Germany.

"We are here, Keniuchio," Jet Black calls from the cockpit.

"Good. Prepare for landing, team." The Samurai stands up, looking out of the window of the jet they...borrowed from the Japanese Military.

"I'm scanning about thirty classic models and about three...oh my God!" Primal, manning the scanner looks at his console exclaims in shock.

"What is it, Adam?" Ki asks, as she walks over to Primal, expecting more Sentinels but instead finding something far more unexpected. Humans, a hundred, as indicated by the computer, all of them dead.

"This is Sentinel handiwork." Yashida Keniuchio turns and puts on his helmet. "We go now, team."

On his word, the small group exits the plane, which had landed on the roof of the main building of the power plant.

["Mutants identified. Offensive measures active."] The Sentinels fly in battle formation, taking out the plane first.

"Move! Take defensive positions!" the Silver Samurai orders, taking leadership of this motley band of warriors. Unlike the others, he is a born leader. Keniuchio does not take shit from the people in his command. He expects obedience at all costs.

"You do that, Samurai." Unfortunately, Adam Berman has been a loner most of his life, and he's the last person that will take orders from a member of the Yashida clan. He goes on the offensive, against the Samurai's instructions. He hopes to both impress the senior member of the team, as well as defend the honor of his homeland. He will, undoubtedly, fail at both.

"No!" bellows the Samurai, as he watches as one of the Sentinels blast with a searing plasma burst, as Primal is morphing into his dragon form. Primal falls before he even has a chance to react.

"Get him!" Samurai turns to Jet Black, who quickly utilises his enhanced speed to grab Primal. "Idiot! He should have followed orders."

"What do you expect from a gaijin, Keniuchio?" Jet Black remarks, letting his feelings about the 'white ghost' be known to his comrade. Jet Black is another mystery to the Silver Samurai. This is the first time he has shown any of his true feelings towards almost anything to the Samurai. What kind of grudge does he hold against the 'gaijin', as he calls him.

'So you are Japanese, Jet Black?' the Samurai rhetorically thinks to himself. 'Now it is only a matter of finding out exactly who you are, and the mystery will be solved.' Quickly they move Primal to the inside of the building, the Samurai keeping his eye on his mysterious partner.

(These Sentinels have, obviously, been programmed to use English as their primary language - Benn)

Japan.

"Die, soulless demons!" Yashida Yuriko attacked the Primes almost immediately after they had arrived. She was the deputy leader of the team, and was in command. She had taken the Primes first, and the rest of the group followed suit.

"These Prime Sentinels are not as tough as their reputation, Sister." Yashida Mariko, also gifted with cybernetic enhancements, states as she valiantly battles against the Primes.

"Indeed they are not, Heavyarms. They quickly fall before my darkforce!" Nightwind - a Hand assassin - agrees, as she forms a pair of sai from her darkforce and takes the battle to the Primes. The darkforce seemingly disables the link between the human part and the cybernetic part of the Primes. 'This could be a useful weapon against the two 'sisters' if I should ever want to usurp leadership of this group,' she thinks, and continues taking the Primes down.

The Sign fights alone, casting spell after spell to topple the classic Sentinels. He told the group that he could handle the classic models, and he was not about to go back out on his word. They outnumber him 30 to one, but he persists, taking out 10 at once with the strength incantation. 'Foolish robots, their programming prevents them from exerting any free will against my spells, therefore they have no chance against me,' he thinks.

Interlude.

Roswell, New Mexico. Bastion sits in his control room, awaiting the arrival of his son. His plans were going as scheduled; his daughter, a plant in the X-Men organisation, had given him all he needed to take down the mutants attacking him. However, the power plants in Germany, a crucial part of his plans, has not been secured. It seems that more mutants had attacked his Sentinels there and the ones he had sent to Japan to kill that blasted Samurai One of Samurai's spies had informed him of Bastion's plans for the German power plant, so he sent Sentinels to Japan to kill him before they could intervene with his plans. It seems that he was too late, as the Sentinels on both fronts were loosing. He looks onto the console linked to Siberia.

'The ultimate Sentinel. One final bargaining chip with Onslaught. If Nimrod fails, I am finished. But he cannot fail. He will not.' His daughter walks in, pulling his son behind her.

"I have brought my brother," she declared.

(Bet you didn't know that was happening behind the scenes of Extraordinary X-Men #3, now, did you!? -- Benn)

Interlude 2

Siberia. The form has finally finished construction. Its pre-programmed directives activate, issuing it instructions.

["Germany. Silver Samurai. Destroy all opposition. Secure power plant. Acknowledged."]

The robot jumps and activates his jets as the roof of the hangar opens.

Germany.

"Damn it, Adam. Why won't you follow orders?" Samurai, on his knees, pleads for the young man's life. "Come on, get up!"

"Could...you not...shout...I'm having the greatest...hallucination!" He opens his eyes, and a smile creeps onto his face.

"Idiot! You should have followed orders. Your foolishness could have got you killed!" Samurai quickly shifts from worry to anger.

"What can I say? I'm looking for the quick fix with the whole honour thing. Can ya blame me?"

"Dumbass." Samurai cracks a smile for the first time in months. "Now get up, we've got Sentinels to thrash. Jet Black and Ki can't go on forever."

Elsewhere in the power plant. Jet Black has a plan. Really. Although, to the uninformed, it would just seem like he's running for his life.

"Come on, big boy, you can go faster than that, can't you?" He taunts the particularly large Prime. 'Any second now,' he looks at the scanner, 'there you are,' as he sees another Prime is barrelling down the perpendicular hallway in his direction. 'This is a classic.' He slows down to give each sentinel time to get to corner, and simply ducks under the Sentinel approaching him from the front, as he picks up speed to get away from the explosion. "I still can't believe they fall for that!"

In yet another part of the plant, Ki holds her own against three Primes. 'This is an incredible battle, I will honour myself with victory.' She does a quick spin and kicks one of the female Primes in the jugular, incapacitating it, as a cyborg cannot exist without a biological component. She charges a Ki blast and lets go as soon as the other two Primes are lined up. 'Just like dominoes.' She blasts one and as it falls, its head explodes under the second Prime, scrapping its legs. She finishes off the remaining Prime with a localised Ki blast in the chest cavity.

She turns around as she sees Jet Black coming around the corner. "I got two, yourself?"

"I took three."

He looks at her, and beneath his mask, he smiles. 'She's good. Hot, too. Wouldn't at all mind screwing her,' he thinks.

On the roof of the main building, Samurai and Primal stand faced with no less than 20 classic Sentinels.

"You up to this, Adam?" Samurai is still worried that Primal hasn't recovered from the initial blast he took.

"Don't worry about me, my dragon form took the brunt of it. Which reminds me..." He morphs fully into his dragon form, and takes to the sky as he blasts three localised Sentinels with his flame.

"Let's do this, then." The Samurai takes to channelling several shuriken with his powers and taking out the Sentinels, bit by bit.

Hidden among the dead humans and mutants, one lone figure stirs.

['This had better be worth it, Doom. This damn immortality deal is seriously pissing me off, especially when I have to die like this. It had better be worth it,'] he thinks.

["Get...off!"] A field of mystic energy lifts the dead bodies off him.

["Damn mutants, this was supposed to be a simple defence of the plant. The mutants showed up unexpectedly. They threw our forces off balance, the Sentinels took us too easily."] He looks around, checking his surroundings with mental projection. ['Sentinels. Mutants, too. Different ones from last time. I sense...honour in these.']

From nowhere, two people, a man in black body armour and a woman in graceful battle attire, show up.

"Make way! What the...?" Jet Black stops, and lets Ki down.

"Who are you?" Ki walks to the man standing over the dead bodies.

['Japanese?'] He scans her mind, learning Japanese quickly.

Ki feels the intrusion. "Get out now." She looks at him with pure hatred.

"What's wrong, Ki?" Jet Black walks over, weapon ready and pointed at the man.

"I'm sorry for the mental intrusion," the man begins, in perfect Japanese, "I recognised that you were speaking Japanese and needed a way to communicate."

"A mutant, then?" Jet Black looks up and down the man, scanning for any hidden weapons or electronic signals.

"No. I am...independently trained."

"What do you mean?" Ki looks at him, feeling his aura shimmering with energy.

"I am taught by the Sorcerer Supreme of our realm."

"The what now?" Jet Black looks at the man with a puzzled expression beneath his mask.

"It doesn't matter. I was to protect this plant from an incoming Sentinel attack, but a group of mutants threw the HRM squadron here off-balance. We could not manage a defence, and when the Sentinels fried them, the HRM was lulled into a sense of false security. I could not do anything as the Sentinels fried us, as well."

"What the hell? If the Sentinels fried everyone, why are you standing here?

"That is an incredibly long story. I'd rather not get into it. Are you the only ones here?"

"No, we are with two others. They are fighting off the Sentinels on top of the main building."

"So the Sentinels haven't taken the plant yet?"

"Not yet, no."

"Then there's still a chance." He turns to run towards the main building.

"A chance for what?" Ki finds her question falls on deaf ears, as the man is already out of sight.

"Let's move, babe." Jet Black picks Ki up into his arms as he picks up speed to get to the main building.

(Dr Doom, Sorcerer Supreme can be found over in Flight two-part LS - Benn)

(From the German - Benn)

(The Human Resistance Movement - Benn)

Japan. The team has been fighting valiantly. The Primes fell fast before Heavyarms, Deathstrike, and Nightwind. The Sign is finishing the last of the classic models. The day is won.

"These Sentinels were supposed to take us? Pitiful!" Deathstrike spits on the fallen Primes.

"Indeed, this was an easy victory." The Sign touches a tattoo on his forehead, casting a spell of truth on one of the half-live Primes Nightwind had slain. The human portion was alive, retaining the memory of the cybernetic half. "Tell us your purpose, halfling."

["Yang Battalion was to distract superhuman targets, allowing for unit Nimrod to secure objective and eliminate opposition in Germany."]

"A distraction, of course. We must warn Keniuchio of this...Nimrod." Yashida Yuriko has had doubts of her husband's convictions to their marriage, but she still cares for him.

"Do not move, anyone." The Sign touches a tattoo on his hand, as a teleportational vortex appears under the group, and, seconds later, they are in a hangar in the warehouse district. "This jet is linked directly to the one the Samurai's group took. The message will be instantaneous."

Deathstrike runs into the jet, and goes to the communications console. She activates the direct satellite link to the other jet, but the computer claims that there is nothing to link to. "Sign, what is the meaning of this?"

"The only way it would not work would be if the other jet was incapacitated or...destroyed." He looks at Deathstrike with worry. She is young, and he fears that she might do something rash.

"Everyone on board!" She screams into the p.a. system. "We're going to Germany!"

Germany.

Jet Black, carrying Ki, runs out to the roof, and finds the man they were talking to earlier flying and destroying the Sentinels with mystical energy. "Ki, shall we join the battle?"

"We shall."

Samurai continues his assault on the Sentinels with a seemingly endless supply of charged shuriken. "Jet Black, Ki, who is this guy?"

"Don't worry about him, he can take care of himself. That, and we're pretty sure he's immortal."

"What?" Samurai stops his attack on the Sentinels. One of the Sentinels sends an energy blast his way, as Jet Black throws a disc in front of the blast. The blast hits the disk, which spreads out in a circular pattern until the energy is spent, and it stops expanding.

"I think that qualified as a successful field test. What do you think, Keniuchio?"

Samurai looks at him, noticing the man's familiar posture. "I'm...inclined to agree."

"Well, let's finish these bozos off."

"Let's." Samurai turns to find a Sentinel had landed on the roof, so he draws his blade, charging it with the same energy he had been charging the shuriken with, and proceeds to slice the robot's legs off.

The battle had been going slowly, the Sentinels' sheer numbers overpowering Samurai and Primal, but with Jet Black, Ki, and the strange man joining, the Sentinels fell quickly.

As Jet Black fires off a final blast against a falling Sentinel, in order to destroy it before it could harm anyone, the small group all join together in a triumphant manner.

"We appreciate your help, young man. What is your name?"

"Don't remember my original name; a side effect of dying 57 times. Recently, I've taken to the name...Lazarus. I figured it fit."

"Well, welcome to the cause, Laz --" Jet Black is interrupted in his words with the appearance of something on the horizon. "Hold on." He scans the distance with his cybernetics. "Looks like another Sentinel. He's picking up speed. Everyone get ready!"

When the robot reaches targeting range, he lets loose with a volley of energy blasts. The group gets out of the way, as the robot lands on top of the building.

["Superhumans detected. Surrender now or face death."]

["Face this!"] Jet Black stuns everyone with his knowledge of English, as he does with his sudden ferocity.

All this is in vain, as the robot fires a large energy beam directly at Jet Black, seemingly destroying him.

In Team X 2000 #04: Bastion's legacy; Nimrod! Any just who is this Lazarus? And just why is the Silver Samurai so suspicious of Jet Black? Does he have good reason to be? And, will the other half of the team make it to Germany in time to be of any use!? Be here in thirty to find out fer sure!