Author's Notes: First off, I apologize for the readers who have been waiting for this next chapter. Things have been a little hectic in my life (for personal reasons and little more of that below at the end), and I am infinitely grateful for the people who have reviewed and sent me PMs to check on how I was doing and writing. Thank you, all of you. And I'm sincerely and profoundly sorry for the delay. But I hope that this chapter with the battle with Luxord and Jetstream more than makes up for it. First off, to recap: this chapter focuses on the battle between Luxord against Martian Manhunter, Gambit, Beach Head, Trinity, and Shannon, whereas the Hellion, Jetstream, is fighting against the Teen Titans, Bumblebee and Starfire for the Chalice of the three Talismans of Twilight within the underground chambers of Shaw Industries. Luxord is owned by Squaresoft and Disney. Gambit and Jetstream are characters from Marvel Comics. Beach Head is a character from "G.I. Joe" Hasbro cartoon. Martian "J'onn" Manhunter, Bumblebee, and Starfire are characters respectively from the animated "Justice League" / "Justice League Unlimited" and "Teen Titans" TV series and of DC comics. Shannon is one of the Potentials turned vampire Slayer from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" TV show.

Trinity: It's about time! Do you have any idea of how long we had to wait to get an epic battle starring us?

Daria: Us OCs get little enough time as is!

Quinn: Yeah, we had to wait and do other things to entertain ourselves like sabotaging your PC, your car, your author's profile…

Me: When I find out which one of you three changed my profile picture…!

Brittany: You needed to update it! We thought what we uploaded was a more accurate depiction!

Me: YOU PUT A PICTURE OF A HORSE'S REAR END AS MY PROFILE AVATAR!

Trinity: Again, we repeat…

Red Witch, I'm beginning to see why you try to avoid using Trinity whenever you can. Readers, I hope this chapter is a suitable apology for the wait.

CHAPTER 41: And To Think We're Not At The Gathering Yet (Luxord)

"You're dead meat, asshole! I'm gonna rip you a new one for infecting me!" shouted Beach Head as he let loose, his crazed voice being heard literally by everyone in the gigantic battlefield.

Luxord was attempting to surround the aforementioned army ranger and Shannon with a line of cards, madly dodging various shafts from the Slayer's crossbow as the girl repeatedly fired her deadly wood and metal bolts with impressive accuracy. He was lucky to have a few additional cards to block the incoming shafts as well as a missile launched from Beach Head's bazooka (which had some rather interesting enhancements thanks to Trinity and the allied witches). Both the Joe and the Slayer were crack-shots. And for some annoying reason, the instant he revealed his face when they teleported into Shaw Industries, they automatically set themselves on him as their immediate target.

The white-haired, goateed man narrowly dodged the shafts easily enough, each crossbow projectile coming inches to hitting him, but the bazooka payloads were another story as they actually exploded and took out a good area around the battlefield, the resulting heat and flame and concussive detonations actually burning him cloak and skin, despite using his cards as shields. Not to mention that despite the blockades, the force from missiles' detonations actually shoved the gambler Nobody back a bit, being unable to hold his ground against the payloads. It was like trying to not budge an inch while attempting to block a charging football player; physics didn't work that way.

"You need to change your disposition," Luxord commented icily as he then snapped his fingers with his free hand while using another card as a shield in front to ward of another incoming bazooka missile.

And in an instant…nothing happened. No telltale puffs of smoke, no flash of light or even the slightest shimmer of magic occurred. The masked G.I. Joe soldier was unaltered, remaining in human form as opposed to turning into a harmless card or a dice.

Luxord frowned, befuddled, which was exactly how the brown-haired Shannon was able to hurriedly shoot three crossbow shafts in quick succession into her foe's direction above, unhindered. Caught unawares, the Gambler of Fate reacted a mite too late in using his card to block the projectiles, allowing one arrow to graze past his face, drawing blood.

"What the devil?" snarled Luxord with disappointment as he felt the stinging of the wound where the crossbow shaft nicked his cheek. He was sure he preformed his magic correctly, so his spell should have worked. So why weren't the Joe and the Slayer rendered inoperative as he did with foes in the past?

Thankfully, a certain Cajun X-Man was able to take full advantage of this little surprise and from Beach Head and Shannon's altercations as a disturbance. Running along the far wall thanks to a lifeline he shot with his glovatrix at the ceiling to pull himself upwards, Gambit managed to position himself just right and still out of Luxord's blind spot…

With a powerful leap, Gambit used the grapple line to swing himself away from the metal surface and deliver both of his feet hard in a powerful push kick into the neck and shoulders of Luxord, pressing downwards as hard as he could.

Luxord was taken aback at the swift attack as he suddenly was propelled down to the floor, letting out a grunt of extreme agony as he was solidly thumped hard from behind. Losing his concentration and Newton's Laws withstanding, the black-cloaked sociopath had no choice but to fall due to the unexpected force.

"Damn, Remy beginning to see why the Batman likes doing this so much," marveled Gambit (still hanging on the grapple line), immensely pleased upon seeing as how his kick managed to neatly send Luxord hurtling lower to the ground before he landed with a rather wince-worthy thud. Now at a lower elevation and still reeling from the pain in his back, the antagonist was completely helpless to dodge to sudden bazooka missile coming right at him…

KABOOOM!

"Nice shot," quipped Shannon with a smile as the charred and smoking form of their foe was sent hurtling backwards from the sudden cloud of fire and smoke of the detonation as the missile exploded upon contact, leaving a gigantic crater in the floor. Flopping helplessly backwards, Luxord then disappeared amongst the ruckus of the crowd, hidden amid the disarray as Xaldin sent a chain of his spears to lash and slice at Miroku and Blob while Roxas was beginning to invoke another series of energy orbs to obliterate Xi, Bambi, and Blind Master (with the Misfit, Disney character, and the Joe hurriedly running and leaping in different directions to avoid being incinerated). Amid the numerous battles and death duels occurring all around them, the Slayer and the Joe easily lost sight of their assigned opponent. Gambit swung down before acrobatically landing on his feet to the floor like a cat, his black and red glovatrix releasing the grapple line.

"Remy say we go after him," Gambit suggested with urgency, but before Beach Head and Shannon could agree to that, they got a rather nasty surprise as a ring of gigantic cards of silver and white suddenly burst forth and erupted out of the ground. With a sharp, sheathing noise like honed steel being drawn out of a sword scabbard, the loop of Nobody tags formed an unbreakable prison all around the fighters, with an indestructible, circular roof of shingles capping off the top.

Remy cursed in French as he let loose a kinetic card into the wall, but the barred fence remained firm and steady as the line of towering slabs of metal began to revolve and spin around and around the warriors like a blender. The ring of cards moved so swiftly that it was a mere blur, making sharp noises in the wind. Beach Head paled as it hit him. He recognized this from the Watchtower siege, and unlike Gambit, he wasn't willing to try to blast out with his bazooka because such a powerful explosion in an enclosed space such as this would inevitably injure himself and his allies in the process via the backlash and shrapnel. Shannon looked around wildly before she declared the obvious.

"There's no way out!" the Slayer cried.

Seeing this from above as he reappeared in a vortex of obsidian-colored smoke, Luxord had to grin at last, the girl's wail being music to his ears.

The card-dealer from the Thirteenth Order was fortunate he startled the trio so easily. From the observation of Gambit, Shannon, and Beach Head's teamwork and determination, Luxord doubted that this was going to be as simple as he first thought. These adversaries weren't going to just stand still like stupefied animals. Which was why the best way he could even the odds against him was that if he made the three annoyances disappear, exactly like how he incapacitated a good majority of the Justice League and their human assistants. And should any additional heroes be nearby…

"Privates, hold on to me!" barked Beach Head, and as the Slayer and X-Man hurriedly latched on to his Kevlar vest and shoulder, Wayne swiftly activated the teleportation watch on his wrist that was connected to the Mass Device. With a flash of light, the Mass Device engulfed all three forms of the fighters before teleporting them outside the ring of cards, sending them a good ten feet beyond their prison.

"Free and clear!" crowed Gambit as he then let loose a volley of ten kinetic cards directly at Luxord, who was so astonished at seeing the X-Men, Slayer, and G.I. Joe soldier free that he nearly failed to dodge the energy attack in time, veering swiftly away from the charged objects and letting them explode harmlessly on the far wall.

"Damn…" the white-haired warrior cursed as he descended down to the floor, falling to the marble surface as light as a feather.

"Get him!" snapped Beach Head as he and the two youths flanking both of his sides hurtled themselves at the Thirteenth Order lackey at full speed.

So much for trying to make the other heroes unavailable. If he used that predictable tactic again, the ranger from G.I. Joe would simply teleport them out of their prisons with the modified Mass Device. Luxord considered running and avoiding the fracas altogether, but two things prevented him from doing just that: his pride and the fear of the Superior's wrath should he discover that Luxord sidestepped in his commitments to engage the heroes of Earth with all of his might and ability. It was then that the black-robed warrior then tried a new moveset, one that could cause a great deal of trouble.

"A challenge, is it? Cards!" commanded the white-haired warrior, making a line of five cards hover in front of him in a perfect flush, each small but deadly object displaying the face of a clock with Roman numerals as the numbers. With a flutter, the objects temporarily fluttered away and vanished before reappearing behind the Thirteenth Order member, enlarged and towering well above the goateed man by several feet. Now, there was a gigantic fence of cards actually barricading the path between Gambit, Shannon, and Beach Head, temporarily blocking their trajectory. And on each card, the faces of the clock began to count down, starting at the 13th Roman numeral, which immediately phased to red, and working counter-clockwise as the circle began to tick off its numbers slowly and tantalizingly.

"The first one to run out of time is the loser of the game," Luxord intoned, and he couldn't have been more satisfied as he three enemies acted exactly as he anticipated, choosing to immediately strafe or(in Gambit's case) acrobatically leap over the wall of gigantic slabs. Not only was it far easier, but they would waste less time than actually blasting their way through and giving their foe a chance to counterattack or retreat.

"We're not in the mood, jackass!" snarled Beach Head as he fired another missile. Luxord smiled as he adroitly flipped high into the air, using a card magically enlarged and attached to his body to brilliantly shield himself as he somersaulted above and past their heads. Shannon let out an impatient noise of anger as she saw that her crossbow arrows were sticking out of the card barrier, but they failed to hit her enemy as he was flying in the air.

Two seconds passed as the eleventh symbol turned red…

Beach Head then tried firing another bazooka missile at the white-haired man, but to his frustration, Luxord teleported away in a portal of darkness, the ballistic payload hitting nothing but smoke and shadows. Though it wasn't a waste; it actually managed to explode in Saïx's left side as he was about to kill Simba, who was valiantly defending a distracted (and enchanted) Captain America, Hawkgirl, and Avalanche.

The "VII" symbol transformed into an eerie red as seven seconds passed…

Shannon exclaimed out load a warning too late as Luxord teleported right behind the G.I. Joe soldier, ready to slice Wayne's head off with a lone card in his hand like a scimitar. But with his gut instincts and fast reflexes, the Ranger hurriedly grasped the bazooka with both of his hands like a bo staff before turning around swiftly and ramming one end of the missile launcher hard into Luxord's stomach. The black cloaked antagonist hunched over in pain and surprise, not expecting such an unorthodox move with a firearm. This gave Gambit the perfect opportunity to pole vault into the air with his metal staff, and the Cajun mutant delivered a fantastic flying kick into Luxord's head, sending the man back.

Five seconds left…

Shannon didn't waste any time as she readied, aimed, and fired a single shaft with her crossbow as the Slayer sprinted towards the fallen figure, but with a wave of his hand, the woozy Organization killer easily deflected the shaft with magic. Ditto towards a set of five kinetic cards via Gambit, having the energy projectiles veer off suddenly, only for them to explode precariously close to Cover Girl who was shooting at Xaldin. But apparently, his magic wasn't sufficient enough to change the direction of the bazooka missile that Beach Head launched once again in the distance, the rocket glowing with a silver and amber glimmer from the spells Dr. Strange and Allo cast upon all of Wayne's payloads.

KABOOM!

Direct hit, as indicated by the wafts of burning flesh, the blisters shining on the sputtering wretch's face, and the way that Luxord's cloak was now in tatters and bits of the fabric were smoldering.

Two seconds as the "III" symbol was doused with an unholy glimmer…

While the goateed soldier form the Thirteenth Order was shakily trying to stand up, Gambit let loose another pair of charged cards with bio-kinetic energy, and with an irritated grunt, Luxord raised a gloved hand and magically prevented the mutant's power from striking him. With a flash and a crackling discharge, the pink and rose-colored energy fizzled harmlessly around the weakened Gambler of Fate. But apparently, using a magical force-field to stop energy was not the same as stopping a physical attack like a blade or a punch. As the evil soldier learned the hard was as Shannon then rushed forward and delivered a terrific haymaker into Luxord's side with all of her Slayer strength, actually thumping through the mystical shield and making direct contact with the man's person. The extent of the punch was so great that Luxord was once again sent flying, this time away from the wall and more towards the center of the room where all three of them would have an easier time besieging their opponent on all sides.

But at that precise moment, instead of teleporting to safety, Luxord then merely stood back on his own two feet, grinning like a maniac as the phantasm countdown was on its last legs and his three attackers were almost upon him, mere feet from beating the holy snot out of the hooded man.

And then the instant the "I" character converted into crimson, the countdown was completely finished as the heroes then learned the horrific consequences of refusing to participate in the game.

In that precise moment, it was as if someone had pressed the "pause" button on Beach Head, Shannon, and Gambit as their bodies literally defied physics and motion as they jerked to a complete stop of temporal stasis. Like as if Piper Halliwell herself froze them by magic. And though immobile, the Joe, the X-Men, and the Slayer were agonizingly aware of what was happening to them as each one of their bodies were suddenly engulfed with a phantasm shape of a face clock, a mirror image to the ones displayed on Luxord's cards and with a eerie green shimmering outline. With several deep rings, as if made by gigantic cast-iron bells, the clock face apparitions flashed once before disappearing and creating vortexes of playing cards to swarm, engulf, and eat away at the heroes' flesh and bodies. It came so fast and sudden that none of them even had time to comprehend it until they felt their skin being nicked by the razor-sharp edges, of the blood pouring heavily as their bulks burned under the time magic, of their clothes and protective armor offering little protection from being stabbed and hacked, and of the sharp corners and peripheries actually slicing through their bones and joints as easily as scissors to a piece of paper.

All three of them were being ripped and severed apart by the maelstrom of magical cards. All in the span of five seconds, silently and with deadly chaos.

"AAAAAAAA!" screamed Wayne, Shannon, and Remy in unison, feeling the pain hit them full force and shattering them to their very core before the storms of magic finally faded and ceased. Luxord had to feel a little disappointed at their completed handiwork as the three opponents collapsed into bloody heaps on the floor, their energy and vigor spent and drained away. There was no question about it now: despite the assault of time and his deadly cards, the trio was still very much alive. Shannon the Slayer was actually sobbing and whimpering as she laid on her side, her clothes drenched in blood and her hair matted with red. With her arms badly cut, she was in far too much agony to even reach for her crossbow which was right next to her. Gambit was actually unconscious, lying on his back and in a pool of blood, a few cards all around him uselessly strewn about along with his staff. And what made it even more disgusting was that his face and his left arm were eaten away, as if the flesh and skin dissolved from acid. As a result of the time backlash, the Cajun X-Man had a good portion of his body grotesquely ripped to shreds. Beach Head was probably the least injured as he managed to remain fully conscious, but the Joe's breathing was labored, weak, and he too didn't have the strength to stand up or reach for his bazooka that was a few feet away from his quivering hand. Not to mention that the sharp spikes of pain from his left leg and backbone meant that a bone or two had to be at least crushed.

Luxord couldn't help but have the smallest tinge of triumph through his normally emotionless being. This was a beautiful payoff. But still, by all rights, they should have perished…

It was then that Luxord could sense it: auras of a multitude of spells, each different in origin and methodology, a hodgepodge of runes and enchantments that were surrounding each of their bodies. Shannon, Remy, and Wayne were all magically shielded to a great extent, no doubt as a precaution thanks to their magical friends from the Ghostbusters, the Justice League, Allo, and Dr. Strange…

No matter. Luxord felt that he was very likely going to achieve the greatest jackpot of all as he teasingly ambled up to them like a regal, sophisticated card-shark.

"And now you know the rules of the game. Forfeiting is the same as losing, in which the stakes were your bodies. Hmph, and quite painful if I do say so myself. Pity it didn't kill you all fully, but at the very least, the spells of protection from your damned witch friends weren't one-hundred percent foolproof."

"Go…to…hell…" panted Beach Head with some difficulty as his mouth and tongue were doused with blood from his lungs, rasping vainly for air. Luxord playfully juggled the cards back and forth between his hands as he prepared for the final blow with his magic…

And then he heard two very familiar words that made his widen his eyes in horror. Spoken in unison by three very annoying and distinctive voices…

"Dog pile!" cheered Daria, Quinn, and Brittany as they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, taking the black-robed man by complete surprise as he didn't even sense them approaching, and landed on him roughly, eagerly kicking, hitting, pulling, and biting.

And groping (not surprisingly).

To any outsider, hearing an Organization member scream in falsetto yelps while trying to fight off three eleven-year old girls latching on to him would find some amusement in the hilarity of the event.

Luxord, however, wasn't the least bit entertained as he continued cursing and yelling amid the tangle of bodies threatening to suffocate and crush him.

"AAAA! Get off! Ack! You little - ! Oof! Yeow! That hurt! AAAA! You perverted - ! Hands off my - ! Urk! Damn you! Aaah, don't touch me there, you sick - ! Aha-ho-hoo-hoo-hoo!"

"Cootchie-cootchie-coo!" the three youngsters cooed in unison, running their hands and fingers up and down all the sensitive parts of the man's body, "Cootchie-cootchie-coo! Cootchie-cootchie-coo! Cootchie-cootchie-coo! TICKLE ATTACK!"

"GET OFF, YOU DEPRAVED MONSTERS!" bellowed Luxord at the top of his lungs as there was a sudden flash of light, and the next thing Daria, Quinn, and Brittany knew, they were all sent flying off their opponent with a powerful push of invisible magic. Still, the Delgado Triplets managed to fall gracefully on the floor, expertly tumbling and rolling back onto their feet as they skidded to a stop on the floor in a congregated group. Like cats landing on their feet. Now liberated, Luxord was now irately focused on the trio of mutant adolescents, forgetting Gambit, Beach Head, and Shannon immediately.

"You - !" snarled the Gambler of Fate, but that was all the card-playing Nobody was able to verse out before Daria, Quinn, and Brittany each pressed a clandestine button on their pink and purple glovatrixes, activating the signals to detonate the tiny yet powerful bombs they secretly attached to the solider when they tackled him.

The Nobody didn't even see it coming. He didn't even have time to scream.

Though the intense electrical currents and numerous explosions eating away at his flesh and person certainly made a lasting impression.

Kaboom! BRRZZZTT! Kaboom! Boom, boom, boom! Kashack!

KABOOM!

"Wow, he actually lived through that…" remarked Quinn in a bored tone, as if she was easily observing something in a test tube of a trite chemistry experiment. And indeed, it was true. Luxord was twitching as he lay face-down on the floor, wafts of vile smoke clearing slowly away to show that the man's robe was now ruined, his white hair and goatee charred and blackened from the heat, and along with the blood starting to drip down his arms and legs, there were several wince-worthy burn marks on the solder's face, shining like rubies and raw to the touch. Amazingly, the warrior from the Thirteenth Order still subsisted enough to shakily get back on his feet, a set of cards drawn out in one gloved hand.

"Did you miss us, Luxie-poo?" Brittany smiled, making her voice as annoying and honey-coated as possible. Luxord felt his ire perk up significantly as he fought against the agony of the explosions and electrocutions, the odor of burnt flesh wafting around him.

"With every attack so far, you lucky, little bilge-rats…" the bearded, white-haired man swore, red-faced, before he let loose a stream of giant cards, the line of razor-sharp planks flying in a graceful and artistic swirling loop before setting themselves directly at Daria, Quinn, and Brittany Delgado. Quickly, the three Misfits scattered as the oversized blades whizzed by mere inches, but not without using a little trick from their pink and purple glovatrixes…

"Smoke bombs…away!" cried the Delgado Triplets, and with a series of small pops and cracks, the capsules shattered upon the marble floor, instantly clouding and fogging their immediate area with voluptuous and dense swirls of grayish-black smoke. Luxord had no choice but to sputter, his eyes watering, as the bank of cover shrouded the entire vicinity around them. Within a few seconds, the smoke bombs completely engulfed a good ten or so yards all around the four in the war-zone. And to the Organization member's ire, he lost sight of the devil spawn instantly, having no bearings and the slightest clue as to their whereabouts.

Luxord grumbled under his breath as he wrathfully (yet cautiously) wandered a bit amid the blinding cloud blank, suppressing the urge to cough from the fumes of water vapor, dry ice particles, and glycol. The Thirteenth Order member was no fool to wait and quietly tread the proverbial waters, his nerves and sense alert. Knowing how Trinity were just mere children, it wouldn't be long before they lost patience and…

"Hiya!" yelled Daria of the Delgado Triplets, jumping in from Luxord's blind spot with a powerful, flying side kick aimed at Luxord's head. She flew in out of the smog so quickly that the white-haired card-charlatan barely had time to react. Nimbly stepping backwards, the man managed to evade the adolescent's foot as she zoomed right past his previous position. However, upon landing to the ground, the raven-haired mutant acted like a complete wildcat as Daria then began furiously kicking and punching with her fists, using her ninja training to aim at any vulnerable weak point she could reach. To the youth's credit, a few of her attacks actually made contact, causing several bruises on her enemy's flesh, but she was still hardly doing much good in hand-to-hand. Still, Luxord couldn't help but snort as he easily sidestepped and blocked the incoming attempts from Daria, inwardly laughing that the Misfit wasn't even using her Keyblade. The army brat was certainly stupider than he thought, despite the Hellfire Club's warnings about Trinity ("cunning and dangerous", indeed). Clearly, if she was alone (a stupid move right there), then that meant that her fellow twin sisters were already on their way to help Gambit, Beach Head, and Shannon. With that, the Nobody quickly reached over and despite getting a well-aimed clout in the stomach, managed to firmly snatch Daria by the throat with his left hand and squeezed hard.

Daria let out a choked and high-pitched wail as she fought, struggled, and writhed, but Luxord's grip was like iron as his fingers dug even deeper, tightening around her voice box and neck until the bones threatened to crack. And as fierce as Daria was, her arms and legs were too short to reach her attacker as Luxord then savagely lifted the child by her neck up in the air, dangling her thrashing feet well above the floor. Before she could do anything else, Luxord summoned a card into his free hand and swiped horizontally across the child's neck, right above her collarbone.

Splork!

Luxord felt the slightest sensations of triumphant victory, of happy satisfaction, as he saw the head cleanly tumble and drop off gruesomely from the severed neck, of watching the body go into the spasms of death before twitching a bit and going limp. With a cry, the Gambler of Fate tossed aside the corpse of the dead Misfit adolescent next to the bloody skull.

One down, five more to go. But no question about it. The Superior would be immensely pleased.

Sneering and with parts of his black robes splattered with dark blood, Luxord managed to hover and levitate off the ground as he glided through the smoke clouds to see Gambit, Shannon, and Beach Head warily propping themselves up on their feet, still sparkling with flicking amounts of dust. A retreating orb of yellow marked Tinkerbell's departure as she flew towards the battle with Roxas where Black Widow was slowly dying from being stabbed in the heart.

So the little pixie managed to heal the trio of injured heroes. Well, no matter. He actually managed to kill one of them, and one of the "acclaimed" Keyblade wielders to boot! Clearly, that mutt named Pluto made a grave misjudgment in choosing the Delgado Triplets as capable warriors.

"Looks like I won this hand," Luxord sneered as he was about to let loose another barrage of cards, but then he stopped short at the smiles on Shannon and Gambit's faces, and then to his further puzzlement, before his very eyes, he saw the three, unmistakable forms of Daria (especially unbelievable), Quinn, and Brittany Delgado. All three girls were up and accounted for, alive and well, congregating with their other allies.

The Trinity was still whole.

Luxord was stunned, momentarily taken aback with confusion as his mouth dropped slightly agape.

"Gotcha, Luxie…" crowed Daria sweetly with a voice that had malicious glee underneath the childish tone.

But then who did he just kill…?

It was then that the corpse of "Daria" within the clouds of smoke opened its eyes, revealing a red glow as it began to pull its head back to its body, healing itself as it shape-shifted into something much, much bigger and meaner amid the fading clouds of smoke and fog. Though getting one's head chopped off certainly hurt like Hell, it was probably worth what was going to happen next…

"No you haven't…" Martian Manhunter said in a stern and icy voice, fully recovered, changing his form from his initial disguise as Daria Delgado into a now hulking, bipedal alien with wrinkled green skin of iron, one single black-and-yellow eye like a Cyclops giant. Broad shoulders, and powerfully muscled hands and arms with sharp, lethal-looking claws, standing a full twenty-five feet tall as J'onn ascended quickly and emerged out of the miasma like a terrifying jack-in-the-box, almost as menacing and ominous as the Hulk. And actually hovering above the poor Organization member who turned around to late to see that it wasn't Daria that he thought he killed. The last sight Luxord saw was the transformed J'onn bringing his powerful and clawed fist to Luxord's sternum with a picture-perfect uppercut.

Pow!

Luxord let out a pained grunt, the air expelling forcefully out of his lungs from the punch that was strong enough to send him flying upwards in the air and defying gravity. In fact, the Justice League Founder hit the Gambler of Fate with enough force to send a Sentinel flying of its feet. And J'onn struck so hard that Luxord went flying directly into the ceiling above their heads.

CRASH!

And through it into the next floor's ceiling above.

Crash!

And through that second ceiling as well before coming to a bloody and crippling halt at the third ceiling he collided with, the impact echoing faintly to their ears.

Wham!

"Hmph. Knocked him outta the park…" Beach Head commented in a deadpanned voice (giving praise wasn't his thing).

"And into the next room from the sound of it," quipped Quinn with an afterthought, "And will you look at the size of that hole…"

"Martian Manhunter, SMASH!" cheered Brittany enthusiastically, earning a look of exasperation from the extraterrestrial.

"I am not the Hulk, Ms. Delgado," J'onn pointed out as he promptly reverted back to his regular Martian form, though one could tell one corner of his mouth was edging upwards ever so slightly, almost a slight tic.

"Don't deny it, J'onn! We saw you smile!" leered Daria.

"That was a twitch."

"Think we killed that connarde?" Gambit asked hesitantly and with great unease, readying five playing cards between his fingers again in preparation and caution. Even though the sneak attack was successful, he didn't know what to expect from Luxord. Shannon also readied a shaft in her crossbow as well, although she was slightly more hopeful.

"If we're lucky," the brown-haired girl added with some budding promise, but then Luxord's maniacal and suave laughter echoed all around their position as their part of the battlefield grew dim, murky with rising shadows, as if someone was decreasing the lights. It was enough to even make Trinity shiver a bit from the screeching. And alas, within a shimmer of darkness, Luxord reappeared through a portal a mere twenty or so feet away from the group, his eyes narrowed but his goateed smile wide and calculating as he expertly juggled a set of cards in between his hands.

"One thing you need to learn, Private!" snapped Beach Head with annoyance, "In our battles with the Heartless, we're rarely lucky!"

"Ah yes, stupid me…" Shannon responded back with a tinge of sarcasm before she and her two male allies charged, firing the bolt in her weapon before effortlessly taking out another wooden shaft from her quiver and reloading her crossbow as she sprinted with amazing speed. And Martian Manhunter and Trinity joined alongside her, with the Justice Leaguer flying across the floor like a rocket and the girls bringing forth their magical Keyblades with a flurry of pink flashes of light. But Luxord just proved to be a rather troublesome opponent as he then tossed out all the cards in his hands with a simple, upwards flick of his wrist.

"I think not," Luxord smoothly drawled, his voice barely hiding the slime on his smile, as the cards grew and grew to mammoth proportions, as large as dining tables, before they hovered horizontally on air and began twirling horizontally like tops and propeller blades at slanted angles. As homing missiles, the cards began to speedily gyrate towards the heroes from all sides, twirling in circular yet irregular patterns and threatening to slice them to pieces. And to the sextet's worry, they were instantly closed in from all sides as the razor-sharp planks surrounded them from all directions. Martian Manhunter, remembering how he couldn't phase through Marluxia's scythe in the siege of Nova Roma, knew better than to think this would be any different. Grabbing a tense Shannon and Beach Head around the waists (which caused said Joe to squawk in protest), the Justice League founder phased all three of them through the floor at the drop of a hat, the metal slabs overlooking them as they slashed empty air. Gambit yelped before he gymnastically leapt and surprisingly positioned his body to weave in between two cards in midair, the perimeters nearly coming inches close to nicking him. And with several more acrobatic leaps and bounds, the Cajun skillfully managed to work his way through the Nobody weapons to safety. Without even a scratch (much to Luxord's outraged disbelief).

"Us Cajuns are slippery ones, eh?" bragged Gambit before he let loose several hammer missiles from his glovatrix, firing in quick succession and without warning. Luxord snarled with surprise and a few curses as he created a card to block the incoming ballistics, regrettably allowing one or two of the rockets to struck his thigh and shoulder. With a wave of his the gambler's hands, the nearest cards instantly veered and began spinning towards Gambit who had to pole-vault with his staff hard in order to get a head start from being decapitated. But this was exactly what Shannon, Beach Head, and J'onn needed as a distraction as the Martian phased himself and his friends out of the floor behind the Gambler of Fate, allowing Wayne to act as he took aim and fired another rocket from his bazooka at the diverted Luxord's back. The white-haired opponent roared in pain as the explosion knocked him forward, the heat eating bits of flesh from his back, before Luxord sent a group of the propeller blades to rush directly for the trio. Immediately, J'onn phased himself and Shannon and Beach Head through the floor again before the deadly objects could cut them.

Trinity then surprisingly managed to find a way past this assault as their friends were distracting the Thirteenth Order hoodlum.

"Hover mode, girls!" Quinn called out, and instantly, she and her sisters joined hands before levitating and flying high above the air, soaring above and out of reach of the revolving and orbiting cards that were trying to mow them and their allies down. And Luxord then realized too late what the Terror Trio were plotting to do as their eyes began to glow an eerie white.

"Bad, Luxord, bad!" Daria, Quinn, and Brittany chanted jarringly in unison, their joined psyche generating a blitz of untapped telepathic energy, crackling like hot electricity as it was released as a single white bolt of psychic lightning then struck the Organization soldier. Luxord hissed and grunted in pain as the electric energy snaked through his psyche and being, cutting deep into his core. Remarkably however, the Thirteenth Order member showed a hardy resilience to the mutant attack as he still managed to bellow out a command. Arching his head backwards and summoning the cards all around him to go spiraling everywhere in a complete spherical trajectory, Luxord aimed his weapons at both the heroes on the ground and at Trinity who were floating high in the air. Now there wasn't anyplace above or below that could provide a safe distance from the razor-sharp blades threatening to lacerate and section them from all angles, spinning, gyrating, and slicing anyone and anything in their trajectories.

"Yeow! OK, psychic lightning doesn't work that well on these creeps!" cried out Brittany as the three girls with joined hands managed to veer hard to the left to avoid one card that came close to slicing their lower torsos. As Martian Manhunter then ingeniously managed to lift Beach Head and carry him into the air so that the Joe Ranger could fire several missiles from above directly at their antagonist, Remy then had a perfect idea as his hands transferred a tremendous amount of kinetic energy into the core of his telescopic staff, the metal rod glimmering and slowly but surely loading up in pressure (thanks to a little modification from Forge, Robin of the Teen Titans, and Dr. Strange).

"Shannon, need a boost towards that card-rat!" Gambit yelled, and wonderfully, as trained in the Danger Room, the brown-haired girl managed to find a relatively clear position before she cupped her hands together and stopped down, bending her knees. Without needing a prompt, the Cajun stepped into the Slayer's hands, and with all of her super-human strength, she gave him a tremendous push into the air towards their adversary.

"Alley-oop!" crowed the Ghostbuster as the X-Man flipped acrobatically into the air directly at the Nobody who was doing his best to avoid both the psychic lightning from Trinity and the enhanced missiles from Beach Head's rocket-launcher. Luxord didn't even sense Gambit until he heard the teenager's body approaching the ground a few feet behind him.

And with a swift movement, Gambit brought down the butt of his bo staff hard upon the ground, releasing all the kinetic energy from it and transferring it directly to Luxord and his surroundings…

KAWHOOOM!

Luxord was instantly sent flying off his feet, the ground literally shoving the black-cloaked solider rocketing into the air as the kinetic energy forced the man and any surrounding cards to geyser up violently towards the ceiling. It was like being subjected to a sonic boom. And the massive rush and propulsion of the strike causing the man to go airborne was exactly why the Delgado Triplets needed as Luxord was perfectly set up in their line of fire.

"You're finished, Card-Man!" cried Daria as she held her Trichrona Keyblade up, shouting, "All for one…!"

"And one for all!" finished Quinn and Brittany as they joined the tips of their respective Keyblades along with their sisters before the triplets all yelled their attack in unison, slowly hovering back down towards the tiled floor.

"TRINITY LIMIT!"

And as the three tips of the Keyblades flashed with a bright twinkle of pink time magic, poor Luxord was about to experience it first-hand and up close and as was sent flying into the very epicenter of the Keyblade attack.

FLASH!

Luxord howled in agony as he caught the brunt of the time magic detonation in the back, engulfed by a haze of pink light. The discharge ate away easily at his body, burning it while at the same time, tearing away at his life and actually making him feel sluggish, old, and heavy as lead. And thanks to the magical attack, the gyrating blades of metal stopped and wobbled out of control, disappearing into whispers of black smoke and essence, leaving Gambit, Beach Head, Shannon, and Martian Manhunter free and out of danger as the attacks honing in on them were nullified. And thanks to Trinity's Keyblade attack, a mid-air and disoriented Luxord was in prime for a beat-down.

The Justice League founder struck first as he zoomed towards the Organization XIII soldier in a manner like Superman, fists outstretched and flying a few feet above the ground as he targeted his sights on Luxord.

BAM!

Luxord learned the hard way that on terms of strength, J'onn was almost nearly even with Superman as he felt the alien's fist thump him hard in the rib-cage directly in his sternum, causing him to hunch over as his spine cracked and bent out of shape. He was in so much pain that he barely noticed the small glass vial that the Charmed Ones gave to J'onn before the battle.

But the Martian wasn't finished as he furiously and gravely rammed his left elbow into the space in between Luxord's shoulder blades, shattering the backbone even more with the simple move, before ramming his knee into Luxord's stomach, delivering a haymaker into the man's face, and then making a joined fist with both hand before sweep punching his opponent high into the air like a volleyball.

All in the span of one second. You had to not blink in order to catch each and every move. And as the bloodied and broken form of the Thirteenth Order soldier was hurled into the air, Martian Manhunter transformed and enlarged automatically into what appeared to be a gigantic, flying alien snake. With a thick, ribbed hide of green scales and yellow markings, four feet with tough, sharp talons like an eagle, a snake-like jaw full of serrated teeth, and red eyes, J'onn shape-shifted into a perfect likeness of the reptilian extraterrestrial, Antares, from the Clanetary System.

Or as Trinity would later describe as: a near-replica of the Pokémon, Rayquaza.

Bellowing a deafening and guttural roar, the dragon fluidly swooped down after Luxord. Weaving seamlessly in the air before it viciously snatched the battered Organization enemy in its teeth, the serpent flew upwards, narrowly colliding with Raven of the Teen Titans as she was busy trying to telekinetically flatten Saïx. And the wicked Luxord had no choice but to howl in agony as he felt the dragon's teeth gnawing hard into his body, crunching, chewing, and ripping his bones and flesh easily. J'onn mouth was now dripping with fluid and gore, but the flying monster stubbornly kept biting as hard as it could while coiling in the air high above the warzone, with the Leaguer intent on finishing this as quickly as…

Rumble, krakow!

J'onn then automatically sensed the incoming projectiles of the shrapnel caused from when Kurama the Spirit Detective clashed against the Organization member, Lexaeus. Some of the arriving rubble were stones as large as bowling balls as certainly painful looking considering that they were serrated, pointy and uneven. With less than a second of time, the Martian immediately phased his molecular structure into nothing, a moment right before a torrential rainfall of brown hail pelted his body, almost as painful as any sandstorm. Thankfully, it was just in time, and all the rubble and sharp debris passed through him in his ghost-form, leaving his safe and unharmed.

Unfortunately, this additionally gave Luxord the chance he need to escape to safety while formulating another way to counterstrike his foes. As a result, J'onn completely lost his target out of his grip. And though ripped and gnawed to pieces, the soldier from the Thirteenth Order was still spry and healthy enough to send a barrage of twenty or so gigantic cards upwards the ceiling with a wave of his hand. Still preoccupied and agitated from the dirt covering its face, the Antares alien was unable to dodge the flying onslaught of swords. And as a result, the Justice Leaguer bellowed like a wounded, dying animal as he now has the cards embedded into the bone of his skull, jutting out like shards of glass, as well as one limb and the end of his tail sliced off in addition to the numerous gashes and lacerations that bled through his scaly hide.

With the Justice Leaguer distracted with his serious injuries, Luxord managed to recover enough as he floated downwards towards the floor, the messy gore and blood on his robes vanishing as the torn flesh and skin magically knitted and mended together. As time-consuming as the process was, Luxord was undoing the damage that Martian Manhunter did on him, taking the time to summon a card to block the incoming bazooka missile that Beach Head sent his way. As the missile struck the card and exploded in a furious discharge of metal and fire, Luxord frowned and snapped his fingers with his free hand, instantly summoning a bombardment of four dice above the Joe's head, rumbling down like gigantic boulders.

"Shit!" cursed the Joe Ranger as he sprinted and dove out of the way, bazooka in arms awkwardly, tumbling and rolling in an evasive maneuver. Thankfully, it worked as the sudden avalanche of heavy dice missed crushing him into a pulp by a second or two, crashing hard against the metal ground. However, as Luxord was attacking the G.I. Joe soldier, Trinity and Gambit struck forward with a combination of glovatrix missiles and energy cards, the dual attack streamlining directly at the evil Nobody. Snarling, Luxord surprisingly sent a few cards of his own to rush out and directly intercept and counter the heroes' assault. There was a furious upsurge of power as the magical cards struck the miniature rockets and kinetic streams, and much to the Triplets and Remy's collective surprise, the barrage of Nobody cards tore through the smoke and fire and headed precisely towards their position. And to make it worse, a few additional dice were tossed into the mix of the gambler's battalion, rumbling and rolling at amazing speeds.

"Yeow!" wailed the Triplets at intervals as they broke apart and scurried out of the way.

"Remy'll never going to look at a 'Dungeons-and-Dragons' board the same way ever again!" the X-Man gasped as he used his staff to narrowly block two cards and a mammoth dice from hitting his body, and although he succeeded, the momentum of such large object pushed him hard onto his back, flying several feet and leaving him winded. As Luxord was about to guide the airborne weapons to hone in and surround both the Misfit and X-Men adolescents, he heard a soft but audible whistling noise behind him. Swiveling around, he backed away just in time to narrowly (by a few centimeters) dodge Shannon's left cross that was aimed at his head. Fluidly and moving like the wind, Luxord managed to also succeeded to dodge the girl's consecutive left elbow and crescent kick to the face. But she was too close for comfort in order to effectively ward her off with his own weapons, so the Gambler of Fate strategically retreated as he was then airborne.

"I cannot begin to fathom your ineptitude!" chortled Luxord as he hurriedly jumped away, making a high leap into the air and shielding himself from two arrows coming his way with a card shield, "After everything you've seen and after how many of your precious friends perished at the invasion of Slayer Academy, you're still resorting to childish punches and arrows? You Slayers are clearly daft! You could never - !"

But what Luxord was about to brag was lost as Shannon, taking the precious two or three seconds while her opponent was airborne, hurriedly took out two crossbow shafts she specially reserved in her quiver, nested in a separate compartment. That was because these wooden shafts were modified so that instead of a metal, sharpened tip, they contained small, fragile glass orbs ingeniously fastened and glued at the heads, both filled with an indigo and green potion specially brewed by the Charmed Ones and Dr. Fate of the Justice League. And in the middle of the white-haired charlatan's tirade, she loaded her crossbow and fired both of the special arrows, one after the other in hasty succession. And Luxord foolishly didn't see it coming as he still held the card in front of his body to obstruct the arriving projectiles.

Kapoof! Kapoof!

The explosion of magical energy made a fabulous explosion of smoke, emerald-colored fire, and vapor of poisonous mandrake that instantly not only broke the card Luxord was holding into pieces, but the fumes and gases raised huge welts across his skin and made his body feel like as if he was breathing in shards of glass as the cloud-bank covered his body. Additionally, his cloak was now blazing brightly as he was literally set on fire thanks to the potions being exposed to open air the minute they broke against the shield. Roaring and cursing, the red faced and sputtering Luxord was now wobbling uneasily on his feet as though drunk out of his senses. This was exactly how Beach Head managed to fire a new payload from his bazooka, the circular and metal orb flying like a bullet before it unfolded itself into a glowing and thick net and directly covered over his target.

"AAAAAAAAAAAA!" howled Luxord as the net instantly began to crackle and flare up upon contact.

"Like it, you rat?" snarled Beach Head as he lowed his bazooka, "Hope it stings extra well asshole, since that net can even hold Leomon when we first used it!"

Luxord wouldn't doubt it. Judging by how badly the net stuck to his skin and instantly seared it like red-hot iron as ultraviolet radiation and magical energy tore through his being, it was safe to assume that Luxord wouldn't be able to escape out of the trap. And to the black-robed man's further disappointment, the Nobody couldn't warp and vanish out of the net, the mystical web actually anchoring him in place. Leaving Luxord a sitting duck as he then, despite the third-degree burns, managed to summon two gigantic cards in his hands.

A certain vampire slayer was however more than ready on the sidelines…

"Gambit, need a charge!" Shannon called out, holding out her crossbow with a loaded round, and smirking, the X-Man tapped the head of the arrow with one finger, instantly loading it with kinetic energy and causing the entire metal head to glow in a pink glimmer. Exactly like they have done once before at the war for the Nexus in San Francisco.

Shannon simply aimed and fired, the crossbow bolt leaving a trail of pink light in its wake as Luxord finally managed to hack away the magical net that was trapping him with a swift slash of his two cards…

Shhhiiipp!

Kapaff!

There was a messy and bloody discharge of red matter and Luxord screamed in a combination of agonized rage and fury. Shannon couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction as she lowered her crossbow and calmly took out another shaft from the quiver lashed behind her.

She said with quite a bit of smug snark, "Word of advice, butt-head: don't underestimate a vampire slayer."

Luxord hissed a foul oath under his breath as he gingerly touched the arrow that was now sticking out of his messy and gruesomely torn eye socket. And thanks to Gambit's addition with his mutant powers, the arrow's explosion also caused a large and gigantic exit wound out of the back of Luxord's skull, blood and matter spattering as if a metal bullet went right through Luxord's head. Shannon had directly fired her shaft so it would strike through his eyeball and sink directly inside his skull through the eyehole cavity. A most lethal, if not indeed gruesome, injury. And of course, Gambit had to add in his two cents as well as he then knelt down next to the brown-haired Slayer and touched the marble floor with his fingers. Instantly, the potential energy of the stone and tile was rapidly increasing into kinetic energy. And with great care, Gambit forced the stream of charged particles to travel and traverse the buildup from his position all across the floor, moving like a snake, directly underneath the spot of the Organization card-wielder himself.

There was a sudden flash of pink light as the kinetic energy reached critical mass…

KAWHHOOOMMMM!

Luxord was once again sent flying, far, far away from the duo's position as he skidded to a stop painfully on his back and feeling his cloak bunch painfully underneath. And thanks to the massive eruption from Gambit, one of Luxord's feet was now completely obliterated, the leg now having nothing more than a bloody stump. But the pain of the dismemberment was easily forgotten as Luxord raised his good eye upwards and focused to see the terrifying image of a now healed Martian Manhunter flying directly towards him. With a stern expression of determined anger on his face, J'onn swooped down like a hawk for the kill and with one powerful fist cocked back.

WHUMP! CRUNCH!

J'onn was stunned. His fist was perfectly aimed at the foe's head, and yet all he struck was the marble floor, his arm sinking up to his muscled elbow as he literally punched through the titanium and steel ground layer. But the Gambler of Fate was nowhere to be seen, and all that was left was instead of a corpse was a few lingering wafts of darkness from the portal that enveloped the warrior from the Thirteenth Order.

J'onn's enemy disappeared into thin air.

Martian Manhunter blinked, jolted by the rude surprise. This foe could still teleport? Beach Head apparently thought the same thing as he angrily whirled on the Justice Leaguer Founder (Shannon, Gambit, and Trinity ran up towards them), thinking that J'onn screwed up or forgot.

"What the hell? I thought you hit him with that anti-teleportation potion the Charmed Ones gave you, you dumb, green moron!"

J'onn frowned at last, starting to feel a bit of anger bubbling underneath his calm exterior. By the Red Planet, Beach Head was unquestionably the one G.I. Joe soldier many disliked (and with good reason) as he returned coldly with affront, "I did."

"Oh, you mean that was what you pitiful little concoction was supposed to do with me? I was wondering why your Martian friend tried to break it against my skin when he first assaulted me," Luxord's voice interrupted the potential argument. As the six heroes looked up, they realized with a spine-chilling realization of why the man in the black cloak seemed so smug as he pointed to the area of his chest, revealing why Luxord was still just as powerful as before.

There, frozen in time and space as if someone pressed the "pause" button was the small glass vial Martian Manhunter smashed against Luxord's body, the shining and complicated potion scattered in droplets and bits of glass. It was the same bottle that J'onn used when he first attacked Luxord after Trinity used their Keyblade attack (it was one of the protocols they planned as part of their battle tactics).

The bottle did break when it struck against Luxord's skin, but because of its stationary position, not a single drop of the magical potion even touched Luxord's body and cloak.

"He stopped it! It's in temporal stasis, like Piper's freezing powers!" Quinn exclaimed as her scanner showed her a close-up of the damning image.

"Wait…he can manipulate time too?" gasped Shannon, her eyes wide. That was a new one; all they knew beforehand was that this particular Thirteenth Order soldier knew how to use his cards and gigantic playing dice as weapons or for defensively hiding. But he never showed anything like this before. And Luxord wasn't done yet as he then invoked another magical spell, creating a specter of a enormous clock face above his head before the numbers on the clock turned as red as blood, creating several loud, booming bass rings of a bell.

"A good player always saves his best moves for last," the white-haired Nobody scorned as he waved aside the disgusting potion away from his body, the precious implement tossed and wasted against the wall. And it was the only anti-teleportation potion J'onn had. The heroes' reflexes were very good. Shannon and Beach Head were aiming already with their loaded weapons while J'onn was just about to fly back towards his enemy while Gambit and Trinity were loading their glovatrixes. But then the phantom clock above him finished striking its death tolls, and with a flash of light, all six of the allies of the Keybladers were stuck, held in temporal stasis and unable to move.

Using the same magic, Luxord froze time on his six opponents.

Now Gambit, Beach Head, J'onn, Shannon, and Trinity were all perfectly lined up like little ducks in a row, perfect for shooting.

"I've been waiting long enough for this chance. I win," sneered the white-haired man in the black cloak as with a wave of his gloved hand, a stream of fifty-two cards materialized from thin air, each of them growing in size and lethality exponentially by the moment before they flew forward in a circular line pattern, enclosing over and over like a spinning top, a spiral of blades. Each and every one prepared to quarter and messily rent all of the frozen heroes to pieces, each one of the Keyblade allies stuck and sitting…

"SURPRISE!" yelled Trinity as they and the rest of their group suddenly sprinted out of their frozen positions, dropping their charade immediately before they all sidestepped, flew over, or dodge-rolled out of the line of cards barreling towards them at the last possible second.

It couldn't have been any sooner. The salvo of rectangular knives whizzed by them by several inches, the razor-sharp metal edges of the Organization cards like flying guillotine blades, no doubt leaving a messy pile of dismembered and decapitated body parts had they stayed frozen. But the seven allies of the Keyblades didn't even stop to ponder that close brush with death as they all struck immediately. In one smooth a precise movement, a unified stream of crossbow shafts, kinetic cards, and a discharge from Beach Head's bazooka joined forces, multiplying their intensity and power by several times before the single surge roared towards their target. And yet before Luxord could try to teleport out of the way…

Daria, Quinn, and Brittany acted much quicker as they hurriedly pointed their forefingers at the suave enemy as shouted in unison, "Stopra Time Freeze!"

Ka-sshhhiiiinnnnggg!

And to Luxord's horror, now he was the one frozen in temporal stasis, shimmering in a pink light. Right before the energy projectiles hit him with full strength…

Kabooom!

Remaining helpless, Luxord had no choice as the heat and shrapnel painfully ate away at his flesh and perforated his skin before shoving him backwards in the air, but that was nowhere as agonizing as what was about to happen as J'onn was flying a bit above his position on high. With three terror triplets gathered in his arms.

"Banzai!" yelled Daria, Brittany, and Quinn in unison as Martian Manhunter dropped them, allowing Trinity to fall towards the Organization foe, Trichrona Keyblades raised and ready. And thanks to their momentum of free-fall, Luxord's poor form had no choice but to be subjected to the weapons as the three female adolescents literally beat him down.

Biff! Slash! Pow, pow! Whack! Whacka, whacka, whacka! Pow!

"And…" called out Daria meaningfully.

"SPIKE!" yelled Quinn and Brittany in unison as all three of the mutant girls slammed their Keyblades hard onto Luxord's bleeding and battered body with all of their strength with a downwards, overhead strike. And like a volleyball, the points of Trinity's weapons sent Luxord dropping like a stone towards the floor, solidly crashing back first. With bone-breaking impact. Trinity remained levitating in the air, joining hands and admiring their handiwork along with the rest of their friends.

J'onn actually had a small smirk on his green face as he leered uncharacteristically at the Gambler of Fate, "As the Flash would say…'you got served'."

"Mr. Manhunter, no offense, but street really doesn't go well out of your mouth," smirked Shannon, inwardly embarrassed for the extraterrestrial. That was akin to actually having the Dark Knight of Gotham laughing like a loon.

"Looks like our protection wards still hold, you little prick," Beach Head said bluntly as he aimed with his bazooka again.

"Sucks to be you, eh, homme?" sneered Gambit smugly as he readied several kinetic cards in one hand.

Luxord snarled several dark oaths to himself. Blast the magical allies of the Misfits! They were far more competent at preparations and supernatural safeguards than the Superior and the Inner Circle anticipated! But as the G.I. Joe and the X-Man fired, he disappeared yet again into a portal of darkness, avoiding the attacks as they missed him completely and exploded harmlessly. And yet before the others could react, to add further insult to injury, another pack of flying cards and dice rushed out of nowhere, multitudes of them in a full-out saturation attack. Not only was it overwhelming, but with so many of the mammoth blades and boulders dropping and zooming from all directions, it made escape all the more impossible.

"Damn it!" cursed Beach Head as he couldn't find a clear path away from the rolling dice and cards trying to surround and attack him, but in spite of this, Trinity then managed to discreetly swoop down like small, joined hawks from the air, and in a desperate effort, lift Beach Head out of danger before the lethal objects could crush them.

"Oof! You seriously need to cut down on the French Fries, Beach Head!" Quinn objected, her arm feeling like she was lugging a pack of bowling balls as she flew.

Wayne ignored the jab before he then barked out angrily, outraged and certainly violated, "Don't touch me there!"

"Trust me, I didn't want to!" snapped back Brittany as she tried to grip a better hold, "But we can't drop you, and it's hard trying to carry you one-handed! Ugh, I need disinfectant after this!"

As J'onn was busy trying to outmaneuver himself after from a trajectory of cards tailing him and as the Slayer Shannon was acrobatically flipping away from three dice trying to hit her, Remy then managed to miraculously extract himself from the blitz. Only to find the now healing and recovered Luxord in his sight. It was only the attacks by Trinity's Keyblades made the most last impression as the gashes and bleeding lacerations took longer to heal. Despite that, the white-haired man was practically ready for another round as he then spotted the X-Man.

Remy then decided to confidently try his luck.

"Hey, Luxord," Gambit smiled, his red eyes flashing with kinetic energy and passion, "How about another card game? You and Gambit, one on one."

Ah, now the X-Man was talking…

"A challenge, is it?" Luxord said rather arrogantly with amusement, his silky voice showing some glee in the prospect. With such an invitation, how could the Gambler of Fate even refuse? He loved playing chances.

"Gambit, stop!" yelled J'onn from above as he flew down from the skies above, upon seeing the Cajun mutant about to subject himself into a deadly gamble. J'onn didn't know exactly what Remy was doing, and this was in no way part of the approved battle plans they made in the past, but the alien was not going to just stand by and allow the teenager to make a foolish act of bravado. However, with a snap of his fingers, another batch of razor-sharp cards rushed forwards at J'onn in a widespread trajectory, and Luxord was free to play, unhindered.

"Pick a card, any card…" Luxord chuckled, with one gloved hand rubbing his chin before his cloaked form vanished in a plume of gray and white smoke, forming a gigantic time card to appear with Luxord's image superimposed on one side of its surface. Before Gambit's eyes, the single metal plank multiplied into seven separate cards, all of them displaying the symbol of the silver Nobody sigil in the background along with the face of a clock, all the numbers in Roman numerals. With a flourish, the cards swiveled and rotated around each other, interchanging and switching positions so rapidly that you would miss the movements if you even blinked once.

Like a game, the shuffling of the seven cards spun and spun. Gambit just remained standing, looking with such intensity in his red-and-black gleaming eyes, concentrating, and his face a perfect blank expression.

"Gambit, stop! Get away!" yelled J'onn in warning as he continued trying to fly past the cards Luxord sent after him, but from being surrounded in all sides, the Martian had no choice but to phase himself into the wall to avoid the incoming razor-sharp slabs of metal. The mutant youth ignored the Justice Leaguer's command as he then saw all the cards spring up and float around in the air lazily, their arrangement finished and all the slabs levitating as if strung up on a clothesline on a windy day. All the cards were slowly hovering above the ground, each one an exact replica with no way to tell them apart.

Gambit knew that Luxord was waiting for him to screw up. But then his eyes were still honed in on one particular Nobody time card that was at the far right, second to the back.

Bingo.

"Cajun Strike!" yelled Gambit as he then did a fantastic forward-slash with his staff at the card directly in front of him followed by a combination moveset of an upwards slash, a cross-sweep, a downwards slash and jab, finished with a powerful stab right into the dead center, the metal pole a mere blur as it flew. Robin and Ororo's lessons on bo techniques were really coming in handy.

Whack! Packa, packa, packa! WHOK!

And upon the instant Gambit struck the card, the card (and the duplicates) instantly vanished into smoke…to reveal Luxord taking a rather painful beat-down as the telescopic pole hit his body in several vital points.

Miraculously, Remy managed to choose the right card that was hiding Luxord.

Luxord was unable to do anything but grunt and endure the numerous staff attacks that the X-Man littered upon his slowly bleeding and broken body, being poked, herded, and shoved aside at lightning speeds. And with a simple pole-vault and flying kick to the torso, Gambit easily shoved the poor man hard, easily causing the collarbones to shatter upon impact.

Remarkably, despite the blood pooling down his face and forehead, staining his white hair and beard, Luxord was still standing on his own two feet. Slouched down and with one hand gripping his bruised thigh, the soldier's grey eyes bored wrathfully at Remy.

"You're far cleverer than I thought, X-Man…" the Thirteenth Order member couldn't help but admire with much icy resentment as he cracked his dislocated shoulder back into place with a wince-worthy pop.

"Please, mon ami," Gambit couldn't help but sneer as he delivered an impressive and wince-worthy blow across Luxord's face with his staff, causing the gambler's head to crack violently to the side, "Gambit is a bettin' man and a thief. No thief worth his salt wouldn't know his way through a game of cards."

"You play the game well, vermin," snarled Luxord with the blood pouring out of his broken nose and his mouth (now missing a few teeth from the stave), madly teleporting out of the path of Remy's repeated attempts to gouge and bash his head in with his bo before reappearing at a safe distance high above and attempting to quarter the X-Man into a mess of bloody pieces. Luxord readied five cards in his hands…

BAM!

…and was helplessly punched to the far wall, crashing mightily into it with bone-breaking impact, face-first. The riposte from Martian Manhunter actually snapped Luxord's spine in half at once, and not to mention that he left a deep impression in the metal wall due to the superhuman strength behind J'onn's punch. The founder of the League managed to finally intervene in the nick of time as he then shot Gambit below the evil eye.

Had anyone been watching, he or she would readily admit that being on the end of a death glare by the Martian was an unnerving experience. When J'onn got thoroughly annoyed (and he was normally the most patient of the Justice League), you'd better watch out.

J'onn was clearly not pleased.

"Help the others. Destroy as many of the cards as you can, and lessen the throng so that they can hurry here, and we can all provide a combined attack. I'll hold him off," the green-skinned alien ordered, sidetracking.

"Remy had him!" the X-Man protested, only to quell against the stoic yet angry look from the Justice Leaguer (but there would certainly be a talk much later). Leaving the reprimand for now, J'onn flew towards the Thirteenth Order member, fists outstretched. Frustrated and certainly more than reluctant at being told what to do, Gambit then took out an entire deck of fifty two playing cards from one pocket before charging all of the objects at once. With a flick of his hand, the X-Man sent all of the kinetic cards towards the dices and cards in a brilliant, widespread blitz, the air raining down with energy projectiles. And with impressive accuracy, each one of the fifty-two cards actually struck and detonated against a card or a dice, easily destroying it with a furious discharge of pink flashes of light and bio-kinetic energy. And due to Gambit's assistance, it lessened the throng of Luxord's battalion significantly, allowing Shannon, Beach Head, and Trinity to gain some respite and back away safely.

"Good shot, Gambit!" Shannon gasped, her heart pounding. Beach Head was (not surprisingly) less than thankful as he berated the X-Man while Trinity set him down safely to the floor.

"And you couldn't have done that sooner?"

Gambit glared at the Joe, fighting the urge to flip him off as he wordlessly sent several more kinetic cards towards a throng of blades that were spinning towards the Delgado Triplets. Shannon and Beach Head joined in on clearing a path through the oversized monstrosities, potion bottles and missiles flying.

Meanwhile, Luxord decided to try his card-shuffling trick again as an effort to gain some time as he teleported back down to the ground, narrowly missing being pummeled by J'onn a second time as the Martian punched through the metal where the Organization warrior was only moments ago. J'onn narrowed his eyes before instantly spotting the telltale, black portal of shadows appearing, allowing a rapidly healing Luxord to walk safely before to the ground before flinging out another pack of magical cards with one hand.

"Look closely…" Luxord cautioned with mock concern as the man's body was engulfed completely by a single, gigantic card, revolving around Luxord's presence, before the single metallic card multiplied into eighteen different Nobody playing cards. With a whisper, the set of silver and white slabs scattered and shuffled flat upon the ground before levitating once again above the floor in thin air. A thick curtain of the imposing objects blanketed the floor in a wide span, a circle of lazily-revolving slabs, showing their silver insignias of the Nobody.

But Luxord was nowhere to be spotted, and aggravatingly enough, he was probably hiding in one of the objects nearby as J'onn landed gracefully to the floor amid the center of the cloud. Unlike Gambit, J'onn didn't have the same mindset (or patience) to dealing with card games.

Annoyed, J'onn then made the fatal mistake of punching through the nearest, floating cards he could reach, thinking that he could merely smash his way through and find Luxord by the process of elimination.

This was a grave mistake, especially since it didn't occur to J'onn that Luxord would have rigged the other cards that he wasn't hiding under…

KABOOOM!

The next thing Martian Manhunter could comprehend, the card he punched through disintegrated and burst into a furious and unexpected discharge of flames, searing red-hot fire. In a blink of an eye, the Justice League Founder was now engulfed in heat, his body now set steadily ablaze.

The extraterrestrial's screams of agony were literally loud enough to be heard throughout the entire foyer, despite the ruckus and chaos and riots going through the entire Shaw Industries complex. The other cards suddenly vanished under the baritone cries as Luxord appeared, vindictively smirking. And then Luxord had to add insult to injury as he called out loudly to his fellow member, Axel, who had just finished zipping past Shipwreck of G.I. Joe and Dragonfly of the Misfits, leaving a dangerous and painful trail of damaging fire in his wake on the floor and burning the two heroes severely.

"A helping hand would be most fortuitous, Axel, my boy!" Luxord called out to his ally, and certainly being charitable, with a flick of his wrist, the spiky, red-haired fire-wielder sent one of his fiery chakram directly at the Leaguer. J'onn didn't even have time to react as he was too busy in searing pain from the blast of the booby-trapped card.

The chakram sped across the floor, a ring of fire and red-hot metal, before it embedded itself into the alien's body from behind, gruesomely cutting into J'onn's muscles and spinal column like a chainsaw and invoking a deluge of blood and tissue and hacked muscle instantly as it splattered in a wide arc.

The Martian's screams were literally music to Axel and Luxord's ears. Lex Luthor was astute when he told the Thirteenth Order that Martian Manhunter's greatest fear of fire was his most vulnerable weakness.

And with a final, sickening, ripping noise, the chakram tore free from the Justice Leaguer's bulk as Martian Manhunter limply collapsed onto the marble tiles, twitching in a pool of blood and shock.

"Burn, baby!" snickered Axel sadistically, taking a fleeting glimpse at the fallen extra-terrestrial who was curdled upon the floor, J'onn's green skin charred and smoking while his limbs and nerves were in absolute agony. And anyone would wince at the way that Martian Manhunter's upper back was now in ribbons, blood and blackened gore in shriveled up shreds and showing the faint, neon-green backbone of J'onn spine through the jagged hole in his shoulders. The fact that the Martian was unable to stand on his own accord probably was a good indication that Axel crippled J'onn.

"And you're gonna get burned right back, jerkface!" snarled Trey the Shaman as he flew upwards on his snowboard and a rising tide of frost and water, directly as a beeline straight for the fire-starter. And with him were Jean Grey and Caridad the Slayer (who was riding alongside Trey on his snowboard, with one arm latched around the teenager's waist).

"Leave J'onn alone, you dumbass!" yelled Caridad as the three teenagers instantly began to attack Axel, forcing him to go on the defense against a volley of sword swipes, telekinesis, and an arctic blizzard of ghostly energy. At the same time, the white-haired Luxord was deciding he needed something different and particularly nasty to deal with the Justice Leaguer, considering he was arguably the most trouble. But those magical protection wards cast by the Charmed Ones and Willow Rosenberg were preventing him from permanently alter the alien's body into an undisruptive and harmless card…

Well then, if he couldn't transform J'onn directly, then perhaps an indirect method would be just as suitable.

With a click of his fingers, the goateed Gambler of Fate just had a particularly wicked notion as he summoned a sudden avalanche of playing dice, each cube as large as a kitchen table, with surfaces has hard as adamantium, and heavy as boulders. Martian Manhunter didn't even have the strength to move his twitching body and throbbing head to see the sudden landslide bearing down on his injured form…

Rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble! WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, WHAM!

Now the Justice League Founder was completely covered by a small pile of the colossal die weapons, burying the green extraterrestrial underneath a mound of rubble that conveniently could have marked the site as a grave. Luxord couldn't help but feel a twinge of satisfaction; the blood splattered all over the floor was now much messier, and he was certain he heard several sickening sounds like wet meat being pounded with a hammer due to his victim being pressed to death by the debris.

"We chaps from the Organization Thirteen like to watch each other's back, my dear Mr. J'onnz," simpered Luxord with an annoying snarkiness as he surveyed his handiwork…

KABOOM!

Luxord has to admit, this time, being slammed head-first into the nearest wall wasn't as painful as before. Heck, the gaping, gigantic flesh wound in his spine got most of his attention in the agony-department while his skull was relatively numb, almost blissful.

"Good, because so do we, you gambling maggot!" snarled Beach Head as he lowered his bazooka from his sight, the mouth of the cannon still smoking from the explosive discharge he fired directly into the Nobody's back as he was arrogantly and foolishly focused on the now incapacitated Justice Leaguer. Immediately, Luxord was besieged by several kinetic cards via Gambit as they precariously rained down from his position in the air while Shannon rushed forward with her fists and loaded crossbow. At the same time, Quinn and Brittany were furiously hacking, stabbing, and hitting away at any mammoth boulder they could reaching the heaping pile of dice while Daria was furiously observing Luxord and his magic with her handheld computer. Exactly as they planned. With Trinity doing their best to use their scanners to probe and analyze Luxord's attacks with their scanners, the Delgado Triplets would have a better chance of discovering any weaknesses and patterns that could help their friends find a way to stop the Thirteenth Order member for good as well as getting to J'onn in time.

Thus, while Daria, Quinn, and Brittany were able to help Martian Manhunter extract himself from the crushing rockslide of magical objects, Shannon, Gambit, and Beach Head, being the more seasoned and stronger combatants, offered a great opposition and united front to keep Luxord busy.

It was a perfect set-up.

"Oh, Mr. Manhunter, are you OK?" Quinn warbled worriedly as she managed to heave aside a blood-soaked dice off her friend's body, grimacing at the sight of the unconscious and charred body of the Martian, one side of his head badly cracked to the skull-bone and bleeding. In fact, the alien's body was unnaturally red due to the blood smeared all over his skin and the dice crushing him.

Apparently not.

"I don't think the healing potion Dr. Strange gave me is gonna cover this…" Brittany practically wailed softly as she realized that Martian Manhunter's abrasions were far too severe. Quinn then turned to the next best thing as she hollered at the top of her lungs.

"Tinkerbell! Tinkerbell, we need you! Need a healer here, unless you wanna wait a bit so we can call an undertaker instead!"

Despite the bad-taste in her humor, to the girl's growing worry and disappointment, the yellow pixie did not answer Quinn's cry for help, lost amid the sea of the various brawls and tussles from the neighboring heroes and enemies surrounding them. The Disney healer was nowhere to be seen…

Concurrently, Luxord was now starting to really get annoyed as he had to avoid another bazooka blast by Beach Head from the sidelines while simultaneously blocking and countering Gambit's many kicks and staff jabs at his chest and head. Nearly tripping from the force of the rocket explosion and feeling the metal bo crack the left side of his jaw as it whipped past, Luxrod then snarled as he leapt high into the air before summoning a steady stream of giant cards and dice in a saturation attack. Both the Joe and the X-Man hurriedly scattered, the rectangular and cubic slabs of white and silver metal whizzing by. Gambit actually yelped as one card grazed against his arm, drawing a serious amount of blood. And Quinn and Brittany, seeing the tumbling dice coming straight towards them and Beach, valiantly began to use their Keyblades and Telsa force-fields from their glovatrixes to divert and block the sudden avalanche of cubes.

Luxord then summoned more cards in the palm of his hands, only to instantly howl in pain as a crossbow arrow embedded deep into the back of his neck and through the bone. The white-haired gambler snarled as he whirled around, deflecting two additional arrows as they embedded in the giant card his summoned as a shield. Upon detecting Shannon the Slayer down on the ground, with a deft flick of his hands, he sent a battalion of six cards at her position. Instinctively, the teenager strafed madly to the right, only to refocus her attention back to Luxord who was taking full advantage of his distraction to swoop towards the ground like a hawk at amazing speeds before he swiped at the girl with a card, intent on lopping off her head. With a gasp, Shannon managed to block and deflect the card's razor-edge by gripping her crossbow in both hands and raising it in front of her body to parry the incoming blade. There was a sharp crack, but she managed to safely avoid and thwart the card without budging.

Luxord frowned; despite his card being as honed and sharp as any iron sword, by all rights, the girl's crossbow should have instantly been reduced to splinters. He swiped several more times with his card, taking extra care to ensure that his trajectories would aim directly at her weapon. Though he did succeed in hacking directly at the wooden beam and the metal drawstring several times, invoking a trail of hot sparks as steel met steel, Shannon's crossbow was still fully function as she back-flipped backwards several times before taking aim and firing a shaft at Luxord's face (which he blocked easily with his card).

Damn, he couldn't break her weapon. The heroes were a hell of a lot smarter than he anticipated, changing the odds. Still…

Shannon then was blitzed on all sides as six cards surrounded her position, encasing and bordering in a deadly ring of gyrating cutting edges while directly in front of her was an incoming Luxord, wielding a card in each hand like twin swords. The paranormal then realized that if she tried to block the incoming adversary, she'd risk decapitation from the circle of cards homing in on her like a shark. Timing it correctly at the last second, Shannon jumped high and flipped forward like an acrobat over Luxord's head, narrowly avoid the lunge and escaping the tight circle. However, with his other hand, Luxord merely swung his second card upwards with an ascending arc…

"Yeow!" cried out Shannon as she felt the sharp edge slice through her jacket and into her skin, making a light flesh wound from her lower left-side to her right shoulder. Despite the stinging and the blood droplets pattering the floor, the Slayer managed to land on her feet after the somersault before tumbling safely a good distance away before reaching for another arrow from her quiver lashed to her back.

Only to grasp nothing.

The brown-haired girl felt her blood freeze as she could no longer detect and feel the strap lashed to her back containing her arrows. And her eyes widened as she saw why she no longer had her stash of crossbow ammunition as she saw Luxord, with a very haughty smirk on his face, holding the leather back-quiver he swiped from her in one hand. The Organization soldier may not have been able to chop up his opponent, but the card swipe did manage to cut away at the compartment that held Shannon's metal bolts.

"Uh-oh…" Shannon could only meekly whine before the Gambler of Fate blitzed forward, no longer fearing any incoming projectiles as he repeatedly hacked and swung his weapon wildly, adding a couple of flying cards to rush forward like bullets. Barely, the Ghostbuster dodged all of the blows.

"Oh dear, you lost you little quiver…" sneered Luxord as he drawled poisonously with each swing of his weapon, "Now you're completely helpless, little girl. No arrows, no worthwhile attac - "

It was at that split-second that Shannon managed to dash close, ducking underneath the card before she growled and rammed the blunt front end of her crossbow directly into the Nobody's face. Hard. And scoring a direct hit in the cleft area right underneath the man's nose, causing both of his nostrils to release a waterfall of crimson fluid upon contact. Luxord sputtered in surprise as he woozily took two steps back. He definitely wasn't expecting that…

The brown-haired girl then let loose a push kick at Luxord's stomach, so fast that she was practically throwing it at superhuman speeds, and Luxord barely had time to sidestep and dodge the foot, but the paranormal was clearly not finished yet. In less than a second, Shannon swiveled around and delivered her elbow at the man's sternum before bringing the blunt end of her crossbow hard in a downwards arc, so fast it was a blur. The black-robed villain avoided the first blow, but didn't see the second one coming.

WHACK!

Now Luxord has a matching bruise on his temple, dripping with blood, to match with his broken nose.

Apparently, a crossbow was very handy as a club in a pinch (and as Faith said herself, any respectable Slayer knows how to improvise). Shannon was clearly fighting tooth and nail with every single tactic and training move she could remember from Wood, Quentin, Phoebe, and Wolverine as she continued to deliver a flurry of punches, kicks, and the occasional attempt to ram the wooden implement into the cloaked enemy's head.

And Shannon wasn't going to be alone as Gambit with his acrobatic ability managed to work his way past the barrage of dice raining down upon the field while Trinity and Beach Head were busily keeping the endless rainfall of enormous dice from hurting themselves and the injured and unconscious Martian Manhunter.

"Now, Shannon! Go to plan 'Duo Kick-1'!" Remy yelled as he moved in flawlessly with a reverse kick directly into Luxord's stomach, timing it right between slashes from the cards, and winded, the goatee-toting white-haired adversary stumbled back, winded. Shannon immediately followed suit, hoping that she could stick to the strategy that had been hammered into her for many months.

And Luxord was about to experience first-hand how well a Slayer and an X-Man could work in tandem as the two heroes set themselves upon him fearlessly.

Shannon aimed high, jumping in the air with a hitch kick at Luxord's face, and Luxord immediately held one of his cards in front of his person to stop the girl's foot cold, the strike causing a faint vibration to run down the thick, metal slab from the force. But because he was preoccupied with that first attack from the paranormal that he barely avoided the sudden roundhouse kick sent by Gambit at his side. In fact, the mutant's foot came close by less than an inch. Swiveling to the side, Luxord sidestepped both of his foes before he slashed out with his two cards at Gambit's torso, but deftly and without fail, Remy used his bo staff as a pole vault to hoist himself skillfully above the air before delivering a hammer kick at Luxord's head, the cards missing him by a wide margin. Luxord backtracked furiously, but then he suddenly sensed Shannon running him at full speed while Gambit landed like a cat next to him and delivered an impressive crescent kick at the Organization warrior's head. Using his right card to effortlessly bat away at Gambit and counter his blow, the white-haired murderer then swung with his other card in his hand right when the Slayer was just about within killing distance, hoping to shear her in half. But to his shock, the paranormal tucked herself into a ball at the last split second and actually dodged rolled on the floor, avoiding the lash as the razor's edge zoomed over her head and spinning past the Thirteenth Order soldier. And taking advantage of the disruption of Gambit trying to perform a middle and high roundhouse kick combination, Shannon skidding to a stop on the balls of her sneakers before she perform a one handed handstand and kicked with both of her feet in quick succession, catching Luxord hard in the thigh and back. Luxord was pitched forward, right into the sudden calf-kick followed by the double swipes of Gambit's metal staff.

Now that they finally had their enemy of the ropes, Remy and Shannon didn't let up as they delivered kick after kick on their onslaught, this time having little trouble making their hits make contact. The Slayer and the Cajun X-Man worked in synchronously and cooperative tandem. If Gambit aimed high, Shannon aimed low. If Luxord tried to swipe with his cards, one would effortlessly arrest his hand with a deft block or grab, leaving the other to deliver a painful kick at a sensitive area in the gut, kneecap, or head. And when Shannon delivered a painful and powerful vertical kick on Luxord's shoulder, dislocating it, it allowed Remy to acrobatically and smoothly deliver a fantastic series of multiple kicks, consisting of a low, middle, and finished with an axe kick, cracking Luxord's head back and forth excruciatingly. In fact, Luxord's entire face was bloody.

And after a few more displays of teamwork, the Gambler of Fate managed to painfully see through the stars the fleeting and briefest image of Remy and Shannon galloping for momentum and flying high in the air before they delivered a combined flying back kick directly at Luxord's chest…

Pow!

Their combined force sent the robed man off his feet and soaring back towards the nearest wall, precariously close to the fight with Roxas as Toad and Xi set themselves on him, matching blow for blow with their respective Keyblades. Luckily, the wall was enough to stop his trajectory fully.

Wham!

Luxord slid down to the floor, leaving a ghastly trail of smeared, dark blood on the titanium and adamantium surface in his wake. Shannon and Remy were both panting hard from their act of violence, but incredibly satisfied upon achieving what they wanted. And Remy couldn't help but let out a mischievous and knowing smile as he raised the missing quiver of crossbow shafts in his hand in front of the girl's eyes, showing his bounty he selectively lifted out of Luxord's person.

"Chere be missing something, no?" the young adult drawled, smiling behind his goatee and laying it heavy on the French accent. Shannon couldn't help but giggle a bit.

"Why thank you, mon ami," the vampire slayer returned back in full bantering jest as she deftly looped the sash over her shoulder, glad to have her ammunition back. Having a thief on your side definitely had advantages. Gambit then put on a fake pout.

"No kiss for a reward?"

"Don't make me report this to Rogue, buddy. You still got a lot of making up to her," the brunette warned with a bit of playful steel as she wagged her finger at the Cajun. Remy looked incredibly sheepish and ashamed, though he knew deep down, he would have never meant Rogue any harm if it came to it.

"Sorry, force of habit."

At that same moment, Beach Head was aiming the bazooka weapon after seeing the enemy in a potentially vulnerable position, and with years of practice honing his muscles, he took aim, noted if there were any allies in dangerous proximity, and fired a single, lethal discharge directly at the smug, white-haired, suave Nobody. But unlike past shots, this discharge wasn't a payload missile.

He hoped it worked though; he hadn't used the molecular combustion cannon ever since Justin's first week at the Pit when Beach Head was trying to kill Todd, Pietro, Xi, and Lance for stealing Sergeant Snuffles at Justin's first week of Misfit training…

So quick, that one had to blink in order to miss it, a translucent surge of crimson energy rocketed out of the bazooka's mouth before it streaked across the battlefield and hit the black-cloaked man directly in the chest. Luxord only had time to widen his eyes in a horrified expression as he felt his glowing body burn up in split seconds before the atoms in his molecular structure reached unstable levels…

SSSHHHHHIIIIIIIIPPPPPPP!

Luxord's guttural yell of extreme and excruciating pain following through each and every cell and fiber in his body was enough to curdle the blood of anyone within hearing distance. And despite the man's flesh and blood disintegrating at the particle level, all that the blast did was cause Luxord to hunch down on his knees, his clothes and body smoking, before vomiting up a deluge of blood from the fact that his organs were painfully rearranged and reformed back together.

Wayne had to smirk. Waiting until now to use the molecular blast was certainly worth it. Pity it didn't kill the asswipe.

"Well dealt, Joe…" snarled the Nobody in between rasps, "That one actually hurt…"

Not being a man of witty comebacks or verbal sparring, the army ranger just aimed with the cannon and fired another energy blast again, but this time, the Organization member was ready. Despite his injuries, he teleported directly out of range, engulfed by darkness and shadows. Beach Head cursed, but before he could turn around, he was actually propelled upwards from behind, a crippling force of pressure that actually lifted him off his feet so violently and caused Wayne to lose hold of his bazooka.

Helpless and as limp as a rag doll, the Joe Ranger had no choice but to slam back-first into the metal wall, high above everyone's heads and actually getting a good view of the entire war-zone in the underground foyer. And as the stars flashed with the nails of pain driven into his skull and neck, Beach Head then suddenly found himself pinned to the wall by a series of cards, fastening his body and clothes precariously to the metal surface. Slumping heavily against the razors, the Joe's eyes widened in horror as Luxord them appeared right in front of him, a few meters away while levitating in the air with a vindictive smirk on his face.

"You're mine now, Joe…" Luxord hissed with glee, the cards in his hands gleaming under the lights like the sharpest swords and axes. Beach Head had to fight hard not to panic or imagine how painful it would be to lose his head or one of his limbs as the Organization member.

Down below, the others of the group just realized what was happening.

"Beach Head!" cried out Brittany as Martian Manhunter (now healed thanks to a sudden burst of Curaga magic) was about to fly upwards to get his ally while Shannon and Gambit readied their weapons, but with a pointed glare at the peons below, the Organization soldier summoned a massive plethora of cards and gigantic dice to thunder down from above in a complete saturation attack. It was so widespread and coming down fast that none of them could avoid the shrapnel and asteroids safely with a wide berth.

"Crap, he's distracting us again!" Quinn exclaimed as she did her best to dodge and avoid the lines of metal slabs that came close to eviscerating her in half in their wake. And with Daria, Quinn, and Brittany seceded and engrossed like this in the battlefield, they couldn't join hands to use their psychic lightning or hover above the ground to get to Beach Head pinned in the wall high above. Remy cursed as he dodged the cards while Martian Manhunter phased Shannon though the floor to avoid being run over and crushed. There was a good chance that his grappling line from his glovatrix couldn't reach that high, and the time it would take to scale up the wall would take far too long. By then the Joe Ranger would be dead and at the hooded Organization warrior's mercy. He needed to get up there and fast…

"Monsieur Manhunter!" Gambit yelled as he dodged several playing cards, "Gambit need a boost up to the card-shark up there! Fastball Special! Just get Beach Head out of there when Remy say so, d'accord?"

"Go, J'onn! I can take care of myself!" Shannon agreed steadfastly as the Justice League founder phased her back to safety, making her substantial again at the drop of a hat.

J'onn nodded he flew over, skillfully evading and circumventing several six-sided dice from flattening him as they bounced and crashed to the metal ground, leaving worrisome craters, cracks, and dents. As Shannon and Trinity did their best to avoid the playing cards, the Martian managed to hover directly above Remy and position himself in line with Luxord. With that, J'onn offered his hand. Gambit took a flying, acrobatic leap and grabbed the Martian's palm, and using his strength, J'onn gracefully threw and pitched the X-Man directly at the white-haired gambler from the Thirteenth Order.

It was a perfect throw, a straight express.

"Here, mon ami," Martian Manhunter said with concern and a smile right before he pitched Gambit. The Cajun couldn't help but grin at the Justice League founder for the French words.

"Merci, homme," Gambit returned as he flew forwards like an arrow as he grasped his metal staff in both hands right before he latched himself from behind Luxord before Luxord could decapitate Beach Head.

"Wha- urk?" cried out an outraged Luxord as Gambit managed to loop his staff over his head and pulled back hard, threatening to crush the Organization soldier's windpipe with the cold, metal bar pressing hard against his neck. Luxord chocked and gurgled, instantly forgetting his current deed as he did his best to writhe out of Gambit's grip as the Cajun X-Man applied more pressure, pulling hard on the staff and dangling behind the white-haired gambler. Remy's weight was very nearly causing the staff to decapitate Luxord's head off as Luxord rasped weakly for air, trying to pry the Cajun off of him.

And that distraction was all Beach Head needed as Luxord forgot he was in close proximity to the Joe Ranger. But he certainly felt the result of Beach Head's army boot (which wasn't pinned against the wall) flying upwards and kicking Luxord in the face. Hard. And with enough force to result in Luxord's head being cracked back, his chin nearly broken from the brutal strike.

"Now, J'onn!" yelled Gambit as he was sent towards the ground, dragging Luxord with him with the chokehold still pressing painfully against the bearded man's windpipe. The green-skinned Justice League founder flew up and managed to grab hold of the army ranger before gently phasing him out of the cards pinning him against the wall, leaving him to gently fall into his arms.

"What the hell took you so long?" snapped the masked Joe as J'onn flew him down to the ground. The alien had to raise an eyebrow in slight irritation; diplomatic and restrained, Beach Head was not (understatement of the year, actually). Biting back a retort, J'onn merely landed next to the molecular combustion cannon still lying uselessly on the floor, and allowing Wayne to make a grab for it, glad to have something destructive back into his grip.

For the moment, Remy's gamble was very successful. The momentum and acceleration of free-fall plus the force of Beach Head's kick to the face was enough to send the choking and disoriented Luxord plummeting for a long drop towards the floor with the X-Man dragging him from behind. And at the last moment, the Cajun expertly flipped his position so that Luxord was between him and the floor, a grip still maintained on the staff crushing Luxord's windpipe…

WHAM!

Gambit felt the sudden spikes of pain in his chest and knees throb excruciatingly, and he was pretty sure that his right wrist was sprained from the landing to the floor. However, it was nowhere as painful as Luxord as the sudden impact of the ground plus with the force of Gambit's body crushing him on top made the white-haired Nobody feel as if every single bone in his body snapped into multiple fractures. But his hazy vision cleared upon alarm as Gambit them rolled over and dragged Luxord's body on top of his, holding him securely with the bo while Daria, Quinn, and Brittany were leaping in mid-air with their Keyblades held high-over their heads for a unanimous final blow.

"HIYA!" yelled the Delgado Triplets as they swung down their bronze-colored weapons with all the strength they could, but Luxord, not to be bested, then managed to teleport despite the pain racking through his body. Upon seeing the wisps of shadows and smoke, Gambit tried to tighten his grip on his adversary, but with a whisper, the enemy disappeared…leaving a stunned Gambit right in the path of Trinity's swords.

"Shit!" Gambit swore as he brought his metal staff upwards, right as Trinity realized what was happening, and they jerked back at the last second…

Clang!

It was close. Too close. Heck, the points on the Trichrona Keyblades were mere millimeters from Remy's head and face. He could almost feel the touch of the metal. And his heart was thudding so hard, it was a wonder it didn't cause him to seize up right then and there as Gambit then realized that all three of the Keyblades actually significantly bent the metal upon contact (despite having a layer of adamantium).

Had the three mutant girls not pulled back, they would have easily shorn through the bo and killed Gambit via massive head trauma.

"Oh god!" gasped Daria, her eyes so wide you could see the whites all around, "That was close!"

Gambit, understandably, was still insanely pissed at Trinity.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TRYING TO DO? KILL REMY?" he practically roared at the Delgado Triplets, his black and red eyes actually glowing in response to the anger coursing through his veins. Daria, Quinn, and Brittany actually gave it some thought and looked at each other in a nonchalant and speculating way that if anything made Gambit even more inflamed.

"Well, if Rogue paid us enough…" mused Brittany, rubbing her chin with one hand as she thought out loud. Even though it was a joke (hopefully), Gambit in no way found it the least bit humorous. Remy then was wondering how much he would enjoy the look of devastation on their respective faces if they ever lost their Keyblades and went to more deserving people…

And then abruptly, without warning, the entire room and their surroundings changed for all seven of them.

"What the hell - ?" was all Gambit could utter before he was instantly found himself choking and unable to breathe as he was completely submerged in water, deep, icy cold, and with faint streams of sunlight shining above his head. His lungs were still in the cough reflex due to the accidental inhalation of several mouthfuls of water, and forcing himself to stop before he could expel all the air he had, Gambit furiously kicked upwards, staff and all, towards the sun and hopefully where he could break to the surface. The pressure in his lungs were getting more and more excruciating, burning even, but the youth still furiously tried to get to air as he swam with all he could. But after a few seconds, something was wrong. No matter how hard he tried, the waters all around him were still threatening to crush his body, the sun still seeming far away, and he did little to gain any progress to getting up to the surface.

Gambit was still trapped in the water, still sinking, still coming closer and closer to drowning.

Can't…hold…on…

That was all Gambit could think off before his vision was starting to blur, the effort to keep his breath becoming more and more futile as the stream of bubbles leaked out of his numb nose and mouth. His lungs were threatening to burst, and yet he couldn't reach for any fresh air.

He knew it should have been impossible. He knew this was probably a trick of some sort by the Organization. He knew that this was probably not real. But it was hard for Gambit to remember that fact when air was escaping uncontrollably out of his nose and mouth, when his entire uniform was water-clogged and getting heavier and heavier…

"Hello? Hello?"

Quinn Delgado of the Triplets was now starting to get worried. The first second, she was with her sisters and her friends, and then the next thing she knew, she was surrounded by darkness. The black shadows were all around her, not even with the faintest gleam of light to guide the mutant girl. It was cold, frigidly arctic to even make Quinn's skin crawl with goose-bumps despite a heated battle moments ago.

"Anybody?" Quinn yelled, her pigtail on the left side of her head hanging limply against her face as she fought against her fear, "HELLO? Mr. Manhunter? Daria? Quinn? Shannon and Gambit?"

A pause.

"Beach Head, if no one else?"

No one answered; all was eerie silence. Quinn tried to stay calm, despite the blood roaring in her ears. Alone, by herself, with a passive magical spell and a Keyblade. Not very good chances against an Organization member who so far withstood everything they threw at him. And Quinn by herself meant that she couldn't invoke the Trinity Limit with her sisters, as if being separated from her siblings and family wasn't bad enough, the growing trepidation threatening to cripple her concentration…

"Come to Atlantis with me…" droned a rather familiar voice, one that made Quinn's back chill suddenly to invoke goose-pimples, as she turned to see a rather disturbing sight. Her mother, Mara, the same parent who ran away and abandoned Quinn and her family to live in Atlantis as a rich noblewoman, still dressed in her telltale purple wetsuit embracing a rather content and seemingly happy Shipwreck. The mutant adolescent was stunned. What was going on? Shipwreck still deeply resented and disliked his ex-wife…

"Always, Mara…" Shipwreck said rather lewdly, without any second thought, "God knows how sick I am of watching the kids. Let General Hawk do whatever he wants with them. I couldn't care less…"

And with that, their arms circled around each others' backs, Shipwreck and Mara both stepped away and walked further and further into the light in the distance, both of them not even taking a last look back to see Quinn witnessing all this.

Oh God, no. First her mother, now her Dad (as drunk and obnoxious and irresponsible as he may be)…

"Dad, don't leave! PLEASE! You're all I have!" Quinn screamed herself hoarse, her feet pounding faster and faster as she tried to catch up with her father leaving in the arms of her estranged mother.

But no matter how hard the Misfit tried, she couldn't even get close enough to grab Shipwreck, watching helplessly as he and Mara disappeared forever into the far-away light, leaving his daughter to wallow alone in the everlasting dusk…

Fire. All around him. J'onn couldn't escape it. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, it was an impenetrable cage of flames, the heat so intense that a few seconds of exposure was already starting to eat away his cape into cinder, causing parts of his green skin to painfully sting and bubble.

Martian Manhunter fought the urge to scream in terror upon facing his worst fear at the highest extreme as he shielded his eyes against the shining ruby and crimson lights flickering all around his position. He was about to take off and fly through the conflagration, hopefully able to find his fellow friends and allies, when a mass of white tendrils erupted from the ground and lassoed him. The Justice Leaguer gasped in surprise; the strands came too fast, almost within the blink of an eye. Within seconds, the extraterrestrial was fully bound and restrained as the tendrils fastened around his wrists, legs, ankles, torso, and neck, snaring him like a spider web to its prey. Squeezing and crushing him, despite his superhuman durability and strength. J'onn looked up to see that the tendrils arresting his body belonged to none other than…

The Justice League founder's eyes widened in horror as he saw the crowd of Imperium aliens, the same faceless, emotionless life-forms that destroyed his Red Planet, his home, unaffected as they walked in the midst of the flames. He whispered in dread as the Imperium surrounded him, "No…"

"This isn't real! This is just some more of that stupid magic!"

That was what Brittany was telling herself, logic, reason, and sound rationale of how this sudden circumstance was impossible backing that fact up. But despite the facts, the Delgado Triplet couldn't deny the fact that she was now in a tiny cell no more than ten by ten square feet, the walls thick giant slabs of stone, cold and heavy and weighing at least in the hundreds of pounds.

And if the situation wasn't tense and claustrophobic enough, the girl was startled to hear a slow, but deep rumbling all around her as the blocks start to shift, grinding against each other as they moved with alarming speed. Steadily and surely, the walls began closing in on her, threatening to crush her where she stood.

If Brittany tried rationalizing that it was a magical illusion before, then that thought went right out the window when she felt the sides pushing against her body, shrinking the amount of free space she had little by little.

Brittany would surely be pressed to death in a matter of minutes.

Whimpering and feeling anxiety and her sudden panic take over, Brittany tried activating the Mass Device teleporter watch on her wrist, only to find it unresponsive. The Mass Device wasn't working, so the Misfit couldn't teleport out. And stopping time couldn't break the walls and was only a temporary solution…

Brittany immediately summoned her Trichrona Keyblade with a flash of pink and began hacking away at the stone walls with all of her strength. But to her growing dismay, the Triplet sister realized that despite the sparks and the amount of strength she put into her swings, she couldn't even make a dent or a scratch in the rock surface. And yet the Keyblade was supposed to be strong enough to cleave through reinforced steel.

The walls continued to close in, the rumbling all around her shrinking the amount of free space Brittany had, little by little…

Shannon was dizzy, teetering and swaying like she was drunk to the highest extreme, unable to maintain her balance or her bearings, and yet when the Slayer managed to open her throbbing eyes a bit to the ground.

She was standing dangerously on a narrow piece of scaffolding, so thin that it could barely cover the span of her sneakers, as the vampire viewed that below the bridge, over a thousand foot drop, was an empty chasm, engulfed in an abyss of darkness.

"AAAA!" shrieked Shannon as she clutched her temples with both hands, experiencing the painful and dizzying effects of vertigo, her entire eyesight blurring and wildly jerking up and down as he brain actually began to painfully pound the blood in her ears and her nausea intensified. It was like suddenly finding yourself precariously balanced on one foot at the edge of the rooftop of the Empire State Building or the C.N. Tower, and the abrupt change of scene as well as the fear of heights hit the vampire slayer like a ton of bricks as she feel to her knees, lightheaded, shaking, and sick to the bottom of her stomach. She couldn't tell what was up or down, and everything around her was similar to the effects of a psychedelic roller-coaster dropping from the sky, ready to plummet and crash to a painful and gruesome death to the ground below. Panicking and breathing hard, the brown-haired girl took out a potion given to her by Zatanna and hurled the purple bottle hard towards the ground, thinking that it would neutralize the illusion and free her.

No such luck.

Though the glass container exploded and flourished with a dazzling array of sparkling purple lights and miniature comets, except for a faint shimmer in the vertigo effects all around her, Shannon was still at the mercy of the environment all around her. Dazed, confounded, and her mind whirling, Shannon just dropped her crossbow and let herself go limp at a near faint, her body hurtling towards the emptiness at incredible speeds…

At the same moment, Daria was (like her other sisters) alone and separated from the group.

"!"

And screaming her lungs out as she was in free-fall, hurtling downwards through a plethora of smoke, shadows, and emptiness as the mutant child dropped like a stone and continued to plummet down the infinite abyss. But what it odd was that it was completely topsy-turvy. One second, she was falling downwards, the next second Daria's sense of direction changed as she swerved and zoomed horizontally across like a speeding car, and the next, she was shooting upwards at a 90-degree, diagonal trajectory like a rocket.

It was like a roller coaster, except this one was wild and chaotic enough to make Daria sick to her stomach (and she was normally not one to be fazed easily). And it certainly didn't help that the shadows and black aura around Daria made it so dark, she couldn't see her hand if it was three inches in front of her face.

And without her sisters Brittany and Quinn, Daria couldn't levitate and hover in order to slow down her descent into the gaping black hole. And there were no walls or any sort of ledges that she could use the grappling lines from her glovatrix to snag to.

But remembering how this scene just changed in a split second, Daria fought hard to take several deep breaths as she felt the pressures of the wind compressing heavily on her body and chest. It certainly felt real, despite what her logic was trying to tell her.

She managed to pop open her scanner, keeping a firm grip on the smooth, pink instrument as she was tossed back and forth outrageously, grateful that the light from the miniature screen managed to give a relatively comforting glow around her. Furiously, Daria scanned her surroundings as quickly as she could…

Beach Head was practically naked, devoid of his clothes, mask, and uniform, save for a pair of his under-briefs, lying on his back and manacled by his wrists and ankles to a flat surgical table, like a lab rat. The Joe writhed and sunfish and jerked around as hard as he could until his muscles throbbed, but he couldn't get free. Then the army ranger managed to lift his head to see a gruesome and appalling sight, his skin turning cold and his heart feeling like a lead lump in his chest.

There, on neighboring tables, also manacled and spread out like marionettes, were the teenage Misfits, each one of them dead and gruesomely disemboweled and smeared with blood and gore carved out from their organs and innards. Althea, Todd, Xi, and the other mutants, all of them, looking up with glassy eyes and blank expressions, their skin faintly blue from the lack of blood and warmth. Each one laid out nicely like laboratory animals, sick trophies. It was enough to make Wayne sick to his stomach. A whimper of pain got his attention as he averted his gaze to see Dr. Mindbender of Cobra cackling gleefully over the trembling and bound forms of Daria, Quinn, and Brittany Delgado, all of them strapped to surgical tables and wearing mutant-inhibitor collars around their necks, preventing the adolescents from using their powers on the scumbag.

In Dr. Mindbender's hands was a scalpel and a miniature bone-saw.

"No!" Beach Head yelled, his face red with anger as he helpless could only watch, "Leave them alone, you bastard!"

But there was nothing the army Ranger could do but view Dr. Mindbender as he slowly and methodically began slicing into Daria's face, gruesomely slicing off her skin and flesh in one, long, wet strip. It was clear that the Cobra scientist was taking his time, enjoying the spectacle on the Joe's face, the screech of pain from Daria Delgado, making Wayne watch and see him torture the Misfits, one by one.

"Take me, damn you!"

The words were coming out of Beach Head's mouth even before he could comprehend what he was saying.

"Leave them alone! Take me instead, TAKE ME INSTEAD! YOU GODDAMNED SON OF A BITCH, TAKE ME!"

Yes, Daria, Quinn, Brittany, Martian Manhunter, Beach Head, Gambit, and Shannon the Slayer were all being subjected to dire situations, helpless and unable to do anything effective to fight out.

But what was completely odd was that had anyone been observing this, they would have been stunned and confused that there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. The band of seven was still in the battlefield as normal with absolutely nothing wrong with their surroundings, with nothing strange and dangerous about it. Granted, they were in the middle of the war-zone, but whatever they were all seeing was not even real.

And the mirage was yet so powerful that even the powerful Martian Manhunter was fooled by the false images plaguing his senses, despite his telepathy and mental shields that were even more powerful than Professor Xavier's. It was so lifelike, that they couldn't even focus on the various death-matches, chaos, and enemies fighting all around their position…including their main opponent, Luxord.

Luxord didn't question Zexion's intervention with his illusory powers; he knew better than to look like a gift horse in the mouth. And with all of his opponents now disoriented, distracted, and fully unable to comprehend anything past the false images in their minds…

The white-haired Gambler of Fate readied a volley of cards in his hands, aimed…

And thankfully, one of the X-Men who was brawling with Beef the Hellion along with Garret and Phoebe Halliwell managed to intervene in the nick of time…

"Mind if I drop this? Danke," commented Nightcrawler without much tact and sincerity as he idly teleported in a colossal jet engine and had it collide with Luxord right as he was about to rush at Gambit and Trinity.

WHAM! PSSHHAAASSSHHH!

Luxord swore that Nightcrawler had single-handedly broken every single bone in his body as he was flattened brutally against the floor and nearest wall, the jet engine pressing down on his body so hard that he was already lying in a splattered puddle of his own blood.

At the same time, the sextet were still being subjected to the mysterious illusions being cloaked and cast over all of them…

The Delgado Triplets were all furiously typing away with their pink scanners, identifying the reason behind the sudden change of environments at once, and hopefully, their tools might be able to find the key out of their fictitious prisons.

"It's not real! Everyone, this isn't real! It's an illusion! Fight it, you guys!" Quinn wailed as urgently as she could, her voice threatening to give out.

Gambit couldn't answer, couldn't hear, as he finally lost the battle and water began to uncontrollably seep into his nostrils and mouth, causing him to convulse and sunfish, his vision dimming.

Beach Head was less polite and modest as he hollered without restraint, red and flushed in the face, "WILL ONE OF YOU MORONS HELP US OUT OF THIS GODDAMMED MESS BEFORE I LOSE MY TEMPER?"

J'onn winced at the outburst. Wayne clearly had a good set of lungs. By the gods of the Red Planet, how Beach Head ever managed to have the other G.I. Joe soldiers tolerate him was beyond his comprehension.

And then, as quickly as it appeared, there was a blinding, yet warm outpouring of white light, illuminating their entire surroundings before they all fell unceremoniously to the hard marble floor amid the various battles and fights in Shaw Industries. It was as if they had been teleported back to where their friends and allies were fighting for their lives against Organization XIII. Shannon was hyperventilating while lying on her stomach on the floor, Martian Manhunter still had fresh, red welts where the fires burned his skin, and Beach Head, in a rare fit of confused panic, ran his hands all over his body just to make sure that he wasn't missing any body parts or sustained any injuries under the "mirage" of being an experiment for Dr. Mindbender. Gambit, unfortunately, was having problems breathing as each inhalation came out as a waterlogged gurgle as he continued coughing and sputtering, still close to secondary drowning.

"Gambit…" J'onn murmured, concerned, as he then solidly whacked the X-Man on the back several times before (without much protest) grabbing Gambit by the ankles and hoisting him upside-down off the floor, the Martian levitating in thin air and dangling the Cajun teenager by his feet.

Unconsciously and with gravity taking effect, Remy had no choice but to let the water gush out of his lungs and through his windpipe as his gag reflex caused him to vomit out all the liquid he swallowed, retching and sputtering and coughing a fit. J'onn sighed; at the very least, Remy's lungs were now nearly empty.

Whatever that magical deception was, it was incredibly powerful and lifelike. And much to the Leaguer's worry, the X-Man didn't have any time to recuperate from inhaling so much water.

"How did you three do that?" Shannon asked woozily, still feeling slightly tipsy from being subjected to that powerful and deceptive mirage, but Daria, Quinn, and Brittany all wildly shook their heads. They were as bamboozled and mystified as the paranormal was.

"It wasn't us!" Brittany exclaimed, "We were too busy trying to deal with that illusion to even do anything! And I tried using my Keyblade to somehow destroy it, but it didn't work!"

"I think I have a good idea…" Martian Manhunter then gently broke in as he set Gambit back upright, and gaining his group's collective attention, he pointed high above, past through the ceilings and levels ripped apart by Supergirl and Xaldin, and into the open night sky above the grounds of Shaw Industries. There, rising on a magical platform by Willow Rosenberg, was the Tigershark and Priest of Twilight, Octavia. And in her hands, she was holding the Enchanted Mirror and holding it high above her head, letting the powerful Talisman shine pure and holy light from its reflective surface all upon the battlefields and war-zone beneath her. The Martian wouldn't be far off the mark if his guess that it was the mirror that helped them escape from the magical artifice.

No wonder the Thirteenth Order and the Hellfire Club coveted the Talismans of Twilight.

"Keep your attention on the Organization enemy, Privates!" barked Beach Head, not in the mood for distractions and respite as he got right down to business and fired another blast with the molecular cannon, aiming directly at Luxord who was still being pressed against the floor by the heavy jet engine…

KABOOM!

Beach Head's attack was pretty effective. The discharge from the cannon caused not only the engine to disintegrate, but additionally, the bits of metal and red-hot debris served as perfect shrapnel to pulverize Luxord's body as he was sent flying backwards in a fury of flames, heat, and scorching bullets of steel. As Trinity, Beach Head, and Shannon all charged, Gambit weakly rose to his feet, intent on joining in the blitz, but a gentle shove against the wall and a strong hand on his shoulder prevented the X-Man from dashing off as Martian Manhunter held out an open bottle containing a healing elixir towards the mutant teenager.

Despite the offer, Remy wasn't in the mood to be treated like a child, not to mention their magical allies only brewed a limited amount of potions for the battle at Shaw Industries. Better to save it when they really needed it, although it wasn't lost on the Justice League founder that Remy still had problems breathing, barely maintaining the urge to faint from swallowing so much fluid.

"I'm all right…" rasped Gambit, trying to avoid being force-fed the concoction, but J'onn then gave Gambit a rather odd look of pity and sadness.

The Martian asked simply, "And what will I do when I'm the one chosen to tell Rogue that you died in battle? Do you want her to have more grief?"

There was a tense pause before Remy grumbled, grabbing the potion rather rudely from the Leaguer's hand before guzzling it.

"Low blow, you green-skinned bastard…" muttered the Cajun teen before swallowing the healing potion. J'onn just smiled, not taking any offense. As Beach Head was about to fire another blast with his bazooka at the bleeding Luxord, the member from Organization XIII suddenly tried a new tactic as he swiftly draw a five card stud in one hand, cocking his arm back.

"Look who's on top of the game!" bragged Luxord triumphantly as the area all around them dimmed in shadows, eclipsing the light and various battles around them with the darkness, the air suddenly cold and frigid. With a deft flick of his hand, a multitude of cards flew out all around the battlefield, growing to enormous sizes, some even unfurling to neighboring skirmishes such as in front of Pete Wisdom (who was dodging Xigbar) and besides the Slayer Dana (trying to stab the Hellion Tarot with her knife). The six heroes then realized that all over them, the cards were multiplying until the entire floor was littered with over a hundred slabs lying facedown on the ground, like fallen dominoes. And as Martian Manhunter and a recovering Gambit joined Shannon, Beach Head, and Trinity, the cards then began moving out further and further, spanning the area like wildfire.

"Can you scan which one of the cards that dick's hiding in?" Beach Head tersely requested, but to his shock, Trinity shook their heads in various intervals, their pigtails bobbing.

"Our scanners can't detect him!" Brittany said breathlessly in despair as she clicked a few buttons on her pink handheld, only to have it to come up with a blank result, "And we've never had this problem the first time we tangled with him at the Pit and the Watchtower!"

"Primarily because you haven't tried it until now. His magic must be too powerful, even for you three, dammit to hell!" Beach Head groused. Quinn Delgado then turned to Shannon, remembering that vampire slayers had heightened senses, especially to malevolent entities and the supernatural.

"Shannon?"

The bushy-haired girl shook her head, saying apologetically, "He's too far spread out! I think I need to get closer to the card he's hiding before my Slayer-sense kicks in. I never tried looking for an Organization member before! I'm not even sure I can detect him!"

"Look, hate to break it to you Privates, but we're wasting time discussing our options! The cards are reaching out to our friends!" Beach Head pointed out as Roadblock and Multiple of the X-Men grunted in surprise in the distance as a line of Luxord's weapons stopped their bullets and glovatrix missiles cold, protecting Zexion from their barrage.

"OK, OK, OK…" Quinn thought aloud quickly, "Then in order to stop the cards…"

"We have to get at the source, meaning we stop Luxord cold," Gambit caught on, fingers tightening on his staff.

Still, given the wide area and how all the cards were face down, it would require them searching through each mammoth slab of metal at speeds that only Quicksilver or the Flash could utilize. That would take a lot of effort and time, something they didn't have if they wanted to stop whatever Luxord was planning as lines and lines of the Nobody slabs were.

"He could be anywhere…" growled J'onn, realizing that like the other occurrences in the past, the members of the Organization were immune and thus, could not be detected with even his telepathy. And the cards were reaching out towards the other allies who were furiously brawling for their lives against the other sociopaths of the Thirteenth Order…

It would be exactly like how Luxord incapacitated a good number of the Leaguers at the Watchtower when the Heartless invaded and the nuclear gun was activated. Already, a few of the heroes like Ace, Beast Boy, Kurama, and Whitelighter yelped in surprise as the cards pervaded around them like a cage.

"Not anymore! Girls!" Daria yelled, looking at her sisters, and they all nodded before each of the Delgado Triplets raised a glowing hand high above.

"Stopra…Time Freeze!"

With a flash of pink magic and a blaze of glory, their was a sudden click of a clock before

"Remember what we said that the weird voice from nowhere told us?" Quinn reminded her attentive teammates and friends, "Luxord's only vulnerable when he's no longer hidden in the cards! We have to draw him out somehow!"

"And freezing those cards will make sure he stays in place and doesn't cause our friends to disappear like what happened at the Justice League's base!"

Remy's eyes then went wide, showing the black and red irises as he pointed with astonished dread, "Um…not really, Trinity. "

Sure enough, what Remy said was true. Though a good third of the cards were indeed radiating with a pink sheen of illumination, the rest of the throng were still moving of their own accord, magically spanning across the floor like shadows or floating upright on thin air and towards the other fights all around the vicinity.

"Crap!" Brittany wailed, "They're too spread out! We can't freeze all of the cards! There's too many!"

"New game plan: break every damn card you find until you find that jackass! Start with the moving ones!" Beach Head roared as he aimed with his combustion cannon and fired a powerful blast into a small group of cards from the distance before they could creep up on Black Widow who was hiding behind a polarized energy shield designed by Forge against the lasers that Roxas was firing at her. With a hissing surge of energy and a flash, the cards attempting to make the Avenger vanish were now neutralized and stamped out down to the molecular level.

"And be careful, some of the cards are booby-trapped! Do not strike unless you are sure or at a distance!" warned J'onn, flashing back to when he tried to draw out Luxord the hard way as he then grabbed Gambit around the waist with one hand and flew high above. With a good height and a bird's eye view of the battle-ground below, Remy let loose a volley of charged kinetic cards, taking out a good portion of the Nobody cards with his teamwork. Trinity, taking a rare risk, split up with each of the Delgado Triplets sprinting towards a different direction along with Shannon the Slayer, all of them taking care to eliminate as many cards as they could safely in their wake. With the four girls heading off in north, south, east, and west, and with Martian Manhunter, Gambit, and Beach Head desecrating the moving cards in the far off distance, it was a beautiful execution of search-and-destroy.

But they still needed to find their target.

As Shannon narrowly dodged two cards that actually spun around and tried to slice at her neck and hips, noticing that one of them had a booby-trapped fire-bomb painted on the underside, she then sensed it. The keen demonic sensations and awareness alerting her of a particular card floating directly behind her back…

Swiveling around, the teenager took out a single wooden shaft from her quiver and stabbed it into the card as it got within mere feet of her, yelling loudly, "HE'S HERE!"

"AAAAHHHHH!" yelped Luxord in a near-falsetto voice as he busied himself with the agony that came from Shannon jamming the sharp point of her arrow directly into his groin. And thanks to the Slayer's brutal hit, the man had no choice but to eject out of the giant card that was disguising him, the magic vanishing in response to the sudden lack of concentration. With a shimmer, the metal slab disappeared and the Nobody in black materialized in full view, right before Shannon sent him flying and skidding towards a more open part of the battlefield with a push kick. And thanks to the paranormal's discovery, Luxord's magic ceased entirely due to the lack of concentration, and as a result, the rest of the Nobody cards vanished completely in puffs of smoke and shadows.

"Now!" roared Beach Head as he, Trinity, Gambit, Shannon, and J'onn set themselves upon the stunned Luxord as a united beat-down. Luxord didn't have much time to draw out cards considering that upon the blitz, the six opponents were already within a few feet of his personal space…

Crackle, crackle! BBRRRZZZZZAAAPPPP!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" screamed Beach Head, Shannon, Trinity, Gambit, and Martian Manhunter all at once in unison as Larxene's yellow thunder magic suddenly engulfed them from behind. Caught unexpected, the three Keybladers and their friends could only helplessly spasm and twitch as they were electrocuted by the Organization's Savage Nymph. As they crumbled to the marble ground, heavily covered with third-degree burns, Luxord thanked Fate and luck for the good timing as he looked at the distance far off on the other end of the foyer where Larxene was attacking. The blond girl of the Thirteenth Order was busy using a widespread lightning and thunder spell to mow down her attackers and all the other fighters within the vicinity, until Danny Phantom flew down and blasted her with ecto-energy from his hands.

Still, this interruption caused by Larxene had made the odds go into Luxord's favor. With such a high electrical current that could even stun Martian Manhunter and put him out of action, Luxord now had several precious seconds to finish them all permanently in one massive attack. And the six heroes were all paralyzed. With an evil chuckle, Luxord glided back from the floor before summoning another barrage of cards in his hands, ready to…

The sound of faint, yet powerful footsteps, in a sprint, made Luxord's intuition perk up as he turned to see Batman running towards him. The Dark Knight's expression was stoic and grim, but impressively, he moved as if he was flying and made a direct beeline towards Luxord, obviously intent on stopping him. But due to this distraction, Luxord didn't sense Tinkerbell the pixie flying towards Trinity, Shannon, Beach Head, Remy, and J'onn.

Luxord gave an irritated frown.

"I do not remember inviting you to intrude on our games…" growled the white-haired, goateed Nobody as he was about to summon magic to make the Justice League Founder disappear. But then to his surprise and with needing less than several seconds, before Luxord even spotted him, Batman shot out a lifeline with his Bat-Grapple to his right, the hook snagging and sinking into the ceiling above.

And because Batman timed it just correctly, he pulled himself out of the path of the surging telekinetic force that was barreling right behind him, only inches away from his cape and back. It was a vast and devastating display of power, the air was literally rippling and altering the space powerfully in its wake, vibrating like undulations through water. And because it seemingly homed in to Batman's position inexorably, each card that the Batman was gymnastically leaping onto, the surge of telekinetic energy was tossing aside and wrecking a path of destruction through Luxord's weapons. And as it was about to catch up with the Justice Leaguer, Batman was able to time it so when he was close to Luxord's position, he moved aside fast enough for the telekinetic blast that was chasing him to strike the Gambler of Fate instead.

And it was not pleasant, even for the black-robed Nobody.

Luxord's eyes widened in shock, pain, and surprise as the invisible force completely enveloped his body, ripping through his flesh to the exact molecular structure and sending painful bursts of foreign energy throughout. He screamed, long and piercingly, and as a result, the cards all around him jerked once before fluttering limply to the ground, lifeless and no longer under Luxord's full control. However, Batman was not able to get far enough away to escape the full effects of the telekinetic backlash which send a shockwave that grazed him and his grapple-line, severing the wire at once and causing the Justice Leaguer to fall a bit before crashing to the ground, stunned. However, Luxord, being in the full brunt of the attack, was sent flying backwards even further.

At the same time, Tinkerbell (who was quite done in and exhausted) managed to douse all seven of the Keyblade wielders and allies with a generous portion of fairy dust, healing them, before she flew towards the battle with Monet the Hellion where Jericho the Phantom Investigator was suffering from a broken arm, gravely injured.

"You know, for a Disney character, Tinkerbell kicks so much ass as a healer…" panted Shannon with extreme gratitude and relief as she wiped the saliva dribble from her mouth. Her burns were now fully mended, her back as good as new.

Glancing at the prone figure of Batman, J'onn instantly felt worried, but he forced himself to not intervene unless the Batman specifically requested help, as instructed many times in their numerous stratagems and proposals made to help counter the group should they face all the Thirteenth Order members at once. Trinity and the other allies took hardly any notice as they saw that this was their chance to attack the Gambler of Fate while he was still vulnerable. As one, they charged, with Gambit and Beach Head firing during their blitz.

Much to their rotten luck, Luxord still wasn't making it easy on the Keyblader and the heroes.

"Enough! Time is of the essence, you annoying idealists!" growled Luxord as he then erupted a line of cards in front of himself and the heroes, preventing them from getting closer before the gigantic cards marked with the Organization symbol actually encircled around Luxord and formed a protective cylinder, a small dwelling and sealed with no way inside. Like an igloo or a citadel, the tower of cards completely encased their adversary, housing him under an armored and resilient dodecahedron as the thickness of the cards multiplied exponentially by the second.

Instead of hiding away, this time, the Gambler of Fate was barricading himself in a self-made fortress. Shannon then snarled as she rushed forward and delivered a terrific overhead punch directly at the nearest wall. With all of her Slayer strength.

WHAM!

It was like trying to have a normal human punch through a wall of solid steel, the surface of the white and silver not even quivering from the violent hit. And the paranormal instead got injured for her troubles.

"Shit, that's hard!" whined Shannon as she shook her bleeding fist, the skin splitting directly down to the knuckles from the mighty impact. So much for pounding her way through…

"Gambit, use your mutant powers! Trinity, fire with a Semtex missile on my command! Aim at the card Shannon tried to punch!" Beach Head commanded as he readied the bazooka on his shoulder, bending down on one knee, and upon response, both the X-Man and the three Misfits readied their respective kinetic cards and glovatrixes.

"Fire!" yelled the G.I. Joe sergeant, and upon Beach Head's shout, all four of them sent their respective payloads at once directly upon the wall of silver and white metal.

KABOOOOOMM!

All of the explosive attacks made their mark, but despite the heat and the terrific pressure of force from the blasts, aside from a few blackened burn marks, the wall still remained firm. Not even a scratch on the surface of the cards.

"Damn…" cursed Beach Head while Daria immediately began to scan the shelter with her pink scanner, although she then realized she needed to work faster as the cards from the makeshift stronghold began to appear and fly out. Once again, in a single line battalion, mammoth slabs of white and silver and time magic began racing out, ready to swallow up the neighboring heroes and Keybladers like before. The Thirteenth Order card-shark apparently wasn't giving up in his agendas to make as many of the opposition vanish. And the cards were flying too swiftly and were too widespread for any of the six to effectively atop them all at once.

This wasn't working. They needed something that could destroy it from the inside. And Martian Manhunter wasn't stupid to just phase through the house of cards and risk running into whatever nasty surprises Luxord has in store. The Organization member would probably be expecting it as the most logical counter. If only he had…

"Of course…" J'onn murmured to himself as he flew towards the battle with Xemnas, particularly towards one large and ideal piece of the rubble that the Superior managed to magically shove off the floor…

At the same time, Brittany, Quinn and Shannon were busy trying to hack and kick their way through the walls of the rampart with little success. Beach Head, Daria, and Remy were trying to revaluate their options.

"Anything?" Beach Head barked out.

"No, it's too strong! I can't even make a dent in it!" Shannon snapped with impatience as her foot throbbed at bit, the Slayer unable to do anything even with all of her supernatural demon-strength.

"We can't cut our way through either! It's too strong!" Quinn gasped, her arms and hands throbbing painfully down to her carpal bones from trying to vainly hit her Trichrona Keyblade against the reinforced surface. It was no use; she didn't even make a scratch on it. This was a very powerful barrier.

"I'm scanning for any weaknesses or openings, but there's nothing! It's airtight!" wailed Daria, clicking furiously on the keyboard of her pink handheld, feeling her dismay curdle into a ball into her stomach. Shannon then decided on another strategy.

"If there's no way in…" Shannon griped as she reloaded her crossbow, "…we'll just have to attack all the cards outside again and hope we can thin them out!"

"There's too many, chere. There's no way any of us can get to all of them in time, and it'll be useless if we just deal with the cards while that Organization jerk continues to use his magic unharmed! Luxord'll just keep doing it!" Gambit pointed out, seeing the flaw of that resort.

"No, he will not! Get clear! Except you, Gambit! I need your help! The rest of you, take cover!"

This command practically rang a bit painfully in their heads, startling all of the warriors in the group to full attention as the six heroes looked up unconsciously to see a grave and determined Martian Manhunter flying towards the house of cards with a gigantic tank in his hands. The metallic warcraft was much bigger than the alien himself, but surprisingly, he hefted it as if it were as light as a feather. And with his powers, to everyone's amazement, the Justice League founder made the tank in his grip intangible as he phased it directly into the house of cards before he stopped halfway, leaving the entire metallic object embedded into the surface and wall of the structure, half of it protruding out. With a blink of en eye, J'onn made it solid again, wedging his payload in. Gambit knew exactly what J'onn wanted him to do as he used his staff to pole-vault towards the top of the tank, acrobatically flipping and landing on the top of the stuck vehicle while Beach Head flung one of Forge's magnetic polarized shields on the floor, instantly invoking a protective energy barrier large enough to house himself, Shannon, and Trinity.

"Here! This should do the trick!" yelled Gambit as he slammed one hand on the surface of the tank and charged it, channeling as much of the energy into kinetic form, his head swimming as he tried to focus. This was easily the largest amount of matter he ever had to charge at once within several seconds, and thankfully, to his relief, the entire tank began to shimmer and glow with a pink glimmer as it reached critical mass. Upon sensing the atomic instability, the Justice League founder firmly grabbed Gambit by the waist with one arm as he flew away, phasing the both of them into an intangible state as Beach Head grabbed Shannon and the Triplets close to him, making sure that they were all well within the polarized force-field.

Inside the tower of protective sheets, Luxord was rather perturbed to sense that all around him, there was a troubling and unknown sensation trembling throughout, making the air quiver. The air was noticeably getting warmed, even…vibrating?

"What the dev - ?" was all Luxord could say before the tank reached critical mass.

KKAAAWWWWHHHOOOOOOOOMMMMM!

That particular explosion was actually one of the more devastating and noticeable ones. Beach Head was counting his blessings that Forge's shield still held strong and didn't fritz out, nullifying the impact of the massive conflagration of flames, heat, and a concussive, sonic force that rushed past the five of them. The detonation was so destructive and powerful that it sent the nearby Hiei and Spirit flying off their feet while they were trying to stab Saïx, effectively causing them to stumble in their attacks on their target. And Bumblebee and Starfire certainly were in greater danger as well as Jetstream simply used the magical and cybernetic enhancements given to him by Selene and Pierce of the Reavers to absorb the heat and combustive energy from the explosion into his mechanical body, making him stronger and stronger. Still, at the very least, it also did some damage to the Organization members as Cyclops used it as a distraction to send the Superior of the Thirteenth Order flying with an optic blast directly in Xemnas' stomach. And of course, as the enormous backlash of energy subsided gradually, they could still spot a prone Luxord lying facedown, hardly moving, in the center of a giant, blackened crater, exactly where the charged tank and the house of cards once resided.

"Damn, that had to sting!" Shannon marveled at J'onn and Remy, with the Martian carrying the mutant teenager as he hovered and descended back to the floor with the group.

"Cool! Do it again, do it again! Make it bigger this time!" cheered the Triplets in unison. The other four heroes gave the Keybladers a rather deadpanned and flat look at this moment of exuberance. J'onn wearily couldn't help but comment as he set Gambit down to the floor.

"Every time I actually think they're nice, normal girls, they then do something like this to remind me otherwise."

"And you've known them how long, J'onn?" Gambit couldn't help but snort wryly at the Martian's naiveté. Beach Head then said a heavy expletive as he pointed at the crater, and at once, the other five heroes turned to see a shaky Luxord barely managing to push himself on his elbows. Injured, but still alive. J'onn then realized that they needed a new tactic to take the Organization member by surprise since it was apparent that the gigantic kinetic explosion killed him. Beach Head seemed to be on the same train of thought as he gave the green-skinned extraterrestrial an askew glance with his eyes.

"'Kinetic Wave' or 'Psychic Takedown'?" Beach Head queried.

"The first one. Telepathy and psychic attacks seems to have less of an effect on him," J'onn replied before he commanded to Shannon, Gambit, and Trinity boldly, like a true leader, "All of you. Operation Kinetic Wave! Repeat, Kinetic Wave! Gambit, Trinity, get in positions! Shannon, come with me!"

"And I'll cover!" Beach Head growled, taking his place as he hefted his bazooka with one arm while taking several more polarized shield generators from his pocket. J'onn nodded at the protocol while Shannon, white in the face, flanked alongside the alien. At Martian Manhunter's decree, Remy obediently got down on his knees and genuflected on the floor, taking off his telepathic inhibitor temporarily from his right temple, his palms laid flat against the ground. And using their abilities of psychic imprints, Trinity all gathered quietly in a semi-circle behind Gambit, reaching out gently with their minds and into his now that the X-Man had removed the block.

To say the X-Man was nervous was a bit of an understatement (and Remy hardly lost his cool).

"Gambit gotta say that you three cheres better do this right…" grumbled the Cajun as the three adolescent Misfits laid their glowing hands all around the X-Man's head, their eyes now white and pupil-less as they used their telepathy to unlock and reveal new mental abilities with Remy's mutant powers. Exactly like they had done beforehand with Justin so many months ago when he needed to heal Allo in the desert…

"Hey, just like we practiced, right?" Daria couldn't help but remark, which brought a scoff from Remy.

"Need Remy remind you that you that we destroyed a good portion of the Pit and its cafeteria, shorted out the Danger Room three times, and actually blew up our clothes once that resulted in third degree burns during your training?"

"Oh, be quiet and concentrate…" muttered Brittany as they probed deep to amplify Gambit's mutant capabilities and limits. During this, the Gambler of Fate managed to spit out the blood dripping inside his mouth before he spotted Shannon and Martian Manhunter flying directly at him. Luxord didn't seem like he was eager to go head to head with the two charging heroes as he flung out his entire deck of Nobody cards, scattering them once again throughout the floor and vicinity, snarling, "Not likely!"

Instantly, a ring of six cards formed a circle around Luxord, Shannon, and Martian Manhunter before the cards honed inwardly of the circle and flew like knives directly towards the three. And with a click of his fingers, Luxord disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the cards the stab inwards towards J'onn and the vampire. The Justice Leaguer calmly grabbed Shannon around the waist before lifting her up in the air, the two of them avoiding the cards as their wildly sheared the open space with their razor-sharp edges. As the duo dodged the shrapnel, Luxord then teleported above and instantly sent down a volley of cards spiraling upon the two heroes. Undaunted, Shannon aimed and fired a single bolt at Luxord, narrowly going past the cards raining down as Martian Manhunter flew part and avoided the attack. Luxord was forced to summon a card as a shield to block the arrow from hitting his head. But it was at that moment that Beach Head sent a magically-enhanced bazooka missile from his left.

Kaboom!

Reeling from the impact of the explosion and with two brawlers closing in on his personal space, the smoldering Organization member then tried his final desperation attack as he scattered his cards throughout the surrounding areas. Within a blink of an eye, the entire marble and granite floor was literally carpeted with the giant playing slabs of sheet metal as they were strewn around magically in disarray. A bit fearful that it was a surprise tactic, Shannon and Martian Manhunter both stopped cold amid the sea of objects, bracing themselves with fists and the crossbow ready. Even Beach Head himself realized the potential danger as he temporarily hefted the bazooka over his shoulder and speedily dashed out of the boundary of Luxord's toys, putting himself out of danger.

There was a long second of tense peace as Shannon and J'onn both blinked at the unexpected pause. Nothing was happening.

Yet.

"Scatter!" Luxord snarled as then there was complete pandemonium. As the hooded member of the Thirteenth Order vanished, the Nobody cards that were all lying facedown on the floor instantly went into a full-attacking frenzy. Shannon and J'onn realized that from all sides, the cards quickly flew at them like arrows, swift and in straight lines, or gyrating in unpredictable, loopy circles and eager to mow them down repeatedly. The Gambler of Fate planned it so that his magical spells would completely encircle and surround them. Shannon desperately cartwheeled, backflipped, and strafed side to side madly like a true acrobat and gymnast, narrowly sidestepping the slabs of metal as they whizzed by. Martian Manhunter, likewise, was hovering in the air, fluidly moving and eluded any cards that came by as he did his best to look around and see if he could spot the Organization member from the distance. Still, it was impossible to equivocate them all completely.

"Ow!" yelled the Slayer teen as one card grazed her shoulder, but it left a terrible gash that was quite deep and needed a few stitches immediately. Already, Shannon's left shoulder was starting to smear with an intense red through her blouse. Martian Manhunter himself was now sporting several gashes and deep lacerations throughout his entire body, the magic from the projectiles making it difficult to self-heal. And what made it worse was that Luxord started popping from thin air at various intervals before twirling and hacking away at the two heroes with three of four cards in his hands, expertly twirling them like swords as they whistled through the air. Now with Luxord involving himself in the fray, it got even more dangerous.

J'onn tried to sidestep in the air out of the cards before attempting to punch his enemy, but it was practically impossible. Luxord kept the Martian at bay and out of his reach with the unconventional swordsmanship of his playing cards, and all J'onn got were hacked and severed fingers in return. And Luxord was able to teleport instantly while Martian Manhunter was busying himself in the agony of having the magical blades eviscerating his hands before he then reappeared a safe distance at the Leaguer's back. Before Shannon or J'onn could react, he aimed with his cards, leapt forward…

A red blur, faster than lightning, then passed by in mere fractions of a second.

"Awforme?Youshouldn'thave!Thanksbye!" yelled the figure as it broke the sound barrier, disappearing within a microsecond. And Luxord was now weaponless.

The Organization soldier blinked in stupefied astonishment. He literally had the two cards vanish into thin air from his hands, roughly jerked out before he could even feel the rush of the breeze billowing the folds of his cloak.

And now that the white-haired charlatan was devoid of his cards on hand, Martian Manhunter (upon spotting his foe) took his chance as he bit back the pain and his bleeding lacerations before flying a beeline directly at Luxord with his fists outstretched.

POW!

Aiming it just right, the Justice League founder sent his foe flying backwards into a relatively clear area of the foyer, devoid of anyone else and far apart from the other fracases and battles going on. Nothing but open space and the bare walls. Which was perfect as Beach Head then aimed and fired the special energy net he had in the bazooka (his last one), and with a sizzle of ultraviolet energy and magic, the tarp spread out before encompassing the Gambler of Fate. Snaring the target and burning him upon immediate contact, the trap knocked Luxord off his feet and rendered him helpless on his back, unable to teleport out. But before he could try to summon two cards to cut his way through the net, J'onn and Shannon then swooped down from directly above, each of them impressively carrying a single, giant time card in their hands and wielding them like swords. As Luxord was distracted from the powerful haymaker, both Shannon and J'onn easily snatched a card from their surroundings before taking off with great speed towards the Organization antagonist. As they fell, they both brought the Nobody cards down onto their target with their collective strength.

Chak! Chak!

Luxord screamed, long, hard, and enough to strain his voice box to a distinct numbness as he felt the two heroes firmly stab and gorge the sharp edges of the metal weapons though his right arm, his chest, and his left leg, effectively dissecting him cleanly. And of course, with the slabs of metal embedded into the ground, it was impossible for Luxord to even get up or use his appendages and magic to free himself because the cards were fastening him quite securely.

To Luxord's growing and horrified realization, he was now stuck.

"It appears you yourself must follow your own rules bound by your weapons," intoned J'onn with triumphant anger and coldness as he and Shannon finished pinning their adversary to the floor excruciatingly with the cards. Never mind that their physical contact with Beach Head's energy net caused a few painful burns; this was well worth it. The vampire slayer added some additional insult to the injury as she took out three potions from her pockets, small, cylindrical vials, each so thin and small like test tubes that Shannon could hold all three of them within her fist. With a snarl, Shannon shoved the bottles against Luxord's face, breaking the glass upon contact and making additionally effort to get the shards embedded in the skin and eyes. The soldier from the Thirteenth Order screamed in agony as the magical potions ate away at his aura and head, like acid and fire.

"We're clear, Beach Head," Martian Manhunter intoned to his communicator as he grabbed Shannon and phased themselves through the floor, avoiding what was coming next.

"Now, Privates!" roared Beach Head, alarming Luxord too late as he realized that Trinity and Gambit have been suspiciously absent during this whole debacle. J'onn, Beach Head, and Shannon were so relentless and pressing in their tri-attacks that he easily forgot and failed to anticipate anything else.

It was then that Gambit and Trinity released their secret weapon, a planned teamwork-tactic that took a full month of perfection and planning in various Danger Room sessions for it to fully become what Luxord was about to unluckily be caught with full force.

Operation: Kinetic Wave.

And with Luxord trapped underneath the mystical net pinning him to the floor, there was no way for him to teleport and avoid the attacks that they were about to subject him under. Right as Gambit's eyes, now glowing like two pink supernovas, let loose all the energy he was able to tap into his mind and body thanks to Trinity's implants.

"UURAAAAAAAHHHH!" yelled Remy, jerking his head backwards as he hollered with all of his strength as Daria, Quinn, and Brittany tapped his maximum potential. Within a blink of an eye, Gambit's hands transferred the massive amounts of potential energy in the floor before causing the entire area around them to shimmer with a brilliant pink luster. And at full capacity, the force quickly erupted into a gigantic, oppressive surge of burning light. It was like a sudden wall of energy, rippling through the air and the floor, destructively exploding and sweeping up anything in its path and wake as it tore through the battlefield.

Like a crashing wave of kinetic energy.

Luxord, despite being kindled to a crisp by the energy net trapping him, heard the incoming thundering undulation. He turned and his gray eyes widened in horror as he was suddenly engulfed within the pink illumination, and right before he could curse, he was picked up and whisked away like a piece of driftwood among a violet riptide. And thanks to Gambit and Trinity's attack, the Organization member was being seared, pummeled, and jerked in opposite and multiple directions with enough force to dislocate and break every bone in his body. Unfortunately, due to the close quarters of fighting underground in Shaw Industries, the Kinetic Wave came close to harming a few of the neighboring battles as well. Felicia the Darkstalker and/or Ghostbuster yowled in fright as she had to acrobatically climb up the wall and leap from side to side before holding on with her claws to the metal surface and flattening herself as the energy barreled past her. Green Lantern cursed a foul oath as he saw the incoming surge of pink, the air actually pushing against him forcefully like a hurricane, as it approached himself as well as Colossus and Blob below. Fred and Piotr felt the incoming attack as well, but before they could move, John Stewart, like a true parent, gracefully surrounded the Misfit and X-Man with a green energy orb before hastily transferring them to a safe distance. Dana the vampire slayer didn't know what was coming (she was too busy trying to stab a ferocious wolf the Hellion Tarot summoned with her "Wolf Card") until she saw the Hellion's smug smirk. The scarred paranormal glanced over her shoulder as Tarot nimbly glided out of the way with her Jetpack Card, only to meet the Titans, Mas y Menos, as they barraged her with gas pellets from their glovatrixes.

"Shit!" yelled Dana, cursing as she managed to narrowly dodge the kinetic energy wave as it barreled past her with poor Luxord in tow. Unfortunately, than one moment of trying to avoid danger just made it easier for Tarot to send a Missile Card onto the paranormal and the Teen Titans. And Dana found herself at the mercy of several ballistic payloads homing in towards her person as she ran madly to avoid the rockets.

Just when it didn't seem it would ever end for Luxord, he met a rather abrupt end as the entire kinetic backlash met the far wall, clear from all the other fights going on. And once upon smacking face-first into the reinforced steel with the same force as if running head-on into an incoming jet, the entire Kinetic Wave created one last terrific explosion.

KAAAWHOOOOOMMMM!

"At ease, Privates!" yelled Beach Head as the light subsided, allowing him to quit shielding his eyes and fully analyzed how badly the mutants' attacks affected the soldier from Organization Thirteen. Upon the G.I. Joe Ranger's command, the Triplets and Remy collapsed in exhaustion. Brittany was panting and heaving like a horrible asthmatic, on her hands and knees. Quinn couldn't see straight; her vision was so blurry as her migraine pounded her skull. Gambit was actually the worst of it as he was lying on his side, as weak as a kitten.

"Merde…Remy don't think…he can do that again," gasped and wheezed Gambit as he fought hard to not pass out from unleashing so much energy at once. All that effort to convert the potential to destructive bio-kinetic was far past anything Gambit could do without the telepathic imprints Trinity emboldened him with. But on the bright side, the Kinetic Wave worked very well.

Very, very well.

As Shannon went immediately towards her exhausted friends, Beach Head and Martian Manhunter looked on the extent of the damage. The Kinetic Wave actually left a trail of twisted, burned metal in its path as it set itself upon Luxord, actually creating a medium-sized, charred trench in its wake. It was as if someone took a bulldozer and dug a deep line, helter-skelter, across the entire battlefield. Luxord's form was barely recognizable. Across against the far wall, where bits of metal were liquefied and burnt along the floor and ceiling in patches, the Organization lay unmoving, face-down and smoking wafts of vile smoke amid a gigantic blackened circle. His arms and legs were actually broken in multiple places, jutting out wildly in the air like crooked sticks and twitching ever so slightly. Luxord's back and torso was contorted in proportions that were not physically possible. Both the Justice Leaguer and the G.I. Joe soldier couldn't even see Luxord's face on the account that his entire body was smeared with darkened blood and his cloak were now in tatters, exposing the burns, scars, and bleeding blisters Luxord now has all over his prone form.

But before Martian Manhunter could fly over and examine the corpse, to the alien's surprise, Luxord's body was engulfed in smoke before it vanished entirely. As much as the green-skinned Leaguer would have liked to believe that this meant that Luxord was successfully eliminated, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that this was not the case.

"He's not dead. It still didn't finish him off," J'onn said. Beach Head gave the extraterrestrial a glare from his mask.

"I see even Martians can say what's stupidly obvious," Wayne retorted sarcastically, and for the life of him, J'onn had to fight the tiniest, microscopic urge to punch Beach Head directly in the mouth. When General Hawk said that Beach Head has his good points, he was obviously lying…

Shannon was about to hand over some rejuvenating potions that Willow Rosenberg brewed when regrettably, a black energy disc of bad-luck struck Shannon, Daria, Quinn, and Brittany out of nowhere from behind.

Kashhack!

With a yelp, Shannon, Gambit, and the Delgado Triplets felt the bad-luck surge into their bodies, and unfortunately, it took the magical wards with it. With a flicker and a dying noise, the protection and shielding spells vanished, obliterated into the null. The six heroes then heard Roulette the Hellion voice triumphantly bragging in the distance as the mutant dodged Aqualad's fists (though barely).

"Should have watched your backs, you chumps!"

"Hey!" Daria coughed as she shakily rose to her feet, but Roulette's bad-luck hex had done its work. Willow's spells of protection to shield all four of them from any spells and nasty bodily enchantment, as several of the past battles had shown before, was now completely nullified. Now only Beach Head and Martian Manhunter were the only ones who had the necessary safeguards from Luxord's time spells and cards. Gambit's breathing was now even more alarming, wheezing and shuddering, as he used his staff to prop himself shakily from the floor. J'onn looked on with worry; apparently, the Kinetic Wave took more out of Gambit than he thought, much more so than when he had done it on a smaller scale at the X-Men's Danger Room.

"Oh damn it!" Shannon cursed. If she lived through this, she swore for at least the chance to punch that stupid Hellion in the face for this setback. No potion she had on hand could help fix this; they would actually need to have Willow or the Charmed Ones recreate the mystical screens all over again (Allo was outside trying to maintain the force-field, so he was obviously not an option). Before J'onn or Wayne could gather the kids, three cards flew out of nowhere directly towards the five teenagers, silent, swift, and aimed with lethal precision.

"Duck!" Beach Head and Martian Manhunter cried out in alarm, but thankfully, Shannon, with her Slayer sense, detected the incoming cards, and she immediately shoved and tackled Daria, Quinn, and Brittany out of the way. Thankfully, none of the girls were hurt as the cards flew past them, J'onn, and Beach Head, only to shrink and reappear in Luxord's hands as he teleported in the line of fire. And much to their ire, the Gambler of Fate was completely as good as new. There was not a single trace of his injuries or the ruthless attacks the sextet bombarded him with earlier on his body.

"Don't you ever die?" snarled Beach Head as Gambit let out a scream of frustration from behind the army Ranger. Luxord just ignored Beach Head as he addressed the Cajun X-Man, twirling a card that had red splotches running down one long edge.

"Quite dangerous to play the rush, aren't we, Gambit? Now we're even."

Remy was still hollering heart-wrenchingly, not even acting like he even spotted the enemy from the Thirteenth Order. The other five heroes turned around and saw why.

"Oh God…" Quinn blurted, white in the face and thoroughly repulsed as Remy fell to his knees, screaming and yelling in absolute agony as blood and fluid now poured out of his damaged and lacerated eyes and face. Sadistically, Luxord had effectively blinded Gambit by slicing his corneas and the bridge of his nose when the giant metal card passed by them. Though the weapons missed Shannon and the Delgado Triplets, Luxord had them easily graze past Gambit's body to cause him the gruesome injury, like taking a straight razor to the teenager's eyeballs. And thanks to the mystical wards cast on Gambit being broken, the damage was much more severe than anticipated.

"Tinkerbell, hurry!" cried Brittany, and like an angel, the pixie glowing in yellow dust flew down towards the bloodied face of Remy and gently, after Daria and Quinn had to forcefully pry Gambit's hands from his eyes, touched the bleeding and serrated gash across the X-Man's face. The fairy was stunned with horror at the severity of the cut and the glowing burn marks across Gambit's face. This was a severe wound, and a magical one at that; it would take a while. Meanwhile, Shannon was livid as she aimed with her crossbow directly at Luxord's head. But before she could even pull the trigger, Luxord was quicker. With a snap of his fingers and a puff of white smoke, the Slayer was transformed into a gigantic playing card with the Nobody symbol etched in the back. Since Roulette struck her and the Delgado children, they were no longer shielded. Shannon's panicked voice rang from the flat rectangle.

"Mr. Manhunter, Beach Head, I'm stuck! I can't get out!" yelled the image of the vampire slayer painted on the front-side of the card. Trinity then raised a respective hand towards the Organization member.

"Stopra - !" they began, but with a snap of his fingers, Luxord automatically transformed the Delgado Triplets into cards as well, each one turning into nothing more than a motionless pawn in puffs of white smoke. He was no fool; Luxord remembered perfectly well what happened the last time when he transformed Daria, Quinn, and Brittany as dice back at the siege of the Watchtower. And now the only heroes that weren't rendered immobile were Beach Head, Martian Manhunter, and the blind and severely injured Gambit, the X-Man whimpering in pain as his eyes were still gouged out excruciatingly (with Tinkerbell worriedly healing him as fast as she could).

"You know, technically, we should have tried using our magic first before attending Gambit…" Quinn mused with the usual 20-20 hindsight. Her two sisters were not exactly gracious in their immediate response.

"Oh, shut up."

"And now, it comes down to the final two…" Luxord then confidently and arrogantly highlighted as he reappeared a good distance away in front of them, ambling across the floor like his was taking a jolly walk. His silver eyes were glinting eagerly as he rubbed his goatee with one hand. Yet what made it more intimidating was that five giant cards, all in a straight row, were lined from behind the Organization member, hurriedly alternating between an "X" and an "O character on their shiny white surfaces. Like the movement of a roulette wheel or a slot machine in Las Vegas. Beach Head already hefted the bazooka on his shoulder while J'onn protectively got in front of the wounded Gambit, shielding the teenager like any concerned guardian.

"Stop," commanded Luxord firmly, his voice now having a bit of steel, "Think about it, gentlemen. Can you two do anything more than what you've already tried? As I'm living proof, nothing's worked yet."

"Screw you," Beach Head growled as his aimed with the rocket launcher.

"Now, now, temper, temper…" lectured the suave man, wiggling one forefinger back and forth as if he was admonishing a pupil or a student, "I'm letting you all have one chance to save your little friends. All you have to do is play a little game, Mr. Sneeden."

"We're through with your games," growled the Martian as he was about to fly towards the Organization member, but then Luxord hit a weakness in the Justice Leaguer.

"Attack me, and I shall kill all of the children. And unlike those three demonic pests, you were never blessed with a Keyblade, Mr. J'onzz. So regardless of what you do to me, you could never do anything permanent. I took everything you offered, and I'm still standing with little to show for it. Now tell me, are you willing to risk the lives of the girls and Mr. LeBeau? You do remember the last game they refused to play and its consequences…and it has already started."

J'onn stopped abruptly. He didn't want to chance it, and his telepathy was useless in this battle. But Luxord had a damn good point, and his threat was very real. His red eyes narrowed in calm anger as he slowly asked, "What are the rules?"

Luxord then flung his hand at the towering cards behind him, the countdown of death beginning as the "X" and "O" symbols continued to shift expeditiously. And up above was another ghostly image of a clock face, the ring of Roman numerals from one to thirteen ticking and ringing ominously. And the "XIII" symbol was as crimson as blood.

"A game of chance, then. One player at a time. Get all five of the cards to show 'O's all across the straight, and the spell on your X-Man and precious bitches are nullified as well as I lose a great deal of strength in the backlash. If even one 'X' character is made or if you run out of time when the cards cease their revolutions, the player loses severely, quite possibly enough for death. I doubt the magic protecting you two will manage to hold a second desperation assault."

"That's hardly fair," growled the Martian in anger. The odds were in Luxord's favor…

"Why the hell are you doing this?" Wayne growled poisonously. Any other villain would have killed the four girls outright the moment he or she would have made them helplessly nullified. The goateed man's smirk grew wider, even more suave.

"I like to give my opponents a slim, fighting chance. And now, Mr. Manhunter and Mr. Sneeden, are you in?" Luxord bragged, playing the false sympathy for as much as it was worth. The Army Ranger of G.I. Joe let loose several choice swear words under his breath before he rashly made a decision before his ally from the Justice League could say a word.

"Fine. I'm in first. Play the game," Beach Head growled. J'onn immediately tried to intervene, concerned.

"Beach Head, don't! Let me - " but the Joe Ranger irately cut him off as the cards began to appear and shuffle magically in front of Luxord.

"J'onn, for God's sake, take the hint! If I die, my death will be a lot less worse than yours, and secondly, you can use my turn to get any clues to how the hell this bastard plays! Now shut it!"

Martian Manhunter was so torn between abiding by the Joe's request and ignoring them full-out and risking the card game himself or tackling Luxord despite the consequences. But though his mind was declaring it as asinine and ordering him to just flat out attack Luxord, the extraterrestrial just stood by on the sidelines, remaining solemnly quiet.

"Look closely…" echoed the Gambler of Fate as the five gigantic cards in front of Beach Head and Martian Manhunter began to change and rotate rapidly, exactly like how the symbols would whirl around at a slot machine. And to hammer the point home that Wayne was on a time limit, a ghostly phantom image of a clock face hovered high above for all three of them to see, starting at the 13th mark and working backwards, the numbers turning red with each passing second. Rapidly, the surfaces of each magical obelisk swapped and modified their symbols, hurriedly fluctuating between "O" and "X" symbols, each one holding the odds that would determine Wayne's fate as well as the children's as the seconds passed agonizingly.

Then out of the blue, for reasons he would never recall or explain, Wayne Sneeden of G.I. Joe, extreme hard-ass and "Jerk of the Year", felt himself closing his eyes, not even watching the cards as they began to slow down.

J'onn could honestly say he was never as flabbergasted and stunned in his entire life as he was in that one moment as he could actually feel his jaw unhinge and drop in shock and surprise at the G.I. Joe soldier. He couldn't help but blurt out, half-angry, half-frantic, "What are you - ?"

"Shut it," hissed Beach Head, and he was so forceful, holding up a hand to indicate to the Justice Leaguer that he needed to listen, that even J'onn felt his words of protest die in his throat.

Ten seconds…

Martian Manhunter's hand tightened into a tense fist. This was insane. Absolutely, completely, over-the-top, insane to the level where not even Trinity of the Misfits would be that stupid to try. By the Red Planet, this was a level of insanity reserved for the Joker.

Beach Head's heart was hammering like thunder in his ribcage, his eyes still closed and his face hidden behind the green ski mask.

The "VIII" symbol just finished turning red on the clock face…

Luxord smirked, almost disdainfully scoffing, as his gray eyes glittered with anticipation upon seeing Beach Head forfeit his life and safety. And J'onn was still struggling to wrap his mind about what to do, whether to watch out for Beach Head or to concern himself over the kids. The loss of any of his allies was not even an option, but at this point, it was pretty much lose-lose.

Beach Head still remained still, head down, eyes closed, his heart rate slowly precariously like a proverbial dead man.

J'onn was on the brink between attacking Luxord and risking his life as opposed to Beach Head risking his own as the "V" mark transformed its hue…

Screw humoring Beach Head. There was still a slim chance he could grab all of them and fly out of bounds and out of Luxord's sight before the time magic could kick in. No, perhaps attacking him directly and distracting the Thirteenth Order soldier enough for Beach Head to run was the better option…

As if Beach Head could read the Martian's mind, Beach Head loudly enough for J'onn to hear over Gambit's whimpers, "If I don't make it, get the Cajun and the girls out of danger. That's an order."

"Not under your rank," growled J'onn, now willing to disobey. Beach Head hissed one word so softly, J'onn barely was able to discern it amid the chaos and battle sounds ravaging all around them.

"Please…"

J'onn blinked.

Luxord chuckled, so anxious and elatedly craving Beach Head's imminent defeat.

Two seconds…

Beach Head then felt it.

He knew. He just knew…deep within.

"Stop," Beach Head said, bluntly and without emotion. There was a faint gleam of green light as the time magic heard Beach Head's request and immediately halted the turnings of the Nobody cards. And to Luxord's outrage and J'onn's astonishment, all five of the cards showed a line of straight "O" characters. No "X" symbols anywhere. The Justice League founder's jaw dropped wide open in amazement (though it was nowhere as close to Luxord's).

"I win," growled Beach Head, and though he had no idea why or how it was possible he knew exactly what to do, all five of the giant cards magically shuffled and shrank in size until they reappeared into the palm of Wayne's hand, almost as if the army ranger summoned them to his will. With a growl, Wayne simply tossed the cards back in a manner worthy of Gambit, and all five of them grew exponentially in size and deadly sharpness before they tore through the air and struck the white-haired, goateed man in quick succession, invoking a painful grunt of anguish as they cut him to pieces. And thankfully, it was exactly what the group needed as Gambit was now fully healed thanks to Tinkerbell and the spell turning Shannon and Trinity into cards and dice faded, reverting the four girls back to their normal forms. Beach Head beating Luxord's own game broke the enchantment.

"You're dead, homme!" snarled an inflamed Gambit as he let loose an entire pack of playing cards in quick succession, now fully inflamed and angry, wanting to deliver payback as fifty-two cards all swirled out in a wide spray and causing a series of inescapable explosions on the poor Organization member. This allowed Shannon and Trinity to leap into the fray with their respective crossbow and Trichrona Keyblades, doing their best to bash the evasive opponent's head in, and Remy joined in the fray, leaping high above with his staff over his head for a finishing blow.

"Die, you son of a bitch!" roared Shannon as she hurled another destabilizing potion bottle as Trinity flanked her.

J'onn meanwhile was still staring at the G.I. Joe soldier with something skin to disbelief, a rare look for the Justice League founder.

"How did you…?" trailed off Martian Manhunter. By the red planet, the odds were theoretically against Beach Head, and his mind couldn't comprehend how the Joe soldier could beat the probabilities and take such a huge risk without hesitation! No matter how intelligent he was, J'onn could see that humans could never fail to astonish him. Beach Head looked like he was going to keep quiet until he then quietly admitted to the Martian.

"I took Wavedancer's advice about listening your heart…something just told me when it was the right moment," he muttered with embarrassment. J'onn at last smiled; Beach Head had a soft, sensitive side after all. Wayne caught the look J'onn was giving him out of the corner of his eyes.

"If you tell anyone I said that…" the Joe threatened.

"My lips are sealed."

With that, the extraterrestrial and the human charged, joining the fray with Shannon, Gambit, and Trinity against the weakened Luxord, bazooka and fists ready.

Before this forgone conclusion, Jetstream the Hellion was doing his best to play the old game of strike-and-flee on various members of the congregated group of heroes. He may have missed a few such as the Joe Low Light and the Shaman Yoh, but he was still relentless in his pursuit. And he actually managed to wing a few of the heroes. Already, Xi didn't see the Hellion until it was too late to evade the Moroccan mutant completely, and the lizard Misfit got badly clipped from behind, sending him sprawling with a badly bleeding and singed spot on his back. Hawkgirl from the Justice League did a sudden swoop-and-circle high-dive move as he sensed the insane Hellion approaching her, barreling past as a javelin of heat and energy by several feet and much too fast for Shayera to even retaliate, which was fortunate considering that Luthor and Emma informed what Hawkgirl's mace could do to his electrical, cybertronic body. Rio of the Shamans with his spirit, Tokageroh, were less lucky as they were about to perform their spirit attack, already airborne for an aerial assault towards the ground. Even with an attempt to block with his sword, Jetstream's momentum sent him flying into the nearest wall despite the guard.

"You creep!" yelled Willow Rosenberg as she sent a magical missile directly at the mutant teenager, but to the redhead's irritation, he was practically gone in a blink of an eye, his momentum making him too fast and quick to be an easy target. It was mere child's play to evade the magical spell, and though annoyed, Willow immediately flew over to heal Rio with her magic while Kennedy, Roadblock and Casey offered cover.

Storm was Jetstream's next target, and the X-Woman was so busy summoning a hailstorm on Axel, trying a find a way to aid Shipwreck and Jean Grey in their fight against the fire-wielder, she was completely caught off-guard when Haroun struck her.

Storm could only cry out in agony as the force of the Hellion ramming into her sent her colliding directly into the nearest wall, left-shoulder and thigh first. Her body made a sickening thud upon impact, and though it was hard enough to cause her shoulder to dislocate, her back to wrench excruciatingly, and blood to run down her bruised face, miraculously, Storm was still conscious. At the very least, her spine was still pretty much whole so she could move her body and limbs (thanks the heavens for small favors). Even more fortunate was that Jetstream was clearly not bothering to continuing his assault on Storm as he dashed off, barreling like a rocket, in search of more victims to ram and batter in his crazed "hit-and-run" game.

However, despite her relief, a sharp squeal of fear from Magma the X-Girl made Storm turn towards the noise to see her fellow student hurled high into the air. Thanks to Lexaeus' Ruined Earth spells, he managed to send Amara sky-rocketing high into the air, nearly touching the ceiling…before sending her to a neck-breaking fall to her imminent death.

"No…" rasped Ororo, blood coming out of her mouth as she then weakly raised a twitching hand at the terrified student and invoked all of her strength and concentration she could in creating a controlled tornado underneath Amara's body. She had to do it just right or else it would miss Magma or unintentionally be too powerful and mortally take out any of the allies around her.

To her satisfied cheer, it worked. The invisible tornado was just robust and potent enough to encapsulate Magma's entire body and cradling her, the cyclone managed to slow and decelerate the X-Girl's fall by more than half. And now safe from breaking her neck or back from the drop, Storm managed to manipulate the winds to carefully set Amara back on her feet, leaving Amara stupefied beyond belief at her good fortune (and who could blame her?). Ororo let out a deep sigh of relief at rescuing the New Mutant…until she heard a distress call from Vi and Rona of the vampire slayers as they were fighting against (astoundingly enough) a complete army of diamond clones, all of them psychokinetic copies of Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club.

"Yeow, Storm, we need some help here! There's too many! Ugh!" Vi yelped.

Rona then intoned on the comm-link, "Storm, I got an idea that'll help mow this slut down! Operation: Wind Rider, Beta!"

Glancing back to see that Jetstream was flying too fast for her to catch up with him and that Vi and Rona were in a much more dire predicament, Storm fought the temptation to pursue the Hellion as she flew speedily towards the skirmish where the two Slayers were coming close to getting overrun. Hurriedly gulping down a healing potion provided by Phoebe and Paige Halliwell, Storm flew towards her friends' sides…

Meanwhile, Jetstream was still wilding coasting in the air above the various battles, eager to hone in on more victims. Thankfully, before the mutant could decide to ram himself into Hawkgirl of the Justice League, one of the heroes managed to follow her modus operandi as she plummeted downwards sharply and rammed both of her energy stingers right in between the mutant's shoulder blades.

"Gotcha, jerkface!" yelled Bumblebee the Titan as she successfully charged her weapons at full intensity into the Hellion's body, using her wings to propel herself as hard as she could as leverage to force Jetstream downwards from the pressure bearing down on his back. She was satisfied upon seeing the burning and hissing of the energy channeling throughout the Hellion's body at enough levels to knock out a bull-elephant, and hopefully, this would be enough to knock out the Moroccan teen for a good while…

The mutant then sneered, realizing what had just pounced on top of his person before, despite the ochre energy from Bumblebee's stingers traversing through his body. Oh, this was going to be sweet payback…

"What the hell?" gasped Karen before Haroun then twisted over so that he was facing her before increasing the momentum in his hands with enough thermal energy to deliver a rather painful and gut-churning blow to the Titan's stomach. Karen was instantly left winded as the blow to her gut made her almost black out for a moment as she plummeted from the air, holding her mid-section in pain as there was now an ugly and large smoking, charred circle in her abdomen, sporting a vicious third degree burn glistening with blood and fluid. Even though the contact with the Hellion's fist was only a second or two, it was as painful as if someone combined a blowtorch and a bowling ball before shooting it directly at the female metahuman with a cannon. Like a piece of paper lost in the wind, Bumblebee flittered weakly and erratically like a dying insect.

"Unlike you, I actually learned from our last battles with Trigon…" bragged Haroun as he then dove downwards the barely conscious Titan East leader as she fell, ready to pound her flat into nothing more than a bloody smear. Barreling at this speed, the Titan East member would have easily had a majority of her spinal cord and bones snapped like twigs upon collision. But then at the last minute, Starfire then came to her fellow Titan's rescue as a sudden green energy-ball struck Jetstream's back so hard that his trajectory veered violently to the left, away from the injured Bumblebee.

"You shall not hurt my friends any longer, you vandgap cellkarnip!" Starfire yelled with rage, her emerald eyes glowing hotly in anger, as she flew down, throwing a barrage of green-colored star-bolts, each one capable of melting reinforced steel within mere seconds. And her starbolts were far more powerful than Karen's stingers when she really concentrated. Despite the blow to his back, Jetstream just silently bore the pain as he flew away from the Titan's relentless assault, the emerald projectiles actually mere inches away from hitting his body. And thanks to Starfire's intervention, Karen was able to force her wings to beat as hard as they could to soften her free-fall enough so that she could roll and tumble roughly to the floor upon crashing instead of being flattened like road-kill upon impact. Thankfully, the African American teenager, though bruised and wounded, was still very much alive.

"Damn it!" cursed the mutant student of the Hellfire Club before Jetstream, now livid at being cheated of killing a Teen Titan, then tore directly towards Starfire with fists and cybernetic arms outstretched in front. Like a speeding bullet, Jetstream tore across the air, almost too fast for the human eye to process, as he steered himself for a rather gruesome impact with the alien. There was no way her strength and starbolts could affect him in his powered-up state…

At the last possible second, when the gap between Starfire and Jetstream was so close that Starfire could feel the heat of the energy cocooning the Hellion protectively, Starfire huffed, cocked her fist back…

POW!

Jetstream should have been thankful that the bio-thermal energy created a force-field around his body similar to Cannonball's mutant whenever he used his powers. It was probably the only thing that prevented him from having his head gruesomely detached from his body as Starfire delivered the uppercut directly to his jaw at the last split-second before Jetstream could crash into her. Despite the massive blow, the Moroccan teenager was only flung backwards by several meters before his cybernetic body managed to gain control and enable him to hover awkwardly and shakily in the air, levitating above the chaotic battles down below. Haroun spat out blood as he wrenched his neck back into place, feeling the throbbing pain of having a good portion of his teeth now cracked into useless fragments. Thankfully, it would take more than that to knock someone with his stamina, although he was now thoroughly pissed at the female Tamaranean hovering before him.

"I am stronger than I look," Starfire said with modesty, her arms crossed over her chest as she flew in midair, her eyes narrowed but her face calm and serene, anticipating the next attack from Haroun, her instincts alert. And thankfully, at that point, Bumblebee was already recovered and fully healed thanks to a simple touch from Tinkerbell before she flew upwards towards Jetstream and Starfire, with rage and promises of vengeance in her eyes. Now the odds were two against one, and as just demonstrated, Jetstream couldn't match Starfire equally in terms of strength. So he did what Emma Frost taught him as back-up.

Jetstream wordlessly did an about face and rocketed away from the two Teen Titans, retreating and taking his battles elsewhere.

"Hey, get back here, creep!" yelled Bumblebee before she and Starfire both took off in full pursuit, the two female Titans giving chase to Jetstream in hopes of stopping the mutant before he could cause anymore problems and troubles for their side.

WHAM!

"Kilala!" Sango cried out upon seeing the Hellfire mutant teenager ram himself into her demonic cat-friend, and roaring and spitting like a mad beast, the demonic cat slashed at the mutant with her claws. Amazingly, due to the chemo-thermal energy surrounding him, the blow that should have torn Jetstream in half only gave him a few bruises and an aching shoulder as he dashed off towards Danny Phantom. Danny thankfully managed to ghost himself like Shadowcat, allow Jetstream to fly past and through his body without causing any harm or injury.

Still, Haroun apparently wasn't wasting his time. Not only was his successfully running away and evading both Starfire and Bumblebee, but he was causing a lot of destruction and mayhem in the process, barreling and striking down every hero he could spot. Agent Jay from the Men in Black and/or Ghostbusters was winged ever so slightly, but because of the force and energy in Jetstream's dispatch, his shoulder became dislocated. Agent Jay cried out in excruciating agony as he sank to his knees, his popped shoulder and arm hanging limply like spaghetti. Had Felicia not tackled Bevatron and distracted him from sending an electrical surge at the Man in Black, Jay would have died easily. Supergirl however took the full brunt of Haroun's charge directly in the back between the shoulder blades and the giant Phoenix wings of fire, causing her to have no choice but allow herself to be rudely and forcefully shoved face-first against the nearest metal wall.

Supergirl snarled with outraged as she picked her face out of the deep indentation from where she pressed against the titanium wall (thankful for her invulnerability), "You little - !"

The Hellion sadly darted away as fast as he could before she could even fly up and throttle him, and as much as she wanted to, using her fire vision from the Phoenix Force would have easily killed the mutant (though one could admit that tempting offer was hardly a problem).

"Get back here, you coward!" Bumblebee yelled.

"Stop hurting those not of our fight and face us instead, you gamdhym rektolpaf drog'quicherbard!" Starfire yelled.

"Star, one of these days, just save us the headache and tell us what that term means…"

Bumblebee and Starfire continued their pursuit of the Hellion, and though Starfire could fly at speeds faster than the speed of light, she had to slow down significantly due to being in a closed, underground compartment and to allow Karen to catch up with her. But then a sudden flash of white followed by a painful cry from Green Lantern got the Tamaranean's attention. She gasped before breaking away and flying as speedily as she dared.

"Huh? Star? Where - ?" sputtered Bumblebee as her friend just split up and away from her, flying in the opposite direction. Still bothered, Karen decided to ask questions later as she continued her chase on the Hellfire soldier.

What happened was that Green Lantern of the Justice League was attempting to use his power ring to lasso the Grail from the Talismans of Twilight and steal it from the ring of fire that Axel of Organization Thirteen had created. Lamentably, in the process, the statuette of the female angel sensed the energy surrounding it, and with a backlash of pure light, it broke free of the orb snaring it and severed the connection abruptly with Jon. The sudden radiation along with the severe break in his mental concentration caused a rather painful migraine to the Justice League founder. Unburdened, the statue clattered to the floor, miraculously undamaged without a single chip.

Starfire's green eyes widened. She wasn't the only one who noticed John Stewart's failure. With a swirl of darkness and black magic, a portal opened within a few feet of the shinning statuette of the female angel. The Tamaranean didn't even bother hesitating to see who would step out of the tesseract as she flew, her nerves frantic and pushing herself to the maximum velocity she could ever muster, time slowing down almost like a death toll. After all, if what Leomon said was true, then the Grail was far more important than Jetstream.

The Superior of the Thirteenth Order then stepped out of the doorway through time and space gleefully, his red eyes positively gleaming with anticipation as his hands lunged for the holy relic…

"You shall not have it!" yelled Starfire as she flew at the last instant and grabbed the Chalice away from its position in the air before Xemnas could even come close. Xemnas screamed with cheated outrage as the Titan snatched it out of his fingers, besting him by mere centimeters. Starfire flew away, cradling the white figurine in her arms, as gently as she could and as if she was holding a newborn baby. Surely the Grail of the Talismans would see she meant it no harm or ill-will…

FLASH!

Starfire yelped in surprise, thankfully she wasn't hurt or burned like Selene did when she tried touching the relic. Still however, to her rude awakening, she was shoved forcefully back, a magical aura forcing her to let go and release her hold on the angel statue. It plummeted before it noisily clattered and clanked against the ground, but surprisingly, it remained intact, lying on its side, with not even the slightest scuff mark or crack, despite its tumble. The Superior saw this as a perfect opportunity as he then summoned a portal of darkness faster than Cyclops could run and try to blast him. With a flash of black aura and nothingness, Xemnas teleported directly in front of the Grail.

"Mine!" roared Xemnas as he pounced…right before a familiar blur of blue and red zoomed out of nowhere, faster than a speeding bullet, and solidly rammed Xemnas away from the Chalice, fists first. And due to the excessive force and momentum powerful enough to fly through a solid mountain with ease, the white-haired Nobody had no choice but to submit to the sudden impact, his spinal cord breaking and snapping like a twig.

"I beg to differ…" growled Superman as he successfully and painfully clobbered and shoved the leader of the Thirteenth Order once again from the holy artifact, free and unclaimed. Even though he couldn't touch it, Clark was not going to let the Superior get the Grail either. Realizing that it was best to not leave the figurine in the same place where the Superior could easily return to retrieve it, Starfire did a rather foolish, impulsive move as she gently kicked the white bust with her foot, sending it far into the crowds and various firefights (where it would later be close to where Octavia and the other heroes were fighting the Organization member, Zexion). She may not be able to hold it, but Starfire made sure that Xemnas wouldn't be able to easily find it.

"I'm sorry," the alien naively apologized as the shining figurine went sailing into a graceful arc before she lost sight of it. With that, the Teen Titan immediately soared into the air to rejoin Bumblebee.

At the same time, Jetstream then spotted the Misfit, Toad, who was yelping and trying to avoid Roxas' Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades as the two weapons whizzed vertically through the air and floor like gyrating blades, cutting and eviscerating anything in their path. And due to the distraction, Toad didn't even register that the Hellion was above him. Jetstream grinned maliciously.

And as Emma Frost informed her Hellions: one less Keyblader in this planet was better than ten dead superheroes that had no Keyblade.

With that, he charged downwards, dropping with increasing acceleration, charging up all the energy he had for one, silent, lethal attack that would no doubt crush every bone and internal organ to mush inside Toad's body. Much, much more powerful than the one hit he used to cripple Falco earlier…

"No!" cried out Starfire, guessing what Haroun was plotting to do as she caught up with Karen, her red hair fluttering madly due to her velocity.

"Toad, look out!" cried Bumblebee, her brown eyes wide and one arm outstretched in horror towards the inevitable impact.

"Die, frog!" Jetstream crowed as Toad only had enough time to gasp before attempting to hop out of danger, with the Hellion barreling closer and closer. Just as Starfire was about to chance it and fly at the speed of light to shove Toad out of the way…

WHAM!

Jetstream never knew what hit him. Primarily because Genie power-slammed the gigantic, blue-colored, wooden mallet on top of his body right before the Hellion could ram himself into Toad, thereby protecting his Keyblader and charge. As a result, Jetstream had been stopped cold a few feet away from Toad, smashed against the floor like a fly with a cartoonish, oversized, hammer squishing him against the ground.

"Loser Hellion says what now?" Genie ribbed teasingly, and he smiled a toothy, unashamed grim of playful innocence as he lifted the colossal mallet off the now injured and flattened Jetstream, his cybernetic body badly damaged but still functional and alive. As hard as Genie smacked Jetstream, he was merciful enough to not hit him hard enough to kill the Hellfire mutant. Starfire, Toad, and Bumblebee, despite the seriousness of their situation and the fact that they were amidst a raging war, clapped and laughed heartily.

"Friend Genie, that was most excellent timing!" Starfire giggled.

"Genie, yo, you're the coolest Genie ever!" Toad cheered, hopping up and down.

"Will you quit screwin' around and fight, wart farm?" Wolverine yelled, sparing a spare second or two as he hurriedly attempted to barrage Roxas with his claws, "We need another Keyblade here!"

"C'mon, Toad Boy, leave the roadkill for the ladies to finish off," Genie declared as he winked at Starfire and Bumblebee before protectively wrapping an arm around Toad's waist before flying into the fracas where Black Widow, Wolverine, Bambi the Disney deer, and Xi were battling their hardest against Roxas.

"Star, while he's down!" Karen yelled as she powered up her yellow stingers, and Starfire didn't need to be told twice as her hands began to glow in ultraviolet radiation. Without hesitation, both Teen Titans let loose, with the yellow energy crackling and snaking like electricity around the wide beam of green sun-radiation Starfire was generating as one, continuous pulse, both attacks merging marvelously in unison. Injured and with some parts of his robotic body badly damaged, Haroun then decided to activate the little fail safe spell Selene the Black Queen enhanced him with. And with the simple click of a button on the console built in his wrist-comm…

Kashhhoooommm!

Both Bumblebee and Starfire's attacks completely engulfed Jetstream entirely, the mutant's body hidden underneath the wide beam of yellow and emerald. For ten prolonged, apprehensive, edgy seconds, both of the Teen Titans kept up their attack, pulse after pulse of energy cascading down and hammering the Hellfire soldier to the floor. The marble turned black and cracked instantly while a ring of molten titanium and steel was slowly pooling all around Jetstream's prone form.

So imagine their complete astonishment when despite the force of their energy attacks pressing down on him, Jetstream managed to stand back on his two feet. Starfire gasped while Bumblebee was floored. And with a gleam in his eyes, all the green starbolts and electric stingers began to whirlpool before simmering straight into Jetstream's body, fading into nothing. And if anything, the chemo-thermal energy shield around the mutant's body was illuminating brighter and brighter.

Bumblebee's eyes widened. What was going on? This combined attack was enough to take out and melt a Sentinel robot! So why wasn't it hurting Jetstream? From the way he was smirking and the fact that all that energy they were throwing at him seemed to disappear into thin air the moment it came in contact with him…

It then hit Karen as she called out to her fellow Teen Titan.

"Stop Starfire!" warned Karen as she roughly grabbed the Tamaranean's arm before she could toss another volley of starbolts, "It'll just make him stronger! He'll just absorb whatever energy you throw at him! That's how come none of our attacks are having any effect, why it's just fading into thin air! Jetstream's absorbing all our energy attacks somehow! He's in leech-mode now!"

"But then what are we to do? Perhaps there is a way we can contain him? And LOOK OUT!" the red-haired extraterrestrial asked before they instantly side-dashed away in the air, avoiding the barreling Hellion as he tried to ram them with his powers at insane speeds, strafing barely just in time. And what made the situation even graver was the fact that the mutant Hellion was now brilliantly blazing like a supernova, due to all the energy he absorbed from Starfire and Bumblebee. It was a good indication to correlate that Jetstream's powers were also magnified due to the power-up, far more than they could handle. Instinctively, Bumblebee wanted to automatically chase him down, but she forced herself to think.

They needed to fight smarter, not harder.

Problem was, when dealing with an opponent who could absorb energy attacks, the options were really limited to: pumping him full of energy until he overloaded (too risky), waiting and see if he burned himself out in post-rush (also risky because waiting would enable Jetstream to hurt their friends in the process), or get someone of similar absorption or draining powers to battle with (not an option since Rogue was back at the X-Mansion, didn't have her heart sealed like the other present X-Men, and none of their other current allies had such abilities).

So if energy attacks were out of the question, they needed something to help them physically deal with him without being burned by all that energy he was storing…

"Now whatever shall we do?" Starfire asked.

Both Bumblebee and Starfire then yelled in surprise as a sudden gust of wind that was powerful enough to reach hurricane levels engulfed the area all around them before Xaldin, in his fights with Green Lantern and Cover Girl, tore open a portion of the roof with his magic. As the winds subsided (and Starfire and Bumblebee had to dodge to avoid a flying Colossus who was yanked upwards into the open night skies above), Bumblebee then spotted several chains from the broken debris of what remained of the ceiling.

"Star, I got an idea!"

Meanwhile, Leomon was the next victim to unluckily catch the full brunt of a magically and energy-enhanced Jetstream as the mutant managed to catch him from below at a forty-five degree ascending trajectory. The Priest of Twilight was narrowly blocking spears that were sent his face via Xaldin when Jetstream caught him with full intensity in the stomach. In fact, it was such an abrupt and intense force that it left Leomon winded as he dropped his Lionheart Blade, having the sword clatter to the floor below as Jetstream rammed the Digimon cruelly against the wall.

"Leomon!" yelled Adam Bomb (the Monster Fighter) helplessly from below.

"AAAHHHH!" Leomon roared, his voice bellowing and raw before choking with the sound of blood filling up his windpipe as the energy from Jetstream seared into him and the augmented force from his mutant powers was threatening to gorge through his midsection. And since Green Lantern was the only one in their group who could fly, none of the others could help the lion humanoid from being ripped apart.

But then again, they didn't need to. Grinding his teeth together, Leomon surprised Haroun completely as the lion warrior grabbed the Hellion around the waist with both paws, not caring if the thermal energy was searing his fur and skin. With a grunt, Leomon hurled Jetstream high into the air, and now with nothing to press against, Jetstream veered and barreled wildly away from the Digimon as he was shoved and deflected.

Right into the path of a waiting Starfire with two long sets of industrial-strength steel chains in her hands. With a ferocious snarl, Starfire surged forward and instantly trussed and wrapped the chains around Jetstream's neck and body, her hands mere blurs. Jetstream, already confused from having Leomon tossing him aside, choked as the rings of metal squeezed and tightened around his neck. He tried to rocket out and sunfish, but the Tamaranean had a grip of iron as she straddled the mutant with her legs, effectively tying and binding the chains around his arms, waist, and legs. Starfire was many, many times stronger than Jetstream was, even in his powered-up state. Despite the third degree burns already popping on Starfire's body due to contact with the energy field surrounding Jetstream's body, she managed to cocoon the Hellion thoroughly with the iron chains. All that were left were two long strands of linked metal dangling out of the web of tightly meshed steel and rusted iron. Releasing the captured mutant, Starfire grabbed hold of one of the chains while tossing the other loose set to a nearby Bumblebee who caught it immediately with both hands. Now Jetstream was tightly restrained and manacled, unable to fly away now that he was securely tethered by the two female Teen Titans. And thanks to using one of the magical heat-resistant potions Paige Halliwell gave her, Bumblebee was able to douse the fetters with the magical liquid so that Jetstream couldn't melt and burn his way out of them. And between Starfire's strength and Bumblebee, there was no way he could escape when the two had him secure…

Jetstream then twirled his body around and around, spinning like a top and in the counter-clockwise position, being a mere blur and slightly sucking in the air all around him like a miniature tornado. And unfortunately, the momentum from the revolutions yanked hand on the chains…and Bumblebee and Starfire who were tightly holding on to them. Taken by completely surprise (and the fact that they looped the chains securely around their hands and wrists for better leverage), Starfire and Bumblebee did their best to pull back but the pull from Jetstream's mutant power was too strong. Jerked so suddenly from the winding of the chains, hard enough to feel as if their arms were being torn off their sockets, both of the Titans were reeled inwards and collided solidly with Haroun's glowing body. And thanks to the centrifugal forces, Karen and Starfire were both winded and stuck to the Hellion.

And as if the thermal energy searing their skin wasn't bad enough, Haroun then activated the hidden addition to his body given by Pierce of the Hellfire Club…

BRRRZZZZZTTTTTTT!

Jetstream had to admit that the screams of pain from both Bumblebee and Starfire as they were both blitzed by enough electricity to make being struck by lightning a tame comparison were highly pleasurable and compelling. And he also had to scoff; these were the Titans that managed to beat and banish Trigon the Terrible?

Pathetic. And further proof why the Hellfire Club was so much stronger.

And feeling now that he proved his point, Jetstream began to spin like a top once again, but this time, was rotating in the opposite, clockwise direction. And thanks to Newton's Third Law of Physics and Inertia, the sudden centripedal force in the reverse sent both of the female heroes flying away from the Hellion, still too numb from the painful energy to try to prevent themselves from hurling against the floor and the nearest wall. Or in Starfire's case, colliding directly into Low Light and Yoh the Shaman King with bone-breaking impact as she solidly thumped right into them before they could launch themselves at the Superior, effectively and inadvertently ruining the moment of the combat. Bumblebee was unluckily sent crashing back-first into the nearest wall.

A white good-luck hexbolt from Roulette down below instantly struck Jetstream before the iron, rusted chains around him fell away and disentangled themselves like limp spaghetti. Emma Frost trained the Hellions well in teamwork and looking out for each other as much as the Keybladers and the heroes did. Now eager for some revenge, the mutant teenager turned his evil eye toward a bruised Bumblebee who was still hovering against the wall, aching and having trouble getting her breath back.

But the Titan East's breath got back in a hurry as she noticed that Jetstream was leering at her. And not in a good way either. But before she could try to fly away, something caught the corner of her eye to the left, and Karen turned to see the red, white, and blue shield of Captain America, lightly embedded in the wall. It must have gotten stuck there amid the chaos and brawling Steve Rogers was having with his assigned battle. And since Karen's stingers would just be absorbed by the Hellion and she had no other weapons to defend herself with…

Bumblebee tore through the air, beating her insect wings as hard as she could, reaching straight for the indestructible shield. To her credit, Bumblebee was quite fast, she was only within two or three feet of the metal disc before Jetstream slammed into her. Illuminating like a supernova of heat and flames, Haroun was pushing and trying to flatten Bumblebee against the steel wall. Bumblebee winced in pain at her skin being blistered around her wrists where the Hellion was grappling her, and the rocketing forces made it feel to the Titan as if a car was slowly trying to crush her ribcage and midsection.

"You think that old relic of a jarheaded geezer's going to help you?" sneered the Hellfire soldier as he continued to press and burn Bumblebee, with the African-American girl doing her best to not scream in pain. It would be over in a few minutes…

And then Jetstream was forcefully yanked backwards off Bumbleebee, hard enough to even counter the gravitational forces that were propelling the mutant like a rocket.

Jetstream made a very painful gurgling noise as Starfire (recovering quickly from the electrical shock and crash-landing on the floor) effectively grappled his arms and legs uselessly, using all of her strength to counter against the Hellion's in order to stop him from crushing Bumblebee. Grabbing his wrists with both hands and straddling and locking her legs around his, Starfire effectively held him in place, doing her best to make sure the Hellion couldn't escape out of her grip.

This was exactly the moment Karen needed as she lunged for Captain America's shield and wrenched it free from its position in the wall with all of her strength, feeling a few muscles snap from the sudden act. And without further ado, Bumblebee grasped the vibranium disc with both hands before she smartly bashed the flat weapon directly into Haroun's face with a mighty, upwards swing.

WHAM!

It did the trick. Jetstream's head cracked back, a thin stream of blood flying in an arc upwards as his jaw was dislocated upon contact with the Avenger's shield. And thanks to the force of the shield and Starfire's heavy body, Jetstream fell backwards with Starfire still latched on to him. And with inspiration hitting her, Starfire actually used her body and powers of flight to force Jetstream to crash to the ground, dragging the Hellion so that he landed on the metal floor with a resounding smash. Face-first.

Still dazed from the hit and seeing flashes of light and blurry images dance before his eyes, Jetstream then felt himself being dragged off his face-plant on the floor and (with Starfire still piggybacking him from behind) turned around so he was facing upwards towards the ceiling. And the fast-approaching Bumblebee who has Cap's shield raised above her head, ready to deliver a swift smash on Jetstream's face upon landing.

Since he couldn't break out of Starfire's superhuman grip and defend himself, the Hellfire teenager did the next best thing. He activated his powers and began rocketing horizontally across the ground and floor, with Starfire still latched behind him. Karen missed at the last second, for when she brought down the shield, she only hit the floor and Jetstream got away in the nick of time with Starfire still in tow.

Imagine being dragged behind a speeding car and scrapping and scuffing against the gravel road at high speeds. Imagine how much skin you'd lose in the process and how badly your flesh being chiseled and rubbed raw would sting like thousands of red-hot needles.

That was exactly how Starfire felt as she was being subjected to high speeds and enough friction and heat to cause her skin to fall off, blister, and pop like wet clay. Her back was already bleeding heavily, leaving a wet, smeared trail in her path as she tried to force Jetstream to stop by bear-hugging him from behind (with Bumblebee flying after them with the vibranium shield).

Jetstream had to admit that Starfire was tenacious; the female Teen Titan still wouldn't release her death grip on his back despite being grated and skinned alive. Which was why Jetstream made sure to aim directly for the nearest steel wall, and Starfire too late realize that her head was protruding outwards farther than Haroun's…

WHAM!

A normal human would have died upon impact due to a broken neck and fractured skull. In Starfire's case, thankfully (and hilariously if you had an odd sense of humor), her entire head was stuck and embedded in the wall. Stuck and like how an ostrich buries its head in the sand when there was danger approaching, Starfire fought to extract her head and face out of the steel and titanium muffling her face. Jetstream, now free once again, barreled towards the approaching Bumblebee with fists outstretched.

Pow!

The sudden impact was so great that Karen had no choice but to let the shield go flying out of her numb and bruised fingers (she was hoping they weren't broken). Cap's shield of red, white, and blue clattered above Jetstream's head, soaring behind him in a high, pop-fly arc, and clattering to the floor down below. Now Bumblebee was weaponless, and she heard Robin the Teen Titan's voice ringing a distress call on her communicator.

"Code Red! Code Red! Need assistance, stat!" Robin yelled as he, Ace Starr, and Kurama narrowly avoided a raging tidal wave of rock from Lexaeus, clearly being overwhelmed as everything they tried wasn't knocking him down in the slightest. Karen automatically disregarded it; she couldn't help even if she wanted to, and hopefully, one of the other remaining heroes would hear the S.O.S. on their respective communicator and pitch in. But it wasn't the time to ponder that as Jetstream was now expertly delivering an array of punches, wild and swinging and completely glowing in energy. Hovering in midair with his powers, the Hellion set himself brawling and flailing madly upon Bumblebee, the momentum in each punch magnified in force by more then ten fold. Remembering how painful it was when Jetstream punched her the first time, Bumblebee did her best to dodge, parry, and circumvent each strike, utilizing all her martial arts training. But she couldn't get past the thermal energy now cloaking his entire body, hot as a furnace, and making it difficult for the African-American girl to even touch her adversary.

"You're dead, Titan!" snarled the Hellfire mutant as he continued to assault Bumblebee, with the girl narrowly trying to fly out of the way. But as he tried to tail after the retreating Titan, there was another Teen Titan he momentarily forgot in his zeal to kill Karen…

"Charging Star!" yelled Starfire, her eyes glowing hotly with righteous anger as she, the shield, and her momentum made full contact head-on with Jetstream in a effective blindside. With the shield of Captain America she snatched up from the floor as she zoomed towards her enemy.

FFFWWWHHHAAAMMMM!

Bumbleebee could actually feel the vibrations vibrating throughout the air all around her due to the T-boning. Starfire herself had her hands turn completely numb from the impact and she had to shake one of her fists to lessen the pain of the force from Cap's shield thanks to the impact. And Jetstream actually felt his cybernetic body, despite being built with unbreakable alloys and metals close to adamantium durability, bent at an odd forty-five degree angle as he was rammed so hard, he plummeted down to the ground in a spectacular collision. With a crash and several tumbles and a trail of twisted metal in his wake, Haroun was left twitching, his back contorted in several places, making him appearing like a crooked line of twisted metal. Leaving a panting and red-faced Starfire gingerly holding the vibranium shield of Captain America, a bit worried that she damaged it when she torpedoed the Hellfire soldier.

Although Starfire has to marvel on the shield's durability; not even the slightest scuff mark, dent, or…

"Moon shine down!" yelled a deep and powerful voice that did not sound quite human, and as Bumblebee flew down with stingers in hand to check over Jetstream's damaged body, Starfire looked up and gasped.

Captain America, leader of the Avengers, was busy fighting for his life against the Organization member Saïx, leaping, bouncing, and dodging with an agility Olympic gymnasts would actually kill for. Weaponless and resorting to using punches, kicks, and evasive maneuvers, Steve was actually trying to pummel the blue-haired soldier in the black cloak. But now, Saïx was hitting the ground with his sword, causing massive explosions of white moonlight and energy to thunder down and traverse through the floor like pools of water. Avalanche of the Misfits, Spirit of G.I. Joe, Hawkgirl and Simba the Disney lion were already sent flying and rendered unconscious and heavily injured from the pulsating backlashes, but Saïx was persistently singling out Captain America as he chased him and tried to cleave the Avenger in half with his blade. Steve was actually looking worried, and airborne attacks from Raven of the Teen Titans and Hiei of the Spirit Detectives were not slowing the Thirteenth Order member in the slightest.

With only his bare hands as weapons against Saïx's sword strikes and burst of searing energy, it was clear that Cap wouldn't last much longer without some sort of help.

Starfire immediately knew what to do.

"Captain!" yelled Starfire strongly before she arched her arm back behind her head and carefully tossed the red, white, and blue shield like a discus, flinging it with a snap directly at the back of Saïx's head and around Steve's general vicinity. The Organization swordsman with the silver mane heard the Titan's cry, and immediately, after sending a pulse of moonlight on the floor to send the Avenger flying, he swiveled around smoothly before hefting his shining Claymore with both hands, ready to send the shield directly back at Starfire like a baseball player at bat. But thinking quickly, Steve launched himself forward and used Saïx's back as a stepping stone, making sure to push hard against the swordman's body as he jumped high into the air. The effect was instantaneous as the scarred soldier from the Thirteenth Order had his back telescope and bend downwards unbearably, nearly breaking from the misalignment of the Avenger jumping off his body. With a gymnastic flip, Captain America managed to meet the incoming trajectory of his cherished shield and deftly caught it with one hand before somersaulting down and landing like a cat on his feet. Not waiting for any thanks, the orange-skinned alien flew forward to help Bumblebee with her efforts as Karen was hesitantly staring down at the prone and twitching form of Jetstream down below, her stingers at ready.

Starfire flew in before Jetstream weakly managed to twist his body on his hands and knees, blood dribbling out of his mouth, rasping and gasping like a bad asthmatic, "Can't…breathe…you…collapsed…lung…"

Starfire's eyes widened; she didn't want to kill Jetstream, only wound him and stop him from hurting Bumblebee. And technically, she didn't have the heart to just stand by and let him die. Without a second thought, she swooped down towards the ground, taking out a healing concoction brewed to her by Zatanna of the Justice League.

"Star, no! Stop!" Bumblebee cried out, but the female extraterrestrial paid no heed, only feeling guilt and concern, as she flew down and landed next to the Hellion, kneeling down next to Haroun.

"I am sorry! I did not mean to! I can help you - !" but that was all Starfire was able to say as the teenager's face did an abrupt turn of face before the mutant soldier jammed his arms upwards into the Titan's bosom.

Spuck!

Karen felt the entire world around her stop the moment she spotted the geysers of blood gushing out of Starfire's chest. Starfire's eyes went wide, her pupils dilating with shock and agony, as Jetstream used the momentum and propulsion of his cybernetic arms to ram the sharpened adamantium blades he brought out of his cybernetic wrist compartments to puncture and gorge the Tamaranean right into the heart. A sure kill.

The Moroccan mutant sneered, dropping the act immediately with great sadistic and pompous apathy, "Slade always said compassion was your weakness."

Starfire couldn't answer, her mind still reeling with how foolish she was to fall for such a simple trick and how much agony and suffering she was enduring right now as Jetstream cruelly rammed the knife blades deeper and deeper into Starfire's body. One thin river of blood and saliva trickled out of her mouth as her strength was leaving her, bit by bit, her limbs feeling numb and threatening to slide into rigor mortis as her purple uniform was beginning to stain into a dark red.

With a faint gurgle, she toppled over backwards, landing heavily on the ground, blood starting to pool out of her chest and her eyes glazed and turning glassy slowly by the second. Starfire just lay on the cold floor, dying while a triumphant Jetstream stood over her, smirking and sheathing the adamantium blades back into his wrists in a manner similar to Wolverine.

He apparently had no remorse for what he did to the Tamaranean.

Bumblebee head swam slightly with shock before she saw absolute red, screaming loudly enough to feel like she was coughing up bile. Oddly enough, her ears were ringing so loudly with the jolt that she couldn't hear herself or any of the battles going on around her. All the Teen Titan could focus on was on the Hellion and Starfire.

"You two-faced - !" Karen shrieked, livid beyond belief and comprehension, before she let loose a string of curses that probably would be better not in printed format and lunged forward with her fists ready. Still, if she could throw a smoke bomb, perhaps, and in the confusion, drag Starfire away and use one of her remaining healing potions on her before Jetstream could stop them…

Jetstream then suddenly once again rammed himself into Bumblebee before she could blink (damn, Karen forgot how fast he could be at full-throttle). Her breath was literally punched out of her gut in a rush, leaving her stunned as the Hellfire foot-solder snarled with mockery, "You think I'm just gonna stand by and let you have a chance to help that alien bitch?"

With that, and ready to pile drive her into mush, the Hellion took his cargo and aimed with full speed towards the nearest wall…

At the same time, Starfire was slowly dying, twitching down on the floor, and without any sign of Tinkerbell anywhere nearby to rejuvenate her. Even with her extraterrestrial physiology, no living being could survive being stabbed dead-center in the heart with adamantium. Her vision was clouding ominously, the searing wound in her body now settling to a faint, cold, numbness, the pool of lost blood around her body now as wide as a manhole cover.

And to make it even more tragic, the Tamaranean's last thoughts were not on herself, but on her fellow Titans, Raven, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, oh by the mother planet, strong, determined, Robin, her most treasured of friends…

She would most likely never see them again.

Oh dear friends, thought Starfire to herself as her eyes fluttered shut (despite her best efforts to stay awake), turning darker and darker, I am so…

But Starfire did not even have the moment to finish that reflection of regret as she then grew to realize that she felt pleasantly warm, almost instantly soothing her wounds and erasing the pain. It felt so wonderful, like being bathed in a warm springs of the planet Yralzeth, easing her limbs. A bit puzzled, Starfire opened her eyes, clearing her head and her eyesight before she realized that she was being bathed in a halo, celestial pillar of yellow light, covered with a veil of…flower petals and leaves?

This definitely wasn't Tinkerbell, but…

"Second request: Code Red! Code Red! We need assistance!" yelled Robin on his communicator as Rapunzel used her hair to drag herself and Wildstar out of danger from a Ruined Earth attack, only to be thrown violently into the air by another earthquake. Bumblebee didn't even hear the S.O.S as she was too busy trying to endure the pain of being subdued to gravitational forces at deadly velocities.

Feeling the approaching wall Jetstream was steering her towards, closer and closer, Bumblebee managed to weakly take out a smoke pellet from her utility belt before slamming it hard on Haroun's skull. Upon breaking, a giant plume of noxious and thick, black smoke engulfed both the Titan and the Hellion. Coughing and sputtering, Jetstream still steered himself into the wall, but Bumblebee wisely used this little distraction to shrink herself out of Jetstream's grasp before he could realize what was happening.

WHAM!

The Moroccan teenager hit the wall with bone-breaking impact, the heat force-field melting the titanium and steel slightly from the energy pouring out of his hands. But no Bumblebee, and thanks to the smoke-screen clouding his vision and covering a good area all around his person…

"Damn it!" cursed Jetstream before he began spinning like a top once again in the clockwise direction at top-speeds, creating a miniature cyclone that instantly blew the smoke away from him, forcing it to dissipate into thin air and dissolve. Jetstream looked carefully all around him, trying to spot the Teen Titan's hiding spot, unwilling to let his pride down and let her escape.

"Where's that friggin' Titan whore?" Jetstream cursed to himself.

Had he looked closely underneath his feet, he would have noticed that a shrunken Bumblebee, no smaller than a housefly, was eagerly buzzing her way past the heat shield and into a small crack that the Hellion maintained during his earlier pummeling. Despite the magical potion she chugged down to enhance her defense and resilience, Karen still had several serious burns as she buzzed past the layers of heat surrounding her adversary. It was then the Bumblebee's luck blossomed; she spotted a deep and relatively giant crack in Jetstream's robotic leg, near the knee, and taking her chance, she half flew, half crawled into the inner mechanisms inside Jetstream's body.

Once inside, Bumblebee was subjected to a monstrous maze of caverns, pipes, and advanced circuitry that would give any technology from Stark Enterprises or Star Laboratories a run for their money. Instantly drawing out her energy stingers, Bumblebee flew as fast as she could, intent on doing damage from the inside like a gremlin or the proverbial wrench in the monkey-works.

"C'mon, something's got to be the key CPU unit in this jackass' circuitry…" the diminutive Titan muttered under her breath, her wings making deep and thrumming echoes throughout the abyss of the empty metal channels and circuitry as she flew around in straight lines, searching and straining hard.

Unfortunately…

Jetstream then realized what was happening as the sensors and internal motherboard systems inside his bionic parts began to send signals and alarms, beeping madly through the computerized monitor on his left arm, and looking down, he saw that Pierce's nanotechnology detected a foreign invader in the shape of a particular female Titan East member…

"Good tactic…" Haroun muttered before he then activated the defensive utilities of the electrodes embedded inside his systems with a satisfied chuckle.

Inside Jetstream's body, there was a faint humming noise, as if e=something was charging and building up…

Bumblebee turned pale as she realized what was happening, right before all the circuitry around her burst forth a slight electrical pulse, a barrier of energy similar to the Tesla barriers the X-Men had on their glovatrixes for protection. And unfortunately for the African-American teenager, Karen got caught in the brunt of it, full blast.

BBRRRZZZZZTTTTT!

"AAAAAA!" yelled Bumblebee as she was electrocuted right before the vacuum-propulsion systems in Jetstream's body created a powerful exhaust of wind, forcing the Teen Titan to come barreling out of the Hellion's body and into the open air. Jetstream grinned, feeling the pest being extracted out of his robotic form.

The mutant finished with a sneer, "…but not good enough."

Bumblebee, as she was forcefully blown out of Jetstream's body, then managed to grow back to normal size, fighting the urge to lose consciousness, before she took out her third to last magical potion and flung it at Jetstream. The glass bottle, breaking upon impact, released a cloud of a powerful sleeping agent, a plume of bright, violet aroma of powerful herbs brewed by Paige Halliwell.

To Bumblebee's horror, it didn't do any good. Thanks to the special filters Emma had all the Hellions wear in their nostrils to prevent succumbing to such an assault, Haroun just flew past the sleeping gas, ready to stab Bumblebee with the adamantium blades drawn out and pointed first.

There was a flash of silver out of nowhere…

Jetstream screamed, long, guttural, and like a rabid, wounded animal, his voice going near falsetto. Mainly because one of Xaldin's spears, a Dragoon Lance with a serrated and jagged tip like serpent's head and mouth, had gruesomely skewered right through him, harpooning directly through his right shoulder, his ribcage, his heart cavity, and burrowing through his left side. It was so swift and sudden and final that it literally stopped his trajectory cold, spearing him like an olive on a toothpick. And thanks to the mystical energy, the metal did not melt nor heat up in the slightest regardless of the thermal energy cocooning the Hellion. Swallowing the bile building up in his throat, Jetstream turned to see that he was facing a livid yet stone-faced Starfire, her eyes glowing and her teeth slightly bared, holding one of Xaldin's weapons in order to save her fellow Titan.

"Star!" exclaimed Karen joyously.

"You're supposed to be dead! I killed you!" Jetstream screeched with outrage, his voice going an octave higher (while still impaled on the spear like a fish gutted on a spit).

Starfire didn't answer and instead hurled the entire spear and Hellion attached with it towards the ceiling, impressively throwing with superhuman skill. And as a result, a speared Jetstream was now pinned against the wall, the Dragoon Lance still piercing through his torso and fastening the mutant to the metal ceiling, similar to a mounted butterfly in an insect collection. Such embarrassment was now unforgivable. Now livid, Jetstream forcefully gritted his teeth and ripped his body out of the spear, making sickening squelching noises and ripping metal. Despite the slight pain, the Hellfire teenager barely felt it as he set his ire on the two Teen Titans.

"Now I'm pissed!" roared Jetstream as he then willingly summoned all the stored up energy he had on reserve in his cybernetic components, now glowing so brightly that it was almost blinding. This was obviously his final tactic as he wasn't going to rest until he killed the two Teen Titans once and for all.

Jetstream was through playing games. And Karen realized that they used everything they had and could think of, but nothing was stopping the Hellion from staying down. Both Starfire and Bumblebee were low on potions, they couldn't use energy attacks, and they couldn't physical fight him forever, especially with him being a literal fireball in a sense and with his arms now sporting the adamantium spikes (he was actually more powerful and lethal than before). It was then that Bumblebee realized that they needed some time.

"Star, fly and let him tail us!" Bumblebee yelled, grabbing the extraterrestrial's hand as a warning, "We can't fight him head-on like this! Keep him occupied and focused on us so he doesn't go targeting anyone else!"

Starfire realized that a strategic retreat would be wise (until they could think of something better), and both of the Teen Titans tore off with Jetstream tailing the two of them, slowly closing the gap, despite how fast Bumblebee was dashing through the air. Starfire, who could undoubtedly fly faster, was about to grab Karen and take off at sub-sonic speeds when Robin's communicator broke through another emergency.

"Code Red! Code Red! Third request!" Robin's voice broke in, and instantly, Ace Starr's voice added his two cents.

"For cryin' out loud, will someone frickin' help us? Before we – AAAAAAAAAAA!"

Wildstar's voice ended with a painful, guttural scream as he, Robin, and the others were subjected to another desperation attack, and this time none of the seven heroes were able to escape it. Caught within the full brunt of the enormous upheaval, Robin, Wildstar, Beast Boy, Kurama, Magma, Whitelighter, and Rapunzel were all sent flying and crashing painfully against granite, sand, and unbreakable stone, broken bones and bleeding aplenty. Glowing, Lexaeus moved in slowly for the kill.

Starfire was horrified. This was Robin's third request for assistance, and still, no one was able to come help them? Granted, everyone was still busy trying to fight their own battles with the Organization Thirteen and the Hellfire Club, but surely one of the heroes was able to spare a little assistance.

There was little time to ponder this though. If someone didn't interact soon, Robin and his team would very nearly be killed. But Starfire couldn't leave…

"Starfire, go help them! I'll take care of Jetstream!" Bumblebee then broke in. Starfire, eyes wide, despite flying and being tailed by a Hellion on the rampage, turned to Bumblebee in shock, but Karen was showing that she wasn't joking. If no one was helping Robin and his team against their Organization member at this point, then they couldn't just stand by and hope someone else would pick the slack. And since between the two Teen Titans, Starfire was the stronger and more effective foe against the earth-wielding Nobody.

Starfire was no doubt conflicted; it was either ignore robin and risk her boyfriend getting killed along with his allies or abandoning Bumblebee and risk her getting killed by a souped-up Jetstream. Bumblebee continued to push her into making her decision.

"Please, no man alive can take me down without a fight! Trust me, I'll be fine! Us Titans dealt with worse creeps than this guy! Just go! Robin needs you more than I do!" ordered Bumblebee hastily, refusing to look directly into her friend's eyes, making sure she was flying free and clear. She just hoped that Starfire would buy it…

Starfire nodded, giving a quick squeeze of Karen's hand as support.

"Agreed! Be careful, my friend!" Starfire yelled before she swooped down, her emerald eyes glowing hotly, towards Lexaeus, her hands flying so swiftly that they were blurs as the Organization earth-mover below her suddenly found himself being painfully singed and besieged by a multitude of green energy balls above him. Lexaeus screamed as he was taken by surprise from the sudden storm of emerald energy blasts, and this one second of disruption was enough for the others to try to rush the strong-man, with injured Robin leading the way (all of them infinitely thankful for the assist).

Author's Note: Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Next chapter will be starring Axel of Organization XIII, and our little chakram wielder will be going against Jean Grey of the X-Men, Shipwreck of G.I. Joe, Trey and Corey of "Shaman King" / Ghostbusters, Dragonfly of the Misfits (OC of Red Witch), and Caridad of the Slayers / Ghostbusters. At the same time, Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club, learns that she may be in for a rough ride when she pits her powers against Storm of the X-Men and four Ghostbusters: Kid Gloves of the Monster fighters, Inc. and Vi, Rona, and Faith Lehane of the vampire Slayers! Stay tuned for another action packed sequence (hopefully within this year).

And there's a bit of news on why I've been so busy…

I just got my first house. I'm now a home-owner with a mortgage. And I moved in a month ago.

Fictives: Party time!

Gambit: I got the beer!

Starfire: I got the fireworks!

Trinity: And we got the sledgehammers! It's not a housewarming party unless something gets broken!

Beach Head: Or if the police and SWAT teams need to be called in.

Me: IF YOU FICTIVES STEP ONE FOOT IN MY TOWNHOUSE, I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL MAKE YOU ALL SUFFER! EVEN MORE THAN WHAT I ALREADY DO TO YOU!

Fictives: It'll be worth it!

Readers, read and review! Constructive criticism welcome, and check back once I kill a few fictives from reaching my front door…