In a dimension no one present could see, a churning mass of black vapor was trying to push through the temporary connection Doom had opened, into this world. A figure in golden light, hands clasped behind his back, was blocking its path. Two brief exchanges later, the black vapor realized it wasn't getting anywhere and pulled back.
The shockwave of that exchange, transmitted through the conduit that was Doom, slammed back into Manhattan.
Boom!
The explosion came out of nowhere. There was no warning. It seemed to erupt from empty air.
The drones' missiles and the War Machine's barrage had already torn the block apart. Reed's Baxter Building had been at the center of the fighting from the start, and only sturdy construction had kept it standing—barely. Now the unexpected blast cut the tower in half at its middle. It looked like Mr. Richards wouldn't need to worry about the remaining mortgage payments…
Half the block rippled from the shock. A nearby fast-food restaurant had its doors and walls torn off by the impact. Cars on the curb were crushed flat; trees were snapped into pieces, their leaves and branches spraying everywhere.
What was that? Daisy certainly wasn't claiming credit. Her cutter beam was silent and clean—no flash, no explosion.
As the shockwave hit, she ducked behind one of the drones. Black Widow took cover behind another. The rest did what they could—Thing shielded the other members of the team; the heavyset master very unceremoniously hugged a drone's leg.
The blast roared skyward, flinging dust in every direction. When the debris cleared, Daisy scanned her perceptive range and realized Doom was gone.
Stark and Rhodes's repulsor collision had clouded everyone's line of sight, and even her own senses had been disrupted. She wasn't a hundred percent sure her ring had actually hit him.
"Cease fire. Activate sensors." Several drones powered up radar-like instruments and began sweeping the area.
The result was strange. Doom was gone. Or half gone.
Daisy didn't care about the mess. She vaulted over two pieces of rubble and into the spot where Doom had last stood.
His metal mask, his green robes, and a scatter of metallic fragments that looked like pieces of human skeleton were strewn across the ground. No body. No blood.
"Dead?" Black Widow asked.
"He went to Hell." Daisy didn't answer. The heavyset master beside her did.
In Widow's frame of reference, "went to Hell" just meant dead. She had no context for processing the idea that Hell was a real place.
Daisy did another sweep, then sent the drones up to scout the airspace. Nothing. She could only assume Doom, in his final moments, had tapped into something arcane and thrown himself bodily into Hell.
Not enough information. She couldn't tell if she was right.
"I don't think he's dead. It looked more like some kind of spatial jump. Doom was irradiated by cosmic rays at some point and assimilated some of the high-resistance alloy I developed. It looks like those metals were stripped away during his dimensional crossing. I'd need to examine the remains. May I?"
Reed looked around. Daisy was clearly running this scene, so he was coming to her. Cross-dimensional travel. Exciting. And hey, if they could bring Doom back in the process, even better.
Daisy had no opinion about the Hell question, but Reed was adamant Doom wasn't dead—just somewhere else. She privately agreed. This just wasn't the time for science. She cut him off before he could start collecting "remains."
"Reed. I have to report this upstairs. If you're in a hurry, you can come with me to the DoD."
Reed rushed off to confer with his team. The Fantastic Four needed to move as a unit now, and there was also serious cleanup to coordinate around the battle site.
"Who are you?" Daisy already knew the answer. Two machine guns swung onto the heavyset master. Black Widow dropped into a ready stance.
The master put away his axe and pulled back his hood. An Asian face. Thick, coarse features, pockmarked skin. His expression wasn't menacing, though. More like someone who'd seen through the world and let it go.
"We don't need to know each other. And you don't need to know my name." He slashed the air. A circle of golden light blossomed. He was leaving.
Daisy huffed. A wall of gravity locked him in place. A crook of one finger and two corpses slid across the rubble toward her—the two sorcerers Doom had killed.
"Take their bodies with you. Whatever your customs are, give them a proper burial somewhere."
Daisy was keeping things friendly with Kamar-Taj. Sparing the big guy and collecting the corpses cost her nothing.
The master was clearly surprised. He finally understood why he'd gotten out of that charge alive. He looked at Daisy, really looked. "You're not an ordinary person."
Daisy almost laughed. You're a sorcerer who swings an axe at people. That makes you an ordinary person? Kamar-Taj really did think rather highly of itself, didn't it?
The master nodded thoughtfully and produced a small card. "If you have the time, come by this address. This world needs your strength."
Daisy thought that phrasing sounded familiar. Hadn't Nick Fury used almost the exact same line on Stark?
The master didn't say anything more. He still had strength in him—blood and grime notwithstanding, he hoisted one body over his shoulder, gathered the other against his arm, and stepped through the portal.
"Manhattan, 177A Bleecker Street." Daisy glanced at the card. Was this the New York Sanctum? She wasn't entirely sure.
She pocketed the card. She had to bring her team back and file a report. Civilian rescue was hero work—not her assignment.
"Hold on!" Stark pulled off his helmet and stopped both Daisy and Colonel Rhodes, who was already preparing to leave.
"You're going to walk away from this?" He swept an arm out, gesturing at the blocks of wreckage around them.
Rhodes was still trying to work out what any of this had to do with him personally. He'd flown over to help as a favor. The cleanup was, in his view, not his problem.
Daisy reacted fast. She waved both hands. "I am very broke. I don't have money."
The Colonel balked at the mention of money. Then he caught Stark's look and, unable to bring himself to refuse a friend, stood there with his mouth half open, unable to form words.
Fine—no money. But effort, she could contribute. Daisy reported upstairs to the generals and framed it as the Counter-Terrorism Soldiers fulfilling their civic-minded role by participating in on-site disaster relief.
The generals, told that Doom had been sent to "Hell," naturally assumed he'd been killed somewhere in all the saturation fire.
The news delighted them. The world was still the world they knew. Metahumans? Nothing special. Explosives and bullets could put them down like anyone else.