The Sinister Six

First thing we see when we step onto the new floor is a screen that reads as such. THE SINISTER SIX. Accompanying that message is us being wished good luck and saying we're gonna need it.

"The fuck is this mental warfare bullshit?!" Gizmo shouted out, already stressed enough as it was. Mammoth hugging him from behind and picking him up so he didn't start trying to attack the damn screen. Everyone gathered together, did one last check before we all stepped through and... holy. FUCK... What we saw was shocking, more than a little concerning.

First we had some creepy guy in a scorpion looking suit with a bladed tail looking at us and weirding us out. Then there was some guy flying around in some sorta vulture like mechanical suit. The next two was a guy with translucent skin who's head CHANGED APPEARANCE to look like Mammoth, along with a guy wearing an animal pelt holding a spear, looking like a hunter that was jacked on some sorta super ****. Next was the huge guy in the Rhino costume with what looked like a horn that would really hurt, clearly that would be his main weapon. Oh and finally the guy with 4 METAL TENTACLES who was clearly a scientist gone mad.

VERSUS SCORPION, VULTURE, CHAMELEON, KRAVEN, RHINO and DR OCTOPUS!

This... this was gonna hurt, individually they weren't too strong, but together they had bonuses that made each other more powerful. We would clearly need to separate them so we could weaken and beat them down. We didn't get a chance to talk strategy though, as they fight started right away! Mammoth had **** but to catch and stop Rhino's charge, just barely able to make Rhino lose his balance and flip him over. Gizmo took flight trying to keep Vulture busy, Private started shooting at Kraven while See-More began trying to blast Chameleon. Which left Jinx to dodge the scientists tentacles while I got tackled through a wall by Scorpion.

His tail tried to stab into my skull, he only ended up with a damaged tail as my mask opened it's mouth and bit part of it off. He screamed in shock and pain, so stunned by what happened that I was able to drive my elbow into his face and knock him back. His tail was dripping some sort of poison from the torn end, he even tried launching at me again only for my enhanced strength to slam him into the floor. His tail tried slinging poison at me to **** me to move away, his tail missed though, badly. He ended up covering his own face in the poison and screaming as his face began to partially melt, temporary blinding himself. I pulled out my axes and began to slice into him, since he'd blinded himself the fight didn't last much longer than that. I ended up using my mask to eat more of his tail, figured I might see if I could get something from it. Ended up stomping on the back of his neck to finish him off.

From there I went rushing back to the fight to see how people were dealing with their opponents. Jinx was struggling, See-More was shooting at tentacle man to try and help her, Gizmo had managed to damage Vulture's flight system so he wasn't able to get off the ground anymore, Mammoth and Rhino were slugging it out, and finally Private was struggling to defend himself against Kraven and Chameleon's attacks. I figured I should deal with the lesser threats and threw my axes at Kraven, distracting him long enough for Private to bash him in the face with his shield. Meanwhile I tackled Chameleon into a nearby wall, he tried shooting at me with a pistol that quickly got knocked away, before he proceed to damn near break his hand punching at my mask covered face...

"...Okay, Seriously does the mask look like that much of a target to you moron's?" I ask before landing a lightning covered punch to his gut, following it with another that hit the side of his head. I got a front row seat to the shock wave of the last hit causing the opposite side of his skull to burst outwards in a spray of gore. Well that makes two down at least, my next target? Kraven. Mammoth seemed to be handling Rhino alright, if the massive Rhino getting thrown through a nearby wall was anything to go by.

So I attacked Kraven, Private heading off to help Gizmo deal with the old man in the no longer flying bird costume. Kraven tried to throw a spear at me, then attempting to stab me with a pair of hunting knives. I ended up catching his blades with my hands, the edge's barely cutting my skin as I sent lightning through the weapons. I watched his hands scar before they fell limply at his sides, the nerves fried as a look of horror appears on his face. I threw punches at him with lightning covering my arms, I found my arms swinging much faster and with greater **** than normal. With Kraven unable to fight back it took little time to beat his health bar into oblivion. I was surprised to get a notification though.

New Lightning Ability unlocked! VOLT RIOT!
Volt Riot is a special attack using lightning manipulation to cause your attacks speed, damage, and **** to be significantly amplified. Allowing you to land rapid, heavy blows to an opponent within seconds! Upgrading this ability further through repeated use can allow for greater improvements among other upgrades.

Oh that's going to be really helpful. A moment later and I was heading out to help deal with Rhino, the others trying to fight back and swarm the Hentai Guy. Mammoth was still beating down Rhino mostly fine on his own, catching Rhino by his horn when he charged. As Mammoth caught Rhino, I activated Volt Riot. I didn't notice at the time though that my arms gained almost lightning bolt looking markings that started at my fingertips and moved up towards my wrist, the markings moving across my skin as I got close enough to help Mammoth.

I... I thought it would be a single strong attack... Turned out it's a sustained skill that I can maintain for a few minutes before needing to regain my energy. Oh as for my attack? I threw a punch at Rhino's knee and heard a sickening CRUNCH as it broke and twisted in a terrible angle. Mammoth throwing his own strikes at Rhino's head, quickly beating him the rest of the way into unconsciousness. With Rhino vanishing into dust, Mammoth got closer taking a look at my arms before we both headed off to help the others.

Hentai Man seemed to be trying to catch whoever he could and crush them with his tentacles, in between large area swipes that sent numerous Billy's flying. Mammoth caught and managed to hold down one of the tentacles, Gizmo's gadgets managing to trap another as I leaped forward, Billy's clones dog piling on the third tentacle as my mask's mouth opened and bit the final tentacle off. The scientist screaming as his body shook with pain, a massive chunk of health breaking off his health bar. Of course... Why would I stop at only one? I thought before continuing to chomp down and consume the rest of the the tentacles. At one point the one Gizmo was holding got free, but Billy was able to help him get it pinned back down, mostly due to Jinx landing an overhead kick onto the Doc's skull. Once the rest of the tentacles were eaten, the Doctor's health bar was practically gone, it didn't take much more to finish him off.

Finally... At long... LONG last... We'd beaten the tower. Multiple large trunks and chests appeared out of nowhere, landing around our group as the locks popped off like they were only barely holding the boxes closed. When they opened up, the first thing that happened was us finding our bodies rapidly healing back to normal. Things like Gizmo's gadgets, Private's ammo and mine were also replenished. That was mostly what was in the trunks along with a few materials, then we saw what was in the rest of the chests... Precious gems, solid gold bars, rare materials for making new tech as well as scientific research!

Then came several blueprints for numerous pieces of gear that could be quite helpful. One of which seemed MADE for Mammoth specifically. Apparently it was a bit of Leather armor to be worn under clothing, that was able to help Mammoth remain full for longer periods of time. Jinx looked at it like it was the holy grail as she practically threw it at me asking how soon it could be made. "Knowing boss, he can get it started hopefully once we are out of this place." Was my response. Jinx really hoped this Under Armor of Sustenance could really help Mammoth stay at his full strength for longer. Hell just keeping him full for a while longer would allow the groups wallets to not get drained so fast!

Gizmo seemed to almost be drooling over the tech materials that were offered as a reward, Billy and Private were focused on the gold bars, Jinx went back to admiring the jewels, See-more helped gather up the materials with Gizmo. Then Billy asked "Hey uh... How are we gonna get this stuff outta here?" The others suddenly looking dismayed as they tried to figure out the answer to that question. I chimed in with "Relax... Boss and I have access to a shared dimensional pocket, I can carry it all out for us." Was I sure that my inventory counted as a dimensional pocket? Not really. Sure that it could carry all this stuff out? Oh absolutely.

The looks on their faces when my inventory opened a hole next to my hand before starting to pull the majority of the loot into it, oh that was priceless. Then came the message flood, including the previous messages requiring choices to be made, so might as well start with those...

Congratulations! You've absorbed the unique item Thor's Hammer! Please choose a unique bonus ability/power to be gained!

1.Thunder's Wrath- Further improves your lightning abilities, improving damage, range of attack, control over such energies and ignoring of defenses.

2.Godling's first BONK- Allows you to now generate and manipulate Concussive ****. This bonus also allows you to start unlocking ALL types of ****, allowing you to learn how to manipulate, generate and control any type of **** you wish to learn about.

3.Asgardian Warlord- Grants you Asgardian Physiology, considerably improving upon your physical body but leaving you registering as human to all tests. Also improves your strength, durability, stamina and endurance.

So this one wasn't an easy choice. I mean while the BONK option sounded fun, the other two sounded way too good to pass up on. Good options but perhaps it would be better to focus on what will have synergy with the future choices? With that thought in mind, I brought up all 3 of the previous choice screens and looked through them at once.

You've EATEN Captain America's Shield! Congrats on consuming another unique weapon! Enjoy more choices you little over achiever!

1.Hybrid Skeleton - Grants your body the effect of being able to absorb **** and compound it onto your physical attacks to improve your damage or knockback **** further.

2.I SEE FASTER - Causes your ranged attacks to bounce and ricochet to hit targets even if they miss. This also allows such attacks to IGNORE some defenses. This aspect can be improved further with training and practice.

3.Shield Wall - Improves the defense, durability and toughness of barriers, shields or walls made by you.

Okay... Some interesting options there, let's look at the last one before we make decisions...

Congratulations on consuming Scorcher and Mysterio's tech, as well as Shrike's weaponry! Unfortunately the reward options for absorbing this tech are limited. Please enjoy your new upgrades.

A spark to start - this upgrade allows you to start absorbing fire attacks. WARNING this does not YET nullify damage taken from the fire, so prepare to HURT in order to advance this ability.

Illusion Immunity - This upgrade allows you to see through illusions, this also helps to fortify your mental defenses a small amount, further increasing it's number of active defenders.

Energy Absorption - This upgrade allows you to absorb minor energy blasts. This can be trained up to eventually absorb stronger energy attacks.

Bladed weaponry- This allows you to slice enemies more easily. How? By ignoring a small amount of their defense, this amount can be improved on with enough training and practice.

Alright! That's all three screens, now which of this will have synergy? Currently I'm mostly a melee fighter with guns as a long range option. Better lightning control, generation, range and power would be really helpful for targets that bullets can't work on... Choosing to go with Thunder's Wrath caused my abilities with lightning to grow and amplify quite a bit, particularly my ability to control and manipulate it. My next choice was I SEE FASTER. Chosen so I could break through the defenses of more durable enemies, though I was pleasantly surprised to receive a message explaining that my lightning attacks could now chain from one enemies to another.

Now came the final options, I was a bit stuck for a minute before deciding to fortify my mental defenses further with Illusion Immunity. Seeing through Illusions in the future would likely help me tremendously as well. But with that the 3 choices that had needed to be made were dealt with. Following those came several additional windows, most focused on the experience and other materials that were dropped from the defeated bosses. Then came a couple messages about what I'd consumed.

Congratulations on absorbing some of the Sinister Six's tech and gear! For consuming most of Scorpions tail, you've gained Underhanded Tactics which grant you poison and acid resistance. For feasting on Dr. Octopus's tentacle arms, you've gained Scientific Mind which increases how effective your Intellect score is at improving intelligence along with allowing you to multi-task your thought processes for better planning and scientific endeavors.

Finally through all those screens and with all the loot gathered up, everyone was about to leave when a massive new message popped up. The new message did a couple things for the team, first it explained that we could have LEFT after any boss fight and simply continued from there the next time we returned. Which infuriated the entire group, myself included to only learn about that NOW! The next thing it did was... well... It explained that there were now OPTIONAL BOSS FIGHTS we could take part in. Needless to say we chose to leave, go rest, and come back when we had time for that extra team training.

Returning back through the portal, we found it was just past dinner time, Gizmo already jumping towards ordering dinner as no one had the energy left to cook something up themselves. I left, heading outside and teleporting back into another room once I was far enough away. My Devourius disguise no longer on as I returned to my normal self. "Oh! Welcome back everyone. Devourius told me you had a rough time in there?" I asked, putting on my best acting face for them. They didn't seem to have any idea as to just who Devourius really was. I helped get out the loot for everyone, helping to divide it all up as equally as I could.

Jinx ended up asking me about that Under Armor blueprint. "Ah! Devourius told me about that one. I've already put the blueprint into my systems, so fabricating should be done by morning which will allow Mammoth here to remain full for longer periods of time, even if he does exercise and works off the food." I'd barely finished speaking when Jinx practically LEAPED into my lap, kissing me deeply before pulling back with joy on her face. "Finally... Finally! I can start saving money again..." I couldn't help but chuckle as I heard her speak, Mammoth sulking in the corner as Gizmo and Jinx made jokes or teased him.

The rest of the night was relaxing by comparison to the run through the tower. Everyone ate, relaxed, made jokes, all before finally heading to bed. I ended up falling asleep on my own once again, Billy having made a joke last night about how Jinx was too tired to be seductive, which promptly earned him a swift kick in his ass with Jinx's steel toe shoe. Regardless of that little show, everyone got good rest...

When morning came, Gizmo helped set up and send out some info regarding Devourius. Mostly it would be rumors about how powerful he was physically and how unique his mask was in appearance. He left out how it could open it's mouth, how it could move and bite through solid metal with ease of course. Gizmo's plan was simply to help spread the word about Devourius and hopefully get the group a job or two OUTSIDE hump city where the Titans wouldn't be able to come after them. While the team training part of the contract was essentially over, it turns out that both Gizmo and Jinx liked the idea of having another heavy be part of their group. Something they were hoping to pitch towards Devourius himself, though I explained instead. "I have no doubt's he'll be willing to work with your group, after all he does work for me as well."

I had no idea when I'd woken up today that things were gonna get so interesting so quickly! Gizmo apparently found someone that wanted to pay to find out more about Devourius's capabilities, even set up a test for him! Apparently there was a fight they wanted to see him take part in. So I agreed to send Devourius there, I only asked that at least a couple of Jinx's team go with him. Jinx agreed and decided to bring Gizmo with them, I opened a portal for them and left saying I had some deals to make and a couple calls to handle in the meantime. Devourius arriving only to leave with Jinx and Gizmo. Where they popped out at though?