Nightcrawlers #1 (2023)

At the Sanctum Sanctorum, Vox Ignis looks for any remaining magical relics left on site. He is accosted by the Legion of the Night, a group of chimera assassins with Nightcrawler genes and teleportation abilities (including Wagnerine, Wallcrawler, Auntie Fortune and three other chimeras). Vox Ignis attempts the Scream of Change as a last-ditch effort to save himself, as the Scream has previously failed to affect any mutants affected by the Sinister X-Gene. He hits Wagnerine with the Scream and it works as she suddenly kills one of the Legion and encourages Vox to scream at as many of the others as he can to release them from Sinister's influence. He affects Wallcrawler and Auntie Fortune and they take out the remaining members of the Legion. Wagnerine asks Vox Ignis what higher purpose they serve. A page from Sinister's progress log from 9 years, 2 months, and 6 days since activation of Moira savepoint #7 documents his initial struggles with experimenting with Nightcrawler and other “morphically-maladjusted genotypes”. Sinister could not fix Nightcrawler's secondary mutation (his recently sprouted horns), nor could he get the Sinister-infected X-Gene to take hold. However, recently Sinister again attempted manipulating Nightcrawler's genes to perfect the teleportation trait and was successful, but he does not know what changed. On the Moon, Vox Ignis returns to Mother Righteous and they meet with Orbis Stellaris and Doctor Stasis. Mother Righteous tells them that ten years ago some X-Genes were “bewitched” and Sinister could not fix them, but through “spells, sacrifices, [and] deals” she was able to fix them . Stasis gets mad as he says Orchis was the source of the “hex” and it temporarily prevented Sinister from accessing the most dangerous mutant genetics. He accuses her of working for Sinister, but she removes her mask and reveals a heart on her forehead, indicating that she is the fourth Sinister “suit”. She then orders Vox Ignis to take out Stasis and he is soon joined by the three mentally freed Nightcrawler chimeras. Stasis manages to use various adaptations to fend them off, but eventually Wagnerine stabs him in the head with a Wolverine claw emerging from her prehensile tail. Orbis Stellaris congratulates Mother Righteous on a job well done and it becomes apparent that he wanted Stasis dead and that Mother Righteous took on the task in return for information. Mother Righteous knows that Stellaris has been busy working on a project and that something has been bothering Sinister and she suspects the two are related. It is then revealed that Orbis Stellaris is the one who stole Sinister's lab and his Moira engine . He did so to prevent Sinister from resetting the timeline and to prevent Doctor Stasis from accruing any power. Stellaris has been using the processing power of the World Farm to find a path to achieving Dominion status. He offers Mother Righteous safe passage through his Dominion if she stays out of his way and he departs. She directs Vox Ignis to gather new resources and new recruits. The Legion and Vox Ignis attempt to gather new recruits using Vox's scream and have success with a Colossus-Nightcrawler Chimera. In Westchester, they encounter Doctor Nemesis who looks over a sleeping original Nightcrawler, now transformed into a large beast. Vox Ignis notes that Mother Righteous dissolved the spell that transformed him a decade ago, but its effects persist. Resurrection could restore him, but Sinister now controls that realm. At Avengers Crater - where Avengers Mountain used to be - the Legion of the Night bring the relics they have found back to Mother Righteous. In return, she provides the group a “holy vision” of Sinister's stolen lab, which is encased in a black sphere. She tells the group that the Reliquary Perilous will “purge the Sinister strain from the heart of every mutant.” She then asks for a volunteer to attempt to breach the World Farm and Wallcrawler volunteers, as Sinister's X-gene is beginning to break through his will. His attempt to teleport into the sphere ends in his death and the reveal that the sphere has a teleportation barrier. Vox Ignis begins to protest the attempts to breach the sphere but Mother Righteous waves him off. She reinforces the mission of the group to continue gathering the “instruments of the Gods”.