12 years ago

I was given a small room in the soldiers' wing of Starforce HQ. I still had my backpack with my clothes when Jaa-Nus found me on Atera, so I neatly put them in the small dresser next to my desk and stood in front of the window. The view from up here was beautiful, I could see a big part of the capital. It was very different from what I was used to.

On Atera, the little houses we lived in stood far apart and only had two floors. They were painted in the most beautiful colors. Mine was blue. My father had painted it when I was little, but I still remember it.

He stood on a big ladder and I was afraid he was going to fall of, but he assured me he wouldn't. We got a lot of help painting it. Aterans were friendly people who were always prepared to help others, so many of our neighbors came with their own ladders and brushes. My mother and I and the wives and children of the men had so much fun cooking and baking food in our kitchen.

When the house was done at the end of the day, I stood in front of it with my dad and asked him: 'Why blue?'

'You will know when you ever fall in love', he said, smiling.

'I am never going to fall in love dad'

'Why not, honey?', he laughed, but did want to hear the answer.

'I don't want to get hurt', I answered honestly.

At that, he didn't smile anymore. Instead, he crouched down so he could look me in my eyes, and said:

'You will never know who is going to hurt you when you give them your heart, but remember: the good ones will never hurt you on purpose. They will protect you and fight for you, no matter what. But nobody can live without love. Whether that is the love of family, friends, or a lover. Without love, life has no purpose.'

I keep coming back to those words, they keep spinning in my head. It went against everything the Kree taught me, but I couldn't shake it. My dad was the smartest man I know, so was he lying?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't know how long I was in there killing those holo's, but it was a long time because I was really sweaty and exhausted from using my powers.

I was so concentrated on killing those damn things that I didn't notice more people coming into the training room and two coming closer. I was just aiming, throwing and destroying Skrull after Skrull. So to say I was startled when somebody suddenly yelled my name would be an understatement.

I didn't need to turn around to know who the voice belonged to. I could recognize it everywhere. He had some serious nerve bothering me during my training time. I wasn't on duty and he didn't talk to me otherwise, so it must be about a mission or assignment.

I was gravely pissed now and put my arms down, my powers dying out. Rolling my eyes, I turned around while I half-said, half-yelled 'What?!'.

He was standing there, looking just as pissed as I was, with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore his uniform, which meant he just got off duty or was about to start. But the tired look in his eyes told me it was the former.

Only then I noticed the woman standing next to him. She looked seriously scared but also impressed, she had probably seen me practice and I must admit, for an outsider it looked kind of cool.

She tried to hide her insecurity by faking confidence, but I could see right through her. She wasn't fooling me.

What was weird is that I had never seen her before in my life. She was in the Commander's wing, but I knew every potential candidate for Commander, which meant that she was not supposed to be here. The way she looked out her eyes told me that she also wasn't a Soldier, well at least not yet. She didn't hold herself the way I do, the way every Soldier does, with a straight back, chest out, chin up and an air of arrogance around.

She was fresh, which was weird at her age. She couldn't have been older than thirty, but on Hala, children start training to be a soldier when they were fifteen. This meant that she wasn't Kree. She was an outsider like me.

Yon-Rogg saw me looking at her and waited for me to ask who she was, but I wasn't gonna give him the satisfaction. So after a long, awkward silence with the woman feeling visibly more and more uncomfortable under my gaze, he rolled his eyes and said:

'This is Vers. Intelligence wants you to train her because your powers are similar to hers. She doesn't remember anything before last week, so show her around and explain the rules.'

He looked down at his arm, where his Com was and swiped around a little. Looking up, he added: 'I have transferred her data to your Com, read it through and ask Mommy if you have any more questions. Good luck.'

With that, he left. And it's a good thing he did, because I probably would have attacked him for that comment.

'Mommy?' Vers asked. It was the first time I heard her voice and I looked at her to see a small smile on her face and curiosity in her eyes. But she didn't say it mockingly, she wanted to know what he meant.

'Don't ask.' I told her a little rudely. I was still pissed off that I was interrupted and I just needed to take a shower to cool off.

Her smile disappeared at those two words, like she figured out that I was not in the mood.

I looked at my Com and read through her file. She got some weird energy powers from a dangerous energy source a week ago. The blast apparently almost killed her, but she somehow absorbed its powers. It didn't say where they found her or how they did, but that wasn't any of my business. I just needed to train her to control her powers, and if there was anyone who could to that, it was me.

I had guessed her age correctly. She was 28 according to the doctors that examined her, but that was not what surprised me. She was human.

I had never seen a human before. I had never been to earth and humans had no idea of alien life, so they also didn't come here. Which meant that they probably found her on her home planet.

Humans were a weak species, they didn't have any powerful mutations and they were driven by power and greed. But the amount of energy flowing through her body told me something else. This one wasn't weak. The energy should have killed her, but she somehow absorbed it and it didn't stop her heart, it bonded with her.

Great, a special one.

I could see her from the corner of my eye, studying me as I read her file, but she didn't say anything to me. Probably scared off by my attitude.

When I came to the bottom of the page, I groaned at what I saw.

'What's wrong?', she asked curiously.

Great, she didn't learn her lesson and opened her mouth anyway. Time for a little reminder.

In one quick motion, I grabbed the small knife I had in my pocket, took her right hand in my left one and cut her palm just deep enough to draw blood, but it was all I needed to confirm my suspicions.

She had had a successful blood transfusion. Her red blood couldn't contain the power inside her, so they put the blue Kree-blood in her body. The person whose blood ran through her veins now, I wanted to strangle five minutes ago. Amazing. Of course he jumped at the first opportunity to impress the Supreme Intelligence.

'What the hell?!', Vers said annoyed. I mean, she had every right to. I had just cut her, 'What was that for?!'.

'Just checkin'', I closed her hand so the bleeding would stop, but it seemed like I didn't need to because the wound closed before my very eyes. Man, I knew I healed fast but this was on a different level.

She looked like she wanted to say something more, but was cut off by her own surprise when she saw her skin healing itself. It wasn't only happiness and surprise I saw on her face, deep in her eyes was a lot of confusion, sadness and pain. She did her best at hiding it, but losing your memories, waking up on an unknown planet all alone and having new powers you don't understand took its toll on her.

She and I were probably more alike than I thought and that honestly scared me. Being the only one who had weird powers without any family could be lonely sometimes, but that way I didn't get distracted from my job.

And now here shows up this woman who is practically the same as me, alone, scared and confused, and my head screams for me to keep her away while my heart wants to help her, knowing how I felt years ago.

This is not a battle I want to fight right now, so without saying anything or waiting for her, I walk out of the training room. As expected, she almost runs after me, not wanting to be left alone in this enormous building.

'Wait! Where are you going?' She stops running when she is next to me, staring at me with those intense brown eyes of hers that seem to be taking in everything she sees.

'Your room is S-407, so I am showing you the way and then I will be having a nice shower before I show you around' I answer her flatly, not even glancing in her direction.

'Yes, well, you definitely need one', she says with a smile on her face that is also clearly audible in her voice.

I snap my head at her and for a moment I can see she is afraid I am gonna yell at her again, and I was going to, but her big smile is contagious and I can feel the corners of my mouth twitch with a smile, but hide it and quickly look forward again.

However, she definitely saw she had gotten through my wall for a minute and smiled an even bigger smile when her eyes turned away from my face and into the hallway in front of us, proud of herself for achieving that.

We walked quietly through the big building, but it wasn't awkward, it felt comfortable, like I didn't have to say anything. The Soldier's wing was all the way on the other side of the building and it was taking a long time to get there, but she never complained and I saw her absorb everything we passed by. The plaques and photo's on the wall, the occasional window that gave a nice view from the city, the people we passed on our way.

It was as if she saw it all for the first time, which I guess she did. She didn't say anything when I walked past the elevator and opened the door towards the stairwell. Climbing four floors was not going to be fun, but it could have been worse, she could have been on the tenth floor.

Just as the huge four on the wall, indicating that we were on that floor, came into view, she spoke up for the first time in twenty minutes.

'You have a name?' It sounded more sure, like she knew I wasn't gonna snap at her again, like she dared to ask more personal questions.

I was doubting whether to say it. It is not like she couldn't find out if she asked around. It wasn't about that. It was about whether I wanted to already give her something personal of myself. I decided that if we were going to work on her powers every day, she would have to trust me. So I chose to take a chance on her.

'Aayala', I answerd as I opened the door that lead into the forth floor hallway. Short and simple. 'But it is Commander Aayala for you', I added with a playful warning look in my eyes. This woman just made me want to smile, but I wasn't going to give her that satisfaction.

'Thank you, Commander' She said back to me, smiling, grateful that I wanted to share that with her. 'I am Vers, but you already knew that' I did. 'It sounds weird, like it is wrong, but I guess it's all I have', she said with a shrug. She acted like it didn't affect her, but I could see that it did when I looked at her.

I didn't know what to say to that. I cannot deal with emotions and don't know how to act around them, and lucky for me, I didn't have to, because we finally arrived at her door.

I turned around when I stood in front of it and looked at her left wrist, she luckily already had her own Com fitted to her arm, which spared me another trip with her down to the tech-department. Vers looked confused when she didn't see a lock on the door or anything else to put some sort of key in. Giving up, she looked at me with big question marks in her eyes.

'Give me your left arm', I said, nodding at it.

'Oh so now we are asking' She referred to my actions about half an hour ago when I just took her hand and cut it open without permission.

I didn't answer her, which visibly disappointed her, so she just presented me her left wrist with the Com on it.

I took her left hand, ignoring the little spark that came from her skin as I touched her, blaming her powers for it, and guided her hand with the Com to the doorframe on the left side of the door, swiping it across.

The door slid open quietly, presenting a small bedroom behind it. The Soldier's rooms were small and simple, with just a bed against the wall right next to the door, a nightstand, a desk, and a tiny bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet. It was everything you needed and it was neat and clean, it was just small. These rooms didn't have a kitchen. Every floor had their own cafeteria where they could eat and drink whenever they wanted to, but had to be shared with about two hundred other people.

The food wasn't bad though. The Kree needed their Soldiers to be fit and healthy, so a good meal was important.

I stepped out of the doorway to let Vers in. I leaned against the doorpost and watched her as she walked to the middle of the room, taking everything in.

'Cozy', she said sarcastically after a while, but with a smile.

'Yeah, well, get used to it, because this is what you get' She didn't look too happy, but she didn't complain and I could appreciate that. I hated people who complained all the time.

'Feel free to walk around a bit and get used to everything. I am gonna take a shower in my room and meet you at the front entrance in an hour'

I was about to walk away when I heard her voice again. 'The front entrance?'

Right. Of course she didn't know where that was. I turned back around.

'There is a map of the whole building in your Com', I pointed at her arm.

She looked at it for a second and then looked at me helplessly. 'Yeah no I have no idea how this thing works'

'Here let me show you' I walked into the room, or her room now, and stood beside her. 'Can you read the glyphs?', I asked.

'I can', this surprised me. She isn't Kree, she didn't know the language before she lost her memory, so they must have implanted it in her head somehow. As I looked at her face, I could see that she was just as surprised as I was. She didn't remember learning or studying the language, it came to her automatically, although it took a little longer.

'Just tap it once, it will power up for you', she did, cautiously, and indeed the menu came up, allowing her to choose from a lot of functions. 'Now look for the map, it should be somewhere in the beginning'

She carefully scrolled through the menu, looking for the glyph that indicated the map. 'This one?', she pointed at one.

'Yes that one. Now press it and look for the Starforce HQ map in the menu on the left' I watched as she did her best to decipher the markings, taking her time scrolling through the menu. Finally, she found it, pressing it like she did the first time.

But she wasn't prepared for the hologram that suddenly appeared above her Com, so she jumped back with a shriek when it popped up right in her face.

I laughed, I couldn't help it. Her face with that little shriek was way too funny. My laugh sounded weird and unnatural, but it felt too good to laugh again. It didn't last long though, because I quickly realized my mistake and put my guard back up.

Vers just looked at me as if she had seen a ghost. She isn't dumb, she read my character and knew that this wasn't something I did a lot. So she was stunned when she heard me laugh.

'Hey don't laugh at me! I didn't know that was gonna happen! You could have warned me you know?', her words were hard, but she couldn't keep a straight face, ruining the seriousness.

'Yes, but then I wouldn't have gotten to see the face you just made', I replied.

What was I doing? I can't crack jokes and laugh around with this woman. Emotions distract you. That was hammered into my brain every day I trained to be a soldier and it had proved me right every time. So I got rid of the small smile on my face and all emotion in my eyes, shifting the atmosphere in the room. It got awkward real fast.

Luckily, Vers sensed it too and put her attention back to the map of HQ that now hovered above her arm.

'The red dot is you, it will move if you walk, so you know where you are. The front entrance is here', I pointed to the gigantic doors that made up the main entrance of the building. It is where visitors and guests come in.

'Just follow the map until you get there. Shouldn't be too hard now. You can enlarge and zoom with your right hand, you will figure it out.'

And with that, I walked out of the room. No goodbyes, no looks and definitely no smiles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow this chapter is a little longer than I thought it was going to be, but I really like how it turned out.

Aayala is gonna try and keep Vers away, but will she succeed in that?

Don't worry, the story is going to speed up and there will be small time jumps to cover the six years until the events of Captain Marvel. I just want to take my time and built their relationship slowly.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if there are any mistakes.

(3291 words)