Daisy scoffed. The old woman's view was painfully narrow. She believed that postponing the Serpent Crown problem would only make the next outbreak even worse. From the limited perspective of her own abilities, that was not entirely wrong, but she had no idea that the next few years would see an explosion in the number of superpowered people.
A huge problem today would be a minor nuisance by then. Maybe two random people would be enough to solve it. They might even drag Set out and beat him senseless for good measure.
Daisy ignored the old woman's mystic posturing and turned to Cloak.
"All right, I agree. But... how do we get down there?" Cloak agreed enthusiastically, but his control over his power was extremely poor. He almost never practiced and could only use it properly when his life was in danger.
Daisy genuinely worried that he might open a door and dump her and Wanda right in front of Dormammu. That would be a spectacular mess. She could hardly go use her vibrations on Dormammu's sister and niece again, could she?
Fortunately, she had brought Wanda.
Wanda was a sorcerer, but she was also a Mutant. Her mutant ability was probability manipulation, an ability that sounded almost metaphysical.
If this were a game, she would absolutely be a master at upgrading equipment. Reality was not a game, though. It did not display a neat percentage for everyone to see.
The ultimate expression of Wanda's power was turning the impossible into the possible. In the original timeline, Scarlet Witch had practically reached the level of making reality obey her words. One declaration of "No more mutants" nearly drove the Mutants to extinction. That was what happened when Chaos Magic combined with her own superpower.
During the Battle of New York, Daisy had even worried Wanda might shout, "No more Chitauri!" That would have been something to see. Fortunately, Wanda was nowhere near that powerful yet, and the weak Chitauri had not placed enough pressure on her to force such a breakthrough.
Now Daisy needed Wanda's cooperation. Together, they were going to develop Cloak's potential.
What they were doing was a little like Apocalypse's method, except he manipulated cells and caused mutations at the genetic level. Their approach was somewhat more complicated.
First Daisy obtained Cloak's consent. Then she hypnotized him with psychic power and implanted a mental signal urging him to become stronger. Cloak began mentally exploring possible development paths for his ability.
All roads lead to Rome. In theory, that was true. Everyone had many choices on the path to becoming stronger, but only one or two of those choices would actually be effective and truly succeed.
Daisy would guide him, while Wanda erased the unsuccessful paths. Wasn't it a little like resetting skill points in a game?
Cloak kept his eyes tightly shut. One moment his face would light up with excitement, as if he had reached the peak of his life; the next he would look utterly dejected, like someone who had lost at everything.
Wanda had no idea this was Daisy's first time doing anything like this. Full of trust, she muddled along with Daisy and reset Cloak's talent points again and again.
Focus on offense? That could work, but they did not need it right now. Reset it.
Versatility, unpredictability, mysterious tricks? That sounded useful too, but still not what they needed. Reset it.
Daisy was not ignoring Cloak's personal wishes. If he himself rejected a path, nothing they did would matter. Objective conditions also imposed limits; there was no way they could reset a warrior into a mage.
After half an hour of tinkering, the final build emerged. Teleportation would be his primary focus. It was Daisy's strongest field, so she had plenty to say about that. Agility would be secondary. Yes, he would run very fast... another area Daisy knew well. Cloak disliked conflict and hated killing even more, so they cut away many offensive options. Overall, the new development path suited his own preferences extremely well.
Daisy and Wanda moved aside to rest. Repeated use of psychic power and superpowers had left both of them somewhat tired.
Cloak closed his eyes and familiarized himself with the new abilities the two pretty young women had developed for him.
"It's directly beneath the city?" Convinced that he had already mastered his new ability, he asked anxiously. Worried that civilian casualties in the city might keep rising, he looked as though he wanted to rush down and seal the breach immediately.
Daisy did not charge in blindly. She asked Cloak to open a portal first so they could test it.
Tyrone raised his cloak. Black wind surged around him, accompanied faintly by the shrieks of damned spirits. A pitch-black vortex appeared in front of the group.
"No. This definitely isn't right." An ordinary person could not tell what lay on the other side of the portal, but Wanda could confirm it by instinct.
The Elder Gods' powers differed in nature, but their origins were broadly similar. The power that felt most familiar to Wanda would belong to Chthon; a slightly weaker sense of affinity would point to Set.
A plane that produced no reaction at all was definitely the wrong one.
They fiddled with it for quite a while longer before finally opening a deep-black vortex pouring out intense waves of heat.
"This is it!" Wanda made the final confirmation. She and Daisy adjusted the large packs on their backs and prepared to enter.
Dagger wanted to follow, but Daisy stopped her. A sealing mission did not require that many people. Daisy herself did not expect to be especially useful down there; her main role was protecting Wanda.
Wanda simply lacked too much experience right now. Three or four years later, once Scarlet Witch's magic had fully matured, a New Orleans incident like this would be a routine errand, something she could solve on the way out to buy breakfast.
Daisy told everyone to protect themselves, then she and Wanda plunged into the portal Cloak had opened.
This kind of teleportation involved both space and dimensions. Anyone who did not specialize in teleportation would have real difficulty using it. Cloak would never be unemployed in the future if he simply opened portals for the Avengers whenever they needed one.
"Hold my hand!" The moment they left the bright room and entered the pitch-black passage, vision became useless. Daisy took Wanda's hand and relied on her own extraordinary senses as they moved forward.
Cloak's teleportation did not demand the same physical resilience as string resonance, but the experience was hardly pleasant. Reaching the destination required passing through a stretch of pure darkness. In there, darkness surrounded them from front, back, left, right, above, and below, making direction impossible to distinguish.
Daisy held Wanda's hand, checked it with her psychic senses, then gave it a couple of squeezes. Soft and smooth, with a little sweat in the palm. Yes, this should be Wanda, not a severed hand from some horror movie and definitely not a monster. She abruptly accelerated, burst through the black mist, and reached the other side.
Cloak had opened a passage between the two locations, and he followed the women underground as well, apparently to what seemed to be the Serpent Crown's sealing site.
"Looks like we're still some distance away. You can head back. Once the interference dies down, I'll be able to teleport out on my own." Daisy looked around. They were inside an underground tunnel now, and it was obvious the tunnel had been crudely excavated by Roxxon Energy Corporation. If someone spoke too loudly, dirt trickled from the ceiling.
There was almost no wind in the tunnel, yet Cloak's ragged black garment still drifted slowly on its own, making him look like a Dementor. He smiled awkwardly, apparently embarrassed that he had failed to teleport the two women directly to their target.
Roxxon had installed safety lights every few meters along the tunnel, and Daisy and Wanda also carried custom-made S.H.I.E.L.D. flashlights. Illumination was not going to be a problem.
After sending Cloak back, the two women followed the tunnel deeper underground.