1st story:
"Y'know what I really hate about space?" Husk asks her Generation X teammates during their interstellar voyage. "The dress code." Jubilee concurs; she compares the static cling from their uniforms to being electrocuted. M begs to differ. She finds the endless, tedious, relentless monotony to be the worst aspect of space travel. In a daze, she stares out the window of their spacecraft at the passing void. Paige notices her emotional distance and asks if she incurred a dose of space sickness. M, wide-eyed, drones on about how space goes on and on forever. Jubilee renames her condition “sick spaceness”.
Suddenly, the ship's motherboard alerts its three occupants about a security breach. Husk tells it to shut up and furiously pecks away at the keyboard. M asks what the emergency is this time. "Nothing, you know Mother, everything's a crisis," Jubilee says. She presumes someone did something trivial like leave the toilet seat up. Unexpectedly, the lights go out, and Jubilee admits this might qualify as an actual emergency.
Fortunately, the emergency lights immediately kick on, allowing the three girls to see, at least. Jubilee notes the ship has stopped moving. Paige begins running a systems analysis. Why bother, Monet asks? They all know the problem: the engine's ignition blew out again. Someone needs to go repair it. Jubilee and Paige both groan; they know exactly what this operation entails. Paige, however, has a bright idea: why not send the fixer-bot? Monet likes the plan, but admits she hasn't seen the robot as of late. Reluctantly, Jubilee admits she used the parts from the fixer-bot to make the cabin's groovy lamp — a lamp everyone adores, she reminds them. Monet, folding her arms, sternly tells her to suit up and fix the problem.
Jubilee throws on her spacesuit and proceeds to the airlock. "Mother says: always take a ray gun," Mother reminds her. Jubilee tells it to stop nagging! She snaps on her helmet and opens the outer door.
"Space-walking without a ray gun is a code violation, y'know?" M tells Jubilee when she passes in front of the cabin's windshield. Jubilee speaks, but her teammates hear nothing. What did she say, Husk asks? "I put her on mute," M replies. "It's a code violation to use that kind of language.
Paige suddenly spots a flyer tucked under the windshield-wiper. She asks where it came from. M supposes it was pasted on their windshield last week at the drive-thru Chinese restaurant. The flyer, which boasts a sketch of a jubilant disco-dancing man in an afro, advertises the universe's biggest disco party in a sector of space called the Donut Ring. M immediately recognizes the location; it's in their sector! After Paige realizes the party started just ten minutes ago, the two girls jump for joy. They get to party! M immediately gets on the microphone and tells Jubilee to get her butt in gear; they now have somewhere to be!
Meanwhile, Jubilee diligently works at repairing the ship's ignition. She sees what appear to be teeth marks on the ship's intricate ignition parts. Unbeknownst to her, something watches her from behind, creeping closer and closer. Jubilee senses the shadow it casts. She turns around just in time to come face-to-face with the menace.
Her screams, however, go unheard. Inside the ship, Paige and Monet have the music cranked up high as they try on party outfits in the dressing room.
Outside, Jubilee stares her attacker – a green-skinned, winged gremlin – in the face. She begs for her teammates to come save her, but angrily assumes they put her on mute. The gremlin takes a swipe at her. She sails backward and crashes into the ship's hull. The monster approaches again, but this time, Jubilee kicks it in the face.
Inside, Paige has a funny feeling something might be very wrong. What is it, Monet asks? "I think I've lost my lip gloss!" Paige says. Monet tells her to just borrow Jubilee's.
Jubilee, meanwhile, continues fighting for her life in the vacuum of space. After the gremlin pins her against the ship's hull, she pounds on the metal frame, desperately hoping to get someone's attention. Although her rattling goes unheard, she succeeds in shaking the ship's interior enough to knock loose her fixer-bot lamp, which topples over onto the control panel's keyboard. It activates the alarm.
Husk and M hear the ship's alarm for an alien attack. "Jubes!!" they shout in unison.
Before they can even help, Jubilee decks the gremlin, sending it floating into the path of the ship's after-burner. At that very moment, Mother restarts the ship's ignition, and the after-burn incinerates the monster. Jubilee grabs hold of the ship's fin mere moments before it continues its speedy voyage. M and Husk finally open the airlock and emerge to save their frightened teammate. Hold on! they shout. Jubilee, clinging to the fin for dear life, doesn't need to be told that.
She informs her teammates the alien attacker is toast. Dang, Paige says. She hasn't had the chance to vaporize anything on this entire trip! To everyone's collective surprise, the gremlin suddenly emerges right behind them, charred to a blackened state. It growls. Without hesitating, Husk and M incinerate it with their ray guns. "Happy now? You got to shoot something," Jubilee says to Paige. Paige smiles and tells her it feels good. The three girls sit down on the ship's hull and take a breather. Jubilee interrupts and asks who is flying the ship if they're all outside. As if in response, the ship suddenly takes a nosedive, and the three girls grab on for dear life.
Coincidentally, the ship veers into the Donut Ring and collides with the Greatest Disco Event in the Universe. The girls of Generation X don their best party clothes and hit the dance floor, schmoozing with a motley assembly of extra-terrestrials. Mother, protruding through the arena's ceiling, continues to dole out smothering advice. The music will damage their ears, and they're missing out on valuable sleep, Mother tells them. Paige asks Jubilee if she heard what Mother said. No, Jubilee answers; she can’t hear a thing over the music that’s damaging her ears!
2nd story:
Russia. In the middle of a mellow field of waving wheat, two figures exchange gifts. It is Piotr Rasputin and his little sister, Illyana. She hands him a bouquet of hand-picked flowers. He smiles and lifts her in his arms amidst a flurry of butterflies. "No. Why him?" a voice asks. "Not Peter!!!!"
"PETER!!" Kurt Wagner shouts as he snaps out of his dream. He lifts his head out of the puddle of drool on his desk and looks around. His teammate Storm enters his study and asks what is the matter; she heard a loud scream. Nightcrawler apologizes; he did not mean to startle anyone. He just has trouble accepting the fact that his friend Peter Rasputin is truly gone, and his dreams only reinforce his disbelief.
Storm, handing her morose friend a cup of freshly brewed coffee, tells him she understands. Peter was not just a friend or a family member; he was a teammate. Even though she mourns his passing, however, she claims to have found peace. After all, Colossus willingly surrendered his life so others could live. She cannot imagine a nobler death.
Kurt slaps the coffee mug out of her hand. Why does it matter how their teammate died, he asks? Either way, the fact remains he's gone! Kurt clenches his teeth and disappears in a puff of sulfuric smoke. Gambit enters the room after hearing the commotion and figures Nightcrawler is just having a tough time. It would appear so, Ororo tells him, but still, she has never in her life seen Kurt act this way. She hopes he doesn't do anything foolish.
Salem Center...
For years, the Salem Center has been the X-Men's connection to the outside world, their oasis of normalcy in a life devoid of such a thing. Today is an exception. Nightcrawler perches on one of the shop's rooftops and peers down at the civilians in the streets. Their very existence enrages him. They go about their lives without a care in the world. Why shouldn't they? What could possibly worry them? They weren't born as freaks of nature, like Nightcrawler and his fellow mutants. He wonders, though, why they shouldn't be made to suffer like he has. Why should mutants continue to die for mankind while it blissfully feigns innocence?
The sight of a street artist fills Kurt with particular disdain. He overhears the artist telling an attractive woman how, as a painter, he doesn't just capture an image, but a moment in time. "Oh, that's so deep," the captivated onlooker says.
Kurt teleports down to the street and interrupts their precious moment. What do they know about art, he asks? His friend Peter was the most talented artist he had ever met, but because of the very nature of his existence, he never had the chance to nurture his passion! "You see, like myself, he was a mutant," Kurt shouts in the woman's face, "…and because of that he died." He notices the unmistakable, yet painfully familiar, expression of terror written across the crying woman's face. "Do I...do I frighten you, Leibchen?" he snarls. He does, the woman admits. Her painter friend calls Kurt a freak and tells him to leave her alone. Kurt asks if they have even been listening; why should he continue to die to save the likes of them? He grabs the man by the throat and pins him to the ground.
It is only when the frightened woman pleads with him to stop that Kurt realizes the monstrousness of his actions. He begs their forgiveness; he has not been himself lately. He asks if there is anything he can do to help. "Leave us alone," the woman says. "Haven't you done enough?" In the moments before he teleports away, Kurt overhears the murmurs of the crowd. They call him a demon, a mutant, and monster. Kurt has heard it all before. He asks for forgiveness one last time, and disappears, leaving only traces of rotten smoke in his wake.
The crowd disperses, but one man remains still. He smiles, revealing a row of jagged teeth beneath his ruby-red eyes and the diamond-shaped marking on his forehead.
Kurt, wracked with guilt, reappears in a nearby alleyway. "Why, God?" he asks. "Have you not already taken enough from this family?! Are you not a compassionate God? Was it out of love that you finally delivered him from the agony of this earthly plane as well?" He kneels in the alleyway and hangs his head. "I would have gone in his place," he says. "I would have given anything."
A stranger approaches. He asks if Mr. Wagner if he might be praying to the wrong deity. Kurt looks up and beholds the vile face of Mr. Sinister. Sinister asks who else but he could offer Kurt the thing he so desperately seeks — the resurrection of his dearly departed friend, Colossus? Kurt looks on with caution. This man, Mr. Sinister, views mutants only as a vessel for his experiments in genetics. He cares only for his research, and pays no heed to its consequences.
Kurt asks exactly what Sinister means about reviving Colossus. Such a thing, after all, is not humanly possible. It is exactly for that reason why only Sinister can perform such a thing, Mr. Sinister says. He is not bound by the normal constraints of humanity. He tells Nightcrawler he can bring Colossus back from the dead, just as he brings back his Marauders over and over again, and how he brought back the X-Men's own ally, Jean Grey. He produces from his pocket a vial of Colossus's blood. This, coupled with Sinister's own scientific brilliance, is all that is needed to bring Piotr Rasputin back from the dead. Kurt knows enough to know that when it comes to Sinister, there is always a price. Sinister tells him not to worry; he will reveal everything in due time. For now, the choice is Kurt's.
Kurt stares at him for an extended moment before offering his answer. "Nein," he says, snatching the vial out of Mr. Sinister's hand. He will not allow his friend's memory and noble death to be corrupted by Sinister's proposed mockery of life! Perhaps now, in death, Piotr can finally have the peace he so desperately deserved! He smashes the vial against the concrete. Sinister rebukes his audacity. He's offering Colossus a second chance at life! "What you offered is a shadow of a life," Nightcrawler says. "Maybe you could have replaced his body, but you could never have replaced his spirit." As Mr. Sinister departs, he tells Kurt to think about his actions this day whenever he mourns his dead teammate. It is Kurt and Kurt alone who condemned Colossus to oblivion. He tells him to sleep with that knowledge... if he can.
That night, Kurt sits at his window and composes a letter by moonlight. He tells his close friend Storm that although he cannot fathom Sinister's motives that afternoon, the encounter did make him think about his own situation, and led him to make a tough decision. He tells Storm he is no good to the X-Men in his current condition. He needs to leave so he can straighten out his head... and his heart. I will be back, he writes. I'm just not sure when, exactly. He tells Storm to give his love to the others, and to keep him in her prayers, just as she is always in his own.
3rd story:
Jimmy Bodine figures everyone has special powers. At least, that's what his friend Billy Landsdale believes. According to Billy, these powers are all mostly useless. Billy says Jimmy's power is to get his heart broken. A woman named Barbara broke Jimmy's heart most recently, so Jimmy's sister Sue Ann and Billy decided to cheer him up by taking out for a night of drinking and dancing at Shane's.
Jimmy, sitting at the bar and swilling a beer, spots a striking woman on the dance floor and figures his special power has struck again. He can't take his eyes off of her, and obviously, the woman – who boasts a notable white streak in her hair – realizes it. She makes eyes at him before returning to the dance floor.
Sue Ann Bodine approaches her brother and tells him to quit staring and get dancing. Jimmy slumps down in his stool and refuses. It's so soon after Barbara, he says. Sue Ann tells him that is no excuse; Barbara is the seventh ex-girlfriend of Jimmy's who was never good enough in the first place.
Realizing this might be a lost cause, Sue Ann grabs her brother by the arm and asks him to come outside with her to witness a different spectacle. It seems their mutual acquaintance, W.C. Taylor, joined up with the "Friends of Humanity", and their other friend Billy is pretending he wants to join too in order to give W.C. a hard time. "Here we go again," Jimmy sighs. Sue Ann asks what he means. "Billy's my best friend and your boyfriend, Sue, but he never did learn when to shut his mouth. W.C.'s gonna catch on Billy's pulling his leg and there's gonna be a fight and I'll have to get him out of it. Again." They head outside. Their mention of the Friends of Humanity, however, catches the attention of the woman on the dance floor.
Outside the bar, a group of country boys stands in a threatening circle around the pugnacious Billy Lansdale. Billy insists he isn't making fun; he's only trying to understand. They say muties are a menace, but how do they define who is a mutie? "Thor. He's a mutie, right?" Billy asks. Nope; he's a god or something, W.C. says. "Dr. Doom! Got to be a mutie!" Billy says. W.C. once again tells him he is wrong. "The Thing! He's a mutie for sure!" Billy says. W.C. tells him he has it all wrong! "Well, then all I gotta say is muties must be the dumbest folks on Earth!" Billy says. "If I was a mutie, I wouldn't say so! I'd just say aliens gave me my powers! Had me a cosmic virus! A radioactive poodle sneezed on me! Why make myself a target for folks like you, W.C.? No offense."
The woman from the dance floor suddenly steps outside and interrupts their argument. She tells Billy that maybe some mutants can't hide what they are, and maybe other mutants don't feel like they should have to. W.C. turns to the defiant woman and asks if she's some kind of mutie-lover. Billy interrupts and tells W.C. he has it all wrong; can't he see the woman is a mutant herself? W.C. asks Billy if he is trying to make him look stupid. "I never try to take credit for another's work, W.C. — and so far as I'm concerned, you are a self-made man!"
Sue Ann senses the situation quickly escalating. She turns to her brother and asks him to intervene, but finds he has disappeared. Where could he have gone? she asks.
Jimmy, it turns out, left to chase after the outspoken woman. She walked off and started down the night highway after Billy took the heat of the argument off of her. Touched by her passion, Jimmy now chases after her, even though he guarantees she can only break his heart. He catches up with her a little way down the road. She asks what he wants. For starters, he apologizes for his cousin Billy's behavior. He means well, but he shoots his mouth off a bit too often.
As for W.C., Jimmy has no defense, In fact, he considers W.C. a bit of a problem. He recently joined up with the Friends of Humanity and now just parrots everything they believe. The woman asks Jimmy how he feels about mutants. Jimmy cannot honestly say; he has never met a mutant. However, where he comes from, most folks judge others as they come. He figures there are both good mutants and bad mutants. He figures mutants have both good days and bad days, like regular humans. He asks the woman not to judge him and his people by the actions of W.C. "Ah won't," the woman says. "Maybe ah should judge 'em by you, shugah. Got a name?" Jimmy Bodine finally introduces himself. He asks the woman for her name in return. "Just call me Rogue, shugah," she says.
Their introductions are interrupted by Sue Ann, who approaches with urgency. She explains that some of W.C.'s buddies from the Friends of Humanity showed up, and Billy mouthed off to them, and now, they're beating him to a pulp! Jimmy tells the two women to stay put while he takes care of it. He runs back over to the bar and finds a group of thugs standing around his fallen friend, taking turns exchanging taunts and kicking him. Jimmy sneaks up from behind and socks the ring-leader in the back of the head. "You want a fight? You got one," Jimmy says. "One on one. You and me." The Friends of Humanity think otherwise; they always stick together, and those who are not with them, are against them. They tell Jimmy he just bought himself a world of hurt.
"Y'all may want to rethink that, shugah," Rogue tells them. They turn and the seemingly delicate woman effortlessly hoisting W.C.'s truck over her head with one arm. She advises they take a step back before they find a piston up their butts. Rogue tosses the car aside; its frame crumples and its glass shatters when it hits the ground. W.C. gasps at the damage to his vehicle.
The Friends of Humanity correctly identify Rogue as a mutant. The leader gives the order to kill her. The crowd quickly divides into two groups: mutant-haters, and everyone else. They start to fight, as has happened so many times before in the parking lot of Shane's. This fight, however, feels different. The locals don't like being bossed around by strangers, especially strangers as vitriolic as the Friends of Humanity. Tonight, they fight with Rogue for the soul of humanity. Tonight, the good guys win.
After the dust from the fight settles, the police arrive and arrest the instigators. The sheriff tells the Friends of Humanity ring-leader, Hanratty, that he's had enough of his crew causing trouble. He intends to lock him up for a long time. Nearby, another officer asks Sue Ann about her brother. Is he okay? Where did he go? Sue Ann tells him Jimmy is fine; he busted a few ribs, but other than that, he's okay. As for his whereabouts, he had to leave to see off a friend.
Elsewhere, Rogue and Jimmy Bodine watch the full moon through a breach in the clouds. Jimmy asks outright if Rogue is a mutant. Yes, she says. "I can deal with that," Jimmy says. Rogue tells him he can't, actually. He couldn't live her life. What happened tonight was nothing compared to the things she usually faces. He asks her to give him a chance; he's plenty tough and plenty loyal. Sure, Rogue says, but there is more to it than that. She fills him in on her true mutant ability — her body's uncontrollable tendency to absorb the totality of anyone she touches. She and Jimmy could never touch, never kiss, and never even fool around. Could he really deal with that? she asks.
Jimmy looks her in the eyes for a moment before answering. To be honest, no, he couldn't deal with that. For him, loving someone includes getting physical with them. It's just the way he is. He apologizes. Rogue tells him not to worry. She appreciates his honesty. She leans in, putting her mouth mere inches from Jimmy’s, and presses her gloved fingers to his lips. As she prepares to fly away, she tells Jimmy she came out tonight to get away from her problems, but as usual, her problems followed her. Jimmy and his friends, however, renewed her faith in humanity. She and her fellow mutants dream of a day when humans and mutants could live in peace. Tonight, Jimmy and his friends made that dream a reality.
As she flies away, Jimmy waves goodbye and smiles. Rogue showed him something too, he says. Folks really are just folks, whatever else they may be, he says. She can come back anytime.
4th story:
A speeding figure approaches the Xavier Institute and rushes down to the docks. The runner attracts the attention of Wolverine, who recognizes his scent and tracks him down to the pier by the lake. He arrives and greets his old acquaintance, Quicksilver. “Runnin’ an errand for yer daddy, Quicksilver, or you just slummin’?” Logan asks.
Quicksilver reminds him he no longer serves his father. He effectively resigned his position in Magneto’s cabinet when he, alongside his fellow Avengers, openly defied his destructive enterprises. Magneto, however, continues to follow the same path, one Quicksilver is certain will lead to conflict and ruin. It’s sad; with Genosha, Magneto has the opportunity to create a haven for mutants, where they will never face intolerance or persecution, yet he intends to squander it on petty plans for domination.
“Yer breakin’ my heart,” Logan tells him. Quicksilver turns around and tells Logan he came not to apologize for any of his past misdeeds, but to deliver the X-Men two messages. First, he heard of Peter Rasputin’s sacrifice, and is truly sorry. Second, he wants to warn the X-Men about an impending threat.
“When the United Nations, in all their impetuous wisdom, conceded the sovereignty of the nation of Genosha to Magneto,” Pietro begins, “it was with the assumption that Magneto would be so preoccupied with trying to solve Genosha’s own problems that he would be unable to shift his attention toward the rest of the world. With the Legacy Virus cured and the civil war at last apparently over, how long will Magneto remain content with only his little island nation?” He reiterates his admiration for Colossus’s sacrifice, but with the threat of the Legacy Virus ended, Magneto’s last obstacle has disappeared.
Wolverine puffs on his cigar while he considers what this means. Quicksilver turns to leave. He apologizes for burdening Logan with such tidings at a time like this, but reminds him that war doesn’t pause to mourn the dead. “And make no mistake about it,” he adds, “—the war is coming.”
Wolverine gives him a message before he leaves. “If you see your daddy, tell ‘im I’ll be waitin’ for him.”
