Archangel

Psylocke

A crowd of thousands, perhaps millions, threw their arms up in a rage. In Roman Coliseum (or perhaps World Wrestling Entertainment) fashion, it appeared two titans were about to duel to the death. With each passing moment, the stadium full of rabid fans escalated their anxiousness by shouting louder and louder...demanding blood to be spilled on this glorious day.

Two metal gates rested on either side of the circular arena, with the stadium seats occupied by men, women, and children bent on witnessing the evisceration of a gladiator surrounding the sandy pit in the center of it all.

Cheers erupted at their very highest decibel as the gates finally began to open...

A lanky man with spiky, blonde hair wearing a long black trench coat, along with an expensive red silk shirt which seemed to shine and black dress slacks, walked out onto the sand in his Italian leather shoes. The crowd continued to cheer, even though he was designated "the bad guy."

The man arched an eyebrow without directly glancing at the multitude of commotion going on around him from multiple angles. The acoustics of the arena made it hard to hear just about anything. The blonde man seemed fixated on the opposite gate, waiting for his opponent to step out into the open and reveal himself.

Tired of waiting, the man pulled out a Zippo lighter and flicked it open, producing a flame which seemed to grow and dance around him at the same time. An instant inferno of heat suddenly kicked up in the center of the arena...

...which prompted the entrance of Pyro's opponent.

Another man walked out onto the pit, dressed in similar high fashions, if not a little more subdued. This man had a strange metal mask covering his entire head...and it seemed to glow, even from the vantage point of the cheap seats.

Boos came forth from the crowd, echoing their distaste for "the good guy." Still, the man known as Xorn, in all of his Zen-Buddhist wisdom, knew that there was a job to be done.

He had to kill Pyro to prevent the deaths of innocents...

Elisabeth Braddock was born into the privileged lifestyle of two aristocratic parents in merry old Great Britain. As it turned out, her father was a mystical being from the realm known as Otherworld. This may have been the reason for her genetic advancements as a telepathic mutant…or maybe it was something from her mother’s side. Either way, her life as a mutant did not hinder her, as she eventually went on to become a government agent and successful model. It all changed when she put on that Captain Britain armor to replace her brother, Brian.

When Betsy battled Slaymaster, she was blinded…and eventually captured by Mojo and renamed Psylocke. She was given bionic eyes and a new identity, warped to become a star of one of Mojoverse’s top television shows. For whatever reason, the Spineless Ones, the race of beings of that dimension, received television broadcasts from Earth…and became insane because of it. Mojo used this to his advantage and became worshiped. Somehow, this worship increased his power, as did the ratings his “creations” received.

Although Psylocke was eventually freed of her imprisonment, her fate was still in the hands of Mojo and his right-hand woman, the time-dancing Spiral. All complexities aside, Psylocke was essentially merged both mind and body with the Asian ninja known as Kwannon. The plan was to give Matsuo Tsurayaba what he wanted (his lost love) at the same time increase ratings for the rejuvenated Psylocke show.

But then, Wolverine and Jubilee got in the way…

Psylocke joined the X-Men in Asian form, eventually running into her old body, which later died from the Legacy Virus. It seemed Betsy was permanently trapped in another woman’s body, until she was exposed to the mystical Crimson Dawn…

After the Crimson Dawn’s Ebon Vein ran dry, the magical realm collapsed on itself, freeing Psylocke of its corruptive potency on her…but it also rearranged her DNA, making her resemble her old self. Still, she was imperfect. Her skills were all but lost and her personality suffered an alarming change.

And now, she set foot in Mojoworld again. The circle was almost completed.

Psylocke gagged in disgust as she snuck behind a moldy metallic building in the murky streets. She wore a completely black ninja get-up, concealed weapons and all. The smell of the odorous avenues was an aroma she hoped would be drilled from her memories…but unfortunately, that couldn’t happen.

X-Corp, her teammates and colleagues, have been kidnapped by Mojo, who claimed he stole them to get even with her. It took the science division almost two days to get an operational gateway to the extra-dimensional Mojoverse, but it was done.

Now the hard part was about to come to pass. Psylocke had to get close enough to Mojo without succumbing to his anti-life force energy…and kill him.

Betsy’s precognition offered her no guarantee of success. But perhaps with her Asian form now living autonomously and simultaneously somehow, she could get the job done. One mind, two bodies. Psylocke was a powerful telepath, yes, but she was not omnipresent. Keeping control of her two bodies was going to be tough…but then again, this was something Psylocke was beginning to remember that she enjoyed.

Spiral walked into the bluish light, “Except I’m not a Colombian prostitute.”

“No,” Maggott laughed, “that you aren’t. Spiral, is it?”

The six-armed woman seemed to go into a hypnotic dance, appearing to become the personification of a Hindu goddess, “That’s correct, Mr. Japheth.”

“Where am I?” Maggott asked.

Spiral smiled as she continued to dance, “Can’t you tell? You have a form of psychometric abilities.”

Maggott closed his eyes as literally hundreds of screams of painful memories not his own flooded his mind. His red eyes glowed as he opened them and muttered, “The Body Shoppe.”

One particular “motion picture” stuck in his mind, however. That of when Kwannon and Psylocke’s bodies were put through a strange genetic and mystical process to bond them together.

“As for your matter-ingesting slugs,” Spiral said as she stopped dancing, flailing her arms to and fro, “they’ve been put on hiatus…inside of your gullet.”

“Which explains why I feel like I’ve eaten two dumbbells,” Maggott said sarcastically. “What are you gonna do? Turn me into some kind of cybernetic warrior? Or even more unnecessary, put me in the body of a white guy?”

“Come on, I’m the psychotic alternate future version of Ricochet Rita, but that doesn’t mean I’m into that kind of fun anymore…,” Spiral said as she unlocked the shackles. Maggott slid off the table and rubbed his aching wrists as the circulation returned.

Maggott sighed, “What is this? Why are you letting me go?”

“Mojo wants all of his actors clean,” Spiral said.

“Huh?” Maggott asked.

“The reason your metabolism—your slugs—were so out of control, even before you joined the X-Men?” Spiral asked. “Did you really think you could hide your problem from us? You might be able to fool telepaths, but not hidden cameras.”

“I don’t shoot up…not as much as I used to,” Maggott said. “And what hidden cameras?”

Spiral smirked, “You really don’t know how influential Mojo is, do you?”

Maggott noticed his skin begins to change in pigment, as more of his natural burnt sienna-colored skin begins to overshadow the dark blue of his empowered form, “What did you do? I thought the skin damage--”

“The heroin and cocaine in your system, combined with your x-gene, really did a number on your immune system…I know I’m a villain and really shouldn’t comment, but damn. What the hell were you thinking?” Spiral asked.

Maggott clenched his fist as his muscular build began to slowly regress into that of a lanky South African young man, “So…what did you do to me…cure my addiction? Get rid o’ my vices?”

Spiral crossed all six of her arms, “I only fixed the physical damage. Consider yourself lucky…you’d think after dying, you’d get a wake up call, but noooooo. You really need to grow up, you know. You’re always letting people take care of you, pull you out of trouble.”

“I…don’t feel hungry…,” Maggott said as he sat on the cold floor.

“Because your slugs finally don’t have to deal with your body burning itself out anymore…unless you decide to start with the syringes again…,” Spiral smirked as she pointed a finger at Maggott. A stream of energy shot out and encircled him, teleporting him away.

Warren held his finger up, “Quiet…I need to focus my hearing. I’m not that good with it.”

Roni brushed her hand through her short black hair and sat in the center of the uncomfortable cell, “So, Mojo, huh?”

“Yeah,” Warren muttered bluntly. He sighed and pulled away from the wall, “It’s useless, I can’t get anything. I have no idea where Xorn, Maggott, or Pyro are being held…”

“And Betsy?” Diode asked.

Warren held his right arm at his hips and used the other to scratch the back of his head, arching his eyebrow, “I…I don’t know. I’m not even sure if she was captured or not…those warwolves ambushed us.”

“Can you use your rapport?” Diode questioned.

Warren simply looked away. He knew since that he didn’t sense Psylocke with their telepathic rapport, it either meant she was too far away, unconscious…or worse, dead. It was tough to be in a relationship with someone that fought by your side in very dangerous situations. The wrinkles in Warren’s forehead were multiplying from all of his worrying.

Roni backed off with her questions, as she knew they could become somewhat annoying to a hardened X-Men veteran…but she was still new at it. Given time, she could grow to become a valiant member of the team. If one considers X-Corp’s executive board a superhero “team.”

All X-Corp has managed to accomplish in their tenure was get captured and become outrageously famous by a fluke occurrence, thanks to a rogue employee…not to be confused with Rogue herself. Then, they were caught with their pants down again, when the said rogue employee attacked Xorn and nearly killed him. And the third time was a charm when a Chinese mutant nationalist “zombie-mancer” turned them into a bunch of super-soldiers against their will. And now they’ve been captured AGAIN.

It was a shitty track record, to be frank.

“God…,” Warren said. “We’ve gone soft…way too soft.”

Diode rubbed his shoulders reassuringly, “We’re public figures. We have to be role models…right?”

“I don’t think I’ve made any of you go through a single training exercise,” Warren said as he put his self-loathing settings on maximum. He sat against the wall in his expensive Armani suit and slid down until he sat on the floor of the dingy cell.

Diode shrugged and said, “Well…I…enjoyed…some of the informational videos of running a business, but--Hey, we’re a business first and um…paparazzi fodder second.”

He chuckled, “Bishop and Quicksilver should be real proud of how the team has turned out since they left.” Archangel buried his head, “I can’t even hold a torch to Cyclops or Storm…or Captain America and Mr. Fantastic…I’m just…terrible.”

“You just do things differently, Warren,” Diode said. “You do what you do best.”

“Suck? Yeah, I’m the best at that,” Warren muttered.

Diode smirked, “Normally, I wouldn’t let that one hang there, but you’re down, so I’ll play the insightful female employee role…since Psylocke isn’t here.”

“You know what I mean, I’m not a good leader…,” Archangel said.

“You run a multi-million dollar business…how many people can say that?” Diode asked.

“It was in my family…I inherited it. I didn’t work for it,” Warren explained. “I’ve always made the dumb mistakes. Whether it’s just shooting my mouth off or leaping without looking…you’d be surprised how having wings can make you take certain things for granted.”

“But dude,” Diode began, “you still took on the responsibility.”

“I’ve had to live up to the reputation of two Warren Worthingtons before me,” Archangel said as he shook his head. “Whenever Betsy and I start a family…if we have a son, I’m giving him a name that’s unique…no child deserves to be put in that kind of position. I keep wondering if…when Quicksilver was having doubts keeping X-Men Omega active…that I just left and continued Angel Incorporated on its own…without all the spectacle.”

“The path not taken?” Diode asked. “Come on…all that bullshit would still happen. My brother would still be out there with his four mutant mercenary amigos and stuff.”

“Joseph wouldn’t have had a breakdown,” Archangel reminded. “I ruined that kid’s life…even if he was Proteus.”

“Joseph…,” Diode said as she paused for a moment, recalling the one night they spent together, “it wasn’t your fault, or his fault. Warren, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for others’ misfortunes. I know better than anyone that we make our own problems bite us in the ass down the line.”

A flash of energy and the screaming of a large man cuts off Archangel’s response as Maggott was literally thrown against the wall via a teleportation spell, courtesy of Spiral. Maggott slowly got to his feet and dusted off his jacket.

“Japheth, your skin,” Diode breathes, still a little hyped up by his unexpected teleportation.

“Yeah, I’m black. Isn’t it amazing,” Maggott replied sarcastically.

“What did they do to you?” Archangel asked, knowing firsthand how someone like Mojo could warp others into their bidding.

“Spiral...she just put me in her Body Shoppe and I came out looking like this,” Maggott explained.

“Where are Eany and Meany?” Diode asked.

Maggott proudly patted his abdomen, “They’re in here. They’re okay.”

“What about Xorn, Psylocke, or Pyro? Any news on them?” Archangel asked impatiently.

Maggott could only shrug, “I really don’t know…”

As Charlotte Jones unlocked the door to her apartment, it stuck as it always did until she put her shoulder into it. She was sure not to wake up her son, as she knew the babysitter had made sure he was asleep.

The babysitter, a teenage blonde girl from around the neighborhood, perked up when the detective made her way inside.

"When do I get paid?" Carly, the babysitter, asked.

Charlotte sighed as she reached for her purse and pulled out two twenty dollar bills, "Here's for the overtime pay...long day at the station, I know."

"Woot," Carly said as she nabbed the cash and bolted for the door.

"You're welcome," Charlotte said, rolling her eyes. She noticed Carly had the evening news on in the living room. Charlotte was tired, and wasn't really in the mood for anything else the world had to offer. She walked over groggily to the couch, but couldn't find the remote...and she was just too damn tired to switch the TV off herself, so she plopped herself on the couch in the indent Carly had made.

{{"...as riots continue into the night in Washington, no word from the President on the matter. It's definitely another bump in the road in the relationship between man and mutant."}}

"Ugh...," Charlotte sighed as various images flashed on the screen, sights of burning barrels and actual footage of mutants and Friends of Humanity members fighting in the streets of the nation's capital.

{{"In related news, it appears the innocence of our beloved six mutants, X-Corp, has just been lost, as well. According to an anonymous source, Hugh Japheth, better known as Maggott, is apparently being charged for the apartment building fire in Brooklyn a few weeks ago..."}}

Charlotte immediately bolted upwards and stood up in shock of the information the newscaster just read over, "Huh!?!"

Charlotte's heart raced, she purposely didn't do anything with the information Mojo gave her, because she knew it wasn't true...or was it?

{{"Bill Gemas, the interim head of X-Corp, had this to say..."}}

A tanned blonde man wearing a silky suit and tie suddenly appeared on screen in a press room behind a podium with various microphones shoved in his face as periodic camera flashes reflected off of his face, {{"Um...well...the board is currently handling a personal mission right now. You know...superhero stuff. Heh...uh...yeah. They're SO not criminals...trust me."}}

The newscaster flashed back on screen, {{"The news of X-Corp's disappearance only adds to the suspicion the government already has regarding their parent team, the X-Men. Reports are storming in that Maggott is not the only one with a checkered past. Even Archangel has been confirmed as a former Horseman of Apocalypse, who has been linked to hundreds, possibly thousands of deaths worldwide."}}

Charlotte slowly sat back on the couch as tears filled her eyes. She knew she should have shredded that file before she left...now, X-Corp's lives just became even more difficult.

“Mojo!” Spiral shouted as she ran into the megalomaniac’s private quarters, which strikingly resembled a lush Beverly Hills suite, complete with a heart-shaped bed and Jacuzzi.

Mojo gasped in forced shock as Spiral ran up to the edge of the bubbling hot tub, “No running by the pool!!”

“This is insane!” Spiral sighed in disgust, ignoring Mojo’s obsessive-compulsive demands…however fake they may be to be overly dramatic. “Can we really keep this up without anything going wrong?”

“I have to give the fans what the want, what can I say?” Mojo shrugged as he rested his blob-like arms on the edges of the circular hot tub.

“We’ve got the British Psylocke running around…she’s going to free her colleagues and we’re going to be screwed,” Spiral fumed. “Plus, we have the Asian Psylocke locked up…twice the bitch and twice the amount of stabbings we’ll receive.”

Mojo arched an eyebrow and shook the mechanical “dread locks” out of his eyes. His sickly, flabby green skin jiggled as he laughed, “Have you been watching the show? They suck. X-Corp couldn’t fight their way out of a photo op. What chance do they have against me? Without that Joseph wiener, they don’t have the token overly-powerful mutant…do they?”

“Psylocke can still do damage…we made her, remember?” Spiral reminded.

Mojo smiled, “Ah yes…we gave her a penchant for destruction, didn’t we?”

Spiral crossed all six of her arms as she tried to ignore the fact that some of the bubbles in the hot tub weren’t from the jet-propelled water massagers, “And there’s still Xorn. One-hundred and twenty-three miniature gas giant stars in his head…”

“Miniature gas giants? Heh, isn’t that…a bad fart joke or oxymoron?” Mojo quipped.

Major Domo, Mojo’s resident android data-collector, suddenly strolled into the suite with his trademark long flowing green robe, “Actually, sir, it’s neither. Spiral is stating the fact that Xorn has enough power to rival your own…if I might be so bold.”

“Your power depends on the worship of this dimension’s inhabitants, Mojo…or are you forgetting what happened to your predecessors?” Spiral asked.

“They died, I know the whole damn story, alright…sheesh…six-armed women,” Mojo muttered, “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t beat ‘em in rock-paper-scissors.”

“You’re a fool if you think this ‘plan’ of yours is going to boost ratings,” Spiral growled. “It seems like a plot from the early nineties.”

“What do you mean? I always liked the cross-dimensional capers…,” Mojo whimpered. He flailed his humongous arms in the air, effectively dousing Major Domo with every iota of water from the Jacuzzi. Mojo crawled out of the tub like a snail without its shell and plopped onto his “scorpion” mobility mechanism. The buzzing of the hydraulics in his mechanical legs sounded off rapidly as Mojo got obnoxiously close to Spiral’s personal bubble…right in front of her face.

Mojo smiled, “I can do whatever I want, you twit! It was prophesized that Shatterstar would kill me…and he’s dead! Arize and his rebellion was crushed…and I totally screwed with Longshot and Dazzler’s marriage…that was always a plus! HAHA!”

Spiral performed a back flip and unsheathed her katana with the only one of her six arms that was encased in an unbreakable metal. The edge of her ancient blade was pointed towards Mojo in the defensive position, “I’m not getting my ass handed to me by X-Men. I’ve had it with them…why can’t you switch your interest over to the Avengers or Fantastic Four? They’re just as popular…”

“I know, but our audience seems to go for the unknown cult hit…I can’t control what they watch,” Mojo said.

“Actually,” Major Domo began, still soaking wet with hot tub water and…other liquids, “as ruler, you control every facet of this w—UUURHLDZ?!” A sharp metal sliver suddenly stuck out of Major Domo’s forehead as the android subsequently…fell backwards.

Mojo and Spiral’s eyes darted behind them and they saw a voluptuous Asian woman with purple hair with barely any clothes on, armed only with a pink blade made of purest concentration of psionic energy.

“Who let you out of your cage?” Mojo shouted, half-serious.

“Your solitary, weak-minded, inept guard,” ‘Psylocke’ muttered. “You’ve been a bad boy, Mojo. And just for the record, Louie Anderson gets more action than you do, you sodding pile of shit.”

“Louie Anderson? Bah!” Mojo protested as his mechanical insect legs seemed to clench up. “That was a little uncalled for.”

“Locking me up in a cell naked?” Psylocke asked to prove a point.

“Oh yeah…but still…isn’t Louie Anderson gay or something?” Mojo asked.

Psylocke’s lip curled up as her calves tensed up and she leaned forward. Spiral shouted as she read Psylocke’s body language and prevented her assault. Psylocke was quick to respond with a clean jab to Spiral’s temple.

“Attack! Oh, yeah…there you go!” Mojo cheered.

“Don’t…PATRONIZE me!” Spiral shouted as she swiped through the air with her katana, taking a strand of Asian Psylocke’s trademark purple locks for her efforts. While crouched close to the ground, Psylocke used the model-sized legs of hers to drive her heel into Spiral’s ankles—setting up a blind date for the time dancer’s spine with the floor of Mojo’s suite.

Spiral tried to scream in pain, but realized the wind was most definitely knocked out of her…an embarrassing defeat for the former stunt woman, to say the least.

“Yipe!” Mojo squealed as she looked at the victorious Asian Psylocke. His mechanical legs worked overtime as Mojo scuttled out of his suite through the backdoor, passing the “corpse” of Major Domo…who still had a metal shard sticking out of his skull.

Psylocke coldly walked up to the damaged android and kneeled down beside him. She gently raised his head and asked, “Where is X-Corp being held?”

“P-P-prison cell designate 43.21o1_616CS*E…” Major Domo managed to sputter before the dim lights in his pupils went dark. Psylocke lost grip of the android’s head as her eyes appeared to gloss over…

…and her eyes blinked again, belonging to her real body, dressed in ninja garb. She was sitting in the lotus position as she focused her mind to inhabit her Asian body and extract the info she needed. She knew Major Domo’s programming was to, by nature, provide statistics and facts at a moment’s notice.

The cell number was complex by nature, as Mojo went through great extremes to attain his kingdom over the Spineless Ones. Psylocke stealthily ran down the alleyways and cross sections of industrial complexes.

As she made her approach, Psylocke saw two engineered bi-peds, the same race as Shatterstar and Longshot, sharing a conversation near their hovercycles. The bi-peds were a slave race, but they were also servants of Mojo, either way. The two leather-clad men pulled out what appeared to be handguns, with a futuristic twist.

Before they could pull the triggers, however, the woman dressed in black was gone.

“Hey, where’d she--?” one of them asked as he turned to see his partner hanging by a thin black threat, a noose tied around his neck. “What the—HURK!”

Psylocke pinned her knee up against the bi-ped’s back to pull out her katana from the (engineered) man’s ribcage. The body seemed to slide off the metal like butter. Quickly sheathing her Japanese blade, Psylocke hopped on one of the hovercycles. After some under-pressure hot-wiring, Betsy made her way towards the prisons on the craft…

In his master control room, not unlike the master control rooms seen on Earth’s television stations, Mojo rubbed his hands together as he marveled at various monitors which were depicting the very catalysts which would end up becoming the undisputed ratings champion of Mojoworld…

After licking his grotesque lips, Mojo pressed a few buttons to initiate his plan, “Heh…cue the climatic third act along with short juxtaposition scenes!! Heh heh heh…”

Spiral, still in Mojo’s suite, suddenly bolted upwards, the pain of dulled nerve endings that surrounded her spine were gone. She twisted over onto her stomach and saw Psylocke’s inert Asian form kneeling next to Major Domo.

Using all six of her arms to help herself get to stand upright, Spiral growled as energy encircled her sextet set of hands. When the mystical oomph dispersed, six distinct daggers were held firmly in her grasp…

Psylocke landed the hovercraft sloppily, trashing the vehicle. With attention soon to be turned to her, she ran. She was in the 43-C section of the prison cells, the more general description of where her fiancé and coworkers were being held according to Major Domo.

All she could do was run and frantically look on each and every prison door for the correct designation…

“You’re DONE running!” Spiral shouted as she drove all six daggers into the torso of Psylocke’s supple, Asian form like a Venus flytrap capturing its prey. The body, although technically brain-dead, convulsed and coughed up blood before eventually suffocating on Spiral’s intense six-armed squeezing…

Psylocke kicked the door down to the prison cell door and was met with smiles from her future husband, as well as Diode and Maggott.

However…

As the formula of drama goes…

It was not meant to last.

The strange and as of not yet explained properties of Psylocke’s dual existence between her Caucasian and Asian forms apparently took on some semblance of a manifested answer.

In layman’s terms…both of Psylocke’s bodies were linked, body and soul.

Betsy’s eyes went wide as blood began to stain her ninja garb and pour from her mouth. Her head tilted lifeless and seemed to prop itself against her left shoulder.

“BETSY!” Archangel shouted as he rushed over only to have his fiancé collapse in his arms. He vigorously shook her face by grabbing her chin, “Come on! COME ON! COME ON! STAY WITH ME!”

Archangel looked up at his two other employees with a look of helplessness as his expensive suit became drenched in the blood of his lover. He almost expected Diode and Maggott to have an answer, but…

“Xorn!” Warren whimpered. “We need Xorn! GET XORN NOW!”

“He can’t heal us anymore, remember?” Maggott implored, distraught with the live showing of Psylocke’s imminent death. “He brought us all back from zombie-land.”

“Oh man, Warren…,” Diode gasped as her hands grasped her mouth to muffle her sobs.

{{“UGH! CUT! FUCKING CUT, I SAID!”}}

Archangel, Diode, Maggott, suddenly appeared within what appeared to be a stadium of some kind, surrounded by millions of Spineless Ones. Psylocke gasped as she rose, rejuvenated from Archangel’s arms.

“Did he say ‘fucking cunt’?” Diode whispered.

“No, he said ‘cut’,” Maggott explained.

“Oh,” Diode answered.

“Betsy?” Warren asked. Betsy checked for her physical health and silently shrugged, meaning she was miraculously healed. Warren exchanged glances with Maggott and Diode, “What the hell is going on?”

Xorn walked up to the group, which was located in the exact center of the arena. The Chinese mutant held up a beaten and bloody Pyro in his grasp, “Hello.”

“Xorn?” Archangel asked.

“Mojo…forced Pyro and I to fight hand to hand to appeal to the masses,” Xorn regretfully explained.

Pyro shakily raised his badly bruised face, which was almost unrecognizable, “…Mojo said he was going to kill you all…we didn’t have much of a choice…”

Archangel had heard enough. He flapped his wings and came in direct view of a floating camera…which relayed directly back to the control room, which both Spiral and Mojo occupied.

“You son of a bitch!” Archangel shouted. The crowd booed at Warren’s defiance of their leader.

Suddenly, the loud screech of the audio PA system activating signified the rebuttal of the distinguished ruler, {{“Ladies and germs! I regret to inform you we had to rewrite the ending of tonight’s episode at the last minute.”}}

Archangel descended back to ground level with the rest of his teammates as the crowd yet again booed the fact that the episode was indeed…rewritten at the last minute.

Mojo continued, {{“But fear not, loyal subjects! Mojo’s got something…special up his flab.”}}

A large metal gate opening on the opposite end of the arena slowly churned itself outward, revealing a bright white light…and six silhouettes which stood within the luminosity. In calculated militaristic fashion, they stepped out into the open, causing the crowd to gasp.

X-Corp themselves couldn’t seem to grasp what was happening.

The six figures all wore variations of their former X-Men Omega uniforms…except they were sleek black…and scarily Nazi-esque. But most frightening of all…they mirrored X-Corp’s executive board almost to a ‘T’.

Mojo laughed as he announced, {{“Fresh off the Spiral-express from Earth 615, may I present…the X-Corps!”}}

The alternate versions of Bishop, Rogue, Archangel, Psylocke, Maggott, and Pyro smiled as they gazed upon their counterparts.

{{“Tonight, witness the world premiere of X-Corp verses X-Corps! Winner take all, loser take…a dirt nap! HAH! Dirt nap? Heheheheh…,”}} Mojo cackled.

Bishop smiled as he pulled two plasma rifles from his back strap, “Alright, everyone. Stick to the Epsilon-Theta-B Foxtrot attack plan. Let’s show these cake eaters how we do things OUR way…”

The X-Corps nodded to each other coldly as they began to march slowly towards their targets…

“Um…,” Diode asked, tugging at ‘our’ Archangel’s sleeve, “do we have any fancy battle tactics planned out against…er…them?”

“We just stall and then we’ll pull a fast one on Mojo and team-up, taking him out once and for--" Warren began, but was cut short by Psylocke.

“That’s not going to work. My counterpart still has the Crimson Dawn…it’s corrupted them all,” Psylocke said as the butterfly effect of her telepathy blares from her eyes.

“Then, we really don’t have a choice but to fight them…,” Xorn said.

“What are we going to do?” Diode asked. “We can’t go all out…I mean…the media will tear us a new one!”

“Fuck the media…,” Archangel growled. “I’m sick of being perceived as a bunch of pampered superheroes hired to do parlor tricks! We’re ending it HERE!”

{{“Holy shit! Fade to black! Fade to black, damn it!”}} Mojo shouted with glee. {{"Now, cue the promo!"}}

NEXT: X-Corp. X-Corps. Mojo. Spiral. And possibly some romance. It's all right here next month!