Weightlessness.
No—worse than weightlessness.
It was the sensation of being forcibly ripped out of reality itself.
Carol felt like a stone snapped from a slingshot, launched in 0.01 seconds. Everything around her dissolved into blurred, infinitely stretched streaks of light. Wind was no longer wind—it was a solid wall hard enough to tear steel apart, crushing her body from every direction. Her instincts triggered instantly, cosmic energy forming a protective barrier around her, yet even so, the sheer acceleration wiped her mind blank. She couldn't even scream.
Reflexively, she looked at the man gripping her arm.
And then she saw a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life.
Levi's expression was calm—so calm it was almost absurd. As if he were taking a leisurely walk through his own backyard. The hem of his coat didn't even flutter. The storm capable of shredding everything in its path might as well not exist for him at all.
Unlike her, he didn't cloak himself in blazing energy armor.
He simply stood there—or rather, hovered—surrounded by a nearly invisible force field, rippling faintly like water disturbed by a pebble. Every gale, every ounce of resistance, every terrifying spike of acceleration slid off that thin layer as though striking a perfectly smooth mirror, diverted effortlessly to either side.
Efficient.
Precise.
Not a single fraction of power wasted.
This wasn't flight.
This was open contempt for the laws of physics.
At last, Carol understood what he had meant earlier. Her own way of flying—raw energy, brute force, sheer momentum—really was like a three-year-old swinging a siege hammer.
And this man?
He was a grandmaster carving an entire masterpiece onto a grain of rice with a scalpel.
They wielded the same power, yet existed on completely different planes of mastery.
"W–where are we going…?" Carol finally managed to force the words out, her voice barely surviving the thunder of sonic booms.
"Somewhere quiet," Levi replied calmly. "No interruptions."
His voice reached her ears as clearly as if they were chatting in a silent café, not tearing through the stratosphere at several times the speed of sound.
He even had time to glance down and smile at her.
"Relax, Carol. You need to learn how to trust people—especially… your own kind."
She fell silent.
The word kind struck something deep inside her, like a key turning in a long-sealed lock. Fragments of memories surfaced again—ones she had just glimpsed earlier. The man with bone claws. The man with a shield.
She could feel it now: those memories were saturated with something powerful.
Trust.
Maybe… just maybe… she could try believing him. Just once.
She didn't know how much time passed before the tearing sensation finally vanished.
Levi carried her down as gently as a drifting feather, landing on an endless white plain. The ground beneath them was cracked, dried salt flats, glowing faintly under the moonlight. There was nothing—no plants, no people, no sound. Just dead silence.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Carol tore herself free and leapt back over ten meters, instantly assuming a combat stance.
Levi didn't seem bothered in the slightest. He casually brushed nonexistent dust from his coat and looked at her with ease.
"All right," he said. "Now we can talk. Fury's people will need at least a few hours to find this place. We've got time."
"Who are you?" Carol demanded hoarsely. "Why do you have the same power as me? And why can I see things from inside your head?!"
Her questions spilled out in a rush. Golden light flickered around her fists in sync with her unstable emotions.
"First question—my name is Levi," he said calmly, like a professor explaining a difficult concept. "You can think of me as someone who encountered this power a little earlier than you did."
"As for the second and third questions," he continued, pointing at his chest, then at hers, "the answer is the same."
"Our power comes from the same source. Six years ago, at the Pegasus Project base—the light-speed engine. You absorbed its core energy during the explosion. I absorbed what leaked out."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"We're like two people struck by the same lightning bolt. That's why our powers resonate. And why our consciousnesses share a faint connection. You can see my memories. I can feel your emotions."
He gave a faint smile.
"Seems fair, doesn't it?"
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation—one that neatly concealed the existence of the system.
Carol froze.
The worldview the Kree had drilled into her for six years began to crack. They had told her her power was a unique blessing—an honor bestowed by higher wisdom.
And now this man was telling her it wasn't a blessing at all.
Just an accident.
And she wasn't even the only "winner."
"That's… impossible," she protested instinctively. "My power was given to me by the Kree—"
"Given?" Levi laughed softly, as if she'd told a joke. "Carol, you really believe that?"
"They told you they saved you. Gave you a new life. Gave you this power. Sounds like a perfect fairy tale, right?"
He took a step closer, his gaze sharpening.
"Then tell me—before you became the Kree elite soldier 'Vers,' who were you? Where was your family? What did you like? What did you hate?"
He leaned in slightly.
"Do you even remember your own name?"
Each question struck like a hammer blow.
Carol's face drained of color.
Name.
Family.
Past.
They were words wrapped in thick fog. She knew something was there—but whenever she tried to reach for it, a force shoved her back, followed by splitting headaches and meaningless chaos.
"I… I don't remember…" she whispered. "The Supreme Intelligence said focusing on the present and future is a warrior's duty. The past… isn't important."
"Or is it that they don't allow you to think about it?" Levi's voice turned cold. "They stole the most important things from you—your memories, your life—and dressed you up in a false halo so you'd fight for them."
"They're not your saviors, Carol. They're thieves. Liars."
"No!" she screamed.
Her control shattered. Twin beams of golden energy erupted from her fists like heavy cannons, roaring straight toward Levi.
He didn't move.
Didn't even raise a hand.
The beams stopped less than a meter from his body, frozen as if striking an invisible wall. Then—under Carol's horrified gaze—the energy curved gently aside, tracing elegant arcs around him before streaking harmlessly into the distant sky.
"You see?" Levi said quietly, almost gently. "You can't even control your own power. It doesn't listen to you because it was never given to you."
"It was always yours."
"They just put a lock on it—and convinced you the lock was the source of the power."
Carol stared at her empty hands.
Then at the man standing before her, untouched, unruffled.
The last line of defense in her mind finally collapsed.
"I… what should I do?" she asked, her voice breaking like a lost child's.
Levi knew then—the moment had come.
"Remember," he said softly. "Don't fear the pain. Don't reject the fragments. They're not your enemies. They're parts of you."
"The more you run, the more chaotic they become. Accept them. Piece them together."
He extended his hand. A faint, exquisitely refined thread of cosmic energy flowed into her—not to attack, but to soothe, like cool water calming a raging current.
The pain eased.
Carol inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, no longer resisting.
She saw a runway.
A strange-looking aircraft.
A warm-smiling Black woman in a flight jacket.
A serious-looking white woman with glasses.
"Dr. Lawson…" the name slipped from her lips.
Then another.
"Maria…"
"Good," Levi's voice guided her gently. "Who is Maria? Where is she?"
"She's… my friend. My… family."
Her body trembled as more memories surfaced—karaoke nights in a bar, repairing planes together, a little girl laughing…
"We're in… Louisiana."
Her eyes flew open, now burning with something new.
Hope.
"I remember an address," she said urgently. "A house near an Air Force base."
She looked at Levi.
This time, most of the suspicion was gone—replaced by something complicated. Gratitude. Dependence. And trust.
"Can you take me there?"
Levi smiled.
He'd been waiting for that.
"Of course," he said. "That's your first step home."
He held out his hand again.
This time, Carol hesitated only briefly—then took it herself.
Golden light flared.
They shot skyward, carving a brilliant streak across the night above the salt flats, racing southeast toward the place where her past awaited.
---
Nearly an hour later, black Chevy Suburbans finally arrived.
Nick Fury stepped out, staring at the empty salt plain—only two shallow craters left behind.
His face darkened like a storm cloud.
"Coulson."
"Yes, sir."
"Get me the Pentagon. Top priority." Fury slid on his sunglasses, voice icy. "I want authorization to access the orbital kinetic weapon system."
"Sir—that's only theoretical—"
"Not anymore," Fury cut in, glancing up at the empty stars. "We've got visitors."
"And more than one."
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