Chapter 358: Kree Battleship
The first volley of alien plasma screamed through the air, streaking toward Steve and Tony in a storm of glowing bolts.
But before the blasts could land, Tony’s gauntlet lit up. His repulsors flared, unleashing streams of white-hot energy that intercepted the incoming fire. The desert trembled as explosions lit the air, plasma bolts bursting harmlessly against the blazing shields.
Meanwhile, Steve’s flames crashed down across the battlefield. The sand beneath hissed and cracked, turning into glass where the fire licked. The heat was so intense that the air itself warped and bent like liquid.
Kree rifles groaned under the inferno, their alien alloys bubbling and sagging until they collapsed uselessly in their soldiers’ hands.
Several Kree screamed as their armor caught fire, blue skin blistering beneath the scorching heat as they dropped to the ground, rolling in vain attempts to extinguish the flames. Others barked frantically in their guttural tongue, trying to regroup, but their formation was already breaking apart.
Tony didn’t let up. His repulsors carved precise arcs through the chaos, disarming soldiers, blasting apart mounted plasma turrets, and forcing the Kree back toward the looming shadow of their own ship.
"Not bad for first contact diplomacy," Tony muttered under his breath, his HUD flashing with red warnings as energy readings from Steve’s firestorm spiked into dangerously high levels.
Steve’s entire body now blazed with fire. His eyes glowed faintly, and flames coiled around him like living serpents, rising higher with each breath he took. But this wasn’t magic. It wasn’t alien tech. It was something far stranger.
It was the power of the Inferno-Titan Devil Fruit.
His body itself had become fire. He was no longer just a man wielding heat—he was fire incarnate. A living inferno that turned the battlefield into his domain. Each step he took scorched the desert beneath him into molten glass. Each movement left a trail of shimmering flame in the air. Even his breaths shimmered with heat that bent the horizon itself.
The Kree hesitated now. Their advance, once disciplined and precise, had faltered into disarray. Blue faces, usually cold and unyielding, betrayed something rare among their kind—fear.
The ground beneath Steve glowed, spiderwebbing cracks of molten glass stretching outward like fiery veins, threatening to swallow boots and rifles alike. Every step forward was a warning: this land belongs to him now.
Tony glanced at him through the HUD, momentarily forgetting his own targeting reticles.
"Okay... remind me to never piss you off," he muttered, voice tinged with awe.
Steve didn’t reply—his focus was absolute. A towering wall of fire erupted behind him, cutting off any retreat for the Kree soldiers. The alien warriors found themselves trapped between the inferno and Tony’s relentless repulsor fire.
The Kree commander barked an order in their guttural tongue, voice echoing like gravel against steel. Instantly, several soldiers tossed aside their ruined rifles and drew shimmering blades—blades of pure plasma energy, humming and vibrating with lethal intent.
They charged.
One leapt high, blade poised to cleave down on Steve. But Steve simply raised his hand. The fire swelled into a pillar, engulfing the soldier midair. He didn’t even scream—he disintegrated into ash before hitting the ground.
Another slashed at Tony’s flank. But Tony’s armor whirred, shoulder plates shifting as a miniature turret snapped into place and fired a point-blank concussive blast. The Kree warrior flew backward, armor denting as he slammed into the sand with a crunch.
"Guess subtle negotiations are off the table," Tony quipped, adjusting his stance as more soldiers tried to flank him.
Steve’s voice rumbled low, distorted through the roar of the flames.
"They wanted war... they’ll get it."
And with that, he thrust both arms forward. The fire surged outward in a wave, a roaring tsunami of molten heat that swallowed the battlefield whole. The Kree screamed, shields snapping up as their tech strained to withstand the storm. But even their strongest barriers began to melt, sizzling under the overwhelming fury of the Inferno Titan’s wrath.
The desert itself groaned, shifting into a hellscape of glass and flame.
Steve’s flames coiled tighter around him before receding, drawn back into his body like a tide returning to the ocean. The blazing glow in his eyes dimmed, leaving behind only a faint shimmer of heat radiating from his skin. The desert air, though still warped, began to cool.
The Kree soldiers, what remained of their unit, stumbled back in a ragged half-circle. Weapons either slagged or discarded, armor scorched and smoking. Their formation was broken, discipline wavering. Yet one among them—taller, broader, wearing a silver-lined breastplate and a war helm marked with the Kree star—stepped forward. His bearing screamed commander.
Steve took a breath, grounding himself, then strode across the glass-scorched sand. His boots crunched on crystallized shards as he stopped just a few feet from the Kree leader.
The commander’s jaw tightened. His deep blue skin gleamed with sweat from the heat, and his right gauntlet was half-melted, but he didn’t retreat. His eyes burned with that same cold, martial pride the Kree were infamous for.
Steve’s voice was steady, though still carrying a faint rumble, as if fire lingered in every word.
"So... tell me. Why are you blue-skin soldiers here?"
The desert was silent, save for the hiss of cooling sand.
The Kree commander exhaled sharply through his nose, then spat into the glass at his feet.
"You stand in the way of Kree expansion, offworlder. This land—your Earth—is marked. By decree of the Supreme Intelligence, this system belongs to the Empire."
He lifted his chin despite the burns lining his neck.
"You are strong. Stronger than most primitives we’ve encountered. But strength will not stop the tide. The Kree do not ask. We take."
Tony raised an eyebrow inside his helmet, muttering through comms to Steve, "Well, that’s charming. No wonder the galaxy loves these guys."
The commander’s eyes flicked to Tony, then back to Steve. He seemed to study him more closely now, gaze narrowing at the faint shimmer of heat still dancing across Steve’s skin.
"You... are not entirely human," the Kree murmured, almost to himself. "Your kind should not have power like this. Tell me—what are you?"
"No, we’re pretty much human," Steve replied calmly, flames still faintly coiling around him. "Just... with powers."
Tony smirked, his helmet shifting as he interjected. "Anyway, I hear you Kree have a system to gauge the strength of your targets. Care to use it on us? I’m curious."
The Kree commander stiffened, then reluctantly raised a strange, crystalline device. It hummed with alien energy as its lens swept over Steve. Symbols flickered across the display before locking onto a reading.
The commander’s face darkened. He hesitated, then spoke in a low voice:
"Threat Detected: Calamity Level. Extreme caution advised."
The soldiers around him exchanged uneasy looks.
The device shifted its scan toward Tony, and after a few tense seconds, the reading stabilized.
"Threat Level: Extinction. Alert! Do not engage recklessly. Do not provoke this entity."
The Kree fell silent, the battlefield suddenly heavier with the weight of what they had just discovered.
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