"All right." Daisy did her best not to look at the pair of bouncing curves beside her. Instead, she used gravity manipulation to pull the ice block, now about a third smaller, along with them so it could cool the air around both women. Yes, they both needed to "cool down."
They walked for another hour, taking one break along the way. With nothing better to do, Daisy began telling Wanda about the time she had ventured alone into the Kree Underground City in Puerto Rico.
As Daisy described those old experiences—how she had searched for the underground city, crawled through tunnels, and trudged back and forth—Wanda gradually became absorbed in the story. Daisy seemed so strong to her. Without superpowers, Wanda was certain she would never have managed as well.
Naturally, the story was the polished version. Details like using sanitary pads as shoe inserts or dreaming that Thanos had beaten her bloody in the middle of the night were absolutely not things she could tell Wanda.
In Daisy's version, she was practically an Avatar of Athena: decisive, brave, and overflowing with wisdom. Wanda was impressed for quite a while.
Walking and resting by turns, they eventually stopped in front of a field of corpses.
Daisy motioned for Wanda to wait.
She pulled out the phone she carried and photographed the scene from every angle. The evidence would make an excellent weapon against Roxxon later. It had nothing to do with personal grudges. She was a shareholder of Stark Industries, after all. She might disapprove of Stark's overbearing style, but that did not stop her from doing a small favor when the opportunity presented itself.
"I'll fly you over." Bodies of oil workers lay everywhere, leaving nowhere to step. The evil energy had torn their minds apart, and every one of them had died the instant the leak occurred.
Daisy wrapped an arm around Wanda's slim waist. Her arm was still at its usual temperature, wonderfully cool against Wanda's overheated body. Wanda almost wished Daisy would hold her a little tighter.
A faint fragrance reached Wanda's nose. She could not help taking a breath, and somehow her whole body seemed a little lighter.
Daisy stopped in front of a deep hole about half a meter (roughly twenty inches) across.
"I think this is the hole. Wanda, see if you can seal it... Wanda?" When there was no response, Daisy thought something had happened and hurriedly called her again, even giving her a couple of shakes.
"Huh? Oh! It's a little hot down here..." Wanda had no idea what she had been thinking about a moment earlier. She hurriedly focused on the task in front of her.
The sealing process was not especially interesting to watch. Daisy could not understand it anyway.
All she saw was Wanda draw large amounts of blood from the corpses on the ground, then wrap layer after layer around the opening until not even the slightest gap remained.
Wanda sympathized with the weak, but she had spent every day around evil, chaotic magic. Using corpses as the main material for a spell was hardly something she found unacceptable.
Daisy did not care either. Living people deserved attention, but these people were already dead, and even their corpses had been occupied by chaotic energy. Leaving them there would only create future trouble. Putting them to use was perfectly normal.
They retraced their steps for half an hour. Once the interfering energy faded, Daisy's teleportation worked normally again. She told Wanda to get dressed, then teleported both of them back to the surface.
New Orleans returned to normal faster than expected. The two women had barely rested before people nearby began recovering their senses.
As the evil power receded, the citizens regained clarity bit by bit. There was some initial chaos, but once the National Guard entered the city wearing gas masks, the disorder was quickly brought under control. By half a day later, the entire population had returned to normal.
Daisy took Wanda back to the villa. So many people had been contaminated by evil magic, and now their bodies had to expel the harmful energy from their systems. The resulting smell across the city was indescribable. Even when a National Guard commander wanted to thank her personally, Daisy refused.
A city of a million people was undergoing one enormous detox. She would not have stayed even if someone paid her. The smell was simply too powerful.
Wanda was a little disappointed. The sealing had been so simple that the tent and all the wilderness-survival knowledge she had prepared never got used. Daisy could only promise that Wanda could show off her skills next time there was an opportunity.
The New Orleans incident could not simply be forgotten. More than a hundred workers had died, and the citywide crisis focused the news media squarely on Roxxon Energy Corporation.
The public wanted an explanation, but the government and various interest groups chose to look the other way to varying degrees. Stark attacked again, ordering Stark Industries' legal department to sue Roxxon Energy Corporation. The two sides entered what promised to be a long, drawn-out legal war.
Although Maki was a famous New York attorney, neither Daisy nor Maki had much faith in American law. When the poor faced the poor, the law worked. When the rich faced the poor, it worked too. But when the rich faced the rich? At that point, the law was almost a joke.
Stark led all his shareholders, Daisy included, into open conflict with the traditional energy giant Roxxon Energy Corporation.
Capitalists had very few scruples. Once driven into a corner, there was almost nothing they would not dare to do.
Within a single week, two Stark Industries shareholders were attacked. Strictly speaking, it was three, because Daisy encountered a gunman too. He hid by the gates of Hammer Industries with a suppressed pistol, but the instant he drew the weapon Daisy snapped his neck and tossed the body into the river.
"Tony, I'm very happy the stock price is rising, but your strategy is too aggressive. Couldn't we cede a little market share?" Daisy tried to persuade Stark over the phone.
The fight between the two sides was affecting Daisy too. The government had once praised Stark almost unanimously, but once oil-industry interests were threatened, many politicians immediately changed their tune. The most dramatic reversal came from the Vice President, who had previously praised Stark and Colonel Rhodes as new symbols of hope for the American people.
Many people wanted Daisy to persuade Stark to reconsider. Their respectable public line was that the two sides should seek common ground, set aside differences, and develop the market together. The real meaning was that they wanted Stark to open his clean-energy technology to everyone else.
Stark would never agree, and neither would Daisy. The Arc Reactor was one of her technologies too. They thought they could just ask for it and get it? Did they even know their own limits?
Even so, Daisy hinted that Stark did not need to surrender their technological monopoly. They could simply loosen their grip on the market a little, let the other side make one last round of profits, or give them a transition period. At minimum, there was no need to intensify the conflict immediately.
Unfortunately, Stark still rejected her proposal.
"Are you afraid? Would Wonder Woman be afraid of a bunch of cowards? Afraid of maggots hiding in the crowd?" Dark circles shadowed Stark's eyes. He was clearly under too much pressure and sleeping badly.
"What does Wonder Woman have to do with any of this? Has our society really reached the point where everything has to be settled with fists? Reducing conflict, reducing disputes, and resolving disagreements through conversation—isn't that supposed to be a sign of a civilized society?" Daisy was genuinely puzzled. Was this hostile, aggressive man in front of her really Stark?
"Is that Captain America talking? I'm not backing down. I'll fight this to the end!" Stark sounded as though he were about to march onto a battlefield and fight someone personally, then abruptly ended the call.