Brotherhood

The flight back to X-Factor's headquarters was uneventful, once there Banshee, Gambit, Cannonball, Sunspot and two others rushed to greet them. It was the last two that made Cable's heart skip a beat. It was Opal, Bobby Drake's girlfriend, and she was holding Nathan Christopher Summers. She had come to say goodbye to Bobby, aka Iceman, and to let Scott say goodbye to his son. As Cyclops, gently, took the baby in his arms, Cable swiftly made his exit.
"Oath," he thought to himself, "This is just what I was hoping to avoid. To see myself, so young and innocent, before Apocalypse infected me with the techno-organic virus. This wasn't meant to be."
As Nathan struggled with the raw emotions racing through him, the words of the Askani' came back to him, he could almost hear Aliya's voice whisper in his ear,
"What is, Is, My Love. What is. Is."
The old teachings came back to him, for the first time since...since Her death, that horrible day, in the Grand Canyon. He found the inner peace and well being that came from the teachings of the Askani'
Nathan stayed out of the room until Opal and the young Nathan had left. When he returned, the others were ready to leave and he, himself couldn't wait to make those savages pay for killing one of his own. So, with a roar, two of X-Factor's jets leapt into the sky, officially declaring all out war on the nation of Genosha.

During the flight, Cable and Cyclops mapped out a plan of action. They decided to land on the beach, 40 miles from the Citadel, and circle around and suprise them with an attack from within.
Unknown to Cable and the others, however, Shaw Industries had provided Genosha with the latest sattellite technology. Hodge knew that they were coming, the moment they took off and had a trap prepared to spring on them.
The two vertical take-off and landing jets, came in at wave top level, to avoid radar, and landed on the beach, as planned. Cyclops ordered Archangel and Cannonball to fly reconnaissance while the rest of them marched inland. It was barely a half an hour later that they neared an area that made the short hairs on the back of Nathan's neck stand on end, with a familiar tingle. He warned the others,
"Heads up, folks, we're entering a natural amphitheater. If there was ever an obvious place for an ambush, this is it."
Sure enough, a large assault unit was in position and attacked as soon as Cable and the others were all in the canyon. Worse still this assault unit was led by Cable's own uncle, Cyclops' own brother, Alex Summers, the mutant known as Havok who could fire beams of pure solar energy with devastating effect on anyone but his brother. Cyclops and Havok's powers always cancelled each other out and had no effect on each other. Havok came to be in this position, because he had, some months ago, (Uncanny X-Men #251) gone through the Siege Perilous and came out in Genosha with no memories of who he was. The Genoshan's had given him false memories and took advantage of his awesome mutant powers by making him a magistrate.
Havok's first move was to take out the enemy teams leader, Cyclops, he hit him with full power, a blast which incinerated half of Cyclops uniform but did little else. Than the whole assault unit descended on Cable and the others and the battle was joined. Cable and Forge took the front line, with their heavy firepower, to soften up the enemy, as the others moved around the enemies flanks to surround and cut them off. Wipe-Out was ordered down to negate the mutants powers, but as soon as he approached Jean Grey recognized him and took him out by telekinetically slamming every rock in the area into him. Cyclops was making his way up the slope to whoever had attacked him when he was hit by the same force once again. He replied with a devastating optic blast of his own that should have left nothing but a shadow on the earth, of his attacker, but only destroyed the others clothing and knocked him down. By this time Cyclops was close enough to see who his attacker was and he could not believe his own eyes.
"Alex!" he exclaime. Havok had recovered from Cyclops and went on the attack. He grabbed the shocked Cyclops by the throat and tried to strangle him.
"Listen to me, Alex! I'm Scott! I'm your brother!"
"My brother...a mutant terrorist! Don't make me laugh!"
Alex answered and started to pummel Scott all the more. Scott reached his breaking point and attacked in kind deciding to pound some sense into his brothers head. Each blow drew fresh blood from the other. Both men were now barely able to stand. Scott finally threw his brother to the ground and took his ears and began to pound his head on the unyeilding rock of the canyon floor. Alex still managed a few blow that turned Scott's lips to a bloody pulp, but he felt himself fading out and shouted,
"Pipeline, get us out of here!"
Instantly, the entire assault unit was transmuted out of the canyon and back to the Citadel, by the mutate, Pipeline who could transmute any material into electronic bytes of information and send them over any distance, and turn them back to their original state at the other end of the journey. This was how Storm and The New Mutants had been taken so quickly from the mansion grounds.
Jean made her way to Scott immediately.
"Scott, what is it? What's wrong?"
"It's all wrong! Alex, my brother, is a magistrate, fighting with the Genoshans. He...doesn't remember who he is. I think he was sent here deliberately. But to do what? Weaken us? Taunt us with their power? Whatever their purpose, his presence means this is more than a straight-forward international conflict. It means that someone has it in for us, personally."
There was silence at this, as they all pondered the implications of Scott's statement. Cable broke this silence,
"They knew our location, probably using satellite surveillance. Forge said he could whip together some scramblers to protect us from it, and that we can lose 'em!"
Cable took out one of the maps that Val Cooper had given them, and approached Cyclops, adding,
"I know we'd planned to circle 'round secretly, but..."
"I agree, Cable." Cyclops said, "They know we're coming. So there's nothing stopping us from moving in on 'em--Fast and Ugly!"

So went the first battle in the war with Genosha, pitting brother against brother, in a bloody battle that would determine the fate of all who wear the "X" along with the fate of all those who live within Genosha, mutate and human alike.

While Cable and Cyclops made new assault plans. Storm had overheard two mutates talking about the death of Warlock and Hodge's capture of Rahne. She decided that rather than escape, she would sneak back into the Citadel and take a hostage of her own, to insure Rahne's safety, and she knew just who that hostage should be. Dr. David Moreau, the Genegineer, himself.
Rictor, meanwhile, had made it out into the streets and had managed to hook up with Boom-Boom. Their good luck had soon run out, however, as they were now being chased by two magistrates on hover-craft through the back alleys of Genosha. Without their powers the pair seemed doomed. Indeed one of the magistrates was even now drawing a bead on them with her weapon.
Suddenly, the late night sky was lit up by a series of multiple fire-cracker like explosions, directly in front of the magistrates hover craft, causing them to lose control of their craft. Than two living dynamos were amongst the magistrates, scattering them left and right. Wolverine, the natural brawler, with the unbreakable bones and adamantium claws that can cut through anything. Fighting is as integral a part of his being as breathing. But where his skills are raw and rough-edged, as fierce as his nature...Psylocke is personification of power and grace. Literal poetry in motion, where he's more a berserk battering ram, but no less effective.
Yet formidable as these X-Men are...the magistrates, especially their leader, Tam...quickly, surprisingly, devastatingly, prove their match!
Tam came up behind Wolverine performed a flying leap and locked both legs around Logan's neck and flipped him like a poker chip, and before he could recover, she drew he electro-baton and caught him full in the face, as he was getting up. She than informed Logan that the baton was set on heavy stun and that she was now setting it to kill. Just as Tam was set to deliver the killing blow, Psylocke grabbed her hair from behind and jerked her backwards while, with her other hand, she formed the psy-blade and drove it straight through Tam's skull, saying,
"Nobody dies tonight," and as Tam fell limp to the ground she added,
"Not even you."
"EYEUGKGH," Jubilee cried out,
"Psylocke, what'd you do?"
"My psychic knife, the focused totality of my telepathic powers. In this case used to short-circuit the magistrates brain and remove her from the fray."
Wolverine ordered Rictor and Boom-Boom to open their minds to Psylocke so that she could link them all and thereby let her, Logan and Jubilee instantly learn all that had happened, so far. After this Wolverine ordered Jubilee to stay with Ric and Boom-Boom while he and Psylocke went into the Citadel to try to find Storm and Rahne.

Storm, meanwhile, had approriated a knife from the Citadel's kitchen and had made her way to the Genegineer's office, and hidden to await his return. When he arrived, she came up from behind him and put the knife to his throat, but before she could secure her hostage, she was interrupted by Hodge, the monster himself. He suddenly fired several spikes, with machinegun-like speed, two of which impaled Storm, through the shoulder blades, pinning her, bloodily to the wall. So now he had two of his hated enemies to toy with as he chose.

Meanwhile, Wolverine and Psylocke had put on the uniforms of two of the magistrates and were using their hover-craft to fly to the Citadel. They were almost there when Psylocke suddenly screamed out in agony and lost control of her hover-craft. Logan slid his in beside hers and leaped aboard to take control and keep her from crashing.
"Easy, Darlin' the calvery's arrived." He told her.
"Wolverine...it's Storm...she's in agony...fighting it as hard as she can, calling for help...our rapport links us...can't block it out!"
"Hang onto your head, Betts...leave the flitter to me!"
Logan fought, with all his might, to pull the nose of the craft up and keep it from crashing into the side of the Citadel. He barely managed to get the tip of the craft up enough to clear the huge bay door in the side of the Citadel and still crashed, hard, into the other parked hover-craft in the hanger. He and Psylocke both were battered and bloody, but alive.
Alarms were sounding and magistrates were approaching from all sides. Logan decided to bluff his way through.
"Rescue! On the double, you guys, I got an officer down and hurt here!" He shouted to the approaching magistrates.
The bluff seemed to be working, one of the magistrates was leading them to the Genegineer's lab to get treatment for Psylocke, who was pretending to be far more injured than she was so that they could get access to the Genegineer. Than everything fell apart. Alex Summers, Havok, came running up to them saying,
"I caught an incident report, tagged with Tam's ident. It said she was hurt!"
"Bye, bye bluff." Psylocke said.
Havok stopped when he saw that it wasn't Tam in the uniform and powered up as he said,
"Whoever you are, you're wearing my lady's uniform. If you harmed her to get it...I'LL MAKE YOU PAY!" He shouted as he cut loose with a full power blast.
The fight was fast and furious. Wolverine and Psylocke made short work of the other magistrates and Wolverine jumped Havok and had his fist under Havok's chin in a second.
"Give it up, boy. I pop these claws and you'll need a brand new head!"
"Not before my plasma blast sears the flesh clean off your bones!" Havok answered.
Psylocke cut the argument short with her psychic knife, which she stabbed through Havok's skull, putting him out for the duration.
No sooner had she and Logan started on their way, however, than Logan was plucked up as if he were an insect and slammed from one wall into another by several of Hodge's tentcles. He fired the rapid-fire spikes at Psylocke to take her out of the fight, but she managed to dodge these, roll over and grab one of the fallen magistrates plasma rifles and open fire on Hodge. Which had absolutely no effect at all. She than allowed Hodge to scoop her up with more of his tentacles and when he had brought her close enough she again used her psychic knife, this time with killing force. Again, all to no effect, this monster seemed unstoppable.
Hodge took his new prisoners to the lab to be greeted by the news that Storm had been put through the mutate process and had all memories wiped and was now a mindless slave.
"Storm is no more." The Genegineer told him,
"What remains is mutate #20."
"That takes care of her." Hodge said lifting his two newest toys up to inspect them,
"But whatever, my sweets, shall we do with you?"
And now he had four.