She had shaken her head while Gwen pouted but made arrangements with Wanda to visit the sanctum. Peter and the others checked the files they had downloaded on the Sentinel program, which pointed to two locations.
Traks Industries headquarters was in New York, but Shield had already been there and investigated the apparent suicide of Bolivar Trask. If the Sentinel program was there, it was in Shield's hands now.
The second was the Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado. It was a military base, housing a NORAD defence system but had also been repurposed to hold the Sentinal command centre, tieing it directly into the satellite monitoring system. It was also big enough that the Sentinels could be stored and repaired there, allowing Trask to work on new models.
It was decided that Wrath would go with them. In the recent media frenzy, Parker Inc had to maintain a presence, and while MJ just pouted and expected to be rewarded she was willing to play Peter for a few days, and with Laura being the only one who was a more physical fighter, she was invited along as well.
Peter felt bad for Laura, she was slowly gaining an education, but her years of social isolation, and training in a more combat orientated life meant mixing was sometimes difficult for her. She acted immature a lot of the time, enjoying the childhood she was never allowed to have. Even her favourite activity, after Peter, was spending the day eating cereal and watching the many cartoon shows she missed.
Once the mansion had been evacuated and abandoned, Ororo was more often than not in Wakanda, and Laura had been left with nothing to do other than train with Natasha or anyone who was free.
"I'm just saying," Peter explained as Laura huddled up on her chair and glowered at him. He wasn't about to say but she looked adorable, as she had a juice box and was glaring at him over its top, "that If, and I mean If you want to try out for some sports or colleges, you can."
Laura just huffed, "no, got my G.E.D, and I know I'm not smart enough for anything else. Plus, can't now. Powered aren't allowed on teams, it's unfair," she huffed, "why can't I just train, and work for you?"
"Because while we are out all day, you're stuck here. Eating chips and then running riot for an hour to burn them off isn't healthy." he tried to explain but Laura stood and pushed her chair back.
Talon vanished and she pointed to her six-pack, then the tightly toned thighs, flexed and showed off the lean smooth curve of her muscles and to further prove her point, leant forwards, stuck a hand on the floor and was upside down, in a one-handed handstand.
"Augment. Never going to get fat or old. plus, " and she spread her legs, "nice view, maybe distracted from a dumb conversation?"
Peter sighed and rubbed his forehead, "fine, I'll put you on AIMS payroll, you can spend your time under Nat or Nakia."
Laura grinned and swung her legs open and closed, "still here, got time?" and as Peter looked at his watch they had an hour before Fury was due,
"An hour," he said and Laura smiled,
"Good, be rough."
After their exercise, a shower for both, and then more of the same, Fury buzzed to let them know the quinjet was hovering over the water, and Talon and Venom both shimmered and vanished and made their way to the waterfront.
As they boarded the jet, Peter felt a less hostile gaze from Scott, who actually smiled at him, and then as he flicked his gaze over at Maria, Peter recognised that stupid lovesick look on his face, as he had it plenty as well. Laura just sat herself down, fastened her seatbelt and then fell asleep, leaving Peter to stow her gear.
The flight was brief and uneventful, the small talk of Scott's headaches and the invitation to Avalon. Charles had contacted Scott, but without sharing details Scott had refused as at first Maria had been excluded.
Once they arrive, Peter nudged Laura and the group disembarked.
"Wait here," Peter shouted at the group, "but that doesn't mean relax. The Sentinels were aggressive, and there might be a lot of them here."
Peter's fears were confirmed as he approached the base. The guard posts were empty, and as he vaulted over the fence he let his armour slip over him, the same slick mark two they had designed. There was no blood, but that didn't mean anything.
Checking the station he saw the security cameras were all off, but even he could hear the faint whir as they slowly turned to point at him.
"Yeah, you know why I'm here. If anyone is still alive, let them go and we can talk. This doesn't need to be difficult."
As the bottom light blinked, and then sparked, he knew that was probably a no. Taking a deep breath he approached the giant metal bunker door and saw its main hatch was swinging free. He could smell the blood before he even got to it, and as he let a blade slide down from his forearm he gently opened the hatch.
Inside a man, or what was left on one was lying against the elevator door, his assault rifle slid away but his handgun limply held in his grip. The door was smeared with blood and had several bullet holes in it, but strangely the door was sealed with a hasty weld. Whatever had killed him had stabbed him through the slight gap in the elevator but been unable to escape.
Great, he thought to himself, creepy army base, reaching out to Maria, we've got casualties, at least one dead, can you get a schematic of the base and start making sure nothing got free. Leave Laura at the main gate, I don't want this thing stealing my jet.
He felt Maria snort, your jet? And he mentally shrugged,
My gas, my jet. And as he disconnected from her thoughts he felt her laughing.
Taking a deep breath, right. Here we go, and he slid an adamantium blade down through the metal and used two of his harnesses arms to pry the doors open while he and the other two waited to see if anything would leap out at him.
Yeah, let's wander around the creepy army base, some superhero you are, jumping at shadows and monsters. He rolled his eyes at himself and his armour spread out over him. Yeah, just walk into death central unprotected, Nat will kick my ass for being so dumb, and he made a mental note just not to mention it.
The air con whined as the base was built into a mountain, and while the lights flickered on and off spookily they weren't the emergency ones. There was no more blood in the corridors, and while there was no staff, there wasn't much of anything. No creepy dripping taps or strange clinking noise. Even his enhanced senses were fine, in fact, it was calm and peaceful down here, the thick concrete walls numbing him to the normal hustle and bustle of New York that he normally heard.
Wondering if concrete had any effect he paused and stretched out with the mind stone, looking for anything or anyone, but he found nothing. Remembering Charles and that machine Logan mentioned, he extended them further and while he felt the members of Wrath, and Laura and Maria's unamused sigh at his gentle brushing of their minds it wasn't until he reached all the way to the city that he felt another mind,
What the hell? He heard a young woman say and he quickly cut the connection.
He had not expected to find an Augment there and made a note to tell Charles about her, once he was out of the and he paused. He had felt Laura and the rest, but nobody else.
Maria, what's the compliment of soldiers and staff at the base?
I dunno, about a hundred or so, give or take.
There's nobody here, or worse, there's nobody alive here.. Head into Colorado and see if the base was evacuated. If Fury has contacts in the military that aren't Ross and his friends find out if there were any kind of orders given to get anyone out of here.
Yeah, Yeah I will, and he knew she didn't sound too confident. The military didn't just up and leave a base empty, and they both feared the worst.
The abandoned base was the only oddity Peter encountered as he made his way through its corridors. The drab grey was strangely eerie, and keeping contact with Maria she guided him through until he reached the command centre,
It was silent, even the monitors were black and he stared into the room of widescreen TVs and rows of computers wondering exactly what was going on.
Uh, is it really bad if I power one of these on and try to interface with it?
Maria laughed, oh I dunno, hacking the military servers isn't exactly treason, but the jail time isn't pretty either.
Right, so that's a no then?
Maria laughed again, and how exactly do you think I'm keeping track of your location, I can tell you now, there's nothing. Every system is dark, except the maintenance bay. It still has power, and it still has movement.
Shit, I'm not going to get there and you'll give me some crappy excuse why I can't use my powers right?
Maria snorted, stow that shit Hudson, and get moving soldier.
It's Hicks, Sir, he's Hudson
He could feel Maria's amusement but also her concern, Keep in contact, there is nothing on the security feeds at that end, but it doesn mean it registers. If it's a rogue AI again it's probably giving us false readings and images.
Oh don't worry, when you hear the screaming, that'll be me.
Peter was not a great fan of horror movies, and although Liv and MJ would watch them, he never saw the appeal. He only like the sequel as it was more an action movie than a stupid jump scare-a-thon.
Oh, my hero. Afraid of a few giant bugs with acid for blood, much scarier than giant robots with blasters in their hands.
Robots don't try and eat you. Moving into the rear section now, going silent.
Peter crouched as he saw the first signs of any activity. The metal blast doors of the repair bay, added to allow the much larger Sentinels to leave, were scratched and covered in small dings. There was no blood, but there were signs of a fight.
The door hatch had been secured like the lift, with a brief weld holding the door closed and as Peter ran a finger over the smooth pattern, it had been done by a pulse rifle, meaning the Sentinels or whatever was in there had managed to adapt to their weapons as well as Augment powers.
While the metal was melted, it was still only steel, and as his claws heated he ran his fingers through the softening metal and held them there, once the joins were soft, he grabbed the large spin wheel mechanism and wrenched the door open.
Peter was thankful there were no soldiers or bodies inside. The repair bay was wrecked. With small Sentinels half-assembled standing banging their malformed club hands against the repair bay exit door. As the door he had come through creaked open they stopped and turned,
The bay was massive, with competent parts as well as raw materials all stacked on one side. But rather than a giant assembly line, there was a massive Sentinel instead. Its chest was open and several smaller waldos in its chest were busy welding joints on a half-formed Sentinel.
While the Sentinel was around ten feet tall, the giant one was at least three times that size and much wider. It was sat in a strange contraction, with pipes and power lines running into its back.
"Organic Presence Detected. Activating Defence Measures," the large robot intoned. Its face was like a large upside-down bucket with two menacingly purple eyes glowing out from under it, "Do Not Resist. We Required New Input."
Peter blinked, "Uh, Stand Down?"
"Unacceptable. Mutant Life Must Be Eradicated, All Life Must Be Eradicated. Input Rejected."
Geesh, Ultron much, Peter thought as he flicked his wrist and balls of acidic webbing impacted against the open plates of the half-assembled Sentinels. Looking around the warehouse area he saw that all the stacks of boxes were empty, and they must have run out of material to make the adaptive plating,
"Last chance, stand down or I make you," and his answer was an echoing laugh,