"Phase two begins."
As soon as Rowan rcer entered the supersonic jet, he made no move to attack. Instead, he glanced at Charles Xavier, and his appearance shifted fluidly. Magneto’s features dissolved, replaced by Xavier’s face and body in a heartbeat.
Moira MacTaggert and Kurt Wagner both froze. For a brief second, they thought Raven had struck again.
With a casual wave of his hand, Rowan released the real Erik Lehnsherr from his private pocket dinsion.
"You already know the situation," Rowan said calmly. "Just don’t slip up."
"You saved my wife and daughter," Erik replied without hesitation. "I can handle this much."
Rowan reshaped Erik’s clothes into armor matching the Horsen’s design. Erik grabbed Rowan, now wearing Xavier’s form, exchanged a single look with the real Charles, and flew out of the jet. He placed Rowan beside Apocalypse before rejoining the battle below.
At the sa ti, Xavier quietly sent a psychic signal to Raven and the others. Their movents faltered at critical monts. Erik seized the opening, trapping them one by one inside a magnetic cage.
"The teleporter escaped," Erik reported evenly. "The rest are secured."
Apocalypse, having just completed the pyramid, barely reacted.
"Guard the structure," he ordered. "My rebirth must not be interrupted."
Once the ritual was complete and Xavier’s power was his, even a teleporter couldn’t flee his reach.
A portal opened. Sand lifted Rowan and carried him into the heart of the pyramid, depositing him onto the central rebirth platform. Apocalypse lay down opposite him and activated the chanism above.
The pyramid ca alive.
Golden filants extended from Apocalypse’s platform, connecting to Rowan’s. Sunlight poured through the structure, channeled with terrifying precision. Apocalypse’s consciousness and soul began flowing along the filants, invading Rowan’s body.
After all this ti, Rowan finally smiled.
"So you really walked into it."
This was the hardest part of the plan. If Apocalypse had sensed anything wrong and refused to reincarnate, killing him outright would have gained nothing. Only by letting the ritual proceed could Rowan claim what he wanted.
"Return," Rowan whispered.
Across countless worlds, eight other versions of him answered. Their souls surged back into the core. His ntal strength exploded upward, reaching a level that dwarfed anything Apocalypse had ever known.
He could have erased Apocalypse’s soul with a thought.
He didn’t.
Instead, Rowan constructed a smaller inner ntal world, fragile enough to resemble Xavier’s psyche. Apocalypse felt resistance. Struggle. Victory.
Exactly as planned.
Within that false inner realm, Apocalypse towered over a shattered image of Xavier, tearing the psychic form apart piece by piece and consuming it.
"Accept it," Apocalypse laughed. "You cannot defeat . Be proud. Becoming part of is your highest honor."
When the last fragnt vanished, Apocalypse roared in triumph.
"It’s done. This body is mine."
He shattered the false world.
And erged into sothing else entirely.
An endless ntal domain stretched before him. Vast. Silent. Bottomless.
Apocalypse turned slowly.
Behind him stood a giant so imnse that his own form barely reached its fingertip.
"That’s impossible," Apocalypse whispered. "There is no mind like this."
The difference between him and Xavier had once been adult and child.
This was sothing else entirely.
Rowan’s voice echoed like gravity itself.
"You don’t need to understand."
The giant foot ca down.
Apocalypse’s psychic form was annihilated instantly, crushed into fragnts that Rowan absorbed in a single breath. Soul-binding, sealing, consumption—Rowan used them all without effort.
When it ended, Apocalypse ceased to exist.
Rowan felt the change imdiately. His body surged with power. The X-gene multiplied and evolved at a frightening pace. Abilities flooded in, instinctive and complete, including Apocalypse’s most valuable gift: the power to enhance mutant potential itself.
"Done."
Rowan sat up. The pyramid was silent. Apocalypse’s physical body had already decayed into ash, scattering into nothing.
Rowan remained unchanged. No blue skin. No twisted form. His existence stood on a level Apocalypse could never overwrite.
He rose into the air and exited the pyramid.
Below, Storm, Angel, and Psylocke were already restrained. With Erik or Pietro alone, that outco had never been in doubt.
Rowan looked at the gathered faces and smiled.
"It’s over," he said simply. "Apocalypse is dead."
The tension drained from the battlefield in a single breath.
...
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