WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Force #14 by Benjamin Percy, Gerry Dugan, Joshua Cassara, Guru-eFX, Tom Muller, & VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
When the Mutants agreed to participate in the X of Swords tournament in Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, and Pepe Larraz's X of Swords: Creation #1, it was widely expected that things would almost certainly get deadly. So while it was devastating to see Captain Britain shattered into pieces and Gorgon killed after tying up the score, it came as no surprise.
However, in addition to the traditional sword fighting duels, Saturnyne has forced the team to participate in a variety of unconventional challenges as well.
Going into the tournament, the Krakoans felt good about their chances to win with their line-up of skilled and dangerous fighters, yet by the end of X-Force #14, they find themselves down 17-5 against the ten fighters from Arakko. This is mostly due to Saturnyne's unconventional choice of duels such as when Wolverine fought Summoner to the death and killed him but lost because the objective was to die, or when Cypher won his match by marrying his opponent; all things that are far from the battles they initially believed they would be facing.
Despite the fact that Saturnyne seems bent on putting the Krakoans on the losing end with ridiculous challenges that seem to either be rigged consistently put the Krakoans at a disadvantage, some of these challenges have surprisingly turned the tournament into a talent show.
Two of these talent contests, consisting of Storm and Cypher respectively, have forced the Mutants to display hidden talents in hope of saving their fellow mutants and the newly declared sovereign nation of Krakoa. First came Cypher's challenge, which is shown to have been a dance battle. This comes as a surprise due to the fact Cypher is not necessarily known for having an outgoing personality and is often depicted as more of a nerd who is into technology and using his smarts as opposed to partying. As it turns out Cypher is a capable dancer, though it doesn't help his team as Arakko won the dance battle and put themselves up 9-4.
The second of these talent contests had been organized as a runway show which saw Storm participate for the Krakoans. While this is the first time we have seen Storm show her hidden talent for modelling, this isn't as surprising as Storm is widely known as one of the most stylish mutants of all time due to her various iconic outfits and hairstyles. While neither of these hidden talents helped the Krakoans gain any points, they revealed a bit more about Storm and Cypher that readers, and possible the mutants themselves, didn't know.