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A Leader? Nope, I am More of a Follower Chapter 4: Out of Their League
Metal screamed as something slammed into a support structure. Someone screamed further off in the distance. Ox immediately stepped between Sebastian and the sound.
“Trouble.”
Sebastian’s future sight flared instinctively. “Yeah.”
He looked towards the other side of the warehouse. “That couldn’t have been Montana.”
Another impact shook the building. “It wasn’t. We would know if it was him.”
Sebastian’s stomach dropped when the ceiling exploded. Chunks of steel and concrete rained downward, and Sebastian threw up both of his hands. The motion was followed by his telekinesis snapping outwards, making several pieces of debris stop in midair before dropping harmlessly around them.
Through the enormous hole in the ceiling came a figure in armored red and silver. He hovered a dozen meters in the air, looking around at the various crates. Before he looked in their direction, Sebastian leaped to the side, hiding amidst the gaps between numerous crates and the shadows they cast.
The most striking feature of the armored figure that gave away who he was was the whips of electricity that crackled from his mechanical gauntlets.
Ox recognized him immediately, and before he could make an attempt to be scarce, Whiplash had already zeroed in on him.
“Whiplash.” Ox stared up at him, saying his name to keep his focus on him after he noted Sebastian had enough sense to get to cover. He made sure the comms were on when he said his name. Montana cursed, and Fancy Dan said they were on their way over.
The armored villain slowly descended, his gaze sweeping over the warehouse and at the crates Ox had open near him.
“Ox. I’m here for the old equipment Stark has in this place. Someone wants it, and I’m here to supply it. I’m willing to let you walk away. Consider it a professional courtesy.” Whiplash said with a Russian accent that his helmet couldn’t hide.
Ox glanced back towards the crates and then at the villain known for tangling with Iron Man, one of the most famous heroes on Earth. The man that wore an advanced suit of armor and could stand amongst the strongest beings as a part of the Avengers.
Ox let out a sigh. “Can’t let you.”
Whiplash paused before he nodded. His arm jerked to the side. The next moment a tendril filled with glowing electricity carved through one of the crates that wasn’t Star Tech.
Ox had already dived past it, grabbing a crate and tossing it at the armored man. Two snaps of his whips and the crate was cleaved to pieces, flying past him. He flew through the air, staying above Ox before landing. Ox at least didn’t have to worry about trying to get to him in the air.
Not that it would help him much against an armored suit that was capable of making someone like Iron Man take him seriously.
Sebastian swallowed while crouched behind a crate some distance from the two. His heart hammered in his chest in both fear and excitement. Yet he was stuck here. He was scared to get involved… yet he wanted to be a part of something like this.
And Ox needed him. He wasn’t about to bail on the guy. He may not have known him for long, but he liked the guy.
“Ox, I’m going to help you. Just trust me and do your best and keep pressuring the guy.” Sebastian told him over the comms.
“Just stay hidden, don’t reveal yourself to Whiplash.” Ox said with surprising determination.
Whiplash didn’t waste any time before he snapped his mechanical whips outward. It happened too fast for Ox to dodge, so the big guy did the only thing he could do -- he raised his arms to block it.
The first strike slammed into him, making him stagger back and grimace in pain when the jolts of electricity ran through his body and a segment of his suit on his arm was damaged, leaving a glowing gash across it.
The second strike, Ox predicted it and managed to avoid it, then charged for Whiplash. The man in the suit was arrogant and, in doing so, had underestimated Ox because of his suit.
That’s when he found a massive fist slamming into his armor, knocking the man several meters back, crashing into a crate, and splintering and cracking the wood.
Sebastian spread his power across the battlefield. The moment Whiplash rose from the crate, raining splinters and wood chips from his armored frame, his next step shifted slightly. It was subtle, something he wouldn’t have noticed when the force of his own momentum and imbalance made it difficult to tell what was his own doing and what wasn't, making his footing become worse.
Flashes of what could be flitted across Sebastian’s consciousness, no different than grains of sand amidst a sandstorm made up of countless possibilities.
They needed to get the crates. They weren’t about to leave empty-handed nor run with their tails between their legs when someone in a heavier weight class when it came to villainy showed up. Above all else, despite how scared Sebastian felt, just like he did with Sabretooth, he let his powers become his confidence and courage.
Ox noticed Whiplash’s footing wasn’t secure and drove forward like a runaway freight train with surprising speed. Sebastian could already imagine the man’s eyes widening under that helmet. The armored man’s arms came up to block.
Sebastian nudged a loose piece of metal across the floor that Ox stepped on, his eyes going wide in surprise. Instead of falling like a clumsy oath, Ox’s momentum let him use it to pivot so instead of his fist getting blocked, the sudden change in direction and momentum slammed his shoulder into Whiplash, where he wasn’t blocking.
The armored man grunted with physics catching up with him. He was sent tumbling back into several more crates, sending wood chips raining.
“That’s how we do it!” Sebastian fist pumped while Ox smiled happily, thankful Sebastian was here for this job even if he couldn’t help directly.
Sebastian himself was drawn up short when his telekinesis couldn’t do anything to the guy in the suit. All of it slid off his suit, no better than rain against a windshield. He couldn’t directly use his telekinesis on him just like with the Enforcers. For whatever reason, his power didn’t work on people or living tissue nor whatever they wore. Yet it worked on himself…
His powers had some weird limitations, and he hoped this was the only one. But he had plenty of ammunition to use, so there was that.
Sebastian paused for a brief moment. One of the whips was brushed against by his invisible grip. It veered off, missing Ox’s shoulder by a foot, slamming into a series of crates and breaking them to pieces.
Whiplash growled when those crates were Stark tech and the items stored inside were torn and destroyed. He had been trying his best to not damage them. The Russian, having had enough when Ox was about to charge him, fired an energy blast from one of his gauntlets.
Ox was fast enough to narrowly avoid the blast. Sebastian moved just enough and looked to his right, seeing the gaping hole left through the various crates. That’s where his head had been a moment ago.
He gulped before several more shots, all aimed at Ox, who managed to evade the shots, and Sebastian danced for his life. Like a marionette, he let his visions guide him, with some coming far too close, and the visions almost failed him.
Posed up like a modern art sculpture, he stood on one leg in a weird pose with the edges of his suit smoking with the tall tale sign of orange at the burn marks. The crates in front and behind had been turned into Swiss cheese.
“Montana, Dan, where the hell are you two?!” Sebastian hissed into the communicator built into his gas mask.
“Don’t get lippy with me, boy.” He said with some heat. The sound of his shock gauntlets firing off in the distance gave Whiplash pause. Just in time when Ox jumped over it like a pro jump rope player, Sebastian did the limbo, feeling his back protest at the sudden angle shift.
His eyes went wide as the entire steel rack groaned after its support had just been melted and slashed through like butter. It tilted ominously towards him.
“Oh fuck me.” He whispered to himself and the group without realizing.
“Rookie?!” Ox asked in horrified concern.
“Focus on the Russian dickhead.” He blurted out in a panic, scrambling to get away. He wasn’t going to make it.
His telekinesis pushed back against the thing, but the steel rack might stop, but the crates weren’t. His feet scrambled across the floor, shuffling in a mad panic. Then the memory of a young Tony finishing the roller skates tapped his foot against the ground in a specific pattern.
Taking a foot and smacking it against the floor while running for his life when the air above him turned dark. A quick glance had his heart feel like death was gripping it when nothing but several dozen massive crates filled with heavy equipment was coming down right on top of him.
The pattern was done, and he hoped his sightseeing into the past of the item hadn’t failed him. Just when four crates were about to crush him and his telekinesis was going into overdrive to block the bulk of them, the wheels came down.
“Whoa!” One moment he was struggling to keep his creeping death at bay. The next, he was zipping past everything.
He was easily going about forty miles an hour if he had to hazard a guess. Leaning left and right, jumping over various hazards, he weaved through the battlefield like a pro roller skater. His saving grace was his future sight. Even with his talent in fighting and knowing it was helping him here, his instincts honed to almost a razor's edge, he couldn’t have managed this without the future being played out before his eyes.
Whiplash cursed in Russian, seeing what he had done, and was now angry. That anger was directed at Ox. His whips were about to slam into the man who was currently sprawled on his back against a fallen steel rack.
“I need back up.” Ox said breathlessly and in pain.
Sebastian pivoted and took a turn with his telekinesis, he made a ramp out of a fallen crate. He leaned lower for less air resistance, feeling the rush of the air against him, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
The skates moved even faster, going up to sixty miles an hour. At this speed Sebastian relied entirely on future sight. He almost fell a few times from random chunks of wood but salvaged it and kept his momentum going.
“You got it, Ox.”
Before his coworker could respond, Sebastian rocketed up the ramp and shot high into the air. Whiplash was ready to deal the finishing blow, and when his whip went behind him, an invisible force tugged at it, and the end wrapped around a steel support for a rack behind Whiplash.
Whiplash turned his head towards a chain hanging above that rattled and drew his attention away from Sebastian. He sailed through the air like a jet. He spun midair, remembering Dan’s training, and using the momentum, his leg slammed skates first into the side of Whiplash’s head. The wheels peeled out, leaving burnout marks on the helmet and sparks flying.
He stumbled back several steps with a scuff mark and a black mark on the side of his helmet, the only sign Sebastian did anything. Sebastian slid across the floor, spinning to a smooth stop, body low to the ground right in front of Ox.
He shook his leg, feeling the pain coming from kicking a guy when he was moving at sixty miles an hour… why was his leg not broken?
Whiplash’s head snapped back to Sebastian, who slowly rose to his full height. "Ox, you should know better than to go playing around with some random stranger that’s into BDSM… just remember to use a safe word.”
Sebastian jovially said. Ox stuttered trying to form a response to that. Whiplash, on the other hand, tightened his gauntlets, making the metal creak.
“And you should pay attention to your surroundings.”
Whatever Whiplash was about to say was lost amidst the steel rack with several tons of crates falling on top of him. A round barrier formed around Sebastian and Ox, keeping the worst of it away.
Ox quickly got back up, moving beside Sebastian. “That’s not going to be enough.”
Sebastian nodded in agreement. “That’s why we are grabbing these crates and getting the hell out of here.”
Without any hesitation, Sebastian used his telekinesis on one of the metal grid grates and unceremoniously shoved what crates they could onto it.
“Get on!” He waved at Ox, and the big guy did as told.
It was a scene almost out of Aladdin with the magic carpet… except it was a badly bent piece of steel with several crates stacked on it that looked two wrong turns away from falling off with a giant man and a scrawny man beside him hanging on for dear life.
“Hang on!” Sebastian said, taking a turn and spotting Fancy Dan and Montana jumping over the racks to get to them.
“Down here! Get on.” The two paused and looked down at him, then back towards the direction several crates just got thrown through the roof of the warehouse and the flashes of something bright that crackled with electricity.
The moment Whiplash’s wood chip stained helmet rose up into the air, spotting the two immediately, they needed no further motivation to jump down.
“Get this thing moving, kid. Back to the van…” He said, patting his shoulder, only to freeze when an energy beam almost hit them had Sebastian not swerved to the side in time. Fancy Dan and the crate he clung to on the back almost fell off.
“Now!!!” Montana yelled out.
He raised his gauntlet up and fired away at the flying form of Whiplash, who was done with the fun and games. Whips lashed out only to miss or have them go off course to his shock. A mechanical growl followed by a high-pitched whine had him aim both gauntlets at them.
Montana was on it already, not wanting to take a chance of finding out what he was about to do. Gauntlets brought up, he fired the waves of high-frequency vibrations that visibly distorted the air. Whiplash dodged to the side, avoiding the shots, and took aim to instead have a piece of the roof slam into his back.
Now out of sight, Sebastian moved faster before he stopped when a hand on his shoulder and Montana spoke up.
“That small corner there with the slanted rack. Go there.”
He didn’t question the man, possibilities already playing out in his mind. Those were some good odds, so Sebastian did as told. The crazy magic carpet ride slid off into a secluded corner in a part of the warehouse.
“What are you doing?!” Fancy Dan hissed at them.
The man did not want to find out what an angry Whiplash could do to guys like them.
“Wait!” Sebastian held a finger up.
“For what! We can get away.” Dan gestured towards the entrance to the warehouse.
“Do ya think we’re outrunning Whiplash with this and a cheap plumber van?” Montana countered smoothly.
Dan forcibly calmed down after Montana spoke up. The main doors to the warehouse was now open with various guards out there with guns held at the ready. Sirens could be heard in the distance.
“I’m not risking the cops seeing us leave with this stuff. We can avoid them and let Whiplash distract them all. Especially heroes," Sebastian said.
Dan fell silent at that, blinking at what just came out of his mouth. “Did… did what he just said make sense?”
Montana was thinking it over. “He’s not wrong. Good thinkin’, Rookie.”
Sebastian just smiled until he realized he was called a Rookie again. Then the sound of steel bending and countless crates slamming all over the place like a line of dominos filled the entirety of the warehouse. Where they waited was under a steel rack with several crates held back by another rack on the floor.
So they were safe from the calamity happening around them. “Вы, ублюдки. Where are you?!” Whiplash’s voice could be heard cursing across the entirety of the place in both English and Russian.
He whirled around mid air looking for anything. It’s why Sebastian didn’t continue running away. No way they were outrunning a suit like that that can fly. Montana was right about that.
His arms raised he started firing energy blasts and missiles that popped out of ports on the suits shoulders. He was avoiding areas with large amounts of Starks crates sending up fire and raining down debris.
He was telling them to reveal themselves. Something none of them were about to do. Just when he aimed in their general direction something else smashed through the roof and the group got a glimpse of red and gold smacking Whiplash in the face.
“Come on now, Anton. I was in the middle of an important meeting with two supermodels trying to be Miss America for the year. Don’t you have anything better to do?” Iron Man sarcastically remarked.
Whiplash slammed into the concrete feet first landing in a three point pose. “You’ll pay for that, Stark.”
“Just as I’ll pay for the damages caused by our fight. I pay for a lot of things.” His quip was followed by blasts of energy. The two went at it and only when Sebastian thought they were in the clear did he make his move.
“Are they further in the place?” He asked the others just wanting to make sure neither would notice them.
“More like tearing the place down as they leave.” Montana remarked. He watched from the shadows like they all were.
It was a battle between titans made of metal, and it was one hell of a fight. Capable as each of them were, they all knew even with the Enforcers enhanced suits they had no chance against them. Iron Man in particular.
Whiplash if they gave everything they had and used every trick in the book they might be able to pull out a win. Not without great cost, but it could be done. It was a sobering thought to Sebastian, but it didn’t deter him from his dream and heart's desire.
Seeing the opening they needed with the two preoccupied fighting one another they flew up and out of a hole in the roof. The cops had yet to arrive and Sebastian made sure to stay out of sight as best he could.
The crates and grate that held everything up were dropped in the alley. Between Sebastian and Ox they made quick work of loading the stuff into the van. It was cramped, but the handshake from Ox and the pat on the back from Fancy Dan and Montana made Sebastian proud.
It didn’t take them long to get back to the safe house after leaving the van behind when they deposited the Stark crates. They were even paranoid enough to go down several streets multiple times just in case they had anyone tailing them.
Nothing.
No random hero like Spider-Man coming down to ruin their moment. They drove back in happy content silence. The van parked near a nondescript area in New York, the crates covered in tarps and moved down to a basement no one would come snooping around.
“You did good, Sebastian.” Montana said. “The boss wasn’t wrong for deciding to take you with us.”
“Glad I could prove my worth. It was… fun.” Sebastian said happily. A smile formed on his face. Despite the fear and trepidation, a part of him enjoyed the thrill of kicking Whiplash in the head and making a fool of him before escaping.
He glanced down at his leg. He had checked it over with Ox who had watched him pull off that kick. When Fancy Dan and Montana were told what happened everyone didn’t have a clue as to why Sebastian had no broken bones. The only sign he had done it was a mild bruise.
His hands were still shaking. Not out of fear but the thrill of what he managed to do. He could get used to this, Sebastian thought to himself.
Fancy Dan just chuckled and shook his head. “That’s one way of putting it. I wouldn’t call having Whiplash showing up to almost ruin our job fun.”
They made their way down to the basement to discuss things with Fisk.
The man was immaculate as ever, walking around with measured steps he made look natural. The board looked even bigger with more information added to it.
“You're late. Complications?” He said without turning around.
His gaze was fixed on the recent picture of the impersonator at a rich party making deals with the various wealthy elite of New York.
“Whiplash crashed the party.” Montana said while adjusting the collar of his shirt.
“… I see.” He turned around and swept his gaze over each of them. His eyes remained on Ox’s bandages for a moment longer then on Sebastian where his eyes crinkled in amusement. Then it was gone fast enough most people wouldn’t catch it, thinking it was just their imagination.
The edges of Sebastian’s lips curved up slightly but he schooled his expression understanding this was business and when it came to business for Fisk it was a moment to put on a mask and be serious.
“You’ve done well. Ox, get yourself medical treatment. I will fit the bill. We will need you in top shape.”
Fisk stepped past the board and towards their group. Ox nodded and with a quiet exchange of words Dan went with the man helping him along.
Despite his suit taking the brunt of the damage, Ox still got hurt by those whips. It was impressive that his suit handled that much.
Montana told him all that they had managed to acquire. While it wasn’t as much as what Fisk was expecting, they still got some of the more valuable things out of it. Considering they just had someone higher up in the villain totem pole come down to screw up their job, they did fantastic.
Sebastian himself felt the images of what could be becoming far clearer and more accurate. The information of everything coming to him still but he channeled it far slower. Stuff like how markers were created and the processes involved, the pictures and how they were made with the images kept the same from the moment the picture was taken to how it remained intact on the copy that was printed off.
Sebastian never let it get too overwhelming. It was no different than the occasional slow drip of a leaky faucet. He acknowledged the uses the power had, and he wanted to learn about these things to be of better use to Fisk, but he wasn’t about to get overwhelmed when he needed his future sight to find any threats or pay attention to an existing one.
Sebastian focused on Fisk as the man turned to him. He stood straighter, the man’s massive hand gently holding his shoulder.
“Good work on acquiring the materials Sebastian.” He lowered himself to be almost eye level with him. His expression was kindly and gentle. “And I apologize for sending you there when you could have used more training. I needed to know if you could handle working under slight pressure in a contained situation… one that quickly spiraled far beyond what was expected to happen.”
Sebastian waved him off in a hurry. “You don’t need to apologize sir. There was no way you could have known Whiplash would show up. You were just testing me on a simple job, I can’t hold that against you.”
Sebastian was being honest about it. He didn’t hold that against him. It’s why he realizes now he needs to train his powers. Despite how much he wanted to get out again doing some goon work for Fisk, if he wanted to continue feeling the joy that comes from being a henchman he needed to be strong enough to not get bodied or killed off.
Fisk nodded. “Rest. Some interested parties will be notified of our gains.”
And Sebastian alongside the Enforcers did just that. Sebastian felt a bone deep exhaustion after the adrenaline of the entire situation had worn off and was only pushing himself so much because he didn’t want to disappoint Fisk.
