Excalibur #1: "Verse 1: The Accolade of Betsy Braddock"
- "Paradigms have shifted.
With any shift, things fall between.
People believe the unbelievable.
Power inverts.
In days of old, we held magic high. The wise and strange were sought for everything from sickness to prayer, to make the crops lush and the water flow.
The Witches of Humankind have been relegated to curiosities.
Doctors heal your sick.
Scientists tend your crops.
For you, Magic is a dying thing.
The Prophesies of our rise have come and gone. We have saved you as promised, and we will earn back our history from you.
On our land, we will write the songs and histories that can only be made in luxury.
On our land, we will believe in the things you had the luxury to conceive of when you lived in caves.
On our land, we will make and raise mutant children, who have only been raised in peril, in secret, in war and in anguish.
For millennia I have believed that these trials made us strong.
No longer must we believe this lie.
Our strength is absolute.
Our magic is not in its autumn; it is the young god born again with a sword in hand.
And it is the domain of the Superior."
— Apocalypse's transmission to his fellow sorcerersMorgan le Fay: I hex thee, womb twins. Witchbreed and oath breaker—
Betsy: Brian is no oath breaker!
Morgan le Fay: Isn't he? You two are a tale to be told. One born of good, of light and truth, a champion. And the other, a sinister thing, a thief of lives who works in the shadows with wild powers. Not witch, but witchbreed.
Betsy: Shut your mouth!
Morgan le Fay: Hail the defender. Slay the pretender.Trinary: Miss Braddock?
Gambit: Betsy.
Jubilee: Psylocke!
Apocalypse: All incorrect. You stand in the presence of a hero of legend. Hail Captain Britain.
