In Dallas, Texas, Mystique (in her guise as Raven
Darkholme) and Valerie Cooper visit a prestigious building called Eagle Plaza.
There, they meet with Mystique’s contact Forge while marveling at his
impressive solid holographic home. Forge shows them the devices the government
had tasked him with replicating, initially to combat the extra-terrestrial
beings known as the Dire Wraiths. The first is a neutralizer gun, capable of
rendering any super-powered being powerless, be they mutant, alien, or anything
else, though Forge admits he hasn’t been able to test it yet. Forge also shows
them a scanner capable of picking up traces of anything that isn’t baseline
human, in order to track mutants, the Dire Wraiths, or anything else. Forge
notes that his scanner is picking up a mutant signature in that very room!
Mystique internally panics, thinking she may have to kill both Forge and Cooper
to maintain her cover, before Forge admits that he was joking and that the
mutant in the room is him. He does, however, note Mystique’s alarm and wonders
if she has something to hide.
Meanwhile, in New York, a wayward girl named Rachel
(last seen in Days of Future Past) sees the news report of the X-Men’s battle
in Tokyo (from a few issues ago). Rachel has traveled back in time from the
future but finds herself utterly confused. Things don’t line up with how she
remembers them, making her question whether she arrived in the correct past or
not. Nearby, Selene senses great power within Rachel and realizes that she
could be her perfect successor! Selene surprises Rachel, who escapes her and
ducks into a nearby nightclub. The club’s owner, a guy named Nick Damiano,
offers to take Rachel back to his place, recognizing how scared and desperate
she is. Rachel telepathically detects no ulterior motives from Nick, confirming
that he really does just want to help, and follows him back to his apartment.
Later, Rachel finds the first real opportunity in a
long time to really clean herself up and takes a bubble bath in Nick’s
bathroom. However, she notices something is wrong when she suddenly can’t sense
Nick’s thoughts anymore. She investigates, finding Nick dead and Selene reveals
herself, attacking Rachel once more with her manipulation of inanimate objects!
Rachel fights back until their battle ruptures the gas and electrical lines for
the apartment, causing the whole place to burst into flames! Rachel starts to
get overwhelmed by Selene until she’s saved by the timely arrival of a mental
projection of Professor X, with the X-Men arriving not long after.
While Rogue and Colossus deal with the fire and
Selene’s attacks, Nightcrawler teleports to intercept the fleeing Selene. Selene
quickly overwhelms both Nightcrawler and Rogue, with Rogue even finding that
Selene is immune to her power and is instead able to drain her life
force! Professor X is able to fight Selene off, causing her to flee while the
X-Men get themselves and Rachel out of the burning building. Outside, Storm
generates a rain to put out the fire and keep it from spreading. Rachel is once
again stunned at the discrepancies from what she remembers, shocked at Storm’s
appearance and the fact that Xavier can walk. This just confirms her worst
fears, that she ended up in the wrong past, and may have doomed the world as a
result!