The person that has just showed up simply hides in the darkness. There is a slight echo to the voice, "There is much to do for the coming festivities."

"My assignment has an important role in this party," Alastaire declares, his hands removing the cloak to his black robe, revealing a shaved scalp.

The voice calls out again, as if it were not coming from a mouth to speak, "True, but it is not you that is desired."

"Are you saying I'm unimportant?" Alastaire asks.

There appears to be a hideous sigh, as if the sound vibrations could shatter a man's bones. "I do not have time to grant pleasantries, worm," the voice bellows. "We need something to lure out the X-Men."

"That doesn't really narrow it down, you know," Alastaire says with a snotty smirk.

"How would you like to eat without a tongue? That way you wouldn't talk down to such an important figure of the New Age. Quit playing games, you know it is the Omega team I am referring to."

Alastaire playfully shrugs.

"Well?!" the voice screams, hampering the volume at the same time.

"Don't worry, I've got just the thing," Alastaire says as he smiles viciously, pulling the hood over his head. He turns and walks away.

"You had better," the voice says before the man it belongs to vanishes.

Quicksilver and Rogue

The two most experienced mutants on the X-Men are rewiring the security system of their Outback headquarters. Various surveillance cameras are placed around different locations in and outside of the bunker base of operations of the most proactive of X-Men factions. Why someone would need security in one of the most barren places on Earth is a puzzling question, but the X-Men have learned that, simply put, a lot of weird shit happens.

Being surrounded by a virtual desert is one advantage adding to security, however the pressing heat often fries transformers in many of the electrical systems.

Quicksilver is laying on his back on the floor, under a metal panel. He asks, "Rogue, could you hand me a screwdriver? The kind with four grooves on the tip?"

"A Phillips?" Rogue asks with a little laugh that makes her chest jump. It just seemed humorous that a male didn't know a name of a tool.

"Yes, that one," Pietro says as he reaches out his extended palm. "I just have to tighten this cover...and we should be all set."

Rogue opens a red toolbox and tinkers through various common tools. Hammer, a small level, miniature hand saw, socket wrench, metric wrench, monkey wrench, tape measure, another hammer. She finally spots a Phillips and places it in Pietro's hand.

Pietro instantly screws the small bit in and before Rogue knows it, the screwdriver is back in her hand. "Thanks," Pietro says as he slides to get himself up.

Rogue places it back in the toolbox and shuts it. Pietro touches her arm.

"What's the matter?" he asks.

"Nothin's wrong. Why?" Rogue responds.

"You just seem...your mind is in the clouds, lately. Is it LeBeau?" Pietro asks. *

(* Check out the Gambit Annual 2002, where Gambit paid a visit to the Omega team -- Brad)

"Ah don't like him like that anymore, Pietro, darlin'...Ah just - He was mah first real relationship with someone who didn't care about mah powers bein' out of control. 'Course, that doesn't even mattah now. Mah powers have settled down, and so have Ah."

"But you're still wondering what might have been, had he stayed with the team?" Pietro asks, crossing his arms.

"What are you - how dare you assume what Ah'm thinking?! Bein' able to touch again has been very emotional for me. Could you imagine perceivin' the world with only four senses and then the fifth limited by cloth that covers every part o' yer body?" Rogue yells with tears welling in her eyes.

"I know I don't know what you had to go through, but--"

"Try it, sometime, you jerk. Maybe you'd learn to value touch. Maybe you'd still be with Crystal!"

Rogue fights back tears as she flies out of the base.

Quicksilver closes his eyes, swallowing. That last comment truthfully hurt. Pietro stands still for a couple seconds, breathing through his nose slowly to calm himself. He opens his eyes, still thinking what he thought was right. Perhaps fearing what he thought was right.

Joseph and Blink

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Joseph asks, walking in the streets of Sydney. He zips up his leather jacket with an overlapping red X.

Blink shakes her head, smiling slightly, "We're not here to talk about Mr. Creed." Blink has the appearance of a Caucasian brunette thanks to Joseph's mastery over the electromagnetic spectrum, filtering out the blue pigments in her primarily purple-toned skin.

In the perfect world, Blink wouldn't have to hide who she was. Maybe Joseph could say the same thing. He is still haunted by the drug traffickers he subdued a few weeks ago, who claimed he looked like Magneto, his father. *

(* Check out X-Men Omega #30 -- Brad)

"Should I get my hair cut?" Joseph asks.

Blink smiles, "Why? I kind of like the rock star look on you."

"Yes, but...I don't fit the rock star archetype, really."

"Shut up," Blink says without cruel intent. "You're your own man with your own unique style."

"No..." Joseph says as he sees glimpses of a life he forgot. A man that looks frighteningly like him is cradling Joseph. The man kisses him on the forehead and a bald black man steps into the room with rags for clothes. "...Bishop?"

"Joe? Are you okay?" Clarice asks.

Joseph snaps out of his memory relapse. He swallows, "I look like my father, don't I?"

"Well, all children look like one or both of their parents," Clarice says.

"No, my father. The Magneto of the place I came from and the place you experienced," Joseph reiterates.

Clarice sighs deeply, looking towards the sidewalk, "Oh." She pauses, "Yeah, you look exactly like him. I mean, just younger. No wonder Astra convinced everyone you were his clone."

"I really want my hair cut now," Joseph declares.

Clarice giggles, "Then you'll look like Pietro."

Joseph thinks for a moment, "Nevermind."

"Why are you afraid of looking like Magneto?" Clarice asks. "Cutting your hair won't change how you look...well, much."

"I don't know, it's like someone telling you that you look like Kathy Lee Gifford or something. It's insulting to me that people see me and think Magneto," Joseph explains. "I sacrificed my life stopping him from unleashing magnetic hell."*

( *Check out X-Men #87 - Dino )

"It's insulting to me when kids teased me, thinking my parents dipped me in a vat of grape juice as a baby and never washed it out," Clarice says. "Believe me, if you're so concerned with what those Jigoku drug dealers thought you looked like...then you should join Nightcrawler, Beast, and I in the image inducer club."

Joseph nods, "Maybe I could get an earring...?"

Blink rolls her eyes. She causes a portal to open in front of them. "Come on, we better get home. I have to pick up Pyro, later. He's seeing his old publisher."

"How about a nosering?"

"Just go through the portal, doofus."

Sabretooth

I still don't get it.

Don't believe it.

Was I ever that wild?

Sabretooth, Victor Creed, tinkers with his broken shackle. He's fixed the restraint somewhat, since it was beginning to wear out. He wonders to himself why none of the X-Men haven't tried to make sure the restraints were still working.

Blink, of course, would say that the restraints should go. Everyone else, even Pyro, a former villain himself, would say they should stay on.

Quicksilver has been unexpectedly more trusting of Victor of late. Maybe it was the fact that he thought Sabretooth was avenging him for getting shot by Marcus Tsung?*

(* Check out last issue -- Brad)

Victor smiles to himself. He's got some new allies. His smile fades.

Psylocke.

Creed almost killed her, practically disemboweled her.*

(* Back in Uncanny X-Men #328 -- Brad)

Yet, she gives him a friendly smile in Japan, just after he viciously murdered Tsung. Victor was no fool. It seems there was more treachery going on in the X-Men than Creed thought.

Something's up. He can smell it.

Psylocke and Archangel

As Betsy rolls off Warren's sweat-drenched body, he lets out a prolonged sigh. He lifts his arm to wrap around her shoulders. Betsy lets out a fatigued groan.

"Nothing like making love in this bloody heat," Betsy rags.

"The AC must be broken," Warren says, who seems to have trouble keeping his eyes open. "What time is it?"

"Noon," Psylocke answers.

"Hm. Must be the portal-lag," Warren smiles, referring to Blink's constant teleportation of the team across international datelines and such.

"Clarice is pretty shaken up by Creed," Betsy says. "I keep hearing her thoughts shouting 'no, no, no' over and over again. Flamin' broken record."

"Well, I don't know what her thing is with him...but I'm not one to judge. None of us are."

"If you say so," Betsy says unconsciously, drifting into sleep.

Warren's eyes flash suddenly with yellow-tinted light. His strange mutation was trying to tell him something. He lightly strokes the back of Betsy's arm.

Betsy wakes up, frustrated, "What?"

Warren continues to rub her arm, remaining silent for a few more seconds. Betsy is becoming agitated. The red tattoo over her left eye glows and she sighs. "Oh. You want to talk about what happened in Japan?" she asks.

Warren nods, "It's probably nothing, but I've tried talking with you about it, but you've avoided it for so long. What's wrong? You've changed -- we've changed so much. Our bodies and minds have been put through hell by some prick manipulator in the past. Now we've both got these strange abilities. We're like polar opposites."

"Opposites attract, so what's your point, luv?"

"In Japan, you just disappeared and showed up whenever you pleased. It was like the environment just unleashed an animal inside of you."

"I'm a ninja, Warren. It just felt...appropriate to act that way in Japan. Kwannon was also an assassin, remember. I didn't want to draw attention to myself since I wear her face. You also have no idea what it's like to become one with the shadow...the Crimson Dawn...it's...empowering."

Warren never heard Betsy talk of the Dawn like that. True, Betsy's martial arts talent and telepathic powers have been increased by that crimson elixir. But at what cost to her soul...?

That mark on her face symbolized the beauty of life, Warren once thought. Now it's like a brand. He wonders if Betsy's still even "all there" anymore.

Pyro

John Allerdyce sits in a leather plush chair, facing a man with tons and tons of jumbled papers and folders laying opened over a seemingly small desk. Behind the man is a bookcase with tons of books, the spines of them old and decaying. The lengths of the books were also mismatched. It looked like jagged curves on a sine graph.

The man, Jovan Hooflesburg, shifts in his chair, rocking back and forth. The portly, balding man pushes the rim of his glasses to rest on the bridge of his nose. "I don't know mate, you've been out the writin' business for so long," Jovan says.

John lights a cigarette, taking out a notebook. "I've been busy with other shit," he says, flipping through the pages. "You know, uh...committing terrorist acts in the name of mutants...um, catching the Legacy Virus...hitching up with the X-Men." John tosses the notebook on Jovan's desk, causing stacks of papers to teeter and flop on the floor.

"Those're my notes," John says, flicking his cigarette over an ash tray.

Jovan reads over the handwritten outline. He nods when he reads over good parts. He reads one line twice, putting his finger under it just to make sure. He giggles a bit when he reads the "love scene."

"So, this an autobiography or something?" Jovan asks with a grin.

"Nah, that'd be incriminatin', eh?" John laughs. "No, it's good ol' fictionalized suspense."

"Well," Jovan begins, "I definitely like the premise. An oil spill off the coast of Alaska ignites and spreads to the forests. Makes Backdraft look like a pussy's tale. Just the way you describe the fire...it's...breathtaking. You a pyromaniac or somethin'?"

"Only when there's shit burning, I guess," John says with a smile. There's a faint sparkle in his eyes.

"Well, when can you send me a rough draft of the novel?" Jovan asks.

John smiles and takes out a large envelope out of his leather jacket inside pocket and plops it on the desk. More papers fall.

"I got 375 pages exactly on that little bastard," John says, taking a drag.

Jovan grins from ear to ear. If he had hair, it would probably stand up. He offers to shake John's hand. He takes grip eagerly. "All right, Allerdyce. You just might be the first former mutant terrorist to win the Pulitzer."

John finishes his cigarette, smothering it in the ash tray, "You're not going to put that on the cover, are ya?"

"No," Jovan laughs. "Speakin' of which, what's the title of this thing?"

"Oh...uh, I don't know. Bollocks if I know."

"Well, you're the author, you flammin' wanker."

"Call it whatever you want, I got shit to do today," John says.

"Can't do it, don't wanna. You're the man, mate."

John walks out the door, before he closes it, he looks back, "Call it Pyro."

The door closes.

The Outback

Pietro turns on the monitor in the war room, trying to get his mind off his fight with Rogue. Instantly, there is a broadcast of chaos in San Salvador. The monitor is designed to tune into any relevant mutant threat that appears on the news. This was one of them. Pietro looks at the live footage and sees someone in black robes.

"The Apocalypse Dawn...?" he mutters.

Quicksilver pushes his insecurities with Rogue aside. He was the leader of the X-Men now, nothing else. He presses a button on the console, activating the team's specially designed pagers. It was a matter of time before they'd be briefed on the situation and Blink would teleport them all to Central America.

This was their job, they did this all the time. For the first time, the X-Men have been tackling threats head-on. Although, the team could do without the "Mutant Avengers" comments.

San Salvador

It was just about dawn there, in the city named after Christ. How ironic, the Apocalypse Dawn was the city of Christ under siege at daybreak. It looked like a demilitarized zone in some parts. In the midst of it all, Alastaire looks on, surveying the damage. He speaks into his cloak, which has a radio link with the other Dawn members.

"Don't worry about property damage. Don't even let the thought that this country is poor cause you to hesitate," Alastaire smiles. "Oh, and...don't be afraid to use your nails, girls."

Alastaire stretches out his hand as an entire building starts glowing with blue energy. He has just induced the molecules of the building to start the process of radioactive decay - fission. The results are explosive.

Alastaire hears screams as the building collapses. He laughs, mocking the dying cries. "You don't matter...in fact, in a few seconds, you won't even be matter. I love that line from Men In Black...it fits me so well," he sighs.

Two Dawn members team up, one flies up to the top of a hotel building with the other staying on street level. The one above charges up his body with surrounding neutrinos and fires a pulse through the building.

The mutant on the street then unleashes a sonic boom, blowing the debris onto surrounding buildings.

Alastaire applauds, "Aw...and they're black and white. Who says there's racism? Nice job, you two. Teamwork. Beautiful."

Suddenly, there is a tear in space-time as Blink's teleportational portal blips open. A miniature black hole with pink energy swirling on the edges. Eight mutants clad in leather suits pour out. Alastaire notices this event and smiles.

"About time," he mutters.

NEXT ISSUE: It's X-Men Omega against the Apocalypse Dawn! Wear your safety goggles, kids, it's about to get messy.