Of course, this still needed the Genetics Council, the Attilan City Guard, and several other parties to recognize it, along with a whole pile of political compromises and trade-offs, before it could win their backing and finally take effect.
As first in line to the throne and Princess of the Inhuman city of Attilan, Daisy could, if she felt like it, tack a royal title onto her name — Princess, or Prince. Daisy Johnson Prince, maybe?
She really was drifting further and further down the road of becoming a knockoff Wonder Woman.
There was no way any human government would recognize that "Prince" now, so there was no point dwelling on it. She needed to focus on what was right in front of her.
"You don't seem to have much in the way of defensive gear. Take this as a welcome gift." Medusa slid a bracelet off her wrist and handed it to Daisy.
A certain someone put on a show of hesitation and asked warily, "And this is…?"
Medusa tapped the bracelet lightly, and a pale-gold oval energy shield sprang up out of thin air. "An energy shield made by the Inhuman Royal Family. I don't really understand the technology inside it either, but with enough power, it can block even a full-force blow from my king."
Daisy was thrilled. She'd been racking her brain over where to find a shield — something both easy to carry and strong on defense, which was honestly hard to come by. Medusa's welcome gift was perfect.
She gave the shield a try; it was idiot-proof to operate. The oval barrier looked formidable, and the gadget's design was oddly familiar. She recalled that in the future, Phil Coulson had an energy shield just like this, and Cable, the man from the future, had carried a similar one too.
"Thank you, big sister Medusa!" a certain someone said with a fawning smile.
"We're heading back to Attilan. Are you planning to come with us?" Medusa asked.
Daisy was swamped, and there was no way she'd go with them. What if all the sweet talk was a setup, and the moment she reached Attilan they locked her away? These were exactly the kinds of things she had to guard against.
"There's still a lot going on here on Earth. If it's all right, I'd like to visit Attilan once I've wrapped things up here."
They'd dangled a princess title in front of her, handed her a made-up "first heir" status, and thrown in some gear on top of it, so she kept her tone polite.
On learning that Daisy could teleport as well, a note of envy crept into Medusa's voice. This new sister-in-law of hers had quite the range of powers.
Daisy didn't notice her new sister-in-law's sulk; she was bent down, communing with the big dog, Lockjaw.
He looked like an English bulldog, only several times larger. This brown bulldog handled the teleporting, and he alone knew the spatial coordinates. Yes, he — this fellow had once been human, until the Terrigen Crystal mutated him into the shape of a dog. And thanks to his habits, his physical build, his physiology, his psychology, and a dozen other factors, he was trending more and more canine by the day…
Daisy wiped away a bead of cold sweat that wasn't actually there. Imagining it and seeing it with her own eyes were two completely different experiences. Right now she was deeply grateful for her own bloodline. If mutating had turned her into a dog, she'd rather be dead.
"Your compatibility with the Terrigen Crystal is frighteningly high. In the whole clan, only you and His Highness Black Bolt come through without a single visible flaw — the rest of us are all left with some kind of defect." The burly Gorgon seemed to guess what she was thinking, and there was a wistful note in his voice.
Daisy neither agreed nor disagreed. To her mind, Attilan's Genetics Council bore inescapable blame. They had artificially meddled with life's natural evolution and natural selection, cultivating only the very best of everything, and the end result was that apart from the single strongest specimen, everyone else was a mess.
With no outside genes entering the pool, the Inhuman population shrank year after year, deformities piled up generation after generation and were passed down, and things naturally kept getting worse.
Their civilization had endured, their lineage was unbroken, and their technology shone brilliantly. Yet in terms of raw potential, they now fell far short of the mutants, who had blended into human society and flourished in all their variety.
Black Bolt was powerful. Drop him in among the mutants and he'd still rank near the top — but that was as far as it went. Genetic engineering had cut off the road ahead of him; for the rest of his life he would stay right at his current level, never making any real breakthrough.
He was strong because he'd won at the starting line the moment he was born.
Wild-born Daisy couldn't beat him now, but that didn't mean she never would. There was plenty of time yet.
"So what do we do with this woman?" Daisy pointed at that hot potato, Supergiant, and put the question to Black Bolt. She mind-controlled you — aren't you furious? Here, I'll hand you a knife. Go on, finish her off.
Black Bolt shook his head, looking thoroughly put out, and Medusa, his voice, spoke up again. "Our clan's prophet foresaw today's upheaval. This woman is not for us to kill. She came to Earth to make trouble, so let Earth deal with her."
The four Inhumans hurriedly teleported back to the Moon, while Daisy, scratching her head, hauled her prisoner back to the Helicarrier.
What to do with Supergiant had her stumped.
Kill her? And what if Thanos came storming in? Even Black Bolt had backed down; her own meager skills couldn't hold off a Thanos who threw a fit every now and then. The Ancient One spent her days pondering when she'd finally die, Odin napped whenever he had nothing better to do, and Earth as it stood had little resistance to offer against Thanos and the Black Order.
As for letting her go, that was a bit too spineless — and besides, a master of mind control would wreak far too much havoc on the existing social order.
Hand her off to Nick Fury and his endless bag of tricks! She called the Director straight over to look at her prisoner.
"An alien? Do you know why she came to Earth?" Nick Fury hurried aboard the Helicarrier, and with no time for small talk, walked into the sealed chamber and looked at the still-unconscious Supergiant as he questioned Daisy.
Before Daisy could get a word out, Stark and Captain America came barging in right behind him, with Coulson trailing after them, a helpless look on his face that said he'd done his best but couldn't hold the two of them off.
"See, Captain? They're off scheming behind our backs again. These agents send us charging in at the front and tell us nothing. Tsk, tsk — an alien woman? The collapse of that research lab was her doing, wasn't it?" Stark looked perfectly at ease as he circled Supergiant's cell once, then spread his hands at Captain America as if to say, See? I wasn't lying, was I?
Captain America turned to Nick Fury and Daisy, as though waiting to hear their explanation.
Daisy cradled her head and kept quiet. Let Nick Fury deal with these two divas; she settled off to the side and played invisible.
From national security to the division of duties, to the importance of compartmentalized management in modern management theory, and finally to the individual's contribution to society — Nick Fury, his face grim, spun out a fog of grand-sounding nonsense, trying to convince Captain America and Stark of his good intentions so they'd understand and back him.
Captain America hadn't lived through nearly as much as Nick Fury, but he was no fool. If anything, he was the kind of man who wouldn't turn back even after running headlong into a wall. The smooth talk ended in failure.
"Just tell me one thing. What are you people researching? And does this alien woman have anything to do with that research?" Captain America asked the two of them gravely.