[Draul St. Cross POV]
“What are we going to do with him?” I asked them.
“Let’s leave him here for the time being. We’ll come for him later.” Bucky started arming himself up.
“Wait, I can help you! I created the Master Mold, I can help you shut it down.” Trask hurriedly said he saw that we were content with leaving him behind, strapped to a chair.
“And what caused the change of heart?” Bucky said sarcastically as he strapped the last of his guns over his shoulders.
Trask didn’t reply and while I could easily say no since I was sure I could shut down whatever the Master Mold was, I didn’t know what safeties was built inside it and I couldn’t really leave Cap and Bucky to fight a squadron of Sentinels by themselves so I relented to take him with us. At most, if I smell any funky business from his, figuratively, all it take was a flick of the hand to end him regardless of if he had Sentinels protecting him.
“You know the chances of him pulling one over on us are almost 100% right?” Bucky asks me but from his tone I knew he didn’t care. Trask bails, he dies. Simples.
“So where do we start from? Because I remember you saying you didn’t know where Stryker would go like ten minutes ago.” Steve strapped his shield to his back which I also did a little makeup on. Instead of the blue, red and stainless color that was the iconic shield, I simplified the entire shield to fit with his dark-themed gear; the blue and red parts were painted a dark grey which complimented and easily blended with the stainless steel of the shield giving his entire get-up a stealth black-ops vibe which ironically he was anything but.
“I truly don’t know where he took it to, but I can take you to the base we once used to house them. You might find something in there.” Trask explained fervently.
I looked at the others and they nodded in agreement so we took Trask with us and had him direct us to his former base.
When we got to the place, either because the window William Stryker had was too small, there were still piece of techs lying around depicting that the man left in a hurry with what he could which also made the suggestion that he wasn’t out of Moscow yet plausible.
“Hey Trask why don’t you try calling him? It would make all this easier than just going on a wild goose chase around Russia.” I said to Trask as he went through the systems to see what wasn’t scrambled.
“You think it would be that easy?” Steve ask with an expression full of doubt.
“I doubt it would but it can’t hurt to try.” I nodded at Trask as he tried connecting to Stryker who took a moment before he picked up the call.
“…”
“Stryker it’s me Dr. Trask, where are you?”
“Oh doctor! Did you manage to escape the Mad Dogs of S.H.I.E.L.D?” Came the voice of an elder man that made the three of us in question raise our brows.
What the fuck did he mean dogs of S.H.I.E.L.D? I was no one’s dog!
“No I didn’t, but that isn’t important. Stryker we were lied to. Our research were to be used as weapons of terrorism towards all of mankind by HYDRA. We need to shut it down before they come for it?” Trask explained but all he got was laughter from the intercoms.
“Hahaha! I can’t believe you were that foolish to believe such a ridiculous lie doctor. But no matter! I have already manually activated the Sentinels to buy me time before the Master Mold comes online. Soon all mutants in the face of the earth will be eradicated by me.” The call ended there and they only thing to receive it were grim faces.
“Well there you have it gents. The rise of a stereotypical villain. We need to locate the Sentinels’ activity and prevent it from spreading to inner Moscow. Only God knows how many mutants live in Moscow alone.” I said to Trask.
“How do we locate the Sentinels then? Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do ever since without little success I might add.”
Steve paced around in anxiousness as he heard innocent mutants were going to be harmed.
I went to the computer and started hacking the web for any since to tall robots walking around or attacking people. I triangulated the search to all of Moscow and connected it to my phone.
With that done and ignoring the faces they were making at me, I rang a number I didn’t think I would ever ring. It took less than three seconds before the call was picked.
“Hello. This is Professor Xavier speaking, may I know who I am speaking with?”
“Hey Xavier, it’s me Draul.”
“Mr. St. Cross? I’m surprised that you would call after our last, might I say unpleasant, meeting.” The motherfucker said.
“Save it Charles… I need a favor.” I gritted my teeth as I said that, I didn’t have anyone who I could call that would be able to help in such a crucial time.
“What is it? If I can help I’ll be glad to do so.” He said firmly.
“How long do you think your team can get to Moscow?”
“… They are already in Russia. Why are you asking?” He asked with an unsure tone while I was surprised that the X-Men were already nearby. Talk about convenience.
“Someone just released a group of killer robots that can identify active X-genes into the streets of Moscow… Holl up for a sec.” I put the call on hold as both my phone and the computer started giving alerts that had targets if it’s search identified.
I looked at it and I didn’t know whether to breathe out a sigh of relief that they weren’t those things in Days of Future Past but looked more like an old model.
I got to work and sent the live video to Charles.
“You got that?” I asked him while I continued typing in the keyboards to know which places the Sentinels were spotted. Some had even started attacking people, and videos of some mutant trying to fight back were already circulating the net.
“Oh my God! What horror!” I could hear Hank’s voice as I set the phone on loudspeaker.
“You got that one right. So how long do you think you can assemble your team and get to site? Mine will try to hold them down for as long as we can but I doubt we’d be making a dent with our efforts.” I had already got the locations. They were released in three different places and only one area had major damage because of what I could only describe as an underground gathering of mutants. I sent them the location before Hank asked me something.
“Do we know anything about them? Any information of their weaknesses that’d help me take them down faster because from what I've seen they are… resilient.”
We all looked at Trask since he was the one who made the goddamned things.
“They were made with a thin adamantium layer on the inside to prevent them from easily breaking and also a sparse layer of vibranium coating on the outside since it is the best ore for absorbing kinetic energy. A pity it is too rare that it is almost nonexistent.” Trask explained as he moaned what he considered an unfortunate loss but my mind was on another piece of information I got from what he just said.
“How did you get adamantium and vibranium?” I looked at Trask hoping that it was what I thought it was.
“Stryker was able to procure the metals for the project but I didn’t know how he did it, only that he had a contact.”
I almost pumped my fist in the air from that confirmation.
“You guys got that? Basically they are a bitch to destroy since they are super dense and can shrug off most of what you dole out.” I said focusing on the mission and stopping my daydreaming.
“We copy. The others are already en route, ETA 45 minutes. You guys think you can hold them for that long?”
“Oh shit!” I was about to answer Hank before I saw something I didn’t want to see in any other scenario except for something like this.
“Magneto.”
Right there in the middle of one of the scuffles was the magnetic master in all his caped glory along with some members of the Brotherhood.
“Did Eric know something like this would happen?” I could hear Charles muttering to himself but I didn’t have time to pick his psychic head about it as we already short of time and the damages and death were pilling up.
“Let’s go!” We left Trask there to see if he could stop the Sentinels or access the Master Mold from there while we tried stopping the Sentinels' advancement. None of us had the luxury of worrying about whatever crap Trask could pull.
I floored the gas of the car and got us there in record time, while ignoring traffic lights and I may or may not have bumped into a few cars. Just in case of what would happen during the fights, Bucky and I had on some Sub-zero type face masks to protect our identities.
Steve and Bucky jumped out of the car to stop two Sentinels from killing a family of four while I rammed the car into one who had metal spikes protruding out of its body.
“Trask talk to me! Do these things die?” I had to know.
“These are the first models we could get working due to the pressure we were under so we didn’t have time to go over all it’s weakness-”
“Not what I’m asking!”
“Yes they do! It’s in the chest area but to compensate for that weakness, we made that part of it’s body the strongest we could. There is a core in there which acts as its central mold or its brain. Destroy that and they’ll stay dead!”
Thank God!
“Looks like I’ll have to test my new powers on you suckers.” I brandished two axes on my hands, one was frozen while the other had a red coating around it that made it seemed as if lightning was cackling around. Even my body with its red cracks had red sparks running across it.
Electricity was a bitch to adapt to since it always felt like my entire body was numb to sensations anytime I used it.
The other Sentinels seemed to deem me a threat as three converged on where I was and immediately attacked me. Flexing my two axes, I moved with a burst of speed and use the red axe to cleave through the hard the chest section of the first sentinel while I used the other axe to freeze the inside of the other one.
I knew that if I tried freezing it from the outside it would be useless since vibranium had a high freezing point and they would just heat up themselves. While these weren’t the constantly evolving type Sentinels, they still had it in them to prove a serious threat.
Using my beams to keep the last one at bay, I jumped into the air and immediately took visual of my surroundings in a fraction on a second before I proceeded with a plan of action.
The moment I landed on the ground, the ground 20 feet of radius around me froze while ice vines shot out and wrapped around the body of the Sentinels stopping their advance with some of the other mutants that could fight went to town with them.
“Their weakness is in their heart area. Focus your attacks there!” I told whoever could listen and in another burst of air and fire mixed with lightning, I was gone, hovering above a mutant as my hands glowed bright red before I brought it down with a resounding boom as it crushed it from the back.
“These things really are hard.” I felt that punch just now. Without letting me finish with my thoughts, a sentinel let out a jet of flames at me which I didn’t even try to block.
“I would like to say that I felt that but then I’d be lying.” I said to the robot even as he increased the flames. It stopped after it judged its action futile and stared at me, most likely calculating for my weakness.
I let it do what it wanted while a fist size ball of doom conjured on top of my outstretched finger. It didn’t have the time to put up any meaningful defense before the ball destroyed it with a raging explosion of red tinted flames and force.
“What the hell are you doing quack?!” Bucky screamed at me.
“What happened?”
“A whole fuckton of them are coming to your area and since you are the only one doing all the big explosions, I guess you already know who their targets are!”
“Fuck!”
Like Bucky said, I could see at least twelve of them coming at me with red glowing eyes.
“Looks like I’d have to take this very seriously.” My expression hardened as they came near me, they were almost twenty in numbers and I doubt I’d be able to take them all on. Who the hell am I kidding? They’ll whoop my ass if they all came at me which if you didn’t notice, is exactly what they are doing.
“Bucks, Cap. You guys steer clear of the area.” They wouldn’t be able to survive if they were gang pressed by these things.
“… Are you sure?” Steve asked.
“… Yeah. Hopefully I’ve got this.”
“Be careful.” Was the only thing Bucky said.
With blazing eyes, I rushed at the approaching army of murderbots.
[Draul St. Cross POV]
“What are we going to do with him?” I asked them.
“Let’s leave him here for the time being. We’ll come for him later.” Bucky started arming himself up.
“Wait, I can help you! I created the Master Mold, I can help you shut it down.” Trask hurriedly said he saw that we were content with leaving him behind, strapped to a chair.
“And what caused the change of heart?” Bucky said sarcastically as he strapped the last of his guns over his shoulders.
Trask didn’t reply and while I could easily say no since I was sure I could shut down whatever the Master Mold was, I didn’t know what safeties was built inside it and I couldn’t really leave Cap and Bucky to fight a squadron of Sentinels by themselves so I relented to take him with us. At most, if I smell any funky business from his, figuratively, all it take was a flick of the hand to end him regardless of if he had Sentinels protecting him.
“You know the chances of him pulling one over on us are almost 100% right?” Bucky asks me but from his tone I knew he didn’t care. Trask bails, he dies. Simples.
“So where do we start from? Because I remember you saying you didn’t know where Stryker would go like ten minutes ago.” Steve strapped his shield to his back which I also did a little makeup on. Instead of the blue, red and stainless color that was the iconic shield, I simplified the entire shield to fit with his dark-themed gear; the blue and red parts were painted a dark grey which complimented and easily blended with the stainless steel of the shield giving his entire get-up a stealth black-ops vibe which ironically he was anything but.
“I truly don’t know where he took it to, but I can take you to the base we once used to house them. You might find something in there.” Trask explained fervently.
I looked at the others and they nodded in agreement so we took Trask with us and had him direct us to his former base.
When we got to the place, either because the window William Stryker had was too small, there were still piece of techs lying around depicting that the man left in a hurry with what he could which also made the suggestion that he wasn’t out of Moscow yet plausible.
“Hey Trask why don’t you try calling him? It would make all this easier than just going on a wild goose chase around Russia.” I said to Trask as he went through the systems to see what wasn’t scrambled.
“You think it would be that easy?” Steve ask with an expression full of doubt.
“I doubt it would but it can’t hurt to try.” I nodded at Trask as he tried connecting to Stryker who took a moment before he picked up the call.
“…”
“Stryker it’s me Dr. Trask, where are you?”
“Oh doctor! Did you manage to escape the Mad Dogs of S.H.I.E.L.D?” Came the voice of an elder man that made the three of us in question raise our brows.
What the fuck did he mean dogs of S.H.I.E.L.D? I was no one’s dog!
“No I didn’t, but that isn’t important. Stryker we were lied to. Our research were to be used as weapons of terrorism towards all of mankind by HYDRA. We need to shut it down before they come for it?” Trask explained but all he got was laughter from the intercoms.
“Hahaha! I can’t believe you were that foolish to believe such a ridiculous lie doctor. But no matter! I have already manually activated the Sentinels to buy me time before the Master Mold comes online. Soon all mutants in the face of the earth will be eradicated by me.” The call ended there and they only thing to receive it were grim faces.
“Well there you have it gents. The rise of a stereotypical villain. We need to locate the Sentinels’ activity and prevent it from spreading to inner Moscow. Only God knows how many mutants live in Moscow alone.” I said to Trask.
“How do we locate the Sentinels then? Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do ever since without little success I might add.”
Steve paced around in anxiousness as he heard innocent mutants were going to be harmed.
I went to the computer and started hacking the web for any since to tall robots walking around or attacking people. I triangulated the search to all of Moscow and connected it to my phone.
With that done and ignoring the faces they were making at me, I rang a number I didn’t think I would ever ring. It took less than three seconds before the call was picked.
“Hello. This is Professor Xavier speaking, may I know who I am speaking with?”
“Hey Xavier, it’s me Draul.”
“Mr. St. Cross? I’m surprised that you would call after our last, might I say unpleasant, meeting.” The motherfucker said.
“Save it Charles… I need a favor.” I gritted my teeth as I said that, I didn’t have anyone who I could call that would be able to help in such a crucial time.
“What is it? If I can help I’ll be glad to do so.” He said firmly.
“How long do you think your team can get to Moscow?”
“… They are already in Russia. Why are you asking?” He asked with an unsure tone while I was surprised that the X-Men were already nearby. Talk about convenience.
“Someone just released a group of killer robots that can identify active X-genes into the streets of Moscow… Holl up for a sec.” I put the call on hold as both my phone and the computer started giving alerts that had targets if it’s search identified.
I looked at it and I didn’t know whether to breathe out a sigh of relief that they weren’t those things in Days of Future Past but looked more like an old model.
I got to work and sent the live video to Charles.
“You got that?” I asked him while I continued typing in the keyboards to know which places the Sentinels were spotted. Some had even started attacking people, and videos of some mutant trying to fight back were already circulating the net.
“Oh my God! What horror!” I could hear Hank’s voice as I set the phone on loudspeaker.
“You got that one right. So how long do you think you can assemble your team and get to site? Mine will try to hold them down for as long as we can but I doubt we’d be making a dent with our efforts.” I had already got the locations. They were released in three different places and only one area had major damage because of what I could only describe as an underground gathering of mutants. I sent them the location before Hank asked me something.
“Do we know anything about them? Any information of their weaknesses that’d help me take them down faster because from what I've seen they are… resilient.”
We all looked at Trask since he was the one who made the goddamned things.
“They were made with a thin adamantium layer on the inside to prevent them from easily breaking and also a sparse layer of vibranium coating on the outside since it is the best ore for absorbing kinetic energy. A pity it is too rare that it is almost nonexistent.” Trask explained as he moaned what he considered an unfortunate loss but my mind was on another piece of information I got from what he just said.
“How did you get adamantium and vibranium?” I looked at Trask hoping that it was what I thought it was.
“Stryker was able to procure the metals for the project but I didn’t know how he did it, only that he had a contact.”
I almost pumped my fist in the air from that confirmation.
“You guys got that? Basically they are a bitch to destroy since they are super dense and can shrug off most of what you dole out.” I said focusing on the mission and stopping my daydreaming.
“We copy. The others are already en route, ETA 45 minutes. You guys think you can hold them for that long?”
“Oh shit!” I was about to answer Hank before I saw something I didn’t want to see in any other scenario except for something like this.
“Magneto.”
Right there in the middle of one of the scuffles was the magnetic master in all his caped glory along with some members of the Brotherhood.
“Did Eric know something like this would happen?” I could hear Charles muttering to himself but I didn’t have time to pick his psychic head about it as we already short of time and the damages and death were pilling up.
“Let’s go!” We left Trask there to see if he could stop the Sentinels or access the Master Mold from there while we tried stopping the Sentinels' advancement. None of us had the luxury of worrying about whatever crap Trask could pull.
I floored the gas of the car and got us there in record time, while ignoring traffic lights and I may or may not have bumped into a few cars. Just in case of what would happen during the fights, Bucky and I had on some Sub-zero type face masks to protect our identities.
Steve and Bucky jumped out of the car to stop two Sentinels from killing a family of four while I rammed the car into one who had metal spikes protruding out of its body.
“Trask talk to me! Do these things die?” I had to know.
“These are the first models we could get working due to the pressure we were under so we didn’t have time to go over all it’s weakness-”
“Not what I’m asking!”
“Yes they do! It’s in the chest area but to compensate for that weakness, we made that part of it’s body the strongest we could. There is a core in there which acts as its central mold or its brain. Destroy that and they’ll stay dead!”
Thank God!
“Looks like I’ll have to test my new powers on you suckers.” I brandished two axes on my hands, one was frozen while the other had a red coating around it that made it seemed as if lightning was cackling around. Even my body with its red cracks had red sparks running across it.
Electricity was a bitch to adapt to since it always felt like my entire body was numb to sensations anytime I used it.
The other Sentinels seemed to deem me a threat as three converged on where I was and immediately attacked me. Flexing my two axes, I moved with a burst of speed and use the red axe to cleave through the hard the chest section of the first sentinel while I used the other axe to freeze the inside of the other one.
I knew that if I tried freezing it from the outside it would be useless since vibranium had a high freezing point and they would just heat up themselves. While these weren’t the constantly evolving type Sentinels, they still had it in them to prove a serious threat.
Using my beams to keep the last one at bay, I jumped into the air and immediately took visual of my surroundings in a fraction on a second before I proceeded with a plan of action.
The moment I landed on the ground, the ground 20 feet of radius around me froze while ice vines shot out and wrapped around the body of the Sentinels stopping their advance with some of the other mutants that could fight went to town with them.
“Their weakness is in their heart area. Focus your attacks there!” I told whoever could listen and in another burst of air and fire mixed with lightning, I was gone, hovering above a mutant as my hands glowed bright red before I brought it down with a resounding boom as it crushed it from the back.
“These things really are hard.” I felt that punch just now. Without letting me finish with my thoughts, a sentinel let out a jet of flames at me which I didn’t even try to block.
“I would like to say that I felt that but then I’d be lying.” I said to the robot even as he increased the flames. It stopped after it judged its action futile and stared at me, most likely calculating for my weakness.
I let it do what it wanted while a fist size ball of doom conjured on top of my outstretched finger. It didn’t have the time to put up any meaningful defense before the ball destroyed it with a raging explosion of red tinted flames and force.
“What the hell are you doing quack?!” Bucky screamed at me.
“What happened?”
“A whole fuckton of them are coming to your area and since you are the only one doing all the big explosions, I guess you already know who their targets are!”
“Fuck!”
Like Bucky said, I could see at least twelve of them coming at me with red glowing eyes.
“Looks like I’d have to take this very seriously.” My expression hardened as they came near me, they were almost twenty in numbers and I doubt I’d be able to take them all on. Who the hell am I kidding? They’ll whoop my ass if they all came at me which if you didn’t notice, is exactly what they are doing.
“Bucks, Cap. You guys steer clear of the area.” They wouldn’t be able to survive if they were gang pressed by these things.
“… Are you sure?” Steve asked.
“… Yeah. Hopefully I’ve got this.”
“Be careful.” Was the only thing Bucky said.
With blazing eyes, I rushed at the approaching army of murderbots.
