Thor had reached a preliminary assessment by the time Jordan moved.
Strong. Very strong. He was trying to calculate what order of magnitude he was looking at when the figure became a streak of gold-black light and crossed the distance to the edge of the Wakanda energy barrier faster than the sound of departure.
The sonic boom arrived approximately half a second later, by which time Jordan was already outside the shield perimeter.
"There!" Rocket tracked the reappearing figure through his scope and then heard something in his immediate vicinity—a sound like a particularly articulate animal expressing confusion—and looked around.
One of the Outriders had stopped mid-charge. It was looking at the sky. Its expression, beneath the biological asymmetry of its face, had moved through something that read as consternation and arrived at something that read as grief.
It tilted its head.
Rocket watched it for half a second and moved on.
Outside the shield, Jordan looked at the troop transport ships—three of them, the triangular designs that had been disgorging Outriders throughout the battle—and activated the heat ray.
Two beams of gold light, focused to a width of about three centimeters each.
The first ship was taller than the highest building in the Wakanda capital. The beams passed through it from left to right at approximately one-third of the way up, at a controlled intensity Jordan had calibrated specifically for this: hot enough to cut through reinforced alien hull plating, not hot enough to trigger the energy core immediately. The cut was clean and melting, the edges glowing orange.
Then the core, compromised by structural failure, processed the situation and made its contribution.
The explosion was visible from the city.
The second ship followed. Then the third.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Columns of flame reached a height that had no business existing at ground level. The shockwave hit the Wakanda energy barrier and pushed it inward about four meters before the vibranium technology compensated.
Rhodes had been tracking the figure from the moment it moved. He watched the three destruction sequences complete in approximately eleven seconds.
"Okay," he said. "Is Superman in the comics like this?"
"That comic book," Banner said, from somewhere behind him.
Natasha had positioned herself at Rhodes's left, watching the figure return from the destroyed ships toward the main battlefield. Her expression was the controlled version—the face she wore when processing large amounts of information quickly and withholding the reaction until she had enough data. "He's on our side," she said. "So far."
"So far," Rogers agreed. He had already angled toward Thor. The look between them communicated the rest: you're the strongest person here, you go first if this becomes a problem.
Thor received this with a small shrug. He was already doing the math.
Could he achieve the same result with a full-power lightning discharge through Stormbreaker?
Yes. But sequentially—one ship at a time. And he suspected the speed differential would be substantial.
He turned the axe handle in his hand. Stormbreaker had been in his possession for approximately twelve hours, and it was an extraordinary weapon, but there was still a certain break-in period that was different from the intimacy of a weapon you'd carried for a thousand years. He was aware of the gap.
Easy, he thought toward the axe, then immediately felt that this was an unproductive internal dynamic to establish and moved on.
He was the strongest Avenger on this team. This was a settled matter.
From somewhere in the vicinity, a voice that sounded like grinding metal: "Puny god."
Thor elected not to acknowledge this.
Outside, Jordan had expanded the Mind Network across the remaining Outriders—every one of them, down to the stragglers at the perimeter—and mapped their positions against the Wakandan soldiers still in contact with them.
Then he raised his right hand.
The compressed energy in his palm lit up with the particular quality that made everything nearby seem slightly dim by comparison—not the raw output, not lethal mode, but enough that the assembled Avengers watching from inside the barrier collectively squinted.
What followed was difficult to describe except as precision.
Thousands of projectiles, each one approximately the size of a fist, launched simultaneously from Jordan's open hand in a spread that covered the entire contested zone. Not a spray, not an explosion, not a wave—a targeted delivery, each one following a calculated trajectory to a specific target. Ki-based penetration: the energy passing through armor and moving parts and the outer material of whatever it hit to detonate at the optimum internal point.
From the Wakandan soldiers' perspective, the Outriders they'd been fighting simply stopped.
Then detonated.
Then were gone.
The soldiers stood in the sudden silence, looking at where their opponents had been. Some of them looked at their own weapons. Several of them performed the universal human gesture of checking whether they'd done something, decided they hadn't, and looked at the sky.
Jordan's right hand lowered.
[It's like the new year,] F-boy observed, watching the card notifications cascade.
[Fate Draw: +1086. Current count: 1,247.]
[Outriders — Character Card (Monster). Marvel Universe. Gene-fusion species, multiple capabilities including stealth and biological form manipulation. Effectiveness significantly reduced from theoretical maximum in this universe.]
[×832 acquired.]
Jordan looked at the Outrider cards briefly. Monster cards from a different dimensional context—similar in profile to what he'd seen from other crossover pulls. Enhancement material, not combat deployable. He filed them and moved on.
Rhodes, inside the barrier, was working through something.
"If I used every ammunition system in this suit simultaneously," he said, "I could maybe replicate one percent of that."
"One percent," Natasha said, "is a generous estimate."
"I'm trying to be positive."
Banner had pushed his glasses up, tracking the figure now moving back toward the barrier. "The targeting alone is extraordinary. That many simultaneous projectiles hitting independent moving targets without any collateral—"
"Yes, we can discuss the physics later," Rogers said. He stepped forward as the figure cleared the barrier and slowed to a stop at ground level. "Right now—"
"He's heading this way," Natasha finished. She straightened, something between assessment and dry humor in her expression. "Ladies. Superman is coming to introduce himself."
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