"I'll persuade them to sign the Sokovia Accords, just… give me some time."
After a vote whose outcome had never been in doubt, Tony Stark knew all too well that the Avengers no longer had a choice—neither did Stark Industries. Sitting in his chair, watching the senators file out of the chamber one by one, he felt a deep powerlessness. If Stark Industries halting its weapons production line could still be seen as a legitimate business decision, then the Avengers refusing to participate in military intervention could very well be judged as treason. The Patriot Act had plenty of clauses that could be applied to them. The Avengers had no choice—sign the Accords, even if it meant facing their old friends on the battlefield. Tony Stark had no confidence at all in prevailing against Solomon, but for now he planned to keep that to himself. First, he needed to convince Steve Rogers to sign. As for being forced into conflict with Solomon, he would figure something out later.
Far away on the Hungarian border, Solomon was also staring down a dead end.
Wakanda's first wave of engineering aid was about to reach Latovinia, but delivery of the second wave was being repeatedly delayed. Stephanie Malick pressed Shuri for an explanation, but Shuri replied that the matter was tied to Wakanda's domestic politics. King T'Chaka felt that the scale of aid demanded by the Immortal City was excessive, and that Wakanda simply could not transport such a quantity of engineering equipment halfway across the globe in so short a time.
Solomon wasn't surprised by Stephanie's complaints. He had anticipated Wakanda's hesitance and even made contingency plans. T'Chaka was focused on opening Wakanda to the world, so he was especially sensitive about international reputation. Perhaps feedback from Wakandan agents on the negative reception to Latovinia's war on social media had made him wary, concerned that involvement would tarnish Wakanda's future standing in the international community. As a result, within the limits of the contract, he dragged his feet at every step and even looked for ways to pull back from deep cooperation with the Immortal City.
The partnership between Immortal City and Wakanda had never been one-sided. Shuri and her scientific division had obtained vast amounts of alien technology. Now Wakanda's maneuver to disengage could only be considered a breach of contract. To deal with this defection, Erik Killmonger and Helmut Zemo were the sharp blades Solomon had set aside against Wakanda. He ordered Stephanie to pull additional engineering equipment from the Immortal City's Martian foundry stockpiles to fill the gap left by Wakanda's retreat. At the same time, he directed Victoria Hand's black-armored interrogators to strictly control Wakandans' movements within the Immortal City—Shuri herself included.
He had no time to waste on Wakanda's self-preserving antics. Everything would have to wait until after the Balkan war. Just ten minutes after the U.S. Congress passed its emergency intervention and humanitarian aid bills, the missile pods aboard orbital satellites near the S.W\.O.R.D. station activated, locking onto NATO air bases in Europe and awaiting the signal from the Immortal City's strategic command.
Hundreds of ballistic missiles already shipped into Latovinia were launched, carrying out surgical precision strikes against Hungarian air bases at Kecskemét, Szolnok, Pápa, and other installations. Behind them, self-propelled artillery groups and missile launchers on the Latovinian side began pounding Hungarian Defense Force positions identified by drone reconnaissance.
Mechanized infantry groups of gene-modified warriors crossed the Hungarian border straight into clashes with Hungary's T-72 tank formations. Part of the Latovinian rebels stayed back to defend their homeland, while the rest followed in behind the gene-modified warriors as auxiliary forces. These battle-hardened fighters, fresh from the civil war, quickly fell into step after only the briefest pause.
The Hungarians had not expected Latovinia to launch such a ferocious assault, and for a moment were caught completely off guard. No one had imagined Latovinia would dare attack a NATO member outright, utterly disregarding the alliance's collective defense clause.
At first the Hungarian Defense Force tried to rely on their Soviet-era armored groups to fight back, but under long-range bombardments from super-heavy tanks and precision anti-armor rockets, it took less than half an hour before their artillery and tanks—whether on the border or in the cities—were reduced to smoking wreckage scattered across highways and fields.
In response, Hungary's mechanized infantry fell back into border cities, mining the roads to slow Latovinia's advance. But under artillery and rocket barrages, mammoth-class heavy APCs, built with cutting-edge materials and massive engines, plowed down Highway 53 through the disabled vehicles and wounded soldiers the Hungarians had abandoned. From Jászszállás to Bácsalmás, they crashed into Kiskunhalas and unloaded over a hundred gene-modified warriors clad in dark-gold power armor. Raider-type IFVs rolled in behind them, laying down heavy fire, while gunships overhead delivered continuous bombardment. The Hungarian army was crushed in one-sided combat.
The garrison in the city had no ability to resist. Plans to wage house-to-house street battles collapsed within twenty minutes as the gene-modified warriors returned devastating fire into apartment blocks where defenders were hiding. By the time Solomon's assault transport landed in downtown Kiskunhalas, Constantine had already surrounded surrendering prisoners with his troops and loaded the fallen warriors onto logistics vehicles. The town's streets were packed with burning tanks, collapsed buildings, and shattered corpses.
The Hungarian civilians of Kiskunhalas were herded together, awaiting his orders.
Time was the most critical factor in this war. The Immortal City could not waste even a second.
"I am sorry for all of this," Solomon said, standing in the burning city before terrified civilians. His presence alone eased their fear, steadying their hearts. But the once-beautiful town was now ruins, scarred horribly by war. "This will be over soon. No one will harm you. Follow orders, keep order in your homes. From this day forward you will no longer be slaves. I promise you justice and dignity. That is the only gift I can give."
He did not linger. Turning away, he boarded the transport.
Before leaving, he ordered Latovinian soldiers to destroy every last Hungarian weapon—pistols, tanks, everything. The aim was to completely erase Hungary's military capacity along the border. Latovinian troops would remain there, awaiting reinforcements and humanitarian aid. Military rule would be imposed until the war was over.
The same scene unfolded in Szeged, Hungary's third largest city on the Serbian border, though the fighting there was much fiercer. The Hungarian Defense Force resisted for forty minutes before surrendering, successfully delaying the Immortal City's advance for a time. But the gene-modified warriors were instruments of war. Their boltguns, plasma weapons, and other arms were designed for maximum lethality. Shoulder-mounted missile launchers easily reduced concrete bunkers and houses to rubble. With knowledge injections fueling their efficiency, the gene warriors moved with inhuman swiftness and cold precision. They cared nothing for casualties or pleas—victory was their sole objective. Electronic warfare paralyzed Hungarian command systems. Two hundred warriors in power armor relentlessly eliminated every potential threat one target at a time.
Afterward, casualty reports showed Hungarian forces had lost twenty percent, even without counting the armed gangs and civilians who had been handed weapons. They had surrendered because the warriors' assault was simply too overwhelming. From the gas station east of the Tisza to Széchenyi Square, from the Votive Church to the sports center, no fortification lasted longer than five minutes. Civilian-shield defenses failed utterly. Cleanup took longer than the battle itself.
Latovinia cared nothing for reputation, only for victory. In response, Orbán's government declared a state of emergency and appealed to NATO for aid.
The Immortal City's missile strikes had already leveled Hungary's airfields and air defenses. Cyberwarfare severed all communications between Hungarian military installations. Air raids had obliterated the command structure. Not a single Hungarian aircraft could take to the skies. Even civilian flights stumbled about like headless flies.
With its full war potential unleashed, the Immortal City was terrifying. The entire Hungarian state lost contact with the outside world almost instantly. Orbán's "state of emergency" was heard only in Budapest. Everywhere else, civilians had no idea what had happened. They had first heard on television that NATO was intervening in Latovinia. Moments later, their screens went blank, their phones lost signal, and networks collapsed. Only those near military bases could hear the explosions.
The only information they received came from Latovinia's announcements: strikes would only target U.S.-occupied military bases, and no Hungarian cities would be occupied. As long as the Hungarian military surrendered, they would not face missile bombardment.
It was a downshift war—modern combat crushing its opponent with superior technology, not manpower. But should it devolve into an insurgency, the Immortal City would be in dire straits, for Hungary still retained latent capacity to fight.
"Only when you live through it do you truly know how terrible war is. Pretty words don't help," Solomon sighed, his armored hand gripping the hilt of his sacred sword tightly. "I'm going to become a comic-book villain now. Soon the superheroes will come for me."
Constantine could see his lord was in poor spirits, but said nothing. He knew Solomon was merely venting. He would never abandon his strategy, nor could he—no matter how much he hated forcing himself into this role.
The assault transport, filled with squads of gene warriors, lifted off under fighter escort, heading for Budapest to carry out a decapitation strike and complete Hungary's "de-NATOization." This strike force was tasked specifically with destroying the enemy's command structures and alleviating Latovinia's predicament.
They had to succeed. If they failed, everything Latovinia had built would vanish. Only by achieving this strategic goal could Latovinia stand on the world stage and bargain as an equal.
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