Lockhart of The Kaleidoscope

[Nick Fury's POV]

There were few things in this world that could surprise me anymore. I've seen gods walk among us, alien armies tear through our skies, and artificial intelligence nearly bring humanity to its knees. But when the portal ripped open above the Helicarrier that day, I'll admit—I was caught off guard.

This is S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters. We'd invested billions in cutting-edge defense systems. Tony Stark, Reed Richards, and Doctor Strange had all pitched in—science and magic, working in perfect harmony to ensure nothing could breach our defenses. Yet there it was—a swirling vortex in the sky, pulsing with a kind of energy that no one on board had expected.

"Director, we've got an anomaly above!" an agent's voice crackled through the comm.

"I can see that," I muttered, my eye narrowing as I stared up at the portal from the command deck. It was unlike any I'd seen before—no signature, no warning, just there. And then, out of it, something began to drop.

No, multiple things.

A massive serpentine creature, easily as large as one of Stark's jets, hurtled down from the portal. Its scales gleamed in the sunlight, its eyes glowing with an ominous, unnatural light. A single glance told me this was no ordinary snake—it was magical. Clearly.

Next came a body—a teenager by the looks of him, unconscious and limp, free-falling through the air. He looked about Spider-Man's age, though I couldn't tell much more from that distance.

Then, there was another figure, semi-conscious, his robes billowing in the wind. He looked out of place, like a magician who had lost his way through time. And if that wasn't enough, two hulking robots, severely damaged, plummeted after them.

My instincts kicked in. I didn't care where they'd come from or what they were doing here—if I didn't act fast, they'd be dead before I got any answers.

"Deploy! Get a containment team ready!" I barked, already moving toward the observation deck. "We need that snake neutralized, and I want eyes on the humans. Now!"

The crew scrambled to action. But even as we prepared, that damn snake landed first.

It struck the deck with a force that shook the entire Helicarrier.it was no ordinary snake. Its body coiled and uncoiled with menacing grace, and its eyes glowed with malevolent intent. I saw its fangs glisten as it turned toward the semi-conscious man in the old-fashioned clothes. The snake reared back, ready to strike.

I gave the order without hesitation.

"Surround it! Neutralize the threat! Save the man!"

Agents poured onto the deck, weapons trained on the basilisk. They moved fast, but before a single shot could be fired, the first five men dropped to the ground, unconscious, their weapons clattering uselessly beside them. I cursed under my breath.

Then, the robed man screamed before collapsing.

"Don't look into its eyes! It'll kill you!" he shouted, then immediately fainted.

I clenched my jaw. I'd seen plenty of things in my day, but a snake whose gaze could kill? That was a new one.

"Damn it!" I cursed, rushing to the comms. "Get Doctor Strange here, now! I want every available hero on deck!"

The only problem? The only team on the Helicarrier at that moment was Spider-Man's squad, and they were just a bunch of teenagers—in high school, inexperienced, and far from ready to take on something of this magnitude.

But they were all I had.

"Spider-Man, get your team up here!" I shouted into the comm. "We've got a situation—giant magical snake, kills with a glance."

"What?!" Peter's voice crackled back, a mix of excitement and panic. "We're on it, Fury!"

Within seconds, they were on deck. Spider-Man, White Tiger, Iron Fist, Nova, and Power Man. I had to hand it to them—they didn't hesitate. Spider-Man fired his webs at the beast, trying to restrain it, while Iron Fist leaped into action, his glowing fist aimed at the serpent's body.

"Don't look at its eyes!" I reminded them over the comms.

They were fast, and agile. Spider-Man's webs were everywhere, trying to pin the creature down. White Tiger darted in and out, slashing at its scales, while Nova fired blasts of energy at its head, forcing it to keep its eyes away from the team. But even after all that there was not a single scratch on that thing.

It was Power Man who made the first mistake.

He charged forward, fists raised, confident in his invulnerable skin.

"I've got this!" he shouted, leaping toward the basilisk.

And then the snake's fangs sank into his arm.

For a moment, everything went silent. Power Man's skin was supposed to be nearly impenetrable, but the basilisk's fangs pierced through, and his eyes went wide with shock. He staggered back, his arm limp at his side.

"Power Man, get out of there!" Spider-Man's voice cracked with panic as he fired a web, yanking Power Man back just in time before the basilisk could completely devour his arm.

But the damage was done. Power Man collapsed, his face pale, his breathing shallow.

"Damn it!" I growled. "Strange, where the hell are you?"

Just when I thought the team lost, the air shifted. A sudden burst of magic lit up the deck, and in a swirl of orange sparks, Doctor Strange materialized beside me.

"Looks like I got here just in time," he said, surveying the situation.

"The snake," I snapped. "It's magic. It's killing my men. Power Man's down, and I need it neutralized—now."

Strange nodded, his hands already moving in intricate patterns, casting a spell I recognized all too well. The Mirror Dimension shimmered into existence around the basilisk, and within moments, the snake disappeared, trapped inside.

"Power Man's been bitten," I said. "He's dying. Fix it."

Strange knelt beside Power Man, his hands glowing with mystic energy. "The serpent's venom is powerful. It's attacking his system, bypassing even his invulnerability."

"Can you save him?"

Strange didn't answer immediately. His hands hovered over Power Man, magic pulsing from his fingertips. After a few tense moments, the glow around Power Man's body dimmed. His breathing steadied, but he didn't wake up.

"I've frozen the venom," Strange finally said. "It's a temporary solution, but it's all I can do for now. He'll need further treatment, but at least he's stable."

I exhaled, the tension in my shoulders easing just slightly. 

As the deck cleared and the immediate threat was dealt with, I turned to two men who brought this problem to me, still unconscious on the ground.

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With the basilisk safely trapped away in the Mirror Dimension by Doctor Strange, I finally had a moment to take stock of what remained on the deck. The teen and man lay unconscious, the latter still in his old-fashioned clothes, while the former, a kid barely Spider-Man's age, looked like he'd been through hell. But it wasn't them that held my attention. Not right now.

It was the robots.

Two massive, damaged hulking figures, lying motionless on the deck, their metallic frames battered and cracked. Their unresponsiveness was concerning, but not nearly as concerning as the technology that my agents were starting to recognize.

"Director, what should we do with the machines?" Agent Hill's voice cut through my thoughts.

"Take them down to the lab," I ordered, keeping my voice calm despite the mounting frustration bubbling beneath the surface. "Get a full examination going. I want to know everything—where they came from, what they're made of, and who sent them."

A few agents rushed forward, securing the robots with magnetic restraints before lifting them off the deck. I followed them, my eye fixed on the cracked shells of the machines. Something about them… it was familiar.

As the agents worked to haul the machines inside, I moved to the control room, giving orders through the comm.

"Run a full scan on their systems. I want these things dormant until we know exactly what we're dealing with."

It didn't take long before the team had the robots strapped down in one of the Helicarrier's reinforced labs. My scientists got to work immediately, but it wasn't long before the first wave of confusion rolled through the room. I watched through the observation window as they worked, their faces slowly twisting into frustration.

A few hours later, Agent Hill returned to brief me.

"We've run every diagnostic tool we have," she began. "And we've hit a wall. The tech in these things—there's something strange about it. Our guess is there is magic in them. Our tech alone won't crack it."

I narrowed my eye at the mention of magic. This whole day had been one unexpected magical complication after another. And now, even these robots had some form of magic interwoven with their tech. Magic and technology combined in a way that wasn't easily dissected. That was bad enough, but Hill's next words confirmed my worst suspicions.

"We did, however, manage to identify some of the tech signatures," she said, her voice lowering slightly. "We're seeing traces of Sentinel tech."

I froze. Sentinels. That ticked me off more than anything else that had happened today.

"Trask," I muttered under my breath.

That piece of garbage had created the Sentinels—a race of robots designed to hunt mutants. In my experience, they were almost always bad news. Supervillains had used them over the years, manipulating them for their own ends, and I'd lost plenty of good agents dealing with those tin cans.

I turned away from the observation window, my mind racing. Sentinels? I thought we'd neutralized most of them. There hadn't been any major activity from Trask in years, at least none that we hadn't anticipated. But if there were Sentinels showing up on the Helicarrier now, I had a bigger problem on my hands than just a rogue snake and two unconscious sorcerers.

"Tell me more," I said, my tone hard.

Hill straightened her shoulders. "These Sentinels are unlike anything we've seen before. They're more advanced, faster, and more durable. If we didn't know better, we'd think these machines were a century ahead of their time."

I frowned.

" There are components in them that don't align with the current Sentinel models we've encountered. They have technology that's simply not available—yet. Whoever sent them or built them… they're way ahead of anything we've seen."

I mulled over the information. It wasn't like this was the first time SHIELD had come across some technology that appeared way ahead of its time, but this was different. Sentinels were dangerous enough in the present, then it wasn't just SHIELD that was in trouble—it was everyone.

Still, there was something concerning.

These Sentinels were damaged. Severely. And the damage wasn't from us.

They had access to advanced, possibly Sentinels, and they were clearly tied to something magical. But the bigger question was: who were they?

Were those two and these Sentinels working together? 

I stood by the observation window, watching as the team worked on the machines. Those two were still unconscious, so no answers were coming from them anytime soon. But what I knew for sure was this: someone had deployed these Sentinels. Someone had magical control over them. And that same someone had failed to stop a basilisk from nearly killing one of their own.

"Who's in control of these robots?" I asked, more to myself than Hill.

She shook her head. "We're not sure yet, sir. Whoever these people are, they might be just as much victims as anyone else."

I wasn't convinced. "Or they might be the reason my agents are dead. We can't rule out the possibility that they're working with the Sentinels."

Hill looked uneasy. "It's possible, sir, but… this level of tech? It's not something supervillains have been sitting on. If they had this kind of power, we would've seen them make a move by now. This kind of advancement doesn't just pop up out of nowhere."

She was right. Supervillains are opportunistic—they don't wait around when they have power. They use it. The fact that these Sentinels showed up only now, in this advanced form, suggested that this wasn't local. This wasn't someone we'd been tracking.

They'd come from somewhere else.

"Time travel," I said, pacing the length of the room. "It's got to be time travel. We've seen enough of it to know when someone's bending the timeline."

Hill nodded, clearly considering the possibility. "That makes sense. But why now? Why here?"

I stopped pacing and stared back at the damaged Sentinels through the observation window. "That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?"

If these Sentinels were from the future, then whoever sent them either didn't want to be found or hadn't planned on being discovered. Either way, they'd left two of their own in a very bad situation. Whether these people were heroes or villains was yet to be determined. But one thing was clear: they were dangerous.

"We need more answers," I said, my voice low but firm. "Keep working on those Sentinels. I want every detail—what's powering them, what they're made of, and how the magic is integrated."

Hill nodded. "And what about the two unconscious men?"

"They stay in containment until we figure out where they stand," I said. "I don't care if they're unconscious for a day or a week. When they wake up, I want to know who they are, why they're here, and what the hell they're planning."

As I walked out of the lab, the weight of the situation settled heavier on my shoulders. Sentinels, time travel, magic—none of it added up. But I had a sinking feeling that this was just the beginning of something much bigger. Something that would make the events of today seem like a walk in the park.