Chapter 2651

Stark and the Young Avengers walked toward the sea, while Shiler and Strange still didn't join their activities; Shiler hadn't finished the juice he was holding, sipping it while chatting with Ultron on his phone about the situation at the sanatorium.

Strange was reviewing previous consultation records on his phone, with many follow-up tasks remaining from the major surgery he performed, making it hard to fully disconnect even during vacation.

After a while, Eddie called Strange away, seemingly to film a solo interview, leaving only an assistant to record Shiler's side.

Shiler originally just wanted a boring vacation, believing it meant doing nothing, but pure idleness would be too dull, so he decided to do something pointless, like now sitting on the beach drinking juice and chatting.

That group was still shouting and playing in the sea; Stark seemed to have finally found a chance to show off, performing a series of impressive moves that drew cheers, only to realize the sole acquaintance on the beach wasn't watching him.

"Hey! Shiler! What are you doing? You completely missed my amazing performance! You missed the greatest…… of this century……"

Upon hearing his name called, Shiler instinctively looked up, and the next second, with a whoosh, his beach umbrella flew up, followed immediately by himself.

Shiler gripped his juice cup with one hand, still holding the communicator with the other, and instinctively glanced toward Stark.

Peter and Robert instinctively jumped and rushed over, but Robert, with his speed-ball ability, was clearly faster, reaching Shiler's side in a blink, grabbing his arm to cancel the momentum and bringing him down.

Because Stark had drawn his attention, Shiler hadn't realized how he flew up; looking back, he saw a massive sandstorm raging in the middle of the beach, tourists screaming and fleeing.

Shiler frowned, wondering whether this troublemaker's luck was good or bad: saying it was good because Stark's documentary was destined to go global—a treatment not every villain gets, able to appear before the world's people.

Yet saying it was bad also made sense, as Iron Man, Captain America, and Spider-Man were serving him, a treatment even Thanos didn't receive.

But clearly, this suddenly appearing villain wasn't limited to traditional superheroes; he was pioneering new fields and tactics, as the sandstorm kept growing without heading toward Iron Man and Captain America, instead sweeping half the beach's sand and then charging straight toward the city.

Stark immediately widened his eyes, realizing the sandstorm's direction was precisely the shopping district where women were shopping.

The women were happily shopping, this mall had an entire floor dedicated to maternal and infant products, with Wanda carefully selecting items for her two little ones, while Pepper planned to buy things for the children in advance.

Loki felt that although she and Sif didn't get along, as a sister-in-law giving birth, she should still show something; human childbirth experience offered little reference for the Asgardians, but human-made small toys for entertaining children were still good, so she bought many.

Helen was no longer an infant, uninterested in those small items for early intellectual development and teething training; fortunately, the mall was thoughtful, anticipating mothers bringing older children to buy supplies for younger ones, so they set up an inflatable bouncy castle at the entrance, where Loki threw Helen in.

Given Helen's intelligence, she truly couldn't play with these screaming little brats, but she also realized her rapid development required earlier elite education; rather than that, she preferred to be like Elsa, just squeaking and chewing on slides daily, so she decided to induce a degenerative condition to learn from these brats, playing and roughhousing on the slides, which could still be fun.

After shopping a while, the women also felt a bit tired, so they returned to the bouncy castle, sat at the adjacent café, ordered drinks, while Helen leaned on the castle's railing eating the snacks Loki brought her, disguised as human hard candy—concentrated planetary core.

Others were tallying spoils at the nearby table; since Pepper's pregnancy, she'd especially loved dolls, buying a large variety of fruit and vegetable plushies from a famous expensive doll brand, while Wanda bought many wind chimes that make sounds when spun.

After eating and drinking their fill, considering the presence of pregnant women and new mothers, they didn't immediately resume shopping but decided to go outside to the terrace for fresh air and rest longer, to avoid exhaustion.

Jarvis was the only man accompanying them, but he couldn't stay behind, as Wanda couldn't manage two children alone—the stroller was too much for her, and Jarvis functioned as a walking Stark Group bank account, handling all settlements.

As Jarvis stepped onto the terrace, he received a message from Stark saying a bizarre sandstorm was flying toward them; he initially didn't understand what "bizarre sandstorm" meant, thinking Stark had drunk too much, until stepping onto the terrace and looking up, seeing a massive sandstorm raging in the city.

Jarvis strode to the terrace door, intending to call the women back, but Wanda had already come out, and due to the angle, she didn't see what was happening outside.

Hearing the screams from below, she was still curious, craning her neck to look out, asking: "What's going on? Is there a party downstairs?"

Immediately, she felt a huge force pushing from the stroller she was holding, like trying to hold an umbrella in a strong wind—the stroller nearly slipped from her grasp.

"God! What the hell is happening?!!!"

"Quick! Quick, protect the children!!!"

Immediately after, they heard a roar.

"Mark!!!"

A gold-and-red figure appeared on the horizon, followed by the familiar blue-and-red shield; Jarvis escorted Wanda and the other women into the mall interior, but the storm's surging sand still blew through doors and windows, leaving everyone with a mouthful of sand.

Jarvis had already identified the sandstorm's source via his biological analysis system, he opened the loudspeaker and shouted: "Sandman!! Are you crazy?!!! Stop!!!"

Jarvis wasn't planning to rely on sound waves to stop Sandman; he urged him to cease purely out of goodwill, because the Scarlet Witch was unusually furious.

Wanda suddenly leapt up, half the sky turning red, she was about to act when a sharp infant cry rang out, the red instantly vanishing, Wanda appeared somewhat flustered beside the stroller, picking up the crying brother and softly soothing him.

Although Polaris didn't like Wanda, perhaps due to a familial longing inherited in her blood, she liked these two children.

Seeing this situation, she waved both hands, all metal items in the mall flew up, clattering and blocking the entrance, forming a thick iron plate, every gap sealed tightly, not even a grain of sand could get through.

Yet the infant's cries grew stronger; for unknown reasons, the originally panicked passersby in the mall gradually stopped moving, began looking toward the stroller and weeping.

Wanda focused on soothing the child, unaware of this anomaly, but Polaris had already reacted, she stared in shock at the infant in Wanda's arms, in her vision, a strange magnetic field fluctuation emanated from him.

"He…… he……"

Wanda also realized it, instinctively turning to meet Polaris's gaze, then looked in shock at the infant in her arms.

She knew her child might be a mutant, she had accepted this, when she mentioned it to Magneto earlier, she had stated her position.

Wanda accepted the possibility her child was a mutant, she no longer rejected this, no longer felt that if she weren't a mutant but an ordinary person, she could have a harmonious family, meaning she no longer blamed her past turmoil on her mutant identity.

But being a mutant and being a mutant who manifests abilities in infancy are two different things; even as powerful as Wanda, she hadn't awakened her powers at just over one month old.

Polaris sensed the severity, she suddenly swung her hand, the camera on the photographer's shoulder behind her flew up and was crushed into an iron ball.

Wanda also forgot her grudge with Polaris, she said somewhat flustered: "The mall has surveillance, people also have phones……"

"I've already blocked all network signals and, through intrusion, deleted all recorded image data." Jarvis said: "But we can't delete extensively, or people's memories will be affected."

"No problem." Pepper immediately said: "It's all the fault of that supervillain called Sandman; this is obviously his power—how could it relate to two fragile infants?"

Wanda froze, but then realized: indeed, the biggest commotion now came from the outside sandstorm; any anomaly would be blamed on him, not two seemingly innocent infants.

Wanda calmed down, finally soothing the child in her arms, people also stopped crying, some dazedly wiping tears from their faces, looking out the window.

Indeed, no one paid attention to Wanda's side; everyone was drawn to the outside battle.

At this moment, Iron Man and Captain America had already cornered the sand mass, but it wasn't substantial matter; although they could restrict his range, they couldn't inflict real damage.

Based on physics, Stark thought sand should fear heat, but even after raising his armor's outer temperature and passing through the sandstorm, he saw no reaction, and dared not use incendiary missiles for fear of harming civilians, leading to a temporary stalemate.

Iron Man and Captain America departed swiftly, but Peter, playing a researcher, couldn't move as fast as Spider-Man; fortunately, the beach wasn't far from the shopping district, so when Shiler drove over, Stark and Steve were still struggling with the sandstorm.

Shiler had never actually seen Sandman before; after getting out of the car, he didn't rush over, instead following Peter leisurely to Stark's group, adopting a spectator's posture.

But countless painful experiences have long shown people a simple truth—don't gawk at excitement for no reason.