The armed helicopter's shattered wreckage blazed like a fallen comet on the wet concrete. But as the inferno rose, so too did the clouds—and with a low rumble from above, the sky began to weep.
First a drizzle.
Then a steady rain.
It hissed on contact with fire, feeding the smoke instead of dousing the flames. The campus courtyard became a battlefield of heat and cold, steel and storm.
Daniel stood at the epicenter, Betty Ross held gently in his arms.
And Hulk—silent, massive—stood across from him, his breath steaming in the cool air.
Then Hulk took a step forward.
One step.
Instinctive. Uncertain.
And in that instant, Daniel's wand rose.
A sharp surge of magic rippled around him. The raindrops between them shimmered unnaturally, caught in midair, as if time had stuttered.
Then they froze.
Rain turned to sleet.
Sleet turned to shards.
Shards into a crystalline wall of ice—rising fast, solidifying between man and monster.
A fortress in a heartbeat.
The translucent ice gleamed under the storm, cutting off Hulk's view of Betty entirely.
And something about that… snapped something inside him.
He let out a low, guttural growl—a sound full of loss and frustration, more human than beast. His fists clenched, the ground cracked beneath his feet. Then came the roar, sharper now. Wounded.
Behind the wall, Daniel did not flinch.
His wand twirled again, this time tracing patterns through the falling rain.
Above him, the air twisted.
Raindrops condensed, spiraling upward into jagged white spires. Ice spears, two dozen… then fifty… then hundreds.
They spun in formation like a frozen halo above his head—each one deadly, each one humming with barely contained kinetic force. The sky itself seemed to draw breath.
Witnesses on the perimeter—soldiers, students, scientists—could only stare, spellbound, as Daniel Zhou summoned a storm that felt older than the world.
This wasn't just magic.
It was command.
It was nature itself obeying.
And Hulk? He felt it.
The chill seeped into the soles of his feet—unnatural cold that froze concrete beneath him into smooth, treacherous ice. His legs faltered. His breath steamed thicker. His skin shivered despite its strength.
Above him, more raindrops turned to frost. The air grew sharper. The ice spears grew longer.
The world was turning against him.
And in that instant, Hulk realized—
He wasn't fighting a man.
He was fighting the weather.
Then, through the silence, a voice pierced the storm.
"Put me down."
Betty.
Her voice was quiet, but in Hulk's ears, it was everything.
His gaze flicked to the ice wall, to the fading silhouette of the woman he still remembered—even now, buried under rage and mutation.
But behind that ice… she wasn't reaching for him.
She wasn't calling him back.
And Daniel didn't lower his wand.
Instead, the frozen barrier thickened.
Hulk turned slowly. Across the square, Ross's tanks had taken position. Their barrels tracked him like prey. Red targeting beams gleamed faintly through the downpour.
A different kind of pain cut through Hulk's chest.
Not the pain of weapons. But the pain of rejection.
Of not belonging—not to Betty. Not to Daniel. Not even to the country he once served.
No words.
No roars.
Just silence.
Then, Hulk bent his knees, muscles tightening. The earth beneath him groaned.
And with a thunderous leap—he was gone.
Soaring into the sky like a green meteor.
Daniel lowered his wand.
At once, the vortex of ice spears spiraled downward into a final, graceful arc—a river of ice five meters wide, chasing the path Hulk had taken.
It streaked across the sky like a cry for closure.
It fell into the Hudson, hissing as it vanished beneath the rain.
Then Daniel, too, was gone.
Vanished with the wind.
And in the center of the battlefield, Betty Ross remained alone.
The smoke thinned.
The storm fell quiet.
Across the rain-drenched field, her father stood.
General Thaddeus Ross.
Their eyes met through the drizzle—two silhouettes caught in a silence that had nothing to do with sound.
Betty didn't move.
She didn't shrink.
She didn't apologize.
Ross exhaled slowly. In that moment, he didn't see the child he once protected.
He saw her mother.
Strong. Defiant. Distant.
A breath left his chest—half pride, half defeat.
He said nothing.
Not yet.
Back at Betty's private villa on the Upper East Side, the rain fell harder.
Inside, soldiers moved briskly under Ross's orders, combing through every drawer, tablet, hard drive—looking for any trace of Bruce Banner's research, and now, Daniel's footprint.
Ross stood over a table piled with documents, Betty's records, Daniel's university files.
Everything about Daniel's life was here. Birth in the Netherlands. Education in Europe. Clean records. Stellar recommendations. Top-tier scores.
Too clean.
Ross's eyes narrowed.
As a seasoned military politician, he could smell a manufactured file from a mile away.
The truth lay beneath the surface.
Someone was backing this young mage.
And Ross needed to find out who.
"If we could dissect him," Ross muttered, half to himself, "we might get answers. But magic doesn't work like science."
His thoughts turned darker.
Even if they couldn't break Daniel physically… maybe there were other ways.
Temptation. Surveillance. Coercion. Control.
First win him over. If that fails—apply pressure. If pressure fails... eliminate.
Ross didn't trust sorcery. But he trusted power.
And Daniel had it.
A lot of it.
His eyes drifted to the adjoining room, where Betty sat reading—expression unreadable.
He approached quietly.
"Betty," he asked at last, voice calm, "how much do you really know about him?"
She looked up.
Expression blank. Tone even.
"He's a magician. Don't you already know that?"
Ross frowned. "I mean—how did you meet? Why is he in New York? You don't believe he came just to study, do you?"
Betty snorted. "He never lied to me. Unlike you."
Ross froze. The implication stung more than he expected.
It told him two things:
Daniel wasn't manipulating Betty.Betty chose to be near him.
And that… was a problem.
Ross rubbed his temple. The chaos of Stark, S.H.I.E.L.D., mutants, now magic—he needed allies, not wildcards.
But if Betty could help sway Daniel...
He shifted into a softer tone. "You're smart. You know the risk of letting someone like him disappear without oversight."
Betty turned her chair slowly. "Daniel is harder to catch than Bruce."
Then, with a glance that made Ross's stomach tighten—
"And he's not the only one like him."
Ross straightened. "You mean—there are others?"
Betty didn't answer. But her silence said more than words.
Behind Daniel was something else. A network? A hidden world?
Ross's mind raced.
A cabal of sorcerers? A secret magical order?
Either way—Daniel wasn't the threat.
He was the doorway.
Ross's lips thinned into a line.
He needed control. Now.
"Betty," he said, "where is he?"
She looked at him, unblinking.
"I don't know," she said. "But Bruce? I know where he's going."
And she turned away, letting her silence say the rest.
Ross watched her go, his eyes calculating.
If she wouldn't talk, he'd find answers elsewhere—her phone logs, internet activity, past locations. He'd have his intel. One way or another.
Behind him, rain pattered against the glass.
Without turning, he issued two orders:
"First—trace all Betty's communications. Messages. Calls. Anything. Second—get me everything on Daniel Zhou. Especially anything that doesn't make sense."
The aide nodded and vanished.
Ross stared at the window.
The U.S. military wasn't helpless. Not yet. Not in his city.
Mages could vanish in fire and mist all they wanted—but in the end, Ross had something none of them did:
Time. Money. And men with guns.
Even magicians bled.
And Daniel?
He'd just moved to the top of the list.