X-Force: X-Force Only Comm

Rather than send out a dozen e-mails, I'm going to catch everyone up here.

I talked to Pete a couple of days ago, and spent a little time in the files matching up the data. It's pretty clear that what happened to him and the other three was a combination of bad luck and bizarre consequence.

Prior to the attack, Pete had a meeting with a mutant calling himself Blaquesmith. He makes advanced technology; the kind of stuff that mucks around with physical laws and science as we know it. He had been a normal mutant until Apocalypse got to him, twisted his powers up to the nth degree, and in the process, made him look pretty inhuman. He wanted Pete to take Apocalypse all the way out. Betts, that meeting Pete mentioned wanting to follow up with us? That was this guy.

However, returning from the mansion during one of the X-Men's regular commutes, they got hit by a group of zealot mercs called the Dark Riders and Creed. Creed somehow hooked up with them after Manhattan, and it looks like the plan was to make it look like a Brotherhood attack, to send the X-Men looking for the wrong people, while the Dark Riders broke Apocalypse out of the SHIELD prison. Turns out all of us took the bait on that one.

This Blaquesmith was able to teleport them to some kind of complex, and basically decided that if Wisdom wanted the other three to live, he'd have to agree to devise a plan to take down Apocalypse, using them. You all saw the footage of that Guthrie kid's new wings; Blaquesmith makes that advanced technology at will. About the only silver lining is that he's not interested in going into business, and Pete says only he can put it all together, so we don't have to worry about anyone replicating or mass producing super soldier parts.

After they broke out Apocalypse, they went to ground in the Blue Area Mesa complex, to help him regain his strength and rebuild his forces while considering his next step. Looks like we surprised him, and Wisdom was already watching, waiting for the chance surprise Apocalypse with his special force. Once he was dead, Blaquesmith freed them all remotely, so we don't have a clue where he is.

Pete is still injured. In the first attack, he took a shot in the spine, and says Blaquesmith only fixed him enough to make him able to move. So he's stuck in a wheelchair for now, but otherwise is in good health. I talked to Moira at Muir, and she's pretty confident that with proper physical therapy, Pete could potentially gain back a lot of mobility. So he shouldn't be stuck in the chair for long. However, we're still down a man in this office, and I don't know when he's going to be back.

We need to start running down information on this Blaquesmith. I've already uploaded everything that I've gotten off Pete about what he let slip on his past, so we start there. I want a name and some possible pings on location, suppliers, contacts; anything that we can use to track this guy.

Nobody make plans tonight.

We just picked up an extremely ugly little rumour through one of our contacts in the West. Looks like Apocalypse is back in circulation, and has chosen a very concerning place to go to ground. According to our people, someone's been moving some of Apocalypse's assets we tagged in Africa into the US, specifically to a former US nuclear missile silo complex at Blue Area Mesa.

This place was decommissioned in the eighties, and sold about five years ago to some pacifist group out of California to convert into a commune. This is the bad part. We flagged this place ages ago when they started up.

It's a commune full of mutants. All of them are pretty minor in terms of power level, but with Apocalypse's power, who knows what's involved? I'm taking this over to the mansion. Marie-Ange, I want you to put together a team; stealth insertion, quick computer scan for prisoners, enough firepower to hold off defenders long enough to do what we have to do.

Hopefully the X-Men are spoiling for a fight.

Right, the office is up and running. Consider all the normal protocals in effect as usual.

The situation isn't good. Based on the reports from Adrienne Frost, Kyle Gibney, and the forensic teams at the scene, the car was hit by an explosive charge in the front, and everyone ambushed coming out of it. We know that Sabretooth led the attack, with a group of unidentified mutants, which likely means Magneto is on a recruitment drive for the Brotherhood.

It's also very unlikely that any of the people in the car survived. Unless they had a teleporter handy and a medical bay the level of Muir ready, the odds are very low that they lasted more than a few minutes past the injuries Frost saw inflicted on them. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but be prepared that this is probably not going to be a rescue plan when we find these batards.

The Brotherhood are now our top priority, but they are not our only priority. We still have a job to do, and we're not dropping everything for the sake of revenge. Each of you are still responsible for the network and the intelligence coming in. Anything on the Brotherhood, we expedite; consider yourself having a blank check and full latitude to follow up any leads. If Pete or any of the others are alive, we're going to find them. If not, none of the people responsible for this are going to get away alive.