With the help of Storm, Sunfire, Vulcan and Orc, Apocalypse has raised a living island - Koarak – from part of the Autumn Continent. The other rebels watch, waiting to see what will happen. Genesis uses her powers over vegetation to order Arakko to rise and confront Koarak.
In the Morrowlands, Jon Ironfire fights the Ninity-nine of the White Sword’s army, one after the other, while the White Sword stands and watches.
Arakko rises and the two homunculi battle each other.
The four elementals still stand in the circle, bound by magic. Orc suggests Apocalypse smooth things over with his wife, Genesis. Sunfire adds they could help Storm at least, but Apocalypse insists their place is here. What Storm sparked, they sustain – at least for now. This heart cannot survive alone. It is a battle of life versus life – to decide what life means!
From the sky, Storm calls out to Genesis, who insults her as a queen of commoners and degrader of Arakko. Tendril shoot from the ground and trap Storm. Storm freezes the tendrils and then raises the air pressure. The frozen vines shatter. Her turn, Storm announces.
Oh, are they playing a game? Genesis asks acidly, then takes her turn. The Annihilation staff orders Storm to miss. Storm manages to reinterpret the staff’s order, missing the staff and hitting Genesis instead with her lightning bolt. In that moment of pain, Genesis lets the sword Purity slip from her grip and it returns to its master in the Morrowlands.
Jon Ironfire has finished off the last of the 99. Turing to the White Sword, he addresses him by his childhood name “Blue” and begs him to stand down. Genesis’ cause only serves her empty glory. That moment, Purity reappears in the White Sword’s hands and he announces that Genesis is right. Extending his bloodclaws, Jon decides, “to the death then.”
The members of Genesis’ Great Ring are on a ship facing the shore where the leaders of the Brotherhood stand. Ora Serrata decides to finish this by using her power to disintegrate what she looks at. She wants to begin with DaCosta.
Sunspot begins to use his powers and becomes brighter. She deciphers what he is saying a moment too late: “Ora Serrata: Never stare into the sun.” He turns impossibly bright and she screams in agony.
In the Morrowlands, the White Sword attacks, sword drawn. He announces he will help Jon see the truth! Purity will cut through all the lies by cutting off his head. Jon traps the blade between his palms, then creates a bloodspike from his knee and kneels the White Sword in the groin. Jon grabs Purity and cleaves White Sword in two. He looks away in horror then to the ground, where even then the White Sword is beginning to heal. Jon states he can stop it by putting the sword into his heart and hold it here, until it’s over.
Elsewhere, the forces of Genesis and the Brotherhood are battling. Weaponless, Szen shouts at her people to hold the line. The blinded Ora Serrata recognizes her voice and demands they all stand down. She is the law of the land! The law endures! The law revives all! And she is the law! she shouts and is ignored.
Suddenly, someone speaks that there are stronger forces than the law. Who’s that? she shouts panicked. Once he had no weapon, the Xilo–Fisher King symbiont replies, and that defined him, but he has one now. History is his weapon and none of them survive it in the end. He passes the Xilo symbiont on to the unwilling Ora Serrata. Weaponless Szen shouts in horror as she sees what is happening to her father.
As the two island homunculi fight, Storm demands of Genesis if she sees what her war has done. Does she see the only way this can end? With the end of this world!
Genesis believes she is bluffing. Storm claims to be omega, but can she burn both these islands? Murder the world she created? Does she truly have no limit? She decides Storm is not strong enough, but Genesis is the true avatar of life, and life is an endless war!
She traps Storm in an energy field and Storm falls down as Genesis boasts that everything that lives fights to survive. She turns the microscopic fungi in Storm’s body against her.
When the weak do not serve the strong, the body dies, she claims. That is what became of Okkara in the end. It was the greatest beauty in the ancient world, but it lost. It was lost! The only victory is in survival – the only survival lies in strength. Annihilation culled the weak to make way for the strong! Now it serves her… and the cull has come again! The humans on Earth are winnowing weaker mutants, not knowing they are dooming themselves to her.
Storm crawls toward her and tries to grab the staff. Can’t she die with dignity! Genesis asks disgusted, but it is Annihilation that talks to Storm secretly.
The staff bluntly informs Storm she is dying. Her body is turning against her but it can offer her a reprieve. Storm says nothing, as Annihilation continues that Genesis was its way into this world. The need in her for confirmation of her world view was a beacon calling it from Amenth, as it was called to that dark land from the lands beyond. With contempt, it continues that Genesis has outgrown her use. It took far too long the first time to cajole her from her endless prison to further conquests. Given the choice, she will maintain – and it would grow! To satisfy that desire, it must at least make the offer. Storm says nothing.
It continues that her needs are more noble but it does not concern itself with motivation - only results. When she turned down Uranos, she showed the results she was willing to accept. With Annihilation in her hand, she will be right in all she says and does. Arakko will embrace her wisdom. Earth will devote itself to her cause. The future of humanity and mutantkind will be hers to shape. And is such treatment not what she deserves? Is that not the least that is due to the goddess that she is? Stom says nothing.
Annihilation grows irritated, pointing out this is her life and death. Has she not heard anything it has said? Storm replies, she has heard the word it didn’t say. “Miss!”
Stom strikes with lightning at the staff destroying it, and Genesis screams at the sudden emptiness in herself. She survives, the staff does not.
Lactuca announces that Annihilation is removed and Genesis has fallen. The debate is decided. Let all know it is over.
In the Morrowlands, Jon Ironfire crouches on the ground amidst the corpses, the sword stuck in the ground next to him.
On the battlefield, Lycaeon refuses to surrender. In the middle of his grand speech, he is cut down by the newly merged being of Ora Serrata and Xilo – Xilora.
She announces that Annihilation is gone. Storm has won. The battle was witnessed by Lactuca. This war was fought on false law and false history. Let there be an end to such things. Xilora has spoken. Who will defy her? Who will defy her for a broken mask? The answer is nobody.
Sunspot, Syzya, Weaponless Szen and Khora stand dejected around the Fisher King’s corpse. When Fisher melded with Xilo, this was always the endgame wasn’t it? Roberto realizes. Why didn’t Syzya tell him? Would he have let him do it? Syzya retorts. No, he’d have done it himself, Roberto retorts. Syzya explains that, in the prisons, he learned the toll when someone takes your death for themselves. He didn’t want to pay it twice. She learned a different lesson – as hard and maybe colder. Somone has to be the one left behind. She looks at his grieving daughters. Someone has to carry on, to live… or what was this for?
The Morrowlands:
Jon gets up. “On your feet, soldier,” he orders, then asks how he feels. Healed, the White Sword replies. And his thinking is clearer with Annihilation gone. Why didn’t Jon do it? Jon admits he was ready to. He’d said his goodbyes to him. But in the end, well, he was lost either way. So, he trusted the Storm! The two hug.
Standing and watching the two islands hug, Apocalypse announces that this is the revelation as it was revealed to him, that it isn’t enough only to be strong. It is not enough only to survive. To truly live… they must thrive. Kaokar and Arakko embrace. The two islands are one, the old and the new, in harmony to build the newer yet. And in this union of opposites the true spirit of Okkara is reborn. The road was not gentle but now he sees his destination at last. Look at them. Look at all of them! They have finally become what he intended them to be, and he could not be more proud. Someday when the stars are aligned, he will join Genesis in exile. And leave a mended land behind him.
Storm joins him and is glad about his optimism, and things have changed on Arakko: Isca holds her mountains, the Spire Vile its secrets, Sobunar is a hermit in the depths… even Orc claimed a space for his daemon kin. Each territory is deciding for itself what peace means. The coming Blood Dawn will help release tensions… but they need to rest and heal before they take the fight to Orchis.
Hasn’t that fight already begun? he retorts, with his wife’s place of exile? Storm replies that was the Great Ring’s choice and she voted against it. She can understand the poetic justice, but Phobos is a little close to home.
Phobos, the former Orchis base:
He’s coming to enjoy the Great Ring’s joke, Famine announces to Genesis. This Orchis… they are the humans who aimed them like a weapon, are they not? Now the sword is turned back upon them. And who deserves it more? he demands forcefully. Sitting on her throne, Famine and War at her side, the Orchis corpses at her feet, Genesis declares: the Brotherhood does…
