First story :
Cordelia Frost is demanding that she be given her sister Emma Frost’s vacant seat on the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle as White Queen. Shinobi Shaw explains to her that there are rules of hierarchy and traditions and he cannot simply give her the title like that. She explains that she has a captured a very powerful mutant who could defeat any of the Hellfire Club’s enemies - she will give him to the Club as a gift - if she can have the position of White Queen. Shinobi views Mondo, the mutant Cordelia had befriended and captured for the sole purpose of gaining her entry to the club, and wonders if he is as powerful as Cordelia says. As Cordelia is telling Shinobi Mondo’s powers, a cadre of shock troopers attack Shinobi’s lair and deliver a message form a mysterious man known only as Barrington. Barrington informs Shinobi that his troops are taking the mutant, and as they do Cordelia panics - how is she going to get Mondo back?
At Xavier‘s, Jubilee is enjoying playing in the pool with Penance, when Penance suddenly has a seizure. Emma rushes to her side and attempts to calm her strange mind. Jubilee is very distraught over Penance as the two have grown quite close.
A knock comes at the door. Skin answers it and sees a pretty young girl - Cordelia stands there looking upset and asking to see her sister, Emma. Husk races to the door after hearing its Emma’s sister (who the kids knew nothing about) and begins firing questions at her. Cordelia asks them just to get Emma as its a matter of life and death.
Meanwhile, along the Boston Harbour, the shock troopers who abducted Mondo are preparing to transport him to Barrington when Mondo suddenly dissapears in the stasis tank he is being held in. Worrying they have lost him, the troopers begin arguing over who is going to tell Barrington, when Mondo reforms behind them - he had turned his form into water and leaked out of the bottom. Mondo escapes and heads onland.
At the school, Cordelia finally catches up with Emma, but the reunion is less that civil. Cordelia spins Emma the story that she was travelling the world on the trust fund set up by her, and she encountered a mutant named Mondo, whom she befriended and the two were on the way to the school to enrol, but were attacked and Mondo was kidnapped. Annoyed that her powers dont work on Cordelia, Emma has no choice but to believe Cordelia’s story.
In Boston, Mondo reluctantly steals a shirt (he has nothing to wear), but is seen and chased - by the shock troopers he escaped from. As they start to fire upon him, Mondo, in typical laid back style stops and asks them if they can talk about it. As civilians begin to flee the area, Emma and Generation X arrive and Emma alters a policemans mind to let them enter.
At the school, Chamber is watching over Penance who is comatose after her seizure at the pool. Chamber is telling her she has to get better as they are two of a kind - mutants one step from being monsters. Then Banshee appears and tells Chamber that Penance’s condition is deteriorating, probably due to Emplate. Then Moira MacTaggert calls via a video screen to discuss Penance. Sensing they want to be alone, Chamber leaves them to it. After asking how she’s doing, Moira tells Sean that from what she can tell, Penance has contracted her skin around herself to protect herself from Emplate - and she’s literally withdrawing into herself. Moira tells him he should bring her to Muir Island so she can look at her properly, but Sean starts making excuses about how busy they both are. Moira knows what he’s problem is, and asks him to be honest with her - then he loses his temper and says its because of the Legacy Virus. Sean then apologises and tells her he feels so guilty that she’s contracted the virus when it was only meant to kill mutants. Moira tells him she is dying, and there’s no changing that - but she hopes they still have each other. Sean tells her that he’ll always be there for her, then Moira snaps back into professional mode, shocking Sean. As she signs off, she tells him she still loves him, and he tells her he will always love her.
Back in Boston, the troopers have Mondo surrounded but he is rescued by Husk, Jubilee, Synch, Emma and Cordelia who attack the troops. Gunfire almost kills Cordelia, but Husk sheds into an impenetrable rock form and defends her. Husk is then thrown by a bomb, and Mondo catches her, then absorbs the concerete and attacks the guards for trying to hurt Cordelia. Emma grabs control of all the guards, but as she begins to probe them, Barrington, who is watching from a secret lab, teleports them all away.
They all return to the School, and later that day, Cordelia is plotting how she can get into the Hellfire Club now. Emma comes up behind her, suspecting she is up to something, and tells her to leave the school and never come back. Mondo comes to see her after Emma leaves and acts like everything is normal, he tells her he dosen’t blame her for him getting kidnapped or leaving his home. He still trusts her and tells her he would do anything for her, and she tells him she’s got to go or she’ll miss her train - for she’s got plans - big plans.
Second story :
Skin is helping M move her things from Emma’s apartment into the science block, following the destruction of the Girl’s dormatry. He is struggling with the heavy things, while M is making it all look so easy. After M drops some things, the two have a laugh about it and while M flies off with some more boxes, Skin is left thinking she isn’t that bad. He then finds a diary of M’s on the floor and contemplates peeking in it. He reasons that he’ll get to understand her better if he has a little read. Inside he finds infantile drawings about her father sitting sad next to two small beds, with split images and pictures of the Phalanx kidnapping her. He then reads on to her impressions of Generation X, of how M thinks she can help them all, and how it would be rude of her to improve the Biosphere just yet. She thinks Skin and Synch are immature, and Emma dosen’t like her. She lists her surprise at seeing her mentor Gateway arrive, but understood when Emplate arrived at the airport. She is scared of Chamber and surprised at Penance’s appearance. She looked worse than M expected.
M suddenly returns and Skin drops the book and makes his excuses and leaves. M wonders why he left so quickly then sees her diary. It dosen’t worry her though, she reasons that even if he did read it, he wouldn’t be clever enough to figure out the St Croix family secret.
