This issue opens with Cyclops walking through the
woods near the Xavier Institute as he thinks back to Thunderbird’s death from
last issue. Still deeply affected by it weeks later, Cyclops cuts loose with
his optic blasts in anger and frustration, completely demolishing the nearby
tree line and breaking a mysterious stone cairn located nearby. He chides
himself for his carelessness, telling himself that Thunderbird, like all of
them, knew the risks, and that he must go on living, while honoring the dead.
Unbeknownst to Cyclops, as he walks away, a mysterious smoke starts to emanate
from the broken cairn. We then cut to the rest of the X-Men, who are training
in the Danger Room, when Colossus accidentally hits Wolverine full force. This
only serves to make Wolverine angry, as he attempts to attack Colossus, but is
repelled by a gust of wind from Storm. Nightcrawler has a good laugh at the
situation, which causes Wolverine to lunge at him instead, only avoiding
Wolverine’s claws due to teleporting out of the way.
Banshee admonishes Wolverine, saying he could have
killed Nightcrawler, before Professor X tells Banshee about the new housekeeper
that should be arriving shortly. Just then the doorbell rings and Banshee goes
to answer, expecting an old, decrepit woman, and is instead stunned by the
relatively young woman in front of him, who introduces herself as
Moira MacTaggert. We cut again to a secret installation among the Adirondack Mountain
Preserve, where a man named Steven Lang awaits the arrival of his friend Col.
Michael Rossi. Lang is looking for approval for Project Armageddon, where he
plans to capture and examine the X-Men, so that humanity may know how best to
protect themselves against mutants and to wipe them out if necessary. Rossi
opposes Lang’s anti-mutant views and says he’ll pull the plug on Project
Armageddon as soon as he gets back to Washington, causing Lang to resort to
making sure he never does.
Back at the Institute, the X-Men are getting
acquainted with Moira MacTaggert and Professor Xavier admits he hired her to
look after the place while he’s gone. He’s decided to take a little earned
vacation away from the stressors of his current life. Banshee in particular has
taken a shine to Dr. MacTaggert, while Storm expresses concerns of revealing so
much of their operation to a seeming outsider. Just then, Cyclops comes flying
through the window, in the midst of battle with some unknown force, when said
force arrives just after. A huge demon-like creature named Kierrok, one of the
N’Garai, smashes through the wall, saying he’s come for the X-Men’s lives and
souls. Storm tries to protect Xavier from Kierrok but gets injured in the
process. Colossus and Nightcrawler both try attacking the monster, with both
getting swatted away. Finally, Wolverine gets involved, attacking the creature
in a berserker rage and cutting the beast to bits.
However, Kierrok doesn’t stay down for long, as he
begins to regenerate and reform. Professor X tries to mind-probe Kierrok before
he recovers but gets overwhelmed by the horrible visions he sees. Moira tries
attacking the creature with a machine gun to no avail and Banshee ducks her out
of the way, though applauds her tenacity. Xavier discovered that the cairn is
the source of Kierrok’s power and sends Storm to seal it. When she arrives,
Storm gets attacked by ghostly demonic beings that try to drag her into the
cairn. She has flashes of her childhood, of once being buried alive in rubble
and determines that that won’t happen again as she destroys the cairn with a
huge lightning strike. Back at the Institute, Kierrok fades away into
nothingness, though both Xavier and Storm determine that this won’t be the last
they hear from the N’Garai. We then get one final epilogue, showing that Lang
had indeed crashed the plane Col. Rossi was on, succeeding in making sure he
never made it back to Washington.