Peter's fist connected with the chimera's chin in a devastating uppercut that would have decapitated a normal opponent. The impact sent Kl'rt's massive form flying backward, multiple heads snapping on their elongated necks.
But the creature's Stinkfly tail acted like a biological spring, absorbing the momentum and launching him back into the fight. Kl'rt's rage made him grow even larger, his already enormous frame expanding as raw fury fed his transformation. His counterattack came like a falling meteor, a punch that distorted the air around it.
BOOM!!!
Peter met the strike head-on with his own Humungousaur fist. The collision generated a shockwave equivalent to a sonic boom, a wall of compressed atmosphere that radiated outward in all directions. Combatants within a hundred meters were blown off their feet. Windows shattered. Metal groaned and buckled.
The two titans were evenly matched, at least for the moment.
Emperor Milleous rolled across the ground like an oversized beach ball, his ornate jewelry clattering as he scrambled for cover. Among all the delegates present, he was probably the most pathetic—in terms of pure combat capability, the average Incurseans citizen ranked roughly equivalent to an unarmed human from Earth.
Even with his bodyguard contingent of fanatical Incurseans soldiers and Ma Vreedle's cloned children surrounding him, Milleous looked utterly miserable in this battlefield environment. His eyes were wide with genuine terror, his earlier swagger completely evaporated.
The Incurseans warriors, at least, were fearless. They wielded their weapons with suicidal enthusiasm, firing indiscriminately into the chaos without regard for their own survival. To them, dying for their emperor was the highest possible honor.
One of Ma Vreedle's sons—a slack-jawed clone with dead eyes—casually chewed on a lollipop while reaching into his seemingly bottomless four-dimensional coveralls. He pulled out weapons at random and fired them experimentally, treating the entire battle like an entertaining video game. Explosions bloomed around him with chaotic regularity as he giggled at the pretty colors.
Meanwhile, Talos—the transformation-deficient Skrull warrior—was shepherding Queen Veranke toward safety. His enhanced strength allowed him to clear a path through the melee, and his tactical instincts recognized that the queen's survival was paramount. If she fell here, the Skrull Empire would lose a critical political figure at the worst possible moment.
What neither of them realized was that they were being watched.
The Highbreed disguised as Kree soldiers exchanged meaningful glances across the battlefield, their pale features hidden beneath holographic masks. The chaos provided perfect cover for their infiltration. While everyone else fought for survival or advantage, they were systematically implementing their true mission.
Replacement. Contamination. Genocide disguised as evolution.
"Your Majesty, this way!" Talos grabbed a Incurseans warrior and lifted the smaller being like a living shield, using the unfortunate soldier's body to absorb weapons fire as he bulldozed a path toward the Skrull flagship's docking port.
"I didn't expect things to deteriorate this badly," Queen Veranke gasped, her normally immaculate appearance thoroughly ruined. Her luxurious ceremonial gown had been torn to shreds for mobility—she'd literally ripped the fabric apart rather than be slowed down during the retreat. "We encouraged the Kree to cause disruption during the conference, certainly, but I never anticipated it would escalate into full-scale warfare."
"This works in our favor," Talos said, his voice calm despite the chaos. He crushed another attacker's skull with casual efficiency, barely breaking stride.
Veranke nodded agreement as they reached the relative safety of her ship's interior. "Sakaar's momentum has been too strong, too rapid. Ever since their king defeated Gladiator at the last Galactic Conference, nothing has been able to slow the Plumbers' expansion. This conference's failure will significantly damage Sakaar's reputation as a neutral mediator."
She quickly changed into proper combat armor, her fingers moving with practiced efficiency despite their trembling. The ceremonial robes had been beautiful but useless—now she wore something designed for survival.
"But can Kl'rt actually win?" Veranke's earlier confidence wavered as reality set in. "King Sakaar defeated both Gladiator and Thanos. Those weren't minor victories—those were legendary warriors, cosmic-level threats."
"Of course he'll win!" Talos's certainty was absolute, brooking no doubt. "Don't forget what Kl'rt has become. He's absorbed the opponent's own abilities and combined them into a unified whole. The stronger King Sakaar is, the stronger Kl'rt becomes proportionally. He might return here within minutes, dragging a captured Sakaar king behind him."
"You're right," Veranke said, forcing herself to believe it. "I'm being foolish, letting fear—"
A Skrull warrior burst through the door, his expression urgent. "Your Majesty! General Kl'rt has returned, and he's brought—"
The warrior's words died as the door frame itself buckled and tore. Something massive forced its way through the opening, metal screaming in protest. The chimera's bulk filled the corridor, and behind it, dragged like a hunting trophy, came the unconscious form of Peter's Humungousaur transformation.
Queen Veranke's eyes lit up with triumph and relief. "Kl'rt! I didn't expect you to defeat King Sakaar so quickly!" She moved closer, examining the captured dinosaur-like alien with the expression of someone appraising priceless treasure. "With this, the Sakaar Empire becomes effectively powerless. Their king captured, their military leaderless—"
Her words cut off with a strangled gasp.
The chimera's massive hand shot forward, fingers closing around her throat and lifting her off the ground like she weighed nothing. Her feet kicked uselessly in the air, her face rapidly turning darker shades of green as oxygen was cut off.
"Kl'rt!" Talos's roar mixed panic and fury. "What are you doing?!"
His body moved even faster than his voice, muscle memory from thousands of battles launching him into action. His fist flew toward the chimera's head with enough force to shatter steel.
And passed through empty air.
The massive form rippled and distorted, revealing itself as a holographic projection. The real threat stood beside it—a pale, elongated humanoid with too many joints and eyes that reflected no light.
The Highbreed removed his camouflage mask with theatrical slowness, revealing his true face.
"You... you're not Kl'rt?" Talos's mind struggled to process the implications, tactical scenarios collapsing as core assumptions proved false.
"Obviously not, you primitive Skrull," the Highbreed said, his voice dripping with contempt. He produced a writhing facehugger organism from a container at his belt, holding it almost tenderly. "Though I appreciate you making this so easy."
The parasite latched onto Queen Veranke's face before she could even attempt resistance. Her body convulsed, color draining from her skin as bright green shifted to the yellow of dead leaves. Her previously sleek frame bloated grotesquely, muscles atrophying while her abdomen distended.
The transformation from proud queen to mindless orc took less than thirty seconds.
"What did you do to her?!" Talos screamed, all tactical thinking abandoned in favor of pure rage. His fists came up in a combat stance that had served him through a hundred battles.
He never saw the attack coming from behind.
A hand punched through his back, fingers closing around his heart and crushing it to pulp. Talos looked down in disbelief as his own blood fountained from the exit wound in his chest.
The "unconscious" Humungousaur stood behind him, perfectly alert. The creature removed its camouflage mask, revealing another Highbreed face—identical to the first.
"Why kill him?" the first Highbreed asked, gesturing at Talos's collapsing corpse. "This specimen possessed significant combat capability. Converting him would have provided a valuable asset."
"According to Kree intelligence files, this one lacks transformation genes entirely," the second Highbreed replied, wiping blood from his clawed hand. "The conversion process would have been extremely slow—possibly hours instead of seconds. We need speed more than we need one additional soldier."
He looked down at the dead Skrull warrior with something approaching respect. "But we should thank these Skrulls for their contribution. Without their chaos, our infiltration would have been significantly more difficult."
The initial plan had targeted only the external security forces, gradually replacing guards over time. But the conference's collapse into violence had opened unexpected opportunities. Now they could replace core leadership figures, contaminate entire command structures, and accelerate their timeline by days or even weeks.
The Highbreed clenched his fist, his voice distorting with barely contained emotion. "Soon, every living being in this universe will understand our pain. They'll experience what it means to be a perfect species facing inevitable extinction!"
His companion nodded. "We'll drag them all down with us. If we must die, we'll take every form of life with us into oblivion."
On another section of the battlefield, Steve Rogers was systematically beating Red Skull into a red paste.
"You noseless son of a bitch!" Steve's elbow crashed into Schmidt's face with the sound of breaking cartilage. His follow-up punches came in a blur—left hook, right cross, uppercut, repeat. He was seconds away from literally ripping the skull mask off his enemy's head.
Red Skull was genuinely stunned by the assault. What happened to the saintly, merciful Steve Rogers? This felt more like getting mugged by an angry mob than fighting Captain America.
But Steve was furious. Even his legendary patience and self-control had limits, and Johann Schmidt represented the absolute bottom of that tolerance threshold.
Every Hydra operation during World War II flashed through Steve's mind. Every dead comrade. Every mission that went wrong because Schmidt had gotten there first. Every innocent person murdered in the name of twisted ideology.
And on a more personal level—Steve had missed his date with Peggy Carter. The most important appointment of his entire life, stolen from him when he'd crashed that plane into the ice.
When he'd finally been thawed decades later, he'd gotten exactly one chance to see Peggy again. At her funeral. She'd never married, never moved on, died alone while waiting for a man who'd been frozen in time.
"Captain!" Norman Osborn's voice cut through Steve's rage-fueled haze. The H.A.M.M.E.R. director squeezed through the fighting to reach him. "We need your help elsewhere!"
"I'll deal with you later," Steve growled at Red Skull, pulling several neural disruptor discs from his belt and slapping them onto Schmidt's chest. He cranked the intensity to maximum. The Red Skull's body convulsed, muscles locking as electricity overwhelmed his nervous system, and he collapsed in a twitching heap.
Unfortunately, the discs were less effective against truly powerful opponents—cosmic-level beings could shrug them off like mild static shocks. But they worked fine for enhanced humans.
"What's wrong?" Steve turned his attention to Norman, forcing himself to compartmentalize his emotions.
Norman shifted his body slightly, blocking Steve's view of something behind him. "Both Veranke and Milleous have fled the battlefield. Whichever one we're dealing with, we need to capture at least one of them before they escape completely. Otherwise this entire disaster accomplishes nothing."
Steve nodded immediately, his tactical mind reasserting control. Norman was right—allowing both faction leaders to escape would be a strategic catastrophe.
"We go after Milleous first," Steve decided. "He's slower, more vulnerable, and his forces are less coordinated. We can catch him."