Professor Serizawa studied everyone's expression in turn.
Bella was indifferent. She hadn't voiced any opinion.
Shaw sat stone-faced, methodically checking her weapons, utterly unbothered by the tornado outside.
The two students were practically buzzing. The prospect of a groundbreaking geographic discovery had stoked their courage—both wore eager, raring-to-go expressions.
Hobbs was still trying to talk them down. Fly a helicopter straight into the eye of a tornado? How was that different from suicide?
He implored them to abandon the idea of charging in head-on. "You're all scientists. You should know this better than I do. Wind speeds at the center of a tornado can reach two hundred meters per second—even three hundred. The core pressure is extremely low, the air thin, the temperature plummeting. We simply cannot get through!"
He seemed well practiced at reasoning with intellectuals. Mid-argument, he shifted tack: "We can go back, draw up a proper plan, prepare thoroughly, and return."
Protagonists in novels and movies dove into the eye of the storm all the time. In reality, it was impossible. Even Captain America couldn't get through. Without Ultron's constitution, going in meant death.
Bella had no desire to risk everyone's lives charging in, but she didn't want to go home empty-handed either. She caught Shaw's eye with a discreet glance and held up her fingers: ten minutes.
Ten minutes wasn't enough for the transport helicopter to cross a hundred miles—the timing would be tight. But a tornado also needed time to dissipate and reform.
Ten minutes would be cutting it close, but it was enough.
Shaw caught on immediately. She rehearsed her lines internally several times before speaking with a note of urgency: "Look! The tornado seems to be slowing down!"
Everyone spun to look. Bella, her back to the group, suppressed the moisture inside the tornado from a distance.
Could she swat the tornado apart with one gesture? She absolutely did not have that kind of power. That was Storm's domain. But she could freeze the water vapor within the tornado, then use the Winds of Watoomb—cast gently—to scatter the wind in all directions.
The raging tornado spun and spun, and piece by piece, she dismantled it.
The fix was temporary. The tornado would reform before long, but the window was wide enough.
"Go! Punch through! The storm's weakening!" Professor Serizawa shouted.
As the storm visibly weakened, even Hobbs didn't object this time.
A CH-47 charging a full-force tornado was out of the question, but handling a heavy rainstorm at this intensity was well within its capabilities.
The pilot was the first to spot it. Through the thinning curtain of rain at the storm's center, the faint outline of an island materialized. He was suddenly impressed—these scientists actually knew their stuff. What was that out there? A brand-new island that humanity had never discovered. That meant fame. That meant money. He immediately pushed the transport helicopter to maximum speed and plunged headlong into the wind and rain.
The pilot had the sharpest eyes, followed by Shaw and Hobbs. After five minutes of flight, even the bleary-eyed academics who'd been up late reading could make out the mysterious island through the rain.
The Mysterious Island was real.
Professor Serizawa could barely contain himself. He felt certain he'd found another piece of Monarch's Titan puzzle.
The transport helicopter was faster than Bella had estimated. They touched down safely on the island's southernmost point.
The encircling tornado quickly whipped back up. The island was thick with trees, and the CH-47's thirty-meter fuselage made low-altitude maneuvering a nightmare. They decided to leave the helicopter and the pilot behind while the rest explored on foot.
Serizawa's team had brought an array of instruments for surveying terrain, testing soil, analyzing atmospheric composition, and examining plant and animal cells.
Then came the standard wilderness gear: flashlights, daggers, rope, tents, mess kits, backpacks, and other supplies.
In the movies, the heroine would be wearing hot pants and a crop top at this point. In reality, that was out of the question. Insects in the wild were relentless, underbrush and thorns were everywhere, and unless you'd mastered some kind of iron-body technique, dressing that exposed was simply not an option.
Skull Island's mosquitoes alone had tortured Bella half to death on her last visit.
This time, Bella wore a plaid shirt and jeans on the outside. Underneath was a fireproof protective suit woven from quartz fiber and Kevlar. She cared about her skin. She had no intention of returning covered in bug bites.
The researchers only needed to carry their own packs. Hobbs and Shaw, in addition to their personal gear, were also loaded with weapons.
When Hobbs hauled a heavy machine gun weighing over thirty kilograms out of the helicopter, Bella raised an eyebrow. "Buddy... I don't think we need that kind of firepower."
"Better safe than sorry. What if we run into something unfriendly?" He defended his choice.
Bella gave him a half-smile. "The 'unfriendly thing' you're actually thinking of is the American media, isn't it? Stick to standard weapons. That thing's too heavy, and this island..." She gestured at their surroundings. "This island looks enormous. Your stamina isn't infinite."
Hobbs ultimately left his beloved heavy machine gun behind. With ammunition, the whole setup weighed over sixty kilograms. He could carry it, but hauling that load on a long trek through uncharted terrain was far from wise.
Hobbs took point with a machete, clearing the path. Shaw covered the rear with her rifle. Bella stayed close to protect Professor Serizawa.
They advanced in fits and starts. The immediate priority was locating Serizawa's old friend—the amateur scientist who'd first discovered the map secret hidden in the three books and arrived on the Mysterious Island ahead of them.
"Hey there! Hello, everyone! Oh, there's a young lady here too. Wait—you... you're Miss Bella? Running into you out here of all places! This calls for a celebration. This old-timer's treating you to a drink!"
Old Joe—the retiree they'd met during the pension scandal case—greeted Bella with a broad grin.
He wore a faded gray work coverall, clearly the uniform of a steelworker, with a machete on his hip and a fisherman's hat on his head.
Bella wasn't entirely surprised to see a familiar face here. The moment Serizawa mentioned an amateur scientist, she'd had a premonition—a gut feeling she couldn't quite explain.
Still, she asked the question on everyone's mind. "You're looking remarkably healthy. If I recall, back then you were..."
Old Joe was lucid, agile, and practically sprinting through the underbrush. He didn't look anything like a man in his eighties.
"Truth is, Old Willy says he saw an angel. Went on about God and whatnot. But I was right there, and I didn't see any angel or any God. All I saw was a flash of golden light. The light healed Old Willy, and I suppose it caught me a bit in the process too. Ha ha ha!"
Old Joe was as forthright as they came. He spoke about what had happened plainly, without embellishment or evasion. Just matter-of-fact.