Chapter 155
Arc 10 - Ch 4: Rama-Tut
3000 B.C.
Location: Egypt
Tyson stepped out of the temple into the night after informing the young Kang and Moon Knight that he intended to infiltrate Rama-Tut's pyramid. The time traveler had captured his friends and En Sabah Nur. Khonsu had approved. So Kang and Ravonna needed a few minutes to prepare themselves.
So Tyson would take a minute to prepare himself.
He pulled Nexus from its sheath, and focused his will. One precise slash carved an opening in reality. The gateway opened into the familiar metal walls of his home in Limbo.
He needed to understand its current state. Best case, he'd spend some time meditating and be able to come to an agreement with the President Loki persona he had absorbed during their battle in the Void, and confront the fragment of Ebony Maw within his mind. He also needed to understand why the Mind Stone had vanished when he went searching for it while fighting Thanos. And he needed to know the state of Limbo itself, as he was in the past, and now that Illyana...
He could hardly finish the thought.
Now that Illyana was dead.
He forced his breathing to steady. Grief pressed against his ribs, and he held it there, refusing to let it expand. Behind his closed eyelids, the memory of her disintegrating into golden light played on repeat. But he had work to do. People were counting on him.
Tyson stepped through the portal into what had been their home within Limbo.
The absence hit him like a fist straight to his heart. Illyana's presence was gone. Completely, utterly gone. He couldn't sense it through Nexus, not through Limbo itself. The realm that had once pulsed with her power now felt hollow, empty in a way that went all the way down.
The house remained unchanged. Their bed still sat in the center of the chamber. Her clothes still hung in the wardrobe. Everything was exactly as they'd left it.
But she wasn't here.
He sat heavily on the metal bed. Her scent lingered, fading. Brimstone and lilac. He pressed his face into it and inhaled.
And then he broke down.
The sobs came without warning, ragged gasps that echoed through the empty room. His shoulders shook. Each wave of grief hit worse than the last. He buried his face in his hands, adamantium claws threatening to extend as his control shattered.
It had happened again.
The same as Jubilee.
He'd thought he could compartmentalize the grief, focus on the mission, save the world, deal with it later. But sitting here in their bed, surrounded by the ghost of their shared life, that idea crumbled. The pain was too raw. Too immediate. It consumed everything else, leaving him hollow.
Nexus lay beside him on the bed. The sword had been forged with Promethium, the heart of Limbo, inextricably linked to Illyana, and he could still feel a part of her within it.
Then the door opened.
Blonde hair. For one terrible, hopeful second, his heart seized. He was on his feet before he knew it, grief forgotten, hope slamming through him like electricity.
But the hair was wrong. Too pale, too straight. The scent was wrong. Vanilla and jasmine instead of brimstone and lilac.
Whiteclaw. The demonic antithesis of Felicia.
Hope died. Fury replaced it.
He flew from the bed, summoning Nexus to his hand. She had no chance to react. His hand closed around her throat before she could blink, slamming her back against the metal wall hard enough to dent it. She was pinned, feet barely touching the ground, and Nexus hovered a hair's breadth from her eye.
Immediately, she went limp. Her hands fell to her sides. She tried pleading around his grasp, the words strangled gasps as his fingers cut off her air.
Wheezing, words squeaked out... "Spare me... master."
The title only fueled his rage. "This is your fault!" His voice was raw, shredded by grief and fury. "What did you do with the stone? I could have saved her!"
Whiteclaw's eyes widened, genuine confusion across her demonic features. "I didn't... take the necklace... master," she choked out, barely audible through his grip. "You did."
He froze. Confusion cut through his rage. He hadn't taken the stone. He'd put it in Limbo for safekeeping, fused it in the walls of this home within adamantium. When he'd returned for it during the battle with Thanos, it had been gone. Vanished.
Tyson loosened his grip on her neck, allowing her to draw a shuddering breath. If what she said was true, that meant either a demon that impersonated him had taken the stone, or...
He had taken the stone.
But that was impossible. He would remember taking it. He would remember moving it, hiding it somewhere else. The Mind Stone wasn't something you misplaced or forgot about. It was one of the most powerful artifacts in existence.
Whiteclaw rubbed her throat; red marks from his fingers healed over quickly. She watched him, clearly sensing the shift in his mood but not daring to speak. Her submission was absolute.
"Explain," he said, his voice deadly quiet. Nexus remained at the ready, though he'd pulled it back from her eye. "Tell me exactly what you saw."
She swallowed hard, her voice hoarse. "There isn't much to explain. You came. You pulled the necklace from the wall, unfusing it."
It hit him all at once. It wasn't a demon that had impersonated him. It wasn't some elaborate theft. Unfusing the necklace could only be done with Magneto's power. It was him. A future version of himself, coming back to retrieve the Mind Stone for some purpose he couldn't yet understand.
But why? Why would he deliberately sabotage his own efforts to save Illyana? It made no sense, unless...
Unless it had already happened.
If this were a time loop, his future self would have had no choice but to follow the actions that had already happened to him in his past.
Tyson lowered Nexus completely as his rage transformed into something colder and more calculating. He released Whiteclaw entirely, stepping back to give her space. She remained pressed against the wall, watching him with fear. He sank back onto the bed, Nexus disappearing as he dismissed it back to his soul. He hadn't just failed to save the woman he loved. He'd actively ensured her death. Some future version of himself had made that choice, had decided that her life was an acceptable sacrifice for whatever came next.
"Sit. I need to think." He gestured toward the bed.
Whiteclaw scrambled to obey, perching on the edge with her hands folded in her lap. She looked so much like Felicia that he had to look away. Pacing the small chamber, he considered what he'd learned. The nature of Limbo itself, the way it existed outside the normal flow of time. Illyana had explained it to him once, years ago, when she'd first begun exploring the deeper mysteries of her realm.
Limbo is timeless. It's like the space between the pages of a book. It exists in a single moment, but seems linear to our perceptions because that is how we experience reality.
He'd thought he understood then. Now he was starting to get it.
If Limbo existed in a single moment, then unless he actively changed something, it would remain exactly as it was.
"Don't move," he commanded Whiteclaw.
She froze completely, barely even breathing as he strode toward the door. If he was right, then everything he'd ever sent here would still be here. Including the bodies.
He opened the door and stepped outside into the crimson wasteland. Rocks stretched out before him under eternal twilight. But it wasn't the scenery that made his blood run cold.
It was the corpses.
Dr. Samuel Sterns lay where Tyson had left him, the Leader's grotesquely enlarged cranium still bearing the wound that had killed him. No signs of decay. Limbo preserved everything perfectly. His eyes stared at the crimson sky, mouth frozen in a rictus of surprise. Nearby, both Ebony Maw and Supergiant's forms sprawled across the rocky ground. They'd been formidable during the battle, now she was just another body.
He'd sent their bodies here rather than leave them to rot on Earth. Their presence confirmed everything. Every action he'd ever taken here would persist regardless of when he accessed it from the outside timeline.
But if this was the current state of Limbo, how could it possibly become the empty sanctuary that Illyana had inherited as a child?
The realm she'd described from her past, before he'd met her, had been barren.
Not populated by demons.
The timeline and Limbo didn't make sense. Unless...
Unless he changed it.
The Ancient One's words echoed in his memory, cryptic and maddening in their simplicity.
"Change everything, but change nothing."
He was beginning to understand the literal truth behind it.
He would need to change everything. Every change he'd made in Limbo, every demon within this realm, even this house he'd built. All of it would need to be undone, reset to the state it had been in when Illyana first arrived as a terrified child.
But he would also need to change nothing. The timeline had to remain intact, the events that led to this moment preserved exactly as they'd occurred.
His brain kept trying to hold both ideas at once and failing. He closed his eyes, trying to think through the problem logically. If Limbo existed in a single moment, then any changes he made here would be noticeable within Limbo at every point in the timeline. Past, present, and future.
He opened his eyes and looked out at the wasteland again with new understanding. With Illyana gone, this was his domain. He was the only one with a connection to Limbo. Through Nexus. Through the piece of Illyana within it, and within him, in the Hallway of Possibilities.
But this wasn't just his domain anymore.
It was a responsibility that stretched across all of time. He would need to cleanse this place, purge it of the demons and corruption that had accumulated over the years.
He would need to fulfill his promise to Illyana, made years ago in what already felt like a different life, that he'd help her cleanse this place.
And he would do it because he had to. He had to make sure it was ready for her when she returned.
When she'd be the one to inherit it as a child, millennia from now.
Tyson turned back toward the house. Whiteclaw remained perched on the edge of the bed exactly where he'd left her.
He stopped in the doorway. Demon or not, she hadn't deserved that. Whatever else she was, she'd been reasonably loyal since she'd bound herself to his will.
"I'm sorry," he said. "You didn't deserve that."
Whiteclaw tilted her head, studying him with those unsettling yellow eyes. A slow smile spread, teeth just a little too sharp to be human. "It's fine, master. I like it rough."
He shook his head, unsure whether to be amused or disturbed. The demon's attitude was another reminder of how different she was from the woman in whose image she'd been created. Felicia would have clawed his eyes out for putting his hands on her like that, not smiled and asked for more.
He moved to the chair across from the bed, settling into it with a weary sigh. "Can you tell me exactly what happened? When I... when the other me came for the stone?"
"There wasn't much to it," Whiteclaw replied. "He took the necklace, examined it for a moment like he was making sure it was the right one."
"Go on."
"He winked at me," she continued, amused now. "Just a quick little gesture, like we shared some private joke. Then he disappeared in a puff of smoke."
Tyson went still. "A puff of smoke? You're sure?"
Whiteclaw nodded emphatically. "Absolutely certain, master. There was no portal created, like when you use the sword to travel here. It was simply a puff of smoke and the scent of brimstone."
A puff of smoke and the scent of brimstone were the hallmarks of Azazel's teleportation, as distinctive as a fingerprint. The red-skinned mutant had been able to travel vast distances and across dimensions in an instant, leaving behind only that telltale combination of sulfur and shadow. But Azazel was dead. Had been dead for years, his consciousness only existing as a fragment within Tyson's mind, locked away within the Hallway of Possibilities.
Except...
Azazel could shapeshift. It was one of his abilities, overshadowed by his more dramatic teleportation. He could alter his appearance, take on the form of others with near-perfect accuracy. But Azazel couldn't manipulate the metal to free the Amulet of Captured Thoughts...
It clicked.
Azazel's heart. The ritual Tyson had been planning, the one he'd learned from Calypso and been saving the hearts for. At some point in the future, he would perform that ritual, absorbing not just Azazel's powers but likely, others.
His future self had left enough clues so that his past self, so that he, would know what to do. With Azazel's teleportation and Loki's magic allowing him to be invisible, he could've stolen it without being caught. But he'd intentionally left a breadcrumb. Whiteclaw's testimony, the puff of smoke, the scent of brimstone… was a clue. So that his past self, he, would piece together exactly what needed to happen.
The nature of Limbo, the way it existed outside normal temporal flow, made the entire scenario possible.
Whiteclaw watched him silently. Tyson looked at the antithesis. The demon wearing Felicia's face watched him, her tail swishing behind her with nervous energy. After a moment, he said, "Limbo will be purged of all demons. You included."
Whiteclaw froze, her claws extending slightly from her fingertips.
"Relax," Tyson said, noting her defensive posture. "Not right now, but over time, it will need to happen." He looked her over, taking in the way she inhabited Felicia's stolen form. "You're a demon. Want to make a deal?"
Whiteclaw's entire demeanor shifted in an instant, tension replaced by sultry grace. She arched her back slightly, showing off Felicia's curves as she moved closer. "Is there anything I can do to improve my bargaining position?"
Tyson held up a hand, cutting off her advance. "Nice try. I'm not fucking a demon."
"You already have," Whiteclaw countered smoothly. "I met Darkchylde once."
Tyson was about to argue, but she was right. The memory of Illyana's demonic form, the nights they'd shared when he'd spent that extended time in Limbo, flashed through his mind. He'd been intimate with the queen of Limbo in her demonic form more than once.
"You're right," he admitted. "Doesn't matter. Still not happening. So here's my offer. First, I'll grant you a significant power boost immediately. You will use it to help me purge the demons from Limbo. Second, during the purge, capture a demon here, the more powerful, the better, and I'll transfer your consciousness into its body. Afterward, I'll allow you to travel through the portal back to wherever these demons are coming from. You can go and do whatever demons like you do in your new body. I'll free you from my service, and we'll part ways amicably."
Whiteclaw's head tilted. "Why must I change bodies?"
"I'm not interested in allowing you to parade around in Felicia's body for eternity," Tyson said flatly. Felicia deserved better than having her form used as a demon's permanent vessel.
Whiteclaw mulled it over, claws tapping against her thigh as she weighed the offer. The power boost alone would be significant, and freedom from servitude was more than most demons could hope for. She held out her hand.
"Deal."
Tyson shook it.
He swirled his hand, and the sling ring opened a shimmering portal. He stepped through, Whiteclaw following. They stood before a large portal inside a cavern, its edges crackling with energy. He hadn't been here since after they'd killed Azazel, before returning to the Ancient One when Illyana initially went to Kamar-Taj. Brimstone and demon ichor permeated the air around the threshold.
"This is how the demons enter Limbo," Tyson explained, gesturing toward the massive gateway. "And this will be where I allow you to return once they've been purged."
Whiteclaw studied the portal. "How many come through daily?"
"Too many."
Tyson stared at the portal. He should have done this months ago. He'd claimed the mirror that created Whiteclaw back in Vegas, and at the time, he hadn't known if the blood magic principles applied would even work. But they did. That was all the confirmation he'd needed; he possessed the knowledge to seal this gateway shut. He just hadn't. Too many fires to put out. Too many enemies to fight. Too many people to lose. Too many things distracted him from realizing he could have accomplished one of his earliest goals from when he arrived in this world.
No more excuses.
He approached the gate and extended a single adamantium talon from his pointer finger. The claw bit into his palm without resistance, and blood welled up immediately. His healing factor tried to close the wound, but he kept the claw pressed in, maintaining the flow.
He pressed his bleeding hand to the stone border of the portal and began to draw.
The Rune of Possession came first. It resembled an F, but the horizontal lines curved diagonally upward. The blood sizzled where it met the portal's edge, bonding to the stone. Next, the Rune of Standstill. A single vertical line, like a wall. Last, the Rune of Journey. It looked like a capital R, but with hard, straight diagonal lines where the curves should have been. Travel. Passage. Direction. Together, the three runes formed a simple command.
This passage belongs to me. Nothing crosses. Nothing travels without my permission.
Tyson stepped back and retracted his claw, letting his palm seal shut. The runes pulsed then settled into the stone like old scars.
"Now nothing should be able to cross that portal unless I will it," he said, flexing his healed hand. "Or unless something comes along strong enough to overpower my blood."
"Now, for that power boost." Tyson turned to Whiteclaw. "Are you ready? This is going to hurt."
Her lips curved into a sharp smile, tongue darting out to wet them. "Bring it on. That's one of my kinks."
He shook his head at the demon's enthusiasm but began nonetheless. Adamantium flowed from his clothing, streaming through the air in controlled ribbons. He shaped it, condensing and sharpening, forming thousands of needle-thin projections that hovered around Whiteclaw like a metallic constellation. Each needle was honed to molecular sharpness, designed to penetrate flesh and bone. The demon watched the display with fascination.
"Hold still," Tyson commanded, magnetic fields dancing around his fingers.
The needles moved as one, striking from every angle simultaneously. They pierced her skin, sliding through muscle and sinew to reach the bone beneath. Whiteclaw's back arched as the first wave of pain hit, a sound that was part scream and part moan escaped her lips as the metal began its work. Tyson's magnetic abilities guided each needle, the metal flowing through her skeletal system like molten silver through a mold.
He recreated the bonding procedure he'd undergone himself, the process that had transformed his bones into something virtually indestructible. The metal sought out every calcium deposit, every joint and junction, coating the demon's skeleton in an unbreakable shell.
He tracked each needle's progress through its magnetic signature. He couldn't afford to think about what this looked like, or sounded like. He remembered his own bonding. The unrelenting, all-consuming fire of it, the way every nerve ending had screamed in unison while the metal fused to bone. That memory made the sounds Whiteclaw was making deeply unsettling, because they were not the sounds of someone enduring agony. They were the sounds of someone enjoying it in a way that was quickly making him uncomfortable. Whiteclaw seemed to be processing the pain through an entirely different lens. He focused on the metal. Just the metal. Guide the flow, maintain even distribution, ensure proper structure and bonding.
In and out.
Coat, bond, move on. He was performing surgery, not whatever the demon was apparently experiencing. If Illyana could see him right now, alone in Limbo, performing an adamantium bonding procedure on a demon wearing Felicia's face while said demon made noises better suited to a different context entirely, she would have laughed herself to tears. Or disemboweled Whiteclaw with her Soulsword. Possibly both.
Whiteclaw's body convulsed as the metal spread through her bones, burning like liquid fire as it bonded with her demonic physiology. Her claws extended involuntarily, scraping against the ground as waves of agony and ecstasy crashed through her nervous system. The process continued for what felt like hours but was only minutes. Each bone received its coating, the metal flowing through her skeletal structure like a molten river. Whiteclaw's body writhed on the ground, movements becoming increasingly erratic as the procedure reached its… climax.
Her breathing came in ragged gasps, each exhalation accompanied by sounds that were equal parts suffering and perverse pleasure.
When it was finally complete, the demon lay sprawled on the barren ground, her chest heaving. Sweat beaded on her skin, and her white eyes had rolled back, showing only the pale orbs as she panted from the combination of pain, exhaustion, and twisted satisfaction.
Tyson scooped her up, noting how much heavier she'd become with her new skeleton. He opened another sling ring portal, golden sparks dancing through the air as the gateway formed. Stepping through, he carried her back to the house within Limbo, depositing her gently on the bed.
"Recover well," he said. "Then begin your hunt. If you can, find a demon called Vilsteth, which is recognizable by its white bony plates. It's the strongest demon I've encountered here."
Whiteclaw managed a weak nod, her breathing still labored but gradually returning to normal. The adamantium had bonded completely with her skeletal structure, making her exponentially more dangerous than she'd been before.
"Best foreplay I've ever had, sure I can't convince you—"
Tyson shook his head, then grabbed Nexus and sliced a portal back to ancient Egypt.
— Rogue Redemption —
Reed Richards sat slumped against the far wall of their cell, his normally elastic form reduced to ordinary flesh and bone. Sue Storm huddled beside him, her invisible powers as absent as her hope. Johnny Storm couldn't stop pacing, his fire gone. Ben Grimm felt hollow now. Brittle.
"Still nothing," Ben muttered, examining his hands. "I look like a Thing, but I might as well be made of sandstone."
Across the narrow corridor, another cell held a single occupant. The man sat cross-legged on the stone floor, his back straight despite the circumstances. His skin bore the weathered bronze of the desert sun, and his dark hair fell in waves around a face that spoke of nobility even in captivity. Unlike the Fantastic Four, he showed no signs of distress or defeat. Patient. Still. As if he were waiting for something inevitable.
They heard approaching footsteps. The previous guards had been typical of Rama Tut's forces, soldiers in bronze armor. But the figure that rounded the corner was different.
He towered over the other soldiers, broad and powerful beneath the ceremonial armor. Light golden-brown skin showed at his wrists and neck, and a metal fox mask concealed his features, though wisps of woolly hair escaped from beneath its edges.
Behind him walked a woman. Long black hair wearing simple, but well-made garments. She walked with her head up, unafraid.
The large guard gestured toward the cells with one gauntleted hand. "The prisoners, as requested."
The woman glanced over the Fantastic Four briefly before settling on the man in the opposite cell. The captive straightened.
"Nephri?" Disbelief, old wounds. Lost hope all carried in his voice.
She stepped closer to the bars, her fingers wrapping around the cold metal. "En Sabah Nur." The name fell from her lips like a prayer, or perhaps a lament. "After all these years."
"You're alive." Nur rose to his feet and moved to mirror her position at the bars. "When Rama Tut's forces overran the palace, when your father fell, I thought—"
"That I had died with him?" Nephri's laugh held no humor. "No, my friend. Death would have been a mercy."
The large guard remained still, but something in his posture said he was listening to every word. The fox mask revealed nothing.
"Amenhotep was a good pharaoh," Nur said quietly. "A just ruler. His people loved him."
"His people." Nephri's voice turned bitter. "The same people who stood by and watched as Rama Tut's armies marched through our streets. The same people who now bow to a false pharaoh from the stars."
"You cannot blame them for surviving."
"Can't I?" She pressed closer to the bars. "My brother certainly doesn't. Ozymandias has embraced our new reality with enthusiasm. He serves Rama Tut, leads his armies, enforces his will. The great general of a conqueror."
Nur's jaw tightened. "Ozymandias chose his path."
"As did we all." Nephri looked down at the stone floor between them. "When Rama Tut offered us positions in his court, when he promised to spare the remaining nobles who submitted, Ozymandias saw opportunity. I saw only chains dressed in silk."
"Yet you live in his palace. You wear fine clothes. You walk freely through his halls."
"Do I?" She looked up sharply. "I am a decoration, Nur. A pretty reminder of the old dynasty, kept alive to legitimize his rule. When he holds court, I stand at his side, a symbol of continuity. When he makes proclamations, I nod and smile. I am a living lie."
The guard shifted slightly.
"And Ozymandias?" Nur asked.
"My brother believes he can change things from within. He thinks that by serving Rama Tut faithfully, by proving the worth of our bloodline, he can eventually influence policy. Perhaps even inherit power legitimately." Nephri shook her head. "He doesn't understand that Rama Tut will never truly trust any of us. We are useful tools, nothing more."
"Rama Tut has searched for you," she continued, her voice dropping low. "From the moment he conquered Egypt, he has sent expeditions into the desert. His scholars study ancient texts, his mystics cast divinations. All seeking the same thing, En Sabah Nur, the one he believes to be the eternal pharaoh of legend."
"I am no pharaoh. I am just a man."
"Are you?" Nephri studied his face through the bars. "Rama Tut believes you are the key to something greater. His advisors speak of prophecies, of power that sleeps within certain bloodlines. They say he has traveled through time itself to find you."
The large guard shifted; the fox mask turned toward Nephri, though he said nothing.
"He means to unlock whatever potential he believes you possess," Nephri said. "To use you as he uses everything else, as a tool for his own ambition."
Nur's hands closed around the bars, knuckles white. "And you? What role do you play in his plans for me?"
Nephri's composure cracked for just a moment before she recovered. "I am to be your comfort. Your familiar face in a strange time. He believes that with me at his side, you will be more... cooperative."
The silence stretched between them. Nur looked at Nephri's face, searching for something. Hope, perhaps, or the echo of what they had once shared.
"Truly?" he asked, his voice barely audible. "Is that all you are to him? A tool to ensure my compliance?"
Nephri wavered. For a moment, the composure dropped, and the woman underneath was visible, the friend he had known, the companion who had walked with him through the palace gardens in what felt like another lifetime.
"Nur..." she began, then stopped herself. Her fingers tightened on the bars until her knuckles went white. "You must understand. The world has changed. We cannot go back to what we were."
"I'm not asking you to go back." He moved closer, until only the iron bars separated them. "I'm asking if there's anything left to move forward with."
The large guard's head tilted slightly. His breathing had grown quieter, more controlled, as if he were straining to hear every word.
"The boy I knew is gone," Nephri said, though her voice lacked conviction. "The man before me is a stranger. You've been in the desert for years, Nur. You've changed."
"Have I?" His hand reached through the bars, fingers extended toward her face. "Or have you simply forgotten who I was?"
Nephri stepped back, out of his reach, before he could touch her. The movement was sharp, decisive, telling.
"Don't." Her conviction made him flinch. "Whatever we were, whatever you think we could be, it's impossible. I belong to Rama Tut's court now. I have duties, obligations. I cannot simply abandon them memories of childhood affection."
Nur's hand remained extended for a moment longer before slowly withdrawing. The hope drained from his face.
"Childhood affection," he repeated, the words flat and hollow. "Is that what it was?"
"What else could it have been?" Nephri's tone grew colder, more distant. "We were young. We understood nothing. The real world has taught me better."
"The real world." An edge crept into Nur's voice that hadn't been there before. "You mean Rama Tut's world. The world where you smile and nod and play the perfect ornament for a tyrant."
"I survive," Nephri snapped. "I do what I must to protect what remains of our people. You've been hiding in the desert while the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of defeat."
"I wasn't hiding." The words came out harder now, weighted in a way that thickened the air in the corridor. "I was preparing."
"Preparing for what? To be captured and brought here like a common criminal?"
Nur's hands clenched into fists. Something shifted in him. The temperature in the corridor dropped.
"I was preparing to reclaim what was taken from us," he said. "To restore the natural order. To ensure that those with the strength to lead actually do so, instead of bowing to false kings from distant stars."
Nephri shook her head. "You sound like a madman. The natural order? Strength to lead? These are the words of someone who has spent too long alone with his own thoughts."
"Are they?" Nur stepped back from the bars, his posture straightening. "Or are they the words of someone who sees clearly for the first time?"
The large guard had gone completely still. Even the Fantastic Four had stopped their own quiet conversations to listen.
"You want to know what I learned in the desert, Nephri?" Nur's voice took on a resonance now that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his throat. "I learned that the weak will always serve the strong. I learned that mercy is a luxury that leads to defeat. I learned that those who would rule must be willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain their power."
"You learned to become like him," Nephri whispered. "Like Rama Tut."
"No." The word came out like a thunderclap. "I learned to become better than him."
Something shifted in the air between them. The large guard felt it through the fox mask, the change in pressure as if the corridor itself were drawing breath before a scream. Nur's jaw worked silently, his throat moving around words that never came. His eyes were fixed on Nephri, but they were losing focus, looking through her rather than at her, as if the woman standing before him was already becoming a memory. For less than a heartbeat, his face crumpled. Not into rage or conviction, but into grief so raw it stripped away years of desert hardening and left behind the boy who had once walked through palace gardens beside a girl who believed in him.
Then it was gone. Something rose from beneath his skin like a tide and swallowed it whole.
The change began subtly, a slight increase in Nur's height, a broadening of his shoulders. His skin took on a grayish tint, and his features grew more angular, more defined. The transformation was gradual but unmistakable.
"Nur?" Nephri pressed herself against the far wall of the corridor, eyes wide with shock and fear.
"En Sabah Nur is dead," he said, his voice deepening with each word. "He died the moment you chose servitude over strength. The moment you abandoned everything we once believed in for the comfort of chains."
The bars of his cell began to bend outward as his expanding frame pressed against them. The metal groaned in protest before finally snapping with sharp, ringing sounds that echoed through the corridor.
The large guard finally moved, his hand dropping to the weapon at his side. But his motion was slow, almost reluctant, as if he were watching something he had long expected but hoped never to see.
"I am Apocalypse," Nur declared, his transformation accelerating. His skin had turned a deep blue-gray, and his muscles had swollen to inhuman proportions. "I am the end of weakness and the beginning of strength. I am the future that this world needs, whether it wants it or not."
Nephri stumbled backward, her face pale with terror. "What have you become?"
"What I was always meant to be." Apocalypse stepped through the ruined remains of his cell door, his massive frame filling the corridor. "What I would have become sooner, if I hadn't been blinded by sentiment and false hope."
The sound of running feet echoed from the upper levels of the prison as guards responded to the noise. Shouts filled the air, along with the clatter of weapons and armor.
Apocalypse turned toward the approaching sounds. "Let them come. It's time they learned what true power looks like."
The large guard didn't draw his weapon. He simply stood ready, watching Apocalypse.
"This one recognizes who should be the true ruler," Apocalypse said, his voice thick with absolute certainty as he pointed at the guard. The words weren't a question but an acknowledgment of what he saw in the guard's posture.
The guard spoke; the voice behind the metal mask was warm. Familiar. "The forces opposing Rama Tut are here to assist you."
Nephri pressed herself further against the stone wall. The woman who had once walked beside him through palace gardens now looked at him as though he were something from the deepest nightmares.
"Nephri." His voice had lost none of its resonance, but something in his tone carried the ghost of old affection. "I'm not going to kill you." Her relief lasted only a moment before his next words shattered it completely. "I'm going to end this world and remake it in my image. Apocalypse rises."
The sound of approaching guards grew louder, dozens of feet pounding against stone, the rattle of weapons and armor echoing through the prison's corridors. They rounded the corner in formation, bronze armor, strange crystalline devices mounted on their weapons that hummed with energy.
"Power nullifiers," Reed Richards called out from his cell. "Those crystals, they're what's keeping us powerless."
The first wave of guards raised their weapons, the crystals pulsing with bright blue light. Energy beams lanced through the air toward Apocalypse, but he moved with impossible speed for something his size, dodging and twisting around the nullifying beams.
A guard thrust a spear toward his chest. Apocalypse caught the shaft, his grip crushing the bronze like paper. He spun the ruined spear and drove the blunt end into the guard's chest, sending the man flying backward into his companions.
The next two came from opposite sides, nullifier weapons whining as the crystals charged. Apocalypse didn't dodge this time. He dropped. One knee hit stone as both beams crossed the space where his head had been a heartbeat before. Then he was rising, fists first, and the guards went upward with him, their bodies meeting the corridor ceiling with the wet crack of armor against limestone.
More flooded in. The narrow corridor funneled them into a kill zone of their own making, and Apocalypse used every wall, every low archway, every jutting stone as a weapon. A guard slipped behind him, nullifier aimed at the base of his skull. Without looking, Apocalypse's arm bent at an angle no human joint should allow. The guard left the ground, hung in the air for a fraction of a second, and then became a projectile, his body scattering the formation that had been building behind him.
Crystalline weapons discharged wildly. Blue light strobed across stone walls as discipline disintegrated into panic. "Impossible," one gasped, the word choked off as a backhand spun him into the wall.
"I am not bound by your limitations," Apocalypse replied, snapping another spear between his fingers the way a man might break a dry twig.
He plucked a nullifier from a fallen guard and squeezed. The crystal burst apart with a sound like shattering glass, its blue glow dying in his fist. He tossed the sparking remains aside without a glance. The remaining guards began to fall back, their formation breaking as fear overcame them. Apocalypse didn't pursue them immediately. Instead, he stood among the fallen.
"This is only the beginning," he said. "Rama Tut's reign ends today."
He turned toward the exit. Each step carried him further from the cells, further from the life he had once known.
Nephri watched him go, terror and grief fighting for control of her face. When Apocalypse disappeared around the corner, she finally moved, stumbling away from the wall and running in the opposite direction, leaving only the groans of wounded guards and the crackle of broken nullifier crystals.
The large guard remained where he had been throughout the entire battle, having made no move to help either side. Now, with Apocalypse gone and Nephri fled, he approached the cells containing the Fantastic Four.
His hands reached up to the fox mask, and lifted it away.
"Hey guys," Tyson said, "Missed me?"
Johnny Storm's face broke into the first genuine joy any of them had felt since their capture. "Took you long enough!"
Ben Grimm let out a bark of laughter. "Kid! How the hell did you—"
"You guys didn't know I wear a fox mask? Thought you would've recognized me immediately," Tyson said, using his magnetism to open the lock of their cell. "Short version. I've been working with the local resistance. Rama Tut's got more enemies than he knows what to do with."
Sue Storm stood up shakily. "The power nullifiers—"
"Should wear off soon," Tyson said, helping her steady herself.
Reed stretched experimentally, but his body remained frustratingly solid. "How did you know we were here?"
"I saw when they brought you into the city. I heard rumors about him and thought it might turn out like this." Tyson nodded toward the ruined cell where Apocalypse had been held. "Though I have to admit, that didn't go exactly as planned."
"You knew about Apocalypse?" Reed asked.
"Knew of him. The resistance has been tracking Rama Tut's search for En Sabah Nur. Turns out he's got his own ideas about how to handle tyrants."
Johnny flexed his fingers, a small flame flickering to life in his palm before guttering out. "Powers are coming back. Slowly, but they're coming back."
"Good. Because we need to get out of here. Now. Apocalypse just declared war on Rama Tut, and this whole palace is about to become a battlefield."
— Rogue Redemption —
The doors of the prison groaned open, and Tyson stepped into chaos. The courtyard beyond erupted with the clash of ancient and futuristic warfare, Egyptian soldiers in traditional armor wielding spears and bronze weapons fighting desperately against their counterparts armed with energy rifles.
"What the hell—" Johnny Storm started, flames already dancing around his fists.
"Rama Tut's forces," Reed Richards said grimly. "And it looks like we have allies."
Moonknight moved through a cluster of energy-weapon-wielding soldiers, her crescent-shaped projectiles finding gaps in their armor. Nearby, Nathaniel Richards, in sleek silver-and-red armor, traded energy blasts with a figure in golden ceremonial garb who could only be Rama Tut himself.
And there, swinging through the fight like it was choreographed, was Jessica Drew. Spider-Woman's black costume with red accents made her nearly invisible in the shadows as she webbed weapons from enemy hands and delivered precise strikes that dropped soldiers without killing them.
Tyson scanned the perimeter and found Jean Grey pressed against a crumbling wall, her red hair stark against the stone. She was staying hidden, but her eyes tracked the battle.
"The resistance needs help," Sue Storm said.
"Then let's give it to them," Tyson growled.
He launched himself into the air, magnetism lifting him above the fray as electricity crackled between his fingers. The first bolt of lightning struck a cluster of Rama Tut's soldiers, their energy weapons shorting out in showers of sparks. They scattered, shouting in ancient Egyptian, but Tyson was already moving.
The Fantastic Four spread out across the battlefield. Johnny Storm became a blazing comet, his flames melting energy rifle barrels before their wielders could fire. Sue's invisible force fields protected the resistance fighters, deflecting energy blasts that would have cut them down. Ben Grimm waded into the thick of combat, his rocky fists sending armored soldiers flying, while Reed stretched to disarm and entangle multiple opponents at once.
Tyson dropped lower, weaving between the combatants as he sized up the field. Moonknight was outnumbered, three soldiers with energy weapons closing in on her position. Time to even the odds.
The illusion took shape around the white-clad vigilante. Suddenly, instead of one Moonknight, there appeared to be six, each moving identically. The soldiers hesitated, their weapons tracking between targets that might or might not be real. In that moment of confusion, the real Moonknight struck.
"Nice trick," Moonknight said as Tyson landed beside her, the illusions fading.
"I've got more where that came from," Tyson replied.
Across the courtyard, Iron Lad was holding his own against Rama Tut, but barely. The time conqueror unleashed waves of temporal energy that warped the air around them. Iron Lad's repulsors fired in rapid succession, but Rama Tut deflected them with casual gestures.
"Your technology is impressive, young Nathaniel," Rama Tut called out over the din of battle. "But I've seen it before. You face a master of time itself!"
Tyson still wasn't sure what to think about Nathaniel Richards, the younger version of Kang. But right now, the kid was fighting against Rama Tut, and that made him an ally. Except that wasn't the whole truth, and Tyson knew it. He watched Iron Lad trade blasts with Rama Tut, a boy fighting the man he might one day become, and the irony was as difficult to wrap his head around as the time shenanigans. Nathaniel Richards. Kang the Conqueror. Rama Tut. Immortus. How many names did the same man carry? And which version of him was the kid destined to become? Tyson had stood before the TVA, had been judged and sentenced by Ravonna Renslayer. The same Ravonna who was right now coordinating resistance fighters in white wrappings as Moonknight, her crescent weapon dropping soldiers with the precision of someone who'd trained under a god.
Was she really the same Ravonna? A variant? Did it matter?
He could end both problems right now. A few creative applications of telekinesis against Iron Lad's armor before the kid even registered the threat. A magnetic shift to drive one of Moonknight's crescents through her temple. Two deaths that might prevent centuries of suffering across the timestream. Two murders that might save thousands of lives, millions, if Kang's conquests could be prevented at their source.
The thought lasted exactly as long as it took him to reject it. What if killing Iron Lad didn't prevent Kang? What if it created him, some other version, some other path, born from the vacuum left by the boy's absence?
He rose higher, calling Mjolnir into his hand, he gathered electrical energy as he prepared to strike. But Rama Tut's forces were adapting to the new threats. A squad of soldiers had repositioned, their energy weapons now trained on the resistance fighters advancing under Sue's protective barriers.
Time for a larger distraction. He summoned Nexus to his other hand.
The illusion spread across half the battlefield. Suddenly, the courtyard seemed to fill with an army of phantoms. Egyptian warriors materialized, chariots thundered across the sand, and archers drew back their spectral bowstrings.
Rama Tut's soldiers stumbled backward. Some fired wildly at illusions, their energy blasts passing harmlessly through ghostly warriors. Others froze entirely, overwhelmed by the supernatural army that seemed to have risen from Egypt's glorious past.
"Impossible," one of the soldiers gasped in ancient Egyptian. "The dead walk!"
"The gods have abandoned us!" another cried, throwing down his weapon and fleeing.
In the chaos, Jessica Drew caught fleeing soldiers in her organic webbing, binding them to walls and columns. She flipped over energy blasts, her spider-sense threading her through the combat.
"Tyson!" she called out as she landed near him. "Can you maintain this?"
"Yeah, no problem," he replied, projecting illusions across a wide area.
The resistance fighters were rallying, inspired by the phantom army and emboldened by their new allies. They pressed forward. Ravonna Renslayer moved among them like a general, directing their advance. But Rama Tut himself seemed unaffected by the illusions. Golden energy lashed out from his gauntlets, forcing the young hero to dodge desperately.
"Your illusions are clever," Rama Tut called out. "But they cannot hide the truth of what you are, Nathaniel Richards. You carry the same darkness that I have seen across countless timelines."
Iron Lad's repulsors flared brighter. "I'm not you! I'll never become you!"
"So you say," Rama Tut replied, raising his hand for what looked like a killing blow. "But time reveals all truths."
The ground beneath the courtyard began to tremble, a deep rumbling that seemed to emanate from the very foundations of the structure. From the depths of the prison complex, a figure emerged that commanded immediate attention. Tall. Imposing. Skin bearing a grayish pallor.
The battle around them seemed to pause as both sides recognized the presence of something far more dangerous than their current conflict. Even Rama Tut turned his attention from Iron Lad to this new arrival.
"Ah," Rama Tut said, satisfied. "The first mutant awakens at last. How fitting that it should be now, in this moment of chaos."
Apocalypse looked across the battlefield, taking in the scattered forces, the resistance fighters, and the time conqueror who had made his life a living hell. When he spoke, his voice resonated with years of persecution and a power that was only beginning to manifest.
"Rama Tut. Your hunters have pursued me across the desert for years. They have killed my followers, destroyed my sanctuaries, and driven me from place to place like a common criminal."
"You misunderstand my intentions, En Sabah Nur," Rama Tut replied, his golden gauntlets powering down as he attempted diplomacy. "I have not hunted you out of malice, but out of necessity. Your power, your potential, it is beyond anything this primitive age can comprehend. Join me, and together we can reshape not just this time, but all of time itself."
Jessica Drew landed silently near Tyson, her spider-sense screaming warnings about the energy building around the gray-skinned figure. "What is that?" she whispered.
"Trouble," Tyson replied, his illusions dissolving entirely as he focused on the confrontation unfolding before them.
Apocalypse took a step forward, and the stone beneath his feet cracked. His body was changing, growing larger and more imposing as his mutant abilities fully manifested. "You speak of reshaping time, but you are nothing but a despot hiding behind technology. You have no understanding of true power."
"I understand power better than you know," Rama Tut insisted, though urgency began creeping into his tone. "I have seen the rise and fall of civilizations across countless timelines. I have witnessed the birth of gods and the death of worlds. Your abilities, properly guided, could make you a ruler of not just this world, but of all worlds across all times."
The resistance fighters had backed away, sensing the dangerous energies building between the two figures. Even Moonknight had withdrawn to a safer distance, though her white costume remained visible in the background.
"You offer me dominion, but you fail to understand that I have no desire to rule alongside a coward who hides in and preys upon the past."
Rama Tut's diplomatic facade began to crack. "Coward? I am Rama Tut, master of time itself! I have conquered civilizations that won't exist for thousands of years!"
"And yet you flee to the past when faced with true opposition," Apocalypse replied. His skin was taking on a more metallic sheen, and his eyes glowed with an inner light. "You hunt me because you fear what I represent."
The Fantastic Four had regrouped near the entrance to the courtyard, watching the confrontation with growing concern.
"Sue," Reed said quietly, "be ready to shield us. Whatever's about to happen, I don't think we want to be caught in the crossfire."
Iron Lad hovered nearby, his armor's sensors going wild as they tried to analyze the energy signatures emanating from En Sabah Nur. "The power readings are off the charts," he reported.
Rama Tut seemed to realize that diplomacy had failed. His golden armor began to glow brighter as he powered up his weapons. "If you will not join me willingly, then you will serve me as a slave. I have broken stronger wills than yours across the timestream."
"You understand nothing," Apocalypse said, his transformation now complete. "I am the beginning of something greater than you. And you, you are merely an obstacle to be removed. You have hunted me for the last time."
Iron Lad hovered uncertainly between them.
"Should we interfere?" Johnny Storm asked, flames already beginning to dance around his fists as he watched the standoff.
Tyson shook his head firmly. "This is how the fight was supposed to happen... I think."
Ben Grimm's rocky features creased into a frown. "What do you mean, you think?"
"A few months before I came to Project PEGASUS, I encountered a geneticist who survived from the Victorian Era," Tyson explained, his eyes never leaving the three figures in the center of the courtyard. "He, err, she, whatever, told me about Apocalypse. So I know in some form, he survives this. The others, not so much. I think the Iron... Lad survives to go on to become a version of Rama Tut. Time travel is all confusing. I won't interfere, but if things seem wrong, I'll step up."
Jessica Drew landed silently beside them, her spider-sense still screaming warnings. "This feels like standing next to a nuclear reactor about to go critical."
The confrontation erupted without warning. Rama Tut's golden gauntlets discharged a brilliant beam of energy, his vibration-ray projector, that should have reduced En Sabah Nur to component atoms. Instead, the first mutant raised his hand, and the deadly beam simply... stopped. The energy hung in the air for a moment before dissipating harmlessly.
"Impossible," Rama Tut breathed.
"Your technology is impressive," En Sabah Nur said, his voice resonating in the bones of everyone present. "But I am evolution itself."
Iron Lad chose that moment to strike, his repulsors firing at maximum power toward Rama Tut. The time conqueror spun, his defenses absorbing the energy blasts. But the distraction cost him.
The first mutant's hand closed around Rama Tut's throat, lifting the armored figure off the ground. Rama Tut activated weapon after weapon: electrical paralysis, molecular expansion, a neutrino-ray warhead that should have leveled a city block. En Sabah Nur walked through all of it. He caught the warhead in his bare hand, the detonation against his palm, engulfing him briefly, but he never stopped moving.
The time conqueror broke free with his molecular expander and triggered his electromagnetic field amplifier. The courtyard's metal weapons and armor pieces flew through the air in a deadly storm. Tyson gestured dismissively, and every piece stopped mid-flight before clattering to the ground.
En Sabah Nur turned his glowing eyes toward Tyson. "Interesting. You fight with honor."
"Reed," Sue Storm whispered, "what are we looking at here?"
"Something that shouldn't be possible," Reed replied. "That level of molecular control, the energy absorption, the apparent invulnerability. It's like watching the birth of a god."
The time conqueror activated multiple weapons simultaneously. His nerve gas sprayer filled the air with a toxic cloud while his vibration-ray projector fired in rapid pulses. Iron Lad tried to counter with his own firepower, his repulsors creating a constant barrage of energy that lit up the courtyard like a miniature sun.
En Sabah Nur walked through it all as if strolling through a gentle rain. The nerve gas had no effect on his transformed physiology, the vibration rays were absorbed and redirected harmlessly into the ground.
"You begin to understand," En Sabah Nur said, reaching out with both hands. One seized Rama Tut's arm and wrenched him up, holding him suspended like a child despite the conqueror's struggles. "You have shown me something valuable," he said, loud enough for the whole courtyard to hear. "You have shown me that this world is not ready for what I represent. Perhaps it is time to... accelerate the process."
Tyson's jaw tightened as he watched Apocalypse hold Rama Tut effortlessly. The first mutant had neutralized the time-traveling conqueror without breaking stride, and that made him uneasy.
He hadn't expected Apocalypse to be this powerful yet. Not this early.
And that made his inaction unbearable.
Because Tyson could stop this. Right now. Before En Sabah Nur consolidated his transformation, before the first mutant fully understood what he was becoming, Tyson could end him. At this stage, before Celestial technology augmented his abilities, before millennia of evolution hardened him into the monster that Sinister had described, En Sabah Nur was still killable. Powerful, yes. But Tyson had fought Thanos wielding three Infinity Stones. He'd survived the Void. He'd killed gods and absorbed their essence. A newly awakened mutant, no matter how formidable, was within his capability to destroy.
But would it change anything, or would it change everything?
If he killed Apocalypse, Sinister would never exist. Sinister would never send the Marauders into the sewers leading to the mutant massacre and the dozens of Morlocks that Tyson saved and brought to House of M. If Sinister never existed, would the X-gene propagate differently? Would mutants, as he knew them, even exist in the same way? And if they didn't, would the X-Men ever form? Would Xavier ever build the Institute? Would Tyson ever arrive there, meet the people who shaped him, love the people he'd lost?
Either Tyson didn't or wouldn't kill him now or… Tyson would need to pose as Apocalypse and present himself to Sinister at some point in the future. Which was possible, but a hell of a stretch.
He didn't know. And that uncertainty was its own answer. Because if he didn't know, he didn't get to play executioner. At least…
Not yet.
"We should do something," Jessica Drew whispered.
"No," Tyson said firmly, though his hands clenched into fists. "We let this play out."
"You... you cannot... the timeline..."
"The timeline?" En Sabah Nur's eyes glowed brighter. "You speak of time as if it were your domain."
His free hand engulfed Rama Tut's helmet entirely. There was a sound like crushing metal, and the time conqueror's struggles ceased. When the first mutant opened his fingers, golden fragments fell to the sand like broken jewelry.
"And so ends the reign of the false pharaoh," Apocalypse announced, his voice absolute across the courtyard.
Iron Lad stared in shock at the remains of Rama Tut's helmet. "You... you killed him."
"I ended his interference," Apocalypse corrected. "He was a parasite, feeding on the past because he lacked the strength to shape the future. Egypt deserves better."
The first mutant's body began to shift again, his form becoming more regal, more imposing. Golden bands appeared around his arms and chest, not worn but grown from his own transformed flesh. His face elongated slightly, taking on the classical features of pharaonic art.
"I am En Sabah Nur," he declared. "I am the first of my kind, and I claim dominion over this land and its people. Let any who would challenge this decree step forward now."
The courtyard fell silent except for the whisper of wind across sand. The resistance fighters looked to each other uncertainly. Rama Tut was dead, their oppressor destroyed, but what stood in his place might be far worse.
"The people won't accept you. They'll fight." Iron Lad declared.
"Will they? I think you underestimate the appeal of strength, young one. They have suffered under Rama Tut's tyranny. I offer them something far more... natural."
Tyson watched the exchange with growing unease. This wasn't how the story was supposed to go, was it? But then again, how could he know?
The Ancient One had told him to change everything, but change nothing. But standing in the courtyard of a dead pharaoh's palace while a newborn god declared dominion over the cradle of civilization, the paradox stopped being abstract. It was right here in this moment.
Three figures in this battle were destined to become something terrible. Apocalypse would cull the weak, reshaping civilizations through violence and genetic supremacy. Iron Lad would eventually become some version of Kang, Rama-Tut, or Immortus, a conqueror of time itself. And Ravonna Renslayer, the woman who moved through this battle as Khonsu's avatar, might one day sit in judgment over the TVA, presiding over the pruning of entire timelines and their variant inhabitants.
Tyson had the power to kill all three of them before they left this courtyard. He could reshape the entire future of the timeline with a few seconds. Three deaths. Possibly millions of lives saved. But possibly not. That was the knife's edge. Because every action he took in the past had consequences he couldn't predict. Killing Iron Lad might prevent Kang, or it might do nothing, and some other version of Nathaniel Richards might fill the roles. And Ravonna could be no more responsible for her counterpart's future than Tyson was for whatever his own future self had done with the Mind Stone.
Change everything, but change nothing.
He was beginning to see the phrase as something else. Not as a warning against creating a paradox or branch. As discipline. Change the things when needed. But leave the threads you don't fully understand. Don't pull at the tapestry of other people's fates just because you have the strength to tear it apart.
The hardest kind of power wasn't what he could do. It was what he chose not to. It had always been that way since he arrived.
Was he learning his lesson, or just making the same mistake over again?
"What do we do?" Johnny Storm whispered.
"Nothing," Tyson said again, though the word tasted like ash in his mouth. "We do nothing."
En Sabah Nur's attention swept across the assembled heroes. "And what of you, travelers from distant times and places? Do any of you wish to challenge my claim?"
Everyone turned toward Tyson.
He stepped forward enough to separate himself from the group.
"No challenge."
En Sabah Nur regarded him, and Tyson held the stare without flinching. He could feel all of them watching. Jessica's support. Reed Richards calculating. Johnny Storm's barely contained nervous energy. Iron Lad's uncertainty.
"Rama Tut came to a time not his own, claimed a throne, and ruled a people he had no right to rule. Everything he built here was stolen. His technology. His authority. His legacy." Tyson gestured toward the fragments that remained of the conqueror's helmet, scattered in the sand. "None of it belonged to this place."
En Sabah Nur watched as if he hadn't yet decided how to respond.
"What you did here today was restore the natural order. Egypt belongs to Egypt. Not to some coward who fled backward through time because he couldn't hold power in his own era."
He wasn't lying, not exactly. Rama Tut's rule was illegitimate. And En Sabah Nur was the rightful inheritor of this moment, in the sense that history, as he understood, demanded it. But history also demanded what came next. Apocalypse's rule. Probably The Horsemen. Engineered suffering dressed up as evolutionary philosophy. Some of which might stem from Tyson and his group's own presence here.
He swallowed that knowledge and kept talking.
"I wish you a strong rule, En Sabah Nur. These people have suffered under a tyrant who saw them as subjects to be managed. They deserve a leader who rose from among them." He paused, then added with deliberate weight, "Things are as they were meant to be."
He said it to the first mutant. He said it to everyone here. He said it to himself, most of all, because the alternative was admitting that he'd just watched a monster be born and done nothing to stop it.
This is how it has to be.
This is how it was always going to be.
You didn't make this choice. History made it for you.
The justifications stacked up inside his mind like stones in a cairn, and he let them. Because the only other option was to reach for Nexus and find out whether a newly awakened Apocalypse could survive being diced up by a monomolecular blade. But he didn't.
History didn't make this choice. I did.
En Sabah Nur studied him for a long, silent moment. Then the first mutant inclined his head, the barest fraction of acknowledgment from a being who had decided he owed deference to no one.
"You speak with wisdom, stranger," En Sabah Nur said. "I will remember your words."
— Rogue Redemption —