"Now. Tell me the identities and locations of all the Skrulls."
Hermione's voice was quiet. It didn't need to be loud. Talos's eyes went blank on the spot, like something had reached in and scooped out his soul.
"Betto, infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., senior agent..."
"Pagun, disguised as a university professor, teaching at NYU..."
"Karl, a doctor, works at a hospital in Los Angeles..."
He went through all of them. Every name, every cover, every location , spilling it all without a single pause, a puppet reciting lines someone else had written.
Beside them, Sitwell felt the cold crawl up his spine.
She could control minds?
He touched the metal bracer on his wrist, almost reflexively. Good thing he'd been smart enough to jump ship when he did. Otherwise he'd be the one standing there with that hollow look in his eyes, handing over every secret he'd ever kept.
Best decision of his life, tonight. He was more certain of that by the second.
...
Late night.
"Secretary Pierce's orders. We're taking the alien."
Heavy boots on concrete. Rumlow came down the corridor with a team of fully armed agents, heading straight for Talos's cell.
The guard on duty frowned. "Sir, I'll need to see the Secretary's written authorization."
Nobody had told him about any transfer.
"Of course. Just a second."
Rumlow made a show of patting his pockets, his eyes sliding sideways toward his men.
The guard never saw it coming. A few quick flashes of steel, and he was on the floor.
Inside the cell, Talos stared.
"What are you —"
Click. The door swung open.
And then their faces changed. Green skin. Pointed ears. Every one of them.
Skrulls.
"Talos. Let's move."
Rumlow , or whoever he actually was , didn't wait for a response.
Talos had a hundred questions. None of them could be answered here. He followed.
...
Half an hour later.
An abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city.
Talos pushed the door open and stopped dead.
The place was packed. Every Skrull he knew of on this planet, and then some , all of them here, all at once.
"How did you all ,"
He couldn't even finish the sentence.
From the crowd, a tall Skrull with a hard, cold face stepped forward.
"Talos." His voice was low. "Wasn't it you who bribed the guards? Who sent out the call?"
"I didn't. Why would you even think that?" Talos shook his head. He was genuinely lost.
He hadn't done any of it. He couldn't have. He'd been tied up and locked in a can , what exactly did they think he'd had to work with?
"Then who? You're the only one who knew you were captured. You're the only one who could have used our internal channels."
A pause. Something shifted in the other Skrull's expression.
"Did you tell Fury?" Gravik's voice went hard. "Did you tell a human about our communication network?"
"Talos, that channel is the most closely guarded secret we have. If you handed it to an Earthling ," He stepped closer. "We are cooperating with S.H.I.E.L.D. for now. But the day we move to take this planet, what you've done could destroy everything. Every plan. Every operation. Everything."
Talos stood there and took it. He felt utterly wronged and had no way to prove a thing.
"I did not tell Fury!" he said, louder than he meant to. "I'm telling you, I didn't do it!"
"Then who did?"
Gravik didn't believe him. The other Skrulls looked at each other, equally at a loss.
"I did."
A clear voice cut through the air.
The space rippled. Hermione materialized out of nothing, calm as if she'd been standing there the whole time.
"You!" Talos recognized her instantly. He couldn't have imagined this in a thousand years. "Why are you here?"
His voice was wary. He had no idea what was happening, and that made it worse.
Before Hermione could say a word, Gravik exploded.
"Talos!" He spun on him, pointing. "You said it wasn't you , and now this Earthling shows up knowing our exact time and location! You sold us out!"
He already had his weapon out, aimed at Hermione.
"Kill her!"
"Wait ,!"
Talos moved to stop him. "Her identity is complicated. Don't shoot yet, just restrain her ,"
Gravik wasn't listening.
"No!"
He roared it. "Anyone who sees this much doesn't walk away. I don't care who she is."
"Hah."
Hermione looked at the gun pointed at her face and laughed. Not a nervous laugh. A dismissive one, eyes full of something close to pity.
"Talos," she said, almost conversationally, "take a look at yourself. Your own people are running right over you and you haven't even noticed."
"Fire!" Gravik snarled. "Kill her now!"
She'd ignored him. This Earthling had stood there and ignored him to his face.
The guns went off all at once, a rapid cracking burst that rolled through the night air.
Every bullet hit the invisible barrier in front of her and dropped. Dull, flat thuds, one after another.
"One," Hermione murmured. "Two. Three..."
She wasn't even looking at them.
"Link established."
She raised her wand.
"Imperio!"
Every Skrull in the warehouse stopped moving. All at once. Their eyes went glassy and empty, the fight draining out of them in an instant.
Convenient, Hermione thought. Genuinely convenient.
The limitations were real, though. Number of simultaneous links, range, duration , all of it constrained. And it was burning through her mental reserves steadily, the whole time.
She looked out over the crowd of blank faces.
"Those who support Talos," she said, her voice carrying easily through the silence, "stand on the left. Those who support Gravik, stand on the right."
They moved like marionettes. Sorted themselves into two neat groups without a word.
"You — what did you —" Talos looked like his eyes were going to leave his head. "What did you just do?"
Hermione didn't look at him.
"Everyone," she said. "Kill each other."
A beat.
"Last one standing , kill yourself."
The sound hit Talos's skull like a bell.
And then it got worse. Because they listened. His people turned on each other, and they did it without hesitation, without recognition, without anything human left in their eyes.
Screams. The crash of weapons. Bodies hitting the floor.
The warehouse became a slaughterhouse in under a minute.
He tried to speak. Tried to shout, to move, to do anything. Nothing came out. He couldn't even make a sound.
He stood there and watched until the last one fell.
Then his hand came up, shaking, pointing at her.
"What did you do." His voice barely worked. "What did you do? Why are you even here?"
Hermione smiled.
"Me?"
She tilted her head.
"Wasn't it you who called them all here?"
"That's insane!" The words tore out of him. "You know that's insane!"
Hermione shook her head, almost gently. "It seems like you really can't remember."
She raised her wand. A subtle, invisible pressure rolled out from the tip and slipped into Talos's mind like smoke under a door.
His memories shifted. Loosened. Scenes rose to the surface one by one, things he had no memory of doing , playing out behind his eyes like footage from someone else's life.
➤ Next: Lockhart's Moment in the Spotlight
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