It was rather odd.

En Sabah Nur had never considered himself much of a bookworm. Premeditation, followed by quick, decisive action, were his watchwords, not sitting in some dark corner of the world reading the ramblings of some self-deluded fool who thought he was important. Back during the period when he had been Pharaoh of Egypt, if he had ever needed some obscure tome dug up from the corner of a library he had sent one of his countless servants to do the research for him.

But of course, things had changed. As they always do.

And now here he was—Apocalypse, the First Mutant, future ruler of Earth—reading books in a public library.

His skin was almost entirely covered up by a rather baggy, long-sleeved—what was it commonly known as?—"hoodie" and a long-brimmed cap that made him inconspicuous to all but the most discerning of onlookers. After all, he still had some of the Eye of Ages downloaded into his body, though it was but a small fraction of the total technological power he had wielded against the X-Men roughly a year ago. Broken patches of metal "skin" were still obvious on parts of his body, as well as some lines of light blue circuitry that criss-crossed swathes of his form. Thankfully, only a slim patch of blue metal was left on his forehead—otherwise, if someone just looked him in the face he would easily pass for a human. Wherever he had gone, whatever he had done, he had made sure to keep his head down—and when the occasional individual had gotten too suspicious, he had just wiped their memories and left them a drooling brain-dead vegetable.

After he had emerged from Forge's basement and back into his home dimension, despite his power, Apocalypse had laid low. He was powerful, yes, but compared to a year ago he was considerably weakened. It was best not to attract attention until the time was right… and the time would still not be right for quite a while. Now, as before, was the time for premeditation.

If there was one virtue Apocalypse had, of course, it was patience. A quality like that came nearly hand-in-hand with being immortal.

At first he had tried to mentally contact his servant Mesmero, but the green-tattooed Mutant was nowhere to be found. Apocalypse assumed his servant was dead, which quite aggravated him. Now it was up to him to replace the accumulated knowledge that had been slowly leaking from his body since he had left the Eye of Ages back in the chronal plane that the accursed X-Men had banished him to.

And so the First One had left Bayville, not wanting to risk a chance meeting with any of the psychic X-Men, who would surely detect a mind as powerful as his almost immediately upon entering his vicinity, despite his best efforts to hide it. He had journeyed south, learning in the process how to navigate the area until he had ended up in the nation's capital city—Washington, D.C. His aims there were not grandiose at all—no presidential assassinations, no upsetting the status quo or balance of power of the most powerful nation on the planet.

At least, not yet.

No, he had a much simpler, more basic goal in mind—learning. Much of the knowledge—both of the past and of the future- had bled out from him to the point where when he first emerged he didn't even know the dominant language of the nation—and so he had gone here, to the Library of Congress, the greatest repository of knowledge in the country.

And here he had sat, day after day, week after week. Reading everything he could get his hands on. Given his Mutant abilities, he didn't need to eat, didn't need to sleep. And with the remainder of his Eye of Ages download, he read and absorbed information remarkably fast—it took him only about two minutes to read through one hundred pages of dense, fact-ridden material.

He had learned English; he had learned Spanish; he had learned almost every language on the planet. He had learned the history of the world, all that had happened since he had been locked away in the Eye of Ages the first time, and he had gleaned in-depth knowledge from just about every field of study out there. Stacks of books, both read and unread, almost cordoned him off from the rest of the library as he rapidly expanded his knowledge base. It had gotten him some odd looks from the librarians, to be sure, but given that he wasn't doing anyone any harm, they had left him alone. Soon, at long last, he would be done with this and could move on to the next phase of his plan. And again the Earth would tremble at the name of—

"—apocalypse may be upon us!" yelled a librarian frantically as she ran into the room, flickering on a large television set and changing the channel to some national news station. "Everyone, quickly, your attention, please! We've got a national emergency on our hands here!"

Apocalypse seethed, briefly picturing himself pulling the woman apart piece-by-piece for her panicky interruption. He quickly suppressed that urge and peaked out from behind the stacks of books to see what the librarian was babbling on about.

And what he saw surprised even him.

"—out of seemingly nowhere," a news anchor was reporting from behind a studio desk, a inset image showing a massive army destroying everything in their path as they marched through a patch of wilderness towards a city on the horizon. Only brief bits of footage of the army could be seen from the couple of clips the news network played, as apparently the army had always taken out whatever had sent the footage soon after it had started to broadcast.

"No one is quite sure what this new army is after or what their plans are," the news anchor continued, his voice slightly panicky, "But we've gotten some rather odd reports. The army is actually multiplying rapidly, numbers that were once in the hundreds now in the thousands and possibly even near the millions at this point. In response to this, the President has okayed the deployment of all of our nation's defense forces to stop this sudden threat, but given that we just received word of it twenty minutes ago and how much more ground the multiplying army has covered since then, this reporter wonders if they will be on time or even if it will be enough. At first a few isolated sightings in northern Montana and Idaho, now reports are coming of the advancing army having already hit, in some places, the southern border of both of those states and continuing into Wyoming, Idaho, and North Dakota, while spreading further east and west at the same time. From the isolated, brief reports we're getting from victims huddled inside their homes as the enormous army passes, the towns and cities they've passed by are packed with what are apparently some kind of clone duplicates. Any resistance to them is immediately wiped out, and any losses on the enemy's side are completely replaced. It is still unknown at this time where this army has come from, how it is multiplying itself, or what its intentions are. The Canadian government has denied any involvement, and is in fact offering any aid it can as this crisis unfolds…"

"Quickly, everyone!" the nearly hysterical librarian said, a few security guards entering in the doors as the other quickly panicking visitors to the library started to gather their things, restless. "With the rate this army's advancing, they'll be at the nation's capital in less than three days! Get to your hotels, pack up your belongings…"

En Sabah Nur couldn't help but smirk as the librarian continues to rattle off panicked commands.

Perhaps he wouldn't need to cleanse the populace of non-Mutants, after all.

"And- I'm sorry, this just in," the news reporter on the television monitor was saying, a hand on his earpiece. "This identity of the army has been revealed—every last individual in this army, at least that has been seen, are all duplicates of the X-Man known as…"

"Oh my god…." Kitty whispered under her breath, her hands cupped over her mouth and tears streaming down her face as she watched the events unfold on the television in her parent's living room. "Jamie…. What did they do to you?"

"He… he was one of Xavier's students, wasn't he?" Kitty's father asked. Both of her parents were sitting there on the couch with her, in utter shock as the news reports continued to come in regarding the rapidly expanding army that was seemingly coming out of nowhere. "I vaguely remember meeting him one time we visited there… he looks taller than I remember, though. A lot taller, since I think I saw him only about a year ago."

"Yes… that's Jamie, alright," Kitty said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Or what used to BE Jamie, anyways. There's no way the Jamie I know would've ever done something like this…"

"So…" Kitty's mother squirmed uncomfortably in her seat next to her daughter, unsure of how to word what she was about to say. "I'm sure that… I mean, I think it's pretty probable that with something of this magnitude, the X-Men are going to… um…"

"I know what you're going to say," Kitty interrupted, burying her face in her hands so that her reply was muffled. "But… THIS… is exactly why I left, mom. It never ends. It… never… ends. And this is just more proof of that."

"But, honey… I mean, this involves more than just the X-Men…"

"I know, I know, and if it comes to it I'll protect you guys in any way I can. But… what could I do against something like that? I'd just be getting involved again, seeing more people…. die… No, I… I've left that life behind."

"Kitty's right," her father said. "It seemed like we were always hearing of some new threat the X-Men were facing, and I can't imagine being a part of something like that. I can't blame her at all. C'mon, everyone. We've got to hurry up and pack up some supplies in case we need to head south. That army of clones is entering North Dakota now, and we're in northern Illinois. At the rate they're advancing, if they're not stopped soon we're going to have to leave here."

As her parents stood up and began to grab anything around the house that they deemed essential, Kitty took one last look at the TV screen, at the soldier that had mere months earlier been just a regular kid.

And then, with her vision blurred because of the tears, she switched off the television and helped her parents pack.

It was the shortest mission briefing the X-Men had ever had.

Bobby had been the first to turn on the TV and see the incoming news reports that had taken over every channel. He had quickly alerted Ororo, who had in turn alerted Xavier. After seeing such a nightmare unfold on the television set in front of him, Xavier had immediately sent out a telepathic message to all of his students, telling them to turn on the nearest TV set immediately.

Some had been eating breakfast; others had been up for hours and were engaged in various leisurely activities; still others had been sleeping in and taking advantage of summer vacation. But less than a minute after Xavier had sent out his telepathic message, almost as one all of the X-Men had gathered in the meeting room, almost instinctively. They all looked from one to the other, their faces registering emotions ranging from grim determination to utter despair and heartbreak. All the arguments from the past few days, the infighting—forgotten, as soon as those TV sets were flipped on.

And they all know what they had to do. Even if it meant near-certain death, it was all or nothing here. Either a miraculous victory or a valiant but inconsequential last stand—there would be, COULD be no other outcomes.

Scott looked from one of them, to the other, to the other. Each one looked him back in the eye, their expressions all saying the same thing.

They're going to pay for this.

"Let's move," was all Scott said.

And move they did.

Maverick was snapped out of his light nap when a large clanging noise emanated from the cell door next to him.

Unlike most normal jail cells, Maverick's was almost completely covered in a special kind of steel, one that negated his Mutant ability to absorb and redirect kinetic energy—otherwise he could have pounded the walls with his fists until he had gathered up enough energy to simply blow them open. The only exceptions were one small rectangular hole in the cell door for seeing out into the hallway of the H.Y.D.R.A. prison complex, and a longer—but still very small—rectangular hole cut into one side of the cell that let him see into the cell adjacent.

Why H.Y.D.R.A. had put him into a cell that actually allowed him to see and talk to another prisoner had been beyond him.

Until now.

The large clanging noise was the unlocking of the adjacent room's door, the cell he could see into via the slit in the wall.

"Get 'er in there and keep 'er in there," said a figure who was outside Maverick's line of sight—presumably one H.Y.D.R.A guard to another. "We'll see just how good her healing factor is when we don't give her any food or water, heheh."

Maverick winced as a bloody, scarred, scabby mess that could barely be described as human was thrown into the cell. The individual—a young female, by the sound of her cry of pain as she hit the hard metal floor—had a few long strands of black hair left on her head, her black uniform was almost completely shredded. And she had…

Bone claws….

"X-23?" Maverick asked. "Oh my lord, X-23, is that you?"

A bloody gurgle emitted from the human-shaped pile of flesh in response. Maverick couldn't make out what she said, but she sounded relieved and… somewhat annoyed, oddly enough.

Maverick felt like he wanted to vomit, her body was so shredded and torn apart. But unfortunately, he could do nothing in his current status except watch the teenager painfully heal.

"Alright, then," Maverick sniffed, holding back a tear at the sight of how much pain the child was in as he sat back in his cell. It seems H.Y.D.R.A. always finds a way to sink lower… "I suppose I'll have to wait until you're in a better state before I can really talk to you… But I think we have quite a lot to chat about, you and I. And I think H.Y.D.R.A., for some reason or another, wants us to chat. Otherwise this small slot between our cells wouldn't be here."

As expected, it wasn't long before X-23 had healed enough to be functional again. A mere seven minutes later and Maverick could already hear her tapping around at different spots in her cell with her bone claws, trying to find a weak point.

"Don't bother, X," Maverick said, sighing. "These cells are specifically designed to hold US, not just your average prisoners. You wouldn't believe how much money Sinister has through different foreign accounts- it means little to H.Y.D.R.A. to strip down and re-design these cells any time a, er… 'special' prisoner is scheduled to be held here."

X-23 ignored him and wordlessly continued to tap around her cell, trying to find a spot—any spot—that rang slightly hollow, one that she could perhaps puncture over time.

"X-23, please… sit down. Sinister is far more resourceful than even you give him credit for… in fact, that's probably why you're in here in the first place, isn't it?"

A few moments of silence followed before X-23's voice came through the small slot that connected both of their cells. "How do you know about me?"

Even despite all she had recently been through, her tone still remained rather flat with a hint of anger in it, no different than it had been during the brief time he had seen her in the Institute.

Maverick sighed again. "That's a… long story."

Silence.

"Of course… I think we have some time to kill, so… sure, why not."

"Start at the beginning. Why is this Mutant named Sinister running H.Y.D.R.A.? Every source I had ever hacked about this organization said that Madame Hydra was the leader. I thought I had killed her more than a year ago."

"You took out a Madame Hydra. There are multiples, X. She's a clone, just like you are, but instead of being cloned to be a weapon, she was cloned to be a figurehead. The original Madame Hydra, from what I can discern, was completely and totally loyal to Sinister. They were married, in fact. Of course, time passed, and she grew old, but Sinister didn't want to risk letting someone else into such a high position in the organization, so instead he took samples of her DNA to clone her. Only those most deeply involved in H.Y.D.R.A.—Gauntlet, those who were involved in Weapon X, Kimura—only we know that Sinister is the true leader of the organization, and has been since its inception."

"…Since its inception? I thought H.Y.D.R.A. was over a hundred years old."

"Nearly two hundred, in fact. Sinister has the same regenerative powers as you and Wolverine, only perhaps even moreso. He heals almost instantaneously from any attack, no matter how grevious. And with those powers comes the same dramatic slowing of the aging process."

"So to really destroy H.Y.D.R.A., I need to kill Sinister."

"…Well, yes, but again… he's nigh-indestructible, X."

"Nigh-indestructible is not the same as indestructible."

Maverick couldn't help but smirk. "True…"

A few moments of silence passed before X-23 spoke up again. "So. Since you apparently know all this, I take it you were part of the Weapon X project?"

"At one time, yes."

"Explain. Now."

Maverick pinched his sinuses. H.Y.D.R.A. certainly hadn't bred manners into the girl, that was for sure.

"I guess I really had better start at the beginning, like you said.

"Despite my best prying, I haven't been able to uncover Sinister's true birthdate or real name. All I know is that he was born in England sometime in the early nineteenth century and emigrated to Canada near the end of that century, after he had fallen in love with the original Madame Hydra and married her—again, I've never been able to find out Madame Hydra's real name, but that's rather immaterial.

"From the earliest records I've been able to dig up, Sinister was always interested in science and genetics, but didn't have the ethical sense to know the proper boundaries for such things. The British government refused to approve the extreme measures he wanted to take, despite his promises that he could eventually create better, stronger, more 'perfect' individuals for their dying empire. A rather extreme form of eugenics was his original idea, I believe. This was the time of Sir Francis Galton and his ilk, you see, and ideas like that were becoming more popular among some individuals. And so he took his operations underground, but a few years into it he was found out. He managed to escape the police—due to his Mutant abilities, I would presume—and records show this is when he emigrated to Canada, albeit illegally, of course. Unlike the area around London where he was born, this country obviously has vast, unpopulated areas—an environment much more akin to harboring secretive organizations, as it were.

"And so H.Y.D.R.A. was born. For the next seventy or so years, it was rather a small-time operation—mostly just a small cadre of ethically-challenged scientists carrying out abominable scientific experiments in the middle of nowhere. On the off-chance someone stumbled across their hidden facility, well, that unfortunate individual simply became their next test subject. At this time, though, the experiments were done simply for scientific curiosity's sake, nothing more.

"As the decades went by, however, and the original crew of H.Y.D.R.A. died off, others couldn't help but notice that Sinister aged little, if at all. His followers grew, many of them thinking he was some kind of superhuman spiritual being—remember, this was a long, long time before Mutants were common knowledge even among top-secret government agencies. There simply weren't enough of them yet for anyone to take notice of the X-Gene. Sinister, the egomaniac that he is, did nothing to dissuade this notion, and in fact encouraged it. It made his decrees law among the rapidly growing organization, after all.

"And then, in the 1950s, Sinister and his subordinates finally felt they had the resources and the manpower to really branch out beyond just 'knowledge for knowledge's sake', and began to look into creating super soldiers like the fabled Captain America from World War II—only better, longer-living, and without the harmful side effects.

"Thus the Weapon X project was born," Maverick sighed. "And thus H.Y.D.R.A. entered into the 'big time', or at least as much as a secret underground organization could enter the big time, I suppose. If only I had known then what I had known now… well… let's just say that this horrible, godforsaken project might never have gotten off the ground.

"You see, X-23… I was the brains behind Weapon X originally. This whole project, its disastrous consequences…. It was all my fault."

"Well, I take it back. This was a royally bad idea," Jubilee said, wincing as the Blackbird took a grazing from a missile salvo and shook slightly from the impact.

"And what would you have had us do, sit in our Mansion and wait for the army to come to us?" Cyclops said from his position at the controls.

"But LOOK at them all down there!" Jubilee said, gesturing out the side window.

Indeed, both the Blackbird and the XM Velocity had just about reached the ever-advancing front of the clone army. The army of Jamies stretched out into the horizon, smoke billowing up from destroyed buildings of the few small towns in the distance that the army had already come through and occupied. It appeared that, at least for now, the army was only retaliating against any direct aggressors, though—no farm fields were being razed or just any building being blown up. Only governmental and law enforcement buildings—as well as any buildings that sold guns and ammunition—were being raided, from the reports Nightcrawler was radioing in from down in the midst of it all. The blue Mutant had volunteered to find out what exactly was going on behind enemy lines and had been almost constantly teleporting from place to place behind the battlefield, just long enough to gather information and always 'porting out if any Jamies caught wind of his presence.

Still, the rest of the X-Men quite honestly weren't worried as much about Nightcrawler as they were about themselves. The territory the Jamies had already conquered was relatively tranquil, with no one daring to come out of their homes and thus little bloodshed, according to Nightcrawler's reports. The frontline that both of the X-Jets were swiftly advancing towards, though—that place was now an absolute war zone.

By now the surprised U.S. military had gathered its wherewithal enough to send troops to try to repel the invasion, and although they were putting up a valiant effort, it was clear that they were losing. Although the military had larger, better hardware such as tanks, Apache helicopters, and the like, the army of Jamies had rather advanced weaponry—weaponry that duplicated as they duplicated. Whenever a tank mortar blasted away a swathe of Jamies, it was almost immediately filled up with more duplicates, and the lines continued to advance.

"I still don't understand how this is even possible!" Storm exclaimed. "Even if H.Y.D.R.A. was somehow able to brainwash Jamie, he couldn't duplicate this much! His brain wouldn't be able to handle it!"

"I'm not entirely certain either," Beast said, "But if we're ever going to get the bottom of this we definitely need to find out where the main H.Y.D.R.A. headquarters is… somehow. If we can stop the, er… 'production' of these duplicates, as it were, the entire army should fizzle out within minutes."

"Everyone hold on, incoming!" Cyclops yelled out, bringing the Blackbird up sharply as another missile salvo from a H.Y.D.R.A. helicopter just barely missed hitting the cockpit dead-on. In response, the co-pilot—Beast—fired off a duo of missiles from the jet, which zeroed in on the offending helicopter and sent it bursting into a ball of flames which quickly descended into the Rocky Mountain foothills below.

"We're all sitting ducks up here!" Iceman exclaimed. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"If we get on the ground right now, we're toast," Cyclops replied. "And look—H.Y.D.R.A.'s air forces are far fewer in number compared to their ground troops. When Multiple duplicates he can also duplicate small things like guns, but not something as large as a jet or helicopter. So although H.Y.D.R.A. essentially has unlimited firepower on the ground, they're currently stuck with however many aircraft they had had before they launched this invasion.

"Alright, we're nearing the frontline," Beast said. "We're going to need to blast our way through. Storm, if you would be so kind…"

"Cyclops, be prepared to steady the Blackbird," Storm replied as she stepped into the waist harness situated right behind the pilot and co-pilot chairs and fastened it. "I'll try to minimize the wind around us, but there will still be some turbulence."

"Got it," Cyclops said as the platform under the waist harness raised up towards the Blackbird's ceiling, which simultaneously slid back so that Storm was slowly elevated onto the X-Jet's roof.

"Charles, do you copy?" Beast said, speaking into the Blackbird's intercom. "We're preparing the battering ram, over. Be prepared to hold 'er steady."

*I copy, Hank,* came Xavier's voice through the intercom, *Jean and I will try to hold the Velocity as steady as possible. Proceed.*

Almost as if on cue, the few clouds in the sky began to quickly darken and grow larger and taller at supernatural speeds until a mere half minute later the sun was no longer in view.

Storm, from her position on the roof of the Blackbird, furrowed her brow as she concentrated, and her eyes snapped open, glowing faintly.

Lightning struck several places simultaneously as the two X-Jets neared the frontlines. All of them lanced right through several of the H.Y.D.R.A. helicopters, sending them all spiraling downwards in a wreath of flames and electricity.

A hole was now big enough for the X-Jets to make it though the battle lines, but H.Y.D.R.A. jets all around had seen the disturbance and were diving in, preparing to "plug" the hole before anyone took advantage of the temporary weakness.

Which, of course, was just what Storm had been counting on. Just as many of the H.Y.D.R.A. jets swooped in to fly through the exposed hole and at the incoming X-Jets, with a grunt of effort Storm unleashed a massive blast of wind at the H.Y.D.R.A. fighters, flinging them all backwards almost instantly, most of them out of control as they smashed into the hills below, more plumes of fire erupting from the ground as they did so.

"Alright," Storm gasped as the small platform she was on descended back into the cockpit area, the roof above her sliding closed. "That's as much as I can do for now. Go, go!"

Jubilee and Mercury helped Storm unbuckle herself and walk her towards her seat near the back of the Blackbird as the two X-Jets flew into the now-vacant hole.

"So now what?" Iceman asked.

"Well, I'm sure they'll be sending more aircraft at us once they realize Storm's expended her powers," Beast said.

As Beast flipped a switch, everyone inside the Blackbird looked around as several whirs and clicks sounded all around the vehicle. Within seconds, almost a dozen missile pods and guns emerged out of the Blackbird's chassis, all battle-ready and in prime condition.

"Which, of course, is what these beauties are for," Cyclops grinned.

"We can't take out all of them, though!" Jubilee said.

"We don't need to," Beast said. "We're making a beeline straight for where this army seems to be appearing from, a bit north of the American-Canadian border, pretty much 400 miles directly north from our position currently. Hopefully we can figure out where they're—"

*This is Nightcrawler. Does anyone read?*

Beast immediately stopped in mid-sentence and turned back towards the Blackbird's console. "Nightcrawler, thank goodness you're still okay. What do you have to report?"

*Well, first off, pretty light show back zere… but I've actually found two people who can solve all of our problems…. I zink.*

"What?" Cyclops jumped in, his eyebrows quirked. "Who?"

*Er, uhm… remember two of those H.Y.D.R.A. mercenaries who entered the Institute and took the initial two Jamies? Yeah, they're right here with me…. And they're not fighting me, but rather all ze Jamies around us. They could, um… really use their help.*

"And why should we help them?" Cyclops asked. "They tried to kill us!"

*Because… they told me they know the location of H.Y.D.R.A. headquarters. They can take us zere.*

Cyclops sighed for a second before switching the intercom. "Professor X, Jean… did you guys catch that?"

*Yeah, we got it,* Jean said. *Since we're a bit ahead of you guys, and because the Velocity is better for vertical pick-ups, we're zeroing in on Kurt's location right now. Cover us, while we…. Ugh, I can't believe I'm saying this…. rescue these two H.Y.D.R.A. mercenaries from a problem they created.*

"'Crawler, you might wanna 'port!" Domino yelled, aiming two of her machine guns right at Kurt.

Nightcrawler gulped and teleported behind Domino, just in time to see her send a spray of bullets towards a few Jamies that had found their position. Both of the Jamies were "regular" duplicates, and dissipated into thin air as the bullets hit them.

"I have to say, this is a lot more fun than I thought it'd be," Deadpool said, sheathing his blood-stained swords after felling a "solid" Jamie clone, who crumpled to the ground, his life bleeding out of them.

"Fun?" Nightcrawler replied, angrily turning Deadpool around. "You call killing one of my friends over and over and over FUN! What is WRONG with you?"

"Kind of a long story," Deadpool shrugged. "And it's being told in another scene anyways, so it'd be pretty redundant to repeat it here."

Nightcrawler merely backed away from Deadpool a few steps, an eyebrow quirked.

"Don't mind him," Domino said as she quickly glanced around the front of the small abandoned grocery store they had taken refuge in, making sure there weren't any other Jamie duplicates nearby. "Deadpool can say some pretty… out there… stuff sometimes. But he gets the job done."

"Okay, you seem slightly more sane, but how could you just go about all….this… with practically no emotion at all?" Nightcrawler said. "Don't you have any morals, anything at ALL telling you that this is all wrong?"

"We might have been involved with H.Y.D.R.A. back in the day, but we're free agents now," Domino said. "They paid us to capture that pint-sized friend—er, friends—of yours, and quite handsomely too, I might add. I had no idea that they were going to do something like this with them."

"Okay, but let's pretend that they didn't. You still have no problem with capturing and killing people without even knowing vhy you're doing it?"

"Hey, you do what you're good at, right? And we both just happen to be exceptionally good at killing people. Which is why we decided we might as well make a living out of it."

"Yeah, and look where that's gotten you," Nightcrawler muttered.

"Alright, look," Domino scowled, taking a few steps towards Kurt until they were right next to each other. "You seem like a nice kid….which, quite frankly, is two strikes against you as far as I'm concerned.

"Now, our alliance is pretty tenuous as it is, you got it? So don't pester me and Deadpool with your stupid 'morality' talk and I won't shoot a hole through one of your friend's heads when they arrive." Taking one of many guns out of a holster on her lower leg, she cocked it and threw it to Nightcrawler, who awkwardly caught it.

"But you are going to help us, right?" Nightcrawler asked, eyeing the AK-47 in his hands nervously.

"If we were really in league with H.Y.D.R.A., why would we be stuck in the middle out here fighting an army we helped to create? They screwed us over big time, kiddo, and it's time for them to pay for their mistakes. And not with cash, this time. We know where the H.Y.D.R.A. main base is, and we'll lead you and your band of 'heroes' to it. But it isn't gonna be a cakewalk anyway you look at it, so ALL of you are going to have to go in there guns blazing, forgetting that you're firing on your bud, or all of this is for nothing. Quite frankly, WE have more reason to be skeptical of YOU than—"

Domino was interrupted as the sound of exploding missiles and guns firing suddenly sounded from outside.

"Alright, Santie Claus is here!" Deadpool said giddily, unsheathing his swords again. "Let's see what presents he's brought us this year!"

"'Crawler, port us to the top of the building!" Domino said.

"But ve'll be sitting ducks up zere!" Nightcrawler protested.

"You haven't seen us truly kickin' butt yet, so I'll ignore that," Domino said. "There's a reason we've survived this long, kiddo. Now, get with the 'porting."

Nightcrawler reluctantly did, and a split second later they both were in the middle of a whirlwind of chaos. The XM Velocity was indeed slowly descending towards them, about three blocks away, while the Blackbird zoomed around the horizon, evading and destroying some persistent H.Y.D.R.A. enemy jets. However, even with the Blackbird distracting some of H.Y.D.R.A.'s aerial forces, there was still the matter of the army of Jamies on the ground. Their ranks were considerably thinner here than they had been at the advancing front—only a token "occupying" force was left behind, which is why the three Mutants had been able to stow away for as long as they had—but it was an army of duplicates, after all. With the sight of the incoming XM Velocity, the few flesh-and-blood "clone" Jamies who had been wandering the streets quickly began creating temporary duplicates of themselves, aiming various types of guns and artillery weapons at the Velocity.

"There's too many of zem!" Nightcrawler said. "Hang on, I'll teleport us into the Velocity so that we can—"

"Hold on, kiddo," Domino interjected. "These Jamies are multiplying so fast, by the time you 'port us into the copter and take off, we'll be taking so much firepower that we may not make it out of their firing range before taking critical damage."

"Then this is where we come in," Deadpool crowed.

"Now remember kiddo, you point the gun and press the trigger," Domino said, quickly checking all of her guns to make sure they were loaded and ready. "And try not to shoot us. We'll take care of the rest."

And with that, both of the mercenaries leapt off the two-story roof and into the rapidly expanding army, Deadpool somehow jumping clear across the street and onto the building top on the other side—one less than a block away to where the Velocity was descending, having just located their positions a moment ago from the looks of it—while Domino jumped down to the streets below, right in the thick of it.

Nightcrawler was amazed. He hated to look at such carnage, but yet it was truly a sort of unholy art form. Ducking, weaving, and dodging, the fact that Domino and Deadpool were outnumbered a hundred-to-one didn't seem to faze them in the slightest. Within seconds Domino had gunned down dozens of Jamies around her, only a few plasma blasts having grazed her uniform. Deadpool preferred to get more up close and personal with his enemies, slicing several clones in two in the blink of an eye as he landed before he began to clear the rest of the roof. He didn't dodge as effectively as Domino, but perhaps it was because he didn't need to—any injuries he received from the Jamie army quickly healed as he continued to cut his way through the troops.

"There's Kurt!"

Nightcrawler was shaken out of his reverie as he recognized Jamie's—or rather, a Jamie's- stern voice shout from behind him, and quickly turning around, he noticed a group of three—no, make that five, no, make that nine—Jamies having come up onto the roof from the floor below.

"Oh, right… the gun," Nightcrawler said. Wincing, he mumbled a quick prayer as he clumsily opened fire on the duplicates of his friend, cutting some of them down, but not as fast as they could duplicate more of themselves.

"Uh… Domino, Deadpool… could really use some help here!" Nightcrawler said, starting to panic as the number of enemies on the roof rose above twenty.

Suddenly about a dozen of the Jamies went flying off of the roof, blown back by some unseen force.

Jean's voice abruptly sounded off in Kurt's head. Don't worry Kurt, we've got your back.

With most of the other Jamies in the area occupied with Domino and Deadpool, the XM Velocity had pulled up to the side of the building, the rotor noise almost deafening this close to Nightcrawler's ears. The only reason he hadn't heard it pulling up was because of the sound of the AK-47 in his hands repeatedly going off… and his heart pounding.

The side door to the Velocity opened, and out jumped Magma and Husk onto the building's roof, with Jean simply floating out behind them.

"Stay close to the Velocity, the two mercenaries are handling the Jamies further out," Jean yelled to the three other X-Men on the roof. "Don't get too close to them, or they'll overwhelm you. Let's make this quick—we've gotta get out here, the Blackbird can only distract the H.Y.D.R.A. fighters for so long without backup!"

"Already on it," Husk said to herself as she quickly shed her skin, her form underneath becoming rock-hard liquid nitrogen. Almost immediately an aura of intense cold shot out from her, instantly freezing anything she touched. Sprinting towards the Jamies, she didn't even have to touch them for the freezing to start—a couple duplicates instantly froze in place before they could back away. A few others began to shoot at her, but the hard form she had chosen caused the blasts to merely bounce off of her, barely knicking her skin.

"Geez, will you watch it?" Magma said, her flames flickering slightly as Husk got within about ten feet of her. "I can't keep my flames up under THAT kind of cold!"

Magma merely started hurling random fireballs into the crowd of Jamies that weren't already occupied, setting several of them on fire. Many of the Jamie duplicates dropped to the ground, screaming in agony before finally disappearing into thin air.

"How can you all do this?" Nightcrawler said, something inside him seizing up as he saw Jamies suffering all around him. He lowered his gun, raised it slightly, then lowered it for good. "I can't… this is our friend."

"Kurt…. We do what we have to," Jean said sadly, hovering up to him as she telekinetically flung a score of Jamies off the roof and into the street below. "These aren't Jamie…not anymore."

No sooner had Jean laid a hand on Nightcrawler's shoulder than Domino and Deadpool climbed or leapt onto the rooftop they all had gathered on, both of them almost covered in blood—very little of it theirs.

"Alright, we took care of most of the 'real' clones—many of the duplicates have faded out," Domino said, slinging one of her guns back its holster. "It's now or never."

"Alright, everyone, let's go go go!" Jean said, motioning for Magma and Husk to get into the Velocity as she, Nightcrawler, Deadpool, and Domino hopped in. Both of the female X-Men immediately complied, reverting to their original forms before they jumped into the aircraft.

Nightcrawler breathed heavily, hyperventilating as he immediately dropped the AK-47 onto the floor of the Velocity and sat down, shaking. "I hope I never have to do anything like that ever again."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't count on that," Domino said as everyone inside strapped themselves in, the Velocity accelerating as it quickly gained altitude and speed, streaking towards the Blackbird."

"Vhat? Why?"

"Because, furball, I don't know if you've forgotten, but the whole reason we're ON this jet is because we know where the main H.Y.D.R.A. base is," Deadpool said. "And once we give the your buddies in that other jet the coordinates, we'll be cruising towards it straightaway, before things get even crazier than me on the Fourth of July."

"You don't mean…?" Nightcrawler said, his tone quickly taking on a mixture of dread and horror.

"I'm a really patriotic guy, y'see," Deadpool whispered out of the side of his mouth to Husk, who merely rolled her eyes.

"Yup. The only way to stop this is to take it out at the source, kiddo," Domino replied.
"And I have no doubt H.Y.D.R.A. headquarters is where all these Jamies are comin' from. So in a few more hours, we'll be laying siege to the big base itself."

"But that's suicide!" Nightcrawler protested.

"Funny, me and Deadpool have been doing stuff like this all our lives and we aren't dead yet," Domino smirked. "Though, for you guys… yeah, probably."

"…Okay, it's just because I really like explosions," Deadpool continued to whisper to Husk. "Don't tell, mkay?"

"What do you mean, you're responsible?" X-23 said, rage now evident in her voice. "You mean you're the one who started all this? YOU'RE responsible for what I am?"

Maverick could tell that if there wasn't the impenetrable wall separating them, the clone would have her claws to his neck right now. "Well, er… indirectly, that is."

"Explain. Now."

"After the end of World War II and the decline in the popularity of eugenics because of its use by the Nazis, Sinister pretty much gave up on trying to recruit, get any sort of popular support going among the scientific community, even among the rather secret channels he had already been using. So he more or less completely shut H.Y.D.R.A. off from any outside contact, and within a few years, almost anyone who wasn't already employed by H.Y.D.R.A. knew we existed anymore.

"He had come up with an idea, though. A sort of forced evolution of a select few test subjects, using samples of DNA from himself—a project he called 'Weapon X'."

"But I thought you said you created it."

"I was the one responsible for it happening, yes. At the time, I was a geneticist employed by H.Y.D.R.A. If I had known then what I know now…. Anyways, I was the one who came up with how to essentially combine and 'graft', if you will, Sinister's DNA onto other individuals. We tried the process on regular humans, but those, well… they died pretty horrificially. I was a bit hesitant at this point, but still stayed on the project, lying to myself that I'd be able to refine it, that the ends justified the means, that this would all be worth it soon enough.

"An employee named Wade Wilson was our first successful test subject, if you use the term 'successful' very loosely. He had been chosen because, besides Sinister, he was the only employee that was known to be a Mutant. He had superhuman reflexes and agility… but unfortunately, he had also been recently diagnosed with incurable cancer. He had little to lose, and thus volunteered for the project.

"The Weapon X process, at the time, merely involved mixing some of Sinister's DNA with the host—nothing like what Wolverine had gone through. Wade Wilson emerged alive, but… not well. His skin was horribly disfigured, but he had an incredible regenerative ability, almost as good as Sinister's himself. He also had gained superhuman senses, in addition to the sort of 'sixth sense' you and Wolverine have when you sense something about a situation isn't right. Unfortunately, it had also driven him insane—the regenerative ability caused the cancer to essentially spread rapidly over his body, but without killing him, leaving his mind a wreck and giving him his current appearance. Despite all these setbacks, he was given the codename Deadpool by Sinister, and considered a partial success. Sinister determined that Deadpool's unique condition was the problem, not the process, and ordered new Mutants found to subject to the Weapon X process."

"Wait… I'm confused," X-23 interrupted. "I had always been told that H.Y.D.R.A. had stolen the Weapon X process from another organization. That it wasn't created by them."

"That comes later, but to give you a short answer, it was merely a cover story," Maverick replied. "Again, one where only the truth was known by Sinister, a few select others, and those directly involved in the Weapon X project. The main reason for the cover-up was that if others thought we hadn't originally created the process, we wouldn't know as much about it as the 'true' creators, and thus people wouldn't try to infiltrate our organization to try to steal the 'original' research on it.

"But continuing with our little history lesson here, Sinister was actually pleased with Deadpool, despite the many… defects. Still, he wanted improvement, and I, along with several other H.Y.D.R.A. scientists, continued to work on the project. Through various covert enterprises that I quite honestly don't have all the details about, we managed to find and recruit several more test subjects for the project.

"Domino, real name Neena Thurman—Wraith, real name Hector Rendoza- and Sabretooth, real name Victor Creed- were all subjected to the process next. Domino seemed to possess some sort of ability to manipulate probabilities—i.e., 'luck'—slightly in her favor, but the Weapon X process gave her incredible marksmanship, as well as a regenerative ability. Despite the fact that the only visible side effect was the draining of most of the pigment from Domino's skin—the black circle around her left eye is a tattoo, by the way—Sinister oddly considered her less of a success than Deadpool, even considering that she emerged still sane. You see, Domino's regenerative ability is slight, not nearly as obvious and immediate as, say, yours or Wolverine's. But it's there. Whereas on average a healthy human takes about six weeks to heal a broken bone, Domino only takes about four to five days to recover from such a wound. It also has an effect on her aging, although again, less so than yours or Logan's—she's roughly sixty years old now, though she looks like she's in her mid-thirties.

"Wraith already had the Mutant ability to turn himself partially transparent, which is one of the reasons why Sinister had selected him. An almost invisible person with a regenerative ability? Such an individual would be the perfect assassin-for-hire. Sadly—at least for Sinister—Wraith was another 'failure'. Like Domino—and Sinister himself—the project drained most of the pigmentation from his skin and gave him a slight regenerative ability, but nothing else. Sinister considered Wraith the worst failure of the project, given his high hopes.

"Sabretooth was where Sinister thought the project had produced its first, unqualified success. You see, he was mainly concerned with replicating his healing factor without any nasty side effects, and this worked on Sabretooth. He had always had the animal-like claws and fangs, but his regenerative ability, though not quite as good as Sinister's, was just a step below it and comparable to Wolverine's. And unlike Deadpool, he had a somewhat level head about him.

"So, like many scientists without any morals or ethics who have had a taste of success, Sinister decided to keep pushing the project further and further. He decided to up the ante with Arkady Rossovich, codename Omega Red. Without Arkady's knowledge, Sinister had planned to implant carbonadium tentacles—at the time, the strongest metal known to man—into the Mutant's body during the Weapon X process. Given that Omega Red already had superhuman strength and durability as his Mutant powers, Sinister figured Arkady had a high probability of surviving the process. If he didn't—well, Sinister hardly cared about that.

"The project was a success—not only did he survived the process, he gained a healing factor similar to Wolverine's. And, given his newfound abilities and taste for blood—Arkady had been a convicted serial killer before H.Y.D.R.A. had released him from prison—Omega Red was surprisingly forgiving for the heretofore unknown carbonadium implants.

"Seeing what Sinister was willing to do to an individual without their knowledge, by now I wanted out. But I knew I couldn't leave H.Y.D.R.A. voluntarily—at least not without getting shot in the back of the head on the way out. Fortunately, I had a plan of my own. I had hid my mutation from Sinister and the rest of H.Y.D.R.A. for all these years, and finally outted my condition, telling him that I was so impressed with the process I wanted to undergo it myself. You see, my ability was that I could absorb and redirect kinetic energy, but only to a certain amount. With a regenerative ability like Sabretooth's, I told him, I could be nearly unstoppable as a soldier. Sinister bought it, and I underwent the process, taking the codename 'Maverick', given how many of the H.Y.D.R.A. scientists had called me that after I had essentially created and then 'perfected' the Weapon X process. Unfortunately for both of us, my body didn't take the Weapon X process as well as some of the others, and my regenerative ability was slight, like Domino's and Wraith's. I had planned to use my hypothesized near-invulnerability to escape H.Y.D.R.A. unscathed, but it apparently was not to be. I was stuck working on a project I was so morally against I didn't even know if I could live with myself anymore.

"And then… then came what Sinister claimed would be the final, ultimate step of the project. He had found the perfect candidate, he said—this man, truly, would be 'Weapon X'.

"And so we put Wolverine through the process… both the project's biggest success, and its fatal mistake."

Sinister was on top of the world.

Things couldn't be going more smoothly. Oh, there had been a couple of destroyed jets here, a pocket of U.S. troops putting up a bit more resistance than expected there—but things were quickly reaching the point where he could not, by any means, be stopped.

As expected, the mass cloning of "Master Multiple" had been a complete success. The soulless, amoral individual he now considered the "real" Jamie Madrox was strapped down in a lab a floor below. They were applying the replication process to him over and over and over again, but this time it was a highly sped-up cloning process, not a forced "permanent duplication" that had caused slight shifts in behavior from duplicate to duplicate until what had been the X-Man Multiple had become Master Multiple. Each Master Multiple had a mental link to the original "double-M" to receive overall directives from, but otherwise each Master Multiple was exactly like the others, not just in looks, but in behavior and mindset as well—so there was no chance of rebellion, no backstabbing occurring here. They were all utterly and completely loyal to H.Y.D.R.A. Each batch of "real" Master Multiples was taken covertly by transport vehicles—each equipped with a near-invisibilty cloak so global satellites and the few aerial surveillance vehicles still aloft in the area couldn't track them back to the main H.Y.D.R.A. base—to near the border, where they were released and began to duplicate en masse. Even though his "real" army of Master Multiples ran into the low thousands, with so many duplicates by all accounts they were now in the millions, and ever-growing as more and more Multiples were transported to the border. Within days they would be on the Capitol, and some had already hijacked planes and would soon land on other continents. Soon stealth would no longer be needed, and the line of Master Multiple clones could stream out of H.Y.D.R.A. headquarters without fear of reprisal as they commandeered any military aircraft they could find. Within a week or two, the world would be his, an utterly massive army of Multiples and their duplicates subjugating anyone who stood in their way.

And on top of it all, imagery from above ground showed the X-Men's two jets—the Blackbird and the Velocity—converging on H.Y.D.R.A. headquarters. Sinister had no idea how the X-Men had figured out the base's location, but the only possible threat to his new world order had just knocked on his front door, not knowing what lay behind it.

Sinister gleefully told a few H.Y.D.R.A. agents manning the console in front of him to open up the hidden artillery armaments and target the two aircraft immediately.

"Alright, there it is."

"Wait, what?" Husk said, turning in her chair to face Deadpool. "There's nothing down there but trees and snow."

"Well, du-uh," Deadpool responded back. "That's kinda, y'know, the point. It's all underground. But hey, maybe when they decide to do some renovations they could move it above ground—y'know, make it in the shape of a big giant 'H' so satellites could target it and the U.S. could just nuke the place from a bazillion miles away."

"Okay, okay…. Point taken," Husk said in a huff.

"Radar is detecting no other aircraft in the near vicinity," Xavier said, his eyes dancing across the instrument panels. "Probably so no one gets suspicious. But we should still—"

*Wait, Charles—do you see that?* came Beast's voice urgently over the comlink.

"See wha—"

Xavier stopped midsentence. The very earth itself was moving below, the trees and snow on it folding back as huge mechanical anti-air missile launchers poked up from the beneath the soil itself.

Domino cursed.

"Okay, I really really thought we were in the know," Deadpool said, "…But I pinky-swear I've never heard about the base having defenses like this."

"Beast, evasive maneuvers!" Charles said, pulling back on the flight stick. "We've got to avoid this firepower until we can—"

*It's too late!* Beast yelled back through the comlink. *There's dozens of missile launchers popping out everywhere, and-*

*They're firing!* Xavier heard Mercury over the comlink scream from somewhere back in the Blackbird.

"Everyone, brace for imp—"

Xavier didn't even get to finish his sentence as a barrage of anti-air missiles struck both the Blackbird and the Velocity simultaneously, two huge balls of flame lighting up the evening sky for miles around.

To be continued…
 

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