Rachel Summers, as Phoenix, leaves the eponymous
message for the X-Men that she’s gone to kill the Beyonder! It’s seen by Rogue
who alerts Storm and the rest of the X-Men gather in Storm’s attic loft. They
wonder what to do about the situation and Wolverine suggests they leave Rachel
to her mission. Nightcrawler wonders if Rachel will even be able to hurt the
Beyonder but Storm says they should still find them, lest she makes him angry.
Magneto ends up using Cerebro to locate Rachel, noting that she’s putting out a
much stronger energy reading than expected. The X-Men recognize that energy
signature, wondering if perhaps Rachel as truly become Phoenix, in fact as well
as name!
On Alcatraz Island, the Beyonder ponders his nature
and his purpose, and determines that his purpose is to heal others so they can
achieve their fullest potential. Rachel suddenly comes flying in and, locating
the Beyonder, lights up the entire island with a ferocious attack! When the
smoke clears, Rachel discovers that the Beyonder was completely unaffected by
her might and in fact reduced her blast to a small area, so as to preserve the
island and the flowers there! Rachel doesn’t believe the Beyonder when he
claims to mean no harm to Earth. In order to give her some perspective, the
Beyonder shifts the two of them through time and space to her past, the events
of the Days of Future Past, where she has to relive her friends and family
being slain once more. The Beyonder claims that her grief and shame are holding
her back from achieving her potential, and so presents Rachel with a test.
The Beyonder infuses Rachel with a fraction of his
power, enough to slay him, and even promises not to fight back. Simultaneously,
he instantly transports the X-Men to San Francisco and scatters them all over
the city, while manifesting Sentinels from Rachel’s memories to attack them.
Rachel can either kill the Beyonder or rescue her friends. She knows that
there’s really no decision and flies up to the materialized Blackbird, with
only Storm inside. Storm says she’ll handle the Sentinel after her, while Rachel
flies off to help the others. The Sentinel grabs onto the Blackbird and Storm
retaliates by flying the Blackbird straight up! She keeps flying until they
reach orbit and though the strain on her is great, the force knocks the
Sentinel loose, causing it to plummet back to Earth and burn up on re-entry!
Storm only fears that she may suffer the same fate!
Elsewhere in the city, Magneto struggles with a
Sentinel, the non-ferrous robot having ample countermeasures against him. When
Rogue tries to help, she’s blasted away into a crowd, her torn costume causing
her to accidentally absorb the memories and personalities of too many people at
once! Wolverine suffers no better until Rachel arrives and she’s able to heal
the others of their various injuries. This lets Magneto create a magnetic
vortex around the Sentinel, drawing air from the atmosphere in order to freeze
it, while simultaneously bringing Storm down safely. In yet another part of
city, Colossus and Kitty Pryde deal with another Sentinel. They combine their
powers in order to phase a lamp post into the Sentinel. Rachel then arrives and
finishes it off by running a massive amount of electricity through herself
until the Sentinel explodes! After all the craziness, Rachel goes back to the
Beyonder on Alcatraz who congratulates her for saving her friends, hoping that
it expunged some of her guilt from her past. She points out that she can’t just
be told that, it has to be earned, and that it was all because of danger he
supplied in the first place. She posits that even if he means well, that all
he’ll ever do is harm! To be continued!
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