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| Issue #9 February 2006 |
"Slayers" Written by Groble |
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****NOTE THIS ISSUE TAKE PLACE BEFORE FANTASTIC FOUR #1*****(Dynamic Doug)
The street below was in chaos, people ran screaming though the streets as the huge metal appendages came crashing down around them, marking the steady pace of the spider slayers towards the school. There were about 20 all together, the closest of them having just made it to the schools car park where it promptly smashed a green beetle into nothing more than scrap metal, helicopters buzzed around overhead an the wailing sirens of police cars could be heard amidst the deafening roar of the of the monster mechanical progress. From up on the rooftop Spider-man and his unexpected companion watched with growing unease as the robotic behemoths hulked ever closer to the school and the hundreds of innocent children trapped inside.
“We’ve got to get down there and do something.” Yelled spider-man as he ran to the edge of the rooftop.
“We won’t do much good on our own, I’m putting a call out to all available Heroes in the vicinity I can’t guarantee who’ll show but it’s better than nothing.”
“We can’t wait for Backup any longer Tin Man, we’ve gotta follow that yellow brick road.” And with that Spiderman leapt from the building, diving towards the ground before hitting the nearest Slayer with a webline and swinging deftly through the towering legs who’s metallic joints creaked with every jarring step. As he approached the other side of the robots giant metal body he released the thread in his hand, falling freely through the air turning his body as he went before aiming two more weblines at the top of the machine. A sharp tug combined with the elasticity of the webbing brought him speeding back towards the Slayer, he collided hard with the sheer metal surface but dropped into a forward roll an eventually came in a tight crouch, his wall crawling abilities keeping him anchored firmly to the spot.
“I Give it a 8.7, the dismount was a little weak but besides that a solid dive from this young athlete.” His head darted around frantically, scouring the smooth metal surface that made up the top of the spider-slayer. “Now lets find out what makes you tick.”
****
Two blocks away a blaring of horns so unded out on the street as a car swerved to avoid the powerful metal limb as it impacted inches from the speeding vehicle, which flipped onto its side and skidded before coming to a stop against the wall of a nearby building. The driver’s side door suddenly flew off and came crashing down into the middle of the street as the slayer continued on its lumbering path to the school.
“Goddamit my new ride!” yelled the man as he pulled himself from the wreckage of his car. “You gunna pay for this mess?” he screamed at the lumbering metal giant “I said are you gunna pay for this goddamn mess you robot armoured super villain freak!” and with that he lifted the twisted wreckage of his car and hurled it towards the metal figure.
An explosion rocked the street, shattering windows and setting off the alarms of the few remaining cars. The spider slayer shuddered and creaked. It took another massive step forward. It’s leg groaned as it impacted once more with the ground. The cables along the inside of its scaffold leg creaked and gave way, snapping and tearing through its main body, causing it to lurch to the side. As if not realising one of its leg was now missing, the robot took another step, but as it lifted it’s mechanical foot from the ground, it’s balance shifted, and ear splitting shriek ripped through the air as the slayers own body weight began to tear it’s metal shell apart, as it came crashing down to street. The impact was thunderous and the cars nearby bounced into the air before crashing back down. The man punched the air and smiled “Say ma name baby!”
“Luke Cage?” came a voice from the alley to his side, causing him to spin round away from his current conquest.
“Who wants to Know?”
The figure in the alleyway to a step out of the shadows, her white hair cascading down her black leather clad shoulders “My friends call me the Black Cat”
“Didn’t expect to see you running round it broad daylight girl, you know what’s going on with this Power Rangers reject? Or perhaps you’re here for a little rooftop rendezvous if you get my drift.” She took a step back and hissed, her hands bunching into claws.
“That spider slayer you took out back there is just one of many, headed for a school 2 blocks east, I’m sure you’re help would be welcome but I know you don’t do the whole hero gig unless someone’s footing the bill.”
“Damn girl, you got some serious claws. How about we skip the foreplay and go save some kids.” He shot her a sly wink before turning and sprinting off down the street, past the flaming wreckage of the downed Spider Slayer.
****
Meanwhile at the Baxter building miles from the current events...
*Incoming Alert: Priority Red! *
“Oh this is never good.” Yelled Johnny Storm as he ran from the kitchen to the flashing TV screen, his half-made sandwich still clutched in his hand, dropping cheese all over the floor. “Oh damn this is bad” he grimaced reading the details of Iron-man’s report, “guess it’s show time.” He punched the Baxter building alarm button before tossing his sandwich onto the floor and running to the balcony, he took a deep breath threw himself into the smog filled New York air below, a suicidal task for most, but not in the slightest for the Human Torch who can simply… “Flame on!”
His customary catchphrase was the only sound heard by the 3 people who came charging into the now empty room, in which the alarm still blared, the screen continued to flash red, and much to the dismay of one Ben Grimm a cheese sandwich still lay on the floor.
“Good for nothing little Brat, who leaves a sandwich on the floor.”
“Why do these things always happen when I’m in the shower?” Frowned Sue as she walked up to the screen wearing nothing but a fluffy blue towel with the number four embroidered on it, her wet blonde hair hanging limply down her back.
“I mean come on Susie can you not teach you’re no good brother to clean up, look at me I got cheese in my foot, do you know how hard it is to keep clean when you’re made of rock?”
“What is it hun?” inquired the head of Reed Richards whose neck could be seen extending off down the corridor where the rest of him was no doubt busy with his latest ground breaking discovery.
“It’s bad news Reed.” Said sue looking at him ashen faced.
“Ultron is rampaging though the city?” Chimed in Ben?
“It could be Ben, but I doubt it, The Avengers sent Ultron packing not to long ago….”
“Would you two shut up for one minute…? There is a school under siege from what appears to be an army of giant robot killing machines.” Yelled Sue in annoyance
“Then what are we waiting for Sue, lets get down there.”
“Sue you go get dressed, I’ll need to grab something from my lab, and Ben you might be best of taking “Fantasticar 2” and helping Johnny out now. We’ll meet you there, ASAP.” And with that they shot into action as they had done so many times before.
****
Having just seen spider-man leap onto the nearest Spider-Slayer, Iron-man too leapt into action, kicking off from the roof top and blasting into the air, he took up a vantage point in the sky. Directly below he could see Spidey scrabbling about on the mechanical beast trying to find someway to shut it down. To the west rose black smoke from the wreckage of another slayer, like the two he and spider-man had left as nothing more than slag north of his current position, and heading away from smoke were two figures who using his binocular vision he was able to identify as the Black Cat and Luke Cage, an unlikely pairing in this unbelievable situation. Around the school swarmed yet more Slayers but a glimmer of hope burned through the sky to the east, on it’s way from the Baxter building.
With the situation properly assessed like a speeding bullet he shot down towards the Spider Slayer nearest to the school, greeting it upon his arrival with a burning ball of plasma energy, which did little to stop its progress other than leaving a charred black hole in it’s metallic shell, despite having taken the previous slayers out in the same way this one now stood positively unscathed, much to Iron-mans confusion and annoyance.
****
The Slayer lurched down the street towards the school, striding above cars that swerved to avoid its crushing steps, all the while a blue and red clad figure clung to the top of its metallic shell, pounding his fists against its seamless hide, to no avail.
“Well at least I know one thing for sure, this isn’t American engineering.”
The Slayer dipped to the left as it turned down a deserted street, ahead of it marched another identical and equally menacing spider-slayer, heading in the same direction, with the same unrelenting, painstakingly measured steps towards the school. Using his innate wall-crawling abilities spider-man stuck fast to the surface of the machine, the sunlight bouncing off the slick surface of its robot body, an irregular flash of light as the spider-slayer turned the corner, showed him the slight flaw he has been looking for. A small rivet stuck up slightly from the rest of the metal work indicating the edges of one of the gigantic metal sheets used to create this monstrosity. He walked over to it and slammed his foot down next to the rivet; a hollow thud was his reply.
“It’s about time my luck changed” smiled spider-man under his mask as he began to spray a thick coating of webbing onto his own clenched fists. The webbing soon hardened creating a strong rigid shell around his fists. He raised them high above his head, the sunlight glinting off the slightly slick surface of the solid white webbing as he brought them thundering down on top of the rivet. Solid resistance met the first blow, so he raised his fists above his head once more and brought them crashing down again, this time a slight dent appeared in the now flawed bodywork. Another blow rained down on the same spot and the dent grew, the barraged continued and the dent increased until the edge of the metal sheeting began to peel away from its neighbour. Alternating fists hammered down on the edge, shards of webbing scattered through the air as the continued to bash against the metalwork. Soon the gap had widened dramatically, and with the remains of his webbed gloves falling away from his hands spider-man gave the metal sheeting one final kick as a huge chunk of it fell away to rattle around inside the hollow robot body.
The whirring of machinery echoed out from the hole, and a resounding crunch followed by a scraping of gears was heard as the metal debris tore between two of the gears inside. The slayer lurched forward, picking up speed as it now careered along the deserted street, heading directly towards the other spider-slayer, which continued to move at its steady pace.
“As fun as it would be to watch you guys take each other out, I doubt the Spider-man bank balance could cover the property damage.” And with that he leapt to the edge of the gaping hole and pointed his hands straight down into it, as thin streams of webbing began to pour forth from both of his web shooters. The machinery inside screamed in protest as the thick elastic webbing continued to poor in: jamming the moving parts, shorting out internal electrical systems, and causing the circuitry inside to overheat. The spider-slayer lurched once more, as it closed in on it brother. Fire exploded from inside and blistering black smoke burst forth from the hole his spider sense alerting him just in time so that he could leap from the body of the Spider Slayer to a nearby building.
Further up the street people were screaming as the two metal goliaths descended upon them one now encased in thick black smoke and hellish flames, burning green from the chemicals encased within.
“Get off the streets!” Yelled spider-man from the side of the wall, as another gout of flame burst forth from the doomed spider-slayer, sending flaming metal debris hurling through the sky towards the small crowd of people below. Spider-man leapt into action, springing from the wall and sending a webline flying towards the spider-slayer closest to the crowd, he swung round in a blistering arc, every muscle in his body burnt from the exertion. Releasing the webline he hit the pavement running, scooping up a child in each arm as he hurtled past. The flaming metal crashed into the ground where just moments ago they had been standing. Another piece of debris spun through the air towards an old man, fixed to the spot in terror. A streak of white caught it and sent it spinning away from its deadly target.
The burning slayer had finally caught up with its counterpart and although it had slowed considerably the force of the collision rocked the streets around them. Metal creaked and groaned as the two crashed into each other, the impact was too much for the burning slayer as its front legs crumpled beneath it, sending it crashing to the ground with the back leg of the slayer in front. With one limb missing the slayer jerked erratically and took a painful step to the left, crashing into the corner of a nearby building, sending a cascade of bricks and piping pouring to the crowd below.
His head buzzed warning him of the incoming danger, as the burning spider-slayer impacted with the street, uprooting tarmac from the road is it dug itself deep into the ground, where it continued to smoke and burn. He burst into action once more, sending up multiple strands of webbing, creating a thick white net between a nearby lamppost, the crippled slayer and the now decimated building, the bricks landed harmlessly into it, as the majority of the crowd ran screaming down the road to safety. One child remained desperately trying to untie his dog from the lamppost above which precariously hung the webbed net of bricks.
“Come on kid move it.” Yelled Spidey to the child.
“I can’t leave my dog, man! I can’t leave Baxter”
The spider slayer took another lumbering step away from the building, and the webbing attached to its leg began to snap, the net of bricks heaved as the final strands began to snap. The kid had just untied his dog as the net gave way, and debris began to fall once more. With images of Captain Stacey filling his mind, and the knots of guilt tying up his stomach one more spider-man leapt into action “Not again! Not like this!” he yelled as he dove forward, pushing the child out of the way and attempting to aim his webbing upwards at the debris, which began to rain down on him, a brick struck his head, knocking him to the ground, while a piece of lead piping struck his chest knocking the wind out of him. He looked up to see the child picking himself safely off the floor as the rest of the debris rained around him. His triumph was quickly squashed however as a black shadow fall across him, he looked up to see the giant metal foot of the crippled slayer coming down to crush what little life he had left in him.
“Not again!” he grimaced, as his tired eyes began to shut.
****
The air crackled as he raced through the sky, wind wiping past him as the burning flames danced around him, but he felt no searing pain, no blistering heat, for he was the human torch and this is what he did best, like a comet falling to earth the only sing of his passage was the red tail left in his wake. The black smoke had already begun to gather above the skyline and so he dove down, gathering speed as he went, his own image speeding alongside him in the reflections of the high-rise windows that screamed past.
There was a crash beneath him as one of metallic beasts rounded the corner two blocks ahead of him; a car crumbled under its thundering tread, people ran screaming to get away from its towering gate. The street was already rushing up to meet him as Johnny Storm continued his brake neck decent, but just before the deadly impact he veered up, flames licked the road, melting the once solid tarmac and leaving a black river in his wake as he hared towards the spider slayer.
A blaze of light burst between its metal legs as the human torch zipped underneath it before coming to a stop on the other side. He hovered in mid air flames dancing around his heroic figure as he assessed his target.
“You’re certainly a big fella ain’t ya?” smiled the Human Torch, “But if I can take down Ultron I think I can manage a bucket of bolts like yourself.” And with that he launched a volley of burning missiles towards the bulk of its shining silver body. Gaping holes appeared with each successful strike hissing angrily as the edges continued to sizzle away. The superheated metal around the outside sagging and dripping down to form solid pools of shimmering steel where they impacted with cold sidewalk below.
“Not so good with fire eh Robo? Well it just so happens I am! So let’s heat things up shall we?” he effortlessly glided down on to the back of the robot his scorching feet leaving pools of hissing metal wherever he stepped. With another great step the slayer lurched to the left crushing a phone box and sending Johnny tumbling to his knees, inches from one of the holes he’s only moments before created. Sticking his head inside revealed a mass of circuitry and wires, what looked like a radio emitter sat fairly near the centre of its robotic insides which were alive with the buzz of cogs and the his of pneumatics.
“Lets see how you like this… FLAME ON!” he called as he thrust both his hands into the gaping hole, the flames dancing along his arms grew in size and shone with a deeper intensity, plastic wiring hissed and popped, circuits exploded and the crackle of electrics could be heard echoing from the inside, sparks burst out through the whole sending him falling backwards on to the street below. A terrific grinding of gears sounded as the slayer stopped dead in it’s tracks, it’s legs creaked and with a great hiss of escaping air gave way sending the bulk of the machine crashing down towards the now prone human torch.
“Oh no you don’t” he screamed, as great gouts of flame sprung forth from his hands, cutting the slayer in two with each rapidly melting segment crashing down to either side of him. “Not too shabby, not too shabby at all.”
***To Be Continued***
Be sure to join us sooner than you think, for the action packed conclusion to this guest star filled Mega Event only at Altered Visions.
