Scott stood at the desk that once belonged to his friend and mentor Charles Xavier and thought back over the past couple months.
OZT had taken so much from them and now it was just getting worse. He sighed and thought back to when they thought the war might have turned around for them.
They were out in the desert after escaping from Bastion, no one knew what he was but he was powerful, and his Operation Zero Tolerance.
They had hunted mutants like dogs that needed to be exterminated and the battles just got messier and messier.
He looked at the picture of him and the "old team", Jean Grey, now his wife, who was a telepath and a telekintic. Beast, Hank McCoy, with the abilities of super agility and super strength.
The only things that matched his powers were his huge heart and his genius IQ. Bobby Drake or the Iceman, with the abilities to manipulate the water around him to form ice.
Archangel, Warren Worthington the III, with the ability to fly like his namesake, along with a lot of money and a brilliant mind for business.
The rest of the X-men were not in the picture, but Scott thought of them anyway, as memories often bleed into one another.
Rogue with the ability to absorb another's thoughts and memories, also with the powers of super strength and near inpenatrability.
She could also fly which had proved many times an asset.
Gambit with the power to kinetically "charge" an object and release the energy explosively.
Wolverine with a healing factor that could heal almost any wound and claws that could do a LOT of damage when he went into a rage.
There were others as well, but Scott's mind once again shifted to the events that followed them escaping Bastion's clutches a couple months before.
Wolverine and the other X-men were standing around waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something didn't feel right about the situation.
Xavier was still missing in action after he turned himself into the government and Jubilee had just escaped on her own.
None of the X-men had wanted to contemplate what the child has been through. They broke into a base that was said to house Prime Sentinels with some friends they had made from a medical clinic.
Scott turned as their friend Mustang hit the floor groaning and ripping the bandages away from his eyes revealed mechanical ones in the place of where real ones used to be.
His mechanical voice said they were to be terminated and the X-men then went into a full defensive mode. This was their frien, and they didn't want to harm him, but he was under the control of the prime sentinal programming,
and would stop at nothing to ensure their distruction.
Why can't they just let us live in peace?! They relentlessly hound us, litteraly to our graves given half the chance all because we are different than them. All because of the X-Factor gene that gives us our powers, that makes us what we are...MUTANTS!
These powers make us different than them, some would even say ...BETTER than them.
While Scott is pondering their woeful state, the new prime sentinal starts to tremble with violent sezures that look VERY painful.
#SYSTEMS MALFUNTION!!#
"Nail 'em Jean!" comes a familier voice from within the sentinal.
"Wha--? But..." stammers Jean.
"NOW!" comes the voice.
Jean quicky realizes what's going on and psychicaly reaches out boosting the host's own will to fight the prime sentinal programing.
A pop and some smoke and the prime sentinal drops to it's knees revealing the source of bolth the voice and it's sezures, the X-men's Shadowcat, recentaly returned from an extended stay in Europe.
"Hi, Guys! Miss me?"
Wolverine seeing Kitty Pryde quickly embraces her and is lost in a flashback.
He sees Kitty when she first joined the X-men, a frightened teenager, walking through the doors of the Xavier institute. In his minds eye he's transported to the final battle with Ogun. Kitty had just fought for and won her soul back with a little help from Wolverine.
"What about the rest of the team?" Cyclops asks, breaking the moment Logan & Kitty were sharing.
"That's why I'm here, OZT killed Pete Wisdom & Amanda Sefton (Daytripper). Collosus & Kurt have been captured."
"By the Goddess!" Ororo excalimed.
Just then the building started to shake and rumble, the X-men scrambled towards the door when all of a sudden The rumbbling stopped, and the sound oc artilery fire bagan.
Phasing her head through a wall for quick peek, Shadowcat sees the course of the rumbblings...Juggernaut!
#STAND DOWN, MUTANT!#
"I aint no mutant! I'm the Unstoppable Juggernaut!" Cain says letting a fist fly into the nearest OZT tank which had by now surrounded the building, smashing it to bits before moving onto the next one.
"looks like the calvary has arived, and you'll never guess who it is! Juggernaut!" calls kitty back to the awaiting X-Men. "Whadda ya say we lend him a hand?"
At that, the X-Men rush out in a fury of indirect attacks as to prevent the sentinals from developing counter mesures...
The X-Men attacked like a well-oiled machine, moving as one.
Cannonball and Storm took to the air, while Cyclops and Phoenix,
hand in hand, went for the frontal approach. While Jean's force field
protected them, Cyclops would let loose with the devastating optic blasts
that were his blessing and curse.
Wolverine turned to Shadowcat,"Phase me into that tank, Kitty." he said, his
voice little more than a growl over the din of the battle.
"But Logan, they'll ..."
"Just do it!"
Taking his hand, Kitty Pryde makes them both intangible and they raced (floated,
more aptly) towards the nearest tank.> "'Zat you, runt?" yelled Juggernaut, while smashing his enormous fist into the barrel
of a nearby OZT tank.
"Sure is, Cain! Goin' to town!" returned Logan.
"It's amazing to see the Juggernaut actually on our side for once," Kitty whispered to
Logan.
"Desperate times breed desperate alliaces," he relied.
"Okay Logan, you're in!" Kitty cried, and released his hand inside the armored vehicle.
"Much obliged, darlin'."
The Prime Sentinel turned around only to be faced with six 12-inch bone claws. His reactions
were lightning quick, hitting Wolverine in the chest with a laser.
"Bad move, tin man, 'cause now I'm mad!" roared Logan. His mind was clouding, and all he could
sense was red. Blood red. He felt the intense adrenaline rush that usually accompanied his
bloodlust.
"What is it, Jean?" asked Cyclops, seeing the love of his life momentarily stagger.
"Logan...NO!" she screamed, her voice heard even over the noise of Storm's incapicating lightning
attacks and Cannonball's blasts. "Scott, he's ..."
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