Outliving your child is something every parent dreads. You try so hard to provide for them, to protect them from a world that is trying to end their lives. The only thing protecting Earth from the sun's intense heat and radiation is a slowly weakening magnetic field and a thin layer of ozone molecules.

For the man known only as Logan, a garbage can filled with dead branches and paper set ablaze was the sun that burnt through the layers of his world--his second son--Jacob. He failed Victor Creed, the man known as Sabretooth. For years, Logan thought Sabretooth was HIS father. It had seemed that way, anyway...Logan was Victor's father. Even with a violent behavior, Victor seemed to have a better grasp of who he was better than Logan did.

Wolverine always struggled. He tread the line between man and beast. Perhaps that was why Sabretooth appeared to be wiser and more sure of himself. Creed chose his path. Wolverine did not know...he didn't always know which way to take on his journey.

That was then.

Now, Wolverine became something much more. His lost years as a result of Weapon X's memory wipes and a cosmic battle or two have been at last recovered. Over a century of fighting techniques, battle tactics, and experience was "switched on" after years of remaining dormant.

If knowledge was power, than Wolverine was perhaps one of the most powerful men on Earth, regardless of his six sharp claws encased in the unbreakable adamantium and nearly ageless regenerative body.

But all the wisdom in the world could not bring the young charcoal corpse back to life. He gently laid his son to rest at last upon the blood-soaked ground. He raised his sharp, piercing blue eyes and seemed to visibly affect the young Asian woman twenty yards away from him--a pile of eviscerated bodies separating them. It had been a long while since Wolverine truly let loose...even before being controlled by an evil specter from his past.

Jubilation Lee slowly stepped towards him. Logan, who didn't take his eyes off of her, clenched his fists, his nerves tensed up in his forearms. The girl flinched when she heard the resulting noise.

*SNIKT*

Six blades of adamantium (and blood) shot out of the tops of his hands as his personalized weapons remained poised at his side. Logan could hear her heartbeat slowly escalating in pressure. He could smell the salty tears than ran down her cheeks, even taste it in the air.

"Wolvie? I-it's me. Jubilee?" the girl said, as if talking to a wild animal that needed to hear a soothing voice. She continued to walk towards her mentor, but he seemed to harbor a growl inside his lungs, so she immediately gasped and seemed to lose her self control over her emotions. He could smell even more salt water in the air as Jubilee broke into tears.

Logan kept to the shadows, but his teeth could vaguely be seen, "Save it. The waterworks don't work on me no more. Don't know about you, but I'm damn sick of being thrust in to clean up someone else's STUPID mistakes!" He rose his arms, the fires in the distance glistened on his claws.

Jubilee looked up, and for a moment, she almost expected Logan to plunge the blades into her heart and rip out her intestines as he did to the Friends of Humanity members moments ago. But the opposite happened, as the blades slid back into Wolverine's forearms. In any moment, she could have her life flash before her eyes and see what she had done to Jacob a second time. If she died, she couldn't live with her last memory being that of her father figure ending it all.

"...what the hell is goin' on?" Wolverine asked more calmly. "I saw you, Radius, and some broad that smelled like it was Magma with the Friends of Humanity. I tracked the St. Croix brat, too...she gathered the local mutants and started this whole fucking riot..."

Logan swallowed the lump in his throat as he looked down at the remains of his son as the image ingrained itself onto the back of his retinas. He continued, despite Jubilee's frequent sobs, "I left Jacob in Scott and Jean's care...and I thought your care."

Jubilee jumped and walked up to Logan as far as she could without getting too close, "We thought you were dead..."

Logan's stocky 5' 3" frame didn't budge, "I'm still lookin' for the right answer, Jubes. How come I smell Jean's blood on you? Or Scott's cheap cologne? Somethin' ain't right and I need to know what the hell you new X-Men are doin'!"

"It wasn't our fault!" Jubilee shouted.

"Your boiling blood don't lie, so don't let your damn mouth lie to me, either!" Logan spat. "TELL ME WHAT'S GOIN' ON..." Wolverine breathed heavily as he lowered his voice, "...or..."

"Or what?!" Jubilee shrieked. "You'll gut me with your claws?!" Jubilee looked from side to side and held out her hands, presenting Logan with what was the best at what he did--the art of predatory violence. "Hasn't there been enough death?!"

"You tell me, kid," Logan growled as he stepped closer, the light from the ambient street lights and fires revealing his blistering, burnt, and mangled flesh. "I dunno how many times I died in Alamogordo when that bomb went off. But I'm still here...Jacob isn't. I want straight answers...did Cyclops put you up to this?"

Jubilee suddenly became entranced by the messy array of skin on Wolverine's bald head, pitted face, and body...it seemed to dance, to slowly repair itself before her eyes. Of course, he wasn't as fast a healer as the Hulk...or even Deadpool. He should've died all those weeks ago, but he didn't.

"How do I know you're Logan? We found an adamantium skeleton at the ruins of Alamogordo...," Jubilee said as sparks began to swirl from her clenched fists.

"How do you know Cyke has all the answers if he hasn't even given you one by starting this riot?" Wolverine asked. "Hell, what's stoppin' Magneto from invading?" He turned his head away, "Besides...it was Lady Deathstrike you probably found. Not me."

Jubilee pressed her lips together and nervously swallowed. Her chin crunched up as tears poured freely from her eyelids. She knew it was Logan, he didn't have to explain himself. She never accepted that he was dead in the first place. In the back of her mind, she just knew...if not for being on The Path, it was just an intuition. Good things rarely seemed to happen for her as of late...Jubilee just had to be sure it was the genuine experience of feeling happiness.

"Cyclops...he said we had to rise above all others," Jubilee finally said. "To see who was the strongest."

Logan paused for a moment as he silently tried to figure out why Cyclops would make such a radical change in attitude. "What did you do to Jean?" he asked, who could still vaguely smell the dried blood and burnt metallic stench of her pyrotechnic paff that caused it.

"It was only to knock her out...Scott said she wouldn't understand," Jubilee explained.

"And what was Jacob's role in this?" Wolverine demanded.

Jubilee tried not to look directly at Logan as she said, "Scott...wasn't totally keen on Jean acting like Jacob's mother. It sounds childish, but...he wanted Jacob out of the picture." After those words left her tongue, her hands rushed up to her mouth, "Oh God..."

"Why did you...?" Logan tried to ask, but Jubilee's high-pitched voice interrupted him.

"I tried to stop myself...Radius and Magma, too...only...it felt like something else was telling me to push on," Jubilee said. "It kept echoing in my head, in my subconscious. Everytime I tried to ignore it, it got louder and more frequent until...I couldn't think straight and had no choice but to do what it said..." Jubilee's lower lip shook. She had to bite it to calm the twitching, "Just to make it stop..."

Logan simply stood downwind as the smoke from the fires filled his lungs, completely oblivious to the damage it would have on a normal man's body. His shoulders seemed to slump and a hint of failure tainted his voice, "You were under mind control?"

He only asked because he truly felt what Jubilee went through...when the Shadow King turned him into a puppet. Nothing else in the world felt like being violated more than mind manipulation.

"I...I don't know. Maybe," was all Jubilee could say. "You think...it's controlling Scott?"

"Whatever it is, it wanted Jean out of the way...," Logan said as his ears picked up on a faint noise. He continued, "...only thing is...why didn't she pick up on it...did you hear that?"

Jubilee visually scanned the area, "Hear what?"

Logan closed his eyes as he focused in on the noise. Suddenly, his eyes jolted open, "Elf...?"

"Huh?" Jubilee interjected. "Y'mean Kurt? Nightcrawler?"

"The hell is he doin' here?" Logan asked.

"Didn't you hear? He's the new representative of the Catholic Church in the DC area," Jubilee explained.

"Shit...," Logan muttered. "He's in bad shape. We better--AHHH!!!"

Jubilee flinched an in the next instant she reopened her eyes, Wolverine arms and legs dangled in front of him as a blast of heat thrust him against a brick wall.

"You little traitor...," a vengeful Radius growled as he reeled his fist back and before Jubilee knew it, his force-field enhanced punch sent her to the ground. As the white flash cleared from her eyes, she saw Magma begin to power up, as she seemingly transformed into a being of pure geothermal heat. It was she who blasted Wolverine.

Jubilee ignored Radius's cocky banter as the former member of Alpha Flight sneered, "And to think we risked our lives coming back for you...I'll just tell Cyclops you were a casualty in the riot. I mean...would I really be lying?"

Her eyes seemed to ignite with genuine explosive energy as she performed a kip up and drove the back of her heel into Radius's chin, who simply shrugged it off and laughed. Jubilee smiled, as her anger grew, "Least I didn't name myself after some lame geometry term."

"Is that right...FX?" Radius smiled.

Jubilee simply clenched her fists as the sparks and light grew, as her bottled up aggression and vengeance manifested itself physically. The fireworks danced and twirled around their mistress, swirling around Jubilee with an ever-increasing speed and luminous aura. With a flinch, the sparks thrust themselves into Jared Corbo's abdomen with a chorus of high-pitched squeals and pops.

The son of Unus the Untouchable grunted as he fell backwards onto the asphalt among the Classical Greek style architecture of America's heart of democracy. His force field constantly protected him from injury, but limits it did have.

Radius yelled in a rage as he charged Jubilee, forming the field around his fist into a giant butcher knife. Jubilee didn't bat an eye as the sparks swirling around her severed that piece of Jared's force field -- like a reflex action.

Radius dropped to his knees and gripped his wrist, shouting in pain as his force field was connected to him. Using the distraction to her advantage, Jubilee took hold of Radius's reddish-brown hair and violently drove her knee into his nose. His head jerked back slightly, but his force field still had a bearing of about a couple millimeters around his body. Jubilee repeatedly jabbed her knee into Radius's face until a stream of blood trickled out of his left nostril.

Grabbing him by the collar with one hand, Jubilee used the other to generate a solitary globule of pyrotechnic energy. Jubilee growled, "You better be under some kind of mind control, pal...it's the only thing holding me back from vaporizing your ass!" She drove her charged hand into Radius's face, propelling him into the next block.

Meanwhile, Wolverine constantly found himself dodging heat blasts and localized eruptions of molten lava with fancy foot work as Magma continually pursued her victim.

Logan panted, "I'm just a little tired of the burnin', darlin'." He looked down at his blistered flesh, "I mean...can you really blame me?"

Adamantium claws shot through his hand as Logan grated the surface of the sidewalk, kicking up chunks of concrete. The chunks of rock flew at Magma, who simply melted them down before they could reach her.

"I'll melt your claws before you could even take a step towards me," Magma warned in her British accent.

Logan's eyes went wide as he caught sight of his son's corpse dissolving into ash from the lava that spewed from the bowels of the Earth itself. Silently cursing himself, Logan sheathed his claws and held his hands out with his fingers straight, holding his left in front of his right.

Instead of going into a berserker rage, Wolverine became calm and confident. He sprinted towards the nonchalant Magma. As he approached her face to face, she smiled to herself, thinking Wolverine's attempt at a "fair fight" to be rather humorous. Her smile quickly faded when Logan drove his outstretched hand into her throat.

Gagging, Magma powered down. As the heat and flames dissipated around her body, Wolverine backflipped and flicked his foot at the precise moment, kicking her in the temple. As he dismounted, Magma fell to the ground, still gripping her throat. The shock of not being able to breathe, as well as the sharp kick Wolverine gave her caused Magma to nod off.

"Sorry, darlin'. One-hundred years of fighting experience says different," Wolverine said. He hankered for a cigar, as it was the thing to do in these kinds of situations, but the only thing on him was a pair of raggy pants. He laughed to himself at the irony of it, despite the tragedy that still tugged at his heart.

"Hey," a voice called out.

Wolverine turned his mangled face towards Jubilee and smiled. He wasn't relieved that she had won her challenge...he most definitely expected she could do it.

"We gonna rescue Nightcrawler or what?" Jubilee asked as she dashed up to her mentor. "Kicking Radius's ass was fun an' all, but I'm about ready to throw in the towel in this mutant struggle bullshit."

Logan huffed, "One more thing."

"Like...what now?" Jubilee inquired with her trademark whining.

"This," Logan said as he reached his arms around Jubilee and hugged her tightly. Initially a bit shocked at the change in tone from just a few minutes ago, Jubilee smiled and leaned her head down against Logan's burnt scalp.

"I know I don't look like my normal handsome self...at least until my quick-healin' kicks in," Wolverine joked, "but I gotta say it before something really major happens." He paused and sighed, "I'm proud of you, kid. I need you to be strong fer me."

"I don't need to be...I am. Now that you're back," Jubilee said as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Wolverine broke off the embrace of his somewhat-surrogate daughter and nodded, "Then let's go."

As they ran together down the flame-drenched streets, Jubilee asked meekly, "More proud of me than Kitty?"

"Don't push it," Wolverine grumbled.

"Reeves!" a military general yelled. He cocked his M-5 rifle and gestured and up and down pulling motion to signal the tank operator to be prepared. "The Juggernaut is headed straight for us!"

Reeves, inside of the tank that stood on Pennsylvania Avenue, just outside the presidential home, gulped as his fear escalated, even with his intense training. He turned to his co-pilot, a Hispanic man of about 20 years of age. The nose of the tank turned itself towards the rampaging abomination of a man.

The General Simmons made a few indiscernible hand signals to his soldiers, whom all kneeled down and cocked their rifles, knowing full well they have just been sentenced to die. Everyone knew bullets had no effect on the Juggernaut.

It was almost pointless. The President, the First Lady, and all of the Cabinet members have been evacuated. The soldiers, despite their inner most thoughts of running away and avoiding a pointless death, did not budge. They were there to protect the 'sanctity' of the White House.

"Give the Avengers or whoever the hell is gonna stop this shit a good reason to put this goddamn bastard down for good!!!" Simmons shouted, despite knowing full well he would not see his daughter give birth to his first grandchild. "Die with honor...it's what we do."

As the 900 pound man of indestructible muscle ran up to the front gate, he batted his fist through the tank and pulled Reeves's broken body out of it. Carelessly flinging the body behind him, the Juggernaut lifted his heavy boot and kicked the tank over. In midair, the tank exploded and spewed fire and scrap metal everywhere. Twelve men didn't even have a chance to pull their triggers before they were impaled by superheated metal.

Lieutenant Kawalski was the next to have the privilege of having his neck snapped after the large armored man "nudged" him with his shoulder...and he fell to the ground violently on his spine.

Sutherland, Frank, and Lemanske were the next to go. Bullets rang out and hit their target, but ultimately...

"Pointless!" Juggernaut laughed heartily as he grabbed hold of General Simmons and brought him up to his eye level. Cain Marko, the Exemplar for the Cyttorak's power, smiled, "Does the doorbell still work?"

"F-fire at will!!" Simmons shouted.

Juggernaut turned his head as three rockets collided with his back and exploded. Five live grenades then dropped in front of his feet and exploded as well. When the smoke cleared, the charred remains of General Simmons sifted through the fingers of Juggernaut like ashes.

"Heh...well, I suppose you have to waste tax payer money somehow," Juggernaut chuckled as he stomped his foot. With a rumble and cracking of the asphalt, the shockwaves pulsed outwards and knocked back the remaining defenses.

When Cain whipped himself around, he abruptly stopped and almost fell as he noticed someone in front of him. A young soldier, possibly 19 years old, brandished a Beretta pistol in Juggernaut's face. The teenager shook with fear as the Juggernaut simply smiled sinisterly.

"My mom ain't gonna like this at all," the soldier said as he still shook.

Juggernaut's smile faded, "Yer not gonna cry, are ya? Yer gonna be a hero. Yer gonna die for your country...well, actually, yer gonna die protecting Dubbya's house. Even more depressing is the fact he always takes a vacation to his Texas ranch...so, in actuality...yer protecting a house no one uses. It's just there for tourists now. A way to boost the flow charts in an already shit-filled economy."

"Someone's gonna take you out for good if you even lay a finger on the White House," the soldier managed to say. "That's worse than trying to destroy the Statue of Liberty or somethin'."

"Unless you want your arms pulled out of your sockets and shoved up your ass, I suggest you point that gun in the opposite direction," an annoyed Juggernaut warned. "In other words...DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, YOU FUCKING LITTLE PUSSY!!" Juggernaut put his hands on his hips, "WELL?!"

The soldier shakily pointed the gun under his chin and pushed the barrel into his throat.

Juggernaut smiled as he grabbed the boy's hand and crushed it, along with the gun. The gunpowder inside ignited and blew off the soldier's hand. The soldier shouted in pain like a little girl, which just annoyed Cain even more.

"Gah, what is with you twerps? When people play you whiny little bitches in movies, they always die...I WONDER WHY THAT IS!?!" Juggernaut shouted as he plucked the boy's head off as if he picked a grape from a fig branch. Blood filled the front lawn of the White House and Juggernaut continued onward.

Effortlessly smashing through the armored door, Juggernaut swung his arms forward, splitting the pillars of the lobby in half. From what he could tell, by the dim lights and lack of urgency, the White House had been evacuated long before he got there.

"Knock, knock. Who's there?" Juggernaut asked omnisciently as he pounded through walls of the lobby and other rooms. "Extreme Makeover: Political Home Edition, beotch!!!!!"

Marko stopped his relentless destruction when he came upon a painting. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, because he saw it before. Everyone educated in America has. The painting of the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, sitting at his desk was all that remained untarnished by the Juggernaut's rampage.

Cain sighed as he relaxed his fists, allowing his knuckles to breathe and receive circulation. It suddenly became clear what was going on...outside of Juggernaut's own need for vengeance. In the heat of anger, we all become something of a monster. But now, Marko could see that the events erupting outside the White House gates in the streets of the District of Columbia mirrored the American Civil War in more ways than one.

It was once thought that humans were at an evolutionary dead end, but that theory was put to rest the moment that first mutant came out of hiding...forcing people like Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr to gather others for their respective causes to protect their growing numbers, but to also affect the course of human history.

One day, children will read about the unique individuals known as Professor X and Magneto and their associates in history books in schools all over the world...but as the trend goes, something terrible would have to happen for such an occurrence to become recordable and - in essence - significant.

But as to which side Juggernaut belonged to...he never really knew. He was basically a superstrong thug, doing whatever he wanted when he wanted...because he could. Who would disturb a 900 pound gorilla, anyway?

In his brief epiphany, Cain Marko saw his late stepbrother, Charles, in Lincoln. All Charles tried to do was keep the divided house standing. Magneto, Apocalypse, and others tried to let the house fall. Now both Lincoln and Xavier would be saddened to see all that they had worked to preserve...was no more.

"...screw it," Juggernaut grumbled as his fist ripped through the painting of Lincoln and broke through a support beam, causing a part of the roof to cave in. The presidential home, for the first time since the War of 1812, was destroyed.

Revenge is a bitch.

Salem Center, New York.
The former Xavier Institute For Higher Learning.

Contrasting the horrific deeds in the bustling US capital that is Washington, DC, two ex-lovers find themselves on a peaceful and quaint estate late that night. The former Xavier Institute For Higher Learning was once a school for the gifted, its passive ambitions accented by the gift that the Institute was bestowed upon. The serenity of a quiet lake, the lush and beautiful orchards and surrounding grass lands....

The only sound disturbance in miles is the low humming of an electromagnetic bubble. Inside it, are just those two ex-lovers... out for a night on the town to get reacquainted. Not romantically, of course, or so they told themselves. Just as two friends who hadn't seen each other in a long time. Their lives have always been of the complex, not only because of their mutant abilities, but because of their status as X-Men.

It is that sole status that brings them back to the reconstruction site of the Xavier Institute that evening. They know something's deeply wrong in the nation's capital. They just don't know what to do about it, exactly. Not only that, but they want answers to questions they have first. One question in particular resounds in the mind of the green haired mistress of magnetism that quiet night...

"... Tell me again why you don't have a car?" Lorna Dane asked as the magnetic bubble around her and her 'date' for the evening dissipated, dropping them both on the grassy front lawn of the estate. While waiting for his response, she gazed around the mansion grounds quietly. Some things had changed, but others always remained the same...

Her companion, Bobby Drake, grinned to himself tiredly and crossed his arms as he took deep breath before replying to her question.

"Giant Old-English speaking Sentinels summoned by the Prince of Valhalla's Asgardian magics bent on identifying the level of my mutant abilities so that the Prince of Valhalla could then send a drunkard frost giant who only wanted a second chance at life as to rekindle the love in his estranged marriage to test the endurance of my will so that he could ultimately decide -- and then attempt in the most efficient and tactful way possible -- to make a steal for my powers in which he would use as to fuel his frost giant army that would then in turn aid his conquest over The Mighty Thor and then ultimately all of the mythical Asgardian world itself."

Others definitely always remained the same...

Bobby took a deep breath and shot Lorna another playful grin. She simply rolled her eyes and stifled back an exasperated, bemused chuckle as she continued to look around the estate. "And here I thought my time with the Exiles was insane..." she commented before placing her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, hello?" Bobby broke in, raising a balled up fist up to his face and tapping it as if it were a microphone and wrinkling his brow. Lorna looked to him and he made an over-exaggerated gesture around his own belly to emphasize his point. "Twins?" he said expectantly. "Can't get anymore insane then the miracle of life multiplied by two!"

"Right..." Lorna agreed halfheartedly and unconsciously touched her abdomen. Her voice grew distant and listless as she thought back to her longtime beau, Alex Summers, and how he left her upon the news. "Miracle... hmph," she commented to herself.

Bobby suddenly grew very uncomfortable, and a brief silence fell upon them. He swallowed back the lump in his throat and squinted his eyes as he looked around the estate he for so long had once called home. Though Lorna had never seen it the way he had, she did see the obvious the same way he did.

"Sure is pretty quiet around these parts," he broke the silence, and with a skeptical look on his face he turned back to his comrade in the night's festivities. "You sure you felt something with your uber polar-sense, Lorna?"

"You saw the news just as well as I did, Bobby," Lorna said as she began walking closer to the mansion. Bobby followed suite, and she reiterated her point. "That race riot going on in DC... how wiggy the receptionist at X-Corp was acting on the phone... and now the pretty negative magnetic vibes from the mansion..."

"Right," Bobby nodded in agreement before she could say anything else. He clenched a fist, transforming it into ice and pounding it against the palm of his left hand. "Something's rotten in the city of Salem Center, and it's up to the only two X-Men to have ever touched any semblance of a normal life to do something about it."

Lorna didn't say anything as they continued walking towards the half-rebuilt mansion. Could her pregnancy with Alex's children be just that touch Bobby was talking about? Sure, her children may not grow up without a father... but they would have her, and the most far-out aunts and uncles like Bobby and the X-Men. Alex might even come around again once they're born, even if not to see her.

It was kind of surreal to think about it like that. A happy future, with a family... with friends, and that semblance of a normal life Bobby spoke of. Maybe he was onto something. Maybe he was --

" -- SHIT!" Bobby groaned at the top of his lungs. Lorna snapped out of her mindset and looked up sharply, seeing what Bobby had yelled about. With a mechanical roar, four giant missile-turrets of sorts quickly raised from underground compartments and directed themselves towards the two.

Acting quickly, Lorna threw her hands out towards the missile-turrets and erected a magnetic shield before her and Bobby as to deflect their fire. An entire payload of missiles from each turret was unleashed the instant the shield went up, and where Lorna expected to see them repelled by magnetic force, they instead sped towards her and Bobby at the utmost of speeds...

Bobby's eyes went wide in shock along with Lorna's, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her into a dive with him towards a nearby tree, his body transforming into ice on the molecular level along the way. The site of the missile-turet guarded, half-rebuilt mansion flew by Lorna in a blur, and the explosion of the missiles behind further propelled the two of them towards the tree.

Chunks of dirt and grass flew in every direction indiscriminately as the missiles struck every inch of the path Lorna and Bobby had took in their dive, just barely catching up to the heels of their. Crying out in pain as they struck the ground, Iceman mentally commanded the moisture in the air around them to freeze solid. A barricade of ice surrounding them was the result.

In the moments her magnetic bubble had failed to repel the missiles, Polaris was sure that her and Iceman were dead on impact. As she lay there underneath him, she was struck by shock and confusion. Not only would she demand to know why the mansion's defenses were attacking her, but at what freak occurrence that they were still alive.

"Are you alright?" Lorna asked urgently, her hands placed firmly on Bobby's chest. Bobby tightened his chiseled ice face in a contorted sort of pain as he rose up off of her. A hand quickly went to his back as he sat up straight, and chunks of ice slid off of where only a portion of his backside remained.

Lorna gasped in horror as she realized how she was still alive.

"Better off then you would have been," Iceman groaned and shook off the agony he was feeling. Bits of moisture from the air around them were already collecting at the center of his back, solidifying into ice and repairing the damage done. "The defenses are obviously still antimagnetic in design," he observed as he looked down to Lorna with a sarcastic frown. "I knew it couldn't have been too quiet around here for long..."

"Why are the mansion defenses armed?" Polaris almost demanded as she slid out from under Bobby, though remaining crouched in front of him as to avoid any stray fire. "Targeting us, no less?"

"Scott's little pet, sentient Cerebro program," Iceman answered with an unimpressed roll of his eyes, memories of their last encounter sharply coming to mind. Bobby cocked his head and continued to comment, "Trust me when I say it's a major pain..."

"I've been out of the loop for too long..." Lorna muttered to herself as she shook her head. She took a few breaths as to calm her nerves and gather her bearings, her eyes staring into the ground at Iceman's feet. After a moment, she looked up and sighed, "So how do we make it stop?"

"Five bucks says trying to make it listen to reason won't work," Bobby replied, arching his back a bit as the moisture his body gathered finally repaired the damage in full. There was a sickening crack as it all shifted into place and became apart of him.

Iceman clenched his fists and stood up as he was made whole again. Rings of ice exploded from his wrists with an aura of moisture gathering around them, and he told Lorna, "We pull a Type A, Phoenix-mama level ass whoopin', I say. Hard and fast."

Polaris nodded as she stood up along with her partner in the little mission they were about to undertake. "I have a pretty good idea where I can find some metal..." she said, a cackling magnetic bubble erecting itself around her as she mentally reached out with her mind to the ground below.

Inches away from the edges of Lorna's frame, dirt clods and grass sprayed into the air around here, bouncing off of her magnetic shield. Bobby looked away quickly and drew an arm up to cover his face, the dirt and grass brushing off against his icy frame. When he brought his arm down and looked back to her, magnetically charged pillars of titanium were dancing around her body.

"Preggers Dane," Iceman started to say with a grin as he watched the interior of the Xavier Institute's subbasement swirl around Polaris. "Still the ol' resourceful type, I see," he noticed. Lorna flashed him a grin of her own and hunched her brows at him.

"I can sense the metal wiring in those auto-turrets, but the casing must be keeping me from tugging them out," she declared as she looked past Iceman and his makeshift barricade towards the construction sight of the new mansion. Bobby glanced the mansion's way himself, and mentally considered their options carefully.

"I'll see if I can't crack the turrets' casing any," he stated as he looked back to Polaris. Lorna nodded to him, and caused the random pieces of metal she held magnetically to extend away from her in preparation. Iceman held up his hand as if to signal their departure. "On classic seven... err... not counting Mimic..." he said as he shook his head in mock shame and disregard. "GO!"

Polaris darted into the air from Iceman's side, her magnetic bubble carrying her at rapid speeds out of the barricade of ice while holding the pillars of titanium close to her body for shielding. As she gained a bird eye's view of the mansion, she could see that the missile-turrets had just finished reloading, and two had locked onto her.

The other two, however, were locking onto Iceman, tracking his (lack of) heat signature from behind the barricade he had created. Knowing full-well by the mechanical sounds of operation that the defenses had finished re-upping for another payload of missiles, Bobby cracked his neck and snapped his fingers, causing the barricade of ice around him to shatter and collapse to the ground in shards.

"Batter's up!" Iceman yelled as he summoned as much of the moisture in the air as he could into his frame, causing his body to enlarge to the size of that of the tree he and Lorna had dived behind. The turrets immediately launched their fresh payload upon locking onto their new, individual targets.

Lorna let out a battle-cry as she forced the pillars of titanium swirled around her forward, causing them to bind together tightly by her magnetic command and form a wall before her. The two payloads of missiles bombarded the titanium, tearing and wracking at them horribly. If it hadn't been for Polaris's firm mastery and hold over the molecules in the titanium, she was sure that they wouldn't have been held in place.

A number of stray missiles found their way around the makeshift barrier of titanium though, and were keen on her heat signature. Polaris released hold on the barrier of titanium and let it drop back down to the earth, and she lunged high into the sky. Outrunning bogies was easy as pie back when she was running with the X-Men for a brief time, and there was no reason why it still wouldn't be at that moment.

Meanwhile, Iceman's humongous frame was taking a beating from the third and forth payloads of missiles as he made his way towards the turrets. Chunks of ice here and there were exploding from his torso, and one lucky missile had even struck out a good portion of his right leg.

But still he persisted, and when he reached a close enough proximity to use his powers accurately, he froze the casings of the four turrets surrounding the construction site of the mansion. A load fuss of mechanical joints puttering and twisting about was the result, and Bobby knew that was the moment they need.

"Do it now, Lorna!" he yelled out to her. From high above the sky, Polaris dove back down towards the mansion with a grouping of missiles on her tail. She quickly reached out for the titanium magnetically, and ripped the pillars apart from her makeshift barricade. Four large shards was all she needed, and she propelled them towards the turrets with deadly accuracy.

To aid her escape, Iceman reached out with his own form of deadly accuracy, and froze the missiles following his ex-lover. Their propulsion systems immediately died and the missiles themselves were left to collided into the ground, exploding alongside the turrets as Polaris impaled them with her shards of titanium.

Lorna flew past the turrets a few yards and touched down to the ground with a heaving breath. Iceman shedded the extra ice he had gathered and shrunk down to normal size before he made his way towards Polaris.

"Piece of cake," Bobby half-joked as he stumbled over to her side, dusting off bits of ice and dirt from his icy frame. If the mansion defenses had been completely reinstalled to what they once were, they probably wouldn't have made it. But judging by the look on her face, Lorna didn't seem to concerned. She turned to him, her eyes narrowed.

"Bobby..." Lorna started to say, her sweat and dirt covered brow raising in realization. "The source of those negative electromagnetic vibrations I was feeling... they're stronger now," she explained as she stared at the hole she had caused when retrieving the titanium from the mansion's underground structures. "I think that they're coming from the subbasement!" she deduced.

"Let's check it out then," Bobby said with a nod. Lorna nodded back to him and lifted herself up into a magnetic bubble. She instantly shot towards the gaping hole in the ground, and Bobby followed suite aboard a sled of ice.

When they reached the hole, Iceman leapt off of his sled of ice and let himself fall down to the basement levels below. Polaris dropped herself as well and as they plummeted down towards darkness, they could both see a dim light shining off the metal floors below.

Bobby fell into a crouch as his feet touched the floor, and Lorna caught herself just inches above the metal tiles in her magnetic bubble. With the nod of her head, she shot down the corridors of the sub-levels and called out to her former teammate, "This way!"

Lorna could feel the negative magnetic vibes radiating from the mansion with such intensity that it was causing her heart to almost beat out of her very breast, and sweat was beginning to bead from her forehead even though the battle with the mansion's defenses was long behind them.

And now she had found its source.

With Bobby running quick at her heels, Lorna stopped at a large "X" engraved door. Iceman considered stopped behind her, and awaited her next move. The mistress of magnetism didn't hesitate to take hold of the heavy titanium door, and she used every ounce of her strength to rip it from its door frame and force it inward.

Flicking her wrist aside, Polaris mentally discarded the door to the side as her and Bobby entered the spacious room. It was a holding cell of sorts, one neither of them was quite familiar with in all of their time with the X-Men. But there was one thing about the room in particular that was familiar...

"Jean!" Bobby and Lorna cried out in unison.

Jean-Grey Summers, long known as the mother hen of the X-Men, sat in the lotus position at the far end of the room. She opened her eyes and snapped out of what seemed to be a trance of sorts, and Lorna no longer felt the negative magnetic vibes that had drawn the two to the mansion.

Not wanting to waste a moment, they rushed over to her side, and Lorna magnetically ripped apart the psi-dampener on her head, causing it to explode into pieces. Jean Grey-Summers hadn't even flinched at the device's destruction, and as Bobby knelt down to her side, he pleaded, "Are you okay? What the hell's going on?!"

Free from the psi-dampener, Jean's intense emerald eyes were engulfed by a feral blaze and her hair nearly exploded into locks of raging flame. The Phoenix's scorned and commanding voice boomed throughout the subbasements of the Xavier Institute, "That's what I'd like to know!"

"AHHH!!!" Kurt Wagner shouted as his tri-fingered hands gripped his throat in utter desperation. "SCOTT!!!" he wailed again. "Vat in the...huh?" He half-expected his neck to be hanging loosely from the rest of his body. Nightcrawler looked up in utter disbelief with his hallow, yellow eyes.

"Heh, as Jubilee might put it, you've just been punk'd," the man who would be Cyclops grinned.

Kurt panted in anxiety as 'Cyclops' did not even have a chain in his grasp. It was as if the entire neck-snapping incident never occurred.

"...I don't find this amusing, Scott...," Kurt muttered as his nimbly flicked his body upward, landing on his feet. "How can you say the X-Men are responsible for...for this?!"

"Maybe I'm not feeling like myself, not for awhile, anyway...," Cyclops said.

"Apocalypse had an effect on all of us, but...you took the blunt of it...," Nightcrawler said as he understood where the person he thought was Scott Summers was coming from.

Cyclops began to laugh uncontrollably, "Only the strong survive, Kurt. Isn't that right...just like your Lord? Oh wait, he died. Why don't you just worship me? My name is in the Bible, too. Right at the end."

Nightcrawler gripped his rosary, which miraculously still dangled from his robes. He grit his sharp, demonic teeth, as he came to the haunting realization, "...you."

Cyclops laughed again, "I have no doubt you'll still be shocked when the truth really does come to pass, but nonetheless...you've outlived your usefulness as an X-Man, Mr. Wagner. I wasn't lying about that..."

Out of nowhere, an optic blast shot forth from the ruby quartz visor, blasting Nightcrawler in the chest. After skidding a couple of feet across the debris-filled street on his back, Nightcrawler grunted and coughed, "...you died..."

"So did your Lord," Cyclops grinned. "Ever stop to think you were duped by him, as well? Just as I so easily made you think I snapped your spine so easily just a short while ago? Do you really think he died for the world's sins...or did he just make everyone think he did?"

"What is this, a game?!" Nightcrawler shouted for what seemed to be the fourth time since the riots erupted.

"No, this is what Darwin called natural selection," Cyclops said as he walked over and drove his boot into Nightcrawler's ribs. "Adapt or die. Why can't you see that the weaklings of this world are polluting the gene pool, dragging EVERYONE down with them!?"

Kurt offered no reply as he gasped for breath after having the air repeatedly forced from his lungs. Cyclops violently thrust his steel-toed boot into his stomach again, causing him to wail in pain. Nightcrawler coughed up blood. He tried to teleport himself, but felt he couldn't concentrate clearly enough.

"I can't hear you!!" Cyclops exclaimed.

Logan extended his claws as he and Jubilee looked down upon the street as Cyclops continued to pummel Nightcrawler with his foot. He mumbled out the side of his mouth, "That ain't Cyke."

Jubilee's eyes widened as she mumbled in a similar fashion, "I thought you said something was controlling him."

"It's a facade...pretty damn good one...but not flawless," Logan replied.

"Who is it?" Jubilee asked. "Can you smell him or her...or whatever it is?"

Wolverine's lips curled up into a snarl, "I ain't totally sure who it is I'm smellin', but I've smelled it before...back when the Shadow King made me and four others attack the original X-Men. I was fighting Cyclops. I smelled the imperfections then, too. I was so hopped up on telepathic-enduced rage to even notice..."

"What does that mean?" Jubilee asked.

"This clown has been posing as Cyke for a lot longer than we've realized," Wolverine sighed. "It fooled Jean. After Chuck an' Onslaught, I'd have thought everyone would be privy to this kind o' shit."

"What're we gonna--"

But Jubilee was cut off as an animalistic growl was followed by Wolverine's scaling off of the roof down to the street below with claws extended.

Jubilee sighed, "Aw, man..."

Cyclops whipped around as the heap of mangled flesh hit the pavement, tucking and rolling until the man stood up with his claws poised, ready to strike.

Nightcrawler was hunched over and grabbed his stomach; each passing breath increased his urge to vomit. However, Kurt managed to look out the corner of his eye at the very badly burned man. When Nightcrawler saw the trademark claws which came out of the man's hands, he instantly knew who his rescuer was.

Kurt groaned physically, but in actuality, he smiled...and almost laughed. Cyclops's impostor was about to get what was coming to him.

"Wolverine...," Cyclops smiled. "It appears death has no meaning anymore. Not in our world, eh?"

"Miracles had nothin' to do with me comin' back," Wolverine growled. "Just a little luck."

"By the looks of you, it seems you need...a little more time to heal," Cyclops observed. "Are you sure you want to fight me, Logan?" He smiled as his visor lit up with a brilliant crimson light, "After all...I won the last time."

"Yeah, you really earned that one, ya jerk," Wolverine said emphatically. "I was holdin' back on you 'cos of Jean...not to mention I was fightin' Farouk's control. If I woulda known it wasn't really Scott under there, I'd have--"

Cyclops chuckled, "Funny that you could best Sabretooth but not me while under Shadow King's control...? Maybe you wanted to actually hurt your son? Is that why you let Jacob die? Transferring the hate from one offspring to another?"

"You son of a--!!" Wolverine shouted, but he quickly ducked as an optic blast almost took off his head.

Cyclops shot off rapid-firing beams of concussive force from his visor, tearing off more chunks of skin and muscle tissue from Wolverine's already injured body...but Logan kept coming. He gave into the rage, only because he knew he had the will power to come back from it.

"RRRRRRARRRRRRGGHHH!!!" Wolverine roared as he plunged both sets of his claws into Cyclops's chest. He continued to push as he forced the faux-Cyclops onto the ground, which sank the claws deeper, exiting through his back.

The yellow of Kurt's eyes caught Logan's attention. Nightcrawler slowly got to his feet, but was suddenly flung through a store window by an unseen force. Wolverine looked down in shock as Cyclops's visor lit up and unleashed a barrage of red energy upon his face and body.

Eventually, Wolverine was thrust away from Cyclops, landing motionless against the opposite end of the street, rolling until he hit the curb. Logan looked up and felt the adamantium that was grafted to his skull, still warm from Cyclops's optic blast. His right arm had lost all flesh and was nothing but an adamantium-laced set of bones. His face was almost completely eroded away. Logan grunted before his body went limp.

"NO!" Jubilee protested.

"Oh, shut up!" a voice said.

Jubilee was knocked unconscious before she could see Monet deliver the blow. The Algerian mutant picked up Jubilee around the waist and flew down to street level, tossing the unconscious cargo next to the unconscious Wolverine.

"Try to dig Kurt out of that antique store," Cyclops ordered. Monet nodded and flew through the shattered window of the store.

{{Cyclops.}}

The impostor X-Man pressed his earpiece, "What is it, Cerebro?"

{{Bobby Drake and Lorna Dane freed Jean...and the Dawn failed to stop the X-Men from freeing Storm and the real Cyclops,}} the sentient computer informed.

"WHAT!?" Cyclops shouted. "Why did I even bother using my technology to give you sentience if you use it to act like a imbecile!? Take care of it! I want them dead."

{{Why did you even keep Storm and Cyclops alive to begin with?}}

"Everyone deserves their chance to walk among the strong...," Cyclops grumbled. "But I've worked long and hard to get this far. The real Cyclops will only complicate matters. Did you upload yourself into the Aurora like I asked?"

{{Yes.}}

"Well, then do something intelligent before I turn you into the video game console you used to be!!" Cyclops shouted.

Over the Atlantic...

"Okay, that's two votes for Apocalypse," the blue-furred Beast announced as he manned the pilot controls of the Aurora. "Sam and I agree."

"I still say Phalanx," Domino said. "They've duped you guys before. Now they're pissed and back for revenge."

"I think it's Mystique...only because I hate that bitch," Alison Blaire said as she twirled a strand of strawberry blonde hair with her index finger. "She could easily swipe the technology necessary to make a visor that mimicked Scott's powers."

"It's not Apocalypse," Scott grumbled as he scratched his beard. "Or Mystique. Or the Phalanx or some rebel Prime Sentinel. This is someone we haven't faced before."

Storm sighed as she apologetically replied to her teammates for Cyclops's jittery bluntness, "What he means is we don't know for sure. We were in that chamber together for months..."

Cyclops shot Storm a suspicious glare.

Ororo cleared her throat, "We never saw who kept us captive."

"But look at the facts for a moment," Hank McCoy began as he casually began to steer the jet with his feet while resting his massive hands behind his head, "we found you in Egypt...under the guard of a small faction of Dawn forces...IN a defunct underground base that belonged to Apocalypse! That's not cut and dry enough?"

"Apocalypse died, Hank," Storm said.

"But how do you know?" Beast inquired.

"Because Cable killed him," Domino said as she grabbed Sam by the shoulder, "remember? How else did the world return to normal after that M'Kraan thingie or whatever stopped doing its...thingie?"

"Oh, so the world did return to normal?" Cyclops giggled inappropriately. "Good, I was worried about that...considering someone IMPERSONATED me for months and started a riot between humans and mutants!!!"

After seemingly ignoring Cyclops's outburst, Sam shrugged, "Yeah, but...Apocalypse has come back to life before."

"Come on, Sam...you and I saw Cable after the whole Apocalypse ordeal, right?" Domino asked. "If Nate came back, doesn't that mean only one of them walked away from the fight?"

"Have you been in contact with Cable lately?" Beast asked.

Domino raised a finger, but lowered her eyes, "Well...he's kinda dropped off the grid. Haven't heard from him for awhile."

"I see...," Beast said.

"Look," Cannonball spoke up from the co-pilot seat, "Ah don't like the thought anymore than the rest o' you do, but--"

"Stick a fork in it, Guthrie!" Domino shouted.

"Hey!" Dazzler retaliated by unbuckling her seat and standing in front of the white-skinned, raven-haired woman. "Don't talk back to him!"

"Sit down, princess...," Domino warned. "The grown-ups are talking."

"I don't have to do what you saaayyyy---AHHHHH!!!" Dazzler yelped as she fell backwards onto her back against the metal floor of the Aurora.

"What the hell?" Cyclops shouted, as he seemed to be the only one to verbalize the confusion of the Aurora's sudden structural jolt in midair. He saw the blinking light on the jet's console, "The engines just died!" Scott's piloting experience and knowledge of avionics prevailed, as the distinct sound of power diverted to the engines shutting off elated everyone's stress levels.

"Oh my stars and garters...!" Beast wittily remarked. He quickly resumed manual control of the jet's steering. "Cannonball, be a lad and pump the igniter switch!"

"I did!" Sam wailed as the jet rapidly began to lose altitude. "It's not..." He grunted as he pumped the switch again, "...working!"

Dazzler slowly inched her head up and spat blood out of her mouth. During her fall, she bit her tongue, "...thith jet ith a peeth a' thit..."

"I think we figured that one out, Brittany," Domino retorted.

"Alithson!" Dazzler promptly corrected before staggering back into her seat.

Cyclops unbuckled his seat belt as he ran up to the cock pit, "Let me have the controls, Hank!"

"Scott!" Hank shouted as he lightly batted Cyclops's shaking hands away from the steering mechanism, "You're in no condition to operate this jet!"

"I've had more successful crash landings than anyone here," Cyclops shouted. "Give me the damn controls...that's an order!"

Suddenly, a firm grip grabbed Cyclops's shoulder and thrust him into his seat, "Sit. Down."

To everyone's surprise, Storm stood in the middle of the jet. Her ratty white hair flowed beautifully in the air molecules she agitated. Her eyes became as dark as the cold recesses of her soul as tiny streams of lightning surrounded her goddess-sculpted body.

Beast and Cannonball looked at each other and then at the blue ocean, which was rapidly approaching. From what little of the horizon they could see, it became cluttered with massive, dark clouds.

{{You bitches are goin' down. You upset the big man,}} Cerebro sneered as his digital green helmet logo suddenly appeared on the small computer screen of the jet's console.

"There goes the Mystique theory! HAH!" Domino shouted.

"Bite me!" Dazzler growled.

The jet creaked and rocked as Storm faltered. Altitude became less and less, but Storm's concentration steadily increased as sweat beaded down her face.

"Ororo...," Cyclops said with a worried voice.

"Quiet...," Storm uttered with clenched teeth.

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed from outside the jet. Cerebro's signal became disrupted as his logo flickered on the screen. He appeared to laugh in some kind of twisted digitized chuckling noise, {{You're trying to turn this deadweight into a success story? Well...I guess he kept you alive for your creativity and not for your tendency to rain on marriages, huh?}}

"What's he...?" Beast wondered. He looked back at Scott, who was stoically secured in his seat. Cyclops simply looked off into space, as if he lost all ability to care.

The laughing noise replayed again, {{Well, looks like I've spilled the beans, eh...my nigga???}}

Storm wailed as she thrust her fist through the console's computer screen, sending shards of glass everywhere.

"Jesus!" Cannonball swore as he jolted his head backwards and shielded his face from the glass with his forearms...as his teammates followed suit.

Storm growled as her eyes exploded with electricity, "JUST SHUT UP AND HOLD ON...SAMUEL!!"

Beast peeled his eyelid open and saw the approaching ocean as the tide seemed to recede amidst the hurricane-force winds. The jet's nose flipped dangerously upwards and downwards, then dipped left and right...much to the dismay of everyone's stomachs.

"Domino...start doing whatever it is you do...," Storm warned as the jet performed another one of its dance tricks in midair.

"Jeez, save the uber-miracle requests for Scarlet Witch, okay!?" Domino shouted.

Cyclops carelessly remained in his seat as he vigorously drilled his ear for wax with his pinkie, "..the idea of flying is to get more air below the plane instead of above it."

"I know...," Storm replied sternly.

Beast looked out the cockpit window and saw the tide as it continued to ebb outwards, "Um...Ororo, sweetheart? You're not doing what I think you're going to do...are you?"

"I probably am," Storm said.

"What is she doing...?" Sam asked nervously.

Cannonball's questions were answered when a massive tidal wave crept under the jet and completely engulfed it. As the jet rocked, the levitating Storm felt her head crunch against the ceiling of the jet.

"STORM!" Cyclops shouted. He had the urge to get out of his chair to help the unconscious Ororo Munroe, but the entire jet shook violently as the ocean itself began to work against the hull of the jet. Water shot through cracks and seams as sparks from the electrical systems ignited.

"I don't think we're that much farther from the shore...," Beast said as salt water stung his eyes.

"How much are we--?" Dazzler asked but was cut off by an abrupt...

*CRUNK*

As everyone's bodies shifted towards port, the impact from the jet's underbelly hit something solid, sending vibrations through everyone's legs touching the floor.

Beast opened his left eye, and then his right. He smiled, "Hmph."

Cannonball blinked and rose his eyebrows as he looked behind him to see Domino and Dazzler in their respective seats, no worse for wear. They exchanged a thumbs up, but Cyclops was already out of his seat, cradling the stunned Storm.

A thin cut above her forehead, just on the scalp line bled down the side of her light sienna face. She blinked a few times before asking, "Are we there?"

Cyclops's bearded face smiled, "We're there."

"Okay, kids...get out, stretch, go to the bathroom," Beast joked as he removed himself from the pilot seat. His lower lip curled inward as his massive blue feet thrust themselves upward and kicked the jet's hatch open, "Because we're gonna have to make the rest of the trip on foot."

Northern Washington, DC,
Fifth Avenue and Main Street.

Among the rioters and looters of Washington, DC, there was one woman standing among it all. Her ambition wasn't to cause general chaos towards a race she hated, and nor was it to take advantage of said chaos in order to plunder from defenseless stores.

No. Her goal among all the strife wasn't even to stop it all, and to protect the helpless. Her only ambition was to straighten out her fine-pressed suit and straighten out her hair to look presentable enough for the millions of viewers across the world.

"Mic check?" she asked with a curious brow as she used her index and middle finger to repeatedly tap the foam bulb over the microphone in her hand. A man in his early twenties -- the only, in fact, to be brave enough to come with her on her venture into the war-zone that was the District of Columbia -- nodded to her confidently.

The woman nodded back to him and took a deep breath before she raised a hand. Three fingers quickly went up, and she counted down from there, each finger dropping as urgently as the other. Three... two... one. The cameraman clicked a button on the side of the camera, and they were on.

"This is Trish Tilby, on location in Washington, DC where we are at ground zero to an unfolding mutant and human race riot," she said into the microphone with a gesture to the streets behind her. Screams of horror and excitement echoed throughout the neighborhood, and the camera quickly panned about the 'action' before returning onto the ambitious reporter as she continued.

"Various eyewitnesses have claimed that the riot erupted when the neopolitical group 'The Friends of Humanity' launched a rally outside of Capitol Hill to show support of Senator John Stocker's campaign to regulate mutant activity in the United States," Trish stated objectively, though there was a hint in the tone of her voice of sympathy.

"Washington riot-police are on scene in full force, as well as the National Guard. However, given the extreme nature of this mass race riot, they're having difficulties containing the strife," she continued. With a quick survey of the area, she made a quick judgment call and decided, "Now, we're going to try to go to you live with any of the victims or bystanders that we can possibly find, and -- ?!"

A loud groan cut Trish off before she could finish speaking. She shot her head over her shoulder, and just down the street a bloodied and bruised person made his way towards the sidewalk. He was an African American man dressed in jeans and a white shirt with a black vest over it. On his head was a red bandanna, ironically soaked with a deeper shade of red.

"Sir!" Trish called out as she saw the African American man limping out from the streets, then collapsing to the sidewalk. "Sir, are you alright?" she asked as she quickly approached him, microphone in hand. She glanced over her shoulder briefly as she moved towards the riot's bystander, assuring herself that the cameraman was in hot pursuit close behind her.
Once she finally closed the space between herself and the bleeding African American man, she reached out to grip onto his shoulder as if to help him stand. "What's happening out there?" she asked of him in the utmost urgency as she looked over the wounds over his face. "Who started all this?"

"Them damn muties had it comin'..." the African American man spat as he raised up to his feet with a sickening, painful groan. He snorted as he used his dirtied sleeve to wipe away the large blotch of blood smeared over his face.

"You say that the mutants had it coming?" Trish asked into the microphone in her hand in confusion, then looked back over her shoulder at the camera pointed right on them with a bewildered expression.

The African American man, who bore an armband with the FoH insignia on it, nodded in confirmation. Trish looked back to him, and asked before extending the microphone to him, "Sir, could you please explain to the people at home and myself just what you're -- "

Trish's words were cut off by the abrupt change in expression on the injured FoH member's face. In a microsecond, she saw his eyes flash from weary and pained to a contorted shape of shock and horror.

"HOLY MUTHA OF -- ARRGGHH!!!" the African American man's crackling voice broke into a howl torment. The burning, mutilating pain was unlike any he had ever experienced, and it was overcoming every inch of his torso with the thinnest of slashes.

The reporter fell backwards into a shuffle as splatters of blood and scraps of skin rained upon her. Her instincts were urging her to escape what may have been an otherwise impending slaughter on her part as well, but her feet weren't working like her instincts wanted them to, and she tripped backwards onto the concrete sidewalk.

It was from her position on the ground that she would gain full visage of the FoH rioter's assailant. As Trish wiped away a large blot of blood from her face, she saw standing before her a tall and lanky figure, covered in green scales and a dark, thick hyde of reptilian-like skin. He most notably wore aged sandals, brown slacks, and a very retro, white and green Hawaiian button-up shirt.

The butchered carcass lay limp at his feet as the assailant ceased his decimation. His chest was heaving up and down, and a scowl of genetic aversion seemed permanently etched into his mixture of reptilian and human features.

As if suddenly becoming conscious of Trish Tilby and the cameraman before her, the green-scaled mutant smoothed out his untucked dress shirt and with a lizard-esque tongue, carefully licked off the blood on one of his many long, razor-sharp claws.

With the simultaneous roll of his eyes and the careless shrug of his shoulders, the green-scaled mutant looked straight ahead into the camera and reasoned on national television and to the worldwide media, "Them damn humies had it comin'..."

Suddenly, the African American man's bloodied and mangled hand shot up at the green-scaled mutant's side and in the camera's sights. The green-scaled mutant's head abruptly jerked down as the FoH member took struggling grasp onto the mutant's pant leg, and tried to pull himself up to his feet.

A very ferocious and reptilian cry tore from the green-scaled mutant's throat, and he dove down onto the African American man's fallen body, his drawn back claws gleaming with the light of the flames consuming the District of Columbia.

Horrid screams then echoed joined those of hundreds during that never ending night as the green-scaled mutant hacked away at the human's carcass, splashing a tsunami of blood, clothing, and flesh about his body.

Trish gasped as her brow shot up in horror at the FoH member's continuing mutilation, and she spud around to face the camera and the man at its helm. With the swipe of a hand across her neck, the live news feed was cut.

A hazy blaze of smoke and flames licked the starless night's air, and a chorus of torturous screams and murderous cries echoed in the distance...

If she hadn't known better, the young Asian woman would have thought she was in Hell. Her sins of late included the very terror around her -- a race riot the likes of which the world had never seen.

The riot was something that in her very heart and soul she could never live down. Not just because of the hundreds of innocents slain by a boiling genetic war in which she merely helped crank up the heat, but because of the death of one innocent that never had a chance to live in the first place...

His name was Jacob. The child was a bastard of inhuman concepts. Born to the feral man known only as Logan and the devilish vixen Vyper, he would for so long be a mindless shell -- a vessel for the King of Shadows, Amahl Farouk.

It was as of late he was freed from such an appalling and ghastly fate, and delivered unto the care of the X-Men when his father seemingly perished in a deafening explosion in the name of the woman he loved.

It was there with the X-Men that his fragile mind would begin to recover. It was there he would begin to retreat back to a state of innocence he had only began to grasp before the Shadow King seized him, and learn the love he never felt.

And it was there he would be taken from his crib, and thrown into the fire.

Maybe she was in Hell... After all, what was the nation's capital that horrendous evening but an abode of condemned souls in which she created for herself and so many others?

"Are you feeling okay, Jubilation?" a voice said to the young Asian woman -- Jubilation -- as she began to raise up from the filthy asphalt with a distressed moan. She recognized the voice instantly, and her vision came into focus as she looked to him.

"Scott..." Jubilee said under her breath. The ruby gleam of his visor seemingly soothed her wrenching heart as he knelt down next to her, and his rugged features were as gentle as she remembered... or were they? "Ow..." she spat offensively. "My head..."

For a moment, Jubilee almost forgot where she was. How long she was out, and why she was out in the first place was a complete blank to her. But then the sight of a man she was forever in debt to caught her attention, and it all came flooding back to her.

Like a rabid animal, he was chained and shackled to a metal street light post, left but a mangled and distorted mess of torn flesh and exposed adamantium laced bone.

He was the closest thing she had ever had to a real father. "Wolvie!" she cried as she jolted up and tried to move to her feet, but passive hands took hold of her. Restrained her from doing what she wanted to do the most...

And yet somehow, she understood why.

"Calm down, Jubilee," Scott said to her, and she acquiesced with his wishes for just one moment. Her eyes locked onto his ruby quartz visor, once again becoming relaxed by that flowing gleam of energy. He explained to her, "You took a nasty hit from M, but it was for your own good. You were going over the edge."

"Ohmygod..." Jubilee cried as she took a firm, steadying grip on Cyclops's forearms. The flames, screams, and ultimate turmoil humanity was facing at that moment... something had come over her, and she just couldn't make sense of it. "Wolvie made a point, Scott!" she exclaimed in confusion, her voice cracking as she went on. "Like... what is this all for? What are WE fighting for?"

It was all coming down on the young Asian woman, all the stress of battle, the resulting guilt and pain of her actions... But in it all, there were his eyes behind that ruby gleam. Calculated, calm, and collected. Her release on Cyclops's forearms loosened, and Jubilee looked away in shame at her misconduct.

Scott took her chin with his gloved fingers, and directed it back towards him. She wasn't the outlandish, aggressive young woman she was when she first decided to join his team. She was growing into something more, and it scared her. He knew that...

"I told you when you first joined my team that I needed your trust if we were to survive," Cyclops coolly and delicately reiterated. Jubilee tried to avoid that piercing red glare as if by instinct, but it was no use. Fear and guilt had consumed her, and it was giving away by his sudden understanding. "Do you remember?" he asked her, and she nodded.

"Logan's appearance amidst this mission... " Scott continued, choosing his words carefully. Jubilee glanced away for a moment, as did he, but their eyes met once more as he tried to explain. "It was an unexpected shock -- I know -- and it's one we'll look into later on. But I'm only going to ask you this once..."

Jubilee brought her full attention back to Cyclops before she could be lost in his words, lost in the presence of Logan, the man whose son she assisted in murdering. She glanced away from Scott's gleaming visor, trying to catch sight of Logan's mangled and unconscious form chained to a light post.

While Wolverine and Nightcrawler were the centerpieces of their captures, a number of the Friends of Humanity's most elite members -- including Senator John Stocker himself -- were tied beside them, conscious and with their mouths duct-taped tightly.

Only moments ago, she had tried to help him save Kurt -- who was beaten and chained up right next to him -- but the revolt was a failure, and probably for good reason. Maybe inside, she was just too caught up with Wolvie's return like Scott was implying...

Maybe she knew from the beginning of the fight that it was wrong...

"Do you trust me?" Cyclops's voice broke into Jubilee's train of thought suddenly, and his words lingered there long and steady. She continued to stare at Logan as he hung there, tightly secured to the chains, until she felt Scott's gloved hand touch her chin again, bringing her back to that hellish reality. "Jubilation?" he asked, as if to warrant her attention.

"Yes..." Jubilee whispered reluctantly, but something in her heart was telling her it was the right thing to do. If your mind couldn't make sense of anything, the best option was always to go with your emotions after all... right?

"Good," Cyclops said with a firm, authoritative tone -- one Jubilee had seemingly come to respect. He released her chin and stood up, distancing himself from her with a nod. "Welcome back then, FX."

FX slowly rose to her feet as well, her eyes fixating themselves on the ground. Cyclops steadied his eyes on her shoulders, when suddenly, a light sensation ran up both of their feats. It was a vibration of sorts, accompanied by a distant -thoom, thoom!-

Startled, FX's head shot in the direction of the pounding sounds that were capable of shifting even the toughest of asphalt. A stampede of sorts, maybe? Cyclops moved into a ready position at her side, a fiery glare running of his ruby quartz visor.

"You hear that, General Patton?" Magma abruptly called out from across the street, where her and Radius were taking guard positions on their captives. Aside from Logan and Kurt, Jubilee hadn't realized her and Cyclops weren't alone.

"Yes," Cyclops replied nonchalantly, the hardened yet curious look on his face seemingly expressing the mental calculations he was making. "Defensive positions only, team," he said with the outward gesture of his hand, a gesture towards the oncoming sound of confrontation. "Radius, I want you to expand your forcefield around us while we... talk some sense... into our friend."

Magma's body took on the form of glistening molten lava as she readied herself before the captives, remaining in her guarding position. Radius sprinted out in front of Cyclops and FX, and the active forcefield around his body spread rapidly and engulfed the two -- a recent mutation his powers received that he learned to take advantage of.

From the sky, a feminine etched blur of black and gold descended behind Cyclops. He glanced at the figure from over his shoulder, and she nodded to him in a confirmation of sorts. Jubilee didn't understand, but the piercing, longing gaze M shot her silenced any questions she wanted to ask.

Cyclops slowly moved up to Radius's side, leaving FX and M behind him as the stampeding sounds grew louder and louder. In the distance, faint crashes and explosions could be heard in the wake of the stomping, and the vibrations were becoming closer and closer.

"You were right about Logan... I knew you were..." Monet whispered to Jubilee with a faint smile. FX didn't reply, but simply looked to her in an examining fashion. M continued quietly as the distant rampage became not-so distant. "Cyclops doesn't plan on killing him, though. We just need to restrain him until this is all over," she explained, but Jubilee just continued to stare at her... study her...

"Jubilee?" Monet called to her in confusion, a crease forming in her bronze-skinned brow as she narrowed her eyes onto hers. "I'm sorry about earlier," she said regretfully. I really am, but you had to be stopped, and..."

M trailed off as Jubilee turned her head away. With a sigh of disgust, the young Algerian woman decided to cut her losses. "Jésus Le Christ!" she spat in French and shook her head with a groan as she looked back forward. "Fine! Be that way."

"Look, Monet," FX tried to speak up quickly as she realized that she had upset Monet. She wasn't trying to ignore her. Things were just so hard on her, and she wanted her to know that. "I'm sorry. It's just --"

"Incoming!" Radius shouted, cutting Jubilee off before she could finish her sentence, as the rumbling of the streets and pounding of metal against concrete sounded wildly. M and FX met eyes once again, a degree of sulking fear gripping the pit of their stomachs. Even Monet, with her nigh-invulnerability, was still very inexperienced in combat, so it was only natural. But Jubilee... there was something different in her...

"On your guard, FX!" barked the commanding voice of Cyclops over his shoulder. He shot a look at FX and M, a fiery glare running off his ruby quartz visor. Jubilee quickly clenched her fists, and fell into a ready stance with Monet at her side. "I know it's difficult for you with Logan's sudden return," Scott started as he looked back to the rumbling streets before him, and said coolly under his breath, "but just bear with us... This will all be over soon."

Jubilee sighed to herself at the sound of Cyclops's words. She hoped he was right. As much as she always complained about being stuck with Generation X instead of the X-Men, she now realized the difficulties of the life they lead. It was something she thought she was hardly ready for, but if she was to be strong... if she was to survive... she would have to be regardless.

As the thundering stampede grew closer and closer, FX could hear her pounding heartbeat almost in exact synchronization with the deafening and pulsating approach of what was possibly their destiny.

From around the city corner, several vehicles -- civilian and military alike -- exploded and were launched onto the street the X-Men were standing on. Flames erupted from their blazing gas tanks, and a thick, mess of black smoke emitted from the center of the flare... This was it, Jubilee thought. This was the moment that would prove Cyclops's tactical skills, and the team's ability to execute them to a "T."

This was it...

"Play time, X-Flunkies!" the Juggernaut bellowed in his gritty, slack-jawed voice as his massive form protruded from the flames and smoke, coming into view. He pounded a gargantuan fist into an equally large palm, creating brief shockwaves that nearly shook the X-Men off of their feet. A wicked grin crept up on his face from behind his helmet. "Got anything to say before I grind yer measly skulls into dust?"

"Hold it, Cain!" Cyclops yelled over all the commotion, he and his teammates all struggling to keep their balance from the shockwaves Marko's massive fists were generating. Scott drew up a hand defensively and declared, "We just want to talk!"

"So that ya can hold out for another telepath to do your dirty work for ya?" Cain asked rhetorically, then shook his head with a robust fit of laughter. "No way in this burnin' hell or any other, Summers!" he proclaimed before stomping a massive boot into the street, emitting a more intensive shockwave.

"ARGH!" Scott cried out in frustration as he, Radius, and Jubilee took the blunt of the shockwave, collapsing to the asphalt as Radius lost her concentration and his forcefield around them collapsed. Magma herself stumbled over her feet a bit, but her distance from the Juggernaut kept her relatively unharmed, while M caught herself in mid-flight.

"Damnit, Cain! Listen to me!" Cyclops demanded of the Juggernaut as he pushed himself up on his feet. Marko brushed his boot against the concrete and ruffled his head and shoulders, mimicking that of a rhino about to charge. Scott stated to him bluntly, "Xavier failed -- but we won't!"

"Hard t' fail when yer runt-asses are nothin' but bloody smears in the ground!" Cain observed as he shifted his feet underneath him once, then took off into a swift advance onto the prime team of X-Men just as Cyclops made it to his feet.

"Radius, M -- hold him!" the leader of the X-Men ordered with the fling of his hand. M took off into flight towards the rampaging Juggernaut, while Radius made it to his feet and allowed his fists to bubble with a growing, ectoplasmic forcefield similar to that which constantly covered his body. "Just like we trained!" Scott reiterated.

Jubilee stayed behind Cyclops's side, ready at a moment's notice to bolt out of the way of Cain Marko's forthcoming in case her teammates weren't able to hold him. She had faith in them, of course, but the Juggernaut had a point. Without a telepath or telekinetic strong enough to hold him, they were pretty much sitting ducks.

But to her surprise, Scott's plan for the team if they were to ever encounter the Juggernaut again seemed like it was actually going to work. With Radius's new handle on his abilities, he was able to project his forcefield outward and under Marko's boots as he approached, ridding his charging feet of any friction.

The next step was to let momentum and gravity handle the reckoning force.

Jubilee's mind was racing as the Juggernaut slipped and took a nose dive into a tumbling roll the X-Men's way. Radius had to duck down fast and low to avoid becoming a smear on Marko's hyde as he rocketed over him, but Monet was safely positioned just above the team, waiting for her moment to strike.

"Move!" Cyclops yelled to FX as he waved his hand to the side, and took a dive to his left into a forward roll that carried him out of harm's way. FX bottled up as much confidence as she could muster up in those microseconds of time to react.

Just as the bouldering monstrosity of oxide-colored metal and muscle approached her, she released all of the pyrotechnics she could channel at the bases of her feet and did a sideward, handless flip out of the way of what would have truly been her ultimate demise.

Bright bursts of pink, purple, and yellow plasma explosions trailed FX's elegant form, followed by the various pitches of squeals and pops that accompanied her mutant ability. Though the Juggernaut was quickly becoming disoriented in the blur of tumbling and rolling across the streets, Jubilee's elegant pyrotechnics further blinded him as he rolled past her and crashed devastatingly into a nearby, overturned car.


Cain Marko's enormous weight and powerful frame tore through the vehicle like it were tinfoil, however. The turned over car's intrusion in his tumbling venture was barely enough to stop his roll, but the twisting and scraping of metal indeed caused a spark; a spark that was just enough to abruptly ignite the gasoline tank in the vehicle.

It was the sudden explosion of the gas tank as he passed tore through the vehicle that struck his armored frame, and broke the momentum that carried the Juggernaut. The blast sent Marko into a further roll, but one that ultimately ended on his backside.

"Oowhh..." The Juggernaut's rasping, gratey voice echoed as he laid there, squinting and frowning in a feeling of embarrassment. Marko was no more the worse for wear from the X-Men's tactical assault, but there was a throbbing, disoriented sensation in the center of his head and the pit of his stomach. "That the best shot you quarter-pounders got?" he quipped with a dismayed laugh as he began to rise, only to find that... he couldn't...

The Juggernaut couldn't rise.

Suddenly overwhelmed by both surprise and fear, Cain Marko found that all of his mighty struggling to gain control of his body was futile. Something in his muscles wasn't responding, and his willpower wasn't enough to make his muscles do so.

"Remember this scenario, Cain?" came the cool and confident tone of Cyclops's voice. The Juggernaut's large eyes peered in the direction of the first X-Man's voice through the slits of his helmet, and through the flames of a torn vehicle, he appeared.

The flames liked the glowing, ruby quartz visor adorning Scott Summers, and Marko couldn't help but tremble. It wasn't like him to fear many people, let alone one of Xavier's senior boyscouts, but something was different about him...

And as he stood among the flames, a glare ran of Cyclops's ruby quartz visor, and Cain Marko remembered the last time he had approached him like that.

"-- When Onslaught ripped the gem from you, he damaged the connection and all I'd have to do now is strike you with an optic blast..."

"Just above the eighth rib on the right hand side," said Emma. "I can feel it..."

"If I shattered the Ruby, what would happen then?" said Cyclops.

"You can't," said Cain and Cyclops fired a thin blast at him, aiming where Emma told him and Cain winced.

And Cain winced once again, his breath a heaving and trembling wreck.

"I wouldn't imagine that you've managed to have the Gem of Cytorrak amputated from your chrome hyde and moved to a place where the sun doesn't shine and where an optic blast can't reach," Cyclops presumed with a smirk, and for the second time that horrible night, the Juggernaut was speechless.

The ruby quartz visor hiding Scott Summers's eyes glowed even more-so intensely then it had upon first approach, but for some reason... Marko wasn't afraid. Any shift in the glow of Cyclops's visor surely meant an attack was about to take place; it was his tale among many things in the darkness. But that night, it seemed so calm and reserved...

"Join us, Cain," Cyclops said openly, and the Juggernaut's eyes went wide in realization of just what was happening. Scott continued to explain to him, "Not as an X-Man, but as a survivor of the new millennium. You're one of the strong -- it's your place."

"W-Where's that Phoenix transvestite?" Cain demanded, trying to hide the trembling in his voice. Even though he had his telepathic-proof helmet securely in place, something certainly wasn't right. Scott Summers was making sense. Cain quickly explained who he was talking about. "'Addison Falk'... that guy!"

"Still think we're trying to work you telepathically, eh?" Scott asked with a tone of disappointment, and he just sort of shrugged. "Falk is no longer with us, Cain," he elaborated as to gain the Juggernaut's trust. "Back when we tried to stop you from waging a one-man war on the White House, he claimed to have manipulated my former teammates into responding more passively to my new ambitions," Cyclops broke into meek laughter at the stupidity of the Grey King before he continued.

"In reality, he just steered them away from the flock -- away from the X-Men, where they would have more than likely kept him in check before his little revolt," Scott continued, before taking a long pause to consider his own words. His eyes steered away from Cain, and he looked into the flames of the burning buildings in the distance. Another, slight smirk crept up on his face. "Heh... his revolt... "

Cyclops looked back to Marko, his smirk fading and his brows rising as if to emphasis his next point. "You know, he did the same to you, Cain," he said. "Manipulated you... Even when I didn't want him to... He made you feel and act like you would never dream of...I can give you revenge on him, and on those who've tried to suppress your power."

"Never realized how psycho you really were, Summers," the Juggernaut finally said, and Scott grinned in satisfaction that he won the man over. With a wave of his hand, Radius nodded to Cyclops and released his expanded forcefield out from the joints of Marko.

With his new found freedom, Cain rose up before Scott and stretched out his arms, cracking his joints and popping his neck. He watched as M suddenly dropped back down from the sky at his side, and Jubilee approached the three from the sidelines. Radius and Magma broke away from their posts and made their way over, as well.

"What can I say?" Cyclops asked rhetorically to the Juggernaut's comment regarding his mental health. He turned his head towards their set of prized captives, setting his sights on Senator John Stocker in particular. A scowl quickly and sharply hit his features as he declared, "To hell with democracy. The strong were meant to rule."

A ruby blast of force exploded from Scott's visor and instantly took off the head of the unconscious Senator Stocker. Blood sprayed up like a Victorian fountain from the various, torn veins of his decapitated body.

Monet swallowed back a lump in her throat as FX gasped in horror as they watched the blood rain down on Wolverine and Nightcrawler's unconscious, limp forms. Radius was speechless, and pushed back his shame down into the pits of stomach. Magma's hardened gaze wasn't detoured in the slightest, and the Juggernaut could only grin in twisted delight. This was how it was supposed to be...

Just then, as Stocker's dying and decapitated body slumped down low from the chains that restrained him, the piercing cry of an avenging, legendary fowl echoed throughout the streets in a resonance righteousness.

Cyclops's head shot in the direction of the cry, its sharp pitch never faltering for a moment. Around him, his teammates began to fall to their knees as the fierce cry nearly busted the tympanic membrane of their ears. Even the mighty Juggernaut was at an agitation from the cry, but Cyclops stood strong even as it grew louder and louder upon approach. He knew who it was behind that cry, and he knew what their presence meant.

Far down in the distance of the night's chaos-filled streets -- several blocks, maybe -- the flames from nearby buildings were stripped from the resources they devoured and gathered into a fiery avatar high above the asphalt. The avatar's shape formed into that of a phoenix with its talons flexed and poised to strike, and then the burning avatar seemed to take on life, diving down towards the crusaders of survival of the fittest.

Cyclops's team of X-Men rose from the streets to full height and into defensive positions, blood leaking from their ears. The cry of vengeance and rebirth halted as the phoenix avatar rushed in front of them and seemingly imploded before striking them all down. Its flames dispersed, and standing there in the avatar's place was its creator -- the red headed beauty that was Jean Grey-Summers, the Phoenix itself.

Behind her stood two of her closest allies at the moment. Bobby Drake, the young bartender and longtime X-Man, was an 'Iceman' in his own right. Every inch of his body transformed into living ice on the molecular level with a single thought.

Beside him was his onetime lover and a former geologist, the very pregnant Lorna Dane -- a northern star in her mastery, Polaris. Electromagnetic energy cackled from the very pores of her body as she readied herself for the coming confrontation.

The three of them easily made up the most powerful mutants on Earth, in raw potential and skill alone. But nevertheless, they were still outnumbered two to one. While the odds were against them, they still believed in the dream of Professor Charles Xavier -- and they still believed it was a dream worth fighting for.

Those before them were a pure representation of fallen angels. Each one of them at one point or another believed in Xavier's dream, and now through perversion, have decided to fight against it in recent days. For they are the ones who have caused so much turmoil and chaos in the nation's capital that evening. So much death and destruction, caused by misguided innocents such as themselves...

Though Jubilee was reluctant to engage the three for these reasons alone, Magma, Radius, the Juggernaut, and M were quick to step up to Cyclops's side. His was a dream worth fighting for, too... or so they thought. Survival over anything else was the most important thing at that moment, and they would endure.

"Alright, Apocalypse!" a Southern accented voice declared. It came neither from the three before Cyclops, nor the five around him. Scott glanced over his shoulder, a hint of annoyance striking the features of his face as he realized who had said the words.

Behind them, Samuel Guthrie -- the young New Mutant and X-Man known as Cannonball -- deactivated his blastfield and touched down ahead of the real Cyclops, his longtime friend Domino, and his teammates in the X-Men Alpha faction Storm, Beast, and Dazzler.

The six had gathered on the other side of Juggernaut and company as if to block off their retreat, though they were indeed exhausted from their long journey all the way from Egypt and through the chaos filled streets of Washington, DC.

To say the least, Jean and her small party -- who stood parallel to their former teammates -- were just as surprised to see them as the faux-Cyclops was. They watched as Cannonball clenched his fists, and as his teammates gathered around him for the impending battle, Sam vowed amidst the social chaos, "It's over!"

Behind the faux-Cyclops's gathering of X-Men, the trio made up from the original seven X-Men (not including Mimic) were suddenly shocked and bewildered at not only Cannonball's words, but at the sight of Ororo Munroe at his side. Phoenix, Iceman, and Polaris traded uneasy glares, then looked back to the faux-Cyclops and his following.

FX, Magma, Radius, M, and the Juggernaut were all left speechless, though ever-so defiant, at the appearance of the nine veteran X-Men who surrounded them. The five of them are as equally surprised by Cannonball's words, but something deep inside of them -- perhaps the loyalty they now feel to the cause of survival -- told them it must have been a ruse of some sort.

Either way, this was the showdown they knew inside was coming to a head all along. And what had become the official, "prime" team of X-Men waited through the silence... waited for the words of their leader... to finally sound in the mists of chaos. The distant screams and licking of flames was almost hypnotic and transfixing in that moment of truth, sadly enough, but they were only a tempo to what was to come.

"...Apocalypse?" the faux-Cyclops suddenly mused aloud with a humble, ignorant smirk. From the edges of his visor, a steady shade of transfixing gray pigment began to 'crawl' over his skin, peeling away his Caucasian appearance to reveal his true identity. His black and gold X-uniform was stripped away from his muscular frame with the conquering gray skin-tone to reveal the garb of an Egyptian noble.

From the base of his skull exploded a fiery red tint that engulfed his short brown hair, Intense, scarlet locks of lush hair dropped down just past his shoulders. The faux-Cyclops shruged nonchalantly and removed the black and gold visor from his face, revealing a young man with a familiar set of vehement pupils that glowed an eerie violet.

"Heh..." the young man grinned and bit down on his lip, and the son of Apocalypse and Phoenix fed on all the ambient molecules and emotions around him to grow to a mass that easily surpassed even his newest ally in the Juggernaut. He snickered and commented, "Well, you were almost right, External..."

And with a wicked laughter that echoed throughout the burning District of Columbia, Apollyon prepared to unleash his reign...

NEXT ISSUE: The faux-Cyclops has been revealed as none-other than the long-thought perished son of Apocalypse and Phoenix himself, Apollyon! The question is though, what are his true motives in inciting a massive race riot? Is he truly following his father's dream of seeing only the survival of the fittest, or is it something more? Find out next month!!!