A.R.M.O.R.

“Planetary Strike” Part Fifteen

By Brent Lambert

The Lonely Hunter
Central Computer Core

Phobia tossed a gun to Portal and said, “You might need this.”

“Yea, I bet,” Portal said as a hail of Kree fire still fell around them. He was adjusting and creating portals to catch he rifle fire coming from their aggressors. The portals lead to other universes and Portal really had no idea what those universes were. All he knew was that he wasn’t going to get his head taken off today.

Frostsword charged at the A.R.M.O.R. attack group with her large ice sword in one hand and a clunky blue pistol in the other. Red Tarantula leaped into the air over her and landed right by Forge. He raised his red cane into the air to strike the man across the head, but his blow was blocked by the armor on Surge’s forearms. An electrical blast shot out from the woman’s chest and propelled Red Tarantula across the room and sent him ramming into a group of Kree soldiers like they were bowling pins.

Paper Doll’s sword clashed with Frostsword’s and they seemed momentarily to be at a stalemate. The Magus’ general pointed her pistol at the woman but had it kicked out of her hand by Daken. He tried to slash the woman across the chest, but she deftly dodged it by dropping to her knees and kicking his feet out from under him. Pulling back her weapon, Frostsword spun around and made a deep cut into Paper Doll’s thigh.

The how of pain from Paper Doll made it to Phobia’s ears, but she was too busy with her rifle trying to keep them from being sniped by Kree soldiers. Before she was put on court martial, she had been X-Force’s best sharpshooter. It had been a while since she had been able to put those skills to use, but fortunately she didn’t seem too rusty. Carefully and quickly, she aimed her rifle between the eyes of one Kree soldier and only a few seconds later did the same to another. But the soldiers were still pouring in.

She couldn’t help but to wonder what the other attack groups were doing? Had Swordsman and the others been captured? Or did Frostsword just have that many soldiers to throw at them? Either way, Phobia knew that something was going to have to break soon. The Kree Soldiers were going to overwhelm them if Frostsword didn’t cut them all to pieces first.

“These guys are like roaches,” Portal complained as he had to create more portals to try and absorb the blasts of the Kree guns. “This is not going to work.”

“Navigational systems offline,” Forge said. “Give me a minute more and I’ll have the whole ship under my control.”

That was when he noticed the little red spider crawling up his hand. Before he could swat it away it delivered the tiniest pinch.Forge lifted up his hand and clutched it as a searing pain coursed through it and up his arm. As the pain traveled into his chest, Forge saw dozens more of the tiny red spiders moving over the computer and towards him. He quickly backpedaled from the console and into the path of Frostsword’s blade as she was trying to cut into Daken. Unintentionally, the blade sliced through Forge’s ribs and into his lung.

Eyes rolling into the back of his head, Forge fell to the ground barely clinging to life; it wouldn’t be long before he was dead. Daken could smell the blood flowing freely from his side and hear the slow beating of his heart. Letting loose a feral roar, Daken charged at Frostsword only to be shot in the face with her pistol. The blast entrapped the mutant’s head in a solid block of ice. He fell to the ground and his body began to twitch wildly as it struggled for oxygen.

Only a few feet away, red spiders crawled in a steady stream out of Red Tarantula’s cane. He stood to his feet, singed from Surge’s attack, but still maintaining a debonair wager. Dusting a few pieces of burnt fabric off his shoulder, the man smiled at Surge who looked like she was itching to knock him back again. “Sweetheart, consider that your freebie.”

Bind his eyes
Bind his mouth
Leave him nothing
But a doubt

Only Surge heard the chant over the cacophony of rifle blasts, but it was obvious that something had taken place as Red Tarantula was trying to call out to someone, but nothing came from his mouth. He dropped his cane and began to spin around wildly, bumping into soldiers. Then erratic streams of red webbing erupted from his hands and began to coat the Kree around them, causing them to misfire. They were now beginning to move around as wildly as him as they struggled to remove the burning webbing from their bodies.

Surge smirked as a large ball of electrical power formed in her hand. “Oh…I am not your sweetheart.

The ball struck Red Tarantula in the back with the force of five simultaneous lightning strikes. Discharge from the blast spread from his body and into other soldiers nearby him. When all was said and done, there were at least five charred bodies from what Surge could count.

“Surge! Watch your back!”

Noriko turned to the sound of Phobia’s voice with a triumphant smile only to have I turn into a pained gasp as Frostsword’s blade drove into her stomach. The force of ht attack was enough to lift Surge off of her feet and, as her body slid down the icy blade, Frostsword said, “He said that was your freebie.”

“And that was yours,” Wiccan said as he appeared out of a plume of black smoke. In his hand was a long black sword encrusted with circular, golden diamonds. He lifted the sword into the air and said, “Invitarium fyro!”

A stream of power that was a mix of green fire and blue lightning ripped out of the sword’s tip and soared at Frostsword. She dropped her weapon and dove out of the way of the attack. The general struck the ground hard and landed awkwardly on her shoulder, dislocating it. She cried out in pain from her injury and then in horror as the oft-colored flame/lightning hybrid turned in the air and came right for her. Her screams were soon muffled as the mystic power shoved its way down her throat. Wiccan’s attack scoured her organs and sent her body into wild convulsions as the electricity wreaked havoc across her nervous system. It wasn’t long before the general of Magus was a burnt out husk.

Wiccan rushed over to Surge and saw that she was too far gone for his magic to be able to do anything to save her, at least the magic that would be considered scrupulous by his peers. There were other ways, but he couldn’t afford to indulge in those. So he closed Surge’s eyes and hoped her spirit rested in a better plane of existence. The Kree soldiers had all but run away once they saw that Red Tarantula and Frostsword were both dead.

“Never thought I would be so happy to see a little punk like you,” Portal said as he was finally able to close all of the portals he had opened. It had taken a lot out of him as evidenced by the fact his shirt was completely drenched with sweat.

Phobia didn’t quite express her gratitude. “Aren’t you supposed to be on Selene’s ship?

“It’s on crash course for the Magus’s as we speak,” Wiccan said and then to Portal,” Don’t get too happy about me saving your butt. I have a vested interest in you staying alive and nothing more.”

At that point, Portal could have cared less. “As long as I’m in one piece it’s all good with me. So let’s get out of here.”

Wiccan took a deep breath. It was akin to the breaths runners took after having endured a long race. “Give me a second…despite what you probably think, magic does take a toll on its user.”

Phobia’s sympathy was limited. “We might not have a second. Just because the Kree skittered out of here when you offed their boss doesn’t mean they might not build up some courage again.”

“And with this ship’s navigational systems offline we’re bound to crash into something sooner rather than later,” Portal added. He hoped the other groups were able to find a way off of the ship, but frankly he was mainly concerned with himself. Gaia was waiting for him.

Wiccan looked at the two and grimaced for a moment. “Fine. I swear I’m paying a nice long visit to a Jacuzzi after this.”

Stretching his arms out, Wiccan enveloped all three of them in a black plume of smoke and they were gone.

The Pantheon

Admiral Banner looked at his monitors and said to Brian, “I think your people pulled off their mission on The Coldwitch.”

Brian smiled. “So we’re looking at a collision?”

“In exactly ten seconds, the Coldwitch will ram into the Stormrider.”

Everyone on the ship watched the battle outside with baited breath until they saw the brilliant explosion of the two ships colliding into one another. A cheer went up from the entire bridge crew and even Brian couldn’t help but to give a cheer as well. Something was going right for them. hen a sobering thought hit him: had Wiccan and the others got out in time? He could only hope so.

Admiral Banner was still looking at his monitors and had not joined in with the rest of the crew’s celebrating. Brian knew something had happened. “What’s wrong?”

“Admiral Yashida’s ship has been destroyed.”

Brian closed his eyes for a moment and cursed their lopsided fortune. It had been Yashida who had been keeping their right from being flanked. “We’ll have to make adjustments, but first inform the last attack group that they have permission to engage. Then tell the Heralds we are going to need them to pick up Yashida’s role as best as possible.”

The Pantheon
Hangar Deck

Dark Angel paced back and forth in front of the Human Blizzard. Jonas wasn’t annoyed by it because he had long since disconnected from human emotion thought he still liked to observe it. It kept the few traces of humanity and emotion in him alive and, for reasons he couldn’t quite understand, that was important to Jonas.

“When are they going o let us out of here?” Dark Angel asked to no one in particular. “We’ve been cooped up in here since the fight started.”

Cyclone of Earth-8871 heard Dark Angel talking to herself and said, “If your friend succeeds then we’ll get our chance. Why don’t you sit a seat and stay tight? We can’t afford to have you exhausted by the time we get out there.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll pass from boredom before then.”

::THIS IS ADMIRAL BANNER. REPEAT. THIS IS ADMIRAL BANNER. ALL MEMBERS OF THE MAGUS ATTACK GROUP HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO DEPLOY. REPEAT. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO DEPLOY::

Dark Angel smiled at the Human Blizzard, “Looks like my prayers were answered.”

Cairo, Egypt

Everyone watched as the white light from the bodies of Deyunja, Tabir, Mulzata and Awjula ripped into the sky. Fire Mage and Josiah knew what was about come next and it was to make their battle here that much more difficult. Mindbender had proven that one of them could be hurt and now they were calling their armies to the battle. Fire Mage new about the armies they commanded but had hoped the White God’s arrogance would keep them from being summoned. That hope was now dwindled to absolutely nothing.

Out of the burnt and broken cars that were scattered around the city rose up the Vilelyn of Awjalu. They broke through the metal with their tremendous strength, each of them stood at six feet and had mouths dripping over with purple poison. They wore white cloaks trimmed in gold, which contrasted sharply against the sickening bat-like wings that exploded from their backs. In their hands they carried sharp diamond scimitars that were more than ready to do the will of their master.

From the market stands came forth the Grimeak of the Vanished Valley. They had scaly black heads that were akin to a tiger and muscular torsos littered with red quills. Four long tails protruded from their backs and each one ended in a sharp, curved blade of blue bone. Their feet were here-pronged much like the diamonds of Earth and allowed the Grimeak to propel themselves to impressive heights. They too were ready to rain death upon those who would oppose the White Gods.

Carried in the arms of every Grimeak was a Lady of the Rotting Hand. They playfully leaped out of their comrade’s arms and onto the ground. All had once been beautiful women and their body shapes showed it, but where there was once beautiful skin there was now white, rotting flesh; where there had once been soulful eyes now stood black abysses; in the place of kissable lips were rotting sores that broke away in places to reveal stained green teeth.

On the outskirts of Cairo rose the Forest Dancers. They wore white cloaks that had the texture of bark and had stringy, green hair that smelled like fresh grass. Each one had skin that was a different hue of green and they clasped their hands in front of them like holy priests as they walked into the city. Their keeper had called for them and they were going to do his will.

When the last of the armies of the White Gods had been summoned, the lights in the sky vanished and Fire Mage said to her old friend, Josiah, “We’re in trouble.”

“Think that’s a bit of an understatement.”

“Ahh bite me.”

Josiah grinned. “So I’m thinking this is going to be just like Fromme VII.”

“If we’re lucky,” Fire mage said as she charged at Tabir, her entire body coated in searing hot flame.

Josiah followed behind her. Energy blades came out of two large bracelets and in each hand he carried a thin pistol. Even though the odds against them were even higher Josiah couldn’t help but to feel confident. He worked best under pressure.

Earth-181203

Prelate Darkstar opened the door to the Red Room and saw Noh-Varr locked in combat against Vermin, Metallica and Negasonic. The three Prelates had been training intensely with Onslaught’ protégé for the past three days as Noh-Varr had demanded that he personally train with every Prelate being assigned to him for the coming campaign. Darkstar had already been through her three days of training with him and it was one of the most exhilarating things she had ever experienced.

Noh-Varr was such a raw, primal being. He was rude and coarse, but Laynia loved that about him. The alien managed to be devastatingly annoying and attractive all at once. His abrupt manner would translate well into his leadership role, Darkstar thought.

Onslaught was finally preparing to expand his empire beyond this world. He had spied a universe most interesting to him. It was ruled by a creature called the Dark Phoenix.

To Be Continued...

Next: In A.R.M.O.R. #16: Dark Angel and the others find themselves face to face with the Magus. And Gaia’s team runs right smack into Cerebro.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

So this battle is still raging. I can’t believe it. Did you like what you saw at the end there? I’m sure everyone was able to put two and two together. Now that’s not going to be directly dealt with in this arc. It’s a hint of things to come. Stuff like that is what I love about this series.

So send me some emails or something. Let me know which denizen of Earth-97701 are you enjoying the most so far. Alise? Amiri? Vulcan? Let me know. It’ll be like music to my ears.

Respect and love,

-Brent

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