Meanwhile back with Peter, he was staring down 8 Heralds of the Elder G.o.ds of the Octessence.Juggernaut herald of Cyttorak the Rage Father.
Herald of Ikonn, master of illusions, Mysterio.
Raggadorr G.o.d of technology"s herald Stonecutter.
Styxx follower of the cult of Entropy, herald of Valtorr, G.o.d of toxins and decay.
Gorgon leader of the Hand, and the herald of Krakkan, the G.o.d of prisons and the jailer of all those who oppose him.
The Herald of Balthakk, the G.o.d of energies and unknown forces, Inferno.
Modred the Mystic as the herald of Watoomb, the G.o.d of magic and spellcraft.
And lastly was Kraven the Hunter, the herald of Farallah the G.o.d of beasts and the hunt.
Mysterio waved his hands and suddenly Peter and Deadpool appeared outside the earth and started falling without control, they could feel the heat of re-entry, Peter was in disbelief that an illusion could grab hold of him, since the suit was supposed to give him psionic resistances, yet the force of Ikonn"s might was able to burst through its defenses with ease.
Peter closed his eyes and only used his Spider-Sense to focus in on reality, after coming out of it he noticed that his suit was piping hot, and Deadpool was burning up as if the illusion were real. "It looks like I"ll have to go looking for more materials, the purity levels of the metal in my suit and the effects of my organic webbing are too low to stand up against something G.o.dlike."
His Spide-Sense went off like nothing he"s ever felt before as he saw Styx reaching out towards him with a blackened energy of decay radiating from his fingertips, jumping back while pulling Deadpool with him he landed on the wall then quickly webbed up a circlet of organic webbing for Deadpool to wear, and then enchanted with a few dozen mental resistance spells onto it.
Seeing that he was still in the illusion Peter started to slap Deadpool, "Ohh! Hit me harder daddy!" Deadpool shouted, making Peter almost puke, seeing that it still till no effect, he then decided to hard boot him by snapping his neck
"What happened?" Deadpool jumped up, "You got hit with an illusion, I reset your brain."
Deadpool laughed, "Oh, you killed me, like an on and off b.u.t.ton for a frozen computer, neat! You can turn me on whenever you want webs."
Peter gave him a deadpan stare before saying, "I think I just threw up a little." He pointed to the webbing around his head and said, "That will give you some resistance against Psionics, try not to fall into it again. If you suspect your in an illusion then just kill your self to get out."
Peter turned to them to try and use his telepathy to knock them out, however, not all of them shared Juggernauts weakness, they all wore magical suits that granted them incredible resistances against just about everything, Peter gritted his teeth and said, "So Deadpool any advice."
"Don"t die, and do team-ups with me more often," Deadpool shouted as he started shooting his pistols at them, the entire island turned into chaos as the building shook around them.
Peter and Deadpool were doing everything they could to dodge the onslaught of their attacks, magic, tech, and many mystical energies a.s.saulted them in waves, Juggernaut and Kraven teamed up using their powerful strength to and speed to collapse half of the building structure.
Peter tried to web out and create support pillars out of his webbing, when all of the sudden, Kraven lept through cutting them with a strange energy that surrounded his claws. Peter webbed his back and sent him flying to Juggernaut the two hit each other and tumbled over, as this happened Peter got an idea.
"Deadpool! Web of Spider-Man issue number 91!" Peter shouted as he watched him trying to tango with the rest of the Octessence heralds, he dodged their attacks and managed to cut the surface of their armor before saying, "You mean that time when you used a bad guy to defeat another...Ohh! I get it!"
Deadpool pulled down his pants and showed his a.s.s and started spanking his but and Inferno, "Hey honey, how about a full moon pie, all you can eat." Inferno charged up a powerful beam of energy and shot it like a Gatling -gun at Deadpool, who started jumping around until he stood directly in front of Gorgon and hugged him before saying, "I love you Gorgon! I won"t let her hurt you!"
The blast shot through him knocking Gorgon into the wall. He jumped back out looking a little exhausted and shouted, "I will seal you in a h.e.l.l for all eternity for that Deadpool."
The damage Deadpool inflicted on him started to self-heal, along with his armor, Peter also noticed that the clamps he was he had thrown to the ground earlier were moving back towards Juggernaut, in response, Peter pulled them into his bag of infinite s.p.a.ce and dodged their attacks as they charged him.
Kraven was fast and carried a wild aura around him as he swiped his claws that could cut through adamantium with ease, Peter dodged them all with barely any room to maneuver, Styx tried to sneak up on Peter and touch his back, when Peter webbed his body and tossed him towards the charging Juggernaut and Kraven"s direction. "Here"s a present for ya Jugs!" Peter shouted as Kraven dashed out of the way avoiding Styx"s claw-like hands Juggernaut actually ducked under him and slid towards Peter in an attempt dodge him.
Peter jumped over Juggernaut and webbed up Styx"s body again and started to use him as a weapon against the other two, Juggernaut and Kraven were now dodging Peter"s attacks as he swung Styx like a wrecking ball of decay. The ground and materials around them turned to dust as the two Exemplars dodged with everything they had, Styx had had enough and chose to decay the part of his body where the webbing was attached into dust, sending him flying into the ground next to Deadpool.
Deadpool, being surprised by him was. .h.i.t by a powerful blast of energy and was sent flying back into the distance, Peter swung by and caught him before landing on the half-destroyed second floor. Stonecutter began using sc.r.a.ps and other technology lying around to start building some kind of ma.s.sive arena, suddenly the whole building broke down and reformed into the ma.s.sive flat platform that started floating up into the sky. "Let the G.o.d Machine be built, and let the war over mankind begin." Stonecutter said laughing.
Peter saw the Hydra Council members and a few remaining patients standing off in the distance, Webster appeared and wrapped up the remaining captives and lept off the ledge and safely landed alongside the remaining victims, Peter raised his hand and felt the Symbiote return to his body, as this happened the Hydra council members tried to run, however Peter"s earlier commands held them still, Kraven had smelled the weakness radiating from them and attacked, before Peter could do anything all of them had been carved up into chunks.
Kraven started to laugh, "The more I kill the stronger I become!"
Peter didn"t have any remorse about letting them die, they were going to executed by the state, but he didn"t want them to die by the hands of a villain, Peter gripped his fist and webbed Kraven"s fists up as he began to pull him over towards the bottom of his foot. Kraven slashed the webbing with his fangs and landed on the ground on all fours before he started to charge at Peter like an animal.
When all of the sudden Stonecutter shouted, "Stop at once mortal, your efforts are futile, once the G.o.d Machine is complete all of humankind will be divided amongst us 8 as our troops, and the whole of humanity will lose all free will throughout the duration of our war, until only one remains as the victor. I would rather not waste any good soldiers they may end up on my side, so if you would stop any unproductive struggling, I would appreciate it."
Peter frowned, he could stop this and start destroying the building, but Stonecutter could always rebuild it however he saw fit, he growled and racked his brain to try and think of a way to put an end to all this madness when Strange appeared from out of a teleportation circle, "Challenge them, Peter!" Doctor Strange shouted, "You are the Champion Totem of a G.o.d, a Herald just like them, and if you challenged them to combat you can state the terms,"
The Herald for Watoomb suddenly shouted, "Doctor Strange! It has been too long, you really shouldn"t have turned down Watoomb"s offer, at least one eight of humanity would have been spared from combat and would have had a chance of avoiding extinction as a race, but because of your actions, Humanity is destined to perish." Mordred started to laugh menacingly.
"b.a.s.t.a.r.d offspring of Morgan and Arthur!" Strange looked absolutely livid, it appeared there was some harsh history between the two, as Strange continued to berate him, "You betrayed the Ancient One"s trust, and are a heretic to all spellcasters, you dare to accept Watoomb"s power? I should have killed you all those years ago!"
"But you didn"t, you failed to match my power, and trapped me in the dark realm, if not for that stupid Asgardian fumbling about the realms like a blind child, I may never have escaped."
Peter gulped, "Challenge them all by my self, even If I use the gems I understand, you know I can"t touch the Reality, or Soul Merlin Gems right. Less than one minute of the power from Merlin stone I can use, I don"t suppose you know of any other Totems that can help, because in case you haven"t noticed, I"m up against 8 elder G.o.d heralds and can"t exactly fight them all by my self!"
The Octessence members started laughing, "Puny Mortal wishes to challenge the great Octessence!" Juggernaut shouted, all of the sudden a bright light beamed out from the 8 artifacts their powers originated from, the Ivory Idol of Ikonn, the Fearsome Fist of Farallah, the Kestrel Key of Krakkan, Verdant Vial of Valtorr, the Blinding Brazier of Balthakk, the Crimson Crystal of Cyttorak, the Ringed Ruby of Raggadorr, and a miniature model of the Waterfall of Watoomb.
The eight G.o.d-like beings appeared in a transparent form that only showed the top half of their bodies, "A Totem from Kokyangwuti sp.a.w.n dares to challenge us!"
Something suddenly clicked insider Peter, "Kokyangwuti, Spider Grandmother! The Native American G.o.ddess of Spiders, In Hopi mythology, "Spider Grandmother" (Hopi Kokyangwuti) is the creator of humans, identified with Earth G.o.ddesses and other Sky-Mothers, such as Hera, or Freyja, and Gaia."
Peter grabbed his chin and thought back to the history he read in Navajo mythology, "Spider-Woman (Na"ashjé"íí Asdzáá) is the constant helper and protector of humans. The Diné Bahaneʼ creation narrative of the Navajo (recorded 1928) includes a mention of both a Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, who introduced the spindle and the loom. According to the Zuni, string games were given to them by Grandmother Spider."
Peter"s foot started tapping against the ground, "Master Weaver, Totems, Focal Points in the Web of Life! I already suspected but now, to hear it first hand, it all makes sense! Strange was right, those dead languages and G.o.ds were worth all the time spent learning."
A large image of a younger Madam Web appeared behind Peter, "I do think that my Totem is far stronger than yours, he"s just outnumbered!"
"What are you proposing, what are the stakes,?" Ikonn spoke out, "I will summon 6 Totems from the web of life, my Champion shall select them as his allies and you shall fight. If my Totems wins you will have to find another planet to choose to do battle on, and with a primitive species only, you G.o.ds of chaos are always saying that chaos can breed progress, how about you put your words to the test." The Spider-Grandmother responded.
All of them grumbled, "It could take hundreds for the winner to start gaining the worship of us, what if we win?" Krakkan, the most human looking out of all the elder G.o.ds said as he crossed his arms.
"If you win, I will designate one entire universe to your Octessence to rule." The Spider G.o.ddess smiled as she stared them down.
"Tempting, but what if we refuse?" Balthakk questioned.
"I don"t think you will, not unless you want me to go around spreading to every other Pantheon, that not only are you weak but cowardly as well!" Kokyangwuti said grinning.
"You dare insult us, Kokyangwuti?" Cyttorak slammed his hand down on his throne he was sitting on as the rest of the elder G.o.ds began to shout in complaints.
Peter scratched his head and thought, "Maybe our ability to insult is the reason the Spider-Men and Women get picked."
"We accept your challenge, Kokyangwuti!" The elder G.o.ds shouted, making her laugh, she then turned to Peter and said, "Well other than the Guardian, who is your choice for the remaining 6?"
Peter gulped as he started to think, "My girlfriend is kind of busy right now, can we hold off on this battle for now, and there are a lot of universes to choose from can you give me a few days to decided?"
"We will give you three hours to decided!" The Elder G.o.ds shouted.
Peter grunted before sending out a message to MJ, "MJ I could use your help on this one, how are things on your end?"