"Cable to Domino--You copy--?"
"Roger" Came Dom's reply.
"We have a situation here."
"Roger. Define." Dom asked as she circled the building in the teams chopper.
"We're tangled up with a group of superhumans. They call themselves The New Warriors--Manhattan based--Call up what you can on them--Quickly!" Cable ordered.
"Roger. Running a check now but why not just do the usual--Shoot first and ask questions later?"
"I am shooting now, but just to keep them back! I'd hate to kill these punks if they were on our side!" Cable told her.
"The new and improved Cable?" Dom asked.
"Naaah--But I recognize one of them--Merc from my stint in Africa. Just being polite. Cable out." He told her as he kept up his covering fire, to aid his team.

Cannonball and Nova crashed, head-on, into each other and were both knocked back by the impact. Warpath and Namorita swapped blow after blow with neither seeming to gain an advantage. Boom-Boom sent three plasma bombs Marvel Boys way, but he telekinetically sent them right back to her before they could explode. Shatterstar was taking on Night Thrasher and Silhouette both, at once, and was winning. He downed Night Thrasher and moved in to finish him off. He raised high his sword, but before the blow could fall Nova swooped in and knocked Shatterstar off his feet. Cannonball saw an opening and took it. He smashed into Nova taking him out of the fight.
Cable saw Chord loading a grenade into his grenade launcher and ordered,
"X-Force--Maneuver Seven--Regroup Now!"
Cable then threw some smoke grenades to add to the confusion and ordered,
"Sam--Blast field extension--Quick--!"
"On it--!" Sam replied, as he extended his blast field to cover the entire team.
The explosion shook the building to it's very foundations, and as the smoke cleared both teams were safe and sound.
"Sam--?" Cable asked.
"I'm okay, Sir--I did it! My blast field protected us!"
"And Marvel Boy's teke shield protected us. I know how long he can keep it up--How about you, Boy?" Chord asked.
"As long as it takes, Chord." Cable replied, "North Africa '93 remember? Long as it takes."
This stand-off was broken by the entrance of two men in business suits into the lab. The oldest one said, "I asked you New Warriors to help protect my facility from a possible outside attack--Not destroy it from within!"
"I'll drop my weapon when Chord drops his!" Cable told them.
"Domino to Cable. Quit the fighting--The make I did on The New Warriors shows they're clean. A couple of 'em are even mutants!" Dom's voice came over Cable's communications unit.
"Fine. Okay then. Weapons are down. You want to know why we're here and we want to know why you're protecting this place." Cable said, lowering his weapon.
"Mr. Furmintz and Mr. Rosen--They run Genetech--They expected unwanted guests and asked us to help. They were afraid the people who had hired them to work on a project were planning on double-crossing them." Marvel Boy explained.
"Who hired them--And what for?" Sam asked.
"We were hired by Ophrah Industries to create a DNA Matrix for a cellular mix which would become a self-reproducing, self-replicating growth culture." Mr. Rosen replied.
"We were pursuing a terrorist group called The Alliance of Evil. They said they had been hired by you." Cable told them.
"Is that true, Rosen?" Night Thrasher asked.
"N-No--No! We've been straight with you. Why do you think we asked for your help. Our own investigations made us aware of The Alliance's activities. The energy patterns they were collecting match those we were hired to cultivate." Mr. Rosen replied.
"Someone may be playing us all for fools." Marvel Boy said.
"Only one way to find out. Go back to the source of the information--The Alliance--are going to be very sorry they lied to us." Cable said.

At that moment, just outside Anchorage, Alaska, Harness and the, now grossly huge, young boy were seeking out, yet more, of that same energy. As Harness forced the boy to absorb the energy, he grew even larger, till his very skin threatened to rip open.

Two hours later at the Quebec Provincial Prison, seventy miles outside of Niagra Falls, there are several very special prisoners being held in very special cells, pending extradition to the United States. Among them is Frenzy, leader of The Alliance of Evil.
Cable had determined which cell Frenzy was in and now drew a bead on it with his plasma rifle set on full power. He pulled the trigger and took out the entire wall.
"Get a move on it!" He ordered Frenzy as she rose from the rubble of the wall.
"Cable--? The New Mutants--?!" She said in amazement as she stared at the chopper hovering level with her cell.
"X-Force, please, and friends. Jailbreak, Frenzy, jump in." He told her.
"Why are you doin' this?" Frenzy asked.
"Don't ask. You have three seconds--One--"
"Alright! Alright! I'm comin'!" Frenzy said as she leaped for the chopper. She didn't quite make it, but Cable reached out and grabbed her hand.
"Pull me in!" Frenzy screamed.
"As soon as you tell me who hired you." Cable told her.
"I did already!" She said.
"And you lied the first time. Thrasher--!" Cable ordered.
"Take us up, Chord." Thrasher told Chord, who was piloting the chopper.
"WHOOOOOOAAAAH!" Frenzy screamed as the chopper rose quickly to a height of several hundred feet.
"Now, tell us the truth, Woman." Cable ordered her.
"Okay--Okay--Just promise to pull me up!" Frenzy pleaded.
"Promise." Cable replied.
"It was A.I.M.!" Frenzy told them.
"How about if she tells us why they were hired." Domino said.
"How about it...?" Cable asked Frenzy.
"We were bodyguarding two mutants--One called Harness and a kid called Piecemeal--! The kid was absorbing some kind of energy at every stop we made--We don't know why--!" Frenzy said.
"Where was A.I.M. operating from? How can we get to them?" Dom asked her.
"They got dummy corporations everywhere!" Frenzy replied.
"Give me one of them. A good one!" Cable ordered.
"Their warehouse is in Brooklyn, Pier 17, Slip 43A! That's all I know--Now pull me in!" Frenzy pleaded.
"Sorry. No can do. Time you dropped back into the hands of the proper authorities." Cable replied, dropping Frenzy.
"You Prooomisssssed--!" Frenzy screamed, as she fell.
"Will she survive a drop like that?" Silhouette asked.
"Unfortunately, yes." Dom replied.
"Okay--Contact the second unit--Get them over to that brooklyn warehouse ASAP!" Cable ordered.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Harness was forcing the young boy, Piecemeal, to absorb still more of this energy. The boy was now too huge to even move, he was dragged along by Harness. As the boy finished, Harness said to him, "It's time to go for the main course, the Quiness World's Record for pigging out. We're going to finish this off where it all began--And soon, we're going to have more power thaan anyone else on the planet has ever seen!"

Cable's second unit, consisting of Shatterstar, Warpath, Marvel Boy, Firestar and Speedball, had reached the warehouse that Frenzy had given Cable directions to. Once inside they discovered that A.I.M. was creating transparent, malleable, humanoid shell casings to contain some form of energy.
"What kind of energy? For what reason?" Warpath asked.
"With any luck, the third team will find out." Marvel Boy answered.

Unit Three, consisting of Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Feral, Nova and Namorita, had arrived at X-Force's previous headquarters. The basement levels of Professor Xavier's mansion. They booted up the main computer and cross-referenced the data from Genetech's program with Cerebro's memory. Cerebro found a match between Genetech's program and the energy that The Alliance had been after. Sam had Cerebro copy all relevant data to diskette and his team headed back to meet with the others at the Genetech Research Facility.

"It appeares our separate missions were successful--The pieces of the puzzle we now have should give us the chance to figure this mystery out." Cable said.
"Well, we know that two different parties have been independently trying to achieve the same goal." Marvel Boy added.
"But what is that goal, exactly? If A.I.M. is involved, it would have to involve the creation of superior weapons technology." Cable told them.
"Synthetic human weaponry?" Namorita asked.
"That humaniod casing factory seems to indicate that they were planning on injecting that energy into controllable mannequins." Marvel Boy answered.
"We just have to figure out what--Or who--that energy is!" Night Thrasher added.
"Give me the diskette, Kid. Let's get this show on the road! See, Winters. I'm still the impatient type." Chord said to Cable.
"I'm not surprised, Chord, and the name's Cable...this year." Cable replied.
"If you two Pitbulls are done out-growling each other...?" Namorita said.
"Okay, the third team found out the energy wavelength that A.I.M. is after is unevenly spread throughout the world." Chord said looking at the computer hologram map that the computer was projecting.
"But the locus of the activity is in Edinburgh!" Cable said.
"Sir, you don't think..." Sam started to ask.
"Chord, punch up the estimated date and time of the energy dispersal." Cable ordered.
"What difference could that make?" Chord asked.
"We'll see in a minute--!" Cable answered.
The computer showed,

Estimated Time Dispersal:
energy wavelength
Sub-File 223467-P
14:45:34 p.m.
October 13, 1994

MacTaggert, Kevin
Physical Body Died: October 3, 1994
Energy Form Dissipation:
October 13, 1994 14:45:34 p.m.