Horseman Arc

PHASE 2

Horsemen Arc
Dates run:	July 6, 2023 - January 7, 2024
Run By:	Dex
Plots:	Behold A White Horse, Operation: Behold A Red Horse, X-Men Mission: Behold A Black Horse, Behold A Pale Horse

"I'm here for the city. It makes no difference how many pigeons or manhole covers it throws at me, I will wring the life from it. I'll bleed it dry. And since you insist, I'll start with you."

A series of devastating events across the world leads to a new enemy and an old friend.

Timing

July 6, 2023 - January 7, 2024

Arc Summary

When the city of Marsabit in Kenya fell off the map, the proximity of an A.I.M. base drew the attention of X-Force to the situation. It was just the beginning of a series of city deaths, which culminated in an attempt to use District X and its mutants to provide the final jolt of energy needed to bring back En-Sabeh-Nur. Also known as Apocalypse.

Arc Plots

Behold A White Horse: Marsabit in Kenya abruptly went dark, with no communication in or out. Concerned that it may have been caused by A.I.M., an X-Force team, along with Kitty Pryde, Angelo Espinosa and Jean Grey, investigated and instead discovered the city - and its inhabitants - were dead, killed by some kind of infection which turned corpses into violent zombies. They were able to escape with some CCTV footage and a witness, who spoke of a figure in white armor appearing just before the disease broke out.

Operation: Behold A Red Horse: The city of Jaca in Spain was the next target. When news of civilians attacking each other randomly leaked, those members of X-Force closest to the location were deployed to investigate, while the rest of the team (and Jessica Jones) set about putting the pieces together. A man in red armour whose appearance presaged the violence was identified as a former Marine who had been completely paralysed and had since disappeared from hospital; the contagion he had carried to Jaca was rage.

X-Men Mission: Behold A Black Horse: When Troy, Alabama went offline with reports of the inhabitants apparently starving to death, Darcy Lewis picked a team of X-Men to assist her in extracting one of Stacy X's people who was immune to the effect. This time contact was made, but not with the armoured individual responsible, but with Malice and her team of Marauders, who had been sent to retrieve the survivor for study. In the ensuing battle, Darcy was able to hold off Malice long enough for her to reveal that the Horsemen were part of Clan Akkaba's plan to summon Apocalypse to Earth, and that Death would be the final piece.

Behold A Pale Horse: With Malice's inadvertent reveal that mutant energy in high quantities was needed for the last ritual, X-Force set about looking for a potential target. An outdoor concert in support of mutants in Avignon was seeing Clan Akkaba activity, which led to a team of X-Men going to intercept Death. What they found was a deranged Deadpool, intent on murdering as many people as he could. They engaged him, but his souped up healing factor made things difficult. The arrival of the Marauders only made it worse. But in the end the team prevailed, although it took heavy casualties, but their victory was short-lived as they realised Deadpool had been a diversion and the real Death was targeting somewhere much closer to home: District X.

With brief forewarning, X-Force and a rag-tag group of mansionites undertook to evacuate and protect the mutant residents, push back the members of the FOH and Clan Akkaba who were seeking to kettle them inside the district and delay Death, whose identity was revealed as former X-Man, Marius Laverne.

Related Links

Bleeding

Clan Akkaba

X-Men Mission: Town Called Malice

Trivia and Meta

Trivia

Walks created two more plot posters for Behold A Pale Horse, which were used for advertising the posting of the logs:

Meta

Plotrunner: Dex