Cambodia
The Cardamom Mountains

The air was dry, as if all water had been leeched from the atmosphere. It was almost always insufferably hot in his home country, but he could not deny the omnipresent heat that had been squatting over the facility since the arrival of the stranger. While wiping sweat from his brow, Tuong Hun pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket – taking a much-deserved break from the atrocities he performed on a perfectly-timed schedule and routine.

“Ah, my Srok Khmae,” he whispered to himself in the small alley behind the fifth entrance to the Iron Hell, “you motherless bitch of a country.”

Hun closed his eyes and threw his head back against the concrete wall, reveling in the exhalation of smoke blowing from his lungs and throat. He looked down to his left arm, bare due to the rolled up sleeve of his button down shirt, and scratched softly at the tattoo that glowed faintly upon his touch. The snake, a symbol of power, was part of why he had been given his name – a cruel name, meant to mock him and his gift, given by his former superiors in the Khmer Rouge.

“Khimaera,” a young man’s voice said from the entrance to the building, “your presence is requested once again.”

“Tell them I will be there in a moment, boy,” Hun answered, taking a purposefully slow drag of his cigarette to accentuate his answer. As the child-man cowered back into the darkness, Tuong couldn’t help but think of how much he was reminded of himself at an early age. Unlike most mutants, who were herded into death camps much like the one in which he now stood, he had been taken under the wing of the Khmer Rouge. Under their guidance he became a torturer on par with the worst men in history. It was his chosen lot in life, and he held no regrets, but even in the best of times he wondered what his life could have been like had he not been born with such a curse.

Upon entering the building, Hun was immediately met by the headmaster of the facility, bowing more out of fear than respect. “Sir, the Englishman still refuses to speak. I have deemed it necessary for you to implement your talents, to teach the dog to know his betters.”

“Very well,” Tuong replied, respectfully brushing the other man to the side. With a rap of knuckles on steel, he entered one of the many holding cells littering the subterranean hallway. The prisoner, shackled to the wall, lifted his head despite the pain in his back and neck.

“They tell me you refuse to talk, my young British friend,” Hun began, speaking in heavily accented English, “and I would like to give you one last chance. If you do not accept, I promise you…it will hurt very much.”

Jon Starsmore said nothing, answering the man with a weak shake of his head.

“Very well,” Hun continued with a sigh. He approached slowly and removed the leather glove from his left hand. The tattoos on the undersides of his forearms began to pulse with light, the snake and the lion glowing in anticipation. “I understand that you do not bleed like a normal man. I imagine, however, that you can still feel pain. Like you, I am a mutant – with a touch from my left hand, I can make your pain receptors dance like marionettes.”

Carefully, almost tenderly, the man called Khimaera touched his bare palm to Starsmore’s face. The Cambodian’s touch was electric, and immediately every nerve in Jon’s body caught fire. He screamed, the first sound he’d made since his capture…

…and Tuong Hun smiled, despite himself.

IRON HELL

Part II

By Chris Munn

Avalon
Genosha

He was a long way from home.

Patiently, the silent elder sat in the heart of Magda Square, the central hub of commerce for the city once called Hammer Bay. Long had the country of Genosha been in the grip of a violent civil war, but for the first time since the fall of its previous government the streets were no longer filled with the sounds of gunfire and screams. Presidents Grey and Lehnsherr had done what they could to curb the violence of the country, and though peace was still far from established the city could at least breathe a relaxing sigh.

For the Australian Aborigine known only as Gateway, however, none of this mattered a whit. Time meant nothing to the mutant shaman, as it had been many a year since he first met the band of adventurers called X-Men at his home atop a mountain. The heroes had freed him from slavery by a band of cybernetic murderers, the Reavers, and if possible he would spend the rest of his days repaying that debt – even though it meant leaving the country that had birthed him.

Jean Grey and Erik Magnus Lehnsherr stood behind him as he began to spin his bull-roarer, the rock on a string that was the instrument for his own mutant gift. Faster and faster he spun the rock until it burst forth with a blinding light and crackle of energy. A mystic portal appeared before him, the “gateway” for which he had been named. His expression remained the same as the four individuals emerged – and when the last one was through the spinning stopped. The portal went dead, the smoking rock caught in his quick right hand.

“I will never, ever get used to that,” the flaming skeleton of a young woman, named Fever Pitch, admitted as she shivered visibly.

“I have to wonder,” Avalanche mused as his teammates made their way toward the two leaders of Genosha awaiting their arrival, “what will happen the day Gateway decides he doesn’t like being our taxi service?”

“Welcome home, X-Men,” Jean greeted as she hugged her arms around the young red-haired girl that approached her, “we saw you on the news not long ago.”

Returning Grey’s hug, Rachel Summers sighed. “Don’t get me started, Jean. These guys are a little too trigger-happy for my liking.”

The last of the assembled X-Men, the Asian man named Xorn, stepped to Lehnsherr and extended his hand. “Magneto,” he said, his voice muffled beneath the iron helmet which covered his head, “it is an honor to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Xorn,” Magnus said in return, taking the Buddhist’s hand in a firm shake, “and as Jean has told you, our home here in Genosha is yours as well.”

“Can’t imagine the surprise of that,” Rachel snapped, arms folded across her breasts, “that Magneto is willing to house a group of terrorists. What, are you just happy that the X-Men are finally doing your job for you after all these years? Maybe we’ll get lucky and die in your stead.”

“That’s not fair, Rachel,” Jean interjected, placing a hand on Magneto’s shoulder as she spoke, “to Erik or anyone who’s sacrificed their lives for the X-Men.”

“Don’t talk to me about sacrifice, ‘Mom’,” Rachel spat, “and don’t forget that I come from a time where every single one of you were hunted down and killed like animals.”

“If you find this so distasteful, child,” Magneto said, “then you may leave whenever you wish.”

“Just because I don’t like it,” she replied with a sigh of defeat, “doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. I’m just afraid we’re fighting a losing battle these days.”

“Please, my friends,” Xorn interrupted, “we have no time for philosophy. Our fellow mutants are in pain, and only we have the power to save them.”

“Any word from Havok?” Dominic asked, to which Jean and Magneto both replied with negative shakes of their heads.

“Looks like it’s just us, then,” Fever Pitch stated, “unless you two wanna pitch in and cause a ruckus with us?”

“I’m afraid, my dear,” Magneto answered, his hands folded regally behind his back, “that my involvement would potentially cause more political trouble than your mission warrants at the moment.”

“The great Magneto,” Avalanche quipped, “now just a glorified politician?”

Magnus scowled at Petros, but refrained from speaking. He was trying so desperately to change his nature following Charles Xavier’s death, but the face of such wanton disrespect made it easier to say than to actually do. Dominic smirked and nodded at the founder of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, knowing he’d accomplished his goal of getting under his skin.

“The place we are searching for is talked about only in rumor,” Xorn said, kneeling down to look Gateway in the face, “and some wonder if it truly exists. I know better, my friends – this place must be destroyed…provided we can find it.”

“Leave that to me,” Rachel stated with a smile and a toss of her short red hair. “Jean, can you find someone on the island for me?”

“Of course,” the older Grey answered, “who?”

“Caliban.”

Northern Australia

“I’m not sure how many different ways I can say ‘no’, Alex,” James Proudstar remarked as he and his two visitors walked along the grounds of the Australian X-Corps branch. James, his muscular frame covered tightly by a white t-shirt with Massachusetts Academy emblazoned on the breast, closed his eyes and smiled. “But I do admire your persistence.”

Alex Summers, Havok, smiled in return as he quickened his pace to keep up with the longer strides of his larger companion. “I didn’t just draw your name out of a hat, James,” Summers said, “there’s a reason I’m here, and a reason I won’t give up until you agree to join me.”

Proudstar cocked a curious eyebrow at his friend. “What reason would that be?”

Havok’s demeanor, his expression and body language, changed abruptly with James’ question. Halting their walk, Alex placed a hand on the Native American’s broad shoulder. “Because you’ve already experienced the extermination of your tribe…and I know that you’ll fight like hell to keep that from happening again to your mutant brothers.”

“My people were killed by Stryfe,” James countered, “a ‘brother mutant’. What you’re talking about is terrorism, Summers, and I don’t know how comfortable I am with that.”

“You were comfortable enough with it when you joined Cable’s X-Force years ago,” Alex continued, the smile returned to his face, “and the bottom line is that I need someone with your strength. Not just physical, but your spirit – your indomitable will. Some of the people I’ve gathered for the X-Men are trying to reform their old ways, but I still need someone I can trust without an ounce of doubt. That’s you, Proudstar.”

Several feet behind the two men, lost in her own little world of thought as the others spoke, the girl called Ecstacy shuffled her feet and whistled a tune. She wasn’t sure why Havok had requested her presence during his recruitment of Proudstar – because while her pheromone powers could probably “convince” him to join, she knew that Alex Summers would never condone such an action. So she was simply excess baggage at the moment, there as nothing more than window dressing.

She furrowed her scaly brow at that thought. Was it possible that she was simply asked to join for her looks, the token “easy woman” that each team inevitably had? Though, she thought with a smile, could she blame Havok if that was indeed the case?

As she contemplated her existence, however, Stacy unconsciously ignored the prickly sensation running throughout her body – the nerves in her neck causing her reptilian skin to rise in an odd form of gooseflesh. Her instincts, had she not disregarded them, were warning her of danger…warning her that she was being watched through the scope of a high-powered rifle.

He licked his lips as he watched through the scope, the taste of metal singing on his tongue. Steams of data moved across his field of vision, the wires connected to his temple allowing him real-time threat assessment and damage point updates as his target moved. It would take her 1.21 seconds to fall once the trigger on the rifle was pulled, allowing for wind resistance and refraction off of any substance that stood between them. Carefully, he clicked off the gun’s safety latch, his finger hovering over the now live trigger.

“Bang, baby doll,” the watcher said from his window position, an easy two miles west of the X-Corps headquarters, “you’re dead.”
“Report, Reese,” a voice squawked from the radio piece welded into his ear, “have you located the targets?”

“Affirmative, Cole,” the cybernetic mercenary answered. He swiveled his rifle slightly on his turret, counting the seconds it would take to assassinate the three mutants within his kill range. “Give the word and the world is threatened by three less muties.”

“Negative, hoss,” Reese’s partner – the second of a trio – answered through the radio. “Orders are simply to observe and record. Don’t get trigger happy out there…you’ll get your chance to kill plenty of mutes once the fix is in.”

“Still a big mistake,” Reese said with a sigh as he again flicked on the safety mechanism on the rifle, “especially since we’ve seen for ourselves just how easily these freaks can come back to life.”

“Chill, Reese,” a third voice, Macon’s, said via the communicator, “and don’t forget the most important detail. Those mutes may lead charmed lives, but the Reavers have killed them once already – easy as sin to do so again…”

Avalon
Genosha

“Caliban not like this. Caliban not want to hunt other mutants anymore. It makes Caliban sad…”

The hulking grey monster named Caliban sat hunched over on the concrete, his clawed finger picking innocently at his nose. Once upon a time, the monster had been a man – a freakish man, but a man nonetheless – a member of the sewer dwelling Morlocks before the Marauders exterminated near the entire tribe. That was before Apocalypse transformed the timid Morlock into the creature that now stood in his place, taking his natural talent to sense the location of other mutants to its extreme totality. He was no longer just a man, he was the Hound of Death – and now, due to the stress on his mind, poor Caliban had regressed to the mentality of a child.

And like a child, he was very temperamental.

“I understand, Caliban,” Rachel said as she stood behind him, the two turned to face the sitting Gateway a few feet away, “more than you can ever know. I was forced to hunt mutants, too, and I didn’t like it either.”

Caliban frowned. “Did you make the bad men pay? Caliban will make them pay.”

Rachel smiled. “No, I didn’t…not yet. I promise I won’t hurt you, Caliban. We need your help or innocent mutants are going to die – the bad men are going to kill them, and you can help us find them.”

“Okay. Caliban help.”

With a sigh of relief, Phoenix placed her hands on Caliban’s temples and closed her eyes. Her telepathic powers reached out, burrowing deep – yet tenderly – into the abused Morlock’s mind, and after a moment of searching she found the trigger for his power. Normally, Caliban’s gift was limited by range, the vicinity of the target correlated to the accuracy of the location. But with the help of Phoenix’s impressive psychic abilities, this range was expanded to its utmost extension. As she concentrated, her brow furrowed with tension, thick black tattoos appeared on her face – the marks of her time spent as mutant hunting Hound in the not-so-distant future of her birth.

“We’re almost there, Caliban,” she said, hoping to comfort the squirming former Horseman. Psychic flame burst from her body, enveloping herself and her reluctant partner in the fiery shape of the Phoenix. The light built and built in intensity, causing the X-Men surrounding them to shield their eyes for fear of being blinded. Finally, the flames died down, and Rachel smiled as she released her hold from Caliban’s head.

“Found it,” she said after wiping the sweat from her brow, “thanks, Cal.”

“I don’t like this plan,” Avalanche declared to Xorn and Fever Pitch, the three of them standing a few feet behind Jean and Magneto. “We’re going into a place built for the imprisonment and extermination of mutants with no idea how many men we’ll be facing. The four of us are tough, for sure, but I’d feel better if Havok and Ecstacy were going with us. We should wait, people.”

“Oh, come on, Dom,” Fever Pitch said with a pssht sound, “like they’ve got anything there that can take all of us down. They’re used to mutants who are too scared to fight back, man – they won’t even know what hit ‘em when we come to town.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Xorn interjected, stepping between his two teammates to make his way toward Rachel, “because the longer we wait the more blood will be spilled. Our waiting will cause more to die, and that we can not allow.”

“Jean, Erik,” Rachel addressed the two leaders of Genosha, “if Alex gets back before us, tell him where we’ve gone. I’ve mentally downloaded the coordinates into your minds, and if things go bad…well, we may need a rescue party.”

With a nod from Magneto, the younger Phoenix turned to the older woman who bore that name, her eyes filled with uncertainty. “Mom…” she began, unsure of what to say to the woman that was – yet wasn’t – her mother.

“We’ll talk when you get back, Rachel,” Jean said with a smile, unburdening the girl from the weight on her mind, “just be safe.”

“We are ready, Phoenix,” Xorn said, signaling to Rachel that it was time to get started. With a forced smile at the metal masked Buddhist, Summers crouched down in front of the Aboriginal Gateway. She closed her eyes and easily slipped inside his mind, feeding him the exact coordinates of the Cambodian location to which they were destined to travel. Almost immediately, the native Australian began to spin his bull-roarer – and in response, the shimmering portal opened beside him, gaping like an open mouth poised to swallow them whole.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Fever Pitch remarked as her three teammates entered the portal ahead of her, “but didn’t the X-Men used to take a fucking jet to get somewhere?”

And with that said, she, too, stepped through the portal.

Cambodia
The Cardamom Mountains
Iron Hell

Tuong Hun’s hands shook as he lifted the cigarette to his lips, the paper burned down nearly to the filter without his having noticed. The Englishman had taken all that Hun had given him – he had been brought to the edge of death and a feeling of pain that he had seen no man withstand. But the young mutant had survived, and – unbelievably – still remained silent. It had shaken Hun, for no man could have come through such an ordeal unscathed…not even the torturer himself.

Crouched down with his back against the wall, the mutant safely locked in the room behind him, Tuong raised his eyes at the sound of books click-clacking against the stone floor. “Headmaster,” he addressed the older man in military dress, “the Briton will not break. You know I would not say such a thing were it not true.”

The Headmaster scowled, then crouched down beside Hun, producing another cigarette for his employee and one for himself. “The boy appeared past our sentries, ravaged by the elements but not dead. To all appearances, it is if he simply materialized out of thin air…and that, my friend, is not an acceptable explanation. All mutants in this country are accounted for, and none are allowed entry without being screened and tagged. It is imperative that we learn more about who he is and why he is here.”

Using the lit butt of his dying cigarette to light his new one, Tuong nodded in compliance and agreement. “What do you suspect, Headmaster?”

“That he is a spy,” the facilitator of the camp answered, “and that a strike on this facility is imminent.”

At the moment those prophetic words were spoken, a low rumble began to tremor throughout the building, building in intensity with each passing second. Khimaera and the Headmaster sprung to their feet as the vibrations grew stronger, cracking and shaking the foundation of the cell block. “I knew it!” the Headmaster exclaimed as he reached for his radio. “Tell me, status report sound off now!”

“Sir!” a voice crackled through the radio static. “We are under attack! They are mutants, sir, and I fear…”

The line went dead, filled with the sound of gunfire and shouts. The Headmaster dropped it to the floor, then turned to Hun. “Stay here and guard this boy with your life. They will not rescue him…I will see us all dead first.”

Avalanche stood on the hillside to the south of the concentration camp, his hands raised to help guide his manipulation of the earth below him. The earlier tremors were merely a byproduct of him getting a feel for the shape and constitution of the ground, letting him know just what materials he had to work with as a geomorph of violent potential.

“Is everyone in position?” he asked, his question projected psionically through Phoenix to his other two teammates.

When he received his “go” order, Dominic Petros thrust his arms forward…and the earth responded accordingly. The hillside broke away and surged forward like a tidal force, carrying him at the crest of the earthen wave in the direction of the camp. He saw the soldiers – the butchers, in his eyes – running like frightened children at his approach, and that only made his anger rise even more.
With flick of his fingers in their direction, buildings collapsed and imploded in upon themselves – buildings scanned by Phoenix and cleared of innocent prisoners. They were there to help free any living mutants, after all, so it wouldn’t be good for them to die during their rescue. As he surged forward atop his earth wave, he looked up to see Fever Pitch streaking overhead.

“We’re the cover fire, Avalanche,” she said as she swooped down closer to the ground, “so let’s make sure these assholes know who they’re dealing with!”

Futilely, some of the soldiers attempted to shoot at her…but they were shocked to find their bullets simply melted as they reached her body. With her external temperature at its maximum and the death’s head grin affixed to her skeletal features, she appeared to be the devil incarnate to the frightened soldiers. “These guys keep yelling at me in gibberish,” she quipped to her partner, “don’t they know I only speak one language, and that’s bad English?”

“Stay frosty, girl,” Avalanche advised as he watched atop his perch, taking in the scene of chaos they’d created in just a few short moments. “These people have made a living out of killing mutants, so who knows what kind of nasty surprises they might have in store?”

{Who knows indeed} Dominic heard in his mind, English with a Cambodian accent, and he immediately began to search for the source. He saw the older man dressed somewhat like a General standing in the middle of the camp, directly in front of his mound of broken earth. The Headmaster nodded his head in respect to the X-Man…and then Avalanche’s mind exploded in a firestorm of blinding pain.

“Dominic!” Fever Pitch yelled as she saw Avalanche fall from his wave, flailing madly as his nervous system began to spasm from the brain smashing he had just received. She flew forward to grab him, but then she too heard the voice of the Headmaster in her thoughts.

{You are not the only mutants who were allowed to hone their gifts, young monster} he “said” as her mind was also assaulted by his telepathic power, causing her to fly on a collision course with the ground. She landed beside the fallen Avalanche, both of them unconscious from their impact. The Headmaster stood over them, smiling.

“How else do you think I kept this place under control for so many years?”

{Xorn, we have a big problem}

Slowly did Xorn and Phoenix creep through the darkened halls of the subterranean slave pens, their presence hidden and masked by Rachel’s powerful telepathic expertise. The Chinaman looked back to the girl behind him, expecting an answer to her sudden statement.

“Avalanche and Fever just ran into serious opposition,” she whispered, speaking due to Xorn’s partial resistance to telepathy that caused psi-speech to come through unclear and sometimes garbled, “a mutant that works at the camp. They’re both unconscious…it’s just us now.”

“Then we must push on, Phoenix,” Xorn replied, turning back to continue his walk down the corridor. The way was lit by the unnatural blue light emitted from his iron mask’s eye holes and mouth grill, casting the stone tunnel in a play of shadows. Each cell they came to was mysteriously empty, though obviously only recently vacated – as if there had been a rush to evacuate or exterminate the residents.

“This place is an abomination,” Xorn said as they continued on, “so much like Feng-Tu.”

Rachel remained silent, her thoughts turning toward her past now becoming her oncoming future. She had been raised in a camp much like the one through which they walked, just as Xorn had been, and she echoed his desire to tear the camp of blood down stone by stone, brick by brick. As the two reached the final cell at the dead end of the hall, Phoenix stopped dead in her tracks.
“Xorn, we’re not alone!” she called out…too late.

Claws, sharpened to razor points, raked across her back, wetting it with a flow and splatter of blood. She fell with a cry of pain to her knees, turning to attack whoever was behind her with her telekinesis. But as she turned her head, the left hand of Khimaera shot forward and grabbed her across the face. Upon his touch, her nerves electrified and synapses fired uncontrollably. To a normal person, such an act was agony – but to a sensitive psionic such as Rachel, the pain was amplified a thousand fold.

She screamed, but in truth had passed out before the sound escaped her throat. With the tattoo of the snake on his left arm glowing brightly and the tattoo of the lion on his right arm covered with matted and silken fur, Khimaera stepped over the girl’s collapsed body. “You will not free your comrade, outsider,” Hun said to the defiantly standing Xorn, “for none can withstand the poison of the snake and the claws of the lion.”

“I am foremost a healer, butcher,” Xorn said as he raised his hands up to his mask, “but hard choices must be made…and to look upon the face of Xorn is too face your death.”

The clasps of the iron helmet were snapped free by Kuan-Yin’s fingers, but he wasn’t fast enough after all. The third tattoo of Khimaera, the dragon on his chest, glowed beneath his shirt a fiery red…and when Tuong Hun opened his mouth flame burst forth. A virtual inferno exploded from the Cambodian torturer’s throat, the breath of the dragon bathing Xorn with lick after lick of fire. The force of the heat and flame pushed the X-Man backward, sending him hard through the door behind him – cracking the door to the cell off of its hinges as he fell through it.

Weakly, Xorn allowed his gaze to drift up and behind him, where he saw the ravaged and imprisoned Jon Starsmore. He had never met the mutant called Chamber before this moment, but it did not matter – Jon was a fellow mutant imprisoned like he had been held only a year before, and he would stand for it no longer. With his healing power already repairing the damage the flame did to his skin, Xorn stood on weak legs…

“Sit down, stranger.”

…only to feel the touch of Khimaera’s left hand on his shoulder, sending wave after wave of neural pain throughout his body. Xorn, the last X-Man, fell in blissful unconsciousness, defeated just like his teammates. Tuong Hun exhaled heavily in the battle’s aftermath, relieved that the fight was now over.

While Jon Starsmore watched through eyes narrowed with hatred, vengeance vowed in his thoughts.

Northern Australia

Pain!

He’d fallen dead off his feet, hit by the telepathic distress call like having a car slam into him full-speed. Alex Summers was feeling the pain of a girl he uncomfortably called “niece”, and for a moment he wasn’t standing in Australia anymore. He was in a place of death and blood, unable to escape no matter how hard he fought.

“Alex! What happened, can you hear me?” James Proudstar asked frantically as he cradled the smaller man in his arms, shaking him carefully to try and revive him.

“Rachel!” Alex shouted, springing up into a sitting position as he snapped back into reality. After a moment to collect his thoughts, with the concerned and confused James and Ecstacy huddled around him, Havok returned to his feet and placed a hand on his forehead.

“The X-Men are in trouble,” Summers told his two friends, “but Phoenix managed to send me a psychic mayday before she lost consciousness. We have to go help them – what were the idiots thinking, going off on their own mission without me?”

As Stacy activated the radio communicator in her uniform, signaling that they were ready for Gateway to bring them home, James placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “I’m going with you, Summers,” he said, “to help the X-Men. But don’t take this as me joining the team or anything – I just don’t want them to get hurt or killed when I could help.”

Alex nodded and took James’ hand in his, shaking it firmly. “Welcome to the X-Men, Warpath…”

NEXT: “Iron Hell” comes to its conclusion as Havok, Ecstacy, and Warpath go to rescue their captive teammates – but will they be too late to save the X-Men from the torturous actions of Khimaera and the Headmaster?