The lance of coherent light pulsed for him, and almost reached him before the Sphinx drew on enough power to take control of it and cancel it out, shocking him with the sudden surge.

“I know what those limits are, oh Sphinx,” Sunstone sniffed at him, continuing to advance in the face of his efforts, while Ororo’s lightning and a massive tornado brought down ever more pressure, consuming ever more of his Stone’s ruby energy with every attack. The Sphinx was now fighting against the reality of the whole world, as the area Ororo could affect was truly immense. “Let us show you!”

A whole deck of Cards, shining with silver light, swirled and flashed in like silver-edged knives. They slammed into the edge of the Ruby Domain like it was a solid thing, and gorgeous patterns and symbols of silver flared across the side of it for just a moment.

Sunstone felt the Caster Level check. The Ka/Godstone was a Legendary item, supposedly the strongest of the Stones of Power, but there were Caster Levels, and there were Caster Levels. Silver Magic freaking EXCELLED at Caster Level contests.

It tore into the Ruby Domain.

Uncountable cracks blasted through the crimson atmosphere in veins of silver, and everything seemed to pause and hold for just a second, as if taking a deep breath before the final plunge.

Then the silver expanded in all directions, ripping the Ruby Domain apart and immolating it in silver fire.

More importantly, the Spellflare fed the whole force of the massive Domain back into the Stone it had come from.

The Sphinx screamed as the Ka-Stone on his forehead exploded, forced to expend monstrous amounts of energy to deny its own burning power coming back onto it. The Ruby Domain collapsed, and Sunstone promptly gave the Sphinx ten minutes of her time.

The coherent light bursts of the Sunstone were impressive to normal people, but to the upper ranks of the Powered were basically just annoyances that might push them around a bit, or cause obstructions, maybe slow them down, but wouldn’t be able to really harm them.

Ten minutes worth of them, however, could easily blow an armored tank apart like kindling, and send even a really tough Brick flying.

The Sphinx, barely protected by his Stone, was smashed away like a leaf, the Ruby he had worn for so many thousands of years falling away from his headdress, a whole chunk of it eaten away by the Spellflare that had struck it and now left hostile silver cracks stretching across and into it now.

The area where the Sphinx landed was promptly inundated with a Class Five tornado, compressed down and concentrated there just for him. Thunderbolts raged down the middle of the funnel, lighting it up and turning it into a force of focused annihilation not many beings on the planet could withstand.

The Godstone never hit the ground. Sunstone grabbed it out of the air with Telekinesis from her own Ring and brought it to her hand before anything else could intervene to do the same, or it could somehow escape her attention.

The great Ruby smacked into her hand and seemed to sigh as it entered the light of the Sunstone. Its residual radiance faded, and Sunstone immediately shut off her Stone’s ambient power before it started flowing into the Godstone.

The Godstone had a limit, and that limit was the amount of energy it could contain. That amount was quite large, certainly, and it continually drew in cosmic energy from the world to replace that which was being used.

But spending massive amounts on maintaining a huge Domain, defending against massive assaults, and trying to keep up with the effectively unending supply from the Sunstone had placed a massive strain on its capacity.

Certainly, if the Sphinx had quit the fight, the Godstone would have slowly regained its power over time, and the Sphinx likely would not even have known how deeply its reserves were depleted. But she had basically forced him to stay in the fight up until the key moment, when he could run no longer.

If the legends were right, he had thought he was immortal and could not die, kept alive by the power of the Godstone. Well, that was definitely proving to be not true.

There was a symbiotic link between the Sunstone and the Godstone, for when the Godstone was depleted in power after being used against some truly fantastic foe, it was the Sunstone’s unending supply of energy which was meant to be used to rapidly restore it to full strength.

She looked at the Ruby in her hand, so damaged and broken, waiting now for the power of the Sunstone to repair and restore it.

It was now her choice on who would get to inherit this terrifyingly potent tool made by races who had been in space while humanity was learning about fire.

It was far from the only Stone of Power around, not including her own. She knew of several more: The Moonstar of the Wolf; The Bloodstone; the Blue Diamond; the Alpha and Omega Stones; and the Power Prism.

She knew that because she had been communicating with the mnemonic recording of the original wielders of the Sunstone it had retained inside its structure, the most recent of which had actually been a high-minded and moral Kree soldier, part of a force of eight heroes praised as the Galactic Guardians many, many years ago. They had once helped maintain a fractious peace between many space-faring races while they were together.

The Guardians had fallen to time and their foes, and with them, the peace they had championed. How the Stones had ended up on Terra or its Moon, no one really knew. The last Guardian had spoken of a pirate raid and a dimensional rupture occurring as she died, but that was it.

Well, it was a superverse. This shit happened, and it happened to Terra in particular. It was like it was the center of a comic book storm of events, or something.

Sunstone stowed the Godstone away. She had largely decided that Ursula would be getting it regardless, because Ursula was going to be getting involved in Divine matters and would need a tool that could cope with such beings and allow her to stand as an equal. Having two Stones of Power on one individual was of course a dangerous no-no.

Interestingly, she would probably be able to recharge the Godstone through their reserve in the Underweb. Actually, it would probably be faster to charge it from the Underweb’s unlimited energy itself, but they weren’t skilled enough to do that yet...

Even if not, Ursula was certainly capable of Meditating and drawing in more power than an angsty Egyptian who didn’t think he could die, and hadn’t mastered much else but racism and how to exploit the Godstone’s power in the last four thousand years...

How the Askar reacted to the loss of the Sphinx would be interesting.

More pointedly, was Seth finally going to start showing his hand? The Egyptian God of Evil definitely had a subtle hand in the Askar, and losing one of their big backers like this was going to be a blow. There were other tribal gods in Africa who were backing the Askar, with the Ape-god of the Wakandans likely one of them, too...

Taking the Godstone was definitely going to cause them some pain. Giving it to the High Priestess of the Gods of Asgard would just double the hit, if they even realized she had it.

Sunstone smiled despite herself. Her job here was done. “Kurt, I think we can go now, and leave the Wakandans to their duties.”

“Ach? Very well, Suna!” he replied on coms. There was a burst of light, that concentrated and reached out into the infinity of the sky and the horizon to the north as she Lightjumped away, her now-famous method of traveling great distances and so being able to show up anywhere in virtually seconds if needed.

Kurt bowed apologetically to King Wakanda. “I would have loved to stay and seen more of your beautiful land, Your Majesty, but it seems I am being called back home.”

“Your help was greatly appreciated, Mr. Wagner. Call up our embassy and arrange a time to visit. I shall give you a tour myself!” smiled the Wakandan King.

“I shall make haste to do so, Schwarzer Panther!” the swashbuckler smiled. There was a BAMF as smelly dark smoke replaced him as he ‘ported away, the unnatural stuff dissipating quickly in the wind.

Ororo and Dealer were inspecting the area where the Sphinx had been seen to fall, but could find nothing. That was actually not unexpected. Overwhelmed or not, it was likely the Sphinx had some form of magical fallback after all this time... nor was it impossible that he had been ground apart by six hundred kilometer-an-hour winds while being blasted with vengeful lightning at the same time!

It was rumored that the ruby he wore was the true source of his power, but they could only search for it and see...

--------

“You will depart now?” T’Challa asked, sad that Ororo would be going, but also knowing that this was a momentous opportunity for her. He had seen the changes in her made over the course of the months she had lived with the older Rain Queens. She might not be learning at the feet of the Asgardians, but she certainly would be changed by the exposure to a Divine realm, would she not?

“Yes. Her Grace Ursula has relayed a message from Thor that he has spoken with Njord. The sea god is willing to help us, and merely waits for our arrival.” Dealer cleared her throat. “Ursula mentioned that gods often have trouble keeping track of time, and so not to test their attention spans.”

T’Challa laughed despite himself. “Was it yesterday, last month, or last century? Yes, I have heard some speak of that. They do not mark time as mortals, and so an hour is an instant, and an instant is an hour.” He came forward to take Ororo’s hands. “But you must bring our goddess home to us safely!” he teased her.

Ororo blushed despite herself. “If His Majesty prays every day, perhaps he shall be heard, and I will return faster!” she responded smoothly, and his smile only grew wider.

As natural as two peas in a pod, they swept together in a familiar kiss that held many promises and goodbyes. Goddess and king soon parted, eyes dancing with future anticipation, as Dealer simply watched with a smile.

She tossed out a card, this one a two of diamonds, and it enlarged into a door of some size. Dealer pulled it open, and the early morning of a place further around the globe was visible through it, and the scene of a northern church a thousand years old, yet new and soaring with power.

He sent them off with a final salute to his chest, as did his Dora, and the Card-door vanished into nothing as readily as it had come.

“Your Majesty, I think it would be a good idea if we expanded our files on this Dealer. She is not merely some minor magician who enjoys playing at cards,” Okoya murmured to him after seeing that. Rapid and easy teleportation across the globe was the mark of a major player who even The Hag would recruit.

T’Challa nodded slowly at her words, knowing Dealer held a crystal Vaccine. “Send someone to the Rain Queens, and take careful note of their observations. I will relate what Ororo has spoken about her, as well.” He glanced over at where Thunder Caller was being bound up in a power siphon, readying to be transported away. “She effortlessly resisted the power of the Sphinx to conceal himself from her reading, and she broke his power wide open when confronted with it directly, while handling the Askari shaman, Thunder Caller, the Klaw-wielder’s sonic creatures, and assisting the both of you. There were rumors she was similarly impressive in Antarctica, but the Scarlet Witch was said to be the true power there...”

“We shall start gathering the truth and learning more of her,” Okoye promised.

------

It would prove quite difficult to gather a file, they later found out, for nothing they recorded about her survived more than seconds. In the end, they could only rely on verbal tales to relate what they would learn, as in the oldest traditions of science and magic. They were both frustrated and admiring of the fact that without her leave, they could record nothing of her at all...