The ground began to shake violently, trembling out of control. All fighting throughout the icy lands began to cease, even as the last few combatants fell to the might of the brave armada that had stood here this day. A wall of white plumed from the continuing collapse of the mountain-sized fortress, rippling after the pulse of esoteric-blue light....
"What the hell was that?!!" Ozzy yelled above the roar, grasping a cleft of ice for support as the wave of blue passed silently.
Rowena crouched against the same cleft, leaning down as a few stray boulders of ice flipped overhead.
"Would you prefer the metaphysical explanation, or, the succinct one?" her alarmingly soothing voice spoke above the din of chaos.
"The one I'll understand..." Baxter replied, gritting his teeth, hail-sized ice shrapnel beginning to rain throughout the battlefield.
Rowena squinted at the billowing-white destruction emanating from the still-collapsing rubble of the fortress.
"...Death is pissed..."
With an inertia-defying solid stance, Turkish's faith reached out from wide-spread hands, buffeting the five-story billow that rolled towards the armies of Earth. In conjunction, Auguste Tallmoore erected a pyrokinetic field of dancing atoms, the ensuing nuclear heat eating the blast recoil of such an event.
On the outer perimeter of the battlefield, a strong waft of stinging ice hailed the powdery snow. Almost silouetted by the debris, the form of Tobias Christopher lay silently, random pops of a quasi-electrical signature flickering off his still body.
And, suddenly, a pair of feet appeared next to his head, a shadow falling over his body. Just as suddenly, a hand clenched the speedster's vunerable throat, beginning to squeeze...
"Fsterthnyu" a quick vibrational hum drifted over the growing gale.
Amuck stared down at the man, savoring the moment. A smile began to curl through a blurry countenance.
Suddenly, a hand appeared around his throat...
"Mr. Christopher is currently a guest of my realm..." the crystal-clear voice of Morpheus spoke. "...and, thus, he is under my protection..."
Amuck paused, not quite sure what to make of this being that suddenly appeared next to him.
Morpheus leaned in close, his mouth parting with a defintive breath of power...
"...you are fast..." his voice whispered behind the man's right ear. "...but, are you faster.....than your dreams?"
Amuck sneered with the stalemate.
"...everyone falls asleep, sooner or later..." Morpheus said, even as Amuck began to loosen his grip on Tobias. "...and I will always be there..."
Amuck's eyes narrowed.
"...waiting..."
With a quick movement, Amuck released Tobias completely, standing fully up. Morpheus did the same.
There was a sharp growl from the metahuman, and, like lighting....he was gone.
Near the epicenter of the event, large boulders of ice began to erupt from the explosive battle between Grimm and Naecken. Chunks the size of homes began to crash with shuddering force all over the land, metas doing everything they can to protect themselves.
"Z!" Turkish barked above the rumble of ice. "Start the evacuation!"
The wide-eyed Z peeked from around behind Turkish's flailing robes, staring into the violent eruption of white rolling in place only a few feet away.
"Bloody fucking right!" she yelled in a fearful panic, the torrent of icy wind buffeting her haphazard dye-job of blonde, orange, blue, and purple.
Immediately, wormholes began appearing throughout the icy wasteland.
//This is Phil Smith on a radiopathic frequency three-centimeters north of your endocephalic ganglia....exits are being provided even as we speak....// a voice suddenly announced to the populace of warriors. //....all human military and civilian personnel withdraw immediately...//
The La Perdita resistance, along with the armed forces, began retreating into the blossoming whirlpools of bluish-white. Squadrons of F-16's and Stealthbombers peeled from the skies, the sonic boom of afterburners flaring in their wake.
//...this is Vanguard's fight, now...//
Even as the armada of fighters began to retreat, one pushed ahead, near the eruption of ice.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" Tayden yelled above the deafening winds, his blood-drenched thermal gear still bearing the marks of his former vacation to the afterlife. He pulled against Mick's arm, even as the Vanguardian pushed forward.
"I HAVE TO!" Mick yelled. "LARRY AND VELO ARE STILL IN THERE!"
His voice barely pierced the torrential waves of force emanating across the plains.
"THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO NOW!" the ex-angel pleaded.
"GODDAMMIT!! I HAVE TO!!" Mick yelled with an uncharacteristic fury. "I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN SAVE THEM! I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN STOP THIS!!"
Mick was tired. And, even above the raor of destruction, Tayden could hear the fatigue in his voice.
In his soul.
Gone was the happy-go-lucky man that he was. Instead, he was man suddenly driven. His physical form racked with exhaustion...injury. And, yet, a primal obsession seemed to permeate him. Expand and grow in his rising emotions.
"MICK YOU WILL DIE IN THERE!!" Tayden yelled with equal force, trying to talk some sense into his manic friend.
"BUT LARRY--"
"IS GONE, MICK!! HE AND VELO ARE GONE!!"
Mick's face contorted instantly into a red-faced rage...
...and, Tayden's eyes widened, as he felt something akin to nails being drug along his soul...
"NO!!!"
************
The deck of the Nibru station suddenly trembled without warning. Jack Merlin's eyes jerked from his strategic revelry, even as he rose from his command chair...
"...what the hell was that...?"
*************
In the epicenter of Antarctica's 'Ground Zero', the dwarfing mountains of icy rubble wrapped two of Earth's mightiest figures in a walled arena of constant chaotic struggle. Ice splintered, and the ground quaked, with the muffled grunts and primal growls emanating from the two warriors.
Grimm spun his axe high, coming down hard with a single shot at Naecken's sternum. The dark lord stopped the blade cold, as two impossibly strong hands slapped against the flat side of the metal. The bare tip of the blade resting for a split-second against Naecken's powerful chest, the ex-MBLer kicked Grimm full-on in the stomach, sending the Vanguardian colliding with a collapsing wall of ice.
Naecken flipped the axe into his grasp, even as Grimm burst from the avalanche. Swinging the flat-blade like a baseball bat, Naecken began swatting Grimm back-and-forth; splinters of bone peeling from his skulled visage with every shot.
Grimm staggered for only a moment, as the powerful blows clipped the side of his head repeatedly. Then, jutting one arm out, he caught Naecken's wrist, halting it instantly.
Two massive shots to Naecken's face staggered the dark being back a few steps, even as the third took him completely off his feet. The axe yanked violently from his grasp, as the icy ground slammed into his back.
There was a double-stepped launch, and Grimm vaulted straight above him, raring the axe over his head. Naecken jerked his head to the side, the gleaming blade slicing into the ground next to his ear. Throwing his right palm out, a sizzling burst of hellfire bathed Grimm, catapulting the giant off his feet again...
Outside the perimeter of rubble, Tayden sat knelt in the snow, his head down.
He was praying.
"TAYDEN!" Brianna yelled, swooping down hard against the billowing winds. "ARE YOU OKAY?"
Tayden's face raised to meet hers. Bri found herself pausing, noticing the two single tears rolling down his cheeks.
"WHAT IS IT?" she yelled, kneeling down next to him. "WHAT'S WRONG?"
A small smile came over his face...
"...it's over..." he said, his raspy voice never reaching her ears. "...it's all over..."
She couldn't hear his words, but the deafening gale of chaos had already iced the tips of her wings to the point of pain.
"COME ON...WE HAVE TO GO!" she yelled, cradling the man in her arms.
And, as they took flight along the massive torrents of wind erupting from the destruction, Tayden looked back at the ground. At the tracks....the footsteps....leading into the hazy cloud of chaos.
"...Mick..." he whispered.
*************
"What the hell's going on?!" Jack Merlin barked, shoving Adalia Perigord from the Ops station. He began punching keys on the console before him, even as Captain Ekorre scurried around the bridge.
"As I said..." Adalia huffed with irritation. "...coordinates are changing on their own..."
"Impossible!" Merlin yelled, slamming a button. "Brain! What the hell's going on?!"
"...if...if I live....in a field....would I eat the grass? This is what I ask you....father....is there room enough for two-for-the-price-of-one? I think that it's all rather silly, and in need of a critical juncture....something smelling like bacon, perhaps..."
Jack's eyes squinted at the rambling nonsense coming over the comm system.
"Brain?" he asked again.
Suddenly, a massive quake ripped throughout the bridge. Consoles exploded, as the lights began to shower sparks. Metal framework splintered through the air like shrapnel, as the port-side of the bridge erupted in explosive flames. Merlin found himself crawling along the sterile, metal floor, the sharp red hue of the emergency lights his only guidance.
||WARNING||INERTIAL STABILIZERS FAILING|| the digital voice of the computer system began to announce. ||NOW ENTERING THE ATMOSPHERE||
****************
Humming sparks exploded off hellfire-shields in conjunction with the slicing force of the silver axe. Swatting back and forth, death's blade hummed with biting force as it split the very air in a blue-strobed effect. Grimm lunged again, a dancing wreathe of fiery-red flames licking his dry, white face. The axe found anchor, slicing straight down Naecken's left foot, effectively nailing the former ally to the ground.
There were no words, save the brief roar of pain escaping Naecken's lips. Grimm instantly released the handle, diving full-on into the former ally...
Noticed by neither party, a single figure crawled up out of an opening in the icy wall. Pulling his body fully out of the mish-mash of enormous boulders, Mick dropped to the ground. The snow biting against his numb cheeks, he lay there panting from the extreme exertion. Trying to find his strength.
He was very tired.
Twenty-feet away, the combatants struggled with endless howls of rage and pain, tossing each other back and forth into the continually shattering ice.
Mick struggled to his feet, ever so slowly. His aching muscles, and rasping breath painting a picture of angony over his features. His already pale face hinting at blue from the cold, peered at his surroundings, trying to find his senses.
Where? Where were they? Where was...
He stopped, staring over to his far right.
Velo. He was still standing there, his stone form locked with an eeire gaze of anger and aggression.
He was in one piece.
Thank God.....Mick thought to himself.
His vision blurred, catching the side of his cranium with a gloved hand. He shook his head, briefly, blinking hard.
...not yet....not yet, please...
Where was Larry?
Mick searched around him, squinting with a startled jerk every so often, as Grimm and Naecken continued their destruction.
Where was he?
Mick suddenly stopped, his eyes steadying on, what looked to be, the lower-half of a stone figure...
No.
No. No. No.
Mick scrambled along the ground, his face contorting with panic.
"Larry?" he asked, crawling up to the remains. "Larry?!"
The stone was broken along the waist. The top half of Larry Lance's torso lying next to it.
The look on his face.....frozen with suprise....
Mick's eyes welled up with tears, even as he began gritting his teeth. He dropped his head, his fist clenching with a trembling anger....
***********
Turkish's eyes narrowed.
His arms still held wide, holding back what was left of the billowing cloud of icy death, he slowly rolled his vision towards the skies above...
"...Z..." he spoke towards the mirror on the fold of his left sleeve, adjusting his wrist to see Alice's reflection. "....prepare for mass-evacuation..."
***********
"Fall, you bastard....FALL!!"
Grimm's voice roared, pounding away against his adversary. Naecken grabbed Grimm by the shoulders, immediately flinging him into the nearest wall of ice.
"NEVER!!"
Grimm broke the hold, spinning Naecken around, face-first into the ice. The shattering off-white sprayed in splintered chuncks, as the avatar drug the being's head across the frozen surface with rending force. Naecken slammed his fingertips talon-first into the wall, halting the path instantly. Then, with a grunt, lunged back, throwing both combatants off their feet.
Rolling back up instantly, Grimm slammed Naecken with a right-cross. Naecken's mouth spit a black, oily substance, even as his eyes flared with hellish light.
The resulting explosion shot Grimm into the wall of rubble. Collapsing close to three tons worth of debris down upon his body, the icy mass enveloped the Vanguardian's powerful form.
"You simply do not understand my power..." Naecken spoke with a panted breath, wiping the black 'blood' from the corner of his mouth.
He began walking towards the pile of unmoving rubble.
"No!"
Naecken turned to see Mick standing a few feet away. And, even though his voice cracked with rage, as the light of hatred burned in his eyes, Naecken could instantly see the frailty of the man.
"You simply don't understand MINE!" he yelled at the dark being before him. "I'm giving you one....last....chance, Naecken! Surrender!"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" Naecken chuckled, staring down at the frail form before him. "Oh, Mick....you always were good for a laugh...."
He raised a single hand, blowing Mick off his feet.
Mick clawed at the ground, the pain wracking his senses. He felt nauseous for a moment. Then, with a final surge of strength, lifted his head from the snow, opening his mouth...
"...Mxy..."
************
The bridge of the Nibru shook violently, as warning alarms and voices screamed throughout the chaos. Thick, black smoke filled the stale air, as the lights dimmed to almost complete darkness. The deck itself tilted at an almost ninety-degree angle...
||WARNING||WARNING||OUTER HULL BREACHED ON DECKS THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN, FIFTEEN, SIX--||
Jack Merlin ignored the screeching alarms, crawling up the floor. Strong fingertips clenched the seperations in the metallic plating, scaling the surface with a determined expression.
"...and even as the Strikeforce valiantly defended the human populace against this dreaded enemy in Antarctica..." he recited to himself with a pleased snarl, pausing to grunt as he clutched the next plating. "...our very home was attacked by the dreaded meta menace..."
"{{{MERLIN!!}}}"
Jack paused, coughing a bit from the smoke, as he peered down at the alien captain Ekorre. The alien was embedded in the viewscreen, holding the bloody body of his daughter, Adalia. The thin, strip of metal plating still sat in the front of her skull, her open-eyed expression of shock frozen forever more.
Jack's eyes gained a satisfied glaze...
"...there were no survivors..." he mumbled with a grin, continuing his climb.
"{{{DAMN YOU, MERLIN!!}}}" the alien dialect trailed into Merlin's ears, even as he reached the emergency transport.
He did not look back, crawling into the glass tube.
"{{{YOU HAVE BROUGHT OUR DESTRUCTION!!}}}" the voice screamed. "{{{I WILL FIND YOU MERLIN!!}}}"
...Merlin smiled, hitting the transport button...
"{{{I WILL FIND YOU.....EVEN IN HELL!!!}}}"
The transport tube flared, and Jack was gone.
*************
Naecken's eyes narrowed with delight.
"FINALLY!" he practically yelled. "Finally, you face me!"
The glowing god-form of Mxy stood before him, light made of pink champagne flowing from his form.
But, something was different. Something was....wrong.
There was no cackle. No laughter. No rambling nonsense, or varied expressions of wonder and glee.
He was serious.
Mxy stood there, his inherent power wafting from his form, deadly serious.
"Time's up, Naecken." he spoke, his voice coming clear, and precise.
"Oh, my dear, dear friend....it's just getting started..." Naecken replied. "With you gracing my presence, I can find final closure to that nagging question...."
Mxy nodded with a sneer.
"Who's more powerful, right?" Mxy asked. "Who's the 'big dog', huh? The 'head honcho'? That's what this has all been about. The Gates of Hell....the domination of the planet....it's all icing on the cake to what's really plaguing you, isn't it?"
Naecken smiled.
"It always followed us around, you and I..." Naecken replied. "...the feeling of adversarial tension....the need to know...."
The skies above began to darken with an odd shadow....
"Your need to know, Naecken. Not mine." Mxy said with an air of disgust. "That's why you kidnapped 'other-me'. Not only to lure the presence of someone like Tayden here..."
...the shadow deepened, as inflections of lighting began dancing across the clouds....
Naecken's eyes glanced up, the atmospheric brew beginning to catch his notice.
"....but, in hopes that I would come out and face you..."
"It does my heart good to know how well I can count upon the predictability of this pathetic species...." Naecken smiled. "...and here you are..."
...the ground began to tremble violently, avalanches of ice starting to tumble down the ruins...
"....ready to finally face me....as an equal..."
Mxy's eyes narrowed with obvious pity.
"My equal?!" Mxy gasped. "You poor, poor, pathetic fool.....don't you see?"
The skies above suddenly ripped asunder with electromagnetic upheaval, as the nosecone of the Nibru station flared against the deep atmosphere with an apocalyptic illumination.
...Naecken slowly raised his head, staring up into the horizon-encompassing mass of flame...
"...I've been holding back on you the entire time...."
Naecken opened his mouth in a roar of defiance, as the Nibru collided with the continent of Antarctica!!
The effect of something the size of Greenland colliding with the planet was, as to be expected, an extinction-level-event. The impact could have been seen from space, as a ball of quasi-nuclear flame erupted out of the atmosphere.
Standing on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, Turkish, along with a recently arrived Scion, called forth every last ounce of their power, negating as much of the impact's effects as possible.
Off the coast of Australia, Tallmoore shifted between Auguste and Simon repeatedly, trying to contain the magma pressure of the fractured planetary crust, while at the same time, hold the punctured electromagnetic field of the planet together.
Standing on a mountainside in Japan, the avatar of Life itself calmed the spirit of nature....calmed the populace of the planet....calmed all living things. She was in a deep negotiation with Gaea, trying to persuade her not to die.
And, the assembled might of the Vanguardian forces looked on from the skimming transports at the glowing explosion on the horizon.
"...oh.....god..." Phil breathed, Z leaning over his shoulder. She was braced against his chair, her face pouring with sweat. "...did....did you get...."
Z nodded her head, trying to catch her breath.
"...got....got everybody I could..." she replied between pants.
Phil nodded, opening up a signal to the EPS transport just off its starboard wing.
"...Walker, this is Phil Smith...." he said into the mic. "...return to La Perdita with your load.....I'm taking the Stormloader back to Antarctica...."
*************
It was almost ten minutes before the explosion had ceased at ground zero. The once battlefield of Antarctica was barren and black, scorched for hundreds and hundreds of miles around.
And, in a crater the size of England, a single figure was almost motionless.
Naecken....on his knees.....trying with all of his power to stay up....
"...not...enough.....never...enough"
And, suddenly, a dark form appeared standing behind him.....
