March 2024 cracked open the world like an egg.
It began with silence. Every rift on the planet went dark at 02:11 GMT—no lightning, no beasts, no sound. Then the sky tore. Not jagged wounds, but perfect circles, hundreds of them, blooming across continents like black flowers. From each stepped the **Veyari**, biomechanical aliens whose bodies were living weapons: liquid-metal skin, plasma lances, gravity wells that crushed tanks into foil. Their ships hung above cities like obsidian moons, silent and absolute. News feeds died mid-sentence. Satellites fell. The spiral had reached its centre, and Valkyrie Academy was ground zero.
Michael felt the invasion in his bones before the alarms screamed. His sovereign aura flared white-gold, a beacon that lit the dorm like a star. Emily's telepathic net snapped awake: *They're here. Everywhere.* The Sovereign Alliance mobilised in minutes—gear on, wards up, hearts hammering. Aunt Uche's voice crackled over emergency comms from Winnipeg: "Portal's open. Come home if you can." But the Veyari had already jammed dimensional travel. They were trapped on the battlefield.
The first wave hit the academy at dawn. Plasma lances carved through the outer wards, glass raining like knives. Michael stood on the cliff's edge, aura cloaking the entire campus in a dome of compressed space. The lances struck and *bent*, redirected into the ocean where they boiled the sea. Devin's tiger roar shook the ground as he leaped, claws rending Veyari armour like paper. Vera flash-froze the cliff face, turning it into a rampart of ice spears. Logan became a lightning storm, electricity arcing between alien ships, frying circuits. Kate's duplicates swarmed the skies, each planting rift-buster charges on Veyari hulls. Paul's merged form stood thirty feet tall, a living siege engine that punched a dropship into the stratosphere.
Alvin's blue flames evolved under pressure—now a plasma cutter that sliced through liquid-metal skin, cauterising wounds before they could regenerate. Emily's mind became a weapon: telepathic screams that shattered Veyari neural links, telekinesis that crushed gravity wells into singularities. Isaac copied a Veyari's phase-shift, walking through walls to plant charges inside their ships. Sierra's healing light burned white-hot, cauterising alien wounds before they could spread symbiotic infections.
Michael was everywhere and nowhere. His aura had transcended elemental infusion; now it *adapted* in real time. When a Veyari gravity lance pinned Devin, Michael's aura countered with an anti-gravity pulse that turned the weapon against its wielder, crushing the alien into paste. When plasma burned Vera's ice, Michael's aura absorbed the heat, converting it into a solar flare that vaporised a squad. He moved through the battlefield like a god, sovereign white cloaking him in invulnerability, speed a blur that left after-images of gold.
But the Veyari adapted too. Their second wave brought **Droneswarm**: billions of insectoid machines that learned from every death. They analysed Michael's aura, predicted his movements, and countered with synchronised plasma nets. One caught him mid-phase, burning through his cloak. Pain seared—real, human pain. He crashed into the courtyard, aura flickering. Emily's scream was psychic and physical as she dove, telekinesis shielding him while Sierra's light knit burned flesh.
The turning point came when Michael touched a fallen Veyari core—a pulsing orb of alien tech. His aura *drank* it. Knowledge flooded him: Veyari biology, ship schematics, the spiral's purpose. They weren't invaders. They were *harvesters*. The rifts were farms, Earth a crop. Humanity's powers were the fruit. The spiral was a countdown to full extraction.
He stood, aura reborn. White-gold fractals spiralled into **sovereign black**, a void that consumed light. The entity's voice was no longer a whisper but a roar: *Now you see.* Michael raised his hand. The Veyari ships froze, gravity wells reversed, hulls imploding under their own weight. Droneswarm fell like rain, circuits fried by aura feedback. The courtyard became a graveyard of alien tech, steaming in the sleet.
But victory was fleeting. A Veyari commander—taller, armoured in living crystal—descended. Its voice was a chorus of static: **"Sovereign vessel. You are the anomaly. Surrender the core."** It meant the entity's seed.
Michael's answer was a punch that cracked reality. The commander's armour shattered, crystal raining like diamonds. But it regenerated, faster, stronger. The fight became a dance of gods: Michael's aura against Veyari tech, sovereign black against living crystal. Every blow shook the academy. Wards failed. The cliff crumbled. Emily's telepathy linked the team: *We end this together.*
They struck as one. Devin's claws severed regeneration nodes. Vera's ice trapped limbs. Logan's electricity overloaded crystal circuits. Kate's duplicates planted charges inside the commander's core. Paul's merged form held it still. Alvin's plasma burned through armour. Isaac phased inside, copying the commander's regeneration to sabotage it from within. Sierra's light burned out the symbiotic infection.
Michael delivered the final blow. His aura condensed into a **singularity fist**, black hole compressed into human form. It struck the commander's core. The explosion was silent, a void that swallowed sound and light. When it cleared, only ash remained.
The Veyari retreated. Ships fled through closing rifts, leaving Earth scarred but unbroken. News feeds rebooted: **"GLOBAL SUPER TEAMS REPEL ALIEN INVASION—VALKYRIE'S SOVEREIGN ALLIANCE LEADS CHARGE."** Homelander's face was thunder on every screen, forced to acknowledge Michael's victory. Jason was nowhere to be seen—rumour said he'd fled mid-battle.
In the aftermath, the academy rebuilt. The Sovereign Alliance became legend. Michael stood on the rebuilt cliff, sovereign black aura cloaking him like a second skin. Emily joined him, her hand in his. "You saved us," she said.
"No," he replied, eyes on the healing rifts. "We saved each other. But they'll be back. The harvest isn't over."
The entity's voice was soft now, almost proud: *You've fed the seed. Now prepare the field.*
The invasion was over.
The war had evolved.
And Michael, Aura Sovereign, stood ready.