Adrift in the nameless space as nothing more than a psychic projection, Daisy could only watch from a distance and cheer Dark Phoenix on—but after more than ten seconds, she saw no sign Dark Phoenix was winning.
"Sis, let me help!" It was a generous offer in spirit, if not in practice. In the psychic realm, Daisy's options were limited.
Charging at a woman currently wreathed in open flame presented its own complications.
"The Phoenix Force doesn't reject you—quickly, grab the rope around my arm! If I can free one hand, I'll make this wretched thing regret it!" Dark Phoenix snapped.
Daisy didn't stop to examine that word reject. She hesitated for a half-second, then did as she was told and pulled at the Bands binding Dark Phoenix's arm.
Once Daisy started helping, Dark Phoenix's freed hand became a firehose. Golden flames poured without pause directly into the Bands, and the space itself joined the effort—an endless supply of energy was converted into searing heat, burning and burning.
Daisy gripped the end of the rope. Dark Phoenix worked one hand free, then the other, then her torso.
The Phoenix Force raged unchecked through the space. Dark Phoenix's control was rough at the best of times—her output surged and dropped, her aim was poor, and stray sparks kept catching Daisy. At first the contact startled her; when she realized it wasn't doing her any harm, she let it happen.
Dark Phoenix couldn't represent the true cosmic Phoenix—but these Crimson Bands, for all their stubbornness, couldn't represent Cyttorak either. A single relic, caught at the heart of Phoenix fire with no way out, endured wave after wave of immeasurable annihilating flame. The mark Cyttorak had left on it began to fade. Then, with a single clear, resonant cry, it dissolved entirely into the space.
"Well? Am I impressive or what?" Dark Phoenix sat on the ground, breathing hard, clearly spent—but still performing nonchalance.
Daisy was tired too, but Dark Phoenix had just solved a very large problem for her, and she extended a shameless thumbs-up. Next time Cyttorak makes trouble, she'll know who to send the invoice to. Her own small arms had no interest in picking fights with demon-gods. Today's outcome was the best she could have hoped for given the circumstances.
She didn't bother with compliments. She'd been seared thoroughly enough by Phoenix fire that she felt half-cooked—her psychic power, never in tremendous supply, was now nearly depleted, and she could feel herself getting pushed out of this space.
"Get some rest. The Phoenix has no need for equipment—this tattered rope is crude work and barely amounts to anything, but it's got some utility for you. Take it." Dark Phoenix needed rest too, but her pride was too ingrained to admit it. The dismissal gave her a convenient excuse: she tossed the rope at Daisy, and as Daisy's projection faded, Dark Phoenix turned and walked into the sea of flame to rest.
Daisy dragged herself out of bed feeling like she'd been wrung out and put back wrong. She'd slept several hours, but her mind was sluggish, her head thick, her whole body leaden—more drained than she'd felt right after transmigrating.
She rubbed her temples and forced herself upright. Reaching for water, she lifted her arm—and froze.
Wrapped around her wrist was a golden rope.
It was warm. As her fingers touched it, the heat slowly faded toward room temperature.
A different girl might have screamed and flung it across the room. Daisy was not a different girl. Her nerves were considerably sturdier than average, and besides—it was just a rope. Probably impossible, but maybe Maki had left it there as part of some game?
She ran her fingers along the material. Not gold, not silver, not copper. Soft. Unlike anything she'd touched before.
What is this?
She tested it with her frequency perception. The rope ignored her. She pushed harder—her nearly drained psychic power straining—and nearly dropped her jaw at what came back.
The reading said: this was once the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, but the original mark has been forcibly erased, and it no longer knows what to call itself.
Daisy stared at it, mouth open. How did this thing end up in my hands?
"Ancient One? Are you there?" She called out to the empty air, feeling faintly ridiculous. The empty air answered accordingly.
She turned it over in her mind, replaying every moment of the previous day. She'd been reckless. She'd dispatched those lackeys and let it go to her head, and underestimated the mysteries of magic. The rope following her home was proof of that.
Had Cyttorak taken control of her? She checked herself carefully—nothing. She didn't have Cyttorak's signature, none of the frequencies that matched the Juggernaut's resonance. Clean.
The idea of returning it was dismissed immediately. The Ancient One and Wong were both out of New York. The three mediocre sorcerers watching over the Sanctum had already tried to pin things on her once without cause—now they'd have actual ammunition.
Since she wasn't giving it back, her compulsive streak insisted she give it a proper name and claim it as hers. The most famous rope in the combined Marvel and DC universes was Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. She borrowed the name without ceremony. Between this and her sword-and-shield, her bracers, her Eagle Armor, and now this lasso—she was committing further and further down the cosplay path.
Daisy had no strong feelings about this. She was fairly confident Wonder Woman wasn't going to materialize and punch her over it.
With the naming settled, she began testing it. This was her first piece of magical equipment, and conventional physical testing methods felt beside the point. She went off-script.
She threw it at the wall. Magic equipment acted differently—the moment it left her hand, it flew out, and at what felt like ten meters (33 ft) it snapped back to her palm on its own.
The distance wasn't perfectly calibrated; Earth's unit standards and Cyttorak's dimension clearly weren't synchronized. Her estimate: just over ten meters, maybe thirty-three feet.
As for length—that was unmeasurable. The lasso could extend indefinitely, with her psychic power as its fuel. The more psychic energy she fed it, the longer it could reach.
"Seems harmless enough? Did the Ancient One actually leave this for me?"
She turned it over in her hands. Something in the back of her mind was trying to tell her the rope had been purified, but the signal was blocked at the threshold of conscious thought—under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be able to receive it at all. She filled in the gap herself with the image of a kindly senior sorcerer quietly investing in a talented junior.
The Ancient One probably decided I had unusual potential and wanted to get ahead of the curve. That was the only explanation she could work with.
The weapon was like a superpower: effect didn't matter without the right wielder. A handgun in a child's hands and in a soldier's hands were not the same thing. There were items in this world that handed anyone who held them godlike power—she was fairly sure of that—but this lasso clearly wasn't one of them. She wanted to run a real test, and she started looking for a suitable subject.
Little Lorna had gone to school. Maki would probably be delighted to volunteer, but Daisy thought better of opening that particular door. She settled on the villa's third resident.