Daisy left the rental jeep by the roadside. Someone would come along and take it — even if it wasn't the rental company, she didn't much care. What she'd paid in rental fees was enough to buy the thing outright.
She shouldered her pack and set off alone — but this felt nothing like heading into Puerto Rico that first time. Wakanda wasn't a death trap, and she had more than enough to take care of herself.
No one else around. She let her speed off the leash.
No animal on this continent was going to catch her. She ran across the savanna in long, easy strides, breathing air that bore no resemblance to anything in a city, clearing her head of Hill and HYDRA and every other headache she'd been carrying. Moving light and free turned out to be its own kind of relief.
She ran and walked in turns, gradually drifting away from human settlements and into the territory of wilder things.
Even experienced poachers moved through this land armed and cautious. Daisy moved through it like she was on a weekend hike.
On the third day after leaving the road, she'd eaten through most of her supplies. She killed a wild goat that wandered into her path — a dopey-looking thing that clearly hadn't registered the threat.
Her Adamantium blade made quick work of skinning and boning it. She built a fire, roasted the meat, dusted it with spices, and ate well.
She was sitting in that comfortable daze that follows a good meal when she noticed something watching her from a distance.
She focused. A lion. Tawny mane — male.
She'd been wearing the White Tiger amulet long enough that she'd developed a soft spot for big cats in general.
The lion looked at her for a moment, then, apparently unimpressed — or simply not hungry — he put his head back down and went back to sleep.
I could take him.
The thought surfaced unbidden. Daisy refused to admit she was bored. She told herself it was the tiger spirit in the amulet stirring up trouble, itching to restart some ancient rivalry between lions and tigers.
She followed the impulse.
Under the lion's deeply puzzled stare, she walked up to him, then hit him with a focused vibration wave. One clean shot. He went down.
She sat on his head and took a selfie.
Sent it to Hill. Received, predictably, no response.
She sighed, pocketed her phone, and kept walking north.
She assumed that was the end of it. She'd underestimated the lion.
Fifteen minutes later, she heard heavy paws behind her. She turned to find three lions — two adults and a cub — bearing down on her at full sprint.
Oh, hell.
She was stronger than a normal human, but a full-grown male lion still outmuscled her by a significant margin. That was exactly why she'd needed a sneak attack in the first place. Her training was speed-focused, not power-focused — she had no interest in building the kind of body that could go blow-for-blow with a two-hundred-kilogram predator.
Three lions. Converging angles.
She didn't think. She bolted through the gap on the cub's side.
At roughly 700 km/h (435 mph), she was approaching the speed of a handgun bullet. The lions fell behind almost instantly.
She thought it was over. It wasn't.
The family was relentless. They kept after her for hours — the father apparently determined to reclaim his pride. He knew he couldn't catch her. He kept showing up anyway, peering around a bush or cresting a rise, as if to remind her that he hadn't forgotten.
She could have ended it — set an ambush, flanked them, killed all three. But honestly, she felt she had it coming. Who knocks out a sleeping lion for a photo? And besides, the savanna got lonely. Having something chasing her was at least a change of pace. That was what she told herself.
The rhythm settled into something almost routine. They ran; she sprinted off. She stopped; they caught up. When she hit a ravine or a cliff face, she'd teleport across and wait on the other side while the lions took the long way around.
Five days of this. Chase, rest, repeat.
By the end, they'd fallen into something like familiarity. The previous evening, Daisy had tossed a roasted mutton leg across to the three of them.
They were getting lean from chasing her. The adults were holding up, but the cub had clearly lost some of its early energy.
The thunder came in low and fast — a deep, rolling pressure that Daisy had sensed in the air before the storm broke. She'd found a cave just in time.
"The cub can come in and get out of the rain. You two — stay outside."
She gestured toward the opening. The two adults were staying out regardless; three lions in a confined space with her would be a different kind of problem, and the cub wasn't a real threat.
She waved again, three times.
Maybe the adults were tired — they were far from their territory. Maybe wild instinct read something in Daisy's stillness. Whatever the reason, the cub finally crept forward, hackles raised but moving.
She split the cave down the middle, giving the cub the far half. The adults took the rain. She pulled the remaining mutton leg from her pack and sent it sailing out into the storm.
The adults smelled it immediately. They ate.
Daisy turned her attention to the cub, working with it slowly — adjusting her own frequency, filtering out aggression, borrowing something she'd learned in Kunlun about resonance and subtle vibration.
Young animals really were easier. The cub probably had no idea why it had been chasing her — it likely thought this was a game.
Over the past week, she'd picked up a few things about how animals worked. They were simpler than people — a lot simpler. If she'd approached the lion with goodwill from the start instead of blindsiding him for a photo, none of this would have happened. Better late than never, though. The cub was her way in; she'd work outward from there.
She spent the rest of the storm reading the adults. The mother was confused, uncertain — manageable. The father was still nursing a grudge over that first punch, rumbling low threats at irregular intervals, absolutely refusing to let it go.
Stubborn bastard.
Before she could figure out her next move, the air shifted. A familiar kind of shift — not weather, something else. Deliberate.
She barely had time to process it before a bolt of lightning — thick as a barrel, aimed — came straight down at the lion still growling at her.
She threw up a vibration wave on reflex. It deflected the strike.
"Over here! Come on!"
Wild instinct overrode the grudge. The lion grabbed his mate and bolted to Daisy's side. All three of them looked up.
Daisy held the wave, backing steadily toward the cave wall, then cut the field and let the bolt finish. It struck the exact spot where the lion had been standing.
She went still, watching the sky. That bolt had a target. Someone aimed it.
Less than ten seconds later, a dark-skinned woman descended through the wind — not riding it so much as steering it, with the air moving around her like a living thing.
White fitted tank top. Flat, toned midriff. Black trousers. Bare feet. Long legs. Tall frame. She floated at eye level, both eyes blank white, silver hair whipping freely — an unsettling kind of beauty in the way lightning is beautiful.
The woman clearly hadn't expected to find a powered individual in the middle of nowhere. She lowered herself slowly, her eyes returning to normal, and studied Daisy with open curiosity.