CHAPTER 58
BOOOM!
I sent out an explosion that pushed the incoming Sentinels backwards giving me enough room to wiggle about and form an attack pattern but before I could act on it, two flying Sentinels dropped in on me; one with a blazing fist and the other with a frozen one.
I was forced to duck under their combined strike since even if those elements wouldn't hurt me, the force they swung with would.
The Sentinels were taller than me which meant they had the reaching advantage but I had more flexibility but that could change given that they could copy even my movements given enough time.
I swept at one of their feet, disabling it's mobility while sending out an explosion to keep the other at bay. The others were already near me so I had to kill this one quickly.
Letting my energy flow through the axes in my hands I swung at the chest of the downed sentinel which immediately caved it before a massive burst of electricity conducted into it and frying whatever was inside.
I felt something coming near me so I pulled out my axes and made to dodge but I was a second too late as a sentinel rammed into me sending me crashing on the road.
Two flanked at my side as they both let out lasers to my downed form which I was able to defend against by erecting ice walls over me. I pushed the ice wall outwards and made it slam into the toe sentinels sending them flying back and crashing into two others.
I sent out two fire whips which grabbed the axes I dropped and pull them towards me just in time to block a sentinel who had morphed its hands into axes just like mine with ice covering them.
‘Tch. Damned things are already evolving.’
I shot out a beam but was surprise as it tanked it even as its body glowed red. With a stomp of my feet, I froze the ground around me, buying me a few seconds from the surrounding sentinels, while I made the ice creep up on the sentinel that had me engaged. The moment it skin glowed red to heat up the creeping ice, I let go of my axes as fire whips shot out to grab them and punched at it as it flew backwards.
I drew my axes back and threw one at the head of a sentinel, freezing it for a moment while I used the other to cleave it in two. Before I could take another step, I felt my legs being pulled as I fell down and had the feet of a sentinel meet my face, sending me deeper into the ground.
I joined my palms together as electricity formed between them with a destructive orb at the center and let it explode, killing off the sentinel keeping me down with the impact pushing me further into the ground.
Without wasting a second, I sent out a whip of flame and let it wrap around the head of a sentinel and used it to pull myself out of the pit before another stomped at me.
I could feel blood in my mouth, I may be bulletproof but it doesn’t mean I’m force proof. No one is, not even Superman as a strong enough blow would make him bleed.
I disengaged from my makeshift ride the moment it noticed me and swung at another, killing it immediately. I took a second to scan my surroundings and watch as a few straggling sentinels were converging in my direction.
‘This can’t get any easier can it?’
“Bucks, Cap. Talk to me!”
“We’re doing all right here.” I heard a mutter of ‘no we are not’ over the line Steve and I were talking which I assumed to be Bucky.
Magneto and his poseys were in another location engaging the mutant there which begs the question: What was Magneto and his clique doing in Russia?
I didn’t have the time to ponder on these thoughts as the sentinels were almost surrounding me.
Not letting a path of possible escape be caught off, I shot out electricity from my hands and had it wrap around a sentinel before I pulled him towards me while I swung both of my axes at it like an incoming piñata, scattering it across the battlefield with parts of machinery goodness.
Three sentinels shot out optical beams which I could block as it slammed against me shooting me backwards before my body slammed against hard and shook it as I crashed forwards with blood spewing out of my mouth. I looked behind me and saw the sentinel that rammed me mid-flight, it was already swinging its axed hand at me.
“No you fucking don’t!” I froze my hands in thick layers of ice and blocked the axe hand with it before immediately sending a kick to its chest.
If these were just slightly strong robots I would have had a chance but the way they could use some basic mutations made it a lot harder and worst of all I could already feel my heartbeat steadily increasing, with it came the creeping anger.
I couldn’t lose control just yet since Bucks and Steve were still in the area and so were other mutants. While I somehow had a modicum of control in that state, I didn’t know how I would act towards people I knew and I didn’t want to use such a dire situation to find out.
I paused my thoughts there and pushed myself out of the way to dodge another sentinel’s swipe and conjured an ice axe and hacked at its chest destroying it. For what Trask considered a sparse layer of vibranium, it sure was hard to break into. Bullets wouldn’t work on these things, only extreme brute force coupled with a very strong and sharp weapon.
I had killed 15 sentinels in the last 20 minutes and hacked away some who were still making their way towards me. My face was blooded but without any wound to show for it while my axes were somewhere around here, lying on the battlefield with only one strapped to my back. Hopefully they weren’t crushed.
I reached out and drew the last axe on me while I located the others and found them lying a few feet ahead of me thanks to my x-ray vision. I couldn’t heat up the axes since the heat wouldn’t be able to pierce through their armor in a short time and it would also affect my axe if I overheated it so I settled for ice and electricity.
‘What I wouldn’t give to have Magneto’s power right about now.’
Unless they knew how to disrupt Magneto’s magnetic field attraction then they would be nothing more than just lumps of metal to the master of magnetism.
I groaned as I saw that the number of the sentinels around me weren’t dwindling at all as I could see some of them coming out of the woodwork. I was so going to kill Stryker.
“Trask where are we with shutting these things down.”
“I’m trying! Stryker changed the code and the Master Mold is trying to evolve but I have been able to slow it down but other than that I’m still out of the system!” Trask was frantic, I could tell. Which means we were steadily approaching the worst case scenario.
I left Trask to do his own thing as I focused on the small army of killer robots that would have given Ultron a metal-hard hard-on.
I slashed and hacked but they continued to trickle in. By now, the area I was in was already covered in thick steam but it did nothing to me nor the things I was fighting.
Somehow I was able to calm myself amidst the mad hack ‘n dash that was me and the sentinels. I used abilities after abilities while I swung my axes all just to prolong this meaningful-less fight.
One of my axes got broken but I just threw it away and focused on the last two I was still swinging. By now the bodies of sentinels around me were in their thirties but I didn’t pay it any mind.
I formed a destruction orb and held it with one hand and used it to punch a sentinel and watched as it flew backwards with its chest caved in but it wasn’t quite dead. I drew back my axe to me and threw it at the downed sentinel while keeping it down and dead.
I jumped up to avoid the beams they sent and threw both my axes at their legs which broke it and had them tumbling down.
If I were to look at myself now, I would have found that my eyes were shining bright red and the cracks around my body were pulsating like a beating heart, growing bright and flickering with every beat.
A sentinel jumped at me but I froze it mid-air and slashed at its chest as he started falling down. I grabbed one of their heads and broke it which had it walking inconsistently for a second but before it could fix itself, I jumped it to the ground and punched it twice before it stopped.
I picked it up and using my strength, smashed it at the other sentinel near me before exploding where they crashed.
I jumped at another sentinel but this one was smarter as it met me mid-air and since it had more mass, he collided with me and sent me flying backwards.
SCHLIICK.
I felt the sharp end of a blade run through my back to my stomach but I didn’t give it any thought and pushed myself off the blade. Immediately I sent a hail of frost that froze it for a second before it started to melt but that second was all what I needed.
Forming another orb, I grabbed it while I held unto the sentinels shoulder and punched through its chest with exploded with a boom. I didn’t let up as I used a burst of fire to quickly shoot me in an opposite direction as another sentinel crashed where I previously was.
My breathing was even but my heartbeat was almost erratic. My entire clothes was stained with blood and soot coupled with torn parts but I couldn’t bring myself to care. The only good thing about it though was that my red tie was still hanging on.
I only had one axe remaining and even that had started showing cracks in it and I was sure that it wouldn’t last a prolonged battle against the sentinel so I was going back to the basis – using my fists.
I punched at the sentinel who my punch with one of its own, neither of us letting up. I twisted my arms and grabbed it and before he could make another move, I flung the 8ft robot over my shoulders and used enough for to stomp on its chest even as it exploded.
Electricity didn’t do much to them so I didn’t use them much although it still stunned them for a second.
“I got it!” suddenly Trask’s joyous voice came in through the comms.
“Any good new Trask?” Steve asked while I continued fighting since I was facing the biggest onslaught of the damned things in this location.
“I was able to sever the Master Mold’s connection to the sentinels so we shouldn’t worry about more of them coming and it should reduce their fight efficiency since they can no longer adapt mid-flight but they still retained the knowledge and experience they had before I severed their connection.”
I wasn’t able to breathe a sigh of relief before I felt a punch on my face and skid backwards due to the force.
“Logan and the others have arrived and their facing off against the sentinels in the last location.”
“What of Stryker? Have you been able to find out his location?” I asked.
“Yes, I hope. The signal from the Master Mold is from an abandoned railway station East of Moscow.” I felt invigorated as I heard that information. The thought to kill the bastard who caused all this was enough of a motivation for me.
“Let’s wrap this up shall we?” I spat out a glob of blood and jumped into the fray of incoming sentinels.
With a stomp of my feet, ice spikes shot out in a straight line towards the sentinels as made some tumble over others but the ones who had enough time managed to jump over their fallen metal brethren. A wise choice if I may say so, but what they did not expect was the explosion that engulfed them which destroyed parts of their body and outright killed the ones that received it point-blank range.
I froze the last axe I was holding and slashed at the chest of the first sentinel I engaged which was followed by a an explosive arrow to the hole I made. Without stopping for a moment I brought my axe to a roundabout swing and lopped off the head of another which also received the same treatment as the first.
The were less than five sentinels remaining and they all had some type of damage to them which gave me the idea to try something.
I conjured up a ball made of destructive energies and instead of the normal tennis ball size, I flooded it with energy and watched as it grew in size a little with also getting darker in color until sparks of electricity started running around it which gave me the clarity to stop since I already knew instinctually that going further would be dangerous, not to myself but to the others fighting in the vicinity.
I looked towards the sentinels and released the energy I had accumulated and the next thing I saw was a dark, almost blackish, red explosion while lightning danced around. When everything subsided the only thing that left my stunned lips was…
“Holy shit!!”
“What the hell quack?! Are you trying to kill us too?!”
*Sigh* Bucky is such a spoilsport.
I looked at the crater in front of me with no sign of sentinels on sight.