Power Pack

Issue #30 – The Infinity Wave – Part Three

The Starship Infinity

“As you can see, with the destruction of Xandar we have no choice but to take the war to Thanatos. He is gaining too much power. We must act now,” Quasar said as he took his seat among the Council Members.

“You will not order me around. You have no place here with the Council,” Ronan shouted back.

“Ronan, please calm yourself. As designated Protector of the Universe, Quasar has an obligation to be here,” Warlock said as he looked around at the group gathered before him.

“I agree and on behalf of my husband, we send our deepest sympathy Nova and the loss of Xandar. How is he doing?” Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans asked as she stood behind her husband, the King, Black Bolt.

“Thanks to Margaret Power and his own abilities, he is in fast recovery. It seems that with the death of Annihilus, the Queen known as Extermina has taken his place as ruler and led a wave of warriors against Xandar. Using the Cosmic Control Rod, that was upgraded by some other devise, she sent a pulse that depowered everything and everyone for ten seconds.

“That was all she needed for her forces to murder and destroy everyone on the planet. When power came back up, Nova and just a handful of Nova Corps members were left. Even with their great power, there were too many for them and they began falling one by one. The World Mind then contacted Nova and asked him to flee and preserve the Corps legacy. Of course, Richard refused to abandon his people.

“Last thing Richard remembered after that was the World Mind saying, ‘you don’t have a choice,’ and then a surging pain hit his body and mind as he found himself being propelled at great speed and force deep into space. It appears moments after that, the final wave hit killing every last Corps member, the World Mind and completely laying waste to Xandar leaving Nova the last and sole survivor of Xandar and the Nova Corps,” Warlock said giving the Council of what information he had obtained from Nova.

“It seems that not only does Thanatos have Extermina and her forces but it seems that he has secured Queen Maraud and her remaining Snark forces, a Brood Queen and a few other allies. Latest word is that he has sent word to the current Queen of the Skrulls, Vaeranke that if she swears allegiance to him, he will give her the power to not only bring back the Skrull race but advance their genetic engineering to do more than just copy the Fantastic Four’s powers,” Quasar reported as he was given the task of communicator for their forces.

“This is not good, the Skrulls can’t be given that kind of power,” Emperor Ronan said.

“That is why this Council was formed. We need to put any difference behind us and pull our resources and forces to put an end to Thanatos and his forces,” Warlock said as he looked at each of the individuals sitting at the table.

Warlock was here to represent the Infinity Watch and protector of the Gems as Quasar was here as communication liaison as the Protector of the Universe. Representing the recently devastated Kree was their new ruler, Ronan whose war against the Skrulls was enough to keep him on their side. Plus, with Ultra Girl here, the Kree will follow the prophesized Unifier of their race. Also here were Medusa and Black bolt representing the Inhumans. This threat may not directly affect them, but it is a big enough threat with the Gems not to take an interest. As is, with Reed Richards here, has joined the Council to represent Earth with his forces, Fantastic Four, Power Pack and the New Warriors.

The rest of the Council also made up of members of races that were affected, might be affected or Warlock hoped to use in the threat against Thanatos. With word that Queen Maraud had joined Thanatos and that Kymellia was next to be targeted, Kofi Whitemane was here to represent his race. Deciding he was not ready to become the ruler, he gave that responsibility to Ghostmane who was now known as Matriarch and Leader of Kymellia so Kofi could be here on the front lines with his friends and family Power Pack. Also, representing the Rigellians and the Recorders was Tana Nile. Tana was only instructed to watch and report but she has always been known for fighting and was friends with Gamora, which said a lot.

Empress Lilandra was here representing the Shi’ar. For now she was remaining neutral and had not promised whether to get involved or lend her Imperial Guard to their forces. As a peacekeeping force and race, he couldn’t see how they could not get involved. Also, from the same neighborhood, was Lord Sh’od, leader of the large reptilian race known as the Saurid. The last two members of the Council were Tyro, representing the Technarchy and Master M’lati the leader of his plant-like humanoid race called the Gians and what remained of the Flora Colossus after Thanatos decimated their race and planet and he gave them sanctuary on his home world.

It was a great assemblage of major and minor races whom all had resources and forces they could utilize in stopping Thanatos. Of course, no matter who joined up, Warlock had been able to obtain and hold influence over the greatest weapon against Thanatos and his forces. The one weapon Thanatos craved and needed but had failed to possess. Warlock had Power Pack, the hosts of the Infinity Gems. With them, he hoped to put an end to Thanatos once and for all.

“If what we’ve seen so far we don’t have time to waste. We must rally our forces and attack,” Sh’od blurted out as his tongue flickered.

“I see where your son gets his recklessness to act before thinking,” Lilandra said thinking of Ch’od, member of the Starjammers. “Before I agree to anything, we must plan out a strategy and really know what we are up against. What of the Gems?”

“The Gems are bonded with the Earth children. My Infinity Watch has been assigned to each of them and will train them. If we can’t get them to release their hold on them, we will use Power Pack to unleash the power of the Gems upon Thanatos and his forces,” Warlock answered.

“Will they be able to use this power properly? They are only children after all. We can’t have them falling in the hands of Thanatos,” Medusa said on behalf of her husband.

“I assure you, we will do our best in training them. They will be ready when the time comes, until then, shall we?” Warlock waved his hand as they began to talk more and make preparations for war.

Lightspeed & Pip the Troll

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke that thing,” Lightspeed said as the troll leaned against the wall puffing on a cigar.

“Maybe if you worried more about training and less about my cigar we could get somewhere today,” Pip smiled as he blew a smoke ring.

“I’ve tried and I can’t do it,” Lightspeed said growing agitated by the nasty troll.

“Don’t think so hard. Imagine being somewhere else and when you feel the pull of the gem don’t fight it, just go with it, toots,” Pip smiled as he blew a smoke ring.

“Here it goes,” Lightspeed said as she turned her back on the troll so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

Julie closed her eyes and thought about being across the room. She felt the gem burning on her chest and tried to relax. She could feel her own power trying to compete with that of the gem. Trying not to think too hard, she tried to fall into the power of the gem. She almost felt like she was going teleport but she didn’t go anywhere. She was about to give up when she smelt Pip’s cigar smoke. Coughing, Julie changed her train of thought and wished she could just rip that cigar from his mouth. She had the mind to march right over there and do just that.

“Hey, give that back,” Pip shouted suddenly causing Julie to turn around and see an exact duplicate of herself standing over Pip and breaking his cigar in two.

“What the?” Both Julie’s said when they made eye contact with each other and realizing there was two of them.

Julie freaked and will the power off. As she did that, the Julie next to Pip shouted in shock as she began to turn into pure light. In a blink of an eye, the Julie made of light shot at the solid Julie making a rainbow streak as she slammed into her. Julie took a step back and grabbed her head as she absorbed the duplicate back into herself.

“I knew you could do it,” Pip said as he bent down and picked up a piece of his cigar and prepared to relight it.

“That’s weird. When I absorbed her back into myself, I gained her memories. I know I was standing over here but now I have the memories of breaking your cigar as if I had done it myself,” Lightspeed said as she gained her composure.

“That could come in handy,” Pip thought out loud and then switched gears, “okay, let’s try again. We’re not going to have much time to train.”

“Okay,” Lightspeed sighed as she tried again.

Psi-Lad & Moondragon

“I still can’t get over how much you’ve grown,” Moondragon said as she glanced at the Richard’s boy.

“Don’t you miss being an Avenger?” Psi-Lad asked as he grew anxious to start training.

“Not really. Ever since I joined up with Adam and remained in space I just feel like my calling is out here. Now, enough chatter, let’s do this. “I’m going to enter your mind and I will help guide you in using your gem and powers,” Moondragon said feeling a hunger to touch her old gem again.

Psi-Lad could feel Moondragon trying to touch his mind. Just as he was about to relax, his eyes burned as power flared up shut out the bald woman. He heard Moondragon gasp as she stepped back and then struck out with her mind. Instinctively, Franklin shot out a psi-blast that shook the room when it hit Moondragon and she flew again the wall and passed out. Scared, Franklin tried to call off the power and ended up passing out himself.

“What’s going on?” Margaret asked from the viewing room where she, James and Sue Richards were allowed to supervise their children’s training sessions.

“It appears my boy knocked out Heather and is now generating his dream form,” Sue said as she watched ready to enter the room if need be.

“Cool,” Psi-Lad said as he realized he was in his dream form but was glowing blue. He glanced over at Moondragon and felt his power flare again.

“What did you do?” Moondragon asked as she felt funny and saw herself standing over her knocked out body.

“Sorry, part of my power is to create a dream form when I sleep. I’ve never pulled a dream form for another person before. The gem must have done this,” Psi-Lad said as his powers felt like they were glaring at Moondragon.

“Well I,” Moondragon began to respond when she felt a strange energy and screamed.

Psi-Lad stepped back as Moondragon’s scream turned into a roar as her dream form suddenly morphed into that of a giant silver shaded dragon with sharp teeth, claws and large wings. As the large dragon leapt at Psi-Lad, he mentally heard his mom scream and sensed her and James Power teleporting into the room. The dragon swiped a claw at him and instinctively his form changed into a blue glowing knight. The claw barely hurt him on impact but he glanced and saw that there was a drop of blood falling form his sleeping nose. He turned at the dragon and a lance appeared in his hand and he pointed it at the dragon sending a blast out of it and knocking the dragon back.

“Franklin, you have to wake up,” Sue pleaded as she saw a bruise on Heather’s sleeping body.

“Mom, I can’t,” Franklin said growing scared as the large dragon opened it’s maw as energy began to form within it.

“Wake UP!” James shouted as his sonic scream rattled the two sleeping bodies causing the knight, energy blast and dragon to vanish as the sonic waves jerked both Franklin and Heather awake.

“You okay, baby?” Sue asked as she hugged her boy and wiped the blood from his nose.

“Yes,” Franklin answered feeling drained.

“Heather,” Sue began to address the woman when Moondragon held up a hand and stormed out of the room.

“Keep him away from me,” Moondragon said as he closed the door wondering what scared her more, the gem power in the boy or what that boy had awaken inside of her.

Energizer & Adam Warlock

“Are you even paying attention to me?” Energizer asked.

“Sorry, I am using my mystical energies to be in two places at once,” Adam said as he was in the Council meeting and a mystical form was in the room here with Kat Power.

“I’ve concentrated and I’ve made an energy ball in my hand, but the only thing new I did was give it a green tint,” Energizer said in boredom,

“No, wait, look,” Adam said as he got closer and looked at the ball of energy in Kat’s hand.

“What is that?” Energizer asked as she saw a strange image in her energy ball.

“That’s the world within the soul gem. Combined with your powers you are able to see into it. Here try something. Disintegrate this, but when you do think of the gem and the soul world,” Adam said as he threw a space frog at her.

She grabbed it with her free hand and called on her powers instinctively as the gross creature startled her. As she disintegrated it she concentrated on the soul world hoping she wouldn’t kill the thing. She felt a strange tingle as the frog vanished. She looked over at Adam and shrugged. She had no clue what she was to have supposed to have done. She was about to make a crack when Adam looked at her energy ball and began to get excited.

“Look, girl. I saw the frog fall down into the soul world,” Adam said looking into the energy ball.

“Okay, what now?” Energizer asked not seeing the relevance, but glad she hadn’t killed the frog.

“I want you to throw that energy wall across the room and when you do, tap into the gem and soul world and reach out to the frog and pull his soul to yours,” Adam said with a nod.

Energizer too a deep breadth and reach deep into her power and felt the tattoo on her neck burn. When she felt ready, she threw the energy ball at the wall and reached out to the frog. She gasped when she found that she could actually feel the frog as if it was calling back to her. She immediately latched onto the frog and pulled it towards her as the energy ball exploded against the wall. She released the power and looked over to she scorch marks on the wall from where her energy ball had detonated. To her surprise, sitting on the floor below the burn mark was the space frog alive and well.

“Wow, the possibilities that just opened up,” Adam said with excitement as he new he had little time to experiment on Kat’s powers.

Frost Fire & Phyla-Vell

“Why are you here if you don’t want to do this?” Frost Fire asked the white haired woman in front of him, secretly wishing he was with Alex.

“None of your business,” Phyla-Vell snapped as she truly wondered why she was here. Ever since her battle with her brother Genis-Vell over the claim of their father’s name, Captain Marvel, she has wondered across the stars lost.

“Maybe I can fulfill a wish for you with my gem?” Frost Fire asked as he felt the gem’s power burn from his pinky finger.

Ice shot from his hands as fire poured through the middle of it. Frost Fire put his hands down and was amazed at what he had just created. Five blocks of ice with moving images made of fire within them. The first was the legendary Avenger known as Captain Marvel, the third was an older woman, the next two were males he didn’t recognize and the last was the woman here known as Moondragon. He stared at them with interest when Phyla-Vell looked at them and then turned on him.

“What is this?” Phyla-Vell asked as she looked at the images.

“I tried focusing on the gem’s power to fulfill a wish of yours to see what your loved ones are up to,” Frost Fire said nervously.

“What are you trying to pull?” Phyla-Vell demanded as energy glowed around her hands.

“I’m not trying to pull anything. The gem did it, I just told it to let you check in on your loved ones,” Frost Fire said taking a step back.

“Well you got it wrong on all these but my mother, Elysius. It shows my father and he’s dead and this one of my brother Genis-Vell is all distorted. As for these last two, I have no clue who the teenaged boy is and why in the world is Moondragon being shown when I have nothing to do with her,” Phyla-Vell said growing angrier.

“Well, Captain Marvel almost looks like he is chained, maybe he’s still alive? Your brother looks almost like he’s being torn in a million pieces. Not really sure what to tell you about him but maybe the other kid is a relative you don’t know about? And Moondragon, maybe there’s something there?” Frost Fire said as he watched her expression shift for a second at the mention of Moondragon’s name.

“I can’t be around you,” Phyla-Vell snapped as she sent off a few energy blasts causing the five ice sculptures to shatter and then stormed out of the room.

Mass Master & Gamora

“Try harder,” Gamora said as she flew with a high kick.

“Whoa,” Mass Master said as he became a swirling mist of smoke and allowing the green woman to pass right through him.

“Turning to smoke is a coward’s ploy. You need to use the gem to use your powers in a more offensive manner,” Gamora scolded as she somersaulted in midair and landed on her feet facing the boy of smoke.

“I do. I have the Jack Hammer and the Jack-A-Mole,” Mass Master said as the woman’s beauty caused him to blush a little.

“Shrinking small or forming hammers with your arms will not do much against that of Thanatos and his forces. I’m going to come at you and you better do something other than turn to smoke,” Gamora commanded as she ran at full speed at the boy.

Mass Master put up his arms and hoped something other than smoke would help him. He saw his hands become smoke and he signed with disappointment and readied himself to turn to smoke to save from getting hit. He almost closed his eyes when he heard Gamora swear. He gasped as he realized that the smoke from his hands was becoming small solid bubbles which were pelting Gamora with force before popping back into smoke. As he grew more excited, thousands more bubbles came out and impacted with greater force. It was enough to hold her at bay. This power was used before to create a protective barrier but it was nice to see it do something more offensive like she wanted. Happy to show off, he caked on the smoke bubbles.

“Feel the power of the Jackamatic,” Jack cheered as his arms shook causing bubble to shoot out like an automatic machine gun.

“Why must you nick name your attacks? You think this is enough to stop Thanatos, let alone me?” Gamora said as she used her strength to push onward towards Mass Master.

“Man, you’re nothing but a cranky ol’ hag,” Mass Master said as his earring suddenly burned with pain and the bubbles took on an orange and red hue.

“What have you done?” Gamora said in a weak voice as she stopped moving as bubbles and smoke popped and swirled all around her.

Mass Master called off his powers and put his hands down to see what had caused Gamora to finally stop. When the last of the bubbles had turned to smoke and drifted away, Jack was shocked at what he was now looking at. The sexy green woman known as Gamora was gone and standing in her place was a wrinkly, grey haired woman of about eighty. He couldn’t believe it. He had tapped into the Time Gem.

“Finally you start using your potential,” Gamora croaked.

“You mean you’re not mad?” Mass Master asked.

“Not this time, but if you don’t change me back there’ll be nothing in the universe that will save you from my wraith,” Gamora threatened as Mass Master’s excitement vanished as he concentrated on turning Gamora hot again.

G-Force & Drax the Destroyer

“The key is using your gravity powers to extend outward from your body without having to physically touch the object,” Drax said as he threw a dagger at G-Force.

It was tough and exhausting, but Drax really knew how to push him into using his powers in a new way. Basically, use them or die. G-Force kept pushing the gravity field away from his body and expanding to the air between his hand and the fast approaching dagger. G-Force could hardly believe it when he noticed the dagger decreasing in speed as it became lighter and lighter until it came to a complete stop in front of him and hovered in complete weightlessness.

“Great, now, without touching it, use your power to hurl it back at me,” Drax said.

“How?” G-Force asked.

“Don’t be dumb, boy. Use your power to decrease its weight and move it towards me, while at the same increasing the gravity to give it weight and driving force. If you extend your power outwards and instead of using only one spectrum of your power but combing them simultaneously, you can use your powers as those who have telekinesis and such,” Drax said as he barked at him to hurl the dagger at him.

G-Force concentrated on the dagger and pushed on it with his power. First with weightlessness, then increasing the gravity and then working both off and on so he was using both fractions at the same time. The dagger soon found its way flying threw the air at Drax. Drax easily caught it and then threw it right back at Alex with stronger force. G-Force, with a split second of panic, pushed out with his power causing the dagger to swerve to the right, missing him and hitting the wall behind him.

“Man, I love the Power Gem,” G-Force said with a smile.

“I can tell you, that wasn’t the gem. It was all you,” Drax said as he studied the boy.

“Finally, I learn a new trick for once instead of my siblings all the time. So when are you going to show me what I can do with the Power Gem?” G-Force asked.

“I’m not. One is only truly powerful and deadly when he can destroy with his own ability and skills. The Power Gem is there for a boost if absolutely needed. If you think you need to the Gem then it will truly consume. Now, lets try a few other things,” Drax Said as he charged at G-Force.

Fantastica & Sersi

“I want to use my new power too,” Fantastica whined as the Eternal and former Avenger, Sersi watched her.

“Honey, your gem is different than the others. We really don’t know how it works or what you can do with it,” Sersi said.

“It’s not fair,” Fantastica pouted.

“I bet it works for you like your powers do. When you need it to do something fantastic then you will,” Sersi smiled as she wished she had been able to do more than just babysit the Richard’s child.

“Well, I am a super hero and I want something to happen now,” Fantastica said as suddenly her force field came up and a figure appeared out of nowhere inside of it.

“Where did you come from?” Sersi said going on the defensive.

“Hey, you look like Kofi,” Fantastica said as her force field vanished releasing herself and the horse being.

“I don’t believe it. I thought I was lost and somehow I was drawn to your similar power. I am the Matriarch, leader of the Kymellians. We need your help, Queen Maraud is attacking our world,” Matriarch said as she passed out from the strain on using her powers.

Next: Issue #31 – The Infinity Wave – Part Four