Author's note: ALL ART COMMISSION OFFERS FOR THIS STORY WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DECLINED
...
Scott Summers, Age 7, Summer of 1976.
Church Of The Purifier, Bayville.
The Dome Like Megachurch had an all-white symbol with a red crucifix emblazoned on the front and underneath, in a crimson lettering on the digital screen underneath the crucifix symbol were the words "TODAY'S SERMON: "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
"Hey! I got a head-start!" Christopher Summers joked, the eyepatch over his left eye displaying the insignia of his combat squadron, and its motto 'BELLUM PRIMA FACIE' in very tiny letters.
"Hush, you!" Katherine joked back covering her mouth as she chuckled.
Scott had always been in awe of the structure. He had been going to it every Sunday as long as he could remember. Stryker had deep pockets. He had retired from the Army at the rank of Colonel. Most of his combat experience had been in Korea, then Vietnam. He'd fought alongside Captain America in Korea. His mother Katherine always took what Stryker said with utmost seriousness. His father tolerated how much she took Stryker seriously. Scott wasn't sure Stryker's words had any effect on his crimson eyepatch wearing father. Scott was not sure Stryker's words had any effect on himself. He always watched, studying the man more than what he said.
They entered the vast lobby where dozens upon dozens were filtered through security gates, being scanned for weapons. Stryker was one of the most distributed Christian Authors on Earth: Up to a billion readers of his work all over the planet, including his autobiographical account of his time in Korea: GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS: A trial of faith in the Korean War.
He heard his mother reciting Bible Verses under her breath as she held his hand as they were scanned through by the guards. Gabriel held the bag carrying all their personal Bibles. Katherine had worked a printing press at her high school as a teenager and had also dabbled in book binding, so had created handmade copies of the King James Bible for herself as well as her family members, a painstaking process that took her weeks each time a child of hers had been born. He had received a bible with a blue leather cover, crimson front text with the image of a black crucifix and saffron colored fabric bookmark that was naturally a part of the binding. His father carried that stern, commanding presence that made others instinctively step back a bit as he moved unconsciously of their own accord.
As always, they had a front row seat past thousands of other church members, right at the very center of the great podium where William Stryker would be speaking. Katherine had donated half the money to build the Megachurch.
Scott sat next to his mother. Gabriel sat next to his father. The Podium was high, thick and white in color, the ten commandments displayed on white banners with crimson letters on all the pearly white walls. Each section was broken up by a large but simple water fountain with minimal aesthetics, made of the same white material as the rest of the interior. He saw Stark-Tech drones hovering overhead, surveilling the audience. Hand-me-downs purchased through Stryker's intermediaries.
And in the distance, he saw something that made him freeze a moment.
It moved past throngs of believers unnoticed, a fleshy, humanoid thing with a feminine shape and doll anatomy. Its arms and legs were a slender veiny white pulsing with veins. It didn't have a face per se, just tan flesh covering a skull that could clearly be perceived under the covering of skin, an otherwise bald head covered by strands of blond hair that hung limply about its slick head, fingers and toes ending in gold talons. On the forehead was a white, spiky crown symbol...
Scott, true to his nature, did not scream. He did not take on an expression of fear. He only...observed...
He watched it slip between the crowd like liquid, moving closer and closer to Scott and his family. Scott did not move, knowing it was focused right on him as it got closer.
How do we get YOU out, I wonder...he mused darkly to himself as the creature neared. Prayer? Fasting? Both?
He raised an eyebrow as he heard a response in his skull.
NO MERE HERD OF PIGS SHALL HOLD THE LIKES OF ME.
The voice was like a woman, or something trying to sound like its approximation of what a woman might sound like. He kept still as it drew near, with seemingly no one but him noticing before coming to a dead stop, standing between the crowds as they found seats, staring at him directly. He didn't move. He didn't attempt to get anyone's attention. He just stared at it until his mother gently tapped him on the shoulder with a worried look.
"Scottie? What's the matter, sweetie?" Katherine asked.
The child looked up at his mother with that firm, rock solid stare of his and then back where he had seen the creature.
It wasn't there.
Two fears kept him from speaking up. The first fear was that he would not be believed. The second fear was that he would be believed.
"Waiting, Mother." Scott answered cryptically, not wishing to lie to her.
"Oh...I...I see..." Katherine replied with a troubled look on her face before the people settled in and the organ music began to be pumped over the loudspeaker. Gabriel passed out their bibles and everyone began to sing in the Church, joining in. As Scott sang with his family and the entire audience. He spotted the faceless, white limbed creature slinking through the crowds walking backwards, staring at him. as the entire chamber darkened, spotlights fixing on his own Family. Part of the reason Katherine had gotten her children new suits was because Christopher had been selected for the honor of first reading. It was Katherine's attempt to get him more involved with the goings on at the church.
Christopher opened the cover of his wife's professionally crafted, handmade KJV Bible with a red cover and black font with a yellow fabric bookmark. Scott watched him hide his irritation even as he saw the white limbed creature come to a stop in the crowd, again, directly across from them.
The next words out of his Father's mouth made him almost do a double take:
"The word of the Lord also came unto me, saying, Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house..." Christopher said, reading from Chapter 12 of Ezekiel.
The white limbed creature was suddenly standing only a few meters away when he blinked. He did not react. His heartbeat did no sudden spike in rate. It made no move to get closer. It only stood and stared at him. Scott did not blink.
Even at this age, it was extremely difficult to make Scott feel real, genuine fear. Even a horrifying ghost thing elicited no more than an expression barely bordering on even thinking of being a scowl.
SUCH BEAUTIFUL EYES he heard it say.
"...which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house..." Christopher continued, trying to read forcefully and with a command in his voice, trying to make his wife happy.
I KNOW YOU HEAR ME...
"Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for removing..." Christopher said, trying to look natural as all the Drones focused in on him.
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE. YOU ALL SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE...
"...and remove by day in their sight; and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight..." Scott heard his father continue to speak...
He knew it was looking directly at him. Despite giving no visible reaction other than an intense stare at the creature only he could see, he did not smile. He did not frown. He did not look angry or concerned. This made the creature seem to tilt its head as if in curiosity...
"...it may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house..."
I SEE SUCH TERRIBLE MISERY FOR YOU. THE POWER THAT YOU SHALL GAIN. YOU DERSERVE BETTER...
"Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing: and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity..." Christopher Summers continued to speak. "In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel..."
Scott only stared at the strange, white limbed creature, no longer paying attention to his father...
...
Cyclops snapped out of the memory as he advanced, staring at various corpses of Mutants who had been killed trying to flee...
"This Essex has been active for a very long time..." Xavier said. "But how did she evade the sight of so many? She must be exceptionally talented at subterfuge."
"I suspect that statement doesn't even start to cover it..." Cyclops replied, removing the bulky visor and wiping the sweat from his brow that had built up underneath. This visor worked, but turning his head was like moving with a thick weight attached to it, and he had a slight amount of trouble properly viewing his feet and the ground. It was the price paid to get the visor into mass production.
That was when the welcoming party arrived. But he didn't quite see them. He saw the Atoms they displaced as they moved into position.
His adrenaline spiked and Cyclops viciously reacted, dropping the visor, unleashing deadly microsecond bursts of his gold beams at the areas of atomic displacement in the immediate vicinity. The delayed blast trick he had learned from Cable (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #7) served him well, causing horrible explosions of gore as he got a first-hand demonstration of the effects of a delayed blast on live tissue.
"XAVIER!" Cyclops shouted, tossing him the shotgun he had received near Carter Slade's tomb. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13)
They all came under fire, hard to see beams of red lancing through the air. Danger tackled Xavier to the ground to protect him, shielding him as the semi-invisible optic blasts impacted hard on her enhanced frame, damaging more internal systems. Cyclops advanced, protecting himself with the Back-Up Captain America Shield as more deadly micro-bursts lanced out from his eyes as glowing shards of golden light, exploding the stealth-field equipped targets. But some came out from cover, and he found himself fending off deadly martial arts attacks from men wearing dark blue armors with a red diamond on the right pectoral their chest armor integrated into the design of some sort of golden harness, constantly trying to blow his head off with their semi-transparent blasts any time there was an opening. Scott noted their visor systems were very distinct from that of the soldiers they had faced so far, the housing material a gold color like their gloves and boots, with a dark red lens that was flat and rectangular, and overlaid only on one side of the visor, very similar to the one he had taken from the Orphanage during his escape (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #1), with the other eye completely covered over by the golden visor material, fully integrated into the high tech dark blue balaclava they wore. (Author's note: Think the Visor design used by Age of Apocalypse Cyclops)
They have two eyes, Cyclops realized as he drove the edge of his shield into one of the Optic Commandos necks, feeling it snap on impact.
He gritted his teeth as he felt a knife edge scrape his ribs. The other Optic Commando he had been fighting had drawn a strange knife tinged with crimson energy and slashed him. His life was forfeit. Cyclops drew his own combat knife, parried the next stab and optic-blast combo with his shield, and drove his knife deep into the Commando's neck, killing him instantly.
Xavier, using the oversized Psionic Gauntlet he had brought with him once more, telekinetically hurled anything heavy and large that he could, sparing a few moments on occasion to fire the strange lever action shotgun he was starting to notice didn't run out of ammo. He grabbed a Commando at a distance using the gauntlet, flip-cocked the lever-action with the aid of its extended lever loop one handed and shot the Commando in the throat with it, using the Gauntlet to grab another team whole and either snap their necks at a distance using the psionic energy of the gauntlet, or just gunning them down with buckshot to fatal areas, Danger's surviving weapons blazed to life, shredding through the armor of the optic commandos, any stupid enough to engage her at close range finding their faces and chests getting brutally caved in by Android-strength punches.
Soon all the Commandos were dead. Cyclops breathing was slightly unsteady, but he was only somewhat winded.
"You alright, Xavier?"
"I'll live," Xavier said, clutching his shoulder, one of the Commandos having successfully grazed his arm, which Danger went to immediately treating.
"What about you, Danger?" Cyclops asked.
"My self-repair systems should have me in prime condition in ten minutes." she answered.
"We don't have ten minutes. Only reason the Soldiers are here is because Essex probably hasn't gotten the Stone yet." Cyclops snapped.
Scott, is that you?
Cyclops paused at the malevolent, familiar voice in his head, it's dark, yet feminine English Contralto something he had heard in the real world since he was eight.
I'm surprised, I admit. I thought you would have slunk off to the darkest hole you could find and pray I couldn't find you. As if I would lose track of my most promising understudy.
I thought you hated me, yet you call me your understudy? he thought, sharp fright stirring at realizing Essex was a telepath.
Two things can be true at once. came the reply.
But which is truer than the other?... Cyclops muttered in his head as he stood up, looking for some physical sign of her.
"Cyclops?" Danger asked.
"It's Essex...she's a telepath..." Cyclops answered his android partner grimly.
"Great, just friggin' great!" Xavier muttered in sarcasm.
When I said I hated you, Scott, I meant it only in the context of hating what you choose to be. It's a lot of energy even for me to truly hate someone on a personal, visceral level anymore. If you imagined that was the sentiment I held towards you, Summers, I am more than happy to disappoint... Essex hissed in his skull.
Fine, just how would you classify your hatred of me? Cyclops asked in spite of himself.
My hatred of you is professional, at the very least rooted solely in a difference of philosophy, but not personal. A personal grudge like that would only get in the way of science. Of progress. So don't go expecting me to make some dumb mistake to settle a grudge with you.
I'll never be your guinea pig ever again. Cyclops thought defiantly. This brought about a telepathic chuckle from Essex.
Guinea Pigs are what Mutants like your friend Mortimer is. You, however? As close to a perfect Mutant as I've ever come across besides Ororo. You're actually a great protege! Your only true sin is a lack of ambition, in the end. But you are FAR from my first recalcitrant apprentice...
Was Tomi Shishido one of yours? Cyclops asked peering ahead into the darkness...
Ah, Mister Shishido. The one man on the planet whose mutation most closely resembles yours. Too bad all he wants to do is destroy the world instead of rule it. And what of you, Scott? What's going on in that plane crash you call a mind?
I was considering bashing your brains in for District X. he replied mentally.
I see a garden with weeds, I prune it. came the reply.
District X did nothing to you, yet you sent a murder-bot to lay waste to it.
District X was full of dead ends in Mutation. The equivalent of used socks genetically, held together more by prayer and shoelace than by DNA. I was doing our kind a favor. Essex snapped.
Most of the ones who died today were closer to their Deviant Ancestors than true Mutants like you and me. You'd think a man as utterly brilliant as Charles Xavier would have at least understood the purpose in quality control, in not letting EVERYONE in just because they had an X-Gene. Essex snorted mentally. He could feel her contempt and superiority complex even through the link.
It was exactly how he imagined her soul would be like, if he could ever glimpse it. And it was horrifying. And, for reasons even Cyclops could not have properly articulated... disappointing.
Imagine how far he could have gotten in his studies had he screened more selectively in his search for inhabitants. By trying to help everyone but the exceptional like yourself, he helps NO ONE. If it had ONLY been inhabited by the most powerful Mutants, I might have taken a more delicate approach. But the future of our species must LOOK like Gods as well as BE Gods.
Cyclops looked angry suddenly.
Dressing up an act of Murder as a genetic sculpting or a step to deification doesn't make those people any less your victims.
Is this another of those tired appeals to morality you were so fond of in our verbal sparring sessions, Scott? the telepathic voice asked with a mental sigh of exasperation. Perhaps I should pop open the ol' King James like your mother did until she didn't and listen to it call me a bad person? Changing the world means stepping on those too weak to survive sometimes. Progress costs lives. Guy that came up with the Nobel Prize? He invented Dynamite. We don't call him a murderer despite the thousands of deaths his creation caused in the long run, any more than we call the people manning all the nukes in their silo's genocidal madmen.
We also don't call them heralds of progress in Atomic Physics Research either! Cyclops mentally snapped back in pure disgust.
Our future must not be built on a substandard foundation. We are what humanity was destined to be. And only the strongest Mutants will bring about progress.
Is that all you care about? Progress?
Scott, there are far worse threats out in the cosmos that even now lie in wait. I have known this ever since I constructed my first machines. Essex replied crisply and patiently.
Things that devour planets whole, and the souls on them also. Beings that casually obliterate stars. Wars stretching across sections of space too vast for the ordinary mind to comprehend. You think this mudball run by a bunch of suit and ties, trust fund rodents, and their global populace of ignorant slaves is even fit to gaze upon such glory, let alone survive it? You're damn right I care about progress. Progress equals survival. And Survival only occurs when the full knowledge and power of humankind is turned to this collective imperative. Survival requires Science. Achieving Godhood requires both.
Madness is a part of science. Your own words...Scott sneered back in his head. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13)
There was a pause.
Madness is far more common to the condition of society then sanity is. All of Society is nothing but a set of rules put in place by consensus, observable reality, and testing...exactly like science. And rules have never needed to be fair. Why should they be sane? Science advances regardless of sanity, or we never would have gotten The Atom Bomb in the first place. Besides, the new Gods will need to be crazy to survive out there. Hence, Madness is inherently a part of properly conducted science.
What happened at District X has nothing to do with some high-minded crap about prepping Humanity for greater threats. You did that simply for enjoyment. There is nothing untainted about your research methods at all. It all boils down to how you can cause the most amount of suffering with the most efficient use of resources and the least amount of effort and time. Or it was simply to try and wipe out a competing ideology.
Charles Xavier, despite his admittedly stunning brilliance, is not a competitor. Charles Xavier doesn't even register to me as a threat.
If that was true, you would not have been so thorough. And you wouldn't have sent the Stealth Team to murder us.
I'm guessing you're starting to like your odds. Not unreasonable. Finally, we might develop some actual common ground. Tell me, Scott...what's it like? Intoxicating, isn't it?
Is this entirely me? Or did you do something else that I don't remember?
You were born Omega, Scott. You were always going to be superhuman, physically speaking...stronger, faster, smarter, more agile, more intelligent, more regenerative, more durable right out the gate. A God among men, as I have always insisted you were...
So, believe me when I say I couldn't resist exposing you to my own homebrew Super Soldier Serum derived from my own DNA when you were a child, just to see how much more you could be...
Cyclops mouth fell open slightly, the only expression of surprise he could register as he staggered back a few steps in horror, on the verge of having a breakdown that he barely managed to avert. He dropped the still bloody knife in his hand.
I have no words for how much I utterly despise you.
Not even a little gratitude? You were already perfect, and I made you more so. Like I did with the charming Miss Munroe...
You shot her up with the Serum too?
Of course. Why wouldn't I? Why are you so mad? Am I not answering your questions? I even made you and Ororo just like your mutual childhood hero!
I would have killed you just for District X. When I find you now? I am going to be SLOW about it.
Why, Scott! You've got a crush! How adorable. Come find me...I've rolled out the welcome mat. The tea is brewing. Do you take sugar?
Cyclops gave a roar of absolute rage and drove his fist without a thought into the wall of the granite tunnels heading deeper underneath Austin, Texas.
The granite shattered on impact from the blow, turned to dust really, his face contorted with pure fury as he stormed ahead, furious at the very idea of having something of her bound to him at the genetic level...and angrier still that Essex had done it to Ororo.
"Cyclops?!" Xavier called out, having grown more concerned as he watched Cyclops zone out from the telepathic conversation until his sudden, frightening outburst. It was the angriest Xavier had ever seen Cyclops so far. An angry Cyclops was a concept Xavier inherently knew to be beyond terrifying, given his level of power.
"Cyclops!" Xavier shouted, grabbing the teenager by the shoulders.
"What's wrong? What did she say to you?!" he demanded.
"Did you know she dosed me with a variant of the Super Soldier Serum?!" Cyclops snarled back at him.
Xavier sighed. "I suspected from the notes you recovered during your escape from the Orphanage, yes. You're probably one of the youngest recipients of the serum I've ever seen. There's never been studies of the effects of Serum variants on adolescents, let alone Mutant adolescents. Certainly not Omega-Mutant adolescents. I swear I was going to tell you, Cyclops, once I had more of a handle on just what sort of Serum you got..."
"It's based off of Essex's DNA!" Cyclops shouted. "Ororo got dosed with it also!"
Xavier's mouth fell open in horror.
"Giving you the Serum was bad enough...but giving it to Ororo...Essex really is trying to make a God..." Xavier realized. "And the unbridled ego of using her own DNA as a base...this fiend wants dominance over you both at the genetic level..."
"She's not getting it!" Cyclops shouted murderously, golden hued eyes blank with rage. For a second, Xavier felt the fear for the first time, of the Golden Light at the center of Cyclops' eyes.
"Cyclops...you need to calm down..." Xavier told him firmly. "Essex wants you in this state-"
"SHE PUT HERSELF INTO ORORO! ITS NOT RIGHT!" Cyclops shrieked at him, on the verge of completely losing it.
"You can't help her. Not like this..." Xavier said softly, seeing the pain, rage and fear of a horrifically abused and manipulated teenager rather than an Avengers-Level Threat.
"Calm your mind. You cannot let Essex get under your skin like this..."
Cyclops, face still contorted with blistering, city-leveling anger, FORCED control on himself, knowing Xavier was right.
"I'm so sorry you're going through this, Cyclops. You didn't ask for it...and you don't deserve what you're experiencing..." Xavier said, trying to get through the haze of moon-cracking wrath coursing through the young Mutant seemingly having the weight of the universe dumped on him over the span of a week. Cyclops had reached his breaking point quietly, the professor realized. Cyclops would have to be monitored much more closely than the others, because right now, Xavier thought Cyclops was maddened enough to take on The Avengers if for whatever reason they should get between him and Essex. He might not win, but he would do enough to give even Earth's Mightiest Mortals pause.
Xavier dreaded Cyclops making himself known to the world on such a hostile note. So much potential could be hopelessly squandered or at the very least overshadowed by a poor first impression. It might be overcome eventually, but it would never be overlooked.
"I promise, I will help you get this total psycho, Cyclops. But you need to get yourself back under control, or you're no good to us." Xavier pleaded.
Danger walked up to him, holding the bulky visor he had dropped and handing it back to him. "Cyclops? May I scan you to confirm?" she asked delicately, the terror of an Omega-Level Cyclops who could control his blasts and had the Serum coursing through him rapidly being calculated and processed. She had never actually heard of an Omega Mutant being dosed with the Serum.
This version of Cyclops wasn't just a Unicorn, he was a Lost City, rediscovered, Danger realized...
A Lost City filled with enough hatred and pain to rip the Earth asunder.
Cyclops looked at her. "Fine..." he growled, golden stare glimmering and twinkling dangerously in the low light of the tunnels. He ironically seemed less human when his eyes were uncovered. Without the visor, all you saw was the Basilisk Gaze constantly threatening judgement.
Danger's golden eyes glowed as she bio-scanned him. She rapidly did a number of genetic extrapolations based on the data.
"Your physiology absorbed the Serum at the atomic level. Likely stabilized in you by the energy in your cells, as opposed to Vita-Rays. An impressive workaround on Essex's part..." she noted consulting the extensive Sentinel databases her creator, a now dead version of Magneto had incorporated into her (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #12).
"From the looks of it, even if you didn't have the Serum...I estimate you would still be at peak human capabilities and above human regenerative capacity by default (Author's note: Would possess 616 Cap Physical/Mental Attributes even without Serum). You were already on your way to being Captain America's equal physically and mentally before Essex got you. Now? I'd say you are considerably more powerful." (Author's note: Likely possesses the physical and mental capabilities of 1610 Captain America)
Even here, there was an Essex dedicated to making Scott's life absolute hell. Danger felt sad about that...
"Dosing two Omega Mutants with the Serum...when they were children...pure insanity... anything could have happened to you two..." Xavier trailed in horror, now becoming more and more legitimately disgusted and infuriated with Essex on a personal level even though he had yet to meet or even speak to her. Every abuse of his knowledge he had ever been tempted to commit for the sake of changing the world, only to chicken out at the last second, Essex seemingly had decided to go through with.
What disturbed him most was she might have an actual shot at success with her lack of fetters.
"That settles it..." Xavier said grimly. "I couldn't possibly shut down the school program after learning all this. Without a haven for Mutants like you to run to and learn to harness your abilities for the good of the world, People like Essex will endlessly attempt to exploit Mutants without any barriers, without anyone being able to tell them 'no' and enforce it."
Xavier's hands folded behind his back as he paced a bit.
"Hell, the school program probably has a justification to exist just for the sake of fighting monsters like Essex..." he trailed as Cyclops went to examine one of the dead Optic Commandos, pulling the mask off one of the people whose neck he had snapped.
Two all red eyes, the sockets those eyes rested in shaped like diamonds. But otherwise badly disfigured by the grafting. Xavier knelt down.
"I don't think these are clones. Clones would have more uniformity..." Xavier examined the corpse, pulling open the uniform in certain places to look for identifying marks.
"There...see that?" Xavier asked, Danger shining a light from her eyes onto the back area of the dead Commando's neck.
Cyclops scowled as he beheld the infamous symbol of a red octopus with a human skull in place of its normal head, with the words OUT OF THE SHADOWS, INTO THE LIGHT underneath it.
"HYDRA...likely an on-loan operative..." Xavier theorized. "Truth is, they could come from anywhere, whoever Essex gives these grafts to."
"If HYDRA is involved, there's even less reason to spare any of them..." Cyclops muttered darkly.
"Yeah, can't argue that..." Xavier replied with a sigh, standing up. "Screw HYDRA."
Cyclops examined the removed visor. He wordlessly handed it to Danger, whose eyes glowed as she scanned it.
"True Adamantium Housing. Ruby Quartz Lens System laced with Vibranium circuitry. Quartz appears to have been subjected to a combination of concentrated X-Rays and Gamma Rays, allowing the lens to filter the optic blasts of the user in a less easily visible spectrum when fired, as well as the blasts being far less audible. Twenty Security Countermeasures, all lethal..."
Danger's arm split open and the tiny wire-based mechanisms inside snaked into the visor, carefully, patiently disabling even its most dangerous means of preventing someone with similar powers from using them.
"Countermeasures disabled..." she announced.
She then handed it to Cyclops, who put it on.
"WELCOME, NEW USER. VISOR IS NOW KEYED TO USER DNA AND GLOVE-BASED FIRING SYSTEM. WARNING: LENS ARRAY NOT RATED FOR CURRENT BIOLOGICAL POWER OUTPUT. LENS ARRAY MAY DISCHARGE ENERGY IN A NON-STANDARD MANNER." The visor's micro-computer system warned in the voice of Essex.
Cyclops let off a weak blast of energy from his eyes, the cyberized gloves acting as his trigger when he pressed his fingertips to his palm.
A heatwave like beam that was completely silent lanced out from his eyes and silently impacted on a wall yet did not destroy it. Instead, glowing red cracks of light began to slowly spread, and his ability to perceive atomic signatures told him the energy was building up in the rock, merging with it...yet not exploding...
Suddenly every cell in his body tingled like static on his skin. Unsure what was happening, Cyclops reached out with his hand on instinct like he could perceive something in the atoms. He could feel the energy of his eyes in the rock, and on instinct, manipulated the energy, making the rock bubble like boiling water as it broke off into a sphere with the energy of Cyclops coursing through it.
"Danger, what am I looking at?" Cyclops asked, rage at Essex battling his fascination with what he was currently doing warring in his brain for level of importance.
"You appear to have created a new type of mineral..." Danger observed as the spheres of altered rock lost most of their glow, becoming obsidian black with jagged veins of red around a central point that made them all resemble eyes.
"A synthesized form of Ruby Quartz." Danger announced. "I can't imagine you will get the same result with every material..."
"I can feel it..." Cyclops said, stretching out his hand, making the spheres of smooth rock float.
"...and control it..." Cyclops whispered, making one glow suddenly with energy as he hurled it against a far-off rock face, where it crackled across the surface with red energy not unlike the eye of his own Father when it was mobile and burst with the force of a grenade on impact, the shards it released on detonation also exploding with about ten percent of the force of an explosive-tipped fifty caliber BMG round.
"Whoa..." Cyclops let out dryly.
"Are you starting to understand, Cyclops?" Xavier asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you starting to understand why it is absolutely essential we discover as much as we can about the gifts of you and those like you? For the betterment of mankind?"
"I'm not sure how this is useful for practical applications..." Cyclops trailed, turning to one of the corpses of the Optic Commandos.
He fired the invisible blast at the corpse and watched with shock as it completely broke down into a swirling whirlpool of red liquid and red energy, and he felt the same control over it as he did with the rock he had struck.
He had memorized the Atomic Structure of the Commando as well as the previous bulky visor. He wondered...
He willed the matter to match the atomic structures of the bulky visor he had been rampaging through the Austin Tunnels that led to Threshold with. Most of the matter burned to ashes, and he was forced to make adjustments based on the Atomic Structure of his own eyeball and nerve connections to make it work, but when he was finished, he had a visor housing made of bone that was transparent in some places, displaying the pulsing, repurposed brain tissue acting as a regulation system. A pulsing, veiny red eye was attached to a bone socket in the middle of the front of the visor.
Xavier's eyes widened.
"Cyclops, you seem to be well on your way to being a constant source of W.T.F. for me to deal with..." Xavier quipped, getting the radio.
"Mystique?"
"Ja, Herr Cueball?" Mystique asked playfully.
"Bite me." he replied casually before switching to the next topic without missing a beat. "I need you to open another portal to us, you got our position memorized?"
"Of course." came the reply.
Cyclops removed the Commando Visor as Mystique opened a portal to their location, waving at them.
He promptly walked over, handing her the Commando Visor as well as the strange biological one he had just made, while Danger handed Mystique one of the Commando Knives as well as one of the scavenged Harnesses. they wore. They simply had no more time to examine it. Not with an Infinity Stone on the line.
"Take these and have someone run them back to the Jet. And where's Fred?" Cyclops asked as Mystique looked with bewilderment at the items.
"He's helping with Triage efforts and pulling survivors from the rubble..." Mystique answered.
"We need him. Change of plans..." Cyclops answered grimly.
"Storm wants to join. She's jumping at the chance. I don't know if we can convince her to stay here much longer..." Mystique warned.
"You can't..." said Storm who landed right behind her. "I'm going. No more arguments. Look at you all! It's like you've been smacked with a sledgehammer..."
"We throw too much, too fast at her and fail, it could compromise any future attempt at attacking her."
"And throwing too little at her could just get you three killed!" Storm protested angrily.
"I know you want to help. And I appreciate it, I do. But you are just too valuable to risk employing you against her just yet..." Cyclops said firmly.
"And Fred isn't?" Storm pressed.
"Essex just contacted me via telepathy a few minutes before this portal opened..." Cyclops said in grim fashion. This made both Mystique AND Storm step back a bit...
"And she doesn't sound worried..." Cyclops emphasized. "Please wait, Ororo. Please..."
Such soft features, such a delicate voice. Essex sneered in his head. A one in a trillion find...do you fear my whispers in her blood, Scott?
Do you FEEL my whispers in yours?
Or does the juice taste that sweet, Scott?
Cyclops ignored Essex. Storm frowned.
"Alright...damn you, alright!" Storm snapped, flying off. Fred eventually came over, his once heavy thuds now curiously light and silent.
"Fred...I need your muscle..." Cyclops explained.
"You mean my bulk..." Fred joked, clad in his black titanium mesh suit.
"Two things can be true at once." Cyclops replied.
He was taking a calculated risk. Fred had the size to draw fire. He just didn't know if his bulk would be enough to stop the blasts of the other Optic Commandos. But glimpsing Fred's atomic structure, really getting a good look at it made him wonder.
"Uh, Misty?" Blob asked politely, gesturing to the size of the portal.
"Oh, right! Sorry!" Mystique replied, widening the portal so Fred could step through.
"Mystique, how wide can you make that portal?" Cyclops asked.
Mystique paused. "Y'know...I'm not actually sure..."
"Test it. It may become relevant before the night is over..." Cyclops instructed curtly. Mystique nodded back silently before closing the Portal.
Your careful rationing won't help, Scott. Not against me...
This is no chessboard, Essex.
Oh, dear, dear Scott. So confidant after dropping only a few dozen of my henchmen. You have barely scratched a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of your true potential. I've been at this a lot longer than you...
And frankly...
I do it with STYLE.
Scott did not reply as he put back on the bulky visor and picked up the Shield again, leading them deeper.
...
The Greycrow Clones (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #17) and a combination of Optic Commandos and Optic Infantry set up ambushes. Machine Gun Nests, and chokepoints, mostly. Anything to delay Cyclops, Professor Xavier, and Danger a little longer.
"So is it true? He's Sinister's Protege?" One Greycrow Clone asked another.
"Yeah. He was already crazy powerful. Then She augmented him," the other Clone replied dryly. "He's slaughtered everyone we've sent so far..."
"His luck's gotta run out some time..." the first clone said enthusiastically.
"Not before ours does..." the other Clone trailed grimly.
One of the cloaked Commandos spotted a glow in one of the tunnels.
A powerful red beam bounced once off a rock surface and blasted the Commando right in the mouth. Descriptors wouldn't do the horror of the wound this created justice. Concentrated fire was poured on that tunnel, but the ricochet blasts kept coming, sniping more and more. Worse, Cyclops had finally gotten the idea to use his delayed blast trick AND his ricochet technique at the same time, and a needle thin beam of red lanced out of his visor, ricocheted of the rock wall he had been using and detonated a machine gun nest killing every clone nearby.
That was when he charged. It was like the knowledge he had the Serum had made him an enraged bull, rushing in shield first under heavy gunfire and slamming an Optic Soldier so hard his spine shattered hitting the wall behind him. Blob was right behind him, heavy fists smashing brutally into people as optic blasts only succeeded in making his belly jiggle. He was a mobile mountain, all lack of finesse and pure, unrestrained Brute Force. Telling Fred Dukes the Optic Commandos had HYDRA recruits amongst them had been all Blob needed to hear.
The Commandos, the Infantry, the Clones were all battle tested and hardened. Each had some degree of Superhuman physicality themselves.
But against what was essentially an Omega Mutant version of Captain America who could fire nuclear blast waves from his eyes...and a really, huge, strong, mobile boulder of a man...
It was like facing a Kaiju with a six-pack, martial arts training, and classic heart throb looks...and a big ol' jolly wrecking ball as his sidekick.
Danger and Xavier were going to fire, but upon seeing Cyclops and Blob absolutely rip into their ranks like a pair of living lawnmowers, they could only stop and watch in shocked silence as Cyclops completely vented his rage out on Essex's servants, his knife, his shield, and his optic blasts aiding CQB, and techniques Xavier recognized as coming from Defendu, for he himself was an avid practitioner since he was a boy. Fred fought with a surprising amount of focus and ruthlessness. District X and the horrors committed there had shaken him just as badly as it had the other Proto-X-Men, and he was no more interested in letting these people live than any of the Survivors were after the Sentinel attack.
Cyclops held back none of his strength, not just because he was furious, but because he knew he could pull it off. Like a mental block had been removed.
The shield smashed limbs and caved in faces and chests. The knife cut tendons and punctured skulls. Fists and feet and elbows broke ribs and necks. Clones were grabbed while the shield was sent to bounce of walls and floors, smacking into victims without mercy, while Cyclops used the man he had grabbed as a literal club to swing brutally into others...
Reinforcements were called in. Cyclops and Blob killed them all.
More reinforcements were brought in. Cyclops and Blob killed all of them as brutally and without mercy as they had dispatched the first batch of reinforcements.
Danger and Xavier followed as Blob and Cyclops brute forced their way deeper and deeper down the tunnels, leaving a trail of dead. It reminded Xavier of some of his worst missions in Vietnam. The kind of death and destruction Cyclops in particular was going out of his way to inflict was not all that dissimilar from things he had seen his Vietnam teammate, Frank Castle, pull off. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #14)
He only hoped he could find some way to pull Cyclops out of the darkness he had completely failed to pull Frank out of as he and Danger got ever closer to Essex...
Yes, Scott...fight your way to me. I WANT you to find me. Essex hissed in his Skull as he got closer and closer to the edge of Threshold.
I want to see your real face.
Just as you no doubt want to see mine...