X-Men ’97 – S02E04 – Rise of Apocalypse: Part 2 – Transcript

X-Men ’97
Season 2 – Episode 4
Episode title: Rise of Apocalypse: Part 2
Original release date: July 8, 2026

Plot: Part 2 : Magneto protects the X-Men from the blast, but Nur survives as well. Xavier is able to convince Nur to work together again by revealing their identities. They work together to search for the ancient temple. Rama-Tut warns Xavier telepathically about the ramifications of Nur finding the temple before him. Nonetheless, the group reaches the temple, revealed to house the fallen Celestial Eson in the Ship that would later be Apocalypse’s weapon. The inscriptions of the temple reveal Nur’s future, and he turns on the X-Men to acquire the Celestial technology. The X-Men fight Nur, but fail to stop him from becoming one with the technology and becoming Apocalypse. Magneto takes the blame and sends them back to the future, but Apocalypse stops Xavier from leaving. While Rama-Tut, revealing himself to be Kang the Conqueror, escapes to the future, Apocalypse launches a black hole at the city. Magneto manages to repel Apocalypse and stop the destruction of the city, but is gravely injured in the process. Apocalypse taunts Xavier as he vaporizes Magneto from behind, but chooses to spare Xavier. Bishop returns and retrieves a grieving Xavier. In the 90s, Captain America and Black Widow deliver Wolverine a file on Weapon X.

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Transcript

Note for Students & Writers: This transcript is archived here for educational purposes, critical analysis, and screenwriting study. All rights belong to the original creators.

[evil laugh]

[En Sabah Nur yells]

[snarls]

[breathes heavily]

I could only save us few.

[Bishop] Tick-tock, y’all.

[Magneto] Bishop, stay your hand.

Not yet.

[Bishop] How about now?

Charles?

His mind. There’s too much rage.

Nur, there has been enough death this day.

Let us explain, please!

Magnus.

You are a prophet of lies!

He has told you the truth, just not all of it.

We are lost travelers.

But we are not from here.

Just give me a chance to explain when we come from.

You survived the Pharaoh’s attack.

Such strength merits the chance to say your piece.

But know this.

If your truth falters, my blade will not.

[Bishop] How’d I get stuck playing chaperone to a bunch of martyrs who tried using the worst mutant ever to rewrite the whole damn timeline?

[Nightcrawler] To be clear, not all present here were on board with Magneto’s plan.

A point made often and to no end.

Tell me, Bishop, the dire situation you’ve outlined for us in the ’90s, would my plan not rectify matters?

You yourself have traveled back in time and done similar to save your own future.

This is me doing the same.

Erik’s intentions may be noble, but he is tampering with variables none of us can fully understand.

Bishop’s time-bands give us a way to return home.

We should take it.

This isn’t just about us anymore.

It has the potential to be about everyone still to come.

And everyone we’ve lost.

You think of Remy and of undoing his fate.

I’m as skeptical as any of ya.

But if your plan works, Erik, Nur could pave a way to a future where everyone in Genosha survived.

Thank you, Rogue.

Democracy may be a few thousand years away, but perhaps we take a vote.

Who would like to return to our time?

[grunts]

[Nightcrawler gasps] [in German] Mein Gott!

What have you done?

[Magneto] I voted. [Bishop] You madman.

You just stranded us! [Magneto] So dramatic.

Charles suspects the lost Temple the Pharaoh seeks also contains the power necessary to repair your time-band.

It will get us home, once we’ve helped set Nur on the proper path.

You all are from the future?

Five thousand years from now.

A time when mutants are not a rarity like you.

But a people, thousands strong across the entire world.

That symbol you hold, it belongs to our team, the X-Men.

It is a promise of a future where young mutants work together, learning to use their powers to build a better world.

Mutants much like yourself.

My quest to free Egypt has failed, my people killed.

There is no better world.

No grand future to dream of beyond my own survival.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps we can help rebuild the world that the Pharaoh has taken from you.

General Logos spoke of a lost temple of great cosmic power.

A power I now sense… may be calling to you.

What would you have me do?

A psychic probe can cause discomfort.

Do your best to relax.

Pain calms me.

[crying]

[auctioneer] Step forward! Strong back, strong shoulders.

Where shall we start the bidding?

Do not mind the color of him.

Look at the eyes.

[En Sabah Nur grunts]

[grunts]

[crowd cheering]

[Eson] Come.

Come be eternal.

Eternal.

That constellation.

I saw it in the mind of Rama-Tut’s general.

But larger.

Directly above the Temple’s hidden location.

The Gardener’s Gaze in the southwestern sky.

I can follow the stars across the desert to bring us there.

Like I said, Nur is our path home.

To a new and brighter future we will build together.

[dramatic music playing]

Hold! Hold!

Let’s camp for the night and steal some rest.

Who knows what dangers await in that cursed temple.

[En Sabah Nur] Cannot sleep?

I never can either.

Just hard to believe, is all.

That we might finally be able to punch our ticket home.

And yet you do not seem glad.

What is awaiting you there?

It’s more about what’s not waiting for me.

Someone I lost.

Someone special.

What about you? You ever been in love?

My mother abandoned me in the desert as an infant.

And ever since, everyone I have ever known, I’ve lost.

Love is pain.

A weakness I cannot afford.

[Rogue] And the only thing that makes life worth living.

[sighs] And there’s the rub.

I do hope you get to experience it one day.

For all our sakes.

Hmm…

Charles.

Hello, Charles. Wakey-wakey.

Do you want to know the secrets of the Temple?

[gasps] I can tell you.

[mischievous voice] I know, I know, I know! But it’ll be exciting!

[assertive voice] You peddle a dangerous history.

Who or what are you?

[mischievous voice] Oh! [chuckling]

He’s going to be so surprised!

[assertive voice] Surprise is irrelevant.

Answer me!

[Rama-Tut] Charles Francis Xavier.

Founder of the X-Men.

Patron saint of peace.

Rama-Tut, I presume.

I have so many names.

Nathaniel, Victor, Kang.

Finding oneself can get addicting.

Who am I? Who was I?

Where do “I” end and “me” begin?

[mischievous voice] Watch! He’s not going to get it.

[assertive voice] Give him a chance.

Those other voices are you?

Echoes of who I was and who I could be.

This place blurs many lines.

It is an axis around which the past, present and future all dance.

[Professor X] And yet you chose to come to En Sabah Nur’s time and enslave his people.

Why?

Unless you believed he could be stopped.

There is a chance, if I were able to acquire the celestial power inside that Temple.

And no doubt ensure your conquest across this time and any other you choose.

A+, Charles!

I see the mind of the Professor lives up to the legend.

[Professor X] Magnus believes Nur can be turned.

And I will not betray Magnus.

Then you shall see for yourself. You cannot stop him.

You never stop him.

[screams]

[pants]

[Beast] There are trace levels of gamma particles.

Were I to improvise a calculation using the radiation’s known half-life, I’d say this rock was melted well over 10 millennia ago.

When a god fell from the skies.

[Beast] So alien. And yet, familiar somehow.

Those eyes.

It’s the Gardener’s Gaze.

The same constellation that led us here.

Dang things give me the heebie-jeebies.

[Beast] Ah-ha!

I’m picking up energy signatures of a celestial origin.

I’ve encountered something similar before.

It could be just the kind of power we need.

Which way?

It appears the energy is shorting out my scanner.

A lot of power. That sounds promising.

We must split up to find the source before the Pharaoh’s reinforcements arrive.

I prefer the company of Charles.

You may make amends for your lies by at least honoring your word to help your friends home.

As you wish.

I’m with the Professor.

Hope you don’t mind my company, En Sabah Nur.

[Rogue] Anyone else gettin’ a weird sense of… déjà vu?

[Beast] This computer bank.

These glyphs.

Oh, my heavens!

It’s not déjà vu, Rogue.

We’ve been here before.

Not in this time but in ours.

This is no temple, but the mighty spacecraft Ship, designed by creatures from across the stars.

[Ship] Greetings, traveler.

Oh, dear. What’s wrong?

In our time, this vessel was a weapon of Apocalypse.

[tense music playing]

Sort of seems like you know where you’re going.

It almost feels like I do.

As if drawn by greater forces.

I don’t… I don’t understand.

[Professor X] Magnus, you need to get here now!

[En Sabah Nur] This is me.

And you.

[Eson] Come be eternal.

[Professor X] Nur knows everything.

My future, it’s all here.

You knew what I was to become and you tried to take it from me.

Please, let me explain.

With more lies?

This is why you came to me.

Not to help me, but to stop me.

From becoming a monster you do not wish to be.

From becoming who I was meant to be.

Don’t take another step.

[blaster powers up]

[Professor X] Bishop, no!

Nur, this is not you.

You tried your best, Professor, to mold me into your X-Man.

But you said my destiny is my choice.

And I have made it. [groans]

[En Sabah Nur laughs wickedly]

Because I always have been the fittest to survive.

Nur, please, resist whatever dark force called you here.

Mutants share a destiny to help the world move beyond our darkest fears.

That is your destiny.

Mine is to evolve, so I will never be powerless again.

[Rogue] Heard that one before.

[both grunt]

We were so wrong, Magnus.

Still, he is not yet the unbeatable foe of our time.

[grunts]

[grunts]

X-Men, he must not enter that shrine.

[yells, groans]

Ah!

[groans]

I shall ascend.

[Eson] All creation is forged through destruction, the end bringing forth the beginning, the beginning returning to the end.

You will be the end of things, En Sabah Nur.

Armies will dream of your demise, curse you, fear you.

But all creation must crash against the Eternal Shore in order to thrive and grow.

If you can endure it, then say the words.

[En Sabah Nur] I am the rocks of the Eternal Shore.

Crash against me and be broken!

Well, that don’t sound too good.

Then might I suggest we make haste.

I was able to use pieces from Ship to repair the time-bands.

About friggin’ time. [Rogue] Now, hold on.

We just rolled out the welcome mat for Nur to become the deadliest can of worms the X-Men ever opened.

We gotta stomp him out!

Am I the only sane person in this loony bin?

Y’all made a mess enough helping Nur get here.

A mess we were destined to make.

As we may be destined to contain it.

Exactly, Hank.

Our role here may not be finished.

Put on the damn tags, or I will drag your riddle-lovin’ butts back to the future.

No need to be a villain, Bishop.

Not when you have me.

Damn it, Erik, don’t do this!

I made this mess.

You X-Men will not sacrifice your lives in order to clean it.

Not for me. Not again.

Stop this! Let us help!

You are helping.

Helping me honor my word when I told you…

I would bring you home, old friend.

[groans]

[dramatic music playing]

Now who is the god and who is the insect?

Bring me to the seat of Rama-Tut’s kingdom.

He shall be the first to taste my fury.

[Ship] As you command.

[Magneto] Please listen to me.

I too once thought violence could heal the world.

It cannot.

Violence can usher in a new age.

Forged of iron and blood.

An age free of weakness and victims.

That age begins now.

You will do no such thing.

[screams]

Charles, careful!

You shall pay for your betrayal, mutant.

Right now!

[Magneto] Charles, you must stop the attack!

[yells]

Ship, abort your commands.

[Ship] Request denied. Apologies.

That flying vessel. It’s Nur!

Well, it was Nur.

Now he is Apocalypse.

This time is no longer mine to conquer.

I must find another.

Where are you going?

Fear not. Your destiny starts today.

For his power can only be challenged by a force that is… external.

What? What do you mean? [gasps]

Only time will tell.

[screams]

[Apocalypse] To think I saw you as a prophet.

And now you cannot even foresee your end!

Magnus!

Ship, destroy the city.

Until not an atom of it survives.

[Ship] As you command.

I would make a Horseman out of you, were it not for the lack of spine.

[yells]

[Magneto] Get away from him!

[groans]

Magnus, you’re injured.

Every living thing in this city is being eradicated.

There must be something we can do.

The Ship only obeys Apocalypse.

[Magneto] Then…

I will stop it.

Magnus, you cannot.

The power is too great.

Magnetism can bind the debris circling the black hole.

You’ll die.

It is not enough to remember the mistakes of our past, Charles.

Honor me with action, not tears.

That world needs you.

It always has.

Perhaps that is why I gladly played the devil who pushes sinners to embrace the saint.

[people screaming]

[dramatic music playing]

[people screaming]

[woman grunts]

[straining]

[grunts]

[screams]

[people exclaiming]

[groans]

Magnus.

Magnus! Magnus!

Huh?

[Apocalypse] You claim to be a teacher.

But you failed to see the lesson.

The ones you care for will be your undoing.

And when that day finally comes, I will be all that is left.

[Magneto groans]

Get away from him!

Now, Professor, lie to him as you have so often lied to me.

Tell him it will be all right.

[Professor X] Magnus.

I’m sorry.

I can’t…

Charles…

I’m sorry. [groans]

[groans]

[Professor X] How wise your mother abandoning you.

Do you think she sensed your vile nature?

If only Baal had left you to bake.

What a better world.

I am a slave who tired and so became a god.

I know your future.

You’ll never be a god.

You will always be a monster.

But I will always be.

Alas, only a coward feels mighty when stepping on ants.

Charles.

I’m sorry.

We couldn’t stop him.

We never stop him.

Smelled ya coming a mile away, boy scout.

Down, boy.

Good to see you again, Logan. Been a long time.

‘Bout 50 years.

I see you’re stayin’ inconspicuous.

Stars and stripes still pull some weight, even in these times.

[Black Widow] Secrets like this don’t stay buried by accident.

I don’t know what you’re planning, Logan, and frankly don’t wanna know.

But as a friend, you can’t go after these guys alone.

Don’t worry your pretty feathers, Cap.

I got myself a crew.

Could even say I’m getting the old band back together.

[closing theme music playing]