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WARNING! This title involves language and/or situations that may be found unacceptable by some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
MV1
#81
OCTOBER
Year 4

The Human Rocket. The Weapon X. The Ace. The Seeress. The Explosive Street Kid. The Multiple Man. The Mojoverse Ninja Warrior. Even the Cyborg Lobster.

They have been baptized in crucibles hotter than many of us can even imagine. They have been pushed, tested, hurt, even killed. And they still fight the good fight, in the only way they know how, the only ones who can. They do it their way. They may not know legal from illegal, but they know right from wrong. They are X-FORCE !

WHO IS X-FORCE?
Cannonball - Sam Guthrie, erstwhile X-Man and West Coast Avenger, returned to his roots and the woman he loves. A mutant with the power to 'blast', generating explosive energy for rocket-like flight and a near-invulnerable force field.
Meltdown - Tabitha Smith, once called Boom-Boom, with explosive powers and an equally fiery temper. As rather painful events of her past come to the light of day, Tab finds herself more and more unable to control her anger.
Shatterstar - Ben Russell always thought he was a descendant of the X-Men's Longshot, a warrior from the Mojoverse come to enlist the aid of Earth. Lately events have thrown those beliefs into question, but they do not change his incredible warrior ability... nor the fact that his lover, Gomi, was recently brutally murdered by drug dealers in Boston.
Bill - a cybernetically enhanced lobster, arguably Gomi's greatest creation, now lost and alone in a world that is entirely strange to him. If not for the friendship of Shatterstar, Bill might well have gone mad by now... and perhaps he still will.
Serendipity - a shaman and precognitive, this lovely Goth woman has recently learned that she is nothing more than a creation, a flawed attempt to recreate the being of power called Adam Warlock. Who it was that created her, as well as what they hoped to gained, are still mysteries.
The Multiple Man - Jamie Madrox has the mutant power to create 'duplicates' of himself from kinetic energy. Lighthearted and generally somewhat silly, Jamie can be deadly serious when he needs to be. He just doesn't like it.
The Sleeper - Croyd Crenson is not of this world, but from another Earth where an alien 'Wild Card' virus created men and women with bizarre powers. What brings him to this world is still something of a mystery, but it seems to have something to do with Serendipity and her visions of a dark future ahead.
Garrison Kane - a 'graduate' of Canada's infamous Weapon X program, Kane has gone freelance. Just what he seeks to gain from hooking up with X-Force is still unknown, but it seems certain that there must be something.

"The End of Days Part Four: Day's End"

What Has Gone Before: Apocalypse had a nuclear bomb dropped on him.

It, um... didn't seem to bother him much.

Boston, now

"It was tough to see, with the blood coming down into mah eyes - head cuts look bad, but they're either not very serious or they're life-threatening. Mine was the first kind, an'...

"Wait. Ah'm getting ahead of myself."

Sam Guthrie had a great face for television. All-American farm boy good looks, right down to the square jaw and nervous smile. The eyepatch ("Just temporary, the docs tell me, so don't go thinkin' ah'm Nick Fury") just added to the effect, in Jane Rodriguez' opinion. She'd fought tooth and nail to get this interview, and the SCN* brass decided to give it to her, finally - after all, she'd been the main reporter on the " X-Force " beat for months now.

Take that, Trish Tilby, you talentless cow!

[* The Super Channel Network, a sort of superhero CNN --ShawnCN]

Cannonball rubbed his chin, looking abashed, while Tabitha Smith - Meltdown - leaned forward and said, "Let's try it again from the top."

Outside the building, traffic crawled to a standstill as a Red Sox game ended, and the Fenway Faithful tried to get home. Boston was a nice city to work in, in the opinion of most of the SCN crew, but a map of the city's streets rather resembled an explosion in a string factory, and traffic suffered as a result. At least the Sox had won.

South Africa, Apocalypse Base, then

X-Force - such as it was - climbed out of the transport ship. Caliban - possessed by the otherworldly, malignant Bodysnatcher - went first, as none of the assembled heroes trusted him/her further than they could throw him/her.

Cannonball went next, both because he had assumed "team leader" duties by default, and because he was the most likely to survive any surprise attacks, thanks to his protective 'blasting field'. He was followed closely by Meltdown, who wasn't going to let Sam get more than ten feet away if she could help it. Croyd Crenson - the Sleeper, refugee of the same strange world that had spawned the Bodysnatcher - and Serendipity - the mysterious precognitive goth-chick - followed them, side-by-side. Shatterstar - extradimensional Mojoverse entertainer and warrior - came after, with Bill - cyborg lobster created by Gomi, Shatterstar's deceased lover - perched on his shoulder. Garrison Kane - the Weapon X - came after, and lastly came Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. Multiple Men, actually, as there were currently four of him.

It was hardly an intimidating procession. But it would have to do.

"Which way, Caliban?" Cannonball was all business now, focused. In control. He'd gotten a lot more confident (time in the Avengers will do that to a guy), and he just wanted to get this over with so he could cuddle with his girlfriend.

"The name is Bodysnatcher, you little prick." The voice - low, harsh, with oddly feminine overtones - sounded completely wrong coming from Caliban. He/she crossed his/her arms and smirked. "And I'm not gonna tell you."

Boston, now

"Yeah, that's when Croyd did his thing." Jamie Madrox wasn't nervous, even with all the lights and boom mikes and cameras. He'd been in X-Factor, back when the government had first taken over the team, and he was used to the attention - even if he didn't like it much. Besides, his best friend was the head bouncer for Lila Cheney. He'd seen her perform in far more hostile studios.

"That's something that confuses me," Rodriguez said, shifting her shoulders to make sure the lapel mike got a clear recording. "This... Croyd, you said? He came from where, exactly?"

"Another dimension," said Jamie. "Yeah, I know, it's weird. I guess we're all just a bit more used to it."

South Africa, Apocalypse Base, then

"Croyd." Serendipity's voice was soft, yet... it rang. Reverberated in the empty landing bay with a power that belied her slight form. "Now."

Boston, now

"See, the thing is," Madrox continued, "Croyd explained to us that in his world, there are all kinds of Marvels, like here, only there they call them 'aces'.* And the thing is, Croyd goes without sleep for, like, months at a time, and then sleeps for a few months. Then when he wakes up, he's a new person. New body, usually new powers, the whole thing. It's made him kinda schizo, as you can imagine.

[* Croyd - and the Bodysnatcher - are characters introduced in the very excellent Wild Cards anthologies, edited by George R.R. Martin and featured in a miniseries, once upon a time, by Marvel Comics. --Wild Shawn]

"But, see, he hadn't demonstrated any powers other than enhanced speed and strength - which, he said, usually 'follows' him from incarnation to incarnation. We all thought his powers this time must have had some connection with his being here, but..."

South Africa, Apocalypse Base, then

When Croyd moved, it was almost too fast to see. Almost.

He lunged forward at Caliban, and... shimmered. He was almost transparent when he reached the big Horseman of Apocalypse... and passed right through.

And something came with him.

To the members of X-Force , frozen in shock and surprise, it would forever be a blur in their memories, but Bill later provided recordings - downloads from his own cybernetically-enhanced memory.They showed - though fuzzily, indistinctly - the suddenly wraith-like form of Croyd Crenson, the Sleeper, passing through Caliban like the ghost of some long-dead NFL nose tackle taking down an opponent... only he did take something down. That something was an equally transparent woman - scarred, ugly, with a shaven head and muscles that would make Arnold Schwartzenegger green with envy - and she... she seemed to scream, soundlessly.

On the screen, it seemed to take forever, but in reality it had taken only moments. The woman-thing - the Bodysnatcher - coalesced into a small pulsing ball, streaking towards Croyd and passing through him as he had passed through Caliban only instants before... and fading, dissipating, vanishing. A soft keening - felt more than heard - remained in the air an instant longer, and ended as soon as Croyd struck the floor, silent once more.

Boston, now

"And that was it? Caliban was freed and the Bodysnatcher went away?" Rodriguez said a silent thank you to whoever had convinced the station brass to spring for the new computer mainframe - an older machine might not have been able to handle the information download that provided SCN with the same footage that X-Force had reviewed only a few hours before.

Cannonball nodded. "Y'could say that, ma'am. An' then Croyd got taken away by Buddy Holley."

Rodriguez smiled, trying not to make it too patronizing. "Someone that looked like the late Mr. Holley, you mean, I assume?"

"Nope."

South Africa, Apocalypse Base, then

The apparition shimmered into being above the motionless Croyd and smiled to Serendipity, a pale white vision in a bad suit, horn-rimmed glasses, and holding a Fender guitar."Hope that helps, lil' miss. I'll be takin' our sleepin' friend home now." And the apparition leaned down, picked Croyd up by the belt, and vanished, taking the Sleeper with him.

Serendipity, in answer to her teammate's inquisitive stares, just shrugged and said, "Things of his dimension should stay there, I think. That included the Bodysnatcher. At any rate, Apocalypse is waiting."

To most, this behavior might ring warning bells, but Meltdown remembered when Serendipity had been the impetus for the reformation of the once-defunct X-Force *, and she nodded. "Right. Let's go, then."

[*In the quasi-classic (to me, anyways) Marvel Premiere #73-75 --self-pluggin' Shawn]

Not even Madrox argued.

Boston, now

"And so... that was it?"

Meltdown nodded. "That was it. We had something more important to worry about. We didn't know about the nuke* 'till later, you know."

[*Don't tell me you missed last issue! --Shawn]

Rodriguez nodded. "So Apocalypse was the real worry."

"That's right. And what a worry he was."

South Africa, Apocalypse Base, then

There didn't seem any point in running. Apocalypse would still be there, and there was no sense in tiring themselves out.

They'd need their energy, they all knew.

It was with silence and caution that X-Force went to take down the man that had named himself after the end of the world.

Boston, now

"And, of course, you saw what happened next. We didn't know that Apocalypse pirated the SCN satellite to show the battle to the world, actually - I think if we'd known, we might have swore less. All those 'beep's..." Meltdown chuckled, and Rodriguez smiled with her. This kid has a future, if she goes into television, the reporter thought.

The lights went down for a moment - the live interview was being interrupted to show a repeat of the broadcast from Apocalypse's lair.

Viewers all around the world watched Apocalypse gloat, watched Cannonball hurtle towards the massive, ancient mutant like his namesake, only to be casually swatted away.

They watched Meltdown hurl plasma and curses with equal ferocity, watched a veritable swarm of Jamie Madroxes throw punches, kicks, and jabs as Apocalypse grew to more than twenty feet in height. They watched Kane use - in the words of respondents to a USA TODAY poll - "the grossest superhuman power on Earth" to detach his hands and throw punches at the gargantuan mutant from a distance, firing laser bursts from the cyborg stumps that his arms now terminated in. They watched Serendipity shout out warnings and advice as she anticipated En Sabah Nur's movements before he even thought of them.

They watched as the black-clad Shatterstar, with a wordless, inarticulate cry of rage, catapaulted over three of Madrox's unconscious 'dupes' and sink the blade of one of his swords deep into Apocalypse's shoulder, then use it as a handhold as he swung about to bury the other into the massive villain's right eye. As Apocalypse screamed in rage, they saw the BB-sized pellets of Bill's Gauss Guns strike him in the throat. And they saw Cannonball, bloodied and bruised, pick himself up off the ground and scream towards Apocalypse, striking the massive mutant in the midsection.

And they watched as, out of the shadows, Caliban - left for unconscious in the hangar bay - leapt into the fray, tearing at his former Master with inhumanly sharp claws, claws that ripped through one of the massive cables of Apocalypse's Celestial-derived armor.

And finally they saw Apocalypse, swearing vengeance, vanish, leaving behind a ghostly afterimage in the wake of his teleportation. They knew, from prior, brutal experience, that at that very instant, the malignant destroyers that Apocalypse called his Harbingers fell inactive, as one, at that very instant, only to shortly dissolve into puddles of grey sludge - disassembled by the same nanotechnology that had spawned them in the first place.

The interview lasted another twenty minutes, but it was an afterthought. Nothing could compare to the brutal struggle, the victory over certain death, that they had all seen in stark, Technicolor detail on their screens.

The next day, opinion polls everywhere showed X-Force's approval ratings comparable to those of the Avengers and Fantastic Four. The "post-crisis lovefest," as some media pundits called it, didn't last, but while the group's approval ratings dropped, they stayed above sixty percent for the next four months. X-Force was a legitimate superteam, America thought, and they liked the way the young mutants - and assorted non-mutant friends - got the job done.

EPILOGUE

Tabitha Smith's apartment, South Boston

Tabitha locked the door behind her with a weary sigh. She'd had to get a new place, of course, under a false name, but she wondered how long this would last before this 'secret identity' was uncovered - everyone, it seemed, knew the name of Tabitha Smith. That damn porn mag pictorial hadn't helped.

Sam Guthrie walked into the entryway from the kitchen and wrapped strong arms around Tab, though, and the world became bearable again. "Coffee's on, pretty lady. You okay?"

"As okay as I can be, Sam... I feel... I don't know... dirty."

"You an' me both, Tab... but you know th'public ain't ready t'see what really happened."

"I know... I just..." Meltdown shook her head and smiled up at Sam. "I think I need a backrub. How about it, farm boy?"

What followed, of course, is not suitable for print.

NEXT ISSUE: Well, what did really happen? Read the upcoming Giant-Sized X-Force #1 to find out, as well as learn all kinds of things about this merry band of mutant misfits!

Oh, X-Force #82? That'll be written by the (ever-patient and long-suffering) James Grasselli! It's been a BALL, folks!!!!!

 -Shawn-