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During the final fight with Apocalypse Quicksilver speeds up and starts landing blows to En Sabah Nur but after a while he traps his leg using the earth or sand.

How does he do that (follow Quicksilver's speed). I mean I don't think of all the powers he has, he is faster than Pietro. Or maybe it was just to showcase other characters in the fight and not let Quicksilver take all the limelight?

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  • Doesn't really matter how soft the sand is. At the rate he moves he could almost run across thin air.
    – user41224
    Sep 16, 2016 at 18:58

2 Answers 2

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It's not always clear from the movie, but Apocalypse actually possesses a ton of mutant powers. Over the centuries, as he moved from body to body, he's kept the mutant abilities of all of his previous hosts. As such, there's no telling what powers he has that we've never seen before. This means the writers could merely pull out some new random power at will whenever they needed Apocalypse to do something useful.

In this case, what appears to happen is that Apocalypse is able to "predict" how Quicksilver is moving, and where he's going to step at some point in the future. He then uses one of his more commonly-seen powers to soften the earth under Quicksilver's feet, so that when Pietro steps on that spot in the ground, he gets stuck. From there he causes the earth to wrap around Pietro's foot and ankle to prevent him from getting free.

How he's able to do this could be from any number of mutant abilities; perhaps he has some very limited form of precognition, and can "see" a few seconds into the future; perhaps he has heightened perception, and was able to track Quicksilver even at high speeds. Since the filmmakers didn't bother to tell us, all we have left is speculation.

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    Or just soften all of the sand. I didn't see this segment as a particular mystery, to be honest. Jun 4, 2016 at 15:26
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My interpretation is that Apocalypse was somehow able to shift gears up to Quicksilver's speeds, at least visually and mentally.

  1. First, Quicksilver hits Apocalypse maybe 10 times, with Apocalypse unable to respond.
  2. Then the movie camera focuses for 2 seconds on Apocalypse's eyes. A whitish glaze goes over his eyes.
  3. Camera then shows — presumably from Apocalypse's POV — Quicksilver's legs running, but in somewhat-slow motion.
  4. Camera then goes back to Apocalypse's eyes, now intensely-focused and a bit bloodshot.
  5. Camera now back to Quicksilver's legs (again presumably from Apocalypse's POV). A bunch of sand (or ground) shoots up and engulfs Quicksilver's left leg, quite precisely and accurately.

So my interpretation is that for whatever reason, Apocalypse was able to move up to Quicksilver's speeds, at least visually and mentally, if not physically. He was then able to focus and aim exactly so as to trap Quicksilver's left leg.

How he was able to speed up — I don't know. Perhaps it's some unexplained quick learning ability he has. For example, early in the movie he learns all about human events, the English language, and probably everything else through a TV.

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