Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 153: Sorry, Wrong Lair.

I gotta say, for defenses made circa 1987, these are pretty good, Perry thought as the massive dome came alive.

The shiny steel ‘ribs’ that adorned the ceiling twitched to life and some of them began raining down replicators on his head, while others split apart into dozens of small blasters around a singular red eye Perry’s armor was peppered with thousands of bullets and lasers, barely registering to his damage sensors.

Where’s the stuff that made Solaris afraid of him? Perry thought, walking through the hail of gunfire to the nearest ye olde robot. It wasn’t time for Paradox’ Pernacious Prison yet. Not when his suit could conserve Perry’s spells by simply tearing these things limb from limb…

Limb…from…limb, Perry thought, gritting his teeth as he tried to tear apart the ye olde 1987 robot…and failing miserably.

“To my robots, my word is a law of nature,” Professor Replica said in a lull in the gunfire, leaning back in his throne. “How do you not know that?”

“Dude, you’ve been in here for thirty six years!” Perry said. “Plenty of people don’t know that!”

“I see. No physical material can resist your might.” He said, addressing the bots. Perry sensed a tidal wave of power rushing through the room and settling in the robots.

Ah, there’s the problem Solaris had.

The robot in Perry’s grip reached out for Perry, and Perry knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if it touched him, it wouldn’t be pretty. He ducked and scrambled backwards, trying a sneaky blast of Static Shock at Professor Replica. The floor itself leapt up and interposed itself.

Right. I’m in another Tinker’s Lair. Great.

Each of the robots gave Perry the feeling of a mountain’s worth of inertia in his heightened senses as they tried to get their hands on him. They felt a bit like Mass Driver, actually.

“You can give your robots powers!?” Perry demanded, dodging the clumsy swings of the inertia-ramped guard-bots.

DIsintigrate.EXE

Static shock.EXE

Perry tried to seize a spare moment to blow a hole in the defenses around Professor Replica’s throne, but the disintegrate was caught before it was in range, and while the static shock was able to penetrate that hole, the living lightning was sucked up into one of the shiny metal tentacles hanging down from the ceiling above him, squirming like a fish on a hook.

Disintigrate.EXE

Disintigrate.EXE

XLDisintigrate.EXE

Perry tried a triple tap to pierce the Professor’s defenses and put the last XL shot through the hole. It struck a shimmering shield and passed through entirely, hollowing out the wall behind him.

That was stupid. He was fighting Solaris two days ago, of course he’s got defenses against light-based attacks. Disintegrate’s curse piggy-backed on a beam of light, after all.

Perry considered deploying Disintegrate agains this assailants, but decided against it. It would just be him treading water as hundreds more robots took their place in a matter of seconds. then Perry would run out of shots, and he’d be right back where he started.

“Faster.” Professor Replica said.

Fuckshit! Perry cursed violently in his mind as Professor Replica stacked another Law on top of the previous one, causing the attacking robots to double in speed, forcing Perry to push his reflexes to the limit and augment his dodges with tiny bursts from his jets.

You know, in hindsight, I think it would have been a good history lesson to go into detail about the less talked-about powers of Professor Replica that made him an Omni class Tinker. ‘He seemed to be able to dictate the laws of physics in regards to his creations to an extent greater than any super before him’ Does not do this justice.

The ancient bots were now about as fast as a modern Replicator, making this a very difficult game of keepaway.

“Faster.”

They doubled in speed again.

Screech! A robot’s clawed hand nearly ripped off Perry’s face before the outermost layer of his helmet crumbled into a fine lubricating black powder, allowing him to slip out of the thing’s grip. Another one missed gutting him, deflected by the armor’s same intentional fail-state, but the sheer force transferring through his armor sent Perry bouncing around the room like a pinball.

He kicked off one of the attacking bots and nearly broke his ankle despite the armor. It was like kicking Mount Everest and expecting something to happen, transferring the shock all the way up his leg. Then it whipped a hand down, crushing his leg.

“AGH!” Perry’s leg was shoved downward by unstoppable force that rivaled Mass Driver’s, except faster. Thankfully Perry’s armor made the solid steel floor seem like a soft cheese so it maintained structural integrity as the robot squished it through the steel.

This isn’t looking good. Perry thought, glancing at the Digitizer as he blasted his armor’s jets to yank his foot out. Might just press the ‘fuck it’ button and blow this entire place to hell. As long as I get outta here with the Digitizer.

Perry readied himself to bring out the big guns.

“Fast-“ Professor Replica was interrupted by a wracking cough, spattering blood across the ground in front of him. The pressure eased up instantly as the stacking Laws Professor Replica had been applying to his bots vanished into thin air.

Not gonna miss this chance. Perry briefly considered charging the professor and trying to put him out of Perry’s misery, but his security was probably better than that of the Digitizer, which he probably didn’t expect anyone to try and steal. Only destroy.

Perry turned on his jets and blasted away from the suddenly slow, weak, rickety robots, scattering them like bowling pins, readying Bloodskip.EXE

“Move. Restrain.” Professor Replica said, rising to his feet with the help of a nearby bot.

The robots appeared beside Perry the instant before he touched the Digitizer, clamping down on his wrists.

“Were you just faking a cough!?” Perry demanded, blasting the one on his left arm off with Static Shock, causing it to collapse in a smoking cherry-red heap of metal and burning circuitboards. The feint had been so believable because the man reallywas dying. Damnit!

“Invulnerable!” Professor Replica said, an instant before Perry shot the next one. The lightning coursed through the machine’s body, accomplishing nothing. An instant later, another pair of graspy clamp-hands grabbed Perry’s wrist and tried to pull it away from it’s bretheren.

Perry lifted the half-dozen robots grabbing his limbs and head, his jets screaming as he aimed to smash them against the ceiling. That might get them to let go, at least. They might be invulnerable, but they weren’t unstoppably strong

“Immovable.” Professor Replica said as he began to slowly and painfully climb down the steps leading to his throne. The Professor’s robots froze in midair, unable to be moved by any mundane means. Perry cut out his jets when his armor began to crumble against the force.

Okay, NOW they’re unstoppably strong. He was hanging five feet in the air, restrained by immovable, invulnerable robots, defying the laws of physics. This could’ve gone better.

“I’m curious why they sent you instead of Solaris.” Professor Replica said quietly as he staggered across the room, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. “This entire area was meant to be a flytrap that not even a being of light could escape…at least, not fast enough to stop me.”

“So how did you escape it?” Professor Replica asked, walking up to Perry and poking his armor.

“Let’s just say the traps in this place matched my skillset,” Perry said with a slight shrug.

If I blast my jets at full when he’s not expecting it, the propulsion might be enough to finish him off. The slender professor looked like he was on his last legs, pale, shivering, and having difficult standing upright. A simple toss across the room by a blast of air might be enough to do the trick, jostling the steel shrapnel in his gut and hastening his demise.

It was kind of a dick move, but Perry wasn’t in a position to be picky about it.

“Before I do this,” Professor Replica said as the Digitizer in front of Perry began warming up, folding in on itself in a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of silvery metal.

“…I’d like to apologize for the rough treatment, and I want to assure you, that the you I’m going to make is going to be one hundred percent, still you….with a couple caviats. If you relax, it makes the process easier.”

“Ha-ha!” Perry let out a guffaw “You’re not even the first person to tell me that today!”

“W-what?” Professor Replica asked, frowning.

“Paradox!” Wraith’s voice echoed from the other side of the massive dome-shaped arena, where she was riding on top of Hardcase’s newest mech, entering through the hole Perry had liquified earlier.

Ah, crap, what are they doing here? It’s probably been a week, at least. I guess it makes sense they’d come.

Perry seized the moment of distraction to blast his jets at full power.

BOOM! In an enclosed space, the massive thrust of the suit’s propulsion was practically an explosion.

Professor Replica was thrown violently backwards by Perry’s thrusters, tumbling through the air before his robotic walking assistant caught him, and set him down gently on the ground. The lair itself seemed to cushion his very steps. It didn’t even come close to killing him.

The surprise did, however, cut off the Professor’s Laws applied to his robots, causing Perry to fly upwards at maximum speed, pancaking himself and everything hanging on to him against the chromed steel ceiling, before falling forty feet from the vaulted steel ceiling to the unforgiving floor.

HP: 10->8

OW.

Before he could process the damage, he lunged to his feet and kicked the Digitizer in its glowing orifice.

FLASH.

The flash of body-consuming light was directed upwards, scattering harmlessly off the ceiling.

“Keep him from talking!” Perry shouted, pointing at the O.G. supervillain.

“Oh, my god, is that-“ Natalie’s modulated voice emanated from her mech.

“Yes! Move!”

Professor Replica began muttering rapid-fire under his breath, and robots began peeling themselves out of every surface, made of whatever they’d peeled themselves out of, steel, the concrete underneath, even the plumbing and smoldering bits of other robots.

They weren’t messing around either, starting off rickety and slow, but doubling in strength and speed every second.

Wraith darted through the air, slipping through dozens of bots like an eel, aiming for the professor.

An instant before Heather reached him, a strong gust of wind drove her up and backwards.

“How the hell!?” Heather shouted a moment before the wall reached out and engulfed her in a perfect steel sphere attached to the wall like a brussels sprout.

Whatever it was, Perry didn’t want her sitting in it any longer than she had to, so he whipped his hand up and shot the ball with an extra small disintegrate. Heather poured out of the baseball-sized hole in the containment while Perry tried to formulate a plan.

Same plan as before, right? grab the Digitizer and bail.

“Covering!” Hardcase shouted moments before a hail of gunfire from Boomer’s guns filled the air with lead.

They scattered off an invisible barrier in front of Professor Replica. Perry saw the man’s brows furrow, indicating Hardcase’s attack was at least drawing his attention.

“Wraith, Hardcase, What’s your exit strategy!?” Perry shouted over the constant hail of bullets.

“Exit strategy!?” Wraith demanded with a grin. “We spent everything we had just to get here! There’s millions of Replicators just outside! This place is drawing so much heat-”

BOOM!

A robot tore off the mech’s leg and beat it with it, sending a shockwave through the chamber as Boomer staggered to the side before wasting one backhand on the assailant. Seeing the robot’s invulnerability, Boomer skittered off to the side, avoiding it entirely, while its guns blasted under Natalie’s control sweeping across the horde of constructs, doing little more than shoving them back.

“Well, I’ve got one! Meet me at the digitizer! Don’t let it vaporize you.”

“Obviously!” Wraith said, sprinting the exact opposite direction he’d asked her to go, aiming for the Professor again.

She knows what she’s doing, Perry thought.

“Nat, meet me at the digitizer the instant after I get there! Outside of Boomer! I need to touch you!” Perry said, switching to Nat’s channel.

“Roger!” She said, and Boomer began to edge towards the rippling silvery machine floating in the middle of the chaotic melee.

Perry blasted his jets, carefully, crossing the room in the blink of an eye just as Heather arrived in front of Professor Replica, her arms pointed into wicked scythes. She resisted the gust of wind and almost made it to the Tinker. When Professor Replica’s assistant blocked, Heather simply oozed around it, sending a sharp spike lancing toward the world’s strongest Tinker.

A nearby bot flickered into existence in front of his creator as if it was a Law of nature, grabbing Heather’s attack. As Heather was slipping out of his grasp, two massive slabs of the floor sprng up and crushed her between them.

Behind Professor Replica, Anya lined up a shot to the back of his neck. What Perry could only describe as a ghost-robot made of a raw slurry of inert soul-stuff appeared out of the floor, blocked the attack and stabbed Anya in the chest.

An instant later, A solid steel wall was erected between Heather and her team, blocking his vision, and locking her path of escape to from Perry and Nat.

“Shit, Wraith!” Perry shouted, knowing it was a waste of breath.

“What?” Wraith asked, emerging from the floor, her body fading back into reality from ghostly ethereal. Perry wanted to yell at his friend for being reckless, or be impressed by her new abilities, but he didn’t have time for either.

“Hand!” Perry shouted, holding out his left hand.

“WHOO!” Nat shouted, jettisoning out of Boomer towards them.

Perry grabbed her hand as she flew towards them, kicking the Digitizer’s maw upward again, an instant before it fired.

FLASH.

“NOW! GRAB THE THING!” Perry shouted, flinging Heather and Nat forward, and the three of them wrapped their arms around the Digitizer as hard as they could. Heather grabbed Nat’s hand around the other side of the people-eating fax machine.

Bloodskip.EXE

“Sorry, this is gonna suck!” Perry shouted. Or we’re gonna die. You never know.

“Wha-“ Heather’s voice cut off as she began to mummify, her vibrant eyes wrinkling as all the moisture and life was sucked out of them. Same for Natalie.

***In Perry’s Lab***

A single drop of blood in a vial rested in a large empty chamber, waiting to fulfil its purpose.

Without warning, the blood began to boil and swell beyond all rational explanation, suddenly ballooning to the size of a car, shattering out of its containment before morphing into four distinct shapes, Two women, a vantablack suit of armor, and an oblong lump of metal.

“Holy…” Heather said, dragging herself to her feet and looking around, shaking the blood off of herself. “This is the lab. We’re back in Perry’s Lab!”

“WHOO!” Natalie shouted, giving Heather a high five. “We got it!” She pointed at the Digitizer resting on the ground of the receiving pad.

“We did! Hell yeah!” Heather fist-pumped before bouncing over to Perry and raising her hand. “Up top!”

The black armor that seemed to be a hole in reality just…stood there.

“Perry?” Heather asked.

“Perry!?” Natalie asked, turning away from the dormant Digitizer to approach the motionless armor.

“Perry are you in there? Don’t mess around!” Heather demanded standing on her tippie toes to peer into the visor, which accomplished nothing.

“He could be hurt or unconscious,” Natalie said, approaching the armor and putting a hand on the chestplace. “Mark seven, open. Team override: Travel size.”

“Confirmation required from two team members.” The power armor said in Perry’s smug tone, glancing at Heather.

“I swear, if he’s not dying in there, I’m gonna kill him,” Heather muttered. “Team override: Soulless ginger.”

“Acknowledged.”

The armor folded open to reveal…nothing.

Natalie’s memento necklace slash tracking device tumbled out of Perry’s clothes, which were wadded in the armor’s right leg.

“Shit.”

***Paradox***

Perry watched as Heather and Natalie died and crumbled into dust, followed by the Digitizer and his armor. Perry’s body dehydrated, mummified, wrinkled up and stiffened, a painful emptiness engulfing his entire body.

Any minute now.

Perry’s clothes turned into ash and fell away from him. From what little he could see with his ever-deteriorating eyesight, his body was like the pharaohs of old: Wrinkly, dried up, the shape and color of sun-scorched tree roots. Bones covered in leather.

Perry toppled over, his body unable to support itself, his shoulder giving out a brittle crack as it shattered on impact.

Aaany minute now…..

….

…….

Damnit.

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