Even the wealthy and powerful were powerless in the face of chaos.
Fearing an attack from the hovering Helicarrier, they didn't dare to risk helicopters. Instead, they had no choice but to return to their luxury cars and follow the gridlocked traffic like everyone else.
Ironically, their helplessness brought a strange comfort to the masses. The sight of the rich stuck in the sa jam as ordinary citizens helped calm so of the panic spreading through the city.
So people climbed onto their car roofs, staring out at the endless sea of honking vehicles. Then they'd look back and see limousines and armored cars—vehicles belonging to politicians and elites—trailing at the end of the line like everyone else.
Soone popped open a beer and raised it with a bitter laugh.
After all, there might be a nuclear bomb hanging over their heads at any mont.
The kind of apocalyptic knowledge they never cared about in school was suddenly at their fingertips—Googled in seconds. The internet was full of charts showing nuclear blast radii and radiation fallout zones.
Everyone could feel the clock ticking.
But then, a shift.
If they were going to die, then at least the so-called "untouchables"—the billionaires, the corrupt officials, the ones usually protected behind tinted glass—were going to die right beside them.
Suddenly, death didn't seem like such a bad deal.
In the traffic, whether it was a construction worker, a teenager, or a grandmother with a cane—people would glance toward the rear of the traffic jam. If they spotted soone they recognized from the news—a senator, a CEO—they'd pound on their car roof and shout:
"Screw it! If we're dying today, we're taking the bastards with us!"
And that was just one street corner in Warsaw.
A city of millions was now collapsing.
Public services were barely functioning, and law enforcent had long been overwheld. The entire city was being evacuated spontaneously, but the roads were clogged, and order had broken down.
Screams echoed from alleys, shops were being looted, and gunshots occasionally rang out.
And this was only thirty minutes after Pierce's threat was released online.
If things kept unraveling, the city wouldn't need a nuclear warhead to be destroyed—its own citizens would do the job.
---
Malrick flew silently over Warsaw.
Below him, smoke and flas rose into the sky. Car horns cried out in a never-ending dirge, echoing through the choking air like a dying beast.
Without slowing down, he soared higher, locking onto Agent K's signal. She had just finished escorting Fury's team to safety.
They exchanged a silent nod in the sky before parting ways.
Malrick ascended toward the Helicarrier. Agent K hovered midair and activated the broadcast module embedded in her armor.
A high-resolution live feed began transmitting via satellite. The signal stread directly to the Rising Tide's Sky Fortress, where Agent M added a discreet watermark labeled Tide and pushed it to the hopages of major websites and apps.
It wasn't just a leak—it was a strategic broadcast.
The Agents had essentially created a Superhero PR agency overnight. In the realm of new dia, they weren't just operatives—they were master tacticians.
They handled filming, editing, narrative control, and social dia manipulation like seasoned professionals.
Even the decision to bla the Rising Tide for the leak hadn't co from Malrick. One of their embedded agents in the Rising Tide had suggested it herself, swearing the group would love to take credit.
She wasn't wrong.
---
Thirty minutes later, the internet had beco a battlefield of emotions.
So people mocked the situation. Others condemned Hydra or surprisingly cheered them on. But the loudest voices ca from the three cities trapped under the Helicarriers.
Survivors began live-blogging their descent into panic.
From the mont they decided to flee, to the despair of sitting in unmoving traffic, to the resignation of realizing there was no escape before nightfall.
So wrote their wills on social dia.
Others knelt on cara, reciting prayers from the Bible, begging for divine protection.
Desperation had many faces.
And in the midst of it, one strange voice rose.
It ca from users in the Middle East and Afghanistan, calling themselves followers of the "New Protestant Superman Church."
They posted ssages of hope, encouraging people not to despair.
"Superman will co," they wrote. "He has defeated worse. He will save you."
At first, it sounded delusional.
But as their posts spread, they triggered a mory. The world suddenly rembered the man who had vanished more than a month ago.
A man who once stood unhard in the blast radius of a Jericho missile.
Wasn't soone like that ant to be a savior?
Soon, trending posts began to flood every platform:
"Where is Superman?"
"Only Superman can stop Hydra."
"Superman, the world needs you!"
So fans even offered risqué rewards in exchange for his help. "If you save the city," one influencer wrote, "you can have for a whole night."
And then—just when belief turned to longing—a new live stream appeared.
It had the Tide watermark and a bold title: "Superman's Arrival."
Users sward the feed.
The first thing they saw?
Malrick, dressed in his suit, cape billowing behind him, flying straight toward the hovering Helicarrier.
---
"Superman! Oh my God! It's really him! He heard us!"
"He's even better looking than the comics!"
"Who's filming this? A drone?"
"Wait, what if he's Hydra too?"
"No way—he's the one person who can survive a nuclear bomb. If anyone can stop this, it's him!"
Comnts flooded the stream in real ti.
As Malrick approached, the cara caught his cape whipping violently in the high-altitude winds. He soared beneath the Helicarrier, placed both hands under its hull...
And pushed.
The massive vessel shuddered, visibly.
Then it started rising, slow at first, then faster.
The cara zood out as the Helicarrier, a ship weighing tens of thousands of tons, was lifted higher into the atmosphere.
Malrick didn't stop.
He ascended until both he and the carrier vanished into the clouds.
---
"I'm in Warsaw! It's true! That airship just disappeared into the sky!"
"He's—he's not human! He's a god!"
"Why didn't he co to San Francisco first?!"
"I an… yeah, okay, he can move it—but that's still a nuclear bomb. He could die in the explosion!"
"No way. If he can lift that thing, you know how dense his body must be? He could tank anything!"
"Well, what about radiation? He could be dying up there right now!"
---
It wasn't just the internet in shock.
Inside Hydra's command center, panic erupted.
At S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Pierce was in a frenzy.
"You idiots! Rumlow, how the hell did Fury escape? We're not even an hour into this and you've already let Superman show up?!"
He kicked over a chair.
Then another.
"And this—this Superman! Where the hell is he taking our Helicarrier? I want him dead. Kill him. Now."
Three light screens hovered in front of him, showing the command centers of the three Helicarriers.
Rumlow stood at attention in the center feed, tight-lipped and tense.
"We tried, sir. But Superman... he took a direct Jericho missile once without flinching. We currently have no effective thod to injure him."
---
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