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Fury was helpless. For years, Goose had been his secret weapon, a purring, unassuming alien of incomprehensible power, masquerading as a simple office cat. It was a perfect disguise. Now, this twelve-year-old girl had taken one look at it and blown its cover completely, summoning a cage of hellfire in the middle of his training room. The cat, as they say, was out of the bag.
"The Flerken," Hermione began, her lecture-mode switching back on, "is one of the most deceptively dangerous creatures in the known universe. On the outside, an adorable terrestrial feline. On the inside," she paused for dramatic effect, "is a pocket dimension of infinite size and a writhing mass of tentacles capable of swallowing and storing entire starships."
She looked pointedly at the stunned agents. "Usually, once it swallows you, the only way out is with something like… oh, say, a Cosmic Cube. Or if you're a master of spatial magic. Otherwise, you're just cat food. For eternity."
At the casual mention of the Cosmic Cube, Fury's heart skipped a beat. He shot a quick, sharp look at Hermione, but her expression was one of perfect innocence. He saw Coulson and the other senior agents in the room subtly stiffen. She knows, he thought, a cold dread mixing with his awe. She knows we have it.
Hermione, of course, saw their micro-expressions and filed the information away. She gently scooped up the purring orange cat.
"Now, now, let's have a look at you," she cooed, scratching Goose under the chin. As the Flerken closed its eyes and began to snore, a tiny, almost invisible needle pricked its skin for a fraction of a second, drawing a single, microscopic drop of blood before vanishing.
Flerken (Collected)
Gotcha, she thought, a triumphant smirk flashing across her face.
"You're… you're drawing its blood?" Fury asked, his voice tight with a new kind of terror. "Are you insane? What if it gets angry?"
"Research," Hermione said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She then held the purring cat up, pointing its face at a large, flat-screen monitor on the wall. "Alright, Goosey," she said cheerfully. "Show the nice Muggles the trick."
The next second, Goose's mouth unhinged. It opened wider, and wider, and wider, stretching in a physically impossible way until it was a gaping, bloody maw filled with a writhing, wriggling forest of pink, slimy tentacles. The tentacles shot out across the room, wrapped around the sixty-inch television, and violently yanked it into the cat's mouth with a crunch of plastic and glass. The mouth then snapped shut, and Goose was once again just a small, orange cat, licking his lips with a satisfied air.
The television was gone.
The agents stared, their faces pale, their professional composure completely shattered. They looked from the innocent-looking cat to their Director, their eyes filled with a new, profound, and deeply resentful terror. You let this THING wander the halls? their expressions screamed. It could have EATEN us!
"Director," Hermione said, her voice bright and cheerful. "Can I keep him? I'll waive my consultation fee for the next year."
Fury looked embarrassed. "Miss Granger, I… it's a highly dangerous alien organism…"
"No, it's not," she replied, her face a mask of stubborn innocence. "It's a cat."
"You just said it was a Devourer of Worlds…"
"It's an orange cat," she insisted.
"They all heard you!" Fury said, gesturing desperately at his agents for support.
Rumlow suddenly became fascinated by a scuff mark on his boot. Sitwell was intensely studying the ceiling tiles. Barton just gave a slow, deliberate shake of his head. They were not getting on the wrong side of the witch who could summon fire and the cat that could eat televisions.
Fury let out a long, slow sigh of utter, soul-crushing defeat. "Fine," he grumbled. "But you have to bring him back for visits."
"Of course," Hermione said. She placed Goose on her shoulder. "You'll be coming with me from now on, understood?"
"Meow," Goose replied, rubbing his face affectionately against her cheek, not even giving his former owner a backward glance.
My own cat, Fury thought, a feeling of profound, paternal betrayal washing over him. Stolen. By a child.
"Alright, class dismissed," Hermione announced. "Go read your textbooks."
As the agents scrambled out of the room, eager to get as far away from the Flerken as possible, Fury stopped her. "Consultant," he said, his voice now all business. "One more thing. I have an object I'd like you to identify."
Back in his office, Fury handed her a tablet displaying a series of high-resolution photographs. The object in the pictures was a piece of silver-gray metal, covered in strange, shifting geometric patterns. It radiated a sense of ancient, alien power, even through the screen.
Hermione recognized it instantly. The Obelisk. Oh, this is going to be fun.
"I know what this is," she said calmly. "But what does 'Item 084' mean?"
"It's our designation for an object of unknown origin," Fury explained. "Wait… you know what it is?"
She nodded. "Of course. It's an Inhuman Diviner. An Obelisk. What's it doing in your possession?"
Fury's mind raced. "Inhumans? Are they another magical race?"
Hermione looked at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock. "You… you don't know? You're the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the organization responsible for protecting this planet from unknown threats, and you don't know about the Inhumans?" She shook her head, a look of deep, profound disappointment on her face.
Fury's dark cheeks flushed. He had been embarrassed so many times today that he was almost becoming immune to it.
"Alas," Hermione sighed dramatically. "I'm beginning to think this 'partnership in justice' was a terrible mistake." She decided to take pity on him. "A long time ago, a nasty, blue-skinned alien race called the Kree came to Earth and did some… experiments on early humans. The Inhumans are the result. They are, to put it simply, a race of human-alien hybrids."
She paused. "Let me guess. Everyone who has touched this thing has turned to stone, right?"
Fury's one eye widened. "How did you know that?"
"Because," she explained, her tone that of a bored professor lecturing a particularly slow student, "that Obelisk is not just an object; it's a key. It contains Terrigen Crystals. Normal Inhumans are born without powers, just like you. But when they are exposed to the Terrigen Mist from this Diviner, they undergo a transformation, a metamorphosis that awakens their latent alien abilities. However, anyone without Inhuman genes who touches it… well, they turn to stone."
She shook her head again. "Honestly, it's better if you just keep it locked up. The Inhumans are an arrogant, secretive, and deeply dysfunctional society of fanatics. And their creators, the Kree… they're even worse. A whole empire of sanctimonious, blue-skinned idiots."
So that was it. The mystery that had plagued S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades, the reason for all the petrified bodies, explained in two minutes by a twelve-year-old. He also found himself agreeing with her assessment of the Kree; his own encounter with them over a decade ago had left a similarly sour taste in his mouth.
But then, a new, more important question occurred to him.
"Miss Granger," he asked, his voice low and intense. "How do you know so much about the Kree?"