Shards of Destiny
Beyond Infinity: Part III - Time To Fold...

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Warlock smiled. “You have made a fatal miscalculation, lord of lies, you have revealed your hand to one who has humiliated you in your own realm.” He had to fight off a laugh of content to no avail. “How much worse will you fare away from your entire universe. Prepare to be sanctioned,” Warlock fired forth a bolt of emerald judgment at the lord of pain, and bathed him in its esoteric light.

Mephisto was unscathed. “You must cut me off from my source, and He is beyond even your touch.”

Doom and Reese were locked in combat, of the most cosmic kind as reality-warping power made their changes in the Beyond realm. Latveria sprouted within like a seed, which had been sped up with time laps photography, a duplicate of Owen Reese apartment complex in Boulder also appeared.   Versions of Reed Richards also appeared. Babbling inanely out pouring of the subconscious of both men gods and whatever category they fell into.

“Reese the power is different for all who wield, and your whiny self indulgent prattling make the power of the Beyonder, weak and insufficient against your master!”  Doom, sounding more like himself than the born again Doom, poured on the power. “It is nearly over Reese!”

Batman struggled against the admantium grip that held him helplessly aloft. The dark knight’s hand pushed against places where pressure points should be found . . . but there were none. Rarely had Wayne felt so helpless, it would be only a matter of time before his throat was crushed.

Despite death being only moments away he kept his head. Reaching inside his belt he reached for a most unlikely weapon, a cross, the one that Spectre had handed him outside before entering this place. The vampire screamed as the cross burnt an impression of itself on his forehead. Rune dropped the Batman on the floor of the dilapidated building, and was sent backward by the blinding pain of the holy brand-mark that sizzled upon his brow.

“PAYYYYY FFFFOOOOOORRRRRRRRR THHHAT, I AAAMMMMMM AAA GOD!!”

Rune grew to titanic proportions, but was still able to move with incredible speed for its size, and grabbed the Dark Knight, and holding him like a miniature Fay Ray from an old King Kong movie.

“So what’s next?” said Batman who was held helpless once more. “Going to climb the tallest building.” The caped Bruce Wayne had dropped the cross, and didn't even know where it was. He looked at the collapsed building and knew that all his hope was buried from within.

“YOU DIE!”

Alfred seemed to watch on as all this was taking place, and then he began to count.  Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . .

Warlock fired another blast from the emerald gem of soul, and once again Mephisto could only laugh. “Do you not realize, I am the Beyonder, this universe and everything in it is mine?!” 

Mephisto felt a tap on his shoulder, and behind him was Victor von Doom. “That, tormentor of my mother’s soul, remains to be seen!”

Mephisto and Doom grew to enormous proportions filling the realm of beyond itself. Warlock who was like an ant next to these promethium giants, could only watch and count - five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . and in unison with Spectre, who was in full command of Alfred’s form. Then Adam Warlock, who now watched Doom and Mephisto, proclaimed as if announcing the Ten Commandments for the First time . . .

“ONE!”

Like some terrible vision, a glowing green light appeared in the sky, and the being called Rune looked upward, and even with his vast power, realized it was his doom. The beam struck him full, and the brand mark began to glow. Then Rune could feel his stomach rupture, taking the remaining five Infinity Gems from the vampires bowels. The gems opened an aperture in the fabric of space and vanished. Batman would have fallen to his death had not his lightning fast reflexes reacted fast enough for his bat-a-rang to wrap itself around a building. But the vampire Rune was not dead, as its stomach sealed up and it vanished into the shadows again.

Leaving Batman to slowly shack his head from side to side, “What in the world?”

Once again, Warlock was supreme - the powers of time, space, mind, reality, power and the soul were reunited, the Living Tribunal granting the gems a pardon, at least for the current crisis to conclude. Warlock snapped his fingers "SNAP" and Doom and Mephisto were bound by twin circlets of energy.

Then the Beyond Realm which was nearly infinite in size began to stir as waves of energy moved about, revealing the Beyonder, who had manifested during the Secret Wars of long ago. He was facing Warlock and for a moment there was a great silence between the two powerful beings.

A green light erupted from the soul gem and struck the Beyonder in full. Slowly, the Beyonder rose and his body began to glow, Doom and Mephisto were transported to their own realms respectively with there memories erased.

Now it was only the two of them. “Thank you,” said the Beyonder.

“You have recalled all your divided parts, and become the true Beyonder once more,” declared Warlock.

“The soul you gave me to use as a template will work,” the Beyonder rumbled. “Never again will my energies act of their own violation.”

“That was your weakness Rune had corrupted. Your realm and with the Infinity Gems would have overtaken even the likes of Doctor Doom and Mephisto. It was Rune who was the true architect of all this, he used Mephisto’s status and Doom’s sliver of the cube to fulfill his plan,” said Adam Warlock, reviewing the notes that he had collected mentally.

“Now that I have this soul template, I need never fear the usurpation of my power again.” The Beyonder closed his eyes and all his aspects were returned. “For the first time I am complete no longer need I use agents, the cosmic cubes, the celestials that I used, and the agents which I dispersed through the cosmos like the Beyonder double I used in the Secret Wars, and the one I had collected by my agents the cubes during the crisis with Doom and Shaper. One of my doubles had developed a personality of its own and thought it was sentient, a whole rather than the part.”

“And the true Celestials will not pass judgment for creating containment units that used their images,” said Adam Warlock. With that he vanished and the Beyonder for the first time was now truly alive more then just semi sentient energy, but a whole and complete being.

Batman looked all around but could find no trace of Rune.  Bruce was startled as Alfred was in front of him.

“Why do I feel like a puppet, Spectre?” Batman asked, the greatest deactivate of his universe and he was starting to see the picture for the first time.

“You were no puppet, if you had not placed that mark on him, the Soul Gem would not have been able to reach out from another universe and break down the vampires mystic shell, he would have destroyed everything.”

“It doesn't help.”  And the Batman turned away and walked into the night, vowing to find Rune . . . for in the depths of his soul he knew the vampire still lived . . .

The End of Beyond Infinity