Author's Note – I do not own any of the characters, Marvel and DC do.
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Chapter Fourteen
The Heroic Six
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Trask appeared on the teleporter pad just as the base shook and the alarms started blaring. A second tremor jolted him off the pad and he stumbled for an instant before recovering his balance.
"What's going on?"
"We are under attack!" Zola stated as his skin rippled from its pinkish hue into metallic silver. "I believe it is the Sinister Six!"
"We believe you are correct!" A new voice purred and Zola unleashed an energy blast from the circle that had formed on his chest. The black-clad figure that had just burst into the hall managed to evade the energy beam, but the armored figure just behind was blasted back out of the hall.
"Venom." Trask growled as his helmet deployed from his collar, covering his head. "Die!"
His shoulder pauldrons briefly popped up, disgorging a dozen micro-missiles which screamed towards Venom, who responded with a dazzling display of acrobatics that let him dodge every single one of them. Before Trask could fire a second salvo, an arm ripped off one of the Sentinels scythed across the hall, slamming into his torso and knocking him back against the wall.
"Targets identified as the Sinister Six." Master Mold stated. "Searching for Mysterio. Unable to locate."
"This is Vulture, we have incoming bio-Sentinels. I'll keep them off your backs!"
"Understood, Vulture." Otto said as he ripped open the wall near the door to the hall and let his tentacles lift himself through. "You would be at a disadvantage in this area, anyway."
A silver Sentinel stepped up behind Otto, its hands reforming into blades, then a wave of sand engulfed it, ripping it to shreds.
"Thank you, Sandman." Otto said calmly as one of his tentacles speared through another Sentinel, taking out its power core and causing its nanites to shut down. "That could have been quite annoying to deal with."
"You tried to hurt me, so you can SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" Rhino shouted as he erupted through the wall, his gatling already firing hundreds of blasts of kinetic energy. Trask barely managed to activate his shield in time to deflect the dozen bolts that would have hit him while Bastion seemed to melt before flowing downwards through a small hole in the floor.
"It would seem that Bastion's choice of action is the most logical one." Master Mold stated. "Trask, retreat. We can no longer stay here."
"Hell, no!" Trask yelled as he fired the gun integrated into his right arm. "Once we take these bastards down, they'll make excellent Sentinels!"
Master Mold spent 0.0254 of a second calculating the advisability of using the over-ride to extract Trask from the growing battle, then she made her choice. Trask, although a very useful asset, was still expendable and would make a useful rearguard while she left. Her decision made, Master Mold rose from her throne, the control and power cables detaching as she did so, and began to make her was to the doors at the back of the hall where her Sentinels were beginning to enter in response to her summons even as she sent the signal that started a certain count-down.
As she reached the doorway, it wavered and vanished as if it had never been, the incoming Sentinels broadcasting error messages as their sensors detected a metal wall blocking their path, one that had appeared from nowhere. Checking her files, Master Mold performed a hard over-ride of the Sentinels still outside and sent one walking into the new wall. The Sentinel penetrated the steel barrier without any impact and Master Mold gave a mental nod.
Mysterio.
Master Mold pulled up the most recent schematic of the base and mapped a model of herself into it. If Mysterio pushed himself, he might be able to cause her to walk into a dead end without realizing it, but if she used her internal virtual model to plot her progress, his illusions could not hurt her.
Re-directing the Sentinels to clear a path for her, Master Mold strode confidently through the fake barrier.
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The small pipe that had been secretly emplaced months prior by means of a small, one-shot tunneling machine disgorged a flow of liquid metal. As the flow slowly ended, the pile of metal reformed into a familiar figure.
"Goodbye, Master Mold." Armin Zola sneered. "Your attempt to leash me was good, but I was better."
Without looking back, the scientist strode into the woods, shifting his appearance once again until a large grizzly bear was padding between the trees.
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Vulture dived, the leading edges of his wings glowing with the shaped energy projection field that he, Mysterio and Otto had worked together to integrate into his suit. The cutting fields worked perfectly, bisecting the newest group of flying bio-Sentinels and Victor Toomes sneered as the last one was slashed in half.
"Idiot things make it easy, flying in formation like that."
Banking, his eyes widened as the next approaching group broke formation and started to spread out, arcing round to approach from a variety of angles while behind them, a second group was following suit.
"Fuck. They're learning."
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"Master Mold is ignoring my illusions." Mysterio grumbled. "I need a heavy hitter to slow her down or she's going to escape."
Otto ducked a blast as his tentacles speared out, ripping the power cores out of two more of the silver robots.
"Sandman, stop Master Mold! Mysterio, guide him!" He ordered as a chortling Rhino blasted another three Sentinels into scrap. "Venom, report!"
"We are busy with Trask!"
"Try to disable him, we want him alive if possible as it will help with Project Thunderbolt." Otto ordered. "Vulture?"
"Little busy here!"
"Dammit." Otto growled as he slammed his tentacles down on two more Sentinels. "I hate to say this, but we're going to need a miracle."
"You broke my gun!" Rhino shouted and Otto glanced back just in time to swear and duck as a barrage of micro-missiles erupted from Rhino's shoulders, blind-fired. Tapping into their targeting systems, Otto quickly designated specific targets and seconds later, the number of active Sentinels in the room had been reduced to zero.
"I'm goo-ooooood." Rhino gloated as he stamped on an intact Sentinel head, shattering it under his armored boot. "That was fun."
"A group got past me!"
The skylights shattered as a dozen bio-Sentinels descended on them and Otto gave Rhino a quick glare before pulling himself out of the way of the first energy barrage.
"It's stomping time!" Rhino roared and Otto fought the temptation to roll his eyes since his HUD incorporated micro-cameras to let him control it via eye-twitches.
Perhaps he might have to re-think that.
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Trask frantically looked around. Whatever he was fighting, it had taken out most of the lights and was demonstrating abilities at camouflage that would put most chameleons to shame. Even his attempt at using the infra-red spectrum had failed due to the sheer amount of half-melted wreckage and fires in the assembly line into which he had been kicked.
A bit of movement caught his attention and he fired several blasts from his arm-cannons before a clawed hand slammed into his head from the side, gouging out one of his helmet optical sensors and cutting his field of view in half.
Over-riding the deployment system, Trask retracted the left side of his face-plate, accepting the greater risk in favor of actually being able to see in stereo again.
And maybe be able to see whatever he was up against!
"We will peel you out of that shell of yours." A voice hissed and a tag popped up in Trask's still-deployed screen.
"Eddie Brock, you will die!" Trask shouted, switching his cannons to a lower power for a higher rate of fire and unleashing multiple volleys all around him. "You will die and that alien thing that gives you your power will be dissected and used to create the next generation of Sentinels!"
"We disagree." Venom sneered as he moved across the ceiling, "We would say that it is you who will die, but we have been asked to take you alive for questioning. Of course, alive doesn't mean with your limbs still attached…"
Trask's eyes widened in horror as he spun round, trying to find the location of the echoing voice, his guns gouging divots out of the walls as he turned.
"We are curious." Venom continued as he positioned himself. "Why is it that you people rarely look up?"
Trask had just enough time to raise his gaze before he was slammed into the ground and his arms wrenched outwards, his servos whining as he tried to resist.
"We will enjoy this…" The monster crouched on his chest almost purred.
Trask's scream echoed off the walls.
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The door opened and Master Mold stepped out of the base. Checking her external sensors against her internal map, she noted that Mysterio had obviously given up. She stepped forwards, then paused as, instead of the crunch of gravel, the sound of sand compressing under her foot registered.
"…sandman."
As if the statement was his cue, Sandman engulfed her in a wave of sand, his grains forcing themselves into her joints and seams, levering them apart as they sought to destroy her inner workings.
Forcing her gaze upwards, Master Mold scanned the sky frantically, finally finding what she was searching for.
"You cannot win. I shall return." She stated even as the wave of sand reached her vocoder, The top of her head opened as she activated the systems she had built into herself as a last-ditch life-or-death measure, one that she had never truly expected to need. Before the wave of sand could block her final effort, she locked onto the satellite she had located and initiated an emergency burst-uplink, leaving her body behind as her mind soared towards freedom.
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Otto slammed into the wall and a hand grabbed his throat even as his tentacles were pinned by two Silver Sentinels and the bio-Sentinel throttling him raised its hand, force-blaster glowing in its palm. Otto's gaze was transfixed by the ominous glow of doom, then it suddenly faded and the Sentinels all collapsed.
For a long moment, Otto remained motionless, then a voice echoed across his communicator.
"This is Sandman, I crushed the metal bitch's body, but she had a dish sticking out of the top of her head! I think she jumped out before I finished crushing her!"
Otto sagged. "Damn. Mysterio, please tell me you were jamming her at the time?"
"I was not." Mysterio replied instantly and Otto slid down the wall in dismay.
"We have Trask." Venom gloated as he strode in, dragging a nearly-limbless torso behind him. "His limbs were all artificial, we… disarmed him."
"Very droll." Otto groaned. "But we failed. Master Mold has escaped."
"I must disagree with you there." Mysterio said as he appeared out of nowhere, holding up a cube that glowed with green light. Squinting, Otto saw that the green light was actually hundreds of columns of rapidly-changing green letters and numbers…
"Raiding films now?"
"It seemed appropriate." Mysterior said. "We now have Master Mold's code to do with as we wish."
"What!"
Otto didn't remember rising to his feet, but suddenly he was standing before Mysterio, plucking the cube from his gloved hand and staring at it. "This is…?"
A sudden screeching interrupted him as the entire roof was pulled off and several dozen figures landed around them.
"Don't move!" General Zod barked as the new arrivals started to spread out. "What happened here?"
"Gentlemen." Otto smirked. "May I give you Master Mold, contained within this cube, as well as her primary operative, Trask. Disarmed and ready for interrogation."
"You'll never get me to talk!" Trask frothed. "Master Mold will return to wipe out thAAAAAARGH!"
Trask jolted as if someone had just run the output of a power station through him, then he slumped, smoke rising from the seams of his armor.
"Dammit." Clark cursed. "That looked like some kind of dead-man's switch. We needed him to make sure we stopped the Sentinels for good."
"You have Master Mold." Otto pointed out. "Or at least, Master Mold's code. That should supply you with most of the answers you need."
"And what shall we do with you?" Zod asked as Magneto landed by his side.
Otto grinned. "Well, I do believe that the answer to that is not what you were expecting. For starters, can we have a lift to Washington?"