The X-Men ran outside frantically, towards the gates of Xavier's Westchester Estate. The perimeter defense system had detected a break in just moments earlier near the main gates.

<~Take care my X-Men. Anything could happen.~> Xavier warned telepathically.

Bobby Drake arrived first at the scene of the break in.

"No sign of no Sentinels yet guys." he proclaimed into his communicator.

"We'll be with you in minute bub." the answer came from the com' badge.

"Take it easy old man, ain't nothing I can't handle yet known to man."

"What'er you say youth, you sure there not'in there Drake? Drake? You still there."

Wolverine burst through the trees onto the main access road that ran from across the grounds of the mansion.

"Drake. Quit foolin'. Drake."

Suddenly a huge fist, bigger than Logan's head, struck him from behind. He flew two meter's forward before hitting the ground hard.

"Getting old gene-freak." shouted his unknown assailant.

Wolverine tried to roll over to see his attacker but found that he had hit the ground harder than he thought.

‘Must a broke a few ribs. Need a minute to recover.' he thought.

A burst of disrupter rays flew from the dense forest as Bishop burst out the foliage. Before him stood the gigantic figure of the Prince of Cyterrak, the unstoppable Juggernaut. Without a second thought Bishop let loose another volley. Unsurprisingly the bolts had no effect on the giant.

"Why don't you just leave me alone freaks. I came here to tell cue-ball to leave me alone so why don't you take the same hint. You found out time and time again that you can't defeat me so why do you insist on keeping on attacking. Just leave me alone."

By this time the remaining X-Men had arrived and had encircled the Juggernaut.

"We haven't been botherin' you. What're you goin' on about Jolly Green'. We ain't even heard from you for months. Ahhh, that's the reason. You just upset you didn't get invited to our welcome home party. Now it all makes sense." Wolvey stated now back on his feet.

"Shut up. Stop tryin' to make me look stupid. I know it was you who sent those damn aliens after me."

"Aliens? Aliens? You are stupid. Every one knows there ain't no such thing as aliens."

"Er Wolvey. What about the Shi'ar, the Skrulls, the Kree....." said Iceman nervously as he stumbled out the undergrowth holding his head.

"Shut up kid. What I tell you about not making me look stupid in front of big, ugly, bad guys." Logan interrupted.

"I'm stupid, you're stupid, he's stupid? What you doing, messing with my head. You're giving me a migraine. STOP IT!"

With that the Juggernaut pounced. Wolvey braced for impact but it never came. He looked up to see that the Juggernaut had not moved.

"They say that when you get started no-one can stop you. I concede to that point. But first you have to get started!"

Wolvey stood astonished as the Juggernaut floated 2 feet in the air, his legs pumping trying to move his body someplace.

"You may have defeated the X-Men in the past Cain Marko, but now you also face the might of Magneto!"

Wolvey looked to see Eric emerging from the tree's.

"Nice going Joseph. Keep him up there until we can find out what the heck he's blabbin' about." said Logan as he approached the helpless Juggernaut. "Now, what we're you goin' on about? Aliens? Explain bub, and make it snappy or I might just have ta get Maggie here to tighten that magnetic field around you. You ever opened a can o'sardines? You get my point?"

"You freaks. Let me down. I'll tell ya."

"Not in this lifetime Juggy. You tell then we think 'bout lettin' you down."

"Alright. Few days ago I was in the Alp's, workin' on a contract for Hydra. Job done I was returnin' for my payment. However when I got to the base the sight I saw was horrible. Mutants bein' slaughtered all over the place. Huge spaceships where nested around the base and more were comin' down for space. But I wanted my pay so I charged in, figured I could save the day and get a bonus. What a fool I was. Got pinned down by about 5 aliens. A sixth came over to deliver the killin' blow while mumbling somethin' about 'designate Marko Cain' and 'Xavier protocols'. Figured it was you guys sent the aliens so I broke free and ran. Then I came here."

"You idiot. They could be followin' ya back here." he said, a dawn of realization descending upon him. "Chuck, we got an old friend o' yours down here." he thought knowing Xavier would pick up his thoughts.

Back in New Zealand the butterfly came about to settle on a leaf next to the pond.

"Here we are Nate. Haven." Maverick announced.

"Its great Mav'. But now what do we do."

"You know for the so called savior of the world, the Askanison, you're kind of dumb."

"Who the.....?" Cable asked.

"Its the one and only, *most beautiful guy in the world*, the un-duplicatable, master of all known forms of combat....."

"Oh shut up Deadpool and get down here." Maverick shouted up to the stalactites.

"Well in the light of the fact that there's no skylight to heroically leap through....." Deadpool leaped down to the ground "It looks like I'll have to improvise."

"Oh God. Helloooo evil robot guys. I'm here. Save me from a fate worse than death." Cable pleaded.

"Always the kidder, eh Nate. I've had to suffer him for two months now. I was hired by LL&L to destroy a Hydra base here in the Alp's. Unfortunately I didn't ask about possible team ups. Anyhow when we got there the base was a mess. No-one was around, it looked like they were packing up for moving, gigantic space craft where present too, this seemed to confirm that they were moving. Then we must have been spotted and they sent these new robotic guards after us. We were badly outnumbered so we fled back to this LL&L field bases that motormouth here knew about."

"I gotcha. So its Hydra that's responsible for these new "Sentinels"."

"Ah, so you've heard of them?"

"Yeah, they've been killing mutants for weeks now. We planned this massive counter strike against a base in Spain."

"We?"

"Yeah, me and the X-Men and quite a few other combat ready mutants. Anyway we got there and were ambushed straight away....."

Charles Xavier tried his best to hide a quiet shiver as she saw his step-brother, Cain Marko.

"Its been a long time Cain." Xavier said trying to block out memories of his painful past with Marko. "So tell me, what did these aliens look like?"

"They were big, bigger 'n me. They were always changin' shape. When they seen me they seemed to change to a more stable form, they looked like robots. Then I ran and they seem'd ta ferget me. They went racin' off towards these two new guys. Couldn't see who they were. By this time all the Hydra bodies where gone. The aliens seem to melt around them and then when they reformed the bodies where gone. Must have been transportin' them back to their ship."

"How do ve know he isn't lying?" Nightcrawler asked, ever cautious.

"Look at him. Look at his eyes. I can smell his fear a mile off. This mans got no reason to lie. He's scared, bad!" Wolverine replied, confident.

"Yes. Even with this psychic interference that is currently blocking my powers I can see he is telling the truth." Xavier stated.

"Professor? What interference?" Bishop asked, noticeably concerned.

"I have refrained from telling you to prevent your worry. Now it seems to be more advantageous to you if you know. My powers are still present but they are significantly reduced. Now, this is of no concern, we must discover the nature of this new threat. With the new "Sentinels" running around the last thing we need are aliens invading."

"Agreed. But perhaps they can help us in our struggle." Beast suggested.

"No! You don't understand. These things, they're brutal killing machines. They got no remorse or nothin'. They won't help you. They'll kill ya." the Juggernaut spluttered in fear.

"Let us return to the Mansion. We can discuss this further inside. Joseph, release him." Xavier suggested.

"As you wish."

The nine super humans turned and walked slowly back into the forest.

Heather Hudson looked around as she slowly regained consciousness. She was in some sort of cave yet there was light. Bright light. Bright enough to send pain shooting down the optic nerve of her darkness atoned eyes as her pupils desperately contracted.

"She's awake." came a voice from somewhere around her. A blurred figure crouched over her. The blurriness slowly faded to reveal the tall dark figure of Northstar. "Hello again Heather. Glad you are joining us once again."

"What happened?" she stuttered as he helped her to her feet.

"We got ambushed. Flex and Murmur. They were robots in disguise (^TM). While we were distracted they attacked us from behind. Me and Aurora did grab you, Puck, Guardian and Box and used our speed to whisk you away before they could stop us. Snowbird also managed to escape. We are now in a cave in the Rockies."

"If you could have escaped at any time then why didn't you?"

"Humph. Is that what you think of us? How long have we been teammates? And you still question our loyalty!"

"No. I'm sorry. Where's Mac?"

"Errrm. If you would like to follow me, I'm afraid I've got some bad news."