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"Apparition..."
Natasha stiffened. She stared in disbelief at the black-robed figure that had appeared without a sound.
A wizard?!
...
On the other side, inside the Helicarrier's main control room.
Steve swatted the last Hydra soldier away with his shield and sprinted to the main console. Still catching his breath, he jammed the USB drive into the port.
"Done!"
He growled into the comm.
High above.
Tony piloted his suit through a crisscross of gunfire, weaving and banking between the streams.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., report on the other two ships!"
"Sir, the virus has been planted, but for some reason..."
J.A.R.V.I.S. never finished. The carrier's cannons swiveled toward him again, and Tony already knew exactly what he'd been about to say.
"Damn it! They're still running!"
The comm channel dissolved into chaos.
"Stark! Rogers! Answer me! Why are the targets still operational?!" Fury shouted.
"It's not working! The virus got blocked!" Steve's voice was tight with urgency.
"That makes zero sense!" Tony snapped. "What kind of firewall can stop my—"
"It's not a firewall!"
Natasha's voice cut in sharp and fast, edged with something close to panic.
"It's a wizard! Pierce has a wizard with him!"
"A wizard is working with Hydra!"
Dead silence on the channel.
Tony broke it first, his voice stripped of everything but disbelief.
"A wizard?"
"Natasha, are you sure you didn't misread the situation?"
"I thought the Ministry of Magic forbids contact with ordinary people. If they can't even make contact, how is one of them collaborating with Hydra? With an organization like that, no less?"
"What, like Hermione? Some delinquent magical runaway with a chip on her shoulder?"
Tony sounded like he was joking. Nobody laughed.
By now, they all knew exactly how singular Hermione was. Anyone else would have been hauled back to the Ministry long ago. She was the only one who could openly associate with ordinary people and get away with it.
Natasha's voice came back quieter, shaken.
"I saw it myself. In Pierce's office. Black robes. He just appeared out of thin air. And the magic he used..."
She paused.
"Was identical to Hermione's Apparition."
"Pierce was completely deferential toward him. Afraid, even. And then the man took Pierce with him and vanished."
Stunned silence.
Fury's voice came through hard and cold. "Working with Hydra — is he a dark wizard?"
"But why isn't he afraid of the Ministry? He's operating out in the open."
A beat of silence from Natasha. "Because he genuinely isn't."
"Why?" Fury pressed.
Natasha spoke slowly, every word landing clean through the comm.
"Because..."
"He is the Ministry of Magic."
The scene played on a loop in her head, the man's introduction, smooth and unhurried.
"Ministry of Magic, Department of Magical Law Enforcement..."
"Tom Marvolo Riddle."
...
That name hit the channel like a grenade.
Tony didn't even have time to process it.
The Helicarrier's wing cannons rotated toward him again. Only this time, it wasn't conventional artillery. Deep-blue light had replaced the gun barrels, glowing beams that radiated wrongness, carrying an energy that had nothing to do with technology.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.! Evasive action!"
Tony yanked into a climb. His suit carved a hard arc through the sky, pushing its limits.
The beam followed him. Instant. Relentless. Nothing like a shell.
It grazed him. Just barely. A sliver of blue catching the edge of his suit.
ZZZZT,
Half the armor vaporized on contact. The scorched interior cracked open, wiring and internal structure exposed to the open air, sparks spraying in all directions.
"Damn it!"
Tony gritted his teeth and forced the surviving half of the suit to obey, triggering the emergency ejection. He came down hard, crashing onto the rooftop of a building below.
He looked at what was left of the suit. A wave of cold dread moved through him.
He'd reacted in time. Another half-second and he'd be ash.
He'd spent enough time with Hermione to know something about alchemy. And right now, it told him everything he needed to know about why his virus had done absolutely nothing.
This was never about firewalls.
These Helicarriers weren't running on electronics.
They were running on magic.
Magic.
That wizard had modified them. Rewired three of the world's most advanced aircraft from the inside out using pure sorcery.
Tony stared at his ruined suit, still smoking, completely destroyed. A hollow, helpless feeling settled in his chest. His best armor. His proudest engineering. One glancing touch from that beam, and it was scrap metal. He hated it, but there was nothing to do but accept it.
He keyed the comm.
"So," he panted, voice rough, "we're out here fighting three magically retrofitted supercarriers right now?"
"Whatever happened to science? Can we get a little rationality up in here?"
Without warning, the air above them warped.
A figure materialized from nothing, hovering in the open space between all three Helicarriers.
Hermione.
She took in the smoke-choked battlefield around her, then glanced down at Tony's sorry state on the rooftop below. Her brow creased slightly.
A clear voice, carrying a note of genuine puzzlement, spoke directly into everyone's ears.
"Right, so... what exactly is going on here?"
"It's a power grab. How did it end up looking like this?"
The words were barely out before a wave of immense magical energy rolled outward from her.
Crimson flame gathered at her back, rising and taking shape.
An enormous phoenix, built entirely from living fire, materialized behind her and hung motionless in the air. The heat rolling off it bent the surrounding atmosphere into rippling distortions.
Inside the ground command vehicle.
Fury was still working through Natasha's words, trying to untangle the mess.
Why would anyone from the Ministry of Magic get involved with Hydra? What did they want? Was Natasha right, was this actually a collaboration?
His mind churned through possibilities. Then he saw Hermione's figure on the monitor, and for one brief moment, relief flooded through him.
She's here. We're stable.
Tony, Natasha, and Steve all felt it too.
Nice work, Hydra. You made enough noise to drag the big boss into the fight.
Then something clicked in Fury's head, and the relief curdled.
"Wait. If this is actually the Ministry of Magic — they would know we have Miss Witch. They'd know she's our strongest card..."
Working with Hydra. Manufacturing chaos on an enormous scale. Creating a spectacle big enough to see from miles away.
And then, right on cue, Hermione appears.
The thought hit him like a lightning strike.
Fury jerked his head up. His eyes locked onto the monitor, onto that small figure hovering quietly in the middle of three encircling Helicarriers.
"No."
His voice went wrong. All the calm drained out of it. What replaced it was raw, urgent horror.
"It's a trap!"
He roared into the comm.
"Project Insight was never about purging Hydra's dissenters! We've all been played!"
"From the moment Pierce started working with that wizard, every piece of this was a setup!"
"They were never after any of us!"
"Their target, from the very beginning, has been Miss Witch!"
➤ Next: The Alchemical Sky Carrier
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