Scott Summers, known to some as the mutant leader of the infamous X-Men, Cyclops, wandered aimlessly through the Winchester mansion he calls home.

"Daddy?" he queries to no-one in particular.

He is suddenly eclipsed by the shadow of the Russian giant who sometimes go's by the name of Colossus.

"There, there Scott." Piotr comforts, "Come with me back to bed little one."

Piotr put his arm around Scott and started to lead him through the labyrinth of halls that make up the mansion.

Elsewhere, in a darkened room illuminated only by a small oil lantern lies the majority of the X-Men, members both past and present. The telepath Jean Grey, the elemental sorceress Storm, the  rogue Gambit, the lonely Rogue, the mysterious Psylocke, the phasing Shadowcat, the Maker-Forge, the cosmic Havok, the Mistress of Magnetism Polaris, the sonic Banshee and the young Jubilee. None of them show any signs of life as they lie still, cold and lifeless.

Back in Salem, New York all is not well as eight of the nine remaining X-Men gathered in the briefing room.  Around the briefing table were Bishop, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Beast, Joseph and Professor X. They all argued, each contradicting the other as Xavier sat and observed. The argument reached a climax before Prof' X butted in.

"It appears we are at odds as to our next move." he calmly stated, "Now, one at a time."

The amalgamation of noises settled down and Bishop took the limelight.

"We need to hit back hard and fast. They won't be expecting another attack so soon."

"Don't be stupid bub. Even I can see that's a recipe for disaster." Wolverine interrupted.

"I agree." Xavier responded. "We have already discovered that we cannot beat them in a straight fight. Let us evaluate. Nightcrawler."

"Ya mein Professor. For those of you not with us during the first assault here are the details. For the past 2 months mutants the world over have been being attacked by robots we can only assume are Sentinels. The government denies all knowledge. About a week ago the Xavier Institute in Massachusetts was attacked and all the members of the school where killed. Ve could stand for this no longer so gathered together all the mutants we could find for a huge counterstrike to put a stop to these versions as we have their previous incarnations in the past. We tracked them down to an old S.H.I.E.L.D base in Spain. That's when we found out that mutant powers were useless against them. The strike did not go well. As far as we know we are the only survivors. X-Force was taken down early on. Excaliber fell shortly after. By then we vere on full retreat. Ve vere ambushed again on the vay back to the Blackbird. We lost most of our members before X-Factor gave their lives so we could get to safety. Now we are all that's left."

"Okay. So what happened to Scott?" Bobby queried. "He was always a baby but never as much as this!"

"Ve do not know. We vere separated from him and Jean during the melee. Ven ve met up again Jean was missing and Scott was just wandering babbling something about Babel. He's been like that ever since."

"I have tried mind scans but I can find nothing physically wrong with his brain. I can not explain why he has reverted to the mental state of a child." Xavier added.

"So what do we do?" Bishop asked again.

"We wait." Xavier said sternly, "We search down all remaining mutants and band together, then we take more direct action."

Meanwhile, elsewhere, a small, human sized Sentinel, the design of which looked only vagly familiar to anything seen before, walked down a long, dark corridor. The sides of the corridor were lined with glass, cylindrical containers, each about 7' tall. Inside lay the fallen bodies of many mutants, including the members of Generation X and X-Force all kept aloft in a liquid substance. Suddenly the boy known as Chamber jerked in his tube and his eyes slowly opened. Immediately the Sentinel turned towards the disturbance even though Chamber had made no noise.

"SHINAR. UPLOAD 6FG2D4. COMPLETE. AFFIRMATIVE. PURGE 34225. COMPLETE. RESUME."

And with that the Sentinel turned and carried on down the tunnel as a pink fluid was slowly injected into Chambers cylinder, mixing with the thick liquid already present. Chambers eyes slowly returned to their closed state.

Elsewhere in the world, New Zealand to be precise a butterfly flew across a pond.

At that very moment in the Alps Cable waded through the thick snow as he scaled one of the many unmeasurably high mountains. Higher and higher he hiked. Suddenly a repulser bolt from above struck the ground above him. Snow flew in all directions as the bolt impacted coating Cable in a light dusting of solid precipitation. Cable whirled and drew his side-arm, bringing it to bear on the aggressor. He immediately recognised the shape of a creature that sent a chill down his spine as he recollected the events of the past few days. He fired and rolled to the side as the Sentinel fired again. The blast struck the machine full in the chest plate, blowing a gaping hole right through it. Cable looked on, awe struck as the metal around the hole seemed to melt and flow into the hole before solidifying again, filling the hole perfectly. Cable muttered a curse under his breath as he fired again and shimmied left. This time the Sentinel moved to the side, avoiding the blast, before retaliating with its fist repulsers.

‘Alrighty then' he thought, ‘lets see how you handle a level 5 TK blast.'
He unleashed the blast before re-loading his weapon. The blast hit full force, kicking up snow into a mist around the Sentinel. Cable cocked the gun and raised the weapon, just in case. His intuition served him well although unfortunately his reflexes did not as a stream of pulse bolts hit him. His gun flew from his hand, a lump of charred metal as he fell to the ground. The Sentinel advanced over him and raised his gauntlets.

"TARGET ACQUIRED. ACQUISITION PROGRAM RUNNING. CAPTURE IS IMMINENT."

Cable cringed as he rolled up in a ball, his psi-powers now being interdicted somehow and his legs were convulsed in pain. He closed his eyes and waited for the blow to come when suddenly a massive explosion engulfed the Sentinel. Cable opened one eye and couldn't believe the sight he saw. The Sentinel was now nothing more than pieces of metal scattered amongst the snow. He sat up trying to find his salvation but could see nothing. Then his pre-arranged death nearly occurred after all as a metal gauntlet was placed on his shoulder from behind. Nathan nearly had a heart attack before he pivoted round on his back. The sight he saw before him stilled his beating heart as he immediately recognised help in the form of the mutant mercenary, Maverick. In his hands he held a smoking anti-tank bazooka.

"Some.....urrrgg.....serious hardware you.....oww.....got there Mav'." he stuttered.

"You better believe it Nate, you got pick the right tools for the job. How you doing, last time I saw you it was back in Genosha, much changed since then pal?" Maverick queried.

"Lets get to cover.....arrrggghhh.....first eh? We can recollect later."

"Lets move out then."

"In case you haven't noticed.....I can't move my legs. Got shrapnel in them."

Maverick bent over and helped Cable to his feet. Together they wandered off into the thick snow storm beyond sight.

Canada. What used to be the base of the notorious Department H. The once solid building now laid in rubble. On closer inspection shadows could be seen stalking the wreckage.

"LOCATOR FOUND. TARGETS LOCATED AND PINNED. INITIATING SEARCH."

In the underground basement cell of Sasquatch, one of the only places in the base still intact Alpha Flight stood in a tightly formed circle. They had been holding up for over an hour now. The cell walls were covered in blobs of liquid metal. But still the Sentinels came.

"Keep them occupied until Sas' and Snowbird can get back." Guardian commanded as he fired off a pulse bolt from his suit.

"Can do." shouted Sunfire over the din of battle.

He leaped up and let loose a wall of plasma, blocking the Sentinels path.

"There. Now they better hurry up, it won't keep them for long." he gloated.

"WRONG MUTANT. YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS, DESIGNATE "ALPHA FLIGHT" WILL BE ASSI.....[COMMAND OVERRIDE FROM CORE, MODIFYING LANGUAGE TO COMPENSATE].....WILL BE SUBDUED."

Sunfire looked up. The last thing he saw was four Sentinels descending upon there position from above. Then all went black.

"There's another four gone." muttered Wolverine as four more red lights on Cerebro's monitor screen blinked out.

<~Do not worry Wolverine.~> Professor X comforted psionically. <~You will see action soon enough.~>.

As if on cue, Iceman raced into the control room.

"Sir, we have a perimeter breach." Drake said, panting.

"It is as I feared, we have less time than I had anticipated." Xavier stated. <~All X-Men, prepare for battle!~>.