"This square-headed hammer landed at the Antarctic base ten days ago. After that, the two hammers triggered what the Science Division believes was an energy detonation, and now the weather across that whole region has turned brutal." A photo appeared on the screen right on cue, a satellite image. An enormous storm had swallowed both hammers whole. In the picture, snow filled the air from edge to edge, and visibility was almost nonexistent.
"You're not going to send me, are you? I just got back…" After her two separate trips to the Antarctic and the Arctic, Daisy had no desire to set foot in cold places again. She wasn't even sure whether her newfound Phoenix energy could shrug off the cold.
Nick Fury said nothing. He just fixed her with that one eye. Considering she'd been off the job for nearly three months, she wasn't in a good position to refuse—and she was a little worried too, so she had no choice but to agree.
Once she teleported to Antarctica, Daisy decided it wasn't so bad. A faint circulation of her energy, and she no longer felt cold at all. Judging by the rate her reserves were draining, she could stay down here for ten days or even half a month without trouble.
Blouse, blazer, slacks, high heels—the textbook look of a female agent—she walked across the bone-chilling ice, glanced left and right to get her bearings, then headed toward the eye of the storm.
The blizzard was so fierce it scrambled her frequency perception. On top of that, having just acquired Shou-Lao's power, even the smallest impurity was still an external force, and Daisy's grip on her own strength had slipped a bit. She didn't notice the four figures in the distance murmuring about her.
A bearded man two meters (6.6 ft) tall, his face full of astonishment, watched the direction Daisy had gone and rumbled, "That's a woman of Midgard? She gives me a dangerous feeling!"
His companion, a man with a small golden mustache, was just as puzzled. "Her clothing looks so thin, yet she ignores the extreme cold here. That's a constitution many Asgardians don't even possess…"
"Could she be a Midgardian sorceress?" offered a third man with somewhat Asian features.
"Whatever she is, we'll follow her—she's bound to have news of Thor!" The four were led by the woman at their center. She broke from cover first, and the other three crept after her on light feet.
Between the storm's interference and the energy radiating off the two hammers, Daisy's teleport had drifted slightly off target. It took her a full ten minutes to locate the original site of the Antarctic base.
The closer she got to the central region, the greater the resistance—not only the sky-blotting blizzard, but countless bolts of thunder woven through it.
Odin's stirring up trouble! That was the only conclusion Daisy could reach. The Earth was enormous. If he didn't like New Mexico, he could've dumped it anywhere else. Of all the places, why Antarctica? And right next to the Hammer of Skadi, no less. If that wasn't asking for trouble, what was?
The savage blizzard made every step a struggle, and the four warriors trailing her had it even harder. They'd intended to stay hidden, but conditions were so awful that merely walking was an ordeal, so they simply charged forward.
The instant they abandoned stealth and broke into a run, Daisy stopped dead. Someone was following her?
Watching the four warriors burst out through the snow, she let out a quiet breath of relief. They weren't enemies—probably not, anyway.
Seeing her wait for them at perfect ease, the four hastily raised their weapons. The woman in front waved a hand, signaling them not to act rashly.
"I am Sif, goddess of the land and harvest of Asgard. Who are you? Why have you come here?" Sif's words were, in truth, as courteous as she could manage. In the old days it was always "Midgardian" this, "Midgardian" that—as if once they'd assigned Earth a name, Earthlings had no right to refuse it.
Daisy's bearing and attire marked her as no ordinary person, so this time she was getting different treatment.
Only then did it occur to Daisy that this woman was a deity. This was the first living god she'd ever seen. The god didn't look strong, but her level of existence already outranked Daisy's.
She couldn't help looking her over a few times. "Goddess of the land? I don't see where your strength is. The earth's under my feet too—why don't you show me a little divine might?"
Sif couldn't perform divine might to save her life. She was just a warrior. The title of "goddess" only existed because it sounded impressive.
Her first impression of this Midgardian woman, Daisy, was decidedly poor.
Daisy waited two seconds, found not the slightest energy fluctuation from Sif, and sighed. "I'm under orders to investigate the strange business here. I'll take a look and then leave."
She waved a hand and made to walk on, but Sif drew her longsword with a sharp ring of steel.
"On whose orders do you come?" In Sif's mind, Thor's disappearance and the mysterious figure backing Daisy had to be connected.
Daisy sized the group up. Sif was a touch stronger—roughly where Daisy herself had been before K'un-Lun. The remaining three looked imposing, but they were honestly weaker than Captain America and the Winter Soldier. No wonder Hela cut them down in an instant, without leaving them so much as one line of dialogue.
Her eyebrow arched, a flicker of displeasure at Sif's tone. A "god" who couldn't even fly had no business shouting.
She turned to head inside, not intending to waste more words on them.
But her movement didn't register faithfully in the eyes of the four warriors. They seemed to see Daisy laughing in their faces.
In their hallucination, Daisy's attitude was outrageously arrogant, her face dripping with mockery. "A pack of savages—crawl back to Asgard!"
Even Daisy, on the verge of leaving, felt a wave of energy seem to tug at her emotions, but it was instantly canceled out by the Phoenix Force, leaving her only with the unpleasant impression that the four looked hateful.
What's interfering with me? Before she could even judge, the warrior of Asgard with the great axe had already come charging like a wild boar, bellowing "For Asgard!"
The remaining two—one wielding a rapier, the other a flail—hurled themselves at her from left and right.
Sif had some measure of resistance and sensed something was off, so she didn't rush in recklessly.
"What is wrong with you people!" Daisy's hand shot out fast as lightning and caught the great axe by its haft as it swept down at her. The man's strength was considerable, his body denser than an Earthling's, but in her eyes that counted for nothing.
Following the direction of his swing, Daisy yanked on the haft and flung him into the distance.
The big man crashed into an iceberg, axe and all, and Sif rushed over to haul him up.
"Volstagg, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine." The big man swayed back to his feet. The blow had rattled him badly. He was just reaching for his axe to fight again when his two comrades were each flung out by Daisy with a single throw apiece.
"Stand down. Harass me again and I won't be so gentle."
Her solemn tone, warped by some unknown force, turned into pure provocation. This time even Sif couldn't hold back. She gave a great shout, shield in her left hand, longsword in her right, and charged forward in long strides, blade driving straight for the center.
Daisy, no expert in swordplay, couldn't tell how exquisite the move was. But Asgardians supposedly lived for thousands of years, training in combat day in and day out with nothing better to do—surely they couldn't be worse than Bakuto?
She'd worked out a method for dealing with warriors like these by now: throw a fist and slug it out head-on!