Draul punched the sentinel who came at him and it flew backwards with a boom and crashed into the rushing army of Sentinels.
Since they were the ones would had to face the brunt of the attacks, the others rushed at them with a running Beast and Wolverine at the helm.
The former jumped into the air with a roar and descended on the fallen Sentinels, throwing and punching anything that got in way with beastly ferocity while the latter brought out three pairs of claws from his knuckles and what followed was a' slashing a' hacking as he left claw marks on the already mutilated Sentinels.
Ben Grimm, the Thing, not falling behind, ran and crashing rock hard into a sentinel brought what could only be called a hard fist on the head of the sentinel and continued even as it tried different ways to get the rock hard man, context, off its body.
"They are no end to these things!" Johnny cried out.
"Keep quiet and keep going." Ben said. "Reed! Where are we with these things?"
"There is some kind of program keeping me out of the systems. It's… it's almost like it's evolving at every step to bypass my code." Reed yelled out in frustration.
"Shit. When they said Skynet, I didn't think they meant it literally." Johnny couldn't help but click his tongue as he saw that his attacks were rendered moot against the Sentinels.
"Hey isn't that guy like… kinda strong?"
"You think those muscles were for show?" Ben huffed and turned to look at the flying boy.
"That's not- you know what? Just forget I said anything rock brain." Johnny shook his head and flew away.
"Whatever you say, sunny." Ben chuckled because he knew what was coming next.
"Don't call me that!!"
While the two continued their friendly bicker, the others were going hard and strong… in context.
Draul was at the forefront along with Logan, Beast and Colossus as they fought off the new incoming waves of Sentinels.
Out of everyone, the ones who had the Sentinels focused on them the most were Draul and Logan which the two noticed.
"Looks like we are being welcomed Logan." Draul said as he did a leg sweep, falling a sentinel only for Logan to rip it apart.
"It's a shitty reception." Logan gruffed out.
"That's not what you say when meeting an old friend you know." Draul said only to be met with a look of confusion from the literal man-beast.
"Oh right, you still don't remember." Draul said offhandedly which caused Logan brows to furrow as he prompted Draul with a growl. "The dude behind this is the same person who gave you your Adamantium claws and also the person that caused your amnesia."
If the news did anything to Logan he was sure enough not to show it on his face… but his following actions?
"RAGHH!" It was like someone stepped on his tail and he immediately turned to bite them.
There was no flair to his attacks, no coordination, or display of mastery. What he became at that moment was just an enraged animal as he fought with his entire body, not caring about any wound or impalement he received.
Draul, seeing that Logan had lost it, pushed forward with the angry man as they destroyed the Sentinels they could while leaving the ones they couldn't for the others at the back.
The others too followed as they increased their pace when they saw how those at the front were fighting. They couldn't make this a war of attrition since they would lose faster that way. Not all of them had high levels of endurance, talk less of regeneration, so the best way for them to end this was to end it as fast as possible.
Draul's eyes were like flares as he fought, the cracks pulsating with red wisps as they shone brighter. If he took the time to look at his appearance, he would have known that he had grown almost a foot taller to his height making him over 7 feet with slightly bigger muscles but that information didn't matter as he sent out curving beams to help some of the metas who were having a hard time. And while most weren't paying attention to the powers used during the fights, some did, and they were quite surprised.
The person surprised the most by this action was Scott Summers. The young man couldn't believe what he saw.
His optical beams were said to be linear by him and everyone who had taken a chance to study it, even Hank. But what he saw Draul do made him think otherwise if there really was a way for him to control them. Control their curvature and maybe make them omni-directional… and eventually control their involuntary output.
He was curious to see if he could understand how they worked so he watched for a while as Draul fought and sent out the lasers but he still couldn't figure out how he was doing it and that was something that pissed him off.
The feeling of someone taking his abilities and making it better was an annoying thought and that said person being Draul only made that feeling worse.
He huffed and turned away and focused on helping the others who were under pressure and left the headers to take the brunt of the attack. He had a role and that was to make sure those at the back weren't facing too much heat.
Other than Scott, the others weren't having an easier time either. Well some were, but those people were very few and such people were Kurt Wagner and Katherine Pryde.
For all they knew, they were supposed to fight some mutant killing robots who apparently Kitty claimed to have fought before when she strong-armed the teachers into taking her to Moscow where she met the Red Nightmare.
It was a name they dubbed the mutant known as Draul because the news of Ms. Grey having nightmares of him in her sleep somehow circulated the Mansion.
Unknowingly to Draul, he had become something akin to an urban legend to the residents of the Mansion.
It was due to the adventures that his friend had been having that the newly dubbed Nightcrawler stowawayed on the jet. The jet had already taken off before Logan caught his scent and ousted him but since they were already on their way he was allowed to come with on the condition that he stayed behind when the fight started.
But looking back at his actions now, maybe it would have been better if he had just sat this one out.
He and Kitty did nothing other than bait the Sentinels while also watching the greatest fights of their lives. They could finally see what their teachers fighting with their abilities looked like and it was the best movie, if there ever was one, to them.
But what truly shocked the young Kurt was seeing the Red Nightmare using three different mutant abilities.
Fire, ice and optical lasers.
He knew two people who could use two of those abilities and they were both his friend and teacher.
Not to mention he didn't know what those red cracks on his skin were, which didn't make it anymore less intimidating on the huge man. And damn was he huge… like 7 ft at least.
'Truly a Red Nightmare.'
"Hey kid!"
Kurt turned to look at the man who called him. Although he loved heroics as every other teen his age did, what he didn't like was the man who was portraying himself as the first hero – Captain America. 'He didn't even get the colors right.'
"Yeah man wassup?" He asked the faker dude.
"How far can you teleport?"
"As long as I can see and have a good sense of the distance then I can teleport you anywhere." He answers with pride.
"Think you can take me to the front?" The faker asked as he held his shield at the ready.
"Yeah, no problems. Just hold on, it gets trippy if it's your first time." He said and held the shoulder of the man before he warped there.
"Woah!" He couldn't help but exclaim as he saw what was definitely a war zone. This was not like where he and Kitty were instructed to stay.
"Stay back kid!" He heard the faker call out to him but he didn't even register what he said before drowning out in the fight before him.
He could see the Nightmare firing off beams just like Scott's, but what was vastly different other than the ominous dark red color it had was how it had an almost 'C' like path anytime it was fired.
He also didn't miss the practically flaming red eye sockets, which was downright scary, even as he sent out red balls that engulfed the surrounding areas in explosions. Heck, the guy even punched harder than Piotr and that guy was literally made of steel.
"Woah! Even the doc too." He saw the smartest teacher and doctor in their school punching and breaking Sentinels apart as if they were nothing. He definitely didn't look like the soft furball he was back at the Mansion.
While he wasn't that surprised when he saw Logan roaring and tearing shit apart like they were nothing, the fight was something he didn't think he could participate in.
Even the faker and the archer guy, who he knew definitely wasn't a mutant, could fight more than he could.
This fight was a wake up call for him to get stronger, even if his ability wasn't attack oriented, Kitty always did say he would make the best ninja in the world so that was a start.
…
In another location a man was screaming and throwing everything around him.
If they had just waited a month. Just a month and he could have had the best soldiers ready to fight whatever mutants decided to come for him.
He had studied the Draugr's X-gene and he believed he could replicate it in the Sentinels.
Mutation and the X-gene could all be explained by science, so if it could be explained what was there to say it couldn't be replicated. He would have been able to remove the limitations, or at least certain aspects, of the Draugr's abilities with it.
He hadn't fully decoded the Draugr's X-gene but he had at least gained something to work with.
The Sentinels of his dreams.
If they could have just waited then he would have had a working new model but all he had now was just slightly modified versions of the older model, not one fully one fully of his own envisioned creation.
But they had pushed him too far.
William Stryker made a choice.
He already had what he needed to rebuild the Master Mold and make it stronger. More efficient, and that was all that he needed. He could see that they would make their way here if he kept stalling so he made a choice.
What made him really angry was how someone was interfering with the connection between the Master Mold and the Sentinels. He thought only Trask would be able to do that, given that he very well built the damn thing but he couldn't have known that those circus freaks would be here.
'Reed Richards!'
He had thought that him and his motley crew were foolishly doing heroics but it didn't matter now.
He couldn't have regrets after coming this far.
He activated the incomplete Sentinels and sent them after the invading mutants, mostly Logan, Reed and the Draugr.
As if that was not enough he activated his Doomsday protocols which would destroy the dams as soon as he made it out of the base, collapsing the entire structure on the mutants and flooding them to death.
How biblical.
Nothing would save them this time and he would make sure of that.
…
Draul and the others were still fighting when some of them felt the minute rumbling on the ground which made Draul immediately used his X-ray vision and watch, within its range, to see when was causing the slight tremors. It wasn't until after ten seconds before he saw what gave him chills and the same reason for why he wanted to kill Stryker.
Although they weren't the same as the 2023 apocalyptic Mark X Sentinels, he was damn well sure that he could see the resemblance.
These new Sentinels were almost 15 ft tall and that was just their outer looks, no one knew what they were packing under their hide.
"Guys we've got incoming! Reed, how much longer?"
"Someone just shut it down! I can't get inside it anymore. We'll have to do it manually!"
The reason for him needing Reed was that he wanted to destroy the Master Mold. He doubted Stryker could build it from scratch, not that he had any chance of escaping if Draul got his hands on him, but you can't be too sure now can you?
"What are getting your panties twisted for? We'll just rip them apart like we've been doing." Johnny said in a smug tone even as the towering figures of the Sentinels came into view. He flew upwards and blasted a sentinel right in the face but instead of it having any effect on the Sentinel, well it did but not the type anyone was expecting.
The sentinel caught on fire and flew up… imitating Johnny.
One came up and it had two long sword-like protrusions coming out of both its knuckles.
A few came up and adapted to the external features of some of the mutants.
The others didn't do anything but no one doubted for a second that they could.
"You just had to make them angry didn't you?" Draul couldn't help but curse at Johnny's hot mouth.
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Read ahead at patreon.com/Draul_TheOminous.