Yelena Belova, leader of Camelot's Veiled Hand, stretched and let out a satisfied sigh as she watched the news across the dozens of screens covering the wall in front of her.
It had taken a whole lot of work—and all on very little time—to arrange this. Secretly getting control of hundreds of news stations across the world. By hook or by crook, they claimed them, because Yelena knew the power of public perspective.
And with a near-unlimited budget and a whole nation to support their efforts, it wasn't hard.
No—what was hard was making sure they could record the events and continue to broadcast them worldwide.
After all, a lot of people had a vested interest in not showing what was happening, either out of fear or out of hunger for control. Someone out there wanted to decide what people learned. And it was her job—along with her sisters—to make sure everyone saw their king's actions.
It was high time the world realized just how kind she was.
The one who had saved them all from the Red Room.
Yelena knew that after Natasha's escape, Dreykov had been working on full-on mind control. Had Arthuria not thought of them—had she not sent her Knights to save them—Yelena didn't even want to imagine their fate.
So many of the younger ones would long since have died in the brutal training. Many of the older ones would have died on missions.
Countless bad fates awaited them.
But all of it changed thanks to their king.
Not only had they been saved—the harm the Red Room had done to them had been fixed. Their fertility restored. Their wombs regrown by magic.
All that the Red Room had taken from them, save their innocence and their childhoods.
Still… even that was given back to the youngest ones.
Yelena knew them all by name. She knew their dreams. And she was so happy for them—because they had so many different dreams, because they weren't chained to the work the Red Room would have forced them to do.
Arthuria had done so much for them. So Yelena wanted to repay that favor, even if she knew she never could.
Still, that didn't stop her and the others from working hard—both to repay what they owed and to ensure the world was a better place. Focused around Albion, yes, but also dealing with threats beyond it.
And damn, were there a lot of things to juggle.
Because it wasn't only aliens.
Arthuria kept dealing with Magneto—kept bringing mutants into her borders—and she also kept doing things that made her countless enemies.
Just her economic policies alone had the old elite up in arms, gathering in secret and plotting ways to bring Albion down.
To say nothing of foreign powers who wanted to see Albion fail.
"Aliens, huh? Hard to believe, isn't it?" one of the other Widows finally said as they all watched the footage.
"Well, it isn't like we haven't known about aliens for a while now," Ana replied. "We had Thor walk around in Camelot for months."
"Well, yes, but he looks so human. These are different," another one chimed in.
"True," someone quipped. "The Asgardians all look like us. Only their sense of fashion really sets them apart—like Loki and that horned helm of his."
"Don't forget about the Skrulls," someone else added. "Those don't look human."
"They look like a human most of the time," another Widow muttered. "Honestly, I'm still worried there might be more sneaking around in Albion."
Even Yelena couldn't help but sigh at the mention of Skrulls.
Of all the headaches they had to deal with, those damned shapeshifting aliens were the worst.
There were mutant shapeshifters, and even some of the Wakandans had tech that could mimic faces and voices. But compared to the Skrulls, even Mystique was a complete amateur.
Even more troubling was the fact that they didn't know what the Skrulls were after.
The only reason they even caught one was because Arthuria randomly told them to arrest some random man.
There had been nothing suspicious about him. Yet they did it.
And they had him in custody for three months, during which they tried everything to figure out why the king herself had ordered his capture—yet nothing showed anything.
No tests, no interrogation, nothing revealed anything.
In the end, Yelena had to seek help from the king herself. Arthuria used her magic to force the man back into his original appearance and told them what he truly was.
If not for that, it would have been all but impossible to see through. Even DNA testing showed nothing wrong. Only cutting off entire body parts would prove what they were, because the disconnected parts would revert.
But that wasn't something they could just do to test people.
Even Mystique could be flagged—at least an activated X-gene could show up in samples. It wouldn't expose her completely, but it would tell you what you were dealing with.
For the Skrulls? Nothing like that.
Only dismemberment revealed the truth.
They really were the perfect spies.
And despite having tried to crack this one for over a year—using every method and torture they could think of—he still wouldn't break.
Which meant he was hiding something big.
And all Arthuria had said was that he was lying when he claimed to be working for Fury of SHIELD.
Aliens… they really were troublesome.
"All right," Yelena cut in at last, arms folded. "Enough talking about how hot Thor is."
A few of her Widows smirked.
"Instead, we focus on getting some of this Chitauri tech," Yelena continued. "It's going to reshape the future—and even if the king doesn't care for technology, we can't afford to fall behind."
Her Widows straightened, eyes sharpening.
"Recover the weapons," Yelena said. "Secure the armor. Track every drop of their blood and every scrap of metal. I want cargo crates filled and ready within the hour."
-----
The bells of Saint-Jean Cathedral had not stopped tolling since dawn.
Sœur Laure sat alone in the convent's small communal TV room, hands clasped tight around a wooden rosary. The screen before her flickered with scenes from New York—smoke, ruin, fire, alien corpses strewn across streets that looked like war zones.
She had seen horrors before.
She had walked the burning streets of Lyon.
She had heard demons shriek in human tongues.
But this…
This was different.
"These are not demons," she whispered to herself.
Her voice trembled. "Nor are they angels."
The alien—Chitauri, the presenters called them—looked like something caught halfway between a corpse and a nightmare. And the great serpentine leviathans that crashed through buildings like divine judgment…
She prayed under her breath.
Deliver us from evil…
But the evil did not come alone.
It came with gods.
Across the world, every news station carried the same footage: Arthuria Pendragon standing among rubble like a figure painted onto stained glass; Loki Odinson at her side, regal and sharp as a blade; the Avengers surrounding them like apostles of war.
Sœur Laure had seen Arthuria before. Had fought beside her. Had watched her walk through fire to save children who were not her own.
But watching her now—radiant, commanding, terrifyingly calm—felt profoundly different.
"King Arthuria… Pendragon…" the anchor murmured reverently, as if even he did not know whether to speak her name or pray it.
Laure's fingers tightened on her rosary.
What are you, she thought—not in fear, but in the trembling awe she had once reserved for saints.
The reporter—a young blonde woman introducing herself as Amy Hardy—spoke rapidly:
"—and the King has confirmed that the U.S. military attempted to launch a nuclear strike on New York—"
Laure covered her mouth.
A nuclear weapon.
Against their own city.
Against their own people.
"Mon Dieu…" she whispered.
And then Arthuria's voice filled the world.
Calm.
Measured.
Yet heavy with judgment—the kind Laure associated only with scripture, with wrath and reckoning.
"Much has been lost… but it is only thanks to Tony Stark that this city still stands…
These heroes risked their lives to save not just this city, but this world.
They are Earth's mightiest heroes."
Laure felt tears prick her eyes.
Not because of fear.
Because she had never seen real leaders speak with such clarity, such uncompromising force.
She still remembered how the French leaders had acted when demons burned half of Lyon—how they used tragedy to further their own ends, how little help they offered their own people.
Arthuria appeared radiant beside them.
She who cared for her people.
She who snuck into France to slay evil in secret, seeking no honor and no reward.
Once more, she went to a land far from her own to protect people not her own—and what did the leaders of that place do?
They tried to kill their own people.
Tried to kill those fighting to protect Earth.
And it seemed to be their arrogance that had caused it all.
Sœur Laure felt her stomach twist with something sharp, something bitter—a grief she was not accustomed to.
Not for the dead.
Not for the wounded.
But for the world.
"What are we becoming…?" she whispered.
A leviathan corpse was shown being dragged across a Manhattan street, its armor cracked open like a fallen idol. Firefighters and soldiers—human beings—picked their way through debris that looked like the ruins of Sodom.
The commentator kept repeating: confirmed extraterrestrial, first verified alien invasion, global state of emergency.
Laure clutched her rosary tighter.
If demons existed, and aliens existed, and Asgardians walked in the shape of men and women—
Then what of heaven?
What of God?
Arthuria had claimed the Holy Grail was real. She didn't dismiss belief in God in her realm. If anything, the world only grew stranger in ways that suggested the divine truly existed.
Yet if that was the case…
Where was He?
Why did He allow so many to suffer?
Laure squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the thought down.
Such thoughts were dangerous.
The Church taught that doubt was a test, not a sin—but this felt like more than doubt.
It felt like the ground beneath her beliefs shifting.
She forced herself to breathe.
In, out.
In, out.
On the television, Arthuria's image shifted as she spoke to the reporter—confident in a way Laure had only seen in illuminated manuscripts, saints standing undaunted before beasts and tyrants.
Laure swallowed.
"God is still here," she whispered, half to herself, half to the empty room. "He must be."
But her voice lacked its usual certainty.
Because if God was here… how could He allow a mortal king and a foreign god to display a power—and a righteousness—His own earthly shepherds had lacked for so long?
"Perhaps…" she whispered, heart hammering, "perhaps God works through her."
(End of chapter)
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