Katherine paced back and forth with a face full of irritation, until Stephanie made her stop.
The room they were in had no carpet, and the sound of Katherine's heels tapping against the wooden floor was interfering with Stephanie's phone call. At Stephanie's request, Katherine stomped her feet a few times before reluctantly stopping. "My job is to protect you, but I don't even have a sword!" the female swordsman grumbled, tugging at her well-tailored women's suit. "And I can't carry a gun in this outfit either. Damn the FBI! Damn the Secret Service! I should be by the Monarch's side, guarding him, not letting a kid who's just finished his modification surgery and is still developing do it!"
"If things change, you'll get what you want. But not now. All you need to know is that we're safe in this room." Stephanie didn't even look up, continuing to use her cellphone instead of the landline in her father's office. Gideon Malick was currently working in the President's office. Through the operations of the Immortal City, Gideon was now the U.S. Secretary of State. In return, he used this position to assist the operations of the Immortal City—for example, reassigning Victoria Hand's intelligence department to the State Department's black ops team to mask their activities.
"And besides, you know how much the Monarch values genetically modified warriors. That kid was created by the Monarch himself."
"I was created by the Monarch himself too!" Katherine snapped in frustration. "Why does only that boy get to stay by the Monarch's side!"
When she entered this office, Stephanie had made sure there were no surveillance or eavesdropping devices. She didn't want the contents of this upcoming conversation to fall into the hands of American intelligence agencies. The airstrike on Pym Technologies' "cold storage" facility was about to begin. As the administrative head of the Immortal City, Stephanie needed to assist Agent Hand in activating their spies to obtain intel from the White House—the contingency plan accounted for scenarios where their activities might be exposed, leading to war with the United States. This contingency had been drilled multiple times. The war machine of the Immortal City was now ready, ensuring that if things went south and they were forced to act, they could strike first.
"Our informants are now in high positions. If things really go bad, they'll let us know."
"I hope so," Katherine growled through clenched teeth. She shot a glare that pinned the Malick family's assistant girl to the wall, as if sizing up whether the college-aged girl was truly loyal—or whether she needed to twist her head off and hide the body in the air vent. Stephanie sighed and stopped Katherine from further terrifying the young hostage sent over by a subordinate family.
"My Lord tasked me with gauging the White House's response to this event. Your task is to ensure my safety and, if necessary, get me out of here. Don't cause any extra trouble. Your chainsaw sword is stored in a hidden compartment under the floor beneath this desk. I'm confident you can retrieve it."
"You could've said that earlier!" Katherine eagerly dashed over, trying to lift the desk.
"We've only been in this room for ten minutes, and I've been busy carrying out the Lord's orders!" Stephanie shot her a glare and then motioned for the girl to come help. She pointed to the phone on the desk and said to the young Hydra girl, "If General Hale needs to say anything, she'll use this phone. But if she doesn't mention anything official, then you say nothing. Be smart. Don't mess things up. Your family didn't send you here for your own good. Katherine, put down the chainsaw sword and come with me. We're going to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to meet someone."
"What happened?"
"A dog is trying to break free from its chain," Stephanie said, one hand on her hip, the other waving the file folder she held. "We're going to use soft power now, and I'm better at that than you. Ever heard the story of the elephant chained by a thin rope? This is a senator's thin rope. Once we show him this, he'll obediently stop trying to wriggle out of the collar we gave him."
"Is someone going to get their ass kicked?"
"I guarantee that won't happen," Stephanie said with a wink. "But I doubt any senator wants a naked photo of themselves running through a government building to show up on social media."
"So you're really confident this will work? Am I going to hear air raid sirens on the news?" Hope asked nervously. Scott Lang had to lower his binoculars and listen to what Solomon had to say. The arcanist merely shrugged at the doubt.
"Just a low-yield nuke, and it's a bunker-buster. I can guarantee that every inch of Pym Technologies' land will be turned over," he said. "But what about you, Ms. Dyne? Can you be sure there's no one left inside Pym Technologies tonight?"
"Ever since my dad threw a WWII tank into a public square, getting staff to move locations hasn't been hard," Hope said with annoyance. "I even invited the police sealing the area off to a restaurant. There's nobody left inside Pym Tech—not even janitors."
"You didn't give them a day off?" the arcanist asked, surprised. "You still expect them to work for you?"
"A terrorist attack happening on their day off, and no one getting hurt? That's way too suspicious," Scott Lang chimed in. "Just like my alibi—doesn't hold up to scrutiny. When are you launching the airstrike? I'm worried those cops might try to go back and check."
"Very soon." The arcanist glanced at his watch. "My sky carrier is nearby and cloaked, undetectable by radar. The bomber squad will immediately return after dropping the bunker-buster, vanishing from enemy radar completely."
"This plan sounds good, but in hindsight…"
"Yeah, there might be a minor earthquake. It's a small hydrogen bomb after all. We can't control the fusion reaction. That's why I told you to bring sunglasses instead of that stupid telescope, and don't stay on the rooftop… Duck!"
Scott and Hope, completely confused, ducked their heads—but they neither saw any missile launch nor heard any explosions. All they saw was Solomon still standing there, calmly removing the knuckle dusters from his hands.
"What the hell are you doing…" Scott began angrily. But he quickly shut up, because he heard a humming sound approaching rapidly.
A moment later, a violent tremor knocked both him and Hope to the ground. Even though they didn't witness the explosion directly, the blinding flash had already lit up the entire sky, and the shockwave that followed nearly made Scott vomit his organs. Hope suffered a concussion and began vomiting while lying on the ground. Scott held onto her, looked up at Solomon, and saw a massive white shockwave continuously hammering the air in front of them—the same was happening in the unseen center of the explosion.
No one knew what price Solomon had paid.
It wasn't until the tremors subsided that Hope slowly got up. Dust rose high into the air, nearly blocking out the sun. All the glass within several miles had been shattered by the shockwave. Hope stared in disbelief at the scene before her. Scott Lang was equally stunned.
"This is… apocalypse…" she whispered.
"Yeah. I found that one bunker-buster was enough, so I called off the rest of the bombing run," the arcanist said with a serious expression. "I already had the intel department claim that a suicide bomber was spotted in the area, to evacuate local residents. But now, it looks like even a suicide bombing can't explain what just happened."
"Casualties?" Hope asked anxiously. She didn't even need to look to know what had become of the former Pym Tech HQ. A truck bomb couldn't turn the ground into glass.
"My magic can't protect people who stared directly at the explosion—they might have had their eyes burned by the flash. Other than that, no major problems."
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I Am Zeus, KING OF GODS (Chapter 79)
Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 391)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 471)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 677)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 1059)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1418)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1422)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1452)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1504)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld!(Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 703)
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