Charles closed his eyes for a moment as the mansion shook around him, as the sound of battle echoed across the grounds, as children continued to vanish in bursts of blue smoke and brimstone.
It was working.
God help him.
It was working.
"Professor?"
Charles opened his eyes.
One of the younger teachers stood beside him, pale and trembling, her hands wrapped tightly around a clipboard she no longer needed. Her eyes kept darting toward the ceiling every time the mansion shook.
"We have the next group ready," she said. "But Kurt is…"
She didn't finish.
She didn't have to.
Across the shelter, Kurt Wagner appeared in another burst of smoke, nearly collapsing as he landed. Three children and one teacher stumbled with him, all gasping, all safe, but Kurt himself barely remained upright.
Logan caught him by the back of his uniform before he could hit the floor.
"Elf," Logan growled, "you're done."
Kurt tried to smile.
It came out wrong.
His skin had gone pale beneath the blue, his yellow eyes unfocused, and his breath came in short, broken gasps. The smell of brimstone clung to him so strongly that several children coughed.
"Not yet," Kurt whispered.
"Yeah," Logan said. "Now."
"There are still children."
"And if you drop halfway through one of those jumps?" Logan snapped. "What then? You strand yourself and whoever you're carrying between here and Albion? You want me to tell the kids that?"
Kurt flinched.
Not from fear.
From the fact that Logan was right.
It wouldn't be as simple as getting stranded in the middle of the sea. No, he understood where they would end up.
After meeting Arthuria back in France, he learned exactly where he appeared each time he teleported.
Hell.
He didn't just look like a demon; he was connected to Hell itself. Yet, he didn't despair; instead, he just found more strength in his faith. God would shield him as long as his heart was righteous.
But that didn't mean he wasn't keenly aware of what it meant to get stranded in Hell, it was damnation, not just for him, but for those he was trying to protect.
"Kurt," a familiar voice sounded in his mind, "come to my office."
He gave Logan a brief look before he teleported again. This time it was just himself, and such a short jump, which made it far easier than carrying people across the world.
"Professor? You needed me?" he asked, trying his best to hide just how tired he was.
Charles, however, knew just how hard it had been for young Kurt, yet as much as it pained him, he required him to suffer a little more still.
"Yes, but first, take this." Charles held out a small injector. "I had Hank make this for you. It is a powerful stimulant, a drug," he admitted. "It will allow you to do what is needed, what is necessary, though it will mean once it is done, you will have a few rough days ahead of you."
He paused for a moment. "I hate to ask this of you, but please, I need you, we need you."
If Kurt had any doubts, they all vanished as he saw the pleading look in the Professor's eyes, a look so rare that he did not hesitate to take the injector, and he didn't even flinch as he plunged it into his neck.
The effect was almost immediate, a warm feeling spread through him, and the exhaustion that had been holding him down vanished, replaced by a sense of boundless energy.
"Don't overdo it," Charles warned. "This will only push your body, not restore what you have already spent."
He nodded. "I understand. Now I will go back."
"Thank you," Charles truly meant those words.
"Logan, go outside and help the others. Things are changing; the plan, too, has changed. Help them deal with this group, whatever it takes." He steeled his heart once more and sent a message to Logan.
Outside, Scott Summers had never felt so aware of time.
Every second mattered.
Every blast.
Every order.
Every single breath had to be taken at the right time, because if he was late, if he warned someone too late about a danger, there would be no second chance.
The Sentinels no longer fought like an attacking force testing unknown enemies. They fought like a system gathering conclusions.
The first one had fallen to teamwork and surprise.
The second had gone down harder.
The third had required Jean to hold it still while Scott burned through its damaged neck and Rogue tore apart its exposed chest cavity with borrowed phasing and explosive touch.
After that, the Sentinels changed.
They stopped descending one at a time.
They spread out.
Three remained high in the storm, using their thrusters to fight Ororo's winds while firing from above. Four landed across the grounds, forcing the X-Men to divide their attention. The remaining machines circled wide, searching for flanking routes around the mansion.
"They're trying to surround us!" Hank called, leaping aside as a plasma beam turned the spot where he had been standing into molten stone.
"I noticed!" Scott shouted back.
He fired at one of the airborne Sentinels, forcing it to veer away before its shot could hit the mansion's east wing.
His visor was hot against his face.
His head hurt.
He ignored both.
"Bobby, left side!"
"I'm trying!"
Bobby slammed his hands into the ground, ice spreading across the lawn in thick, jagged sheets. One of the Sentinels took a step and sank knee-deep into a sudden pit of ice and frozen mud.
For half a second, it was trapped.
Piotr used that half second.
He charged with a roar, grabbed a fallen tree that had been shattered by plasma fire, and swung it like a club. The burning trunk struck the Sentinel's head hard enough to knock it sideways.
Rogue hit it from the other side.
This time, she had borrowed speed.
She moved like a blur, flickering around the Sentinel's upper body, striking joints, sensor ports, damaged seams. Each punch left small detonations in its armor, tiny internal blasts from Evan's borrowed gift.
But each use made her flinch.
Every power she had taken pulled at her.
Too many voices. Too many instincts. Too many borrowed fragments pressing against her own mind.
"Rogue!" Jean shouted. "You're pushing too hard!"
Rogue grit her teeth and drove her hand into the Sentinel's damaged shoulder. Her fingers phased through armor, touched something important, and released the explosive charge.
The machine's right arm went dead.
"Then I better make it worth it!" she shouted.
The Sentinel's chest opened.
Rogue's eyes widened.
She tried to fly back.
Too slow.
The inhibition pulse struck her at close range.
Rogue screamed.
Every borrowed power inside her flickered at once. Flight vanished. Strength faltered. The phasing cut out halfway through her retreat, and her shoulder struck solid armor hard enough to break something.
She fell.
Piotr caught her before she hit the ground, but the impact still tore a cry from her throat.
"Rogue is down!" Piotr shouted.
"I ain't down," Rogue hissed, though her face had gone white with pain.
Her right arm hung wrong.
Piotr looked at her.
She looked back.
"Don't you dare say it," she warned.
"You are down," Piotr said.
Before she could argue, he turned and hurled her bodily toward the mansion steps.
"Hey!" Rogue shouted.
Jean caught her in a telekinetic grip and set her down beside the entrance, none too gently.
"Stay there," Jean ordered.
Rogue looked ready to protest, but another pulse of pain twisted across her face.
She stayed.
One of the older students, a boy with stone-like skin forming across his arms, rushed to help her inside.
Scott saw it, and didn't say anything. Losing Rogue would hurt, but at least she was alive, and having Jake take her inside meant neither of them would be in danger.
And with that, he pushed it from his mind; he couldn't afford to think of Rogue's injury, couldn't afford to be distracted.
"Jean, can you hold that one?"
Jean raised both hands toward the Sentinel Piotr and Rogue had damaged. Her eyes glowed brighter, and the machine's broken arm twisted backward with a scream of tortured material.
"For a moment," she said through clenched teeth.
"A moment is enough."
Scott fired.
His optic blast struck the exposed shoulder cavity Rogue had opened. The beam drilled inward, red light reflecting off the rain, steam, and torn armor.
The Sentinel staggered.
Piotr leapt, both hands clasped together, and brought them down on the machine's head.
The head snapped forward.
Jean twisted.
Scott's beam cut deeper.
Something inside the Sentinel detonated.
The machine fell.
Four down.
The cost of the fourth was Rogue.
The fifth took Bobby.
It happened fast.
Too fast.
One of the airborne Sentinels changed tactics. Instead of firing plasma, it released a cluster of small devices that fell through the storm like black seeds.
Hank saw them first.
"Scatter! Unknown payload!"
The devices struck the frozen ground and unfolded.
Not bombs.
Heaters.
Localized thermal blooms.
The ice Bobby had spread across the battlefield began to melt all at once, not slowly, not naturally, but violently. Steam exploded upward in a great white cloud, scalding-hot mist swallowing half the lawn.
Bobby cried out as the hot steam hit him. He had been in the center of the frozen ground, and as such he had no chance to escape it, and he also had no chance to protect himself. He did what he could, but his skin turned red instantly.
A Sentinel landed in front of him.
"Cryokinetic threat identified."
Bobby raised his hands despite the pain. He formed as much ice as he could, but the pain made him weak and slow.
The Sentinel's arm came down.
Piotr tried to reach him.
Too far.
Scott fired.
The blast struck the Sentinel's shoulder, shifting the blow just enough that the massive hand did not crush Bobby outright.
It still hit him.
Bobby was thrown across the lawn and slammed into the mansion wall.
He dropped without a sound.
"Bobby!" Jean screamed.
Ororo answered with fury.
The storm blackened.
For one moment, the entire sky above Xavier's school seemed to open.
Lightning did not fall as a bolt this time.
It came as a curtain.
A web.
A living storm.
Every Sentinel in the air was struck at once, not by one flash, but by dozens upon dozens of branching strikes that crawled over their bodies, into damaged seams, across thrusters, along sensor bands.
The airborne Sentinel that had dropped the thermal devices lost control first.
Its thrusters failed.
It fell burning from the sky.
Scott saw his chance.
"Piotr!"
Colossus moved beneath it.
Scott fired at the falling machine's side, altering its descent. Jean, bleeding from the nose now, added her telekinesis, shoving with everything she had left.
The falling Sentinel crashed into another still standing on the lawn.
The impact shattered both.
Six down.
Bobby was carried inside by Hank, who took a plasma graze across the back for his trouble.
The blast burned through fur and skin, and Hank stumbled, a pained snarl ripping from his throat.
But he did not drop Bobby.
He reached the mansion steps, handed him off to two students, then turned back toward the battlefield.
Scott saw the blood running down his back.
"Hank, you're out."
"Nonsense," Hank said, though his voice was strained. "I remain ambulatory."
"Hank."
Beast's jaw tightened.
For once, he did not have a clever answer.
Another beam struck near the steps, close enough to send stone fragments cutting across his side.
Jean caught him before he fell.
"Hank," she said softly. "Go."
His face twisted with frustration.
Then he obeyed.
Seven Sentinels remained.
The X-Men were tired.
The Sentinels were not.
That was the true horror of them.
Not their weapons.
Not their armor.
Not their hatred, because they had none.
They did not slow.
They did not tire.
They did not hesitate because a friend was hurt, because a home was burning, because blood was on the grass.
They simply recalculated.
And kept coming.
(End of chapter)
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