Under the devastating, focused beam of the Rainbow Bridge, the last vestiges of dark purple light on the elemental's core flickered and died. Seizing the moment, Tony and Mysterio unleashed a final, coordinated assault. Dozens of energy beams—scarlet and gold from the Iron Legion, emerald green from Mysterio—converged on the exposed, sputtering heart.
The core, which had shrunk to just over two meters in diameter, convulsed under the relentless onslaught. It withered like a dying star, collapsing in on itself until it was completely disintegrated, vanishing in a torrential, silent flash of energy.
When the cosmic power of the Rainbow Bridge finally dissipated, an eerie silence fell over the battlefield. The land where the core had been was gone, transformed into a vast, glassy field of shimmering crystalline matter—a permanent scar left by the full power of Asgard's ultimate weapon. In the center of it rose a new, unnatural hill, formed from the cooled and collapsed mass of the elemental's body. It was a bizarre geological monument, half black volcanic rock and half prismatic, rainbow-hued crystal.
Mysterio stared out at the utter devastation, his breathing heavy and ragged. He couldn't help but let out a long, weary sigh, the sound thick with mixed emotions. They had won, but the victory felt hollow. The fire elemental had still inflicted irreversible damage upon this entire region. The fused crystal formations and vast, cooling magma fields were a testament to that.
The 1st generation Spider-Man, now resting, had once worried the land would become a saline wasteland from encroaching seawater. Now, it was something far worse. Not only would no plant ever grow here again, but no wildlife would dare approach. The ground itself was still alive with sluggish, glowing magma flows.
Aboard the Helicarrier, Nick Fury and Maria Hill watched the satellite feed, a collective sigh of relief escaping them as the elemental's life sign vanished. But their respite was momentary. The fire and wind elementals were gone, but the supernatural storm they had created remained.
Before Strange could even begin to recover his mystical energy, an urgent communication from Hill patched through. "Doctor, we need you. The storm is out of control."
Wanda, who had been the world's primary shield against the tempest, could no longer maintain consciousness. Completely exhausted, she had collapsed and been transported by Rhodes to a secure medical bay. Hill hadn't wanted to distract them during the critical final moments of the fire elemental battle, but now, with the dust settling on one front, they had to relocate to the other.
For hours, Thor had stood as a lone bastion against the storm. He swung Mjolnir relentlessly, creating a massive counter-cyclone that had grown to continental size. His efforts had blunted the storm's spearhead, causing its wind speed to drop from apocalyptic levels to a terrifying 280 km/h. It was a staggering feat, yet a drop in the ocean. A Category 5 hurricane, the most powerful classification known to man, topped out at 252 km/h. This was something else entirely. Thor could slow it, but he couldn't stop it from expanding. The tempest, swollen with immense supernatural energy, continued its rampage, destroying every town in its path.
Even in fortified cities like New York, older buildings were being torn from their foundations. Only the newest, most resilient structures could withstand such forces.
As soon as Strange opened a portal to the storm zone, he was hit by a solid wall of wind. The gale was so powerful that his Cloak of Levitation fluttered violently, and he was nearly thrown backward through the dimensional gateway. Frowning, he reactivated his mystical shield and pushed his way through, flying against the supernatural winds. Mysterio followed close behind, shouting that he might have a way to help.
Tony remained at the site of the first battle, his sensors analyzing the still-active magma flows, already trying to calculate a way to contain them. But even there, the storm's approach was undeniable. What had been a breeze was now a gale, and the wind speed on his armor's display was climbing steadily.
Flying through the heart of the storm, Strange finally understood why even Wanda and Thor couldn't stop it. This tempest was beyond anything in recorded meteorological history. Looking down, he saw nothing but devastation. In the worst-hit areas, not only were there no buildings, but the very topsoil had been stripped away for meters, leaving behind nothing but scarred bedrock. The air was thick with sand and soil, a continent-spanning vortex of abrasive debris. An idea sparked in his mind.
He opened another portal. A moment later, Sandman flew out, his form shifting as he immediately began to work, gathering the sand particles from the storm, his massive body acting as a living filter to decelerate the flow of debris.
Strange himself expanded the Mirror Dimension to its maximum extent, wrestling with the storm's energy and pulling as much of it as he could into his pocket reality. Christine and Wong had already evacuated everyone from within, leaving him free to use it as a weapon. Mysterio provided assistance from a different angle. While Wanda had tried to control the storm with brute force, Mysterio worked with it. He used his illusory powers to subtly imitate the Wind Element's own tactics, coaxing the storm to gather closer to him while simultaneously expanding Thor's counter-cyclone, forcing the two opposing rotations to grind against each other and bleed off energy.
For a full day and night, they fought without rest. Finally, the storm's wind speed dropped from the supernatural level to a more manageable, though still extremely dangerous, 171 km/h. Having exhausted its terrestrial energy, the storm front split, heading out over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to finally die.
Thor collapsed. Even his divine physiology had its limits. Mjolnir fell from his hand, its surface now marred by hairline cracks from the strain of absorbing so much corrupting dimensional energy. Without its protection, Thor would have fallen long ago.
Strange's mystical energy was completely depleted. The Cloak of Levitation could barely keep him afloat, and in the end, he nearly fell from the sky, saved only by Mysterio, who used his last ounce of strength to catch him. Captain Marvel, her binary energy almost entirely expended, was in no better shape.
The cost of their victory was unimaginable. Thousands of cities had been affected. Entire towns had been wiped from the map.
In the Gulf of Mexico, a thirty-meter storm surge had shattered the New Orleans flood protection system. Seawater had poured into the Mississippi River, and the resulting floods engulfed countless citizens.
In the Midwest, nearly all of the topsoil in Kansas had been stripped away, exposing raw bedrock.
In Texas, exposed oil pipelines had been ignited by lightning, and raging fires now burned across vast swathes of land—infernos that were estimated to burn for months.
Nearly 40% of the United States was without power or water. Nuclear power plants had been severely affected, with several reporting containment breaches. Hundreds of aircraft had crashed. The storm had swept away every cloud formation over North America, meaning a severe drought was now imminent. In South America, the already-devastated Amazon rainforest was battered again, and countless species of birds were simply gone, wiped out in a single day.
The storm's angular momentum had even shifted the Earth's rotational axis by 0.3 milliarcseconds, a change significant enough to require the entire GPS satellite system to be recalibrated.
In Washington, Tony felt overwhelmed as he watched Jarvis continuously compile the new damage reports. He suddenly realized the mysterious screen had not been exaggerating. The scale of destruction was beyond anything humanity had ever faced. Recovery would take decades, if not longer.
They had defeated the elementals, but in the end, the creatures had succeeded in their mission. The world would never be the same.
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