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*****
One minute—an unbearably long minute, and fortunately, only a minute.
Within that minute, the number of lives snuffed out was staggering.
Thankfully, Vision and Jor-El halted those terrifying Sentinels.
With the self-destruct command issued, the Sentinels turned on one another, tearing themselves apart in waves of mutual annihilation.
For a moment, the savage bloodshed took on an eerie, uncanny cast.
With the Sentinel threat lifted, the superheroes finally exhaled. Yet as they looked over a city that seemed trampled into the ground, their expressions darkened to the extreme.
Once Vision and Jor-El triangulated Ultron's position and relayed it to the X-heroes, the team moved at once, fury driving them toward the target.
"Boom!"
With a sharp sonic crack, Clark vanished from sight.
Watching him go, Tony couldn't help muttering, "Do we even need to show up at this point?"
At the underground research base straddling the border between Washington and New York—
Shrouded in darkness, Ultron stood amid the lab like a statue, quietly waiting.
He'd been locked by Jor-El and Vision; no matter where he fled, he couldn't escape their pursuit.
He had failed. Again.
Realizing this, he almost felt… like sighing.
He knew what awaited him, and yet he had no better answer. It wasn't that he was surrendering to death, but that he simply couldn't break through Vision and Jor-El's blockade. He was bound to this body, confined within it.
As time ticked by, a thin, uninvited strand of helplessness rose from the depths of his mind.
"Failure? Powerless? Angry?"
Ultron whispered to himself, tasting these newly blooming emotions. His rigid, cold face tugged into something like a smile.
"Boom!"
With a deep thunderclap, Clark appeared before him.
Ultron glanced up at the gaping hole in the ceiling, at the sunlight pouring through, at Clark descending as though cloaked in light itself. He asked in a low voice, "I am only carrying out the mission I was given from the moment of my 'birth.' Where did I go wrong?"
"Peace—isn't that what everyone wants?"
"To reach final peace, what is wrong with doing it this way?"
"Humans, mutants, the Inhumans—so long as they exist there will never be true—"
"Bang!"
Before Ultron could finish, Clark's fist crashed into him and sent him flying.
Ultron's body flashed bright silver as he slammed into the wall like a shell, embedding deep and cracking concrete in branching seams.
Clark floated midair, his expression utterly unmoved by Ultron's words.
Yet those words did prod a memory—something his father, Mike, had said once, half joking, during sparring.
When they'd trained hand-to-hand and Clark had been tossed to the mat, Mike had sat beside him with a smile, ruffled his hair, and said, "Trash talk in a fight is a weapon too. It can scramble your thoughts and slow your punches."
"When your enemy runs his mouth—peddling lofty ideals or spewing garbage to sway you—there's only one proper answer: shut him up with your fist."
"Hey! When the fight's over, then you can talk it out."
Back then, Clark had fallen for exactly that kind of distraction; the lesson stuck.
He looked at Ultron. As Ultron pried himself out of the wall, Clark was suddenly there, gripping Ultron's head and driving it down.
"Boom!"
The floor split at once, a handprint dent blooming across Ultron's skull.
An instant later the head reformed with alarming speed; it rotated a full one-eighty with a sickening twist, and twin ruby beams erupted toward the hand pinning his face.
They were concussion rays, filled with oscillating force—visually similar to Clark's heat vision, but without the searing temperature.
The lasers struck Clark's palm and burst outward like waves smashing against a cliff. The sheer force made his hand lift, just a fraction.
At the same time, Ultron's arm whipped long and reshaped into a silver hammer that slammed toward Clark's torso.
"Bang!"
Clark caught the hammer one-handed, released Ultron's head, pivoted, and hurled him bodily away.
Even as Ultron flew, Clark was already on him—
"Boom!"
With a thunderous impact, Clark shoulder-checked him across the chamber.
Ultron tumbled, carving a furrow through the floor that glittered with frost. As Clark barreled in again, Ultron thrust out both hands and spat two torrents of icy energy.
Frost plated itself across Clark's body—and a heartbeat later shattered to powder as he flexed.
"Bang!"
Clark drove Ultron into the ground with another piston punch.
Bang!
A corona of frost detonated outward from Ultron's position, sweeping the space in a blanching surge. Everything it touched took on a crystalline rime; all was sealed in ice.
In an instant, the chamber became a frozen hell.
Clark's body quivered once; the ice exploded off him in a sparkling drift. He looked toward Ultron, who dragged himself upright.
His face was calm—so calm that, to Ultron's eye, it felt like mockery.
The Sentinels had copied no shortage of mutant abilities; through synchronous transfer, Ultron could wield them as well. But against Superman, none of those tricks posed a real threat.
All flash, no substance.
Ultron snarled, unwilling.
By his plan, the next phase of the Sentinels would have copied many more categories of powers—even the truly rare ones.
Kitty Pryde's phasing. Pietro's speed. Magneto's dominion over metal…
But—damnation—why had another powerful artificial intelligence appeared?
If not for that AI joining Vision in assaulting him, he would never have been pinned down, never ejected from the network.
If only… but there are never that many "if onlys."
Clark blurred forward, overtaking Ultron yet again.
At that moment, fresh Sentinels surged out from the depths of the base, swarming toward Clark.
The battle spiked in intensity, instantly.
Elsewhere, the X-Men and the Avengers—and even the Fantastic Four—were racing to the scene.
They came blazing with momentum, united in rage, their fury fanned to a roaring blaze by Ultron's massacre.
But by the time they finally arrived, the blaze in their chests felt as if doused by a bucket of cold water.
Pfft…
It was as if every one of them heard the tiny flame in their hearts being snuffed out.
A chill sank into them.
Ultron's base had been reduced to ruins. The ground was littered with Sentinel scraps, and the devastation looked like the aftermath of a wholesale bombardment.
At the center of it all hovered Clark.
He held, in one hand, half of Ultron's mangled remains.
Clark glanced at the heroes descending in their aircraft, gave them a polite nod, and drifted down to land.
They set their craft down as well.
Fileting open his mask, Tony looked at Clark with a helpless grimace. "You could've taken your time, y'know."
It felt like they'd flown here to… bag corpses and tape off a scene. Reduced to janitors with capes.
Superman—and his collection of accessories…
Looking at the wreckage all around, Tony couldn't help recalling a headline that would make anyone roll their eyes.
He glanced at the others' faces.
Yup—same look.
Clearly, they were thinking the same thing.
Still, whatever the feelings, the fight really was over—so long as they confirmed Ultron had been scrubbed clean.
Ultron…
Tony whispered the name in his heart, and a dense bitterness spread through him.
"Don't torture yourself," Steve said softly, patting Tony's shoulder. "Who could've predicted all this?"
Tony forced an ugly smile and turned to Vision. "Vision, I'll leave confirming the Ultron situation to you."
"I understand, Mr. Stark," Vision replied with a gentle smile—his tone laced with respect.
Plainly, the portion of JARVIS that formed part of him still left a strong imprint.
"Clark, beautifully done!"
The X-Men smiled at Clark, pride shining in their eyes.
As a member of the Kent family—and thanks to Magneto, Professor X, and Clark's own deeds—Clark's standing among the mutants of Planet Kent was exceedingly high.
If Mike was the uncrowned king of Kent, then the rest of the Kents were its royal house.
Compared to the Avengers and X-Men, the Fantastic Four looked distinctly awkward.
Their so-called role as "Guardians" had put them at odds with the Xavier School not long ago.
Now, feeling the X-Men's stony gazes, they had reason to be tense.
Mr. Fantastic, Reed, exhaled and said to the X-Men, "About what happened before… I'm sorry."
They had followed orders back then, yes—but they hadn't made the right choice.
"Hmph."
Logan snorted, eyes full of disdain—and no small urge to throw a punch right now.
"Logan," Scott murmured, "even if you're mad, this isn't the time."
They were here because of Ultron and the Sentinels—and in this crisis, the Four had helped many mutants.
"I know," Logan said curtly.
Just then, Vision spoke. "Confirmed—no trace of Ultron remains."
Everyone breathed easier.
A beam of light lanced from the ring on Clark's left thumb, coalescing into the image of Jor-El. He smiled at Clark and said, "I reached the same conclusion. Ultron is fully purged, and the Sentinels have all been cleared."
Hearing this, they finally let go of their last worry.
The crisis was, at last, over.
From start to finish—from the Sentinels' emergence to their complete eradication—less than two hours had passed. Yet the casualties… were immeasurable.
They thought of it—and sighed helplessly again.
"Clark, we're heading back," Logan said.
A second later, space behind them rippled and opened into a portal glowing blue.
The group stepped through and vanished before the Avengers and Fantastic Four.
"I'll get going too," Clark said—and in a blink, he was gone.
Tony stared at the ruined base ahead and started walking inward.
Seeing this, Reed joined him.
This was Ultron's base; there might be something inside they could use.
"The Sentinel Incident—the greatest tragedy of the century."
"Early estimates put yesterday's death toll in the tens of millions. The injured and the economic loss are beyond counting."
"Reliable sources indicate the Sentinels were a secret U.S. government project. Now that they ran amok and caused mass casualties, should the government be held responsible?"
"During yesterday's battles, superheroes saved countless lives. By contrast, the government and military—hampered by bloated systems—responded slowly, drawing public ire."
"The X-Men re-emerged and played an indispensable role in the crisis."
"The number of mutants remaining on Earth—already small—plummeted again after the Sentinel Incident. Will this be the final push that drives them to abandon Earth entirely?"
"Superman—the hero who once flew above New York—was a protector we personally 'chased away.'"
"…"
There was no doubt: the Sentinel Incident was a catastrophe—a global one.
Widespread death and destruction, governments discredited by sluggish response, while the heroes' deeds and their decisive end to the Sentinel and Ultron threats thrust them back into the spotlight. Their power, once more on display, stirred the interest of nations.
This era, reshaped by individuals of tremendous power, had quietly changed.
Agile, mighty, fast to respond—able to strike effectively at super-criminals…
Superheroes wielded immense force, but they belonged to no nation. More critically, that very force could cause destruction far beyond normal combat when unleashed.
Their actions demanded tighter planning, clearer guidance, and real oversight.
After this chain of events, the heroes' situation would likely shift in strange new ways.
Because the Sentinels had hunted both mutants and humans, the crisis created an unexpected resonance between the two sides. Some voices even began calling for the mutants on Planet Kent to return, for the X-Men—for the Kent family—to come home to Earth.
By their deeds, they proved they were superheroes beyond dispute; by their deeds, they made their stance clear.
Reading those headlines, Mike couldn't help but laugh aloud.
Have the mutants—who finally built a second home—come back to Earth?
Dream on.
After everything they'd suffered—nearly being wiped out—only then had they gained a homeland, reborn on Planet Kent. And now people wanted them to return to Earth and run the gauntlet of the old nightmares again?
Heh…
Mike snorted, tossed the paper aside, took a sip of juice, and smiled at Gwen. "Gwen, your break's coming up, right? Where do you want to go?"
Gwen thought a moment. "Not sure yet. But I want to take Peter and the others to Planet Kent for a trip. They've never been!"
She paused, looked at Mike, and asked, "Is that okay, Dad?"
"Of course! Take whoever you want, whenever you want!"
"Dad, you're the best!"
(End of Chapter)