Confounded Compound - Part 4

OOC: Joint Post between everyone on the Team

Gwen tapped on her phone obediently bringing up the map. “We are here … we need to get here … “ She pointed on her phone. “But there was nothing in here about TURRETS!” She blurted. “Or what kind! Or where!” Gwen squeaked her voice raising in pitch.

“Okay. Close your eyes. Breathe through your nose. It helps.” Before Gwen could respond, Niko scooped her up once more and sprinted down the maze like corridor through the basement. He may have gotten turned around once, but nanoseconds passed before they were standing in a room full of high tech clear monitors and lit up keyboards that seemed to be floating on air. He stopped just as abruptly as he had started. “This looks like your stop. If you run into turret trouble, you’ve got this. You have your webs - point the turrets at each other, and just stay out the line of fire. The rest of the team needs me, but if you need me -- I’m two seconds away.“

Gwen fought the queasiness down. “Yep ... this is it …” She said looking a bit like a baby deer as she wobbled to the a chair. “I got this … go keep them newbies alive.” Gwen said giving a thumbs up. ‘Dontvomitdontvoitdontvomit’.

“Don’t panic, use your head. And breath through your nose. You’re less likely to throw up.”

Righting himself and giving another wild punch to a robot, Erik looked in confusion at the blonde guy...he really should have asked everyone’s names. “I don’t really know if you want the full speed option sir.” Another bot rushed him and he slid a foot back before slamming his fists repeatedly into its back until it stopped firing. “I mean...I guess it works? I don’t actually know what’s gonna happen, but…..yeah whatever.” He still felt as though something was pounding at his head but the feeling was certainly secondary to his fear of dying to robots.

“Enhanced Detected. Level 3” - The calming voice of the base was alarming.

No new robots came for a long moment. There was an actual lull in the combat! For a moment it seemed level 3 might be a dud. Then the sound of rocket boosters could be heard. Lots of them. The heavy thuds of various-- somethings --landing outside gave an indication of what might be going on.

“Intruders, surrender peacefully, lethal force has been authorized.” The mechanical voice of multiple bots called from outside. “Vacate the premises immediately!”

A moment passed when all the lights turned red. “SECURITY BREACH,” they all shouted outside and an enormous fist punched through the wall reaching towards Erik. The hand was big enough to encompass the poor demigods entire head before dragging him back out and throwing him like a soft ball across the yard.

Two iron sentries; full sized iron men; flew in through the hole the Hulkbuster left crashing into Sam, slamming him through the wall and right outside, separating him from the group.

Another iron sentry crashed through the wall grabbing T'Chantem and flinging him outside.

As if the situation wasn’t bad enough each got a picture of how much trouble they were actually in and a small proverbial army was flying in and around the compound. The hornet’s nest had been officially kicked.

The Hulkbuster wasted no time chasing Erik down. The two handling Sam shot upward into the sky dragging him with them; a third one joined charging it’s plasma cannon to shoot at him like a clay pigeon. T’Chantem received no reprieve as he crashed into another sentry. It pointed it’s plasma cannon at him not even giving a warning before it went to fire at him.

“This is why I told you NOT to take the fight outside!” Theo’s training was geared more towards the hand-to-hand application of magic, at least during combat. Moving the fight outside where the bots had more room to maneuver went against her better judgement and when Theo used better judgement you knew something was up. Because it happened so seldom. She took advantage of the moment’s stillness now that the Level 3 bots had cleared out the room, but it wouldn’t last long. She had just time enough to straighten her fashionable wimple when…. Niko returned from the sub-basement and swooped up his cousin. Unlike his counterpart, Niko would fare better in the outdoors where there was more room to run, to gain momentum and do more damage. “Outside is good; I don’t like this,” he told her. Close quarters were not a favorite environment for the speedster. “Come on Miskja. Bowling for Bad-Guys?”

Theo sighed and shifted her weight in his arms. “Very well, brother.” She sent a concussive blast into the shredded wall of the Hulkbuster’s point of entry to clear a path. Niko held his cousin around the waist, placing a hand carefully behind her head to prevent whiplash and as soon as she gave the word he took a deep breath and let the world slow down. The Mighty Maximoff Bowling Team went into action just as they’d practiced back in Berlin. True it was mostly dumpsters and trash cans they knocked over in practice, but how much different could this be? Theo felt like a figure skater being zipped around the grounds of the Avenger Compound. At these breakneck speeds, the wind tried to rip her from her cousin’s hands if he didn’t hold tight. Her magical shield extended before them and combined with their velocity, it crunched each bot they came in contact with and sent metal bodies sailing as Niko plowed through them. With the deflective shield in place, the laws of physics did not require her outstretched arm to withstand the full force of those impacts, but it was still a physical struggle to maintain the shield and support her arm against each collision. Theo was not a heavy woman, but supporting her weight in one arm was no simple task even if Niko made it look effortless. And this maneuver was like pushing a concrete block through the dirt. They were both thankful for their strength training. With her other hand she was losing blasts at the bots in their wake, but with her head braced against whiplash she couldn't exactly move about freely to aim with great precision. Fortunately magic had a way of aiming itself to a certain degree. Niko was designed to react at pace matching his super speeds, but Theo wasn't. She couldn't hit everything in their wake and honestly couldn't even see half of the bots that went flying into the air. It was all just happening too quickly for her to react. She suspected the bowling double team attack was less effective than she'd hoped, but it was fun.

Sam was rocketed into the sky, being gripped by both larger sentry bots. “UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL WILL SURRENDER OR BE ELIMINATED”. He got a hand free and jammed a baton into the neck of one of them, causing it to short out. He and remaining bot were still ascending, but more slowly. He was able to reload his gun, but with the wind whipping every way, he had a hard time aiming the barrel correctly. As he repeatedly punched the second bot in the head, they began flying erratically in the sky, eventually dive bombing back towards the compound. Fairly certain his life was coming to a fast end, he tried the only thing he could think of.

“Hey security drone, how can I surrender if you’re going to crash me into the field?!” Sam screamed. The bot did not respond and he was sure it was the end, but a moment before hitting the ground, the security bot full reversed its thrusters and came to a hover just above the ground. It turned to look at him, “THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.” Sam jammed the barrel of the gun into the bot’s eye as fast as hard as he could and emptied the clip into its head. They both dropped 4 feet below to the grass as the two bot’s were smoking and sparking. Sam planted his feet, took a breath and looked at the pile of metal, “Anytime.”

For a moment, Erik was soaring through the air. He didn’t know how exactly he had reached this height, as all he had seen previously was the lights going out and then he felt a sharp pain spread across his entire back. He shook his head to clear his vision just as he realized the earth and trees were spinning around him...or was that the other way arou-his impact into the nearby woods stopped any sort of physics based thought process. He heard his own exhale of breath as he collided with the earth, but then another thud alerted him that perhaps he was not alone. He could barely get up when another heavy collision sent him hurtling into a tree, leaving a dent and sending his back arching in pain. He wasn’t use to this kind of pain, at least not delivered so quickly, and he only had a moment before instincts had him lunge from the path of the giant armored mech.

He had to think, and quickly or else he might end up resembling paste more so than a person. The mech took a long grinding halt as it cleared through another tree. He felt naked awkwardly enough, and it wasn’t just the new tears in his shirt confirming this. He had to focus though and the Hulkbuster gave him little time to do even that, launching itself into the air. Erik dove hard toward an open area and felt the sudden thud of the impact behind him, becoming paste was certainly a possibility. But he had a moment as he scrambled up toward his feet and got behind a tree. He peaked over just as the bot held up its hand toward his position. “Of course it has guns,” and he quickly ducked again as a blast tore the entire piece of tree out from where he once stood. With few options Erik decided that maybe punching was his best bet, much less likely to have a hole blasted in him from close range, and so he lept toward the Hulkbuster and managed to get a fist into what appeared to be its head. Unlike the other robots, this one didn’t crumble when he hit it that hard though, and he awkwardly drove his knee into the similar area on his way past, hoping to at least drop it to the ground.

“UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL WILL SURRENDER OR BE ELIMINATED” The Hulkbuster responded. It grabbed Erik with both it’s massive hands and threw him down into the ground. Lifting a massive foot it went on to start stomping Eric repeatedly. “SURRENDER OR BE ELIMINATED” It repeated between each stomp.

The respite in combat gave T'Chantem just enough time to regain his composure and physically prep for the oncoming third wave. With an upwards X-formation slash of his two daggers, he removed the arm of the robot as it readied a pulsar blast, before finishing it off by detaching its head. The next robot attempted to charge T'Chantem again, but he wouldn't fall for the same move twice. Moments before the robot made contact, he dropped to the ground, ducking under it before raising his daggers. The robot's body tore against the vibranium metal, sending its own parts scattering in a small diameter across the yard. "Perhaps we should work together. We're outnumbered, and on our own, overpowered," he called out, hoping that someone would hear his proposal. Staying on guard, T'Chantem kept his eyes peeled for any oncoming attacks or openings, if level two was any indicator, level three would only see a violent spike in aggression from the AI system, and the Wakandan prince had no interest in losing his life today.

Three more Iron sentries rocketed towed T’Chantem raining down a hail of plasma fire on the prince.

Yup, Erik thought, definitely going to be paste. His own durability was surprising to him but that still didn’t stop the pain from spreading as he felt his chest give way with each slam of the Hulkbuster’s foot. He might have considered surrender had he not thought it would likely not help given his previous attacks. His eyes tensed and tried to tighten his chest in anticipation but he just couldn’t seem to stop the blows from forcing him further into the earth. In the growing darkness he felt again as though he wasn’t fully here and as his mind wandered it seemed to reach out to him.

Within the facility the thud of heavy metal pounding reverberated some of the walls.

All sound other than his rapid heart beat seemed to disappear as Sam sprinted full speed towards the giant mech trying to meld Erik and the Earth together. He could see it’s large leg lift itself for another powerful stomp and realized he wouldn’t have time to push Erik out of the way, so he did the next best thing. He did a power slide on his knees and stopped just under the giant foot. He extended his hands to catch the foot as hit came down and used all of his strength to stop it from coming down. Sam felt every muscle in his body tense and start to catch fire. He managed to open one eye to check on Erik, who was himself, attempting to stay conscious.

“Come on, pal, don’t get sleepy on me!” Sam grunted through his teeth, his knees slowly sinking into the dirt.

To be Continued…