Scott Summers stood in Xavier's destroyed office surveying the utter chaos with Magneto, the Master of Magnetism himself, lying unconscious on a makeshift medical gurney while the Brotherhood members were scattered across the floor in various states of injury, Trinary's blood still staining the carpet where she'd collapsed, and electrical fires smoldering in three different places.

  His jaw tightened behind his visor.

  "Professor," Scott said, his voice carrying that controlled tension of a man trying to maintain order while everything crumbled. "What happened here? I thought we were going to handle the Cabal raid, not the Brotherhood. What did you read from their minds?"

  Xavier's hands shook as he pressed two fingers to his temple with his voice strained, weary in a way Scott rarely heard. "It's better if I show you, Scott."

  The telepathic connection snapped into place as Scott felt the familiar sensation of Xavier's mind touching his, then broadening to include every X-Men present with Jean, Kurt, Bobby, Kitty and Colossus all suddenly experiencing the Brotherhood's collective memories.

  The scene unfolded like a nightmare made real.

  The memory began with Astra's teleportation flash as the Brotherhood materialized inside the submarine's lower levels, and Magneto's floating suddenly stopped, which he chalked up to the sudden teleportation.

  Behind him the rest of the team spread out with practiced efficiency.

  "Remember," Magneto's voice echoed through the metal corridors. "We need them alive. Charles was quite insistent on that point."

  Mystique's form rippled as she shifted into a generic crew member. "When has Charles ever been wrong about caution?"

  "When he suggested I should try meditation," Magneto replied dryly.

  That got a few chuckles as even Exodus cracked a slight smile.

  But Magneto's attention was elsewhere as his powers reached out, feeling for the submarine's metal structure and ready to twist it like a tin can if necessary.

  Except nothing happened.

  Magneto's brow furrowed as he pushed harder with his abilities, reaching deeper, but still nothing came as the submarine should have been responding with every bolt, every rivet, every structural support singing to his magnetic senses.

  Instead, there was only silence.

  His posture shifted awkwardly as he tried again with arms extending in that dramatic pose he'd perfected over decades, but the gesture looked strange without the accompanying display of power.

  Behind him Boom-Boom giggled. "Boss, you okay? You look like you're trying to push out a really stubborn dook."

  "I wasn't attempting humor," Magneto cut her off, his voice tight. He lowered his arms slowly with confusion bleeding into concern. "The ship. It's not made of metal. Or rather, it is, but something non-magnetic. Something completely outside the scope of my powers."

  Toad's long tongue flicked out nervously. "That ain't good, yeah?"

  Exodus stepped forward, placing a hand on Magneto's shoulder as his telekinetic abilities hummed while he reached out to sense threats. "My liege, why waste time with these charlatan tricks? Just finish them using your mighty powers."

  "I am not trying to make any of you imbeciles laugh," Magneto snapped. His hands clenched into fists. "The ship's construction is specifically designed to counter me. Xavier was right to be cautious."

  He turned to Exodus with his voice dropping. "You go launch a frontal assault. Astra, you stay back here as backup reserve, keep an ear on the comms. The rest of you, go find any of our brethren detained here. And if you encounter anyone else..." His eyes hardened. "Finish them on sight."

  The Brotherhood members exchanged glances as being given free rein to cause chaos was rare these days, too rare.

  Pyro's lighter flicked open. "Bloody hell, finally. Been too long since we've had proper fun."

  Mystique approached Magneto as the others moved out with her blue skin reflecting the submarine's red emergency lighting. "Eric, without your metal manipulation, you're the weakest of us here in a direct fight. You need to be careful."

  "I'm aware," Magneto replied curtly. "Which is why I'll be coordinating from a tactical position. Now go."

  The team split up, moving through the submarine's corridors with practiced efficiency, but as they turned a corner into the main corridor a sound stopped them cold.

  Laughter.

  Not just any laughter but a truly Sinister laughter, evil and mocking, echoing from hidden speakers throughout the ship.

  Then more laughter joined in with different voices overlapping.

  Thick metal walls slammed down from the ceiling at both ends of the corridor as the Brotherhood found themselves trapped in a metal box with no visible exits.

  "What the hell?!" Avalanche's hands went to the walls, his seismic powers trying to activate instinctively.

  The screens built into the corridor walls flickered to life as the Cabal members appeared, all of them grinning like sharks that had just spotted blood in the water.

  Whitehall's face filled the largest screen with his German accent thick with barely contained rage and satisfaction. "So, Magneto, how does it feel? To be cornered and trapped like the Jewish vermin you are? Just like you were back in the camps? Tell me, do you remember the cattle cars? The stench of your people packed like animals? The screams when the doors opened at Auschwitz?"

  Magneto's face went white, then flushed with fury.

  John Sublime joined with his voice dripping with venom. "You know, you've been quite the headache for me. Destroying my facilities one after another. Cornering me. Causing me to lose billions. But now here you are, trapped. And more amusingly, you came of your own volition. Like lambs to the slaughter."

  Boom-Boom's hands glowed with her explosive plasma charges. "Shut your fucking Nazi mouth!"

  She hurled an energy orb directly at the screen, but before the explosive could make contact a cylindrical device dropped from a hidden panel in the ceiling and activated with a high-pitched whine.

  Invisible waves pulsed through the corridor.

  Boom-Boom's plasma charge flickered, sputtered, and died, reduced to nothing but harmless sparks that fizzled against the metal wall.

  "What the..." Boom-Boom stared at her hands in shock. "My powers! They're fucking gone!"

  Sinister's face appeared on another screen with his theatrical nature on full display. "This here, my dear, is our latest innovation. Inspired by my delightful encounter with Jay, the Power Broker! His power scrambling ability is really quite convenient when used against enemies. Especially mutants like yourselves who are far too over-reliant on your abilities. HAHAHA!"

  Every Brotherhood member tried to activate their powers as Pyro's flames wouldn't obey him, Avalanche couldn't generate seismic waves, and even Mystique's shape-shifting flickered and failed, leaving her stuck in her natural blue form.

  Magneto watched his team flailing around like beheaded chickens while his strategic mind raced through options, but each one dead-ended against the simple reality that their powers were neutralized.

  "How are you doing this?" Magneto demanded, his voice carrying the authority of someone who'd faced down gods and governments. "And how did you even know about the Brotherhood's arrival? We took every precaution!"

  Whitehall's laugh was harsh and ugly. "Shut your mouth, you Jewish swine! Our trusted friend Zola was most helpful. He told us about the X-Men's attempts to find our location. So naturally, we prepared. Though I'll admit, I expected Xavier's little mutant pets, not you second-rate Untermensch revolutionary filth. But you degenerate vermin will do just fine for testing our new toys."

  His face filled the screen close enough that they could see the hatred burning in his eyes.

  "And don't worry, I won't brand you again. Not like Herr Red Skull did to you subhuman Jews in the camps. We don't need to tattoo numbers on your arms anymore. We have much more sophisticated methods now for dealing with genetic refuse like you."

  Magneto's rage finally boiled over as he charged forward, intending to use pure physical force if his powers wouldn't work, and his fist connected with the metal wall while pain shot up his arm, but the wall didn't even dent.

  But Blob did make an impact as his massive frame slammed into the opposite wall with all his considerable weight behind it, and the metal buckled slightly, groaning under the pressure.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  That triggered another trap.

  Madame Gao's ancient face appeared on the screens with her expression serene despite the violence unfolding. "How impatient and trigger-happy. Now see what your recklessness has earned you."

  The floor beneath them split open as panels slid aside with mechanical precision.

  Sentinels rose from the hidden compartments.

  Not the massive mechanical monstrosities from the past but smaller, more refined versions that were ten feet tall, humanoid, with that distinctive circular eye glowing red, and their adaptive plating shifted and flowed like liquid metal while already analyzing the Brotherhood members and adjusting.

  "Sentinels," Magneto breathed. "But the program was shut down. Trask is dead. How..."

  "These are from a decommissioned line," Sinister's voice purred through the speakers. "Courtesy of our dear friend Zola. He was so helpful and kept such wonderful archives of old projects."

  The Sentinels attacked.

  Their movements were precise, efficient, brutal as each one had already adapted to counter its assigned target with the Sentinel facing Toad extending adhesive nets that caught his tongue mid-strike while the one fighting Avalanche generated counter-vibrations that nullified the remains of his seismic powers and reversed them, causing his body to convulse under seizure.

  Exodus tried to use his vast telekinetic abilities to crush the robots, but Sinister's presence flooded the mental space with a psychic assault that felt like being drowned in tar, and the mutant screamed while clutching his head as Sinister's consciousness invaded his mind.

  "Did you really think you could match me in the realm of the mind?" Sinister's voice echoed inside Exodus's skull. "I've had over a century to perfect my techniques while you wasted your time searching for messiahs, you blind fool."

  The only one protected was Magneto as his helmet, designed specifically to block telepathic intrusion, kept Sinister's assault at bay.

  But that just meant he had to watch helplessly as his team was systematically dismantled.

  Mystique took a Sentinel's fist to the chest as blue blood sprayed while her ribs shattered, causing excessive bleeding, and her shape-shifting tried to kick in to heal the damage, but the power scrambler kept her locked in her vulnerable natural form. "Eric!" she gasped, blood bubbling from her lips. "Eric, help us! Please!"

  Pyro screamed as a Sentinel grabbed his lighter, crushing it in one mechanical hand, and without an external flame source his power was useless while the robot proceeded to break his fingers one by one with the sound of snapping bones echoing through the corridor. "Fuck! Fuck! Fucking hell!" Then finally it poured flames on his flesh.

  Boom-Boom tried to run with her usual bravado completely gone, but a Sentinel caught her ankle, yanking her off her feet, and her head cracked against the metal floor as she went limp immediately while her face swelled from the excessive damage.

  Blob, for all his mass and invulnerability, found himself facing a Sentinel equipped with piercing weaponry that didn't bounce off his dense flesh but passed through it as his powers were disrupted. "No, no, no! That ain't supposed to happen! I'm invulnerable, dammit!" Blood poured from multiple puncture wounds as the Sentinel continued its assault.

  Toad lost his arm as the Sentinel simply gripped it and pulled, ripping the limb free at the shoulder socket, and the wound was immediately cauterized by a follow-up energy blast while Toad's scream was high and agonized. "My arm! Oh God, my fucking arm! Help me! Someone help me!"

  Avalanche convulsed as his own reflected seismic waves tore through his nervous system while blood leaked from his ears, nose, and eyes.

  And through it all Sinister's psychic presence battered at their minds, not enough to kill but enough to fill their heads with visions of their worst memories, their deepest fears given vivid, horrible life.

  Magneto tried everything as without his powers he was reduced to a nearly seventy-year-old man fighting robots designed to kill super-powered beings, and he punched, kicked, grabbed a piece of broken metal from near Toad's severed arm and tried to use it as a weapon.

  Nothing worked.

  He watched Exodus drop to his knees with eyes vacant and mind broken by Sinister's assault.

  He watched Mystique's attempts to shape-shift fail over and over with her body trying desperately to heal as the Sentinel pummeled her into unconsciousness.

  He watched his Brotherhood, his chosen family, his fellow revolutionaries being torn apart by machines while trapped in a metal coffin.

  The rage gave him focus as the life-threatening situation pushed him beyond his normal limits, and Magneto's consciousness expanded, reaching past the magnetic fields he normally controlled and going deeper into the electromagnetic spectrum itself.

  The power scrambler was electronic, ran on electricity, generated electromagnetic waves to disrupt mutant abilities.

  And for just a moment Magneto's fingers found purchase in those waves.

  He grabbed them, twisted them, forced them to turn inward on their source.

  The cylindrical device sparked, smoked, and exploded in a shower of sparks and molten metal.

  The Brotherhood's powers flooded back instantly.

  Pyro's flames roared to life, incinerating the Sentinel attacking him while Avalanche's seismic powers shattered two more robots into scrap, though his body was still convulsing.

  But it was too little, too late.

  The Sentinels had done their damage as half the Brotherhood was unconscious or crippled, Exodus's mind was shattered, Toad was missing an arm, and Boom-Boom's skull was fractured.

  And the screens showed Sinister's face, no longer amused, as his expression had shifted to cold calculation.

  "Impressive adaptation, Eric. But ultimately futile."

  He pressed something off-screen.

  Another power scrambler appeared and started at a different frequency as Magneto's brief connection to the electromagnetic spectrum snapped like a broken guitar string.

  Their powers began to die again.

  "Did you really think we only had one?" Sinister's theatrical laugh filled the corridor. "We've been planning this for weeks, you arrogant fools. Every contingency and every possibility. We knew Charles would eventually find us. And we knew his bleeding heart would compel him to send someone."

  Madame Gao's serene face appeared again. "The only surprise was that he sent you instead of his X-Men. Though I suppose Xavier's protective nature meant he couldn't risk his students against an unknown threat."

  Whitehall's face split into a vicious grin. "How does it feel, Magneto? Being hunted in a metal cage like the Jew rat you are? Just like the camps? Just like when you were a pathetic little Jewish boy, weak and helpless, watching your subhuman mother die? Tell me, did she beg? Did she cry? Did she call out for her little Erik while we Germans burned her in the ovens with the rest of the Jewish trash?"

  Something in Magneto broke.

  He lunged at the screen, slamming his fists against it over and over, and the display cracked under the assault, but Whitehall's mocking face remained visible through the spider-web fractures.

  "I'll kill you!" Magneto roared. "I'll rip you apart piece by piece! I'll make you scream like my mother screamed! I'll make you beg for the mercy you Nazi bastards never showed my people! Do you hear me, Whitehall?! I'll tear your fucking heart out and feed it to you!"

  "Touching," Whitehall replied, his smile widening. "Such rage from inferior genetics. But it's pointless, you Jewish dog. You're trapped and powerless. Your mongrel team is broken. And soon, we'll dissect you all to understand exactly how that meddling Power Broker enhanced your degenerate abilities. Perhaps we'll finally find a way to purify the world of your kind once and for all. The Final Solution we never got to complete."

  Magneto forced himself to stop, to think and strategize despite the red haze of fury clouding his vision.

  He looked at his team.

  They were going to die here, all of them, torn apart by machines and Nazi scum.

  Unless...

  "Astra!" Magneto's voice cracked. "ASTRA! GET YOUR ASS HERE NOW!"

  He'd told her to stay back, to remain as backup, and she should still have her powers as the scrambler's range might not extend to wherever she'd positioned herself.

  Light flashed in the corridor.

  Astra materialized with her eyes wide with shock at the carnage, and for a split second she froze.

  "GET US THE FUCK OUT!" Magneto screamed, blood spraying from his mouth. "NOW! BEFORE THESE NAZI BASTARDS KILL US ALL!"

  Her training kicked in as her power flared, wrapping around every Brotherhood member simultaneously, and the strain was immense as she'd never teleported with such power dampening, especially not while people were unconscious or dying and needed her to be careful.

  Space folded as they vanished.

  But not before Magneto caught one last glimpse of the screens with the Cabal members all laughing, celebrating their victory, mocking the Master of Magnetism who'd been forced to run like a hurt dog.

  The image seared itself into his memory.

  Them laughing.

  Him fleeing.

  His people broken.

  Everything he'd sworn would never happen again happening anyway.

  The psychic broadcast ended.

  Scott stumbled backward with his hand going to his visor out of habit, and around the room other X-Men reacted similarly as Jean's face was pale with one hand pressed to her mouth, and even Colossus, who'd seen plenty of violence in his time with the X-Men, looked shaken.

  "Professor," Scott said slowly, his tactical mind already working through implications. "We need to prepare for those Sentinels. If they're being produced on any kind of mass scale, if they have that kind of adaptive capability..."

  Xavier nodded wearily. "Contact every hero group we can reach. The Avengers, the Fantastic Four, even Heroes for Hire. They need to know what we're facing. This Cabal has resources and technology we severely underestimated."

  Hank rushed back into the room with his medical coat splattered with blood. "Everyone's stable, but just barely. They need more than my field medicine. They need Jay back, and they need him quickly. His healing abilities are the only thing that can repair this level of damage in time to save them all."

  Xavier's face fell further. "Apparently Jay is not available. Domino was substituting for him on the SHIELD raid. And even that's gone catastrophically wrong at the Helicarrier."

  "Then it wasn't just us," Jean said quietly. Her telepathic senses had been reaching out, trying to gauge the scope of the crisis. "Someone played us. All of us. They waited until everyone was committed, spread thin across multiple operations."

  "That thing called itself Fury," Xavier said, remembering the psychic backlash from Trinary's memories. "It had to be watching everything. Coordinating the attacks and waiting for the perfect moment when we were most vulnerable."

  Before anyone could respond another alert sounded, this one from the mansion's external defenses.

  Scott moved to the window with his eyes widening behind his visor.

  The sky was darkening, not with clouds but with machines, dozens of them, maybe hundreds, Sentinels spreading across the horizon like a swarm of mechanical locusts with their red eyes glowing in the gathering dusk as they surrounded the mansion.

  "Oh God," Kitty breathed. "There are so many... we're screwed."

  The lead Sentinel's voice boomed across the grounds, amplified through external speakers and loud enough that every student in the mansion could hear it clearly.

  "X-MEN. SURRENDER THE MUTANTS DESIGNATED AS MAGNETO AND HIS BROTHERHOOD. COMPLY WITHIN SIXTY SECONDS OR FACE LETHAL FORCE."

  Scott's jaw clenched as they were in no position to fight with half their heavy hitters unconscious, their support systems fried from Trinary's attack, and now an army of adaptive killer robots surrounding them.

  But surrender wasn't an option and never had been.

  He turned to face his teammates and saw the same determination in their eyes despite the fear, and this was what they'd trained for, what they'd sworn to do, to protect mutant-kind no matter the cost.

  Scott's lips tightened into something that might have been a smile under different circumstances as he moved toward the door with his voice carrying that natural command that made people want to follow him.

  "To me, my X-Men."

  The call echoed through the mansion's speaker network, reaching every student, every teacher, every person who'd taken refuge within these walls.

  They'd faced attacks before, faced impossible odds before, stared down extinction and spat in its face.

  This was just another Tuesday for the X-Men.

  Outside the Sentinels' sixty-second countdown continued with each second marked by a mechanical voice that promised death if compliance wasn't immediate.

  Inside the mansion the X-Men gathered, some students barely out of their teens and others veterans who'd fought in wars most people didn't know existed, and all of them knew what was coming.

  All of them stood ready anyway.

  Because that's what heroes did.

  They stood.

  The first Sentinel's energy blast tore through the mansion's outer wall at fifty-nine seconds.

  The Battle for Xavier's School had begun.