A few nights later, thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, California, Max’s grand vigil finally bore fruit.
Stationed in the dark ceiling tiles of a San Fernando Valley Blockbuster Video, a Shadowkhan felt a massive atmospheric disturbance.
Max, lying awake in his toddler bed in Louisiana, instantly shifted his primary consciousness to the ninja.
Through the ninja’s red eyes, Max watched the roof of the store cave in.
A figure clad in a green and black tactical suit crashed through the ceiling, obliterating a display of *True Lies* VHS tapes in a shower of sparks, plaster, and debris.
Carol Danvers—currently known as Vers of Starforce—had arrived on Earth.
*”Record everything, Alpha,”* Max commanded mentally.
Vers stood up, dusting herself off and looking around the archaic 90s store with alien confusion.
She picked up a VHS box, analyzing it, before a cardboard standee of Arnold Schwarzenegger caught her eye.
Assessing it as a threat, she casually blasted its head off with a glowing photon beam from her fist before walking out into the night.
Max’s ninja melted into the shadows, trailing her effortlessly to a nearby Radio Shack.
Vers tore apart a Gameboy and a payphone, her hands moving with practiced, militaristic speed.
“Vers to Starforce Command,” she spoke into the cobbled-together device.
“Do you read me?”
*”Vers,”* Yon-Rogg’s voice crackled through the static.
*”What is your status?”*
“I’m on planet C-53,” Vers reported, her tone crisp and professional.
“The Skrulls have infiltrated the local populace.
I need extraction.”
By morning, the authorities had arrived at the Blockbuster.
And with them, a much younger, two-eyed Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., alongside rookie Agent Phil Coulson.
Max deployed three more Shadowkhan to track the ensuing chaos as a Skrull sniper forced Vers into a foot chase.
Through the eyes of a ninja clinging to the shadows between the cars of an LA transit train, Max watched the surreal, brutal fight between Vers and a Skrull disguised as a sweet, elderly grandmother.
The old woman snarled, her voice dropping into a guttural roar, launching herself at Vers with superhuman agility.
They exchanged devastating blows, flipping over handrails until Vers blasted a hole in the roof and the Skrull slipped away into the fleeing crowds.
**Pancho’s Bar**
The trail led Vers to a dusty, neon-lit pilot hangout called Pancho’s Bar.
Max’s ninja was already there, perched silently in the wooden rafters.
Vers walked through the empty bar, her eyes scanning the room.
A strange sense of déjà vu seemed to wash over her.
She gravitated toward a wall covered in framed photographs of military pilots.
Her eyes scanned the faces until they locked onto one specific picture.
It was a photo of two young women in olive-green flight suits, standing proudly in front of a fighter jet.
The other was Maria Rambeau.
Vers reached up, her fingers trembling slightly as she traced the glass over Maria’s smiling face.
“You know, for a rogue soldier from outer space, you’re pretty easy to track.”
Vers spun around, her fists glowing with photon energy.
Nick Fury stood in the doorway, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“Easy, space invader.
I just want to talk.”
Fury walked over, his eyes darting to her glowing hands, then to the wall of photos.
“So, you’re looking for a Dr.
Wendy Lawson.
And you fight old ladies on trains.
Care to explain what the hell is going on?”
“The people I’m fighting are Skrulls,” Vers explained, her tone hard.
“They’re shapeshifters.
They can look like anyone.
Your boss, your partner, the guy pouring your coffee.
They infiltrate, they destabilize, and they conquer.”
Fury raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical but intrigued.
He stepped closer to the wall, looking at the photograph Vers had been staring at.
His trained S.H.I.E.L.D.
eyes immediately picked out a detail on the side of the fighter jet behind the two women.
“Pegasus,” Fury read aloud, pointing to the logo painted on the jet’s fuselage.
Vers frowned.
“What is Pegasus?”
“It’s a classified S.H.I.E.L.D.
facility,” Fury replied, his demeanor shifting to all-business.
“An old Air Force joint initiative.
If your Dr.
Lawson was working on something, and you’re in that photo, that base is where we need to go.”
**The Archives**
Max’s local Mojave detachment was waiting when Fury and Vers infiltrated the subterranean Project Pegasus archives.
Max watched from the shadows as the hardened spy dropped to one knee, cooing at an orange tabby cat.
“Well, aren’t you the cutest little thing?” Fury cooed, scratching the cat behind the ears.
“Aren’t you a little cutie?
Yes you are.
What’s your name, huh?
Goose?”
*If only you knew what was in its stomach,* Max thought dryly, watching the Flerken purr.
The investigation yielded a massive revelation: Wendy Lawson was Mar-Vell, a Kree scientist working on a light-speed engine.
But the quiet moment was shattered by the arrival of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Director Keller.
Max’s Shadowkhan immediately sensed the localized, shifting magical energy radiating from Keller.
It was Talos, the Skrull general.
“Fury,” Keller said smoothly, stepping out of the elevator.
“I need you to apprehend the suspect.
We have orders to take her in.”
Fury, sharp as a tack, noticed Keller using a phrase the real Director never used.
A tense standoff in the corridor quickly devolved into a brutal close-quarters shootout.
Fury and Vers fought their way through the archives, grabbing the Tesseract-powered coordinates Lawson had hidden, and made a break for the hangars with Goose tucked under Fury’s arm.
They boarded a heavily modified Quadjet.
Vers laid down cover fire with her photon blasts, buying Fury enough time to prime the engines.
They blew the hangar doors off their hinges, escaping into the desert sky.
In the Quadjet cockpit, Vers studied the partially burned file and the photograph she had stolen from the archives.
She stared at the smiling face of the woman standing next to her.
“Maria Rambeau,” Vers read the name aloud, her voice filled with a desperate need for answers.
She looked at the address on the file.
“Louisiana.”
Fury plotted the coordinates, the jet banking hard to the east.
Back in the farmhouse in New Orleans, Max severed the connection with his scouts and opened his eyes.
He sat up in his toddler bed, the heavy, humid summer air filtering through his open window.
He could hear the faint, distant whine of a Quadjet engine approaching in the night sky.
Captain Marvel was coming home.