A/N:

Hey everyone, I'm having a rough week... super sick with a fever. Sorry for the slow updates 🙏

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"Huff… huff…"

Her chest heaved, shoulders rising and falling as her eyes swept over the figures surrounding her. Once, they had been her companions… once, he had been her mentor… once, they were the ones she had fought side by side with across star systems. It would be a lie to say she had never felt genuine camaraderie with them. She had—once.

And yet… now, she felt nothing. Years of lies. Years of manipulation. The "guidance" she had been given, she realized now, was nothing more than a cage, made to hold her back and keep her under their thumb.

Not anymore. Her resolve was burning at this moment, fueled by memories of the days she had been deceived, and so was the source of her power within her. They would fall—she would make them fall. Her eyes narrowed squarely on her so-called mentor. Just like the countless traitors who had betrayed her, now scattered dead or groaning across the metal floor, he too would pay the price.

"I never thought the dog I fed all these years would turn on me like this."

Yon-Rogg, panting, scanned the ruined hangar and let out a bitter laugh, his cold eyes locking back onto Danvers. "I wanted to take you back at first, to reprogram you. But I've changed my mind now, ungrateful woman."

Danvers ignored their taunts, pausing only to catch her breath. She still had juice left, but her power and her stamina were two different things. The relentless fighting and dodging were starting to take their toll. After all, she had only recently awakened her abilities, and she hadn't even had the chance for any real practice before being thrown straight into this life-or-death situation.

"I told you from the start we should have gotten rid of her…" another, the only female Kree among them growled at Yon-Rogg upon hearing he had finally changed his mind. Then, sliding a fresh charge into her weapon, she levelled it at Danvers. "Maybe we won't get to enjoy torturing you," she snarled. "But once you're dead, we'll hunt down your terrorist friends next, and your two human pets."

Yon-Rogg made no arguments, and neither did the others. Among the many who had fallen, or died, at Danvers' hands today, there were those who had genuinely been their companions. Kree or not, they were living beings, and bonds were bound to form. And just as easily, hatred could take root when those bonds were broken, especially by betrayal.

And Yon-Rogg wasn't lying when he said his orders had only been to capture her. Even as he watched countless men fall to her photon blasts, he had never once struck to kill her. It wasn't compassion or anything, and it wasn't because she had once been his pupil. He had held back for one reason only: to control her. To take back control of what he saw as the perfect weapon.

Until now. Five were all that was left, including him, out of the hundreds under his command that he had spent years training. More importantly, if they didn't take her down, it would be them who died by her hands.

Meanwhile, Danvers felt her breath return and finally readied herself to strike again, her fists blazing with raw energy. Her opponents likewise mirrored her stance for the final battle, where only one side would walk away.

"No mercy!" the Kree commander said coldly, eyes locked on her, then signalled his troops into formation. "Attack…kill her!"

Hah!

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Blasts of energy and photon beams tore through the chamber in opposite directions, shaking the walls as sparks flew and chunks of metal crashed to the floor.

While his comrades carried ranged weapons, one Kree soldier favored blades as his main, and lunged forward, the swing humming with lethal energy, aiming to slice her in half. Subsequently, another blast came straight for her head, and Danvers ducked just in time, barely avoiding the swinging blade as its wind brushed her hair.

"You will die here, traitor!" the Kree snarled.

"Keep convincing yourself of that, Korath," Danvers shot back. She countered in the same motion, and a short burst of photon energy that slammed into him, knocking him off balance. Sparks flew as his armor hissed under the impact, but the blast still didn't pierce the advanced plating over his skin—not yet.

But there was no time to think, as she was one against five Kree elites, and they were now truly trying to kill her. So in that same breath, she twisted her body as another Kree had aimed a high-energy shot straight at her chest.

Hah!

She rolled behind a toppled section of the chamber's ceiling, the metal groaning under the sudden impact. Taking advantage of the cover and ignoring the Kree who had just fired at her, she unleashed another burst in the same direction as before—straight at Korath, who was struggling to get back on his feet.

"Move!"

His comrade tried to warn him, but the photon blast was too fast. It struck Korath squarely in the shoulder between the armor plates, and this time, he must have truly felt the full brunt of it, letting out a growling scream before crashing backwards.

Korath!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Kree were now down to four, but it only made their attacks grow even more ferocious. Photon beams and energy blasts tore through the chamber and out into the open, sparks flying everywhere, while the imperial cruiser trembled in its dying breaths.

"You cannot win, Danvers!" Yon-Rogg shouted through the chaos, firing consecutive blasts that left deafening booms with every dodge Danvers made.

In a fight like this, Yon-Rogg himself was by far the most dangerous to Danvers, so she had always tried to keep her distance from him. Coupled with his enhanced physique and mastery of close combat, Yon-Rogg also possessed advanced technological gear unique for a Kree commander, that granted him buggy abilities like minor gravity manipulation and force field generation, on top of the standard Kree weapons capable of projecting energy blasts.

Moreover, she herself had been personally taught by him, and she knew better than anyone the nasty tricks he kept up his sleeve in close combat—just how truly formidable he was.

Of course, if it came down to a one-on-one fight, with her newly awakened abilities, she could take him; at most, it would only be troublesome. However, with four elite Kree soldiers flanking her from all sides, it wouldn't be easy. Therefore, keeping him for last was her best option, and it would only be a matter of time.

The sound of Yon-Rogg's frustrated shout only made her grin, and she pressed her offensive even harder.

"I can keep this up all day, old teacher!" she shouted back from behind a wreckage. At the same time, energy crackled around her arms, and with a sharp outward sweep to her left and right, she unleashed twin blasts toward two of the Kree soldiers hiding behind some twisted metal.

Boom!

Boom!

Chance!

Just as the photon beams crashed into the rubble, her lips curled into a smile, when suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she spotted the female Kree dashing from cover to cover, and she charged her hands again to strike.

It was at that moment, just when she prepared to lunge with her fist, that her body froze all of a sudden, as if her movements had come to an abrupt halt.

Subsequently, her pupils shrank to pinpoints, and a chill ran down her spine.

Rumble!

Something… an incomprehensible force, in that moment, had crashed into her head like a hammer smashing her skull. And it wasn't just her. The four remaining Kree, too, whether moving or was ducking behind toppled wreckage, were now rooted in place, as if their bodies had been gripped by an unseen, suffocating force.

Rumble!

The entire crumbling chamber groaned, vibrating as if the ship itself were about to tear apart. At first, that's what they thought, that the Imperial Cruiser was about to explode. But then came the realization: what does that… have to do with why they were feeling like their entire bodies were being pressed down by an invisible force.

Crack!

Crack… shatter… crack.

Amid the solemn atmosphere that had now engulfed every living soul inside the chamber, they were suddenly startled by the sound of something breaking, like a large piece of ice shattering. It was loud—very loud—and, albeit groggily, they still managed to turn their heads toward where the sound was coming from.

Everyone here had seen all kinds of strange things while strolling through the galaxy; even Danvers—though it was only a few years for her—had still seen plenty of the crazy the universe had to offer. But none of it compared to what they were seeing now.

How could seemingly nothing break... out of nowhere?

They saw, at the center of the now-wrecked large chamber they were in, suspended in mid-air, the space itself form a literal crack in a horizontal line, like a crack in glass. And then, just as they thought it couldn't get any more bizarre, that crack began to expand vertically, like a mouth opening, and gradually turned into what could only be described as a rift—a very, very unscientific space rift.

Boom!

That heavy, suffocating pressure suddenly felt as if it had doubled, like an invisible rain pouring down on them, and of the four Kree still conscious, two simply couldn't handle it anymore—they rolled their eyes back and passed out.

Now, only Yon-Rogg, the female Kree, and Danvers were conscious, but they too were barely holding onto their senses.

"What… is… that…?"

The female Kree managed to voice aloud what was on all three of their minds: What exactly was this rift in space? What was causing this pressure, as if a mountain were pressing down on them?

Or could it be?

Yon-Rogg suddenly had a bad premonition. This planet, C-53, was also the dominion of God King Odin. Was it he who was descending?

Before coming, he had thought—and was sure—that their actions would not alert Asgard enough to send its army to retaliate. It was no secret across the universe that Odin, once hailed as a tyrant, was now playing the benevolent king, avoiding conflicts with other superpowers.

Therefore, coupled with all that reasoning, unless someone crossed Asgard's bottom lines, Yon-Rogg was confident that the dignified god-king would not take any action simply because someone had stopped by one of his territories.

Not to mention, this wasn't the first time the Kree had visited this planet.

Haaah!

Suddenly, he heard Danvers let out a loud, long inhale, as if she had been holding her breath, and he turned his head. Upon looking, he saw that her earlier solemn expression was gone now, and she was getting back to her feet, even casually brushing some dust off her uniform.

Is she no longer feeling this suffocating pressure? he thought.

Her gaze then fixed on the inexplicable rift that had opened in the middle of the room, and he followed her sight back to it, only to see that there now seemed to be some kind of silhouettes inside it.

Humanoid. Could it be that my calculations were wrong, and the All-Father was really coming?

No… His brows furrowed.

The silhouettes were becoming clearer, and... surely they couldn't be Asgardian. Asgardians do not dress like that.

Earthlings, perhaps? No, that's even more improbable. The Supreme Intelligence does not have any record of demigods (≈Warlock) or a God-King (≈Supreme) level beings residing on this rock.

Despite the one-sided predicament he was in, his mind had not stopped analyzing the situation.

Gradually, the silhouettes became clearer to him. They were a male and a female, obviously close, judging from the way the female's arm was around the male.

He kept his head up, and while barely managing under the pressure, he still wanted to see who—or what—was coming out of there.

One thing was certain: they did not look familiar to him. Not their faces—the universe was too vast to recognize someone by face—but judging from what one wore, it was easier to narrow down. On most planets, residents had a distinct style, like a uniform they would wear when venturing across other worlds. It was an unspoken rule of the universe.

And just then, he saw the male slowly turn in his direction, eyes half-open, while the female, on the other hand, looked the opposite way—toward the traitor.

Yon-Rogg didn't know what came over him when he raised his eyelids to meet the strangers. But when their gazes crossed, he felt only… indifference. Naked, blatant indifference, as if those pairs of eyes were looking at something… lesser.

For a second, he didn't know whether to feel fortunate or unfortunate—having survived those bottomless eyes, or having been looked down upon by them.

The gaze lingered for only a fraction of a second on him, before turning to Danvers' side, and then… he saw the stranger, as if recognizing an acquaintance, tug a smile at her.

That… was not a good sign, he thought grimly—a bad premonition jolting through his already heavily pressured body.

---

"I'm guessing you took so long not because you had to change your outfits?" Danvers smiled at Maverick, looking over both of them—the couple.

"I was… farming," Maverick shrugged, while behind them, the open rift slowly closed, like fabric being patched.

"Farming?"

"Don't ask… even I have trouble with the language he uses sometimes…" Isabella waved her hand, hopping over some Kree before coming to her side.

"Let me fix that for you…"

Scourgify!

Meanwhile, Maverick glanced across the room and made a quiet tsk, looking at the bloodbath she had created in just a matter of minutes. Kree blood was blue, so perhaps it wasn't as gruesome as one would think, but still, from a rough count, there were at least a hundred.

He looked at the two Kree again. The female looked like she would pass out any moment, while Yon-Rogg still had his head half-raised, looking at him with reverence.

Commendable willpower.

Maverick's dominance was still pressing down, but focused solely on the two of them. Hmm—one now, because the female Kree had just fallen on her face, unconscious.

Ignoring the intensifying glare coming from Yon-Rogg, Maverick turned back to Danvers. "Maria, Fury, and Talos with his group are on their way back to Earth, and I came to get you." Turning again to the Kree commander, he added, "The Accuser Ronan should be on his way now…"

He wasn't saying it for Yon-Rogg to give him a confirmation or anything.

The next thing Yon-Rogg saw was Maverick pointing his finger at him, then making some kind of beckoning gesture.

"Gaze upon me, Kree…"

"What are yo—?" ARRRRRRRR!

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Author's Note:

🔥 Drop those Power Stones! 🔥

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