Children of the Vault

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Publication information
The Children of the Vault
The Children of the Vault, from left to right: Perro, Aguja, Sangre, Fuego, and Serafina. Art by Chris Bachalo
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	X-Men v2," #188
Created by	Mike Carey Chris Bachalo
In story information
Base(s)	Abandoned Sentinel base in Ecuador
Member(s)	Sangre Serafina Perro Fuego Aguja Cadena

The Children of the Vault are a group of superhuman beings with Spanish codenames. They are a new team of supervillains opposed to the X-Men, specifically Rogue's team. Their motives to attack both humans and mutants were not exactly clear to begin with, though it was known they held a grudge against Sabretooth. Recently it has been revealed that they are not out for revenge; Sabretooth simply needs to be eliminated because he knows they exist. Their motive is that they believe themselves to be the rightful species to inherit the planet, but must first wipe out everyone else.

They are not mutants, but beings evolved from a baseline human genome over a time period of 6,000 years. Their society was raised in the hold of a ship where temporal acceleration technology was used to evolve individuals into superpowered beings, in a fashion similar to the creations of the Weapon Plus Program. Due to genetic drift, they are a separate species from either baseline humans or mutant humans.

1 Fictional team biography
2 Members
3 References
4 Bibliography

[edit] Fictional team biography

Recently, five superpowered beings who aim to destroy both mutants and baseline humans have surfaced and are on the hunt for Sabretooth. In their attempts, they casually destroyed a town in Nogales, Mexico, and manipulated survivors and the media into thinking that the X-Men were involved. They've killed all of the members of the S.H.I.E.L.D facility where Northstar was captive and took him, and later Aurora, in order to kill Sabretooth. Images of the X-Men were doctored into the security footage by Serafina, allowing for a similar attempt to discredit the team. They have also enhanced the powers of the twins so that they now produce a powerful heat blast when touching.

They speak of an incoming force of destruction that will allow only one race to survive. Considering they consider both humans and mutants as opposition to their own survival, the Children do not appear to be mutants.

After sending an enhanced Northstar and Aurora to kill Sabretooth and the X-Men, Serafina and Perro watched from the distance. The surprise attack was initially successful, seeing the apparent death of Iceman and severe injuries to many of the X-Men. Luckily, Aurora was defeated thanks to Mystique's manipulation and Iceman's surprise (though incomplete) reformation, and Northstar was defeated by the combined efforts of Rogue and Cable.

In interrogations after the fight (which saw intense damage though supposedly only lasting five minutes), Cable learned through Sabretooth that their enemies were known as "The Children of the Vault", were neither mutant nor human, and wanted him dead simply for learning of their existence. Sabretooth took a certain amount of pleasure in this revelation, as it now put the X-Men "on the endangered species list" along with himself.

Meanwhile, Serafina used her cloaking abilities to infiltrate the mansion directly. She was invisible to telepaths, and Wolverine was only mildly aware of something amiss. Still, she easily made her way to the injured Lady Mastermind in the infirmary, and hijacked her abilities to trap Cannonball in an illusion.

Wolverine however kept up with his feeling, and managed to free Cannonball, only to have both of them taken out by Serafina. She reported back to the Conquistador, which the Children were still using as their base, but had been refitted so that it can fly, and it headed straight for New York. Rogue and her team, now including Lady Mastermind, Sabretooth, and Karima Shapandar, managed to track the whereabouts of the ship, and decided to take the fight to the Children. However, they soon found out that the Children were not like anything they faced before, and were easily subdued, with Iceman being essentially vaporized by Fuego, as the Conquistador hovered over the Xavier Institute, ready to destroy all the mutants housed within.

However, even chained up, the X-Men were able to fight back, destroying the Children's weapons that would have destroyed the school, and killing several of the Children, including Sangre, Aguja, Fuego (by Iceman, who had reintegrated himself), and possibly Serafina. With his last breaths, Sangre (who was mortally wounded by Mystique, who shot him with thermite bullets), tried to ram the Conquistador into the school, but it was stopped at the last minute by Cannonball and the ONE Sentinels. Many of the Children did manage to escape the brawl alive, such as Perro, leaving behind some three thousand animal carcasses changed to resemble them, so that the X-Men had believed they were destroyed in an explosion on the ship. They then escaped to Ecuador, to hole up in the abandoned Sentinel facility once used by Cassandra Nova, and are now being led by the member known as Cadena^[1] who says they will continue with their plan, and the X-Men will not see them coming.

The X-Men would continue to use the captured Conquistador as a flying base of operations for some time. Cable later wrecked it, on Providence, in a failed attempt to destroy Hecatomb by causing a meltdown of its internal fusion reactor.

[edit] Members

The Children of the Vault members are:

Sangre (Blood): The de-facto team leader, he has grey skin that is apparently made of liquid and, thanks to his advanced water manipulation abilities, can produce bubbles used to suffocate his victims - among other things.

Perro (Dog): Possesses superhuman strength and control over gravity.

Serafina (Seraphim): A technopath, is able to enhance and use powers of others to her own volition, also appears able to sense actions and stimuli that happened in the past (shown when tracking Sabretooth in first appearance).

Aguja (Needle): A blonde girl whose powers are the projection of energy blasts and levitating force fields.

Fuego (Fire): has the appearance of a flaming skeleton, like Fever Pitch or Ghost Rider. He possesses magma powers that are fueled by the energy he gets from his surroundings.

Cadena (Chain): Globe of electricity surrounding her head that she can manipulate into electrical chains, new leader of the Children after Sangre's demise.

Approximately 3,000 members as evidenced in X-Men #193.