Salem Center, Westchester County, New York

You are in total synch with your environment. You can feel the low pressure system building up miles away as it interacts with its opposite high pressure system, creating a snowstorm over New York City. You can feel it...and it burns, it causes you pain. It isn't possible, what is happening. It's summer in New York, yet it snows.

Luckily, you have kept this harmful weather away from Salem Center. The frost could damage your plants. It has already been such a dry summer this year. Your attic garden couldn't bear another torture. Even now, you water them with your water jug, sprinkling the green life, and providing it with an essential ingredient to survive.

Above Syracuse, you can feel golf ball-sized hail being formed by the high thunder clouds. An electrical storm above Long Island has kept people in the Hamptons indoors for a full week. And in Buffalo, there has been a two day torrential downpour. You've spent weeks traveling to different areas in New York, using your mutant gifts to try to tame the peculiar weather patterns. But these strange weather phenomena have been happening all over the world, not just one part of the United States.

You are Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm. Your father was an American journalist, your mother was an African princess. They died as a building collapsed on them...and you. You were trapped for days. You couldn't see, couldn't breathe. But then, something happened. A spark within your DNA, an emotional trigger activated your latent x-gene. You used your powers to control the weather to blow the rubble away. However, you wouldn't use these powers again until you were a young adult in Kenya, posing as a goddess.

Professor Charles Xavier, whom you tried to steal from years earlier, revealed to you that you were not a goddess, but a mutant. Charles took your godhood away, but in other ways, he opened a whole new door for you. You were an X-Man, trained to protect a world that fears and hates you. But then someone shot and killed the man that provided so much for you, Ororo. Someone killed Charles, the one man who opened your eyes and taught you to see the good in humanity. Even now, it seems like the X-Men are becoming something darker...something they are not.

Ororo is startled when she sees Bennet Du Paris, Exodus, hovering above the skylight of her attic garden. She quickly regains her composure. Years ago, Ororo would have created a tornado, hurricane, or worse. Years of training has allowed her to control her emotions and prevent an unwanted display of her weather manipulation.

Storm smiles as Exodus silently hovers downwards into the attic, landing with a small thud as his feet slump against the hard wood floor. Bennett seems more emotionless than usual.

Ororo assumes the worst, "What happened? Is it Colossus?"*

(* Colossus is part of the team of mutants Exodus created, the Exiles -- Brad)

Exodus reaches behind him, pulling out a large Medieval sword. Bennett's visage appears to turn to pale red and blood red armor appears over his body.

"I am the Horseman of War," War utters. "Prepare to be judged."

Storm's eyes widen as War takes a swing at her neck. She immediately commands the air beneath her to lift her through the skylight and into the sky.

Leaning forward, still keeping more air under her than above her, Storm commands the wind at her feet to push her forward, propelling her. War telekinetically rockets from the attic, smashing through the skylight, sending splinters of wood everywhere.

Soon, War has met Storm's speed and bats her in the face with his armored fist. Ororo cries in pain, but simply commands the winds to hover her in midair. Soon, Storm's eyes grow opaque as the skies themselves seem to erupt with thunder and lightning. Electricity conducts through her glowing eyes, even her platinum hair.

"Well, War...I am Storm...prepare to be ashamed with underestimation!" Ororo shouts as lightning strikes War from multiple directions and angles. Ororo then directs rain, sleet, and snow at War as he tries to telekinetically push through. Suddenly, gale force winds push against War.

Storm notices trees being uprooted. The windows of the mansion have already shattered from the pressure change. She hopes War will be subdued soon enough for this chaos to stop. War continues to push on until he finally gathers enough strength to telekinetically blast Storm to the ground below.

Ororo tucks and rolls, sliding across the front lawn of the mansion, already soggy and wet from the thunderstorm she generated. Ororo tries to push herself up, but is stopped by a surge of pain in her forearm. It was broken.

War laughs as he descends for the kill.

"Aw, no ya don't!!!" an accented voice shouts.

Before War can even turn his head to see who it is, he is rammed by a force that felt like 12-inch steel coming at him at 100 miles per hour. War opens his eyes and sees a young blonde boy with sunglasses and a goatee. He wore a leather uniform with a large blue "X" running vertically along the front of it. It was Cannonball.

War smiles curiously, "My assignment is not to quarrel with you, External." War holds out his hand, and before Sam knows it, energy encircles and totally engulfs him. He was gone.

Storm sees this and a snarl appears on her face, "SAMUEL! You will pay for that, War!" Suddenly, the sky turns pitch black as the clouds themselves are seeping with moisture and massive electrical charges. The charge around War is negative. Storm makes a point of switching the thunderclouds' charge to positive. With that, lightning strikes War, burning through his body with the heat of the sun.

Beast and Dazzler, the only other X-Men around, rush outside. Beast does a graceful flip from the porch onto the front lawn. He shields his eyes, "Oh dear."

Dazzler's body erupts with light from the vibrations of the lightning ripping through air molecules, "Oh shit!"

Greymalkin

"Rrrr, we're running out of time!" Cable shouts, pounding his fist onto the console of his futuristic orbital base. He accidentally left an indent. He sighs and looks up at the list of the Twelve that Prosh originally deciphered. The first seven were found. A highlighted green box is around the eighth entry, The Mortal Immortal.

Behind Cable, staring at the same screen were Polaris, Blink, Archangel, Havok, Scarlet Witch, and Iceman. In the background, young Franklin Richards plays with a robotic dog.

{{Arf! Arf!}}

Franklin laughs, "Kewl! Now, play dead!"

{{...}}

"Awwsim!" Franklin claps.

Iceman shakes his head, "Dude, I'm stumped. I have no clue. Sorry, Nate."

"Don't be," Cable says, stroking his chin, "the first seven riddles were easy. This one seems to be a bit harder."

"Could it refer to..." Havok begins, holding up his finger.

Cable turns to his uncle. It's hard for Cable to acknowledge Alex Summers as his uncle, just because it was hard enough acknowledging Scott Summers as his father, "Yeah, Alex?"

"I dunno...the Phoenix?" Alex suggests. "Y'know, how it always rises from the ashes."

"Good theory, but Jean doesn't have the Phoenix Force anymore," Warren says. "She never, technically, really did."

Cable sighs, "I personally think it could be Sam Guthrie - Cannonball. He's an External, an immortal mutant."

"How do you know?" Blink asks.

"Prosh has data in his files of Sam up into the 24th century or so," Cable explains. He has unknowingly created a chill down the six mutants' spines.

"Do you know what happens to the rest of us?" Polaris asks.

Cable looks up at the screen, at Prosh's computerized green face. Prosh closes his eyes. Cable sighs, "Apocalypse, in the future I grew up in, destroyed much of the records of his past enemies."

{{Wait,}} Prosh says, as his eyes jerk open, {{what about Storm? She was once a self-proclaimed goddess.}}

The six mutants look at each other and then look at Cable. He can telepathically sense their agreement with Prosh, even if he himself isn't sure.

Cable grabs his psimatar, "All right. Prosh, get me to Xavier's."

A blue energy sphere engulfs Cable and it disappears.

"I hate to be a spectator in this mutant malee, but I don't think this...thing is phased by lightning," Beast says to Storm.

Storm's eyes burst with electricity, "Do you have any other suggestions, Henry? He vaporized Cannonball."

"Don't give up all hope. Exodus has the ability to teleport himself and others," Beast explains. "Unless Apocalypse gave him a new power to vaporize people."

Dazzler's body is still radiating light from the rumbling of thunder. Her mutant ability allows her to convert sound into light. "Maybe I can hypnotize him. Anyone have a strobe light?"

Storm sighs, "Why must you joke during a time like this? With Cyclops and Phoenix on leave, Cannonball possibly dead, and Wolverine...Heaven knows...we need to stick together!"

"What is the plan, Windrider?" Beast inquires.

Storm's brow furrows, "Dazzler and I will attack from a distance while you grab his sword."

"Oh, is that all I am to you women? Kill spiders and grab the sword? Feh," Beast quips. "Just hope you know I was kidding!" he shouts as he flips into the air.

Dazzler and Storm unleash a barrage of photonic and electrical energy, respectively, upon War. The Horseman simply deflects the energy with his sword, and drives the end into Beast's chest as he attempts to pounce on him.

"Ulp..." Beast spits. "That...wasn't part of the plan...uhhh..."

War pulls the psionic-based sword out of Beast as he slumps onto the ground. He then telekinetically shoves Dazzler into a tree trunk. War then throws his sword at Ororo.

Out of nowhere, Cable's bodyslide signature appears in front of Storm. With his psimatar charged, focusing his telepathic powers, Cable deflects the sword. Nate then reaches out to Hank's mind and repairs the neural damage. He scans the area and asks, "Where's Sam?"

"Exo -- War...might have killed him," Storm reveals.

"He didn't chop off his head, did he?" Cable asks. Storm thought it was a joke, but sees Cable's sincerity and shakes her head.

"Sam might have just been teleported. What is going on here?"

"You already knew Apocalypse was back, Ororo. He's finally decided to initiate his final judgment on the world. You're one of the Twelve, Ororo...the only ones who can defeat Apocalypse," Cable explains.

War suddenly tackles Cable to the ground and begins punching him across the face with left and right hooks, "Eternal enemy of Apocalypse...you will fall!"

Blood gushes from Cable's mouth as he erects a telekinetic shield to prevent his body any more harm. Storm glances to the side and sees War's sword lying on the ground, glowing with yellow energy.

It was psionic in nature, which means it was going to take a lot of concentration to block out the impending pain. Storm grabs the sword and immediately feels the shock to her system as her every nerve cell is activated, sending electrical impulses into her nervous system. Ororo has built up an incredible willpower over the years of keeping her emotions in check. Storm musters one last bit of strength and jabs the sword into War's spine.

War shouts in agony as Cable blasts him with psionic energy from his left eye, repelling him fifty feet, crashing into X-Men Alpha's Rolls Royce. He teleports away as he falls unconscious. Storm slumps over, but Cable catches her. He takes her hand.

"Ororo?" he asks. His left eye glows as he delves into her mind, taking control of her body, keeping her from blacking out. "Come on, you've got to stay with me here. You're one of the obvious candidates of the Twelve. Mastermold identified you as one of them a few years ago. The fact that one of Apocalypse's henchmen attacked you furthers Mastermold's credibility."

"What about...the others?" Storm asks of her teammates. "I do not know how much help I can be. The Earth's weather has been warped somehow...I'm losing control."

"Don't worry, I'll help you control it," Cable says. "I just need you to come with me. It's the only way you'll be safe."

"But what if War returns? What about Hank and Alison?"

"He won't be back...I promise. I've implanted a post-telepathic message in Dazzler and Beast. When they wake up, they'll have the full story," Cable says. He presses up against an earpiece in his left ear, "Prosh, bodyslide by two."

With that, Storm and Cable disappear off the Xavier Institute grounds...

NEXT: The Best of Three!