Stark and his group, along with the youngsters from the New Warriors Team, walked towards the sea, while Shiller and Strange remained uninvolved in their activities. Shiller hadn't finished the juice he was holding earlier; he sipped his juice while chatting with Ultron on his phone about the situation in the sanatorium.
Strange was looking through his previous consultation records on his phone. He had performed a major surgery and there were many follow-up tasks to attend to; it was difficult to completely let go even while on vacation.
After a while, Eddie called Strange away for what seemed to be a solo interview, leaving only an assistant to capture footage of Shiller.
Shiller had intended to have an unremarkable vacation. In his mind, taking a vacation meant doing nothing at all, but truly doing nothing would be too boring. Thus, he decided to do something insignificant, like sitting on the beach, drinking juice, and chatting.
The group continued to shout excitedly at sea, and it seemed that Stark finally found an opportunity to show off. After performing a series of impressive moves, which triggered cheers from everyone, he realized that the only familiar face on the beach had not been watching him at all.
"Hey! Shiller! What are you doing? You didn't see my fantastic performance! You've missed the greatest moment of the century..."
Shiller, upon hearing his name, instinctively looked up. In the next second, whoosh, the parasol above him took off, followed by Shiller himself.
Shiller grabbed his juice with one hand and didn't forget to hold onto his communicator with the other, while instinctively looking in Stark's direction.
Peter and Robert instinctively jumped up and dashed towards him, but Robert, with his Speedball ability, was clearly faster. In the blink of an eye, he was by Shiller's side, grasped his arm to dissipate the momentum, and brought him back down.
Because he had been distracted by Stark, Shiller hadn't yet realized what had made him fly. As he turned to look back, he saw a massive sandstorm flexing its might in the middle of the beach, causing the tourists to scream and run away.
Shiller furrowed his brow. Was the person causing the trouble lucky or not? On one hand, it could be seen as fortunate since the documentary Stark was filming was bound to become a global sensation. Not every villain had the privilege of showing their face to the world.
But it could also be said to be unfortunate. Iron Man, Captain America, and Spider Man serving him alone was a treatment not even Thanos had received.
Clearly, though, this unexpected villain wasn't limited to traditional superheroes. He had the ambition to pioneer new domains, to create new ways of fighting. The sandstorm grew larger but didn't head towards Iron Man and Captain America. After sweeping up half of the beach's sand, it charged straight towards the city.
Stark's eyes immediately widened because he realized the sandstorm was heading towards the shopping district where the ladies had gone shopping.
The ladies were enjoying their shopping trip when the whole floor dedicated to maternity and baby care caught Wanda's attention as she carefully selected items for her two little ones. Pepper was also planning to buy some things for her upcoming child.
Loki felt that, although she was always at odds with Sif, she should make a gesture since her sister-in-law was having a baby. Human childbirth experiences weren't particularly applicable to the Aesir, but human-made toys were quite good for entertaining children, so she also bought a number of small toys.
Helen, no longer an infant, showed no interest in the early development toys and teethers. Fortunately, the mall was very considerate, knowing that mothers might bring their older children while shopping for the younger ones, so an inflatable play castle was set up at the entrance. Loki tossed Helen in there.
Given Helen's intelligence, she couldn't really play with the squealing toddlers, but seeing that the faster she grew, the sooner she would have to start her elite education, she decided she might as well regress and learn from the little ones, playing and roughhousing with them on the slide, enjoying herself after all.
After shopping for a while, the ladies felt a bit tired and returned to the play castle, sitting down in a nearby café to rest and have a drink. Helen lay on the railing of the play castle, munching on treats that Loki had brought her, concentrated cores of planets disguised as human hard candies.
The others were at a nearby table, taking stock of their haul. Ever since Pepper became pregnant, she had developed a particular fondness for stuffed toys, and this time she had bought a whole bunch of expensive plush fruits and vegetable toys. Wanda, on the other hand, had bought a number of wind chimes that made sounds when spinning.
Once they had eaten and drunk their fill, considering there was a pregnant woman and a new mother among them, they decided not to resume shopping right away. Instead, they chose to go out to the terrace to get some fresh air and rest a bit more to prevent any fatigue.
Jarvis was the only man who came along, but he had no choice; Wanda couldn't handle the two children alone, barely managing to push the stroller, and Jarvis was essentially a walking Stark Group bank account, responsible for all the checkout.
Jarvis had just stepped out onto the terrace when he received a text from Stark telling him about a bizarre sandstorm headed their way. Jarvis initially didn't understand what a "bizarre" sandstorm was, thinking Stark might be drunk. However, stepping out onto the terrace and looking up, he saw a huge sandstorm showing off in the middle of the city.
Jarvis quickly dashed to the terrace door, trying to stop the ladies from going out, but Wanda had already stepped out without seeing what was happening due to the angle.
Hearing the screams from downstairs, she was curious and stretched her neck to look out, saying, "What's going on? Is there some kind of party happening downstairs?"
Then she felt a tremendous force pushing against the stroller she was holding, like an umbrella caught in strong winds, almost ripping the stroller from her grasp.
"God! What's happening?!!"
"Quick! Protect the children!!"
Immediately following was a roar of anger.
"Mark!!!"
A figure in red and gold appeared on the horizon, followed closely by the familiar blue and red shield. Jarvis ushered Wanda and the other ladies into the mall, but the sand and dust churned up by the storm still blew in through the doors and windows, filling everyone's mouths.
Jarvis had used his biological analysis system to identify the troublemaker behind the sandy storm. He turned on the loudspeaker and shouted, "Sandman! Have you lost your mind?! Stop!!!"
Jarvis wasn't planning on stopping Sandman with sound waves; he asked him to stop purely out of kindness, because the Scarlet Witch was unusually angry.
Wanda leapt up, and the sky turned red. She was just about to take action when a sharp cry of a baby was heard, and the redness vanished instantly. Wanda appeared next to the baby carriage in a flurry, picking up her crying brother and whispering soothingly to him.
Although Polaris didn't like Wanda, perhaps the desire for family that ran through their blood made her very fond of these two children.
Seeing the current situation, she waved her hands and all the metal items in the mall rose into the air, clattering to block the entrance and forming a thick metal barrier. Every gap was sealed tightly, not even a grain of sand could get through.
But the baby's cries grew stronger and stronger. For some reason, all the other panicked shoppers in the mall gradually stopped their activities and started crying as they looked toward the direction of the baby carriage.
Wanda was too preoccupied with comforting the child to notice this anomaly, but Polaris had already realized what was happening. She watched Wanda's baby in shock. In her vision, a strange magnetic field fluctuation was emanating from him.
"He is... he is..."
Wanda too came to a realization. She instinctively turned her head to exchange a glance with Polaris, then looked at the baby in her arms with a start.
She knew her children might be mutants, and she had come to terms with that. When discussing this with Magneto, she had already made her stance clear.
Wanda accepted the possibility that her children could be mutants. She no longer rejected this reality, and no longer believed that if she were a normal person rather than a mutant, she might have had a peaceful and happy family. This meant that she no longer blamed the hardships of her early life on her mutant identity.
But being a mutant and being a mutant who manifests abilities as an infant are two different matters, even for someone as powerful as Wanda, who had not awakened her abilities just over a month after being born.
Polaris realized the seriousness of the situation. She abruptly turned around and, with a flick of her hand, the camera carried by a photographer behind her flew up, then was crushed into a ball of metal.
Wanda could no longer care about her feud with Polaris; she said somewhat frantically, "The mall has surveillance, and people have mobile phones..."
"I have already blocked all network signals, and through hacking, deleted all recorded video footage," Jarvis said. "But we cannot do a widescale memory erase; it would cause problems for people."
"No worries," Pepper, immediately said. "Blame it all on that supervillain called Sandman. Clearly, it's his abilities. How could it be related to two frail infants?"
Wanda was startled but then realized the truth. Indeed, the greatest commotion at the moment was the sandstorm outside. If there were any disturbances, people would blame it on him, not on two seemingly innocent infants.
Wanda felt relieved, finally calming the child in her arms. People stopped crying and, looking bewildered, wiped the tears from their faces, staring out the windows.
Indeed, no one was concerned about Wanda's situation; all their attention was drawn to the battle outside.
By then, Iron Man and Captain America had cornered the swirling sand, but that was not a tangible thing. Although they could limit his range of combat, they could not inflict any real damage upon him.
According to the principles of physics, Stark believed sand should fear high temperatures, but even when he increased the temperature of his battle armor's outer layer and went through the sandstorm, the adversary had no reaction. He also dared not use incendiary missiles, fearing they might hurt the ordinary people nearby, and the situation was at a stalemate for the moment.
Iron Man and Captain America had left swiftly, but Peter, playing the role of a researcher, couldn't arrive as quickly as Spider-Man. Luckily the beach was not far from the commercial district. When Shiller drove there, Stark and Steve were dealing with a headache from the sand entity.
Shiller had never seen Sandman in person, so he didn't rush after getting out of the car. He followed casually behind Peter to Stark and the others, watching the show with a spectator's attitude.
But countless painful experiences have always shown the world a simple truth—don't stand by and watch the excitement for no reason.