Ronan squinted at the faint glow emanating from the orange cat in his grip. Something felt wrong.
"Ronan, drop that creature! Now!"
He turned, brow furrowed. "What?"
Then he saw it.
Lightning crackling along Garfield's fur.
Why is a cat shooting lightning?
The answer arrived promptly, attached to a hammer, stamped with a cat's paw print, accelerating toward his face at significant velocity.
WHAM.
"Ego."
WHAM.
"Ego."
WHAM.
"Ego."
Each impact punctuated by Garfield's calm, rhythmic count.
The hammer rose and fell with mechanical precision, Ronan's head bouncing off the ground between strikes.
Around them, Kree soldiers and officers who'd moved to intervene froze paralyzed by the radiating thunder pulsing from Garfield's small form.
They became statues, eyes wide, trapped in a slideshow of their own terror.
When Ronan was thoroughly tenderized, Garfield paused.
Looked up at the frozen Kree around him.
"WHO ELSE WANTS TO POKE THE CAT?!"
Somewhere in the chaos, Ronan felt a sharp pain in what he belatedly recognized as a critical organ.
Then darkness.
Garfield rose.
His tiny hammer lifted. Lightning answered, but different now.
Threads of black power twisted through the white, dark as void, hungry as gravity.
The thunder swept outward. Kree soldiers didn't scream. They simply... stopped.
Seeing something behind their eyes that would haunt whatever came after.
Thor watched his third brother, apparently unleash divine judgment. His face split into a grin.
"NICE JOB!"
Genuine joy radiated from him.
Not just because Garfield could summon lightning, but because he did it with a hammer.
Just like Thor.
Hammer-brother.
Another brother.
He loved it. Especially when the fluffy one added those little two-paw flourishes.
Loki did not love it.
This orange menace was basically Thor in feline form… same hammer, same lightning, same insufferable enthusiasm.
Except for that glowing circle on the back of its head. That was different.
Hateful cat, Loki fumed internally. You're just like him.
￣へ￣
Angela studied the sky where Garfield's lightning had torn through.
Dark energy threaded through it, something that made her skin prickle. She'd been infused with light since childhood.
It was woven into her wings, her sword, her very being. This power felt... opposite.
Not evil, exactly. But hungry in a way light wasn't.
Darkness? Death?
She didn't know.
But she'd recorded everything. Later, when there was time, she'd study it.
The immediate crisis resolved, Garfield surveyed the carnage. Ronan lay semi-conscious, breathing shallowly.
One more hammer strike would end him.
Garfield considered it.
Then remembered a certain dance-off. A future meme.
Nah. Let him live, the punchline's worth it.
He padded over to the stunned Kree controllers, still twitching and bestowed upon each a single, gentle kiss.
Then he opened a portal and stepped through to rejoin his siblings.
Thor swept him into a bear hug immediately. "Excellent work, brother! I didn't know your hammer packed such punch!"
"We should compare, see whose thunder is thicker!"
Loki interjected flatly. "Brother. Battlefield is still ongoing. Perhaps discuss lightning size later?"
"And shouldn't we summon the Biffrost?"
Thor looked up at the massive Kree warships still looming overhead. Nodded.
"Right you are. Heimdall!" His voice carried across realms. "Wipe out this fleet."
"Send them a message."
In the Bifrost observatory, Heimdall turned to Odin. They'd watched the entire engagement.
"Do as Thor commands." Odin didn't hesitate.
Heimdall's golden eyes gleamed. "As you wish, my king."
Heimdall turned the great sword, and the Bifrost's aperture blazed to life.
A column of rainbow light erupted from the observatory, piercing through space itself to strike the Kree homeworld directly.
What descended was beautiful.
The rainbow swept across the Kree fleet like a celestial scythe.
Each vessel it touched, massive warships, pride of an empire came apart at the seams. Armor peeled away like orange rind.
"WARNING. WARNING. WARNING. Fatal structural damage."
"WARNING. WARNING. WARNING. Evacuate immediately. Ship breach imminent."
"WARNING~"
None survived more than a single pass. One by one, the Kree's mighty armada, the fleet they believed could sweep half the galaxy, became burning debris, fireworks against a darkening sky.
On the ground below, the surviving officers watched in frozen horror.
The Supreme Intelligence observed through every available camera, recording silently.
It had no emotions to process, only data. And the data was catastrophic.
Fleet assets: 97% destroyed.
Combat personnel: 83% casualties.
Strategic capability: functionally zero.
Around the Kree officers, voices rose in disbelief.
"This can't be~"
"Why did we provoke them? WHY?"
"Mommy..."
The Supreme Intelligence continued recording. Its databases compressed, optimized, stored every frame.
This was its purpose.
Simultaneously, rescue protocols activated across the homeworld. Ships launched from every available bay, racing toward the impact zone.
On the battlefield below, the rainbow faded.
Thor grabbed a Kree officer by the throat and hauled him close.
"Listen carefully. Earth is under Asgard's protection."
"If you invade again, if you so much as look at that world, we will return. Not for your fleet."
"For your planet. And we will hunt your people across every star until none remain."
He dropped the officer like garbage.
"Heimdall! Take us home!"
"Wait." Garfield's voice stopped them.
He padded over to the same officer, who flinched. The cat ignored this, pointing a paw at Ronan's crumpled form.
"See that blue idiot? Save him. And when he wakes, tell him something for me."
The officer stared, uncomprehending.
"Tell him, if he wants revenge, he knows where to find me."
Loki's smirk returned. He leaned down, voice dripping with theatrical condescension.
"What our brother means, yes, brother, the Third Prince of Asgard, personally acknowledged by our father Odin, is that you've been threatening a king."
"A ruler of his own domain. The Carter Manor Empire, I believe?"
He glanced at Garfield, who nodded solemnly.
"I don't usually mention it," the cat added.
The officer's face cycled through several expressions, none of them coherent.
As the rainbow's light began to gather around them, Garfield paused again. Turned back.
"One more thing. Tell Ronan he needs to train harder. Much harder. And if he wants to reach me, he'll have to get through my weakest general first."
A pause.
"Name's Ego. He's been living on your planet. Probably still there, tell Ronan if he can't beat him, he's not worth my time."
The rainbow swallowed them.
The Kree officer stood alone amid the wreckage, holding words that felt like explosives.
Ego. Living among us. Weakest general.
He looked at Ronan's unconscious body. Looked at the burning sky.
The Supreme Intelligence continued recording.
✦••┈┈••✦••┈┈••✦
Days Later
Kree Central Medical Facility Advanced Treatment Wing
Ronan looked down at his hands.