Author's note: ALL ART COMMISSION OFFERS FOR THIS STORY WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DECLINED
...
Minutes before Nightcrawler, Toad, and Blob were sent into the tunnels...
Nightcrawler watched as the red skinned creature known as Mystique paced about, listening to the mysterious beeps from her radio. Kurt recognized it as Morse Code. He had been trained to recognize it due to the need for the Pipeline to send coded transmissions with it. And the code he was picking up was bad. He saw the now heavily altered Mystique, looking more like the now dead Blink whose DNA she had absorbed. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #15-17) frown deeply. She looked around. Kid Colossus was helping direct survivors down emergency evacuation routes, and there was no certainty there wouldn't be a nasty surprise or two waiting for them. It was rapidly becoming apparent to the survivors: Someone had ratted them out.
Anyone who was still alive, barring the Mutants who had helped kill the Sentinel that had attacked them, was a suspect.
Nightcrawler translated the Morse Code message he heard on the radio; ESSEX ENCOUNTERED. TOO POWERFUL TO FACE DIRECTLY. DRASTIC MEASURES NEEDED.
"Damn it all!" the nude, red skinned Mutant with doll anatomy hissed.
She waved down Blob, who had just gotten back leading rescued hostages from the tunnels and was preparing to help the survivors escape, having told everyone to be on standby the moment he had arrived just as Cyclops had instructed him earlier as well as Storm and Toad, along with Power Princess, all still doing their very best up to the instant she gestured for them to go to her to treat the wounded and then gestured for him to come over. Nightcrawler hopped over.
"The situation is extremely serious. Essex has captured all of them. They are in immense danger." Mystique explained. "We have maybe a single chance to rescue them, but our timing must be absolutely perfect. I'll have to modify Herr Zyklop's original plan..."
"So, Cyclops was right..." Storm trailed, clearly uneasy at how precarious the situation had become. "If we had gone in all at once...we probably would have all been captured..."
"It would seem so, Frau Blitz-Hexe." Mystique replied. "But the time to call upon your thunder is at last upon us. I do not know how useful it will be, however. Essex seems to have telekinesis, at the very least. And she's Omega Level."
"A team consisting almost entirely of Omegas? Versus an Omega?" Toad questioned. "That's...odd. Too odd to be a coincidence..."
"There's no time to mull it over. We come up with a way to save them and Essex's hostages, or this is over before it starts..." Storm replied to Toad flatly.
"No matter what happens, we cannot let Essex keep the Phoenix Stone..." Power Princess stated emphatically, hands moving casually to partly exposed hips. "She could and would cause untold Death and Destruction if it fell into her hands."
"We'll send Storm through one of my portals. She'll hopefully distract Essex long enough to get the Stone, which is in some kind of golden statue from what Danger just transmitted..."
"What about us?"
"The tunnel Cyclops and the others went through is the main route into District X. Some of the Human Volunteers showed me a number of stress points to plant them that could trigger a chain reaction in the fault lines."
"You are talking about causing a freaking earthquake?" Toad asked skeptically. "Won't that affect the city of Austin?"
"A minor Two Point Five on the Richter Scale for Austin. But where we set them has the potential to do vastly greater damage to Threshold itself. It was the Morlock's failsafe in case an enemy threatened to find it. That scenario has come to pass. You'll have to take charges with you and set them. When you head off, I'm going to open as many portals as possible to let the survivors depart to the other evac zones. Once you reach Essex herself, keep away from her, distract her as long as you are able so I can evac as many as I can here..." Mystique instructed. "I will detonate the charges and use Portals where Cyclops is to bring you back through."
"This is a hair brained scheme." Storm criticized.
"If you don't want your shot at Essex, Frau Blitz-Hexe, you are free to stay behind." Mystique replied with a shrug.
Storm's glowing red eyes gained a genuine death-glare.
"Not a chance..." the raven-haired young Mutant replied.
"Then it's Settled. Fred, Mortimer...Kurt..." Mystique added hesitantly. "You three go. Set the charges. And distract Essex however you can. Please be careful you three..."
The three nodded and began to go to the tunnel entrance, but Mystique stopped Kurt and held him back a moment.
"You...you do your best to stay safe, Ja? Protect the others?" Mystique asked hesitantly.
Nightcrawler nodded. "I will, Mystique..."
Mystique sighed but nodded. "Good luck Kurt."
"I don't need luck. I have Christ." Kurt replied with a wolfish grin before leaping after the others.
...
Toad, Nightcrawler, and Blob had hurried their pace through the tunnels full of Sinister's slain Optic Infantry and Greycrow Clones. Cyclops had shown them no mercy after what he had seen in District X. The devastation was just one sobering reminder of just how dangerous the visor wearing Mutant actually was.
Nightcrawler had grown progressively sicker at the aftermath of the brutal rampage in the tunnels. The savagery was worse than anything he had seen fighting ORCHIS in the lost battlefields of the Euro-Mutant Pipeline.
"Herr Zyklop must truly loath this Essex woman..." Nightcrawler observed.
"If you knew anything about what Essex was like, Kurt, you'd understand why Cyke wants her dead." Toad replied. "Hell, I want her dead..."
"I am no stranger to the sin of wrath, Mortimer..." Nightcrawler replied as they rapidly set charges on the ravaged tunnel system leading to Threshold.
"But I have the love of Jesus to guide me back to the light in my darker moments, to remind me of how deadly a sin Wrath truly is. His teachings remind me to retreat if the cost be my immortal soul. What does Herr Zyklop have besides rage and hatred?" Nightcrawler questioned innocently.
Toad looked around at the bodies and did not answer.
As they traveled, a massive gust of intense wind flowed down the tunnel. Toad and Nightcrawler, lacking the sheer girth of Blob, were easily lifted up by the wind, yelling in surprise as they began to be blown back by hurricane-force winds.
Blob managed to catch both gently by the legs, and Toad fired off his tongue and wrapped it around a rock spire.
"HANG ON TO HIM!" Blob yelled at Nightcrawler, who held on for dear life to Toad's legs while Blob trudged forward slowly, step by step to reach the source of the wind.
He spotted a white-haired Mutant in a purple business suit with equally white eyes. A Riptide Clone.
Blob struggled forward to reach him.
"YOU AIN'T NO TORNADO!" Blob shouted as he slowly but surely got closer. "YOU'RE BARELY A BREEZE!"
"That's why there ain't just one of me!" The Riptide clone shouted as three others appeared from separate hiding spites behind fallen tunnel rubble.
All the Riptide clones focused their wind powers on Blob, and only the lessons Loki had given him about his abilities when he had been separated from the others allowed him to stay in place, but he could advance no further. The wind was so powerful it was starting to pull away air that Blob needed to breath...
Just then all the Riptide's stopped as if frozen. Their eyes bulged as they started to go into a collective seizure. Blob didn't question it. His fists slammed into each Clone's Skull, pulverizing it and killing them instantly.
Blob stumbled back, coughing. He had just been on the verge of suffocation.
"Mort! Kurt!" Blob called out. "You two okay?!"
Toad was in even worse shape. He really had been on the verge of blacking out from lack of air. Nightcrawler had fallen unconscious and had needed to be shaken awake.
"We'll live..." he called out weakly.
"My, my, I got here just in time. Apologies for not arriving sooner..." called out a feminine, North London contralto.
Toad and Blob froze at the voice, slowly turning to the source.
An extremely pale skinned woman with medium length black hair and a 36-24-36 figure in a skintight dark gray catsuit that exposed her shoulders with glowing red eyes and a glowing red X on her forehead stepped out of the shadows.
Toad went dry in the mouth from horror and slowly went to the radio...
"Xavier?" he called out hesitantly to the Radio, not looking away from the smiling woman who looked like an almost vampire-esque version of Natalie Essex, his tormenter at the Orphanage. "I think that brain Danger screwed with is here..."
Blob scowled and said nothing. Nightcrawler was very keen on observing both their reactions, but even he was immensely creeped out by the woman, despite her beauty.
"I just barely finished regrowing..." The Essex clone said. "You're all heading to...Cyclops, right?"
"Yeah..." Blob answered hesitantly, spine turning to ice as her smile widened slightly.
"I would be delighted to sojourn with you, removing...impediments...to your path..." The Clone said in a silken manner.
Xavier's voice blared over the Radio.
"Does it look like Essex? Danger warned me it would look like Essex." Xavier said.
"Yeah, if she were Queen of the Undead..." Toad muttered.
"That sounds about right. Go with her. If she does anything funny...do what you gotta do..." Xavier advised.
"Fraulein Nosferatu, do you have a name?" Nightcrawler asked.
"It's certainly not Fraulein Nosferatu, dear boy..." The Clone said with a dark chuckle that chilled Kurt's blood. "Let's keep things simple. Call me...Sage..." Sage replied.
"You sure it can be trusted, Charlie?" Toad asked the professor over the Radio, not daring to even blink in its presence.
"Do I sound like I know? Congratulations, you're all guinea pigs today..." Xavier grumbled in reply. "See what happens when you bring strange hyper-advanced LMD's home, Mortimer?! They do strange, hyper-advanced LMD stuff, like regrow creepy clone people from the turn of the century and brainwash them with genetic therapy and nanites to be within acceptable levels of frightening!"
Toad cast a wry glance at Blob, who only shrugged sheepishly.
"Sorry, Mort, he, uh, kinda has a point there." Blob admitted.
"Everybody's a critic..." Toad said with a sigh.
Sage slinked towards Toad and he instinctively backed off, heart pounding in his chest.
"Whatever is the matter, young man?" Sage asked, that sly smile not leaving her. "You know...you look familiar. Have we met?"
"No." Toad answered.
"Not what your body language suggests..." Sage replied with a raised eyebrow, movements smooth and liquid like. "I'm sensing a considerable amount of fear from all of you, in fact. Y'know, I have developed a number of breathing exercises from studying with monks in the Himalayas that would absolutely be wonderful for re-establishing your sense of emotional equilibrium. Half the battle is maintaining a positive mindset-"
"You're looking for Cyclops, right?" Blob interrupted, taking the heat of Toad as best he could by trying to distract the thing in front of them with a question.
Sage instantly refocused on Blob, flashing a smile that only made her creepier.
"Yes...Cyclops...let's go to him. I sense...pain..." Sage replied, mouth drawing into a frown. "He's probably a prime candidate for therapy purposes...you must always try to reach the especially traumatized youth as early as possible..."
Toad's hands were trembling, mouth completely dry from raw terror as he backed away from Sage further and went far ahead of them.
Nightcrawler quickly caught up to Toad. "I'm getting serious stalker vibes from her...and the sense she's like a parody of one of those new-age self-help gurus..." (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #16)
Nightcrawler stole a glance, caught Sage flashing a dark smile at him that made him shudder on the inside.
"A really messed up self-help guru parody..." he muttered darkly, crossing himself.
"The way she said his name..." Toad trailed mouth still dry from fear of the creature that had joined them. "The way her eyes lit up when Cyclops was mentioned...that scared me more than if she had just started letting off evil cackling..."
"What's the Clone's deal with Herr Zyklop?" Nightcrawler asked in confusion. "She shouldn't even know him..."
Toad remembered the insanity he had been through so far. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #11-12)
"Not two days ago, I'd have been as baffled as you are..." Toad admitted. "Now? Now I'm not so certain I should be...could be Danger programmed her with the knowledge...but she really did seem too familiar with it...another freak woman to the roster.
"Is Storm the only woman among you who has parents?" Nightcrawler wondered.
"Yeah...now that you mention it..." Toad admitted.
"Most curious..." Nightcrawler mused.
"Then again, if Storm is as powerful as I'm thinkin' she is, then maybe it's for the best..." Toad mused. "After all...chick who can control lightning? Probably the only one who could HOPE to walk away from a fight with the other ladies on our squad..."
...
Storm struggled against Sinister's telekinetic grip, growing more and more enraged as red lightning arced off her body as she was slammed into the ground by the other female Mutant.
"Still hoping to beat me solely with rage, Ororo?" Sinister taunted cruelly as she slammed Storm into the ground.
A scream of pure hatred from the young girl caused a massive eruption of red electricity from her body in all directions, each bolt of lightning carrying the destructive power of a Howitzer Shell, destroying equipment, and multiple part of buildings far off as the lightning bolts struck them. An explosion of thunder over the city of Austin above carried even through the immense layers of rock above them as Ororo freed herself, mind gripped by ice-cold rage. A red aura of electricity surrounded her, making any Tele-grip attempt by Sinister extremely taxing to try and execute as Storm flung herself once more at Sinister.
"DIE!" Storm screamed as she flew at her, hurling massive balls of red electricity at Sinister that shook the whole of Threshold as they impacted against the invisible force-field Sinister erected around herself.
"A Lost Little Girl's anger is nothing before the cause of Evolution!" Sinister snapped, firing another green tinted blast of concussive energy from the red diamond on her forehead that smacked into Storm and sent her spiraling into the ground.
"SINISTER!" Cyclops shrieked in fury, having been freed by the telekinetic grip due to the momentary distraction of his nemesis in holding off Storm.
He had set his visor to that explosive shot setting and fired massive red orbs of condensed concussive energy at his archenemy. The sounds of the explosive impact shook the whole of Threshold as they impacted on Sinister's shield, and Sinister notably strained at holding back the explosive effects of the equivalent of a four-thousand-pound bunker-buster weapon going off. Scott went momentarily deaf from being so close to the explosion, but his ears began recovering rapidly due to his enhanced Mutant Physiology, as he switched the visor to the 'Machine-Gun' setting and a rapid stream of tiny red explosive bolts impacted, coming so fast that Sinister was only able to move a third of the bolts away, telekinetically smacking him HARD away from her.
Boiling rage made him stand up.
He ripped off the Visor, and this time he did not fire his beams at their lowest output.
Large golden beams of energy sprang forth from his eyes, face contorted with loathing of his enemy, causing a micro earthquake in his immediate area just by firing the beams at a higher setting. This allowed Storm to get up and launch a massive, continuous stream of red lightning from her hands.
Sinister grimaced, the telekinetic shield holding excellently to an assault that would have brought down a skyscraper and cut through entire neighborhoods, but it was clear the sheer AMOUNT of energy getting poured on her position from both combatants would eventually wear even her down. And both were committed to seeing her die.
"All, power, no sense..." Sinister sneered. "No matter..."
Both Cyclops and Storm screamed, clutching their heads as Sinister assaulted both their minds.
Your minds may be more difficult to truly read, then others... Sinister said to them. But they are far from immune to basic infliction of suffering...
Horrible nightmarish images of pain and death filled both their minds. Cyclops could barely think through it, though he was still staggering towards her, struggling to try and use his beams and failing, and Storm was so enraged she kept crawling towards Sinister in an almost mindless urge to destroy her, in spite of being unable to use her powers.
"I. WILL. KILL YOU..." Storm snarled through the terrible pain in her skull, struggling forward on her knees.
"Oh, I'm shaking in my evil mutant boots, Munroe, truly..." Sinister replied scathingly. "Still...it's more fight than your Mother gave..."
A murderous shriek tore from Storm's throat as she put all of her rage and hate into overpowering the telepathic suppression.
The lightning bolt that ripped through the layers of rock above Threshold struck with the force of an entire bombing run just behind Sinister. The very ground exploded in a forty-meter radius from the powerful impact, flinging the combatants back. Cyclops was up almost instantly despite being closer to the blast. He saw Storm unconscious, having overtaxed her own abilities just to stun Sinister momentarily.
Forgetting his need for revenge on his tormenter for a moment, Cyclops rushed to Storm's side. She was completely out cold from fighting through Sinister's telepathy to attack like that.
"Ororo! Wake up! WAKE UP!" Cyclops shouted.
"Aw, Summers, scared for your crush?" he heard Sinister taunt in the distance through the debris cloud, only her glowing red eyes visible through it.
"You're only embarrassing yourselves at this point..." the Omega Mutant sneered, approaching.
Cyclops grimaced as Sinister stepped forward, having been absolutely mutilated by the shrapnel impact yet regenerating very rapidly.
'It would be of such little effort to kill you as you are..." Sinister said, healing fully to an unblemished appearance, her body pushing out the rock debris.
"The only reason I do not do so is because of your potential. You do not understand how important you both are to the future of this world..." Sinister continued. "Are you ready yet, to give up this childish attempt to rebel?"
Cyclops lashed out with two golden beams only for Sinister to divert them upward with telekinesis and stretch his arms out, lifting him and forcing his gaze onto Ororo. He barely shut the beams off before they would have killed her.
"Such, power, so little imagination..." she chided. "Blind anger."
"You will pay for District X..." Cyclops snarled.
Sinister rolled her eyes. "If I had a dollar for every time someone vowed to make me pay for anything I've done..."
Cyclops got an idea. The delayed blast trick from Cable...
...but with way, WAY more energy.
He glanced at Sinister's feet and unleashed a medium sized beam, delaying the reaction psionically.
Sinister glanced down in surprise as the ground detonated in her face with the Force of multiple fragmentation mines going off in a single spot, like she had been hit by a gigantic shotgun blast. She was COMPLETELY shredded and blasted apart into piles of white flesh and green blood. Cyclops was partly hit by the shrapnel of the blast and felt a rib shatter. Only rage allowed him to fight through the pain and his bleeding arms and legs as he dragged the unconscious Ororo away from the still quivering, steaming flesh piles of Mistress Sinister. He saw the atomic structure of her 'remains'. She was still alive and was rapidly reassembling.
So Cyclops fired again and blasted her apart a little bit more. That was when she attacked him mentally, making him drop to his knees, clutching his head in pain.
I am not triumphed over so easily, Scott...
Cyclops screamed in agony as the day his family died was looped into his head over and over. Sinister had gone for the mental throat this time. Nothing less could keep him down for long short of killing him.
SURRENDER.
Cyclops clutched his head, still screaming, but refusing to yield, even as the blasted apart piles of flesh reformed into Sinister.
"All this pointless damage... destroying your own people's birthright to slay me. Imagine what we could have learned..." Sinister hissed, ramping up memories of the Plane Crash.
A glowing golden chain wrapped around Sinister's neck and brutally yanked her backward, the Chain held by the scantily clad Power Princess, who hurled Sinister far away.
"CYCLOPS!" Princess yelled rushing to him. Cyclops was still clutching his head, mental agony almost making it impossible to think.
Princess concentrated, the power of the Love Stone within her giving her voluptuous figure a pink aura that spread from her body to his, cleansing him of the effects of Sinister's mental assault. She didn't have time to revive Storm, who was much, much more spent from her overloaded lightning attack, and would require more effort and time to revive.
"Can you fight?!" Princess exclaimed as he stirred.
"She's hurling a building at you." Cyclops muttered, aiming his eyes at the GIGANTIC crystal building telekinetically hurled by Sinister, and utterly blasting it apart, Princess using her own telekinesis to hurl chunks of the exploded building back at Sinister, who repelled them in turn and ripped off more and BIGGER buildings to hurl at them from a distance.
Cyclops next beams caused another micro-earthquake as he fired, the beams ripping through each building and being diverted away partly by Princess's telekinesis.
"Zarda, get Ororo out of here!" Cyclops ordered. "She's dead if she stays!"
"You can't defeat her, Cyclops!" Power Princess warned.
"I'm not trying to. You're the best chance for protecting Ororo! I'll distract Sinister! GO!" Cyclops barked.
Cyclops watched as Princess picked up Storm and flew away.
"Good luck!" Zard said before she flew off with an unconscious Ororo.
"You too, Zarda..." Cyclops said under his breath, his atomic senses picking up another building being ripped from its foundations and hurled at him.
Earthquake generating golden blasts from his eyes burst the building apart into massive chunks that were quickly reacquired by Sinister and hurled back at him, only for him to blast them into smaller and smaller parts. His anger grew worse, and in a fit of pique, tried his delayed blast trick with much more powerful beams on an entire building behind Sinister.
The explosion leveled the area around it, and even Sinister was forced to break off her assault to catch the massive amounts of debris that would have shredded her worse than even his previous attacks had...
...and that was when a series of micro-rockets fired from the arm of a Danger who had just finished reviving impacted on Sinister, whose flesh rippled disgustingly as the warheads, created from sampling the technology of Xavier's Psionic Grenade Rounds (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #14), froze her cells ability to move or even think momentarily.
Cyclops was about to fire when Danger flew down and stopped him, her metallic pink skin heavily reflecting Cyclops on the surface of the materials her artificial flesh was composed of.
"NO! Don't! Those warheads froze her for a moment. You blast her apart, you could risk undoing it!" Danger said in an outright panic. "Cyclops...we CAN'T defeat her...I got thrown for a loop by her being Omega. But that isn't our only problem. My scans are detecting foreign technology that's completely integrated into her cells. Technology that matches that of files in my database of another Mutant. One of the first where I come from..."
"Where YOU come from?!" Cyclops repeated.
Danger sighed.
"Oh, c'mon, Cyclops, you're not stupid. It's the nineteen eighties. Do you know of anybody beyond Stark or Richards who can replicate the kind of abilities I've displayed?" Danger asked.
Cyclops glared in curiosity.
"Even Stark, I think, would struggle, at best. At worst, you'd only be in theoretical stages if Richards was making you." Cyclops replied carefully.
Cyclops recalled his earlier Time Travel experience. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #7)
"Danger...are you from the Future?" Cyclops asked, deadly aware of Sinister's Atomic Signature, how even now her atoms were fighting the effects of the warheads.
"I'm from a future...Scott..." Danger answered ominously, her use of his name making him raise an eyebrow.
"A future that's been deleted...but we must leave, however we can. The technology in Sinister's body makes her all but impossible to defeat. We need a much better strategy, and you need a lot more experience under your belt before you realistically have a chance of bringing her down..."
"Where's the Clone you activated?!" Cyclops asked.
"I wish I knew!" Danger exclaimed.
Cyclops hesitated. Danger gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I know you want to stay. I know you hate the idea of turning tail and running from someone you have wanted dead for so long. But you must listen to me..." Danger pleaded. "Sinister's fall will come. It ALWAYS comes. But if you die here, the X-Men will lose their best and truest leader before they have even truly formed..."
Cyclops scowled.
"Fine..." he snapped.
They both turned and began to flee, but Cyclops froze as Sinister spoke in his head again.
Going somewhere? There is nowhere to run.
Danger screamed as she was lifted up by Sinister with telekinesis, her arms and legs beginning to be stretched to the limits of her body's engineering as Sinister grinned sadistically. Cyclops clutched at his throat as Sinister telekinetically choked him.
"I can feel a Star Wars reference on the way, Scott!" Sinister taunted. "Can you?!"
Cyclops unleashed a larger, earthquake inducing optic blast that made all of Threshold rumble as Sinister was once more forced to generate an invisible bubble around herself to stop the beams, this time visibly straining herself...
Sinister clutched her hand and the air was ripped out of Cyclops' lungs, making him drop to his knees and making him shut his blasts off as he struggled to breath...
...
Mystique, still evacuating survivors through her newly acquired portal ability, and growing more and more exhausted by the effort each time she did so, received a telepathic distress call from Power Princess and immediately opened a portal and allowed the Asgardian construct carrying an unconscious Storm to fly through. Xavier was nearby, desperately modifying some equipment with what tools he could scavenge, the very injured Cypher struggling to help him. Bobby was still in no shape to help anyone.
"Frau Blitz-Hexe!" Mystique exclaimed as Power Princess gently set the unconscious Storm on a nearby gurney. Xavier immediately went to tend to her.
"How bad is she hurt?" Xavier asked.
"She over-exerted herself trying to hurt Essex. Drained most of her internal reserves, more than likely..." Zarda answered.
"I'll do what I can..." Xavier promised The Construct as she turned to face Mystique.
"I need to get back there! Cyclops needs me!" Princess exclaimed, panic on her face.
"We could hear the battle from all the way here!" Mystique whispered. "It sounded like the very earth was tearing itself apart..."
"It IS!" Princess confirmed.
"Take Piotr with you!" Mystique said, pointing to Kid Colossus, who was helping the most injured or infirm through the many portals Mystique had opened.
"Piotr!" Princess yelled, flying over to the shining teen of steel.
"Yes, Zarda?" Rasputin asked, metallic features crinkled in worry.
"We are losing to Essex badly and we need you! It may be the only way to incapacitate Essex long enough for all of us to escape." Princess explained.
Kid Colossus nodded.
"Da. The Koloss will fight The Baba Yaga for you, Comrade Koldun'ya..." Kid Colossus assured.
Princess turned, looked at an unconscious Ororo, whispered a spell to help speed up her recovery. It was all she could do at the moment.
"Doug!" Xavier called out to Cypher. "We're out of time! You remember how to fly the Jet?"
Cypher nodded, bruises all over his face from the Optic soldiers who had literally had to surround him from all sides and beat him into unconsciousness after he had slaughtered dozens of them by using their body language to perfectly counteract them on a physical level.
"Get it ready! And get that Statue aboard it!" Xavier said, pointing to the Nude Loki Statue hiding The Phoenix Stone in its depths.
Cypher nodded.
"Mystique!" Xavier called out. "Finish getting the rest through your portals and then get on the jet as soon as possible!"
"Ja, Herr Cueball!" Mystique replied in confirmation.
"And Zarda! Give Cyclops this shotgun back..." Xavier said, tossing her the old-lever action shotgun with a stockless grip and an enlarged lever-loop that Cyclops had gotten from the lost hideout of Ghost Rider. (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #13)
Zarda seemed to glance at it in curiosity, sensing something strange about it but having no time to question it as Mystique opened a portal and Zarda and Kid Colossus leapt through it, back to face Sinister.
...
Sage, Toad, Blob, and Nightcrawler could feel the terrible rumbles from the battle at the heart of Threshold, and now were encountering not only more Riptide, but Greycrow and Harpoon Clones (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #16)
Harpoon's energy lances sailed rapidly through the air, forcing Nightcrawler to use his Vibranium Vulgate (SEE: TOTAL X-MEN #15) to deflect the blasts away from the advancing group, teleporting the Harpoon Clones closer to bring the surprised beings in range of the Psi-Blade springing forth from a module on his wrist. He cut them in half, feeling a pang of guilt as he did but seeing no other way that wouldn't risk putting his allies or someone innocent in harm's way. Blob took no chances this time with the Riptide Clones, charging them at full speed (Fred was surprisingly swift for his size) and barreling down on the Riptide clones, smashing them to a pulp with superheavy swings before they could really work up the kind of gusts they would need to even slow him. Toad launched precise globs of mucus from his throat that covered the barrels of the high-tech weapons the Greycrow clones tried to use as they fired everything from railgun rounds to flame blasts, moving and leaping and engaging whoever he could at close range, holding none of his bone crushing superhuman strength in his kicks back.
While Sage...
Sage took on everyone else.
The strange clone of Essex invaded the minds of whatever Clone not actively occupied with getting decimated by the others. Sometimes she would make them turn on one another. Other times she would make them kill themselves. Or she would telekinetically snap limbs or necks. Toad grew more terrified of her with each passing moment, because the Essex Clone was demonstrating an innate mastery of her skills that the others simply didn't have by comparison...They had experience certainly, but the skill gap was large and obvious in their hesitance and uncertainty in trying certain tactics compared to hers, which displayed great experience.
They were so barely coming to grips with the idea they were all somehow, SOMEWAY, Omega-Level, that being around a mutant who really DID have clear and present high skill with their powers, made the other three painfully aware of how far they had to go. If the Clone of Essex was this powerful, all three were now dreading the prospect of having to engage the real one.
But as powerful as she was, limitations were also being revealed. The Clone, in the rare instances a serious blow did land, was notably stunned for a few moments. A gunshot that managed to blast half her head off made her go still for a moment, flesh shuddering unpleasantly everywhere as her nanite infused tissues had to activate to repair the damage, forcing Nightcrawler to teleport the rifle out of the hand of the Greycrow Clone that had fired before he could shoot her again, then teleporting the Greycrow close to him to be stabbed from behind by his Psi-Blade.
"Lord, forgive me..." Nightcrawler said as the clone breathed his last. He looked with hesitance as the Essex Clone calling itself Sage slowly repaired itself. She seemed to recover slightly slower than Mystique did. Nightcrawler filed that knowledge away for future use.
The others managed to finish off all the enemy clones in the area...everyone was panting. Sage's head finally repaired itself and the flesh on her body stopped rippling.
"My thanks, young man. When I'm injured so extensively, my body prioritizes healing before it can do anything else..." Sage said with an easy smile that creeped Nightcrawler out.
Her next question made the dark blue fur on the back of his neck stand up.
"Do you know Cyclops?" Sage asked, almost eagerly.
"Barely. It's been a crazy night..." Nightcrawler replied hesitantly.
"What's he like?" Sage asked in an eager whisper with an unsettling glint of fascination in her glowing red eyes.
"Creepy...really creepy. Like someone who was born with ice in his blood, and a heart of stone, not flesh, to pump it..." Nightcrawler trailed, in an uncertain manner, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to risk placing Cyclops in potential danger from this...thing...
Nightcrawler's heart skipped a beat as her smile crept upward slightly.
"Yeah, that sounds about right. Cyclops sounds like he hasn't changed a bit..." Sage noted idly to herself...
"You sound like you know him..."
"The original me met him..." Sage replied as she walked ahead of the others, at last sensing his psionic signature.
"Back in the eighteen seventies..." Sage added slyly as she walked ahead of them...grinning...
As they finally crossed the barrier into Threshold proper, they all collectively gaped at the sheer level of destruction that had been unleashed between Cyclops, Sinister, and Storm.
"The city...it's been...it's been destroyed..." Nightcrawler trailed in horror. "Is this the power of an Omega-Mutant?"
"Not even a fraction, my furry blue friend..." Sage whispered in awe and fascination stepping forward before turning to others, fixing on Toad, who cringed unconsciously at the face that resembled his tormenter.
"Toad, was it?" Sage asked crisply. "You should go finish setting the rest of the charges. The others in our little party will distract my counterpart as long as possible..."
Toad didn't object, eager to get away from the creepy clone as she and the others ran to the center of the war in threshold between an evil teacher and her unwilling pupil...
"Don't worry, my old friend..." Sage said under her breath as she raced to battle.
"There is more than one monster present now..."