Part of the "X of Swords" event 
X-Men Vol 5 #14
Production
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I fight for it. And now it wants everything... so I want everything.
- -- Annihilation
Appearing in "X of Swords: Chapter 12"
Featured Characters:
- • --|A|-- • / Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur) (Main story and flashback)
- Annihilation (Main story and flashback) (Origin revealed)
Supporting Characters:
- Horsemen of Apocalypse (Only in flashback)
- Death (Only in flashback)
- War (Only in flashback)
- Famine (Only in flashback)
- Pestilence (Only in flashback)
- Isca the Unbeaten (Only in flashback)
Antagonists:
- Amenthi Daemons
- Summoners of Amenth (Only in flashback)
- Annihilation (Death) (Only in flashback)
Other Characters:
- Several unnamed mutants from Okkara
- Bracken (Only in flashback)
- Summoner (Only in flashback)
- Great Ring of Arakko (Only in flashback) (Unnamed)
- High Mutant Prophet Idyll (Only in flashback)
- Arakko (Only in flashback)
- White Sword (Only in flashback)
- One Hundred Champions (Only in flashback)
- Unnamed Dryadorian warriors (Only in flashback)
Races and Species:
- Mutants (Main story and flashback)
- Daemons (Only in flashback)
- Mutant-Demon Hybrids (Only in flashback)
- Krakoas (Only in flashback)
Locations:
- Otherworld (Main story and flashback)
- Starlight Citadel
- Dryador (Only in flashback)
- Prime Marvel Universe (Only in flashback)
- Amenth (Only in flashback)
- Arakko (Only in flashback)
- Ivory Spire (Only in flashback)
Items:
- Scarab (Main story and flashback)
- Twilight Sword (Main story and flashback)
- Mercy (Only in flashback)
Synopsis for "X of Swords: Chapter 12"
After learning that his wife Genesis has become one with their ancient enemy Annihilation, Apocalypse seeks a moment of peace before the beginning of the tournament. Genesis finds him, and offers to tell him what happened to her and the other mutants of Okkara. She tells him that after their war with the Amenthi hordes ended with the separation of Arakko and Krakoa, and with Genesis, their children, and the mutants of Okkara trapped in Amenth, a tenth of the mutants who were trapped immediately went mad, and fled into the wastelands surrounding Arakko. Believing they would face the Amenthi demons immediately, Genesis and the remaining mutants instead found the work of the White Sword, who had culled and weakened the horde enough to buy them time.
The mightiest of the mutants set about their work and constructed ten towers that would protect Arakko. When the Amenthi demons finally came, the towers destroyed them again and again. For thousands of years, the mutants lived inside the safety of the towers, and generations of mutants grew up within its walls. However, Genesis tells him that this made them ignorant of the true nature of Amenth. The mutant prophet Idyll warned the Arakkii of their coming defeat, but Genesis ignored her, and led an army of mutants to finally push beyond the safety of the towers, deep into Amenth. Two hundred years ago, the mutant army reached the Ivory Spire, stronghold of the White Sword, who was long since believed to have been lost. Every morning for millennia, the White Sword would use his mutant powers to resurrect his fallen soldiers, and ride out with them to cull the horde. This cycle had become religion to him, and driven him mad. He no longer saw any kinship with Genesis and her mutants, and killed scores of them, dealing them their first defeat.
Forced to retreat, Genesis and the remnants of her army returned to Arakko, where she found her sister, Isca the Unbeaten. Iscsa's mutant power, which made it impossible for her to lose, had compelled her to join the Amenthi, and she had come to invite Genesis to parley with Annihilation. Genesis agreed and travelled to the Amenthi capital, where she was terrified to learn that the scores of mutants that fled into the wilderness when Arakko was first trapped within Amenth had been captured by the demons and been forced to breed with them, creating a mighty hybrid warrior race. This was the birth of the Summoners and their dark magics. Annihilation offered a kind of peace, but Genesis rejected it and fought the Golden Helm, killing it. She quickly learned however that whoever defeats the helm claims the helm, and whoever wears it controls the land.
For one hundred years, despite being trapped in the Amenthi capital, Genesis refused to don the helm, causing the Amenthi horde to run completely rampant and consume everything in its wake or die trying. The horde began cracking Arakko's defenses, but still Genesis refused the helm, hoping that Apocalypse would finally return to them at the helm of a mutant army even mightier than the one that had first saved the Earth from the horde. Desperate, the greatest mutants and mages of Arakko conspired to open the breach sealing Amenth away once more, and opened a gateway to Dryador in Otherworld. Knowing that this cry for help meant Arakko would soon surrender, she finally placed the helm on her head and attempted to control it. She failed, and as a result, Annihilation won. It marched the Amenthi hordes into Arakko and forced the mutants to surrender. Since then, Genesis and all her people has been compelled to serve the helm and bring it what it desires; Krakoa.
Apocalypse tells her that she can fight it, but Genesis dismisses his words, telling him no one can. She tells him that while Arakko was forged in war and is fit and strong, Krakoa was made with soft hands and raised on a soft Earth. She departs, and tells him that she will soon see what both Krakoa and Apocalypse have to offer.
Solicit Synopsis
X OF SWORDS, CHAPTER 12.
The Lovers. A Garden. A chasm of secrets.
See Also
Footnotes
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