"...two....three...."

There is a loud noise as the discharge of the mutant nullifier hits Cable in the chest, though the fact that this 'Cable' is nothing more than a telepathic image isn't noticed by Agent 18, one of SHEILD's most elite.

As Agent 18 backs away to examine his prisoner, he bumps into the real Cable. His smile turns into a look of alarm. "You know, Truman, it's a wonder SHIELD is after me, after all I've done to cure the Legacy Virus...," Cable says coldly.*

(* See Apocalypse: Ageless Fury - Brad)

"Don't flatter yourself, Cable," Agent 18 shouts. "All you did was exist while the real geniuses took DNA samples from you and that brother of yours."

Cable is about to argue that point, but gets a serious tone, "I don't have time for this, Eighteen."

"Tell that to Agent Bridge. Or was that whole trying to kill him thing a joke?"*

(* See Cable #9 for details - Brad)

"I-I... I wasn't myself," Cable explains.

Agent 18 prepares to blast Cable for real this time, but finds that he can't move. "What the devil?!"

Cable smiles coldly, "Aw, that's right. I can command your mind. Oops."

Suddenly, men with black leather jumpsuits start raiding the "disclosed area" of the UN Headquarters. They are Deathglare's personal army, made up of mutant clones, courtesy of Mr. Sinister. One soldier fires an electric blast in the direction of Cable and Agent 18. Cable releases his thrall on Truman, and both men dodge the blast.

"See?! If I was the mastermind of this siege, would the lapdogs try to kill me?!" Cable yells at Agent 18.

"Good point," Eighteen says as he cocks his gun, firing a few rounds into the clone soldiers, knocking quite a few of them back.

"NO!" Cable yells.

"Jesus, you said they're the enemy! You want me to slap them on the fuckin' hand?!" Agent 18 barks.

"DON'T kill them! That's an order!" Cable barks back.

"I answer to Fury, not--"

"Listen, dipshit! You and SHIELD are way out of your league here. So take off in your pathetic helicarrier and let me handle this," Cable vents. Cable charges his psimatar and non-fatally blasts them in the appendages. Agent 18 listens for once and shoots all the clones he can... deliberately missing the vital organs... something he's not particularly used to doing.

"You won't win, Chosen One!"

"What?! What the hell was that--?"

"Deathglare," Cable answers.

"Does he have a loudspeaker or something?"

"Nope, just near-omnipotent powers," Cable says coldly. "Told you you're out of your league."

Irene sits at her desk with her laptop computer and clicks on the print icon. She sighs when she sees the number of pages to be printed. "Wow... over 500 pages to this damn thing."

Blaquesmith, who is busy monitoring the resting body of Rachel Summers, says, "There'd be no other way to tell Nathan's tale." He presses a few buttons on his gauntlet. "It would be impossible," he added.

"Ugh, do we even have enough printer ink for all of this?" Irene asks.

"Here," Blaquesmith offers as he takes the laptop. He takes a connecting wire and plugs it into the main computer. He then takes a flat-looking piece of plastic and plugs a thin wire into it. "The computer will upload everything into this book file."

"Jeez! Five-hundred pages can be uploaded into... that?!" Irene gasps.

"Well, let's just say by the 40th Century, we've found better ways to not kill trees," Blaquesmith says with a smile. He takes the small computerized book. "All you do is press the right arrow on the bottom of the console, and it uploads the next page... or rather turns the page as you'd call it."

Irene smiles, "You men and your technology. Thanks."

"Do not mention it...," Blaquesmith says. "You must sit down and rest. Nathan is the one fighting..."

"I can't relax, Blaquesmith!" Irene shouts, more loudly than she intended. "Nathan is fighting for all of us... a lot of us that can't fight. Like me."

"You've done your part, Irene. More than you know. You've been Nathan's greatest companion through these tough times. Not even I can bond with him like you can," Blaquesmith explains. "The friends of heroes aren't the rejects in the battle against evil... they're the most powerful people of all."

Irene sits down and wipes away a tear. "Thank you." She kisses Blaquesmith on the top of the head.

Blaquesmith returns to what he was working on and asks offhandedly, "So, what are you going to title your biography?"

Irene stops. Of all the things she did with Cable's biographical commentary, she never once considered naming it. "Well... I was thinking A Biographical Analysis of Nat--" Irene stops herself and rethinks her decision. She needs something more... tragic and powerful. "The Book of the Askani'son," Irene says with eager pride.

{Deathglare continues his siege of the UN Headquarters this evening,} Trish Tilby begins, with literally the whole world watching. {Two more have been savagely killed. The President is currently en route to London to meet with the prime minister there as well as many other foreign leaders to try to come up with some kind of solution to this tragedy. Many New Yorkers had this to say...}

J. Jonah Jameson's image appears on the television. {I'll tell you one thing, this is the best story in years! Beats the hell outta the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can I say hell? I can? Good. Excuse me for a second? WHERE THE HELL'S PARKER?!?!? Sorry, as I was saying this is a very, very sad day for the world.}*

(* This broadcast obviously occurs after JJJ has recovered from the injuries he suffered at the hands of the Enforcers in Amazing Spider-Man #9 - Russ)

Industrialist tycoon Tony Stark appears, {I'm seriously disappointed with the government's waiting game. And for an organization meant to protect America and her allies, SHIELD doesn't seem to be doing much, either. The Avengers are more than adequate for a rescue mission, in my opinion.}

Hank Pym, of the Avengers, appears, {From the data I've collected, we've determined that Deathglare is more menacing than your average terrorist. He is obviously no superhuman. He's BEYOND it, in fact. I seriously hope the president will rethink his position.}

The screen gets occupied again, this time by CSA administrator, Valerie Cooper. {The government is hard at work--} Val gets verbally mobbed by reporters' questions. She raises her voice, {But we're doing all we can. We can't risk anymore innocent lives or those of other UN members to try and liberate UN Headquarters. That is all, thank you.}

Captain Marvel watches this report on the TV monitor from inside the Avengers Mansion while trying to cope with the constant throbbing of his mind. He suddenly experiences a burning pain in his temple.

The entire universe is falling apart! All from Deathglare... I can't do a thing about it, though... I'm not supposed to for some reason... I REALLY hate this cosmic-awareness thing! Cable better pull through, or I'll take care of Deathglare myself!

"UNGH!" Cable grunts as he is barraged by a geothermal assault from one of Deathglare's soldiers. The clone has no emotion, only the will to fight Cable to the death. All of these clones are powerful on their own, but Deathglare is boosting their strength with his own... making a moderately powered mutant a national security panic.

Cable takes his psimatar and uses it as a pole-vaulting stick, jamming the weapon in the crumbling floor, and propelling himself upward, promptly kicking the clone in the chest. Cable's momentum causes the clone to go flying through a stone wall. He sees Agent 18 struggle with a band of female clones triple-teaming him. Two have got him by the arms, while a third punches him ruthlessly in the gut. He's coughing up a lot of crimson fluid.

Cable brandishes a chrome gun with a tiny hint of a blue glow on the side of the barrel and takes aim at the three clones. The micro-targeting system locks on the three targets, and the gun fires three distinct lasers at the clones. The clones topple over as their legs are severed from their torsos, dropping a relieved Agent 18 in the process.

"What are you...," Agent 18 says with a wheeze, "d-doing? I had... them... right where... I wanted..."

"Riiiiggghhhhtttt," Cable says, doing his best Dr. Evil impression. He senses five clones coming from behind. He instinctively bodyslides behind them and telekinetically increases their velocity, causing them to run head-on into a stone wall.

Agent 18 easily judo-flips a clone and shoots it in the foot and hand. "Just be glad I'm in a shitty mood on this glorious day," Agent 18 says with a cold stare.

Cable and Eighteen bump into each other in the middle of the room. At least forty clones lay wounded, maimed, burned, cut... all but killed. Cable smiles a little in satisfaction. "That all of 'em?" Eighteen asks. "Tell me again why we're not killing them?"

"It would only make Deathglare stronger... and harder for me to stop," Cable explains. "I think you can handle any other clones. Only the weak ones are left. Deathglare wanted to send in the heavy-hitters first. I'm finding Deathglare... and then I'm gonna kill him."

"Whoa, why do you get to kill?" Agent 18 protests.

Suddenly, a bright flame envelops Truman and sends him flying out a window. "TRUMAN!" Cable yells. But it was too late. Cable rushes to the broken window to see Agent 18's charred body, limp on the concrete ground, ten stories below.

Cable turns around only to see Chen Mang, Deathglare's personal assistant and powerful mutant pyrokinetic. "Just me and you, Cable," Mang laughs. "Deathglare's got nothin' on me. No power boosts. Nothing."

Cable stares at Mang with intensity. Mang gulps. Suddenly, the ground under Cable begins to tingle, until it reaches 400 degrees in four seconds. The air around him is enveloped in flames. Mang smiles as his eyes seem to spew fire themselves. Mang's eyes brighten as he increases the temperature around Cable.

After a few minutes of radiating heat, Mang walks over to inspect his kill. Only, when he commands the flames to extinguish with his mind, Cable isn't there! Mang goes into a cold sweat.

*BOOM*

The thermite grenade hits Mang square in the temple, but he's able to absorb much of the heat from the concentrated explosion. Cable lunges with his fist at Mang, but the man is too quick, flipping out of the way and hitting Cable with a heat-blast from his eyes, propelling him through a glass display case. The heat causes the rest of Cable's grenades to ignite, so he bodyslides them to a safe location miles in the sky, where they explode with no worry.

Cable tries to kick Mang in the head, but the martial arts wonder blocks it and delivers a blunt palm to Cable's chin, causing him to chip a tooth. Cable growls and unleashes his telepathy, his astral form explodes from his body and jams his hand into Mang's forehead, grabbing his astral form. From there, Cable brings him onto the astral plane.

Mang shivers as he hovers. Cable concentrates and turns the area into a shadowed wasteland. "Where are you?!?" Mang shouts with terror. "This isn't fair! I'm not a psychic!"

"Telepath, you mean?" Cable inquires elusively. His telepathic voice seems to echo from every direction. "Believe me, Mang. I'm done with fighting fair," Cable says chillingly.

Suddenly, a bunch of large, man-sized mantises begin crawling towards Mang. "Oh God...," he squeals. He freezes he's so terrified...

Back in the physical world, Mang's body is laying on the floor in shock. Cable takes a gun from one of his holsters and fires it at the shaking body. The blast hits Mang, instantly freezing the air around him. "Thank Robert Drake for the inspiration for this little thing," Cable says to the inanimate thing that is Chen Mang.

Cable presses a button on his gauntlet...

*ZZZPPP*

Cable reappears before hundreds of foreign ministers, all tied up and gagged. Deathglare is hovering in the middle of the large, circular meeting room. He smiles as Cable takes a charging run towards him with his left eye and psimatar glowing brighter than the sun.

"Come, Chosen One. Embrace your end."

"Embrace your OWN end, asshole!"