11-14-2025, 10:26 AM
Logan hit the next beast like a freight train. It came over the wall in a clean arc, hydraulic legs chewing up distance, jaws opening on a metallic snarl. He met it halfway, boots carving ruts in Proudstar's carefully tended lawn as he drove shoulder-first into its chest. Steel buckled. The two of them went down in a grinding tumble of claws and teeth and earth. It snapped for his throat, breath hot with burned lubricant and metallic tang. Logan shoved an arm between its jaws, adamantium plating under flesh taking the bite while his other hand drew back, claws gleaming. He growled and drove his fist for its eye—<br><br>—and everything went wrong. Not for him. For <i>them</i>.<br><br>The sound died first. No whine of servos spooling up, no clatter of claws, no distant, steady thrum from the giant in the trees. The Hound's jaws went slack on his forearm, pressure dropping off like a switch had flipped. Its eyes, a burning crimson a second before, flickered and went black. Under his hand, the whole chassis lost tension, weight turning from a fighting animal to dead scrap in a heartbeat. Logan froze for half a second, instincts screaming that this wasn't how a fight ended.<br><br>Across the lawn, all attackers stuttered mid-lunge. One that had been swinging for Laura's head stopped with its claws inches from her face, legs locking as if someone had jammed a rod through its spine. Another, tail raised to fire on Shard, never loosed the shot; the glow at its tip fizzled and died, the armor sagging as it toppled like a felled tree. Even the ones clogged in the gap of the broken wall sagged inward, shields popping out of existence, bodies collapsing into an ugly tangle of metal limbs.<br><br>Out past the ruin of the perimeter, the Sentinel's eyes flickered once, like a lighthouse failing. It didn't even fall. It just.. <i>stopped</i>. A dead idol staring at nothing.<br><br>Logan shoved the beast off him, rolling to his feet in a spray of dirt. Every hackle on his body was still up, every nerve buzzing, but his nose told him the same thing his ears did: no active current, no moving parts. Just cooling metal, scorched earth, and the sharp musk of adrenaline from the folks around him.<br><br><b>"They're offline!"</b> he barked, loud enough for the kids peeking from windows and any trigger-happy hands on the defenses. He didn't say safe. He wasn't putting that word on anything with this much tech baked into it.<br><br><b>"Talon!"</b> he called, jerking his chin at the nearest dead Prowler as he stalked toward it. <b>"Test one. Quick cut, see if it twitches. If it moves, you carve it to pieces. If it doesn't, we start draggin' 'em into a pile."</b> He planted a boot on the Prowler's chest, claws still out, ready to go straight through its core if it so much as hummed.<br><br>He glanced toward the mansion, listening past the crackle of cooling metal—for footsteps, for screams, for the telltale grind of any machine that hadn't gone dark. He raised his voice, aiming it at the open windows, the shadowed doorways, at anyone within earshot, comms included. <b>"Everyone else, listen up! Sweep pattern from the breach in. Two per team, no solos. Check every downed unit. If it's still movin', you put it down. If it's cold, drag 'em to the pile or find someone who can."</b><br><br>Logan finally let his claws slide back into his hands with a soft, metallic whisper, but his shoulders stayed tight, his stance still set for another rush that might not come. <b>"Don't relax yet,"</b> he said, lower now, mostly for the ones closest to him. <b>"Someone flipped their off switch. Could be our people, could be somebody else. We lock this place down, check every corner, then we start askin' questions."</b> The fight might've ended mid-snarl, but the night sure as hell wasn't over. [AI= <a href='https://i.imgur.com/zCR4Km6.png' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>https://i.imgur.com/zCR4Km6.png</a>]