After teleporting out of Doom’s trap for him,
Nightcrawler reappears two miles above the castle, in the middle of the raging
storm. Nightcrawler regains consciousness and skydives through the squall until
he finds an updraft. With enough of his velocity sufficiently bled off, he
teleports once again right above the water, making for a somewhat gentler
landing. Kurt swims to shore and reflects on how they all got into this
situation, determined to make it back to the castle to rescue his friends.
Meanwhile, Doctor Doom alerts his men of Nightcrawler’s escape, and orders them
to retrieve him unharmed. The raging storm outside only gets worse, attracting
the attention of NORAD, North America’s air defense, as they question what to
do if the storm rages any more out of control.
Lightning flashes across one of the high castle
barracks, and two guards discuss the oddity of the storm. One suddenly spots
Nightcrawler in the window, and they open fire, as Nightcrawler teleports
behind them to quickly take them out. With the coast clear, Kurt sneaks in to
rescue his friends. Meanwhile, Colossus continues to struggle, as the whirlpool
keeps eroding more and more of the rock he clings to. He tests a theory by
throwing down a rock the size of his armored form, which gets blasted by the
energy weapons. He then tries the same with a smaller rock the size of his
human form and it is left alone. He realizes that he’ll be safe from the
weapons in his smaller unarmored form and jumps down into the water. He swims
past the energy weapons until he reaches the wall below them and armors up once
more to punch through the wall. In his own trap, Angel notices that the lasers
threatening him fire in a pattern, and he weaves in and out of the pattern,
making it out of the room just in time to be bombarded by the rush of water
from Colossus’ room.
Wolverine floats in his trap, remembering a time that
he nearly killed James and Heather Hudson. His berserker rages were getting out
of control, but James tried to convince Logan that he’s more than an animal.
Wolverine realizes that the same has been true lately, his control has been
slipping and that he feels like he’s been a danger to the team. Wolverine
decides to turn that to his advantage, giving into his rage, driving him on a
more instinctual level so as to ignore the distractions of the room. He slashes
at the walls as he bounces off of them, eventually damaging enough to shut down
the room entirely. Wolverine tears through the wall and heads for Doom, easily
clawing through the fake Storm robot in his way. As Wolverine contends with
Doom, Nightcrawler teleports behind Doom and drops a large tapestry over him.
This allows Wolverine to get the upper hand, with his claws pointed right at
Doom’s faceplate, ready to plunge them in if Doom doesn’t free Storm.
Doom gives them a small orb that reverses the
transmutation process, freeing Storm. However, she awakens angrier than she’s
ever been, completely lost to her primal fury and surge of power. The gale
outside continues to rage and Storm unleashes her power and fury at Doom.
Wolverine and Nightcrawler realize they need to stop Storm, as her current
situation feels all too similar to Phoenix. Colossus arrives and collapses the
floor underneath everyone while he attempts to talk Storm back to her
senses. Colossus finally succeeds in reminding Storm of her humanity, reminding
her of Jean and how she had lost hers for a time. Storm flies out of the
castle, reshaping and calming the raging thunderstorm outside, as her own
emotions have now calmed as well. She’s caught by Angel and reunited with the
other X-Men. They make Arcade apologize to Doom and promise him that he’ll have
no more trouble from the eccentric assassin. Doom and the X-Men then part on
neutral terms, as elsewhere, on the mysterious island they found themselves on,
Scott Summers and Lee Forrester suddenly notice a magnificent city on an island
nearby, that definitely wasn’t there yesterday! To be continued!