Talos and his people packed up their belongings and boarded the spaceship first.
They were incredibly excited, at long last, they were finally leaving this godforsaken place to build a new home for themselves, and they couldn't have been happier.
Only they knew how they'd managed to survive the past month. Earthlings were simply too unfriendly!
That crafty S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Fury, had constantly found new ways to get information out of them, and he always carried that Flerken, Goose, around with him.
Didn't he realize how dangerous a Flerken was? Ignorance truly was bliss! It really made people fearless.
Then again, did he really think Skrulls were afraid of Flerkens?
Well, alright, maybe a little.
But what they feared even more were Daniel and Carol.
Otherwise, who would have bothered being polite to Nick? Someone that annoying deserved to be humanely eliminated and put out of his misery.
Did people here really think the Skrulls were naturally peace-loving? That they were honest, harmless, and law-abiding?
Heh.
Out in the universe, there was no such thing as good or evil. There's only the strong and the weak! They were weak, so they had no choice but to be peace-loving.
Whenever Talos thought about Daniel and Carol, he couldn't help feeling envious. He'd traveled the cosmos for years, yet he'd never encountered siblings as monstrously powerful as those two.
They were just too fierce and terrifying. Each of them alone was powerful enough to rival an entire civilization.
Sometimes Talos couldn't help wondering why Daniel and Carol weren't Skrulls instead of humans. Earth had been absurdly lucky, as it had gained two walking superweapons all at once.
Would it really have hurt to spare the Skrulls just one of them? If they had even one, the civilization wandering homeless across the stars wouldn't be the Skrulls, it would be the Kree.
Having spent the past month cooped up inside S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Talos clearly had no idea just how deep Earth's waters truly ran.
There were countless monsters hiding on this planet and Daniel just happened to be the strongest monster among them all.
The King of Monsters!
Sitting in his seat aboard the spaceship, Talos quietly reflected on everything that had happened during the past month.
Aside from Daniel and Carol, the person who'd left the deepest impression on him was Nick Fury.
That Earthling was unbelievably difficult to deal with. He'd resorted to every trick imaginable, playing dirty at every turn, and had managed to squeeze out many valuable things out of Talos.
Then Talos thought about Yon-Rogg and suddenly he felt much better.
Yon-Rogg had suffered far worse. Fury had drawn his blood, interrogated him repeatedly, and stripped him of every piece of equipment he owned.
Now, he was curled up in a corner of the spaceship, wearing regular Earth clothes.
Yon-Rogg had completely given up; his entire spirit was broken, and the light had vanished from his eyes. He'd abandoned all hope. At first, he'd still believed there might be a way out.
But after Fury had finished dealing with him, all Yon-Rogg wanted now was to stay alive.
Living was good.
He didn't even dare resist anymore. Whenever Fury questioned him, he'd casually open his phone to a text message he'd already prepared.
"Yon-Rogg is resisting. Send reinforcements immediately!"
Fury had deliberately typed that message right in front of Yon-Rogg, and every time he saw it, Yon-Rogg's teeth clenched in fury.
Earth had become forbidden territory in his mind, and he swore he would never return to this place in the future.
But if he ever got the chance... If Nick Fury dared step even half a foot off Earth... No matter where Yon-Rogg happened to be at the time, he'd immediately abandon everything else just to come kill him.
No, killing him outright would be too merciful. He'd sell Fury to interstellar slave traders, and make him the lowest, most miserable slave imaginable.
The more Yon-Rogg fantasized about it, the more twisted his expression became, and occasionally, he even let out a creepy laugh.
Fury had driven him halfway insane. Since Daniel had only said he needed to stay alive... Nick had happily let Yon-Rogg experience every interrogation device S.H.I.E.L.D. possessed.
The results had been excellent, and S.H.I.E.L.D. 's interrogation techniques had improved tremendously.
When Daniel boarded the ship, Fury and his subordinate, Phil Coulson came to see them off. Under the watchful eyes of the two men, Daniel and Carol boarded the spaceship.
And once it reached outer space, the ship activated its wormhole jump and disappeared from the solar system.
...
Nick stood there with his head tilted upward for a long time.
"They're gone, sir," Coulson quietly reminded him.
"I know," Fury answered expressionlessly.
At that moment, he looked cold, calm, and completely rational.
Perhaps this was the real Nick Fury.
After staring into space a while longer, he returned to his office.
Over the past month, Fury had spent every day matching wits with aliens, gathering as much intelligence as possible, and the more he learned, the more uneasy he became.
Earth was not alone in the universe.
Beyond the solar system existed countless civilizations, and many of them were vastly more advanced than Earth. At any moment, Earth could face extraterrestrial threats from beyond the stars.
Yes, he now knew about Daniel and Carol. But could they truly be relied upon? Nick silently placed a question mark beside that thought.
Carol was one thing. After spending a month with her, Fury had already figured out her personality. She was straightforward, easy to manipulate, and easy to persuade, so she could be counted on.
But what about Daniel? He was another matter entirely.
Fury had read Daniel's entire file. Once he'd come into contact with Daniel, his clearance had been raised, granting him access, and after finishing the report, his first reaction had been the same as every other senior official's.
'Do not make an enemy of him!'
But immediately afterward came overwhelming fear. The terrifying realization was that there was absolutely nothing that could keep Daniel in check!
There was nothing to restrain him... absolutely nothing. Every possible method had been considered, but none of them worked.
Not only did they have to avoid provoking him, but they also actually had to keep him happy, so that he might not have a sudden fit and decide to destroy the world.
They had also assigned people to protect Daniel's parents and friends.
Anything Daniel wanted received immediate approval, and whenever he caused trouble, they cleaned up the aftermath for him.
Stark Industries continued expanding further and further, getting more powerful by the day. At one-point, higher-ups had considered suppressing it, as its influence had grown too large.
But in the end, they abandoned the idea and backed off.
Why?
Because Tony Stark was Daniel's friend and Daniel also owned shares in the company, so they thought that might be considered as pushing those boundaries.
They didn't even try to touch them!
Psychological analysis showed that Daniel wasn't some selfless saint or a boy scout. He refused to suffer losses, and every organization or force that had ever targeted him no longer existed.
He didn't tolerate threats, and while he wasn't completely lawless, he acted however he pleased. He lived by his own rules, ignoring the rules everyone else had established.
More importantly, he also possessed the power to shatter those rules completely and overwhelmingly, and no one wanted to come into conflict with him, because once they did... they usually ceased to exist.
The people at the top were terrified and anxious, yet they had absolutely no solution, they were utterly powerless.
Nick Fury couldn't guarantee that Daniel would step in if Earth were ever truly in danger, because Fury trusted no one but himself. Using a single finger to peck slowly at the keyboard, he typed.
The Protector Initiative.
Then he pulled up Carol's personnel file. His eyes landed on her old Air Force photograph. Beneath it was her callsign.
AVENGER.
After staring at it for a moment, Nick Fury deleted Guardian and typed again.
The Avengers Initiative.
To recruit or persuade a group of individuals with exceptional abilities that are capable of handling all manner of superhuman crises.
Deep down, Fury even hoped that someday someone as powerful as Daniel would appear. Someone who was a little simple-minded and obedient... someone who could be used to keep Daniel in check.
Fury knew this was highly unlikely, but he still held onto that sliver of wishful thinking.
Slowly pecking away at the keyboard, Fury typed out his proposal one character at a time. Before long, his eyes began to ache from staring at the screen, especially his left eye, which still hadn't healed completely after being scratched twice by Goose.
"Looks like I should get myself an eyepatch when I have the chance. I can always tell people an alien did it, that should earn me some serious points."
Nick had been eyeing a promotion for a long time.