With the Quadjet’s thrusters screaming against the Earth’s gravity, Carol, Maria, Fury, and Talos punched through the atmosphere.
Left behind at the Louisiana farmhouse were Monica, Max, and Norex—the Skrull engineer tasked with playing the ultimate decoy.
Max sat quietly on his bedroom floor, completely still.
While his physical body remained safely in the house, his *Gamer’s Mind* was lightyears away.
He had already seamlessly infiltrated several of his elite Shadowkhan into the shadows of the Quadjet’s crew, anchoring his consciousness to the pitch-black sliver cast by Maria Rambeau’s boots.
Through the ninja’s eyes, Max watched the tense, surreal dynamic unfolding in the cockpit.
Nick Fury was sitting in the co-pilot seat, casually stroking the orange fur of Goose.
Talos, the fierce Skrull General, was pressed as far back against the hull as the cramped cabin allowed, eyeing the cat with absolute terror.
“Would you get that thing away from me?” Talos snapped, shivering.
Fury scoffed, scratching Goose behind the ears.
“He’s just a cat, Talos.
What, the big bad alien general is afraid of a little furball?
Who’s a good boy, Goose?
Yes, you are.”
“That is not a cat!” Talos hissed, his green face contorting in fear.
“That is a Flerken!
It’s a highly dangerous threat!”
Maria, keeping the Quadjet steady, rolled her eyes and decided to change the subject.
She glanced over her shoulder at Talos.
“So, let me get this straight.
You can shapeshift into anything you want?
Anybody?”
“Down to the DNA, yes,” Talos said, puffing his chest out slightly, eager to look away from the Flerken.
“It requires a recent visual reference, but yes.”
Maria raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine curiosity breaking through her pilot’s focus.
“Anything?
What about a filing cabinet?
Can you turn into a filing cabinet?”
Talos blinked, utterly bewildered by the sheer human absurdity of the question.
“Why would I *want* to turn into a filing cabinet?”
Fury leaned back in his chair, a smirk playing on his lips as he didn’t miss a beat.
“I’ll bet you fifty bucks right now you can’t turn into a Venus flytrap.”
“I…
I am a sentient being, not office furniture or a houseplant!” Talos sputtered indignantly.
“Approaching the coordinates,” Carol interrupted, saving Talos from further interrogation.
Maria pulled back on the throttle, bringing the Quadjet to a hover.
Max watched through the shadows as they stared out the cockpit window into the endless, empty void of space.
There was nothing there.
Just stars and the blue curvature of Earth below.
“There’s nothing here,” Maria frowned, checking her instruments.
“She cloaked it,” Carol said, stepping forward.
She raised her wrist, tapping into her Starforce gauntlet.
“With Kree tech.”
A pulse of energy radiated from Carol’s wrist.
The space in front of them shimmered like a mirage, tearing away the optical camouflage to reveal a massive, imposing Kree Imperial Cruiser hanging silently in orbit.
Mar-Vell’s laboratory.
They docked and boarded the ship, their footsteps echoing through the sterile, metallic corridors.
As they pushed deeper into the central lab, the cold, military aesthetic of the Kree vessel gave way to something entirely unexpected.
Scattered across the floor were children’s toys, and a retro pinball machine stood in the corner.
Carol walked past the clutter, her eyes locked on the massive, humming central engine core dominating the center of the room.
Gripping the edges, she ripped the metal covering away.
A brilliant, pulsing blue light bathed the room.
Resting inside the machine’s housing was the Tesseract—the cosmic cube of infinite energy that Mar-Vell had used to power her light-speed engine.
Carol carefully reached in and pulled the glowing cube free.
She looked around for something to carry the immensely powerful object in.
Spotting a colorful *Happy Days* lunchbox resting on a nearby console, she popped the metal latch, dumped its contents onto the floor, and securely placed the Tesseract inside.
Before Fury could even formulate a quip about The Fonz carrying a cosmic weapon, a soft, fearful voice echoed from the shadows of the lab.
Talos froze, dropping the bravado he had worn since they met.
He walked toward a heavy blast door, his hands trembling as he keyed the release.
A group of Skrulls huddled inside, terrified and weary.
Among them was a female Skrull holding a young child.
Talos fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around his wife and daughter in a desperate, weeping reunion.
Through his ninja, Max watched the reunion, a heavy warmth settling in his chest.
*This is why I let the timeline play out,* he thought.
But down on Earth, the timeline was about to take a violent turn.
While the reunion happened in space, Max’s secondary consciousness snapped back to his physical surroundings in Louisiana.
His perimeter Shadowkhan had just triggered a massive alarm in his mind.
Yon-Rogg had arrived.
Max rushed to his bedroom window, peeking through the blinds.
Down in the muddy fields surrounding the Rambeau property, Norex stood waiting.
The Skrull had perfectly mimicked Carol Danvers, wearing the green and black Starforce uniform, waiting to stall the Kree Commander.
A Kree drop-ship touched down silently in the tall grass.
Yon-Rogg stepped out, his weapon drawn, his eyes locked on the woman he thought was his rogue protégé.
“Vers,” Yon-Rogg called out, his voice sharp and commanding.
“Yon-Rogg,” Norex replied, doing a flawless imitation of Carol’s stoic tone.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
Yon-Rogg stopped a few paces away.
His eyes narrowed, analyzing her posture, the tension in her shoulders.
The Kree Commander was ruthless, but he was incredibly perceptive.
He took a slow step forward.
“You’re injured,” Yon-Rogg noted, gesturing with the barrel of his weapon toward a small, fabricated scrape on Norex’s cheek.
“You’re bleeding.”
Norex held his ground, maintaining the disguise.
“It’s a scratch.”
“What color is it, Vers?” Yon-Rogg asked, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
“What color is your blood?”
Norex hesitated.
It was a fraction of a second, but it was all the confirmation Yon-Rogg needed.
True Kree blood was blue.
A Skrull wouldn’t instinctively know the answer under pressure.
Yon-Rogg didn’t hesitate.
He raised his blaster and fired.
A pulse of superheated plasma slammed into Norex’s chest.
The Skrull let out a choked gasp, his concentration breaking as the human disguise melted away, revealing his true, green form.
He collapsed backward into the Louisiana mud.
Immediately, the Shadowkhan lurking in the darkness beneath Norex’s boots sprang into action.
Max channeled his mana directly through the ninja, activating his newly upgraded *Healing* skill.
It was far more potent than the minor version he had used in New York. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
A surge of invisible, stabilizing magic wrapped around Norex’s failing heart, forcefully keeping his organs from shutting down.
Yon-Rogg walked up to the fallen Skrull, his expression cold.
To ensure the kill, he aimed his blaster down and fired a second shot directly into Norex’s abdomen.
The Skrull’s body jerked violently, falling entirely still.
“The core is not here,” Yon-Rogg spoke into his comms.
He turned back toward his drop-ship.
As the ramp lowered, Max’s eyes widened behind the blinds of his bedroom window.
In the movie, Yon-Rogg had only brought his elite Starforce squad—a handful of operatives.
But as the drop-ship illuminated the field, Max saw dozens of heavily armed Kree shock-troopers pouring out to secure the perimeter.
The strike force was massive.
The butterfly effect of Max’s presence in the universe had somehow escalated the Kree’s response or simply it is how it should be as this is a real world.
“Secure the sector,” Yon-Rogg ordered, boarding the ship as it prepared to launch toward the coordinates in orbit.
” And clear any skrulls in this area.”
The moment the Kree drop-ship blasted into the sky, Max bolted from his room.
He practically threw himself down the stairs, blowing past Monica, who was anxiously waiting in the living room.
“Max!
Mom said stay inside!” Monica yelled, chasing after him.
Max ignored her, shoving the heavy back door open and sprinting out into the humid night air.
His toddler legs moved with terrifying, enhanced speed, carrying him straight toward the muddy field where Norex lay.
Monica caught up to him just as he dropped to his knees beside the fallen Skrull.
She gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth when she saw the two smoking, blackened craters in Norex’s chest and stomach.
“Oh my god,” Monica choked out, tears welling in her eyes.
“He’s dead.”
“No, he’s not,” Max said.
His voice was completely devoid of its usual toddler innocence, replaced by a calm, authoritative focus.
The Shadowkhan had successfully anchored Norex’s soul to his body, keeping him in a deep, absolute stasis of suspended animation.
But the physical damage was catastrophic.
Max placed his small, glowing hands directly over the plasma burns.
He didn’t hold back.
He drew heavily on his mana reserves, unleashing the full, unbridled power of his upgraded *Healing* and *Body Modification* skills.
A blinding pillar of golden-white light erupted from Max’s palms, illuminating the entire field.
The sheer magical pressure made the tall grass whip wildly around them.
Monica shielded her eyes, watching in absolute awe as the deep, charred wounds on the Skrull’s chest began to rapidly reverse.
Flesh knit together, organs reconstructed themselves, and the scorched green skin smoothed over flawlessly.
Norex’s chest he heave.
He drew in a massive, ragged breath, his eyes snapping open.
Max let the light fade, pulling his hands back.
He exhaled a long breath, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.
Norex sat up wildly, patting his chest where the fatal wounds had just been.
He looked down at the tiny, four-year-old human boy sitting in the mud, then up at Monica, utterly bewildered.
“I…
I was dead.
He shot me twice.”
“You’re welcome,” Max stated simply, breaking character entirely for the sake of efficiency.
He looked up at the sky, his brilliant mind racing.
The Kree strike force was much larger than history dictated.
Carol and Maria were walking into a heavily fortified ambush up in orbit, and there were likely Kree troopers sweeping the Louisiana swamps right now.
Max clenched his tiny fists, the shadows pooling deeply around his boots.
The board had changed, and it was time for the Shadowkhan to go to war.