this underworld was Mictlan, of the Aztecs. Looking around, and deducing that none had neared this position for a long time, she summoned the Worldscale again. If she was to travel the respective underworlds of all the pantheons, then uru armor, by itself, would not suffice. The uru armor that she wore now was simply a manifestation of her mind, along with her blue cloak, as her actual body and clothes laid somewhere in Hel.

Hadrimmelis had said that her scale was a bit larger than the continent of Europe, Valka however, would need far less to make her own armor. Creating a small forge of metal, and a small fire, she began her work, bringing both hammer and magic to mold the scale. Long was her work, and soon enough, the rhytmic, timed blows of her forging hammer, and the flickering fire in which she bent the scale to shape attracted some of the dwellers of Mictlan. Screaming war cries, they charged, makeshift swords of bone held high. Valka, leaping over the forge, launched fire at them, and then the ground, creating a ring of fire around her and the small forge.

But fire cannot burn the undead and so they walked through, Valka, calling Oathbringer to hand, found other ways to obliterate them. And when they were but dust, she returned and continued forging, molding the stubborn scale of a World-Dragon. And though she was already weary, she refused to let her eyes droop, for there were none who could be trusted here.

None know how long it took the All-Mother to forge this fire in the deepest pits of Mictlan but the All-Mother herself. Several times the Worldscale had almost expanded, which would have collapsed the cave she was in, along with most of Mictlan. Few metalworkers could have completed such a work while under constant attack by the undead and all sorts of creatures, but she was more than just a metalworker, more than a forger. She was the Master of both, and eventually, she taught the Worldscale that it was she who would have the mastery over it.

Beholding the completed armor, she attached her tattered and scorched cloak to it, ringed by the fur of some beast that she had slain. Beneath the armor lay a black mesh body suit of uru, not unlike that which Brunnhilde the Valkyrie wore. Melting down her tools and the forge, which were both completely comprised of metal, she set off, Oathbringer held in her gauntlets, Valka knowing that she would use it.

And indeed she did, for it seemed that the King and Queen of this Hell did not want her to leave, and they sent wave after wave of their minions and undead upon them. But Valka's sword was keen and her eyes sharp, and so she slashed her way through countless armies and souls with only one thought one her mind: I have a daughter. That was her drive now, all that she had left and so, when Mictlantecuhtli, and his wife, Mictecacihuatl (being the Lord and Lady of Mictlan), arrived clad for battle, Valka slew one and left the other without a hand.

And so her quest continued, for she had tried again after conquering Mictlan, to teleport out, but found herself in another hell, one which she bothered not with finding out its name. And if she would have to fight her way through every single incarnation of Hell, Valka thought, so be it. And indeed, it was so. Irkalla, Annwn, Sheol, Duat, the underworlds of the Babylonians, Celts, Christians, Egyptians, through all of them she fought. For where there was a pantheon, there was a heaven, and a hell, for followers and unbelievers. So it was with the world. And there are many pantheons of religion upon Earth. All of the names of the hells Valka fought through cannot be named, nor should not, for names have power.

But know this. As she slashed her way to save her daughter's soul, a legend was born, one that would keep the sanity of the slain as they suffered in eternal fire. Of a woman, a mother, girded in armor forged from the scale of a World-Dragon, with a sword that could blaze hotter than the fires of hell. She walked upon flames unhallowed and stones unbroken. She had clawed her way through every single Earthen hell. She had slain many gods and goddesses of Hell and Death. She had looked upon Satan, Lucifer, the Great One, even the very heartbeat of Tartarus and had not quaked in fear. She was pulled into the Pit of Tartarus and rose out of it with nary a scratch in a mighty climb, for so unquenchable was her desire. She cast Surtur into the fires of Muspelheim. She trod paths in darkness that others dared not speak of in day, if day existed in hell. Her eyes blazed and her brow was fair, her hair reflecting golden upon the never-ending flames. Her hand gleamed silver, and her face seemed perpetually frozen in a face of calm despite chaos and battle all around. Gods and monsters and demons ran at the mere mention of her name. She could not be stopped, she would not be stopped. She was legendary. She was a mother. She was Valka Silverhand, and she would not be afraid.

From her, hope was born for those wretched denizens of Hell; for she was not broken by Hell, but was its breaker. All those sinners knew now was a life of pain and punishment and hellfire. Can we truly begrudge them this little hope? In their lives of eternal damnation, hope had finally come. They all heard the tales of Valka the Slayer, or Valka, Conqueror of Death, as they called her. The Asgardian had escaped from many, many hells, was it too much to hope that they might one day taste freedom and feel the sun upon their faces once again? Where there is hope, there is life. But where there is life, there is death, and rebirth as well, and so the Wheel of Time rolls on.

But this is not a story of hellfire, nor of broken sinners. Nor is it a story of Those Who Sit Above in Shadow. This is a story of battle and scales. This is a story of mothers and daughters. This is a story of death, and life, and renascence.

The All-Mother had descended into Hell, and having conquered death, now, she would rise.