Coulson and Melinda exchanged a glance. Something felt off. Things seemed to be veering further and further off course, and slipping beyond the bounds of what the two of them could decide.
They had only been sent by the director to make contact with a little girl who might be a Mutant, assess the level of danger she posed, and, while they were at it, try to get some useful information out of her. Finally, depending on the circumstances, they were supposed to either lure the girl away or knock her out and take her in a bag, then lock her up somewhere secure. After that, they would find a way to notify her parents, and the whole incident would be wrapped up perfectly.
As for everyone else, the ones who needed silencing would be silenced, and the ones who needed to keep quiet would be made to do so. S.H.I.E.L.D. had people for that. The agents had plenty of experience handling this sort of thing. There were all kinds of extraordinary people locked up in the cryogenic prison. This little girl definitely wasn't the first, and she wouldn't be the last.
But now that the conversation had reached this point, and given the information they'd gotten from the girl, Coulson felt that if they handled things according to the usual procedure, this would never be over. They'd catch the kid, and then the adults would come after them. Who knew what kind of force S.H.I.E.L.D. would have to face? He decided they'd better be a little more cautious.
"So, um... Valoran Continent? Did I spell that right? Where is this place called the Valoran Continent? How big is it?"
Coulson gathered his thoughts. The spelling of Valoran seemed rather obscure; he doubted it was even in the dictionary. But asking a little girl this sort of question also made him feel a bit foolish. What good would it do to ask a girl who looked only a few years old? Coulson swore he'd never heard of the Valoran Continent! Sure, he'd spent his geography classes daydreaming, but his geography teacher definitely hadn't been a PE teacher!
"You don't know? All right! This is the Valoran Continent! Look!"
Annie didn't care what he was thinking. She stuck out her little finger and pointed at an empty ice cream cup on the table. A wave of magic spread out, and the cup floated above the table, melting into a hollow, transparent sphere. It was about twenty centimeters in diameter, like a globe, and the surface clearly displayed a continent and several islands.
This was the planet where the Valoran Continent was located. The spell was an advanced application of Mage Hand, and only powerful mages with great talent could cast it! It could transform certain materials into any shape and make them float, though it had no additional offensive power. Annie had learned it when she was three! She usually used it to mold toys, but after Tibbers came along, she rarely used it anymore.
"The Valoran Continent looks like this!"
Annie pointed at the globe she'd just made. She still remembered accidentally breaking one of her mother's astrological models while playing with it. Then her mean mother had punished her by making her use magic to create a hundred identical ones! A whole hundred of them!!
Lady Shadow Witch Amoline had even called it a way to "improve her adorable daughter's spellcasting skills"! Even now, Annie remembered how much she'd hated her mother back then!
"Th-this!! What is this?! How did you do that? Is it your superpower?"
Coulson and Melinda stood up in shock. They didn't even notice their chairs tipping over. They just stared wide-eyed at the crystal sphere floating above the table, utterly astonished.
"It's magic! I don't have superpowers!"
Annie didn't know why they were making such a fuss. Wasn't this sort of thing perfectly normal on the Valoran Continent? As for superpowers... She vaguely remembered her dad saying that people in the world beyond the Voodoo Lands had them. But Annie knew for sure she didn't have any. This was magic, definitely not some kind of superpower!
"Magic?! All right."
Coulson felt he shouldn't be so surprised. Mutants had all kinds of abilities, after all. He supposed he shouldn't make such a fuss over a little girl having one more parlor trick.
"So, this is the Valoran Continent?" Coulson pointed at the crystal sphere floating above the table. He felt this was the most valuable piece of information they'd gotten all day, and quickly signaled to Melinda to record it with her equipment. "Where's your home?"
Annie blinked her lovely big eyes. She dipped her finger in the ice cream and drew a small circle on the lower-middle part of the Valoran Continent on the globe.
"Right here! This is the Voodoo Lands! My home is right here!"
"Hmm..." Coulson studied the globe closely, then fell silent for a moment. Beside him, Melinda was recording the scene with a video camera. The continent's geography was clearly visible on the globe: mountains, swamps, lakes, and deserts. Everything was easy to make out, and it was incredibly detailed—not something a little girl could have made up at random.
He was now almost certain—99.999 percent certain—that the girl was an extraterrestrial. He looked at the small area Annie had marked with ice cream. That was the Voodoo Lands. After thinking it over, Coulson pointed to a castle-shaped marker north of the Voodoo Lands and asked,
"Then what's this place?"
"Oh, that's Noxus."
Annie didn't like Noxus because her parents hated it, so she hated it too.
"Noxus? Is it a country? What's it like?" Coulson didn't recognize the writing on the globe, so he could only guess.
"Dad says everyone in Noxus is crazy. All they ever think about is fighting and fighting." Annie remembered what her father had said about Noxus. Apparently, her parents had crossed the Great Barrier and moved to the Voodoo Lands because they were tired of all the constant wars.
"Fighting? Warmongers?" Coulson imagined the Germans in World War II. Well, there went Hitler, taking another hit.
"What about this place? Is it a country too? What's it like?"
He pointed to another area on the left, directly across from Noxus, where a city model was visible. Judging by the unfamiliar writing on it, Coulson figured it must be another country.
"That's the Kingdom of Demacia!"
"Demacia? What do they do? What kind of country is it?"
"They get beaten up by Noxus all the time!"
"..."
Coulson then pointed to a large area, and they pieced together the basic layout of the place called the Valoran Continent. Annie hadn't given them very detailed information, but he still learned a lot about the local customs and people.
For example, Freljord in the far north of the continent. It was very cold there, and there were yetis. Annie said she'd always wanted to catch one to play with, but her parents wouldn't let her; Piltover and Zaun, east of Freljord, were full of mad scientists and chemical fanatics! They were bad at their studies but still messed around with potions!
Then there was the Shurima Desert in the middle of the continent. According to Annie, there was a dog-headed creature there that called itself the god of death. It had sucked the souls out of every living thing in the desert, and a single attack from it could shatter a mountain! Her mother had strictly forbidden her from playing in the desert!
Then there was the area southeast of the Voodoo Lands. Beyond the Sable Stone Mountains lay Bandle City. Annie had been there with her mother. It was home to a bunch of furry little people called Yordles. They were tiny! Like a bunch of little mice... Well, those were Annie's exact words. But the Yordles could build robots, as well as things called airplanes that flew all over the sky. Coulson figured the Yordles must be pretty advanced technologically.
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