The alien beach shimmered under a sky thick with stars, the massive gas giant overhead painting the night with auroras of teal, violet, and gold. Waves crashed softly, their foam glowing faintly from bioluminescent algae. The air carried the tang of alien salt and the sweet scent of crystalline flowers blooming along the shore. Also on the shore was an emerald bed, floating just above the sand.
"Ahh! Haa… yes, yes, yesss…" Firehair moaned wildly, her voice raw with pleasure as she pinned Max down and rode him with untamed fervor.
"Max!" Firehair cried, her nails digging into his shoulders. Cosmic fire began flickering around her body as her pleasure neared its peak.
Max suddenly took control. He flipped her beneath him in one fluid motion, pinning her to the bed; the green surface rippled under the impact. Her gasp turned into a delighted laugh, then a moan as he thrust deeper with renewed energy.
"Yes! Yes! Oh—" Her moans became incoherent.
They finished together; he fell to the other side, breathing heavily.
Firehair was immediately on top of him again and kissed him possessively, her teeth catching his lower lip. "Again," she breathed against his mouth.
Max, chest heaving, managed, "We need to take a break, Red. And hydrate…yes, hydrate…"
Firehair pouted but nodded. "I will go get us something to drink," she said, flying away. Her naked form glowed with cosmic fire, painting golden trails across the twilight sky as she headed toward the freshwater spring they'd found.
Max immediately got off the bed and muttered, "What the fuck."
He looked down at himself, not understanding why he was exhausted.
"Wasn't I supposed to be enhanced?" Max asked aloud.
"Yes," Jade chimed in, her tone carrying what could only be described as amusement. "Enhanced…even that has its limits. It's been eight hours, Max."
"Wait, what?" Max said, shocked.
"For the last two days, you and Firehair have coupled for a total of twenty-nine hours," Jade reported.
"Oh. I... I didn't even notice," Max said, standing up. "I mean, she is just insatiable...like wow…"
"Well, she is the host of the phoenix force," Jade said. "You need to take and drink something. I have been passively helping you through the ring as well; otherwise she'd have literally fucked you to death."
"Oh," Max said weakly. "Can the ring just… you know… give me more stamina? Permanently?"
"Yes…but no," Jade said flatly. "To be honest, I would also like a break from this. Do you have any idea what it's like monitoring your vitals during…never mind. I don't want to discuss it."
Jade then shifted tone. "Now that you're free of that wild woman, I have something important to discuss. I picked up something from Earth. Something you might find interesting."
"What?" Max asked, standing and stretching, feeling sore in places he didn't know could be sore.
"I picked up some strange signatures from the satellites we placed at the edges of the Sol system, and from the ones orbiting the planets and moons, including Earth," Jade explained. "The signatures are similar to the Celestials."
"Celestials?" Max muttered, suddenly very alert despite his exhaustion.
"Yes," Jade confirmed. "It could perhaps be the Eternals…I may be misidentifying. But I looked further into it while you and Firehair were trying couple while flying—"
"Heh, heh, bad idea," Max interrupted.
"Yes, yes, it was," Jade said dryly. "Anyway, the signature has increased in strength over the past day. There was also a communication attempt from Odin's communicator. As you know, yours were destroyed during the fight with Kallark."
"Okay, okay. So something is definitely going on," Max said, his mind already shifting into Avenger mode.
"So are we leaving?" Jade asked.
Before Max could answer, Firehair returned, landing softly on the beach with two fruits they had found on this planet…similar to coconuts but with bioluminescent shells that glowed softly in her hands. Her naked body glistened, steam rising where ocean water clung to her curves. Her red hair was still wet, plastered to her shoulders and back. Biting her lip, she fixed Max with a sultry stare and crooked a finger to beckon him closer.
"So what is your choice, Max?" Jade asked, clearly amused.
Max looked at Firehair, then at the sky, thinking about Earth and the Avengers.
Then back at Firehair, who had set down the fruits and was now walking toward him with a predatory prowl.
Fuck
.
.
.
Earth
The Artic
Zgreb stood tall, the very reality and landscape around him shifting and warping as the corrupted Celestial faced Earth's mightiest heroes.
Vnn took off, flying straight toward him.
"RAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" His battle cry echoed across the land, the Starbrand blazing in his chest as his entire body glowed red, blazing with power.
The Avengers had planned this, and Vnn was doing exactly as instructed: be the hammer, be the distraction, be the unstoppable force.
Odin surged through the air as the sky turned dark, storm clouds gathering at impossible speed. He summoned a gigantic bolt of lightning through Mjolnir, the strike so massive it looked like a pillar connecting heaven and earth.
Vnn landed on the Celestial's chest with tremendous force, his fists slamming into the ancient armor. Each blow unleashed shockwaves that rippled across Zgreb's form and through the air itself.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The sound was like worlds colliding, each impact cracking the corrupted metal, each strike driving deeper.
Odin's lightning hammered directly into Zgreb's face. But he didn't stop there he wielded the Will Spear as well, the weapon glowing a brilliant emerald as he channeled the storm through it, fusing Asgardian magic with pure willpower.
"Come now, Celestial!" Odin roared, his voice booming across the battlefield. "Show me if you're worthy of that title! Or have the parasites eaten away everything that made you divine?!"
He drove both weapons forward, unleashing another combined blast straight into Zgreb's eyes.
"I am Odin Borson, Prince of Asgard, Slayer of Surtur! You are nothing!"
Their assault continued. Below, Agamotto prepared for the next step using portals to bring the others onto the Celestial so they could launch simultaneous attacks from multiple points.He had to attack while also keeping track of every one of his friends, ready to portal them out the moment danger became lethal. He needed to multitask on a level he'd never attempted before.
They would keep this up as long as possible until Zgreb was weakened enough for Agamotto to imprison him in the earth itself.
"We are so fucked," Ghost muttered as he watched Zgreb withstand the combined assaults of both Odin and Vnn.
The Celestial was barely moving. Yes, there was damage—cracks in the armor, scorch marks, dents—but their enemy was on another level entirely. The attacks that could level mountains were causing superficial damage at best.
"Agamotto, it's time," Azzuri said, his voice steady despite the impossible odds.
Fan Fei and Nur both nodded in agreement.
"Be careful, friends," Agamotto warned as he opened five portals at once.
They all ran through, landing on or near Zgreb.
Azzuri dropped onto the Celestial's head, his vibranium claws digging into whatever cosmic metal the ancient being was made of. He attacked immediately, probing for weak points in the armor. His enhanced strength from Bast allowed him to dent the cosmic metal, though each strike sent painful vibrations through his arms that would have shattered normal bones.
Nur landed beside Azzuri. He grew to fifty feet tall with his subatomic manipulation and used brute force to hammer at Zgreb's head. Then he shifted tactics: fire erupted from his hands, then ice froze the superheated metal, and finally he unleashed concentrated energy blasts in conjunction with focusing spells he had learned from Agamotto.
Fan Fei landed on the shoulder. She struck with her Iron Fist, her hands glowing brilliant gold with focused chi. Each hit sent visible shockwaves across the Celestial's form, the power of Shou-Lao on full display.
Ghost walked out onto the other shoulder, his flaming skull blazing brighter than ever. He unleashed hellfire from his mouth and hands, the infernal flames burning away parts of the Horde corruption. The cosmic armor heated to such extremes that the air around it shimmered and warped.
Agamotto attacked near the legs with spells of his own: Bolts of Balthakk struck like lightning, the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak tried to bind Zgreb's limbs, and the Seven Suns of Cinnibus scorched the corrupted metal with stellar fire. All the while he kept his mystical senses fixed on his allies, ready to save them and always thinking of how he would imprison this corrupted god.
Vnn attacked across the Celestial, using his speed to move around the chest, arms, legs, and back, never staying in one place, always striking, always doing damage. Meanwhile Odin continued his barrage of lightning, using Mjolnir and the Will Spear together. The green bolts were causing visible harm now.
Zgreb tried to retaliate. His massive hand swept across his own body, attempting to swat the Avengers away like insects. His eyes fired cosmic beams. Reality itself bent around him, trying to unmake them.
But Agamotto was always there. Portals opened at precisely the right moments Fan Fei disappearing a split second before a hand crushed her and reappearing on the other shoulder to continue her assault. Azzuri vanished as an energy beam carved through where he had been, returning immediately to keep attacking. Nur pulled through just as reality warped around him, then reemerged with a different angle of attack.
The assault was coordinated chaos. Portals opened and closed in rapid succession, the Avengers retreating through them when in danger, then returning from other angles to press the attack. It was like watching a dance, deadly and precise: seven warriors against a god, refusing to yield, refusing to stop.
And very slowly, Zgreb was weakening.
=========
The Celestial's initial confusion was fading as he swung at empty air, his massive hands finding nothing while the Avengers portaled around him. Zgreb turned, frustrated, as attacks came from impossible angles—below, above, behind, all at once.
Azzuri had been studying Zgreb's movements, watching how the Celestial shifted and balanced. His enhanced senses let him see patterns others might miss: how weight is distributed, how armor plates moved against each other, where stress is concentrated.
There—just below the chest plate, where two armor sections overlapped. Every time Zgreb moved there was a tiny gap, barely noticeable to normal eyes.
"Everyone!" Azzuri called through their mental link. "Chest, lower-left quadrant! There's a weak point!"
They converged immediately, coordinating through the link. Fan Fei's Iron Fist struck the gap with focused chi, the impact forcing it wider. Nur destabilized the molecular bonds at the edges, weakening the cosmic metal. Ghost poured hellfire into the opening, the infernal flames eating away at exposed celestial tissue. Odin struck with his lightning-charged Mjolnir, and Vnn smashed his fist, glowing with the power of the Starbrand, each blow driving deeper.
The armor section cracked, then shattered.
Beneath it, they saw biomechanical systems not quite flesh, not quite machine, something between and beyond both. Energy pulsed through crystalline veins. The Horde corruption threaded through the machinery in black tendrils.
"It bleeds!" Ghost shouted, flames blazing brighter.
"Not much of a god!" Nur thought through the link between strikes, growing another ten feet to deliver a massive punch. "We can actually—"
A cosmic beam carved through the space where he'd been a second before. Agamotto's portal snapped him away just in time, the Sorcerer's reflexes saving his life by milliseconds.
"Don't get cocky," Odin warned Nur and the others.
For those first precious minutes they had the advantage. They had made a god bleed. Portals made them untouchable and unpredictable. They were wasps around a giant, stinging and retreating before retaliation could come.
That advantage ended when Zgreb adapted.
The Celestial caught Vnn mid-leap.
It was so sudden, so fast. One moment Vnn was attacking, the next Zgreb's massive hand closed around him. The Starbrand blazed, trying to break free, but the Celestial only increased its strength, crushing Vnn.
Then, to everyone's shock and horror, Zgreb threw him.
"VNNNNN!" Fan screamed.
The others echoed her cry as Vnn was hurled so fast Agamotto could not open a portal in time to save him. The speed was beyond comprehension. Vnn became a streak of light, launched with such force that he tore through the atmosphere in seconds, thrown literally out of the planet and into outer space.
"He will be fine," Odin said firmly through the link. "Vnn will survive. He'll come back. Focus on the battle."
Odin's words eased the shock, and the Avengers forced themselves back into the fight.
"He's watching the portals," Fan observed grimly. "He's learning. Be careful."
Nur shifted to where Ghost was, appearing behind Zgreb on the shoulder where the Spirit of Vengeance was doing the most damage with hellfire. He attempted a matter-manipulation attack, reaching out to destabilize the Celestial's armor directly.
But Zgreb was ready for them.
Creatures began to pour from his body, Horde parasites swarming out like locusts with too many limbs and mouths that should not exist.
"Fuck, what is that?!" Nur shouted.
Ghost tore into them with hellfire and his bone chain, destroying many, but they kept coming, spilling from every crack in Zgreb's armor.
"Get us out of here, Agamotto!" Ghost urged through the link.
Agamotto obeyed. He portaled the team off Zgreb and back down to the ground. Zgreb answered by firing a massive beam at them, so powerful it would have erased them from existence.
Agamotto portaled them away again. The beam smashed into empty ground and carved another crater miles deep.
Odin never stopped striking, circling Zgreb as lightning attacks crashed down, buying the others time to regroup.
"Get me out of here!" Odin called. "Something strange is happening!"
Agamotto pulled him back to the group and then created dozens of portals around Zgreb at once.
Boulders fell through from mountain ranges. Lava poured from deep magma chambers. Ocean water from the Atlantic cascaded down. Ice from the Antarctic tumbled in. Sand from the Sahara swept across the battlefield. Pieces of the planet itself were weaponized and hurled at the Celestial from every direction.
Zgreb was forced to react, trying to cope with the sudden, multi directional assault.
"It's still not weakened enough, not even close," Agamotto said, his voice strained. "If I am to imprison it, we need to weaken it further."
Fan looked to the sky for Vnn, concern etched on her face. "Where is he? Odin, maybe you should—"
Odin was about to respond when Azzuri interrupted, pointing. "My friends, look!"
Zgreb, now coated in cooling lava and pummeled from all sides by Agamotto's portal assault, had stopped moving. For a moment they dared to hope.
Then Zgreb's hands glowed with a sickly light.
The portals simply vanished. The newly formed volcanic stone from the cooled lava began to crumble away. To the Avengers' shock and horror, they watched all the damage they had inflicted—the cracks, the shattered armor plate, the burns—being slowly healed by the Horde corruption. Black tendrils wove across the wounds, knitting the damaged Celestial back together.
"Well, shit," Nur said, dread growing in his voice.
"We need to cause damage faster than it can repair," Odin said, taking command. "Overwhelm its healing. Do not give it time to recover."
"Agamotto, create the portals again!" Odin ordered. "Resume the assault! Hit it harder, faster!"
Agamotto nodded and began weaving spells. Portals opened once more and they attacked again.
But this time Zgreb was ready for them.
When Azzuri emerged for another strike at the exposed chest, a cosmic beam already lanced through the portal's exit point, as if the Celestial knew exactly where he would appear. Agamotto had to snap the gateway shut and open a new one mid-transport, dumping the Wakandan warrior into a tumbling roll to safety while the beam passed through the empty space he would have occupied.
The same thing happened to the others.
Nur appeared above Zgreb's head and found a beam waiting. The portal closed, reopened, and he stumbled through, barely alive. Ghost materialized on the shoulder but an unending swarm of black creatures awaited him; a portal yanked him away at the last instant. Fan emerged to strike and felt gravity warp around her, trying to crush her; she escaped through another portal, gasping.
"He's reading the energy signatures now!" Agamotto shouted. "He can sense where the portals will open!"
"Then change the pattern," Fan said, thinking fast. "Two portals. Feint with one and strike from the other."
They tried it.
Agamotto opened two portals at once. Nur emerged from one as a diversion while Azzuri struck from the other, his claws finding the already damaged armor.
It worked.
They rotated: Ghost and Fan, then Nur and Odin, feinting and attacking to keep the Celestial off balance. Two rotations passed successfully. Then Zgreb fired at both portals at once, twin beams lancing the exit points.
Ghost dove through a portal for another strike and found himself moving through something like tar. Space itself had become thick and resistant. His momentum died mid-portal, leaving him hanging half in and half out of the gateway, his body stretched across impossible dimensions. He screamed in pain even though he rarely felt pain anymore.
Zgreb's massive hand slammed down toward the frozen Ghost.
"Ghost!" Agamotto shouted. He snapped the portal shut and reopened it somewhere else, yanking the Spirit of Vengeance through. Ghost tumbled out, his flames flickering weakly.
The same warped space trapped the others on later attempts. Agamotto performed frantic extractions, pulling teammates through before the distortion could crush them.
Only Azzuri suffered a serious injury. His shoulder dislocated from the strain as Agamotto hauled him through a collapsing portal.
"What happened?" Fan demanded, steadying Azzuri.
"The portals—" Agamotto panted, sweat running down his face. "He's warping space. I cannot calculate trajectories properly when geometry itself is changing."
"Can you try to—"
"I can try, but—" Agamotto began, interrupting Odin.
"The portals are unreliable!" Agamotto shouted as another attempt nearly deposited Nur inside Zgreb's chest instead of on top of him. "I could drop you inside the Celestial by accident, or scatter you across dimensions, or—"
Odin launched into the air for another lightning strike, Mjolnir raised high. Then he froze, not by choice. Lightning crackled around him but went nowhere. He hung motionless like a statue.
"Odin!" Fan cried.
"He's warping time as well," Agamotto said, horror seeping into his voice.
Rifts began opening all over the battlefield.
Tears in reality itself. Tentacles writhed at their edges, creatures trying to pull through from whatever existed on the other side.
"Avoid the rifts!" Agamotto warned, already moving to seal them with counterspells. "Do not let those things through!"
They tried to attack through the chaos, but Zgreb was deliberately creating hazards now, turning the entire battlefield into a deathtrap.
Pools of molten rock formed where cosmic energy had superheated the ground. Time-distortion zones appeared at random; step into one and everything moved in slow motion, or sometimes fast-forward, leaving you caught and vulnerable. Gravity wells pulled in unpredictable directions, sideways, up, diagonally, disorienting and deadly, making even simple movement treacherous. Dimensional rifts kept leaking things that should not exist in their reality.
The battlefield itself had become an enemy.
"I can't maintain stable portals in this field!" Agamotto shouted through gritted teeth.
"Then we fight without them!" Odin hauled himself to his feet, every movement heavy under the increased gravity, his armor feeling like it weighed tons.
"Direct combat?" Nur asked, disbelief in his voice.
"Do we have a choice?" Fan asked grimly.
They did not.
The team adapted. No more portal ambushes, those were suicide now. Instead, they pressed in close where the spatial distortions were less severe, fighting at the Celestial's feet and legs like ants trying to topple a mountain.
Nur grabbed Zgreb's leg and worked to destabilize the armor piece by piece, getting thrown around like a ragdoll but refusing to let go, his molecular manipulation eating away at cosmic metal inch by inch.
Azzuri, his arm now mended by Fan's healing chi, used his enhanced speed to dash between hazards, attacking ankle joints with his vibranium claws and enhanced strength, tearing at cables and exposed systems beneath the damaged armor.
Ghost anchored himself with bone chains, wrapping them around Zgreb's leg and pouring hellfire directly into the joints, the infernal flames making even celestial metal glow red-hot.
Fan Fei moved with grace, flowing between hazards, her Iron Fist striking pressure points she could sense even on a Celestial's form. Each hit disrupted energy flows.
Nur then had another idea. He placed his hands on the ground and pushed with his matter manipulation. The rock beneath Zgreb's feet destabilized, turning from solid stone to loose sand in seconds. The Celestial's immense weight drove it down several feet, throwing off its balance.
"YES!" Nur shouted, doing it again, creating sinkholes, turning ground to quicksand, making the entire battlefield treacherous beneath the god's feet.
Zgreb adapted and stabilized the ground beneath its feet, so Nur changed tactics. He began raising stone pillars, massive obstacles that forced Zgreb to move in predictable patterns. He created rock walls that channeled the Celestial's movements into kill zones where the others waited with concentrated attacks.
Ghost became their anchor point, his hellfire creating safe zones where reality remained stable enough for the others to catch their breath between assaults.
Odin gave up on flight entirely under the crushing gravity, simply climbing the Celestial's body, using Mjolnir to punch handholds into armor and hauling himself up with raw Asgardian strength. In the distance, Agamotto was preparing something, a massive spell.
Odin attacked from whatever height he could reach, lightning never ceasing, the Will Spear channeling emerald power of will alongside lightning.
Then the entire sky brightened with light.
A battle cry was heard, one of pure, unbridled fury.
"RAAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRRGHHHHH!"
"VNNNN!" they all shouted as the Starbrand returned from the void of space as a meteor of rage.
Vnn impacted Zgreb so hard that the Celestial stumbled, nearly falling over, its massive form tipping backward before it caught itself.
"RAAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRRRGHHHHH!" (VNN CRUSH! VNN KILL! VNN STRONGEST!) Vnn's battle cry echoed as he struck at Zgreb, moving faster than he ever had before, the Starbrand blazing brighter than ever, fueled by fury at being thrown away.
All over the Celestial, Vnn attacked—chest, head, arms, back—a whirlwind of devastating blows. The Celestial was once again overwhelmed. The hazards around them began to cease as Zgreb's concentration broke under the renewed assault.
The time distortions faded. The gravity normalized. The rifts sealed.
Vnn grabbed a section of Zgreb's shoulder armor and simply started tearing. His hands grabbed onto the cracks they had created earlier, and he pulled with all his strength, muscles bulging as he began glowing red with the power of the Starbrand pulsing all over, exploding around him.
The celestial metal groaned. Cosmic alloys strained beyond their tolerances, beyond what they were designed to endure.
And then—
CRACK.
A section of arm armor tore completely free, tumbling away and crashing to the ground. Beneath it, golden ichor sprayed like a geyser.
"ATTACK THERE!" Odin shouted, pointing with the Will Spear. "ALL OF YOU! NOW!"
They converged on the wound.
Ghost unleashed a massive breath of hellfire from his blazing skull. Azzuri's claws tore deeper into exposed systems, then he released all the kinetic energy stored in his armor from the battle so far into a deadly shockwave. Fan's Iron Fist struck with focused chi directly into the breach. Nur destabilized everything he could touch, making the wound spread. Odin channeled the strongest attack he could with Mjolnir and the Will Spear, increasing their power with Asgardian magicks.
By this time Agamotto's spell was complete.
The Sorcerer moved his hands in a final pattern and spoke the last words: "By the Flames of the Faltine, by the Winds of Watoomb, by the Chains of Krakkan that bind all things. By the Seven Rings of Raggadorr, by the Vapors of Valtorr, by the Shades of the Seraphim. I call upon the Oshtur, Hoggoth, lend me your POWER!"
A beam of pure amber light erupted from Agamotto's hands and struck Zgreb directly in the wound they had created. Agamotto portaled everyone back before it hit.
Zgreb was struck. He stumbled and then fell. The Celestial crashed to the ground, the impact creating an earthquake and spawning tsunamis from the Arctic.
The Avengers watched the fallen god, barely believing what they had done.
"Did we... did we do it?" Nur asked, disbelief in his voice.
"By Bast's grace," Azzuri breathed.
Ghost laughed.
"We brought down a Celestial," Fan whispered, awed.
"RARAHHHHHHH!" (WE STRONGEST!) Vnn roared.
Odin shook his head with a smile. Maybe they really had done it.
They all began to celebrate.
They had done the impossible.
They had felled a Celestial.
"Good, now Agamotto, how will we—" Odin's words and their celebration were cut short by a terrifying scream from Zgreb, a sound part rage, part pain, part something else entirely. It vibrated through their bones, their minds, their very souls.
Zgreb began to rise as the earth shook and reformed beneath him. He rose like a nightmare given form, golden ichor still spraying from his wounds but already beginning to seal. All manner of energies released: cosmic crackles like lightning, reality distortions that made the air shimmer and twist, temporal anomalies causing afterimages and echoes, and dimensional rifts tearing open like wounds in space. The Horde burst from cracks in the armor in greater numbers than before, spreading corruption even faster.
Agamotto managed to raise a massive shield in time, protecting them all while Odin, Fan, Nur, Ghost, Vnn, and even Azzuri helped to reinforce it.
Zgreb ran at them, shaking the earth as the small patch of land they stood on began to sink. They readied themselves to fight once more, exhaustion forgotten in the face of renewed danger.
"Grr grrg grr!" Vnn growled. (Why won't it die?!)
"Well, we just have to do what we did again," Fan said, trying to sound confident. "Right?" She looked to them for affirmation.
"Yes, that," Ghost replied.
The others said nothing.
Agamotto prepared portals, and they launched their attack.
But Zgreb struck first. He anticipated the portal strikes, cutting off openings before they could fully form. A cosmic beam lanced through one portal, forcing it shut. A massive hand swatted at another, disrupting the spell structure.
Azzuri emerged to strike the wounded shoulder and Zgreb grabbed him mid-leap.
"NO!" Fan screamed.
The Celestial threw the Wakandan king with bone-crushing force. Azzuri flew like a ragdoll, hitting the ground hundreds of meters away and tumbling, barely surviving the impact.
Fan rushed to help him and Zgreb swatted her aside like an insect. The first Iron Fist spun through the air and slammed into a rock formation with a sickening crack.
Vnn charged with a roar and the Celestial caught him in one massive hand, squeezing. Vnn screamed in pain as he tried to free himself.
"NO!" Ghost roared. He poured hellfire directly into Zgreb's arm, forcing it to release Vnn. Both Vnn and the wounded arm were slammed away, and they landed badly.
Agamotto felt a spike of pain in his mind, a psychic force trying to crush his consciousness. He staggered, his concentration breaking. "I…I can't—" He nearly lost consciousness.
Odin flew in a blur, dodging attacks as energy beams came from all directions and creatures from Zgreb swarmed him on all sides. He hurled the Will Spear with everything he had, and it struck, embedding itself in Zgreb's head with a sound like a gong.
The Celestial roared in pain as emerald energy spread where it had been struck. In that blind panic, Zgreb's face began to glow with building power.
A beam formed, targeting one specific figure.
Nur.
The young mutant was getting to his feet, dazed from being thrown, not seeing the death aimed at him.
Everyone who was recovering after being thrown saw it—shock and horror freezing them.
"NUR!" Fan screamed.
"NO!" Azzuri shouted.
The beam fired. It was impossibly fast, impossibly powerful, pure cosmic destruction.
Odin lunged toward Nur. Mjolnir pulled him forward faster than he had ever moved, lightning trailing behind. He slammed into Nur with his shoulder, pushing the young mutant out of the beam's path.
Nur tumbled away, falling down the large chasm nearby, safe. The beam struck where Nur had been.
Where Odin now was.
This is it, Odin thought as he felt the heat from the beam. He knew he would not survive. He would die a hero, saving his friend. His ancestors, his mother, his friends even his father would be proud of him.
His last thoughts were about how his mother would welcome him to Valhalla as he felt his skin and armor beginning to peel off and pain starting to register—
Then it stopped.
He opened his eyes and saw an emerald shield around him. It cracked as the beam hit it. The orb pulled him out of the beam's path; a constructed hand grabbed him and set him down safely away from the massive explosion where the beam finally struck.
Odin was injured. Parts of his armor had fused to his chest, the heat having melted metal into flesh. It hurt badly, but he was alive.
He laughed through the pain as he realized who had saved him.
Max landed right next to him, wearing full construct armor unlike the ones Odin had seen before; darker, more refined, it reminded him of Uru. His eyes glowed completely green with power.
Then the entire sky glowed red, then white-gold.
The silhouette of the Phoenix appeared above them. Firehair fell like a star onto Zgreb, impacting with such force that the Celestial stumbled. She bathed it in cosmic flames, Phoenix fire so hot it made Zgreb's armor glow white, the corrupted god roaring in pain.
Max looked down at Odin and offered a hand to help his friend up.
"What took you so long?" Odin said, panting and in pain but grinning.
Max grinned as he created constructs, very small ones at first, then hundreds of thousands, then millions. They formed like a swarm of angry hornets and flew toward Zgreb, all attacking together a storm of emerald energy eating away at it with relentless strikes.
"So how the fuck did this happen?" Max asked.
"You want the short story or the long one?" Odin asked, wavering a bit. Max steadied him and then created an armor construct around him, and Odin felt his pain ease.
Max looked at Zgreb as the Phoenix's flames burned it, and behind him Agamotto and the others stepped out of a portal.
"Let's finish this."
"Aye," Odin said with a wide grin, lightning crackling around him once more, his eyes glowing as he called Mjolnir to his arm.
"Let's."