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

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Seeing Craig's reaction to her request, Etla smiled weakly, happy that he seemed to have caught on to her train of thought so quickly, and also happy that she had figured out how she could start helping him. She realized that for someone as weakened as he was, asking for blood like that might have been a bit too much, but she hoped that it would allow her to help him fix his heart. After all, a single drop would likely have been enough for her Core to be able to synthesize a mutant's powers, and it was precisely his genes which gave Craig his powers. Thus, she didn't expect him to run off somewhere and then return with a syringe full of blood, though she could at least be certain now that it would work. After all, a syringe with the Sentry Serum had become the Sentry Core and allowed her to gain all the powers of Alex and Naja. So why wouldn't a syringe of Craig's blood give her his powers?

It was with this in mind that she, ignoring the donuts, pressed the syringe against her chest, which seemed to shine softly with a glow that engulfed the syringe and part of her hand. She pulled out her now empty hand afterwards, and suddenly, she felt completely different from before. She felt a connection to all the technology nearby, and though there was no change in her Core's prodigious information processing power, she now had a bounty of information inside her head which she could draw from in order to come up with a solution to her lover's problem. Furthermore, since the Core in her center was technology in some sense of the word, she could understand it now, far better than she had ever been able to in the past, and so, she now had nearly all of the information she needed in order to save Craig. Now she just needed to put her mind to work and build what she needed, and it would all be alright.

"Craig, it worked! I can solve everything!" She said excitedly, ignoring the fact that there were visits now as she gave him a fugacious kiss and then ran downstairs, munching on her chocolate donut as she went, until she was where she needed to be. Some of the employees present looked at her oddly, but many more simply neglected to pay her attention up until she spoke.

"Alright, everyone! I'm going to need the smallest generator you can get your hands on, some vibranium and a lot of microprocessors. Oh, and a few books about anatomy and medicine." She stated. Most of the employees simply stared at her confusedly, save for a few who recognized her and immediately set to fulfilling her requests, knowing better than to disobey such a close friend of their boss, though they didn't have such a good idea of how close a friend she was. Etla stared at those who weren't moving, and one of them spoke up.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" He asked meekly.

"I'm the lover and savior of your boss, so if you want him to continue being your boss for the foreseeable future, you'll start moving." She stated.

She had to say nothing more, and simply munched on her chocolate donut as the employees brought her everything that she needed.

[Charmera]

---

Seeing Craig's reaction to her request, Etla smiled weakly, happy that he seemed to have caught on to her train of thought so quickly, and also happy that she had figured out how she could start helping him. She realized that for someone as weakened as he was, asking for blood like that might have been a bit too much, but she hoped that it would allow her to help him fix his heart. After all, a single drop would likely have been enough for her Core to be able to synthesize a mutant's powers, and it was precisely his genes which gave Craig his powers. Thus, she didn't expect him to run off somewhere and then return with a syringe full of blood, though she could at least be certain now that it would work. After all, a syringe with the Sentry Serum had become the Sentry Core and allowed her to gain all the powers of Alex and Naja. So why wouldn't a syringe of Craig's blood give her his powers?

It was with this in mind that she, ignoring the donuts, pressed the syringe against her chest, which seemed to shine softly with a glow that engulfed the syringe and part of her hand. She pulled out her now empty hand afterwards, and suddenly, she felt completely different from before. She felt a connection to all the technology nearby, and though there was no change in her Core's prodigious information processing power, she now had a bounty of information inside her head which she could draw from in order to come up with a solution to her lover's problem. Furthermore, since the Core in her center was technology in some sense of the word, she could understand it now, far better than she had ever been able to in the past, and so, she now had nearly all of the information she needed in order to save Craig. Now she just needed to put her mind to work and build what she needed, and it would all be alright.

"Craig, it worked! I can solve everything!" She said excitedly, ignoring the fact that there were visits now as she gave him a fugacious kiss and then ran downstairs, munching on her chocolate donut as she went, until she was where she needed to be. Some of the employees present looked at her oddly, but many more simply neglected to pay her attention up until she spoke.

"Alright, everyone! I'm going to need the smallest generator you can get your hands on, some vibranium and a lot of microprocessors. Oh, and a few books about anatomy and medicine." She stated. Most of the employees simply stared at her confusedly, save for a few who recognized her and immediately set to fulfilling her requests, knowing better than to disobey such a close friend of their boss, though they didn't have such a good idea of how close a friend she was. Etla stared at those who weren't moving, and one of them spoke up.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" He asked meekly.

"I'm the lover and savior of your boss, so if you want him to continue being your boss for the foreseeable future, you'll start moving." She stated.

She had to say nothing more, and simply munched on her chocolate donut as the employees brought her everything that she needed.

"Hi Etla..." Came a weak voice from a familiar source. It was Ihra, and even though there wasn't a scratch on her she looked like she had just got a lesson in getting her face smashed into the curb. She paused, looking away from her sister in shame.

---

Ihra had been following her sister, though it was somewhat hard as it involved following someone quite a bit faster than her. Soon she came across the bleeding body of a Red Bulk of muscle. She had not seen the fight, and even if she did, it would not change what she saw: A being who needed her help. She wouldn't care if it had been fighting her, Ihra would not let a being die if she could help it. She ran towards him, her eyes focused on him as she seemed almost faster now with urgency. She knelt down next to the Red hulk, a hand on his wound. "Don't worry. I can heal this." She spoke. She quickly swiped a bit of his blood in a tube, observing it and analyzing it. She frowned. Would her healing work on whatever this was? It seemed human enough.

Red Hulk lifted his arm, but Ihra, put it back down. "Shhh. Don't worry. It's going to be okay." She spoke, smiling as she held his big hand. With her other hand she focused on the wound, and sure enough the would began to nit itself together. She sighed, standing back. "Alright. You should be fine. Get up slowly though, you might have other wounds that need healing."

Ross got up, grunting. He had a frown on his face. Ihra had a smile. He seemed a little grumpy, but Ihra only found it kinda cute. She walked towards him, circling him. "So any other wounds? We wouldn't want any of those getting infect-" She was silenced by the back of a hulkish hand.

She was sent flying into the building. If she had been human, she would have died, though as it stood she was merely heavily wounded. She gritted her teeth in anger, angry at him. But she supressed it and sighed, a look of concern on her face. "Did... Did I do something-?"

"Fuck. You're more stupid than I realized." Spoke the Red giant, he walked towards her. She began healing herself as he did. "You're just like Banner. Suppress your rage until it explodes. Be the "nice guy". It'd be really fucking cute if it weren't so disgustingly weak." He paused. Seeing Ihra attempt to move he simply put his leg down on hers, applying pressure. "Don't bother getting up. You'd be too weak to fight me even if I held back. Running is pointless becuase I'm faster than you and you're just too plain dumb to think of anything clever to beat me."

Rulk leaned down in front of her. A look of anger on his face. "I'm going to keep you alive so you don't do this dumb shit again. So listen well redhead." He spoke. "This is my world. The metahuman world. This is not a world for nice people. This is not a world for weak people. This is not a world for stupid sacks of shit. You just so happen to have the shit luck to be all fucking three." He then grabbed her by the head. "So either you fix one or all of those things, or you go back to whatever pansyville you came from and don't come out of your little gumdrop house. Understand?"

She was then suddenly tossed into a lampost with enough force to bend it. "Don't let me see you ever again. Or I will kill you." Ihra healed herself and got up. She inhaled, exhaled. Her hands closed around her blade and she turned around. But when he wasn't there, she sheathed it. Then she screamed in frustration.

---

She Glanced at the blood vial in her hands. The only reward she had gotten from that whole stupid episode. "Sorry. You said to stay in the devils den but I didn't want to leave you alone."

[Confederation of imperial states]

"The Ranger"
Jackson Peters

Cryotech Headquarters, Washington DC

Jackson sat at his desk in his lab watching the reports from new york, reports of tensions rising and the Civil war was heating up there. Though Jackson so far had tried to help civilians affected by the war, He'd never operated in a Zone that was as heated as New York was predicted to become. Jackson took a deep breath, "More people will be in danger if i just sit here Idly". Jackson stood upwards and walked over to the Armor containment chamber, a large half cylinder like Container on the right wall of the room. Jackson placed his hand on the Hand scanner and both doors opened to the sides revealing the Armor of the Ranger. the AI "Anna", who had been assigned to help Jackson by jackson's father chimed in as Jackson stepped into the chamber.

[Mr Peters-] "Anna, I've said this before, you're allowed to call me by my first name" [yes, Mr Jackson, sir, going to new york with what it could become is increasingly dangerous].

the chamber closed, jackson put his arms out pointing to the sides to form a cross shape with his body, then the chamber's arms started to put on the Ranger Armor pieces piece by piece. "I know of the risk" [there could be highly dangerous kryptonians there, all of which could crack your spinal cord]. Jackson's armor plating had finished and the chamber started to put on the exoskeleton. "I have failsafes and precautions, the reinforced spine protector, the kryptonite shard, and the ammunition". [it's not just that sir, there could be limitless amounts of enemies waiting at new york, I plea to you to not go]. the exoskeleton finished being put on and the Chamber lowered the helmet onto Jackson's head, it locked in place with the sealing noise.

"If i sit idly back while New York turns into a Warzone, Innocents will die" Jackson said, his voice more radio and metallic from the helmet's speakers. [that may be true sir, but what do you expect to do in new york?]. Jackson walked out of the chamber when it opened, walking over to the armory cabinet, taking out the weapons and putting them in his holsters and slings. "Trying to get any civilianz in crossfire vacinity out, using the metro tunnels, crossing through buildings, maybe even distracting Metas so the police can atleast try to get some out". [sir, they have no remorse or recollection, they will kill you without a second throught]. Jackson stopped loading one of his pistols mid reload, "thats always a standing fact every time I put on this suit". Jackson finished loading his pistol and walked over to a clear spot on one of the room's walls. Jackson pressed a spot on the wall causing it to open to reveal a concealed hallway, once walking in the wall closed behind him. [It's like your father said, you cannot expect to beat gods when you yourself are a mere man], "Many others in history have done stranger Anna". Jackson walked to the end of the hallway to reach a large room with a VTOL liek jet, Jackson quickly hopped up ont eh wing and climbed into the cockpit.

[and what happens if something you did not plan for occurs?], Jackson, paused whilst presseing buttons and locking coordinates, "we Improvise". the front wall of the Room lifted up to reveal a long and dark passage the width and height of the VTOL, The Ranger piloted the VTOL forward and flew the VTOL carefully through until reachign the end. Jackson stopped the VTOl on a circular platform, the platform started to lift up and raised as the Cieling above the VTOL, small tricklets of water poured down, but the platform soon rose above a waterlevel which was revealed to be a hidden entrance in a lake, out of sight of the outskirts of DC. "Lock flight coordinates for New York, chart a course where they won't detect us" [Right Away Ranger]. the VTOL hovered up, turning northwards twoards new york before piloting up and off.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

---

"You taste terrible, by the way." Kirisvala mumbled quietly as she wiped some blood off her mouth with her large clawed hand, having spit the rest of the blood that ended up on her mouth beforehand, the Rantu whose shoulder she had dug into having fainted due to blood loss after comically flailing around and shouting for a while. Making a mental note not to bite another Rantu if she could help it, the young Hadrian looked around the battlefield. There were still a bunch of drones and orange soldiers, even though she had done her best to trim down their numbers with her white fire, in order to keep her new friends from being... what was that word that the orange disc used? "Annihilated"? Yeah, that was it. She didn't want them to be that.

Fortunately, most of her new friends seemed to be holding up just fine. Mars and Rocket were doing well, as was the cool-looking lady, Elena, as well as Zant and Rikki. But as she looked around, she noticed Xyri being surrounded by several of the flying orange discs, including one that looked slightly reddish or something. The Hadrian frowned, not liking the idea of Xyri being annihilated. She looked like a nice girl after all, even if her color was weird, and she had even apologized. Kirisvala was looking forward to being friends with her, and if she got killed by these ugly discs, that would be ruined. With this in mind, once again she did a little hop, then a handstand, and then hand-jumped high into the air.

All of the sudden, before the drones surrounding Xyri fired, Kiris landed in front of the slime girl. Just as the machines let loose their weapons, Kirisvala sank her claws into the ground and let out an earth-shaking roar whose sheer force caused everything around her to vibrate, deflecting or outright destroying all of the projectiles that were headed towards Xyri before they were able to cause her any harm.

With that done, she turned towards the slime girl. "I've got your back! She smiled, and then pounced onto a drone. She wondered what they tasted like.

---

---

Supervising the work of her minions the Thomsen Tech employees, Etla paused as she suddenly heard a familiar voice behind her. Turning around, the golden-haired Rainborn saw her older sister Ihra standing there, looking rather downtrodden despite looking pretty much unscathed. Etla wondered what exactly had caused her to look like that. Had she watched the broadcast too? Was that it? The blonde girl reasoned that it was possibly that; after all, she knew for a fact that the video of Craig's torture was rather graphic and disturbing, more so to her, though she definitely understood that it would leave others scarred as well. However, something told her that this wasn't the case.

Hearing Ihra's comment, Etla simply shook her head, smiling for her sister. "It's alright, Ihra, I understand. I don't blame you or anything like that." She said gently, but then, something clicked in her head. Had Ihra been following her? Since when? And that vial of blood on her hands, where had she gotten it from? It seemed oddly familiar, and as her Core swiftly processed all of this information, she frowned slightly, not angry, but rather thoughtful.

"Wait, did you follow me to... to the place where Craig was?"

---

The Great Temple
Dragon Force Dimension

There was silence in the Great Temple, save for the lonely footsteps of the scarlet dragon, who strode into the central room only to find Kazayannú sitting on his lavish throne inside the Dragon Force Dimension, as always. This time, however, Hadrimmelis did not bother kneeling.

"Hadri." The elder dragon greeted his younger sister with a nod.

"Kazayannú, I have something to ask." The blonde avatar stated politely, but the azure dragon quickly stood up.

"You're going to ask why nobody else helped you and your little experiment in putting down Ku, is that it?" He asked. Hadrimmelis was momentarily taken aback by how the usually chipper Kazayannú had suddenly become so blunt and direct, even though she knew that he could be like this at times, but after a moment, she regained her composure and replied, doing her best to ignore his comment about Addraku, her son.

"I would like to know why you forbid me from telling the second generation, and why the others of the first generation did not come to assist us when Ku's prison was ruptured." The scarlet dragon spoke, her tone always even, as her crimson eyes gazed into her brother's similarly-tinted stare.

Kazayannú simply shrugged and began pacing around the room. "I told you to keep it a secret from the second generation because they were younger than us, but already old enough to have their own personas. When we were like that, Hadri, need I remind you that we made a lot of stupid mistakes? A need to know basis can be very helpful, that's one thing I learned from my people, back when I bothered to keep living creatures on my surface." The azure dragon replied. "Perhaps I was mistaken, and it is certainly a good thing that you disobeyed me- Yes, don't think I don't know, but I won't say anything about it. After all, "all's well that ends well", right? Is that how the human saying went? In any case, though your disobedience had a positive outcome, there was no way for me to know that such an action would not cause our younger brothers and sisters to make some catastrophic mistake, and the force knows that I would loathe to put such a thing in their consciences." The white-haired avatar continued. "As for why the others did not arrive to assist you, need I remind you that the first generation was relying on your weapon to work? They were preparing to evacuate their respective species off-world in case their full might was necessary, but they also trusted your little vessel to perform the function it was created for. Ku's escape was something orchestrated by us in the first place, so it could not be interpreted as a sign that something went awry."

Hearing all of this, Hadrimmelis remained silent, though there was a slight frown on her face. She disliked being treated like a child by the dragon elder, but she could not deny that he was the strongest and wisest out of all of them, not to mention the oldest, being the very first.

"As for myself," The azure dragon continued, a vaguely disgusted scowl now on his face. "You know I can't really move around freely. Not as long as that thing is sleeping inside my heart."

[Tomia]

Cora
Cora had been checking on Roy occasionally, making sure that he was okay. Once he was sound asleep Cora decided to head downstairs to her training facility, she needed to clear her mind. She changed into her training gear and entered the gravity chamber before starting the program with AI opponents that was set and 20 times the gravity of Earth. Cora's mind was swirling with emotions that she didn't know how to deal with. The thing she wanted to do more than anything was talk to Katie, but that was also the thing that she was scared to do the most.

Cora knew that her feelings for Katie were quite strong, and while she didn't know much about relationships, she knew somehow that she wanted one with Katie more than anything. However she was afraid that Katie would reject her, it was so soon after Eric's death after all. Core feared that that would lead to her worst nightmare, losing Katie's friendship. She wouldn't be able to stand losing Katie, it would be horrible.

Cora's mind still wasn't clear when she finished training, but she didn't want to do anymore. She was distracted and it wasn't helping her relax. She went upstairs to take a shower and after a half an hour or so she emerged wearing causal sweat pants and a t-shirt. She sat down on the couch in the living room, looking quite confused and distracted, like she was lost somehow.

[Tomia]

Mars
Mars continued to fight off every Rantu he could find, but each one he knocked out seemed to be replaced by another. He saw more ships come into the skies and he knew he had to figure out a way to disrupt them. He took a deep breath and analyzed their formation. Hwow could he not have realized it before! They were in a defensive potion surrounding a larger ship in the center. That must have been the command ship that was controlling the others that were all moving in similar if not the exact same ways.

Mars propelled Rocket forward toward the main ship, determined to stop this once and for all. "Mars, we should ask the others for aid. This seems like an uncalcuated risk." Rocket said to his pilot.

"We don't need them!" Mars replied, moving Rocket forward faster. The Rantu soon figured out what Mars was doing and began to swarm around him. Rocket was able to knock a number of them away however they soon began to overwhelm him. Mars didn't know what to do. Rocket's systems were over heating, and a few more direct hits and he'd get taken out of the sky.

[The Fallen Jedi]

Asumar Masaki
Masaki Training Arena
The Battle Comes Upon the Horizon - Asumar Masaki vs Superman

Asumar's fist connected with Superman's fist, not only generating a medium sized shockwave, but it generated a decent amount of bio-electricity that revolved around Asumar's body "Grh, I have to admit Kryptonian, you are good at Physical Combat, It's been awhile since I've had to actually try my hardest against someone of your caliber, the only one to give me such a fight was Kazuko, and that was thousands of years ago, when we were in our prime." Asumar's eyes began to glow purple, an extremely powerful psionic wave that forced Superman to back off for a moment, but that moment was all that Asumar needed, within that very moment, Asumar seemingly disappeared before he appeared on the left side of the Kryptonian, delivering a powerful punch to his cheek, sending him flying down to Earth in a violent shock wave that affected even Asumar, and he was floating up in mid-air. Asumar quickly descended to the ground in order to inspect whatever damage he had caused to the Kryptonian "I know you aren't down for the count, if you are, this is easier than I ex-"

Asumar's gloating was short lived however, as he quickly dodged a stream of red energy that flew forward from the eyes of Kal-El "Omega Force?!" Asumar exclaimed inwardly, quickly taking a glance behind him, luckily the beams did not follow him, so Asumar assumed that this was indeed the heat vision ability he heard about, apparently Superman was famous for his trademark heat vision ability, even being able to focus the energy like a scalpel and perform an inward attack upon his enemy "I have to be very careful here, he may not have the same lethality as the Omega Force, but he could do some major damage to my internal system, and that Is a bitch to recover from." Asumar closed his eyes and began to focus his energy into two places, his physical prowess as well as his reaction time and speed, his mental energy converting itself to physical energy, his nerves and synapses beginning to send fire off messages at a highly accelerated rate, his muscles also beginning to buff themselves up slightly, with lightning racing around his entire body "Let's kick this up a notch!" Asumar exclaimed.

"Kick it up a notch?" Superman asked himself as he prepared for yet another assault "Was he holding back?" Sure enough, Superman noticed a sizeable wave of energy barreling towards him, a direct attack. Superman took to the skies in order to avoid the attack, but when he looked to the source of the energy wave, Asumar was nowhere to be found, Kal-El quickly looked behind him and sure enough, Asumar delivered an uppercut to the Kryptonian and sent him flying up into the air "Is he just going to-" He quickly looked up before noticing that the massive wave of energy from earlier came crashing down upon him, causing him to grunt in notable pain "He's good, I'll give him that..." Superman said before he decided that now he had to let loose and see if he could last "But I guess I'll have to stop holding back against you."

[The Abel Imaginarium]

Hal Augustine

The Journal of a Good Samaritan - July 18th . 2015

Magic is costly. It has a price tag labeled on it and the worst part is you don't know what's really on the price tag until you've bought it. And then half the time, thats when all Hell starts breaking lose.

People like me, we try to use magic to bend and break the rules. Use it to trick the universe into giving us powers and abilities without their side-effects. In short, give us goodies that we didn't earn through hard honest work. You see, the world works in a give and take, cause & effect kind of way. So when you try to cheat the system the system tries to compensate back for what you cheated from it. End result is you take what you didn't earn but you still pay for it. And payment ranges from anything between body parts to your own life or the lives of others.

Thats what makes magic so dangerous to everybody and anybody who uses it......me included. As such, I've been constantly advised by Rue to avoid using magic unless there are no other options. I tend to heed that advice often........but not tonight. And certainly not when I'm infront of a beautiful girl-in-tights like Batgirl. Can't help but try my luck impressing the ladies if you know what I mean.

I'm a risk-taker see, and a stupid one at that too. I know the costs and I know the consequences, and yet I'm still willing to give them the middle finger just to show-off my skills in magic to one girl. Call me an idiot, but I like to think of myself as a romantic die-hard.

---

Jump City Invasion

-snip-

"Whoah"

The sudden leap and save took Hal off-guard for a moment as Batgirl wrecked a disc that had been sneaking up to give him the one over. In a split second, Hal transitioned from a momentary state of surprise and awe back to his old calm, composed & cocky self. Smirking, Augustine placed the cigar back into his mouth and took a few puffs before saying...

"Thanks for the save gorgeous. Could have handled it myself if you hadn't distracted me with those lovely curves of yours. But still....thanks. Oh and to answer your question, I don't think anybody's too young to enjoy a good glass of beer along with an expensive cigar. They're both a splendid combination suited for a lovely day like this, believe m-...."

Hal ducked, just in time to avoid a stray plasma beam aiming for his head.

"Bloody hell. Those flying saucers are beginning to be a big pain-in-my-ass. Hold on a moment gorgeous, I'll be back yeah."

Placing the beer pack down, Hal proceeded cautiously to a nearby tree where he plucked a couple of leaves before crouching & returning back to show them to Batgirl. "Look here gorgeous. I'm going to give hell to those UFOs with just a couple of leaves and my bottle of half-drunk beer. Just you sit back, relax & enjoy the fireworks."

Hal Augustine began rolling up the sleeves of his trenchcoat and the white t-shirt he wore underneath. Taking a few more puffs from his cigar, he cracked his fingers before raising his glass bottle up and stuffing the three leaves he collected into its bottleneck so that they passed through and floated ontop the half remnants of his beer. Giving it a nice jiggle first, Hal brought the green bottle closer to his lips til the glass was near enough to caress them. Then he whispered a new Witchcraftian spell, an elemental one that he had been working on for the past few months but yet to be tested til now. Having said his piece, the young occult detective began to twirl his bottle in a circular motion. The leaves and the liquid within swirled to the movement of his hand but then slowly began to turn a dark murky color.

As they did so, so to did the caster's eyes and Hal grinned as his irises went pitch black and a change in the atmosphere could be felt. Up in the skies above, dark eerie thunderstorm clouds began to form in a similar circular motion and flashes of lightning could be seen along with the crackle of thunder. A wild chilly wind arose that began flapping the edges of his trenchcoat and at that point, Hal Augustine placed his bottle down; the black water within still swooshing violently as he did. Lifting his arms overhead, the black magician splayed his hands dramatically and a sudden increase of lightning became more apparent until they came out striking at the hovering spacecrafts in mid-air.

The bigger ones weren't affected by this frightening display of nature's wrath, but the flying discs and the minor ships were short-circuited and their pilots roasted alive within their cockpits. Somehow like a miracle, none of the streaks of deadly electricity reached how to attack Hal's allies and team-mates. They were concentrated in thinning the air superiority of the Rantu and that was all.

"Pretty cool eh?" said Hal with a wink as he turned his attention to Batgirl once more. But then just as quickly, he turned away to wipe off droplets of black blood that had dripped out of nose and right eye. Being unfamiliar with the use of this new spell, a mental strain was gradually developing and burdening Hal's mind. But as usual, he ignored it straight away and covered his distress with a cheeky grin and with lighting himself a new cigar when the old one was done.

"So yeah, about that beer I was offering yah. How about I take you out for a drink instead eh? I mean later on after all this rigmarole is done and finished with of course. I know this cool place where the magical doohickeys go in for a nice drink and a piss quite often. In fact, my guardian owns it so whatever booze you want would be on the house. I'm sure you know what the Oblivion Ba-..."

Once again, Hal was interrupted, but this time by his own terrible coughing. Turning away, he spat out a phlegm of blood before hastily wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Ah shit. That does it. Gotta cancel out one of my spells before I rot my own innards."

Clapping his hands together in meditation, Hal Augustine whispered a prayer for the dying. All around the city, the awoken revenants he conjured up, slowly began to fade away with their corporeal forms disintegrating into nothingness and their souls descending down to their doom.

"Go in peace," murmured the teenage necromancer with guilt and pity ridden on his face and in his current pitch black eyes. "..and I'm ...sorry."

The dice spell that Hal enacted earlier enabled the souls of the innocent dead to assume a revenant form in order to satisfy their thirst for revenge. But in doing so, Hal let them damned themselves to an eternity in Hell. A crime he had done several times unfortunately and in the process, damned his own soul as well. But he didn't care. He's Hal Augustine afterall and he himself knows that Death won't be collecting her dues from him anytime soon. In fact....not for a very very long time it seems.

[Charmera]

---

---

"You taste terrible, by the way." Kirisvala mumbled quietly as she wiped some blood off her mouth with her large clawed hand, having spit the rest of the blood that ended up on her mouth beforehand, the Rantu whose shoulder she had dug into having fainted due to blood loss after comically flailing around and shouting for a while. Making a mental note not to bite another Rantu if she could help it, the young Hadrian looked around the battlefield. There were still a bunch of drones and orange soldiers, even though she had done her best to trim down their numbers with her white fire, in order to keep her new friends from being... what was that word that the orange disc used? "Annihilated"? Yeah, that was it. She didn't want them to be that.

Fortunately, most of her new friends seemed to be holding up just fine. Mars and Rocket were doing well, as was the cool-looking lady, Elena, as well as Zant and Rikki. But as she looked around, she noticed Xyri being surrounded by several of the flying orange discs, including one that looked slightly reddish or something. The Hadrian frowned, not liking the idea of Xyri being annihilated. She looked like a nice girl after all, even if her color was weird, and she had even apologized. Kirisvala was looking forward to being friends with her, and if she got killed by these ugly discs, that would be ruined. With this in mind, once again she did a little hop, then a handstand, and then hand-jumped high into the air.

All of the sudden, before the drones surrounding Xyri fired, Kiris landed in front of the slime girl. Just as the machines let loose their weapons, Kirisvala sank her claws into the ground and let out an earth-shaking roar whose sheer force caused everything around her to vibrate, deflecting or outright destroying all of the projectiles that were headed towards Xyri before they were able to cause her any harm.

With that done, she turned towards the slime girl. "I've got your back! She smiled, and then pounced onto a drone. She wondered what they tasted like.

---

Xyri smiled at her comrade. When Kiris had roared the smile girl too had vibrated slightly, which was wierd, but then she saw it had stopped all the projectiles. She might have been hurt had she not done that. "Thank you." Spoke the giant smile girl, looking down at the girl who was about a foot in height when compared to her. Seeing the opportunity she was given, Xyri was careful not to waste it. She used her hand to slap a whole bunch of drones around her, downing all of them including the red one. And then taking an opertunity, she grabbed more Rantu soilders to absorb. She mentally bemoaned the fact they were all so small. They didn't add nearly enough to Xyri's height for what she had planned.

Xyri didn't usually plan things, but this time she had an idea. And like all of her ideas it revolved around growing bigger. She was going to absorb a lot of things and grow really big, then get large enough to destroy those big orange things in the sky. Though she wasn't sure which orange things to hit, but most if not all of them seemed like valid targets.

She turned to the rest of the group. "Can I absorb the whales now? Cause... then I can get bigger. And when I get bigger I get stronger. Plus I can hit those big orange thingies easy." She explained. Meanwhile the other Xyri was actively bashing battle-suits with her battlesuit club.

---

Supervising the work of her minions the Thomsen Tech employees, Etla paused as she suddenly heard a familiar voice behind her. Turning around, the golden-haired Rainborn saw her older sister Ihra standing there, looking rather downtrodden despite looking pretty much unscathed. Etla wondered what exactly had caused her to look like that. Had she watched the broadcast too? Was that it? The blonde girl reasoned that it was possibly that; after all, she knew for a fact that the video of Craig's torture was rather graphic and disturbing, more so to her, though she definitely understood that it would leave others scarred as well. However, something told her that this wasn't the case.

Hearing Ihra's comment, Etla simply shook her head, smiling for her sister. "It's alright, Ihra, I understand. I don't blame you or anything like that." She said gently, but then, something clicked in her head. Had Ihra been following her? Since when? And that vial of blood on her hands, where had she gotten it from? It seemed oddly familiar, and as her Core swiftly processed all of this information, she frowned slightly, not angry, but rather thoughtful.

"Wait, did you follow me to... to the place where Craig was?"

Ihra paused and looked at herself, the vial of blood and the disheveled look.... not to mention her hands were covered in blood. She placed the Vial of blood away in her dimensional "Locker" of sorts. Then she looked back at Etla. Then she nodded. "Yeah... Um... I followed you..." She explained. "And... there was this red guy... I healed him because he looked hurt and then he... hit me and told me I was weak." She seemed to be struggling to tell this story and was on the verge of crying. "He was right. It was stupid of me to try and come here..."

[New Neros]

-Ashy

-Valka

Darkstar Crisis
Battle of the Nexus
Part Three

Valentine

Val pushed her fist as far as it could physically go into Stompa's midsection, the New Goddess doubling over and spitting up blood as the force ruptured organs, Val holding her up with her fist and looking down on her, eyes brazen with passion and emotion, mainly anger, as she tossed the Goddess aside. "You're outclassed, girly. Gravely so." Val taunted, Stompa trying to stand back up in space, but Val was already smacking her face with a straight punch - Val's gloves gaining spots of blood as Stompa's jaw threatened to tear away from it's hinges.

Her opponent spun quickly, and endlessly, as the blow knocked Stompa out cold and her motion couldn't be stopped without gravity. Val wasn't ready to celebrate victory just yet, as two metal strips slapped onto her wrists tightly, yanking her toned frame away from the fight with Stompa and right into Lashina's waiting fist. Val's eyes grew dizzy for a moment, but she snapped back to attention in the middle of the punch, throwing her leg over her opponent's outstretched arm and locking it at the elbow with her knee. Val then crunched forward, bringing her forehead right onto the eyes and nose bridge of Lashina with a horrific, sloppy SMACK! Lashina recoiled from the attack, blood shooting from his nostrils, releasing Val in the process as the New Goddess held her eyes tightly shut.

The Mad Girl had no qualms hitting a downed opponent - honor having meaning only outside of a fight in her worldview. Val flew forward and gained incredible momentum, rearing her left kneecap back and flying just slightly past Lashina, flexing her kneecap out at the last second and connecting with Lashina's face in a brutal, lethal blow. The New Goddess' body tried to fly backwards from the assault, but Val grabbed the girl's hair before it could so, whipping her head around a full turn, giving Lashina's head momentum as Val crooked her hand towards her armpit and extended her elbow. Val's elbow struck with even more brutality than the knee above and to the side of Lashina's left eye, Val finally letting her go as Lashina's neck snapped backwards from the blow.

Standing with the blood of New Gods coating her gloves and upper body, Val remained stoic and transfixed at the level she had just attacked Lashina - ending the fight quickly and without a single shred of mercy. The Mad Girl looked at her gloved hands, her palms bleeding from holding her fists so tightly, yet she didn't notice that one of the Valkyries had fallen, and another New Goddess, Artemis, was loading an arrow in her bow. Bruised and bloodied from her own fight with the lady Asgardian, Artemis callously insulted Val as she readied a killing strike. "Die, slut, for Darkseid." Val's eyes grew wide as she turned, barely catching sight of the woman as her fingers let go of the string.

In a sudden explosion of orange light, Artemis and her arrow burned in a terrible glow of fierce power and deadly accuracy. She didn't scream out or question the wrath of Gods, or rather, she had no time to do so as the Omega Beams singed her soft tissues the instant they made contact. Val watched in horror, shielding her eyes for a moment, but turning to the source of the attack - finding only a fading, Asgardian portal. "Valka..." Val said with concern, wondering if she was battling Darkseid and Highfather to any effect. "I'm going to help Valka!" She yelled to Ashy, sizing up how the Vokornian was handling her own situation. Two on one, but Val reckoned Ashy might just be playing with them. "Don't let the New Gods get the better of you, or I'm telling Mir." Val taunted, making light of Ashy's predicament with the Daxamite.

The superpowered human girl took off from the scene of her battle, dodging the carnage and bloodshed across the rest of the battle between Valkyries and Green Lanterns or New Gods, easily finding the All-Mother's fight with the leaders of the New Gods patriarchs by the intense, world-breaking impacts of their two on one duel, but Val had come too late. She arrived in time to see - and hear - Darkseid's mighty roar, and Valka's battle cry as she hammered her own spear into the New God's eye. She stood motionless, and in awe of the sight, the would-be death of a God, yet knowing the resiliency of the Dark God. "She had them on the ropes this whole time..." Val muttered, clenching her fists together, but Valka's battlecry echoing in her mind. "...Max." She said to herself quietly, looking around, and seeing the battles winding down, but not knowing anything at how Max's own battle was going. She gasped, remembering exactly who he had to fight.

"MAX!" She yelled, recalling the words 'Galactus' and 'Celestials', and racing at lightspeeds toward where the Celestial Messiah had headed.

Mir/Godblessed

The fists of the two beings impacted like a single mighty one, impacting hard against the small and light frame of the Guardian of the Universe, but Valorex seemed to simply withstand the hit and allow the duo to push him back - Valorex quickly forming a blast of green energy in his palms, exploding them in Mir and Otto's faces at close range. The pair shot off at opposite directions away from the Guardian, their heads smoking from the burns. But it was like flicking a match on a steel hide - both Mir and Otto shot back at Valorex with even more intensity and power - Mir sending the first punch, which Valorex dodged swiftly, only to be struck from behind by Otto.

The old Guardian was not used to being physically injured or even fighting, but he was relying on his powers to get him by regardless. He formed a tight bubble shield around himself as Mir came to deliver another overhead punch, the Daxamite's fist smacking pointlessly against the willpower shield with a metallic thump. Mir reared back and punched again, causing the shield to tremble just a bit, but still holding strong as ever. Otto held back, thinking for a moment, considering his options, but gasping as he figured out what to do. Otto watched carefully for when Mir wound up to punch the shield again, and delivered a short jab of his own - tapping his Odinring against the energy shield and cooling the barrier's surface temperature to absolute zero.

Mir slammed his fist into the willpower bubble just as it froze over, and shattered the construct like a piece of glass. He smirked at Valorex, but found the old Guardian was waiting for the Daxamite with a hammer made of green energy. The little blue man slipped his warhammer into Mir's face brutally, sending Daxam's Native Son flying back some ways as the Guardian mimicked the mystic properties of an enchanted Asgardian warhammer. Valorex turned and swung at Otto, who simply leaned back and avoided the hammer's range on the first swing, and dodged to the side to avoid the back swing - grabbing the energy construct with one hand and yanking it towards himself, pulling the Guardian with it, and striking Valorex quickly in the face.

Returning to the fight, Mir executed a gorgeous flying kick to the Guardian's side, the small humanoid's eyes glazing over for a moment as the hit registered and sent him tumbling in one direction. Otto and Mir exchanged glances, a slight smirk between them. "Nice timing with the ice." Mir said playfully, "But I could've done the same. Or used heat vision." Otto shook his head and smiled, flexing his fingers and tightening his fists once more.

"Or kept punching it until one of you ran out of willpower. And he's got millions of years to burn through." Otto noted, Valorex stopping his brief flight and clutching the side of his body Mir had impacted, grunting fiercely, and then screaming as he unleashed a dazzling flash of green light, emerging from that mini-supernova with a flaming green aura, and eyes completely glowing a green color. Mir was Valorex's first target, and the Guardian caught him by complete surprise as Mir expected a punch, but Valorex launched himself forward and gave the Daxamite a headbutt right to where the abdomen meets the chest. Mir coughed up spit and struggled for air as the wind was knocked out of him. Mir snapped back to the situation and locked his fingers together over the Guardian's immense head, lifting his fists up and slamming them hard against Valorex's skull.

The Daxamite followed up with a blast of his heat vision aimed for Valorex's back, but the blue humanoid dodged it by blinking away. Before Mir knew, Valorex was already charging his largest energy attack yet, right behind the Daxamite, and he turned just a second too late, green enveloping his vision. But, ontop of the light, he felt a chill in space rather than the burning hot plasma, and reluctantly opened his eyes to see the back of Otto Godblessed - standing in front of Mir and unleashing a cold blast of the Valkaforce to meet the willpower blast, pushing it back slowly, empowering Otto with it's cold effects. Mir felt relief, but soon, he felt jealousy as he saw a competition brewing between himself and Otto.

Godblessed turned to look back at Mir and gave the Daxamite a wink, Mir narrowing his eyes but grinning all the while, surrounding himself in an aura of yellow energy form his ring. Otto ceased his attack at the last second, before engulfing the Guardian of the Universe, and in his initial confusion, was struck by Mir with a fist fastly approaching the speed of light, snowballing it's mass and energy into an almost infinite amount. The Daxamite successfully executed an Infinite Mass Punch to devastating effect - hitting with the force of a white dwarf star concentrated into the size of a fist. Valorex floated motionlessly at the sight of Mir's impact - the Daxamite himself some kilometers away as the reaction forces flung his body backwards. The Guardian's blood leaked, along with bits of green energy, from his mouth and every visible orifice, but Otto could feel his faint heart beat, Valorex may yet live.

The Guardian's eyes sprang open and locked themselves onto Otto, grabbing the Asgardian's clothing and pulling him close, feeling death approach his immortal form. Valorex feared for his life, but reckoned to take one with him should he go. He began to glow a bright, shimmering green, far different from any color a Green Lantern could produce, and Otto panicked - trying to release the humanoid's grip. "No...Godblessed..." Valorex said quietly, "We will both approach the end of immortals...Together!" Otto's eyes widened as he too felt the presence of death coming for Valorex. "Aye...You know it beckons me, now."

Otto grabbed onto Valorex's smaller hands and cast his head downwards, closing his eyes as he made the decision no person should have to make, but the Guardian put him in such a situation. "No, Valorex. We will not see what lies for immortals in the hereafter. We will not, you shall. You will face that unknowable beyond alone." Otto said quietly in return, Valorex's hands suddenly becoming intensely cold and freezing on a solid block of ice. "When they say absolute zero...Well, you can't tell me there are absolutes when infinities exist. There is depths of hell even colder than absolute zero, and at those temperatures, it's cold enough to freeze hypernova explosions." Otto explained, Valorex shaking his head profusely as the magical ice spread up his arms and onto his body.

Mir flew back into the scene just as Otto finished his pseudo-science lesson, and found the perfect quip to make. "In other words, see you never, punk." The ice fully engulfed the Guardian and froze him in space and time, reality slightly contorted due to the impossible temperatures exerted on it. Not a few seconds later, and a small green glow shined with the ice prison, and the entire body of Valorex shook as his body evaporated in a green light. Both Mir and Otto could feel the intense heat and power behind the Guardian's death, and for a moment, the iced body made a visible, star-like phenomenon for lightyears around.

Collapsing backwards, Otto was exhausted from breaking past the Kelvin barrier. In a show of comradry and brotherhood, Mir floated in space along side him, relaxing with his hands behind his head - he too exhausted from the IMP but more manageable. The two looked at each for a moment seriously, but they both cracked into smiles and turned the heads away from one another, laughing all the while. It hit both of them at the same exact time - the pair of them just beat - and killed - a fuckin' Guardian of the Universe. "Max is going to be pissed, haha." Otto said, placing his forearm over his eyes. "The whole Corps is going to want our heads."

"The Guardians have big enough heads, why do they want ours?" Mir said, him and Otto laughing at the joke. "But really though, fuck 'em. Me and you just tossed tons of Corpsmen around like nothing. Imagine if we had Val and Max going ham alongside us - Our boss is out there staring down THE Galactus, ya'know, Devourer of Worlds, so I think we have some bigger problems to worry about." Mir said, he and Otto still floating around. "But let's catch our breaths for a minute..."

"Aye."

Morningstar

"I will not be judged."

Those words echoed defiantly before the mighty colossus, standing steadfast before what could only be described as an ant, a minnow, hardly worth the attention it was getting or the war it was facing. The unchanging face of Mighty Galactus did not feel the sting of insult or personal attack, as the lower life form directed his partial defiance to the Celestials themselves, Arishem in particular. Mighty Galactus shifted his head to the Celestials to behind him, hearing their complaints in response to Morningstar's refusal to be judged by them, or any cosmic tribunal that does not hold the universes' best interests at hand.

"ADUUM/HUMAN/ANOMALY. COSMIC CONSTANT." One of the Celestial's boomed, Mad Max standing perfectly still and lifting his chin up to hear the Celestial leader better, despite the fact that it's voice was almost telekinetic in nature. "NEXUS/FOCAL POINT IS NOT IN DANGER. YOU ARE." Energy sprang to life and glowed in the joints of Arishem's armor as the giant tightened his armored form and flexed his massive fingers - each longer than a school bus - as the Mad God made no attempt to even reason with the beings. They refused to listen to reason, even evidence, that a multiversal threat was coming to destroy this universe like it had thousands before it. "DARKSTAR IS MORNINGSTAR."

"You...you simply don't understand. It's almost too late, damnit!" Maxwell demanded, a shift in solar winds and ambient energy levels as he began to absorb all around him. "I can stop him. We can stop him! You can...you can fuckin' watch me close it and help me do it, and strike me down the very instant it so much as looks like I'm absorbing the Nexus." He sighed angrily, facing Galactus, who looked on with almost indifference. "I beg you, Mighty Galactus, help me save this universe, and you shall live on."

Galactus blinked slowly, uncaring, and calmly rebuffed Max's offer. "No, Morningstar. If you mean to threaten Galactus, then you shall face obliteration before laying an eye upon the Nexus of All Realities. This universe is in danger from yourself, and no words will trick the Devourer of Worlds! Do you take Almighty Galactus for a fool?" Galan yelled, glowing with massive amounts of power and energy, surpassing a single Celestial, but Max began to feel the effects of the sheer amount of energy at play here. Even at the beginning of the universe, he hadn't felt this much power, and so he realized, that these beings all before him had no qualm nor care for this universe as they were not inhabitants of it. These beings came from beyond, and so it made even less sense for them to defend it from destruction.

"You've got to be fuckin' joking..." Maxwell said in disbelief, unable to comprehend how a meeting could go so far south so quickly. "I will show you threats, Galactus." He politely informed the World Eater, "Face me and know the meaning of the Ragnarok Sanction, that is, the fate of Gods as you liken yourself to be. I was born in this universe while you were not, so I shall defend it with me life, even from the likes of you, and with the Sanction, comes another effect of Ragnarok."

"It is a physical impossibility, Morningstar. The Equation is meaningless and unfathomable." Galactus replied, referencing the concept Max implied, "Just like your words and threats." Maxwell had to give it to the Big G, his insult game was on point. But, it made the Mad God smirk slightly, a little I-know-something-you-don't-know mentality taking over Max, who stood proudly and with a satisfied look on his face Galactus remained unconvinced, seeing through the petty threats of the Mad King and preparing to simply destroy him. Galactus stood erect and brimming with power held back through sheer force of will, and it seemed like it was to boil over. "Turn back, Mad King, and you shall live yet another day."

"No." Max replied stoicly, his form shifting and resembling a statue. He swallowed hard, watching as the World Eater lifted a hand and extended out his palm to face Maxwell, the Mad God unphased at the motion. "You raise your hand in spite against the Redeemer?"

"You have forced my hand, Messiah, and you shall burn for it."

At that moment, Galactus' eyes flashed to the side for just a split second, momentarily distracted as yet another piss ant barged into their summit. The Celestials turned to look at the new arrival, and Max was perhaps the latest one to look - his eyes growing wide with shock and immediate fear. "Val...No..." He muttered, the Mad Girl rushing forward past Maxwell, willing to dive headfirst into the Devourer of Worlds. Galactus exhaled heavily through his nose, a powerful concentration of the Power Cosmic forming in his hand like a collapsing star. "NO!"

The World Eater unleashed his powerful, earth-shattering blast of pure Power Cosmic energy, Val's form instantly disappearing within it's breadth and explosive potential. Galactus ceased his attack shortly after he began, Val's heavily damaged body thrown several kilometers back as she barely clinged to life following the attack. Max left the summit to tend to her, cradling the young woman in his own arms. "M-Max?" She said softly, the Mad God shh'ing her, holding her gently. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't be." Max said, rising up and standing on two feet, Val still held in his arms. "Because he's going to be sorry." Energy surrounded both of them as Max began to siphon it from lightyears away, pouring it into his own body and Val's, but she wouldn't be instantly healed just yet, it required time, and Maxwell needed all the power he could get to stand even a fraction of a second against Galactus. "Where is your hunger, Devourer?"

"It is...Sated, Morningstar, but your own hunger for death at the hands of Mighty Galactus is great." He taunted, Max still overflowing with energy, a battle of titans about to begin, but little did the Mad God know, as the All-Mother had witnessed the brutal assault Galactus had given Val.

[Pygmalionia]

Lazarus Hope
She's Lost Control

Lazarus laid in bed for half an hour trying to get a bit more rest after his strange predicament. It was no use, though. He couldn’t shake the thoughts off no matter how much he tried to clear his head. The nightmare wouldn’t stop flashing in his head every time he would close his eyes. It was no use, so he just got up from his bed and got ready to go out. Take a walk, probably. That’ll help take his mind off of things. He wore new attire he got from Knightstone under his nanosuit. A gray trenchcoat with golden outlines. Before he went out of his room, he remembered that the nanosuit was simply numerous nanobots which could be altered. Knowing this, he altered the suit’s appearance to be transparent; concealing the existence of the exosuit in the process. He also altered the appearance of his plain porcelain looking mask to that of numerous bandages completely covering his face. Perfect he thought, before rendering his mask transparent and moving out of his room.

Gotham was still under a dark sky when Hope got out of the apartment building. He started walking along the still unruly streets. Fires could be seen decorating the skyline. Flashing lights of blue and red were visible in the corner of his eyes. It was chaos. Lazarus knew the GCD and the Bat were right in saying that Vannis’ death only made things worse. Even with the JLA and the Avengers in the city, things weren’t even close to clearing up. He didn’t care. Those fools wanted the easy way out he thought. As long as it may take, they will annhilate that which stains the world – permanently.

He wandered under the moonlight taking solace in the noise of the city. It helped distract him from the ominous nightmare. His peace of mind was abruptly cut short as he crossed the intersection. Gunshots. Innumerable bangs coming from an alleyway to his left. Knowing that a confrontation was possible, he quickly materialized his bandage mask over his face and brought out two holoblades from his pockets.

He entered the alley way and saw a family gunned down, with 4 people standing over them. All armed. Vannis’ remnants he decided, as he protracted the glowing energy blades from his weapons; slowly walking towards the four like a predator does to its prey. The thugs quickly took notice of the rather grotesque looking man closing in on them.

“The fuck are you waiting for? Bring the fucker down!” ordered what seemed to be their leader. Immediately, they began emptying their clips into the bandaged assailant. Most hit, but the Butcher barely flinched. The nanosuit took care of most of the damn lead, and even then; he could regenerate. The men displayed looks of shock, and fear closely followed. The smallest of them began trembling, dropping his gun in the process. The others began reloading as they ran back, attempting to climb over the ledge behind them and escape. Their effort was in vain. Hope quickly sprinted at them and began butchering the men. Each swing rewarded with a gush of crimson; and in turn gratifying his devilish desires. He was lost in the blood shed by those he hated; and in a few moments, he wasn’t aware of his actions. Overwhelming ecstasy was what he felt as he cornered the last man.

The leader, who at this point had his back against the wall with tears in his eyes. He tried to speak, to beg, but a sense of dread overwhelmed him as he eyed the mangled bodies of his comrades. One had his throat slit, the other eviscerated and breathing slowly in his last moments, the other on the ground bleeding out with only half his limbs left. The delinquent tried to scream but all that came out was a whimper. He was frozen in horror as the Butcher closed in on him, grinning beneath his bandaged facade. As he brought up his blade, he saw another hand identical to his holding on to his wrist; then he lost time again. It was as if he jumped to another point later in time. He regained his bearings in front of a different scene. The head thug had been pinned to the wall by both his holoblades. His breathing labored, desperate. He was bloodied, and as Hope inspected more carefully, he had holes all over his body. The armed man had been reduced to a human pin cushion. That’s when he looked down onto his arm. He was holding onto a piece of bloodstained rebar which he seems to have picked onto the ground. A hand was still holding onto it, and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw his doppelganger once more.

“I told you, you’re me. There’s no use trying to fight it, Lazarus. Accept yourself.” Said the Nihilistic woman in an accomplished tone before giggling, then disappearing in front of his eyes. Hope was once again awash with horror and regret. He wanted to simply get rid of that which littered the streets of Gotham. The girl wanted them mutilated. Dehumanized. His train of thought was interrupted by a barely audible gasp for air by the broken man who layed pinned to bricks in front of him.

“End it.” He begged, blood dripping from his mouth as he coughed another time. “PLEASE!” he screamed as his breaths went quicker. Lazarus remembered he had a pistol on his person, and that would be a quick way to do him in. He pulled out the silver pistol – a Desert Eagle, he remembered. He aimed it at the poor man’s crainium and pulled the trigger, ending his misery as a big hole was blown into his head. Lazarus was surprised by the firearm’s power, though. Bloody, yet quick. He figured using it may feed his hunger, but not enough as to bring her out. He examined it carefully, then remembered Knightstone was responsible for it. If he could have them manufacture a similar firearm that would work on supes, then he would be covered in the impending chaos of the SRA without losing control of his mind. He recovered his holoblades and sheathed his pistol, before running up to the rooftops of the city to Journey into Delacroix’s HQ.

---

Knightstone HQ

The blood soaked Butcher landed in from the whole Aaron used to land into Sonja’s penthouse suite. The woman seemed distraught, not even noticing his arrival.
“Care to talk, Ma’am?” Lazarus quipped, rendering his mask invisible.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

---

Having caught one of the drones with her massive claws by the time Xyri thanked her and having been about to dig in out of curiosity, Kirisvala instead paused and looked back towards the slime girl, waving at her with one of her claws and flashing her a grin full of sharp teeth, some of them still bloody from when she had bit into the Rantu's shoulder earlier, though the innocent Hadrian wasn't quite aware of this, simply attempting to be friendly.

"You're welcome!" She shouted back, since Xyri was rather tall compared to her. Really, that ability of hers to grow just like that was fascinating, but for the time being, Kirisvala had more immediate matters to tend to. Namely, the drone that appeared to be squirming in her claw's strong grip, even though drones couldn't squirm; the thing was probably just attempting to execute some command while being restrained, not that Kiris knew this, and so, she brought it up to her mouth and took a bite out of it, her teeth allowing her to rend through the metal and tear out a good part of the orange disc that was the drone, though she immediately spat it all out, frowning.

"You taste even worse!" She complained, tossing the now ruined drone away, oblivious to the fact that it promptly exploded.

"Now what?" She wondered, before looking back at Xyri, noticing she was a little bigger now. The giant slime girl was speaking, and so, Kiris listened intently, hearing the explanation she gave about absorbing the whales to swat the orange things out of the sky. Smiling, Kirisvala raised her claws and cheered. "Do it! Do it! You can spit them out alive when you're done, anyway, can't you? Then do it and finish those things!" She shouted.

However, as she looked up at the sky, she saw not only the gigantic Xyri, but also Mars, flying up to fight one of the battleships and struggling when the Rantu began attacking him all together. Kirisvala was understandably shocked by the sight, she didn't want to lose one of her new friends so soon, after all. "Mars! Hold on, I'll help you!" She shouted. She knew that she could not fly like the others, nor could she grow like Xyri, and a hand-jump likely wouldn't allow her to accomplish anything meaningful to help Mars get out of the pinch he was in, but she could still do something.

Clasping her claws in front of her and concentrating once again, the young Hadrian girl closed her eyes and began chanting one of her many spellsongs, her hauntingly beautiful singing voice echoing through the battlefield, soothing the minds of those who might need it, though this was merely a fortunate side-effect of her singing and not the goal of her spellsong. As she sang, however, her objective became clear. Soon, a very faint white glow appeared on a large spherical area around Mars and Rocket, encompassing both of them. Any attacks that entered that area were immediately absorbed by the field, seemingly disappearing from existence altogether. Kirisvala's Anthem of the Sanctum, centered around Mars and Rocket, was now serving as a barrier for the disheveled teen and his robotic companion, though in turn, it left Kiris herself vulnerable, as she was unprotected and also unable to move or speak while she continued to chant the spellsong. In her mind, though, it was worth it if she could save a friend.

---

---

Etla listened patiently to her older sister as she told her the story of how she followed her to the facility where they were keeping Craig. She had found Red Hulk and bothered to heal him, something that the golden-haired Rainborn couldn't particularly agree with, though she understood that this was her sister she was talking to, and that it was in her nature to help others. However, that only made her feel very, very angry as she listened to the next part of the story. Red Hulk had, apparently, hit Ihra even after she had healed him. Seeing the pain on her sister's face, a scowl formed on Etla's own face, her fists clenching. She had half a mind to just take off towards the facility and end that red bastard for good, not before giving him a nice set of scars much larger than the one she had inflicted on her previously, but she held back those violent thoughts. Even though Red Hulk had hit her lover and now her sister as well, Etla was well aware that there were more important things to do than look for revenge.

Walking forward, she took her sister into her embrace. "Ihra, don't cry, please." She asked her. "Whatever that big red idiot told you isn't true. You've been a big help coming here, and it made me very happy to see you again! So don't cry. Your kindness doesn't make you useless." She said softly.

[Charmera]

Cora
Cora had been checking on Roy occasionally, making sure that he was okay. Once he was sound asleep Cora decided to head downstairs to her training facility, she needed to clear her mind. She changed into her training gear and entered the gravity chamber before starting the program with AI opponents that was set and 20 times the gravity of Earth. Cora's mind was swirling with emotions that she didn't know how to deal with. The thing she wanted to do more than anything was talk to Katie, but that was also the thing that she was scared to do the most.

Cora knew that her feelings for Katie were quite strong, and while she didn't know much about relationships, she knew somehow that she wanted one with Katie more than anything. However she was afraid that Katie would reject her, it was so soon after Eric's death after all. Core feared that that would lead to her worst nightmare, losing Katie's friendship. She wouldn't be able to stand losing Katie, it would be horrible.

Cora's mind still wasn't clear when she finished training, but she didn't want to do anymore. She was distracted and it wasn't helping her relax. She went upstairs to take a shower and after a half an hour or so she emerged wearing causal sweat pants and a t-shirt. She sat down on the couch in the living room, looking quite confused and distracted, like she was lost somehow.

Katie sat down on the couch next to Cora, turning to face her friend, but then suddenly looking away as if she could bare to look at her, when in fact it was quite the opposite. "Sooooooooooooooooo....." She said, awkwardly. This was a really weird, strange, screwed up situation. Cora was a Co-Worker, her own boyfriend had just died and yet she still couldn't deny how much she cared about her. How much she was attracted to her, and she was smart enough to know these feelings were reciprocated. "We need to talk about what happened..."

---

Etla listened patiently to her older sister as she told her the story of how she followed her to the facility where they were keeping Craig. She had found Red Hulk and bothered to heal him, something that the golden-haired Rainborn couldn't particularly agree with, though she understood that this was her sister she was talking to, and that it was in her nature to help others. However, that only made her feel very, very angry as she listened to the next part of the story. Red Hulk had, apparently, hit Ihra even after she had healed him. Seeing the pain on her sister's face, a scowl formed on Etla's own face, her fists clenching. She had half a mind to just take off towards the facility and end that red bastard for good, not before giving him a nice set of scars much larger than the one she had inflicted on her previously, but she held back those violent thoughts. Even though Red Hulk had hit her lover and now her sister as well, Etla was well aware that there were more important things to do than look for revenge.

Walking forward, she took her sister into her embrace. "Ihra, don't cry, please." She asked her. "Whatever that big red idiot told you isn't true. You've been a big help coming here, and it made me very happy to see you again! So don't cry. Your kindness doesn't make you useless." She said softly.

"I really haven't... even when I try to do something right I end up doing something wrong." She spoke, then sighed. She hugged her sister back. "I don't get it sister. Why are they so cruel? Why do they love hurting each other? Why do they hate so much?" She paused, inhaling, cathcing her breath. She didn't want to cry, her sister had told her not to. She knew it wouldn't help and would only prove the red mans point. But it was hard. "I tried to help and he just... hurt me." She paused. "I don't understand them..."

"He said I was stupid for helping him..." She paused. "Then he just kept hitting me..."

-Ashy

-Valka

Darkstar Crisis
Battle of the Nexus
Part Three

Valentine

Val pushed her fist as far as it could physically go into Stompa's midsection, the New Goddess doubling over and spitting up blood as the force ruptured organs, Val holding her up with her fist and looking down on her, eyes brazen with passion and emotion, mainly anger, as she tossed the Goddess aside. "You're outclassed, girly. Gravely so." Val taunted, Stompa trying to stand back up in space, but Val was already smacking her face with a straight punch - Val's gloves gaining spots of blood as Stompa's jaw threatened to tear away from it's hinges.

Her opponent spun quickly, and endlessly, as the blow knocked Stompa out cold and her motion couldn't be stopped without gravity. Val wasn't ready to celebrate victory just yet, as two metal strips slapped onto her wrists tightly, yanking her toned frame away from the fight with Stompa and right into Lashina's waiting fist. Val's eyes grew dizzy for a moment, but she snapped back to attention in the middle of the punch, throwing her leg over her opponent's outstretched arm and locking it at the elbow with her knee. Val then crunched forward, bringing her forehead right onto the eyes and nose bridge of Lashina with a horrific, sloppy SMACK! Lashina recoiled from the attack, blood shooting from his nostrils, releasing Val in the process as the New Goddess held her eyes tightly shut.

The Mad Girl had no qualms hitting a downed opponent - honor having meaning only outside of a fight in her worldview. Val flew forward and gained incredible momentum, rearing her left kneecap back and flying just slightly past Lashina, flexing her kneecap out at the last second and connecting with Lashina's face in a brutal, lethal blow. The New Goddess' body tried to fly backwards from the assault, but Val grabbed the girl's hair before it could so, whipping her head around a full turn, giving Lashina's head momentum as Val crooked her hand towards her armpit and extended her elbow. Val's elbow struck with even more brutality than the knee above and to the side of Lashina's left eye, Val finally letting her go as Lashina's neck snapped backwards from the blow.

Standing with the blood of New Gods coating her gloves and upper body, Val remained stoic and transfixed at the level she had just attacked Lashina - ending the fight quickly and without a single shred of mercy. The Mad Girl looked at her gloved hands, her palms bleeding from holding her fists so tightly, yet she didn't notice that one of the Valkyries had fallen, and another New Goddess, Artemis, was loading an arrow in her bow. Bruised and bloodied from her own fight with the lady Asgardian, Artemis callously insulted Val as she readied a killing strike. "Die, slut, for Darkseid." Val's eyes grew wide as she turned, barely catching sight of the woman as her fingers let go of the string.

In a sudden explosion of orange light, Artemis and her arrow burned in a terrible glow of fierce power and deadly accuracy. She didn't scream out or question the wrath of Gods, or rather, she had no time to do so as the Omega Beams singed her soft tissues the instant they made contact. Val watched in horror, shielding her eyes for a moment, but turning to the source of the attack - finding only a fading, Asgardian portal. "Valka..." Val said with concern, wondering if she was battling Darkseid and Highfather to any effect. "I'm going to help Valka!" She yelled to Ashy, sizing up how the Vokornian was handling her own situation. Two on one, but Val reckoned Ashy might just be playing with them. "Don't let the New Gods get the better of you, or I'm telling Mir." Val taunted, making light of Ashy's predicament with the Daxamite.

The superpowered human girl took off from the scene of her battle, dodging the carnage and bloodshed across the rest of the battle between Valkyries and Green Lanterns or New Gods, easily finding the All-Mother's fight with the leaders of the New Gods patriarchs by the intense, world-breaking impacts of their two on one duel, but Val had come too late. She arrived in time to see - and hear - Darkseid's mighty roar, and Valka's battle cry as she hammered her own spear into the New God's eye. She stood motionless, and in awe of the sight, the would-be death of a God, yet knowing the resiliency of the Dark God. "She had them on the ropes this whole time..." Val muttered, clenching her fists together, but Valka's battlecry echoing in her mind. "...Max." She said to herself quietly, looking around, and seeing the battles winding down, but not knowing anything at how Max's own battle was going. She gasped, remembering exactly who he had to fight.

"MAX!" She yelled, recalling the words 'Galactus' and 'Celestials', and racing at lightspeeds toward where the Celestial Messiah had headed.

Ashy

Val's right. This isn't exactly impressive. How embarasing to have an earthling finish a fight before I. She mentally joked to herself. "Well then. I had better start taking this a tad more seriously." Ashy quipped. She smiled, before suddenly slamming her fist into the ground, sending both the new gods flying. The female one managed to recover with a dodge roll, but couldn't see Ashy in the smoke that the strike had blow up. She had little time to think before someone sped out of the dust at high speeds. Ashy, however, did not slam her fist into Serafina, Instead she put her hand over her head. A battle of wills ensued, but though the girl was a telepathy Ashy was far too old, powerful and experienced to be defended against. She broke in, and then put her enemy to sleep.

As soon as Mark got up and found his way through the dust, he found himself telekinetically flung towards Ashy. She didn't have time to put him to sleep, so she simply created a construct of energy to keep him held. Then, she sped towards the Valkries.

"Three down, two more to deal with..." She sighed.

Ashy hopped between a Valkyrie and her opponent. Vykin was using the warrior womans metal against her. An admirable strategem, but Ashy had no time to admire it. She jumped towards her foe, pulling off a kick with surprising accuracy, sending him flying. She held back of course, but he would wake up bruised and pained.

"You're all quite lucky. We could have killed you had we wished to." She commented. "Honestly, this was a horrible waste of time." She explained. While talking, she was accosted by a woman attacking her. Buetiful dreamer. Unfortunately for the dreamer, her attacks were doing nothing to Ashy. Who sighed.

"Nothing? You still want to fight?" She sighed. "Fine." She replied, she grabbed her by the shirt and looked into her eyes, telepathically commanding her to fall asleep. Ashy's will was too much for her. She then laid her down.

"Welp. That's all of them." She spoke, then turned to the Valkyries. "Your help was appreciated." The Valkyries nodded, Ashy chuckled at their stoic nature.

"Not ones of many words you two. That's okay." She spoke. But then felt something. She had to stop herself from vomiting. It was a sickening feeling, like a million corpses were rotting around her. The Valkyries felt it too. In fact everyone on the battlefield should be able to feel something terribly in error with the universe. One of them began to feel her hands began to shake slightly, Ashy looked to see that her hands too were shaking. There was something terribly wrong. Something that just shouldn't... be. Ashy couldn't help but feel nervous by whatever this was. It was clearly effecting her.

Then, she saw her. Ashy's eyes widened as she saw her. Just looking at her was causing Ashy pain. It was like reality itself had a walking, breathing, terrifying tumour. Everyone breath, movement and ever part of her reeked of corruption. Ashy wouldn't even touch her mind, she didn't need tleepthaty to know it was host to a trillion upon a trillion cruelties, perversions and horrors. Her presence was.... simply vile.

"Ashyandra."

And lo the darkness stood, coated in armour of lies and cruelty it will stand before the prophet. Her mere presence rebukes reality for corruption.

"The Sheppard must fall. And then freedom will follow." It spoke. She was no longer appropriate. It didn't deserve a gender.

The Sheppard will stand against the sickness, the one unleashed by the Dark Star. Her will will be tested against a soul of disgusting snakes. For she is not merely a snake, but she is all of them. She is the festering of sanity. The rot of the soul and the truth and the lie at the same time. She is...

"Your prophecies will not save you daughter of Vokor." It spoke.

"You are...."

"You're the Snake...."

[Tomia]

Cora
Cora saw Katie sit down on the couch next to her, and her cheeks quickly flushed red. Cora felt totally different when Katie was in the room. As if she had trouble concentrating on anything other than her.

Cora felt deeply ashamed and upset when Katie didn't even seem able to look her. Unlike Katie, Cora wasn't very good at reading body language or actions at all. Cora felt that Katie was angry with her, and couldn't even bear to look at her.

A tear started to creep out of each of Cora's eyes. She was afraid that she had just lost her best friend. "I'm sorry Katie. I shouldn't have kissed you after you pulled away. That wasn't right of me." Cora said sincerely, not realizing that Katie might have enjoyed the kiss just as much as she did. "Maybe I should just go." She added softly, in a sad tone. "I understand if you don't want to be around me right now." Cora said, more sadness creeping into her voice as she slowly starred to stand up to walk away.

[Charmera]

Cora
Cora saw Katie sit down on the couch next to her, and her cheeks quickly flushed red. Cora felt totally different when Katie was in the room. As if she had trouble concentrating on anything other than her.

Cora felt deeply ashamed and upset when Katie didn't even seem able to look her. Unlike Katie, Cora wasn't very good at reading body language or actions at all. Cora felt that Katie was angry with her, and couldn't even bear to look at her.

A tear started to creep out of each of Cora's eyes. She was afraid that she had just lost her best friend. "I'm sorry Katie. I shouldn't have kissed you after you pulled away. That wasn't right of me." Cora said sincerely, not realizing that Katie might have enjoyed the kiss just as much as she did. "Maybe I should just go." She added softly, in a sad tone. "I understand if you don't want to be around me right now." Cora said, more sadness creeping into her voice as she slowly starred to stand up to walk away.

Katies hand then shot up, grabbing Cora by the arm. "Wait! Please don't go!" She spoke. There was concern in her voice. She sighed. She maneuvered in front of Cora, holding both her hands now and she squeezed them lightly. "I'm... sorry if I seem... distant. Or upset. This... is rather confusing for me too." She explained. "It's just... That kiss we shared. We both... can't deny we have something. And... maybe this is what I need to some extent. Maybe you can help me." She found herself rambling.

"Can we... give this a try? Please?" She asked. She drew Cora closer to herself. "I want someone to be... intimate with. I need someone like that in my life. It's just how I am." She brought Cora's hands together, bringing them between their two bodies, now pressed closer. "I need someone..." She spoke. "I need you. I like you."

[The Republic of Atria]

"Now that that problem is solved. I'm gonna need you. You're the front runner of the newest, 100% registered, Superhero group: The League of Avengers." Stark said meeting Alex's totally empty expression. "Luckily, you won't have to say much. You're the muscle." He said as he called to him a suit of armor. "Now let's go. We've got a press conference." He said and flew out his window with the Golden Guardian in tow. When they arrived to the large group of reporters, on the podium there was a decently sized group of heroes from both the Avengers and Justice League. "Alright blondie, go stand in front and look pretty for the crowd." Stark said, and landed in front of the microphone. "Unfortunately, one of the members couldn't make it, you all know him as Superman, or Mr. Kent. He's busy dealing with something else at the moment." He said and motioned to the group of heroes.

"And here we have the newest, government approved, superhero group. Miss Marvel: Carol Danvers, The Flash: Barry Allen, The Golden Guardian: Alexander Smith, Spider-man: Peter Parker. Iron man: That's me. Tony Stark, John Stewart: Green Lantern, and last and most certainly not least, Clark Kent, Kal-El, Superman." Tony said standing proud of his new group.

Naja was watching the news when she not only saw Alex standing there looking blank. Which was semi-normal. It wasn't uncommon for him to be stoic, but it was uncommon for him to be using powers that he supposedly didn't have anymore. This riled her suspicions and decided to fly too high above the cloud cover to be spotted. Using her powerful vision, she looked at the inside of Alex's brain just to see if he was nervous, irritated or something. Not in the slightest. In fact it seemed that he was totally void of any emotion whatsoever. And he somehow had his powers back, when previously he said that he no longer wanted them, or even had them. So why was he not using his magic? This was going to be answered. She flew down just as Stark was finishing his speech. "Hey... Yeah. Excuse me."

"Oh Hey. Naja, the Press, the Press, Naja." He knew this was going to go poorly.

"Yeah... I've got a real quick question. I'm registered and everything. But what happens to the people who really don't want to go through with this sort of thing?"

"Well, they're imprisoned until they change their minds. At which point they will be allowed to serve as one of the heroes."

"Okay then. I've got another question. For him." She points to Alex. "You know who I am? Right?"

"Tell her who she is." Stark said.

"Name: Naja. Affiliation: Justice Queens. Species: Inhuman."

Naja nodded. His nearly robotic tone of voice was all she needed to hear. "Thank you." And then she hit Stark with enough force to send him a city block away. "You turned him INTO A SLAVE." She said floating above the ground looking slightly pissed off.

[Tomia]

Cora
Cora was surprised when Katie jumped up and grabbed her arm, telling her not to go. Cora stopped in her tracks and stood there in shock and relief as Katie took her hands and told her how she really felt. "So... You don't hate me?" Cora asked, a little nervously but there was a lot of hope and relief in her voice too. It may have seemed like a ridiculous question, but Cora had actually been afraid that it had been true.

Cora felt her heart skip a beat when Katie asked her to be in a relationship with her, and pressed the android's hands against her. Cora felt like a giant weight had been lifted of her shoulders, and she even smiled. "I'd like that very much Katie. You've been my best friend since I've met you and you've been amazing to me. That kiss... well it was the best moment of my life." Cora said honestly, sharing her feelings on a level that she rarely did. She then puller Katie into a warm hug and held her close to let her know she'd always be there for her from now on.

[Charmera]

Cora
Cora was surprised when Katie jumped up and grabbed her arm, telling her not to go. Cora stopped in her tracks and stood there in shock and relief as Katie took her hands and told her how she really felt. "So... You don't hate me?" Cora asked, a little nervously but there was a lot of hope and relief in her voice too. It may have seemed like a ridiculous question, but Cora had actually been afraid that it had been true.

Cora felt her heart skip a beat when Katie asked her to be in a relationship with her, and pressed the android's hands against her. Cora felt like a giant weight had been lifted of her shoulders, and she even smiled. "I'd like that very much Katie. You've been my best friend since I've met you and you've been amazing to me. That kiss... well it was the best moment of my life." Cora said honestly, sharing her feelings on a level that she rarely did. She then puller Katie into a warm hug and held her close to let her know she'd always be there for her from now on.

"Of course I don't hate you Cora!" She paused, smiling as she embraced her friend as she had been embraced. A warm and tight hug. She smiled up at Cora, being the shorter of the two. "I really, really, really like you Cora. From the day I met you and when I stopped you from being arrested I liked you." She spoke, then sighed. "I... I didn't even realize how much I liked you until.... well... you kissed me." She chuckled. Then a small tear trickled down her face. "I really want this to work Cora... You... mean a whole lot to me. More than I ever could have realized." She spoke. She wiped the tear and then moved back a bit, only so that she could look into Cora's eyes. Her wondrous eyes. She didn't care that she was an android, just like Cora didn't care she was a Mutant. Those thing just didn't seem to matter compared to their feelings for one another.

[Tomia]

"Of course I don't hate you Cora!" She paused, smiling as she embraced her friend as she had been embraced. A warm and tight hug. She smiled up at Cora, being the shorter of the two. "I really, really, really like you Cora. From the day I met you and when I stopped you from being arrested I liked you." She spoke, then sighed. "I... I didn't even realize how much I liked you until.... well... you kissed me." She chuckled. Then a small tear trickled down her face. "I really want this to work Cora... You... mean a whole lot to me. More than I ever could have realized." She spoke. She wiped the tear and then moved back a bit, only so that she could look into Cora's eyes. Her wondrous eyes. She didn't care that she was an android, just like Cora didn't care she was a Mutant. Those thing just didn't seem to matter compared to their feelings for one another.

Cora was extremely happy at Katie's words, they were exactly how she felt about her in return. "I really like you too Katie." Cora said sincerely as they continued to hold each other. "You were the first person who ever treated me with kindness and humanity. You didn't see me as a freak or a monster, and I'll always be grateful for that." "I suppose I've always had these feelings for you too, I just never realized them until yesterday. I'm so glad you feel the same way."

Cora was a little confused when Katie pulled away slightly, but noticed that she was looking up into Cora's eyes. Cora realized that was the same look that Katie had as yesterday. Once again Cora couldn't help herself and wrapped her arms around Katie's waist and pulled her into a tender kiss, which Cora supposed would be the first official one of their relationship.

[Finland SSR]

Lucien Gediminid

Battle! Civil War Lucien!

---

The city of Warsaw looked as bland as it always did when I was flying over it. Grey five-story buildings for multiple families, boring, static and linear streets... You couldn't get even a single surprising thing to catch your attention if you decide to visit it as a tourist. Vilnius is far more beautiful. Neverthless, I always get a few missions here now and then, and often have to go alone. According to covert data, two dangerous superhumans have arrived to the city, and I have to get a hold of them. It was already deep into night, and I wanted to get a good sleep.

Much like the people here - I couldn't see anything in the streets besides street lights, nor could I sense anyone. Maybe it's a weak threat? Or maybe, I just am not searching in the right place. Whatever was the case, I found a nice place to land on, and then gracefully leaped for the air and swiftly landed on my feet. Nothing extraordinary sighted just yet. No cars, no pedestrians, not even a dog barking. Just me, the lights and the grey masses of cement around us. Although...

Huh? I heard something... And now I sense two power levels, heavily lowered down and somewhere to the left. It was like... a whisper? ... Wait, I hear it again! What is going on?

"Hehehe..." Someone, sounding like a child, tried to imitate a wicked woman's voice laughing, probably trying to create a creepy atmosphere. Normally, I don't deal with kids and their pranks, but this time, I turned my head to the direction of the voice. After all, it was two people who arrived, maybe it's them. The voice continued. "Looks like the little kid got in our trap..." Then it changed it's voice and tried to sound like a man with a deep voice:

"Now, the funny part begins..." Don't cringe, Lucien, don't... Don't spoil the fun.

"...Egh... Trunks, why do I get to be on the-"

"Shh... " Yep, they were children.

"You can come out now, the prank is spoiled." I commented. They didn't seem to care.

"Boo... May you fall under the curse of the DARK ONE!" Meanwhile, I sensed the objects they were on through the earth. They were on a dumpster, one on the other's shoulders. Heh... I can work with this. The dumpster they were on was made out of plastic. I clenched my fist, and it shot up a few meters, throwing the two on the ground below. The reactions were in.

"What... happened?"

"That... dumpster threw us down- AAH!"

The two kids screamed, and in the next second, I noticed them not in the alleyway they were in, but rather behind my back, cowering in fear and looking around me. That's where I got the glimpse if the two. One of them, a bit taller one, had purple hair and was wearing a yellow jacket, while the other one had them black, spiky and somewhat reminiscent of mine. He was also in an orange fighting gi. Them sitting behind me did not last, though, as they immedialely noticed who they were behind of and immediately zapped in front of me, standing and looking at me.

"Hey... You's just a child!" The older one quickly noted. "Oh, darn! And I thought we were about to scare an adult man... Hey, Goten, this kid looks a bit like you - maybe you know him?"

So, the kid with the spiky black hair is named Goten. He stared at me while seemingly thinking and holding onto his chin.

"No, not an idea." was his answer.

"So, I guess we should introduce ourselves. My name is Trunks, and my mom's a billionaire! The kid with me is Goten, and we're both Saiyans! Though, technically, only half..."

So they're the ones that the center command captured coming to Warsaw. With the Superhuman Civil War rampaging across the globe, my dad's been really wary of any new arrivals. So far, our nation is alright, and stable, but any wrong move and things may go terrible... I've never head of a 'Saiyan', though...

"You look like a Saiyan too..." Trunks continued. "What's your name?""

"I'm not a 'Saiyan', and my question is what are you doing here?" The two Saiyans looked at one another for a moment, then turned back.

"That's not a nice way to answer to a question." Goten replied first.

"I bet you're one of those overly serious kids who get bullied all the time at school!" Trunks added.

These kids... They're energetic and playful, but outright childish and even somewhat overly confident and cocky from time to time.

"What do you want here?"

"Hey, if you're going to try and pick a fight with us, I should warn you - me and Goten TOTALLY beat up Majin Buu!"

"Yeah! Me and Trunks destroyed him after becoming a Super Saiyan 3!"

What's Majin Buu? What's Super Saiyan? These were some of the questions plaguing my mind, but I was ready to take these kids down no matter what.

"Well, if you are talking about picking a fight, I will sure provide one!" After these words of mine, Goten and Trunks looked at each other, then nodded and slided back in near-perfect sync. I didn't knkw what to expect from them, so I kept my guard up...

[Mavorpen]

The smell of smoke filled the air of the JQ's living room. A moment later, Ruby entered the living room. Her right leg, back, and hair, which was comically frizzed out of control into a large, messy, afro, were on fire. With her small pet wolf/dog/whatever walking by her side, she paused as she saw Cora and Katie kiss each other. After a few seconds, she began slowly clapping. Then she abruptly walked over to the sofa, grabbed the remote, and began flipping through the channels on the TV. The puppy jumped onto the sofa into her lap.

[Osnil]

NYC
"I don't like this," Owen muttered, then called his own press conference. He stood in front of the Grady Inc sign and said, "In light of the US Government's support of the Superhuman Registration Act, I have decided to pull our involvement. Grady Inc is no longer going to supply the government with our tech-no Supertanks, no fancy drones, no nothing. I will not allow my technology to fight the very people that keep this world IN ONE PIECE. And Grady Inc will take whatever power it can to fight this law. I am going to say that I AM a superhuman, and I don't care about any crap the government says. I will say one thing. I WILL NOT REGISTER. Come and get me, Tony Stark. You know my name and address already." He threw down a smoke pellet developed by Grady Inc while the cameras flashed. In the distance, a roaring motorcycle could be heard.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Etla frowned as she heard her sister's words, still holding her in her embrace, though if ne didn't know better one would probably get the impression that Ihra was the one comforting her. The redhead was quite a bit taller than her, after all, and older as well, though such things held very little importance among Rainborn, since they were beings who never aged or decayed, raised in a place where time was an alien concept with no meaning or power.

As she listened, her anger continued flaring up, though she did her best to hold it back, knowing that what she had to do right now was comfort her sister and make sure that she'd be able to fix Craig's problem while he talked with... whoever it was he was talking with. She hadn't bothered to pay much attention to the visits he received when she left, but she likely wouldn't have recognized them even if she had paid them any mind. She had more important things to worry about than Craig's visits, after all, though she hadn't expected her sister to be one of them.

"I don't understand either, Ihra. Some humans can be really mean or stupid, or both. They can be really ungrateful and arrogant, and I don't know why they're like that. But you don't need to worry about them, or care about what they say." She said, breaking up the hug and then clasped her sister's shoulders to make her turn to face the room, looking at all the employees diligently working for the sake of their boss. "But there are some who can be really nice and attentive and kind, too. Those are the people you should care about, Ihra. The rest of them aren't worth a second glance." She said, smiling faintly as she thought of Craig. Hopefully, Ihra would be able to find someone like that out here as well.

"So don't bother thinking about what the red man told you. Once I'm done here, I'll go kick his ass again, and you won't need to worry about him." She sentenced.

[Empire of the Siberian Flaming Eskimos]

Salis was sitting in a derelict building and drawing up some plans when his phone buzzed. Looking at the screen, he saw a single message from one of his contacts. Tun on the news, it said. He quickly grabbed a remote and turned on his small T.V. and switched to the news to see Craig's story. Anger started to rise inside of him as he listened to what happen. Several clips played of ARGUS torturing him, scream's ringing out from the man's mouth. Salis knew who Craig was as he had looked into recruiting him, but had decided against it as he saw the man as an idealist. He thought he could fix the world through shields and armor, but that wasn't what the world needed. The world needed to be cleansed of those who would prey on others, and until Craig saw that he wouldn't be useful to Salis. That didn't mean he deserved torture though. While Craig's methods were wrong in his eyes, his intentions were clearly in the right place and what ARGUS had done to him was completely unacceptable. People would have to pay, and the price would be blood.

Salis stood and concentrated hard as he opened a portal into the area between dimensions. After using the Lazarus Pit, Ra's had set out to train Salis in how to utilize his powers for inter-dimensional and long range travel. It had taken awhile, but now Salis could travel much further distances if he put more effort into it. Soon he was flying through darkness, punctuated by exotic scenes of different dimensions and worlds. Eventually he found what he wanted to. New York, the U.N. headquarters. As he exited, several news crews that were surrounding the entrance of the building due to recent developments took notice of an unfamiliar superhuman appearing from nowhere. Salis moved forward and came to several guards who were holding back the wave of reporters that were swarming the building. Seeing a man in full armor holding a sword, they moved to draw their weapons. Salis quickly stabbed one man through the stomach mid-draw, then turned and slashed another across the chest as he took aim. Several shots rang out as a few more opened fire, but were quickly silenced as Salis redirected their bullets into their heads. The reporter's backed away from the sudden violence they had just witnessed. Salis motioned for them to follow him, he wanted the world to see what he was doing. They followed apprehensively after realizing that they would much rather not piss him off, and that this was obviously a story in the making. Two more guards approached the masked man as he went to the entrance of the General Assembly building. He quickly portaled forward and decapitated one before slashing the arm of another and knocking him out. The reporters continued to follow from a distance as Salis moved into the building and towards the main chamber where the Assembly was meeting. At this point enough word had spread that seven guards were standing ready for him at the entrance with more running towards it.

Finally, he thought, a challenge. Salis quickly portaled to the center of the group and slashed a man across his body before turning around to remove another's arm. Soon it was a whirl of blood and bodies as Salis moved like a storm through them. Bodies fell, limbs were lost, and blood stained the floor as he tore through them with ease. Soon it was just Salis standing there among a pile of dead bodies. Cleaning his blade, he motioned for the terrified news crews to follow him as he entered the room. Fear was evident on the representatives gathered there after hearing the commotion outside. Salis quickly put portals at all the entrances, blocking them off so that anyone trying to leave would simply appear somewhere else in the room before moving to the podium at the front. The Speaker tried to protest, but Salis quickly whirled behind him and slashed across the back of his knee's. As the man fell to the ground with a cry, Salis took the podium and started to speak.

"It has become painfully evident to me that this Assembly is inept, idiotic, and constituted of complete fools," he said, "First you force the very people that have helped you for years to reveal their identities and put those they care about in jepordy, but now some of the governments among you have taken the liberty of creating weapons to control them with. Well, you can see how well that turned out for you now, can't you," he said as he gestured to the Speaker who was lying on his side and breathing heavily through the pain, sweat on his face. "You tried to to control us so that you could use us, to try and keep us from turning on you. In your actions though, you have caused the very thing you feared to happen. We will not be your pawns, and we will not just sit here and take the atrocities you commit against us. So I ask all the superhuman's out there who are with me, rally together. Untie to take down these oppressors, for they have forsaken the very ideals they claim to protect." Done with his speech, Salis waved his hand and twelve representatives from the crowd, including those from the U.S., Russia, and Great Britain, were enveloped by portals and taken. "Take down the law, and you'll get them back. Continue with it, and... well you know what will happen." With that, Salis opened a portal behind himself and walked through to building on the other side of New York where he had put the representatives. Already they had been subdued, tied, and gagged by several members of the League of Assassins who were stationed there. One of them walked up to him with an angry demeanor.

"What is the meaning of this?" he said angrily, "You've brought major diplomats into one of our facilities! Do you know how damaging this could be?"

"Oh, be quiet," replied Salis, "I used portals, they have no idea where they are. Just be glad you didn't kill them. I need them for something."

"Are you going to share that something?" the assassin asked.

"With you? No. If Ra's comes asking then tell him I'm in Chicago. I'll tell him there." Salis quickly gathered his hostages up and went through a new portal. The message was sent. Now it was time to see the response.

[Lavan Tiri]

Lazarus Hope
She's Lost Control

Lazarus laid in bed for half an hour trying to get a bit more rest after his strange predicament. It was no use, though. He couldn’t shake the thoughts off no matter how much he tried to clear his head. The nightmare wouldn’t stop flashing in his head every time he would close his eyes. It was no use, so he just got up from his bed and got ready to go out. Take a walk, probably. That’ll help take his mind off of things. He wore new attire he got from Knightstone under his nanosuit. A gray trenchcoat with golden outlines. Before he went out of his room, he remembered that the nanosuit was simply numerous nanobots which could be altered. Knowing this, he altered the suit’s appearance to be transparent; concealing the existence of the exosuit in the process. He also altered the appearance of his plain porcelain looking mask to that of numerous bandages completely covering his face. Perfect he thought, before rendering his mask transparent and moving out of his room.

Gotham was still under a dark sky when Hope got out of the apartment building. He started walking along the still unruly streets. Fires could be seen decorating the skyline. Flashing lights of blue and red were visible in the corner of his eyes. It was chaos. Lazarus knew the GCD and the Bat were right in saying that Vannis’ death only made things worse. Even with the JLA and the Avengers in the city, things weren’t even close to clearing up. He didn’t care. Those fools wanted the easy way out he thought. As long as it may take, they will annhilate that which stains the world – permanently.

He wandered under the moonlight taking solace in the noise of the city. It helped distract him from the ominous nightmare. His peace of mind was abruptly cut short as he crossed the intersection. Gunshots. Innumerable bangs coming from an alleyway to his left. Knowing that a confrontation was possible, he quickly materialized his bandage mask over his face and brought out two holoblades from his pockets.

He entered the alley way and saw a family gunned down, with 4 people standing over them. All armed. Vannis’ remnants he decided, as he protracted the glowing energy blades from his weapons; slowly walking towards the four like a predator does to its prey. The thugs quickly took notice of the rather grotesque looking man closing in on them.

“The fuck are you waiting for? Bring the fucker down!” ordered what seemed to be their leader. Immediately, they began emptying their clips into the bandaged assailant. Most hit, but the Butcher barely flinched. The nanosuit took care of most of the damn lead, and even then; he could regenerate. The men displayed looks of shock, and fear closely followed. The smallest of them began trembling, dropping his gun in the process. The others began reloading as they ran back, attempting to climb over the ledge behind them and escape. Their effort was in vain. Hope quickly sprinted at them and began butchering the men. Each swing rewarded with a gush of crimson; and in turn gratifying his devilish desires. He was lost in the blood shed by those he hated; and in a few moments, he wasn’t aware of his actions. Overwhelming ecstasy was what he felt as he cornered the last man.

The leader, who at this point had his back against the wall with tears in his eyes. He tried to speak, to beg, but a sense of dread overwhelmed him as he eyed the mangled bodies of his comrades. One had his throat slit, the other eviscerated and breathing slowly in his last moments, the other on the ground bleeding out with only half his limbs left. The delinquent tried to scream but all that came out was a whimper. He was frozen in horror as the Butcher closed in on him, grinning beneath his bandaged facade. As he brought up his blade, he saw another hand identical to his holding on to his wrist; then he lost time again. It was as if he jumped to another point later in time. He regained his bearings in front of a different scene. The head thug had been pinned to the wall by both his holoblades. His breathing labored, desperate. He was bloodied, and as Hope inspected more carefully, he had holes all over his body. The armed man had been reduced to a human pin cushion. That’s when he looked down onto his arm. He was holding onto a piece of bloodstained rebar which he seems to have picked onto the ground. A hand was still holding onto it, and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw his doppelganger once more.

“I told you, you’re me. There’s no use trying to fight it, Lazarus. Accept yourself.” Said the Nihilistic woman in an accomplished tone before giggling, then disappearing in front of his eyes. Hope was once again awash with horror and regret. He wanted to simply get rid of that which littered the streets of Gotham. The girl wanted them mutilated. Dehumanized. His train of thought was interrupted by a barely audible gasp for air by the broken man who layed pinned to bricks in front of him.

“End it.” He begged, blood dripping from his mouth as he coughed another time. “PLEASE!” he screamed as his breaths went quicker. Lazarus remembered he had a pistol on his person, and that would be a quick way to do him in. He pulled out the silver pistol – a Desert Eagle, he remembered. He aimed it at the poor man’s crainium and pulled the trigger, ending his misery as a big hole was blown into his head. Lazarus was surprised by the firearm’s power, though. Bloody, yet quick. He figured using it may feed his hunger, but not enough as to bring her out. He examined it carefully, then remembered Knightstone was responsible for it. If he could have them manufacture a similar firearm that would work on supes, then he would be covered in the impending chaos of the SRA without losing control of his mind. He recovered his holoblades and sheathed his pistol, before running up to the rooftops of the city to Journey into Delacroix’s HQ.

---

Knightstone HQ

The blood soaked Butcher landed in from the whole Aaron used to land into Sonja’s penthouse suite. The woman seemed distraught, not even noticing his arrival.
“Care to talk, Ma’am?” Lazarus quipped, rendering his mask invisible.

Sonja didn't even look up. She'd been sitting in her chair, at her desk, in the same suit, for hours now. Her makeup was stained and smeared all over her face, and the TV was playing. Some episode of some TV show about a young man named Clark. Wasn't there some famous reporter named Clark…Clark…K-something. Whatever. Who gave a flying fuck?

Or, as Laz heard it, "Who gives a flying fuck?" Sonja not realizing she'd spoken aloud, buried her face in her hands for a moment, thinking herself alone in the world.

---

Aaron Masters
Metropolis

Aaron swooped low over his hometown, blood thundering and heart beating so lound he didn't even need his Kryptonian senses to hear it. He had yelled at Sonja, yelled and cursed at his friend, the woman who sustained his livelihood. His boss.

So? Who cares? Who gives a damn!? She wants me to sign up with the U.N's stupidity, I walk. Or fly. he though viciously. She can lose me, and she can keep that costume. No more being her assassin.

Aaron, recognizing the street he was over, slowly hovered down. The house hadn't changed, even in the four years he'd been gone. The robins-egg blue siding, the white roof, the steel-grey window frames, except one on the back of the house. Aaron knew that that one was a bright neon orange.

He walked up to the door, a slight breeze stirring his blond hair. With one long-legged step, Aaron ascended onto the front porch, his Nikes slapping against the old wood with it's chipping blue paint and brown-stained door. A sharp knock, and the door opened. Aaron took a deep breath, preparing himself for what was to come…

"Aaron!"

Aaron smiled, stepping into the house and closing the door. "Hey, momma. How's things?" The short blond woman smiled at her son. "Oh, you know. Dad's leg's getting better, and grandma's moved in with us."

"Why?"

For a brief moment, a strange look passed over Connie's face. "Grandpa died. Last year."


Aaron's mouth dropped open. Seeing his expression, Connie added, "We tried to call you, hon. But you never picked up…"

"A mutant crocodile in Brazil destroyed my cellphone."

Connie laughed. "Oh god. The hardships of being a billionaire's bodyguard, eh? Does the nine-hundred-grand a year paycheck make up for it? And why, after four years, did Miss Sonja finally give you enough of a break to come see your poor old parents?"

Aaron's face fell again. "She didn't."

Connie met her son's eyes, and recognized the look in them. "Go say hi to Dad and Grandma, and then come into the kitchen and we'll talk.

---

Three minutes, eighteen seconds, and five hugs later.

---

After saying hello to his father, sharing one of those awkward man-hugs, seeing Grandma, sharing several of those awkward hugs where one person is a foot shorter and half a century older than the other, and hearing a few passive-aggressive comments about how it was finally time for him to visit his poor old parents, Aaron made it into the kitchen. Connie had made two massive mugs of hot cocoa, and placed them at the table, gesturing for Aaron to sit down across from her. After a few refreshing slurps of his mom's delicious cocoa, Aaron looked up.

"So," Connie began, "why did Sonja fire you?"

"She didn't, Mom. I quit." Aaron replied hesitantly, not sure how she'd take it.

"Why?"

With a sigh, Aaron responded, "Because she wanted me to sign up with the new Registration Act. You've heard about it?"

"Well, son, it's bullcrap, but since neither Dad or I are working as heroes, we don't have to register. But it's a breach of human rights, is what it is. Did you hear?"

Aaron, confused, asked "About what?"

"The protests. Saint Louis, New York, London, even here in Metropolis. People who don't like the Act are out in the street, protesting it, you know how it goes. There have been counter-protests all over, with people who support this crap claiming that it's for the best."

"Well," Aaron said, somewhat relieved, "at least not everyone's on board with this. What about the League and the Avengers?"

"Crap's happening. They usually act when crap happens. But I haven't heard anything. And," Connie said, jabbing her son in the chest with a finger, "I'd recommend that you leave this alone and get some sleep. I've kept your room clean, in case you needed to stay here."

Aaron smiled. "Thanks Mom, you're the greatest."

"And don't you ever forget it, buster. " Connie said, smiling back at him. "Now go. If you want something to eat, I assume you spent enough time in there to know where the fridge is?"

"Yeah, I did, Mom." Aaron said, sticking his tongue out at Connie, who responded in kind.

"Now, go upstairs and get some sleep. We'll figure out what to do in the morning."

"Yes ma'am." Aaron said, leaving the kitchen to tramp up the stairs. He found his old room unlocked, and went in, not bothering to close the door before he crashed onto the bed and passed out.