The two new Horsemen of Apocalypse, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, laughed maniacally in the doorway to the control room. The X-Men and I stared at their unexpected arrival for a few moments before we were able to react. Deadpool was the first to gather his wits.

A spray of steaming hot lead flew from his twin Uzis, hurtling with deadly accuracy towards the two actor/mutant/Horsemen. Cruise, still laughing, pulled his lips back in an inhumanly large smile. His teeth quickly grew to five times their original, already humongous size and then an insanely bright white light flashed from them. All the bullets melted in mid-air.

Jean was the next to spring to action. She rose into the air and launched energy blasts at the two. At almost the same instant, Cyclops fired his optic beam at them. Pitt's smile also broadened. As his mouth widened, the fabric of space in front of him warped. When the energy beams passed through the warped space, they gathered up into a ball and started spinning very quickly. The fiery red balls rapidly grew in size and then hurtled back towards Scott and Jean.

Seeing his friends in mortal peril, Northstar hurled himself in front of the blasts. He let out a terrible screech of pain as he made himself into a human shield, saving the lives of Jean and Scott. Jean-Paul's charred, dead body dropped to the ground.

"They killed Northstar!" Scott said.

"You bastards!" yelled Jean.

Everyone but Gaia and myself charged at Cruise and Pitt. A ferocious battle ensued. As the fight raged on, Gaia focused her energies on Northstar. She covered him in a shimmering light. Slowly his charred flesh returned to normal. Focusing her energies delicately on his heart, she acted like a living defibrillator. Slowly, painfully, Jean-Paul lifted his head.

"Oh la la," he moaned. "Je suis ou?"

Just then Brad Pitt went flying over his head. When he crashed into the ground, he did not get up. Colossus ran up behind him to make sure he was out.

"You can be talking about zat fight club all you be wanting to," the large Russian said with a triumphant smile.

Then a high pitched girly scream filled the room. We all turned to see Selene standing behind Cruise, her hands on his temple, draining his life essence. I could see that he was trying to focus his strength for a counter attack. With his defenses momentarily down, I was able to launch a sharp mental attack, rendering him unconscious.

With the four Horsemen beaten, we charged on into the room where the prisoners were being held. We saw the giant containment unit housing. In the center, under a massive array of distributors, stood Apocalypse. The meters above the prisoners indicated that their life forces were almost completely drained. Apocalypse was three times his normal size and bristling with power. He turned slowly towards us.

"So Xavier, you wanted to know my ultimate goal? Now you do . . power!!" With that he unleashed for bolts of pure energy. They flew over our heads and zipped into the room we had just come from. We looked around confused for a moment until we saw the four, now freed and re-energized, Horsemen run up behind us. All of them were laughing insanely.