"Oh, jamming tactics? Clever!" Daisy wasn't surprised that Stark had cracked her vibration frequency. Anything detectable by instruments was fair game for him.
But she had a counter of her own—continuously warping the space around her, generating what amounted to a Marvel-universe version of a gravitational pull.
The immense gravitational force gripped the Iron Man suit. Stark's flight path deformed instantly—his repulsors were still adding thrust, yet his body, seized by gravity, veered sideways. Caught between the two opposing forces, he nearly threw out his back.
"What's affecting the armor?" Stark boosted power twice in succession, but neither increase broke free of the gravitational drag.
JARVIS took longer than usual to compute this time. Not until Stark was nearly within Daisy's reach did the AI deliver its verdict: "It's gravitational force."
"Any way to counter it?"
"Increase thrust output. Miss Johnson's stamina is depleting rapidly. In approximately one minute and thirty seconds, the gravitational force will weaken. Sir, your odds of victory are very high." JARVIS offered a solution that was barely a solution at all—simply outlast her with raw energy.
Stark grimaced. Winning through sheer attrition felt no different from losing. But he was already committed; he had no better option at the moment.
With JARVIS handling the repulsors, Stark had little to do himself, so he started dissecting Daisy's abilities.
"What kind of power is this?"
"What's the science behind it?"
"Why does your body store this much energy? How do you recharge?" Two questions to JARVIS, one to Daisy.
By now Daisy was breaking a sweat. Continuous ability usage was draining her physically and mentally. Stark asking about energy replenishment triggered an involuntary pang of hunger—the kind that grew worse the more she thought about it.
The fight had reached a natural stopping point. She figured they could call it a draw.
Before she could say anything, Stark called the ceasefire first.
"Stop—stop! Something's happening in New York—can't you see it?!" His voice was laced with urgency.
Daisy released her gravitational hold and glanced toward New York.
"What's going on? …Oh my God!" Before she could finish, a Boeing 747 screamed into view on the distant horizon.
The jetliner was completely out of control. Thick black smoke billowed from its engines, fire and soot painting half the sky. Faint screams carried on the wind.
The plane hurtled toward the ground like an oversized javelin.
"I'm going!" Without another word, Stark slammed his repulsors to full power and rocketed toward the plane.
Daisy didn't have much of a hero complex, but she wasn't about to watch an entire plane full of passengers die when she had the power to help.
A beat behind Stark, she took off after him.
Halfway there, something caught her eye. Why was Stark's flight posture so bizarre? He was sort of tumbling forward—was this some kind of stunt flying?
Before she could ask, her Adamantium dagger whipped free with a sharp whistle and plastered itself against the plane's fuselage. At the same time, the buttons, zippers, and belt buckle on her body all strained against an invisible tug.
Magnetism! She identified the force instantly.
"Forget about me—save the plane!" Stark lived up to his reputation as a hero. Even in his own crisis, he shouted for Daisy to prioritize the aircraft.
Daisy was at a loss for words. She wanted to help him, but she was caught in the magnetic field too.
Against fundamental force manipulation, she was in the same boat Stark had been two minutes earlier when he'd gritted his teeth against her gravity—all she could do was use gravitational force to offset the magnetism.
Stark bounced around like a pinball between the magnetic pull and his own thrust, clearly in no position to assist. Like it or not, Daisy had to step up.
Staring at the massive aircraft, she had no idea where to start. Lifting a plane was usually a job for Superman or Supergirl over in DC. Failing that, Thor could manage. But right now, scanning in every direction, Daisy didn't have a single teammate in sight.
She gritted her teeth, flew beneath the plane, and pushed upward with both hands. The result was disheartening—most of her strength was going toward counteracting the magnetism. What remained wasn't enough. The plane regained a sliver of balance but continued plunging earthward at roughly a forty-five-degree angle.
"Hey—call Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters for me! I need backup!" Daisy yelled at Stark.
Stark's call connected quickly, but the news was terrible.
The X-Men's heavy hitters—the Professor, Cyclops, Jean, and especially Storm, on whom Daisy had pinned her hopes—were all absent. They'd taken the Blackbird to the West Coast for spring recruitment, and Storm had gone to England. The only ones left at the school were Colossus and the freshly enrolled Iceman.
"Colossus? Iceman? How are they supposed to help with this?! Forget it—don't call them. They're too young." Daisy turned down the eager Colossus's offer. Anyone without flight would only get in the way.
Iceman might become a powerhouse someday, but right now he was a total rookie. The Herculean task of holding up a plane would have to stay on Daisy's shoulders.
She looked left. She looked right. Not a single hidden hero swooped in to help. Wasn't the running joke that whenever a plane went down in the Marvel universe, seventeen or eighteen heroes showed up underneath it? Where was everyone?!
Swallowing her frustration, she relied on gravity to offset the magnetism still raging around them.
The magnetic force had fried the plane's engines, was dragging the entire aircraft toward the ground, and now it was openly trying to commandeer every piece of metal in range.
Only two people Daisy could think of wielded this kind of magnetic control. One was Professor Xavier's lifelong frenemy, Magneto. The other was Magneto's daughter, codename Polaris—Lorna Dane.
Given that Magneto had been mastering magnetism for close to fifty years and could wipe the floor with Daisy and Stark combined without breaking a sweat, he was ruled out.
That left only one possibility aboard this plane.
It was Magneto's youngest daughter, Polaris—Lorna Dane. And this might very well be her first-ever power manifestation.
The magnetic control was wild and erratic, which told Daisy this was likely an uncontrolled awakening.
Daisy freed one hand and pressed it to her temple, brow furrowed in concentration. She needed to tap into her half-baked telepathic ability and make contact with the girl.
Through Peril—her spectral companion—she'd secretly observed Professor Xavier's telepathic techniques on numerous occasions. But it was all theory. A middle-schooler could understand the principles of a nuclear detonation, but that didn't mean a middle-schooler could build a bomb. Daisy was in much the same position: head full of arcane theory, zero practical application.
The sliver of telepathic power she'd forced into existence was pitifully weak. Establishing a mental link with a rhino had taken her three days—and humans, with their mercurial minds, were infinitely harder.
Still, Lorna was currently in the throes of an emotional surge and a power overload. Half-baked telepathy might just be enough—certainly better than screaming at the top of her lungs.