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#5
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Akkaba
“The imbeciles and weasels are right in there,” Peter Wisdom said, rising up his binoculars to spy on the stronghold where the members of Clan Akkaba were holed up. The organization had decided to make a play against the world since Apocalypse had apparently returned. The members of X.S.E. had been divided and dispatched to slow down their plans as much as possible and hopefully put a stop to them.
“They won’t be taken easy, imbeciles or not,” Warpath said licking his knives, enjoying the sharp edge against his tongue.
Wisdom shrugged. “If they put up too much of a fight then that’s all the more reason to beat the psychos to a bloody pulp.”
Warpath laughed. “I would have never guessed you for a brawler, my friend.”
“I prefer a more devious fighting style, but nothing wrong with a straight up fist to the face every now and again,” Wisdom winked and pointed at the base. “Let’s be nice guests and not keep the Clan waiting.”
“You sure the three of us are going to be enough?” Sunspot asked. “That’s a whole town full of mutants we’re about to go into.”
Akkaba was a town that looked completely abandoned. Every house was cracked at its foundations and sand whipped through the town unabated. Roberto imagined that not too many people would willingly want to live in the town Apocalypse was born in millennia ago. But the desolation of the town was a deception for what lay underneath. The Clan Akkaba had created an underground base where they directed all of their operations.
“Whoever said anything about just the three of us going in alone?” Wisdom asked, pointing up. Warpath and Sunspot looked just as ten helicopters appeared in the air. They were armed to the teeth and opened fire with high-powered bullets and missiles. The barrage of weaponry blanketed the town in an explosive blaze. When the first barrage had finished, Wisdom answered the inquisitive expression on Sunspot’s face. “They were cloaked and following us the entire time. Courtesy of S.H.I.E.L.D., of course. They were willing to spare some items for us.”
“Then what are we waiting for,” Warpath said, getting to his feet and charged towards the now charred town. The Apache heard Wisdom yell something from behind him but he ignored it. Just as he walked into the flames and smoke, he saw The Clan Akkaba members rising up from their underground tunnels that gave them access to the surface. Wasting no time, Warpath stabbed the first two Clan members that came in his direction through the stomach. His super strength lifted the two mutants up into the air, sending his butterfly knives poking out of their backs. With his hands still gripping the knives, Warpath tossed the two mutants at a group of their allies, knocking the mutants to the ground. This was life for Warpath. He could do this all day.
“You seem as if you are strong.” The ground rumbled beneath Warpath and he turned to the source of the voice. In front of him was a living Minotaur wielding a large axe that Warpath imagined could cleave cars in two with ease. The mutant’s tan fur blended in perfectly with the swirling sand while its red eyes were like bloody orbs from something hellish. His every step towards Warpath shook the ground some more and the Clan Akkaba mutants made a clear path for him.
Warpath crouched down and flexed his neck in a show of bravado. “Bout time to get to have some real fun.”
The Amazon
The Slade brothers only needed each other. This spire would be activated by just the two of them. Who amongst the strong needed followers behind them? The strong did the work that needed to be done on their own and they would do that here, right now. Like the apple in the Garden of Eden, the spire was in front of the two brothers waiting to be opened.
“If it was this easy, I don’t even know why mother sent us together,” Hamilton said, walking up to the spire. The green symbols were written in ancient Egyptian, but Hamilton had been alive since the Victorian Era and in that time he learned a great many things. So he was able to read the hieroglyphs without any issue. Frederick had spent his long life learning other arts so Hamilton was happy to translate. “The end of an era starts with the opening of this spire.”
“And that’s precisely why neither one of you jokers is going to open it,” Husk said, walking out of the forest with Rory Campbell at her side. She had shed her skin to have an Adamantium composition. In the weeks since her encounter with Weapon Mu, Paige had been working to hone her powers and the Adamantium form was a new one she had come across. Never again was she going to be made that helpless. “I’m only going to make this offer to you fellas once. Walk away and make this easy on yourself.”
Hamilton morphed his hands into scythes and charged at Husk and Campbell. One scythe bounced harmlessly off of Husk and the other nearly took off Campbell’s head, but he deftly ducked it. Undeterred, Hamilton spun on his heels and tried to cut them down again. Husk kept low and tackled Hamilton to the ground. A metal pillar rose up from Hamilton’s chest and knocked Husk off of him. Just as he stood up, Campbell pointed his staff at Hamilton and unleashed its power. Hamilton’s cheeks sunk, his body became emaciated and he fell to the ground unconscious.
“Fools,” Frederick said from behind the two. He had already activated the spire while his brother distracted them and the rock was now crumbling away. “Once we found War, he told us exactly where his brethren were. Unlike you, Campbell, Decimus has kept his loyalty to Apocalypse. Prepare yourselves to face the true and final Famine.”
Rory gripped Husk’s arm. “We need to leave. Now.”
“Why? We should kick both guy’s asses,” Husk said.
“We can’t,” Rory said. “We’re leaving.”
Frederick laughed as the crystal revealing Famine was starting to become visible. “That’s right. Run away. But you won’t escape Apocalypse. Not forever.”
Reluctantly, Husk retreated into the woods with Campbell. When Campbell finally stopped dragging her alone, Paige pulled away from the man. “What the hell, Rory? I thought the whole point of all this was to stop those things from coming back?”
“It was too late. And we wouldn’t stand a chance against Famine.”
“Weren’t you once Famine?”
Rory looked at Paige, his face twisted in some degree of pain at being reminded of that fact. “And even with all my remaining powers from that time, I’m nothing like The Final Horsemen. We need to start preparing for what comes next once Magik extracts us out of here.”
“And what’s that?”
“Pulling everyone together we can to beat the Final Horsemen.”
Ankara, Turkey
Cable bent down in front of the burnt out office building. X-Corps was starting to expand itself across the globe and they had chosen Turkey to be their first potential foray into the Middle East. Only a day ago the building had been attacked and left a burnt out husk by The Brotherhood. Using his telepathy, Cable was able to examine the building in broad daylight. He just conveniently ‘suggested’ to every eye that looked his way that he really wasn’t there.
Spray painted on the side of the building was the word ‘weak’ in all red, capital letters. Cable frowned at that word and what it might indicate. The past week, Cable had been bodysliding from location to location across the globe where the Brotherhood left its stamp. Government buildings were attacked in Brazil and Ecuador, churches in Belize and Mexico, and resorts in Jamaica and Trinidad. Cable noticed a change in the attacks from previous Brotherhood strikes. These strikes were more brutal and left fewer and fewer survivors. Generally, the Brotherhood left some behind in order to spread fear, but not in these attacks.
And this X-Corps building was the first attack that the Brotherhood had ever made on a mutant centric location. The Brotherhood espoused mutant superiority and mutant unity so attacking locations like X-Corps didn’t make sense. Stryfe had made it clear he wouldn’t attack a fellow mutant unless they were clearly in his way. So what had changed? Seeing that word ‘weak’ spray painted took Cable’s mind to dark possibilities. Both him and Stryfe had their fair share of connections to Apocalypse. That megalomaniac never cared what species you were from as long as you could prove yourself to be strong and those he considered weak, he crushed.
There was a deeper meaning behind all of the evidence he was seeing, but he wanted and needed more before he took it to his allies. So he stepped back from the building and bodyslid to his next location to explore.
Akkaba
Sunspot flew over the desiccated, burning city with Wisdom latched on to his wrists. “You could stand to lay off the beer Wisdom. I’d prefer to heft around people who are height/weight proportionate.” The two mutants weaved through the air as the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters continued to bombard the city. The attacks had drawn a large number of Akkaba out of their stronghold.
“There! He’s done there!” Wisdom shouted, ignoring Roberto’s weight comment. Below them, a bloody Warpath was dodging the axe of a very large, Minotaur looking figure. “Let me go! I’ll get down there and help!” Sunspot let go and Wisdom fell through the air. Holding out both of his hands in front of him, Wisdom unleashed a heat blade from each of his fingertips. The blades quickly covered the distance between Wisdom and the Minotaur. Taking their pick, the blades seared into the mutant’s back, legs and arms.
The unexpected attack caused the Minotaur to delay an axe swing at Warpath. Not allowing the opportunity to slip away, Warpath charged at his opponent and stabbed one of his knives into the mutant’s eye while the other knife slipped into the Minotaur’s throat. In a roar born of pain and anger, the mutant smacked Warpath away. Wisdom landed and rolled on a rooftop at that moment, astonished at he was seeing. The Minotaur’s blow had knocked Warpath clear across the town, to its very edge. Tapping his ear piece, Wisdom said, “You might need to send in the rest of the squad, Campbell. We got a Minotaur guy knocking James around.”
The reply came through slightly muffled, but Wisdom was able to make it out properly enough. “No, Wisdom. You need to get your men out of there now. That’s War and you don’t have anywhere near what you need to go toe to toe with him. Get out and get out now!”
The communication came to an end and, before Wisdom could relay Campbell’s order, Sunspot dive bombed War. Wisdom sighed and leaped off the roof, bounced off a merchant’s tent and rolled to his feet. He pointed his hands at War and sent heat blades into the Horseman’s chest. The Minotaur roared again, one half of his face bloodied and searing burns across his body.
Sunspot was pummeling with War with punches and to Wisdom it looked like Roberto was doing a pretty good job of keeping the Horseman on the ropes. Maybe Rory overestimated the strength of the Final Horsemen. That thought was silenced as War grabbed Sunspot by the back of his head and slammed him into the rocky desert. The whole town shook from Sunspot’s face impacting the ground and Wisdom could see that his teammate was unconscious.
“Bastard!” Warpath shouted, flying low across the town and wrapping his arm around War’s massive neck. He spun around and stabbed his knife into the top of the Horseman’s head. War shook under Warpath’s attack, but didn’t seem like he was about to go down. Reaching back, the Final Horseman grabbed Warpath by his hair and yanked him forward, smashing the man on top of Sunspot. Yanking his axe out of the ground, War prepared to bring it down on the two. Warpath stirred and then quickly brought his knife down into War’s ankle.
All around them, ships were rising into the air and jetting off in every direction. The ships were triangular, sleek and shined in the desert sun. They barely made any noise as they left and turned tail in every direction. A few of the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters took them down, but it was plainly obvious what was going on. The Clan Akkaba was turning tail and running. But Wisdom didn’t believe they had delivered that sound of a thrashing to the group. If they were leaving it was for other reasons and he was damn sure they weren’t about to leave their base behind for them to explore. Wisdom shot heat blades into War’s face and shouted. “Warpath! We need to get out of here now! Have a strong feeling it’s going to blow.”
With a grunt and a roll, Warpath grabbed Sunspot and flew away from War. He snatched Wisdom up in mid-attack and booked it out of the city. The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters cloaked and all Wisdom could hope was that they were following behind him as the first small explosions could be heard. When they were a good distance away, Wisdom saw Akkaba go up in one big explosion.
War was likely caught in the blast, but Wisdom had a very strong feeling that hadn’t killed him. They were going to see him again.
Moscow
Mystique and Toad walked behind Stryfe along with two heads of their Russian cells. Raven had to admit that Stryfe had done with the Brotherhood what she never could, but in the past few days doubts were starting to creep into her mind. They were starting to attack mutant targets now and it seemed less about creating fear and more about the sheer killing. She thought all human life was worthless, but the whole point of leaving survivors was to further the mutant cause. These new tactics of wholesale slaughter was bound to not create fear, but anger. Fear was good for the Brotherhood, but righteous anger put them at risk.
Then there was Stryfe. The man had started to become more and more erratic as of late. He kept spouting off these random comments and then genuinely looking like he couldn’t remember saying any of it. And what he said sounded far too much like the long dead Apocalypse. Something was amiss with Stryfe, but she had the wisdom to not say anything about it yet. Whatever it was would present itself shortly enough and like always, Raven would find a way to survive it. She wasn’t so sure about the rest of the Brotherhood, but that wasn’t her problem. Most of them she didn’t even know and the few she did have some inkling of care for already knew about her suspicions in regards to Stryfe so they would move when she did.
The two heads of the Russian cells were relatively new to the Brotherhood organization. One was a tall man with bleach blonde hair, a chiseled face and blue skin dotted with white. The other man was much shorter and a lot more round, but his face was far more fearsome than his companions. Raven couldn’t remember their names, but she didn’t exactly feel the need to with Stryfe around. A telepath was particularly handy in such situations. These two new additions seemed eager enough to accomplish their mission though and Raven respected that. The Brotherhood had no place for people who couldn’t stomach their task. She looked back to them, providing only a hard stare.
“Stryfe has your targets for you.” She said no more and looked ahead as they descended a flight of stairs into an abandoned bar.
Styfe smiled at them. He was wearing plain street clothes as were they all. It was easier to blend in with humans that way and plot their demise. “The Moscow Metro will be where we first strike. I want it done in the height of passenger congestion. Then we’ll move against the new X-Corps building they’re constructing here.”
The blue-skinned mutant frowned. “Is X-Corps not here to help mutants? It was hard enough for the building to even be allowed into the country. To destroy it will only feed into the government’s opinion about mutants.”
Stryfe’s eyes flashed with telekinetic energy. “This is not about humans or mutants. I am above such pathetic concepts. This is about the strong and the weak. Those who would dare to stand in my path!”
The mutant didn’t flinch. Mystique found herself gain a bit of admiration for the man as he continued to protest. “The Brotherhood is about unity. Protecting our brother and sister mutant. Us attacking each other is just what the humans want!”
Stryfe waved a hand and the mutant was lifted off his feet and slammed into the nearest wall. “None question me. None!” Closing his hand, Stryfe never turned away as the mutant started screaming and was split in half. Blood and gore was sent across all those still living.
Toad looked up at Mystique and Raven saw the fear in his eyes. It was well justified. The man in front of them wasn’t the same Stryfe they had joined with. Something was terribly wrong.
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To Be Continued...
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