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The Pack: Part 1
The woods of southern Illinois…
Kitty Pryde cannot believe what she’s hearing. Logan seriously wants her to find her way back to her family’s cabin using only a map, a compass, and a flask of water? What is this supposed to prove, she asks? That he’s the most sadistic super hero teacher ever? Did he forget she’s only thirteen-and-a-half?
Wolverine tells her that excuse will go over quite well if she ever becomes a full-fledged X-Man. Does she expect to say that to Magneto to prevent him from crushing her under a pile of metal? Besides, what if the Blackbird crashes in the woods, and the other X-Men get slain by wolves? Or mutants? Or mutant wolves? What if Kitty is the only one left to find help, and she cannot, because she doesn’t know how to use a map?
Mutant wolves, Kitty asks. Do those exist? It’s a hypothetical scenario, Logan says. “Hypothetically stupid…” Kitty quips. Regardless, Logan informs her no student of his will graduate without some rudimentary knowledge of wilderness survival. It is not up for discussion. Kitty, leaning down to tie her shoe, asks what will happen if she cannot find her way back. Wolverine tells her not to worry; he’ll come and find her if he has to, an easy feat thanks to the pungent perfume she’s wearing. “Hey!” Kitty says, pivoting and pointing her finger at Logan. “This perfume is personally endorsed by Dazzler herself!” To her surprise, she discovers Logan has already left. She curses his name.
Logan hikes back to the Prydes’s cabin in the woods later that night. Along the way, he is almost crushed by a speeding Kodiak Film semi-truck as he crosses the highway. As he approaches the cabin, he figures he has at least six hours of free time before Kitty finds her way back to the cabin. He wonders what time the Oilers/Rangers game starts. Suddenly, he detects a foreign smell and realizes he has company. “Might as well come out, whoever you are,” he announces to the hidden intruder as he unsheathes his claws. “Trust me – you don’t want to make me find you!”
To Logan’s surprise, a battered woman stumbles out from behind the corner, and after asking for help, collapses in his arms. Logan picks up the unconscious woman and carries her inside the cabin. As soon as he announces his plans to call an ambulance, however, the woman wakes up and asks him to stop. She doesn’t want to see any doctors; she only needs some rest to get over her sickness. If she can rest, it might pass, she says.
While brewing a cup of coffee for the woman, Wolverine tells her he can relate to her hospital aversion. The woman changes the subject and asks what he is doing at this particular cabin; she thought a bunch of yuppies from the city used it as their summer home. “Yeah, that’s the family of one o’ my, er, students,” Logan tells her, adding they let them use the cabin for a training exercise. The woman asks if he is a teacher. “In a manner of speaking,” he tells her. The woman says she isn’t surprised. Logan finds this reaction perplexing. She explains he emanates a certain trustworthy quality she normally sees in teachers. For instance, she instinctually knew she could approach him out here, in the middle of nowhere, and he would not turn her away.
Wolverine stares at her while she speaks. His mind wanders. Wow. She’s beautiful, he thinks. He reminds himself to hold things together; he is with Mariko, after all. Refined, worldly Mariko…who’s nothing like this girl. Nothing at all. His eyes widen. Trying to focus on something else, he asks the woman what happened to her clothes. What, is he trying to give her fashion tips, she asks? He cuts the nonsense and asks straight-out who she is running from. Who says she is running from anything, she asks?
The distinct howl of a wolf from outside the cabin halts their conversation. Logan, detecting as many as five distinct scents, rushes to the window to get a better look. To his utter shock, he sees a gang of wolf-people surrounding the cabin, and curses. Unsheathing his claws, he orders the woman to find a hiding place while he fights off the attackers. She stares at his adamantium blades in amazement. “My – are you one of us?!” she asks.
“You mean – a mutant?” Wolverine asks back.
“A what?” the woman says, confused.
“Huh?” Wolverine responds, clearly confused as well. Suddenly, the five werewolves crash through the log cabin’s windows, their attacks focused on Wolverine. He tells the woman to stay behind him. While fending off the attackers, Logan tells the helpless woman he refuses to let either of them become some monster’s midnight snack. As he turns to face the woman, however, his eyes widen in astonishment. She, too, has transformed into a werewolf, and has clearly set her sights on Wolverine. She lunges at him and bites him on the shoulder before smashing his face into the floor.
The werewolves stand around Logan’s unconscious body. One of the werewolves admonishes the woman for “marking” Wolverine, despite what he did to her. The woman disagrees; it wasn’t Wolverine who hurt her. The “sickness” hurt her, but as they can clearly see, she has already recovered.
Meanwhile, Kitty Pryde, still finding her way to the cabin, stands overlooking a steep cliff. According to her map, she might have to backtrack a quarter-mile in order to find a way down the ridge, unless she gets creative. She activates her phasing ability, and “air-hikes” down to the bottom of the ridge. Immediately upon setting foot on the ground, however, she screams.
A half-naked man lays partially submerged in a creek, and looks as if he might be dying. He begs Kitty to help. After drinking from this stream, he fell ill, and now he can barely move his own body. Kitty asks what happened to his clothes; the man instead tells her he came to these woods seeking other members of his kind. Missing his insinuation, Kitty puts his arm around her shoulder and hoists him off the ground. He is far too heavy for her to carry under ordinary circumstances, but she realizes if she phases both of them, she could easily carry him back to her parents’ cabin. Wolverine would freak out if he saw her using her mutant powers out of costume, Kitty realizes, but, as an X-Man, her first priority is to help people in need. She tells the man to brace himself; he is about to experience something rather weird. The man, who finally introduces himself as Jack Russell, tells her not to worry. He has plenty of experience with “weird.”
Eventually, Sprite arrives at her family’s cabin with Jack Russell safely in tow. Her stomach sinks at the sight of the cabin’s multiple broken windows and splintered door, however. Her parents are going to disown her when they see this! She steps into the cabin, which looks as if it went through a tornado. She sees Logan lying on the floor in a daze. She asks what happened, but he barely has enough energy to eke out a response. At this point, Kitty notices the gaping animal bites on his shoulder, and declares she has never seen such a wound in her life. Wolverine admits he hasn’t either. He begins to wonder why his healing factor hasn’t yet taken care of it. Worried, Kitty tells him they both need to get to the hospital immediately. Both? Wolverine asks. Kitty points to the unconscious man on the couch and asks Logan if he feels good enough to drive.
Shortly thereafter at the hospital, the doctors struggle to restrain Jack Russell, who thrashes about wildly. He implores them to listen to him; whatever illness has stricken him, it can only be temporary! He knows he will change back to his true form soon, and doesn’t want to be anywhere near the hospital when the transformation begins! The doctors, ignoring his pleas, inject him with a sedative, putting him to rest.
Kitty and another doctor watch from the doorway. He said he drank from a stream in the woods, the doctor asks? Yes, Kitty replies. Has that been a recurring problem as of late? The doctor tells her no, that is not the case, actually. Nevertheless, the man could have ingested some sort of waterborne virus, which might explain his delirium. He decides they should check on the other patient Kitty brought with her – Logan. Perhaps his mood has improved by now, the doctor asks? Kitty laughs and tells the doctor not to take anything Logan says too seriously.
Meanwhile, Logan sits on his hospital bed and stares intently at the wall. Quit staring at it, he tells himself. No matter how many times he looks, his wound will not look any different. It just isn’t healing like it should. His healing factor cannot seem to do anything about the werewolf’s bite. Logan washes his face in the sink. He has been in every kind of scrap imaginable since joining the X-Men, but never has he felt as scared as he feels right now. Never before has he had to worry about injuries or illnesses. On top of that, he cannot get the image of the woman out of his mind; he sees her everywhere he looks. Thinking of her sets his entire body afire, like… well, he doesn’t know what.
The full moon rises in the window behind Logan and bathes him in its luminescent glow. His eyes begin glowing yellow. At that moment, Kitty Pryde throws open the door, and jokingly asks if “Grumpy McGee” if he is ready to let the doctor examine him now. She screams in terror before she can finish her sentence. Wolverine has transformed into a monstrous, snarling werewolf with adamantium claws, and he howls at the intruder in his room. Kitty, sill screaming, phases through the nearest wall and into the hallway. Wolverine crashes through the doorway in pursuit.
Kitty’s screams reverberate throughout the hospital and wake the sleeping Jack Russell. He cannot save her as Jack Russell, he realizes, but maybe, in his other form, he can. He looks at the moon out glowing out the window and transforms into his werewolf form. In the hallway, Wolverine lunges at the cowering Kitty, but the werewolf Jack Russell crashes through the wall and intercepts his attack. “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better,” Kitty sighs as the two monsters fight.
The fighting carries them into the hospital lobby, and it looks as if it might continue indefinitely, until something else capture’s Logan’s attention. He hears a voice in his head, calling his name, and telling him to come find his maker. He turns and sees the apparition of the woman from earlier – the woman who bit him – floating by the hospital doors. “Come to me,” she says. “You didn’t tell me your name, but I know it. Because I marked you. As my mate. So come to me, Logan.” Wolverine lunges at the apparition, and using his enhanced, primal instincts, seeks out his pack of werewolves in the forest. He races through the woods on all fours. The six werewolves wait for him on a bluff in the woods with a clear view of the moon, but Wolverine fails to find them that night.
The next morning, as the sun rises over the valley, Wolverine finally returns to the Pryde cabin in the woods and finds it guarded by the werewolf clan. With the moon gone, however, he reverts back to his default, human appearance. He still keeps his claws unsheathed, though. The werewolves snarl at him before reverting back to their human forms as well. Didn’t he hear them telling him to stay away, the leader asks? This is their territory now. Rolf, one of the clan members, asks if they can attack the intruder. Malik, the leader, tells Rolf to shut up. He then turns to Wolverine and tells him he has five seconds to leave.
“No, Malik!” the mysterious woman says, jumping between Wolverine and her colleague. “This is the one I marked!” Malik scoffs; she marked this runt? What was she thinking, he asks? “That I know my soulmate when I see him,” the woman answers, staring longingly into Logan’s eyes. Wolverine stares back at her with contempt.
Malik interrupts their moment and says her mark makes no difference. He leads the clan, and as per the clan rules, all new pups must prove themselves. He points to a nearby trio of makeshift graves, adding that no matter how many of their clan they lose to the “sickness”, the old rules still apply. Luckily, he adds, clan members Buzz and Lakota pinpointed the source of the sickness. The Kodiak Film manufacturing plant has been dumping its chemical waste into the marshes, and the chemicals have seeped into the groundwater of the forest. And what do they use to make black and white film, he asks? Silver, of course – poison to their kind! That ends tonight, Malik adds. He points to Logan and tells him that he will accompany them as his initiation. If Logan doesn’t do what is necessary to achieve vengeance on their fallen brethren, the werewolves will make sure he soon joins in death.


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The Pack: Part 2
Second night...
A pack of werewolves crashes through the glass ceiling at the Kodiak Film manufacturing plant. The terrified factory workers run for their lives. Among the werewolves is Wolverine, now fully changed by his lycanthropy. As if havin' adamantium bones, claws, a healing factor, and bein' a flamin' super hero wasn't enough, he says to himself. Now this. He's not entirely sure how to describe this newfound change. He compares it watching himself on TV, only he can't turn it off, or even look away. The beast is at the wheel, with Logan as its passenger.
He snarls at a nearby chemical technician and unsheathes his adamantium claws. The poor, terrified chemist takes off running down the hallway, screaming about the unfairness of his attacker's extra claws. The man runs into a utility closet and slams the door shut. The Were-Wolverine shoves his claws through the door, mere inches from the screaming chemist's face. Effortlessly, Wolverine rips the steel door open and crawls through the gaping hole. You see the driver about to do something stupid — or disastrous — all you can do is holler at the top of your lungs, Logan thinks, —and pray he hears you in time. Baring his teeth, he approaches the frightened chemist. The desperate man pulls out his wallet and presents a photograph of his family. Please don't, he cries! He has a family, and kids! What will they do without him? Wolverine leans in close and howls in his ear, spraying him with slobber. He then turns and leaves.
Were-Wolverine heads back into the factory and observes the mayhem from a perch. The factory workers run for their lives, but Logan knows they need not worry. Malik, the pack's leader, has trained his crew to not hunt humans. They do this not for moral reasons, but to avoid attracting the full attention of the police. They could care less about human lives. Nevertheless, the werewolves give the "Joe Sixpacks" of the chemical plant a good scare, but none do so better than Nyssa, Malik's sister, who now stands holding a chemist high over her head. It was Nyssa who brought Wolverine into this mess. She chose me as her soulmate. She changed me — or did she make me more like what I already was? he asks. And am I falling hard for her, or for it?
At the top of a nearby staircase, Malik interrogates a captive factory worker. The man asks what Malik wants. Vengeance, Malik tells him; vengeance on whomever started dumping chemical waste into the marsh, thereby infecting the water supply with silver nitrate! The terrified man claims they never wanted to do such a thing, but had to after they filed for bankruptcy. The representative from the bank forced them to cut costs by whatever means necessary. They turned to extremes. Their chemists swore the silver nitrate would not be harmful to humans. "Do I look human to you?!" Malik shouts as he hurls the man across the room. He asks the man for the name of the banker. He coughs up the man's business card, from Deerfield Bank & Trust, a bank just outside of Chicago.
Malik, having obtained what he came for, turns to his pack and orders them to withdraw. He knows the nesting place of the snake responsible for this catastrophe; they will head there at first light. Logan asks where they are going. Malik tells him he doesn't get to ask questions. He is still the pup of the pack, and Malik is still his Alpha. He will do whatever Malik orders, without question. Wolverine grumbles as the pack leader walks away. Nyssa tells him to ignore her brother; he was macho even before he became a werewolf. Eventually, she says, Malik will accept him, once he learns he can trust him.
The next morning, Kitty Pryde and her escort, Jack Russell, finally arrive at the film-processing plant. She thanks Mr. Russell for accompanying her; her friends the X-Men said they would make it as soon as they could, but were currently occupied with other matters. Jack tells her it was no problem; it's the least he could do after she saved his life. Kitty reminds him that his furry alter ego already saved her in return! Regardless, she knows Logan can fight off his lycanthropy, and just needs some help doing so. Jack looks at her with blank expression that masks his sadness. He has spent years trying to find a way to cure his own lycanthropy. After years of research, he finally gave up and accepted his fate. He only came to these woods to finally join a werewolf pack. He doesn't want to see Kitty's face when she learns her friend is just as doomed as he is.
However, Jack says none of this to Kitty. Instead, he speaks up and tells her he can track Logan down using his amazing werewolf-enhanced tracking abilities. Kitty, meanwhile, spots a man chaining up the factory door and asks for a moment of his time. The frenzied man tells her he has nothing to say to anyone, especially after last night. Kitty Pryde, not giving up easily, introduces herself. Her last name captures the wounded man's attention. Pryde, as in Carmen Pryde? he asks. Like the Carmen Pryde who works at Deerfield Bank? The startled Kitty confirms their relation, explaining her family has a summer house down the street. The frightened factory worker grabs her by the shoulders and tells her she has to warn her father immediately. The werewolves are coming after him!
Meanwhile, at a diner on the way to Chicago, while Malik's clan of werewolves imbibes in a round of beers, Malik explains to Logan the benefits of running with a pack. Loners don't count for anything in their society. A “lone” has no one watching his back. Everyone a lone meets is an enemy. If a lone hunts on a pack's territory, they mess him up. Simple as that. That is how they met their friend Rolf, Malik says, referring to his clan's Omega. They almost killed him, but after he proved himself in battle, they allowed him to join... but only as an Omega. Malik reminds Logan he still has to prove himself. Just because Nyssa likes him doesn't mean he gets a free pass.
Logan says he will keep it in mind. His mind, however, is somewhere else entirely. He spies the business card with the banker's name and address poking out of Malik's pocket under the table. While cracking a joke, he intentionally spills his beer, knocking the bottle in Malik's direction. Sorry, Logan says. He pulls out a napkin and begins dabbing the table dry, an act intended to conceal his sleight of hand as he nabs the card. He gets up and goes to the bathroom, purportedly to get some more towels. As soon as Logan enters the bathroom, however, he pulls out the business card. "NICE TRY PUP!" it reads, in Malik's handwriting. Malik, suddenly appearing from behind, grabs Logan by the throat and smiles. He memorized and ate the card already, Malik says. When he gets to Chicago, he plans on hunting Mr. Pryde entirely by smell anyway. Wolverine looks at him with disdain clearly written across his face. Malik laughs it off. He knows it isn't easy hunting humans, especially so soon after becoming a werewolf. It was hard for him when he started too. However, he tells Logan not to fret; after his first kill, it gets easier.
Third night...
Kitty and Mr. Russell pull up to the Pryde residence in a bright red Mustang. The anxious Kitty phases out of the vehicle before it even stops and rushes into the house. Mr. Russell, meanwhile, stays behind in the car. The moon will rise soon.
After phasing through the front door, Kitty finds her house completely silent. Where could her parents have gone, she asks? She sees a vase of flowers sitting on the coffee table and suddenly remembers the significance of the day's date; it is her mother and father's wedding anniversary! "And I completely forgot to get them something," she realizes.
A man speaks up from the shadows and tells Kitty they didn't get her parents anything either. He steps forward, revealing his glowing, yellow eyes and a face marred by several scars. Is this the girl-cub of this family's “Pryde”, he asks? His pack didn't forget her either. In fact, they got her something too. He begins to transform, quickly becoming a savage, snarling werewolf, and prepares to pounce. Suddenly, Jack Russell, now in his werewolf form, crashes through the window and intercepts the strike. He finishes the brief battle by smashing the coffee table over the werewolf's head. Kitty thanks him, and jokes he is starting to specialize in saving her life. Jack, completely beyond human emotion, slashes at her mercilessly. "Hey! Cut it out! You're supposed to be rescuing me, dummy!" she says as his claws pass through her intangible body. Annoyed, she puts her hands on her hips and reminds him he promised to help her find Wolverine! She tells him to heel and slaps him over the head with a rolled-up magazine. According to the anniversary card she found, her parents plan on topping off their date with a river cruise through downtown Chicago. She and Werewolf by Night set out immediately.
Meanwhile, at the river ferry in Chicago, Wolverine and the rest of Malik's crew make their entrance by crashing through the boat's glass ceiling. "How do you do, rich people?" Malik asks menacingly. "I'd like to tell you about tonight's specials: YOU!" Logan, following closely behind, remains aware of his own actions, but again finds himself powerless to stop them. Reason sleeps when the moon rises, he explains. He descends on the crowd and spots his clan’s targets. His wolf aspect recognizes their scents, if not their faces. The banker and his wife whom they seek to kill are none other than Kitty Pryde's parents!
This time, the human-side of Logan’s being manages to convince his bestial-side to obey. He swipes at Malik instead of Carmen and Terri Pryde. Then, he positions himself in between his pack and the rest of the civilians, who flee over the sides of the boat. The infuriated Malik snarls at him and tells him to move; if not, the clan will tear him to shreds.
While Wolverine fights with the peons of the pack, Nyssa confronts her brother and asks if he lost his mind. Wolverine is one of their own, she says! A pack never turns on its own kind. Malik tells her she is guilty of that very act right now. Logan is her soulmate, Nyssa shouts! She changed him! She has responsibilities to him! Malik asks about her responsibilities to her own brother, her flesh and blood. Some responsibilities run deeper than blood, Nyssa says. She knew, from the moment she laid eyes on Logan, that she had found her soulmate. If Malik cannot accept that, then Nyssa will find another pack.
Is that so, Malik asks? He tells Nyssa to take another look at her precious “soulmate”. Nyssa glances at Logan and sees not a werewolf, but a normal-looking man, albeit one with adamantium claws. The sight of him like this crushes her. At this point, Logan also notices his own body has returned to normal. His healing factor must have finally caught up with the werewolf curse! He apologizes to Nyssa, but tells her it's not meant to be. He can never become one of them. Malik grins deviously. If that's the case, he says, then Logan is now their prey!
Meanwhile, thirteen-year-old Kitty Pryde drives the Mustang across one of Chicago's many bridges overlooking the river. She cannot believe she is driving. Meanwhile, like an excited dog, Werewolf by Night leans his head out the window and sniffs the wind. He catches a familiar scent and leaps out of the car and over the edge of the bridge. Down there, Kitty asks? Screaming, she hits the brakes, sends the car into a skid, and accelerates over the edge of the bridge. The car sails in the air for a moment before landing directly on the ferry, igniting a catastrophic explosion that obliterates the boat.
The smoking wreckage sinks into the river. Kitty, floating a short distance above the water thanks to her intangibility, pulls Logan up by the shoulders. "Dude," she says, "I so totally rescued you." After bringing him to shore, she says she must go back and find her parents. Logan tells her they’re okay. He saw them abandon ship.
Wolverine gazes longingly at the water. He wonders if the others made it out alright. Kitty, catching something peculiar in his tone, asks what they did to him. They wanted him to join their pack, Logan explains. They saw something in him they usually only saw in their own kind. For a while there, he admits he actually believed them, too. However, he eventually realized he already has his own pack. He has the X-Men. This new group wanted him to betray everything he learned and everyone he knew, but in the end, he just could not do it. A scrapper like him is lucky to even have a family in the first place. "A lone wolf, with nobody to turn to, everybody against you," he says, "...ain't nothin' worse than that. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."
Meanwhile, Jack Russell, back in his human form and dressed only in tattered pants and a trench-coat, walks through the rainy streets of Chicago, hoping to hitch a ride, and hoping to find a group of people he can call family.


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The Substitute
It’s a dark, star-filled night over Bermuda Island. The X-Men—finally reunited with their teammate Cyclops, along with their fellow refugees Lee Forrester and Moira MacTaggert—pass the night away by sitting around a campfire, enjoying each other’s company.
“How long are we gonna be stuck on this stupid island, Professor?” the cantankerous Kitty Pryde asks. Xavier tells her it’s just for one night, until Nightcrawler finishes repairing his yacht. Even though Magneto used this island as a base, he fled after the X-Men defeated him so it should be relatively safe, the professor adds.
Suddenly, an eerie wail cuts through the otherwise quiet night. “Famous last words,” Kitty says. The X-Men look toward the island’s citadel in absolute horror. Wolverine leaps to his feet, unsheathes his claws and asks Xavier if he wants him to check out the noise. Professor X tells him to wait a minute; he doesn’t detect anything with his telepathy. He decides this might be a good teaching opportunity for young Kitty Pryde to learn the importance of reconnaissance. He would like her to investigate the noise with one of the other X-Men.
Kitty sighs; a teaching opportunity usually means a situation in which she could easily get killed. Nevertheless, she agrees to the assignment, but decides to revert to her original costume, since Magneto tore up her current one during their recent battle. With that, Sprite pulls out the multicolored uniform she designed for herself just days earlier and tosses it in the fire. “Fare thee well, O spangly roller skating costume. We hardly knew thee,” she says.
Surprisingly, Wolverine takes issue with this. “Whoa! What did you call it?” he asks. A costume, Kitty answers. Wolverine tells her that trick-or-treaters and people going to parties wear costumes. If that’s the case, Kitty says, then what does Wolverine call it? “Bein’ an X-Man is my job. This is what I wear when I’m doin’ my job. This is a uniform,” he says, pointing toward his brown and gold outfit.
Colossus reminds him that acting is also a job; actors wear costumes too. “An actor’s job is to pretend to be somebody he ain’t,” Logan says. “I ain’t pretendin’. This is me. I’m me all the time.” While he continues taking issue with Peter’s assertion, Kitty throws her arms up in frustration and agrees to just call it a uniform. Wolverine, crushing his beer can, supposes he had better get ready to head out as well. Professor X tells him otherwise. Much to Wolverine’s shock, Professor X assigns another instructor to go with Kitty, one with whom the X-Men only just reunited: Cyclops. Cyclops accepts the task with enthusiasm. Wolverine, however, is less than enthusiastic. “You’re gonna send Kitty off with him?” he asks. “She needs a teacher—not a teacher’s pet!” Cyclops doesn’t see the problem; he’d rather Kitty learn something useful for a change. He fails to see the educational value in learning how to belch the alphabet. Wolverine narrows his eyes. “Oh, yeah. I missed you,” he says. “A whole bunch.”
The tension dissipates when Kitty Pryde, now in full uniform, stands up and meekly tells Cyclops she’s ready to go. Taking charge, he leads her through the dense foliage and into the foreboding temple’s entrance. Kitty notices how weird it feels; even the air feels cold. Cyclops tells her some information Magneto passed along to him while he was held prisoner. Apparently, Magneto raised the entire island from the ocean floor using his magnetic powers. No one knows how long it stayed down there.
“Cyclops?” Kitty asks. Sternly, he tells her that on recon missions, it’s best to speak as little as possible; Wolverine should have taught her that. She scowls behind his back. Although Wolverine did teach her that, she just wants to ask him a question: why do he and Wolverine hate each other so much?
Scott pauses for a moment. He thinks about Jean, and how uncomfortably well Wolverine got along with her. “What makes you think we do?” he asks in response. Everything, Kitty answers. Cyclops tells her she misunderstands. He and Logan have a great deal of respect for each other’s field experience and commitment to mutant rights. Incredulously, Kitty asks if Scott has ever actually talked to Logan.
Suddenly, a slimy green tentacle slinks out of a barnacle mounted to the citadel wall and grabs hold of Kitty’s torso. She squeals. Just as the tentacle retracts, Cyclops turns around and tells her to be quiet, clearly having missed it. She will not be quiet, she says! She points to the barnacle and tells Scott it got slime all over her uniform! “Your what?” he sternly asks.
“My…uniform?” Kitty answers. Cyclops tells her that janitors wear uniforms. If that’s the case, Kitty asks, then what is she supposed to call it?
“It’s a costume!” Cyclops says. He marches away, leaving Kitty to stew. After he leaves, she hears an innocent voice calling for help. Kitty turns and sees a young, red-headed girl in pigtails hiding in a crevice between two pillars. The girl claims she can’t find her parents. Their boat crashed, and when she woke up, they were gone, the little girl says. Kitty rushes over to the poor dear. Cyclops, however, grabs her by the arm. He tries to tell her to take the most cautious plan of action, but Kitty asks where that leaves common decency. Quoting Wolverine, she tells Cyclops that inaction can be worse than wrong action—particularly in an emergency! She phases through his grip and defiantly marches over to the little girl’s outstretched arms. However, she fails to see that it’s not a little girl at all, but a simulacrum of one attached to the end of yet another monstrous tentacle. Kitty embraces the thing in a big hug. It begins to say thanks before sending an electrical jolt through her body. Kitty screams as two smaller tentacles emerge from the redhead’s eyes, and another from its mouth.
“KITTY!” Cyclops shouts. He opens fire at the monster, which now holds the unconscious Kitty Pryde in its clutches. Another of its tentacles snakes behind Scott and hits in the back. He falls forward, into the grip of another one of the cephalopod’s extremities. The monster then pulls them both through a hole in the floor and down toward a central pit. Cyclops never gives up fighting. He continues blasting at the plethora of tentacles. One of his blasts misses its target and instead hits a colossal statue of a robed man with the head of an octopus. The statue crumbles. The monster slaps Scott into the statue’s side. He manages to get a grip on the ledge, at which point he turns back to the tentacle wrapped around his leg and hits it with an optic blast. It releases him, allowing him to climb over the ledge. He rests on his hands and knees while he catches his breath, glad to have escaped—but worried sick about Kitty.
Kitty, meanwhile, wakes up on the bottom of the well, blanketed in the eerie green glow of the monster that pulled her down in the first place: an octopus-like creature with fourteen eyeballs and even more tentacles. It tells her not to be afraid; it means her no harm. Kitty screams at the top of her lungs anyway. The creature then introduces itself as “Quoggoth” and tells Kitty its story. It fancied itself more powerful than its master, Shuma-Gorath, the Lord of Chaos and the greatest of the Old Ones. Quoggoth eventually rebelled against its master, but Shuma-Gorath emerged triumphant. However, it could not simply destroy its defiant protégé, so it imprisoned it here, on Bermuda Island, where it has laid in wait for hundreds of millions of years. It was not until some foolish human raised its sepulcher from the bottom of the sea that it tasted freedom. “Technically, he was a mutant,” Kitty interrupts. “Magneto.”
 “The walls of my prison are too strong for me to break,” Quoggoth says, “…and the mystic sigils lining the walls cannot be pierced by magery. But you little humans…?”
“Mutants,” Kitty corrects. Quoggoth continues. It intends to keep one of the humans here, with it, while the other goes back outside and removes the crystal seal locking shut the tomb doors—a seal Quoggoth and its spawn are magically forbidden from touching. After that, all three of them shall go free, Quoggoth says. Does this sound fair to Kitty?
Kitty thinks about it for a second. Fortunately, her dilemma ends when Cyclops fires a ruby-red optic blast at the monster from up above. She looks up and sees him hanging from a series of handholds he blasted in the side of the well. He tells her they can climb out, but it would be much easier to simply have her airwalk them to the top of the deep well. He doesn’t have to tell Kitty twice. She springs upward and grabs Cyclops by the hand. Phasing them both, they proceed toward the well’s entrance, with Quoggoth and his winged minions hot in pursuit.
As Cyclops ineffectively blasts at the monsters, he asks Kitty if Wolverine has taught her anything of value. Was she about to agree to this demon’s demands? She doesn’t think so; she barely had time to think at all, she says! The last thing she remembers was grabbing onto that girl. “That wasn’t a girl,” Cyclops says. “Which you would have realized if you had listened to me. Do that again and I have half a mind to leave you down here, got it?” he says. Kitty meekly tells him yes.
Cyclops now asks if she can phase through the walls of the well. Kitty tries, but fails; she assumes the walls must have the same mystical protection Quoggoth mentioned earlier. Cyclops tells her not to speculate without evidence. Continuing upward, they arrive at one of the slick air tubes through which they arrived. Unfortunately, it’s too slippery for them to climb. Kitty delights at the discovery of something Cyclops cannot do. What makes him so high and might anyway? He explains he has been an X-Man longer than anyone—since he was Kitty’s age, in fact. Even then, it still took him a long time to learn what can happen when one is careless in battle and doesn’t follow the rules. Unlike Wolverine, he says, he’s not invulnerable—and neither is Kitty. Therefore, she needs to obey his orders.
They emerge from the top of the well seconds before the swarm of gargoyles. Immediately, they dart toward the nearest exit, but find its encrypted door sealed. Cyclops optic blasts do nothing to open it. Kitty tries to phase through it, but finds she cannot. Worse, the door is locked from the other side; they have reached a dead-end. To make matters worse, a horde of insane monsters summoned by Quoggoth emerges from the well and begins bearing down on Cyclops and Kitty. Cyclops orders her to pay attention. They’re coming! he shouts.
“Stop yelling at me!” Kitty snaps back. “I’m not your girlfriend Jean, okay? I know you lost her, and I’m sorry! But the only one who blames you for that is you!” Cyclops says nothing. He gives Kitty a wounded look. She apologizes, but he tells her it’s okay; he shouldn’t push her so hard. He just didn’t want their first lesson together to be their last. Cyclops turns to the horde of demons and opens his visor broadly, hitting them with a wide-angle optic blast. The monsters close in anyway. With them only seconds away, Cyclops orders Kitty to phase and save herself. She refuses; not only can she not leave Scott behind, but her intangibility lasts only as long as she can hold her breath. Once she runs out of air, she will die.
Suddenly, the locked door pushes open, and both Scott and Kitty tumble through and hit the ground. The look up and see Wolverine holding its crystal seal. He apologizes; did he interrupt the learning process? Wolverine tells Cyclops he should be grateful he decided to track them and clean up their inevitable mess. Cyclops asks how he managed to open the door. Easy, Logan says. As soon as he popped this crystal seal off with his claws, the door swung right open! “Put it back! Put it back!” Cyclops and Sprite shout in unison. Wolverine asks why. However, the giant, hideous tentacle-monster approaching the door and shouting for its freedom answers the question for him. The X-Men scream. Cyclops slams the door shut with an optic blast, while Wolverine slips the crystal seal in its slot just in time to lock the ancient demon up, this time, hopefully, for good.
With the threat neutralized, Logan laughs in Scott’s face. Five minutes into his first mission and he nearly unleashes Armageddon! Logan can’t say he’s surprised. He just wonders how Scott and the rest of the original five survived as long as they did. Surprisingly, Kitty comes to Scott’s defense. “Why don’t you just leave Cyclops alone for once, huh?!” she shouts in Wolverine’s face. “He’s been through a lot!” She then runs away, leaving the two veteran X-Men alone to share an awkward silence.
Kitty returns to the campfire and finds Xavier sitting by himself. He asks if she discovered the source of the strange noise. “Yeah,” she says. “It was an aeons-old eldritch thing from beyond the veil of space and time.” Professor X just shrugs. Kitty then asks if he intends to make Cyclops her instructor from now on. He asks if that’s what she would like. Sensing her reticence, he assures her she can freely speak her mind. Cyclops has been at Xavier’s school since he was her age, Kitty begins. Therefore, being an X-Man is practically all he knows; he hasn’t done much else since he was a kid. Professor X doesn’t disagree. Continuing, Kitty thinks this weighs on Scott. She senses a certain sadness about him, as if the burden of being an X-Man constantly pushes him down. Kitty prefaces what she says next by saying she doesn’t want to hurt Scott’s feelings, but honestly, she doesn’t want to turn out like him.
Wolverine, on the other hand, has done things with his life. He’s seen the world. “He’s got perspective,” Kitty says. “That’s what I think I need.” She removes her cowl and lets her curly hair down. “This is a job. It’s not me. I want to wear a uniform,” she says. “Not a costume. So I’d rather stay Wolverine’s student, if that’s okay.” Professor X smiles and says she can do as she wishes. After thanking him, Kitty says goodnight and heads for bed.
After sitting motionless and staring into the campfire for a while, Professor X says it’s safe to come out now. From behind, Wolverine emerges from the dense jungle foliage. “Little squirt,” he says, wiping away a single tear from his eye.


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Hand in Hand
New York City…
Kitty Pryde has to admit it’s a little disappointing. When she goes to a place called “The American Japanese Institute”, she expects to see something more…Japanese-looking. She would expect to see a sloping roof or perhaps something like a humongous Shinto shrine. Instead, the institute is just a regular skyscraper, not much different than any other. It’s way more American than Japanese. Kitty supposes this is the way of the world. One has to learn to swing with the unexpected.
Outside the institute, a group of ninjas make their way across the city skyline and, as the sun sets, swing onto the building using their grappling hooks.
Inside, Kitty’s red-headed friend Sarah sneers at the current part of the exhibit, a bright-red demon mask. This is what they came here to see? They came to see some other stuff too, Kitty says. She asks her friend to have a little bit of respect, though; this particular mask is, like, a thousand years old! “So’s the guy my mom’s dating. Doesn’t make him anything special to look at, Kitty,” Sarah quips.
Sarah thought they would be doing cool stuff. Kitty asks if checking out a brand new display of Japanese artifacts isn’t cool. No, Sarah says. If that’s the case, Kitty asks, then why did she think it might have been cool in the first place? Sarah admits she came because Logan was taking Kitty—and Logan looks cool. Kitty asks if she’s kidding; does she mean to say she has a thing for Logan? “Oh, please!” Sarah sighs. “He’s just got this, y’know… aura.” Kitty tells her friend that is just Logan’s aftershave: eau de slaughter.
Brushing Kitty’s joke aside, Sarah asks if she wants to come with her to the ladies bathroom. Kitty agrees, and the two teens make their way to the restroom. They have trouble finding it, so Sarah asks a fellow museum patron for directions. He says he hasn’t seen them. Sarah asks if he’s tried opening his eyes and looking around. “Occasionally,” the obviously blind man says. “Hasn’t helped much.”
Sarah winces when she realizes the insulting insinuation of her words, while Kitty closes her eyes out of embarrassment-by-association. However, to see if the man is truly blind, Sarah waves her hand back and forth in front of his red spectacles. The man asks if she could please stop. Defiantly, Sarah asks how he knows what she’s doing if he’s blind. The blind man says while he cannot see her hand, he can feel its breeze in his face.
At this moment, Kitty grabs Sarah by the hand and marches them out of the room, shielding her own face as she goes. “Are you trying to make me embarrassed to be seen with you?” she asks. Sarah reminds her that at least the blind man didn’t see them together. “Ohmigosh. Do you have any filter between your head and your mouth?” Kitty asks. “Besides, don’t you recognize him? That’s Matt Murdock. He’s, like, this famous blind lawyer.”
Murdock, still standing attentively behind the girls, smirks as they leave. He hears every word they say.
Suddenly, something above catches Murdock’s attention. He turns his head upward and, through his superhuman-hearing, recreates a sonar-based image of ninjas crawling through the air ducts. He finds it comforting to know even ninjas are not invisible to his radar sense. Anyway, he assumes this means his tipster was correct in thinking the Hand has an interest in this place. The ninjas dare not make a move until after hours, though. When they do, Daredevil will be waiting for them.
Elsewhere, Logan admires a life-size stone statue of a samurai. A group of security guards in black suits approach him unprovoked and ask him to please come with them. Logan asks if he was bothering somebody. The guards repeat their orders. “Bub, I don’t go no place I don’t feel like goin’,” Logan says. “If you got a problem with me, spill it out. Otherwise, back off.” The guards insist they are only doing their job. “And that job would me?” Logan asks. The lead guard says Mrs. Saga has asked to see Logan. She anticipated he would hesitate. Considering she doesn’t know him, that’s pretty smart of her, Logan replies. The lead guard adds that Mrs. Saga wanted Logan to know that Lady Mariko spoke highly of him.
Logan’s eyes narrow. The guards have his attention. Now they just need to lead the way.
The security guards take Logan upstairs in an elevator. They lead him into the office of a well-dress businesswoman. She asks if he is the one called Wolverine. Logan asks who wants to know. After she introduces herself as Keli Saga—the widow of this company’s founder—she asks if Wolverine could provide some proof of his identity. He reminds her that she is the one who brought him to her office. She explains that she summoned him on a whim. She saw him via the security cameras in the exhibit, and based off her friend Mariko’s thorough and vivid descriptions, knew it had to be him. She just wants to be sure.
Logan raises his fist level with her eyes. He unsheathes his claws, which make their signature SNIKT! sound as they stop just short of Keli Saga’s eyes. That’s proof enough for her, the wide-eyed Mrs. Saga says.
Behind Logan’s back, one of the security guards lifts his stun-gun and orders him to retract his claws immediately. In one swift motion, Logan swings his other set of claws around and slices the stun-gun into four pieces. “Never bring a taser to a knife fight,” he sneers at the guard. Mrs. Saga orders her guard to remain at ease. Wolverine is going to be on their side, she tells him. “Lady, I’m on my side,” Logan insists. After sheathing his claws, he asks how she knows Mariko Yashida. Saga explains she and Mariko were friends growing up—as close of friends as Mariko’s father allowed them to be, that is. To this day, she and Mariko still talk constantly, even when separated by miles and oceans. She believes providence brought Logan to the exhibit. “Nope,” Logan says. “Amtrak.” Mrs. Saga narrows her eyes at this joke. She is serious. She believes Logan came for a reason, that reason being to save her life.
Back in the exhibition hall, Kitty and Sarah exit the bathroom together. Kitty asks herself why girls never go to the bathroom alone… but immediately decides some questions are better left unanswered. As they return to the hall, one of the security guards tells them the exhibition hours have ended. He ushers them to the door. Kitty explains she came with a man, but the guard presumes her friend must have already exited. Kitty figures he’s right; there is no reason for her and Sarah to linger. Perhaps it’s because she’s been around the X-Men for so long, but even so, Kitty has the funniest feeling something is wrong.
Upstairs, in Mrs. Saga’s office, Saga’s assistant informs her that the gallery has closed for the evening. Saga thanks and dismisses her—but asks she remain outside the door. “Can I interest you in some tenshin as well, Wolverine-san?” Saga asks as she pours herself a cup of hot tea.
“The tea alone is fine,” Wolverine answers. Kneeling politely at the end of the tea table, he asks Saga who wants to kill her. The Hand, she says; she assumes Logan has heard of them. “Here and there, yeah,” Logan answers as he drinks his tea. What did she do to get herself targeted by the Hand? Her main sin, Saga explains, was being born without the Y chromosome. Logan presumes the Hand was not a big fan of a woman taking over the corporation. Although Mrs. Saga doesn’t think the Hand cares one way or the other, those who make use of the Hand’s services—namely assassinations—do.
“My husband was a great man, but there were some disreputable individuals with whom he did not hesitate to do business,” Mrs. Saga says. When her husband passed away from cancer a month ago, Mrs. Saga took over the company and made clear to those same unsavory individuals that their business was no longer welcome. They did not take this news well. At first they claimed she was blowing smoke, and then they claimed her decision would now stand because—as a mere woman—she could not hope to comprehend the complexities of the world. “They made it clear the roof would drop on me,” she says.
Meanwhile, in the exhibition gallery, smoke blows into the room and the roof drops as the ninjas of the Hand emerge from the overhead air ducts. With the security guards unconscious from the gas, the ninjas assume they have free reign. The unexpected emergence of Daredevil, the Man without Fear, proves them wrong. “Hands off,” he says as he yanks them away from the mystical red mask with his billy club.
Outside, Kitty and Sarah search for Logan, but see no signs of him. She grows uneasy; where could Logan possibly be? She wonders if this is what it truly means to be one of the X-Men. It used to be she could go to museums and concerts and amusement parks without thinking she was under attack—much less being correct about it all the time. She tells Sarah to stay put while she heads back into the building. Logan must still be inside, and she intends to find him.
As Kitty rounds the corner, Sarah asks how she intends to enter. She has no idea about Kitty’s mutant power. Entering buildings comes easy to someone who can phase through anything, Kitty thinks as she passes through the marble exterior. She hopes she’s wrong about her feeling and that Logan is just off somewhere sipping tea with someone. Yeah, right, she thinks to herself. That’ll be the day.
Upstairs, Logan continues sipping his tea with Mrs. Saga. He finds the tea tasty and asks if he can have more. Of course, Saga says. As he grips the pot of hot tea, Logan asks Keli if she is truly worried about these Hand warriors. “Supposedly they can go anywhere,” she answers. She adds they can be almost invisible and undetectable. Logan has heard very much the same thing. In his opinion, though, there is a huge gap between “almost” and “completely”. Suddenly, he hurls the pot of hot tea at the wall. It crashes and shatters.
Shocked, Mrs. Saga asks if he’s lost his mind. However, she swallows her words when she sees the image form against the wall of a Hand ninja clad in red. The ninja screams and tries to soothe the scalding burns on his head. Wolverine, meanwhile, leaps into action. With his claws outstretched, he lunges at the ninja, asking if the tea is too hot for him.
Saga pleads with him to be careful as he engages the ninja in battle. The ninja strikes at Wolverine with his blade, but Wolverine catches the sword between his claws. The first thing Saga-san should know about him, Wolverine says, is that he isn’t in the business of being careful. He deflects the sword and makes another swipe at the ninja.
Meanwhile, back in the gallery, Daredevil takes on four ninjas at once—despite being blind. While the crimson-clad heaves one ninja into two of his companions, another hurls four shuriken in his direction. Daredevil senses them in time to leap out of their way. He follows up this evasion with a swift, two-footed kick under the ninja’s jaw.
Daredevil asks why they want the mask. What about it interests them? One of the towering ninjas of the Hand, speaking in English, tells Daredevil that it is none of his concern. Daredevil is flattered they know his name. He asks the giant ninja for his. After introducing himself only as Akuma, the ninja tells the Man without Fear he has no time for him—neither for his theatrics nor his athleticism. He does, however, commend him on his fashion sense. Channeling some mystical energy through a mere gesture of his hand, Akuma sends Daredevil crashing against the wall.
With Daredevil seemingly unconscious, Akuma makes his way over to the display case housing the demonic red mask. He smashes the case with his fist. When he reaches for the mask, however, he is shocked to see his hand pass right through it as if it were a ghost. He demands to know who is responsible for this seeming sorcery! Punching a hole through the wall, Akuma declares that the man who stole the mask, no matter who he is, shall suffer. To his surprise, the man who stole the mask turns out to be not a man after all, but a young girl named Kitty Pryde. “All the greater the insult,” Akuma mutters.
“Great. You’re not only a bad guy,” Kitty says, “you’re a chauvinist.” Akuma comes crashing through the wall after her, demanding she yield the mask. It is of no interest to her! he shouts. As she runs away, Kitty tells him the fact that he is a bad guy and wants the mask is reason enough to keep it out of his grasp!
A projectile billy club smacks Akuma in the back of the head. He groans at the reappearance of Daredevil, whom he thought he had removed from the fray. This time, Daredevil holds a katana one of the Hand ninjas dropped. He figured he would return it to Akuma—point first.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Logan continues his brawl with the clandestine ninja, who thrusts at Logan with the point of his sword. Logan catches it between two of his adjacent claws, and with a quick turn of his wrist, snaps it in two. Now that the ninja is defenseless, Saga begs Logan not to kill him. Logan sighs. As he knocks the ninja unconscious with a blow to the jaw, he tells Saga her humanitarianism may be misplaced. “It’s not that,” Saga says. “This was my husband’s favorite carpet. I don’t want bloodstains in it.”
Taking her by the hand, Logan leads Saga to the exit and asks if she has a safehouse nearby in which she can hide. She has one two floors up, Mrs. Saga tells him. Logan asks her to remind him later to slice and dice the nimrod who designed this building.
As they exit into the hallway, Saga is surprised to see her security guards lying unconscious on the floor—but Logan isn’t. He should have seen this one coming. He lifts his head from the floor and looks into the eyes of their attacker and his newest opponent, a dangerous-looking woman bearing two sai and clad in a scarlet leotard, bandana and flowing sash. Logan unsheathes his claws and utters her name though clenched teeth. “Elektra.”


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Demon with a Crass Hand
In the hallway outside her office at the American Japanese Institute, Keli Saga, the institute’s owner, and Wolverine, her de facto bodyguard, face off against Elektra, one of the most formidable and deadly assassins to walk the Earth. Elektra and Wolverine lock eyes. He lunges at her with his claws extended. Elektra charges at him with her sai and the two lock blades. “Looking good, ‘Lektra,” Logan says to her.
“Not you. You’ve gained weight. The cushy life at your little school ill-suits you.”
“Fine, I take it back,” Logan replies. “Ya look like garbage.” Elektra tells him this isn’t true. He agrees and admits to his bluff. Mrs. Saga, meanwhile, is astounded; these two know each other? More surprisingly, Wolverine is friends with an assassin? In Wolverine’s eyes, the enemy of his enemy is his friend—and Elektra has no love for the Hand.
Saga asks how Elektra knows of the Hand. Elektra explains she used to be one of them. Getting to the point, Logan asks his old friend why the Hand wants Saga-san dead, and who hired them. Elektra reveals it isn’t Saga they want dead—it’s Logan. They wanted to make sure he wouldn’t interfere. When he asks what it is they don’t want him to interfere in, Elektra explains they are after the mask—the same mask currently in Kitty Pryde’s possession.
Down below in the gallery, Kitty runs through the darkened hallways with the mystical demon mask clutched tightly to her chest. Two red-clad ninjas of the Hand leap out from around the corner, brandishing their swords. Kitty phases just in time to slip through what would have been a lethal attack. This special ability of Kitty’s surprises the two ninjas, naturally, who try in vain to grab her as she flees.
Back upstairs, Wolverine asks Elektra what the ninjas want with the mask. It’s a valuable piece of art, Saga begins to say. Elektra interrupts her; the commercial value of their target bears no relevance. Mrs. Saga may have no idea what the mask is, Elektra says, but Saga’s late husband certainly knew. Why else would he have kept it locked away in an impenetrable safe?
Two ninjas of the Hand appear from around the corners at the end of the hallway. As Elektra engages them in close combat, she scolds Saga for ever deciding to put the mask on display. Keli doesn’t understand; it’s nothing but a demon mask, she says. “No,” Elektra corrects. “It is a demon in mask form.” She explains that the Hand worships this demon, and anyone who willingly wears the mask under the light of a full moon will manifest this demon. Wolverine, leaping into battle alongside Elektra, asks what will happen should the demon manifest. Elektra simply says it would not go well for all concerned. As Wolverine tosses a disarmed ninja into his Hand allies, he advises they ensure the demon manifestation doesn’t happen.
A few floors down, meanwhile, Daredevil crosses samurai swords with Akuma, one of the towering ninjas of the Hand. Akuma commends his opponent’s skill in battle; his master trained him well. “Taught me everything I know,” Daredevil replies through gritted teeth.
“Indeed,” Akuma says, “but not everything I know.” Their blades separate. Akuma slices at Daredevil’s torso, but the agile superhero leaps over the attack. Again, Akuma commends his opponent’s athleticism. Had Daredevil been any slower, he adds, he would have lost his knees. Tragically, as fast as he is, he is not fast enough—at least according to Akuma, who grabs him by the ankle and smashes him into the ground. Daredevil slinks over and clings to the ninja’s ankle. Akuma begins mocking him, saying he isn’t worthy of wasting any more of his time, when Daredevil leaps backward, unleashes his billy club, and whips it around Akuma’s ankle. He drags the ninja assassin screaming to the ground.
As he hoists Akuma through the air, Daredevil apologizes for not giving him enough of a challenge. Then again, if Akuma had paid attention to him as he tied his billy club around his ankle instead of bragging about his own fabulousness, he would have saved both of them some time. He sends Akuma crashing into a display case.
Back upstairs, Wolverine, Elektra and Mrs. Saga approach Saga’s safe-room. Keli places her hand on the security palm-reader and opens the door. After sniffing its interior, Wolverine declares the safe-room free of ninjas and tells Saga to get inside—and stay there until he tells her she can leave. Keli asks how he knew that based on smell alone. He tells her to trust him on this one. As Keli enters the room, she turns to Wolverine and asks what he intends to do about the ninjas. “What I do best,” Wolverine says, unsheathing his claws. The door slams shut.
Outside the gallery, Kitty continues to flee with the mask in hand. Her mind racing frantically, she stops in her tracks when a small disc resembling a hockey puck slides across the floor and stops at her feet. She stops to wonder who might be playing hockey. Before she can complete that thought, however, the puck explodes.
Outside, six seconds ago…
Sarah looks at her watch. The situation is getting ridiculous, she thinks. Her mother is going to kill her when she gets home. She can just hear it now: “Sarah, I don’t like you hanging out with Kitty Pryde. There’s something about her that just bothers me,” Sarah imagines. Man, when I get home, she’s gonna blow up—
An explosion rocks the ground floor of the American Japanese Institute. As Sarah shields her face from the debris, shrapnel and shattered glass, she can only come to one conclusion: terrorists!
Kitty, meanwhile, copes with the aftermath of the explosion. She picks herself up from the smoking wreckage, grateful to be alive, but angry about her own naivety.Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid, she tells herself. She let herself get caught totally flatfooted. If she hadn’t phased at the last microsecond, she would be unconscious—or worse. When she finally regains her senses, she immediately looks around for the mask, but realizes she cannot find it.
“Kitty!” a voice cries. Kitty looks up to see her friend Sarah holding the demon mask in her right hand. She frantically asks Kitty if she is okay, what she was doing with the mask and what caused that explosion. Kitty tells her it’s complicated as she gets up off the ground and rubs her head. “So, I’m supposed to—what? Wait for the Cliff’s Notes version?” Sarah asks. Up above their heads, Daredevil crashes through a window and falls backward toward the street. “And who’s that?” Sarah asks. “Kitty, what’s going on?” Kitty doesn’t know; it’s not like the red guy came with her!
After Daredevil hits the ground, Akuma leaps out of the window with his sword in his hands. He target’s Daredevil’s chest as he plummets to the street. He claims the end has come. Elektra appears out of nowhere and agrees with Akuma’s statement as she kicks him in the back.
Standing nearby, Sarah clutches the mask to her chest, clenches her eyes, and begs to know what is happening. To her surprise, a voice speaks inside her head and tells her understanding can be hers—but only if she places the mask on her face. The voice surprises Sarah. As she looks into the mask’s red, glowing eyes, however, she listens to it speak and begins believing its message. It swears all will be made clear to her and she will never fear anything ever again—neither strange beings nor her mother’s scolding—if she would only place the mask on her face.
Up above, the full moon shines.
Wolverine emerges from a hole in the building just in time to see Sarah staring longingly into the mask. Drop the mask, he shouts! Likewise, Akuma watches Sarah lift the mask to her face, and curses his bad luck. The mask is not meant for one such as her! Unfortunately for him, his current battle with Elektra keeps him occupied. He can do nothing to stop what happens next.
Sarah places the laughing mask on her face, and in that moment, undergoes a frightening transformation. Her body fills with so much demonic energy that light pours out of every orifice of her body. Out of her mouth and eyes comes a vibrant white light, while the rest of her emits an evenly distributed aura of red energy. The demon shouts with glee. It can now live, breathe and feel the cool air upon his body! It can feel his heart pumping blood in the heat of combat! Now, it says, the world will feel the wrath of Shinigami! Where Sarah once stood now stands a winged, horned, crimson-skinned demon bearing samurai armor and a massive sword.
Kitty gasps; what can they do? Wolverine votes they undo the demon before it undoes them. Kitty asks what they will do about Sarah, though; that demon is in possession of her body! “Bad luck for her,” Logan says. Kitty grabs hold of him to prevent him from rushing into battle. She won’t let him kill her friend, she says. Wolverine tells the kid she doesn’t get to say no to him. Kitty reminds him she is not a kid: she is thirteen-and-a-half. Unfortunately for her, Wolverine doesn’t care if she hits the big thirteen-point-seven-five—that monster there is no longer her friend.
Meanwhile, Akuma approaches Shinigami, kneels before it and introduces himself. Shinigami interrupts him. He knows who Akuma is. He knows he tried to unleash him, but not in the name of Shinigami’s glory. No, Akuma wanted to usurp the demon’s immense power for his own ends, and for that, he must pay. “What fools these mortals be,” Shinigami says as he knocks Akuma away with the flat of his blade.
Shinigami, his smile perpetually plastered on his face, watches as Akuma soars over the rooftop. He asks whose life ends next. Elektra and Daredevil leap at him in unison, while Elektra gives the order to destroy the mask; it’s their only chance. If that’s the case, Shinigami says, they have no chance. The demon claims no mere metal weapon can destroy it, nor can it be removed by any means—except from being peeled from the skull after decapitation. Shinigami would never let his foes get close enough for that to happen anyway. It leaps into the sky, mocking its opponents as it goes, and takes off flying.
Before Shinigami can get too far, however, Daredevil snares him with his billy club. To Daredevil’s surprise, his weight alone is not enough to pull the demon back down to the ground. He asks for a little help from his friends. Wolverine and Elektra rush to his side and add their strength to his. Together, they manage to pull Shinigami back to the ground. “Oooooof! You…dare!” Shinigami groans.
“When they call you Daredevil you kind of have to live up to the name,” Murdock says. As Shinigami stands up, he tells Daredevil that living up to anything will no longer be a concern of his—or any of theirs.
At that moment, Kitty Pryde emerges from beneath the asphalt directly behind Shinigami. As she phases up to the demon’s level, she urges herself to time this perfectly—lest her friend is no more. She phases her fist through the back of Shinigami’s head and hardens it just enough to knock the mask free. Shinigami is shocked to see the mask fly from his face, revealing his skeletal face. How dare she, it says!
“Y’think that’s bad? Here’s worse news,” Wolverine says as the mask soars in his direction. “My claws may be metal weapons—but they ain’t no mere.” With one swift motion, he slices through the aerial demon mask, separating it into four pieces. Suddenly, Shinigami explodes in a burst of white light, screaming as he vanishes from that plane of existence.
With the battle over, Kitty approaches her unconscious friend and nudges her awake. She tells her a gas main exploded, causing Sarah to pass out from the excitement. Sarah seems to believe it—although she swears she saw some people in costumes. “Nope. Nobody like that here,” Kitty says as she hoists her off the ground. Sarah asks if she’s positive. “Abso-tootly,” Kitty answers. Sarah asks if they can go home now. Kitty consents.
As Sarah walks ahead, Logan and Kitty hang back a few steps. He tells his protégé it was certainly gutsy how she stood up to him earlier. Kitty thanks him. Wolverine tells her not to make a habit of it. Yes sir, Kitty agrees.
They look ahead at Sarah and Kitty cannot help but wonder if she will remember any of it. She won’t if they’re lucky, Logan says. Then again, there is no way to predict how the memory will work. For instance, he keeps thinking he forgot something important. However, he brushes this off, assuming it will come to him with time.
Meanwhile, back in the institute, the thing Logan forgot—Keli Saga—bangs on the interior door of her safe room. “Logan? Elektra? Is it safe to come out yet?” she asks from inside the pitch-black room. “Hello?”


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

[Assistant]
Rock Gods
Two shadows, elongated by a single torch, grace the walls of a darkened cave. “I believe it is this way, mighty Ulik,” says the troll, the smaller of the two shadows. Ulik requires more than the troll’s belief; he didn’t let him accompany him just so he could provide guesses. The troll counters that the only reason he accompanies Ulik is because their king, Geirrodur, ordered it. He desires a firsthand account of Ulik’s actions. If that’s the case, then Ulik tells him to prepare the songs that sing of his praises. He throws his fist into the ceiling of the cavern, creating a wide hole. The troll covers his eyes and shouts at Ulik. This isn’t the right place; he’s emerging too soon! Ulik disagrees; if exiting here will get him away from the sound of the troll’s voice, then it cannot be too soon!
Emerging from the hole, Ulik looks around and finds himself in another long tunnel, this one laid with train tracks. It seems the Midgardians possess some building skills, he says with disdain. Down below, the troll asks Ulik if he hears a rumbling noise. Now that he mentions it, Ulik agrees and even thinks he sees something headed in his direction. By the time he gauges the speed of the approaching object, it is too late; the subway train smashes into him. It is hard to tell which of them—Ulik or the train—sustains more damage in the collision.
Sometime later, at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Wolverine tries his best to read the morning paper, the front page of which bears a news story about the mysterious subway collision. However, he has to endure a persistent string of questions from Kitty Pryde. “Please?” she asks.
“No,” Logan answers.
“Pleeeeeease?”
“No.”
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasssssse?”
“Okay,” Logan says, keeping his eyes on the paper.
Kitty’s eyes suddenly grow wide with excitement. “Really?” she asks.
“No,” Logan responds. Her excited expression immediately contracts into one of repulsed anger.
This chronic begging continues, first at the sink where Wolverine clears his dishes, then in the bathroom as he brushes his teeth, later in the hanger while he repairs the Blackbird, and finally, in the living room, where Wolverine tries to relax and play a videogame with Nightcrawler. Upon hearing her uninterrupted begging, Nightcrawler asks Wolverine what it is the kid actually wants. Logan, sitting on the floor with his back to the couch and the controller in his hand, tells Kurt now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t actually remember.
Kitty slaps her forehead. Emerging from the wall, she reminds Logan she wants him to arrange for her and her friends to meet Thor. He doesn’t even know the guy, Logan retorts. Kurt asks which Thor they mean—Thor the Thunder God? “No,” Kitty says, “Thor Heyerdahl.” That, Logan could arrange. Thor still owes him for his help in building the Kon-Tiki. Moving on, Kitty suggests that even if Logan hasn’t met the guy, Thor must at least know who he is! After all, he’s Logan! Nightcrawler agrees with her there; Logan is Logan. Wolverine sighs in relief.
Taking a step back, Nightcrawler asks Kitty why she suddenly has an obsession with Thor. Kitty, running her hand through her hair, tells him it isn’t an obsession. She just thinks Thor is hot. Lucky for him, he can whip up a rainstorm and cool down, Wolverine jokes. Kitty asks Logan to be serious, so he does. In all seriousness, he asks her where this obsession came from. Is she trying to impress the girls at the dance studio again? A guilty expression suddenly overtakes Kitty’s face. “No,” she tells Logan.
Flashback…
Kitty’s friends from Stevie Hunter’s Dance Academy cannot believe it; she’s actually tight with Thor? Kitty, leaning against the brick wall and casually examining her finger nails, admits that yeah, they’re kind of tight. They met at some fundraiser and hit it off instantly. She even claims Thor calls her every so often just to say hi. Another of her friends—a redhead in legwarmers—clutches her own face in shock. Thor calls her?!?
“Right. Because they have phones in Asgard,” says Whitney, a standoffish blonde girl with sharp bangs. They might, Kitty claims. Whitney asks if they want to know what she thinks. No, Kitty says, but she’s sure Whitney will tell them—just like the always does. Narrowing her eyes, Whitney says that she thinks Kitty saw the picture of Thor in her bag and decided to make up this story to impress her, and through her, the other girls. The two other girls look stunned; is Whitney suggesting they don’t have minds of their own? “Yes,” Whitney says. They ask if that should upset them. “No,” Whitney says. They’re okay with that. Whitney walks over to them, puts her hands on their shoulders, and leads them away from Kitty Pryde.
As they go, Whitney tells Kitty the next time her pal Thor calls, she should have him swing by and say hello. Only then will they be impressed. “Oh, like I care about impressing you,” Kitty says as they leave.
End flashback…:
“Okay, fine! I wanted to impress them!” Kitty confesses while Logan swims laps in the pool. He can go ahead and sue her! It isn’t her fault that Thor is the rock god of super-guys! Plus, he’s appearing at City Hall in Manhattan the very next day to accept some medal of honor. Logan can introduce her, she suggests.
Upon hearing this, Logan abruptly stops swimming and faces Kitty. He can’t believe it; she’s intimidated by Thor! She claims she isn’t, but when Logan presses the point, Kitty admits she is. Now that she’s confessed, she asks Logan for the favor once again, but once again, he denies her. Finally, Kitty gives up and says she should have just listened to Jean. Jean told her to ask Scott to do it—because Scott’s nice and caring. That’s why Jean loves him so much! If that’s the case, then Wolverine thinks she should just ask him instead. “Maybe I will,” Kitty says.
“Maybe you did,” Wolverine counters.
“Maybe I did!” Kitty says.
“And he already said no,” Wolverine adds.
“Maybe he—” Kitty suddenly pauses. She averts her eyes and rubs the back of her neck. “Yeah, he said no.” She’s never felt like such a dope. She watches Logan float there in the water for almost a minute. Finally, he opens his mouth and emits a lone chuckle. As he swims away, he consents to do her the favor. Kitty is stunned; he’ll actually do it? After Wolverine confirms that he will indeed do it, Kitty says that while she doesn’t mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, she is curious as to why. She made him laugh, Logan says. She kicks at the water. Although that wasn’t her attention, she tells Logan it’s no problem.
The next day at City Hall, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine stand among the cheerful crowd of Thor fans. A banner adorns the front of the building declaring it “Thor’s Day”. Kitty, while thinking of all the people she’s fought alongside and against, finds it odd that anyone intimidates her at this point. She remembers, though, that just a few months ago, she was just a girl from Deerfield, Illinois who had hardly any friends and no social life because all the guys hated that her exam scores wrecked the grading curve. Where does someone like her get off talking to a god?
At that moment, Thor descends from the heavens, bearing the mighty hammer Mjolnir. Kitty’s train of thought continues. Logan could never understand this feeling. Although she can phase through anything, nothing fazes Logan. She doubts he was ever even a kid. He was probably born forty years old.
Once Thor takes the podium—posing for the cameras in the process—Kitty asks Logan how they’ll get near him. “Easy. I pop my claws and hack a path,” Wolverine says, eyeing the crowd. “Then you phase through the running, screaming people, and I’ll introduce you.” She asks him to be serious. He tells her that something will come up—seriously. When she asks what he means, Logan explains that he’s been doing this superhero thing for much longer than her—longer than anybody, for that matter, except Thor. Still not understanding what he means, Logan elaborates by asking Kitty if she wondered why he ordered her to wear her costume under her clothes. Yeah, she says. “He’s here. I’m here. You’re here. When two or more of us show up somewhere, nine times outta ten, something comes up,” Logan says.
Kitty asks what he means by “us”. Super-guys, he explains, like him and her and Thor. The comparison takes Kitty back a step; she’s not anywhere near the level of Thor! “Why? ‘Cause his hair’s prettier?” Logan asks. Kitty begins to explain, but then stops; what’s wrong with her hair? She examines her curly, brown locks. Wolverine, his attention elsewhere, suddenly tells Kitty to move. She ignores him and asks what makes him such an authority on hair. Is he Vidal Sassoon or something?
While repeating his orders for her to move, Wolverine suddenly lunges at Kitty and pushes her out of the way, just as the Rock Troll Ulik erupts from the concrete immediately beneath them. Enraged, Ulik calls out to Thor. Did he think fleeing Asgard would enable him to hide from Ulik? Did he believe mere dimensional barriers could stand between him and the will of Geirrodur?
Thor, still standing on the stage, hurls his hammer Mjolnir at Ulik. He orders the Rock Troll to be gone; Midgard is not for the likes of him! As the lightning-charged hammer flies at Ulik, the Rock Troll asks if Thor assumed he would come unprepared. He lifts a large shield—behind which he hides—and informs Thor the shield’s magnetic properties were designed to attract the Uru metal of his hammer! Mjolnir collides with the shield, sending surges of electricity across that lateral plane. Thor asks how it matters; Ulik has not the strength to hold Mjolnir! Ulik didn’t intend to wield it; he merely wished to deprive Thor of his weapon so their battle would be even. As he drops the hammer and shield into the hole in the street, he tells Thor that in such a battle, there can be no doubt as to who will stand victorious! Bearing his fists equipped with stone pounders, Ulik lunges at Thor, who lunges back with his fists similarly bared. Thor agrees that there is no doubt as to which of them will emerge victorious from the fight—but he disagrees on Ulik’s choice of victor.
Thor knocks Ulik to the ground and pins his arm to the troll’s throat. With his free hand, he gestures toward the hole and summons his hammer. A simple shield shall not stand between Mjolnir and its master! Down in the hole, Ulik’s diminutive assistant troll clutches the shield with all his might. The attached hammer pulls toward the surface despite the troll’s efforts to contain it. He begs for Ulik to do something!
Ulik clutches a handful of concrete and uses it as added leverage when he punches Thor across the face. With Thor temporarily addled, Ulik grabs onto a nearby lamppost, hoists it out of the ground and strikes Thor across the chest. Did he believe Ulik would be so easily dispatched? If so, he should think again, Ulik says! Once Thor hits the ground, Ulik charges at him with the lamppost extended like a javelin. Hiding amongst the mortals he so adores will not spare Thor from this fight!
“Sorry, bub. We mortals have a saying,” Wolverine says from the crowd. “Ya can’t fight City Hall!” He slices through Ulik’s makeshift javelin, thwarting his attack. Ulik stares at this new contender and tells him whoever he is, he must be insane! Dodging his blow, Wolverine says it usually people have to know him for much longer before they discover that. He gives Ulik kudos for being such a good judge of character. What Ulik doesn’t realize, though, is just how insane Logan is. The answer: pretty darned. He dodges another of Ulik’s blows and prepares to strike back with his adamantium claws.
Down below, in the sewers, Ulik’s assistant troll drags the electrified Mjolnir and shield through the ankle-deep water. Finally, his king will possess the hammer he so covets! Now he need only wait for the king to transport them back to Asgard. Kitty Pryde suddenly appears in the troll’s path and tells him he is not going anywhere. “Ymir’s blood! Who are you?” the troll gasps. They’ve been going around and around on that, Kitty answers. She’s torn between ‘Sprite’ and ‘Shadowcat’. “How about if you are simply torn into pieces?” the troll says, hoisting his axe. He strikes at Kitty, but she dodges the attack.
The Rock Troll backs Kitty up against a large pipe on the wall and hoists his axe once more. A pathetic little human female should not have challenged a Rock Troll, he says. She is nothing! As he begins swinging his axe, Kitty retorts that if he wants nothing, she will give him nothing. Her body shifts to its intangible state as Kitty steps backward through the conduit. Once the axe strikes it, a surge of water bursts forth and blasts the Rock Troll in the chest. The torrent sends the troll through a nearby opening and into a lower level of the sewer.
With her target down, Kitty begins searching for Thor’s hammer. However, she cannot seem to find it, instead seeing a wooden cane floating on the surface of the water. A voice from down the hall urges her to hurry up and grab the cane. Kitty plucks it out of the water. The mysterious man in the sewer thanks the heavens and asks her to please give it to him. As she hands it over, Kitty asks who he is and why he cares about this old stick of wood. “The big deal, my dear, is that true strength has nothing to do with what something looks like. The Rock Troll learned that the hard way,” the man says. He strikes the cane on the ground, unleashing a burst of bright light. He thanks Kitty again as he transforms into Thor, the God of Thunder.
Meanwhile, back on the surface, Ulik prepares to deliver yet another crushing blow to the battered Wolverine. Shaking off the damage he’s endured, Wolverine tells the troll he is just warming up. Just as Ulik claims Wolverine’s bravado will save him not, Thor thrusts upward from the underground and lifts Ulik into the air. “Thou didst show an interest in mine hammer, Ulik!” Thor says as he propels the Rock Troll upward. “Examine mighty Mjolnir, then—closely!”
Thor and Ulik lift toward the sky, vanishing over the horizon in a flash of light. Kitty asks where Thor went. Wolverine asks her where else the gods go, other than up. He asks what happened to her in the sewers. Kitty isn’t sure; she thinks she somehow aided Thor, though. Did she get a chance to tell him about her friends? Kitty says she didn’t, but even if she had, should would have felt rather small compared to the majestic aura surrounding a being like Thor.
Kitty and Wolverine don’t get to see the end of Thor’s battle with the Rock Trolls. They probably took the fight to Asgard or something. However, she’s certain Thor handed Ulik’s head to him—just like Kitty fears Whitney and her friends will do to her when she returns to dance class.
Sure enough, after their next dance class, Whitney approaches Kitty outside and tells her another day has gone by without an appearance from her friend Thor. She cruelly asks if he lost Kitty’s phone number or something. Surprisingly, Kitty owns up and admits she was lying about the whole thing. Is Whitney satisfied?
“Tease them not so, Katherine,” a bold voice says. “In truth, the phone number was lost in a tragic—ah—Frost Giant attack.” The four girls are stunned to behold the charming, handsome Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. He commends Kitty’s good fortune that these friends of hers bask in her presence! Suddenly, Whitney’s personality does a complete reversal, and she leaps over to Kitty and throws her arms around her shoulders. They can’t get enough of Kitty, she says.
Kitty, both surprised at Thor’s arrival and annoyed at Whitney’s sycophancy, asks Thor how he found her if he lost her number. Thor reveals a mutual friend of theirs—who purports to be the best there is at such things—tracked him down. He gestures toward Logan, who stands idly in a nearby alleyway. Changing subject, Thor reminds Kitty it has been some time since their last visit and asks if she has anything on her mind. There is, Kitty says. She asks Thor how long it takes him to get his hair looking so good. “Mine… hair?” Thor asks.
Wolverine, meanwhile, turns toward the dark alleyway, adjusts his collar and walks off alone. He chuckles as he goes; that kid cracks him up.