LAURA

'This is it. We can better them, Fury.'

'But, I'm not entirely positive if it is reliable - '

'Look at it. It's a whole-ass scythe slash spear. This can take him down. I'm sure as a pickle.'

'Exactly what I need on my plate, Sharp. A false optimism.'

'You took down a God-led alien army years ago based on faux-pas. This doesn't even come close. C'mon man, they need everything we've got.'

Fury brooded on the matter for a while, watching the halberd-like weapon in the glass-metal banister. A Skrull-woman with ravenous locks stood in front of her prison with her hands behind her back. She had skin as green as moss and honed the features of a warrior. A golden-crown with a red gem embedded on her forehead, pointy ears flopping over the crown. She assessed me with a challenging smile and I took a small step back. 

'I'm gonna' take up this resolution to the board. Don't antagonize anything while I'm gone.' He left the room with a quick whizz of air, leaving the halberd behind. I nodded, looking back to the warrior woman with her chin held high. My breathing slowed with her every watchful eye.

'Petty mortals,' she scoffed in a sudden, mysterious voice. Sounded like something out of an application on my phone. 'Only I, a Skrull, can take down a man with the Kree.'

 Walking a few hasty steps forward, I put myself right in front of her and looking her in the eyes. She was trying to make me, Laura Sharp, look small in front of her. Not a chance. 

'You must've done something to get yourself in a six by six cell.'

'I did nothing but try and save my people. Instead, I become a prisoner.'

My gaze fell on the blinking lights on the holographic glass with her name written in all capitals. M'lanz, her name spelled out. Quite a mouthful but for an alien, it seemed about right. Underneath her name were some of her aliases that she went by and one caught me by a shock. 'You were one of the War-Sisters? What happened to the rest?'

M'lanz's eyes dulled silently, her hands falling dead on either side of her body. She toyed with latex-black gloves on her hands. 'My two sisters . . . that awful Kree-spy,' her breath hitched, 'he killed them. Murdered them in cold blood.'

I sympathized with her, lowering my head. 'I'm sorry.'

'Save the pity-party, human,' she spat with disgust, a fist crashing over the glass in a threatening. 'You will never take down Tel-Kar! That scum deserves the lowest of deaths. A death ravished by my reprisal - that low-life will disintegrate in my very hands!'

I jumped at her tone. I felt my voice shake as I acknowledged her simmering vengeance. 'I know how you feel. Captain Bluebells, well,' I swallowed thickly as I fought to say my next words, 'killed my unborn child. Only I could understand such a loss like yours.'

By this time, my eyes were swimming with unshed tears. The Skrull-woman watched me carefully as I caught the salinity before it fell. 'I want to help the only man who cares about me who is fighting an alien thing without any knowledge on what it can do. I thought this was where I could begin.'

'And you were right, smart mortal,' she said. 'My weapon can bring him to his knees.'

'Then, I can't do this without you.'

'My nation thinks I've betrayed them,' she shared dully. 'I'm a traitor, now. I have no fight left in me.'

'Really?' I muttered with intent. 'Cause, Tel-Kar's got a spaceship with some sort of a plague that is programmed in targeting a specific species and is heading straight for your planet.'

Her eyes went unfocused as she whispered with indecisiveness. Hurt colored her green features. 'No.'

'M'lanz,' I said her name weirdly, 'we need your help. It's too dangerous of a bioweapon to have uncontained in an unstable environment such as mine.'

'That spaceship,' she said in a saddened voice, 'it isn't a Kree ship. It's one of us.'

'What d'you mean?'

'It means,' she sighed, 'Skrulls designed the weapon to eliminate the Kree. We were supposed to liberate it on their lands.'

It was a massive loop. Like Fury said, it was a war. It was one hit and the next hit followed. The Skrulls and the Kree were caught in it. When the Kree sent a spy into the Skrull armies, it angered them and they, in turn, created a plague to eliminate them. And my world had somehow gotten caught in it. A path had opened for us to catch this blue bastard - I had no choice but to forget her people's sins and take my chance.

'It doesn't matter in circumstance,' I voiced out. 'You're our only way out.'

The Skrull woman-warrior stood to her full height, nodding legibly. She pushed the crown on her head higher, accepting her stance. 'Then, so be it. I will fight with you, take Tel-Kar to my planet where he will be given apt punishment.'

I smiled gently. 'Thank you.'

'Thank you,' she shook her head. 'For not losing your faith in me. It is the will of the person that has the might of bending reality.'

'Don't put words in your mouth, hon,' I sighed and walked to the banister holding her ax-spear weapon. 'Work me through breaking you out and let's kick that bastard's ass.'

'It's like you speak your own language,' she mused. 'It's . . . humanely stylish.'

'Uh huh,' I popped my lips with a smirk, tapping the retrieve button on the tablet beside the energized weapon. 'I'm Laura, by the way.'

- ♣ -

'On your left.'

It was easy as pie to find the directions to the parking lot of the base. First of all, I didn't know where the hell I was. Turns out I was in upstate New York, somewhere along the boundaries of Stark's shipping settlements. Skrulls were apparently native shape-shifters, so M'lanz had morphed herself into Nick Fury himself, her face correcting into his very features and inclusive of the eye-patch. Her spear had camouflaged too, into a modern Android phone into her hands and I had restrain an 'ooh'.

'Follow me,' she said in a low tone. The corridors were glass-bound and a few lab-tests being conducted ahead of them. 'I note the scent of combustibles a few yards from here.'

I snuck up behind her, wedging my fists into my week-old dress pants. We had to make ourselves invisible to the cameras around the place, so we had to creep through the blindspots of the security footage. When we reached a tall singing door and the peep-glass showing the view into the carpark, a sigh of relief falling from my lips.

'We're here,' I conveyed. She pushed the door open for me with her fake cybernetic arm, tweaking her chin at me to find a vehicle. M'lanz sent one last look at the unobservant workers and swung up behind me, morphing back to her original state. Her weapon gave off a metallic chink when she wielded it to maximum charge.

Meanwhile, I was finding it hard to start up on of the bikes on the lot. I got on, trying to kick the throttle but the bike gave off dying coughs and not restarting. I growled in annoyance.

M'lanz rolled her eyes. 'Oh move over, mortal.'

I raised my hands in surrender, shifting on the cushions. Just as she moved to get the bike engine to rev, a loud alarm blared in the distance and red lights shining overhead. My heart rate sped up at the sound.

'Security breach. Prisoner out of containment. Security breach  . . . '

'They know!' I screeched and saw the heavy metal doors of the exit hurtling to the ground. M'lanz tapped the tip of her halberd over the fuel tank of the red devil vehicle, bright blue sparks igniting over the metal banister. The weapon supplied enough electrical energy for the motorbike to start My face fell into awe.

'Quick, start it now!'

I pushed the accelerator down, the vehicle whirring forward with a loud growl. M'lanz didn't faze a bit, her hands set over her thighs calmly as I shot towards the hurtling doors in break-neck speeds. My hair whipped behind me and I felt suddenly awkward without a helmet. I let out a groan of my own as I picked up my speed and tried to slip past the cracks. The bike leaned onto its side dangerously, both our heads craning so as to fit in through the gap.

'HOLD ON!' I yelled through the blaring of the alarm, the tension and the speed of the air whipping past us. M'lanz's spear clanged the cement to proffer us balance, leaving a sharp dent down the long highway. Finally, after a much breath- holding, we had worked past the barrier and headed for the highway that connected us to the city.

'You're skilled in riding this mechanical horse?' M'lanz asked in a serene voice. She clipped the weapon onto her back with a bing, securing it in place.

I panted like a dog, answering her breathlessly. How glamorous. 'Y-yeah, I am. A motorbike -  It's fine, the mechanical horse seems cooler.'

'A motorbike, you say.'

'Mhmm.'

'Would it be possible for me to take this one back home, Lou'ra? On my ship?'

I shrugged as I took a short swerve down to the approaching street that connected us to Roosevelt Island. She pronounced my name like something out of Skrull Harlem, making me chuckle.

'Yeah. Go crazy.'

[ w/n: merry christmas to all my babies who are reading this right now. hope y'all have a fun, delightful and happiness filled year ahead. God bless everyone of you. ]