Juggernaut wasn't much of a thinker, but he had basic survival instincts. Batroc was experienced enough for both of them. After witnessing Wakanda's capabilities up close, neither of them had any illusions about winning a fight against the whole country. They pulled their remaining crew back along the route they'd come in and made for the Kenyan savanna.
But the running battles had taken a toll. The mercenary headcount was down considerably, and ammunition had dropped below safe operating levels.
"Move! Keep up!" The stocky Batroc was practically buzzing with energy, pushing his men forward. "Once we clear this jungle and get signal back, what we've found is going to be worth a fortune!"
"And where exactly do you think you're going?"
The words came from the treetops. Batroc's head snapped up.
Black Panther, fully armored, had come in on a Wakandan stealth aircraft. With him were two women who were currently airborne.
Storm and Daisy.
Daisy had been able to fly even before the heart-shaped herb enhancement.
There are four fundamental forces in the universe: the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism, and gravity. The first three were difficult to observe or manipulate in everyday life.
Magneto could generate a magnetic field two hundred thousand times stronger than Earth's, then repel himself from it to cancel his own weight. Flying was trivial. In practice, though, he rarely bothered — he preferred standing on two iron plates or magnetizing his suit, because it was simpler.
Daisy had no clean mastery of any of those three forces, but gravity was easy to catch. In general relativity, gravity warps space through mutual interaction. She could generate a localized vibration that bent spacetime at a specific point, producing a gravitational pull that essentially dragged her upward.
More vibration meant more energy, which meant more speed. Before the enhancement, the toll on her body had been steep — a few seconds of that exertion left her aching all over, and she couldn't sustain it. Now, with the heart-shaped herb behind her, standard flight was manageable.
It wasn't a textbook method. But then, most of Marvel's flying heroes and villains weren't exactly using textbook methods either.
Magneto rode a self-generated magnetic field. Thor's early flight involved letting his hammer drag him through the air; later he channeled the lightning in his body directly. Storm used controlled winds to lift herself — and as she'd once explained, the reason she wore a G-string was to minimize drag. Daisy had stared blankly at that explanation.
Everyone's approach was improvised chaos. Daisy vibrating herself through a localized gravity well wasn't any more ridiculous than the rest of them.
On the aircraft, T'Challa had presented Daisy with a gift: a pair of Vibranium bracers — a symbol of the friendship they'd forged. The silver-white bracers were beautifully crafted, each inner surface engraved with a leaping cheetah that looked almost alive, with every muscle line rendered with startling precision. She gave them a few test swings and could barely feel the resonance at all. The kinetic energy from her shockwaves would be absorbed by the bracers and discharged in a single concentrated burst.
There was one minor issue: activation required crossing her forearms into an X in front of her chest. Daisy had the distinct feeling she was doing a Wonder Woman impression, and it was only getting more accurate with each passing day.
The bracers were, of course, just a bonus. What T'Challa gave Storm was far more substantial — a full Vibranium-weave cape. The cape could absorb kinetic energy of all varieties. Conservatively, it would boost Storm's flight speed by at least thirty percent. It could also store a reserve charge of kinetic energy, meaning the next time a Juggernaut-scale emergency dropped on her without warning, she could launch immediately by drawing on what the cape had stored rather than scrambling to build a gust from scratch.
Beyond the cape, T'Challa — ostensibly still focused on chasing the enemy — had also managed to present Storm with matching boots and what appeared to be a Vibranium-alloy set of undergarments.
Daisy ignored the blatant couple moment and turned her attention back to the bracers. She was satisfied. Given that Storm's enhancement hadn't done much for her close-combat ability, Daisy retrieved the armor and sword-and-shield set from her pack and began suiting up.
The eagle armor. The sword and shield. The bracers. For maximum accuracy with the look, she shook her hair out of its ponytail and let it fall across her shoulders. The result: upright, sharp, and battle-ready. All she was missing was the Lasso of Truth, but she had everything else. The Wonder Woman impression was essentially complete.
The aircraft dropped fast. Black Panther, prioritizing style, leapt from the hatch before they'd fully landed.
The two women maintained at least minimal dignity. Once Storm learned that Daisy could also fly, they launched out of the cabin together.
Storm's control, now sharpened to its peak, made her flight genuinely beautiful — her silver hair streaming back, her whole body moving with effortless grace, like something out of a shampoo commercial.
Daisy's landing was less cinematic. Adamantium was heavy. She hit the ground hard enough to crack it in a spider-web pattern beneath her boots.
She preferred solid ground anyway.
By the time she landed, Black Panther had already re-engaged Batroc. Both men were highly skilled with their legs — the Frenchman had synthesized techniques from across the world, and his fighting instincts were flawless. Technically, he outclassed T'Challa, who had largely trained in isolation. But T'Challa's equipment and physical attributes were far above his. After an extended exchange, neither had a clear edge.
The Dora Milaje surged out of the aircraft as it touched down, reforming their familiar three-unit formations and driving hard into the remnants of the mercenary crew.
Both sides' skirmishes pushed outward from the center of the battlefield, creating a natural ring. At that center, Juggernaut stood like a mountain — immovable, waiting.
Having barely survived their last encounter, Storm kept her altitude deliberately high this time, hovering around thirty feet (9 meters). She began pulling in massive quantities of energy — magic woven through mutant ability — positioning herself as a proper backline caster.
Juggernaut's eyes burned with restless aggression. Scanning the ground, he saw only one opponent standing out in the open, waiting for him. Whatever remained of his tactical mind found nothing suspicious about that. Everything could be bulldozed. That was his entire philosophy.
"RAAAH!" With a bestial roar, Juggernaut broke into a full charge at Daisy.
She had no intention of taking that hit head-on.
She sidestepped the main impact, raised her shield to catch the shockwave radiating from his charge, and swung her sword in a clean arc at his calf.
Both sword and shield had been forged from Silver Samurai's alloy — the same metal that could sever Wolverine's claws. At the ordinary human scale, the edge was about as sharp as anything got.
But the moment the blade bit into Juggernaut's leg, she felt resistance. It built against her force as her strength reached its limit. She rolled clear and came up outside his impact zone.
Juggernaut slowed. The wound forced him to stop, turn, and reset — his expression twisted with pure savagery as he prepared the next charge.
Daisy examined the wound she'd inflicted. On a calf roughly the circumference of a grown man's full embrace, she'd opened a gash roughly twelve inches (30 cm) long and four inches (10 cm) deep.
Then, as she watched, the wound began to close.
She'd studied Wolverine's healing factor extensively. She could say with certainty that what was repairing Juggernaut's tissue wasn't cellular regeneration. It was the mystical energy of the Crimson Cosmos.
The ground shook. Juggernaut was charging again.
At the same moment, Storm opened up. This time, no wasteful downpour that slowed everyone equally — her control had refined far beyond that. She had learned to call the lightning without the rain.
A relentless barrage of bolts crashed down on Juggernaut from above.