With shockwave energy saturating every inch of her body, five slender fingers curling into a fist, Daisy used gravity to accelerate — screaming as she hurled herself toward the center of the ice vortex at maximum speed.
"AHHH—...huh??"
The instant she hit peak velocity—the moment she committed to the strike—
The Danger Room's main computer went offline.
The simulation vanished.
The target disappeared. But Daisy's body was already moving, gravity-boosted momentum carrying her faster than conscious thought could catch up.
One second she was sitting in a chair. The next, an enormous force seized her and launched her forward.
Even with her exceptional reflexes and fine motor control, she couldn't stop herself in time.
Jean Grey tried to reach her with telekinesis. She didn't have time to properly channel the power.
THUD.
Daisy hit the metal wall in a manner that was anything but graceful.
Two full seconds passed before she slid down the wall like a painting coming unstuck.
"Are you okay? I'm... sorry. I've had kind of a rough few days. Lost control of myself." Storm had already registered that she'd been out of line. Seeing Daisy hit the wall that hard, she rushed over.
Daisy's forehead had made first contact with the alloy surface. The impact sent stars exploding across her vision.
She sat on the floor and groaned for a long moment before her head cleared.
"Are you all right...?" Storm glanced at the ultra-hard alloy wall, then back at Daisy. That had to hurt.
Daisy rubbed her skull and gave her a flat look. "What do you think? ...Whatever. I heal fast." She paused. "What happened to your equipment? Why'd it cut out in the middle of a fight?"
For most people, a collision like that would mean two months in a hospital. For Daisy, it was annoying at worst.
Jean Grey was mortified. She apologized quickly and explained that the scale of their battle had exceeded the simulation's computational ceiling, triggering an automatic emergency shutdown.
Daisy couldn't exactly argue with that. She grumbled for a moment and let it go.
But on her way out the door, she noticed something. A faint resonance — her own frequency, but changed, carrying something it hadn't before. The entire training room seemed to be humming in response to her. Especially the wall. Especially that last impact. It was like something had shaken loose.
Storm caught her hesitation. "Something wrong? Still feel off?"
"No, nothing. Just a little dizzy — probably energy depletion." She redirected quickly.
Storm's condition wasn't great either, if she was being honest. Daisy fought like a brawler. Storm fought like a caster — she ran on psychic focus and magical reserves, and draining both left her exhausted in ways that bled into the body. She was just still riding the high of being the "winner," so she was holding it together.
Satisfied that neither was seriously hurt and that their friendship hadn't been damaged, Professor Xavier returned to his conversation with Fury. Later, he also called in T'Challa, and the two of them talked privately until dinnertime.
Daisy stayed for dinner at Xavier's school, then opened a portal and sent Nick Fury back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Whatever they'd worked out between themselves was their business. She'd done her part — Wakanda's request was complete.
She pushed open the door to her place and hadn't even opened her mouth yet—
A blade sliced through the air toward her throat.
Good technique. Terrible speed. Daisy was tired, but this wasn't close to threatening. She stepped aside, cocked her leg for a kick to send the attacker flying — then recognized the face and pulled up short.
Her maid. The same one who'd been doing that with her photo that afternoon.
Mind control? That was her first instinct.
She held back most of the kick — but still sent the maid sliding back over six feet.
"Maki, what's gotten into you?" The maid hit the floor rolling, absorbed the landing without losing her feet, and came back at her with the katana raised.
Daisy's patience ran out. Full speed. She batted the sword out of the maid's grip in one motion, grabbed her by the throat, and lifted her off the ground. She looked into her eyes.
No signs of external control. So what was going on?
"Miss... please let go... I'm fine..." The maid's breathing was labored in Daisy's grip, but her expression was radiant. Her eyes were bright, like they were brimming over.
Daisy set her down. "What is this about?" Those two strikes had been genuine — a normal person couldn't have blocked them. But there'd been no killing intent. That was the confusing part.
She thought of something and added: "What happened earlier — I'm not bothered by that. That's your private business." Someone having feelings about a photograph of her was fine. She could accept that. A man doing it would be a different conversation, but it was what it was.
"I wanted to see how far behind I am," the maid said, resuming her usual manner — respectful, warm, and now carrying something else. Admiration?
Daisy tilted her head in noncommittal acknowledgment. She didn't fully understand the way she thought, but reading between the lines, it seemed like Maki had idealized her into something mythological — in love with a version of Daisy Johnson that existed only in her own imagination, rather than the very real, very normal person standing in front of her.
Strange way to operate. But people had all kinds of psychological fixations. This one was unusual, not incomprehensible.
Tang Bao chose this moment to creep out from wherever he'd been hiding, bumping his head against her thigh.
She played with the little lion for a while. It made her more certain by the minute that she needed a bigger place. She made a mental note to look at houses in the next few days. Property values had cratered across the city — this was the time to buy.
After dinner, the three of them — two people and one lion — went to check on the rhino in the garage. The enormous animal was still parked exactly where they'd left it. Maki had bought it an entire basin of carrots. It had eaten half of them.
It eats so much. Daisy shook her head. No better option for now — the rhino stayed in the garage.
She gave Maki the Wakandan cloak — whatever alterations she wanted to make were her call. It was standard soldier-issue gear, nothing special, but it would add a layer of protection.
Into her sleepwear, into bed, Daisy replayed the fight in her head.
The arena had actually disadvantaged Storm. If Storm had been free to fly high and rain lightning and ice storms from distance, there would have been no good answer for it. In a fair assessment? Storm had the upper hand overall.
Then her mind circled back to that odd sensation at the end in the Danger Room.
Her fingers tapped lightly on her thigh. A lot of it was still murky, but she had a feeling — it was a string of code. A piece of code, carried back to her through the vibrations.
She knew her fundamentals. She'd never stopped studying computers since arriving in this world. No one would call her a top-tier hacker, but there weren't many people alive who could claim to be above her either.
She turned it over carefully. Couldn't quite crack it on instinct alone. On a whim, she grabbed her laptop and spent the next half hour reconstructing the code on screen from memory.
Then she started decoding it.
And she had to admit — even if her broad thinking sometimes got rigid, this body loved hacking — breaking into systems. She could feel the excitement running through her, coming from nowhere in particular. She followed the instinct. She wanted to know what was hiding on the other side of this code.