Sixteen Sentinels scoured the city. They broke off into groups of four to scan more efficiently each part of Manhattan. Laser searchlights from their chests scanned each humanoid lifeform they came across, checking each biosignature for traces of mutated DNA.

Luckily, no one had tested positive, so the Sentinels kept searching. Or at least, no one had come up positive yet.

All this Spider-Man had been informed by the X-Men. That worried him enough, but the plan Cyclops came up with downright made him nervous.

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Spider-Man spoke into his comm device. "You made sure that I had this cloaking device with me, but now that I'm in position, you tell me to turn it off?"

"That's what I said," Cyclops' voice confirmed. "The robots are mutant trackers, so we need something for them to focus on."

"Why me?"

"Your red-and-blue tights just scream 'decoy' to me. That, and the fact that you're fast enough to keep from being shot, right?"

"Well, yeah... somedays, but..."

"Just let them scan you and lead them our way. We'll back you up."

"You sure? 'Cause they're huge, y'know. I think I saw one of them holding up that telescope observatory in the last Batman movie."

"We'll take care of it," Cyclops replied. Was it Spidey's imagination, or was the guy with the visor chuckling slightly over the link?

"You actually thought that was funny?" Spider-Man inquired, completely agape. He didn't think anyone found his jokes funny, least of all the X-Men's prickly leader.

"Maybe. Don't let it go to your head." He found it difficult to believe that he could have established such a rapport with the prickly X-Man this quickly. One shared history of losing parents at a young age and Cyclops suddenly found his jokes funny? Spider-Man actually had difficulty believing anyone found his jokes funny.

And then there was no more time to discuss the matter, because a quartet of Sentinels were cruising above the street. Their searchlights swept this way and that. Spider-Man gulped and turned off his cloaking device as a laser searchlight panned over him. He froze in place, and felt like Sam Neill standing nose-to-nose with a T-Rex in "Jurassic Park."

The robot's eyes flashed. Recognition. It pointed its palm blaster at Spider-Man...

...who was already off the roof and swinging down a side street at top speed. The four Sentinels gave chase, dipping into the turn like fighter jets and catching up with their quarry, who was firing and anchoring weblines as fast as possible--which wasn't fast enough. "Cyclops!" he shouted, hoping he didn't need the comm unit to get the leader's attention.

A red beam of light flashed from street level and struck the nearest Sentinel in the arm. The energy blast left a Buick-sized hole in the robot, and the exposed wiring sparked and sizzled. A second, stronger optic blast took it apart from the torso up. The various pieces collided with the deserted street.

Spider-Man landed on the street, ducking around the corner as Cyclops fired more shots at the next Sentinel and said, almost off-hand, "Good work."

"Thanks," Spider-Man replied, catching his breath. "Where's everybody else?"

"Keeping the other Sentinels away from us," Cyclops explained, cutting a Sentinel off at the knees.

"Cool," Spidey answered, skittering up the wall to the rooftop. "Remind me to give 'em each a lollypop." He reached the roof and fired a webline down to a manhole cover, then yanked on the line, sending the cover upward, and swung it as hard as he could at the Sentinel's face. The sewer lid buried itself in the cold metal visage, leaving the robot open to more optic blasts until the construct hit the street with a deafening clang. Three down.

Spider-Man noticed a trio of black kids watching from behind a protective dumpster, chattering and commenting to each other about the battle. "Yeah!" one of them shouted to his friends. "See, that's what I'm talkin' about! That's my nephew up there!"

'Nephew?' Spider-Man thought, shaking his head. Those guys really needed to get the heck out of there.

The fourth robot shot at Spider-Man from its palm-mounted blasters, but succeeded only in shaving off a section of the rooftop beneath him, as he leaped. Now within the Sentinel's arm's reach, Spider-Man skittered up its arm while the robot attempted to grab him. He alighted on the robot's metallic purple dome and knocked on it. "Anybody home? Hmm... this thing's made of some strong metal. Chromium?"

The Sentinel raised both hands and pointed its palm blasters at Spider-Man.

"I bet if I could rewire you just right, I can get free internet," Spider-Man remarked while checking on Cyclops' position down below. "Hey Cyclops, I've got 'im preoccupied; you want to--?"

But the visored mutant was lying face down atop a parked car, either dead or unconscious.

"Cyclops!" Spider-Man shouted, hopping off the Sentinel's head to aid his new friend. His timing was excellent, as the robot proceeded to cave in its own head with its energy blasts, but Spider-Man wasn't even concerned with that. He raced to the car and crouched over Cyclops, checking vital signs. "Hey man, you awake? Cyclops? C'mon, this isn't funny; we've gotta--"

An odd feeling, somewhere between the sensation of spidery legs crawling up the back of one's neck and the vibrations of a strand of spider web, caught Spider-Man's attention. He decided to grab Cyclops and carry him off to safety where they could continue the one-sided conversation. The moment after they left the car, the headless Sentinel fell forward onto it, crushing it like a beer can.

Spider-Man carried Cyclops into an alley and up a fire escape, then carefully laid his partner on the metal platform. "Cyclops? C'mon, I can feel your pulse. You're the leader of this outfit; snap out of it!"

Cyclops finally opened his eyes. "Okay, okay," he muttered, groggily shaking his head. "I'm awake. I'm functional."

"What hit you?"

He sat up, running gloved fingers through his hair. "The Sentinel I just kneecapped while I was watching you bounce around the goddamn place. I should've known better. How're we doing?"

"All four are on the ground, needing a band-aid."

"Good work, man." He smiled slightly and clicked on his comm unit. "Marvel Girl, how're we doing?"

"Three are down," Jean's voice reported. "But one slipped by us. It's heading your way."

"Shit," Cyclops groused, looking up at Spider-Man. "Be ready."

Spider-Man stared at Cyclops nervously. "Can you walk?"

"Well yeah; I was backhanded, not blasted." Cyclops rose to a standing position, his legs still a little shaky, so Spider-Man held onto his shoulders to steady him.

The wall-crawler then froze, looking around. "Uh-oh."

The Sentinel that Marvel Girl had warned them about had entered the alley, quickly locating its two targets on the fire escape. The alleyway was narrow enough that the robot had to move in sideways, Cyclops noticed. It raised its leading arm and prepared to fire a palm-blast.

Spider-Man grabbed Cyclops and prepared to leap with him off the fire escape to evade the energy, but Cyclops calmly pressed the remote firing button hidden in the palm of his glove. His visor opened to release an optic blast directly at the Sentinel's hand. His timing was perfect, as the optic blast tore open the robot's arm casing, releasing the energy within. The Sentinel was pushed backward by the force of the explosion until it lost its balance and landed on the already-immense pile of Sentinels in the street.

"Uh, yeah..." Spider-Man stammered, looking at a self-satisfied Cyclops. "I was actually going to suggest that."

They saw the Sentinel trying to rise, levering itself up on its one intact arm, so they quickly rushed away from the fire escape toward the mouth of the alley, intent on finishing it off.

Spider-Man looked left and right down the street... a ravaged, demolished street littered with enormous scraps of damaged Sentinel bodies. "All this robot-fighting is fun, don't get me wrong," he remarked to Cyclops, "but are we really making anything better? There's gotta be a better way than this."

"There probably is," Cyclops agreed, "but right now our options are limited."

The Sentinel managed to push itself up to a crouching position, getting its legs under it.

Behind his large reflective eyepieces, Spider-Man's gaze bore into the Sentinel. "Maybe... but I'm tired of this. We're supposed to protect people. And if we keep this up... I'm just tired of this." With a lightning-fast motion, he reached over to Cyclops' belt and clicked a button in his comm unit, then abruptly turned and ran up the side of the nearest building, then leaped off the top while firing off a webline. The webbing anchored off of a taller structure, and Spider-Man swung past the Sentinel's head. "C'mon, you overgrown vending machine! You want to kill a mutant? Come get me!"

"Spider-Man!" Cyclops shouted after the webslinger. "What the hell are you doing?!" Amazed, he watched the robot activate its boot thrusters and chase the red-and-blue hero over the rooftops. Spider-Man had gone crazy, he decided. And what was with the webhead clicking his comm unit on?

No, that wasn't it, he realized belatedly. He turned on my cloaking device. He watched the two figures head away from the city toward the bridge, where there were no availible X-Men. "Son of a..."

He ran at full speed across the top of the Queensboro Bridge, nimbly picking his way over the steel framework. He was almost out of webbing, so he couldn't webswing the way he wanted to.

Predictably, the Sentinel followed close behind, intent on catching up to its mutant target. However, Spidey noticed that the robot's missing arm threw off its stabilization slightly as it flew, causing it to swerve back and forth like a drunk driver. More, the large hole in its shoulder had exposed vital viring, and it was leaking fuel. It was beginning to slow down and lose altitude. Perfect. Spider-Man's destination wasn't far off.

The webslinger leaped off the bridge, the single stride carrying him across the water to a small island near the bridge that he'd recently found. It contained a run-down factory with a crumbling exterior. Not only was there a wealth of debris lying around for use as weapons, but Spider-Man and the Sentinel could battle for hours and cause mass destruction without anyone even caring. After all, if he were going to commit urban renewal, he might as well do it in a place that could use it.

As soon as his feet touched ground, he raced toward the building and looked around. A rusted I-beam lay on the ground. "Jackpot," Spider-Man observed, picking it up. "I wonder if robots can get tetanus?" He turned around and looked up at the approaching Sentinel. "And now for the javelin event... our first contestant hails from Forest Hills, Queens. At a breathtaking 102 pounds, this heavyweight--ah, the hell with it." He launched the steel missile with all of his strength at the Sentinel, knowing that not even the heavily-armored robot would be able to withstand having a girder punch through it like a bullet.

Problem was, he missed.

"Uh-oh," Spidey muttered, then turned on his heels and ran into the building, looking for another weapon or a very deep rabbit hole... whichever he could find first.

The Sentinel's feet landed on the ground, and the robot made its way into the half-demolished factory where the frantic Spider-Man was in easy view. It fired three energy blasts, all of which missed--not just because Spider-Man was jumping around, but because the Sentinel was losing power fast and its targeting systems were suffering. Spider-Man threw various chunks of debris at the Sentinel, denting its armor. Then he fired globs of webbing at the Sentinel's face, trying to blind it.

Spider-Man wrapped the weblines around his writs once, twice, thrice, making sure that he had a secure grip on the lines. Then, using his clinging ability to keep his feet on the floor, he pulled on the cords as hard as he could. The robot fell forward, and Spider-Man quickly dashed out of the way. What was left of the factory's architecture crumbled under the robot's weight, and several exposed steel rods that composed the framework of the building impaled it.

Spidey hurredly made his way out of the building to escape the cave-in and collapsed onto his knees outside, exhaustion overtaking him. He was only dimly aware of a large black object hovering above him. Finally, he looked up at what appeared to be a stealth bomber.

A cargo bay hatch slowly opened, and Spder-Man made out the figures of the X-Men standing there, Cyclops in front of the group with Wolverine, Marvel Girl, Storm, Beast, Iceman, and Colossus behind.

"Not bad," Cyclops informed the young hero. "Need a lift? You look like you could use one."

"Uh, sure," Spider-Man breathed. "Just let me catch my breath, first."

"I can't believe you went off on your own like that."

"I had to. It was something... I guess it was something I had to do on my own. I figured if anyone's gonna get hurt, I'd rather it were me instead of somebody else."

"That's a little condescending don't you think?" Storm asked with a quirked eyebrow and jutted her hip in an offended hip-posture. "I mean, we're X-Men; we can handle Sentinels."

"Maybe I'm just not meant for a team, I dunno."

"You did all right in my opinion," Wolverine commended with a sly smile. "One-Eye didn't piss you off too badly, did he?"

"'One-Eye'? Who's--oh! Cyclops. Actually, he's pretty cool. You guys got a good leader up there." Remembering the comment made by a bystander earlier, he added, "He's my nephew."

Cyclops and Wolverine exchanged completely baffled glances.

Peter Parker kicked himself. He'd actually turned down an offer to join the X-Men. Sure, he didn't think he'd be a good fit for the team, but still--they were the X-Men! And he was a mutant, at least partially. But he felt that joining them would be too huge a step, and more to the point, it would take him away from the area of crime-fighting on which he felt a need to focus--the random, day-to-day crime that was no less important than mutant-tracking machines.

It would also take him away from people like Aunt May, Harry Osborn... and Mary Jane Watson.

And with Mary was exactly where he needed to be at this particular moment, as the two of them attended the funeral of one Tandy Bowen. He put his hand on his friend's shoulder as she watched Tandy's casket being lowered into the ground.

He'd been told that Tandy's body had been incinerated by an energy blast from the Sentinel, but her parents had insisted on this ceremony anyway. They felt this act would make it concrete, that it was the best way to honor their daughter's death... however much sense that made.

Peter could have done without the heavy media coverage for the funeral, however. Tyler and Kelly Bowen, a millionaire and ex-supermodel respectively, were celebrities, so they felt the need to soothe a public that was angry with them for having a mutant daughter. They publicly took on a "pro-mutant, anti-Sentinel" stance, decrying the use of killing machines that endangered both mutants and humans. After all, as Tyler told the camera, "every mutant is somebody's child. And children should be given the same basic human rights as everyone else."

For her part, Mary Jane rolled her eyes at the spectacle. "This is the same man whose only concern for Tandy when she was alive," she whispered to Peter, "was whether or not she stayed out of his study when he was working in there. He and her mom barely even noticed her existence the rest of the time. She used to tell me this all the time."

Peter frowned. "Maybe... they're looking at it from a different perspective now?"

MJ shook her head and ran her fingers through her red hair. "I doubt it..."

"Well, take it from someone who's been there, Mary: it's not hard to forget how much someone you love means to you until you've lost him or her. Then you're reminded every day."

She turned and looked at him with sad green eyes. "Oh, I'm... I'm sorry, Peter. I know you and your uncle--"

Peter shrugged a bit. "It's okay. So how're you holdin' up? I didn't really know Tandy, but she was your friend..."

MJ looked down at her feet. "Yeah, she was. She was. We got along, had fun... kept each other from getting bored in music... and..." Her voice trailed off as the tears emerged. "It's so unfair..."

Peter hugged Mary Jane as hard as he could without breaking her. She needed all the strength he could give. "No... no, I guess it's not fair."

A brief flash of light caught his attention, and he looked over to a wooded area at the edge of the cemetary. He could have sworn he saw a blonde girl with glowing skin standing there, watching the proceedings. But then the image was gone, and Peter blinked, not sure he'd seen anything at all. The girl had looked almost like Tandy, and he didn't know what to make of that.

He just stood with MJ, comforting her and absorbing the strawberry scent of her hair. Times like this were exactly why he needed to be Spider-Man.

And times like this were what made him human, mutation or not.

END