Skadi had no consciousness whatsoever, her mind a complete blank. Relying on the will the World Serpent had instilled in her, she'd barely recovered a few bodily instincts; her expression was stiff, devoid of intelligence, capable only of carrying out simple commands.
The World Serpent found it rather frustrating himself. He never should have strangled Sin back then. If her own consciousness were still intact—even one bewitched and gripped by fear—it would beat this current state by a mile.
Sadly, there's no medicine for regret in this world, and he wasn't strong enough to reset the timeline. He'd just have to make do.
An island this size flying through the sky was never going to stay hidden from S.H.I.E.L.D.
Watching the enemy step into the spotlight, Daisy let out a breath. She wasn't afraid of a hard fight; what she feared was an enemy who fought a hit-and-run war.
She had neither the energy nor the time to sit around all day doing nothing but waiting for an attack. A day or two she could manage, but over the long haul she'd never hold up.
The Avengers didn't exist yet, but her side's strength really wasn't weak. To deal with one wretched old man, she figured that if they all piled in together, it wasn't a fight they couldn't win. And if all else failed, there were still big shots like the Ancient One and Odin around. What the hell was there to be afraid of?
Of course, at this stage the Ancient One definitely wasn't going to step in. That sort of old guard of the righteous camp would surely hang back and enjoy the show, aiming to temper the newcomers; the fighting still had to be done by them.
Nick Fury handed her on-scene command, while he stayed put under the fine-sounding pretext of "holding down the rear."
Let Baldy hang back there. Daisy didn't think he could offer much combat support anyway.
The other national "leader," Loki, cited severe injuries and returned to Asgard—but he left behind the barely patched-up Destroyer, claiming he could remote-control it from Asgard, so there was no need to worry about its combat power at all.
Watching Loki leave the battered Destroyer behind and then limp off the Earth, Daisy figured the guy probably hadn't been lying; his injuries did look serious. A pity the Hulk had vanished who-knows-where—with the Hulk along, she'd have felt even more confident.
"Commander Johnson, the enemy is three hundred nautical miles (about 345 miles) off our western flank. They're starting to slow down."
As frontline commander, Daisy had naturally taken her place aboard the Helicarrier. Captain Hill's eyes held a trace of worry, but in front of others the two of them kept up an all-business air.
The ship now carried not just a host of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but also Iron Man, War Machine, the Fantastic Two (the Storm siblings, Susan and Johnny), the Asgardian warriors, and the X-Men's Storm and Cyclops, whom Daisy had invited personally to help.
"Thank you so much for your help, but this is Asgard's war—please let us take the vanguard." Sif didn't feel the least bit out of place standing armored, sword and shield in hand, in a crowd of agents; she was first to volunteer.
"Please wait. Asgard's valor will shine—but not now." Daisy declined the suggestion with a smile. As enemies, Asgardians were a massive headache; as allies, they were especially endearing.
Vying to be first, fearing neither death nor hardship, their morale climbing the more desperate the battle—they were a pack of born warriors.
But it wasn't yet time for close-quarters combat.
"Operations Department, you may execute Plan A." She issued the order to the rear. What was Plan A? The plan to profane the World Serpent. Fear? Yeah, go to hell with that.
Daisy had picked up Baldy's signature trick: compartmentalized management. The agents across the Operations and Information departments had no idea what they were actually doing; each completed only one small piece of the work.
Control of the world's root servers was seized in an instant, and the entire planet's internet fell under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s control.
The nameless dread the public felt from the World Serpent spreading his essence was now fermenting fast. They had no clue that the half-second of lag on their web pages actually marked the start of another kind of war.
All sorts of news, games, and videos were cut off at once. Before the public could grasp what was happening, "adult films" appeared on every screen.
Everyone jumped. At first they thought their phone or computer had glitched. Some closed the window, some powered off, and some shot furtive glances around, trying to gauge whether they'd drawn anyone's notice.
But to their astonishment, they found everyone else wearing much the same expression—and that made it a serious matter indeed.
Daisy, mindful of the differing tastes of male and female audiences, had even run big-data analysis: men and women got different content. Office workers stopped in their tracks, laborers set down their tools, and the guy peddling drugs on the street corner stared at the roadside display screen right alongside the cop—both forgetting their respective identities, faces blank with shock as they argued over what was going on. For a moment, plazas, train stations, offices, libraries, and homes were all steeped in a bizarre atmosphere.
By now the sitting President had learned the election results and was congratulating the Democratic Party on its win. As the outgoing incumbent, he delivered a speech reflecting on his decade-long journey, his tone heavy, as if cherishing the memory of the eight years he'd devoted to nation and people.
"Domestic auto brands have received our full support... light industry production is entering its next phase... we must vigorously... strive ever onward... be a little bolder, a little faster!..."
His speech draft was top-notch, his delivery impassioned enough—but his entire staff was in a cold panic. They had no idea what fault had hit the network, or where all this adult footage was coming from.
As it happened, the White House didn't rely entirely on the root servers; their access to the global internet ran at an extremely high level. Even Daisy, careful as she was, had overlooked them.
The sitting President's speech had in fact gone out, but with the outside world blanketed by adult films, the actual broadcast came out... a little skewed.
A crew scrambled to adjust the live feed, finally producing a chimera of a thing—adult footage paired with the President's address.
Several supervisors wore faces like still water, but a fair number of the salaried staff nearly laughed themselves into stitches.
The sitting President had never been known for quick wits. He muddled through reading his speech to the end, still not understanding what had happened.
The world had long been blanketed by the internet; online content was everywhere, so seeing it was perfectly normal; it was the absence of it that would have been strange—especially in public venues like Times Square, where the audio was downright gripping and the visuals all the more arresting.
Over in the San Fernando Valley, Elektra immediately threw on a disguise and came knocking. She'd had her doubts about Daisy running this operation at first; now she was thoroughly reassured. She crossed one leg over the other. Time for you company bosses to pay up!
As businessmen, of course they didn't want to pay, but the whole affair reeked of strangeness from top to bottom, as if a vast net had dropped out of the sky.
Their being half-shady was no lie, but they didn't want trouble either. Blanketing the entire world's internet—what organization had pulled that off? It sounded terrifying just to hear. Seeing that if they didn't pay, the opportunity would simply fall to a competitor, they naturally raised no objections and obediently paid up.
Intelligence organizations across the globe were in an uproar, all hunting for this super hacker organization that had tried to subvert the world's internet. Even S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own agents searched for ages—thanks to compartmentalized management, they had no idea the whole thing was their own doing.