The Mandarin asked the question that every transmigrator asks first: "Do ye know what year and month it is?"
Daisy was certain three black lines materialized on her forehead. Excuse me, which one of us is the transmigrator here?!
But she answered honestly. "December, 2007."
The Mandarin fell silent, lost in thought — calculating how many years he'd spent in seclusion this time.
Daisy seized the moment. She waved urgently at Bobbi. "Go, go, go! Head for Kandahar—"
The drivers in the other two vehicles were sharp enough to play along. They coasted forward for over five hundred meters (roughly 1,640 feet) before slamming the accelerators and tearing northward at full speed.
"Why can that guy fly?" This was Bobbi's first field mission involving anything this bizarre, and she was visibly shaken. The Mandarin's killing intent and oppressive aura had been no illusion. Aside from Daisy, who could casually banter with him, and Rhodey, who'd managed to keep his composure, everyone else — soldiers and agents alike — had felt that visceral dread, as if they'd come face-to-face with a predator.
It wasn't until the vehicles had covered a considerable distance that any of them regained the ability to think clearly.
"The world's a big place. Full of secrets. There are always extraordinary people and extraordinary things — you get used to it." Bobbi felt inadequate by comparison, so Daisy could only offer this consolation.
The Mandarin's commanding presence was lethal to ordinary people, but for Daisy, it was still within the range she could resist.
Rhodey's expression was complicated. The Mandarin's aura had affected him too, and it took a long moment before he spoke. "We should call for backup."
Daisy thought calling in reinforcements was pointless, but she didn't have much grounds to refuse.
Ordinary people had to handle things like this on their own. They were different — they were organized. This was exactly when an organization was supposed to prove its worth. Maybe the military had some classified weapon that could take out the Mandarin in one shot?
Since Rhodey was already contacting the military, Daisy couldn't leave S.H.I.E.L.D. out of the loop either.
But even elite agents were somewhat powerless against this caliber of threat. The so-called "Golden Generation" wouldn't last a second against the Mandarin. Daisy pulled out the satellite phone and reported the situation to Nick Fury.
"You can't take him?" Fury's voice over the phone betrayed no emotion. Flat and measured.
Daisy talked up the Mandarin like he was God Almighty incarnate — in her telling, he could snuff her out with a breath.
"I'm sending Black Widow to support you. If you can't win, pull out. Remember — we're spies, not soldiers." Fury's parting words.
Daisy was speechless. When it came to being thick-skinned and cold-blooded, she still had a lot to learn from her predecessors.
The Mandarin was formidable, sure, but one-shotting her? Unlikely. They could probably exchange three to five blows. Even if he unleashed some area-of-effect attack, she could escape. The only thing she'd regret was leaving behind the soldiers and agents she'd spent the last month fighting alongside.
Backup called. Superiors informed. But that didn't mean the problem was solved. Fury had his strengths, but he also had weaknesses — chief among them his disastrous relationship with the World Security Council.
Daisy had learned from his mistakes. She wouldn't be that confrontational. Using the President's connections, she'd established a line to Councilwoman Lance — the British woman on the Council — early on. They'd met face-to-face twice, and after Daisy helped her daughter crush a business rival, the relationship had only grown closer.
She relayed the situation once more. Regardless of how things played out, keeping leadership informed was never wrong. The Council wouldn't hesitate to nuke Kandahar any more than they'd hesitated over New York — underestimate them, and they'd drop a warhead without blinking.
Reporting to Fury meant exaggerating the threat to maximum severity. Reporting to politicians meant doing the opposite — downplaying it, because they'd inflate the danger on their own.
She laid it all out carefully, and the Councilwoman promised to press the military for support. Daisy didn't get her hopes up too high. In the end, everything came down to her.
By the time she finished her calls, twenty minutes had passed.
"We should coordinate with the reinforcements and go back to eliminate the target!" Rhodey had a near-religious faith in the Air Force. In his mind, no enemy could stop a missile, and no powered individual could outrun a jet.
Daisy didn't know how to explain that modern weapons were useless against someone like the Mandarin. He was no Thanos, true, but he could still wipe out a city with a wave of his hand.
In that moment, Daisy understood Fury a little better. Knowing too many secrets, watching everyone else stumble around in ignorance — that was its own kind of burden.
After considerable deliberation, she addressed it from the available evidence. "Colonel, I've worked with mutants before. Among mutants, anyone who can fly is usually one of the strongest. Please remember that. Our mission is to rescue Stark — not to throw our lives away against an unrelated enemy."
The subtext: Let's prioritize running.
Invoking the Stark rescue was enough to make Rhodey abandon his plan — the one Daisy privately considered heroic-sounding but effectively suicidal.
She also vetoed calling in helicopters for evacuation. On the ground, if they encountered the enemy and couldn't win, they could scatter in all directions — after all, there was only one pursuer. But in the air? If he caught up, it meant losing an entire helicopter and everyone on board.
An exploding helicopter would catch even her in the blast, let alone ordinary people.
Her reasoning was solid. The borrowed soldiers and Rhodey's own subordinates all nodded in agreement. Slow vehicles over fast helicopters, any day.
With consensus reached, they floored it and fled north.
Unfortunately, they were ready to retreat, but the Mandarin had no intention of letting them go.
Half an hour later, he caught up again — sleeves billowing in the wind. "Who are ye?" Same cadence, same altitude, same everything. The only difference was the location.
Rhodey gave Daisy a strange look. This is the terrifying enemy? He seems more like he's lost his mind.
Daisy was equally baffled. But the Mandarin's behavior confirmed her earlier theory: his mind was deteriorating.
And that actually made sense. With the Mandarin's power — a casual strike stronger than a missile, a charged attack comparable to a nuclear weapon — he'd have plunged the world into chaos and conquered everything long ago if he were sane.
After ruling out the impossible options, the truth was clear: the man had driven himself mad from training.
The Ten Rings organization was like a corporation. Maybe he'd founded it originally, but by now it had nothing to do with him. The kidnapping of Stark was entirely the group's own doing.
Understanding the backstory didn't help their immediate predicament. Under the hopeful gazes of her entire team, Daisy stepped forward once more. Like a pair of broken records, she and the Mandarin replayed their earlier exchange word for word.
The Mandarin was once again thrown off by the question of how many years had passed. He hovered in place, lost in thought, while the three tactical vehicles continued their desperate sprint.
"Doesn't seem that dangerous to me," Rhodey remarked. Where Daisy saw a narrow escape, the colonel saw an old man he simply chose not to bother with.
Daisy stared at him. "Did you not see his eyes getting more murderous each time? Next time he catches up, we're in real trouble."
She immediately started issuing orders. The vehicles wouldn't stop. Every single person was to lock and load — grenades, RPGs, machine guns, all of it readied and standing by.
They would be ready for the third pursuit.