Jean, Wanda, and Carol floated across from one another, and Jean noticed the young pink alien woman was still busy working on the panel of the communications dish.
“Carol, We both love you, but if you attack us I will seriously fuck your day up,” Wanda warned her.
“My orders are to protect Bereet while she works. Stay back, and I won't have to seriously fuck up your day. Jean,” Carol replied with a smirk. She was still in control, she just didn't care about these two. The Kree was all that mattered, and once she was reunited with the Supreme Intelligence it would all be okay again.
“Wanda, take care of our friend there. Carol and I need to have a little chat.” and Jean's aura flared as Helios covered her in her bright red and gold armour.
“Her? Alive, or uh?” and Helio shrugged, “right, stop the evil aliens.” and crossing her arms a flick of bright red surrounded Bereet, who cried out and was flung from the top of the roof. Making a splat as she impacted the ground after falling from the top of the fifty-floor building. “There, done.”
Helios glared at her but Wanda just shrugged, “you know the only difference between our powers is that mine are red while yours are all flamey, you could have done that and not even asked.” Wanda said with a small grin. “Plus, We need to help Carol, not beat her.”
“Wanda, even with your powers, you have no hope of beating me,” Carol said and her binary form flared,
“Oh so scary, like one of those super monkey guys that Pete still likes to watch. I am not impressed.” Wanda said and she crossed her arms, “See?” and as Carol groaned and screamed the light from her powers seemed to dim as it took on a red tinge.
But Carol screamed more and her aura flared back into its normal brightness. Her life was for the Kree empire and even as the blood trickled down her nose she would burn every cell in her body to protect her. And she blinked, Bereet was gone, “What. What did you do?” She screamed and dived towards the roof. Bereet was gone, the panel was hanging loosely, and the blaster was left lying on the felt-covered roof.
“Kill you, kill you,” Carol repeated over and over again and screaming she flew at high speed at Wanda and threw a punch.
Carol flew straight threw the ghost that vanished, only to reappear a few feet away.
“Silly girl, you dont get to fight back on the astral plane.” Wanda said as she floated over to Jean, “are you okay?”
Jean nodded, gritting her teeth. “The son of a bitch is tough though. If She’d said something sooner we could have gotten it over and done with when we had the Mind Stone.”
Wand shrugged, as she saw Carol looking down at her hand, bringing them together and sending out a pulse of energy, which passed threw the pair. “She is persistent.”
“She is fighting me, you need to help,” Jean said, the sweat beginning to bead on her brow.
“Fine.” and Wand floated away. “You know, Stephen does not like mind magic. He says that it breaks a few basic tenets about free will and something I dont quite remember.” As she brought her hands around in a circle a yellow runic sphere appeared, “Stephen does like to moralise about not using magic to do bad things.” and as she brought her hands together, interlaced her fingers and spun them around, the sphere shrunk, turned blue, green, orange, and then back to yellow. “But, you know, exorcising someone's demons is not always a bad thing” and shot the ball at Carol.
Carol screamed as the blast slammed into her, and she felt herself being torn apart. As the energy crackle over her, she felt her mind and body being broken down,
“CONFORM. OBEY. COMPLY!” she began to scream over and over, her voice crackling into two separate voices. One Carol's normal voice and the other a childlike high pitched scream.
As the pair watched, Carol and another began to disintegrate and the particles pulled apart, each one reforming into Carol and a younger version of herself. The old Carol was in her red and blue Captain Marvel uniform, with a ghostly image of Ravage slithering over it. The second, slumped over as yellow electricity crackled over its body was in a green and black Kree uniform, “conform, obey, comply” is repeated over and over.
“You couldn't have done that at the start?” Jean asked Wanda who shrugged
“You didn't ask me to, and look, she’s fine,” Wanda replied, floating over and hugging her,
“She isn't fine, there are two of them now,” Jean said, slipping an arm around her,
“There aren’t two of us,” Carol said, “that's the Supreme Intelligence.”
The second Carol looked up at them, and there was no humanity in its eyes. They cracked with the yellow lightning, “The Mind Stone’s power. We have tasted it before, we have encountered it before. We now take what was once ours and return it.” and in a blinding flash, the trio were returned to the waking world.
Jean held Carol's head between her two hands, while Wanda had a hand on Jean's shoulder, Carol's eyes flashed yellow for a second and a bean flashed out and struck Bereet.
She screamed as the electricity played over her head, The same beam stuck out, and smoke began to rise as the women fed that power into the dish, and it flared into life, blasting its signal into outer space.
In a few seconds the beam cut out, and the charred and cooked remains of Bereet slumped next to the panel, smoke and badly cooked meat stench rising from her.
Carol slumped into Jean's arms, “we need to get back to the warehouse. The Kree are coming.”
She flew down to stare at Soren, “I know. But she belongs with me.” and Soren tutted and held out a hand,
“I will want to speak to Peter, She was a most interesting companion,” Soren said with a small sad smile. Goyle had used the explosion to extract himself and then run. Whatever was left of the man was enough to know when he was beaten, and her revenge would have to wait for another day.
“I know, and good luck,” Carol said before the trio flew home. As she looked down she saw the trucks with the Gamma troopers heading towards them, and she knew it would be cells until this was all over.
I liked her, she was sad through, her mate died. Ravage said to her, sharing the memories she had taken from Soren
I know, but if the Kree are coming, he won’t be the last. Carol felt Soren's grief, but it was overshadowed by their mutual hatred of the Kree, and as she and the other two sped back to the warehouse, she knew it wouldn’t be long before they arrived.
~
In deep space, a ship, waiting for any reply from their agents paused as a single console flared into life. Its automatic relays lit up as power flowed and a single screen began to flash a map of the galactic star charts. It flickered over and over as the signal bounced from one relay station to the next, trying to triangulate where its destination was.
It eventually settled on a distant corner of the milky way, an unforgotten part but not completely,
We remember
We remember our loss, and now we remember our prize
The voice sounded out through the empire and the soldiers of the Kree empire listened. No one would ever dare to ignore the supreme Intelligence,
Anoint the Accuser, gather our armies, Where there was once darkness, there shall be light, where we once failed, there shall be penance. Visit the planet of green and blue, recover our prizes, and recover our Infinity Stones.
In a chamber, deep in meditation, the last Accuser knelt. As the screen in front of him lit up, how own face stared back at him,
Accuser Rogg, you are finally given chance to atone, Seek out Vers, seek out the stone, and in doing so you shall have your penance, and you shall have your revenge.
The man nodded, his face covered in ritual tattoos that bore the brunt of his shame. The shame of not only losing the space stone but losing one of the greatest weapons the Kree had ever created. Carol Danvers.
Yog-Rogg stood and as his chamber door opened several Accuser acolytes approached,d the remains of this Star Force. They had been punished, and each bore the marks of surgery. They had been enhanced, and turned into lethal, and obedient, killing machines.
They anointed him with oils and covered the muscular seven-foot tall farm in holy oils. Shaved his already short black hair before dressing him in the accuser's ceremonial garb, the thick black fitted armour, and as the pale blue eyes perfected a glare at the thought of Carol Danvers broken body lying at his feet, they slipped over the ceremonial headdress, covering and protecting his head in another layer of thick black armour.
As he stepped forward, a hammer rose from the floor before him. It had been Ronan's before he had been killed on Xandar Prime, and while the Xandarians had taken the power stone, it was still infused with its energy, and he tensed as he grabbed its handle, the skin on the palm of his hand melting and fusing to its grip.
“I hear and Obey, Supreme Intelligence.” and as he hefted the hammer over his shoulder the acolytes bowed and they departed, once more to return to the scene of their failure.
With the fleet all ready to depart, the Kree activated the ancient Neural Network surrounding the galaxy. Instant travelling to Earth Accuser Rogg had a small smirk on his face.
“Hijack their communications arrays. Prepare to broadcast.”
On the planet below there was confusion, followed by panic, followed by riots.
Those who saw the broadcast hid in their homes, afraid of this new threat. With Hydra, robots and the few powered that committed crimes, the director of Shield being revealed to be an alien was too much for some, and doors were locked and windows barred.
To those protesting the Earth's inclusion in the treaty, it was a moment of revelation, and it turned into a more forceful protest. Embolden by the fact they were right, stones, bottles and violence erupted on the streets of several large cities, and unable to contain them, the police simply stepped back. This was now out of their hands. It wasn't their mess to clean up, and they weren't about to rick themselves to make sure the government's idiocy was defended.
On Genosha, Erik simply glared over at Charles, who seeing the angry look on his friend's face made to speak but Erik shook his head, and got up and left, leaving chairs and Selene sat together, “You know he will remain angry, and you should fix this before it becomes too late.”
~
The TV flickered from the news channel and the stoic face of the accuser appeared.
“People of Earth, Know that Under the terms of the Asgardian and Xandarian accord with the Kree empire that this territory was claimed in solar cycle 204586. Or two hundred and fifty thousand of your rotations ago.”
“Shit,” Carol swore, ”that's Yog-Rogg. He was my handler, and he’s an asshole. Even for a Kree.”
“Under the treaty, any claimed world is to be administered by its empire of acquisition. And as such Your earth falls under Kree dominion. All Asgardian and Xandarian ships are to depart immediately. All Skrulls ships are to remain where they are.”
Peter looked over at Carol, “they’ll kill them all. Kree hate the Skrulls.”
“So we fight?”
Carol nodded, “last time I fought them off myself, but my powers are gone, Pete. We need everyone, Hulks, Augments, Stark, hell, throw rocks at them. Their fascists who think that nazis are pussies, they’ll kill anyone who won't obey, it’ll be genocide.”
The blue-skinned man on the screen continued,
“Know this, people of Earth, we made your species, we created your Enhanced and your Augmented. We own this planet and all that sits upon it. Resistance will be met with death. Hostility will be met with unimaginable force. We are your new masters.”
Accuser Rogg looked over at the technician, “Are they capitulating?”
She shook her head, “we have missile launches from multiple sites Sir.”
The missiles raced towards them and impacted harmlessly against the shields of his accuser class warship,
“Target those sites and return fire. Then, target the target population centre of each continent and destroy it. No, wait. Where did we fight Vers? Ah, Los Angeles. Target and destroy Los Angeles.” Rogg paused for a moment, “Oh and destroy that cruiser. I won't have the Skrulls defile one of our ships.”
Nodding, the technician armed the forward batteries
The cruiser hailed as the flagship of the Asgardians, exploded into a bright fireball that lit the entire city, even though the sun was shining bright in the sky. Soren looked up in horror.
“No, Veranke!” Soren shouted. “Get everyone mobilised now. All fighters in the air, all tropes are to arm and prepare for combat.” She touched a communicator on her wrist, “send for the reinforcements, They cannot be allowed to fire another bombardment.”
“Commander we cannot, they have destroyed the moon outpost, as well as our smaller ships hidden in the outer reaches of the solar system.”
Soren clenched her fist, “then we must rely on the Humans to save us.”
~
Aboard the Kree flagship, Yon-Rogg watched impassively as the missiles impacted against the surface, and a brief smile crossed his face and the cruiser exploded,
“Open communications,“ He ordered.
“We accept your aggression and return it tenfold. And Vers, if you aren't too much of a coward. Send us your coordinates. We can settle old scores once and for all”
As the screen flickered it returned to the news, the newscaster stared in shock at the screen, before jumping and shaking herself,
“Ladies and Gentleman. We’re getting reports. Strikes against each capital in the world. Moscow, London, Paris, Berlin, and Beijing, have all been hit. Reports from the US indicate that Los Angeles was targeted, but” and she paused, “there are no survivors. Each city is just, gone.”
At the warehouse, everyone sat shocked at the devastation.
Liv!” Peter shouted, “get everyone who is on the streets and needs it to the shelter.” and he switched to his secure channel with Shuri
“Message me back when,“ but the feed opened, and Shuri was just as blank-eyed as they were.
“Our shields held, but everywhere Peter. They killed everyone.”
“America was hit the same, all major cities-”
“No, all of Africa was destroyed, they didn't target a city, they targeted the continent.”
Peter slumped back, “Shuri, launch everything, I dont care if it's a secret, I dont care if it uses all your vibranium. Hit them with everything.” she nodded and the feed cut out.
Peter looked at the group, everybody was silent, but everyone looked angry, “Sorry, this is war.”