Fire.

Fire can burn anything dear to life. Both living and nonliving can just turn into ashes because of it. Humanity was able to progress so rapidly because they had some control over fire. It is said that Prometheus was chained by the Gods because he introduced fire to the mortals.

Fire is often placed with destruction but that's not all what fire is. It's a bringer of life and hope. Fire is what gives light to the world and in turn helps life to bloom.

When the bird emerged from the Gate of Babylon, that was what everybody felt. In that total darkness devoid of life, the light brought them hope. The huge fiery bird flew around a circle emitting cries of joy.

Those cries denoted freedom, hope and light. All the people present there finally had hopes in that damned darkness. The bird gave one last cry before finally entering the body of John.

John knew what it was.

The Phoenix Force. The Phoenix that had hatched. After many months. Maybe it was Gilgamesh's luck or Blue Lantern's hope, it did pay off at the end.

As the Phoenix force entered his body, he felt he was rejuvenated. He came back to his original form, stopping the omnitrix.

John now felt that his body was full of power and life force. A power which he felt was endless. He felt that now he could destroy galaxies just with the wave of his hands. He felt he could even bring the dead to life. That was what the Phoenix force represented.

Life and Godhood.

He was now omnipotent and omnipresent. Normally the Phoenix force doesn't give that much power to the host, because the body of the host can't control such power. But John was different.

His Phoenix fruit made his body perfectly capable of handling the Phoenix Force. And on top of that he was Dr. Fate. A Sorcerer Supreme. And more so he was 2/3rd God to begin with.

Such compelling points made him the perfect host. The host that the Phoenix Force had been searching for aeons. Now finally it has got one.

"Can you hear me?" John asked in his mind.

"Yes. Thank you for waiting for me." a woman's voice rang his head.

"Wait. You can read my memories and thoughts?'' This was the main question that he had in his head right now. He had too big of a secret and he didn't want anyone else to know.

"I can't. Just in the same way you can't read my memories, I can't read yours. Normally, I can do it but you are the perfect host. We can even converse with each other which was never possible for me before."

"But enough of that. Shall we deal with the problem at hand?" Phoenix force asked.

"Yes." John said as he finally looked up.

"What is this? What are you?" Black Winter asked as he felt an immense power emitting from the person's body which had hit him twice.The bird that had just emerged gave him fear like nothing before.

The amount of power he felt was almost on par with him in his prime. But right now he didn't even have 20% of his total power.

"I am life. But here, I am your death. Now disappear." John said as he looked at the hollow eyes of Black Winter one last time.

And just like that fire burnt in the whole of Black Winter's body. He screamed in pain. This time he couldn't escape as no matter what he would never be able to escape from the clutches of John now.

John didn't move a bit when he said those words. His words were the judgement and doom of Black Winter. And after a moment of cry, Black Winter's last presence vanished from the multiverse all together.

The enemy was finally dead. Never to be born again. Never to hunt another multiverse ever again. And this was done with the hands of mortals and gods, together.

Everybody cheered when finally Black Winter vanished forever. And this cheer was from their hearts. They had now absolutely won. There were tears of joy in almost everybody's eyes. They really thought they would die but miraculously they survived.

John too had a smile on his face as he was taken on the shoulders of Tony and Clark and paraded around. John, seeing all this too, laughed. He too was really happy to see all of this and cheered.

They all clapped and thanked John who had been bravely fighting at the front since the start and other than Galactus he was the only one who was able to hurt Black Winter to such a degree. Even though at the end the Phoenix force came and helped them. At least the host was John.

"Let this day be remembered for eternity. A day where we fought against a God. Our universe was left without help but we still fought back. We didn't lose hope. We didn't abandon our friends. We fought and won. Let this be a reminder. Nothing is impossible if we are together." John shouted as he said that.