New York. Saint John's Parish School.
The school sat on the western edge of the famous Manhattan island, hugging the banks of the Hudson River — right in the heart of what the locals called Hell's Kitchen.
Manhattan's glamour was the stuff of legend, but Hell's Kitchen lived up to its name in all the worst ways. Walk down the narrow streets, push open the rusted iron gate, and the crumbling plaster walls and battered furniture inside made one thing perfectly clear: however prestigious the name "Saint John's Parish School" sounded, it didn't crack the top hundred in the city — let alone the country.
The only real selling point of this rundown place was cheap tuition. Every upside has its downside, though — cheap tuition meant an avalanche of theology classes, whether you liked it or not.
"You shall be steadfast, and shall not fear. You shall forget your suffering, and remember it no more than water that has passed. Even in darkness, you shall shine like the morning sun. Amen." The elderly instructor wrapped up the day's lesson in the same unhurried monotone he'd used for decades.
The students shot to their feet and droned their reply in long, drawn-out unison. "Amen..."
Only after the old teacher pushed open the door and shuffled off into the distance did the classroom shake off its stupor.
Warm sunlight filtered through the gaps in the windows. Students gathered in clusters of two and three, chatting about whatever topics teenagers chatter about — and in doing so, whether by choice or habit, they had effectively quarantined a corner in the southeast end of the room. There, silence reigned against the surrounding noise.
Flecks of light played across her flaxen hair. Her nose was high and straight, her features sculpted by her Chinese-American heritage that gave her face a striking, almost three-dimensional quality. But the most captivating thing about her was her eyes — wide, with the faintest upward tilt at the corners, and an amber tint to the irises that made you think of words like wild and proud.
"Skye! Come on, let's go eat!" Through a sea of cold stares, one energetic girl was the only one who called out to her with a genuine smile.
The mixed-heritage beauty let out a long-suffering sigh. "I've told you three times already — 'Skye' is just the name I made up to deal with those foster families and the government subsidy forms. I'm using my real name again. Daisy Johnson. Can you repeat that back to me? Go on."
Her roommate was used to being bossed around. She mumbled the name twice under her breath, only then earning her release.
Daisy was out of the classroom shortly after, heading for the school library. She needed its internet connection to look some things up.
Adjusting from the life of a male web novelist — a struggling one at that — to being a girl sitting in a church school classroom, mouthing along to hymns she didn't believe in, had taken a solid week to mentally process.
She remembered sorting through a mountain of American comic book research notes, lying down for a quick nap while her head was still spinning... and waking up here.
Everything required adjustment. Getting dressed, sleeping, language, eating — all of it had to be relearned from scratch. The silver lining was that her classmates had already decided to freeze her out, so even the occasional slip went unnoticed.
The three things a transmigrator needed to sort out first — time, place, and identity — were now confirmed.
Time: July 2006. Place: New York City, naturally.
Being reborn as a woman was a little embarrassing, admittedly. But she hadn't become a lizard. Or a tree. She hadn't been dropped into ancient history. All things considered, she could live with this. Except for one thing — this world was wrong.
This was a world with Captain America. With Stark Industries. A world with superhero blockbusters that bled into real life.
This was the Marvel universe.
The third item — identity — required the most investigation. They say thirty percent of your fate is written in the stars, seventy percent is earned through hard work, and somehow the other ninety percent comes from your parents. That saying held more truth in the Marvel universe than anywhere else.
A good bloodline mattered more than almost anything. At least for most people.
As a former web novelist who'd spent years drowning in Marvel research before dying with all that knowledge intact and waking up here, she had recognized immediately that this body likely carried the genetics for superpowers.
Daisy Johnson. Codename: Quake. The memories were crystal clear.
But was this body really that Daisy? She'd spent three days cross-referencing every scrap of evidence she could find — and proved it.
Her luck held. She turned up a yellowed sticky note tucked away somewhere, with her full name written plainly: Daisy Johnson. The previous owner of this body had rejected the name entirely, drifting through life under the nickname "Skye" — no surname, nothing. Just Skye.
Real name: Daisy. Former alias: Skye. Mixed heritage. Both biological parents still alive, but her current family status was filed as orphan. Cross-reference everything, and the conclusion was unavoidable.
She was Quake.
In a world as dangerous as the Marvel universe, the difference between having powers and not having them was the difference between two entirely different lives.
Her ability, however, wasn't triggered by age or emotion. It required an alien-tech artifact to unlock the relevant gene sequence.
Her bloodline traced back to the Kree Empire — one of the three great rogue empires of the cosmos. In the early wars, the Kree needed cannon fodder. They used gene-editing technology to modify a portion of humanity as a soldier supply. Those humans eventually broke free of their control and named themselves the Inhumans. Daisy's bloodline descended from them.
Normally, she was indistinguishable from an ordinary human. Only exposure to something called Terrigen Crystal could awaken her ability.
The crystal came from the Inhumans' city — Attilan, buried beneath the surface. And that city was, in all likelihood, on the far side of the Moon.
Lunar expedition. For Daisy, whose entire net worth was a grand total of $1,500 — that was an impossible mission. If she could casually fly to the Moon, she wouldn't need the crystal. She wouldn't need any of this.
Fortunately, there was a way out. One Terrigen Crystal had been left behind on Earth and had eventually ended up in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s possession.
The Moon versus S.H.I.E.L.D. Which was simpler? She was going with S.H.I.E.L.D.
Surrounded by danger at every turn, she needed power. So she swallowed her fear and started planning.
The previous Daisy had left behind no combat skills to speak of — only a taser keychain and, crucially, solid hacking ability. She had control over botnets, servers, and more. That inherited skill was Daisy's only usable weapon.
Three days later, everything was in place. She flew through her proxy layers, donned her digital disguise, and made the call.
Her target was Jasper Sitwell.
The Hispanic man with the thick-framed glasses — publicly a government functionary, actually a senior administrator at S.H.I.E.L.D., and in the shadows, a mid-level HYDRA operative.
The Terrigen Crystal Daisy needed was stored in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s restricted vaults. This bald go-between was her key.
For a hacker of her caliber, tracking down his private number wasn't a challenge.
She ran through the whole plan one more time in her head, confirmed it was airtight, then opened her secondhand laptop. She pinpointed Sitwell's location by phone signal, waited until he moved into a public space, killed the nearby security cameras, aimed the surviving ones toward her observation angle, and placed the call.
Through the lens, Sitwell looked puzzled. The number of people who knew his private line was vanishingly small. He didn't recognize this one at all.
He glanced around warily, hesitated for a moment, then answered.
Daisy switched on the voice modulator she'd prepared — a deep, masculine rumble.
"Agent Sitwell," she said, getting straight to it. "Mr. Whitehall has something he needs your help with."