Daisy had no intention of giving a massage demonstration. She glanced at the nearby priests still tidying the wreckage, gave Storm a subtle look, then stepped her left foot forward and tapped the ground lightly. The earth trembled twice — then went still.
Storm was sharp. She gave Daisy a thumbs-up. Cool power.
In all her years out in the world, Storm had never taken a hit that bad. She asked the Dora Milaje about the mercenaries' whereabouts — she had a score to settle with Juggernaut.
But the Dora Milaje answered to the royal family alone. Their chain of command ran: king, queen, prince. Storm, as the prince's girlfriend? They didn't know her.
Storm hit a wall and couldn't hide her irritation. Daisy pulled her aside.
The priests and warriors around them all depended on the royal family. The throne's stability was what gave them their standing. Today, these two had nearly brought the whole kingdom down around them — even the Dora Milaje who'd fought alongside them now radiated a quiet, low-level hostility, though some more than others.
Storm, as a figurehead among mutantkind, had experienced that kind of look her whole life. Daisy's skin was thick enough to be practically bulletproof — contempt, hostility, none of it even registered. Neither of them particularly wanted to stay here, but the Dora Milaje wouldn't let them leave. So they stayed and talked.
There was no awkwardness. Daisy had questions she'd been genuinely curious about, and now was as good a time as any.
Specifically: magic.
Storm was both a mutant and a sorceress. Magical ability ran through the Monroe bloodline — the local people called the women of her lineage holy women; Western colonizers had called them witches.
For over a thousand years, each generation had possessed the power to command storms. It was only in Storm's generation, where mutant ability blended with that inherited magic, that the combination became something truly formidable.
"What does your magic actually do? Can you show me?" Daisy was genuinely curious.
Unfortunately, Storm couldn't oblige. She was revered as a holy woman, but the reality behind that title was less glamorous than it sounded.
"Our magic requires extensive preparation — a ritual that takes a very long time. Without my powers to carry it, I can't really demonstrate."
Daisy pressed for details, and what she heard was startling. Without her mutant abilities to amplify it, casting a rainfall ritual took three full days of preparation.
Three days. In a fight, that was an eternity.
Storm didn't know why. She made a self-deprecating remark about the bloodline probably thinning over generations.
Daisy didn't buy it. Her best guess was that the Monroe family's ancestors had struck a pact with Oshtur, the White Goddess — and that pact was still active. Every time they used magic, they were drawing power across dimensional boundaries from another plane of existence.
The reason the casting time was so long came down to differing rates of time flow between dimensions.
Storm being revered by Magik spoke to the genuine depth of her magical mastery. But her actual combat record was oddly inconsistent — sometimes she could summon a solar storm; other times she'd get put down by opponents who had no business beating her.
The root cause was that preparation lag. When she had time to front-load her magic and reach peak state, combining it with her mutant power, she could be a genuine cosmic-level threat. Without that preparation, she was essentially just a mutant — on par with DC's Weather Wizard.
"Magic isn't as mysterious as you imagine," Storm said. "To gain it, you have to give something up." She kept it vague, but Daisy understood.
Marvel magic had a catch. Nearly every powerful sorcerer drew their power from some entity in another dimension.
Storm's power came from Oshtur, the White Goddess. Scarlet Witch's magic came from Chthon, the Black God. The Ancient One's power came from Dormammu. Doctor Strange drew from the Vishanti. Magik was different — her magic came from the borders of Limbo itself, and outside those borders she relied on her mutant power alone.
For anyone who wanted to learn magic without being bound to an outside entity — the sorcerers trained by the Ancient One were an example. Lifetimes of practice, and they remained foot soldiers.
Seemingly not wanting to linger on the subject, Storm let it drop. She glanced at the priests still cleaning nearby, raised her left hand, and summoned a small whirlwind.
"My ability works differently from yours."
Daisy watched carefully and began to analyze.
Storm's power operated on a different principle. She had to sense the ambient energy in the air, gather it, and shape it into what she needed.
"When I was young, I didn't understand any of this — I just did what felt right, without thinking about consequences." Storm began telling a story, her voice quieter now. "I'd just awakened my powers. For a long time, I kept bringing rain to Kenya. I thought I was doing good."
Daisy tilted her head. "Until what?"
"Until I went to Uganda." Storm paused. "The land there had been without rain for years. Famine. Constant war — sometimes the fighting started over something as small as a bag of grain. And I realized it was all connected to what I'd done." She'd been carrying this a long time. Part of it was a warning for Daisy; part of it was simply needing to say it out loud. "I'd forced a change on the local environment. A week of rain for Kenya cost Uganda tens of thousands of lives."
Daisy thought it over carefully. The concept wasn't complicated — anyone knew that disrupting nature's balance carried consequences. But drawing a direct line between her rainfall and Uganda's civil unrest? She thought that was probably overstated.
Still, one word stuck with her: variables.
For a short-range transfer, variables could be dismissed. But for a long-distance jump measured in light-years, every variable had to be calculated. If a teleport threw her into the interior of a star, or into the edge of a black hole, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Human calculation wasn't up to that task. She needed a supercomputer. She could probably hack her way into research-grade computing clusters, but the volume of her calculations would trip detection systems. What she really needed was a machine of her own.
For now, that was pure fantasy. Supercomputers weren't cheap, and the money she'd "borrowed" wouldn't come close. She was flat broke.
By the time T'Challa had calmed his mother and returned to the sacred peak, he found both women still waiting exactly where he'd left them. He exhaled with relief.
Storm acknowledged him with a sound that was distinctly less than warm.
"My apologies for the delay," T'Challa said, pivoting smoothly. "The enemy is still at large. I need your help."
He wanted to assemble a pursuit team to track down Juggernaut and Batroc. At the civilian level, word of Wakanda's exposure could not be allowed to spread.
The Dora Milaje had been repelled three times already. In the final clash, Juggernaut had charged straight through one of the Border Tribe's war rhinos — killing it outright — and the shock of that had effectively ended any further pursuit by ordinary soldiers.
The task now fell to the kingdom's protector: the Black Panther. Daisy and Storm didn't hesitate. They joined the pursuit.