Marvel's Alien Force

After making sure Lily and Martha were safe behind the crystal wall, Diamondhead turned toward the front door—the one that led outside. His eyes narrowed as he muttered under his breath,

"Bigchill."

His crystal body began to shift again.

The thick, jagged arms made of diamond started to shrink, reshaping into lean claws—part human hand, part bird talon. His whole frame grew slimmer, more spectral, as if he were shedding the weight of the earth and becoming something... colder.

His legs twisted next, turning into a strange fusion of insect limbs and raptor-like claws. From his back, two wings slowly unfurled—beautiful and eerie, shimmering in shades of black and deep blue like moonlight on oil.

His eyes stayed green but changed in shape, now resembling the compound lenses of an insect. His face stretched and shifted into something between a human skull and a sleek, robotic mask—something not meant for comfort, only awe.

By the time the transformation ended, he looked like a humanoid moth—strange, haunting… and undeniably cool.

Each breath he took released a thin stream of vapor, the air around him turning frosty. He didn't just look cold.

He was cold.

"Vibrations are low... Enemies... five... hiding."

His voice came out like layered whispers—several voices speaking in perfect sync, low and ghostly. It was the kind of sound that crawled down your spine and stayed there.

Not just alien.

Ghostly alien.

Bigchill willed himself to turn invisible.

His body shimmered once—then simply vanished, like he was never there to begin with.

Silently, he floated off the ground, wings barely moving as he passed through the front door. No sound. No breeze. His intangibility kicked in the moment he touched the wood—and just like that, he phased through it, like the door didn't exist.

Outside, he rose into the air.

The moon hung high in the sky, casting its soft glow over the quiet neighborhood. The streetlights were spaced out, dim and distant. Martha's house was in a decent area—not rich, but clean. Every home had its own small lawn. Most of them were two-story, lined up neatly across the street.

From the air, Bigchill's eyes scanned the front yard.

There—cold-mixed heat signatures. Five of them.

Two on the ground near the entrance, scanning back and forth like machines—because that's exactly what they were.

Two more further out, positioned to block off the area.

And one was floating, around 200 meters up—likely the aerial scout.

Two looked like attackers, three were sentries—but all five were capable of fighting. That much was clear.

They were cloaked in full stealth—not just from sight, but from everything. No infrared. No X-ray. No sound. No trace.

Even the X-Men's Blackbird didn't have stealth like this.

Bigchill narrowed his glowing insect-like eyes.

Something felt off. This tech was too clean… too advanced.

But now wasn't the time to think about that.

He rose higher into the sky, locking onto the flying one—the scout.

He still couldn't see its full body, just the shifting waves of temperature and presence. But that was enough.

He hovered behind it, completely silent.

The Sentinel never noticed.

Bigchill phased straight into the machine's body, merging inside.

And then, in a whisper only the stars could hear, he muttered—

"Upgrade."

Suddenly, Bigchill's invisible and intangible form began to change.

His ghostly shape morphed into a blob of shifting liquid—silent, smooth—and attached himself directly to the inner frame of the Sentinel. 

The Sentinel didn't even notice. Within seconds, the liquid spread, merging into its systems like it had always belonged there.

It wasn't slow, either. It was instant.

In moments, Upgrade had become one with the Sentinel—completely fused into its structure, all while leaving one thing untouched: the core mind.

Because this thing… wasn't being run by AI.

It had a controller.

A human one.

As the transformation settled, and the systems opened to him, Upgrade's ability kicked in. His mind scanned through the Sentinel's tech, unraveling the mystery fast.

These weren't regular Sentinels.

These were... Bastion Drones.

Remote-controlled machines, but not like game avatars.

These were connected directly to human consciousness—piloted in real-time, with real instincts, real decisions.

As more data flowed in, Upgrade saw the bigger picture.

Roughly 200 kilometers away, there was a facility—a hidden branch of the Mutant Handling Corps(MHC).

A secret black-ops unit created by none other than the UN, designed specifically for the capture, control, or destruction of mutants.

'So this is where their confidence comes from, huh?'

Upgrade thought, analyzing deeper.

The tech inside this drone was nothing like Earth's.

It was way beyond even what the X-Men had. The Blackbird? Child's toy compared to this.

The entire body was forged from advanced space metal—resistant to both extreme heat and cold, nearly impossible to break, and even if damaged… it regenerated, thanks to its construction: full-body nanobots.

The hands, deceptively human-like, could shift into various forms—laser swords, heavy blasters, energy cannons. Each weapon capable of melting steel like butter.

The only flaw?

Its strength was also its weakness: the human consciousness that controlled it.

The mind that guided it couldn't be reconnected once damaged.

And where was this vulnerable link located?

Not in the head.

Not the chest.

Not even the back.

The left thigh.

A strange choice—harmless on a human, fatal on this machine.

After realizing he wasn't dealing with some hive-minded AI-controlled Sentinel but rather a human-controlled wireless drone, Upgrade knew exactly what he was up against.

He couldn't afford to take control of it. Doing so would tip off whoever was behind it—not just about him, but about his ability too. That wasn't a risk worth taking.

So instead, he quietly shifted back into Bigchill and phased out of the Sentinel.

One last glance.

Then he dropped down.

The other Sentinels outside were still stationed in place. Still waiting. Probably planning to move once the house went quiet, maybe when everyone inside fell asleep.

No wonder they were being so secretive. Mark had known about them for nearly fifteen minutes now and they still hadn't made a move. At first, he thought they'd attack fast—but now it made sense.

They weren't here to fight.

They were here to kidnap.

And after going through the data inside the drone, he finally got it.

This world's government... it was either very different, or not different at all. He didn't know for sure. But one thing was clear: if the Sentinels were being remotely controlled by actual people... then the machines weren't out of control yet.

But still—Bastion.

That name didn't sit right. Not at all.

Bigchill phased back inside the house and returned to the front hallway. He stepped onto the floor, took a breath, and muttered:

"Diamondhead."

His form shimmered once more, the ghostly chill giving way to radiant crystal. The transformation was smooth. Precise. Beautiful in a way—but deadly too.

Facing the door, he smiled to himself and said,

"Let's play a little game... of who knows who."

He extended his hand.

From beneath his feet, sharp-edged crystalline structures slid forward, threading through the tiny gap under the door and spreading outside.

The two Sentinels standing guard never had a chance.

In a blink, crystal boxes shot up around them, trapping both before they could react. And then—spikes. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. They shot out from every surface inside the box, impaling every critical mechanism in the machines' frames.

Including the left thigh.

That was all it took.

Both Sentinels dropped instantly—lifeless, frozen in place.

Far away, back at the command center, two human controllers suddenly screamed as splitting headaches surged through them. The feedback from the abrupt disconnection hit them like blunt trauma.

Because when their consciousness is tethered to a robot...

They damn well feel it when that connection's torn apart.

The three Sentinels on lookout suddenly turned as warning signals flashed across their consciousness link—the two stationed at the entrance had just gone dark.

The one hovering above immediately dove down, its hand shifting mid-air into a compact cannon pulsing with orange energy. The other two on the ground were already sprinting toward the house, their cannon-arms charging up and aimed straight ahead.

Diamondhead stepped out of the house just as all three opened fire.

Three bright energy blasts streaked toward him—fast, precise, deadly.

But they had underestimated him.

From the crystal floor beneath him, three curved walls shot up like shimmering waves—angled, smooth, calculated. The blasts struck the walls… but didn't explode. Instead, they slid across the surface, deflected cleanly without even leaving a scorch mark.

Then—without warning—they curved right back.

Redirected.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Three sharp explosions rang out. Not loud enough to wake the neighborhood, but nothing close to firecrackers either. Each detonation tore into a Sentinel, knocking them off their feet with smoking holes punched through their frames.

But Sentinels built from nanotech weren't supposed to fall from a single hit.

They were supposed to regenerate, adapt, retaliate.

That might've worked anywhere else.

But not here. Not with Diamondhead.

As the three Sentinels tried to recover, they found themselves trapped—the crystal floor beneath them had already grown, swallowing them in rising walls. In seconds, they too were locked inside shimmering crystal prisons.

Just like their partners.

And just like them... they were impaled.

Skewered by dozens of crystalline spikes from all sides, each one perfectly placed, Diamondhead still stood at the entrance—silent, calm, and absolutely unbothered.

They didn't stand a chance.

A small smile tugged at Diamondhead's crystalline, angular jawline as he looked down at the wreckage.

"Well, thanks for the resources, I guess... not so bad."

With a thought, he willed the crystal boxes to slide toward him. As they reached his side, the crystal walls retracted—flowing back into his body like liquid light—revealing five sleek, jet-black humanoid forms beneath.

The nanobots were still active, quietly sealing wounds and repairing damage, piece by piece. But their consciousness—their remote controllers—were already gone.

Diamondhead studied them for a moment, then lifted his hand.

With a pulse of telekinetic force, he willed the now-empty drones to rise. They floated soundlessly in the air like lifeless puppets, glinting in the moonlight.

He turned, walked back toward the house, and the five drones followed behind him in perfect silence.

The door closed on its own behind them.

***

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