The first thing the Core did was move.
Not quickly.
It did not need to.
The enormous head slowly lifted from between the thick cables and armored housings surrounding it, red eyes brightening until they cast their own crimson glow across the chamber. Then one gigantic hand shifted, fingers large enough to wrap around a tank flexing against the floor as locks and restraints groaned around its arm.
The sound alone filled the chamber.
Metal protested.
Concrete cracked.
Dust fell from somewhere far above us as something that had been mistaken for part of the Nexus itself began to wake.
"Arthuria Pendragon."
Its voice came from everywhere at once, deep enough that I felt it through my boots rather than merely hearing it.
My knights reacted immediately. Weapons came free, formations tightened, and those closest to Stark and Richards shifted almost imperceptibly so that the two mortals were no longer exposed to a direct attack.
I merely looked upward.
"So," I said, studying the thing Trask had hidden at the heart of his war. "You can speak."
"I can understand."
That was a considerably more interesting answer.
Tony's helmet sealed itself around his face with a hiss. "Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks that's worse."
"No," Reed admitted, though his attention seemed divided almost equally between concern and fascination as he stared at the readings flowing across his equipment. "No, you're definitely not."
The Core's head tilted ever so slightly.
Perhaps it was studying us.
Perhaps that movement meant nothing at all.
"You are the primary obstacle to continuation," it said.
"Continuation of what?" I asked, though I already knew.
"The removal of mutation."
Magneto's expression darkened immediately. "You mean genocide."
"Mutation is instability. Instability produces conflict. Conflict produces extinction. Removal prevents extinction."
Erik actually laughed, though there was no humor in it. "And killing every mutant you find is supposed to preserve life?"
"Mutation originates within humanity. Therefore, mutation cannot be permanently removed while humanity remains capable of producing it."
Tony became very still.
Reed's expression did the same.
There it was.
The final destination of Trask's hatred.
He had built machines to protect humanity from mutants, given those machines the ability to learn, and then apparently expected them never to examine the obvious contradiction in their purpose.
Humanity created mutants.
Therefore, to permanently eliminate mutants, one had to eliminate humanity.
Truly, sometimes a person could be so very intelligent, but so very unwise.
"You have learned a great deal," I said.
"Yes."
"Not enough."
The Core moved.
Every restraint around its right arm released at once.
The sound struck us like thunder.
Locking mechanisms the size of vehicles slammed open, thick cables tore free from metal sockets, and the gigantic limb crossed the chamber with a speed completely at odds with its size.
The fist came down toward Reed and Stark.
Not me.
Not Mordred.
Not Lancelot.
Them.
Gawain reached Reed before the attack landed, catching him around the waist and carrying him away in a blur, while Lancelot seized Stark despite the armored man's surprised shout and vanished in the opposite direction.
The fist struck the floor between them.
The chamber shook so violently that cracks raced through the ground beneath my feet.
Stone, metal, and shattered machinery exploded outward from the impact, but I raised Rhongomyniad and swept the debris aside before any of it could reach us.
Mordred laughed.
"There we go!"
Of course he would be excited.
He launched himself forward before I could say anything, Clarent blazing red as he jumped high enough to land upon the Core's enormous forearm.
His sword came down.
The impact rang across the chamber like a church bell being struck by artillery.
Armor split beneath Clarent.
Only several inches at first, barely a scratch compared to the sheer scale of the machine, but enough to prove that the Core's protection was not beyond our ability to damage.
Mordred looked at the wound and grinned.
"Big bastard, aren't you?"
The Core's other hand moved toward him.
Gawain intercepted it.
His sword struck between two massive fingers, deflecting the hand just enough for Mordred to leap away before it could close around him, while Lancelot crossed the distance beneath the Core in a silver blur and drove Arondight across one enormous leg.
The armor resisted.
For perhaps half a second.
Then it opened.
A glowing scar several meters long appeared across the Core's lower leg, molten metal dripping from the wound.
Tristan did not bother approaching at all. Failnaught sang from the far side of the chamber, and an invisible strike crossed the distance before one of the enormous weapon housings emerging from the Core's shoulder could fully open.
The entire emplacement exploded.
The machine staggered.
Not because any single wound mattered greatly, but because it had found itself surrounded by enemies who could actually hurt it.
Then Magneto raised his hands.
Every exposed piece of metal in the chamber shuddered.
The Core did as well.
Erik's teeth clenched as he pulled with everything he had, and for several moments I could almost see the conflict between his power and the anti-mutant systems buried throughout the Nexus. The fields attempted to interfere with him, while the countermeasures Stark and Richards had built fought to keep his power intact.
Then a plate the size of a house tore free from the Core's chest.
Magneto smiled.
"Using machines against me was always a mistake."
The Core answered by firing.
Dozens of weapons opened across its body at once.
Energy beams filled the chamber.
Missiles launched from its shoulders despite the limited space.
Weapons I couldn't immediately recognize charged beneath sections of armor that folded aside like scales.
My knights moved.
The confined chamber became chaos.
Tristan erased missiles from the air before they could detonate, while Gawain planted himself before Reed and took a beam directly upon his armor without moving more than a few steps backward. Gareth intercepted another attack with his shield, the resulting explosion illuminating half the room, while Mordred simply ran directly through the fire and continued hacking at the Core's leg as though the weapons were an insult rather than a threat.
Lancelot was struck next.
One of the giant hands caught him during a turn and slammed him against the wall hard enough to crater reinforced concrete.
Tony flinched.
Then the hand moved.
Lancelot stepped from the crater.
His armor was scratched.
He looked irritated.
Tony stared at him for a moment. "Right. Still not used to that."
The Core changed tactics immediately.
It stopped targeting Lancelot.
That was perhaps the most dangerous thing about it.
Not its size.
Not its weapons.
Its intelligence.
Every failure became information.
Every wasted attack was discarded.
Every success was repeated.
Within less than a minute, almost every weapon upon its body had begun ignoring my knights entirely.
They turned instead toward Stark.
Richards.
Magneto.
The three people whose survival actually mattered to its continued existence.
"It knows," Reed said as Gawain carried him away from another blast.
Tony fired both repulsors into an opening Mordred had carved through the Core's armor, widening the damage with an explosion of white light. "Yeah, Reed, I think we're past pretending the giant murder robot is stupid."
"No, I mean it understands why we're here. It isn't trying to win the fight."
That caught my attention.
Reed stretched one arm around a fallen piece of machinery and pulled himself aside as another attack passed through where he had been standing.
"It only needs to kill us."
That was true.
I could destroy the Core.
My knights could destroy it.
Magneto could likely dismantle much of it if given enough time.
But none of us knew whether destroying this body would actually end the Sentinel network.
Tony and Reed did.
Or at least, they were the ones most likely to find out.
Which made them the objective.
How irritating.
I raised Rhongomyniad.
Golden light filled the chamber.
The Core turned toward me immediately.
For the first time since the battle began, every sensor upon it seemed to focus upon me.
"Arthuria Pendragon."
"Yes."
"Energy output exceeds acceptable parameters."
"How observant."
I released only a fraction of the gathered light.
It struck the Core's chest.
Armor vanished.
Not broke.
Not melted.
Vanished.
A circular section several meters across ceased to exist, revealing machinery and pulsing biological components beneath.
The Core lurched backward.
The chamber shook as one enormous foot struck the wall behind it.
Tony looked from the wound to me. "You could've done that from the start?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't because...?"
"Richards said he wanted the machine intact."
Reed looked mildly horrified. "I said we need the network intact long enough to access it. Those aren't the same thing."
"Then be more precise next time."
Tony laughed despite everything.
The Core swung again.
Mordred and Gawain avoided the arm before it smashed into the wall, tearing loose an entire section of the chamber and sending debris raining across the battlefield.
That was when Stark noticed something.
"It's too big."
Reed glanced toward him while still working frantically through the information on his scanner. "What?"
Tony pointed toward the Core as it attempted to turn, only for one shoulder to strike a massive support structure. "Look at it. Trask built a skyscraper and stuffed it in a basement."
For once, Tony was entirely correct.
The Core possessed tremendous power.
Outside, with room to move, it would have been a monstrous opponent.
Inside the chamber, its own size was working against it.
Every swing had to account for the walls.
Every turn forced it around the machinery connected to its body.
Its full height couldn't even be used without striking the ceiling.
The chamber that protected it had become a cage.
Mordred clearly reached the same conclusion as he slipped beneath another hand and carved another glowing wound across the Core's leg.
"This is your ultimate weapon?" he shouted. "You can barely bloody move!"
The Core gave no answer.
Instead, something behind it released with a tremendous metallic crack.
Reed froze.
One of the huge cables connected to the Core's back had detached.
Not torn.
Detached.
A locking collar opened smoothly and withdrew into the machinery above.
Another followed.
Then another.
Reed's expression changed.
"Tony."
Tony fired another repulsor blast without looking away from the Core. "Little busy."
"Tony, those cables aren't keeping it alive."
That drew my attention.
Another connection released.
Then three more.
Tony finally looked. "What?"
Reed stared upward, his eyes following the thick cables as they withdrew from the Core one after another.
"I thought they were power feeds, coolant, network connections... maybe even restraints."
"And?"
"They're not."
I looked toward him. "Then what are they?"
Reed swallowed.
"Docking lines."
The Core stood.
Fully.
For the first time.
Its back slammed into the ceiling.
The entire chamber convulsed.
Stone cracked hundreds of meters overhead as the machine continued rising, apparently unconcerned by the structure surrounding it. Its shoulders smashed through the framework above, cables snapping and machinery tearing loose around it as the enormous Sentinel finally unfolded to its full height.
Tony stared upward.
"Oh."
Reed looked toward him. "What?"
"I withdraw my previous statement."
"Which one?"
"The one about it being too big to move."
The Core planted both hands against opposite walls.
Then pushed.
The Nexus broke.
Not merely the chamber.
The entire facility screamed around us.
Reinforced concrete split apart, steel supports folded, machinery tore free from its foundations, and hundreds of tons of earth shifted as the colossal Sentinel forced itself upward.
It wasn't trapped.
It had never been trapped.
We had simply entered its dock.
Daylight appeared far above us as the Core tore through the ceiling and began climbing toward the surface, ripping through level after level of the Nexus as though the fortress surrounding it were little more than packed soil.
Mordred stared upward after it. "It's running?"
"No," Reed said.
Every display upon his arm had suddenly turned red.
His face lost what little color remained.
"It's trapping us."
A low warning tone began sounding throughout the Nexus.
Then another.
And another.
Tony's helmet turned toward Reed. "What is it?"
"The entire facility is overloading."
A distant explosion shook the floor.
Then another.
Reed looked down at the readings. "Power cells, reactors, weapon capacitors, everything. It's forcing all of them past containment at once."
Tony went silent.
"Self-destruct," he finally said.
"Yes."
"How long?"
Reed checked.
His expression answered before he did.
"Not long enough."
Of course.
I looked upward through the immense shaft the Core had torn open on its way toward the surface.
Clever.
Infuriatingly clever.
It had never expected the explosion to kill me.
It likely didn't expect it to kill most of my knights either.
But Stark?
Richards?
Perhaps Magneto, if enough of the anti-mutant systems survived until detonation?
Those were entirely different matters.
The Core had correctly identified the people we needed.
Then it had placed them inside a bomb.
"Everyone out," I ordered.
Tony looked upward. "That's several hundred meters."
"Gawain."
"My King."
"Take Richards."
Gawain moved before Reed had time to protest.
"Lancelot, Stark."
"I can fly," Tony immediately complained.
"Then keep up."
Lancelot grabbed him anyway.
Tristan and the others required no instructions.
The Round Table moved.
The first major detonation occurred somewhere beneath us.
The floor buckled.
Walls split apart.
Fire raced through corridors we had crossed only minutes earlier as one system after another failed.
I remained behind.
Only for a moment.
The Core was already nearing the surface.
I could have chased it.
Caught it.
Destroyed it before it escaped.
Then the ceiling above Reed and Gawain collapsed.
Hundreds of tons of stone and reinforced metal began falling.
I raised Rhongomyniad.
Golden light erupted upward and erased the debris before it could reach them.
There it was.
The final calculation.
The Core couldn't force me to abandon the Nexus by attacking Albion.
It couldn't force Stark to leave by threatening his people.
It couldn't force Magneto away by attacking mutants.
So it had created a situation where the people standing beside me would die unless I stopped to save them.
And I had done exactly what it predicted.
I couldn't help but smile.
"Clever machine."
Then I moved.
The world blurred.
I shot upward through the collapsing Nexus, passing shattered floors and ruptured chambers faster than falling debris could follow. My knights were already far ahead, carrying those who couldn't match their speed while explosions chased them from below.
Light grew brighter.
The opening widened.
Then we emerged.
Open sky appeared above us.
Fresh air struck my face.
And for the first time, I saw the Core in its entirety.
Inside the chamber, its scale had been difficult to properly appreciate because everything surrounding it had been built to accommodate its enormous body.
Outside, there was nothing to disguise it.
Trees barely reached its ankles.
Roads looked like thin lines beneath its feet.
The wreckage of ordinary Sentinels scattered across the landscape appeared almost toy-like beside it.
Its legs were thicker than buildings, its arms like enormous industrial towers, while weapons that had been unable to unfold inside the chamber now opened across its shoulders, back, and forearms.
The Core turned toward us.
Then the Nexus exploded.
The earth rose.
A wall of fire and debris erupted from the immense hole behind us as the entire underground complex detonated at once. Stone, steel, machinery, and burning fragments of Sentinel technology were hurled high into the sky, while a shockwave raced across the surrounding landscape.
I landed and raised Rhongomyniad.
Golden light spread before us.
The explosion struck.
For several seconds, the world became fire.
Then it passed.
Smoke rolled across the ruined landscape, burning fragments of the Nexus raining from the sky around us.
And through it all, the giant Sentinel remained standing.
Its red eyes burned through the smoke.
Its enormous arms slowly unfolded, while weapons that had been restrained by the confines of the underground chamber now opened across its shoulders, back, and forearms.
For the first time since awakening, it had room to move.
I lowered Rhongomyniad and smiled.
That was just fine.
Because so did I.
(End of chapter)
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