The sky tore open.
A hurricane of impossible force ripped through the upper atmosphere, a vortex of roaring winds that clawed at the heroes with supernatural gravity. Thor and Rhodes braced themselves, their flight paths thrown into chaos by the violent turbulence.
"Fury, you seeing this?" Rhodey's voice crackled over the comms, strained against the howl of the storm. "Whatever this thing is, it just hit a whole new weight class!"
He was right. The wind elemental had been a threat before; now, it was a cataclysm. The storm it generated sliced through the thick cloud layer below like a hot knife through butter, carving a perfect, terrifying window to the vulnerable city thousands of feet beneath them.
As the prime targets, Carol and Thor felt the raw power firsthand. A direct hit from that gale wouldn't just be an inconvenience; it would hurt. The wind wasn't natural. It was laced with a dark, malevolent energy that felt like sandpaper against their divine and cosmic defenses.
"Its power has grown exponentially," Thor growled, his eyes narrowed in grim assessment. The Odinson could feel the otherworldly corruption that had warped the creature from a simple elemental into this monstrous tempest.
The entity seemed to realize that its initial, targeted strikes were ineffective against their agility. It was adapting. Its form began to rotate on the spot, a lazy spin that quickly accelerated into a terrifying blur. A cyclone bloomed from its core, expanding outward with horrifying speed, pulling the surrounding clouds into its mass.
Soon, a tornado of unimaginable scale dominated the sky, a pillar of churning gray-black cloud that reached from the heavens to the earth. Vicious, dark lightning crackled within its walls, the sound a percussive crack-crack-crack that echoed with unnatural power.
"Sir! You need to see this!"
Inside S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, the analyst monitoring the battlefield scrambled from his chair, frantically waving Nick Fury over.
"What is it?" Fury strode across the command deck, his one good eye flicking from the live feed on the main screen to the analyst's monitor. His expression hardened. The tactical display showed weather satellite imagery—readings that were physically impossible.
"The tornado, sir. It's growing. Its wind force is climbing exponentially. We're reading it as an EF3, and it's not slowing down!"
Fury's gaze was sharp. "In English, agent!"
"An EF0 breaks tree branches, sir. An EF3 can rip a train car off its tracks," the analyst said, his voice tight with tension. "And it's still strengthening. If it reaches EF5… it won't just level buildings. It will scour the very ground clean. Nothing left."
"At this altitude?"
"This thing isn't following our rules, sir!" the agent insisted, pointing at the energy readings. "It's generating its own weather system, a pocket of corrupted physics. The damage cone could extend all the way to the city below!"
Fury's jaw clenched. "Damn it." He activated his comms. "Rhodes, you heard the man! Shut it down!"
"Working on it!" came the strained reply. "But I'm open to suggestions!"
"Can we hit it with a high-yield missile?" Fury asked, turning back to his analyst.
The technician shook his head grimly. "Negative, sir. The sheer wind speed would deflect any conventional payload. It would detonate on the outer wall and have zero effect on the elemental at the core."
Fury's hope, and his command, fell on their last resort. "Carol, you heard him! It's on you!"
"Loud and clear!" Carol's voice cut through the static, filled with unwavering resolve.
She didn't need to be told twice. Her body erupted in a blinding flash of cosmic light, the glorious, multi-hued energy of her binary form burning away the oppressive gloom. Like a human meteor, she shot forward, a brilliant comet of raw power aimed at the heart of the raging storm.
In response, the tornado spun faster. The dark influence of Dormammu bled through it, twisting the churning clouds from gray-black to an oily, absolute darkness—a living embodiment of the void.
"HAAAAAAH!"
Carol slammed into the tornado's outer wall. The impact sent a shockwave of light and energy rippling through the storm. She pushed forward, her binary aura fighting against the crushing pressure, breaking into the tempest meter by painful meter.
Thor could only watch, his hands clenched around Mjolnir's handle. He knew any attack he launched would be accompanied by his divine lightning, a force that would only serve as fuel for this corrupted beast. His pride chafed at his helplessness, but his wisdom kept him from making a catastrophic mistake.
Back at S.W.O.R.D., the command deck was silent, all eyes locked on the monitors.
"It's reached EF4!" the analyst choked out. "Closing in on EF5, sir!"
Fury didn't respond. He just watched the main screen, which had turned almost completely black. The wind elemental was drawing power from the very atmosphere, creating its own unnatural night that swallowed the sun. The only thing visible was the singular, defiant point of light that was Captain Marvel.
Her colorful energy flared violently within the storm, a dazzling, shocking beacon of hope against the endless abyss. But the fight was taking its toll. The wind wasn't just wind; it was a physical barrier that clawed at her like a thousand phantom limbs. Worse, the dark lightning lashing out from the core was unlike any energy she had ever encountered. It wasn't just electricity; it was a parasitic force, a pure expression of cosmic malevolence.
She instinctively tried to absorb it, to turn its power into her own, but was met with a searing jolt of pain. Her binary aura flickered violently. This energy was poison. It couldn't be absorbed; it could only be endured. She realized with a dawning horror that this power was not of their universe. It was the corrupting touch of the Dark Dimension itself.
Gritting her teeth, Carol pushed harder, pouring more of her own energy out to shield herself, her eyes fixed on the storm's core. Her determination burned as brightly as the star she embodied.
The comms were a mess of static. Rhodes yelled for Thor and Max, but the cacophony of the supernatural storm drowned him out. The swirling vortex was now like a giant mushroom cloud, shrouding everything in darkness and playing havoc with his scanners. Desperate to get their attention, he angled his suit and fired a full-powered blast from his chest repulsor—not as an attack, but as a signal flare, a desperate pulse of light in the overwhelming darkness.
Meanwhile, Max, a blur of pure electricity, arced around the storm's edge. He danced on the tempest's fringe, his own lightning-form allowing him to navigate the impossible winds. But even he could feel the oppressive wrongness of the dark power within, a force that repelled his own energy and offered no opening to strike.
The battle had become a singular, brutal test of endurance. All of their hopes rested on Carol, a lone star fighting to outshine the encroaching void.
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