"You realize you are in deep shit, don't you?" a blonde British man asked as he leaned over a table. On the opposite side was a man named Cable. He was tied to a chair amidst the humid air of the Middle East. Nathan offered no response. An Arab with a suit and turban sighed and walked up to Cable.

"What are you trying to start, a war?" the Arab asked. "Haven't enough people died?"

"You took over this country...don't deny it," Cable muttered as he spit blood out the side of his mouth. He was shot in the left shoulder. A major artery was severed. "You used my technology to build yourselves a time machine..."

"We haven't used it yet!" the British man smiled.

Ech-Neo!

Cable's ear's perked up as a strange voice in his head echoed in a strange language. It wasn't telepathy, but something else. As if his subconscious had a conversation with him...

The Arab pulled out a gun from his suit and clicked the safety off as he pointed it at Cable's head, "And you will not see the light of day again."

He pulled the trigger.

The blood trickled out of the hole in his skull as Cable's head fell limp at its side...

Nathan Christopher Summers watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground. It almost didn't make sense. Irene Merryweather, his chronicler, was dead. It was prophesized that her works of Cable's exploits would one day become a New Age Bible for the world to follow into a new age of peace and prosperity. Her journals were destroyed. Now, even Cable himself, a modern day messiah, was literally powerless to complete his ongoing mission to create a long line of utopian timelines by preventing the uprising of totalitarian governments...

The organic virus engineered to "cure" his techno-organic virus by Mr. Sinister had completely washed away the scar tissue that covered Nathan's previously infected left arm and leg. His right eye, although it still had the triad of scars over it, was completely organic tissue. No longer could he read infrared. With his powers seemingly wiped out by a combination of chronal anomalies and tampering by the Shadow King, Nathan was completely human.

Prosh, Nathan's longtime companion, stood next to him under the cloak of an advanced hologram. Irene was his friend, as well. As a sentient program, he felt sadness and emptiness we normally feel when loved ones are lost.

What hurt Nate the most was the fact no one else came to the funeral. Irene had immersed herself so much in his life, she didn't have a chance to live her own.

Nate put on a pair of sunglasses, "Let's go."

Prosh looked up as the minister had already walked off, "Are you sure?"

"We've got work to do," Nathan said.

"I'm not following you," Prosh responded as he dropped his hologram, revealing his true android form, a golden structure with blue panels over his ribs, shoulders, and thighs.

"I'm still a shadow agent for the CIA," Nathan whispered.

"But Stryfe was the one who posed as you when 'Cable' was introduced into the program," Prosh reminded. *

(* Back in issue 40 -- Brad)

"I know," Nathan said, "but it's a job that keeps me on the inside of the US Government. The Canaanites rose to power in ways they are taking lately...I have to keep them in their place. It's corrupt. As is the UN and SHIELD."

"Nathan, you can't go up against SHIELD alone, or the American Government in your current condition," Prosh said.

"They're playing with people's lives. I won't allow that. I didn't save this world from Apocalypse just to have them fuck it up," Nathan growled.

"Your powers are depleted!" Prosh shouted.

"That was NOT my only asset!" Cable exclaimed. "I fought, I sweat, I bled...I DIED for this world! I'm NOT giving up that easily!"

Prosh sighed and lowered his tone, "I just don't want you to die again."

"If I die, I'll be doing what I love...making this world a better place," Cable said.

"The knowledge you possess is far greater than any power, Nathan," Prosh said. "You cannot risk giving that up by going out in a blaze of glory."

Nathan sighed, "You're right. What I know is something you don't, apparently...the US and British Governments are setting up a sovereign nation in the Middle East they'll control. They've already got Afghanistan on their leash...pretty soon, they'll spread to the whole world. Just like the New Canaanites."

"We don't have the resources anymore, Nathan," Prosh said. "Greymalkin is disabled, Rachel is still in a coma, and you are powerless."

"I still have safehouses with tons of equipment around the world. I have one in Iran. We're going there," Cable said. He lowered his brow, "Right now."

"What are we going to be doing, exactly?" Prosh asked. "We can't exactly storm in and prevent this new government from taking shape."

"We're taking out the American-British shadow government there," Cable said.

"You realize this will strain your relations with the Americans...?" Prosh asked.

"It's not the entire government, it's the people off the radar that I've got beef with," Cable said.

Nate Grey walked through the streets of Seattle, the city in which he helped to completely destroy as one of Apocalypse's Pale Riders. Although now rebuilt, the memories are still burned in his mind. Later, he was used by Apocalypse again as an anchor to keep his M'Kraan-enduced reality alive. Now, recently, Nate was exploited by the Shadow King. Was it mentioned Onslaught absorbed X-Man's abilities into himself, as well?

It sucked being used.

Ech-Neo!

Nate shivered as he pulled his army green trench coat tighter around his body. He looked up and saw the New Space Needle begin to stand out with a high contrast against the dark storm clouds.

Thunder and rain.

"I hate this city...," Nate muttered as his telekinetic field automatically surrounded him, preventing the droplets from hitting him. He stroked the stubble on his chin and ran his hand through his hair. It had been months since he cut it. It was long, almost down to his shoulders. His hair was beginning to turn white more and more. It wouldn't be long. Nate was physically around 17. By the time he's 20, his mane would be completely white.

Nate was taller and started to gain a little weight...almost some kind of belated growth spurt. He gripped his stomach and flew through the rain, hoping to find a pizza joint.

"What do you mean they have him?" X-Man asked. He sat on the edge of the bed of his hotel room. Prosh stood by the dresser.

Prosh sighed and shook his head, "I...Cable was...fixated on stopping the shadow government in Iraq...he knew something wrong was happening. I told him not to go in without a functioning Greymalkin or his mutant powers. I can't go back there, myself, as they've found some way to tamper with the bodyslide frequency."

Ech-Neo!

"God, what the fuck is that?!" X-Man shouted.

"I know, I should have been able to subdue him and get past his stubbornness...," Prosh muttered.

"No, there's a voice in my head!" X-Man explained with a tone of frustration. "Even when I turn off my thoughts, I still hear it..."

"What does it say?" Prosh asked.

"It's Latin or something...," X-Man paused. "Ech-Neo?"

Prosh gripped his chin, "Hm, Latin? Well, neo obviously means new. Ech...might refer to echo."

"New echo? That makes no sense," X-Man said.

"Or, it might even be an abbreviated version of ecquando, which means ever or at any time..."

"New-ever...ever-new? The fuck does that mean?"

"Perhaps it means...new time?" Prosh suggested.

"Or just the Americanized version...time for something new?" X-Man pondered. His left eye lit up, "We gotta get Cable back."

Cable awoke with a start in the darkened hallows of one of his safehouses. Before him was a glowing specter of blue light. He wore a robe and had long, flowing white hair and a beard. His eyes were the most blue.

"...Aéuglo?" Cable asked as he wondered if the Fifth Dimension's vessel in which it communicated with him had somehow returned.

"I am the Father Askani, Dayspring," the man spoke. "I am from the future."

Cable grabbed the gun under his pillow and pointed it at the glowing man. He peered closer and realized the Father Askani had the same exact scarring over his right eye as he did. He put the gun down, "Alright...tell me your cryptic message, mysterious figure."

Father Askani chuckled, "No, I know you better than that. I'm going to give you specific directions. I am aware Irene's funeral is tomorrow morning..."

"Anyone could know that...," Cable protested. "How can I trust you."

"The journals were destroyed," Father Askani said. "The Mother Askani is in a coma and the Sacred Twenty-Seven have recently perished. Do you believe me now?"

"Sacred Twenty-Seven?" Cable wondered aloud.

"The first wave of Askani students in this era?" Father Askani asked. "The public didn't know they were Askani, let alone mutants. Do you believe me now?"

Cable's doubt went away as his shoulders relaxed, "Well, I'm not being manipulated telepathically...okay...what's going down?"

"It involves something you lost..."

"My powers...?" Cable asked. "My biography? What?"

Father Askani smiled, "The M'Kraan shard...you lost it while in the timestream, remember?" *

(* During the PHOENIX PRIVATION arc, in issue #46 -- Brad)

"So, what happened? Reality as we know it is going to crumble?" Cable asked.

"Let's just say it fell into the wrong hands...and now it's being used to harness something out of a science fiction novel as far as the people of this time period are concerned..."

"What...? Who are the wrong hands and what are they using?"

"America. Time travel. They tested it already by killing Sadam's sons...or I should say they will test it."

"What's going to happen...?" Cable asked. "America seems to know what they're doing."

"Haven't you learned? Without a ruler like Apocalypse to keep the people in line, the main governments take over the entire planet...and it's just as bad. The Canaanites used time travel to wipe out their enemies. You seeing a connection, here?"

"Oath..."

"That's right...the New Canaanites sprung from the old American and British nations. Only now...it's gonna be sooner."

Cable watched as the Father Askani faded away and the room returned to darkness. Was he the future version of Cable? Was he telling the truth...?

Ech-Neo!

Cable and Prosh appeared within the bunker in a flash of light as the bodyslide took place. Dozens of armed guards cocked their rifles and surrounded the two intruders on either side.

Cable wore a lightweight suit of black armor along with dozens of guns strapped to it. Prosh shape-shifted his arms into two giant cannons using the Phalanx technology in his systems.

"Put your weapons on the floor!" an American special forces soldier shouted. "Now!"

"Nathan...," Prosh whispered, "I'm picking up 24 hostiles."

Cable flinched as the neural command caused a mask to click into place over his head, closing the armor off. Cable pulled the trigger on his gun and sprayed plasma and bullets into the mass of soldiers. Those that found cover returned fire. The bullets ricocheted off of the armor, but it still stung. Cable dove for cover. He pressed a button on the gauntlet of his armor as an energy field was erected in front of him, creating a shield.

Prosh hesitantly fired into the soldiers on the opposite side of the corridor. Those that returned fire failed to notice Prosh had adapted to the threat of bullets long ago. Prosh relentlessly fired off more blasts of energy and took the last of them out.

Cable, meanwhile, detached a thermite grenade from his belt and tossed it over his shield. It exploded and the heat pulse vaporized the rest of the soldiers. Cable deactivated the shield and ran up to Prosh.

"That was easy," Cable's electronic voice said. The helmet retracted back into the armor.

Suddenly, a stream of energy hit Cable in the left shoulder, piercing his armor, "ARGH!"

"Nathan!" Prosh shouted, but he was helpless as his bodyslide frequency was remote activated and he disappeared.

Cable gripped his shoulder as he fell to the ground. He bled badly. Another wave of soldiers stormed the corridor and surrounded Cable. An officer pointed his M-16 at Cable's head, "Don't move, you fucking traitor!"

"You realize you are in deep shit, don't you?" a blonde British man asked as he leaned over a table. On the opposite side was a man named Cable. He was tied to a chair amidst the humid air of the Middle East. Nathan offered no response. An Arab with a suit and turban sighed and walked up to Cable.

"What are you trying to start, a war?" the Arab asked. "Haven't enough people died?"

"You took over this country...don't deny it," Cable muttered as he spit blood out the side of his mouth. He was shot in the left shoulder. A major artery was severed. "You used my technology to build yourselves a time machine..."

"We haven't used it yet!" the British man smiled.

Ech-Neo!

Cable's ear's perked up as a strange voice in his head echoed in a strange language. It wasn't telepathy, but something else. As if his subconscious had a conversation with him...

The Arab pulled out a gun from his suit and clicked the safety off as he pointed it at Cable's head, "And you will not see the light of day again."

He pulled the trigger.

The blood trickled out of the hole in his skull as Cable's head fell limp at its side...

An explosion of light suddenly filled the room as X-Man phased his molecules through the triple-layered steel. As he passed fully into the room, the door exploded. He looked down at the lifeless husk of Cable and growled. The Arab with the gun had his hand torn off. The severed hand pulled the trigger of the gun and caught him just between the eyes. The hand and the body fell limp.

X-Man hovered mercilessly toward the British man and grabbed him by the neck with his telekinesis, "I've never killed anyone before...out of cold blood...under my own free will."

The British man stuttered, "W-w-what?!"

X-Man's left eye beamed as the man's brain stem shot out the back of his skull. Nate threw the body across the room as it slid down the wall, leaving a trail of blood.

X-Man then hovered up to Cable's body as millions of droplets of blood from the other two men began to swirl around and flow into Cable's head wound. Taking fragments from the Arab's skull, he fastened them into place in Cable's. X-Man concentrated further and sealed the wound in Cable's arm.

Nate leaned down and pressed his hands against Cable's chest and telekinetically attempted to jump start his heart. He had Cable's mind within his own before it fully passed on. When the heart started to beat again, X-Man funneled the spirit back into its body.

Cable awoke with a start as he quickly gripped his head. It was still a little crudely put together, but it would heal nicely eventually. He looked up at X-Man in wonder as he gripped his shoulder, "...Grey?"

Ech-Neo!

Cable sighed as the voice returned. X-Man appeared annoyed as well. He suddenly realized Cable heard it too and asked, "...what is that damn thing trying to tell us?"

Cable rubbed his head, "We better get outta here." He paused, "Why did you go through all this trouble to find me and save my life?"

"Prosh came to me for help...," X-Man said. "But that's not the only reason. The voice. Somehow, I knew we were involved. I had to make sure we survive to figure out what it means, Cable."

Cable sighed as he stood up. He backed up against the wall to support himself as he was spacey from his subsequent revival. He shook his head. Prosh was right. Cable needed to survive, which meant he couldn't be out in the field. He couldn't be so reckless. He didn't have the insurance of his powers...

Cable looked up at X-Man. They were one and the same. They were like brothers. Nathan Summers walked up to Nathanial Grey and said, "This is your fight now."

"...what?" X-Man asked.

"I'm going to train you in every psi and fighting technique I know," Summers said. "I'm going to train you in how to use every weapon on the planet..."

X-Man appeared to be shocked as the elder Nathan's thoughts reached him before his words did.

"...you're going to be the new Cable," Nathan said. "And that's not all...I'm giving you another name. One that you deserve."

"What's that...?" X-Man asked.

"The Chosen One," Nathan responded. "All this time, I thought it was me...but somehow I knew there was something bigger, something beyond me."

"We've...had some obvious comparisons. And not to mention we're paradoxily the same person in a way," X-Man said. "Maybe we're both the Chosen One?"

"Either way, I can't fight anymore...can't risk dying. At least, before I train you," Nathan said.

A flash of light appeared around the two men as pain shot through every nerve in their bodies. They fell flat on their faces as smoke rose from their bodies.

Boots clinked against the floor and observed the bodies of two agents that furthered his cause in this era. The man's lips curled into a smile as he observed Cable and X-Man unconscious on the floor in front of him, "...Grey."

The man turned away and reached into a compartment within his crystalline armor and pulled out the M'Kraan shard.

And Holocaust laughed, "How incredibly...poignant."

X-Man groggily regained consciousness and blinked a few times, unsure of the anamoly that stood before him, "Holocaust...? But, you died!"

The son of Apocalypse laughed, "Doesn't it intrigue you that in every reality I've peered into with the M'Kraan Crystal that every son of a Summers and Jean Grey is non-existant?" Holocaust continued as he carelessly tossed the shard in the air and caught it, "Or that Apocalypse, my father, was wiped out in every reality since he died while in a dimension beyond all?"

X-Man got to his feet as he silently concluded from reading Holocaust's thoughts, "Cable and Apocalypse both died in the Fifth Dimension...and thus wiped out every version of them, if any, at the exact same time...all over the multiverse."

"Yet, you are still here," Holocaust said. He looked down at Cable, "And so is he. The question is, of course..."

"Why?" X-Man finished. He shook his head, "He told me. The energies of Phoenix that became independent recreated Cable...as well as Stryfe."

"But...," Holocaust began again.

X-Man then sighed, "...why?"

Ech-Neo...

X-Man's mind seemed to tense up at the sound of the voice, "...switch the letters...?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Holocaust asked as nuclear energy poured out of his eye sockets.

"Ech-neo...is chosen," X-Man muttered to himself. "We were chosen. That's why we still exist."

"Chosen for what?" Holocaust screamed.

"To stop you," Cable smirked as he got up to everyone's shock. "You're an anamoly that cannot die. You breach dimensional barriers to survive death."

"Plus, you have the M'Kraan shard in your possession," X-Man added.

"The M'Kraan seems to be a constant in the equation of our destiny," Cable said as he panted. "Stopping Apocalypse by gathering the Twelve was the beginning. The Phoenix Force, having experienced the energies firsthand and bonding with the D'Bari sun's mind, brought Stryfe and I back. We battled it out to see who was fit to take the final test...Sanctity, the Shadow King, it all led up to this." *

(* You mean you didn't check out The Twelve/Apocalypse 2000 and Cable #33-50??? Er...well, that was a pretty good summary, then -- Brad)

"What exactly are you going to do?" Holocaust asked as the crystal seemed to merge with his armor. His form grew larger and bulkier and radiated energy. "I am the Nexus of Realities, after all. How are you going to stop THAT?!"

"I've heard that one before," Cable said as he picked up his gun. He grabbed X-Man's arm and the two dove into Holocaust's armor. Inside the Nexus, the two brothers seemed to merge together, as well. They formed into an equally-sized Titan to counter Holocaust's yin to their yang.

"You cannot defeat a GOD!"

"Actually...we can," Cable/X-Man said. With a wave of his/their massive hand, Holocaust fizzled out of existence like he was supposed to. The Crystal shard fell to the ground back on Earth 616 as it somehow formed into the full-sized M'Kraan Crystal.

That was a little too easy.

Shut up, kid. We're one with all, now.

What are we supposed to do?

Prosh suddenly bodyslided into the bunker and blindly picked up the M'Kraan. The crystal sunk into his chest as the Celestial android muttered, "Um...what's going on?"

Looks like you were pre-programmed, Prosh. You had your purpose just as we did.

"What am I to do?" Prosh asked.

What you were meant to.

"Oh yeah," Prosh said as he literally rocketed out of the bunker and reached escape velocity. Ambient cosmic energies surrounded him as he felt the tug of being thrust through a wormhole. Prosh re-emerged in an empty portion of the universe. Thousands of armored, colossal figures stood on the very fabric of time and space, all with the satisfaction that Earth and humanity would soon eventually pass their test.

The Celestials.

They judged Nathan Summers as an infant, but realized he could have served a greater purpose for humanity as a whole in every reality...and it worked like a charm.

Epilogue.

Herman dug through the trash dumpster and came back up for a breath of air with a computer circuit board in his grasp. His red hair had grown in long and shaggy. His beard was thick and curly. He wore rags over his mildly obese body. Herman jumped out of the dumpster and hobbled into the abandoned factory located along a pier of Staten Island.

Herman slapped the circuit board on a small wooden table and connected a few wires here and there to it. The wires were connected to an old Macintosh computer monitor. A few adjustments later, and the screen hummed to life. The hard drive was an assemblage of various different parts, as were the keyboard and mouse.

A document loaded up on the computer slowly.

Herman smiled. His two front teeth were missing, so he looked like a child on Christmas morning. He had the greatest gift of all, a computer...even though his disk space was severely overloaded. Too bad he didn't know who wrote the document, because it looked intriguing. Little did he know it would usher in a new era of peace someday...

BOOK OF THE ASKANI'SON
By Ir10101010errywe100101010000011

(THE END)