We Should Join Forces

"The energy index has reached eighty percent," Doom reported inside the Quinjet, beads of sweat trailing down his forehead.

And it wasn't just Doom — even someone with Captain Supreme's superhuman endurance was feeling it now. His mouth was dry, his skin sticky.

It was simply too hot.

"Doom, are you absolutely sure this so-called 'Atlantean Annihilation Device' of yours is going to work?" Pietro asked, his voice cracking from the heat.

He felt like he was being roasted alive inside the aircraft.

"Energy index now at ninety percent," Doom replied without lifting his eyes from the screen, ignoring Pietro's doubts entirely. His attention was locked on the charging sequence.

The device in question was an energy heater Doom had engineered specifically to combat Atlanteans. Simple in concept — with enough energy, it unleashed unbearable heat. At full power, the temperature at its core could reach tens of thousands of degrees.

Even though this particular Quinjet had been heavily modified with insulation and thermal shielding, the passengers inside were still suffering. Badly.

"Almost there," Doom muttered as the indicator hit ninety-five percent. A glimmer of merciless satisfaction crossed his face. "Let's see what this thing can really do to them."

Without hesitation, he slammed the red button.

BOOM.

A surge of searing energy erupted from the Quinjet's underside. The first to be hit was Namor, who had still been hovering in the sky.

It felt like the sun had descended upon him.

His skin cracked and blackened as moisture was rapidly drawn from his body. Pain seared every nerve. With a guttural scream, Namor dove headfirst into the sea, his only refuge.

But the soldiers below weren't so lucky.

They hadn't noticed the shift in water temperature — not at first. Their bodies were submerged; the gradual heating didn't feel alarming. But by the time they realized, it was too late.

The Quinjet's energy heater concentrated heat into a single point, boiling the surrounding ocean. Massive plumes of steam burst skyward as the sea roiled and frothed.

Atlantean soldiers floated helplessly, limbs seizing, skin blistering. Their nervous systems were the first to shut down, nerves scorched away before they could even scream. Their deaths were slow. Terrifying.

The great undersea warships didn't fare much better.

Exposed to unimaginable heat, their alloyed hulls began to warp, soften, and collapse. The moment internal systems failed, every Atlantean onboard was reduced to ash — cooked alive inside their own steel coffins.

"How much longer do we have to keep this going?" asked the Mandarin inside the cockpit, frantically channeling his Ice Ring to cool the interior. "We're about to cook ourselves in here!"

"Almost done!" Doom said quickly, eyes flicking between data points and the infrared camera feed.

Bodies floated. Thousands of them. The once-proud Atlantean army now blanketed the sea like a red tide. Crabs, fish, squids — even those mutated deep-sea horrors — all bobbed lifelessly at the surface.

The air smelled of boiled seafood.

Every Atlantean who had boasted of "punishing the landwalkers" was now… gone.

"Doom… was this… too much?" Daisy asked hesitantly, gazing at the slaughter through the holographic screen. Her voice trembled.

Doom didn't respond.

Instead, it was Rogers who reached over and gently patted her on the head.

"This is war, Daisy. A war between land and sea," he said, voice calm, but heavy. "If we hadn't done it, one day they would've done it to us."

"We just got there first."

Daisy chewed over those words in silence. They weren't wrong… but they weren't easy to swallow either.

"Alright, enough with the doom and gloom," Pietro suddenly blurted out, trying to change the mood. "Shut that damn heater off already. Is it just me, or is this jet melting from the inside?"

Just as he said it, the deck beneath their feet groaned.

Then cracked.

Then — collapsed.

One moment they were inside a Quinjet — the next, they were plummeting.

The aircraft, pushed far beyond its heat tolerance, had finally succumbed. Its reinforced fuselage softened, split, and fell apart mid-air, sending everyone tumbling toward the earth.

Luckily, Wanda and the Mandarin were watching.

They erupted into motion, catching their teammates one by one using telekinesis and wind constructs, gently lowering them to safety on the nearest shoreline.

"Pfffft—!" Steve Rogers lay flat on the sand, then burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha!" he laughed with abandon. The tension shattered.

The laughter was contagious. Pietro, Daisy, even Doom chuckled as they lay sprawled on the sand, sweaty, alive, and victorious.

They'd just completed a mission no one thought possible.

They had won.

But far off, in the shadows of a distant island, Namor's rage boiled hotter than the sea that had just devoured his army.

His body, steaming and burned, collapsed onto the rocks. He punched the earth in frustration, water around him swirling with his wrath.

"RAAHHH!" he roared. The sea surged with him, forming a vast maelstrom that threatened to swallow even the sky.

A full military division.

Gone.

His fleet — destroyed.

The pride of Atlantis — shattered.

Even Namor, King of the Seven Seas, could barely comprehend the depth of this loss.

That's when he heard it — a voice like the edge of a blade sliding against ice.

"We should join forces."

His eyes snapped open.

Someone — or something — had found him.

And they weren't from the sea.

--------------

T/N:

Access Advance Chapters on my

P@treon: p@treon.com/MPHFics