Spider-Moon 2 – The Tri-ad Connection. Chapter 4: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

They had run for about twenty minutes non-stop with Sailor Moon right at the lead. Already Sailor Mars could tell that Moon just wanted to get the heck out of there. After all, soon it would be her birthday, but she had no idea what she or any of the other girls were even planning. Everything was going to be taking place over at her place; even Darien knew what in the world was going on, however he wasn't saying anything at all. As they ran down the hall, they noticed that there was some kind of light up ahead. Once they got out into this new area, it was quite clear that there was seriously something wrong. They had ended up in a chamber of some kind that was nothing like what they had just been through. Suddenly Spider-Man yelled at them to keep going and to get out of the way, his Spider-Sense had been blaring the entire time. Luckily for the girls they had gotten onto a platform at the top of something else; however none of them really care that much about how to get off of it, just to get off period. As they cleared the platform in front of the door, Spider-Man noticed that there was a bar and an ending to it as well. Leaping up, he did a flip and shot out a web line and swung clear of the explosion fire that had been riding on them the entire time. As Spider-Man cleared the platform and swung out, a well of heat could be felt from where he, and they, had just come. Suddenly a roaring blast could be heard followed by a ball of flame that belched out of the place and ended just as quickly as it had started. "Is everyone ok?" Spider-Man asked from his spot on the new ceiling that he was on. Slowly everyone looked around and there were nodes all around. Dropping down Spider-Man and Sailor Uranus took a look around the place. "My word this place, is getting stranger by the danged minute." He stated as he looked around the place. "This looks to be some kind of lab of some sort. Don't ask me what, cause I couldn't even..." He stopped in mid-sentence as he looked at one of the boards that was there displaying something that he had taken a very sudden interest in. "Xavier would be going nuts in a place like this." He stated as he looked back over to where there was things hanging down. By this time, the rest of the Senshi had gathered around Spider-Man had he worked the computer and brought up some files. However the one person that Spider-Man wasn't expecting to see on the screen was there. "Actually Wolverine would be the one to get pissed." He stated. "Spider-Man, what's wrong?" Asked Sailor Moon. Spider-Man turned to look at her, and the others. "It looks like someone in the Japanese higher-archy took to experimenting with mutants." He stated. "And it looks like the one person that they did this too, her name is not known to me, however it is her code name that I know of only. Her name is Lady Deathstrike." He told them. There was a look of confusion on each of them, and Spider-Man could tell that they had no idea what in the world he was talking about. "So who is this Lady Deathstrike and what was she?" Sailor Venus asked me. Spider-Man turned back to the computer and brought up the profile on her. "Lady Deathstrike is what is known as a mutant. She possesses powers and abilities that normal humans not only do not have, but never will have. She has what's known in the science field as an active X gene." Spider-Man told them. "And the active X gene is what triggers the mutation in humans depending on who has it and when it's going to appear. Some time the gene activates in its normal course in time around the age of puberty or some time sooner. However some time if the gene wasn't meant to activate it some time activates late in life and is then known as a latent mutation. And the powers aren't the same for every person. Just like each person happens to be unique in their own ways, so does the mutant power also." Sailor Mercury stated. At that point everyone had there heads turned towards her anyway. "I read Xavier's book." Was the only thing that she could say in the matter. Spider-Man looked back towards the screen and smiled somewhat under his mask. "And that about sums up mutants. However a lot of people are thinking that I happen to be a mutant in New York as well, and that's not even remotely true. However this lady here," He stated. Pointing at the screen, "Is a mutant and her powers did develop at the same time as Wolverine's did. However her powers aren't known. From what I could be able to tell, she had the metal known as Adamantum bonded to her bones in a cybernetic was that was very similar to Wolverine. However the only thing was that it left her changed forever." He finished explaining.

For the next twenty minutes or so, as Spider-Man went over the computer files, the others were looking for another way out. Spider-Man was hoping that the answer would lie somewhere in the computers, he had no idea if the answer was there or not. Sailor Mercury had taken out her computer and visor and was looking over everything else that was around there, trying to figure out just how old everything really was. Sailor Jupiter, Mars, Moon, and Venus were talking to each other while Sailor Uranus and Neptune were trying to figure out a way out of the place. However they weren't having much luck in the endeavor. "Ugh." Sailor Uranus stated as she punched the wall. "Is there no way out of this damned trap?" She asked to no one. "I'm wondering that myself." Spider-Man stated. "I've only been over half the dang files that are in this computer and do far nothing, just research notes and not a single video among them at all. This entire project must have been so secret, that even by creating a video file would have seemed like a breech." He told them. "And from what I've been able to determine, these things haven't been used in about six years, I think the reason why was in case the project ever came back, however if they were given the order to drop the entire thing, well, it looks like they took them up on the offer, there is nothing even here that would say anything other then that everything is at least six years old here." Sailor Mercury informed them all. Spider-Man checked back over the files to check some things out and discovered that all of the files were last dated at least three years before that. However the date on the file creation of Deathstrike was at least twenty years ago. He knew that something at that point would concur to something else that he had check out before. "Since I have a feeling that nothing has changed in twenty years, I might have a map here that covers everything when it comes to this place." He told them as he found the file and called it up. Once the file was brought to the screen, he hit the print button and made hard copies of the map that was now being printed up. Once the first level of map was printed out, Sailor Uranus took it and started looking around. "There are several levels here." She told him. "I know, I'm printing everything dealing with the map here. I'm not taking any chances about anything." He told her. However right as the second one was printing up, something happened to the computer, an internal trigger of some kind that activated a video. The video covered the entire screen now and anything that was up there before, had no been replaced by the video. "To who ever finds this, I urge you not to try anything with the equipment here. The equipment here is the last end results of something that should never have been tried in the first place." The image was saying. "The project designers had started off with an idea that they had gotten from the Canadian government. It was dealing with bonding a metal known only as Adamantum to human bones. "At first for them the project seemed to fail because all of the test subjects would end up dieing from getting bonded. So our government tried taking the project on. Only thing was that they added cybernetics to the project as well. We had only one person that we brought into the project to be bonded. She was an assassin and deadly at best, however there was also another part to her that no one knew save for the people that she was working for. She was a mutant, her codename was Lady Deathstrike. She was of such that her powers would allow her to heal at rates beyond that of normal humans. "There had only been one report of another mutant that was like that. His name was Logan, and his code name was Wolverine. He however worked for the Canadian government and was the one that had next been selected for the bonding project." There was a short pause while the video played out. It was the look on the Senshi's faces that were in awe over what they were looking at. "My God." Sailor Moon gasped as she watched the video. "As you can see, the project had started off fairly well at first. The subject had been lowered into the tank and submersed in water with a breathing mask on. The intake lines were fed into her body and the entire thing started. At first everything was going well. However, her mutant powers started to kick in and at first started to reject what was happening to her. We compensated for that and were able to continue the work. Once the first stage of the project was completed, we then moved onto stage two. At this point everything that we had copied was different, we were adding something else, we were adding the cybernetics. "In essence we were making Deathstrike even more powerful then she already was. The cybernetics would allow her feats that she had never before been able to do at all. She could run faster then any normal human being on the planet. She could be able to scale sheer cliff sides and walls with the greatest of ease. And with the adding of the blades in each of her fingers, she was able to do the one thing that only the other one could be able to do. She could be able to slice through the densest of metals with the greatest of ease. In all, we made her name a literal name. "However once we got done with the last of the project, the one thing that we were planning on doing was erasing her memory of what had happened here. We knew that she couldn't be allowed to remember anything. However we never got the chance. Deathstrike became enraged by what had happened to her and struck out at the container that was holding her. Events in history were repeating themselves all over again, only this time is was in Tokyo Japan and not Canada." The last of the images show Deathstrike busting out of the tank and then clawing who ever was around her at the time, and then taking off. Spider- Man noticed that she was heading off in a direction that wasn't consistent to what ever was there now. "Damn the place has been changed. And I have a feeling that it was changed right after she had left." He stated as he got up and walked over to a part of wall that at first glance looked like the rest of the wall, however if one looked at it long enough, they saw a bit of an arch there that wasn't noticeable before. "Of course, I shoulda known." He said as he backed off. "Sailor Uranus, I believe that your world shaking would be of great help here." He stated. At first she wondered how in the world he could've known, but then she remembered when they were in New York that she did have a chance to use it in front of him. Gathering energy up, she raised her hand above her. "Uranus...World...SHAKING!" She shouted as she brought her hand to the ground and released the energy from her hand. The ball of energy went flying towards the wall, tearing up the ground along the way. Once it hit the wall, the entire place went white, and a loud crash sounded from right in front of them. Once the glare went down, everyone saw that there was now a hole in the way that extended to a corridor on the other side. "I'll be they did have a way out of this place." Sailor Jupiter said with astonishment. "They must not have thought that anyone was going to be coming back to this location." Sailor Venus stated. "Well what are waiting for, come on let's go." Sailor Moon said to them as she started for the corridor. Spider-Man's Spider-Sense wasn't picking up anything on the other side, so he figured that it would be better anyway. Besides, he had wanted to talk to her anyway.

Catching up to her he started talking to her in a low voice. "Hey just wondering, but you've been a little more quite for a while then even I've known you. Heck the last time that we all were together, it was usually you and Rei fighting most of the time. What's going on?" He asked her. Moon looked up at him. "I know it's just that a special day is coming up and so far no one seems to even remember it at all." She told him. Spider-Man could guess right there what she was talking about. She was having a birthday come up, and so far it looked like everyone had forgotten about it. "Hey I know what that's like, I mean back before I got my powers, I know that my Aunt May and Uncle Ben were doing everything that they could for me, but to no avail. At least you have your friends still. I had no one at that time." He told her. Moon looked up at him and smiled. "I know that you're trying to comfort me right now, however I don't think that it's going to work, after almost seeing my friends get gun down, all I've wanted to do was get the person that had given that order in the first place." Now Spider-Man truly did understand what was going on. Sailor Moon wanted revenge for what had almost happened to her friend. If he hadn't arrived on time, like they knew he was going to, they would've been killed. Something about this entire thing wasn't sitting right with him and he knew it. He had a feeling that some how, someone was keeping track of everything that they did, and he knew that he was going to have to stop it and fast. "Hey Moon face." He said in a teasing way. "When you guys first came around and the monster creeps were coming around, how were they doing that, knowing where to go and when?" He asked her. Sailor Moon looked up at him. That had happened about three years ago. At first her memory had been wiped so that she could try and live a normal life, however due to the circumstances after wards, that wasn't an option any more. Luna had restored her memories allowing her to become Sailor Moon again. However the answer was always right there for her to know. "They were using magick." She told them. "They were using the Negaforce at the time to find us and try to get rid of us, never worked of course. However they tried none the less." She told them. Spider-Man looked up and then straight ahead. "Well I doubt this time they're using some kind of crystal ball of any sort." He said, not knowing how close he had hit the mark. "But we've got to figure out some way that they are keeping track of us and find out fast." He stated in the end.

About twenty minutes later and still walking down the corridor, they had all begun to wonder how far this went to. "Doesn't this thing end?" Ask Makoto. Each of the Senshi and changed back into their normal clothes again since bring in the Senshi uniform was a bit tight. Spider-Man had discovered a memory back up on the cell phone and had changed back to his normal clothes again. He had actually taken a photo of himself in the mirror, just to test the phone out; however it didn't work at first. "I'm actually starting to wonder that myself Makoto. I've even tried making a call out, however due to what ever in the world is above and around us to the sides. Out going calls are out of the question." He told them. "Ami when you were in Senshi form, were you able to scan through to the surface at all?" He asked her. Ami looked at him and shook her head. "No I'm sorry." She said with sorrow in her voice. Suddenly they came to a dead stop, albeit not because they wanted to, but because they had to. There was a wall in front of them. However this wall at least had a door in it. The only problem was that the door was locked. Looking around Peter noticed that there was claw marks all around. However none of them went beyond the door in some way, which only meant that the wall and the door were made of Adamantum. "Great it would figure." He stated Usagi looked at him. "What's wrong Peter?" She asked. Peter looked at her. "The door and the wall are made of Adamantum. This means that Deathstrike couldn't go beyond that door." He told them. Haruka walked up to the door and started looking around. She noticed that there was like a control panel off to the side of the door that appeared at first to be hidden and untouched. However there were claw marks there that indicated that Deathstrike did get passed this point. Opening the panel she peered inside. "Dang, didn't even notice that." Peter stated. Haruka smiled and reached inside. The wires that were inside had been frayed a bit because of Deathstrike's fingers reaching inside. She twitched the inside and the door actually moved aside like it had never stopped been getting used. "And now we have our way out." She told them as she moved aside.

Stepping outside, they each glanced at the fact that it was still light out. Peter then realized how they were able to track them. "Of course, why didn't I think of it before?" He stated. "What is it Peter?" Usagi asked him. Peter looked at her. "I know how they're keeping track of us. They're using Japanese military satellites." He said with amazement. "That how they know when to do what they're doing and what to use at the time as well." Peter stated. "Peter, what have you got in mind?" Asked Rei. Peter looked them and smiled. "I'm going to need all of your help. It's time to take these guys down and hard, and it starts with taking down a satellite station." He told them.

To Be Continued...

Next up: Crashing the satellite dish Now that Peter has figured out how the Tri-Ad is keeping track of them, now they need to bring that information and the place down to their level even if it means bring down a roof or two.