Hello new readers, Spades here. So, I love the X-Men, and have always wanted to write an X-Men story arc. This isn't it. This was an idea that somehow got lodged in my head, so I wrote it down. Now I've decided to share it with you guys and see what you think. I've got like nine more chapters ready, but I'm going to wait and see how this does before I upload them. So I'll stop talking now and let you get to reading.

Chapter 1

The Pens reeked. Not that he really noticed anymore. One quickly lost all sense of smell in the breeding pens. He supposed he was lucky in a way. If it wasn't for Sinister's intense interest in his... unique... abilities he would probably have been given to the Beast. Or been vaporized. Not that Sinister was merciful by any stretch of the imagination, but at least this way he was still mostly sane and in one piece. The young man tried to sleep. He tried to sleep a lot these days, saving his energy for the excruciating experiments his captor liked performing for hours on end. He really should have broken by now, either from the experiments or the Brain Trust that kept most of the prisoners nice and docile. He guessed he could count himself lucky that way too. Once again his powers came to the rescue. It turned out having a mind wired to perceive four dimensions instead of the usual three made it pretty hard for Apocalypse's pet hive mind to maintain control of him. Really, the young man thought, I've been stupidly lucky this whole time. Well, aside from getting caught. He'd been hiding out in the Appalachians when that Infinite patrol had spotted his little shack. Seeing smoke, the green clad little wind up soldiers had decided to investigate, a fatal lapse in judgment on their part. Unfortunately he'd been sloppy and hadn't fully severed one's wind pipe, allowing the engineered meat bag to gasp out a request for help before bleeding out onto the dirt. So he'd grabbed his bailout bag and ran. They sent a platoon after him, which he'd killed rather easily. So a couple of augmented flatscans were sent with the next platoon. Bastards had almost gotten the drop on him. Emphasis on almost. He'd managed to kill that platoon as well, but after thirty six hours of almost constant running and fighting he was starting get worn out. So when the next platoon of Infinites showed up with an alpha in tow he'd been well and truly fucked. Still, the young man felt a twinge of pride remembering how he'd managed to gut the bastard and most of the goons before Sinister showed up. Sleep deprived and hilariously outgunned, he hadn't stood a ghost of a chance against the horseman. It had been ten months since then. Ten months in hell. He knew it had been ten months because a side effect of his powers was always knowing the time. But he was still alive, which was a hell of an achievement considering Apocalypse had a standing kill order against all chrono-variant mutants. As long as he was alive there was a chance for escape. Not that many people had ever made it out of the pens. Security was tight, and Apocalypse's boot licking goons made sure to keep a tight and brutal watch on the inmates. He really hoped he ran into the Guthries on his way out. All the guards took a lot of pleasure in beating the prisoners, or gene-traitors as they preferred to call their fellow mutants. But the Guthries were particularly vicious, often beating people to death. In fact, they probably would have forced him to show his hand two weeks ago had Sinister not intervened. His cracked ribs still ached whenever he took a breath. He surreptitiously tested the point on the shiv he had managed to make. Finding the materials for its construction had been damn near impossible, and keeping it a secret had been even harder, but it was his ace in the hole. His powers gave him a serious edge in combat, but bare hands were still useless against anyone with damage mitigating abilities. Fortunately, very few mutants were immune to having a pointy object shoved into their brain via eye socket.

His musings were interrupted by a massive distortion in space-time coming from higher in Apocalypse's tower. It was like a star to his senses, emitting so much chronological radiation he could practically taste it. Whatever this...thing... was, it was unimaginably powerful. It felt like all of time was sitting just above his head, pressing down on him. It was a sign. He would have to make his move soon. With something like that so close, how could he not? A bell rang, signaling the daily meal. It wasn't much, just a tube of nutrient paste carefully measured to provide exactly enough nourishment to keep someone alive. He quickly finished his tube and looked around for another one to swipe. The guards didn't care, and there were so many prisoners that had either gone insane or given up, finding a supplement to his daily meal was fairly easy. That it was an application of Apocalypse's philosophy on its smallest scale was not lost on him, but he actually stood a chance of escaping. So he ignored the faint whisperings of his long dead conscience and focused on gathering his strength. He knew he would need it.

Two days later the young man woke up to the sounds of revolution. Prelate Summers stood on a walkway above the pens with a red headed woman, gesturing madly towards the laser grids. The deactivated laser grids. The young man smiled wolfishly and swiftly joined the stampede towards freedom. He could hear the sounds of battle taking place. Must be a hell of a fight, he reasoned, if we can hear it all the way down here. He was almost to the exit when he felt it. A convulsion in time and space, originating from from whatever that thing was that had been brought in last week. The young man paused, just a few steps away from freedom. He could just walk out the door and finally escape. He'd dreamed of this moment for months. He'd wanted it more than anything, but the anomaly's call was like siren's song. What could possibly be that powerful? Against his better judgment he started to turn around. Slowly at first, he started walking back into the bowels of the nightmarish citadel, his every instinct screaming at him to turn around and run. The young man broke into a run, driven onward by his curiosity. He passed by scores of dead Infinites, pausing only to grab a handgun. Anything larger would slow him down too much, and thankfully the energy weapons didn't need reloading. Or recharging for that matter. Truly the wonders of technology never ceased. He worked his way upwards, gleefully slaughtering patrols where he found them. Soon, the young man found himself arriving at the mysterious anomaly's location. He was just in time to watch Magneto, the leader of the X-Men himself, use his powers to tear Apocalypse in half!

"Holy shit!" He whispered, his eyes wide as he surveyed the scene. Behind Apocalypse's slowly cooling remains was a giant pink crystal, clearly the source of the distortions. He stepped forward, entranced by the crystal, only to feel something massive and furry slam into him. Stars flashed before his eyes and the young man groaned in pain as he bounced off the wall. Only instinct kept him alive as he reflexively threw himself into a diving roll. Spinning around, he spotted his attacker.

"Oh look, it's the Beast's bitch," he sneered.

"That's Lord Sinclaire to you, gene-trash!" The massive lupine mutant snarled.

"It's really cute how you think a fancy title makes you something other than the filthy mongrel you are." The young man mocked as he started to circle to his left, making sure to keep both Rahne Sinclaire and the massive pink crystal in view. Sinclaire's elegant response was a bestial howl and another charge. The young man slipped out his shiv and dodged to his left, firing with the stolen energy pistol in his right hand. Unfortunately, all the energy blasts did was piss the large werewolf-like mutant off. As Prelate Sinclaire spun around, trying to slash him with her razor sharp claws he used his powers to stop time. In an extremely unfortunate coincidence, this was the exact moment when the M'kraan Crystal unleashed a universe rewriting time wave. As a brilliant wave of white light erupted from the crystal the young man realized what was about to happen. He barely had time to mutter,

"Oh shit" before the wave slammed up against his bubble of frozen space-time and everything went black.