[ Somewhere near Korami, Afghanistan ] [ 3 Days Before Christmas ]
The only relief Afghanistan offered was the absence of traffic laws. No roads, no lanes—just an endless, bone-dry ocean of sand and stink. Manure dotted the roadside like landmines, and the wind carried its stench with cruel efficiency.
Daisy shut the car window long ago. She issued all orders over the walkie-talkie, clipped and surgical.
Jimmy rode point in the first vehicle, bridging the language gap whenever brute force wasn't the answer.
Daisy claimed the second Humvee—her command post, essentially. Calm, insulated, calculating.
Colonel Rhodes brought up the rear in the third vehicle, acting as the muscle.
Overhead, the Global Hawk swept the land with the eye of a god, feeding recon in real time.
Barbara, ever efficient, manned the wheel of their vehicle. Daisy sat beside her, gaze vacant but mind alert. The first two "Korami" had taught her to stop betting on hope.
"You going back for Christmas, or staying in this godforsaken sandbox?" Barbara asked casually, eyes fixed ahead.
To Barbara, Christmas was sacred. She couldn't fathom Daisy, the rumored heiress of influence, wasting it combing deserts for a man likely already dead.
Daisy blinked at the question. "Christmas?" The word barely landed. Her holidays weren't filled with carols or ornaments. Her thoughts flicked to Maria. Their last Christmas together felt like a lifetime ago. Now, their relationship was overshadowed by their competition.
Maria had been avoiding her and hadn't been back to headquarters for half a year.
Emotionally airtight, Daisy shut the memory down and recalibrated. Maybe returning to home for Christmas wasn't such a bad option after all.
Besides herself and Rhodes, most of the team had already written Tony Stark off as a lost cause. Continuing to scour the desert on Christmas Eve for a presumed corpse wasn't just demoralizing—it was mutiny bait.
She calculated the fallout: one hard order and half the team would scatter. The rest would file complaints with the Pentagon about dictatorship, human rights, and abuse of morale.
Why should she play as villain?
She grabbed the walkie-talkie, voice sharp and composed, and floated the idea to Rhodes. If Korami turned up nothing, they'd call it, go home, and resume after the holidays.
Rhodes didn't argue. The cracks in discipline were spreading, and he knew it.
Once the plan changed, the relief was audible. Cheers echoed through the comms. Daisy accepted their praise with a courteous nod, knowing it was bought with low expectations.
As she stared out the window, her mind wandered toward her own Christmas plans.
And then—stillness.
The terrain outside was wrong. Deathly quiet. Too clean.
No footprints. No waste. Not even a carrion bird in the sky.
Her instincts, sharpened by heart-shaped herb, screamed in warning. Her danger sense, blessed by the Panther Goddess, goes on high alert. Something ancient and lethal coiled nearby.
"Shut up. Stop the car. Now." Her voice sliced through the team channel like a knife.
The sudden silence in the convoy said more than words. Engines cut. Sand settled. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Daisy rose atop her armored vehicle, scanning the horizon. Her gaze sliced through the dust and silence, but found only emptiness.
Yet something in the stillness pressed against her ribs like a blade. It wasn't fear. It was instinct—the kind honed by blood, battle, and buried enemies.
"What's wrong, Daisy?" Rhodes' voice crackled in through the comms, too casual for the weight settling on her spine.
She didn't answer him. Her eyes kept moving. Barren land stretched on every side, broken only by jagged rock and the echo of a silence that felt unnatural.
She called for Jimmy. He jogged up, still unaware of the dread curling in her voice. "Did that tribal elder really tell you this was the path?"
"Yes, ma'am. This is the way," Jimmy said with unwavering confidence.
Daisy muttered, "Something's wrong. Something's so damn wrong…"
She turned to her agents. "Status on Global Hawk?"
"Sir, we're getting heavy interference. The feed's lagging."
She leaned over the monitor, eyes sharp. The drone's visuals warped and jittered, lines of static cutting across the screen like digital blood.
"Run a magnetic field analysis. There might be—"
She didn't finish. The screen blinked once. Then it went black.
"Sir…" the agent's voice dropped. "Global Hawk's signal is gone."
Daisy's chest tightened. Downed? Jammed? Or did it fly straight into a death trap?
Colonel Rhodes looked like someone had kicked his spine out. That drone had cost millions. And if Stark wasn't at the end of this wild run, who the hell would write the check?
Daisy didn't have time to care about Rhodes' concerns and issued the only order that mattered.
"Fall back. Now. Everyone."
She should've sensed it earlier. That subtle wrongness in the vibrations. The tribal elder had fed them a lie, led them straight into something that pulsed like a snare wrapped in dust and silence.
Rhodes tried to stop her. "What about Global Hawk? Even wreckage needs retrieval!"
Her jaw clenched. That drone wasn't cheap...
But her voice was steady. "I'll pay for it. Get us out. Now."
Rhodes flinched. "No way I'm letting you— I'll take the hit—"
She didn't care. Money could be replaced. Lives couldn't.
Her feet glowed a faint, nearly invisible blue with vibration energy as she tapped the ground lightly, sending the pulse beneath the surface—her senses sinking deeper with it.
As Her senses went deeper, tunneling underground—then hit something. Energy, dense and wrong. Not a machine. A being.
She snapped out of it and shoved Rhodes into her vehicle. No room for second-guessing.
Whoever it was down there, she wouldn't survive a fight. Not today. Not with this team.
The convoy didn't hesitate. Engines roared. Tires ripped through the sand as the soldiers followed her lead without question.
But Rhodes wasn't just anyone. He needed answers. He deserved a version of the truth.
Daisy crafted her words carefully while her mind raced. Who was buried under the dirt of Afghanistan, radiating that kind of raw, ancient power?
Not the Ancient One. She belonged to the mountain tops of Himalayas.
Odin was the king of the gods in Asgard, and even when he vacationed on Earth, he roamed Northern Europe—never setting foot in Afghanistan. As for the other gods, the idea of them choosing this desolate wasteland to train deep underground was just as absurd
Jean Grey? Apocalypse? No. Their energy felt different. Less contained.
No… this was colder. Sharper.
Afghanistan, the Ten Rings, Stark—these weren't just random words. They formed a pattern.
Daisy narrowed her eyes as she guess the only powerful figure associate with them.
It had to be him.
The real Mandarin.
Not the actor, not a fake—but the real one.
The one with rings that weren't for decoration.
To Be Continued...
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[POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS]