(now)
Bishop and Shard are in the Danger Room at Xavier’s mansion. Using the Shi’Ar holotechnology, Bishop has been able to recreate the few images of the “Summers Rebellion“ that were available in his future. Shard is not impressed very much, so Bishop shows her another scenario, it is set during their childhood in the remains of a mutant relocation camp.
(future flashback)
Virago, one of the radical group Exhumes, is hunted by the Trace and Sureshot of the X.S.E. She grabs Shard as a hostage. Bishop jumps on the mutant from behind making her drop his sister and giving Sureshot a clean line of fire. The incident shows Bishop that the Exhumes are no heroes at all and that the despised, hated and ridiculed X.S.E are his saviors. On that day Bishop knows that one day he will belong to them.
(now)
Shard asks Bishop to stop the simulation. She wants to know why Bishop invited her to the school. Bishop replies that after finally accepting the hologramm turned photon-based lifeform as his sister (Uncanny X-Men Annual ’96) he wants to show her around the legendary mansion and also he thinks she should join the X-Men. Upon hearing this Shard gets upset, she says that the X-Men are Bishop’s turf, she wants her own. Activating the next simulation, Bishop replies that this would not be the way their grandmother would have wanted it.
(future flashbacks)
Living in the remains of a mutant relocation camp, their grandmother (an elderly black woman with white hair) raises Bishop and Shard together with Hancock, one of the legendary warriors of the Summers Rebellion. For some unknown reason the grandmother is forced to hide her true identity, since she is actually believed to be dead and no longer has her mutant powers. Hancock hints that she was part of an X-team. Some years later the grandmother dies of old age and Bishop has to promise at her deathbed that he will always look after Shard.
(now)
Seeing the images of their grandmother, the siblings are both touched. Bishop says, he didn’t do a good job of looking after Shard and that is why he wants her to be around so that he can protect her. Shard answers that Bishop has to get over her death, he did the best he could and was always there for her; without him she never would have been into the X.S.E.
(future flashbacks)
Suddenly Bishop, Hancock and Shard are under attack by Halftrak and Billiboy, who often beat up young Bishop. They are rescued by two X.S.E. officers called Recoil and Amazon, but Hancock gets killed in the fight. The two officers are impressed by Bishop’s bravery and offer him to join their ranks, but Bishop only accepts after his sister is allowed to come too. By then Bishop had already manifested his mutant powers. The siblings are put into an X.S.E. training class with other kids around their age, two of them are Trevor Fitzroy and a girl called Sherry. Hecate, the X.S.E’s commanding officer, becomes their teacher and gives a history lesson.
(history of Bishop’s timeline, narrated by Hecate)
Out of fear of mutants, humanity had built mutant hunting Sentinels and some of their captives were brainwashed into hounds, who had to hunt more mutants. Later on the Sentinels decided that the best way to protect humanity would be to rule it and conquered the country. Mutants were put in concentration camps and tattooed with the letter M over their right eye to easily identify them if they should ever escape. United by a Summers, humans and mutants worked together to overthrow the Sentinels rule. During this “Summers Rebellion“ many, including Summers him- or herself died, but finally the robots were defeated. Afterwards mutants tried to move out of the camps, but they were met with the same prejudices as before. A radical group called Exhumes developed a hatred for humanity and started to raid and destroy their settlements. The ruling council thought about a way to deal with the Exhumes. Having humans hunting mutants again was unacceptable as this could have been the beginning of another racial war, instead they came up with the idea of the Xavier’s Security Enforcers (X.S.E.). They were composed of mutant veterans and the difference was that now mutants were allowed to police themselves. Many X.S.E. officers had already fought in the Summers Rebellion and they decided to wear the M tattoo, formerly used to outcast them, as a badge of honor.
(future flashback)
Hecate points out to the class that Bishop and Shard are among the last people to have received their M tattoos in the camp brandings, while the rest of them will get theirs if they graduate. After class Hecate speaks to Shard and Bishop alone, she tells them that she was a very good friend of Hancock and that the two kids joining the X.S.E would better be worth his death. As Shard asks why Hecate never visited Hancock if they were such close friends she gets very angry and encases Shard into a field of darkness, yet Bishop stands up for his sister and impresses the X.S.E. leader with his courage, but Shard runs off.
(now)
Bishop asks why Shard always got angry so easy, like in the confrontation with Hecate. Shard says that Bishop doesn’t get it. She was impressed by Hecate and wanted to be just like her, but all Hecate saw in Shard was Bishop‘s little sister. In fact almost everybody perceives her that way and she wants to prevent it in this new time era by staying away from the X-Men. Bishop apologizes as that was nerver his intention, he only wanted to filfill his promise to alway protect Shard, but all he accomplishes is seeing the people he cares most for die. Shard thinks that Bishop‘s problem is that he focuses too much on the people he could not save instead of those he did.
(future flashback)
The class is out on their first training patrol with Sureshot and Trace, but suddenly the group is attacked by Emplates. The marrow sucking mutant vampires defeat and kill both the adult X.S.E. officers and then turn on the group of kids.
