"Failed?"
Shadowcat Kitty saw Logan regain consciousness and instantly asked, disappointed.
In the normal storyline, Logan was severely wounded in the past, suffering great pain, which caused him to recklessly swipe his claws and injure Shadowcat; therefore later Rogue, who can absorb others' powers, took his place.
But this time Logan's past was incredibly comfortable, so that situation never arose.
Now Rogue is teaming up with Ice Man, absorbing Ice Man's abilities and desperately resisting the sentinel robot's breakthrough.
"No," Elder Charles shook his head. "Logan brought back a new friend."
As soon as his words fell, a blue‑glowing spatial portal appeared in the secret room, and Fang Yuan stepped through.
"I haven't even arrived, yet you already felt it," he said to Charles first.
Then the Space Stone energy surged from the glove clenched in Fang Yuan's right hand, urgently transporting Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine and Shadowcat out of the room.
"Boom!"
The next instant, the Sentinel's blazing energy flames swept the entire room, burning everything to ash.
When everyone reappeared, they found themselves in a frozen wasteland; within seconds Shadowcat was shivering from the cold, and the two old men—Professor X and Magneto—were even worse off.
But Old Magneto has always been a showman; despite freezing to death, his back remained straight.
Fang Yuan immediately cast Mirror Dimension, enveloping everyone and returning the temperature to a tolerable level.
Fang Yuan could sense Old Magneto visibly relaxing.
"Bobby? Anna?" Shadowcat suddenly realized two people were missing. "Where are they?"
She was referring to Ice Man and Rogue.
Fang Yuan shook his head: "I'm sorry, by the time I arrived they were already beyond saving."
Shadowcat's eyes were sorrowful, but she said nothing—perhaps she had already become accustomed to it.
"Charles?"
At that moment Magneto finally spoke to Professor X, asking what was going on.
"He is Fang Yuan, from a parallel Universe," Professor X explained.
At the same time he directly transmitted the memories he saw in Young Charles into Magneto's mind.
Magneto was stunned.
"These... are real?"
His face showed utter shock; Magneto had always thought such a World was just an old friend's decades‑long fantasy, never expecting anyone could actually achieve it.
At that point Wolverine stepped forward and said, "It's real, I saw it with my own eyes!"
Magneto felt a brief surge of hope, then lowered his head again: "But for this World, it's already too late."
In this timeline of the X-Men World, the situation is harsher than the DC Nightmare timeline Fang Yuan once visited, because the boss of the DC Universe is Superman, who still leaves a sliver of humanity, whereas the sentinel robots aim to exterminate all humans.
Professor X and his allies are now the only remaining resistance in this World.
"It's indeed late now, but what if we gave you a chance to start over?" Fang Yuan asked Shadowcat. "Could you still send Logan back?"
Kitty's face was visibly exhausted; her powers were clearly overdrawn.
"At most I can send Logan back... twenty‑three years." she said.
"Twenty‑three years? The year 2000?"
That happens to be the timeline of X-Men 1, suggesting some things are destined.
Fang Yuan nodded: "That works, it's enough for us to save everything."
Fang Yuan took a high‑tech platform out of a Sling Ring, resembling the one Captain America used at the end of Avengers 4 to return the stone.
Moreover, there were three small bottles; upon close inspection they resembled the vials the Ancient One once used to contain Howard and his wife's souls.
"Logan can travel once more to guide the temporal coordinates, and I can bring your souls back into our past bodies," Fang Yuan explained.
The Avengers 4 Team's time‑travel device can send him to the past, and the Space Stone ensures Fang Yuan won't slip into a parallel Universe and miss Logan. Combined with Kamar-Taj magic, they can bring Professor X, Magneto and the others back to the past together.
This is a triple‑fusion technique of technology, magic, and Infinity Stones.
Although Fang Yuan could directly teleport Professor X and the others, this is his first attempt at such a thing, and transporting people carries uncertainties.
And with two versions of Professor X and Magneto in one World, who would the X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants listen to?
"Souls?"
Even though they were mentally prepared, everyone was shocked by Fang Yuan's leap in thought.
They all have superpowers, but magic was still new to them.
Fang Yuan conjured an orange‑red sigil on his hand, enveloping the entire Mirror Dimension in a dazzling, colorful array.
"The other Charles never told me you could do this," Logan said, astonished.
The information he had received was that Fang Yuan's ability was perception shielding and teleportation; nobody mentioned magic.
Fang Yuan raised an eyebrow: "But the other Charles must have told you I've been to other Worlds, right?"
"Let's just do as Fang Yuan says!" Elder Professor X decided outright.
He is the leader of the X-Men and an old comrade of Magneto; after he nodded, the others raised no objections.
Anyway, this World is already finished, so we can only use a dead horse as a living horse remedy.
"Then we must act quickly; the sentinel robot is tracking us, and it looks like Old Eric is about to give out," Fang Yuan said.
Everyone looked over; Old Magneto stood upright, but his complexion was already very pale.
He was injured long before Wolverine's crossing, covering the others, and now he has reached his limit.
Truly a scene-stealer, not even a single hum after all this time.
"Eric..." Old Charles frowned, quickly asking Fang Yuan, "Soul transfer? How long does it take?"
Fang Yuan shook his head, "Don't worry, it's..."
Just as he was speaking, he slapped Magneto's chest, pushing his soul out of his body, then waved his hand so everyone could see Old Magneto's floating soul.
"Quick!" Fang Yuan finished his sentence.
Old Magneto drifted in the air for a long moment before regaining his senses, accepting the fact that Fang Yuan had knocked his soul out.
"If there is a next time, I hope you can be more polite!" Old Magneto said, his mouth open in the air, leaving Wolverine and Shadowcat puzzled.
In his soul state, they could see him but could not hear his voice.
Only Professor X and Fang Yuan, who possess Telepathy, could understand.
Fang Yuan opened three small bottles and placed them before Magneto's soul.
It was obvious this was his atonement—pick whichever color you like.
Old Magneto chose the nearest bottle and stabbed himself with it.
Then it was Professor X's turn.
Old Charles first looked apologetically at Shadowcat, "Sorry, Kitty."
He said that because Shadowcat needed to help Wolverine cross over and could not leave until the very last moment, so she couldn't return with them.
Shadowcat shook her head, "It's okay, Professor. I actually don't want to take these painful memories back either."
"Please restore everything!"
Old Professor X nodded.
Fang Yuan moved quickly and sealed Old Charles's soul inside.
"You may begin," he waved his hand, dismissing the Mirror Dimension for Shadowcat and Wolverine.
"I'll go check the Sentinel's movements."
Fang Yuan casually found an excuse to slip away, actually using the Space Stone's energy to open many spatial portals across Earth, then broadcasting his Telepathy through them to sense different locations.
Although his psychic power had reached B‑rank, it still couldn't cover the whole World; even Professor X needed a brain‑wave amplifier to achieve that.
But by borrowing the convenience of the Space Stone, Fang Yuan's psychic reach could expand to many places, effectively widening his Telepathy range.
He wanted to search the Sentinel side for any surviving humans.
When the Sentinel attacked the last X-Men squad, it was clearly a legion‑style battle, with aircraft deploying against sentinel robots.
Thus Fang Yuan guessed there might be a Sentinel factory operating; if he could really locate it, he might obtain the Sentinel's production data.
If he got that data, Fang Yuan could spare Trask many detours.
But soon Fang Yuan noticed something was off.
Sentinels worldwide suddenly seemed to receive a signal and all rushed toward Fang Yuan's direction.
"These non‑metal, non‑canonical robots must be a bunch of mutts, right? No Telepathy, yet they can detect psychic power?" Fang Yuan muttered.
The plan failed; Fang Yuan didn't want to solo‑fight the World's Sentinels, and there was no time to let them play around.
Wolverine was already ready.
So Fang Yuan teleported to the nearest Sentinel, raised his hand, and drew a circle, opening a portal at the robot's arm.
The Sentinel was puzzled when the portal suddenly closed, and the robot's arm was instantly sliced off at the middle.
Then Fang Yuan quickly retrieved the fallen arm and repeated the action on the surrounding Sentinels.
Since he couldn't get detailed Sentinel data, why not use some physical components as research subjects?
Just like Mystique was captured for study, Fang Yuan could reverse‑engineer a Sentinel prototype and accelerate his own sentinel robot research.
When the first large Sentinel force was about to arrive, Fang Yuan finally returned to Wolverine's side.
By then Wolverine's consciousness had traveled back in time; the Space Stone energy he carried fed specific data to Fang Yuan, who then set the coordinates on the teleport platform and delivered a final slap that sent Wolverine's scout soul forward.
"See you before 2023," Fang Yuan nodded at Shadowcat.
Shadowcat also nodded, "See you before 2023!"
Fang Yuan immediately pressed the Pym Particles teleport device, and in an instant of light he arrived at Earth in the year 2000.
The moment he landed, the Shadowcat left in the 2023 timeline and the swarm of incoming sentinel robots vanished completely.
You will get 90 chapter ahead for this fanfiction.
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