"Gemini!"

"Cassie! Are you guys OK?"

Gemini hurried towards her best friend.

"Wait a minute!" Pyro shouted in alarm. "She might be an illusion! How do we know if she's real?"

"She's real," said Logan. "That Russian bastard can't fake up a scent that will fool me."

"He's Czech, not Russian," Scott corrected.

"Big difference."

Cassandra and Gemini hugged each other tightly, sharing their relief that they were both safe. Pyro couldn't help but smile as he saw them. He remembered when he'd first recruited Cassandra from the orphanage where she'd spent her childhood. He remembered how unsettled and unhappy Gemini had become at being the only girl on an island increasingly full of males. He remembered deciding that, no matter what, his next recruit had to be a girl, a friend for the duplicating child who would become his teenage daughter. And so he had sought out Cassandra. The two girls had become friends at first sight, and their years living together had only brought them closer. He thought: it must be good to have such a close friend…I wouldn't know…

Gary approached the larger group, feeling a little apprehensive. He still wasn't quite comfortable with the X-Men. They'd been his teachers once, then his enemies. He'd fought against them with every last drop of passion and anger in his soul, along with the burning, undying hatred he'd felt for humanity. Now that they were his teachers and nominally his guardians once more, it wasn't easy to come to terms with. Annie or Marina were normally around to act as a sort of bridge between him and Xavier's people, but neither of them was present right now. His only real friend here was Gemini. Pyro seemed to have lost all faith and interest, if any, he'd once had in Gladiator.

"Are you all right?" Shock asked him.

"Fine," he said brusquely. "Where's my mum and dad?"

Everyone glanced around. Neil and Chloe were not present.

"That's weird, I thought they were right here," said Rogue.

"They were," said Logan.

"Where'd they go?" asked Gemini.

Scott looked at Gary, "You have Annie's telepathy now, right? Can you sense them?"

"No. The constantium – "

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Logan said impatiently. "It stops you from being even remotely useful."

"Does that makes us equals then?" Gary snapped. "At least temporarily."

"So where's Neil?" Shock interrupted them. "Do you think he got caught in an illusion and went off someplace else?"

"What about Chloe?" someone asked.

"They must be here somewhere," said Scott. "Look. I don't think we have time to worry about them. I think we have to concentrate on finding Davor. The longer he's free to cast illusions, the more danger we'll be in."

Cassandra spoke up, "Any word from Dominic? Do we know how to stop the submarine?"

The X-Men looked at her blankly, "Submarine?"

"You haven't told them?" the foreseer exclaimed to Gemini.

Gemini gasped, "I forgot! With everything that's going on my mind, I like totally forgot!"

"What haven't you told us?" Scott demanded.

Gary was the one who answered, "Davor built a submarine, made of constantium, and he's launched it towards Europe. It's equipped with a drill that will bore its way through the foundations of an entire continent!"

"The resulting seismic shift will kill millions!" Cassandra cried. "And it won't stop there – it'll hit Asia, and then North America! We have less than an hour before it hits Britain!"

"So how the hell do we stop it?" Logan snapped.

"Aqua is working on it! She's trying to hack into the computers to find any information on the sub!"

"How long will that take? Is she any good?"

Shapeshifter bit his lip, "She's good…but I don't think she's good enough. I don't know if anybody could do it in this short space of time."

Recyclo's fingers flashed across the computer keyboard at seemingly impossible speed, his dull grey eyes fixed intently on the screen in front of him. He was typing entirely by touch, without even looking at the keys.

"You realise I have a thousand and one questions to ask you," his brother's voice came from over his shoulder. "But that can wait. Can you get into his files?"

"I already did."

Dominic pulled up a seat to read what his twin had found. He glanced over to the corner, where Marina was still trapped in the illusion of her parents. Should I pull her out now? Surely the longer she's in the illusion, the more it will hurt when it ends? Or should I leave her? Perhaps she'll figure it out for herself, that it can't possibly be real. That way it will hurt less than if I forcibly pull her out. What do I do? I wish Annie were here. She would know what to do. She's always been the one who understands Marina's condition.

He forced himself to turn his mind to other things. He faced the computer screen.

"What do we have?" he asked his brother.

"It talks about something called constantium," Recyclo answered. "Do you know what that is?"

"Yes."

"Anything else?"

"I'm not sure…do you know of a ship called the Survival?"

Dominic thought for a minute, "Yeah, I do. That's the name of Davor's submarine! We saw that name on the plans Annie photographed!"

"There are several files here about it."

"Listen, Recyclo, the submarine is about to drill its way through the foundations of half the countries in the northern hemisphere! Don't ask me to explain right now; we don't have time! Does it say how to stop the submarine, how to switch it off?"

"Give me a moment. In the meantime, you can read the files about constantium. Go to the printer, over there."

He hit a sequence of keys and the printer began spitting out pages, the contents of the files. Dominic hurried over to grab them. While Recyclo searched through the files detailing the specifics of the submarine, Helios began to scan the print-out, trying to find something new about constantium, that might explain the lengths to which Davor was going.

Gary knew he couldn't go on any further. The constantium's nullifying power over his telepathy was interfering with all of his mental processes and destroying his concentration. He was weaving uncertainly, walking into people and walls, losing his footing, and was in danger of blacking out.

"You should wait here," Cassandra told him.

"He isn't coming with us?" Gemini said in dismay. "But we need him! He's, like, the most powerful mutant in the world!"

Logan snorted. Gary sighed, "Cassie's right. I can't go on. I'll have to stay here and wait for you."

He was angry and frustrated at not being able to go on with the rest. He was the strongest, he was the one who had destroyed the Apocalypse, he should be the one who went on and defeated Davor. Remaining here felt like giving up. Remaining here and passing the job on to those weaker than himself, felt like cowardice.

It's common sense, not cowardice, the part of Annie that was inside him said

They'd met Atlas a few minutes ago, and Gary turned to him, "Where's my sister? I'll join up with her."

So Atlas told him. Gary bit his lip and fought to keep his frustration bottled while the others went on without him. If he had never absorbed Annie's powers, this wouldn't be happening! He wouldn't have any telepathic abilities and he wouldn't be susceptible to constantium's blocking effects. He would be able to go on with the others and help protect Cassie and Gemini. He didn't care about the X-Men. They could take care of themselves. They always seemed to think they knew better, so it was time to prove it.

He headed in the direction Atlas had indicated. He hoped he'd find Annie soon. His sister was one of the few people he was really comfortable with. Maybe it was because of the blending they had done – were still doing – but he found he didn't like being separated from Annie. Perhaps because, after all, there was a part of him inside her now.

The sign on one of the doors caught his eye as he passed. Intrigued, Gary tried the door. It was locked, but didn't stand up to his fists for very long. He stepped inside and looked around.

"He's in here," Logan said, as he sniffed the air in the corridor.

He was indicating a door on the right.

"Where does it go?" Scott asked.

Gemini answered, "It opens the way to the constantium research lab where I met my – um, never mind."

"So he must be heading for the constantium," said Iceman.

"Is there any other way out of there?" Logan said.

Cassandra shook her head, "No. We explored in here earlier. This is the only way in. The door will be sealed. To open it you'll need to use this card – "

But Logan had already slashed the door open with his claws. Ducking through the resulting hole, he led the way inside. Scott looked at Rogue and Shapeshifter, "You guys stay here and guard this exit. You kids stay with them."

"We're not kids!" Gemini protested. "Dad, tell him – !"

"He's right, honey," Pyro told her. "Stay here."

She folded her arms impatiently, "All right, fine. Call me if you need help!"

Vertigo was still struggling with the bullet wound in his shoulder. Atlas, whose knowledge of herbs and plants gave him limited skill as a medic, was applying a herbal remedy to the injury. Gemini watched unhappily as Pyro hurried after the remaining X-Men into the heart of the laboratory complex. She didn't want to be apart from Dad, but he'd given her an order. Would she be safe without him? Would he be safe? Could he trust the X-Men not to stab him in the back when he wasn't expecting it? Yes. Of course he could. The X-Men weren't as bad as she'd once thought. Cyclops had pulled her out of the nightmare illusion, hadn't he? He wouldn't have done that if he didn't care for her. She'd hated him once, but she knew she could never hate him again.

Logan, Scott, Bobby, Fliss and Pyro hurried through the laboratories, following the scent of Davor. Logan could tell the illusionist had been here, just minutes ago, which meant they had to be catching up. None of them exactly knew how they would confront him when they found him, but they weren't worrying about that right now. Time was of the essence. If what the kids had said about the submarine was true, then they had less than half an hour before the lives of millions could be ended by the actions of the undersea drill. The drill itself wouldn't do that much damage, but then, it wouldn't need to. Only a tiny imbalance in the undersea foundations of the land above would be required to cause a catastrophic seismic shift that could change the face of the planet forever.

"Over here!" Logan announced, pointing to a door on the left.

The door was labelled CONSTANTIUM RESEARCH LAB. HIGH SECURITY. AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY. Logan snarled angrily as his claws shot out, and he cut a huge gouge into the surface of the door.

At least, that had been his intention. To his disbelief, and to the dismay of everyone present, his claws made no impact on the door, not even scratching the surface.

"Shit!" he swore.

"The door itself must be made of constantium!" Iceman exclaimed.

Pyro stepped forward, holding the security card his daughter had given him. He swiped it through the lock, but nothing happened. Trying again, he once more met with failure.

"Dammit, Davor must have reset the security codes!"

Scott pushed him aside, "All right, stand back!"

Raising one hand to his visor, he fired an optic blast at the door. It had no effect. Felicity's arm lifted, and a jagged fork of lightning crackled through the air. Bobby hit it with a jet of ice, and Pyro hurled a fireball towards it, but the door remained untouched, as if they hadn't even attacked it.

"Shit, we can't get in!" Logan snapped. "Anyone got any bright ideas?"

"To hell with it," said Scott.

Pulling his visor away from his eyes, he opened them and unleashed the full force of his devastating optic power. The others watched as the ruby beams burned into the door's surface, each of the mutants willing with every fibre of their being that the door would collapse and shatter into a million pieces.

It wasn't working. When Scott finally closed his eyes and replaced the visor, they could see that the constantium surface was still untouched.

"Any more bright ideas?"

"The surrounding walls," said Pyro. "The door itself might be constantium, but I'll bet the walls aren't. We can find another way in."

But the walls surrounding the constantium lab proved to be just as impenetrable as the door. Try as they might, none of the five mutants could make a single impression.

"There must be another way to get in there!" Shock said in desperation.

"There isn't," Logan snapped. "That Cassandra kid told us, remember."

"Aqua's using the computers," said Pyro. "Get her to find a map of the facility and see if there's another entry."

Scott agreed, and reached for his communicator. Just as his hand touched it, it began vibrating – there was another call coming. He answered quickly, "Who is it?"

"It's Dominic! Listen, forget about Davor! He doesn't matter for the moment! The submarine is the real threat! We have to stop the submarine!"

"How?"

"It's going to hit Ireland in thirty minutes if we don't do something! We think we know how to stop it, but we have to get out there now!"

"In thirty minutes?" said Logan.

"Shit!" Scott swore. "All right, forget about Davor! He's locked himself up in there and I think we can safely bet he'll stay there! We have to move! Come on!"

Marina gasped as the illusion suddenly vanished, and she was thrown abruptly back into the harsh cruelty of the real world.

"M – Mom? D – Dad?" she cried.

"Marina!" came a man's voice, as he put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

Her eyes focused on him, and she begged, "Where's my Mom and Dad?"

"Marina!" Scott ordered. "Snap out of it! It isn't real! We need you to focus!"

She felt tears creeping into the corners of her eyes, "They're dead, aren't they?"

"Look, I'm sorry, we don't have time for that! You have to come with us!"

"No-o-o…" she sobbed. "Mom! Dad!"

"She's lost it," Logan said impatiently. "We need another plan."

"We don't have another plan," said Helios. "We need Marina. She's the only one who can do it!"

"Come on, honey," Fliss said gently, taking Marina by the arm and leading her to the exit.

The shellshocked, tear-sodden girl blindly followed her. The normally atheist Scott closed his eyes for a moment. It was time to pray. Marina was the only one who could stop the submarine, and Davor's illusion had put her on the very edge of an emotional collapse. If God felt like giving them some divine inspiration any time soon, well, that would be very welcome. They hurried from the computer room to where they had parked the jet.

Davor Rosiçky watched the security monitors until the jet had left, heading north-east at a speed that could not possibly be safe. Idly he wondered if they would lose power and crash into the Atlantic Ocean. That would be ideal. Not that he had ever really viewed them as a serious threat…but it was always gratifying to see an opponent fall short in the pursuit of their objective. Putting Xavier's pathetic proteges out of his mind, he turned his attention to other things. Anger rose in him as he tried to pinpoint exactly when things had started to go wrong.

Well, that was obvious. The day he had met Charles Xavier. The only man who had never been fooled by Davor's illusions. Xavier's penetrating mind had seen inside him, and had seen things that Davor had always tried to hide. His obsessive thirst for success, that overtook every other desire in his body. His impatience with those who didn't believe in his work, and who refused to help him. His insistence on doing everything as quickly as possible, regardless of how many rules and principles had to broken along the way.

Well, is that important? Davor thought to himself, my work is the most important thing that has ever existed. That is undeniable. Xavier was a fool. He knew my ideas were sound, but he disliked my methods. He seemed to think that we should allow other people to take precedence over ourselves. A noble philosophy, perhaps, but hardly appropriate in my case. He never realised that the methods don't matter, as long as the goals are achieved! Does it really matter how you get somewhere, as long as you get there? And we have so little time! How are we expected to reach greatness in the span of a single human lifetime? It is not possible.

But for me, that will not be a problem. For me, and for those few who have chosen to believe in me, time will no longer be an issue. Xavier is dead, and he died having achieved nothing. His idea of a school for mutants was laudable, certainly, but surely he must have seen its worthlessness! Where are his students now? I can destroy them all in a single swoop! Everything he worked for could be wiped out in a second! Xavier was born with awesome power yet he never used it! The man was a fool of the highest order. To think that such an amazing gift should be bestowed on him by a simple accident of birth. What did he do to deserve his power? Nothing.

I, on the other hand, have worked for years to reach the position I am in now. I did not always possess this mutant power. When I met Stryker and discovered his son's ability, I knew it was the key to my goals. Stryker's wife may have died, and his son may have become a vegetable, but what of it? I gained the power I needed. My need was greater than theirs. Of course, Xavier had worked with Stryker's son in the past, and word of my actions must have reached him. He became suspicious of me. When Anna became pregnant, Xavier must have guessed my intentions for the child. But he was not fast enough to stop me. My wife may have died giving birth to the creature, but her sacrifice was acceptable. The child was needed for my experiment. How ironic that the child should survive and become another of Xavier's students. And how ironic that he should be my method of finally deceiving Charles into believing me to be dead.

But that was when things started to go wrong. Stryker finally lost his mind over what happened to his son, and he lashed out his anger at the mutants. I had plans for Lehnsherr. If only Stryker's rashness hadn't resulted in Lehnsherr's escape. But there was nothing I could do at that time. I watched with amusement as they fought their little battles, none of them realising that all they were doing was strengthening my own position. It was unfortunate Dr Grey was killed…I had plans for her too.

Unfortunate also that so much of my work is dependent on the involuntary participation of young children. They think me a monster who preys on infants. That is not the case. It is simply that experiments involving the human or mutant body must safely be tested on an infant before it is safe for use on an adult. I can understand why people disapprove of my using children in this way, but they do not understand the importance of my work. If a small number of lives have to be sacrificed, what is that to me? The duplicating child made a perfect experimental subject. The right age, the right size, and with nobody to ask awkward questions about her disappearance. As for my other exploits with her…well, it was necessary. I require a certain amount of sexual satisfaction for my mind to function at an optimum level.

And that was when I almost lost everything I had ever worked for. Somehow Lehnsherr found out about the child. Allerdyce took me by surprise and destroyed the laboratory where she was kept. The fool! If only he knew what wonders of science he almost consigned to oblivion for all eternity! And all for one insignificant child! Why do people place so much value on others' lives? I simply don't understand! If we can use animals in experiments, why cannot we also use people? My work is vital to human prosperity, certainly more important than the lives of a small number of unwanted children! Why can nobody else see as clearly as I can? Why are they all blinded by their own stupidity? Why are they all deluded, naïve fools like Xavier? Why can they not see?

He crossed the laboratory to a sealed compartment, and pressed his fingerprint against a small pad beside it. Recognising his scan, the electronic lock opened and the compartment slid open. Davor lifted out what was inside.

Ah well. They will see soon enough…

"I have it on radar!" Chris shouted, startling everybody else in the jet. "I have the submarine on radar!"

"How far?" Scott asked curtly.

"It'll take us three more minutes to catch up with it."

"How long until it hits Ireland?"

"Ten minutes."

"Shit, this is gonna be close," Logan muttered.

Gemini clamoured for attention, "I don't get it! Tell me again what the plan is!"

Pyro said, "We think Aqua can alter the water pressure around the submarine to destroy it. If not, she should at least be able to divert its course."

"Fliss, get Marina ready," Scott told her.

Shock hurried to the back of the compartment where her adopted daughter sat, hugging her legs close to her, her eyes staring unseeing at the wall in front of her. She didn't respond when Fliss approached, and she flinched when she felt her foster mother's arm put around her shoulders.

"Marina honey," Fliss said gently. "I know you're hurting, but you have to be strong. You have to forget about it, just for a little while, and help us stop the submarine. Marina? Can you do that for us?"

Marina said, "I want my mom and dad."

"Marina…"

"Where are they? Why aren't they here? Where did they go? They were here a minute ago…"

"Honey, they're gone."

"Where have they gone?"

Fliss hated herself for saying it, "Marina, they're dead. You know that. What just happened wasn't real. It was an illusion designed to distract you."

"No…they can't be dead…I saw them…I held them…they told me they loved me…"

"Honey – "

Marina squirmed away, and curled into a ball, hiding her face and sobbing. Fliss' heart sank to the floor. This was exactly how Marina had been when they'd first adopted her. She'd been doing so well…she'd recovered so much…she'd been on the road to mental stability…and now she had lost that, perhaps forever.

"We're almost on top of the submarine!" came Chris' voice. "Is Marina ready?"

Fliss lightly touched her daughter's shoulder, but Marina only drew herself in more tightly, and pushed everything else out.

"Now! We can't lose any more time!" Scott yelled. "Marina? Go!"

"Honey!" Fliss urged, gently shaking her. "We need you to stop the submarine! You're the only one who can do it!"

But Marina didn't even respond. She was as she had been before, a shell that held a person deep inside, but a person who never came out of the shell, and who couldn't be reached from outside.

"What's the hold-up?" Logan demanded. "Marina! Get down there! People are going to die!"

"There's no use yelling at her, she can't hear you!" Fliss snapped. "This is Davor's doing! He's destroyed her mind and sent her back into her trauma! She can't do anything to help us!"

"So what do we do?"

"I don't know! Scott? Pyro?"

Before either of them could respond, Chris yelled, "Shit! Brace for impact!"

Instinctively each of them tried to grab hold of something. Seconds later the jet was struck by a hammer blow, and they were thrown across its interior, colliding painfully with the opposite wall.

"What was that?" Gemini screamed. "Dad, what happened?"

Chris scrambled back into his seat in front of the communications panel, "We have incoming! Fighter planes!"

"What?"

"Hold on!"

The jet was hit by another strike, but they were prepared this time, and managed to keep their footing.

"Damage report!" Scott yelled.

Iceman was scanning one of the consoles, "We're still intact, but the engines are losing power!"

"Who's attacking us? Is it Davor?"

Chris shook his head, "It's the RAF!"

"The what?" said Gemini.

"The British air force! The humans must have detected the submarine as well! They must think it's ours!"

"Maybe they know how to destroy it!" said Atlas.

"We're losing power!" Iceman announced. "We're dropping!"

Scott swore, "We're gonna hit the water hard! Assume crash positions!"

But before any of them could do so, the jet was struck by the fighters once more. This time there was an explosion in the rear section, and a gaping hole was suddenly torn out of the fuselage. Fliss screamed as she and Marina were flung from their seats towards the breach.

"No!" Chris yelled as the two of them disappeared through the opening.

"Hold on!" Scott commanded over the sound of the wind roaring through the hole.

Pyro grabbed Gemini to prevent her from going the same way. She clutched him in terror and shouted something, but he couldn't make it out over the noise. Wrestling with the increasingly unresponsive controls, Scott finally managed to bring the jet out of its nosedive and on to a more even trajectory. Nevertheless the impact when they hit the ocean was not small, and they were thrown about once more. Buffeted and bruised, each of them looked over fearfully at the breach. Mercifully, it was on the top of the fuselage, not the bottom, and as such they were not taking on water.

"Fliss! Marina!" Chris yelled as he hurried over towards the opening.

"Where are those fighter planes?" Scott demanded.

Pyro found himself next to the abandoned communications console, "They're circling round to hit us again."

"Bobby, do what you can!"

Iceman nodded, and flung open the emergency hatch above his head. Climbing out on to the top of the jet, he turned to face the oncoming British aircraft. The two RAF fighters showed no signs of mercy towards their fallen prey. It was quite disconcerting to think the humans had just shot them down without provocation, but in the current crazy situation, who could be blamed for acting without thinking? The fighters each launched another missile, and wheeled away to begin another pass. Bobby waited until the two missiles were in range, and a quick blast of ice froze both of them in mid-air. They fell harmlessly into the ocean. He'd bought himself a few minutes until the fighters came round again.

Inside, Scott was desperately trying to get the jet moving again. The engines were offline and the breach in the fuselage would seriously impair their movement. Chris was peering frantically through one of the view-ports, trying to see what had become of Fliss and Marina. There was no sign of either of them.

"No!" he howled.

"Can we communicate with the fighters?" Rogue was saying. "We have to tell we're not the threat, the submarine is! How long till it's in position to start drilling?"

"Five minutes, maybe less," said Pyro. "And talking to the humans won't do any good! They won't listen!"

"We have to try something!"

"Well, good luck. The power's down!"

"We need a miracle," said Logan.

Marina's mind had suddenly snapped back into focus the moment she had hit the water. She had no idea how she'd got there. Her last cogent memory was of seeing her parents in the computer room. That hadn't been real. Of course it hadn't been real! It had been Davor taking advantage of her condition to cast an illusion! Since then she had been living in the dream he'd implanted in her mind. But now that she was in the water, her mental processes suddenly began to function with clarity, and her nervousness and trauma were pushed aside. She was back in her own environment now. She was at ease here.

She needed to get an idea of the situation. Kicking her legs, she swam upwards until her head broke the surface. She shook the water from her face and looked around. Taking in the situation in an instant, she saw Iceman freezing two missiles that had been aimed at the fallen jet. Two fighters were circling around. And not far away, she could see Shock, desperately clinging on to a piece of wreckage and trying to swim towards the jet. Marina swam over to help her.

"Fliss!" she cried. "It's all right, take hold of me!"

"Marina! Honey, are you all right?"

"I'm fine! Don't worry, my mind's OK as long as I'm in the water! Take my arm and I'll swim you across!"

"No! Forget about me! The submarine is about to hit Ireland! Get down there and stop it! I'll make my own way!"

"Fliss…"

"Marina, go! Now!"

Without hesitating, Marina obeyed. Ducking beneath the surface, she streaked down through the ice-cold water, swimming as fast as she could, until ahead of her she could see it. The submarine, nothing more than a dark, menacing shape in the murky depths, moved rapidly and unerringly through the water. Marina swam with frantic speed to try and catch up with it. Could she destroy it by increasing the water pressure around its hull? Or would the constantium stand up to that?

She was level with the sub now, and with an extra burst of speed she managed to pull ahead. She looked back now at the terrifying sight of the constantium drill on the submarine's nose, turning with unfeasible rapidity through the water, threatening to cut through anything and everything in its path. Marina knew she had to stop it. She couldn't let it kill any more innocent people. She had to divert it away from Britain, and then find a way to destroy it for good. Marina took a deep breath, and prepared herself. The submarine silently knifed through the water directly towards her. Focusing her power on its starboard side, she manipulated the water pressure to push it off course. At first there was no visible sign of success, but then she could clearly see that the sub was veering off to port. It was working!

But it was still heading towards the Irish coast. On its present course it would veer past Scotland altogether, and head for the North Pole. If the stability of the magnetic pole was disrupted, the Earth's entire surface could be devastated. If Marina couldn't divert the sub any further, then she had just made things even worse. She feared for her friends up above. Were they safe? Were the fighters still attacking? Had they managed to get the jet back in the air? As much as it hurt to do so, Marina forced herself to forget about her friends. She needed every last fibre of her concentration to focus on the problem at hand. If the sub couldn't be stopped, it didn't matter if her friends managed to fend off the fighter planes.

She pushed the submarine to port with every last vestige of her water power. There! It was done! The submarine had now turned full circle and was pointing west. That was still bad – it was now heading toward America – but at least they now had time to find a way to destroy it. Marina kicked her legs as she swam after the submarine, keeping pace with it, ready to use her power to try and disable it. Theoretically, if she increased the water pressure around it, it would eventually buckle and collapse. She knew constantium was strong, but surely it wasn't strong enough to defy the powers of gravity itself.

Davor Rosiçky checked that he had everything he needed before making his bid for freedom. Using the submarine to lure Xavier's fools away had worked. It had always been intended as a last ace up his sleeve, and it had proved effective. Now the coast was clear to disappear. When the explosives hidden deep within the facility went off, there would be no evidence left of anything he had done. The constantium would survive…but all of the purest samples were being taken with him. He would then be free to restart his research at a secret location. He would probably have to cut all contact with the rest of the Twelve – it would be too risky to maintain close ties – but they didn't matter. They had served their purpose, just like everybody else. Davor had never really intended to share the results of his work with them.

And when they are long dead, and I live on, I shall look back and laugh. The strongest beings on this Earth have tried to stand in my way, and not one of them has succeeded. Perhaps they will realise that it is not having strength which counts, it is having the guile to use one's strength to best effect. I think Xavier is the only other man who truly appreciated that fact, and that was what made him dangerous to me. But he is gone now, he is dead, as they will all be. No matter how many years it takes, and I will outlive them, and my genius shall continue unto eternity.

The secret of eternal life had been his single-minded obsession since he was twenty years old. He knew it had to be possible to slow down or even stop the mechanism by which the human body aged. After all, the human body is only a machine. An organic, highly advanced, self-repairing and self-replicating machine, but a machine nonetheless. Its mode of operation can be manipulated. Switching off the ageing process wasn't quite as simple as flicking a button, but the underlying principle was the same.

His first foray into achieving immortality had been through the use of mutant powers. Mutations were evidence that the human body had many different abilities, most of which lay dormant in the majority of people. If there was some kind of 'switch' that controlled ageing, then surely a mutation could be a way to trigger it. He'd experimented with implanting mutations artificially into children. If he could force a child's body to change the way it functioned through the introduction of mutations, then all he had to was find the mutation which would control ageing. He thought he'd found it, but instead his discovery turned out merely to provide a restorative ability, a 'healing power'.

He tried again, with other subjects, but it didn't take him any further. Perhaps mutation was a dead end as far as his research was concerned. Perhaps he had to look at things from a different angle. Perhaps there was another way by which the human body could be altered. Of course there was, and it was incredibly obvious when it finally occurred to him: radiation. Radiation had the power to modify a substance on a sub-atomic level, changing molecules into other molecules. Could this power be harnessed to change the human body and stop the ageing process? It had taken years of secretive research, hiding from those who believed him dead, but he finally was in a position to test his theory in an experiment.

He called them the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Four genetically created beings with mutant powers, ostensibly engineered as mutant warriors for anti-terrorist use. But Davor had other ideas. Choosing two of the four creatures, he subjected them to a dose of radiation designed to alter their bodies in the way he wanted. It was a risky process. Well, all experiments were, but this one even more so. There were still a lot of unknowns. It was entirely possible that it wouldn't work at all, and the creatures would simply die.

But the procedure turned out to be a total success. Two of the Horsemen were changed into immortal beings. One of them remained radioactive and forever untouchable, but that did not concern Davor. He didn't intend the Horsemen ever to live any kind of normal lives. He'd been ready to exterminate those two, and try to repeat the procedure on the others. However, things had become complicated. A group of mutants had attacked the laboratory where the Horsemen and the experimental equipment were kept. The laboratory had been destroyed, and Davor's research had been thrown back to square one.

Well, not exactly square one. He had already begun look into a third possible method of conquering the ageing process. He had got the idea from reading over some of William Stryker's reports on the experiments carried out on the mutant known as Wolverine. The mutant had had adamantium grafted to his bones, and a natural healing ability added to his body's defences. But those details were not what concerned Davor. What really interested him was the fact that the mutant's ageing appeared to have slowed. Was it something to do with the healing power? That seemed unlikely. The healing power Davor had implanted into his own son did not appear to have had any effects on his ageing.

Or was it because of the adamantium? Was that somehow affecting the rate at which Wolverine's body aged? Was it because the adamantium was permanently present inside his body, that he grew older at a much slower rate than those around him? Davor had no idea how many years the mutant had been alive for. Stryker's notes didn't say. But he guessed it was many more than the mutant's appearance would suggest.

So he hypothesised that adamantium somehow had the ability to slow down ageing. That was good, but it wasn't good enough. Davor wanted to go one step further, and stop the ageing process altogether. Was there a way to do that? Was there a way to create a material like adamantium, only one that would have even greater power over the ageing process?

Yes.

There was.

He called it constantium.

And now he was ready to implant it into his own body, and live forever.