"Bishop."

"Abyss."

"It is good to see you again, old friend."

"I am no friend of yours, prelate."

"I'm hurt."

The scene; Israel. A broken city, now used to house the 'mutant camps' of the Human Resistance Movement. Mutant concentration camps, where those unfortunate enough to possess the 'x-factor' gene are held against their will, until ordered otherwise.

The players; Bishop - the last X-Man of a world wiped from reality, now the founder of the new X-Men in a world he has come to hate - and Abyss - a mutant High Prelate responsible for the sadistic massacre of over a thousands defenceless humans.

Bishop hasn't forgotten about the last time they met. Abyss - one of Onslaught's chosen Prelates - was on the brink of killing his foster daughter, Ororo Monroe. Bishop had managed to rescue her moments before Abyss carried out his evil deeds, but the cost of his action was great. In the ensuing chaos, Abyss slew Human High Council member, Robert Kelly. Kelly, a man of justice and peace amongst the two races. It was his death that triggered the first strike of the human terrorist faction known as 'The Right'. Hundreds of thousands of humans, all assembled to charge Onslaught Island. They were killed almost instantly.

Thousands dead, all because of the monster cackling before him right now. Bishop wouldn't stand for it any longer. He lunged for Abyss, letting his rage blind him to the function of Abyss's powers. Abyss quickly envelops his body around Bishop in mid-air, hugging the life out of the struggling X-Man.

"HAHAHAH!!! I would never have thought killing you would be so easy, Bishop! I've dreamt about this moment since the High Lord shipped me off to this godforsaken continent, but I had never thought my dreams could come to fruition!" Abyss cackles maniacally, as Bishop struggles to break free. "Fate must be smiling on me after all!"

Bishop cannot reply. As much as he would like to wipe that shit-eating grin off of Abyss's face, he finds himself totally ensnared in Abyss's tar-like tendrils. Bishop's powers are useless against an opponent like this.

"Are you begging for you life yet Bishop?" Abyss cackles. "Oh what a pity, my friend. To find yourself at my mercy, after so long. Come now, Bishop, you're not really going to give in this easily, are you?"

But Bishop cannot answer. Abyss's tendrils are suffocating him. He is losing oxygen. He can feel his eyes rolling into the back of his head, as darkness clouds his vision. He can feel his blood pump furiously around his body, and his skin itch for release.

Any final gasp he could let out is blocked, and the carbon dioxide returns into him. The breaths become faster, and harder. He panics, tensing his arms only to find them still pinned down. Saliva flows from his mouth onto the ensnaring tendrils of Abyss, as his final - hateful - glare pierces into the eyes of a madman.

Then Bishop breaths no more.

"Pity." Abyss mutters sarcastically, as his foe hangs limp.

"Kelly! Richards! Down, you fools!"

The Past.

Bishop and the X-Men have fought a long, and hard battle this day, and they refuse to lose now. The Prelates advance. Abyss leads them into the charge. Black Tom aims his shillelagh at Sauron and lets out a thunderous burst of energy, singing the X-Man's leathery wing. Sauron lets out a high-pitched scream, as he falls to the floor.

Exodus advances, hoping to cut off Timeshadow before the Prelate can reach Richards. A sudden telepathic attack from the Prelate Psiren catches him off-guard. It takes all Exodus can muster to hold her off. Timeshadow lunges for Richards, but Bishop's daughter, Ororo, sweeps him back with a gale force wind, taking the Prelate out of action.

"Storm, keep them away from Richards!" Bishop shouts at her, as Havok instantly rushes over to the side of Robert Kelly.

"Keep your head down!" Havok orders the cowering man before him, as he lets off a plasma burst at the advancing Crimson Commando. "Cyke, we could really use your help down here!" Alex speaks into his comm-link.

"Sorry, we're a little busy right now, little bro." Cyclops answers back down the comm-links. "Bobby's been shot, 'an Rogue's having enough trouble on her own, with Unus and Aurora!"

"Where's Gateway and David?" Havok asks, as he fires off another random burst of energy.

"I don't know, they just vanished! Gateway must have tel--*SCHRAAAAK*" Cyclops suddenly breaks up, static filling the comm-links.

"Scott?" Havoks screams down his end. "Scott? Scotty!"

No answer. The battle rages on.

"Somebody grab Deathbird!" Bishops shouts, firing a kinetic energy burst at an advancing prelate. The prelate, known only as Silver, falls to the ground, an instant later, her metallic bodysuit burning through her flesh where Bishop's kinetic burst had found its mark.

Bishop rushes over to the side of the unarmed Shi'Ar woman, named Deathbird. She had arrived only an instant before, a captive of the Human Resistance Movement. They thought her a mutant when, in fact, she was of the royal bloodline of the Shi'Ar Empire.

When the Prelates attacked, due to the reported - and accurately so - presence of High Council chairman Robert Kelly, she made her attempt for freedom. Now she finds herself caught up in the middle of a warzone, with her only protector a mere Terran. Yet still, she cannot deny her respect for this…Bishop.

"How do you know my name, mutant!?" Deathbird demands as Bishop covers beside her.

"I have read many files and texts on you, Deathbird. You are sister to Lilandra Neramani, Empress of the Shi'Ar empire." Bishop responds. Before this world, there existed another. He remembers every detail of that world. A world they lost the day David Haller changed killed Magneto*.

"You are wrong, mutant." Deathbird scowls, as he sheathes a small blade hidden in her chest-plate. Obviously the humans had missed it in their inspections of her. "I am the sibling of Lilandra, but she is no Empress. My sisters are both long dead, killed at the hand of my brother, D'Ken."

"I see a lot has changed, not only here." Bishop sorrowfully notes, as Deathbird gives him both a pitied and confused glance. But she has not time for this.

"Whatever the case, Terran, we are allies this day. Whomever these 'Prelates' are, they seem to value my life even less than those humans you are trying to protect. Stand aside, and let a warrior-born show you how to deal with these underlings!"

And with that charge, Deathbird streaks out into battle, armed only with her hand-crafted blade. Bishop shouts after her, but she pays him no heed. He attempts to cover her, as she nears her intended target.

"Die, Prelate!" Deathbird screams as she lunges at the Prelate known as Tremolo. The prelate swiftly turns, but her opponent's moves are too quick. Deathbird stabs the knife through Tremolo's eye socket, as the prelate almost instantly dies in agony.

Deathbird continues her advance, as Bishop continues to cover her. A sudden first from behind, makes Bishop fall to his knees, as the prelate Auric repeatedly pounds the back of the X-Man's cranium.

"You killed my sister, gene-traitor!" the angered Auric screams wildly as he continues to pummel the dazed Bishop. Suddenly, the pummelling stops, and Auric lets out another scream, this time of his own pain.

Bishop turns to see Exodus unleashing a concentrated wave of telekinetic energy at the prelate, until Auric can no longer be of any threat to anyone. The two men share a sorrowful glance, as the fight continues.

Abyss strides across the battlefield, his tendrils carrying him at an astonishing speed. He's making his move again Richards. Storm is too busy concentrating on Black Tom. She doesn't see him in time. Abyss wraps his tendrils around Richards, and raises him high into the air, preparing for the killing blow.

Sauron glides through the air, slashing at Abyss's tendrils, desperately trying to free Richards. Storm follows his lead. She rises high into the air, and brings down gale force winds on the prelate. Sauron slashes another tendril, and Richards falls out of the prelate's grasp. Sauron swoops in, taking the High Council member out of the equation.

Storm sweeps her winds underneath her body, trying to rise high into the air. Abyss reaches out, and latches onto her foot. He reels her in, laughing maniacally, as thunder rages in the sky.

"Time to die, weatherbitch!" Abyss vows, as he extends his tendrils, ready to envelop the helpless Ororo Munroe in his thick blanket of death.

"NO!" cries Bishop, as he sprints over to Abyss, focusing all the kinetic energy stored up inside his body into an almighty blast which sends the Prelate careering across the battlefield. Storm rises quickly into the air in a sudden gust of wind, until nothing can be seen of her except the slightest speck in the dark skyline.

Bishop falls to his knees, the total sum of his energies spent in the effort to free his daughter. Abyss slowly rises back to his upright position. He has been weakened. The battle here is lost. The HRM are regrouping, and already far too many prelates have been lost.

He turns his attention to the 'gene-traitor' beside him. Havok. Unus advances, paying no heed to the X-Man's concentrated plasma. At Havok's feet is the cowering Robert Kelly. A smile forms on Abyss's pitch black face.

In an instant he has Kelly in his grasp. Havok falters ever so slightly - taking his eye off Unus - allowing the prelate to charge at him with a mighty blow. Summers falls to the wayside. Bishop watches on, from across the battlefield, powerless to stop it.

Abyss laughs again, as the sound of Kelly's spine shattering echoes throughout the battlefield. "Mainframe, get us out of here!" Abyss orders as the prelates vanish into the teleportals opening up all around them.

Bishop cannot even move. Cannot even speak. All he can feel is his failure.

"NOOOO!"

The present. Where Bishop has come back to his senses. Burst out of him comes wave after wave of kinetic energy. Any and all that he has left. Abyss tries to contain him, but cannot withstand the series of burst.

He lets go of the X-Men with a hateful hiss of anger.

'Stop!" screams the founder of the X-Men - the kientic energy flowing through his body - as he crumbles to his knees, clentching his skull. "Get out of my mind! Leave me alone!"

{Sorry dear. Just trying to help.} comes the bemused voice of Fontanelle, as Bishop glares at her in his mind. {If I didn't decide to step in there, you might've been a goner.}

"I don't need your help! I've told you before!" Bishop curses, his body seething with energy.

{Then why did you save my life in the first place, Bish?} Fontanelle asks with a glare of her own.

"A mistake on my part, witch! My memories are mine, and mine alone! Get out!" Bishop demands.

{Fine, Bishop. But keep in mind, I'll be here in the back of your mind like always. If I wasn't in here you and your X-Men would have been gone a long time ago. Remember that.} Fontanelle warns, as her presence within his consciousness fades.

"Talking to yourself, gene-traitor?" Abyss asks, as he pounces on the kneeling X-Man. Bishop, turns quickly, but abyss is already on top of him.

Something jumps up out of nowhere, allowing Abyss to engulf it in Bishop's place.

"Caliban! NO!" Bishop screams, as he recognises his follower caught up in Abyss's life-sucking form. "Leave him alone!"

Bishop lets out another blast of kinetic energy, his body still seething with it, grounding the prelate on the desert floor.

"Caliban!" Bishop shouts over to the dying mutant, his energies still focused on Abyss. Caliban doesn't answer. Blood spews from his stomach and from his mouth. He writhes in pain. But, he think, it was worth it. To save the life of his mentor; the man he grew to love as 'Bishop'.

"AAARRGH!" Abyss yelps, as he slithers back up to a vertical stance. "You can't keep it up forever X-Man! And when your energy subsides, I'll be right here to finish off what I started!"

Bishop had not noticed until now, but Abyss was accompanied by a group of advancing mutants. They had been stunned by the battle, until Caliban's interference broke their state of awe. They were advancing around Bishop at a rapid pace.

As size-shifter named Micromax was the closest to Bishop. He readied his blade, and prepared to dig it deep into the X-Man's spine. Instead, he found himself unable to move a muscle, his body held telekinetically in place by the battered mutant trapped underneath the hull of the downed plane.

"Exodus!" Bishop exclaimed, as he heard his friend mutter something through garbled breaths.

"Let us see, size-shifter, what happens when I telepathically trigger your mutation, while keeping your internal organs telekinetically in place" Exodus mutters, as Micromax lets out an unholy scream in agony, before dropping to the floor, clenching his stomach.

The other mutants watch on his horror, as Exodus lifts the plane into mid-air, as he crawls away from the wreckage. It drops back down with a thunderous force once Exodus has cleared himself of the plane's area.

With another simple thought, he sweeps away all the mutants, and erects a telekinetic bubble around Abyss. Bishop lets out a sigh of relief, as the kenetic energy built up inside his body has a chance to subside.

"Caliban?" Bishop asks, as he crawls over to the unmoving body of his friend. He feels no pulse on his friend's still-warm body. "No."

"NOOOOOO!" Bishop cries, as another friend is lost.

"HAH." Abyss smiles viciously. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Kill him." Bishop orders, coldly from where he kneels next to the body of the dead Caliban. Exodus gives his mentor a slight glance, before turning his eyes back to Abyss...who laughs no longer.

"Bishop! Bishop! You fucking whore!" Abyss screams as Exodus tightens the telekinetic grip he holds on the prelate. "You fucking whore! You fucking wh--!"

Silence.

It remains such for a couple of hours, before Bishop and Exodus decide it is time to move on. Time to complete their mission. To find the mutant who is the key to stopping Onslaught once and for all.

"Rory, how good of you to join us again." Able Stack mocks, as Lord Rory Campbell enters the chamber.

"I apologise for my absence. There was some pressing matters I had to take care of." Campbell explains, as he takes his seat next to the Chief T'Chaka and Lady N'Yami.

"More pressing matters than that of the Human High Council?" ask Lord Parnival Plunder with a scowl.

"No, of course not." Campbell cedes to his fellow Council member.

"What now, then, Stack?" asks the Mandarin, growing more impatient with every second. His wife, Lady Viper, is not helping matters.

"I believe Hodge had something he would have liked to address." Stack offered, as all eyes turn on Cameron Hodge.

"Yes, quite." Hodge begins, clearing his throat. "As I am sure you all know, it has been reported that the Sentinels have turned on us. They have sided with Onslaught. Or so we suspect. But, that is beside the point. The decision that we have to make now, is one which could very well shape the fate of the entire human race."

"Hurry up and get to the blasted point!" Lord Kevin Plunder demands, punching his fist down on the wooden table.

"Very well." Hodge agrees, with a sneer. "Gentlemen, and ladies, I am talking of the one thing Onslaught would never expect from us..."

"War." p> (See Extraordinary X-Men and Team X 2000 - Benn)