High-energy discharge had punched clean through her armor and arm. The blood was vaporized on contact. The wound genuinely hurt; Thea couldn't even remember the last time she'd been injured.
But the arrow was already on the string. She threw on a fresh vambrace without bothering to purge the residual energy from the wound, and charged back in.
She wasn't the only one hurt. Krona had taken damage too.
Excalibur had carved a fifteen-centimeter gash from his left shoulder toward his throat.
The seven Lantern Entities were still sealed inside him. In their sealed state rather than merged, emotional attacks did little to Krona directly. But the Pseudo-Phoenix Force Thea had woven into her strike was giving him trouble.
At the end of the day, Krona's combat power was formidable, but his essential nature was no different from those little blue Guardians. The Pseudo-Phoenix Force came with certain overwhelming properties baked in. Broadly categorized, it functioned as a kind of flame—except it transcended the concept of flame itself. It was the embodiment of all passion in the universe. The Phoenix Force gave life to the cosmos, and ultimately, it would also destroy life.
On Krona's wound, the result was void. No blood. Unlike Thea's arm, which had been seared by extreme heat and energy, the Phoenix Force had simply erased part of his body. The wound and surrounding tissue had been removed at a conceptual level—as though a gash had always existed there, as though that flesh had never been.
"Interesting ability! New God, you've given me another surprise! How did you do that?" Krona asked with something like delight.
Lunatic. Thea didn't dignify that with a response.
On the other flank, Jean Grey—the woman Thea had pinned her hopes on—joined the assault.
Wearing the standard X-Men combat uniform, the X insignia on her belt, Jean's red hair streamed behind her. Behind her, the faint outline of fiery wings shimmered into view. Hands straining with effort, she gathered energy and unleashed a near-colorless, semi-transparent shockwave.
"What is this?" Krona's eye for power was sharp. He immediately recognized the Phoenix Force's ferocity and threw up his barrier without hesitation.
The invisible energy struck the shield like a sledgehammer, rattling his entire frame. Worse, the energy drain far exceeded any normal calculation.
Jean's assault had staying power. Seeing that Krona wasn't effortlessly wiping them out, a cold edge crept into the corner of her mouth—the Dark Phoenix's signature quality beginning to surface. She became a living conduit, channeling an inexhaustible stream of Phoenix Force that hammered down on Krona in pillars of fire.
"You're an interesting specimen."
Blue light flickered across Krona's body as he extracted countless streams of energy, reinforcing the barrier. His armor's output climbed steadily. Curiosity filled his gaze—what exactly was hitting him? Power was approaching fifty percent, and a woman he'd dismissed as an insignificant native was pushing him this hard?
Keep going. I can hold. Keep going! Jean Grey shed every trace of the caution that had defined her combat history. Here and now she was in her element. From beyond time, beyond space, beyond dimension, the Phoenix Force flowed through her body in an unbroken torrent, crashing against the barrier without pause.
As both sides escalated, ambient temperature skyrocketed. The energy in Krona's armor, however refined, was ultimately self-processed—it couldn't match the sheer magnitude of the Phoenix Force.
Vast amounts of energy were broken down, their molecular structures dismantled and rearranged. Normally that energy would disperse back into the universe and enter the next cycle. But they weren't fighting in open space. They were inside Galactus's body.
Energy appeared to scatter in all directions, yet Thea couldn't shake the feeling that Krona was reclaiming a large portion of it—and a smaller portion was being absorbed by the battlefield beneath their feet.
An unintended windfall. At this rate of energy absorption, Galactus might not be far from revival.
Thea had once puzzled over how to revive the World-Eater. Now it was clear she'd underestimated the problem. Even if Galactus could have been revived earlier, he wouldn't necessarily have helped.
Just a wisp of his aura was enough for her to judge that cooperation was unlikely. His presence was chaotic, irrational. The most probable outcome—around seventy percent—was that he'd devour Krona, the heroes, and everything in between.
In practical terms, that scenario was unlikely to play out. But the intent would be there.
And now it was even simpler. No devouring required. The heroes and Krona were already inside him. He wouldn't even need to shout "Get in my bowl!" He'd just wake up and start digesting.
But they still had to fight Krona. Thea could only stay alert during combat, watching for the moment Galactus teetered on the edge of revival, and strike before he fully woke. Only she, with her sensitivity to death, could handle that task.
"Professor X, Martian Manhunter—keep an eye on the giant beneath us. Energy is spilling everywhere. There's a strong chance he revives," Thea said through the telepathic channel.
Nobody expected a man in a wheelchair to join a battle this intense. A wheelchair at the Olympics was inspiring; a wheelchair in a cosmic brawl was absurd.
But the old professor hadn't stayed behind. He'd followed the Dawn into this space, providing what support he could.
"What do you need from us?" Martian Manhunter had rarely left the DEO for group missions, but this time he'd made the trip. He and Professor X had been assigned to the rear—relaying communications and guarding the ship. Martian Manhunter's combat power was formidable; if enemies reached the ship, he could handle them.
"If the big guy under our feet wakes up, hit him with a telepathic blast. Buy me one second. That's all I need."
The task wasn't unreasonable. Galactus was powerful, but the two strongest telepaths in their respective universes, working in concert, could manage one second of control.
Especially since a freshly revived Galactus would be starving—and at his weakest.
Jean continued hammering Krona. The Phoenix Force showed no signs of flagging, but the immense psychic burden was wearing on her two partners.
Cyclops rubbed his head while bracing himself against the wall, looking like a man who'd overdone it at a buffet.
Wolverine shuffled along like an eighty-year-old grandfather, and still hadn't managed to take down a single grunt.
The two exchanged a glance. Forget it—they'd coast.
With them absorbing their share of the Phoenix Force's strain, Jean's output only grew fiercer. Seeing that the battle wasn't immediately catastrophic, the Grandmaster—ever the opportunist—finally made his move.
He dropped his concealment. His expression tightened a fraction.
Arms folded, he conjured a pale-blue energy mirror above the battlefield. The mirror snapped through several angles, then fired a beam of white light straight at Krona—a Spatial Mirror Technique, the Grandmaster's signature.
The mirror shifted again. This time it unleashed a plasma stream a full meter in diameter.