The Dark Knight is Back
The Avengers received the news of many human-eating titan creatures and Oni demons emerging across the globe. However, like Diana, Thor and Hercules knew about them, as they too were ancient gods.
“These creatures... I know them. They were used by the mad god Shinnok when he invaded Midgard 900 years ago”, Thor said.
“Who the hell is Shinnok?”, Iron Man asked, as he was ignorant of what had happened.
“Shinnok is a fallen god who wants to destroy everything. My father Zeus, and Thor’s father Odin worked together to defeat him. I, Thor, and Diana participated in the battle, along with Raiden and Fujin who are now part of White Lotus”, Hercules replied.
“So how do we kill these creatures?”, Black Widow asked.
“The demonic ones can be killed by the way we usually kill our enemies. However, these titans cannot be killed unless we destroy their nape. If you miss the nape, they will quickly regenerate back to their normal state once again”, Thor answered. Captain America heard this and called the X Mansion, which was too under attack.
“Attention! Scott Summers! These titan creatures are killed when you destroy their napes!”, Captain America spoke in the comm link.
“I sent the Sentinel drones reprogrammed to protect my school to handle them for now. Thanks for the information, Captain. We will handle them!”, Cyclops said as he shut the comm link. Captain America then called the Autobot leader which had recently landed on Earth, Optimus Prime.
“Optimus, I need you to go to the Wu Shi academy in China to handle these monsters. They have ones who know how to beat them, but they are not numerous enough!”, Captain America ordered.
“Very well, Captain!”, Optimus said as he cut off the call. Captain could hear the sound of the Ground Bridge activate as Optimus shut down the call. Hawkeye was impressed by the new allies Steve had now.
“Wow, Steve. So many new heroes! Was that the new initiative you were working on?”, Clint asked.
“Yes. I modeled the project after Fury’s Avengers Initiative, to create a bigger Avengers”, Steve replied.
“So, where are we going? The XMEN and the Autobots seems to be handling the problem well”, Tony asked.
“We help the special forces. They might had received the information about their weakness from Raiden, but they are not powerful enough. We rally with the Fantastic Four and my SHIELD agents, Bucky and Daisy, to handle the problem”, Steve said. The rest of the Avengers nodded as they made their way to the Quinjet, to help their new allies.
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The X Mansion was struck by the Netherrealm forces out of a sudden. However, Scott already had a protocol for alien invasion on the school. The students who could not fight had been already evacuated to an underground shelter made of Admantium walls, and only the fighters remained outside. However, Scott knew it was not a wise move to strike first and get killed. Scott already had a new weapon he had made himself to scout on the problem. Scott entered a command on a X computer, to activate the weapons, the reprogrammed Sentinels. Scott had used the data from Trask to use the Sentinels to defend the school, and it had served the XMEN very well. Scott saw the Sentinels go to attack the Netherrealm forces, before he gathered his XMEN forces.
“Listen. We let the Sentinels counter the problems first. We stay inside of the school building to defend it”, Scott said.
“So we aren’t fighting them?”, Jubilee asked.
“Scott doesn’t intend to strike without information and get us killed”, Jean Grey replied.
“It is for now. We will fight them when the Sentinels discover how to deal with the problem”, Emma added. However, the time to fight had come soon for the XMEN, as Captain America had delivered the message about the weakness of the mindless titans.
“So are we going now?”, Logan asked, impatient.
“We are. Everyone, put the Jetpacks on. It will make it much safer for us to get to their nape”, Cyclops ordered. The XMEN equipped themselves with Jetpacks on their back and flew out of the school building. They saw the Sentinels handling the Oni hordes quite well, but for the titan horde, quite many of them remained. Scott pulled out a machine and pressed a button, to deactivate the Sentinel drones and send them back to the X weaponry.
“Now, we don’t have to worry about getting friendly fire. Now attack!”, Scott said. The XMEN, with the information about their weakness, decimated the Netherrealm forces. Cyclops flew between titans with Jetpack on his back and fired his optic blasts precisely at the titan’s nape, killing them. Wolverine flew with Cyclops and sliced the napes with his Admantium claws, along with his clone Laura, who sliced the napes with the hand claws, as well as foot claws by spinning herself. Iceman quickly froze the titans and Oni in front of him, turning them all into ice. Beast and Colossus wasted no time smashing the ice Oni horde by their punches with brute strength, shattering the hostile forces. Iceman then summoned a ice spikes and impaled the frozen titan napes with the spikes, killing them with ease.
Iceman then realized he could end all of this by freezing all of the hostile forces, but he feared causing a friendly fire. He turned to Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and Magik. The ones who could teleport his friends to safety.
“Kurt, Kitty, Illyana! Teleport everyone away for a while, I got them all!”, Iceman declared. All three of them understood Bobby’s intention quite well. They knew Bobby could just decimate all of them with his powers.
“Yes! Bobby!”, the three of them shouted as they teleported everyone away. Dazzler created immense light from the sound from the mindless titans walking and the Oni horde’s roar, blinding them for a while. Iceman saw Kitty take some by phasing through the ground. Magik summoned a portal and dragged some others away, while Nightcrawler teleported the rest away in a blue cloud. Bobby wasted no time freezing the entire invasion force against the X Mansion. The rest of the XMEN came back the moment after Bobby froze them all.
“They are all yours”, Bobby said as he gave in to exhaustion, falling to his knees.
The other XMEN fighters wasted no time in destroying the icy statues of the invasion force. The energy attacks by Jubilee and Gambit had made the frozen Oni horde explode into pieces. Beast and Colossus smashed the icy Oni statues, while Emma kicked them into pieces in her diamond form. Angel activated his metal wing armor and used it to slice the napes of icy titan statues, along with Wolverine, Psylocke, Magik, and Laura who joined him in the effort. Storm shattered the Oni statues by a massive lightning, alongside Rogue who absorbed their life from the statues, killing them. Jean used her telepathic powers to smash the Oni statues onto the ground multiple times, shattering them. Finally, Polaris summoned metal pillars to impale the remaining titan statues in the nape, exterminating the invasion force.
“Is that all?”, Kitty said, dumbfounded.
“This was too easy”, Magik added.
“I don’t think that is all. It is only a part of a bigger enemy. We have to rally with others if we are going to fight whoever sent them to us”, Cyclops replied.
“Whatever they are, they must feel the mother nature’s wrath for coming for us”, Storm declared, furious.
“I couldn’t agree more. They must pay for trying to take my new home away”, Rogue spat, also angry.
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The Autobot base received the new of attack against Earth. Optimus saw team prime’s children looking at the screen in despair, until Captain America informed them of a way to exterminate the threat.
“Optimus... is this the end of the world?”, Jack asked Optimus, with dread.
“No, I won’t let it happen. I won’t let the tragedy on Cybertron to be repeated on this planet”, Optimus declared.
“We won’t. Those like Megatron must not destroy this planet, as well as others”, Elita added, with determination.
“That is the promise we made when I and my brothers fell from grace”, Starscream said, also determined.
“Autobots! Roll out!”, Optimus ordered. Ratchet activated the ground bridge, and they all departed together.
The Wu Shi academy was struggling against the Oni horde combined with mindless titans. Raiden informed them of how to defeat them. However, they were not numerous enough. Monks were starting to get eaten by titans which dared to approach them. Kung Lao’s blade hat, Kitana’s fans, Jade’s Razor and Fujin’s katana flew between the titan horde to slay them, slicing the napes. Liu Kang, Raiden, and Bo Rai Cho rallied together to handle the Oni hordes. Bo Rai Cho vomited on the ground, making the Oni that came to him to trip on the ground. Liu Kang summoned a fire dragon which devoured the Oni that suffered Bo Rai Cho’s attack, and those which dared to enter the Jin Sei chamber. Raiden went up in the sky to electrocute the titans which dared to approach the rest of them, until some energy blasts hit the titans in the nape. The next thing they saw was Optimus Prime and his Autobots, standing before the Shaolin warriors.
“Who are you?”, Raiden asked.
“I am Optimus Prime!”, Optimus declared as he went to kill the titans with his axe. The flying Oni hordes were immediately taken care of by the redeemed Seekers, Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp, with the aid of Jetfire and Windblade. Elita and the rest of the Autobots except the Dinobots fired at the titan’s napes, immediately annihilating them. The Dinobots brandished their swords and decapitated the titan horde. Soon the titan hordes were completely annihilated, and the Oni horde as well by the flyers. However, the peace did not last long, as a fog of smoke surrounded them all. There stood revenant Batman, his eyes devoid of emotion.
“I will kill you, for Quan Chi”, revenant Batman declared.
“Isn’t he the infamous Dark Knight?”, Kitana said, dumbfounded.
“He was killed by Galatea, and was probably resurrected by Quan Chi like he did to your mother”, Liu Kang replied.
“If I kill Earthrealm’s champion, the realm dies with him”, revenant Batman said as he attacked Liu Kang. Bruce Wayne was an expert combatant, and the fact did not change even when he was a revenant. However, Liu Kang’s skills were above the dark knight. Batman threw a smoke bomb at Liu Kang, but the champion saw the move and threw a flameball at the smoke bomb, blinding Batman as well as himself. Kitana and the others tried to help Liu. However, Batman summoned a demon bat to interfere them, leaving only Liu to face the corrupted dark knight.
“I am darkness. I am death. I am Batman!”, the fallen vigilante declared as he pulled out a twisted grappling hook that had a lethal spear on it, to stab Liu with it. However, Liu foresaw the attack and grabbed the hook instead, and pulled the corrupted vigilante toward him. Liu then threw a fireball at the fallen vigilante’s hand, making him drop the grappling hook. Liu Kang then unleashed a bicycle kick upon the fallen vigilante. The revenant was pushed away by the bicycle kick, until Batman threw a smoke grenade to blind Liu Kang once more. Batman attempted to slice Liu Kang with his bladed gauntlet. However, Liu Kang, who had faced Ninjas like Reptile knew how the dark knight would attack him. Liu Kang caught the dark knight’s fist and punched him several times, exchanging fists with the fallen knight. By the time, Raiden and the others managed to deal with the demon bats. Raiden saw the revenant dark knight and summoned Nightwolf, who could purify the vigilante.
Liu Kang countered every attack the vigilante threw at him, and began to have the dark knight cornered by unleashing a bicycle kick on the revenant once again. Raiden noticed this and teleported behind the dark knight, and electrocuted the revenant. Fujin quickly joined the fight and blew the dark knight up in the air, trapping him inside of of a tornado.
“Nightwolf! Now!”, Raiden ordered. The Matokan was quick to oblige and unleashed a purification magic upon the corrupted dark knight in form of a lightning from his axe. The magic soon began to purify Batman, as Bruce Wayne began to scream in pain. Soon Batman’s former self was truly brought back, who stared at the Shaolin warriors in awe.
“Thank you...”, Batman, now finally free of Quan Chi, uttered his gratitude.
“No need for gratitudes, Batman. Is Shinnok free?”, Raiden asked.
“I remember serving him. He is freed and sending his invasion force to Earth! I was sent to retrieve his amulet. I am grateful that you freed me before it happened”, Batman answered.
“It truly is a blessing to Earthrealm to have one of their heroes truly brought back”, Liu Kang replied. However, none of them realized a gray-skinned rat managed to sneak into the Jin Sei chamber, completely avoiding attention. The rat had the Shinnok’s amulet in its mouth, and disappeared into the shadows.