Wolverine makes his way through a strange alien
jungle, and we hear from his narration that he’s on the run. He has a sudden
surge of pain before he is grabbed by alien tentacles that shoot a hallucinogen
in his face. Wolverine hallucinates that he’s horseback riding with Mariko
Yashida in Japan when they’re suddenly attacked by several Brood warriors!
Wolverine snaps out of it to find himself actually being attacked by Brood. He
maneuvers around the strange environment, tearing into the Brood. Suddenly, the
ground collapses beneath Wolverine and he falls a considerable distance,
landing in a giant spiderweb! With the dawn of a new day, Wolverine is able to
better see his surroundings and discovers that the entire jungle is on one of
the Brood’s old living ships, now long decomposed. The Brood decide not to
pursue Wolverine, deciding to let the native creatures finish him off.
Wolverine indeed feels the native giant spider-like
creatures coming for him, when he experiences another jolt of intense pain! He
remembers he and the other X-Men attending Lilandra’s farewell banquet and
trying to console Colossus on the recent changes his sister went through (in
UXM #160). Deathbird then appeared and they were all taken out in an ambush!
Wolverine eventually came to, after experiencing strange visions and
sensations, to find that the rest of the X-Men were under a hallucination that they
were on the Shi’ar homeworld, to be presented with awards. Wolverine’s senses
and perceptions kept telling him different things, slipping in and out of the
hallucination. Carol Danvers is taken away, and only Wolverine can see the
Brood, making Wolverine unsure if he’s finally lost it. One by one, each of the
X-Men were presented with their “award” until it was Kitty Pryde’s turn. She
suddenly cried out in fear for help and Wolverine found he could do nothing. It
was then his turn, and he experienced blinding pain, seeing the image of the
Brood Queen!
Wolverine snaps back to his senses in the present and
finds an outlet for his rage, tearing into the native predators. He tears into
them mercilessly, in a berserker rage, until they lose interest in him to start
feeding on the ones he killed. Wolverine ascends the environment exhausted and
collapses, remembering the previous night, when he once again noticed the
discrepancies between his memories and perceptions. He went to Storm with his
concerns, but she uncharacteristically wrote him off, letting him know that the
Brood are affecting them in more ways than he realized. He went to Kitty’s room
and found her sleeping and promised that he’ll get them out of this mess. Even
still, he can’t help the foreboding feeling he had, and experienced an image
flashing through his mind, of him having to kill Kitty, to put her out of her
misery.
Elsewhere in the Brood palace, Wolverine found Fang of
the Imperial Guard being punished by the Brood. The Brood had implanted an
embryo of a new Brood warrior in Fang, until it hatched, painfully transforming
Fang into a new Brood! Wolverine realized that the same will happen to him and
the other X-Men and was then pursued by the Brood. Back in the present,
Wolverine finds more Brood, including the one Fang turned into, and tears into
them with all he’s got in a ferocious and brutal battle. His enemies slain,
Wolverine then feels intense pain once again and realizes that the
transformation process has begun! He resists the change, fights against it, as
the Brood hatchling has a hard time with his adamantium. This gives him the
foothold he needs to resist the change completely, and his healing factor
exterminates the Brood from his system! Wolverine gazes upon the palace where
the other X-Men are, with no idea how to save them or whether or not they’ve
transformed yet. He remembers his hallucination of killing Kitty and realizes
that he’ll kill each of the X-Men, his friends, if he can’t find a way to cure
them. And then, it’ll be the Brood’s turn!