Monsanto, Portugal...
Inside an ocean-side villa, Telford Porter coughs—more like hacks, actually. His three mistresses cower behind the bed-sheets and ask if he is okay. Telford, hacking up another glob of blood, insists he is going to be fine. He just needs a second to recover. Time-travel sickness and all, he says. It'll go away in a minute. He then doubles over again and vomits up even more blood up on the floor.
His head looks like it's about to explode, one of the mortified women tells him. Sitting up, Telford realizes what this means: Elixir wasn't bluffing. He actually gave him brain cancer. "I'm going to die," Telford mutters. Then, he does what he does best: vanishes.
The Vanisher instantaneously reappears on Utopia, the X-Men's floating base off the coast of San Francisco. He fails to realize he is teleporting right into the middle of a full-scale attack on the island—and right in front of a scythe-wielding facsimile of Death. "You #$%^ are going to heal me right now or—" Telford threatens before sensing the monster immediately behind him. He turns in time to scream. As Death brings its scythe toward the Vanisher's neck, however, Cyclops pegs him in the leg with an optic blast, knocking him off balance mere moments before the weapon would have lopped off his head.
The Vanisher takes a look around the room and bears witness to what can only be described as chaos. "Nice of you to finally join us, Porter!" his teammate Domino says as she unloads rounds from her handgun into the resurrected Hellions.
"Domino? Are we dead?" Telford asks her. Although she tells him they are not, she adds that he will be if he doesn't get up and help them. Dumbstruck, the Vanisher can’t even budge. Cyclops echoes Domino's sentiment when he orders the Vanisher to grab Emma and take her to safety. "...is Elixir in a safe place?" Telford asks in response.
Elsewhere, the residents of Utopia fight for their lives against the hordes of Selene's resurrected minions. In the infirmary, X-23 and Doctor Nemesis defend the unconscious Elixir from the attacking Maria Callasantos, a.k.a. Feral. In the hallway, Colossus trades blows with Louis Hamilton, a.k.a. Stonewall, while Martin Fletcher, a.k.a. Super Sabre, sneaks up from behind to aid his former Freedom Force ally. Rogue, meanwhile, dodges a blow from the enormous Edward Pasternak, a.k.a. Tower. More tragically, Iceman defends himself from the incessant attacks of his former Champions teammate Laynia Sergeievna Petrovna, a.k.a. Darkstar. Psylocke and Dazzler, meanwhile, unleash their fullest attacks against Hurricane, Deadbolt and Spyne, despite having no idea who they are. Elsewhere on the floating island, Hellion puts up a telekinetic shield that saves the lives of his teammates Surge and Prodigy from the inferno thrust at them by Rusty Collins, a.k.a Firefist.
Outside, on the surface of the floating meteor, Archangel performs a similar feat when he uses his metallic wings to shield Hrimhari, Warpath and Wolfsbane from Pyro's attack. Amidst the searing heat of Pyro's flames, Warpath has just one question: isn't Pyro dead? "That's what I thought too, yeah?" Pyro laughs. "Went out like a hero and everything. So much for that. Guess I'm back to killing X—"
The butt of Warpath's bowie knife strikes Pyro in the head, knocking him off-balance and halting his fiery furnace. Archangel follows this up by thrusting his wings toward the attackers and showering them in his wing fletchettes. Pyro is still dead, Archangel says; he can feel it. He asks why they are there. Because their queen wants him—and all of the X-Men—to suffer, Pyro says. Berzerker, his fists pulsing with electricity, calls dibs on Cyclops. Whatever, Pyro says. Kill 'em all.
Warpath looks at their enemies with unease. He thinks the guy with the mohawk and the dragon were Morlocks—but he swears they were dead. They were, Archangel tells him—and they're about to be dead again. Hrimhari insists they protect Rahne. Get her inside, then, Warpath says; he and Archangel can deal with the undead. He commands him to go as he and Archangel lunge toward Berzerker, Scaleface, Pyro and Maggott. Hrimhari grabs the unconscious Wolfsebane and flees—with Scaleface in pursuit.
Hammer Bay. Genosha...
Eli Bard groans. When Selene asks him what is wrong, he claims it is nothing. However, Wither suspects he is lying. Of course he is, Selene says. It is Eli Bard's nature to hide his weakness. Turning to her servant, she asks again—and promises it will be the last time she asks. There is something wrong with the one the X-Men call Cypher, Bard says. Cypher isn't under his control anymore. "I guess failure is your style, Bard," Wither jokes. Selene tells Wither that is enough. Angered, she calmly states she had very specific plans for the Ramsey boy. She instructs Bard to send Emma Frost's children to retrieve him.
Utopia...
Jetstream continues pushing Wolverine into the farthest reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Enraged, Wolverine tells him he's going to hack his head off and see if it grows back. Selene was right, Jetstream says. The X-Men deserve this! The Hellions were just kids and the X-Men let them die! Wolverine admits he liked Jetstream a lot better when he was dead.
Suddenly, Jetstream halts his argument with Logan. "Yes, my Queen," he says. Letting go of Wolverine, he propels himself back toward the island. "I hope this hurts, you old bastard," Jetstream says as Wolverine begins his lengthy, helpless plunge toward the ocean. Logan just stares downward at what awaits him—and curses.
Meanwhile, inside Asteroid M, Cyclops and Domino continue fending off the Hellions. The Hellions abruptly cease their attack. However, if Cyclops doesn’t mind, Domino would like to keep shooting at them. Roulette, meanwhile, announces to her peers there has been a change of plans and hurls a bad-luck disc at Cyclops. Domino leaps toward him and pushes him out of the way, but once they pick themselves back up, the Hellions have already left.
Confounded, Vanisher asks what that was about, and who those people were. "Those were my students, Mister Porter," Emma Frost says. "They came to kill me."
"...well, you must have been a hell of a teacher," Telford answers.
Cyke orders Domino to follow the Hellions; he'll have X-23 meet her on the way. However, another familiar voice tells Scott he just can't let him do that. Cyclops turns around and, to his horror, beholds his deceased teammate Sean Cassidy, a.k.a. Banshee, hovering menacingly in the air. Banshee unleashes one of his signature screams, pummeling Cyclops, Domino, Emma and the Vanisher with an onslaught of deafening sound waves. They clutch their ears in a pitiful gesture of defense, but it is to no avail. They try to speak to one another, but their words get lost in the high-decibel attack. Thankfully, the Vanisher teleports the four of them out of the room before things turn even worse. VT!
After the four X-Men vanish, Sean Cassidy regains control of his consciousness. The natural color seeps back into his eyes and he realizes where he is, and whom he just encountered. "Lord... what's happening to me? Scott... Emma...I'm sorry," Banshee says. "I'm—damn ye, Cassidy... fight this! Ye can fight—" But he cannot. The Transmode Virus in his body regains control, and Sean Cassidy is once again lost to the influence of Selene and Eli Bard.
Elsewhere, Vanisher and the X-Men reappear in a safe location. VT! "Was that—was that Sean Cassidy?!" the Vanisher asks. "What the hell is going on?" If that was Banshee, he must've been under control, Cyclops states. Emma agrees—and she thinks she knows by whom. She brought back Emma's former students, she brought back Banshee... no matter how hard they come at the X-Men, she knows they won't want to hurt them back in kind. Domino doubts what they want will be a problem, considering how their undead friends have been handling them so far.
Cyclops reaches out mentally to the Stepford Cuckoos, who ask via telepathy if it's happening again. Are their sisters coming back? Is Jean coming back? Cyclops doesn't know, but right now, he needs them. Their only priority is to get to Cerebra, he says. They need to find a woman named Selene.
Meanwhile, in a dark bedroom, a young girl wearing a nightgown and a blindfold stands in the shadows, counting down from three. When she reaches one, James Proudstar crashes through the ceiling, flooding the room with light. Proudstar picks himself up and looks around his new surroundings. He tells the girl in the corner, Blindfold, that she needs to get away immediately. "Yes, thank you, I will," Blindfold says. "I have a message for Cyclops, please. I am going to give it to him now." She pauses. "Warpath—she saw your brother. He waits for you."
Blindfold departs, leaving Warpath to consider her cryptic words. Almost right away, however, a new arrival breaks his concentration when she calls out to him. Warpath turns and beholds his former lover Gloria Dolores Munoz, a.k.a. Risque, wielding one of her threatening decompression disks. If he ever cared about her, Risque says, then he needs to run.
James shudders at the sight of her. She's dead; they told him she died. Gloria doesn't deny this. However, she reveals a man named Bard brought her back. Warpath curses upon hearing this name once again. Continuing, Risque tells Warpath Selene wants them all to suffer—and once again pleads with him to run! No longer in control of herself, she hurls her gravity disc at James, who just barely dives out of its way.
Outside, Archangel stands encircled by Pyro, Berzerker and Maggott. They threaten to tear off his wings; it wouldn't be the first time that happened, would it? As Pyro prepares to scorch him, Warren vaults himself into the air and out of reach of his attackers. "Enough!" he declares as he looks down on his enemies. "You were judged once, and were found wanting. Weak and unworthy of life. Now you face Death once again, and you will fare no better." With that, Archangel unleashes the power of his metallic wings on his assailants. His attack is swift, bloody and lethal, dismembering each one of his foes. "Only the strong survive," he says as he beholds the blood and carnage.
"Well, that's bad news for you, mate," a voice says, "...because I feel pretty #@$% strong!" In horror, Archangel watches as Pyro's torso and limbs reassemble themselves with the help of Selene's magic and the T/O Virus.
Elsewhere, Hrimhari continues to flee with the unconscious Wolfsbane in his arms. His escape brings them up through a sewer inside of Utopia. Once the hatch opens, Hrimhari bolts through and crashes onto the floor, followed immediately by the gaping, reptilian jaws of Scaleface. The undead mutants vows they will not escape her grasp as she pulls her considerable bulk through the opening. Her claws gouge paths out of the metal surface of the floor. Hrimhari is unfazed; he has faced bigger dragons than her. However, the opening restricts her passage.
Wolfsbane, meanwhile, whimpers in his arms. It hurts, she cries. Hrimhari begs her to hold on; they have almost reached the one her people call Elixir. Hrimhari just needs to find him. To help, Rahne tells him that Elixir smells like honey. If they can just find the X-Men, they'll find Elixir.
From across the room, a man points a gun at Wolfsbane and Hrimhari. "I'm going to kill them," Doctor Nemesis says. When his accomplice, X-23, tells him no, Nemesis asks why he shouldn't. The other wolf girl got away, he reminds her. To make up for it, he's shooting these two. X-23 informs him these two smell different—alive—and that she knows one of them. Her name is Rahne Sinclair; they're not allowed to kill her.
Dr. Nemesis approaches the two wolf people with trepidation. Upon observing the ailing Rahne, he asks what happened to her, as she doesn't appear injured. Hrimhari does not know. He just knows that Rahne told him to find the one called Elixir, whose scent he traced to this location. "Well, I've got bad news for you, werewolf," Dr. Nemesis says. "Golden Boy isn't helping anyone." He directs his attention to a nearby operating table, on which lies the unconscious, gold-skinned Joshua Foley.
Rahne, now resting on the adjacent operating table, howls in pain. At that moment, Vanisher materializes in the room and asks to see Elixir. Before he can explain why, however, he asks a more pressing question: what's with all the wolf people?
Meanwhile, in Utopia's brig, the Donald Pierce struggles to speak, let alone breathe, while the recently resurrected Harry Leland crushes him deeper and deeper into the floor. Leland tells the former Hellion the Black Queen's message is death. Behind them, the similarly undead Shinobi Shaw strangles his shackled father Sebastian and bids him adieu.
Before these two minions of Selene's can complete their assignment, however, Danger—the sentient warden of Utopia's prison—identifies the mutant signature responsible for her present condition and enacts the appropriate counter-measures. She manages to free herself from Leland's crushing gravity attack and fire an energy beam at Shinobi Shaw, severing his forearms from his hands. Sebastian Shaw is now free. Danger stands up and faces the intruders in her brig. Identifying them as hosts of the Techno-Organic Virus, she declares her targets still viable.
Hammer Bay. Genosha...
Under cover of fog and darkness, Selene gives Eli Bard the command. He is to do what he has promised her. Eli Bard kneels down in the mud and unrolls his sleeve, revealing his T/O-infected arm. Everything he's done over all these centuries, he has done for Selene—and he will not fail her now. He plunges his hand into the ground. The T/O circuitry immediately spreads like fire, surging through the ground and toward its future hosts. It sends rock, dirt and mud into the air as it goes. Selene grins. "Can you feel it, my children?" she asks. "Souls."
Washington, D.C. Bastion's headquarters...
Bastion's mainframe announces the detection of deceased mutant life-signs. His servants—William Stryker, Graydon Creed and Stephen Lang—ask what is happening. Bastion tells them plainly that the mutant population is increasing. The system, meanwhile, states the names of the identifiable resurrected: Graves, Andrew; Kath, Katu; Unuscione, Angelo; Andrews, Marcus; Esperanza, Gianna and Everett, Mortimer, among many others. Bastion’s men ask where this is occurring. Genosha, he tells them.
Utopia...
"Mister Summers?" the Cuckoos say. "You may want to see this." Within the visual interface of Cerebra, they monitor the ongoing resurrection of the millions of mutants who died on Genosha. They can hear the mutants returning to life, the Cuckoos state. They’re scared and don't understand what's happening. They hurt—they're in great pain. The Cuckoos can feel them, but there are too many. Wincing, the Three-in-One turn away and cut themselves off from the live feed of Cerebra as the mutant population rises. RESURRECTION EVENT UNDERWAY, the screen reads. TARGET GENOSHA: POPULATION 763: RISING. POPULATION: 80,000... 829,002... 1,100,146... 1,652,106.
Cyclops, meanwhile watches this live feed from his computer monitor. As the individual lights on Genosha multiply and converge into one blinding beacon, he mutters just one phrase: "Dear God."
