Enter The Sentinels

The next two weeks after the fight with the goblins was for Peter a much needed break from all the action. He spent most of his time with the G-class, catching up on the materials he has missed since the beginning of the semester and then used his spare time in cybertronics, continuing to work on his new shooters. Even Sue was pleased with his dedication to both work and studies, as Peter made the most of his new opportunity. The night things changed was a quiet one at first, as Peter went to bed after reading a few research papers, one of them written by Hank McCoy. Peter had been asleep for no more than a few hours when the voice called out to him, a voice that Peter remembered hearing a few weeks earlier.

"Peter," the voice called out, "Help us."

Peter eyes opened as he shot up in bed, covered in sweat. He dashed to put on his uniform and his shooters and looked for Reed in the one place he knew where to find Richards at this time of night, in the hangar working at his station.

"Reed!" Peter screamed out, as he came jumping into the hangar.

"Peter?" Reed said, as he put down whatever he was working on. "What are you doing up at such a late hour?"

"He called to me!" Peter called back out, "I heard him just like I was at the academy. He's asking for help!"

Reed didn't need to ask Peter for an explanation as that was more than enough Intel for Mister Fantastic to figure out what was going on. "The professor is in danger. Let's lend him a hand."

Reed stretched out his hand to the other side of the hanger, and hit a big red button that was rather obvious to anyone what it was. The alarm started to wail, waking up any member of the Fantastic Five that was not awake. Reed's voice came over the com as he called out to the other members.

"Code Red; I want everyone in the hanger for launch in three minutes!" Reed called out, "This is not a drill!"

The tone of Reed's voice was all the team needed to hear as they came walking into the hangar in less than a few minutes, taking their spots in the massive flyer that was used to carry the entire team. Peter took a seat next to Reed in his pod for the time being so that adjustments could be made for his own private seat. No one said a single thing, as the flyer took off and launched itself at high speed towards Salem Center. Peter was nervous the entire way out, but knew that it had to be bad if the Professor himself was calling him for help. When they started to approach the town, there were fires in the distance that gave the team all the information they needed to know. Johnny was finally the first to speak as he noticed something in the distance because of its silhouette in the flame.

"What are those tall things?" He called out.

"Sentinels," Peter replied, as he felt a chill run down his spine. "Those things are engineered machines built to fight super powered beings like ourselves."

"How do you know this Peter?" Sue asked.

"The battle simulations," Reed answered.

"That's right," Peter confirmed, "Scott and his team have been training for this attack for quite some time. I guess the Professor knew it was coming."

"He won't have to fight them alone," Reed said, as he sped up the flyer to get them closer. As he was flying towards the academy, there were air defenses in force as well; several military helicopters, one of which didn't hesitate to contact the flyer.

"Unidentified aircraft," the voice called out, "You are entering a restricted airspace. Turn around immediately or face the consequences."

"This is Reed Richards with the Fantastic Five," Reed replied, "This operation is an illegal act. You are ordered to stand down."

"And if we refuse?" the voice asked.

"Then it will be clobbering time." Reed answered.

"Oh damn," Ben called from the back pod, "It's hitting the fan now."

The helicopters responded by fired their rockets at the flyer.

"Johnny!" Reed called out as he hit a button to release the human torch.

Johnny blazed out of his seat and flew towards the rockets, easily taking them all out with a barrage of fireballs. Taking out the missiles gave the flyer all the time it needed to pass by the blockade and continue towards the academy which was on fire. The tall machines standing over them were hard to miss, as there were at least twenty of them firing lasers at various targets, including the academy itself.

"There are so many of them!" Sue called out, stunned by the warzone that was playing out before them. "Reed, what's the plan?"

"Sue and I will enter the building and evacuate as many mutants to the flyer as we can." Reed replied without hesitation, "Ben!"

"Yeah Reed?" Ben called back, eager to receive his orders.

"You and Peter take care of the sentinels." Reed commanded, "I want them all turned into rubble, every damn one of them!"

"You got it, Reed." Ben said, cracking his knuckles.

Peter and Ben jumped out of the pods they were in and sailed down to the ground at an exceptional speed. Peter used his webbings to form gliding wings as he sailed safely to the ground, while Ben didn't care about impact as he landed hard on the ground, and then launched himself into the and fired himself like a bullet as he rolled into a ball to become a fierce projectile. Ben's body smashed through the first sentinel's chest, taking it out immediately. Once back on the ground, he jumped again at another Sentinel, punching its leg of with a single blow. As the one legged Sentinel started to fall Ben wound up and punched the robots head off. He then ripped the other leg off and proceeded to use it as a club to whack to the remaining robots with. Peter used the trees to swing as close to the academy as he could, and he could see some of the X-men he worked with in the simulator out there fighting the real Sentinels. Cyclops was firing his lasers at them, tearing into the robots as they seem to just keep coming at him. Another robot was about to fire a laser at Cyclops from behind, but Peter fired a web at the robot and yanked its head to the side, causing the laser to miss Scott and instead hit another Sentinel and drop it to the ground.

Scott turned to see Peter land on the ground near him, and all he could do was smile as he was happy to see him this time.

"Thanks for joining the party," Scott called out, "I assume the professor reached out for reinforcements?"

"You could say that," Peter said, running up to back Scott up. "We brought the whole team with us. Ben is taking care all of the Sentinels over there."

"I was wondering where they had gone," Scott said as he fired another laser, taking out another robot. "I was worried we couldn't hold them off. That shouldn't be a problem with the Fantastic Four here."

"Fantastic Five," Peter corrected him.

"Sorry," Scott called back, "That will take some getting used to."

Before Scott could say anything else, Peter swung into action and attacked one of the Sentinels that was trying to flank them from the left. He fired an array of webs from his new shooters, mostly light webbing to distract the robot before he fired stronger webbings around its legs. Peter then used his immense strength and yanked the robot off its feet, sending it crashing to the ground. Ben Grimm then came leaping out of nowhere to do a power landing on top of the robots torso, crushing it completely. He then proceeded to rip the robot's head off for good measure.

"Go to the other side of the school," Scott ordered, "Ben and I can handle all the tin men out here."

"Gotcha," Peter said as he started to run for the other side of the school. As he was running, he came across the rubble of one of the Sentinels, and he couldn't help but stop to look at it. He walked over to what was the torn out arm that was a mangled mess, but there was a logo on the underarm that was clear enough for Peter to read. He stood there in absolute shock, unwilling to accept the truth that was printed on the robot that was attacking the academy: STARK INDUSTRIES.

Peter was standing there in disbelief, when he was finally snapped out of the moment when he heard a woman scream in horror. He looked up and realized it was coming from outside the back part of the school. He fired web shooters at the school, and catapulted himself over the roof of the building, leaping to the other side as quickly as he could. When he landed on the other side, there were several young kids trying to run but a Sentinel was standing in their way. Filled with rage, Peter proceeded to pick up a rather sizable statue that stood outside the academy, it was a round piece of rock that had the x logo in the middle of it, and despite being made of marble, Peter had no trouble lifting it off its base as it was much lighter than Ben's barbells. Before the robot could take any aggressive action against the kids, Peter heaved the massive rock at the Sentinel like a pitching tossing a baseball at a batter's head. The rock connected with the Robot's head, which tore into it and nearly tore it off completely. Peter used the moment of distraction to fire webs at the robot and knocked the robot down like the previous. Since Ben was not around to help out, Peter picked the rock he just tossed back up and drove it through the robots chest, finishing it off.

Peter turned to face the children, most of them no older than twelve, who were be escorted out of the building by two familiar faces: Kitty and Jubilee. They were surprised to see Peter but were happy to see him.

"Peter!" Jubilee called out, "You have no idea how happy we are to see you!"

Kitty didn't say a thing as she ran over and hugged Peter to show her gratitude for what he had just done. Peter picked up one of the kids that was walking around in her bare feet, and took Kitty's hand.

"Let's get these kids out of here." Peter told them, "According to the tracker in my shooter, the flyer is just over there."

"Peter!" A voice called out, "What are you doing out here?"

Peter was still holding the young mutant in his arm as he turned around to look at the man who had called him out. Tony Stark was there, in an Ironman suit that closely resembled the colors that the Sentinels happened to be sporting. Peter couldn't help but have a face of utter disgust as he called back out to the man who was just recently his mentor.

"I could ask the same thing about you!" He called back out, "What is Stark Industries, or the Avengers and Shield for that matter, doing here attacking these people? Don't you have better things to do than to bully children?"

"These are not children!" Stark replied, "They're enemies of the state!"

"According to who?" Peter asked him, "You? Fury?"

"How about the united nations!" Start called back to him. "The mutants refused to sign the Sokovia Accords, and we cannot afford to have another army of super powered beings building up in our backyard. Shield already made that mistake once with the Inhumans."

"The what?" Peter called out.

"Long story," Tony said, unwilling to get into it. "The point is Shield cannot allow someone to build a force capable of challenging the Avengers. So stand aside Peter, and let us take care of the threat."

"Never," Peter replied, a sharp tone of defiance in his voice. "The only way you're getting to these people is over my dead body."

"I have more Sentinels," Tony reminded him, "A lot more."

"I have a Thing!" Peter retorted, "Along with a human torch, an invisible woman and mentor who is quite fantastic."

As if he had heard his name being dropped, The Thing came leaping out of nowhere and landed close to Peter but not close enough to hurt the kids that were standing around him. Ben looked fired up as he stepped up to stand beside his new teammate in total defiance of the Ironman that floated before them.

"I don't care if you have hundreds of these tin men, Stark!" Ben roared at him. "I'll send every damn one of them to the scrap yard!"

Tony looked down at the formidable force that lay before him and realized he had been bested. He had programmed the Sentinels to specifically take on the X-Men and their unique abilities, but none of them were prepared to take on the Fantastic Five. He signaled all the robots to retreat, aware that the fight was over. He remained there for a moment before his helmet closed up and he fired off into the sky himself, following the Sentinels that had already taken off.