While the others are inside the hospital, Idie remains back in the Blackbird with Kitty Pryde. Idie asks Kitty a question. Kitty was her age when she joined the X-Men. Has her life been blessed? Kitty wouldn’t often put it like that, she replies. It’s better than the alternative, but… after so much, that Peter and she are together… to be able to wake up every morning with him… yeah, she supposes she does feel blessed right now. It must be good to be married, Idie declares and looks at Kitty with expectant eyes. Kitty is thrown for a loop, not sure what to say. Idie finally understands. Disgusted, she jumps up, accusing Kitty of being an immoral woman. They left an immoral woman in charge of them! These X-people are crazy! She’d have been safer going with the team into the hospital!
The team would probably see that different, having found that an unborn mutant baby is to blame for the chaos and controlling everybody in the hospital. All the other people in the hospital are now about to attack Hope’s team in their zombie-like state.
Hope orders Kenji to hold them back without hurting anyone. Shooting out a construct from his arm, Kenji calls her an optimist. He’s hitting them with steel and gristle. Of course, he’s going to hurt them, just not much.
Hope orders Teon to secure the mother. As he tries to grab her, she shouts unself, then reject. At her scream, all the windows in the hospital shatter. Hope tells Teon to release the woman. The baby’s scared. He’s scared? Laurie mutters. She’s scared! Gabriel fears the kid’s going full-on Kenji.
Outside, the radius of the infant’s mind control widens, reaching the people behind the police barricade and also Idie and Kitty. Shouting reject unself, as one they all storm towards the hospital.
Looking out of the window, Gabrile announces that’s a textbook example of maximum scale total-lunatic-Kenji-ing it up. The real Kenji is actually using his power to keep all the zombies out of the hospital room the team is in. Hope suggests they back off. If they are not a threat, maybe she’ll leave them alone. She orders Teon to knock them a hole through to the next room.
She then turns to Laurie. Idie under control is the main danger. She must get her out of control range. Straight up. Gabriel points out that the second Laurie snaps Kenji’s ick-cord, she will lose her protection. Not the second, Laurie corrects Seconds. Plenty of time! She flies lose of the cord, grabs Idie and flies high up with her. So high until the control effect doesn’t work anymore. Idie awakes, looking down at an amazing sight, she turns around to see Laurie having transformed into a kind of flying mermaid. She is amazing too, Idie admits.
In the hospital, the others have backed off away from the pregnant woman to the next room. Nevertheless, crowds of mind-controlled zombies are running towards the hospital. Hope closes the door on the zombies from one side while Kenji defends the hole.
Hope notices that the zombies are bleeding from their eyes. The kid is burning them out! The hospital is going to become an abattoir! No one is going to survive! She asks Keenji if he can plug into everyone and protect them. He’s an artist, not a factory, he scoffs. Does he have time for one more commission? Gabriel asks from the window. Laurie is coming in fast carrying little miss burny and self-hateful. Kenji plugs both Idie and Laurie in, grumbling about it.
Laurie announces her theory. The kid doesn’t want to be born, and why would he want to be? There’s all those iffy theories about early memory loss being due to birth trauma. Even if that’s not true, he’s an immature hyper-intellect in the womb. What’s happening to him is like his world ending. So she thinks they need to convince him that it’s worth being born. Worth fighting through the fear and there’s no alternative. That life’s worth living, she guesses.
Hope asks Kenji to take one more brain link to the kid. He is not a period-drama telephone operator either, he protests. Art is the great communicator, Hope shoots back. He lectures her that her trademark cuteness doesn’t work on him, but nevertheless extends a tendril to plug into the mothers’ back.
Hope is surrounded by whiteness, the infant floating in front of her. “Hi” she greets him and assures him she knows he’s scared. She’s scared too. She wants to just curl up in a ball, but she can’t. You have to go forward. You have to believe it’s worth going forward. If anything, the baby looks even more scared after that.
Hope asks Laurie to try, certain that smart as she is she’ll find something. Laurie rattles down all the advantages of growing up in Germany. Its economic strength, its excellent education system and labor friendly work life and culture. Predictably, the baby is not convinced at all.
Laurie holds back Kitty, as one of the zombies while Idie is next to talk to the child. She tells him that, if he is born, he can get christened and then, when he dies, he may not go to hell. Now the child is really panicked.
Hope orders Kenji to try next. Idie tells Hope she’s subtracted all the heat from the surroundings. There is no more. She can release it or take heat from the people if she wants. Hope forbids it.
Kenji stands in the whiteness, looking sullenly at the baby who scrutinizes him. Please, Kenji scoffs, as if he’s going to talk him into this world. Smirking, he announces to the others that nihilism finds an unreceptive audience in the preborn.
Hope tells Gabriel she hopes he has some kind of heartwarming message to… Woof, Teon interrupts. Hope orders Kenji to plug Teon in. Sighing he complies.
In the whiteness, Teon stands before the baby and smiles at him.
In reality, with the zombies about to overwhelm them, Kenji decides it’s time for some scalpels. But, at that moment, all the possessed stop moving and clear a pathway for Teon, who takes the mother’s hand and leads her to a bed. The others have no idea what just happened or how to deliver a baby.
In the whiteness, Teon cradles the scared child who repeats, Reject womb. Reject. Reject… To this, Teon offers a correction with a smile. Not flight, Teon tells him. Fight.
Hope’s team and the zombies have gathered around the mother whose hand Teon is holding. This is the most unnatural birth of all time, Gabriel announces. And Laurie states the baby isn’t fighting them now, but helping. It’s like a psychic epidural or something.
In the whiteness, the baby admits he’s scared. World end. No, new world, Teon tells him. Eat. Fight. Mate. Live. It’s enough!
And almost magically, the boy materializes in Hope’s hands. With her touch, she stabilizes his mutation and everybody wakes up again. It’s a boy, Hope tells the mother and she thinks he’s going to grow up to be very special.
Content, the kids leave the hospital, their work done. So in thirteen years or so, when he’s the right age, the X-gene will reactivate? Gabriel summarizes. Hope confirms. Until then, everything is back to normal. The extremely bloody miracle of birth, Kenji remarks. Gabriel protests that he likes kids. Kids are cute! Yuck, Laurie announces, whereas Idie reveals that she definitely wants children when she’s older. Like when she’s seventeen!
Back at the Blackbird, Kitty congratulates them but also puts a damper on their celebratory mood. She reveals that Teon’s family has started legal action. They want him back…
