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

[Assistant]
Untitled
In Xavier’s mind:
Xavier sees himself as a young child, looking down on his current self, laid out on an examination table - with the deadly Mr. Sinister looming over him. Sinister declares that he was the first in his field, beginning his genetic research in 1859, ‘It was to be another century before Crick and Watson decoded the double helix’ Sinister remarks, adding that, at its root and despite its complexity, DNA is just information, a set of very detailed blueprints for creating a living organism. The young Charles watches nervously as Sinister scrubs his hands, and reveals that it always fascinated him how they contain their own instruction manual. ‘The recipe for the cake - baked into the cake itself. Nothing else in the universe works like that!’ Sinister declares.
‘What are you talking about, Sinister? And - why am I seeing myself as a child?’ Xavier asks. Sinister puts on some latex gloves and replies that the make-up of their DNA controls everything about them. ‘I just added a little secret message to yours a long time ago’ he smirks. ‘What message? What message did you add?’ the young Xavier asks, very agitated. ‘Me!’ Sinister reveals, holding up a scalpel. ‘This may hurt just for a moment or two. But after that, all the pain will go away forever’.
Present / Reality:
In the desert, Remy LeBeau, a.k.a. Gambit, formerly of the Uncanny X-Men, kicks an assassin hard in the face, ‘You sure you’re Guild-approved, mes gars?’ Gambit asks them as he tosses kinetically-charged playing cards about, remarking that it seems to him that they lack the professional edge. Leaping at one and using the assassin to swing off and kick another, Gambit remarks that, in his day, they used to aim before they fired, and it seemed to work. ’But you homes got your own way of doing -’ Gambit is interrupted by gunfire, a couple of shots which strike his shoulder. Remy falls to the ground, and an assassin stands over him, putting a foot on Gambit’s chest and aiming his gun close to Remy’s face,  ‘Man, this is gonna be a pleasure. I’m even gonna gut-shoot you so you can finish the damn lecture!’ he goads.
‘Don’t. Please,’ a voice exclaims as a muscular figure steps towards the assassin and rips the gun from his grasp. ‘Though it pains me to say it…I need this man alive!’ Sebastian Shaw exclaims as a breaks the assassin’s hand, causing the assassin to fall to the ground. Gambit gets to his feet, rubbing his injured shoulder. ‘Sebastian Shaw!’ he exclaims. ‘Remy LeBeau’ Shaw replies, greeting his oft-enemy. Gambit asks Shaw if he found the hit-list, the one with his name on it, to which Shaw replies ‘Hit-list? No,’ as more assassins surround them. ‘But thank you for making this personal. I was having trouble finding my motivation’ the handsome Shaw replies dryly before he begins to punch-up the assassins, with Gambit joining the battle, unleashing more of his trademark kinetically-charge playing cards.
In Xavier’s Mind:
Sinister stands over the adult Xavier, who stares, wide-eyed at what is going on. ‘You’re strong, Charles. I’m impressed’, Sinister remarks, adding that the process is meant to be instantaneous, but Charles is making him fight for every inch. A diamond-shaped piece of…something…is attached to Sinister’s scalpel, and blood trickles across Xavier’s forehead. ‘This is just a metaphor, you understand. I’m not really removing your brain. There’s no operating table. No scalpel’ Sinister declares, adding that Xavier’s mind understands these things, and responds to them. ‘Put that together with the pain and - well, it’s a very effective way of convincing your nervous system to surrender’.
Present / Reality:
Indeed, Xavier keels over to the ground, some distance from where Gambit and Shaw are fighting the assassins.
In Xavier’s Mind:
Sinister explains to the Xavier laid out before him that, right now, he is really groveling on his hands and knees somewhere remote, far from help, far from his X-Men, whose names he scarcely remembers anymore. ‘You were a bad father to them, Charles. So bad it beggars belief. Let me show you…’ Sinister tells a wide-eyed, scared, Xavier.
Flashbacks displayed to Xavier:
Charles explains to his original X-Men - Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel and Marvel Girl, along with early additions to the team Polaris and Havok - that he ordered Jean’s silence in the matter of his faking his death, that he had a task to complete which permitted no interruption, ‘These many months, I have been secluded in a sub-basement of this mansion,’ Xavier remarks. ‘Right under our noses -?’ Angel gasps. ‘Professor, we saw you committed to the grave!’ Beast exclaims, to which Charles replies that they saw what he wanted them to see, ‘The situation didn’t permit of social niceties’.
Charles turns to Cyclops and telepathically contacts him, ‘You understand that with so much at stake -’ Xavier begins, but is interrupted by Scott’s thoughts: ‘Yes, Professor, I understand. In a crisis, some things become luxuries…like trust’.
Months later, Scott enters the Danger Room where Xavier is busy watching the new X-Men train. ‘Can I talk to you? It’s important,’ Scott tells Xavier, who replies ‘In a moment’, before announcing over the intercom that it is time for Nightcrawler to test his agility and wall-crawling abilities, where Nightcrawler is currently training with Storm and Colossus.
Xavier turns his attention back to Cyclops and asks him to inform Wolverine that his childish outburst will cost him ten demerit points. ‘Ten or ten thousand, it won’t make a difference. Wolverine’s a grown man who’s learned his skills in the field’ Scott replies. ‘Treating him like a schoolboy won’t work. I tried it that way and I failed’.
Xavier looks at Scott harshly and replies ‘Indeed? But, I’m not you, Scott’. Xavier asks Scott to forgive his bluntness, before telling him that this anarchy is a result of Scott’s failure to teach these mutants how to fight as a team. ‘A failure I have to rectify’. Scott protests, ‘We are a team. Can’t you see that -’ he begins to speak, but Xavier gets angry and grits his teeth as he snaps back ‘I see that I gave you a responsibility you were not ready for. I’m disappointed, naturally, but I believe the situation can be salvaged!’
In Xavier’s Mind:
Sinister grins as he tells Xavier that he has no doubt the dream was real when he started it, but that dreams break down on bad terrain. ‘They lose momentum and sink into the mud’. Sinister remarks that Xavier was alternatively absent and overbearing, neglectful and tyrannical. ‘As if you couldn’t decide whether to be Brian Xavier or Kurt Marko - so you decided to be both!’ Sinister tells Xavier that the X-Men are better off without him. ‘The world is better off without you’.
Present / Reality:
‘Got him!’ an assassin whispers to his colleagues as he sets his rifle-target on Xavier, who is still keeled over in the sand. The assassin radios to control and asks if he should take the shot, to which a voice radios back ‘Of course. Then go in and confirm the kill’. The assassin replies ‘Copy that’.
Inside Xavier’s Mind
Sinister stands over Charles’ body, and realizes what is happening ‘Ah, we have company. That’s inconvenient’ he remarks, before revealing that he has some degree of access to Xavier’s brain, and his will. ‘Perhaps enough to deal with them’ he supposes, while the Xavier lying on the operating table replies ‘What? No! I won’t let you!’
Present / Reality:
But Xavier cannot stop Sinister, who uses Xavier’s telepathy to send a psychic message to the assassin ‘Wait wait wait…bring him in alive live live. Repeat alive live live…’. The assassin touches his radio and informs his colleagues that he has new orders: ‘Handle with care. But pick him up and let’s get out of here’. The assassin then radios to his colleagues who are attacking Gambit and Sebastian Shaw, and orders them to pull back, announcing that they have what they came for. ‘Go get yourselves a cold one, guys. You’ve earned it!’. But the other assassins do not get the chance to go and get a “cold one”, as Shaw snaps the last of their necks.
Gambit asks Shaw how he found them, and what he is up to. ‘Answer me, or -’ Gambit begins to threaten Shaw, but Shaw reminds Gambit that his charged cards will only make him stronger, ‘And I’m not the villain here’ Shaw points out, announcing ‘that honor goes to your old friend…Mr. Sinister!’
 At that name Gambit goes wide-eyed, and his mind flashes back to Sinister, and his introduction to the Marauders, meeting with Sabretooth and Scalphunter. Remy points a finger at Shaw and snaps back ‘You’re lying. Sinister is dead’. Calmly, Shaw replies ‘Is he? You know better than anyone what he’s capable of. Shaw remarks that Sinister took out part of Gambit brain, excised his powers, as a surgeon might excise a tumor. ‘And then gave you them back. Just as easily’. Gambit recalls the moment that Shaw refers to, recalls being strung up on an operating table while Sinister went about his business.
Shaw reminds Gambit that while Sinister was alive, he was the greatest geneticist the world has ever seen, and that he planned for his own death as coldly and logically as he planned for everything else. Gambit frowns as he asks Shaw how he knows all of this, to which Shaw replies that he makes it his business to know anything that could threaten or profit him. Shaw reveals that his father, Jacob Shaw, worked for Sinister for forty years. ‘His main task was locating bearers of the x-gene. Pre-mutants’. Shaw explains that his father was one of course, but that he also found Kurt Marko, Alexander Ryking and Brian Xavier. ’And Sinister was honest with him - up to a point’.
Flashback, years ago:
Jacob Shaw stands beside a desk in a laboratory, with Sinister, in whatever guise he is using, standing nearby, a strange red and white device placed on the desk. Sinister exclaims that this is what makes it all work - two serpents intertwined like the staff of Aesculapius. ‘But I admit, it’s the Greek God, Cronus, who I chiefly think of when I look at this’. Sinister exclaims. ‘Cronus?’ Jacob Shaw asks. ‘The father of Zeus - he ensured his own immortality by devouring his children’. Sinister explains. ‘Did he now? Those Greeks are cautious, aren’t they!?’ Jacob Shaw replies.
‘I’ll put it simply. This thing you’re looking at it the key to a code. I can use that code to write myself - my mind, my physical matrix, even my memories - onto the mind and body of someone else’ Sinister explains. ‘I just do my job’ Jacob replies. Sinister assures him that he does it well, ‘You’ve brought me three viable subjects. When I die, this machine will send an activation signal to each of them in turn’ Sinister explains. ‘It will cycle until one of them responds. Until the encoded version of myself that I’ve written into their DNA awakens, and I live again!’ Sinister pauses, before informing Jacob that he finished his examination of his son, Sebastian, and announces that he is perfectly healthy. ‘Indeed - remarkably so’.
Present / Reality:
‘So that’s how you became a part of all this!’ Gambit exclaims, to which Shaw replies ‘Exactly!’ and announces that Jacob Shaw was no man’s fool. ‘He stole some of Sinister’s notes and built a machine of his own. It protected me in some way from this - Cronus effect’. Shaw points out that the burning question now is why someone is trying to kill Sinister’s guinea pigs before Sinister comes to possess them. ‘Whoever they are, they can have Xavier with my blessing…but they’ll be sorry they added Sebastian Shaw to their list!’ Sebastian exclaims.
Mon dieu! The Professor! Gambit cries out when he notices that Xavier is missing. ‘Already dead, by this time, I’d imagine. Or else in their power.’ Shaw replies, before motioning to the footprints and pointing out ‘At least they’ve left us a trail’, and suggests to Gambit that they call a truce, at least until this is over. ‘It seems we’ve got enemies in common’. ‘A truce? With you?’ Gambit replies, before agreeing, but warning Shaw that the first time he even thinks about crossing him, he will start dealing. Gambit and Shaw frown at each other, while Gambit shuffles his playing cards, kinetically charged.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the assassins drag Xavier into a high-tech facility, and a voice exclaims ‘what’s this?’ Somewhat taken aback, one of the assassins replies ‘the prisoner, Doctor Mueller, as you ordered!’ As they place Xavier at near a console where a woman, her body withered, and wearing an outfit highly unbecoming of her, is sitting, hooked up to various drugs. ‘As I ordered?’ Dr. Amanda Mueller asks. ‘The only thing I remember ordering is a corpse. But corpses are easily made’ she exclaims, before asking for Xavier to be brought closer.
The assassins sit Xavier up and kick him forward, ‘His head, you imbeciles. Tilt his head back…I want to see his eyes!’ One of the assassins pulls Xavier’s face back, and Mueller’s wrinkled face peers down at Xavier, except, she grins, and exclaims ‘Yesssssss. Hello, Nathaniel. It’s been a long time!’ - as she sees Sinister staring back at her, not Xavier.
Inside Xavier’s Mind:
‘Charles, pleasant though this party has been - I believe it’s over’. Sinister announces, adjusting his gloves and look at Xavier’s head, part of his brain showing.
Present / Reality:
Gambit and Shaw arrive at Alamogordo, the sprawling facility, long abandoned, with high wire fences all around it, and large NO ADMITTANCE signs everywhere. ‘The trail ends here!’ Gambit remarks, informing Shaw that the Professor said his father worked here once, back when Charles was a child. Tossing a fence to one side so they can enter, Shaw confirms that his files agree on that point. Gambit rubs some dust of a window and peers into one of the buildings, remarking that it looks deserted. Shaw tells him not to be so naive, ‘As a thief, I’m sure you know all the many things an honest face can conceal’.
‘The reactor chimneys’ Shaw declares. ‘What?’ Gambit asks, confused. Shaw reveals that he has seen the personnel records from this place. ‘They were all geneticists, not physicists. Why would you need nuclear reactors for genetics research?’.
Inside the complex, Mueller remarks that Nathaniel tried so hard to keep this place hidden from her, ‘But I knew it was here somewhere. All I had to do was keep looking!’ she exclaims. Still sitting in her console, she gazes up at a large device, and exclaims ‘The Cronus device. The last and most indispensable element in your grand design!’ Mueller declares that this is the wake-up call to the copies of himself that Sinister placed in those poor children who were placed in his charge. Mueller points out that Sinister chose children, of course, because they would be more likely to survive until he needed them. ‘What about me, Nathaniel? Did you forget that I’d survive, too?’ Mueller asks, angrily.
Mueller reaches out to one of the assassins and orders him to give her his gun. ‘And steady my hand!’ she adds. The assassin places his gun in Mueller’s hand and holds her, while asking her if she is sure. ‘It’s probably easier for me -’ he begins, until Mueller declares that she wants to do this herself, as it will give her pleasure. ‘Hold him up where I can see him!’ she bellows at another assassin. The other assassin complies, and Xavier’s face stares at Amanda Mueller, ‘Help me, please! He’s in my mind!’ Xavier exclaims. Mueller smirks and replies ‘Yes, Professor Xavier, he is. But no more there than in your heart, your spleen, your skin…he’s in every cell of your body, in fact!’
As Mueller fires three bullets into Xavier’s chest and stomach, Mueller announces ‘And, though he doesn’t know it yet - in every cell of mine!’. Grinning bizarrely, Mueller raises the gun up, and still babbling on about Sinister, she reveals that she was the first mutant Sinister ever met. ‘And I gave him the inspiration, because I was already immortal!’ As Xavier’s body falls to the ground, lying in a pool of his own blood, Mueller asks ‘But what kind of a mutant power is not dying? I still got older. Withered slowly into this thing you see before you! Nathaniel would never have chosen me as a vessel for his rebirth’.
Mueller explains that Shaw was protected from this by his father’s scrambler device, and Cain Marko by the Cyttorak helmet, while Carter Ryking no longer had a functional x-gene, so the awakening just killed him. ‘And you’re bleeding to death!’ Mueller tells Xavier, before declaring that the next time the machine cycles, it will be her turn. ‘You understand me, Nathaniel?’ Mueller shouts. ‘I gave myself the Cronus treatment while your back was turned. While you were making your Marauders!’. Mueller grins and explains that, of course, she modified the procedure, so she will only get Sinister’s powers, not his personality. ‘Take this carrion away. I have to get ready for my apotheosis!’
As the assassins drag Xavier’s bleeding body away, Sinister calls out to Charles, ‘Lower your guards and let me take over! Stop fighting me or you’ll die!’ Sinister exclaims.
Inside Xavier’s Mind::
I’d rather die, Sinister, if by dying I can stop you from coming back into the world!’ Xavier retorts, still laid out on the operating table. ‘But you can’t, Charles. There’s the rub’. Sinister explains that the Cronus device will cycle every twenty-four hours, so sooner or later, it will catch Cain without his helmet, or Shaw away from the scrambler his father jury-rigged from Sinister’s own notes. ‘Or a worst-case-scenario - I’ll become that crone’, Sinister admits. Sinister leans down to Xavier’s brain-splattered face, ‘Don’t you think it would be a heroic sacrifice if you let me become you instead?’ he asks. ‘Given that you’re dying already from those gunshot wounds?’
Sinister rubs a finger along Xavier’s face, telling him that he has plenty of time to think it over. ‘The human body contains eight to ten pints of blood…and the holes through which it’s leaving you are relatively small!’. With that, Xavier goes wide-eyed.
Present / Reality:
Sebastian Shaw forces the doors to the laboratory down with ease, and flattens several of the assassins in the process. ‘Do you still think the chimneys were a long shot, LeBeau?’ Shaw asks casually. ‘Yeah. But I built my whole life on long shots’ Gambit replies as they walk over the bodies of the assassins, before Remy casts a pack of kinetically charged playing cards at the assassins which lunge towards them. ‘So long as you use your own cards - they come up nine times out of ten!’ Gambit exclaims, while Shaw punches his way through the assassins.
‘Don’t let them get to the machine! Not until Sinister is reborn in me!’ screeches a deranged Mueller, frantically. ‘You’re looking for spiritual renewal, woman?’ Shaw asks as he tosses the assassins about, before making his way to the Cronus device, ‘I suggest - worshipping a different God!’ Sebastian exclaims as he punches the machine, only to be thrust backwards by an energy burst. Mueller announces that the Cronus device was designed to defend itself against attack. ‘I think I’ll stick with the salvation I’ve already chosen!’ Mueller exclaims.
Gambit finds Xavier, who is clutching his wounds and getting to his feet. ‘Professor Xavier! But - you’re wounded’ Gambit begins. Smoke all around them, Xavier replies ‘It’s nothing, Gambit…it takes more than bullets - or a harlot’s kiss…to kill Nathaniel Essex!’ Indeed, Xavier’s body betrays itself, as Sinister appears to be in complete control, red eyes staring at Gambit, and trademark red diamond on his forehead, with a wicked smile to match….


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

[Assistant]
Untitled
(Flashback, years ago / Inside Xavier‘s mind)
‘When I was young, normal people feared me, distrusted me. I realized the human race is not yet ready to accept those with extra powers’ Professor Charles Xavier tells his students, the X-Men. ‘So I decided to build a haven. A school for X-Men. Here we stay, unsuspected by normal humans, as we learn to use our powers for the benefit of mankind. To help those who would destroy us if they knew of our existence’ he tells his young charges. ‘We understand, Professor. We won’t let you down!’ exclaims Cyclops. Xavier continues, remarking that there are many mutants walking the Earth, and more are born each…each…’
‘When I was young, normal people feared me, distrusted me. I realized the human race is not yet ready to accept those with extra powers…’ Professor X begins again.
(Present / Reality)
‘Professor, you’ve got to fight back. You’ve been - brainwashed in some way!’ exclaims Remy “Gambit” LeBeau, formerly of the X-Men as he watches his former mentor, seemingly taken over by the diabolical Mr. Sinister. Standing nearby in the laboratory of Dr. Amanda Mueller is Sebastian Shaw, who explains that Xavier hasn’t been brainwashed. ‘Of course he hasn’t!’ Xavier replies, his eyes glowing red, a sinister red diamond on his forehead, as indeed Mr. Sinister is in possession of Xavier’s body, and he exclaims that Xavier is occupied elsewhere. ‘I’m disappointed, Gambit. I thought you would have known me at once!’ Sinister tells his former associate. ‘We used to be so close. Like - father and son!’ Sinister tells the shocked Gambit.
From her seat, the deranged ancient mutant Dr. Mueller screams at her assassins, ‘Kill him! No one else must be the vessel! No one but me!’ Sinister smirks and looks at Mueller ‘These? Kill me?’ he asks as he uses Xavier’s telepathy to shut down the assassin’s minds with ease. ‘Amanda, please, ignore the evidence of your eyes - and remember who you’re really dealing with!’ Sinister tells his former associate, before Shaw punches him in the face with his superior strength, while telling Gambit to destroy the Cronus device.
Shaw clutches his head when Sinister begins to attack his mind, ‘Come, now. That’s a little like locking the stable door when the horse is already trampling you, Sebastian!’ Sinister exclaims, before picking Shaw up and telling him that his father would not have been proud, and tossing him at Gambit, he adds ‘And neither am I!’ before Shaw smacks into Gambit, and both men fall to the floor.
‘You think you’ve out-maneuvered me, Nathaniel. But I’ve spent decades just sitting here, preparing for this day!’ Mueller bellows as she presses a button on her control panel which suddenly drops clear cylinders onto Gambit, Shaw and Sinister, trapping them. ‘The stone that was rejected will become the cornerstone!’ Mueller exclaims, grinning wickedly. ‘I will take your power. Your vigor. Your irreducible essence - whether you like it or not!’ she tells Sinister, while Gambit and Shaw find themselves lowered beneath the floor.
‘I disagree, Amanda. I believe you’re going to open this cage’ Sinister replies, pressing his hand against the clear cage. A wide-eyed Mueller begins to move one of her hands towards the control panel, but tries to use her other hand to prevent herself from hitting the switch, but it’s too late. ’No - you can’t!’ she gasps as she presses a button, causing the cage to release Sinister. ’You wanted to be my vessel? You’re not up to the job!’ Sinister tells Mueller, boasting that even the smallest portion of his immensity would craze and fracture her. ’Here - let me show you!’ he exclaims as he brings a hand to a frightened Mueller’s face, ’No! Nathaniel, please -’ the old woman begins, while, inside his mind, Xavier calls out to Sinister: ’You won’t harm her. You’ll harm nobody else. Ever!’ he orders.
Inside Xavier’s mind, Sinister and Xavier confront each other, ’Xavier! You broke out of the psi-loop. Amazing. Your psyche is supposed to lie down and die at this point’ Sinister remarks. ’I’m happy to disappoint you’ Xavier retorts, adding ’All this effort. All these lives squandered and ruined, just to ensure your own immortality. Well it won’t happen so long as the smallest fragment of my mind survives’. Sinister replies that he knows, and declares that it saddens him, in a way. ’I knew you’d become something extraordinary’ he adds, returning to his true appearance, and grasping Charles in a large psychic hand.
‘I was your true father, Charles. Not pliable Brian Xavier or school bully Kurt Marko!’ Sinister exclaims, adding that he doesn’t mean in a biological sense, but in terms of Xavier’s vision. ‘Your audacity. The spark that burns so brightly within you. You get these things from me!’ Sinister grins as Xavier begins to sink from view, and Sinister declares ‘I’m written on your DNA, Charles. That must be demoralizing, surely. Conductive to despair. Why carry on a fight you can’t hope to win?’ he asks. ‘Remember your defeats, Charles. Your disasters. Your deaths! They were all just walk-throughs and rehearsals for this day’ Sinister exclaims as he walks away, as the last of Xavier’s fingers sink from view.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the complex, ‘Gambit! Wake up!’ Shaw calls out to Gambit, their cages next to each other, just two of dozens, some filled with the remains of other beings. ‘Where are we?’ Gambit asks he comes to. Shaw, who keeps pounding at the clear cage replies that they are in some kind of holding facility. ‘I think it was built to handle a much larger amount of traffic!’ he remarks, as Gambit looks at the rows and rows of empty cages.
Gambit exclaims that Sinister is alive, ‘What does it take? What does it take to stop him?’ he exclaims. Continuing to punch the cage, Shaw replies ‘He has history with you, yes?’ and suggests that Gambit put Sinister out of his mind, and concentrate on this fight if he wants to survive. ‘We have to get out!’ Gambit exclaims, ‘Allow me’ Shaw replies as his muscular body continues to smash the cage, and he explains that every impact makes him a little stronger, so, sooner or later, he will reach a power level beyond this structure’s tolerance. ‘And then - there will be - a reckoning!’ Shaw shouts as, finally, he bursts through the cage.
Meanwhile, Xavier tells himself to pull out of this, that he must take control of his body and mind again, when, suddenly, he has a vision of the past:
(Flashback to the “X-Cutioner’s Song” / Illusion)
At Lila Cheney’s goodwill concert, Xavier is suddenly shot - by someone resembling Cable! ‘He’s hit! The Professor’s been hit!’ Archangel exclaims as he rushes over to Xavier. ‘It was someone in the crowd!’ Lila exclaims, stopping the concert as she drops down beside Xavier. ‘Lila, get Hank!’ We need Hank!’ Archangel exclaims as a pool of blood begins to form on Xavier‘s chest.
(Present / Reality)
Xavier thinks to himself that this is not real, as he survived Stryfe’s bullet, when, suddenly, looking at his hands, his body (not the one Sinister is wearing) begins to transform….
Back in Muller’s lab proper, Sinister, still in Xavier’s body, exclaims ‘Now. Where were we?’. ‘You were about to die, Nathaniel!’ Mueller screams, telling him that, like Xavier, he ought to be used to that by now. Sinister’s eyes flash as he reminds Mueller that every defense system in this complex knows him, and that even in this borrowed flesh, they will not harm him. Suddenly though, some laser beams rain down on Sinister, and one of them strikes him. ‘I did some redecorating. I hope you don’t mind!’ Mueller snarls.
Lying on the ground, Sinister exclaims ‘Emergency protocol E for Essex!’, and instantly, thick metal cords wrap themselves around a horrified Mueller, encasing her. ‘Redecorating? You should have stripped the processor core and rebuilt from the ground up! That might have worked!’ Sinister tells his opponent as he gets to his feet.
(Flashback to the “X-Cutioner’s Song” / Illusion)
‘Isn’t there - anything we can do?’ Jean Grey asks as she, Cyclops, Archangel, Iceman, Colossus, Psylocke, Rogue, Gambit and Bishop gather around the Beast who has been working on Xavier. The Beast replies that he is afraid not, as the Techno-Organic Virus has reached the Professor’s brain. ‘All we can do now - is remember him…’ the Beast exclaims as he brings a sheet up over Xavier’s unmoving body.
(Present / Reality)
Surrounded by darkness, Xavier watches these events play out before his eyes, ‘This is insane - being made to relive these random events while Sinister usurps my mind and body!’ Xavier shouts, knowing that this is a matter or will, pure and simple. ‘A trial of strength…my mind against his!’ Xavier clenches his fists and shakes, boasting that his mind will be the one that prevails!’ he exclaims.
(Flashback to Uncanny X-Men #167 / Illusion)
‘Done it! Xavier exclaims, but looking around himself, he realizes that this is another illusion, and suddenly, falls out of the wheelchair that he is sitting in falls over, he screams, wondering what stage of his life this illusion relates to, ‘When did this happen to me?’ he asks, before realizing that his body is transforming yet again, ‘No! God, no!’ he gasps as he gives birth to the Brood Queen.
(Present / Reality)
Shaw and Gambit have found their way back to the main chamber, ‘Sinister! Face me, you coward!’ Shaw demands. ‘Face you, Mister Shaw? I believe I already did - and you were only saved by Amanda’s intervention!’ Sinister replies, with his hands around the incapacitated Mueller’s throat. ‘She’s in no position to intervene now!’ Sinister points out, and pushes Shaw over as Sebastian approaches him. ‘You have my undivided attention!’ Sinister adds, until Gambit kicks him over, calling out to the Professor, telling him that if he is still in there to keep fighting, as it is not over. ‘Gambit - I suggest you forget how to breathe!’ Sinister tells his former ally, adding ‘And, as an agreeable side effect - how to talk!’. Gambit drops to his knees.
(In Illusion)
The Brood Queen wrenches herself from Xavier’s broken form, but, at the same time, they are one being. Xavier’s mind and body dissolved in the Brood Queen’s like salt and water - no longer a presence, only a flavor. Xavier realizes that Sinister is doing this, reminding him of the times when his will was suppressed and overridden. ‘Telling me to fail. Surrender. Die’. His body distorting again, Xavier shouts: ‘I…I…I…I…refuse…refuse…refuse…REFUSE!’, until he finds himself transformed into Onslaught! ‘Hah!’ Xavier laughs, suggesting that Sinister should have started with Onslaught, as now it is too obvious. ‘And the child you terrorized as finally stepped out of your shadow!’ Xavier exclaims, remembering himself as a child.
(Present / Reality)
Sinister moans, and energy flows around him, while Shaw tells Gambit that they have a window. ‘Use it!’ he exclaims, but Gambit replies that he isn’t going to kill the Professor, to which Shaw retorts ‘Now him, you inbred fool. The machine!’. Shaw points out that even if Xavier defeats Sinister, it will not matter so long as the Cronus device exists, for Sinister will just find a different host. ‘Built to last!’ Gambit replies moments later after unleashing a barrage of kinetically-charged playing cards at the Cronus device, though it doesn’t blow up. ‘Everything’s got a breaking point!’ Shaw replies as he continues to punch it hard. ‘I know that! I just hope the Professor dint reach his yet!’ Remy adds.
Inside Xavier’s mind, a furious Sinister tells Xavier that he draws out his suffering to no purpose. ‘You think so?’ Xavier replies. ‘I know it for a fact. I told you. I’m written on your DNA. I am what you are fated to become!’ A brilliant display of colors and energies fills Xavier’s mind, as the founding father of the X-Men floats above Sinister, exclaiming ‘As Nietzsche said, Sinister, “Fate is the word cowards use…to describe the things they’re too weak to change”!’
Standing before the Cronus device, Gambit asks Shaw if he is a gambling man. ‘What do you mean?’ Shaw asks, to which Remy reminds him that, when they met, Shaw told him that his charged cards would power him up. Gambit explains that he can put that charge into anything and anyone, but the question is, will Shaw’s body be able to convert it and use it. ‘Do it!’ Shaw replies. ‘Everything?’ Gambit asks. ‘Everything. Kill or cure!’ Shaw declares. ‘You’re a brave man’ Remy tells the former Black King as he places his hands to his chest. ‘I’m an egotist’ Shaw corrects Gambit. ‘I’d prefer to die as myself rather than live as someone else’ he explains, before Remy begins pouring power into Shaw.
Soon, Shaw thanks Gambit, and remarks that, however this goes, it ought to be interesting. Shaw then smacks the Cronus device with ease, toppling it.
‘You hear that, Sinister?’ Xavier asks inside his mind. ‘NO!’ a wide-eyed, frightened Sinister screams. ‘That was the sound of your exit strategy breaking into a million pieces!’ Xavier exclaims, swatting Sinister away with a burst of mind-power, Xavier remarks to him ‘That must be demoralizing, surely. Conductive to despair’. A horrified Sinister tries to merge into Xavier, but Xavier furiously shouts ‘This is my body. My mind. GET OUT!’.
Moments later, Xavier gets to his feet. ‘Professor?’ Gambit asks. ‘I’m well, Gambit. I’m fine, thank you. I just need a moment to collect my thoughts’ Xavier replies, back to normal. Motioning to the console where Dr. Mueller was residing, Shaw points out that it would appear she took the opportunity to leave while they were otherwise engaged. ‘I think if neither of you gentlemen objects, I’ll do the same’ Shaw remarks. Xavier bids Shaw farewell, and tells him that his assistance was appreciated. ‘Please. I was on Sinister’s list myself. Altruism has never been one of my vices. And I’m too told to take up new hobbies’ Shaw retorts as he takes his leave.
Xavier shakes Gambit’s hand and thanks him for everything. ‘I’m aware of how hard this must have been for you’ Xavier tells him. ‘How many old ghosts you must have faced’ he adds. ‘A few, that’s true!’ Remy replies as they begin to walk out of the lab together, as Gambit remarks that he feels better knowing that he saw Sinister die. ‘Maybe I’ll be able to believe it now’ he remarks, before asking Xavier if he wants to find a bar and talk about old times. Xavier thanks Gambit, and explains that he cannot stay. ‘I need to speak with Scott Summers…and it won’t wait!’ Xavier declares.
Two days later, Sebastian Shaw, now in one of his expensive suits, sits in a restaurant, looking at The Globe newspaper, with the headline “Meltdown at Alamogordo: Unexplained explosion demolishes disused reactor”. Shaw tells a woman with long black hair sitting opposite him that there is, of course, a funny side to this whole affair. ‘Is there?’ the woman asks. ‘Oh yes, you don’t see it?’ Shaw replies, remarking that Essex set this little scheme in motion in the nineteen-forties while he was still learning his craft.
‘All those baroque contrivances - the machine, the trigger pulse, the manipulation of other people’s genes - they all become irrelevant when he perfected human cloning’ Sebastian explains. The woman, who has rather white skin, puts down her cup of tea and replies that she thought the point was that Sinister wanted to save his memories and personality, not just his DNA. ‘Did I get that wrong?’ she asks. ‘No, you’re right’ Shaw replies as he gets to his feet and calls out to a waiter, asking for the check.
Shaw tells his companion that she must admit, she represents a much more elegant and economical way of cheating the grave. ‘If I’m what you say I am’ the woman replies. ‘Well you must have known already that you were…different’ Shaw replies, before telling the woman that she will be his new Black Queen, answerable to him alone. ‘No’ the woman replies. ‘No?’ Shaw asks, surprised. ‘No. Not the Black Queen. Sometimes it’s cool to just go ahead and state the obvious’ she points out, sitting in thigh-high black leather boots, long elegant gloves, and a barely-there mini-dress, with a sinister red diamond on her forehead, she suggests ‘How about…Miss Sinister?’.


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

[Assistant]
Walkthrough part 1
Greymalkin Lane, Westchester, outside the former home and headquarters of the Uncanny X-Men stands a solemn man - the founder and “father” of the X-Men - Professor Charles Xavier. His home in ruins, he thinks to himself that this is a little like death. He strolls through the runs of the once-sprawling mansion, and recalls how he once told his sister, Cassandra Nova, that the past explains people, but she laughed in his face. ‘Only a dream, but still. That laugh comes back to me’ Xavier tells himself, thinking ‘Without the past - without concrete evidence that we walked here, and wrought here, and set our roots here - what are we?’ he wonders.
Xavier finds a sign amongst the rubble and picks it up, it reads: Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, a disguise so that the general public was not aware this was the home of the X-Men. Xavier frowns as he recalls his original X-Men, his first students - Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman and Angel. ‘What are we - my X-Men?’ he wonders.
Meanwhile, at Maynard Plains, Western Australia, at the former headquarters of the Uncanny X-Men, one of those who spent time here pulls up on a motor cycle, dust trailing behind her, it is the complex Rogue, who thinks to herself that it doesn’t matter how far you go, or how fast you run, you bring the past along with you. ‘I know that better than anyone’ she decides, admitting that it can be kind of a comfort sometimes, as good memories can give one strength to get through the bad time.
Rogue’s mind flashes back to when the Uncanny X-Men had just made their home here, and Colossus was bashing away at the rocky terrain, while Rogue told him that if he wanted a real challenge, she would have been glad to fly him over to the Himalayas so that he could try his hand at flattening Mount Everest.
But, as Rogue knows, the past can be a trap too, stopping you from thinking straight, stopping you from being who you need to be, which is why she has come back here - to kill the past. ‘If I don’t kill me first!’ she remarks, stepping into one of the run-down buildings the X-Men used, a mirror stands in the hallway, broken across the top, Rogue’s body appears fragmented in it.
Elsewhere, another home and headquarters of the X-Men, this time though, their present home, in Marin County, California. Scott “Cyclops” Summers, long-time leader of the Uncanny X-Men walks past various construction workers, thinking to himself that this is the future being built right now, and that it is all coming along just fine. Scott decides that when the mansion fell, it seemed like the end of so many things - and it was, it really was. Hank “Beast” McCoy calls out to Scott, telling his friend that Cerebra is fully functional, ‘Good work!’ Scott replies to Hank, who is working with the depowered mutant David “Prodigy” Alleyne.
Scott thinks to himself that if there is one thing the X-Men are good at, it’s rising from the ashes. Behind him, is Warren “Archangel” Worthington III, speaking to some construction workers, he tells them that he wanted the hangar doors slaved to the jet’s navigation board, otherwise that two-second delay means the pilot is going to be wallpaper. Scott thinks to himself that the past is just where they launch from, and it is what they do now that determines who they are and what they are worth.
Scott’s girlfriend and teammate, the glamorous Emma Frost a.k.a. the White Queen approaches him as he surveys the goings-ons, exclaiming ‘I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts, Scott - but since I can get them for free, I’d be down on the deal’. Scott tells Emma that he was thinking about her. ‘Good start’ Emma replies. ‘In fact, about us’ Scott elaborates. ‘Better’ Emma tells him, before Scott reveals that he is really going to miss her tomorrow. ‘And he falls on the ten yard line’ Emma smiles as she places a hand on Scott’s shoulder.
Cyclops explains that he wants to check out the approaches to the headland from the North, walk it through a little. ‘If the base is attacked from that direction, it would be a good idea to have a clear idea of the terrain’ Scott points out. Emma suggests that they could go together, but Scott replies that a camp-out in the woods is not Emma’s style. ‘And I tend to do a job better without…distractions’ Scott adds. Emma tells him to come back quickly, suggesting that they test his hypothesis about distractions in a different arena.
As Scott drives North, he is silent, pensive, even brooding as he parks his car in a forest, and makes his way through the woodlands, until he blasts through some trees, revealing a small clearing where Professor X is sitting, reading a newspaper. ‘Charles!’ Cyclops exclaims. ‘Good morning, Scott. Please join me’ Xavier replies, thinking to himself that Scott told Emma the best lie to get here, a lie that is so completely believable, even more so than the truth. After all, what could be more natural than Cyclops wanting to check out every angle? To sniff the wind, and plug the dam before there is even a hole in it. Xavier thinks to himself that everyone knows that is what Cyclops does, and, at the same time, everyone knows how little he likes to be questioned. Therefore, this seemed like the line of least resistance, the most obvious stratagem to make sure that the two of them could talk undisturbed.
‘It’s good to see you well, as opposed to dead’ Scott replies, before asking how Charles knew in advance which way he would come. Xavier frowns, to which Scott runs his hands through his hair, ‘Are you kidding me?’ he asks. ‘Scott, the matter was too important to wait’ Xavier retorts. ‘You’re doing it again!’ Scott replies, annoyed. ‘I’d accuse you of reading my thoughts, but that wouldn’t have been enough, would it? You set this up, didn’t you? You messed with my mind!’ Scott exclaims.
Xavier explains to Scott that he planted a very weak suggestion, which nudged other thoughts that he was already having about his base’s security. ‘It was no more than that’ he assures him. Scott asks Charles why he thinks it is okay to do that - reaching into people’s heads and rearranging the furniture. ‘I don’t do it lightly, Scott’ Xavier replies, to which Scott asks him how come he does it so often then. Scott declares that he has gotten over hating Charles, as he doesn’t have the time to waste these days. ‘I thought we reached an understanding when you left the mansion. I thought we were past this!’ Scott declares.
Charles reveals that his memories are impaired, and therefore he doesn’t know enough about his past to answer that accusation. ‘Well, I know plenty!’ Scott snaps back, before telling Xavier that he has a lot to answer for. Scott begins to stride away from Xavier, telling him that perhaps some day they can talk about this, but right now, the best thing they can do for each other is keep their distance. ‘Congratulations on your new life, Charles. Use it better than the old one!’ Cyclops declares.
Xavier hangs his head, then folds his arms, while Scott stands a few feet away, unable to step forward, he asks the Professor why he is still here. ‘Because I gave myself the responsibility of teaching you, Scott. And there’s something you still need to learn’ Xavier tells him.
Meanwhile, at the Hellfire Club in Manhattan, Sebastian Shaw, the deposed Black King, sits with several others, and declares ‘What we have been - we must, and can, be again!’. He tells the others that Roberto Da Costa’s defection should not be allowed to distract them from the real issue here. ‘And what’s that, Shaw? Your own power base?’ asks a cloaked figure, who strides around the room. Shaw addresses the cloaked figure as Mister Castlemere, and reminds him that he has been the Hellfire Club’s servant for twenty years, and its master twice. ‘I see power as a very fluid and negotiated asset’.
Castlemere tells Shaw to spare them the rhetoric, ‘We all know you brought something back with you from New Mexico - some weapon you’re keeping to yourself!’ Castlemere exclaims. A man called Turner asks Castlemere about his own cybernetic enhancements, ‘You’re clearly plotting a coup yourself!’ he remarks. Castlemere turns to Turner, his cloak falls down, revealing his strange skin, and Castlemere declares that the Club needs soldiers, and now mutants have turned out to be a finite resource. ‘Donald Pierce was a man of real vision!’ he boasts, referring to the cybernetcially enhanced Pierce. ‘And questionable sanity’ Turner points out, while Castlemere adds that his own body, consequentially, has a very high tolerance of organic toxins.
Watching Castlemere drink his wine down, Turner replies that he thought it was worth trying. ‘The Club’s rules allow for undeclared challenges’ Turner points out. ‘True’ Castlemere replies, ‘But the frown on failure!’ he exclaims as some energy pours out of a device on his chest and passes through Turner, who keels over, until Shaw tells the men to calm themselves. Shaw points out that they now have two vacant positions in the Circle, and suggests they adjourn for now, and consider nominations at their next meeting, with cooler heads.
Sitting next to Shaw is the scantily-clad Mercedes, who tells Shaw that he could exercise a moderating influence here, yet he doesn’t. ‘You seem happy with this drift towards open warfare’ she points out. Shaw tells Mercedes that, to be honest, he thinks a little war might be exactly what the Club needs. ‘To whet our appetites for the big one’ he smirks.
Back in Marin County, Xavier quotes “We shall not cease from traveling. And the end of all our journeys will be to arrive back where we started, and see the place for the first time”. He explains to Scott that is what he is doing, journeying back to his beginnings. Scott, still frozen, ignores Xavier’s comment and tells him that the second he releases him he is going to break his jaw. Xavier replies that he doesn’t believe for a moment Scott would do that. ‘With all the holes in my memory, I know you too well’ he remarks, to which Scott replies ‘Of course you do. You see through all of us, don’t you, Charles? Read us like books, and scribble in the margins. So what’s the big secret you brought back from the grave?’
‘It’s not a revelation. Just a question I never asked you. About your glasses?’ Xavier remarks. ‘My glasses?’ Scott replies. ‘The first pair. The ones you had when we faced Jack O’Diamonds together. Where did they come from?’ Xavier asks. Scott replies that they came from Sinister, as he ran the orphanage in Nebraska where he and Alex grew up. ‘Are you telling me you don’t know that? You must be out of your mind!’ Scott replies. ‘No. But I was inside his, recently. Or vice versa’ Charles replies, to which Scott, now released from Xavier’s mental hold, replies that if he hadn’t seen Sinister dead, that would actually scare him. ‘Scott, do you think the glasses were the only legacy Sinister left you?’ Xavier asks.
Xavier reveals that when his and Sinister’s minds were merged, he saw how deeply Sinister was involved in Scott’s past, and in his. ‘An irony, really. I went in search of my own memories, and found his!’ Xavier remarks, before revealing to Scott that Sinister wasn’t just the head of the orphanage, he was most of the people Scott met there - doctors, administrators and fellow inmates. ‘The whole place existed mostly to provide a realistic environment and context for you’. Xavier adds that, in fact, Sinister had been tracking Scott and his family quite deliberately for three generations, and also watched Jean too, such as disguising himself as an old man passing her while she played outside as a child. Charles reminds Scott that Sinister created a clone from Jean’s DNA, to ensure that the Summers bloodline would continue.
Charles remarks that, under the circumstances, the fact that Scott named his firstborn son Nathan is either a singular coincidence, or else a sign that Nathaniel Essex left marks on Scott’s soul that they have never been able to locate or eradicate. ‘Are you done?’ Scott asks, annoyed. ‘Not entirely. But you’re free to move now’ Xavier points out, telling Scott that he can leave if he likes, ‘I won’t keep you here any longer against your will’.
Xavier tells Scott that, with his permission, he would like to scan his mind, to see whether Sinister left any other mental blocks or compulsions there. ‘To see - ? To see whether -?’ Scott frowns, and unleashes a powerful optic beam which spreads down both sides of Xavier, not touching the old man of course, but possible giving him a shock. Two scars now line the ground, while Scott exclaims ‘You let Sinister inside your own mind, and then you want to check out mine?’ Xavier explains that it would be a precaution only. ‘I wouldn’t pry into -’ he begins, but Scott grabs him by the collar of his shirt, telling him that he doesn’t care how he rationalizes it to himself. ‘No, wait. I do. I do care!’ Xavier tells Scott.
Angry, Scott shouts ‘You bring me here, without asking me. Hold me here against my will!’ ‘For your own -’ Xavier begins to reply, but Scott interrupts, telling him to shut up, asking him why he holds Sinister to a higher ethical standard than himself. ‘What’s the difference between what he does and what you do?’ Scott asks. ‘I suppose, in a sense, Scott - that’s what I’m here to find our’ Xavier replies.
Back in Australia, Rogue gazes around at the ruins, and remembers being happy here, sometimes…and her mind flashes back:
(Flashback)
This is supposed to be my place. See what she done to it!?’ Rogue exclaims, teary-eyed as she motions to her messy quarters. ‘That Yankee witch took control of my body and redecorated my home!’ she exclaims. Storm, Psylocke and Dazzler are standing nearby, watching their friend, before Storm reminds Rogue that it was her decision to attack Carol Danvers, and her powers that absorbed Ms. Marvel’s psyche into her own. ‘For better or worse - for the rest of your lives - you’re stuck with each other!’ Storm points out. Rogue sarcastically thanks Storm and mutters that she should have figured Storm would side with Ms. Marvel.
(Present)
Rogue walks across the dusty ground, thinking that sometimes she was happy here, but the bottom line is this place has two things going for it - it is real quiet, and it used to be hers. Rogue slumps down onto the ground, the wind blows her hair around her face, and she closes her eyes - only to reopen them moments later and announce ‘So. You got anything to say - now’s probably the best chance you’re gonna get’ to a shadow standing behind her. The shadow steps into the light, and places a white-gloved hand on Rogue’s shoulder, ‘What do you want me to say, Anna?’ a voice asks. Rogue spins around and sees Raven Darkholme - Mystique - her foster-mother and long-time antagonist standing before her.
‘You already know I love you!’ Mystique tells Rogue, who angrily replies ‘For just a moment - a couple of heartbeats - I was clean. All alone inside my head for the first time since that fight on the Golden Gate Bridge. Then I touched you…and now there’s two of us’. A tear falls from Rogue’s eye, while Mystique remarks ‘Solitude was my natural state for a hundred years. I never let anyone inside my guard’. Rogue replies that that must have been peaceful, to which Mystique tells her that so is death. ‘It really just depends what you’re looking for’.
Rogue stands up and tells Mystique that she is looking for a way to be herself. ‘Just me!’. She exclaims that she is tired of going through life wearing prophylactics on both her hands. ‘It’s got to change!’ she declares. ‘And I waited long enough for someone else to change it for me. Too long. Didn’t happen. Now - it’s down to little old me, ain’t it?’ Rogue exclaims as the hallucination of Mystique vanishes.
Marin County, the evening sky rises to replace daylight, when finally Xavier exclaims ‘Motive. That would be one thing that separates me from Sinister’. Xavier declares that he had a dream, an ideal, and it was bigger than anything else in his life. Xavier reveals that when his mind was destroyed, it was the last thing he clung to. ‘The core around which I rebuilt myself. It stayed with me, when so much of the past bled away’ Xavier remarks. ‘Sinister. Magneto. Apocalypse. Idealists, every one. You can’t buy yourself off this by saying you meant well!’ Cyclops tells Xavier.
‘I’m not trying to!’ Xavier assures Scott, who replies ‘The core you built the rest of us around was a lie. You took us apart and reassembled us, the way a soldier does with a rifle. But at the end of the day, Professor - a soldier goes into a battle himself’. Xavier is upset by this comment, and exclaims that he has fought by Scott’s side. ‘Sometimes. But it was your war. You drafted all of us’ Scott replies. ‘Told us what to think, and edited out the parts of our minds that didn’t fit!’.
Xavier asks what would have happened if he didn’t draft and train them all. ‘Would your enemies have left you alone?’ he asks, before pointing out that the enemy had already found Scott, and declares that his justification for what he has done is that Scott is still alive. Xavier hangs his head as he turns from Scott, ‘No matter’ he mutters, telling Scott that it was good to see him again, and that he hopes his apology will come to mean something to him in time. With that, Xavier begins to walk away.
‘Professor!’ Scott shouts, frowning as he announces that it is not going to be nearly this easy. ‘Not after what you just told me!’ he exclaims. ‘Think about it! You said you made mind-contact with Sinister after he was dead. You don’t throw out a remark like that and then just walk away!’ Scott shouts. Xavier suddenly walks off the edge of what appears to be a cliff - only to land on some ground below, where Scott is standing in front of him.
‘This isn’t your power!’ Xavier gasps. ‘No. But then, I didn’t come here alone!’ Scott reveals. A giant shadow is cast over Xavier as Cyclops remarks that someone else has visiting rights inside his head these days, someone who would spot a thought that didn’t belong there and know it for what it was. ‘So strap yourself in, Professor, you’re about to get a taste of your own medicine!’ Scott announces, while, now inside the Astral Plane, Xavier is confronted by a giant-sized Emma Frost!


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

[Assistant]
Walkthrough part 2
‘My mind is stronger than yours, Emma! If we fight, there’s no doubt as to the outcome!’ Professor Charles Xavier shouts at Emma “White Queen” Frost as the land around him crumbles and he falls into the Mindscape, while his once prized pupil, Scott “Cyclops” Summers, leader of the X-Men, stands nearby, arms folded across his chest. Emma appears as a giantess, holding Xavier in the palm of her hands now, she replies ‘That’s moot, Charles, but we won’t be fighting’. Emma reminds Charles that he took control of Scott’s mind, but that she was inside, waiting, biding her time. Emma adds that the slightest contact would have been enough. ‘You caught me like a virus!’ she exclaims, telling Xavier that she has been working away in his subconscious ever since.
Emma beings to flick Xavier as if he were a pack of cards, each card representing a different era in his life. Emma declares that she has been installing blocks and inhibitors, fail safes and blind spots, all as required. ‘We’re in my Mindscape now. And, at the risk of sounding vulgar - I own you!’ the White Queen declares, holding Charles up as if he were a strip of film. Xavier replies that he came here in good faith, to help Scott, not to harm him. ‘I know. Hence you still have the use of all your limbs. And you’re not barking like a dog’ Emma replies.
Scott admits to the Professor that he had a strong desire to teach him a lesson. ‘I haven’t forgiven you for what you did. I can’t Scott declares. Scott points out that they have gone beyond that now. ‘You said Sinister took control of your mind. I need to be sure - beyond any possible doubt - that he’s still not there!’ Scott exclaims. Xavier replies that he is sure, and declares that he does not consent to being scanned, or interrogated. ‘Nor do I feel that Emma is qualified for such a task!’ he adds. ‘Ready?’ Scott asks his lover. ‘Ready’ Emma replies, preparing a projector. Emma tells Charles to believe her when she says that this is something she is not looking forward to. ‘Horror stories have their place - and Heaven knows I’m not the squeamish type…but I think there are some scenes coming up that I’ll want to look away from!’.
Xavier begins to “fall” past film strips of various X-Men line ups. The Original X-Men. The Classic X-Men. The All-New, All-Different X-Men, The Australian-era X-Men, The Original New Mutants and Kitty Pryde, the Gold and Blue strike force teams and more. The Professor lands on some hard ground, and finds himself watching a scenario play out before him from a very long time ago: ‘Best to let them go, Henry McCoy. Your destiny lies elsewhere’ a younger, wheelchair-bound Xavier says to Henry McCoy, clothes torn, who stands before Angel, Cyclops and Iceman. The young Charles Xavier introduces himself, and informs Henry that he runs a school, where people like he can learn to use their abilities for the good of all the Earth.
The present Xavier watches intently, only turning to Emma when the White Queen exclaims ‘You always play that card first, don’t you, Charles. Altruism. Do unto others’. Emma remarks that, back when she was competition with Charles, that made her job a lot easier. ‘Emma, what is this charade meant to achieve?’ Xavier asks, motioning to the scene behind them. ‘It’s a walkthrough, Charles. And I’m afraid it’s going to hurt!’ the White Queen replies, matter-of-factly. Xavier hangs his head and asks Emma if she thinks Scott will love her any more if she tortures him. ‘I wasn’t referring to physical pain, Professor. I’m mainly concerned with your emotional responses’ Emma replies.
The mindscape changes, and Emma and Xavier now appear inside Xavier’s mansion, with the past versions of Xavier, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman and Angel still. Emma walks over to the past Xavier as the present one tells her to release him. ‘Not yet’ Emma replies. ‘Then I’ll have to make you’ Xavier tells her. ‘Make me?’ Emma asks as she passes her hand through the past Xavier’s head, explaining to the real Charles that everything he sees here, all of it, is playing out inside his mind. ‘This is the last place in the world were you want to pick a fight with me!’ Emma warns him.
Xavier walks over to her and asks once more what the point of this is. ‘To see how you react. To see if you’re really - and purely - Charles Xavier, or Charles Xavier with a twist of Nathaniel Essex’ Emma explains. ‘And that’s all?’ Xavier asks. Emma narrows her eyes, ‘Well, there’s also the pleasure of your company. But to be honest, I find a little of that goes a long way’ Emma replies. Xavier watches as his past self tells Henry McCoy that he has taken the liberty of erasing the fact of his existence from the minds of everyone he has ever met. ‘You can control people’s minds?’ Henry asks, shocked. ‘As you saw. But for ethical reasons, I do it only as a last resort’ the past Xavier explains.
Xavier watches his past self closely as he asks Henry if he would rather those who knew him remembered him with hate, fear and regret. ‘I’d say it’s better this way, wouldn’t you?’ he asks. Xavier turns to Emma and explains that he was removing Henry from a situation where he was unhappy and vulnerable. ‘Is that what was in your mind? Is that what’s in your mind now?’ Emma asks. ‘You know what’s in my mind now!’ Xavier retorts. ‘Doubt’ Emma declares. ‘Yes’ Xavier replies. ‘Uncertainty’ Emma adds. ‘Yes’ Xavier replies. ‘The fear that you have done this amazing thing to see if it could be done’ Emma remarks, while the past versions of the X-Men celebrate, welcoming Henry to their team. ‘If there’s really no element of torture in this, then let’s move on’ Xavier suggests.
‘I notice you didn’t deny that last accusation, Charles’ Emma remarks. ‘How can I? I barely remember these events!’ Charles points out, adding that he remembers them as a stranger might. ‘The words, the actions, not the motives behind them’. The White Queen asks Xavier if he remembers how he felt when his power first showed itself. Charles replies that he remembers some of it, that he remembers being terrified at first. ‘Everyone around me had a whole world inside their head. I saw…infinity’ Xavier exclaims. Emma asks if that frightened him, to which Xavier replies that he was a child, in a maze of adult minds, he was too small.
‘I thought I might get lost in there and never find my own thoughts again!’ Xavier reveals. ‘I felt the way God must feel. Weighting men’s souls in my hands’ Emma explains. ‘I don’t presume to speculate about how God feels’ Xavier retorts. ‘No?’ Emma asks, before the next scene in the Mindscape flashes before them: ‘This is Rogue. I’m sure you remember her’ Emma tells Xavier, standing behind Rogue, who is clutching herself and crying.
‘Ah don’t know what to do, Professor. Ah think Ah’m going crazy!’ Rogue exclaims, curled up on a chair. The past Xavier replies ‘Yes. So you said to the others when you first arrived here, Rogue. You don’t have to maintain the pretense when we’re alone’. ‘What do you mean? Ah’m telling you the truth!’ Rogue exclaims, surprised. The past Xavier spins his wheelchair around, ‘Like everything else you’ve ever done, your coming here was motivated entirely by self-interest’ the past Xavier declares. ‘No, I -’ Rogue begins to protest, but the past Xavier interrupts, declaring that Rogue wants to be saved from the consequences of her own ruthlessness and cruelty.
Rogue continues crying, as she stares at the past Xavier, who doesn’t even look at her as he declares that, in time, she may be worthy of salvation, and he may be prepared to offer it, to help her control her powers. ‘That time is far away. You must prove yourself, Rogue. I offer no pardons, and no free gifts’ the past Xavier declares. Rogue covers her face with her hands, sobbing, while the White Queen asks ‘Well? We were talking about God…’ Xavier looks somewhat forlorn as he stares at Rogue, ‘Thank you, Emma. I take the point’ he mutters.
Xavier tells the White Queen that he believed Rogue was capable of change, of redemption. ‘I did what I thought was best’ he claims. ‘By lying to her? Holding out the hope of a cure you couldn’t provide?’ Emma asks. Xavier replies that he if had just said no, told Rogue that he couldn’t help her, then she would have just gone back to Mystique. ‘Back to the life that was twisting and destroying her. I told her - what she needed to hear!’ Xavier claims. He hangs his head as he tells Emma that he thought he had forgotten this day. ‘I found a piece of it here, a piece there’ Emma explains, adding that she has done an immaculate reconstruction.
‘It’s a little like splicing together damaged tape. Some of what you’ve lost isn’t lost, Charles, it’s just misplaced. Or perhaps suppressed’ Emma explains. Xavier replies that might be for the best, to which Emma asks him why. ‘Because you made mistakes?’. ‘Because I was arrogant. So sure of my won rectitude that I never -’ Xavier begins to reply, when Emma slaps him in the face, ‘Oh, turn off the pathos!’ she tells him, annoyed. Emma asks Xavier where he thinks his arrogance comes from, to which Xavier replies ‘It’s a fault. A personality flaw’. Emma asks him where he thinks her arrogance comes from, to which Charles tells her that it comes from her upbringing, the privileges she enjoyed.
‘It comes from being young, Charles. From never having tested yourself against the world and come away bleeding. Everyone who ever lived has been through this. Everyone hits that wall with the same velocity!’ Emma explains. Xavier points out that not everyone has power like they do, to which Emma asks Xavier to remember who he is talking to. ‘Our sins are greater because our reach is greater. Does this come to you as news?’ she asks him.
The Mindscape changes once more, and Emma and Xavier appear in some sort of lab. ‘Oh my God, this is -’ Xavier begins, before Emma interrupts, ‘What? Just another station of the cross? Or the place where you finally understood?’ she asks him. Emma angrily tells Xavier that he has to go forward. ‘The other way is closed!’ she exclaims.
Two figures from the past begin talking: ‘I watched it, Professor, and then I ran…what could I do? My powers are gone, and they didn’t hurt that place even -’ a young Cyclops exclaims, upset. ‘You did the right thing, Scotty…’ the past Xavier assures Cyclops. ‘Oh God…no. I let me own brother die! And Alex and Jean and…oh God…what’ve I done?’ Scott asks. ‘There is still hope, my boy. Listen to me!’ Xavier exclaims, before telling Scott that he must sleep. Scott lies down on the bed, exclaiming that he can’t sleep, he can’t go on with this any more. ‘I can’t take it!’ he exclaims. Charles puts his hand to Scott’s forehead.
‘And now we’re getting somewhere!’ Emma exclaims. ‘What -? My legs! I’m -’ Xavier begins, as he finds himself trapped in the past Xavier’s wheelchair. Emma tells Xavier that he is living this one, not just a tourist taking the bus. ‘So tell me about it. How does it feel?’ she asks. Xavier retorts that his life is not a puzzle for Emma to solve, for anyone to solve. ‘What I’ve done - can’t be undone, now. I won’t try to justify it. I won’t plead my case to you’. Looking at the young Scott, Emma tells Xavier that he could have pointed out that the others were still on Krakoa, and that if he hadn’t got Scott back on his feet and functioning again, they all would have died.
‘I have nothing, nothing to say!’ Xavier declares. Emma tells Xavier that the fact of the matter is he did not ask Cyclops, he simply took his consent for granted. ‘You were still thinking like God. All alone in your majesty, looking down on the world!’. Charles replies that he said he wasn’t offering any defense, that he accepts his guilt, and turns away from Emma and the past Cyclops. ‘Only to get out of thinking about it’ Emma points out. ‘Not good enough!’ she tells him. ‘You want guilt? Try this!’ Emma declares, snapping her fingers, scenes begin to unfold before them:
‘You murdered you own sister in the womb!’ Emma reminds Xavier as he and Cassandra Nova appear inside their mother’s womb. ‘You erased Magneto’s mind and consciousness, turning yourself into a monster in the process!’ Emma exclaims as Xavier stares at himself attacking Magneto. ‘Love and hate, pragmatism, the greater good - they all served as excuses for you to do whatever it was you wanted to do!’ the White Queen points out, as a scene with Xavier and Amelia Voght plays out. ‘And the ones who suffered most were the ones you said you cared for!’ Emma declares, while Xavier watches himself delving into the mind of Wolverine.
‘Nnnn! No! No!’ Xavier cries as he lies on the ground, out of the Mindscape now, Scott asks Emma what she did to Xavier. ‘I clarified the issues, Scott. Now please, let me work!’ the White Queen tells her lover.
Back in the Mindscape, and Emma apologizes to Charles, ‘That must have come as a shock’ she remarks. ‘Those memories - they were lost. They were lost to me!’ Xavier gasps. Emma remarks that it is a question of leverage. ‘There’s a reason why you can’t lift yourself by your own bootstraps. It’s a lot easier for someone else to find the right fulcrum’ she remarks. Xavier, still lying on the floor, tells Emma that she has done what she set out to do. ‘Proved your point - to anyone’s satisfaction. Please - leave me now!’ he asks. Standing over Xavier, the White Queen asks him to tell her what her point was.
‘If you were God, Charles - all-seeing, and all-knowing - then the things you’ve done would be unforgivable. Is that the standard you’re judging yourself against?’ Emma asks him, before remarking that if that is the standard, then he has not learned anything at all. ‘Enough, Emma. Enough!’ Xavier declares. But the White Queen tells Charles that he is just and old reprobate with a wheelchair fetish and a bad habit of grubbing around inside other people’s heads. Emma motions to the sleeping Cyclops and remarks that he looks so peaceful. ‘I said -’ Xavier begins, but Emma interrupts, ‘I heard you’ she tells him, before asking Xavier if he thinks the truth would have broken Scott. ‘When he learned about Gabriel’s death, Gabriel was a live again’ Emma points out, adding that Scott didn’t have to live with that burden, not for a single day.
‘You think that I was right?’ Xavier asks Emma. ‘Oh don’t be so bloody dense, Charles!’ Emma retorts. ‘I want to kick you into a pinky-red paste for what you did to him!’ she shouts, before telling Xavier that you make the choice and live with the consequences. ‘Just like we all have to do!’. ‘”Listen well to those who love you”’ Emma quotes. ‘What? What do you mean?’ Xavier asks. Emma replies that it was something else she found whilst spring-cleaning his brain. ‘Would you like to see it in context?’ she asks. Wiping his brow, Xavier replies that he thinks he has seen enough.
The Mindscape vanishes, and reality has returned to normal, as Xavier looks around at the forest where he has been all this time. Scott and Emma stand over him, and the White Queen tells Charles that she is not sure what Dr. MacTaggert meant anyway. ‘I think we’re done, Charles. There’s no trace of Mister Sinister anywhere in your gray matter’ Emma announces. ‘When? When did she say it?’ Xavier asks, referring to Moira MacTaggert’s comment. ‘As she was dying’ Emma reveals. Emma notices Xavier staring at her, and asks him if he thinks staring at her long enough will enable her to say “Ego te absolvo”. Emma promises Xavier that she won’t say it, remarking that she only uses Latin in the bedroom.
Xavier reveals that he would like to know hear what Moira said, in context. ‘Well, to be brief, the X-Men were flying back from Muir Island, having saved the day yet again. ‘A Tuesday, I think - or perhaps a Wednesday. You were at the Academy…and the woman you loved was dying, half a world away…’.
(Flashback, X-Men (2nd series) #108)
‘Professor!’ gasps Jean “Phoenix” Grey as she and Nightcrawler enter Cerebro, where Xavier has just collapsed, mumbling that he couldn’t maintain contact. Jean places the helmet on her head, assuring Xavier that they will go back together. ‘Unacceptable, Jean. I won’t put you through such agonies again. It could destroy your mind, or worse!’ Xavier replies. ‘Have you so little faith in all you taught me, Charles?’ Jean asks, as she and Xavier enter the Astral Plane, ‘I’m all grown up now. I’ll be fine!’ she tells him.
Jean and Xavier arrive aboard the Blackbird, where Moira MacTaggert’s body lies motionless, and her Astral form joins them, while Jean tells Xavier that he only has a few moments. ‘Use them’ she tells him. Xavier takes Moira in his arms, asking how this could have happened. ‘It is what it is, Charles’ Moira replies, telling him not to dwell on what cannot be changed, and to focus on what truly matters. They kiss, before Moira pulls away, ‘Listen well to those who love you. Make us proud!’ Moira tells Charles. ‘Moira!’ Charles shouts, reaching out to her.
Moira’s Astral projection moves to a blinding white light as she tells Charles that with him, she has known joy. ‘Even with the mistakes we’ve made, I’ve no regrets’ Moira announces, adding that Charles cannot imagine the beauty and peace here. Jean holds Charles back while Moira tells him that she loves him, and wishes him well. ‘Until we meet again’.
(Present)
Tears form in Xavier’s eyes as he gazes off into the distance. Emma asks him if he can stand, to which he replies that he hasn’t tried. Emma informs him that she and Scott are leaving, unless there is anything else he feels he needs to say. Xavier, shaky, gets to his feet, announcing that Jean once told him that death and birth can be the same thing. ‘That when your life stops, new possibilities open up’ he adds. ‘Jean said that?’ asks Scott. ‘Yes’ Xavier replies. ‘Well, she’d know better than anyone’ Scott remarks. ‘Yes’ Xavier agrees. Xavier extends his hand and tells Scott that he is glad he got to see him again, and that he is leaving the X-Men in such good hands. ‘Goodbye’ he declares. Scott stares at Charles for some time, before shaking his hand.


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

[Assistant]
Original Sin: Part II
Aboard a jet, Professor Charles Xavier recalls the time when Wolverine attacked him in the mansion. Eventually, he yells out “enough, for God’s sake, enough!” He keeps coming back to that one moment and it’s agony each time. He’s seen enough. Logan tells him no, he hasn’t. Believe him because he’s walked this road. Xavier begins to say but… Logan cuts him off and tells him no buts, just listen. Hints and half-truths, glimpses, fragments, they’re worse than useless. He needs the whole story or else nothing, and nothing ain’t an option. He can’t walk away from this.
Holding his head, Xavier tells him that he’s not trying to but his mind. There’s so much that’s been severed and then badly patched together again, it exhausts him. Logan replies yeah and asks him that this ain’t about the guilt. Xavier tells him of course it’s about the guilt. He, Logan, tried to kill him and he responded by… Nothing he discovers now can change that monstrous act, or make it bearable. Logan tells him to read his mind. Xavier tries to tell him that he already… Logan says not the attack, what happened next, stop hiding from it. Xavier tells him that he knows what happened next. Logan replies glimpses, half-truths, what did he just tell him. He has to relive it all, however much it hurts. He has to see it.
Putting his head in his hands, Xavier asks him experience his own cruelty, his own loss of control, from the point of view of the victim? He pleads with Logan to not ask that of him. Logan replies that Daken is missing. They found dead bodies and a Hellfire Club mask where he was supposed to be. Time’s running out and he’s not asking. Xavier finally concedes and tells him all right, he’ll try again. Reaching out, he touches Logan’s temple.
Years ago, a bandaged Professor Xavier and Moira MacTaggert observe an enraged Wolverine who is shackled to the wall. Logan informs Moira that he’s been like this ever since he attacked him, if he hadn’t managed to shut down his motor functions with a psi-blast… Moira tells him that he’d be dead, Wolverine is more like an animal than a human being. Xavier replies that it’s possible that someone programmed him to do this. That it was a deliberate attempt on his life, rather than an atavistic frenzy. Moira states “but he chose Wolverine himself.” Xavier says that he chose him because he came to his attention. The timing was, very convenient. Moira points out that he has a lot of enemies. Xavier remarks that he does but not many who could do this. If he’s right, it was the most powerful brainwashing he’s ever seen – a twisted masterpiece. Moira asks what he will do with him, he can’t turn him loose among the X-Men and keeping him chained… Xavier says that he knows. There are no easy answers, his mind has been broken into pieces and then reassembled, probably many times. So it ought to be a relatively straightforward matter to break it again.
Exhausted, Xavier falls into Logan’s arms and tells him that he can’t do this anymore without resting. As their jet they are on passes the Statue of Liberty, Logan replies that there’s no time for that. That vibration from the hull means they’ve switched into VTOL mode. In other words, they’ve arrived. Xavier warns him that they shouldn’t confront the Hellfire Club without a plan. Logan tells him that he’ll scope the place out before he goes in but he doesn’t have a whole lot of choice. They’ve got his son and he’s taking him back if he has to pull the place down around their ears.
In Panama, Sebastian Shaw welcomes Daken to his mansion. He adds that it’s a very great pleasure to see him at last. When Daken asks him who he is, Claudine tells him that he’s the friend she told him about, Sebastian Shaw. He’s gonna help him. Daken asks help him, how and why. What does he get out of it? Putting his arm around Daken, Shaw tells him that his amnesia was deliberately induced and that he’s going to give him those memories back. And in return, if he wishes, he can do a favor for him. Daken inquires as to what kind of favor and Shaw tells him a violent favor, the kind he’s best at.
Looking around the mansion, Daken remarks that it’s a nice place, nicer than the monastery. Shaw says if he likes it, it’s his. Daken laughs and asks seriously? Shaw informs him that he bought it specifically as a place where he could recuperate. After that, he has no further use for it. He then tells Daken to take a look around and to make himself at home.
While Daken takes a look at the books in the library, Shaw asks Claudine if she has looked into Daken’s mind yet. Claudine replies that he told her not to. Shaw remarks that she did as she was told, good. Claudine states that she knows Shaw’s afraid he’d sense a psychic probe but he wouldn’t. She’s good enough already to get in and out without him feeling a thing. Pouring himself a drink, Shaw tells Claudine that he saw no point in taking the risk, the young man is dangerous. Claudine replies that so is she. Shaw remarks that they should put that to the test then.
Standing on a rooftop adjacent to the Hellfire Club’s headquarters in New York, Xavier remarks to Logan that it looks like the place is closed for business. There’s no lights on or anybody going in or out. Logan asks him what he’s reading from inside. Xavier tells him nothing, nothing at all. The building is a dead spot in the psionic field. It must be covered by a shield of some kind. Logan tells him that somethin’ stinks there. The club didn’t even close when they captured the X-Men, all of them. Somethin’s going down. Daken’s probably a part of it, but there’s got to be more. When he sees a delivery truck pull up and Hellfire guards approach it, Logan tells Chuck that it’s time to go hunting.
In Panama, Claudine sits with Daken and tells him that she wants him to relax. She tells him to close his eyes and think of something nice. If he runs out of ideas, she can probably help him out. Daken tells her that he can’t relax; it doesn’t seem to be something he does. Claudine replies okay; in that case they should just hold hands. Grasping Daken’s hands, she asks him if he can feel that. When Daken tells him no, she tells him that she’s right at the edge of his mind, just getting a generalized sense of what he’s feeling. Playfully, she adds some of what he’s feeling, she’ll take that as a compliment.
Taking his hands again, Claudine tells him that she’s going deeper, this is where it gets interesting. Recent memories are no problem. She is surprised at all the sensory information. He just drinks it all in, doesn’t he, every sight, every smell. Further back though, it gets a whole lot muddier. When she tries to go further back, she gets nothing. When she expresses shock, Daken asks her what’s the matter. Claudine informs him that he is putting up a wall, keeping him out. Daken replies that he wouldn’t have any idea how to do that. Claudine states that maybe it’s just a conditioning block of some kind. If she pushes hard enough…
After numerous attempts, she comes up with nothing. Seeing her in distress, Daken tells her that he’s sorry. Claudine tells him that she’s fine and to just leave her alone. She then says that they’ll pick this up later. Walking away from him, she tells Shaw that they should consult.
Once they are alone, Shaw asks Claudine what she means. Claudine replies that she’s trying to, his brain is wired. That’s the only way she can put it. There’s this wall which she guesses is just a kind of natural resistance to telepathy. And then behind the wall, there’s something else. When Shaw asks “something else,” Claudine tells him that when she pushes it, it pulls her in towards it. She only just broke free. She’s telling him, it’s a trap. Some psycho set a trap inside Daken’s mind. With a look of concern on his face, Shaw remarks the ever-elusive Romulus, he leaves nothing to chance. He needs to consider this. As he starts to walk away, he tells Claudine to go and reassure the boy, make him happy. Claudine asks keep him happy, he’s an amnesiac psychopath with hair-trigger killing instincts. Shaw tells her yes, is that a problem with her? Claudine tells him no, she just likes saying it.
In New York, the delivery truck pulls up to the entrance of the Hellfire Club. When it pulls up, the guard tells the driver, Skinner, that he has to put his hand on the plate. Skinner asks the guard why, he knows who he is. The guard says that he knows who he looks like, not the same thing. Skinner tells the guard, Polk, that he’s a real piece of work. He’s on overtime as of half an hour ago. Once clear, the truck enters the warehouse with Logan underneath it.
Inside the warehouse, one of the guards tells the others that they need to get busy and that everything goes up to storeroom C. They need to tick off the inventories as they go. Nothing moves unless it’s on the docket. Rifles – 200, tasers – 200 – all good. When the only man left in the warehouse is the driver, Logan comes out of the shadows and calls out pulley block. Confused, the driver says what, there’s no… Before he can finish his thought, Logan cracks him over the head with a pulley block and takes his uniform.
On the deck of the mansion in Panama, Claudine tells Daken that it’s kind of romantic if your mind works that way. Daken tells her that he’s not thinking about romance. When Claudine asks him no, Daken replies that he doesn’t know who he is. Claudine remarks that from a romantic P.O. V., it could be a turn-on. Daken informs her that when she was inside his head, she stirred up images – blood, death, pain. Claudine moves closer to him and tells him that he is so talking her language. With that, the two of them share a romantic kiss.
At the Hellfire Club in Manhattan, three members of the Inner Circle discuss their situation. When Castlemere states that it’s not enough, the bald male of the group says not enough? They could conquer a small country with the weapons they’ve laid in. Castlemere tells the bald man, Mister Turner Scholl, unfortunately they don’t have to conquer a country. They have to out-maneuver Sebastian Shaw. He adds that Da Costa’s resignation threw everything into question. Selene might have held the Circle together, but she’s nowhere to be found. Shaw has already begun his bid for power and that ten people loyal to him have died in the past three days.
Mercedes pipes in and states that Shaw led the Hellfire Club effectively for many years, but he’s a spent force now. Scholl adds that he has no power base to build from. Financially and logistically, they hold all the aces. Castlemere tells them that they may hold all the aces they know about but he wouldn’t put it past Shaw to have entire decks up his sleeve.
In Panama, Sebastian Shaw sits in his study and tells Claudine, Ms. Renko, not to linger on the threshold and come in. He also tells her to inform him how their little stray is doing. Claudine informs him not too shabby, all things considered and that he is performing well in difficult circumstances. Shaw then tells her that he’s given some thought to their problems, both tactical and strategic. Claudine remarks cool and asks if anything popped up. Shaw tells her that her assessment is that Daken’s mind can’t be manipulated safely because it has been booby-trapped in some way, is that correct? Claudine tells him that is correct. Shaw adds that a mind of sufficient power to break through Daken’s natural psi-resistance would trigger the trap. Claudine admits that is so.
Shaw then tells her that all they need to do is to co-opt a telepath stronger than herself, and allow him to go in first. Then she can follow and overwrite Daken’s memories in any way that suits them. Taking a swig from a bottle, Claudine states Xavier. When Shaw tells her indeed, Claudine asks why he’s gonna fall for that. Shaw tells her because he’s a repentant sinner, full of the need to atone. Claudine tells him yeah but he dropped a stitch. Shaw replies that he thinks not but Claudine reminds him about Wolverine. Shaw replies that there’s no problem there. They’ve arranged it so that Logan thinks the Hellfire Club stole his son and he always goes directly for the jugular.
At the Hellfire Club in Manhattan, Castlemere tells the others that the have to find out where Shaw is and take the fight to him. Scholl asks why should they, this building is impregnable, let him come to them. Meanwhile; Logan, in disguise, listens to them talk. As he does, one of the guards asks him what he is doing there and who he reports to. Holding his stomach, Logan tells the guard that he was looking for the head but then he missed a turn and got lost. Pointing his weapon at Logan, the guard informs him that he’s in a shedload of….
Before he can finish his though, Logan punches him out. As he begins to drag him out of the way, a voice behind him tells him nicely done assassin. But Sebastian Shaw ought to have known better than to send one man against the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. When Logan turns, he sees a man with the power of electricity (Castlemere), a man who has the appearance of a lion (Turner Scholl), and Mercedes.


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

[Assistant]
Original Sin: Part IV
Years ago, at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning:
During a training session, Logan is on his knees looking at his adamantium claws while destroyed machinery is all around him. Professor Charles Xavier puts his arm on his shoulder and tells him to retract his claws. These self-destructive rages exhaust him and serve no good purpose. Logan says no purpose, he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know where he came from. Taking him by the hands, Xavier tells him that he is an X-Man now. He has to learn to control the bestial side of his nature. He’ll help him if he’ll let him. Logan asks what about his mind; he doesn’t know who he is. Xavier informs him that they’ll find the answer to that and in time, God willing, he’s sure he’ll recover what he’s lost.
Present time, South Pacific:
Aboard a life-raft, Wolverine looks through his binoculars at the large palatial estate overlooking the water. He points out to Xavier there’s the house; hard to miss because it’s the only structure on the island. On the map, it’s a weather monitoring station. He then asks Xavier if he wants to take a look through the binoculars. Xavier tells him no thank you, he’s already there.
When Logan asks him how is that, Xavier informs him that he found a bird in the jungle canopy and flew it in low over the compound. It’s sitting in a baobab tree now, just behind the villa’s swimming pool. The fence surrounding the complex doesn’t seem to carry current, but it is twenty feet high and topped with razor wire. And the earth is disturbed for thirty feet around it. They’ll have to look out for mines. There’s also at least six guards armed with rifles and dogs. Their minds are unshielded, but Shaw’s telepath is inside the villa. If he tries to read their thoughts directly, it could alert him that they’re coming.
Xavier tells Logan that the telepath… now that they’re this close, he can sense his mind and it concerns him. Logan asks if he thinks he might be stronger than him. Xavier replies that it’s not that, it feels as though he should know him. The resonance signature of his mind is almost eerily familiar. An old enemy perhaps or else, a former friend. Logan asks about Daken, to which Xavier tells him that the men Shaw sent to kill them saw Daken there. They have to hope he’s there still. As he said, he can’t scan for him without tipping their hand. Logan tells Xavier to have the bird circle a few more times. He wants to know if the guards are patrolling a fixed pattern and exactly how close to the fence the tree line comes. As soon as the sun goes down, they make their move.
Next to the pool at the villa, Daken, wearing his swimsuit, tells a bikini-clad Claudine Renko – in reality a disguised Ms. Sinister – that she keeps saying that but he’s sick of waiting. Claudine asks him what, he doesn’t like the facilities? She thinks they’re pretty cool. Daken informs her that he didn’t come there to like on a sun-bed. She told him that she could help him get his memories back. Claudine replies and she will but he’s got to let her do it her way. It takes time. They’ve got to prepare the ground, make sure they’ve got everything they’re gonna need. Daken says to her then she lied to him. When Claudine tells him no, Daken says that she said it would be easy. That she just had to remove one mental block.
Putting her arms around his neck, Claudine tells Daken yeah but then she found out his mind was wired. Daken looks at her and asks wired? Claudine tells him that there’s something real nasty in there. He wouldn’t want Claudine to hurt herself, would he? Not when there’s a way to hurt someone a little more expendable. With that, she places his finger to Daken’s temple and causes him to fall unconsciously to the ground. Once Daken is out of commission, Claudine orders the guards to put him in the lab and tell Mister Shaw they’re all ready to rock.
Later that night, Wolverine and Xavier begin their assault on the compound. Once they reach the fence line, Logan asks Xavier what he thinks. Xavier replies that he thinks a frontal assault is best but he’d still like to do it as quietly as possible. He then tells Logan to give him a moment. On the other side of the fence, one of the guards asks his buddy who he would play in the back. His fellow guardsmen replies in defense, he doesn’t know. Rio Ferdinand. Neville. Ledley King, if he was on form. The other guard says Ledley King, seriously?
The guard begins to tell him he said if he was before he sees a large women walking towards him. The lady begins to tell him there you are Roberto, she’s been looking all over for him. She then tells him that he’s in big trouble you little ragamuffin. In shock, Roberto asks his mom what she is doing there. She tells him that she’s taking him home is what she’s doing, he broke her kitchen window. Roberto stammers but that was thirty years ago and she’s dead! The other guard is then confronted by a bunch of kids carrying towels. They ask him, Skelton, if he remembers them. When Skelton doesn’t respond, the kids tell him that they remember him and begin to beat him unmercifully. As Logan and Xavier walk past them, Logan asks what they are seeing, gremlins? Xavier responds something like that and continues walking.
Reaching the front door, Logan tells Xavier that, once they’re in, he should go find Daken and he’ll deal with Shaw and anything else they find. As Xavier replies in the affirmative, Logan tells him that he means it. Don’t look back, there’s too much riding on this. When Logan reaches the door, he stops in his tracks. Xavier notices this and asks him what is the matter. Logan informs him that the door’s not locked and there’s no security up there. Doesn’t make sense, why guard the perimeter and then…
Just then, Logan is blown back when the door explodes. Standing in it’s wake, Sebastian Shaw – who tells him that he, Wolverine, gets there in the end. He’ll wager he even thinks he’s clever. Popping his claws, Wolverine tells him that it’s too late for side bets; the fight’s already started. With that, Wolverine leaps at Shaw. When he does, Shaw proceeds to punch him in the face and slam him into the ground. During such, he tells Wolverine that he just absorbed most of the kinetic energy from that explosion and proceeds to call him a witless animal. He then asks him to tell him how his healing factor will cope when he rips him into bite-sized pieces.
Before he can inflict any further damage, Xavier steps up and tells Shaw that’s far enough. Shaw replies that no, it isn’t. He’s been inoculated against his power and he’s really not much when that’s gone, is he? As he grabs Xavier by the throat, Shaw tells him that he’s just a relic from a simpler age, trying to pretend he’s still relevant even though his own disciple has given him the Judas kiss and cast him out. Just then, Wolverine pops up and slashes Shaw in the back. When he does, he says to Shaw – Summers and Charlie kissing? He owes him, it’s gonna take a while to get that one out of his head. Wolverine then tells Xavier to go now and continues his assault on Shaw.
Inside the villa, Xavier quickly takes out a single guard and sees Daken lying on a hospital bed down the hall. As he rushes towards him, a voice tells him, “No, no, no Proffy. It’s not gonna be that easy.” Xavier sees the image of Claudine and recognizes her as Shaw’s new telepath and asks if he knows her. Claudine tells him yes and no. She guesses he could say he knew her daddy real well back when she was him. As Xavier beings to fall down the hallway in his mind, he grabs hold of a ledge and says to Claudine that she’s Sinister. Claudine tells him kind of, minus the Y chromosome of course. But who needs that old thing? It might have been different if he’d seen her coming, right? He’s probably better at this that she. At least until she gets more practice. But she got the drop on him. Truth is, she’s pure poison.
As Claudine begins to take a pin and push it through Xavier as if he was a butterfly, she tells him that he’s taken a lethal dose of her poison. Xavier defiantly replies only of her rhetoric. He could teach her the rules and tactics of mind-war but he doesn’t have the time. Just then, Xavier is standing in the hall behind Claudine and away from her mind-trap. He tells her that perhaps this will give her a valuable lesson and proceeds to punch her in the back of the head, knocking her out. Tossing a tiny psi-shield towards her, he tells her that it belonged to one of her confederates. He almost destroyed it then he thought of an old but still resonant phrase – return to sender.
Outside, Shaw has Wolverine in a reverse chokehold. As he squeezes the life out of him, he tells him that killing him is a feat of endurance, a Sisyphean labor. He then says that perhaps it’s time for a little lateral thinking. He states that he’s probably strong enough right now to bend his adamantium bones and fold them in on themselves. Perhaps Charles will enjoy pushing him around in a wheelchair for a change. He then tells Wolverine that they’ve got some time to kill. After all, before he does what he came there to do, what he needs him to do. He’ll (Xavier) have to face Claudine first. He didn’t want this to seem too easy for either of them.
With that, Wolverine is able to use leverage and fling Shaw over his shoulder and onto his head on the pavement. As Wolverine crawls away in a pool of his own blood, Shaw picks himself up and asks him if he thought he solved this by himself. That he sent those meant to kill them, forgetting they had this location in their heads? Reaching a utility pole, Wolverine replies that he pretty much knew the score and proceeds to slice to knock out the power. Now in the dark, Wolverine says to Shaw that every time he hits him, he just gets stronger. That’s the deal, ain’t it? He doesn’t hunt by smell though, does he?
Entering the room housing Daken, Xavier walks up to him and tells him that in case he can hear him, his name is Charles Xavier and he is there to help him. Touching his hands to his head he adds that means, he’s afraid, that he has to invade his privacy. Once in Daken’s head he sees images of Daken attacking Dum Dum Dugan, gutting Wolverine while he was being held captive, him battling Cyber, Romulus, the image of Wolverine killing Itsu, and those of him battling Wolverine himself. Xavier is shocked and mentions that even in his father’s mind, he never saw so much psychic scar tissue, so much evidence of trauma and abuse. He’s been shaped into a weapon. His memories distorted, his conscience cauterized. And whoever did all this to him tried to ensure it couldn’t be reversed, sealed off his mind behind a wall of subliminal conditioning, confident that it couldn’t be broken. For his sake and his father’s, he intends to prove him wrong.
Heading deeper into Daken’s mind, he remarks that it was easier than he thought. It just needed the right touch. He adds that he senses his consciousness, hiding behind these… Just then, Daken awakens, frees himself from his shackles, and violently knocks Xavier backwards into some medical equipment.
Just then, Claudine enters the room and tells a groggy Daken that she told him to trust her. They saw that trap inside his head but they let the big brain there spring it for them. So now it’s safe for her to go in and give him his memories back. Putting her arms around Daken, Claudine tells him that the two of them grew up together as kids in, she doesn’t know, let’s say France. She was the girl next door and he always loved her, had a pet name for her, and all that garbage. And Mister Shaw, well, he’s like his favorite uncle. Kind old Uncle Sebastian who he loves and trusts so much.
Daken proceeds to tell her thank you, that’s a beautiful story. At that moment he, tells her that it didn’t take and stabs her in the gut with his claws. As she staggers away, bloodied, Daken tells her that she should’ve left well enough alone. She should have showed a little respect. Grabbing his head he states that he doesn’t know what just happened but it hurt like hell. And whatever it was, it gave him his real memories back. He angrily says that she, Claudine, and baldy over there all think they’ve got the right to mess with his head and recruit him, save him, use him. He thinks maybe it’s time they both learned a lesson.
As he leans down over Xavier and places his fist on the side of his head, Wolverine finally appears with his claws drawn and tells Daken that they both know that ain’t gonna happen.