Worldwide, it was the same deal for other mutants. And even those people just presumed were mutants.
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In New York City...
Peter Parker was running through the alleys, dodging blue laser bolts with what little agility he had left after waking up two days ago to find himself without the powers he'd had since... well... since that trip to the Museum with the super-spider exhibit.
Cursing his bad luck, he dodged out of the way behind a dumpster and saw his exit.
When the machine-soldiers piled into the alley, their sensors gave no indication of the mutant (or so they presumed him to be) Spider-Man. He'd vanished off their 360 degree scope. Mostly because he'd dropped down into the sewer, and was now trudging his way along quietly in search of a manhole back near Empire State U.
"Damnit... gonna be late for my study-date with MJ...," he said as he trudged along in the ankle deep sludge, cursing, once again, the fate that seemed determined to make his life miserable. I've given up the costume. What more do I have to do to end this?
With great power comes great responsibility.
"Then why does the lack of great power still bring great responsibility?"
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In Florida...
Mr. and Mrs. Masters sat by the phone, worried. The police had just left, but it had been a whole day now that Alex has been missing.. and they'd only just arrived back from their trip. They'd cut it early since they hadn't gotten a response from their adopted son, and rushed home, only to find the entire place a mess, like it'd been ransacked. But nothing was missing... just Alex. Something very, very bad had happened to their mutant son.
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In a hidden facility, somewhere in Europe...
"How irritating this all is," stated Viper, glancing over her shoulder at her most loyal of grunts, the now pale skinned Gauntlet. "What of Omega Red? How is his condition."
"Still on ice," replied Gauntlet, his red, cybernetic eye glinting. "We're keeping him that way until we know what is wrong. If not, and we wake up without his mutation, the carbondanium attached to his body could very well kill him. He'd be worthless to us then."
"Indeed he would. But so will X23 is she continues to run free. The adamantium in her claws will be killing too."
"We've tried sending out agents, Madame Hydra, but she's eluding us so far."
"Then we need proper bait," she replied, running through the computers database. A profile came up, and a smirk graced her green, poisoned lips. "And he will be perfect."
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Elsewhere in New York City...
Warren Worthington watched the security cameras as the machine-soldiers overpowered his security guards with their strange, advanced weaponry. They'd already gotten past the lobby and were in the elevator heading up. Grumbling to himself he slid his more vital documents into his briefcase and headed up to the roof. Normally he'd just fly away on his wings, he wasn't called Angel by some for nothing after all, but after nearly killing himself with his early morning flight on Friday (during which he was very grateful his home was on the forty-fifth floor, and the forty-sixth had a ledge) he'd decided on alternate methods.
Professor X had already warned him he could be in danger, so when the machines came he'd been prepared. Dropping his briefcase he grabbed some metal bars and a piece of canvas from where it had been cleverly hidden on the side of the building with duct tape. He set to work, putting it together, when the robots smashed through the door and took aim at him with the weapons.
"Sorry gentlemen, gotta flight to catch," he said as he leaned into the glider handle, his briefcase in one hand, and leapt off the building, gliding gracefully away as the machines took a few shots before he vanished behind another skyscraper, out of their reach.
On a nearby rooftop, they were watching him.
"There he is."
"We must meet with him quickly."
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Deep in the Himalayas...
Apocalypse shifted in his eternal slumber, his body crumbling around him as his mind howled in anger. His body was catching up with the hundreds of years it had remained, for all purposes, unaged. True, the process was much slower, but it was only a matter of time before he was nothing more than ash and bones.
Mesmero! Where are you?! What is happening?! He howled with the power of his thoughts. But in his mind, only his own voice echoed back, and he was alone.
The Eye of Ages would assist in keeping him alive for a while, but its power was not eternal. Eventually, unless he was freed and his power restored, he would die, and this accursed prison would be his tomb.
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In Chicago...
Guards, disguised as police officers, searched the crowded metro station for their quarry, but they saw no sign of the woman they were looking for, in any of her usual guises.
She hissed angrily at them, her brown eyes burning with hatred as she drew the veil of her current disguise across her features in case her general face structure caught their attention. Her hair certainly would, if they'd seen any pictures of what her true form was, but that was under a black cowl as she walked among the crowd as an Arabian woman, hidden, only her eyes visible, and her pale skin.
They'd pay for what they'd done to her, she thought, as she slipped unnoticed into the crowd and to safety.
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In San Francisco...
Jubilee's parents continued their frantic search for their runaway daughter, speaking to the local California police, checking the malls, but still they found no sign of their spunky, renegade daughter. She wasn't with her friends (mostly because she had so few, after being exposed as a mutant) or at the mall, her favorite hangout.
They were even beginning to think... maybe she'd run away.
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On Muir Island...
Moira MacTaggert was beside herself with worry over her youngest charge, Wolfsbane. The girl had been out wandering the countryside for weeks now at a time. And though normally Moira allowed her this, since the girl was still coping from leaving so many good friends in Bayville, now was certainly no time for a mutant to be alone.
Not after they'd all lost their powers.
Or at least, most of them had.
There was one, she wasn't sure. Moira couldn't take the time now to check, not without proper security measures. If he still had them, Kevin would be uncommonly dangerous. So for now she focused on her research, but she was as baffled as Hank and the many other scientists working worldwide. No one understood what had happened to mutants.
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In London...
He worked uninterrupted. No mutants knew of him, no humans knew of him. He was an enigma, he was darkness, he was death.
But now he was vulnerable, so he ordered out for food, delivered to random places around the city, and had his minions deliver it to him. But he hungered, his body growing weak as old age started to affect him. His mutation was failing.
"No," he roared, smashing a beaker and shattering its fluid contents all over the table. Growling in pain, he pulled the sharp shards of glass out of his skin, watching in horror as he started to bleed, his healing lost. Grumbling, he got some bandages and swathed them around his wounded hand. "We are the beginning of a new species... I refuse to allow our kind to die out like this."
And Dr. Essex returned to his unholy work.
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Elsewhere in London...
Betsy could sense them, all around her. A sixth sense she'd developed in her ninjitsu training. She needed an exit, and the red ferari parked over there was her ticket out of her. Pity the owner was likely going to use it to head home after school. Smiling a charming smile, Betsy sashayed up to the blonde-haired jock (who, oddly enough, could have been Duncan's twin) and slipped her left hand behind her back.
"Afternoon mate... nice ride... mind if I borrow it?" she asked with a smirk and flip of her purple locks, judo chopping him in the back of the neck and like a sack of potatoes. Quickly she lugged the body behind the gym and liberated his keys from his jacket pocket. She dropped down into her newly acquired red ferari, and slowly eased it out of the school parking lot, and headed off on a long, windy path to try and lose the black van that was trailing behind her.
Grinning, once she was away from the main roads, she slammed on the accelerator and drove like a demon straight out of hell. The van matched her, confirming her thoughts, they were after her.
It wasn't hard to guess why. Since she'd reached the age of 15, three years ago, she'd developed some strange mental powers. Real new age stuff. Telekinesis, telepathy. She'd tried keeping them to herself, but it'd been very hard.
However they were, whatever government she came from, she wasn't interested.
Pity they weren't likely to take no for an answer. And with the red tattoo under her cheek (a flight of fancy that had gripped her one night while intoxicated) plus her purple locks (same reason) she'd be easy to identify no matter where she went. Which meant only one safe place to go: Braddock Manor.
She drove down the roads, navigating the british countryside and just prayed she'd lose them.
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In the Morlock Tunnels...
The attackers hit and hit hard, surprising the placid Morlocks to fleeing in a matter of moments. Despite this, their enemy was using deadly force, and not a few of their number were falling under the shots of troopers or the lasers of those lethal machine-soldiers.
Evan ducked such a blast as Callisto shouted out for a full retreat into the deeper tunnels. Calliban and Lucid kept alongside them, determined to protect them to the death, as the younger Morlocks retreated. In waves.
Suddenly a machine-soldier swept through the sewer smoke and caught sight of Stall, firing on her and knocking her unconscious as one for red spider-drones stepped forward, gathering her up in his tentacles. Evan cursed, starting to go back to save her, but Callisto yanked him back.
"No, we can't do anything for her now! Retreat, now!"
"We can't just leave her!" he argued back at her, as he reluctantly followed her lead and fled into the more narrow sewage tunnels where the machine-soldiers couldn't pursue the Morlocks.
"We won't... trust me, Evan, these outsiders will pay for killing our own and capturing our own... but now isn't the time. We have to get the others out of here," she stated, her one good eye flashing angrily.
"Alright, I'll get the wounded out of here... have Lucid and Façade cause a distraction then circle back to the Alley... they're best at keeping unnoticed."
"I'll lead them myself," she replied, pleased with his strategy. She slapped his shoulder encouragingly (more of a rough, friendly way she'd picked up somewhere in her past) and he returned the gesture, then they headed off their separate ways to do their tasks.
The machine-soldiers and their human counterparts continued to storm into the upper tunnels, alternately blasting Morlocks to bits and capturing others, merciless, efficient, deadly.
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In the Appalachian mountains...
She watched them, her eyes narrowed in concentration. They walked on by, underneath the tree she hid in, and she saw no further sign of them. Flipping down gracefully she checked their tracks, following them back, keeping hidden as she'd been trained all of her life, watching for signs of the robot drones or more soldiers, but she was able to keep an eye on them with little difficulty, remaining hidden all the while.
They had interrupted her mission. These were not Hydra's soldiers, no. They were someone else's. So she would have to place her vendetta on hold for the time being, and deal with this new threat.
Pain followed her every movement, every twist of her joints, every intake of breath. But she'd been in pain since the day she was born, through all of the training.
She ignored it.
She had to focus on her enemy now.
And they were her enemy.
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Authors Notes:
My first reference to another Marvel series. Spider-Man. Specifically, the new version airing late on MTV. Its good, kinda like the first and second season of XME in the whole hiding secret identity thing, the juggling of classwork and super-heroism and, of course, the love-triangles. It had a very, very sad season finale. Also should be noted, in England, in addition to driving on the wrong side of the road, the legal drinking age is eighteen. That's the age I'm making my Evo Psylocke. And of course brief appearances from Sinister (I just can't bring myself to call him 'Mister'), Dr. Moira MacTaggert, and some of the mutant families.
Target X was simply an awesome episode, even if some of the fights were a bit lacking. X23, of course, rules. Omega Red and Gauntlet are also out of the picture for this story, though I am not sure exactly what their powers are. Gauntlet I am not even sure is a mutant (I keep hearing something about aliens?) so I have assumed his physical powers are mutational, and his eye is cybernetic, thus it still functions. Omega Red'll stay on ice (doesn't he just hate that?) until the mutants powers are restored so he stays alive. For the record, carbondanium is a slightly more flexible, slightly (very slightly) softer form of adamantium.
Elisabeth Braddock-Grey: Glad you like it. I'm trying to keep the slaughter down for this story, which is a change for me. I'm almost making this like an Evo episode. *snuggles up with you* Mmmm, did you like Psylocke baby?
Gyuumajor: You're not the only one. But if you think is good, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Todd Fan: Jason didn't do it! Warren ate your grilled cheese sandwhich! He's evil! Don't let those wings fool you! *points to Warren who's busy stuffing his face*
Kurt Wagner: Finally! Someone noticed! No they're not exactly Sentinels, not like the one from Day of Reckoning. But the design is similar, yes? They're smaller sentinels armed with lasers, like the battle droids. And of course go Logan, you don't honestly think he'd be captured, do you? Or Remy for that matter.
Comet-hime: Unfortunately my story, after all the fighting and such, has a big happy ending. Plenty of couples and good friends involved there for sappy final farewells or what have you. 'til then, just be prepared for suspense and action.
*B: My thoughts exactly. And trust me, Wanda is going to be very, very pissed once the illusions fade and her true memories return. Glad you like the action, plenty more where that came from.
Rogue14: Well, logically someone's gotta save them all. More to come as soon as possible.
Emerald Lightning Goddess: I didn't hurt Remy, he escaped! And nobody got killed, at least, they've just been captured for now. Don't worry about 'em.
CrypticIdentity: Well, in Evo and in my story, Sabertooth had no adamantium... not yet at least. I dunno about any of the alternate comic-verses or the old animated series. Glad you like the story, and don't worry, even if Wolvie did fall he's over water, right? Not like what happened in Target X… that was awesome. Thank you sooooooo much for pointing that out. I feel like such a twit for forgetting.