Magical Marvel: The Rise of Arthur Hayes

After watching the mage 'Merlin' disappear, Vers ignored the approaching vehicles and continued working on the payphone. She had suspicions that needed answers, and a broken connection wasn't going to stop her.

A tall man in a dark suit emerged from one of the black government vehicles, his expression stern beneath a receding hairline. He approached the Blockbuster store, surveying the damage with professional interest, before noticing Vers standing by the payphone.

"Excuse me, miss," he called out, approaching with confident strides.

Vers ignored the newcomer. Unlike Arthur, she wasn't afraid of Earth authorities.

"You know anything about a lady blowing a hole through the roof of that Blockbuster over there?" the agent asked, gesturing toward the damaged building. "Witness says she was dressed for laser tag."

Vers assessed him quickly, deciding he wasn't a threat worth worrying about. "Oh, yeah, I think she went that way," she replied, pointing vaguely down the street.

"Uh, I'd like to ask you some questions," the man continued, clearly not buying her deflection. "Maybe give you the 411 on the late-night drop box." He pulled out a leather wallet and flipped it open to reveal his identification. "Agent Fury, Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Could I see some identification, please?"

"Vers. Kree Starforce," she replied matter-of-factly. "We don't carry identification on little cards."

Fury blinked, clearly taken aback. "Vers?" he repeated slowly. "Starforce?" He sounded utterly incredulous.

"How long do you plan to be in town?" Fury asked, clearly trying to make sense of her strange answers while maintaining his professional composure.

"Oh, I'll be out of your hair as soon as I track down the Skrulls that are infiltrating your planet," Vers answered honestly, seeing no reason to hide her mission from this clearly clueless local authority.

"Skrulls?" Fury echoed, his expression a mixture of confusion and disbelief.

"Shapeshifters," Vers explained patiently. "They can transform into any life-form down to the DNA."

Seeing his continued confusion, Vers sighed. "Oh, boy. You guys don't have any clue, do you?"

Fury decided to play along. "How do we know you're not one of those shapeshifters?"

Vers couldn't help but be slightly impressed. "Congratulations, Agent Fury. You have finally asked a relevant question."

"No, congratulations to you, Starforce lady," Fury shot back, his professional demeanour hardening. "You're under arrest."

As Agent Fury moved to detain her, Vers remained perfectly calm, ready to swat him aside like an annoying insect. She saw no threat from these newcomers. They were weak. Nothing like the mage who had defeated her earlier.

However, before either of them could act, energy blasts suddenly rained down from a nearby rooftop, impacting the pavement near them with explosive force, sending shards of asphalt flying.

"What the hell?!" Fury yelled, instinctively diving for cover behind his sedan and drawing his standard-issue handgun.

Vers reacted instantly, her combat training overriding everything else. She pinpointed the source – a figure in a wetsuit on the roof, wielding a distinctive Skrull energy rifle. Not a human, but a Skrull in disguise.

"Stay down!" she yelled at Fury, already sprinting towards the building, ignoring his shouts.

The Skrull fired several more blasts before retreating across the rooftops. Vers pursued relentlessly, her enhanced physiology allowing her to scale the building's exterior in seconds.

Vers chased the fleeing Skrull through the streets, leaving a baffled Fury behind. The chase led to a train station where the shapeshifter, desperate to escape, transformed into an elderly woman and slipped aboard a departing train.

Without hesitation, Vers leapt aboard just as the doors were closing. The train pulled away from the station, carrying both hunter and hunted into the pre-dawn darkness.

Inside the crowded commuter car, Vers scanned the passengers, her eyes eventually settling on an elderly woman with a shopping bag. She frowned, remembering that she had seen the same old woman leave the train just a few seconds ago.

Without warning, Vers punched her in the face. The façade dropped instantly, the "grandmother" launching herself at Vers with inhuman strength. Passengers screamed and scattered to the edges of the car as the two combatants crashed through the train's interior.

What followed was a bizarre spectacle—a young woman dressed for laser tag trading devastating blows with a seemingly harmless elderly lady. As the fight progressed, horrified passengers began to intervene.

"Leave that poor woman alone!" a man shouted, attempting to grab Vers's arm.

"Get away from her!" a woman in a business suit demanded, positioning herself protectively near the disguised Skrull.

The interference was maddening. Vers couldn't use her full strength or photon blasts for fear of harming the oblivious Terrans who were actively hindering her. The Skrull, however, had no such compunctions, using the chaos to land several painful blows before breaking free.

"Help!" the Skrull cried in a quavering, elderly voice. "She's trying to hurt me!"

More passengers moved to shield the "grandmother," shooting venomous glares at Vers. While struggling to break free from the well-meaning humans, Vers saw the Skrull slip away through the connecting door and climb onto the roof of the moving train.

Cursing under her breath, Vers shoved past the protesting passengers and followed, kicking open the door at the end of the car and hauling herself up onto the roof of the speeding train.

Atop the speeding train, the wind whipping violently around them, the battle continued without restraint. The Skrull morphed partially back to its natural form, its strength and agility increasing dramatically without the limitations of its elderly disguise.

Vers was winning until suddenly a tunnel loomed ahead. The Skrull, seizing the opportunity, dropped back into the train and disappeared among the passengers. Vers barely managed to flatten herself against the roof before the tunnel would have decapitated her. Once safely through, she dropped back into the compartment but found no sign of the shapeshifter.

The train pulled into the next station, and it looked like the Skrull had vanished with the crowd deboarding. Vers cursed under her breath, moving purposefully through the station, her eyes darting from person to person. Every face was now suspect. Every movement potentially hostile.

She was so focused on her search that she nearly collided with the figure who suddenly appeared directly in her path when she reached an isolated area of the station.

"Boo," Arthur said with a mischievous grin.

Vers's reaction was instantaneous—her fist glowing with photon energy as she nearly unleashed a blast that would have reduced the wizard to atoms.

"Bloody hell!" Arthur exclaimed, eyes widening as he jumped back. "Jumpy, aren't we? Nearly took my head off there!"

Vers barely managed to pull the punch, the energy dissipating with a crackle of power. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, her breathing still ragged from the fight. "Were you following me?"

"Obviously," Arthur replied, brushing an imaginary speck from his sleeve. "I told you we'd meet again once you'd given those coppers the slip. Though I must say, that was quite the spectacle on the train. You versus granny. Brilliant entertainment, that. Shame I didn't have proper recording equipment—would've gone viral on the evening news."

Vers's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You were watching? You could have helped me kill the Skrull instead of being part of the audience! They're infiltrating your planet, planning to take over from the inside, and you're treating it like a show?"

Arthur shrugged, maddeningly calm. "Not my fight, is it? The shape-shifting aliens are your problem since you brought them here. I'm just having a bit of an adventure, aren't I?"

"Do you enjoy getting on people's nerves?" Vers asked through gritted teeth.

"Maybe," Arthur admitted with a small smirk. "I quite like the feeling of seeing someone frustrated but unable to do anything about it. You should try it sometime, you know. All that serious soldier business must be bloody exhausting."

"A Kree soldier should always control their emotions and keep them in check," Vers recited automatically.

Arthur's expression shifted subtly, becoming more calculating. "But are you a Kree soldier? That's the question, innit?"

"What do you mean?" Vers asked, genuine confusion breaking through her irritation.

"Let me tell you something," Arthur said, lowering his voice and leaning closer. "You might have Kree blood inside you, but you weren't born Kree. I saw that other alien, and he was very different from the people of my planet. You're not. You shouldn't be an alien at all, if I'm honest."

"That's a lie," Vers shot back, though a flicker of uncertainty crossed her features. "How could you possibly tell anyway?"

"I am a mage, remember? We have our ways." Arthur tapped his temple knowingly. "Want to know more?"

Vers hesitated, conflict evident in her eyes. "No," she decided firmly. "I cannot trust you yet."

"Unfortunate," Arthur sighed dramatically. "I thought you might beg me for answers. I would have liked seeing that."

Vers ignored him, pulling out the small crystal she'd retrieved during the fight with the Skrull on the train. She inserted it into her wrist device, which projected a series of hazy images—a woman in a lab coat, files labeled "Project Pegasus," a bar sign reading "Pancho's," and briefly, the face of a dark-skinned woman with familiar eyes. The images became increasingly unstable until the crystal overheated and began to smoke. Vers quickly ejected it, tossing the smoldering remnant aside.

"Nice tech," Arthur observed, eyeing her wrist device with undisguised interest. "Got a spare suit or something like that lying about? I'd be very interested to buy one off you."

Vers could practically see the calculations running behind his eyes, his desire to reverse-engineer such advanced technology obvious.

"Not for sale," she replied curtly. "Do you know this place? Pancho's Bar?"

Arthur's expression brightened. "As a matter of fact, I do. But before we go adventuring, we need to sort out your appearance. You're catching too much attention with your alien getup."

Vers glanced down at her Starforce uniform, reluctantly acknowledging the logic. They found a nearby clothing shop, where she quickly selected a leather jacket, band t-shirt, and jeans that allowed her to blend in with the locals.

Once outside and suitably disguised, Arthur led her to a secluded alley.

"How are we going?" Vers asked, looking around for some form of transport. "Where is your vehicle?"

Arthur smiled mysteriously. "We don't need anything so pedestrian as a car, do we? Just take my hand."

Vers regarded him skeptically but complied, cautiously placing her hand in his.

"Fair warning—this might feel a bit strange the first time," Arthur said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

With a sharp crack that echoed through the alley, both of them vanished, leaving behind only a swirling eddy of displaced air.