Chapter 107: The Crimson Dawn
—
The world had fractured into moments of impossible clarity and stretches of numb horror.
Genosha burned.
Not metaphorically or politically, but literally. The paradise that Magneto had spent decades dreaming about was being systematically erased from existence. Crystal spires that had caught sunlight now reflected flames. Gardens where mutant children had played hours ago were craters of molten glass. The air itself tasted of ozone and death.
[OMEGA LEVEL THREAT DETECTED.] The mechanical voice echoed across the burning cityscape. [INITIATING TERMINATION PROTOCOL.]
A Sentinel, three stories of gleaming murder, fired another beam that carved through a residential complex like it was made of paper. The building didn't just collapse. It ceased. Vaporized at the molecular level, leaving only shadows burned into the ground where people had been standing.
Xavier pressed both hands to his temples, blood trickling from his nose as the psychic backlash hit him again. Every death was a scream in his mind, every extinguished consciousness a wound in his psyche. "So many," he whispered, voice breaking. "Eric… Old friend, there are so many dying."
Jean Grey had fallen to her knees, tears streaming down her face as she felt each life snuffed out. The weight of genocide pressed against her mind like a physical thing, threatening to drown her in its horror. Emma Frost, even in her diamond form that should have protected her from psychic trauma, trembled with each new wave of death.
Perhaps the most dangerous of them all was Madelyne, who lay collapsed on the ground, her Phoenix energy flickering around her in erratic pulses. The cosmic force within her fed on the mass death, growing stronger with each extinguished life. Her body convulsed as she fought to contain it, to prevent the Phoenix from emerging and turning an already apocalyptic scene into something far worse.
"This is it." Cable's voice cut through the chaos, weary and bitter. The time traveler stood watching the destruction with the expression of someone witnessing a recurring nightmare. "This is the day it all went wrong. The Genoshan Massacre. Sixteen million mutants dead in less than an hour."
The number hung in the air. Sixteen million. Not a statistic but people with names, dreams, families. Children who'd been playing in the streets. Parents who'd thought they'd finally found safety. All of it ending in fire and mechanical precision.
Magneto stood frozen, his entire body trembling with rage so pure it made the air around him vibrate. Metal debris orbited him in increasingly violent patterns, responding to emotions too vast for words.
"Humans," he whispered, then louder, "Humans. It's always HUMANS!" The ground itself buckled under his fury. "What have we EVER DONE TO THEM?!"
"Erik, your rage will not save them!"
Storm's voice cracked like thunder across the chaos. While others collapsed under grief or fury, Ororo Munroe rose. Wind and lightning gathered around her, forming a protective dome that deflected falling debris. Her white hair whipped in the gale of her own making, eyes blazing with controlled power.
"Charles, your grief will not honor them!" She continued, her voice carrying the authority of someone who'd seen paradise burn before. "We fight, or we die with them! Choose now!"
The challenge in her words cut through the paralysis.
Leaders weren't allowed the luxury of despair, not when people still needed saving.
Grandpa Max had already shifted into full Plumber mode, his Hawaiian shirt replaced by advanced combat armor that materialized from what had seemed like an ordinary shirt buttom. His fingers flew across a holographic display, analyzing attack patterns and energy signatures with decades of experience.
"The beams are coming from multiple vectors," he announced, voice carrying military precision. "Even orbital platforms, cloaked until the moment of firing. Someone coordinated this down to the second."
Beast limped over, fur singed from a near miss, his scientific mind already working despite the horror. "The energy signatures match theoretical Sentinel weaponry, but the power output is magnitudes beyond anything on record."
"They've been preparing," Cyclops said, his voice tight with controlled fury. "While we celebrated, while we tried diplomacy, the low-lives built weapons specifically to exterminate us." His eyes flickered to Max and the panting Ben. "...I apologize, I'm simply beyond angry."
Max nodded grimly. "I too am cursing in my head, Eric, you can continue. Let us focus on things that matter… We need simultaneous response. Defense for the survivors, offense against the platforms before they fire again."
"How?" Shaw demanded, for once his arrogance replaced by genuine fear. "We can't reach orbital platforms!"
"We have flyers," Storm stated. "Jean, can you maintain a telekinetic shield while airborne?"
Jean wiped blood from her nose, forcing herself to stand. "I'll manage."
"I can help with that."
Everyone turned to see Charmcaster, her hands already glowing with magical energy. The sorceress looked haggard but determined. "Teleportation magic. I can get a strike team to the platforms."
"It's suicide," Emma said flatly. "We don't know what defenses they have."
"Then we die fighting instead of cowering," Magneto snarled, finally finding his voice again. His rage had crystallized into something sharp and purposeful. "I will tear their machines apart rivet by rivet."
Storm nodded. "Then we have our plan. Charmcaster, prepare your strongest teleportation spell. Erik, Jean, you're our primary assault. Scott, coordinate ground defense with whoever's still combat capable. Henry, see if you can hack their communications, find out who's coordinating this."
She turned to Max. "Magistrate, can your technology track the platforms?"
"Already on it," Max confirmed. "I'm uploading coordinates to everyone's comms. And you can expect Plumber backups in ten minutes."
In the span of thirty seconds, they'd transformed from victims to warriors. But even as plans formed and people moved with purpose, the mechanical voices continued their chant across the burning city.
[OMEGA LEVEL THREAT DETECTED.]
[INITIATING TERMINATION PROTOCOL.]
****
While the others planned, I was having trouble.
Gwen's hands grabbed my shoulders before I even realized I'd fallen to my knees again. The world spun in nauseating circles, my body screaming protests from the XLR8 sprint. Every muscle fiber felt like it had been dipped in acid and set on fire.
"Ben! Ben, look at me!" Gwen's voice seemed to come from very far away. "You're in shock. You need to breathe."
I was breathing. Wasn't I? The air tasted like copper and ash, each inhale bringing the scent of vaporized concrete and worse things I didn't want to identify.
Charmcaster knelt beside us, her eyes wide as she assessed the magical disturbances rippling through the air. "The dimensional barriers are weakening. This much death, this much energy release... it's tearing holes in reality itself."
"I'm fine now. Dammit. Help Madelyne," I managed to croak out, my throat feeling like sandpaper. "Please. She's... the Phoenix is responding to all this death. If she loses control..."
Gwen's eyes widened in understanding.
One world-ending catastrophe was enough. We didn't need a cosmic entity of rebirth and destruction joining the party. She squeezed my shoulder once before rushing to where Madelyne writhed on the ground, golden fire crackling around her form.
I forced myself to look up at the burning sky. Orange and red painted the darkness, punctuated by the electric blue of Sentinel beams.
The city I'd refused to explore was dying. When Jubilee had invited me to see the technology demonstrations, when Nightcrawler had offered to show me the cultural districts, when various mutants had tried to share their paradise with me, I'd declined every time.
Because I'd known this was coming.
I'd known, and some cowardly part of me had thought that if I didn't see it, didn't connect with it, maybe it wouldn't hurt as much when it burned.
I was wrong.
It hurt anyway. Every scream in the distance, every building that collapsed, every life that winked out. It all hurt because I'd known, I'd warned them, I'd tried everything I could think of, and it hadn't been enough.
And oh, how worse it was compared to my expectations. It was one thing to read it in a comic book panel, and an entirely different experience to live within it. Boiling anger ignited in my chest, hot and pure. Not at fate or destiny or the cruel randomness of the universe. At people. Specific people with names and faces who'd made choices.
"Bastion," I whispered, the name tasting like poison on my tongue.
The Technomancer. The hybrid of Master Mold and Nimrod technology given human form. He'd orchestrated this. But not alone, of course. It would have taken resources, political cover, willing blindness from world leaders who'd rather see mutants burn than share power.
Did King T'challa know too?
The human governments who'd been warned about terrorist threats but chose to interpret that as the mutants being the terrorists. The intelligence agencies that had to have known something this massive was being prepared but stayed silent. The media that would spin this tomorrow as a tragedy but never ask why nobody stopped it.
Humans did this. Not all humans, but enough. Enough to build the weapons. Enough to aim them. Enough to pull the trigger.
"Get up, Ben."
Grandpa Max stood over me in his full Plumber armor, the blue energy cells glowing along its surface. His expression was granite, the face of someone who'd seen worlds burn and still found the strength to keep fighting.
"I know you're hurting. I know you're angry. But you're the only one here with the power to stop those machines. So get up, soldier. That's an order."
The military command in his voice snapped something back into place in my mind. Right. This wasn't over. The Sentinels were still firing. People were still dying. And I had the most powerful device in the universe strapped to my wrist.
I pushed myself to my feet, legs shaky but holding. "Earlier as XLR8, I managed to interpret some information," I used a half-assed excuse. If asked for details later, I'd have to think more. "The Sentinels are being controlled by someone named Bastion. A Technomancer, basically a human-machine hybrid with the ability to interface with any technology. He's probably coordinating everything from somewhere safe."
Grandpa's eyes sharpened. "Can you override his control?"
"I think so. Upgrade is a Technomancer too, in a way. And Upgrade's species, from what I've collected, was created by Azmuth, the smartest being in five galaxies. I'd say some Earth-based tin cans shouldn't be a problem." I managed a weak smile. "Time to show these machines what real technology looks like."
The Omnitrix pulsed green on my wrist, ready and eager. Around us, the resistance was organizing. Storm's winds, Jean's telekinesis, Magneto's magnetic fury. All preparing to strike back against the machines that had stolen paradise.
****
[Rogue's POV]
The metal giant's fist missed Anna Marie's head by inches, close enough that she felt the wind of its passage. She rolled, came up running, and didn't stop as another beam carved through the space she'd just occupied.
[OMEGA LEVEL THREAT DETECTED.]
"Yeah, yeah, ah heard you the first dozen times!" She snarled, diving behind the wreckage of what had been someone's home minutes ago. Her breath came in ragged gasps, ribs aching from a glancing blow that had sent her through a wall.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Magneto had promised them safety. Strength. A place where mutants could fight back against anyone who tried to hurt them. She'd seen that dream come true. For a few days, it had been reality.
But these things, these Sentinels, adapted to everything. When she'd absorbed one mutant's fire powers from a dying woman, the machines had shifted to ice beams. When she'd touched a strongman mutant for enhanced strength, they'd switched to energy nets that strength couldn't break.
They learned. They evolved. They were better at being mutants than mutants were.
"Sugar, if you got any fancy plans, now'd be the time," she muttered to herself, pressing against her cover as footsteps that shook the ground approached.
The Sentinel rounded the corner, its glowing eyes fixed on her. No emotion, no hatred, just cold calculation. She was a target to be eliminated, nothing more.
[TERMINATION IMMINENT.]
She had nothing left. No absorbed powers remaining, her Captain Marvel Strength running low as she'd been fighting and saving people for a while now. There was no hope of touching the machine to drain it. This was how Anna Marie died, alone and helpless, just another statistic in a genocide.
The Sentinel's chest began to glow, building to a final blast.
Then something impossible happened.
Green lines suddenly spread across the Sentinel's form like living circuitry, racing from its feet to its head in seconds. The charging beam guttered and died as the machine's eyes shifted from cold blue to bright green.
"Not today, you stupid fucking toaster!"
That voice. Coming from the Sentinel itself. The machine turned its own weapons on another Sentinel, blasting it apart with precision no human or mutant could have managed.
"Ben?" She whispered, hardly daring to believe it.
The possessed Sentinel turned to her, and despite being a giant death machine, something in its posture was unmistakably Ben Tennyson. "Hey, Anna. Rough night?"
A laugh bubbled up from her chest, hysteria mixed with relief. Despite the situation, despite the shaken panting state she'd seen him in earlier, he was now making jokes. It wasn't cheap, it made her feel better. "You possessed a Sentinel?"
"Upgrade, baby! Told you I had tricks you hadn't seen." The Ben-Sentinel turned and fired at two more approaching machines, taking them down with their own weapons. "Now get to safety. I've got some housecleaning to do."
She watched in awe as he systematically began dismantling the Sentinel forces. Each machine he destroyed, he seemed to learn from, adapting their weapons and strategies. It was like watching someone play chess with Death itself and winning.
He saved me. The thought hit her like a physical blow. The boy she'd fought, who she'd nearly killed on Magneto's orders, had just saved her life without hesitation.
I guess not all humans are bad. Well, not all humans were Ben Tennyson.
He moved like a green ghost in the machine, turning the bitter humanity's weapons against themselves. And for the first time since the attack began, Anna Marie felt something she'd thought lost forever.
Hope.
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Author Note: It's a-Sunday! Stones please!!
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