The Danger Room in the X-Men's Australian base.

So this was what hell was like.

And it was beautiful.

Gaia thought this as she surveyed the scene before her. She was poised on the jagged lip of the hole she had made while Tartarus, the renegade Neo, stood hidden in the shadows behind her.

In front of Gaia, Bolt was flinging thunderbolt after thunderbolt at Cordelia Frost. She was in her astral form, but electricity could harm her, and she was desperately weaving in and out among the bolts. She would tire soon. One Gen-Xer down. Random, meanwhile, was locked in a wrestling match with Dragonwing. The Tomorrow Elite Squad should win that one, too.

In the middle of the room, the most carnage was being wreaked as the temporal manipulations of Tempo and the spells of Witchfire clashed with Hope's transmode constructions. Hope was powerful, Gaia had to admit, but even she couldn't stand up against two alpha-level prelates for long. Husk, the admantium-clad leader of Gen-X, was tough as well. But Gaia noted with satisfaction that she was prevented from coming to her team-mates' rescue by Spoilsport, who kept skating circles around her.

Gaia smiled. This battle was a clincher. Synch was the only real threat Gen-X had, and he was backed up against the wall, wavering between helping his team-mates or the Tomorrow Elite Squad.

"At this rate, we'll be back at Onslaught Island by sunrise," Gaia told Tartarus airily, "We two probably won't even have to fi--"

Her words were interrupted by three razor-sharp discs flying into her face. Reacting instantaneously, Gaia reached out with her telekinesis and tore the golden circles apart.

"There's more where that came from." This was said by a wiry boy, his face hidden by a white mask, clinging to the wall above Gaia.

The leader of the Tomorrow Elite Squad looked up at him in irritation. "Ricochet. I'd forgotten about you. But that's not going to change anything." She prepared to crush the Gen-Xer with telekinetic hands.

"Think again." Ricochet flipped away, and Gaia ended up smashing a large portion of the thick steel wall. The agile mutant bounded away upside-down across the ceiling, flinging away two more discs.

The next instant, Gaia realised that she had vastly underestimated Ricochet.

One of the discs slashed Bolt across the face, sending him crashing to the floor. He didn't rise. The other narrowly missed Spoilsport, and forced her to veer away from Husk. Taking advantage of this brief opening, Husk sprinted away from the red-haired prelate and towards Random. She didn't slow when she approached him, but simply dealt him a crushing blow across his neck. There was a loud snap, and Random was dead before he hit the floor.

Gaia was stunned. With a simple flick of his wrist, Ricochet had turned the tide of the entire battle. Now Hope, Husk, and Dragonwing were triumphantly overpowering Tempo and Witchfire. Spoilsport was trying to enter the fight, but Ricochet was repelling her with more discs.

Gaia felt Tartarus touch her arm, but she shook him off. "I'll take care of this," she snarled while the choker around her neck began to glow darkly. "You think you can defeat me, Malice, just by killing two of my warriors?"

The soul-possessing entity who inhabited Gaia reached out and seized the minds of two Gen-Xers.

"Think again."

(If you can't recall the details, re-read last issue - Benn)

If hell was real, this was what it would look like.

This was what Cordelia thought when Hope and Dragonwing suddenly froze, the former inches from crushing Tempo with a massive hammer of transmode. A second later, a tattoo of a face appeared on their necks.

"It's Malice!" Ricochet shouted, "She's possessed Hope and--Unnh!" He was cut off as Dragonwing plowed into him.

"No!" Husk turned to Hope. "Snap out of it, Hope!"

"You're just wasting your breath," Hope said in a strange voice. Cordelia recognised it as the voice of Gaia--or Malice. "You've already lost. You just don't realise it."

"Ah don't think so," Husk retorted, "Ah know from Bishop that you can't possess me 'cause mah admantium acts as a psionic barrier, and transmode can't hurt admantium."

"You're right, but transmode can hurt Hope." The possessed mutant turned her own transmode hammer around and brought it crashing down upon herself.

CRACK!

The hammer shattered around Husk, who had thrown herself between it and Hope at the last minute. Husk reeled slightly from the impact, but quickly spun around again just in time to see Hope bring a dagger of transmode to her throat.

"Dammit! Hope, you gotta take control!" The two girls struggled with each other, great coils of transmode writhing around them in an ironically beautiful spiral.

Across the room, at the same time, Ricochet was dodging Dragonwing's blows and fiery breath. But Tempo had joined the fight and was ready to entrap Ricochet in a slow-time field. If she succeeded, Ricochet would be at the mercy of his own team-mate.

Frantic, Cordelia swooped down to Synch. "You gotta help us, Synch!"

The African-American looked at Cordelia with tortured eyes. "I can't. I don't want to die. You have to understand."

"But Onslaught's killed millions! Even now, Hope and Ricochet could die. You'd trade all those lives for your own?"

Anger crept into Synch's eyes. "Would you?"

Cordelia jerked back as if she had been slapped. "I...I..."

*WHOOSH!*

A huge ball of crackling fire, summoned by Witchfire, roared over Synch and Cordelia. Synch ducked, but Cordelia was able to stand while the burning sphere passed through her intangible body. As a result, she was able to see perfectly what happened next.

The ball of fire crashed into the command centre, where Artie was. For a brief, burning instant, the child's pink face was illuminated in the window by the blaze. The expression on his face was one of surprise and resignation. Then he and everything else in the centre was incinerated.

"No!!!" Cordelia screamed.

Also seeing the destruction, Ricochet gasped, "Artie!" With this name, he sealed his own fate.

Taking advantage of Ricochet's moment of distraction, Tempo finally cast a slow-time field around him. Ricochet couldn't do anything as Dragonwing, with a massive scaly arm, backhanded him across the face. The masked mutant slammed into the solid steel wall and slumped to the floor. His featureless mask slipped off his face.

"Ricochet!" Cordelia flew to his side. For a moment, she thought Ricochet was dead. But then his chest rose as he sucked in air and he opened his eyes. Cordelia caught her breath. "You have beautiful eyes," she whispered.

"Guess the cat's out of the bag, huh?" Ricochet smiled, wincing slightly. Then his gaze slid past and through Cordelia. His grin immediately vanished.

Cordelia had no time to react before Spoilsport shot through her chest and slammed feet-first into Ricochet's chest at a hundred miles an hour. There was a sickening crack as every rib and major organ in Ricochet collapsed under Spoilsport's diamond-hard skates.

Cordelia felt the world drop out from beneath her. Spoilsport was casually pulling her feet out of the mess that was Ricochet's ruined chest. A bit of his heart stuck to one of her gleaming silver skates.

Still staring at that bit of heart, Cordelia slowly opened her mouth. "...I loved him."

Spoilsport cocked her head. "What?"

That bit of Ricochet's heart multiplied itself over and over in Cordelia's head until it filled her whole field of vision. It was the only thing she saw when she rose and stuck her left astral hand into Spoilsport's head, screaming, "I loved him!"

And then she pulled.

Spoilsport's eyes went wide and then lifeless as her very soul was ripped from her body and into oblivion. A small whoosh escaped her, and she collapsed to the floor like a dropped puppet.

Then followed silence. Absolute silence. Husk and Hope froze in mid-battle, their eyes riveted upon Cordelia. Even Gaia stared at the youngest Frost sister in disbelief. Cordelia herself, in turn, gazed at the two corpses at her feet and at her left hand. Only then did she realise that she had just killed a human being.

"Sister!" A cry from Dragonwing shattered the silence. Completely overthrowing Malice's control, he ran to Spoilsport and took her up in his arms. "Oh, sister. Oh, my sister..."

TSEEW! TSEEW! KA-BOOM!

The entire north wall--where Gaia was standing--was blown away by the laser blasts of a small, one-person Shi'ar skimmer. Inside the cockpit, screeching a war-cry, was Deathbird.

Everyone dove for cover, except for Dragonwing. Half-crazed with grief and rage, he lunged for the distracted Gaia, roaring, "You killed her! You and Onslaught killed my sister!" Gaia tried to throw up a shield, but it was too late. Dragonwing had ripped from her neck Malice's choker.

There was a fatal moment of pause while Deathbird half-landed, half-crashed into the south wall and Gaia stared into Dragonwing's eyes. Cordelia got the eerie feeling that the universe was trying to postpone the unthinkable, the inevitable conclusion.

But the conclusion had to come, and it did.

After more than two years of total oppression and enslavement by Malice, Gaia suddenly found herself liberated. The freedom was too much, and Gaia screamed as her reality-warping powers spiralled out of control.

The first casualties were Dragonwing and Tartarus, who were closest to Gaia. They vanished without a sound as twisting shards of alternate realities hit them. A titanic, booming wind rose up, sucking everything towards the transfigured Gaia.

"Aaaaaahhh!" Witchfire vainly tried to find a handhold on the floor as she was pulled towards the mini black hole. Her cry was abruptly cut off when a ribbon of antimatter cut her in half.

"We gotta find a way t'stop Gaia," Husk yelled over the roar. Cordelia noticed to her surprise that both she and Hope had crept to her position using transmodified handholds and Husk's superhuman strength. Not far from them, Tempo was clinging to a half-uprooted panel. "Ot'erwise, the black hole could grow and cover the entire planet."

"How?" Cordelia screamed back.

"Have Husk turn Gaia into transmode." The three girls turned to see Synch crouching behind them. "Her admantium should withstand the pressure, as long as she doesn't run into any antimatter or alternate realities."

"There's only one problem," Hope said as she ducked a flying steel beam, "I'm the one with the transmode, she's the one with the admantium. Your plan needs both."

"That's why I'm gonna synch your powers onto Husk."

There was a pause. "You can do that?" Husk asked.

"I have no idea, but it's our only option."

"What about your death in Bishop's reality?"

Synch sighed. "Gaia didn't show me just my death. She also showed me that someone loved me, and that I loved her back. I don't have that here. I can't. So the sacrifice, for me, is worth it."

Paige Guthrie looked at Everett Thomas with a new understanding. "Okay."

With a little salute, she released her handhold and fell in towards the maelstrom of conflicting realities. Synch closed his eyes and an aura of prism-like colours appeared around him, Hope, and Husk.

Cordelia watched anxiously as Husk descended deeper and deeper into the roiling black hole. After a few seconds, she spotted a particularly large window of antimatter hurtling along to Husk's right. Cordelia realised that the two would converge in mere seconds. "Look out!"

Husk noticed the shard of antimatter, but she was helpless to do anything. She could only fall closer and closer to her death. But then the fragment of antimatter stopped as if it had slammed into something, and Husk sailed past it safely.

"How...?" Cordelia looked around and saw Tempo, still hanging on to her post, holding her hand out with intense concentration on her face. The prelate noticed the Gen-Xer and gave her a small smile. Cordelia smiled back and turned to Husk again. She was only ten feet away from Gaia now.

But chasing down Husk purposefully was a black cloud. It was as if the cloud was sentient.

"Malice," Cordelia whispered. She couldn't let Malice possess Husk, and everyone else was busy. It was up to her.

She flew into the black hole, dodging chunks of alternate universes. The black cloud was right above Husk's head now. Putting on a last burst of speed, Cordelia reached the pair. The cloud suddenly resolved itself into an angry young woman, who now looked startled at Cordelia's arrival. She simply crashed into Malice and the two of them tumbled away from Husk.

"No!!!" Malice screamed with rage as Husk finally reached Gaia and laid her hands upon the tortured mutant. Cordelia was thinking that she heard a bit of fear in her voice as well, but she forgot that a second later when she did a 180-degree turn and found a shard of antimatter in her face.

After that, the universe went black.

Was this heaven or hell?

Cordelia thought this as she woke up in a small, fluorescent-lit metal room with a closed vault door. She held her left hand up to her face and realised that she was back in her real body.

Then the door opened and Husk burst in, followed closely by Hope, Synch, and Tempo. Cordelia pulled herself up onto her elbow. "Husk! What happened to you?"

Husk beamed, her skin blushing slightly, and tossed her long blond hair. "Ah guess the gravity of the black hole did t'mah admantium what everything else couldn't do. Mah shell split after ah touched Gaia and turned her into transmode. Once that happened, everyt'in returned t'normal."

"Or as normal as they'll ever be," Synch added, "We were worried that you'd died when you disappeared after that antimatter hit you. But then Hope had the idea to check down here to see if you'd returned to your real body."

A hologram of a smiley face suddenly appeared in front of Cordelia. "What the...Artie!?" she squealed when she saw the pink-skinned boy step out from behind Hope and embraced him. "How? I thought you'd died."

"He was hidden away in another vault with the Cerebro files all along. That Artie up there was just a hologram he made as a decoy," Husk explained.

"As long as he's alive. But Ricochet and Dragonwing..."

Husk bowed her head. Cordelia bit her lip. A few seconds passed before Deathbird entered. "I just got an urgent message from Cyclops--" The mentor of Gen-X stopped abruptly upon seeing Tempo. "What the hell is she doing here?"

"Um..." Tempo shifted from one foot to another. "I've decided that this is the side I want to be on. If you'll have me."

The Shi'ar woman narrowed her eyes, but Cordelia quickly put in, "I can vouch for her. If it wasn't for Tempo, we all probably wouldn't be here now."

With a wave of her hand, Deathbird settled the matter. "Fine, I don't have time to argue. Tempo could be useful in our upcoming mission, anyway. Cyclops just contacted me and we have to get to Egypt ASAP. So prep the transportation, we're leaving in two hours."

She turned to leave, but Husk asked, "Why're we going t'Egypt?"

Deathbird glared at her. "Don't you ever act first and ask questions later? And don't you dare ask me how I escaped the Shi'ar and got one of their jets to boot! Now let's get going. I want to see those feet move!" She swept out of the vault, followed by the Gen-Xers.

Cordelia was the second last to exit, and when she was in the doorway, Husk--who was right behind her--said almost to herself, "You know, when ah touched Gaia, she looked into mah eyes. And she said, 'Thank you.'"

Cordelia understood. "Maybe we should leave the transmode statue of Gaia in the Danger Room or somewhere special. To honor her."

Husk nodded. "That would work. And what about the other fallen Gen-Xers? How can we honour Ricochet and Dragonwing?"

"We fight," Cord