✓Prologue: Chapter 06: Lost
> > SOMEWHERE IN ALASKA.
Before the X-Force clashed with the Reavers, the X-Men and X-Factor at the mansion quickly came as reinforcements for the imminent battle against Cable and the Reavers.
However, they arrived only to witness the aftermath of the confrontation.
"Logan, fill me in," Scott requested, trying to grasp the situation as he observed the bodies of the Reavers scattered around.
"Don't you feel the weight of death, Summers?" Wolverine questioned, addressing Scott while watching Warpath kneel, holding Caliban's lifeless body.
"We'll mourn Caliban… honor him… later. Tell me what happened here," Scott insisted coldly, wanting to keep the focus on the situation.
"What you're seeing… We found the enemies and took them out."
"But Cable took advantage of the chaos and bolted, with our damn transport. It was my fault he played us," Logan said, his fists clenched with rage.
"It wasn't anyone's fault. You had to stop the babies from being killed," Scott reminded him, trying to bring clarity to the situation.
"That's exactly what Cable was doing. He was protecting them too," Laura commented beside Wolverine, not believing Cable had bad intentions with the babies.
"Bobby, are you picking up any signal from Blackbird Number 1?" Scott asked over the radio, wanting to know the status of the stolen aircraft.
"Nothing, Scott… Cable was an X-Man… obviously, he knows the jet has a tracker."
"Makes sense he disabled it before he even took off," Bobby, the Iceman, responded from inside the Blackbird nearby.
"Hmm… Is he still unreachable to you telepathically?" Scott asked Emma behind him.
"I sense a faint, fragile psychic echo, but it's too weak to give me a direction," Emma Frost replied.
"He's heading south. Since he left Cooperstown, he's been moving in a straight line. South and a bit east. If we follow that line, we might find him at the end of it," Wolverine suggested, plotting a possible route.
"It's a shot in the dark, but it's all we've got. We'll narrow it down once we're in the air," Scott said, walking toward the Blackbird.
"Guido and Warpath, put Caliban's body in the cargo hold."
"And do it with respect; he died as a…" Scott said but was interrupted by Warpath's voice.
"What the hell is this now?" Warpath asked, kneeling on the ground and looking at the sky, drawing everyone's attention to an unusual event.
In the sky, two glowing golden bird-like objects circled above Warpath.
Suddenly, the golden objects swooped down rapidly toward Caliban's body.
"What…?" Warpath murmured, shocked, quickly standing up while grabbing his knife to stop the objects from approaching.
Warpath tried to strike one of the objects, but it dodged and formed a dome of golden light around Caliban's body.
The mutants quickly approached to see what was happening.
"What the hell is that?" Scott asked, ready to fire an energy beam at the golden energy dome enveloping Caliban.
"Stop now," Emma Frost said to the mutants about to attack the energy dome to break it.
"Why?" Warpath asked quickly, gripping his knife, ready to strike the energy dome.
"Wait a minute…" Emma said, closing her eyes and placing two fingers on her temple, focusing deeply on a certain psychic energy she was beginning to sense, somehow rising from the ashes.
Seconds later, she opened her eyes as if she had confirmed something. She approached the energy dome and looked at the small bullet holes in Caliban's head.
"He's being healed," Emma said to the mutants present, her voice filled with surprise and fascination, after sensing Caliban's mental energy rapidly returning from death.
"What…?" almost everyone present muttered, perplexed.
"Look at the bullet wounds," Emma said before anyone could say anything else.
The mutants quickly focused their gaze on the bullet holes in Caliban's head, watching in astonishment as the wounds began to close rapidly, as if they had never been shot… as if they had been rejected.
After a few seconds, the bullet wounds healed completely. Then, the energy dome around Caliban vanished, leaving him lying on the ground, now fully healed.
"Hmm… where am I?" Caliban asked, newly returned to life, as he opened his eyes and saw all the mutants staring at him strangely.
"Caliban!!!" Warpath shouted quickly, embracing his friend with relief.
"Someone is definitely helping us," Scott said, looking at the sky with intrigue.
> > SOMEWHERE NEAR DALLAS, TEXAS.
In the middle of a deserted road, Cable sat watching the two babies drink from their bottles.
"I hope you did something good, kid," Cable said, addressing little Michael. Minutes earlier, the boy had made a triangular gesture with his hands, releasing two golden bird-like objects that quickly flew into the sky at astonishing speed.
"Hm, hm," Michael made a small sound while nodding his head up and down, as if agreeing.
Cable smiled at Michael's response, interpreting his gesture as confirmation.
Cable nodded as he spoke, conveying his conviction to the babies, saying, "You'll be great soldiers one day. But remember, no matter where we are, proper nourishment always comes first." He looked at the babies with concern, knowing their journey would be tough but determined to protect them at all costs, especially now in the final stretch.
"But a man can't live on bread alone. We also need something called a Chronal Jump Regulator," Cable added, staring at the horizon with a serious expression.
"There's only one place in the world I know where we can find that," Cable said, standing up and walking to the middle of the road.
"And here comes our ride… right on time," he added, watching a truck rapidly approaching him on the road.
A few seconds later, the truck screeched to a halt in front of him with a loud squeal of brakes.
"Hey, man, are you crazy?! I could've run you over, you damn suicidal piece of shit!" the truck driver yelled at Cable.
Cable quickly approached the truck's door and, in a swift motion, pulled the man out, tossing him onto the road as if it were nothing.
"What…?" the man muttered, bewildered, as he watched his truck disappear down the road, taken by Cable and his precious passengers.
---
> > SOMEWHERE OVER NORTH AMERICA.
The Blackbird sliced through the skies at high speed, breaking the sound barrier. Onboard were the three mutant groups: X-Men, X-Force, and X-Factor.
"What's with this vector, Bobby? Any idea where Cable's headed?" Scott asked, skillfully maneuvering the Blackbird while glancing at Bobby beside him.
"We could be talking about anywhere in the southwest, or even farther," Bobby explained, focused on the data displayed on the Blackbird's computer. "Given the possibilities, he might've even gone to Peru."
"Warpath—" a woman seated next to Warpath said, catching his attention.
"Leave me alone, Monet. I'm not in the mood to talk," Warpath said with a sad expression.
"I know, I'm picking up your thoughts," Monet said.
"Keep them to yourself… They're none of your business," Warpath insisted, still grappling with the sacrifice his friend had made for him.
Even though Caliban had somehow been revived by someone mysterious, the memories of that difficult moment still haunted him.
"Believe me, if there was a way to stop them, I would," Monet said, concerned for her friend.
"Prodigy, got anything for us?" Scott asked, mentally connected with Emma's help to Prodigy, who was currently at the mansion.
"Not yet, Cyclops, but I'm close," Prodigy replied, focused on repairing Cerebro.
Charles Xavier had stepped away from the mansion at Scott's request to not interfere in this matter, and Hank was tending to the many wounded since the healer, Elixir, was unconscious. So, the task of fixing Cerebro fell to Prodigy.
"Mechanically, Cerebro's ready, but the mental interface needs to be perfectly aligned…" Prodigy explained before being interrupted.
"Just let me know when it's working," Scott ordered, not wanting technical details.
"Yes, sir," Prodigy responded.
"I don't get any of this. What's Nathan trying to do? I can't believe he'd unleash Sentinels against his friends," Bobby muttered to Scott beside him.
"You think there might be something we're missing?" Bobby asked Scott.
"Right now, nothing matters more than those kids," Scott replied, his expression reflecting concern.
"Everything we know points to Cable. He made his choice, and I made mine," Scott added coldly.
Moments later, Prodigy had finally repaired Cerebro. The Stepford Cuckoos, the twin sisters, connected to the device, focusing their combined power. In no time, they pinpointed Cable's exact location.
"Cyclops, Ms. Frost…"
"Can you hear us?" the Stepford Cuckoos asked telepathically, now linked to Cerebro.
"Yes, go ahead, girls," Emma replied.
"We have Cable's location. Dallas, Texas. Approximately two miles from…" the sisters said, but they were quickly interrupted.
"Eagle Plaza. He's heading for Forge," Scott stated, already guessing where Cable was going.
"We're on our own, but alert everyone… Anyone nearby. Anyone who can get there," Scott ordered Emma and the Cuckoos, asking them to telepathically send a message to any mutant allies, requesting they head to the location.
"I think I know what he's after, and he needs to be stopped immediately… or we'll lose him forever."
---
> > TEXAS / DALLAS.
> FORGE'S RESIDENCE.
At Forge's building, Cable crashed through with his truck, causing devastating destruction. He quickly exited the vehicle and ran inside, holding the babies in his arms.
"Forge! I know how this looks, but I'm not here to fight," Cable said hurriedly as he entered the building.
"I'm asking for your help… It's serious… I need a time machine, no matter what."
He desperately sought Forge's attention, aware he was likely being watched.
"I know you can hear me. Thanks for not kicking me out yet."
"I just need to borrow some of your components… I'm not a threat. If you come out and talk to me, I'll explain everything—" Cable said, quickly climbing the building's stairs.
After a tense search up the stairs, Cable finally reached a room.
"…No," Cable muttered in shock as he entered the room and saw Forge's body slumped on the floor.
"Forge, are you okay? Who did this to you?" Cable said, quickly approaching Forge, checking his condition and realizing he was only unconscious. He examined Forge for injuries and tried to wake him, worried about what might have happened.
As he tried to assess the situation, Cable sensed a presence approaching from behind. A chill ran down his spine as a gun was aimed at his back, and before he could react, three shots shattered the silence, drawing a cry of pain from Cable as he was hit.
His body collapsed beside Forge like a final blow, Cable's consciousness fading into darkness as the threat now loomed over the babies.
The person who shot him slowly walked toward the babies on the floor and then aimed their weapon at the girl.
"Ahhh," the little red-haired girl cried intensely in pain, as Cable had dropped both babies to the ground after being shot in the back.
For a moment, the girl stopped crying and stared with pure innocence into the eyes of the man aiming his weapon at her head.
"Stop looking at me like that… You don't understand—" said the dark-skinned man, muscular, with an M mark between his right eye.
This man was, unexpectedly, the mutant Bishop.
"I have to do this…" he said, with a slightly sad expression, about to pull the trigger.
Suddenly, the eyes of little Michael, lying beside the girl, underwent an abrupt transformation. His childish green eyes turned red, with black irises resembling three-pointed shurikens, locking intensely onto Bishop's eyes. In an instant, the man found himself paralyzed, dropping his weapon, overcome by an inexplicable force.
To complicate things further for Bishop, a blue energy sphere materialized above Michael's hand, rapidly expanding to envelop the man's motionless body.
Michael made gestures as if slicing the air, and in the blink of an eye, Bishop's body was cut into hundreds of pieces. Though strangely and biologically impossible, Bishop was somehow still alive.
Michael's eyes changed again, this time to a deep purple. With a simple movement of his small hand, all of Bishop's pieces were repelled out of the building, propelled by an immeasurable force.
"Jesus Christ… What the hell was that?" said a new, incredulous voice, arriving at the scene with three other people.
The newcomers were the Marauders: Gambit, Malice, Vertigo, and Sunfire.
"What the hell are you, kid?" Malice asked in shock, looking at the boy who was now, somehow, floating in the air alongside the girl, staring strangely at them.
"The Purifiers nicknamed that girl the Antichrist. I'm pretty sure they got it terribly wrong about which of these two babies is the real Antichrist," Sunfire said, holding a fireball ready to launch if the boy made any sudden moves.
"Stop it, Sunfire… We're here to take the babies, not kill them," Gambit said, asking Sunfire to lower his hand.
"LeBeau… How the hell are we supposed to take these babies? You saw what that little demon did to Bishop," Sunfire said, still not lowering his hand with the fireball.
As Gambit was about to speak, the babies quickly began moving through the air, floating toward them.
"Hey…" Sunfire warned, afraid.
In an instant, the two babies were right in front of them.
"Hmm… little one, do you want to come with us?" Vertigo said, surprised, as she watched baby Michael floating right in front of her, seemingly reaching out his arms toward her, as if making a silent request to be taken with them.
Understanding the baby's gestures, she quickly picked up little Michael in her arms, while Malice gently held the girl.
Witnessing the scene, Gambit let out a sigh of relief, grateful not to have to face the small but powerful baby. With a concerned look, he addressed the group: "Girls, how are the babies?"
"Perfect… Cable kept them safe. But my link with our mutant tracker tells me the X-Men are already on their way," Malice replied, holding the girl.
Malice was possessing the robotic body of the Omega Sentinel, allowing her to access all its powers, including the ability to detect mutants from miles away.
"Something wrong, Gambit?" Vertigo asked, noticing Gambit's somber expression.
"Nothing, just… wondering what could've changed him, what made him turn against them after all those years together."
"What the hell was that guy thinking… Well… doesn't matter anymore, he's dead anyway," Gambit said with a slight tinge of sadness, leaving the scene with the Marauders.
Little did Gambit know that Bishop wasn't dead, but at that moment, he was trapped in far-from-pleasant dreams.
Meanwhile, just behind the Marauders, a dome of golden energy enveloped Cable, rapidly healing his wounds.
> > SOME TIME LATER
The X-Men, X-Force, and X-Factor arrived at Forge's building, once again too late.
They quickly came across the horrific scene of Bishop's sliced body parts scattered across the street. At first, they thought Bishop was dead, but Emma informed them, in some crazy way, that Bishop was still alive, as she could still sense his mind at the location.
The mutants hurriedly gathered Bishop's sliced parts to see if something would happen, and unexpectedly, it worked, reassembling his entire body.
But even after the ordeal, Bishop still didn't wake up; on the contrary, he was sweating profusely, as if trapped in a terrible nightmare. Emma quickly invaded Bishop's mind and was shocked by what was happening there.
She soon realized that Bishop's mind had been transported into a powerful and terrifying mental illusion, killing him repeatedly in various ways. An illusion that would even surprise and fascinate her former Hellfire Club partner, Jason Wyngarde (Mastermind).
The illusion horribly distorted the target's perception of time. Emma, upon entering and exiting the illusion, calculated that each second in the real world equated to 72 hours within it.
Based on this, Emma realized that Bishop had already been in the illusion for over an hour in the real world, meaning decades of continuous torture inside the illusion.
After a few minutes of effort, Emma finally managed to break the illusion. However, Bishop still didn't wake up, and Emma knew why. His mind was completely shattered and destroyed, no longer resembling a human mind.
But as one of the world's most powerful telepaths, Emma knew exactly how to fix it. She erased all memories of what happened inside the illusion from Bishop's mind.
A few minutes after Emma resolved the issue, Bishop finally woke up, with no recollection of the horror he had just experienced.
Emma then explained to Bishop everything she did to his mind to help him.
"Thank you so much, Emma," Bishop said a few minutes after waking up.
"Bishop, I know this isn't a good time… but time's against us, so I need to know what the hell happened here," Scott said to Bishop.
"Alright… I had just picked up the Cuckoos' message and came to Dallas as fast as I could in my ship…
-- But when I got here, Cable had already taken down Forge and was grabbing equipment from his room—
We fought… I shot him a few times… I could've taken him," Bishop said.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Lucas… Just tell us what happened," Scott said, trying to calm Bishop.
"When I was about to grab the babies… something hit me from behind… Most likely the Marauders," Bishop said, omitting that he didn't see them coming. However, he unexpectedly got it right when stating who had the babies.
"As for Cable, I have no idea what happened to him after that. He probably fled… I doubt the Marauders took him with them," Bishop concluded seriously.
"Yeah, it's highly unlikely they'd take him… Their focus has always been the babies," Scott agreed.
"I let them get the babies… The fate of the mutant race… and I failed," Bishop lamented, head bowed.
"Pull yourself together… This isn't over yet. We're not giving up… We'll need everyone who can fight," Scott said, encouraging Bishop.
"Emma, did you pick up anything from Jamie?" Scott asked, referring to the unconscious Jamie Madrox, lying in a hospital bed next to the equally unconscious Forge.
"You mean a message from the future?" Emma asked, while Bishop watched them strangely.
"I'd like that, but… I can't pick up anything. His brain's practically dead right now," Emma replied, as Bishop sighed in relief.
"Bishop, is your ship up there in flying condition?" Scott asked about Bishop's ship parked above the building.
"Yeah, why?" Bishop replied, curious about Scott's question.
"Because we lost one of ours," Scott said.
"Logan, I want you to take X-Force and go with Bishop in his ship."
"Alright, any idea where we're headed?" Wolverine asked.
"Not yet, but I want you and X-Force in the air when I do have an idea," Scott said.
"Got it, let's move, team," Wolverine said, putting on his mask and leading X-Force out of the area.
A few minutes passed, and X-Force quickly left Forge's building, leaving only the X-Men and X-Factor behind.
Emma Frost was now in telepathic communication with the Stepford Cuckoos, who were connected to Cerebro.
"We're perfectly connected to Cerebro now," the Cuckoos confirmed.
"But we can't locate the babies," they added, revealing the difficulty they faced in the search.
"It seems the babies are somehow masking their own signal," the sisters speculated, raising suspicions about the babies' ability to hide from Cerebro.
"That… shouldn't be possible… There must be someone else behind this," Prodigy pondered in the Cerebro room at the mansion, alongside the Cuckoos.
"The babies are blocking Cerebro?" Emma asked, incredulous.
"Prodigy just said pretty much the same thing, Ms. Frost."
"And he's the smartest kid in the room, almost as much as a girl," the sisters teased.
"But even he doesn't know what to do now," the Stepford Cuckoos concluded.
"The solution is simple, girls… if you can't track the babies, focus on the mutants who took them," Emma instructed her protégées.
"Of course, why didn't we think of that before?" Phoebe said, recognizing the logic in Emma's suggestion.
"We would've figured it out eventually," Celeste said.
"There's only three of us, after all," Mindee said sadly, remembering their other two sisters, Sophie and Esme, who were now dead.
"Tell them to try tracking Cable too… He's caused us enough trouble already," Scott said to Emma, acknowledging the importance of dealing with Cable and his actions.
"We need to stop him before he does something else."
---
> > OUTSKIRTS OF DALLAS.
Cable walked along the edge of the road, his expression a mix of sadness and anger, his eyes fixed on the ground as he slowly entered the dense forest. His contorted face reflected the intensity of the emotions consuming him, lost completely in dark thoughts.
"You're an idiot, Nathan… Going so far just to lose everything in the end."
"I fought and ran so much, for what?"
"Just to let your guard down the damn second you got where you wanted to be."
"I let the future of the entire mutant race—the child you were supposed to protect—get lost back there."
Cable sank into his thoughts as he crossed the forest, until he reached an open area where a large black jet, the Blackbird, rested—stolen from X-Force.
"Good job, you idiot," he thought to himself as he boarded the aircraft.
"Well, I guess this… can't be done alone anymore."
"The stakes are too high."
"So it's time for plan B."
"I hope he's listening." Nathan closed his eyes, focusing telepathically, placing his fingers on his forehead.
"Professor… Can you hear me?" Cable whispered telepathically.
"Nathan? This is unexpected. Everyone's out there looking for you…" Charles Xavier's response echoed in his mind, bringing a mix of relief and apprehension.
"Please tell me no one else got hurt because of your actions." The concern in Xavier's voice was palpable, a grim reminder of the consequences of his choices.
"Charles, listen to me… Nothing is as it seems…"
"—Right now, you're the only one who can help me save the future."
.....