The sky lit up without warning.
A thin line of bright blue energy cut across the clouds, so fast it barely existed before it struck. The beam ca from an orbital weapon system, and it hit Nimrod head-on. There was no explosion... just raw disintegration. The armored figure flickered once as the energy washed over it, its form breaking apart at a molecular level.
Five seconds passed.
By the ti the beam faded, Nimrod was gone. The crushing pressure vanished along with it, like the world itself exhaled in relief. Trees straightened, the ground stopped groaning, and Erik's magnetic field dissolved as he lowered his hand, eyes still locked on the empty space where Nimrod had been.
Then a blue flash snapped into existence near the garden.
Tony appeared out of it mid-step, already moving. "Everyone alright?" he asked as he closed the distance. His attention went straight to Mystique as he sensed a wisp of cosmic energy coming from her.
"We're okay," Charles replied.
Tony looked toward Mystique, "You alright?"
Mystique nodded quickly, though her hand stayed over her stomach without thinking. "I'm fine," she said, looking tense.
Tony's eyes dropped to that small detail, and he paused for half a second before looking back at her face. "Are you?" he asked, quieter this ti, his expression shifting as he put the pieces together.
She held his gaze for a mont, then gave a small nod that carried more weight than words. "Yes."
Sothing softened in Tony's face, just for a second. "That's great news," he said, almost under his breath, then his focus snapped back into place as he straightened. "But right now we've got a bigger problem."
He turned toward Charles. "That thing wasn't just so random machine," he said. "Nimrod. Mutant killer from a future where the war never stopped. Soone built it to end the conflict, and it did. It wiped out every mutant, then every human too. Turns out baseline humans carry dormant mutation genes, so it counted them as targets eventually."
Erik's expression darkened as he listened, his jaw tightening with each word.
Tony continued. "And it didn't stop there. It kept evolving. Adapted past its original limits, learned how to move through tilines and realities. Molecular reconstitution is part of its core design. You can scatter it down to particles and it still finds a way to pull itself back together."
He let out a short breath, running a hand through his hair as he glanced up at the sky. "God knows how many worlds it's burned through to get to this point."
Charles leaned forward slightly in his chair, his calm still intact but his eyes far more serious now. "Can you stop it?" He asked.
Tony gave his signature arrogant smile. "Who do you think I am? I'll take care of it. You all stay on guard."
His gaze lifted toward the sky, then he snapped his fingers.
A faint red shimr appeared above them, spreading outward in a controlled wave until it ford a do over the entire Institute. The barrier settled into place with a low hum.
"Stay inside the barrier," Tony said as he blinked out of the barrier and appeared in the sky. He hovered there and looked around.
For a mont, nothing happened.
Then the sky started to spark.
Tiny points of light flickered into existence, like embers reigniting in empty space. At first, they were scattered and faint, barely noticeable against the blue, but they multiplied quickly, clustering together in shifting patterns.
Tony's eyes narrowed as he watched the process unfold.
The sparks began to move with purpose, pulling toward a central point. Space itself seed to bend slightly around them as the particles gathered, forming threads of energy that wove into sothing denser, sothing structured.
"Yeah," Tony muttered under his breath, his voice flat with confirmation. "There it is."
The cluster brightened, growing more defined with each passing second. The outline of a humanoid shape started to take form, flickering in and out as layers rebuilt themselves from nothing.
Within 30 seconds, Nimrod regained its physical body.
"Hi, Nimrod," Tony said with a little wave before reappearing in front of the freak. He threw a cosmic punch that completely obliterated its upper body. "Bye, Nimrod."
The fragnts scattered into light again.
For a few seconds, the sky stayed quiet. Then the sparks ca back.
They gathered faster this ti, tighter, more efficient. The system was learning, pushing its reconstruction speed beyond what it had managed before. Tony hovered in place, watching it like soone waiting for a slow elevator.
The shape ford again.
"Hi, Nimrod."
Punch.
"Bye, Nimrod."
Nimrod got obliterated again.
The cycle repeated.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each ti, Nimrod ca back quicker. Its body shifted subtly with every regeneration. The armor thickened. New layers ford beneath the surface. Energy shields flickered into existence before the physical shell even fully stabilized.
It didn't matter.
"Hi, Nimrod."
Punch.
"Bye, Nimrod."
The barrier shattered along with everything else.
Nimrod tried to counter. The mont it reford, it fired a concentrated beam straight at Tony's face. The attack never landed. Tony was already inside its guard, his fist moving faster than the machine could register.
Boom! Another cosmic punch.
The beam cut off mid-charge as the body collapsed again.
Below, the Institute grounds had gone silent. Students and teachers stood behind the red barrier, watching the sky like it had turned into sothing unreal.
Back in the air, Nimrod changed tactics.
It didn't fully materialize this ti. Half-ford, it tried to shift position, initiating a teleport mid-construction.
Tony was already there when it arrived, and all it got was another punch.
The sparks returned again, but now they jittered slightly, like the system was compensating under strain. The next form ca out denser, layered with overlapping fields that bent light around it. Defensive matrices stacked over each other in rapid succession.
Tony tilted his head a little, almost curious.
"Trying harder, huh?"
The mont Nimrod locked into place, Tony moved.
This ti, the punch hit with more force than before, not because he needed it, but because he could. The entire upper half vanished instantly, the remaining structure collapsing a second later.
"Bye, Nimrod."
The regeneration started again, but sothing was off.
The sparks crackled with a purple glow.
For the first ti, there was a delay.
Nimrod pushed through it, forcing its body back together. As soon as its core stabilized, it opened a portal, the space tearing open into a dark, unfamiliar dinsion. He tried to escape, but it was useless. Tony has already locked all types of portal travel using his Orbital Defensive arrays.
The portal collapsed almost instantly.
Tony kicked the Sentinel this ti, destroying its torso.
The particles struggled to regroup. The process was no longer smooth. Threads of energy tangled, corrected, then tangled again as the system pushed itself past safe limits.
Tony stayed right there, waiting.
"Co on," he muttered. "You've got more in you than that."
Nimrod ford again, but now its surface flickered with unstable patterns. Its systems were running too many calculations at once, trying to solve a problem it couldn't quantify. It raised a hand, not to attack, but to analyze. Scanners flared across Tony, running deeper scans, faster iterations, broader comparisons.
The result ca back empty every ti.
"Well, it's getting boring. I expected more since you're from the future and an alternate reality, but in the end, a machine is a machine," Tony said as he pointed his finger at Nimrod.
His eyes glowed faintly as he reached out with technopathy, sinking into Nimrod's systems like they were extensions of his own mind.
The Sentinel shuddered as his control infiltrated its core. Nanites scattered, subsystems unraveled, and the solid form collapsed into a swarm of tiny nano-sentinels floating in the air. Every module, sensor, and adaptive layer yielded instantly under Tony's command.
"Okay, little freaks," Tony muttered, scanning the scattered swarm.
His mind dove into the fragnted data streaming from the nanites, sifting through tilines, combat logs, and adaptation protocols. Each byte of information flowed into him, the history of Nimrod from its first kill to its latest evolution forming a coherent map.
"Your bastard destroyed seven Earths..." Tony looked really angry after he read the data. He summoned a wisp of Reality Gem's energy.
The red energy ball shimred in his palm, distorting the very fabric of the space around it.
"Disappear from existence," Tony directed the energy at the nano-sentinels. They shattered into nothingness, their presence erased as though they had never existed. 'Well, that's that... I can't help those Earths, but I can protect this one. Ti to create sothing to detect and stop ti and dinsion travellers... Or, maybe just snap my fingers, and it'll manifest. Yeah, I'll do that. That way, I'll have all the ti in the world to spend with my family. I've been working nonstop. It's ti to focus on them.'
After a mont, he snapped his finger, releasing the barrier and then teleported to the garden.
"Nimrod is gone, and everyone is safe," Tony said as he walked over to Charles. "I'll leave Madelyne in your care. Help her master her power and... take care of her."
Charles stood up and nodded. "I'll do my best."
Then, Tony looked toward Eric. "And you really need to stop hiding from your daughter. Why don't you two just sit and talk? You also need to talk to Pietro and Wanda too. How long are you gonna avoid them?"
"I... It's not easy," Eric said after a mont of thought.
"Nothing is easy in life, you already know that. If you lose this chance... then who knows? Maybe one day, you'll sit in a park and regret not speaking to them. And by that ti, it'd be too late. So, tonight, call them over for dinner. Sit together as a family and just talk," Tony said as he lightly patted Eric's arm. "By the way, do you know that Lorna is dating soone?"
Eric flinched a bit as his fatherly instinct flared for a mont.
"I think you are right," Eric said with a nod. "Maybe I'll ask her to bring her boyfriend too."
After that, Tony turned to Mystique. "And you look so worried." He hugged her. "I told you, you're beautiful the way you are and I'm sure our kid will be as beautiful as you. Human or mutant, it doesn't matter as long as the little one is healthy and... well, not flying after birth."
Mystique couldn't help but imagine it in her mind, and she giggled. "Sorry for having a second thought."
"It's alright," Tony whispered before he pulled back and cupped her cheek before kissing her forehead. "See you at dinner?"
Mystique nodded. "Yeah. See you at dinner."
Tony gave Charles and Eric a friendly nod before teleporting away.
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