GENETIC ECLIPSE

Part II: The Will to Survive

By Shawn Gauthier and Jeff Axtman

Author’s Note: This story is continued from Uncanny X-Men #14.

The light subsides, once again drowning the ancient chamber in darkness. Somewhere in the pitch blackness, however, there is movement. This secret stronghold of En Sabah Nur is no longer empty… its lord has returned.

Upon recognizing who has so abruptly arrived here just moments ago, the computers integrated into the very walls of the complex immediately activate the lighting sequence. At once, the room is bathed in a soft, yellow artificial light.

There, standing in the center of the large chamber, is Apocalypse. Born millenia ago as the slave En Sabah Nur, today his bid for power has reached its inevitable apex. He is well aware that the unconscious female draped unceremoniously over his strong shoulder is the key to his eventual victory over the weak and his survival as the fittest of the fit.

Behind him, the leader of Apocalypse’s faithful followers, the Dark Riders, eyes the young woman suspiciously. Danielle Moonstar knows her personally, and once counted her among the closest of friends. Now she feels only a hollow nothingness within her soul as she stares at the unmoving form of Kitty Pryde, the X-Man called Shadowcat.

Apocalypse turns to Moonstar and the rest of the Dark Riders, Trial and Tusk. “Well done, my Dark Riders,” he says calmly. “You fared well against the X-Men, despite our necessary retreat.”

“In the end, however, we attained precisely what we intended to,” he says, nodding his head slightly to the body hanging limply off his shoulder. “Moonstar, accompany me to the incarceration chamber. The rest of you are dismissed for now.”

Turning on his heels, Apocalypse leaves the large chamber and heads through the long, winding corridors of his fortress. Moonstar follows behind him, her eyes never straying from Shadowcat as they head deeper into the heart of Apocalypse’s stronghold.

Unexpectedly, Apocalypse speaks without turning his head to look at her. “Something is troubling you, Moonstar. You are unusually silent this night.”

“Yes, Master,” she almost whispers in agreement. “Did it ever occur to you, m’lord, that perhaps the X-Men will attmept to thwart your glorious plans now that you have one of their own?”

“An interesting suggestion,” he replies cooly, “one that I did indeed consider. Fortunately, I have devised a method of keeping the X-Men occupied and preventing them from meddling in my affairs.”

“Pardon my asking, Master, but… how?” Moonstar asks quizically. “Do not the Dark Riders have to stay here to guard the Pryde woman?”

“Correct, Moonstar,” Apocalypse replies. “But you are already forgetting my latest recruits.”

“The Four Horsemen?” she says with sudden realization. “You are sending the Horsemen to distract the X-Men while you carry out your plan for eradication of the weak?”

Apocalypse answers in silence, leaving Moonstar to ponder his strategy.

With a barely audible moan, Katherine ‘Kitty’ Pryde slips out of unconsciousness. Her head throbs, her throat is dry, and her entire body aches all over. She looks around her, desperately trying to get a feel for her surroundings despite her blurred vision. If all those sessions in the Danger Room with Professor Xavier taught her anything, it was to know your environment above all else.

“Wha…? Where…?” she mumbles through a badly swollen lip.

Finally, her eyes come into focus and she sees that she is in some sort of stone room, her arms and legs shackled to a large, futuristic-looking restraint device. Concentrating, she attempts to use her mutant powers to phase through her shackles. Her efforts are to no avail, however. Somehow, she decides, the device is cancelling out her powers.

*SMACK!*

A hot flash of searing pain dances across her left cheek. After overcoming the initial shock of the blow, Kitty looks up to see a familiar face glaring back at her.

“Dani!” she manages to shout. “Dani, listen to me! Apocalypse has control of you! You have to fight him!”

“No, Pryde,” Moonstar snarls back. “For the first time in a long while, I’m finally in control of myself. No more New Mutants, no more S.H.I.E.L.D., no more X-Force… Apocalypse has shown me the true me, the powerful me. I owe him much more than mere loyalty, I owe him my life!”

“God, listen to yourself!” Kitty yells in reply. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?! You’re stronger than him, Dani – I know it! And you know it, too!”

“No one is stronger than the High Lord Apocalypse!” Moonstar spits. “No one!”

Kitty stares into her eyes, searching for that sad, remorseful look she saw in her father’s own eyes when he was possessed by Ogun. But there is nothing. Nothing, save for anger and hate.

“What is it, then, Dani?” she says, her voice low. “What do you and Apocalypse want with me?”

An evil, devilish grin forms on Moonstar’s face. She throws her head back and cackles loudly. “Oh, my dear ‘Kitty’…” she taunts. “All we want is the truth!” Reaching out, she forms a large psi-lance out of pure psionic energy, bringing it close to Kitty’s forehead. “The truth, and then your death!”

Shadowcat cringes away from the psi-blade, her teeth clenched tightly and several beads of sweat forming on her face. “The truth… about what?” she asks hesitantly.

“What is your link to the Askani’son?!” Moonstar screams, inching the psi-lance closer to Kitty’s head.

“Cable? You mean his training me? Is that what this is about?” Shadowcat blurts out. “He told me I was one of the Twelve! That’s all, I swear it!”

Moonstar grabs her neck and slams her head against the stone wall. She draws the psi-blade even closer. Whispering, she says, “Who are the Twelve?”

“I-I don’t know, Dani! Honestly, Cable never told me!” she pleads desperately.

Moonstar steps away, and the psi-lance in her hands dissipates. “Wrong answer!” she yells as she raises her hands in the air. “Perhaps this will convince you to talk!”

Shadowcat feels a slight tug at her brain, like Moonstar is plucking something from it. At first, she panics, thinking that somehow Dani is telepathically ‘picking’ the information she needs from her mind. Then she realizes with sudden horror that she’s not even close. What Moonstar is doing to her is much, much worse.

Before her, materializing out of thin air, Kitty’s worst nightmares come to life. First, a walking corpse of a young boy, tufts of blond hair sprouting from the exposed skull. It walks towards her, its arms extended. “Kitty… Kitty… heeellp me…!”

“Oh!” Shadowcat exhales, tears forming in her eyes. “Oh… Doug!”

Next to the corpse of the boy is a smaller corpse of a young girl. It, too, stumbles awkwardly towards her, mumbling, “Katya…! Saaaave me, Katya!”

Tears stream from Shadowcat’s eyes as she stares with horror at the girl’s corpse. “Oh my God!” she whispers. “Illyana!”

“Don’t forget meeeee, Kitten! What about meeeeee?!” comes a voice that makes her shudder with fear. She turns her head to see next to the two corpses of children waking an adult cadaver. A male adult. Her father, Carmen Pryde, the rotting flesh still clinging to his bones.

“Daddy? Oh no… daddy…!” she sobs, her head falling uncontrollably. She shuts her eyes tightly, trying to escape their horrible cries. She wishes with all her might that this is just a dream, that she is really at home, asleep in her bed. But then she smells the putrid stench of death all around her and feels their hot breath against her skin, and she knows that it is all too real. “I’m sorry…” she whispers as the tears drop from her nose.

‘What’s happening to me?’ she begins to think. ‘Why am I acting like this? This is all in my head… it’s a part of Dani’s power to bring out people’s worst fears. No more woe is me crap… I’m taking this situation under my control!’

With that, Shadowcat begins to run through the calming techniques that the Professor had taught her during her initial tenure with the X-Men and New Mutants. Breathing deeply, she clears her mind of fear and uncertainty and focuses on her predicament. Her eyes close, and no more tears are shed. She is not a scared little girl any more. She is a woman… an X-Man.

Slowly, her eyes open again, but this time they are stronger somehow. With no more fear to feed off of, Moonstar’s zombies disappear in a flash of white light. Moonstar stares at Shadowcat with surprise. “But… how?!” she gasps, shocked that her newly-enhanced powers were not able to ruin the young woman.

“Drape a black cloth over your thoughts…” Shadowcat whispers, blocking her outgoing thoughts. Her body is relaxed, her voice is confident, and even while imprisoned her posture shows her poise and determination.

“I’m not talking, Dani. And there’s nothing you can do to make me.”

Deeper within the fortress, in a hidden chamber, Apocalypse stands before a wall of monitors. Each one shows different angles of the confrontation between Moonstar and Shadowcat. The faint glow of the dozen or so screens casts a long shadow behind the mutant that stretches the length of the entire room. Apocalypse is silent as he watches the events unfold before him.

‘Pryde’s resistence to Moonstar’s interrogation was wholly unexpected,’ he thinks to himself. ‘If I wish to decipher the identities of the prophesied Twelve, I must take matters into my own hands.’

Apocalypse’s thoughts are interrupted by his personal servant, Trial, as he enters the room behind him. “M’lord?” he asks hesitantly as he stares at a keypad in his hand. “The Four Horsemen are prepared for transportation. Shall I send them off, sir?”

Apocalypse, his hands behind his back, turns to look at Trial. “You have the cooridnants for both factions of the X-Men?”

“Yes, master,” he replies. “War and Famine will be sent to Salem Center, while Death and Pestilence are headed for Chicago.”

“Yes, Trial,” Apocalypse agrees. “Initiate the teleportation matrix. One final strike from my trusted Horsemen against the X-Men and they shall be torn asunder. Finally, the thorn in my side that is Xavier’s ilk will be forcibly removed… forever.”

Shadowcat awakens with a start from a sleep that she did not even realize she was in. The incarceration chamber is still completely dark. She is still alone. It has been this way for the past several hours – or is it days – that she has been held here. She knows they are trying to break her… but she will not give in. She will never give in.

Mustering up all the energy she can spare, Kitty tries again to escape her restraints. It is no use. Her phasing powers are still useless, and the omnium shackles do not give at all, no matter how hard she struggles against them.

Dejected, she thinks back to how this all began… so long ago. The Dark Riders attacking her after her meeting with Cable. The shock of learning one of her closest friends, Dani Moonstar, had been brainwashed into joining Apocalypse’s ranks. Her harrowing escape and flight back to Warren’s mansion in Chicago. The battle between the X-Men and Apocalypse and his Dark Riders.

For the second time since her capture, Kitty feels the tears welling up in her eyes. She fights to hold them back, ordering herself to be strong. She cannot show them that she is weak. Above all else, she has to be an X-Man.

Suddenly, she is startled by a noise in the darkness like metal scraping against stone. Her eyes go wide as she tries to see through the thick blackness engulfing the chamber. The noise quickens to a steady pace, like footsteps on the hard floor in one of the many corridors surrounding her cell. Someone is coming; she is no longer alone.

“Who’s there?!” Shadowcat shouts, her voice trembling slightly with uncertainty. “Dani? Is that you?!”

Then, from across the room, a pair of blood-red eyes stare back at her. Kitty stifles a gasp, realizing almost instantly just who they belong to. “YOU!”

“You sound as if you are surprised to see me, Pryde,” says a booming voice as the chamber’s lighting sequence is suddenly activated. Kitty squints, the sudden burst of light blinding to her sensitive eyes. Stepping from the shadows into the soft yellow glow is Apocalypse himself. “I trust you are comfortable?”

Shadowcat scowls back at him. “You’ll never get away with this, Apocalypse! The X-Men will come for me… and when they do, you’ll be sorry you ever attacked me in the first place!”

“Oh, I am sure the X-Men will come for you, my dear,” Apocalypse responds as he slowly nears Shadowcat. “In fact, I am counting on it.”

For a moment, she is taken aback. Could Apocalypse possibly have foreseen a counterattack? Was that all a part of his grand scheme? Or is he simply trying to unnerve her? She decides to find out, and shouts, “So I’m bait, is that it?!”

“That was not my primary purpose for capturing you, no,” he states, coming closer still. He forms one of his hands into a wicked-looking torture device, complete with needles and drills. “Now… I will ask this of you once, and once alone… who are the Twelve?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about the Twelve!” she pleads. Apocalypse brings the device up to the underside of her chin, one of the needles barely pricking her. It is just enough to draw blood.

“Anything?” Apocalypse prompts, a trickle of blood running down Kitty’s neck now.

“All I know is that Cable is the Gatherer of the Twelve and that I am one of them! I swear, that’s all I know!” she cries.

Surprisingly, Apocalypse backs away from her. “I am going to regret having to kill you someday soon, Shadowcat. You have exhibited great strength throughout your imprisonment here. You will tell me the names of the Twelve in time, however. Unfortunately for you, I have all the time in the world.”

With that, Apocalypse transforms the torture device back into his arm and turns to go. Kitty watches as he disappears into the shadows. Normally, she would be glad to see him leave her, but something eats at the back of her mind. Somehow she knows that she has not seen the last of Apocalypse.

And neither has the world.

Read Shadowcat #6, X-Men #11, Uncanny X-Men #15, & X-Men #12 for parts 3-6 of Genetic Eclipse!

NEXT ISSUE: Genetic Eclipse Part 7! Apocalypse attacks Attilan! That’s right, it’s the Big A versus Black Bolt and the Inhumans! But what does En Sabah Nur have in store for the Royal Family? Plus: Who will Apocalypse determine to be part of the Twelve? And are his assumptions correct?