Five minutes passed quickly, and Augustus Tower was already emptied of people.
Charles pressed two fingers to his temple. "Including Trask, there are twenty-five people inside, all on the seventy-second floor. Everyone, be care—"
Before he could finish, Erik moved.
Magneto raised both hands; the seventieth floor of Augustus Tower suddenly cracked, and the top twenty stories lifted into the air, ripped free by Erik in one piece.
"Fang was right—Erik really knows how to make an entrance," Charles murmured, eyebrows raised.
But it left Trask and his people in a nightmare.
"Huh?"
"Ahhh!"
Trask, at least, knew he was here as bait, but the other Supers were stunned.
They'd just finished gearing up to trade blows with the X-Men—now the entire battlefield had been carried away?
Humans can be dazed; robots don't.
Six Sentinels had already been activated; they smashed through the glass curtain wall and streaked straight at Erik.
Erik was still holding the tower aloft; if he lost control, twenty stories—tens of thousands of tons—would come crashing down.
The Sentinels raised their arms, attacks imminent.
Zzzzzzt!
A thick red laser lanced in from the side, blasting the first three Sentinels backward.
It was Impact—Alex Summers.
He stood on a metal frame whose top was Banshee, Sean Cassidy, acting as a flying platform while Alex served as the gun turret.
Back in Cuba, when they'd fought Sebastian Shaw, the pair had used this exact synergy: a fusion of mobility and raw firepower.
But before they could celebrate, the Sentinels surged forward again—scarred yet fully operational.
"So that's a Sentinel? Tough bastards," Banshee muttered.
He'd fought beside Alex forever; he knew Alex's blast could punch through steel like tissue paper.
Yet the robots only showed surface damage—already staggering.
Erik freed one hand to target them, then his face changed.
"No metal at all?"
"Impossible."
Erik was shaken; if the first-generation Sentinels could nullify him, how terrifying would the ones fifty years from now be?
More shocks followed: the three hit Sentinels turned from black to crimson and fired identical optic blasts straight back at Alex.
Alex leapt clear, but the frame was obliterated; Banshee swooped and caught him mid-air.
Glancing at the wreckage, Banshee said, "Bit weaker, but definitely your blast."
"The Sentinels can already mimic powers—right now!"
On the ground, Logan's jaw dropped.
"How? Mystique hasn't even been captured!" he blurted.
To avoid repeating history, they'd left Mystique—Raven—behind with White Queen, guarding Vought Tower.
"The Dark Council…" Charles whispered. "They must have found another way."
In truth, the Sentinels' copied powers came from a pre-loaded Mutant gene bank; Mystique's DNA only let them switch abilities, not copy on the fly.
And where did that gene bank come from?
Fang Yuan: "Big favors need no thanks; I'll stay low and claim no fame."
Luckily, Erik had spotted an empty Football Stadium; he set the tower down in the center.
In mid-town Manhattan, the X-Men had to protect civilians; here, they could finally cut loose.
Only the victors would walk off this field.
The moment the tower grounded, the Supers inside bolted out; after that involuntary Roller-Coaster, the building felt cursed.
Before they could show their powers, Charles unleashed Telepathy—ten froze in place.
Of the fifteen left, three were ordinary humans: Trask and two panic-stricken middle-aged men.
Viktor raised an eyebrow. "Well, well—big fish."
His words were casual, but razor claws already slid from his knuckles.
The X-Men charged. Red Devil guarded Charles, teleporting the mind-controlled Supers away to ease the pressure.
Wolverine and Sabretooth stormed side-by-side, just like their old wartime charges decades ago.
Erik landed as well; in open air the Sentinels held the advantage.
On the ground, Erik ripped rebar from the tower, trying to spear the Sentinels, but their armor held; he settled for binding them in steel coils.
Boom!
Alex seized the opening and blasted one of the Sentinels with a full-force shockwave, finally punching through the robot and leaving it sprawled and motionless.
"It worked!"
Banshee exhaled in relief—if they could kill it, that was enough.
Wolverine felt a weight slide off his heart; he hated and feared Sentinels, and seeing this one copy powers had almost convinced him history was about to repeat itself.
But before his relief could settle, an arm stretched out and snapped around his neck.
Logan reacted instantly, driving his bone claws into the limb; its owner yanked it back in pain.
Only then did Logan notice the attacker was one of Augustus's Super-humans.
It was the first time Wolverine had faced a non-Mutant Super-powered being—no matter, he'd fight them like any Mutant.
Logan charged again, but Sabretooth moved faster; Viktor lunged on all fours, savage and snarling, raking the arm's owner unconscious in a blur of claws.
Suddenly Sabretooth sniffed the air and shot out a hand; a woman materialized out of nowhere, throat caught in his grip.
"Invisibility?" Viktor grinned cruelly. "So the ones playing hide-and-seek with me in the South Vietnam jungle really were you!"
Crack!
With a twist he snapped her neck.
Although Professor X had asked them to avoid needless killing and spare the Super-humans when possible,
Sabretooth chose not to listen.
At the sight of Death, Augustus's Super-humans went berserk; a hulking man with ochre, rock-like skin rammed Wolverine, sending Logan flying before he could react.
Thud!
He spat a mouthful of blood laced with red chunks—shards of viscera.
But the damaged organs had already regrown before he finished coughing them up.
Logan glanced at his bone claws, then at the stone-skinned opponent, and cursed: "Fuck!"
Revenge was off the table.
The brute scanned the field, locked onto Professor X, and barreled forward. Red Devil instantly teleported to intercept, while Charles hit the brute with Telepathy.
Thump!
Mid-charge the brute collapsed and began snoring; Red Devil reappeared beside the falling body.
Whew!
Charles exhaled—if he hadn't acted, Red Devil would have teleported the brute ten thousand meters up for a no-parachute drop.
On Erik's side another Super-human charged; he flicked a hand, maneuvering a slab of Reinforced Concrete into place just as Spikes thudded into it.
The attacker was a Super-human who could launch Spikes from his body.
"I know someone whose power is almost identical," Erik said, shaking his head in disappointment. "But that man is now a teacher at Xavier's School."
After leading the Brotherhood of Mutants for years, what pained him most were Awakened who wasted their gifts—people who could do good yet strayed onto darker paths.
Though these Super-humans weren't Mutants, Erik felt the same regret.
Angry at their refusal to strive, sorrowful at their misfortune.
The Spike-Man ignored Erik's sentiment and kept attacking, spraying barbed projectiles like they cost nothing.
Angel captured the entire battle on a live feed; en route, The Authorities had already broadcast the news via Vought Television.
Yes—Angel had once again become a War-Zone Reporter.
The term "Sentinel Program" instantly ignited Nationwide Debate.
Build giant robots to exterminate the Awakened?
Vought's supporters raged.
Augustus's supporters lamented—how had it been discovered before launch?
And a sizable crowd simply watched and waited.
If it actually worked, and Augustus fell, could they...? Just then one of the Spike-Man's projectiles scraped a Sentinel; the robot sprouted identical Spikes and flung them back.
The Spike-Man was pierced straight through—heart chilled, soul flying.
"What?"
The onlookers gasped.
Weren't Sentinels supposed to target only Awakened? Super-humans weren't Awakened.
Instantly everyone questioned the robots' Stability.
Then something even more staggering happened: after fighting for a while the Sentinel seemed to overload and targeted Trask and two other Corporate Titans, blasting them into a single, smoking crater.
The audience erupted; the Vought Television anchor delivered the verdict:
"Clearly these Sentinels are beyond human control—they attack not only Awakened but ordinary humans as well. If we mass-produce them, will any humans be left on Earth?"
"Look at their creator—Trask is the ultimate lesson!"
Watching the slaughter, many who had toyed with using Sentinels abandoned the idea.
Stick with Vought for money and longevity—keep those Sentinels away!
You will get 90 chapter ahead for this fanfiction.
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