Jump 13: The Last Avenger - Episode 11: Standing With My Friends

By the time we reached the helicarrier acting as a command post the combat situation had gone from even to not in our favor. I should have expected the shifting of global power to attract the Kree’s attention, but it was too late to beat myself up over it. The beginning of the battle gave us a rude awakening to the abilities of the Kree race. They were easily stronger and more durable than any normal man, and it was only thanks to the myriad of super humans we had thanks to A.I.M.’s experiments that kept the Kree from just wiping us out completely. I got in touch with Captain America, and while they had been able to keep the casualty count even on both sides, the Kree were steadily pushing forward.

I asked if he had noticed anything interesting about the Kree and he noted that they were very upset that mere humans were giving them trouble. This arrogance gave me an idea that would be risky to pull off, but potentially better for both sides if I managed it. Taking Psyche with me, I teleported to the battlefield at a safe distance and had her scan the minds of the Kree. As luck would have it, there was a member of their race stationed on Earth that fit the criteria I needed and I had Psyche point him out for me. I wasted no time in teleporting to him and going back to the command carrier.

He was understandably confused, so I had to restrain him until he agreed to listen to my demands without resisting. After retrieving Psyche from the front lines, I outlined my plan to the Kree, who was a captain named was Mar-Vell. In order to lessen losses on both sides, each would get to choose some of their strongest warriors to face off in single combat with a melee weapon of their choice. The overall victor of the ordeal would gain control of the planet. He agreed to attempting quicker than I would have thought, and revealed that there was a prisoner the Kree had who wanted to test his strength against the strongest Kree in their force.

With his cooperation assured, I teleported back to the battlefield with Mar-Vell in tow to find the acting leader of the Kree forces on Earth. Once found, I made a… statement to get his attention so to speak. By calling down a big bolt of lightning from the sky, he was forced to pay attention to me and notice that I was accompanied by Mar-Vell. While I initially garnered their ire with my action and had a myriad of guns aimed at my person, Mar-Vell began to explain what I had proposed. At first the arrogance that the human species was far inferior to the Kree was brought to the forefront, and the plan dismissed as an unnecessary ploy by the humans to save more of themselves.

I sighed and before Mar-Vell could attempt to debate with his leader, I quickly knocked out the surrounding Kree soldiers that were still pointing their weapons at us, although more came to quickly replace them. I took the lead from there, explaining that while I wasn’t exactly a one man army, that I and the rest of my force could match whatever the Kree threw at us. All I wanted was a faster way to settle things that also didn’t endanger the planet. While noticeably shaken by my display, he still refused to agree on the claim that I couldn’t be trusted to let the Kree go back to Latvaria until the designated time of the fights.

Having played into my hands, I used my trump card and offered myself as a prisoner to be held until the outcome had been decided. The brought a satisfied look on the Kree leader’s face as he agreed to these terms. I set a few more ground rules before letting them place me in their custody. Any human prisoners they had would be freed upon my containment, captain Mar-Vell would act as the liaison between our species and a few other terms that were deemed fair and accepted.

The next few hours were filled with various explanations to both sides about what would be occurring the next week and securing transport of the human prisoners. When all was said and done, I was being led to my cell when I recognized one of the prisoners leaving what was formerly Doom’s castle. The man I had assumed was dead from the assault on Hydra’s main base was perfectly fine and walking out with a grin on his face. He was currently carrying his mask and I finally got to see who the Bruce of this dimension was. He noticed me and gave me a short bow before continuing on his way. I assumed that the Kree had explained to the prisoners why they were being realesed and he figured I was the bargaining tool being used.

So for a week I got to experience what it was like to be the prisoner of an alien species on your own planet. It could have been worse. With my lack of the need for sleep, I rarely allowed myself to rest during those seven days, and prevented several experiments from being performed on me. Thankfully the Kree seemed to know how to prepare food for human consumption, lest I would have had to starve. Nothing of note happened while I was held in a special cell I was told was built to contain more superior species than humans.

Once the time was upon us, I was shackled and taken to the arena where the Kree and Earth’s mightiest heroes would face off to determine the fate of the planet. The Kree had their seven champions chosen, mostly hulking members of their force with one exception. I trusted everyone’s judgement in picking the representatives for Earth and didn’t worry much about how the fights could go. This might have been a mistake.

First to fight from our side was Captain America, a choice I wasn’t sure I agreed with. He was put against the biggest and likely strongest of the chosen Kree warriors wielding a large hammer like weapon. Captain America was out classed in both strength and durability, yet his quick thinking combined with his shield’s surprising toughness against all of the Kree warrior’s blows kept them fairly even. Cap had the speed advantage and being smaller than the massive Kree gave him plenty of opportunities to dodge and land his own blows against him. Unfortunately, it seemed like nothing he did really effected the Kree soldier, who eventually landed and decisive blow against Captain America. Thinking that Cap was down for the count, the Kree warrior celebrated his victory prematurely and was shocked along with the Kree watching when Captain America not only go up, but drove his shield into the Kree’s face hard. Stunned from the sudden impact, the Kree was left open for repeated assaults on his face and was knocked unconscious by Captain America. Holding his shield up in triumph, the human side erupted in cheers while the Kree were less than ecstatic about the situation to put it lightly.

The following fight was a lot less tumultuous, and not in a way that was good for us. Simon was next, brought against a Kree warrior brandishing twin knives. There was something about the weapons that caused Simon’s ionic energy to dangerously fluctuate despite his suit’s functions intended to prevent that. While he tried his hardest to overcome the issue, he had to surrender before he dispersed completely and lost his life. While I had expected that to be an easy win for Simon, the circumstances had conspired against him.

The third match brought Leo in as our representative, going against a Kree warrior with an ax as his weapon of choice. With a slightly more slender build, it wasn’t surprising that the Kree was quicker on his feet than the last two, and probably even deadlier because of it. Even so, Leo stood his ground and let flames encase his body before the fight began. Leo wasn’t much for close quarters combat last I remembered, but he had learned some things and while not as impressive as Captain America, he dodged and landed fire infused blows better than I could have expected. The Kree warrior seemed to shrug off most of them, nearly landing what would have been a fatal cross counter had Leo not taken to the air to avoid the ax’s swing. Increasing the temperature of his fire, Leo began to fly around the Kree warrior a high speeds, sending waves of fire down to surround him. It wasn’t long before those flames started to circle around the warrior, encasing him in a tornado of fire. In a last ditch effort, he threw his ax at where he believed Leo was, but the desperate attack was easily avoided. When Leo let the flames die down, the warrior was unconscious and need to be taken away from the arena to have his burns treated.

The following match filled me with anxiety for different reasons when I saw that Karen was next. Her opponent wielding a very sharp looking sword and sneering down at her. They both took a stance before the fight was to start, looking each other dead in the eyes. Once they began my worry seemed to be for naught, as Karen’s powerful hydrokinesis gave her an edge that the Kree warrior wasn’t prepared for. From freezing the ground to making deadly water constructs, Karen was looking to end things as fast as she could. To the Kree warrior’s credit, he managed to deal with Karen’s powers quite well, finally being forced to surrender when Karen bested him in a test of swordsmanship before slicing through his weapon. Needless to say that there was a look of contempt mixed with disgrace on his face as he left to make way for the next chosen champions.

While my worry for Karen was misplaced, I can only wish my worry for Sora had been as well. She was the next one up from Earth’s defenders and her opponent a Kree using something akin to a whip. Things started off well for Sora, keeping her distance and giving the Kree a hard time even moving. Something I noticed that drew my concern was that the Kree didn’t even attempt to use his whip once he saw that Sora has aerokinesis. Sora either didn’t notice or thought that it was because of the advantage she held. When she went to end the fight that’s when the Kree warrior struck. Sora created a tornado that sucked the warrior in side and I assume she aimed to knock him out by slamming him from the ground after he picked up enough speed while airborne. Unfortunately it seemed like that was what he was waiting for as I saw him ready his whip while dealing with the turbulence. During one of the rotations, he sent the whip out to grab Sora’s leg as she hovered above and a current of electricity immediately flowed through the whip and into her. She hadn’t expected the counter attack and couldn’t focus on the tornado and defend herself fast enough, and she quickly fell unconscious. Sora began to fall to the ground, but a recovered Simon flew over to catch her. The Kree warrior was able to land safely once Sora’s influence on the wind dissipated. Thankfully, the Kree warrior had only knocked her unconscious, so everyone could save their worry.

With only two more fights left to decide our fate, both sides were on edge. If humanity took the win here, there’d be no point in continuing, and if the Kree did, the seventh match would break the tie. Next up to fight was Shock, clad in an updated version of the Ant-Man suit. I wondered what had gone on through their minds when they picked him to fight. Being slightly shorter than Sora, the Kree warrior he was to face openly laugh at him. Shock wasn’t deterred by this treatment and prepared for the start. I can’t lie about this, I was extremely impressed at how well Shock fought. Back with the Sentinels and Ultron he really didn’t utilize the aspects of the suit’s technology to the fullest. But with only a week with the Wasp, Shock became a force to be reckoned with. The Kree warrior wielded a spear, but Shock would change size too fast for him to attack with the lethal end and get some hits of his own in. If Shock had more physical strength to start off, he could have taken Kree warrior out without having to become giant. Once he realized this himself however, is when the tides turned. Shock had the sped advantage by far while he shifted between his normal size and smaller, but once he started going bigger the roles started to reverse. When he became Giant-Man, the Kree warrior was able to finally start attacking like he wanted, and Shock was more open to being attacked as a consequence. Despite starting to fall on the losing end, Shock kept the fight close, and it seemed like they both had knocked the other out when the fight was over. Unfortunately, the Kree warrior stood back up and pointed his spear towards the sky in triumph. Shock returned to his normal size and was taken away by Leo with a worried Wasp waiting to get a look at him.

So it was that the seventh and final match would be what decided it all, as was thematically appropriate. The Kree were the last threat to the Earth currently on Earth, as Loki must have been biding his time in Asgard and Galactus wouldn’t come until I dealt with the trickster god. I was a bit surprised when the last fighters from each side stepped into the arena. For the Kree, it was the smallest of the seven, closer in build to a tall human, who only had gauntlets made of some type of alien metal on his hands. On the side of humanity was… Bruce. He was wearing his mask, so it was hard to discern how he felt. His posture was that of a calm individual, prepared for anything as he bowed before taking a martial art stance I didn’t recognize.

When the fight began, they both went at it without missing a beat. Bruce and the Kree would both launch a series of blows at the other, but never land a solid hit. Neither seemed to be going all out from what I could tell, and the fight continued to escalate as it went on. The Kree suddenly moved faster than he had thus far and proceeded to strike Bruce with an intensity none of the other Kree warriors had manifested. Bruce took the hits directly, the end result being that he was sent flying through the air from the last hit. When he landed that seemed to be the end of the fight, and humanity’s freedom. But then Bruce’s laughter echoed through the arena as he picked himself up. I saw his hands begin to glow before being enveloped in a purple fire as he once more got into a martial arts stance.

When the two engaged in combat again the advantage was clearly Bruce’s. Unlike everyone else, his fists were able to bypass the natural sturdiness of Kree physiology. That combined with his superior skill in unarmed combat was more than enough for the victor to be decided once he got serious. The Kree warrior ended up on the ground unconscious as Bruce stood tall and with pride. I wondered how someone like him was even captured to begin with, but figured I’d get a chance to ask him in person once I was released.

Unfortunately for me, the leader of the Kree forces was a big sore loser, and ordered his troops to attack those on the human side that were present while he said he’d deal with me. Captain Mar-Vell was very much against this, and implored his fellow Kree to follow the terms that had been set, lest they stain the history of the Kree with their dishonorable actions. This got their forces hesitating long enough for me to consolidate my power and break out of what they had shackled me to. I had been wanting to fight myself after watching everyone else go at it, and their leader had given me more than a reasonable excuse to vent my frustrations on him. In no uncertain terms, I beat him bad enough for not a single Kree there would call him by any authoritative title he held again.

I nominated Mar-Vell to lead the Kree here and help head a more amicable relationship between our species. He was hesitant at first, but a little effort on my part convinced him he could do it if he tried hard enough. It was very rough around the edges, but the Kree were on the path to forming a strong relationship with humanity, and that’s all that really mattered. With the help of them and their technology, we would be able to more effectively restore the world to its former order. I could breathe a sigh of relief for a while, but getting to Asguard to finish what I started.