[Third Person Pov]
Kitty immediately began to sink through the solid earth as if it were nothing more than mist, her form phasing seamlessly downward until she vanished from sight. At the same time, MJ closed her eyes and drew in a slow, steady breath, her expression shifting into one of focused concentration.
The forest around them suddenly felt alive. Leaves rustled, branches trembled, and the faint sound of movement echoed from every direction at once. Heads snapped around as everyone instinctively searched for the source.
"What iz zhe doing?" Nightcrawler asked, his yellow eyes fixed curiously on MJ.
"Calling for assistance," Peter replied with a knowing smirk.
Almost on cue, small spiders began emerging from everywhere. They poured out from beneath rocks and roots, crawled down tree trunks, and skittered across the forest floor in organized waves. Some descended from branches overhead, others surfaced from cracks between stones, all moving with eerie coordination toward MJ.
"Ew—ew—ew!" Jean exclaimed, clamping her eyes shut and shaking her head vigorously. "I hate spiders."
"Hey!!" nearly the entire Spider-Family protested in unison, several of them bristling with exaggerated offense.
"Not you guys, obviously!" Jean hurriedly clarified, opening one eye. "You're cool. But the real ones just give me goosebumps and the heebie-jeebies." She rubbed her arms as if to chase away an imaginary crawl.
"You folks are an arachnophobe's worst nightmare," Rogue muttered, shaking her head in disbelief.
Johnny's attention snapped to her instantly. "Woah, is that a southern accent I hear?" he asked, turning toward her with clear interest.
"What's it to ya?" Rogue shot back, one eyebrow arching.
Johnny only braced against a nearby tree, that familiar, effortless grin spreading across his face as he leaned forwards with a head tilt. "Nothin'. Just sounds real pleasant to the ears—especially comin' from such a pretty lass. I'll make sure to strike up conversation more often just so I can hear you talk."
Rogue pressed her lips into a tight line, a faint flush creeping up her cheeks as she turned her head away.
"That seriously worked on you?" Bobby asked flatly, unimpressed as he stared at her.
"Shut it, Bobby—nobody asked you!" Rogue snapped, giving him a sharp kick to the backside in embarrassment.
"Rogue…" Jean sighed, shaking her head. "You are way too easy."
"You really do need to raise your standards," Storm added calmly, joining in.
Rogue grumbled under her breath as the group continued moving through the forest.
Ahead of them, MJ and Kitty worked with swift, practiced efficiency. Kitty phased in and out of the ground, disabling hidden traps from below, while MJ coordinated her spiders to dismantle threats above. The spiders chewed cleanly through wires, severed cords, and disabled cameras with surgical precision—all while emitting faint, almost imperceptible screeches that sounded disturbingly like chants.
"AYAYAYAYA! THE QUEEN'S ORDERS ARE ABSOLUTE!"
"FOR HER MAJESTY!"
"GLORY TO HER GREATNESS!"
MJ pretended very hard not to hear them. It had stopped being amusing after the first few seconds and was now just painfully embarrassing.
Meanwhile, Kitty resurfaced nearby, emerging from the ground while hauling a bundle of explosives—mines, concealed weapons, and buried devices meant to activate when intruders were detected. One by one, she collected them, popping up at random spots before finally jogging back toward the group.
By the time the front gate of the facility came into view, along with several armed guards, every trap had already been neutralized. Kitty dropped the bundle of explosives and machinery at everyone's feet with a dull clatter. MJ's spiders paused just long enough to give her a synchronized, almost ceremonial salute before scattering back into the forest.
"Why exactly are we being stealthy?" Johnny asked quietly as they ducked behind trees and thick foliage. "It's all gonna end the same way, right? One big fight either way."
From their hidden vantage point, they could see not only guards, but Sentinels as well—taller, sleeker machines carrying massive equipment across the compound. They weren't acting as enforcers alone; they were being used as labor.
The sentinels weren't the same ones Spider-Man had found in the danger room, they were slimmer, more refined in design, their bodies coated in polished silver chrome rather than bulky armor.
Peter turned toward Aria and tapped his temple with his thumb. She nodded in understanding, activating the Mind Stone and forging a psychic link between the entire team before responding to Johnny.
"If we'd been detected out here," Aria explained calmly, her voice echoing in their minds, "the Sentinels would have locked down the perimeter, making entry nearly impossible. Teleporting directly inside would've left us surrounded on all sides. Entering through the forest gave us the highest chance of avoiding complications."
"I'm detecting six Sentinels on the outer perimeter and over fifty guards," Jean added, focusing her senses.
"We can take them down fast," Peter said, eyes narrowing, "but only if we do it cleanly. They'll adapt if we give them time, and the same move won't work twice. Every Sentinel has to go down in one hit."
He then turned toward Felicia and gave her a brief nod—an unspoken signal.
Darwin's power had two critical weaknesses. The first was that it could only adapt to threats it had time to react to. The second—and far more dangerous flaw—was that Darwin himself had no control over how his body chose to adapt. The response was automatic, instinctive, and often inefficient when faced with unpredictable variables.
And thanks to Felicia, they were about to exploit both weaknesses to their fullest extent.
She was their trump card—their ace in the hole, the lynchpin that would allow them to dismantle the Sentinels before adaptation could even begin.
Felicia clicked her wrists together, the sound sharp and deliberate, and began weaving her hands through a rapid sequence of precise hand signs. Beneath her feet, and then spreading outward to encompass the entire team, a glowing magic circle blossomed into existence. Etched into its center was the unmistakable symbol of a black cat, sleek and predatory.
"Go," Felicia said with a confident smirk. "Fortune favors the bold after all."
The moment the spell finalized, everyone who needed to move moved. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing—only perfectly synchronized action.
"Flame on!" Johnny shouted, his grin widening as his body erupted into living fire. He rocketed forward, blazing straight toward the first Sentinel in his line of sight.
Johnny unleashed a wide wave of flame from above, the force of the blast slamming into the Sentinel hard enough to drive it down onto one knee. Almost instantly, the chrome plating across its body shifted and restructured, mimicking the flames engulfing it. The Sentinel retaliated by releasing its own torrent of fire back at Johnny.
"Hahahaha!" Johnny laughed, completely unfazed. Instead of counterattacking, he spread his arms and absorbed the flames, siphoning the heat directly from the Sentinel and leaving its adaptive shell momentarily exposed.
In a burst of speed, Johnny surged forward like a comet and drove straight through the Sentinel's chest. Superheated metal liquefied instantly, leaving behind a massive, molten cavity as Johnny tumbled out the other side and skidded across the ground. The Sentinel collapsed in a heap behind him.
"Johnny one; adaptive robot zero," he declared, flashing a thumb-and-pinky victory sign.
Bobby was already moving. Iceman slid across the battlefield in a rush of frost, coating the remaining Sentinels in layers of ice. Before they could fully counter, he formed a massive ice construct—an axe larger than himself—and brought it down in a single, decisive strike, cleaving straight through one Sentinel as freezing mist poured from his breath.
Above them, Lizzy soared forward and traced two glowing circles in the air with practiced precision. Twin portals snapped open directly above two Sentinels. With a swift downward motion of her hands, she dragged the portals down along their bodies—then abruptly clenched her fist.
The portals slammed shut at their waists. The Sentinels didn't even have time to register what had happened before their upper halves slid free and crashed to the ground.
A blur of motion tore across the battlefield next. Guards turned just in time to see a zigzag of lightning racing toward them—but Peter was already among them. He struck pressure points along their necks with surgical precision, moving faster than their eyes could follow.
Peter came to a halt several yards ahead, two fingers extended forward as a trail of static faded behind him. One by one, seven guards collapsed unconscious to the ground.
Nightcrawler appeared in a bamf of smoke, grabbed two additional guards, and teleported straight into the sky. A second later, he reappeared beside Peter, giving him an enthusiastic double thumbs-up and a wide grin.
Behind them, two bodies dropped from above, hitting the ground with dull thumps—unconscious, but alive.
Peter covered his mouth, snickering, and returned the thumbs-up.
Elsewhere, Aria phased up from the ground directly behind another Sentinel. Without a word, she unleashed a concentrated beam from her forehead. The energy sliced clean through the machine, splitting it neatly in two before it could even begin adapting.
High above, Angel released Kitty in a sudden aerial drop toward the final Sentinel. As she fell, Kitty grinned.
"Woah—you can phase too?" she exclaimed mid-descent, slipping effortlessly through the Sentinel's body before disappearing into the ground beneath it.
The Sentinel immediately began to malfunction, sparks bursting from its joints as its systems failed to compensate. Rogue came screaming in from the air, her fist cocked back, and delivered a devastating uppercut that tore straight through the machine's neck. Its head flew free as the body crashed down behind it.
Around them, the rest of the X-Men and Spider-Family mopped up the remaining guards. Ororo alone raised her hand, summoning a powerful gust of wind that lifted fifteen guards off the ground at once before slamming them back down in a controlled but decisive drop.
Despite this being only their second team-up within the same day, the coordination between the two teams was nothing short of flawless. Every movement flowed into the next, every attack covering another's blind spot. Not a single guard had time to react—or even realize they were under attack—before being subdued.
It was a swift, overwhelming victory.
One that, unfortunately, wouldn't last.
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