Chapter 10: Strike Team X Part 2 – Skydive Redux
OUTSIDE THE MACHINE CITY, EARTH-9466 – AUGUST 7, 2537
Well, hooking up the TemPad to the Justifier took an ungodly amount of time to figure out. I take 100% responsibility for that, seeing as how I didn't remember for about an hour and a half that we only succeeded at hooking one up to the Carlysle after I demanded that Spideypool52 use the fact that he is the god of this fanfic to magically let us figure it out. So I finally threatened Spideypool52 again, and not ten seconds after that, Harley and Canary figured out where the TemPad needed to be connected. Go figure.
After that it wasn't long until the Justifier emerged in Earth-9466 about a mile out from the Machine City. The skies overhead were still dominated by the giant portal leading to Earth-328767.
All of us but Todo were seated in the rear half of the ship, four on each side of the hatch in the floor that we'd be jumping out. Ah, memories of the X-Force's first mission…. All I could do was hope this one went better. At least there weren't high winds this time; hell, there weren't any winds. Nor were there any helicopters, woodchippers, bus windshields, or telephone wires for any of us to be blown into. Worst case scenario, we're all swarmed by Sentinels and vaporized before we land in the fields below.
Wait a sec….
"Why the #$&% are we even doing this?" I realized. "Colleen, just teleport us into the center of the Machine City."
"How?" she asked.
"Uh…y'know, you do your sparkly hand-wavey thingy that makes a portal we walk into. Come on, you're the Sorcerer Supreme!"
"Sorceress Supreme. And I have no idea what you're talking about. Why, can your Sorcerer Supreme do that?"
"Uh…yeah! The Sorcerer Supremes of all the universes from What If…? could do it! The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth-TRN1107 can!" That's the variant of Magik who joined the Guardians of the Multiverse, in case you didn't remember. That's understandable; even Spideypool52 just had to go back and look up which universe she came from.
"Well, I can't. The only 'sparkly hand-wavey thingy' I can do is this." She thrust her arm towards the center of the ship, and a large Tao Mandala appeared in midair, almost decapitating Bane. "Can use those like shields, or like steps, or quite a few other uses. They're surprisingly handy to be able to create."
"Oh, so you're just Ms. Marvel with a sword. Wonderful."
At the same time, that was better than the grappling hooks I anticipated us having to use to scale the short cliff the Machine City was on. Having an actual set of steps to climb would make it easier, and probably less dangerous for everyone who didn't have my healing factor.
"Todo, once you see any Sentinels or giant warships detaching themselves from the cliff dead ahead of us, open the hatch!" I called. "I want us all to be well clear of the Justifier by the time the firefight breaks out!"
"Maybe there won't be a firefight," Todo said, reeking of cowardice. "Oh, a droid can hope."
"There better be a firefight or I want my goddamn money back!"
"What money?" Huntress asked.
"The money I spent bribing this team into coming together! How do you think I got them all here? I don't have any Samuel L. Jackson charisma to throw around; all I have is money. Money talks, bull#$&% walks!"
"Harley didn't have to bribe any of us," Canary said. "We just agreed to come along because, you know, if the multiverse ends, so do all of us. Although now that I know some of us are getting paid, I think I want some money too."
Why did I have to open my damn mouth?
"Me too," Huntress said.
"The Sorceress Supreme doesn't expect monetary compensation for doing her duty," Colleen said.
"Um. Mr. Pool, we've got a…crab situation," Todo said.
"I did not need to know that droids can get crabs," I said. "I won't ask, you don't tell, please."
"I think you misunderstand me. There's a bunch of…giant, flying crab-things approaching us."
"Excuse me for a second." I got up and headed into the cockpit. Crabs...?
Oh for #$& out loud!
"Those aren't crabs, those are the goddamn warships I warned you about!" I yelled.
"Those do not resemble any warships in my database. How was I supposed to know what they are – this is a universe I've never been to before."
"There are certain movies that society just expects you to have seen, and the Matrix franchise definitely falls under that category! And by God, we live in a society!"
Ha. Never thought I'd get an excuse to naturally work that line into a conversation.
"Attention, passengers," Todo said as I returned to the rear of the Justifier. "Drop sequence is now beginning. Please make sure your parachutes are fastened securely so you do not turn into a splatter of guts upon hitting the ground."
Todo can say anything and make it sound eloquent, I guess.
The hatch in the floor retracted, filling the ship with swirling winds.
"Hold onto your cowboy hat, Wyatt Earp!" Harley said to Bane. "This is about to get crazy!"
"We're gonna have to execute our landing carefully." I pointed out the hatch as the others got up. "See all those giant, vine-like things bursting out of the ground down there? I've never seen them too close-up before, so I'm not sure if it's possible to get gored open on one if you fall right on top of it. Just try to avoid them to be safe. But once we get down there, they'll also give us some cover against being spotted by the Sentinels. And even if we are spotted, I don't think they'll risk blowing up their power source just to kill us."
"And what exactly are those things down there?" John asked.
"They each contain a bunch of pods that hold humans in suspended animation so they can be used as a power source for the world's mechanical populace." I chuckled. It's strange to see Keanu Reeves so clueless about how this world works.
The Justifier rattled. "Warships are engaging," Todo said. "Get out now before I take evasive action!"
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Alright, Strike Team X, let's go! We can do this! Second time's the charm!"
"This is not going to end well," Bane said.
"C'mon, everyone, maximum effort! It's now or never! Now, I'm jumping out of this ship – who's coming with me? Laird, hit it!" With that, I leapt out the hatch.
Sure hope that was motivational, because if not I'd be trying to get across the fetus fields on my own. Now I remembered why I was the last one out of that helicopter: to make sure the rest of the X-Force didn't chicken out at the last second.
Da-na-na-na-na-na, THUNDER!
I looked to the side and saw the half-dozen crab warships slowly but surely approaching the Justifier, flanked by God knows how many Sentinels. I flipped over to see if the rest of the team was following me. Thankfully, they were.
Da-na-na-na-na-na, THUNDER!
Bane went first, but as soon as he left the ship, his cowboy hat was whipped off his head by the wind and got lost in the drab surroundings behind us. Colleen, the only member of the team who passed up on taking a parachute, went next, using the Cloak of Levitation to glide out the hatch. Harley, Huntress, and John jumped after her, then Canary, and finally Geralt, who seemed more hesitant than the others. Then again, he'd probably never seen a parachute before. I explained to him how parachutes work before the mission, but he'd seemed skeptical of them anyway.
Da-na-na-na-na-na, THUN-
OWWW!
In looking up, I forgot to watch where I was falling. I covered the distance between the Justifier and the top of the vine structures more quickly than I thought I would, and my back was ripped open by one of the things! Son of a bitch!
I tumbled down the side of the vine, cracking open one pod and completely detaching another one from the vine in the process. A few seconds later, I crashed to the ground.
Ohhh man. I could just tell that fall #$& up everything in my abdominal cavity.
Broke all my limbs.
…Oh look, there's a rib jabbing through the front of my suit.
A tremendous crash came from my left and I jolted. I rolled to my side as well as I could in my crippled form, and saw that the pod I hit on my way down had fallen to the ground. The bottom half of it was smashed open and leaking the fluid inside. Couldn't tell if its inhabitant had survived the fall.
Harley and Bane glided to the ground next to me; Harley ran over. "Are you alright?" she asked. "What the hell was that?"
"Got distracted making sure the rest of the team wasn't bailing out on me," I said. "Also I thought I had farther left to fall than I actually did. Big miscalculation there; that one's on me."
"Is he dead?" Bane asked rather indifferently.
"No, he can't die," Harley said. "He'll be fine in a minute or two."
"Well…there's a bit more to it than that…," I said.
"No there isn't."
"Well, there is when I feel like being dramatic!"
The rest of the team touched down a couple seconds later, with Colleen landing last. "What's up with that thing?" Canary asked, pointing to the broken pod.
"I hit it on the way down," I said. "Actually, we should probably check on that. There might be someone still alive in there."
"That thing's all smashed open," Bane said. "You seriously think someone in there could've survived?"
"Just humor me! We're gonna be stuck here anyway until my limbs finish snapping back into place!"
Above us, the Justifier rocketed into the clouds. One of the crab warships and a swarm of Sentinels broke off after it, while the rest of the machines halted in the sky about halfway between us and the Machine City. Well, we'd have to hope my theory about them not wanting to launch an attack the fetus fields would prove accurate.
Harley and Huntress each grabbed an end of the pod and pushed on it, slowly flipping it over. Turns out someone was still inside it, and he was still hooked up to all the tubes and stuff inside, which seemed to have saved him from falling out when the pod broke open.
"Holy #$&%, look at the size of that thing," Harley said. "And this guy's been trapped in a pod his entire life? What a #$& shame."
"What do we do with him?" Bane said. "I don't want any dead weight on this operation."
"Well, we can't leave him and that Johnson here to die."
"For the love of God, will someone please cover him up?" Colleen said.
The man's eyes snapped open. He gasped and started weakly clawing at the tubes in him. "Where am I?" he said. "Wha-what happened?"
"You've been living inside a computer simulation your whole life, and this is the very bleak but real world," I said. "We accidentally freed you, but what's done is done. And once I finish healing, we're going to try to sneak past those machines…," I pointed vaguely in the direction of the warships, "to get into the Machine City on that ridge there and shut down a device that's being used to open a portal leading to universe. Are you going to help us or not?"
"Uh…could you say all that again?" the man said. "And why can I hardly move."
"Because you've never used your real muscles, so they're pretty badly atrophied. Why is this so hard for you to understand?"
"Cloak, get on him and float him along behind us," Colleen said. The cloak squirmed a bit. "Yes, I know he's naked. I'll wash you later."
Harley extended her hand towards the man. "Hi, I'm Harley. Pleased to meetcha. What's your name?"
"Harley, for #$&%'s sake, he can't shake your hand!"
"Uh, P-Peter," he said. "My name's Peter."
A powerless man named Peter tagging along with a team of superpowered antiheroes assembled by a certain deathless Canadian? This seemed a bit too familiar.
The Cloak of Levitation fluttered off Colleen's shoulders and settled around Peter. It plucked out the tubes holding him inside the pod, then lifted him into the air. Meanwhile, the last of my vertebrae snapped back into place, and I stood up. "Okay, team," I said. "We've got quite a ways to go until we're in the Machine City, but if we all work together, we can pull it off. The Avengers and X-Men are constantly infighting, so let's not fall into that trap, shall we? Let's head for that city, together, and kick some machine ass! Who's with me?"
Bane, John, Harley, and Huntress all cocked their various weapons. Colleen unsheathed her katana, its blade glowing white again, while Geralt gripped his silver and steel swords. Canary just nodded. Thought she was gonna scream at the sky or something, but I guess it made sense for her to save her vocal energy for blowing up Shuma-Gorath's brain. I grabbed my ammo bag, which had miraculously survived my fall, and slung it over my shoulder. "Then let's move out!"