I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.- Revelation 22:13
INTERLUDE
He was eternal.
However, it galled to know that he lived only because his enemy had miscalculated. The man called Cable had attempted the same maneuver twice, little realizing that the intelligence of En Sabah Nur had anticipated such a move from the moment the band of mutant pests had entered his golden room.
He was indestructible.
For all the technology at Cable's disposal, the soldier had been no more successful than the Babylonians with their swords and firesticks. No more successful than the primitive inhabitants of Te Pito O Te Henua with their obsidian spears. No more successful than any of the
thousands who had sought to destroy him, the Eternal and Everlasting.
Miserable creatures, all of them. Why they continued to believe that they could defeat him was a mystery.
Still, his victory was not so absolute as he might have desired. His golden room lay in smoldering, dust-shrouded ruins, its regenerative technology crushed beyond repair - and that loss, he knew, would cost him dearly in the battles to come. As much as he burned to lash out at his enemies and conquer the world that was rightfully his, he could no longer afford to throw his power about with such unguarded profligacy. Now was the time for restraint, careful planning, and conservation of resources. And, most assuredly, revenge.
Standing atop the cliffs that had once overlooked his tomb, he reached out with his mind for his servant and found him several stadia away, running scared from shadowed, unseen figures. He knew what had happened to his servant: the boy-thief's attack and subsequent sleight-of-hand. An ingenius ploy, to be sure, and one that rendered his servant useless, for a man marked for death held no value.
That only made his next actions easier.
Apocalypse severed his telepathic connection with Mesmero, abandoning the fool to the fate he had earned, and went in search of someone more... helpful.
END INTERLUDE