The fifth of January, 1994. In the annals of history, it would shine as the day the world's eyes first opened to the infinite expanse beyond its fragile blue skies, and to the threats lurking among the stars.
Until then, humanity had lived in quiet arrogance, blind to the immensity of the universe, some even believing they were at the center of it. They had no idea.
But it was also on that day that the vaster universe was delivered a profound lesson: ignorance does not always make one any less threatening. Sometimes, beneath all that docility, what appears to be a harmless sheep could very well be a sleeping dragon.
---
A massive armada of steel behemoths drifted into low orbit, moving like a silent storm across the void above Earth. Fifty in total, each larger than the biggest commercial airliner ever built, and together they almost resembled a thunderous tempest moving across the sky.
This was the destroyer fleet of the Kree Empire's most formidable general, Ronan the Accuser. At this time, aboard the war machine at the forefront, the general himself stood on the command deck, watching as the fleet under his command passed the exosphere of planet Earth.
He was a figure of undeniable presence, towering at 7'5" and encased in Kree exoskeletal armor—a flawless fusion of ancient tradition and cutting-edge technology. In his grasp, he wielded his signature weapon: a hybrid of staff and hammer, capable of manipulating energy, matter, and gravity with devastating precision.
His calculating eyes swept across the viewports, tracking the descent of his armada as it pierced the first blanket of clouds. This primitive world would serve as a lesson to any who dared defy Kree authority, he thought coldly, arrogance curling in his posture.
But first, he needed to locate his target: Commander Yon-Rogg. Not that he harbored any compassion or intended to save him, but the Tesseract, the object of this expedition, was with the fool the last he had known.
But for some reason, contact with Yon-Rogg and his entire platoon had been lost some time ago, reduced to a single, desperate distress signal—which they were now tracking.
As for the possibility that it could be a trap to lure him, he hadn't even considered it. After all, who in their right mind would bait an entire Kree Accuser fleet—unless those on the other end were courting their own destruction?
"General, we have movement."
Ronan's cold blue pupils flicked toward the voice, and saw the console in front of his subordinate flared red, alarms stuttering to life.
"Scanners are detecting multiple trajectories approaching the fleet from below, but…" The soldier hesitated, struggling to put into words what he was seeing.
"Continue, soldier," Ronan ordered, his voice cold and clipped.
"…Apologies, sir. The system can't determine whether they're mechanical or otherwise. Only one is showing a heat signature. The rest are… unknown."
"Unknown?" His eyes narrowed.
Tuk, tuk, tuk.
His heavy metal boots rang against the deck as he strode forward and leaned over the console to study the feed. Indeed, every ping on the rader was marked unrecognizable—except for one.
"Bring up the video feed!"
"Transferring to the main screen, sir." The subordinate's fingers danced across the holo, and soon the main display bloomed with white cloud banks and an endless sea of orange below it.
"Zoom in on the brightest one," Ronan pointed at the tiny blazing speck hurtling toward them.
"Is that…" The soldier murmured, eyes glued to the display as the fiery flare resolved into a shape tearing through the atmosphere. It wasn't a weapon, as he had expected—it was... a woman.
"Vers." A name slipped from Ronan's tongue like a venomous hiss, while his hand tightened subconsciously on the hammer. The thing he hated most was traitors, and the woman on the screen was the greatest of them all, having cost his empire the Tesseract—twice.
His eyes went hard. "It seems the fool Yon-Rogg lost his worthless life… and his soldiers… to the dog he once fed. Pathetic!"
"So then, sir… the distress signal was—?" the soldier asked hesitantly, and it goes without saying what he was trying to imply.
It turned out this was indeed an ambush, but who was Ronan? The arrogance buried deep in his bones would never allow him admit to having been played, so he cut the soldier off with a dry snort and turned back toward his station.
Does she honestly believe these primitive apes and their ragged tech can ambush my armada? he thought coldly, even half tempted to rain his entire arsenal down on the planet's ignorant masses.
But while pride ruled him, he was no fool either. He knew exactly whose territory he was trespassing, a dominion under a true god-king. Their hands might be full elsewhere, giving him the confidence to strike boldly, yet that did not mean Asgard would just sit idly by if he rained hell on one of their domains. So as long as he stayed clear of the All-Father's red line, he was certain today's operation would succeed, and more importantly, he would claim his ultimate prize.
"Unleash the swarm," he ordered, and the soldiers obeyed with machine precision, relaying his command. At least, he thought, he could show these fools the error of their thinking for having the audacity to ambush him.
"All of them, sir?"
"Yes. All. Target every insect trailing Vers. Destroy them all, but… keep the woman alive."
"Understood!" the deck answered in unison, taut with a mix of fear and unwavering respect. Though they all thought the force they were ordered to unleash was far beyond excessive, the general's command was absolute.
The air ahead split in a single, disciplined moment. Fifty Kree Imperial cruisers hung like dark teeth in the sky, their hulls gleaming with cold intent. In the command towers, officers watched the feed with blank focus, and when the order came, no one hesitated.
"Launch pattern Alpha," the commanders called, and one by one the cruisers flexed. Vents opened, launch bays yawned like hungry mouths, and from each hull a dozen mini attack pods detached. Together, six hundred deadly units spilled into the clouds, thrusters roaring as they gradually converged into a single hive, descending from the heavens like judgment incarnate.
They had the numbers. Down below, their scanners revealed the embarrassing ratio: one against ten, and each of those ten was armed with energy blasters capable of obliterating any organism foolish enough to stand in their way.
However, "Keep the woman alive" was the command, and orders were orders, so they had to be careful. Instead of total annihilation, it was far more difficult to carry out an extermination when they had to avoid stepping on a single ant.
---
Wooosh! Boom!
Carol Danvers surged through the clouds, a streak of blazing light tearing across the sky. She raced far ahead, breaking supersonic while the rest struggled to keep pace—most riding brooms, a black fighter jet cutting through the air behind them, and a handful farther below inside invisible constructs that flickered in and out of view.
She was hellbent on landing the first strike, her eyes locked on the thunderous formation of Ronan's fleet overhead—fifty titanic Imperial cruisers blotting out the sun as they descended. Had this happened before, she might have frozen in fear; after all, it was a hopeless, dreadful sight for any sane person to behold.
As the distance closed, her eyes narrowed suddenly at a change in the obsidian-like cloud above, countless small movements flickering within it. From her vantage point, it looked like a swarm of bees, but having once been a soldier of the Kree, she knew exactly what those were, and she came to an abrupt stop. Each tiny dot was a single unit of raw firepower, which—although it posed little threat to her or the five super magicians at her side—would be overwhelming to anyone else.
The rumors, it seemed, about Ronan the Accuser were indeed true, she thought: he was not the kind of person who toyed with his prey.
Woosh!
Suddenly, a figure materialized from the void beside her, and then—Woosh! Woosh! Woosh! Woosh!—more followed in a relentless rhythm, each movement tearing through space in a continuous pulse.
"Are those…?" Maverick asked, eyes narrowing as he glided next to her. The rest of the archmagi and greatmagi gathered as well, all eyes fixed skyward on the dreadful sight before them.
"Assault units—single-pilot attack pods. As I explained yesterday, each cruiser carries over a dozen of them."
"It's like a swarm," Alester Moody remarked, perched atop his broom. "How many of them are there?"
"Too many," commented Maverick's teacher, with a solemn expression. Even for an archmage, it was a menacing sight.
"Hypothetically, if we were to get hit by a… what did you call it… an energy blast from one of those things, do you think our defensive spells could stop it?" one of the great magi asked, his eyes trembling slightly. The thundercloud-like fleet above them was intimidating enough, but now, coupled with a swarm of countless death machines, the sight had become even more terrifying.
"A great magi's magic-fueled protega could… should be able to take a few energy blasts, even successively," Maverick, having tested the firepower of the Kree weapons against his shields, made a fair estimate. "But not if you were attacked from all sides."
"I have a suggestion, Little Raven," Maxime interjected. Though she still used that accursed nickname, her expression was just as solemn as the rest.
---
Back inside Maria's house, Talos, Morex and Maria watched the unfolding situation on the screen, their expressions just as grave as those of the people far away in the field.
"My god…" a voice from the feed interrupted their thoughts, but their eyes never left the screen showing the action. "Can a group of just over fifty really handle all that?"
Meanwhile, the heads of different states continued communicating over the conference link, sometimes suggesting, sometimes commenting, as they watched the situation unfold.
"President Xi… your pilots are the closest. How far are they from the mission point?"
"Half an hour, at least," the man in question replied in fluent English, also watching the offensive team from Earth, which had paused its ascent and was seemingly discussing a plan to intercept the hopelessly outnumbered situation before them.
"Trust our people, my dear colleagues," Jameson Greengrass, the Minister of Magic of England, said with confidence. "Their numbers may be small, but they are not people numbers alone can define when it comes to who triumphs in the end."
"The minister is correct."
Moments later, "It seems they have devised a plan," Maria remarked softly, watching some change in the Earth team's offensive formation. "Did you hear what they said, Morex?"
Morex was the only one with a communication link to the team in the field, where Maverick held the other end.
"I hear them, but I have no idea what they're talking about. Something about luring them all close and coercing their wills before launching the offensive…" Morex repeated what he had just heard, turning to the two to see if they had any idea what it meant, but they were just as clueless as he was.
"Some are falling behind, it appears. Are the five of them alone planning to take on all those countless units?" More comments came from the feed, and everyone watched the scene unfold.
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Author's Note:
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