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

[Finland SSR]

Prince Lucien

Almost immediately after Frank finished his sentence with "...you can probably go there to train alone", Tomia's energy signature appeared on my imaginary ki sensing radar, which was followed with my sparring partner's voice reaching my ears. Here she is - above us, in the sky. I didn't say anything at first, only waved my hand, while Frank commented with:

"You know, when I said 'soon enough', I did not mean 'immediately', but hey, I appreciate the discipline."

I quickly flew up to reach the same height as the flying Tomia. She definitely doesn't look like she's in her best condition - maybe something happened to her while I was busy with the other person named Tomia. Perhaps explanations are in order.

"You missed quite a day, Tomia..." I spoke.

Tomia: IJ Timeline

Cocking her head, Tomia blinked at him." What happened? I was just training with... I mean I was just practicing the moves Master Frank taught me. I did feel Da-Hiroshi earlier today though, does it have anything to do with him?"

Tomia knew she trusted Lucien, but even now, she had a problem revealing things like this to anyone. She felt impotent. Lucien always did so much better then she did in spars with Frank, and even if she had improved by leaps and bounds, she was by no means 'catching' up to the older Saiyan.

'I feel kinda like I'm hitting a wall.'

Prince Lucien

"Well, a lot happened, and I guess that person has something to do with it, yes." I responded to Tomia's question, then immediately went on to try and explain everything to the best of my ability, arms flailing around in confusion. "So, after training, I met this group of Saiyans - yeah, Saiyans - who had just found a machine crash somewhere. There was survivor of that crash, or something, and it was a woman. It turns out the woman is from the future, and she is running from some sort of monster that killed all of our counterparts, and there's also something about negative or evil energy, I didn't get that part. So we have only a little bit of time before that monster comes here to kill all of us, and we are searching for a place to train. Did you get that?"

"If I were her, I wouldn't." Frank commented. "Lucien says he knows about what is called the 'Hyperbolic TIme Chamber', and we were planning to test it out."

[Galnius]

Still in the interrogation room, Marybeth smirked as her interviewer takes her fingers impatiently. Of course, is understandable that she was impatient, as Marybeth fit the bill when it came to obstruction of justice... And did not seem to care even a little about the threat of prison time.

"Alright, let's start again..." Began the officer, trying to keep her cool. "What I'd your name?"

"I already told you, my name is Marybeth DeFleur."

"Alright..." The interviewer wrote the name down for the umpteenth time, rubbing her temples. "Note, as you've been informed, we can find no record of a Marybeth DeFleur... Anywhere near here. Furthermore, your lack of prints is disturbing, and you were found at the center of a terrorist atta-"

"No I wasn't", said Marybeth, suppressing a laugh. " You people put the terror label on everything, don't you. Prove that whoever did the act meant it to instill fear. "

The other officer rolled her eyes. "Alright, an attack of unknown reasons. What were you doing there?"

"Watching."

"You were... Watching?" The interviewer asked, growing more annoyed as time went on.

"Yes, I was watching. Unless... You can prove I was doing otherwise..." Marybeth raised am eyebrow, clearly routing with her.

"And you were watching because..."

"There were children outside." Marybeth finished.

"You know... Your partner already gave you up."

Marybeth made a mock-shocked face. "Partner? Why, I don't even know the woman." The officer have her another stare. "Prove I do then." The response to Marybeth's statement was quite straightforward as the woman put her head to her desk.

"I need coffee..." The officer said.

"And donuts?" Teased Marybeth. This earned yet another withering look... To which Marybeth remained quite impassive.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

"I'm coming, I'm coming." The female cyborg said in response to Prototype's demand for help, a slight frown on her face as she continued walking towards the two Arcosians. Her brow furrowed further still when she saw one of the two aliens dodge her beam or solar energy, but she merely began charging another one as she headed, calmly, to Prototype's aid. However, when she saw the android get knocked down by a joint attack from the Arcosians, she winced. "Ouch. That sounds like it hurt. Are you alright, Proto? You're still in one piece, at least." She commented, before noticing the two Arcosians shooting towards her at high speeds, only her cybernetics allowing her to keep up with them with her senses. Preparing in anticipation for a maneuver which she suspected would be similar to the one they pulled on Prototype, she re-absorbed the solar energy concentrated in her palm and waited until the two Arcosians were near her, one hand releasing the energy as a large burst instead of a small beam, intended to push away Cier rather than damage him. At the same time, her other hand finally unsheathed her destructive energy sword which had previously been sealed on its scabbard, the viridian energy burning through the air as the cyborg swung the blade towards Glace's arm, aiming to sever it.

---

---

Nelli removed her hand from the stranger's shoulder very quickly as he abruptly moved away from her, wondering what had prompted him to do so. Seeing the way he looked at her and noticing the tears that ran down his face, though, she did not have to think twice to figure out what was on the stranger's mind. He was clearly terrified, perhaps of her, perhaps of something else, though she could not hope to guess. She didn't see herself as particularly fear-inspiring after all, and she was not even carrying her knife at the moment, but either way, she decided to tread carefully, not wanting to aggravate the young man any further. The gifts he displayed, however, were fascinating to her, and for a while, she simply stared at her surroundings, a faint smile on her face as she observed the verdant plant life that had sprouted all around her.

Hearing Yoshi's question, though, she turned her attention back towards him, tilting her head a little. "What makes you think I want something from you?" She asked, genuinely curious, as she began approaching him once again, slowly, so that he would not panic again. "What I wanted to do was help you, since you seemed like you weren't having a good time." She said, stopping some distance away from him and once more crouching a little to see him eye to eye. She felt some sort of desire to assist this stranger, seeing how he seemed so vulnerable, and not much older than her.

"Will you let me help you?"

---

---

Jamie, who had been hoping for the best, winced at Kylie's words, very startled to see her react so violently to the news of Cora's mission and arrest. Her youth and inexperience with these matters wasn't helping her feel any better after Kylie's outburst, nor did the feeling that she had somehow disappointed the team by allowing Cora and Marybeth to get arrested, even though none of that was her fault. Coupled with her usual shyness, it was taking every bit of willpower she had not to just run away and let things sort themselves out now that Kylie had the information. Truth be told, she wasn't sure why she wasn't running yet--probably some sense of duty that had rubbed off on her due to spending time with the Justice Queens--, even if Kylie could reach her with those rings of hers.

If she hadn't been terrified, she might've even been offended by Kylie's remark.

"W-why didn't I tell them?" The black-haired girl mumbled nervously, struggling to put together a coherent answer now. "I... Um... I-I trust you and I..." She looked down. "I didn't want the others yelling at me for being reckless... I just wanted to help Cora..." She said quietly. "Not that I did much good to her, I guess..."

[The Dark Brotherhood of Deros]

Prototype
Prototype growled. "Just peachy thanks!" He exclaimed, jumping back up, and flying after Cier who was now flying backwards due to the blast of energy. Meanwhile Glace twisted quickly, nearly losing his arm in the process. He grabbed Black Sun by the neck and scowled at her. "Uh uh uh! Naughty!" He said mockingly, using his free hand to deliver a punch to her face, which sent her backwards.

Meanwhile Cier landed hard on the ground with Prototype hot on his tail. The Android charged up a blast in his hand as he approached the Arcosain, and he fired it, however Cier was too quick, and he avoided the attack. The Arcosian glaced over at Glace and dashed toward him, knocking Prototype out of the way. As Black Sun was flying backward, Cier suddenly appeared above her, and gave her a kick which sent her flying into the ground before she could land normally.

Glace and Cier then both began charging attacks, and with a synchronized yell, they fired twin beams of purple energy at Black Sun.

[Siliarba]

From Youthfull Storm to Mature Depression
Torgaren Island
AKA
The Elemental Plateau

The ocean's were peaceful, the ground did not rumble, the volcanoes were sleeping and the skies were peaceful, the only thing hanging there at this time was what always hangs there above Torgaren, the castle made from air, the clouds that drifted past and those that delivered snow to the mountain regions. The Archons living here only interacted with each other when they felt it was necessary, and the dragon Azure spent more of his time flying across the world than living in the volcano, adulthood will do that to kids, they spread their wings and fly. Ember hadn't felt like putting on many shows since he left, the last show she put up was at a wedding, now she was in general on a low burn, she wanted to be spotted but she also wants to outdo herself which she does no longer know how to do. Until she figures that out she'll burn softly.

The Earth Archon Tina didn't do much in general, she could sit still for eternity and probably call it having a blast and the Water Archon Aqua spent most of her time enjoying life and meeting other life, at least those are her calm days. Then there's Zephy, the one that always plays up in the clouds you'd hear her chanting a song as she was playing her game. "Hide and seek, hide and seek, Zephy loves hide and seek. Zephy seek, Fishies hide, Zephy ... Can't remember more. ... Hide and seek, hide and seek, Zephy loves hide and seek. Zephy seek, Fishies hide, Zephy ... Can't remember more. ..." The chant went on and on like this, at least it made her happy. And as it went for her pet fish they had grown in to minor elementals themselves because of the constant exposure to Zephy causing them to swim through the air instead of the water. And as their hiding was going, they weren't hiding, they were following Zephy, as they always do, and Zephy never looked around so she never spots them.

It didn't really matter much, it only takes so long for Zephy to forget she was playing hide and seek until she gets distracted by something else, and on an island as Torgaren where every form of weather is constantly present, distractions are easily found. The hide and seek game stopped abruptly as Zephy entered the snowy peaks, the point where Tina's mountains reached the cold winds of Zephy's terrain. Zephy stopped dead in her tracks and stopped chanting when she saw the snowing clouds, both in amazement as in confusion "Fishies, both Mr. Fishy and Misses Fishy are from the water, how do you get water to the sky and then make the sky cry white earth, Zephy's confused. Fishies, talk to Zephy, you never talk to Zephy, is it something Zephy said? Or something Zephy forget to say? Is it Fishy and Fishies wedding day again? No that was yesterday so it only comes back next yesterday. ... Zephy confused."

And as usual situations when the Air Archon wants to know something, she'll stop at nothing until she finds out, the clouds would lay their secrets bare to her. At blinding speed Zephy jumped inside the clouds and with a strong wind burst them apart in every direction until they were clear, however, all this did was destroy the cloud and stop the snow. The fish who instinctively followed Zephy had instinctively left, they could feel when a storm was brewing and would leave before it breaks out. "No, fluffy cloudies, Zephy didn't mean it, ... Come back and tell me how you make water earth!" The Air Archon was beginning to tear up, at least her version of tearing up. First just a few small winds enveloping her slowly until she reaches her peak and her cries unleash howling winds through the entire island. Disturbing the element infused wildlife that has come to live there. The animal life was used to this though and just like any animal in a storm just went to look for a spot to sit it out.

But one thing the winds also did, like wind always does, is feed the flames. Ember shook awake from her semi slumber as her flames grew when fed by the air. "Oh god damned, can't we have one day without that damn Zephy bursting out in to darn storms, what is it this time, how can rocks also be fire?, Why do the clouds cry? Or my all time favorite, where does up go when I look down?" It had in fact become daily routine for Zephy to get upset about something, mainly because of the fact that every day Zephy would forget what she learned last day, and usually what she learns is nothing as she makes everything up herself with a childlike imagination and temper. Which was linked to a creature that could break open the planet in a temper tantrum. Ember left her cave and flew out in the winds, they were strong enough that parts of her ignited to levels she spawned a second of herself without wanting to. Whatever, she'd just have to reform later.

Zephy in the meantime was getting over her sorrow as she looked down at the snow in a growing anger. "Fine, if the clouds won't show it to Zephy, the earthwater will!" And just like that she unleashed a wind that tore the earth asunder, quacking the entire island and causing giant waves to form in the ocean. If the wildlife here hadn't absorbed enough elemental energy to become partial elementals themselves they would surely perish from this. As they are now however, this is a storm they can outlast. For Ember however, the air was so strong and random she was erupting in to fire in every direction causing massive fires on the ground below her. She'd deal with them as soon as she could most of the fires died out after being torn from Ember any way as they were no longer linked to a source that could keep them burning in these intense winds.

Pushing through she kept growing in size and temperature, she was steaming mad, Zephy pushed everyone and everything on this island to far every day with her nonsense. You can only take so much until she needs to learn and remember. Ember flew directly to Zephy until she was in close range to her, so close she was in a sort eye of the storm where the winds had died down and the only wind present was Zephy herself. Ember reached out her hand, yelled out "Enough is enough Zephy!" And slapped Zephy. Being made from air Zephy would normally not feel anything like a slap, but this was from Ember, someone she considered somewhat of a big sister and mother figure and above that, her fire which absorbs air, actually leaves a feeling that could resemble pain.

The airs immediately stopped and Torgaren stopped shaking as above the island an enraged fire Archon was looking at a scared and saddened air Archon "You can't keep doing this Zephy! Damn this, everyone loves it when you're playing games and having fun, but you always take it to far! If you're sad or angry, we're here for you, you can't unleash your powers whenever your emotions flip! You have to realize your games, your tantrums, even your cries can destroy the entire island and potentially worse because you have no control over anything about yourself! I have no issue guarding over you, helping you when you need help but damn it you're the oldest one of us all and you are the least trustworthy, most irresponsible and most dangerous of us all! It's time for you to stop being a danger to everything that there is! What if you accidentally kill your fish in one of your tantrums, they always run from you when you get like this because you're a danger to them!"

Zephy was snickering because of all the yelling from Ember, she didn't have a response, none at all, she didn't know how to react or what to do. At the same time Ember began to sigh and turn around towards her volcanoes, but before leaving Zephy alone she turned her head "Zephy I love you, and I love your innocent childlike nature, but ... But it's time for you to grow up, you've been a child long enough."

And that was all Ember could say, she floated back to her volcanoes, put out any remaining fires and hoped something of this would stay in Zephy's memory, that she could stop giving this speech every week. But most likely, Zephy will have forgotten this by morning, like she always has. In the meanwhile, Zephy was just floating there, not doing anything.

[Confederation of imperial states]

Guardian 5
Godkiller

Star Labs Skyscraper, New York
3:22am

Malanor Rex stood on the edge of the Helicopter pad, he gazed down at his watch, then noticed a drop of rain coming from the night sky. Malanor looked up and straightened himself out, as he heard the familiar soft sound as Guardian landed on the helicopter pad. Rex sighed and shook his head, "Well it's time, and you do not have the head of the Knight, tsk tsk". Rex grabbed a Radio out of his pocket, turning it on, "And I also see you didn't decide to take them out, seeing as I still have a Signal", Guardian's eyes slightly widened, seeing the radio for Rex' henchmen was still connected. "Marco, burn Cellina, time to break the Guardian", after a few seconds, a different voice came through the radio, ["I'd rather do the Breaking in person"] Dark Knight said, to Rex' surprise and sigh, "well I wanted to do this without Carnage" Guardian walked towards Rex, Rex walked backwards, pressing a button on his watch, "Activate Guardiankiller, Activate Guardiankiller" He yelled Guardian stopped as he heard a large rumble come from within the building.

Rex Snickered as he turned halfway, gesturing to an empty spot on the roof, "Please welcome the trumpcard", As he said that The Large gray creature smashed through the roof, landing infront of the hole he created. Rex snickered, "Tecton please get rid of this loose end", The monster then powered up his eyes Guardian braced himself as Tecton blasted him with a large energy blast, knocking him off the building, smashing him through 2 billboards, a water tower, and finally coming to rest while smashing into an air conditioner, about 5 blocks away. Tecton turned his head towards Rex, "Be a dear, and Kill him", Tecton nodded, jumping up and after Guardian. Tecton landed on one rooftop, then jumping and landing on the same one as Guardian, Guardian pulled himself out, just as Tecton threw a punch. Guardian caught the massive punch throwing it off, he hovered up and punched Tecton straight in the face with a series of punches, Tecton then grabbed Guardian and slammed him down on the floor, then stomped down on him with his right foot, rumbling the entire building.

Guardian grabbed Tecton's foot, throwing it off he caused Tecton to stumble forward, where Guardian hit Tecton with a superpunch throwing him off. Guyardian flew up after Tecton, grabbing him from behind in a full nelson, he attempted to fly high into the atmosphere, That was until Tecton elbowed Guardian high in the stomach, Tecton then punched Guardian hard, sending him crashing back down, into a wharf far on the outside of New York City. Guardian smashed through the roof of a warehouse, slamming down hard on the flat concrete floor, cracking it severely, Guardian didn't have a chance to recover as tecton slammed down ontop of him, the shockwave breaking the windows, churning and breaking the concrete base, and throwing many crates and equipment back. Guardian coughed as Tecton grabbed him by the neck, Tecton reeled up a punch, hitting Guardian directly in the face, the force of it throwing him through the warehouse wall, Guardian flew, hitting the back of a parked semi, bouncing a few times off the roof of a building, and finally coming to rest in a parking lot.

Tecton exited through the smashed wall of the Warehouse, beginning to once again go after Guardian, he was stopped, when a hail of high caliber bullets hit him. Tecton raised an arm to block, then lowered it as they hardly did anything, seeing Dark Knight's VTOL firing both his Gatteling Guns at him. [Gatteling Gun rounds are doing nothing sir]. "It's not meant to hurt him, we've got to get this thing far from the City" Dark Knight said, switching to a small rock on rocket quick locked onto Tecton, firing. Tecton waited as the rocket neared him, just as it was about to hit his head, he caught it, containing the blast within his closed hand. "Status on Munition Rocket?", [The monster....Seems to have caught it], "Ah hell" Dark Knight muttered as tecton continued on his advance towards Guardian, who was currently unconscious and injured, sitting inside a closed Seven Eleven. Dark Knight banked and turned around, flying towards Tecton, he armed his gatteling guns and fired directly at him, Tecton became infuriated as Dark Knight flew past, Tecton charged up another large energy blast.

[Sir, High amount of Energy being charged from the creature], Dark Knight watched as he started to circle Tecton, Tecton fired a massive Energy blast at the VTOL. Dark Knight Gritted hios teeth as he tried to desperately keep the VTOL from being hit. Once the Energy Blast stopped, Dark Knight flew off, and as he suspected, his ploy worked as Tecton roared (though having no mouth), and jumped after him. Dark Knight armed the Gatteling guns and aimed them backwards at Tecton, firing them. Tecton landed, charging up another energy blast, the beam of energy hit Dark Knight's VTOL, striking the right side thrusters. "DammIt" Dark Knight muttered as he gritted his teeth, tryign to keep the VTOL up in the air, to no avail, as he crashed down, mowing through 7 Semi Truck ends before it slide around and came to a stop. Dark Knight quickly pressed some buttons, though to no avail as the VTOL was not responding, Dark Knight grabbed a latch and pulled it, causing the top of the VTOL's cockpit to eject off. Dark Knight gazed up as tecton crashed through the corner of a building, landing near him, looking infuriated, Tecton paused before he charged up another Energy Blast.

Dark Knight paused as he realized the Dire of the situation, simply saying, "Ah Shit", Tecton fired the Energy Blast at Dark Knight, Dark Knight putting his hands up in some form of protection.

[Empire of the Siberian Flaming Eskimos]

Salis watched the proceedings around him with an air of disregard and contempt. As someone who had grown up on the streets, stories of King Arthur and the Round Table weren't anything within the norm for him, and the King's reputation eluded him. If anything he was unimpressed by the man. Finely dressed, of stature, and an entire kingdom at his beck and call. Yes, he did carry himself with a sense of purpose and experience, but the trappings of a cushy lifestyle since his days of battle simply negated any respect the man might have curated from Salis. He may have once been a warrior, but now he was just as foolish and weak as any other government or authority. Finally the man and Kylie finished their talk and they were able to get on with getting back to their own time. While other's bowed before exiting, Salis simply gave the King a look of scorn before disregarding him completely.

It didn't take long to make it to their temporary dressing room. Ignoring Kylie's warning, Salis quickly found the most mundane and functional outfit he could before unabashedly unzipping his prison jumpsuit and swapping it out for his new clothing. Undergarments were suitable enough coverage for him and anything the others saw besides that didn't matter. Done swapping out garments, Salis picked up his sword again and walked out and to the nearest guard. With a quick swing of his blade, he managed to slice the man's sheathed sword from his belt. Catching the weapon, he then slammed his sword into the floor where it stayed upright in between the man's feet.

"I'll be needing this," he said as he strapped his new sheath and sword to his hip before going back to the others, leaving the stunned guard to try and make sense of what had just happened. Now back with the group, Salis leaned on a door frame and impatiently waited for the others to finish changing. "Hurry up," he said, "We're burning daylight, and from the sound of Arthur back there it's not going to be a short trip."

Kylie looked over to Salis after she and Nelli had finished dressing. "Well look who wants to get busy now? You sure you want to head out to find him? Or would you rather go tear down an orphanage? Maybe stab an old lady?" Kylie stared daggers at Salis; with good reason, his former actions have warranted it. All the same, Kylie turned back towards the other changing rooms to see how the other two guys had turned out with these medieval clothes. She was already starting to think to when she would meet her great-however-many-times-grandfather. Hopefully it wouldn't be very hard to ask him how he beat the Red Knight, and do it herself in the future, and she was still pretty excited about this whole ordeal of time travel.

Salis' temper rose at Kylie's jab. He didn't kill because of some sadistic joy he got from it, and he didn't appreciate being compared to those who did. "You may not agree with my methods, but I do not do this because I enjoy it," he said with and edge to his voice. "I do it because your methods don't work. You're too soft to do what's necessary, and people suffer because of it." Done explaining himself, he looked around impatiently as the others continued to change into their medieval outfits. Sitting around was not his strong suit, and the sooner they got moving the sooner he could go back to advancing Ra's plans. He'd been away from the world for too long it was time for him to get back to it.

[Confederation of imperial states]

Guardian - Titan - Dark Knight 1
"Trio"

As Tecton fired a huge blast of Energy at Dark Knight, Dark Knight could only raise his hands as some means of defense as the creature did. The Energy blasted raced towards Dark Knight, but was stopped when someone landed infront of Dark Knight, blocking the huge energy blast and causing it to blast back, Knocking Tecton back a few steps. As the dust cleared, Titan stood there, her right hand smoking from the energy block, Tecton shook his head and roared at Titan, Titan gritted her teeth and she jumped and slammed down onto the ground, causing Tecton to be knocked back. 'Calvary's here' Dark Knight thought as he grabbed the grenade Launcher from earlier and climbed out of the destroyed VTOL, walking over to where Titan was standing. Titan peered over at him and smirked "I see you boys have stopped trying to kill each other" she said as Tecton stood back up, before he could do anything, Guardian slammed into his left side, sending him flying into an empty building, causing the majority of it to collapse on him. "The creature's durability is protecting it, we need a way to bipass", Guardian landed near them, "How do we do that? get some kryptonite and shove it up his a-" "No....We need the spear".

Titan raised an eyebrow, "Spear?", "Guardian, remember that specially made Spear I used to fight you", Guardian thought back and nodded. "You're arguably the fastest out of all of us, I need you to fly as fast as you can, and get it back here", Guardian looked over to the building where Tecton was collapsed under, then looked to Dark Knight and nodded before jetting off. Dark Knight loaded another Dylithium mixture grenade round into the grenade launcher and Titan cracked her knuckles as Tecton smashed his way out, "So, what do we do about big guy over here?". "We need to hold the line until Guardian gets back, aswell as keeping it from Manhattan" Dark Knight said before clicking the Grenade Launcher, loading it, "Simple enough" Titan said as Tecton roared and jumped after them. Titan then jumped after Tecton, slamming into his chest and back down onto the ground, Titan hit Tecton directly in the face with a series of punches, Tecton stunned, was unable to do anything, until used his right hand to knock her down onto the pavement. Tecton slammed down on Titan with both his hands, then stomped down on her, Titan caught Tecton's foot, reeling up and using it to throw him far down the road.

Titan fired her Heat Vision at Tecton, Tecton gazed at her and fired his own Energy blast, both blasts meet each other in the middle, causing a stalemate. Titan struggled as Tecton was using raw, immense power, and the stalemate wasn't helping either, however, Tecton was hit by a Dylithium Grenade Round cutting off his energy blast. Tecton roared in confusion as Titan's Heat Vision hit him, knocking him far down the road, into a large silo, causing it to collapse on him. Titan looked over to the right of where Tecton stood, to see Dark Knight loading another round into the rifle, her gazed over at her and nodded. Titan smiled as she jumped after Tecton, just as she was about to land on the pile of rubble, Tecton blasted out with his Energy blasts hitting Titan midair, Tecton then jumped out of the rubble pile, reeling up a punch, he hit Titan, sending her flying back countless amounts of blocks. Tecton landed, he gaze immediately turned to Dark Knight, who quickly placed his Grenade Launcher on a holder on his back, and grappeled off. Tecton Roared after him, jumping forward he smashed through the corner of a building to see Dark Knight grappeling away, Tecton charged up an energy blast, shooting through several building after Dark Knight, Dark Knight quickly grappeled off again, onto the corner of a tall building.

Tecton powered up another energy Blast, Dark Knight quickly aimed and shot his grappel, Tecton fired the blast, hitting the building just as Dark Knight moved. Dark Knight shot over to an old Fire Escape, hitting the edge of it and tripping, falling and loosing grip of his Grappel gun, Tecton spotted Dark Knight and roared, this time jumping after him. Dark Knight quickly grabbed his Grappel gun, jumping off and firing it, grappeling away just seconds before tecton smashed through the building. Dark Knight impacted the ground unceremoniously, tripping, falling, and rolling, standing up he quickly put his Grappel away and took out his grenade Launcher, and attempted to load another shot. Dark knight was stopped when he he heard the sound of speeding flying, and Guardian who landed hard next to him, "Dark Knight, I've got it" he said handing him the spear, Dark Knight held the launcher in one hand and the spear in the other "So... who wants to do the deed?". Dark Knight looked at the weapon, "I'll do it", Guardian raised his eyebrow at him, "I'm the one who started this mess, I'll end it".

Guardian nodded as Tecton landed infront of them, Dark Knight and Guardian both took stance, "I'll get him down, you finish?", "Sounds like a sound plan". Tecton roared, just as Guardian flew into him, smashing him into a car repair shop behind him. Guardian grabbed Tecton's head, using it he flipped him over him onto his back, then slammed down onto his head with both hands. Tecton grabbed Guardian, but before he could do anything, Titan jumped over, grabbing the hand he used to grab Guardian and pulled it back, Guardian then got Tecton in a head and arm lock. "Knight, DO IT" he yelled to Dark Knight, who quickly ran stabbed Tecton directly in the chest with it, lodging it and causing Tecton to roar in pain. Tecton didn't die however, as he gazed at Dark Knight and fired a blast of his energy, knocking Dark Knight back, his armor smoldering. "MARCUS!" Titan yelled as tecton broke her grip, then backhanding her knocking her out of the store and far away. Guardian knew what he had to do, he quickly grabbed Tecton by the spear in his chest, and used all of his might to fly up with him into the air, Tecton continuously tried to hit, beat, blast, and all around pummel Guardian out of flying him higher and higher.

Guardian stopped when they were both high in the atmosphere, Guardian grabbed the spear, and blasted back down, pressing it harder and harder into Tecton. Guardian thought back to the things he needed to protect from this, New York, his friends, millions of people, possibly the entire country from this monster. Tecton continuously attempted to beat on Guardian, he finally broke through as he grabbed one of Guardian's shoulders, and cracked it from Guardian's weakened endurance and his raw strength. Guardian and Tecton both slammed into an abandoned lot, the impact knocking many of the empty buildings and rubble back. Tecton roared as the impact caused the spear to jut through him, hitting his spine and causing a reaction to the Dylithium mixed spear, and his own body. Guardian rolled off of Tecton, weakened and beaten after the battle, he struggled to sit up, as he noticed Tecton was about to explode from the sheer reaction, Tecton's body grew brighter and brighter, his veins lighting up and visible with a green silver tint. Guardian slumped back down, he didn't know if he'd survive this, but if it meant this uncontrollable monster was ended, he'd be fine. Tecton's body began to emit a field of energy as it started to break down, just as Guardian was about to be enveloped, Dark Knight landed next to him, grabbing Guardian and slinging his arm over his shoulder, Dark Knight grappeled off, just as Tecton exploded. Guardian and Dark Knight were both thrown off midair, landing on the roof of an apartment store.

Tecton's body destroyed the lot, aswell as a few of the buildings around it, collateral damage had been limited to about an 6 block radius. Dark Knight managed to stand up, he grabbed Guardian and sat him u against a wall around the roof's edge, slumping down and sitting next to him. Guardian coughed as he regained focus, he saw he wasn't, well, dead, and that Dark Knight sat next to him. "Why'd you save me?", "Couldn't have your blood on my hands because of this mess", they both looked up as Titan landed infront of them, glad to see that both Dark Knight and Guardian didn't perish because of the monster. "So, what have we learned today?", Guardian raised an eyebrow and looked at Dark Knight, who managed to stand up and leaned against the wall, "I'll answer, that acting like a bunch of idiots and fighting each other is gonna get yourself killed".

CNN

Last night, just outside of New York City, a large monster created by Malanor Rex, a former philanthropist was defeated after it went on a rampage of destruction and terror. However through this terrifying experience, the creature was stopped when Guardian, an Hero from the city of San Andres stopped the creature. The Hero was also aided by Titan, another hero from California, and what many believe to be the Mysterious Vigilante 'Dark Knight'. The Damage of the fight was limited to a 6 block radius, and no civilians were harmed. Malanor Rex was charged and arrested later that night, and many wonder what's next after this event, more at 9.

---

Twitter Feed: @JonasTheMan Told you he was real '@Cellina_Mathers' / @Cellina_Mathers Shut Up Jonas / @Pandaman94 I was in #NYC and saw #DarkKnightofChicago in a crazy ass plane / @NicholasFurry This is gonna get so many hits on my news feed / @WDRnews Stop breaking the 4th Wall

[The Starlight]

For a Thousand Years
A collaborative arc by Zark and Star

After the events of CW

Sitting relaxedly on the living room of his and Etla’s cozy abode on Travenios, Craig looked over at the Rainborn as she sat by his side on a couch before a TV; chocolate and cinnamon-sugar doughnuts, cups of fizzling soda, and bowls of popcorn were strewn before them. Etla leaned her golden-haired head a little more into Craig’s warm and snug embrace, and the mutant smiled, adjusting his arm to make her more comfortable, before turning his attention back to the latest episode of Doctor Who, a time-space adventure show which had become one of their favorites.

A now familiar light weight rested in his pocket, a diamond ring he had designed himself. A cold sweat began to bead over his brow as he thought of it, at first thinking that now was the time, and then, as he had done for the last two months, dismissing it as ‘just not right.’ It had to be the perfect moment, for him to gather the courage to propose. He knew his fear was irrational, but the man couldn’t help it. What ifs had plagued his mind for several weeks now as he debated between taking her back to the Devil’s Den, where they had kissed for the first time, or the Big Ben Tower, in London, where they had first met, or Asgard, where the first inklings of their bond had shone through the knowledge that everything was about to die.

Promising to himself that he would decide by the end of next week, the artificer turned his attention back to the screen, only to behold Etla’s bright emerald eyes observing him curiously. “What’s up, Craig?” She asked with an inquisitive look on her face, wondering what was on his mind. “Uhh,” The mutant paused, gulping, before responding. “I was just... thinking about some things.”

“What things?” asked Etla, her attention fully on him, neglecting the silly TV show. By the sweat trickling down Craig’s face almost imperceptibly, she deduced it was the ring. Etla was by no means stupid, and Craig, being the silly lovely human he was, had fumbled his proposal three times now. She was honestly beginning to wonder what the big deal was. After all, it was just a ring, right?

“Well…” Craig started, deciding to just do it. “Since our third anniversary of meeting each other is almost here, I was wondering…” His voice cracked a little, but he soldiered on, “If you would like to visit Asgard…?”

Etla’s lips curled into a kind smile at him. She had a good idea of what this question meant, and nodded in response. “Was that it? Of course I’ll go, silly.” The Rainborn giggled, before looking up, gently wiping the sweat off her boyfriend’s brow, the mutant relaxing slightly as she caressed him, expecting his fourth attempt at proposing to go well, unlike the first three.

“You know I love going out with you.” The emerald-eyed girl said sincerely, before leaning further towards him and pressing her face against his in a kiss, soft and tender, not bold and passionate like the one they had shared nearly three years ago in the Devil’s Den. At first surprised, Craig soon gave in and enjoyed the moment. Before long, Etla pulled away, a small grin now on her face as she looked at Craig, who was slightly short of breath but otherwise sported a thin smile.

“Now stop thinking so much, you’ll get sick one of these days.” The Rainborn told him, snuggling closer to the inventor and resting her head on his shoulder as he started playing with her rich strands of golden hair, the two turning their attention back to the telly while enjoying each other’s company. However, before long, Craig realized that something was amiss. The Doctor had just saved the day again, but the screen should’ve changed to a different scene by now, yet instead of that, the screen had simply faded to black.

Soon, a swirling black hole appeared in the screen, mesmerizing, hypnotic, and the mutant and the Rainborn were helpless as they stared at it, entranced. Then, just like that, their consciousness faded to black. Just like the screen.

---

The Man

The man awoke, garbed in a rough loincloth, his eyes struggling with purpose, finally opening, to behold the innumerable stars above. They seemed so impossibly high above him, and he reached out to them, not with hand, but in thought and mind. But they were beyond him, for now, incomprehensible and ineffable. He got up and sniffed the air, not knowing why he did so, nor how he got up, nor what he was, even, but nevertheless , he smelt nothing but wet dew. The man looked down upon himself, at his dark skin, and beheld his hands, unblemished and untainted by the wrinkles of time.

He could not understand it, for the time being, but he could move and think, his thoughts developed and accelerated than all others. While other men, in the dawn of their awakening, struggled, and were overwhelmed with a random cascade of sensations, his focus was straight, yet not narrow, encompassing the color of Earth and the whispering of the wind. He lifted his eyes upward, seeing other figures like himself rising from the Earth. And so he began to move, one foot lifting itself, as the other followed, and so he walked, toward them.

It was a short walk for him, and when he neared them, he halted, not knowing what to do, he arranged something within his throat and grunted at them. The others slowly learned how to move and grunt as he did, but quickly, the man grew tired of grunting and opened his mouth, speaking the first words of humanity: “I AM.”

They looked at him quizzically, and he showed them, how to form words, and so, the silence of nature was perverted forever, and a cacophony of human voices sounded in discordant chorus.
More beings joined them, and they too began to speak, when they learned the art of it, and soon the cacophony was an onrushing flood to the man’s ears. He had felt.pain for the first time.
And so, he responded, scrambling up a rock and standing above them, opening up his mouth, his mind finding the appropriate word to use here: “Silence!”

And the cacophony died down to whispers. The group of men and women learned, and spoke, the man always at the vanguard. They discovered the need for shelter as white-colored, cold, and hard balls came down upon them, and ascertained that the dryness of their throats could only be sated with water, and the ache in their stomachs could only be satisfied in food. They developed self-awareness as well, and to distinguish each other, they created names for themselves.

And when asked, the man gazed beyond the plains for a moment, and then, spoke one name: “Craig.”

The others looked at him quizzically, but accepted it with nods, and then they continued their endeavor to survive. Craig led them in the discoveries that they made, and soon, a woman discovered that there were other beings, that walked the Earth, beings with four legs. But when she attempted to speak to them, they would not, could not respond, and so Craig's tribe deemed them inferior, and, growing tired of eating the grass, roots, and bark, partook on a hunt. They had no weapons, nor did any of them know what weapons were yet, but Craig took a group of 7--they had, in an attempt to distinguish how many there was of a thing, had created numbers--of the tribe's fastest members, and tracked a tan beast until it drew dark, and the beast laid down to rest. And then, the hunters leapt on the beast, raking it's sides with their teeth as others used their fists upon the beast, which struggled mightily, but to no avail. And then, all of a sudden, its struggles ended, and the beast's eyes turned vacant, its body limp.

Several of the hunters howled in delight, but Craig simply knelt, his hands now scarred and bleeding, growing sorrowful that in order for his tribe to live and thrive, others would have to stop living. It seemed a terrible thing to him, to end this beast, and yet it had been necessary. Slowly, he slung the animal--that was the name he came up for it, surmising it to be more than a dumb beast---over his shoulder, and he began to lope back towards the village, the other hunters following him.

The tribe had meat to eat that night, and so they feasted on the animal, Craig taking reluctant bites, hating the taste of the beast and the red fluid that squirted when he bit into it, a red liquid that they had within themselves as well. But he knew that it was necessary. Afterwards, they drank mud water, the only real drink they had, and then the members of the tribe all drifted away to their selected shelters, a few fights occurring over some of the best spots.

Their lives followed a cyclical nature, hunting, eating, and drinking and then sleeping. But after one of Craig’s teeth has snapped from the bone of an animal, and his jaws ached from repeated chewing, he was convinced that there had to be a better way to eat the meat. But his plans were interrupted by the sky being rent open by booms of sounds and streaks of yellow light.

Some of the people ran to the caves, crying out that the world was ending, until a panic grew within the tribe, a panic that grew into a stampede, until the plain was completely empty, save for Craig. He gazed up at the sky, his curly hair soon matted down by the torrential rain. But he sensed that this phenomenon could be used, somehow, to his purpose. Guided by instinct, he took a branch and began to run, soon reaching the slope of the mountain, which he began to climb, slowly, by his sheer willpower, grasping ever closer towards heaven. It was a long climb, and a difficult one, and he slipped many times, not knowing how to properly position his hands and feet in the most efficient manner. But still, he persevered, not minding the rain that came down upon him. He had no measure of time, so he knew not how long he had climbed, when he reached the zenith. But in victory, he thrust his branch into the sky, and if by divine Providence, the yellow streak came upon it, and then, there was a crackle of light. Craig looked up at it, and marveled at the warmth this...light gave, and it was exceedingly hot to his fingers. And so he roared, his primal bellow echoing beyond valleys and hills. His tribespeople heard it, and clambered cautiously out, and bore witness to the birth of something extraordinary. Craig climbed down the mountain, carefully, his mad laughs filling the air as the lightning abated, his branch blazing with light held aloft. And so, they called him by another name, Craig. They called him Prometheus.

They called it fire, this light, and they soon discovered that it could be used to warm themselves and their food, and make their meat tender and more appetizing. Fire scared away any large animals, and so they no longer feared the night, nor its monsters. Craig, by banging two rocks together in a fit of anger at another tribesman, discovered sparks as well, sparks that could be used to create fire without the yellowstreaks---their word for lightning. But they also discovered that fire could be used to shape things, and so, one day, the first weapon was created. The creator, a rival tribesman named Yont put his walking stick into the group fire and discovered that it became sharp to the touch. With it, he killed an animal faster than Craig had ever done, and so the tribe flocked to him, and they became factionalized and splintered.

Two moons later, the two groups met by the fire to speak, and Yont revealed his weapons, and made his case for leadership of the tribe. But Craig was the only one to speak against these weapons of Yont, saying that they would lead to war between men, and disrespect of the beasts of the plains. For that, they called him a coward, and so Craig departed back to his dwelling, not knowing that Yont plotted against him.

And when the next moon had come. Yont’s group had made their weapons and then attacked Craig, and, the man, seeing that he had no allies, fled. And he was fleeter of foot than his pursuers because of their sharpened sticks which weighed them down. And when he had outrun them, he slowed to a stop. He had been forsaken, and he dared not return, lest he be killed. Lighting a fire on a branch, he began to walk, in no particular direction, hoping to find purpose. He soon found that purpose, in another group of people, and so the circle of life began again. And the legend of a man named Prometheus began to spread like wildfire.

---

The Woman

An unconscious figure lay in the eternal sands of the desert, surrounded by them, buried beneath them, and yet, untouched by the passing of time. The rays of the merciless sun reflected off of the few metallic plates that covered the figure which had not yet been engulfed by the sand, creating the illusion of a shining pool in the middle of the desert. Not far from there, a group of men and women wandered miserably, cast out of their homes by those who were stronger and better armed than they. The clothes they wore, tattered by a long time of traveling without rest, were laughably insufficient to protect them from the harshness of the sun and the sand, and they walked with their hands and bellies empty, bearing hope no more, only waiting for the moment when their legs would carry them no further, and they would fall and be swallowed by the dunes or devoured by the circling black birds. Alas, that moment, it seemed, was taking its time to arrive, and though those men and women were sick of waiting, wanting nothing more than to let themselves down already, and surrender to the will of the Gods, there was something that impelled them forward, a primal instinct that did not allow them to give up their life until the very last moment.

It was this very same impulse that led them to move towards the glowing beacon amidst the sands. Though they did not know why, they were drawn towards it, driven by their innate curiosity and by the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, that shining light might contain some hope for the hopeless wanderers. Thus it was that they shambled towards it with the last of their strength, descending from the dune where they stood and walking to the pool of light. When they reached it, they could not tell what they had found, but, with newfound determination to reveal the mystery, they began using their bare hands to move away the sands, uncovering more and more of the metallic plates, until eventually, they unearthed that which was buried. But, where they had expected riches to buy their salvation, or weapons to fight back and earn it, they instead found a person, a woman. Her hair was golden like the rays of sunlight that descended from the skies, and her milky skin was soft and warm to the touch, though most of it was covered in an intricate suit of armor, seemingly made of silver and blood.

The travelers were amazed with their discovery, having never before seen someone of that appearance, or the type of armor that she wore. But their marveled reverie would not last, for though they were surprised, they remained tired and worn and battered, and that which they had unearthed, they knew, would do them no good, would not help them survive out in the sands, and their wonder faded away, their despair settling in once more. Once more they resigned themselves to their destiny, and their weary, calloused feet began dragging them away from there.

What they did not know was that death had finally heard their pleas, and was coming to claim them. For a mighty roar echoed through the sands in front of them, and as they ascended through the dune before them, they saw the agents of death fast approaching. A pack of lions had felt hunger awakening within them, and had decided to head out on a hunt. And now that they had caught the scent of soft flesh to devour, hope was at long last gone. The weakened wanderers no longer had the energy in them to run away from the danger, or to fight back, and so, all they could do was watch as the lions approached, weakly stepping back in one last attempt to escape from an inevitable destiny, some of them tumbling and falling to the sands.

It was then that something incredible happened. The same woman that they had unearthed before, she had rose from the eternal sands of the desert, and now strode past the fallen wanderers, standing in front of the pack of lions that had come to claim their flesh. Though momentarily surprised, the beasts displayed no intention to back off, and warily they approached the woman with a mane of gold. The first of them charged at her, teeth ready to tear and rend the woman’s flesh, but she raised her gauntlet, and the lion bit naught but metal before being thrown aside with great force. The other lions, wary, circled the woman, and some of them lunged in tandem, but she cast them aside expertly. Finally, when she grew tired of their insolence, she held up her hand. An orb of light shone with the strength of the sun itself above her, and, blinded, the pride that had lost its pride fled from that woman’s wrath.

The desert wanderers, they were in awe of what they had witnessed. Formerly, they had vested none of their hope in that fallen woman who lay half-buried in the sempiternal sands, but now that they had witnessed her power, the power of the lady who bore the sun itself in her palm, they could not conceive her as anything other than a savior sent by the heavens above. With their waning strength, the weathered figures rose from the sands, only to fall to their knees around the Goddess, revering her and chanting over and over the word of Might, for she was mighty indeed. One with the strength to bend the beasts of the land to her will, and with the power of light, could be nothing if not divine, and so, the wanderers praised her for as long as their frail and battered bodies would allow, their wonder far outweighing their suffering.

The woman, however, did not understand what they said. She was, in fact, in a state of confusion. Her mind… It was in turmoil. Her consciousness was numb from the prolonged inactivity it had been plunged into an uncertain amount of time ago. Unable to yet function properly and form coherent thought, her mind had been operating her body based on automatic responses instead, activating when it felt the touch of intelligent creatures, and reacting when it felt a threat arising. The woman had fought the beast pride not out to terrify or to protect, but out of a misplaced self-preservation instinct. Now, however, with the threat gone and the desert wanderers kneeling before her, she felt her consciousness truly awaken. Where was she? Who, and more importantly, what was she? There were no answers in sight, but as she heard the wanderers chant one word over and over again, there was only one thing she could think of that the word might express.

Her name.

Tilting her head, she spoke, her voice softer than the travelers might have expected of a shining deity such as her, but nonetheless heavenly, and she spoke the same word in an inquisitive tone, wondering. Those gathered around her, they were amazed to hear one so far above speaking to them, amazed and yet delighted, and so, they claimed that she was might itself, that she bore the strength of countless lions, and though she did not know what they spoke of, for their ancient tongue was lost on her, she adopted that word as hers. The mighty one, they had called her, and the mighty one she had become.

But as much as her awakening mind enjoyed the reverence that the men and women of the desert showed her, it was painfully simple to see just how badly the trials of the sands had affected them. Though none of them had faltered thus far, all of them continuing to praise her, their voices were dying down, and their bodies were screaming out weakness and decay. Even to one such as her, who could understand none of what the wanderers were going through, it was clear that something was wrong, and so, approaching one of them, she gripped him by his shoulders, softly, and then made him rise, before having him walk.

Ignorant to the wishes of the Goddess, but unwilling to leave them unfulfilled, the man walked. Before he had taken more than a few steps, however, his shoulder was clasped once again, and he was stopped, returned to the others. The mighty one then used the power of the sun that she bore in her palm to carve a line in the dunes, the sands turning to crystal as they were touched by the shining light. Then, turning elsewhere, the lady of the golden mane disappeared, moving faster than the wind, with only the flying sands knowing where she had gone. Dutifully, the people of the desert awaited for her return, standing underneath the scorching sun for what seemed like a long time, only the sun itself knowing how long they waited.

But their wait, they soon found out, was not in vain. Though the flying sands and the scorching sun above blinded them, they were able to hear, and they heard the growls of approaching beasts, but also the voice of the Goddess, softly humming. The wanderers of the desert moved to meet her, and once they were close enough to see, they saw her, sitting on the back of a lion, several more following her, bound by chains of light that she held in her palm. As she approached, however, the lion that she rode on faltered, and she jumped off before it fell to the ground, a large, bleeding gash on the side that faced the sun. A sad sacrifice, but a necessary one for the lady to assert her dominance over the beasts of the wild. The travelers once more sang praises of their savior, who had now brought mounts for them to head to gentler lands, and before they departed from that dune in the middle of the desert, they gave the Goddess a gift that they fashioned from the fallen beast.

For a long time they rode beneath the skies, guided by the one who held the reins of light in her hand, who walked before all of them, headed towards the land they had been exiled from, headed towards the land of black soils.

The men of the city in the desert sands were, as always, vigilant. The watchers on the mudbrick walls observed the horizon with unwavering focus, ready to draw and aim their bows at any threat that might approach. The wardens that stood below, by the gates, were prepared to wield their curved blades with deadly precision against any who would march upon the walled city. But as these keepers watched, they soon noticed something different amidst the eternal sands, something that approached the city. And as they watched, they soon saw what it was: a pride marched towards them, wanderers clad in tattered clothes sitting on the back of the beasts, all of them led by a strange figure clad in red, once silver plates now painted by the blood of a fallen beast. The figure in the lead held in her hands golden reins of light that seemed to control the pride, but the most prominent detail was undoubtedly the severed head of a lion which she wore on her head, masking her as the fury of nature itself.

Soon, however, the men of the sand city saw something that alarmed them more than the mysterious figure: the men and women riding on the backs of maned beasts, they were the ones that had been exiled. The reason did not matter: it was the will of those who ruled, and their will was to be respected. The sentence had been clear: those who dared to return, would be killed on the spot. Arrows soon began to cover the sky as they flew towards the exiles, but they had faith in their Goddess, and they remained unafraid in the face of death. The arrows soon covered the distance between the bowmen on the walls of the city and the riders of the lion pride. The first few miraculously missed their marks.

The rest did not have a chance to do so.

Seeing the threat to the people she led to the city, the people she was trying to save, the woman with the head of a lion raised her hand, and as if triggered by her will, something happened that caused the nomads to marvel, and caused the men of the city to watch on in terror. The arrows that were still flying over the sky suddenly burst into flames, the fire consuming them so quickly that by the time they would reach the nomads, they were naught but a breeze of ashes in the sky.

The rain of arrows continued for a time, but the wanderers and their lady advanced unfettered, wood and bronze burning up in the air, never reaching the target. Eventually, they reached the gates of the city, and that was when the true battle broke out. The soldiers, wielding their curved blades, charged towards the Goddess clad in red, but their weapons seemed to simply bounce off of her armor, causing her no harm. Even her skin seemed impervious to it, as she was able to grab one of the curved arms and snap it in half with ease, a show of force that caused the soldiers to back away from her. Yet, even though these men were harmless to her, she made no move to attack them. It was only when one of them, preferring to deal with a pack of lions than an angry deity, rushed towards the nomads, that her fury was truly shown. In one swift move, she ripped a weapon out of a warrior’s hand and beheaded the man who threatened them, before invading the city by herself, unstoppable, like a force of nature. The battle lasted for a while, but every soldier that crossed her path was slain, and soon, most of those who still remained in the city fled in terror of the crimson lioness that had arrived from the desert.

Only the few who remained behind, too intelligent to fight against the red Goddess, were able to put an end to the one-sided battle. Making it all too evident that they had no intention to fight, they approached bearing gifts: in wooden crates, they carried food and jars of a strange red drink, which they presented before the wanderers mounted on the lion pride. Ever so humble, they offered the gift to their lady first, but she, not knowing its worth, shared it with them. The red liquid’s taste, to her, was enjoyable, though it had no other effect on her, whereas it seemed to affect the others strangely. Regardless, now that she had done justice for the men and women of the desert, and had saved them from the brink of starvation, she was content, appeased, and so, the rampage was brought to an end, the lady taking off the lion’s head at last.

In the night, with no further desire to fight and no need to travel further, she instead turned to those who had become her worshippers. Seeing them rejoicing, she shared in their bliss, and joined in their celebration. The repatriated nomads heard the Goddess sing and laugh, and with her they learned to dance until they fell over. Where in the day she had spread flames and terror, in the night she had spread joy and love, and the people of the desert revered her all the more for it.

But despite this, she could feel there was a yearning in her heart, a longing for something that she did not possess, but somehow knew. And thus, in the dead of night, she left the desert to search for that which she desired. Her face would not be seen again, but her legend would last for millennia.

[Confederation of imperial states]

[Redacted]

[New Neros]

Indominus Rex
Golden God versus Mad God
Theme

The silence that filled the Emperor’s ears was alien, in a land he had grown accustomed to hearing every single heartbeat, he felt only a precious few. It was not loss by some external force, but loss he had caused with his own two hands, where his people were not killed, but left of their own accord. He sat in solemn silence upon his throne, his palace dark, save for a single ray of light illuminating his seat from behind his head. His face cast in shadow, he lowered his chin as he felt a familiar presence. Moments later, the doors of his throneroom were thrown open as one of his precious few kinsmen stumbled in. “My Emperor!” He cried, a strong voice, a member of the Praetorian Guard, “My Emperor, he is here! Do you feel his presence? Both his energy and lack of it?” He asked, frantic, flustered, afraid.

Casting a look to the side, Xander bore no strong emotion, but calmly informed his subordinate. “I can feel his energy from two planets away. I knew he was coming, but I wasn’t sure when. Seems like he knows just when to kick a man when’s down.” Xander said, tightening his grip on one of his arm rests, rising from the chair slowly. “Prepare the Guard, but keep them hidden. Maxwell is someone who knows too much for his own good… But not enough to be humble.” Xander walked with his Guard side by side for a moment until the Praetorian raced elsewhere, signalling a mobilization of the few Kryptonians, Kree, and other races still left on Praetoria. Xander stood outside of his palace, looking off into the clouds, finding their sight obstructed by metal ships.

“You’ve left me targets in the sky, Mad King. They will meet a watery grave, should you hide from my wrath.” Xander began to float into the sky, leaving Praetoria behind, meeting the armada the Parahuman King had assembled. “Seems like you’ve willed these beasts into existence, Maxwell. I always took you for a man who would step on another if got him ahead.” Xander shouted, a few hundred meters away from the ship that contained Max, something he could tell by heartbeat alone. “Sol Invictus. That’s the name you called me.” He said with a smirk, “I kinda like it. What does that make you, Indominus Rex? That’s what you say to your friends in the Anti-Registration Movement. Why don’t you come out of that trash can and look me right in the eyes. Face to face, and tell me why you think you can intimidate me.”

Back within the Indomitable, Maxwell’s jaw tightened as Xander appeared and began to speak, Mir sensing the discomfort in his King. Flashing his own eyes to the Praetorian Emperor, Mir could see why - He held himself with just as much confidence as the Mad King, unafraid, and willing to go the distance if it meant victory. Mir realized why Mad Max was so afraid of Xander, because he saw too much of himself in the Emperor. Maxwell seemed to be preparing to make a response, but to Mir’s surprise, Max leapt from his control throne. “Track every heat source on Praetoria. Every anomaly. If Xander’s planning something, this is it, this is how he’ll do it.”

“Why go?” Mir asked, Maxwell turning to look at his Godbreaker. “Why not stay here and go with the battle as planned?” Maxwell cast a look in the other direction, not facing Mir as he replied.

“Because we’re not any more safe here than out there. These vessels can take a beating, but Xander is something else entirely. If he put his mind to it, there’s nothing stopping him from coming in to meet me right now.” Finally, he turned back to look at Mir, the Godbreaker seeing the emotion in his King’s face, and realizing a deeper meaning. Pride. Mad Max climbed to the roof of his ship, opening the hatch and finding himself surrounded by the cold, blowing wind as he stepped out on tohe vessel, his metal suit clanking loudly on the metal beast. Lifting himself into the air with his energy abilities, the Mad King floated to where Xander was.

A smirk lay on the Praetorian Emperor’s face, while a deep scowl was embedded on the Parahuman King’s. “I honestly didn’t think you’d show up.” Xander said with a laugh, “So, tell me, why did you bring this armada to my doorstep? Did you decide to open up your massive heart and give me a shooting gallery?” He asked with heaps of sass and sarcasm. Maxwell did not respond, taking Xander back a bit, but continuing on. “So, man to man, what’s the deal?”

“The deal is you.” Maxwell said, turning over his hand and curling his fingers, as if he were grabbing something. “You want the world in the palm of your hand. You expected us to kneel, to obey. You thought whatever it is you’re doing is right because you don’t know what wrong is. Everyone around you agrees with what you say out of fear for their tongues, hands, and lives. Your own people live in fear of you.”

“Not anymore.” Xander replied, “They don’t anymore.” The reply was grim and with sadness for an empire lost, but it did not strike against the Mad King. Xander tightened his face and curled his lip slightly looking back up at Max, and responding. “So, you’re telling me, that your problem isn’t exactly with registration, but with me particularly?” He asked for clarification, Maxwell standing still and not answering. “You know, I always thought you were an alright guy, never really saw you as anything more than an egotistical jackass, but now I guess I can add asshole to that list, too. But let me ask you something, what’s there to make me believe that you don’t want the same world in your palm instead?”

“There’s nothing to make you believe otherwise.” Maxwell said, Xander tilting his head a bit, surprised, “Unlike you, I don’t parade around as something I’m not. The world would be a better place in my hands, in my control. Maybe you’ve caught me with my pants down, that the King of the Parahumans wants to rule the world. Surprising, shocking, even.” Maxwell continued with some venom, talking down to Xander, causing the Emperor to tighten his fists. “I’m not exactly what you’d call a hero. A Mad Man, Mad King, or Mad God. There’s little difference in those three.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you believe the bullshit that comes out of your mouth.” Xander fired back, finally cracking Max’s face into a small smile. “I’m going to make you an offer, something that’s gonna save you and me a loooot of time and a loooot of blood. Let’s keep this between you and me, just us, no one else interfering and no one else helping either of us.”

“You say that like it’s a fair fight, Xander. I have much, much more to lose here.”

“So,” Xander said, thunderously loud so that all could hear, “You’re telling me that you’re afraid to fight, Maxwell? That you’re too weak to fight a single man?” Xander pried, Maxwell gritting his teeth violently as the Praetorian Emperor goaded him. “I want to keep your pretty little ships and their couple of hundred crews out of harm's way and you deny them? You sentence them to an early death because you’re afraid?” Xander hollered with a smirk, watching the Mad King squirm, flashing his eyes to and fro, knowing that his soldiers were all watching for the move their King would make. Pride, or a hard-fought victory that wasn’t even assured. Maxwell had to choose.

Mad Max held his eyes closed tightly and opened them slowly, a vicious look coming from them. “Fine. I’ll fight you. One on one. Name your battlefield.”

Xander cast a quick look behind him and around himself, judging the Earth to be too vulnerable for the two of them to trade blows. “Whenever big fights go on, Earth seems to get the short end of the stick. Let’s go somewhere we can both can let loose a little bit. Mercury? No, no too hot. Ah! Mars. That works. The red planet.” Xander said, “How about I race you there?” He said, disappearing in a flash.

---

“My Knights, be ready. I’m going to fight the Praetorian Emperor on Mars.” The Mad King said, activating his Siege Courageous, and stepping through the emerald green portal, setting foot right on Mars instantly through the teleportation device. The dusty wind blew fiercely, Maxwell scanning his immediate surroundings for Xander, but finding him nowhere. Without warning, a lightning bolt shot from the heavens and slammed onto the martian landscape, sending dust and debris flying all around, but Maxwell didn’t move a muscle.

At the epicenter of the crater stood a Golden God, lightning bolts racing across his body as the friction he had from the thin atmosphere still clung to him. “Sorry, I was on the other side of the planet.” Xander said with a half smile, which died down as he realized Max wasn’t laughing or smiling at the comment. In fact, all Xander could feel was massive energy spikes concentrated Max’s body, the rock cracking beneath his feet and the thin air distorting around him. “Something on your mind, champ?”

In an instant, both Max and Xander disappeared, the Mad King tackling the Golden Emperor and sending both of them into a mountain range several kilometers away in the blink of an eye, leaving a trail of light blue plasma as the duo tore through the air. Xander’s back and head collided with the red rocks with incredible raw force, sending shockwaves through the mountains and right to the planet’s tectonic plates. Mad Max tore himself from Xander, who smoked and steamed with friction burns, a bit dizzy, but still very much able to fight back. Wiping off his lips, Xander prepared to counter attack, but was grabbed by the neck and pulled forward out of the crater his body had made and slammed back in with considerable force.

Breaking apart the mountain, it began to collapse on the duo, Maxwell taking no mind to the event as he reared back his fist and delivered it to Xander’s face with explosive power, annihilating part of the Golden God’s skull, and leveling the rest of the mountain the two stood on. Separated by a man-made valley, the mountain system threw up dust and dirt high into the clouds, obscuring the scene as Mad Max stood over Xander. “Not used to having people lord over you, huh?” Maxwell asked to Xander’s body. “Get used to this feeling.”

With a thunderous smack, Maxwell was sent flying straight up through the cloud of debris at incredible speed, Xander having delivered an uppercut with incredible, raw power. Before the Mad King’s body could slow down as it reached the middle atmosphere, Xander appeared above him and delivered an elbow to the top of Maxwell’s head, sending him right back down to the Martian surface. Midway before he impacted, Xander slammed his feet into Max’s back with high speed, accelerating the King’s momentum as he made landfall on the surface, sending deep fissures across several miles and creating a sizable impact crater, with Xander on top of the Mad King still. “How does it feel?” He asked in a sarcastic tone, “To have someone lord over yo-”

Xander’s words were interrupted by a sudden and massive burst of energy, the Praetorian Emperor jumping out of the way in time, setting himself gently on the ground some ways away, looking at the decently sized sphere. As the energy dome shrank back, it revealed a scorched and melted surface, smoking and steaming with the very rocks themselves red-hot. Walking among the lava field was Mad Max, slowly, a bit discomforted. He leaned forward and threw his upper body back violently, a sound-barrier breaking CRACK thundering across the landscape as he righted his spine. Two light blue spheres were formed in Mad Max’s palms, with a golden glow becoming apparent in Xander’s eyes. They stood watching the other for a moment, looking for their opening or for the other to make a move, both hardly scratched from the devastation they inflicted on each other, their fight just beginning.

"Indominus Rex." Maxwell grimly stated, Xander parroting him by stating his own title, mocking Maxwell.

"Sol Invinctus."

[Charmera]

Some of the funeralgoers might have been suspicous about the appearance of a strange man in glasses, or by the strange mishmash of people. Though those that knew her knew that she had many friends who might not know each other nessecarily, which came with being a planet hopping Lantern. However there was one man whom others might be more suspicious about. Coat, sunglasses and hat, and what seemed to be a briefcase. What was even more suspicious, was when the man raised his briefcase, and then tossed it to the ground. It opened up, to reveal what seemed to be machinery.

Flash went to quickly aprehend the man, grabbing his arms, but the damage was already done. Suddenly blue energy swirled from the briefcase, and nine figures seemed to coaless into the world. Flash looked in confusion, before the man he was holding suddenly exploded, sending him backwards as the blast knocked him out, ironically the mans body managed to sheild him from most of the damage. His leg was broken however by the blast.

The rest of the league moved to encircle these figures. As the blue energy faded, it was revealed they were all women, eyes glowing with various colours. One of them ripped open the casket, and then was surprised to find nothing.

"She's not here." Spoke one.

The other nodded. "Go with plan B. Search everywhere."

"We may have some... resistance first." whispered another, indicating the league.

"Oh. Fun. I always like it when we get new toys..."

"Calm yourself Anarchy, our primary goal is to find the Martian."

"You aren't going anywhere>" Declared superman.

"That, mortal, is where you are mistaken." Spoke the original speaker, seeming to be the leader.

When the man exploded, Manifest was thrown backwards, slamming into a large gravestone and knocking through it. In an instant, he was up, reaching downwards out of instinct and attempting to summon a weapon to his hands. Thanks to his distinct lack of powers, however, nothing happened. With a scowl, he adjusted his disguise, watching the fight. He put two left fingers to his ear, activating a communicator. "Charles to League. What the Hell just happened? Get me my Blade and I will end these idiots in an instant." He growled. "They had no right to crash a god damn funeral, especially Julie's." He lowered his hand and used it to roll up his right sleeve to the elbow, tearing off a small film. Beneath it, a layer of microscopic blocks covered his arm and giving it the appearance of him wearing some sort of long black armband, a hypothetical design designed by Kree science fiction writers. With but a tap of his palm against the surface of the band, the particles lifted into the air and coalesced, forming a small, handheld gun, designed to shoot anti-matter.

Superman first charged Athena whom seemed to deflect his fist with a hastily formed spear of some sort, formed out of some sort of nano cloud. Athena then struck out at superman with the flat end of her spear, evidently having codes against killing other beings. Superman might have shrugged off a regular spear, but this one seemed to sent him flying into a gravestone, breaking it into two. He got up.

"What kind of androids are you?' He muttered to himself curiously. Then moved back into combat. Though perhaps he could apeal to it's sense of logic. "Explain what you're here for. Perhaps we can help?"

Athena smiled. "I'm sorry. I'm not authorized to accept earthling help." She spoke as she was suddenly blasted by red beams, but she seemed to have anticipated this as part of her body flowed to make a hole for the super eye beams to past through. Then she tossed several larger seeming nanobots, which spun around superman. "Thank you though." She spoke. as she then began to bombard him with rays of what seemed to be kryptonite from the large bots. The kryptonian keeled over, then slumped unconscious.

---

'Why are they here? What do they hope to gain from assaulting a funeral?" Asked Jonzz, seemingly both in shock and contained fury. Though it was hard for those who didn't know him to tell.

The other John scowled and shot a beam of green light. "I don't care what it is. No one assaults the funeral of a Lantern. No one." He suddenly found himself slammed with a fist.

"I apologize for this. But it is necessary." Spoke a calm and soothing voice that seemed to be the owner of the fist. Gaia.

"Nessecary for what?" Asked the Martian, before he too was suddenly bashed into the ground by the flat end of an axe from Red

"Shut up Gaia!" Spoke Red as she followed up by summoning a massive mace to replace the axe, slamming downward again. The martian seemingly was stunned. She lifted her mace once more, to be stopped by Gaia. She gritted her teeth.

"No killing. Stunned is enough." She spoke. then dragged Red away at speed. "We need to leave!"

---

Otis meanwhile was finding himself surrounded by three androids. Isis, Anarchy and Venus.

"We really shouldn't antagonise them. We just wanted the Martian... Now we have to leave to find her."

"Come on ISIS, don't you want to test yourself against these unawakened earthlings? They seem like fun..."

[New Rob Halfordia]

"If I recall, you were losing that fight. Regardless of outside intervention, you were on your last legs, and I was still right as rain." Xander replied to Frost and went back to his own food. He would have continued the argument, but really didn't feel the need to. At least not in a public place in front of his wife. Frost seemed to take a liking to Otis which was hopefully a sigh of relief.

"Sure." Otis replied. "I have no idea who that is, but sure. I'll tag along. Honestly, I spent most of my time since the whole Omega Effect thing sitting on my butt, eating junk food, playing video games and binge watching TV shows." He admitted with a shrug. "But I suppose I can't put off this kinda stuff any longer. I'm a god whether I like it or not. So I might as well go meet some more and figure this whole thing out." He didn't want to, but it wasn't like this was going to go away. So it was time to get it over with. "Should I pack a travel bag? Cause if we're staying for a few days, I probably should bring my toothbrush. Bad breath is never good for first impressions."

Naja was just glad the things were finally settling down. Xander was somewhat less aggressive. Otis was finally crawling out of his shell and embracing everything as it was. Now that things were in a more sane sort of mind, she figured that the Justice Queens were probably wondering where she's been at all this time, and it was probably time for a reunion.

As Xander spoke, Frost's demeanor quickly grew annoyed, "You know Xander, my last leg is a lot stronger than either of your's on their best day." the Arcosian said, with snark abound, "If we ever have a rematch, I'll go all out from the beginning, and then we'll see who comes out on top. Pro tip, it won't be you."

Frost then turned back to Otis, "You don't know Beerus the Destroyer?" he asked, slightly worried, given that Beerus was known for a hair pin trigger and a tendency to blow things, living or inanimate up, without much forethought, "Yeah we can stop at Apokolips first I guess. Just know, when we get to Beerus' planet, he's usually a little... irritable. I've only ever met him once, and the guy blew up a planet I owned because his food was slightly too salty."

[Syrixces]

A Burning Martian with a Greek Name comes to Visit

"Well hello there," Craig responded out loud, using his wrist teleporter to exit the Imaginarium and stand before the visitor. "Usually, visitors knock on the front door before entering, but I'll excuse these circumstances," he said, gazing up at the giant, "not like I couldn't do so." His eyes turned an electric blue as he consulted the Orb of Cognition for a few moments before his normal dark eyes returned to their normal chocolate brown. "A Burning Martian. I shall have to create some psionic headgear for the team, to prevent mind-reading in the future." He said, surmising how the Martian had gotten the location of their HQ.

"Anyway, where are my manners? Welcome to Travenios. You know my name, but I am afraid I do not know yours. And you said you wanted to talk and help us? What's your interest in this War of ours, and why do you want to take part?" he asked, leaning against a wall.

Pyrkagias was taken aback by the Earthling. Not only had this life-form been able to identify his specie, but it had been able to correctly estimate and analyze his main ally, his telepathy. He grinned wickedly, flaming knives spreading into a smile across his face, as he settled his deep black-orange eyes on that of Craig's, scorched, ashy orbs, matching the eternal flame that consumed his body. He opened the third eye in his mind, silently scanning the mind of the man before him, absorbing the tale of his life, almost impressed by the life this being had left. None compared to what he had known or done, but impressive none the less, especially for a human. The giant flaming creature folded its hands, directing his thoughts towards Craig, speaking directly to him telepathically, in case others might be observing.

I am Pyrkagias. A Burning Martian, as you surmised. And the very last of my kind, from what I've ascertained. I have a desire to help you. Not altruistically, but of my own will, none the less. My species is nigh on extinction. We must grow once more, grow to power. And in order to do that, I need chaos, I need war. And your little Civil War, is simply the most convenient opportunity for myself. I also find myself slightly sympathetic to your cause. I was never one to follow the laws either. Not that my people had any. I've already searched your facility telepathically, and I can tell, that while you have plenty funds, you lack in numbers. So, I offer you my assistance, Craig Thomsen of Earth. All I want in return, is an opportunity for my people to breath once more.

[The Fallen Jedi]

Indominus Rex: The Madworld-Praetorian War
The Arcosian Emperor Takes The Stage

Arctico stood atop the highest point of Xander's palace, staring at the Madworld Fleet with a disgusted expression on face, this standoff was very much similar to the Arcosian Civil War that took place only months ago, but instead of the Madworld Fleet being a symbol of liberation and freedom, it was a fleet of untold arrogance and pride, something that made Asumar's ignorance a small blip on the map, unlike the deceased Masaki, Maxwell was actually able to get things done "I always debate whether the Arcosian Race is worse than Humanity, they fight more wars on a daily basis than it takes the Planet Trade Organization to conquer a planet." Arctico's feet slowly rose up from the place, his blood red eyes morphing into blue and his normally black bio armor beginning to peel off, revealing a silver interior from within, Arctico's Ultimate Evolution form "I don't care what events are plaguing this Earth, but if the home of my friend is threatened..." a sharp decline in temperature taking place as snow began to elegantly fall from the sky, the calling card of the New God of Ice as these snowflakes began to expand and form into numerous Ice Warriors that would serve the Arcosian Emperor "I'll show no mercy!"

Taking off at speeds that the normal human eye couldn't follow, Arctico approached the Indomitable with a scowl plastered on his face, the numerous Ice Warriors that had been created following him to the very ship that had housed the Mad King, coming to a stop only a few hundred feet from the ship as his silver energy sprouted all around him, a pair of angel wings forming on the blades of his back, followed by the manifestation of an Ice Lance that was empowered with godly Ki. Arctico opened his mouth before he boomed "If it is a war you want, then It is a war you will get, come out and face me, Forever Knights!"

[Confederation of imperial states]

[redacted]

[The Templar High Council]

Bryan took the card, and verified that this was the daughter he was paid to drive. "Um, actually, I don't know the place," He replied, returning the card. "I was only told that I'd be your driver for today, wherever you happened to want to go." Bryan opened the back door of the limo and gestured for Maria to enter. "So where would that be, miss?"

Maria Anastasna Zhukova

"Definitely not a bordel, this country has none that are good quality." Maria muttered out in comment to the hired driver's question, then sat down in the back seat as soon as he gestured to enter and then took out the phone to check on the address. Which one first? Work or wi-fi? Work or wi-fi? Work or wi-fi?...

"Bozhe moj, how do you people spell these words?" the woman quickly muttered. "No worries, I think I got it... Champa Street. 15. What?"

Bryan reached his hand out to read the address from the phone. "Ah, auditorium. There's some sort of convention there today, I suppose that's where you need to go?" Bryan started the limousine and began to drive. Within short order, they eventually got to the auditorium where a surprising number of people wandering around outside the modern building.

"This is it, your stop right?" Bryan said, as someone dressed for the job opened the door for Maria to exit. After this, he was headed home for a nice night with the women in his life. Who, at the moment, were getting to know each other.

---

"Hi," Leslie looked over and stared at the new girl. "Are you Addison?" Her inquisitive gaze looked over Addison from head to toe. Her pink hair, diminutive stature (ever smaller than Leslie), and the definite uncomfortableness she was feeling right now. Before asking her anything else, the name would be good. "My name's Leslie."

She turned, then nodded. "I'm Addison. I'm supposed to be your new little sister or something..." She spoke, then frowned. She had had a few older brothers, and they had always felt like bossing her around and telling her what to do, which she didn't like. "Don't think you can boss me about just because I'm shorter and younger than you, okay?" Addison spoke, "I don't like it when people do that..."

Leslie crawled over across the couch to Addison, and placed her hand on the younger girl's head. She smiled at Addison, with her eyes closed. "Don't worry, I won't." She then returned to her place on the couch, happily staring at the television again with excitement.

Steph had finished dealing with Mandi in a few minutes, and saw her off with a wave as she turned back to face her two daughters. "OK girls, I'm going to go make dinner. You get to know each other, and play nice!" She continued walking into the kitchen to make a meal, now for 4 people, leaving the two girls to themselves with the television.

[Empire of the Siberian Flaming Eskimos]

Del

"Alrighty, then, just call if you change your mind," Valancy said as Del left to her room, Valancy listlessly flicking through channels on the living room's TV, until she saw news reports of a "strange armored figure" that looked uncannily like Del. She smiled, glad to see that Del was getting into heroics after all, but, then, that report was broken by some breaking news, a building that had caught strangely on fire, with lots of people in it. Looking around for her coat, she heard Del's explanation, and, though raising an eyebrow, nodded, thinking of something just then and calling out to Del just before she left. "Apparently, there's a fire nearby with a lot of people. I thought I'd go see what I can do, though fire and I do not have the best relationship," Valancy grimaced a little at that, not liking uncontrollable fires that could too easily set her alight. "Anyway, do you want to come? I know you're not sure if you're one for heroics, but why not try it out. You're likely to be of more us than I will be, anyway," she reasoned, looking at Del, hoping that she would say yes.

Del hesitated as Valancy asked her to help with the building. It had been her goal to keep things quiet, but if she was planning on going either way then there wasn't much of a point in trying to act like she wasn't going. "Sure," she said after taking a moment to act like she wasn't planning to go there already, "I get the address on our way down." With that, Del moved into the the elevator with Valancy in tow. She tapped her foot impatiently as they went down, searching the internet and various emergency response radios for updates on what was happening. After what felt like a lifetime the elevator opened and she sprinted out at almost top speed as her armor materialized around her. Normally she would be worried about being spotted, but time was of the essence.

Doing her best to take back ally's, she ran at superhuman speeds until she made it to the building. By that time firefighters and police had started arriving at the scene and starting to unload to enter the building. Fire's were raging on the back side of the building and slowly advancing both upwards and towards the front of it. It seemed that some people had managed to find their way out and were congregating in the parking lot outside. Their numbers were few compared to the size of the building though, and only a small stream of soot covered stragglers continued to exit. Quickly running in, Del soon spotted the reason many people weren't making it out. Everywhere around her she could see various hallways and doors blocked by collapsing walls and raging flames. Scanning for sign's of life as she ran through the building, she stopped every time she found a trapped person, lifting rubble and clearing paths for anyone she found. She was making good progress, but there were so many people and so little time. The building's stability was falling with every passing minute and the fire was just too big for the firefighters to put it out before something gave.

"Valancy, I could really use some help!" she yelled as she lifted another piece of rubble out of the way. "Get to the upper floors if you can, I'll focus on the areas that have more flames than you can handle."

[The Templar High Council]

---

Jamie, who had been hoping for the best, winced at Kylie's words, very startled to see her react so violently to the news of Cora's mission and arrest. Her youth and inexperience with these matters wasn't helping her feel any better after Kylie's outburst, nor did the feeling that she had somehow disappointed the team by allowing Cora and Marybeth to get arrested, even though none of that was her fault. Coupled with her usual shyness, it was taking every bit of willpower she had not to just run away and let things sort themselves out now that Kylie had the information. Truth be told, she wasn't sure why she wasn't running yet--probably some sense of duty that had rubbed off on her due to spending time with the Justice Queens--, even if Kylie could reach her with those rings of hers.

If she hadn't been terrified, she might've even been offended by Kylie's remark.

"W-why didn't I tell them?" The black-haired girl mumbled nervously, struggling to put together a coherent answer now. "I... Um... I-I trust you and I..." She looked down. "I didn't want the others yelling at me for being reckless... I just wanted to help Cora..." She said quietly. "Not that I did much good to her, I guess..."

Without warning, Kylie reached out and hugged Jamie. Quite tightly, to tell the truth, but it was sincere. "I'm sorry I said that. Let's go get them then." Kylie flashed a brilliant green, transforming into her superheroine form: Lady Lantern. And, for the first time, she tossed from her right hand a glowing green ring to Jamie. "I found out I can make 'deputy rings' out of light, they let you fly and survive anywhere. Show me where you last saw Cora and MB, we'll go track them down and get this all sorted out."

[Confederation of imperial states]

Guardian 6

Connor Morales' Apartment, downtown San Andres

Connor Morales quickly entered his apartment, flicking on the lights he placed his briefcase down and took off his coat. "Long day" he muttered stretching as he walked into his surprisingly small apartment loft. Connor walked over to the kitchen, preparing the coffee maker, he heard the doorbell ring, quickly finishing and walking over. Connor used his Supervision to see it was Cellina outside, he unlocked the door and smiled "Hello Cellina", Cellina walked in, turning to Connor as he closed and locked the door. "What bring you here so late?", "Cellina was fidgeting with the corner of her coat sleeve, "wanted to check up on you, and talk about what recently happened". Connor immediately understood, he gestured to the couch, Cellina walking over and sitting down while Connor went back to the kitchen.

"Glad to see you're holding up well", Cellina took off your coat "Glad to see you're not dead", connor snickered "Can't be killed that easily". Cellina took out her Ipad and started to google the news "What happened after You left last night, the office I mean". Connor fixed his coffee "I came back to the Office, where Rex had left a message telling me to meet him in New York, and I flew over as fast as I could". Cellina continued listening "he told me there that he had you as a hostage, and If I didn't go to Chicago and Kill Dark Knight, He'd roast you Alive". Cellina was shocked, she knew the situation was in, but didn't know the terms Rex gave him, "And what did you do?",

"Rex told me how he manipulated Dark Knight's hatred of me, and Mine towards him, to finally push him to fight me". "That Bastard" she said looking angrily at his arrest report, "When I arrived at Chicago, Dark Knight was prepared. He had this Robotic suit, and had a trap set up". Cellina didn't respond, simply waited for Connor to continue,
"We started fighting, the guy had a crap ton of Sonic Emitters, Gun turrets, and miniguns set up. None of it mattered and I literally flew him into the building up to the roof, throwing him into his makeshift 'Knightsignal' ". Cellina raised an eyebrow "And did he finally listen?", "No, he used some lead lined smoek to get behind me, and shot this weird Grenade round at me, I caught it of course, but it exploded and hit me with something". Cellina gave a shocked look as Connor continued, "What was in that I don't know, but from then on, the fight was on Dark Knight's terms. He was able to throw me, punch me, stomp me, and My power was weakened".

Cellina looked forward, shocked "How did it weaken you?", Connor shrugged "I don't know. He had me right where he wanted, his foot on my neck, with some high powered spear ready to kill me". "Well I see he didn't" she said jokingly, "The thing was, I pleaded with him to save you, since I was obviously ready to bite it", Cellina's joking mannerism dropped. "then something happened, he listen to me, and when I explained it to him. He immediately stopped. And We teamed up to attempt to take Rex down". "Basically, I'd go to face and Stall rex, while he'd go a save you, And In the end we both suceeded, though Rex took out his trump card, which you know about". Cellina nodded, showing Connor a picture of "Tecton". "You defeated him", "Pfft just barely, and even then I was going to die from Tecton's blast radius if Dark Knight hadn't pulled me out of it". Cellina closed up her laptop, "So it seems you were right when you said he was Stirrcrazy and dangerous".

Connor placed his hands on the kitchen counter and shook his head, "All I know is this, If he were the psychotic Vigilante I thought, he wouldn't have hesitated to finish me". Connor turned to make Eye contact with Cellina; "All I know is this, If it hadn't been for Dark Knight, Rex would've killed me". Cellina snickered remembering "I owe Jonas 50 bucks", Connor raised his eyebrow "Why?~", "Well Dark Knight actually exists, though for the past week since that little Battle Royal he's been secluded in mystery once again". As Connor grabbed his coffee and sat down, Cellina recieved a news notification on her phone, taking it out her eyes widened "Woah", Connor raised his eyebrow "what?". "there's some sort of speedster causing trouble in with some Organic Robots in Springfield", Connor shook his head, taking of his normal clothes to reveal his Guardian outfit, stopping at the Loft Balcony door he turned to Cellina. "Stay Safe", "I'll be fine, Speedsters were never any trouble" he said blasting off into the Night sky.

[The Starlight]

Ragnarök
A collab arc by Star and Charm

Valka looked out across the void of space on top of the walls of her palace in Asgard. The Realm Eternal, the seat of the All-Mother who sat upon a golden throne wreathed with wings and surrounded by hearths of fire. Asgard, of which songs of praise and fear are sung across the galaxy. Asgard, a place that gives enemies pause, Asgard, the golden, loyal defender of Earth. Asgard…a realm of the fallen reborn.

All was quiet, and, seemingly, all was well. Most of her work, these days, was of diplomacy. The Ten Realms looked to her for guidance, and so, she answered. Well, some among the Ten Realms. The rest regarded her as a tyrant, or viewed her with fear. But all knew her might, and for now, they dared not attack. A fragile peace, it was, but it was peace, regardless, and that was something Valka was happy to have.

However, lately, she had considered simply bending the Ten Realms to her will, bringing them under the blanket of her mothership. But it would be an unnecessary war, she supposed, one that would only result in more Asgardian deaths. She had not the luxury, if one called it a luxury, to throw away the lives of her people. They would die for her, if it was necessary, but she would much rather die for them. She was not Asgard, they were. The hope of Asgard lied not in her, but in it’s people, in its younglings. And that hope, for now, blazed like her hearth, the flames flickering and dancing as a sign as their activity and joy.

Her rule had been a journey, for her, one full of experiences and strange sights. She had beheld wondrous feats and terrible suffering. And yet, she endured, and so strived to help her children endure, for that was her strength, and so, that strength must be used for service. For if her strength was used to oppress, what better was she than Darkseid? Her people would follow her into the darkest fires, into the blackest nights, but those had not yet come, and she prayed that
they never would. To whom she prayed to, she was not sure, but within her was hope, that what she sought could be found. But even she grew bored, upon in her palace and so she and her robes swept out like a gale, her long, queen’s robes fluttering via her movement, the golden, immediately recognizable cape she wore followed her, and so, she strode, purposefully, to the fields, where, she beheld Salvistar, the great winged stallion, one of the last Pegasii that soar the skies above. She approached Salvistar humbly, beseeching him. “Salvistar, dear friend. I am in want of a ride, will you allow me?”

The horse tilted its head from the apple it was eating, and beckoned its agreement. And so, Valka mounted Salvistar and then they were off, Salvistar’s hooves carrying them faster than the wind. The All-Mother laughed, the sound of it pearling through the air as Salvistar galloped through the Plains of Ida and all around her Realm. Asgard, truly was a magical realm. This was a land where streams never darkened and the stars were always alight, always discernable. A land of golden apples, twas Asgard, and grasses, that, in a mélange of color, were halcyon, brown and tan. It was a land where desolation and drought had no name nor place.

And she took her time, in her freedom, to lounge about and eat of the fruit of her land, to go into the towns and villages and houses, to see those she called children. But as she was sipping mead in her favorite tavern, The Skilled Cave she felt something. Rather...a lack of something that should be, something that must be. She frowned heavily, a frown that silenced the tavern as she rose, and, paying the owner, she disappeared, teleporting not to her palace, but Valaskjálf, one of the halls she had inherited from Odin. It was built upon a great mountain, at the zenith of it, and as Valka looked up at it, it twinkled like a morning star. And so, she climbed, her bare hands grasping rock and stone with surprising speed. Valaskjálf had been built by the Asgardians long, long ago, in an eon that had since passed, she too, had helped in its building. The hall was roofed and built with pure silver, and soon, Valka stood before the colossal doors, she spoke a word, in their old tongue. "Open."

And the doors, groaning with age, slowly opened themselves and Valka hurried through, pausing a moment, as she stood before what she sought, to look upon it. It, was a high seat, a throne, with two seats, humming with power and knowledge. It was Hlidskjalf, upon which she could see all. And so, she sat upon the left, and saw, and was greatly troubled, as she looked into the Great Void that was space.. For what she saw, or rather, what she did not see, was eight of the Ten Realms. Midgard, was safe, but the rest had vanished, like thieves in the night. And that should not be, could not be. Either the Realms had been stolen, or destroyed. This did not bode well, and she sensed something alien rise up within her, an emotion that she had not expressed nor felt since Valveig had almost been slain by a shadow-being. It was an inkling, a dash of fear that she quickly quenched like the flame of a candle under her fingertips. She was All-Mother, and if a mother’s fear becomes apparent, it grows, rampant, like wild-fire, among the children. It was not her duty, her place, to have fear. And so, she arose from her seat and vanished, arriving back in her palace, bidding Sif to begin the mustering of Asgard.

The Fairest of Them looked at her, a question on her lips, Valka bidding her speak with a nod. “How many, Valka?”

“All of them.”

Sif started, surprised, for the full strength of Asgard had not been raised in many a year. Valka continued, saying, “I entrust you with these tidings, Sif, but let not your lips spread them. Eight Realms have disappeared, and who knows what shall come after? I have my suspicions, and I ride now to those worlds, to see this for myself. Summon Valveig and Thor as well.”

Sif nodded, and Valka was already gone, soon flying in empty space. First, she stopped where Vanaheim had been. She could not sense any remnant of energy, or any trace of the planet. It was simply gone, as if it had never existed. Not even dust remained, and Valka mourned the passing of the Vanir and their beautiful realm. But she continued on, but in each case, found nothing, not a drop of ice from Jotunheim, nor even the distinctive burning smell of Muspelheim. The World-Tree ran through all these Realms, and now, its roots had been displaced, and she knew not what this signified.
Yggdrasil was silent to her entreaties and pleading, and so she returned, disheartened and deeply troubled, to Asgard, Valveig awaiting her on the bridge of prismatic fire. “Daughter,” Valka said, walking quickly to her and wrapping Valveig in her arms.

“What is it that you recalled me with such urgency, Mother, and Thor as well?” Valveig asked, her mother’s eyes turning upward, where great Yggdrasil stood even now, seemingly unhindered, unaltered. “All of the Realms, save for Midgard, have disappeared. I do not know what threat we face, whether it is Galactus...or her, Valveig knowing immediately of whom Valka spoke, Xyrix the Slime Queen, whom Valka both feared and hated after their first meeting, where Xyrix reduced Valka’s Godblast to naught. “But whomever it is, we must prepare. And so, I thought that you might be able to deduce what had happened. So tell me a story, Valveig,” Valka asked, as they walked along the Bifrost.

“Which story, Mother?”

Valka paused and turned to her. “The story of the Ten Realms. I know most of it myself, but apparently, this story is not yet done.”

[Urran]

]

Nelli removed her hand from the stranger's shoulder very quickly as he abruptly moved away from her, wondering what had prompted him to do so. Seeing the way he looked at her and noticing the tears that ran down his face, though, she did not have to think twice to figure out what was on the stranger's mind. He was clearly terrified, perhaps of her, perhaps of something else, though she could not hope to guess. She didn't see herself as particularly fear-inspiring after all, and she was not even carrying her knife at the moment, but either way, she decided to tread carefully, not wanting to aggravate the young man any further. The gifts he displayed, however, were fascinating to her, and for a while, she simply stared at her surroundings, a faint smile on her face as she observed the verdant plant life that had sprouted all around her.

Hearing Yoshi's question, though, she turned her attention back towards him, tilting her head a little. "What makes you think I want something from you?" She asked, genuinely curious, as she began approaching him once again, slowly, so that he would not panic again. "What I wanted to do was help you, since you seemed like you weren't having a good time." She said, stopping some distance away from him and once more crouching a little to see him eye to eye. She felt some sort of desire to assist this stranger, seeing how he seemed so vulnerable, and not much older than her.

"Will you let me help you?"

---

Yoshi sat there, looking wild eyed at the intruder. She was not attacking him, no, but his mind was racing a million directions at once. He'd really have no choice but to trust her, there was no way that he could make it on his own. But how could he trust her, he had no idea who she was or what she was capable of. Of course, she was also sweet on the outside at least. His head pounded and swam as his heart pumped madly inside of his chest. His breaths were shaking and his took his eyes off of this new person just long enough to wipe his damp face on his sleeve, leaving little wet blobs on the black fabric as he pulled his arm from his face.

He last words wrang clearly in his head. "Will you let me help you?" he asked that question a few times in his life and had always been sincere. It was entirely possible that she was genuine and didn't want to eat his heart out with a spoon. After a tense minute of deliberation and silence between the two, Yoshi managed a timid nod. He took the risk and would allow the stranger to help him. He had no foond, no money, did not even know where he was, he was entirely at her mercy and didn't exactly like that.

[The Starlight]

Pyrkagias was taken aback by the Earthling. Not only had this life-form been able to identify his specie, but it had been able to correctly estimate and analyze his main ally, his telepathy. He grinned wickedly, flaming knives spreading into a smile across his face, as he settled his deep black-orange eyes on that of Craig's, scorched, ashy orbs, matching the eternal flame that consumed his body. He opened the third eye in his mind, silently scanning the mind of the man before him, absorbing the tale of his life, almost impressed by the life this being had left. None compared to what he had known or done, but impressive none the less, especially for a human. The giant flaming creature folded its hands, directing his thoughts towards Craig, speaking directly to him telepathically, in case others might be observing.

I am Pyrkagias. A Burning Martian, as you surmised. And the very last of my kind, from what I've ascertained. I have a desire to help you. Not altruistically, but of my own will, none the less. My species is nigh on extinction. We must grow once more, grow to power. And in order to do that, I need chaos, I need war. And your little Civil War, is simply the most convenient opportunity for myself. I also find myself slightly sympathetic to your cause. I was never one to follow the laws either. Not that my people had any. I've already searched your facility telepathically, and I can tell, that while you have plenty funds, you lack in numbers. So, I offer you my assistance, Craig Thomsen of Earth. All I want in return, is an opportunity for my people to breath once more.

Craig stared up at Pyrkagias for a moment, and then stiffened alarmingly as he felt a mental spear headed his way, beginning to read his thoughts and his mind. An outright frown and scowl appeared on his face as if by magic, shutting off the area of his mind that held his inventions, thoughts about Etla, and other private things, and his torture, setting mental walls around those areas, walls in which he was very confident with.

Craig responded likewise. "Well that was rude. I welcome you, uninvited, into my home, and you pay back my hospitality by trying to read my mind? Is this Martian courtesy?"

A flash of pain appeared on his face, and he continued, angrily. "I was captured and tortured for a year for my mind's secrets. One woman who could inflict 10,000x a normal man's pain threshold. The ultimate torture machine. A man who could see 5 seconds into the future, which averted 12 attempted escapes. And a woman, a telepath, like you, who constantly tried to read my mind. You know what I did to her? In my eventual escape, I opened up the walls of my mind and led her into the dark corner where I stored the pain of that year. And then I locked it shut behind her, and watched her scream. So I do not appreciate having my brain violated. That is Rule 1, if you are to join us, You try to read my mind again and I will kick your butt back to Mars. Do not underestimate me when I'm angry." he said, telepathically, glaring, some calm coming over him eventually.

"Now, on to you, Pyrkagias. You say you're the last of your kind. How is a war going to help you reestablish your people. Are you looking for a mate, wife, soul-partner, or whatever you Burning Martians call your women? Because I am not a dating service, I'm a technopath. I'm not going to help you find your own true love," he said, sending a telepathic smirk over. "But yes, we lack numbers. We need more people. And so...despite your breaching of my mind, and your worrying lack of commitment and loyalty, you're in. Rule 2 is, we don't kill, and keep civilians out of this. Rule 3 is that you follow Cap's orders, and then mine. You have your own agenda, sure. But you're in a Movement now. Follow those rules, don't read our minds, and don't stab me in the back, and I will commit all my resources to helping the Burning Martians breathe again. Do we have a deal?"

[Mavorpen]

snip

Over Two Years Ago...

The hallway was, to put it bluntly, green. Both the walls and the floor were made from a metallic material of emerald color. In the center of the hallway, a portal opened and from it emerged Bojack and Jamal. "Looks like it was a success." Jamal muttered as he held out his phone in front of him.

"Yeah, I thought we were going to be screwed." Bojack replied.

Jamal sighed. He was still getting used to Bojack being able to actually speak. The extradimensional dog had apparently kept this piece of information from them in order to justify being pampered and taken care of like a normal dog. Once Bojack had told him that Ruby was taken, the two traveled to her room in the JQ tower. After hearing Bojack's story about her kidnapping, Jamal had wondered why Bojack had simply not traversed through a portal onto the ship. It turned out that the ship had defenses against foreign entities teleporting onto the ship. Unfortunately for them, Jamal was capable of hacking into their systems and temporarily knocking out the defenses, though it took some time as they were surprisingly complex. And so, they made it onto the ship that was orbiting the Earth. "Can you sense her?"

"No...I can't. I do sense two life forms besides the kidnappers, though."

Jamal tapped on his phone and a holographic projection of the ship's interior. He expanded its size until it encompassed the entire hallway. Bojack walked over to one section of the projection and raised his right paw to mark a certain spot. "Alright, guess I'll take that one and you take the other." With that, Bojack turned and trotted off. Jamal ran off in the opposite direction, following the dot marked on his map. As he got closer, he suddenly heard singing. After running for about 10 seconds, he also heard another voice shout.

"Enough! Shut up with the singing!" A gruff female voice shouted, causing the singing to abruptly halt. Jamal slowly walked forward, hugging the left wall of the hallway until he reached the end. He peeped around the corner to find Jasper standing in front of a jail cell, scowling at a small woman that was contained behind a wall of yellow crackling energy keeping her in. "That's better." Jasper said as she scoffed and walked away. Once she was a sufficient distance away, the woman inside of the cell began singing again.

Jamal walked forward, approaching the jail cell. The woman noticed him and stopped singing. "Ah, you're here finally." She said, with a soft-spoken and elegant voice. "It's great to finally meet you."

"Erm, nice to meet you too. How do I--"

"The field won't affect you. It only affects Gems."

Jamal hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Okay then..." He extended his arm forward and touched the energy field. The field touched his arm, however at best, Jamal felt a slight tingling. His arm blocked the region, forming an empty space extending down from his arm. Jamal then turned his body perpendicular to the field and stepped into it. He then bent forward slightly and raised his left arm, blocking the field with his body and allowing the captive to walk under him safely. "So, could you help me find some--" Jamal began before being interrupted by shouting off in the distance.

"Sapphire?!" The voice called out.

"Come with me." The woman next to him said, and she rushed off before Jamal could protest. He chased after her and he was led into an open circular room that was lined by many openings leading to numerous other hallways.

"Hey, what are we doing--" Jamal began to ask as the woman stopped in the center of the room.

"Sapphire!" The voice from earlier exclaimed and Jamal watched as another equally small woman ran into the room, with Bojack running behind her.

"Ruby!" Sapphire exclaimed as Ruby rushed into her arms.

"Uh...what happened to Ruby?" Jamal asked, glancing at Bojack.

"Just watch." Bojack replied.

Jamal watched as Ruby kiss Sapphire multiple times and then pick her up and swirl her around. The two then became a blob of white energy, with their gems in the center. The blob twisted and turned for a brief few moments until it transformed into Ruby as Jamal recognized her. "Uh... I have many questions right now." Jamal said as he stared at a third eye on her forehead.

"They'll have to wait." Ruby said, prompting Jamal to turn to see Jasper walk into the room.

"Want some help?" Jamal asked.

"No, you should go take control of the ship." Ruby replied.

"Fair enough. Good luck." Jamal said, before running into the hallway opposite the one Jasper entered from, with Bojack following him.

"You know, you 'Crystal Gems' disgust me." Jasper said as she stopped a few feet in front of Ruby. "Your reliance on fusion is an abomination. It's weak--pathetic."

Ruby chuckled. "To be honest, I won't deny that we're weak. But to be honest, I've come to accept that, living with humans. Humans are weak and fragile. But they manage to accomplish great things when they work together."

"You can't really believe you can beat me after what happened last time." Jasper flashed a devilish as she took out the weapon from earlier from her waist.

"Try me." Ruby said as she waved her hand over her face and her shades materialized over her eyes once more. Jasper charged at her and swung the weapon at her. Ruby sidestepped the attack and kicked her leg upwards, aiming at Jasper's hand. The weapon was knocked into the air and Ruby punched Jasper in the face, sending her sliding backwards. Ruby caught the weapon in her hand and broke it in half. Jasper stopped sliding backwards and snarled.

"Fine, I'll do this the hard way." Jasper said. Her weapon materialized on her forehead and she once again charged Ruby. Ruby summoned her gauntlets and the two clashed with one another's weapons.

Jamal felt the ship rock as he reached the ship's bridge, seeing Peridot at the controls. Peridot immediately released a panicked squeak and then pointed her fingers at him, releasing small balls of electrified green energy. Jamal dodged them with relative ease by sidestepping them and then rushed Peridot. Usually Jamal would have been more hesitant when facing an opponent he'd never met before, however it was very clear to him that she likely had little to no combat capabilities at all. His deduction turned out to be correct, as he quickly grabbed her and, before she could react, threw her to the ground and subdued her.

"Get off of me, you clod!" Peridot screamed.

"Bojack?" Jamal watched the dog bark and run through a portal formed in front of him. After a few seconds, a portal once again opened up and Bojack emerged from it, holding rope in his mouth. He walked up to Jamal and Jamal took the rope, tying Peridot up with it. He then once again felt the ship shake. Jamal looked around on the control panel and found a speaker system. "How you holding up back there?" Jamal said.

"Just fine!" Ruby replied as she kicked Jasper in the chest, sending her flying backwards. Jasper quickly grounded herself and charged at Ruby, who caught her helmet and then, using her momentum, threw Jasper over her, sending her into the air behind her. Jasper twisted herself and landed on the wall just below the ceiling. Suddenly, energy began coalescing around her and then she jumped off of the wall, spinning into a ball. "Wow, Sonic should su--" Ruby began until the spin dash attack hit her, causing the two to go through the floor. The two got to their knees and Ruby looked around the room to see a large green orb in the center of the room that was connected to multiple tubes trailing the walls of the room.

Jasper roared and once again performed her spin dash at Ruby, who sidestepped and narrowly avoided it. Jasper crashed into the wall but quickly tried again, which was again dodged by Ruby. Just as Jasper turned around, she found Ruby in front of her. Ruby threw several punches that were just barely deflected by Jasper's headbutts. Jasper then landed a punch and rushed her. Ruby recovered quickly enough to counter and smashed her gauntlets on both sides of her head, shattering her visor. Jasper recoiled backwards and growled. She then began rolling all around the room's ceiling and wall, attempting to throw Ruby off. Ruby simply smirked as she gave a final push at her and charged. Ruby once again caught her helmet, struggling as she was pushed backwards. With a loud grunt, Ruby turned herself 180 degrees and threw Jasper into the large orb in the center of the room. Ruby screamed out in pain as electrical energy surged into her body, causing the orb to explode. Immediately afterwards, the ship began shaking.

"What the hell?" Jamal muttered as he looked over the control system. "The controls are locked up for some reason." Suddenly, he heard a noise and turned to see Peridot crawling away. Before he could reach her however, she reached a circular platform and tapped her hand on it, which encased her in a green bubble. She descend down into the floor, a hatch closing behind her. Jamal turned around to look outside the bridge's window and saw an escape pod being fired from the ship at the Earth. "Fuck..." Jamal said as he realized that the ship was rapidly moving closer towards Earth. He once again turned around to see Ruby dashing into the room, her clothes torn and with some bruises. "The ship's crashing."

"Yeah...I may have thrown Jasper into the ship's core reactor." Ruby shrugged.

"Nice. Well, I hope this ship is durable." Jamal said as the ship continued to plummet and braced himself as within seconds, the ship violently crashed on the coast of California.

A minute passed before a piece of the wrecked ship began ascending. Ruby grunted as she raised the piece and threw it away. "You okay?" She asked, glancing down at Jamal who was sitting next to her.

Jamal stood up and brushed himself off. "Yeah, mostly." Suddenly, a portal opened next to them and Bojack emerged from it. "Wait a minute! We could have just escaped using you! You ran, didn't you?!" Jamal shouted at him. Bojack transformed to his small wolf puppy form and walked up to Ruby's right leg, snuggling up to it as he began whining. "Don't you pull that bullshit with me. Ruby, he--"

"I know." Ruby said as she picked up Bojack and held him in front of her face. "I was waiting for him to tell me, and with each passing day, I've been coming up with harsher and harsher punishments."

"Please no!" Bojack shouted. "I'm sorry I watched you in the shower!"

Before either could scold the dog, they heard a loud crash and quickly turned to see Jasper limping towards them, badly bruised and her clothing torn. Ruby set down Bojack and then proceeded to walk up to Jasper. The two stopped in front of each other and Ruby stared up at her while Jasper down at her. Jasper sneered at Ruby. "If you think you can fight against Homeworld, you're in for some major disappointment."

"And here I was hoping for something original." Ruby said as she punched Jasper in the face, hard. Jasper's body made a *poof* sound as her body disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind her gem which Ruby caught.

"So, about those questions I mentioned earlier..." Jamal said as he approached Ruby from behind.

"Of course. But first..." Ruby looked around at the wreckage.

...

"And that's pretty much how it is." Ruby said, leaning against a large rock on the beach.

"And why have you never told me this before?" Jamal asked.

"Because you never asked." Ruby replied. Jamal raised an eyebrow. "It was a joke. Anyway, it's because I didn't remember. Turns out that my memories were buried deep down behind a safeguard. And when I unfused, the memories were released. Ruby and Sapphire are very much their own entities as much as I am my own. They have their own individual memories that never truly went away. They regained those memories when they split apart, and when they came together, the memories came rushing back, almost like the rebooting of a frozen computer."

"I'm finished." A voice called out from above. Karnilla floated down and landed next to them. "Everything is cleaned up and I've placed a spell so that anyone who comes investigating will immediately forget why they came here in the first place."

"Thank you." Ruby said.

"No problem. It's the least I can do since you put up with me dragging you to other dimensions." Karnilla smiled.

"So, how can we help you with your...issue?" Jamal asked.

"No. I really appreciate you rescuing me, Jamal, but this is something I have to do myself."

"Well, alright." Jamal shrugged. "Come on, take me home Bojack." Bojack transformed and barked, forming a portal that the two walked through.

"So?" Karnilla cocked her head to the side.

"I'd like to know where they are. I need to end this once and for all." Ruby said.

"Well, alright. I hope you find closure." Karnilla spread her arms and a magical bubble formed around Ruby. The next thing she knew, she was rocketed off into space, traveling thousands of light years in mere seconds to reach her destination.

[Zarkenis Ultima]

---

Black Sun smiled as she heard Prototype's response, taking it at face value, but unfortunately this distracted her from her attack, which the Arcosian in front of her had handily dodged. Unprepared to respond, the girl wasn't able to move away before she was lifted off the ground by her enemy, mocked, and then punched away with great force, soaring through the air from the sheer impact. Though she managed to resist, the blow brought her a lot of pain, and, in fact, the extent of the damage was noticeable: most of the fleshy synthetic material that covered her face was ripped off because of the strike, and below one could see a silvery skull, translucent at some points, with glowing materials conducting energy within. However, before long, a silvery mesh of sorts spread out over the exposed part of her face, covering it in instants and then changing to the color of her skin, effectively healing the wound.

She did not get a break there, though, for soon enough the other Arcosian arrived next to her while she flew through the air, and kicked her with great force, sending her down. The girl crashed against the ground with a thunderous noise, leaving a relatively small but rather noticeable crater where she landed, kicking up a large amount of dust and rubble around her.

"...Ow." She mumbled as she rose from her spot on the ground. The dust settled quickly around her, and she saw the two Arcosians some distance in front of her, charging up attacks and then, with a shout, sending them towards her in tandem. The female cyborg frowned, trying to think of what to do here, as she wouldn't be able to overpower them at the moment. However, noticing that the two beams crossed paths and merged into a single one, she had an idea. Still holding onto her sword, she created a ring of solar energy around its hilt, before hurling it towards the beam. The viridian sword cut through the purple burst of energy as it circled through the air, causing the beam to split in half once more, both parts of it veering away from Black Sun. Using this, the girl flew forward through the path carved by her sword, charging tremendous amounts of solar energy in both hands, and releasing them as powerful blasts as she reached Glace and Cier, one blast for each of them.

Having performed her attack, she called the sword back to her and rushed to the spot where Prototype stood, reaching his side and turning to look at the Arcosians.

"These two are really annoying." She commented to him, before shouting at them. "Weren't you ever taught not to hit a girl?!" She complained.

---

---

Feeling Kylie's arms wrapping around her and pulling her close, Jamie immediately seized up, expecting pretty much anything from the older girl at this point except for a hug. She was very tense and scared due to the situation she was going through, not to mention how Kylie's angry demeanor had put her even more on edge moments ago, so it was not surprising to her that she found herself unable to appreciate or enjoy the gesture. Still, in a moment of lucidity, she reasoned that, if Kylie was doing this, then it was unlikely that she was as angry as before anymore, and that brought her solace. Despite Cora and Marybeth's arrest and now the looming prospect of a reprimand from the older members of the group, the black-haired girl managed to relax ever so slightly for a moment, before moving away from the hug and rubbing her shoulders a little. She was luckily still affected by the powers of her ring, which had been active since she had rushed back to the tower, so she was not affected by the hug, but she could still tell that it had been very strong.

Then, for the second time during that conversation, Jamie was taken by surprise, this time due to Kylie tossing her a Green Lantern ring and urging her to lead the way to where Cora and Marybeth were arrested. The girl was quite astonished by this: she didn't know that there were more than a few Green Lantern rings, given how she rarely kept up with other superheroes and preferred to shut herself in and play videogames, and it was very surprising to have one thrust into her hands, much more so after Kylie's vehement reaction to her story. Still, she put it on without saying a word, not wanting to turn away the gift, even though her own powers could likely allow her to lead the way to the crime scene just as easily.

"A-alright then... Um, follow me." The meek girl known as Final Boss said, and took to the skies, heading towards the destroyed cyborg factory.

---

---

Still crouching in front of the terrified stranger as tears streamed down his hooded face, Nelli waited for a response, her expectant brown eyes peering into him curiously, hoping that he would indeed accept her offer. It was clear that he was completely lost, as she had been the first time she had made her way down to Earth from the celestial strata, but he was taking it far worse, and understandably so: he did not have the protection and the concealment of darkness, like she did, and in any case it did not seem like his arrival in this world had been voluntary, like hers. A person in such circumstances had every right to be scared, and though she did not expect to be able to dispell that fear very easily, if it was possible for her to do so at all, she did wish to help out this stranger and make him feel more at ease, at least to the point that he could think or speak.

Because of this, when he nodded at her, the winged girl's lips parted into a warm smile. She was happy that he agreed to let her help him, as she believed he would be safer with her than with someone else, knowing well that some of the people of this world could be cruel or simply unscrupulous. Rising to her full height, she took a few dainty steps towards him, and extended her free hand, offering it to him so that he would stand up as well.

"I'm glad." She said. "Are you hungry? Thirsty? Maybe you're tired after being so scared for who knows how long. I can take you to a place where you can lay your head down, if you would like that." The girl offered, before pausing and looking at Yoshi with curiosity once again. "My name is Nelli." She introduced herself at last. "What's yours?"