Year: 2016

Sinister Six (12): Doctor Octopus, Kraven, Vulture, Mysterio, Sandman, Electro

Nextwave (13): Monica Rambeau, Machine Man, Tabitha Smith, Elsa Bloodstone, The Captain

This situation is deteriorating rapidly, thought Dr. Otto Octavius as he surveyed the arena. First, that idiot calling himself the Captain had shot into the sky and chased down the Vulture, grounding him within 30 seconds and ripping his wing-suit apart, all while Tooms pleaded for mercy. Mysterio had succeeded in distracting the trench-coated imbecile for a time with his illusions, until the Rambeau woman from the old Avengers had used her electromagnetic powers to disperse his lightshow and free her dim-witted heavy-hitter, who had quickly shattered Beck’s ridiculous helmet and subdued him.

Why must I be saddled with these fools every time, especially now? This team, they don’t pull their punches like Parker…

Now he found himself facing off against the Machine Man, another holdover from a bygone era of the damned Avengers, who seemed to think his extendable arms could be the equal of Octavius’ prosthetics. The nerve of this… this soulless tinkertoy!

“Hey lookit! I can stretch my metal arm thingies longer than you can stretch your metal back thingies!” exclaimed the aggravating robot. Abel Stack was a gifted fool, Octavius thought as he swiped at the robot’s head with his tentacles and was continuously parried and deflected by its willowy, responsive appendages. Almost as graceful as Richards’ rubbery form, blast them both! But my arms are stronger…

Octavius felt the robot’s own arms snaking around his neck and waist, but he concentrated on his neural link with his adamantium arms and slowly, surely, the robot came apart at the midsection with a satisfying wrenching sound, even as his soulless red eyes betrayed not a trace of pain and emotion.

“Hey, no fair! I wasn’t gonna do that to you probably!” it squawked, and Octavius’ fleeting feelings of victory evaporated as he realized the robot was still grasping him! Machine Man’s legs had only laid still long enough for him to turn around, and now while his arms were busy entangled in Otto’s tentacles, the robot’s detached feet shot up, kicked him in the face, and then snaked around his neck, again and again, until consciousness faded.

“Little help?” Aaron shouted to no one in particular as he tried to gather up all his robo-insides and hand-walked over to his lower half. As he reconnected himself, he watched the rest of his team take on the remaining bad guys. On the other end of the arena, the Captain and Boom Boom were having a tough time with the Sandman, since it’s hard to punch or blow up a guy who can’t be hurt when you scatter all his particles. Closer to Aaron and the fallen Doc Ock, Monica was facing off against Electro.

I don’t want any of that, thought Aaron. Guy could shut me down in a second.

It was at that moment that Monica noticed he was still moving around and shouted “Aaron, you ☠☠☠☠! Help me out with this guy!”

Dammit!

Electro turned, recognized Aaron from his red eyes and metal parts, and grinned.

Aw, ☠☠☠☠. A familiar wave of bright blue-white light flooded his optical sensors as Aaron resigned himself to a hard reset.

Now that he’s distracted with that ☠☠☠☠ robot I can redirect all that electricity as microwaves and cook this turkey! Monica thought as Electro turned away from her.

“Ha ha! Thought you’d get help from your little metal friend? Not likely!” Electro turned back to her. “That’s what you get when you mess with the Sinister Six! Now you’ll– aaaaaargh!” he screamed as Monica’s microwaves set his costume on fire. A swift kick to the jaw and he was down, smoldering and unconscious.

“Two,” she said, mostly to herself, but she couldn’t resist the joke. “Sinister Two.”

Across the Arena, Elsa Bloodstone and Kraven the Hunter circled each other warily. Kraven uttered a pitch-perfect replica of a lion’s roar, perfected over the decades. Elsa rummaged in her belt pouch for her ammunition.

“Do you have ample shot to bring down a whole pride of lions, Bloodstone? Is that absurd rifle sufficient to bring down a bull elephant? You may stalk the night and slay feckless vampires and mindless werewolves, but do you have the strength to defeat he who stands at the top of the natural order? The ultimate hunter?” He growled again as Elsa loaded her rifle and took aim.

“Let’s find out together,” she said, and took aim. Immediately Kraven rushed towards her, crouched so far down he was practically running on all fours, and seized the barrel of the rifle in both hands. In that same instant, with his heightened senses, Kraven noticed that Elsa’s finger wasn’t even on the trigger. They locked eyes in that moment, and she smiled as she used the rifle to redirect Kraven’s momentum, lifting the rifle over her head while he was still holding it and delivering a stunning piledriver to the Ultimate Hunter. Dazed, Kraven leapt up off his back and pounced at Elsa again, who spun the rifle around to wield it butt-first and met Kraven’s pounce with a satisfying thwack to the face, knocking him out.

“I hunt monsters, darling,” she said, not unsympathetically. “Lions aren’t much of a stretch. And fur’s become rather gauche, by the way.”

“Monica, help!” yelled the Captain, engulfed in… Sandman? It didn’t seem right to refer to it as just sand when it was part of… a dude. “Punching the sand isn’t working!”

Tabitha a.k.a. Boom-Boom was having similar problems. “He’s too granular! I can’t rig each individual grain of him to explode, it’d take all day!” She kept dutifully sticking her hands into his sand (ick) and detonating it, but the explosions were too small and didn’t seem to be having any effect on Flint Marko, who seemed content to whirl around them in a semi-human sandstorm, encircling the two heroes (?) and raking them with searing sand/bits of himself.

Monica Rambeau rolled her eyes and plunged into the eye of the storm. “I have to do everything,” she muttered, again mostly to herself. She set about the biggest patches of sand that whipped towards each of her teammates, heating him up until he consisted of several sheets of black glass. “Nice!” Boom-Boom exclaimed. “Now I can– Captain! Stop punching the glass! The less pieces there are, the less time it takes to blow up!” The glass began to twitch as Marko, parts of him still protruding from the non-living sand of the Arena, tried to re-assert control. But it was too late– Tabitha rigged every slab of glass she could find on a 5-second timer, and as she and Monica and Elsa ran away from the blasts and the Captain carried away Aaron’s still-rebooting body, the explosions were followed by the voice of the Beyonder saying “WELL DONE!”

WINNER: Nextwave

Inhumans (4): Black Bolt, Crystal, Karnak, Gorgon, Triton

Legion of Super-Heroes (5):Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, Mon-El

Black Bolt feels a gentle tug on the forked antennae on his head. He quickly looks over and points. The stern look on his face cues the Inhumans of their next course of action. They see Cosmic Boy, and spring into action.

“Finally some metal out there, the last fight was a bit difficult, but I should be able to…”

KRACK! Karnak reaches the Legion first, his years of martial training allowing him to knife through while his opponents were focused on Cosmic Boy’s minor triumph. The blow drops the Legionnaire immediately. Karnak turns to the other four. He looks up and down as Mon-El curls up a first. He lifts his right hand and appears to make a tight “OK”, he curls that into an akward fist shape, his foru fingers just barely tucked under his thumb. Before whatever strike Karnak had planned can take place, he stands straight up, silent and still, eyes glowing blue.

“Don’t worry Mon-El, I’ve got this one…” Saturn Girl reaches out with her incredible mind and Karnak’s body freezes up.

Inside his mind he lashes out, “You think you’re the first to try this? I’ll find the weakness, I’ll break out!”

Booming down, all around him Saturn Girl tell him,  “Your mind is incredibly strong, I don’t think I could hold you very long, but your mind only needs to be occupied while it’s conscious.” A window in the all white room opens showing him flying through the air in the arms of Mon-El, and being thrown towards the ground, Mon-El chasing after for a follow up.

“NOOOO!” Karnak begins to feel the wind whistling around his bald head, he runs and jumps through the window to reality and wakes up just in time to hit the ground. He tries to open his eyes and move to safety, but Mon-El comes crashing in, and everything goes black.

“THAT is called teamwork!” Saturn Girl derides her fallen adversary. The moment is all she gets, as the ground beneath her feet gives way to rocky undulations as Gorgon stomps towards the Legion. She bounces with the waves and then floats up off her backside and hovers above the ground. “Not going to do you much good when we all have Legion Flight Rings!” She forces out a psychic blast, knocking Gorgon over.

“Lucky we control more than just the ground!” Crystal gusts the winds into a funnel around Saturn Girl. The surprise releases her hold on Gorgon, who shakes like a wet animal, and lifts himself up. Interesting thing about my powers, Crystal cries out, I’ve got more than just one. She blasts out flames, which get sucked into the tornado, causing a swirling dervish of fire.

“Mon-El, you’re the only one that can save Saturn Girl!” Lighting Lad cries out.

Mon-El takes off towards the funnel but he’s stopped from underneath, as Trition jabs upward with his trident. He looks down, surprised the weapon could damage him. Triton looks back at Black Bolt and makes the two same gestures that Karnak had earlier, Black Bolt’s silent communication, in this case, sign language, alerting the Inhuman King of Mon-El’s vulnerability.

Matter-Eater lad dashes in and takes a huge chomp out of the handle, Mon-El and the fork fall onto the ground, the tines rolling out as Mon-El struggles to save his teammate. He staggers into the inferno, grabs Saturn Girl, and collapses out. The fire sucked out all of the oxygen, and Saturn Girl lay sleeping next to Mon-El as he bleeds out.

“Time to heat things up!” Lighting Lad electrocutes Triton, the bolts coursing through his aquatic rebreather. He continues his assault until Triton is on the ground convulsing. Lightning Lad turns his attentions to Crystal. “Your elemental powers versus mine?”

“Glady.” Crystal pulls the water from Triton’s tank and sends it through the air in a bubble, surrounding Lightning Lad’s head. He panics for one brief moment before electrocuting himself. His unique physiology, immune to the effects, allows the water to boil under 1 billion joules of electricity.

“My turn!” He fires the bolts snake out of his fingertips at his command.

Crystal’s reflexes prove just enough, as she cascades a rocky shield from the ground, nullifying the charge. She topples the rocks, trying to crush Lighting Lad, but he takes to the skies and zips above. As he peeks over the crest, Crystal hits him a torrent of fire.

“Lighting gets hotter than the surface of the sun, I think I can take the heat!” He splashes down a chain of lighting that jumps and weaves a cage around her.

Silently, the electricity begins to wisp away, being pulled by an unknown force. Black Bolts emerges behind his sister by marriage, the energy being absorbed by the fork on his forehead. Surprised, Lightning Lad lets Crystal get the drop on him, and she charges forward, tackling him. She punches him continually until he’s out.

Witnessing the carnage, in a fit of rage, seeing all of his friend’s downed, Matter-Eater Lad rushes Black Bolt, diving open mawed, and he bites down on the fork. He rolls and stands defiantly in front of Black Bolt. He opens his mouth to reveal the hardware and begins to chew.

Black Bolt, in utter astonishment lets out the slightest gasp. The resultant explosion of his sonic release explodes Matter-Eater Lad.

WINNER: Inhumans

Legion of Doom (2): Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah

US Avengers (7): Sunspot, Squirrel Girl, Red Hulk (Maverick), American Kaiju, Captain America (Cage)

These specimen appear unremarkable. They should be destroyed so that we may gain access to the beings that organized this magnificent spectacle.” Brainiac thirstinf for the power that assembled them.

Lex Luthor adds, “Remarkable or not, they’re stuck in another one of these fights, just like us. I think that I saw one of them turn into a monster.”

“Monstersss? Who is a monster?” Cheetah sneers. She takes off on all fours, lighting quick.

Solomon Grundy tromps off, muttering, “Grundy a monster,” sounding somewhere between an ambiguous statement and a question.

“I don’t care who they are, they’ll know fear.” Sinestro floats away.

“Ooh look! Kitty!” Squirrel Girl’s eyes show big as she recognizes the charging cat. She bolts to confront her.

“Where I come from, cats is usually the ones chasin’ after squirrels.” Cannonball remarks. “Ah reckon we should git to helpin’.”

“Ah reckon we should.” Sunspot chuckles, making fun of his long time friend, Sam Guthrie’s thick Kentucky accent.

Captain America secures her shield, fixes her goggles and charges

General maverick looks down to check his Hulk plug in. “Tarnation! I just used this thing, now what am I going to… wait a minute… it’s good to go again? Well alright, let’s do this!” he punches down and pops up the Red Hulk and takes a huge leap into the fray.

Cannonball makes first contact. He sees the large awkward, gnarly yellow monster terrorizing the field. He knows that he can’t be hurt while blasting, so he has no qualms pushing through it. As he rockets through, the construct dissipates. As he follows its trail, the yellow energy reconstitutes itself as a large triangular shield. He knocks into it. Unlike the monster, it doesn’t explode on impact, but does slow his attack. He pushes with full power and shield begins sliding back towards its owner.

Sinestro grabs his left wrist, his ring hand, with his right to stabilize. He forces out all of the energy he can as the unstoppable object will not yield to his construct. Beads of sweat begin to form on his ample brow as Cannonball exerts as much force as the ring can hold.

As the two grow closer Sinestro retools his shield into a chute, aiming his adversary upward. The momentum forces him into the energy dome holding them, knocking him back down, until, until he smashes into the ground. Sinestro snarls and diverts his attentions elsewhere.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Squirrel Girl catches up to Cheetah. As they reach one another, Cheetah dives off all fours and reaches back a deadly claw. She slashes out. Squirrel Girl is just agile enough to jump over the attack, but Cheetah comes down with a fistful of tail fur. Landing on her feet, Squirrel Girl collects her tail and stares sternly at Cheetah. ‘Hey, NOT cool! You can’t just go around snatching at people’s tails!”

At that moment, Red Hulk lands with a WHOMP! Just behind her. Looking over his shoulder he comments, “Bad guys, remember?” His landing places him directly in front of Solomon Grundy, and without hesitation, he punches. Grundy goes flying back and hits the side walls. General Maverick smiles with glee until he notices Grundy immediately turn up, and shamble to his feet. “Guess it’s gonna take more than one.” he leaps off again to pursue.

Captain America rushes past and finds Brainiac observing, calculating their opponents. She doesn’t stop to ask questions, she bashes him in his robotic face with her shield. “Recalculating…”

“Recalculate THIS!” She strikes again, with all the strength of her mother and father behind it. The robot topples to the ground. She lifts her shield with two hands high and thrusts down, cleaving the robotic body in two. She lifts high, and disconnects the head from the torso. She pushes down again and pops off the arms, and the legs, and kicks each piece away from each other. “Some kind of Ultron knock-off.” She grabs the head and torso and call back to American Kaiju, “Hey, want to make sure these pieces don’t come crawl back together or something freaky?”

There’s a slight rumble, but surprisingly little else as as a large foot reaches out stomping the robot’s parts.

“I can’t have this.” Lex Luthor scrambles to the air to combat the beats. Danielle Cage follows his ascent and launches her shield. The shot hits Lex direct in his midsection, thrown out with super strength. “I designed this suit to fight Superman! I hardly think your toy frisbee is going to help you.”

He continues to rise until he’s eye to eye with the Kaiju. He opens his wrist lasers and fires. The calm, steady beam begins to cut through its giant hide as Luthor circles around. American Kaiju raises his titanic arms trying to block the shot, but they begin to get cut through as well. A giant finger falls to the ground, Captain America narrowly diving out of the way. As it lands, it shrinks back down to that belonging to Todd Ziller.

“Well isn’t that fascinating?” Lex Luthor flies down and hits the Kaiju with a wide blue beam, rolling up and down. “Very interesting indeed…” He stops the laser show and a blade pops out his gauntlet. He flies straight at the monster’s heart and stabs in as deep as he can. There’s a cacophonous howl as Lex pulls his weapon back and watches the blood retract into this armor. “We’ll have to see what we can do with this.”

As Luthor tries to jet to safety, Sunspot flies in and punches. The fiery fist buckles microns from Luthor’s face as his force field holds. “Seriously? Suuuu-perrr-maaaaaaannn. Superman.” He backhands DeCosta, sending him reeling back a few feet before he can collect himself and push back for another attack.

Sunspot charges back. Seemingly in annoyance, Lex Luthor opens his chest plate, an astonishingly bright, green hued light pours out, and the blast knocks Sunspot from the sky. Luthor continues his rampage on the team of Avengers, targeting down at Squirrel Girl while she remains locked in heated combat with Cheetah. He fires off four missiles, twisting through the air, they each land around the furious women. The explosion send the two to opposite sides of the arena. Squirrel Girl lands back behind where her team first came in and Cheetah lands next to Red Hulk and Grundy wrestling in the corner.

“Ah’m a little ticked ah fell for that mister, but you can’t keep a Guthrie boy down!” Cannonball dusts himself off and takes to they sky again. He tackles Sinestro from behind. “Oof, you insolent whelp!” Only instincts and paranoia, keeping his yellow forcefield up at all times saves him. Sinestro pushes out a giant twisting machination working like a spring between himself and the wall to prevent them from colliding full force. As the two get closer, the construct gets stronger, and pushes back harder for Sinestro. As they construct is folded in on itself entirely, the two stop. Cannonball grits his teeth and pushes out harder. Sinestro does the same, but his construct can only hold so long. It bursts and the two rocket into the wall. The collision affords Cannonball the advantage he needs to whip Sinestro back and forth until he’s out. Cannonball lands on the ground huffing and puffing. “That… that took a LOT out a me. Glad my momma always made me eat mah veggies.”

He’s coldly interrupted by a PAF as Lex Luthor snipes him from the air. “I knew your force field would have to run out sooner or later. He turns to see how much more work he needs to do as, apparently, he is the only member of this team that can get anything done. He sees Captain America has taken the place of Red Hulk, gracefully slipping through Solomon Grundy’s hapless attempts to land a hit and striking with her considerable strength.

As he locks on to Captain America, his field of vision turns solid Red as the Hulk leaps into air and grabs hold. Hanging on with his left, Maverick pulls back his right.

“How many times do I have tell you people? Superm…” CRACK

Red Hulk’s thunderous punch gets just through the force field and the tiniest of cracks appears in the ultra-glass dome atop the LexCorps battle suit. “I don’t know who Superman is, but we have a saying where I come from son, “Hulk strongest one there is.” He follows up with another titanic punch. The send the two to the ground, collapsing on Solomon Grundy, with Captain America bounding off of the falling combatants, corkscrewing mid-air, she turns her descent into a skyward punch and smashes Grundy in the face. A thick black liquid shoots from his nose. He raises again regardless, though slightly more dazed than moments before.

“Oh enough of this distraction.” Luthor stands and shoots a colossal energy beam engulfing Red Hulk and Solomon Grundy both. The shot knocks them both off of his feet and back into the wall. They do not get up. Captain America rushes in and punches into the armor as hard as she can. Internally Lex Luthor gets an update. “Armor integrity below 50%.”

“I think I’ll have to end this a little more quickly than I wanted to.” He pulls back, rocketing away to get some distance. “If you idiots want to fight monster, you’ve got it.” A small vial pops out of his gauntlet glowing with a swirl of yellow and green. “It took me all of a few minutes to retrosynthetically analyse the blood sample I took earlier.” he lifts the vial to him mouth when a red, white and blue shield comes streaming towards his face. The shield knocks the vial from his hand. Following immediately behind, Danielle Cage grabs the vial mid-air. She tucks into a roll and holding the vial, she tips her head back and drinks the elixir.

“NOOO!” He reaches out into the air and watches as Captain America slowly grows from five foot something to 40 feet tall. She stomps down as Lex Luthor bolts up past the leg. “I beat the last monster.” He fires off his lasers same as before. He pushes out what missiles he has left, and he pops the bladed probe again, punching into her gut. The blade snaps off.

“Thhhhisssss monnnsssteeeeerrrrrrrrrrr haaaaaaaassssssssss unbreaaaaaaakle ssssssskinnnn…” She reaches out and snatches Lex Luthor from the air. She tilts her head back one more time, and tosses the villain into her mouth. “Crunnnchhhhhhhyyyyy.”

WINNER: US Avengers

Doom Patrol (11): The Chief, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, Negative Man, Flex Mentallo

New Mutants (14): Cannonball, Magik, Wolfsbane, Karma, Douglock

His name is Flex Mentallo. The mighty man of muscle mystery stood with his comrades the Doom Patrol in the stadium as Wizard Shazam watched. They were supposed to fight, and part of him wanted to. Part of him still wanted to be the Hero of the Beach, and an unseen force made him feel as though he wanted it more than ever.

Flex thought to himself as he examined the field of battle, finger stroking over his chin. The arena was quite a peculiar place, if it could be considered a place at all. There were no spectators, there was no rhyme nor reason for any of the things he had witnessed there. There were barely even any other witnesses.

“Where did they all go? The winners all stay here, but what happens to the losers?” he pondered as he thought about the events that occurred over the past hours? weeks? Days? How long had he been trapped in here. He supposed, that the losers would be returned to their original location–but what of the winners?

He then noticed the New Mutants charged towards him almost as if they were in slow motion. He carefully examined the look on their faces as they charged forward with so much youthful exuberance. They too had been summoned here to fight. He could see the look in their eye, they wanted to be the Heroes of the Beach. Everyone in this whole twisted contest did.

Perhaps he and the Doom Patrol deserved to be here, perhaps they could face the challenge of the uncertain. They had on several times defeated the irrational, the absurd, the kind of existential threats that would leave one only to wonder: What, why?”

…but could the New Mutants? Could those fresh faced kids? Flex Mentallo struck a pose, curling his arms and flexing his muscles, and in an instant the New Mutants had disappeared.

WINNER: Doom Patrol

New Gods (2): Orion, Highfather, Lightray, Mister Miracle, Big Barda

TMNT (10): Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, Master Splinter

“Alright brothers, last fight is over. These guys looked pretty tough in their first fight.” Leonardo addresses his team.

“Aw shucks, you’re gonna make me cry.” Raphael pulls out his sais and spins them over in his hands.

“Scott, how’s it looking?” Barda asks of her husband.

“Just keep them off of me, I’ll figure it out.” Mister Miracle steps onto his aero-disks and starts flying around the stadium.

“Keep them off of you? My specialty. Big Barda stomps off to confront the Turtles. The rest of the New Gods stand behind, confident in Barda’s abilities.

She reaches the four turtles, Mega-Rod in hand, from a few feet away, she shoots out a wide arcing concussive blast. The shock wave forces all four turtles and their rat father onto their back.

“Not cool.” Michelangelo complains.

“Ow…” Donatello adds.

“We can’t give up, keep fighting!” Leonardo flips up and attacks. He pulls his twin katanas and starts slashing. Barda deflects a number of the strikes but a few get through. Leonardo is as skilled with his blades as any, training his entire life to master their secrets, and while he’s been able to use them hundreds of times to get out of many different situations, they simply aren’t enough to damage a New God.

Raphael is next up, joining his brother jab and slicing with his sais. Barda bats a few away, but event the true shots, straight on, deflect off of her Apokoliptian armor and the few that get around it, are equally ineffective against her skin.

“COWABUNGA!” Michelangelo dives into the fray nunchaku spinning.

Donatello slides in with his Bo staff and fights Barda as well. He loads up and bring the staff down over the crown of Barda’s head, CRACK, The staff breaks in two. “Guys, we HAVE to try something different, I think she’s ten times stronger than Beebop and Rocksteady combined!”

“You can try, but nothing you can do could beat me.” Barda finally counters. She bashes Raphael’s side, he blocks, but she pushes straight through. She cracks down onto Michelangelo, he tries to duck out the way, but she’s far faster than he anticipated. She grabs Leonardo and Donatello by the back of their shells and smashes the two into one another.

She steps past the fallen turtles to confront Splinter. She holds out her weapon and Splinter kneels. “I can see that this battle is already over. You have won.”

WINNER: New Gods

Avengers (1): Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkguy, Vision, Wasp

Guardians of the Galaxy (8): Vance Astro, Yondu, Charlie 27, Martinex, Starhawk

Vance Astro stands, stunned, staring at his idol. Captain America glares back up and down and walks out. Astro raises a hand and waves his teammates back, they wait as the two meet cordially in the middle of the field. Cap extends his hand. “That’s a nice piece of hardware you’ve got there.”

Astro nervously accepts the handshake, “Thank you sir, I’m a big fan.”

“Now let’s see who uses it better.” He winks and trots back to the Avengers. Getting back he looks over, Astro already standing with his companion. “You ready son?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be! Let’s go!” The two teams charge the middle on cue.

Yondu starts the assault, launching an arrow into the air, over his team, and whistling it down. Hawkeye sees the shot, waits for the moment it breaks and shoots it down. Yondu takes another shot, and Hawkeye knocks it out of the air as well. “Looks like we’ve got a couple of archers.” Hawkeye notes.

“You know these arrows aren’t easy to get, right?” Yondu dashes to the flank to get a clean shot off on Hawkeye. He fires straight, waiting for Hawkeye to counter. As soon as the arrow is loosed, Yondu whistles his upward. He whistles sharply as Hawkeye notches another. The Yaka arrow steers clear of the grounded Avengers and sticks in between plates in Iron Man’s armor.

“Argh!” the armor protects him from the arrow penetrating too far, but as he grips the arrow from his shoulder joint and pulls it out, a thin trail of blood follows, and he knows hs armor has been compromised. He halts and tracks the origin of the shooter. “Arrows? Really?” Stark stops and starts blasting his repulsor beam down. Yondu scatters to escape the barrage. Iron Man track the Centaurian around the course until he finds himself face to face with Starhawk. “What do we have here? I’m Iron Man. I’m very rich, a celebrity, incredibly handsome. And you are…?”

“Not impressed.” She blasts Iron Man out of the sky with one clap, releasing quantum energy. Iron Man plummets to the ground and lands at the feet of Charlie-27.

“Good shot ‘Hawk!” Charlie calls above, stepping over the armored Avenger’s chasing after Hawkeye. “You know my buddy doesn’t really like missing.”

“I guess he shouldn’t have tried to beat me then!” Hawkeye pulls an arrow and fires it straight into the mammoth chest of his foe. On contact, a fiery cracks through the air, and orange flames engulf the Guardian. The blast makes way to a cloud of smoke. As it disipates, Charlie-27 begins to laugh.

“Ha haha, ha.” Hey buddy, gonna take a lot more than that.” He lurches at Hawkeye, but Hawkeye, used to tussling with the like of the Hulk and Thor, having trained with Captain America himself, is ready for the obvious tactic. He slides around the behemoth and fires another arrow at Charlie’s side. “Ah! Okay, that one stung a little.”

“He reaches out and snags a hold of Hawkeye. He pulls him back, preparing to throw when Wasp streams in. She shocks Charlie-27 with everything she has. It’s just enough to force Charlie to release his grip. He swats at the pest, she weaves in and out of his clutches until he gets one good smack in, and he presses on.

He continues chasing until Hawkeye fires an arrow into the air as he runs. A line of cable trails behind the shot as the grapple arrow grabs a hold of Vision’s foot. Hawkeye tugs on the rope and spring off, simultaneously evading Charlie-27 and alerting his teammate that he needs help. Vision looks down and scans the Jovian. He immediately calculates the exact force and duration needed, and the gem on his forehead glows. It fires out a thin beam that hits Charlie-27 in the chest and knocks him over. Vision floats down, the beam continuing to push on Charlie’s heart. As he lands, he pulls his head up and beam off.

“Thanks for the assist!” Hawkeye rushes past.

“I am glad to be at your service.” Vision floats up to search for his best match when BONK Captain America’s trademark red, white, and blue shield come flying in, ricochets off Visions head, and spins back to its future owner. Vance Astro.

“You have vast psionic powers. But you cannot use them.”

“I don’t need them!” He charges shield first. Vision phases through the attack and grabs Astro by the scruff of his neck as he passes.

“They would do you little good against myself even if you did posses them at full strength, which I’m reading is… limited.” He tosses Astro into the air and bolts from the ground ready to make an aerial assault when PTCHU Starhawk blasts him, knocking the Avenger off course. Astro tumbles to the ground, breaking his fall with the shield.

Landing on the ground, ready to take flight again, Vision gets encased in a chunk of ice. He turns his attention to the more immediate threat and walks through the ice.

“Not enough for you? How about this one!” Martinex rockets out a torrent of flame. Vision walks directly through, reaching the Guardian and grabs both of his hands.

“Very interesting, silicon based life. Under normal circumstances, I would love to learn more about you.” He grabs the Pluvian around the shoulder and takes to the air. “Unfortunately,” Vision turns downward and increases his density, the two dive, “these are not normal circumstances.” Martinext lands on his back and Vision drops directly on top of him, weighing tons. Martinex’s crystalline body shatters.

Starhawk blasts down at the Vision again, though this time, Vision is slightly more prepared, having learned, he whooshes above to confront her. She looks calmly into his optic centers and state, “Not yet.” She blasts of an odd light that temporarily places his optics offline. Clutching his face, Vision flies back down to the back of the line.

Protecting the android, Captain America stands ready as Vance Astro approaches rebounding off of his fall. Cap hurls his shield, testing the future Major. He swipe it out of the air. The shield returns to Cap. Astro launches his version of the very same shield. Captain America takes two graceful steps and bounds off of the shield as it flies, landing a kick into Astro’s chest. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. He grabs his shield with two hands and thrusts it down. Vance rolls out of the way, pops up, and begins running for his shield. Cap tosses his again, it clips the runner’s ankles, and forces him skidding to a halt. Cap’s shield flies back to his hand.

“I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve too!” rolling to his back, he pushes out with his psychic pulse. As Cap clutches his forehead, trying to fight through, Astro scrambles to his feet and grabs the shield. He turns to attack and gets punched in the face.

“Battle’s about more than a few tricks.” He punches Astro again. Vance swings his shield wildly to push his foe away, but Cap intercepts the attack, slips his wrist down the inside, and takes the shield. “Maybe you can get it back when you’ve shown you know how to handle it.” Cap smashes Astro in the head from each side with the two shields. He tosses the extra on the ground and takes off.

He finds Yondu circling around collecting his discarded arrows and takes off in pursuit. Yondu noticed and fires one off. The arrow bounces easily off the shield. Yondu fires another one with the same result. He stops running and looses a third, really concentrating on it. It dips and dodges, but Captain America’s perfect reflexes are too good, the arrow pings off. This time though, Yondu stares out and whistles hard. The arrow turns off of the shield and swings around, sticking into Captain America’s back. Yondu smiles and dashes off again.

Yondu circles around and confronts Hawkeye. “So, you’re the one that keeps shooting my arrows down, you don’t look like much to me.”

“I’ll just have to cry about that later,” Hawkeye ounches out, bow in hand. Yondu pulls back, avoiding. Hawkeye swipes with his bow, Yondu bends at the waist and dodges. Hawkeye steps in, pulling an arrow, and stabs down. It buries into Yondu’s thigh.

“Quick, I see, Yondu pulls out the arrow and stabs a matching wound into Hawkeye. “Not going to be quick enough.” He yanks the arrow out of Hawkeye’s leg and stabs it into his side. He sees Iron Man streaking over to help. Yondu reaches into Hawkeye’s quiver and grabs an arrow with a unique head. “Let’s see what this one does.” He shoots, hitting Iron Man in the chest. The arrow expands a foam, covering the Iron Man suit, locking him down. He lands on the ground and foam sets as adhesive. Yondu punches Hawkeye before taking off again.

Vision tracks Yondu’s movements, waiting to get clear shot as Yondu grabs Hawkeye’s quiver and starts firing random trick arrows. Vision is familiar enough with the set to counter each, but the constant barrage is occupying his primary focus capacitors. It’s a tiny glimmer of hope, as Vision notices dancing amongst the hail, the demure Wasp.

She arrives unnoticed in Yondu’s face, “Try this on for size!” zapping him. He drops him bow and buckles over. She buzzes around and continues hitting him. Yondu can’t focus enough to track her down, and he falls to her assault. She takes off after the Vision to help with the final member of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Starhawk flies around Vision, firing off her concussive light blasts. The shots phase through Vision one by one. After witnessing a handful of her energy flythrough the android, the blue energy around her hands turns green. She lets loose and the energy connects. Her cosmic blast forces Vision to go solid and she follows it up with her another force blast. THis time, it connect solid, and Vision it dropped to the ground.

Trailing behind him, Wasp takes up after he falls. She hits Starhawk with her bio-electric wasp sting. The shot hurts, but normally wouldn’t be enough fell Starhawk. But, the coursing energy is specific enough that triggers a premonition. Starhawk grabs her head as it’s flooded by her cosmic surroundings. She sees the Beyonder pulling together Battleworld, she see him talking to the Watcher. Finally, she sees Vision jetting off of the ground and bursting forth with his solar energy beams.

As Starhawk struggles to shake the forewarning, the synthezoid takes off and fires. It’s too much all at once while she’s defenseless, and the Avengers win.

WINNER: Avengers

Fantastic Four (1): Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing, H.E.R.B.I.E.

JLD (8): John Constantine, Deadman, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu

As the Fantastic Four face off with their occult adversaries, a cocky John Constantine scoffs at his opponents and flicks a cigarette to the ground.

“And they call us freaks eh? I s’ppose you bloaks are just a mere science experiment gone wrong,” he remarks.

“Can it Sherlock! How about you go back to London and send your friends back to Hell,” replies a trash-talking Ben Grimm, whose eagerness to take down these foes overwhelms him.

Yet before this banter can continue, the mighty Madame Xanadu unleashes a blast of mystical energy at an unprepared Johnny Storm. The Human Torch is temporarily unconscious on the ground, prompting his friends to retaliate.

“It’s clobbering time!” The Thing exclaims as he, Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman charge toward their supernatural opponents.

Mister Fantastic strikes a blow to Constantine with his elastic arms and wraps him in an inescapable cocoon. The occult detective struggles to break free from his opponent’s grasp, while admiring the intellectual approach of Reed Richards.

“Not bad for an American Richards. I s’ppose not all of you are lousy drunks,” he says.

“Look who’s talking,” replies Mister Fantastic.

Facing off with Deadman, the Invisible Woman tries to anticipate the demon’s next move. Yet in the blink of an eye, the deceptive Boston Brandt disappears before Sue even knows it. Mere seconds later, Sue feels a strange force seep through her, like a ghost. As Deadman reappears on the other side, Sue is left baffled and is too late to dodge a powerful attack by Zatanna in which the sorceress suspends her in an alternate dimension.

“Ta-da! Time for the Invisible Woman to disappear permanently,” Zatanna exclaims.

Yet the battle takes a different turn on the other end as the monstrous size of Swamp Thing proves to be no match for the awesome might of The Thing.

“Sorry tree-face, but you ain’t got nothing against these rock-solid bones of mine,” says Ben Grimm as he pummels the deformed monster to the ground.

Before his sister is forever trapped inside a demonic realm, Johnny Storm awakes just in time for an insane idea to pop into his head.

“Stand back guys!” he says to his comrades. Defying the laws of physics in an already psychedelic-fueled battle, the Human Torch sums up all of his power to create a supernova and trap his foes inside the vortex.

As the members of the JLD find themselves engulfed in wildfire, Sue breaks free from Zatanna’s spell and emerges from the flames mostly unscathed.

“I promise that’s the last time I do that,” Johnny says to his teammates with a look of unparalleled mischief on his face.

WINNER: Fantastic Four

JLA (1): Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, Flash, Green Lantern (Hal), Aquaman

GotG (8): Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, Groot

“Alright so what’s the plan here?” asked Star-Lord as the Guardians of the Galaxy were being lowered their end of the arena in a group huddle.

“I am Groot,” replied Groot matter-of-factly, giving a leafy shrug.

“He’s right,” snarled Rocket, “Those guys are basically gods!”

“We’ve beaten gods before! We have the power of friendship on our side!” shouted Star-Lord, raising his arms. His expression was met with disdain from the other members of his team, except for Drax who was ready for the challenge.

“There’s no way,” said Gamora, echoing the sentiment rest of the group.

“Okay fine, there’s no way we’re going to beat them, you think I don’t know that?! But let’s try, you guys!” cried an exasperated Star-Lord, “Let’s at least take out the guy in the stupid Robin Hood outfit.”

“Haha! I will defeat the puny arrow-man!” Drax said with a jolly laugh, “And his ridiculous clothes!”

They land on the ground with the Justice League of America standing at the other side, Rocket is able to get a few shots off-but soon a red blur moves around them, each of the members quickly being stipped of their various weaponry by the scarlet speedster The Flash, who threw them across the battlefield at random.

“Stick to the Plan!” shouted Star Lord as the Guardians of the Galaxy valiantly ran towards their target.

“Are you ready to initiate the plan?” Drax asked looking over to Groot as the rest of the Justice League came running towards them.

“I am Groot!” shouted Groot summoning all the Strength and growing large enough in size to lift Drax from the ground and hurl him in the direction of the emerald archer. Before anyone in the Justice League could react, soon the Destroyer found face to Face with Oliver Queen. With a powerful headbutt, Drax defeats Green Arrow, “The plan is complete! The arrow man is now defeated!!”

Star-Lord gave Drax a thumbs up, and at least the Guardians could rest easy know that, well the had defeated that one guy. First, however, they were given a severe pummelling by the four remaining members of the Justice League.

WINNER: JLA

Trinity (1): Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman

Red Hood and the Outlaws (9): Red Hood, Artemis, Bizarro, Arsenal, Starfire

As the DC Trinity descends into the Arena Batman confirms his plans with his two team members, it seemed as though this was one of the many situations that the Dark Knight had prepared for, “Just like we practiced, plan Delta-Zero-One.”

“You think you can hold them off for that long?” Superman asked, turning his head to Wonder Woman.

She replied with a grin, “Watch Me.”

Red Hood seemed equally confident about his plan, “Take out Batman and then we win. There’s way more of us then there are of them.”

Roy raised an eyebrow, “Why is that always your plan?”

Red Hood groaned and continues, “Alright, Bizarro, you don’t go after Batman, we’ll handle the rest.

“BIZARRO NO CRUSH BATMAN! BIZARRO NOT HIT BATMAN LAST!” shouted Bizarro

The two teams were lowered down into the arena and both started to enact their plan, Wonder Woman took a giant leap forward and was soon entangled with four of the outlaws, sword in one hand, the lasso in the other as she quickly snagged Starfire and began to deflect bullets from her Amazonian bracers.

Bizarro took off with Amazing speed, hurtling towards Batman and Superman. With his incredible Kryptonian speed Superman scooped up the caped Crusader and began to fly around the arena with Bizarro in tow, gaining on them. Batman pulled a small device from inside his utility belt.

The Outlaws had started to weaken Wonder Woman, though she still made a formidable opponent one handed. She struggled to dodge the barrage of bullets and arrows while trying keep up with the furious melee of Artemis.

“Batman–” Wonder Woman said with a grunt as she endured a blow from Artemis, “NOW!”

The device Batman pulled from his utility belt was nothing more than a tape recorder, but as Bizarro draw close he hit play, and the sound boomed from the Bat Speakers on his belt. It played a simulated recording of the rest of the Outlaws:

“Bizarro is so strong!” laughed Starfire, “He’s the strongest there is!”

“I no believe it!” said Artemis, joining in the laughter, “Bizzaro always weak!!”

“Strong, but also handsome! Bizarro least handsome of them all! Look at Bizarro face!” chortled Red Hood

Bizarro came to a dead stop, his pale white face turning red with rage. Describing how Bizarro feels is at best weird, but for the sake of clarity let’s just say he was very displeased in the conduct and candor of the people he thought were his friends.

“BIZARRO WEAK!! BIZARRO SHOW YOU!” He flew down into the melee, and punched Artemis, knocking her into one of the arena walls. “BIZARRO WEAKEST OF THEM ALL!”

“BIZARRO MAKE YOU HANDSOME!” he growled, gripping Red Hood’s helmet and throwing him to the ground, “WHO HANDSOME NOW?!”

Superman plucked Wonder Woman from the brawl and they flew away and let Bizarro finish off the rest of the Outlaws. “Well done Bruce.”

“Don’t get too cocky we still have to defeat Bizarro,” explained Bruce, tucking the recorder back into his utility belt, “By my calculations we only have twenty five seconds until he’s done fighting the Outlaws.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this” said Superman with a knowing wink before running over to Bizarro in a red and blue blur.

WINNER: Trinity