Spider-Man Mayhem-Chapter 425: Against the Sentinels (7)

[Third Person Pov]

A blinding flash of white-blue light erupted from Peter’s body, followed instantly by the violent crack of lightning splitting the air. The ground beneath his feet fractured in jagged lines as he vanished from his position, his form dissolving into a streak of raw velocity.

In less than a heartbeat, he reappeared directly in front of Larry Trask, his fist already in motion, lightning coiling around his arm like a living thing. His intent was clear—end this before it could escalate further.

But the Sentinels were ready.

One of the towering machines materialized in front of Trask faster than seemed possible for something of its massive size. Its glowing optic sensors flared, and its arm moved in a blur, intercepting Peter’s strike with mechanical precision. The collision sent a thunderous shockwave rippling through the air, electricity bursting outward in violent arcs.

Peter clicked his tongue and twisted his body, barely managing to evade a concussive blast of energy that screamed past his head.

It hadn’t come from the Sentinel.

It came from Havoc.

The man stood beside Trask, calm and composed, his center glowing with contained destructive power. Concentric rings of energy pulsed outward from his body, distorting the air itself.

"Oh man," Peter sighed, rolling his shoulders as lightning crackled faintly along his skin. "And here I was hoping to take you down without a fight."

His tone was light, almost joking, but his eyes betrayed his focus.

Trask responded with nothing but open contempt. His lip curled, and he clicked his tongue in irritation, staring at Peter as if he were nothing more than an insect that had wandered too close.

"You are a fool," Trask said coldly, his voice dripping with disdain, "if you believe I can be stopped."

Peter smirked faintly, lightning flickering in his pupils.

"You’re a greater fool," he shot back, "if you believe you can’t."

The moment stretched for half a second.

"Kill them," Trask ordered flatly, his voice carried no anger. No hesitation. Only absolute certainty, "Do not concern yourselves with capturing them. I want them dead. They serve no purpose to me alive."

The Sentinels obeyed instantly.

Chaos erupted.

A freezing wave of subzero frost exploded outward as Iceman thrust his hands forward, jagged spears of ice erupting from the ground and racing toward the machines. Beside him, Ghost-Spider extended both arms, unleashing her own torrent of freezing force, coating the Sentinels in thick layers of crystalline frost in an attempt to immobilize them.

At the same time, Johnny burst into motion, his entire body igniting in blazing orange flame. He rocketed forward like a living comet, fire roaring behind him as he slammed into one of the Sentinels with explosive force. The impact engulfed the machine in an inferno that burned hot enough to melt steel.

Felicia moved differently, she wielded her magic and arcane arts with careful precision, wherever she moved, misfortune would follow.

A Sentinel advancing toward her suddenly faltered, its footing slipping on nothing. Another fired a blast that inexplicably veered off course, striking its ally instead. Mechanical failures cascaded in subtle but devastating ways wherever her gaze lingered.

Above them all, Storm hovered like an avenging goddess.

Thunder boomed as dark clouds formed overhead, spiraling unnaturally within the confines of the facility. Lightning speared downward in blinding pillars, striking the Sentinels with catastrophic force. Cyclones of wind erupted around her, lifting debris, metal, and broken concrete into violent spirals that battered the machines from every direction.

On the ground, Logan and Peter fought like twin forces of nature.

Logan’s metallic claws flashed again and again, carving into Sentinel armor with savage precision. Sparks exploded with every strike, his feral snarl echoing through the battlefield. Beside him, Peter moved like lightning incarnate, skating across the ground in streaks of electric brilliance. His own metallic bone claws slashed outward, enhanced by his speed, each strike landing dozens of times in the span of a second.

Nearby, MJ soared through the air, supported by glowing psionic constructs born from pure willpower. She swung effortlessly, using constructs as footholds, shields, and weapons. Massive wrecking balls materialized and smashed into Sentinels. Trucks formed from solidified psychic energy rammed into them at full force. She even conjured monstrous beasts—wolves, serpents, and titans of imagination—that lunged and tore at the machines in a relentless assault.

But it wasn’t enough.

The Sentinels adapted.

Their armor shifted, reconfigured, and hardened. Frost cracked and fell away. Fire diminished against newly resistant plating. Lightning dispersed across their surfaces with reduced effect. They endured everything with terrifying efficiency.

Their counterattacks were merciless, precise, and of course not to mention lethal.

"AHHHH!!"

Rogue’s scream cut through the battlefield, Peter’s head snapped toward the sound before he saw her falling.

Her leg was gone, severed cleanly at the thigh.

Blood sprayed across the floor in violent arcs as she collapsed, her face twisted in agony.

Peter moved instantly, he became as fast as lightning.

He streaked across the battlefield, weaving between blasts and debris, arriving at her side in less than a blink. The Sentinel that had injured her raised its arm to finish the job—

—but Johnny intercepted it.

Engulfed in roaring flame, Johnny slammed into the machine, driving it backward. For a moment, hope surged.

Then the Sentinel struck back.

Its massive arm swatted Johnny out of the air like he weighed nothing.

He hit the ground hard and didn’t move for a while.

Peter’s jaw clenched, he slid to Rogue’s side and scooped her up, carrying her away from immediate danger. She trembled in his arms, her teeth clenched so tightly they threatened to crack. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Her eyes met his and he knew what she needed.

Peter hesitated only briefly before retracting his suit from his fingers and extending his hand.

"Take what you need," he said quietly. "Nothing more."

Rogue discarded her glove with shaking fingers and grabbed his hand.

The moment their skin touched, Peter gasped.

He felt it instantly, his strength, his speed, his power.

It was being torn away from him.

His bones creaked under the pressure of her grip. Lightning flickered uncontrollably across his skin as his energy poured into her. He let out a strangled whimper but didn’t pull away.

Lightning ignited in Rogue’s eyes.

Power surged through her body like a tidal wave. Her severed limb began to regenerate before his eyes—muscle, bone, nerve, and flesh reforming at impossible speed. Within seconds, her leg was whole again.

She released him.

Peter staggered slightly, weakened but standing.

Rogue rose slowly into the air, her breathing was heavy while her expression was pure fury.

She launched forward with explosive force, the shockwave of her acceleration knocking Peter backward. She became a blur, her speed now rivaling his own amplified state.

She reached the Sentinel that had maimed her and struck.

The impact sent the machine flying across the room like a missile. It slammed into the far wall with catastrophic force, the structure cracking and collapsing outward from the collision.

Debris rained down while Rogue hovered in the air, chest heaving, her fists clenched at her sides.

But then—

She froze as a strange sensation crawled across her body.

Her instincts screamed.

Danger.

Overwhelming danger.

Her eyes widened in realization.

Too late.

A Sentinel fired and The blast struck her directly.

Her body convulsed as energy tore through her, burning flesh and overwhelming her stolen defenses. She screamed as agony consumed her, her body dropping from the air and crashing into the ground.

She didn’t get back up.

And across the battlefield— Things were only getting worse.

The moment Rogue hit the ground, the tide of battle shifted from desperate to catastrophic. The Sentinels advanced without hesitation, their glowing eyes scanning, calculating, adapting. Peter forced himself upright despite the lingering weakness in his muscles, lightning flickering.

A Sentinel lunged toward him, its arm reshaping mid-motion into a gleaming energy blade. Peter reacted on instinct, vanishing in a crack of lightning, reappearing behind it and driving both of his metallic bone claws into its back. Sparks exploded outward. The Sentinel didn’t scream. It didn’t slow. Its torso twisted unnaturally, its arm snapping backward and catching Peter across the chest with brutal force. The impact launched him across the room like a ragdoll. He hit the ground hard, skidding across the concrete, the air forced violently from his lungs.

Logan roared and leapt onto the Sentinel, his claws carving deep gouges into its neck and shoulders. He tore into it like a wild animal, ripping apart armor and exposed circuitry.

The Sentinel responded instantly. Its surface shifted, flowing like liquid metal, sealing the damage almost as quickly as Logan created it. Its hand clamped around Logan’s throat and lifted him off the ground. Logan snarled, stabbing repeatedly into its arm, but the machine simply tightened its grip and slammed him into the floor hard enough to crater the concrete beneath him.

Above them, Storm summoned another bolt of lightning, her eyes glowing white with fury. The lightning struck true, engulfing three Sentinels at once in a blinding explosion of energy. For a moment, it looked like it worked. Their frames blackened. Their movements stalled. Then their bodies reconfigured, venting excess energy harmlessly into the air. One of them raised its arm and fired a concentrated beam upward. Storm barely managed to throw herself aside, but the edge of the blast caught her. Pain shot through her body as she lost control of her flight and crashed into the ground, her powers flickering erratically.

"I can’t slow them down!" Iceman shouted, his voice strained. He unleashed everything he had, flooding the battlefield in absolute zero temperatures. Ice entombed multiple Sentinels completely, freezing them solid. Cracks immediately formed. The ice shattered from the inside as the machines adjusted their internal temperature, rendering his efforts meaningless.

Johnny forced himself back to his feet, his flames weaker but still burning. "Yeah? Then we just hit harder!" He roared forward again, transforming into a blazing inferno and slamming into another Sentinel. This time, the Sentinel anticipated it. Its arm shifted into a concussive cannon and fired point-blank. The blast extinguished Johnny’s flames instantly and hurled him across the room. He hit the wall and collapsed, smoke rising faintly from his body as he fell unconscious.

MJ cried out in rage, summoning her largest construct yet. A massive psionic titan materialized above the battlefield and brought its glowing fist down onto a Sentinel with overwhelming force. The impact shook the entire facility. The Sentinel staggered for half a second before its arm reshaped into a focused emitter. It fired once. The beam pierced straight through the construct, shattering it into thousands of fragments of fading light. The backlash struck MJ directly, throwing her violently through the air.

Felicia tried to intervene, her powers twisting probability itself. A Sentinel aiming at her malfunctioned briefly, its weapon stuttering. Another stumbled unexpectedly. But luck wasn’t enough. One of them compensated, predicting the anomaly. It fired anyway. The blast grazed her side, sending her spinning to the ground with a cry of pain.

Havoc remained at Trask’s side, firing precise bursts of energy at anyone who got too close. His blasts forced Gwen, Logan, and the others to stay scattered, preventing them from regrouping. Every attempt to coordinate was crushed immediately.

Peter forced himself back to his feet again, his breathing ragged. His lightning flickered, weaker now, unstable. He looked around at his friends. Storm was injured. Johnny was down. Rogue wasn’t moving. MJ was struggling to stand. Logan was healing, but even he was slowing under the relentless assault.

They were losing, and it wasn’t just slowly. It was Inevitably.

One of the Sentinels stepped forward and fired at Iceman. The blast struck him directly, sending him crashing across the frozen floor, his ice form shattering partially before reforming weakly.

Another Sentinel targeted Logan, pinning him with a concentrated energy beam that held him in place, preventing him from moving as his healing factor struggled to keep up with the damage.

Peter clenched his fists, lightning sparking desperately.

He vanished and reappeared in front of Trask again, moving purely on instinct, ignoring the odds.

A Sentinel intercepted him instantly, its hand closing around his throat mid-movement. Peter struggled, electricity surging violently through his body and into the machine. For a moment, it worked. The Sentinel’s systems flickered.

Then it adapted.

The electricity dispersed harmlessly across its armor.

Its grip tightened.

Peter gasped, his vision blurring.

Across from him, Larry Trask watched everything unfold with a smile

Not a calm smile. Not a satisfied one. But rather an ecstatic one.

His eyes were wide with manic joy, his lips stretched into a grin that bordered on madness. "Yes," he whispered, his voice trembling with delight.

"This is perfection." He stepped forward slightly, his gaze drinking in every moment of their suffering.

"Look at them," he said softly to Havoc, though his voice carried clearly across the battlefield. "Monsters in human skin, savages who think of themselves as gods... All being brought down by human ingenuity."

(A/N: Give me ideas of what Peter could/should be capable of doing with his chi/magic because I’m drawing a blank)

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