The hum of teleportation faded into silence as Ryan, Logan, and Angel Dust materialized just outside the secured perimeter of Trask Industries' primary weapons research facility.
The cold air inside the building hummed softly—no voices, no footsteps, just the quiet buzzing of machines at rest. The weapons testing chamber deep within Trask Industries was designed for discretion and security, tucked beneath layers of false departments and surveillance overrides. But even the most secure places had their blind spots—especially when dealing with someone like Ryan who can manipulate technology with just a thought.
No alarms blared.
No cameras shifted toward them.
Ryan's cloaking field, woven into his stealth gear using a fusion of technopathy and custom system enhancements, ensured their arrival went unnoticed.
The trio moved in silence, sticking to the shadows. Angel Dust took the lead, her massive strength and enhanced agility allowing her to scale the steel barriers like a phantom. Logan, ever the stealthy predator, stuck to the blind spots between moving cameras and guard rotations. Ryan, with his mutant-enhanced awareness and telepathic scans, cleared their path with pinpoint accuracy.
They waited… watching… breathing with calculated patience.
Trask himself was in the experimental sub-lab below the facility—according to Ryan's scan, alone, as he always preferred to be when testing new prototypes. He was working on refining ballistic countermeasures.
Ryan nodded. "Exactly where we want it. EVE confirmed his schedule—he's alone in his weapons test chamber for an hour every night to inspect prototypes. No cameras in that sector due to classified material."
"How long before security rotates?" Logan asked, his voice low and gravelly.
"Seven minutes," Ryan replied, eyes fixed on the display in his wrist device. "We move in sixty seconds. Angel Dust leads, you take the flank, I erase the footage."
Angel Dust cracked her knuckles with a grin. "I'm not even going to break a sweat."
The moment came.
Like ghosts, they slipped through the final security gate. Ryan flooded the control tower's cameras with false looping footage, ensuring the entire internal system recorded a pristine, undisturbed lab. They entered through a maintenance shaft, crawling through cold ducts until they hovered just above the sealed experimental chamber.
Trask was alone.
Bent over a console, murmuring to himself about advanced radar, adaptive targeting systems, and "post-launch control protocols."
Logan dropped down first, a whisper of movement, landing silently on padded boots. Angel Dust followed, the floor creaking ever so slightly under her weight. Trask froze, sensing something.
Too late.
Logan moved behind him, one hand over his mouth.
Ryan dropped in last, stepping forward with surgical calm. "Do it."
Angel Dust grabbed Trask by the collar and yanked him off his feet, his body lifted like a ragdoll. His terrified muffled scream never escaped past Logan's palm.
She glanced at Ryan for confirmation. He nodded.
With one calculated movement, she slammed him into the console—his spine cracking with a dull snap. Sparks burst from the machinery. The nearby containment generator exploded with a sharp hiss of electricity, arcing across the room. Trask's twitching body hit the ground face-first, his skull cracking against the floor.
The readings on the screen spiked and then flatlined.
Ryan glanced around and with a motion of his fingers, rewrote the sensor logs. To anyone reviewing the details, it would appear that a power surge in the volatile energy weapons field caused a containment overload, frying Trask in the accident.
No trace of them.
No witnesses.
Just another name wiped from history before he could destroy mutantkind.
They stood in silence for a moment.
Then Logan broke it. "That was cleaner than I expected."
"We're not here to rewrite the world in blood," Ryan said. "Just to keep it from burning."
Splintering the Path
After the mission, the trio gathered in the forest outside the facility, the moon high above them. The weight of what they had done—and what lay ahead—settled in the air between them.
"What now?" Angel Dust finally asked.
"We split up," Ryan answered.
"Let Charles and Erik find us as the timeline intended," Logan muttered. "If we appear too eager, they'll get suspicious. We need to let things unfold naturally."
"They'll never believe the full truth anyway," Angel Dust said.
Ryan nodded. "Exactly. Charles is naive, and Erik is paranoid. We need them to believe they're building this team on their own. Let their idealism drive them. We'll intervene if things get messy. No more than that."
Angel Dust stretched her arms. "And until then?"
"We split up," Ryan said. "Lay low. Blend in. Watch from the shadows until the time is right."
Logan gave a slow nod. "I'll stick close to civilization. Maybe find a bar," he muttered. "Somewhere quiet. If you need me, I'll be close."
Angel Dust snorted. "Of course you will."
Ryan smiled. "We always know where to find you. Just don't drink the timeline into a mess."
With that, Logan turned and slipped into the shadows, leaving Ryan and Angel Dust alone in the forest. Without another word, Ryan placed a hand on Angel's shoulder, and in a flicker of blue light, the two vanished.
A God's Grave
They emerged beneath a crimson-hued sky in the desert lands of Cairo, Egypt. The air was dry and heavy, the wind carrying whispers of ancient secrets. Beneath them, deep under the earth, lay En Sabah Nur—the mutant god called Apocalypse—still entombed, still sleeping.
But not for long.
The dry desert winds of Cairo swirled under the blanket of night. A forgotten compound sat near the edge of the old city ruins, half-buried by time and disrepair. Inside, a group of armed zealots lounged around, unaware of the death descending upon them.
Ryan and Angel Dust materialized behind a crumbling wall near the compound.
"These are the ones worshiping him?" Angel asked, eyes narrowing.
"Cultists. Mercenaries. Terrorist landlords. All serving a god they've never met," Ryan answered. "This is your part."
"I'll handle the pests," Angel Dust said, scanning the sandstone cliffs surrounding the site.
Angel Dust didn't hesitate. True to her word, she moved like a ghost through the ruins—silent, invisible in the moonless dark. Armed militants who had claimed this holy ground, believing it a sacred tomb, never knew what hit them. One by one, the cultists fell. Their skulls were crushed, throats snapped, or spines twisted, chests crushed, and heads slammed into walls with such force they broke like glass. Not a single shot was fired.
Not a scream, not a shot, not a whisper escaped.
In ten minutes, silence reclaimed the compound.
Ryan stepped out from the shadows. "Clean," he remarked.
Angel Dust flexed her fingers. "Didn't even need to try."
They entered the half-dug temple remains, weaving through collapsed stones and weathered symbols. Their steps echoed softly, the air thick with centuries of undisturbed dust and myth.
"It's already partially uncovered," Angel Dust observed.
"They started the dig years ago," Ryan said. "Got scared. Stopped."
Deeper inside, the walls narrowed, the floor cracked and uneven. Ryan extended his hand and, using only his Earth Manipulation, began to shape a tunnel through the stone, sliding boulders aside with minimal noise. No brute force. Just precise pressure.
Minutes passed until they reached a sudden drop—a vast underground chamber hidden beneath the earth. A void of silence and age.
They descended.
The chamber opened before them like the lungs of the Earth. The remnants of a collapsed pyramid formed jagged walls above. In the center lay a naturally sealed vacuum chamber, untouched by time.
There, on a stone slab, lay Apocalypse.
His ancient armor barely held together, dusted over with centuries of sediment. Next to him, another body—only bones remained—rested slumped against a pillar. Her faded armor and aura of death marked her as a former general, one of the four Horsemen of Apocalypse.
"I came for her," Ryan whispered, stepping toward the skeleton.
Ryan knelt, placing a hand on the general's skull. A sharp pulse of energy flared as one of his mutant abilities activated. Copy. The power seeped into him—telepathy, telekinesis, forcefield generation. Raw, primal power with huge potential.
As Ryan began copying the genetic residue and psychic imprint from the ancient general's remains. Angel Dust moved past him, eyes locked on the sleeping god. Angel Dust moved to the central dais.
Her eyes narrowed at Apocalypse's massive sleeping form.
With one step forward, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around his throat.
There was no ritual.
No dramatic battle.
Just the sickening crunch of cartilage and bone as Angel Dust crushed Apocalypse's neck in one decisive move.
She lifted him like discarded trash and snapped his head from his body, the blue-skinned cranium rolling across the stone like a broken idol.
The ancient mutant's eyes fluttered—barely awake—before a sickening snap rang out.
His body fell limply, blood gurgling out before he could even raise a hand.
Angel dropped his body, gripping the head, separating it with a flick of her wrist. The skull rolled across the floor, hollow.
"Too easy," she said.
Ryan, still knelt by the skeleton, gave a faint smirk.
"Done?"
"Done," she said, wiping her hands.
He stood and, without looking back, unleashed a controlled burst of blue flame, with one flick of his fingers, flames erupted across Apocalypse's body. No theatrics. No speeches. The corpse burned to ash, and the wind that had slipped through the cracks above howled through the chamber, sweeping it all away.
"Time to vanish," Ryan said.
Raising his hand, he collapsed the cave behind them. Stone ground against stone, crashing down as tremors surged upward. The entire area caved in, burying the remains of the cultists, Apocalypse, and his general under thousands of tons of rock—earth folding inward, sealing the tomb for good. From above, it appeared as if a natural quake had consumed the land, burying all evidence..
No evidence. No witnesses. No prophecy.
The Waiting Game
Later that night, they appeared in a dark alley in New York City, dressed in ordinary clothes of this time, with no trace of battle or war on them. They blended into the shadows, disappearing into the urban chaos—waiting for the world to catch up.
Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr were out there—young, unprepared, and dangerously idealistic.
Let them play their game.
Let them believe they were the ones shaping the world.
Ryan, Angel Dust, and Logan would be watching.
And when the time came—when history faltered and trust cracked—they would step in.
Not as saviors.
But as shadows of the future, forged in blood, desire, and fire.
Because this was only the beginning.