Arriving at Stark's home should have been easy enough; I knew where it was — heck, I knew the special coordinates to open a spacetime gate into his home.
Now, I might not be headed to his home in Malibu, but instead to the Stark Tower he was building — or had built — just still working to get everything done.
So it really should have been just a small drive.
So why the fuck was I in this situation?
The first hint of trouble wasn't a high-speed chase or the wail of sirens.
It was the slow tightening of the air.
It was the way traffic suddenly got heavier around us — thick, sluggish, like the very streets were conspiring to trap us.
It was the identical black SUVs slipping into the mirrors. One. Two. Three. No lights. No sirens. Just... there.
Following.
Tracking.
Herding.
I grimaced, easing off the gas. Blowing through Manhattan like a maniac would only give them an excuse. No, whoever was after me was smarter than that and had plenty of resources.
I could feel it, the way that traffic moved, lights changing color at suspicious times. As if carefully leading traffic and us somewhere.
It didn't take a genius to figure out who it might be. If I had to bet, I would say it was SHIELD.
I wasn't sure how, but it seemed that they had somehow found me.
I guess the slip I did back in Vegas ended up annoying them more than I had anticipated.
"They're setting up a net," Sersi said under her breath, glancing around sharply. "Fake construction, fake traffic delays — they're funneling us somewhere."
"Who is even after us? And why?" Sprite said as she acted far too excited about the whole situation.
"Likely SHIELD, some government agency that fancy themselves as the protectors of Earth." I said as we once more ended up stuck in traffic, unless we took a turn right now… which I resisted doing.
"Well, why are they after us? I thought the world didn't know what you looks like?" Sersi complained as she didn't want to end up on some watch list, she had been staying low for so long, and it seemed everything was about to be ruined.
She wouldn't be able to move freely anymore, likely stuck in Ablion.
"I caused them a bit of… trouble last time I was here with Mordred? Though saying trouble is too much, I exposed that I was enhanced, that is all, they hunt down enhanced like rare Pokémon." I said as I tried to figure out how to get out of this situation without making it any worse.
"Well, that's just great," Sprite muttered, craning her neck to look behind us. "How rare are we talking? Legendary or shiny rare?"
"Both," I said dryly. "Probably have a whole division dedicated to catching me at this point."
Traffic continued to thicken, more and more suspicious. A city bus conveniently stalled two lanes over, while two cop cars idled up ahead, blocking the right turn lane.
No way forward.
No way back.
I hissed through my teeth. "Sprite. Get ready."
"For what exactly?" she asked, bright-eyed.
"For a very polite disappearing act."
Sprite perked up immediately. "Finally."
She clapped her hands once — a shimmer rolled out — and the car faded from sight like a mirage breaking apart.
For a moment, it was perfect.
Invisible.
Undetectable.
And then the real problem became clear.
Being invisible didn't stop the world from existing around us.
Barely moments since we disappeared, a crash happened as the car behind us mistook me for empty air, and drove right into our rear end.
Nothing big, just a small bump, but more then enough to cause some chaos and confusion.
"Well, that wasn't very smart now, was it?" Sersi said, acting all smug.
"Right, bad move, I guess we will have to drop the car and move on by foot." I couldn't help but sigh, as indeed, it had been a stupid move on my part.
But then again, I wasn't very good at using illusion stuff; that was always Merlin, and this, like this, never happened with him.
"Sprite, keep us hidden, and let's do our best not to bump into someone, shouldn't be too much to ask, even if the enemy now knows we can turn invisible." I said as I quickly stepped out of the car and onto the sidewalk.
Manhattan sidewalks were packed.
Office workers in sharp suits, tourists gawking up at skyscrapers, food carts belching steam into the winter air — it was like walking through a battlefield of distracted civilians. And we were invisible to all of them.
I had a strange feeling, to walk around without being spotted, I had many abilities, but presence concealment wasn't one of them. I wasn't an assassin, yet now I got to experience what it felt like to be one.
Everywhere people walked right past us, never spared us a glance, and that was something, because since gaining the body of Arthuria lancer, everyone looked at me.
Still, it was a good thing we were all enhanced, because navigating the crowds wasn't easy.
More so since I could see SHIELD agents walking around them, clearly seeing out empty areas and trying to catch us.
Not that they would succeed, since Sprite could do a lot more than just hide us. She could make others seem invisible, make us look like other things. Once we weren't confined to a car stuck in traffic, her ability was amazing for slipping away.
"I feel like a ghost," Sprite whispered, barely containing her glee. "This is awesome."
"This is stressful," Sersi hissed back as she narrowly avoided bumping into a man juggling three coffees and his phone.
"You'll live," Sprite said with a cheeky grin — even though the effort of holding the illusion over all of us was already starting to bead sweat on her forehead.
I wasn't blind to it. Keeping three people and their shadows hidden while weaving through a crowd wasn't easy. It taxed her, even if she didn't want to admit it.
She had not been very active for a long, long time, likely just using her powers to get by, or messing with people.
So this was likely the first time in a while she put her powers to the test, and doing many small things was often much harder than one big one.
Thankfully, we were moving faster and much more easily than the agents hunting us expected, which meant it didn't take long before we got rid of them. Sprite could take it a bit easier, just having to disguise us.
We made our way over to Stark Tower; it still had that new building feel to it. I'm not sure if I pushed the construction forward or not. I was fairly sure it was meant to be new, doing the events of the alien invasion led by Loki.
But what was new?
A week?
1 year?
5 years?
So, had the fact that I healed him and helped him invent the new element changed things?
Ahh, the joys of not knowing.
A goddess I might be, but I was far from omniscient.
"Damn, his house seems even better then yours." Sprite whistled as we stood before the great tower, right in the heart of the city, prime real estate.
"I live in a magic castle, nothing beats that." I rolled my eyes at her as we went inside.
-----
On the other side of the city, the SHIELD agent in charge of the mission to invite in the so-called Winning Queen had to accept that the mission was a failure.
He feared that this would set him back on the promotion he had been eying, but he couldn't in good faith spend more resources looking around, given the high likelihood that the target was long gone.
With a resigned sigh, he picked up his radio and made the call. "This is Agent Miller, I am reporting that we have lost sight of Target Winner Queen, I repeat, we have lost sight of the target. The mission is a bust."
"Alright, get back and deliver the report." The voice of his superior came back, cold and as hard to read as always.
…
Back at the office, it was time for the least glorious part of being a secret agent, paperwork.
It wasn't what kids dreamt about when they saw James Bond on TV, or any of the other shows filled with spies and secret agents.
Even training seemed to skip over it. Sure, they had to go through paperwork in training, but early on, it often seemed to focus more on the exciting things about paperwork.
Like hiding secret codes in normal looking text, so they hate to write a lot of random reports, but it felt more fun, more… exciting and spy-like.
But in reality, there was an endless amount of paperwork, everything had to be carefully documented, despite everything supposedly being highly secret.
So now he had to figure out how he got through this hurdle without hurting his career too much.
And it was supposed to be simple enough.
Find the mysterious enhanced woman, and bring her in for questioning. Avoid fighting if possible, easy enough.
Yet, it appeared that the two unknown women with her were also enhanced, at least he didn't assume the power to turn a car, and then they were invisible from the Winning Queen.
Her power was listed as enhanced strength and luck, how that was a special power he didn't know. But given how easily she could apparently earn money, he sure wouldn't mind a bit of that luck.
But still, with Winning Queen, the Little Lion with the hero name of Mordred and Jessica Jones, these two knew likely enhanced women meant that five young, so far unknown enhanced women seemed to share some kind of relationship…
Yeah, he was sure his bosses would get in a right mood when they learnt about all that, and he couldn't blame them. This stunk to high heavens as some kind of larger motive, and that was just the kind of thing that had the higher-ups all worked up in a panic.
Miller stared at the half-finished report on his screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
"Suspected gathering of enhanced individuals under unknown leadership."
That would be the phrasing they wanted. Something that sounded cautious but alarmist enough to justify pulling more resources.
And if he was lucky, they would realize that he wasn't given the right hand to deal with the situation, so they wouldn't blame him for this failure.
He shook his head and finished writing his report. Once he was satisfied with it, he sent it off and cleaned his hands of this hold mess. It was clearly above his rank, so unless he was promoted to care, he wouldn't.
He might once have had dreams of saving the world like James Bond, but he had grown up since then. This was just a job, and he did it because he agreed it had to be done and because they paid him.
Take away the pay, and he would leave it to others; he had wants and desires of his own, and being a hero didn't pay well.
No, it paid much better to be the people who cleaned up after them.
(End of chapter)
So, I figured that I couldn't just have Arthuria go back into the US without alerting SHIELD, so this is where this chapter came from, it wasn't fully planned, but SHIELD would just seem too incompetent if they somehow missed this.
Also, wanted to point out that most people working such jobs aren't super loyal to the idea, which is why Hydra got their hands on so many; they want the paycheck, and I can't blame them.
Next will be Mordred recap, and depending on how long that will take, I might fit in some more stuff. Gonna finish this Eternal arc soon, been doing research for Thor stuff, and it's kinda crazy.