As Steve and Danielle fought side by side, he began to imagine that, if they survived this, he would have to ask her on a date. She really was beautiful. As the two continued to fight, they separated a bit to give each other more room for their powers. Steve was cutting loose as much as possible. Several of the sentinels had taken flight, causing them to be much harder to hit regularly. Daemon was handling most of the airborne sentinels, but they were getting to be quite numerous.
Steve looked over and noticed that Danielle was producing more fire than usual. He thought that she must have been really cutting loose in this fight. However, after a few seconds, he saw in her eyes that she had lost control of the flames. He rushed over to help her but couldn't get close because of the heat. He yelled up to Daemon for help. When he saw what was happening to his sister, he dove down to help, using his own control over fire to calm the flames down some. However, after he landed, a sentinel grabbed Daemon from behind, making him loose his concentration.
Steve watched in horror as the flames grew and grew and grew. The flames were destroying several dozen sentinels as they reached higher into the sky. Danielle began to scream as her hair and skin caught on fire. Steve rushed towards her, ignoring the searing heat, but was caught in the leg by a sentinel's laser blast, taking him down. As Steve and Daemon watched in helpless despair, Danielle was completely consumed by the flames, which began to devour sentinels and everything around them. After a few terrible moments, the flames died out completely, leaving nothing but a pile of ashes.
Daemon in rage grabbed the arms of the sentinel holding him and ripped them from their sockets. Turning on the sentinel, he blew fire from his mouth until the sentinel was a bubbling pool of metal. He and Steve both began to channel their rage through their powers, taking out more and more sentinels, but the robots kept coming. Mary was throwing robots around with her hands while Sam was throwing them around with her telekinesis. Lucas was shooting down as many as he could with his blaster while Scott did the same with his eyes. Logan was moving in between the robots with his claws flashing in the sun.
Caileen looked around herself and saw that every sentinel taken down was replaced by three more. Looking at her gun that had done her no good so far, she threw it down to the ground. Focusing as hard as she could, she lifted off the ground and flew skyward, drawing many of the sentinels after her. When she had made a fairly high altitude, she looked back to see at least forty sentinels flying after her. She had already made the decision in her mind. She knew she had to do it; there was no other way to save everyone, but it stilled frightened her. How would everyone, even her brother, look at her afterwards? Deciding to cross that bridge when she came to it, she pulled her head back, taking in as deep a breath as she could. Leaning forward, she opened her mouth and spoke for the first time in almost five years.
Scott had seen Caileen fly off and had thought she was running for the Blackbird to try its radio. He called after her to tell her she would have to fly faster to beat the sentinels, but it didn't seem that she heard him. He was surprised when he saw her turn around and take a deep breath. What's she going to do, scream? he thought to himself.
He got his answer when the air around Caileen's mouth began to ripple. Scott was surprised at first to hear actual sound coming from Caileen's mouth. He thought she was mute. His surprise turned into fearful hope as the sound rose in pitch and amplitude until his ears hurt. The sound was like none other Scott had ever heard. It didn't even sound human, but like some deep, rumbling giant. The ground all around the complex began to shake. As Scott watched, the forty sentinels flying toward Caileen were shaken apart by her scream. Several more on the ground and in Caileen's line of fire also blew apart when the sound waves hit them.
After a few seconds the screaming stopped and the mutants looked up at Caileen in awe. Caileen flew towards the mutants and landed on her feet a little shaky. Scott helped her up while everyone gathered around her. "Caileen," Scott said. "If you can keep doing that, you can take out most of the sentinels while we mop up the rest." Caileen nodded and faced the advancing mass of mutant hunting robots. She took in a deep breath and let out another monstrous scream, causing everyone to cover their ears, even though they were behind her. The scream was cut short when a bolt of energy cut through Caileen's chest. She coughed up blood as her eyes went wide with pain. Logan caught her as she fell and lowered her to the ground. Scott looked up and blasted the sentinel who had been flying above them.
Caileen's coughs continued for a moment or two, then her eyes rolled back and her body went limp in Logan's arms. Her last breath was overruled by an insidious laugh. The mutants looked up to see the human who Logan had kicked earlier standing in front of the sentinels, all of whom had ceased firing. "Well, isn't this cozy? I've always wondered what these new bad boys would be capable of doing, and now I know. I'm sure this will look very good on my report." Laughing, the human snapped his fingers as he walked over to the side and the sentinels all fired their lasers at once.
The mutants instinctively jumped back as the blasts came in. Sam threw her hands up in a desperate attempt to throw up a force field. She knew she would be able to do anything but try, there were at least one hundred sentinels left, all firing at once. She was not the only person surprised when the lasers stopped several feet short of the mutants. They stopped as if they had hit something. Wow, thought Sam. I'm better than I thought.
Looking rather confused, the human turned to the closest sentinel. "What happened? Why are they still standing there?"
The sentinel looked at the mutants and scanned the area, finding a large force field in place. "THERE IS A CLASS TEN FORCE FIELD IN PLACE. THE FORCE FIELD HAS SUFFICENT ENERGY TO DEFLECT ANY ATTACK WE CAN GIVE."
The human looked with awe at the mutants. "Which one is producing the field?"
"NO MUTANT PRESENT IS CAPABLE OF GENERATING THIS FORCE FIELD."
"No," said an odd sounding voice from above. Everyone looked up to see a young bald man with no shirt floating down and landing on the ground. His eyes were glowing white and energy rippled across his body. "They're not, but I am." The voice of this newest mutant sounded like there were two voices speaking at the same time. The human pulled his own gun and shot right at the mutant's head, hoping to catch him by surprise. The bullet bounced off a force field covering the newest mutant. "Please. Do you think me that weak? Or are you that stupid? Your weapons and sentinels will in the end spell death for both humans and mutants alike. So, I take them away."
Johnathan leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Scott, standing five feet behind him, realized that Johnathan was going to blow again. He didn't have time to do anything but watch as Johnathan converted into pure energy and blew apart in a blinding light that covered all around him and the other mutants. Then Scott realized that the energy wasn't touching them, it moved around them without hurting them.
When the light retracted back into Johnathan and he reverted into human shape again, everyone saw that the land had also not been touched by the blast. The sentinels were gone, the building was gone, but the field and even the human were untouched. Johnathan fell to his knees in exhaustion as his eyes dimmed to their normal color. Looking up, Johnathan saw Caileen's dead body and stood up to run towards her. He felt a burning, cutting pain rip through his right lung accompanied by a thunderclap.