Chapter 56: The Avengers

The upheaval that had just rocked the Nine Realms had yet to make real waves on Earth. It would be a long time before anyone here understood what was coming, what it would mean when an un-shackled Martin marched across the stars with an army of Cybertronians at his back.

Inside a dark command center, Nick Fury was still grappling with the threat Martin posed.

"Martin, and the sentient robots he's created, are an existential danger," Fury said, stabbing a finger at the holographic display. "According to every expert we have, these machines qualify as full life-forms: personalities, values, independent logic."

At his side stood a blonde woman in Kree-issue flight leathers.

"So that's why you yanked me back to Earth in such a hurry?" Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) folded her arms. "Let's be honest, his name is whispered across half the galaxy. The Big Three Empires all fear him. He beat Odin head-on, Fury. He fought his way out of Hell against an army of demons and walked away. Not many beings in the universe can claim that."

She pointed at another frame on the holoscreen, her expression darkening. "And this fire giant… Surtur, the one prophesied to bring Ragnarok to Asgard. I cannot fathom how Martin convinced an ancient demon-god like that to kneel."

On-screen, Surtur was rampaging across the African continent, three hundred meters of living magma. Simply standing there, he'd scorched half a hemisphere to desert.

Fury's single eye never left Carol. "What about you? You're empowered by the Tesseract. You're not like the rest of us…"

Carol gave a rueful chuckle. "Sure, the Tesseract pushed me to a sub-Skyfather tier, but the gulf between that and a true Skyfather is… colossal."

Fury fell silent. There was one way to close that gap, one neither of them voiced aloud:

Hand Carol the Tesseract itself, let her draw directly on its core, hope she punched through the ceiling into Skyfather status. Even then, she still might not match Martin. But at least they'd have someone on the right power tier.

Yet Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a man stitched together from equal parts paranoia and politics, could never surrender his greatest trump card, not even to a war buddy who'd once saved his life against the Kree and the Skrulls.

A soft mewl cut through the tension. Goose, the orange tabby nestled in Carol's arms, leapt to the floor, stretched, and licked a paw.

Fury instinctively took a step back.

"I'm putting together a team," he said at last. "And I want you on it."

Carol lifted an eyebrow. "Who else is on this roster?"

"You. Tony Stark. Natasha Romanoff. Steve Rogers… and I'm courting a handful of mutants."

Carol's brow knit. That's… a lot of lightweights. Against Martin, a man who could shatter a planet with a punch, even a sub-Skyfather felt inadequate, never mind a bunch of baseline heroes.

"I'll do what I can," she said after a long pause.

Fury exhaled in relief. "I'm not stopping there. I've had several talks with Director Xian Zheng of SPEAR. We've drafted a preliminary alliance. They've got their own heavy hitters, plus a standing force of a hundred-and-fifty-thousand powered operatives. Add the mutant collective led by the so-called Eight Immortals, and the combined vectors give us real muscle."

To be blunt, Fury thought, looking across the Pacific was humiliating. SPEAR's power curve dwarfed his own. Their Helicarrier-equivalent was bigger, faster, newer. Their meta-human corps numbered in the hundreds of thousands. And those were just the registered ones, plenty more freelance super-humans refused to play nice with any government.

Meanwhile, Fury was still begging billionaire playboys to answer his calls.

"Welcome back to Earth, Carol," he said, masking the sting of envy. "We need you, badly."

Carol nodded, then fixed Fury with a hard stare. "Nick, as your friend, listen: the Tesseract is more than a cosmic trinket. There's something deeper, something alive, inside it. If you ever lose control of that cube… the consequences will be catastrophic."

"I'm not letting that happen," Fury replied, absolute certainty in his voice.

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