The towering walls of Tony Stark’s Bastion stood firm and unbroken in the middle of the endless wasteland. There were no structures around beyond some bunkers and concrete rubble that couldn’t stand the test of nuclear weapons. Inside the walls that held off the deadly, toxic air of the wasteland were multiple layers where the citizens resided. The outermost area constituted the slums and held a modest two to three hundred thousand people. These people barely had the basic necessities and were essentially the cannon fodder that would hold off the abominations in case there was ever a breach of the walls. Another, slightly smaller wall kept them separated from the main area of the Bastion. Speaking of which, the main city was an entirely different beast compared to the slums that barely held stable houses for the people. The main city had a solid population of over a million people and was the prime definition of a cyberpunk society, with everything governed by JARVIS.
Unlike Alex’s Prime Bastion, this place held a fully functioning society with multiple schools, universities, hospitals, and the like. People held actual jobs here, like running coffee shops, working in fast food, and even more demanding jobs, like working in factories or building unique creations to combat the monsters outside remotely. Of course, it had the advantage of time on its side. The Prime Bastion had barely existed for a single year, while Tony Stark’s Bastion had been established for almost a decade now. It had been created when the nuclear wars had just started, so it was able to pull in all sorts of able people who could contribute to the development of the city and recreate the elements of a functioning society, like schools, hospitals, universities, and more. Such development was especially focused on preserving the knowledge of the human race. When the aliens called the Kree invaded their planet, the Bastion stood strong as one of the most powerful resistance forces against them. It held strong against their countless assaults all the way until their planet itself was transported into another reality.
At the center of this teeming city of war was the symbol of its stability and power that it possessed. A massive tower that went all the way up into the sky with no end in sight. The existence of that tower represented something important for the people of the bastion. It represented a future. It represented something beyond just the mundanity of their regular life, trapped in a single place for their entire lives as they ended. The tower was a space elevator that played a massive role in the war against the Kree. It was responsible for dealing them some of the most impactful blows against the invading forces. On this day, almost a decade after the establishment of the Bastion, this symbol of its power and stability was broken.
They all made enquiries to the city’s central AI about what was going on, but all they got was silence. The thunder got louder, and the sky started turning darker. The city’s defences seemed to be completely down and unable to do anything about the spreading darkness that covered the space elevator. As the minutes passed, the sounds of thunder got too loud for the people to bear, forcing them to get into buildings, and even then, they had to clasp their hands over their ears to endure the loud sounds.
Soon, all of that thunder struck down. Hundreds of thick lightning bolts struck the base of the space elevator, being blocked by a blood-red shield that held it off. The lightning continued its assault on the rest of the tower as the deafening sounds finally reached the citizens, making almost all of them scream out loud in pain. Soon, the darkness reached the blood-red shield at the base and was blocked, similar to the lightning. At that time, a lightning bolt as thick as the tower itself struck the exposed part. Instantly, all of the lightning stopped, and the only sound was the cracking of the tower as it broke and started to fall down.
Before panic could ensue among the citizens, the tower started disappearing in parts and within a few seconds was nowhere to be seen, leaving nothing but a blood-red shield at its base.
Just as it seemed that the dust was about to settle, a powerful earthquake assaulted the entire city, which shook everything and had the citizens reeling in shock after they dealt with the unbearably loud thunder. It was at this point that ninety widows silently appeared in various parts of the city and started moving toward the more crowded areas. They had a certain compelling aura that made their words undeniable to the panicked citizens. Despite the women being entirely unfamiliar to them and wearing what seemed like the garments of assassins, they all followed their directions of the women without question.
One of them, with blonde hair coming out of the back of her head in a ponytail, and especially prominent five-lined glowing red stripes over her outfit, was acting as the leader. They were all communicating with each other through intercoms and worked with such meticulous coordination that they were able to take full advantage of the temporary compelling aura that they had. With their natural capabilities, they were quickly able to set up a functioning system that methodically moved the citizens underground through multiple exit points. It seemed that, magically, parts of the area under the Bastion had been hollowed out and formed into escape tunnels that led all of the citizens away from the Bastion. As they reached below, they found more people waiting for them, who guided them further. The assassin women who guided them stayed on the surface, continuing the evacuation efforts. Clearing the almost one and a half million population of the Bastion was going to take a while, and they had to be hands-on with the evacuation if they wanted to make sure that everything kept moving smoothly.
On the other hand, the source of the Earthquake and constant tremors that shook the entire bastion came in the form of a terrifying creature outside the walls. A nine-foot-tall, sleek, feminine figure with red and blue streaks glowing all over her body stood. Four tentacles extended out from her back and stabbed into the wall, holding her in place as she took a few steps backward with some difficulty as the tentacles tried to pull her toward the wall. Her head was only partially exposed, such that her brunette hair flowed freely, but her face was covered by a black mask. She pulled herself against the tentacles’ pull and raised her arm as if about to punch forward. With a throaty growl, her feet left the ground, and she flew forward, punching the wall with all her strength.
A cloud of dust erupted from the force of her punch as the ground shook violently, spreading its tremors all around and shaking the entire city’s foundation. Yet, as the dust settled, the wall was still just as solid as it had been before, without a single crack.
The sleek figure attempted to punch and break the wall a few more times, but it was useless and only resulted in even more tremors that made the evacuation efforts of the ninety or so women more difficult.
After a while, the figure released an audible huff and raised her arms in defeat.
“Fine, I can’t destroy it myself. I need you to help me,” she said.
[These walls held off an invasion by the Kree. If your basic Low Cosmic strength was enough to break them, the humans inside wouldn’t have stood a chance. These walls have tens of different elements mixed into a sustainable and nigh-unbreakable alloy. It includes all sorts of rare earth metals and extra-terrestrial metals like Vibranium and Adamantium that connect the wall all the way down to the continent’s tectonic plates.]
“If you are done sucking the wall’s dick, can we get to it? I’m getting impatient.”
[Punch again.] The tentacles detached themselves from the walls as Laura stepped back before charging toward the wall.
She shouted loudly before her claw instinctively extended outward. She planted her foot right in front of the wall before punching forward.
The force of the punch caused the entire continent to shake as tsunamis rose up in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. A massive cloud of dust rose up from her position as a chunk of the wall broke entirely and shot forward, decimating a significant part of the slums. It would have killed thousands of people, but this was the first area that was evacuated by the Widows.