Asgardians (2): Fandral the Fair, Hogun the Horrible, Volstagg the Voluminous, Thor, Lady Sif

Excalibur (10): Captain Britain, Meggan, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Nightcrawler

“Curse you, Beyonder!” Thor lamented as he surveyed his next opponents, for across the arena there stood stalwart friends of old, the heroic mutants of Excalibur! He addressed his fellow Asgardians, “I know these heroes of old! I beg you, friends: dispense with them gently.” With a whirl of Mjolnir, he took to the air, followed by Captain Britain.

“Pick your targets carefully, you lot! They’re Asgardian but they’re not invincible. Pete, you take the big one quick as you can; you’re on Thor if I fall. Kurt, don’t let Sif get the drop on you, her sword lets her teleport!” With that, Brian took to the sky after Thor.

Kurt strode towards the Asgardians nonchalantly. “Friends! It appears you are overburdened by weapons. It so happens I am a fair-to-middling swordsman of the Deutsche Schule! Perhaps one of you could be so sporting as to lend me a blade…?” The blonde man with a passing resemblance to Errol Flynn, Fandral by name if Kurt remembered correctly, blinked at him, nonplussed. “Er… certainly! Why not?” said the Asgardian, and tossed him an extremely lightweight, well-made kurzeschwert with quite interesting Nordic (or pre-Nordic!) markings along the hilt and down the fuller! “Danke, Fandral! En garde!” And with that, the dance began!

Fandral was grateful for such a pleasant diversion. Last round’s warriors had been so… serious. It was enjoyable to take a few moments and just trade remarks and ripostes with this jovial dark elf! But what’s this? The blue devil had teleported behind him and attempted to surprise him! A new challenge! What fun! As they danced, the elf’s movements across the battlefield became somewhat predictable. I attack here, he teleports there. He teleports there, I block here. And so on, and so on. “I’m sorry, my friend, but this has become boring,” Fandral drawled, and turned away from Nightcrawler, holding his sword out so that– *BAMF!* “Argh!” –the elf teleported onto Fandral’s sword (in a nonvital area of course). “Better luck next time. Tschus!”

Hogun the Grim was displeased with his opponent. She would not stay still or fight back! This diminutive Midgard maiden was some sort of ghost! His mace passed through her without doing any harm, no matter where the blow may fall! “Sorry, Hagar the Horrible! Gotta be quicker than that!” the foolish sprite said as his mace whistled through the air again and again, sometimes right through her face! Hogun chased her across the arena as the disrespectful human ducked away from him again and again, until he found himself right behind his sworn companion, Volstagg! Then the fool stuck her head through Volstagg’s back, and stuck her tongue out at Hogun! This indignity could not be borne any longer! He reared back and swung with all his might, connecting with– Volstagg! Who, distracted by his fight with the metallic man on the other team, turned at the feeling of impact and lashed out with his staff– connecting with Hogun’s face and knocking the Grim Warrior out for the moment. “What– Hogun?? Why did you hit me! I’m sorry, old friend! Oh no–”

Colossus, familiar with Kitty’s tactics, took advantage of Volstagg’s distracted mistake and put all his strength into a devastating right cross, dropping the gigantic Einherjar with the red beard. “Thanks, Katya! This one had me tied up for a while. Where do we stand?”

“Kurt’s down but breathing. Brian and Thor are duking it out up there.” She pointed above the arena, as if Piotr needed to be told that the bursts of light a hundred feet above him were related to Thor and Captain Britain– besides Ben Grimm and the Hulk, perhaps two of the only others in the world who were stronger than himself. “Looks like Meggs is trying to keep Sif from using her sword to teleport. And here comes–” she broke off as the blonde man in green Piotr had seen earlier rushed towards them.

“You defeated my sworn brothers of the Einherjar! Have at thee, metal golem– urk!” the swordsman fell beside his brothers, victim of another haymaker punch from Lake Baikal’s champion boxer. The Asgardian’s blade did not break on Piotr’s skin– in fact, it poked him, such that he actually felt it! But neither did it break his skin. This metal of the gods was no joke, Piotr mused.

“Do you think you can take Thor if he takes down the Captain?” Kitty asked. Piotr thought for a moment.

“Probably not,” he said quietly. “But we will see.”

Apart from the fiasco with the Warriors Three, Sif was also having problems with her mark. This is no mutant or human, she thought, this is a fairy from some other realm! No matter how she attacked, this Meggan moved at the last second, or diverted her sword with a blast of force, or used some petty earth magick to unsteady Sif’s feet so that she missed! “Sorry, milady!” said the fairy in a mocking tone, “but Excalibur doesn’t fall to lesser swords!”

Sif paused, and looked to the sky, just in time to see a flash of light and a human-shaped figure begin to fall… one not wearing a cape or bearing a hammer. “Look you to the sky, fairy,” said Sif, and pointed. “Long ago did your isle fall to the power of the Norse. Aethelred fell to the Danes; now see Merlin’s champion fall to Mjolnir.”

Meggan watched with horror as Captain Britain plummeted to the ground with a resounding KROOMM. “Brian!” she cried, and as her attention was diverted, Sif’s sword fell. She was merciful, and its magicks merely hurt her instead of killing her.

“I’ve done as you wished, Thor,” she muttered, observing the unconscious forms of the Warriors Three. “For all the good it will do…”

Kitty and Piotr stood tall as Thor and Sif approached them. “Thou hast fought valiantly, Xavier’s children,” said Thor. “Stand down, for I do not wish to hurt thee.”

Kitty and Piotr exchanged glances, and then moved as one toward Thor. A flash of lightning enveloped the arena, and as the smoke cleared, the two X-Men lay at Thor’s feet.

“Valiant to the last,” Thor remarked to Sif. “Valhalla would welcome them!”

WINNER: The Asgardians

Masters of Evil (3): Baron Zemo, Ultron, Black Knight, Radioactive Man, Enchantress

Young Justice (6): Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl, Speedy, Impulse

As the young team emerges from dealing with the “freaks” from the last fight. They proceeded with a sense of cockiness on what or who they think they are going to come against next.

Impulse dashes from side to side commenting on how weird the fish guy was, only to be cut off by a deep accented voice from behind stated, “Aren’t you children a long way from home?” The all turn around to see standing in the short distance Baron Zemo, Ultron, Black Knight, Radioactive Man, and the captivating but deadly Enchantress.

Before they knew it the fight broke out and all split up, paired to take each on. As the Enchantress started to glow bright, speaking the words to cast a horrific spell towards anyone she could catch in her eyesight. Speedy accurately fired two tricks arrows quicker than the witch could speak. Binding and gagging her before she could speak another word.

Superboy and Radioactive Man paired off next. Sizing each other up and before Superboy could take the step to charge, Radioactive Man shoots a strong power ray of energy. Hitting Superboy square in the chest, shooting him across the landscape. Superboy hit the ground and skids to a halt. Radioactive Man laughs surprised to the fact that SB went as far as he did. Not knowing that as Superboy laid on the ground his places a secret Lexcorp created Shield patch. That compresses Superboy’s human DNA to increase his Kryptonian side. Superboy fly straight towards Radioactive Man hitting in the face. Superboy continues to throw punch after punch knocking him further back. Then a strike in the mid center of  Radioactive Man and hits his containment belt, cracking it.  Causing the belt to start to overload, emitting a strong pulsating ray of energy.

Worried that the belt wouldn’t hold the contained radiation much longer, Radioactive Man attempts to flee but is caught quickly by Superboy. Knowing what will come to next Radioactive Man uttered “You not going to like this.” Superboy replies “What’s that?” All of a sudden the containment field shutdown and an explosion knocks them but far in opposite directions away from the continuing fight.

Seeing the aftermath of the explosion, Impulse returns his attention to the others. He attempts to assist whoever he can but only to be cut off short by the robot was known to many as Ultron. Impulsively the young hero attempts to dash back and forth as Ultron tries to hit the speedster with blasts from his Concussion Beams. Only to miss him by mere milliseconds.

Seeing this the cocky teenager joking states ” What’s wrong Tin Man? Too fast for you?” Then with ultra-fast calculations, Ultron grabs Impulse and states “On the contrary…. NO!” Grabbing the left leg of the yellow blur and snaps it, like snapping a toothpick.

“Alright Knight!” Stated Wonder Girl. “It would seem that you are the next to get checked, mate!” “What?!?” Replied the Black Knight. “Did you just do a chess pun?” She stated “Whatever! Are we going to do this or what?” “Well….” he started and then unsheathing the legendary Ebony Blade. Preparing for the attack, she changes her stand only to be surprised when he turns and jams the swords end straight into the back of Ultron. “Did you calculate that, you bastard?”

Surprised but this she stands in disbelief. Only to be jolted back to the fight when Black Knight screams at her to help the others and then he turns to Impulse to assess his injury.

During the whole climax of the others, Robin dodges shots and sword swings from Zemo with only the type of easy that the Boy Wonders to pull off. Having his patients tested Zemo, lets out a grunt of frustration and screams “Why would you just stand still?” Seeing that he is wearing his opponent down, Robin chuckles with the reply, “ What would be the fun of that, Captain Eggplant?”, bouncing into a back handspring.

Readjusting his stand Zemo, states “Do you know who I AM, BOY?” “I have taken down countries, seen governments crumble!” “It that suppose to impress me?” replied Robin.  As Zemo tried to approach toward Robin, he notice Speedy and Wonder girl take strategic position on each of his sides. “What is your next move?” asked Robin. Before he could get a answer Zemo jump into a backflip narrowing a shot and a swing for his side opponents. Only to dash toward the darkness and out of site. “Good job team” Robin congratulates the few still standing.

WINNER: Young Justice

Teen Titans (5): Nightwing, Donna Troy, Raven, Cyborg, Beast Boy

Alpha Flight (13): Guardian, Puck, Sasquatch, Aurora, Northstar

“This again?” Puck complains, rolling his eyes. “Better get one with it.” He trots off, the rest of the team follows.

“Titans, TOGETHER!” Nightwing forms up his group.

“Really Nightwing, are you sure?” Beast Boy teases, and the five take off after Alpha Flight.

“I saw these guys in their first fight.The Canadian one’s powers are all from his suit, I’ll bet if I can get a minute.” He lifts his right arm, and forms it into a cannon. He raises it high and shoots at Guardian, flying above the rest of his team.

“Ha! That literally didn’t tickle, I didn’t feel a thing! How’d you guys win your first fight?” Guardian reacts.

Cyborg looks at the readouts from his probe, “Uh huh… okay… and…” he blasts out again, this time Guardian stops mid air and plummets to the ground. “How about that one? Did that one hurt?”

“Aw jimminy…” Puck picks up his pace and holler back to the Beaubier twins, “Might want to speed this up about now.” The two dash ahead.

Northstar arrives at Cyborg , in the back of the line and punches into his fleshy cheek. “Try that cannon on me, this power is 100%, all natural. He speeds around punching him again. He zips past and grabs Cyborg’s arm and takes off to the stadium wall, smashing him into it. He sneers down, checking to see if he’s finished yet or not.

Northstar sighs as Cyborg rolls over and taunts, “Big mistake.”

“Why, because you can cancel my powers too?”

“No, because you took your eyes off of Nightwing.”

CLUNK. Nightwing wraps his twin escrima sticks across Northstar’s head, knocking him over. Cyborg pushes himself up and forms his arm into a sonic pulse blaster and points it down. “Though I’m pretty sure this will cancel out your powers.” The blast rends him unconscious, and the Titans turn back to the rest of the battle.

Across the way, Sasquatch’s long legs carry him to the forefront. Beast Boy charges ahead, turning himself into a bear, and the two meet halfway. There’s a tumble of fur, claws, and teeth, and the green bear is tossed aside.

“Hey bro, not cool!” Beast Boy pops into gorilla and charges again, bowling over Sasquatch. He rolls over immediately and as Beast Boy pounces to press an advantage, Sasquatch reaches out and grabs him around the throat. Instinctively, Beast Boy transforms into a bee and flies out of his grasp. “Okay buddy, what do I have to do here?” The tiny bee grows huge, and the form of an elephant is presented, charging, tusks first. Sasquatch grabs the ivory and wrestles the animal to the ground, slamming him down, then lifting the creature off of the ground, and tossing it away. As he flies through the air, Beast Boy pops into a birds and soars to safety.

Puck cartwheels up to Donna Troy, “What do you do legs?” Silently, she kicks out quickly, Puck jumps back. “Well, okay then!” He leaps into the air and balls up, ready to knock into to, but she easily sidesteps. He recovers, and jumps up again. His natural agility is difficult for most to continue evading and he begins to grow frustrated with his futile efforts. “Hey Lady, what is your deal?”

“A little of this, a little of that…” She whips out her lasso and snares the bantam brawler.

“Whoah, when this is all over, you have GOT to let me buy you a drink!”

“When this is all over, you may not be able to.” She yanks the lasso high and pulls it down sharply, smashing Puck into the ground multiple times. She’s have kept going but Aurora flies up and punches into her midsection. The speed of her attack pushes Donna back, and she drops the lasso, though the damage is more than done, Puck is out.

Aurora bolts forward and unleashes a flurry of attacks. She probably more surprised than Puck was that Wonder Girl is able to deflect, dodge, and evade most of them. Aurora move at hypersonic speeds, and the few glances blows that she’s landing aren’t causing much harm. She continues pushing until her teammate, Sasquatch lumbers behind them and grabs Wonder Girl by the top of her head, lifts, and heaves her into the ground. He releases her jet black locks and stomps down.

“Azarath Metrion Zinthos.” A circle glowing black and purple envelopes Sasquatch. “Azarath Metrion Zinthos!” The circle rises, forming a black cylinder around the beast. Sasquatch begins to scream in agony. “AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!” Sasqatch drops to his knees screaming, clutching at his head. The black column fills with white light that explodes out, blinding the participants of the fight. As it settles Walter Langkowski is left kneeling, powerless. “You are no longer bonded to the great beast Tanaraq.”

“I’m… I’m…free?

“You could call it that.” Beast Boy approaches from the air as a pterodactyl and turns into a hippo on his descent, squashing the scientist below. He pops back into his humanoid form to chec the damage. “Yeah, he’s done.”

Aurora zips up to him, in his moment of vulnerability and socks him in the face. The velocity rends him unconscious.

As he’s getting back to his team, Cyborg witness the the attack and groans” Another speedster?!” She flies up to him faster than his sensors can get an accurate read. He blasts all around her position, but her can’t get a clean shot, as he’s tracking she rushes up and back. Creating just enough distance, she waits, an eternity to her less than a second to the world. Cyborg fires at distance, Aurora races the shot, grabs Nightwing, and pulls him into the line of fire, and sprints off. To the naked eye, Nightwing teleports in front of the shot and gets taken out.

Cyborg cries out, “Nightwing NO!” In the moment of grief, Aurora comes back around attacking his armored components, jostling just enough internally to kick in his self repair mode. “I might go offline for a minute, if anyone else wants to help!”

As Aurora continues to crash Cyborg’s systems faster than he can build them back up, Wonder Girls slides in, able to move just quickly enough to stop the onslaught.

“I think you’re done.” She grab’s Aurora by the elbow, holding the would be punch back. Wonder girl spins her around and punches Aurora in the face. Dropping her, she looks around. “Why haven’t we won here yet?” She sees James Hudson frantically trying to repair his Guardian suit.

Wonder Girl and Raven stride up together. Raven’s hands begin glowing with her dark energy, and she pulls a chunk of ground underneath them off of the rock and above their final adversary’s head. “Almost forgot about this guy.”

WINNER: Teen Titans

Ultimates (3): Blue Marvel, Black Panther, Miss America, Captain Marvel, Galactus

Champions (11): Ghost Rider (Blaze), Hercules, Black Widow, Iceman, Angel

“You wanted more of a challenge Herc’?” Black Widow chides the god as their team stands all but slack jawed staring into the sky, up at Galactus.

Ghost Rider revs his demonic Harley, “Better get to it.” He speeds off, a trail of hellish flames streaking behind.

“He’s no Unus!” Iceman skates off.

“I WISH we got to fight to Unus here.” Angel takes to the skies.

Galactus stares down at his team. “As lifebringer, I feel no compulsion to fight there heroes. I realize that you are under the influence of Psycho-Man. For some reason, I am unable to help you here, but I do not have to participate.”

“We don’t need you.” Blue Marvel stares out at the advancing Champions. “I’m good for at least two of them.”

“Oh man, I totally forget they used to all be on a team together… does that Warren have his feather wings? Are we fighting against young versions of our friends!? I’m glad I’m not in one of my old costumes.” Captain Marvel looks herself over. “Well, let’s quit standing around here and get to it.” She takes flight and streaks off.

Blue Marvel zooms past and tackles Ghost Rider off his bike. The wisps of flame coming off his skull lingering in the air as he rockets off his ride. “One down!” He whips around to take on another foe when he’s jerked back to the fallen demon hybrid. A fiery chain wrapped around his ankle.

“I don’t think so.” The flames intensify as Ghost Rider pulls himself up the chain, wrapping it around his arm, one step at a time. While there’s still a small amount of slack, and the Blue marvel has realized that he isn’t getting away, he turns back and punches Ghost Rider in his skull. It explodes. Surprisingly, the tiny flaming chunks pull themselves together almost instantaneously. “Try again.”

Miss America jogs up behind, “Can I try?” She punches Ghost Rider in the chest. The punch leaves a gaping hole pouring out light. The hole forms into a star, spinning around and the flames start pulling in. As the draw off his body, patches of skin start forming around his bones until the portal closes and the blonde haired man, Johnny Blaze is left standing.

“What.. what just happened?” he questions, turning his hands over in front of himself.

“Punched a hole into Heaven, I guess.” America punches again. Johnny Blaze does not have the stern constitution of Ghost Rider. “You heard Carol, keep it moving!” She gestures to Blue Marvel as she jogs off to punch someone else.

“It would appear that there’s far more in this world than even I understand.” He flies behind her.

High above Angel and Iceman get to Captain Marvel. “New look for you Carol, when did you’ve give up the swimsuit?” Iceman jokes.

“And the mask?” Angel adds.

“Right around the time I stopped caring maybe?” She flashes her photon burst in a wide pattern, blinding the two mutants. She then streaks in takes out Angel with a quick concussive blast, he spins through the air with lifeless wings until he lands with a thud on the ground.

“You’re real  power is energy absorption, right? What happens when all that energy slows down?” Iceman pours on the cold. Captain Marvel ices over and turns blue. Iceman slides down to the ground to focus his full efforts on pushing everything he has into the attack.  Standing next to a giant chunk of ice, a cool white mist begins coming off the mutant. He’s found with Carol Danvers before, her knows her strength, her power, and he knows his only chance is to force her energy to a standstill. He continues pushing himself until there’s nothing left in him. He collapses in a fleshy heap next to the almost lifeless glacier next to him.

“We did we form this team again?” Black Widow complains as she shoots out a couple of tranq darts at the Black Panther, knocking that they’ll fall useless the moment they hit the vibranium weave suit. Her hope was only to distract him long enough to get in one or two good blows. She runs up and leaps, wrapping her legs around his head around his neck and twisting. The surprise of the attack is just enough to take the Panther off his feet and place him on his back.

“Surely you know that there’s no way you can win against me, Natasha. So many other Avengers, yes, but not me.” Black Panther flips up back onto his feet.

“I wasn’t planning to, just letting the meathead get close enough to take over.”

“Eh?” Black Panther pushes out as he’s grabbed from behind by the much, much stronger demigod, Hercules.

“A sound strategy, is it not?” Hercules boasts, squeezing the King of Wakanda as he dangles, kicking his legs, trying to twist out of the mighty grip. “With your speed and cunning, surely you would have made this fight last longer than I’d like. I have a number of our friends to get to!”

“You oaf!” Grunting, struggling. Any other man, any lesser being would be crushed at this point, suffocated to death. Exasperated, Black Panther is finally freed by the Blue Marvel flashing in and pushing the god over.

“You dare try to tangle with the god or strength?” Hercules collects himself and grabs hold of the Blue Marvel. Wrestling around, he flips the Blue Bomber of Battle and drives him into the ground. Brasher scrambles up and punches back, lighting blue encasing his fist. He punches out again, Hercules’s head jerks back. He punches again, and a faint mist of blood poofs out of Hercules’s mouth. “Well, it seems you’ve some strength yourself, HAVE AT THEE!”

Hercules begins striking back and the two inexhaustible heroes exchange blows while Black Widow tries to figure how they could possible have a chance. She sneaks around the heavyweights, and past the frozen Kree hybrid, past her fallen mutant comrades, and selects the perfect tool for the job. She kicks into the Black Panther’s back as hard as she can and rolls. In one fluid movement she gets the jumps onto America Chavez with her Widow Sting at full charge.

Ms America shrugs off the attack and laughs, “Sorry Widow, I respect you, but you know what comes next.” She launches a titanic punch. But Widow is faster, and has far more training, she leaps over the fist and allows it to hit the charging T’Challa behind her. Vibranium Weave or not, Ms America is REALLY good at punching things, and sends her teammate flying. The impact against the wall, the punch, and the stress of Hercules’s attack is too much to recover from for this battle. Ms America clasps her hands over her mouth in shock as Black Widow tries to press her momentary advantage.

She pulls two devices out of her belt, “I hope Stark got these right.” She jumps over America and tosses them out. The land of Ms America’s chest an stark sparking. A small puff of smoke fizzles out and they fall off.

“I guess they don’t make them like them used to!” Chaves turns to confront Black Widow.

“Da, that smoke was a one time use.” Ms America’s eyes roll into the back of her head, she falters, and drops. “Now the Blue one…” She whips around looking for the final combatant. Taking just one step, she finds him, as he speeds in front of her, carrying the Greek god on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry miss, but this is the only way.” He gently puts a hand on her shoulder and his hand glows. Black Widow falls.

WINNER: Ultimates

Defenders (2): Doctor Strange, Hulk, Silver Surfer, Namor, Valkyrie

Renegades (7): Pete Stanchek, Faith, Torque, Flamingo, Kris Hathaway

Pete Stanchek looks around, the rest of his team standing there with him. Even under the dark influence surrounding them, his fragile mind cannot accept the bizarre reality of the situation and his mind has betrayed him before. “What happened? We just fought those other guys and…” he grabs Kris, give a big, unwanted hug. He grabs Faith, and inspects Torque, then stares out at Flamingo. “We’re back, we’re all back.” he pats himself down. “No, this is just another trick, WHERE ARE YOU HARADA!?” Pete envelopes himself in an amber psychic aura and blasts into the air. He’s trapped in the crackling purple electric plasma encasing the arena and starts punching at it. “I’LL GET TO YOU! MARK MY WORDS, I WON’T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS!”

“Maybe someone should go, I dunno, try to talk to him or something?” Flamingo suggests. Without needing to, the whole team looks to Faith Herbert.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ll go.” She takes off after him.

Before the other three members turn back around, they’re met by an enthusiastic “HULK SMASH!” Seeing Torque is the largest of the three, he punches him first. The shot smashes him into the ground so hard the his hard light projection instantly shatters and the body underneath blacks out as it flies across the field.

Valkyrie charges in immediately behind and grabs Flamingo. “You hath great power within you warrior, I witnessed it in your first battle in this realm.”

“You bet your skinny ass I am.” She pushes out her fire, fully engulfing her aggressor.

“I’m sorry young one, but you’ll find that I do not burn so easily.” Valkyrie pulls her sword back and stabs Charlene Dupree. The fire licks around and dissolves.

Kris Hathaway stands in the middle of her fallen friends clutching her head in horror and confusion, “WHAT THE $&*^ IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!”

Doctor Strange strides up to her smiles. He places his hand on her cheek. A small rune emanates from his fingertips, circling around her face. She drops asleep in his arms. He catches her falling body and lays her gently on the ground. He looks up at Valkyrie and Hulk. “Not everything has to be so brutish.” Valkyrie scoffs and Hulk roars as he stands looking around for someone else to punch.

Namor saunters up the group and looks up, I suppose these two are for myself and the Surfer.” He asks with raised brow.

“The ambient Powers Cosmic are weak in this realm, but my reserves in them are full. I saw that man in his previous encounter, and I believe that I may aid him. To me my board.” Silver Surfer hops onto his cosmic board and takes to the skies

“And you need me to hurt the cheerful one. Cowards, the lot of you.” Namor flies after the former herald of Galactus.

“Hey buddy, how’s it going up here?” Faith gingerly probes at her friend.

“Why? Why does this keep happening? What sick game is this?” I’ve seen you all hurt, maimed, and killed too many times. I know that I have a problem, I know that none of this is real, and I KNOW that my mind is strong enough to get out of this!”

“Pete, I need you to listen to me, listen to my voice. I need you to understand what’s happening here. Our friends got beat real bad last time, and you saved us, and we’re here to fight again. Until we can get out of here, we have to keep fighting, teh half of the teams that lost are gone, they’re just GONE Peter.”

“So what? So we can fight again, and again, and then what? We fight each other? I know this scenario. This is my nightmare. It’s always been my nightmare, because ultimately, I’m always the one that hurts you, no matter how much I think I’m not.”

“Pete. Pete, you can’t think that way, you…”

Namor grabs her ankle and yanks her down. “I take no pride in this, but what must be done, must be done.” She smashes into the ground, her flight field probably saving her life. She starts to get up, but the diving body of Namor has other plans as he barrels into the fallen target.

High above, Silver Surfer reaches out with his cosmic senses into the damaged mind trying to soothe him. “Rest easy young one.” A white light crawls from the Surfer’s fingertips and weaves around through Peter’s forehead.

“I… I… I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why we’re here…” He begins to cry.

“Most of us in this life, and most in others, do not either.” The Silver Surfer calmly states. “I am sorry that things have to be this way, but they must.” He unleashes an awesome explosion of cosmic energy, Stancheck collapses, and the Surfer glides down to regroup with his team, carrying his victim. “I do not care for these tactics either, Doctor Strange, but this is the unfortunate grouping you’ve assembled, and when there’s a fight that needs to be won, it is the Defenders job to do so.”

WINNER: Defenders

CSA (3): Owlman, Ultraman, Superwoman, Power Ring, Johnny Quick

Planetary (13): Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, the Drummer, Ambrose Chase

Ultraman’s eyes glow red. “They fought a bunch a bunch of gun-toting idiots last time, doubt they’re really ready for us.”

“Oh no, they most certainly have not.” Superwoman grins and cracks her knuckles.

Across the arena Elijah snow sighs heavy. “There’s always more, aren’t there?”

“Sorry old friend, it seems to be our lot in life.” Ambrose Chase places him hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned studying the impossible, it’s that everything we do is just some ridiculous game in someone else’s story. There’s no reason to try and fight it anymore.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed off. What’ve you got Drums?”

There’s no answer Snow look around and the rest of the team start searching too.

“Drums?” Jakita calls out, where’d you go buddy?” They finally see him at the other end of the stadium, roped up, being held by Owlman and Johnny Quick.

“Looking for this one? Don’t know how he turned off that one guy’s powers last time, but I wasn’t going to wait for him to do it to one of us!” Owlman triumphs. He turns back to the speedster, “Now grab the woman, I don’t know what she does, and I don’t want to find out.

Johnny Quick streaks out in a flash and grabs Jakita Wagner, he tugs to bring her to his teammates and gets jerked by her refusal to budge.

“I’m a little harder to move.” She snatches his arm to prevent him from getting away.

“No problem sweet cheeks, I can phase through.” Johnny smiles begins vibrating his molecules.

“Not if I can slow you down.” Elijah snow reaches out and freezes the villain. Jakita still holding his brittle arm crushes it in two, small pieces exploding out around her fist. She smiles as Quick looks on in horror, the ice extending over his face. Jakita wastes no time finishing what she started.

“Clearly these guys aren’t the heroes some of these other teams are.” Owlman observes, “We’re still up one though,” noting the four remaining members to the Planetary three.

“She looks tough.” Superwoman says joking, “She’s mine!” She jolts forward, almost as fast as Johnny Quick, and punches out towards Jakita. Wagner, prepared, grabs the wrist as she dodges the punch, and strikes back. Superwoman lands on her back.

“Fiesty!” Hyperion shouts. Guess I better help! He takes flight, soaring high, and fires down his heat vision. The beams catch Wagner on her chest at first. She lifts her arms to block them.

“Ugh, I’m not the ONLY one on this team, you know!” Jakita leaps into the air after Hyperion, catching him around the waste. She climbs up and punches him in the face. He’s knocked back just enough that Jakita loses her ride and plummets to the ground.

Ambrose Chase folds the gravity under her, allowing her to land gently on her feet. “We can do teamwork too.” He smiles, reassuringly. Hyperion dives down to attack the team, smashing into the ground between the three members, the ground beneath them scattering, throwing them in opposite directions. He pops up and makes a grab for Ambrose Chase. Chase channels his physics distortion field onto Hyperion. He increases the friction, the gravity, even the time. He tries to pull Hyperion back by altering the strong nuclear force of the ground behind him. It slows Hyperion to a crawl, but he continues pushing through.

Ambrose, putting everything he has into deflecting Hyperion grunts. He thinks about complaining about teamwork, when he see Jakita raise to her feet and run in to grab Hyperion. She an inch away when Chase feels a sharp pain in his back. He looks down and notices the tip of a glowing green sword sticking out of his chest. It fades away and he drops to his knees. He pushes his last efforts into locking Hyperion down while Jakita pounds him into the ground relentlessly. She looks up to see if he’s going to get up, with Ambrose Chase longer holding him down. He isn’t.

Superwoman flies in laughing. “That overconfident idiot.”

Jakita whirls around and grabs her. “Not today lady.” She spins around and tosses her into Power Ring, snickering at the Death of his foe. Superwoman bowls him over but recovers quickly. Power Ring rolls on the ground. Jakita leaps into the air screaming, “You first!” and lands on Power Ring before he can adjust. She turns and addresses Superwoman, “You second.” and two begin to tussle.

Elijah Snow sees Owlman and unleashes his powers on their entire environment. “I know Jakita can take it, I know I sure as $%# can, probably you’re trollop there too, doubt you can.” The frozen snow extending to Owlman’s feet, continues to fill the battlefield. From the outside, the entire fight looks like a violent snow globe.

Owlman steps into the snow and states plainly, “I’ve spent twenty years training for this fight you think I’ve never found a hero with cold powers? If you’re going to kill me, then you’re going to have to do it with your bare hands!”

Snow snarls and draws two pistols. He immediately begins to fire at Owlman. He evades the bullets and pulls two owlarangs, they catch Snow in the chest, and Owlman rushes in, knocking Snow down.

“If you want to win, you’re going to have to kill me.” Snow spits blood in Owlman’s face.

“With pleasure.” Owlman smiles as he drives the owl shaped shuriken into deeper into Snow’s chest.

Owlman stands up next to his fallen target and see Jakita still tangled with Superwoman. He launches a few gadgets out at her, but they all seem to have little effect. Electric shocks, concussive explosives, acids, all do nothing. He takes a moment to analyse Jakita’s strength and try to figure out a weakness. He hears Superwoman cough loudly. He looks up, refocused to see her standing over Jakita’s body.

“Thanks for the assist, your little annoyances gave me just the edge I needed.” She blows a kiss. Owlman smiles wickedly.

 WINNER: Crime Syndicate of America

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