SHIELD Secret Headquarters
Superhuman Activities Division
Los Angeles Branch.

A male and female doctor stand over a sink, thoroughly washing their hands. The male, a tall, handsome black man with a goatee smiles at the woman, an aging, but still relatively attractive Asian woman.

"You ready for this?" Jenny asks.

"I've never done an autopsy on a mutant before, to tell you the truth," Dan smiles.

Jen shakes her head, "You should have been here for the Sentinel attacks a few weeks ago. Almost all of LA's mutant population were wiped out. It was weird. They somehow built those things small enough to attack like locusts."

"The mutants...?"

"No, the Sentinels."

"Oh," Dan responds as he and Jen enter the morgue. They go down the line until they eventually get to the far left of the room, towards the beginning of the alphabet.

"Victor Creed," Jen says the name out loud as she opens the door, sliding the occupied body bag out on its cot. She looks over at Dan, "You still with me?"

"Sure," he replies as he and Jen roll the body onto a rolling examination table. They wheel the table out of the morgue and proceed to the OR.

Archangel's body literally explodes with light as he takes to the air, delivering multiple photo-fletchettes upon Psylocke, who deflects them with her shadow-katanas. "Don't make me do this, Betsy!" Warren shouts.

Psylocke laughs as she forms wings of pure darkness on her back, taking to the air, meeting Archangel face to face, "And all this time, you were wondering what it was. The power inside of you, it's ours. We share it."

Warren forcibly grabs Psylocke's shoulders, "You're not like this. The darkness is consuming you! It's going to kill you! It's like a curse! Everyone who's drunken from the Dawn eventually dies! Do you want that?!"

Betsy smiles. She jabs her shadow katana into Warren's gut. "Sure," she whispers.

Archangel grunts as he falls to the ground. He feels his stomach, but finds he isn't wounded. He shouts out as he generates hundreds of light feathers by flapping his wings. Psylocke simply allows them to pierce her body, but they have no effect.

She shakes her head as she descends to the ground with her own shadow-wings, "Warren, we can't hurt each other with these powers, don't you see?" She clenches her right hand into a fist as she generates her psychic blade, "This, however..."

"I thought Vargas had a negator in his sword?" Warren asks.

Betsy shrugs, "It's attuned to cancel out everyone's x-gene but mine. Duh."

She jabs it into Warren's forehead, causing him to cringe up with agony. He fuses up to it and kicks Psylocke in the stomach. He wipes blood from his nose, "I've had my brain fried on more than one occasion by some asshole before...it's not working again."

Gomurr smiles, revealing his solitary tooth, "Yes, 'tis I, Gomurr, the Ancient."

"You have to do something!" he shouts. "Archangel and Psylocke are two of my teammates. They're fighting to the death down there. What the hell is happening to them?!"

Gomurr responds, "Elisabeth Braddock's rare circumstances have never happened before regarding the Crimson Dawn. She herself did not want the power out of greed - she didn't even consciously receive it under her own free will. It was an act of love that bestowed the powers on her.

"I allowed the darkness to be balanced in Warren Worthington, it was his soul that he sacrificed for his love, much like the original Proctor of the Dawn. I also foresaw the coming Apocalypse," Gomurr explains. "I felt it was necessary for young Worthington to wield a more powerful weapon against En Sabah Nur."

Pietro nods, "Archangel was part of The Twelve."

"Where Psylocke was the shadow, Archangel was the light. There was balance. However, the proverbial darkness has been tipping the scales lately. The Destroyer, Apocalypse, Belasco, the return of Galactus, the Shadow King, the Ahm-Zuin, all have contributed to the rise of darkness. The delicate balance between light and dark ceased and Ms. Braddock sank deeper into the Dawn's corruption. I fear her own darkness is blamed on her own friends?"

"What...?" Pietro asks.

"Every member of your team, even you, has a dark side to them. You unknowingly fed Psylocke's own corruption. The Dawn not only controls darkness, but feeds on it. In some cases, it causes it. Psylocke has been manipulating the team for months. Only Archangel was immune to it. His voice was one of reason. Your friend, Sabretooth, the poor soul himself was on the path of righteousness until Psylocke corrupted him and caused his downfall."

"Creed...? Oh, damn it. What about the half Warren controls? What about the light?" Quicksilver asks.

"How can the light work when so many people in the world refuse to be enlightened...?" Gomurr asks. He clears his throat. "You have more pressing matters to attend to, I believe...," Gomurr says enigmatically as he points to the rest of the X-Men.

"Damn it!" Quicksilver shouts. Pyro, Rogue, Joseph, and Blink were beginning to lose to the shadow warriors, the undercloaks, that Psylocke must have sprung with her powers. He jumps down from the throne and tries to help everyone against the fast as lightning moves of the ninja-trained beings made of shadow.

"All right!" Pyro shouts, kicking his flame throwers on. Without his powers to control flame, the streams of fire are fairly linear. He has to squint in order to aim them properly. He never really had to learn to aim them. They pass through the warriors and cause them to vaporize. "Get behind me, mates! These things ain't fire proof!"

The other X-Men do as they're told. Blink is still a little out of it from her fight with Vargas, but she's learned to work with the pain.

"Don't know how much more fuel is left in the pack," Pyro shouts. "Usually, I ignite the throwers just a little an' let my powers do the rest to make a bigger, hotter flame."

"We gotta get Vargas' sword!" Rogue shouts.

"I'll get it," Pietro says with a determined look.

"No," Blink says as she jumps up onto Joseph's shoulders and uses her legs to catapult herself into the air. She does a spinning flip and lands on the other side of the shadow warriors, who were fixated on attacking the X-Men as a whole.

"Back for round two?" Vargas asks. He twirls his sword around like he was fencing.

Blink picks up a rock the size of her hand, "Yeah, something like that." She throws the rock, hitting Vargas' sword hand, causing it to drop into a cavern. Her eyes crackle with white light, "Only this time..."

"YEEAHHHHHOOOHHHHH!!!" Vargas shouts as his molecular structure is warped from a javelin that Blink stabs him with.

"...we're done playing with plastic bats and wiffle balls."

Vargas gurgles up blood as he falls flat on his face.

Joseph's eyes light up with energy as he causes the shadow warriors' corporal forms to dissipate into nothing. "What now?" he asks.

Pietro crosses his arms, "Gomurr...get down here."

The old man hovers to ground level from his throne, taking his golden staff with him. "Yes, young one?"

"What's going to happen to Warren and Betsy?" Rogue asks.

"They are going to fight to the death," Gomurr responds reluctantly. "The balance is gone. Neither one can exist now."

"No!" Quicksilver shouts. "Take the power out of them! Now!"

"I'm afraid I cannot do that, my friend," Gomurr sighs. "It could have devastating effects on the both of them."

"At least they won't be dead, you lil' wanker!" Pyro shouts. "They're mutants fer chrissakes! An extra eye or limb ain't gonna depress either one o' them more 'n bein' dead!!"

"I am not referring to physical ramifications, rather the mental. Their very souls are intertwined. If I take their power away, it could take their love away!" Gomurr bellows.

"We aren't going to lose them like we lost Creed!" Pietro shouts. Everyone, including Blink, gives him a strange look. He sighs, "Gomurr said Sabretooth wasn't plotting to kill us, it was Psylocke's manipulations. He was actually becoming rehabilitated."

Tears well up in Blink's eyes, "No..." She buries her head in Joseph's chest, who was becoming teary-eyed as well.

"I'm sorry...," Joseph whispers. It was he who killed Sabretooth. And it was all for nothing.

"Damn, she must have been playin' us for idiots ever since we set up shop in the Reavers' old base," Pyro observes.

"You have to stop this, please!" Quicksilver pleads. "They have many more friends out there than just us! We're all a family, or at least, pretty damn close!"

Gomurr shakes his head, leaning against his staff, "I cannot, you have already breached the sanctity of this dimension with crude magic. Either drink from the Vein'ebon, or leave...unless you want to die as well."

"Crude?" Rogue boasts. She accesses Ms. Marvel's powers as she flies up to the beaming Ebon Vein itself. She reels her fist back, "I'll show ya crude!"

"Um...Rogue, sweetie?" Quicksilver asks nervously.

Rogue smashes her fist through the Ebon Vein, causing the crimson elixir to spew out all over. There is a rumbling as massive earthquakes begin to erupt everywhere. Gomurr's throne is shattered. He screams as his body and clothes appear to be vaporized.

As Archangel and Psylocke are at each others' throats, a red energy signature surrounds them as the force within them is drained from their bodies. They both slump over, unconscious.

Pietro points to them, "Blink, get a portal back to the base up!"

Clarice concentrates on the bodies of Warren and Betsy as they dematerialize in a flash of pink light. "Okay, they're home...on the floor, but home."

"We have to get out of here!" Joseph shouts. His eyes are pulsing with magnetic energy. "This dimension's EM frequency is erratic...feels like my head is on fire."

"What's that mean?" Pyro asks.

"I think he means this whole dimension is dyin'!" Rogue shouts. "Come on!" She begins flying towards Blink's portal. Quicksilver, Joseph, and Pyro follow. Blink herself stands outside of the gateway, looking at the body of Vargas as the earth begins to crack and rise high into the air. The Ebon Vein appears to beat its last heartbeat as it lets out a fiery belch. Blink takes one last look and goes through the portal.

And no one sees Vargas' hand twitch as his blood drips into a puddle of the Dawn elixir.

Two hours later.

"Are they okay?" Blink asks Rogue, who has managed to use some of her knowledge she's absorbed from various "eggheads" to act as a makeshift doctor to both Warren and Betsy, who were both lying in beds with IV's hooked up to them.

"They're severely drained," Rogue explains. She brushes the blonde hair out of Warren's eyes. His skin had returned to its normal color when his Crimson Dawn powers were deactivated after being supped from him. The red mark over Betsy's left eye has, for some reason, faded out slightly. It now had a pale violet tone to it against her tan skin.

"Um, any unusual transformations?" Blink asks. Rogue begins to treat some of the stitches that Blink tore in her fight with Vargas.

"On the cellular level, nothing has changed. Their brain patterns are still the same, too." Rogue sighs. She smiles slightly as Pyro silently comes into the room. She turns back to Blink, "It's as if all magical transitions they went through have just been...removed from their bodies."

"So, what's that mean for Warren and the X-Men?" Pyro asks. Rogue and Blink turn to him. "I mean," John continues, "without his wings, he's just a normal ol' guy, ain't he?"

"Well," Rogue pauses. "I'm not sure. His wings weren't his mutation, his entire body is. He's built like a bird. His body is modified for flight, he's got enhanced sight and probably as strong, if not stronger than Captain America. But without his wings, feathered, metallic, photonic, or otherwise...I'm not sure if he'd be up to bein' an X-Man."

"What's the prognosis, doc?" Joseph jokes as he enters the room. Blink gives him a look. He just smirks.

Rogue shrugs, "No change. Except for the obvious fact they don't have the Crimson Dawn powers."

Quicksilver zips into the room, startling everyone. After staring at his two teammates for a long while, he looks back at everyone else, "I just got off the phone with Strange, or rather, his astral form flew back to his body. He said the Crimson Dawn being removed from Warren and Elisabeth didn't have any devastating effects on the fabric of their souls. I told him Rogue didn't find any physical anomalies."

"Um," Pyro interjects. "Does Psylocke look like she's in some serious need of some moisturizer?"

The X-Men immediately turn their attention to Psylocke's sleeping face. Dozens of cracks have appeared in her skin, all over her body.

"Oh my God!" Rogue shouts.

Suddenly, Betsy jerks awake, her psionic butterfly manifesting over her forehead. She clenches her fists and pulls out clumps of her purple-dyed hair, "...took it from me!!! They...took it!!"

"Someone hold her down!" Pietro shouts. Joseph tries, but gets a giant migraine as Psylocke's telepathy blasts him with his guard down.

"Joe!" Blink yells as she rushed up to him. Joe is dazed and confused.

"Don't help me...I'm going to vomit...," Joe says as he falls to his knees and hurls on the floor.

Betsy continues to rip clumps of hair out of her scalp as her skin condition gets exponentially worse. Some of the dead cells have begun falling off in flakes.

Suddenly, Warren jerks awake as well, his body begins to convulse, "Arghh!!" he shouts. "Roll me over...my back...my spine is on fire!!"

Rogue rolls Warren on his stomach, "There, you all right, dude?"

Warren turns his head and smiles, "What happened to 'sugah'?"

Rogue shakes her head, "Shut up."

Warren chuckles to himself as two large boils form on his back, just in-between his shoulder blades, causing him to cringe. He screams in pain as they begin to burst with blood and yellow puss. His eyes widen in shock as wings made of feather and bone shoot out of the boils.

"Uh...I'm going to throw up again...," Joseph grunts as he witnesses Warren's reemerging wings. "Get me a bucket."

Tears well up in Warren Worthington's eyes, "What...? Why...?" He shuts himself up and relishes in the moment. "I can feel my wings."

Psylocke screams one last time before collapsing on her bed. She begins to flatline. She was completely bald. Her body had patches of tan skin over what appeared to be fair, Caucasian skin.

"Shit!" Rogue shouts. "Joseph! I need some shocks, now!"

Joseph wipes his lip of saliva as he holds his magnetically charged hands over Betsy's ribcage. "Clear," he commands as he delivers a jolt into her system. Her body convulses. Joseph goes in for another shock, but sees a spike in her heart monitor. "Her heart's beating again. Think I got it."

Joseph looks down and is shocked to see tiny strands of white hair begin to accumulate on Betsy's scalp. After a while, after the hair has grown to full length, at least to past her shoulders, Joseph and the other X-Men realize the hair has taken on a blonde color.

"Oh my...," Rogue breathes.

"...wings," Warren laughs as if he were drunk. "I have wings..."

Betsy slowly sits upright in her bed, as the patches of flaky tan skin fall off of her body like an onion peel. She grabs a bunch of hair by the ends and observes her natural color. "Mirror...," she mutters. She grabs a makeup mirror from off the table next to her bed and looks at her face. No longer did she have the sexy facial features of Kwannon, but her natural beauty of the British mutant, Elisabeth Braddock.

The Crimson Dawn marking over her left eye was completely gone. She pulls down her eyelids and sees that her eyes were blue. A guilty tug at her heart causes a tear to fall down Betsy's cheek.

"Whoa, that was just too fecking weird," Pyro speaks up.

"It's okay," Rogue says as she helps Warren to his feet. "You're all right."

"Gonna have to test these babies out, build up endurance," Warren says as he limps. His back muscles were still tender. He catches a glimpse of Betsy and stops in shock. "Psylocke...?"

Betsy looks at Warren and smiles. She sobs as the two lovers embrace. Warren chuckles as the tears flow freely, "It's like...we have a clean slate."

"It made me kill Warlock," Betsy says emotionlessly. "The Dawn."

Warren shakes his head as he looks at Psylocke in the eyes, "It wasn't you."

"I know," Psylocke pauses. "I'm just telling you Warlock is dead. He isn't missing. No one should be wasting time trying to look for him. And...Sabretooth. As much as it pains me to say it, he wasn't a monster." Psylocke turns to Blink, "I'm sorry, Clarice."

Blink smiles, "Don't worry about it. It's just good to have my martial arts partner back." Clarice wipes her nose, "Oh, and Bets?"

"Yeah?" she asks.

"You didn't turn Mr. Creed into a patsy because the Crimson Dawn did it to you. It made you into a patsy. Just wanted to let you know I'm never going to blame you or Joe for Sabretooth's death," Blink explains. Joseph sighs with a semblance of relief, since he's felt tension around Clarice ever since he ripped the adamantium out of her mentor.

Blink looks around at the other X-Men, "I know I'm pretty quiet, but I observe things all the time. I see how we've worked through the trials of life. It's best that we stick together. Because together, not even the end of the world can break the bond we share."

"Since when did you start sounding like Tony Robins?" Pyro asks with a smirk. He clears his throat and stares at Betsy, not because of her novel (or rather, old) look, but for the fact that she hasn't openly admitted to her affair with him. Maybe she was too embarrassed, but she's always spoken her mind. Warren already knew, and that's what made it even worse.

Was it really the darkness of the Crimson Dawn that manipulated Psylocke like a puppet, or did it just unleash something within her she's kept hidden in the shadows of her soul?

Betsy forces herself to look away from Pyro as she has become ashamed of the truth. She had feelings for him.

Los Angeles.

"...that's weird," Jen says as she pulls her scalpel down across the ribcage. "The organs haven't decomposed."

"What...?" Dan asks. He peers over Jen's shoulder and observes the cut open corpse of Sabretooth, laying naked on the exam table. "You mean they're still pink? They haven't faded out?"

"Oh God," Jen breathes. "His heart is still beating...barely."

"What the hell?" Dan asks, totally freaked out. He's having trouble breathing, "What does it mean?"

Pale clawed hands with blue veins running through them suddenly grip Dan and Jen's throats. Sabretooth's eyes open as his teeth glare under the overhead lamp, "It means I was playin' possum."

There are two loud snaps as the coroners fall to the floor with their necks twisted to the side.

"Suckers."

Woo! A letter regarding X-Men Omega from Brent Lambert! I must answer it!

Issue 52 sets up the confrontation with Psylocke though I have a few problems with some of the things that happen in this issue. Rogue being able to create a portal to the Crimson Dawn because she absorbed Scarlet Witch really doesn't seem at all believable because Wanda has never delved into the Crimson Dawn. If maybe she'd absorbed Dr. Strange I'd be a little more of a believer, but since this Wanda I had a VERY hard time swallowing that.

Well, Wanda has some mystics training. The portal opening had nothing to do with Crimson Dawn, just mystic-interdimensional travel.

My other complaint is with Rogue's comment on Warren's light wings."Um," Rogue interrupts. "The moment Apocalypse died, his genetic tampering on me and the other Horsemen flushed out of our systems. I'll bet it happened to the other former Horsemen as well. Whatever your powers are now, they can't be linked to Apocalypse."

When taken into context, that quote was merely made to raise speculation of the source of Archangel's new powers, which was answered by the end of issue 52.

Now what I'm saying is that this is inaccurate for two reasons. Caliban still maintains the genetic tampering Apocalypse did to him because he just saved Mimic over in New Warriors 8 and over in Exiles, Exodus is still feeling some of the tampering of Apocalypse. I find it implausible that all of Apocalypse's genetic tamperings would simply disappear once he died. Some maybe, but I hardly think all. If that were the case Caliban would be back to his original self, which he is not.

Well, I hate to say it, but A2K #6 came out before New Warriors #8. The most recent Four Horsemen returned to normal and lost their brainwashing, skin hues, healing factors, and enhanced powers when Apocalypse died...it was clear (or maybe not) that the other former Horsemen would be affected, too. But, I can live with it. And who knows? Rogue hasn't seen Caliban in awhile, so maybe she *was* wrong?

1) Is Cable ever going to show up in this title?

Heh. You just had to ask? With Omega's new direction coming soon, a Cable appearance would seem really out of place...especially since he's going in a new direction soon, too. So, my answer is unfortunately no.

2) After Psylocke what comes next for the Omega team?

The Church of Humanity.

3) Do you think Cyclops's statement in Wolverine 36 about the Omega maybe not using the name X-Men anymore to be fair? After all Sabertooth was a pretty heartless guy.

They will redeem themselves very soon. I'm trying to ignore Cyclops appearances in Wolverine at the moment.

4) Are any of Dino's last arcs going to directly be the cause of some of your title's arcs?

Definitely. I won't say which ones, but I think it helps a title if you acknowledge the "history." I don't have a problem with doing this, I mean I was right there with Dino when I scripted Omega #21-36. Writing on my own just feels natural. In some cases, I'm wrapping up or continuing subplots I myself started. I don't remember which ones...but...Dino will just say he came up with it anyway...which is a lie. Lies! Ahem...next?

5) Here's an off the wall question for you. Let's just say you had to create a whole new X-Men Omega roster from scratch. You get to pick seven members and choose whomever you want besides for those on the previous roster. Who would you pick and why?

You are evil...Okay, here goes:
1) Cyclops - I'm a big original 5 X-Men fan
2) Iceman - ditto
3) Jean Grey - ditto
4) Beast - ditto
5) Archangel - I don't care about the previous roster rule! Original 5 forever!
6) Shadowcat - need a strong female character
7) Jubilee - potential cat-fight action with Kitty for Wolverine's affection...and she's another strong character...potentially