"Hm?"
Magneto dropped straight down from the sky. When he saw that this entire stretch of icefield had been carpeted black by a dense mass of Sentinel wreckage, with the number here more than twice what he had faced on his side, he instinctively sucked in a sharp breath.
"All of these... you killed them by yourself?"
"You actually dealt with the Sentinels over there?"
Fenris and Magneto spoke at the same time as they looked at each other, the same disbelief filling both their eyes.
"...What's that supposed to mean?"
Magneto froze for a moment, then shot back irritably, "You really think that little of me?"
"I really didn't expect it."
Fenris clicked his tongue, his body rapidly shrinking until he returned to his original form.
Those Sentinels had looked fragile and unimpressive under his hands, but if it had been any other mutant, being able to handle even ten or so at once would already have counted as extremely powerful.
For Magneto to fight and defeat hundreds of Sentinels at once in an environment as unfavorable as an icefield... if this had been the old Magneto, he probably would have turned around and gone straight back to Professor X to discuss countermeasures. There was no way he could have pulled this off before.
"The power of knowledge, child."
Magneto gave a light snort. Magnetic force surged again, lifting Fenris up with him as they floated back into the air. Crossing over the field of wreckage, they quickly headed toward the fissure where the Sentinels had just poured out.
"So this is the entrance to the underground base. Do we go straight down?" Fenris asked.
The fissure had not closed. The tunnel below was pitch-black, with no end visible. Magneto extended his senses into the magnetic field underground, but there seemed to be some kind of special shielding below. He could only vaguely detect the presence of a man-made structure that did not seem especially large in area. Beyond that, he could sense nothing.
"Ask the Professor. See if he can lock onto this place."
Fenris had Magneto carry them rapidly upward, then waved a hand and opened a dimensional portal.
On the other side of the portal, Professor X and the X-Men were already fully geared up, prepared at any moment to go support Fenris and Magneto.
The moment the portal opened in front of them, they all crowded closer.
"Fenris, what's going on? Did you find anything?"
"Yes."
Fenris nodded and pointed at the Sentinel wreckage not far away.
"That's the Sentinel robots. But we can't confirm whether they're the newest version. There's a very high chance they may even have self-destruct devices built in."
Everyone stared at the Sentinels in the distance in astonishment. The devastation covering the ground still silently testified to the brutal battle that had just taken place here.
Then they looked back at Fenris, calm and collected as ever, and a fresh wave of amazement rippled through the group.
"Hank, once you've made full preparations, I'll help transport these robots to the academy's signal-shielded lab for research. But it would be best if Jean oversees the whole process in case something goes wrong."
At that, Hank and Jean both nodded to show they understood.
"Professor, could you take a look and see whether you can sense what's going on down there?"
Fenris turned toward Professor X, whose face had already grown grim.
"No."
Professor X frowned. He even pressed two fingers to his temple, yet still came up empty.
"There's most likely a psychic shielding device installed below. I can't do anything."
"In that case, Fenris, the two of us should go down there ourselves."
Magneto had already expected that result. If the shielding below could even block his senses, there was no way it would have overlooked guarding against Charles.
After the way they had worked together just now, he found himself liking the idea of acting alongside Fenris more and more.
Powerful, reliable, and reassuring.
No one could dislike a partner like that.
"Then you'll have to wait a little longer."
Fenris waved a hand, about to close the dimensional portal.
At the very last instant before it shut, Magneto suddenly lifted a hand. Logan, who had been standing in the back of the crowd smoking a cigar, abruptly lost control of his body, floated into the air, passed straight through the portal, and was yanked to Fenris's side.
"What the hell are you..."
Logan froze and stared wide-eyed at Magneto.
He had just been drinking and smoking in peace, so why had Magneto suddenly kidnapped him to this frozen wasteland where not a blade of grass grew?
"There isn't much metal in the Arctic. Bringing you along is useful."
Magneto smiled politely, skillfully ignoring the dark look on Logan's face. With a turn of his hand, the three of them swiftly passed through the enormous fissure and dropped toward the depths below.
"...Fuck!"
Logan was instantly furious.
Magneto's power had always hard-countered him. Now that Magneto's brain had apparently gone through an upgrade too, Logan stood even less of a chance against him than before.
"What are you looking at, kid?"
Logan angrily flicked his cigar aside. Seeing Fenris grinning nearby, he could not help rolling his eyes.
"I just thought of something funny."
Fenris chuckled and raised his right hand. Bright light spread from his palm, instantly flooding the pitch-black tunnel with brilliance.
The surrounding environment became clearly visible before all three of them.
Beneath this icefield was almost entirely solid rock. As the three of them descended through the air, apart from the occasional natural underground cavity, everything they could see was dense stone formation.
Before long, after descending nearly a hundred meters, a massive silver-white door blocked their path.
"Something's off."
Logan stared at the seemingly ordinary door. His nose twitched, and he instinctively extended his claws.
"There's danger behind it."
More than a thousand Sentinel robots had already been wiped out, so what danger could still be waiting behind the door?
Magneto paused, but still slowly raised a hand. A spherical force field immediately formed around him and Fenris.
As for Logan...
The force field would only get in the way of his fighting.
At the same time, the magnetic field for several miles around them became chaotic. At that intensity, any electronic device should have been crippled almost instantly.
"This door isn't metal."
Magneto glanced at Fenris and shook his head.
As he spoke, a powerful repulsive force had already begun gathering in his palm, ready to blast the door open by force.
Electromagnetism could manifest in many ways. Using magnetic manipulation to create a controlled electromagnetic repulsion field was far more difficult than simply constructing a magnetic barrier. Even for the current Magneto, that kind of fine control was still taxing.
"You're taking too long. Might as well just do it."
Logan shot Magneto a look, then let out a cold snort. His two claws slashed out in quick succession, and the sharp adamantium sliced an enormous X-shaped cut into the special-material door with ease.
Bang!
Logan followed up with a kick, and the heavy door flew open immediately.
...
The atmosphere froze for a moment.
Fenris patted Magneto's somewhat stiff shoulder.
"Looks like the power of your knowledge still has room to improve."
With that, he took the lead and walked inside.
Behind the door, there were no Sentinels waiting in ambush and no pre-planted high explosives. It was simply a factory that looked perfectly ordinary.
Rows of Sentinel robots were lined up on both sides, but these models looked completely different from the sleek, futuristic forms they had just fought outside. They retained a great deal of traditional robot design, and some even had colored wiring exposed on the outside of their frames.
Only when he reached the nineteenth version did Fenris see the Sentinel model they had destroyed most of outside.
"Fenris, these are the Sentinel robots you were fighting just now?"
At some point Logan had come up behind him, staring up at the huge killing machine standing more than three meters tall, eyes full of curiosity.
"They're even taller than me by this much..."
Logan clicked his tongue in amazement.
"Yeah."
Fenris nodded and kept walking.
The next moment, a massive machine over six meters tall suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Completely unlike the nineteenth-generation Sentinel, this version was nearly twice as large.
Its head was oval-shaped, its body lines sleek and smooth, and its entire frame was covered in dense scale-like plating, giving it a distinctly cold and severe look.
Compared to it, the nineteenth-generation Sentinels that Fenris and Magneto had just wiped out could barely even count as small fry.
"This is..."
Seeing the giant killing machine that looked almost identical to the one from Days of Future Past, Fenris's heart instantly tightened.
"At this point in time... they already developed it?"
(End of Chapter)
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