Candy Southern returns to the New York Penthouse she
shares with Angel to find loose feathers and signs of a struggle. The lights
suddenly shut off and she phones Charles Xavier for help before being surprised
by a large man calling himself Sunder! Xavier telepathically alerts
Nightcrawler, who’s spending time with his girlfriend Amanda Sefton in her
apartment not too far away. Nightcrawler teleports over to Candy’s building and
spots Angel being taken into a subway entrance. Just after, Candy goes hurtling
out of the window, many stories up! Kurt catches her and teleports them both
back to Amanda’s apartment.
Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Hellfire Club,
Sebastian Shaw arrives to find Emma Frost in a coma, the work of a mystery
attacker. Shaw considers who could have perpetrated this attack, while unheard
laughter echoes through the halls of the Club! Later, the rest of the X-Men
gather at Amanda’s apartment. They decide that Amanda will remain there to
watch over Candy and Kitty Pryde tells Lockheed to stay for that reason as
well, to the little dragon’s frustration. Storm then leads the others down into
the subway, guided by a mini-Cerebro unit keyed in on Angel’s signal. The
farther down they get, the fainter their psychic connection with Xavier
becomes, when they find a hidden door leading farther down into mysterious
underground catacombs. They are suddenly attacked by a group of sewer-dwelling
mutants, and Storm sends Kitty to scout the area while they fight back against
their attackers.
Kitty soon comes upon the leader of the underground
mutants, Callisto, with a few other mutants, who are content to observe for the
time being. Kitty is spotted and phases when the mutant called Plague attempts
to grab her, but does feel a strange tingle, escaping further into the
catacombs. The others finish up their fight, driving away their attackers, and
Colossus suggests they look for Kitty. Storm points out that they have no way
of pinpointing her location and have to just press on, hurt at having to make
such a tough decision. Elsewhere, Kitty phases through a wall, suddenly feeling
very sick and collapses into the water. She’s found by Caliban, who recognizes
this sickness as Plague’s doing and takes Kitty somewhere safe to look after
her.
The X-Men descend ever further, eventually coming upon
an enormous tunnel. There, they are confronted by Callisto, who introduces her
sewer-dwelling group as the Morlocks. She has taken Angel to be her prince and
begins to cut at his pinfeathers. The X-Men jump into action but are suddenly
swarmed by an army of Morlocks. Try as they might, they quickly get
overwhelmed, and everything fades to black. Elsewhere, Kitty awakens in a
makeshift bedroom, still feeling extremely sick and confused as to where she is.
Caliban returns just in time to catch the fainting Kitty and realizes that
Kitty’s condition is worse than he thought and that she’s dying! Caliban swears
that he’ll get Plague to heal Kitty, so that she can remain in the catacombs
with him forever! To be continued!