Beak sits on the floor of the Panoptichron, in front of the stasis gallery, and clarifies the story that the tech-drone that freed him just related to him. Beak repeats that the Timebroker does not exist, and that the missions the Exiles thought they received from him were actually coming from alien insect-like creatures. Correct, says the worker caste tech-drone.
Beak then continues and is able to confirm that the realities he and the Exiles were sent to fix were actually broken by the bugs in the first place. The young mutant then looks to the shattered hole in the stasis gallery that once held Hyperion. He then tells the bug that they now want him to save them all from one of the super-powered beings they kidnapped, who has turned the tables. Realizing how bad the situation sounds, the bug reluctantly admits that this is true. Beak scowls at the tech-drone, who tells Beak that he appropriate expression that he is thinking of is “sorry.”
The tech-drone explains that Hyperion is the most powerful being ever recruited for the Weapon X team. Taking lives means nothing to him and he surely would have killed them all if he had known how to control the Panoptichron. Soon after taking control, he ordered the sovereign caste to destroy two entire universes, purely for the sake of seeing if it could be done. Removing even one reality destabilizes the matrix. Hyperion then turned from destruction to revenge. Beak is confused, and asks the bug who Hyperion wanted revenge against. The bug bluntly states that Hyperion wanted to gain revenge against the Exiles.
First, Hyperion sent them to the magical world ruled by Kulan Gath, fully knowing that they would fall under the spell and lose their identities. The probable fatal outcome was maximized. However, the Exiles survived, so Hyperion allowed the Great Beast known as Tanaraq to lead the Exiles, which again turned out differently than expected. Hyperion then decided to force the Exiles to turn on one another, but Blink refused to kill Mimic. The madman became furious and spoke directly to the Exiles as the Timebroker. He sent them all to the home world of Blink and Sabretooth as punishment.
Beak interrupts the tech-drone and asks if Hyperion pulled him and Heather out along the way and put them on ice in the gallery. The bug explains that Beak and Heather were removed in favor for more disruptive Exiles. Beak asks the bug why Hyperion didn’t just put the whole team in the gallery, or kill them all if he is so powerful. The tech-drone explains to Beak that Hyperion cannot leave the Panoptichron without forfeiting control. Besides, he likes toying with the Exiles. Beak compares the Panoptichron to a magnifying glass, and the Exiles as ants. Speaking of whom, says Beak, where are his teammates right now?
In the desert world, Mimic stands in shock, as he believes that Hyperion just killed Morph. Hyperion, enraged, stands ready to attack Namora, who just punched him hard in the face. Namora screams to Hyperion that he will kill no more. Sabretooth leaps at Hyperion, but is rebounded back. The madman grabs Namora and begins to crush her in his arms, as he admits his love for seafood. His eyes begin to charge up with his flash-vision, so Namora begins to push his face away from her.
Namora is successful and Hyperion is unable to blast her. Mimic tries stabbing Hyperion in the back, but finds he cannot scratch the man. Blink throws a few teleportation arrows, in an attempt to teleport Hyperion’s flash vision attack behind him, much like how she defeated him last time. Hyperion uses this to his advantage. He shoots his flash-vision into one of the arrows, which teleports the attack right behind him. However, with his super-speed, he turns quickly, so that the blast hits Namora, burning her back and making her scream in agonizing pain.
Hyperion drops Namora without any concern. He tells Blink that she can fool him once, but she will need a new trick to beat him again. In fact, he has one. Hyperion then spins around with his super-speed, which picks up all the sand around him, creating a sandstorm. Mimic and Sabretooth run for cover, neither one bothering to aid the badly injured Namora, who desperately and futilely crawls away towards the doorway back to the Panoptichron. The man-made sandstorm catches up to her, however, and badly scars her back even further.
Sabretooth begins to dig the sand beneath him as the sandstorm heads towards him. He orders Blink to get away from the area. Blink, however, is more concerned as to where Mimic has disappeared. As the decimated Namora crawls back into the Panoptichron, Mimic flies up into the air and tells himself that it cannot end like this. He has only copied half of Northstar’s speed in the past. Hopefully half of light speed is enough. Mimic begins to do loops in the air to build up speed. He then armors up and curls himself into a ball, as Hyperion ends his sandstorm. The villain announces that it is time to end them all, though he would rather keep on playing. Suddenly, he sees the curled up Mimic rocket towards him.
Mimic slams into Hyperion’s back at a dangerous speed, dragging the man forward and knocking him unconscious in to the sand. Mimic, however, is not left untouched, as his metal arms are all shredded. Calvin does not get back up.
In the Panoptichron, Beak marches down the hall with the tech-drone, asking what a high-school student like himself can do to stop Hyperion. The drone, however, tells Beak that the Panoptichron only calculates probability, not certainty of what will happen. Beak tells the bug that he needs to work on his pep talks. The worker drone continues to talk and explains that the sovereign caste selects members for the Exiles and Weapon X based on highest survivability probability. If one considers the longevity of Mimic, Morph and Blink, then Beak can rest assured that the sovereigns know what they are doing. Beak snaps back that the sovereigns also chose Hyperion. However, the bug still hasn’t explained what he has to do to stop Hyperion.
The tech-drone recalls the Beak stopped Tanaraq. Beak argues that he did not stop Tanaraq. When the monster took over Sasquatch’s body, all he did was run for help. As he says this, Beak looks at the monitors behind him and sees Gladiator of the Imperial Guard battling the Silver Surfer in one reality. He asks the tech-drone if all the places on the screen are real. The bug confirms this, to which Beak replies that perhaps he does know what to do after all.
Back in the desert world, Blink rushes over to Mimic’s motionless body and begs him not to be dead. Mimic begins to awaken, though Blink notices that Calvin only stunned Hyperion and that they have to move now. Mimic slowly tells Blink that it is hard for him to move. Where is everyone else? Blink informs her lover that she does not know. Morph took a direct hit from Hyperion and she does not know if he is dead or alive. Namora is in horrible shape as well, but she lost track of the Atlantean queen, as well as Sabretooth, in the sandstorm.
As Hyperion recovers from the attack, Blink teleports herself and Mimic away. The villain notices the couple reappear outside the doorway back into the Panoptichron. He tells the girl that he now understands why the sovereigns recruited them. Suddenly, Sabretooth bursts out of his hiding place in the sand and asks Hyperion if he wants to know why they recruited him to be an Exile. Hyperion is confused at first, but then understands Creed’s meaning. He then informs the feral mutant that the bugs did not recruit him to be an Exile. He did. He wanted someone to distract Blink and to make her less effective as a leader. He needed someone who would rush in to a no-win fight without a second thought.
Sabretooth is left stunned at this revelation and barely dodges the blast from Hyperion’s flash vision. Hyperion flies out of the desert world and orders Sabretooth to stay right there. He will be back in a minute. Then they will see if there really is more than one way to skin a cat. Hyperion then travels through the hallways of the Panoptichron, singing Blink’s name.
The villain finds Blink and Mimic in a corner of the building. He admits that she has fought bravely. He will honor her courage by killing her quickly. In a last ditch effort, Blink tells Hyperion to go to Hell, as she throws a teleportation arrow at him. Hyperion, however, is not affected by it. He then reveals that he had the bugs analyze her powers. If he cannot stop her from teleporting his flash-vision, then he can at least vibrate fast enough so she cannot teleport him away. Blink begins to cry and tells Hyperion that she wasn’t trying to teleport him away; she was trying to teleport him into pieces.
As Hyperion stands by the door to the water world, he tells Blink that it was wishful thinking. She isn’t in his class. She should not forget that he killed every last hero on his Earth. “So did I!” screams the recovered Namora, as she leaps out of the water world and, in one quick motion, snaps Hyperion’s neck!
Screaming her battle cry, “Imperius Regina,” Namora takes Hyperion down in the water with her, where she tells him that he should have never let her return back to the water. However, he has not been the first to misjudge her true strength. One by one, the heroes of her world fell to her, though her cause was just. Her world prospered under her rule.
In the Panoptichron, Blink stands at the doorway and looks into the water. Mimic asks her if Namora’s plan worked. Hesitantly, Blink tells Mimic that she thinks it did.
In the water, Namora tells Hyperion that killing is the easy part. It is reigning wisely that is difficult. Hyperion, annoyed, asks Namora if she ever shuts up. With one flick of his wrist, Hyperion snaps his neck back into place. “Y’know, every day I wake up with a stiff neck,” continues Hyperion, “I’m gonna think of you, babe.” Hyperion then unleashes his powerful flash-vision on the stunned Namora. She never had a chance to even attempt at an escape.
Blink stumbles back as a wave of burning hot steam erupts from the water world, burning her skin. She falls to the ground and is immediately weakened by her burns, as well as the scalding steam that warms up the area. She crawls to Mimic, who asks her what happened. Blink turns to see a figure standing in the steam. Hoping against hope, Blink calls out Namora’s name, inquisitively. “Fish chowder,” replies Hyperion, boldly, as he emerges from the steam.
Hyperion walks towards the couple and tells the two that they have managed to hurt him in ways he never thought possible. He will miss them, as he doesn’t believe that he will ever be challenged like this again. He will recruit new flunkies, of course, to conquer universes in his name, but he will become soft without any Exiles to keep him on his toes. Suddenly, a voice from behind tells Hyperion that he has good news, for there are more of them Exiles and they are not giving up yet. Hyperion turns to see Beak standing before him.
Blink screams to Beak to run away. Angry, Hyperion calls out to the Timebreakers and asks them if they think this is funny. He told them not to touch any of the equipment. Whoever unfroze the bird boy will get squished when he returns to the control room. Beak informs the villain that the sovereigns didn’t free him, one of the tech-drones did. They showed him how to use the transporters too. He did a little traveling while Hyperion was killing his friends.
Hyperion smiles and questions Beak on why he came back. Did he figure that he was not safe in any reality? Frankly, he wouldn’t waste his time looking for Beak. Of course, not, replies Beak. He could never do any harm to Hyperion. However, he is good at one thing, and that is at making friends.
Suddenly, two alternate reality Hyperions, one sporting green sunglasses, come to Beak’s side. One of them tells the evil Hyperion that they have been unhinged from time. The other adds that Barnell has told them that someone was embarrassing their good name…
