ASKANI - Present: Page 3 of 6

Last Updated: 
26th February 2002

ASKANI FUTURE                   ASKANI PRESENT

Introduction                                      Introduction
History                                                               
Chronology                                         Chronology
Characters                                           Characters
Issue List                                              Issue List
Time Travel Diagram
Questions

While Cable was away in the future, Stryfe plotted revenge against all those he held responsible for his miserable life. Posing as Cable, he assassinated Xavier, the heart of the X-teams, during a public speech. He also made a deal with Sinister, he offered to give Sinister a canister full of genetic samples from the Summers family line over the next two thousand years and in return simply asked for Sinister to produce Scott Summers and Jean Grey, upon whom he could heap his revenge. Sinister complied, disguising himself as Apocalypse and ordering Apocalypse's forces to kidnap the pair. When Apocalypse awakened he would be angered and would be drawn into the fray between Stryfe and Xavier's forces.

In Egypt, the Dark Riders woke Apocalypse before his regeneration was complete, as somebody was performing attacks in his name. A battle between Stryfe and the weak Apocalypse ended with Stryfe victorious, though Apocalypse could escape before being fully defeated. The conflict came to an apex at Apocalypse's old base on the Moon. Scott and Jean realized through Stryfe's less than subtle hints that he was their son sent into the future. Their long wondering about his fate now was over. By saving their son, they had turned him into a villain of immense power. Cable it seemed was an impure clone of Stryfe that needed bionic parts to survive. Cable and Stryfe struggled at the base's center. Wanting to put an end to Stryfe's madness once and for all, even though it meant his death, Cable activated a self-destruct and time-flux generator at the same time. He and Stryfe would be scattered through time, killing them both. When Sinister opened the canister, he did not find the wanted genetic samples, but accidentally released the airborne Legacy Virus into earth’s atmosphere. This was Stryfe’s final revenge. [X-Cutioner’s Song]

Cable somehow survived and was sent far ahead into the future. After a brief rest he would return to the Askani timeline to pick up Garrison Kane, whom he had left in the care of Clan Rebellion. Cable also learned that the Canaanites had rebuild their timetravel nexus and that it already had been used to send an agent named Sinsear back in time, presumably to hunt him down. Cable knew that they had to destroy the time nexus so that the Canaanites could not send more agents. Right after he and Kane used it to return to the present, his friends destroyed the device. Materializing in the Time-Displacement core, Cable found that the module was no longer located at his spacestation Graymalkin, but was lying on the ocean ground. While he was gone, SHIELD and X-Force had fought over Cable‘s technology and the station was severely damaged and crashed down to earth. Cable managed to provide the energy for one last bodyslide to his Swiss safehouse, but was now apparently stuck in the present. [Cable (1st series) #1-3] 

With Mr. Tolliver gone, several parties were after his will. His entire estate, property, weapons and all were up for grabs – the only problem was that nobody knew where this treasure was located. Among the people after the will were also Deadpool, Copycat, Commcast and Slayback. Deadpool and Copycat learned at the same time that the price was located in a monastry in Nepal, the most valuable piece among the treasures being a Unit Zero. Once they made it to the monastry, they found the white android among the other weapons, but they had been followed by Slayback and Garrison Kane, who was searching for Copycat, as he had feelings for her. The battle and gunfire activated Zero’s core programming, and Kane recognized that it was a so called Adam Unit from the Askani timeline. The Adam Units can absorb any and all energy signatures in the immediate area and are used as ultimate peacekeepers as they destroy all weapons of war. Zero ended the conflict as he rendered all guns useless and killed Slayback. He was about to kill Deadpool too, sensing his violent tendencies, but was puzzled when Deadpool explained that he needed to be alive for Copycat to absorb his healing factor, as she had received near fatal injuries. Confused Zero teleported away. [Deadpool (1st series) #3-4]

Around the same time, Sinsear was trying to locate a rogue agent that the Canaanites had sent back in time. He knew that this so called “Other“ had been in contact with Deadpool, but could find neither his target or the merc-with-a-mouth. Instead while scanning, he located the known cross-time rebel Cable. Sinsear had an old score to settle with him (he was originally a Canaanite soldier that got injured in battle by Cable), and knowing of a certain connection between Cable and the rogue agent he was hunting, Sinsear hoped that an attack on Cable would draw out the “Other“ wherever he was hiding. Sinsear teleported Cable into his complex and confronted him, but during the fight, Nathan managed to get through to the man behind the cybernetic body parts. Sinsear was no longer sure if attacking Cable was the right decision and teleported away. Left behind in the opponent’s base, Cable accessed his files and learned that Sinsear was not sent back in time to hunt him, but a rogue Canaanite agent #345, aka The Other, aka Mr. Tolliver. Quite a shocking discovery. For years he had assumed that Tolliver was a mere weapons dealer, but actually he was manipulated by somebody of his own era; and with the Canaanites sending somebody after Tolliver, he apparently must have survived their earlier battle. [Cable (1st series) #5]

A few weeks later, Zero was in the company of Tyler, who had actually been the man behind the Tolliver mask. Still trapped in the paradox that a weapon of war could be used for a good purpose, the android was easily influenced by him. Tyler was eager to get revenge on his father (for the incident with Dawnsilk in the Askani future, where Cable was in a no-win situation and severed the neurolink between Tyler and Dawnsilk, hoping to at least save one Clan member), and had met with Mr. Sinister knowing that he would serve his plans quite well.

Sinister confronted Cable and his partner Domino at the grave of Madelyne Pryor-Summers. Here Sinister gave Cable all of the answers he had been searching for. When all parties involved at the X-Cutioner's Song conflict learned of the lineage of Stryfe, they were taking Stryfe's word. Sinister now told Cable that they were all misinformed. The true son of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor was Cable. Stryfe was but a clone. Sinister further revealed to Cable that the arms dealer, Tolliver, who had given Cable so much trouble over the past several months was none of other than Cable's adopted son, Tyler.

However there was another surprise in store. While Stryfe's body had indeed been destroyed at the end of X-Cutioner’s Song, his consciousness managed to live on in Cable's mind. Sinister caused Stryfe's personality to emerge before he left. His reasons are not quite known, either to alert the X-Men of this problem or because he knew that Tyler meant to use him and now Stryfe was going after him.

The Askani Sisterhood sent back a second operative to warn Jean and Scott of the reappearance of Stryfe, but the woman was intercepted by Zero and Tyler, still she managed to send a telepathic warning to Jean. Using his empathic powers on Askani II, Tyler tried to find out the truth about Cable and Stryfe. From visually displaying her memories Tyler and Stryfe, who had tracked down the energy signature of the time traveler, learned that it was Stryfe who was the clone and not Cable. The knowledge was too much for Stryfe to handle and he refused to believe it, starting a fight with Tyler. Zero finally saw that they would cause unwanted destruction, so he teleported in Xavier, Cyclops, Jean and Domino. Together they convinced Stryfe of letting go, and with his consciousness expunged, Cable was himself again. In the confusion Tyler had escaped. [Cable (1st series) #6-8]

Soon Scott and Jean were getting married. It was the happiest day of Rachel’s life as this union meant that she could one day be born in this reality too. Upon returning to Muir Island, Excalibur discovered that their teammate Captain Britain was stuck in the timestream. To save him, Rachel had to trade places with him. She entered the timestream to a fate unknown. [X-Men (2nd series) #30, Excalibur #75]

Two thousand years later, Rachel emerged in the Askani future. Knowing Cable’s history she knew that it was now her destiny to found the Askani Sisterhood and at a certain time would have to send someone back in time to rescue her baby brother from Apocalypse’s techno-organic infection. Also she found that the little boy would need parents to raise him, so she prepared some host bodies for Scott and Jean and about 80 years after she had arrived in the future timeline, she transported the minds of the newlyweds to the future too. Scott and Jean spent twelve years in the future before returning to their honeymoon on St. Barts in the instant they had left. [Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1, X-Men (2nd series) #35]

 Yet on the way back, Sanctity arranged a little detour to the 19th century for them. There they witnessed how Apocalypse first met scientist Dr. Nathaniel Essex and turned him into Mr. Sinister. Scott and Jean’s interference made Sinister question his alliance with Apocalypse and Sanctity was quite happy. The wedge between the two villains ensured that Sinister would orchestra the birth of Nathan Dayspring as the ultimate weapon against Apocalypse in the first place. [Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4]

Zero found himself hunted by automated battle droids of Stryfe. They tried to destroy him for some secrets stored in his memory banks. Zero sent out a distress call and Douglock responded, the call had separated him from the Phalanx collective. Excalibur too was alerted through a precognitive vision of Britanic and when they arrived they helped Zero to fend of another wave of droids. Zero thought that the safest place to hide would be in plain sight, so he teleported them all to one of Stryfe’s bases, a few miles beneath the pentagon. Once there Zero discovered that the secret in his datafiles was the Legacy cure, but Stryfe had also rigged his body with a bomb. Shadowcat managed to phase it out, but then the base activated a self-destruct sequence. Zero managed to hold off the explosions while the others tried to escape. In a last minute attempt he download the file about the Legacy cure to Douglock’s memory banks, but unfortunately there was no time left to explain the meaning of the binary code. Zero was destroyed in the explosion. [Excalibur #77-80]

Tyler appeared again leading the Dark Riders under the alias Genesis. Cable and some of his friends encountered the group, but Cable ended up getting captured. He was placed in a strange machine and Tyler started draining his life energy, yet Caliban, Storm and Domino’s battle with the Dark Riders destroyed the device before the transfer was finished. Genesis and the Dark Riders teleported away as the lab and the machines exploded. [Cable (1st series) #18-19]

A short while later, Genesis tried to prove that he is superior to Sinister. He kidnapped a former love interest from Sinister from a nursing home, back around 1920 they had an affair, and Sinister had been visiting her every year in her old age. 

Genesis wanted to break Sinister by showing him that he still had emotion, especially love; and if he could feel love, Sinister certainly could not live with what he had done over the years. However despite Sinister still had feelings for the old woman, his facade didn’t show any expression and Genesis admitted that he did not manage to break Sinister, so he and the Dark Riders teleported away. [X-Men Annual ‘95] 

Around the same time, Cable seeked out a very old friend – Blaquesmith. Somehow his old mentor from the Askani future too traveled to the present, and he must have been living here for quite a few years, as Domino too remembered the guy from the Six Pack days. Cable asked Blaquesmith to help him locate Tyler, but Blaquesmith apparently had another agenda. He was very secretive and once he sent Cable to a specific location, he established mental contact with Rachel aka Mother Askani across time, promising to fulfill his duty. At the coordinates Blaquesmith had given, Cable did not find Tyler, but his wife Aliya, torn out of time and desperately needing help as the rebellion was not working well. 

Her lover, actually Cable’s younger self, was dying of a strange illness, and she needed Cable to inspire the rebellion again. In the meantime, Domino had followed another trail, but too did not find Tyler, but one of his victims. Cable’s insane adopted son had manipulated Grizzly, a close friend within the old mercenary group, and turned him into a serial killer. Grizzly remembered the crimes and could not live with his guilt, so he forced Domino into shooting him. Mentally guided by Mother Askani, Blaquesmith sent Aliya, Cable and Domino back to the future, and after helping in the good fight, Cable and Domino returned. Naturally fighting by his dead wife’s side once more touched Cable very deep. [Cable (1st series) #21, 23-25]

Only a short while later, Blaquesmith was attacked by an unseen opponent, who blew up his hideout. Cable searched through the rubble, but found no trace of his mentor. [Cable (1st series) #32-33]