Crash Course

Posted on Mon Jun 23rd, 2025 @ 1:42am by Connor Bruin & Hayden Davis & Drew Williams & Desmond Greene

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Episode 6: X-Fernus Agenda
Location: Xavier Mansion | Danger Room
Timeline: January 12th, 0932 hours

Desmond wasn't convinced. Not even a little bit. It wasn't like this was anything new to him. He'd even gotten used to it changing on him. But... Why was it only pants? Why was his X-Men uniform only a pair of dark blue combat fatigue pants? Now granted, he didn't really feel warmth or cold so it's not like he needed to dress for the weather. It just felt... It felt awkward being shirtless like this.

He was waiting in the Danger Room with Connor. The Team Leader had asked him to come train with a few of the others on the team. It hadn't been the first time Desmond was there, but that was just with Connor. The door hissed open, and Desmond's eyes turned to meet the other two members walking in.

Drew had put on his X-Men outfit for the group training assignment. He was looking forward to seeing how far he'd progressed in the last month and a half. He gave both Connor and Desmond a nod. "Hey guys."

Hayden came in and paused for a moment. The only girl in this session...interesting. She continued on to the rest of the group. "Okay boys, what've we got on the docket today? Two on two? Capture the flag? Everyone team up against Connor?" She looked around for Connor and grinned.

Lights above flickered once, stabilizing into harsh brightness. The familiar hum of the Danger Room's systems intensified, and a soft clunk from the observation deck signaled the beginning of the session. The digitized voice of Connor's speech-generating device buzzed to life.

"THANK YOU ALL FOR SHOWING UP." He jumped down from the control room window like a ghost in the wind. "THE X-MEN HAVE FACED MANY FOES, BUT FEW ARE AS PERSISTENT AS THESE. THEY NEVER STAY BURIED LONG."

The far wall shuddered and split open. Steam hissed from the seams as heavy footfalls echoed out onto the Danger Room floor. Towering into view came three Mark II Sentinels, their reinforced plating bearing evidence of past conflicts, their eyes glowing crimson beneath protective metal visors. As their arms raised and their palms began to charge, three more were coming into view.

“MUTANT SIGNATURES DETECTED.”
“SUBMIT TO DETENTION.”
“FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN LETHAL FORCE.”

The synthetic voices reverberated off the walls with mechanical indifference.

Connor's grin widened slightly. "FAN OUT," he signed. "MULTIPLE TARGETS INCREASE SURVIVAL. BUT WE MUST WORK TOGETHER OR ELSE BE OVERRUN."

"Sentinels again!" Desmond shouted over the racial cleansing statements. His long legs and superstrength allowed Desmond to make large, loping strides away from his team. This hadn't been the first time he had faced the big robots, but he wasn't fond of fighting them.

With several paces distance between himself and Hayden as the most close teammate, Desmond changed his angle. His long strides took him straight at the Sentinel to the right. He took all that forward momentum, and jumped. Desmond's jump sent him at chest-height for his opponent. With a twist of his hips, Desmond presented his shoulder for a full-body charge into the Sentinel. The Sentinel's arm swept out and batted the Mutant Flying Wooden Battering Ram away, and towards Hayden.

Hayden had fanned out and was about to call out her position when she saw Desmond hurtling straight at her. "Crap!" she exclaimed. The large, wooden classmate suddenly flying at her petite frame scared her. She fired off the water cannons she usually used for crowd control in the hopes of slowing him down before she got out of the way.

Drew raced about the Danger Room, zigging and zagging to test the Sentinels. He'd never faced off against Sentinels before. The 20 foot tall robots should have a weakness. He just needed to figure it out.

Between Desmond getting ragdolled and Hayden spraying down the slick metal floor, it wasn't long before even Drew was herded in by a circle of Sentinels.

"EXTERMINATE MUTANTS!"

It was time for Connor to call out orders.

"CALYPSO, GO HIGH. VELOCITY, GO LOW. DRYAD, GO UP THE MIDDLE." He pointed straight up and twirled his pointer finger, then wiggled two fingers pointing downward like walking legs, and then pounded his fist into his hand.

After signing his commands, Connor crossed his arms over his chest to protect his speech generating device embedded in his breastplate and made no attempt to evade the Sentinels' blast. Half a dozen high powered beams struck him from all sides, driving him to his knees as he absorbed their concentrated streams. It made an opportunity for the others to choose a target and bring it down.

With a grunt of effort and a creak of wood Desmond got back on his feet. He shook off the water and hurt. The robotic tones of Connor's instructions cut quite effectively through the noise of the Sentinels' attack. Like the linebacker he was in highschool, Desmond set his shoulder and ran forward. Again, his supernaturally strong legs propelled him forward. He leapt up a few meters, hitting the Sentinel in the right thigh with several hundred kilo's of mutant muscle, and forcing the knee joint to bend backwards.

Hayden nodded and sprang into action, shooting a water cannon at the head of one of the Sentinels as a distraction. But instead of letting the water cascade to the floor, she circled her other hand and started forming a solid sphere around its head. When the sphere enveloped the head, Hayden pressurized it in the hopes of forcing water into any cracks or crevices in the armor.

Drew ran in circles, building up speed and kinetic energy, as the others prepared their attacks. Drew attacked the Sentinel from behind going for the back of the knee when Desmond hit the target. The kinetic energy forcing the leg to collapse and with luck, disabling the Sentinel or at least immobilizing it.

The Sentinel shuddered, momentarily unbalanced, but not down. Its knee buckled under the combined force of Desmond’s impact and Drew’s kinetic strike, yet as the massive machine dipped low, the faint hum of self-repair protocols began to activate. Plates shifted, servos realigned, and actuators hissed as internal systems reconfigured the damaged leg mid-battle.

Connor's eyes narrowed to glowing red slits that leaked a fine vapor. The Mark IIs weren't going down with brute force alone, not without a precise tactical strike. But that was what this drill was for.

He jumped to his feet, practically floating from the laser blasts he had absorbed. He needed an outlet, as the Sentinels were not letting up.

"GOOD SETUP," he signed. "NOW, VELOCITY, WIND ME UP. DRYAD, CATCH AND FLING. CALYPSO,COVER."

He mimed a throwing motion, then pointed to Drew and Desmond, and finally arced his hand skyward like a tossed grenade.

Drew sped over and started spinning Connor, centrifugal force turning the Team Leader into a living, spinning corkscrew. He released Connor and sent him flying towards Desmond.

Dryad glanced back for two heart beats to take note of Connor's idea. He slammed both his fists into the sides of the Sentinel's thigh armour before pushing off of it, and jumping back. With his quick pace he caught the spinning-top-like Caveman and chucked him at the Sentinel with most of his might.

Hayden brought a heavy fog around the shoulders of the giant robots and then fired pressurized water streams at them. Whether it would work as a distraction or actual cover, she couldn't tell. But at least she could enable the heavy hitters to get in there.

Connor shot through the first Sentinel like a living railgun round, an armor-piercing blur of heat, torque, and kinetic energy. His spiraling form punctured through the chest cavity, sending sparks and hydraulic fluid bursting outward in a violent spray. Before the first machine could even finish collapsing, Connor rocketed into the head of the Sentinel behind it.

The impact cracked the cranial armor with a metallic shriek, snapping its head to the side with such force that its visual sensors blinked out. The massive unit staggered, then dropped like a toppled statue, hitting the Danger Room floor with a seismic BOOM.

For the first time since the Sentinels had emerged, the battlefield shifted. They were no longer surrounded. The tide had turned and the momentum was theirs.

Connor flipped off the second downed machine and landed in a crouch, steam hissing from the seams of his armor. He raised one arm and rotated it in a tight circle: rally up.

His device buzzed to life again as he signed their next move. He jabbed a thumb at another Sentinel still standing, then mimed a surfer pose.

"CALYPSO, WAVE ME INTO THE NEXT ONE. DRYAD, VELOCITY, SWEEP THE LEGS."

Hayden grinned and nodded; she liked this. "I've got you, Caveman!" She raised her arms, drawing moisture from the air with a sharp, commanding gesture. The humidity around her condensed instantly, and a powerful current of water formed in front of her, coiling like a living serpent.

The wave exploded upward, nearly eight feet high. Hayden formed and guided it with surgical precision, her fingers cutting through the air like a conductor’s baton. "Get ready, here it comes!"

She snapped her arm forward and the wave roared, water churning and frothing as it accelerated toward Connor and the Sentinel. It was raw, hydrokinetic power. And if anyone could balance on it, it would be Connor.

Connor surged up the wave like a juggernaut on a liquid surfboard. Water curled under him, lifting and launching him at high speeds toward the towering Sentinel dead ahead. The instant he crested the wave's peak, he braced his legs, bent his elbows, and angled his frame forward, ready for maximum impact.

He struck the machine center mass with the force of a wrecking ball.

WHU-BOOM!

The hydraulic concussive blast cratered the Sentinel's chest armor inward, throwing sparks and coolant in every direction. At that same moment, Desmond and Drew hit their marks. Velocity darted around with speed-blurred limbs while Dryad, full force and fury, swept the legs with a two-handed slide tackle and a follow-up kick to the ankle joints.

The Sentinel buckled. Its knees gave out and it careened backward, crashing into the others like a toppled obelisk.

CLANG. CRUNCH. THUD.

A domino effect. One toppled into the next, metal bodies collapsing in a chain reaction that cleared the floor in a wave of shrieking steel.

Connor landed in a roll and rose smoothly, chest heaving and red energy hissing out from the vents on his armor. His glowing eyes took a split-second scan of the battlefield. Five Sentinels were down. The rest scrambled to reorient, but they'd lost the advantage.

He thumped his chest twice before signing, "NOW FINISH THE ONES KNOCKED OVER BY THE LAST SENTINEL WE HIT TOGETHER BEFORE THE OTHERS CAN RETARGET US."

Hayden shook her head and gave Connor a thumbs up. That was some pretty cool stuff they had just done and she couldn't wait to tell Bobby. But now it was time for some high pressure, pointed, water jets at weak joints and hopefully some explosions.

"C'mon guys! Let's take 'em down a notch or two!" she yelled. "I'm going after some weak joints. Maybe somebody can bust them up?"

With a mighty roar, Dryad pumped his legs to make the large leap. With some height, Dryad twisted his body around so that he could point his elbow out as he landed on his side in the face of a stumbled Sentinel. Several hundreds of pounds had all its energy channeled into the elbow. The Sentinel's faceplate shattered, and the control-center of the machine was cracked and twisted from the blow.

Connor caught the rhythm as Drew finished the Sentinel off—high, mid, low—and signed rapidly with well-earned confidence in the team.

"SAME FORMATION. ROTATE TARGET."

Hayden recreated the wave that she had used to launch Connor, but rode it herself this time. She surfed the skies, zigging and zagging, while using a pressurized water jet from one hand to slice and dice at the neck joint of the next sentinel. "Oh yeah," she exclaimed, "you're going down, you heartless tin man!"

Dryad found himself a massive bit of Sentinel leg. It took only a minor effort of strength to lift it as a club. While Hayden attacked the neck, he used the lack of attention from the big bot to swing the Leg-Club around. His enhanced muscles allowed for a release of speed and power that any 10 MLB batters combined couldn't match. The following crash of metal composites meeting metal composites removed an entire Sentinel knee joint while it was still standing.

The last upright Sentinel staggered under the team's combined aerial assault and devastating leg strikes. Sparks rained down like confetti as the killing machine tried to right itself, but it was too late. Connor charged forward again, vaulting off the wrecked torso of the nearest downed machine and slamming both fists into the Sentinel's side with a thunderclap of kinetic force.

The shockwave snapped through the Sentinel's frame. With an eerie mechanical groan, it twisted, toppled, and fell flat with a final, thunderous BOOM.

For a heartbeat, only the hiss of steam and the crackle of cooling circuits filled the air. Then Connor raised a hand and thumped his chest twice. His display screen flickered to life as he signed with crisp clarity, "SITUATION: CONTAINED." He glanced around the ruined chamber, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. "STAND DOWN, X-MEN. GOOD JOB. NOW HIT THE SHOWERS."

If they ever encountered Sentinels again, Connor felt confident they would be ready.

 

RSS Feed