Subject: [gbp] Mutant X
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 23:37:42 -0000
From: "David" <david.p.wheatley@lineone.net>

As part of the three year anniversary celebratiuons at Marvel 2000, we had a
story line where Apocalypse took over the world using the M'Krann Crystal
and the power of the 12. It resulted in a two six issue series and one five
issue series exploring this new universe. This is Mutant X, six issues by me
showing some familiar faces in different settings.

***

ENTER THE RESISTANCE

She winced and a tear formed in her eye as the whip thrashed down across her
young back, breaking the skin and blood trickling from the freshly exposed
wound, meeting the similar welts upon her body.

"Tell me the truth. Tell me what I want to hear."

"You've a long way to go yet before you're even close, bastard."

The crack of the whip and the flash of pain down her back and across her
left buttock cheek made her gasp out loud, and she threw her head back in
pain, looking up at the rope that hung from the ceiling that the bound her
hands together, and she struggled at her bonds a second until she felt the
hot warm breath on her neck.

"Ah ah ah," he said, and she felt the firm grip on her shoulder and she
involuntarily shuddered as he ran his fingers down the back on her neck and,
tickling her and then she felt the sharp tug of her hair being yanked
backwards. "The fun's just beginning, love."

The hands released her and she couldn't feel his breath, then she felt his
hands on her back, touching her wounds and spreading the blood across her
ribs, as he grabbed hold of her breasts. Her nipples began to harden at his
rough handling of her and she could feel his breath once more.

"No," she muttered, her teeth gritted, trying to resist his advances but the
reactions of her body told him that she was enjoying it and as one hand
toyed with the nubbins, the other ran down her naked form, over her belly
button and down to the thin mess of tangled hair at her crotch. "You
promised..."

"I lied..."

The rough, callous finger found the entrance it looked for and pushed
upwards, and she moaned. The whipping had already excited her and she was
damp, the fingering only turned her on more and she could feel a tongue on
her back, licking at the blood and she fought, trying to stop herself from
reacting the way he wanted her to, the way she wanted to. Then she felt
something pushing at her backside.

"Tell me now?"

"Yes," she said, breathlessly. "I want it, Pete." She could feel her blood
in the crevice of her bottom, lubricating it as she felt herself being
entered and she grimaced as she was stretched and she felt the touch of the
finger deep within her. "Oh, Pete..."

"Oh, Kate," said Peter Wisdom as he pushed himself against and in Katherine
Pryde as she pushed back and the two of them did what they always did after
they killed people.

They fucked like rabbits.

The claws flashed through the air, striking their target and rending the
armour and flesh of the target. They hacked away chucks of the person,
sending blood spurting out but by the time the attacked had started to cry
out, the attacker was on another target, who couldn't breath due to the bone
shard that lodged in his throat for just a moment.

At his back was a raven haired woman, her athletic kicks, and vicious
assaults matching her partners in effectiveness, if not in brutality. While
his weapons were his claws, her strength was her weapon and she knew how to
use it. She had been trained by the best fighters and she knew exactly what
she was doing, using superior speed and agility with her strength to make
sure that those she struck would not get up again, barely bruising her
knuckles.

These two were the most effective of fighters, and they worked well as a
unit, as if they deserved to be together, as if it were fated and they knew
each other so well. Nothing needed to be said as they instinctively knew
each others moves - she throwing them in to the path of the claws when he
looked to be running out of people to strike at, and he ensuring her back
was covered for while she was strong and fast, she did not have the senses
he did, or the ability to heal from almost any wounds.

They had come here, looking for two of their friends and found an execution
squad waiting for them, the cell destroyed and bodies littering the floor.
They had immediately gone on a rampage, avenging fallen comrades and looking
for some trace of their friends.

"DAVE!" he shouted as he got a scent and looked about, and one of them took
it as an advantage to try and attack him, but he was aware of what was going
on and he thrust the claws in to the abdomen, reaching in with his hand and
wrenching out the torn intestines before the fighter had a chance to react,
and he used the intestine as a makeshift chord to wrap around another's neck
and bring him in close enough for him  to slam the palm of his hand in to
the man's throat and crush the Adam's apple.

"I see him!" she called out, and she leapt up and over the heads of the
fighters leaving them to the tender mercies of the man known as Logan. She
landed easily and she could see their friend, his eyes closed and his face
bruised to hell. She checked him. "His heart's stopped."

"Do it!" Logan cried as he kept them off her and she pressed her hand to his
chest and fired a bio-blast at point blank range and he arched, his eyes
opening and he gasped. She leant down and pressed her lips on to his,
sharing her breath with him. "Good work, Jess." Logan came across, his
clothes torn, his hands covered in blood and he retracted the claws, the
wounds closing almost immediately and he kissed her.

"They got Terry," said David North, weakly. "They were waiting for us,
Logan."

"There was a mole in the Insurrection," replied Logan, helping Jessica to
lift him to his feet. "We sent their head back to Apocalypse in a gift
wrapped box."

North nodded, thinking this had been a close one and Logan pulled out the
device from inside his jacket and punched the codes, opening a tesseract
portal.

"Let's go tell the boss," said Logan and they went through the opening and
home for the post mortem of the fiasco.

"They're back."

"I'm on my way." The little girl looked in the mirror and smiled, thinking
her father was back and she opened her mind and allowed the presence to
enter her.

Every time it happened she got the same flash, as their minds merged and she
knew what he knew and though it was not a pleasant experience for her, it
told her that what she did was necessary and for the cause and she wandered
through the broken building.

The ruins of a mansion in the centre of what had been once known as New York
seemed to be the least likely place that anyone would hide from the mighty
reach of Apocalypse, as if that were truly possible, but this was where the
resistance organisation known as the Insurrection were housed. They had been
gathered by the telepath known as Ahmal Farouk, a long time opponent of the
High Lord, who had thought to have been killed in their last encounter.

In truth, Farouk had used his vast array of psionic power to delude
Apocalypse himself, tapping in to a reservoir of psionic power and so
whenever Apocalypse thought of Farouk, he knew he was dead and when reports
of the Insurrection came to him, he demanded to know why such an
insignificant group were causing so much aggravation to his people.

Farouk had allies in this venture and he had been preparing this for many
years, using the mutant shaman called Forge to craft high tech devices and
equipment in the sub-levels of the mansion. State of the art anti-detection
systems and a psionic amplification unit allowed Farouk to ensure that he
found not only the right people to aid him in this shadow conflict with
Apocalypse, but to also ensure that the High Lord's deception remained in
place. Farouk knew it would not last forever, but as long as it did, then
they had a chance.

Using the amplifier, he had been able to gather those who shared his views
of Apocalypse and the way of the world, and would work tirelessly to
overthrow the Eternal One. The leader of the Inner Circle was a fighter
without peer, who had seen much over his long lifetime, and was the wildman
of Canada know as Logan.

Logan had not always been a hunter of Apocalypse and his acolytes,
preferring to live in peace and quiet and letting the world go by. Dictators
had risen before and fallen almost as quickly. En Sabah Nur would be no
different, but then something had happened to change his mind. Apocalypse
had brought it on himself when his servants had captured Logan's wife Silver
Fox.

To them she was an unregistered mutant and demanded she join the cause or
die. She had refused, sharing her husband's beliefs that a man should be
free and though she had fought valiantly against her captors, in the end she
had died and her body was left broken on the  wastes, crimson blood staining
the white snow, until it dried and became a dirty brown, almost black.

Logan had found her and he knew he had made a mistake. Apocalypse in his own
way was as bad as the kind who had hunted Logan's people decades before,
killing the Native American races. Canada was death to the forces of
Apocalypse from that moment on and when Farouk had offered to aid him, Logan
had accepted in an instant, eventually letting Farouk use his foster
daughter Amiko as a host body, once he had learned to trust Farouk and after
the loss of his previous host, the young girl named Leyu Yoshida.

Leyu had been Amiko's half-cousin, as her adopted mother Mariko had been
Logan's husband, and she had been instrumental in setting the Insurrection
up, keeping their activities covert and ensuring that they took on mutants,
humans and metahumans and organising pockets against Apocalypse in to
resistance cells, and going to the aid of the cells when needed. Because
they were mostly human Apocalypse did not fear them, but that was because he
did not know the truth and Mariko had died in one of the raids from
Apocalypse's troopers before she had been forced to tell anything.

This was why Logan took these vengeance missions seriously. Farouk had never
seen someone so driven, and he knew it was because he was avenging not one
but two of the women in his life and continuing his last wife's work.

"Father!" said Amiko as she ran to hug him, not bothered by the blood and
stench of death that clung to him. He held her.

"Hey, darlin'," he said. "Ya in there, Farouk?"

"Always, Logan, always," replied Farouk as a couple of their people took
Maverick to the medical wing where Forge would see to his injuries. "I
understand that the parcel has been delivered."

"Good," said Jessica. "I never trusted that asshole Hrisalis."

"We heard from the Brit and the Bird yet?" asked Logan. "They managed to
tear themselves off each other an' call in?"

"Yes," said Farouk. "They'll be arriving from the West Coast soon enough.
Tell me, my friend, your honest opinion. We're losing the war."

"Yup," said Logan. "Apocalypse has been striking harder at us than he did
before, as if we've gotten his attention good and proper. Gonna have to
guess whatever you did to him ain't workin' anymore, or at least he's
starting to figure it out. If Terry's alive, and he has her, then we're in
trouble. Getting' the hell out of here may be an issue sooner than we
thought."

"Yes," said Farouk, solemnly. "That's why we need to find out what Pryde and
Wisdom discovered. With his background in the occult and strange happenings,
if there's a way out of the United States without meeting Belasco's demon
army, they'll find it."

"What about Terry?" asked Jessica. "We can't just leave her."

"Darlin', we've no choice," said Logan, grabbing her shoulders. "She's gone,
deal with it." He knew that the two of them were close, but they couldn't go
after her. "I'm sorry." He pulled her close and kissed her, but she didn't
respond.

"I need time to grieve, Logan," she said.

"I understand," he replied and watched her walk down the corridors.

"I'm gonna go clean up," he said, not taking his eyes from her until she
went around a corner and he lost her. "Wanna be presentable for the Brit and
Bird." Amiko nodded and she felt Farouk leave her mind and she took her
father's hand and they went back to their rooms.

Farouk concentrated, mediated and marshalled his powers. There was something
out there, something that he was missing and he was not sure what that was
exactly, but he knew that Logan was right - his hold over Apocalypse was
failing and he could not figure out why. It was as if there were something
out there causing a massive psionic disturbance, and then he felt a flash of
something that felt familiar, a taste, an echo, a whisper - he couldn't
quite define it but it was the key to it all.

The key.

That phrase rang in his mind and he was unsure as to why. This plagued him
and he did not know why. However he could feel that there was something big
about to happen, something special, something that would make a change. Then
he felt the arrival of Kate Pryde and Pete Wisdom and he left the astral
plane and returned to the mansion.

The Inner Council gathered.

Logan, Amiko, Forge, North and Jessica waited as Pryde and Wisdom sauntered
in to the room. Logan's nostrils flared and he could smell the blood and sex
on their bodies and he gave a little shake of the head.

"If you ask her nicely, old man," said Pete, noticing, "maybe she'll let you
have a try." He slapped Kate's bottom and she winced, half in pain, half in
pleasure.

"Any time you want to test me, Brit," said Logan, as his eye's narrowed and
the muscles on his forearms twitched where the tendons that extended the
claws from his arms were located.

"Enough," said the voice of Farouk as he appeared in the form of a dark
psionic cloud above the table. He did this here, because the war room was
specially designed for him to do so. "What did you find out?"

"The Apocalypse Dawn," said Pryde as she took her seat and looked at the
others.

"The what?" asked Forge. "I don't think we've heard of them before."

"We're not meant to have either," said Wisdom, forming a hot knife and
making it dance a little on the end of his finger. "We found it by accident.
There was an exchange between a demon and someone called the Katan."

"Katan?" Logan said.

"It's a Jewish word," said Kate, "back when I believed there was a God, and
it made me take notice. I don't think it's anything to do with the Jewish
but it was a stroke of luck."

"Kate did her phase thing, and learnt that that it's a training camp for new
mutants taken when they display their powers as well as metahumans, making
them warriors for Apocalypse' army. Seems it used to be some kind of cult
that waited for the rising of their master. He rose, they got rewarded for
their faith. The Katan is roughly the head Satan worshipper, except when En
Sabah Nur took over..."

"He got a lot more benefits," said Farouk. "We've wondered where he's been
getting his shock troops from. There was never a chance that people were
going willingly to his side that quickly."

"It goes back to what we've been thinking for a while," said Forge. "We're
losing ground on this and the Insurrection is going to be defeated. If
Apocalypse has a special training facility where they're inducted in to the
cult mythos, then we can't rally troops against him."

"What if we take out the Dawn?" mused Logan. "Go in, shut them down, strike
a major blow."

"We'll surely lose," said Jessica. "If we can't rescue Terry..."

"Who said anythin' about comin' back?" asked Logan. "We put the word out
among our people that we need a new Inner Circle. Truth is, Forge and Farouk
are the Insurrection. Farouk's the boss, Forge is the maker. The rest of us
are the grunts, we're expendable."

"A sucide mission? That's not the man I used to know," said North.

"Way I figure it is we're dead in the water anyway if we're all thinkin' the
same. I'd rather go out in a blaze of glory than slowly workin' at it."

"We don't know where the Dawn are," said Kate. "We've only just learnt of
their existence - a secret cult hidden for centuries could be anywhere."

"I know of someone who might know," said Forge. "His name is Strange."

"Your call, Ahmal," said Logan. "You know what I think."

"I've been aware of something happening," said Farouk. "An event on the edge
of my perceptions, as if I'm being sent a message somehow. It seems to me
that this fits in to what I've had visions of. I can't tell you to go - you
must make your own minds up."

"I'm in," said Logan.

"I don't want to die, but wherever you go, I go," said Jess, reluctantly.

"We all have to die sometime, Jess," said Logan. "Thanks." He looked at her
and she smiled.

"You think you're getting all the glory from our discovery, old man, think
again." Wisdom nodded. "I'm in, so's the Bird."

"Apparently I'm in," said Kate. "Dave?"

"I'm in the mood to hit things," said North. "That's the five."

"Six," said Farouk. "I'm in on this one as well. Seven if you count Amiko."

"Wait a damn minute," started Logan, but Amiko held her hand up.

"Ahmal has been working with me, infusing me with some of his power and
giving me limited psionic abilities."

"Darlin'..."

"I'm not staying by myself," Amiko said. "If we're going to die, I want to
be with you when it happens."

"That's seven," said Forge. "A lucky number."

"I don't believe in luck," said Farouk. "We must prepare. Forge, find
Strange and when you have let me know. I will speak to our people across the
world. Everyone else get some rest." The Inner Circle disbanded and went to
ready themselves for what would be the last battle.

***

STRANGE MADNESS

The shots from the rifle echoed with resounding cracks, as the gunman aimed
and pointed at the various targets who were attacking his house.

Every day, at various times they would come and start their little game.
First would come the shouts of abuse, then would come the stones being
thrown at the windows, then would come the displays of power until they got
bored and went away. Until tomorrow.

However, he had decided yesterday that enough was enough and he would show
them that Mad Steve was not going to be picked on anymore and he had found a
weapon that had once belonged to a friend who had stayed here long ago,
before the madness. He did not mind the mutant rabble, or their abuses of
the powers and place in society, but he hated being interrupted when he was
reading the adventures of the Cat in the Hat.

It wasn't the smartest thing he had ever done in his life, but then Mad
Steve wasn't called Mad Steve without reasoning and with a skill he didn't
realise he had he executed the bastards who attacked his home. The first
one's head exploded like a watermelon and the others stopped what they were
doing. In all these months, Mad Steve had never shown the slightest hint of
rebellion and he had just killed one of their number.

The second one fell while still staring at her friend, the bullet entering
her chest and exiting her back and she dropped to the floor with a cry. The
third fired of an energy blast but it went wild when the next bullet drove
through his throat and within a minute, there were five dead mutants. Mad
Steve put his gun down on the roof and pulled a cigarette out and lit up.

"Unless, someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get
better. It's not," he muttered as he walked down stairs to the Sanctum
Sanctorum, the distorted images of worlds that could never be and the echoes
of voices he knew he knew but had never heard.

"Okay, let's go," said Logan, as the rest of the Insurrection gathered,
ready for the last mission they would ever take. "Punch it, Forge..."

The Maker nodded and hit the switch opening the portal and he detached the
remote device to reopen the portal when they needed to get back or go
somewhere else. Logan was the first one through, claws bared and ready just
in case there was trouble when he got to the other side, and he was followed
by Jessica Drew, his lover and best friend. Next went Kate Pryde and Pete
Wisdom - the Brit and the Bird, reckless in love and war and filled with
enough arrogant confidence to pull off whatever they set about doing.

David North was next, and he was backed by Amiko Yashida, the adopted
daughter of Logan and also the host for Ahmal Farouk, a psionic entity of
incredible power as well as being leader and founder of the Insurrection. He
used host bodies because he led from the front as often as he could and it
inevitably cost him a body. However he was a survivor and in his own way as
eternal as the enemy he had sworn to see destroyed - Apocalypse.

The tesseract journey was almost instantaneous, Forge having created the
device based on the teleportational capabilities of their enemies. It was
often easier than usual means of transportation, but it was detectable by
their enemies and they often did not have long before the local acolytes of
Apocalypse came on them.

Farouk saw through the minds of his people and he knew there was something
wrong as soon as he arrived on the scene. It was a bloody mess, with five
corpses on the floor, corpses that had been brutally scavenged after they
had been executed. North was their fire-arms expert and he was talking with
Logan about what had happened.

Farouk could feel the horror at the scene from Amiko, the bodies mutilated
by weapons fire and the chucnks that had been torn from them as the locals
gathered what foods and proteins they needed to survive. This was the
Village, once a pleasant place to be and not too far from the main
Insurrection base, but now it was nothing more than a wretched hive of
savage scum. Rape, murder, cannibalism was par for the course here and the
home of Mad Steve sat right in the center of it all.

Farouk felt a sense of shame that his kind could drag the world to this
level of disaster, and that Mad Steve had once been a respected medical
doctor, and he was known by Forge to be a master of the hidden arts and
arcane matters. That was why his house was not boarded up like the others.
It seemed to be in almost pristine condition, other than the racial graffiti
that had been daubed on it.

"We've a problem," said Logan, coming over. "North an' I have looked about
and we've got lines of fire for the shots. He says that these shots would
have come from the roof of Mad Steve."

"Damn," said Farouk. Could Strange have finally snapped? His mind had been
tortured for many years and both he and Forge knew it was because of what he
was. "We'd better not be too late."

"I'd guess he's not receptive to mutants either," said Jessica and picked up
a gnawed arm that had been pulled from the socket. "The markings on this
shoulder. These were the Buzz Crew."

"Who cares?" said Wisdom. "We kick in his doors, and get him to tell us what
we want to know."

"Use your brain," said North. "Look at his house - you think it's that easy
to get in or even damage?" Then the front door simply opened.

"Yeah," said Pete and flipped him off. "I do."

"Motherfucker," muttered North, as Wisdom and Pryde moved to the front door,
almost leaving the others standing. They'd been invited in after all...

Nate Grey struggled at the bonds that held him in place, trapping him. He
tried every time he awoke but to no avail. His psionics were not enough to
break the chains that held him. He didn't know what they were made of but he
couldn't affect them, though he knew he felt that he was being drained
through the wires that were connected to him. They drained something from
him and kept him alive at the same time.

However he knew that for all of this, he had failed for he had seen
Apocalypse rise twice now, and this time he had been unable to prevent it.

"How are we today, X-Man?" asked Alastaire, Katan of the Apocalypse Dawn. He
removed his hood to reveal his shaved head and a goatee at the tip of his
chin. He'd seen him yesterday with a man he thought he recognised but he'd
not known from where. Alastaire had referred to him as the Key ands it had
given Nate a reason to fight again. Or at least try.

"Cut me loose and I'll show you," he muttered, mustering a defiance he did
not feel. However he knew, if it was the last thing he did, he would kill
the Katan and destroy the wretched cult that was the Apocalypse Dawn.

"Not going to happen anytime soon, Grey," said Alastaire, with a smile and
for a moment it got very warm around Nate as Alastaire demonstrated his own
mutant gifts, then he called it off. "As much fun as it would be, Apocalypse
has need of you, or rather the power within you." So Apocalypse was draining
him of his powers, but he needed to confirm it.

"That why I feel so old?"

"Don't think you're winning any points here, Grey. You are learning things
from me yes, but by command of the High Lord himself. We know that you were
built as a weapon by Sinister against Apocalypse, but a weapon by one can be
used by another and not even Essex knew what he was doing when he created
you. Instead of bringing Apocalypse down, he enabled him to come to power."

"You're bluffing." Nate was suddenly concerned and greatly concerned. "I've
not that kind of power."

"Really?" asked Alastaire, his eyebrow rising in an amused glance. "You gave
Apocalypse the ability to manipulate the M'Krann crystal. You've
demonstrated it before when you came to our world... what was our world.
There are powers in the universe that you have not discovered, powers that
your twin shares..."

"The Fifth Force," muttered Nate, wondering again where Cable was now and
what he was doing, if he even knew how to fix it.

"Yes," said Alastaire. "You have access to it as Cable does. How do you
think you managed to bring both yourself and Holocaust to our reality from
yours. McCoy was teleported through and arrived in the past. You arrived in
the present, Grey."

"So what?"

"You are the key, Grey. You are the piece of the puzzle that keeps
Apocalypse in check and as old as you get - you will never die. If only
Onslaught had known the truth about you. Apocalypse gives you thanks for
everything you have done for him since you arrived on our world, for none of
this would have been possible without you." Alastaire smiled as he pulled
his hood back in place. "You've an eternity to think that over, X-Man. The
last X-Man. How apt..." He walked away, leaving the prisoner to think about
what had been shown to him.

Nate closed his eyes, knowing that Alastaire was telling the truth and he
felt his heart breaking, his defiance dying within his soul. Apocalypse had
won and he'd used him, the Askani, and the X-Men to do it. No wonder his
followers were so pleased with themselves. Apocalypse had beaten them all.

Prelate Alex Summers wandered through the streets, his presence here
reminding him of the world he had once known, before he had been brought
back. He had spent a long time trying to work out how McCoy had done it,
reaching through time to bring him to this world, to replace the missing
Alex Summers, a man who had now returned and was with the rest of the
so-called Twelve.

The Apocalypse of this timeline was not the same as his own. His own was
smarter, more ruthless and had taken power without the games and tricks that
this one resorted to. One day he would dispose of En Sabah Nur and this
world would tremble under his hand. He thought back to how he had survived,
how he had proven his worth and that Logan should have checked and made sure
his enemy was dead.

He had killed the feral warrior's mate, the bitch Jean Grey, and then
disposed of his brother. McCoy had been working on his powers for years so
that they would affect Cyclops and in the end they had done. Cyclops had
died at his hand, a moment he had waited for and wanted so badly to relive
again but in his euphoria he had failed to notice Weapon X whose claws had
sliced through him, opening up his back. The pain had been intense and he
had been lucky that Logan had not sliced his spine open, otherwise he
wouldn't have been able to crawl away and wait for help.

It hadn't come until a moment later when he opened his eyes and Henry McCoy
stood before him, though much older than he had been when he had last seen
him. Alex had got to his feet, in intense pain and then collapsed until the
so-called Dark Beast had performed surgery on him and restored him to
health. Since then he had been a part of McCoy's Brotherhood, until the
changes. He had survived so much and he knew he would out live them all. He
enjoyed these moments alone, now that the Brotherhood was gone, devastated
by the attack of the Askani'son.

Apocalypse' decision to let him live was flawed.

"Sir!" A voice awoke him from the thoughts of the future. He knew of this
one, a spy who gave them much information.

"What?" he sneered at him and the young mutant cowered from him.

"The Buzz Crew... they're dead." Prelate's eye's narrowed. He knew of the
Buzz Crew, a group of five or six mutants who ruled the Village area of New
York. Ruled in the sense of thought they were in control. Obviously someone
had proven them wrong.

"Who?"

"Mad Steve." Summers could feel the power building inside him and he cut
loose and a blast fired in to the night. Mad Steve was a human that
Apocalypse had taken great delight in tormenting, through use of the M'Krann
crystal and the Buzz Crew. Yet another person the High Lord had
underestimated.
"The human... killed our people."

"Yes," whimpered the snitch.

"I will show him that the only good human is a dead one," muttered Alex. He
would gather some parademons and unleash them upon Mad Steve and when they
had finished with him, he would set up Belasco for the death of Mad Steve,
putting the alliance under threat. Once the alliance was dissolved they
would begin all out war between Earth and Limbo and the Earth would win.

Mad Steve sat in the centre of the room as they entered. There were no
floors to speak of, nor was there a staircase to the roof. The floor was
littered with books and papers and there was a musty stench to the roof.

"I've smelt worse," said Logan as the others tried to keep from gagging and
with his enhanced senses they knew it would be so much worse for him.

"Like the time you fell in to that lava flow," said Pete. "Like barbecued
sheepdog..."

"Steven," said Kate as she approached him. "Steven..."

"They say you can't be trusted, that you're a tainted one," said Mad Steve,
suddenly becoming animated and he grabbed her by the throat and she found
herself unable to phase. "They say I should crush your throat now."

"Fucking let her go," snapped Pete in an instant as he realised she couldn't
escape and a hot knife formed and flew towards Mad Steve who seemed to move
out of it's way and put Kate in it's path and it struck her arm and with her
throat constricted by Mad Steve's powerful grip she couldn't even cry out in
pain.

"Do as he says," said Logan. Around Strange's throat were two claws and he
could feel the third prodding him in the back of the neck.

"Father, we need him," said Amiko.

"Matter of opinion, darlin'," said Logan.

"They like you," muttered Mad Steve, releasing Kate, who fell to the floor
gasping for breath. "They think you have potential..."

"Who are they?" North asked, wondering how deserved Mad Steve's reputation
truly was.

"The voices. Those who were here and now are not. The dead cannot be changed
because they do not live."

"What's changed?" asked Pete.

"Nothing has changed. All is as it was, all is as it is, all as it will be,"
cackled Mad Steve. "Lights dancing..."

"I'll gut you anyway," muttered Logan. "And I'll enjoy it..."

"Back off, Logan," said Farouk and Mad Steve looked up and around.

"New voice, new voice, new voice, new voice, new voice," he kept saying, and
Logan, retracted his claws and nodded to Jessica who hit Strange with a
bio-blast. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Mad Steve
started.

"I am Farouk," said Farouk, through Amiko, realising that Strange could not
tell a voice from the ether from a psionic call. "We have come seeking the
aid of the one who knows, the doctor called Strange."

"I am Doctor Strange. Mad Steve, Doc Strange, Strange Steve, Doc Mad... All
one, all me, all knowing..."

"He knows fuck all," said Pete. "This is getting us nowhere."

"They see you for who you are," said Mad Steve, looking at Wisdom. "They
know you are not as you are. You are touched by darkness, but it is not you.
You're better than you show."

"The dead told you this?" said Pete.

"And more, Peter Wisdom," said Mad Steve and Kate looked at her lover.

"He knows your name."

"He said you were tainted. 2 for 2," and he slapped her backside and she
slapped his face and then they kissed.

"For God's sake," said Jessica. "Do that later..."

"A reprieve," said Mad Steve, looking at her. "They say you have been given
more than you know."

"The one who knows?" said Logan, looking at Amiko, but Farouk knew it was
directed at him. "Brit's right, this is getting' us nowhere."

"WAITY!" shouted Mad Steve. "Waity, waity, waity! I see them... I see them
coming..."

"Who?" asked North and then the building shook.

"IN THE NAME OF THE HIGH LORD, THE MURDERER MAD STEVE IS TO BE PUT TO
DEATH!"

"One of the Big A's goon's," smiled Pete. "Oh, goody..."

"We're safe as snowmen in here," said Mad Steve, his eyes wide and his head
lolled to one side as he cackled once more. "Can't get through the magics."
Then the door crashed open and the cackling stopped. "Golly, golly, golly,
gollywogs!" shouted Strange and covered his eyes as four parademons entered
the room, followed by the Prelate.

"Traitors!" he seethed, seeing the group within here. "Kill them all!" he
ordered the parademons who went to work and as the members of the
Insurrection defended themselves, his eyes fell upon Logan and his hand went
to the scars on his back. "YOU!"

"Damned if I know you, bub," said Logan, not knowing caring what this goon's
problem was, "but we're about to get can get real close."

"Die, Weapon X!" he called and he fired a plasma blast at Logan.

"Never heard of him," said Logan, rolling out of the way and smiled. "The
name's Logan. Let's do this."

~SCHLUKT!~

***

REVELATIONS OF THE DAWN

"Oh for fuck's sake," grimaced Pete Wisdom as he fired his hot knives at the
oncoming parademon. He hated fighting parademons because hot knives had no
effect on them, other than slowing them down a bit. When you were raised
somewhere like Limbo the normal rules of science didn't quite apply and
where as hitting someone with a shard of the sun would normally kill them,
parademons were something else entirely.

"Huh huh huh," said the parademon as it advanced.

"Shit," said Pete and kept firing. Then he decided to screw it and run. He
needed his partner on this one, but she was busy with her own parademon. It
had been a simple mission - find the man called Strange, allegedly the one
who knows and find the hidden base of the Apocalypse Dawn and destroy them
and the followers of the High Lord - no matter the cost.

Except Strange was also the man known as Mad Steve and he'd decided that
shooting the local mutant heavies was a great way to make friends and
influence people and he'd brought one of Apocalypse' flunkies and four
parademons. Logan was fighting the flunky who seemed to have something
personal against the animal man, but then again who didn't?

If it wasn't Apocalypse, it was Creed, or Payne, or Deus, or Vargas, or
someone else the little runt had ticked off over the years. For someone who
was over a hundred years old, he sure hadn't learnt a great deal about
manners even if he had figured out how to pick up the babes. There were
three that Pete knew about and they'd all been lookers and for a bloke who
looked like Logan it was nothing short of a miracle that he'd ever had one
bird.

As Kate had once said, the size of cock must be massive. Then she'd licked
her lips with a glazed look in her eyes and he'd had to belt her a couple of
times before giving her a taste of his massive cock. If she was good for
nothing else, she gave good head, but then she'd been a pro long enough to
know all the tricks.

Surely Mad Steve had something in here that he could use, until she came and
bailed him out.

Kate Pryde also hated parademons. It wasn't the fact that she couldn't beat
them - all she had to do was phase them in to the floor, the laws of physics
they couldn't fight took over and they exploded, proving the law that two
objects cannot exist in the same place at the same time.

It was the fact she had to touch them at all that got to her. The demons of
Limbo were evil incarnate and they had the ability to mimic the image of the
personal demons of their master, or the person who touched them for long
enough. It depended a lot on closeness and proximity and she didn't care. It
was the image that appeared to her that bothered her. It would be the same
face, the face she hated and loved with equal measure, the face she saw in
her dreams, the face of the man who had sold her in to slavery to save his
own wretched hide.

The face of her father.

He'd put her up to the mutant ranks, for use as a sex slave, in order to
stay alive. She didn't know why they'd kept him alive, whether it amused
them or if they knew that he was damned and every moment he was alive it
reminded him of his betrayal of her, but it amounted to the same thing.
She'd been put in to a life she had never wanted, but had come to like
because it was all she had. Her powers gave her the ability to get closer to
a man, or woman depending on the orientation, than any other and they had
touched her in ways she had enjoyed, although not for the first few times.

She took a deep breath and touched the demon as it swiped at her and it
changed from a one demonic visage to the next.

"KI-TY," it said to her, the voice of her father echoing in her ears and a
tear formed in her eye. They didn't often speak, but when they did it struck
her heart with a greater accuracy than any knife.

"I'm Kate now," she whispered and she phased them both and they descended in
to the floor and she released it and there was an explosion as the two
objects merged in to one and she returned to the surface, where she knew her
better half would be running like a girl.

"You're dead, you little animal!" shouted Prelate as he fired another plasma
burst at Logan, who dodged it with ease, but the flunky of Apocalypse knew
what he was doing and where he was aiming the blasts, because Logan was
having difficulty getting close to Prelate. It was as if they'd fought
before, as he seemed to know his every move before he made it, which was
annoying. Plus those damned energy bursts were wide ranging and were
trashing what was Mad Steve's house.

"Not yet, motherfucker," growled Logan. This idiot seemed to call him Weapon
X for some unknown reason, but Logan had never met him before in his life.
He wanted answers from him, a reason why he hated him so much.

~Yo, Farouk, what's the deal with this guy~

~I am uncertain~ replied the psionic leader of the Insurrection. ~His mental
defences are quite strong and I cannot divert the efforts from getting the
information from Strange~

~Hate killing someone when they're pissed at me an' I don't know why~
replied Logan as he avoided another burst of plasma.

"I'm getting' sick of that," muttered Logan, looking at his enemy and he had
an idea that he liked. All he had to do was get close enough. Then the floor
shook and he knew that the Bird had taken care of her parademon, but it
threw him off balance at the wrong moment and he caught the edge of a plasma
burst he was trying to avoid and the flesh on his upper arm simply fell away
as ash showing a scorched bone and he roared in pain. His arm was useless
and the pain was throwing off his concentration.

Prelate smiled and he knew that he could take his time, then he could finish
his friends one by one.

David North traded punches with the parademon, who hit him back and they
traded blows, as he absorbed the kinetic energy and channelled it back in to
his hands to hit the parademon, but it was strong and durable and it was
like hitting a wall.

Plus North's mind was on the woman they'd lost to Apocalypse. The person he
loved was out there somewhere, held captive as a gene-traitor to the cause,
being tortured for information. They couldn't look for her because it was
too risky, and the gains were not worth it. Yet throwing their lives away
for this cause were. He couldn't grasp the reasoning but the majority had
voted and he knew what his responsibilities were.

Teresa Cassidy would be beaten and she would die alone, thinking, knowing
she had been abandoned by the very people she had trusted and had fought
for. She had betrayed her own father and uncle to stand against Apocalypse.
Suddenly North was angrier than he had been in a long time. He kept on
losing people, people he cared about and it would not happen again on his
watch.

"FOR TERRY!" he shouted and his blows became heavier and more repeated. This
creature would fall and he would spit on its corpse.

Of all the members of the Insurrection who were fighting the parademons, it
was Jessica Drew who was having the most ease. Her combination of bio blasts
and her superior strength and agility meant that she could handle the
brutish creature that attacked her with ease. She was faster than it was and
she could leap and cling to walls and it couldn't keep up with her.

In truth she was toying with it because she could and she knew the others
could handle themselves and then she heard the cry of the man she loved and
she knew the time for games was over. The parademon swiped for her once more
and she leapt to it's back, clinging on to it with her powers and it
couldn't shake her. It changed it's shape to the face of a creature in a
purple face mask that she neither remembered or had the vaguest impression
of knowing  but it gave her an involuntary shudder. Whoever he was, he was a
shadow of a past she had long since lost.

Then she pressed her hands close to it's eyes and fired her blasts at point
blank range, lifting her body up and over it's head as the intensity of the
blasts pushed the facemask through the creatures face, in to the brain and
eventually forcing it out of the back of the creatures head, crushed flesh
hitting the floor and she went over to where her lover was lying on the
floor.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE, GENE TRASH!"

She fired her blasts and Prelate met her blast with his own. She could feel
him pushing her back with its intensity, but she needed to buy Logan enough
time to recover and hopefully the others would help her as well. It wasn't
like this was the first time they'd faced a few parademons...

Amiko focused on keeping outside influences from getting to Farouk and
disrupting his connection with Mad Steve, as he tried to convince him that
he was one of the many voices who spoke to him in an effort to get the
information they needed.

She had let her father through because he was her father and she knew that
there was something personal between her and the warrior of the High Lord
and she too wanted to know what it was, but that wasn't an option and though
her heart bled when Logan was struck, she had a job to do as the host of
Ahmal Farouk and she would fulfil her obligations. Her father would expect
no less and she listened to the conversation between Farouk and Strange.

~You are the one who knows. I must learn from you~ Farouk implored Strange,
but Mad Steve was having none of it.

~You all need something from me, me, me, me, me. When do I get something
from you. I need peace, I need quiet, I need bananas. I miss bananas~

~Tell me the secret of the Apocalypse Dawn, of the Katan and I will ensure
you have all the bananas you ever want~ Farouk didn't want to lie to Mad
Steve, nor did he want to use his powers to convince him that the room was
filled with bananas, but he had no choice.

~Promise?~

~I promise~ Farouk sighed, wondering if Mad Steve would be able to forgive
him if he ever found out the bananas he would see the rest of his life were
not real.

~I will show you~ Mad Steve's persona suddenly changed and Amiko saw the
amulet he wore slowly rise from its chain and attach itself to Strange's
forehead. ~Behold the Apocalypse Dawn~ The amulet developed a split down the
middle and the room was filled with a bright white light and Amiko looked in
to the heart of the light and she could hear a voice speaking to her, a
voice that sounded comforting and gentle much like her mother had done when
she was alive and she could see the images in her mind.

The Apocalypse Dawn are an army of mutants who also follow Apocalypse's
path, led by the 'Katan', which loosely translated means 'the enlightened
one.' They believe the teachings of Apocalypse to be the only truth. The
Dawn were created after Apocalypse first rose to power. He has always had
followers, those who have served him and believed him promoting his agenda.
For as long as there has been civilisation, there has been Apocalypse and
wherever there was cruelty and death, Apocalypse was worshipped for only the
strong could survive such treatment.

His followers have believed and have come from many walks and religions. He
has been called Set, Sauru, Huitzilopchtli and Kali-Ma among other names and
he has gathered followers who have been clever enough to realise that the
many were one. The Dawn were created by a servant of Apocalypse called
Ozymandias, to promote their masters agenda. Ozymandias was the Chronicler
of En Sabah Nur and wrote in stone all of the world history, foretelling the
future of the world and of their master's return.

The Katan would be shown the truth of Apocalypse and as the Enlightened One,
pronounce the gospel of Apocalypse to the world. The first recorded
appearance of the Dawn is in the during the Crusades when a Knight of King
Richard's troops returned to England and told of the coming of Apocalypse
and the transformation of the French Knight, Bennet du Paris in to the being
called Exodus. Soon after the report was transcribed in the Royal Texts, the
Dawn appeared to proclaim the arrival of their God, however they were
ignored and those who spoke against the Christian faith were executed as
savages. It is also believed that the knights who would guard the tomb of
Bennet du Paris in the Alpine Mountains were also members of the Apocalypse
Dawn, providing a route for the Dawn in to England.

Since then there have been few and far between appearances of the Dawn in
the annals of history, but when Apocalypse took power, they became a cult no
longer and his army. There have been various clans of the Apocalypse Dawn,
but all the clan leaders have obeyed the directions of the various Katans
who have existed throughout history, the most infamous having the personal
ear of Apocalypse himself when he has returned. The Apocalypse Dawn were
housed in the place that they worship as the most scared, the birthplace of
Apocalypse called Akkaba and they have also occupied offices in New York,
however their main forces have returned to the place they know as their
ancestral home and can be found deep between the tower of the Eternal
Pharoah in Akkaba.

"They were right under our very noses..." whispered Amiko. How could they
have been so close and yet so far away and they had never known, but Farouk
had not heard her and she couldn't see what he saw.

Farouk had been shown the truth on the levels that Mad Steve saw them, he
could see that this world was not their world at all but a perversion of
what it had once been. All this had been created by Apocalypse and his
manipulations.

"Five thousand years and they didn't see it coming," said Farouk.

"Ahmal, you sound colder," said Amiko, concerned about what she felt in her
friend's mind.

"The cold light of truth," said Farouk, looking at his people. In another
time, another place this was exactly what he wanted but not now. Apocalypse
needed to be taught a lesson and luckily he had been working on this before
anything had changed and there was a weak link in the chain and now he
understood what the disturbances he felt were - a reminder from himself to
himself using the only available messaging service. "I understand now." He
looked in to the mind of Mad Steve. "All that power, locked away in the mind
of a crazy man. How Apocalypse must be laughing at us all. We'll have the
last laugh yet."

"Ahaml?" Amiko said, not sure what she was sensing from their leader.

"We must finish this and quickly," said Farouk. "There is much for us to
do." He hit the remaining parademons with a psionic burst of power and they
started to turn on each other, leaving North and Wisdom free. "David, add
your power to Jessica's - force Prelate back."

"What about us?" asked Wisdom, who had rejoined with Prdye.

"You're the key to the plan," said Farouk. "Peter, on my signal hit him with
everything you have. Kate, you need to get Logan in close..." Then he
reached in to the mind of Prelate and pulled the reason for his hatred of
Logan from his mind and gave it to the healing warrior.

~He's from another universe, where he killed the woman the version of you
loved. Somehow he survived~

"Not fer long," said Logan, his fury rising. He'd lost too many women to too
many people and the possibility of the people who killed his own escaping
his wrath was not an option. This would be a death long overdue. As North
boosted Jessica's energies against him, Prelate didn't notice that Logan was
being phased by Kate and they went under the floor, her powers getting them
behind him.

Logan tapped Prelate on the shoulder and Prelate turned and was met by pain
as claws slashed at him and he fired his powers in retaliation. Except
nothing happened. His hands had been removed and he was bleeding badly.

"Lost something?" asked Wisdom who fired his hot knives in to him. Prelate
turned, absorbing the solar power due to the modifications made to him by
the Dark Beast so he could kill his brother Cyclops, but with no hands he
couldn't release the energy building up within him.

"No..." he cried as the plasma discharge began to spill from every orifice
in his body and then Prelate simply exploded, the power finally released
from his body and the room was bathed in the plasma burst. The Insurrection
were protected by the phasing powers of Kate Pryde but the home of Mad Steve
was devastated.

"Now that was fun," said Wisdom. "What now?"

"We hit the stronghold of Apocalypse - his tower of power," said Farouk.
North looked up, knowing if Terry was anywhere, she'd be there. "We'll fight
Apocalypse's people on his own homeland, in my homeland." The Shadow King
smiled. "After all, every garden of God needs a serpent."

***

THE TOWER OF POWER

In his prison in the depths of the Great Pyramid, Nate Grey contemplated the
futility of his existence, being used by Apocalypse to create this hellish
nightmare that was reality. He couldn't focus fully to make his psionics
work for him, but he could feel an empathy with the rest of the planet and
he could hear the screams of the innocent and the corrupted in his ears.

The words Alastaire told him echo in his heart, that he was the person
responsible for this, that the connection he had to the Fifth Force was
enabling Apocalypse to alter everything. Nate had never been able to access
the kind of power that Cable had shown he possessed, but then again he was
powerful in his own right - his active psionics were stronger than those of
his brother, stronger than those of Stryfe so it made a kind of sense.
Except how come Sinister had never mentioned such a thing to him, that he
hadn't been given the access to it that Cable had.

Plus if Stryfe had access to the power, why had he never used it -
Apocalypse would have shown him in the future if nothing else. There had to
be a reason to it all, Alistaire hadn't been lying, Nate knew that. But what
if the truth wasn't fully told either? What could he do to fight it, what
did he have left to stop Apocalypse. In truth he had nothing, unless the
chains and tubes that bound him and drained his power were removed. He was
helpless and alone. Nobody was coming to help him, there were no X-Men and
if Cable was out there, he had either forgotten him or thought he was dead.
A involuntary tear fell from his eye as he thought to what had happened, how
much of this was indeed his fault, and he also thought of Madelyne Pryor,
his friend, his lover, his creation, now perverted by Apocalypse to his
latest Horseman of Death.

Then he felt something an awakening somewhere in the world, something
familiar and somehow comforting to him and he knew that everything would
somehow be okay.

To the west of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, past the ruins of the
ancient city of Thebes was a small village known as Akkaba. Over years the
place was ruined and rebuilt many times with no real claim to fame except
one - it was the birthplace of En Sabah Nur, Apocalypse. Now it holds one
thing and one alone - a tower built by Apocalypse to store the mighty
Celestial artefacts he obtained and now serving as a base of operations for
the Apocalypse Dawn, while their lord and master rules the world from the
Great Pyramid at Giza, it's former glories ravaged and converted by
Apocalypse for his own needs.

Ahmal Farouk had been born in Cairo, not too far from the Great Pyramid and
he had known early that he had great power and he had learnt to use his mind
to his advantage and he had also known that he was destined for great
things. He had done so much in his time before he had been approached by
several Nazi powers who had been searching for a demon to turn to their
will. They hadn't been looking for him, but for another, but he had worked
with them, using them to his own will and learning about the other Egyptian
demon. He had learnt much about Apocalypse, even though they had never met.

Except now they had, they had fought and Apocalypse had considered him to be
dead. Farouk's memories of what had once been were returning and he knew
that the measures he had taken in the other reality to ensure his freedom
from En Sabah Nur's grip. Apocalypse had under-estimated him and his ability
to manipulate circumstances almost as well as he could. However there was
much to do until then. Now they were not far from the fabled Tower of Power
that held the enemy they were after.

"Are we ready?" he asked the rest of the Insurrection and they gave silent
agreement. Then he turned the briefing over to Amiko.

"Okay, according to what we saw in the amulet the Dawn are broken down in to
several sections, each section having it's own faction of mutants. They're
broken in to elementals, psions and actual mutations." Farouk took over
again as Amiko gave the knowledge she had gained to the members of the
squad.

"Logan, you, Jess and Kate you hit the mutants with physical mutations and
ones with mutant powers that have enhanced their bodies somehow. Pete and
David, you get the energy wielders, Amiko and I will take on the psionics."

"Mission parameters?" asked Logan as he lit a cigar. He was pretty sure of
what they all had to do but he was just checking. Logan had noticed
something change about Farouk ever since they had visited Mad Steve. Since
the revelations from Mad Steve's mystic eye, he'd seemed distracted, as if
there was something else going on, and he could see Amiko was unsure about
it as well. If his daughter was hurt, he'd find a way to kill Farouk
himself.

"Take out as many of them as we can until they're dead or we are," said
Farouk, noting their field leader's perturbation, thinking he needed to be
more careful. "The army of Apocalypse will fall. Remember they're untried
and in the process of being trained. Use it to your advantage. Also remember
the Katan - we take him out, his army becomes out army, but he's become the
Katan for a reason. He has power and he's not afraid to use it."

"So we just walk up to it and go in?" asked Kate. "That's almost too easy."

"Yeah," said Pete. "How many sensors do you think the big A has over his
academy?"

"That's one for David and Logan," asked Jess. "They're our insurgency
people. David's mask has cybernetics that will allow him to spot any sensors
and Logan's enhanced senses will give us the edge."

"Couple of seconds is all I need..." muttered Logan as he blew a smoke ring.
David North was quiet, thinking about this. He knew in all honesty they
weren't going to survive this and it was something that concerned him. He
wasn't afraid of dying, but he wasn't sure that this would do anything for
the cause other than throw away their lives.

"Let's go," said Farouk and the team made their way across the sands towards
the Tower.

Inside the Tower, that had been renamed as Crestcoast by Apocalypse,
Alastaire Kaine, Katan of the Apocalypse Dawn watched as his people worked
and trained below, proving themselves worthy of serving the glory of En
Sabah Nur. They proved themselves in the only way possible in line with the
doctrines they had devoted themselves to following. They used their powers
to fight, to survive and those who did not survive were not worthy. Such was
the way of Apocalypse.

Never had he imagined that this would be the fruit of their labours, that he
was the general of the army of Apocalypse, with the ear and favour of the
High Lord and so far he had served him well, and succeeded in every task
that he had been set. Now he had been given a new task, to ensure that the
next generation of mutants would follow the word of Apocalypse, that the
High Lord population would be weeded out from the fittest and the future
would be one that belonged to Apocalypse himself.

It was interesting, mused Alastaire, that despite of all Apocalypse's many
manipulations it was true that two thousand years, he died at the hands of
Cyclops, Phoenix and the young Cable. That much the High Lord had learnt
from the many meetings of beings from the future and the writings of Tyler
Dayspring - Genesis, heir to Apocalypse - as well as gaining some
information from Cable's mind when they joined forces to fight Onslaught.
Everything had made sense of the stone carvings of Ozymandias and that was
how Apocalypse had conceived of this, his master plan.

He would use all his enemies to thwart destiny and create a world in which
he ruled, in which he would not die at the hands of his enemies. He would
survive because he was ensuring his survival now and only he had the cunning
to see everything that was being planned, for he was the Eternal. Then
something caught Alastaire's attention.

"Impossible," mused Alastaire as he reinspected the readings on the
consoles. There was a strike force coming, someone was actually attacking
the Tower. "Fools," said Alastaire, but for a moment he worried and
contemplated alerting the High Lord and requesting reinforcements. Then he
shook his head. So these were Alpha class mutants. They weren't the Twelve,
and they would be a fine test of the acolytes of Apocalypse.

In fact this would be a very interesting test and he decided to turn off the
defences of the Tower. Let the strike force come, let them attack his
students. If the students died, so be it. He didn't doubt for a moment there
would not be deaths and he himself would get involved if the situation
called for it.

Survival of the fittest.

Darron Both had learnt that he could generate bony spurs at the base of his
wrists as well as suddenly getting very strong. He had smiled when he had
realised he was a mutant and he had removed his spectacles and went out in
to the street to find the people who had treated him like dirt previously
and he beat them to death with his bare hands.

This act brought him to the attention of the servants of the Apocalypse and
he knew that it was what he wanted to do with his life, with his powers and
he had been transported to this place where he had been using his powers to
great effect and soon he hoped the Katan would deem him worthy of becoming
on of the High Guard of Apocalypse.

Then he heard a noise and he turned to see a short man standing before him.
He looked old, yet not too old but Darron also could tell he was dangerous
and that he shouldn't be here. He smiled at him and then he saw the smile he
gave people reflected back at him. He bared the spurs from his wrists and
the shot up from each of his wrists, two shards of bone going down to almost
the elbow. It usually gave people a moment's alarm to see someone open a
gash in themselves, but not this guy.

In fact he did something similar and six, foot long claws shot from the
backs of his hands and Darron looked on in awe at such a move and then the
short guy moved and he was fast. Before Darron could move he realised the
guy had gone past him and was working his way through the others, backed up
by two women who were close behind him. Darron looked down, going cold and
he realised he was missing the lower part of his gut. The claws had opened
up his belly and his intestines were on the floor before him and he slumped
to the floor thinking that for all that training and he'd been gutted like a
flatscan...

The screams began as Logan hacked and slashed his way through the enemy,
fighting like a demon. The odds were against them he knew that and he was
taking hits of his own as he went, but he didn't care. His job was to hack
through the enemy in to small pieces and his claws were clothed in the blood
of his enemies, or perhaps it was his own blood, he wasn't sure.

Jess too was striking with all her passion and intensity. Her bio blasts and
strength backed up Logan and Kate too was using her powers, phasing through
people, phasing people in to each other and other objects killing them
instantly. There were the occasional people who could shift their mass to
provide her with the opportunity to hit people but she could do that as well
and she was good at it. Logan and Peter had taught her how to fight and she
knew where to strike and where would cause the most damage.

Wisdom entered the room and fired as many hot knives as he could in a moment
and felled twenty people before they even knew he was there. His eyes were
almost blank as he let himself fall in to the zone, where everything was
dark, cold and bitter within him, the part where he could surrender to the
evil and kill wantonly and indiscriminately. He'd never needed to do so for
demons but killing people... that required him to assume a degree of
inhumanity. His powers could be controlled to a certain extent but not to
the extent that he could vary the temperature. These hot knives were mini
shards of the sun. They blazed at temperatures above and beyond anything on
Earth and it was an aspect of their makeup that they didn't set the very
atmosphere alight as they travelled.

However if they hit an organic target, that was it. They were dead unless he
was on target and right now he didn't care and they began to shoot back, but
North was at his back and they were fighting  his kinetic blasts as well.
Kinetic energy, sonic attacks, plasma waves and other energy forms were
being thrown around the room in blazes of light and it was as intense laser
show with people being thrown to the floor all over the place. North
marvelled at the talent these people had, but he had been in the game a long
time and he and Wisdom dodged and weaved as they did what they had to do,
taking hits when they were forced to.

Both men knew they couldn't hold out forever, but they would give Apocalypse
something to think about and his repair bill would be something else
entirely. North smiled and thought that this one was for Terry and for every
other life this genetic war had claimed. He glanced over at Pete who nodded.

"Death or glory, Brit!"

"Death or glory Fritz!"

Ahmal Farouk and Amiko engaged the many psions in open warfare on the
psionic plane. These telepaths were not at the level of the enemy he was
used to and the gifts he had given to Amiko were invaluable in this
endeavour as her powers kept him grounded. He was the Shadow King and he
would not be defeated on the astral plane again.

He remembered the prison of the mind of Elisabeth Braddock, he remembered
the humiliation at the hands of Jean Grey-Summers and he also remembered the
jubilation he felt when he had confronted Onslaught and taken on the
ultimate expression in psionic force out with ease. Anger, hatred and fear
drove him on and he assumed the appearance of the dark psionic mass that had
earned him the name the Shadow King.

Their attentions were focused on him and they combined their powers to
attack them both. Farouk didn't know who had trained them but they had been
trained well, but he was a master of this himself and twice he had used the
power of the telepathic portion of humanity to try and dominate, by showing
them the darkness within themselves. He had made them violent, hateful and
ashamed of who and what they were and this time there were no X-Men to stop
him in this and the astral plane echoed with his power as he turned back the
psionic forces and held them in his thrall. Amiko could sense the darkness
within him and he knew he had to take action otherwise she would alert the
others to the change within him and that would not do and he turned his
power upon her and her mind folded under the assault.

He had a job for her to do, as much as he had a job to do himself. He had no
doubts that the X-Men would deal with Apocalypse, but he was going to give
them a hand anyway and they would never even know he was helping them. He
had two goals - to save reality and to ensure that this problem never
happened again.

Sacrifices had to be made.

Alastaire watched and he began to grow angry. He knew of these people below.
He knew that they were X-Men in another time, another place and he knew that
he had erred in letting them in to the citadel. He could scarcely believe
that no matter what they thought they knew about themselves they always
reverted to type.

"This will not do," said the Katan and he began to make his way downstairs
to where the battle was taking place and he promised that he would make them
pay. He would show them why he was the Katan and that he would not need to
use his mutant powers to transform matter in to fission level energy to do
so. He would take them all apart and this would be an end to the matter as
he picked up a staff weapon from the locker at the foot of the stairs and he
walked down to where the fighting was going on.

Blood coated the floor and he looked over to where one of the women was
fighting and he fired a blast from the weapon and it struck her squarely in
the chest and sent her barrelling across the room and in an instant his
people were attacking her, kicking her and the others were forced to protect
her. Except one of them... where was he... He turned and moved, raising the
staff as claws came down upon him and he felt the staff weapon break under
the assault and the resulting explosion of the power unit threw both of them
apart. He could feel the energy burn him and he knew he would have to focus
to get his powers in check. However he was a fighter and he would prove it.

"You've gotta be the Katan," muttered the man he knew as Wolverine.

"Your instincts are as spot on as ever, Logan," said Alastaire. "You have a
choice - me or the women."

"We're prepared to die," said Logan. "Are you?"

"Yes," said the Katan and he focused his powers and the claws from Logan's
wrists changed and exploded, evening the odds, but Alastaire knew that had
taken more effort from him than he'd liked. Logan's hands were burnt and
damaged but that wouldn't keep him less than his best for long so he needed
to take advantage of this and he went on the attack straight away.

"Show me what you've got..."

***

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

There's only so much a man can take before he knows that the situation is
hopeless. There's only so much a man can do before the inevitable takes over
and kicks the hell out of you. However it's not a case of surrendering to
the inevitable, it's a case of making the inevitable work for you, and
that's what I've done here.

En Sabah Nur was always going to outwit Cable and his people, outwit him
because Cable's view has always been too focused, and rarely has he looked
outside the box. The irony of it all is that if he had retained the persona
of Vice he would have been able to realise what was going on and crush
Apocalypse in a heartbeat. However, Vice was taken down and Cable's quest
was given focus by the death of his mentor Blaquesmith.

Plus, there was little I could do to challenge Apocalypse directly. My
energies were focused elsewhere until I had the strength needed to complete
my tasks and by the time I had the energies, it was too late. Somewhere, out
there, is my 'mother' guarding her 'son' unaware of who the child truly is.
She will remember, remember because there is no alternative.

Plus the herd will be thinned, both of heroes and the army of Apocalypse.
Even now his telepaths are under my control and I can use them to ensure
that my other charges are not thoroughly vanquished, however there are still
two obstacles in my way, obstacles that need to be removed before I ensure
that I truly have what I need to defeat my enemies, to crush those who wear
the accursed X and finally spit on the dream of Charles Xavier as I grind it
to dust. And I have Apocalypse to thank for it all. This is the beginning of
the end for him, for the X-Men and finally I will complete my task - uniting
every mind on the planet under my direction.

The first is the Katan of the Apocalypse Dawn. As long as there is a Katan
there will be a spokesman for this false god, and that will not do. The
Katan must be deposed and his cult dealt with. However they have gained a
reputation in our reality that I can utilise. They have never been directly
tied with the terrorist actions, at least not with any evidence that will
stand up.

The second is Apocalypse himself. Even now I can feel the minds I have
touched before working against him, doing what they can as the fabled Twelve
to defeat the High Lord, except the power of the Twelve is a myth planted by
Apocalypse at the time of the birth of Cable himself. That is something they
do not realise and they must be shown the folly of their ways.

For that I have the weapon of another, a weapon from another world. Nate
Grey, the so-called X-Man, planted in to Apocalypse's midst as a time bomb
for one Egyptian power to another. However he needs to be freed from his
bonds, but I have the operative in place to do so. I didn't know it then,
but I do now and maybe my own subconscious has been at work while my true
self lay dormant from the reality shifting powers of the M'Krann Crystal.

My name is Ahmal Farouk, the Shadow King, and I will see Apocalypse fall -
one way or another.

My name is Logan and I'm the best there is at what I do. At least I used to
be. These days I'm feelin' my age a bit more than normal, but that's what
happens when life keeps kickin you in the teeth. Right now I'm fightin' for
my life against the Katan of the Apocalypse Dawn, and under normal
circumstances one of us'd be dead by now.

He can convert matter to fission energy and I'm faster and deadlier than
anyone he's ever faced in his life. Except I'm hurt and hurt good. He used
his powers to turn my claws to fission energy and the y blew up. My hand's
are healin' but my claws are gone for the moment, until my powers grow 'em
back. So the trick is ta take out the Katan before he gets his powers back
and sends me the same way as my claws.

Ain't got no weapons other than me, but I've been trained by the best to be
the best and my body is a weapon. I know thirty of forty martial arts, I can
sense his moves as he makes them and I've the instincts of an animal so I
know what I can and can't do, but the bastard's good. He's tough and there's
not a great deal I can do with wounded hands. I can work past the pain,
sure, but my hits lack power just at the moment and shots that should fell
him are being swatted away. It comes down to one thing - who recovers first.
My hands heal properly, he's fucked. He shakes off his injuries and accesses
his powers, I'm done.

And so are Jess and Kate. Could do with their help but they've their hands
full with the Dawn members and they're not winnin'. Katan strikes hard but I
block and we swap blows and kicks, and strikes trying to do some damage.
Sometimes we connect but neither of us is doing anything to really hurt each
other. He ain't go the skill I have and I've been hit harder than this
before, but he's keepin' pace and that's something you don't often see, but
I guess you don't get to be the trainer of Apocalypse's personal army
without bein' able to fight.

Just need a bit more luck than I have right now and I can end this - grab
his throat, crush his windpipe and pull his Adam's apple out with my bare
hands and as he bleeds to death on the floor I'll kneel down and look in to
his eyes watching as the life fades from them little by little and he'll
know that death has looked on him and it ain't that red-headed bitch.

There's only ever been one death on two legs - an' that's me.

There are days I love being me. My powers are designed for one thing and one
thing only - killing.

Yeah, they can wound, and other things as well, but they kill real good and
I'm good at it. I can hit people as well as the next bloke, but I love my
powers, the ability to control small shards of the sun, to generate them
from my own body and fling them from my hands, or around me, or however the
hell I want.

My name's Pete Wisdom, an' they call me the Brit. Right now I'm doin' some
of my best work and killing as many people as I can but I know I ain't gonna
last at this pace for too much longer. My powers aren't like my buddy
Dave's, they need charging by the sun. Something to do with way the sun
hit's my body and fills the cells in my body or some kind of shit like that.
Never really paid attention unless my powers are getting' low.

I always know when they are because I start to get colder and sweat a
little, and before I know it my powers just stop altogether. I can put one
last effort in to it and then I'm out, an' I can feel myself getting' a
chill. Put too much in to this, but then again me and Dave said we were
goin' out with style. Looks like I'm gonna be the first to check out,
because he's takin' hits and he's getting' his kinetic powers topped up just
fine.

Gotta wonder how my girl's doin', not too far away. She's Kate Pryde and the
best damned lay I've ever had. Do I love her? Dunno. I think I do, but then
again I'm a jaded and cynical piece of shit and it's been too long for me to
know if it's real love or just simply the two of us getting' our rocks off.
In any case she's the best thing I've found in a long time and she knows it
too. Plus it can be whips, chains or just straight nasty sex, so it ain't
all bad.

Still if I'm gonna bite the bullet this time, I want to be her arms.
Promised the silly bint we'd die together and I may be a bastard but I don't
lie to the girls I'm fucking. If they're a bad screw or I ain't gonna call,
I tell 'em and let them deal with it. Kate's different, always has been plus
she's got the best way for us to die. She'll just phase in to me, solidify
and that'll be it. The last thing that goes through our minds'll be the face
of the other. That's irony or something.

Gotta get to her and I get the feelin' that'll be the hard part.

"Tell us what you know..."

"Ye cannae hurt me, father," Teresa Cassidy, sneered and the gauntlet of her
father Sean crashed down on her already bruised and battered face. She spat
blood on to the floor. "See?"

Sean Cassidy shook his head in a mixture of disgust and despair at his
daughter. He thought he'd raised her better than this, to respect the
teachings of Apocalypse and to live under his rule was better than any of
the alternatives, but she had defied him, defied Tom, and gone her own way,
fighting against their rightful Lord and Master, but he had always known
this day would come and that she would be returned to them and Apocalypse
had decreed that he would be the one that brought her back to sanity.

Or killed her in the process of trying.

"Who are you working for?" Sean said, using his powers to attack her senses
and she tried to fight back, matching his harmonics with her own but he was
more experienced and she started to get dizzy and felt the need to throw up.
"You never did have Tom's resistance to my powers, or mine to his. Why can
our telepaths not pry the information about this... Insurrection?"

"Over... me... cold... dead... body..." muttered Terry between the blood and
the vomit.

"Fine," said Sean, shaking his head. He'd been trying this for the last few
hours and they'd gotten nowhere. En Sabah Nur wanted the information or her
head on a pike and he'd run out of time, and he knocked over the chair she
was bound to and she fell to the floor, looking at her father peer down at
her, seeing his throat tighten as he prepared his powers and then he emitted
a tight beam of sound, so tight it gouged a hole in the rock and it moved
towards her neck.

A bead of sweat formed at her brow, and she knew that she didn't want to
die, but she wouldn't betray her friends and she hoped her father would make
it quick, as she closed her eyes and muttered a prayer to God and hoped He'd
have mercy on her. She could feel the energy getting closer, her skin
starting to flay under the power and the skin would soon be split and she
would be able to hear her own screams as her powers protected her from the
noise her father's sonic assault was making.

Then she felt something in her head and she opened her eyes and sent her own
sonic blast out, pushing at her father. His eyes and ears began to bleed as
his blast began to cut in to her and Terry pushed herself to the limits, her
will to live keeping her from faltering and her father flew back across the
room and he made a large indent in the wall.

Terry's heart was beating fast as she realised she was safe, but they would
soon find her if she didn't free herself soon and she strained against her
bonds, something she hadn't been able to do earlier without being struck.
The ropes gave easily, but left burns on her wrists, but she didn't care.
She was healing, getting better. Her bruises were going down and her neck
wound was closing. It was something she had discovered in the Insurrection,
and she had known it's curse as it had prolonged her suffering in here.

~You did well~ came the voice that had helped her earlier.

~Farouk?~ she said, wondering how she could hear him.

~We're close~ said her mentor. ~However for you to help us, I have a task
for you~

~What do you need?~

~Find a young man in the catacombs of the Pyramid and free him from the
bonds that keep him secure. He's the key to this and for Apocalypse to lose
him would be a major blow~

~On it~ she said as she looked at her father, his face covered in blood and
she wondered if he were dead, then decided she didn't give much of a damn if
he was and went on with what Farouk had told her to do. If the boy were a
prisoner, he wouldn't be soon enough.

"Amiko," said Farouk, "we must use the telepaths to help the others. Wisdom
is almost powerless and Maverick cannot handle the other energy wielders by
himself."

"Shall we use the telepaths to seize their minds?" asked Amiko.

"No," said Farouk. "We need psionic assaults..." He could see Amiko was
distracted. "Logan will be fine."

"He's losing," said Amiko. "I can feel him struggling. He's not healing as
quickly as usual."

"That shouldn't be," said Farouk, concerned. "He should heal very quickly...
Unless..." Farouk suddenly had a dark thought. What if the Katan's ability
to turn things to fission meant that his body gave off a low level
radiation, a radiation that while not normally affecting people might
interfere with Logan's healing factor. After all, that was something that
Zola had found many decades ago, something that Weapon X had found as well.
"Go to your father, help him. I'll deal with the energy wielders."

"Can you control so many host bodies at once, without me to ground you?"
asked Amiko, afraid they would lose him.

"My dear, my limits have not been tested yet," said Farouk and Amiko gave a
shiver at the coldness of his tone. He'd changed since they met Mad Steve,
but she'd deal with it later. Right now, Logan needed her.

"Dave, I'm gonna find Kate," said Pete as the last of his powers faded and
he knew he had nothing left and smiled. "I'm gonna go out, it's gonna be
with a bang."

"At least you've got someone to bang," said North, jealous and he nodded.
"Give her one from me."

"Thanks, Fritz," Pete smiled and went to work, ducking and diving as North
did what he could to cover his friend's exit. He wasn't much longer for this
world, none of them were and if the Brit and the Bird could find a little
happiness before they died, good luck to them. He fired off everything he
could, his arms spread wide, casting kinetic energy about the place as they
started to shoot at him and he dropped to one knee, feeling that he was hurt
and he was hurt badly from some of the shots.

He could taste blood in his mouth and then there was a rush of energy and
the shooting stopped. He looked at them all through his one good eye and
they were all standing there.

"Are you okay?" they all said in unison and North could hear the voice of
Farouk in their words.

"How?" he asked.

"I'm using the telepaths to augment my own power and not lose myself amongst
so many host bodies. Always wondered if it were truly possible to do,
uniting everyone with a common mind."

"I'm hurt," he said and North fell to the floor, knowing that the hits he'd
taken had been too much. "I think they got me."

"It's not over yet," said the small army, but David had his doubts. There
was very little he had left.

"Jessica!" screamed Kate, trying to help her friend, but they were being
attacked from all sides and over powered and she couldn't get to her, as
they beat her and struck her and she was fighting back, but Kate had lost
sight of her in the mound of bodies and she wasn't doing much better over
here as well. Plus she could see Logan and the Katan going at it and Logan's
hand wound's weren'ty getting any better and Kate knew he was going to lose
and there was nothing she could do, as she felt something strike her.

She was phased, but there were people here who could phase as well so she
had no advantages here as she kicked back and then she felt it and her legs
buckled under her. It had been some kind of nerve strike and she had no
feeling in her legs and they started on her as well, kicking at her. She
could feel he skin being torn and bones broken as they attacked, literally
beating her to death. She closed her eyes and let the pain wash over in
waves, ready for the end.

"GET THE FUCK OFF HER!" shouted a voice and Pete Wisdom shoulder charged in
to them, knocking them to the floor. It would keep them off her but a
moment, but that's all he needed to be with her.

"Took your fucking time, Brit."

"Nothing left, Bird," he said and kissed her. "Fritz has had it."

"Jess was being beaten as well," said Kate.

"Nothing I can do," said Pete as he placed his hand on her crotch. "Well,
for her." She smiled, knowing it was time.

"Together," she said and he nodded as she phased, their lips meeting and
passing through each other but before she could do anything a body flew
across the room, through her and knocking Pete out of her reach. Logan lay
across him, looking like death warmed up and she turned.

"Ah, the whore turned hero," said the Katan. "Oh, the hours we spent
considering what to do with you..."

"What?" asked Kate, not understanding.

"Doesn't matter. The kill is mine. You, the Spider-Woman, the Wolverine..."

"An' me," said Pete, standing, and wiping blood from his mouth. "You want
them, you go through me, shithead."

"Fine," said Alastaire and smiled as he began to convert Pete's body to
fission energy. "This is what will happen to you and your friends. Kiss the
Brit goodbye..."

***

HOLLOW VICTORIES

"Pete! NO!" shouted Kate Pryde as she watched the man she loved alter under
the assault of Alastaire Kaine, Katan of the Apocalypse Dawn. He was using
his powers to transmute matter to fission energy on him, and there was
nothing she or any of the Insurrection could do.

Ahmal Farouk was doing his telepath thing, Jessica was hurt, North was down,
Logan was recovering from radiation poisoning and Amiko was too far away.
The Insurrection had been stopped and the Apocalypse Dawn were picking up
the pieces of what was left.

"Now to that name my courage prove my title!" the Katan smiled, as he stood
back and watched Wisdom fall to his knees, glowing like a small star,
getting ready to burn up in to nothingness, enjoying the pain that showed on
his face. "I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life..."

"Always preferred 'fire answers fire and through their paly faces each
battle sees the others umbered face'."

"Impossible!" the Katan breathed as Wisdom slowly stood his clothing ruined
as well as the portal device to get them out of there.

"Y'd think," said Pete as he shook the cricks from his neck and then fired
off a volley of hot knives. "Eat shit and die." The hot knives flew from
Wisdom and struck the Katan square in the chest and Alastaire closed his
eyes waiting for death, but then realised he was still alive, and more than
that unhurt. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me..."

"It seems I'm as immune to your powers as you are to mine," said Alastaire
then hit the floor as Pete punched him in the jaw and then he started to
kick the Katan while he lay on the floor.

"Don't... talk," sneered the Brit punctuating each word with a kick.
"Fight." Then the Katan grabbed his leg and threw him to the floor.

"Fine," said Alastaire, getting up and fixing his attention on the British
man, thinking he'd just been made to look rather foolish, thanks to the
distraction of those cursed hot knives. "I just fought Logan and beat him.
You'll be nothing, and I will enjoy this..."

"Bring it on," said Pete jumping to his feet and the Katan and the Brit
started to trade punches in what Pete would call a good old fashioned street
fight. Kate smiled and wondered if her lover really knew what he was doing,
but she needed to see to Jessica. She needed to know if she were still
alive.

"Breathe," said Farouk as he used the telepathic agents at his command to
keep David North alive. While the man he knew as Maverick was not as useful
a tool as Pete Wisdom, he was still a good pawn to have in place, especially
with what had transpired at SHIELD days before the change. He would keep not
only Wisdom but Logan off guard as well, and that would suit him fine, but
only if the man lived. "Damn you, breathe!" the Shadow King commanded,
preparing to send a psionic bolt in to his mind to stir him and then he felt
it.

The scream was psionic as she didn't have a chance to cry out as her powers
were turned against her and then the scream stopped as death ensued and the
Shadow King felt sorrow at the passing of Ororo Munroe, the X-Man Storm and
one of his first victims. Her will had been something to cherish, something
strong and something he had promised himself to possess again and now it was
gone. He has felt her defiance at the creature that killed her, the pain as
the lightning had struck her head, and the sadness at having failed the
X-Men so and then it was all gone.

The Shadow King was angry and vowed that the murderer would pay, but there
was something here, something and the psionic shock hammer struck out across
the psychic spectrum and he could feel Jean Grey defending the killer
against the rest of the X-Men and she struck them with an intensity that
surprised him. He knew that she had a fire, but to do that... However it
would not do and blood required blood, however he had to be subtle in what
he did. He could not wake the X-Men for they would know him, and he could
not stop her because he was spread thinly right now and then he sensed the
re-emerging consciousness of her husband Scott Summers and Farouk smiled and
emphasised one thought in his mind - the safety of Jean and then he let the
training of his oldest enemy take over.

In his mind's eye he could see the scene as Cyclops unleashed his powers,
striking at the child of Apocalypse and he knew it was a killing shot.
Xavier had trained his soldiers well and Summers had known exactly what he
was doing. It was part of the more militant style he had adopted over recent
months and Farouk smiled. Ororo was avenged and there was an added benefit,
one that he had not anticipated.

He returned his attention to North and the psionic hosts began to whistle a
little tune.

Teresa Cassidy flew through the pyramid, almost undisturbed as she headed
for the depths of the fortress of Apocalypse. She could hear the sounds of
battle above her and she did not know what was happening but whatever was
going on nearby was taking the focus off of her and on to something else and
for that she was thankful.

She didn't know who would be stupid enough to attack Apocalypse in his own
stronghold, but then again the Insurrection had done that to the Apocalypse
Dawn. She needed to get to the person below, to the person who was down
there, who Farouk believed was so important. Farouk seemed to know a lot
more than he had done before her capture and she had never really trusted
him. People who could read minds knew secrets that should stay that was and
though his cause was noble, she wondered what was in it for him other than
revenge against Apocalypse and soon she reached her destination.

There was only one person guarding him.

"Hey, Cassidy, keep it down!" he shouted, not realising it wasn't Sean but
his daughter and by that time it was too late and they were out cold in a
heartbeat. Terry was many things but she wasn't the killing kind. She wasn't
Logan, or Wisdom, or Pryde. Hell, she wasn't even David who killed easily as
well but was more troubled by it than the others. If she could take someone
out without them dying so be it and while it may have been foolish to leave
an enemy like these alive, at least she could sleep at night.

"Hello?" she called as she landed, her feet touching the carved stone of the
floor and then she saw him, bound, chained and being drained of energy. The
lines went up and up and up and she wondered what they were for, what
Apocalypse needed from this young man. She came closer and she could see
looked almost dead as if something were causing the energy to be drained
from him more quickly, but there was something else about him, a strange and
noble sadness, caused not by the chains but by something deeper. It was a
look she had seen many times before in the eyes of others, others who were
resigned to fate, resigned to a living death.

"By the Saints," she whispered, having seen many acts of brutality by
Apocalypse but nothing like this and she focused her sonic powers on the
chains and they started to break, freeing the young boy who fell and she
caught him. "Wake up," she said and slowly pushed her mouth to his to give
him air and he quickly responded, as if the energies in his own body were
reviving him as they slowly returned. There was still one thing attached to
him she couldn't remove but she would leave that until later.

"Hey," he muttered, his eyes fluttering open. "That's three I owe you..."

"I dinnae know ye," she said.

"It's Nate... Nate Grey..." Her eyes were blank to him and he realised that
Apocalypse's conditioning was deep within her. The M'Krann crystal had done
this, had altered the world, and they had used him to do it. But how and
could he return things back to the way they were? He focused his mind,
reaching out to his twin and he only got a vaguest sense of Cable, fighting
Apocalypse. Wherever he was he was out of reach. Then he felt something jar
and suddenly he was free, the energy being drained from him, being drained
no longer and he didn't know what had happened.

"Come on, hurry," said Terry, looking around thinking the sounds of battle
had stopped and it probably wasn't a good sign. "We have to leave here."

"Not yet," muttered Nate. Now he was free proper there had to be a way to
help Cable and bring a sense of closure in to his own life. There just had
to be... Then he saw it in the minds of the servants of the High Lord, those
who knew his purpose and he smiled, knowing that he was the key to this,
that Apocalypse wasn't powerful enough to do all this by himself. Yes, he
knew how, but could not achieve it alone. Nate knew that being free was
enough and that Cable would win this fight now. Apocalypse was old,
Apocalypse was dying, Apocalypse was beaten and then Nate felt great sorrow
from the one person he thought of as a mother.

"Jean..." he whispered as a coldness grabbed his heart and his joy at the
victory was replaced by the grief he shared with someone close, someone who
had lost a friend and a son all in a few moments. "Oh no..."

Amiko arrived on the scene to see Wisdom and the Katan exchanging blows, and
watched as Wisdom landed a cruel blow to the Katan's crotch, the man's eye's
going wide in pain as Wisdom did what he did best without his powers -
fought dirty. The scene enthralled her for a moment and then she started
searching for her father and she reached out with her mind to try and touch
his. It was there but it was faint and she hurried to his side.

"Father," she said, seeing his body lying on the floor, not moving. The
backs of his hands were badly burnt and blistered, with the claws she knew
so well nothing more than charred stumps. She could also see that the wounds
weren't healing and she turned him over to see his face was all red and his
eyes closed. "Father," she said again, kneeling by his side, hoping he could
hear her voice and would say something and let her know it wasn't too late.

"'Miko," he whispered, his eyes staying shut. "Darlin'... ya shouldn't see
this..."

"I want to," she said, thinking that his healing factor must be working on
the radiation poisoning he'd suffered fighting the Katan and it was killing
him all the same.

"Dyin'," he rasped. "Lived too... long anyway... Ain't right... to be my
age..."

"Father, you can't die," said Amiko, tears streaming down her face.

"No better... way ta go, 'Miko," he said, coughing, "than in... the
company... o' friends..." She could see unless they got him some medical
attention and soon he was going to die for certain and there was nothing
they could do. She looked back at the Katan, and she was angered. This man
had done this to her father, had pushed him further than she had ever seen
anyone push him and she was not pleased. She watched as Wisdom pressed his
advantage, biting, scratching, gouging and behaving in all sorts of
ungentlemanly behaviour towards his opponent and then she saw it. A half
smile on his mouth as he pushed his fist in to the Katan's waiting jaw,
following it up with an elbow smashing down on his face, smashing in to his
nose.

"Logan was just the fucking warm up act. I'm the main event," he told the
Katan, who was no longer in a fighting mood.

"I should have killed your women first," muttered Alastaire, through
bloodied teeth and lips.

"About your level, chief," said Pete and slammed his foot on the Katan's
knee, forcing the leg down in an awkward angle and Alastaire cried out in
pain. "You're done, but I think I'll let Kate finish you off. I like more of
a challenge..."

"Pete!" he heard the voice of the Bird call to him. "Jess is bad, I need
help. I think I'm losing her."

"You can wait here," said Pete as he scattered whoever was left of the Dawn
with hot knives. "We've won anyway."

"A hollow victory," muttered the Katan, thinking of how he could escape this
and the wrath of his master with his life not being forfeit. "How many have
you lost in this venture?"

"Too many," said a voice and he could see Amiko standing above him. He
looked at her wondering which of the X-Men and mutants she was.

"I don't know you," he said, not understanding what had gone wrong with the
alterations to reality.

"Die in ignorance," she said and stamped on his throat. Alastaire's eyes
went wide. She was only a child, but she was one of the strong. With his
last gasp for air he thought that she would have made one of the best of
Apocalypse's army and then he breathed no more.

She looked over to Wisdom who was at the side of Jess and he looked back and
shook his head, and she closed her eyes. Logan, Jess, North... they had lost
three of their own. Without the tesseract device, they were finished and
there was little the others could do alone. They had won the war but at what
cost and then something happened. She could sense the energy wave coming and
she looked up, wondering what had just happened.

Nate did not smile as the energy washed over him, the planet returning to
the world it used to be. He had felt Cable in his mind kill Apocalypse, seen
him do it and then release himself and now he could not sense him at all.
Cable was dead and Nate knew he had lost two brothers this day and he could
feel the pain from Jean and from Madelyne as the Horsemen were released for
the grip of their former master.

"Terry," he said, looking at her seeing that her clothing had been changed
in the wave as well, clothing her back in her traditional SHIELD uniform.

"Nate?" she said, looking around, memories flooding back to her of what had
been as well as what she had seen. "Oh, God..."

"Let it go," said Nate, putting his arms around her wondering if the world
would ever be the same again.

"No... the others are with the Shadow King," said Terry in horror. "We have
to help them..."

"Others?" said Nate, not sure of who the others were or who the Shadow King
was either.

"Yes," she said. "You're the only one who can help..."

"This is Agent Wisdom," said Pete in to his cell phone, his uniform
restored. "I need emergency teleport to the Helicarrier... I know there's
some fucking confusion at the moment, but just bloody do it!" He looked at
Kitty, who wasn't looking back and he pinned his locator badge on to
Jessica. "Kitty, see to Logan while I shout some more at this PILLOCK!" She
nodded and went over to her mentor. "I don't give a shit what you think, use
the damned HERMES system or else I'll crucify you..."

"Wisdom, this is Forge, emergency transport will be initiated in ten
seconds."

"Thank you," said Wisdom, thankful that his boss had stepped in, and in ten
seconds he watched Jess and Logan disappear and then he went to find Amiko.
She was where he had left Maverick beforehand and he shook his head thinking
that this would be something they needed to think about later.

"He's gone," said Amiko.

"Davey?" said Pete. "Good."

"No, Farouk."

"Yeah, well, can't be helped, kid."

"Is he really the bad man Logan says he is?"

"The worst, but for a moment he was okay. Let's face it without him we'd
never... have..." Wisdom stopped talking a look of horror on his face as he
looked about. "Ohhhhhhhhhh, shit..."

"What is it?" asked Kitty as she came in, seeing Pete's distress.

"Where the hell have the Dawn gone?"

The two SHIELD agents looked at each other thinking the same thing - the
Shadow King had just gained his own private mutant army to add to the ranks
of Hydra. Then the cell rang.

"Wisdom... Yes, Forge, we know. They needed attention, we didn't...
Thanks... Yeah, we'll organise a clean up and stuff at this end... Yeah,
I'll brief you later, but I think there's going to be a need to talk to the
X-Men, considering Apocalypse and everything. You and Storm are still tight,
so that may be the way to go..."

It was a few days later at the X-Mansion, when the various teams gathered to
say goodbye to Storm that everything was finally revealed, what had happened
and why. Maverick, Jessica and Logan had undergone emergency treatment
aboard the Helicarrier and all three were doing fine, however the losses
they had taken had paled the victory.

The death of Storm, of Cable, of Apollyon, had soured everything and as such
it had been a hollow victory. SHIELD had done what they could to gather
world data and let the X-Men know what was going on afterwards, but the
world was a mess and maybe in a worse state than before. Only time would
truly tell.

Also, in some effort to understand the nature of his powers, Nate had spent
some of those days with Henry McCoy amongst others, in consultation with the
other great minds of the day, learning about the so-called Fifth Force and
they had put together the pieces of the puzzle and had come up with a
working theory as to what had happened.

"It seems," said Hank in a briefing to the X-Men with a few others who had
helped to put those pieces together such as Nate, Bishop and Rachel, "that
while young Nate cannot directly access the Fifth Force like beings such as
Cable and Apocalypse did, he can touch the dimension when he is linked to
the M'Krann Crystal."

"The Nexus of all realities," said Bishop, having seen through the eyes of
his alternate self what the crystal could do to one individual. "While in
contact with it, anyone can be anything, any potential can be realised."

"Precisely," said Beast. "While in connection with the crystal, Nate could
do everything that Cable could do, except without someone to guide Nate as
Nathan had... oh that is so confusing... there was little he could do to
control it. This is how Nate appeared in our reality after what he and
Bishop refer to as the Age of Apocalypse. We're going to have to call the
recent episode something otherwise similar to that temporal event. Anyway,
when he used the shard of the crystal as a weapon against Holocaust, he was
able to use the powers of the crystal to access the Fifth Force. He
transported both the two of them there and out again after the timeline was
restored, but without control both he and Holocaust returned to reality with
haphazard results. However by doing so, he alerted Apocalypse to the
potential he had within."

"Apocalypse used the Fifth Force from Nate to use the Crystal to alter
reality," said Rachel, who had been focusing on the events, trying to figure
out things and this was still a theory but it was the only one they had all
been able to agree upon, based on everyone's personal experiences.
"Apocalypse was strong but not strong enough to keep the world as it was.
When Siryn freed Nate from the draining devices, the link was broken and
Apocalypse had to keep reality changed himself, which in turn allowed Nathan
to defeat him once and for all."

"So when Apocalypse died, why didn't reality turn back straightaway?" asked
Cannonball.

"We don't know," admitted Nate. "Nobody knew as much about the Fifth Force
as Cable or Apocalypse and they're gone. They took their secrets to the
grave. The Fifth Force is gone. Without the M'Krann crystal, I can't access
it and without the others nobody else can either. It's over."

"Yeah," said Sam, as he looked out of the window to where Forge and Kitty
were standing at the grave of Ororo.

"I can't believe that she's really gone," said Kitty, looking at the stone
marker. "I mean..."

"I know," said Forge. "Our relationship was tempestuous at best, but we
loved each other and that's all that mattered. At least, it did." A tear
trickled down his cheek. "We've mourned for her before but this time...

"She's not coming back," said Kitty. "What's the take on all this at the
upper levels?"

"It's being classed as a 1-OTT event," said Forge. "One of those things.
They can't describe it but it happens anyway. David will be back on his feet
in a few days so X-Force will be back in business. Pete's... somewhere
about."

"He didn't want to be here, he said he wasn't family and he needed time to
think about what happened. Plus he's been working with Lydia and Marcus on
what they experienced. From what I've gathered, it was as unpleasant for
them as it was for us." She looked at Forge who looked at her. "What's
happened has changed us. I've scars on my back from what we did together.
What happened... wasn't pleasant, but it did happen. It was us, and I wanted
it as much as he did. I don't now, except there's a small part of me that
still does. Then there's Maverick..."

"Yes," said Forge, putting his arm around her, seeing that all this was
harder on her than the rest of X-Force. The team had gone through the
wringer of late, taking shots that would have ruined lesser strike teams. "I
understand. I..." He saw someone out of the corner of his eye and he looked
over his shoulder to properly see who was nearby. "Hello, Logan."

"Forge," said Wolverine, coming over, recovered from his ordeal, the
radiation poisioning gone from his system. "Kitty. Didn't want to intrude.
You were closest 'Ro had to family, so..."

"No need to stay on the sidelines for us," said Kitty, taking his hand.
"Actually, we need to talk." Forge nodded and withdrew.

"What is it darlin'? This about you an' Maverick..."

"No, but that's a different conversation. It's about you and the Shadow
King."

"Can't believe he just let me go like that," muttered Logan, lighting a
cigar. "Guess he needs me alive too much."

"It's not just that," said Kitty. "He has a new host body."

"Not Amiko..."

"No, Jacob."

"Jacob?"

"Jacob Logan. Your son. Viper's son." Kitty watched as his eyes narrowed and
then closed and he breathed deeply.

"Damn," he said. "The bastard's have my son..."

"I'm sorry, Logan, I've not had chance to tell you..."

"I know," said Wolverine. "I know. Ain't sure what I'm gonna do about it,
either. Guess I gotta find them and get him back."

"Logan, you're no match for the Shadow King."

"Darlin', I ain't got a choice." He looked at the mansion. "It's not an
X-Men problem either. This is my business, but if I don't come back..."

"We'll come running," said Kitty. Logan nodded and then looked back to the
mansion.

"I gotta go find Jeannie. Not spoken to her properly since I arrived and
she's been havin' as many tests on her as I have on me. Wanna make sure
she's gonna be okay before I leave."

"I understand," said Kitty. "Hey, Logan," she called and he turned. "What do
you think of the name Kate."

"It suits you," he answered. "One things for sure, you're not the kitten
anymore. You've grown up the hard way." She nodded thinking that she'd left
Kitty behind when reality changed. From now on she was Kate. It felt right.

"Hey, Jean." Jean Grey looked up, recognising the voice. Her powers were
gone, lost when Apollyon died and she was, for all intents and purposes, a
normal human.

"Hey Logan. How are you feeling?" The feral X-Man shrugged and sat down next
to her.

"I'm back on form again... What about you?"

"Still numb from it all. I was pregnant a little while ago and now I have a
dead son, a dead son years older than he should be. I feel cheated."

"I guess you have been," Logan said, putting her hand in his. "Question is
who do you feel cheated by?"

"Apocalypse, Apollyon, Scott, Charles..." Jean shook her head. "I don't know
what to do anymore, Logan. Everything's changed and I don't know where I fit
in..."

"Jeannie, Scott for all his faults, loves you. Always has. Sure there have
been times I could have cheerfully gutted him, but in the end he's a decent
man. He wasn't doing it to hurt you. He was doing what he thought was best."

"I know," said Jean. "I don't blame him, but at the same time..."

"He's the man who killed your child, right?"

"Yes," she said. "And I love him still, even though things haven't been
right with us for a while."

"Take a break from all this," said Logan, looking at her. "Get away for a
while, nobody could blame you."

"I don't know, Logan, the team is in disarray right now..."

"To hell with the team. Jean, you need time to get over things, otherwise
it'll eat you up inside and make you in to something cold, hard. I've seen
it happen to too many people and I know I wouldn't be able to stand seeing
that happen to you, darlin'."

"I'll think about it. Once everyone's headed off, I'll talk to Scott alone.
What about you? Are you staying on as part of the X-Men? You've been
missed."

"I'd like to," Logan answered, "but something's come up." He paused a
moment, as Jean tilted her head slightly. She may not have had powers but
she was still able to tell when her friend was holding something back, and
she put her hand on to his, letting him know it was okay to talk. "I have a
son, to Viper... don't ask, and she's got him. I ain't gonna let another
Creed loose on the world..."

"Find your boy," she said and kissed him on the cheek. "You'll always have a
home here." Logan nodded and stood.

"Take care of yourself, Jean." She nodded and watched him walk out of the
room and then glanced at the picture of herself and Scott. She had to make a
decision.

EPILOGUE I

Stephen Strange shook his head, thinking of the events he had witnessed and
understanding very little of what had gone on. Reality had changed, his
house had been destroyed and when it had changed back both it and he had
been restored to what it had once been. He knew he would have to consult
many texts before he could truly appreciate what had happened here, but he
knew that it involved the X-Men and Apocalypse and that was as far as it
went.

He was not pleased with his behaviour as 'Mad Steve' and he had taken lives
for which he would have to atone for at some point. He sighed and decided he
would go for a walk. He had spent days pondering this and examining the
consequences to the mystical barriers of reality and he needed to get
outside, to prove that he could. Perhaps he would take a walk through
Central Park, get a coffee at the small coffee shop and relax a little.

Hopefully that would make him feel better about what had happened, and get
rid of the nagging feeling that he was being watched by someone. He'd know
if there was anyone in his Sanctum Sanctorum, but there was still a
sensation he couldn't shake. Once the house was deserted a lone figure
watched from across the street and smiled.

"Come on, I know you can do this..." He watched as the energy leaked from
the house on Bleaker Street and formed a humanoid shape. "There you are..."

"McCOY!" a creature shouted, hearing the voice and hurtled towards him at
great speed. "What did you do to me, you twisted son of a bitch?"

"I made you immortal, Prelate," said McCoy coming out of the shadows. "When
I altered you so you could kill Cyclops, I made a few alterations of my own.
You always did have too much power, Alex. Or at least too much for your
frail body to handle..."

"I should kill you where you stand," said Prelate, angered at what had been
done to him, without his knowledge, without his consent. "How do I eat, or
sleep, or anything?"

"You're beyond that now," said the Dark Beast. "In fact you are free to do
whatever you want."

"What about a body?" McCoy smiled, thinking this was going exactly the way
he had thought it would.

"That, like anything, can be arranged..."

EPILOGUE II

Ahmal Farouk looked over his people and smiled. Hydra had suffered no ill
effects from Apocalypse's reign and he was in effect the new Katan of the
Apocalypse Dawn, however they had abandoned that name. They were simply the
Dawn now and they would be the vanguard of Hyrda's big push. No longer were
they simply a terrorist organisation, they were a group to be feared.

Xavier was gone, Apocalypse had fallen, he had been able to seize control of
a mutant army and even better he had been able to obtain permanent psionic
markers on those who would eventually be his X-Men. All five had been tagged
and prepared.

Through the body of baby Jacob he leisurely suckled upon the Viper's nipple,
drinking the milk from her breast as a mother fed her son. Ororo may have
been gone, but he had found himself a fine replacement in her stead.

The age of the Shadow King had finally dawned.

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