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It had to be said—the Kree pilot with lightning-fast reactions had done Black Super a huge favor. Otherwise, he would have been the one living rent-free in Nick Fury's head.
Black Super's flying speed was, of course, far beyond what a Quinjet could ever hope to catch. The real concern was that, once they realized they couldn't pursue him, they might resort to off-the-books tactics—calling in backup.
After all, this was Earth. American airspace. Their home turf.
In broad daylight, even if bodily flight couldn't be picked up by radar, there was still the risk of eyewitnesses. Once recorded, given America's intelligence-analysis capabilities, who knew what dangerously accurate conclusions they might draw. Black Super had no desire to be exposed.
Besides, daytime really wasn't for bats—ah, no, wrong reference. Daytime wasn't for nightwalkers. A black stealth suit stood out far too much in the sun.
As for Ronan the Accuser's flagship—the Dark Aster, the Kree Empire's most powerful warship with a history spanning 9,509 years—and the fleet under his command, that was Captain Marvel's true debut stage. There was no need to steal her spotlight.
Still, after depositing the advanced alien data-storage devices he'd "borrowed" into the second-layer secret chamber of the Sheep Cave Valley laboratory, Black Super didn't remove his stealth suit. Instead, he returned to the ground beneath the battlefield.
High above, Ronan the Accuser ordered his fleet—including his flagship—to carry out a surface bombardment of Planet C53. Four Kree warships launched ballistic warheads toward Earth.
Black Super couldn't be certain just how powerful those missiles were. But surely they weren't planet-busters—at most, they'd wipe out surface life. Like the extinction of the dinosaurs after a comet impact.
…Probably.
Then again, if someone told him those missiles could burrow into the crust and blow up the planetary core, he wouldn't be all that surprised either. At the level of a galactic empire, lacking a few planet-destruction tactics would be downright embarrassing.
Watching the scene unfold, Black Super genuinely wondered what kind of person could believe that Asgard's claim of protecting Midgard was meant seriously.
He couldn't help muttering to the sky,
"Heimdall, Midgard's about to be played to death by the Kree. Asgard's supposed to be the protector of the Nine Realms—aren't you going to do something?"
As expected—no response.
Then again, the only one who'd ever said such things out loud was Thor, fresh out of his chuunibyou phase. Thinking about it that way, it almost made sense.
Midgard was one of the Nine Realms—that much was true. As part of the World Tree, it was certainly something Asgard would preserve. But… protecting Earth and protecting Earthlings were two very different concepts. Surely no one confused the two.
Only that chuunibyou prince believed Asgard's own propaganda. His clear-headed father? Silent and indifferent, just waiting to die.
What nonsense about "All-Father-tier beings not meddling in trivial matters." What—was all of Asgard down to just Odin himself? Not a single soldier worth deploying? Or did Heimdall simply miss it? Was the Bifrost too slow to send reinforcements?
If it was because Earth no longer worshipped the Norse gods, and thus they felt justified in not intervening—could they still call themselves protectors?
At the end of the day, it was just a transaction.
Gazing skyward, Black Super felt as though he could see those gods looking down on mortals. The whole thing struck him as deeply ironic.
"Who are you?!"
The untimely shout snapped him out of his brooding. Commander Yon-Rogg of the Kree Starforce stepped out from his crash-landed single-pilot craft.
He drew his energy pistol and aimed it at the masked figure clad entirely in black.
No one in the Kree Empire's camp would play tricks in front of him.
As for the Skrull Empire… it no longer existed. Any Skrull smart enough, encountering him alone, would run immediately. An elite Starforce commander wasn't someone an ordinary Skrull could handle one-on-one.
So the only possibility for someone hiding their face yet refusing to flee was a native of Planet C53. Only the ignorant were fearless enough to stand before him. That was why Yon-Rogg activated his universal translator and spoke.
Above them, Captain Marvel—now in Binary mode—charged head-on into the incoming orbital missiles.
Not only did Asgard fail to respond, even Earth's own defensive forces were nowhere to be seen.
The lack of a military response was understandable. Every power on Earth was prepared to defend against neighbors on the same planet. No one had seriously considered attacks from space.
After all, during the X-Men's clash with the D'Bari, alien fighters and even warships had entered the atmosphere and struck the surface.
With so many U.S. troops witnessing it firsthand, Black Super didn't believe for a second that no reports had gone up the chain of command. The reason reinforcements still hadn't arrived after all that chaos was simple—they didn't know how to respond.
There was also another possibility: both sides might have noticed that a certain public-spirited good Samaritan had already shouldered the problem. Naturally, they were happy to let him.
It wasn't fair to accuse them of freeloading. From another perspective, their inaction was simply because they were powerless.
Lowering his head, Black Super stopped watching Captain Marvel detonate the missiles one by one in the sky. Time was short, and Yon-Rogg was the reason he'd come back.
"How much do you know about Krypton?" Black Super asked, then added, "Do you even know what Krypton is?"
"And who are you?" Yon-Rogg shot back. "Why do you want information like that?"
Rather than bargaining or probing indirectly, Black Super chose the faster route. He quickly repeated everything the Skrulls had told him about Krypton, then asked:
"That's what the Skrulls told me. So I want to know—does the Kree side have a different version?"
Yon-Rogg countered, "Are you a Kryptonian?"
Black Super hopped down from the rock he'd been sitting on and approached the Starforce commander.
"That's what the Skrulls claim. I don't exactly have a birth certificate or proof of identity to confirm anything.
"But I don't fully trust a single source of information. Since you're enemies of the Skrulls, do you have a different story to tell me?"
The enemy of my enemy is my friend—a principle valid across the universe. Black Super was trying to exploit the Kree–Skrull rivalry to get Yon-Rogg talking.
Of course, there was always the chance the Kree would deliberately lie or mislead him. To judge truth from falsehood, Black Super's super-brain was running at full capacity, scrutinizing every reaction and detail in Yon-Rogg's behavior.
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