Nova swooped down as Cyclops squatted onto a Disk, Rich grabbing it and towing Cyke up into the air. Scott spared a glance ahead, telescopic sights zooming on the altar and beings around it in the distance, and saw Jean Grey wrapped in some sort of suppressive bands there, being laid out on the dark stone.

What a total dipshit D’Ken was. The bastard didn’t even know the M’Kraan Crystal was linked to the Phoenix. Offering an Avatar of it to the Guardian as a sacrifice so he could enter the crystal? Was he TRYING to piss the Phoenix Force off?

Scott’s eyes turned right, and his central visor-eye gleamed like an orange star as it spread wide, and he dumped Core psi-power.

The whole area to our left erupted in plasma-level heat, basically a moving nigh-atomic level wall of heat covering a massive area. Cyclops’ One Eye started on the right flank of the Brood, and slowly panned left.

That Brood army had no goddamn chance whatsoever. They screamed and died, their wings frying and lungs roasting as doom swept slowly and grandly past them in a wave of bright orange light and devouring flame, and pretty much all the fighting paused just to watch Cyclops do his thing.

Deathbird screamed and brought up a force field from her bracelets to wrap herself in as the wave of optical annihilation burned past her, and her allies were utterly consumed around her.

“Sunfire, Comet, Torch, find their fleet of bioships and annihilate them,” General Rogers ordered coldly, and even before the fiery sweep ended, the flaming trio were burning west to get there before the things could flee.

The bioships were basically naturally spacefaring creatures enslaved to the Brood by slaver viruses that had eaten away their brains. The only known way to free them was to kill them.

Smasher got one punch. Titan took two, namely that one of Smasher’s I bent aside into his head, and one of my own to complement it. Both Guardsmen crashed into stone outcroppings and didn’t get up, rather astonished despite themselves at how fast they’d been taken out.

“Quicksilver, vivus up and sweep those dead Brood. Those things are genetic filth, and some of them survived the flames,” I muttered into coms. Two seconds later, he was standing beside me, his energy blades touching. I tapped them, Infusing them with vivus. Trailing unwhite flames, he was off in a flash to make sure nothing remained of the Brood.

“Angel, flyby me, prep for an upgrade, and go get Deathbird before she bails.”

He promptly swooped on by me. I reached up with Function, tapped the shining gold mind-blade he had out, and Asgardian magic surged across the link.

I lost half the Wrecker Buff, he picked up a quarter of it and instantly turned into a godly Angel, muscled and literally shining with power and heavenly glory. The Shi’ar all gaped to see him as suddenly magic compounded with gravitokinetics, and he started moving at a speed that was rivaling Fury, Psword blazing as he flitted towards where Deathbird was staring at a blur trailing white fire beheading every Brood corpse and survivor below her.

Warren was very much an Avenging Angel come to call.

Fury swooped down right next to him, and two angels started hunting a deathbird.

Warren had shown up just to re-unite with the other X-students late yesterday, probably not expecting to get thrown into combat. Welcome to superherodom!

Iceman was freezing up all the soldiers who were down or who had stopped fighting, making sure there was no funny business, while walls of ice interfered with their shooting lines across broad areas and let the scrappers close in to take them out more easily.

Turning a field gun into an ice boulder was pretty useful, too.

I jetted up into the sky as Nova zipped my way while dragging Cyke, watching the Terran force below rolling over the Shi’ar.

Thunderous impacts were ringing out as Gladiator and the two gods went at it, golden Mace and ancient Hammer more than capable of meeting the Paramount’s fists and parrying his eyebeams, no force field here to save the ground or air from the shockwaves that promptly started destroying both. The two gods were smashing him around, and if Thor wasn’t the best at that kind of teamwork, Hercules certainly was, setting up the Thunder God for smashing blow after blow that was rapidly forcing the Praetor of the Imperial Guard out of the area of conflict.

The Avengers seemed to have focused on Erik the Red, as his power armor made him a target for Stark, and the alien spy’s personal guards were also in powered hardsuits.

Havok was leading the assault on positions with force fields, which had to be tuned to full power to deal with him, which meant launching no attacks of their own. Then the Bricks would get up on them, and welp, too bad, so sad.

I was suddenly up next to Cyclops and getting dragged ahead by Nova.

Photon energy swung slowly and ominously around, and fixed on that altar like a spotlight, bathing it all in ruby-red light like a painted target. The expressions of everyone there shifted for the very worst, and their force fields started to go up... as a silver-limned empty beam came down and covered the altar with Jean laying on it with a dome of very, very hard air.

The materializing force fields hit the silver ray and promptly shattered. Those putting them up shuddered from the jolt of feedback.

Oh, don’t they look not happy...

My eyes flicked towards the M’Kraan crystal, and something really big and dark materializing next to it.

-One of the two ancient and mighty Guardians of the Crystal-, I was duly informed by Lilandra.

“Why don’t you give the Majestor a push,” I muttered, and Scott grit his teeth as his central eye glowed very bright crimson, indeed.

The force blast came down, ricocheted off the bubble around Jean, and blew the surrounding Shi’ar irresistibly off the altar in all directions.

Except for the Majestor, that is, who was trying to get a crackling black knife through the hard air dome I’d put up. He froze for a moment when he saw his entire entourage tossed away like rag dolls. He was the only one left in the crimson spotlight.

Scott’s next shot bounced off the dais at just the right angle, hit him in the chest, and gave the Emperor a nice big shove in a certain direction, without being lethal itself.

Nova streaked us down in there instantly. I promptly erected a second dome around us to take the desultory fire that started coming in at us, which painted all the shooters and made them instant targets for the rampaging brutes coming in behind us.

There were a lot of screams, and the sniping attempts dropped precipitously.

I watched the rather dog-like cosmic beast that was the Guardian fully materialize, looming over the Shi’ar Emperor. The Shi’ar were a tough species, and getting punched a hundred yards hadn’t really hurt him with the armor he was wearing under his robes. He turned around and looked up, and wow, wasn’t that mad arrogant hatred expression on his face turned to total and abject terror quickly.

Mentor did a gravimetric shotgun mike, picking up his screams of denial, that he was the Shi’ar Majestor, the Guardian could not take him, he was the one who was performing the Ceremony, whineprotestscream and so forth and so on.

The Guardian kind of glanced our way, and more pointedly at the Phoenix Avatar being cut free of her suppressive restraints, and reached out for him.

There was kind of a sizzle and hiss of dark energies, and D’Ken, Majestor of the Shi’ar, older brother of Lilandra Neumanri, was kind of instantly vaporized and ceased to be of concern to himself and his people.

I turned back as Juggernaut came plowing through the Shi’ar lines, leading the ground forces by expeditiously blowing through anything in his path and creating a route for them.

“” I shouted in Shi’ar, Voice of the Mage making sure it was heard for a mile in every direction. “”

The fighting fell off within five seconds. They naturally knew Lilandra was here and fighting on our side, there was no way they could miss it. Violent Imperial turnovers of authority were all part and parcel of the Shi’ar traditions, so this kind of enthronement was definitely not unexpected, and transfer of authority and power came with the biggest fist.

Then there were the godly Angels swooping back over them, the beaten Deathbird hanging from Warren and Fury’s grasp, glowing Heavenly Swords in their other hands. Just needed Halos and Holy Auras to complete the picture.

Fury was also giving Warren some very interested looks.

The Shi’ar were descended from avian-type creatures, with feathers instead of body hair, and they even laid eggs. Angels were hitting all their religious buttons.

Even so, I didn’t drop the dome around us. Jean and Scott were sharing a hug, which didn’t surprise me at all. Cassandra had noted to me that since I was far too domineering mentally, Jean had long formed a telepathic bond with Scott Summers, using his incredibly disciplined mindset and personality as something to lean on to help her deal with the Phoenix Force. It might even have been formed when she helped him Open his Core.

She was there for him, and he was there for her. Did it matter where she came from? Dealing with the emotional surges coming off the Phoenix Force was definitely something anyone could use help with, and total discipline and mental control was something Scott could use a break from, too.

Scott’s gaze was death, and he knew it. He was always aware of it, and the fact that he could wipe away everything he saw if he lost control. A whole lot of other people had just seen what that could mean, too.

A very disciplined mindset was something important!

“Nova, get the General an area view,” I told him, opening a hole in the hard-air dome above me. He shot into the air instantly, his Nova Corps training via Mentor turning him into an excellent soldier despite his power level, very good at obeying orders.

Quicksilver had painted the blackened ground of the hillside over there unwhite, incidentally finishing off nearly a score of Brood who had survived by dint of having others stacked up in front of them as Cyclops’ fiery eye swept on past.

He really liked the new energy swords, too, and was seriously considering taking up swordplay so he wasn’t waving them around like a newb.

I waved at Cain Marko down below as he lined up in front of the altar, glowering at the Shi’ar who were not quite daring enough to move past the looming mountain of Cyttorak’s Champion. Then the like of Mr. Hill, the Hulk, She-Hulk, The Rock, Wonder Man, Sandman, and six different Asgardian gods and goddesses joined in, and yeah, the Shi’ar stayed back.

Heck, Thundra had joined in. I guess kidnapping the Phoenix had irked her feminist side.

Lilandra came up, escorted by the Shielders and the Starjammers, Xavier right at her side as if meant to be there. Her entire demeanor had changed already, and the Shi’ar soldiers and Imperial Guardsmen nearby were standing to attention, arranging themselves in lines as their officers snapped urgently at them, not daring to offend the new Majestrix Shi’ar.

Stark came jetting up and deposited a very beaten and mostly dis-armored Eric the Red on the steps to the altar. The look Lilandra gave the servant of D’Ken as she went by didn’t bode well, and even with his head bowed, the Shi’ar agent looked ashen.

There were three Spiders hyperaware for threats, but none were forthcoming. The traditional transfer of power was underway!

“Does my sister have any intention to contend with me for the throne?” Lilandra hissed at her, and everyone knew that if she did, welp, one less matricidal sister was going to be around.

Kneeling on the ground, battered, bruised, mind-shocked, and with two angels looming over her, the atavistic Shi’ar princess could only bow her head. “No, my sister. It seems you have found stronger allies than I...”