ISSUE #58

House divided part 4 of 4.

Tokyo.

" This is the place Hodge mentioned. They should be inside." Noriko spoke.

" Telepathically I can tell there are many minds inside. But they are shielded like the terrorists in New York. I can't get much more than moods. They're scared and angry." Sophie explained to the group.

Jubilee and Sooraya stood up on a pair of boxes and looked inside the building.

" Yeah, there are a bunch of people inside." Sooraya spoke.

" A little light show would buy us enough time to get in there." Jubilee explained.

" Sooraya! Jubilee! Stay back! We don't know what we're walking into." David spoke up.

" Please! Like we couldn't take a bunch of baseline sapiens." Jubilee replied.

" Normally, I'd be the one advising swift and decisive action. But this isn't the time. My dad's in there and we came to avoid fighting." Noriko explained.

" Nori, walking in there might not be the best thing to do." David told the girl.

" He's my father, David. I can't kill my way in to see him." Noriko told the man. David let the girl go and just kept quiet. " Open it." Noriko ordered.

Jubilee placed her hands on the door and blew the lock off and opened the door.

" Excuse me." Noriko spoke in Japanese.

everyone in the room immediately turned and pointed their guns at the girl.

" Wait, please let me talk to Seiji Ashida. We're here to help." Noriko explained as she and the others walked in with their arms up.

" And why exactly should we trust you? You should not have come here, Mutants. We can't let you leave alive." Donald Pierce, Agent Pierce's cousin, said to the girl as he pointed his wrist blade at her neck. " My name is Donald Pierce... And you Homo Detritus, have reached an evolutionary dead end."

" Nori! Watch out!" David exclaimed.

" Wecametohelp!" Nori exclaimed as she dodged out of the way of Pierce's attack.

"We don't want your help! We want you dead!" Pierce exclaimed.

" Two can play at that game!" Cessily shouted. She turned her arm into a blade and stopped Pierce's attack with her own hand.

" Come and get it boys." Jubilee exclaimed. " Big fun for everybody." She raised her hands and set off a big explosion in the room, blasting away a bunch of men with ease.

The group all took their time taking down the men in the warehouse. Some like Cessily struggled, and others well...

" Drop your weapons." Sophie exclaimed. She used her powers to influence the men's minds and they all dropped their weapons. " Well, that worked. What now, David?" Sophie asked.

" Nori! Are you all, right?" David asked. He was more concerned with Nori's safety than trying to fight at the time.

" I'll be fine, I just. " Cough! Cough!" Haven't recovered from my run-in with SHIELD." Noriko told the boy.

" Sooraya, don't be too aggressive! We're not here to kill anyone!" David told the girl as she used her sand to attack a group of men.

" I... Ned to find my father." Noriko said breathlessly. She got up from her feet and started dashing around the building, looking for her father.

" Nori! wait!" David yelled. He looked around the room and then noticed something was off. " Hey, where's Laurie?" David asked.

Outside, Laurie had escaped to make a phone call.

" Dad, Notify SHIELD. I found the Human resistance." Laurie told the man.

Meanwhile everyone else, none to wise of the girl's true intent, continued fighting off the human terrorists while Noriko ran to find her father.

" Donald, listen to me!" Seiji exclaimed. " Hiroto watch your back! They're flanking you, non-lethal force only! Donald, I said stand down!" Seiji yelled over the radio as he watched the fight from his security terminal. " One of them is.... My daughter!" Seiji heard the sound of his office door bursting open and when he turned around it was none other than Noriko herself standing there in front of him. " Noriko, you've come- Ugh" Before Seiji could complete his sentence, Noriko punched him in the face.

" You're a terrorist now?! People have been sent to kill you! My people!" Noriko exclaimed. She then started coughing hoarsely once again.

" Nori-Chan?! What has happened to you?" Seiji asked. He jumped back to his feet and ran to his daughter's side, worried about her condition.

" I'm fine." Noriko replied. " You need to call off your men. We need to talk."

And that's what Seiji did. He and Noriko stepped out into the main hall and Seiji ordered his troops to stand down.

" We know about project Genesis." David spoke up.

" Then you know why we have no interest in talking with you." Pierce said back to the boy.

" Quiet Donald." Seiji told the man.

" If you know about Genesis, then you know why we've done the things we've done Nori." Seiji told his daughter.

" But you're going about it in the wrong way." Noriko told the man. " Random violence isn't going to solve the problem."

" We do what we must to make people aware. What other choice did we have?" Seiji asked. " There aren't a lot of other options for baselines like us." Seiji told the girl.

" Why don't you just attack genesis directly?" Noriko asked.

" Brilliant! Great idea! Do you honestly think a bunch of kids have thought of something we haven't yet?" Pierce asked. " We know where Genesis is. We just don't have a way inside yet."

" Then let us help you. We can find you a way in." David told the man.

" See, that's a really bad idea." Julian stated.

Everyone turned around and saw the Hellions all suddenly appear in the building, thanks to the teleporting powers Of Illyana Rasputin, AKA Magik who was believed to be dead as well.

" You guys are making a huge mistake and we're here to stop you." Julian exclaimed. He opened fire with a huge telekinetic wave, launching it right at Noriko. " I can't believe you're siding with terrorists now, Noriko." Julian exclaimed.

" We will end this, now." Sofia stated. She summoned forth a massive gust of wind that sent everyone flying.

" Do you guys know what Genesis is?" David asked. " How can you side with SHIELD on this?"

" We are SHIELD, race-traitor." Max shouted as he fired a volley of sharp quills at David

" Hey, no skewering the brain-man." Jubilee shouted. She stopped Max's quills with her explosions. " Besides, he's kind of cute."

" It's way too crowded in here." Illyana spoke. " I'll thin their numbers a bit." She spoke. She used her powers to teleport a group of people away, where? They don't know.

"You'retheonewhotookmyspotonthesquadright?" Noriko asked in a hurry. " The teleporter!" Noriko rushed up behind Illyana and placed her in a choke hold, pointing one of her fingers at Illyana's head. " My father knows where genesis is, and you're going to get us inside." Noriko told the woman.

Having had one of their own taken captive, the hellions stood down and Illyana teleported them all to the real Project genesis.

" Look closely, Mutants. This is Project Genesis." Seiji exclaimed.

When the group landed in the facility, they took a look around and immediately felt the entire building being rocked by explosions with alarms blaring.

" What is going on?" Noriko asked.

" I don't know!" Seiji replied. " The buildings under attack. But this isn't us." he explained.

" It doesn't matter. This is our chance." Pierce exclaimed.

" He's right. Look upon these halls. This is where Emperor Sunfire, on the advice of his SHIELD advisors, has decided to make baseline humans into mutants. To force evolution." Seiji explained.

The group looked around at all the caged and deformed people in shock and horror as Seiji explained what project genesis is.

" It does not matter how many mutations they put in one body. It doesn't matter if their bodies cannot handle it... If they die in the process. Why should they care if anyone dies? The test subjects are the poor of Tokyo. And then there are plenty of them to go around. Unwilling volunteers rounded up and sent to their deaths." Seiji spoke.

Almost every single member of the Hellions was visibly disturbed by what they saw and for those who weren't they had a good way of hiding it.

" Wake up and see reality for what it is mutants. See what your House of M has wrought." Seiji said to the group.

" This changes everything." Julian spoke.

" Does it?" Dani asked the boy.

" This isn't right. We're Homo Superior. We should be better than this." Julian told the woman.

" We don't have orders to shut down this operation or defy emperor Sunfire." Dani told the man. " We can lodge a protest. But we can't take action."

* Crash!

" URGH!" Emperor Sunfire came crashing through the roof of the building, being pushed by Ian and the two men burst through the walls back to the outside.

" Onslaught?! The Brotherhood is here. Hellions, we need to get outside and assist the emperor." Dani spoke

" No, Dani. This is more important. Let the Emperor handle his own business. Besides I think the action's here whether we want it or not." Julian told the woman. " Look, Protest isn't gonna cut it. We want to shut this place down? Now's the time."

" I stand with Julian." Sofia told the woman.

" You didn't know about this did you? None of you knew." David spoke.

" I'm scanning their minds right now, David. And none of them knew... Except for one. Laurie." Sophie told the man.

" URGGH! You people are all useless. First The New Mutants, Then Hellions, and now the Brotherhood. This was supposed to be simple. The New Mutants were supposed to lead me to the human resistance and the Hellions would take them out. But fine since this has become some kind of Sapien Loverfest! I'll just have to handle things my way." Laurie exclaimed, finally revealing her traitorous self to the others. " The Hellions now hate the New Mutants, and the New Mutants now hate the Hellions. And the terrorists hate you all. So, it's time you acted on it." Laurie spoke as she used her Pheromones to hypnotize the entire crowd of people gathered together. They all immediately began attacking each other in an attempt to kill their enemies. " Now, to deal with the Brotherhood." Laurie spoke. But she stopped when she saw Cessily still standing in front of her.

" Why are you doing this?" Cessily asked. " Laurie, it's me. I'm your roommate. Your friend. What's going on?" Cessily asked.

Laurie looked at the girl and smiled.

Meanwhile on the outside, The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were currently in a massive brawl with Emperor Sunfire's men and SHIELD.

" HAHAHA! Don't you know who I am?! I'm the Juggernaut! And nothing stops the Juggernaut!" Mark shouted as he ran through the SHIELD barricades, like a bull.

" We need help over here, Juggernauts breaking through the front lines." A shield agent shouted.

" I'm on it!" Thor replied. " Have at thee, mighty giant!" Thor shouted.

" Out of my way, blondie, the boss needs my help!" Juggernaut swatted Thor out of the way and continued on charging.

" Follow Marko, boys. Take the fight to these Yellow-skinned, wide-eyed bastards!" Pyro yelled. " You ready? Big man?"

" Yeah, I'm all set." Cage replied.

" Then Pull!" Pyro shouted.

Cage threw a massive truck towards the Shield agents and Pyro set it on fire When the truck landed it exploded, killing the men and women nearby without mercy.

" HAHA! BURN BITCHES! BURN!" Pyro yelled. Pyro and Cage continued raining down fiery devastation from afar, while the rest of the Brotherhood moved forward.

" Looks, like we're up." Bobby said to Goblin, Banshee, Firestar, and Sunspot. " Hey, where's Exodus?" Bobby asked.

" He went ahead with the boss. You know how he is." Sunspot told the man.

* Crash!

From afar the group could see a massive pillar of Telekinetic energy jutting out of the ground.

" NONE MAY TOUCH, EXODUS!" Exodus yelled. He used his energy to send an entire wave of SHIELD agents flying into the air with little effort at all.

" Think you're strong, Exodus? You don't know true power." The Human Torch said to the man. " I'll burn your eyes out."

" You think you can harm me child?! I will destroy this city, before I allow even one of you near my lord! HAVE AT THEE!" Exodus took to taking on the fantastic four alone and was doing quite well. Having already taken out Susan Storm, the deadliest of the group.

" See? He's doing just fine." Sunspot said to Bobby.

" Alright, then. Let's go!" Bobby yelled. He and the rest of the aerial fighters all took to the sky. Goblin rained down a barrage of pumpkin bombs, Banshee screamed, sending out waves of sound, FireStar started throwing massive balls of fire that exploded on contact, And Iceman rained down a hail of sharp ice blades.

" Heh The Areial team is taking all the fun. I expected more resistance than this though? Where's the rest of the heroes? The X-men? The Avengers? We're facing the second string!" Sabertooth snarled.

" Don't worry about them. We need to focus on the here and now." Iron fist told the man. " Once Juggernaut breaks through the final line, all hell is going to break lose and we'll be entering the fray. So, be focused."

* BOOM!

" There's the signal! Finally!" Sabertooth yelled. He was the first of the ground assault team to break rank and charge forward.

" Sabertooth wai- Oh for the love of... CHARGE!" Iron fist yelled.

The rest of the forces of the Brotherhood all charged forward together and engaged the forces of Japan and SHIELD.

Meanwhile Ian was busy fighting Sunfire.

" What happened, Sunfire? Not so tough without your back up dancers?" Ian asked the man.

" I bested you once before. I'll do it again." Sunfire replied.

" You attacked me when I was out with my family!" Ian yelled. " But this time, I see no Avengers. I see no X-men. And my right-hand man Exodus has taken down the fantastic four by himself. Juggernaut has removed Thor from the battlefield. Look around, you're all alone." Ian told the man. " The House of M will fall today. And you will die right along with it."

" Not today, little man!" Ares Shouted.

" Ares?! Trying to save your emperor?" Ian asked.

" Well, I always come prepared. SEND IN THE SENTINELS!" Ian shouted.

Spiral, who was nearby, heard the order and then summoned Bastion and Nimrod both to the battlefield. The two machines swarmed Ares.

" Gah, Hiding behind Machines now, Onslaught?!" Ares asked.

In the moment he turned his back to Onslaught, to fight the machines, Onslaught rushed him and punched his fist through Ares back.

" NO! NEVER!" Ian declared. He placed his hand on Ares back and tore the man in half, causing blood to splatter everywhere.

" DEATH TO M!" Ian exclaimed.