Well... sorry for the incredibly long wait. I lost interest in X-Men and the comic universe for a while due to some real life stuff taking precedence over it. And here's chapter 8
Disclaimer: Hello and welcome to the Age of Apocalypse... sorry, wrong series... but there is an Age of Apocalypse in the X-Men, so... point is, I don't own X-Men... Or do I?
Devilish Mutation
Zeo looked around then and noticed something.
"Ah shit, what the hell was I thinking? Most of their best team is here, as well as all these other mutants. I'm only one person with only half developed powers." he thought as he dodged a punch from one mutant before getting cut by Naxolg.
The speed of the cut alone did the most damage as, even though he had moved the smallest bit to the side, making it non vital, it had still damaged him a lot.
He then turned to the side and looked at Naxolg.
"Okay... that kinda hurt" he said before a spike shot straight through his side and stayed there.
"OW. What the hell?" Zeo yelled as he turned to see Sunoka.
Then a blast similar to Scott's attack hit him from two sides at once.
One from Rio, the other from Raven.
"Ow..." he muttered as he fell to the ground and reappeared in full health.
"Um... what's up with this?" he asked, confused before thinking.
"Whenever they got killed in this tournament, they'd reappear... so maybe, it's doing the same for me. And that means... I'm immortal!" he thought with a grin as he ran forward as fast as he could.
Decently slow compared to Naxolg, but fast enough to get to Takuo nonetheless.
He sliced through him, wincing as he saw some blood come out.
Then he suddenly felt something stab through his stomach and looked up.
The one who had stabbed him was Takuo, who he had just killed.
"But... how?" he asked, confused before thinking.
"Oh" he muttered as he reappeared to the side.
"Let's think. My counterpart has control of this world. From what I can tell, his energy level is higher in this world. If I'm his counterpart and have some of his energy then... I should be able to use that energy!" he thought with a grin as he ran towards Takuo again, but this time, he was using an energy he hadn't admitted he had.
It felt incredibly wrong whenever he used it.
Like he was no longer himself.
Some people who had faced pure darkness speak of how terrifying the darkness was.
And this energy was truly that type of darkness.
It's terrifying to see that power.
It's even more terrifying to be that which holds such power.
But he didn't have time to think about that right now.
And something in him was telling him to.
Though he didn't know it now, it was Sefaros telling him to do so.
In an instant, an aura of dark energy appeared around Zeo and he teleported behind Takuo before slicing him in half, or at least trying to.
Takuo recognized the energy almost instantly and quickly activated his own hidden energy.
A prize given to each member of their team.
He then blocked Zeo's attack with ease and blasted him back.
"Don't expect that old thing to help you now" he said with a grin.
"Of course not" Zeo said with a sigh.
Truthfully, he had.
It was one of his last chances.
After all, his energy blast would be able to kill them, but they'd reappear and he'd be too out of energy to do anything.
"Damn it... there's no way I can win this" he thought before thinking of something.
"Let's hope the old comic books work as they say they do" he thought with a grin.
"Hey Rio, do you really like working under Sefaros? He's not at full power, you could take him couldn't you?" Zeo said with a grin.
"That didn't sound as well as I'd hoped" he thought.
"Perhaps, but this is a team. And I'm not going to risk anyone on this team" Rio said as he shot a blast of energy.
Towards Zeo, who jumped up in order to dodge it, only to be thrown down into the ground by Rena's telepathy.
"Ow... do you always have to hurt me?" he asked with a headache as Raven suddenly ran at him with Quicksilver's speed and The Juggernaut's strength, sending him flying as she kicked him in the side.
As he went up, Nazolg jumped up and stabbed straight through him with his arms crossed before spreading them out, cutting straight through Zeo.
Zeo kept this up for another hour or so, due to will alone.
He managed to kill a few, but to no real use as they merely came back each time.
He was finally caught in a blast from Rio and sighed before speaking.
"Okay... this is not working" he muttered as he reappeared in mid air and fell to his death yet again.
As he hit, he died again and then reappeared.
"Hey... can we call a truce" he muttered with a bit of a sigh.
"Hm, if you join Sefaros, then yes" Rio said with a smirk.
"What? No way!" Zeo yelled defiantly as Rio's eye's hardened and he blasted straight through Zeo, sending him flying back into the crowd of regular mutants, which were enough to knock him down as well.
A few more deaths later and he was really beginning to hurt.
"I... have to... get out of here" he thought before Sefaros appeared and the crowd parted.
"As you can see... you have no choice but to stay with me" he said calmly as he looked down at the tattered and beaten from of Zeo.
"To think something as weak as this is a part of me" he thought disgustedly.
"Heh, you think death is gonna make me turn? You have no idea who you're dealing with" Zeo said with a forced smirk on his face.
"So I've noticed, which is why I'm glad I listened in to that phone call" Sefaros said with a smirk.
Zeo looked at Sefaros in confusion before his eye's widened.
"You... didn't!" Zeo said with a broken voice.
At that point, a nearby wall turned to reveal Haila tied there.
"You... bastard!" Zeo yelled as his energy flared, pushing even Sefaros back a small bit before he adapted to the increase in power.
"Surprising, it seems you haven't yet reached your limit" Sefaros said, looking at Zeo.
Right now, Zeo was nearly equal with his power.
This meant that Zeo really was half of him.
"Interesting indeed" Sefaros said with a small smirk.
"Now then, what would you do... if I killed her?" Sefaros asked coldly as he appeared and attempted to stuff his claw into her.
Haila's eye's widened a second before closing as the claw neared.
She didn't feel the pain however, and reopened her eyes to find Zeo in front of her.
The claw had pierced his skin and he was holding it there.
"Sorry, I can't let you do this... also, for the record, If you... EVER, try and use her as bait again" Zeo began, his power flaring up yet again to a level above even Sefaros.
Sefaros could do nothing more than try and pull away.
It was of no use.
"Now then... die!" Zeo yelled at the top of his lungs, releasing a technique of nearly unbelievable power.
If not for Raven appearing in front of the attack, Sefaros reign would have ended there and then.
Even with the human shield, it was still enough to cause massive damage to him however.
Luckily for him. Zeo's use of his power had caused him to lose his grip and Sefaros was able to escape.
"He messed up when he placed this on the outside... of the stadium" Zeo said as he looked at Haila.
Using the last of his power, he managed to teleport her back to her home before falling to the ground unconscious.
"... damn it" Rio thought, looking at him.
Their leader was greatly damaged, and Raven was dead.
The rest of them were exhausted as well.
"I suppose we should place him with the rest of his group" Rio thought, turning to Naxolg.
He was in the best shape right now.
"Naxolg, take Zeo to where the rest of the X-men are, chain him up with the rest of them. We'll decide what to do from there afterwards" Rio said, waiting for Naxolg to leave.
"The rest of you... are dismissed." Rio said as the rest of them left.
Once there was no one left in sight, he fell to the ground, exhausted, and angry at the same time.
Raven... he had cared for her a lot.
He couldn't say love. He loved no one but himself.
His girlfriend was nothing but a slut as it was.
Raven though... even if she had been quite ruthless, so were all of them. But now... she was dead.
"Damn it" Rio muttered as he fell to the ground, unconscious himself.
Even he had limits, and that Zeo kid had pushed him to that limit.
About two days later, Zeo awoke to find himself tied up.
The rest of the X-men were there as well, surprising him a bit.
"... so much for saving them" he muttered, catching everyone else's attention.
"Hey kid, was that you talking?" Logan asked.
"Ya, it was... Wolverine" Zeo said. "... so what happened anyways?" Wolverine asked.
He had been conscious when an injured Naxolg had walked in carrying Zeo and had been wondering about that since then.
"I gave everything I had to try and beat that team but... no one's quite that strong..." Zeo said, looking at the ground.
He had failed, there were no more chances for them.
"Well than... no that you're here, I say we get outta here" Logan said with a smirk.
A few of the other X-men, who had been listening in on the conversation, spoke at that.
"And how are we supposed to do that? We can't use our powers with these chains on" Scott said, a bit irritated.
His entire team could not match that Apocalypse squad, as they had called themselves.
"Sorry, to say it Logan, but Scott is, like, right" Kitty said with a sigh of her own.
She really didn't like the current situation.
"Well, not my fault they forgot 'bout the fact my claws are an extra" Logan said with a smirk as everyone turned to him.
He was right. It wasn't a power at all. It was in installment, for lack of better word.
At that point, the sound of claws extending was heard, as well as a cry of pain.
The sound of metal hitting metal took place not long after and then the sound of a body hitting the ground.
"Logan... you okay?" Zeo asked, his head was beginning to hurt quite a lot.
"Yep, I just forgot a part about my powers myself for a second" Logan said, panting.
"The healing ability is my powers and without it, getting the claws to come out was pretty painful" Logan said as he got up and began to walk around, unlocking some of the others.
In about thirty minutes, the entire group was down from there.
"Well than... we're down, now what?" Scott asked.
"Simple, bub, Nightcrawler can teleport us out with ease. In case you forgot, this is where he goes during mid teleport. So by that fact, if he just continues his teleport, we'll be fine" Logan said with a smirk as everyone turned to Kurt.
"Vell... I guess zat's true" he said as everyone grabbed hold of his hands so they were connected.
At that point, they teleported away.
They soon landed at the exact spot they had left from, to their surprise.
"Well... I guess we're back" Scott said, looking around.
With that, the entire group headed towards the mansion.
Upon entering, each of them headed to their rooms and passed out, ignoring all the questions directed towards them on the way there.
The next day, Zeo awoke to find he had slept in quite a bit.
It was already 2:00 in the afternoon and he was just beginning to wake up.
With a yawn, he stood up and headed towards the shower in his room.
After getting ready, he headed out to see what else was happening at the mansion.
To his surprise, there seemed to be no one else in the mansion.
"Er... anyone here?" Zeo whispered, looking around in confusion.
"Ah, you are awake Zeo, please report to the briefing room" Xaviers voice said in his mind.
"... I'm never gonna get used to that" Zeo muttered with a sigh as he headed towards the debriefing room.
"So what's up X? Is this about what happened?" Zeo asked as he walked in. (got nothing to do with the story, just laughed at it at about 3 in the morning, if anyone knows about the Megaman series, then you'll notice I called Xavier by Megaman's name. From there, add an r into Zeo's name... no relevance to the story, just tired and thought it was funny)
"Yes, it is, would you please refrain from the nicknames though?" Xavier said with a sigh.
"Nah, if I don't call you X, then that's no fair for Blue bear dude and Wolfy boy" Zeo said with a grin as Beast and Wolverine attempted to grab him.
He quickly jumped up and attached himself to the ceiling.
"So, you were sayin X?" Zeo said with a smirk as Beast and Wolverine glared at him.
"... well, I was going to have you explain what happened during the time you and the rest of the X-men were separated" Xavier said.
"Well... to put it simply, some freak who thinks I'm a fragment of him is the leader of that group. He hosted some strange tournament in an area where everyone who died was instantly reborn" Zeo said, causing Xavier's eyebrow to raise.
It sounded truly farfetched, even by mutant standards.
And that was after fighting Apocalypse.
"What? It's true!" Zeo said, looking at everyone's stares.
Now that he thought about it, it really sounded impossible.
"Well... what I said is true, I guess it doesn't matter if you believe me or not right now" Zeo said with a sigh.
"Well, after the tournament, I can't remember why, but I jumped down there to fight and... well... I fight... and lose, then I ended up where the other's were" Zeo said, deciding not to mention the fact that he had held equal ground for a couple of hours.
"Alright then... I suppose that is all then" Xavier said with a sigh.
This made no sense to him.
This new member to the X-men was creating enemies everywhere.
"Magneto, Sefaros... all these attackers, and all to get him. He is powerful but... power alone seems pointless... what is the true objective?" Xavier thought.
With a sigh, he decided to leave the question unanswered for now.
The X-men were currently eating lunch together... mostly because Scott had called a meeting of his own.
"So what's this all about anyways?" Zeo asked after he had chewed down some of his food.
"Simple... when we were attacked, it showed something.
We need to work on our team work.
We've been fighting as a team for quite a while" Scott said, looking to everyone except Zeo.
"They seem to have a counterpart of each of us... including Spike" Scott said before being interrupted by Zeo.
"That's not all... Beast had a dark version too... who knows about the other teachers" he said with a shrug.
"Wait, so they, like, have the teachers too?" Kitty asked, confused.
This whole, counterpart, but not clones thing was really confusing.
"Yep, most likely" Zeo said with a grin.
"... anyways, as I was saying, we need to work on our team work. Even though they were the bad guys, they seemed to have nearly perfect teamwork. If you paid close attention, you would realize that... the dark half of me was" Scott began before once more being interrupted by Zeo.
"Rio" Zeo said, "um... what?" Scott asked confused.
"Your counterpart is Rio" Zeo said with a sigh, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"... sure, anyways, as I was saying, Rio was able to give signals with merely a look of his eyes... not to mention he didn't even need a vizor" Scott said, adding the last part under his breath.
"And they intended only to capture... they're probably worse if they intend to kill" Logan said with an annoyed voice.
"You have no idea" Zeo muttered under his breath.
"Anyways... as I was saying" Scott began, yet again.
"He was able to give orders with a mere glance. Their teamwork skills were unreal. We need to work on that more than anything right now" Scott said before Zeo spoke again.
"You're wrong. Their teamwork was high, and we do need to work on it, but it's our individual abilities we need to change right now" Zeo said as Scott raised and eyebrow.
"And have you seen them fight on their own?" Scott asked.
"Ya, they had a tournament and I watched. Anyways, Rogue's counterpart is dead, for one. So she is going to have to either train on her own and try to face Sunoka, Spike's other half, or she can work specifically on teamwork. Then she has the option of helping us in this battle, or just sitting it out altogether" Zeo said.
Rogue scoffed at the last option, but did little more.
"Anyways, as I was saying..." Scott said again, trying to continue.
"Out best shot is to work on our own skills" Zeo said, interrupting Scott yet again.
Truthfully, Scott was getting really annoyed.
"Hey, I'm the leader here, not you! I'll decide what's best for my team!" Scott said, annoyed.
"Eh, do whatever you want, with you in charge, your team is sure to fail" Zeo said, getting annoyed at Scott as well.
He wasn't trying to take control, he was just pointing out what their best chances were.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Scott yelled, standing up.
"Simple, you suck at being a leader" Zeo said as well, standing up and facing him.
The other members of the X-men were too surprised to do much else.
These two had never had any problems before.
"Oh ya, well it's thanks to my leadership that we stopped Apocalypse... all you did was sleep through it!" Scott said angrily.
This new member was really getting on his nerves.
"Sleep through it huh? Oh sure, it's completely possible to sleep for three years and not age a day" Zeo said, rolling his eyebrows in frustration.
"And besides, last I checked, it was about the team, not the leader! Get over yourself!" Zeo said, annoyed.
He quickly dodged to the side as Scott attempted to hit him with a blast from his eyes.
"... so I've got enemies even here? ... I'm out, have fun losers" Zeo said as he walked back to the mansion.
Reaching the mansion, he headed to Professor Xavier's room. "Sir... I would like permission to be removed from the X-men" he said coldly.
Xavier could only raise an eyebrow at that.
He couldn't read Zeo's mind and he hadn't yet seen the happenings with Scott, so he had no idea why this change was occurring.
"Why exactly? Has something happened?" Xavier asked.
"None of your business anyways, if you wanna know, go read someone else's mind" Zeo said angrily.
He wasn't in the mood for this in the least.
"... fine" Xavier said, not getting a chance to continue as Zeo left the room.
He then headed directly for the danger room.
"Auto setting, level 15. Stop when heated body fails to move for over one minute and is not being held in place" Zeo said, walking up to the monitor for the danger room.
"Danger room complies, activating Danger sequence" the danger room computer said.
Zeo sighed as he jumped down to the Danger room.
"That team seemed to think level 20 was easy... so I'll just have to catch up. They'll still target me, even if I'm not part of the X-men... so I'll just have to become stronger than them" he muttered as the room started up.
He quickly realized he was surrounded by about fifty droids of the highest class.
"Each is manually controlled by a super computer... tricking them is impossible" Zeo thought as he jumped up before seeing the spike shot at him from three sides.
He quickly maneuvered his body to the side and dodged it by mere centimeters.
Using the momentum, he used a burst of his power to push himself forward a bit, past the encirclement of droids, once again, barely managing to dodge a nearby attack, this time from one of the droids.
"Alright... this is getting annoying" Zeo thought as he looked around. Besides the droids, there were the spike machine generators, as well as a few laser turrets, the usual saws, and more annoying machinery that could probably take him down with ease.
"Well... I asked for this" Zeo said with a smirk, dodging in and out of the line of fire coming from the droids.
As he thought this, a blast of energy hit him from behind.
It had been sent by one of the droids, but that droid didn't seem to have a weapon.
"... that's weird" he thought as he jumped up and dodged another droid that had attacked using a sword.
He then back flipped in mid air in order to dodge all the other attacks that the other droids released.
He then learned the hard way that the saws didn't just go back and forth like in the other levels when the saw came flying out and slashed him in the side.
"Damn it!" he thought as he fell towards the ground, holding his side.
"This is no good at all!" he thought as he rolled to the side as he landed, barely dodging the explosion radius of a bomb that had been set.
"This... is insane! But I was able to beat the Apocalypse Squadron! They train at harder levels than this!" he thought as he jumped up and punched one of the droids, crushing it's head in.
He then spun around and kicked another droids head in.
Unluckily, during the spin, he failed to see the droid with the sword who had snuck up on him.
As his leg crushed the droid, the sword bearing droid stabbed the blade deep into his side.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" he yelled as he fell to the ground, unable to move.
"Sensing no movement from life forms. Danger Room, deactivating" the danger rooms voice echoed.
Zeo could do nothing but lie there in pain.
"Damn it" he thought as consciousness left him.
He awoke about three hours later. Luckily, no one had entered.
"Well than, I guess it's time to..." he began to say.
"To what? You're just in time for your training with the New Mutants, remember, you transferred off the main team?" Logan asked as he walked into the control room.
"... damn it" Zeo thought with a sigh as everyone else entered.
That included Tabitha, Sam, Amara, Rahne, Ray, Jubilee, Jamie and Bobby.
"Hey! Aren't you supposed to be with the X-Men team now?" Jamie asked, confused.
He had only just been allowed to participate in this training, so he wasn't sure, but he thought Zeo had been transferred.
"Eh, I was, but I transferred back. Scott's too much of an asshole if he thinks you don't belong on the team" Zeo said, getting a nod from everyone else.
They all remembered how Scott would act if they were on a mission.
"Alright then, so let's begin training.!" Zeo said with a grin.
"This should be easy" he thought. Logan sighed as he watched them.
"Alright, I'm gonna set it to level four. You think you kids can take it?" he asked sarcastically as he activated the room.
The first thing to happen was Cannonball shot himself towards a weak droid.
At the same time, Timebomb threw a bomb towards the same droid.
The bomb exploded on contact.
Due to his current form, Cannonball wasn't injured, but he was blinded.
And thus, unable to do much more when a well placed laser turret hit him in the back, knocking him unconscious.
Bobby jumped back out of range of a few explosions, only to trip over Jamie, who multiplied about thirty times, getting Jubilee caught in the fall.
This caused her to loose control of her powers and the fireworks knocked the three out.
"That leaves me, Amara, Tabitha, Rahne, and Ray" Zeo thought, dodging a couple of blasts with ease.
He watched as Ray shot a blast of electricity out while Tabitha threw a bomb.
The electricity caused the bomb to explode in Tabitha's face, knocking her out and sending her flying back into Amara, who let loose a blast of flame, accidently hitting Rahne, who was in dog form.
"Er... me and Ray then" he thought before sighing as Ray lost focus of his power and supercharged a droid.
The droid knocked him unconscious nearly instantly.
"Er... guess it's just me" Zeo muttered as he dodged the supercharged droid and crushed it with a punch on both side of it's body.
He then turn and dodged an attack from a laser before jumping forward, cutting a saw in half and using it as a sword.
He then ran through the group of droids, destroying them all.
"Well bub... I don't think you belong on this team" Logan said as he looked to Zeo.
"Eh, whatever" he muttered as he walked off.
"Time... to... sleep" he thought as he entered his room and fell asleep.
damn it! Over a frickin year! Way too long for a chapter! Er... ya, 21 pages, about 4500 words... sorry, I haven't had much free time in the last... year... and I lost focus on writing