The Sentinels had overwhelmed everyone — a towering monstrosity of steel and circuitry with no remorse, no hesitation, no soul.They struck with devastating precision, their mechanical limbs tearing through defenses like paper. In the chaos, Gambit… he made the only choice he could. The choice that would change everything.
He charged his final card — not a playing card this time, but a kinetic bomb of his own design. His eyes locked with Rogue's, and in that brief, wordless exchange, a thousand unspoken emotions passed between them.
Love. Regret. Farewell.
Then the world went white.
The blast was cataclysmic. A thunderous roar split the sky, shaking the island of Genosha to its very core. The explosion flared like a dying star, consuming everything in its radius. The shockwave hurled everything like ragdolls. Earth buckled, sky cracked, and then… silence.
Darkness clawed at the edges of my mind. Pain lanced through every nerve ending. I wasn't even sure I was still alive until I felt the nanotech inside me whir to life, repairing torn flesh and knitting bone. My vision swam, flickering like a broken screen, but slowly the world started piecing itself back together.
Not everyone was so lucky.
Rogue's scream pierced the stillness — raw, guttural, the cry of a heart shattering. She tore across the battlefield, heedless of injury, rubble, or fire, her strength barely containing her anguish. She fell to her knees beside Gambit's broken body, cradling what was left of him. Her hands reached out, trembling, searching for warmth, for a pulse… but there was nothing. No heartbeat. No breath. No spark of life left to absorb.
He was gone.
The man who had loved her with a fiery devotion, the rogue with a gambler's grin and a heart too big for his own good — gone in an instant.
Her sobs broke something in everyone.
Magneto, ever the tactician, had reacted moments before the blast.
With a force of will only he possessed, he bent every trace of metal in the vicinity to create a cocoon around himself and those nearby. It saved them — and perhaps saved Genosha from being annihilated entirely — but even his power couldn't shield them all.
The Sentinels, though thinned in number by the explosion, were not defeated. Far from it.
I dragged myself from the rubble, my limbs heavy, my mind foggy, but my resolve hardening. I charged forward, striking down two Sentinels with a desperate fury, but they just kept coming. Wave after wave of cold, calculating destruction.
My resistance, though fierce, proved futile. A metallic arm clamped around me, wrenching me off the ground like a toy.
"Target acquired. Retreat."
The voice was devoid of humanity, just a lifeless monotone that echoed through the haze of death and smoke.
All at once, the other Sentinels reacted, like puppets responding to a single command. They disengaged, lifting into the sky in synchronized formation, their jets carving black scars through the already scorched air.
From my elevated vantage point, I saw the full extent of the devastation.
Genosha — once a sanctuary, a utopia for mutant kind — was in ruins.
Entire blocks lay in smoldering craters. The bodies of fallen mutants dotted the landscape, some half-buried in rubble, others reduced to little more than ash. Black smoke curled into the sky like mourning banners, staining the once-clear blue.
And then the clouds gathered.
Heavy and brooding, they rolled in from the east — thick, dark, and pregnant with storm. Lightning flashed, thunder growled, and the skies opened up. Rain fell in sheets, washing over the charred earth, dousing the flames and cleansing nothing. It was her — Storm. Even in her grief, she answered Genosha's cries.
Conciousness slowly slipped from my grasp.
Then, darkness.
-0-
When I awoke, everything was wrong.
I was no longer in the war-torn wasteland. I was… in a bed.
A bed?
The sheets were silk. The room lavish, adorned with deep burgundy curtains and an ornate chandelier that shimmered like diamonds. Golden light spilled through tall windows, and a cool breeze wafted in, carrying the scent of roses. For a second, I wondered if I had died and been sent to some strange version of heaven.
But the memories surged back like a tidal wave — Gambit's death, Rogue's scream, the Sentinels, Genosha in flames.
No, this wasn't heaven. This was something else entirely.
I leapt from the bed and stumbled to the window. Outside, the sun pierced the horizon in golden spears, casting an ethereal glow over an unfamiliar landscape. I couldn't place where I was, but I knew instinctively — this was no ordinary place.
The door creaked open.
He walked in with deliberate grace, his pale skin nearly luminescent under the chandelier's glow. His eyes — crimson, like blood — locked onto mine, and I felt a chill roll down my spine. His face was sharp, predatory, and yet refined, like an aristocrat of a bygone era. He wore a high-collared cloak, deep black and crimson, with a bold M emblazoned on his chest.
Dracula? No. Something worse.
"Ah… I see you're awake," he said, his voice smooth but cold, like silk over ice. A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, but there was no warmth in it. Just calculation. Hunger.
I didn't like his eyes. They looked at me the way a wolf looks at a cornered rabbit.
"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, stepping back. "Where am I?"
He chuckled — a low, menacing sound. "The question of who I am will be answered soon enough. As for where… let's just say you're somewhere safe. For now."
That did not reassure me.
He motioned toward the hallway. "Come. There's someone who's been waiting to see you."
Against my better judgment, I followed. The mansion — if that's what it was — felt too pristine. Too perfectly arranged. Like a museum where everything had been placed just so. But beneath the elegance, something felt wrong — like a beautiful mask hiding rot underneath.
As we walked, I tried to bait him," I know you?"
He remained silent, unfazed.
I pressed harder. "What do you want with me?"
Again, nothing.
Frustration and fear ignited inside me. Without thinking, I grabbed his collar and shoved him against the wall, fury boiling over. "You better tell me what I'm doing here or else—!"
He didn't flinch. Instead, his eyes darkened. The smirk vanished.
"Or else what?" he said quietly.
In that moment, something inside me froze.
His gaze pierced through me, cold and infinite, and I felt it — death. A looming presence. As if he could end me with a thought, a whisper. My instincts screamed at me to let go.
So I did.
He straightened his collar without breaking eye contact. "Come now. We wouldn't want to keep him waiting."
Him?
Who the hell was he talking about?
We continued in silence. The mansion's corridors wound downward, into the earth. At some point, we entered an elevator — sleek, clinical, unlike the gothic decor above. As we descended, the air grew colder. The sound of machinery buzzed faintly through the walls, growing louder with each passing second.
Finally, the elevator shuddered to a stop.
"We've arrived," my guide said, stepping out.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
An underground factory sprawled before me — vast, metallic, and humming with eerie energy. Conveyors moved with mechanical precision.
Robotic arms welded metal plates together. Dozens — no, hundreds — of Sentinels were being assembled. And not just the standard models. These were sleeker, more advanced, more lethal.
The memory of Genosha's destruction surged in my mind. The flames. The screams. The bodies. And those Sentinels? They were only a fraction of this army.
With this many, they could take the world.
I staggered forward, breath caught in my throat.
"If this shocks you," the pale man said, "then what lies ahead may break you."
I followed him down a long corridor, lined with observation windows showing laboratories, cells, and rooms filled with blueprints and data screens. Finally, we stopped before a single, ominous red door.
"This," he said, almost reverently, "is where your story truly begins."
And with that, the door slid open.