Outside of the compound in its loading yard, Storm’s team had regrouped and huddled around each other under a telekinetic bubble erected by Phoenix. Rogue was able to essentially allow the team to ‘disappear’ by bending the light around each member once again through utilizing Alison Blaire - the Dazzler’s - light manipulation powers, but the trick wouldn’t work much longer. The Sentinels were catching on to their tactics and adapting at a rapid pace. Rogue, as well as her teammates, could only hope that it would hold out until they decide their next move.

{{ And that’s the plan, }} Cyclops’s voice came over the radio receiver in Storm’s ear. {{ Will you be able to hold out for just a little while longer? }}

“I believe we’ll be able to manage,” she replied, rubbing the tension out of her forehead.

{{ Good. Hang in there, Storm. Cyclops out. }}

Cyclops closed the radio line between himself and his co-leader. Storm looked up to her four teammates, who were both looking to her intently for word on the other team’s progress and what was next for them.

“How we lookin’, ‘Ro?” Iceman asked through the team’s telepathic web.

Storm was reluctant to answer as bluntly as she could, but her team deserved an answer. “Scott and his team have run into some complications, but it’s… nothing that they cannot handle. We have to keep fighting for just a little longer.”

“Sugah, it ain’t as easy keepin’ those things on the ropes as we’re makin’ it look,” Rogue remarked, visibly exhausted. “We can’t keep this up much longer an’ live t’ brag about it. Plus, there‘s no tellin‘ when those things‘ll start self-destructin’ again!”

“There’s no other option at the moment,” Beast interjected. “If Scott’s team needs more time than we have to provide it for them by any means available to us.” He looked to Phoenix, desperate in his resolve. “Jean… can you use your telepathy and telekinesis to boost our bodies’ cortisol and adrenaline output?”

“Hank, I… I have no idea what the long term effects of that would be on us,” Phoenix began to say. Beast answered for her.

“Emotional instability, physical and psychological fatigue, permanent damage to the kidneys and adrenal gland, limited to muted stress reaction, heart failure…” he said, and it was obvious that he was only just beginning to go down a laundry list of things that could go wrong with his plan. “I have a pretty good idea, my dear,” he continued, glancing around the outside of the telekinetic bubble as the Sentinels paced the blacktop of the compound, scanning the area. Beast looked back to Phoenix. “Trust me when I say it sure beats the alternative at this point.”

Phoenix looked to Storm, who shared her concern but nodded nonetheless.

Her teammates posing no objections, Phoenix closed her eyes and reached out to each of her teammates‘ bodies and minds with her telekinesis and telepathy, respectfully. All five members twitched involuntarily and gasped, their muscles tensing as their heartbeats intensified. When she opened her eyes, she was met with the hardened stares and dilated pupils of her teammates, whose clenched fists with tense shoulders signified that what she had done had worked.

With their second wind granted, Phoenix lowered the telekinetic bubble around her teammates and the X-Men ran into battle once again.

“An’ it looks like we ain’t alone!” Cannonball observed.

They both took quick looks around the corners of the entryway, seeing several enforcers rushing straight for them. Domino took the backpack full of C4 explosives off and slid it over to Cannonball, yelling, “Go! I’ll cover you!”

“But Bea, what about you?!” Cannonball protested. Domino drew her Uzi out of its holster and leaned out from around the corner, releasing sporadic cover fire at the enforcers charging them. One was struck down by a spray of rubber bullets, but the other enforcers quickly dived for cover.

“It should only take you a moment, right?” she asked, but Cannonball didn‘t have an answer to that. Domino shook her head regardless. “I’ll be fine! Just go!”

Against his better instincts, Cannonball slung the backpack around his shoulders, got up from behind the corner he was behind, and ran for the reinforced doors. Reaching it, he hit a button on the panel beside the doors, causing them to slide open, and he quickly rushed in. Domino then took that time to shoot the panel, causing it to spark and sizzle as it the rubber bullets destroyed its plating. She then turned back to the armed enforcers slowly converging on their location…

When the door shut behind him, Cannonball found himself in a long, darkened tunnel-like hallway lit only by the red emergency lights spread out down the hallway, all flashing briefly in unison. It appeared to be completely unguarded.

Cannonball rotated his head in every direction searching the dark hallway for the voice. He suddenly felt completely unnerved.

“Cerebro…?” he called out cautiously.

“What’re ya… what are ya doin’?!”

{{ I’m killing you!!! }}

As Iceman guided his sled of ice across the battlefield in a wide-arc, four of the Sentinels he passed recoiled in a domino-like fashion and were similarly flash-frozen in place. Rogue, propelled like a rocket in a thermo powered blast-field, was following closely behind him until the first Sentinel had been frozen. She broke from her flight-path behind her teammate and headed straight for the row of frozen Sentinels, picking up speed exponentially in a matter of moments.

Rogue collided into the first Sentinel’s torso at breakneck speeds, shattering its metal plating and mechanical innards into hundreds of ice covered pieces, and bursting from out the other side on a trajectory for the other three Sentinels. She similarly ripped through the next two Sentinels with ease, but the fourth one seemed to erupt with a bright light just as she collided into it.

The resulting explosion caused Rogue to scream in agony as it propelled her upwards, the blast-field surrounding her body dissipating. Somehow, the Sentinel had managed to act fast enough in anticipation of the attack and reversed the polarity of her thermo-powered blast-field, even if that was the last thing it ever did.

“Rogue!” Iceman cried out as he saw the Sentinel’s counter-attack. He veered his bridge to the left and raced upward into a spiral toward Rogue’s free-falling form, catching her in both arms. It was then his bridge of ice exploded beneath them as it was bombarded by energy blasts from all sides by Sentinels flying by. The resulting collapse of the bridge sent the two into a nose dive towards the blacktop.

In mid-fall, Iceman tightened his grip around Rogue’s body and twisted. His back struck the ground first, softening the impact of the fall for his teammate, but even still Rogue’s limp body abruptly spilled from his arms and tumbled to the side of him. Iceman let out a painful yell and rolled to his side, reaching to his aching back as he moved onto a hand and his knees.

“Rogue?” he muttered through gritted, icy teeth. He turned towards her body, but she laid sprawled out on the blacktop of the compound, unmoving.

Worse, it was then three Sentinels descended from the sky on easing boot-jets, rocking the blacktop with their shear weight. Iceman’s eyes shot from Rogue’s fallen form to the genocidal machines that had just arrived, terror washing over him.

“Oh no…” he said under his breath, raising up onto his knees and bringing out his palms in front of him. A wall of ice several feet deep was meant to shoot up from the blacktop to block the approach of the Sentinels, but instead his transparent ice form shimmered violently and reverted into a flesh and blood, human state.

Iceman looked to his hands and began to stammer, “No, no, no! Not now!“ He fell onto his backside and shuffled his legs underneath him, using his feet and hands to backpedal towards Rogue as he tried desperately to transform back into his ice form, but his body would only revert back and forth between its human state and ice state.

Two more Sentinels descended from the skies, landing between Iceman and Rogue in order to cut off any possible escape they had. It was then that the lead Sentinel standing before the two X-Men stepped forward and lifted its large and heavy, mechanical foot up over the two.

{{ Subjects: Iceman and Rogue neutralized. Begin termination protocols. }}

And then the foot came down fast…

Cannonball continued to howl gurgled screams as the electricity, his nerves on fire from the pain. He felt a sudden adrenaline rush, not uncommon to those in fight or flight situations, and he took flight down the hallway towards the other end. Bursts of electricity shot into him from all angles, causing him to groan and cry out with every jolt, but he fought through the pain and continued to run.

The holographic image of Cerebro disappeared just before the X-Man could charge through him, but the streams of electricity kept feeding into his body. Cerebro was an expert on each of the X-Men, but even the corrupted sentient program was surprised by the human resilience of Cannonball.

He continued to, swerving and stumbling involuntarily, and to his credit he made it a quarter of the way through the hallway toward his destination. However, he found his sudden burst of strength dwindling as he passed that mark, and he collapsed onto his hands and knees with the final jolt of electricity. Cannonball’s breathing was haggard and muffled, and when he looked up to the entryway to the Cerebro Chamber at the other end of the hallway, an overpowered burst of electricity shot through his body and caused him to cry out in torment once more.

Iceman fell back onto Rogue’s body and raised his arms defensively as the lead Sentinel’s foot dropped down towards them. Just when the foot came mere feet away from the two X-Men, Phoenix jumped in front of them and erected a telekinetic bubble around the three. The gears in the Sentinel’s ankle and knee groaned as the death-machine struggled to force its foot through the X-Woman’s telekinetic bubble.

“Bobby!” Phoenix groaned under the crushing weight of the Sentinel‘s foot. Only seconds later, energy blasts bombarded the telekinetic bubble, further straining her already fading powers. “Hurry! Get back into your ice form!”

Iceman shook his head frantically as he continued his attempts to transform back into his ice form, but to no avail. “I can’t! My powers aren’t working!”

“What?!” Phoenix yelled, but the sound of a jet engine roared over any response Iceman had to offer. Added to the heavy weight of the Sentinel’s foot was the intense heat and force of its boot thruster, pushing Phoenix to her breaking point. “Aghhh!!”

Domino peaked out from behind the wall she was using as cover, taking quick aim and letting loose a spray of rubber bullets from her Uzi at the approaching enforcers. Two of them let out painful groans as they were struck on approach of her position and fell to the floor, while three others took cover from the relatively benign attacks and returned fire with lethal force. Domino ducked back behind the wall she used as cover and released the empty magazine from her Uzi, utilizing this opportunity to reload with her final magazine of bullet bullets.

Those struck by the rubber bullets were somewhat deterred from closing in on Domino‘s position, but the injuries they sustained were relatively minor, especially when the rubber bullets struck armored sections of their body. The enforcers would merely regroup and take cover, then advance once more after they regained their bearings. It was a frustrating cycle for both parties involved in the firefight.

When the former mercenary turned around to unleash her final round of rubber bullets on the enforcers, several metal rounds from automatic rifles struck her lead arm and shoulder, causing her to fall backwards and cry out in pain. She landed on her backside, barely clutching her Uzi as she fell, and quickly backpedaled behind the wall she was using for cover. The impact and pain of the gunshots were more than enough to put her into some form of retreat,

Domino grabbed at her shoulder and arm, gritting her teeth and putting pressure on the profusely bleeding gunshot wounds. The X-Men had communicated a hard stance on the use of lethal force against enemies to Domino when she had joined with them, particularly human enemies, but the extreme circumstances were quickly inspiring her to abandon a philosophy she had not wholly subscribed to in the first place.

She huffed and heaved, fighting through the pain of the gunshots, and began to rise to her feet. Just as she was about to attempt another counter-attack, a round object was flung her way from one of the enforcers and tumbled across the floor at her side, accompanied with a familiar, hollow, metal ‘clang.’

Domino knew then that she was in trouble.

“COVER!” an enforcer shouted. His comrades joined him in ducking behind the nearest object or wall and covering their eyes and ears. The stun grenade exploded less than a second later, unleashing a blinding flash and deafening explosion that caused Domino to collapse in a state of disoriented agony.

The bursts of electricity had stopped for a moment while Cannonball laid flat on his stomach in the hallway, arms and legs sprawled out. He coughed to himself weakly as tiny streams of blood flowed out of his ears and nose, and every inch of his body ached with electrical burns. Mind in a haze and vision blurred, he reached out a hand and dug his fingers across the floor of the hallway… and began to pull himself forward toward the Cerebro Chamber.

Cannonball rubbed his shaking legs across the floor and palmed his numb hands, using every ounce of strength he had to crawl. Cerebro began feeding electricity into him from all angles once again, causing him to weave side to side with every burst, but Cannonball was still able to rise to his feet on quivering legs through the relentless attacks and lumber forward.

And he would make several feet before his legs gave out once more under the relentless electrical assault, sending him crashing down onto the floor once more. He let out one last dry heave before his eyes rolled back into his head and he became completely motionless, overwhelmed by the torture he had endured.

His heart had stopped beating.

Phoenix cried out as her telekinesis began failing her and she fell to a knee, no choice but to allow the Sentinel’s foot and its flaring boot-jets to drop further down over her and her teammates. Just when her telekinetic bubble was about to collapse under the weight of the foot, a ferocious growl accompanied by a blue blur entered the circle of Sentinels, drawing the attention of each robotic monstrosity.

Using his unmatched balance of speed and agility, the Beast dodged the various energy blasts and nets shot at him by the Sentinels surrounding his teammates and leapt over the three X-Men. He landed on the mechanical foot bearing down on Phoenix’s telekinetic bubble and ran up the leg connected to it, scaling the Sentinel’s torso, and then using his powerful legs to propel himself at the Sentinel’s faceplate.

Beast curled himself up into a ball in mid-air and rolled at the Sentinel’s head, thrusting his feet into its faceplate and using it as a springboard to back-flip away. The Sentinel doubled-back off of Phoenix’s telekinetic bubble in response to the attack, however slight, but it was the energy blasts aimed for Beast that missed their target and sliced through the torso of the Sentinels’ mechanical brethren.

Small explosions throughout the Sentinel’s chest accented its defeat as the robot‘s internal systems began to fail, causing the mechanical monstrosity to collapse sideways. Beast landed on the chest of a Sentinel that stood across the slumped over machine, a chest which he also used as a spring board to dodge another series of energy blasts, but as he arced high over his teammates a stray energy blast struck him. He let out an animalistic battle-cry and fell from the sky toward the blacktop when a powerful gust of wind shot up beneath him, steadying his descent and setting him down on his feet next to his teammates.

Storm, co-leader of the X-Men, descended from the skies on a gust of wind with electricity coursing through her body. Similarly bruised and battered from the long-lasting combat with the Sentinels, she had summoned the updraft to rescue beast and then positioned herself in front of her teammates as more Sentinels began to surround them in droves.

Iceman sat over the unmoving Rogue, his powers still failing to allow him to transform fully into ice. Beast cradled his ribs, burned and possibly broken from the energy blast that had struck it. And Phoenix expanded her flickering, failing telekinetic shield around all five, delaying the inevitable demise of her and her friends, her family, if only for a few more moments.

Blinded and unable to hear the movements of the enemies around her, Domino tried desperately to raise herself up to her hands and knees, but gone with her primary senses was her sense of balance. Her bullet riddled right arm and shoulder hadn’t helped, either, and she collapsed once again under her own weight.

Just behind the wall she was using as cover, the enforcers moved ahead cautiously with their automatic rifles drawn. The lead enforcer raised a hand for his comrades to stop, then pointed a finger at an Uzi at the edge of the cover Domino had been using. They then nodded amongst themselves, believing her to be defenseless, and began to close in on her position once again.

Domino managed to roll herself on her back as her senses began to return to her, though not without leaving a insatiable headache, and she instinctively began using her feet to push herself back towards the corner of the room. She dropped her Uzi several feet away from her and hadn’t been of the mind to grab it as she regained her senses.

It didn‘t matter any longer. The enforcers were only several feet away from her and not that much further away from the door that led to Cannonball and the Cerebro Chamber. What was going on in there? How come her teammate hadn't detonated the control room yet and returned to her?

She hadn’t the slightest idea. She only knew that she had one last resort and one last measure to ensure her teammate a few more minutes to get the job done.

When the first enforcer rounded the corner leading to the entrance of the Cerebro Chamber, Domino pulled the fully loaded combat pistol at her side out of its holster and shot the man in his exposed face, causing a sickening thud to sound in the back of his helmet as he dropped to the floor. Several more enforcers rounded that same corner and took aim at her, but they too were struck by the high caliber weapon that caused them to cry out and fall as they were struck.

Domino unleashed each bullet frantically, but with a precision that rivaled the finest marksmen in her field, and after several well-placed gunshots she was rewarded only with a simple ‘click’ -- the hammer of the pistol falling at the end of an empty chamber. She was out of ammunition.

Taking the silence as an indicator of her defeat, the remaining enforcers came around the corner and drew their guns on her, their fingers going for the triggers of their weapons to put an end to her resistance once and for all.

The hallway to the Cerebro Chamber had grown silent. After several moments of observing Cannonball laying prone from the security cameras strategically placed across the hallway, Cerebro appeared beside the fallen X-Man in its holographic form and slowly approached him. Its sensors were correct. Cannonball was no longer breathing and his heart had completely stopped, and yet there appeared to be some sort of lingering activity within his body.

Cerebro’s holographic image knelt down and leaned in closer to his body, albeit arbitrarily, while it adjusted its sensors in order to determine what that activity may be. It was then Cannonball’s body began to glow with a dark orange and golden, thermochemical energy field.

{{ Wuh-oh… }}

“URK!” Cannonball violently gasped and stiffened, his eyes shooting open as he was suddenly revived from the dead. He sat up on his hands and knees, looking around frantically as if he were lost, and when he saw Cerebro kneeling over him it all came flooding back. “Shit!”

The walls in the hallway sparked with electricity as Cerebro activated its chamber’s defenses, but Cannonball shoved off of his foot as his body was enveloped in his blastfield and he lunged forward, propelled like a rocket towards the other end of the hallway.

Bursts and streams of electricity erupted from the hallway walls towards Cannonball, but his blastfield deflected every jolt with extreme prejudice as he rocketed through the hallway. Cannonball reached his fist out as he approached the doors to the Cerebro Chamber and smashed through them, forcing his way into the large metallic dome lined with computer processors and various communications technology.

Cannonball continued to rocket back and forth through them in all trajectories, quickly becoming a blur of dark orange and golden thermochemical energy as he shot about the large chamber. The tall, dome-like walls quickly became engulfed in flames and explosions.

Shooting past the center of the room, Cannonball paused in midair and hovered high above a large walkway that led from the hallway he had entered from. An advanced computer system of some sort rested at the end of the walkway on a platform, a system similar to that of the X-Men’s Cerebro unit at the mansion, and it was then Cannonball knew what he had to do.

Pulling the backpack out from around his shoulder, he flung the pack of C4 down toward the platform and then maneuvered downward after it, rocketing only inches behind the backpack before it struck the platform. When he collided into the computer system, the resulting explosion from his attack combined with the backpack full of C4 that rested on it caused an even greater explosion, one that collapsed the walkway and obliterated the mainframe Cerebro resided in.

A large explosion rocked the compound, catching the attention of Storm’s team of X-Men. They looked around the area, even as they were surrounded by countless Sentinels, and eventually saw smoke seeping out of the large Master Mold unit that rested atop the complex. That must have been Domino and Cannonball. They must have succeeded in their mission to destroy Cerebro.

Yet the Sentinels around them only seemed phased for a moment before they continued their advancement on the X-Men as they stood huddled together.

It was then Rogue began to stir below Iceman, coughing and groaning. Her eyes flickered open and she sat up, horrified by the sight before her. Her teammates were fading quickly and were surrounded by Sentinels, and something had told her that she may have been better off not waking up at all.

“I’m… I’m sorry, everyone…” Phoenix gasped as she felt her powers wane. The telekinetic bubble she had erected began to dissipate, flickering lightly, until it was gone altogether, leaving her teammates completely exposed. She then fell to her knees, slumped sideways in complete exhaustion.

Several of the Sentinels extended their hands up to the group of X-Men, energy glowing to life in their palms, but before the first Sentinel could open fire a beam of energy struck its head and it exploded on its shoulders. The Sentinel lingered on its feet for a moment, before falling forward on its knees and then collapsing altogether.

The Sentinels were quicker to turn their attention to the source of the attack then the X-Men, but the robots were more so stupefied by what they saw. Hovering high above them on a pair of boot jets was a figure in shining gold and crimson armor, an outstretched hand still sizzling from the energy beam discharge.

“Someone call for a last minute rescue?” Iron Man asked coyly through a loudspeaker in his helmet. Before the Sentinels could launch an attack on the new threat, two heavily armored, black helicopters with large red, white, and blue emblems painted on the doors shot passed Iron Man and opened fire with their M16 Vulcan Canons.

Every Sentinel on the ground tried to flee from gunfire as they were riddled with bullets, some physically attempting to run while others took flight, but most were ultimately overwhelmed by laser blasts, rockets, and the sheer firepower of the new forces having entered the battle. The resulting attacks drew the army of genocidal robots off of the X-Men.

“Holy Jaysis, those’re S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters!” Rogue barked as she recognized the logos on the helicopters and stood up to her full height. “The calvary’s here!”

Iceman clenched his fists and tightened his body, causing it to transform back into its organic ice form and bulk up in mass with spikes protruding sporadically over his body. This time he was able to remain in that form.

“Well, then what the hell are we waiting for?” he said, Phoenix and Beast similarly becoming alert and ready for battle. Storm nodded.

“They’ve given us an opportunity to win this. Let us not allow it to go to waste!” she said as her eyes went opaque white and electricity flowed through her body. Her teammates rallied behind her at her ready. “X-Men, attack!”

Domino let out a defiant groan as she flung her pistol at the lead enforcer as he, flanked by two others, approached her. He flinched slightly as the pistol bounced off of the body armor he wore, before he took aim at her fallen form with his rifle. His two comrades did the same, about to fire, when a feral battle-cry caught their attention. They spun around just in time to see a short, although muscular, man charge the lead enforcer with foot long blades erupting out of his fists. Domino couldn’t see who it was, but she hoped it was who she thought it was.

“ARGH!” the lead enforcer screamed as he opened fire on the man. His fellow enforcers joined in, but the man ran through the spray of bullets like a demon possessed until he reached the enforcer, took hold of his neck with one hand and his jaw with the other, and ripped his head to the side with a sickening crack.

The enforcer collapsed to the ground, neck snapped and body suddenly lifeless, and gave way for Domino to see that her teammate Wolverine had arrived to rescue her. The two remaining enforcers continued unloading their magazines on him, but it still wasn’t enough to break the X-Man’s boundless rage.

Wolverine side-kicked the enforcer to his right in the throat with such strength and precision that it crushed his larynx, causing him to drop to his knees, grabbing at his throat. The feral X-Man then spun about face to slash the enforcer to his left across the face, shredding his helmet in the process. He followed the slash with an uppercut into the enforcer’s gut, his adamantium claws penetrating the body armor and erupting through the enforcer’s stomach and coming out through his back.

Wolverine let the man squirm, impaled on his claws, for a moment before he sheathed the foot long blades and allowed the enforcer to fall to the ground where he would undoubtedly bleed out from his wounds next to the enforcer who would choke to death on his hands and knees.

“Logan!” Domino cried out as her bloodied, bullet-riddled teammate panted from the exhilaration of his surprise attack, fists still clenched. She leaned up against the corner behind and began to push herself up to her feet, at a loss for words. “How did you… how did you know we were ambushed?!”

Wolverine growled lowly. “I didn’t,” he said, still coming down from the combat high he was enduring. “Lucky for you, I uh… took a wrong turn…”

“You… you what?” Domino stammered, dumbfounded and amused at the same time. She let out an exhausted laugh as Wolverine shook his head and moved to her side.

“Shut it, lady,” he said as he helped her stand. “I coulda always just turned back around, y’know?”

Domino nodded as she lugged herself up right, her arm and shoulder causing her even more pain than before. It could have been coincidence that Wolverine had ended up turned around, but another explanation was that, like him, her powers had returned to her in just the knick of time.

“Now where’s Sam?” Wolverine asked as they moved away from the wall. Domino motioned for the sliding, reinforced doors to explain what had happened, but the doors slowly began to open before she could.

Cannonball fell forward between the two doors and out of the hall leading to the Cerebro Chamber, landing on his hands and knees. He coughed and heaved from exhaustion, his body wracked with electrical burns.

“Sam!” Wolverine yelled. He leaned Domino back down against the wall and moved to his fallen teammate. “What in blue blazes happened?! Are you alright?!”

Cannonball swallowed back the lump in his throat and looked up to Wolverine, bringing up a hand and giving his teammate a thumb’s up.

“Mission… mission accomplished…”

Two miles outside of the compound was a trail that led to a helipad resting on a platform. With a full security force surrounding them led by Agent Philip Layton, the two remaining members of the Hierarchy -- Richard Normandin and Benjamin Shimizu -- filed into the helicopter already primed for take off. The last of the enforcers moved in behind them, leaving Agent Layton to be last in.

As the helicopter began to lift off into the air, Sean Cassidy ran up the stairs leading up onto the platform just in time to see them begin their departure. He ran across the helipad to try and reach them before they were fully in the air, unarmed but desiring some form of revenge, but he reached the other end of the helipad too late.

Agent Layton looked down to him from the open hatched and grinned, giving the former Head of Special Operations a half-heartedly salute before closing the helicopter door.

“Damnit!” Sean said, clenching his fists. He screamed, “DAMNIT!”

Back at the head of the stairs to the helipad platform, another man appeared only moments too late to ensure some measure of justice.

“It’s too late for them, Sean,” Cyclops called out to Sean‘s back. “Now why don’t you just come with us? Quietly. Peacefully.”

Sean felt a sudden feeling of dread overcome him, but it was quickly filled with anger and defiance. He clenched a fist and turned around to face the new arrival, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m nay goin’ with anyone, Summers,” Sean proclaimed. “Least of all you an‘ the X-Men!”

“Don’t you see? It’s over! There‘s no where left to run, no one else to turn to!“ Cyclops tried to reason with him. “You’ve got to pay for everything you’ve done.”

“An’ be judged by the likes o’ you, boyo?! By the bloody U.S. Government?“ Sean cursed the two. “Over my dead body!”

With those words, Cyclops took off into a sprint across the helipad towards Sean, who similarly ran for the other man. The two intercepted each other at the center of the helipad where Cyclops struck Sean in the face with a right cross, busting open his lip and drawing first blood. Sean recovered quickly and threw a right uppercut into the X-Man’s chin, then followed it up a left cross that sent him stumbling backwards.

Cyclops drew a hand up to his face, moving hurt his jaw side to side, when Sean rushed him. The leader of the X-Men reached out and pulled Sean into him with a grappling move, using the former Byron Agent’s momentum against him and flipping him onto his back. Sean cried out as his back hit the concrete floor of the heliport and Cyclops used that moment to double-back, fists drawn up in a boxer’s stance.

Sean rolled over onto his hands and feet, quickly standing back up despite the aching pain in his back from Cyclops’s throw. He drew up his fists in a similar fighting stance and the two began to pace each other momentarily, matching each other’s movements, watching each other carefully. Sean let out a groan of rage and darted forward, swinging a fist for Cyclops’s face.

The X-Man drew up his forearm to block the hit from striking his head, then shoved Sean backwards and brought his leg up in a round-house kick aimed for Sean’s ribs. Sean leaned down into the kick and caught Cyclops’s leg between his arm and armpit, then released the leg in order to stand upright and take hold of Cyclops’s shirt. Cyclops wedged his arms between Sean’s, trying to break his hold, but Sean thrust his forehead into Cyclops’s nose before he could.

Cyclops cried out and tried to double back, but Sean’s hold was unrelenting. He again struck the X-Man in the face with a head-butt, causing him to cry out in pain and fall backwards on unsteady legs. Sean let him fall to his knees, then kicked him in the face and sent him sprawling down onto the helipad with a bloody nose. Seconds passed as he struggled to move to his hands and knees and brought a hand up to his bloodied face.

“Pathetic!” Sean spat, his fists clenched at his side. “How in Hell did Charles ever see ye fit t’ lead the X-Men?”

Cyclops shot his head towards Sean at the sound of his mentor’s name and felt a sense of rage boil up inside of him. He let out a loud battle-cry and thrust off the ball of his foot into a run, spear-tackling Sean in the gut. Sean was taken off-guard by the sudden attack and fell backwards, getting his back slammed hard into the helipad and having the wind knocked out of him. The leader of the X-Men was left on top of him, weighing his body down.

“Don’t you EVER talk about him like that again!” Cyclops said through clenched teeth. He took Sean by his sweaty, mangled red hair and brought a fist up, punching him in the face. “You could never understand what he’s done for the world!” he cried out before striking him a second time, then a third time. “Or how he’s changed it!”

Sean’s head was rocked back and forth by every blow, and though he at first struggled to push Cyclops off of him, he couldn’t find the strength in him to resist. Instead, when Cyclops stopped punching him, he opened his eyes and stared the X-Man in the eye through his visor.

“An‘… an‘ what about you?!” Sean panted, exasperated. He took a deep breath and yelled defiantly, “Do ye... Do ye really think ye can change th’ world?!”

Cyclops gritted his teeth and clenched a fist, readying to hit him again. He was about to, but a slight calm came over him and he loosened his fist.

“Maybe not the world,” he said, standing up off of Sean‘s body and backing away from him. “But for now… I’ll settle for my corner of it.”

Suddenly, Cyclops felt a strange, yet familiar pressure return to his forehead as his visor began to glow a ruby red. Sean felt a similar feeling in his throat and his eyes went wide in realization. He opened his mouth to scream, but the X-Men’s leader was quicker in opening his visor.

With a final repulsor blast to the chest cavity, the last of the Sentinels collapsed underneath its own weight with a mechanical groan, and then a light explosion in its torso marked the end of the robotic killing-machine. Iron Man, world-known bodyguard of Tony Stark and all-around Golden Avenger, hovered over the monstrosity with the palms of his gauntlets glowing brightly.

All around him, Sentinels had fallen and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents armed to the teeth were flooding the compound’s grounds and skies. While the Sentinels once had an overwhelming presence, the numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. gunships and assault agents that swarmed the Byron Agency’s base of operations were more than enough to deal with them once Cerebro’s tactical control over the Sentinels had ended.

Several of the X-Men involved in the battle, barely standing let alone able to walk, slowly converged on Iron Man from all around. Beast emerged from behind a pile of destroyed Sentinels, Storm and Phoenix descended from the skies, and Iceman and Rogue limped over from the distance with their arms around each other, the two friends holding each other up.

“Our hero,” Phoenix said in playful admiration as she saw Iron Man hovering over the fallen Sentinel. He lowered himself to the ground to talk to them at their level.

“I‘m sure that you all had things under control,” Iron Man shot back with the same sense of camaraderie. “Nevertheless, I hope you don’t mind that I kept tabs on you, or called in a few friends to help for that matter.”

“You have no I idea how much we mind,” Beast said with mock-callousness, all the while trying to catch his breath. “We tried to call for assistance before our assault on this compound, but our communications system was inoperable.”

“When that Sentinel collided into your jet and blew you down into the Pacific Ocean, right?” Iron Man concluded knowingly. Iceman seemed surprised.

“Man, that’s uncanny.”

“That’s a private, orbital spy satellite,” Iron Man stated. The X-Men stared at him, taken aback by the revelation that he had been watching them the entire time. “What? Did you really think that I would allow fellow heroes to launch such a dangerous operation without adequate support? After providing them intelligence that helped in their operation, to boot?”

“Or not take the opportunity to crush a rival arms developing agency…” Storm added under her breath, narrowing her eyes. She couldn’t see it, but something told her that Tony Stark was grinning behind that armored helmet.

Iceman shot a look to Iron Man, then glanced to Storm.

“Always remember, Big Brother is watching you,” Iceman joked with the roll of his eyes. He looked to Rogue and nodded to the group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents exiting a helicopter on the other end of the blacktop. “C’mon, Mississippi. Let’s go see of those medics got any nice, pain-numbing drugs for us.”

Rogue chuckled slightly as she walked with Iceman, both holding each other under each other‘s strength. “Ah dunno ‘bout you, Drake, but ah’ll take anything to distract me from this crushin’ headache ah got.”

“You and me both, chica,” he said as they walked away from the group.

Not far from where Iceman and Rogue were limping towards, another helicopter with its cargo hatch open descended on the blacktop. Before it completely landed, Colonel Nick Fury -- Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. himself -- leapt out with a handful of armed agents following suit. Several other agents rushed to his side, surely giving him a full status report on their assault of the compound.

“Looks like the big man’s on scene,” Iron Man observed. “I better give him sort of briefing as to our role here, considering S.H.I.E.L.D. came running on such short notice.“ He looked to Beast and his teammates, giving them all a slight nod before his boot-thrusters kicked and carried him into the sky towards Fury.

The three X-Men were left to themselves when Wolverine had walked up, having just assisted Domino and Cannonball out of the compound to the aid of the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics on scene. Before they could properly greet him, a figure in the distance approached the compound cradling a body in his arms. Smoke from burning and sparking Sentinels briefly obscured their vision, but as the figure came closer to them and emerged from the smoke it became clear who the two were.

“Scott!” Phoenix yelled as she saw her husband approach, Sean Cassidy dangling limp in his arms. The X-Men, quickly joined by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from all sides, ran towards the two. When they met up, Storm gasped as the sight of the two became clear to her, as Sean’s state became clear.

“Goddess,” she began cautiously. “Is he…?”

Cyclops shook his head as he dropped to a knee before the conglomerate of X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, gently setting Sean’s body on the blacktop.

“Just unconscious,” he said as he stood. “I’m sure he’ll live.”

Phoenix rushed to her husband and the two each other embraced tightly, closing their eyes. She was relieved that her husband was alive, but after everything that had happened in the past several weeks she felt even more relieved to see that he had allowed their former friend to live. It meant that despite it all, somewhere deep down inside her husband’s morals and principles were still in tact.

However, if one of his teammates had asked him if that was true, Cyclops -- the leader of the X-Men -- wouldn’t be so sure of that statement. Even though his actions and tactics had successfully led the X-Men through the trials and tribulations presented by the Byron Agency, there was a shame buried deep down within over his inability to find another way. Maybe if Professor Xavier were still alive…

As Cyclops and Phoenix loosened their arms from around each other, they looked back down to Sean’s prone form on the blacktop. Storm, Beast, and Wolverine surrounded Sean‘s body with the two, similarly studying the former X-Man who had fallen from grace. His body was covered in bruises and cuts, the black suit and white shirt he wore was ripped in several places and covered in dirt and blood, and the left side of his face was severely bruised.

“What happened to ya, Irish?” Wolverine muttered, clenching a fist.

“Henry Brooks Adam once said that… ‘it is good men who do the most harm in the world’,” Beast said, irresolute. He glanced to Cyclops, who merely glanced back, stoic. “There seems to be a lesson in that for us all.”

“Perhaps so,” Storm said, wiping a tear from her cheek. Wolverine grumbled lowly and waved his hand dismissively before storming away from the scene.

S.H.I.E.L.D. medics rushed up to the X-Men with a gurney, causing the four to part from Sean’s body and back away as the medics knelt down beside him, going to work. There was a lot to be done to heal his wounds, but even more to be done to heal his soul if anyone had the inclination to do so.

”Uh-huh… uh-huh…“ Colonel Fury said from several feet away, pacing about with a phone to his ear. The line of the phone was connected to a communications backpack worn by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. “Alright, good to know. Keep me updated,” he said before hanging up the phone on the backpack and patting the agent’s shoulder, nodding for him to go. The agent nodded and jogged off.

Fury cocked his head to the side as he processed the information he had just received, then took a drag off of his cigar and began strutting towards the men and women who would be equally interested in what he had just been told.

“Hey, X-Men,” he said with a whistle. Cyclops and his three teammates turned to the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., who exhaled a puff of smoke and withdrew the cigar from his mouth. “Just got off the horn with one of our gunships patrolling the area. It looks like they intercepted a helicopter leaving the area, and you’ll never guess who was inside trying to pull a fast one…”

“The Hierarchy,” Cyclops said before anyone else. Fury nodded with a grin.

“Bingo,” the good colonel said.

Storm, Beast, and Phoenix looked up to Cyclops, who looked back and explained to them, “Banshee was trying to stop them from leaving when I found him, but it was too late. They had taken off before either of us could reach them.”

“You can bet they didn’t expect us to show up in the area, or at least not so quickly,” Fury commented. “Good job, all of you.”

“What’ll happen to them?” Phoenix asked from her husband’s side. Fury scoffed.

“If it were up to me, I’d stick ‘em in a dark pit and let ‘em rot until the end of time,” he said with a sneer. “However, we’ll probably pass them onto the U.S. government for prosecution, and then I’m sure the U.N. and World Courts will wanna get their hands on them over the stunt they tried to pull with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

The X-Men all found them silent, but approving. It would be justice, or so what passed for justice with all things considered. Fury gave them one final nod before walking off to oversee S.H.I.E.L.D.’s occupation of the island.

“Again, good job here. Pass on my gratitude to your teammates,” he said gruffly and then thumbed up to the sky. “I’m sure someone up yonder would be proud…”

Storm nodded to the colonel and Beast offered a salute, but Fury was already gone in the swarm of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at work. The two turned to Cyclops and Phoenix, who were still standing with their arms around each other, and the X-Men were left to silently contemplate the events that had transpired that night.

“So what do we do now?” Storm asked, breaking the silence. No one had an answer for her, but as Cyclops looked off into the distance and saw the sun rise, he could think of only one obvious course of action.

“Let’s… go home…”

Got any primary adjectiveless concerns regarding this ish? Rock!