"You messed with the wrong man Malekith," James said, voice going cold. "Prepare to die."
Twin energy pistols formed in his hands.
He fired, creating two bursts of light.
Malekith's fighter climbed, banking sharply to evade.
Soon, more Dark Elf fighters peeled off the battle and converged, moving to support their leader.
James siked himself up, getting ready to Captain Mifune this Dark Elves.
He was done playing duck hunt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions could be heard across the sky around James as the Dark Elves Harrow brought out fighters who kept hammering his position and zipping past with their blades, assisting their leader.
James rose higher and met them head-on.
His armor was like a needle in the air. Rolling, snapping sideways, and going every near impossible aerial maneuvers out there as he let shots skim past around him.
With both pistols and shoulder mounted laser cutters, he ripped the harrows to pieces and any fighters who got tossed out
Malekith veered hard, staying mobile while he commanded. "Order the mothership to strike the Asgardian Shield. Make an opening."
After thousands of years asleep, the Dark Elves didn't have the fleet strength they once did. That was why Malekith had gambled on the Kursed Warrior breaking the shield and a surprise invasion in the first place.
But that gamble was failing.
Now he had only one path left—break through Asgard's shield, find the Aether, and survive.
The mothership, still hidden until now to avoid being targeted, dropped its invisibility. There was no point hiding anymore.
A massive energy beam lanced out and slammed into the Asgardian Shield.
The impact was deafening.
The entire shield rippled like a tsunami.
Inside the barrier's core, Thor was blown away mid-fight. The Kursed Warrior across from him merely staggered, then roared and charged again, furious and desperate to complete it's task.
He was burning his own life for this mission, and now he knew he'd failed his mission. But he won't go down without a fight.
Thor regained his bearings and swung the Mjolnir.
Bang.
The Kursed Warrior was launched like a broken kite, smashing into the wall behind him. He couldn't break through Thor's defense, the god of thunder himself.
Up above, James kept moving. Dark Elf Harrows and fighters fell one by one, and still they couldn't pin him down. Their numbers were thinning. With the mothership and few Dark elf population. There were no reinforcements that would come
Asgard's skiffs just couldn't match the Harrow's dogfight—but they could finally do something useful.
They turned their full focus on the mothership.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Concentrated fire hammered the hull. The armor held—for now.
The mothership kept firing at the Asgardian Shield, beam after beam, trying to create an opening by brute force.
The colossal mothership vs the Asgardian Shield and army, which one would break first.
The Dark Elves were in a rage of desperation, all fully focused on diving James so they could soon aid the mothership.
"They're growing more desperate," James muttered.
[We need to accelerate on culling them down. Asgardian Shield's integrity is reaching its limit.] Cortana warned.
"Very well then," James said. "Lock on the surrounding fighters. Prepare to go OVERDRIVE," he said.
The Mk III lit from within—faint violet lights shimmered beneath the plating, the chest emblem flaring like a star. The whole armor was being overloaded with energy from the Space Stone, all limiters removed for maximum overdrive.
The world begins to slow, his responses resonating with the suit, the Neuro-Fusion Sync enhancing perception and his neuro system.
James moved like entered Accel World.
He moved between two nearly stationary Harrows, the laser cutters flashed—two quick cuts, one on each for each Harrow—shearing them in two with it's overdrived lasers, leaving both crafts to plummet from the sky.
[Cortana: Output stable, estimated eight seconds of overdrive to remain in operating capacity and reduce body burnout.]
'Eight seconds.' James made them count.
He went on a frenzy, cutting every Harrow, shooting every fighter dead, like a Levi Ackerman but instead of titans, he brought down ships with laser cutters.
The Dark Elf Harrows became falling fireballs as overthrown fighters drop down like rain.
The count down of going Overdrive had reached eight seconds, Cortana throttled down on the energy flow to prevent permanent damage to the suit and on James himself.
[Overdrive ending. Thermal load critical. Supercooling in progress.]
The glow of the Space Stone's energy on his chest dimmed. Everything began to move normally once more, his suit began releasing steam as it hummed to cool itself.
The sky around him was cleared of enemies with only a few far away he couldn't reach within eight seconds.
Malekith watched the sudden destruction of his army, he felt mortified looking at the lone figure encased in rising steam.
His few remaining fighters didn't wait for order and peeled away, fleeing towards the mothership.
James watched as they fled but he won't let them get away that easily. Landing on the ground, he went on one knee as he engaged land locking to brace for heavy recoil.
He stowed his pistols and drew the Arcshot rifle again, the long frame mounting on his shoulder as the barrel aligned at the mothership.
"Switch to Phase two, Full Powered EM Accelerator."
The outer casing cracked open into a split, multi-diamond like frame with pulsing energy like a rail. The inner barrel retracted, making the Arcshot Rifle look like a long Cannon. A dense multi-layered Armor Penetrating Bullet seated into place.
[Conversion complete. Accelerator engaged.]
He fired, the bullet went faster than super sonic, too fast for anyone to see.
The bullet struck the mothership's right wing.
Boom The sheer kinetic impact imploded the wing to follow the trail of the bullet inside out.
"Reload."
James reset his aim.
Malekith looked back toward James's position—and for the first time, there was true helplessness in him.
"Order the mothership to retreat."
He wasn't holding the line anymore. If they were wiped out here, there would be nothing left to rebuild with.
The mothership hung in the void like a colossal cross trying to disappear. Asgard below wasn't even a planet, it was a continent suspended at the edge of space, like heaven itself that everyone envisions in the sky.
If the Dark Elves escaped, Asgard would never know peace, and worse—if Malekith lived, the Aether would become a beacon pointing straight at Earth the moment James returned.
He continued his bombardment to the mothership.
The second electromagnetic round punched into the mothership's left wing.
Boom Thick smoke surged out. The ship's stealth systems failed completely, and Asgardian Skiffs immediately focused fire on both the ruptured wings.
Malekith gaved new orders. The harrow's—what remained of them—to loop around and strike the Asgardian skiffs even if they die.
The sudden suicide attack left Asgard helpless.
They may have brought down some of them, but the difference in speed still meant they were getting sliced down from the sky.
Then Thor appeared—finally coming out to help the army outside the Asgardian Shield. He flew over the sky with Mjolnir and stopping beside James.
"How's the situation at hand?" Thor asked.
"I need you to go to the ground," James replied, eyes still on the mothership. "The crashed Harrows carried many fighters—some of them aren't dead. They're resisting down there. Leave the mothership to me."
Thor didn't argue. He dropped down immediately, he smashed his hammer with a burst of lightning where the enemy ground was dense.
James flew forward, closing distance with the mothership.
"Cortana—prepare the trump card. What's our energy status?"
[Replenishment complete. Warning: mothership proximity to the Asgard continent increases collateral risk.]
"Then let's give them some hope," James said. "Let them run into open space, thinking they're safe."
Malekith was already back aboard, the massive vessel began to pull away.
Asgard's Skiffs pressed forward, still firing, but they hit the hard limit—the edge of the Asgard continent.
Beyond that boundary was open space. Their open skiffs were not equipped for open space, leaving them unable to follow the mothership's retreat.
And that was exactly what Malekith was counting on.
The skiffs and turrets were still firing at the edge of the Asgard continent, but could only watch as the mothership pulled away. The distance had already widened too far. They felt bitter with frustration, being unable to do anything.
James had already flown to the Bifrost. Heimdall still guarding it, spear in hand, eyes fixed on the retreating enemies.
"The enemy is far away," Heimdall said, cold as ever. "If they return… the Realms are in danger of ruin."
For a moment, worry flickered across his face—then it hardened into resolve..
James didn't waste time.
He moved to the edge of the Bifrost—an open span that looked straight into the mothership's path. He dropped to one knee and raised the Arcshot rifle as it reconfigured again.
The Arcshot Rifle went into Phase three, expanding longer with the multi-diamond frame pulsed with purple light, as the inner barrel extended out, a new attachment was mounted, filled with the Space Stones energy.
Then he took aim.
"Hasta la Vista, Baby"
Pulling the trigger, the bullet travelled through the diamond framed rail super charged in speed with the Space Stone enhanced Electro Magnets, going through the long barrel and releasing its first layer casing damaged by the rail, now going through the new attachment, it got submerged in pure Space Stone energy where it got coated to defy the laws of physics, accelerating the bullet to light speed itself.
A stream of purple light formed from the tip of the Arcshot Rifle connected to the Mothership.
On the mothership, Malekith was already thinking of revenge—thinking of how to reclaim the Aether.
The entire chamber where Malekith was got flooded with purple light.
With the result of any small mass going through the speed of light and hitting another object, an explosion 20x bigger than a Tsar bomba erupted on the Mothership.
The Mothership got reduced to nothing as the catastrophic explosion spread outwards. The waterfall at the edge of Asgard was blown upwards into the sky, as shockwaves shook the entirety of Asgard.
James lowered the superheated rifle and rose, watching the destruction of his ACE card.
Heimdall stared at James's—then, against his will, the corner of his mouth lifted to a smirk. The expression vanished a second later, back to his usual self.
The explosion lit the entire Realm.
Asgardians cheered across the continent, warriors roaring as morale went through the Realm. Their charge broke the remaining Dark Elf resistance left on Asgard. Thor pressed forward without hesitation.
James lifted off again and flew into open space to assess the wreckage. Dark Elf technology was impressive—especially their armor and their blade-like craft.
There wasn't much left.
His "Light Kinetic Bullet" strike—boosted by the Space Stone energy—had turned most of the mothership into vapor and fractured debris. Still, he picked through what remained, collecting a few intact armor pieces and checking for biological response.
It was hard to tell, the Dark Elves might not read the same as humans.
He searched anyway—then returned to Asgard.
The main city's Asgardian Shield had already dropped. Palace guards were spread across the war zones—fires, collapsed buildings, and wounded civilians. Thor had returned to Odin and reported on the Kursed Warrior who broke in.
"I didn't expect the Dark Elves to have infiltrated," Odin said, weary. "And a Kursed Warrior."
"Yes," Thor replied, lingering tension still in his voice. "That thing was powerful. I could only stop him until he turned to ash. He never stopped pushing for the Shield's core—he didn't care about pain, or death."
Odin's gaze narrowed. "Have the Aether particles been drawn out of the girl?"
"Yes," Thor said. "James used the Space Stone's energy to draw the Aether out. Then he pulled it into himself and suppressed it. He was in pain at the time… but he seems stable now."
Odin went quiet.
"Two infinity stones should not remain in one place—or belong to the same person," he said. "They resonate and amplify each other's energy to unimaginable levels. Only the Infinity Gauntlet can bear them together."
Thor grew concerned. "Are you asking James to hand it over?"
Odin didn't answer directly. "Can he suppress it forever?"
"We need to ask him," Thor said. "But he doesn't seem to have any issue."
Thor looked back.
James was already flying in.
The armor disappeared as he landed, returning to his storage.
James glanced between them. "Is everything good?"
Thor stepped in and pulled him into a bear hug. "Thank you, my friend. If you weren't here… we would've been finished."
James exhaled and accepted the hug. "It was nothing, but I was disappointed." His gaze set upon the ablaze horizon, then back to Odin. "About Asgard's defensive deployment and weapons doctrine."
"Earthling," Odin said, voice heavy with authority, "your aid is recognized. But do not mistake gratitude for permission to belittle Asgard."
James didn't waver. He inclined his head with confidence. "I'm not belittling your history, Your Majesty. I'm telling you the battlefield has changed."
Odin's expression remained stoned face. "Explain yourself."
James's tone stayed calm as he explained the ways of the current state of war. "Your soldiers fight like wars are fought in hours. Through large formations. With shields and a hundred men meeting a hundred men, grinding it out."
He gestured subtly toward the sky where the mothership had once been. "But modern fights don't last that long. Not anymore. They're decided in seconds—sometimes less. The first volley, the first strike that lands, the first army that collapses through sheer firepower, so far away they don't even see their enemies."
Thor's brow furrowed. He didn't like the implication, but he understood it.
James continued, "Long-range firepower, High-speed maneuvers, and Precision targeting. That's the difference between 'holding the line' and losing the line before your boots touch the ground. Your warriors are brave—no question there. But bravery doesn't stop one man with a whole lot of long range firepower. Numbers don't matter if the enemy can erase a unit before they could even touch the ground."
Odin's eyes narrowed, the implication of a battlefield with no honor and just pure instant death without remorse. "And you believe Earth understands this?"
"I believe Earth is learning it the hard way," James said coldly. "We've been forced to. Our enemies don't announce themselves. They don't honor duels. They hit from beyond sight without even needing to see the result."
He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "Asgard's strength is mighty. Your energy, your materials, your reach across the realms—those are advantages most worlds will never have. But if your doctrine stays rooted in close combat like the olden times, someone faster, colder, and farther away will exploit it."
Odin held his gaze for a long moment.
Then he exclaimed: "Has it been long since I last walked Midgard?"
James gave a small nod. "Long enough that the world you remember isn't the world that exists now. Earth is still young, still chaotic. But it's willing to stand as an ally. We need friends in the universe."
Odin fell silent.
He'd heard Thor's reports. He'd seen what an Earthling had just done to a Dark Elf mothership alone, a mere mortal, able to deliver something so devastating.
Finally, Odin nodded to him. "Very well. I will visit Earth again."
Thor blinked—then stared at his father like he'd misheard.
James didn't miss it, he gaved a welcoming smile. "We'll give you a grand welcome. But I'll need time to prepare. What kind of reception do you want?"
Thor frowned. "Don't you want to give the highest level of reception?" he questioned, almost offended.
James's smile felt awkward. "I may have forgotten a fact about Earth, it isn't unified. The highest level means the leaders of multiple nations would be present—worldwide. And it also means the public learns the truth about: gods, aliens, and everything."
He tilted his head, pragmatic.
"Such knowledge to the public could cause an uproar, an uprising that would destabilize civilizations. So our only choice would be, the people in the know could give you a reception, like S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers." He explained.