This will be a quiet chapter, not a lot of gratuitous violent action. There will be action that develops a relationship between two characters, nonviolent action.
Chapter 4
June and Kiko brought the space man back to the safe house. They removed his odd green and black uniform to make sure that he had no further injuries. The uniform had a unique star-like insignia on the area over the heart… at least, if the space-man's anatomy was similar to a human.
The space man had more injuries that altogether took June more than a minute, and a whole lot of physical strain to heal. There wasn't anything she could do about the healed scars on his body from wounds long sustained over what June could assume was a long tenure as a warrior.
She had to resist the urge to ogle him for his muscular frame, and his rather attractive face. He bore the appearance of a man in his forties and the firm body structure of a man who never lost the strength of his twenties. June had to keep pulling herself out of her gazing of his toned body.
Once the unconscious space man was healed, Kiko dressed him in the largest sweatpants she had on hand and chained him to the bed and brought June to the surveillance room.
"What in the hell just happened?" Kiko said.
"Ummmm… we found an alien that happens to look human and bleed red?" June said sheepishly.
"Yeah, thanks for stating the obvious," Kiko said sarcastically.
"What the hell was he babbling?" June asked rhetorically.
"Don't know. But I think we both know that he wasn't talking about anything on this planet, or even anything we could understand," Kiko muttered.
"Begs the question about why he came here."
The two women resigned to waiting until the man awakened to obtain the information necessary.
Agent Moore sat in his main information room looking over all the various monitors. No sign of Moone. None. He quietly admitted to himself that whoever was helping her was very clever at hiding. Not many people could spend 72 consecutive hours without somehow finding their way in front of a public camera.
He looked at some of the files on the witch that June freed. The last time she was free was over three thousand years earlier. Apparently, given the perfect host and enough powers, she can become a one-woman army. Nigh-unstoppable unless facing another master of mystical arts, and even then, there was no guarantee unless the host was killed.
He quietly hoped that it wasn't too late to stop the witch from gaining back her former powers because there were few beings left in the world that could hope to stand against the dark witch. If they were too late, then there was little hope of sealing her away or killing her, because she would be more than ready for the ambush tactic while separated from her host.
Moore took his attention away from the monitors and did what did best, take apart and reassemble a firearm. He did it with a mechanical precision honed over twenty years of being a member of HYDRA. He was offered a place in S.H.I.E.L.D., but he considered himself a terrible liar. It was much easier for him to simply do the dirty work than to pretend he was cleaning up after the dirty work.
He took apart his personal favorite weapon, a Desert Eagle. No one survives shots from this weapon when they hit. No one. There was always something magical to Moore about carrying the Grim Reaper of handguns in his holster. He felt strong and powerful.
He took the weapon apart and cleaned it up. He slowly put it back together as he remembered his very first kill with this weapon.
It was over fifteen years ago, on a mission of Taipei. He was a member of HYDRA, but he was also a contract killer. He worked for HYDRA, but also for good money. He was hired to murder an eccentric American billionaire, or at least that was what he wanted the world to see. In reality, he was the mastermind of a nine-year billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, robbing many Peters to pay many other Pauls.
When the scheme broke, he bolted. He took refuge in Taiwan. Not long after, Moore was hired to murder him. Within a week, he was in Taipei. He snuck through the compound, murdering guards with a ghostly silence. One by one, each guard fell to a stranglehold and a knife to the throat.
Once all of his guard were murdered, or otherwise neutralized, he found his target. He fit all the stereotypes of a malicious money man: fat, hideous, and surrounded by whores. Quietly, Moore quietly led each whore into the bathroom, threatening to murder them if they didn't comply. Once they were all gone, he locked them in the bathroom and turned his attention to the billionaire.
He woke him up with a startle and a Desert Eagle in his face. The billionaire begged for his life to no avail. He called to his dead guards to come save him. He got on his swollen fat-filled knees and begged for his life.
"Sorry, nothing personal," Moore said dryly. He activated the sound-cancelling feature of his comms and squeezed the trigger.
The discharge echoed through the entire mansion, resonating like a small nuclear blast. The whores in the bathroom held their ears in pain from the loudness and intensity of the shot. But those whores were lucky to have nothing but pain in their ears. Very lucky. Even the guards had it lucky, because they had intact bodies.
The billionaire? Not so much. With one squeeze of the Desert Eagle's trigger, his head literally exploded. Bone fragments shot all over the place, brain matter flying everywhere, blood splattering all around him. His corpse fell to the floor, pieces of his brain and brain stem and neck vertebrate jutted out against the wooden floors.
As Moore gazed over the remnants of his target, he felt something. A surge of pleasure, a fresh feeling of being high. It was like taking a breath of fresh, clean air. He found what he didn't know what he was looking for: his favorite method of killing. Nothing satisfied him more than to see his target's head explode from the power of his Desert Eagle.
One of Moore's underlings came in with a file and a package just as he finished putting his weapon back together.
"What do you have for me, Peña?"
"Forensics finally finished their sweep of Moone's apartment. They found mostly Moone's prints, but they also found another set of prints belonging to an Akiko Yamashiro. She's a young woman, lost her husband in a fire. She left the United States right afterwards, went back to Japan. She lived there for a few years before she came back. Lives in New York. Has little family, and hardly any contact over electronics with anyone. From what we gather, she's really close with Dr. Moone. She doesn't seem like the kind of person who could be a threat."
"Have you checked her out?" Moore said.
"Yes. Neighbors say they haven't seen her in days," Peña said. "We both know what that means."
"Yep. Yamashiro is probably the one helping Moone," Moore concluded. He thought about her and wondered where Yamashiro got her skills from. Moore quietly complimented her for being able to evade them. It would make it all the more satisfying when they finally found and killed her.
"And something else, sir. An extraterrestrial craft crashed out in Maine," Peña stated.
"Do I look like I give a fuck about another little spacecraft in the middle of nowhere?" Moore asked angrily and sarcastically.
"This particular middle of nowhere had something interesting for us. A couple of somethings for that matter."
"Well, you've officially piqued my interest," Moore said, sitting up in his chair.
"We found this." He pulled out a strange pistol-shaped weapon. Its discharge produced a powerful blast that blew a hole in the nearby wall. "Thought it'd be useful against the witch."
"And what's the other 'something'?" Moore asked.
He dropped a file on Moore's desk. As he sifted through the files, a slight smile grew on his face.
"Nice job," he said softly.
Kiko examined the newcomer's blood under a microscope, his oddly blue blood. She discovered that his blood cells were blue, but that his blood plasma was remarkably similar to a human's. She questioned why his skin wasn't a noticeable shade of blue, unless it was, and his true skin color mixed with blue to produce a skin-tone akin to a human.
"Anything interesting about our new friend?" June asked in a cute voice.
"Other than the fact that you can't stop staring at him? Well…he's remarkably human-like," Kiko said. "And I mean, he has the same skeletal structure, his bones and his muscles are all very similar to ours."
"What are the odds of an extraterrestrial life form looking just like a human on a completely different planet?" June said.
"Ten years ago, I would have said that it wasn't possible. But ever since that portal opened over New York last year, I'm not sure," Kiko said.
June dug around the stranger's bag, finding very strange devices. She carefully put each one on the desk nearby, not wanting to risk that they go off and end up killing her or Kiko or the stranger. One particular device, actually weapon, caught her attention. It looked like an ornate bow with an arrow-like pointer at its end, and a grip on the left side right before the weapon's end. There was also a goggle-like device attached to it.
As Kiko and June examined everything, the stranger began to awaken, though they were too distracted to realize it until they heard the restraint break. The stranger fell from the bed.
Once she got over the initial surprise of how easily he broke free from the restraint, June said, "Take it easy, we're not gonna hurt you." When she attempted to kneel in front of him to help him, he responded with a push that sent her flying into the back wall. Not enough to hurt her, thankfully.
The disoriented stranger attempted to run out of the room, only for Kiko to catch up with him. The two engaged in a one-sided fight, with the stranger trying to get the drop on Kiko. June helped, strengthening Kiko to the point where she could physically restrain the superhumanly strong stranger.
"Calm down, calm down," June said tenderly. "We're not going to hurt you."
The golden-eyed stranger calmed down and stopped resisting Kiko's grip.
"You can understand me?" June said.
"Yes," said the stranger. "I'm on Earth, right? This isn't my first time here."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Yon-Rogg."
"I'm June. This is my friend, Kiko," June said. "Where do you come from?"
"Hala. Capital world of the Kree empire." After a few seconds, he quickly realized that these women had no idea what he was referring to. "The Kree are my people, and a part of a powerful empire across the galaxy. Except, I very recently learned that my people are as cold as the vacuum of space, even to its own citizens."
"I would ask what you mean, but I'm not interested in overwhelming myself again," June said, sitting down. At June's visual gesture, Kiko let go of Yon-Rogg, though she refused to let her guard down.
"Be wary of this individual. Technology in this world cannot harm me, but I believe his weaponry can."
"How did you heal me? My injuries were fatal, and this world doesn't have technology advanced enough to save me," Yon-Rogg inquired. June answered his question by manifesting milky light from her hands. "So, you're a sorceress. I've never seen sorcery in this form before."
"Sorcery can be a trained skill. Anybody can learn it. However, the magic manifestation is different for learned sorcerers than with me."
"I'm not a learned sorceress, I was granted these abilities. Very recently," June said.
"Thank you. Both of you. I'm lucky to have found you."
"I don't think so," Kiko said. "You couldn't have picked a worse time or place or people."
"Yeah. The reason I have powers is also the reason were in the basement of a derelict house," June said. The reason that she had powers left her body and manifested silently right next to Yon-Rogg, startling him.
"Whoa!" he interjected.
"I am Enchantress. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she said reaching a helping hand out to Yon-Rogg, a hand that he hesitantly accepted. She shook his hand with noticeable strength.
"Wow, you have a lot of strength in those lanky arms of yours," Yon-Rogg commented.
"My dear, you have not seen my true strength. I am still weak, regaining my strength."
"Wait… are you and June related?" Yon-Rogg asked.
"We are not siblings. I predate her birth by over 6,000 years. I have no true form, I gain the likeness of whomever I call my home. June found me sealed in my tomb and freed me. The group that sealed me away has been hunting us ever since."
Yon-Rogg quietly put all the pieces of the puzzle together, that they were in hiding from this group. "Perhaps I could help you fight them."
"Okay. First, we don't know each other. Second, even if we did, you're far too weak to be of any use," Kiko said sharply.
"Okay, wait just a second," June said to Kiko. "No. We don't know each other. But we can't just jump to the darkest conclusion about one another. We should at least take the time to know one another better."
Enchantress left June's body to protect the safe house for the night. There were cameras everywhere, but it was more efficient for the witch to keep watch on her own for the night. Unlike the others, she didn't require sleep. Ever since the night Ava attacked and nearly had them on the ropes, Enchantress has had her senses in perpetual overdrive.
She felt Yon-Rogg awaken from his bed in the main cabin and walk out of the building before midnight. The witch teleported in front of him.
"Why are you here? You should be down hiding," she said formally.
"Can't sleep, and I don't like being trapped in a small set of rooms."
"How are you feeling?"
"Much better. June has got quite a nice powerset."
"She is not the first prodigal healer I've come across. I have had many healers and supporters in my time. But I assume you're not here for small talk, something for which I have little patience, unless it's with June."
"I know better than to waste a dark sorceress's time." He internally panicked when he realized that he misspoke and upon seeing Enchantress's enraged expression and a clenched fist. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. What I mean is that it's obvious you're not as soft as June is."
"Smart conclusion."
"Has she…has she seen it yet?"
"No. My one battle in our as-of-yet brief tenure together, I lost swiftly. I'm stronger now than I was then, but she has no idea how much it pains and angers me to lose a battle. All I want is to have another battle to redeem myself." The witch's deep booming voice echoed with unbridled bloodlust. "I suppress it in June's presence. As of now, she only knows that I am a combatant, not that I seek to spill blood."
"I can tell. I have been alive for a while myself. Not as long as you, but enough to recognize when someone wants to have a fight."
"Are you offering yourself to spar with me?"
"An old friend used to do it with me to alleviate stress. You and she aren't so different."
"How so?"
"Powerful and free. Unchained, unsuppressed, and fierce. And capable of killing instantly."
Enchantress smiled at his compliment. She held her palm in front of him, beckoning him to punch her hand and test his strength. Impressed with his natural Kree strength and satisfied that he was of combat-worthy strength, Enchantress summoned two mystical sabers, giving one to a confused Yon-Rogg.
"Do you not know how to wield a sword?"
"I prefer a broadsword," Yon-Rogg said. His sword shifted forms into a broadsword appropriately sized for him. Given the notable size difference between her saber and his broadsword, she summoned another one for herself.
"Don't worry. The swords won't harm either of us," Enchantress said playfully. Yon-Rogg smiled and held his broadsword in his right hand. The witch crossed her blades in front of her face, before adopting a feral crouch pose, animalistic in appearance.
She leapt forward crossing her blades and swiping downwards towards Yon-Rogg's body. He locked his broadsword with her sabers, deadlocking them together. Enchantress lowered one saber to let his blade slide down. She deflected his sword away and elbowed him in the back with a pow.
"You doubt yourself, warrior."
"I'm just out of practice," Yon-Rogg claimed to Enchantress's humor.
First swing. Second swing. Third swing. Fourth swing. All by Yon-Rogg.
The first swing was easily avoided, the broadsword cutting nothing but the air around the witch. The second and third were deflected off of her sabers. The final swing, a powerful backswing she caught in a blade lock.
She realized too late that it was a feign move, Yon-Rogg struck her with a forceful blow to her ribcage. Much to the witch's surprise, the Kree warrior's strength was enough to briefly knock the wind from her.
"Perhaps I was wrong about you." Her sabers and his broadsword vanished.
"What are you doing?"
"I chose blades because I thought you were still recovering, still weak. I was wrong. You are strong enough to handle yourself in close combat."
"Then let's dance," Yon-Rogg said with a brazen smile.
The two warriors sparred with one another in a friendly manner, none the wiser to a smiling June having been watching them since the start of their fight.
