Young Scott Summers, still wearing casts and bandages, sits in his wheelchair, musing that normally he tries to stay away from video games and board games. Logic puzzles. Most individual sports. He once played Horseshoes for 27 hours straight. Bobby had to come and yank out the stakes. Anything that involves problem-solving, strategy or obsessive repetition of a practiced skill can be sort of dangerous for him.
He looks at the closed lab door and muses that Hank has been in a weird funk since he and Evan returned from old Egypt. Locked up in that lab for almost a week now, leaving the X-Men on indefinite hiatus. Not that it makes much difference to Scott. Toad’s drunken Sarah Connor stunt shattered his leg. He won’t even start physical therapy for three more weeks. And everybody else went out tonight. So just this once, Scott Summers is throwing caution to the wind. Screw it! He begins playing a computer game.
Amazingly, Hank comes out of his lab and suggests Scott plug a battery pack into his controller. Hank wants to get him a pack. Scott tells him to forget it. He hasn’t been out of that lab in forever. Did he crack the time travel thing? Is he close? Hank demurs while not meeting his eyes. That’s on the backburner. The new project is something different. No time to explain.
While Scott wonders what that means, Hank goes on the search for energy drinks. He gets a whole bag of oranges, claiming it’s for Vitamin C and tosses Scott the battery before entering the lab and closing the door. Some green mist emerges before that.
Scott is suspicious. Usually Hank can’t shut up about his work. Now he’s being secretive. Scott uses the controller to make a camera drone enter Hank’s lab but it is immediately discovered and taken care of.
Next attempt:
Scott crawls under their van and opens the escape hatch. Again, it doesn’t work and he just manages to scare the Bamf Pickles.
Attempt three:
He creates a small fire in the dustbin and then wildly knocks at the lab door to tell Hank to come out.
A giant hologram of Hank’s face appears and he asks what he can help Scott with. He’s been watching Scott on the security cam and he seems bored… edgy. Scott claims he is just mucking around. Hank asks him to dial that down a notch.
Scott tells himself he’s lost. As he gets a beverage, he figures it’s probably a good thing their resident genius can outsmart him.
Then he hears a noise from the window. A huge tentacle comes crashing in and grabs him. Cyclops lets loose his optic blast. It lets go and he grabs his glasses and knocks on Hank’s door shouting. No reaction. Scott berates himself for crying wolf before. He decides to deal with the problem himself – he’s been itching for some action all month. He puts on his visor and the upper part of his uniform, kicks the door and wheels outside, to find a huge tentacle monster.
He figures the tentacles are a nonstarter. He has to go for the gross, toothy, meat trunk. He finally decides to shoot the giant eyeball, though he has to dodge some tentacles. Scott realizes he has to get in close to hit the eyeball and the monster isn’t standing still for him. He realizes that to hit it he needs to get up and the only way is letting the tentacles take him… which he does.
The monster lifts him and, when he is opposite the huge eye, Cyclops fires. Hurt, the creature dives down into the ground and disappears.
Scott stumbles back inside to see Hank is still in his lab. Much to his chagrin. He crashes onto the couch and thinks they should probably have a conversation later about what’s going on here, and he has to wonder if his calm is a sign of a larger psychological problem. But not now. He takes the controller. He’ll just be here on the couch enjoying the rest of his calm evening.
Behind him, even more monsters creep up but Cyclops doesn’t notice…
