The muscular man launched himself skyward—at least 10 meters (33 feet) in a single leap. Bella's sharp eyes caught a pair of small, fin-like wings at his ankles, strange and unmistakable.
He bellowed something in a language none of them understood, then slammed his fist into the ground.
The blow was devastating. A thunderous boom split the air, the ground cracked open, pillars toppled in every direction, and the entire hall—a space the size of a football pitch—collapsed under the force of that single strike.
Using the tiny wings at his ankles, the muscular man took flight. He hovered in the sky, surveying the destruction below with an expression of absolute contempt.
"Hm?" He sensed something. From within the rubble, the collapsed hall began to split open from the inside, sheets of ice forcing the debris apart. Once there was enough space, Bella teleported out with the three unconscious members of her team.
Her good mood had evaporated entirely. She glared up at the airborne figure. "Are you out of your mind? You can't just talk like a normal person?"
She roused Shaw first, then told her to get Serizawa and Hobbs clear of the battlefield.
She was going to teach this arrogant bastard a lesson.
"Failing to kneel before your king is a crime!" the man declared from above, every syllable dripping with regal disdain.
Bella's smile was cold. "The last guy who acted this high and mighty is sitting in a prison cell. Twenty-five years. I'm thinking you'd fit right in."
She knew her raw strength was no match for his, and she couldn't fly. So she deployed Kamar-Taj's signature technique—the Mirror Dimension, offense and defense in one.
Her palm struck the ground. The earth rippled outward as if controlled by invisible waves, rolling forward at speed. The sky above compressed, growing lower. She spread her arms wide. Everything within her line of sight became her domain.
A staircase materialized beneath Bella's feet and she sprinted upward. Her right hand twisted into a gesture. The air around the muscular man—and the Atlantean structures beneath him—began to warp clockwise.
"What kind of power is this?" He clearly had no understanding of sorcery. Watching the buildings below fold and twist like taffy, tumbling toward him in spiraling loops, he was visibly startled.
His only recourse was the simplest one: run.
He was immensely strong, blindingly fast, extraordinarily durable, and capable of flight. He leapt to the roof of a temple-like structure and studied Bella's spell, searching for a weakness.
A gust of wind screamed behind him. Pure reflex—he spun and threw a punch.
BOOM. His fist plowed into the hull of the dark, winged submarine. The impact punched a hole clean through the cabin wall. Before he could process what had happened, Bella dragged a 30-meter (100-foot) electric eel out of the surrounding seawater.
"Off you go!" She hurled the eel at the muscular man like a living projectile.
Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?
The eel had absolutely no idea what was happening. One second it was sleeping on the ocean floor; the next, it was being flung like a throwing knife.
The Mirror Dimension had consumed the entire area. Ground became sky. Atlantean architecture fractured into countless shards. The submarine—the muscular man's own vessel—now blocked his sightline. By the time he muscled it aside, the eel had arrived.
No time to dodge. He punched again, and the blow landed squarely on the eel's anal fin. The eel was furious—that was not a place you hit. It discharged instinctively. A crackling barrage of electricity engulfed the muscular man, leaving him dazed and disoriented. Bella seized the opening, driving her psychic magic straight into his compromised defenses.
"Well, well—a war hero?" Reading a portion of his memories, Bella dialed back the killing blow she'd been preparing. The paralysis from the eel's shock hadn't worn off when she followed up with three consecutive Mind Blasts. The muscular man went limp and collapsed.
...
Hobbs regained consciousness fairly quickly. Serizawa didn't wake until the following day. The group had barely explored a tenth of the area—vast sections to the west and north of Atlantis city remained completely unknown.
Exhausted in body and spirit, and keenly aware that the situation's complexity dwarfed anything they'd imagined, Serizawa immediately contacted Monarch's senior leadership to report. They couldn't hold out on their own any longer. They needed reinforcements.
Five days later, Bella found herself once again—yet again—looking at Old One-Eye.
Old One-Eye hadn't taken the nightmarish underground route. Using their current coordinates, he'd flown in aboard a massive transport aircraft called Zephyr One—a modified C-17—punching straight through Antarctica's brutal cold and wind.
Old One-Eye's face was a mask of exasperation. Spotting Bella, he cycled through an of course you're here expression before dropping his voice. "For the love of God, get back to America already! The election's about to start—do you even know that? Your father was in the vice-presidential debate last night. Did well, too. I'm actually planning to vote Democrat this year!"
Bella was unimpressed. Like your one vote makes a damn bit of difference. After a bout of mutual griping, they finally got down to business.
Their current location was essentially a basin ringed by mountains. Outside the basin: Antarctica. Inside: warm as spring. How this geographic anomaly had formed would require scientists to investigate.
Bella brought up the muscular man she'd knocked out. Even though she'd pulled her punches, the psychic damage was severe—he wouldn't be waking up anytime soon. S.H.I.E.L.D. planned to transport him back to the States and put him alongside Captain America.
Old One-Eye nodded. "That's Namor. Prince of Atlantis. He fought alongside Captain America and Wolverine during World War II, helping us hold off the Nazi navy. After one particular battle, he simply vanished."
"And the submarine? Atlantean technology?"
Old One-Eye's expression darkened. "Unless I'm mistaken, that's a Hydra submarine. Namor most likely seized it from them. Hydra's technology doesn't quite match current Earth standards."
Everything clicked into place. Having shared the relevant data with S.H.I.E.L.D., Bella's expedition team packed up and headed home.
They went back for Old Joe.
"I'm not leaving with you. I like this place. I'll stay here and live out my days." The old man beamed as he spoke.
Serizawa tried to persuade him, but the man's mind was made up. Nothing to do but let it go.
He'd be back. He'd try again next time.
The four of them said their goodbyes to Old Joe. Serizawa's two students and the pilot had returned home more than a month ago.
Bella and Shaw scooped up a family of five—five miniature elephants in total—and the team boarded a S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjet back to the United States.