Uncanny X-Men, The (1981 series) #207

In a desolate, fiery New York, Rachel Summers is stalked by Wolverine, who makes it clear he intends to kill her! She blasts him away and runs, suddenly shifting into her hound outfit. She thinks of what she was made to do as a hound in her past, the X-Men’s dark, possible future. She wonders if perhaps her life with the X-Men was nothing but a happy fantasy when she’s suddenly grabbed by Wolverine. He plunges his claws into her causing her to awaken with a start, the entire thing a horrid nightmare! Rachel’s guilt over her actions as a hound causes her to lash out and destroy a mirror, prompting Colossus and Kitty to come in and check on her. Kitty admonishes her, pointing out they’re only guests there and at first Rachel can’t quite remember where “there” is before slowly piecing together that they’re staying in the Morlock tunnels while Healer treats Wolverine. Speaking of, Wolverine awakens in another room, having felt himself pulled into Rachel’s dream. He soon collapses again, prompting Nightcrawler to tend to him while Rogue flies off to alert Storm. Rachel can feel all of the X-Men closing their thoughts to her and Rogue points out that there’s some trust lost after she forcibly took their life essences to destroy the Beyonder (In UXM #203).

Soon enough, Rachel has another dream, this one set in Japan. Wolverine once again hunts her down while Rachel realizes that, due to the setting, she must be pulling from Logan’s memories this time. Failing to wake herself up, Wolverine once again kills her and this time Rachel awakens in an alley. Realizing she must have wandered to the surface, Rachel feels like she’s only made a mess of things since she came back to the past. Now, her friends all mistrust her and in trying to supercharge Wolverine’s healing, she might have made that worse too. Another dream, this time with Rachel running through a strange, alien, mountain range. She falls from a cliff and lands near a stream. The sight of her hound costume causes her to tear at herself until she reveals the “her” that might have been underneath. Wolverine appears and though she tells him she’s all better now, he lunges, and she proves that notion wrong by blasting him without hesitation or mercy.

Rachel awakens once more, this time on a subway train. A helpful police officer tries escorting her off but she runs away. Rachel soon realizes she’s in the same area where she first met the X-Men after she was helped by another friendly stranger (back in UXM #184), whom the cop reminded her of. She struggles to remember the man’s name, making herself feel even worse, only remembering that he was murdered by Selene. Rachel determines to try and do something right for once and right these little failures by eliminating Selene! Meanwhile, back at the Morlock tunnels, the X-Men discover that both Rachel and Wolverine are gone! Callisto offers the Morlocks for assistance as they all head to look for the two of them. Later, Rachel mind controls Friedrich Von Roehm, the newest Black Rook of the Hellfire Club, to escort her to the Club so as not to raise as much attention. Once inside, she sedates him and steals a maid’s uniform in order to blend in and makes her way to Selene’s room.

Rachel thinks of all the terrible things the Hellfire Club, and Selene especially, have done. She ponders whether she can go through with this, having been unable to snuff out the universe not too long ago, even to stop the Beyonder. She rationalizes that this is different, stopping an evil threat versus snuffing out innocent lives, and brutally attacks Selene. Awoken in a very rough fashion, Selene fires back and when prompted by Rachel, she reveals that she remembers the name of the man from when they first met, Nicholas Damiano. As Rachel and Selene’s battle rages, the rest of the Hellfire Club starts to evacuate save for one figure, who calmly makes his way further inside. Just as Rachel has Selene defeated, the lone figure turns out to be Wolverine, there to stop Rachel from making a terrible mistake. He tries to talk her out of killing Selene, stating that as heroes, they need to play by the rules. Though they’ve both killed before, and likely will again, this would be unprovoked murder. Rachel makes it clear that the only way she’ll stop is if Wolverine kills her, and the issue ends with an ambiguous SNIKT! To be continued!