Manhattan lies in ruins. A young brunette in a green prison suit with the letter “M” and a power suppressor collar walks the streets, musing about the state of the world, how humankind rather destroyed their world than share it with mutants, about purges, wars and camps.
She reaches the Bronx zoo. She looks through the vet office for medication and hopes the world can change again. That moment, she is surprised by a tiger, which attacks her. However, the tiger is pulled back and tossed against the wall by Wolverine.
Loudly, he wonders, given how scarce food is, why no one ever cooked the tiger. The girl points out that they are endangered. What isn’t these days? he snorts. Besides, anything’s good with barbecue sauce. What’s barbecue sauce? she asks. He sighs and asks what she got. She explains she figured nobody’d look for medicine in the vet labs. He praises her smarts and calls her Chrissie Pryde. “Christina,” she corrects him. “Chrissie” he insists. If he had to change her diapers, he gets to embarrass her in front of the wildlife. She asks if he is with him. Cameron, his son, got held up, he snaps. Angrily, he tears off an anti-mutant poster.
Chrissie muses that her dad says there are so few of them left, the humans will soon have to find someone else to blame their trouble on. That’s real Russian of him, Logan remarks. Does she believe old Colossus? She can’t think any world is so lost that they can’t turn it around. That’s her mom talking, he opines. She ever try not following her orders? Think for herself? She hugs him and tells him he’s a jerk. But pretty, he points out.
The military sent her and her mom on fetch quests today, Chrissie explains. She took this side trip and saw the anti-mutant posters. He’s always been honest with her. Does he think the humans will vote for reform? Get rid of the Mutant Control Act and stop rounding them up?
They’re wiping mutants, he replies. They killed so many in the first wave. Stuck the rest in internment camps. Studied them, sterilized them. There haven’t been any mutant kids born since her. Does she know what it takes to bring a species back from extinction?
They say good-bye and he teases her again with her name. Chrissie sneaks back but is caught by a Sentinel. She runs. Before it can blast her, an angry Kate Pryde gets in its way, identifies herself and announces they are on official business for the United Doomstates. They have explicit permission to be outside the zone to gather information of any mutants still living off the grid.
The Sentinel confirms that Kate was instrumental in the capture of mutants 234 and 339 ten years prior. They will be accompanied back to base.
Chrissie whispers that she found the stuff they were looking for. As they enter the camp and walk past the graves, Chrissie asks if there has been news of Storm. Kate replies there are no new graves and reminds her the Reform Vote is coming.
In their barrack, she greets Colossus, Magneto and Rachel. While Kate and Piotr kiss, Chrissie tells the others she found the last chemicals they need to destroy the suppressing collars. She reminds the wheelchair-bound Magneto that, once they have their powers back, he’ll have to make good on the metal pony he’s been promising her since she was eight. The one he was actually going to make gallop. She drives a hard bargain, he sighs fondly.
Meanwhile aboard Airforce One:
President Robert Kelly expects a nightmare scenario if the Reform Vote comes through. Don’t those bleeding hearts realize they are trying to protect them? Mutants must be kept in internment camps –
Controlled communities, a senator corrects him. He can mince words with the voters, Kelly snaps, but he is not going to mince words with God. Doom is their overlord and he will not reward his generosity with anarchist freaks rioting in the streets! They need drastic actions to prevent the public from softening on mutant control. Tomorrow they will land in New York City and address these radicals. He orders Donovan to start writing the speech. Martinez and Foster are to make sure the public remember why they hate mutants. And get it on camera!
South Bronx mutant internment center:
Kate and Rachel create the chemical they need. Kate recalls Professor X gave her a chemical set like this when she was 14. There are so many things Chrissie will never experience, she laments. Music that was outlawed, food from before the famine… Rachel reminds her, Chrissie will have the freedom to create a new world. She’s the youngest mutant in creation. The last ever born before the sterilization began.
At night, they start their escape. Electronics and guards are taken out. They put on their uniforms (in Chrissie’s case, one of Kate’s old uniforms) and use the acid to destroy the collars. With their powers back, they face the Sentinels. They enjoy blowing off some steam after fifteen years.
Suddenly, Chrissie is hit by a Sentinel’s eyeblast. Kate runs to her side to see Chrissie changing into fluid metal as her mutant power finally manifests. She shapes her arm into a spear and slices off the Sentinel’s head. Happily, she hugs her parents. Magneto warns her that was only an old model. To survive, they need numbers. There is much work yet to be done. And they continue their escape.
Later, New Kent Military Base:
Foster reminds Martinez that the president wants it all on camera. No one wants everything on camera, Martinez retorts, just what makes good TV. They enter a room with several covered bodies. They should start with mutant-on- mutant violence, Foster suggests. Make sure nothing gets out of hand, Martinez adds and puts a syringe into a blue arm under a cover.
With a start, Mystique wakes up and the Blob soon after her. Foster explains where they are and that they’ve been in chemically induced comas for the last fifteen years. They remind them one of their own kind betrayed them. Foster claims they are activists for mutant reform. They need their help to take down Robert Kelly’s mutant enforcers. Who? the crying Blob asks. Kitty Pryde, he is told.
In the meantime, the X-Men are trying to look for Wolverine and Cameron. Chrissie announces she thought they were going to break open the internment camps and show the world what is really being done to mutants.
Rachel and Magneto explain that, while less useful mutants were disposed of, they were forced to serve the United Doomstates. They have forced mutants to build them weapons. Rachel discovered a virus that is targeting the newest Sentinel model. Only one is confirmed affected but the virus will force the Sentinel to kill President Robert Kelly. If Chrissie and Cameron, the youngest of their kind, could save Kelly, he might persuade Doom and humanity to save the remaining mutants from extinction.
Kate protests that they can’t force Chrissie to accept such a burden. Rachel insists she is a beacon of hope. The sight of the youngest of them risking her life for the man who condemned them all to death… there is power in that image.
Chrissie announces they kept her safe her whole life. They taught her people can change. If they don’t save the world, who will?
Rachel receives a telepathic signal. Storm is alive. She tells Chrissie not to lose any time. President Kelly will be speaking at the Baxter Building. They will find her. She flies off. Kate points out that they have to find Wolverine first. This is the rendezvous point. He should be here already.
Part of a building damaged by the Sentinels collapses. Colossus sees there are people inside. He and a reluctant Magneto save them.
Kate, in the meantime, sees Mystique and Blob moving towards them. They accuse her of giving them up to save her own skin. Martinez and Foster film the events intending to edit out the saving of humans later.
Chrissie happily cries out, Wolverine is there (as is Cameron, a tall muscular, black-haired boy a little older than her).
Logan attacks Mystique while Kate helps with the evacuation. Blob attacks Chrissie who is defending two humans and hits her metallic form. He grabs the two human and shouts look what they did to him, what they made him do! They scream in terror. Cameron phases into Blob with a sharp metal object, phases through him and uses it to tear him apart.
He goes to help up Chrissie, who is shocked he killed one of the few mutants left. He wasn’t going to let him kill her or the humans just because the Blob is a dying breed, he snaps. Chrissie is still shocked.
The building collapses and Magneto protects everyone under a metal shield.
They hear a screeching noise. Foster and Martinez realize they need to evacuate, and decide to leave the civilians behind. The sound is the new Sentinels closing in.
