Sentinel
She was running. Had been running for what felt like hours. She was aching all over. It was hard to breathe. She had left cabin behind her ages ago. She was crying and it made it difficult to see, but she couldn’t stop. Logan had stayed behind to buy her time to get away, and he was probably as good as dead now. Life had a tendency to kick you in the gut just when everything seemed to go smoothly. She tripped over a sturdy branch and fell on her stomach. She didn’t have the will or the energy to get up and continue. She just lay there, crumbled heap of torn clothes and lacerated flesh.
Sentinel had been standing there for years. Waiting patiently, guarding the perimeter. It was old and rusty, but still fully operational. There had been visitors in the cabin, but they all had been right kind of visitors. No mutations it could have detected. Not before now. Two targets had been approaching. It had detected them two days ago. It had waited patiently. Patience had been rewarded, when targets approached the cabin.
He had been preoccupied, thoughts swirling around Marie, and things he was going to do to her, with her. She had been laughing and teasing him. She was so beautiful. Sun put a soft glow on her skin and smile had lit up her eyes. They had made it to the cabin. It was still standing. In surprisingly good shape. Swing he had installed for Aislin when she had been just a little kid still hung on the front porch. He had pointed it to Marie, and he had been about to tell her how much her daughter had loved that swing, when all hell had broken loose.
“Ohh, shit…” It was hard to stay on his feet. When you got shot in the gut and you had to keep your intestines from falling out, it made you keel over. Sentinel let out a series of low beeping noises. He knew it was scanning for life signs. He turned his head to look at it. There was a small, flashing red light in the middle of its forehead. Scanner. If he could reach it and break it, they would be quite even. Sentinel would be blind. He remembered Danger Room scenario with secondary X-Team and grinned wryly. This time there was no Peter to throw him in the air. He had to find a way to make Sentinel crouch.
Sentinel was firing now non-stop, forcing him to seek cover rather than attack. Every shot scorched earth little closer of him. It was learning his moves. He knew he had to act fast. If he waited too long, behemoth would have him all figured out, and after that there simply was no way to surprise or fool it. Then he saw something that made his rapid heart beat hitch up a notch. Small patch of rust. Smack dab on top of armor covering Sentinel’s power cell on its stomach.
It was a long shot. He had better chances to reach it, but if he was wrong, and it wasn’t rusted through, he would be toasted. Sentinel would tear him to shreds. He started to count seconds between the scorching hot blasts machine was firing towards him. One, two, three… Four-second window to charge.
“How the fuck do I get close enough…” He muttered. Small scraps of moss and dirt rained on him.
“That was close.” He looked up. Sentinel was towering over him, holding a tree on its other, gigantic hand. He nearly made it. He sprinted towards the cabin, when tree came crashing down, heavy branch knocking him out of balance and he fell. He curled to a ball and rolled back on his feet, then dashed blindly towards his opponent. Claws out. He leaped forward, putting all his weight behind them, trying to align every ounce of metal and muscle behind thin blades. Hard, jarring thud and screeching noise. Blades started to sink in. Suddenly something made his whole body spasm and convulse, and he knew he had made it. He had beaten the Sentinel. Then darkness fell over him and there was nothing.
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