For a moment, the battle stopped.

     Almost as one, everyone on the field reacted, either with surprise, shock, smirks, or, in Sabretooth’s case, a roar of triumph.

     Even Nimrod paused, lowering his hand that had fired the plasma stream and analyzing Sabretooth.

     This was unexpected…

     Sabretooth slowly got up from his position on the ground, laughing and pointing at the smoking adamantium skeleton on the ground in front of him. “It was you, Logan! YOU were the one who was to die by MY hands!”

     Several of the X-Men cried out Logan’s name in grief, and Cyclops, Shadowcat, and Rogue ran over to Logan’s remains.

     “Why isn’t he healing?! WHY ISN’T HE HEALING!?” Rogue yelled, near panic.

     “I… there isn’t anything to heal!” Cyclops said. “That blast just… incinerated everything. All that’s left is… his skeleton…”

     Shadowcat couldn’t say anything, unable to stop sobbing. Tears were pouring down her cheeks as she stared at Logan’s still-sizzling remains. Cyclops slowly took Shadowcat by the shoulder and embraced her, letting Kitty cry unrestrained into his chest.

     “It…it can’t be… not Mr. Logan….” Kitty managed to let out between heavy sobs.

     “SABRETOOTH!” Magneto cried out angrily from across the battlefield. “What do you think you are doing?! This is not the time for your petty squabbles with Wolverine!”

     “I had a chance, Magnus, and I took---“ Sabretooth’s retort was interrupted by his own roar as he felt six sharp blades plunge into his back.

     “You will DIE for this,” X-23 whispered to him through gritted teeth. “He was the only one in this world who UNDERSTOOD me!”

     “You are correct, X-23,” Nimrod said, having decided upon a course of action to this most unexpected event, and began to raise his hand towards Sabretooth and the smaller Mutant attached to his back. “He will die… but not from you.”

      Taking the hint, X-23 retracted her claws and leapt off of Sabretooth’s back just as a wide stream of plasma plowed right through Sabretooth, incinerating him just as quickly as it did Wolverine—only this time, when Nimrod shut off the beam, nothing was left to indicate Sabretooth ever existed.

     “Attention Mutants,” Nimrod continued, as if he had done nothing more than step on an ant. “I am not certain what twisted logic compelled the one codenamed Sabretooth to turn on another Mutant now, of all times. But this will not be tolerated. I do not care what agendas any of you have—you are here, now, to help me adapt my systems to better defeat your kind. Any further deviations from this plan will result in considerably slower deaths. Now…. Resume.”

     With that, Nimrod let loose with a plasma blast at Jean, who quickly threw up a psi bubble to protect her, letting the blast ricochet off the bubble and into the sky.

     The battle quickly began again, picking up where it had left off, more or less. The Brotherhood and Acolyte members in particular had no trouble re-engaging Nimrod, but some of the Morlocks and particularly the X-Men re-entered the engagement with even more grim expressions on their faces. No matter what happened now, they wouldn’t leave this battle in the same state of mind they had entered it in.

     A few, however, were having particular difficulty shoving what had just happened to the back of their minds, even given their predicament.

     Cyclops held onto Kitty and took hold of Rogue before he leapt to one side as a laser blast shot through the area they had all been occupying, all three of them landing rather unceremoniously on their stomachs.

     “He can’t be dead, he can’t…” Kitty sobbed uncontrollably.

     “I am going to tear that friggin’ machine apart piece by piece with my own hands,” Rogue said through gritted teeth, tears streaming down her cheeks as well. “I have HAD it with this.”

     “Rogue, Kitty, get it together!” Cyclops said, his wavering voice betraying the mental endurance his words implied. “Look, Kitty, Logan’s dead. I know. But we can’t just give up now, we’ve got to fight this out! We’ll mourn Logan later… if there is a later… but right now we’ve got a job to do! And Rogue—please, don’t just go rushing headlong at Nimrod, we’ve got to think and come up with a strategy! You go out there now, you’ll be in no better a position than Wolverine!”

     Rogue’s eyebrows narrowed, but she nodded her head in assent. Kitty’s sobbing quieted down, but the tears still continued to pour from her cheeks as she got to her feet with the other two.

     “Now, Kitty, I’ve got an idea on how we can hurt this guy,” Cyclops said. “Listen closely…”

     “Do you really think this will work?” Façade asked.

     “To be honest, no,” Cannonball said, ducking as another blast fired off in their direction. “But I ain’t got any other ideas, and it doesn’t look like just blindly attacking that robot is doing anything.”

     “Alright then, do it,” Callisto said to Façade. “Spyke, get out the word to the rest of the Morlocks. We attack its front on my signal.”

     “Got it,” Spyke assented, taking off to the other Morlocks scattered around the battlefield.

     Tracking… Mutants codenamed Façade and Cannonball slowly making their way to the rear, cloaked from the visible spectrum, but not infrared.

     Mutants identified as Morlocks slowly amassing towards my front…

     Two additional Mutant signatures centering under my position, approximately 3.6 meters underground. Signatures identified…

     ….

     …I know what they are planning. Adapting countermeasures.

     Nimrod looked straight down without surprise as Shadowcat, holding onto Gambit, phased up out of the ground right between his feet. Wordlessly, thinking he was catching the robot by surprise, Gambit placed his hand on Nimrod’s left foot and started to pour a familiar flaming energy into it.

     “Now I understand why they call you Gambit,” Nimrod said, picking up the surprised duo out of the ground. “A risky ploy, but I must admit it was rather ingenious. However, you both are forgetting one thing…”

     “Talk all you want, rustbucket, you’ll be spare parts in a few seconds,” Gambit smirked.

     “On the contrary,” Nimrod replied, taking note as the Morlock attack on his front shield dramatically increased as well as tracking what was happening behind him, “I am learning how to manipulate any and all known Mutant powers. How do you think I picked both of you up when I should not have even been able to grasp you?”

     Nimrod executed his next few actions so fast that even a static observer would have had trouble telling what was going on. Quickly he threw Gambit and Shadowcat out of his protective force field, sending a severe shock through both of them as he did so. Both landed right outside the field, unconscious and twitching. A split second later, Nimrod lowered the rear side of his force field for just a fraction of a second, enough to let Cannonball, rendered invisible because he was being held onto by Façade, through the rear end and right into his fist.

     “How in the—“ Cannonball began as Nimrod closed his large fist around the torsos of the young X-Man and Façade.

     Nimrod quickly channeled Gambit’s explosive energy into Cannonball and Façade at the last second. Both barely had time to react as they started to glow red hot, and then---

     Husk covered her eyes as two sickening pops sounded off in Nimrod’s fists.

     “Again, an admirable effort, but ultimately futile,” Nimrod said, letting what remained of the two Mutants drop to the ground. “I must thank you both for allowing me to adapt my systems further.”

     “Sam…. No…..” Husk said, her vision quickly blurring as tears welled up in her eyes again.

     “ETA to Genosha?”

     “Less than ten minutes, sir. It shouldn’t be too much longer before I have visual confirmation.”

     “Keep an eye out for any defenses Nimrod may have set up. If you start to come under fire and I haven’t given the order to turn around, drop the nuke and get out of there as fast as you can.”

     “Our satellites still show no change, sir?”

     “Not the good kind. The number of Mutant signatures present on the island is down by four. Keep your mind on the job, soldier. Fury out.”

     “Charles, this is insane!” Storm said to the professor who was floating beside her. “We’ve tried everything we can think of, and it just turns everything back against us!”

     To keep Professor Xavier more easily mobile, Jean was telekinetically keeping him floating beside them both a few feet off of the ground in case they needed to dodge an incoming attack quickly. Xavier noticed that he had been floating a bit more unsteadily for the last few minutes, however. Jean was clearly holding back tears, and her expression of determination looked about ready to crack after seeing another teammate explode before her very eyes.

     “You will get no argument from me, Storm,” Xavier said, watching Juggernaut try unsuccessfully to pummel his way through Nimrod’s force field, only to get backhanded by the Sentinel, the force of which made even Cain fly back a few dozen feet, landing on the ground with a grunt. “Given that force field is now deflecting even Dorian’s powers, I am sorry to say I am completely out of ideas at this point. I think we should all get ready to attack Nimrod at once from one side, full force, and if that doesn’t work….”

     “Wait!” Jean interrupted, blinking through her tears as she pointed at two silver figures charging towards Nimrod from across the field. “What are they doing?!”

     “…Which one is Cessily?” Storm asked.

     “The one on the left,” Xavier answered. “But they’ve got to retreat, before—“

     Xavier stopped as he looked at Mercury again. Something seemed different about her….

     No, something wasn’t different about her. That was what had been throwing Xavier off. Other than her obviously silver skin color, Mercury’s proportions looked normal and solid.

     Seeing Wolverine die had devastated her, but seeing one of her own classmates explode just a few dozen yards in front of her had made something inside Mercury click.

     There were no others, no battlefield. There was just her, Husk, and Nimrod. Somewhere in the back of Cessily’s mind she knew that Husk had shed her skin to reveal a mercury-like substance underneath, making both of them, with the exception of their hair color, identical at a first glance. It hadn’t yet occurred to her that for the first time since her Mutant powers manifested, she wasn’t dripping, wasn’t even remotely in a liquid state. If someone had touched her, she would have felt as solid as anyone else.

     But that did not matter. All that mattered was making. This. STOP. At any cost.

     Roaring in frustration, both of them attacked Nimrod at the same time. Nimrod had seen them coming, and expectedly had put up the force field.

     But they both had something else in mind. Having already discussed briefly what they were going to do, as one both Mercury and Husk formed their hands into hardened blades and sliced against the force field. Just as the blades struck, though, they purposefully let the solidity of their arms go slack, becoming more of a gelatinous soup. This sudden, unexpected change in density allowed their blade-arms to sink through the force field, which they then resolidified and scraped against Nimrod, doing the impossible.

     They had harmed Nimrod.

     Two long gashes were slashed across the sides of Nimrod’s head, and one of them started to spark electricity.

     Nimrod roughly grabbed them both in his metallic hands in response.

     “You… have harmed me. Impressive. But you forget that you have still further justified my purpose for keeping you alive.”

     Both of the girls shrieked in pain as Nimrod sent powerful electric shocks through both of them. Completely unconscious, they both oozed out of the Sentinel’s hands, collapsing into silver puddles on the ground.

     “Thanks to your efforts, I have now improved my ability to alter my force field quickly to adapt to varying densities. The more you harm me, the stronger I become, in the end.”

     “Woah!” Blob exclaimed. “They actually hurt that thing!”

     “For all the good it does us,” Surge, still a little groggy, murmured from her position slung face-forward over Blob’s shoulder. Because Surge barely had the strength to stand let alone fight, she had been depending on Blob to carry her around for most of the battle. “We can’t do the same thing twice to it, and even something like that… barely scratched it. We’d have to do something like that… about fifty more times before we would even… stand a chance of knocking it out.”

     “Surge is right,” Mystique admitted. “Mercury is a unique case, and we can’t replicate that kind of attack again, even if it could work. I still see no way out of this predicament.”

     “Not another two…” Jean said, tears finally starting to cascade down her face.

     “Now what!?” Beast asked. “That’s two more of us unconscious, and as proud as I am of Mercury and Husk for that strategy, we’re still back to where we started! No matter what we do, Nimrod just outsmarts us in the end!”

     “Yes, he—wait!” Xavier said, interrupting himself. “Yes, Nimrod is outsmarting us…. Hank, that’s it!”

     “What’s it?” Beast said, turning towards Xavier anxiously.

     I can’t tell you audibly, for fear of Nimrod overhearing, Xavier said telepathically. But the mind is the solution to all of this! Nimrod outsmarts us, correct? Ordinary Sentinels could never do that without masters—they don’t have minds! But Nimrod is obviously self-aware and unde rthe control of no one. He clearly has a ‘mind’ of his own, even if it’s not a mind in the most literal of senses.

     I don’t know, Charles, Beast thought back. That is an interesting plan you’ve come up with, but a mess of motherboards and circuitry isn’t at all the same thing as an organic brain. How would we even know if mental powers could work on that thing? And, furthermore, Nimrod has that force field up, and thick metal armor surrounding his--- oh…

     Exactly, Xavier smirked. Thanks to Mercury and Husk’s efforts, we just may be able to penetrate Nimrod’s “mind” after all. And the only way to find out if it works is to try, my friend… unless we can come up with a better plan.

     “Whatever you are discussing, Charles, you’d better put it into action soon,” Storm said urgently, nodding towards the center of the battlefield where Nimrod was currently battling Wolfsbane, Pyro, Magma, and about a half dozen Morlocks simultaneously. Nimrod had already punched Scaleface and Wolfsbane out, and was looking to do the same to others gathered around him. “Because Nimrod is showing less and less restraint towards dealing with us. I think he’s ‘learned’ about all he needs to from us, which means we haven’t got much time left.”

     “You are correct, Storm,” Xavier admitted. “I’m sending out a telepathic message to the other Mutants here with mental powers, telling them my plan. Let’s just pray I’m onto something here.”

     You’re kidding, thought Moonstar. You want ME to do this? ME, who’s been completely useless this entire battle?!

     Moonstar, I understand it is a huge responsibility, especially for someone who hasn’t been training for very long, Xavier’s voice echoed in her head. But you are the most logical choice out of all us. Mastermind is the only other one here who can create illusions, and he is much better at creating more complex illusions in one’s memories, relying too much on the human brain structure. You, however, have proven that you can project illusions of someone’s greatest fears, often by mere accident. All of us who are able will help you, Moonstar, but YOU will have to be the one to create the actual illusion.

     Moonstar gulped and looked up at Nimrod, who had now knocked a dozen Mutants unconscious total, not including the four he had killed directly. They clearly were on their last legs—it wouldn’t be long before Moonstar didn’t have anyone left to protect her from the Sentinel.

     Alright, Moonstar thought, as she simultaneously saw a dozen Sentinels rocket skywards from the opposite side of the island, towards a black dot that was just now becoming visible on the horizon. Realizing it was immaterial, she quickly pushed thoughts of it out of her head and refocused on Xavier again. I’ll do it, for Sam and Logan.

     Thank you, Moonstar. If this works, all of us will owe you our lives. Apparently sending the telepathic message to everyone now, Xavier continued, Alright—Mastermind, Jean, and…. Legion. Focus on Moonstar’s mind, help her out in any way you can. Let’s begin. I will coordinate.

     “Sir, I’ve got twelve bogeys incoming, repeat, twelve bogeys incoming. They’re rocketing off from the island now, they’ve definitely spotted me. Should I drop the cargo and turn around?”

     “Negative,” Fury replied back. “You’ve still got about fifty seconds before you’re in their range, and the satellite imagery is detecting a large build-up of energy near your position. It looks like they’re trying one last thing. Let’s see if it works. Drop back for now, repeat, drop back.”

     Lucid, where should we target?

     Lucid narrowed his eyes, engaging his X-ray vision to see inside Nimrod’s superstructure. Um… I’m not that familiar with robotics, Xavier, but it looks like the circuit that Mercury and Husk opened is adjacent to a large cluster in Nimrod’s head, slightly right of center. I’d bet that’s where his processor is.

     Alright, then. Wanda, now!

     Obediently, the Scarlet Witch let loose with a blast of hex power. The force field surrounding Nimrod flickered for a moment as the hex energy started to take effect.

     It was only for a moment, but a moment was all Moonstar needed to extend her mental presence into Nimrod’s processor.

     1000011010001011101001101010011100111000100111111110

     Professor…. This is so…. What am I looking for?!

     His thoughts, Danielle! Nimrod has to be constantly thinking, directing his Sentinels, planning his next strategy, regulating his internal systems! He may not be thinking in the same way we are, but he still is doing so!

     00111011101ompensat0011010restore10100101ruder present, beg100011

     Moonstar collapsed to her knees in effort, the mental effort of being inside a robot’s “mind” exhausting her abilities in mere seconds.

     Professor, I found it, but I can’t…it’s too much…

     We’ll assist, Danielle. Just focus on your target. Forget everything else, even us. Jean, Legion, Mastermind, lend your mental strength, now!

     Moonstar suddenly felt the numbness that was quickly spreading over her mind start to give way again, slowly but surely. She still grunted, though, straining to not only understand this new process of thought, but find its greatest fear.

     0001111010101101001111ti-viral program initiat1010000001101not functioning. Memory being acc010d without assent0101101being overwritt10

     Moonstar hacked, shuddering under the effort as her nose started to drip blood.

     0101ptical sensors being overwritten. Visual feedback being tampered with. Unable to stop intruder program…

     Something was inside Nimrod. He knew it, but he was unable to pinpoint its location for some reason.

     He was about to run a full systems diagnostic when something in front of him caught his attention.

     …This cannot be….

     As Nimrod watched in disbelief, the Mutants he had downed—even the ones he had killed—suddenly all got up from the ground in unison. For some reason, even though Nimrod was sure he had left him behind at the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, his creator, Bolivar Trask, was among the resurrected Mutants.

     “Creator,” Nimrod said, raising an open palm toward Trask. “What is happening? Why are you here? Why are the Mutants not eliminated?”

     “I’ll tell you why,” Trask said, a sneer on his face. “Because you failed your purpose. You FAILED your sole cause for existence. You couldn’t even exterminate a lowly bunch of Mutants, the disease that is slowly consuming this world. They live, despite your best efforts. Which means that I must de-commission you.”

     “No… no, this is not true,” Nimrod said, firing off a blast at the undead Mutants that were inexorably advancing upon him. “They are dead. They are DEAD!”

     “They are dead. They are DEAD!” Nimrod suddenly exclaimed, backing away a few steps and firing a plasma blast at… nothing.

     “It’s working!” Magneto said. “All of Nimrod’s energies are focused on that illusion! Everyone, attack! Hold nothing back!”

     Nimrod quickly became the center of a huge concentration of unleashed power. Superhumanly strong fists, ice beams, blasts of fire, electrical blasts, force beams, shockwaves from the earth itself—all collided with Nimrod’s force field as one. Without Nimrod’s full attention on the field itself, it quickly flickered off, leaving nothing between the Mutants and their target, at long last.

     “Now,” Mystique said, grinning in anticipation, “Let’s finish it.”

     “This is impossible!” Nimrod said, his voice growing uncharacteristically anxious and unsure as all of the undead Mutants, including dozens more that had appeared out of nowhere, slowly climbed all over him. Despite his calculations that he should easily have been able to handle such weight, Nimrod felt his knees inexplicably give way, and he fell to the ground, unable to even lift a finger at the enemy he was created to destroy.

     Trask, pressed against Nimrod’s face by the small mountain of Mutants now covering them both, spat at the Sentinel.

     “You incompetent pile of scrap,” Trask sneered. “It’s time to put such an inept project behind me. Shutting all systems down… now.”

     “NOOOO!!!” Nimrod roared as a dozen energy blasts all collided with his head at the same time. The Mutants next to Nimrod had quickly taken the fallen and hefted them to safety a few dozen yards back as the Sentinel exploded in a fiery ball of hell that brightened up the early evening sky.

     Everyone present shielded their eyes from the intense light as Nimrod’s power core hit critical and ignited a second, bright blue explosion, not quite as large as the first but considerably more intense.

     As the second explosion died down and fiery metal parts of the Sentinel started to rain down on the battlefield, cheers went up from all the conscious Mutants around, their hated enemy, at long last, defeated.

     All of the Mutants except one, that is.

     Jean noticed Moonstar unconscious on the ground, an unhealthy amount of blood absorbed into the sand around her head.

     “Danielle!” Jean yelled, running across the battlefield towards the New Mutant.

     “Commander Fury, the Sentinels that were following me are plummeting towards the ocean! Repeat, the Sentinels are falling!”

     “Satellite imagery confirms it—Nimrod has been destroyed,” Fury laughed. “Those sons-of-guns did it, I can’t believe it! Turn back towards the island and give those guys a big congrats, soldier. Our ETA to Genosha is about two hours.”

     “Confirmed, sir!”

     “Magneto,” Mastermind said, pointing towards the sky up above, “There’s an aircraft incoming. S.H.I.E.L.D., it looks like.”

     “Then I would say it’s time for us to take our leave,” Magneto said. Reaching out with a hand, the Acolyte leader concentrated for a moment. A loud rumble and a few seconds later had a few Mark I Sentinels emerge into the clearing, tugged there from their defensive positions at the edge of the island. At first a few of the Mutants cringed as the giant robots entered the clearing, but they quickly realized that with Nimrod now gone, all the other Sentinels were completely inactive.

     Making a crushing moment with his hands, Magneto shaped and molded the Sentinels into five familiar-looking metal spheres.

     “Mastermind, Legion, Omega Red, Quicksilver— let’s go.”

     “It’s just one plane!” Quicksilver protested. “We don’t need to run, just crush it with your hands!”

     “Now is not the time, Pietro,” Magneto said irritably as he and the other Acolytes entered the metal spheres. “You may have near-boundless energy, but the rest of us do not. After the past twenty-four hours, I freely admit that I am utterly exhausted, and I would imagine the rest of the Mutants here are as well. S.H.I.E.L.D. will have to wait.”

     Pietro merely groaned in frustration as the metal sphere surrounding him closed shut.

     “Charles!” Magneto called out, looking back before he entered his own metal sphere.

     “What is it?” Xavier asked tiredly.

     “I… apologize for Sabretooth’s reprehensible behavior. Though you and I have obviously had our differences, this was not the place nor time to bring it to a head like that. If Sabretooth had survived this battle, he would have been severely punished, I assure you.”

     “You’ll pardon me if, given what’s happened the last few years, I don’t take your word for it,” Xavier sighed, “But what’s done is done. Both Sabretooth and Wolverine are gone now. There is no rewinding the past.”

     “Indeed,” Magneto nodded. “Until next time, Charles.”

     With that, Magneto stepped into his own metal ball, and the five spheres rocketed off into the horizon, submerging themselves into the ocean several miles offshore.

     “That is odd,” Colossus observed. “Why would they go into the ocean? You think they would make better time just traveling in the air.”

     “I would imagine to better hide themselves from S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Beast replied, starting to speak louder to be heard over the roar of the engines as the incoming bomber slowly started to descend from the sky above to touch down in the field . “I doubt this aircraft is the only thing we’ve got headed our way—there’s no way all of us can fit in there.”

     “I’d better go,” X-23 said, eyeing the bomber touching down. “I doubt they’ll let me leave this time, now that they know I’m alive.”

     “Hold on a minute,” Beast said, putting a hand around X-23’s arm. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”

     “I KNOW S.H.I.E.L.D.,” X-23 growled, unsheathing her claws. “They will NEVER let me go. Now let GO of me.”

     “And where would you go to? We’re on an island, remember,” Beast asked, quirking an eyebrow.

     X-23 started to say something, then merely furrowed her eyebrows in response.

     “Give them a chance to prove themselves, like I did,” Colossus said. “You will not be disappointed—I am sure they will not let S.H.I.E.L.D. take you.”

     “Greetings, Mutants!” the bomber pilot said as a side of the aircraft retracted and a stairway folded out onto the ground. “S.H.I.E.L.D. sends you its heartfelt thanks for getting rid of the new Sentinel. In about two hours, the helicarrier will be here to—“

     “Save it!” Mystique yelled, grabbing everyone else’s attention. To the X-Men’s horror, she had Wolfsbane’s unconscious form held up against her with one arm, and in the other held a jagged piece of scrap metal from Nimrod’s remains, pressed up against Rahne’s neck. “I’m sure you’ll thank the Brotherhood for our efforts by locking us away for the rest of our lives! Now give us access to the bomber you arrived in so we can get out of here, or she dies right now!”

     “Rahne!” Jubilee cried out, creating a ball of “fireworks” in her hand to throw at Mystique.

     “Jubilation, no!” Xavier said, waving his hand to call her off. “Let’s give Mystique… what she wants.”

     “It… it is S.H.I.E.L.D. policy not to negotiate with terrorists,” the pilot regrettably answered, continuing to walk down the plank onto the soil. “I am sorry, Professor Xavier.”

     “Last chance, Charles!” Mystique growled, pressing the tip of the jagged piece of metal just far enough into Rahne’s neck to draw a drop of blood. “Force him to stop, NOW, or say goodbye to another of your students!”

     Xavier sighed. “As you wish.”

     The Professor concentrated for a moment, and then the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot suddenly collapsed to the ground without so much as a cry of protest.

     “I’ve rendered him temporarily unconscious,” Xavier explained. “He will wake up after you leave.”

     “Wise move,” Mystique said. “Brotherhood members, on board, now! We’re leaving this place before the helicarrier arrives!”

     All of the Brotherhood members quickly complied, though Blob had a bit of trouble squeezing through the door on the side of the bomber. Rahne was roughly thrown out the door onto the ground moments later, just as the bomber started to lift off from the ground and retract its landing gear.

     “That was close,” Storm breathed as Jubilee ran over to Rahne.

     “We’ve had enough deaths today to last a lifetime,” Xavier said. “And Mystique has to know that S.H.I.E.L.D. will be tracking that bomber, as soon as they learn it’s been stolen. She won’t be using it for long.”

     “Hey,” Beast said, looking around in alarm, “Where’s Juggernaut?”

     Cyclops looked around and sighed. “We really need to start paying more attention to these kinds of things…”

     “So? It’s not like he could have gone far,” Iceman said. “He’s gotta be somewhere on this island.”

     “I doubt it,” Xavier replied. “Cain is invulnerable, remember. He doesn’t even need to breathe to stay alive.”

     “…So he could just freaking walk all the way back to the U.S.? Great,” Iceman groaned.

     “You were going to NUKE us!?” Cyclops repeated, incredulous.

     It was two hours later, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier had arrived, right on schedule. The huge aircraft had parked itself in the middle of the battlefield just like the bomber before it, and out had stepped Fury with his own personal guard of S.H.I.E.L.D. troopers. Most of the Mutants who had been knocked unconscious during the battle with Nimrod had woken up by now, with the notable exception of Moonstar, who, though still breathing, hadn’t moved despite Kitty’s near-constant attempts to wake her. Mercury and Husk had also both re-formed into their normal bodies—Mercury gelatinous and dripping again—and Husk had, with effort, shed her mercury skin to reveal normal skin underneath again.

     “I told you, it was a last-minute option. Luckily, one that you just narrowly avoided,” Fury replied. “And, luckily, I gave my bomber pilot the codes to completely deactivate it. Even though you violated S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol and gave into Mystique’s demands, she won’t be able to use that bomb.”

     “We are not S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, we do not abide by S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol,” Storm replied.

     “So let me get this straight,” Beast growled. “Not only had you continued the Sentinel program despite Apocalypse’s defeat, but you enrolled Dr. Trask, of all people, to build an even stronger version? And then, because of your obvious oversight, it went AWOL, kidnapped all of the Mutants in Bayville, killed four of us and very nearly killed the rest of us. And we had to fight for our lives just to correct your mistake.”

     “I’ve told you all this before—these are not my choices to make,” Fury said, irritated. “I’m not the highest ranking officer in S.H.I.E.L.D., just the highest-ranking that you see.”

     “Yet you still work for them,” Xavier replied. After a moment of silence on Fury’s part, Xavier pinched his sinuses and continued, “I appreciate the fact that you are giving us a lift off of this island, but this is the last straw. The Xavier Institute’s relationship with your organization has hardly been mutual, and now you tell us that had the battle gone on a moment longer, we all would have been dead. What if it had just taken us a minute longer to think of the solution to our dilemma? What then?”

     “Charles, you have to understand,” Fury protested, “We had Nimrod and all of the AWOL Sentinels in one place, far away from any other human population. We had a golden opportunity to get rid of Nimrod before things really got out of hand, and we were ready to take it.”

     “That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t wait longer,” Jean said. “Nimrod would have still been here until he had killed us all. If that had happened, then I could see your point. But not even seeing it out until the end?”

     “I told you before, I carry out orders, I don’t make them!” Fury said, quickly loosing his patience. “And you, Xavier, you’re one to reprimand me for keeping things from you. What’s SHE doing here?”

     “I was unaware of X-23’s existence until our arrival on this island—Logan had also led me into believing she was dead,” Xavier said. “But that is besides the point. You were going to keep a human child to use as a weapon, just like H.Y.D.R.A.!”

     “We were going to capture her to study her, not brainwash her!” Fury said. “Quit making assumptions, Xavier.”

     “That fact that you see it morally acceptable to do even that to a child without her consent tells me all I need to know,” Xavier said. “That, and you did not see fit to warn us about Nimrod beforehand because you apparently cared more about someone accidentally intercepting your transmission than saving our lives. Colonel Fury, the Xavier Institute’s relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. is hereby severed. X-23 is staying with us.”

     “Xavier, she is government proper—“

     “She is not YOUR property, nor anyone else’s!” Xavier yelled back, unusually angry.

     Nick Fury looked ready to burst a blood vessel, but suddenly sighed and calmed himself down before continuing. “You’re making a mistake, Charles.”

     “We shall see. But I doubt it.”

     “Alright, all of you—X-Men, Morlocks, everyone—into the helicarrier. We’ll take you back to Bayville. S.H.I.E.L.D. owes you at least that much. But after we drop you off, our organization as a whole is…. going away for a while. People are going to want answers, and after this snafu, the few politicians that are in the know about us are going to want some as well. And, uh… we’ve got to lay low until all of these investigations blow over, to keep the general public from discovering our presence.”

     “Yes, we wouldn’t want the taxpayers to know where their money actually goes, would we?” Beast mumbled.

     One by one, all of the assembled Mutants filed into the helicarrier and took their seats in a large hangar as the aircraft began its ascent.

     A loud rumble shook the helicarrier as it lifted off from the ground, and the sudden loud movement shook Moonstar awake.

     “Uh… wha?” Moonstar mumbled, starting to move.

     “Danielle! You’re awake!” Kitty said excitedly, letting go of her friend as Moonstar sat up. “You really had us worried for a while, there! Glad to see that you’re back to--- oh.”

     Kitty had stopped in mid-sentence as Moonstar blinked open her eyes, rubbing them.

     Though Moonstar’s right eye was normal, to everyone’s surprise, her left eye emitted a fairly intense bright yellow beam of light.

     “What is it? What!?”

     As the helicarrier disappeared over the horizon, five metal orbs floated up out of the ocean and landed on the shoreline of the island again. Opening, the five members of the Acolytes stepped out of the spheres they had been sitting in for the past two hours.

     “Mastermind, are you sure you gathered all the information you could from Fury’s mind?”

     “….Yes. This island, it’s called Genosha. There are no human civilizations anywhere nearby-- this island really is in the middle of nowhere. Nimrod did not, in fact, build the structure that housed us earlier-- it used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. prisoner camp for Communists during the Cold War, but was abandoned during the ‘90s.”

     “Good, then we should have no interruptions with our work. Let’s rest for the night and begin tomorrow.”

The End
 

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