Lecture 2: The Twelve

Rogue: So it turns out that the volume Kitty found dealt a lot with The Twelve and Apocalypse's rise to power. Trouble was, Destiny herself didn't always know what she was seeing, and most of the book was in vague verse, in pictograms or in languages that Reenie herself didn't even speak, let alone all o'us. Here's a prime example of how confusin' this all was:


An example of Destiny's cryptic verse
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In hindsight, Ah can tell you this was a real baddie.

"Now this has been found, the future be bound" - That means that once Kitty found this volume, everything in it should come to pass.

"One rises, twelve are gathered upon his return" - Pretty obvious. Apocalypse comes back and gathers The Twelve.

"The spark has been lit, the fires now burn" - Ah think that just means ev'rythin' was about to hit the fan.

"All else has been prelude, warning and threat, determined occurence, no chance to forget" - Irene seems to imply that the upcomin' crisis was all part of a big plan, and more important than anything else we'd ever seen before.

"When time's on the brink and all people know fear, his power flows free, the end is near" - At the millennium, Apocalypse rose and it would herald the end of the world.

"With the thirteenth, awakened, the end is now here." - The 13th was Nate Grey, who was to serve as the host for Apocalpyse's energies. (Too bad only hindsight is 20/20, huh?)

"One falls as a hero, a sacrifice made, and two become one, both are betrayed" - This is a clear reference to Cyclops's taking Nate's place and joining with Apocalypse. Still not sure about that "betrayal" bit, though.

"The X's ask Y, but they die, still they die." - This one's pretty obvious, but thank goodness Irene was wrong on this one and we came through pretty much all right.


Notes on the Twelve and the fake Wolverine
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Anyway, at th' time, we didn't even know what The Twelve were, but the Prof was able to correlate some other entries to recent events, like the "death" of Wolverine and the revelation that he was really a Skrull. You can see here the scrawled A's (for Apocalypse) and 12's, and the word "Skull," which is for Skrull. 'Member, Reenie didn't know about no aliens back then.


More notes on the fake Wolverine
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Also notice the warning about the "treacherous claw from beyond (space aliens) and within (the real Wolvie, who was turned into Death III)." Plus "Death kills the one who is become death." Confusing, but true: Wolverine, as Death, killed the Skrull who took his place (is become death). Dang, but Reenie pegged that one. Too bad we didn't get it until too late.

Another note on The Twelve
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There were some other notations in these pages, like "the brothers from the East who will lead each other to salvation," referrin' to Colossus and Mikhail Rasputin, who (on the very date noted in the journal) were savin' each other from the entity that had possessed Mikhail. Weird.

Anyway, the Prof barely had time to figure out who the 12 were before it all hit the fan. Thankfully we beat ol' Pocy-lips, though it put Scott through the wringer somethin' fierce.


Destiny's notes on The Twelve and their foes
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Next: Revelations