The Essexes were hardly what one would consider a family. In fact, of the five children, only one of them came into the world with the understanding that their last name was Essex. The other four were born and generally abandoned before they reached the age at which they could talk. The two youngest, Billie and Madonna, were the ones who spent the most time with their Mother. In fact, young Billie had been with Lenneth when she took sixteen bullets and was left for dead in the middle of the Canadian winter. That was before Billie herself was taken and then lost in the New York child services system. Madonna, her twin, had already been adopted off before that happened and was raised with no knowledge of her twin.
Both would be adults before they met. Both would be adults when they died, fighting the good fight as so many would call it. Everyone, all mutants, fought the good fight which toward the end was just an exercise in futility, trying to survive against a political machine that only wished to grind them to dust and then burn even the dust away for fear of the taint. Five children: Raven Diana, Nathaniel Jr, Jonathan, Madonna, and Billie Jean. All of them had at one time held the name of Ascher. The name that their mother had given them, names that none of them understood until approached late in their lives by a woman that they knew as little more than an instinct, a scent on cradle clothes. Lenneth Ascher always came back to her children. It was that instinct in her that Essex was counting on.
Diana looked up at her Father with flat eyes that only occasionally flickered toward her siblings. She had met each of them prior to her own death, but that didn't mean she had any attachment to them. They were just faces that she happened to know.
"Well, Father," she was not exactly the most patient of women either. Now that the youngest, Billie Jean, was out of the growing goop and on the floor the black tendrils of her power curling around her body like so much demented string, it was time for their collective Father to come clean about his plans.
"Are we all awake and listening," he said, settling himself at his desk. Billie hopped up on the edge of the desk, looking like some kind of cat doll, her hands on the edge of the desk, long fingers curled around the edge. The sound coming out of her throat was a mutated growl. Madonna moved up next to her sister and ran one hand through her black hair, stroking her like one would a cat. The two were twins, frighteningly alike, one with a voice, the other without.
"Tell us or let us go, Father," Nathaniel Jr., often called Edward so as not to confuse Father and son, had found one of their Father's dress shirts and was buttoning it on. He refused to wear hospital scrubs. "We have other things to do."
"I seriously doubt that," so very mild, ruby eyes that didn't even move toward the child who bore his name. "You are all dead." There was no point in mincing words. Jonathan was the only one who didn't blink, but he didn't blink at anything without there being some kind of pain attached. "And your mother has been subverted by Apocalypse."
"Points for creativity, Father," it was Jonathan who spoke first. "Do tell us another bedtime story."
"You're not making this up," Madonna was not always prized for her sanity, but rather for her ability to think quickly and use a situation to her best advantage. "Why bring us back then? Some misplaced nostalgia?"
"No," nostalgia was hardly a strong suit for the Dead man. "You can break the hold he has on her. That's why I brought you back."
"What difference should it make to us who Mother is enslaved to? It's him or it's you, there isn't much difference."
"Then I suppose it is of no consequence to any of you that so long as she remains Apocalypse's pawn, the likelihood is that humanity will not last another month."
"The old man will not kill all, he never does. Perhaps it is for the best, let him cull the weak. Then we can take top position from him and rule ourselves." Billie whistled at the thought, an unhappy sound to be sure, her dissent against such a plan.
"Billie has a point. If we allow Apocalypse to consolidate his power, there will be no ousting him." There were few who could understand Billie at all and Madonna was the only one who could interpret her various whistles, grunts, and growls completely by sound alone. "We stop Grandpa now or not at all."
"I don't care about stopping Grandpa. So what if he wins?"
"I don't care about stopping Grandpa either, but Mother is our mother. So I'm in." Trust Madonna to see it at its simplest. Billie bobbed her head in agreement with her twin. The two of them were in. Sinister only sat back and listened to them bicker among themselves. "So you guys wanna say that you're gonna leave Momma to rot?"
The others looked from to another, the elders pushed by the choices of their younger siblings. "Guess we're all in then," said Raven with a shrug.
"Good. Then let's get started." Sinister stood up from his desk and unfolded a map. "We have work to do."