"Stephen!!!!!!" Clea felt her knees start to give out, her steps start to falter. She pressed on toward what was left of the Sanctum of Dr. Stephen Strange. She pressed on through the smoke, through the fire, through the... heavy air.

She stopped suddenly, casting a look at Satanna, who was following just a step behind her. The demon mistress of Limbo wiped her brow and nodded.

They had been able to shield the worst of the explosion with a mystic field... but there was still... something in the air. Something magical. Something dark. Something, that lingered.

She started forward again, pushing herself forward with a simple incantation to allow passage. The air seemed lighter around her, as if a veil was parting to allow them access.

She started forward, and stopped suddenly.

The Asgardian Riaod screamed as he charged forward, slicing at the air in front of himself with his fiendish sword.

Clea summoned a blade of her own, feeling the air get thicker around them when she shifted her concentration, feeling the blade of energy leap into her hands, larger than usual.

She shifted slightly to note that Satanna still had her hellish sword... but it seemed to glow brighter than it ever had before.

"Fall back" Clea mouthed to the demon mistress, who nodded in return. They had to regroup... had to get a handle on the situation.

Her arm went numb when her sword blocked Riaod's. The blow had almost knocked her sword from her hand. Had it been steel, she had no doubt that her blade would have been broken in two. Had her reflexes been slightly slower... she didn't finish the sentence. She care for the conclusion.

Riaod raised his blade again, only to be met head on by Satanna's.

Clea turned to the demon mistress, who was too occupied in a game of feign and counter feign to return the glance behind her.

"Just go!" Satanna shouted from the midst of battle, "I'll hold him here. You find the others and get this under control!"

Clea nodded, to herself, and turned and ran the rest of the way through the smoke. Satanna had been correct in her assessment. She had to make sure about their teammates, and see what she could do about the fact that her one true home in the dimension was now gone... along with her friends in the Magicians Circle and Wong... and the body of Stephen Strange, the only one who had ever made her life worthwhile. His spirit was, hopefully, as safe as it could be in the Land of the Dead, but if he had no body to return to... she didn't finish that sentence either. It seemed safer not to. Nor did she finish her thought when the idea of how many items of mystic origin... how many items of power had been in the building when it had exploded.

There was a time and a place for everything. And Stephen had long ago taught her that the priority needed to be on saving human life above all else. Stephen had lived that ideal... Clea looked back through the smoke, wishing she could pierce through it with the Light of Agamotto... but without the Eye, the spell took longer than she had at the moment. Stephen had lived the ideal... and, perhaps, he was to die by it as well.

Clea nodded to herself and kept moving forward, hoping to run into someone in the thick smoke... hoping that they would be friend rather than foe. Hoping... and running... trying to get to

	November- Year 4
	#199

Jennifer March sat up suddenly, alert. She jumped to her feet and headed to the window.

Mist was already there, staring out, as if looking for something.

"You too huh?"

Her Valkyrie chaperone nodded sharply.

"Something very wrong just happened." Jennifer offered.

Mist shook her head, "Saying that the universe itself just shook off its foundation would be closer." she explained, "Whatever that was, they felt it in the golden halls of the All Father."

"What should we do about it?" Jennifer asked. They had returned to Midgard... Earth... and gone to the only place Jennifer knew she would be welcome - the mansion of Janet Van Dyne. The team had been based there for quite some time, but no one on staff had been able to tell her anything other than the fact that the team was out fighting some threat, and that they expected someone back soon. But they were more than welcome to make themselves at home, and wait.

They had waited through a couple hours of nothing, watching television... and talking. Fandral had been talking since they had left the Great Hall of the Valkyrior and had kept it up since that point until going to explore the expanse of the house they found themselves in.

"We are of course." Mist returned. Jennifer thought about it for a moment, then nodded. She started for the staircase leading upstairs.

"Where are you going?" The Valkyrie inquired.

Jennifer March turned back to her with a look of defiance, "There's something I need to do," she answered, "And now's as good of a time as any."

"Hulk smash!" the green mountain of power cried as he took another swing at Lifeforce's shield. Once again, it held - barely.

Cecilia Reyes looked over to her teammate, and lover, Isaac Christians. He nodded. She took a step back with him, and then another. They slowly inched their way out of the Hulk's reach. The monster did not follow them. It just stood there, swinging his mighty arms back and forth, as if enjoying the power contained within the body for the first time. CeeCee looked over to where Maximus the Mad was standing, oblivious to it all, behind a force shield of his own.

Then she looked back at the enraged emerald beast. It was no wonder that the Hulk was having a bit of trouble adjusting. It WAS the Inhuman tyrant's first attempt to control such a creature.

"Hulk play wishbone with the birdman." The voice that wasn't the Hulk cackled.

Nighthawk tried to ignore him, and along with Northstar, deliver hits from behind that, with luck, might manage to at least stagger the former Defender.

Kyle Richmond wasn't sure it would do any good, but he had followed the mutant's lead.

Timeslip was standing away from the battle, as if concentrating on something else entirely. Perhaps, Kyle mused, she was trying an indirect approach. Either that, or she was otherwise engaged on a completely different level.

If dealing with sorcerers and people with great powers throughout his years with the team had taught him anything - it was that you couldn't always judge actions on the surface level. Someone who appeared to just be standing around was often enough doing more than those slugging it out.

He flew back around for another pass at the Hulk... noting that Moondragon was sparring with the Moonscythe, the villain formerly known as the Grim Reaper. Her own Titan trained skills seemed to be keeping her one step ahead of the villain's weapon of choice, but from the look on her face, her attempts at mental assaults had not been going as expected.

He nodded to himself... it wasn't just a matter of trying to take over the dead... it was trying to take over the dead who were already under someone else's control. A control that until recently, he too had been under as well.

He pulled up in his attack against the Hulk, propelling himself higher into the air.

Moonstone had vanished after Maximus had used the Hulk to strike her down... and Moondancer, Nekra, was also not accounted for. He needed to get a better view of what was going on. He needed to...

He fell out of the sky like a rock. He rolled the best he could out of the hard landing... Maximus had staggered back. Moondragon was clutching her head... and Moonscythe was moving in for the kill.

The portal opened and they stepped out into the world again. Janine DeLoup glanced over at Eric Simon Payne, the Devil Slayer, in confusion. Something didn't feel right. It wasn't just that she couldn't hear Gaea in her head anymore. It was that... something was different, very different in the air. Something was very wrong.

Chloe Boudreaux confirmed her feeling with a glance. The former Fist of the God Khonshu felt it as well. Janine tried to put a handle on it.. tried to find the phrase that would put her feelings into words. "The universe has turned itself inside out." Devil Slayer muttered, breaking the silence.

Janine nodded, satisfied. She looked around, scanning their location. It was then that she heard the sounds of pitched battle coming from the distance.

Chloe's face seemed to light up. The Devil Slayer seemed to be on the verge of running all the way there. They looked to her. For whatever reason, they looked to her.

She nodded in the affirmative, and they were off, headed back where they belonged: in the thick of the action.

Rina Patel watched and waited in the wings. She had been in position to see the Sanctum explode. She had gotten there in time to see herself and the others react to that, and to Riaod the Swordsman's attack. She didn't remember this battle, which meant that the Timeslip involved was one from further down the time stream. Or else.. time was changing. She shook her head, the Sanctum had been destroyed in her own past as well. But she had been elsewhere... she allowed her mind to drift back... she had been fighting against Maximus... and the Hulk... and Kang.

She nodded slowly. Kang had been there. That didn't preclude him from being here as well. Not when she was pulling the same trick. But it certainly decreased the odds of it.

She noticed a shell shocked looking Clea reaching Battlestar and Mr. Immortal. Hannibal King came through the smoke next. Followed by the Wasp and herself.

Satanna was nowhere to be seen.

Rina shook her head. She would come out sooner or later. Some of her best memories had been the time spent with Satanna. And that had come later in her pregnancy... as "later" as anything could be, she thought sarcastically.

The Mistress of Limbo was most likely holding back the assault of the Swordsman, buying the others time.

Rina looked down at the silent bundle in her arms, glad for once that her child never made the noises of a normal child. He just lay there, as if taking everything the world had to offer in. As if carefully studying it for future use. It had unnerved her more than once in the past. But now, now she was grateful for it. It helped her maintain her concentration, her stealth... her..

She caught the movement headed toward the team out of the corner of her eye. Several figures... she slowed down the way her eyes were seeing them in order to make out who they were.

They barely slowed down even so. It was as though something was pushing them forward at a much higher speed.

Nitro. Basilisk. Boomerang. Solarr. Hammer and Anvil.

The Crime Cartel were attacking her team!

She pushed harder to slow them down. She tried to lengthen the space between seconds. They seemed to anticipate her attempts from a distance and speed up accordingly.

Hammer slammed his fist into Battlestar's face before anyone knew that the villains were in their midst.

Rina Patel, Timeslip started to move forward to assist her friends. She started forward, and then stopped.

Kang the Conqueror stood in front of her, his arms folded in front of him. And a look of truimph on his metal face.

The universe itself had trembled at the edge of falling into nothingness.

C'thon looked across the void and smiled. He stepped across it easily. And waited in the spaces between the astral plane and the material one, waited to hear his summoning. It would not be long... he knew that in the hate that filled his heart... it was coming soon.

Kang continued to stand in his bubble, watching as the forces now under the control of the Inhuman Maximus the Mad battled the Defenders. He glanced over to his left, where Moonstone was looking obviously impatient. She kept attempting to suggest that he intercede on behalf of the team she had assembled. But he kept raising his gauntlet for her to be silent. He had time on his side after all... he could afford to wait... to make sure that the time was right to strike.

He glanced over to his right, and nodded. Mad Dog, the reptilian Slither, and Shocker bounded forward. He knew that they were not much of a force... but he would use what he had to help keep everyone off balance enough to not realize where his true attack would be coming from.

He glanced over to where Rina Patel, Timeslip, was lost in concentration. She was carrying the baby that could grow up to be him. He had not been able to move against her when her older selves had been around, before the conception. There had been too great of a risk... even now, the risk remained. He stared at where the woman who might be his mother stood, and glanced over to Moonstone. "Bring her to me" he commanded. "Alive if possible."

Moonstone smiled as she slipped out of the time bubble and toward a target at last.

Halcyon watched the pawns scattered across the board, moving toward their destinations, toward their confrontations. His own Riaod was not fairing as well as he had hoped against his group of Defenders. But he certainly was keeping one of the most powerful members occupied while the others battled the Crime Cartel.

Perhaps it was time to pull out his other weapon, he mused. The one he had been holding onto, just in case.

He glanced over to the flux field he had used to contain it... once he had been able to catch it by surprise and bring it here.

It had still been disoriented. Still uncertain about who it was, and what it's purpose should be. He had grabbed it in that state, before it had time to come to those conclusions, before it had time to reach it's potential.

He studied the views spread out in front of him. Riaod was fighting Satanna. The Crime Cartel was engaging one group of Defenders, while the other was battling Maximus' forces... and now those of the other Kang. A third Rina was facing a third Kang. He shook his head and laughed. There had been a time when he would not have believed the sheer arrogance in his family. But that was before he had become the Lord of Time, before he had become Halcyon. He was only grateful that his more recent evolutionary step, Immortus, had apparently decided to sit the round out. He did not remember why he might have made the decision to so... much of that time was still very much clouded in his own mind. But he was certain that there had been a self-righteous explanation involved.

There was also... something that refused to show up on his view screen. Some sort of counter movement going on being shielded from his vision. Whatever it was, it was clearly meant for him not to see... which made it a threat to be dealt with.

He walked over to the flux field with a smirk. And released it.

He released it directly in the path of whatever was moving against his will. Directly in the path of what would soon be very, very dead.

Hecate. Amon. Set. The steeds of the man who was now Satan, the Lord of Hell. They streaked across the sky at the whim of their master. Their master, who stood at their reigns once more after a long absence. At his side stood his companion, his sometimes lover, his loyal assassin, Jaine Cutter.

He had felt the world change around them even in Fire Lake. He knew, in his heart, that the world would change again before everything was truly over.

There were dark forces in motion. Forces aimed to stab into the heart of the body that was the Defenders.

He was a dark force of his own though these days. A force that sped through the sky toward the mortal city known as New York to see what he could to do to save his old friends. Or at least to avenge them.

Century watched in silence as the shuttlecraft from the Dragon's Eye entered the Earth's atmosphere. He watched in silence, and noted the disturbance of what was supposed to be.

Or rather, the Dragon that dwelled behind his eyes did. His power swirled in dark spirals, threatening to leap out and destroy everything at any given moment. For now though, it stayed in its shell. As did the two beside that sat strapped in beside him.

They were heading for New York. They were heading to kill the Defenders once and for all.

When the universe shook, the wizened sorcerer stepped through the portal into the future. Kulan cast a look around, scanning for his intended targets. A wide grin came across his face as he began his chant. They were in front of what appeared to be the charred remains of the Sanctum of Stephen Strange, already fighting for their lives against mortal opponents.

His chant would change that, Kulan knew. He would bring the primal world back into being, to replace the modern wreck of civilization that had developed in its bossom like a cancer. He would destroy his foes, and make the world more suitable for his tastes, all in one fell swoop.

He cackled as he watched his enemies do battle, not knowing that the far larger threat to their continued well being was only a few feet away.

Belasco stood in the shadows of the mortal world, watching his outdated accomplice begin his chant. He kept an eye on that situation, wondering how it would affect the overall goal. Wondering if it was just another lost soul's lost cause.

Now that the smoke had thinned, he could make out the battle he was interested in. Clea and her fellow Defenders fighting mortal villains was certainly well and good, but he had more riding on the outcome of the fencing war being waged between the Asgardian Swordsman Riaod and the usurpter to the throne that should be his by rights, Satanna.

He watched with interest as they matched each other blow for blow, hoping to see that one mistake on the behalf of the Princess of Hell that would put an end to her reign once and for all, without his having to so much as raise a hand against her.

He did not see one. She seemed to be giving just as well as she received, and more so. Belasco couldn't see how even one of the immortal realms finest swordsmen could stand up to her for very much longer.

So he summoned a sword of his own, and marched into the fray. He would cut her down, or allow Riaod to do so by providing a rather fear inspiring distraction. Either way, he reasoned, it would be Belasco who would win in the end.

The army of Hel poured through the gateway their mistress had created. Now was the time to claim that which was hers. Now was the time that the Valkyrie Brunnhilde would pay the price of her arrogance.

She could see her, coming into the fray between the mad Inhuman's forces and those of the Defenders. She saw her... and sent her army forth to capture her.

Hela watched as the Valkyrie turned to the face them. She watched and her anger grew by the second. Brunnhilde was not the woman she was attacking - but rather her fellow Valkyrior, Mist.

Hela shook her fist savagely, and then suddenly smiled, "If I can not have Brunnhilde" she whispered to the darkness that surrounded her, "Then I shall claim another in her place."

Fandral the Dashing slashed at the forces of Hel that had appeared between his group and the Defenders they had come to aid. Both Mist and Jennifer had wanted to continue on to Greenwich, where they felt a major disturbance, but flying over a team of Defenders that Jennifer had been surprised to see had been enough to make them engage the enemy in this spot instead.

"Have at!" he howled, as he struck down yet another of the army of the undead. It wasn't exactly original, but at least Hogun was not around to never let him live it down. Let alone what Volstagg would have said about such a battle cry.

He looked around for his companions. Mist seemed to be the center of the enemies' attention, standing at the fore of their attack and cutting down her foes by the dozens.

He glanced over to wear he had last seen the woman he had been sent from Asgard to watch. It was times like these, in the heart of battle, that she could prove the most dangerous, the most unpredictable.

She had proven that when she had come back downstairs in a yellow and blue costume. He watched her prove that in the distance as she cut through the main body of resistance toward her comrades, leaving the army of the undead two targets instead of three. "Curse her" he muttered as he cut down a couple more of his foes... and wondered silently if Hel had a limit of undead to send against them - and if they would ever reach it.

Maximus the Mad watched with amusement as the new players took the stage. "Chaos" he muttered to himself in delight... watching as Moondragon managed to kick Moonscythe in the stomach, and took back control of the situation that had almost cost her more than she could afford.

Maximus laughed. But something inside him hissed in anger.

He felt the Dragon surge up into his mind, but he couldn't stop it.

He staggered forward, but the Dragon righted him once more.

Maximus the Mad stared at Moondragon, watching her drive back her opponent.

But it was the Dragon of the Moon that took over his form to attack.

NEXT: Issue #200. Don't miss it.

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