Angels of Rain and Lightning

Pure silence.

"What?" Archive hissed. Most humans would be unable to talk, while their throats were being crushed by the next best thing to a living god. Most humans weren't made of nanites.

"I came to the world of Altara before I set out to your pitiful planet," Darkthornn said, tossing Archive to the ground -- leaving the hero gasping and clutching at his throat. His skin was starting to flake. It was turning gray and dissolving away into nothingness. Maddie was sobbing, her eyes brimming with tears as she struggled against her restraints. "I knew that my final project, the conquest of the Cosmic Font and the powers of the Light, which have...for reasons that still baffle me...taken up roost on your backwater planet...it was not without risk."

"And so, glorious Darkthornn set aside a portion of his greatness," Dominique said, beaming as she stepped up to stand beside Darkthornn. "Encoding it within the very fabric of the cosmos."

"A dark signal, echoing through the substrata of your physical laws." Darkthornn said, clenching his fist as he turned to Archive. Archive was clutching at his neck. But now his fingers were turning gray and flaking away as well. His breath was coming in soft, ragged gasps as he tried to sit up. Tried to speak. "But I needed a place for memories. Thoughts. Feelings." He smirked. "The Altarans were soft enough to believe me merely a customer. I used them, then destroyed them, so that no other could use their technology."

"B-But...why?" Archive asked.

"Why?" Darkthornn asked, then laughed. "Oh. You're speaking to the coven of survivors you bear. Likely?" he smirked. "They didn't wish to be evicted...a shame." He shook his head. "I'd have kept them alive. But keeping a backup in an...agent of chaos like you is..." he shrugged. "Unwise."

Archive was starting to dissolve before Beta's eyes. In the thin wind of Endtymes, which blew through the holes in the walls and ceilings, dust flaked away, leaving him looking thinner and thinner. Darkthornn turned away -- content. He started for the doorway.

Archive...

Stood.

"Darkthornn..." he rasped.

Darkthornn turned to face him.

"I'm...not...Archive..." Archive growled. "I...am...Xander...Logan..." He started forward, walking in staggers and starts. He stepped up and Darkthornn casually batted aside Xander's swing with his hand. Xander sagged -- falling half to the ground, his palms slapping down. His head hung forward.

But his voice was strong.

"And you really should dodged, you big raisin chinned motherfucker."

Archive stood and punched in the same fluid motion, his body flaring with sudden color, light and power. The impact boomed through the room and sent the Gatekeeper, Dominique and Paradox Angels flying backwards. Darkthornn himself flipped and smashed into the wall of the throne room, obliterating it with a spray of dust and smoke. Archive laughed, then shook himself and looked back at Maddie.

"Princess Radi reset the shutdown process via his biodermal computer. Asshole's password is one-"

Darkthronn returned with a vengence. He stepped out of a darkcaster and swung his fist at Archive. Archive ducked, but not quite quickly enough. The concussive boom of the impact filled the air -- but Beta pushed forward despite it. He snarled and gritted his teeth. Enough watching. Enough being a bystander. He left Hoopster and Lady DG beside Maddie, his paws clenched tightly as he got closer and closer to the dueling cosmic beings. Darkthornn had grabbed a hold of Archive's arm and was slamming his fist into his chest again and again and again.

"You should have just let yourself be deleted!" Darkthorn grunted. "It would have involved considerably less pain."

Beta felt power surge through his body. Power unlike anything he had felt before. Strength that was hard to quantify, paired with a toughness that left him feeling giddy. He put his paws together and roared as he brought them both slamming down into Darkthornn's back. The would be dark god of the cosmos was sent smashing into the floor. As he sprawled there, Archive looked at Beta, blinking slightly. Beta grinned at him.

"Can you fly?" Archive asked.

"When I stay within a few feet of you, yes," Beta said.

"Good. Lets go!"

Archive shot into the air a fraction of a second before Beta did -- but Beta leaped after him, feeling the surging power of proximity. His nanocytes burned with the glory of it and he laughed despite himself.

He was flying.

Flying.

Behind them, Darkthornn brushed some rubble from his shoulder and stepped through a darkcaster.

"Where are we going!?" Beta shouted -- not sure how he could be heard in the vacuum of space. Archive turned and slowed, skimming backwards. He was putting his palms together, and a small orb of pure silvery light was appearing there, forming from nothingness as he looked backwards, then forward.

"Fights like this are best held several AU from any inhabited planet. And while Endtymes isn't my favorite vacation destination," Archive said, then shrugged. He underhanded the sphere of light to Beta. Beta caught it and felt the silvery orb flow like liquid, forming a seal around his paw. He looked at the glittering silver that his paw had become, wiggling his fingers. "That is a sub-fraction of my nanites. They'll be providing power to your nanocytes. So, uh, for the duration of this fight, you get to be almost as strong as me without needing to breath down my neck."

Beta grinned. "How do you know I'm not just going to fuck off and leave with this?"

"Because..." Archive paused. "Because..."

Beta looked at the promise of power.

He could flee. He had the power to just jet away at near the speed of light. A few months, he could reach one of the former colonies of Endtyme and become a little tin-pot god of some backwater world. He could never have to worry about Earth or heroes or villains or anything.

"Oh fine." Beta sighed. "Lets kick this guy's ass."

"You will find that quite impossible."

Darkthornn's voice was cold. Turning to face him, Archive and Beta both flew back and away. Darkthornn stood with his arms crossed atop a shivering nimbus of pure power. Beta flanked left. Archive flanked right. The two of them regarded Darkthornn.

"I do respect your willingness to spare my children," Darkthornn said. "I respect it...and pity you the weakness."

"You call it weakness..." Archive said. "I call it long term investment."

Darkthorn snorted. "A longterm investment that you nor this twisted woman shall ever see." He shot forward at luminal speed. His fist rocketed towards Archive, and Archive blocked the impact with his foreharm. The resounding sound of it was something that went beyond the normal sonic forces the world. Beta felt it in his soul -- and he felt with it a blinding rage unlike anything he had felt in almost ten years.

He roared and shot towards the asshole who had just fucking misgendered him and smashed, shoulder first, into his spine. God or no god, Darkthornn was going to get an ass-beating that hadn't been seen in this galactic arm for centuries. His claws dug into Darkthorn's back. Then Darkthorn reached back, grabbed his tail, and whipped him away as if he was a mildly irritating knat. The sensation of movement was strangely transitory. For the nanoseconds of time where Beta could actually see Archive and Darkthornn, he felt like he was going really fast. Then the two of them vanished and he felt as if he was standing still.

Then his back struck the craggy surface of an uninhabited dwarf planet. The impact turned the surrounding kilometers of rock into aerosolized lava, and caused a ripple to shiver along the whole planet. It was like the whole surface had turned to jello. Then the rock realized it was, in fact, not jello and the fissures exploded outwards. Rock flung into orbit and the dwarf planet exploded into an expanding cloud of debris. Beta shook his head and saw strobe bright flashes of energies.

Archive was bringing out the big guns.

"All right then," Beta whispered. "Lets see what I can do."

He grabbed onto a chunk of rock. Archive was one of the best matter manipulators on the Earth, thanks to the billions of alien nanites that made up his body. So, Beta was now the second best matter manipulator. He focused and realized he had no idea what to make the chunk of rock into.

I believe I can help, an amused voice spoke in his ear. It was male and snide and condescending and like hearing an angelic choir. Beta almost sagged.

"Noah!?"

Dr. Insano! Only I am genius enough to hijack this pitiful planet's communication system in such a short time!

"Whatever! Quick, science me up, bro!" Beta said, quickly as the strobing light started to grow closer and closer. Dr. Insano rattled off a series of numbers, letters and words that Beta ignored. Instead, he just let his subconscious control over his powers get to work .Within a few seconds, he was holding a massive, silvery metal, roughly a hundred meters long. He narrowed his eyes. He spotted Darkthornn, maybe two AU off, drawing closer and closer as Archive smashed singularities into his dark matter force field.

Throw it, Beta! It's...not exactly stable!

"Juuust a second," Beta whispered.

I mean incredibly stupidly super unstable!

Beta hurled.

The javelin of metal shot out. A minute and a half later, it struck Darkthornn in the back as he was harried backwards. Darkthornn grunted and looked back at the protruding hunk of metal. He grabbed onto it.

And that was when the uber-thermite kicked off. The searing light and heat was close to that of a sun, and it caused Darkthornn to grunt out in pain as Archive started to hammer his fists into the would be god again and again and again. Darkthornn grunted and then Beta flung himself into the fray, kicking Darkthornn in the face. The combination of impacts sent Darkthornn off his grav-glider and soaring away through space.

"He's gonna hit Endtyme's equivalent of Mars..." Archive said, frowning. "We need to knock him out. That'll give us time to GTFO."

"We're GTFO-ing?" Beta asked.

"...yeah? Half of you throw hoops for a living." Archive shook his head -- then shot off. Beta followed -- and the two of them landed next to Darkthornn a few seconds later. Darkthornn stood, his helmet looking dented and dinged, his cheek showing a slowly bleeding cut. He wiped some purple blood away, then grunted quietly.

"Impressive," he said, softly.

"We're willing to call it a draw," Archive said, his voice calm. "Earth has defenses unlike anything you've seen. Your people are living in ruins. Your empire has collapsed. There's...there's no reason to keep fighting."

"Of course there is," Darkthornn said, sneering. "She stands before us."

He gestured towards Beta with one hand.

Beta felt himself go cold.

"Everything that is wrong in the galaxy. Bound up in a single confused creature. Unwilling to hew to the natural order. Lacking the strength to commit to casting it aside. I was born Michael Donighal. Did I let such petty names, such petty humanity, keep me from becoming a god? No." He waved his hand. "And yet, this...thing...lacks the courage to even attain what she thinks she wants. Why else do you think she's still Beta."

Beta's hands clenched.

Hard.

Archive stepped up. Darkthorn lashed out with the back of his hand, moving faster than before. Archive ducked, but it was just a feint. Darkthorn's leg caught Archive in the gut and shot him towards the distant mountains. The explosion of dust and debris was visible even from this distance, expanding outwards like a pimple on the side of the mountains.

Beta walked forward. His fur stood on end.

Darkthornn turned to face him.

"I..." Beta growled. "Am...A MAN!"

And he punched Darkthornn.

Hard.

Darkthornn stepped backward. His palm clutched his belly and he wheezed, slowly, falling to one knee. His eyes were filled with shock as he looked at Beta.

Beta slowly held up his silvery paw. "These still have your password."

The faint shimmer of Darkthornn's force field coming back online was almost missed in the near vacuum of the desert planet that they stood on. Beta lifted his fist, ready to bring it smashing down into the weakened would-be-god's face. In a single blow, he could cement himself as Earth's greatest hero. He could kill Darkthornn.

Then...

He lowered his hand. "Get out of here," he growled.

Darkthornn shook his head. "Weakness. Womanly weakness."

Beta shook his head -- and Darkthornn darkcast away with a crack.

Uhhh...Beta...

"What, Dr. Insano?" Beta asked as Archive started to fly back.

Beta blinked as he listened to what Dr. Insano had to say. He lifted his head.

"Archive!" he shouted. "We gotta go and get the others! Now!"

***

Darkthornn rubbed his belly, feeling the deep aches of pain throbbing through him. Several relativistic kill vehicles or planet-killing lasers might have matched that single punch -- and all of it had been transmitted into his tightly compacted organs sans his normally perpetually activated dark matter field. Dominique gaped at him as he stepped out of the darkcaster portal. She looked...as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

Darkthornn never before had wished to kill his own daughter quite so much.

"M-My lord," she whispered.

"Silence. Did Archive and Beta recapture the others?" he asked, looking around the ruins of his throne room. The ruins of his empire. He could rebuild it. He could retake it all.

"Y-Yes, they battered through our defenses. I...I failed you, my lord." Dominique lowered herself to the ground, bowing her head.

Darkthornn looked at his throne. Then slowly, he shook his head. "The Ur-Court survived by learning from our mistakes and rebuilding ourselves stronger than before." His palm cupped his daughter's face. She looked up at him, relief on her face. Then she screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed until he released her. She clutched at her face, smoke roiling between her fingertips as she writhed on the floor. Darkthornn shook his head and said: "Remember that. And grow stronger from it."

"Y-Yes...father..." Dominique hissed.

Darkthornn closed his eyes and, at last, took the moment to contact his subdermal computer and change the password from the default.

It was strange, how little...

His eyes widened.

Self destruct in. T-Minus. Three. Seconds.

The cool sound of his Singularity Fortress' main computer echoed in his head -- finally getting past the buffer of error messages and alerts that had filled his subdermal computer ever since the battle had started.

"Father?" Dominique asked.

Darkthornn, in a single second, reviewed the footage of his main computer chambers. He saw the bumbling attempts by the poorly dressed human to activate the coffee maker. Then, Darkthornn spared himself a single second more for mirth. True, real mirth, as he laughed.

The explosion could be seen from Earth.

***

Archive held his hand out. The interior chamber of the black painted, spiny looking Endtyme invader vehicle was kind of cramped and lacked all privacy, so everyone got a good chance to watch Beta squirm as he looked at his hand. He looked at Archive, then at his hand, then at Archive again.

"I could-" Dr. Insano started, from where he was seated in the pilot chair.

"Wait, wait, why the fuck are we letting him fly this thing!?" Hoopster asked, jerking herself upright as she scrambled away from where she had been seated, pointing at Dr. Insano.

"Dr. Insano knows how this craft functions! Via science!"

Maddie, who was sprawled against her boyfriend as if he was a big comfy couch, just grunted. "Ssfine."

Beta sighed, then put his fingers under the silvery glove that covered his paw. He tugged it slowly off, and felt his power draining away. Then he hadned it over. Archive reabsorbed it, then grinned. "I should have mentioned that I don't think your nanocytes could have channeled that power much longer."

Beta blinked. "So...if I had refused, I'd have burst into flames?"

"Ironical, ain't it?" Archive asked, grinning as his clothes melted and he shifted from costume to his relaxed T-shirt and jeans.

"No it isn't," Hoopster said.

Lady DG rubbed her palms along her face. "It's going to take me ages to rebuild all my weapons."

Maddie jerked her head up. "Want a job?"

Lady DG looked at her.

"I could use a new lab assistant," Maddie said, grinning. "And I like your theming. The pay is five million a week."

Archive -- well, Xander now -- blinked. "Maddie, where we have five million a week from?"

"My bank account," Maddie said, shrugging.

"You have a bank account?" Xander asked.

"Don't worry about it, hon-hon." Maddie kissed his cheek.

Xander frowned. "The last time you said that, you catapulted my baby into a pocket dimension."

"You have a baby?" Hoopster squealed -- in a voice somewhere between excitement, envy and absolute shock.

"Babysitter!" Maddie exclaimed, pointing at Hoopster. "Five million a week!"

"Whaaaaaaat!?" Hoopster's eyes shone. Beta felt too trained, too tired, to even question it.

"Maddie, are you trying to bribe them into not being criminals anymore?" Xander asked, his own voice as tired as Beta felt.

"Yup!" Maddie said, cheerfully. Then her eyes settled on Beta. She rubbed her chin. "How about you. What do you want, Beta?"

"Don't you already know?" Beta asked, grinning.

"Yes, but it's rude to just blurt that kind of thing out," Maddie said, putting her palms against the floor, then shoving herself to a kind of cat-like posture. She used this to floop herself forward onto Xander's lap. Xander reacted as if this was utterly normal and started to pet her gently, his palm caressing her back, down to her rump.

"We're all adults," Xander said, sighing. "If you want to have freaky wolf-dude sex, that's fine."

Maddie snorted. "That's...heh...no...it's all in the name, honey..." Her eyes closed and her grin became very cattish. Dr. Insano craned his head backwards. Hoopster and Lady DG both looked curious. Beta sighed. He was too tired to feel ashamed.

And so, he just said it.

"Fine," he said. "Can...I watch?"

"Watch?" Xander asked as, in the main screen of the cockpit, the Earth began to swell, with its armada of battleships and caped crusaders flanking them, all readied to receive the first visitors from Endtymes in almost forty years.

Beta shrugged. "Don't you know?" He grinned, wryly. "I'm a low T beta cuck."

THE END