[One Hour Later – Tony's Lab] [Shield base]
The hum of Tony's equipment filled the lab. Robotic arms moved across the workbench as he layered chemical agents with cosmic radiation. He was building a bio-weapon that could tear Sublime out at the cellular level without harming the host. His visor lit with streams of calculations, hundreds of simulations running per second. Still, every few moments his gaze flicked to the surveillance wall.
Outside, war had broken loose.
The Brotherhood, the Hellfire Club, and multiple groups of mercenaries were hammering the Shield Base. The feed showed them hitting the perimeter with shock cannons, drones, and enhanced mutants. The base shook with each blast, but the adaptive shields were holding just fine.
The Ultimates were already in the fight.
Tony knew that Forge was with the Brotherhood, and there was a possibility that he was nearby and analyzing his tech. So, he simply told the team to use the basic suits for this battle.
[Outside]
Natasha cut through the mercenaries like a ghost from within their ranks thanks to the stealth mode that rendered her invisible. The nanite suit shimmered over her body, every movement calculated and precise. She used non-lethal weapons for now.
"To think all these people are being controlled," She said while shooting electric darts.
Yelena fought right beside her. Where Natasha was surgical, Yelena was ruthless. "Hahaha! This is so fun. One for you, one for you, and you can have two," She laughed while throwing shock discs that stuck to mercenaries and detonated with crackling energy. The suits they wore had adaptive resistance, but they were not perfect. Yelena moved fast, closing gaps before enemies could reset and beat the shit out of them with a happy smile.
Johnny scorched the battlefield from above. He rained fire on armored vehicles and drones, forcing enemy lines to scatter. The counter-tech in their suits dampened some of his heat, but it didn't make them immune.
Nat yelled from below, "Johnny, incoming reinforcement up north."
He noticed the oncoming helicopters and jets. "Leave it to Johnny." He turned the sky into a wall of flame, cutting off the air reinforcements.
Ben was on the ground, holding the line against waves of enhanced mutants. His rocky fists smashed through their energy shields like paper. They hit him with flame, electricity and even threw poison darts at him, but it was useless against him.
"That barely tickled," He smashed his fists on the ground, creating a massive shockwave that threw those mutants away a few feet from their location.
Janet van Dyne zipped through the chaos. She shrank to avoid targeting systems, stung mercenaries with focused plasma shots, then returned to full size to slam them into the dirt. She darted around Ben's bulk, keeping his blind spots covered.
Sue was the shield. She was easily nullifying the barrage of attacks and using her shield to annoy the enemies. Explosives detonated harmlessly against her walls of light. She pushed enemies back with bursts of invisible energy, then covered Johnny when he needed to recharge.
Ghost was phasing through squads to rip out weapons or disable suits with surgical strikes. The mutants targeted him, but Ghost kept moving, always two steps ahead, his voice crackling in their comms: "You're wasting your bullets and power."
Pietro blurred across the battlefield. He was disarming enemies, stealing weapons, punching those mutants who picked on him or badmouthed him behind his back during his time in the Brotherhood, and tripping them before they even realized he was there. He worked with Wanda in tandem, dragging enemies into her line of sight before darting away.
And Wanda… Well, let's just say those poor bastards will feel the pain even after this battle is over.
Her chaos energy tore apart drones midair. She ripped weapons from soldiers' hands, bent metal into cages, and detonated enemy mechs from the inside out. She even squeezed out multiple Sublime's bacteria from the enemies and destroyed them with overwhelming power. If there were fifty or even a hundred infected, she could have squeezed the bacteria from their bodies, but before her were too many infected. She wanted to use a grand scale move, but without proper control, she could kill everyone. So, she was taking it slow.
"Where the hell did they get these mechas? Where the hell are our mechas?" Pietro asked as he stopped before Wanda.
"That's why I keep telling you to listen and read the files," Wanda said with a sigh. "There's a mutant who can analyze technology and counter them. So, we are keeping it as simple as possible without involving high-tech suits and mechas."
[Inside the base]
Lorna stayed inside, suited up and restless. Tony had ordered her to defend the inner base, not the outer battlefield. Her HUD displayed the fight in real time. She clenched her fists each time she saw mercenaries swarming her siblings.
She wanted to fight. Every part of her screamed to throw herself into the fray. But she also knew Tony's order wasn't optional. If the base fell, if the labs were breached, the entire war would be lost in seconds. So she stayed ready.
[Back to Tony]
Tony's eyes narrowed at the surveillance feed. Something was off.
The mutant power suppressors weren't working even after cranking them to max settings. The Brotherhood mutants in the fight weren't just resisting—they were wearing nanite suits that countered his own tech. He zoomed in on the footage, pausing on the signature of the energy fields.
Forge.
Tony grinned despite himself.
"Finally," he muttered. "A worthy challenge."
He refocused on the weapon. The nanite assembly completed another stage, layering the silvery liquid with Tony's cosmic energy. The design was ready, but the calibration needed absolute precision. One mistake and the bioweapon would burn out human hosts along with Sublime. He worked fast but meticulously, hands steady even as the base shook from impacts outside.
[Outside]
The Brotherhood's main team pressed harder.
Mystique led squads of mutants, her shifting form sowing confusion. One moment she was a mercenary, firing from behind their own lines. The next she was Natasha, causing allies to hesitate before Yelena cut them down.
"Darn it! The scanners aren't working on the mutants. They got adaptive nanites. And just as Tony predicted... Forge is upgrading them on the go. Be careful, everyone," Natasha warned the team.
"Can't we just shoot them with the cure?" Janet flew down and stood beside her.
"That's what they want," Natasha replied. "If we do that, I'm pretty sure they will twist the scenario and will put the blame on us for curing mutants against their wishes. Then they will say that they attacked because we are forcefully curing them and experimenting on them. We need to get rid of that parasite first."
"Ah! The same old tactics. I guess they are on standby and just waiting for us to make a mistake. Probably, some journalists or news channel guys. And, looks like they got a healer mutant among them. So, it's gonna be a long night," Janet replied as she shot multiple bioelectric darts toward a group of mutants.
Blob waded into the fight, shrugging off plasma fire from the nearby turrets as his bulk absorbed hit after hit.
"What the hell are you? A blob of fat?!" Ben said as he looked at Blob.
"Did you just call me Blob?" Blob shifted his attention toward Ben. His fist was already before Ben's face.
"Yeah. What are you gonna do about it?" Ben Grimm stepped forward to meet him, the ground cracking beneath their blows as rock met immovable flesh.
Avalanche shook the battlefield, sending shockwaves that cracked the base's outer walls. Sue reinforced them instantly, but the shockwaves rattled her bones. Pietro blurred across the tremors, pulling teammates clear of collapsing ground.
Sue wrapped Avalanche inside her barrier and yanked him up into the sky before slamming him down on the ground.
Colossus slammed into Johnny mid-flight, his steel form gleaming even under flames. Johnny blasted him point-blank, but it wasn't enough to hurt his organic steel. The two crashed into the ground in a fiery explosion.
Wanda's chaos magic flared, throwing Colossus back.
"Thanks, Red," Johnny said with a salute before throwing a beam of fire at Colossus, before he could get back up. "Time to heat up the silver kettle."
...
[Back to Tony]
Tony barely blinked at the chaos on the screens. He trusted his team. His job was to end Sublime before this infection became unstoppable.
The weapon was almost ready. The containment vials pulsed faintly with the bacteria Wanda had extracted earlier. They reacted to his presence, as if aware of what he was building.
"Not today," Tony muttered. "You don't get to win."
The nanites shifted, sealing the bioweapon into dispersal modules. He coded delivery systems, keyed to his network. Airborne and injectable.
The lab in his main base has already created enough dosage to cover the Earth's atmosphere.
"Hermes, deploy them," Tony tapped the command.
"Affirmative. The cure will be airborne in 10 minutes," Hermes replied.
"Nice," Tony said, standing up and cracking his knuckles. His eyes went toward a red blip on the base map. "Using the chaos to infiltrate, huh?! Probably, Forge or Mystique. Well, time to stretch my legs."
...
[Meanwhile]
Mystique took advantage of the chaos and used her shapeshifting ability to enter the base. Her main goal is to locate Magneto and the others and free them. But she stopped when she saw Lorna standing near the blast door that leads directly to the cell.
"Going somewhere?" Lorna said as she aimed her palm toward Mystique, who was in Tony's form. The repulsor point glowed on her palm.
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