The surveillance footage showed a blue-skinned figure moving through a street in the warehouse district, a weapon on its back that wasn't manufactured anywhere on Earth.
Fury looked at the frame for several seconds.
He knew that face. Not this specific individual, but the species. The corpse on Tahiti Island — the one that had been the foundation of the T.A.H.I.T.I. project, the alien biology that had produced GH325. He'd kept that information in a compartment smaller than almost anything else in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s classified inventory.
He pointed to the freeze-frame. "Get this to Coulson's team. All of it."
Hill was already moving.
"Also," Fury said, "every participant in that tournament is potentially on a target list. Tell Coulson. Make sure Donnie knows to expect contact."
"Understood." Hill paused. "Sir — do you know who they are?"
"I know what they are," Fury said. "Aliens. Same species we've had in a drawer on Tahiti for the past year. That's as far as I'll go right now."
He turned back to the board.
"All Avengers. Full deployment. Now."
The Eternals were still in New York.
Ajak's policy had been clear — they were staying together, consolidating their position, finding their base of operations as a group. They had not yet dispersed when the first Kree craft appeared over Manhattan.
Ikaris dealt with it before it completed its attack run. His eye beams tracked the craft's approach vector and hit it at the mid-section, and the aircraft ceased to exist in any coherent sense.
He looked across the block at Thena, who had already handled her own.
She'd blocked the laser on her left arm with a conjured shield, registered the direction, and put a spear through the engine housing before the second shot could cycle. The craft had come apart above her, raining debris that she'd walked through without particular concern.
Gilgamesh said, from the street below, "I think we're the primary targets in this area."
Another craft appeared at the end of the block.
Druig said, "Let me get one intact."
He reached out, found the Kree pilot's mind inside the approaching craft, and pulled. The craft settled to the ground with more smoothness than its design suggested was possible.
The pilot climbed out.
Druig said, "What are you here for?"
The Kree pilot said, without apparent awareness that this wasn't a choice, "Eliminate Earth's strongest individuals. Collect the Dragon Balls."
Ikaris looked at Ajak. "So the Dragon Balls attract alien attention too."
"With this capability level," Gilgamesh said, looking at the crashed craft behind him, "do they even deserve to compete for them?"
"Strength isn't the only relevant factor," Ajak said. "Prepare for more. Thena, Gilgamesh — you're the targets in this area. The rest of us provide support."
As if the sentence had been a cue, a formation of twelve Kree craft rounded the building at the end of the block. The Eternals engaged.
Red Ribbon Group Building.
T'Challa had come up to the roof when the first alert hit. Shang-Chi was with him. The craft overhead had fired before either of them had fully processed what they were looking at.
Three floors down, a window shattered inward.
Eddie Brock looked at the hole in his office and said, with the tone of a man who had worked very hard to build a legitimate corporate environment, several words that the building's family-friendly visitor policy would have taken issue with.
Venom surfaced. "Their targeting system is after T'Challa and Shang-Chi."
"I can see that," Eddie said.
"None of these ones are good people."
"Confirmed."
Venom launched out of the broken window with Eddie still in the process of forming the thought that this was probably fine and landed among the Kree ground troops that had disembarked while the aerial craft provided cover. The eating that followed was efficient and enthusiastic.
Avengers base.
The first craft had gone for Steve Rogers at long range. The beam hit his shield at an angle he'd half-anticipated — the shield absorbed most of it, the rest scattered, and the physics of the impact reached Banner through the vibration in the ground.
That was sufficient.
The Hulk handled the craft. Then the second craft. Then looked at the sky with an expression that communicated availability for additional problems.
Jessica Jones had taken her opponent directly, the Lasher symbiote reading the attack line faster than conscious decision-making and putting her in the cockpit before the pilot had cycled for a second shot. She came away clean. The craft did not.
Barton assessed the aftermath and said, "Aliens."
"Blue ones," Jessica confirmed.
Steve said, "Again."
Triskelion.
The board showed incidents across every timezone. The Kree craft didn't have stealth capability individually — unlike the Dark Aster, which had come and gone without a trace, the individual craft were visible once they started firing, just not before.
Hill said, "Our radar gave us nothing on initial approach. They were at attack range before we had any signature."
"How many active incidents?"
"Still coming in. Dozens confirmed, more suspected." She pulled up the pattern analysis. "The targeting is focused on tournament participants and Dragon Ball-related locations. The counterfeit manufacturers got hit. Anyone who posted publicly about possessing round stones got hit."
"And the originals?"
"No incidents at the Brotherhood compound. No incidents at any location we associate with Smith Doyle directly."
Fury processed this. The Kree were after the Dragon Balls, which meant someone had pointed them here, which meant the information had moved beyond Earth at some point in the last year and a half. The tournament broadcast had been globally visible — that meant cosmically visible. Any civilization with receiver capability had just watched a global demonstration of Earth's enhanced population and heard the Dragon Ball wish confirmed as a real phenomenon.
He had Korath's equivalent working a list.
He needed Smith Doyle, who was currently unreachable.
He settled for the next best option and called Tony Stark.
On a lifeless planet several light-minutes from the nearest inhabited system, Smith stood in his Super Saiyan form and felt the number at 3 billion without trying.
He'd been running training reps — activation speed, holding the transformation under various output conditions, the difference in ki control required versus his base form. The work was productive. The dead planet was cooperating by staying intact, which made it better than the last one.
Something else surfaced at the edge of his attention.
The system had been quiet since the tournament draws, but now it was active. He felt the familiar indicator and stepped into the system space.
Smith Doyle. Your power output has exceeded 100 million. Shenron's capabilities have been significantly enhanced. Please select the direction of Shenron's evolution.
Four options.
He read them.
Option 1 — Earth Dragon (GT Configuration): Three wishes per summoning. Wish requires consent of the target — cannot affect someone who refuses. Side effect: each wish accumulates negative energy within the Dragon Balls. Unchecked accumulation eventually produces an evil dragon.
Three wishes was a significant improvement from two. The consent restriction limited offensive applications but didn't affect personal wishes, infrastructure wishes, or resource wishes. The evil dragon side effect was the problem — in the Dragon Ball GT timeline, that had eventually produced opponents that challenged Super Saiyan 4.
He filed it and moved on.
Option 2 — Ultimate Shenron (GT): One wish per summoning. No consent requirement below multiverse power level — any target below that threshold is subject to the wish without their agreement. Side effect: Dragon Balls scatter across the universe after use. Must be recovered and returned to the wishing planet within the time limit, or the planet is destroyed.
The power ceiling here was the highest of the first two options. Wishes that could directly affect beings at the Celestial tier, regardless of their cooperation. If he wished Thanos into the sun, Thanos went into the sun. If he wished the Kree Empire's fleet to disintegrate, it disintegrated.
The scatter mechanic was the problem. Balls distributed across the universe, the time limit, and the planet destruction consequence. He'd navigated the Super Dragon Ball version of this concern before and rejected it precisely because the failure mode was the end of Earth. The Ultimate Shenron's scatter was smaller in scale — universe rather than cosmos — but the consequence for failure was identical.
Option 3.
Option 3 — Demon Realm Dragon (Red Porunga): One wish per summoning. Requires only three Dragon Balls. Dual-function: can grant one wish AND engage in physical combat. Combat output exceeds Super Saiyan 3. Power scales with the creator's strength. No confirmed side effects.
He stopped on this one longer.
Combat output exceeding Super Saiyan 3. A summonable entity at that tier, capable of fighting independently, whose ceiling scaled with his own development — this wasn't a wish-granting tool, it was a strategic asset. If a threat exceeded his own capability, summoning the Demon Dragon gave him a combat ally who could close part of the gap.
Three Dragon Balls to summon, rather than seven. That dramatically reduced the logistics of each use cycle.
No confirmed side effects.
He moved to Option 4.
Option 4 — Dimensional Dragon (Time-Space Configuration): One wish per summoning. Specialization: multiverse transit. Can tear spatial barriers and send or receive individuals across universe boundaries. Can split timelines. Can summon warriors from alternate universes or send targets to other universes.
He considered this one carefully.
The Dimensional Dragon didn't fight, didn't grant conventional wishes, didn't offer multiple requests. What it offered was access to the multiverse as a tool. Sending a threat to a universe it couldn't return from. Summoning a version of himself — or any other warrior — from an alternate timeline where they'd developed differently. Accessing resources that didn't exist in this universe's configuration.
The ceiling on what this could accomplish was difficult to measure because the multiverse itself was difficult to measure. A wish that transported Thanos to a universe where he'd never been enhanced by Death and had no Infinity Stones was a more complete solution to the Thanos problem than any combat approach.
He stood with all four options in front of him and ran the scenarios.
The GT Dragon produced the most incremental utility improvement — three wishes, familiar mechanics, no fundamental change to the system's risk profile. The evil dragon side effect was manageable if he monitored accumulation.
The Ultimate Shenron was the most powerful in conventional wish terms but carried a planet-destruction failure condition he'd rejected before and hadn't found a reason to accept now.
The Demon Dragon was a combat multiplier in a system that already had Kaioken and Super Saiyan. Its ceiling scaling with his own strength was genuinely interesting — as he grew stronger, so did the summon. The three-ball requirement was operationally elegant.
The Dimensional Dragon was the most unusual option. Not strong in the conventional sense. Potentially decisive in ways that strength couldn't be.
He kept thinking.