"Deploy all drones! Shoot them down! Bring down those two monsters!" Ronan bellowed.
At his command, the three Kree motherships released hundreds of drones into the dark void of space.
Half of them swarmed around 'Martian Manhunter,' unleashing a storm of energy blasts in an attempt to make him loosen his grip on the mothership.
The other half streaked toward Carol, launching what could only be described as desperate suicide attacks, trying to slow her down by sheer numbers.
They all failed miserably.
The mothership's main cannons, without enough time to fully charge, could only leave shallow scorch marks onto 'Martian Manhunter,' and even those wounds healed almost immediately. The drones' laser weaponry might as well have been harmless pinpricks, utterly ineffective against him.
In contrast, 'Martian Manhunter' only swept his gaze around. The moment his eyes lit up with heat vision, all the surrounding drones were destroyed in an instant.
"Damn it! Was this guy just toying with us the whole time?!" Ronan gritted his teeth, fists clenched.
The people of Earth, watching the battle through LexCorp's satellite broadcast, could only glimpse flashes of light and distant chaos. But Ronan, standing on the front lines, saw it all with devastating clarity.
This bastard hadn't even fought back properly until now.
For some special reason, he had simply been enduring their attacks. Now, with that glowing figure closing in, he finally decided to fight. And the truth was clear—Ronan's entire fleet stood no chance.
"J'onn, I'm here!" Carol's voice broke through as she crashed through the cluster of drones like a meteor, scattering them with sheer impact.
With her indestructible body glowing brighter by the second, she maneuvered to 'Martian Manhunter's' side.
"In that case, I'll leave it to you, Carol!"
'Martian Manhunter' tightened his grip and, like a baseball player swinging for the fences, hurled the massive Kree mothership straight towards Carol.
"That's what I'm talking about!"
Carol shouted with excitement as she accelerated even more.
"Time for a home run!"
Her tiny fist, insignificant compared to the size of the mothership, struck the oncoming warship head-on.
The next moment left Ronan completely stunned.
He was an Accuser. His fleet represented the peak of Kree Empire technology. Yet, this so-called pinnacle of engineering was smashed through from end to end by a single punch.
With a burst of flames blooming in the vacuum of space, the mothership turned into a giant fireball. Pulled by Earth's gravity, it plummeted downwards, finally crashing into the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
It was easy to imagine how the wreckage of such an alien vessel would soon spark a global scramble. But that was a matter for another time.
Right now, staring at the two overwhelming beings standing before him, Ronan struggled to hold back the shock rising in his heart. It wasn't just their strength that shocked him. Powerful as they were, such beings were not unheard of in the universe.
Odin, King of Asgard. Thanos, the Mad Titan. Even the Kree themselves, fully armed and prepared, could unleash comparable power.
But this time, they had miscalculated.
Underestimating the technology level of C-53, they hadn't brought their strongest weapons, leaving them completely unprepared.
"...Prepare to retreat," Ronan muttered bitterly.
His gaze locked onto the two figures. He memorized every detail of their faces. This wasn't over. The next time they met—fully prepared—he swore to capture both of them and claim them as assets for the Kree Empire.
However, the very next second, the giant 'Martian Manhunter' released a powerful blast of heat vision from his eyes. Carol, from another angle, unleashed a photon pulse. The two energy blasts collided, with the second Kree mothership caught directly in between.
A terrifying surge of energy exploded.
In just a moment, not even a fireball remained. The second Kree mothership was simply wiped from existence, leaving not a single scrap of debris behind.
"Retreat! Retreat now! We'll recover the weapons next time!"
Ronan roared at his crew, unwilling to face these two monsters without proper equipment. The last remaining mothership, the one Ronan was aboard, immediately started preparing for a jump.
As his crew scrambled, one officer hesitated. "Recover the weapons? The drones and missiles are all lost…"
"No," Ronan shook his head slowly.
He had realized something. The two were deliberately letting them go. They clearly didn't want to provoke the Kree Empire into setting its sights on C-53.
If an Accuser were to die in this solar system, the retaliation from the Kree Empire would be swift and devastating.
The green-skinned alien and the glowing figure, with their power, might survive or even escape. But protecting a lone planet, one without even basic spacefaring technology, under a full-scale war was simply impossible.
Ronan understood what they were thinking, and to some extent, he agreed.
The two powerful beings were unlikely to be true natives of C-53. And they didn't seem interested in involving this planet in a larger conflict.
"Our targets to recover are them. Next time we meet… it won't be in this backward star system."
With that, Ronan's mothership completed its jump and disappeared from the solar system.
Moments later, the mutants' spaceship finally broke through the atmosphere and arrived beside the two.
'Martian Manhunter's' towering form slowly shrank back to normal size. Standing beside Carol, he looked at the teammates who had shown up far too late and spoke.
"Looks like our team is late."
Carol chuckled. "Just the two of us were enough, weren't we?"
...
On Earth, cheers erupted everywhere.
Everyone who witnessed the Kree retreat and saw the two heroes fighting with everything they had celebrated with joy.
Humanity had won.
In their first contact and clash with an alien civilization, they had actually come out victorious. Sure, they had relied on a super-powered human and another alien's strength, but that didn't stop people from celebrating wildly.
At the United Nations headquarters in America, the atmosphere inside the conference hall had changed completely. It was no longer a place where diplomats argued endlessly. Now, the leaders of all UN member nations had gathered once again.
They came together, representing the world, to award the highest global honor to the Martian friend, J'onn J'onzz, and the human hero, Carol Danvers.
A new medal had been specially created for this very event. It symbolized an achievement recognized by every nation on Earth.
But behind this public ceremony, a different kind of competition was taking place—a quiet struggle for J'onn J'onzz, the alien known as the Martian Manhunter.
Carol Danvers' background had already been fully uncovered. Before her disappearance, she was an Air Force pilot from the United States. Naturally, this gave America an advantage when it came to claiming her allegiance.
But J'onn J'onzz was different.
Even though he had been sent to Earth through a special machine created by the American scientist Reid, he showed no particular loyalty to the United States. Every nation now wanted the power of the Martian Manhunter on their side.
Only the mutants found themselves isolated. In this mission, they had exposed the fact that they possessed the technology to build a spaceship. Yet, even a week after the ceremony, no country had approached them with goodwill.
Still, Charles showed no sign of worry. Wearing a calm and confident expression, he reassured his fellow mutants.
"Don't worry. Humanity will come to us eventually. While they may use alien powers, they will also fear them. And when it comes to limiting powers of the mind, I am the only one who can do it."
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