A New Beginning

Chapter 1- Home At Last

Phil Coulson was perched on the roof of an apartment building in New York City. He glanced at the energy readings on his tablet. The director was definitely onto something.

"Tell me what you're seeing, Agent," came Fury's voice over Coulson's earpiece.

Coulson removed his shades, and replaced them with his binoculars, trying to spot the eerie activity that his energy readings were supposedly picking up.

According to the sensors, it was coming from the center of Times Square just down the street.

Adjusting his lens, he peered among the throngs of people and noticed someone in particular who stood out. The bright white plastic she was wearing glinted in the sun, practically blinding him. He wished he had kept his shades on...

He was also fairly certain the subject was a woman, at least judging by her long brown hair.

"Well Sir, either Comic-Con is in town or she's not from around here," he confirmed to Fury.

"Keep your eyes peeled, Coulson. These energy readings are very similar to the readings the Cube's been giving off. We don't need another New Mexico incident."

Obviously Fury hadn't understood his sarcasm about the Comic-Con, or if he did, he had just ignored it.

"Yes Sir. Coulson out."

Coulson turned off his earpiece, but he couldn't stop staring through his binoculars. They were high-tech, so he was able to get a good look at the young dark-haired woman dressed in other-worldly clothes standing in the middle of Times Square. Aside from her attire, she appeared to be human. And strangely she seemed confused rather than utterly lost.

All he knew was he wasn't letting her out of his sight. People didn't just appear out of thin air like this girl did, and this was the first of anything like this they had seen. Last year around this time, there had already been a similar incident in New Mexico. A being from another world nearly leveled a small town, and S.H.I.E.L.D. almost hadn't arrived in time.

Coulson knew his protocol.

She wasn't going anywhere without his knowing about it.

~~~~~

Sirens. Car horns. New York City. America. Earth.

Noelle was home.

Actually she had never been to New York in the short twenty-four year span of her life, but she was back on Earth. Not Middle-earth or Coruscant or Mandalore or Lothal. She was home.

For once she hadn't needed Gandalf to teleport her to a new world.

She still was trying to shake off the chill that still clung to her body. She hadn't been here in eight years. At least... as far as she knew. Time worked differently in different parts of the universe. When Gandalf had first whisked her away to Middle-earth all those years ago, he had told her the time might be totally different when or if she ever came back. Or no time could have passed at all.

She needed to find out what year it was.

She couldn't just outright ask someone. She looked enough like a lunatic dressed in Stormtrooper armor, with two lightsabers hanging by her belt.

I need to ditch this armor–

Getting off the street, Noelle easily found an alleyway with a dumpster. She peeled off the white armor and tossed it into the trash can. Although she was glad to be rid of it, she was still wearing non-Earth clothing underneath, and she certainly wasn't going to blend in wearing those.