answers to reviewers questions or statements:
Harbinger of Kaos: He can still hold them both accountable, Maximus may have manipulated the humans to a degree, but the Sentinels were already there killing Mutants and the like. All he did was take advantage of it and use them to further his own agenda. Yes Mystique, along with a few other women, will be deeply interested in just what in the hell Peter is before the big reveal. There will be plenty of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch this chapter to make up for their absence last chapter.
Jason Chandler: Ultimanium will go down very, very differently than it did in the comics.
Badger10: Yes, she will.
Erofox: It'll be a bit until Emma Frost makes her appearance, not long after the Ultimates are created, which is in like nine chapters-ish.
Guest: Peter will marry a few women but Iso will be the main wife.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel character seen, mentioned or used.
If Peter could describe Sentinels with one word it'd be... overkill.
While he is willing to admit that the multistory tall mutant killing machines were a remarkable work of human engineering, they were overly designed in his opinion. Too many weapons systems, too tall, too much armor and their A.I.'s were severely limited, relying more on pre-programed orders and possible remote piloting. If he were to make them ,not that he would, he'd make them smaller, more streamlined, and upgrade their neural processors to increase their intelligence enough that they aren't just one dimensional walking tanks.
'Still, I'll give them this... they are effective when used in mass' Peter thought as he swung through Magento's compound, doing his best to avoid the energy beams and high caliber bullets fired from the dozens of Sentinels laying siege to the fortress.
Below him, hundreds of the facility's Mutant refugees and inhabitants were running in terror, screaming as mankind's towering war machines opened fire on them and the surrounding area. The attack had been going on for only five minutes and already half the compound was destroyed and hundreds laid dead or dying. What few Mutants with wide scale and controlled destructive abilities were present did their best to try and hold off the Sentinels while the rest escaped but were quickly mowed down. Below Peter could make out the green and silver colored blur that was Quicksilver running amongst the chaos, scooping up as many people as he can and rushing them to safety while his sister the Scarlet Witch used her powers to try and cover the Mutant speedster.
Scott, from what Peter could see, had set up on a remote balcony and was firing on the Sentinels that were still in the air with blasts of his ruby colored optic beams. A few of the murderous machines took a direct hit their heads and quickly crashed into the burning fortress below while others began to descend towards the powerful Mutant, firing on his position with rockets, bullets and concentrated energy blasts.
To someone on the outside, it looked like the Sentinels were being held back, but to Peter, he could see that all anyone was ever doing is delaying the inventible.
"Wonder if I can call Lockjaw and have him bring the old man and shout these things into scrap" Peter said to himself as he dodged a energy beam and quickly shot a web line towards a tower and yanked himself towards it.
Peter landed with a grunt and quickly sprinted up the side of the tower before leaping off it just as another Sentinel tried to grab him and crush him. The wall crawling Inhuman turned mid-air and shot two web lines at the Sentinel's face and yanked himself on to it, using his feet to cushion the landing. The Sentinel made some sort of loud, almost ear splitting sound, like a ship's foghorn but ten times louder, and tried to reach up and grab Peter off it's head.
"Let's see here, what looks fragile and breakable?" Peter said as he quickly crawled across the Sentinel's face until he reached it's eyes and peered into the glowing optics "Yeah, this should do it"
Pulling his fist back, Peter slammed it into the Sentinel's 'eye' socket, showing himself in sparks as he reached around inside and began to pull at wires and cables. The Sentinel jerked to the left, than to the right as it tried to shake Peter off. It clumsily reached around it's face with one of it's hands but every time it clam close to Peter, he'd grab a few wires again and give them a hard yank, causing the massive drone to jerk again.
"You see, this is the problem with humans now a days" Peter said as he yanked a good chunk if wiring out of the eye socket, causing the Sentinel to begin shaking and stumbling around, crashing into a few other Sentinels and a few towers "They for whatever reason keep putting so much of the fine motor wiring in the eyes. Should've placed it in it's more armored chassis"
Or created some sort of countermeasure to someone climbing on to these things, like electrical currents, super heated surfaces, or even phasing technology.
With one last tug, Peter pulled out the last of the wiring in the Sentinel's eye and peered inside for a moment before reaching into his suit's utility belt and pulling out a small grenade like device and pushed a small button on it's top. Following a mocking two finger salute to the Sentinel, Peter chucked the little bomb into the eye socket and leaped off just moments before a explosion of acidic web erupted from the machine's eye socket. The Sentinel stumbled around a little more before it fell to it's knees and fell face first into the remains of what Peter assumed was once a park, now ingulfed in flames.
"There's one..." Peter said as he shot a web line out and used it to swing away from the now disabled Sentinel and landed on the edge of the fortress.
All around him fires and smoke were raging and he could still see and hear numerous Sentinels attacking the place, killing dozens by the minute.
"We're not gonna win this" a vice spoke up from behind Peter.
The Inhuman blinked and turned to see Scott rushing towards him, covered in dust and a small trail of blood leaking from one of his ears. His visor was cracked at the edge but it looked to be still holding the man's optic beams in check.
"I assume you have a plan of some sort?" Peter asked the young Mutant leader.
"Aside from kill as many as we can before dying? no, I don't" Scott said with a sigh of dread "Not unless-"
"Incoming!" Peter shouted as he grabbed Scott by the arm and leaped off the roof just seconds before a barrage of missiles struck it, ingulfing the entire rooftop in fire.
Scott let out a startled scream as the two fell towards the ground before it was cut off by Peter shooting out a web line and used it swing away, just skimming over the ground by mere feet. The two landed in a small courtyard of sorts, or perhaps it was a intersection and turned to see several Sentinels approaching them their eyes glowing red as they raised their arms and prepared to hit the pair with a barrage of missiles.
"Scott I just want you to know, me and Storm had sex in the Blackbird" Peter said as he felt his spider-sense going through the roof.
"That's okay, I accidently sneezed into your mask the other day and blamed it on Toad" Scott said with grim resignation as he prepared for a brief moment of unimaginable pain before hopefully blissful numbness took him into the afterlife.
"...You did what?" Peter said as he turned to scowl at the mutant before something unexpected happened...
All the Sentinels began to float into the air!
"Oh why do I get the feeling that's not a good think in this situation?" Scott said with dread as he watched all of the remaining Sentinels begin to rise higher and higher into the air.
"Cause of the guy hovering in the middle of them all" Peter pointed towards a small figure floating in the air, his arms outstretched as electrical discharges went off around him like lightning almost.
It was Magneto.
Before either Scoot or Peer could figure out Magento's plan, the top portions of the Sentinels' heads began to break apart and have the inner workings seemingly reconfigure themselves.
"What the hell is he doing?" Cyclops asked as he glanced at Peter with growing panic.
"Hmm, it looks like the might be rearraigning their circuit boards and replacing or removing a few key chips here and there" Peter said as he had his lenses zoom in on one of the Sentinels closest to them "You know, for an old guy that looks like he'd struggle to know how to use a smart phone, he's pretty smart. Wonder if he got his hands on some plans of them and studied them for hours on end. I know I'd have to to pull that off"
"Yeah, but what's he actually doing to them?" Cyclops asked again "Why isn't he just crushing them and tossing them into the wind?"
"Oh I thought it was obvious..." Peter said as he spared a glance at the optic beam wielding Mutant "He's reprograming them for his own use"
"But... but that'll mean-" Cyclops began before Peter nodded.
"Yep" Peter said as he glanced back up at the machines as Magneto finished his alterations "Retaliation"
"Correct"
Cyclops turned to see that Magento had slowly floated down to near Peter and his location, but remained a few meters away in the air. The master of magnetism looked at both with a blank expression on his face thought one look in his eyes could tell that the man was seething in white hot rage.
"I have just changed their prime directives. Instead of killing anyone with the Mutant Gene, they instead will kill anyone without it" Magneto proclaimed.
"Well that's comforting... to one percent of this planet's total population" Peter remarked in a sarcastic drawl as dozens of Mutant survivors began to approach the trio, looking up towards Magento with a myriad of emotions on their faces.
"Humanity will pay dearly for this act. For every Mutant that lies bleeding at your feet, a thousand- no a hundred thousand will die" Magneto declared to all the survivors "And not just humanity, but any who pose a threat to our people. Today they are going to know what it feels like. To smell the flesh of their dead children burning in their noses. To hold the broken mutilated corpses of their loves ones. To know pain and hopelessness like they've never known before!"
Peter couldn't help but feel a chill crawl up his spine when Magento's eyes zeroed in on him and his spider-sense began to tingle ever so slightly.
'Starting to see why my crazy uncle joined this guy... he's every bit as insane as him' Peter thought worriedly.
"But what about the perfect world you told me about Magento?" Cyclops said as he took a step towards the hovering man "About teaching humanity, not exterminating them!"
"Oh humanity isn't going to die tonight Cyclops" Magento said with dark amusement "Just America. The rest of the world will soon fall into line when it sees me dancing on the ashes of a dead president"
An with that, the Master of Magnetism and his repurposed Sentinels took off into the air, breaking the sound barrier once they were a safe distance away from the ruined compound.
"Well... this is bad" Peter said after a few moments of tense silence as the slights from the Sentinels rockets disappeared into the nighttime sky.
"We need to stop him!" Cyclops said with growing dread "Or he's gonna start a war that'll kill everyone. Human, Mutant, whatever!"
"On that we can agree on" Peter said with a nod before he noticed Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch approaching "Hey guys, how's your day going? Mine's going great. Went for a nice romantic stroll through the jungle with a blue skinned beauty, pet a T. Rex, got nearly killed by my crazed uncle and fought a giant mechanized extermination drone. How about you?"
"Is everything a joke to you?" Quicksilver asked with a scowl of annoyance as he reached up to wipe some blood off his face.
"Just about" Peter said with a shrug "Except situations when my mother is angry at me. Than it's just plain terrifying"
"I can relate" Wanda said as she stared up in the direction her father flew off to with a saddened expression "There's no stopping what's to come next... perhaps it's for the best. Let nature take it's course and decide who is destined to rule this planet"
"You people are a very grim lot" Peter said as he shook his head in exasperation "And one of my relatives all but patented that feeling with his personality"
"I need to warn the Professor" Cyclops said as he pulled out one of the communication devices the X-men used and moved away from the group to speak with his mentor about what happened.
"Probably for the best" Peter said with a nod as he watched the teen walk away and update Xavier and the rest of the X-men on what's happened "Tell him I said hi and we'll see him soon probably!"
"You plan to go and confront my father?" Quicksilver asked with a snort of disbelief.
"No I thought we could all just sit down and sort this out through a nice game of checkers" Peter said with an eye roll, causing the speedster to growl at the man.
"You know, I'm getting real tired of your-" the silver haired man began before Wanda placed a hand on his shoulder, cutting off whatever it was he was about to say and gave Peter a look.
"What do you plan to do?" she asked.
"Wanda-" Quicksilver began before Wanda cut him off with a look.
"Pietro, if our father thinks that the rest of the world is going to bow to him after he wipes out America, than you really are as big a fool as he claims you to be. The rest of humanity would rather burn than accept a Mutant ruler. If they do not send their Sentinels after us, they will burn the world away with their nukes until nothing is left!" she said with a saddened sigh "The only way to prevent such a thing is to stop our father. Much as I hate to admit it"
Pietro opened his mouth to respond before he snapped it closed and looked down in anger and annoyance. He knew his sister was right, he knew the rest of humanity will leave this planet devoid of life if it meant not having to serve their rightful masters, Mutants.
As her bother continued to wage some sort of mental war within himself, Wanda turned to Peter "Do you have a plan to catch my father? By now he's probably halfway to D.C."
"That depends, are either of you allergic to dogs?" Peter said as he glanced at the twins.
"No, why?" Quicksilver asked with a frown.
"You'll see" Peter said as he reached into his suit's belt and pulled out an odd looking whistle that looked almost like a tuning fork.
"What are you-" Wanda began before Peter blew into the whistle.
It sounded... odd, for the lack of a better term. It sounded like the odd humming a tuning fork would make but amplified with a microphone. It also caused Wanda and her brother to wince as the noise being made by the odd whistle sounded like someone dragging rusted nails across a chalkboard right next to their ears. After a few seconds of blowing, Peter removed the whistle from his mouth and waited... and waited...
"How long is this going to take?" Scott said as he peered at his watch "It's been like twenty minutes already"
"Hey it takes a bit" Peter said with annoyance "I'm calling someone from the other side of the freaking planet here"
Suddenly a flash appeared before the trio and a large mass suddenly launched itself at Peter.
"LOCKJAW!" Peter shouted in excitement at the sight of the bear sized bulldog before it tackled him to the ground with a deep bark and began to cover the man's upper torso in saliva "Aww I missed you too buddy!"
"It's a dog..." Pietro said as he stared at Lockjaw with wide eyes.
"I thought it was some kind of bear" Wanda said with a slow nod as she and her brother stared at the bizarre canine.
It looked like a bulldog at first glance aside from it's massive size, and possessed an odd protruding shape on it's head that looked like a tuning fork of some kind. Add the fact that it apparently teleported to them after hearing the whistle, Wanda and Pietro quickly concluded that this was no mere ordinary dog... even though it's size and appearance already gave that away.
"I know, I know I wanted to bring you too" Peter said as he rubbed the massive Inhuman Dog's chin "Hmm you seem a little bigger than the last time I saw you. You been getting spoiled with treats haven't you?"
Lockjaw's response was a bark as he stepped off Peter and allowed him to climb back to his feet. Once the Inhuman prince was up, Peter turned towards Wanda and Pietro and gestured for them to get a little closer "Guys this is Lockjaw, the greatest dog in the world. also he can teleport"
"So I see" Wanda hummed as she eyed the dog closely "I take it he's how we're gonna catch up to my father"
"Yep" Peter said with a nod as he pated Lockjaw on the head.
"What about Cyclops?" Pietro asked with a confused frown.
"I'll take the Blackbird. I'm allergic to dogs anyway" Cyclops said as he appeared with a determined expression on his face before he covered his nose and mouth with his hand "Plus... I don't want to leave the jet here. Just in case"
"No one's gonna steal it" Wanda said with an eye roll and a huff.
"It's not that" Scott said with a shake of his head "I just don't ant to clean off any more pterodactyl crap off it"
"Fair enough" Peter said with a nod as he turned and rubbed Lockjaw's head, particularly a spot behind his ears "Lockjaw can only take three people with him anyway. anymore and it starts to put too much stress on him"
Cyclops nodded at this before he turned towards Wanda and Pietro "Look, I know we're not exactly friends and I know Magento's your dad... which I can't begin to imagine how fucked that is... but we could really use your help-"
"We've already covered this and me and my sister will help you" Pietro said with a glare as he gestured to the devastation around them "Much as I want humanity to burn for this, my father's plan for retaliation will only cause the rest of the world to retaliate with something worse"
"Plus this attack was actually my Uncle Maximus's doing" Peter revealed, causing the twin children of Magento's heads to snap towards him with shock on their faces.
"What?" Wanda said with horror on her face "He did this?"
"He said he's been manipulating and influencing the people in charge of the Sentinels and whoever's in charge of those guys into attacking this place" Scott said with a disturbed look on his face "I don't think even the Professor can pull that off so easily"
Wanda and Pietro both looked around at the carnage with horrified faces as Peter kneeled down in front of Lockjaw and began to speak to him.
"Alright buddy, we have a crazed Mutant terrorist on his way to what I assume is Washington to kill America's leaders and more or less instigate a modern day holocaust. You mind giving me and Wanda here a lift?" Peter asked the large hound.
Lockjaw responded with a bark and licked the side of Peter's mask, causing the Inhuman prince to chuckle as he stood back up and wiped his face.
"Thatta boy" he said with a laugh.
"Wait, what about me?" Pietro asked with confusion "Why are you only taking Wanda, why aren't I coming with you too?!"
"Cause your gonna run after your dad" Peter explained to the speedster.
"Why?" Pietro asked with a frown.
"Well much as I hate to admit it, Magento's powers render the man next to impossible to take head on" Peter said as he glanced at Scott "And Scott here once mentioned that the helmet the man wears keeps pesky little telepaths out of his head. So, if we want to take your father down as fast and as painlessly as possible-"
"Remove his helmet and allow Xavier to shut his mind down" Wanda finished with a nod of understanding "By-"
"Having me snatch it off him before he can even blink and get it as far away from him as possible so he can't call it back in time to stop the bald headed cripple" Pietro said with a thoughtful look on his face "I suppose I can do that. I'll have to build up a lot of speed to do it though"
"So start running Speedy" Peter nodded at the speedster before turning to Scott as Quicksilver vanished in a blur "You sure you don't wanna take Lockjaw? It'll be quick"
"I'll be fine" Scott said as he shot a brief glance at the teleporting dog "Thanks though"
Peter nodded at the man before turning to Wanda and offering a hand out "Well, you ready?"
"...Yes" Wanda said as she took a deep breath and took Peter's hand and allowed the man to pull her a little closer to him and Lockjaw.
"Alright boy, Washington D.C." Peter said with a nod aimed at the massive hound "Step on it"
Lockjaw's response was a bark before a bright flash enveloped both Peter and Wanda, causing both to feel an odd feeling of disorientation as they were teleported away from the savage Land.
"Finally" Scott breathed as he lowered his hand from his mouth once the trio was gone and he could breath without worrying about his allergies acting up.
...
"This... isn't Washington" Wanda said with a frown as she took in their surroundings after the light from Lockjaw faded and the three found themselves in the middle of a street, riddled with dozens of honking cars, and yelling pedestrians.
The peoples' appearance, the language written on the various glowing neon signs, the smell of an unsanitary environment... unless America's capital had moved to East Asia, they were off their mark by quite a bit.
"This looks like China" she said after a moment of consideration "Hong Kong to be precise"
"Hehehe, good eye. And here I thought you weren't a cultured woman..." Peter laughed nervously before shooting an annoyed glare at Lockjaw "I said Washington! As in D.C.! As in on the other side of the freakin planet! Wrong capital boy!"
Lockjaw responded with a whimper as he sat on his hunches and looked down at the ground with a saddened expression. Peter's anger melted as he brought the large dog's head into a hug and began to pet it.
"I'm sorry I yelled boy, I'm not upset... you did your best" Peter said to the hound in a soothing tone.
"You do realize that every second we fuck around, humans are dying right?" Wanda said with a deadpanned expression aimed at the duo "Also Hong Kong isn't China's capital"
While Wanda wasn't going to shed a tear over a couple hundred thousand Homo Sapiens getting what they deserved at the hands of her father, the less humans that died in this, the better standing Mutant kind will have when it's all said and done. And she and her brother were gonna need as many allies as they can gather when they go after Maximus for his betrayal.
Peter blinked at this before he nodded and tapped Lockjaw on the head "To D.C. boy, and if you get us there fast, I'll give you a collar that will allow you to teleport into Crystal's room despite the electromagnetic field she set up to keep you out and let you sleep in her nice warm bed!"
Lockjaw barked in excitement at this and the tuning fork on his head began to glow again before the three of them were once more engulfed in a bright light followed by a weird feeling of distortion.
...
Teleporting the second time around felt much less unsettling to Wanda as they appeared at the base of the Lincoln Memorial steps.
"Now we're in Washington!" Peter beamed before his grin fell as he took in the damage "Or what's left of it. Man, Magento only had a thirty minute head start and already his Sentinels are tearing this place up"
Half the city seemed to be on fire and there was dozens of Sentinels flying in the air, shooting at any plan, helicopter or bird that flew past them while dozens more moved among the buildings and streets of the city and blasted any human they came across. The sky was covered in dark clouds and Peter couldn't help but notice balls of lighting shooting out from them and striking the Sentinels, causing them to explode or lose enough power that they began to plummet to the earth below.
'Peter, are you there?!'
Peter blinked at the sound of Jean's voice in his head and resisted the urge to force the red head out before responding 'Yeah, I'm here. Also warn a guy next time you plan to invade his mind out of the blue like that!'
Thankfully Jean didn't go too deep into his mind, allowing him to build up his mental defenses around any and all knowledge of the Inhumans. Much as he liked the X-men, he didn't quite trust them that much.
'Also, how'd you guys get here already?' Peter asked with some confusion.
While New York wasn't far from Washington, relatively speaking, it should've taken them longer to reach this place given that Scott only called them roughly half an hour ago.
'We were already in Washington when we found out about the attack on the Savage Land. The Professor figured that Magento would come here afterwards' Jean revealed before a sense of panic entered her telepathic voice 'Where's Scott, I can sense his mind. And how'd you get here so fast?'
'Scott's on his way, he's taking the Blackbird. I got a lift from my dog' Peter said as he reached over and scratched Lockjaw's chin 'I brought Wanda with me, figured we could use the extra muscle. Quicksilver's inbound, he's gonna try to rip Magento's helmet off so Xavier can shut him down... hopefully. Still kinda fifty-fifty on the guy's usefulness at the moment but it was the only plan I could thing of at the time'
'Well that's gonna be a bit of a problem since the Professor went to confront Magneto himself' Jean said with despair.
Peter blinked at this 'Wait... Xavier went to confront one of the most powerful and homicidally deranged men on the planet despite the fact he's in a wheelchair and said man he's confronting is wearing something that'll negate his powerful psionic abilities?'
'Basically' Jean said with annoyance.
'Huh... good baldie' Peter thought with a nod.
It was stupid, but he'll give the man credit, pretty brave.
"Well Wanda, it looks like bringing you along was a good idea after all" Peyer said as he turned towards the Mutant beauty.
"Why?" Wanda said with confusion.
"We're gonna go save Xavier from getting killed by your dad... hopefully... I mean he could be dead as we're talking but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?" Peter said as he sent a mental inquiry to Jean on Xavier and Magneto's whereabouts.
The telepath's response was a mental image of the White House.
'Uh, where's that at?' Peter asked as he looked around for a building that matched what Jean showed him.
'Close to a mile and a half north-east of where your at now' Jean said.
Peter nodded at this before he glanced in the direction Jean mentioned and noticed several Sentinels hovering in the air around a column of smoke and fire. Chances were that was the White House currently in fire and Magento was there, along with Xavier.
"Where is he?" Wanda asked.
"The White House' Peter pointed in the direction of the hovering Sentinels "Thatta way"
Wanda followed Peter's potting finger and nodded after seeing the hovering drones before she turned to Lockjaw "Would you be willing to-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Lockjaw teleported away, leaving Wanda gaping at where the bear sized dog was standing only moments ago.
"He's gone!" she said.
"Yeah" Peter said with a slow nod as he began to make his way down the stairs of the Lincoln memorial "Come on, we better hurry before Magento kills Xavier and probably the President... assuming either's even still alive by the point"
"But we could've gotten their faster with your dog!" Wanda said as she followed after Peter.
"We could, but I didn't want to risk him getting hurt so I gave him the signal to go home. He may be big and touch looking, but believe me, he's as useful as a poodle in a fight" Peter stated "The small ones with the puffy fur I mean"
"He can teleport, he's much more useful in a fight than a poodle" Wanda commented as she and Peter passed a partially frozen and destroyed Sentinel lying in the Reflection Pool, it seems that Iceman had been busy.
"His teleportation isn't really suited for fights. It's not quick enough. True he can get the drop on someone at the very beginning but after that? Forget about it" Peter said with a shake of his head "Don't worry Wanda, we'll be fine... probably"
"I'm starting to think this was a bad idea" Wanda groaned as she followed Peter through the torn up streets and passed burning buildings and overturned cars.
"Welcome to my life" Peter joked as he and Wanda broke off into a run towards the White House.
...
And done.
Next chapter, Peter and Wanda face off against Magento...