Though, as to whether Aaron's home would still be habitable when he arrived, that remained to be seen. Barely another minute would pass before the serene sight of his world was interrupted with a hateful flurry of blasts across the Earth's outer atmospheric space. All across the globe, ships glided through the skies that the Earth had never known before. X-Wing Starfighters hurtled past at breakneck pace, flanking Na'Nipali Darkstriders, before they would vanish, having camouflaged in the dark of space.
Flying saucers and assorted robots and drones and droids fled the fury of various superheroes--Captain Marvel, Shazam, Superman, Wonder Man, and more--while other heroes--Batman, his Batfamily, Nick Fury, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Hawkeye and more--would instead be targeted by numerous rockets and mechs and ships.
The Martian Manhunter found himself pounding full-force into the skull of his former friend, The Vision. At least, when he didn't find his blows passing intangibly through the Vision's form.
And whilst they fought,
a strange giant robot, accompanied by a thin cloud of what looked like dust, dove past, to meet up against the force of Green Lantern.
Worse yet, Tony Stark would be of great help against the W.A.S.P. Antiphase Drifters and the Teletronic Transgauge Viper Ships--even the
Mechanic's Trust, which had been hijacked from an intergalactic embassy, and highly weaponized, some years ago--but the extent to which he could be of any use at all, was limited by just how good he was at multitasking between them, and his own Technari-commandeered Iron Man suits. At times like this, he greatly appreciated that, for the most part, his rivalry with Hank Pym had been a playful one. The
Yellowjacket's Sting was a most worthy vessel, and he wouldn't have been in space without it.
His passage across Aaron's path was swift, just like all the others. Yet, another presence would make itself known, in a short time thereafter, that seemed more determined to take its time. Just behind Aaron, about fifty yards back, space seemed to flicker, then ripple, shudder, and finally give way to a great whirling portal of purple-blue energy. Like the spear of a titan, a ship's great beak pierced the swirling vortex, presaging a massive bit of machinery. It had reached up to where Aaron was hovering in space, and still, the entire ship could not be seen.
When its full form finally did emerge, the vessel was easily more than 500 feet long, perhaps 100 feet wide, goldenrod-yellow, accented with jade green. Before Aaron could muster the presence of mind to register just how huge the thing was that floated before him, about fifty hatches opened on either side of the ship; and each of those 100 hatches poured forth 50 drones, the size of which determined from how high up up the ship they came. The lowest tier was small bots, followed by medium on the second tier up, then the large bots on the middle tier, and the fourth tier would have the ultra-bots, and the fifth tier (the highest up) would have the giga-bots.
As their legions rushed forth, past a stealth-covered Aaron, a final hatch would open at the very top. Robotic figures stepped out in familiar colors; one was blue and silver, and the other colored just like the ship. And though their talk would be inaudible to most, through the airless vacuum of space, radio receivers--or perhaps the keen perceptions of one cybernetic hero who happened to be within technopathic earshot--could easily pick up just what the two were saying:
"--and Motherboard Prime won't accept failure again,
XJ-9, especially not as terrible as last time!"
"Cool your jets,
Vexus! This time is way different!" the blue robot crossed its arms, "We have way more on our side than last time. And not just bots. Remember?"
"I most certainly do! But we've got quite some time before they arrive, haven't we?" the Cluster Queen snapped, "So, if you don't mind, I won't just be sitting here, waiting for my cue. Before I head into battle, let's see how Krakus and Smytus are doing with Bumblebee and Starscream are doing to locate the All-Spark, and transport it to Motherboard Prime's Master Locus!"
“…Judge not what a man has done, but judge what he could have done if he was a different bloke altogether. For art thou a leper? And a leper can changeth his spots…” --Rudy Wade, Misfits (Series 4, Episode 8)
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