The subway station was a fortress.
We approached from multiple angles—X-Men from the north entrance, my team from the south. The plan was simple: create enough chaos that we could reach the ritual chamber and shut it down before Apocalypse awakened.
Simple. But not easy.
The moment we entered, alarms blared. Clan Akkaba had been expecting us.
"They knew we were coming," Cyclops said through comms.
"Of course they did," I replied, reaching out with my mind. I could feel them—dozens of cultists, armed and ready. And in the center, a presence I recognized. "The telepath is here. I can sense them now."
"Can you identify them?"
Before I could answer, the attack began.
Cultists poured from every corridor, armed with weapons that crackled with strange energy. Not just guns—these were advanced tech, possibly alien in origin.
Storm called lightning, blasting through the first wave. Cyclops's optic beams carved through their defensive positions. Jean levitated debris, using it as both shield and weapon.
My team hit them from the flank. Maya and Elektra moved like dancers of death, taking down cultists with brutal efficiency. Felicia provided covering fire while Jessica coordinated with the SHIELD backup team securing the perimeter.
And I? I did what I did best.
I reached out to every cultist I could sense—thirty, forty, fifty of them—and *pushed*. Not trying to control them all fully, that would burn me out. Instead, I disrupted their coordination, made them hesitate, confused their orders.
It was like conducting a chaotic orchestra. Each mind I touched required attention, concentration. Too much and they'd slip away. Too little and they'd recover.
The strain was immediate. Blood dripped from my nose within minutes.
We fought our way deeper into the complex.
The cultists had fortified positions, automated defenses, and worst of all—enhanced soldiers. More of Kingpin's type, but these were different. Better shielded against my powers, more coordinated, backed by advanced weaponry.
"We're pinned down!" Cyclops called as energy blasts tore through the corridor.
"I can't get a clear shot," Storm added, lightning crackling impotently against energy shields.
"Let me try something," I said.
I'd been practicing this with Emma—not controlling people, but affecting their technology. The electronic signals in their cybernetic enhancements, the neural interfaces that gave them their edge.
I reached out, not to their minds, but to the machinery within them. And I *pushed*.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even good. But for a few seconds, their enhancements glitched. Their shields flickered. Their targeting systems went haywire.
It was enough.
Jean's telekinetic blast caught them off-guard. Storm's lightning found its mark. Cyclops's beam punched through their disrupted defenses.
The enhanced soldiers went down.
But the effort cost me. I staggered, vision blurring, pain lancing through my skull. My nose was bleeding freely now, and my hands shook uncontrollably.
"Marcus!" Felicia was at my side. "You're pushing too hard!"
"We're almost there," I gasped. "I can feel it—the ritual chamber is just ahead."
The chamber was massive, carved from solid rock, covered in glowing symbols that hurt to look at.
In the center, suspended in crackling energy fields, were two telepaths. I recognized one—Rachel Summers, Jean's daughter from another timeline. The other was unfamiliar but powerful.
And standing before the ritual apparatus was someone I hadn't expected.
Emma Frost.
Not the Emma I'd been training with. This one's eyes glowed with unnatural light, her diamond form shot through with dark veins of energy.
"Emma?" I said, stunned. "What are you—"
"Hello, Marcus," she said, her voice different—layered, echoing. "Or should I say… White King?"
"You're working with them. You're the telepath helping Clan Akkaba."
"Working with them?" She laughed. "No, darling. I'm using them. They think they're serving Apocalypse, but really… they're serving me."
"Why?"
"Because when Apocalypse awakens, he'll need Horsemen. And I intend to be one of them—not as a servant, but as a partner. With his power and my cunning, we could reshape the world." She took a step forward. "Join me, Marcus. You have potential. Together, we could stand beside him as equals."
"You're insane."
"I'm practical. The world is changing. Humans fear mutants, governments develop Sentinels, cosmic threats loom. We need power to survive. Apocalypse offers that power."
"At the cost of our humanity."
"Humanity is overrated." Her eyes flashed. "Last chance, Marcus. Join me willingly, or I'll take your power by force and add it to the ritual."
I reached for my telepathic abilities, trying to push into her mind—and hit a wall like solid diamond.
She'd been shielding herself this entire time. Every training session, every conversation—she'd been preparing for this moment.
"Did you really think I was helping you out of kindness?" She smiled coldly. "I've been studying you, Marcus. Learning your strengths, your weaknesses. And now…"
She attacked.
The psychic battle was unlike anything I'd experienced.
Emma didn't just attack my mind—she attacked my identity. She showed me futures where I failed, where my women died, where I became a monster. She amplified every doubt, every fear, every moment of weakness I'd ever felt.
And I fought back with everything I had.
I showed her what I'd learned from our sessions—the layered shields, the misdirection, the traps within traps. I turned her own techniques against her, using the mental architecture she'd taught me to confound her attacks.
But she was better. Decades of experience versus my months of training. For every technique I countered, she had three more.
In the physical world, the X-Men engaged the remaining cultists while my team tried to reach the ritual apparatus. But Emma had planned for that too—automated defenses came online, energy barriers blocked access.
We were losing. On every front.
Then Jean Grey entered the psychic battle.
Her presence was like the sun breaking through clouds. Phoenix Force energy, contained but immense, turned the tide. Emma found herself fighting both of us.
"Shut down the ritual!" Jean commanded telepathically while holding Emma's attention.
I pulled away from the mental battle and turned my focus to the ritual itself. The machinery was complex, but I could see the psychic components—the energy being drawn from the captured telepaths, the conduits feeding it into the tomb seals.
I couldn't destroy it directly. But I could disrupt it.
I pushed my consciousness into the system, interfering with the psychic flows, rerouting energy, creating feedback loops. It was delicate work, like defusing a bomb while being shot at.
The machinery screamed. Alarms blared. The energy fields flickered.
"No!" Emma's psychic scream was rage and desperation combined. She tried to stop me, but Jean held her back.
The ritual collapsed.
The energy fields dissolved. The captured telepaths dropped free. And deep beneath Cairo, the tomb seals remained intact.
Apocalypse would sleep for another day.
Emma fled before we could capture her.
Diamond form shattered through a wall, gone into the shadows. We tried to pursue, but she'd planned her escape too well. By the time we reached the surface, she was gone.
"She'll be back," Xavier said grimly. "Emma Frost doesn't give up easily."
"Neither do we," I replied.
We'd won. Barely. But the cost was clear.
Rachel Summers was alive but traumatized. The other telepath was in a coma. The cult was broken but not destroyed. And Emma—someone I'd trusted, trained with, almost brought into my team—was now a confirmed enemy.
As we returned to the X-Mansion for debriefing, I couldn't help but feel we'd dodged a bullet. If Emma had been just a little better, if Jean hadn't arrived when she did, if I'd burned out a minute earlier…
We'd have lost everything.
"You did well," Xavier said privately as I was preparing to leave. "Your powers have grown considerably. But so have the threats you face."
"I know."
"Be careful, Marcus. Power attracts enemies. And the enemies you're attracting now…" He trailed off. "They're beyond what most people ever face."
"Then I'll get stronger. Better prepared."
"That's what Emma said once." He looked at me seriously. "Don't let the pursuit of power corrupt you the way it did her."
"I won't. I have my team to keep me grounded."
"Good. Because the world is going to need you, Marcus Cole. Apocalypse may be sleeping, but there are other threats rising. And not all of them are external."
As I drove back to my base, his words echoed in my mind.
Not all threats are external.
What had I become in my pursuit of power? How close was I to Emma's path?
I pushed the thought away. I was different. I had boundaries, rules, people I cared about.
But in the back of my mind, doubt lingered.