Five minutes passed outside. When Daisy saw Hill's eyes suddenly light up, she knew the White Tiger Amulet had accepted its new host.
"What a strange feeling." Hill made a fist and tested her arm, flexing slowly. The strength running through it was almost absurd — for a moment she had the peculiar sensation that she could lift the entire planet.
"Whatever you're feeling right now — that's mostly your imagination running ahead of you." Daisy said it from experience.
Hill went quiet for a moment. She glanced at Daisy. Then she planted her feet and lunged.
She might have been going for a surprise attack. But she was working with brand-new power and had badly misjudged the output — her body shot forward before she could even think about pulling back. Less than one second. Forty meters (~131 ft).
Daisy sidestepped without rushing. Hill nearly put her head through the wall.
She caught herself, hands braced against the concrete. She looked back at where she'd been standing, then at the wall inches from her face. A rush of emotions hit her all at once — excitement, disbelief, something almost giddy.
Hill had never moved that fast in her life. Her muscle mechanics, her stride — everything she'd done was technically wrong by every standard she'd been trained to. And yet she'd covered forty meters in under a second and nearly taken out a load-bearing wall. The impossibility of it sat in her chest and wouldn't move.
Daisy applauded lightly. "Looks like you two had a productive conversation in there. How does it feel? Intoxicating, right?"
"Have you always been able to do this?" Hill asked.
"Of course."
Hill's expression drifted. "So you were this capable all along. I always thought—"
"Thought what? That I was holding back?"
Hill tilted her head, fighting a smile. "I thought you could only vibrate things."
Daisy's face went through several emotions simultaneously. She lifted her left foot with the clear intention of demonstrating the true meaning of vibration — then remembered the training ground was hers, and if she broke it she'd be the one paying to fix it. The foot came back down.
Seeing her flustered, Hill finally gave in and laughed. Daisy laughed too. The unspoken tension that had been sitting between them didn't disappear, but it was at least breathing room.
Hill began learning the power the only way she knew how — the way S.H.I.E.L.D. trained everything. Methodically. From the ground up.
The White Tiger Amulet was, frankly, unusually well-behaved compared to most objects of its kind. No possession attempts. No creeping mental corrosion. Remove it and the power vanished; put it on and it came back. Even a street-level vigilante could handle the load without losing their mind. For a veteran special agent with years of high-stress conditioning, Hill took to it with zero difficulty.
In under an hour she could already execute clean acceleration bursts, explosive lunges, and sharp-angle strikes. She didn't know Fury's philosophy about survival being an agent's highest priority, but being a woman, she instinctively treated pure speed as her most important tool — and she spent most of that hour maximizing it.
"Speed alone won't carry you," Daisy said, planting herself in the middle of the floor with her arms at her sides. She stood with the relaxed stillness of someone with nothing to prove. "Come at me. Let's see where you are."
"Don't come crying to me when it hurts." Hill's confidence was at its absolute peak right now. Enhanced strength, enhanced speed — she figured she could put down a hundred copies of her old self back to back. Daisy's casual smirk was infuriating.
"One little White Tiger Amulet," Daisy said, utterly dismissive. "Please."
"Hit her." That wasn't Hill speaking — it was the White Tiger, deep in the spirit realm, entirely fed up with Daisy's attitude and very much cheering Hill on.
Hill took the encouragement and ran with it. She murmured under her breath, just quiet enough that Daisy didn't quite catch it: "I've wanted to do this for a long time…"
Then her left foot hit the floor. Her body launched forward like a crossbow bolt — ten meters (~33 ft) covered in an instant. Her right fist drove straight at Daisy's face.
Daisy slipped to the side. "Speed's there. But your control is nonexistent." She caught Hill's wrist, redirected the momentum, and shoved her another several steps forward.
"Again."
Hill's second charge was sharper. More focused. Still riddled with openings in Daisy's eyes — she simply stepped off the line, drove a kick into Hill's ribs, and sent her skidding back over three meters (~10 ft).
"Technique still matters," Daisy said, as Hill straightened up. "Boosted strength and speed don't erase that. Unless you can punch a planet apart with one fist, the way you generate and transfer force still determines how dangerous you actually are. Your old habits need rebuilding from scratch. Again, Agent Hill."
Today's goal was to work this woman until she stopped being smug about things she didn't understand. You want me uncomfortable? Right back at you.
Hill fixed her gaze on Daisy. Her hand moved to her ribs. That last kick had landed with real intent.
She was constitutionally incapable of quitting. Fine — if it's a fight she wants.
"Hold on." She peeled off her T-shirt. They'd seen each other in far less, and this wasn't the time for modesty. She moved to the clothing locker in the corner of the training ground and came back out in a sports bra and tactical uniform, her hair up, and laced up the short boots S.H.I.E.L.D. agents wore in active combat. Fully equipped. All business.
"You're not changing?" She looked at Daisy standing there in her button-down shirt and jeans like she'd strolled in off the street, and felt a fresh flash of irritation.
"I don't need to. Not for you. Not yet." Daisy's smile didn't shift.
Hill decided to make her regret every word of that.
She stopped holding back. Twelve attacks out of ten, the White Tiger spirit pouring combat experience and physical enhancements directly into her movements. Her strikes got faster. Her angles got sharper. Daisy found herself actually working — block, parry, slip, redirect.
She's adapting faster than expected.
The only explanation that held up was the gap between trained professionals and untrained civilians. The ordinary people who'd previously worn the amulet — the Tiger's Paw team, who'd needed three members just to share the strain of carrying it — had taken ages to unlock even a fraction of its output. Their raw baseline simply wasn't there.
Hill had been at this for under two hours and was already performing at roughly eighty percent of the amulet's full capacity.
Daisy opened her palm and caught Hill's next punch, absorbing the force — then drove her knee upward toward Hill's midsection.
Hill yanked at her captured wrist. No give. Changed tactics on the fly — pressed her free hand against the rising knee, used the collision energy to push off and spring straight up.
Daisy adjusted: redirected the knee from vertical to horizontal, pushing outward instead.
A sharp rip filled the room.
Hill had put too much into the grab. The force tore clean through Daisy's jeans — not just the leg, but the belt too, which snapped under the strain. When Hill flew back, she took most of one trouser leg with her.