Mister Sinister
At the same time when the mutants from the future were confronting Sherlock, another confrontation was happening inside Essex's home.
When Essex entered his home, he found his wife in a sorry state entering premature labor. And even though the woman was in pain, the disgust when she saw her husband could not be hidden on her face.
"Rebecca! Are you okay? Let's get you to a hospital first!" Just as Essex was about to hold her hands, Rebecca pulled it back.
"Don't touch me! I don't want to be touched with the filthy hands that dug up my dead son's grave and cut open his body for experiments." These words hit Essex like a series of bomb explosions.
'She knows! She saw! She knows!' His mind started to ring. But looking at his miserable wife he calmed down.
"I had to do it! I just wanted to bring him back. I wanted our family to be happy again. All the evil I committed was in order for our Adam to come back." Essex said pleadingly. "But you can admonish me however you want later, please let me take you to the hospital."
"No Nathaniel! You can't justify your own evils by blaming my son. It was all you! The sins are on you! Don't touch me!" She struggled against Essex even in her pain.
Seeing as how his wife already entered labor and he didn't have enough time to get them to the hospital, he thought of getting help from Apocalypse.
But before he could even leave the room, he heard her say, "I and my sons have nothing to do with you anymore. Everything you have done and everything you are is utterly contemptible and sinister!"
Even though his hurt was wrung in pain, he ran to his lab. He needed to get help. He quickly reached Apocalypse and pleaded, "I'll do everything for you. Just help my wife and child!"
Apocalypse looked down at the kneeling, sobbing Essex, and spoke, "They are already gone. It was your destiny to lose them and follow me. Now that all your shackles are undone, you can truly be reborn,"
"No! no! You are lying. They are alive." Essex didn't want to believe Apocalypse. But before he could speak more, Apocalypse warped him into Rebecca's room.
There they were, two lifeless bodies, one tiny child and Rebecca. "You are God. You can save them! Help them! Please!" Essex pleaded again.
"No. Even I can't go against the natural laws and resurrect the dead." Apocalypse replied in a flat tone.
Just then, he felt something. "Pests! Come now, the grief and pain you are feeling now will help you with the pain of transformation. The time is ripe." Apocalypse warped them from space to someplace else while saying so.
Right after Apocalypse left with Essex, a portal opened outside the Essex Home and three people rushed inside. But they only found the mother and child.
"Looks like premature birth. They haven't been gone for more than a minute, we can probably save them!" Jean said while immediately starting the emergency procedure. She was a doctor too.
"No Jean! We need to find Apocalypse first. We can't waste any more time." Scott denied Jean's idea.
Sherlock looked strangely at the pair and opened a portal, "Master! Patients and a portal." He spoke into the portal.
"I understand." The bald old woman came out of the other side of the portal and gently levitated the two patients towards the portal and called Jean inside too, "Those two will complete your mission, You're needed here, doctor!"
Both the mutants were startled by her presence, "Ancient One!" they yelled out with voices full of respect and awe.
Jean continued using her telepathic powers to perform emergency procedures while she followed into the portal. But Scott still spoke up, "Is he capable enough to deal with Apocalypse? I think Jean should leave them to the Ancient One and come with me!"
The Ancient One looked back, smiled, and spoke gently, "He is quite capable, I can assure you of that, I personally taught him after all. But our medicine might need some help from a doctor from the future."
Hearing this both the mutants couldn't hide their shock. They knew about the Sorcerer Supreme and the Ancient One from the future, and they understood what it meant to be a personal student of the Ancient One. They only knew of one student in the future, and he was very powerful.
Scott reluctantly agreed, and both he and Sherlock stayed back to find the traces of Apocalypse. Scott then said, "Wait for me to find the place Apocalypse teleported to, as he started to fiddle with a screen attached to his suit's arm."
Sherlock just shrugged and held the pocket watch in his hand with his eyes closed as he focused on the space fluctuations as far as his senses could go.
************
On what seemed to be a ruined spacecraft, Apocalypse and Essex appeared. "Still the same." A hint of nostalgia could be heard in Apocalypse's voice.
Essex was still muttering, "You could've saved him!" When Apocalypse threw him into a big vat of liquid and then started the transformation process.
"Hold on to that grief and pain you feel at their loss, or you might not survive the physical pain of being torn apart and rebuilt." Apocalypse spoke as he once again used the Celestial technology to rebuild Essex.
Slowly, Essex's whole body just started to dissolve into the liquid as he screamed uncontrollably. Bit by bit, every muscle, every bone, every cell in his body was being torn apart. And the only thing he could do was scream in pain.
Even when he was in such mind-numbing pain, his mind stayed active, playing the scenes of his lifeless wife and child's bodies and his wife's final words to him. "Sinister! Sinister! Contemptible and Sinister!"
After a while, which felt like a whole lifetime to Essex, his body began to reconstruct. With that, the images of his family began to be replaced by the two mutants and Apocalypse's fight from earlier. But still, the voice of his wife remained, "Sinister! Sinister! Contemptible and Sinister!"
When his body was fully formed, he heard Apocalypse speak again, "Now you have been reborn. You no longer have shackles of morality binding you. With your ageless body and perfect control over every molecule in your body, you will gain greater heights and fulfill the job as my horseman!"
"Your first task as my horseman is to create a plague that will destroy the humans sparing only our kind, the superior humans, us mutants!" Apocalypse's frenzied voice resounded in the room.
"Lord Apocalypse! I have cast away everything from my past. I will perfectly fulfill this duty you've given me, not as Essex, he is dead, I will be your horseman Sinister!"