THE AVENGERS: And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes found themselves united against a common threat! On that day, the Avengers were born, to fight the foes no single super-hero could withstand!
THE X-MEN: Born with genetic mutations that give them abilities beyond those of normal humans, mutants are the next stage in evolution! As such they are feared and hated by humanity! But a group of mutants known as the X-Men fight for peaceful coexistence between mutants and humankind!
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MARVEL 2000 PROUDLY PRESENTS
PART TWO
Uncertain Alliance
PREVIOUSLY IN AVENGERS VS. X-MEN: Having fallen after a devastating attack by outside forces, Genosha was left ravaged and abandoned to an ecological disaster. The Avengers successfully infiltrated the nation of San Marco and rescued disgraced puppet ruler Roberto DaCosta from an attack by the remaining Fallen Angels and took them all into custody on behalf of the United States. Shortly after, they were tasked to enter Genosha and recover missing-in-action X.S.E. Agent Jamie Madrox. Meanwhile, the X-Men received a surprise visitor… from none other than the ousted ruler himself, Magneto!
A violent explosion illuminated the dark, otherworldly plane of existence, breaking its cold slumber. The disruption was followed by an avian screech as the flames reconstructed themselves into the shape of a fiery bird. Surrounded by darkness and haze, the phoenix stayed aloft with the gentle flap of its burning wings. She peered side-to-side, then downwards, catching the faintest glimpse of something seemingly light years away. She arched her wings back and dove nose first into the ethereal clouds and darkness.
The phoenix descended into the faint memories of a dreary and wet Warsaw ghetto. Nazi officers and guards surrounded a young boy who was too afraid to make eye contact.
“You see, boy? Desperation isn't so bad – hmm? Not when it leads to cooperation... To good decision making...” one of the officers said from underneath an umbrella. “Now, pick up your food.”
As the boy knelt down to pick up the food that had spilled from his bag, the officer who spoke put a gun to the bag of the boy's head and fired... while another boy wept in quiet horror, hidden in a nearby alley.
The phoenix took in the memories dispassionately. Too far back, she thought, then with the swift flap of her wings she soared away from the scene and forward through the surrounding haze. She came across a new time and place, one that was all too familiar.
“I am Magneto, the Master of Magnetism!” the figure cloaked in crimson and purple declared from atop the debris of a military base. A group of young teenagers, on the first mission to protect a world that fears and hates them, surrounded him in their ill-fitting yellow and blue training uniforms. “Like you, I am a mutant. Unlike you... I am no longer content to squirm beneath the boot heel of unworthy masters!”
Still too far back, the fiery avatar thought before flying away in a streak of flames. She found herself emerging from dense haze and flying over a snowy wasteland where the same man stood surrounded by numerous members of the X-Men and U.N. Peacekeepers. A short haired woman emerged from a helicopter with papers in hand, intent on ending the man's war on humanity.
“You are officially ceded sovereignty over land for which you will be solely responsible. Turn it into a heaven or a hell... Your choice, your responsibility... The island nation of Genosha is yours to rule!”
Closer, but still not there, the phoenix thought as she soared over the scene. She flapped her flaming wings and continued on her flight path. The haze began to dissipate much more quickly than before.
“Genosha has fallen! I repeat, Genosha has fallen!” a radio communique echoed urgently through the labyrinth of memories of an island nation embattled from all fronts. “You need to go to ground immediately! War cannot be avoided!”
Yes. Almost there. The phoenix barreled through aerial combats, above explosions, and narrowly avoided flying debris and bodies until she finally reached its destination.
She watched as Magneto struck the devastated grounds of the mutant island nation, bruised and bleeding, his crimson and purple wears in tatters. His ever faithful Acolyte ran to his side. He grasped a hand over Amelia Voght's wrist with surprising strength.
“Geno…sha…”
“Almost completely destroyed.” There were tears in Voght’s eyes. “Hammer Bay is in ruins, as are the few other towns. The forests are reduced to ash, and I fear nothing will grow here again. The devastation to your dream, it’s absolute.”
“No…” Magneto wanted to weep, but instead he spoke. “The people…all…?”
The phoenix watched and listened as the memories unfolded, her fiery wings keeping her aloft above the ethereal scene. Suddenly, the burning avatar exploded and the otherworldly plane surrounding it returned to darkness.
Erik Lehnsherr opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the Xavier Institute's medical bay with some indifference to what he had just experienced. The low humming and beeping of the various machines attached to him were all that he heard, but he could tell that he was far from alone in the home of his sworn enemies.
“If Charles Xavier struggled to infiltrate my mind...” he began to say before slowly glancing at the red headed woman sitting before his bed. “Then what makes you think that you can?”
Jean opened her eyes and looked to Erik.
“You'd be surprised by the number of things that I can do that Professor Xavier couldn't,” she replied simply.
Another woman on the right side of Erik's bed scoffed at that.
“What, y'mean like... walk?” Sienna asked with a cold sneer.
“Hey!” Bobby sprang up from a chair and jabbed a finger at Sienna. “Too mean. Too soon.”
Only Hank and Lorna got the joke, but neither were very amused. Sienna on the other hand began to fume. Electromagnetic energy cackled from her fists. Bobby transformed into his ice state in response as the two stared each other down. After a tense moment, Sienna looked to Erik. He merely held up a hand and she stood down. Bobby similarly returned to his human state but continued to stare her down.
“Forgive her, please. She's been through a lot lately and she's here to... protect me...” Erik explained as humbly as he could muster as he sat up in the medical bed. Hank simply shook his head and sighed.
“Tensions are obviously running quite high. Perhaps we should just get to the point of your visit,” the director of the Xavier Institute said. “What is it that you want from us, Erik?”
Erik sat up as much as straight as he could. He took a deep breath. The words were there, but it seemed as if saying them only twisted the knife deeper into his heart.
“As I'm sure you're aware by now, Genosha has fallen to monsters from the outside world. I always believed it would be the humans who would come for us, but I was a fool. Our destruction was of our own design,” he began. “What you may not know is that, during the battle and evacuation, the planet's magnetic field was destabilized and torn open in countless locations across the island. The damage will only worsen as time goes on. It will eventually begin to effect the world outside of Genosha until Earth's magnetic field completely collapses... unless it is stopped. I'm the only one who knows how to repair the damage, but I need your help to do that.”
Hank's eyes widened as he began to contemplate the ramifications of the earth's magnetic field running amok or worse collapsing altogether.
“My stars and garters...”Suddenly, the stories that were on the news about Genosha and the reports he had been receiving from Forge were beginning to make sense. “This... this would explain so much of what Forge has been telling us the past few days...”
“Okay, hang on. Why the heck should we buy into any of this?” Bobby chimed in with a raised hand, looking at each of his teammates then to Erik. “Even if all that stuff about the magnetic field's true, how do we trust you to actually fix things there? And what about when we're done? Then what... we reinstall you as His Eternal Supreme Commander of the Mutie People and go home in time for 3D Parcheesi night?”
It was a good point, and no one had an easy answer, so Bobby continued. “You kicked Jeannie out of your head pretty quick just now and you've also got an Amazonian bulldog over here to 'protect you' from us – ”
“Woof,” Sienna said with the clench of her teeth. Bobby gave her a dirty look and continued.
“ – so tell me, how's this all suppose to play out?”
After allowing for a moment to let his words digest, the group looked to Erik for his response. He nodded quietly before looking to each one of them individually as he spoke.
“My people are either dead or scattered to the winds, as are the dreams we had to build a mutant utopia in this world,” Erik explained somberly. His head hung slight. “I'm not who I was all of those years ago. The world has seen to that. I'm a tired, defeated, old man now. All that is left for me to do is heal the Earth before it's too late, retreat into solitude, and pray that the next generation of our people won't be the last.”
Erik lifted his head back up to Sienna and the X-Men.
“Whatever you must ask of me to believe what I am saying, do so quickly. I can feel the disturbance in the planet's magnetic field growing as we speak,” he said as he looked to Lorna, who had been quietly listening in the corner. “I'm sure that you feel it, too.”
Lorna stared at Erik, a man who once claimed to be her father when he wanted to recruit her into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with a healthy dose of skepticism. He wasn't above deception or manipulation to get what he wanted, but what he was saying did make sense.
She looked to Hank for assurance. “Could that be why my powers have been on the fritz?”
“Your blood tests came back normal, so I suppose it's more than plausible...” Hank answered her reluctantly.
Silence fell upon the men and women in the medical bay as they each meditated on what they were being tasked with. Could the man who's been trying to turn the X-Men or kill them since they were teenagers be trusted? Was there really a way to repair the damage done to the world on the island of Genosha? What would the government or the public think about the Xavier Institute working with a known terrorist and war criminal? What would Charles do if he were in their shoes?
Sensing that a consensus had formed among the group, Jean finally broke the silence.
“If there's nothing else to discuss then it seems it's been decided. We head for Genosha.”
The water was unlike anything Stingray had ever experienced. It was so thick with oil and other pollutants that the lifelong oceanographer had trouble moving through it, let alone seeing. Even the sonar of Stingray’s advanced suit had difficulty navigating the deep haze.
And then there was the heat. Like most equipment, Stingray’s was designed for the extreme cold found along the ocean’s depths. But along the coast of Genosha, where vast underwater plants were still burning, much of the water was at boiling point.
“Can you read me?” Stingray received no response, and hoped that his communicator wasn’t completely worthless down there. “I don’t know how much longer I can manage in this hell. At the moment, Genosha’s waters are uninhabitable to all forms of life, going about a mile out in some points.”
His sonar pinged, and Stingray dived to avoid the smoldering carcass of a shark. A rage was building inside him over anyone who would choose to inflict such damage on the environment. Braving the heat, he moved close enough to perceive what had been one of the great fields of specially engineered plant life. They’d been designed to break plastics back down to base petroleum which were then piped to refinery platforms around Genosha. Stingray had viewed the wreckage of one when he first arrived and submerged.
“I’ll say this at least, the allegations about this oil being particularly dirty are wrong. What’s burning into the atmosphere isn’t nearly so bad as I would have expected. If we could put out these fires, the situation down here would improve at a relatively rapid pace.”
“That’s something to be thankful for, at least,” Warbird said. She was unaware that Stingray couldn’t hear her words, though his transmissions were received by the Titanian ship that hovered in low orbit over Genosha. “Keep going for as long as you can. Maybe we can figure out a way to start by putting out a literal fire.”
The Chairperson of the Avengers moved her attention to the handsome man piloting the space craft. “How are these computers at analyzing all the data Stingray’s bringing us?”
“As well as can be, considering the severe electromagnetic disruptions,” Starfox said. “I’m trying to beam this information to ISAAC on Titan, but I don’t know if it’s leaving Earth intact. To be honest, I’m surprised we’re getting anything from Stingray. These disturbances defy all the laws of nature.”
“I can feel what you mean,” said Binary, in a harsher tone that she intended. An equivalent of sweat was forming on her iridescent skin. “There’s an…effort to stay in my powered state that I’ve never experienced before. I’m worried that if I power down, I may not be able to change into Binary again.”
It was an experience that Warbird knew all too well. At a time when Carol Danvers had desperately wanted to rejoin the Avengers, she’d concealed that her powers were in a state of flux.
“That’s good to know, Binary. It may be best to keep you outside the area, in reserve. We certainly don’t want your powers to fail at a crucial moment.”
“I will gladly trade places with Binary.” Espirita’s voice came over the radio. She was in the dimension known as Null-Space, aboard Darkhawk’s ship with him and Speedball. “My gifts could be of use in dismissing the flames. The people of Genosha need help.”
“I agree, but everybody that has rushed in so far have gone missing, presumed dead,” said Warbird. “Until we have more information, and an appropriate plan of action, we are not making a move until absolutely necessary.”
Right on cue, Stingray gave a shout of pain and surprise. “Aaahh! I’m under attack!”
They grabbed at Stingray, almost before he knew they were there. As the aquatic Avenger fought, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was fighting. They were humanoid in shape, but misshapen and asymmetrical. There was also a steady, pained gurgle carrying through the water. These creatures were in agony.
A burst of electricity would have cleared the waters around Stingray, bought him some space to think and maneuver. But he was loathe to inflict such pain on what felt to him like wounded animals. So instead he twisted, called out for help to what he suspected were deaf ears, and tried to process information from the suit’s sensors.
In the ocean, sight was tricky even in the best of circumstances. With the black fuel burning, the eyes were less than worthless. Sound was king, and Stingray’s armor used that to its fullest. Sonar waves emanated from the armor, and every solid object they pinged off of told Stingray something. These creatures were strong, with webbing on some appendages and respiration that struggled.
Stingray suspected that these were not naturally aquatic creatures. Even the At’Lan’Tique or Lemurians had uniform flaws in their engineered genes. They could be Deviants, with their endlessly unpredictable mutations, but that chaotic kingdom was so far away from Genosha. The location tickled something in Stingray’s mind, even as he noticed some of the creatures had claws that just brushed up against his suit.
If the suit tore in these waters, Stingray was dead. Survival necessitated the electric burst, even as compassion protested against the cries of suffering. Stingray recalled hearing reports about genetically engineered Genoshan soldiers. Those reports were about basic templates of flight and strength, but had also theorized the possibility of aquatic soldiers. It made sense that an island nation would want a dedicated navy, but for Magneto to experiment with such pathetic wretches for want of proper mutants…
Screaming in rage, Stingray grabbed one of the creatures and kicked for the surface. They broke the water fast, going up several feet into the air. Stingray could see clearly now, and the sight of what he held sickened his soul. The sound of the struggle for breath, however, broke his heart. These creatures could barely survive in the ocean, and had no chance outside it.
Stingray released the sad thing back into the water. It was a small mercy, as surely the burning water brought nearly as much agony. His arms spreads and wings extended, Stingray allowed the the updraft of the flames to carry him higher. He’d try the radio again, and hopefully the other Avengers would hear him and come to assist.
“Are you all right?” Binary had appeared and grabbed Stingray’s arm, holding him in place beside her as she hovered over the water. “When we heard your cry, I was sent down to help.”
“You were able to hear me?” Stingray was thankful for the small piece of luck. “I was attacked by some wild…wounded….” The words he tried to find were muffled by deep gasps that were suppressed sobs.
“What is it?” Espirita said. Flying beside her was Darkhawk, that team in Null-Space having left in reaction to Stingray’s plight. “What fresh suffering have you found in this forgotten land?”
Stingray told them. Espirita’s gasp was drowned out by Binary’s angry cry.
“That bastard!” She exclaimed. “All his talk of mutants being superior, but he thinks there are improvements to be made.”
Darkhawk was looking down, the blank face of his armor revealing nothing. “Maybe we can round them up, get them in a safe area of water?”
“Hours of searching, of risking ourselves while these fires burn,” Espirita said. “To ease the suffering of a few, while doing nothing to ease the suffering of the many. It is the fire we have to deal with.”
Espirita moved to fly down, toward the water. Binary stopped her descent with a light grip.
“Wait.” Binary looked at Espirita for a long minute, thinking of how to vocalize her thought. The words came. “I can survive deep space. A little water is nothing, and I’ll absorb the energy down here. You fly over me, drawing the flames off the water. Off the fuel.”
Espirita nodded, agreeing with the plan. Stingray and Darkhawk tried to object, and Warbird was screaming over the Avengers radio frequency. Undaunted and impulsive, Binary submerged.
Eyes that could see far more than light took note of the creatures that moved toward her. Stingray was right, and Binary didn’t like barreling through them. She recalled the recent encounter with Diablo, the mad alchemist whose experiments who had transformed black woman Nicole Ridley into one of the most powerful beings on Earth. There had been pain then as well, and the success had led to the creation of other Binarys who’d been stripped of free will.
Genosha was a nation of slaves, and every attempt to rise up has only brought pain and suffering. Magneto had tried to change that, but his efforts to secure the border currently burn. All he managed to do was invite attack after attack. It was inevitable that one would succeed, and destroy everything he’d tried to build.
All this ran through Binary’s mind as she flew around Genosha over and over, moving faster each time. The water churned in the wake of Binary’s passage, and she had to concentrate to not go too fast, as her upper limit was interstellar.
Drawn to Binary as she flew through the water were the flames of Genosha’s funeral pyre. In the Avenger’s wake, the flames died, but black oil continued to seep from those plants that remained. The fires swirled around Binary, not quite being absorbed as they should. Her flight was slowing, and not entirely by choice.
The surface of the water in Binary’s path was tremendously hot. Espirita was doing her best to follow directly over the water. She was unaffected by the heat, but the steam obscured her vision. The hardest part had been keeping up, at first. Espirita couldn’t remember ever flying so fast. When Binary started slowing down, Espirita almost overshot her but quickly corrected.
“Binary, is everything okay?” Espirita asked.
“You’re wasting your breath,” Warbird’s voice said. “The signal died minutes ago. Our communicators are designed to survive a lot, but Binary’s has been destroyed. That heat should be fading into her like its nothing, but she’s having trouble just drawing away the fire.”
Espirita struggled to see through the heavy mist, and reduced her speed slightly. “At this point I’m following the heat. If Binary can’t maintain her powers…would she…?”
“At best she’s incinerated instantly.” Warbird never felt so helpless. “At worst she’s boiled alive.”
Sweat was forming on Espirita’s brow. “This may be more heat than I’ve ever felt before, and it’s all focused around Binary. Maybe if I concentrate I can draw it into me and away from her.”
“A good idea, but don’t try it yet.” Warbird turned to Starfox. “Adjusting for deceleration, how long until Binary encircles the island?”
In less than a second, Starfox had the calculation. As he was about to tell Warbird she said, “Transmit it to Darkhawk.”
“You want me to intercept?” Darkhawk had just returned from transporting Stingray to his Null Ship. He was again in a gliding circle over the waters outside Hammer Bay.
“Transport her to Null Space as soon as possible,” Warbird said. “Espirita, that’s when you draw as much heat as you can. Darkhawk, I’m sorry but parts of you may melt.”
“Then it’s a good thing I have spare parts.” Darkhawk received the calculations. He flew back a short distance and dived into the water. “It’ll be better if I meet Binary there.”
“Whatever you think is best.” Another time, Warbird would have been flying down there to help. Her powers are similar to Binary’s though much weaker, and she would have been able to absorb some of the energy. But at this moment she was the leader, and the risk was too great.
The last of Genosha’s great ring of fire billowed towards the form of Binary. As the snuffed out, the shape of Darkhawk was barely visible in the blur of Binary’s vision. At the same moment the two Avengers collided, Espirita flew feet-first into the water. Indescribable heat surged into her body, and despite herself Espirita yelled out.
“Aaargh!” The outer shell of Darkhawk’s armor was indeed melting, and his arms quickly became useless lumps as they took hold of Binary. The gem in Darkhawk’s chest remained unaffected, and at a mental circuit interdimensional teleporation was activated. They disappeared from this plan of existence, leaving behind only the heat.
Millions of gallons of water were turning into steam around Espirita, and she tried not to think about the loss of aquatic life. In seconds she had drawn all the heat, equivalent to the heart of a volcano, into her body. Warbird had been right, Espirita reflected. There was no way she could have taken this in over an extended period of time. It had to have been all at once.
Crying out in effort, an incandescent Espirita soared upwards. Such tremendous energy could not be contained, and high above Genosha she released it. The explosion of fire from her body was brief but extraordinary, in the shape of a massive firebird that was visible from mainland Africa.
“Espirita, are you all right?” asked Warbird.
“I…I think so,” said Espirita weakly. She was barely able to hover over the cooled water.
Warbird sighed in relief. “I’ll come get you. Stingray, Speedball, how are Darkhawk and Binary?”
“Better than could be expected,” Speedball said. Near him, Darkhawk’s human body of Chris Powell remained in stasis and perfect health, according to the Null Ship’s instruments. One of Darkhawk’s android bodies lay misshapen and useless on the floor, but another had already stepped off the assembly line.
Stingray was kneeling over the still form of Nicole Ridley, who was no longer in her powered Binary form. “She’s alive, but unresponsive. We may have to wait awhile to see if she’s suffered any long-term effects.”
“When she wakes up, Binary will be glad to know it worked.” Warbird had flown out of the Titanian ship, and saw that the waters around Genosha were no longer aflame. “For now, I want the Null Ship’s medical systems to look after her. Once we’re assembled on Starfox’s ship, the Avengers are going to put Genosha right!”
It was the highest radio tower on the highest building in Hammer Bay that Jamie Madrox could find. With any luck it would be high enough to reach above the electromagnetic storms interfering with all of the electronic devices, but not so high that he would lose his nerve before reaching the top.
“There's a man who leads a life of danger... To everyone he meets he stays a stranger...” Jamie hummed nervously to himself as he climbed up the side of the crumbling telecommunications tower. He grunted and groaned as he scaled the rickety struts supporting the mast, each one shaking and giving under his weight more than the previous, threatening to collapse and send him to a certain demise.
“With every move he makes... another chance he takes... odds are he won't live to see tomorrow...”
Jamie continued climbing until he reached the final strut beneath the highest platform on the tower. It was still some dozen or so feet out of his reach, but a telescoping ladder in view could close the gap. It would normally be activated mechanically from the base of the tower, but the devastating attacks on Genosha and Magneto's subsequent retaliation killed even the simplest devices powered by electricity.
With a deep breath, Jamie squatted as low as he could on the last strut, released his grip on the tower's frame, and then leaped upwards toward the ladder's bottom rung. There was no way a normal man could clear the distance, but with the clap of his hands his mutant power activated and two duplicates appeared underneath him, one standing on the final rung and the other standing on that one's shoulders. Jamie was propelled upwards by their sudden appearance and took hold of the ladder's bottom rung, then reabsorbed the two dupes underneath him before they could fall to their deaths.
“Secret... agent man... Secret... agent man...” he mumbled to himself as he swung back and forth while holding onto the ladder's bottom rung, slowly building up the momentum and the courage to pull himself up the ladder and climb it to the platform it was attached to. “They've given you a number... and taken away your name...”
Jamie groaned a final time as he found his footing on the radio platform. On wobbly legs, he walked over to the satellite array and took off his single strap backpack. He then lifted the goggles from his eyes and rested them on his head so that he could see the console's screen more clearly.
To his surprise, the console booted up.
“Oh, thank you, Jeebus,” Jamie said with a captivated breath. The image the console displayed was somewhat fragmented and lagging, but the device was functioning nonetheless. He typed in a few commands and brought up a S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency communications program. With bated breath, he began logging into the system when he heard a voice shout up to him with ecstatic urgency.
“M.M., LOOK! M.M.! LOOK!”
Jamie looked away from the console to the group of Genoshan survivors he had rallied. They were far below him at the edge of the building's rooftop. Most were staring off at the horizon in disbelief and awe, but one was calling out to him and waving frantically. Jamie then looked to the horizon and found himself in similar shock.
The ring of fire that had surrounded Genosha for the past week and a half was gradually fading into the ocean waters. Smoke and mist were replacing it, but the distinctive burning glow that had illuminated the island at even the latest hours was finally dying out.
Jamie leaned over the edge of the satellite platform to yell something back when a gust of wind rocked the telecommunications tower.
“Shit!” Jamie yelped. The handheld computer slipped from his grip as he braced himself from falling off of the platform. He watched as the console tumbled through the air out of his reach before spiraling downward.
The group of survivors at the bottom of the tower turned as they heard the console banging down the tower and then strike the rooftop at their feet. A brute with a scaly, vermilion epidermis stepped out of the group and picked up the monitor. Miraculously, the device survived the fall, but that was more to Jamie's chagrin than not. Examining the console, he turned to his comrades and summoned them to look at what he found.
Flickering across the cracked console monitor was the S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency communication screen with Jamie's login information displayed. In a collective, building rage, the group of survivors looked up the radio tower to Jamie. He was a spy his entire time on the island and now they knew it.
A violent explosion illuminated the dark, otherworldly plane of existence, breaking its cold slumber. The disruption was followed by an avian screech as the flames reconstructed themselves into the shape of a fiery bird. Surrounded by darkness and haze, the phoenix stayed aloft with the gentle flap of its burning wings. She peered side-to-side, then downwards, catching the faintest glimpse of something seemingly light years away. She arched her wings back and dove nose first into the ethereal clouds and darkness.
The phoenix descended into the faint memories of a dreary and wet Warsaw ghetto. Nazi officers and guards surrounded a young boy who was too afraid to make eye contact.
“You see, boy? Desperation isn't so bad – hmm? Not when it leads to cooperation... To good decision making...” one of the officers said from underneath an umbrella. “Now, pick up your food.”
As the boy knelt down to pick up the food that had spilled from his bag, the officer who spoke put a gun to the bag of the boy's head and fired... while another boy wept in quiet horror, hidden in a nearby alley.
The phoenix took in the memories dispassionately. Too far back, she thought, then with the swift flap of her wings she soared away from the scene and forward through the surrounding haze. She came across a new time and place, one that was all too familiar.
“I am Magneto, the Master of Magnetism!” the figure cloaked in crimson and purple declared from atop the debris of a military base. A group of young teenagers, on the first mission to protect a world that fears and hates them, surrounded him in their ill-fitting yellow and blue training uniforms. “Like you, I am a mutant. Unlike you... I am no longer content to squirm beneath the boot heel of unworthy masters!”
Still too far back, the fiery avatar thought before flying away in a streak of flames. She found herself emerging from dense haze and flying over a snowy wasteland where the same man stood surrounded by numerous members of the X-Men and U.N. Peacekeepers. A short haired woman emerged from a helicopter with papers in hand, intent on ending the man's war on humanity.
“You are officially ceded sovereignty over land for which you will be solely responsible. Turn it into a heaven or a hell... Your choice, your responsibility... The island nation of Genosha is yours to rule!”
Closer, but still not there, the phoenix thought as she soared over the scene. She flapped her flaming wings and continued on her flight path. The haze began to dissipate much more quickly than before.
“Genosha has fallen! I repeat, Genosha has fallen!” a radio communique echoed urgently through the labyrinth of memories of an island nation embattled from all fronts. “You need to go to ground immediately! War cannot be avoided!”
Yes. Almost there. The phoenix barreled through aerial combats, above explosions, and narrowly avoided flying debris and bodies until she finally reached its destination.
She watched as Magneto struck the devastated grounds of the mutant island nation, bruised and bleeding, his crimson and purple wears in tatters. His ever faithful Acolyte ran to his side. He grasped a hand over Amelia Voght's wrist with surprising strength.
“Geno…sha…”
“Almost completely destroyed.” There were tears in Voght’s eyes. “Hammer Bay is in ruins, as are the few other towns. The forests are reduced to ash, and I fear nothing will grow here again. The devastation to your dream, it’s absolute.”
“No…” Magneto wanted to weep, but instead he spoke. “The people…all…?”
The phoenix watched and listened as the memories unfolded, her fiery wings keeping her aloft above the ethereal scene. Suddenly, the burning avatar exploded and the otherworldly plane surrounding it returned to darkness.
Erik Lehnsherr opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the Xavier Institute's medical bay with some indifference to what he had just experienced. The low humming and beeping of the various machines attached to him were all that he heard, but he could tell that he was far from alone in the home of his sworn enemies.
“If Charles Xavier struggled to infiltrate my mind...” he began to say before slowly glancing at the red headed woman sitting before his bed. “Then what makes you think that you can?”
Jean opened her eyes and looked to Erik.
“You'd be surprised by the number of things that I can do that Professor Xavier couldn't,” she replied simply.
Another woman on the right side of Erik's bed scoffed at that.
“What, y'mean like... walk?” Sienna asked with a cold sneer.
“Hey!” Bobby sprang up from a chair and jabbed a finger at Sienna. “Too mean. Too soon.”
Only Hank and Lorna got the joke, but neither were very amused. Sienna on the other hand began to fume. Electromagnetic energy cackled from her fists. Bobby transformed into his ice state in response as the two stared each other down. After a tense moment, Sienna looked to Erik. He merely held up a hand and she stood down. Bobby similarly returned to his human state but continued to stare her down.
“Forgive her, please. She's been through a lot lately and she's here to... protect me...” Erik explained as humbly as he could muster as he sat up in the medical bed. Hank simply shook his head and sighed.
“Tensions are obviously running quite high. Perhaps we should just get to the point of your visit,” the director of the Xavier Institute said. “What is it that you want from us, Erik?”
Erik sat up as much as straight as he could. He took a deep breath. The words were there, but it seemed as if saying them only twisted the knife deeper into his heart.
“As I'm sure you're aware by now, Genosha has fallen to monsters from the outside world. I always believed it would be the humans who would come for us, but I was a fool. Our destruction was of our own design,” he began. “What you may not know is that, during the battle and evacuation, the planet's magnetic field was destabilized and torn open in countless locations across the island. The damage will only worsen as time goes on. It will eventually begin to effect the world outside of Genosha until Earth's magnetic field completely collapses... unless it is stopped. I'm the only one who knows how to repair the damage, but I need your help to do that.”
Hank's eyes widened as he began to contemplate the ramifications of the earth's magnetic field running amok or worse collapsing altogether.
“My stars and garters...”Suddenly, the stories that were on the news about Genosha and the reports he had been receiving from Forge were beginning to make sense. “This... this would explain so much of what Forge has been telling us the past few days...”
“Okay, hang on. Why the heck should we buy into any of this?” Bobby chimed in with a raised hand, looking at each of his teammates then to Erik. “Even if all that stuff about the magnetic field's true, how do we trust you to actually fix things there? And what about when we're done? Then what... we reinstall you as His Eternal Supreme Commander of the Mutie People and go home in time for 3D Parcheesi night?”
It was a good point, and no one had an easy answer, so Bobby continued. “You kicked Jeannie out of your head pretty quick just now and you've also got an Amazonian bulldog over here to 'protect you' from us – ”
“Woof,” Sienna said with the clench of her teeth. Bobby gave her a dirty look and continued.
“ – so tell me, how's this all suppose to play out?”
After allowing for a moment to let his words digest, the group looked to Erik for his response. He nodded quietly before looking to each one of them individually as he spoke.
“My people are either dead or scattered to the winds, as are the dreams we had to build a mutant utopia in this world,” Erik explained somberly. His head hung slight. “I'm not who I was all of those years ago. The world has seen to that. I'm a tired, defeated, old man now. All that is left for me to do is heal the Earth before it's too late, retreat into solitude, and pray that the next generation of our people won't be the last.”
Erik lifted his head back up to Sienna and the X-Men.
“Whatever you must ask of me to believe what I am saying, do so quickly. I can feel the disturbance in the planet's magnetic field growing as we speak,” he said as he looked to Lorna, who had been quietly listening in the corner. “I'm sure that you feel it, too.”
Lorna stared at Erik, a man who once claimed to be her father when he wanted to recruit her into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with a healthy dose of skepticism. He wasn't above deception or manipulation to get what he wanted, but what he was saying did make sense.
She looked to Hank for assurance. “Could that be why my powers have been on the fritz?”
“Your blood tests came back normal, so I suppose it's more than plausible...” Hank answered her reluctantly.
Silence fell upon the men and women in the medical bay as they each meditated on what they were being tasked with. Could the man who's been trying to turn the X-Men or kill them since they were teenagers be trusted? Was there really a way to repair the damage done to the world on the island of Genosha? What would the government or the public think about the Xavier Institute working with a known terrorist and war criminal? What would Charles do if he were in their shoes?
Sensing that a consensus had formed among the group, Jean finally broke the silence.
“If there's nothing else to discuss then it seems it's been decided. We head for Genosha.”
The water was unlike anything Stingray had ever experienced. It was so thick with oil and other pollutants that the lifelong oceanographer had trouble moving through it, let alone seeing. Even the sonar of Stingray’s advanced suit had difficulty navigating the deep haze.
And then there was the heat. Like most equipment, Stingray’s was designed for the extreme cold found along the ocean’s depths. But along the coast of Genosha, where vast underwater plants were still burning, much of the water was at boiling point.
“Can you read me?” Stingray received no response, and hoped that his communicator wasn’t completely worthless down there. “I don’t know how much longer I can manage in this hell. At the moment, Genosha’s waters are uninhabitable to all forms of life, going about a mile out in some points.”
His sonar pinged, and Stingray dived to avoid the smoldering carcass of a shark. A rage was building inside him over anyone who would choose to inflict such damage on the environment. Braving the heat, he moved close enough to perceive what had been one of the great fields of specially engineered plant life. They’d been designed to break plastics back down to base petroleum which were then piped to refinery platforms around Genosha. Stingray had viewed the wreckage of one when he first arrived and submerged.
“I’ll say this at least, the allegations about this oil being particularly dirty are wrong. What’s burning into the atmosphere isn’t nearly so bad as I would have expected. If we could put out these fires, the situation down here would improve at a relatively rapid pace.”
“That’s something to be thankful for, at least,” Warbird said. She was unaware that Stingray couldn’t hear her words, though his transmissions were received by the Titanian ship that hovered in low orbit over Genosha. “Keep going for as long as you can. Maybe we can figure out a way to start by putting out a literal fire.”
The Chairperson of the Avengers moved her attention to the handsome man piloting the space craft. “How are these computers at analyzing all the data Stingray’s bringing us?”
“As well as can be, considering the severe electromagnetic disruptions,” Starfox said. “I’m trying to beam this information to ISAAC on Titan, but I don’t know if it’s leaving Earth intact. To be honest, I’m surprised we’re getting anything from Stingray. These disturbances defy all the laws of nature.”
“I can feel what you mean,” said Binary, in a harsher tone that she intended. An equivalent of sweat was forming on her iridescent skin. “There’s an…effort to stay in my powered state that I’ve never experienced before. I’m worried that if I power down, I may not be able to change into Binary again.”
It was an experience that Warbird knew all too well. At a time when Carol Danvers had desperately wanted to rejoin the Avengers, she’d concealed that her powers were in a state of flux.
“That’s good to know, Binary. It may be best to keep you outside the area, in reserve. We certainly don’t want your powers to fail at a crucial moment.”
“I will gladly trade places with Binary.” Espirita’s voice came over the radio. She was in the dimension known as Null-Space, aboard Darkhawk’s ship with him and Speedball. “My gifts could be of use in dismissing the flames. The people of Genosha need help.”
“I agree, but everybody that has rushed in so far have gone missing, presumed dead,” said Warbird. “Until we have more information, and an appropriate plan of action, we are not making a move until absolutely necessary.”
Right on cue, Stingray gave a shout of pain and surprise. “Aaahh! I’m under attack!”
They grabbed at Stingray, almost before he knew they were there. As the aquatic Avenger fought, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was fighting. They were humanoid in shape, but misshapen and asymmetrical. There was also a steady, pained gurgle carrying through the water. These creatures were in agony.
A burst of electricity would have cleared the waters around Stingray, bought him some space to think and maneuver. But he was loathe to inflict such pain on what felt to him like wounded animals. So instead he twisted, called out for help to what he suspected were deaf ears, and tried to process information from the suit’s sensors.
In the ocean, sight was tricky even in the best of circumstances. With the black fuel burning, the eyes were less than worthless. Sound was king, and Stingray’s armor used that to its fullest. Sonar waves emanated from the armor, and every solid object they pinged off of told Stingray something. These creatures were strong, with webbing on some appendages and respiration that struggled.
Stingray suspected that these were not naturally aquatic creatures. Even the At’Lan’Tique or Lemurians had uniform flaws in their engineered genes. They could be Deviants, with their endlessly unpredictable mutations, but that chaotic kingdom was so far away from Genosha. The location tickled something in Stingray’s mind, even as he noticed some of the creatures had claws that just brushed up against his suit.
If the suit tore in these waters, Stingray was dead. Survival necessitated the electric burst, even as compassion protested against the cries of suffering. Stingray recalled hearing reports about genetically engineered Genoshan soldiers. Those reports were about basic templates of flight and strength, but had also theorized the possibility of aquatic soldiers. It made sense that an island nation would want a dedicated navy, but for Magneto to experiment with such pathetic wretches for want of proper mutants…
Screaming in rage, Stingray grabbed one of the creatures and kicked for the surface. They broke the water fast, going up several feet into the air. Stingray could see clearly now, and the sight of what he held sickened his soul. The sound of the struggle for breath, however, broke his heart. These creatures could barely survive in the ocean, and had no chance outside it.
Stingray released the sad thing back into the water. It was a small mercy, as surely the burning water brought nearly as much agony. His arms spreads and wings extended, Stingray allowed the the updraft of the flames to carry him higher. He’d try the radio again, and hopefully the other Avengers would hear him and come to assist.
“Are you all right?” Binary had appeared and grabbed Stingray’s arm, holding him in place beside her as she hovered over the water. “When we heard your cry, I was sent down to help.”
“You were able to hear me?” Stingray was thankful for the small piece of luck. “I was attacked by some wild…wounded….” The words he tried to find were muffled by deep gasps that were suppressed sobs.
“What is it?” Espirita said. Flying beside her was Darkhawk, that team in Null-Space having left in reaction to Stingray’s plight. “What fresh suffering have you found in this forgotten land?”
Stingray told them. Espirita’s gasp was drowned out by Binary’s angry cry.
“That bastard!” She exclaimed. “All his talk of mutants being superior, but he thinks there are improvements to be made.”
Darkhawk was looking down, the blank face of his armor revealing nothing. “Maybe we can round them up, get them in a safe area of water?”
“Hours of searching, of risking ourselves while these fires burn,” Espirita said. “To ease the suffering of a few, while doing nothing to ease the suffering of the many. It is the fire we have to deal with.”
Espirita moved to fly down, toward the water. Binary stopped her descent with a light grip.
“Wait.” Binary looked at Espirita for a long minute, thinking of how to vocalize her thought. The words came. “I can survive deep space. A little water is nothing, and I’ll absorb the energy down here. You fly over me, drawing the flames off the water. Off the fuel.”
Espirita nodded, agreeing with the plan. Stingray and Darkhawk tried to object, and Warbird was screaming over the Avengers radio frequency. Undaunted and impulsive, Binary submerged.
Eyes that could see far more than light took note of the creatures that moved toward her. Stingray was right, and Binary didn’t like barreling through them. She recalled the recent encounter with Diablo, the mad alchemist whose experiments who had transformed black woman Nicole Ridley into one of the most powerful beings on Earth. There had been pain then as well, and the success had led to the creation of other Binarys who’d been stripped of free will.
Genosha was a nation of slaves, and every attempt to rise up has only brought pain and suffering. Magneto had tried to change that, but his efforts to secure the border currently burn. All he managed to do was invite attack after attack. It was inevitable that one would succeed, and destroy everything he’d tried to build.
All this ran through Binary’s mind as she flew around Genosha over and over, moving faster each time. The water churned in the wake of Binary’s passage, and she had to concentrate to not go too fast, as her upper limit was interstellar.
Drawn to Binary as she flew through the water were the flames of Genosha’s funeral pyre. In the Avenger’s wake, the flames died, but black oil continued to seep from those plants that remained. The fires swirled around Binary, not quite being absorbed as they should. Her flight was slowing, and not entirely by choice.
The surface of the water in Binary’s path was tremendously hot. Espirita was doing her best to follow directly over the water. She was unaffected by the heat, but the steam obscured her vision. The hardest part had been keeping up, at first. Espirita couldn’t remember ever flying so fast. When Binary started slowing down, Espirita almost overshot her but quickly corrected.
“Binary, is everything okay?” Espirita asked.
“You’re wasting your breath,” Warbird’s voice said. “The signal died minutes ago. Our communicators are designed to survive a lot, but Binary’s has been destroyed. That heat should be fading into her like its nothing, but she’s having trouble just drawing away the fire.”
Espirita struggled to see through the heavy mist, and reduced her speed slightly. “At this point I’m following the heat. If Binary can’t maintain her powers…would she…?”
“At best she’s incinerated instantly.” Warbird never felt so helpless. “At worst she’s boiled alive.”
Sweat was forming on Espirita’s brow. “This may be more heat than I’ve ever felt before, and it’s all focused around Binary. Maybe if I concentrate I can draw it into me and away from her.”
“A good idea, but don’t try it yet.” Warbird turned to Starfox. “Adjusting for deceleration, how long until Binary encircles the island?”
In less than a second, Starfox had the calculation. As he was about to tell Warbird she said, “Transmit it to Darkhawk.”
“You want me to intercept?” Darkhawk had just returned from transporting Stingray to his Null Ship. He was again in a gliding circle over the waters outside Hammer Bay.
“Transport her to Null Space as soon as possible,” Warbird said. “Espirita, that’s when you draw as much heat as you can. Darkhawk, I’m sorry but parts of you may melt.”
“Then it’s a good thing I have spare parts.” Darkhawk received the calculations. He flew back a short distance and dived into the water. “It’ll be better if I meet Binary there.”
“Whatever you think is best.” Another time, Warbird would have been flying down there to help. Her powers are similar to Binary’s though much weaker, and she would have been able to absorb some of the energy. But at this moment she was the leader, and the risk was too great.
The last of Genosha’s great ring of fire billowed towards the form of Binary. As the snuffed out, the shape of Darkhawk was barely visible in the blur of Binary’s vision. At the same moment the two Avengers collided, Espirita flew feet-first into the water. Indescribable heat surged into her body, and despite herself Espirita yelled out.
“Aaargh!” The outer shell of Darkhawk’s armor was indeed melting, and his arms quickly became useless lumps as they took hold of Binary. The gem in Darkhawk’s chest remained unaffected, and at a mental circuit interdimensional teleporation was activated. They disappeared from this plan of existence, leaving behind only the heat.
Millions of gallons of water were turning into steam around Espirita, and she tried not to think about the loss of aquatic life. In seconds she had drawn all the heat, equivalent to the heart of a volcano, into her body. Warbird had been right, Espirita reflected. There was no way she could have taken this in over an extended period of time. It had to have been all at once.
Crying out in effort, an incandescent Espirita soared upwards. Such tremendous energy could not be contained, and high above Genosha she released it. The explosion of fire from her body was brief but extraordinary, in the shape of a massive firebird that was visible from mainland Africa.
“Espirita, are you all right?” asked Warbird.
“I…I think so,” said Espirita weakly. She was barely able to hover over the cooled water.
Warbird sighed in relief. “I’ll come get you. Stingray, Speedball, how are Darkhawk and Binary?”
“Better than could be expected,” Speedball said. Near him, Darkhawk’s human body of Chris Powell remained in stasis and perfect health, according to the Null Ship’s instruments. One of Darkhawk’s android bodies lay misshapen and useless on the floor, but another had already stepped off the assembly line.
Stingray was kneeling over the still form of Nicole Ridley, who was no longer in her powered Binary form. “She’s alive, but unresponsive. We may have to wait awhile to see if she’s suffered any long-term effects.”
“When she wakes up, Binary will be glad to know it worked.” Warbird had flown out of the Titanian ship, and saw that the waters around Genosha were no longer aflame. “For now, I want the Null Ship’s medical systems to look after her. Once we’re assembled on Starfox’s ship, the Avengers are going to put Genosha right!”
It was the highest radio tower on the highest building in Hammer Bay that Jamie Madrox could find. With any luck it would be high enough to reach above the electromagnetic storms interfering with all of the electronic devices, but not so high that he would lose his nerve before reaching the top.
“There's a man who leads a life of danger... To everyone he meets he stays a stranger...” Jamie hummed nervously to himself as he climbed up the side of the crumbling telecommunications tower. He grunted and groaned as he scaled the rickety struts supporting the mast, each one shaking and giving under his weight more than the previous, threatening to collapse and send him to a certain demise.
“With every move he makes... another chance he takes... odds are he won't live to see tomorrow...”
Jamie continued climbing until he reached the final strut beneath the highest platform on the tower. It was still some dozen or so feet out of his reach, but a telescoping ladder in view could close the gap. It would normally be activated mechanically from the base of the tower, but the devastating attacks on Genosha and Magneto's subsequent retaliation killed even the simplest devices powered by electricity.
With a deep breath, Jamie squatted as low as he could on the last strut, released his grip on the tower's frame, and then leaped upwards toward the ladder's bottom rung. There was no way a normal man could clear the distance, but with the clap of his hands his mutant power activated and two duplicates appeared underneath him, one standing on the final rung and the other standing on that one's shoulders. Jamie was propelled upwards by their sudden appearance and took hold of the ladder's bottom rung, then reabsorbed the two dupes underneath him before they could fall to their deaths.
“Secret... agent man... Secret... agent man...” he mumbled to himself as he swung back and forth while holding onto the ladder's bottom rung, slowly building up the momentum and the courage to pull himself up the ladder and climb it to the platform it was attached to. “They've given you a number... and taken away your name...”
Jamie groaned a final time as he found his footing on the radio platform. On wobbly legs, he walked over to the satellite array and took off his single strap backpack. He then lifted the goggles from his eyes and rested them on his head so that he could see the console's screen more clearly.
To his surprise, the console booted up.
“Oh, thank you, Jeebus,” Jamie said with a captivated breath. The image the console displayed was somewhat fragmented and lagging, but the device was functioning nonetheless. He typed in a few commands and brought up a S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency communications program. With bated breath, he began logging into the system when he heard a voice shout up to him with ecstatic urgency.
“M.M., LOOK! M.M.! LOOK!”
Jamie looked away from the console to the group of Genoshan survivors he had rallied. They were far below him at the edge of the building's rooftop. Most were staring off at the horizon in disbelief and awe, but one was calling out to him and waving frantically. Jamie then looked to the horizon and found himself in similar shock.
The ring of fire that had surrounded Genosha for the past week and a half was gradually fading into the ocean waters. Smoke and mist were replacing it, but the distinctive burning glow that had illuminated the island at even the latest hours was finally dying out.
Jamie leaned over the edge of the satellite platform to yell something back when a gust of wind rocked the telecommunications tower.
“Shit!” Jamie yelped. The handheld computer slipped from his grip as he braced himself from falling off of the platform. He watched as the console tumbled through the air out of his reach before spiraling downward.
The group of survivors at the bottom of the tower turned as they heard the console banging down the tower and then strike the rooftop at their feet. A brute with a scaly, vermilion epidermis stepped out of the group and picked up the monitor. Miraculously, the device survived the fall, but that was more to Jamie's chagrin than not. Examining the console, he turned to his comrades and summoned them to look at what he found.
Flickering across the cracked console monitor was the S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency communication screen with Jamie's login information displayed. In a collective, building rage, the group of survivors looked up the radio tower to Jamie. He was a spy his entire time on the island and now they knew it.
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: Magneto and the X-Men join forces to end the ecological disaster on Genosha, but it looks like the Avengers have already beaten them to it. What happens when these two forces for good clash at the heels of humanity's greatest mutant threat? Plus... The Multiple Man Strikes Back!
X-PRESSIONS ASSEMBLE!
Avengers vs. X-Men is back!
Unfortunately, Steve and I had to go on a bit of a hiatus recently due to some major career changes in both of our lives, but now that we've settled into our respective digs we think we'll be able to rebuild our momentum and knock this series out in the coming months. Hope you all stuck around because we've got one hell of a story lined up for you! Catch y'all next month!
Steve and Cory
September 29th, 2018
Unfortunately, Steve and I had to go on a bit of a hiatus recently due to some major career changes in both of our lives, but now that we've settled into our respective digs we think we'll be able to rebuild our momentum and knock this series out in the coming months. Hope you all stuck around because we've got one hell of a story lined up for you! Catch y'all next month!
Steve and Cory
September 29th, 2018