The Dominator fleet arrived at exactly 06:47 EST.
I felt them before the sensors did—hundreds of alien minds dropping into Earth orbit, their consciousness utterly foreign and coldly calculating. The psychic pressure made my teeth ache.
"They're here," I announced through team comms.
Within minutes, every alert system on the planet was screaming. SHIELD's holographic displays showed them clearly—thirty massive warships, each the size of an aircraft carrier, surrounded by hundreds of smaller craft.
"Jesus Christ," someone breathed in the command center.
Fury's voice cut through the chaos. "All teams to deployment positions. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill."
My team was already geared up, waiting in our designated staging area—an abandoned subway station that gave us access to underground tunnels throughout Manhattan. The Stark armor felt like a second skin now after days of training.
"Final equipment check," I ordered. "Comms, weapons, medical supplies."
Everyone confirmed ready status. We looked more like a military special forces unit than the ragtag group we'd been a year ago. Felicia's cat burglar outfit was replaced by tactical armor with integrated stealth systems. Maya and Elektra wore reinforced combat gear designed for close quarters. Jessica had her Spider-Woman suit enhanced with Stark tech. Rogue's uniform incorporated power dampeners that let her control her absorption more precisely.
And me? I wore armor with neural interface ports and a heads-up display that showed me tactical data and nearby minds simultaneously.
"Remember the plan," I said. "We stay mobile, hit targets of opportunity, and avoid direct confrontation with their main forces. Our job is disruption, not destruction."
"Understood," Elektra confirmed. "But if it comes down to direct combat?"
"Then we fight like hell and make them regret noticing us."
The first explosions rocked the city.
The Dominators didn't waste time. Landing craft descended on Manhattan in waves, disgorging soldiers into Times Square, Central Park, and the financial district.
We watched through remote cameras as the first wave hit. Dominator soldiers were humanoid but clearly engineered for combat—seven feet tall, gray-skinned, wearing advanced armor that seemed to absorb energy weapons. They moved with mechanical precision, establishing beachheads with ruthless efficiency.
"Avengers are engaging in Times Square," Jessica reported, monitoring SHIELD channels. "X-Men deploying to Central Park. We're clear to move."
Our target was a Dominator communication hub they'd set up on a rooftop in Midtown. Intelligence suggested it was coordinating the landing forces—take it out, and we'd throw their entire ground operation into chaos.
We moved through the subway tunnels, emerging three blocks from the target. The streets were chaos—civilians fleeing, emergency services overwhelmed, and in the distance, the sound of superhero combat.
"Stay low," I whispered, reaching out with my telepathy to map enemy positions.
I could sense them clearly now—the Dominator minds were strange, compartmentalized and disciplined, but not impenetrable. They thought in mathematical patterns, viewing the battlefield as an equation to solve.
*Ten soldiers guarding the building. Four on the roof with the communication hub. Standard patrol pattern—they're not expecting us.*
We moved like ghosts through the back alleys. Maya took point, her enhanced senses detecting threats before they became problems. Elektra and I followed, with Felicia, Jessica, and Rogue covering our six.
The first Dominator patrol never knew what hit them.
Maya struck like lightning—three precise strikes that shattered armor and dropped two soldiers before they could react. Elektra's sai found the gaps in the third's armor, while I mentally disrupted the fourth's motor control long enough for Rogue to absorb his consciousness.
"Four down, no alarm raised," Felicia confirmed from her overwatch position. "You're clear to the building entrance."
We breached through a side door. Inside, more Dominators were setting up equipment. I reached out with my powers, touching each mind, issuing the same command: *Sleep.*
Five soldiers collapsed simultaneously.
"That's convenient," Jessica muttered.
"Won't work on their command caste," I warned. "They have stronger shields. Save the element of surprise for when we need it."
We moved up through the building, encountering minimal resistance. The Dominators had expected opposition from the front, not a strike team hitting them from behind.
The roof access was guarded by two elite soldiers—bigger, better armored, and significantly more alert. The moment we opened the door, they were on us.
Energy blasts tore through the doorway. We scattered, taking cover.
"These guys are faster," Elektra noted, rolling behind a ventilation unit as another blast scorched the air where she'd been.
"And better armed," Felicia added. She returned fire with her Stark-tech pistol, the rounds bouncing off their shields harmlessly. "Shit. Shields are too strong."
I reached out mentally, trying to disrupt them like I had the enhanced soldiers months ago. But these Dominators were different—their minds were segmented, with their motor control in one partition and higher cognition in another. I could affect one but not both simultaneously.
"I need a distraction," I said. "Ten seconds of them not shooting at me."
"On it." Jessica charged, her enhanced strength letting her close the distance despite the energy fire. She grabbed one Dominator and hurled him off the roof.
The second turned to track her—giving me my opening.
I dove deep into its mind, past the combat programming and tactical subroutines, down to the base consciousness. There, I found fear. These soldiers were bred for war, but they could still feel terror.
I amplified it. Made the Dominator believe it was surrounded by enemies, that its armor was failing, that death was imminent.
It panicked, firing wildly, hitting its own communication equipment in its confusion.
Elektra finished it with a sai through the eye socket.
"Clear," she announced.
Rogue rushed to the communication hub, her absorbed technical knowledge from a SHIELD technician letting her interface with the alien technology. "Give me three minutes and Ah can fry every circuit in this thing."
"You've got two," I said, sensing more Dominator minds heading our way. "They know we're here."
Rogue worked frantically while the rest of us fortified the roof access.
Maya and Elektra set up improvised barriers. Jessica webbed the door shut with her bio-electric blasts shaped into adhesive strands. Felicia took an overwatch position with her sniper rifle.
I could feel them coming—thirty Dominators, moving with military precision up the stairwell.
"How much longer?" I called to Rogue.
"Ninety seconds!"
"We don't have ninety seconds."
The door exploded inward. Dominator soldiers poured through, their weapons blazing.
We met them with everything we had. Maya and Elektra became a whirlwind of violence, their enhanced skills making them nearly impossible to hit. Jessica's enhanced strength let her physically throw Dominators off the roof. Felicia's precision shooting found weak points in armor.
And I coordinated everything telepathically, warning of threats before they materialized, directing fire where it would be most effective.
But there were too many. For every soldier we dropped, two more appeared.
"Rogue!" I shouted.
"Almost… got it… DONE!" The communication hub exploded in a shower of sparks.
"Move!" I commanded. "Felicia, zip line to the next building!"
She fired the grappling system, the smart-cable arcing across to the neighboring rooftop. One by one, we slid across as energy blasts scorched the air around us.
I went last, my mental shields deflecting a Dominator's telepathic probe. The alien mind brushed against mine, and I felt its surprise—*Another telepath. How unexpected.*
Then I was across, and Maya was cutting the cable.
We hit the next rooftop running, Dominators pursuing from below.
"That was insane," Jessica panted as we descended the fire escape.
"That was successful," I corrected. "Their ground coordination just got a lot harder. SHIELD, this is Cole Team. Primary objective complete. Communications hub destroyed."
Fury's voice crackled through comms. "Good work. New orders—Dominator command ship is landing in Central Park. X-Men are engaged but getting overwhelmed. Get there and provide support."
"Copy that. Cole Team moving to Central Park."
We disappeared into the chaos of the city, one small team in a planetary war.
But we'd drawn first blood.
Central Park had become a battlefield.
What had been green space and walking paths was now churned earth and burning trees. The X-Men were fighting desperately against overwhelming numbers—Storm calling lightning from the sky, Cyclops's optic beams carving through enemy lines, Wolverine a berserker whirlwind of adamantium claws.
But the Dominators kept coming.
Their command ship dominated the skyline—a massive vessel that had landed on the Great Lawn, its weapons systematically demolishing anything that moved. Smaller craft swarmed around it like insects.
"That's our target?" Felicia asked, staring at the enormous ship.
"No. That's suicide," I said. "Our target is their ground commander. The ship is automated defense. But someone's coordinating the ground troops. We find them, we eliminate them, and the X-Men get breathing room."
I reached out with my telepathy, scanning for the command presence among hundreds of Dominator minds. There—a consciousness distinct from the others, more complex, giving orders rather than receiving them.
"East side, in that bunker they've constructed. Heavily guarded, but that's where their commander is."
"How do we get past heavy guards?" Maya signed.
"We don't. We go through." I looked at Rogue. "You ready to try something crazy?"
"Always."
"Touch me. Absorb my telepathy."
Her eyes widened. "Marcus, that's—"
"Dangerous, I know. But we need two telepaths for what I'm planning. You've absorbed my powers before through our link. Now do it directly."
Rogue hesitated, then placed her bare hand on my arm. I felt her absorption activate, pulling at my consciousness. But instead of resisting, I guided the process, showing her how to take my telepathic abilities without taking my memories or personality.
It was delicate work—like teaching someone to siphon gas without drinking it. But slowly, carefully, she pulled in just my power.
When she released me, her eyes were glowing with psychic energy.
"Oh wow," she breathed. "This is what it's like for you? All these minds?"
"All the time. Can you handle it?"
"Ah think so. What's the plan?"
"We're going to make the Dominators think they're under attack from every direction. Create phantom armies in their minds while the real team moves in. Think you can maintain mental illusions?"
"With you guiding me? Yeah."
The rest of the team looked skeptical, but they trusted us.
We moved into position around the bunker. On my signal, Rogue and I reached out to every Dominator mind we could touch—over a hundred soldiers.
And we rewrote what they saw.
Suddenly, from their perspective, the bunker was surrounded by Sentinels, those mutant-hunting robots they'd seen in their intelligence. Illusions, but perfect ones, complete with sound and thermal signatures created by manipulating how their brains processed sensory data.
The Dominators panicked. They opened fire on enemies that didn't exist, creating chaos and confusion.
"Go!" I commanded.
Maya, Elektra, Jessica, and Felicia hit the bunker from the blind spot our illusions created. Four warriors against minimal resistance—the guards too distracted by phantom threats to notice real ones.
They breached the command post in under thirty seconds.
Inside, the Dominator commander—a massive figure in ornate armor—realized the deception immediately. It raised a weapon—
Elektra's sai took it through the throat.
The commander fell, and with it, the coordination of the entire ground force. Suddenly, the Dominator soldiers were operating without orders, their tactical precision collapsing into confused chaos.
The X-Men capitalized immediately, their counterattack devastating now that the enemy wasn't coordinating.
"Commander eliminated," I reported to SHIELD. "Ground forces in disarray."
"Excellent work," Fury responded. "But we've got a problem. Dominator main fleet is preparing orbital bombardment. They're going to level major cities if we can't stop them. Stand by for—"
The communication cut off in a screech of static.
"SHIELD comms are down," Jessica reported. "All channels dead."
I reached out mentally, scanning for Fury's mind—and found nothing. Not dead, but blocked. Something was jamming all communications, both electronic and psychic.
"They've adapted," I realized. "They know we're using telepathy and radio. They've deployed some kind of jamming field."
"So we're cut off," Felicia said. "No orders, no coordination with other teams. What do we do?"
I thought fast. Without communication, Earth's defense would collapse. Different teams would be fighting isolated battles, unable to coordinate or call for support.
Unless someone could bypass the jamming.
"The field is technological," I said slowly. "Which means it has a source. Probably on their flagship in orbit."
"You want to go to space," Elektra said flatly. "To their flagship. That's insane even by our standards."
"You have a better idea?"
Silence.
"Then we're going to space. Question is—how?"
The answer came from an unexpected source.
Doctor Strange appeared in a swirl of golden light, his expression grim. "I felt the psychic jamming activate. It's affecting every form of communication on the planet."
"Can you bypass it?" I asked.
"Mystically? Yes. But that doesn't solve the technological aspect. We need to destroy the source." He studied me. "I can get you to their flagship. But I can't guarantee I can get you back."
"Do it."
"Marcus—" Felicia started.
"Someone has to. If we don't restore communications, Earth loses. Simple as that." I looked at my team. "I need volunteers for a one-way trip."
"Ah'm coming," Rogue said immediately. "You'll need another telepath."
"I'm in," Elektra added. "Someone needs to watch your backs in close combat."
"Three people," Strange said. "That's my limit for this distance. Choose now."
I wanted to bring everyone. But three was the limit, and we needed people with the right skills—telepathy, combat prowess, and adaptability.
"Rogue and Elektra with me. Everyone else—stay here, support the X-Men, and be ready for our signal."
"What signal?" Jessica asked.
"You'll know it when you see it."
Strange opened a portal—not to another location on Earth, but to the void of space itself. Through it, I could see the Dominator flagship, a massive weapons platform bristling with cannons.
"Once you're through, you'll have maybe ten minutes of air from the spells I'm casting," Strange warned. "Find the jamming array, destroy it, and I'll pull you back. If you take longer than ten minutes…"
"We won't."
I stepped through the portal, Rogue and Elektra right behind me. The sensation was disorienting—one moment standing on Earth, the next floating in the vacuum of space.
Strange's magic protected us from immediate death, but I could feel the wrongness of it. We weren't meant to be here.
The flagship loomed before us, impossibly huge. Somewhere on that ship was the jamming array. We had ten minutes to find it.
"Where's the array?" Elektra asked through the magical communication Strange had established.
I reached out with my telepathy, scanning the ship for the dense cluster of minds that would indicate a control center. There—near the core, hundreds of Dominator technicians working on something that radiated psychic interference.
"Central section, three levels down from the bridge. But getting there means fighting through the entire ship."
"Then we better move fast," Rogue said.
We breached through a cargo bay airlock, the magical protection letting us bypass security systems. Inside, artificial gravity and atmosphere returned. We were in.
And we had nine minutes left to save Earth.