Jean’s dream:
Jean Grey in her waitress uniform is desperately steering a jet toward the water. Her screens are starting to give way! she shouts. The radiation is starting to get through! The jet crashes in the water. She is trapped as the cockpit fills with water and she shouts for Scott or anyone else to help. Faintly, she hears a voice calling her back to them.
Reality
Elsewhere:
She finds herself lying on the floor in the supermarket in a large puddle of water from several water bottles that fell on her. Other customers are concerned and stand around her. An elderly native Australian assures her she had a bad spill. Dr. Reyes is coming, and so is her boyfriend. She feels she can’t breathe, ignores them and heads outside.
Jamaica Bay, New York:
An enthusiastic father and less enthusiastic son are fishing. The son notices several dead fish floating in the water around them. Moments later, fire rises from the bottom of the bay. The father orders the son to jump and from the water they watch how their boat is destroyed. The son announces he doesn’t like fishing and the father agrees.
Elsewhere:
An agitated Jean runs out of the Hammer Bay supermarket. She ignores the worried neighbor and gets almost hysterical trying to start her car, which won’t work.
Cockrum Hill cemetery:
Upstate, New York:
Kitty, Beast, Logan, Dani Moonstar and teen Cyclops are looking for a certain grave. Kitty explains the incidents are increasing in frequency and severity. But they don’t last long enough for them to react in force. And now with Cerebro down, they have no idea of what’s going on out there.
Cyclops suggests, if they sit tight, it may make its presence felt soon enough. Inadvisable, Beast opines. Most of their encounters with it have been rather benign, all things considered. He always prefers cutting those planet-eating entities off at the pass before they figure out why they are really here.
Dani asks why he says it instead of her. They all know who this is. Do they? Beast retorts. He doesn’t feel they have the evidence for that. Moreover, if it were one of his closest friends, wouldn’t—
Kitty cuts him off. They are here to get some answers. And there they are, Logan states. Jean Grey’s grave. Open and empty.
Kitty announces that to find it… find her, they need Cerebro. Hank promises to get it up and running, but they still lack a psychic. Kitty grimly vows she will find someone.
Elsewhere:
Patch’s Garage:
Jean fretfully asks Patch if it’s bad. It’s not good, he replies examining her car. It’s an old car. Things break down, he tells her. She sighs; it’s been one of those days. Weeks. Months - she doesn’t know. She asks if he ever had that moment where things keep going wrong and you realize this is going to be it from now on. Can’t say that he has, he shrugs as he grabs himself a beer. Jean babbles on, the weird thing is she felt her life was perfect until now.
He tells her to wind down. It’s just a car. He suggests a stiff drink or a stiff man will solve her problem and offers himself for that. Angrily, Jean lashes out and Patch is thrown back and other things are thrown around.
What did she just do? Jean wonders agitated. Patch wryly replies she doesn’t get credit for an earthquake. Jean points out they don’t get earthquakes. Of course they do, Patch replies. Just been a while. She believes he is hurt but when she looks he is fine again.
Kitty has taken a team of X-Men (Warpath, Logan, Colossus and Wolverine) to the Beaumont Hotel in London to visit one Emma Frost, who immediately mocks the assortment of X-Men she brought. Is this who Kitty brings to a war? This is who she brings when she doesn’t know what she’s walking into, Kitty retorts. They didn't come looking for fight. Emma mockingly recalls Kitty as a prepubescent girl. So polite and delicate. Now she’s blossomed into a #*&/%. She rather likes it.
Kitty doesn’t care and informs Emma Jean Grey is back. Of course she is, Emma replies. She already had a run-in with her fiery alter ego. She assumed it was only a matter of time. She’s seen the Phoenix? Kitty clarifies. Yes, Emma replies, and no, she doesn’t know where it is now. But she’s sure little Hope or the ever pleasant Quentin could help. Or even – ugh – Rachel. Kitty replies they are currently unavailable. They’d been hoping Emma could help them with Cerebro.
Emma cuts her off. That isn’t necessary. She knows exactly where she is. Precious Jean is in New Mexico. Sometimes, when they were intimate, Scott’s mind would drift. He’d think about her. On that plateau. Just a moment. Kitty doesn’t understand. If that place meant half as much to her as to him, Emma clarifies that is where she will be.
Elsewhere:
Jean walks through an empty dusky street. Someone is giving chase and everything becomes unreal as a voice tells her she can’t run anymore. Panicked, she runs into her home and locks the door. She becomes more frightened when something rings and knocks wildly. Leave her alone! she shouts, then begs.
Suddenly, the whole room is engulfed by fire and she faces herself in a Phoenix costume. She thought it was time they talked, the Phoenix greets her.
Two X-jets land on a mesa in New Mexico but they find nothing. Kitty wants to look around but most of them are quickly convinced there is nothing here and that Emma played them for fools. Kitty announces they are leaving but Magik replies there is something that makes them all want to leave. She slashes around with her Soulsword and reveals a giant dome. A moment later, a door inside opens and they get ready to head into the great unknown.
