"Well, now that I've interviewed the others, I have the wonderful opportunity to interview myself. None of the other up-and-coming Horsemen seemed interested in it, so here we are. I shall be asking and answering my own questions—which, audience, is actually more fun than it sounds. It lets you steer the conversation the way you want, you see.

"So, anyways, please tell us your human name, your Mutant name, and your Horseman name.

"Well, my real name is Nathaniel Essex, but I haven't gone by that name in years. My Mutant name is Sinister—sometimes preceded by 'Mister', if I'm in the mood. My Horsemen name shall be Death, which is certainly appropriate for one such as myself. Next question.

"Why did you pick the nickname Sinister? It seems an awfully… morbid codename for someone who believes he's doing good in the world.

"Excellent question! But to fully answer it, you see, I'll need to delve back into my childhood. So bear with me for a moment, as I'm much older than I look.

"I was, in fact, born in 1798 in Britain. And no, I didn't go through any weird time business like Blink—er, Famine—did. I simply discovered in my late teens—once my Mutant powers fully manifested—that I regenerated nearly instantaneously from any wound inflicted upon me. This eventually included aging—I've looked about the same age since, oh, 1833, 1834, thereabouts. I mean, let's face it folks, there's regeneration and there's regeneration, you see what I'm getting at? You may have heard of former—failed—test subjects of mine such as Wolverine or X-23. Their regeneration rates are much higher than a human's, to be sure. And, admittedly, they have an enhanced sense of smell, vision, and hearing that I don't. But whereas someone like them can take a few minutes to fully recover from what would normally be a fatal wound to a normal person—such as a stab through the heart—it takes only a few seconds for me. I really don't see how I'm ever going to die, at this rate! Not that I ever would want to, you see. Especially not now, not that I'm going to be a bonafide Horseman of the Apocalypse.

"Anyways, those of you who are familiar with science in the early 1800s may know that I was more or less the contemporary of such bigwigs as Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton. Darwin, obviously, discovered the theory of evolution. Galton and I expanded upon Darwin's premise—namely, if things evolved, if organisms went from one state to another over time, well then obviously that new state was—in practically all cases—superior to the one before it. Over the next few decades, what came to be known as 'eugenics' came to pass—that is, the idea that we can mold, that we can shape human development to produce superior human beings down the road.

"Unfortunately, eugenics became a dirty word after it became associated with Hitler and all that. After World War II, it slowly sunk into the background—it still was there, to be certain, but it tended to take on different names. Control the language and you control how people view an idea, you see.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back in the 1800s, after I really became a believer in eugenics, I wrote papers on it, books—just like Sir Francis Galton. But Galton didn't go far enough. See, even though Mutants weren't public knowledge back then, I knew. I knew that humankind wasn't the end-all be-all; there was a higher form of life on the rise. And so I tried many experiments on humans to try to activate the X-gene in them, turn them into Mutants. It pains me to say that it didn't work.

"It was about this time that the English government discovered what I was doing—they said I couldn't do it anymore. It was unethical to do such experiments on humans, they said, it was inhumane—sinister. So, that was where my Mutant name came from—a sort of 'in your face' taunt back at the English government. 'Well, if what I'm doing—trying to improve the kind of beings that we are—is sinister, well then, let me be Sinister!'

"As you can imagine, they didn't take too kindly to that.

"Not that I expected them to. So I went underground, emigrated into Canada secretly and set up shop in the frozen wastes in the northern part of that country, along with a few other fellow scientists I could trust and a handful of mercenaries. Over time, we formed the secret organization now known as H.Y.D.R.A.—so named because of our ability to adapt to the enemy. 'Cut off one of our heads and two others will grow in its place!' It was a nice rallying cry.

"Of course, I was the head—the REAL head—though as time went on and the organization expanded only those at the tip-top of the ladder knew it. There was no replacing me, and as I continued to live through the decades and generations of H.Y.D.R.A. agents and scientists came and went, I attained a sort of demigod-like status among the organization. My word was law.

"I realize now that eventually became my weakness. You see, in the 1950s we began work on a program called 'Weapon X'—we never were able to fully turn humans into Mutants, but we were able to take Mutants that we thought had particularly desirable traits for combat and—with their loyalty sworn to us, of course—I infused them with a small portion of my DNA, with interesting and varied results.

"Those were the glory days, but alas, it didn't last long. With their newfound power, most of them eventually rebelled. H.Y.D.R.A.—at my bidding, of course—continued experiments, and less than year ago (egads, it seems like it was eons ago now), we tried a 'quick cloning' process on a Mutant codenamed Multiple in hopes of quickly building an unstoppable army.

"To my eternal shame, it failed—not only that, but H.Y.D.R.A. became public knowledge because of that screw up. The organization was forced underground even moreso than it had been already.

"You know what they say mistakes pave the way for, though. It was because of this mistake that the great Apocalypse found me, and, er… helped… my organization get back on its feet—though now he was in charge, of course. We had a new goal, and after recruiting three more Horsemen, we began to work on it avidly.

"The results of our efforts you now see before you. A new world order—one in which the most superior of all Mutants rule, with regular Mutants like you our happy and willing subordinates, and the genetic refuse called humanity at the bottom. Our goal, of course, is to eventually completely wipe them out, though getting rid of six billion-odd organisms—even of an inferior species—will naturally take a while. Evolution isn't fast—hence why Apocalypse and I want to speed it up.

"So then, let's finish this interview with a question I've asked all of the others—why join Apocalypse? What is it about him that drew you to him?

"Well, in my case he sort of came to me. And though I am loathe to admit we butted heads at first, I soon came to realize that my life's work, all the goals I had in mind for H.Y.D.R.A.—Apocalypse, with his mind and his tech, could accomplish them, and accomplish them in a far more efficient manner than I ever thought possible. He actually HAD the tech to turn humans into Mutants, but alas, those race traitors called the X-Men and the Brotherhood destroyed that hope, and so now we simply have to slaughter the humans that remain. And so the master has now become but a humble servant.

"So, in conclusion, what we are doing is simply speeding along the right and natural order of things, viewers. The inferior will die, and the superior will live. Don't fret it; you are the superior ones. You won life's lottery, and it's well time you reaped the rewards. So it's time to join us and help forward evolution once again."

"No…. NO!"

Blob got up immediately after the shockwave hit, running over to where Surge had been as debris rained down from the ceiling hole. All that was left was a sparking blackened generator and a pair of fingerless, steaming metal gauntlets.

"She can't leave me… no, not now, not now…" Blob muttered to himself softly as he stared at the gauntlets in disbelief.

Captain America shook his head and brushed the light coat of debris off his face, looking first at Blob, then at the others to make sure everyone else was okay. To his relief, they all seemed to be—at least physically. Even Pyro had been awakened by the shockwave.

"Wh—what's goin' on?" Pyro mumbled, rubbing his head.

"Quicksilver," Captain America barked out in a manner intended to cut through any mental haze Pietro might have been feeling. "Turn back on the safeties."

"Uh… yeah," Quicksilver said quietly, standing up and dusting himself off. "Will… will do."

Pietro sped off, and a few seconds later the huge generator began to power down, electricity bolts ceasing to spark from it.

Blob simply fell to his knees in front of the gauntlets, muttering to himself unintelligibly as he struggled to comprehend that Surge was, in fact, gone.

"Seriously, what's goin' on?" Pyro mumbled, starting to stand up by himself as Quicksilver sped back into the room. "Did we… win?"

"Yes and no," Wanda softly replied, simply pointing towards where Fred was kneeling.

Everyone stood for a moment, watching Blob slowly begin to weep and reach for the scorching hot gauntlets. They sizzled as he picked them up, but with his powers it was little more than a slight discomfort as he looked at them for a moment and then cradled them against his chest, his weeping intensifying.

Avalanche glanced at the others and was the first to take a step forward. "Hey, Fred, listen, man—"

"YOU WERE RIGHT!" Blob suddenly interrupted, bawling. "You… you were right, Lance!"

Lance simply looked at the others and shrugged as Fred continued.

"You told me…" Fred sniffed briefly before continuing, "You told me back when we were in Japan, you said… you said I shoulda asked her! I shoulda asked her out, or… or something, but I… I didn't, I… couldn't! Wouldn't let myself! And now… now…"

"Hey, c'mon now, don't think like—"

"She's gone… really… really gone! Oh, god, it's true… why didn't I…" Fred cried, breaking down again.

"Quicksilver, take Armor and scout the perimeter," Captain America said softly. "Make sure we aren't going to have to deal with Rockslide falling back down on us."

Both of the X-Force members silently nodded and took their leave—but no sooner had they than Blob abruptly stood up and turned around, shifting both of Surge's gauntlets into one arm as he pointed at Captain Rogers with the other.

"And YOU!" Blob suddenly raged, his face turning even more red. "YOU coulda stopped this—coulda stopped her! All you had to do… all you had t' do was throw that stupid frisbee shield at her, knock her arm away from the generator! Then she'd still be WITH US!"

"Now hold on just a minute, son," Captain America said, his tone stern yet empathetic as he took a few steps forward towards his accuser. "I didn't want her to do this. That's a fact. But she had made up her mind—and you know Noriko. I, of all people, wasn't going to change her mind about this. If I did what you just suggested—it would have interrupted the bolts. Given Rockslide precious time to fall back down to Earth, perhaps even undo what Noriko was trying to accomplish. And she would have just reconnected to the generator and sacrificed herself anyway—only it would've had less of a chance of succeeding.

"I get it," Captain America continued, now only a few feet away from Blob as he looked directly into the taller X-Force member's eyes. "We all have things we wish we could've done differently, Fred. We've made the wrong choices before, and we'll do so again. We're all human, despite whatever Apocalypse and his Horsemen may say. But shifting the burden to others, trying to blame them… I saw far too many soldiers do that during World War II, and it is a path that leads to self-destruction. Don't give into it."

Fred just stood there for a moment, his expression slowly softening as his lip began trembling. Starting to weep again, he said, "I-I'm sorry…. I didn't mean… I just wanted…"

"I know you did," Captain America said, putting a hand briefly on Fred's shoulder. "But it looks like your friend saved at least a couple of million people by doing what she did today… and honestly, if I had a choice… that's the way I would've wanted to go, too. Saving people. You should be proud of Noriko, Fred. I sure am."

Fred just merely nodded slightly, his gaze shifting down to the gauntlets in his grasp again.

"Cap'n," Toad spoke up, walking forward while he continued to support Wanda. "You mind?"

"Not at all," Captain America said, allowing Wanda to transfer her balance from leaning on Toad to leaning on him. "Avalanche, Pyro—come on. Let's get out of this place, see if we can't contact S.H.I.E.L.D."

As the rest of the X-Force left, Blob simply fell to his knees again. "Toad… I just… I don't know if I'm ever gonna get past this…"

"I don't think any 'a us will, man," Toad said, laying a hand on his pal's shoulder. "But y'know I'm always here, if ya need me. You an' me, bros 'till the end, Freddy."

"Yeah," Fred sobbed. Clutching the gauntlets even tighter to his chest, he simply leaned over to the ground and let a long, loud mixture of a sob and a wail, the sound of it echoing through the empty corridors of the power plant, Toad never letting go of the tight grasp he had on his friend's shoulder as Fred continued to let out his despondent cries.

Rockslide couldn't believe it.

He had felt the power leave him somewhere in Earth's upper atmosphere—the enormous bolt of Surge's directed electricity finally drilling down deep enough into his form that the Font fragment had fallen out.

Where it was now, he didn't know. He assumed it had re-entered the atmosphere and burned up on re-entry—if it COULD burn up, that is.

He reached out with his mind, trying to contact Apocalypse and the others. He wasn't sure how much connection he still had with the Font, but if it was anything…

…Nothing. No answer, no feeling that someone was listening to him.

And here he was, stuck in low Earth orbit, only a small rock about a foot in diameter left of what was before his enormous body. All the rest had been shed during the push out of Earth's atmosphere. There was no other material whatsoever—at least within his mental reach.

Rockslide managed to shape a face out of the rock. The frustration, the rage, the seeming eternity he would spend up here in space, with nothing to occupy his time… it quickly bubbled over and he let out a long, long scream.

It was then that he realized just how true the old saying about space and screaming was.

Apocalypse grimaced as one of the four dots on the world map display blinked out of existence. Whether War was truly dead or not, it did not matter—for that dot to have gone out, that portion of the Font must have been deactivated.

War was now merely Rockslide once again. One of his Horsemen had been taken down.

Truth be told, Apocalypse had expected a Horseman to fail. They were nearly all-powerful, of course, but they weren't infallible, and they were bound to mess up occasionally, particularly once humanity had gotten over its initial shock and struck back. They were the front line in this new assault of his, but not the entire army.

Still, he hadn't expected one to drop this quickly. He had expected an atom bomb detonation to catch one of them off-guard, or for one to be simply overwhelmed by a nation's full force, not a small team of Mutants that—with the exception of one—weren't even real X-Men.

However, this was natural selection at its best, he told himself. If Rockslide—with all his newfound power—wasn't able to accomplish his mission, then he wasn't worthy of being a Horseman. Apocalypse could always find another War—and, truth be told, part of him was glad it was Rockslide. The rock-man seemed to harbor some regrets and doubts about their purpose below the surface—better he go than a "true believer" like Famine or Pestilence.

Apocalypse shifted his focus from the world map display in the command center to the various external camera displays. As the vessel the size of a small continent continued to push northward, the ice and snow that covered the top of it continued to slowly melt—it wouldn't be long, now, before he could break through the remainder—and then his full capabilities would at last be evident to the world.

The scanners in front of him showed teams of Mutants rapidly closing in on Famine's, Pestilence's, and Death's positions, however. The X-Men had gotten lucky once before—they wouldn't do so again.

Fiddling with some controls, the views switched to that of his remaining Horsemen's fields of vision. He was seeing what they were seeing—and he would see how well they could do, with all of their power, against these race traitors.

He watched the different screens with interest—now was truly his other Horsemen's final test.

"I can't believe what I'm seeing. This can't be real… I have to be in some kind of cruel dream…"

"Yeah," Kurt agreed, looking with Kitty at the devastation below. "All of New York City… it looks… it looks like one giant tornado swept through it."

Indeed, as the helijet their team was in came closer and closer to New York City, the sheer extent of the damage became more and more evident.

"You know me—it's hard to get me down when it's sunny," Roberto said, nodding towards the sunrise making its way through the dust and smoke-choked haze surrounding the city. "But this… are there any buildings still left? They ALL look destroyed."

"We saw the satellite footage earlier—there's some left near Times Square," Beast said from his seat next to Kurt in the cockpit. "Ones that Blink—er, Famine—is using as a base of operations, of sorts."

"Well, with a little—no make that a LOT—of luck, we'll get her," Domino said, double-checking to sure the dozen or so guns strapped to various parts of her uniform were all loaded and ready to go. "All it takes is one shot in the right place and she'll go down."

"Yeah, and all it takes is one teleported shot back at US to bring US down," Spyke said. "Kurt, Kitty—you sure you're ready for this? Things are bound to get… confusing."

"I don't think we could ever be ready for something like this," Kitty said, her eyes glued to the devastation below them. "But let's do it."

"Alright, we're coming up. Less than two minutes until we reach the target physically—she should be spotting us any time now," Beast said. "Everyone, take your positions. Get ready for this."

With a grunt, Sunspot opened up the side door to the helijet, and grabbed Wolfsbane's shoulder, who was in the process of morphing into her half-wolf form. "We're ready whenever you are, Kurt."

"Alright, Shadowcat—gonna need your help," Multiple said, securing the magnetic gloves and boots he had been given.

"Got it—good luck, Jamie, and keep your eyes peeled for those propellers," Shadowcat said, grabbing hold of Multiple phasing them both up through the roof, then phasing herself back down.

Multiple gave two strong taps on the roof of the helijet, his magnetic gloves and boots holding him to the top of the aircraft, where he was now lying on his stomach to avoid the propeller spinning above. The taps were the sign that he was ready.

Shadowcat buckled herself into a seat, keeping a firm grasp on the side arms. Spyke, Domino, and Jubilee looked out from the side, taking positions in front of Sunspot and Wolfsbane. Domino took a sniper rifle out of its harness on her hip and leveled it at the Times Square building she could see in the distance, while Jubilee lowered her goggles over her eyes, her hands glowing pink. Spyke, on the other hand, used his bone spikes to crunch into the lower side of the helijet, using the curvature of them to help him climb over the lip of the opening and down onto the bottom of the vehicle. Hanging by his bone protrusions, Spyke then turned so that he was in a position that roughly mirrored Multiple's, only he was upside down on the belly of the helijet instead of right side up on the top.

"And not a moment too soon—look!" Beast said, pointing out the cockpit window as he saw a flurry of pink energy darts fly at them from the tower. "She's already spotted us! Incoming, the helijet's tracking them… down!"

"Got it!" Spyke yelled, firing off a fan of bone spikes from one of his arms. The first few missed, but one of them intercepted the first energy dart, disappearing off to wherever Blink had intended the helijet to teleport to.

"Left!" Beast yelled again, his eyes firmly locked on the computer in front of him.

Domino fired a shot from her rifle at the incoming dart, the bullet intercepting it just like Spyke's and disappearing into thin air.

"Still not nearly close enough for a decent shot on the target, even with my powers," Domino growled, abandoning her sniper rifle and taking out a machine gun. "Best to take the spray 'n pray approach."

"Up!" Beast yelled.

"On it!" Multiple said, keeping a close eye on the incoming projectile and making a duplicate of himself that tumbled down the front of the helijet's windshield—right in front of the incoming teleportation dart.

"Huh," Multiple mumbled after the dart had teleported his duplicate away. "Wherever she's intending on teleporting us, it's too far away for me to even keep contact with my duplicate. That means it's gotta be… well, not on this planet. If she hits the helijet or any of us with those teleportation things, we're dead."

"Right!" Beast commanded.

Wordlessly, Shadowcat held out a hand, and Jubilee grabbed it. Now also phased, Jubilee poked part of her body out of the side of the helijet without an opening door and fired off a burst of fireworks, which instantly phased "back in" after leaving her hands and intercepting the incoming dart once again before it could hit them.

"I think we got this," Sunspot grinned, though Wolfsbane shook her head and let out a snort.

"Don't get too cocky yet—she's really letting loose now!" Domino said.

Indeed, Blink had gotten the idea and was now simply sending an onslaught of energy darts their way, as fast as she could fling them.

"Okay, get ready," Beast said, sweat beginning to form at his brow as the helijet's computer began to track all the incoming projectiles. "And…. left! Right! Up! Up! Down! Right! Down! Down! Left! Up! Left! Down…"

Beast continued to bark out directions, and the Mutant in charge of intercepting projectiles in that direction almost instinctively let go either a projectile or a duplicate upon command, intercepting every projectile before it could come into contact with the helijet.

"We won't keep getting lucky for long," Domino said, gritting her teeth as she continued to fire with her machine gun at the incoming teleportation darts. "GO already!"

"Alright," Kurt said, teleporting out of his chair and right next to Sunspot and Wolfsbane, laying a hand on both of them. "Be ready."

"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!" Famine let out a cry of frustration as she continued to sling energy darts at the incoming helijet. "Face me like a—"

Famine interrupted herself as, through the enhanced vision the Font in her gave her, she saw three Mutant signatures suddenly disappear from the helijet. And she knew what that meant.

Famine teleported to another distant building about a mile away just as Nightcrawler, Sunspot, and Wolfsbane teleported in behind her current location.

She saw the now-distant silhouettes of the three X-Men on the rooftop, looking around, at first bewildered and then furious as they realized their quarry had just teleported away again.

Famine's mood immediately changed upon seeing their reaction as the X-Men's helijet began to decelerate, apparently tracking her new location.

"I can do this ALL day!" Famine hollered, letting loose another volley of teleportation darts at the distant back end of the helijet. "Can YOU?!"

To her dismay, the X-Men had apparently planned for rear attacks as well—she felt a surge of happiness as the energy darts appeared to impact the helijet as it slowly turned around, but instead of the helijet suddenly teleporting out of sight like intended, it continued to adamantly defy her by still hovering there in the air as it finished turning around to face her, engaging its thrusters again to rocket towards her.

They must have Shadowcat on board that thing, Famine thought bitterly. Well, at least they came prep—

Famine's thoughts were cut short as she heard a BAMF! right behind her location.

Turning around, she winced as Wolfsbane immediately swiped at her head. Famine leaned back to avoid it, but one of Rahne's claws sliced across the Horseman's nose nearly enough to cut the tip of it off.

You focused so much on the helijet that you forgot about them! Stupid, STUPID…

Sunspot was about to deliver a knockout punch to Famine, but before he could Famine let out a cry of frustration and pain, and a pink orb suddenly emitted from her body—and growing.

"Holy-!" was all Sunspot let out before Nightcrawler instinctively teleported them all away.

Famine continued to cry out, jumping up as the pink orb continuously and rapidly expanded outwards from her form—and everything it enveloped simply blinked out of existence. First the building below her disappeared, then the next building, then the next, all as she hovered in mid-air, continuing to let out an aggravated scream.

"What is she doing?!" Domino exclaimed as everyone looked in horror out the front of the helijet at the massive pink sphere around Blink as it continued to expand, rapidly advancing towards their position.

"She's teleporting EVERYTHING around her away!" Jubilee said as Nightcrawler teleported back onto the helijet with Sunspot and Wolfsbane.

"I got a deep scratch in," Wolfsbane said, morphing back to her human form, "But that was it."

"Yeah, all you did was make her mad! Great!" Domino shot back.

"Enough banter!" Beast barked. "It's only seconds before that sphere's going to reach us… Shadowcat…"

"I can't keep the whole helijet phased for that long!" Shadowcat said, her tone obviously exhausted as sweat poured down her face. "It took nearly everything I had to phase all of us through that attack from the rear!"

"Yeah, that thing just keeps getting bigger, who knows how long she'd have to phase us!" Nightcrawler said.

"And you're sure you can't teleport us all away?!" Jubilee asked Nightcrawler, starting to panic as it seemed like half of the sky turned pink—even the clouds far above Famine were now winking out of existence.

"Not something as a big as a helijet!" Nightcrawler exclaimed.

"We can't back up!" Beast exclaimed. "Everyone, this is it! Prepare for—"

Before Beast could finish his sentence, they flashed out of existence just like everything else around them as the sphere passed over them.

"—impact!" Beast finished as they suddenly reappeared somewhere else.

They all expected to be in space, at the bottom of the ocean, or somewhere completely inhospitable—but to their surprise, they were still clouds above them and coastline below them. They were on Earth—and not too far away, either, given that on the horizon they could still see destroyed skyscrapers and the sun was still in the same morning position it had been in before they had been teleported away.

"Why aren't we dead—WOAH!" Jubilee yelped as a huge chunk of building fell onto the helijet from above, obliterating the end of the tail section.

It was then that the X-Men truly saw their predicament—despite the fact that they were still alive, they were in the same place that Blink had teleported everything else within that sphere of hers to. Several displaced buildings had already smashed to bits below, along with a good section of misplaced ground—the entire area was a junkyard, only the junk was still falling in a continuous wave towards the ground.

Beast cursed. "Prepare for impact, there's no way I can keep this aloft!"

Domino immediately closed the helijet's side door, the X-Men barely having enough time to buckle their seats before another large piece of fall debris smacked against their windshield, cracking it severely but not completely breaking through. The impact, however, further cemented their downwards spiral, the combination of gravity and centrifugal force nearly being too much even for their seat belts.

Luckily, they didn't have too far to fall—they had only teleported in about two hundred feet above the ground, and soon enough their helijet came to a crashing halt, the New York beach sand softening the blow at least somewhat.

After a moment of everybody taking in what had just happened and catching their breath—during which several booms sounded, near and far—Beast sighed and asked, "Is everyone alright?"

"I feel like I'm gonna barf," Jubilee burped, "But I'm okay."

"Ohmygod," Shadowcat said, her expression suddenly changing to panic, "Evan and Jamie! We left them out there!"

She phased out of the heljiet and Nightcrawler 'ported out as the rest of those in the helijet slowly unbucked their belts, standing up uneasily. The booms outside started to taper off, sounding both weaker and more distant.

"Since Jubilee isn't feeling that well, I'll ask her question," Sunspot asked. "Why aren't we dead? I thought Multiple said she was teleporting things so far away he couldn't even keep in mental contact with his dupe."

"I'm not sure," Beast said, scratching his head. "My only guess is that since Blink let out such a huge amount of teleportation energy, it had less power overall—i.e., it didn't teleport us that far away. Given the exertion it seemed to take from her, I didn't think she had much control over where we ended up within that radius."

Nightcrawler teleported back in, carrying a red-faced Jamie as Jubilee finally succumbed to her impulse and vomited in a corner of the helijet.

"He's hurt," Kurt said, carefully handing a moaning Jamie to Wolfsbane and Sunspot, who gingerly laid him on the floor. "Two broken ribs and one dislocated shoulder."

"I'll live, though," Multiple grunted.

"What about Evan?" Rahne asked anxiously. "Where is he?"

"Kitty's still searching for him outside," Nightcrawler said, shaking his head. "We expected him to partially be underneath the helijet—his bone powers should have protected him from the impact enough to where he should've been alive if that had happened. But he's not there."

"Then let's get out there and search!" Rahne said, stepping towards the helijet's busted side door and attempting to push it open, only to quickly see that it wasn't budging. Sunspot came over to help her.

"Wait a minute," Domino said, holding up a hand. "Has the area outside ceased to become a giant falling rock hazard?"

"Yeah," Kurt nodded. "I mean, there's big chunks of buildings, concrete, and dirt littered everywhere, but nothing else is coming down out of nowhere. I think shortly after that sphere Blink let out teleported us, she must have stopped."

"Good, then let's see if I can pick up Spyke's scent," Wolfsbane replied, morphing into her wolf form and sniffing around in the air as Sunspot yanked the door off its hinges and threw it aside.

"So… what now?" Domino asked Beast as the rest—excluding Multiple—followed a sniffing Wolfsbane out of the wrecked helijet. "I mean, that was our best plan, and it fell flat."

"Clearly, we need another helijet," Beast said tiredly, "just as much as we need another approach."

"We're on approach," Xavier said from his position in the cockpit of his team's helijet. "Prepare for a mental as well as physical assault shortly."

"I can see some fighting going on in the distance," Lucid commented, pointing towards a mobile 'front' on the ground that they were quickly advancing towards. "Pestilence has gotten control of people who know how to fly jets and helicopters."

"That's hardly surprising," Jean replied, though she seemed even more tense than the rest of them upon seeing what was going on on the ground. "Given how many people Pestilence have under their control, at least a few of them are bound to have piloted aircraft—and gained control of some before anyone not under their sway figured out what was going on."

Indeed, up ahead there were a few jets circling around each other, firing at either each other or some helicopters, which were in turn mostly focusing their efforts on people with heavy weaponry on the ground. From all appearances, it appeared that the populace of London had suddenly started engaging in a civil war—although everyone knew now that one side were completely mind-controlled puppets of Pestilence and the other were people who—for now, at least—still retained their individuality. Although they were over English countryside at the moment, the sprawling metropolis of London was easily visible coming up, smoke and flames originating from dozens of points in the city.

"So I'm guessing the people pushing outwards belong to Pestilence?" Angel asked, flexing his wings slightly as he adjusted his helmet—a helmet that had belonged to the late Magneto. "I know that they mentally project images of themselves into the minds of everyone nearby, but since all of us on this team either have mental abilities, are protected, or are, er…"

"It's okay, you can say it," Deadpool said. "Crazy. Crazy like a rabid fox."

"I was being polite more for Rogue's sake," Angel clarified.

"…Or they have a mind with too many streams of consciousness for someone to take adequate control of," Moonstar interjected diplomatically.

"Uh… right," Angel said uncomfortably. "Anyways, am I right?"

"Yes," Xavier confirmed, "Though don't take your helmet off at any time to try to confirm whether someone is under Pestilence's hold or not. They're certainly powerful enough to instantly sense a controllable mind and home in on it in a fraction of a second. That's why—excepting you, Storm, and Lucid-I didn't bring anyone neglecting some sort of mental uniqueness on this mission. After all, with enough time, the Five-in-One were able to break my mental blocks on Genosha even before they were 'hyper-evolved' into Horsemen. I'm glad that S.H.I.E.L.D. still had Magneto's helmet—as well as two additional prototypes they had been working on, for possible future threats against enemies with mental powers, allowing us to up our ranks for this mission by three. However, I'm not willing to risk anyone that doesn't have a helmet or mental power going into this. With their newfound power, Pestilence could break through any mental blocks I could put into place in minutes—possibly seconds."

"Speaking of the helmets," Lucid said, adjusting his again, "Mine… ergh.. doesn't fit right. Are you sure it was a good idea for me to come along?"

"As long as it covers up the part of your skull containing your brain, you should be alright," Xavier said. "And we need you to find where Pestilence is hiding—they could be virtually anywhere in London. Since you can apparently see the 'circuitry' running through Apocalypse's upgraded Horsemen, they should be relatively easy to find with your powers once you get within visual range."

"You make that sound like it's not going to be incredibly life-threatening," Lucid gulped.

"Just let us handle the combat, alright?" Rogue said. "Once we break through the front line, you an' Angel can scout the city, and Jean and I'll—sorry, M, we'll—cover you."

"Storm, take control of the craft temporarily," Xavier replied to his co-pilot. "We're about to—augh!"

All of those present who didn't have a helmet on—besides Deadpool—suddenly reeled as if struck by something physical as the helijet passed into the invisible area of mental effect being generated by Pestilence. Moonstar clutched the sides of her skull, crying out in pain.

"Feels like… my head's… going to split!" she grunted.

So. You're finally here. We were wondering if you were actually smart enough to have given up. But you've taken precautions—that at least shows some baseline planning. We—I—wonder, though—do you want to kill me badly enough to also kill hundreds of "innocent" people as well? Let's find out.

At last the pain stopped as Pestilence relented, unable to take control of their minds.

"I'm guessing that was Pestilence's attack?" Angel asked, not having mentally received the message.

"It was," Xavier gasped, sweat pouring down his brow as he gripped the controls of the helijet again. "And although—at least at this range—she wasn't able to wrest control of our bodies away from us, she was able to read our minds. She knows our plans, and she's ready for us."

"They don't know ALL of our plans," Deadpool grinned.

"Don't do anything stupid," Moonstar said. "Things are about to get- woah!"

Xavier and Storm made the helijet do a sudden dip as it avoided an incoming jet that had been on a crash course with it, just barely missing the suicide bomber.

"-Dicey," Moonstar finished breathlessly. "Look, shouldn't we land already?"

"We need to get as close to the downtown area—where Pestilence no doubt is, judging by where their mind-controlled slaves are coming from—before we let Lucid and the others out," Storm replied. "It'll be tougher going and we'll lose speed and time."

The helijet suddenly rocked, a loud noise coming from a hard impact on the right.

"What was that?!" Lucid yelped.

"A rocket launcher," Xavier said. "Pestilence is training all of their nearby puppets on us. Jean, Storm, Rogue—get out there and protect our way in."

"Will do," Rogue said in M's voice, smirking as she punched her fist into her open palm. "'Bout time I got to have some fun."

"Do not kill anyone, if at all possible," Xavier replied sternly. "Please."

"We'll see," M said as Jean telekinetically slid the side door out and she and Storm flew out. "You never know what might happen."

Xavier sighed as M launched out of the helijet at top speed, slamming into an incoming helicopter, smashing a hole through it and sending it spiraling to the ground as she ripped the rear propeller off it on her way out.

"So, now we wait until—hey!" Moonstar said, protesting as Deadpool suddenly unbuckled his seatbelt and yanked her out of hers in one smooth motion, tucking the smaller girl underneath one of his arms.

"Deadpool, what are you doing?!" Xavier yelled, looking back at the mercenary in alarm.

"If I tell you, they'll know," Deadpool said, running and taking a jumping leap out the side door. "JUST TRUST ME!"

Xavier sighed as he saw Deadpool land on the roof of a particularly tall building nearby, cradling Moonstar as he did so to make sure she didn't get seriously injured from the impact.

"I guess we don't have a choice, do we?" Angel sighed.

"Deadpool, what?! What the heck did you just DO?!" Moonstar yelled as soon as Deadpool let her go on the roof.

The nearby environment was getting very noisy very quickly, as Jean, Storm, and M all tried their best to both deflect incoming firepower of various kinds at the helijet and down or incapacitate any attacking aircraft in the proximity.

It wasn't helped by the fact that the doorway up to the roof suddenly opened and a few obviously hostile civilians ran up, one of them carrying a pistol and the other throwing knives.

"Yay! Fun!" Deadpool giggled insanely, unsheathing his own swords. "Stay there for a sec, mkay?"

"Deadpool, don't—" Moonstar began, but it was too late—Deadpool had already crossed the distance between them and their assaulters and had sliced the hands off the one with the throwing knives, soon afterwards impaling the one with the pistol—though not until the person had gotten off a few shots at Deadpool's chest.

"Don't you get it?!" Deadpool said as he motioned for Moonstar to follow him. "That's what Pestilence is counting on, that we won't kill the people she sends at us! That's why we HAVE to!"

"With my powers, I can send them running away in fear," Moonstar said tersely, narrowing her eyebrows.

"Yeah, and how long'll that last before they come right back again?" Deadpool said, rolling his eyes.

Moonstar merely huffed in response.

"C'mon, we gotta go down to the basement," Deadpool said. "Hopefully, we won't run into anybody else on the way down."

They did—ten more people, in fact, most of them on the staircase. Despite Moonstar's protestations, Deadpool either outright killed them or left them for dead.

"You are MESSED UP," Moonstar growled, red-faced as Deadpool shot off the lock to the building's basement door and kicked it open. "When this is over… if this is over… I'm gonna-"

"Yeah, yeah," Deadpool said, waving the protests away as he turned on the lights and scanned the room. "THERE!"

Pointing one of his swords at the far end of the room, Deadpool motioned for Moonstar to go up to a giant, unmanned mainframe computer connected to several small screens, which appeared to be looking at random sections in downtown London.

"What is all this?" Moonstar asked, scratching her head.

"C'mon, I can't be the only one who knows that there's TONS of security cameras all throughout London!" Deadpool said. "Lucid's gonna look, but with a city the size of London that might take too long. So you're gonna either find who we're looking for or at least narrow the search radius. Got it?"

"That's…. actually a good idea," Moonstar said, walking up to the mainframe, her glowing eye beginning to shine brighter as she began to use her powers to interface with it. "…Wow, you weren't kidding. There's a LOT of footage stored here. This might take a few minutes to sift through…"

What are you doing?!

"Deadpool, did you hear that?!" Moonstar asked.

"Hear what? I have so many voices in my head sometimes it's a bit difficult to tell what dialogue I hear is real."

"I mean, did you hear Pestilence inside your head? She's definitely reading my mind, Deadpool. She's got to know what we're doing, now that you're not the only one who knows the plan."

Cut the power. NOW.

"Pestilence is commanding those under her control to cut the power here," Moonstar relayed. "We don't have much time."

"Well, then get cracking!"

A few silent moments passed before Moonstar sighed and asked, "So… how did you know that this was here, anyway?"

"Eh, I'm a merc, and I've been to London on multiple occasions," Deadpool shrugged. "It pays to know security hotspots like this building."

"…Huh," was all Moonstar said as she continued to hack the mainframe—only for everything to suddenly go dark about five seconds later.

"No, no, no!" Moonstar cried, slamming a fist against the mainframe and turning to Deadpool, the light from her glowing eye still lighting the room, albeit very dimly. "I hadn't located Pestilence yet!"

"Did you at least narrow it down?" Deadpool asked.

"Well, I know where they AREN'T," Moonstar said. "Looking through all the camera footage, they aren't anywhere on the west side of the city, the south side, or the central area… scrolling back through older footage, I saw the first images of what seemed to be mind-controlled people attacking others on the eastern side of the city, a few streets into what could be considered the 'downtown' area. I've got street names—"

Moonstar interrupted herself as both she and Deadpool turned their attention to the sounds coming from the stairwell. Footsteps—a whole lot of them, from the sound of them.

"We've got to get out of here!"

"No can do," Deadpool said, shaking his head. "That staircase is the only way out. No, I knew this would happen—but see, they'll be forced to funnel through just one doorway. I'll hold 'em off, you get Professor Baldy's telepathic attention and tell him where to focus before they get too overwhelmed."

"Sure thing," Moonstar nodded.

"Oh, and keep your eye trained on the staircase," Deadpool said, wiping the blood from his swords off on his uniform and getting in a battle-ready stance. "I can't see in the dark, y'know."

As soon as he caught sight of the first human puppet coming down the stairs, brandishing a machine gun, Deadpool leapt towards him, downing the enemy with one stroke before moving onto the next.

"I'm the best at what I do," Deadpool cackled as he continued to hack into the mob filing down into the basement, "And what I do isn't very nice. …See, I'm totally allowed to say that since Logan's bought it."

It took all of Moonstar's internal fortitude to keep her glowing eye's light trained on the doorway as she reached out for Professor Xavier's mind. She was going to have nightmares after seeing what Deadpool was doing to his victims, that was for sure…

"Well. At least it's obvious how far Sinister's reach extends."

The entire landscape before the various Mutants Fury had nicknamed "Team Death" looked positively surreal. For the next couple of blocks, downtown Moscow looked just like any other downtown city in the area—albeit completely empty of people, as those who had survived the Horseman's initial onslaught had fled the area as fast as they could.

But beyond that, everything just… stopped. The roads, the buildings, everything… it was all leveled, a huge dusty plain before them, the sheer immensity of it mind-boggling. From ground level—Colossus had landed their helijet a couple of blocks back, in an abandoned parking lot—the huge plain stretched nearly as far as the eye could see, only the faintest silhouettes of distant buildings on the horizon a clue that the dusty, dead landscape ended eventually.

Less than a mile inward from where the buildings had abruptly decayed into dust, the very air seemed to bend and waver, as if one was looking down a long roadway on a hot day. Given that it was January in Moscow, however, the air was anything but hot—and at the center of that giant sphere of wavering air was Sinister, over ten feet tall, his muscles sickeningly engorged, veins bulging everywhere, his head almost comically small in proportion, his clothes ripped in several places from the growth he had experienced as he "devoured" more humans via his extremely fast-working decay powers.

"His name is Death now, Cyclops," Talon said, unsheathing and re-sheathing her new, regrown bone foot claws repeatedly as she impatiently waited for them to begin their assault.

"He's a monster, regardless," Cyclops replied.

"Alright, so does everyone remember the plan?" Colossus said. "Those of who can go into Sinister's 'decay aura' without getting harmed by it too quickly—this includes myself, X-23—uh, Talon, I mean—and Iceman, Magma, Mercury, and Husk. If the aura seems to be getting the better of anyone who enters it, exit immediately. We can always figure out another way. Cyclops, Havok, Gambit, Berzerker—you four are to take shots at Sinister from the roof of that building next to us. Try to keep him distracted, and then once we have all closed in on him, add to our attacks."

"Man, I feel out of practice," Berzerker mumbled. "And here I thought I was done forever with stuff like this. I hope this works…"

"It better," Husk said, her skin shedding off and a very hard, plastic-like substance beginning to reveal itself underneath. "I don't have a clue as to what we're going to do if this doesn't."

"Death already had impressive regenerative powers even when he was simply Sinister," Talon said. "Greater even than Deadpool's. Even with all of us attacking, I am not sure we will be able to wear him down faster than he can regenerate."

"We have our strategy," Colossus replied, armoring up. "We can do no less than try."

With that said, Iceman iced up and ice-slid forward towards Sinister's increasingly large "death sphere", the other Mutants who could survive it following behind him.

"Y'know, normally I'm not a pessimist by nature," Gambit said as climbed up the crumbled side of a building, using his staff to help the less-acrobatic Berzerker up with him as Cyclops and Havok found their own path up to the top. "But Piotr's speech wasn't exactly stirring. And I really needed something after almost having the Empire State Building collapse on top of me."

"Well, at least you're not Maverick?" Berzerker shrugged awkwardly.

Gambit smirked as he looked at the view before them, having just finished the short climb. "Maybe, lookin' at all this right now, I kinda wish I was."

"Alright, that's enough of that," Cyclops said as he and his brother came up behind them. "This is far enough back where Death shouldn't be able to hit us even by extending his sphere of influence in a particular direction, but if he starts heading towards us, fall back as quickly as you can."

"So let's get his attention already!" Havok said, his hands glowing red.

"Just a moment," Gambit said, taking a sniper rifle out from underneath his trench coat, lying down on the rooftop, and setting up the distant figure of Sinister in its crosshairs. "I ain't no sniper, but my target's pretty big anyways, so I guess this'll have to do in a pinch. I can't exactly fling a card that far."

"Alright," Cyclops said, hand on his visor. "Let's do it."

Gambit charged up a plastic bullet before quickly loading it into his sniper rifle and firing it off at Death just as Cyclops, Havok, and Berzerker each let loose with their own beams of destruction.

Colossus and the rest of the X-Men charging at Sinister looked at the overarching bolts and beams as they collided with the giant. A telltale pink explosion on Sinister's lower midsection signaled that Gambit's shot had roughly found its target, as well.

Sinister didn't even grunt under the hits, though, and simply looked at the incoming X-Men, his smirk widening.

"Well, at least we know their energy blasts work even in Death's, er… death aura," Husk muttered.

"Get ready!" Iceman shouted as Death projected his aura a bit further in their direction, the extreme decaying power hitting them all at once like a wall—Magma, in fact, fell to her knees as if physically hit by an overwhelming force, crying out in pain.

"Amara!" Mercury shouted out, her liquid metal body taking the decay field in stride as she ran over to her fellow X-Man.

"S-s-so…. cold…" Amara murmured, her body rapidly turning black, the fire struggling to keep aflame as the natural processes that kept her burning accelerated rapidly, the end result similar to as if someone had suddenly all but deprived her of oxygen.

"It doesn't look like your own power is going to be enough here!" Mercury said, her mind rapidly searching for a solution. "Quick, Amara—reach d-down! If you can get some of the heat from the earth up, it might be e-enough!"

Amara said nothing, though she was visibly concentrating, a hand on the ground as she continued to turn blacker and blacker. A few wisps of her magma form even began to break off under Death's assault, reduced to nothing but charcoal—but she dared not change back into her normal form, as they would mean near-instantaneous decay into dust.

Mercury stretched herself out, about to cover Amara in a sphere and roll her friend back inside a protective bubble until they were both safely outside of Sinister's influence, when a fissure suddenly erupted out of the ground nearby, making a beeline for Amara's form—and then another, and a third. Mercury stood back as Amara commanded the heat and magma deep within the very earth itself to her, rejuvenating her flame form.

"This… takes a lot of concentration," Magma said, standing back up again, "But I think I can keep going. Thanks… Cessily."

Mercury merely nodded and began to run to catch up with the others—Iceman and Talon were the fastest and closing in on Sinister, though all of them still had a ways to run.

Worse, the decay aura was slowly taking its toll on some of them. With her plastic form resistant to decay, Husk was doing okay—as was Cessily herself—but rust spots were already showing on Colossus, his metal slowly wearing down. Talon's body was disintegrating away from her in a constant tan-and-red spray, but her body was regenerating fast enough where she was only losing to the death aura slowly. Iceman's ice was also constantly building up at sections around his body, and he had to keep cracking his joints to keep himself agile, but Cessily could tell that it was taking intense concentration from him to keep doing so—just like Magma, if he had to keep this up for long he was bound to make a mistake sooner or later simply out of pure exhaustion.

Mercury steeled herself and began running again towards the grinning albino giant, who motioned with one hand for them to come at him, all the while continuing to take the long-range blasts from the Mutants outside the death aura without even so much as a visible wound showing for more than a split-second.

"No, no, NO!" Webber yelled in frustration, kicking the computer's storage bay in frustration—only to yelp as he pulled back a set of tender toes.

Shouldn't have kicked it THAT hard…

"This doesn't make any SENSE!" Webber said, falling back into his seat.

He and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. tech specialists had been in a secure room aboard the helicarrier for hours now—none of them had managed to crack Apocalypse's code, or even get any headway on it.

"I'm telling you, it's just not possible!" one of the techs told Webber. "Whatever Apocalypse is using as the basis for the code in his systems, it's too advanced for us to figure out!"

"We're like… we're like cavemen trying to go straight from inventing wheels to the internal combustion engine!" said another, more panicky tech. "We just have a huge body of intermediate information to understand that we haven't discovered yet! It's hopeless!"

Webber was about to agree with the tech, but then he remembered what a good friend had told him earlier that day.

"No…. no, it's not hopeless," Webber said. "It'll still be a bit before they get here, but Captain America and the rest of X-Force are returning from China—and thanks to them reestablishing communications with us, Colonel Fury told us they were able to track down where War's artifact fragment had landed back on Earth and retrieve it."

"So?" the more panicky tech said. "They've already uploaded the information via satellite from that thing! It's just more gibberish code!"

"Maybe… but maybe once we get it in our hands, we'll be able to find out something more about it," Webber said, more in terms of encouraging himself than the others. "But Kitty placed her faith in me—even after what I did to her and her friends a few years ago—and I'm not gonna let her down. We're going to solve this, even if it kills us—it's not like we're going to be any better off if we don't…"

Famine sighed.

Here they come again…

She wasn't sure what the X-Men were hoping to accomplish. Had they not gotten it through their heads yet that she could teleport anything anywhere? Were they stupid or just that desperate?

Famine secretly hoped it was the latter as she sent another arsenal of teleportation bolts at the incoming helijet—apparently they had picked up a new one, by the looks of it. The X-Men had the same reaction to her assault that they had had the first time—they always intercepted her bolts before they could reach the helijet and teleport it away to the furthest ends of the solar system, leaving the rest of the X-Men to splat on the rubble-strewn ground of an empty New York City below.

Famine briefly considered teleporting closer in to give them less time to react to her projectiles, but had to ready herself as she saw two of the Mutant signatures onboard the helijet suddenly disappear—and she knew what that meant.

Nightcrawler and some other X-Man were hoping to catch her unawares yet again—as if that had worked the first time.

By instinct, Famine turned around, sure they would attack her from the rear—and she was right. In a BAMF of smoke, she saw Spyke, Nightcrawler's hands letting go of him as the former Morlock rushed down at her, apparently trying to tackle her to the ground—but a quick teleportation bolt zapped Spyke somewhere far, far away.

A loud BANG suddenly sounded, and Famine's world suddenly went dark, her mind not even having the wherewithal to figure out what the sudden pain was before her whole brain ceased to work.

Domino continued to fire rounds from her semi-automatic into Famine's head even after she fell to the ground, the Horseman's expression frozen in a permanent look of bewilderment.

"Domino… DOMINO!" Nightcrawler said, putting a firm hand on the mercenary's shoulder. "I think that's enough. She's dead."

"Just making sure," Domino smirked, blowing away the smoke coming out of her semi-automatic's barrel before holstering it on her lower leg. "So, we done here?"

"Not quite," Nightcrawler said, pointing to Famine's form. "Look!"

The crystal which had—somehow—become merged with Famine's brain rose up rapidly again out of her forehead. As it did so, Famine's demonic features reverted to their original state, and the corpse of Famine was now simply the corpse of Blink. As soon as it had finished extracting itself from the dead Horseman's forehead, it stopped glowing and clattered to the ground next to Blink's body.

"Huh," Domino said, picking up the artifact. "THIS could certainly be useful."

"Yeah," Nightcrawler said, his tone odd as it was a mixture of relief and bitterness at the same time. "Now, c'mon. I'll teleport us back to the helijet and we can get back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier."

"Fine with me," Domino said, "Just be sure you tell them who actually WON this battle, eh?"

Nightcrawler muttered something under his breath as he teleported them both away from the top of the skyscraper.

"Clearly, we need another helijet—just as much as we need another approach."

"And what would that approach be, exactly?" Domino said. "Come at her again? You know eventually one of us is going to make a mistake and she's going to get through. We need to try something unexpected. Something she wouldn't think of… or at least, something she doesn't think we would do."

"Oh, god!" came Jubilee's voice from next to a large piece of building debris several dozen yards away. "Come quick!"

Beast and Domino exchanged a glance at each other and ran as fast as they could towards the voice. Once they got there, they could immediately see why Jubilee had practically screamed—there lay Spyke, his eyes staring up at the sky emotionlessly, much of his body below the shoulders covered by a large, heavy chunk of a building. Jubilee, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler all stood around the former X-Man solemnly—all had tears running down their red faces, though Shadowcat and Wolfsbane were bawling, wanting to hug their friend's corpse and only through sheer willpower refraining from doing so.

"What happened?!" Beast asked.

"We're not sure," Nightcrawler said sadly. "Wolfsbane just… just found him over here. I'm guessing he had been flung off as the helijet spiraled to the ground, and one of the following building chunks had crushed him."

"I… I can't believe this," Shadowcat wept. "We had been through so much…"

"I can't imagine how Storm's going to react to this," Sunspot said softly, shaking his head slowly.

"He certainly doesn't LOOK crushed," Domino stated, examining Spyke's body more closely.

"It's his powers," Beast said. "Ever since they… evolved… more, he's essentially had a bone exoskeleton around his skin and organs. It cushions the blow of impacts and causes any injury to be mostly internal—but if he was thrown off as far as he was up, and then got hit in mid-air, along with an impact on the ground and this falling on top of him—yes, that unfortunately would be enough to kill him."

"Hrrm…." Domino said, studying Spyke's body. "Sunspot, Beast, can you raise the big piece of building that's pinning down most of his body? I have an idea."

"An idea?! What are you talking about?!" Jubilee responded angrily. "And why are YOU giving US orders anyway? You're the reason why Spyke's dead and Multiple's badly injured in the first place—if you hadn't closed the side door to the helijet as soon as we were teleported here, they would've had a chance to get back inside!"

"I saved us all, girl," Domino sneered. "And it looks like I'm going to do it again."

"Jubilee… she is right," Beast reluctantly admitted. "The centrifugal force and the impact would've knocked nearly all of us out of that helijet if she hadn't closed that door."

"Look, I'm not HAPPY that he's dead, alright?" Domino replied. "But we can use this to our advantage. Now, Sunspot, Beast—get this big piece of debris up. We'll drag Spyke's body out."

"What?!" Nightcrawler protested as the two X-Men reluctantly obeyed. "What good will that do?"

"It'll allow us to use him," Domino said, grunting as she, Jubilee and Wolfsbane helped haul Spyke's body—his bone armor full of cracks—out from underneath the building fragment before Beast and Sunspot let go of it and let the building chunk drop back to the beach again with a solid thud.

"USE him?!" Nightcrawler asked. "How would we—"

"Look, we're losing this battle, okay?" Domino interrupted. "Blink—Famine, whatever—has got us. Our best strategy got us nowhere. So we're going to have to do something that she won't expect the X-Men to ever do—and that's to sacrifice one of ourselves to bring her down."

"I vote it be you," Jubilee growled.

"Don't be stupid—and just LISTEN to me," Domino sneered back. "Look, we get back up again, make Famine THINK we're trying the same thing again, alright? But when 'Crawler ports us, she takes Spyke AND me—with Spyke out front, 'Crawler to one side clutching both of us, and me in the back. I'll push Spyke onto her—given the split-second timeframe we're talking about, she won't have the time to process that something's amiss, that he's a dead body. She'll try to teleport him away, expecting Nightcrawler to simply teleport them both back in self-defense. Only he WON'T teleport him away. I'll be hidden behind Spyke—which won't be hard, given his physique and stature compared to mine—and as soon as I get a clear shot to her head, I'll take it. Bam, problem solved."

"That's DISGUISTING!" Shadowcat protested. "You can't expect us to just—to just—"

"Disrespect Evan's corpse like that!" Jubilee continued. "His poor aunt won't even have a body to bury when this is all over, and—"

"I KNOW," Domino said. "I KNOW that you think that, and Blink will KNOW that you you think that as well. That's why we've got to do it. Now come on, let's get Spyke's body back to the helicarrier."

The other X-Men looked at Beast, waiting for him to answer.

"I hate to say it, but…. she's right," Beast sighed. "We're stuck, and hers is the best plan we've got for getting out of this. "I'll radio S.H.I.E.L.D. for another helijet."

"Good," Domino said, crossing her arms triumphantly. "See? Mercs get the job done. Not bothered by your goody-two-shoes 'ethics'."

"Oh, but one thing," Beast growled, his tone quickly growing dark as he put a strong hand on Domino's shoulder and spun her around. "If this does work—and if we make it out of this whole Apocalypse debacle alive—you better slink away as soon as you can, Domino. Because if we ever see you again after this—well, I think you know what will happen. Especially if Ororo's the one to find you."

"And… there! I see them, they're- WAH!"

"Don't worry, I've got you," Angel said, almost dropping Lucid as he swooped to avoid an incoming helicopter's missiles, but managing to hang onto the Morlock at the last second.

"This is terrifying. After spending so much of my life in a sewer… I'm petrified of heights."

"I've been practicing carrying heavy flour bags occasionally in my spare time, if it's any consolation," Angel said. "Given that carrying non-flying people seems to be what I do most in these kinds of situations… but enough about that. Where exactly are they?"

"In that building, there," Lucid said, pointing towards a school building near the east side of London, about five blocks away. "They've only moved a few blocks from where Moonstar told Xavier she had seen them. All five of them are barricaded in there, but… I honestly don't see anyone else there besides them. That's rather odd."

"Huh. I'll contact the Professor," Angel said.

Turning on his comlink, he continued, "Professor, do you read me?"

*I-ungh!—barely can. We're worn down back here, Angel. Jean, Storm, and M can only hold back so many of them, and there's more innocent civilians advancing on our position every minute. We've already got a hole in one side of the helijet… it's not going to be able to take much more, and the roar of the combat outside… it's deafening.*

"Well, we've found where they're held up!" Angel yelled into his comlink. "Fifth and Court—at the school. Lucid says no one else is there."

*Good! We'll head there right away. Xavier out.*

No sooner had Angel turned off his comlink than the school suddenly burst apart, a huge blast of telekinetic energy rippling through the structure—and expanding in a wave towards them.

"Quick!" Lucid yelled. "Higher, get higher!"

"I can't ascend that quickly!" Angel yelled back, though he tried as the telekinetic force wave continued towards them, blasting buildings nearly off of their foundations as it did so.

"No, no, no—" Lucid began, but both of them were hit by a force wave so intense they both instantly blacked out.

Professor—look! Jean said telepathically to Professor X. Her tone of late had been getting more and more desperate. It was one thing to hear about the chaos in London, quite another to see it—and the incoming destruction ahead.

"Dear god…" Professor X said, seeing the massive telekinetic wave heading towards them—blowing Angel and Lucid back in the air like they were leaves in a high wind, the two blown in a backwards arc downwards into the city below. "Everyone back in the helijet, immediately!"

*There's no time!* Storm replied through her comlink. *It's expanding too fast! Everyone, brace for-*

"Whoa! Did you hear that?" Moonstar asked, a distant rumble shaking the basement they were in enough to cause a few ceiling tiles to come crashing down to the floor.

"Hear what? I'm too busy killing 'innocent' people!" Deadpool said, chopping the arm off another assailant that had reached the bottom of the stairwell. "And keep your eye on me, I can't see who I'm killing without you!"

"Something big just happened…" Moonstar said anxiously, moving her glowing eye back so that its eye bathed Deadpool in a soft—if eerie—glow. "And if I had to guess, it's where the rest of the X-Men are. Deadpool, no more holding our ground—we've got to get out of here and help them!"

"Sure thing," Deadpool said. "Though you need to get behind me and—"

The mercenary was interrupted as a loud explosion suddenly erupted from somewhere on the other side of the wall on the side of the room the mercenary had been standing in. Before even Deadpool could react, he was blown backwards, slamming his head hard against the wall on the opposite side of the room, where Moonstar was on. Meanwhile, the entire wall he had been near crumbled inwards, the soil behind it tumbling into the new hole, making a nice—if rather unstable—downwards ramp from the ground level outside, which was about six feet above the floor of the basement they were in. Two humans brandishing rocket launchers slowly walked down through the opening hole, their weapons' smoking barrels aimed at Deadpool and Moonstar as they began to reload their weapons.

"Time to end this," they both send in unison, in Pestilence's voice.

"Deadpool…. Deadpool!" Moonstar said, shaking Deadpool's prone form wildly in an attempt to snap him from his head trauma-induced daze. "Pestilence is blocking me from these two—I can't implant fears into their minds!"

"Okay, Egg Man," Deadpool mumbled, his head wobbling slightly as the two humans finished loading their launchers and aimed it at them. "I am the walrus. Goo goo ga choo."

Xavier had expected to be knocked out as the force wave came towards him and the others, but instead once it hit him, the telekinetic force simply stopped—he was frozen in mid-air as the helijet (but not the hover-chair he was seated in) was diassembled into spare parts around him, the parts dropping to the ground as he, M, Jean, and Storm were quickly dragged telekinetically about a dozen blocks forward, then downward—all of them stopping just a short distance from the ground, about a hundred feet from the five teenage insectoid girls who now called themselves Pestilence. The whole area around them was covered with crumbled building debris, but nothing taller than about a foot was still standing—they had a clear visual shot to the hovering Pestilence girls, and visa versa.

You think you could outwit me? Pestilence said into their minds, all at once. I may not be able to control you directly, but what you know, I know. I know what you're going to do before you do it. And, now that you're close enough for me to use my telekinesis on you, I'm going to make you—you, Professor Xavier—watch as we rip apart your students and friends, one by one.

"No!" Xavier shouted. "I'm the leader of the X-Men, Pestilence. Leave them alone. I'm the one that you want most."

Pestilence laughed as one. Could you be any more cliché? Why would I leave ANY of you alone? Especially someone with as much power as Storm?

"Storm?" Xavier said in confusion, but then he saw—Storm wasn't hovering in the air slightly anymore like he, M, and Jean were. She was now on the ground, looking at them all, a vacant expression on her face, her helmet having apparently been blown off from the initial telekinetic bomb. "…Oh. Oh no…."

Oh yes, Pestilence all grinned. I think we'll have a battle to the death between her… her and the two others. Who will win?

To Xavier's horror, Angel flew down into his field of vision, letting go of Lucid roughly as they both touched down on the ground. Both had the same blank expressions on their faces that Storm did.

"Please! Stop this!" Jean cried, visibly and angrily struggling against the telekinetic force that was keeping her in place. "You don't have to do this—there's still a chance to turn back!"

Turn back? Why would we want to do that?

Dark clouds quickly began circling overhead, lightning rumbling as the sky grew dark.

Round One.

"You little—" M began, though her insult was interrupted by the deafening sound of lightning striking the ground, Storm beginning to hover up higher in the air. Angel and Lucid both dodged the blast—obviously only because Pestilence allowed them to. Angel flew up in the ground and began to tackle Storm.

You know, I wonder what would happen if Storm were to "accidentally" strike Angel with several lightning bolts while they were both entangled together. I know that Angel would be killed, but would she be killed? Probably not—but hurt? Perhaps severely enough for Lucid to be able to take her out?

"Please!" Jean begged, sobbing as the two mind-controlled X-Men continued to fight in mid-air, the fight turning brutal as hard punches were exchanged. "Not Ororo—you can't—"

Xavier's attention immediately turned to Jean as he saw, out of the corner of his eye, her form begin to glow orange under her duress.

No…. no, this can't be happening yet—it's too soon, Xavier thought as he looked at Jean with dread forming on his features. This would make this situation even worse…

Pestilence wasn't paying any heed to her, though. They had their attention fully on the battle between Angel and Storm, lightning crackling ominously again in the twirling clouds above.

Shut up already, Jean. I'll get to you next… though maybe I'll have the weak little Mutant who only has x-ray vision be the one to finish up this first battle. That WOULD be pretty funny…

"This isn't a game!" M roared.

"It can't…. it can't… NO!" Jean screamed, the faint orange glow around her growing brighter and brighter until Pestilence finally noticed the odd glow and turned towards Jean—now completely on fire, though it didn't seem to be burning her at all.

What are you—

Pestilence's thought was cut short as Jean shrieked again, this time in as much pain as anger, the fire engulfing her taking on an bird-like silhouette.

"YOU WILL NOT DO THIS!" Jean boomed, her voice much deeper and echoing loudly.

The bird-entity sent forth a massive plume of white-hot fire at Pestilence, who were so surprised they didn't have time to put up any sort of defense. The fire flash-burned them in less than a second.

And then, as quickly as the odd display began, it was over—everyone dropped to the ground, freed of Pestilence's control, all five of the quintuplets plummeting as well, most of them shattering to pieces as they landed on the ground, black, smoking skeletons all that were left of them—along with a glittering diamond partially poking through the cooked skull of one.

There was a few moments of shocked silence as the X-Men tried to get their bearings and realize what had just happened—when they were interrupted by a call over the comlinks.

*Moonstar to anyone! I just felt… well, something psychic. Something powerful. And then… and then the people who had been attacking us just came to, apparently out of Pestilence's control. They're dropping their rocket launchers. What happened?*

"We…. we won," Lucid replied into his own comlink, shaking his head as he regained control of himself. "Pestilence is dead."

*Wow, really? How did you all manage that?*

"I... it's a bit complicated of an explanation," Xavier replied. "What about you? Are you and Deadpool alright?"

*Well, I'M alright—thanks to Deadpool. The guy snapped out of a stupor at the last second and actually shielded my body with his own, taking three rocket launcher hits before he went down—just a few moments ago, in fact. He's unconscious and… and nasty to look at, but you know Deadpool. He'll be back up on his feet in no time. I actually… have the teeniest amount of respect for him after he did that for me. Anyways, we're ready for pickup when you are, Professor.*

"Our helijet was destroyed, but I'll call in a new one shortly," Xavier said back. "Just stay where you are for now—now that no one's under mind control, you shouldn't be in danger any longer. I'll contact you when we're inbound to your position."

*Got it. Moonstar out.*

"Jean… how did you DO that?" Storm asked as she got up, her expression an odd mixture of concern with just the tiniest visible hint of fear as she made her way over to Jean, who was simply sitting on the ground, shivering in fear, holding her legs up against her chest, her eyes with a far-off look to them. There was no glow anymore, however—Jean was back to looking completely normal physically.

"I wasn't aware she had powers like THAT," Angel said, impressed as he too stood up. "Good work, Jean."

"Neither were any of us," Xavier said softly, his gaze refusing to meet the others as he quietly powered his hover-chair back up. "This is the first time she has displayed… powers such as those."

"I-I-I don't know how I did that," Jean replied to Storm, eyes wide, looking absolutely terrified out of her mind. "I was angry, scared, and helpless to do anything—and something in me just… just snapped. And then it was like… it was like I was watching someone else burn up Pestilence. I… I don't even know if the thought consciously entered my mind TO kill them."

"Well, however you did it, it's a lucky thing this new power emerged when it did!" Angel said. "With something like THAT, we'll have a pretty powerful weapon on our side when we attack Apocalypse himself!"

"NO!" Jean shouted out a bit TOO forcefully, but then restrained herself. "No, Angel, just… no. This wasn't like when I first discovered my telekinesis… not at all. It was like… I heard some other voice, some other something controlling me without my permission. When my powers went haywire the first time, that was due a lack of self-control, of discipline, but this… this was something else. Something I can't explain. …Professor?"

"Yes, Jean?" Xavier said.

"I know this is asking a lot, particularly given the circumstances we're in, but… I'd—I'd like to stay out of the assault on Apocalypse… i-if you don't mind. Until I figure out what… what this is, I don't think I could feel comfortable in a situation like this again."

"What?!" Lucid cut in. "But that power—that could help us so much—"

"—Or hurt us," Jean interrupted. "Please, Professor."

"I… alright, Jean," Xavier said. "After this is all over, we'll look into it. I promise."

Jean was about to respond, but they were both interrupted by a sudden gasp from Rogue outside their field of vision. Turning to look at her, she had a shocked look on her face, the diamond artifact that she had taken out of Pestilence's corpse dropping from her hand to the ground with a clatter.

"Oh my god," Rogue said, apparently back in control of her own body again, going by her voice.

"What? What now?" Angel asked.

"As soon as I picked up that diamond thing—the thing that apparently gave Pestilence all this power—it was just like—just like when I touch someone, y'all. I got a dose of memories, a little boost of energy…

"Everyone," Rogue continued, looking down at the artifact on the ground in bewilderment, "I think that this diamond, this Font—I think it's alive."

"This is useless!" Magma grunted, opening up a small crack in the earth and sending it towards Sinister/Death. The crack quickly began to glow red, and moments later a powerful spout of lava shot forth from it underneath the Horseman, nearly engulfing him in lava—but within a second after the rapidly cooling lava dripped off of Death's charred form, his body had fully healed itself from the heat, as it nothing had ever touched him. "See? No matter what we do, he just pops back from it!"

"We cannot retreat—or he will grow ever stronger!" Colossus roared, running up to Death—momentarily distracted by another long-range volley from Cyclops, Havok, Berzerker, and Gambit—and punching the monstrously huge Horseman right below his waist.

"Whoa," Husk said, eyebrows raised. "I didn't know Piotr had it in him to fight dirty."

Death merely laughed and wrapped a massive meaty hand around Colossus' head, pulling the rusty steel-skinned X-Man up until he was at eye level with Sinister. "Oh, fight dirty all you want. It just shows me how completely desperate all of you are… that said, Colossus, you're CLEARLY outclassed here. Why were you even SENT here?"

Death reached back with his other hand, and with a sickening metallic crunch punched Colossus full-on in the face, letting go of the large X-Man a split second before and letting him fly far away from the force of the punch. Piotr flew so far that he actually landed outside Sinister's "death aura", but as far as anyone could see, he was out for the count. Colossus didn't even twitch from his spot far away.

"Well, there goes this team's leader," Death grinned, looking around at the various Mutants attacking him. "Which one next, which one? Hrrmm…"

It appeared that Death liked drawing out the decision as he was bombarded from all sides, the worst of the damage only showing on his body for about a second. Iceman was ice-sliding around in the air, firing his ice beams at Sinister—but the Horseman only had to shrug the tiniest bit to crack open the frozen shell Iceman continued to try to close around him. Mercury had formed her hands into hard scythes, and was joining Talon in slashing away at Death's appendages, hoping to break through—though he was regenerating as quickly as they were cutting away at him, which was more than could be said for Talon. Her regeneration factor was slowly but surely losing to the "death aura", more muscle visible on her body than skin now, and even a fair bit of bone visible—and yet still she continued to hack away, managing to ignore the excruciating pain—just as H.Y.D.R.A. had taught her to do, Sinister noted. Husk, having shed her earlier hard plastic form for a slimy acidic one, was slightly further back, trying to distract the Horseman's attention with acid blasts at his face—which did occasionally tend to blind him for a moment, as if it mattered when his eyes full regenerated a split-second after wiping the goop from his face. Cyclops, Havok, Berzerker, and Gambit proved an annoyance with their long-range attacks, but little more. Magma was currently only a nuisance as well, but if she managed to open that crack in the earth beneath him wide enough…

Magma it is, then.

With an effort, he "sucked in" all of the death aura around him, managing to take aback most of the X-Men (minus Talon) for a moment as they realized the aura had disappeared—and then directed it in a focused burst at Magma, who was several dozen feet away.

Magma's eyes went wide, and then the death aura that suddenly encapsulated her temporarily strengthened even further. Her form quickly began to cool, despite her physical exertion to keep a connection to the lava down below—and within a second, she was completely stuck in her crouched position like a statue, completely cooled in her magma form to the point where she couldn't even move. Death grinned, kept it focused on her—and within another second, she crumbled to the ground, the ashes from her form scattering in the wind.

"AMARA!" Husk screamed. "NO! No…."

"Oh, man…." Iceman said, seeing Death inhale as bits of Amara's "essence" began to flow towards him. "This is insane! Everybody, get back, now!"

"Ahhhh," Death smiled as he inhaled the wisps from the bits of ash that used to be Amara, his form visibly strengthening even more as he grew another inch or two in height. "This feels even better than consuming a human's life force…more power."

*Fall back!* came Cyclops' beleaguered voice over their comlinks. Mercury quickly disengaged from Sinister and followed Husk as they both fled, following Scott's orders. *We can't afford to lose any more! Not when it strengthens him like this!*

Talon continued to hack away at Sinister—the brief respite from the "death aura" had allowed her to regenerate a fair bit, though she still didn't look normal, a considerable amount of muscle still showing.

After it was obvious that Talon wasn't listening to him, Cyclops' voice came over her comlink again, sterner than ever. *Talon! That's an order! With Piotr incapacitated, I'm in command here!*

"Better listen to your superior, X-23," Death grinned. "But then again… I'm even stronger now than when you first touched down to face me. I wonder if even your 'snipers' are out of my reach anymore!"

"Cyclops, RUN," Talon replied back urgently through her comlink, though she still continued to hack away at Sinister.

Before Cyclops could reply, Sinister sucked in his "death aura" again, and with a grunt, projected it very far in one direction.

Cyclops and the other Mutants that had been attacking outside Death's "sphere of influence" saw the mirage-like death aura coming towards them so quickly they only had a moment to react. Gambit quickly rolled off the side of the building, taking the fall with a grunt and leaving his sniper rifle behind. Berzerker was on the other side of the building, and thus didn't have far to go—but Cyclops was positioned in the middle of the building's crumbling rooftop. He reacted a split second too late—or rather, he would have if Havok didn't rush in his brother's direction instead of off the side of the building, giving Cyclops a hard shove nearly off the building.

Cyclops barely managed to looked up as the "death aura"—targeted so precisely and so far it was only slightly larger than a regular-sized human in radius this far out—encompassed Havok, causing his younger brother to crumble to dust before he too could jump out of the way to safety.

"ALEX!" Cyclops cried in a mixture of pain and rage.

He got up and briefly thought of unleashing a volley of enraged blasts at Sinister in retribution, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. Cursing, he leapt off the rooftop, joining Gambit and Berzerker as they fled even further away from the Horseman.

*Talon, retreat!* came Berzerker's voice over the comlink. *Seriously, we just lost Havok, too… we can't let him get any more of us!*

Talon ignored the broadcast, stubbornly hacking away at Death's rapidly-regenerating leg.

"You should listen to your teammates," Sinister said, reaching down a with a huge hand to try to grab Laura, but with a flip and a turn she twirled onto his back, continuing to stab away as Sinister inhaled the incoming wisps from Alex, growing slightly larger and more obscenely muscular still. "Oh, right. Listening to orders hasn't been your strong suit for a while. You, X-23, were my greatest failure."

"You know that is not true," Talon said, her mind still at the gruesome job at hand.

"Seriously, my dear, what are you doing? I'm regenerating just as fast as you're cutting into me. Meanwhile, you're slowly dissipating into dust, as YOUR relatively pathetic healing factor can't keep up with my decay aura. Plus—even though I don't believe in souls—if they DO exist, I doubt you have one. So killing you wouldn't even give me a boost. You're worthless here."

"You are also worthless."

Death laughed. "Is that supposed to be a comeback? You really need to work on those, X. I've taken down two—possibly three—of your precious team already, to the point where they've retreated. I've turned practically all of Moscow into dust. And you're calling ME worthless."

"You are acting. You know exactly what I mean. This is not what you wanted—you are under someone else's command. I never thought that you would submit to someone else. That is not the Sinister that I knew."

"Oh, really?" Death said, quirking an eyebrow. "You've known of my existence for less than a year, X-23. How much do YOU know about ME?"

"I know H.Y.D.R.A. better than any other X-Men except perhaps Maverick, and he is dead now—"

"—Wonderful! Another down."

"—and you are an extension of H.Y.D.R.A.," Talon continued as if Sinister hadn't interrupted. "Your personality is reflected in that of the organization. Why are you submitting yourself to Apocalypse?"

"Ah, yes, trying to appeal to me psychologically. The last resort. To answer your question, why else? For power, my dear. Yes, it may not be me who makes all the decisions"—here Sinister scowled for a brief moment—"but I still have more power than I could dream of."

"You are a puppet. Just like I used to be. I heard about the H.Y.D.R.A. base explosions. I do not think you would have done that willingly."

"Alright, now you're making me mad, you little—"

"Prove me wrong," Talon interrupted, her tone challenging. "Tell me that you think Apocalypse's vision for the world is the one that you want—that your position, if his plan works out, will be what you want."

Death started to open his mouth, but stopped himself.

"You can't, can you? He is watching you, even now. If you were to say anything against him, you would pay a high price. So instead you are silent."

"You know what?" Death roared, "I'm getting awfully sick of you! Haven't you deteriorated into nothing yet?! I think I'll just fall down on my back and crush you underneath me."

"Then do so," Talon said, her claws getting dangerously close to falling off of her deteriorating hands and feet. "Bypass your only chance at freedom."

"My only chance at… what?!"

"I can end your slavery, if you will let me. My adamantium claws can cut your head off before even your regeneration factor can heal the cut, but I need a clear, clean cut. If you kill me… you will ruin your only chance to be free from Apocalypse's control."

"That's it, I'm going to…. to…" Sinister just stood there for a moment, his arms frozen in place as they were attempting to pick Talon off of his back. "I'm…."

Suddenly, a sad look appeared in Sinister's eyes, and he sighed.

"You're right," Sinister growled. "Blast you, you're right. I hate Apocalypse. I HATE him. He took over MY organization, my life's work, and then turned it into something HE—AUGHHH!"

Sinister suddenly crumpled to the ground, his body spasming as a blue electrical energy began to surge through his body.

"It is Apocalypse, isn't it?" Laura said, jumping off of Sinister as he fell to the ground. "See? You are a slave."

"Fine, then," Sinister said through gritted teeth as the electricity surges grew even stronger, his body convulsing even more. "Finish… it… I've had my fun. I've killed plenty… now it's just cleanup, and that's… not nearly… as much fun. And X…. make Apocalypse pay."

Talon merely nodded, and then plunged her claws into Sinister's neck.

It didn't take more than few seconds, particularly since the electric surges Sinister was being subjected to seemed to at least partially stem his healing factor. As Sinister's disembodied head fell to the ground, his body slowly began shrinking, hundreds of familiar "wisps" coming out of it as it did so and quickly dissipating into the air.

When his body had finally shrunk back to its normal size, a glowing crystal phased itself out of Sinister's expressionless head and fell to the ground beside him, growing dull.

Picking up the diamond with a hand, Talon turned on her comlink.

"Talon to Team Death. I have killed our target and acquired the crystal. Our mission is complete."

And with that said, Talon collapsed to the ground, unconscious from all the exertion as her body began to regenerate again.

Apocalypse was furious.

One Horsemen he had expected to die, but all four? ALL FOUR?! And, just to make things worse, the four of them had been in their powered-up Horsemen forms for less than twenty-four hours.

And Sinister, he should have known from the beginning. He had expected to have to deal with Sinister eventually after the Reaping, but Sinister turning against him, NOW of all times… it had dealt him a more severe blow than any other betrayal Sinister could have cooked up against him. And he knew that Sinister had known it.

Apocalypse clenched his hand, the wall behind him exploding inwards as he exercised a substantial amount of telekinetic force on it as a kind of release.

Don't lose yourself yet. They were unworthy—all of them. But you—you can depend on yourself, if no one else. And you have the entire power at Atlantis at your disposal.

Apocalypse looked up at the screens displayed before him—many of them showed external camera feeds of the sub-continent at his command. Indeed, Atlantis had now traveled far enough north where the ice covering the various entrances was thin enough that it could be opened quickly with enough force.

Apocalypse fiddled with the virtual interface for a bit to get the settings right, and then hit a virtual button that he knew said "ACTIVATE DEFENSES".

All over the sub-continent, the giant animal-headed statues lining the interior hallways suddenly came to life, their eyes glowing as their robotic forms took up their given melee weapons and made their way to the nearest exit.

As the doors came open, those statue sentries closest to the openings began pounding on the ice coating the entryways outside. All of the ice had been broken off outside each entryway within a minute, and one by one the sentinels streamed out from all over the sub-continent, rocket boosters in their feet engaging as they flew up into the air.

Colonel Fury had to resist the urge to high-five a tech as he got a report in from the last team he had been waiting on, "Team Death".

"We did it!" Fury said to the various techs working around him, his tone uncharacteristically excited. "All four Horsemen are down for the count and all four artifact fragments are accounted for. All teams are en route back to the helicarrier. Four down, everyone! Four down, one to go!"

There came up cheers from all around the command center, but Fury noticed one nearby tech wasn't celebrating. He came up and looked questioningly at the tech, who nervously pointed to the screen in front of him. This particular tech was operating a wireless remote feed of a stream of cameras that had been keeping tabs on the giant piece of land that had been steadily moving north into the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa—and up until very recently, there hadn't been much of anything to report.

Nick Fury tensed as he looked at the camera feeds. A countless number of giant robotic statue-like guardians that looked identical to the ones the X-Men had fought under the Sphinx in Egypt some time ago were streaming out of hundreds of openings on the surface of the sub-continent. Already they were so numerous they seemed to almost blot out the sun and sky, and still more of them were flying out. One by one, the camera feeds went offline as the guardians destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying sky spies.

"Correction," Nick Fury sighed, "Four down, a whole continent to go."

To be concluded...
 

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