I tore open reality, revealing a chaotic channel of flickering realities, billions of worlds rushing past in a violent, unstable current. And I concentrated, hard enough to crack teeth, calibrating the Earthbound portal first.
There was a long static crash, like the portal was one of those old satellite TV sets that had lost its signal, before it suddenly refocused, and a path stabilized to Earth.
Wanda gasped when she saw it and sent a telepathic message to her brother, and I called on the Sentinels. "Give us an opening."
"Gladly!" Michael answered. His runes burned bright, and the Heart shuddered. Runes lining the walls of the chamber flared in sympathetic light, and several of Lauren's clones accelerated, firing shots from their guns and expelling darkness from their blades, but Azrael turned it away, creating a dense screen of telekinetic and gravitational repulsion, amplified by several of his runes.
Uriel provided backup, snapping her fingers and hurling hundreds of inscribed spears at the hordes. The runes Michael had been channeling finally activated, and gravity spiked nearly twentyfold, concentrating on Lauren's clones. Most of them popped simultaneously, while a few erected layered shields and dark matter constructs from the Necrosword.
All of them, without fail, collapsed to their knees, leaving them vulnerable. Our team closed in, brutalizing the clones without mercy.
Rin switched himself over with Pietro using a teleportation enchantment and channeled energy for a split second before releasing hundreds of fists, fueled by a mix of telekinesis, time magic, and soul energy.
Lauren's clones reacted dramatically when they noticed the fists. Each erupted with a pillar of green, slippery dark energy that choked out the air and pushed against Michael's artificial gravity and the still-raging Anathema fire.
I sucked in a sharp breath. I had seen her use this form before. Dante had needed Angel Ascension to stop her. My first instinct was to rush in and help them, but I knew that would be a mistake with the portals already open.
Besides, they could take care of themselves. One by one, their bodies lit up with a suite of physical and defensive enchantments, granting everyone who wore Dante's improved suits the strength, speed, coordination, and stamina of fifty Olympians, along with the durability to endure several nuclear blasts.
Wolverine was the first to attack, breaking through a prismatic shield. Scott hammered through the opening with a powerful optic blast.
Rin and the rest of the X-Men piled onto the other Laurens.
Taking his eyes off the spectacle, Pietro scooped up his sister and sped into the portal, letting me focus on my own portal.
That was when the room split apart from a dozen black cuts, several of Lauren's clones vanishing from the sudden power drain.
Raphael's mighty shield enclosure snapped clean in half—a third of his body vanishing. Michael screamed in shock as sharp lines criss-crossed his body and destroyed his weapon and hand. Uriel lost a leg, Scott's chest split open, Peter Parker and Kitty Pryde did not survive, and Piotr was barely hanging on.
Lauren stood at the center of the chaos, the runes draining out of the room, panting victoriously as a scream threatened to tear out of my throat.
I should have kept a closer eye on the battlefield. I should have protected them more. I should have—
Reality stuttered, then halted abruptly. Several sigils manifested above Rin's body as his chest glowed green. Bands of green light pierced the room and flowed into the dimension beyond.
And I saw genuine horror cross Lauren's perfect, smug face. She staggered forward, reaching out as if to stop him, but she could not fight the power of an Infinity Stone.
Time reversed.
The world snapped back to moments before the strike. A massive wave of soul energy crashed into the clones, eliciting a sharp, overlapping scream from each of them as multicolored arms wrapped around their weakened forms and crushed.
Bones crunched. Prismatic shields flared and shattered as they were bombarded with not one, but two Infinity Stones.
And still, she did not relent.
Rin became a supernova of energy. He had long since stopped absorbing the Phoenix and was now burning through the power of the Stones.
His suit lit up with stabilization and amplification runes, barely containing the strain.
Through it all, Lauren screeched. Her voice sharpened, then deepened and warped, taking on a distinctly male tone. Shin's rage echoed through her, pushing against the Phoenix's suppression of the dimension—to no avail.
In fury, she began channeling the Necrosword haphazardly, producing engorged husks of monsters the size of mountains. Their bulk rapidly filled the chamber, forcing Rin to tap into his teleportation enchantments and whisk Lauren and her clones high into the sky of the dimension, where the bulk of our ships, blasters, and defenses were stationed.
Every fighter in the room exhaled in relief. Kitty Pryde, in particular, dropped to her knees and started to hyperventilate, but Peter was by her side. They were all acutely aware of how close they had come to the end.
Scott clutched his chest, and Logan approached me, his voice fragile, yet resolute.
"Go, Jeanie, before she comes back."
Michael touched down beside me as the other Sentinels vanished from the room. "I will guard her until the danger has passed."
Wolverine nodded in appreciation. "You ain't so bad, for a robot."
"I take that as high praise."
Logan portaled out, and so did the others shortly after, offering short nods and worried looks. There was no pride or certainty in their eyes or minds—only dogged determination. A resolve to put Lauren down, whatever the cost.
It stopped being about Dante for most of them the moment she threatened the planet.
At any moment, they knew it could all end.
I had a lot to say, but I feared I would break down if I allowed myself to speak. I could not afford a distraction, not with the portal so close.
Ten tense seconds passed—an eternity in battle—before I sensed Dante's injured soul, and I stepped through the portal.
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