X-Men: Before the Fall – Heralds of Apocalypse

The demon world of Amenth:
Hovering over a pile of bones, En Sabah Nur meditates. Tell him what strength is! a voice demands.

Amidst the dead creatures one small demon is alive. It begs for that knowledge and addresses him as “great Apocalypse.”

Opening his eyes, En Sabah Nur corrects him, noting this is a corrupted name. Mangled by history. Once it pleased him that his name meant final destruction… but the time for such blunt concepts has ended. And so he is A, a more ancient world with more resistant meaning. “Revelation” - for he is the revelation and has always been. As A was revealed – so he shall reveal!

The small demon eagerly agrees: “The strong shall survive” - that is the word from on high. He wants to survive. How does he survive? What is strength?

A replies, if the strong survive, then the measure of strength is survival. But understand: survival has no moral component. Heroes die. Brave hearts break. Paradise is lost. The numinous is denied by small souls or betrayed by despots. The alchemists’ gold is pulled from heaven… to make currency.

Consider a rock, battered by an ocean for a million years. It is worn but whole. Is a rock noble? Can a rock be moral? A rock is there. As he was there. And this is the revelation as it was revealed to him: it is not enough only to be there. It is not enough only to be strong.

Well, thanks for nothing, big man, the daemon replies rudely. A moment later, he screams as a shuriken buries itself in his skull. He shouldn’t talk to them, A’s wife Genesis admonishes him. He observes she reforged the family sword, referring to the weapon hanging at her side. She orders him not to change the subject. He became a lecturer on his island of the weak but she still teaches by example. The strong survive. Those who surrender will survive – in her army. So, what is strength? Strength is surrender to her. As it always was.

His heart knows it, A agrees, but a world is not a lover’s heart. He cannot support this course. He cannot walk with her. Calling him “gentle one,” she assures him she has never asked him to. But he will open the way, she orders coldly.

And if he chooses not to? he demands. Her armies will not persuade him. Nor her White Sword nor his Hundred, nor their own children nor anything that she holds, he adds looking at the Annihilation Staff. Without a word, she plants the staff in the ground. Then she will persuade him and, if he wishes to persuade her, make his points well. She draws the Sword Scarab and throws one of its blades to him while keeping the others.

Flashback:
Okkara – a time long ago:
Apocalypse reverently holds the sword Scarab for the first time, a gift by his sister-in-law Isca the Unbeaten. He marvels how the four parts come apart and yet join together seamlessly. Isca likens the parts to his four fine children. She challenged the swordmaker Ingios to see who could make a better weapon… so it’s better than the best. Though he’s not the swordmaker his mother was, so this won’t beat the White Sword she made. Except as an ornament of exquisite beauty, Apocalypse announces, which is all a sword should be in a time of peace.

“Peace,” Genesis scoffs in bed from her birth, her newborn son at her breast. She chides her husband that peace is not the natural condition. Every mutant on Okkara is a living weapon. And all weapons were made for the battles to come. And if the battle never comes? he challenges her, can’t the weapon become something more? She smiles indulgently, and Isca asks for the child’s name. Death, Genesis decides.

Sometime later, the whole family take a walk in idyllic Okkara. Playing at the water are the young Blue and Jon Ironfire. Apocalypse muses on the names of their children: War, Famine, Pestilence and Death… Doesn’t he like the names? she asks. He likes them very well. She knows where he came to Okkara from. A land where great pain is harnessed to build monuments to the denial of fate. Looking at his youngest, he announces, his children are his monuments built from love, not pain. His denial in the face of what he is told he must be. Each named for a concept lost to the past. Where is famine in this fruitful land? With their healers, where is pestilence? Their swords are forged in celebration. Where is war? Where is death?

Calling him her poor love, she laughs, where it is always. Not in the past but waiting in the future… to strike! At night, she dreams of a sword, one not made for the bright day but to herald the night. She dreams of it splitting paradise in two - opening the door to annihilation. And she dreams that this is more than a dream. And so she named their children. Not in denial – but in recognition of what they must face, overcome and then become.

He assures her they are one mind in that. But can strength never rest? Does survival have no ending? Can there be no time of – he breaks off, wondering what that light is.

Present:
Blades meet each other with a clang. Genesis asks if he remembers how he screamed when the Twilight Sword cleaved the land in two. She will never forget! Nor will he!

She continues it was not a squeal of fear, nor a howl of pain, though their blades cut deep, as he shielded the children with his body.

She nicks him and licks the blood on her blade. It was a scream of rage and despair, she continues. She remembers well. A agrees. Rage that paradise had been sundered and despair that it would always be so. What she heard was the burning of his soul, and he took the flame and gifted it to their enemies! He turned his torso into a cage to protect the children, while he fought as did the others. If the boy Blue, his dead father’s sword in his hand, his power awakened from grief, had not raised his Hundred and charged the rift, they would have fallen. As it was, the years passed and they fought on.

Genesis smiles, recalling her sister fought by their side, never losing and never losing heart. Their children grew to be warriors. Those were years of glory!

They were, he agrees. And does she recall how they ended? Of course, she smiles. They won. And the enemy came to them, begging bowl in hand… to parley.

Flashback:
Before Genesis, Apocalypse and the four grown Horsemen as well as a Summoner stands a rotten corpse wearing the helmet of Annihilation. Annihilation wants to make an offer to those mutants of great quality. So make it, the Summoner challenges. If only it could give it to them, Annihilation laments, but generosity is nowhere in its nature, Sincerity however is. It wants them to earn it. It summons a pair of daemons to attack them. Apocalypse wants to strike but Genesis announces, they are hers. She strikes with her power over plant life, her control over the vines quickly taking the creatures apart.

Present:
A recalls how quick it was and he recalls the Annihilation helm making its offer to her and her alone. She kept to herself what it offered, and her answer. She replies, the knowledge might have broken him, and then she needed him whole. But now… perhaps it is time for him to learn…

Flashback:
Genesis took the helm off the crumbling corpse and it spoke to her alone, spoke in her mind. Claiming it came to her a friend.

On the astral plane, surrounded by darkness, the helm is larger than life. It reminds her it has made her a warrior, when once she was a paranoid outsider. It has given her the time for which she was born. It has reforged he husband back into the merciless blade that came to them from desert lands. Undone, the peace that had blunted his sharp edges. It has built heroes from her children. A legend from her sister. A glorious myth from her country. Has it not made all of her dreams come true?

At what cost? Genesis demands. Annihilation scoffs. The weak were winnowed, the strong survived and thrive. Is that not her philosophy? And so here is its offer for her ears alone: it will seal the rift. If she asks it to.

In disbelief, Genesis asks, is that all she must do? Ask? Annihilation clarifies, it does not require abasement or humiliation or even a “please.” Ask and the rift is closed. The war will end here, with nothing further lost nor won. Only ask.

And what of the lost Hundred? she asks. What of their dead? What of payment for its crimes?

Annihilation tells her to stop. They both know there is only one question in her hear: if the war does not end… if the rift remains open… can she win?

The present:
A looks at her in horror. The dream was real, he mutters. They had peace. In their hands. Paid for with blood. Okkara… had peace and she refused it! He throws himself at her, swords drawn. Calmly, she replies that she did and was right to. With two blades, she stabs him through the chest and doubles down, they were not made for peace!

On his knees, A groans in pain. As Genesis continues, he insults himself to pretend otherwise. By pretending, with his great hindsight, he would have taken another path. She knows him better and thinks more of him. He is of Arakko, as she is. And in the broken land they fight. As he would have fought. Yes, he hisses. He would have fought. For Amenth’s crimes, for Arakko’s justice, he would have fought. Even knowing he would lose… he would have fought! Even knowing the cost… Does she remember the cost? The cost was separation! Arakko from Krakoa, husband from wife…

She knows, Genesis replies. She was there. And she could ask the same of him. He sent the broken land to Earth – to coddled Krakoa. What did he truly intend? For the strong to conquer the weak? Or the weak to worship the strong? He groans that he intended to force growth. A necessary change…

She puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and claims it a noble goal, but she saw the result.

Flashback:
Amenth, after the Contest of Swords:
While A stands some distance away, the remaining Summoners of Amenth (and with them the daemons of Amenth) submit to Genesis and the Annihilation staff. With Genesis stand the three surviving children. War calls the Summeron a good boy. She dislikes hurting Summoners. With a smirk Pestilence warns her that sentimentality is a notion hard to get rid of, once it has settled in the heart. Their brother Famine is disappointed at the easy surrender.

The Summoner seems to take the change in rulership in stride. Once his helmet ruled them, now the staff. Neither power is to be resisted for long. The Summoner wonders though if the outcome would have been different, had Tarn the Uncaring lived to see the day. Genesis is shocked at that news.

The Summoner explains they felt Tarn’s passing in their bones. And the news of his death reached them though their once-comrades toiling in the Blightlands for Saturnyne’s coin. Tarn’s chosen – the Locus - mourn him still, withdrawn in the Spire Vile on the world of Arakko, as they continue to work in his name. Genesis and the Horsemen are surprised at the word “world.” Have the Arakkii conquered Earth? No, they are told by A who has been listening. He has used magic to scry on the Krakoans, his other children. Instead of Krakoa and Arakko joining, a new path was forged.

War criticizes him for keeping secrets from them, while Genesis wishes to know more about this world Arakko. Would they approve? After a brief pause, he replies that their people continue to be tested.

He lies! comes a new voice, an astral projection of a human woman, Marianne Stern of Coven Akkaba. She respectfully addresses Genesis and offers to show the truth her husband is hiding. “Akkaba,” A mutters, before warning she is from Orchis and not to be trusted. Genesis retorts that, if she has survived that long, she deserves to be attended. Unless it is an easy thing to survive the wrath of En Sabah Nur…

It should be impossible to best an omega of Arakko, and yet behold! Stern continues and shows them how the Great Ring was destroyed at the hands of Uranos the Undying.

Present:
Genesis states that it took an outsider to show her the truth he hid. What was she to do then? She reforged their swords, she gathered the last of their children – forcing the vampire lands of Sevalith to release her son Death. And then, with her family around her and the daemons of a hundred Amenthi Summoners at her back, she confronted the only enemy remaining – the White Sword in his ancient spire. She humbled him and made his Hundred hers. And while she did all these necessary things, what did he do? What did he do besides prepare for her return? She chose him long ago. She chooses him still. But though he was the living Apocalypse to his weak Krakoans, among the two of them? He will always be the mage. And she will always be the warrior. And so he must yield.

She orders him to open the way. She knows he has that power. Calling her his love, he agrees. But he is more than mage. He is mutant and he comes armed.

He creates two more arms from his torso which touch the blades that impale him. He reminds her his power is to control every atom of his body. But the true measure of strength is not the weapons you can create, but the pain you can survive! he shouts as he draws the swords out.

Genesis smiles. There he is, at last. There he is, he agrees, but it isn’t enough to be there. It isn’t enough only to be strong. So he laid down his weapons, as he did on the plains of Otherworld. To save them all, he yields… on his own terms.

Looking away, he announces that she persuaded him. If their reasons to act differ, that matters less than the necessity for action. Mutantkind will not survive the fire to come without Arakko - and Arakko must thus be tested and tempered by the flame. And as she said, he prepared for her return.

A carefully presents three seeds. The seeds contain millennia of mutant magic – the Okkara Gates. One he gives to her to use as she will. One he keeps for himself. And one he plants here in his own blood. Blood is what the seed must feed on, for mutant blood has always been the cost of mutant power.

The gate grows. Genesis touches his hand and thanks him. Will he come with her? A refuses. He cannot walk this path by her side any more than she could keep from walking it. But there is one thing he asks: if this is truly her path… walk it alone.

She looks at the Annihilation staff and refuses A’s request. She her husband goodbye until they meet again. She steps through the gate.

Is she gone? the daemon asks then gets up. Good thing he doesn’t’ keep much brain up there. He might keep the knife though. Calling A “teacher,” he asks how he did. He survived, is the reply. He can join him, if he likes. He has his own path to walk, his own forces to gather.

The daemon climbs onto A’s shoulder, as A muses that soon his and his wife’s paths will cross again on the battlefield of Arakko, and his wife will test him once more.

But he is the big A - top of the alphabet! the daemon scoffs. He thinks he needs testing? They all do, is the reply – the strong most of all, for to face the test is to face the revelation, and the Revelation never ends.