[Wednesday, 0:30 PM, United States California, Los Angeles coast, 18/5/1995]

"Vers, Vers! are you ok?"

'Carol'. She wanted to shout, but that wouldn't be fair with Kara, she knew that.

"Vers please answer me."

But even so, hearing that name made her skin crawl, worse it made her want to tear someone's throat off, the only thing stopping her from doing so was the fact that she knew whatever she did would only tickle the Kryptonian, this coming from a small part of her brain that was still somehow thinking rationally despise the unnatural amount of anger she was feeling.

"Vers?". And there was it, the final drop of her patience finally gone.

It didn't matter if Kara was talking with a concerned tone, it didn't matter if she was worried about her, VERS is the name of a slave, a prisoner, and she was, no, she is Carol Danvers and she is no one's prisoner, not anymore.

Turning around she unconsciously activated her powers, surrounding her body in a white, blue, and yellow aura that emitted small amounts of heat through the air.

"My name is Carol Danvers". She said with barely restrained rage in her voice.

Hearing the venom in Vers voice Kara stopped on her tracks for one second but continued to walk forward.

"What happened to you? The explosion took some chunks out of your body, If It wasn't for me you wouldn't even have a head right now, did the impact made you regain your memories?". Kara asked, worried for Ve- Carol.

"YOU KNEW?!". Carol's aura exploded with power making the ground beneath her crack and the air around her heat up.

Seeing that Kara stopped in her tracks and looked at Carol with a surprised and confused expression, the explosion really did leave her friend in a confused state, maybe she would have to bring her to her ship and exam her body.

"Of course I did, you told me remember? your mother Mar-vell, Ask'lo's massacre, five years of training in Hala". Kara said in a confused tone.

Carol's aura slowly retreated inside her, making the light in her eyes fade and the surrounding temperature to drop once again.

"Ye-... yes I remember, I'm sorry for my outburst, the explosion made my body release some adrenaline". Looking at Kara, Carol saw her raising an eyebrow.

"So, what happened to you?". Kara asked ignoring Carol's weird behavior.

Ignoring the fact that Kara clearly didn't believe her words Carol looked down at her hands to analyze the strange energy surrounding her body if she had to describe what it feels like it would be like drinking an energetic, only now the energetic actually had the power of a nuclear bomb and gave her the strength destroy mountains.

The feeling was weird, she knew that she had not just received a power boost, no, it was more like this energy was always with her, she had felt a wrongness in her body for a long time, before this day she didn't know what it was but now she did.

When training with her powers she always tried to use more energy, she thought that if she could fire photon blasts from her hands after passing through the 'procedure' that gave her her powers then maybe her body produced the energy by itself.

That was the moment where she reached a dead end, she could never use more than a certain amount of it no matter how long she trained or how hard she tried, it was as if a filter existed inside her, only allowing her to use a certain amount of her power.

Firstly she thought that it was a safety mechanism of her body, only allowing her to drain a certain amount of energy but not too much as to not overwhelm her body and kill her in the process.

That would make sense if she was absorbing energy from somewhere else but the warm feeling on her veins that emerged every time she used her powers told her a different history.

She couldn't really confirm her theory before but now she has no doubts, she was generating her own energy inside her body all this time, and after the explosion her filter was destroyed allowing her to drain more energy, somehow.

Having a sudden realization Carol started to frantically look at the ground, immediately finding what she was searching for, she crouched down and took a small, cylindrical device, it was supposed to be a universal translator that for all rights, should have been destroyed by the explosion.

'Any normal one would have been, but this, this is no translator, it's a leash, a leash for an obedient dog to wear.'

'Having a universal translator as an implant was normal, researchers even said that 4.9 in 5 Kree had it, but having two like my device and interface, not so much, it is obvious that they were lying, I gave my complete trust to the empire, and in turn, they chained me.'

Crushing the object in her hand while activating her powers she burned the remains of the device, after some seconds she opened her fist letting the wind carry out the dusty remains of the device away from her.

'The supreme intelligence lied to me, Lawson is not my mother... not by blood.'

'The clues don't lie, the chip on my nape suppressed my memories, and possibly my powers, the Skrulls and the Kree were trying to steal the lightspeed engine, those purple ships on my memory were without a doubt from the Skrulls.'

'Ask'lo was possibly Lawson's hideout, she teleported there after being attacked and the Kree probably discovered her while trying to track down the Tesseract's energy signature, whatever that thing is'.

'The question is how the Skrulls find her, they are a technologically advanced species but just because they steal technology like the Krolotean vermin'.

'The Skulls can transform into anyone, Lawson had allies here on Earth so they probably protected that woman on my memories... or died trying'.

'No concrete memories, surrounded by enemies and no way of knowing if I even have friends inside this planet, this limits my freedom by an unimaginable degree'.

'I can't trust anyone, my memories are nor yet complete and even a squirrel can be a skrull, until I regain my complete memories I won't be able to search for trusting allies'.

Carol gave a small glance at Kara with suspecting eyes, thinking about how she got on the planet brought some questions to her mind.

Kara was coincidentally at the exact same spot where she had fallen, it was too much of a coincidence to be possible, not only that but she had been nothing but friendly with her, even if they knew each other for less than one hour at the time.

It was possible that someone had sent her there to intercept her po-, NO!, Kara is her friend, she told her about her past and in turn she told her about her's, a false past but one she believed it was true none the less.

Kara Isn't her enemy, she can't be, she saved her from an explosion that would have destroyed her brain, she is without a doubt, not a Skrull or a secret agent sent to kill her, but even with that certainty she couldn't trust her 100%.

They wiped her memories indoctrinated her, made her go to missions that would make any human vomit out of disgust, it will take a long time before she trusts anyone ever again.

She is not going to be anyone's prisoner or slave ever again, she will rather kill herself than to let anyone have that control over her again.

Yon-rogg was her captor but his teachings were useful, always vigilant, always attentive if you are not sure someone is your ally never trust them completely and always stay in guard, it's not paranoia if they are out there to get you and when skulls are involved even a rat could be out there to get her.

She had without a doubt suffered a physiological trauma because of her years in the star force but she still could think logically, and logically speaking, even now she couldn't possibly defeat a being that belonged to the most powerful race of the known universe.

"I regained, parts of my memories".

Kara gave a small smile to her, a smile that clearly said how happy she was for her, Carol almost returned the smile but stopped herself in time, it was amazing how the Kryptonian could make her drop her guard so easily without even trying.

It was weird, she didn't think much about that before but now that she did she managed to perceive how weird it was, feeling relaxed when in the presence of being that could destroy a planet and kill her in less than a second if she even suspected she was an enemy was nothing but crazy.

"So, am I still your best and only friend or is there someone I need to look out for?"

Carol held the urge to roll her eyes, sometimes Kara was so silly.

Slap!

Slapping her own face Carol forcefully got out of her train of thought and answered Kara in a normal tone of voice while ignoring her question.

"I'm not a Kree, I am a human, well a Kree/Human hybrid, Mar-vell was not my mother, she was a Kree soldier that defected from the empire after discovering its the true colors."

"And that would be?"

"Space bullies according to someone she called Soren, they conquer other species and kill everyone who stands on their way, she hid here on Earth under the disguise of Lawson, a human scientist that created the Lightspeed engine, an engine build with the only objective to rescue and hide the other species who were being oppressed by the Kree, maybe even give them a fighting chance."

"The Kree discovered Lawson's hideout and attacked the P.E.G.A.S.U.S base, I asked Yon-rogg to bring a small fleet to the planet, before they arrive I need to discover where the Core, the tesseract is hidden and take it from there, maybe destroy it if necessary, after that w- I will have to escape the planet".

"I will probably join the Nova Corps and fight against the Kree with their help, you should hide from them, if they discover a lone Kryptonian living inside Earth they will stop at nothing to try to capture you, thank you for your help Kara but for now on this is my mission".

Carol turned around and started to walk away, having Kara with her would surely help but she preferred not having to worry about being stabbed in the back, the, a Kryptonian is a threat and she needed to get away from her as fast as possible.

Seeing Carol walk away from her Kara immediately changed her expression to a serious one.

"No," Kara said with a serious voice, her tone was so uncharacteristically serious that it made Carol freeze for a second and then turn around, not even noticing her own surprised expression while doing it so.

"Do you know? Kryptonians don't Fear Death, none of us do, if we die we will simply go to Rao's eternal gardens where we will be given the choice to rest forever or be reborn in a new body, as a new being of Krypton, this is one of the main reasons why no Kryptonian ever eats anything born on Krypton, preferring to only get nourishment from Rao or other animals brought from outside our planet, I personally never ate anything."

Kara took out a small necklace that was behind her collar and showed to Carol, it had a shiny silver chain that connected to a red ruby with the shape of a heart that appeared to be beating with red energy emanating from it every few seconds.

Even from afar, Carol could feel the heat emanating from the heart, strangely enough, she liked the... taste it gave her? No, it was more like something she couldn't quite describe, if she had to compare with something it would be the times where she thought of Mar-vell as her mother.

Love?... The craked heart connected to the chain made her taste love?.

"Alrya gave this to me, a red one, my favorite color and a blue one for her, her favorite color too, Krypton had very advanced technology compared to the rest of the known universe, an FTL engine and a teleportation device capable of reaching other galaxies for example would not be hard to make with our technology".

"And it's exactly because of that that we always searched for answers independently if they are supernatural or nor, independently if they are not to be sought or not we always wanted to know the answers to the questions of the universe".

" 'To discover the mysteries of reality and bask upon it, that is the reason why Rao gave us life', Sah-Sha, a scientist from old Krypton said that she was one of the many who Died on Decimation Day, once upon a time she said that to inspire others after receiving a vision by Rao and ever since then we lived by that motto."

Carol was Looking at Kara attentively, whatever she was about to tell her is undoubtedly important.

"One such question we Kryptonians always asked was what happens when we die, Rao had already told us the answer, we believed him, we really did but we wanted to prove it once and for all."

"For Krytoz our research didn't manage to find the answer, unfortunately magic is not a talent Rao bestowed upon us, and it is not like the Kryptonians of old could simply ask some dead Kryptonian what the afterlife was like, for that reason, our research did not gain any results for more than Three hundred krytoz."

"But, one day a woman by the name of Jan-Al, a Kryptonian with more than five thousand Krytoz of age, one of which died before A.D.D 700 managed to accidentally find the answer by simply meditating".

"The books said that she was in such synergy with the astral plane that she managed to move her own soul through her memories, going so far back that she managed to see the memories of her own past life, and even her time in Rao's garden."

"After Krytoz of more experiments, she was able to deduce that Kryptonians who had a strong spiritual connection to the Immaterium could not only travel through the astral plane but also through their own souls, going back on their history to see their past lives."

Stopping for one moment Kara looked at Carol as if expecting something, after seeing her friend frozen in place she simply continued to walk in circles with Carol in the middle.

"But nothing in this universe is completely harmless."

"Some could lose themselves on the beautiful memories of their past selves and never come back to their own bodies, dying with smiles on their faces, living forever on the past but never going back to their present, a beautiful but sad death."

"The first to suffer this fate was one of Jan-Al's students, 'Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards', that was what she said after her disciple found himself forever stuck in his own memories, her own blood, died because of her discovery."

Carol's eyes widened, the universe has thousands, maybe even millions of powerful beings like the celestials and the cosmic beings like Galactus but even with all that she didn't know where she would go after she died, almost all didn't, some convinced themselves that they did, but... she doesn't have the impression Kara is one of those.

The Kree believe that not only their minds but also their souls will go to the collective an agglomerate of all minds of the dead Kree that fused giving birth to the Supreme Intelligence, their spiritual leader.

But she didn't believe in that, she is a Christian, heaven, hell, God, she believed in that, after seeing the universe and its marvels her beliefs were shaken but she still held onto them but now, now she just discovered that reincarnation is a thing.

"This necklace was invented by Jan-Al herself, it works by first putting it in the neck of someone, after that the user will have to meditate in the presence of a monk who in turn will take a piece of that person's spiritual energy and put it inside the ruby."

"This process makes it so that as long as the soul of the wearer exists the necklace will never stop pulsing with energy, the closer that person's soul is to the necklace the faster it gets."

"And the fact that this necklace is pulsing even if slowly means just one thing, Alrya's soul resides somewhere in this galaxy."

Kara's expression slowly changed from a serious to a sad one.

"When she died the only thing that remained was her necklace and her ashes, I still remember to this day the moment when the ruby in my Necklace lost all of its warm and became cold".

"Before Alrya died she managed to send an emergency beacon, we were able to find her remains because of that, I... almost killed myself that day, I would have melted my own brain to follow Alrya if my father didn't stop me".

Carol held her breath, her... friend didn't get close to telling her about that part of her life before and if she was telling her this now it meant that she had said something she shouldn't have.

"Do you think I wouldn't give everything I have to travel back in time and stay at her side in her last moments, even if that meant my Death?".

Kara put her necklace on and walked towards Carol, pulling her hand on her shoulder with force she locked eyes with her.

"So answer me, do you really think I will abandon you when you actually need my help? do I really appear to be such a cold and emotionless Kryptonian in your eyes?"

Hearing Kara's words Carol lowered her head and put her hand on Kara's chest, taking the red necklace with her right hand, she lifted head and looked closely at the shiny red Ruby in the form of a heart that burned with heat on her hand.

"No, you are not emotionless and you certainly will not abandon me in a moment of need, I'm sorry, I should have thought about my words before opening my mouth."

Abandoning her serious expression Kara gave a smile and put her arm in Carol's shoulder, bringing her close and hugging her.

"Now you can tell me what's wrong and after that, you can tell me where we will go."

Carol gave a small laugh and said. "So be it, let's start with the history about how aliens abducted me and hopefully didn't put anything inside me while I was out."

"It started when I took off the jet with Lawson, she said some coordinates, but we were attacked by a Kree ship before we could reach the place, she ordered me to type the coordinates of Ask'lo".

"When I did that, a type of energy, the energy of the lightspeed engine to be more specific shot forward and created a portal, not a jump point, a portal, one that transported us away to Ask'lo, the only problem was that a war between the Skrulls and the Kree was happening at that moment."

"We got shot down almost immediately, we crashed on the planet and almost died, Yon-rogg appeared and killed Lawson, Minn-erva was there too."

"Lawson managed to destroy the engine but the energy inside it shot towards me, I absorbed it somehow and gained my powers, Lawson didn't survive and I was abducted by the Kree, they indoctrinated me and made me their slave for five years."

"On my memory, Lawson said something about a control room on Edwards Airbase, we should go there."

Kara nodded and looked at the ground, putting her finger on her chin while thinking about their next move and said.

"We need to disguise ourselves somehow, that Skrull could very well be lying but we can't be sure, I don't want an entire Skrull fleet full of warships to come raining down on us, we don't have time to train your powers properly but I can arrange something."

Kara created an interface on her right arm and started to click on some buttons, immediately after that a pod crashed down behind her.

Turning around she reached the pod and opened it, taking out a black sphere and turning towards Carol once again.

"Take off your clothes."

"What?"

"Take off your clothes, I have X-ray vision Carol you can't hide anything from me even if you tried."

"HaHaHa, very funny."

Kara didn't answer and simply looked at Carol from top to bottom with a funny expression "Of course I'm 'kidding' ".

'Did I just hear quote marks?'.

Carol squeezed her eyes in suspicion and used her powers to take off her armor as fast as possible.

"Think fast". Kata threw the sphere towards Carol who lifted her hand in reflex, catching the sphere that immediately started to spread through her body.

'That ball was almost as fast as a speeding spaceship, and you somehow managed to catch it by reflex, how strong are you now Firefly?'

"The suit merges with you, forming a symbiotic relationship where he drains nutrients from your body, and in turn, you can order it to do anything you want."

"The suit itself is partly alive but has no consciousness, think it like a rock that can move for itself and needs to eat to continue moving."

{Hey!}

'There's no other you there Lavender, you are a living and thinking being, you only use this suit as well... a suit for your soul, no need to get angry.'

{Humph!}

"We need to blend ourselves with the people of this planet, become forgettable inside the masses but at the same time not attracting suspicion from others that we want to hide."

"We are playing the Skrulls game, if they can hide and act as good as you told me then they surely can detect another person trying to do the same, I am... bigger than the humans of this planet but condensing my muscles is something I learned to do very early on with my master, Unfortunately, I can not do the sams with my bones."

To show Carol how to do it Kara condensed her muscles and gave Lavender a mental command, covering her entire body in a black substance that quickly became something else.

Now she had a black tank top with a pink skull with two bones forming an x in her chest, black jeans that reached up until her ankle, a black sneaker, a big, red bracelet on her right hand and finally the tip of her hair that changed from a bright blond to dark green, her image flickered until it stopped seconds later, now instead of a three-meter tall woman she looked like a normal human teen.

"So, how am I?"

"You... look like a teenager."

"Thanks for the compliment?". Kara answered confused.

"No, before you didn't look like a woman past her twenties and now you look like an eighteen year old, how did you do it?"

"Why do I feel like you are accusing me of something? I am 99 Krytoz old in case you forgot, don't sass me, and my suit can bend light, all you see is nothing but an illusion, you think you are looking at my eyes but no, you are looking at my belly, which is extremely weird."

"But that doesn't matter now, just disguise yourself and lead the way."

Carol nodded and gave the order to her suit to change, a white t-shirt, an open black jacket, small blue jeans, and a white sneaker, light bent around her until her form shrinked to that of a normal female human.

"So?"

"Good enough, now."

Kara suddenly dashed towards Carol while throwing a punch in her face, more by reflex than anything else Carol borough her hands up to try and block Kara's attack even while closing her eyes.

After staying in that position for some seconds Carol borough her arms down and looked forward, only to receive a flick on her forehead.

"Ouch!, what was that for?". Carol asked while rubbing her forehead, if she had to name that attack it would be an atomic flicker.

"Your reflexes, On human terms Mach 874.030 is the speed of light, I threw this punch at a little bit higher than one-third of the speed of light," Kara said while at the same time receiving the translation of Human terms from Lavender.

"And that means?"

"That means that much like photons, you are slower when inside a space, you probably already know that but I will explain it anyway."

"A Photon is an elementary particle which has zero rest mass and always moves at the speed of light while inside a vacuum, before I explain further remember this, light that travels through transparent matter does so slower than the speed of light within a vacuum."

"The photons inside a star like the sun of Earth engage in so many collisions on the way from its core that the energy can take about one million earth years to reach the surface, but, while in the vacuum of space those same photons only take about 8 minutes to reach the Earth."

"In other words, while inside an atmosphere your speed is reduced by a significant amount, saying that is important to note that your reflexes will probably improve while in open space too, any questions?"

"Yes, what are we waiting for?".

Kara sighed and said. "Well, before we continue I will have to tell you that in pure strength I could press roughly the weight of this entire planet."

"This... is not what I expected to hear".

"The reason why I am telling you this is that there are not many things in this world that can kill or even harm me, it would take the power of a supernova to kill me."

"And somehow the Skrulls had a weapon that could pass through my skin, you understand where I am going with this?"

Carol's eyes widened. "The risk of death is real". She said, whispering in realization.

"Yes, the energy they used in that weapon was powerful, extremely powerful, one lucky shot, and I will without a doubt die". Kara shook her head and looked at the sky.

"Have you ever wondered how the Kryptonians died if that was the case?"

"Hum? well, you said that Krypton exploded so the power generated by Krypton's destruction should be the same as a supernova right?" Carol asked confused.

"Yes, the explosion of Krypton was as powerful as the collision of two black holes but have you forgotten what I told you? Rao allowed Kryptonians to grow permanently stronger the longer they absorbed its light."

"I am far away from being the strongest Kryptonian, my master, for example, can beat me with one hand behind his back". Kara looked at Carol and shook her head with her hands up.

"Due to his training and my ability to adapt and evolve, I became stronger, in Krypton for example I was considered to be able to beat others with two times my age in pure skill"

"But even with all that I wouldn't be able to beat my master in pure strength, even if I got in a fight with him while he only has his strength from Rao and I the strength of a yellow sun I would lose".

"How old is he exactly".

"Well, he is 3000 Krytoz old, is 5 meters tall, has black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin, he had the ability to absorb more solar energy than normal making him stronger and faster, through his ability lied more in strategy and fighting skills than brute force, where was I again?".

"Krypton's destruction".

"Ah, yes, since there were clearly more powerful and resistant Kryptonians than me it would be natural to ask how did they die, the explosion of a planet shouldn't be any problem to the older Kryptonians, right?".

"Well, not on Krypton's case, Krypton itself had absorbed Rao's radiation for thousands of Krytoz, this radiation settled in the planet's molten core creating a dangerous substance, a substance that sometimes traveled up to Krypton's surface by being squeezed out, solidifying and creating a rock that we nominated Kryptonite".

"What is it and what does this thing do?". Carol asked curiously.

"A poison, Kryptonite has the ability to destroy Kryptonian cells, if the rock somehow made contact with our skin we would burn from inside out, the pain would be agonizing and if exposed by a sufficient amount of time, only ashes would remain".