The World:
Dressed in a sharp suit, Logan waits impatiently next to a finely set table. He’s early, says Storm, wearing a gown observes as she lands. If there’s anything he’s learned, it’s to never keep a lady waiting, he replies smoothly.
Storm is amazed at the lovely background. When Fantomex talks about the World, it seems so horrible. It was, he tells her, it can be. He explains that time works differently here. For every minute back home, they’ve got hours, days. It’s the evolutionary wild frontier. If the place was built to do anything, it’s change. He took her on a date inside a petri dish, she jokes. How romantic. She assures him he’s given her the best gift she could have asked for. He’s given them time.
Meanwhile outside at the Jean Grey School, Hisako Ichiki gets more and more frustrated as her suit of psychic armor simply does not obey her. Her power can’t be gone! she rages and hits the armor, which suddenly falls apart.
World time, seven days:
Logan and Storm have spent a week together without any conflict. That’s about to change as a weapon suddenly stabs between them and they find themselves surrounded by an army. A moment later, a dart hits Wolverine in the neck.
Sometime later, Logan awakes to an alien face. Angrily, he unsheathes his claws and asks for Storm. Calling him “Tenth Man,” the stranger tells him to take it easy. The toxin still has a hold on him. When Logan doesn’t understand, the other man paints an X onto the wall. He is the Tenth Man. Logan still asks where Storm is. And his britches, he adds after he notices he is naked. The other Azuth promises him he needn’t want for Storm or his britches Together they shall craft britches of victory. Logan grumbles he is on a date.
Cue for Storm to enter in a skimpy, warrior queen outfit. The War King must be stopped, she announces. She explains he is a conqueror, born from the ruins of Weapon Plus. A weed Fantomex forgot to uproot. But those folks weren’t there last time he… a whole civilization developed while Frenchie was passed out on the kitchen floor, he realizes. Yes, Storm agrees. And if they don’t stop the War King, the time engines that allow this growth will soon be his. Who knows what monsters will grow here? Wolverine protests weakly. They are X-Men, Storm replies decisively. For them, this is romance.
World Time: eleven days:
A horrified Azuth watches how the War King beats the life out of Logan. He is God! he boasts. Funny, Logan retorts, most of the gods he knows throw thunderbolts. As if on cue, Storm’s lightning hits and kills the War King.
World Time: Three months later:
Storm is now ruling queen, deciding among her subjects’ squabbles. Logan tries to tell Azuth that’s not why they are here. They tried to escape from this kind of life. Azuth lectures the “Tenth Man” there is no escaping from life.
Later in their bedroom, Storm admits she is worrying about the children at home. Yes, time has slowed to a crawl but it hasn’t stopped. They needed this space to heal, but what if they have chosen the wrong time to leave? Logan wonders when it comes to their timing why it has always seemed wrong.
Later, Logan visits Azuth. He remarks that there was hate for Azuth in the War King’s voice. A contempt he knows only too well. He demands the truth. Why is Azuth so scared of running this place? Who was the War King to him? Azuth reveals that the War King came to him as a child, desperate for learning. He had such hopes for him. But he was too tired and broken. His rage overtook him and he cast him out. He cannot fail again. Logan reminds Azuth that he told him there is no escape from life. But as long as you don’t quit, you ain’t beat.
Five months in:
Logan is doing some wood gathering and shoos away some kids trying to steal his stuff. Moments later, a giant monster hunts them all. The creature chases Logan to the edge of an abyss. Logan looks down. Then Storm comes to the rescue, chasing the monster away with her powers. She raises Logan up into the air with her then asks, he wasn’t really thinking of jumping? He retorts that there are worse things than falling.
Nine months:
Logan is building a cabin for them while Storm is fishing on the ,lake. Her fishing rod breaks. It has caught a giant sea monster. Storm takes care of it but, in its maws, she finds a fob watch.
World Time, one year:
Storm looks at the fob watch. Logan apologizes. She asks him for what. Sorry it took him so long, them so long to get here, he clarifies. That it took him so long to get over Jean. That he had to get so close to the end to realize what’s been in front of him all the time. To finally see her. She takes his hand.
She means so much to him, he continues. The warrior at his back. The lover in his arms. The friend at his side. He’s sorry that he can’t stop time forever. Or ease her mind about what is to come. Sorry the world they gotta live in is out there.
Storm replies the time they spent here was a great adventure. But a thousand years wouldn’t change what they are. They cannot halt the march of time.
So they return. Logan goes to his office. Storm joins Armor to help her with her problems, and in the World Azoth has built the James Logan Howlett School of the World.
