Boom! Booom! Thunder! Thunder!
Lightning flashed. Fire and explosions, accompanied by ear-shattering thunder, reverberated through the darkness.
Screech!
In the chaos, a high-pitched cry suddenly tore through the storm as a magnificent bird of fire and majesty burst from the clouds, streaking across the sky with blazing speed, every powerful beat of its vast wings hurling flames and fierce winds that ripped through the storm, painting the heavens with fiery trails.
Screech! Screech!
There was only one creature known to possess such fearsome power and grace, a phoenix. It blazed through the storm, twisted in the air like a living flame, then plunged downward as its golden talons ripped deep into the metallic beast that dared cross its path.
Roar!
With a powerful beat of its wings, it unleashed a torrent of flames from its beak, its high-pitched roar shredding the air as its prey was engulfed in searing fire.
BOOM!
The explosion rippled through the clouds, waves of heat and force spreading in every direction. Yet the phoenix soared through it as though through a mere breeze. Its form was immense, wings spanning more than a dozen meters, its body nearly as large as the machine it had just destroyed.
And atop the phoenix's head stood a man in flowing gray robes, his black-and-silver hair whipping in the storm's wind and rain.
Crackle!
Lightning flashed across Albus Dumbledore's face, revealing a hard, cold expression. One enemy fell, but it was far from the end, and he raised his wand again, eyes locked on the countless machines swarming above.
Then, Boom! With a sharp flick, the Elder Wand unleashed a radiant, thick bolt of lightning that split into chains, striking three more enemies in his path and tearing through them, blasting them apart in quick succession.
All around, hundreds of alien fighter jets darted through the clouds like a swarm of metal insects, their engines shrieking and weapons firing wildly.
Thunder rolled endlessly as blinding flashes of light and explosions tore through the clouds.
Woosh! Wooosh!
Booom! Boom!
Dumbledore was not the only one raining havoc with spells. Olympe, Edward, and Takamura were likewise tearing through the storm like Ares the god of war, unleashing relentless barrage of spells at the swarm of machines destroying everything in their wake.
And more, all the witches and wizards that had followed were streaking through the thunder and lightning on their brooms, their robes whipping wildly in the wind as bolts of colorful spells streaked in every direction with deadly precision.
Meanwhile, at the center of the thundercloud, McGonagall spun her broom sharply and conjured a massive storm of blades, literally transfiguring the clouds into a whirlwind that annihilated a spaceship venturing too close.
Accompanying her were her colleague Flitwick, the two Unspeakables, and their true purpose was to guard someone else, shielding them from the aftermath of explosions and the relentless bursts of energy and magic erupting everywhere.
Ororo, aka the Storm. In fact, the reason the storm hadn't dissipated after the five archmages reclaimed their magic was her. The storm that had formed because of their overwhelming magic was the perfect catalyst for her mutant powers, basically setting the stage for her, and all she had to do now was keep the storm breathing.
Like a goddess, eyes glowing and bolts of white electricity coursing over her body, she commanded the cast apocalyptic thundercloud as if it were her own limbs, raining lightning down on countless aircraft, near and far, at her will. In fact, aside from Danvers and the five archmages, she was causing the most destruction, making the entire battlefield her weapon of choosing.
And speaking of Danvers—Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!—a brilliant streak of orange darted through the lightning as she blazed faster than anyone else, a living comet radiating raw destruction. She tore through enemy aircraft one after another, and any that stood in her way exploded on the spot as if they were mere balloons.
The shockwave from her flight shredded vapor trails in her wake. One after another, they fell—five, ten, twenty in mere seconds—until her path alone looked like a burning streak carved through the storm.
Time passed slowly.
The wizards twisted and dove between energy blasts, their spells illuminating the clouds, while the cries of magical creatures rang out, rising above the roar of destruction and defying the metallic swarm filling the heavens. The sky itself was chaos—a storm within a storm, where fire, magic, and plasma clashed in brilliant flashes.
And gradually, the seemingly endless enemy spaceships no longer felt endless. The swarm of six hundred, once coordinated, became like pigs to the slaughter after being struck by the dominant spirit of the five archmages, a fraction of them even going down by their own hands—crashing into one another or falling victim to reckless firing.
In fact, it hadn't even been ten minutes, and the enemy had already lost half of their units, while the offensive from Earth, despite having ten times fewer numbers, hadn't lost a single ally.
Of course, all of this was only possible because of the initial momentum that completely shattered Ronan's forces' coordination. And with that, even if all 600 aircraft still had their firepower, when the controllers were taken down, it didn't count for anything.
Otherwise, facing a coordinated force of hundreds of spaceships armed with powerful energy blasters, even though the individual forces from Earth were powerful, they would have no way to attack and defend at the same time.
Of course, that doesn't include the five archmages and Danvers, for whom numbers mattered little—only how much time they would need and whether the enemy would continue to fight to the last ship.
---
"This old man and his pet bird really hides deep. Not even during the Second World War was there any record of this… uh, can't call it a chicken anymore… being this fierce and able to change size."
Seeing that the number of Ronan's assault units had fallen by more than half, Maverick took a moment to take in the chaos within the storm—from the team of greatmages going all out, to Ororo commanding the elements, to Olympe and Takamura harvesting spaceships like livestock, to Isabella and her group fearlessly recording and streaming everything under the cover of Ali, Lupin, Black, Sarah, and Simon, and finally, to Dumbledore and Fawkes raining fire.
It was only a matter of time before that number was reduced to zero, but surely, Ronan wouldn't just sit idle and watch his forces be massacred.
And with that thought, he sent a mental communication to the five archmages and Danvers, then raised his head, climbing higher until he passed the stormy clouds.
Above, he saw the fifty titanic Imperial cruisers had still not made a move—or perhaps Ronan was simply too shocked to issue an order.
After all, recalling Ronan's take on Earth from what he saw in Yon-Rogg's memories, Ronan hadn't taken Earth's defensive capabilities seriously at all, thinking it relied only on technology—and that technology was primitive at best. With Asgard out of the equation, he had no idea that Earth would have such a force of extraordinary powers defending it.
Woosh!
The first to arrive was the old man from Japan. With a twist in space, he apparated beside Maverick, eyes narrowing as he gave him a scrutinizing look.
"What's the matter, boy?" He fixed Maverick with a piercing look, questioning why he had been summoned while the enemy below was still very much active.
"Wait for the others…" Maverick said flatly, showing no outward reaction, then raised his head again to the fleet of behemoths blocking the sun.
Takamura followed suit, tilting his head as well. "Have those machines started moving again?"
"Not yet… but—"
And just then, with a woosh, woosh, whoosh! three more ripples of warped space echoed as Dumbledore, Edward, and Maxime announced their arrival as well, apparating nearby simultaneously.
At the same time, a streak of fiery orange also tore through the storm below like a blazing meteor as Carol Danvers burst forth, energy flaring around her in radiant waves. She halted midair, eyes glowing with power as she hovered beside them, the air around her still trembling from her arrival.
"Are we finally gonna hit the accuser head-on, wizard?" Danvers said, crossing her arms over her chest, a faint smirk playing on her lips. Clearly, taking on an entire swarm of fighter pods hadn't broken a sweat, and she was eager for a real challenge.
The four archmages also raised an eyebrow at her nonchalance. Honestly, they were still having a hard time digesting how, in Merlin's name, a muggle experiment—accidental or otherwise—could result in such a ridiculously powerful force as her.
Rumble… rumble… thunder… thunder… boom… boom.
Lightning flashed and explosions erupted continuously from below, casting flickering light across their faces. Maverick raised his head to the darkness above, narrowing his eyes as he made up his mind about their next course of action.
"There are six of us. Separate, go all in and try to cause as much destruction to as many of those behemoths as possible in the shortest time before they can react—"
"I think, little raven, we might have our hands full before that…" Maxime's voice cut in. It was no question this hybrid woman had the widest magical sense of anyone present, and she had clearly detected movement.
Hearing her, all of them surged higher, and soon they saw what she was implying. The titanic warships' hatches were opening, and what emerged left no room for doubt. Their expressions hardened instantly.
They had all seen the ultimate destruction each of those warheads could cause when Maverick played Yon-Rogg's memories for them.
It might not be nuclear—the Kree called it something else—but it was just as powerful, only without the radiation, refined by their advanced mastery of nuclear technology.
And against that much firepower, even an archmage's overwhelming magic-fueled defenses couldn't hold for long—unless they chose to avoid it entirely by jumping through space.
"Go. Don't let a single warhead get through. Blast them at long range." Maverick thought quickly and issued the instructions, looking at his teacher and the others.
Then, glancing at Danvers, he added, "You and I will take out their ships!"
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Author's Note:
🔥 Drop those Power Stones! 🔥
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