“Sorry, no time to chat,” heat blossomed from Dan’s eyes, twin rays of radiant light that vaporised Ego’s avatar and continued to expand the tunnel ahead. They needed to get Stark and the other inside the buried Lifebringer One as soon as possible. “We’ve got business down below.”
The heat vision expanded, a flare that consumed a dozen kilometres of living stone. They would need every second to convert the incubator for their own purposes. Silver Surfer’s energy grew more and more unstable, a sign that Galactus would soon arrive.
“Foolish, as I’ve come to expect from mortals,” Ego reformed, positioned between his core and Dan’s approach. Cosmic power seeped from behind him, infused into the avatar like fuel to a fire. “I’ll kill you first, then create new life in your broken image…”
Dan appeared before the avatar, fist buried into its skull. The blow shredded the false body and opened the final stretch between him and their first target. A glint of polished silver, the edge of a massive metal structure, appeared in the tunnel ahead.
A final flare of his heat vision exposed a portion of the Lifebringer’s oversized entryway, an iris shaped door the size of a small continent. Crimson exploded from behind them, a rain of broken stone expelled Juggernaut toward his target. Dan shook his head as the brawler cleared the last of the stone in their path, his focus turned toward Ego’s core.
“So, you have come for the machine,” Dozens of Ego’s rose from the fragmented rock, shaped from the stone of the world and infused with cosmic power. “You are not the first to covet its power, but It belongs to…”
Divided into dozens of afterimages, Dan slaughtered the avatars before Ego could finish his sentence. Silver Surfer swept forward, hands extended to release a barrage of the Power Cosmic. The silver light carved away another layer of stone, aimed toward the planet’s core.
A blue glow swept upward to block the assault, Ego’s cosmic energy on full display as he shaped the fragmented rock into countless giants. This time the living world held nothing back, each of his avatars overfilled with power.
“STOP INTERRUPTING ME, YOU IGNORANT LITTLE CREATURE!!!” Ego’s voice thundered from a thousand mouths, filled with a building rage. “You will show me the respect I…”
“My respect is reserved for the worthy,” Dan expanded his biofield in a rush, wrapped around the cosmic giants before they could take a step. This battle had to be quick, he had no time for the monologing of a self important egomaniac. “You don’t meet the standard, not even close…”
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“Hurry up, Stark,” Logan pounced across the surface of the Lifebringer, claws extended to shred a legion of polygon headed brutes. More spawned to replace them, extruded from the stony ceiling above like disgusting fruit. “These things are weak, but they have us outnumbered a million times over…”
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A grunt escaped his lips as a bulkier ‘Anti-body’ took hold of his wrists. Edged in a blue glow, this warrior was far stronger than the others. It smashed its octagonal head into Logan’s face, knee raised to drive the breath from his lungs.
Red flared from his eyes, brilliant heat that divided the Anti-body down the middle. Logan cast aside the remains and let his heat vision dart from target to target. Thousands fell, turned to ash before another empowered enemy dropped from above.
“Be careful, there are stronger ones among the sheep!” Namor’s voice carried over the battlefield as he ripped a blue toned Anti-body in half at the waist. “They are stronger each time, this last was close to the peak of an Alpha level mutant.”
Logan slipped around his opponent's arms, claws driven deep into its chest. The Anti-body ignored the wound, hands extended to close around the Wolverines neck. A snarl on his lips, Logan dragged one set of claws upwards, through the ribs and into the throat.
Twisted to the side, the claws severed the creature's head and robbed it of life. Namor was right, this last one was more powerful. If they grew as they were killed, this battle would become dangerous for all but the strongest.
“Anyone below Alpha level is to retreat to the entryway, reinforce the gate guard and keep out any that slip past our line,” Logan hurled the savaged corpse into the mass of warriors around him and carved out a line of destruction. “Cal, Kara, we’ll have to take point alongside the rest of the Kryptonians.”
“Agreed,” Cal swept his hands and directed a wave of pitch black flame over the enemy forces, his eyes filled with power borrowed from the phantom zone. “Many of these empowered ones are at or above planetary levels already, we may need to call in Stormy and Bear if this continues to escalate.”
Logan flinched at the mention of his ‘Masters” names. They stood in wait, just outside the system to act as reinforcements if things got out of hand. The time he’d spent with the two animals humbled him. Never, in all their spars, had he come close to a victory against either of them.
“We’ll see,” Logan bisected another blue Anti-body, efforts redoubled as visions of his battles against the cat and dog pair flashed through his mind. He had to push himself with every action, hone his skills so that next time he could surprise them. “For now, things seem to be…”
A new star was born from the rocky surface above, an Anti-body twice the size of its fellows. It pushed off from the ceiling and vanished in a blur of motion, only to reappear in front of Logan. Time slowed and Wolverine found himself in a race against a torso-sized fist.
His claws inched upward, too slow as the knuckles slammed against his face with the weight of mountains. Flesh turned to vapour under the force of the blow, Logan’s symbiotically metalized skull exposed the air.
Blasted backward, ahead of a shockwave that toppled the normal Anti-bodies like leaves, Logan found himself in an oversized pair of arms. Bucky smiled at his rapidly healing face as he set him on the ground and turned to face his attacker.
“I’ll take the first round against this one, old man,” Bucky cracked his knuckles, lips spread in a cheshire grin. His skin split and reformed, his true face revealed as bone spurs forced their way from his joints. “You sit back with the rest of the elderly and nurse your wounds.”
“I’m not finished yet, kid,” Logan rolled his regenerated eyes and leapt to his feet, focused on the oversized enemy that still stood in the distance. It maintained its punching pose, like a puppet waiting to be moved into action. “We might need to work together on this one…”
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“How does it feel?” The Father’s voice broke into Anakin’s thoughts like a wave. He snapped back to reality, certain that he’d forgotten something very important. “The full power of the Force is now connected to you and my time as Guardian of the Balance if finally finished.”
“As is your life, old man,” the Son raised his hand, wreathed in crimson lightning. “Now that you have renounced your power, I can finally take my revenge for the thousands of years you’ve kept me locked up in this place.”
“Settle down,” Anakin waved his hand and the Son’s power drained away, swept aside as the might of the Force itself pressed against him. “He may have lost his power, but you haven’t risen to the top of the dogpile. Now shut up and sit down, or I’ll test out my new strength on you…”