Sometime earlier, aboard the Prime Imperial Cruiser, Command Deck:
Ronan lounged upon his obsidian throne, one hand resting against his chin while the other drummed idly against the armrest. Before him, the vast holographic display projected the swarm of six hundred assault units slicing through Earth's upper atmosphere, descending like judgment incarnate—an execution of his decree upon a doomed world.
"Let these primitive apes witness the might of the Kree Empire," his deep voice rolled across the chamber while his face betrayed no emotion beyond pure arrogance, as if superiority itself had taken form in him.
Around him, the bridge crew moved efficiently, the air filled with the rhythmic hum of machinery and the faint buzz of alien communication feeds. On the central display, hundreds of blue markers danced across a holographic projection of Earth's atmosphere.
But then, one after another, abnormal anomalies began to occur. The visual feeds from the units started to flicker, static distorting the images until they were swallowed entirely. One feed vanished, then another, and another.
"What is this— we're losing visuals!" one officer shouted, his hands flying across the console. "Something's interfering with our scanners! Atmospheric disturbance detected—"
Atop the throne, Ronan's brows also furrowed as he watched the sudden, inexplicable anomaly unfold on the massive screen before him.
Danger? Ambush?
However, the thoughts crossed his mind only briefly before he dismissed them, convinced it was nothing more than a temporary atmospheric disturbance disrupting their signals. After all, the single-pilot assault units of his fleet were among the Kree Empire's finest technological marvels. This backward planet and its technology, or even its natural phenomena, no mere storm could possibly pose a threat to them.
But then, just as his brows relaxed, they knitted together again when he noticed the blue dots on the large display showing the status of his units, suddenly flickering many at once before turning into flashing red warnings.
"Sir! Unit Alpha-Seven just went down!"
"...Unit 324 is down!"
"...Unit 291!"
"What… is this?" the Accuser muttered, leaning forward, a hint of unease creeping into his posture. Another screen showing the live feeds from the pilots had also turned completely static, leaving his mind racing over what could possibly be the cause.
"Turn on the microphones!" he ordered. If they couldn't see what was happening, at least they could hear it.
"Yes, Commander!"
The soldier complied, and the instant the microphones came online, the deck erupted with terrified screams and frantic sounds of chaos.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Aaaaaargh!"
"Monster! Monster!"
"Boom!"
"Aaaaaargh!"
Explosions and frantic screams merged with relentless roars of thunder, reverberated through every corner of the chamber. Whatever was happening on the other side, whatever they were experiencing, it was clearly more than just some "abnormal weather." Every soldier, including Ronan, flinched, their imagination running as the sounds crashed over them, their nerves shaken by the sheer magnitude of the chaotic sounds.
"We have contact!"
Suddenly, a soldier monitoring the transmission shouted, clutching his earpiece with one hand. His voice cracked with urgency as static and faint voices came through from the other end, and he tried to make out what was happening.
"Delta 43? Delta 43… what's happening? What's—"
But before he could finish, Ronan suddenly appeared behind him out of nowhere and snatched the communicator right out of his hand.
"Soldier, this is your commander speaking!" Ronan didn't mince words and demanded into the communicator. "Explain your situation immediately!"
Meanwhile, on the other side, the soldier, the pilot operating the aircraft at this time, was completely frozen, his eyes wide, unable to even register his ruthless commander's authoritative commands.
Reflected in his pupils were two colossal birds, each as massive as his aircraft. Their feathers glimmered with a pearly white sheen that caught every flicker of light, wings spanning wide with golden iridescence along the edges. Lightning danced across their bodies, crackling like raw storm energy, and their eyes burned with fierce intelligence. On each back perched a humanoid figure, gripping a weapon that looked like a stick or a staff, slamming it down as if delivering final judgment on him.
Aaaaarrr!
In the end, all Ronan heard was a frantic scream of pure terror before the communicator went dead, swallowed by static.
Click! The communicator in his hand was crushed into minced metal, his chest heaving—not with fear, but with raw anger. Anger at the unknown, at the chaos unfolding around him. Alarms blared relentlessly as one unit after another turned red, lost or destroyed beyond reach.
At this point, not even his arrogance could argue that something had happened to his elite unit—his entire elite unit—and whatever it, or they, were, they had done it terrifyingly fast.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, disbelief flickering within them as he leaned back on his obsidian throne. Could it be the Asgardians? Was my arrival leaked in advance?
He thought for a moment, then shook his head, dismissing the idea. Impossible. It hasn't been long, and only that fool Yon-Rogg knew of my arrival. Besides, it didn't look like an Asgardian ambush. Those barbarians—if it is them—they would have attacked openly and made sure everyone knew it was their doing.
He needed answers, fast, and his face twisted from confusion to fury. "SEND MORE UNITS! FIND OUT WHAT'S HAPPENING INSIDE THAT THUNDERSTORM!" he bellowed, slamming the handle of his hammer against the floor, the impact echoing like thunder through the chamber.
But all he received in return was silence, until one of his lieutenants finally gathered the courage to speak. "Sir… by your orders, all of our single-pilot attack units had already been deployed."
Ronan let out a frustrated growl, his knuckles whitening around his hammer, but no words came out. Yes, it was he who had arrogantly ordered every fighter unit deployed at once—so what could he even say?
"Commander!"
While wondering what to do next, his head suddenly snapped toward the call of one of his lieutenants again.
"…Reporting," the soldier stammered, sounding shocked. "I… I see something. Something… individuals over the thundercloud below us."
"Transfer the feed to the main!" Ronan did not bother to rise from his chair this time.
"Yes, sir."
Moments later, his eyes narrowed, though at least one of his worries was eased. On the large screen, he saw five individuals standing mid-air without the aid of armor or thruster technology, ruling out the possibility of them being Asgardians. Those proud barbarians' and their armor could be spotted from a star away, and he was certain these were not them.
But then it begs the question: who were they? Earthlings? He had never heard of Earthlings possessing abilities like that. And just as the thought crossed his mind, he stood abruptly from his chair, his eyes locking on the unmistakable final figure—one he recognized—who had emerged from within the thundercloud and stopped near the others.
"Vers!" The name escaped his mouth like venom, dripping with raw fury.
It was the traitor. The woman, no, the dog, who had chosen to conspire with his empire's mortal enemies, and had now, allied with some unknown races, directly causing the destruction of his entire fleet's single-unit arsenal today.
The thought contorted his face with raw fury, and he tightened his grip on the hammer, craving to crush the dog's skull right then and there.
"LAUNCH THE INTERPLANETARY BALLISTICS! I WANT THE WOMAN'S BONES TURNED TO DUST!" he roared, no longer even caring about the single most important objective that had brought him to this planet, the tesseract. He knew she was the fastest way to find it, but he no longer cared.
He would settle the score with her and her allies first, then hunt down the tesseract another way. Regardless, the artifact would be on this planet, that much he knew for sure.
"How many, sir?" his lieutenant asked.
"All—" he began, then checked himself as cold reason edged back in. He could not afford blind slaughter here. His fleet of fifty Imperial cruisers each carried three ballistic warheads, one hundred and fifty in total, each with the power to strip mountains to bedrock, and unleashing them all could very well render the planet extinct. No matter how furious or desperate he was, he wasn't willing to draw the complete wrath of the Asgardian All Father.
"Including the traitor, there are five more, right?" he asked after a moment of thought.
"Yes, sir."
"Then deploy five. Assign one guided warhead to each target, activate seeker vectors, lock on, and commit them to the hunt!"
---
Back with Maverick and the others.
"Go!" Seeing the hatches yaw open and thrusters flare, Maverick thought fast and barked the order, eyes cutting to his teacher and the rest. "We cannot let a single one of those missiles get through. Blast them at long range!"
For now he could only see five warheads launching, but he knew that was a sliver of the arsenal those fifty titanic cruisers held.
To scare this blue-skinned son of a bitch off for good, there was only one way. And with that thought, he turned to Danvers and said, "You ride with me. We bury their command ships and end this."
—————————
Author's Note:
🔥 Drop those Power Stones! 🔥
If you're enjoying the story and wish to support me, you can visit my P@tr3on, where you can read 25+ extra chapters ahead!
You can find this story on Webnovel, Fanfiction, and ScribbleHub, all under the same author name: RyanFic. Updates drop first on Webnovel!
PAT r30n [.] com / RyanFic
Thank you so much for your support. It means the world! 💙😊