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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Second Contact
The Legacy Virus-infected Chris Bradley is at home tonight with his family, who do their best to protect him by keeping him sheltered at home, away from the cruelty he would face as a mutant and a virus-carrier in the outside world. Unbeknown to the Bradleys, several mutant-haters are plotting something right outside their home at the moment.
On the other hand, Maverick, another infected with the virus, prefers to face the virus like he has with every other adversary - alone. As he reaches his apartment, a couple of thugs approach him, and he easily deals with them and moves on.
Elsewhere, Iceman, currently on leave from the X-Men, is outside his parents‘ home, using his ice powers to perch himself high above the houses and get himself some fresh air. The phone rings, and he quickly returns to his home and powers down to answer the call before it wakes up his father. His mother advises Bobby to get some sleep after answering the phone, and tells him to clean up his ice sled as well, as she just cleaned the floor.
The call is from Mrs. Bradley and she informs Bobby about their situation at the moment, as she feels Chris was closest to Bobby during the short time he was with the X-Men. Standing among the ruins of their home and, Mrs. Bradley tells that Chris‘ health is really good and at first kids were accepting him at school. However after the Onsluaght incident and Graydon Creed’s death, mutants were blamed for everything, in fact it became that bad that they had to take Chris out of school. Even then the harassment, the obscene phone calls and the threats did not stop. Chris tried to call Bobby and the X-Men but never got through, and now it’s too late, as the mutant-haters who drove Chris out of school have just set fire to their home, leaving Chris angry and blaming himself. Iceman agrees to come over before Chris does anything rash.
Chris has been walking the streets for some hours, and now he passes an office of the Friends Of Humanity. He stares at the posters in their windows with hatred that threatens to consume him. This is the organization founded by Graydon Creed to end the “mutant menace“. This group embodies all of the anger and pain which has engulfed Chris’ life. Chris intends to do something about them, and he powers up, his eyes crackling with electric energy. However he suddenly hears a voice behind him.
It’s Iceman. Bobby points out that this won’t do any good. They burned down his house and he wants to lash out with his powers and burn down their office, is that it ? Chris confirms it. Bobby asks, what then ? Electrocute them ? Kill them ? How may ? Two ? Ten ? A Hundred ? Chris says whatever it takes to make them stop and to leave him and his family alone. Iceman points out that these are just excuses; her just wants to feel better – less than a kid, but more like the big bad mutant who won’t be pushed around. Chris retorts that it’s too late for Bobby to try to be his “mutant big brother” as he wasn‘t around when he really needed him, and that he can take care of himself now. He then lashes out with his powers and sends Iceman crashing backwards into some trash.
Iceman picks himself up and gives chase to Chris, who now runs through a crowded street and yells that a mutant is coming to kill them all. Having no other choice, Iceman retreats and decides that he’ll stick to the rooftops and try to catch up with Chris later on. Thinking he’s given Iceman the slip, Chris approaches an old and run-down hotel looking for Maverick. Iceman is still on his trail however, and he spies on Chris uneasily as he enters the hotel. He wonders what the boy is doing in a place like this.
At the same time, some voices in a suspicious black van parked in a dark alleyway across the hotel street proclaim they have got a bonus – the kid, the other one and an ice-guy. One of them notices that it’s Iceman from the X-Men. They start to ready their weapons, after all they want to be home for Xena.
Inside the hotel, Chris knocks frantically on a room door. When it finally opens up, he is greeted by a giant gun pointed to his face. He identifies himself to Maverick, who asks him what he was doing there. Chris tells Maverick he’s in trouble and asks if he could come in, as he is afraid he might have been - “Don’t tell me you were followed“, Maverick angrily exclaims. As Chris hesitates, Maverick flings him into his room in disbelief, and after checking the floor once more, he closes the door.
Maverick says that he can’t believe Chris would come to him when all he wanted was to die in peace and alone. He tells Chris he doesn’t have much strength to get out of bed every morning, much less help him. Chris then pleads that he’s the only friend he has that really understands. Maverick finds this awkward and tries to tell him they’re not friends as they barely know each other, and the only thing they have in common is the fact that they’re both dying of the Legacy Virus. Chris refuses to believe this and says he believes they are really friends. Maverick is the only one who knows what it’s like, he could tell when they met for the first time, at the clinic.
(flashback)
The Bradleys are persuading Chris to brave and all will be fine, however he panics when he sees the crowd of anti-mutant protesters and refuses to go into the clinic. His father says that they have to as the doctors inside are the only ones in the state willing to help him with his disease. Chris protests that it is not his disease and refuses to walk through the crowd. His parents then decide to find another way in and together they walk around the building until they find a back entrance in a deserted alley.
Unfortunately, they come across three hoodlums who are in the midst of planting a bomb to blow up the “mutie-loving” clinic and it doctors. When they see the Bradleys, one of them pulls a gun, and decides that they’ll kill these three along as well, as they are probably mutants too. If they are lucky, it will even look like the “muties“ blew up the clinic themselves. Weasel, how the leader of the three calls himself, tells the other one who is preparing the explosives to hurry up. Chris tells his parents to run and powers up, intending to stop them, but the third guy points another gun to his forehead, forcing him to power down.
Maverick hits the scene and tells Jumbo that he does not want to do that. Calmly he tells Chris to bring his parents out of there, while he and “these gentlemen need to discuss the inappropriate use of explosives and nicknames“. Maverick brings out a gun of his own and points it at the anti-mutant trio. While the Bradley run away, Chris asks Maverick if he’s a mutant too. Maverick begins to reply but ends up coughing. Jumbo takes the opportunity to grab Maverick’s wrist and force him to drop his gun, but Maverick swiftly replies with a fist to his face and takes out Weasel, as well.
He then continues his reply to Chris and tells him that he is a mutant but he lost his powers a few years ago but still contracted the virus due to his mutant gene. Chris exclaims that he’s got the virus too and Maverick welcomes him to the club, before he says he has to leave for his doctor’s appointment. Right then Head Case starts to panic, as he realized that bomb will go off any second now. Maverick orders him to disarm it, but he runs off screaming that it’s too late.
Examining the explosive rig, Maverick advises Chris to leave as he probably has some more months to live than himself, but Chris insists he wants to help and proves it by using his electrical powers to short out the bomb.
(present)
Chris reminds Maverick that was when he told him that he could always turn to him if he needed help, but Maverick replies that he was only joking. Chris points out that maverick told him this address, though he answers that he thought he ‚d be long gone from here by now. Chris again pleads that Maverick is the only one who understands him, but Maverick says he does not even understand himself.
Suddenly Iceman knocks on the door, cutting their debate short. Alerted, Maverick asks Chris who followed him and Chris reveals that it was Iceman. As Iceman calls for Chris from outside the door, Maverick peers out the window and discovers the men from the black van aiming a surface-to-air missile at his room. Iceman meanwhile, has waited outside long enough and shouts that he’s going in, when Maverick bursts out of the room with Chris hanging on to him. Maverick calls for Bobby to meet them in the lobby after the explosion. Upon hearing this, Iceman is left stunned and is thrown off his feet by the explosive impact of the missile.
(sometime later)
Iceman is with Wolverine, who is sniffing around the rooftops for Maverick’s trail. Iceman has enlisted Wolverine’s help in tracking down Maverick, and Logan tells him it was a good thing he did, as there is no way Bobby could have found Maverick by himself, unless he wants to be found. Logan quickly picks up Maverick’s trail and asks Bobby how they want to proceed. From the way Iceman described it, he doesn’t think that Maverick was trying to kidnap Chris, besides that would not be his style anyway. Iceman explains to Wolverine that he’d promised Chris’s mother that he’d return Chris to his family nonetheless. Bobby asks Logan if Maverick would really want to fight them if it came down to it, seeing as Wolverine’s his old buddy. Wolverine then relates a story about Maverick to Iceman.
(flashback, years ago)
During the Cold War, while Logan, Creed and Maverick were still part of Team X, they were once on a mission to retrieve a foreign national. Things went slightly sour when Logan and Creed suffered some heavy injuries, leaving them practically crippled. Despite standing orders to leave all casualties behind and end their lives instead, North (Maverick) still decided to drag both of his injured comrades back with him. He was soon cornered by a group of soldiers however, but he was offered an opportunity by the leader to leave alive if he surrendered Logan and Creed to them. Without hesitation, North started to fight, and after taking a few hits himself he killed all opponents and managed to bring both Logan and Creed back home alive.
(present)
Iceman deduces that Wolverine and Maverick are really close, and Logan somewhat agrees by saying he’s like a brother to Maverick. However that was not the point of the story. He then finishes his tale of the past by revealing that the mission took place in East Germany, Maverick’s native soil, and the leader of the opposing team was Maverick’s own brother, yet he killed him to save his teammates. That’s the kind of person Maverick is.
Only a short distance away, Maverick and Chris are resting on another rooftop after their hasty retreat from the hotel. Chris is concerned about Maverick, who is visibly winded. Maverick explains that he’d just returned from a round of drug therapy for the Legacy Virus, as he volunteers for all the latest trials, believing he has nothing to lose. He then encourages Chris that he still is looking very healthy, so it will be many more months before he reaches that stage of the infection, and by then there might already be a cure. He then asks Chris what the deal is between him and the X-Men, and the boy answers that it started a few months back.
(flashbacks, mainly to X-Men Unlimited #8)
Chris’s mutant powers were manifesting themselves, and Chris was unable to control them. Around that time, Phoenix and Gambit paid his family a visit to offer him a place in Xavier’s. He accepted, and went to the mansion to stay for a few weeks. He was amazed and scared at the same time, as he had never seen another real life mutant. All of the X-Men helped him to fit in, but Iceman was the one who really helped Chris to figure out how to control his powers. Just as he was beginning to embrace his role as a future X-Man, he was told that he had contracted the Legacy Virus. The X-Men gave him their assurance that they would be there for him no matter what. However all of a sudden the Onslaught incident happened, and the X-Men no longer seemed to have time for him. He needed them, but apparently one dying kid didn’t matter when the fate of the world was at stake.
(present)
As he ends his story, Chris forms several shapes with his powers and they float on in the night sky. From a distance, the men from the black van, who are revealed to be the same trio from the clinic incident, spot his display and ready themselves for another assault on Chris and Maverick, however this time with back-up.
Meanwhile, Maverick strongly makes a point to Chris about getting over his woes and learn to count on himself, and not others. Chris retorts that he can take care of himself, to which Maverick replies that he should just do as he claims and stop dragging him into his problems. The boy is taken aback by the statement, but Maverick turns to leave anyway. Chris says he won’t let another one walk out of his life, but Maverick doesn’t care and proceeds, as suddenly a grenade tumbles onto the scene. Maverick yells for Chris to get down as the grenade goes off. Chris gets caught in the explosion, but the grenade is only a stun grenade, and Maverick administers a breathing mask to Chris, and tells him to breathe slow and deep and he’ll be fine. The boy wonders about Maverick, but he explains that he is unaffected by the stun grenade due to the many drugs he had been taking recently.
Weasel, Jumbo, Head Case and about a dozen other members of their anti-mutant militia soon arrive, armed with plenty of firepower. Maverick tells Chris to escape, but he runs right into a couple of guns pointed at him. Just as the mutant hater wants to pull the trigger, he discovers his hand is covered in ice. The anti-mutant gang realizes who’s just arrived on the scene - Iceman and Wolverine. The two X-Men quickly disable the thugs and send them scattering, as Chris watches on with Maverick.
After they’re done, Iceman tells Chris that it’s time to go home: He knows Chris is going through some rough period, but they can help him. However the boy tells him no. Iceman grabs his arm and says he was not asking him. Chris warns him to take his hand off, and powers up to make him do so. It was Bobby who taught him to control his powers, but right now he doesn’t feel like keeping his electric abilities in check. He then berates Iceman and tells him about how lost and lonely he felt after he discovered about his Legacy Virus infection, and how no one was there for him. Iceman begins to apologize to him, but Chris tells him he just wants to be left alone and takes off. He knows he will make mistakes, but they will be his mistakes.
Bobby is about to chase him when Maverick levels his gun to the side of Bobby‘s head, stopping him. He tells him to not even try to freeze the gun and his hand, as he can pull the trigger faster than that. Wolverine comes to Iceman’s aid and menaces Maverick with a set of claws across his face, leaving the trio in a classic stand-off. Maverick is undaunted, since he is doing to die soon and doesn’t have much to lose. The important point is that Chris doesn’t want their help. Wolverine gets sarcastic and sneers that Maverick’s no protector of the young and innocent himself, but Maverick reasons that he can offer Chris the one thing the X-Men, whilst busy with their world-saving adventures, can not - friendship. Still within hearing range, Chris observes all of this.
Wolverine gruffly accepts his explanation and tells Iceman to back off. Iceman refuses and claims that he’s not about to leave an impressionable young man like Chris with someone like Maverick, prompting Wolverine to question the difference between that and Jubilee and him. Wolverine advises Iceman not to pursue the matter anymore, but Bobby reminds him that he promised Chris’ parents he would return him to them. Maverick says that he will take care of them, that is if Chris agrees. Addressing the boy, Maverick explains that he has certain friends and connection and he could get his family relocated and protected. Chris compares it to the witness protection program, and Maverick confirms that it will be similar. The family would be away from the mutant haters. Chris asks if he’ll be there when he needs him. Maverick begins to reply but Chris says he doesn’t want him to promise him anything, just to do it.
As the two walk off Logan tells Iceman that he tried his best, but this is the right thing, and he doesn’t know if he could have done the same for Chris. Soon afterwards Chris and his family move out of their old home after accepting Maverick’s offer. Iceman returns to his father, ensuring he keeps his promise to care for him this time, while Wolverine returns to his extended family in the X-Men. Maverick, on the other hand, has no one to be with, and stays by his lonesome in a dark hotel room.


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Primal
Despite the protests of her fellow headmaster Sean Cassidy, Emma Frost has decided to admit one non-mutant student into the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Sean swallows his objections and concedes to go along with the plan. As they sort through all of the applications, Sean comes across the applicant he deems most worthy of attending. The student’s name is Adam Berman, and he displays both a strong interest and aptitude in the field of genetics, making him an ideal candidate for the school, in Sean’s opinion. Emma glances at Adam’s application and scoffs at his dorky photo. “Judging by this kid’s monstrous fashion sense, how can you be sure he’s not a mutant?” she asks.
Her lack of a serious approach upsets Sean, who already has objections to this idea. He believes it to be dangerous and irresponsible to enroll a non-mutant in a school of mutants simply to mask the school’s true purpose. Emma takes issue with Sean’s hypocrisy. She asks how he can object to this, but be fine with the fact that they basically train young mutants to serve in their private army, and then send them off to die in battle?
“Application denied,” she says before tossing a different application at Sean. He grabs it and looks at its contents. The applicant he sees is a beautiful red-headed girl named Ginny Mahoney. “We’re going with this applicant,” Emma declares.
Sean cannot believe Emma’s stubbornness. He tries to make a case for the applicant he chose. He explains that Adam Berman shows enough promise as a geneticist to someday rival Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggert. Emma gets in Sean’s face and tells him that while Adam may have impressive credentials, she received an even better application in the mail earlier that morning. This other girl trumps Adam in three areas. First of all, she is the valedictorian of her high school class, while Adam is merely salutatorian. Second, she got into Harvard, while Adam “only” got into Yale. The third reason is simply that Emma says so. She slams the door on Sean, leaving him in the study alone to smoke his pipe.
Bewildered by this conversation, and lost in his thoughts, Sean wanders over and picks up the day’s newspaper. An article on the front page grabs his attention. The article boasts of a recent, successful raid by Operation: Zero Tolerance, and is accompanied by a large picture of Bastion and his Prime Sentinels. Sean leans back in his reclining chair and ponders what this story means. It’s evident to him that anti-mutant paranoia remains as prevalent as ever. He decides that while Emma could still be wrong, her plan to immerse human teens among their mutant peers may just be the best way to dispel anti-mutant fears at a young age. “After all, it’s like my da used t’say about the lads in the I.R.A.” Sean thinks to himself. “Change always begins with the young. ”
Sean then buries his head further in the paper, completely oblivious to another news story on the front page. This other news story bears the headline “Missing Valedictorian Found”, and is accompanied by the very same photograph of Ginny Mahoney that was in her application to the School for Gifted Youngsters.
Meanwhile, at Newton North Public High School, Adam Berman relaxes after class under a large oak tree on the school’s lawn. Books by Charles Darwin and Hank McCoy spill out of his book-bag as he sits with his back against the tree. He completely loses himself in Charles Xavier’s theory linking the random dispersal of the X-Factor gene with Chaos Theory.
Adam’s pleasant time of mental reflection gets interrupted by an errant football-to-the-head. The blow knocks Adam’s glasses off, and a preppy-looking jock walks over and snatches them away from Adam. Adam rises and up and demands that the bully return his glasses. The muscular jock laughs and pushes Adam down onto the grass.
“Wanna mess with the big dogs, Berman, your bite’s gotta be a lot tougher than your bark!” the jock laughs as he turns and walks away.
“Y’mean…like this?” a gruff voice says behind the jock. He turns around, and in Adam’s place stands a seven-foot tall reptilian man wearing Adam’s clothing. The monster grabs the jock by his clothes and lifts him up off the ground, telling him he’s a blood-sucking, brain-eating mutant. This threat sufficiently scares the jock, who runs away screaming for help.
He finds some bike police on campus and frantically tells them a “killer mutie” tried to eat his brain. The cops ride away to investigate, but clearly have a hard time believing anything would be interested in this kid’s brain. Adam, meanwhile, realizes he has just exposed himself as a mutant, and quickly reverts back to his human form. “Sometimes all I wanna do is morph and lash out at jerks like him, but that’d just get me killed by some genetophobic mob, like it did that kid Dennis Hogan,” Adam thinks to himself as he watches the bike cops ride past him. Suddenly it’s very clear why Adam Berman desires to get into the Xavier Institute’s summer program.
Adam picks up his book and continues reading, while fantasizing about getting the chance to meet his idols, Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy. He is interrupted once again, but this time by his classmate, and academic rival, Ginny Mahoney. Adam blushes and stumbles over his words before eking out a greeting. He asks how Ginny has been since her recent abduction and all.
“Ohhh. That,” she answers. “All I do is visit an old camp friend for a weekend, and everyone freaks out just ‘cuz I forget to call home!” Ginny then leans down and extends Adam an invitation to her welcome-home rave at a hip club the following weekend. The invitation surprises Adam, but before he has the chance to ask any follow up questions, Ginny leans down and grabs one of his books off of the ground.
“Check it out! Dr. Hank McCoy’s Genes: Do Yours Fit Society’s Expanding Waistline? ! I love this book,” she says.
“You do?” Adam asks, surprised in her interest in genetics.
“Totally! Not only is it sooo funny, but, like, what it says about mutations is sooo true!” Ginny says. “I absolutely believe mutants are, like, the next wave in evolution, don’t you?” The two teens begin discussing genetics, and learn that they have both applied for the summer program at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Ginny eventually leaves Adam to his books, adding that the best student will get the slot. She even calls him “cutie” as she walks away.
Adam instantly develops a massive crush on his former rival. “Ginny and I may have had our differences in the past,” he thinks as she walks away, “but I’ve gotta admit, that girl is a full-on robo-babe!”
Ironically, Ginny walks around the corner and immediately transforms into a Prime Sentinel. She reports to Bastion through her internal computer interface and tells him she detected a mutant signature nearby and has already made contact. Bastion orders her to catalog this particular mutant, as it wasn’t in Xavier’s files. The Prime Sentinel then asks about her other mission. Bastion simply tells her to have patience. His carefully orchestrated plan of kidnapping a top student, turning her into a Prime Sentinel, and having her infiltrate the Xavier Institute is going as planned.
Later that night at the Institute, Emma informs Sean that she already sent Adam’s rejection letter, and even forged Sean’s signature on the document. The decision is final. Sean is about to let Emma have it when he’s interrupted by an incoming call from Moira MacTaggert at Muir Island. He takes the call and speaks to the holographic projection of Moira. He tells her about his frustrations concerning Adam and Emma. The holographic Moira consoles Sean by reminding him that he once faced a similar rejection from the Interpol. However, he went right into the director’s office and revealed his mutant power, displaying how he could be an invaluable asset to the force. Moira adds that maybe this Adam Berman may show a similar, proactive attitude just yet.
Meanwhile, Adam receives an e-mail on his computer at home. Some of his friends are hanging out in his room, but as soon as Adam realizes he’s reading a rejection letter from the Xavier Institute, he asks them to leave. His friends politely exit his dorm room, leaving Adam alone with his thoughts. Adam loses control of his emotions somewhat, and his reptilian eyes glow red. He decides that he needs to go talk to Headmaster Sean Cassidy in person about this, as he desperately wants to get into the school to learn about his mutation.
Suddenly, Ginny walks in the room. She wears a short purple dress and leans seductively against Adam’s open door. Adam asks why she has come to his room, and she says that she has to talk to him about something she saw that day at school. Before he has a chance to ask what, she pounces on him, and they two teens land on Adam’s bed and begin making out. Ginny uses this opportunity to implant an undetectable catalyst in his body, which she can activate at will. She also takes a genetic sample from Adam’s saliva, which she processes immediately using her Prime Sentinel hardware. Once the sample is identified and catalogued, Ginny gets off of Adam and turns away. While she is now a Prime Sentinel, she still feels some very human emotions towards him. “That kiss – I felt it…enjoyed it,” she thinks to herself. “Bastion said I’d never feel anything again! Something’s wrong…”
She interrupts her internal monologue and tells Adam that she saw his transformation into a mutant earlier on campus. Adam can’t believe he was seen, but Ginny immediately calms his fears. She tells him that she doesn’t care that he’s a mutant, and he should actually be proud of his identity. Adam cannot believe he has found a hot girl who doesn’t care he is a mutant.
Ginny leaves Adam’s dorm room and walks down the hall, reminding herself not to let Bastion know she enjoyed her kiss with Adam. If he found out, he terminate her right away. She opens a communication link with Bastion once she is out of sight, and informs him that she dispersed trace catalytic elements into Adam’s body during their “salivary exchange”. Bastion’s plan to expose Adam in public, which will lead to his incarceration, proceeds as planned. After Ginny asks about what will happen to Adam, Bastion comments that it is none of her concern.
Adam heads right over to the Xavier Institute, and is greeted at the door by Sean Cassidy. Sean offers him a glass of water, commenting that Adam looks dehydrated. Apparently, Adam ran all the way to the school in his reptilian form, and this has left him nearly dehydrated. As they sit down at the table to talk, Sean states that he knows how Adam must be feeling.
“Do you, Mr. Cassidy? I don’t think so,” Adam says. While drinking glass after glass of water, he tells Sean about his heroes: Crick, Watson, Moreau, Pym, Richards, McCoy, MacTaggert, Xavier. He has admired these geneticists since puberty, and has dreamed of one day working alongside some of the modern ones to tackle the world’s genetic issues. When he learned he might have that chance at the Xavier Institute, he devoted himself to being the best student possible so he could have a chance at getting into the school. Sean tries to console the despondent teenager, telling him that if it were up to him, Adam would have the slot for sure.
Emma interjects in the conversation telepathically. “Well, well, well,” she begins. “So my suspicions were justified.”
Adam, not used to having voices speak in his mind, looks around confused. Emma then tells him that he hasn’t fooled her, and she knows he’s a mutant. Adam begins nervously sweating and loses control of his mutant abilities, and transforms into his reptilian alter-ego. Emma tells him that if he cannot even control his mutation in front of Sean Cassidy, then someday the world will find out what he is.
Sean turns around and is stunned to see a hulking lizard-man standing in front of his face. He tries to talk Adam down, but Adam takes a swipe at Sean’s pitcher of water, shattering it into pieces. At this point, Sean has had enough. He lets out one of signature Banshee-wails in an attempt to get Adam to back down. Adam barely feels it, and lunges forward, sending him and Banshee through a window. The two mutants begin fighting on the lawn. Banshee has trouble fighting Adam hand-to-hand, so he unleashes a stronger sonic scream. This one actually affects Adam, who runs away into the woods. Adam had no idea Sean Cassidy was a mutant as well, and needs time to process this information. Sean pleads with him to come back, but quickly gives up. He decides to catch up with the student later on at the high school.
The next morning at school, several students groan about having to sit through a guest lecture at a surprise assembly. Adam and his pals lounge around outside drinking coffee before the day begins. Adam sees Ginny approaching, and as she walks by, he offers a salutation. Ginny completely ignores him at first, to Adam’s surprise. He runs after her and taps her on the shoulder. Ginny snaps out of her catatonic state, smiles, and tells Adam she can’t talk right now.
“Duuude! What’s goin’ on with you an’ that hottie, Mahoney?” Adam’s friend Arlo asks.
“I wish I knew, bud,” Adam responds, adding that he has a feeling something is terribly wrong with Ginny.
Later on, at the assembly, the principal introduces the guest speaker, Sean Cassidy. Sean begins speaking about the Xavier Institute’s summer program. He tries to draw students in with details about the school’s perks, as well as the life-changing classes it offers. Instead of listening, Adam tries to get Ginny’s attention. She turns and makes eye contact with him, and an emotionless look forms on her face. She begins activating the catalysts in his bloodstream, while at the same time regretting what she must do.
Adam suddenly finds that he is unable to control his mutation, and much to his horror, he transforms into his reptilian form. His uncontrollable alter-ego begins thrashing the desks in the auditorium, and his classmates begin freaking out. Sean watches this scene from the stage, wondering how he can help without outing himself as the mutant Banshee.
Ginny transforms into her Prime Sentinel form and springs into action. She orders the students to remain calm. She tells them to exit the auditorium in an orderly fashion while she dispatches the mutant menace. Of course, she mentions the fact that this rescue operation comes courtesy of Bastion and Operation: Zero Tolerance. Ginny then hits Adam with a plasma beam, which she fires from her hand.
 He recovers and lashes out at Ginny, blaming her for his ill-timed transformation. She apologizes in her emotionless, Sentinel voice, but continues her attack. The two teens take the fight outside, where Ginny finally defeats Adam. He falls to the ground and begins reverting to his human form. Ginny walks over to him and begrudgingly initiates her extermination programming.
Banshee, decked-out in his X-Men gear, flies out of the auditorium and hits the Prime Sentinel with a sonic scream just before she executes the mutant teenager. This blast knocks her down temporarily, and Banshee flies over to the injured Adam. He begins helping him off the ground when the Prime Sentinel rises up again and announces her plans to exterminate them both.
Adam regains consciousness and asks Ginny what she is doing. She states that as a Prime Sentinel, it is her duty to protect humans by eliminating the mutant menace.
“You’re calling me a menace? See those kids over there?” Adam asks, pointing at the injured students limping out of the building. “I didn’t do that to them! You did! So tell me, who’s the real menace here?”
Somehow, this argument reaches the human beneath the programming, and Ginny regains control of herself. She transforms back to her human form, and tells Adam he is not a menace, but a one-of-a-kind guy. “Funny, but I used to be a lot like you…before I was recruited,” she tells him. “Not anymore, though. Now, I’m just a serial number and replacement parts.” She plants a kiss on Adam’s lips and runs away before she loses control again.
She runs down the street and finds Bastion waiting in a dark alley. He asks if she completed her mission. She tells her master that she must have malfunctioned, because she could not go through with her orders.
“How unfortunate,” Bastion says. He pulls out a gun and fires three shots into Ginny, killing her instantly. “Malfunction corrected.”
Later on that day, Sean and Emma tend to Adam in the med-lab of the Xavier Institute. They ensure him that they completely cleaned the Prime Sentinel’s catalyst out of his body. However, in order to have complete control over his transformations, Sean tells him he should study at the institute for a while. Surprisingly, Adam declines the offer.
“Sure, society hates and fears people like us for being different, but I’m not gonna segregate myself just ‘cuz I scare people,” Adam says. He then leaves the room to make a phone call. While he is absent, Emma assures her co-headmaster that she will mind-wipe whomever comes to retrieve Adam.
Adam’s friends M’Bala and Arlo finally arrive, and he says goodbye to Emma and Sean. He tells them that he will work to bridging the gap between mutants and humans on his own. As he leaves, he adds that he might see them next summer.
Adam climbs into the backseat of Arlo’s jeep. “Duuude, you shoulda told us you were a mutant,” Arlo tells him. “The chicks are gonna go ape over ya! That power of yours is totally primal!”
“Primal, huh?” Adam says, pulling down his shades to reveal his crimson, reptilian eyes. “I like the sound of that…”


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Alone in his head
(Today, New York)
Wolverine storms into the offices of Warren Worthington III (a.k.a. the Angel) and asks him what the blazes he’s playing at. Warren looks over at him from behind his desk and replies, “God, god of commerce, remember? And I’ll need to have a long talk with the new gatekeeper I suppose.”
Wolverine replies that he scares easily enough, that’s for sure. He stares at one of Warren’s paintings and asks what he’s doing here and Warren tells him that considering all the time he’s been spending lately with Betsy, between dimension-hopping to recover her soul, and just lying around at home getting to know each other, he feels he’s been neglecting the family business. His parents and grandparents put a lot of time and effort into the company and he isn’t exactly ignorant of his responsibility to the thousands of employees worldwide, who’ve kept it going since then. He figures he could spend a few days there to catch up on things that demand his personal attention.
Wolverine puts his arms around him and pops his claws behind Warren’s back, asking why he shouldn’t gut him right here and now, for trying to destroy them all. Warren steps back, shocked at Logan’s behavior, asking what this is all about. He replies that the neutralizer, Forge’s neutralizer, the same one that once took away Storm’s powers is being reverse-engineered by his people down in North Carolina. Warren is totally unaware of this, asking if he means the plastics application facility outside of Raleigh-Durham. He says that they have some government contractors there, who he thinks are researching some kind of top-security camouflage process; he has the paperwork right here. Logan looks at the painting again and asks him how much it’s supposed to worth.
Before Warren replies, Logan threatens to ruin it with one of his claws and Warren is infuriated. He tells Logan that this is ridiculous; there’s no way he’d allow his companies to be involved with anything like what he’s talking about. Logan replies that he knows him all right, and he knows his sources. “Who spy-guy?” Warren asks, “Who’s out there mouthing off about me and my business? Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D spooks? Or the K.G.B, or even the D.V.X now? Give me the names and I’ll have them in court so fast…”
Logan replies that they’re people without names, without faces, but people who he’s a lot more reason to trust than some poor little rich boy in his ivory castle, especially one who used to work for Apocalypse. Warren presses a button, opening the large window in his office. The name of Apocalypse still causes him to shudder. His wings recently returned, suddenly and painfully, and the wounds are fresh. He tells Logan that was a cheap shot, beneath even him. He expands his wings, which rips his shirt apart, and tells Logan that he doesn’t have to believe what he has to say; he should come and see for himself. With that, he leaps from the building with Logan leaping after him, grabbing Angel’s ankle as he heads onwards and upwards.
The man Warren calls Logan is mad, mad as a hatter, but worse still it the fact that miles and miles away, the real Logan is totally out of his mind or, more accurately, his mind is totally out of him. He crouches in a foetal position, alone again, trapped somewhere dark and damp, awash in his own blood, occasionally lapping at it for strength. What scares him though is that the body he is trapped in is not his; it is Sabretooth’s. His throat is slashed from ear to ear and he lies in a corner of a half-empty freight car on a train hurtling southeast from Aspen, Colorado.
(Yesterday, Aspen)
Wolverine takes the opportunity to take in some skiing and wears a purple and black suit with matching skis. It enables him to sort his head out after the recent problems with Bastion’s Operation: Zero Tolerance and the three new kids on the block who’ve been dumped on the X-Men, two out of three of which he wouldn’t trust to save his seat on an empty bus. He also thinks about how he’s coped with losing his adamantium all those months ago. That was supposed to change everything, as if removing it could make him any less different. Suddenly, he hears a woman’s scream and heads towards her, picking up an all too familiar scent as he gets nearer. When he arrives, he sees the woman lying on the ground, with Sabretooth kneeling over her with her hair in his fist. He growls at Wolverine and says he guesses they share a taste for the sporting life, “Hope yer hungry!” The woman cries for help.
(Today, North Carolina)
Warren is unaware of the deception, believing the man he travels with to be Logan. Creed is impressed; private jet waiting at the airport on a moments notice to wing them down to the Carolinas and luxury sports cars waiting in every state, just in case. As they arrive at the plastics application facility, Psylocke’s name enters the conversation but Creed tells Warren to save it for someone who cares about that trash. He’s more impressed that she lived through a claw-to-claw with Sabretooth, managing to survive a nasty gut wound that should have killed her. He leaps from the car and approaches the gates but is stopped by two uniformed guards, one of whom points his weapon at Creed.
Warren steps in, saying it’s okay and the two enter the facility. Warren is already sick of Creed’s attitude and disrespect and says, as soon as they’re finished here, they’re going to have a long talk. As they wander into the building and through an array of scanners to ensure they’re not carrying weapons and they are not impostors, Creed tells him that he isn’t exactly the all-American Mr. Clean he’s cracked up to be either; hiding his true blue skin with an image-inducer. “Ever even consider anything darker first; something a little less whitebread?” he teases.
Warren replies that this is the color of his skin, the skin he was born with. Apocalypse turned him blue artificially for his own purpose, to use in his survival games. Creed doesn’t let up, saying that he’s still Apocalypse’s pawn then, he’s just better at hiding it. Warren shrugs off the remark and points out what is what in the facility. On the left there are the research scientists, on the right are the research assistants and there are research cataloguers in every other closet. He asks Creed if he is impressed and he replies that security’s everything he heard it was and it’s one tough nut to crack.
(Yesterday, Aspen)
Wolverine knows that Sabretooth’s presence can’t be a coincidence but as he’s right here in front of him. He doesn’t care and he leaps at his nemesis, slashing him across the chest with his first attack. He warns him that if he’s hurt the girl, he’s gonna put him down once and for all. Creed falls and clutches his chest. Wolverine thinks that it was too easy; he walked right into that attack, letting him open him up like some kind of amateur. Creed replies that if he hadn’t done it, he’d have done it himself.
(Today, North Carolina)
The plastics application facility is quiet. A guard lies on the grass, his weapon slashed into several pieces as his colleague lies face down nearby. Another man lies almost naked and unconscious. Along a piece of machinery, three claw marks stretch from end to end. It appears someone else has arrived on the scene.
(Yesterday, Aspen)
Wolverine approaches the woman and tells her to calm down, there’s nothing to be afraid of. “Wrong,” she replies. He sees her face and realizes she is no ordinary human. It’s too late, though, as she grabs him by the arm, the most delicate of touches, and reaches over to Sabretooth with Wolverine helpless in her grasp. She tells Creed that this had better work. “If your psi-patterns once again prove too feral to match your target, if I suffer this agony, the loss of more self without result…”
Creed cuts in, telling the woman named Hoo that it’s like he told her employers; just because she couldn’t get him into Worthington himself, doesn’t mean he can’t get into Worthington Industries, through a mutual friend. Hoo is a merchant, a trader in singularly unique and valuable goods. She’s a mutant with the ability to switch selected human minds on contact, for a price she pays herself. The process causes Creed to vomit but, just before the switching of minds occurs, he rips his own chest apart, just to ensure Wolverine won’t be able to stomach this walk on the wild side. Creed stands up, his mind now occupying Wolverine’s body, and laughs.
(Now, North Carolina)
Creed, in Wolverine’s body, and Warren Worthington III reach the last sub-level, restricted solely to maintenance and waste-disposal crews. Warren tells Logan to admit that he was wrong; that his big bad sources were wrong. He says they should call off this stupid search before he really gets offended. He’s cut him some serious slack already but only because he’s known him for so long. Creed apologizes. He appreciates the guided tour but the only thing he’s admitting is that he runs a clean place here; too clean, especially down this particular hall.
He walks down the hall and cannot pick up any scent, not even soap to cover a scent, and he’s learned to follow his nose, no matter how far off the beaten track he is. Warren is angry, informing Creed that he has led them to a dead end, leading absolutely nowhere. Creed sniffs back. “Dead end, bird-brain, is exactly what this ain’t.” He unleashes a ferocious attack on the wall with his claws and rips a hole in the wall, revealing behind it, a group of armed guards.
Warren can’t believe it. The guard’s leader tells his men that they know the drill; no witnesses this deep. Warren unleashes his wings and calls for Creed to get down. He uses his wings to knock the guards off balance and warns Creed that nobody dies here unless and until he says so. He does, however, say that he needs to have a long talk with the facility director about trigger-happy practices to start with, and maybe a word or two about secret underground sections hidden even from him. Creed tells him to shove his talk and immediately leaps on one of the guards, killing him with a ferocious slash of his claws. Angel grabs him and pulls him away, warning him to back off; they’re already inside.
Creed turns on Warren, saying he’s got that right, which is why he doesn’t need him no more. He takes a swipe at him and catches one of his wings with his claws. Warren now realizes that it’s not the erratic behavior, nor the words or grammar that has alerted him to this fact, but the eyes. “You’re not Logan,” he says. “Not by a long shot,” another voice behind them says. Creed turns to see his own body behind him, the one occupied by Wolverine’s mind, ripping a uniform off. Warren is understandably concerned for his own safety at this point.
“Sabretooth,” he cries, but the man he believes to be his old enemy replies that he’s not even close. He tells Warren that, apart from a particularly large guard, who’s gonna find himself out of uniform, the rest of his rent-a-cops are gonna walk away with nothing more bruised than their pride, unless the real lunatic here gets to whatever he’s after at the end of this corridor. He leaps on Creed and battle commences but Creed slips away from him and dashes down the corridor. He shouts back at Logan that the body he’s in isn’t half the one his is and whoever’s wearing it when this is over will be caught dead center of the worst scourge to hit mutants since the massacre itself.
Wolverine says he’s going after Creed but Angel tells him to hold it; Creed is his problem now. He grabs a machine gun from one of the guards and takes to the air, cocking the weapon as he flies. At the end of the corridor, the room opens out into a large laboratory with computer banks on each wall, monitors with schematics and data all around and a large egg-shaped object in the middle of the room. All three of them recognize it as being a prototype neutralizer.
Creed hadn’t realized they were so close, but then none of them ever really expected to see this nightmare resurrected again. No-one anywhere is prepared for the havoc this could unleash. Logan asks Creed what this is all about, “Just another weapon, a weapon you can use against your own kind now, t’make even easier pickings out o’ mutants?” Creed tells him to save it and ask the name on the lease what he’s planning to do with it. Warren says that he can imagine a few mutants off the top of his head, like Marrow or even Dr. Reyes, who might jump at the chance to escape the trap nature set for them. He’s also wondering what effect it might have on the Legacy Virus, an obviously mutant strain of bacteria.
With no scientist around to explain themselves, Warren decides to destroy the neutralizer, blasting it apart with the machine gun, much to Logan’s delight. “That’s the Avengin’ Angel we all know an’ love,” he says as he thrusts his claws into Creed’s back. “H-how…?” Creed gasps. Logan replies that he underestimated him, his will to live, his will to follow his trail, crawling on his stomach before he could rise to his knees and then stumble to his feet. Creed turns to him, telling Logan that, in that case, he must have underestimated his own body’s healing factor and tracking senses and he let him take this puny body by surprise, once. He just wants to know how Logan got past the security procedures and defense measures that Worthington himself was blind to.
He leaps at Logan, telling him it should have been impossible. He looked for a way for weeks but Logan replies that he didn’t look where he looked. He guesses that Creed was trying to find a way in and back out again with the prize, and his skin intact. “It’s the same reason you left me alive in that mountain cave in the Rockies right? So you could have your body back in one piece once you were finished with mine? Difference is, sucker, I don’t really care anymore! So tell me who’s crazier now?!” Logan is now in full-on bezerker mode and Creed knows it. Logan is ready to kill but Angel leaps in between the pair of them and splits them apart, telling Logan that he isn’t a killer, he doesn’t have to be, not anymore.
Suddenly, the same effect that switched their minds in the first place leaps from their skin, stinging, sparking from one form to the other. They scream as Warren acts as a kind of conductor for the mind switch and their minds revert to their original bodies in an explosion which leaves the place in ruins.
(The next day, Hong Kong)
Mrs. Hoo enters a gymnasium occupied by Sebastian Shaw, shirtless and lifting weights. She informs him that, when the two men revived in their own bodies, Sabretooth apparently fled through the path that Wolverine had already cleared for him, but he failed to recover the neutralizer. Initial reports confirm that it was destroyed, she adds. Shaw replies that this isn’t too unexpected and, fortunate for the butcher-beast, considering that he would have been among the first to suffer its wrath when the time came. Despite his occasional use of Creed’s mercenary skills, there is no final place in their mutant empire for animals. Unfortunately, he tells her, it means they have to settle for the success of their secondary goal; sowing discord among the outer circles, so the inner circle will tighten.
(Aspen)
Logan and Warren sit together on a ski lift, which carries them up a snow-covered slope. Logan has been getting flashes of himself with blood dripping through his fingers. He wonders if these images he’s getting, these flashes, are from Creed’s possession of his body, some kind of cellular imprint or some lost memories of his own, startled to the surface by the shock of his temporary displacement. No matter how he looks at it, though, it’s still blood, just more blood on his hands.
Warren turns to him and says, “About that lab Logan…” Logan replies, “Government contractors, right warren? Y’didn’t know a thing about it, an’ you’ll make sure no-one ever does again.” He leaps onto the slope, telling him that he’s got to believe that; he’s got to believe a lot of things.


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Once an X-Man... (1st story)
Guiding Light (2nd story)
First story:
(Gambit’s dream)
Gambit stands at the gates of Xavier’s school, in uniform, head down and pondering over recent events. He realizes on some basic level that this is only a dream, yet he still shivers in the icy wind, feeling his body turning numb and becoming as deadened as his already shattered heart. He knows he messed up, that’s what he does. True happiness was on the horizon but he still managed to wrest it from his own grasp, strangling it with his silken tongue of lies and deceit. Through the bars, running through the snow he sees Rogue, Beast and Joseph with Storm and Iceman above them, enjoying themselves. Once again he can play the outcast, the pariah who can only watch as his former friends and allies frolic in the snow; until they notice him.
Their smiles turn to scowls as Joseph clenches his fist and tells Remy he doesn’t belong there. Rogue adds that Joseph is correct; he’s already caused enough damage. Storm says they trusted him, they welcomed him into their team and their hearts. “Traitor! Liar! Murderer!” vociferates Iceman as Rogue says that she thought he really cared about her, and thought they had a real shot together. She grabs the cold metal bar of the school gate and says, “But you were playing me all along! Using me! Laughing behind my back!” Her words rip through Gambit like jagged spikes and he desperately wants to deny them; but he can’t.
As he turns, the imposing figure of Mister Sinister is standing behind him and he tells Remy that the truth hurts and if the X-Men don’t want him back, he can come back to work for him. Gambit wants to blame Sinister for his troubles. He had commissioned Remy to hire the band of mercenaries known as the Marauders and led them into the Morlock tunnels on his orders. The resulting massacre, Gambit feels, is all his fault. At least that is what Remy tries to tell himself as he instinctively releases three charged cards at Sinister who has his hand outstretched to welcome him back. Before they even leave his hand, he knows that it’s just another lie. It was his own greed and weakness that led him to Sinister. As the cards release their explosive energy when coming into contact with the villain, Remy too wishes he too could burn within their purifying flames. But all he feels is the numbing cold of his own guilt.
(present, evening)
Gambit awakens screaming, as was common these days, or at least he thinks he wakes up. How can he be truly sure? All he does know is that he is still cold. An angry chill has been rattling his bones ever since the X-Men abandoned him to die in the Antarctic. He wasn’t sure how he survived the long trek to civilization but he did, didn’t he? Try as he might, he can’t shake the cold or the loneliness as he pours himself a drink. As he prepares for his evening’s work, he wonders if there is any chance they’ll take him back.
He wanders onto his balcony, overlooking the Oakland Bay Bridge and visions begin to haunt him. Archangel flies in front of him and instantly answers his last question, telling him he has to be kidding. He had led the Marauders. He was responsible for the senseless slaughter of the Morlocks and allowed his friends to crucify him. Rogue agrees with him, adding there is no place in the X-Men for a traitor. Remy tries to ignore the taunts, knowing they are only figments of his imagination, but they still draw blood.
Later, he finds himself swinging through the streets of San Francisco, the TransAmerica Pyramid building glistening in the background as he thinks about how he came to the city hoping to get a line on Sinister, and took on work as a thief to get by as that is what he knows best. He thinks about how beautiful the city is and who he would most like to share it with. To try and moralize the kind of work he does, he only steals from other criminals, but knows a thief is still a thief. As he enters a room through the window, he makes his way to the safe which is covered by a painting. Removing this, he suddenly realizes he isn’t alone in the room and turns to see someone on the couch. He wonders if he is asleep but soon learns that the man on the couch, and two more people lying face down aren’t sleeping; they are dead, and the room is drenched in water.
A vision of Wolverine appears, lighting a cigar and tells him that it looks like he’s stepped in a real pile this time. These guys were professionals who didn’t go down easy. He adds, “That water coverin‘ em? Curious! It’s almost as if someone drowned ‘em like a bunch of old alley cats, but… in a penthouse?” Gambit then sees a vision of Rogue who asks him where he’s going. He isn’t running away again is he? She adds that these men are well-known drug dealers and he had come to rob them. Why should he care if they were dead? Remy looks grim as he thinks, ‘Why indeed?’
Remy leaves the crime scene and heads across town, thinking about what his visions had said. He hastens toward a rat hole, a downtown bar where his contact, Oscar, conducts his business. He is one of many parasites who lack the particular mental defect to become thieves, but who are still easily lured by the promise of easy pickings. Oscar sniffs out easy targets and makes preparations and gives the job to a professional, like Gambit, in exchange for an advance fee and a percentage of the actual haul. Remy seats himself in a booth opposite Oscar, who sports a psychedelic T-shirt, glasses, long hair with a goatie.
They discuss his failed job. He tells Remy that he has heard rumblings about a war brewing among the locals, but he still could have scored the place. Remy replies that it was hard to give the safe his full concentration with all the unwanted company. Oscar says he counting on his cut and Remy, letting his coffee cool says he was too before mentioning another matter that they had discussed. “You mean Essex?” says Oscar, “Getting a handle on that guy is like tryin’ to grab a fist full’a mercury. He’s all over the place and I hear that ain’t his only name.” Gambit already knows full well about the man known as Mister Sinister.
As he sits silently, Remy envisages Bishop snarling at him, asking him why he’s wasting his time with this scum when he could be using his powers for the good of all mankind. Psylocke tells Bishop not to waste his breath, as if it were left to her, she’d slice his throat for the suffering he caused Archangel. Beast, playing pool says, “Ain’t love grand. You’re willing to kill the man who hurt your sweetie.” He adds that it’s too bad that Gambit hasn’t the guts to punish the one who shattered his lover’s heart before correcting himself, “Whoops! Silly me, that ‘was’ him wasn’t it. Your shot Psylocke.” Oscar sips his coffee and tells Remy to stop zoning out on him and asks him if he wants another mark. Looking quite depressed by this constant barrage of criticism from his own mind, he replies, “Sure, why not?”
Remy leaves Oscar and wanders along the quay which offers him a grand view of the Golden Gate Bridge, but he is in no mood for sight-seeing. He has a weight on his mind and needs to snap out of it. He wonders what’s wrong with him, why he is so cold? A fresh vision of Archangel swoops down beside him and asks if he really wants to know before telling him that it is because he is a man without a conscience or a soul. He adds that the Morlocks were defenseless mutants who hid in the tunnels beneath New York City before an image of Remy himself, angry and even more critical continues, “And you led the raid which massacred them! You’re a monster, Gambit.” The final face in this trio of visions is the hooded face of death who adds, “A foul and loathsome creature that even Death will not welcome.” Remy’s knees suddenly collapse beneath him on the quay side and a tourist passes him but offers no aid as an icy wind gnaws at his soul, or is it the conscience he is said to lack?
(dusk)
Gambit is in action once again, leaping, bo-staff in hand over a large iron gate guarding a mansion. Lights are on in the house but he continues his approach, past the swimming pool and towards his next pickings. Oscar has lined this job up for him, supplying him with everything; detailed diagrams of the house and grounds, plus the best time to strike. He’s arrived an hour ahead of schedule and wonders to himself whether he is early as he has little else to do, or did he instinctively know what to expect. He rounds some shrubbery and notices another lifeless body, another man who appears to have drowned. At least, thinks Remy, this one is within spitting distance of a pool. Suddenly, he hears gunshots screaming into the night, just as he himself usually does in the morning and wonders if that means he will wake up again.
He stalls, but a vision of Cyclops appears and tells him to move it. Lives may be at risk and he has a duty to save them. He is still an X-Man at heart. Archangel then appears to supply the contrary opinion, telling Summers that slime-o (Gambit) only cares about himself, having no sense of honor or responsibility. Remy runs, maybe to spite Archangel, or in spite of him. Either way, he reaches the main house after passing two more deceased gunmen. The sight he sees inside adds a new chill to his already frozen blood.
Inside the house, he sees Hydro-Man drowning a helpless gunman in his liquid hands. Hydro-Man isn’t a mutant, just a normal human leg breaker with the ability to transform himself into water. Remy remembers reading something about him, probably in the Daily Bugle a while back. Not that this information matters at present as Gambit grabs a lamp from a nearby table, charges it up with kinetic energy and hurls it at the villain. Hydro-Man reels in pain and screams as the shock takes its toll. However, it doesn’t take him long to recover and he ominously rears up in front of Gambit, telling him it was a cute trick and wishes he had time to learn it. Unfortunately, he is running a little late as the Don has a few more bodyguards than he was led to believe. He hurls gallons of water at Remy who leaps high in the air as he asks who hired him. Hydro-Man isn’t in the mood to reveal this as revealing a client is a major no-no in his business, not, as he tells Gambit, that he’ll have the opportunity to rat him out anyway.
As Gambit lands, he feels the watery hand of the villain cover his face, cutting his oxygen supply. Against this kind of foe, Remy’s agility is of limited value and he struggles to breathe. A vision of Bishop tells him to fight; surrender is not an option. Storm also appears and reminds him to use his brain as there must be a way of diluting his opponent’s grasp on him. As Remy starts to run through the house with Hydro Man maintaining his hold over his face, an apparition of Rogue flies overhead and tells him that’s the spirit. She says, “Don’t you dare die on me Remy. I hate what you’ve done, but if you quit now I’ll never forgive you! I know your lungs are bursting, and your vision’s gone but you can’t give up on yourself, on us. You can make it Gambit, you can jump.”
Flailing almost helplessly, Gambit leaps from the house and into the swimming pool. He bursts through the pool’s covering, suddenly questioning the wisdom of Storm’s plan - but then Storm isn’t really there so he can only blame himself. After what seems like an age, he summons the energy to kick to the surface and emerges to take a lungful of air as Hydro-Man, who followed him into the pool, emerges, ready to continue his attack. Luckily for Gambit, several gunmen who his foe attacked earlier, emerge from the house begin to open fire on Hydro-Man, and despite their weapons having absolutely no effect on him, he knows that they are simply occupying him until reinforcements arrive and decides to leave the scene. Remy recognizes his idea as being a good one and also takes the opportunity to depart. He thinks that while the Don may applaud his efforts on his behalf, he won’t appreciate his original reason for being there.
Night has now fallen and Gambit, after wandering aimlessly around San Francisco as he had the Antarctic wasteland, stands at the foot of Lombard Street, ‘the crookedest street in the world.’ He wonders why he can’t recollect how he escaped from the Antarctic and what terrible secret his subconscious is hiding from him. As he stands there, he realizes he has arrived at some sort of crossroads in his life. A vision of Jean Grey appears and tells him that it’s funny how things work out. According to the guidebooks, Lombard Street once had a shady past. It’s now a major tourist attraction. She changes form, into her original Marvel Girl uniform and says anything can evolve over time. Another switch reveals her in the Dark Phoenix uniform and she tells Remy that he is no longer the same man who hired the Marauders, or worked for Mister Sinister. Jean turns back into her current self and adds that he can recreate himself, if only he dares.
The rain has begun to fall in San Francisco as Oscar makes his way past the bar he hangs out in. Jean’s words twist in Remy’s head like a rusted wire. He was a thief when he joined the X-Men and a traitor when he left. His past had caught up with him and they were forced to discard him like moldy trash. Now he’s back to being a thief and as he thinks about Hydro-Man’s killing spree he tells himself it doesn’t concern him…. Or does it?
As Oscar passes a dark alleyway, Gambit’s hand reaches out and drags him off the sidewalk. Remy is now quite angry and confronts Oscar. He asks Oscar if he thinks he can play him, use him to rip off his enemies after Hydro-Man has done his dirty work. He knows this so-called war among the locals is Oscar’s doing. Oscar defends himself, replying that he is just trying to get by the best he can. He explains that he used to be the kid even the wimps and geeks kicked around. But now things have changed, and he is now ‘the man.’ Remy says he can easily be a dead man but Oscar tells him that isn’t possible, not when he can still offer Essex or Hydro-Man in his place.
Soon, while the rain continues to sweep the bay area, Gambit sails across the waters, heading towards Alcatraz Island in a speed boat. He thinks about the two villains mentioned. One he wants for personal vengeance, though he tries to convince himself his intentions are noble, that he’s acting on behalf of slaughtered Morlocks. The other is the one he chose, for reasons he can’t really fathom. Hydro-Man is a murderer, sure, but the same can be said of his victims. He isn’t even a mutant Remy thinks, he’s not his problem or his responsibility and yet here he is, following up on Oscar’s information. In the middle of the bay, he finds his quarry, a lager boat with several men on board. Remy stops and leaps onto the boat and the men draw their guns and start shooting at him. They knew he was coming and tell Gambit that their boss asked them to make him welcome. Gambit springs forward and lands a two-footed blow on his first opponent. He knew Oscar would sell him out so he came prepared. He tells the gunmen that “When Remy LeBeau comes a’callin’ on the bossman, he don’t settle for no hired help!”
He charges three cards in his right hand as he smacks a second man on the jaw with his bo-staff, held in the other, adding that he’d look foolish if he came all this way in such miserable weather, only to end up a dead man. He has his reputation to protect. As he releases the cards, the Archangel vision reappears and tells him that he hopes he’s proud of himself, as he was kicking some serious butt there. He was overwhelming these hapless gunmen with a brutal efficiency which almost reminds the Archangel of the night the Marauders took on the Morlocks. His cards land and a fire breaks out on the boat’s stern. The Cyclops vision also returns to provide the counter-perspective. He tells Remy that he can’t allow Archangel to distract him; it is no time to start doubting himself or his mission. He is here for a reason and he must accomplish it.
As Remy grits his teeth and shouts, “Hydro-Man! I’ve come for you!”, the visions of Iceman, Beast, Wolverine and Cyclops stand behind him, offering him their support as he faces his liquid foe. Hydro-Man pours himself towards Remy who leans back at the swiftness of his attack. He asks Gambit why he even bothered to come after him as he has no business messing with him. Remy can all but shout in agreement; Sinister is the man he really wants, Sinister who is scheduled to meet Oscar come dawn. Still, Remy understands, someone has to stop the killing, that’s what heroes do and a hero is what he truly aspires to be. He rocks Hydro-Man with a swipe of his bo-staff before jumping back into his own speed boat. He takes off at full-speed and it looks like he is fleeing in the face of a more powerful opponent, but Remy has a plan.
As Hydro-Man quickly catches up with him, moving effortlessly through the sea, he raises himself on a column of water and gloats about his abilities. He tells Gambit that he is trapped, unable to avoid him on the tiny boat but Remy is already charging the boat up via the steering wheel. He doesn’t know if it was part of his plan to do this, or whether it was simply instinctive. Hydro-Man launches a fresh attack, using the same method as last time and clamps his watery hands over Gambit’s face, telling him he hopes he took a big breath, because it’s his last. As his lungs scream for oxygen, Gambit wonders if is the strain of charging such a large object, or simply the fear of drowning that brings him to a state of near-paralysis. Is drowning even worse than freezing, he questions. No, for reasons he can’t even begin to identify, freezing strikes him as infinitely more terrible.
He reacts to his situation by picking another card out of his pocket and holding it in front of Hydro-Man who asks what’s with the card. Remy doesn’t respond, but throws it at him and breaks the hold over his face. “So ya temporarily managed t’break my grip - big deal,” says the villain, “What does it buy ya in the long run? Yer still gonna die!” His confidence is shaken though when Remy skips with some force from the boat saying, “That remains to be seen.” Hydro-Man wonders what is going on, thinking that jumping into the bay isn’t going to save him, but after only a couple of seconds, the boat explodes in a massive plume of smoke and flame, dispersing Hydro-Man’s molecules far and wide. Remy sees the boat collide with the rocky shore but oddly, he can’t feel any heat, or warmth. He thinks it must be because the water’s cold; yes, that must be the reason.
As dawn breaks, a rainbow sweeps over San Francisco and Gambit returns to the bar where Oscar hangs out. As he enters, he assumes Sinister is long gone, but what does he have to lose if he isn’t? As he half-expected, he finds Oscar nailed to the wall, dead, having realized all too late that Remy’s warnings that Sinister was not to be trusted were well-founded. Remy leaves the bar and thinks to himself as the visions of the X-Men surround him that it’s funny; he knows he should feel frustrated and angry over the way things turned out but, though there is an unnatural sluggishness to his steps, he’s also quite pleased with himself. His time with the X-Men wasn’t wasted. They have become an intrinsic part of him and no matter what the future holds, they’ll never abandon him.
(flashback)
Remy struggles to move his feet as he staggers, bare-chested through the Antarctic snows. He is so tired, even the knowledge of his imminent death cannot keep his body from failing him as he drops to the snowy ground. He thinks about the X-Men, and how they’ll never abandon him. He thinks it may be a lie, but he clings to it nonetheless. Some dreams, he thinks, die so much harder than others, but eventually, those dreams are forced to succumb. Laying helplessly in the snow, a man with a team of Huskies approaches, but with Gambit’s body half-covered in snow, the stranger doesn’t see him and leaves the area, abandoning Gambit to his fate.
Second story:
Candles line a small section of tunneling under New York City, transforming what is simply a sewer into a welcoming shelter. The noises of a construction crew are getting closer and Callisto, lying wounded on a makeshift bed, asks her young friend Marrow if it isn’t time they should be moving on. Callisto wears only a pink thong with a few herb leaves covering her torso whilst Marrow is in her usual green and blue uniform. She sarcastically replies that she forgot she had made reservations at the Plaza. She adds that she should let the Healer’s herbs do their work while she takes care of the upworlders. Callisto holds Marrow’s hand and tells her that violence only leads back them and they had learned that the hard way. That is why she had sent her to the X-Men in the first place - to find a better way. She adds, “No more blood, promise?” Marrow, wielding a bone dagger replies that promises don’t work in the tunnels. Down here, things go bump in the night.
Nearby, a team of construction engineers are working in the tunnels, with Bob and Jim discussing horror movies. “Night?” says Bob, “You are so wrong man. Dawn of the Dead was way superior!” He adds that he has a date that night and wishes to clock out early. His boss, Jim Pillman tells him the only date ‘he’ cares about is their deadline. He asks him to prep the area while he scouts out an adjoining tunnel. With torch in hand, Jim moves slowly along the sewer as rats scurry away into the darkness. He thinks about his responsibilities and the younger engineers he works with. To him, they don’t have any kind of responsibility about being an adult; only caring who starts for the Knicks and what they’re doing on Saturday night. He meanwhile has to think about getting the job done. Still, he thinks, maybe he should cut ‘em some slack. They aren’t the ones with a young daughter and a summer place in Wildwood to pay off.
As he looks around, he says to himself, “Look at these rats. Freakin’ vermin. Hate ‘em.” Surprisingly for him, Marrow speaks from the shadows, telling him they’re not too fond of him either before grabbing him around the face and dragging him backwards, adding, “Neither am I.” As he drops his torch, she informs him that he has two choices; the stupid one ends with him not breathing, and she asks him if he can feel something in his back. Holding the dagger to him, she tells him “It’s two seconds away from your spleen. I’m going to take my hands off your mouth. Scream, I dare you.” Releasing his face, but maintaining a strong grip around his neck, Jim can see Marrow by the flaming torches lining that particular tunnel and asks her nervously what she wants. She replies that it’s time for him to take his toys back home. Doesn’t he know? This area’s too dangerous to work in. Jim is petrified but tells her she’s nuts and asks what’s down there that’s worth him losing his job. Marrow turns him, and holding the dagger to his face, says, “How about your life.”
(flashback)
She continues to tell him that humans don’t know what a life is worth but down there, they learn young. Thinking back to the time when the Morlocks were attacked by Marauders including Scalphunter, Sabretooth and Riptide, she remembers being a young girl, helpless as were her underground family against such a ferocious onslaught. She watched as the Morlocks were killed without mercy.
(present)
She asks Jim if he remembers reading about the Marauders opening hunting season on them as it made for tasty headlines. Despite what the papers said, they didn’t all die. Some lived, with death branded on their brains. She adds that the papers didn’t report that on that day, an angel came down to save them, but said she was there and it was the angel that needed saving. In her memory, the X-Men’s Angel is shown crucified against a wall by Harpoon’s energy weapons. Marrow points to dried blood, plastered on the wall beside them in the shape of Angel’s body. She tells him that heaven came there to die. What makes him think he’ll do any better? She continues, telling Jim that his kind think the Morlocks, or ‘Uglies’ as she calls them, are so different, and don’t deserve to feel the wind on their faces. She asks him if he has any places he holds sacred.
Now released from her vice-like grip, Jim replies the church, his house, his kid’s room. Marrow says that they have holy ground too, and he’s treading on it. If she returns to find a single brick cracked or a strand of cobweb touched, then she’ll touch him, and points the dagger to his throat to reinforce her threat. Reaching under his jacket, she pulls out his identity card and shows him it. She knows his name, as the card reads ‘Jim Pillman, Local 17’ and she tells him not to make her come knocking on his door - she might wake his kids.
Jim leaves the tunnel and rejoins his colleagues. Bob, using a Pico 420 drill to open up the ground tells him they were getting worried but Jim replies that he shouldn’t get his panties in a knot. He then informs his team that they are packing up and pulling out. He says he saw some cracks in the foundation he didn’t care for and the place could come down around their heads. Jim removes his hard hat and asks if he’s sure, mentioning the deadline Jim had pointed out earlier. Jim angrily points his torch straight into Bob’s face and yells that last time he checked he was the boss so he should believe him when he says the place isn’t safe.
Marrow meanwhile returns to Callisto’s side and tells her she is safe now; she’s seen rats skitter off slower. Callisto asks if they were limping and Marrow replies that it’s nothing a little corrective surgery won’t fix. Callisto asks how she managed to change their minds, “A pleasant conversation over tea?” Starting to re-bandage her wounds, Marrow smiles and replies, “Oh, I just battered my big ‘ol eyelids and said, Oh pwease mister man, don’t hurt my sweet widdle home!” She adds that men sure are suckers for a pretty face. Callisto smiles and says she talks tough but sometimes she thinks she is a scared little girl. “Whatever gets you through the night” replies Marrow.