Twisted metal, what had been left, yet to be scavenged, marked the borders of a long lost haven.

Rubble, crushed bricks, covered in dust, layed out for all to see, what had come of ideals and idealists, and all that they built.

Crudely nailed planks, engraved, burned, rebuilt, defaced, marked the final resting place of many friends, lives lost in the fires of war.

Footprints, paths trodden deep into dirt, of mourners on long abandoned vigils, looters of supplies that were taken an age ago, of vandals and hoodlums bored, or dead, it mattered little.

Dust clouds rolled out from booted feet, carried away on zephyrs, to settle later on some piece of rubble, perhaps the motionless body of a wanderer who life had escaped.

Carefully timed footfalls, masked from prying ears by the groans and creaks of old timbers, treading cautiously through the debris. In the centre, a green, flowered field, fake, of course, surrounded wooden grave markers.

A solitary form knelt by the graves, dropping a single piece of folded newspaper to the ground, abandoning the last of his past he could afford to, letting go of what had become his home, and accepting his fate at last.

The explosion had rocked him. He had watched it, like an expanding forcefield, flinging dust, rubble, cars, everything in its path. He had a second or less before it hit by the time he found some cover. The wall of the mansion held, barely. It spared him what it did not spare others. He heard the screams, he saw some of it, kids, adults, people he knew, people he didn't. Some of the sheltered had gotten lucky, walls holding, rubble missing, mutations holding firm against the onslaught. Others weren't so lucky. The dead and injured made up a majority of the mansion's population.

It passed. Cafas sprung into action. Training, honour, instinct, all pushed him to help those he could. He knew it was coming. It didn't take a genius. People would blame mutants. Mutants lived in the mansion. He got who he could on their feet. Dragged some from their friends bodies. Dragged himself from his. They got things together, those that would listen. Rooms were cleared, others were doing the same. Bags were packed, some supplies stocked, long unused passages opened. He sent people through, not knowing if he'd see any of them again. Scared, injured, crying, they made their ways down the passage. Escorts for the young and old.

Not Cafas. He'd never liked running. He prepared. His bags were packed, his room was ordered, he was ready to go if he was forced to, but he would not leave his home for fear of some angry humans. Not again. He stood on the lawn, sent those outside into the mansion, told them to prepare. If they did or not was another matter. Some would, some wouldn't. Some insisted they would stay and fight. A certain ass shifter was told to run. A certain ass shifter refused. Cafas looked him dead in the eyes. He knew he had as much chance of convincing that shifter of running as that shifter had of convincing him. They stood together, those that could, or would, those that didn't do the smart thing and run.

It took an hour, perhaps less. The gates had been smashed, there was no fortifying them. Cars, bikes, buses, the sheer volume of loaded vehicles that pulled up at the gates was scary. It had taken seconds. Shots rang out. People fell. No quarter was offered to them. They would offer none in return. Fireballs flew past Cafas, erupting among the mob. Their guns malfunctioned, mutants were evening the score. They all knew it was coming down to a melee. The mob charged.

Cafas held his ground. Others fled. The humans were armed. So were the mutants. Cafas drew his sword from its scabbard. Someone swung at him with a bat. The bat melted, and Cafas dispatched its wielder. The fight was bloody. In the end the sheer numbers being pushed against them forced the mutant into the mansion. Some held their ground outside. Cafas never saw them again. Inside he saw Maya, bow drawn, arrows flying. He knew people were in the danger room. They would protect it. He could see the diversion.

"Maya, we can't hold them!" A thrust had dispatched the latest person to try to get inside. They were routed. Cafas forced the doors closed. Someone braced them. It was a matter of time. They gathered, a final stand. The wood shattered. People piled in. Cafas did his best. He was forced upstairs, they took the bait, pushing for the bedrooms.

He saw Maya run out of arrows, run out right into some guy's eye. It saved his life, the blow being swung should have connected and killed Cafas. He never got the chance to return the favour...

"NO!" Watching an X-man die was the final straw. "WE CAN'T HOLD THEM! FALL BACK! RUN!" What was left of their party fell back. Cafas waited. His sword was more red than it was grey, his fists were raw, bleeding, he was broken, but he fought for those last few people with a passion that burned hot. Mirror had been his friend. The ass shifter had been... well, he'd been brave.

He couldn't stop them all though. In the end, he had to run. The passage was just beyond the corner up ahead. His bag was right next to it. He just had to beat them to it. They could never find it, if they did, everything was lost. Below he saw people from the danger room run outside, the whole of the mob now jammed at the top of the stairs. It was done, he ran.

Cafas skidded around that corner on the balls of his feet. He had seconds, provided by some well placed fireballs, he grabbed his bag, hauled his saviour through the opening, and slammed it shut. He looked to his shield. "Goodbye my friend, you save my life one more time." He pushed his shield into the door of the passage, melted parts, shaped others, welded the entrance shut. It would never open again.

His eyes turned down the passage. Just ahead the fireballer looked back. "No matter what happens from here, survive. Survive for them, that their memories can live on in us. Now lets catch up with the others."

He didn't know when he'd lost them, or where, or how long it had been. They had traipsed on in silence for so long, in the dark, footfalls muffled by someone in the group. He'd been the rear guard, he'd been on watch, and he'd been watching intently. Every few steps he'd check behind them, irregularly, so no one could abuse a pattern. He thought he'd seen something, he paused. when footfalls are silent, and you forget to call the halt, people don't notice.

Silence. Friend. Foe. Impartial. Complete.

He didn't know where they went, he couldn't track them, he couldn't hear them, he had as much chance of finding them as the people they had been trying to avoid. Still he searched. Hours? A Day? Hard to tell through the dust. He had to stop though. He stopped when he could search no more, when the radius was too large and the targets leaving no trail.

Alone. Utterly. Dismally. Alone.

Dust coated the blood on his sword. It would be rusting underneath the blood. He should have wiped it off. He just didn't have time. A piece of newspaper floated past. He grabbed it, used it as an abrasive. Yep. Rust. The streets were deserted. His only company were the dead. Corpses were everywhere. Everyone was hiding, or looting. It depended on their disposition he supposed.

Disaster. Catastrophe. Despair. Hope.

No rescue would be coming, at least, not soon. The X-men had discussed this. They knew the minute the first nuke was launched they had hours, maybe less, to stop it. They knew the result. Curled up between a wall and some rubble, sheltered from view, Cafas knew where this was going. The fingers would already have been pointed. The launch-codes would be entered, the preemptive strikes for some, retaliatory for others. The world was about to go thermonuclear. There was no stopping it now. Even as he sat there, looking through a gap in his debris ceiling, a streak of orange penetrated the dust layer. It was climbing, travelling fast. Had to be rocket fuel. The sound that followed confirmed it.

Apocalypse. Humanity. Lost. Fragile. Resilient.

Cafas hugged his legs to his body. It was cold. He couldn't tell if it was day or night. He may have cried. The first tears he had allowed himself. For Mirror, for the Mansion kids, for the end of the world, for the ass... No, for Bryan. Bryan Murphy. Who fought and died for the good of others, ho died not an ass, but a hero. Mostly though, he cried for the realisation that the world he knew was gone, and that despite everything, he'd have liked to have seen his parents one last time. To forgive them, before the world collapsed. He looked back on the path that had brought him to the point he was at. He looked at it, and cried for every person it had touched.

Hopeless. Dead. Missed. Loved. Calley.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The end had come swiftly for some. For Cafas, it dragged on.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Cafas could hear the sounds of struggle, running feet, sobs and gasps.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

The collapse had come faster than expected, society decimated by the explosion, as if the very concept had taken physical form, to be shattered by the blast.

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

He moved out of the partially caved in store, to the window he'd climbed in through. There the evidence was before him. Three on one. Hardly fair.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

She tripped. He stepped forward, yet unseen through blood lust... Among other things.

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

They caught her, held her, jeered and taunted, one struck her, another started to force her down.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

One called. He had been seen. They stood uncertain, but continued, threatening him with violence. Cafas thought he spotted fangs, talons, constructs appearing from thin air. Mutants. He fought for their rights and freedom every day of his life before.

Are full of passionate intensity.

But that had been months ago. Today he would fight for hers. For when others would ignore the screams and pleas, he would not. That was his promise. He would fight for those who could not, until every last breath escaped him.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Cafas had never been a religious man, at least not for any of the formal religions he had been offered in his life.

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

They had all predicted the apocalypse, the end of man, they all had some explanation. He dismissed them.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

But he had the hallmarks of the religious man. Passionate in his beliefs, held faith in the unseen, stood by his morals, even if they got him killed.

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

None of the religions offered tolerated his morals, his beliefs, but, in the end, a religious man he was. He knew, when it came to it, he would pray to some higher power. Those who truly do not believe, do not pray.

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

Cafas had prayed. He had prayed in a hospital, and he had prayed in the arid, dry landscape of a decimated New York.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

He prayed because he could do nothing else. He was answered, whether by a God or by his own mind, an epiphany came to him.

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

That the injustice he witnessed, that the sad state of the new world he looked at, were things he was honour bound to set right, because others would not.

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

They again warned him. They were scared, their show of strength had not phased him. He'd fought worse. He would not warn them. They could see well enough what was coming.

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

somewhere nearby, rubble fell. Rubble did not fall on its own often. Scavengers, looking for easy pickings, as bad as the trio before him, just not as strong.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

Perhaps they accepted the inevitability of their fate, perhaps they simply felt the wrath of justice was well earned, but the did not flee.

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

He knew this had been dormant in him for his whole life, this feeling, this calling.

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

That it had turned, not trusting prisons, not trusting the system, not trusting in the strength of walls or power of rehabilitation.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Criminals were criminals. They crossed a certain line, and there was no going back. They lost their morals, they forfeited their right to that which they would take from others.

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And with swift blade and utter conviction, he donned a mask, so familiar, and yet somehow, twisted. No longer was he to be justice's seeker. Now. He would be her Executioner.