Daisy patted the equipment behind her and said, "I modified this thing a bit. Originally it could be used over and over—now it's become single-use…"
At that, she got a little sheepish and scratched her cheek. "But the effect's still powerful. You can ignore that once-every-ten-years cycle for returning to Earth. Start the device in an emergency, and it'll carry you back to Earth."
"How large an area can it cover?" Lei Kung asked.
Daisy calculated for a while. When that spaceship had crashed into this sacred mountain of K'un-Lun, the two had actually fused into one. The appearance on Earth every ten years was, in fact, a kind of self-reaction of the alternate dimension rejecting K'un-Lun—not the engine's ability.
This single-use version of the engine definitely couldn't match the original at full power. On top of that, K'un-Lun was several times larger than that original spaceship. Taking it all was unrealistic.
"The sacred mountain can roughly make it to Earth, but the villages and towns at its base would be hard to cover, I'm afraid." She was being fairly blunt. When the critical moment came, it would really come down to their own choices.
Designing an escape route for K'un-Lun was something she did from the heart. With the odds and ends finished, she was ready to set off home too.
"Are you leaving?" At dusk, Danny Rand found her.
"Want me to take you along?" Daisy asked.
"No! I still have to keep training. Once I've mastered it…" Danny was a little surprised she would offer that, but that wasn't where his attention lay.
The boy quickly collected his emotions and asked softly, "Can you tell me how to become strong? What belief did you rely on to train this far?"
Daisy's gaze dodged about. Her own conviction was hardly firm. Back when the lovely Colleen Wing taught her swordplay, she'd quit after less than half a month—and she'd passed that sword style on to the Maid, who'd actually trained it up quite respectably.
Agent May had taught her boxing too, but unfortunately she hadn't stuck with that either. She trained in fits and starts, and in combat she relied entirely on bulling through with her powers. Her current combat strength was hardly the product of training.
But she couldn't tell Danny the truth, couldn't say she was a superhuman and that he'd never catch up to her in this lifetime. That wouldn't be appropriate. Daisy had at least heard plenty of the President's speeches, and combined with her own battle against Shou-Lao, she'd gained more than a little insight.
Putting on the air of a transcendent master, Daisy pointed at Danny Rand's chest. "Do you think it's my power that's strong? Do you think I cut through brambles and thorns, trampled over every hardship, pressed ever forward, tempered my character and conduct…" She heaped praise on herself for a good while. As a foreigner, Danny had never heard most of these idioms, and he wore a look of being awed despite not understanding any of it.
Daisy realized she'd boasted a bit much and hurriedly reeled it back in. "What do you think forged my precious qualities? It's that my heart is strong—it has nothing to do with power. Make your heart strong. The heart is the true source of strength."
This whole motivational spiel was lifted wholesale from Charles Xavier's teachings to Cyclops. Once she said it aloud, it instantly elevated her by several tiers of prestige. Danny looked thoughtful, as if he'd understood something. He bowed deeply and left the room.
Having seen the boy Danny off, Daisy sat in meditation where she was, trying to grow familiar with her newly gained power. The chi made two circuits through her body—but, alas, having recovered her true nature, she was still the same somewhat lazy and weary Daisy Johnson.
After only ten minutes of practice, she made an excuse for herself: she'd fought a big battle today, her body was exhausted, she needed a good rest!
Pull up the blanket and sleep!
The night passed without incident. The moment the horizon brightened faintly, she sat up.
The connection to the Phoenix was still there, and her mental power had gained another notch. But now that portion of Phoenix emotions could no longer affect her.
What belonged to the spirit stayed with the spirit. The Phoenix Force had turned into a special Phoenix chi. A night's worth of accumulated Phoenix Force, once transformed, amounted to several days of someone else's chi cultivation, and all she had to do was sleep on schedule and transform it each morning when she got up.
Efficient, and, crucially, not tiring! Aside from worrying about being controlled by the Phoenix in turn, it was practically the textbook example of growing stronger while lying down.
She packed her bags, changed back into her own clothes, pushed open the door, and walked down the sacred mountain.
No one saw her off, and no one noticed her leaving.
Daisy found a civilian house at the foot of the mountain and sensed the vibration frequency of the outside world. In under three minutes, she opened a water-blue portal, stepped lightly through, and left K'un-Lun.
Back on Earth again, she took a deep breath of fresh air and felt a wave of relief in her spirit. K'un-Lun might be a paradise away from the world, but this was her home.
PERIL connected to the mainframe and checked her inbox first.
Daisy skimmed through it rapidly. From the emails of Baldy, Hill, and the Maid, she saw no sign of anything major having happened. Still, she didn't let her guard down. The Yu-Ti of K'un-Lun had said something would happen, and she believed it—a man that formidable wouldn't lie to her.
Teleporting back to her own villa, Daisy set down her backpack and played with the little lion for a bit. Learning that the Maid, Elektra, and the others were all out, she was just about to head out to eat when the phone rang.
Baldy's dark face appeared on the screen. "Agent Daisy Johnson, your vacation is over. I'm waiting for you at headquarters."
The Director hung up the moment he finished.
Daisy figured this guy had probably stuck some kind of alarm device on her pager—otherwise there was no way she'd be spotted the instant she got back to New York!
Seeing that Baldy was in one piece, not tied to a chair and beaten, and not appearing at some war-torn scene, she estimated the matter wasn't too urgent.
She went ahead and took a bath. That wooden tub in K'un-Lun—never mind what precious timber it was crafted from—simply wasn't as comfortable to bathe in as her own bathtub at home.
Washing away the fatigue of the journey, she changed into a white shirt, suit jacket and trousers, tied her hair into a ponytail, took one step, and was already standing in Nick Fury's office.
Baldy's single eye looked her over. He offered no comment on her red-haired look. "You look well. Take a look at this." With that, he switched on the display in the room.
The screen showed the Antarctic base. Skadi's Hammer, once sealed away, had regained its radiance. The concrete and metal reinforcing the outside of the hammer had all been shaken into powder, blanketing the entire ground.
The Antarctic base looked as if it had been detonated from the inside, with a great deal of debris left at the scene and, faintly, no small amount of blood.
Divine artifacts always had certain traits, the most basic being that they could not tolerate profanation. Daisy wasn't surprised by this. What surprised her was that as the camera angle panned left, a deep pit appeared a thousand meters (3,280 ft) northwest of Skadi's Hammer. A square-headed war hammer stood upright in the pit, as if waiting for its master.
Daisy cursed aloud. How could Mjolnir appear in Antarctica, right beside Skadi's Hammer? What did that mean? Daisy couldn't quite read Odin's mind. Had the old man gone senile?
She feigned complete ignorance, questioning Nick Fury with her eyes, waiting for his further explanation.