The Nexus was considerably less impressive in person.
That was perhaps unfair.
From a mortal perspective, it was an extraordinary fortress.
Buried deep beneath the earth, surrounded by layers of reinforced concrete and metal, protected by automated weapons, energy shields, anti-mutant technology, and enough conventional firepower to turn an approaching army into a field of burning wreckage before it ever reached the entrance.
The Sentinels had spent weeks strengthening it further.
Every route leading toward the facility had been mined.
Every road watched.
Every patch of open ground covered by overlapping fields of fire.
Even the airspace above it was filled with weapons waiting for anything foolish enough to approach.
It was, by every reasonable measure, one of the most heavily defended locations on Earth.
Unfortunately for the Sentinels, reasonable measures were no longer particularly relevant.
"That's new," Tony commented from several steps behind me as another section of the hillside opened, revealing a row of launchers hidden beneath layers of earth and artificial grass.
Dozens of missiles erupted from them.
Behind me stood the people who would be joining me on this mission; plenty of them were able to deal with such an attack, or maybe that was a bit too generous. Some could do it easily; others could still do it with a bit of a struggle.
The one who stepped up and acted wasn't Magneto; it wasn't Stark. No, it was Tristan, my loyal knight, and the only one among my knights who preferred the bow over any other weapon.
The war bow was one of humanity's greatest inventions, and many later weapons came from that one source, that idea: shooting a projectile with a tool.
Siege weapons were but larger bows, shooting massive spears or boulders; guns, too, came from the same simple idea.
The bow was simple, elegant, and very old.
Countless modern weapons had long eclipsed the bow in power and usefulness; any gun could beat any bow... or almost any bow.
For a few guns had a mystic rating to them; they were too... too human.
The bow, however?
One needed only to look at the number of gods of bows or archery to know the massive mystic value the bow could hold.
As for why that mattered?
One only had to look at the scene before us to know.
Tristan had taken his bow, Failnaught, into his hands, his fingers lightly brushing over the many strings of the weapon and instrument.
It was, in every way, an instrument of death.
Then, as his fingers brushed the strings and brought forth a musical sound, he tightened his grip and held it like a true bow.
"Song of my pain, sound of my grief.
Hear now the tune of sorrow.
All lives shall deteriorate, and all bodies shall come to a halt before my sound.
Know that my sadness shall rend your flesh.
Redeem yourself in death. Bring closure through slaughter.
The sin and price of arrogance shall be paid here.
All becomes mere detritus once cut asunder.
This is my arrow.
Failnaught!
Farewell."
With an almost song-like voice, he activated his Noble Phantasm.
Then he loosed the arrow.
Or rather, what was once an arrow; the one nocked to the string was just a simple arrow, but when he loosed it, it transformed into a sonic attack.
A wave of pure, invisible force shot across the sky, striking the missiles before they could travel even a fraction of the distance toward us.
The attack was too fast for the missiles to even react to.
They simply... vanished in the sky, turned into dust and metal fragments that rained down upon the earth below.
"Very dramatic," Tony muttered. "I mean, I heard the pen is supposed to be mightier than the sword, but song? That's new."
Eyes turned to look at him, because this was hardly the time to joke around, but in the end, no one called him out for it, because they all understood that it was how he coped with being nervous.
And after seeing something like that, who wouldn't be nervous?
"Damn, I had hoped for some explosions or something; aren't missiles supposed to explode? Were they duds?" Mordred complained loudly.
"Ah, that's easy to explain." Reed Richards eagerly accepted the change in topic, as he was no less shocked than Tony after seeing Tristan take action.
"Missiles and other such weapons don't explode on impact, at least most don't; it requires a special trigger, so shooting down missiles is a perfectly valid option to stop them from exploding," he explained, providing the reason behind the lack of explosions.
Then, as if realizing what he had just said, he looked at me, then at my knights, and finally back at Tristan.
"Your Majesty, I would be deeply grateful if you would allow me to study your knights' abilities. The way your knights' abilities manifest... they shouldn't be possible. At least not without a large source of power, but your knights, they seem to have that power within them. And some of their abilities, like Sir Tristan's, they defy physics entirely."
He was far from the only person who was interested in the power of my knights, or me.
I had no doubt that right now, all the people around the world watching us had just added Tristan to a list of threats.
Or rather, just pushed him up a few spots on that list.
Still, just because people were curious didn't mean I would let them treat my knights as objects to experiment on.
"Sir Richards, my knights are not lab rats; while I will not stop you from observing their powers in battle, I will not allow you to experiment on them."
Reed looked rather disappointed at this, but he didn't push it; he could understand the sentiment.
"Of course, Your Majesty. I understand."
With the first wave of attacks so easily defeated, everyone continued forward toward the main entrance of the Nexus.
And as we continued, more and more defenses revealed themselves. But none of them were able to slow us down, much less stop us.
The Sentinels may have turned this place into a fortress that no human could hope to breach, but sadly for them, what came toward them wasn't human, but something far beyond that.
Turrets rose from the ground, but before they could even fire, Lancelot and Gawain were upon them, their blades moving so fast they seemed to be in multiple places at once.
Mines buried beneath the earth were neutralized by Mordred's wild swings, which tore up the ground itself and detonated the mines harmlessly.
Tristan continued to pick off any long-range threats with his bow, while the rest of my knights formed a protective circle around us, their shields and armor deflecting any stray attacks that made it through.
Tony and Reed watched in awe, their minds struggling to process what they were seeing.
They were used to fighting battles where victory was never certain, where every step forward was paid for in blood and sweat.
Here, it was as if we were simply walking through a park, the occasional nuisance easily brushed aside.
Huge anti-vehicle turrets fired at us, their ammunition exploding on impact, but they still failed to get close enough to me to cause even the slightest movement of my cloak or hair.
They were simply too weak.
Even the few attempts by Sentinels to intercept us were quickly dealt with. They were simply no match for the combined might of the Knights of the Round Table, especially not when they were working together.
As we got closer to the entrance, the defenses became more and more desperate, but also more and more ineffective.
Then we finally reached the entrance, a massive blast door, several meters thick, made of an alloy that even Tony's suit would have struggled to cut through.
"So, this is it," Tony said, his voice a mix of excitement and apprehension. "The front door. You think they'll let us in if we knock?"
Reed didn't bother to answer; he simply typed on a small device, trying to find a way to open the door, but after a few moments, he shook his head.
"I can't find any weak points. The door is sealed tight."
"Then we will simply have to make our own door," I said, raising my right hand, a small amount of divine power gathering in my palm.
But before I could unleash it, the ground beneath us began to shake.
"Looks like they've decided to roll out the welcome wagon," Tony said as a large group of Sentinels emerged from hidden panels in the ground, their weapons aimed at us.
Or rather, at Tony and Reed, the only two members of this little party whom they could threaten with such weapons.
"How dare you disregard me, you worthless steel cans!" Magneto said angrily as he was ignored completely.
Something that did surprise me slightly, given that the Sentinels were made to kill mutants above all.
The fact that they didn't target him was as surprising as it was insulting.
Clearly, they saw no real threat from the King of Magnetism, while they clearly thought there was some strategic importance to killing Tony and Reed.
"Feel the power of humanity's future! The power of Magneto!" he roared as he attacked the Sentinels, tearing them apart with a wave of his hand.
Yet, for a moment, it seemed to have no effect.
The Sentinels were fully equipped with all manner of anti-mutant equipment, not to mention that the area around the Nexus was covered in the stuff.
They were right to assume Magneto would be powerless.
But they clearly forgot one important thing.
They were the creations of men, and the equipment they used was also the invention of men.
And there were no smarter men in the entire world than Tony Stark and Reed Richards.
They had been fighting these things for weeks now, fighting side by side with mutants, so naturally, they had worked on equipment that would block the Sentinels' ability to interfere with the mutant biochemical reactions responsible for their powers.
So, after but a moment, Magneto's powers finally manifested.
And he showed them all why using robots against him was beyond foolish.
The Sentinels didn't have a chance; he tore them apart where they stood, ripping every piece of metal out of them, separating it from the alien fleshy bits that allowed them to use that Chitauri-like network.
It was a gruesome but effective sight.
And once he was done, only metal scrap and fleshy bits remained.
"That was... anticlimactic," Tony mumbled, not that he was complaining.
For a moment, we all stood there in silence, looking at the carnage that Magneto had just unleashed.
It was a brutal display of power, one that I had seen before, but it still never failed to impress me.
Then, with the path clear, I turned my attention back to the blast door.
"Now, where were we?" I said, raising my right hand again.
The small sphere of light in my palm began to grow, the air around it crackling with energy.
Tony and Reed took a few steps back, their faces filled with a mixture of awe and apprehension.
The Knights of the Round Table stood their ground, their expressions calm and confident, their faith in me unwavering.
This was their King, after all.
They had seen me do things far more impressive than this.
The sphere of light grew even larger, until it was the size of a small car. Then, with a simple gesture of my hand, I sent it flying toward the blast door.
The door didn't stand a chance.
The sphere of light struck it with a deafening roar, and for a moment, the entire world seemed to be filled with a blinding white light.
(End of chapter)
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