On the last night of Moira MacTaggert and Sean Cassidy’s stay in Westchester, the X-Men treat them to a fancy dinner downtown. Logan, however, stays behind so he can watch the seventh game of the Stanley Cup with his good friend, beer. Nothing in the world could keep him from watching the game. Since he is staying home, Piotr asks, would he mind keeping an eye on his six-year-old sister Illyana? Xavier tells them not to worry; Kitty Pryde, Banshee’s daughter Siryn, and Moira’s student Amp will all be staying home, and together they are perfectly capable of watching Illyana.
Piotr, ruffling Illyana’s hair, tells his baby sister to behave in their native Russian. Right before he leaves, he remembers he has a letter to give to Siryn, and innocently hands it to her. Kitty forms her own interpretation of the gesture. What? But…I like Colossus! she thinks. While the sultry image of Theresa in a red one-piece swimsuit taunts her mind, Kitty begins listing the things Piotr might prefer about Siryn: she’s a redhead, she has an Irish accent, she’s closer to Colossus in age, and she’s prettier! My course is clear, then, Kitty fumes. I must destroy her.
Wolverine lays out the rules as soon as the rest of the X-Men leave. The four girls can do whatever they want to do; he could care less. However, if they cause him to miss even one second of his hockey game, he will turn them into girl-kabobs. He extends one claw for emphasis while giving them all a piercing glare. SNIKT!
Siryn laughs and tells the other girls Mr. Logan is funny. “Oh, no. No, no,” Kitty says, grabbing Siryn by the arm and pulling her out of the room. “He’s serious.”
Kitty, Theresa, Illyana and Michele walk down the hall and discuss what they will do with the night. Siryn suggests they head to the basement and check out the mansion’s infamous Danger Room. A hesitant Kitty informs her she is not allowed to operate the Danger Room by herself, but Theresa continues to beg.
If I don’t, I know what’s gonna happen, Kitty thinks. She imagines a well-dressed Piotr Rasputin dancing with a beautiful Theresa Rourke amid a flurry of rose petals. This imaginary Siryn laughs as she recounts Kitty’s cowardice to Piotr. “The scared little girl wouldn’t even let me look inside the Danger Room,” Theresa says as Colossus embraces her. “She was probably afraid of having her toys taken away!” Imaginary Piotr laughs, and notes how glad he is to have a real, sophisticated woman instead a goody-two shoes like Kitty. Imaginary Kitty, her hair in pigtails, dressed in a schoolgirl’s outfit, and holding a teddy-bear, sucks on her thumb as she watches the man of her dreams romance her friend. She cannot let this happen! “The elevator to the lower levels is this way!” Kitty says enthusiastically.
The girls descend to the basement. The futuristic appearance of the mansion’s lower levels astonishes Amp, who likens it to a fortress. I bet no one can get in here, Michele says, but Kitty just laughs. “You’d think, Amp, but it actually gets invaded and trashed quite a lot. Like…once a month, it seems like…”
They reach the blast door to the Danger Room. Kitty has to phase through and unlock it from the inside, as Professor X changes the access codes each day. This application of Kitty’s powers particularly impresses Theresa, herself a reformed criminal. “What my cousin Black Tom and I wouldn’t have given for someone like ye when we were commitin’ robberies together!” she says. “Ye’re like a natural born criminal!” Kitty takes this compliment rather well, even admitting it may be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to her.
Michele looks around and vast, empty room and asks what is so dangerous about it. It’s not dangerous without running a training program, Kitty says. Theresa sidles up to Kitty and accuses her of holding out on them; she said she would let them see the Danger Room, but it really isn’t the Danger Room without a program running, now is it? After only the slightest peer pressure, Kitty acquiesces, walks over to the computer terminal, and uploads one of the earliest training programs in the database. Robotic replicas of Magneto, Toad, Mastermind, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch hum to life. “These robots represent the X-Men’s first foes: the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!” Kitty explains before listing off the individual opponents. “Lessee here, there’s Magnet Guy, Short, Ugly Dude, the Mustache, Running Dude, aaaaand the Scarlet…Woman…”
The robots waste no time before striking. The “Scarlet Woman” fires a hex bolt at Michele, who grabs Illyana and jumps out of the way. She asks Kitty what she can do to help, as her amplification powers only work on human beings with emotions. Kitty tells her to run and keep Illyana safe.
Siryn, meanwhile, gleefully throws herself into the fight, using her powers for the first time since her last heist with Black Tom Cassidy. “So they actually called themselves the ‘Brotherhood of Evil Mutants?’ Ha, ha! A bit obvious, yeah?” she says as she takes the Scarlet Woman out of the fight. “I love ‘em – they’re so retro!”
Kitty phases through the “Mustache” and disrupts its circuitry. She uses the reprieve to ask Siryn a question about Piotr. “What, uh… what was that with you and Colossus back there?” Kitty asks. Just a bit of fun, Theresa says as she breezes by Kitty. Kitty stares at her with pure hatred pouring out of her eyes. Totally and utterly ruining my life at 13 is just ‘a bit of fun’ to you?!?!
Siryn hits “Running Dude” with a blast, but “Short, Ugly Dude” surprises her with a swift kick to the back. She screams and falls out of the air. The muffled screams of and battled sounds rise through the floor and into the living room, but Wolverine, currently knocking back a beer, fails to hear them over sounds of the Canadian National Anthem.
Back in the Danger Room, “Magnet Dude” catches up with Amp and blasts her from behind with an energy pulses. She drops Illyana and falls to the ground. The terrified Illyana puts her back to the wall and watches Amp struggle to regain her composure, not noticing the strange vortex of energy forming behind her. A portal opens in the wall, and little Illyana tumbles through, completely disappearing.
Amp looks around the room and calls out Illyana’s name. The girl is nowhere to be seen. However, at that same moment, another portal opens up in the Danger Room’s observation platform right above the control panels, and Illyana spills out and lands on the keyboard. The impact pauses the training program for sixty seconds. Below, the robots switch off and fall to the ground, inanimate.
“Thank god!” Theresa says. “That was boring. I’m bored.” She asks to do something else. While Kitty leads her out of the Danger Room, Michele worriedly searches for the missing Illyana, but while her back is turned, Illyana creates another portal and appears right behind her babysitter. “Don’t scare me like that again”, Amp says as she grabs Illyana’s hand. The four girls exit the Danger Room. However, they forget to shut the door.
After they leave, the program resumes and the robots stand back up and begin scanning for enemies. Their scan leads them toward the open door, and they begin marching down the hallway at the behest of their programming. Their search for targets leads them straight to the mansion’s elevator.
The girls shift gears a bit. Instead of fighting robots, they sit in Kitty’s room and try to think of a game to play. Michele suggests they play a game she knows from Girl Scout camp called ‘Spin the Secrets,’ and holds up a plastic bottle to demonstrate. “Um…we’re not gonna have to kiss each other, are we?” Kitty asks. No, Michele explains. In this game, they spin a bottle, and whomever the bottle points at has to go into the closet and reveal one of her deepest, darkest secrets to another girl! Each girl writes the secret she hears on a piece of paper, and at the end, they get to guess which secret is whose! Michele insists it is hilarious. “If you say so”, Siryn scoffs. After the first spin, the bottle points to Kitty.
Kitty wastes no time spilling her guts. She tells Amp all about Colossus and how Siryn is totally trying to steal him from her! Michele is not so sure about that; there is a guy Siryn already likes back on Muir Island. However, she promises to let Kitty know if she discovers anything.
The Brotherhood of Evil Robots, meanwhile, arrives on the ground floor of the mansion. They split up and begin searching the halls for targets to engage. Short, Ugly Dude wanders into the living room, where the gleeful Logan chomps on a donut while watching the hockey game. He fails to notice the squad of robots filing into the room.
Upstairs, the girls continue their game. On the next spin, the bottle lands on Illyana. Kitty takes Illyana into the closet so the six-year-old can reveal a secret, but soon realizes it is pointless, as Illyana barely speaks English.
In response, Illyana quickly scribbles a picture on her drawing pad. Kitty looks at the sketch, which nicely depicts Illyana falling through a hole in the wall and landing on a pile of robots in the Danger Room. The picture is cute, Kitty says, but Illyana needs to tell a real secret for the game to be fun. “You can’t walk through walls. I can. But I’m very flattered you want to be me,” Kitty says, ruffling Illyana’s hair. The little girl tries to explain that she actually performed this feat, but as she only speaks Russian, Kitty understands nary a word. “Flattered. Do you understand? Flattered.” Illyana scowls. “We’ll just say your secret is you wet the bed or something…”
Wolverine, meanwhile, continues to watch the hockey game. The robots stand in front of the television on order to get his attention, but he watches it around them for as long as he can. Eventually, they begin to attack.
Back in the closet, Amp now reveals her secret to Siryn. She has a huge crush on Dmitri, Dr. MacTaggert’s Russian exchange student, and is working up the courage to ask him out on a date! She might finally do it over the upcoming holiday weekend. Theresa, however, has some bad news to break: Dmitri actually has a crush on her. “I had Colossus help me write him back a note in Russian. I thought that would be cute, right?” Theresa asks. “I didn’t know ye fancied him, too! Not that I blame ye. No worries, though. It’s just a bit of fun, ye know?” Theresa, so enraptured by her own feelings, does not notice the tears welling up in her heartbroken friend’s eyes. Theresa continues to tell Michele that she loves her, but does not want her to waste her time. The fact is, Dmitri has admitted to her his revulsion at Michele’s amphibious appearance! “Isn’t he pathetic?” Theresa asks.
“You’re pathetic!” Michele snaps back, losing control of her emotional amplification powers. She lies and tells Theresa that Kitty coerced Colossus into playing a trick on Siryn. “That note in Russian Colossus wrote? It actually says you hate Dmitri, and that he should date me instead!” Her mutant powers send Theresa’s emotional state spiraling out of control. Aren’t you angry, Amp asks? Doesn’t that make you hate Kitty? Well why don’t you do something about it?! Enraged, Siryn screams and bursts out of the closet, charging full-speed at Kitty Pryde.
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Evil Robots finally pushes Wolverine past his own breaking point. “Gotta warn you flamin’ robots,” he says, unsheathing his claws, “…I’m the best at what I do.” He lunges at the nearest robot, slashing off its face. “And what I do is – WATCH HOCKEY!” Magnet Guy fires a blast at him, but Wolverine deflects it into Short, Ugly Dude’s face. Wolverine pivots and destroys the heads of the three remaining robots in one swift motion. With the obstacles out of his way, he returns to exercising his moral right as a Canadian: watching hockey.
During a pivotal moment in the game, with Logan’s attention rapt, Siryn and Kitty come bursting through the ceiling and crash right into the TV. It falls to the floor, a shattered mess. N-No, Wolverine says. The two girls stop fighting and look up from their position on the floor next to the smoking television. It is Logan’s temper which now flares out of control, only he needs to help from Amp. The girls scream and literally run for their lives. What do we do, Siryn asks as she charges up the stairs? Don’t stop running! Kitty replies. Logan has gone completely crazy!
Thankfully, a now-calm Amp stops Logan as he nears the top of the stairs and induces him to settle down. When he regains control of himself, he asks what happened. “Just a lot of petty whining,” Amp answers. She folds her arms and stares sternly at her friends. Kitty is worried about someone stealing her man, and Siryn is worried about anything interrupting her good time. Michele asks if they have ever stopped and thought about what she has to go through, looking like she does. “You two are mutants, too – but you can pass for human! To top it off, you’re both beautiful! It’s not fair! No boy is ever gonna want to be with me! Ever!” She breaks down and cries into her hands.
Logan walks over to Michele, places his hand on her back, and comforts her. He tells her that, based on his experience, anyone who doesn’t accept her for who she is isn’t someone worth knowing, and that is true of anybody, both mutant and human. “Look. Look at me,” he says. She lifts her head and looks into his smiling face. “You’re beautiful where it counts, babe.” And if even a dumb bruiser like Wolverine can recognize that, the law of averages says that Michele’s Mr. Right will recognize it too.
At around midnight, the rest of the X-Men return home from their night on the town. Piotr, Kurt and Warren talk excitedly about the hockey game, having seen the end of it at the restaurant. What did you think, they ask Logan? What they see when they enter the living room quiets them immediately: Logan, sitting on the couch, with the exhausted Michele sleeping in his lap. Professor Xavier, meanwhile, looks at the latest hole in the ceiling and sighs.
The next morning, Moira, Sean, Theresa and Michele return to Muir Island via airplane. Siryn once again apologizes to Amp, but the once-heartbroken girl insists it is now water under the bridge. They agree that no boy should ever come between their friendship, and share a high-five to sisterhood. Michele, her face beaming, reiterates that it is no big deal, as she has already forgotten about Dmitri. “Consider him yours,” she tells Theresa, “I’ve moved on to bigger and better prospects.” In her lap, Michele cradles a radiant sketch she drew of Wolverine.
