Silence swept across the arena like a wave of ice after I brought down both Sabretooth and Blob. Their blood still glistened on the rusted floor, soaking into the dirt that had seen far too many battles. What should've been recognized as self-defense was instead met with horrified gasps, widened eyes, and stunned expressions. No cheers. No sympathy. Just raw fear.
The crowd that had once chanted for blood now stared at me like I was the monster they'd always feared.
I stood there, my body half-shifted into battle mode, steam rising from the shifting plates of steel that formed across my limbs. My hands twitched slightly, still adapting from the weaponized form they had just taken. My glowing red eyes dimmed back to normal, but it was too late. That glimpse—however brief—was enough to change everything.
Jubilee's expression hit harder than Sabretooth's claws ever did.
Her eyes were wide with disbelief, lips trembling, as if she'd just witnessed the death of someone she once trusted.
"I... I didn't have a choice," I said, my voice raw, barely above a whisper as I stepped toward her. "It was them or us."
She took a step back, shaking her head.
"Maybe he was right," she muttered under her breath.
Those four words sliced through me like a blade.
"What?" I asked, but the answer was already clawing its way to the surface.
Magneto.
I scanned the arena again and noticed them—Scott, Jean, and Logan—watching from above, flanked by Magneto and a handful of his black-cloaked acolytes. So, they had arrived. My supposed rescuers. The cavalry. The X-Men.
And they were just... watching.
The realization hit like a freight train. They hadn't come to rescue me. They'd come to see what I really was. Magneto had predicted this from the start, hadn't he? That the X-Men would never abandon their own. That they'd come to Genosha for me. And when they did, he'd reveal the truth—the thing lurking inside me, waiting for an excuse to surface.
Turns out, he didn't need to fake a thing. The truth bled out of me with every strike I landed.
My blood-soaked hands curled into fists.
The next thing I knew, I was back in my cell. No trial. No conversation. Just cold metal walls and shackles that felt more personal this time. Like they were forged from betrayal itself.
A few minutes passed, maybe more—I'd lost track of time—before the door creaked open again.
Magneto entered first, floating as he always did, as if the weight of the world was too light to keep him grounded. Behind him came Scott, Jean, and Logan. The "leaders" of the X-Men. My former teammates. My supposed family.
The guard hesitated, but Magneto gestured, and the cell doors slid open with a metallic groan. I didn't move. Didn't flinch. I just stared at them.
"It seems the intel we received wasn't a lie after all," Scott said, arms crossed, his tone heavy with judgment. "We were hoping it was wrong."
Jean stepped forward, her voice softer but still guarded. "After we brought you back from the orphanage, we found something… unusual. Hidden files. Experiments. Reports from covert labs buried beneath the old facility."
I could feel the floor shifting beneath me. "What are you saying?"
"You were created," Jean said, her voice trembling, "a weapon engineered to infiltrate mutant society and destroy it from within. Charles knew. He suspected it the moment he read your mind in Cerebro. But he saw something else too… something worth saving."
I turned my gaze to Logan. The one person I thought might understand.
He didn't look away. "He wanted to believe you could choose your own path."
I let out a bitter laugh. "So all this time, I was just your little science project? The good experiment. The one you could fix?"
"You were family," Jean said quietly.
"No," I spat, rising to my feet. "Family doesn't put you in chains the second things go sideways. Family doesn't look at you like a monster because you did what was necessary to survive."
"Tell us what you did to Xavier," Magneto interrupted, his voice like ice.
"I already told you—I don't know!" I snapped. "Something happened in Cerebro. He panicked, I panicked, and then he collapsed. I don't know why. Maybe it was something inside me, something dormant. Or maybe it was something inside him."
But it didn't matter. The truth, or my version of it, wasn't what anyone wanted. They wanted a villain. And I'd given them one.
Before anyone could reply, a thunderous boom shook the ground. The ceiling cracked, dust and chunks of concrete raining down on us. We all turned instinctively.
"What now?" Scott muttered.
Then, through the smoke and rubble, it descended—tall, gleaming, and humming with deadly intent.
A Sentinel.
Its red eyes scanned the room, targeting each of us. But when its gaze settled on me, it paused.
"Target acquired," it declared, and fired.
A beam of energy tore through the corridor, sending Logan flying into another cell. The explosion rocked the chamber. Magneto snarled, yanking bars from the cells and sending them hurtling through the air. The rods pierced the Sentinel's eyes, frying its circuits and dropping it like a stone.
Another explosion echoed above.
A second sentinel. Then a third.
One of Magneto's followers was crushed under falling rubble. Blood splattered across the cell walls.
Magneto didn't flinch. "Take him," he ordered Scott. "He's coming with us."
Scott hesitated but complied, grabbing my arm and forcing me out of the cell.
"If you try anything—"
"You'll burn me," I interrupted, nodding toward his visor. "Yeah. I've heard that one before."
Outside, Genosha was on fire.
The once-bustling sanctuary for mutants had turned into a battlefield. Screams rang through the air, mingled with the roar of collapsing buildings and Sentinel cannons. Smoke choked the skies, casting a sickly gray hue over the land.
Mutants fought back, some with raw power, others with desperation. Lightning cracked through the sky. Flames danced along the ground. Psychic shields flared and shattered. It was chaos. It was war.
Sentinels moved with clinical efficiency, scanning for X-genes, targeting anyone who triggered the alert. There was no negotiation. No discrimination. Just execution.
I turned to Magneto, who was desperately flinging metal debris like bullets. "You think this is about me?" I shouted. "This isn't my doing."
"Then explain why they're targeting you," he snarled. "Why they're ignoring others to focus on you."
"I don't know!" I shouted back. But in my gut, something twisted. Was it possible…?
Another Sentinel descended.
Jean struggled to hold it back, her telekinesis straining under the pressure.
"Uncuff me!" I yelled to her. "I can help!"
She hesitated—just a second—but then her hand flared with light, and the cuffs snapped open.
I surged forward. One of the Sentinels fired an optic blast toward Jean, but I leapt into its path, my arms shifting into energy-absorbing shields. The blast ricocheted off me and carved a hole through a nearby tower.
"Guess I'm fireproof," I muttered.
My legs transformed into thrusters, lifting me into the sky. I activated the weapons embedded in my shoulders—tech I never even knew I had—and unleashed a torrent of plasma bolts at the incoming Sentinels.
One. Two. Three of them fell from the sky.
I didn't stop.
But then something strange happened.
The remaining Sentinels turned toward me—not to attack, but to converge. They surrounded me, not with hostility but with purpose.
Like they recognized me.
Like I was one of them.
Before I could react, they overwhelmed me. I was pinned, dragged down to the ground beneath their massive frames. My armor screamed as it was crushed under tons of mechanical weight.
I saw Magneto's face before I blacked out—his expression not of rage, but of horror.
In the distance, Genosha burned.
A haven no more.
And as I slipped into unconsciousness, one thought pulsed through the back of my mind:
I was never supposed to survive this war.
But maybe now, I finally understood why I existed at all.