Sunshine On Your Shoulder Blades Makes You Calm

“So happy to see that the sun has not become evil," says Storm, keeping a careful eye (kind of sideways and indirectly) on the sun--just in case.

"Does anyone feel...calmer?" She looks around. (Just thinking, all that rage gone, might be less here.)

“No,” say the Vision and Machine Man in unison.

Wanda:
"Zo, you are okay, Vizh?"

She's a lot calmer having seen more of her brother in the past few hours than she thought she ever would again.

“Yes, Wanda. I am okay,” says the Vision with a smile. “But how are you? Seeing Pietro again could have been pleasant or frightening, or both. The one thing I do know is that you did not experience uncontrolled levels of rage, because you tamed the Wrath Stone.”

His eyes widen.

“Ah .. my Mind Gem informs me that shouldn’t be possible. Well done.”

Wanda smiles at the others, particularly Captain Purple Eyes.

“Back atcha, Red,” he says, making a thumbs-up.

Wanda heads over to check on Banner. Hopefully she can do that from a safe distance.

“Oh, hey … Wanda. Miss Maximoff, I mean. Did I hurt anyone?” Banner says. “Feels pretty … radioactive here. Strong gamma. You might be better off staying over there … or further.”

“What does gamma feel like?” the Vision wants to know.

“Like sunshine on your bones,” says Bruce Banner. “But it’s okay. I tan easily.”

Ant Man: "OK first off, Machine Man, get the anger out of the sun before we are all burned to ash. Try an asteroid in the middle of space. If you need help with that I'll help you.

Secondly, how are we going to rescue the people who disappeared when Thanos disappeared. And finally, what will we do with Eternity here. Should we put the stones in a box, resurrect Eternity, play Hop Scotch!?!"

“There’s a lot to be said for hopscotch,” says Star-Lord. “But it’s been a while for me.”

Ant-Man teleports the ants he left on Thanos' home planet back here. They don’t notice the change in gravity, but the Earthly air pressure makes them more comfortable.

Ant-Man then shows Machine Man an asteroid in space. Opening a portal between here and there at the Vision’s direction, he has Machine Man pull the wrath out of the sun and put it in the asteroid. A wind gathers, blowing the air of Earth away through the portal, but once it’s closed the wind stops, and the ants calm down.

The sunlight changes aspect somehow. Apparently the rage WAS affecting the Sun!

The End of the Universe

Storm does indeed teleport Sue Storm to the square in Hala where all the zombies have been expelled from reality. There's plenty of room.

Spidey, after some cajoling, hands off the Mind Stone to Ant-Man, who puts it in the Vision's head. The Vision wakes up, having had a strange dream about Gorgons.

Vision now has access to the knowledge of Eternity, but when he tries to think about who made the Infinity Gems, his mind doesn't come back from there. So he makes a mental note to avoid thinking about it.

Machine Man has the Wrath Stone, and can hold it without going nuts. As things are still all wrathy on Earth, Ant-Man uses the Space Stone to teleport everyone back to Earth, including Star-Lord and Drax.

The Hulk is running around being angry, of course. Machine Man takes all the wrath out of the immediate area and puts it into a pile of broken concrete. The concrete warms up, but doesn't come alive and rampage around the area, as the Fantastic Four frequently have to contend with.

Then, Machine Man extracts the rage from all the world and puts it into the Hulk. Who explodes. Literally EXPLODES with rage.

But he doesn't die, just gets very, very radioactive. Everyone complains at Machine Man's solution. So he puts the rage into the Sun.

Everyone exclaims in alarm. Machine Man tells them, "You need to complain faster than I can think." But the Sun doesn't become evil, so maybe there's no harm done.

The Last Refuge of the Invitalitous (Updated!)

Thanos brandishes the Wrath Stone, summoning a blaze of red rage to block Dark Phoenix' firescream.

But it's only a feint, albeit a colorful and dazzling one. In reality, Thanos is projecting the red flames of rage into the Scarlet Witch's mind.

"Look, Wanda!" he says, assuming an untoward familiarity. "Before you is the killer of your brother. Strike now, from behind, and avenge his murder!"

But behind Thanos, a silvery blur resolves into Quicksilver, who holds up two fingers behind Thanos, making it look as though the mad Titan has bunny ears.

Quicksilver winks.

Wanda smiles, and concentrates very hard on focusing Dark Phoenix' madness so that she can be her own person once more. There are two separate influences: Being Dead and Being Dark Phoenix. Keeping those back is more than Wanda can manage, but she tries real hard. Knocking over all the blocks is the easy use of her power; this is rebuilding everything while storms knock them over.

But she succeeds!

Infused with Wanda's power and control, Dark Phoenix blasts Thanos off the face of the universe! Storm is aware of a Thanos-shaped hole being torn in the fabric of space, letting in some unnameable, indescribable OTHER to which Eternity reacts as though slapped. The tear is rejected, mended, forgotten, as is its inhabitant, Mr. George W. Thanos, Jr.

The continent is quiet. TOO quiet.

Because the buildings of Hala are restored, as though Dark Phoenix had never scourged the world with solar fire. The Sun, too, is back to its wonted orange glow, rather than the furnace-blue heat of its exposed core. Everyone's sunburns are gone.

But the people, who once inhabited this city .... where are THEY?

The Red Skull is gone.

Thunderbird is gone.

For that matter, Dark Phoenix appears to be gone.

All physical evidence of the battle on Hala is now absent, save only the absence of several of its combatants.

But the Infinity Gems, resistant to all the cosmic fireworks and rowdydow, remain, glittering and blinking ... precious, yet attainable.

Spider-Man could easily grab them all with his spider-speed before anyone else could stop him. THEN he'd show Flash Thompson ...

Escape to Counter-Earth

She says to evil Reed, "Reed! You are the bravest, smartest, best man on counter earth! Your body can be cured! And.. and ... there may be someone out there for you! There are infinite time lines! I am sure the Watcher can find one where your destined mate is waiting, pining, thinking of you. Or maybe ... " (Sue realized that here Reed may have been driven permanently insane by the wrath stone)"... someone not so far out there... Please come back. Maybe we can store your consciousness in a hideous computerized body like Quasimodo for a while, until you grow a new, undamaged one, and figure out how to download yourself into it. You are the man who won the space race singlehandedly. You are smarter than the good and kind Dr Doom of counterearth! You are heroic, handsome, and brave! You can solve ANY PROBLEM!! Come with us, and live! Escape this false paradise!"

Reed looks wistful.

“Susan, you say the same things my Sue did … but she was wrong. I am not the Reed Richards you know. Maybe in time, given the heartbreaking trials I have endured, your Reed would have become the man I am … but maybe we were never entirely the same. I cannot return with you, for I know what I would be … what I have been before. I struggled, but ultimately, in the real world …. I am the Brute.”

Sue turns to the Caterpillar, and says, "I need your help. The whole universe is about to be turned into the realm of death. If you are one of those ultracosmic, ultrapowerful beings like Galactus, or the Stranger, or the Watcher, or the Celestials, or the Living Tribunal, you should use that ultrapower for ultragoodness, to aid our cause in stopping Thanos, the mad Titan!

"Can you help us return out of the Soul Gem back to reality? If you are a being here in the soul world, you must know that all souls, all lives, are infinitely precious!"

She will then turn to John Jameson, and say, "Yes, I am ready to leave. We have not a moment to spare!"

John and his alien pal run to the rocket ship, parts of which are beginning to change into other things as various other inhabitants of the Soul Realm start to notice them. One of the injector pumps, for example, becomes a lonely penguin.

ROAAAR!

The rocket leaps skyward in a cloud of metaphor and shatters the soul-filled sky.

Sue Storm blinks, back on Counter-Earth, with John Jameson and a scattering of glowing green dust.

“Huh,” says John. “Is that what his body really looked like? Space, I’m coming to understand, is a surprise a minute.”

Who Claims the Mantle of Death?

First, Ant-Man turns to the woman and says, "I am Hank Pym's replacement. He is too old now. You are his wife, right? 

"Thank you for saving me. I assume you are on the good guys’ side. Thank you for joining us.”

"We need to get the stone from Machine Man. Will you help me?"

“Of course. Which one’s Machine Man?”

The two of them fly to Machine Man, shrink, enter his body, and start the reboot program to bring him back to, uh, his normal condition.

Since he's not really dead so much as broken, they succeed!

"That was weird," says Machine Man. "Maybe I have a soul after all?"

He uses his left hand to open his right hand, which was torn off by Thanos.

"Hm. Someone probably took my Wrath Stone."

   

Spidey runs over to Storm, for it seems to be safe in the area without the sun burning him.

After that, noting with some surprise that he has not already been burned to a crisp, Spidey will ask Eternity if he will set up something like a mind link between the two of them so that Spidey can still ask him questions and Eternity can still answer them, even if Spidey does not have the mind gem. Spidey does not want to read Eternity's thoughts or even know everything he knows. He only wants to continue to be able to ask Eternity questions.

Eternity, or rather, the Mind Stone, replies,

“You cannot perceive the thoughts of Eternity without the Mind Gem. But if you agree, you can incorporate yourself into Eternity’s mind, and share in the thoughts of Creation from within.”

Storm attempts to use the space gem to make sure that the space around her friends...old and new...does not grow too hot. 

That takes a lot of space. But the flaming clouds of plasma recede far, far into the distance, where they cannot burn anyone. They wrap back around the sun and start to coalesce back into place, although they’re sparking and bursting with brilliance, so the sun looks like it’s having sunquakes.

Also, the light from the damaged sun dims and reddens, as Storm makes it take a circuitous route of millions of light-years before it falls on the wrecked planet Hala.

When the Heartstone falls into her hands, Storm directs it at Dark Phoenix...recalling all her love for Jean Grey...and how all those men loved Jean. Scott, Logan. Both good fellows, at least underneath.

“These men loved Jean Grey … not Dark Phoenix. Can you really say they did not matter to you?”

“Yeah,” says Spider-Man, using the Mind Gem. "Thanos is in love with Death and does not care about you. In fact, He is only using you to court Death. You must know this, right?"

“INSECT!” Dark Phoenix rages. “Thanos is indeed in love with Death. And who am I, if not Death incarnate, riding a bird of killing fire?”

The Scarlet Witch rushes into Dark Phoenix’ firebird cloud, distracting her from putting the kibosh on Thunderbird.

Then, as the mad death goddess’ face is washed with soft purple light, Wanda uses her power to bring forth Dark Phoenix's nightmares. But this time, Wanda is there with her, leading her to the time when she was a beloved X-Man.

"Jean ..." says Cyclops, "this isn't you. It was never you. Mastermind didn't set free some wicked part of you that you never knew about ... people aren't really like that. He just made you hear the Phoenix and its rage. Jean, the Phoenix is powerful, but it's not profound. It's just an animal. A force of violence. It saved your life, but it didn't, it couldn't, make you so different from who you are. This is just a sick dream, Jean ... a nightmare. This isn't you. Wake up!"

"Yeah, Jeannie, this purple hulk's taking you for a ride," adds Wolverine. "You gonna let a guy too scared to kill himself turn you around inta doing his dirty work? Hell, if you gotta kill somebody, why not him?"

"Logan!" says Cyclops. "Not helping."

"You can't manage Jeannie like a pet, Slim," Wolverine insists. "She's her own broad. Uh, chick, I mean."

Purple flames flicker around the dream-cavern. Cyclops, Wolverine, and Phoenix are illuminated by purple fire, the color of the Heartstone, which blazes brighter and brighter around their bodies.

Phoenix smiles.

"I could drop a city on you, Logan," says Jean Grey. "You'd never change."

She notices the crowd of Kree superhumans closing in on Storm, Spidey, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and Machine Man.

"But those guys are threatening my friends," she says, her face darkening. "And I won't have that."

The firebird raises its wings and shrieks soundlessly. Vast telekinetic waves of black-red energy slam into the Kree zombies, hurling them in all directions across the landscape. They aren't killed --- they're very tough -- but they are most certainly dispersed.

"And now, Thanos," says Dark Phoenix, "let me show you what I have learned ... of death."

Interview With the Brute

On Counter-Earth:

Sue says, "I am here to save the Brute, also called Dr. Reed Richards, and the Man-Wolf, also called Col. John Jameson. They have to be led back to reality. Please help me."

"But this is reality ... Susan," says Dr. Reed Richards from behind her.

He looks as Reed should, albeit with less gray at his temples. He's even holding his musty old pipe, like he used to! He hasn't smoked since the accident.

"Indeed, it is as if a layer of obscuring film has been stripped away, allowing us to more clearly perceive reality as it actually is," he says. "I see now, however, that the nature of the universe is several layers removed from the realm of the phenomenal. As you know, I used to think that mathematical physics would reveal the final secrets of creation, but now I see there is much I failed to take into account."

"And, of course, in this disembodied realm, I am no longer driven mad by my cosmic-ray-riddled brain and body. So on the whole, thank you, but I prefer the Soul Stone to the world I leave behind."

"Well, I don't!" exclaims John Jameson. "The Man-Beast likes this place just fine -- he can hunt all night and never die! But me, I'm getting out of here. Come on, Miss Storm."

He walks a few paces into another continental biome, snow-whipped and jagged-floored, with bizarre Northern Lights clashing in a red-black sky. Actually, the sky is only red to the east -- over half the overhead vault is filled with a colossal red sun.

"This alien fellow was working on a rocket ship when he arrived here. The matter in this place isn't entirely fake -- our minds shape it, but not immediately, and there seem to be certain rules we can't break. But the alien -- he doesn't speak any language I know, so I'm not even sure of his name -- has been making a lot of attempts, so we've crossed off a whole pile of approaches that we know won't work."

"I asked Dr. Richards to help, but he's over the moon not to be the Brute any more. So he's out. I don't think we can take him with us, sorry ... and anyway, he's not really your Reed Richards, is he?"

"So what do you say, Miss Storm? Want to bust out of death's waiting room on a rocket ship with Marvin the Martian and me?"

And Just Like That, Ant-Man Is Saved!

Before Ant-Man can decide whether to go quantum-subatomic and possibly never return, a blurring red form yanks him up into the air. Her mechanical wings whirring frantically, a woman in an Ant-Man suit (but with wings) hauls him ahead of the blast to safety.

"Whew!" she says when the fire has subsided. "Good thing a blast wave can only travel at the speed of sound. In a dive, I can beat it."

She sounds a lot like Hope van Dyne, but Ant-Man realizes she's taller. Who IS this?

And why is her suit ashy, as though she were recently in a grave?

"Anyway," she says, "I'm just glad I got there in time ... Hank."

Into the Soul of Eternity

MALICE

Sue Storm's mind is whirling with the dreadful possibilities that she is now a supervillainess. Not only does this mean Reed might end up marrying She-Hulk, but she will have to change her code name and costume. Malice is a terrible code name! And such a tacky uniform! None of the supervillainess costumes are as flattering as nice blue set of coveralls! 

http://www.scifiwright.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/evil-sue.jpg
http://www.scifiwright.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/evil-sue-02.jpg 

Of course, on her, she might be able to make that spiked collar bare midriff look work...

BUT NO MATTER! The brute known as Evil Reed (who may now be her only evil hope of evil happiness, now that she is evil) and John Jameson must not be lost! 

Jameson, after all, was the first person Spiderman ever saved! (See Spider-Man #1 - Eds) She would not be able to face her team mate, Spiderman, if she had to tell him that she, no one else, lost the first save he ever made! 

Holding up the Soul Gem, Sue says, "Soul Gem! I bid you allow me enter, retrieve the souls trapped in you, and emerge safely back into the world of time! I command you in the name of Eternity, whose soul you are, to open up and show me a path! A safe path, please!" 

WHURRRL

Sue dissolves into liquid and falls into the Soul Gem.

She lands on a pumpkin-shaped settee, beside a caterpillar smoking a hookah.

"Well, hi, little lady," says the caterpillar in an extremely slow drawl, so it's more like "Waaaahul haaaaaaaay, liiiiiiiiiul layyyyyyyydeh." I won't spell it again.

"Lost yer way? Ayuh, there's many an' many a path to be drawn here in the Down-Under, an' never the twain shall meet. Ayuh .... many an' many."

His scented smoke drifts upward, to where the sky should be ...

... and isn't. The zenith is full of faces, tinted orange and distorted across the bowl of the heavens, some twisted into screams of despair, others apparently content.

EXAGGERATE! In Which the TOP is Decisively GONE OVER!

Wanda has never heard of Thunderbird, but he at least -looks- human.
No guarantees with this crew, though.
But he at least presents as if he comes from a warrior culture. Probably pride there. A certain way things should be.
She has the Will Stone and the Love Stone, which make her more reluctant to give him a case of the crazies.
Perhaps the Love stone will make him more amenable. Probably still looking rather fetching.
Perhaps the Will stone...
"You are here to help us! Do not fall following an unworthy leader..." She is clearly referencing Thanos.

"I have already done so once," he says. "Professor Xavier was an unworthy leader, and he led me to my death. I won't do that again!"

"In fact, I won't follow any leader I don't know! Who are you, and what do you want?"

So negotiations are ongoing.

Storm uses the space gem to put Ultron...somewhere else.

Also, Storm uses the Space gem to bring Ant-Man and Spider-Man to where she and the others are fighting Undead Thanos and crew.

The undead are doing the following:

QUICKSILVER: messing with Dark Phoenix
RED SKULL: Standing there murmuring about destiny
THANOS: Ripping off Machine Man's arm and taking the Wrath Stone from him
THUNDERBIRD: Joining the side of the living
WHIPLASH: Using his electrically-active whips to smack the Scarlet Witch's hands, making her drop both the Love Stone and the Will Stone!

He can't, however, reel them back in. Whips don't work like that.

"Hurry, Quicksilver! Recover the gems and ..."

Whiplash's whips are tied around his head and chest-harness. If he puts any juice through them, he'll fry himself.

"What?" says Quicksilver. "Nobody saw that coming?"

DARK PHOENIX: Having been ignored by the Scarlet Witch (who may have thought Storm was on it) and Storm (who may have assumed the Scarlet Witch was taking care of it), the undead Jean Grey skims the photosphere off the nearby sun and throws it down at the heroes!

BOOOM doesn't even BEGIN to cover it.

Several cities and their associated hinterlands are BOILED off the face of Hala! Worse yet, everyone hit by the sun-blast becomes dead, and therefore immediately joins the side of THANOS, the harbinger of DEATH!

Remember all that banging on I did about how genetically superior the Kree are, how it's like being on a planet of superheroes?

Yeah, no. Make that a planet of zombie supervillains.

Everyone in the hero team is washed in solar fire. Let's see how that plays out ...

STORM: not invulnerable. But lightning is an energy plasma, and the local weather just became a set of variations of lightning: lightning storms, yes, but also lightning clouds, lightning rain, even lightning SNOW ... all of which Storm can direct to please, PLEASE be not right HERE! So Storm is not incinerated.

SCARLET WITCH: can use hex bolts to, against all probability, survive.

SPIDER-MAN: Can sense it coming with Spidey-Sense! Uh ... and the Mind Gem tells him exactly what will happen to him, down to the atomic level. And unfortunately, the brilliant mind of Peter Parker UNDERSTANDS all that is about to happen to him ... sheesh.

ANT-MAN: Is quick enough on the trigger to shrink down into the quantum realm ... but will he ever escape? Can't duck between the photons without quantum shrinking, though.

MACHINE MAN: Not invulnerable. Therefore killed. And, in a surprising new fact about ontology, resurrected as Undead Machine Man! Who looks about the same, but covered with crawling electrical arcs instead of blood.

CAPTAIN MAR-VELL: Actually IS invulnerable. Costume torn. White hair mussed. Looks pretty angry.

QUICKSILVER: Ka-BOOM. Vanishes in a cloud of smoke.

WHIPLASH: Ka-BOOM. A skeleton wrapped in burned machinery. Who, being undead, is STILL WITH US ... and grinning, because he's just that crazy.

THE RED SKULL: Stripped to a real red skull, glowing red-hot, that is. But, undead, so also still there. Really "Red Skeleton" comes closer. His swastika falls off in ashes, which makes him sad. So Blue Skull.

THANOS: Also invulnerable! Everyone else has been pushed to the edges of the Shining Continent, at the lip of a miles-wide crater of molten steel. But not Thanos, and not Captain Mar-Vell, who leap at each other's throats.

"For DEATH!" says Thanos.

"For LIFE!" says Mar-Vell.

KAWHOOM!

ULTRON: Safe somewhere else.

DARK PHOENIX poses in front of the sun, which, its photosphere torn off, is burning the sky. Literally setting the sky on fire. And in each hand glows an Infinity Gem, purple in one hand, green in the other.

"Xavier, when first you glimpsed my potential, what was the first trick you ever taught me? Oh, yes ... telekinesis," she says.

"Dark Phoenix!" shouts Thanos, bent over painfully as Captain Mar-Vell tucks Thanos' boot into his own ear. "Take up the Wrath Stone and Space Stone, and with four of the six Infinity Gems, change the universe from the abode of Eternity to the mortuary of Death!"

"Sounds like a plan, Thanos my love ..." says the firebird in the sky.

(Spider-Man and Ant-Man are free to suggest ways in which they are not dead. And if the other players have an alternative way to survive, that's cool, too.)

Alas! Is This the End of The Invisible Girl ... Or the Rise of a New Supervillain?

Sue Storm is more than a little psychologically damaged by the fact that, while trying to save men she pitied, she becomes and massmurdering soul-eating vampiress. That is simply not good.

With her newly tripled powers, she turns Victor's eyeballs invisible so that all light passes through them without being intercepted by his retinas, in effect making him blind. She globes him in a force field which she then flings into the sea.

She then falls to the ground, weeping uncontrollably. Not even Namor or Rama Tut would marry her now that she is an ultrapowerful yet soul-eating evil murderess! 

Her fate will end up the same as Adam Warlock: her younger self will use time travel to kill her old evil galactic-queen self in some ridiculous yet confusing time paradox! 



That is the way these things always work out! CURSE YOU MARV WOLFMAN! 

With whatever small flake of sanity remains in her mind, she thinks over the mind link, "Spiderman, please ask the Mind Gem for information of how to undo the process of removing someone's soul from his body."

Spider-Man sends at once:

YOU MUST ENTER THE SOUL STONE AND LEAD THEM OUT. BUT IF THEY HAVE BECOME ENTANGLED, THEY ARE FOREVER LOST TO THE WORLD OF TIME. THERE IS NO TIME STONE.

Through Death's Door!

Storm tries to put more and more space between Dark Phoenix and her intended victims...more space than her attacks can cover.

Dark Phoenix reaches across the extent of the cosmos to destroy Hala! Storm keeps putting more and more space in front of her, until eventually Dark Phoenix is barely visible in the distance.

Then Dark Phoenix, with terrifying ease, opens a space warp, transiting the gulfs between in a single instant!

"Oh-ho!" she says, something no woman in her right mind has ever said. "A fellow space warper! See what you can do with this ..."

WHA-KRAMM! A black firebird slams its wings down HARD across the city, shattering buildings and making the rubble bounce.

Wanda sticks close to her brother and, using love and will, tries to stop, or even reverse! Dark Phoenix's effects on the city.

Love and will can put things back as they were. Exactly as they were! Buildings leap back up, people spring up from their deaths, fires go out and leave unburned valuables behind.

But the purple light cannot affect Dark Phoenix ... because it is not being used by someone who loves her.

Thanos approves of the destruction.

"It will help these Kree accept their fate if they die twice," he muses. "And to help still further ..."

He gestures to Machine Man, and through the black-and-red flames come Thunderbird (the Apache X-Man), Whiplash, and Ultron, the ultimate battle robot!

"Here are the defenders of light, my friends," he says to the revenants. "Bring them to appreciation of the power of Death."

And Thanos, himself, lunges clumsily toward Machine Man, who extends his legs to keep himself, and the Wrath Stone, out of Thanos' reach.

Ultron goes for Storm, Thunderbird for Scarlet Witch, and Whiplash for Star-Lord. Plus Dark Phoenix is still blowing up parts of the planet with heroes on it.