Just as Tony and Natasha streaked toward the fire elemental, a new and more insidious crisis was unfolding back at S.W.O.R.D. headquarters.
"Ma'am! You need to see this, now!" an analyst shouted, his voice sharp with alarm.
With Fury still locked in a futile battle of wills with the nation's leadership, command rested with Maria Hill. She strode over to the monitoring station, her eyes immediately drawn to the screen. "What is it?"
"The storm, ma'am. It's not stopping. It's… getting bigger."
"What? But the wind elemental was destroyed!"
"Yes," Dr. Erik Selvig interjected, walking over from the meteorological station, his face pale. "The engine is gone, but the flywheel is still spinning. The storm has achieved self-sustaining momentum."
He pointed a trembling finger at a series of terrifyingly steep curves on the display. "Without the elemental actively compressing the storm to use as a shield, the energy is no longer contained. It's expanding, developing according to natural physics."
"But the reports said the wind speeds were decreasing," Hill argued, a cold knot of dread forming in her stomach.
"The rotational velocity is slowing, yes," Selvig confirmed grimly. "But look at the dissipation curve. At this rate, it will take at least eight months—maybe a full year—for this storm to die out on its own." He pulled up a topographical map of North America. "For now, the Rocky Mountains are acting as a partial barrier for the West Coast. But the vast plains to the east… they're about to be scoured clean."
He drew a massive, swirling circle that covered a huge portion of the continent. Hill was stunned. She'd assumed victory meant the crisis was over.
"It gets worse," Selvig said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "The storm's path is converging with the fire elemental. The creature's ambient temperature is beyond anything natural. This storm system is now almost entirely devoid of water vapor. When this wind hits that heat field…"
"What will happen?" Hill asked, though she already feared the answer.
"It will trigger a foehn effect on a continental scale," Erik explained, his eyes wide with the horror of his own calculations. "A wave of dry, superheated air moving at hundreds of kilometers per hour will blast across the entire eastern seaboard. It won't be a heat wave; it will be a flash furnace. And Washington D.C., at the point of convergence… it will be baked to dust before the fire elemental ever arrives. The temperature will spike to over 70 degrees Celsius—or higher. The capital will become a living hell."
Hill felt the blood drain from her face. She turned away, activating her private comms. "Rhodes, did you hear that? Tell Thor and Wanda they have to stop that storm, whatever it takes!"
"I heard," came the strained reply.
Inside the protective bubble of Wanda's magic, the news hit them like a physical blow. She didn't waste energy on words, silently pouring more of her chaos magic into the storm, but it felt like trying to hold back the tide with her bare hands. This was no longer just a supernatural entity; it was the raw, terrifying momentum of nature itself.
Max relayed the message to Thor, who stood in the relative calm of the storm's eye. The God of Thunder looked at the colossal wall of wind surrounding him, then made a decision.
"Tell Rhodes to contact Natasha," Thor commanded. "I'm calling it back."
A few moments later, Natasha, flying in formation with Tony, received the message. Tony heard it too, a pang of regret hitting him that her immense new power would be drawn away from the fire elemental. But he understood.
"JARVIS, deploy the 'Rescue' prototype for Natasha," he ordered.
A sleeker, white-and-gold armor detached from the drone swarm and flew to Natasha. As the suit seamlessly formed around her, she gave a grim nod, swung Mjolnir in a powerful arc, and hurled it into the sky with all her strength.
"Here it comes," Thor whispered from the eye of the storm. He stretched out his hand.
Seconds later, a silver streak cut through the raging winds, and Mjolnir slapped into his waiting palm with a familiar, comforting weight. "Old friend," Thor said, gripping the handle. "I'm counting on you."
He raised the hammer high and began to swing it, not with the storm, but against it. With all his divine strength, he spun Mjolnir in the opposite direction of the storm's rotation. A small vortex began to form around him—a maverick eddy fighting against a continental tide. As he spun the hammer faster and faster, the counter-cyclone grew, its power far greater than anything he could have summoned on his own.
Wanda, meanwhile, was reaching her limit. The crimson light pouring from her hands intensified as she attempted to weave atmospheric barriers into the air, trying to disrupt the wind currents. But her power felt frayed, brittle. She was not yet the Scarlet Witch who could rewrite reality on a whim, and the lingering touch of Dormammu's earlier assault had left a cold poison in her soul.
She was pushing her body past its breaking point. A sudden, warm trickle of blood from her nose startled her.
"Wanda, you're bleeding!" Rhodes's voice was sharp with concern.
She didn't have the energy to reply. Her entire world had narrowed to a single, desperate focus: holding back the apocalypse, even if it meant she would break first.
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