A/N: Hey everyone. We finally move into the last chapter of the story arc. I've decided that next time I want a character forced out the arc and they're not that important, I'm going to make it quicker, more relevant and hopefully more interesting. With that note, let's finish this and move on to better stories.

Vendettakiller19: That is 100% intentional. However, I do not plan to have the Council the exact same way it was in the comics, both in the future and in the present. There will be certain twists, some of which you'll find out this chapter, while others have already been done- Kincaid was never in the comics to my knowledge, only in the X-Men Legends game.

Xavier Institute, Present Day (cont)

With this declaration, the show cut live to a news conference outside of an enormous, heavily fortified building. At the head of the table was a stern-faced man in his early fifties, with brown, close-cropped hair that was going grey around the edges and a moustache. He was dressed in a military uniform with three stars on his shoulder, raising his eyes to the camera as he prepared to address the press and public for whatever was coming next.

"What the heck is the Human High Council?

As if the show tried directly answering his question, Kincaid began to speak.

"When I speak to you tonight, it is to inform you of the ever-present danger that one mutant poses to our nation, to our children, and to the ideals with which our forefathers founded our society, not to mention the rest of the world. To this end, the Human High Council, as of today, has been founded as an international alliance to oppose mutant supremacy. Supremacy is, in this case, an ideal born from distrust and a desire for change. Whereas before mutants fought for the same rights we possess, Magneto has undermined the relatively stable relationship between humans and mutants through his radicalisation of the population."

Relatively stable relationship between humans and mutants? Wolverine mentally scoffed. Even after our work, I don't think that's how it's ever been. Way to try and avoid sounding like a bigot on live television.

"An international alliance, the Council has officially granted General Kincaid the position of Acting Director, empowering him to confront the mutant crisis head on," spoke another figure, a man with greying hair, enormous spectacles and a cold expression fixed upon his face. Wolverine recognised the man from somewhere, but couldn't pin a name to the face. Among all the anti-mutant businessmen, it was difficult to remember all the details. Was it Hodgson... Hudson? He had no idea.

The man nodded to General Kincaid, who started speaking again.

"I, as Acting Director, promise you three things. The first is that our agenda will be straightforward- to better equip the Mutant Response Division in the United States, and extend its protection around the world by supporting similar groups and helping to build up their strengths, so that no country is left unguarded against such a menace. My second promise is to track down Magneto and bring that war criminal to justice."

At this point, several observers in the crowd cheered, with even a few of the journalists muttering excitedly, despite the fact that they were nominally supposed to remain neutral.

"My third and final promise is to prevent such a catastrophe like this happening ever again. To this end, the Human High Council will arrest any and all mutants seen using their powers. Today begins Operation: Zero Tolerance!"

With this, the show cut back to news footage of civilian vehicles driving through populated streets, often with signs such as "Mutant? Return to Genosha or face arrest" written on their sides. They followed a series of police cars presumably meant to intervene and stop either side getting out of hand, and in turn were followed by armoured MRD vehicles, each repeating the same message and dictated by the man in the suit- the voices sounded too familiar for it to be coincidence.

"You mutants may consider us lowly humans, but I promise you this. We are not powerless. We will not be bullied. And mark my words. The Mutant High Council, led by myself, Cameron Hodge, will see this through to the bitter end!"

Outer Space, Unknown Location, Present Day

Mojo found himself staring in anger as he realised that he had not thought his plan through as well as he had hoped. His initial hopes had been that by isolating the X-Men and splitting up, he'd have had some hope of downing the ship, killing some of his enemies and sparking a war all in one stroke. The interference of the Scarlet Witch and Storm, however, was not something he had anticipated, and now he realised that his remaining troops were busy fighting for their lives against the Wendigo beasts now loose in the sublevels, being soundly defeated by Storm and Scarlet Witch, or beaming off the ship in groups, to wherever they felt they could take refuge.

As tempted as he was to rant, curse, and blame somebody else, he knew deep down that ultimately the failure to eliminate Storm and the Scarlet Witch was his mistake and his alone. It was, quite possibly, the first time that he had acknowledged his error; such an epiphany was not something that he took well, and his right eye began twitching erratically as his mind struggled to comprehend just what had passed through it.

Several seconds passed, at which point he raised his head. For once, the monstrous grin had gone, replaced by an uncharacteristic sulk as his hoverchair gravitated forward. Spiral glanced with concern at his face.

"Sir... what's happening?"

"We've failed, Spiral. That is what's happening," he replied, voice completely humourless and serious. "I have decided that the best way to rectify the situation would be to confront Storm and Scarlet Witch head on, and utterly destroy them, while you activate the ship's weaponry and begin bombarding the planet's surface. If I cannot perfect my vengeance, I will see it at least started."

She opened her mouth, but the words died in her throat as he cut in.

"And before you start protesting that this wasn't part of the plan," he continued, surprising her slightly, "my original plan did not involve any of this happening. Now, are you going to follow my orders, or might I be better off simply turning you over to my enemies and making my escape?"

No reply.

"...or do your loyalties no longer lie with me?"

"They haven't for a short while... sir."

It wasn't easy for her to confess it, in spite of the fact that she utterly despised her former master.

"What was it that caused you to defect, Spiral? Was it what you viewed as poor treatment? Did I cross the proverbial line one time too many?" In spite of everything, Mojo's voice was still level, although his eye was twitching further and if he were human, his face would have turned purple with anger.

It took all of her effort, but she stared him in the eyes.

"No, sir. It's true I suffered both of those, but ultimately I'm tired of running from my crimes. It doesn't matter how far we seem to travel or which barren rock we hide on- the same faces get caught in my mind when I sleep. Everywhere I go, I have to look over my shoulder because I'm afraid that I'll be recognised and dropped into a vat of acid by the Council," she declared, trying hard not to think of the preferred execution method used on Mojo's world.

"This is surprisingly unlike you, Spiral. You are aware that if you needed a memory wipe, I would happily have provided you with one?" The question was phrased in a manner that was almost gentle, in spite of the fact that he was completely missing the point. "You have been my most trusted lieutenant for as long as I have remembered. Admittedly, I am fond of wiping my memory from time to time, but the fact still stands. I have used my minions as cannon fodder while I prepared the Ultimate Hunter back on Earth, and abandoned past lieutenants for failures that were far less significant than yours. Yet now you have turned your back on me."

"If it means giving us both a chance to stop this madness... then yes, I have," she said. Her face remained as cold as ever, with no sign of tears, yet her voice sounded sad. Before this, Mojo had been one of the closest things she had to a friend, and now she found herself hating what he had become... what she had become in following him.

"It's a pity, Spiral," Mojo muttered, voice now reaching a growl. He sat back, waiting to see who would make the first move.

Ultimately, it was Spiral that started the fight, artificial limbs moving to grab the power source from his chair. Mojo may have been strong, but with no power source his hoverchair would collapse and he would be almost helpless to move due to his sheer weight. With him immobile, she needed only to dodge any swing from his arm and deliver a critical strike. From there, the fight would have been hers.

Her calm confidence quickly turned to dismay when her strike to destroy the power source was met with dismal failure. Not only had her attack failed to so much as dent the covering, but now she found that an electric current was running through her arm, and she roared out in pain, pulling back and recoiling as she desperately struggled to continue in spite of the agony.

Unfortunately for her, her efforts were in vain as she felt the arm suddenly go dead, though she quickly composed herself in time to roll out of the way of a beam attack that came her way.

"I'm telling you, Spiral. This can all end if you simply choose to-"

"HRAAGH!" Spiral roared savagely as she tried to strike again, this time with a pair of swords, one in her remaining mechanical arm and the other in one of her real arms. The first strike narrowly missed his head, but the second never came close to hitting him as he grabbed her sword and snapped it with one hand, violently yanking out the mechanical arm with the other and knocking her back across the room.

She struggled to rise again, reaching for her remaining weapon even though she had no mechanical arms left to lose and at least two broken bones. Limping, she tried to sprint forwards, but Mojo effortlessly rammed her aside with his hoverchair. She hit the wall back-first, still trying to rise even though she had almost certainly broken her leg. Any effort to stand was rewarded only with pain and a scream of anger.

The energy beam charged up as Mojo turned his weapon towards her and fired. For several agonising seconds, her body went into spasm and she felt truly helpless, unable to even curse in his direction or do anything but scream.

Then for her, everything went black and her body slumped.

Mojo stared at her for what felt like an eternity, for once feeling a pang of genuine guilt. The look on his face was difficult to read given his bizarre visage and flabby cheeks, but in place of his grin, there was now a disappointed frown.

Any further thought or feeling was cut off as Scarlet Witch and Storm entered the room, staring in surprise at Spiral's slumped form and Mojo's chair floating over her.

With uncharacteristic silence, Mojo turned towards the two mutants and began firing.

Unnamed City, North America, Unknown Future

Charles Xavier briefly stuck his head out from behind the building as he heard something rumble above. He widened his eyes at the sight.

Floating two hundred metres in the air was an air carrier, not too dissimilar from the Helicarrier that S.H.I.E.L.D. had introduced not so long ago and began using as a mobile base. There were, however, multiple key changes. For a start, this version was considerably smaller, as it didn't function as a headquarters. Secondly, its arsenal had been supplemented by what appeared to be energy weapons, making an already formidable ship even deadlier. Thirdly, he noticed that the previous logo had been crudely ripped off and then replaced with a pyramid symbol; even with the best efforts of the designer, it was obvious that this had been stolen and not made from scratch.

He ducked back into the darkness and clung to the wall, desperately hoping that he wouldn't be seen as a searchlight swept the streets. As it drew nearer to his position, he ran further into the darkness and slid underneath a dumpster, grimacing at the stench. Fortunately, it seemed to work, and he slid back out, continuing on his way as the carrier zoomed along.

As he was about to round a corner, he noticed two military transports with multiple Infinites onboard, each clad in a form of heavy armour. He managed to stop himself from running out just in time, but his relief was short-lived as he heard the sound of a motorbike revving up not far away. He immediately ran, briefly glancing over his shoulder to notice Candra on his tail.

How did she find me? His thoughts were wild and full of possibilities, but right now his mind could only focus on the fact that a psychotic mutant was chasing after him. There would be time to think about this later.

He turned into an alleyway, grimacing as he realised it was that or run onto the street and expose himself to other threats. He kept running, faster than he felt he had since he'd had the unimpaired use of his legs as a younger man, and he turned to exit the alleyway and slip into a back street.

Behind him, Candra thrust her hand out to launch a telekinetic blast his way and he was knocked to his feet, slamming into a wall on the far side of the back street and landing next to a pile of metallic pipes. He groaned as he desperately tried to pull himself to his feet, but his head was spinning and for several seconds he felt as if he wanted to pass out, his legs struggling to pull up.

No, please. Don't let my legs be useless to me again, not now.

For a second he was able to stand, but then he collapsed. As he fell, he noticed a transport pulling up on the far end of the street, its lights blinding him while the heavily armoured soldiers onboard had already prepared to disembark and detain him or worse. From the alleyway, the headlights of the bike shone forwards as Candra drew ever closer. He noticed that this time they had all been smart enough to wear those cursed helmets.

I can at least say I lasted longer than most, he reflected darkly. There was little to do now but wait for the end. He closed his eyes, expecting the worst.

Just as the bike and its rider emerged from the alleyway, a crimson slash of light struck both of them, and they both vanished seemingly into thin air. At this, the soldiers looked around in panic, and Charles Xavier opened his eyes.

"Enemies incoming! Spread out! They can't get us all at-"

Whatever tactical chatter the troops had been going through, it was cut short as the large pile of metallic pipes rose up into the air with a loud, magnetic hum, spearing through the air and impaling the front of the transport. The vehicle was then unceremoniously lifted through the air, and thrown onto the top of the building along with the majority of the troops. The ones that managed to avoid being thrown several metres into the air instead found that they were knocked backwards by several energy blasts.

It was now that Charles Xavier dared to rise to his feet, supporting himself with the wall as he limped forwards. This was far from the only confusing experience he'd had in the last few days, but it raised several questions.

As a figure emerged from the darkness he found one of them had already been answered. His grey hair was longer than he remembered, with it being braided so as to stop it growing out of control, but his costume was largely the same, with the red clothes, purple cape, and his iconic helmet over his head. Behind him, several other beings emerged.

At the forefront of the group was Quicksilver in a darker costume than normal, with an "x" on his right shoulder. Next to him was Sabretooth, clad in a more militaristic version of his usual outfit, with a utility belt slung over his shoulder. To her right was Blink, who looked more or less the same as usual, then Mystique who was clad in a darker longcoat, a more militarised Colossus who was looking sterner than before, and finally a young Japanese man in his early twenties that he did not recognise.

Finally, he turned his attention to the man directly in front of him. His face almost appeared rejuvenated in the split second, as an unusually warm smile spread across his face.

"Hello, Charles."

Outer Space, Unknown Location, Present Day

The fight was tougher than either mutant had expected. Rather than cackle madly as he had apparently used to, the alien in front of them was saying absolutely nothing, firing beams madly as he desperately hoped to hit them and his sanity slowly slipped away. Eventually, Scarlet Witch managed to fire off a pair of energy bolts his way, but they both seemed to harmlessly fade away before making contact with Mojo himself.

"It's no good! He seems to have some sort of force field, and I'm afraid about what'll happen if I try going in for melee combat."

"I have an idea," Storm muttered. "I can't cast down lightning since we're not on a planet, but I think I can improvise."

With those words, Storm managed to roll underneath his hoverchair and dodge his efforts to squash her, grabbing hold of the power source. As she expected, the electricity soon began sourcing down her arm as Mojo grinned madly, firing another shot at Wanda as she tried to move out of cover.

Then he realised that the shock wasn't actually doing her any harm.

"Wait, what?"

"The first rule of any television show, Mojo," Storm bellowed, channelling the energy that she was busy absorbing from his chair. "Be sure to look up the talent you're employing!"

With that, she directed all her fire at the power source, causing Mojo to roar as his shields flickered away. Taking advantage of the sudden opening, Wanda drew all her power into one blast and fired straight at his face. The impact was enough to seriously concuss him, and he found himself spinning out of control, crashing through a window and falling several stories to a lower floor as his hoverchair finally failed.

"No, no, NO!"

Mojo's roar of despair was not simply at being beaten, but noticing that his chair had crashed and died in the worst possible place. There was a low growl that turned into a roar as the Wendigo moved to advance towards him, having presumably made short work of the Marauders in the lower levels.

"Help me, please!"

For several seconds, Storm and Wanda simply waited, uncertain as to whether or not they would help him, but the decision was eventually taken out of their hands as a being appeared onboard and effortlessly swatted the beast aside. He was similar to Mojo in that he was a member of the same species, although his complexion was a darker shade of green and he seemed to be bearing some official insignia on his walking platform.

"Mojo, for your crimes against the Council and the Spineless ones, including but not limited to attempted genocide, rebellion, conspiracy to engineer an intergalactic war, murder, industrial sabotage, corruption and illegal broadcasting, you are to be sentenced to a military tribunal, with the likely sentence of capital punishment. Do you have anything to say in your defence before you are detained?"

The only reply was something best described as angry gibberish, with the odd word of profanity thrown in.

"A pity. I had hoped for a rant about how we were corrupt and unjust rulers, but evidently you are too broken even for that."

With those words, a portal opened behind Mojo, and two Marauders, clad in a different sort of armour, dragged him through before it closed behind them.

"As for you," the alien muttered, "the Council is aware that provoking a war with Earth may be potentially more trouble than it is worth. For that reason, all operations in your centre of space are to be ceased immediately, on the condition that humans will do their part to keep the peace in all future interactions."

"We were hardly the ones who started this whole affair," Scarlet Witch muttered, clearly annoyed by the whole affair and how long it had taken to fix. The alien ignored her.

"Council forces are presently cleaning up the ship and dealing with any remaining resistance. His lieutenant Spiral shall be taken to a medical bay and treated for her injuries; this is her reward for helping us, along with a reduced sentence should she make it to a court."

That reminded Storm. In spite of everything that had happened, her apparent beating at Mojo's hands had looked positively brutal. She hoped that if there was a higher power, it would grant her mercy in some form.

"That remains to be seen. She may survive her injuries, but even if she does, she may never truly wake or be the same again."

There was a sigh of some sort from Wanda, seemingly also taken aback by what they had discovered. Eventually, it was the alien that broke the following silence.

"Your friends have already been assisted with the deactivation of the bomb and been returned to their rightful area of space. We shall now do the same to you. Good day."

The warning was surprisingly quick, as within seconds a portal opened behind them and they were given an encouraging shove through it. For several moments, they felt confused as they waited for their surroundings to change.

Eventually, both Storm and Wanda found themselves sprawled on the lawn of the X-Mansion, next to Beast, Iceman and Nightcrawler. Noises of surprise came from the Mansion, as they turned their heads to see Logan approaching with Scott, Jean and Piotr.

"What the heck happened to you all? Where have you been?"

The group all sighed, clearly relieved to be back.

"It's a long story. You probably don't want to know."

Alright. After much exhaustion, I have finished the second arc of this story. I am so committed to getting this done that I am staying up late, with an eleven-hour plane journey to California the next morning, to finish, correct and upload this.

As I've said and alluded to many times both in and out of the story, this arc has been ridiculous. I normally am not a fan of rewriting things unless seriously needed, so I'll throw it to a "vote" if you will. If enough people want me to significantly edit the arc so that the painful parts are cut out or toned down, I'll consider doing it. I don't want to have to rewrite the entire thing, however.

Anyways, we're moving on next chapter to hopefully better things. This arc will be a bit more grounded and focus on the new Human High Council, as well as the various consequences they have for the X-Men, besides being simply an enemy to face. I don't have a title confirmed, but in all likelihood it'll be something like "A New Order, Act 1". Thanks for all your support- if you've managed to make it to the end of this chapter, please drop me a review, favourite, and recommend to your friends so I can improve further. Till next time (probably in a couple of weeks- I'll have my laptop in California but want to enjoy the sights first), be well!