[ U.S. Military Base, Kandahar, Afghanistan ]
"I always thought our troops lacked grit, but I didn't expect them to break faster than a woman under pressure," General Green muttered bitterly. The army's retreat had been nothing short of disgraceful.
General Edward, his counterpart from the Air Force, younger and outranked, offered a mild defense. "She's not just anyone. That agent—she's undergone high-level training. She's not comparable to the average soldier. She is probably the best S.H.I.E.L.D. has left."
Green didn't reply right away. His pride had taken a hit. Most of the men who fled were from his division.
He clenched his jaw.
Then, with the ease of a seasoned officer avoiding blame, he pivoted. "She's not a soldier. Not in the traditional sense. Whatever they put her through in that agency—it's beyond boot camp. Different breed entirely."
Edward didn't argue. No one wanted to hold a mirror up to failure while a war was still being fought.
Meanwhile, deep in the base, Daisy had no idea what cowardice or excuses were being whispered behind her back.
As she was too busy running and dodging Mandarin's attacks.
Flames chased her. Bolts of lightning cracked overhead. The floor hissed as ice blossomed under her boots.
The lights were out, but she didn't need them—not with her enhanced vision.
And neither did Mandarin. After having years of fighting experience.
Darkness meant nothing now. This was a game of instincts.
Shadows were merely background to the duel playing out between them.
"You surprise me! You're not ordinary," Mandarin's voice boomed through the shadows. "You're skilled. A true elite." There was amusement in his tone—but also the first sliver of respect. "In my time, no woman could reach your level."
It was condescension masked as praise. In his eyes, Daisy remained an anomaly—dangerous, but still a prey to be broken, not understood.
Daisy rolled her eyes as she ducked behind a support beam. Great. Sexist admiration. Just what I needed today.
Mandarin calmly walk across the corridor with cruel amusement, fingers glowing faintly, his silhouette flickering with elemental chaos.
He couldn't see her clearly, but it didn't matter. He felt superior.
"Still," he called into the blackness, "your fate is sealed."
He was convinced her frantic maneuvers were nothing more than desperation prolonging the inevitable.
His voice softened into something like joy.
"You're prey. A mouse dodging the claws of a god."
Another bolt of lightning exploded near a corner.
"Run. Fight. Hide. It's all the same. You'll fall. And I'll be watching when you do."
Daisy didn't answer.
She was already gone from that corner, counting his steps, timing his bursts, her eyes scanning for her next move.
He mistook her control for chaos—and mistook himself for the one holding the leash.
As she weaved through flame and ice, lightning and shrapnel, each time she narrowly evaded a blast but she wasn't scrambling—she was studying. Every movement, every elemental surge, was a data point.
The Mandarin's offense was relentless. If Storm wielded magic, this man was its high priest. But he leaned too heavily on his rings. Without them, he was nothing more than an old man with delusions.
Inside her wristband lay her true ace—an adamantium dagger. Forged from the remnants of Old Yashida's adamantium long sword. That sword once cut through Wolverine's adamantium claws. This dagger was no different. Small, sleek, perfectly balanced and surgically sharp.
Even if Mandarin's skin was harder than steel, he wasn't harder than Logan's bones.
Now I have to create a good opportunity for my dagger attack. She clenched her left fist and her vibration energy begin to gather at her fist.
Could a dagger kill the Mandarin? Unlikely. Blinding him or slicing off part of his nose would've been meaningless—wasted effort on cosmetic damage.
To truly weaken him, she had to target his right hand. The five rings there were far more dangerous. Even claiming just two would be enough to keep her dominant for a long time...
Even if the rings had some form of ownership recognition, Daisy wasn't concerned. She knew exactly what they were—advanced technology, not magic. Cut off their external signal, and she had more than a few ways to dismantle them. And if that failed, she'd simply destroy them. One thing was certain: they couldn't remain in the Mandarin's hands.
So she had to time her dagger attack perfectly.
Mandarin had just unleashed another firestorm—arrogance dripping from his laugh, believing she was running, panicked.
She calculated the distance. Then she vanished with a sharp swish—teleporting behind him. Clean and silent.
Mandarin's smirk barely had time to fade. His left hand was still clenched in a fist, glowing pale red in the darkened room.
Out of the corner of his eye, he see a shimmer.
He turned, just a fraction—too slow.
Crack!
Daisy's fist collided with the back of his skull—calculated, brutal, and precise.
Bang!
Taking the full brunt of the vibration-induced punch to back of his skull, Mandarin crashed headfirst—nose first—into the corridor wall.
The ripples, invisible and violent of Daisy's vibration attack, tore through the air and spread like a tidal wave—walls crumpled and cracked, the entire corridor groaning under the force of her strike.
The steel supports buckled, chunks of ceiling shattered. Powdered concrete swirled into the air like ash from an explosion.
Mandarin, at the epicenter, felt the weight crush into him like a landslide. His vision wavered, nose cracked and bleed, but he was no novice and his reflexes were honed from decades of battle.
His mind cleared in a heartbeat and he spun around, unleashing a counterattack.
"Burn." His voice was cold, controlled.
Flames erupted from his fingers—a familiar attack, efficient, fast, and least taxing on his reserves, his most reliable one.
But this time—
The fire didn't land.
Daisy's shockwave energy which is still not dissipated—crushed the flames into sparks before they could fully ignite. Daisy's earlier strike wasn't a surge of desperation. It was calculated destruction.
"What—?" His breath caught. He blinked. "You tricked me." Mandarin's voice cracked with disbelief. That level of power wasn't a last-ditch surge. She had been lying in wait. This was planned.
She'd been holding back. Luring him.
Doubt flickered in his mind. For the first time, he wasn't sure if his body alone could handle remaining shockwaves that were coming.
He gritted his teeth.
Without thinking, on instincts, he threw up his right hand—activating a shock wave to meet hers head-on.
Two invisible forces surged forward, their collision silent at first—then violent.
Both carried vibration, but with wildly different rhythms. What mattered was not the source—but the wielder.
One came from cold circuitry. The other from a living weapon—a woman enhanced twice, reinforced by tech and vibranium. The outcome was inevitable.
The air rippled. Space seemed to bend.
Then—CRACK!
A shudder pulsed through Mandarin's body as his own wave was crushed, shattered like rotting wood under pressure.
His ring-hand recoiled as if scorched.
His eyes locked on Daisy, truly seeing her for the first time. She wasn't some fluke. She was a weapon hidden behind charm.
Desperate to break the force pressing in, he summoned a whirlwind to buffer himself. It was no longer offense—it was survival.
The hurricane surged, howling like a beast unleashed.
Daisy's shockwave, after crushing fire and force, finally buckled under the winds. The whirlwind shredded through the remnants of her attack and pushed her back few steps.
She recalibrated in an instant. In terms of raw output, her current strength mirrored roughly two of the Mandarin's rings. Not ideal, but useful enough to exploit.
Then, just as the Mandarin's hurricane died down, she teleported in front of him—giving him no chance to summon another ring's power.
Now, they stood close—too close that neither of them needed light to read the other.
And Mandarin saw nothing familiar—no panic, no fear. No satisfaction either on her face.
In fact, Daisy wasn't even looking at him. And in her eyes, there only calculation.
Her eyes were on his right hand—fixed, cold, surgical. She drew a dagger in her left hand from her wristband and seizing on the Mandarin's momentary weakened phase. It was the kind of opening that allowed for a clean, untelegraphed attack.
She'd already diagnosed the flaw. The rings weren't seamless. They took time—two, maybe three seconds. And he masked that with his dramatic monologues. Useless theatrics. A delay dressed as dominance.
Ten rings, all body-bound. Too many back-to-back activations, and his physiology lagged. As a conduit could only carry so much.
Now, he had used three rings in a row, and pushed his body past its limits. This is her opening and she had no intention of wasting the chance.
In the next breath, Daisy surged forward—dagger in hand, her body a streak of motion across the dark.
She didn't hesitate.
She didn't speak.
She went for the strike, straight for the Mandarin's right wrist with clinical precision.
"Insignificant pest!" Whether he sensed her dagger angle or simply felt the sting of challenge, Mandarin flared—his hair bristled, killing intent radiating like heat. He yanked his arm back and turned his body, launching a brutal left handed punch.
He had power. Enough to rip Iron Man armor apart with his bare hands. His motion wasn't just practiced—it was lethal, honed through years of real combat.
But Daisy never flinch. She didn't even blink.
Her slash kept its path while she adjusted her posture mid-strike—gravity pulling her just thirty centimeters aside.
She braced for the impact with her vibranium wristband on her right hand.
CLANG!
Vibranium met brute force.
It held—but the impact rattled her bones and knocked her back half a step.
Her blade, now just slightly misaligned, missed the Mandarin's right wrist by inches.
To Be Continued...
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[POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS]