The Battle of London
The red haze never left the sky. The Reaper lattice, once a distant shimmer, had settled into a web that glowed faintly through cloud and smoke. London was quiet except for the metallic pulse that came every few seconds-each throb another scan of the city's empty streets.
Where the Thames cut through the ruins, two figures stood on what remained of Westminster Bridge. Brian Braddock, armor dented and burned, adjusted the Union-emblazoned shield strapped to his arm. Beside him, Betsy drew her psionic blade, the violet edge humming softly.
"Still no response from command," Brian said, his voice low.
"There is no command," Betsy replied. "Just us."
A gust lifted dust from the pavement. In it, reflections flickered-shapes forming from liquid metal. The Reapers moved with mathematical precision, each step identical to the one before. The siblings shared a look and charged.
Brian hit first, shield blazing with kinetic energy. The impact cracked one Reaper's chestplate, sending molten lines across its frame. Betsy's psychic blade followed, slicing through a second creature's arm; the metal hissed and warped, unable to mend itself fast enough. For the first time since the invasion, the enemy faltered.
From behind shattered buildings, Pete Wisdom and two remaining MI-13 mutants opened fire, energy bolts streaking through the fog. Every shot left rippling fractures in Reaper armor. The machines recoiled, light patterns flickering in confusion.
"They feel that!" Pete shouted.
"Then keep hitting!" Brian answered, driving his shield into another Reaper's core. The explosion of sparks sent both of them sprawling.
The victory lasted only seconds. New silhouettes dropped through the clouds, dozens of them, landing with concussive force that shook the river. The first line of damaged Reapers straightened, bodies re-aligning despite the burn marks. Numbers replaced ingenuity.
Betsy pulled Brian to his feet. "We can hurt them," she said, breathless, "but there are too many."
"Then we make them remember the pain," Brian said.
They fought back-to-back, violet light and golden energy flashing through the smoke. Each mutant strike carved a scar of light across the enemy ranks, yet the bridge trembled beneath the swarm's weight. The Reapers advanced like a tide, methodical and endless.
At last Betsy felt the pressure in her head-the same pulse that had ended every city. "They're calling reinforcements," she whispered.
"Then we fall back," Brian said. "We live to warn the others."
As they withdrew into the fog, the Reapers halted their pursuit, scanning the air where the mutants had stood. Their armor still shimmered with violet cracks that refused to heal.
The Resistance Cell
Far beneath the surface of what had once been Switzerland, a network of concrete tunnels pulsed with the low hum of stolen generators.
Cable leaned over a table littered with shattered drones, their pieces marked with Reaper insignia. Domino sat cross-legged on the table's edge, cleaning her pistol with the kind of lazy precision that made every movement deliberate. Shatterstar stood near the entrance, blades drawn, listening to the distant echo of machines beyond the mountain. Hope Summers moved among them, connecting power cells to the communications rig Cable had salvaged from an old mutant safe house.
A voice crackled over the improvised receiver-half static, half scream-then a single phrase broke through:
"London... mutants... still alive."
Cable looked up. "Braddocks."
Domino smirked faintly. "Figures. Brits are too stubborn to die."
Hope adjusted the receiver, coaxing more words from the storm of interference. What she found made her go still. "The Reapers couldn't take them," she said softly. "Their bodies... the machines couldn't absorb the DNA."
Cable's one good eye narrowed. "That explains the sudden shift. They're not collecting anymore-they're purging."
Shatterstar turned from the entrance. "So they've decided we're a disease."
"We've always been that," Cable replied. "But now they're the cure."
He activated a holomap of Europe. Red lights flared across the continent-Reaper movements, new formations encircling known mutant zones. A fresh cluster blinked over London, the signal expanding outward in concentric rings.
"Extermination pattern," Domino said, watching the lights spread. "Systematic."
Cable pointed to the outer ring. "They'll hit the Alps within a week. We move before then."
"To where?" Hope asked.
"North," Cable said. "We find the survivors, consolidate whoever's left."
Hope's gaze lingered on the red lights. "We can hurt them. If Betsy's team cracked one open, maybe we can learn how."
Domino holstered her pistol. "And maybe get crushed trying."
Cable looked at her, the faintest edge of a grin tugging at his mouth. "We've done worse."
He shut off the map, the room falling into half-darkness. The others gathered their gear-Shatterstar slinging his swords across his back, Hope pocketing power cells, Domino adjusting her holsters.
When they reached the tunnel mouth, Cable paused. Beyond the narrow exit, the sky still bled red over the mountains. "We move at dawn," he said. "If the sun still knows what that means."
The group stepped out into the cold light, unaware that across the world another mutant was already facing the same realization: the Reapers could be wounded, but they would not stop coming.
Magneto's Counterattack
The island of Genosha was nothing but twisted girders and silent dust.
Once it had been a haven for mutants; now it was a graveyard that sang softly when the wind moved through the melted towers.
In the centre of what had been the capital, Magneto stood alone, eyes closed, hands lifted as if feeling the planet's pulse through the air.
The iron in the soil answered him. Fragments of old cities and Reaper carcasses rose around him in slow orbit, hundreds of shards forming a sphere of metal. His voice was quiet but certain.
"They learn, they feed, yet they still breathe through the lungs of matter. And matter is mine."
From the ocean horizon came the first wave. A thousand black figures walking on water, their feet leaving glass ripples behind. Their pace never altered; they came like the tide itself.
Magneto drew a long breath and tightened his fists. The sphere collapsed inward, then exploded outward as a storm of blades. The nearest Reapers shattered, pieces hurled into the sea. Energy rippled through the sky as the rest of the swarm staggered. He could feel the strain in their network, a faint static under his skin - proof that mutant power did more than damage metal; it disrupted the order inside their hive.
He smiled. For the first time since the invasion, the master of magnetism felt victory close enough to taste.
Then the second wave arrived.
The ocean itself bulged as colossal Reapers rose from the depths, their armor already scored from previous battles. They learned. Their bodies were layered with non-ferrous alloys that resisted his pull. Magneto strained; the air screamed around him, but the creatures kept advancing.
"Come then!" he shouted. The words tore from his throat, part challenge, part prayer.
He hurled entire buildings into their path. The impact lit the horizon, throwing up a wall of steam. For a heartbeat the swarm halted. Then new shapes fell from the sky, blotting out the red glow above. There were simply too many.
Magneto dropped to one knee, power crackling around him, the strain bending the air. The Reapers closed ranks. He felt their weapons charging - not to assimilate, but to erase.
From behind him, a smaller figure appeared out of the haze: Lorna Dane, his daughter, armor scorched, eyes glowing green. She had come through the ruins of Africa to find him.
"Father," she said, "we have to fall back. They're not stopping."
He looked at her, pride and grief mingling. "You see it now. They cannot take what is ours. They can only drown it."
He gathered the last of his power and swept his arm toward the sea. A surge of magnetic force ripped the Reapers nearest them apart, long enough for Lorna to pull him into the air. They rose through smoke and cloud, leaving Genosha behind - a field of broken machines still crawling from the waves.
The Awakening
Deep beneath the Egyptian sands, the vaults of an ancient fortress rumbled to life. Sparks traced the outlines of machines that had slept for years, waiting for a single genetic signal to wake their master.
Apocalypse opened his eyes.
The containment pod split apart with a hiss of stale air. He stepped out, the weight of centuries etched into his posture yet undiminished by time. His sensors displayed a planet wrapped in crimson lattice-an infection of machine and flesh spreading across every continent.
He studied the projection in silence, then spoke, voice resonant as if the stone itself carried it.
"The age of men and their false gods has ended. What rises in their place is... efficient. Cold. Yet even this machine dares to call itself evolution."
Data cascaded across the chamber walls-assimilation records, failure codes, the repeated notation of one anomaly: mutant genomes, incompatible.
Apocalypse's lips curved into the faintest suggestion of a smile.
"They cannot claim us. Mutation denies their order. In their perfection they have found imperfection's sting."
He moved to the command dais. The Gene Extractor unfolded, petals of Celestial metal catching the dim light. Streams of corrupted Reaper code bled across its surface as he analyzed the data. Each failure to assimilate left a pattern-chaos infecting the hive's immaculate design.
"Mutation is not a shield," he said softly. "It is contagion. We are the virus their purity cannot survive."
He turned his gaze to the holographic Earth. Blue oceans now glowed with Reaper red. Yet among the crimson web burned scattered sparks of unstable light-mutant signatures still alive.
"My children endure. Broken, scattered, yet unyielding. They will call this the end. I shall make it the beginning."
The console emitted a sharp pulse. Across the static appeared a fragmentary image-an angular face framed in crimson. Sinister. The transmission lasted only seconds, carrying coordinates and data that confirmed what Apocalypse already knew: the machines feared the mutant genome.
He watched the image fade and murmured, half to himself, half to the stars above.
"You always played with the fire of creation, Sinister. Now the fire comes to all."
He strode toward the exit tunnel, every step awakening long-dormant servitors. The air thickened with dust and the scent of ozone as power spread through the pyramid.
"If these Reapers seek to purge evolution, then I shall teach them its price. Let the strong rise once more. Let the weak burn in the crucible of change."
Above Egypt, lightning gathered over the desert, coiling through the red haze that stained the sky. The world would soon remember the name En Sabah Nur-not as a myth, but as the voice of evolution itself.