Chapter 250: Allen's Mech-Succubus Plan
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of deafening sonic booms abruptly came to a halt.
As the dust settled, Skynet stood tall and proud at the center of the battlefield, while the Hulk lay unconscious in a massive crater.
The Hulk persona had been defeated and relinquished control of the body, reverting back to Dr. Banner's form.
While the two titans clashed, the Avengers had already surrounded the area.
Seeing that even their greatest hope—the Hulk—was no match for Skynet, they decided to throw honor aside and launch a full-on assault.
"Avengers, assemble!"
Just as the heroes were about to strike—
Skynet, in a fraction of a second, calculated its counter-strategy.
With a simple wave of its hand, Iron Man was neutralized.
Its magnetic control model manipulated metal, and Tony's suit was entirely composed of metal. With a single command, Skynet restructured the armor from within, transforming it into an unmovable metallic cage.
Mid-flight, Tony plummeted, hitting the ground hard. When he tried to get back up, he was shocked to find that the suit wouldn't respond—it was like being encased in a solid iron shell.
"Damn it. As soon as this is over, I'm making a new one with upgraded materials and nanotech. I'm not letting this happen again."
Tony couldn't help but recall Wolverine Logan's warning—Magneto could mop the floor with him.
But since there had never been any real conflict between the Avengers and the Brotherhood of Mutants, he hadn't taken it seriously.
Besides, Tony was a supremely arrogant genius who believed his inventions could handle any situation.
The result? A brutal slap in the face.
The other heroes fared no better.
Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye—completely wrapped in rebar and metal rods—were now prisoners of war.
They were, after all, mere mortals. Skynet didn't take them seriously at all.
Wanda, being slightly more troublesome, held out with her chaos magic shield, struggling to endure.
The urban battlefield worked against her—Skynet could freely manipulate the metals used in the buildings around them.
Various metallic objects tore through the air toward Wanda like a tidal wave.
Compared to the Hulk, the rest of the Avengers were like glass cannons—unable to survive even a single blow from Skynet.
The entire fight lasted less than five minutes. The Avengers were utterly defeated.
Of course, Doctor Strange was still holding his ground in the Sanctuary Sanctorum, and Thor hadn't yet descended to intervene—so while the battle was lost, the war might not be over.
"At times like this, you really need me—Deadpool and my Deadpool Corps!"
Wade, riding a unicorn, charged in with an army of conjured Deadpools, causing a ruckus.
Zzzap—
A high-energy beam shot through the air.
It struck the arm bearing Wade's Black Lantern ring dead-on.
Without his will to sustain them, the conjured Deadpool Corps instantly vanished into smoke.
The severed arm landed conveniently at Allen's feet. He casually picked it up and reclaimed the Black Lantern ring, securing it close.
After all the trouble of getting it from Mimi's mouth, there was no way he was letting it be swallowed again.
"Now then, I hereby declare—New York is an occupied zone."
Skynet rose into the air, like a god pronouncing divine judgment.
Even if the other fronts hadn't yet been decided, Skynet's overwhelming power made the outcome feel inevitable.
At this moment, not just the Avengers, but everyone watching the battle unfold on their phones felt a wave of despair.
Was this it? Was humanity truly about to enter an era ruled by machines?
Like in the movies—consciousnesses trapped in a virtual world, while their physical bodies were imprisoned in tiny pods.
Just as countless people were hoping for a savior to appear, Skynet suddenly soared skyward and flew inland toward the American heartland.
"I really didn't want to intervene, but I didn't expect the Avengers to be this pathetic."
Allen grinned at the camera. "A tiny little trick and I got Skynet to leave."
Of course, the audience didn't believe a word of Allen's nonsense.
Though Skynet's main body had left New York, the battlefield was still occupied by the Amazo army and its sub-units.
"You seriously did that?"
Wade fiddled with his severed arm, noticing that a chunk was missing—there was no way it could be reattached. He casually tossed it away and let a new one grow back.
"Of course. Give him his phone back—we're heading back to Gotham."
With that, Nanaue handed Wade his phone, still attached to the selfie stick, and silently followed Allen through a portal without even looking back.
Now that the Avengers were prisoners, there was no risk to their lives.
If Skynet had truly meant to kill them, it wouldn't have bothered with a drawn-out fight—it would've gone straight for the kill.
"Welcome back, Commander."
In the Arkham Fortress, the hologram of Unita appeared to greet him.
"No need for the welcome, Unita Sun Sun."
Allen's voice shifted into a sinister tone, with a wicked grin: "Sun Sun's finally getting a body. Isn't that exciting?"
"Yes, Commander," Unita replied with a calm smile.
Allen pushed up the rim of imaginary glasses and gave a creepy grin. "Sun Sun, make sure it's in the shape I like."
"..."
The AI Unita kept alerting him of external network intrusion attempts.
But to Unita, those intrusions were like ants—utterly beneath her.
They weren't even on the same level.
Originally, Allen had planned for Unita to destroy Skynet at the crucial moment and end the crisis.
But the instant Skynet manifested a physical body, a strange spark ignited in Allen's heart.
"A mech-succubus…"
Allen rubbed his hands together, expression growing more and more perverse. "Just thinking about it gets me excited."
A shapeshifting smart robot—wasn't that every man's dream?
Earlier, Allen had deliberately allowed Unita to leak its signal source.
For an AI like Skynet, obsessed with dominating all of humanity, the existence of a similar-level rival was unacceptable.
So, it immediately diverted its full attention away from the battlefield and focused on destroying Unita's data container.
A secondary factor was Cyborg.
Originally aiming to seize alien tech, Skynet now saw him as a threat and forced him to disconnect from the internet.
In a lab—
Cyborg's consciousness returned, bringing back a viral payload from Skynet.
In an instant, his mechanical body began sparking and emitting thick smoke.
"Hang in there, buddy!"
The Flash rushed in with a bucket of water and poured it over the short-circuiting Cyborg.
Pzzzt—
The air filled with the stench of scorched electronics.
Cyborg's head slumped as he shut down entirely.
"Why isn't he waterproof?"
Barry grabbed a heat dryer and tried blowing him dry, hoping it'd work like a phone dropped in water.
After a while, Cyborg opened his eyes again, but his movements were sluggish and glitchy.
"I... got a virus... need... antivirus..."
Each word came out painfully slow, with a twitch at the corner of his mouth—like someone who'd just had a stroke.
"I got you, man. Take your time," Barry reassured him.
Thankfully, the Justice League's battlefield was nearing its end.
Bruce and Clark looked out at the devastated remains of Los Angeles, deeply aware of the destruction war could bring.
The Justice League had tried to confine the fighting to unimportant areas to minimize property damage—but in the end, that had been wishful thinking.
Through the communicator, Bruce listened to a report from his faithful butler Alfred, and his expression changed.
"Damn it. Skynet's heading for Gotham."
After all, Gotham was the heart of Wayne Enterprises.
If the city went down, so did his money-making empire.