The Southwest, an area where Nimrod Sentinels and anti-mutant militia keep the mutants imprisoned in camps.
Kitty Pryde holds a speech which is broadcast, announcing that today the mutant nation declare themselves free people. They may still be discriminated against. They may still be hunted. They may still be imprisoned, denied due process, their human rights violated and they may yet be executed without a trial but they are a free people. Today they no longer cower and hide. No longer will they lobby for acceptance and equal treatment. They declare themselves equal. They claim their human rights. Whether the humans accept them is irrelevant. Today they start defending themselves. Today they stop running and they turn and hold their ground. They hold what’s theirs.
In the southwest states, the mutant population is at risk. It’s here that their survival is most fragile, where their very survival is challenged. She calls upon very mutant hearing these words to come to the southwest states and join them. Their numbers are their best defense. They can support each other. They can stand up to their enemies. No more hiding! Her people and she used to live in tunnels under New York City. Now they’ve taken the fight to the enemy. It’s time to remember who they are. That they were born with inalienable rights and must be respected.
Watched by the other X-Men, Kitty trains with Nick Fury and beats him.
While it is not their intention to incite violence, violence may be inevitable. They will match any aggression with an equal and appropriate response, and no more than that. There has been enough fighting. The mutant cause is ultimately one of peaceful coexistence.
The mutant nation recognizes that there are humans who believe in and actively support their push for real standing and protection. They look on them as example and inspiration.
All of the youngsters train. Rogue in the meantime is kissing Quentin Quire.
In an internet cafe in New York, Nomi Blume listens to Kitty’s speech. So do Jean Grey in the SEAR and the Nimrods in the Southwest.
One of Kitty’s allies, the technopath boy Garab aka Black Box, examines a disassembled Nimrod, trying to figure it out. He berates himself for not finding the weakness while Kitty and the others are fighting. That way he will never get noticed by Kitty! Suddenly, he finds an oddly silent piece which is nevertheless transmitting data at an incredible speed. Oh no! he exclaims and calls for Kitty.
Jimmy Hudson and his blue team (4 other mutants) are moving in on Stryker camp zone designation 14. Jimmy hears incoming humvees. They can’t have reinforcements now! This is a problem! On it! a young African American man named Shola Inkosi replies and telekinetically takes out the Humvees with a shower of boulders.
Fifteen minutes later, Jimmy calls Fury to inform him they took out a convoy and took some prisoners. Fury tells them to drop a GPS pin. He can call for an extraction. They are not set up to take on POWs. Are the vehicles usable? Turns out they aren’t. Fury tells him next time they could use some wheels. Jimmy adds they caused serious racket. Camp 14 will be on alert. Gold team moving in now, he is told.
Gold team consists of Iceman and Husk. Bobby ices up the camp’s fence, so that a mere tap is enough to shatter part of it.
Fury calls them and warns them about the camp’s mobilized security. Bobby replies everything is quiet, then notices two Nimrods flying west.
After they sneak inside, Bobby wonders why there are no guards, but Paige explains everything is automated. She warns him he hasn’t seen the camps. It’ll be rough! Can’t be worse than New York, he jokes. She then husks into a metal shape and gets in front of him to protect him from the fire of the automatic guns. She tells him to freeze out the prison locks.
Inside, they find an Asian girl and tell her to come with them. Suddenly the image / exoskeleton of a dragon manifests around her. When guards arrive their gunfire can’t shatter the dragon’s hide and its claws take them out. Who is she? Bobby asks. Hisako, she replies smiling. Bobby welcomes her to the Liberation.
By nightfall, Stryker camp 14 is controlled by mutants. Kitty asks Hisako why nobody rebelled. Fear she guesses. She didn’t think there was any point in fighting back. They are mutants! They dehumanized them. But seeing Husk and Bobby walk through gunfire to reach them and Jimmy and his team coming back from killing two Nimrods got the message across. They can fight back.
Kitty greets Fury, telling him he is right, they can do this. He warns her she can win a battle or two but she’s gonna be fighting this war her whole life. He wants her to understand the reality of the bigger picture. No one’s calling this a war. But it is a war. America’s at war!
They are working on that, right? Kitty asks. He warns her fighting will get her part of the way. Politics might get her a little further. Sometimes reaching peace takes more time and compromise than just bullets.
This is from General Fury, the warrior? she mocks. Fury, the realist, he corrects her. He’s been round too long to be anything else. He’s just saying a time will come when she needs to put the gun down.
They are interrupted by Garab. He tells them he found a device in the Nimrod head and it was transmitting a signal. He wrote a little script to translate the binary signal into English.
Kitty listens and realizes this is all stuff they said, days ago. It was recording them and sending to off. Presumably to some central command, Garab suggests.
Fury orders all teams to prepare for attack. He tells Kitty when they come they’ll come in force. Maybe she’ll get her chance at peace sooner than he thought.
In the SEAR, Jean Grey aka Karen Grant is trying to get all intel on Kitty and her associates. The SEAR is the true home of the mutant population, she announces. Let’s see what they can do about Kitty’s manifesto…
In the mutants’ bunker, Quentin is kissing Rogue.
And the Master Mold and Nimrods gather, aware that their quarry is prepared for them…
