It was only a matter of time before one of them fell.
The Dream was alive.
Seemingly unaware of the battle being fought mere steps away from him, Magneto continued to stare at the Cube, an odd smile bowing his lips.
This was the moment for which he had lived—and fought—so long to see happen. The moment when he possessed absolute power over the universe itself—the kind of power that would at last make Homo superior the dominant species on this planet. The moment when humanity faced its possible extinction—and trembled at the realization.
And now that he had such inimitable control over the universe— even more, over the very forces of Creation—no one would ever take it away from him.
A quote sprung unbidden into his mind—something Pietro had told him had been attributed to the mutant overlord by Hollywood screenwriters apparently hoping to curry favor with the Emperor:
“ ‘And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all,’ ” he whispered.
No truer words had ever been spoken.
The Dream was dying.
Lying on the floor of the chamber, von Doom gazed longingly at the Cube as it floated ever so tantalizingly close to his outstretched hand. But it belonged to Magneto now; he could see the hungry look in the mutant’s eyes—the same look he had possessed when he had come to realize just how much power was at his command. Knowing that, with but a thought, he could become a veritable god, re-fashioning the world as he saw fit.
A heady experience, to be sure.
And von Doom had been the first to do it—something no one else had ever accomplished with lasting success: become absolute master of the world. He had eliminated his greatest enemies. Punished the accursed Reed Richards and his three fellow meddlers for their many years of insolence. Recreated the world in his image in less than a day, and ruled it for one brief month—but had made that month last for an decade. The rapid aging, the isolation, the realization that death was imminent—they had all been worth the struggle, the suffering, just to attain his life’s ambitions.
But now, he was going to lose it all—including, quite possibly, his very existence . . .
The Dream was dead.
Even from a few feet away, Betsy could hear the siren call of the Cube in her mind; for a moment, as an image of Warren appeared to form in front of her, she considered answering it, taking a tentative step toward the device. She wanted Warren back so badly; even now, as Magneto surrendered to the hypnotic song, she still had the opportunity to seize control of it, use its awesome powers to—
No, she told herself.
The longing was there, the need to have Warren by her side in this most dire of situations, as the world came apart around them, but Scott had been right—there was far more at stake here than an overwhelming desire to be reunited with a loved one, no matter how painful it was to face that truth. She had to be strong—for her friends; for herself. It’s what Warren would have expected her to be.
It’s what an X-Man would be.
No, she told herself; she wouldn’t use the Cube. But she could still try to take it away from Magneto before he did.
Activating her psi-blade, she rushed forward, praying she could end this living nightmare before it became even worse. She backhanded Forge as he moved to intercept her—breaking his nose as she pushed him aside—then drove a fist into Cortez’s sternum before he could defend himself, leapt over one of Unuscione’s deadly forcefields, never breaking stride, and drew back her dagger to strike at the mutant overlord newly perched on the throne—
But she was too late.
“Now, at last,” Magneto said softly, “the Age of Homo superior begins!” He closed his hands around the Cube—and screamed.
Tendrils of energy suddenly erupted from the tiny box, wrapping around him, bonding to his flesh, to his mind. Magneto twisted violently, eyes bulging from their sockets, mouth moving soundlessly, his body clearly wracked with terrible pain.
Halting her attack, Betsy dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding a stray bolt of cosmic power as it lanced across the room. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end; the air was alive with the unleashed energies of Creation.
And then, with a high-pitched keening like the wail of a thousand lost souls, the Cube flared even brighter, its cosmic lightning flowing outward, spreading across the chamber in an ever-expanding wave of chaos force—a wave that, Betsy realized with mounting horror, would ultimately overwhelm the entire planet.
“Warren ...” she whispered.
It took Cyclops and Phoenix first, flowing over them—consuming them. They vanished in a burst of multicolored light. Rogue, Nightcrawler, Unuscione, Wolverine, and Quicksilver were next, followed by Forge, Cortez, and Voght; one moment they were there, then ...
Momentarily frozen with fear, Betsy could only stare helplessly as each of her friends were taken, absorbed by the power of the Cosmic Cube to be reshaped, recreated, by whatever dark urges lurked within the mind of Erik Lensherr, driving him ever onward to attain his perverted dream of world domination.
And now it was her turn. Every fiber of her being was screaming at her, telling her to run before it was too late—but where could she run to, when no place on Earth was safe from the effects of the Cube?
As the wave approached, Betsy took a step back—and gasped as a gauntleted hand closed around her ankle. She looked down to find von Doom staring back at her. His eyes burned with anger.
“Doom never concedes defeat, girl,” the old man said. “Not while he still has one last hand to play.” He pressed a hidden stud on his armor’s chestplate—
And then the Chaos Wave enveloped them, too.
“Supreme Guardian!” Satumyne cried. “Look!”
Standing beside the scrying glass, she pointed at its surface—the darkness that had long obscured their view of Earth 616 was beginning to clear. As she, Roma, and Professor Xavier watched, a crystal clear image of the planet, as seen from space, began to take shape.
“They’ve done it,” Xavier said. He turned toward Satumyne, trying—and failing—to keep a smug expression off his face.
But the Omniversal Majestrix wasn’t looking at him—she was staring, mouth agape, eyes wide, at the glass. Confused, Xavier turned back—
—in time to see a massive wave of energy roll across the planet, its destructive forces tearing across land and sea, changing the entire surface of the world in the space of a few heartbeats.
And then the scrying glass went dark once more.
“Dear God . .Xavier muttered. Eyes wide with shock, he slowly turned to the Supreme Guardian; her features were stretched tight with fear. “Your Majesty—”
“They have failed, Charles Xavier,” Roma whispered hoarsely. “They have failed, and now matters are even worse ...”
THE CHAOS ENGINE
HAT I wouldn’t give fer a cold beer right about now.”
Teetering on unsteady legs, the man known only as “Logan”—though what few friends he possessed more often referred to him by the colorful codename “Wolverine”—licked his dry lips, the metallic taste of fresh blood mingling with salt-tinged sweat on his tongue. Exhaling sharply, he drew himself up to his full height of 5’ 3” and gazed around the battlefield on which he stood.
The grounds of Washington, D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had definitely seen better days—but, then again, so had the building itself, even before it had been renamed to honor the tyrant currently residing in the White House. The formerly gleaming marble fa9ade was now pitted and blackened by heavy weapons’ fire and a variety of powerful forcebeam projectors. The south wall lay in a crumbled heap, the unfortunate recipient of angry blows delivered by the fists of a woman named Rogue—a teammate of his—as she created an escape route for the patrons of the arts who had gathered at the Center this evening. As Logan watched now, a dozen or so opulently-dressed people streamed through the hole, running in a blind panic to escape the war zone behi
nd them, apparently unaware that the path of their flight was taking them through yet another. The sounds of gunshots and energy bolts echoed inside the building as armed guards rushed to protect the so-called “Emperor of the World” from a band of super-powered revolutionaries led by a charismatic man named Erik Magnus Lensherr—or, as he was more widely known, Magneto, Master of Magnetism. A man who had dedicated himself to one goal: the subjugation of mankind by him and others of his kind—the species Homo sapiens superior. Genetically-gifted individuals whose unique abilities made them both admired and feared by a world that still found it difficult to accept them.
“Mutants,” as they had become known to the general public.
Like Lensherr.
Like Logan.
The fact that Logan had been forced to help this revolution in order to stop a greater evil, to give aid to someone he regarded as a bitter enemy, left a knot in his belly. But he knew he’d learn to live with it, as he had come to grudgingly accept a great many other unpleasant moments he’d been part of over the years.
Near Logan, on what had once been a well-manicured lawn that faced the Potomac River, were the unconscious bodies of a trio of lower-tier costumed villains named The White Rabbit (a blond-haired woman dressed like the character in Alice in Wonderland), Diablo (a rail-thin sorcerer with a glass jaw), and Deadly Nightshade (a bikini-clad refugee from a “blaxploitation” film festival). Arriving first on the scene, they had made the mistake of trying to stop Logan and his fellow revolutionaries when the attack began, rather than withdrawing and sparing themselves the painful beating that had left them scattered about like tenpins.
His attention was drawn to the far side of the lawn, to the man who had led the trio, before breaking away to directly confront the scrappy Canadian intruder. A man Logan knew all too well. . . and hated with every fiber of his being.
At 6’ 6”, Victor Creed—a bloodthirsty, mutant sociopath who preferred going by the name Sabretooth—stood more than a foot taller than Logan, and outweighed him by at least one hundred pounds. Under normal circumstances, this sort of match-up would have appeared decidedly one-sided, with the bear-like Sabretooth having the advantage over his smaller enemy. And that didn’t even take into account his metal-encased skeleton, coated with adamantium, the strongest man-made metal on the planet, or an accelerated healing factor that allowed him to recover quickly from any kind of wound he might suffer.
Or the two dozen well-armed men and women who comprised part of the Emperor’s worldwide security force, their rifles and energy weapons all aimed at the smaller man.
But Logan had advantages of his own,- not the least of which were the half-dozen, foot-long adamantium spikes that protruded from the backs of his hands, just above the knuckles. And, like his adversary, Logan possessed a metal-hardened skeleton and a special healing factor that restored him to full health, even after receiving potentially fatal injuries. Combined with an all-consuming anger, Logan could be an unstoppable engine of destruction once he started handing out punishment to his enemies... as those few lucky enough to have survived an encounter with him could attest to.
Unfortunately for Logan, Sabretooth was one of those fortunate handful, despite the diminutive Canadian’s best efforts to rectify that problem over the decades. Today’s confrontation would be the latest round in their on-going battle ... at least in theory.
What made this particular life-and-death struggle so unusual was that, although the snarling, blond-haired, orange-and-brown-garbed figure before him was clearly Sabretooth, it wasn’t the real one ... or, at least, not the one Logan knew so well. This was a doppleganger, an alternate version of his oldest foe, one who seemed unaware of their long-standing feud; either that, or Sabretooth—and the rest of the world, apparently—had been brainwashed to a degree Logan couldn’t even begin to fathom.
A crazy idea, perhaps, but when one considered that an honest-to-God madman had apparently done exactly that, it didn’t seem quite so bizarre a notion... .
Less than a week had passed since Wolverine and his fellow X-Men—a group of superpowered men and women dedicated to protecting the world from all manner of threats, including those posed by mutants like themselves-—had returned from a mission beyond the boundaries of Time and Space, to discover that Earth had fallen under the rule of a man named Victor von Doom—or “Doctor Doom,” as he had started calling himself years ago, when he first began trying to take control of the planet.
The self-proclaimed monarch of a small central European country called Latveria, von Doom had long been a proverbial thorn in humanity’s side, his attempts at world domination often resulting in dozens, if not hundreds, of lives lost and billions of dollars in property damage. And yet, no matter how grand his schemes, no matter how momentarily successful he might be, von Doom always lost in the end. Whether it was at the hands of the X-Men, or one of the other super hero groups that called the New York area their home, Doctor Doom had never had a clear victory over his enemies.
But those days were past, it now appeared. In the period of just a single month—the time in which the X-Men had been fighting in a parallel dimension to put an end to the dictatorial rule of a woman named Opul Lun Sat-yr-nin—von Doom had somehow, in some way, finally succeeded in doing what no other power-hungry villain had ever been able to do: create a world-spanning empire, and make every man, woman, and child—both human and mutant—his willing subjects.
That included some of the people who had been important parts of Logan’s life, like Carol Danvers, one of his oldest friends, who had worked with him in the Intelligence community. She had died recently, when von Doom’s forces had captured the X-Men for questioning. Logan had been unable to do anything to save her, and the guilt he felt for failing her still gnawed at his soul. And then there was Ororo Mun-roe, the weather-controlling mutant called Storm. Before the nefarious Doctor had seized control, she had been a member of the X-Men; now, she was Empress of the realm, von Doom’s devoted wife.
Given the opportunity, Logan would have relished the chance to teach von Doom the price for messing with the people closest to him. And yet, he knew there were more important issues to address. There was still the matter of discovering how von Doom had managed to take control of the planet, and then finding a way to reverse the process. Taking a piece of the “Emperor’s” hide would have to wait until things were back to normal.
But that was all right. The time for retribution would come—Logan was certain of it. And he could be a patient man . . . when he wanted. Until the opportunity presented itself, though, he was more than willing to take out his anger for von Doom on whoever was handy ...
“Ready to give up, runt?” Sabretooth asked. He smiled, revealing twin rows of sharpened teeth that gleamed like miniature daggers in the glow of the security floodlights under which he stood. “Ya look a little rundown.”
It was true, though Logan would be the last to admit it, especially in front of an adversary. Experience had taught him long ago that showing any weakness in a fight could be fatal. He was bruised and bloodied—even a mutant healing factor took time to work—and the yellow-and-blue costume he’d been wearing had been reduced to tatters that flapped and twisted in the light breeze coming off the Potomac. “What’s wrong, Creed?” he shot back. “You gettin’ tired already?” “Yeah. Tired of kickin’ yer sorry butt,” Sabretooth replied. “My foot’s gettin’ sore.”
Logan clenched his fists, and raised his lance-like claws. “Got a cure fer that right here, bub.” He smiled, though there was no warmth in it. “Might sting a bit.”
Above the battlefield thunder rumbled, and black stormclouds began to take form, obscuring a night sky that only moments before had been filled with stars. The light breeze that had been drifting across the area now became a stiff wind.
Must be Ororo’s doin ’, Logan thought, feeling the hair on his arms and chest tingle with the static electricity that was building in the air. Gonna be a pretty big blow, too.
He
snapped his head to one side, flinging away drops of sweat that had obscured his vision, then turned back to glare at Sabretooth. The wild-maned killer had eased into a combat-ready stance, but hadn’t moved from his original position.
“Well, punk?” Logan bellowed. “Whattaya waitin’ for?”
“Just fer you t’say the magic words, runt,” Creed answered.
Logan slid his claws against one another, creating a sound not unlike that of fingernails being drawn across a blackboard. The security guards moaned loudly, hands pressed to their ears, trying to block the sound. It didn’t appear to work.
“Come get some,” Logan growled through clenched teeth.
“Those’re the ones!” Sabretooth hissed. Then he charged.
Logan slipped on a patch of his own blood as Sabretooth rushed to meet his challenge. Sparks flew as metal-coated bio-weapons clashed.
“That the best you got?” Wolverine hissed, ignoring the pain that ripped through his body after the animalistic sociopath had raked his claws across Logan’s abdomen.
“Wait for it, runt,” Sabretooth growled. “It gets better. ”
And then, with an ear-to-ear grin splitting his haggard face, he unexpectedly broke off the attack and jumped back.
Before Wolverine could go on the offensive—or even question his foe’s motives for a sudden withdrawal—a fusillade of armor-piercing bullets tore into his back, his neck, his legs. Sabretooth’s military support, it appeared, had finally decided to join in.
The rounds rattled around inside him, glancing off the super-strong metal that protected his bones—but not his organs. Logan staggered about in blinding pain, unable to see, unable to stand.
Then something slammed into his chest—hard. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Blood spurted from his wounds, coating his eyes, filling his mouth.
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