Chapter 159

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"I wanted to ask you the same question."

"How is it possible that so many Skrulls are hiding on Earth and you knew nothing about it?"

Tony Stark's voice rose as he stared intently at Nick Fury and asked in a deep tone.

Even as Iron Man, the truth about the number of Skrulls on Earth caught him completely off guard.

The number was terrifyingly high.

"Stark, what exactly is going on? Tell me."

Nick Fury was not in the mood for any verbal sparring with Tony.

Instead, with a grave expression, he urged Iron Man to explain.

Tony knew the situation was serious and without further ado began discussing the matter with Nick Fury.

"Up until ten days ago, I thought the Skrulls hiding on Earth were limited to the few hundred that I found."

"Of course, that wasn't all of them, but after six months, I've only managed to find a few hundred. Even if there were some I couldn't find, how many could there be?"

"Yet, ten days ago, I inadvertently discovered a Skrull heading to a strange location."

"Jarvis!"

With a command from Tony, Jarvis projected the corresponding footage in front of Nick Fury.

"Looks familiar? This place."

Tony Stark, with his arms crossed and a confident look, glanced at Nick Fury.

He was certain that Nick Fury, with his experience, would recognize the place in the video.

"This is..."

As expected, upon a quick glance, Nick Fury immediately realized what it was.

And because of this realization, his face revealed an incredible look of disbelief.

"That's right, that's the nuclear power plant which was abandoned due to the nuclear leakage incident!"

Tony provided a very definite answer.

"After the incident, this place was turned into a restricted zone. Naturally, even if it hadn't been declared off-limits, no one would dare to go near it."

"That's why I found it strange, what was this guy doing in a radioactive zone."

"So I decided to keep a close watch on this fellow. You guess what I found?"

"The radiation, it seems to have no effect on him at all!"

As Tony continued his briefing, Nick Fury's expression became increasingly grave.

And given Tony's account, how could Nick Fury, with his intellect, not understand what was happening?

The Skrulls were hiding in radioactive zones!

They had not all integrated into society!

"How many Skrulls are hiding in there?"

After pondering for a moment, Nick Fury finally spoke up, asking Tony.

"This place is hiding about five thousand people, but..."

As Tony was speaking, Jarvis timely projected other locations as well.

Without exception.

All those places were abandoned nuclear power stations or nuclear facilities that had experienced leaks.

In a word, all were areas of radiation and off-limits to humans.

The truth was out!

At that moment, the truth finally became clear.

Nick Fury understood why Earth could suddenly have hundreds of thousands of inhabitants go unnoticed.

Indeed, who would pay attention to nuclear radiation zones?

Who would think that someone was hiding there?

But to his astonishment, Skrulls were apparently immune to nuclear radiation!

"Have you reached the same conclusion?"

Tony saw Nick Fury's expression and knew that Nick Fury had also grasped the crucial issue that worried Tony so much.

Initially, after learning of the Skrulls' abilities from a diary, Iron Man thought that at worst, the secret invasion would just result in the replacement of the leadership with Skrulls ruling humans unknowingly.

But now, Tony realized how naive he had been.

The Skrulls' threat was far bigger than he had imagined.

They were truly capable of destroying all humanity.

"When exactly, when did it happen?"

Nick Fury's brow furrowed deeply, struggling to accept the situation.

When had hundreds of thousands of Skrulls infiltrated Earth?

How had such a large number of Skrulls evaded detection, given that Nick Fury was completely unaware of them?

Without a meticulously planned execution and coordination, Nick Fury would not believe it.

"Is anyone related to this matter in those documents I gave you?"

"Who is the Skrull that went to the nuclear zone?"

"Is Talos involved?"

After some contemplation, Nick Fury questioned Tony with a series of extremely critical queries.

"From what I've observed, Talos seems to be unrelated, but that's only up until now."

"But there is one individual I am certain is inextricably linked to all this."

Tony indicated a specific Skrull in the documents with his finger.

Nick Fury glanced at it with his one good eye and couldn't help feeling surprised.

G'iah? Why was it him?

Frankly, this answer was truly beyond Nick Fury's expectations.

He had just suspected everyone associated with Talos thoroughly.

G'iah had been near the bottom of his suspect list, even lower than Talos.

The reason was simple.

G'iah had been working with Nick Fury since he was a child and should have been most influenced by Earth.

Moreover, G'iah's impression on Nick Fury was of someone very loyal, someone who had been successfully 'brainwashed' by Nick Fury.

Who could have guessed that it was G'iah who was the mastermind?

"It appears that this person is the leader of those Skrulls."

"And aside from him, the others don't seem to be aware of this fact."

Tony's voice once again reached Fury's ears, providing more detailed information.

"G'iah, I really didn't see that coming."

Nick Fury stared at G'iah's image for a while, eventually sighing deeply.

"Is that all? I was expecting more to follow."

After seeing the marinated egg, Tony sighed and then fell silent, before he couldn't help but take the initiative to ask, "How do you plan to resolve this situation?"

Indeed.

How to resolve it?

Fury also felt a deep sense of headache.

Even with his level of skill, he couldn't come up with an effective solution right away.

No matter how you look at it, those were hundreds of thousands of Skrulls!

Or to put it another way.

That's hundreds of thousands of potential threats capable of freely changing their appearance, with physical qualities far surpassing humans, and possessing great danger!

Such a vast number made it impossible for Nick Fury to even know where to begin.

You can't just slaughter all these hundreds of thousands of Skrulls, right?

Zhou Cheng thought about it, but such an action was simply unrealistic from all angles and not feasible.

Moreover, if Fury did that, he would completely lose Captain Marvel's trust.

No, he would even become enemies with Captain Marvel, which would be an even greater loss.

"Do you have any ideas?"

After a moment of silence, Nick Fury turned his one-eyed gaze to Tony.

"I actually have some ideas."

Tony spoke as if it were a matter of course, "Didn't the diary say so? The reason for the Secret Invasion is because you treated the Skrulls as fools."

"You only painted them pie in the sky but never gave them any real benefits."

"So, my suggestion is to change this approach. Stop painting the pie."

Fury: "..."

That really had no counter!

"Stark, do you know what they want? They want a home!"

"How do you expect me to find them a home?" Nick Fury said confidently.

"If you can't do it, why make rash promises?" Tony retorted, visibly irritated, "The Secret Invasion was a consequence of your own actions!"

Iron Man was really convinced.

Because hoodwinking the Skrulls led to the Secret Invasion, because researching the Tesseract triggered the Battle of New York.

Isn't Nick Fury the biggest threat to Earth?

Hmm?

What's with that look?

Fury stared back unapologetically.

This guy also created the Age of Ultron, didn't he?

Let's not point fingers when we've all made mistakes!

"Nick, I have a question."

Turning away from his irritated gaze, Tony asked Fury seriously, "Although I don't know much about the Skrulls, according to the diary, their civilization is clearly much more advanced than Earth's."

"We also know that even though they were annihilated by the Kree, there are still hundreds of thousands of them."

"They can also secretly come to Earth from other planets without being detected by anyone, which shows they already have the capability for interstellar travel."

"So why don't they find a new home themselves?"

"And why do they place all their hope on the head of a lower-level civilization's agents?"

To be honest, that was Iron Man's biggest puzzle!

What a mess.

Earth hasn't even entered the interstellar age; we can't even freely go to the moon, and our exploration of outer space is almost nil.

And you expect them to find a new home?

That's just a joke.

Fury must have gone mad or something, actually daring to use that kind of baseless lie to fool people.

And the Skrulls actually believed it!

What kind of talent is that?

Could there be something here that I don't know?

Tony was truly bewildered.

Not just bewildered Tony, even Fury was left speechless by Tony's question for a moment.

Unable to answer Iron Man's question.

"Now is not the time to discuss these things, we need to discuss how to resolve the Secret Invasion," Fury said shaking his head, and once again spoke seriously to Tony.

"No, it's not about solving the Secret Invasion, it's about solving the Skrull problem."

"Those guys can't stay on Earth!" Tony corrected Fury's statement solemnly.

Regardless of the Secret Invasion, regardless of whether the Skrulls are planning to change Earth's ruling body, Earth is not their place to stay.

A complete expulsion is the real solution.

But as simple as that sounds, the key question is, how to do it?

Tony and Nick Fury both fell into deep thought.

And after a while, Tony indeed thought of an entry point.

"Fury, don't you have a pager?"

Tony said emphatically to Fury, "Isn't Captain Marvel a mix of interstellar space and an agent of the universal S.H.I.E.L.D., Sword Bureau? She should have a way, right?"

Fury's eyes suddenly lit up.

Tony's method was indeed a possible solution.

Or rather, it was the only method they could try at the moment.

Among all of Nick Fury's resources, the only person who might really find a suitable planet to bid farewell to those Skrull gods was Danvers.

Although Fury couldn't guarantee that Danvers could pull off such a feat, they had even less hope with anyone else.

Not only that.

These hundreds of thousands of Skrulls were indeed a huge threat to Earth.

Especially the future Secret Invasion, which is a global disaster.

So, it could be called an emergency, right?

After some thought, Fury finally made a decision.

Back in his office at the Tri-Wing Building, Nick Fury took out the pager he had always carried with him.

After staring at it intently for a few seconds, he hesitated no longer and pressed it.

The old-fashioned screen, with awful quality, immediately displayed nostalgic pixel patterns.

The signal was being sent.

This process continued for a while, then the screen went dim.

It was out of battery.

Fury casually put the pager away.

He had indeed sent the signal; whether Danvers received it, and when she would receive it, was not up to him to decide.

Nick Fury quickly returned to his routine work.

"Fury!"

Seven days later.

As Fury finished his day's work and was on his way home, passing through an intersection.

A voice suddenly rang out behind him.

It was both familiar and foreign at the same time.

Familiar because the voice felt unmistakably known to Fury.

Foreign because when Fury carefully distinguished it, he wasn't sure if what he heard was what he thought it was.

After all, it had been such a long time since he had last heard that voice, the memory of it had faded.

But that didn't matter, just the moment of familiarity was enough for Fury to make a judgement.

Indeed.

When Fury turned his head the next moment.

He saw a striking woman with long blonde hair, smiling at him from behind.

Who else but Danvers?

"It's been a long time, hasn't it? Danvers?" Fury asked as he sized up Captain Marvel, with a look of both emotion and amazement.

It had been so long, and yet Danvers hadn't changed at all!

Just the same as when she left.

And him?

He'd gone from a lively young man to a slightly overweight, worn-out middle-aged man.

"Actually, before I saw you, I hadn't noticed that fact," laughed Captain Marvel as she walked forward.

It wasn't that she was showing off; she was active in the interstellar space and didn't use Earth's calendar.

"What happened to your eye?" Captain Marvel glanced at Fury's one eye and curiously asked.

Their relationship was special, and they had fought together, so she spoke with much more ease.

Fury's lips twitched slightly.

"It's not a pleasant memory, better left unmentioned," Fury replied, waving off the topic. Then he invited Captain Marvel, "It's getting late. I suppose you've long forgotten what Earth's cuisine tastes like, huh?"

"That's true!" Captain Marvel laughed.

The two began to catch up, reminiscing while laughing as they made their way to a nearby restaurant.