Still lying in the house in Kazakstan, Eye-Boy sees. Maybe it’s due to Genesis’ attempt to cure him, maybe it’s due to being close to death, but right now he sees everything. He sees what’s happening thousands of miles away.
He sees Shadowcat phasing through Colossus in the midst of a Xavier Day Celebration. And he sees something too bright to look at. Something that looks back at him.
The sudden shock contracts his vision and suddenly he only sees his terrible mistake. Genesis! he shouts.
Not far away, Evan Sabahnur has taken the shape of Captain America as he battles Omega Red.
Unveil and Dazzler shout at him to fall back and let them handle it.
Genesis refuses - no more running, he decides as he hits his foe. He tells them to evacuate the place while he does this. He is a Light Rider of the X-tracts. He begins quoting the X-tracts, as he battles.
Manhattan:
In his gallery, En Sabah Nur welcomes his new disciples and preaches to them, watched by Kitty Pryde. Suddenly, someone addresses her as Katya. He needs her. Panicked, she asks Colossus what he is doing here. Didn’t he hear Murshid at his gallery?
She tries to drag him outside. He tells her he had no choice. He left the X-Men. He must join her. He wishes to become a follower of En Sabah Nur.
She phases them into her room and points out that that sounds suspicious. She admits there is something between them but Murshid is right. Department X took her memories, her life. He is part of the regime. How could she ever trust him?
He looks at the menorah and asks what it is. She explains. He wonders why she gave it a place of honor. When she first touched it, she saw stuff… a smiling mother, a family celebration. A life she could never have had.
He tells her that when she phased through him on Xavier Day, for a fraction of a second, they shared the same space. That moment, he saw forbidden things too. Them fighting together, becoming friends, even falling in love. He admits those images were more real than anything in his life. He believes he can show her but asks for her trust.
She realizes she knows his name is Peter. She doesn’t need him to prove it. Despite what Murshid said, she knows it’s real. She kisses him and asks him to come back to her.
In Kakzhakstan, Dazzler and Unveil try to explain in bad Russian to the villagers that they need to flee but their message does not seem to get through. Unveil realizes those are proud people. They think they can stay and fight, ‘cause it’s what they’ve always done. She shares her mists with them and lets the people share their belief that Omega Red is dangerous. Convinced, they leave.
In the meantime, Eye-Boy drags himself to the battle. Evan (in his Captain America form) shouts at Omega Red that they were supposed to rescue him, but he is evil! No, is Omega Red’s reply. He returned the favor by killing the men who came for him and his friends. But Evan misunderstood their function, just as he did. They weren’t sent here to rescue him. They aren’t kindred spirits.
With his tentacles, he grabs Evan and throws him into a wall, then offers to show him the truth. Evan lands inside the house and sees the corpses of the inhabitants.
Omega Red continues that they are all but players in a game. Because, in this world, mutant is god. Omega jumps after him telling him of the holes that opened in the air and shortened out the power in his prison. He took advantage, killing his captors and then he looked into these glowing funhouse mirrors. He saw warped reflections of himself fighting the X-Men and knew that was his eternal destiny. He saw wars for survival, great revolutions and her saw this man. He shows an image of En Sabah Nur – a distorted version – the monster known as Apocalypse, a manipulator of history, and Omega Red realized he had manipulated his history too. He had tasted his Celestial energies in the air. Energies that flow through Evan. The man is something to him, isn’t he?
He is his father! a shocked Evan replies. Omega Red tells him his father didn’t send Genesis to rescue Omega Red. He wanted them to recapture his rebellious weapon before he could fall into enemy hands. It was truly good to meet him, little brother, but he can’t let that occur. Perhaps in another world he lives long enough to matter.
He impales Evan with one of his tentacles. But in this world his energies will be used for deicide as his father will fall along with the X-Men!
Genesis refuses. He touches the tentacles. He will be as immortal as his father! A savior who defeated death!
Trevor has made his way to the battlefield to witness what is occurring, how Evan overloads Omega Red with energy.
In New York, En Sabah Nur senses their distress and calls back his Light Riders. They appear with Evan lying still in Unveil’s arms. Trevor explains when he found Evan he wasn’t breathing. He used the last of his energy to kill Omega Red and reach out for En Sabah Nur.
Kitty and Colossus burst in to see the dead Evan and his grieving father. Colossus offers that the X-Men might have the means to reverse even this. He suggests En Sabah Nur use him as a hostage to barter.
En Sabah Nur refuses and tells his Light Riders to form the true X and asks Colossus to join them as well. As they are engulfed by the mists, En Sabah Nur announces they reject isolation, they breathe as one. He asks them to share with him and experience together the agony of love lost.
Later in Trevor’s room, the young man marvels as En Sabah Nur just healed his hands. En Sabah Nur replies somberly that he was simply born with the ability to share many of his mutant gifts. But not all of them. He gets up and Trevor offers they can hang, call in the girls… En Sabha Nur thanks him but for the first time in a long time he would like to be… alone. He tells him to get some sleep.
He instantly falls asleep, but nevertheless his eyes sense more. He focuses and finally sees what’s looking back at, and he sees En Sabah Nur arguing with X-Man, who tells him this mutant was not part of their deal and calls him a slave to his own nature. If he is to play the villain in X-Man’s perfect world, he expects to occasionally deal with unexpected surprises like Omega Red. Maybe he should see it as Apocalypse forcing him to evolve. He considers the loss of his son as punishment enough for his indiscretion.
En Sabah Nur states that Evan had to be removed. He had come too close and seen too much.
Trevor forces himself to wake up but doesn’t bother to believe it was a bad dream. Because no nightmare could be that cruel…
