The surface of the dock was a meat grinder.
Weapon X possessed superior numbers and borderline-immortal healing factors. The X-Men countered with strict tactical discipline. The fight descended into pure chaos, with Adamantium sparking against kinetic blasts. Four of the Weapon X operatives were strictly close-quarters brawlers who relied entirely on eating bullets to close the distance, while the X-Men covered each other's blind spots.
None of that mattered to Peter.
He hit the surface of the Madripoor bay hard. The S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjet chassis groaned, snapped in half, and sank rapidly beneath the waves. Peter's calibrated strength was a total mess, but his basic motor functions were intact. He kicked toward the surface, gasping for air as he breached.
Hank McCoy waded through the surf, his massive hands grabbing Peter's harness and hauling him up onto the concrete dock. A few yards away, Cindy dragged a violently coughing Jubilee out of the water.
"Well, our air superiority is officially dashed," Hank grumbled, wringing seawater out of his blue fur.
Peter looked up. High above the docks, Bobby Drake was locked in a brutal dogfight with the original Human Torch. Plumes of hissing steam and shattered ice rained down onto the battlefield as the two elementals clashed. At least the living fireball was distracted.
Peter spat saltwater onto the concrete. "I have a terrible idea." He pointed at the bunker entrance. "Ajax is distracted. We sneak in, find the gene-editing device, I use it to fix my mutated DNA, and then I come back out here and actually help."
Hank stared at him. It was incredibly reckless. It was also completely logical. With both telepaths currently locked in a psychic duel, the board was momentarily stalled. Hank didn't know exactly how long the machine would take to recalibrate Peter's genome, but it beat standing on the sidelines.
"I accept this proposal," Hank said. He turned to Jubilee, his voice dropping into a stern, authoritative rumble. "Under one condition. I am the commanding officer. You step exactly where I step. Understood?"
Jubilee nodded quickly, shivering in her soaked yellow coat.
Hank pressed two fingers to his temple. He mentally projected a request to Emma Frost, asking her to cast a psychic blind spot over the four of them so they could bypass the Weapon X mercenaries.
They slipped through the mangled blast doors. The corridors were empty. Hank pulled a pair of tactical lenses from his utility belt, scanning the thermal layout. "This way." He found a heavy freight elevator leading deep underground and punched the descent button.
Deep in the underground levels, Nathaniel Essex sat in his command chair.
A proximity alarm flashed red on his console. Unauthorized access on elevator three. Intruders were bypassing the surface fight and heading straight for his primary laboratory. He scowled. His hand hovered over the lockdown sequence.
Suddenly, a blinding spike of pain jammed into his frontal lobe. Emma Frost had detected his countermeasure and was actively assaulting his psychic defenses to keep the elevator moving.
Essex paused for exactly one second. He weighed his priorities. Logan's genetic material was valuable, yes. But the vast reservoir of data stored inside the gene-editing mainframe was absolutely irreplaceable.
Essex sighed.
The concrete ceiling of the bunker groaned. Then, it violently ripped upward. Millions of tons of rebar, asphalt, and concrete shattered as massive telekinetic force obliterated the roof, exposing the laboratory to the sky.
The combatants on the surface froze, staring down into the massive crater.
Essex levitated out of the dust, stepping onto the empty air as if climbing an invisible staircase. He shook his head.
"I apologize," Essex called out, his voice echoing over the docks. "I was hoping to harvest your DNA individually. But your stragglers are threatening my primary equipment. I must accelerate the timetable."
He dragged a hand down his face. The muscular, bald "Ajax" disguise tore away like wet paper. His skin hardened into a chalky, corpse-like white. A glowing red diamond surfaced on his forehead. The white lab coat dissolved, reforming into a heavy, black gothic cape fringed with metallic armor.
Scott stared up, his jaw dropping. "Nathaniel Essex?! How are you still alive?!"
"Flesh is merely a temporary vessel for my work, Scott," Essex smiled. He raised a hand to block the glare of the sky. "It is a shame I had to breach the roof. I despise the sunlight. Oh well."
"X-Men—" Scott barked.
"You are nothing," Essex interrupted.
A cloud of indigo smoke imploded. Essex vanished. He reappeared instantly in front of Scott. Essex slammed his pale hand directly over Scott's visor. The ruby-red glow behind the quartz sputtered and died entirely. Scott gasped, stumbling backward. His powers were gone.
Logan lunged from the flank, claws extended. Essex didn't even look. He reached back and caught Logan by the throat, hoisting the Wolverine clean off the ground. Logan snarled, but the sound turned into a wet, agonizing cough. The skin around Logan's neck began to rapidly gray and rot. His healing factor was completely shut down.
"William Stryker had an intriguing little test subject named Leech," Essex noted conversationally, watching Logan choke. "The boy's mutation suppressed the X-genes of anyone nearby. It took me quite a while to splice his sequence into my own, ensuring I could project the dampening field without neutralizing my own abilities."
Essex tossed Logan aside like a broken toy. He flicked his wrist. Massive telekinetic force grabbed every mutant on the dock—X-Men and Weapon X alike—and violently dragged them into a heap at his feet.
"Ajax, what the hell?!" Wade yelled from the pile.
"The actual Ajax fled this facility weeks ago, Deadpool," Essex said, inspecting his fingernails. "I merely borrowed his face to access Stryker's hardware. You are all equally insignificant to me. Mere guinea pigs."
Essex willed it, and the modified death spores of Omega Red—another piece of genetic theft—vented from his pores. The invisible, highly toxic pheromones washed over the pile. With their healing factors and natural immunities suppressed by the Leech gene, the mutants dropped unconscious instantly.
Only Emma Frost remained. She stood fifty yards away, her skin shifted into flawless, indestructible diamond, using the dense physical form to anchor her mind against the psychic assault.
"And you, darling," Essex smiled.
Indigo smoke popped. Essex appeared directly behind her. The second she entered his dampening field, her diamond skin shattered back into soft, human flesh. Emma gasped, inhaling the death spores, and collapsed onto the concrete.
Essex stepped over her. He looked up at the flaming android hovering in the sky. "Torch. Guard my new specimens."
Essex turned, sinking back down into the crater. He had rats to exterminate in his laboratory.