(Mini-explanation. Drones are divided into four types: aviation flying off to chase Tony, ground troops armed with mini-artillery, a fleet capable of raining missiles, and Marines... just Marines.)
After assessing the prospects of my problems at failure, I felt my motivation multiply threefold. Opening fire with my machine guns, I moved to close in on the drones. Dodging their bursts, I killed two Marines with a burst and, using the body of one of them as armour, I launched myself at the landers. Throwing the rest of the drone at one of the gunners, I engaged them in close combat. Although it was hard to call it combat. Drones relied more on their armour and weapons, and when your opponent can move properly and is often behind you, you don't get much of a shot. No, he certainly tried to hit me a couple of times, but I could tell from his movements that it was definitely not what he was trained for. After crushing his hull and finally making a hole, I ripped out the mini-reactor I'd been craving. Losing access to power, the drone immediately fell "face down". I left the reactor nearby and, ripping off the big gun, I moved on to the other tin cans. I must have looked extremely strange from the outside: a humanoid wolf in technologically advanced armour beating the crap out of robots with a ripped off cannon, using it as a bat. With my new weapon and a couple of rounds from the grenade launcher, I took out 5 marines and 2 ground troops.
Again, taking out their reactors. At one point I noticed the landers assume a firing position on the approaching Stark. I immediately dashed towards them and fired 2 grenade launcher rounds at their cluster. My charges destroyed a trio of drones, but two were already starting to take aim. And at this point I must have looked like a comedy film character trying to kick down a door to no avail. I decided to interrupt their attack with a battering ram. Sprawling out and bumping into one of them with my shoulder, I simply flicked down on him.
When my gaze fell on the concrete staircase, I was able to realise the error of my ways. I hadn't taken into account that they were using the pins as stabilisers for aiming fire. But I didn't have time to interfere with their fire, even given the new information. The drone bent a bit because of my ramming, and the sight was knocked off, which allowed Stark to get his tail air force under his fire.
While I was busy with the land drones, I lost sight of the fleet. And during my stupor, it had time to point its guns at me. And turning round on them, a rain of missiles rained down in my direction. If I get hit by this attack, the armour and me along with it will be ruined. For the initial method of countermeasures, I chose a rocket salvo, which was stored from the beginning of the battle. It was a one-time thing and very valuable. The laser was useless at this point because of its directional range. The salvo had managed to remove 60-70% of the missiles that were coming at me, but the remaining part would be enough for my death, well, or a very painful recovery. And given the risk of mission failure, I can't let that happen.
I didn't have the reaction speed to pull off the final trick. So I threw 19 points into dexterity to break the threshold of the human maximum. A message popped up in front of my eyes congratulating me and the new skill given to me for passing another body limit.
Releasing the last charge from the grenade launcher, the world around me seemed to slow down and I could clearly see the grenade flying towards the rest of the rocket salvo. Waiting for the right moment, I fired a bullet that precisely hit the grenade and set off a chain reaction of explosions. I was thrown 7-8 metres away and my face was burning badly. Checking my condition, I realised that I had done a pretty good job of depilating my face and that it now had 3-4 shrapnel from the rocket plating. Taking cover from the fleet's machine gun fire behind a column, I began to retrieve the shards.
Once I got them out, I switched on the acceleration and rushed at the drones, using part of my glove as a face shield. When I got to the first one, I ripped off its launcher and fired a line from my left wristband into its temple. I threw the launcher at the second droid and after taking a second or three, I ripped off the arm of the first and, using its firing mechanism, landed a line of armour piercing rounds from its inbuilt machine gun on the launcher in its neighbour's legs. This set off a massive explosion. There wasn't much left of the second droid, but in the meantime the remaining three had time to prepare a second volley and I had to quickly retreat from the firing position. I managed to climb the stairs to the first floor and was tossed a metre up by the explosion, which tore apart the staircase I'd been on a second before.
Jumping off the balcony onto one of the droids, I used my strength and the weight of my armour to push his head right into his chest. Anyway, now if he had the armour plate on his chest ripped off, it would probably resemble a Krang cosplay. That is, of course, if he was a robot.
The last drone I took down up close. After that not-so-easy fight, I started scavenging what I could from my stashes. Additionally, disarming those droids that I didn't have time for in the heat of battle.
When I was done with them, I was missing a portion of each unit. Considering that the drones are controlled by Vanko, it was logical that he didn't let his entire mini-army go after the Stark armour-clad nooneim. And sent some of his forces to pursue his enemy. And realising where the drones would be rushing now, I advanced towards the Japanese garden under the glass dome.
***
Under the dome.
«Reboot complete. Your friend is with you again," Romanoff said, taking remote control of Vanko's Warrior armour.
«'Thank you very much, Agent Romanoff,' Stark replied, trying to catch his breath from the dynamic aerial chase.
«Your new chest device is more powerful, and according to your vitals, you're no longer dying. Does that have anything to do with your new friend? - The Widow asked, trying to figure out what Ryan Pierce had to do with this whole situation.
«What friend? - Tony asked, trying to play dumb.
«Are you dying?! - Before the Widow could continue the dialogue, Pepper, who had suddenly appeared here, began to ask for important information.
«Oh, Pepper, you're here too. No. Not anymore," Tony assured her, realising that even if he made it out of this battle alive, it wasn't certain that he'd stay that way after seeing Miss Potts in person.
«What's going on? - Pepper demanded an explanation.
And this verbal scuffle could have gone on all evening, but the disappearing Hammer drones were already a few seconds away from Tony and Rowdy's location, which the Widow reported, interrupting their dialogue.
***
As I approach the Japanese garden, I notice a couple dozen drones descending from the sky. Where do they come from? I'd just missed nine of them, and there were already twenty of them. Cybernetic budding?
I got to them right in the middle of the fight and, taking advantage of the surprise effect, I jumped four metres up and, diving, punched two Hummer-bots in the chest.
«Kid? - Tony asked, trying not to be distracted by my appearance.
«Yeah," I replied briefly, raining bullets down on another ironclad.
«You're kind of...
«Are you mad? - I clarified with a smirk, which, given my appearance, probably looked creepy now.
«Well, I was going to say baked, but that's fine," Stark said, firing mini-missiles from the suit's wrists.
«Mutant? - Rowdy asked, staying focused and mowing down the enemies with the greatest efficiency of any of us, thanks to a machine gun controlled by a weak AI.
«Yeah," I replied, smashing the drone's head in.
When we were almost pinned down, and a couple more seconds and we would have been back-to-back, Tony shouted:
«Get down!
Whereupon lasers shot out of the top of his hand. This method of firing was somewhat reminiscent of the way Venom in the 90's cartoon used the web.
After Stark's attack, there were no more functional drones to be found.
«They're booby-trapped. We need to get the reactors out of them," I said, getting to work.
«Natasha, tell security that the drones are booby-trapped! - Tony instantly relayed the information.
«I disarmed everyone at the Expo a long time ago, and unless there's a new batch, there's no danger," I reassured Stark and Rhodes.
After a minute of ripping the reactors out of the drones, I heard an alert from Natasha about a new enemy. It seemed Vanko had finally realised that if you want something done, do it yourself.
Vanko landed in front of us, his helmet tucked very coolly into his suit.
«'Glad to join you...
«I want to do the same, - I said mesmerised, interrupting Ivan's words.
«What?" Stark didn't understand.
«I'm saying that this is how my helmet should work, - patiently explained, I pointing towards Vanko's head.
«Believe me, beast, this is not the best part of my armour, - Ivan said and released his whips.
«It's not good," the Warrior said quietly.
«Tony, can you do that again? - Rowdy asked.
«No. It's a 60% charge attack," Stark muttered, preparing for battle.
«Then stand back, I'm going to smash this tin can with my ex-wife! - said Rowdy and took a firmer stance.
«With what? - Stark and I asked at the same time.
It took one and a half to two seconds to prepare for the super-boom, and it ended with a fizzle and a fade out. Explain to me: How can a rocket engine fade out from falling into a hole???? HOW??? Where does this man even get his money from if he's selling such rubbish?
«Hammer made it? - Tony clarified, already realising who the creator of this thing was.
«Yeah..." Rowdy replied doomedly.
«I'll take care of it. - With these words, Stark fired a pack of shells directly into Vanko's face.
Unfortunately, his armour managed to expose his helmet before they would have taken his life.
Ivan then started hitting us with his whips, which did a good job of burning through the armour and ripping chunks of it off as they touched. Rowdy, who opened fire, immediately lost his machine gun, and Stark, who had tried to take the high ground, was gently dropped with his back against the rocks. I rushed into the melee with all my speed, hoping for a lack of experience with the size of my armour. As I got closer, I threw a punch under his ribs, which only managed to dent Vanko's armour a little. He turned around and was about to whip me when I activated the laser and, after squeezing everything I could out of the attack, burned through his armour and then sliced the fuck out of his arm. Though he didn't lose blood as the laser took care of the cauterisation, but his combat potential was noticeably reduced after losing his right arm.While Vanko was swearing at me in Russian, Stark recovered and rammed him from the back, dragging him face down a couple of dozen metres. The warrior kept pouring lead into Ivan's helmet, preventing him from concentrating on the system's screens. As Rowdy continued firing, he got too close, and Vanko took advantage of that and threw a punch that knocked the Warrior back and gave Ivan at least a few seconds of silence. The Iron Man, on the other hand, was caught in the embrace of the energy web, and his armour began to melt. I, realising that even a wounded Vanko was a threat, and seeing where the fight was going, took a risky step.
I approached him and launched my attack, forcing him to turn his attention to me. Realising that Stark was already sufficiently cooked and wouldn't be able to engage anytime soon, Ivan let go of Stark's suit and, increasing his whip charge, decided to deal with the more problematic surprise. First I destroyed most of the drones, which reduced Stark's problems, then I stripped him of his arm. All in all, I'm probably second on his list of enemies now, and just a little short of Iron Man.
His whip flew towards me from behind and, as if possessing consciousness, spun around so much that my right side armour was pierced through with its end. That was what I was hoping for, because in wolf form I can increase my height a bit by 20-30cm and lose a bit of my body size because of it. Not much, but in armour that was originally a couple of sizes bigger, I was able to push my torso to the left pretty well so that my side didn't get punched, but just fried to a WELL DONE state.
I grabbed the end of the whip with my gauntlets, which were beginning to melt to my skin, and, shouting to the Warrior to hold his arm, I approached Ivan's armour, turning the intimidation to maximum. My side hurts like hell, I can barely feel my arms, and the worst part is that I smell good.
As I endured the pain and the tempting odour, I reached right up to Vanko's breastplate, and with all my might I stabbed his generator with the tip of my whip. Now his own strongest weapon has become his prison. Without power, it's just a very cool and heavy coffin. Rowdy knocks Ivan out with a punch to the face. I, on the other hand, slowly pull that tentacle out of my armour and fall on my back. Tony, lying on his back a couple of metres away from us, pulls down the visor of his helmet and asks:
«Did we win?
«Yes..." I reply briefly and tiredly.
«Sort of," Warrior says, kicking Vanko.
«Great. - Stark puts his hand up in the air.
***
patreon.com/posts/im-for-hydra-130376553