Issue 1 Downtime

When the Sentinels landed, there was panic. Some had been shot down by the RAF, but most made it through, landing in the streets, fully half of them in and around Mutant Town.

"Mutant lifeforms detected. Initiating neutralization." The sentinels leveled their blasters as they slowly started to make their way through the town, intent on burning it to the ground.

"Just remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall." Rachel said, as she shouldered her energy weapon.

A Sentinel took a blast at a group of fleeing Mutants, only to have the shot blocked by a telekinetic shield. Daniel grunted behind the shield at the effort of blocking the blast. "Then make the goddamn thing fall! And fast!"

Tommy went to nearest fire hydrant, and cracked it open. "Ammo!" he said. "Though what in God's name I'll be able to do at this point, I have no clue."

Bobby shouldered his own heavy energy cannon, taking a blast of opportunity at the closest evil robot.

"Take cover!" he shouted to the fleeing populace. "Get off the street!"

Nina stood behind the others, concentrating very hard as an entire swarm of probes took off from her and went to the streets, finding and patching up anyone within range as quickly as possible.

Captain Britain took flight, aiming to smash one of the sentinels' blaster hands.

"Mutant threat detected. Initiating defense protocols: Attacking mutants designated: X-Men."
The Sentinel turned its attention to Rachel and Bobby, aiming blasts at both of them. Around them, other Sentinels began landing, chanting similar phrases as they opened fire on the X-men. The one Janice aimed at, though, had its aim thrown wild by her hit, blasting another Sentinel in the instant before its hand was ripped off.

Daniel caught the hand in a telekinetic grip and smashed it into its owner's head. "You ever fought a Sentinel before!?" he shouted down at Rachel and the others.

"Aim for the eyes." Rachel said, as she did just that.

Nina stands her ground, seemingly not caring as the Sentinel's fired around her as she concentrated all her efforts on directing the probes.

"Why, you have a lot of unimportant stuff around you for the thing to blast when it can't see?" Daniel called back, driving another one back with a telekinetic burst.

"With this things in populated areas, I can't do anything without destroying half the street! If we get them into an open space--the memorial, perhaps--I can collapse the ground from beneath them!" Tommy shouted, beginning to wall off some streets to maybe slow the Sentinels advance.

"Take out the weapons systems first, then go for the heads," Captain Britain said as she went for another hand.

"Who cares about the street, these things are attacking people! Daniel shouted over the roar of blaster fire.

Bobby ran to another safe spot before taking another blast at a sentinel weapons hand.

"There are too many!" he shouted, eacking his brain for a solution to the problem.

"Stay calm, Bobby." Rachel said, not pausing in her firing, which managed to blind, and therefore disorient the Sentinel "Take 'em out one at a time." to Tommy she added "Open a sinkhole in the road."

"You're paying for it!" he called back, concentrating, and opening a sinkhole in the road.

"Oh, screw this!"

Bobby holstered the blaster on his back, and got a running sring jump towards a particularly nasty looking sentinel, using his fingers as sharp spikes to climb up towards its head.

The sinkhole pretty easy to open, given the thinness of the road (compared to normal, solid ground). The Sentinel nearest Tommy fell through into the sewer, smashing into the ground, and then found itself smashed beneath the Sentinel nearest it, which had fallen in as the sinkhole grew. As they fell, Tommy could feel the filthy water, containing a quite a bit of dirt and... other solid earth-like substances in it, much more than other water sources, as it soaked into the chinks in the Sentinels' plating.

The Sentinel Bobby was on started reaching back, grabbing at him to pull him off.

Meanwhile, the Sentinel Janice had disarmed (or rather, dishanded) started swinging at her with its stump, even as it raised its other hand to fire.

Anchoring himself in the steel hide of the sentinel, Bobby twisted at an impossible angle, drawing his energy cannon and shooting at the encroaching hand before resuming his climb upward.

Captain Britain decided to get a bit fancy, luring the Sentinel's fire as she positioned herself between the robot and one of the other sentinels.

Wait for it... wait for it...

When the blast was unleashed, she was ready to dodge.

At her usual stature Ronnie didn't register as much as a threat. This bought her enough time to match the size of the Sentinels. She tapped one on the shoulder from behind, her right arm already drawn back.

"Why dont'cha try pickin' on someone yer own size!" She yelled, hurling a right hook at the massive robot's face. The scene was starting to look like something out of a Japanese Kaiju movie.

Madrox soared by a Sentinel, skillfully weaving around it's optical blasts as he fired his twin energy blasters repeatedly at its eyes with mechanical precision.

"Smashing!" Tommy exclaimed, seeing Captain Britain and Ronnie doing their thing.

He tried to help out by raising bits of the ground to trap the Sentinel's giant legs.

"Why couldn't they have attacked NEXT month?"

"Because next month there would've been... more of them!" Daniel grunted, siezing one Sentinel in a telekinetic hold and yanking its head back, trying to provide a clear shot at a weak point for the shooters.

The Sentinel Ronnie attacked reeled from the attack, but didn't seem to be damaged as it turned and attacked her. It was, however, significantly smaller than her maximum size...

The blinded Sentinels seemed to be relying on other, more inaccurate sensors. The ones Rachel and Madrox blinded were firing, but seemed much more likely to hit the buildings people were still fleeing from.

Janice's bait-and-dodge plan worked, and the two Sentinels were pulverized by each other. Another came in to replace them, dropping straight down onto Janice in a free-fall.

Another seemed to realize that Tommy was the source of the ground working against them, and turned to fire at him.

"It's probably good that robots don't have bollocks," Captain Britain muttered as she tried to thread between the sentinel's legs and shatter its pelvic region.

Ronnie tried to grab the Sentinel by the wrists and keep it's palms pointed away from her.

"You know what? You boys don't play fair so why should I?" She grinned in her cheshire fashion as she grew more massive, pulling harder on it's arms to try and tear them off. Hey, it worked on a Starkbot.

Tommy ducked for cover behind Ronnie's massive calf.

Madrox took out a small device, flicked it on, and tossed it onto the Sentinel he had blinded. It would stuck like a magnet and soon deliver a directed explosive charge into it's chest area.

Impossibly, as Janice went for the Sentinel's pelvic region, a cannon port opened up there and fired at her, point-blank.

Ronnie fared better, the Sentinel's arm tearing off as she grew larger. The Sentinel wasn't out of the fight, though, first throwing a clumsy kick at her, then opening fire with its optic blasters.

Meanwhile, several Sentinels landed and started ducking under the street into the sewers, cramming their way in through the hole opened by Tommy. Madrox's bomb, though, detonated spectacularly, leaving a smoking hole in that Sentinel's chest.

Captain Britain was blasted back, and came to a skidding stop as she wore a trench in the pavement.

"Oh, you are kidding me. Who designs these things?!"

Madrox adjusted his strategy, going after other Sentinels with his remaining sticky-bombs.

Ronnie shielded her face with one arm which took the brunt of the blast. Still holding the Sentinel's arms in both hands she swung her free arm hard, trying to clock the robot in the head with it's own recently severed limb.

"Oh man... didn't know they designed those things for humiliation factor," Danial smirked as he threw another telekinetic blast onto the offending Sentinel's head to knock it off balance.

"Oh, ha-ha. This is the batch from Genosha, isn't it?"

Captain Britain took advantage of the opening Daniel was giving her to aim for smashing the power core in the sentinel's chest.

"There's something Freudian to say here, but let's focus on... smashing these bastards first."

"Explosive threat detected. Neutralizing." A Sentinel seemed to let off a repulsive wave, blasting back the sticky charges so that they rebounded toward their point of origin.

Ronnie's blow with the Sentinel's severed arm battered its head into an obviously nonfunctional state. While she did that, though, two Sentinels smashed through from beneath the street, grabbing her legs to push her over.

With no more holdout blasters to pop out of improbable places, Daniel and Janice made quick work of the Sentinel that had... shot her, then found themselves surrounded by five freshly landed units.

"Okay, did you see that trick that I pulled with the two earlier?"

"I can't do that with five. At least, not alone. However if someone could nudge their aim towards something nasty as I did it..."

Captain Britain headed to draw their fire, hoping Daniel would get the hint.