It might not have been difficult to rip Nathan out of the picture, young and dumb and foolhardy, nowhere near the level of experience as his older predecessor, but there was no instance in this reality, this super human version of San Francisco as twisted by those using the Infinity Gems, where Nathan Summers would have been alone. That had been a ship long sailed when Apocalypse had been unable to find the young Summers child as he had been flung so far into the future by his father, protected as he was by Mother Askani and her clan, and as a teenager, so outspoken against the government that had been established by the fall of Apocalypse, had been led to a position of leadership with Clan Chosen.

Even when he was the closest he could be to alone, steadfast dedication given to the Mutant Messiah as he teleported her through time to escape those who stood to hurt the future of mutant kind, Nathan Summers was never alone.

Here, however, it wasn’t a clan that would follow him into battle against their greatest foes or a team of teenage mutants that, training under his leadership, had only improved in the growth of their powers and the necessary strategy that came with the conflicts they faced. It wasn’t the X-Men, honing his primary abilities in the safety of a celestial ship while dealing with the abhorrent manipulations of an equally much younger Apocalypse who had found and ultimately lost his horsemen, when there had been a distinct separation between father and step-mother and son. It wasn’t a would-be adopted daughter who, with others, would bring about a new future for all Krakoans allowed within the mutant-specific portals or a time traveling, reality warping sister who wouldn’t meet her end until Clan Askani had fallen.

It was his mother.

The clone.

The demon.

The Goblin Queen, long forgotten by the time Stryfe had come into his own and learned the very cruel reality of the situation he had been born into, placed in as nothing more than a clone, but in this place, she had been strong. It would have been easy for her to snip the strings he had been attempting to puppet, using the Mutant Liberation Army to stage an unfortunate Phoenix-fueled explosion with A.D.A.M. Unit Zero ensured Nathan’s return to the futuristic timeline he had once been shot to in his youth; using his credentials among the C.S.A., never mind the clandestine benefits of SPYRAL, to take his place amiss those who would be none the wiser to the imposition and use his connections to his own advantage; but Stryfe, aware of just who existed in this place, had been ready for that possibility and he had planned accordingly.

All he needed was the perfect trap.

Limbo wasn’t a place for many - for most - but Stryfe, in all his unpleasant familiarity with the dimensional expanse that had shifted so readily in recent years with the passing of the throne, the Soulsword with it, into something arguably distinguished with new powers and new influences, knew it was the feather in his cap and the connections he had made through unfortunate circumstance had been the ace up his sleeve - not just against one, not just against the Goblin Queen who took claim to the throne, but to anyone who might have followed; and there were plenty to follow, everyone chomping at the bit for a change in reign even if it only led to the same landscape of destruction, one power always vying to overthrow another to call the realm their own.

Not that Blackheart would have ever allowed Stryfe to believe that he was the one pulling the string, calling the shots, or benefiting solely from such dark magical influence, Blackheart a demonic power in his own right from realms beyond those of Limbo and the owner of his own at one point when it had been the cycle of life and death, the shuffle off the mortal coil for once in his life, and magics at work to keep him down.

Stryfe just had to ensure it wouldn’t be Madelyne leading the charge and under the politics of Limbo, with the trap laid as it had been in the rubble that had once been the apartment of Nathan Prior, it wouldn’t be.

“This is an awfully nice place you’ve made for yourself,” he said, nonchalant in his seat upon a throne that didn’t belong to him nor did he make a claim for, a centerpoint to the greater span of Limbo and those who lived among that would see, maybe just hear, this moment of weakness to see it as the opportunity to strike, “and some newcomers from the looks of it. I’ve got to say things have changed quite a bit since I was stuck here.”

There had been nothing said during the eventual assault, blood to the masses that waited at the gates for their time to pounce and their time to strike, to overthrow the hierarchy had it had been built in recent years, but he had kept his watch on the Goblin Queen and the struggle, valiant as it had been, to break binds. There had just been the familiar yet entirely foreign gaze of a son not quite her own beyond the same genetic makeup, the polar opposite of a son, once more, left unreachable in a distant future.

“But don’t worry, mom, he pointed out as he stood, looking over the encroaching demonic fleets with their sharp talons and gnashing teeth, taking forms that mirrored their primal urge for a destructive coup, “I’m just here for Dayspring.”