The emergency notification from Fury had rerouted them mid-flight. Tony, still processing the stalemate with the wind elemental, was already barking orders as Captain America expertly piloted the Quinjet through North American airspace. They were supposed to be reinforcements for one crisis; now, they were the first responders for another.
Just as they adjusted their course, a second, more urgent notification flashed across the comms, this one patched through from Pepper.
"JARVIS, pull up satellite imagery of Mount St. Helens, Washington State," Tony commanded, his voice tight.
A detailed holographic projection of the volcano materialized in the center of the jet.
"What's happening now?" Natasha Romanoff walked over, Mjolnir held loosely in one hand. The legendary hammer seemed perfectly at home in her grasp, a symbol of the impossible turn their lives had taken.
"Pietro relayed a message from the Ancient One," Tony said, his eyes glued to the hologram. "She warned that a 'Dormamu enhanced fire elemental' is about to break ground."
As if on cue, the projected image of Mount St. Helens convulsed. The entire peak of the mountain blew outward in a deafening, silent explosion of rock and ash.
Tony's face hardened. "JARVIS! Time stamp on that image!"
"Five minutes ago, sir."
"Deploy every Iron Legion unit in the Pacific Northwest! Delay that thing at all costs!" Tony snapped. He turned to Steve. "Captain, get Banner on the line. Tell him we have a code green."
Captain America nodded grimly, his shield secure on his back as his fingers flew across the communication console, trying to reach their friend who was still coordinating disaster relief in Africa.
At S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, Nick Fury felt the world spinning out of his control. The main screen before him split into a diptych of nightmares. On the left, the swirling, unnatural vortex of the wind elemental raged on, now locked in a cosmic battle with the Bifrost. On the right, a live feed showed magma bleeding from the shattered peak of Mount St. Helens.
As he watched, a colossal, fiery red hand clawed its way out of the crater. Fury couldn't stop the curse that escaped his lips as a three-hundred-meter-tall giant of living flame pulled itself from the heart of the Earth.
In that desolate land, shrouded in a thick, choking smoke, the fire elemental stood to its full, terrifying height. The ground trembled with every movement. Hot magma poured from the cracked earth around it, incinerating ancient forests and turning the verdant landscape into a vision of hell.
Its body was a roiling cloak of incandescent fury, the heat so intense it distorted the very air around it. Torrents of lava streamed down its thick limbs, pooling at its feet in sizzling lakes of molten rock. But there was something else, something unnatural. Etched across its molten form were deep, violet lines that pulsed with a cold, malevolent light—runes of unnatural order imposed on elemental chaos. They were the unmistakable symbols of Dormammu's corrupting influence. Deep within its fiery chest, a single mark glowed with a sinister power, and with every pulse, the flames burned hotter, the creature's movements more deliberate.
It threw back its massive head and let out a subsonic roar that pulverized stone and sent avalanches cascading down distant peaks. This was no mere monster; it was an avatar of destruction, marching with a chilling purpose.
"What's the status of the evacuation?" Fury asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
Hill checked her console, her face pale. "It's too late, sir. There are still hundreds of tourists and residents in the immediate blast zone."
"Then get them out!" Fury roared, slamming his hand on the console. "Now!"
Hill didn't dare hesitate, her fingers flying across multiple channels to coordinate a response that was already destined to fail.
"We are in deep trouble," Fury muttered to himself, watching the monster on the screen. "And to think, this is the small one. Thank God it didn't claw its way out of Yellowstone."
He was right. After the massive eruption in 1980, the magma chambers within Mount St. Helens had been relatively quiet. Yet the energy it contained was still enough to birth this three-hundred-meter titan. The power lurking beneath Yellowstone, combined with its vast mineral deposits, would have created a beast exponentially more powerful.
In the Quinjet, Tony watched in grim silence as his Iron Legion drones swarmed the fire elemental. Their objective was simple: slow its advance. Its trajectory was horrifyingly clear.
"Its path is a straight line, sir," JARVIS reported coolly. "Projected destination: Washington, D.C."
The heart of the American government. The creature could reach it in a matter of hours.
The drones opened fire, their repulsor beams lancing across the sky. The fire elemental roared in annoyance, not pain. It opened its mouth and spewed a wide, arcing jet of magma that instantly vaporized a drone in a flash of molten shrapnel.
Tony's expression soured. "It has long-range capabilities, just like the water elemental." But this was worse. The magma was slower than a water jet, but its area of effect was massive, capable of blanketing hundreds of meters in liquid fire.
A dozen of his best drones were nothing more than gnats to the monster. After it found them too annoying to swat, it simply ignored them. The repulsor blasts dissipated harmlessly against its thermal cloak of two-thousand-degree lava. Physical projectiles were out of the question; Tony knew the elemental could absorb metal to strengthen itself.
He could only watch, helpless, as it marched relentlessly onward, leaving a trail of fiery ruin in its wake.
In Washington D.C., the emergency alerts began to scream from every phone, television, and public address system. The news of the approaching monster hit the city like a shockwave. Order dissolved into panic.
The streets became a cacophony of blaring horns, shouting, and terrified crying. Cars clogged every artery out of the city, forming miles-long walls of impenetrable traffic. Desperate people abandoned their vehicles, trying to surge through the gridlock on foot. Storefronts were shattered as looters took advantage of the chaos, while families were torn apart in the stampede.
The city's emergency services were completely overwhelmed. Police tried to direct the flow of human terror, their voices lost in the din. Paramedics fought their way through the crush to reach those trampled underfoot.
And high above it all, news helicopters circled like vultures, their cameras broadcasting the apocalyptic scene to a horrified world: a three-hundred-meter-tall creature of living flame, marching inexorably toward the seat of power, a walking inferno against which all of modern civilization seemed utterly powerless.