Thirst For Freedom - Part 2
Posted on Mon Aug 26th, 2024 @ 9:35pm by Charles Xavier & Scott Summers & Connor Bruin & Hank McCoy & Iris Walker & Bliss Hawkins & Hayden Davis & Ethan Hale & Aurora Summers & Jean Grey & Kennedy Kelly & Maeve MacKenna & Warren Worthington III & Kayleigh Marshall
Edited on on Mon Aug 26th, 2024 @ 9:37pm
5,393 words; about a 27 minute read
Mission:
Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: Arlington Memorial Bridge / Lincoln Memorial - Washington DC
Timeline: October 21st, 1990
Lincoln Memorial
"... and it is for that reason today's proceedings strike at the very soul of our nation," the Professor said to the camera crew. "We are not protesting simply for the rights of mutants but for all peoples. Our world is one where ideological differences have always existed, but we have finally overcome the innate tendency within man to fear and hate the innate differences among us. Why, then, would we abandon those principles—"
Sounds of gunfire echoed from the bridge. Xavier cut himself off as all eyes and cameras turned toward what quickly became a heated battle far too close for comfort. People began screaming and running for cover.
~Jean, locate the others and ascertain their conditions~ Xavier projected. ~I'll get to the bottom of whatever this is~
Jean’s eyes grew distant for a moment as she sought out the familiar mental signatures in the sea of minds. Scott was the easiest to find, then the rest soon followed.
~* ‘Minor injuries amongst the X-Men, a few civilians are injured and several are in critical condition but no deaths across the board. Freedom Force is the name of a government funded group of mutants. They demanded a halt to the march and then used force.’ *~
Searching the minds of a multitude was not for the faint of heart. Xavier's consciousness rushed out from his body in all directions. His search began as a chain reaction in the immediate vicinity, a psychic force of nature that washed over everyone around him. Like a mosquito sampling hosts, he flitted from mind to mind sampling thoughts and intentions, searching for anyone with the light of knowledge for the sudden turn of events.
Valerie Cooper. That was the identity of the mind he found. And it was a name with which he was familiar. She was a special assistant to President Richardson as well as National Security Advisor Peter Henry Gyrich, the man who had pushed for Project Wideawake, the original Sentinel plot. It did not take digging into Valerie Cooper's mind to divine what was happening. That knowledge was at the forefront, churning in guilt and disapproval.
"Dear God..." Xavier gasped. ~Freedom Force was bait! Everyone must get out of here now!~ His mind reached out for what he knew was coming. And it choked on what he found. "NOOOOO!!!" he screamed, grabbing his temples in agony.
“Charles!” Jean crouched down next to his chair as her psyche aided him in defending against the attack that she was all too familiar with. “Take my hand, we’ll block it out together.”
She glanced up at the camera crew and reporters who had lost interest in Xavier in lieu of the chaos occurring on the bridge. It was a regrettable gift that allowed them to focus on the Professor’s condition.
Xavier had weathered the attack better than she had but she noticed the faint trickle of blood from his nose. Jean took a handkerchief from her purse and handed it to him. “Take a minute,” she knew how bad that pain was, searing and throbbing agony that made the world stop. “When you’re able to, we’ll leave.”
~* ‘Scott, the Professor and I are leaving. We’ll meet you at the hotel.’ *~ Jean reached out to Cyclops before her attention returned to Xavier and getting him to safety.
Arlington Memorial Bridge
Still taking stock of the situation, Connor was starting to feel better about the situation. This was not what they had planned for, but the plan changed and they had to change with it. Everyone was still doing good work. The day could still be salvaged.
~Freedom Force was bait! Everyone must get out of here now!~
The unmistakable telepathic voice of Professor Xavier pressed into Connor's thoughts so hard that it made him wince. Freedom Force had been bait. They did damage, tried to goad the X-Men into creating more, and then fled one by one without trying to come back. It made too much sense.
Resisting the urge to ask the Professor what the bait was for, Connor stepped into action. "X-MEN! RETREAT! WE ARE THE TARGETS!"
Just as he gave the order, a streak of light passed overhead. Dark purple, nearly black armor. Metallic wings. The glimmer of projectiles shot out of the sky toward the X-Men on the bridge.
~* ‘X-Men, do not engage with the Omega Sentinel.’ *~ Jean’s voice reached each of them along with a myriad of mental pictures. The gorey details were spared but critical intel was provided from X-Factor’s encounter; inhuman speed and strength, psychic shields, bones engrafted with metal, a mutant tracking system and heightened senses.
The last bit of information was this was the sentinel that had mortally wounded Bobby. The Omega Sentinel approaching them was a predator who hunted down mutants with no mercy.
~* ‘I repeat, X-Men do not engage with the Omega Sentinel’ *~ Jean warned them one final time.
Suddenly the sky was filled with a crimson arc. Something was knocked to the ground. Several objects, in fact, which clanged and clattered against the bridge. They were metallic feathers, razor-sharp and glistening with some sort of resin that made the concrete sizzle on contact.
"Warren..." Scott whispered before turning to the others. "This one is beyond any of you! Get out of here while I lay down cover!"
Connor nodded and began leading the others in a retreat. He trusted Scott knew what he was doing.
Aurora started to retreat before she stopped and turned back, she wasn’t going to let Scott face off against Warren without some defence. She would protect Scott whilst staying out of the fight.
The Omega Sentinel swooped down from the sky and brought his wings forward in a corkscrew spin. Scott let loose another sustained blast, but the narrow barrel roll from Omega Sentinel was milliseconds ahead of each correction. The corona of Scott's blast scorched deep grooves into the bridge and its support struts but they didn't slow the Omega Sentinel a bit. In the end, Scott had to jump up, blast the ground in front of him to knock himself back to avoid the certain death of the same tactic Bobby had suffered, and then tuck into a ball to land the backflip into a crouch.
Making landfall, the Omega Sentinel began using his wings as weapons, swinging and slicing them through the air like war axes. Scott had no means of parrying except to shoot widebeam optic blasts. Each crimson arc pushed Scott backwards, sideways, and every which way other than forward. Never forward. It was all Scott could do to keep from being eviscerated, amputated, decapitated, or otherwise separated from the rest of his body. Omega Sentinel had the advantage and pressed it to the fullest. If Scott was going to be stuck playing defense, at least he was keeping the Omega Sentinel busy.
“Hang on, Cyclops!” Aurora wasn’t going to leave Scott risking his life to cover the retreat, Jean was busy with the Professor and Aurora had heard the warning she’d given. She wasn’t going to take on the Omega Sentinel but she was going to shield Scott from injury. Throwing up a telekinetic barrier between Scott and his attacker she hoped to give Scott a fighting chance, if her lesson with Jean had taught her anything it was to look for options when defending herself.
Distracted by Aurora's voice, Scott glanced sideways just enough to miss the slip. One of the metallic feathers shot out from Omega Sentinel's wing and sliced his arm. He cried out in pain, as the wound immediately began to burn like fire.
Before Aurora could intervene, the sound of a rushing wind came up behind her. Blunt force knocked her up into the air and kept pushing. When she turned to face whatever struck her, Aurora was met with glowing red eyes from an otherwise nondescript woman with long, black hair, a white blouse, and a pencil skirt.
"Destroy mutants!" the woman said in a digitized voice. Her palm came up and sprouted with mechanical cybernetics. Some sort of emitter at the center of her palm began to glow mere inches from Aurora's face.
“Shove it, sister!” Aurora’s body lit up in flame as she pushed herself back off the woman taking flight, a projected field of fire covered her as she deflected herself away as best as she could. Her plan to help Scott had backfired in classic style, she knew she’d probably get an earful for that one later on, but right now she had a job to do. Grabbing the woman in a telekinetic grip she pushed her down hard aiming towards Warren. “Say hi to your friend for me!”
The woman's feet erupted in fire which flipped her around and stopped her freefall. With a deafening roar, the jets where her feet used to be pushed back against the telekinetic grasp and slowly propelled her back toward Aurora while her hands started returning fire with radiant pulses of energy. "Destroy mutants!" she repeated.
“Ohh shit!” Aurora was outmatched and she knew it, a mental note made for next time if she made it out of this alive. Right now she had no choice but to lead the woman away from the others as they made their retreat. For all intents and purposes this was an organic version of a sentinel, and she’d faced those in the danger room. If she had to try burning the thing to a crisp then that’s what she’d do. She dodged the pulses of energy focussing her own flame power into one focussed burst. It would be an all or nothing attempt as she put everything she had behind it, her body turning white hot as she focussed every bit of heat she had.
"I can help!" Maeve wasn't going to get actively involved in a face off with either the Omega Sentinel or this woman version. She'd brought down other sentinels before but these were just other level but she could help defend her new found friends. Looking over at where Scott was, now wounded and bleeding from his arm, Maeve used her good arm to once again raise a wall of solid stone to protect him as he recovered. This barrier wouldn't last too long against Warren but it was a distraction between the two. As she had made the ground rise she focussed on the woman attacking Aurora and formed a sphere of stone and launched it at her. With only one arm to use it took time and effort to focus her attack on the women and the defence of Scott.
Two men with glowing eyes flung themselves at Maeve from either side like raptors on the attack. Each arm was seized in a powerful, bone-grinding grip as each one raised their empty hands in front of Maeve's face, their palms already heating up with the blasts that were to come. "Destroy mutants!" they chanted in digitized unison.
Hayden heard the warning and was on her way out while trying to save as many people as she could. She noticed after a few minutes that several of her fellow X-Men had fallen behind. She turned to see them engaging something or defending the others.
She quickly scanned the battlefield and saw her new friend. "Maeve! Noooo!" she screamed. Hayden's fear and terror amped up her adrenaline and she ran towards her. She was still breathing heavy when she stopped roughly twenty feet short of them. "Dig in!" she yelled. Hayden jerked her head towards the direction of the river's end. Water receded from the banks by several feet as large, focused columns of spinning water shot up out of the river and lambasted whatever was attacking Maeve.
"Flame on!"
A cloud of fire in the shape of a man shot through the air and grabbed Bliss out of the air. Somehow the blue uniform he wore was cool to the touch despite his flaming body. He carried Bliss away from the bridge and back toward the parking area.
"Good morning, dollface," said the Human Torch, his grin visible even through his fiery visage. "I'm gonna' set you down away from trouble, but if you're ever in New York..." His burning eye gave her a hard wink as he set her to the ground. "Time to turn and burn!"
Without landing himself, Johnny Storm spun in the air and jetted off back to the bridge.
"Flame on!"
Sure-footed and nimble, Kennedy was able to navigate through the remaining crowd of protesters with ease. She stopped and assisted those who were at risk of being trampled or separated from their groups but she soon left the front lines on the bridge where flashes of red light or glinting metallic wings collided. The crowds in Potomac Park were mainly gawking stragglers but there were enough of them to be a concerning amount of civilians still present. Kennedy did her best to turn them out and force them away, the less people in danger the better.
Turning her back on a man who finally lowered his camera, a robotic and metal whirl suddenly began behind Kennedy followed by the sound of a robotic voice. "Destroy Mutants!"
Kennedy turned around and the camera wearing man had been activated and transformed into Prime Sentinel. His glowing eyes locked onto her and his approach was quick and determined. Unable to expand her bow on time, Kennedy merely extended a hand and braced herself for impact. The Prime Sentinel made contact with her palm and he illuminated in golden light. With a single push, Kennedy shoved the sentinel and it exploded into bits of scrap metal that clanged and clattered onto the ground.
The few people remaining in the park all gawked and stared at Kennedy and her easy destruction of the Prime Sentinels. But all Kennedy saw was continued liabilities standing about her so she tried to take advantage of the scene she had created. "Well! Go on, go home!"
Kayleigh was evacuating with the others her shoulder out of action, seeing what was happening she turned to see Cyclops down and injured. She could see he was needed so she did a double take and made her way to him taking shelter where she could. “Hold on, Cyclops...” She took cover behind the rock formation protecting him reaching out her hand. Moments later his wound was gone, added to her own wounds. “They...need you.” With that she stumbled off in retreat, not knowing how far she was really going to get.
Seeing the physical contact she made, Omega Sentinel set his glowing red eyes on Kayleigh and launched more shards her way. Fortunately, Scott had recovered and deflected them with another blast, jumping back into the fray.
"Get out of here!" Scott shouted. Between the constant energy blasts and the minor acrobatics he was using to avoid Omega Sentinel's relentless assault, he was clearly getting tired. But he couldn't flee himself until he knew everyone else was clear.
Ethan hated losing. When it came to flight or fight, he almost always chose fight. Almost. But he'd learned a little about teamwork and following orders since his arrival. So, he tossed Domino's gun, which he'd grabbed from her, and tossed it into the water. Then, he swooped down took hold of Kayleigh's wrist and flew her (and himself) off to safety.
Meanwhile Aurora was running out of power and energy, giving everything she had to try to melt down her foe she started to fall. Her suit had absorbed most of the heat she’d generated but it was still covered with scorch marks from going so hot with her powers. Her descent was rough and uncontrolled, the rapid drop sending her tumbling to the ground. With her last ounce of strength she protected herself and her son surrounding her mid section from the expected impact with the floor below.
Connor spun himself through the air, catching Aurora and using the centrifugal force to alleviate the force of impact. When he came to a landing, he had Aurora over one shoulder and looked for the best exit. The original woman in the pencil skirt and blouse came flying at the both of them with two more humanoid Sentinels coming in from the sides.
Rather than wait, Connor jumped sideways and caught one of the lateral attackers in the head, then used that contact to springboard back to the other one with a spinning back kick. Both of them were knocked backwards, but they immediately regained their direction and resumed battle. In the meantime, the flying woman loosed energy beams from her hands straight into Connor's stomach.
The contact pushed Connor backwards, even burned his uniform. Looking down at his body, though, Connor saw nothing but unharmed abdominal muscles. He tossed up a couple of hand signs with one hand, as he was bracing Aurora with the other. "MY TURN."
Connor jumped into the air again with a dual scissor kick that caught both of the lateral attackers at the same time. Their heads snapped back at impossible angles, necks broken like reeds. He landed on one foot and used it to lunge forward in a knee strike that connected with the pencil skirt woman in her metallic chin. The energy he had absorbed from her released on contact, shattering her jaw and sending her to the ground.
~We must retreat~ Connor thought as much to himself as Aurora. All he could hope was that she would be alright whether or not she was conscious.
~Thank you...Connor.~ Aurora’s response was weak, but it was there. Though she wasn’t going to be fighting anymore today.
Meanwhile, at the urging of the Reverend, Iris had taken off at top speed. She didn’t really know where she was going, just that she needed to get as far away from there as she could.
She didn’t really know how long she had been running when a Sentinel plopped down in front of her. She skidded to a halt.
”DESTROY MUTANTS!” it said. She heard the unmistakable whirr of the weapons warming up and she instinctively turned to run in the other direction. There was a stand of trees up ahead. If she could just make it to them, she might have a chance.
But even she knew it was hopeless. She would never make it. A scream tore through her lips as she heard the unmistakable sound of the sentinel’s weapons firing once, twice, three times. Not here not here not here! her brain screamed, but she knew she couldn’t hide from the sentinels.
She felt something punch through her back three times and exit through her chest. Strange, she thought as she continued running. Death doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
But then the ground ahead of her erupted three times in rapid succession. She veered to the side to avoid the grass and dirt that was flung into the air and kept running. To her surprise, she made it to the trees. Once as deep inside the small stand as it was possible to be, she checked herself over.
There was no sign anything had been shot through her. “What just happened?’ she gasped to herself. “What just happened?”
Clearly her focus had been on the battle, causing Maeve to become blind to her surroundings as the two men had grabbed her. For a moment she got mesmerised by their eyes, the glow seemed to want to draw her in but the grip one of them had on her left shoulder made her wince and snap out of it, her wound not fully healed and still enough to cause pain. Their palms raised and heating up, their words of destruction sent shivers down her spine, "Do you guys say anything else? How about 'I can't swim'?" she asked as she'd seen and heard Hayden approach, her friend was drawing the water from the river and as the words "Dig in!" were shouted Maeve's power activated bringing up earth, stone, tarmac, anything on the bridge, to anchor her. From her toes to her waist now stone armour as the water blasted all three of them with so much force the two holding Maeve were knocked off their feet and carried away.
As the water receded Hayden was now approaching Maeve. "Thanks, Calypso." she said warmly. "But its going to take ages for my hair to dry now," she teased as the bridge rumbled with more attack. More of these glowing eyed people seemed to appear and approached as a beam of heat hit Maeve in the stomach. Thankfully the suit was engineered to absorb this kind of attack more so than an armour piercing bullet. More blasts seemed to follow.
The hit to Maeve forced her to her knees and she felt a different pain mixed with anger. A primal anger she had never felt before. Whipping her head back her eyes had turned entirely white and the ground began to shake with an immeasurable quake. "Eirigh!" (Rise!) she yelled in her people's old tongue as creatures began to form out of stone, sand and any manner of earth nearby to create golems. Creatures of varying sizes and formations, their eyes glowing a green colour that would outshine any emerald. "Stop iad." (Stop them.) she said more calmly as they began to move towards her and the ongoing battle of the bridge.
Despite the army of stone that Maeve had summoned out of the bridge, the Prime Sentinel horde began to number in the dozens. Their glowing eyes darkened the sky as they began to present arms.
One of the stone golems stood out from the rest. He was much bigger and more defined. And he jumped in front of Maeve, picked up a car, and flung it into the nearest cluster of aerial attackers.
"It's clobberin' time!"
Presenting himself as the nearest threat who had cleared out a patch of sky with a thrown car, the Thing became the target of their attack. "Beat it, kid," he grunted at Maeve. "T'ey ain't goin' nowhere!"
Maeve's all white eye shot to this large reddish stone man and as she did so all her golems seemed to as well. He became their focus for a brief moment before returning to protecting Maeve and stopping the Human sentinels that seemed to be everywhere. She could feel this different looking golem, she knew he wasn't one of hers and yet could feel him all the same. He was different, his stone-like body not quite like the earth and rock she was used to.
Her brow frowned as he told her to get lost but she felt herself reaching out to touch his body. A subconscious urge as her white eyes focussed as she made contact. A small surge of what felt like mystical, cosmical energy shot through her arm, "Suimiúil." (Fascinating), and as it reached her head it felt overpowering and she shook her head as if to clear cobwebs.
Opening her eyes they had returned to their ice-like blue and she blinked a couple of times as if to gain focus. Who she had been moment ago seemed distant, a memory clouded but she removed her hand from the large orange man. "Who are you?" she said aloud not realising the danger. Her vision blocked by all things orange and stone.
"Name's Ben..." he said. "Go on! Me an' Johnny can hold t'em off while you's guys scram!"
As the Prime Sentinels began to tear through Maeve's golems in their warpath toward Ben, the sky light of with a fiery blaze.
"Flame on!"
The Human Torch streaked through the air like a meteorite and cleared out the Prime Sentinels overhead, allowing the Thing to tackle the ones on the ground without being dogipiled. "'Bout time, matchstick! I t'ought I was gonna' have all the fun!"
As he circled around, Johnny saw the Prime Sentinels that had been damaged were self-repairing at an alarming rate. Time was against all of them. "Party's just getting started!" he shouted down to Ben. "Draw their heat. I'm going for a Nova Flame."
"No way!" Ben shouted back. "It's too crowded!"
"Better not be soon!" Johnny said. "No other choice!"
Ben looked back at every mutant who hadn't run off yet with a groan. "You's guys better run!"
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the chaos—the roar of jet engines. Cyclops glanced downstream to see the Blackbird flying up the Potomac just beneath the bridge. Never had its sleek form been a more a welcome sight. Its radar jamming must have slipped in front beneath the Prime Sentinel's sensors and would be a sure ticket out of the line of fire. Who had brought it?
But there was no time to wonder or signal for the others to run to the Blackbird for extraction. The Omega Sentinel was already on him again, this time changing his tactics where he had shot Scott's legs from under him with a shoulder tackle to prevent another evasion. Scott hit the ground hard, arms outstretched to mitigate the impact that still knocked the wind out of him.
Cyclops braced himself as those razor-sharp metallic wings outstretched, poised to deliver a final, fatal blow. He knew there was no dodging this one. But just as Warren’s wings were about to strike, a blue blur shot into the fray.
The Omega Sentinel grunted at the dropkick that sent him sprawling. His wings flared out immediately, attempting to reorient in the air and defend against the new attacker.
“Beast!” Cyclops gasped as Hank continued to lunge at Warren from the side.
Hank's powerful legs propelling him into another handspring that knocked Warren off balance. Circling, circling, always circling, Hank kept breaking the Omega Sentinel's center line and forced him to retarget, all the while soaking a targeted hit from the unconventional fighting style of his opponent.
Dropping to a crouch, the Omega Sentinel spun in a circle with his wings outstretched, a surprise tactic that would have cut Hank in half.
Not surprised, Beast jumped and landed gracefully, immediately launching into a series of acrobatic attacks. He snarled as he performed a spinning kick that was more breakdance than attack. Both feet connected with the side of Warren’s head, forcing the Omega Sentinel to stumble back. With fluid follow-up movements, Hank executed a backflip to avoid Warren’s counterattack and then transitioned into a front handspring, using the momentum to deliver a crushing blow to Warren’s midsection.
The Omega Sentinel sprawled out flat on his back.
"Where is she?!" Beast roared as he pounded his fists against the Omega Sentinel armor in futility. "Where did you take her?! Tell me where she is!!!"
Warren's eyes opened and flared red. He ignored Hank's merciless fists. Red eyes aglow, the Omega Sentinel wrapped his arms around Hank in a vice grip and flared his wings, sending them up to the sky. For a moment, Hank's rage turned cold as he saw the soulless look in his old friend's eyes. It was not Warren Worthington III staring back at him, but something else altogether. Some other entity behind Warren's eyes calling the shots. It was as eerie and unsettling, not least because it seemed all too familiar.
"Oh dear..." Hank muttered, the rage eking out of him.
A crimson blast struck Omega Sentinel between the shoulders, sending a whirring sound through the servomotors assisting his metal wings. Falling to the ground, Hank was able to wriggle free from the loosened grip and backflip off Omega Sentinel's chest out of range of those wings. Before the Omega Sentinel could rally, an even stronger optic blast knocked him clear of the bridge and down into the water.
"Why did you do that?" Hank shouted at Scott. "He knows where Mara is! That was my one chance!"
Scott's mouth fell open. They had just saved each other from certain death, yet Hank's one-track mind had room for little else at the moment. "Beast..." he said, using his friend's codename to get him to snap back to the situation at hand. "Get the others into the Blackbird. We have to go... now!"
At first he made to argue, but Hank's better judgment finally prevailed. "Yes," he said, nodding his matted head. "Yes, indeed."
Having finally regained her composure, Iris had exited the stand of trees from the opposite side she had entered and spotted her teammates heading in the same general direction. Without really noticing where she was going, she made to follow them, realizing it must be time to leave.
Kennedy groaned at the sight of the Blackbird appearing close to the bridge. She had gone to great lengths to get away from the action and now she had to go back to it. Picking up her knees she began to run back the way she came.
There was a moment of surprise when she noticed Iris heading back towards the bridge. She never noticed Iris.
“Hoodwink!” She called out to the petite teenager. Standing side by side Kennedy and Iris were exact opposites of one another, their height difference glaringly obvious. “Come with me back to the Blackbird, we’ll go together.”
Iris blinked and looked up in a daze. She spotted Kennedy and nodded numbly. “Yeah, okay,” she said vaguely. “Let’s go…”
Hayden ran to Maeve. "Cmon, let's get outta here." She grabbed her new friend by the arm and tugged slightly. "You can tell me all about this ability of yours while your hair dries out," she added with a laugh. "The Blackbird is this way."
"I'm not even sure what happened..." Maeve replied as Hayden began to pull her. She felt drained, and yet as if her body was in static shock. Touching Ben had felt amazingly weird, like playing with a new mineral, or earth state. The cosmic energy that had filled his body had transferred a bit to her as his 'rock' was not of normal earth making. As for her white eyed golem making mode, she could barely remember it. All she could feel now was a pain in her right shoulder from where she had been shot and a bruise-like feeling where she'd been struck in the abdomen by a sentinel shot. The sooner she was away from here the better. "But yeah, let's get out of here."
Back on her feet Aurora retreated along with everyone else, but this time on foot. She was too exhausted to fly. No sooner was she aboard the Blackbird then she was out like a light where she sat.
Whether one by one or in wounded clusters, the battered team found their way aboard the Blackbird.
As the Blackbird flew away from the battle, the scene below became chaotic. Emergency responders had created a perimeter around the Arlington Memorial Bridge but had no means of getting close to it. Prime Sentinels had swarmed it like moths to flame. Somewhere in the middle of that dark cloud of metal and assimilated flesh, the lone flame whirled a circle around them, gaining speed with each revolution. In a moment, a cyclone formed that completely enveloped the Prime Sentinels.
And then there was a detonation. The entire sky flashed white like a nuclear bomb had exploded, which was not too far away from the truth. When the air finally cleared, there was not much left of the bridge itself. Twisted metal struts hung like icicles from where the metal had flash melted and cooled before falling into the river.
There was no sign of the Prime Sentinels. They had been incinerated in the Human Torch's solar fury. As the Blackbird made its final ascent to flee the nation's Capitol, a lone Quinjet landed at the Potomac Park nearby. SHIELD was taking over the scene, which was the X-Men's signal to be anywhere else.
END
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