Returning from his trip to Muir Island, Banshee comes home to the mansion and is greeted by the fist of Emma Frost. She warns him never to strike at her again because she will always strike back harder.
Jubilee, Skin, and Husk run in the door with the briefcase of stolen property. Husk passes out all of the stolen items; Jono’s CD’s, Everett’s money, Emma’s jewels. Sean asks Jubilee about the break-in and she explains to him that it is all okay since they have managed to get all of the stolen things back. Sean asks her wether she, Paige and Angelo have their stuff back as well, but she quickly changes the subject. Sean turns his attention towards Emma, wondering how the thieves broke in if the alarm was on. Emma snaps back that they were lucky the thieves didn’t happen upon the school’s more delicate secrets and if Banshee weren’t in Scotland maybe it could have been avoided. Sean tells her that he learned a few valuable things from Moira MacTaggert about the twins.
In the Med-lab, Sean explains to the team what he learned from Moira. She says that the Monet that they knew was the combined form of the twins and that their natural state is the twins. When they combine they are twice as old, in all her years of research she never saw such a phenomenon. The joining into Monet was initiated by the twins, although maybe not voluntary, but a preservation instinct totally out of their control. Emma asks if the coma is their natural state, but Banshee tells her that no, something else went wrong.
The phone rings and Angelo picks up. It is Tracy Authier, the girl that has his and the girls’ belongings. She says to meet her behind the diner if they want to get their things back. Angelo pretends that the caller is for the telephone service so as not to notify the others. He grabs Husk and Jubilee and hurries them out the door. Quickly, he explains the situation to them, but Jubilee is confused by it. Why does Tracy think she can dictate their actions over such trivial items as a calculus book, a cigar box, and a cowboy hat?
A little bit later, behind the diner, Jubilee talks to her teammates. She tries to get them to tell her about what they got to hide and what is so important about a calculus book and a cigar box. The team won’t think any different of them for whatever the items truly are. Tracy pulls up on a scooter carrying the stolen items. Jubilee approaches her that they know that she and Aemon were coerced into stealing by Dorian and Weasel, so they just want their stuff back. Tracy answers that she can figure out why Angelo wanted his gun with half of a clip back and why Paige wanted her diary, but why does Jubilee want the greasy old hat? The others are startled to find out about the gun and the diary, that were hidden in the box and the calculus book.
Meanwhile in Emplate’s reality, he discusses the topic of interdimensional travel with his new allies, Chimera and the Plasma Wraiths. She shows him the object with which she will travel, a lepton imploder. Emplate wonders why she doesn’t use the warp chamber doorway that she came in with, but she tells him that it is too risky to overuse it. One never knows when one will end up in the same reality as the Expediter or Logan. She blows the lepton imploder and offers to lead the way.
Back at the diner, Tracy wants to make a deal with the kids for their possessions back. Jubilee tells her that they don’t make deals with thieves. Tracy waves Paige’s diary in her face and says that according to it, some of their teachers are ex-criminals and fugitives from international justice.
(partially memory / flashbacks)
Jubilee has no other option than to accept the deal, and starts to explain why she wants the hat back that bad. She carefully chooses her words, trying not to spill any of the school’s secrets. Jubilee tells Tracy of her friend Logan, who is one of the bravest, most righteous dudes in the world, and that the hat used to belong to him. Not too long ago, she was in a really bad place and some creep tried to convince her that Logan was also his captive and begging for mercy, though she knew that he would never do that, so she laughed the creep in the face. When she got out of that mess and was lost in the desert, Logan ran ten miles through the dark to save her. He is one to never give up. Not even when one of the worst guys of all time hurt him so horribly that she thought he would never be the same again. Logan lost everything he ever had more times than she can count, but he keeps picking himself up, however that one time he thought he had become a liability to the others and decided to leave, though he left her his hat. Jubilee tells Tracy that she doesn’t need the hat to remember him by, but she sure would want it back. Tracy seems convinced and gives the hat back to her.
Tracy wants to hear Angelo’s story next, does he have enemies so bad that he needs a hide-out, or is he just outfitting himself for a life of crime. He explains to her that he got the gun when he was back in Los Angeles. One night he was cruising with his friends Tores, Gordo and Lupo when they ventured into the rival gang territory of the Figueroa street boys. Angelo was unsure of this, but the others claimed that Tores was there to strike a deal with the Figueroas. His friend gave him a gun to protect himself and there ended up being a shoot out after one of the Figueroa boys saw Angelo’s gun. Three people died that night, including Angelo. He faked his own death and had to leave town and everyone that he cared about. He wrecked the gun so that it could never be used again, but he still keeps it to remind him of what he lost that day and where he comes from. Tracy says that she understands and gives the gun back to him.
Making fun of Paige, Tracy says that she knows why she wants her diary back; it is filled with lots of juicy material. There are such things about spiky-haired men from other dimensions who eat mutants and giant robots that shoot lasers out of their eyes. The teens fear that the institute is going to be exposed because of what Paige wrote about the Sentinels and Emplate, but Tracy goes on to say that Paige must be bored stiff at the institute to make up such lurid tales. The real important stuff, Tracy says, are the things that Paige wrote about Jono. She goes on to read one of Paige’s entries but is interrupted by Paige ripping the diary out of her hands. Jubilee and Skin snicker. Tracy doesn’t care about the diary, she had every page photocopied and she is sure that Jono would want to read them. Skin and Jubilee whisper that Tracy thinks almost everything in that diary is fiction except for the things about Jono. Paige cuts to the chase and asks Tracy what she wants, and she replies that she wants in on the gangs “elite circle” and wants their help solving a little problem of hers.
Inside of the Med-lab, Chamber and Synch sweep up the mess from the previous nights skirmish. They complain that even though Skin, Husk, and Jubilee got their things back, they didn’t stay long enough to help with the clean up. Still sitting besides the twins in their beds, penance observes the two of them. Suddenly a green portal rips through space-time in front of them and shadowy figures emerge. Chimera and the Plasma Wraiths appear and head straight towards the twins, saying that they are what Emplate desires. Chamber blasts one Plasma Wraith with a psionic burst and Penance rips into one of the others to try to protect the twins. Chimera gets them to stop by having one of the Plasma Wraiths place Synch in a headlock and threatening to break his neck. Also coming through the portal, Emplate tells Chimera that she can do with the children whatever she pleases as long as their genetic material is still intact.
At the sound of their brother’s voice, the twins, Claudette and Nicole St. Croix, awake from their coma. Claudette tells her sister that their brother Marius looks so sad and angry and that there is only one way to deal with him. They link hands and in a flash of brilliant light, they join into their previously known form, M. Monet flies over to her terrified brother and joins with him, forming the entity known as M-Plate. The only question that lingers in the air is; who is in control of the body, Monet or Marius?
