The Mojoverse:
Majordomo shows his master Mojo the script and asks what he thinks of it. Mojo enthuses it’s brilliant. Exactly what they need to reverse their reclining ratings. Audiences will kill to watch it and die of entertainment! Majordomo wryly asks why then he killed the writer. Everyone knows the script is just a suggestion, Mojo informs him. The real action is in the execution. Emphasis on execution.
Outside the Xavier Institute in Central Park, a friendly game of softball is going on. Kitty’s X-Men are against the time-displaced original X-Men, while some of their friends and allies watch. Cyclops misses the third strike and umpire Kitty calls him out.
On the bleachers, Old Man Logan and Jimmy Hudson silently sit next to each other. So, Jeannie tells him he’s his son, Logan remarks. Seems like, is the curt reply. From another universe. Seems like. No further words fall.
On the playing field, Jean tells Kitty this was a nice idea. Kitty figures it was overdue. They haven’t seen the original X-Men since they moved to Madripoor. This probably isn’t the right time but she is sorry about Belen. Jean doesn’t blame Kitty but Kitty still feels guilty. They brought her to the Institute under their protection and she let her get killed.
Jean looks up to see something obelisk-like falling from the sky. Three of them in fact. Jean orders Angel to fly surveillance and tells Iceman to create an ice-perimeter. Kitty interrupts: They have three objects. Reconnaissance teams: Bloodstorm, Rachel and Cyclops are with Kitty on object 1. Looks like landfall’s around Lexington Avenue. Storm, Logan and young Angel and Iceman are on number two. Around Times Square. Kurt, young Beast, Peter and Jimmy Hudson are on number three. Washington Square Park.
What are they - chopped liver? Rockslide protests in the name of the students. Nobody likes liver, Ink points out. Exactly, Santo agrees. He likes liver, Anole mutters.
Kitty explains there’s bound to be property damage at each ground zero. Everyone else break into response teams. Maintain order. Everyone follows her lead… Upstaged, Jean glares.
Kitty’s team flies around the first obelisk. They find it’s huge. Kitty orders Rachel to psi-scan it. Cyclops suggests it might not be hostile. Yeah, these things are always friendly, Kitty mocks. Scott announces, Ink and Blindfold are en route for crowd control. Rachel replies she’s got it handled. Everyone around three blocks just decided to go home. She then establishes psychic communication with the other teams.
Team two stand around the object in Washington Square Garden. Beast points out it’s cold to the touch. Suddenly, the objects begin to glow and Logan warns the others. Yeah, pop, they see it, Jimmy mutters. Logan tells him not to call him Pops.
Kitty shouts at everyone to get the civilians back. They do that just in time but the X-Men are now trapped inside a field emitted by the obelisks, Jean suggests this is a trap. Cyclops can’t blast it and Kitty can’t phase through it, nor can Nightcrawler teleport past it.
Colossus tries to hit the forcefield and announces that brute force doesn’t work either. Which he finds disturbing. Brute force almost always works. Jean figures that the energy field is keyed to their power sets so whatever is going on is deliberate. Nightcrawler alerts his team to something going on. Around them New York seems different… darker.
Young Iceman contacts them and remarks they are lucky, at least they are still in New York. His team on the other hand find themselves in the icy wastes. Angel figures they’ve been teleported. Nightcrawler disagrees and Beast suggests this is some kind of virtual environment. This is why softball is a bad idea, Kitty sighs, as she look down at herself. She suddenly finds herself dressed in the uniform of a mutant prisoner from the future. Beast has change into the bestial version of himself he was shortly after he dabbled too much with magic, while Jean is wearing a PG13 variant of the Goblyn Queen’s skimpy outfit.
Elsewhere, Storm is wearing the outfit she briefly wore as Goddess of Thunder, making her believe that their team is in Asgard. Logan agrees, only to add he hates Asgard.
Back with group one:
Bloodstorm asks what this place is. Rachel dressed as a hound explains it’s where or more to the point when she is from. This is the future. This can’t be happening, she mutters.
Kitty worries about Rachel, who assures her she’s good. This isn’t the time. This is a combat zone. Kitty insists. It’s because they are on hostile territory she needs to know Rachel’s head’s on right. Rachel admits she can feel what it was like to be a mutant hunter. She thought she had left those days behind her.
Kitty protests this is just a wardrobe change. Not for her, Rachel replies. She reminds Kitty how she took out the Sentinel-powered nanoswarm. She had to push her powers farther than ever before. And in the process, she broke something. Ever since, she’s been getting those flashes of here. The future. She hasn’t even told Kurt.
With the other group, Jimmy, dressed in Wolverine’s brown and tan uniform, remarks that considering Rachel is psychically connected to them all he thinks she just did.
Kurt, wearing the loincloth of the Nightcrawler who was the evil servant of Belasco, looks puzzled.
They are going to talk about her and Kurt sometime soon, right? Kitty presses. Later, Rachel replies. As Sentinels loom threateningly, Bloodstorm wonders if there will be a later.
As her group faces demons, Jean remarks they don’t seem to be in the future. Colossus explains this is Inferno. The ultimate corruption of Madelyne Pryor.
Someone’s trying to kill them with nostalgia, Logan ventures, as his group faces Frost Giants.
Mojo happily watches the proceedings on his screens. Not nostalgia, he remarks. Legacy! The greatest hits, as it were. And the greatest thing about these hits? They hit back!
A demon hits Colossus.
But that’s not the best part, Mojo raves The best part is, it’s broadcast worldwide. Screens everywhere are taken over by the show. But even that’s not the best part. The best part is this isn’t just a show, it’s a game! And the audience is the winner! So pick your favorites! Place your bets. Because this is going to be uncanny!
