Disclaimers
I do not own the rights to any of the characters of the Marvel or DC universe. Any original characters referenced in this tale are my intellectual property (I think? copyright law is confusing :S)
I know and care little about the sexuality of any of the creators, actors, or characters involved in the Marvel/DC universe. Similarly, this story contains graphic descriptions of gay male sex. If that may offend you, I suggest looking elsewhere for entertainment. Otherwise enjoy some smut. The smut will be widespread and hopefully organic to character growth.
Partial credit goes to the story Mutation by Phoenixfire543 (on nifty) for inspiring me to write my own variation on the whole superhero genre. His protagonist inspired mine power wise, though mine varies a lot in temperament and disposition.
Authors Note
As the Xmen movie X-men Apocalypse hasn't come out yet and won't for another 3 months, I won't be able to make fun of the logic fails or mischaracterisations as much as I have done in previous chapters. For instance where Victor has questioned Xavier's ineffectiveness in furthering mutant rights or Victor making better use of Rogue's power set than she has due to her myopic lack of interest in probably one of the most dangerous and underused power sets. Or the failure of Magneto to use a mutant army effectively or even remembering that he could have landed the bridge on top of Alcatraz. I could go on endlessly.
This whole series has kind of been one long mockery at the expense of comic book characters who don't use their powers for anything you'd expect them to and generally fail to have any real effect on the world around them which is patently ridiculous. Sure they save the world sometimes but they don't seem to care about changing the world for the better for average people or themselves.
That said, this chapter is going to go dark... very dark.
You have been warned. Read on at your own risk.
Chapter 3 Apocalypse
John and I crash landed in a snow drift after being expelled from the temporal portal. My whole body ached and John as Wolverine groaned as he stood up and stretched. I took off the mutant dampening amulets I still had on and placed them within the snow and froze it so that it wouldn't be easily accessible. I phased and scanned the area and determined I had landed in Canada 1983 with only a couple of hours before my mother was to die.
If I could save her I could live in this new timeline until a good moment presented for me to merge with my future self. Failure was not an option I could even consider.
I teleported John and myself to New York in a series of teleport hops and we arrived in the midst of a battle between a younger and smaller group of X-men and Apocalypse and his Horsemen.
I arrived just in time to stop a block of concrete from falling on Mom with 'hands'. I tossed the concrete to one side and she looked around in confusion without seeing that I was the reason for her surreal rescue. I watched her walk away for a moment, a much younger version of my Mom but recognizable from photos of her youth and mine before turning my attention to the battle between Apocalypse and the X-men. According to the time displaced Wolverine's memories the X-men had won this confrontation but he hadn't known the specifics as he had been elsewhere at the time.
A middle aged Havok and a teenage Cyclops are firing energy blasts at Apocalypse; a 7 foot man in strange armor with an unusual metallic blue tint to his face and body. He withstood the energy blasts of both Summer Brothers with no visible damage or strain. He laughed arrogantly before unleashing the energy he had absorbed outwards, in a wave of orangeish light and I automatically shielded myself within an Tk boosted ice bubble.
I scanned for my pregnant with me mother and she had been killed by a felled traffic light and I screamed out "Nooooooooooooooooooo" as the sense of futility and rage overwhelmed me and I lost myself and all sense of reason and unleashed my anger in an explosive blast of raw power.
I could dimly hear "no" "SHIELD" and "Duck!" through the haze of my sudden fatigue. I collapsed to my knees on the ground spent.
I looked up at John as Jean who was unaffected within his telekinetic bubble, but with a layer of frost around him. Everything else around me for half a mile was destroyed, leaving a crater where there had been buildings, cars and civilian onlookers. In my rage I had unleashed my full (50% of typical strength) hydrokinetic, telepathic and telekinetic strength and everything within my sight line was covered by frost. The blast had destroyed my clothes so I clothed myself in a thin layer of bone and ice.
As I slowly recovered my power, I spotted Apocalypse and the surviving X-men converging on my position through my returning hydro senses.
My head throbbed and my body ached and I phased to recover some strength. I was down to 40% of my optimum strength after expending so much energy in the previous timeline and traveling through time and space.
After recovering some strength I used thousands of 'eyes' to find that New York had been effectively destroyed by my telekinetically enhanced frost wave. "Fuck." I muttered as I saw the devastation and realized that it wasn't over, there was a frost wave expanding outwards and upwards in a hemisphere of hydrokinetic power.
"That was one hell of a tantrum BOY Wonder" He looked at me with a dark smile. "That was cold"
I didn't reply as I had to focus. I reached out with my power and stopped the tidal wave caused by my frost wave before it could hit the coasts of Cuba, South America and Africa. I phased for a split second and stopped the progress of the frost wave upwards into the atmosphere and the frost wave heading towards inhabited region. It took most of my energy to dispel it as the frost wave had grown due to the albedo effect and momentum so that what had started of a frost explosion of half a mile had grown exponentially in less than a minute to a hemi-sphere of hydrokinetic devastation measuring thousands of miles.
Before I could defrost the frozen mess of New York and outlying regions, the bad guys showed up to make my life more difficult. Apocalypse and his team which included a younger Storm, Angel, Psylocke and Magneto. I was unsure how Angel existed in this time period. The timeline must have been radically altered somehow in a way I didn't understand in the slightest.
I doubled up on bone and ice armor as Apocalypse strode forward towards me. John as Jean landed to the side of the crater watching the encounter impassively . I phased again. Stopping that tidal wave had drained my power reserves (Down to 20%). I manifested an ice sword and a bone sword and hoped I could hold them at bay long enough for me to come up with some way to salvage the situation or at least survive it.
Apocalypse gave me a blue lipped smile "That was an impressive display of power young man. You should join me and taste global power."
At that moment the X-men arrived, a younger Jean Gray who did a double take upon seeing her older more powerful doppelganger. Havoc, Cyclop's older brother who would have died in mutant experimentation except for the interference of Mystique, he appeared as if he was in his early 20's instead of being thirty something. Cyclops appeared to be in his Cyclops late teens, Xavier mid 30's and paralyzed, Beast young and blue and furry and Young Mystique.
Cyclops charged towards me firing off optic blasts while yelling out 'YOU MONSTER' and dodged it by teleporting a yard to the left and water whipping him to the ground, before enclosing his head within a water bubble so he couldn't breathe or focus enough to fire again.
Apocalypse gave a short derisive laugh at Cyclops's expense as Young Jean and Middle Aged Xavier tried to pry past my telepathic shield with no luck. They were nowhere near as powerful or as skilled as their older selves and posed little risk. Havoc meanwhile tried to fire off some concussive blasts that were blocked by Magneto of all people. "Excellent. You could become one of my chosen lieutenants presuming you have the strength to take one of them out." Apocalypse said gesturing towards his 4 chosen Horsemen consisting of Storm, Angel, Magneto and Psylocke.
Up close they were very different (for the most part) from the people I used to know a couple of timelines and worlds ago. Storm appeared very punk rock with a white mo-hawk, metal wrist guards and a flowing purple cape. Angel wore a form fitting black and gray body armor covering his body with a supportive frame for allowing his new metallic wings to extend out fully. It was an odd look, a blending of a biblical angel and metallic nightmare. Magneto looked fierce in a red and black metal armor and Psylocke's outfit was strangely reminiscent of a Baywatch swimsuit except more purple.
I glared at Apocalypse which only appeared to amuse him further. Before I could come up with anything particularly witty to say in the situation, Angel exploded messily in a shower of blood and metallic feathers next to Magneto. Magneto reacted barely fast enough to prevent himself from being fatally skewered but not fast enough to prevent minor injuries around the face and arms.
John as Jean telekinetically hovered towards Apocalypse standing in a puddle of blood and metallic shrapnel where Angel used to be. "I'm am now Death incarnate."
"John. Why?"
He/she gave a shrug with one shoulder "I always choose the winning side Boy Wonder and my instincts say Apocalypse has a better chance of winning this battle. Apocalypse has offered me what I've always wanted. I'd suggest taking out Magneto while you still can."
I looked between the two sides. The heroes were looking at me with hatred (with due reason after I had destroyed New York in a moment of uncontrolled rage and was currently depriving Cyclops of oxygen) and Apocalypse looked at me with amused speculation as if he was a man waiting for a dog to perform an amusing trick. Magneto simply watched me with wary anticipation.
"Ah fuck. I don't want to join the dark side."
I teleported away but only managed to get a few dozen yards away from the crater. Because I was down to 20% of my full strength, my teleporting capability had been reduced from class 4.4 to 2.9 in application. Total SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fucked Up). I had no allies, lots of enemies and had irrevocably damaged my own timeline beyond all apparent repair. I couldn't even run/teleport away from the situation effectively.
The X-men rushed towards me, perhaps believing that I was the easier target to take down at that point but before they could do anything. All the 'good guys' dropped to the ground, sprawled artlessly about.
Apocalypse glanced at John as Jean who smiled smugly. 'They'll recover in a minute or so, let's go and discuss terms.' John explained
I stared at shock as Apocalypse and John turned away, with Psylocke and Storm following after with Magneto taking the rear position, watching me with only mild caution rather than fear.
I didn't know how to feel or react. I was alone but for the unconscious 'good guys' who would probably want me dead when they awoke and too weak to fight them off or run away easily.
The last words I heard spoken was Apocalypse speaking to John as Jean. "Intriguing. I'll give him a chance."
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End Notes
This was a fairly shallow introduction to Apocalypse and the Horsemen concept, this is more of a teaser for the next chapter that will detail what becoming a Horseman of the Apocalypse has and should be about... It will also explore what designations each of the current Horsemen based on powers and personality.
Angel in this chapter was the Horseman of Death for no reason other than he typically is in comics for some reason I'm not clear on, which will have an major impact on character dynamics next chapter.