X-Force (6th series) #48

The Greenhouse, the hidden North Pole base of X-Force. It's the dead of night, and standing outside next to a fire as the snow falls around him is Arkady Rossovich a.k.a. Omega Red. He's in the sights of Dr. Henry McCoy a.k.a. the Beast, who aims his rifle and then opens fire. Something strikes Omega Red, and some sort of Krakoan flora begins to cover Omega Red's body. Omega Red has no time to react, and he collapses to the ground, while the Beast walks past him and sneaks into the greenhouse. He passes through a warehouse where some food has been cultivated and stored, and continues down deeper into the building. He stops himself and hides in the shadows as the Beaubier Twins, Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie a.k.a. Northstar and Aurora, respectively, walk past him, but they don't see him. The Beast continues off in another direction, eventually arriving at Sage's control room, where he starts tapping away at the console.

At that moment, in the mess hall, Black Tom Cassidy sits across from Sage and tells her that it goes without saying that he likes the veg, but that doesn't mean he likes a ploopy lukewarm veg stew with no salties or peps. 'You know what we could use?' he asks. 'Mmmhn?' Sage replies, unbothered, while wiping her glasses. 'A mutant with five-star, white-linen culinary powers – that's what we could use' Tom suggests, before he asks Sage if she is all right. 'Too much staring at the screens?' he queries. 'You're dreaming about better food. I'm dreaming about a nice stiff drink' Sage responds, to which Tom asks her if there is anything he can do. 'No. I mean, you could save mutantkind from the brink of extinction, that would be great. Might relieve a little of my stress' Sage suggests. 'On it. In fact, should have that done within the hour' Black Tom jokes. 'Thanks...' Sage responds, when suddenly, several alerts begin pinging around her. '$#%&!' Sage exclaims, concerned. 'What's wrong?' Tom asks, as he follows Sage when she gets up and starts to run through the Greenhouse.

'X-Force, this is Sage. All units report. He's back! Beast is back!' Sage warns everyone via her comm-link. 'Got to the control room!' Sage tells Tom, who asks her where she is going. 'Don't worry about me – just go!' Sage retorts. A moment later, Tom is joined by Neena Thurman a.k.a. Domino, Piotr Rasputin a.k.a. Colossus and two Wolverines – Logan and Laura. '$#%& is going on?' Logan asks. 'That!' Black Tom exclaims as the group finds themselves confronted by the Beast, who is wearing a monstrous Krakoan suit of armor. 'BEAST! Stand down or we'll cut you down!' Logan warns his former teammate, while his claws are at the ready. 'It's good to see you, too, friends' the Beast grins wickedly. 'Try to stay alive' the Beast suggests to them as he releases some sort of green energy blast, knocking X-Force backwards. 'Mutantkind is depending on us' the Beast declares while using the Krakoan armor to fly upwards, he breaks through the roof of the Greenhouse, and flies out into the night.

In another part of the complex, 'What are you doing in here?' Wolverine asks Sage as he finds her sitting in what appears to be an ammunition storage chamber, with a door to another room. 'He's gone?' Sage asks, ignoring the question. 'He's gone. Didn't put up much of a fight' Wolverine replies. 'That's because he was staging a heist' Sage explains. Logan informs her that the Beast stole a war suit of Krakoan flora. 'Starter kit for a new mobile base is my guess' Logan supposes. 'Be glad that's all he got' Sage mutters. 'What are you hiding, Sage?' Logan asks, to which Sage replies 'A No-Place tumor'. She puts her hand on a panel and then opens the door behind her while telling Logan that he is going to be pissed. 'But we salvaged the wreckage of his HQ... I kept one of his clones' Sage announces, revealing a clone of the Beast inside a stasis chamber.

Shortly, X-Force are gathered around a conference table. 'No' Logan declares. 'I haven't even -' Sage begins, to which Logan tells her that he knows what she is going to say, and that the answer is a no. 'And your alternative is – what? To hunt him down yourself?' Sage asks. 'Bet your ass' Logan snarls as he pops his claws. 'With respect, that strategy has repeatedly failed' Sage responds, before telling X-Force that she wants all of them to hear her out on a rather unconventional proposal. Various images flash up on monitors that hover around the room, as Sage tells her teammates that she could list off all the upsetting transgressions from Beast's history: MGH. Legacy Virus. Threnody. His alignment with the Inhumans, and the Illuminati. 'I could keep going, taking note of everything that followed his appointment as X-Force's director of intelligence' Sage adds, before listing off the genocide of Terra Verde, the telefloronic space prison, the poisoning of Jeff Bannister's daughter, and the assassination – and rebirth – of Wolverine.

'There's more. Some of it has affected you all. And in every case, he has escaped prosecution, slipping between our fingers like water' Sage declares. Logan stands up and tells her that this is a bad idea. 'I've run a million predictive algorithms, and it turns out that... the best way to stop the Beast... is Beast' Sage smiles.

Soon, the entire team gathers in Sage's No-Place and everyone looks up at the Beast in the stasis tube. 'Is this sketchy? This feels sketchy' Quentin Quire remarks. 'This is sketchy' Domino tells him. Sage tells everyone that she won't argue with them, but they need to hear her out. Sage taps away at the console and tells the others that whether this was accidental or intentional, she can't say, but that the file was from a longtime ago, when the Beast was a member of the New Defenders. 'I didn't know him then. Some of you did' Sage adds. Colossus remarks that he remembers the Beast was committed to mutant rights, and that he seemed happy. 'He was then who he is now' Logan snarls. 'You bring this $#%& online, and we've got twice the trouble' Logan adds, to which Sage tells him that she shouldn't have to point out the hypocrisy of him feeling that way. 'Or should I call you Weapon X?' she asks.

As the stasis fluid starts to drain away within the tank, Logan tells Sage to preach all she wants, before offering her a reminder that he kiled Beast before. 'And he'd booby-trapped his own body to attack everything in its kill zone' Logan adds. The Beast clone opens his eyes, and the tank opens, as Logan tells Sage that whatever version of Hank walks out of that tank, he is going directly under lock and key until they know more. Sage raises a gun and tells Logan that she agrees with him, while ordering everyone to assume a defensive position. Everyone readies themselves, while Quentin jokes 'New furball versus old furball. Personally, I dig it'. Sage calls out to Hank, and moves closer to the tank, despite Logan warning her to hold back. 'Hank, if you can hear me, I know you don't recognize my voice, but – I'm a friend!' Sage calls out as the Beast clone emerges from the steam of the stasis tank and knocks Sage backwards.

'What did I tell you?' Logan exclaims, as Domino fires a blast from her Krakoan weapons towards the Beast, while Black Tom forms some plant-claws and Quentin creates some telekinetic claws as they ready themselves to fight. The Beast clone lunges at the group and smacks Quentin in the face, knocking him backwards into Black Tom. Logan attempts to get the Beast, but he misses and falls to the ground. 'No, don't hurt him!' Sage calls out as Colossus rushes towards the Beast clone, but the clone just uses Colossus' body to leverage himself up into the air, and clinging to a Krakoan vine, he dodges Laura when she lunges at him. The Beast clone then drops down and and kicks Omega Red backwards, while Sage calls to him once more, and tells him that he is disorientated because he doesn't know where or where he is. 'This is a different time!' she exclaims. The Beast stops leaping about and looks down at X-Force as they regroup. 'Our time! We brought you here to help us!' Sage explains. 'Will you help us, please?' she asks, looking up at him. 'Oh my stars and garters...' the Beast utters.

A short time later, the Beast is placed behind bars, and Black Tom keeps watch. 'You're telling me Krakoa was a nation? Where all of us – even Mystique – lived?' the Beast asks. 'Aye. But if you ask Logan, he calls it a country club more than a country. 'The mutants were a dominant force, a sovereign society?' the Beast queries as he begins pacing back and forth in the cell. 'Aye, I keep telling you, and you keep telling me back like an answer's a question' Black Tom remarks. '[It's all just so fascinating. Fascinating, I tell you' the Beast utters. 'Aye, aye, aye. Blah, blah, blah' Black Tom mutters, uninterested. The Beast asks Black Tom if he knows what is particularly edifying – that this shows all his good work on mutant rights has come to fruition. 'Well, the fruit's a bit sour these days, I'd say' Black Tom suggests.

Excited, the Beast leaps up and clings to the bars, announcing that there is so much to celebrate, so much to learn, before admitting that it pains him to hear himself referred to as a war criminal. 'What happened to me?' he asks. 'That's what the X-Forcers want to know as well, and you'll be chatting plenty' Tom responds. 'Once I answer these questions...will they dispose of me?' the Beast asks. Yawning, Tom tells him that if they think he is a knockoff of bad Beastie, then it would probably make good sense.

'Can I ask you something?' the Beast begins. Yawning again, Tom tells him that he has already asked so many things. 'How do you interact with the Krakoan biotech?' the Beast queries. 'Oh... it's just like moving a muscle, suppose you could say. I think it... and it does it' Tom reveals as he closes his eyes. 'What about the others? Surely you're not the only one who can interface with the tech?' the Beast asks. 'All of the X-Forcers... have... access...' Tom mumbles as he dozes off to sleep.

The Beast places a hand on one of the Krakoan bars, and calls out 'Request access: Beast. Open cell' and with that, the Krakoan fauna parts, and the Beast escapes his cell.

The Beast begins accessing the computer system, various screens flicker before him. He believes it was Nathaniel Hawthorne who said “We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream... it may be so the moment after death”. The Beast decides that this feels very much like a troubled dream that he hopes to wait from. So he waits to wake. Or he waits for the death the world or his fellow mutants wish to offer him. Thankfully, he is a quick study, because this organic interface took him a moment to master. He accesses the data drives in the hopes of finding some answers, requesting every file with “Beast” or “Hank McCoy” as the author or subject – and suddenly, he goes wide-eyed, and a tear falls down his face. 'Oh, Hank...' he gasps, before he runs out into the snow-covered night.