The next day, 2:00 PM. 99th floor of Vought Tower, The Seven's conference room.
Madelyn, dressed in a standard white shirt and black pants, stared intently at the dim blue screen on the wall.
Homelander and Queen Maeve walked in side by side.
"We have an emergency," Madelyn said, pointing at the screen with a smile. "Flight 37 from Paris to Chicago has been hijacked and is currently flying over the Atlantic... NORAD is monitoring it."
"F-16 fighters will intercept and take over once it nears our airspace, but until then, we have a perfect response window."
She folded her hands and glanced at the two of them. "Depart immediately, board that plane, handle the trouble, and bring back this 'victory'... This is a great opportunity to showcase ourselves to the public and the military. Getting the Congressional proposal passed smoothly won't be an issue either."
Homelander lowered his gaze, staring directly at her chest, and pursed his lips. "Easy. Just some ordinary hijackers."
Queen Maeve nodded and turned to leave. "Then let's hurry. In and out."
Half an hour later, ten thousand meters above the central Pacific Ocean.
On a massive commercial airliner, over a hundred passengers sat upright in their seats, eerily quiet.
Four bearded men with guns paced the aisles. Two people lay in pools of blood, though it was unclear if they were passengers or air marshals.
Bang—Whoosh!
Inside the cabin, accompanied by the sound of tearing metal and the dull roar of wind, the fuselage shuddered violently.
The emergency exit was ripped open from the outside, creating a rectangular opening through which the airflow howled.
Two figures, one in blue and gold, the other in silver and red, stepped through the opening like descending gods, appearing in the violently jolting cabin aisle.
Maeve charged through the wind pressure at the hijackers who had just steadied themselves. Homelander closed the hatch, a red light glowing in his eyes.
Before the panicked passengers could even scream, a flash of red light from Homelander's eyes instantly pierced the two armed thugs in the distance with Heat Vision, and they collapsed on the spot.
Queen Maeve, with swift and clean strikes, snapped the necks of the other two hijackers.
"It's alright! Everyone, you're safe!" Homelander reassured the passengers in a booming voice, a wide smile on his face.
The surviving passengers erupted into cheers and applause:
"It's Homelander and Maeve! We're saved."
"Thank God!"
Homelander blinked and walked down the aisle under the adoring gazes of the crowd, heading toward the cockpit. "Follow me. There's one more little piece of trash here."
Maeve followed behind him, nodding and smiling at the fanatical passengers along the way.
Half a minute later, the two arrived outside the cockpit door.
Homelander pushed the door open and shouted in his heroic tone, "Drop your weapon! You have nowhere to run!"
The last hijacker, looking panicked, held a gun to the co-pilot's temple, hiding behind the hostage and shaking his head frantically while babbling.
Maeve raised her hands, trying to talk him down. "Hey, take it easy. Put the gun down."
Seeing the corpses of his companions in the aisle, the thug seemed scared out of his wits, shaking like a leaf. "Stay back! Monsters! You monsters!"
His finger instinctively pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Blood splattered across the control console.
The co-pilot's head slumped; he died instantly.
"You reckless fool!" The red light in Homelander's eyes flared as he fired a violent blast of Heat Vision, blowing the hijacker's upper body into a bloody mist.
The Heat Vision easily pierced through the hijacker's body, melting a large hole through the cockpit window and the console. The sophisticated instrument panels immediately went dark, and cables crackled with sparks.
Wooo—!!! Click-clack-clack—
The piercing stall alarm rang out like a death knell inside the cabin as gale-force winds rushed in through the breach, causing the metal to let out a teeth-gritting groan.
The plane, weighing hundreds of tons, tilted sharply downward, disengaging from autopilot like a falling steel coffin.
Maeve braced herself against the violently shaking doorframe, looking at the wrecked cockpit and then at Homelander, screaming in horror, "No!! Look what you've done?"
In Homelander's blue eyes, a flash of panic vanished instantly. "That damn thing killed the pilot... We don't know how to fly a plane; it's already a lost cause."
"Let's go, Maeve. We can't clean up this mess."
"We can try!" Maeve grabbed his arm and shouted urgently. "You could go outside and hold up the plane, or we could evacuate the passengers in batches. Save as many as we can!"
"Are you out of your mind? There's no leverage in the air for a plane weighing hundreds of tons. How would I lift it?" Homelander brushed off her hand and sneered coldly. "If we save one, we have to save them all. Otherwise, what will the survivors say... Our image will be ruined!"
"Since we can't perform a perfect rescue, we'll just act like it never happened... Leaving now is in our best interest."
With that, he ignored Maeve, put his composed smile back on, and turned to walk back into the passenger cabin.
Facing the panicked and terrified faces, he spoke in his magnetic voice, "Everyone, please remain calm! Fasten your seatbelts! Everything... is under control!"
"We've hit some severe turbulence, and the captain is adjusting. It's normal to feel dizzy."
Before he finished, the plane jolted even more violently, and the fallen oxygen masks swung wildly.
These comforting words didn't seem very convincing to the hundred-plus passengers.
"He's lying!" came the screams of several women. "The plane is going to crash! You can't leave us!"
"Help me! Please! My child is still in the back!"
"Homelander—Maeve—what kind of heroes are you?!"
Desperate cries, curses, and pleas converged into a suffocating wave of sound, completely overwhelming the two.
Maeve followed behind Homelander, her brow furrowed, her heart in agony.
She took two trembling little girls from their crying parents. "Just save these two. We can do that... They're just children; they don't understand anything."
"What are you still being stupid for!" Homelander yanked her over roughly, his voice hushed. "Save them, and then what? Let the whole world know we abandoned a whole plane of people for a couple of brats?"
Passengers on both sides grabbed their bodies and clothes, pleading desperately:
"My child is only one year old."
"And mine..."
The crowd then surged into the aisle like a tide, countless hands reaching for Homelander's shiny suit and cape.
Faced with the frantic crowd constantly pushing forward, holding up phones to take pictures, and trying to block him, Homelander completely lost his patience.
"Don't touch me with your filthy hands!" he growled, pushing everyone around him away, a red light glimmering in his eyes. "Come any closer and I'll blast you!"
Just then, several bottles came flying from behind, hitting him on the back of the head.
Thud—Thud—
"You ungrateful insects..." Homelander turned his head slowly, the accumulated rage in his heart turning into cold killing intent. "All of you, die!"
Vroom—Zzzzt!!!
The crimson Heat Vision swept across, and the people in its path fell like harvested stalks of wheat.
The cries, pleas, and curses... in that instant, came to a dead stop.
The aisle and cabin that had been crowded just moments ago were now filled with nothing but bloody wreckage and a thick smell of burning.
Maeve's hand froze in mid-air as she stared at the warm lives that had just been shattered beside her, stunned. "You... how could you..."
"Now, it's quiet." Homelander fired a few more bursts of Heat Vision and reached out to Maeve with a smile. "Do you want to go down with this heap of scrap metal, or leave with me?"
"You might not die, but if your presence is discovered at the crash site, it won't do your image or the company any favors."
Queen Maeve looked at the living hell created by her "teammate" and, after hesitating, grabbed Homelander's arm.
The two figures quickly shot out of the hatch and stood silently amidst the vast clouds, watching the smoke-trailing plane plunge toward the sea.
"It's over." Homelander put his arm around Maeve's waist, his expression calm. "At this altitude and speed, it'll disintegrate; there won't even be intact bodies... The dead are just as useful. We should go prepare for the press conference."
Meanwhile, in an inconspicuous corner in the back of the economy cabin.
A pale, short-bearded middle-aged man lay on the floor, tremblingly tucking his phone into a sealed bag and stuffing it into his inner coat pocket.
"It's true, what that person said yesterday... it was all true!" He pulled the terrified little girl beside him into his arms and hid under the seat. "Nisha, don't be afraid. We just need to hide well. Someone will come to save us... they will!"
Amidst the frequent weightless impacts and the constant wind pressure, the two huddled in a corner of the plane, their exposed skin shimmering with a metallic silver light.
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