“I understand.” Ronan the Accuser paused thoughtfully. “We do not have a biosphere. Will the devastation He wreaks be so widespread?” he asked thoughtfully.

“As of right now, He is absolutely ignoring the Kree and what they are doing. I imagine if someone of significance goes over there, and gets His attention while helping Him stay undisturbed, mmm... Galactus does not like owing debts, and will repay even the most minor of favors that He recognizes.” I made a shooing motion. “Go over there, make sure He stays undisturbed, and do something crazy. Maybe hook the planet’s power grid into His device.” Ronan actually blinked in shock. “Bring the Surfer with you. Your goal is to get Galactus to owe you a debt, however minor.

“My guess is that He will pay it back with minimal damage to your world, and it is likely you will be able to return to it with some minor fuss after He is done here. Since there is no biosphere, He has no reason to crack the mantle and destroy the integrity of the planet, He need only withdraw the Seed. Anything that helps Him in that purpose places Him in your debt, if only marginally... but the margin when dealing with Galactus is quite substantial.”

Ronan clenched his fist as his thoughts worked over the possibilities. “That... is a very unusual approach to dealing with Galactus...”

“It is a shame the Skrulls didn’t try it,” I agreed, and his eyes glittered with understanding.

“We shall show them the superiority of the Kree!” Ronan abruptly proclaimed. “Surfer! I would request of you an introduction to your Master!”

Norrin Radd glanced at the Universal Weapon, and inclined his head. “If the Accuser would care to step on my Board, I shall take you to meet Him.”

---

I watched the two of them zip off, considering my next moves.

Galactus certainly knew I was out here, but it wasn’t like I was going to try to stop Him, or request anything of Him now. He also had a debt to me, but I would not call that in without a convergence of purpose. He was a cosmic being, and dealt in cosmic affairs.

An invasion from the Negative Zone of that scale and power was sufficient to draw His attention, given the threat it represented to not only us ants, but beings as powerful as Him and the Celestials, among others.

-------

A wrist-clanging later...

The Nega-bomb wasn’t actually made to kill powerful beings. It was made to wipe out less powerful ones in massive numbers, and do some damage to the places they lived to magnify the misery.

Thus, Annihilus had survived the blast, despite being fairly close to the epicenter, and so had many of the more powerful natives of the Negative Zone.

It was still a ninety-percent kill rate, and enough infrastructure damage to basically force them to start over on their more massive projects.

It meant chaos and blame-games from hot-tempered techno-barbarians, scrambling to readjust and maintain morale, and opportunities for later forces arriving to improve their standings and influence. Internal discord was always helpful for us... but such things would eventually be ironed out, as long as someone held the Cosmic Control Rod, which exerted a powerful influence over all natives of the Negative Zone.

I spent some time there doing two things.

On one of their planet-ships, massively damaged by the Nega-bomb, I went down into the planet’s mangled power-supply generators and made up an empty Nega-bomb, because who had just walked through and around one and memorized the design?

This kind of stuff was why matter manipulation was so nice.

I then plugged it into their power grid so they could charge it up for us, basically masquerading as a capacitor. That way they could carry it around with them and release it on themselves to maximum effect.

Then I went after Annihilus.

---

The area around us was an absolute ruin. I had blown the shit out of everything without restraint, which meant most of his embedded technology and the power supplies for it, removing most of his chances to turn the tide with some techno-surprises.

He had likewise exhibited precious little restraint after seeing me blowing my way mercilessly through the remnants of his elite guards and what mechanical defenses had endured the Nega-bomb. Energy blasts as powerful as atomic shockwaves went flying back and forth, and really made a hash of the area.

But that was why I had Copy-Mimicked Carol’s powers ahead of time. Energy blasts were just fuel to send back at him, or to boost my power.

I was a Courtier of Death, and Death had a lot of influence in this realm. Ostensibly this little bug was immortal, but I soon proved otherwise.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I ripped the Cosmic Control Rod off his armor, rent the armor open, and then I filled it with Banefire and True Death Holy Primal Cosmic energies from Function and its Dreadskull. Bane to Immortals yawned open before Annihilus, Death looked down, and was not displeased as the bug that had evaded Her for so long was shorn from the cosmic energies that kept regenerating him, and he was reduced to base energies.

I tossed the Cosmic Control Rod in the air, wondering exactly what I was going to do with this. Every warlord in the Negative Zone wanted it, and there was no true way to conceal it from them. Whoever had it would become a target, and there was no true way to sequester it.

Leaving it here was naturally not a solution. Likely Blastaar would claim it, and he basically lived to conquer. The invasion would continue... and would continue if I took it away, in their zeal to recover it and become the new overlord.

There would be an invasion from the Negative Zone. It was pure survival, there was no stopping it.

But, there was slowing it down...

------

=============

I'd also like to slow down something else!

If you're not reading this on Royal Road, you're helping pay a thief. Please read it in its original home, it's still free! You get the foreword and afterword, author comments, and comments from people with questions! I have not given permission for this story to be copied by a bot and posted ANYWHERE ELSE.

=============

Danica Munroe tossed the gleaming golden nodule into the air, grinning at it, her short and precisely-coiffed blue-streaked white hair contrasting against her dark skin. “Aren’t we the clever one?” she asked me, hiding a laugh as she regarded the Cosmic Control Rod. “Sequestering the Rod on the Road...”

There was no Scrying on the Road, period. Even the Rod’s connections to N-Zoners were inhibited. As long as it was on the Road, there was no way for them to track it.

Granted, that didn’t mean we could just leave it there somewhere. The nature of the Road was to reuse and recycle anything left there, so leaving it there would mean it would inevitably be found by something and put to use.

“You realize that once other Riders realize this thing’s power, it’s gonna become the hottest McGuffin on the Road, right?” she asked me.

“I figured you needed some excitement in your life, and a chance to make an Eternal-grade power core wasn’t something you were gonna pass up for your Ride.”

As a Twenty, she already had hilariously dangerous encounters on the Road... or no encounters at all, depending on the Road’s whims. There was a limit in what it would send after her, after all, and if she was traveling alone, well, minor encounters were just that. Her main problems came from Long Riders and Road Raiders, or the things she met at her destinations.

She laughed in appreciation, eying the Rod and the unending amount of juice it could put out. It was cut off from a lot of its natural power on the Road, but a tenth of a megaton worth of explosive power was still a hundred kilotons, and unbelievable for a vehicle on the Road.

“I’ll take it, and we’ll see what excitement comes out of it. I expect it’s going to draw out some Long Riders, and we’ll compare notes!” she chortled.

Anyone looking for a new and improved power source would naturally be sent towards her, and she’d have to prove her worth to hang onto the Rod. If someone could take it away from her, naturally they were the best person to have it.

Hot potato it was going to be! There were going to be a lot of things on the Road wandering around and running into her, and the old monsters on the Superhighways were likely going to be some of them.

“I hope you can hold onto it for some time. If the N-Zoners realize it’s there, they’ll send unending numbers onto the Road to try to claim it.”

“Ohhh, isn’t that just a wonderful idea to get it back... not,” she nodded, her blue eyes glittering like ice.

You could not beat the Road with numbers. Everyone who had ever died anywhere on the Road could potentially be brought back to deal with you, and nobody knew how old the Road was. It might have survived universal cycles.

Flood the Road with a billion creatures? It would make up a Horde of two billion to Chase you, on a Road a million miles wide, and your cheap mass of creatures would soon swell the Hordes of the Road...

It was skill, teamwork, and Artifice, or go home. You didn’t beat the Road with numbers.

“I’ll grab Barb and we’ll get to work on this quick. It shouldn’t take too long. Working in some broadcast options should be fun, too, so the Mick’s Crew can draw on it...” Lines of design work began to pop up in the air as her eyes lit up with malign glee for what any hostiles on the Road were going to be meeting with in the near future.

Well, more than one of us were action junkies. I could hardly fault her for it...

-------

Time passes...

I had to come in low, because there was a massive Stillflight and Interdiction field in place around Central Park, basically covering the entire area.

Things were fighting there. The impacts were like thunder going off; super-hard materials, living or otherwise, crashing into one another and demanding attention.

I zipped along the ground, a couple inches above it, and smoothly inserted myself in next to the Baxter crew.

“Good afternoon,” I greeted them all, looking at the scarlet-and-white titanic figure over there getting beat on by every hero in New York and the surrounding areas who was available. There was tech, magic, psionics, and super-powers being trotted out as the ranting bastard tearing up the greenery flailed and blasted away at the heroes around it.

“Dyna! Good to see you!” Dr. Richards greeted me as he worked on something that looked like a psionic inhibitor, not taking his eyes off anything. “Is this something bringing down the High Guard?” he asked, not pausing in his work. Looked like he was calibrating it for the bastard in front of him.

A stray energy blast blew past and above us as War Machine juked it. Behind him, Red Shield tossed Equality into its path, and there was a flaring as the Shield tanked a skyscraper-toppling blast like a champ, deflecting the blast into the sky.

Thunder detonated as Mjolnir in Thor’s hand bounced off the chucklehead’s helm, moving faster than a rifle bullet. The figure rocked, but recovered with grim speed, a wave of force smashing out and knocking the Thunder God away... except for the Patriot swooping in behind him. Liberty took the impact of Thor without flinching, and shattered the rest of the force wave while it was at it.

Thor just grunted, whipped Mjolnir, and threw himself back into the fight.