M-DAY (DECIMATION)
When Wanda Maximoff, the mutant daughter of Magneto, the Scarlet Witch lost her grip on sanity after the events of Avengers Dissassembled, the Avengers and the X-Men had to face the fact that one of their own had become to unstable and a danger to all. As a debate began to decide what to do with the Scarlet Witch, her brother, the mutant speedster known as Quicksilver, tried to protect his sister by suggesting to her that things would be better if mutants were in power. Thus, Wanda recreated reality resulting in the world that came to be known as House of M. In House of M, Magneto ruled over a world where mutants were in power and humans were treated as slaves and subordinates. Eventually, the main characters of the Marvel universe discovered that the world they were living in wasn't real, and they went after Wanda to make her fix things. As a result, Wanda decided that it was mutants that were to blame for all the problems, so with just three words "No More Mutants", she changed the world of Mutantkind forever.

Overnight, reality was righted, but many mutants suddenly woke up to realize that their powers were gone. Total chaos gripped the X-Men as they tried to deal with the fact that their number had suddenly gone from 3 million to just a little over 198. Among the most prominent mutants to lose their powers were Magneto, Polaris, Dani Moonstar, Blob, Chamber, Jubilee and Beak. Things had never looked so dark for mutants and the X-Men in particular. This would be the jumping on point for events that quickly followed.

DEADLY GENESIS
On the tail end of M-Day, a mysterious stranger awoke with a secret past with Professor Xavier and familial ties to the X-Men. While former X-Man, Banshee recovers from losing his lover, Moira McTaggert, he uncovers a video that she made revealing that at one point Xavier manipulated his students memories to make them forget certain things that occurred during a mission.

Banshee took off to deliver this news to the X-Men, but he never made it because the mystery villain sent a blackbird to collide with the plane that Banshee was flying in. The X-Men have little time to mourn the loss of their former member, though, because the mystery foe kidnaps their leadership, Xavier and Cyclops. When the mystery foe is revealed, Cyclops is stunned to discover that Xavier sent in another team of X-Men, made up of never before known mutants Darwin, Sway, Petra and Vulcan, to fight Krakoa and save the original X-Men which resulted in their deaths. Vulcan reveals himself as the mystery villain and also reveals that he is Cyclops' brother. Turns out that Cyclops' mother gave birth while a captive of the Sh'iar and had a third son. At some point in the early formation of the X-Men, Xavier had found Vulcan and sent him to live with Moira on Muir Isle. When Cyclops returned from Krakoa, Xavier had used the four students studying on Muir Isle to form a second team of X-Men. They had all presumed killed and Xavier had mindwiped Cyclops and the rest of the X-Men to save them the grief. When Cyclops learns that Xavier made him forget his own brother, he rejected Xavier and ordered him to leave the X-Men. This schism between Cyclops and Xavier remains.

ENDANGERED SPECIES
With so many mutants having lost their powers, Beast began to become concerned about the future of mutants. The startling reality that he had discovered was that not only had mutants lost their powers, the gene that defined the mutant ability no longer existed. Though Beast tried several methods, occasionally being forced to do things that morally or ethically he wasn't comfortable with, such as digging up mutants who had died when Genosha had been bombed prior to M-Day. The end result was a bleak one, mutants had reached an evolutionary standstill. The remaining mutants still alive and powered post M-Day would be the final mutants because no new mutants would ever be born.

MESSIAH COMPLEX
With the fate of mutants in dire condition having reached endangered species status, the X-Men were both thrilled and shocked when a horrible massacre that occurred in an Alaskan town by the mutant hating Purifiers revealed that a mutant baby had just been born and was the object that brought the Purifiers to Alaska. They also weren't the only ones interested in the mutant baby, so was the Mauraders, including the former X-Men Sunfire and Gambit, who had recently attacked the X-Men under Mystique's command and kidnapped one of their own, the X-Man Rogue.

Cyclops knew how important this mutant baby was, so he set his X-Men on a quest to find the mutant baby and keep it safe from those who would harm it or use it for evil purposes. When the X-Men believe that the Mauraders have the baby, they send a team of X-Men to find the Mauraders and rescue the baby. However, they learn that the Mauraders do not have the baby, one of the X-Men have her. The X-Men are stunned to discover that they have a traitor in their midst. Eventually, Cyclops discovers that the traitor is none other than Cable, his son. He orders Wolverine to recruit Wolfsbane, X-23, Hepzibah, Caliban and Warpath into a new deadly X-Force and sends them after Cable.

Meanwhile, Forge discovers that their are two new future timelines that only opened up after the birth of the mutant baby, convinced that there's something that happens in the future that they need to know, Cyclops asks Maddrox to send two dupes into the future timelines and find out what happens. Maddrox does so, but before one of his dupes can be sent away, Layla Miller tags along. This frustrates Forge because the time travel device he created was a one-way device. The Maddrox dupes were never going to return; they had been instructed to kill themselves once they found the information they needed and their memories would then be sent back to the original Maddrox. Maddrox is saddened and horrified to learn that Layla is probably lost to him forever.

In one of the futures that a Maddrox dupe travels to, mutants are no longer an endangered species, but because of the actions of one mutant, mutants are persecuted and sent to live in detainment camps. The dupe Maddrox and Layla Miler are captured and Maddrox is branded with an "M" for mutant. As Cable runs from X-Force, he tries to prove to them that he didn't kidnap the child to harm her. In his future, the mutant baby is a messiah who brings about a mutant utopia, so he feels it is his job to keep the child safe from those who would harm her. He attempts to escape by going into the future, but he's stopped by an X-Man, Bishop, who reveals that he's the real traitor in the X-Men's ranks as he attempts to kill the baby to prevent his future, the future that Maddrox and Layla are experiencing, from coming to pass. Before he can carry out his deadly mission, the Mauraders attack and retrieve the baby.

Back at the mansion, the Purifiers attack the younger mutants of the New X-Men. The mansion is destroyed, and Hellion, co-leader of the New X-Men is mortally wounded. Though he survives, his injuries will keep him out of commission for a long while.

An all-out battle ensues as the X-Men go up against the Purifiers and the Mauraders with the mutant child as the prize. However, Mystique reveals her true plans by killing Sinister and letting the mutant child touch Rogue, who had recently been plagued with the minds of 8 million souls and had her powers boosted so that to touch her meant instant death to anyone. By a miracle, the baby was not killed by Rogue's touch, instead the baby heals Rogue and purges her of all the souls she had been tormented with. Gambit is horrified to think that Mystique would put the child in danger, but Mystique informs him that there is nothing she would not do to ensure that her daughter, Rogue, was saved. Rogue has had enough of Mystique, though, and touches Mystique thinking that her touch will kill her once and for all and rid the X-Men of such a dangerous foe. Though the touch does not kill, Rogue is dismayed to realize that before she touched Mystique, she was finally free of all other memories and psyches that were not her own. Now she has Mystique in her head. She decides to leave the X-Men and asks Gambit to not try and find her.

Meanwhile, the Mauraders and X-Men continue to fight over the mutant baby. The X-Men recover the baby, and Cyclops realizes that in order to protect her, he has to trust Cable to keep her safe. He gives the baby to Cable and the X-Men appear victorious when a shot goes out hitting Xavier in the head. Cyclops informs the others that Xavier is dead and the X-Men are no more.

So, the last couple of years have been major event after major event for the X-Men. They've lost friends and loved ones by either death or by loss of their mutant abilities due to M-Day; mutants are no longer a major threat to the evolution of man and have instead become an endangered species; Xavier's past deeds and actions have come back to haunt the X-Men leaving a vengeful Vulcan in its wake and severing all ties between Cyclops and Xavier; and as a result of all that he's been through, Cyclops has decided that desperate times require desperate measures in order to ensure that mutantkind survives the battles that are before them.