An organization like SHIELD has its own branch offices scattered across North America.

Having worked in the organization for 2 years now, Merlin knows a lot of its secrets. For example, Merlin knows that somewhere in California was a place similar to an agent academy; it was located near the Nevada deserts, specialized for training field agents.

Supposedly there were also some labs involved in dangerous experimentation in that hidden base.

Fury had been staying there since May. Supposedly he was training a group of recruits he recruited himself.

Fury has high hopes for this batch of new agents, at this point, it was only a matter of time before the incompetent Keller, who's been causing him trouble, gets kicked out, and by then, Fury may regain control of the entire organization; under such situation, it would be troublesome for Fury to begin his work if he didn't have a batch of trustworthy agents.

After all, for the past 2 years, Keller's perverse actions had pretty much ruined what's left of the SSR.

Once Fury reassumes control, experienced agents like Victoria Hand, John Garrett, Barton, Natasha, and Merlin would be promoted to the middle-management level of the organization; at that time, the open spaces left by their promotion would be taken over by this new batch of recruits.

And once this batch of new agents Fury had recruited matured, Fury would then achieve full control over the organization.

And by that time, the SSR which was once glorious in the Cold War will be truly reborn!

Uh, but that's a thing for the future.

If all goes well, it'll take at least 4~5 years to achieve all this.

"Bam"

In his casual black suit, Merlin with his suitcase opens the door and enters the heavily guarded lab.

Outside the lab were at least 40 fully armed soldiers standing watch, they belonged to SHIELD's special operations team, and they consisted of soldiers redeployed from the military.

For a military force of such standards to be mobilized, it would seem that something had indeed happened, something big.

"Fury? What's going on?"

Merlin walks into the lab and finds Fury standing in front of a body bag, the latter was holding a pack of ice by his forehead. Fury hears Merlin's greeting, turns around, and gestures for Merlin to come closer.

"Come here first."

Merlin walks over, and Fury begins to look at him, more precisely, he was staring at his face; he was looking very closely as if looking for something. This confuses Merlin so he asks:

"What?"

"How'd you get here so fast?"

Fury looks at Merlin with suspicion and says:

"It takes at least 6 hours to get to California from New York, and it hasn't even been 4 hours since I last called you!"

"Miss Carter got me a private plane."

Merlin frowns and replies:

"You can call her to get an answer, and, what's going on? And what's with this...horrible stench?"

Fury gestures for Merlin to wait, he walks to the side and makes a call. Moments later, he hangs up and tells Merlin:

"Alright, you are real. As for why..."

Fury turns around and opens the body bag behind him, revealing the corpse of a weird creature. He tells Merlin:

"I got snuck up on by this guy, I almost died to it. So I feel like everyone I see is an alien in disguise."

"How are you always getting mixed in these sort of things?"

Merlin complains, Fury was nearly attacked by a shapeshifter during his time in Manhattan, he seems to be very unfortunate to be encountering creatures good at disguising.

But soon, the weird creature in front of him grabs Merlin's attention.

It was a humanoid corpse.

It seemed to be slightly taller than Fury, about 2 meters in height. Its body was made of green wacky texture, like some kind of smooth fiber.

There were textures on its skin, and like a normal human, it had a pair of arms and legs, though the face was more like the goblins he had seen before.

There were wrinkles across its jaw, sunken eye sockets, and a pair of sharp ears, it had no hair, no lips, but it had black stripes on its head like hair, looking very weird.

Merlin notices weird bluish-purple blood by the creature's nostrils and mouth. He reaches out and flips the creature's eyelids, and sees an eye with a similar color to its blood, though it has lost all life symptoms.

There were 2 bullet holes on its chest, supposedly lethal wounds.

Merlin grabs the tweezers and takes out the deformed holy silver bullets from the wounds, he throws the bullets into a tray nearby, and as he examines the wounds, he asks Fury:

"What the hell is this thing? And how'd you kill this? Its muscles are well developed, with nearly double your strength. If it had really tried to kill you, you should be dead by now."

Merlin asks, to which Fury replies with a hint of bad luck:

"This should be...Skrull."

Fury sits on the chair and while holding an ice packet to his eye socket, he says:

"If I heard what, that's what that odd woman called them, she also said that they're a type of shapeshifters. As for how I killed it...it's simple."

Fury takes out a smaller pistol from his pocket and tells Merlin:

"After knowing about the weird stuff going on around the world, I always bring an extra gun with me. These shapeshifting monsters shapeshifted into the appearance of the recruit I went out with, it stole my gun, but I had another...which is why it's dead."

"So what's going on?"

Merlin puts on a medical mask and gloves as he prepares to dissect the corpse in front of him and asks:

"Your words are making me confused. Who's the odd woman? How'd you encounter them?"

"Don't move!"

Fury stops Merlin's action and says:

"They'll be specialized forensics here to dissect it. After dissection, we have to hand it over to the Bridge and Tunnel Authority, and they'll handle clean-up duty."

"Alright then, I'll listen to your story."

Merlin puts down the operating knife in pity, he was this close to going on med school back then, and he chose Potions when learning about magic, which means that Merlin was truly interested in Medicine.

Merlin sits on the other chair and listens as Fury begins to talk about the weird things he experienced today.

"This morning, like usual, I was bringing the recruits on tracking and anti-tracking training. Then I got a call."

Fury recalls what had occurred this morning and says:

"It was from a security guard from a cinema, he told the cops that he found a supposedly alien woman falling from the sky and crashing into Blockbuster Store, he said it with quite the detail. The police then transferred the call to our office in New York, as you know, our work also includes investigating events like these."

"So the New York office transferred the call to me because I was the closest officer to the scene. So I headed over."

Fury shrugs:

"There was another rookie agent I recruited on my car, and it was too late to send him back, so I brought him with me. Then we met a woman in the telephone booth."

"An odd woman!"

Fury heavies his tone and he describes to Merlin:

"She was blonde and tall, she wore a weird green suit, kinda like what scuba divers wear. She claims to be a member of some Starforce, her name was Vers and she was here on Earth to look for Skrulls who have infiltrated the planet, saying that they're plotting to start a subversive war."

"Mmm, sounds like a crazy person, or a young one too indulged in sci-fi movies."

Merlin's comment receives Fury's recognition.

"Yeah! That's what I thought, I thought she was an escapee from a mental institute until she blasted a light wave with her fists and busted apart the wall."

Fury made a punching gesture and tells Merlin:

"Like this! Shoo...boom!"

"A light wave?"

Merlin's interest came as Fury describes in further detail after thinking:

"To be precise, it was like a thicker wave of electricity, it was quite destructive. I suspect that the woman used some kind of weapon to fire it, but I didn't see any on her arms."

"Starforce, able to shoot out light waves, means that she's dangerous."

Merlin closes her eyes and contemplates, saying:

"Probably a soldier from another planet. It's quite dangerous letting someone with such destructive capabilities loose on the streets, no wonder you requested that I come here quickly..."

"No."

Fury shakes his head and tells Merlin:

"That woman! She wasn't alien, Merlin. Although she kept talking about a universal translator, I could hear! She's speaking our language, she had a Northern accent."

"If she didn't shoot out a light cannon with her fist, I would've thought that she was American."

"Alright."

Merlin shrugs:

"A normal woman can't destroy a wall with her fist, it doesn't sound like magic from your description. Where is that woman now?"

"She ran."

Fury says unluckily:

"A disguised Skrull attacked us, she saved me and went after that guy. Me and the rookie followed after them, but I got a call from the real rookie along the way that I left him on the scene. Then this guy!"

Fury points at the alien on the dissection table and says:

"This guy took my gun...it tried to threaten me, but it didn't expect me to have a backup gun. That's it."

"You're saying that even you didn't notice that the rookie was an alien in disguise?"

Merlin asks, he knows that although Fury was an ordinary person, he had acquired a sharp observation ability, not to mention, Fury had spent 2 months with those agents, so he should be the one who's most familiar with them.

"Yeah, they looked exactly the same!"

Fury says palpitatingly:

"Without any difference, Merlin, this scares me. If what that woman said is true, a group of Skrulls had indeed infiltrated Earth, then they could be disguised as anyone! The president, you, and even...another me!"

"Don't worry."

Merlin consoles:

"At least you're not one of them in disguise."

Merlin points at his eyes and says confidently:

"They can change their physical appearance, but they can't change their soul!"

"That is why I summoned you here."

Fury says seriously:

"I just received news that there's been a motorcycle theft, according to the clues provided by the owner, the thief should be that woman Vers."

"You want me to track her?"

Merlin asks, to which Fury replies straightforwardly:

"Of all the agents, you're the only one who can follow her without being detected. As you know, Merlin, I don't have many options when it comes to supernatural events."

"Got a picture?"

Merlin nods, he picks up his suitcase and tells Fury:

"Give me some more info."

"Luckily, the security camera caught her face. Unfortunately, it's the only picture we've got."

Fury hands a picture to Merlin, the latter takes it and takes a look, on it was a woman in a weird outfit, she wasn't the pretty type, but unexpectedly, her expression had a hint of heroism.

Like a true female warrior.

"Leave it to me."

Merlin keeps the picture in his pocket and leaves with his suitcase.

Fury stops him, he lifts his pager and waves it at Merlin:

"Merlin, use this for communication!"

"Why?"

Merlin looks at Fury with confusion, it was 1994, and more advanced phones were replacing pagers. Merlin had seen Fury's new phone, and it looked much more convenient than the brick phone he had before.

"First, this thing's information security is guaranteed. Kohler's eyes are on us."

"Second..."

Fury's expression was slightly awkward as he took out a phone that's been smashed to pieces from his pocket and says:

"This thing was smashed during my fight with the Skrull..."

"Err, okay then."

Merlin shrugs, he waves the watch in his hand which was also a pager, and tells Fury:

"I'll keep you posted."

Fury sees Merlin off, he sits back to the side of the alien corpse and began thinking about the strange thing that happened to him, but a few minutes later, the door is opened once more.

 The surprised Fury looks back, he sees a man in a well-tailored suit wearing gold wire glasses standing at the entrance of the lab who was looking at him indifferently.

"Keller!"

Fury frowns and says:

"What are you doing here?"