Typical Parker Luck - A Peter Parker Love Story

XLVI - The Barrier Opens

King T'Challa, Steve, and Natasha began to talk with the creatures on the other side of the force field. Then, one raised her sword, giving a signal.

Dozens of impossibly large triagnular ships began to emerge from the tree line, floating up in a mass of gray smoke.

The three Avengers began to return to the front line.

"They surrender?" Bucky began, watching the metallic pieces ascend.

"Not exactly," Steve replied.

I clenched my teeth, gripping my sword. I just prayed Stark's suit would do what it was designed to do.

King T'Challa began a war cry: "Yibambe!"  he shouted and his warriors repeated, stamping their spears and shields on the ground in a fierce thrum.

Then, hundreds, no thousands of creature broke through the tree line. The were monstrous metallic beings, having six limbs and galloping impossibly fast toward the border.

"What the hell?" Bucky mumbled. I guessed he hadn't seen anything like that in his 100 years either.

These creatures made me sick to my stomach just looking at them. They were muscular, wolf-like but with a zombie mentality as they threw themselves at the shield wall, their limbs severing as they broke through.

"They're killing themselves," a Dora Milaje whispered in horror.

The creatures began to breach the shield.

The warriors took aim. Bucky did the same with his gun. I could see why he liked it. Long range, not close combat like my sword.

"You seen the teeth on those things?" Sam's voice came through my intercom causing me to jump slightly.

"Cap, if these things circle the perimeter and get in behind us," Bruce said, clad in the Hulk-Buster iron suit. "There's nothing between them and Vision."

"Then we better keep 'em in front of us," Steve replied.

"How do we do that?"

"We open the barrier," King T'Challa said.

"What?" I gulped. There were tens of thousands of creatures out there now.

The king put a hand to his ear. "On my signal, open North-West Section Seventeen," he said. "On my signal."

T'Challa stepped forward between the ranks. "Wakanda Forever!" he shouted, running forward. The fighters followed after him.

I ran, taking flight.

"Now!" the king shouted.

The barrier was opened.

"CADE, got any range weapons?" I asked my suit frantically, keeping myself above the fight as thousands of creatures rushed inside.

"I can fire the nano-scales off of your suit. But this will slowly deplete your armor protection quality. However, the nano-scales can be collected from targets and reassembled if you step in their collection range," said CADE.

"Let's do that!" I said, flapping higher. "What do I need to do to fire?"

"Flick your arm at your target and aim from your fist," CADE replied.

I did so.

A chunk of black nano-scales flew off of my suit and struck a creature in the head, killing it.

"What's the collection range?" I asked, aiming again. I could see in my mask's screen my armor quality had gone down a whole two percent. That meant I would have fifty shots before my armor was completely gone and there were definitely more than fifty creatures.

"Three feet," CADE replied.

That was a little too close for my liking.

The rest of the battle was a blur. I fired at the creatures, taking out one after another. I protected my allies when I could, killing the creatures that had overpowered them. I stayed off the ground, only dropping down to collect my nano-scales.

My wings were growing tired.

There were just too many of them.

Then, a massive beam of bright light rocketed into the earth, sending alien creatures scattering.

"Hope that's one of our guys!" I yelled into my intercom.

A flying ax spun out of the energy column, lightning sparking off of it as it chopped through every creature in its path like a knife through butter.

The light dissipated, three figures standing it its wake: a bipedal tree, a raccoon with a gun, and Thor, an ax at the ready.

Luck was on our side, moreso, a God.

Thor let out a battle cry, ran, and took to the sky, coming down with a lightning strike.

A low rumbling seemed to shake the entire Earth. Bumbling up under the dirt from the other side of the forcefield was some kind of metallic vehicle. It breached the surface, a mass of teeth emerging as the weapon clawed its way across the battlefield.

"Fall back!" King T'Challa yelled.

I flapped upward, the spinning teeth rolling just under my feet.

A wave of red magic stopped the machine in its path. Wanda had entered the battle.