The man in black looked over his array of weapons. They had all been sharpened with a laser and then sharpened even more by hand. Some of them were little more than an atom thick at the edge of the blade. It gave 'like a hot knife through butter' an entirely new meaning. All of his weapons were ancient, exotic weapons: spears, swords, sais, tai chi swords, katanas and etc. He also carried twin SOCOM pistols with six spare magazines on his belt. To top it all off, he carried two flash bang and two incendiary grenades for whenever he was in a serious bind.

He didn't necessarily need any weapons for what he was going to do. It was all espionage, stealth and sneaking around. He didn't like the idea of killing anyone he wasn't paid to. He didn't give out freebies. He left his guns and took a long wooden staff, painted black, instead. He'd be armed and he could better control whether he was lethal or not.

His driver had dropped him off at a safe house he kept in New York. They'd left a black mustang with the keys in the ignition in the garage. He was less than an hour away from the Westchester, where the Xavier Institute was. He went to the garage, got into the car, disassembling his staff into two smaller pieces so that it would fit nicely in the car with him. He hit the garage door opener, started up the car, blared the music and backed out, tires squealing.

Before long, he'd be in the Xavier Institute without a soul knowing it. Before long, he'd have Mindflare busted out and halfway across the Canadian border. Before long, he'd get paid in gold and he could retire for a while.

Soon…

"I'll make this as quick as I can," Adam started as they began to head for the elevator that would take them to the lower levels. They had to be on their toes now that Palisade could no longer use his power to protect them.

"Walk and talk at the same time that's all I have to say!" Shockwave threw his thoughts in and Cyclops couldn't agree more. Even with the machine guns, nerve gas, lasers and Abaddon's other defenses, they still had to keep their eyes open for MCA agents and Sentinels.

"Okay, I'll do my best. There are three levels to Sheol: Hades, the gate, which we are still in. We've already covered most of that and will be clear of it once we get through the elevator. The elevator only goes down to the Abyss. The Abyss, rightly named, is pitch black in darkness. There is a walkway that encircles the pit beneath it. There are no cells for these prisoners, they just wander around in the dark—forever," Adam said. The more and more he spoke of Sheol the angrier that Cyclops became. It was as if they were trying to create an illusion that they had thrown the mutants into Hell itself.

"That's sick," Cyclops muttered. He kept the rest of his thoughts to himself as they went to the elevator. Then he thought of something. "Palisade, while this part of Sheol is unmanned you should head back to the surface and regroup with Storm. You can't help us and you'll only put yourself in danger."

"Okay. Good luck guys!" he said running towards the entrance. He picked up a gun that a soldier had dropped on his way, just in case.

Good boy.

"The last level is called Tartaros or something like that. Named after the deepest level of Hell. They perform all kinds of medical experiments and tortures down there and even execute mutants…"

"Say no more. Just get us there," Cyclops solemnly interrupted. As they turned the corner, some MCA agents armed with powerful rifles had their backs turned. Cyclops instinctively reached for his visor but Shockwave was one step ahead of them. Instead of using one big shockwave, he used several smaller, focused ones in quick succession. While the results weren't as devastating, they were just as effective.

He hoped that they didn't run into any more agents. He couldn't believe that they'd been unlucky enough to have Palisade stripped of his powers. He was their best defense. Now, they were open, vulnerable. They had two heavy-hitters and a technopath. They could cause a lot of damage but had no way of keeping themselves intact. Cyclops didn't like it and was liking it less by the minute.

They found an elevator, which was on some kind of lockdown. No doubt, it was a security measure for intruders that Abaddon didn't control. Adam hadn't shut it down when he dealt with the super-computer.

"Now what?" Shockwave asked. "Do we blow the doors off?"

"We may have to," Cyclops said stepping back, again reaching for his visor.

"Hold it! Brains over brawn here boys! Did you forget that I'm here?" Adam said stretching his hand over the console. He closed his eyes, bobbed his head a little and hummed a tune.

What the heck?

The elevator suddenly opened up and welcomed them in.

"See? Now, wasn't that much better than blowing the doors off?" he asked with a smile of satisfaction.

"Let's go," Cyclops replied curtly. They got into the elevator and they hit the bottom level button. Soon they would descend into the Abyss, the deep, dark bottomless pit of Hell where mutants where left to wander aimlessly. Wait, how would they navigate in the dark?

He looked over to ask Adam a question and noticed that he had two flashlights in his hands already.

Impressive.

The boy didn't miss a beat. He was a little standoffish but at least one of them was looking out for details.

Let's just hope we don't run into any more Sentinels.

The man in black, the Hybrid, parked his car on the side of a road not three miles from the mansion. He stepped out, locked the doors and began to assemble his staff. On completion he positioned his body to aim right towards the mansion and sprinted towards it. Suddenly, he used his staff to pole-vault himself into the air. He ascended into the air at a height high above the trees at a velocity that no human being could do on his own. As he came down and gravity began to take its toll, he kicked off a tree, while putting his staff on its back strap. When he was about to hit the next tree, he flipped his body so that he was flying feet-first and kicked off that tree as well. He continued through the forest like this, a black ball of bouncing mass. He covered the distance of three miles in a matter of forty seconds or so.

Not bad.

He'd done better before. The further the distance that he had to go the more momentum he could gain and the higher speed he could achieve.

He saw the mansion come into view and he threw himself towards the ground before the brick wall that surrounded it, landed and jumped, using his power to lift him into the air. He flew, nearly a thousand feet in the air, well above the roof of the mansion and came down in an arc, like he'd been catapulted there. He landed soundlessly on the roof.

He circled the perimeter of the roof until he found a balcony to which he jumped down to. He tried to open the window.

Locked? No problem.

He pulled out a small tool the size of a pocketknife and pressed a circular, silver button on it. A red laser came out three inches from the devise. He began to remove the pane closest to the lock as he cut through it easily. The beam did not continue to travel, as most would be stayed in its three-inch cage. When the pane was cut away he laid the piece of glass on the balcony and reached in to unlock the window. Stepping into the cool, air-conditioned room he scanned the place for inhabitants.

The brotherhood had provided him with blueprints of the mansion so that he could use them as a map. He had committed the layout of the entire place to memory. How was he supposed to carry around a bunch of photocopies of blueprints anyway?

Amateurs…no wonder they got caught.

He stopped and reached into one of his pockets and pulled on a pair of would-be sunglasses. They were actually an expensive pair of goggles that enhanced his vision. They also helped to cover some of his face. There were some people there who he did not want recognizing him.

He was careful, listening for footsteps and voices, moving as quickly and as quietly as possible, just as his master had taught him. He moved with the poise and quickness of a cat, quiet as a whisper. Each movement was fluid and graceful, like black oil flowing freely through the halls of the mansion. He found the hidden elevator, got in and hit the button. He'd only been in the mansion for a little over a minute.

Too slow, he scolded himself. He had to be quick. He'd didn't want to have to go to the security protocol room and deal with any computers. They were not his forte, as he liked to say. He figured that if he moved fast enough, he could get to Mindflare and Exus in the containment cells, and get out through the emergency tunnel that emptied out into the forest. He'd tried to calculate the time that it would take him to do that, from the car, through the forest, the mansion, the subbasement, the tunnel and back to the car again. He'd overshot a little bit so that he could calculate any unpredicted variables. Even with Exus and Mindflare slowing him down, he could do it in less than seven minutes if he was uninterrupted.

The elevator opened and he turned towards the stockade. He ran, faster than his feet had ever carried him before, using the momentum that he'd stored in his body from before. When he reached the door he slowed down to walk for fear the door would not open in time at the speed he was going. Before he got to the proximity of the automated door, it opened and a young woman, older than him, walked out with tears in her eyes. She was slender, had red hair, and fair skin. She looked up at him with blue eyes of surprise and confusion.

He'd seen her before—somewhere. She looked as if she had seen him somewhere as well, and as if she couldn't quite put her finger on it either.

"Hi. Who are you?" she asked directly.

"I'm Hybrid," he replied with a smile, his slid slyly behind his back, reaching for his staff. He would knock her unconscious at a moment's notice if he needed to. The X-Men knew about him only by a name and a figurehead. They didn't know he actually existed.

"Are you one of the X-Men?" she asked.

"No," he said, surprised at the question. He wished he would've lied and said he was. Then she probably would have just gone on her way. Obviously, she was new to the Xavier Institute. Now, he'd probably have to give her a splitting headache.

"Oh. What are you doing here?"

"I'm an assassin hired to retrieve Mindflare, leader of the Brotherhood and his associate, Exus," there was no point in lying. He was about to hit her in the head hard enough to knock her into next week. She wouldn't remember too much of the conversation anyway. She eyed him down, testing to see if he was serious.

"I…you can't let him out! He's a madman! A murderer!" she protested.

"I don't care. I'm getting paid to do this. Now, get out of my way," he said gripping his staff now, ready to strike.

"I can't let you do this," she said, as if she could do a thing in the world to stop him.

"I'll tell you one more time, move," he commanded aggressively. She stood her ground and gulped, obviously afraid. He didn't have time for mercy anymore. He leapt towards her, unsheathing his staff and swung at her head. To his surprise, she vanished in a shadow wisp.

Bewildered, he was ready to look around when he felt a punch to the back of his head. It wasn't very hard, but still unpleasant. She appeared again in front of him, this time in the form of a shadowy spectre. She moved to strike at him but he was too quick. He jabbed her in the stomach with the staff and again, she vanished on impact. Then he felt icy fingers of death wrap themselves around his head and neck. As if the unusual pain wasn't surprising enough, the fear that suddenly overtook him was overwhelming.

It was an emotion he had not felt for a long time, least of all from another person. He was as deadly as mutants came, confident that he could kill anyone. Now, he was trying to pry shadowy ghost fingers from his face. When he touched her hands, his own were riveted with the same pain his neck and face.

He reached for his staff, slipped it over his shoulder between his body and hers. He had no momentum to build on but he was still strong enough to perform the task. He leaned forward and used the staff to fling her over his shoulder. She flew through the air, a black, gray and deep purple mass of fog. Before she hit the wall she became shapeless for a second, in a wispy poof. When she rematerialized she was standing upright, in the shadows. When he was ready to strike again, two more shadowy clones of the woman suddenly manifested themselves on either side of her.

Neat trick…this could take a little longer than I expected.

The elevator dinged and opened its door to the Abyss. It was everything that Cyclops imagined it to be—dark and endless. The smell was horrendous as well. It was the smell of dead or dying people covered in their own feces and urine. Cyclops looked over the ledge of the Abyss's walkway. It was something he could have hoped to have never seen in his life. There were hundreds of mutants lying on the ground, standing up, leaning against the wall and whatnot. The mutants looked like the pictures of people in the Holocaust. They were all frail, skinny and sickly looking—like they were on the edge of death. An anger and a hatred for mankind like Cyclops had never known began to well up within his being.

"HELP US!" screamed a mutant from below. They must have guessed that they were mutants too. As important as it was that they hurry, Cyclops could not, with a clear conscious, be in the position he was in and do nothing to save these poor souls from this torment.

"DON'T LEAVE US! HELP!" more desperate pleas echoed off of the concrete walls from below.

"We have to do something," Shockwave broke the silence between them, his voice choked up. Cyclops looked at his face. The young man's face reflected what was going on inside of himself at that moment.

"The longer we stay, the less chance we have of getting out," Adam pointed out.

"Would you leave them here?" Cyclops demanded, not lifting his voice or changing his tone.

"No, I would never leave anyone here for this—not even my enemies. I'm only stating facts," he replied.

"So we help them?" Shockwave asked hopefully.

"Yes," Adam agreed.

"We help them," Cyclops confirmed. "They couldn't have just dropped them down there, none of them would've survived the fall."

"Let's ask them," Adam suggested.

"Good thinking. HEY! HOW DID YOU GET DOWN THERE?" Cyclops shouted.

"There's a door that opens down here, they led us in through that!" one replied. Several others echoed the same report.

"Okay, we have to find that door," Adam said.

"I have a better idea," Shockwave offered.

"What's that?"

"Let's tear some of this walkway apart and make stairs for them," he offered.

"Stairs?"

"Not like stairs, but enough rubble for them to climb up to this ledge."

"One problem with that," Adam objected.

"What?"

"They won't all fit into this elevator and it'll take an hour for them to take it to the Hades gate and get out of here to go up in groups. They'll kill each other trying to get in," he raised his eyebrows and made a face that told the terrible truth.

"They can take the stairs," Shockwave threw his hands up.

"What stairs?"

"Those!" he pointed with a flashlight to a staircase to the left of them. The staircase gave an upward, diagonal arrow to show that they went up. The word 'surface' was also posted on the sign.

"Alright, let's get to it," Cyclops said, reaching for his visor.

"I'm telling you now, you don't want to be in my way," Hybrid said, taunting Lindsey. He was quicker and much better trained than her, but in the shadows she had the advantage over him. She hoped that he wouldn't figure out about her limitations and weakness to the light. There, she'd have no way to defend herself. As long as they stayed by the door of the stockade she could manage to keep the upper hand.

He swung his staff at one of the shadow spectres. While he was busy with one she had the other charge him while she made two more. It was a perfect hit and she was wearing him down, blow by blow.

"You're really starting to piss me off!" he said then he moved with such impossible speed, she had no time to react. The staff connected to the side of her head with brute force. Even in her shadow form she was knocked back. He came for another attack at her feet but in anticipation she jumped in the air and lunged herself towards him, once again wrapping her fingers around his neck. In surprise, he dropped the staff and grabbed for her arms in resistance. He wrestled with her and she couldn't keep her hold because he was stronger than her.

She began to flail and punch aimlessly at his face and chest. Each blow made a wispy sound as her shadow energy pummeled him. He returned her onslaught with a punch of his own to her face. She bounced back like a rag doll and lost her balance for his opportune moment. All she saw was a whirl of black and a boot; all she felt was her jaw being kicked. She slammed against the wall and then he tripped her to the ground. She was laying face up and on her back. He looked like a giant now, towering over her ominously. Involuntarily, she'd been knocked out of her shadow form. She felt him grab her by her hair and yank her violently to her feet.

Before he could strike her she turned into her shadow form and brought her foot up behind her and into his groin. She spun and gave him a backhand to the cheek. Without relenting she struck again and again pushing him back against the wall. At the moment he seemed to be able to retaliate, she summoned one shadow spectre after another to hit him and hard. She couldn't believe how many she was controlling simultaneously. There were eight of them striking him with full force.

All of this was much more than she had ever thought herself capable.

BOOM!

The noise and the light were beyond pain. It put her in a daze that she didn't think she'd ever recover from. He had to have ignited some kind of grenade. All of her spectres were instantly eliminated and she could no longer go into her shadow form. She felt and uppercut to the chin and she hit the ground unconscious.

Shockwave watched as the prisoners still clinging to life climbed up the massive mountain of concrete rubble to get to their freedom. There were still hundreds alive, scrambling to the stairs for their chance to breath fresh air again.

Is this how Moses felt when he freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt?

His first mission had not been at all what he'd expected it to. Everything seemed to be going wrong and all kinds of variables that they'd never thought to include into the equation were popping up all over the place. There was a new feeling there for him now—he liked it. He liked the action, he liked the combat and he liked doing what was right. Watching as the last of them scrambled to freedom, he, Cyclops and Adam made their way to another set of stairs. This set of stair would take them into Tartaros—the deepest level of Hell.

He remembered in the Bible that God had reserved that part of Hell for fallen angels damned and locked away for eternity. What kind of sick people would design a prison for someone based on the torments of Hell? A thousand thoughts scrambled past his head as he took the stair two at a time going further than the Pit, further than the Abyss. He was ready to strike at any MCA death dealer who crossed his pass. He couldn't find it in himself to show any mercy to them. What they had done was so unforgivable.

He'd wondered if he was cut out to be an X-Man. He'd haphazardly made the cut by sticking a uniform on and blasting one guy who wasn't looking. He'd had the least training of anyone on the entire team. He was so nervous when he was picked for this mission but now—he was glad. He hoped he got to go on many more missions to preserve and rescue mutantkind. No longer would he be satisfied on the sidelines.

God, put my life in Your hands. Use me like a hammer of judgment to strike down those who would commit such horrible crimes. Use the strength you've given me as a bowl of wrath for the wicked to drink.