Chapter 64: Captain Marvel’s Crushing Defeat at the Hands of the Black Order

[Starscream]

Faction: Decepticon Legion – Aerial Squadron Commander

Personality: Cunning (+10% Execution Bonus)

Height: 9 meters

Energon Output: 8.6 million units

Status: Optimal

Combat Rating: Tier 3

Signature Quotes:

"Lord Megatron, your supremacy is unparalleled!"

"I was always destined to lead the Decepticons!"

Evaluation: Commander of the Decepticon aerial forces. Starscream sees himself as the most charismatic and cunning of all Decepticons and is obsessed with proving it. His overblown self-regard often leads him to grand schemes that end in embarrassing failure.

...

This was Starscream, possessed of a talent even Megatron couldn't fully dismiss.

In the source material, Megatron repeatedly refuses to destroy this treacherous schemer, despite his constant betrayals and screw-ups.

Because the truth was, Starscream was too useful… and far too entertaining.

A gifted megalomaniac constantly plotting to overthrow him, it brought a certain chaotic flair to Megatron's otherwise monotonous existence.

With a sneer, Megatron hurled Starscream through the air with brutal force. With a deafening boom, the unlucky Seeker smashed into the ground hundreds of meters away, crumpled and humiliated.

When Starscream finally looked up, he froze.

Captain Marvel had already charged into the temporal rift, hurtling straight toward the enemy's mothership. Out in the vast void of space, an imposing fleet loomed, continuously deploying wave after wave of troops to invade Earth.

Carol Danvers's expression was cold, her trajectory unwavering.

She streaked toward the mothership like a comet, ready to pierce straight through it.

But at the very moment she was about to ram through its hull, a figure materialized in her path. A massive scythe cleaved down toward her without warning, forcing Carol's eyes wide as she twisted back in retreat, barely evading the blow.

"Who are you?" she demanded, glaring warily at the being whose power rivaled her own.

"I am the leader of the Black Order, Corvus Glaive," he growled.

A grotesque smile split the General's face. His aura was grim, necrotic. No sooner had he spoken than he lunged forward, scythe sweeping down again in a brutal arc.

The blade shrieked with spectral voices, an echo of countless dead souls trapped within. Its killing edge was so sharp that even Carol dared not take the strike head-on. She pulled back, weaving away through zero gravity.

In terms of raw strength, Corvus could clash head-to-head with base-form Thanos. In the comics, he once descended upon Earth alone and annihilated the assembled X-Men in one brutal sweep, culminating in slaying Thanos himself and claiming dominion over the Black Quadrant.

And worse still, his true body was the scythe itself. The wielder was irrelevant. As long as the blade survived, Corvus could resurrect himself indefinitely. It was a secret few knew, and fewer survived discovering.

In the vacuum of space, two sub-Skyfather-level powerhouses clashed, unleashing destruction on a cosmic scale.

With a single strike, Corvus sliced through a nearby planet, splitting its crust and igniting its core into a superheated firestorm. In the explosion's wake, he surged forward again, blade aimed squarely at Captain Marvel.

Carol blazed with golden light, intercepting the swing with radiant force, but even her formidable energy shield was breached. The scythe tore through multiple layers of her defense, leaving her shaken by its lethal precision.

Then, more threats emerged.

One figure after another materialized in the void.

Most terrifying of all was the one radiating pure mental energy, whose psychic wave tore toward Carol's mind with surgical intensity. Her vision blurred, her brain screamed in agony, and she was forced into a rapid retreat.

Corvus glared after her receding form, frustration written across his monstrous face. He turned with a snarl.

"Proxima Midnight, I had her! I could've finished her off myself! You cost me my prey!"

"You couldn't kill her," she replied coolly.

Proxima Midnight, the fiercest of the remaining Black Order, flipped her long white hair as her colorless eyes settled on Corvus. Her tone was calm, but absolute.

"Her powers stem directly from an Infinity Stone. She's one of the rare few who can resonate organically with them. Granted, her potential is abysmal, so weak even with that kind of cosmic booster, but she's still not someone you can finish off alone. If her energy signature hadn't been so unstable, I'd have made her kill herself on the spot."

To the Black Order, Captain Marvel was a failure.

Armed with god-tier weapons, yet still stuck at sub-Skyfather level.

The other three members turned toward Proxima Midnight, their expressions tinged with unease.

She wasn't just feared, she was known.

Master of all forms of psychic warfare: telepathy, domination, memory theft, mental possession.

If Proxima Midnight targeted you, odds were you wouldn't even know how you died.

She was, in essence, a sub-Skyfather-level version of Professor X.

In the comics, she once enslaved Black Bolt, a full-on Skyfather-class being, using nothing but her mind, and then puppeted him into attacking Earth.

This was the terror of the Black Order, no weak links. Each member possessed terrifying, anomalous powers. As Thanos's elite agents, they ruled vast swathes of the Black Quadrant with cold efficiency.

"Now's not the time for a full-scale invasion," mused Ebony Maw, the Order's twisted tactician. His voice was thoughtful, eyes narrowed.

"This backwater planet, primitive and ignorant, yet it hides more troublesome defenders than expected…"

The death of Odin and the fall of Asgard had sent shockwaves across the cosmos. And now, the name Martin was echoing through the stars.

Everyone knew, the mightiest Skyfather, Odin the All-Father, had been slain… by a mere human.

And when you added Earth's reclusive but devastating Sorcerer Supreme to the equation…

Well, suddenly the waters of Earth seemed very deep indeed, deep enough to give even the Black Quadrant pause.

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