[ U.S. Military Base, Kandahar, Afghanistan ]
The anesthetic worked—extremely well. But its flaw was obvious: barely visible fumes and a distinct odor. Silent takedowns weren't possible with this. Seraphina had spent years refining it, chasing perfection. In the end, she abandoned it. Not subtle enough.
Still, this was the same compound that once put down the Juggernaut for two days in sleep. And however impressive Mandarin's mystical enhancements were, he wasn't physically superior to that monster. Not even close.
"Immune to all poisons" sounded impressive, but semantics didn't stop biology. Immunity wasn't absolute. Unless one's body was pure energy, no human could truly resist everything.
Mandarin was powerful, yes. But he still inhaled. Still fatigued. Still made of nerves, muscles, and blood. Not divine. Not untouchable. And that meant he could still bleed—and still fall asleep.
The acrid fumes masked the gas perfectly. Mandarin, distracted by the stench of cement and fire, never realized the paralytic was already in his lungs. Most of it was resisted, but not all. Enough of it settled, molecule by molecule.
It didn't show at first. But as the dosage climbed, Mandarin began to falter. His body told him something was wrong—off-balance, heavy.
He took a step.
Then another.
Wobble.
His brow twitched.
"I am immune to all poisons!" he snapped into the silence, as if daring the air to defy him. "I—"
A sudden tremor ran up his left arm.
He cursed and raised his energy to purge it, snapping his fingers in a harsh twist—his blood rushing with unnatural force, the way he'd expelled a dozen deadly venoms in the past.
But not this time.
Anesthetics weren't poisons—they didn't burn or corrode. They drifted. Slipped past defenses like fog. His attempt only pumped it faster through his veins.
His breath caught.
His legs buckled slightly.
He forced himself upright, eyes wide with realization. "This… this isn't poison…"
His body tensed as tried switching strategies, tried flushing the drug through skin and breath, pouring energy outward—but it only made it worse. The anesthetic was circulating faster now, flooding his limbs. The more he fought it, the worse it got.
"No!"
Too late. The numbness crept faster than his will could fight it. His entire left side felt cold, foreign, like it belonged to someone else.
Limbs he couldn't move. And if he couldn't move it, he couldn't purge it. His body systems shutting down piece by piece. No strength, no defense.
He staggered. The world tilted.
"You clever little—"
He didn't finish.
The room tilted. His vision blurred. Pressure built behind his eyes. A thick, creeping exhaustion settled in like a weighted fog. He hadn't felt this exhausted in decades.
The proud sorcerer-king, the self-declared heir of Genghis Khan, swayed in place.
Mandarin didn't hesitate. Retreat was the only option now.
His breathing was ragged, his muscles trembling under the weight of paralyzing chemicals. The numbness had claimed his entire left side.
But the right hand—his remaining strength—still answered his call.
"No more games." His voice was hoarse, tight with fury.
He slammed his thumb to the ground, the Matter-Rearranger Ring flaring with an eerie, void-black light.
The sulfuric acid, smoldering cement, and twisted steel shivered. The ground cracked. The alloy doors groaned.
Then—a shape emerged from chaos.
Stone twisted into bone. Metal wrapped around tendons of earth. It loomed with heavy wings and a bloated frame. Black scales shimmered against the flicker of dim emergency lights.
A dragon.
A Western dragon animated by the will of Mandarin with use of the ring.
Towering, grotesque, and lifeless behind empty sockets—but colossal nonetheless.
With a sharp step onto its wing and a vault into the air, Mandarin mounted the back of the monster like a general upon a war elephant.
"Rise!"
The black dragon launched itself skyward, smashing through the concrete ceiling in a thunderous explosion of dust and light.
...
Soldiers and officers scrambled from cover as the entire upper layer of the base shattered like glass.
"Contact! Airborne hostile—what the hell is that?!"
The base's communications were dead, but vision was not. A target that large couldn't be missed.
Artillery turned skyward.
Boom! Boom!
Anti-air cannons fired, Sidewinder missiles streaked upward like vengeful comets.
Every anti-air weapon opened fire, launching everything short of nukes at the dragon.
Shells burst against the dragon construct.
Chunks of the dragon's wing and tail were blasted off—disintegrating into stone and mud before hitting the ground. But the beast kept rising, higher and higher, until it slipped out of range—taking its master with it.
"He's escaping! Intercept now!" a voice screamed through failing comms.
Two fighter jets scrambled into pursuit. And another three jets followed soon after.
The dragon sliced through the clouds, a silhouette of vengeance against the dying sun.
The Mandarin clutched the dragon's spine, swaying with each beat of its wings. His face was pale, blood dripping steadily from his severed finger.
The first two jets fired Sidewinder missiles.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The animated dragon twisted mid-air, narrowly dodging the blasts—but the explosions still detonated close, rocking the Mandarin.
The jets moved in closer, tightening formation—only to be met with twin shockwaves from the ring on his index finger.
Boom! Boom!
Both aircraft spiraled, engines failing, before erupting in mid-air fireballs.
The remaining three jets scattered in panic.
"He's still fighting?!" a pilot's voice cracked over comms. "I repeat—abort pursuit! ABORT!"
Above the clouds and now finally alone, Mandarin lay across his creation's back, bleeding, fading, concentrating everything on purging the drug and staying conscious.
He was now even more wounded from the fighter jet assault just two minutes earlier. His left hand was numb, one ring from his right hand was gone, and the energy within him refused to flow properly. He barely managed to withstand the Sidewinder missile, and the resulting explosion had left him with severe internal injuries. Now, he was running on willpower alone. His once-terrifying strength was fractured.
The black dragon carried him eastward. His thoughts were hazy, memory fragmented. He couldn't recall what lay in the east—only that, somehow, it felt like the safest place.
...
After crossing the plateau and breaching the snow-covered mountains, the temperature plunged.
The wind howled like a living thing, tearing across the jagged peaks of the Himalayas range. The Mandarin, once a force of myth and fear, now clung to life.
His breathing was shallow. His body, once glowing with energy, had dulled. His frostbitten fingers clutched at the crumbling scales beneath him.
His mind slipped into stillness, frozen.
The black dragon, no longer sustained by will, gave one last tremor—then shattered mid-flight, disintegrating into slush, mud, and powder.
Mandarin's body dropped like a stone.
WHUMP!
He crashed into a blanket of untouched snow, the sound echoing across the peaks like a cannon shot. The mountains shook, then fell silent again—guarding their secrets as they always had.
…
[ U.S. Military Base, Kandahar, Afghanistan ]
The lights above flickered slightly. The smell of scorched electronics still lingered in the air. Daisy sat motionless in a steel chair, a pale sheet pulled over her shoulders, eyes closed, face unreadable.
An IV drip hung nearby for show, but the bag was full of glucose water. No painkillers. No sedatives.
She didn't need them.
But she needed the world to believe she did.
She had recommended surface-to-air missiles to intercept Mandarin, but the general dismissed it—Mandarin had crossed into the border of India, and politics outweighed firepower. Daisy didn't press the matter.
"Captain, are you alright?" Barbara, still loyal despite the chaos, approached with concern.
Daisy opened her eyes slowly and gave a faint smile. "Alive. Unfortunately."
Her voice was hoarse, dry like ash.
Of course she wasn't fine. Her whole body ached beneath the uniform from the chase. Her ribs protested every breath.
That monster could shred ironman armor with bare hands. He had tossed the elemental attacks towards her like they were toys, and she'd spent five minutes dodging death.
But showing weakness wasn't an option. The medics weren't fools; her recovery was too rapid for a normal agent. So she remained in the chair, still and silent, playing the fragile human.
...
[ Later ]
The two generals—one Army, one Air Force—watched Daisy from a respectful distance.
She finally stood, fixing her collar and adjusting the gloves that hid her vibranium wristband.
"Generals," she said with diplomatic calm, "if you'll excuse me—I need to deliver my report. Thank you for the... hospitality."
SHIELD didn't answer to the military hierarchy, so her lack of a full report was standard procedure.
The Army General stood and tried to intercept her. "Agent Johnson—about the reconstruction budget—"
"About that," Daisy cut in with a ghost of a smirk. "You'll have to invoice the dragon."
Before either could reply, she walked out, Barbara following a step behind.
They had hoped SHIELD would shoulder part of the rebuilding cost. But Daisy was already gone, too fast and too clean, leaving nothing behind.
The two generals stood in silence for a long time.
Finally, the Air Force General sighed. "Should've let her fire the missile."
Left with no better option, the Army General picked up the secure phone and dialed. "Get me Air Force Colonel Rhodes."
After a string of formalities with Rhodes, the brass hoped he'd leverage personal favors to finance the reconstruction of Kandahar base.
But Colonel Rhodes had only one personal connection worth mentioning—Stark. The bill? Naturally, it had to be passed on to the man with the deepest pockets.
Given the political pressure from above, the Colonel Rhodes hesitated. But in the end, he had no choice. If Tony Stark was recovered alive, he'd find a way to nudge the billionaire into quietly covering some of the base's reconstruction costs. Preferably without letting Stark realize it.
...
[ SHIELD's local outpost, Kandahar, Afghanistan ]
Meanwhile, Daisy led her agents back to SHIELD's local outpost in Kandahar for rest and regrouping.
She had no confirmation Mandarin had been buried beneath the snow. Carefully, she unsealed the box. The Disintegration Beam Ring was inert—no signal, no flare, no movement.
Only then did her tension fade. She had no intention of letting go of this ring. With the right timing, its beam strike could become a perfect killing blow to almost anyone.
She stored it securely, showered, and collapsed into bed.
...
"Rise and shine, gorgeous." The sultry voice filtered through her haze. Daisy blinked, disoriented. Gorgeous? For a second, she wondered who it was addressing.
Her eyes opened. Black Widow sat beside the bed—smug, far too at ease.
Daisy's gaze swept over Natasha without urgency. The redhead wore her standard field suit, this time deliberately a size too tight. The neckline dipped low, posture calculated and teasing. Her eyes—velvet and sharp—watched Daisy like a hunter studying prey.
"Nice figure, don't you think?" she murmured, amused.
Daisy blinked once, then rolled her eyes—unmoved by the display.
Daisy sat up without flinching. "You flatter yourself thinking I'd blush."
She swung her legs over the bed, stood, and peeled off her thin sleep shirt with the grace of someone used to being watched—and unbothered by it. Natasha's smirk widened slightly.
"Shame. You'd look good in red."
"You say that to all the women you don't plan to shoot."
"Only the lethal ones."
Daisy pulled on dark casual wear: black shirt, fitted jeans, hair tied up into a lazy knot. A small, secure case sat on the table nearby—the Disintegration Beam Ring locked tight inside, quiet and inert. That alone allowed her to exhale.
"When did you get here?" she asked casually.
"An hour ago. Director's waiting on a call for you."
Daisy stifled a yawn, pulled up the SHIELD secure link, and began the multi-factor authentication. Then Fury's face appeared on screen within seconds.
She had filed the mission summary already. This time, she just walked through the combat events again—edited, of course. No mention of the ring in her possession. And no mention of any severed finger either.
"Do you consider the target a continuing threat to global security?" Fury didn't waste a second on pleasantries. No small talk. No checking on her injuries. Just the question that mattered.
To Be Continued...
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[POWER STONES AND REVIEWS PLS]