Scarlet Starlight | By : DarthMeow504 Category: zMisplaced Stories [ADMIN use only] > Spiderman Views: 35790 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3 |
Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit fanfiction. The Marvel Universe, the DC Universe, the Image Universe, and all characters and elements thereof are copyright their respective companies. Additional disclaimers within. |
[Author's Note: Starfox is copyright Marvel, but making him female and a clone of Thanos was my idea. Gladiator is also Marvel, again the gender swap is my idea. ROM the Spaceknight is copyright Parker Bros and was licensed by Marvel back in the day. Ronan the Accuser, Kl'rt the Super-Skrull, the Silver Surfer, and Nova are Marvel's. All Green Lantern characters, Lobo, the Cyborg Superman, John Stewart, the Darkstars, and the Manhunters are DC. Ghost Rider and Barbara Ketch are both copyright Marvel, but making Barbara into Ghost Rider instead of her brother Dan was my idea. As usual, I'm taking canon and remaking it in my image, for my enjoyment and hopefully yours as well.]
Chapter 10 part 2: Force of Arms
There was no turning back. No matter how many times they'd done this, that feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff never went away. In times like this, Captain America's words echoed with the ring of truth: anyone who has no fear going into battle is a fool, bravery isn't a lack of fear but instead feeling fear and doing what you have to do anyway. And like in any other battle, the time before is always the hardest. Once it begins, it's all adrenaline and action, with no time to think only act. But before, waiting for it to begin, the anticipation, the wondering, the suspense, is brutal. Will you make it home? Worse, will you lose someone you love today? Is this the last time you'll ever see one of your companions alive? The questions were often worse than the answers.
For Tigra, this was harder for her than it had ever been. In every other battle she'd been in, she'd either been on her own or under someone else's command. This time, she was the leader. She was responsible for these lives. This time, if one of her friends or loved ones died, it was on her head.
She did her best to push that out of her mind and concentrate on her flying, which was proving to be challenging enough of a task. She was wearing an Avengers-issue flight harness that had been designed for use by heroes without flight capabilities of their own in situations they might need to fly, and this was one of those situations. Like all of them, she'd been certified in it's use as part of her training, but she'd never gotten good with it. That made her feel out of place among the other natural flyers as they raced into the upper atmosphere, and she only hoped her inexperience at aerial combat didn't cost them.
Below, Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, then Oracle, and now Hellcat was manning a computer station in the core of the Avengers facility, friendly and enemy positions laid out like a chessboard on her holographic display and profiles of each of them tiled in another display so she could coordinate them to maximum effectiveness. Just having her voice over the comm link was reassuring, and took a little of the weight of responsibility off of Tigra's shoulders. Barbara was as good as it got, and with her brilliant mind guiding them, they might have a chance. Having a god, a demi-goddess, and a pair of one-time cosmic entities on their side couldn't hurt either.
Soon, they'd reached the maximum height it would be comfortable for those not spaceworthy to be able to breathe, and Starlion and Ryoko were instructed to go on ahead in a hit and run strike that would lure the enemy down into the atmosphere where the battle would be engaged. As she watched them streak off, Tigra felt her gut clench tight. It was go time.
This high up in the night sky, it felt and looked like a space battle despite the presence of the ground far below. She could see the streaks of her allies as they went up to make their strike on the enemy, and the following streaks as they were successful in drawing them down into the atmosphere. It was down to seconds now.
"Here they come!"
-----
On the display, Barbara watched the blue dots for friendlies and red dots for hostiles converge, little tags above each one identifying who they were while another monitor screen was filled with windows displaying stats and status for each one. As she worked the console, and gave orders to her people, it was a little or maybe even a lot like playing a strategy computer game, except it was real and the consequences for mistakes were permanent. These thoughts filtered through to her conscious mind as they always did, but she'd done this too many times to let them distract her from her duties. Her discipline allowed her to acknowledge the doubts and fears while still doing her job, seperating the worrying part of her mind from the logical part and allowing the former to yammer in islolation while the latter processed information with cool efficiency. She was a professional, trained by the best. She'd never failed her people before, and she wasn't about to start today.
With a few tapped commands, she adjusted the formation of her team as the red lights of the enemy closed in pursuit of the pair that had successfully conducted the hit and run strike. So far the plan was working according to design, but of course no plan survives first contact with the enemy. This time was no different, as two enemy signatures stubbornly refused to follow the others down to engage their team. A moment's glance identifed the stragglers as the two Heralds of Galactus, almost certainly the two most powerful of the enemy force. On the surface that would seem good, but something nagged at the back of Barbara's mind... something very wrong... then suddenly she realized it as she saw the twin light of Starfox's craft as it sped out of the solar plane to escape the gravity well and thus be able to enter hyperspace. For long moments, Barbara held her breath watching the countdown to minimum safe distance. Finally she let that breath go as she saw the lights wink out as the craft warped out... then her heart sank as she saw the pair of red lights that indicated the two Heralds speed off in the exact path Starfox and Donna had taken. It was too late to signal them! The Avengers didn't have an FTL communications array, there was no way to warn the ship of their pursuers. Cursing herself, Barbara realized that the Heralds must have known that, and delayed their pursuit until the ship had entered warp. She should have anticipated it! Growling to herself, she dismissed them from her strategic calculations and shunted the concern for them and the self-recrimination for failing to anticipate the Herald's move to the worrying part of her mind to buzz and be ignored. There was nothing she could do for them now, they were out of her range and on their own. With luck, the pair could take care of themselves. She had immediate concerns here.
She watched the lights circle and bloom as they engaged and exchanged attacks, her team holding it's own so far. The lack of the pure cosmic firepower of the two Heralds of Galactus helped even the odds quite a bit, though her side was stil overmatched even with only the remaining members of the enemy force. Doing a quick count, she identified the missing enemy as the Space Ghost and the madman mercenary Lobo. The first one was unfortunately to be expected, the Space Ghost hadn't once shown up on any sensor they had, even when he'd been visible right in front of them. Clearly, he was only detected when he wanted to be, and he could be anywhere right now. But where the hell was Lobo?
That was answered as the proximity alarms went off. With a sinking feeling, she glanced at the security monitors, and confirmed her fear. The bastard had come in low, skimming along at ground level and had evaded her sky scans. And now he was here. She fought panic as she pulled down her cowl and shouted into the intercom.
"We've got company!"
-----
The red light on the panel in Starfox's ship, blinking insistently, brought a worried frown to Donna's face as she asked if it was as bad as she was afraid it was.
"It means we've got company..." the redhead replied, and frowned as she pulled up a rearwards scan, revealing the image of the two Heralds of Galactus hot on their trail. "Oh not good... not good at all."
Donna sighed. "Let me guess, we don't stand a chance."
Starfox shook her head. "Not in a straight fight, no. There's no way this ship can handle one of them, let alone two. And I'm not as powerful as my brother, regardless of what the stupid Guardians of Oa think. So unless you're packing Skyfather level power under that dress, we're not gonna make it in a fight. Our best chance is to try to shake them off our tail."
Donna nodded and joked weakly. "Try doing a barrel roll?"
Kori shot her a smirking frown. "Wrong Starfox, sorry. I am, however, not entirely without my own tricks. Strap in, this is gonna get bumpy."
-----
Tigra was rapidly beginning to feel like they'd been outmaneuvered. Half the enemy it seemed was nowhere in sight, and they'd lost their coordinator on the ground below with the last message recieved that they had incoming. For now, up here they actually outnumbered the enemy and were holding their own rather well. Tigra wasn't in her element up here anyways, and she was distracted by worry for those on the ground including two of the women she loved most in the world. It was all she could do to keep from breaking for the base in a panic, hoping desperately to make it in time and terrified of what she'd find.
She was startled by a virtual tap on her shoulder and a soft voice in her mind that carried the image of Jean Grey, the Guardian.
"Go... I think they're holding us here as much as we are they... their strategy isn't here. You can't help Starfox, but you can help down below. They are going to need all the help they can get down there."
Tigra hesitated, and Jean reiterated. "The others agree as well, go! They need you there, go quickly there isn't much time."
That was all the encouragement she needed, and she gave a last power blast from the Sword of Omens to help her allies, and then flew down for the base as fast as the jets would allow, hoping and praying to Bast and every other god and goddess she could think of that she'd be in time.
-----
Below, on the grounds of Avengers Mansion West, things were going badly indeed. Lobo had proven quickly to be a virtually unstoppable monster more than a match for all of them combined. Nothing they'd thrown at him even seemed to slow him down, as he laughed off their strongest attacks. The timely arrival of the Ghost Rider had helped, and even given them what appeared like victory as she slammed her chain into the ground and it had sprouted like something out of Hellraiser, a crisscrossing network of bladed chain that had impaled Lobo in a dozen places and held him in place.
But even as he bled he still laughed, and shattered the hardened chains that pierced his body, leaving the shattered stumps all along the ground where they had sprung like a garden of spikes, Amid them, Jessica and Cheetara were already down from earlier in the fight, and the Ghost Rider had suffered a shattering blow in his counterattack and she struggled to rise as Lobo laughed. Pantha and Felicia were stunned as well, Felicia having been knocked in the head by a piece of the chain and Pantha impaled by another straight through the gut. Barbara wasn't in much better shape herself, her leg broken and near blinding her with pain though she struggled to continue the fight.
Realizing his victory, Lobo laughed and slowed his pace, lingering over Felicia as Pantha struggled to free herself from the tree she was pinned to by the metal in her gut, licking along the Black Cat's cheek before picking her up and hoisting her over his head as if she were made of paper.
"You made tha' mistake of messin' with Lobo, ya sorry bitches! I done wiped out whole worlds, you think ya coud stop me? Yer pathetic, alla ya! This one gets ta' be the first to die, but the resta' ya are next!"
There was nothing Barbara could do, and they were out of allies. She couldn't get there on her broken leg, and she couldn't flame him without hitting Felicia as well. Her shuriken launcher seemed to only annoy him, the bloody holes she tore through him closing almost as fast as they formed. Only a miracle could save her, and them, now.
-----
Far above, Tigra was overwhelmed with a horrible vision, her teammates below, her loved ones, scattered on the ground like broken dolls, and their enemy laughing as he prepared to deliver the killstroke on the most beloved one of them all, her Felicia. She was too late!
Her roar of rage and anguish shook the sky, amplified through the Sword as it projected the crimson image of a roaring cat, turning the sky itself red as blood.
She couldn't save them. But by all the gods, she would avenge them.
-----
"Hold on!" Starfox cried out as she hit the activation button on her console after she'd programmed in the instructions, and then the world went crazy. The screens went white as flare bombs erupted all around them, and then the sudden lurch of a jump --but they were already in hyperspace! Regardless, they jumped, from one course to another, a dozen times or more in the space of as many seconds, leaving Donna ready to eject her own chaff as she fought to keep her stomach and her head together. A human would surely be passed out or worse after the first violent jumps, and would be hard pressed to survive the stresses of the entire series.
As she struggled for her voice, Starfox answered her unspoken question as she checked her scanners. "I don't see them back there anymore... I think it worked."
Wonderful. They'd shaken the Heralds of Galactus, so that they could continue their mission. Now, all they had to do was get to the home planet of the Lantern Corps, and confront the Guardians of Oa. Only a few hundred Lanterns and the highest ranked and most powerful elders, the Blue and Silver ranks above the Green. Oh, yeah, they'd be home by dinner. With a sigh, Donna hoped her allies, her friends and loved ones, were doing alright, even as she thought she might never see them again.
-----
As Lobo prepared to bodyslam the near-unconscious body of Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, onto the jagged spikes that were the Ghost Rider's broken chains, something happened. A massive roar erupted like that of a mighty cat but louder and stronger than an explosion, as the sky reddened and the roaring image of that predatory feline loomed above them. All eyes turned upwards, even Lobo's, and that's when they got their miracle.
Maybe it was the distraction, and probably a lot of it was Felicia's own luck powers, but Lobo tripped and fell forwards, throwing Felicia clear and impaling himself instead on those wicked spikes. He roared in frustration and anger as he pulled himself free with a wet sucking sound, littering the ground with blood as he growled in pain. In those moments, her recovering allies took the moment to strike.
Pulling herself free from the spike pinning her to the tree, Pantha leapt on him with a roar and impaled his head with her psychic knife, digging in all three other sets of claws in him as she held on tight, keeping him transfixed on the blade as his eyes went blank. He struggled to free himself, roaring in pain, and that's when the Ghost Rider applied the finishing stroke.
Flipping them over, so that she could stare into his vacant eyes, the Spirit of Vengeance met his blank stare with empty sockets blazing with hellfire as she spoke with her chillingly hollow, supernaturally spectral voice.
"So as you have done to others, let you now know the suffering you have inflicted. Every life you have snuffed, every anguish you have inflicted, yours now to experience. Such is your penance, monster, let it burn in you!"
Lobo's scream was nearly as thunderous as the great cat's roar that had distracted him from his last, and perhaps final, attempt at murder. His eyes reflected the hellfire blazing in the Ghost Rider's skull sockets, and he curled up into a fetal ball as his mind was blasted from within by unimaginable torments from billions of innocent lives that had ended at his hand. He wouldn't die, he perhaps even couldn't, but nothing could protect his mind or his sanity from the incalcuable amount of pain supernaturally inflicted on his now blasted and shattered consciousness. None could know if he would ever recover, if there would be a mind left inside the catatonic shell that remained, but for the forseeable future he wouldn't be getting back up.
Tigra landed mere moments thereafter, the Eye of Thundera still glowing red, and she dropped to her knees to cradle Felicia, stroking her hair and crying soft tears of love and relief that she was alive. She then looked to Barb, who answered her unspoken question.
"Everyone's injured, no one's dead. We got lucky."
Tigra nodded in thankful relief as the robotic support staff filtered from inside to get the wounded onto stretchers to bring to medical below, and Lobo to bring to the brig. To Tigra's surprise, Barbara waved away hers, and instead called Tigra over to help her.
"It's just a leg, it'll hold a little while. Get me back to my console, we still have fighters up there who need me."
Tigra nodded, and did as she asked. It might be over down here, but they weren't safe and clear yet. Not by a long shot.
-----
High above, things had deteriorated. Three new reinforcements had arrived on the enemy side, another Green Lantern and the Xandarian warrior Nova who was accompanied by a strange robotic or powered armor creature that seemed to consist of two beings, a large powerful fighter and a small humanoid riding on it's back and directing the pair's actions. The Earth group were now outnumbered as well as outpowered, and they'd made no headway against the enemy. Worse, they didn't know what had happened below to take their coordinator offline, but they'd lost Tigra and her powerful Sword of Omens to the task of investigating and assisting their weaker teammates on the ground. At the time, they'd had the upper hand, but now they were missing her and needing all the help they could get.
And then it got worse, as the Spaceknight ROM joined the fray for seemingly the first time. After hitting each of them with what seemed like a harmless attack consisting of a beam of light, it's purpose was revealed as a scanner and analyer of some sort as he made a second blast against the She-Hulk that deprived her of her energy powers and sent her plummeting to earth. Threatening to do the same to each of them in turn, he demanded they surrender. Jean had caught Jen and prevented her potentially fatal fall, but they were in trouble if the rest of their powers could be eliminated as easily. They'd need a near miracle to succeed now.
They got it when, finally, their comm signals sprung back to life as Barbara came back online, and she came through for them. She sent two signals right away that turned the tide of battle, one to Photon that carried the unique radiation frequency that Strontians like Gladiator were known to be vulnerable to, allowing her to blast that enemy into powerless submission, and Jean caught her as well as she spiraled helplessly towards the ground. The second signal was to Carol, with instructions on how to intercept the Super-Skrull's power signal, as the energy that fueled his powers was beamed to him from base stations scattered across space like cell towers. Attuning herself to it, she was able to both deprive the Skrull of his enhanced abilities and take the power for herself, erupting in cosmic flame as she went into Binary mode.
The odds shifted immediately in their favor with those events, and they pressed the advantage. Photon then used her ability to mimic energy to recharge the She-Hulk's abilities that she gained from Jade, and this time when ROM fired the neutralizing beam she intercepted it. Recognizing that Jade's powers were the same wavelength and nature as that of the Green Lanterns they faced, and that the yellow nullification power would work on all of them just as effectively, she absorbed it into herself and replicated it in her energy form. In the space of an eyeblink, she'd done this and blasted each Green Lantern in turn, weakening them to the point they could barely stay airborne.
Quickly thereafter, Tigra returned on the swift jets of a Quinjet, leaping out of the passenger chamber and engaging the cybernetic Superman duplicate calling itself Manhunter, using her Sword's potent magic attacks to great effect against the Kryptonian vulnerability to magic --something Barbara had informed her of. Between her and Diana, who'd been freed to engage him as well by the elimination of the Lanterns who had prevented it, they sent him into smoking retreat, too damaged to continue the battle. In under a minute, a seemingly hopeless situation had turned into a rout of the enemy.
Almost simultaneously, the battle of two hammer weilders came to a dramatic conclusion as Thor's hammer shattered that of Ronan, and the blue-skinned Kree beat his own smoking retreat. That left the enemy numbers cut down to ROM, Nova and his ally who Jean recognized as the Shi'ar Guardsman Warstar in new paint and configuration, and the Darkstar John Stewart, while they were back to full strength. They now outnumbered the enemy by near three to one. It was as good as over.
Or not. Even as the remaining enemy prepared to surrender, the opposing side played it's trump card.
-----
"Message confirmed, Starfox One. Please proceed on the course coordinates beamed into your navicomputer. Any attempt to increase speed or deviate from the assigned course will be interpreted as hostile intentions and met with appropriate force. The High Guardian Voltarr-Re will accept you and your prisoner at the landing destination. Oa out."
Donna sighed, as she doublechecked the false manacles that Starfox wore. This had better work.
-----
The starship was huge, several miles of immense bulk as it emerged above them, shadowing the sky as it loomed overhead, it's blue lights from windows, running lights,main drive thrusters, and weapons ports casting it's midnight blue skin in spectral glow. Below, the superhumans felt like ants in a magnifying glass as they stared at the staggeringly huge warship. Their fresh victory turned to ashes as it signaled them both sonically and across all radio and communications frequencies.
"THIS IS THE KREE IMPERIAL DREADNAUGHT ACCUSATOR. YOU ARE ORDERED TO CEASE HOSTILITIES AND SURRENDER THE THANOS CLONE TO FACE JUSTICE. YOU HAVE 24 LOCAL HOURS TO COMPLY. FAILURE TO COOPERATE WILL RESULT IN PLANETARY BOMBARDMENT. YOUR TIME LIMIT BEGINS NOW."
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