Excalibur by David Wheatley

The alarms sounded throughout the complex, sending the personnel across the building, getting ready for whatever they were instructed by their master, and the man roused himself, wondering what had disturbed him? Had he finally been found at last? It was a constant worry, however he had come to live with it as he had come to live with the disability that had plagued him.

The man once known as Dr Rory Campbell, now called Ahab, had lost track of how many years it had been since he first lost his leg in his confrontation with Spoor, and he had often wondered if it was that which had started him down the path, or whether it was his alterations at the hands of the mutant Apocalypse that had set him on his destiny as master of the hounds, servitor of the sentinels and overlord of the genetic cleansing. Indeed, if not for En Sabah Nur he would never have been able to carry on with his work - and being a human and not a mutant, the sentinels had let him do his work. The celestial derived technology of Apocalypse had enabled him to travel in time, to ensure his work, his future was not interfered with, but it had not worked the way either he or his robotic masters had planned.

In winning the battle for humanity he had come away in his other conflicts with no better than a stalemate, eventually being confronted by his nemesis in one last battle. Rachel Summers, a woman he had loved from the time he had met her, but that love had changed. That was why he had made her the first of his hounds, so he could be with her in the way they never had been. Through all the years they'd had worke with each, he had never forgotten the one night they'd had together but he knew it was impossible to have that again. He was a Horseman of Apocalypse and she was the sister of the Askani'Son. It was not possible.

He had lost the last battle with her, the sentinels had fallen before her and a new era of peace had begun. Rachel Summers had destroyed the things he had built as Nathan Summers had done two decades before. Ahab had been forced to flee from the reprisals, to hide from the wrath of those he had persecuted. Even the sentinels could not protect him forever, but there were still forces loyal to him and he had fled in to time, looking for a way of undoing what had been done, but never seeming to find the way. He knew he was hunted by various forces - the Askani, people from his own time as well as others but every time he had managed to escape them, but his own forces had been diminished in the process. He was running out of troopers and hounds and longer did he have the vast army at his command. His time was running out.

"My Lord Ahab," said one of his minions, bowing low in case of incurring the Hound Master's wrath. "We have come across an anomaly in the timestream."

"What kind of anomaly?" he growled.

"There are mass temporal disturbances, as you are aware, which we have been able to use to hide our presence from our enemies, but we think that these are errant time travellers."

"Not our enemies?"

"No, my Lord. The scanners detect mutant bio-signatures."

"Perhaps fortune has smiled on us," Ahab said. "Level ten precautions - bring them in."

"Are you sure that is wise?" said the cowering minion. Ahab looked at him in disdain. "Of course, my Lord." He retreated, leaving Ahab alone to his thoughts. They had captured many prisoners and broken them from their battles, but new recruits were needed. It was a risk, but one that was needed. The temporal anomalies that shielded them from detection also prevented them from being aware of their enemies until it was too late.

"Computer, do the bio-signatures match anything on file?"

"There are slight variances but we have positive identifications on two of the three mutants. Designate 11945X Peter Wisdom. Designate 2458Q Elisabeth Braddock."

"Well, well, well." Ahab stroked his beard at the possibilities. "This could be interesting indeed."

"This isn't good at all," said Elisabeth Braddock as the mysterious vessel got closer and closer. Soon they could see an opening and as it came on them they were gathered in to it and the aperture closed behind them once they were all fully inside the vessel. The energy field that surrounded them and prevented them from moving vanished and they could move again.

"I don't like this," Drake and Wisdom said at the same time.

"Mutant scum," came a voice. "Consider yourself prisoners of Ahab!"

"Oh bloody hell…" muttered Pete. "We're in trouble."

"Who is Ahab?"

"Mutant killer supreme," replied the SHIELD agent. "In his future he's killed or enslaved us and everyone we know. With staggering ease." He focused and triggered his hot-knives. "But at least we're going to be able to make a fight of this. Hate to think what'd happen if we didn't have our powers."

"Here they come," said Elisabeth, and the five of them got ready, all linked telepathically so that they had at least a chance of working together. They hadn't known each other that long, but they knew that their best chance of survival was working with the others. Britain drew his sword, Pete's hot knives flickered ominously and Destine assumed a defensive stance and Drake pulled his gun from it's holster. As the first of the enemy appeared, Elisabeth gave them a telekinetic shove, throwing them all back and then they went on the offensive, Britain rushing forward, Excalibur waving about as he hacked and slashed.

Hot knives flew about as Drake chose his targets carefully. Adam Destine pushed forward, unable to be harmed by the various attacks of energy blasts, psionic assaults and weapons. His role was keeping the pressure off of the others, because he was the only one of them that was able to take the attacks, while Britain's armour was keeping him quite safe, for the moment.

"There's too many!" Pete said. "This isn't going to work!"

"What do you suggest?" asked Elisabeth.

"Pair off," said Drake. "Me and Cap, you and Pete, Adam solo. Get the hell out and do whatever damage we can."

"It's going to be easier. We're pinned here," Wisdom concurred. "We'll need a diversion though."

"On it," said Elisabeth and she focused all her telekinetic power and fired it out in one blast of purple energy, a butterfly effect pushing the enemy back. She swooned after it and Pete grabbed her.

"Go!" he said. "We'll find each other again!" The team split off in to groups and headed out, but as Destine headed out he became aware of something and he turned to see the grey skinned face waiting.

"Ahab," he said, knowing it could be very few others. Ahab smiled and created a psionic harpoon, which he threw at Adam. It struck the man and he doubled over as he experienced pain for the first time in hundreds of years. The harpoon didn't penetrate his hide, but it's touch was enough and he fell to his knees.

"Incredible," said Ahab as he approached. "I didn't think any could take a hit from my harpoon without a scratch."

"Life is interesting that way," Adam said, struggling to rein the pain in.

"Perhaps it did more to you than it appears," Ahab said, picking Destine up by the throat. "I don't know you but we'll see if your invulnerability can withstand the might of the technology of the Celestials." He threw Adam to the floor and two of the hounds dragged him away. "Find the others!" he said to the others. "I want them alive, however use whatever means you must to bring them to me."

"So, Kate Pryde-Rasputin," Necrom said, "are you enjoying the convergences of the timelines so far?"

"You are not powerful enough to control all of time," she said.

"Defiant to the end," he mused. "So far there are timelines being condensed and compressed in to one and the cascade effect. See these fools in the realities run around, trying to save everything from collapsing. They won't of course. They don't realise what is happening, what kind of crisis is occurring."

"You are insane," Kate said, her spirit hovering above Necrom, bound by his powers.

"Quite possibly, but the difference between insanity and genius is measured by success. Perhaps the X-Men were insane when they tried to overthrow the sentinels, an effort that resulted in their deaths." Necrom's eyes glowed. "We could always ask them." He gestured, and shades appeared before her, apparitions of Logan, of Piotr, of Storm, of Magneto, of Franklin.

"No," said Kate as she saw her friends, the people who had died trying to save the world and failing.

"Why is it that you live while we died?" Magnus said, pointing his finger at her. "We gave our lives, and yet you continued. What was so special about you?"

"You let me go, my Katya," Pitor said. "You let me and our children go. We wait for you, but you do not come. Why have you abandoned us so?"

"Even I could stop death," Franklin Richards said, looking at her. "For all my power, I could not escape the cold embrace of oblivion."

"Don't listen to them, Kitten," Logan said, obviously fighting it. "He tries to make us tell you that crap, but it ain't true. Keep goin' girl." Wolverine turned and smiled at Necrom. "You ain't ever gonna control me, wizard! My will's greater than yours ever will be…" The spirit of Wolverine extended his claws and dived at Necrom who cast the shade to nothing with a wave of his hand and the other X-Men went with him.

"Nice try," Kate said. "You almost had me."

"Who would have thought that his will was greater than mine," Necrom mused, as if he didn't hear her. "The aspect of Logan from my reality definitely wasn't as strong. However.." He turned back to Kate. "You are most certainly susceptible enough to be with my thrall. If I cannot break you, I will most certainly make you mine…"

"Adam's been captured," said Elisabeth. "I felt him being taken away."

"Bollocks," said Pete. "We're going to have to go back."

"Yeah…" she turned around and she could see that there were four hounds coming up on them, but there was nobody there. "We've got company any moment." The future flash became more pronounced." They're going to come and… NO!"

"What is it?" Pete was suddenly concerned

"We're going to lose," she said. "They're going to take us, make us hounds…"

"Not if I can help it," muttered Wisdom. "Oh, for the rest of X-Force right about now…" He shook himself out of it and looked about. "Forewarned is forearmed. How good are you?"

"I won't go down without a fight," she said. "Just promise me that you won't let them take me. I won't become a hound. Make sure I don't"

"Not going to happen on my watch," Pete muttered. "And that doesn't mean I'm going to kill you either. I don't intend on seeing anyone on my team die."

"But what can we do?"

"Follow my lead, look in to my mind," he told her and she did so. She saw a world where he was not who he was, where Apocalypse ruled his world and he was one of the rebels, part of the Insurrection against Apocalypse and he had a rudimentary knowledge of the Celestial technology.

"Thanks," he said. "Never thought I'd thank Farouk for something, but guess he did me a favour." He went over to one of the consoles.

"Here they come," Elisabeth said.

"Okay," said Wisdom, "let's see how generic the timelines are…" He tapped a few buttons, then a few more, as Elisabeth fired of her psionic hot knives, keeping the hound at bay until one of them threw a psionic force wave and it took her everything she ahd to keep it at bay.

"WISDOM!" she shouted.

"Half a second," he said as he pressed one final button and mentally crossed his fingers. The force fields began to shut down and the temporal energies began to enter the ship. "Betsy, throw them back!" Instinctively she gave the hounds a shove and they were caught in the incoming energy and were caught in the timelessness of the energy, unable to control their movements, caught in an limbo state and the energies reached forward.

"Now what?" asked Elisabeth.

"Now we run until the force fields come back on line and the ship can vent the temporal energy." Pete shrugged.

"How did you know that would work?" she asked.

"Oh, I didn't," Pete said. "My other plan was jumping out and taking them with me, hoping you could bring me back inside."

"That wasn't much of a plan."

"Best I could do in sixty seconds. Right, let's go find Adam…"

Captain Britain and Adam Drake were fighting in close quarters. Brian's sword was doing more than enough damage to his enemies, but now they had learnt to keep their distance and were using ranged attacks, which he was using the sword to deflect the attacks as best he could with Excalibur. He was doing as much as he could to keep them off from Drake, who seemed to have very few powers indeed.

"Don't worry about me!" Drake said as if he were sensing Cap's thoughts. "I've got tricks that they won't have even considered!" It did indeed seem that they hadn't been able to get a hit on him, s if they were just missing or if they got in close they became slightly disorientated and even though they were physically more powerful than he was, Drake was more a canny fighter. His age belied his skill. There was suddenly a rumble as one of the hounds unleashed a shockwave and knocked them to the floor and Excalibur fell from Britain's hand and the hounds went on the attack, going on for the kill and very soon the battle was over and the hounds took their quarry to their master.

Ahab watched as they were unceremoniously dumped before him. Britain had become Brian Braddock again and the man who had been Rory Campbell looked on in interest. This was not the man he had once known, and he did not have an awareness of any of the others so far, besides Wisdom and Psylocke. They all had different temporal signatures, if his equipment was reading them correctly, so there were things going on that he was unaware of, and so far his efforts to break the blond one had failed. However there was none alive that been able to resist the bonding process.

"This will not work," Destine said, from inside the workings of the machine.

"Maybe," said Ahab, as he examined Excalibur wondering if he could command the power within it. "Maybe not. This technology was derived from the Celestials by Apocalypse to create his Horsemen. It now serves me to create my hounds, recreating matter at the molecular level and binding them to my will. Since it's first usage on my beloved Rachel, the process has been refined."

"You don't know what you're doing," said Drake and Ahab stomped down on the man's back.

"I would watch this with interest, mutant, for you and Mr Braddock will both be next."

"Not if I can help it," said a voice and Pete stood there. "Rory."

"Wisdom. So you know."

"Oh, hell yes, I know. Did you think we didn't know, that we weren't keeping an eye on you?"

"We?"

"Black Air, you stupid bastard. One of the parts of my job when I was assigned to Excalibur was to keep an eye on you. To see how and where you fell to the dark side. Guess losing your leg was what started it."

"You're just one man, and I'm an army. You were never good enough, not for Black Air, for Excalibur, or for Kitty." Pete's eyes flared at that.

"Guess you're going to lose another leg."

"Not before you lose a friend!" Ahab sneered and activated the machine, starting the genetic transformer to convert Adam in to one of the hounds and ignoring the cries of his team-mate, Pete unleashed his hot knives, but Ahab lifted the sword and the hot knives struck it without having any effect. "Nice try. Here's mine!" A psionic harpoon flew across, but Pete moved quickly, firing a hot knife to take advantage of the weak grip Ahab had on Excalibur. The hot knife wrapped itself around the blade and he yanked it from his hand to the floor. "Good move," Ahab complimented.

"I've not even started," Pete said, holding the sword.

"Good because neither have I!" Before Pete could react Ahab leapt forward, knocking the blade from his hand, and the two men grappled with each other and Pete began to realise that he might be in a lot of trouble, but then again that wasn't the point. He had a plan - that Beth, as apparently she liked to be called, would mask herself psionically and do what she could to try and help the others while he kept Ahab distracted. She was a very powerful telepath, more so than he had ever known in his world and he wondered what could have been if Psylocke hadn't been altered by the Hand and then the Crimson Dawn before being restored to an earlier version. However that wasn't the point, he needed to buy her time to sort this out. She was hitting out at as many of them as she could with her psionic hot knives, making sure the enemy were taken out so it was just between themselves and the hound master.

Drake was in pain, but he watched Wisdom fight and for the first time he began to realise that the man he was working with wasn't the same vindictive bastard he had known, the one who had become the head of Black Air and turned it in to the shadow arm of the Millennium Dawn. Yes, it had been at the request of Nick Fury, but the plan had gone wrong and Wisdom had eventually been captured and convicted of crimes against humanity at the Battle of the Millennium, when Captain America and SHIELD had driven the terrorists back. That man wasn't the man fighting now.

Drake could sense the disruption in the EM-field and he suspected there was a telepath about. It could only be Elisabeth and the lack of people helping Ahab meant she was doing her work, keeping the enemy at bay, but she wasn't going to be able to help Destine, who was in trouble. The machine was trying to alter him and it wasn't working, but his cries of pain and torment showed it was doing something to him, even if it wasn't what Ahab had designed. He reached out, pushing his powers to the limit and tweaked the electromagnetics and the genetic transformer sparked and exploded.

"NO!" shouted Ahab, realising what was going on and he cast a battered Wisdom aside who landed hard. "My machine!" Destine was still trapped in the wreckage of the machinery and Drake knew he'd done enough. "Mutant scum!" The psionic harpoon formed and flew through the air and Drake knew he wasn't quite in a condition to move, still feeling the effect of the blow Ahab had given him earlier. Elisabeth tired to grab hold of it with her telekinetics but to no effect, but she had a better idea, seeing that Excalibur was just out of her brother's reach and at the speed of thought she put the sword in Brian's hand. He swung the sword up as he willed himself in to becoming Captain Britain and just as the harpoon was about to strike it met the blade and the harpoon shattered, but Britian took the brunt of the psionic disruption. It staggered him immensely, but he had taken hits like that before fighting demons. It would fade but he would need a moment.

"None of you will leave this place alive!" Ahab sneered as he took advantage of the lull to make his way to his command platform and he triggered the weapons of the station, igniting the floor with the genetic. The heroes fell to the floor, pain coursing through them as they reacted to the energy field on the floor, incapacitating them. Wisdom forced himself to look up to work past the excruciating pain he was in. He was no stranger to pain it and he knew he had one shot at this as he used the last bit of strength he had to fire his hot knives. They flew past Ahab, who laughed.

"You missed," he said.

"Wasn't aiming for you," Wisdom said, before he passed out and Ahab turned to see Adam Destine was now free, and he walked over the floor plates, unaffected by the energy.

"Impossible," muttered Ahab. Only once before had he seen someone take this kind of punishment and Franklin Richards was long gone.

"Nothing is impossible," replied Destine, his voice ragged with pain and struck Ahab, who blocked and defended himself but Adam was not to be denied and the blow was well placed. Ahab fell back in to his machinery and it exploded in a shower of sparks, cancelling the floor trap and engulfing Ahab in a ball of fire. dam staggered back, still weakened from what he had been put through. Never before had he been in that kind of agony, as celestial power fought against otherworldly magic and he knew that it had been close. Wisdom, held on to him and they supported each other.

"Nice one," he said and Destine just nodded, letting himself recover.

"So that was a baptism of fire," said Drake, as he helped Psylocke to her feet.

"We seemed to work quite well," said Britain, the magic coursing through him and he could feel himself being restored. "Not bad for a team whose not been together too long."

"It's not over yet," said Ahab as he stood up, his flesh blackened and burnt. His bionics broken, but they were rebuilding themselves, the techno-organics starting to reconstruct them. "You've not beaten me yet." A psionic harpoon was in his hands and the team faced him.

Beth and Wisdom shared a look, and he fired his hot knives as far and wide as he could, impacting on the machinery, punching holes through the vessel.

"Yes, we have," said Pete. Explosions rocked the vessel as the systems that were damaged impacted on other systems. "And now I've just trashed your command room. "Killing you would be far too easy."

"It will rebuild itself, it always has!" Ahab scoffed. "You can't escape!"

"Alert! Alert!" the computer droned, the voice broken and sounding very wrong. "Askani battle-pursuers approaching!"

"In time for that?" Beth said. "I saw them coming."

"You don't know what you've done," said Ahab, dropping the harpoon in his horror. "They'll destroy the ship, and you with me!"

"Well, probably not," said Drake, sensing the disturbance. "I think our ride's here." Widget appeared before them.

"You!" said Ahab, realising the last time he has seen that machine, he had lost everything. History was repeating itself.

"You lose again, Ahab," Kate said. "Maybe this time, justice will be served."

"NO!" cried Ahab as the portal formed and the heroes started to make their way through. "You cannot do this to me!"

"Already have, Rory," said Pete and as he turned towards the portal, he knew Ahab was coming forward. A hot knife formed and Pete's head snapped back to check his aim. It flew through the air before the hound master could react in defence, punching through Ahab's remaining eye and he cried out in pain. Pete smiled and turned away from his one-time friend. "See ya, Rory."

Then he walked through the portal, leaving Ahab alone in the darkness.