EXCALIBUR

By David Wheatley

“T minus 1 minute.”

“Do you think this will work?”

“It bloody well better, Jo. We’ve spent months on this, as well you know.”

“30 seconds.”

“Dad?”

“Bethany? What are you doing up?”

“Just wanted to watch Operation: Rebirth. Doc said it’d be okay.”

“What harm will it do, Mac?”

“You two are ganging up on me here. That’s not fair.”

“Well?”

“Seeing as I’m not going to win this, what the hell?”

“10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Engage!”

The new systems came online across S/F Island and Command and Control, the headquarters of Network, came to life again.

“Beautiful,” said Michael Carrington as he watched everything power up around him. The lights were flickering, the screens coming up with images, the systems making those funny little bleeps and he felt proud of his staff once more, a feeling he had had often in recent weeks but none more so than now.

In the past few months since the attack by the Millennium Ascendancy, Network’s systems had been running on little more than spit and bailing wire, not to mention the fact that they’d had to replace a serious number of staff as the siege had not been without casualties. They’d been undermanned, low on resources and had cut back on operations.

In doing so, some events had escaped them and things were a little more chaotic than they had been, with UNIMAT stepping in and taking control of some situations. Network had tried to do the best they could but things had not gone as well as they could have done, and without the resources he’d needed, Mac’s last mission gone horribly wrong. Number One and the Millennium Dawn had escaped again, this time taking the former X-Man Wolverine with them. They had bonded adamantium to his bones once again and made him their Weapon Millennium.

Carrington had only just escaped with his life, Nick Fury did not.

Fury had been working undercover, infiltrating HYDRA and the Dawn but had been forced to reveal himself when Logan had been captured. That had involved Network and was ultimately what had gotten the ex Director of SHIELD killed. Carrington blamed himself for this, even though logic said there was nothing he could have done against Weapon Millennium. Ever since then the Dawn had gone in to hiding and there had been nothing they could do.

However that was all put to one side, as Network was reborn, its systems upgraded and the technology improved upon and the defences redesigned. The tragic events of the siege must never be repeated, for there was one consequence that nobody seemed able to do anything about.

“Now, then,” said Carrington as he turned to his daughter, “you are going back to bed.”

“But, Dad…”

“But nothing. You are in the middle stages of the Legacy effect. The solution you were given…”

“I know,” she said softly. “But I’m the one that has to deal with the pain, the lesions, the illness. I can handle it but I can’t handle being cooped up and looked at by doctors. Dad, I’m dying, we both know that.”

“You’re not,” said Carrington. “I won’t let you.” With that he turned around and left the command room and Bethany looked at her mother.

“He’s scared,” said Jo, thinking that he wasn’t the only one. “He knows he losing you and he’s fighting it and the only way he knows how – with doctors and denial. He thinks he’s protecting you.”

“But he isn’t,” said Bethany. “I wish he could see it. I just want to live before I did, y’know?”

“I know,” answered her mother, giving her a hug. “He’ll come around.” Though in her heart she wondered. Mac occasionally suffered crises of confidence and this one had all the hallmarks.

The man could only watch helplessly as the multiverse shook. There was a great disturbance to the way of things, his ordered universe shattered and broken. He could feel his powers reduced in stature as the very nature of reality was redefined then redefined again. For years he had been trapped here, contained within a dimensional void, trapped by those he had once called family.

However his enhanced senses could see the pathways of reality bend and the laws of what he had known faltered and broke down. Hyperspace was diminished by the presence in the multiverse of a foreign element, an element that was causing hyperspace to break down.

“This cannot be,” he said as he felt his power levels decrease. He had been abandoned here long ago by the cosmic creature what had fed on him for what had felt like an eternity. Then the being had been summoned and taken out of the pocket reality by forces greater than his own, leaving his ‘meal’ alone. For all his great power and ability this great emptiness had no way out that he had been able to find.

Until now. This strange substance had caused his diminishing powers to take on a new aspect. He found that he could move in to a vortex, where all realities where laid out before him. His powers were dramatically reduced but he knew now what his mistakes had been. Previously he had been content to bring order to all levels of reality, every frame of existence. That had been his error. He should have concentrated on one and wiped the rest of them out.

He also realised the challenge that now lay before him. In previous times, subjugation of realities and timelines had been simplicity itself thanks to his limitless powers. Now he had limits, boundaries and that would make conquest more difficult, but not impossible. It made sense, for if he was no longer infinite, then all that was would no longer be infinite either. If things were not infinite then surely there had to be only one realm of existence to be cared for, and everything else a pale copy of the original.

Yes, it all made perfect sense. There were realities to destroy.

“Mac?” said Jo as she teleported beside him. He was walking down by the shoreline of S/F Island, treading in the surf, his footprints being washed away by the tides. “Mac,” she called again and this time he turned to look at her and she could see he had been crying. “Oh, Mac,” she sighed.

“I’m blowing this, aren’t I?” he said. “How the hell can I claim to protect the world if I can’t even save one little girl?”

“Michael,” she said, using one of the rare occasions where only his real name would do, “it isn’t your fault. The represent that was created by Xavier and the others so long ago is doing what it can to help her. It’s just like cancer and AIDS and all the other diseases. We can fight it to the best of our ability but we can’t win. Science is no match for Mother Nature.”

“Yes,” said Carrington, “I know that, but we both know the represent is not as effective on humans as it is on mutants. There will be no reprieve, no stay of execution and I can see her slipping away from me day by day. I mean… I can’t…” his words faltered. “Dammit,” he whispered. Jo held him tight, knowing the frustration he felt, sharing it but unlike her husband she knew she couldn’t save everyone and though it tore her up inside, she accepted things.

Mac could not.

“Babe,” she said, looking at him. “I know this is hard, but we’ve dealt with hard before, hell, we’ve dealt with the impossible before. You know as well as I do that we aren’t gods, that we can’t change things. We win, we lose, we score a tie, in the end it all balances out.”

“Not this time,” said Mac, reaching down and retrieving a stone from the sand. He then skimmed it across the water, where it bounced six or seven times before sinking in to the ocean. “Nothing at all can make up for this. Not revenge, belief, nothing. Our daughter is little more than a walking corpse and I swear that if I could alter the universe to save her I would. If I could take the disease away from her and take it in to myself I would.”

“Both of us would.”

“But what can we do? We can’t fight it, we can’t beat it, and we can’t do anything other than being there to watch as she dies and that’s too great a burden for me to bear. All the great powers at our disposal and what do we have to show for it? Nothing. Maybe Marlyss was right all those months ago. Maybe I am finished.” Jo slapped him. Hard.

“Michael Alistaire Carrington, I’m getting tired of this whiny-assed attitude from you. You know damn well that you and everyone else on this bloody island are far from finished and I don’t care how hard it is for you because it’s hard for me as well, but you have a daughter who needs you. How bad will you feel if you don’t spend as much time with her as you can. You can fight this thing. It’s taking her life from her, but you’re not letting her live.”

Carrington was stunned. For a long time people had been treading on eggshells around him whenever the subject had come up and that had fed his belief. Maybe a good slapping was what he’d needed – physically and mentally.

“I…” he started and before he could continue, the klaxons began to sound. “What the hell…” he started to say as Jo teleported the both of them to the command room “… is going on?”

“Sir,” said one of the agents on duty, “we were going through the routine analysis of the equipment, making sure everything was at peak efficiency when we noted that one of the systems was faltering.”

“Rico?” called Mac, to the systems. Goldfish had to be in there somewhere and his image appeared on the screen before them.

“Mac, it’s the sensor arrays that are… in flux. There’s something happening to make them go all haywire and I can’t lock them down.”

“Looking at this, it’s a global thing,” said Jo as she looked at the communications panel. Across the world similar reports were coming in.

“Again,” muttered Carrington, “what the hell is going on here?” He hit his combadge. “Carrington to R&D.”

“R&D, go ahead,” answered the voice of Jennifer Stone, the head of the research and development section.

“Jen, what do you make of this?” he said, knowing she’d be aware of what was going on.

“Not sure, yet,” she answered. “But I’m working on a theory. Can you get down here?”

“On my way,” said Carrington. “Jo, you’re in charge.” He turned and began to walk down to the labs. Something was certainly not right here.

His weapons of conquest had been broken down but it would have been child’s play to restore them on his return and reconquer the worlds that had rebelled against him. With his knowledge, his power, his technological assets, the conqueror had returned and the stars themselves trembled in fear. But that was not his goal, not any more. His cause from this moment on was to work towards a higher purpose and destiny. He had created weapons that would make not just stars but galaxies quake.

As well they should he thought as he began to trigger his devices, fuelled by the elements he ha found in the strange vortex. This energy combined with his own proved a most deadly combination; unleashed by a tool he called the hyperbomb. The hyperbomb’s energy raged unchecked through the universe as he watched from another world and soon that reality was no more. Time meant nothing to him as he wandered through reality obliterating dimensions with no less disconcertion that if he were swatting away a bluebottle.

Then he reconsidered his relationship with time and decided it was erroneous, for to destroy them all would indeed take time. He shrugged and went on with his work.

Carrington could scarcely believe what he was being told in the R&D labs.

“Run that by me again,” he said as he took a seat.

“Well,” said Professor Stone, “in layman’s terms, from what I have been able to decipher, the systems are being fritzed by a variant of chronal discharge energy.”

“Yeah, it’s the variant thing that throws me,” said Mac. Time travel gave him a headache. Alternate time strings that got thrown up every time people travelled back to the past, creating streams and tributaries that became part of the massive fabric of the river of time. How people actually understood what was going on was beyond him. It wasn’t the scientific implausibility of it, for time machines had been built before and would no doubt be done so again, but weren’t there any guardians to stop this kind of thing? Where were the ‘Kang’s, the ‘Immortus’s, the so-called Lords of Time? Obviously these supreme types weren’t returning their messages, leaving it to those who didn’t quite understand to clear the mess up. “Variant how?”

“It seems that there’s a pollution in the time stream, something that is decimating the probabilities of everything, as if the roads that could be taken were now closed. That is generating an overflow of excess energy which is being discharged in to this reality and making the scanners, radar and all energy based detection devices go haywire.”

“And the cause?”

“Unknown, and without a cause…”

“We can’t formulate a solution,” finished Mac. “Contact… people.” He knew it was a generalisation but she knew what he meant. “See what they’re coming up with.”

“Yes, sir,” she said as another alarm began to sound.

“Oh, what now?” sighed Mac. It had ton figure that the first day they went fully operational again there was a crisis. Unless there was a crisis and they wouldn’t have known about it until they went operational. Circular thinking, he chided himself, as he went over to the Professor’s console.

“Intruder alert?” he said as he read the screen and listened to the alarm. “That needs lowering an octave, then it’s the intruder alarm.” He hit his combadge. “Jo, get me out there – now!”

The Hypertime vortex shook as another violent quake hit the travellers within, it refugees from their own reality, wandering through various kingdome’s, trying to find their way home.

“What the hell was that?” asked Pete Wisdom, a member of the British heroes known as Excalibur.

“I don’t know,” replied Adam Destine, immortal patriarch of a vast dynasty. “But look at this.” Various kingdoms were suddenly blinking out of existence and the vortex was crumbling under the strain.

“This can’t be good,” said Pete and he felt his arm getting warm. The quakes were making the hyperium energy, which powered the device that transported them from kingdoms to the vortex, turn violent. “And neither can that.”

“Give me it,” said Adam. “If it explodes, I can take it better than you, being invulnerable and everything.”

“Hope you know what you’re doing,” said Pete as he took off the device and passed it over to Adam.

“So do I,” said his friend when another quake hit and Adam was thrown off balance and in to a kingdom window.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Pete as he watched it happen, and then he dived through after him. As he landed he heard and felt an explosion and then he noticed Adam was unconscious and fragments of the armband everywhere. “Oh, bugger.” They were trapped and he couldn’t tell if Adam was alive or dead.

Carrington arrived on the beach to see a shimmering in the sky and a flash of light. He’d seen enough weird stuff happen to know it was the opening of a portal and sure enough blonde haired man fell out. At this distance he couldn’t see who it was but he saw him caught in an explosion at his hands. Shards of the bomb hit the floor as did the man and Carrington wondered what the hell was happening. He started to move closer to him when another man appeared out of nowhere in the same kind of way his predecessor had done. However he was close enough to see whom it was.

“Good evening, Mr Wisdom” he said and Pete Wisdom looked up, but the sun was setting on the horizon and shone in his eyes so he couldn’t see.

“Who are you?” said Pete, wondering in what context the man knew his name.

“Carrington. Michael Carrington. Welcome to Network.”

“Where? asked Pete. “Who are you?”

“You’ve already asked that. You don’t know who I am?”

“Never met you before in my life.” Carrington tounge licked the top set of his teeth as he though. Chronal energy variation, a man he’d known a long time who didn’t know him appearing from nowhere. They had to be connected.

“What year is this?” asked Mac. “Or what year do you think it is?”

“2001,” said Pete, who had a sinking feeling about everything because without the device that had exploded, neither he nor Adam would get home, ever.

“Figures,” sighed Carrington. “This is 2015. You travelled through time.”

“No we didn’t,” said Pete. “This isn’t my reality.”

“Uh oh” said Mac as he felt a headache starting. “We’ll get your friend some help and you can explain things to me.”

“Great,” said Pete, sourly. “That’ll resolve everything.”

He felt the disturbance to the vortex as he destroyed yet another realm, but this was not a disturbance of his own making and he marshalled his powers to see along the vortex, pushing himself to his new limits. The cavalcade of images flashed past him as his cosmically enhanced senses and he could see a figure in the far distance. He saw himself and realised that this was some kind of paradoxical loop, and that he was either looking in the wrong direction, or he had seen too much and missed what he was after.

He pulled back his senses and he came across a kingdom that had been disturbed, the taint of the energy that had diminished his own clung to it more than it did within this place where the energy was generated. In an instant he was at that window. He could see a man dressed as a bat and the man he had known as Captain America. He could feel the taint of the energy was old and that there were fresher taints out there. However he produced a device and planted in the kingdom window. Moments later that reality was gone and he went to find whom it was jumping from one world to the next and how much they knew.

The first reality he came across he found that some kind of mystical barrier blocked his path and that he could not open the kingdom window. There were obviously higher powers at work in that kingdom and he would return to it later. The second one he came across showed his a variant of one half of his family fighting against each other. It was incredible to see the differences made in each of the realities he was watching. Then something happened, something he was not anticipating.

The Kingdom imploded on itself as some terrible changes were wrought on the world and there was a backlash through the window, which knocked him in to unconsciousness…

In the Network medical bay the doctors were checking over Pete and Adam, who the systems had identified, bringing Mac and his team up to speed with who they were.

As he was being checked out, Pete explained that the group called Black Air had hatched a scheme to take control over reality, using arcane methods that combined with a set of circumstances they had manipulated as much as they could. These methods had been interrupted by Excalibur and the Clan Destine and in the ensuing battle he and Adam had been knocked in to a vortex and ended up lost in the myriad of realities that were out there.

They had found help along the way and got hold of a device that transported them from one reality, called a kingdom, to the vortex that allowed access to them all. However something was destroying the kingdoms and that had caused the vortex to tremble and the energy in the device to turn violent. The quakes had thrown Adam in to this world where the device had exploded. Pete had followed him to help his friend but now they were both trapped. Except Adam hadn’t woken up yet. He was alive but unconscious, which was supposedly impossible.

“We’re in trouble,” said Mac after he’d finished listening to him. “Oh, shit, this is bad.”

“I know,” said Pete. “I don’t really fancy living here either.”

“Not that,” said Carrington and turned to look at Professor Stone. “Jen?”

“I’ve been in touch with a few of the scientific houses. Stark Solutions and the Richards School Of Advance Physics and Technology. Let’s face it, they’d know more about this kind of time travel or alternate reality stuff.”

“Hold up,” said Mac. “You asked about alternate reality stuff?”

“They brought it up, and I admit it was something I was considering.” Normally Jennifer’s powers gave her an understanding of whatever she looked at, and while this was something she’d not experienced before she had an inkling of what it could be.

“And?”

“Someone’s obviously trying to destroy the multiverse,” said Jennifer. “From what Wisdom’s described it sounds as though the infinite is being whittled away piece by piece. This is causing an overload of the chronal energy, or hyperium as Pete described it. It’s entering the kingdoms and disrupting things.”

“Can everyone detect what’s going on?” asked Pete and Jen shook her head.

“We’re a over a decade past your time,” she said. “That means that time moves differently in other dimensions. We’re at a stage where our instrumentation is beyond yours, and it’s only just affecting us. On your world, it’d probably be passed away as static interference.”

“So odds are we’re the only one’s who know what’s going on,” said Carrington. “Great.” “So what do we do?” asked Wisdom. “As much as I’d rather be home, I’d also like to be in a place that’s not scheduled for imminent destruction.”

“We find whoever’s doing this and kick his head in,” said Carrington.

“How d’you know it’s not a bird?” asked Pete.

“They’d remake the universes after they destroyed them,” said Mac, thinking back to almost two decades ago when the so-called Goddess had tried to do the same thing.

“Point,” said Pete. “All we have to do is find him.” Carrington got a tingle down his spine as Wisdom spoke. Something didn’t sit quite right.

“Ready Network. I want full alert status, because if some one can do that to the multiverse then he can do it to us with even greater ease.”

“He’s coming here?” said Wisdom

“How can you tell?” said Jen.

“Dunno,” said Mac. “Gut instinct…”

He awoke to find himself in the vortex, and for a moment he wondered what had happened, for it had been years since he had been forced out of consciousness. However as he regained his senses, he remembered what had been happening and he used his powers to try and find the disruptions, but the traces from the other windows had faded to nothing.

“No,” he said, speaking his first word since freedom. If these people contacted either side of his family there would be trouble for he could not take on the entire Fantastic Four and X-Men combined. He had to find them and he reached out again, the beads of sweat forming on his brow and then he caught what he was after and teleported to the window. He could see the two people who did not belong, because he did not belong and there was a bond between them. He had to find out what these people knew and they seemed to be surrounded by an army.

They had already assembled an army against him, they knew what he was and they were coming for him. Then he realised that no army could be ready in such a short space of time. It would be a good test of his powers to crush these insects and he readied himself and stepped in to the kingdom.

It had been several hours since Carrington had given the order and his people were ready for whatever hostile was coming after them this time, and they knew this was a fight they had to win. From his office Mac, looked down at the water, which was lapping at the yellow sand. It had grown dark now and the moon reflected on the water.

“How are you doing?” said Jo as she slipped up behind him, and held him, her arms around his waist.

“Dunno,” said Mac. “Listen, about earlier…”

“I know,” she said, her head resting on his shoulder.

“I’ll sort something out, after this.”

“You think we can stop this maniac?”

“Bloody well hope so. I…” The intruder alert sounded and Mac sighed. “Here we go,” he said and she teleported him outside. He saw his opponent, the being who had been tearing through reality and he pressed his combadge. “Contact Richards and the X-Men. We have a problem.”

“I am Hyperstorm,” said the man and Carrington reviewed the file in his mind. Hyperstorm was better known as Jonothon Reed Richards, son of Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers. He’d been born in a universe where sentinels had destroyed all the superheroes, but as the heir to such a vast legacy of genetic potential his powers had allowed him to crush the sentinel armies and take over. His experiences had traumatised him so much that his self-proclaimed quest to bring peace to all things meant that he had to rule them. He was a despot with powers derived from limitless reserves of hyperspace and to say he was powerful was an understatement.

“We know who you are,” said Carrington, as his people gathered about him.

“So the two travellers warned you of my coming and what I’m doing.”

“Something like that,” Mac replied, thinking that it had been best to keep Pete out of this as much as possible. He was in the medical bay keeping an eye on Adam and on Beth as well. “We will stop you. Right here, right now.”

“Pitiful creatures, I will destroy you all.”

“Oh, joy,” said Mac. “You’d think years of imprisonment would teach you something but no. You’re still a delusional asshole.”

“Die,” said Hyperstorm, in no mood for this and his arm shot forward and unleashed a energy blast, composed of the energies of hyperspace right at this insolent little man, walking forward as he did so. Except to his astonishment the insolent little man lifted his own arm and held the blast in mid air. The energy tried to surge forward but could not. “What is this?” he asked.

“My own genetic gift,” said Carrington, using his powers over ambient energy to hold the blast from connecting and he too walked forward so he was in closer range and would have better control. “Welcome to 2015. Now.” His final word was a command to his Network agents and his people unleashed their own powers at Hyperstorm. Energy wielders, psychics, telekenetics; all joined forces to attack this man, who was forced in to defending himself, and broke off his attack on Carrington to do so.

“At my full power, I would kill you all,” Hyperstorm denounced, and Carrington slammed his in the jaw.

“And yet you didn’t see that coming,” said Mac, with a smile.

“AWAY!” cried Hyperstorm and everyone was thrown back several feet.

“Ow,” groaned Carrington as he picked himself up. “What the hell was that?”

“Energy feedback,” came Professor Stone’s voice. “He used his energy to push back everyone else’s. Very clever.”

“Hit, don’t gloat,” Carrington made a mental note, then he quickly scanned for Hyperstorm. “Where is he?” he shouted.

There was a murmuring and someone said they thought they saw him disappear.

“He has to be going for Destine and Wisdom,” said Carrington. “Jo, I need you.” There was no answer from either their combadge or psionic link. “Jo?” he tried again but still there was nothing. “Shit!” he said, and though he knew there was little chance of him getting there in time, he started running to the medbay.

“Well this sucks,” said Pete as he paced up and down. Adam still hadn’t woken up yet, and Pete was worried. The man was totally invulnerable, to all intents and purposes immortal He could not be harmed by anything and yet here he was unconscious. The medics could monitor his vitals but they couldn’t do anything other than that. They couldn’t cut him, insert an IV or any of the medical things that might bring him round.

“Tell me about it,” said Beth as she sat there, watching him intently.

“So you’ve got the Legacy Virus,” said Pete. “Sorry, kid.”

“So am I. There’s no cure for it as yet. There are represents an’ all but nothing to reverse it.”

“It can go in to remission,” said Pete, trying to give the girl hope. He could see in her eyes the utter hopelessness and despair she felt, even though she was putting on a façade of being calm about it.

“Hasn’t happened in any human yet,” she said. “There was a theory that it went in to remission because the use of powers taxed the virus to its limits and it burnt itself out and sent in to a state of dormancy.”

“How long you got?” asked Pete, quietly.

“Months, weeks, days – take your pick. It’s in the middle stages of the virus. I’ve been like this a while now, and it’s a waiting game. The solutions and stuff they give me help but not enough.”

“And someone did this to you, purposely.”

“Yeah. Ain’t love grand?” she sighed and closed her eyes.

“I’ve never had time for it personally,” said a voice and she opened her eyes again to see a new figure.

“Oh, you have got to be the villain,” said Pete. “Nobody dresses like that if they claim to be a white hat.” Then he fired off a couple of hot knives, but there was very little power behind them, because he hadn’t fully charged after all his adventures through reality and Hyperstorm deflected them with ease.

“If you are the best that the world has to offer then killing you and your kind will be easier than I thought.”

“Adam,” said Pete as he backed away while Hyperstorm approached him, “this would be a bloody good time to wake up.” If this guy was creaming realities then he was in serious trouble, and he needed all the help he could get. “Kid, get someone in here, quick!”

“I have cut off communications and telepathy across this island. You have no help coming to you, Wisdom,” taunted Hyperstorm pulling the name from his mind.”

“Bite me, pillock,” said Pete and nodded to Beth, who hit the alarm.

“Foolish child,” said Hyperstorm and cast her away with a flick of his hand. ” “Bastard!” said Pete and dived at Hyperstorm. “She’s just a kid!”

“Who knew the consequences of her actions,” answered Hyperstorm, cathing Pete with an uppercut and sending him across the room with the force of the blow. Pete moaned as he tried to get up, but he couldn’t get his arms or legs to work and Hyperstorm stood over him. “And now you die,” he said, grabbing Pete by the throat and holding aloft, choking the life out of him.

Pete tried to breathe but he couldn’t and the world started to fade around him as he fought for air. Then he realised he was going to die, alone and unknown on a world where he knew nobody and nobody knew him and there was nothing he could do. The face of Sat-Yr-Nine came in to his mind, laughing at him.

“No…” he spluttered, but she just laughed louder and Hyperstorm joined her. Pete closed his eyes. He couldn’t fight this anymore. The he was suddenly released from the grip with a jolt and as he fell to the floor, he realised the laughing had stopped. He opened his eyes and saw something that made him smile.

“Th’ cavl’ry’,” he managed to say.

“I don’t know who you are, sir,” snarled Captain Britain, who’d somehow arrived here together with Psylocke. “But when you mess with one member of Excalibur you pick a fight with us all.”

NEXT: The story concludes over in Excalibur #25, coming soon!

EDITOR’S NOTE

This issue wasn’t actually part of Marvel Omega or Marvel-X, but was actually part of Marvel 2015, which was absorbed into the now-defunct Avengers 2000 group. While migrating the MO issues from the old server to our new one, I noticed that Excalibur #24-25 had this issue as a bridge. Since Av2000 is no longer active and the server gone, in the interests of preserving continuity, I was able to track that issue down and posted it here under the title of Excalibur: Network #1. Hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.

Dino Pollard
July 2016