Daken looks at a water tank chamber. He tested the seal in the adamantium plates a dozen times. There was no margin for error, as Sabretooth incessantly reminded him. He drains the water, musing the easiest way to beat a man is not head-on confrontation. Feed your enemy’s ego! Leave him assured that his perspective is entirely righteous. Overconfident, he will sink from the weight of his own narcissism.
Or consider the missteps his father has left in his wake, Daken’s own existence primary among them. Pulling the threads is simple. Coming to terms with his own motivations is not. But he does know why he set this in motion. He’d do anything to earn his father’s respect, even destroy him.
Diving in the ocean, Wolverine and Psylocke close in on the Brotherhood’s headquarters. Wolverine assures her that Deadpool won’t kill Evan. He hasn’t got it in him. Silently, he tells himself, though, that his son Daken has it in him.
Betsy points out Wade is a mentally ill assassin whom they put into this situation. Future Deathlok told them that Evan turns evil and war soon follows. Wade could well take that to mean that killing the boy is the only option. Whatever he does, it’s on them.
They see the HQ, however there are telepathic dampeners, so Psylocke cannot peer inside. He tells her blocking the Shadow King is her job. They enter via an airlock.
In the meantime, Deadpool has freed Evan from his room. As they run through the hallways, Evan asks why he should trust him. How does he know he and X-Force aren’t here to kill him?
Peering around the corner, Deadpool asks if he is some kind of unhinged sociopath covered in guns and swords? That’s not the plan, ok? He won’t let anything—
Angrily, Evan interrupts that he knows what they did! Wade tries to shush him. He isn’t here to kill Evan. Last time they killed him, he was in the dumps like forever! He’s another villain, another liar, like his uncle Cluster! Evan insists. Deadpool grabs him by the arms and tells him to stop that talk. His Uncle Cluster was a good guy. He died to save Betsy. A guy like that giving his life to save somebody else… He’s no therapist, but that’s growth. If Fantomex can lay down his life for someone, he believes there is hope for all of them.
Yes, Evan, Daken mocks, show respect to the man who shot him in the head, cloned him and raised him in an artificial environment. He has snuck up on them with Blob and Omega Black.
Wade protests that eavesdropping is super rude. He tells Evan to run even as Omega Black’s tentacle pierces him and pumps him full of cancer toxin. He asks Evan for help. The boy doesn’t move.
Daken announces Farouk has Evan’s powers shut down until the boy is ready to do some killing. Oh that’s classy, Wade moans as he swells up from the cancer toxin. He uses his sword to cut off the tentacles.
As Daken rushes him, Deadpool remembers how Logan once asked him how many people he had killed. It’s not the kind of number you want to hear.
He somersaults and lands behind Daken.
How do you tell someone that someday you woke up and realized the only thing getting you out of bed was killing?
He fires his gun point-blank at Daken several times.
Nothing else like it. The world has more colors, more sounds. Every sensation is pure intensity.
The Blob attacks and Wade slips through between his legs.
He was good at telling himself all his targets deserved it. All but one. What they did to that kid last time around. It never fit any rationale he could cook up. It sat there, looking him cold in the eyes all night long.
Omega Black attacks again, but Wade dodges and her tentacles hit Bob.
Deadpool swears he’s gonna make up for that. He’ll die defending the kid! Show Fantomex he’s not the only one with a fully developed character arc!
He faces Daken again. “My name is Wade Wilson. You killed my friend!” He raises his sword. “Prepare to—”
He is zapped in the back by eyebeams. He turns around to see the culprit is Evan with Farouk standing behind him. These people told him the truth, Evan announces. Wade tells him Farouk is in his head. He’s gotta fight it! Farouk announces he is merely helping the child see his true feelings. And he believes what young Evan is trying to say is he doesn’t trust Deadpool.
Mystique awakes in EVA, where AOA Nightcrawler is waiting at her side. She quickly realizes he isn’t her son. He is, but in another place, he explains. She asks him if he knew her there. She was his hero, he replies. Quite different than things turned out here, she muses. Her Kurt and she… the world conspired against what should have been between them. He died before they could fix things. When he returns home, cherish what they have.
His mother is dead, he replies grimly. And she is not the same woman. A negative reflection!
Could she be so completely dissimilar from the mother he loved, she asks. She would like to hear about the world where he son loved her.
It is a world, where her companion, the Blob, killed his wife, is Kurt’s angry reply. Slaughtered her in their home. A world ravaged by the same beast her Brotherhood tries to corrupt!
Apocalypse? she asks. Followed by Weapon X, he replies. EVA warns him not to listen to her. Weapon X – the same man he is working with here, she points out. The same man who tells him how awful she is? He fixates on the danger of Evan, but overlooks the real danger of Wolverine!
EVA warns that Mystique is a grand manipulator and liar.
Wolverine killed her once, Mystique reveals. Did he tell Kurt that? He kills whoever he wishes as he’s seen with this X-Force. He is a monster here too! Did it never occur to Kurt he wants the power of Evan for himself?
EVA threatens to sedate her.
Mystique continues that nothing of this matters to Kurt, does it? He is here for revenge. To kill the man who slaughtered his wife. She can give him to Kurt…
Elsewhere:
While Evan crouches in the corner, Omega Black examines the tied-up Deadpool, watched by Farouk and Daken. She finds a telepathic dampening device in Deadpool’s ear. To risk coming here with no healing factor, he must really want this kid dead, Daken accuses him. Omega Black extracts the chip, opening his mind for Farouk.
While Deadpool tries to frighten him away Daken tells Evan to put on the Apocalypse armor, before the others come to finish what Wade botched. And they are coming. He warns the boy that, if he isn’t with them, he is at a certain point against them. And he doesn’t want to see that stage of the plan.
What should they do with him? Omega Black asks regarding Wade. Daken orders her to fill his head with cancer and let Evan watch. Farouk suggests she hurry. He’s had a look inside Wade’s head. His companions will be here soon.
In another room, Skinless Man wonders when Wolverine will infiltrate the base. Sabretooth calls him dim. He already has.
As if on cue, Wolverine attacks Creed, who easily swats him aside. Logan lets out the berserker rage and hits back. Omega White plans to sift his psychic energy. Wolverine kicks him in the head.
Skinless Man’s tendrils impale him. Recalling what he did to Fantomex, Logan skewers his guts, the slices Omega Red.
Creed is the only one left standing to tell him it was a bad move coming here on his lonesome. Wolverine jumps at him.
Elsewhere, Psylocke searches for Wade. Scans are unnecessary, as his screams lead her in his direction. She is outside his cell which is guarded by the Blob and establishes telepathic contact with Wade, then turns off his pain receptors. She asks what to expect. Has Evan been turned? He isn’t sure, he replies. What does it mean when a kid rocks back and forth and looks like Damien in Omen?
The Shadow King notices their telepathic exchange and attacks Betsy on the psychic plane. He reminds her how he promised to tear her life apart. He unlocked the Archangel in Warren Worthington, then he killed Fantomex, now the boy Evan is his. All just as he promised. Now, with her life destroyed, he is satiated. Shall they finish up? He rises as a giant before her on the astral plane.
Elsewhere:
Having the upper hand, Logan demands where Evan is. See him in hell, Sabretooth snarls.
Nightcrawler teleports himself and EVA (in her humanoid form) inside. Logan reminds them they were to wait. EVA suddenly attacks him and poisons him. As she turns back to Mystique, she explains it’s the same mutant dampening poison she used on Fantomex.
Nightcrawler apologizes and reminds Logan he came here to get his revenge – by any means…
