Nightcrawler is working with Cannonball on his maneuverability in the Danger Room. Bantering a little with the boy, the X-Man goes through a series of saltos and turns on the trapeze, which Sam is supposed to copy with his flying power, so he can learn to change direction in mid-flight. Finished, Kurt teleports back to Sam. Cannonball admits that he understands the process rationally, but his body doesn’t follow. Kurt tells him to stop worrying and just try, but to make it easier for Sam, he installs a net below them, in case he falls. Sam broods. As the oldest, he is supposed to be a paragon for the other New Mutants, but he’s the only one who hardly improves in the use of his powers. As Kurt reassure him, the door opens and Rahne enters. She blows Sam a kiss for luck, and silently wishes it wasn’t Nightcrawler teaching him, because of his demonic looks.
Sam starts the exercise and goes into Cannonball-mode. He copies the moves Nightcrawler made, but is too close to the wall to turn in time. Nightcrawler realizes that, and teleports him away before he hits the wall, which would have cost the Professor a lot of money. Sam is furious with himself until Nightcrawler confides that he didn’t make it the first time either. Those moves need practice – anything worthwhile does. He tells Sam to climb up again – he’ll join him soon and transforms the Danger Room into a circus arena, with all people transformed into clowns. Then he asks Rahne for a dance. The girl is reluctant, she doesn’t know how, but his charm wins her over and they dance, until Nightcrawler switches the illusion off. Rahne didn’t realize she was dancing with him instead of Sam and angrily calls him a demon. Kurt tells her he just wanted to teach her not to judge people by appearances – it’s their souls that matter. Rahne angrily calls him a liar. If that were true, everything she was ever taught – maybe even her faith – would be false. Confused and angry, she storms out.
Further down the hall Colossus and Sunspot are also going through a training exercise. Piotr is to teach the younger boy fighting techniques. He pontificates on Roberto’s weakness – the fact that he hasn’t got invulnerability to go with his strength – angering the young Brazilian. Sunspot is momentarily diverted by Rahne running past them, and Colossus hits him with the bo-staff for his lack of attention. A foe would not be so gentle, he points out. Sunspot is furious. He tears the training mat away under Colossus’ feet and starts wrestling with him. He wants to know who’s stronger. Colossus suddenly screams out in pain. Sunspot stares at his hands, which suddenly seem darker and no longer human, before they change back. Unaware of this, Colossus assures Sunspot that he wasn’t hurt and assumes he probably just caught the flu.
Rahne in the meantime is looking for Dr. MacTaggert – her foster mother – and sees her and Xavier in one of the labs, examining the newest addition to the team – the alien Warlock. Xavier telepathically asks the girl whether anything is the matter and instead of answering she runs away. Xavier and MacTaggert turn their attention back to Warlock and marvel at his ability to change organic matter into living circuitry and then absorb its lifeforce.
Rahne races back upstairs and into Dani's room. Dani is just phoning her parents and has them describe their ranch to her. She suggests that the New Mutants could visit soon, and asks Rahne what she thinks about that, but the younger girl runs away and Dani wonders, what’s been wrong with her and Sunspot lately.
Park Avenue, New York. A very exclusive shop owned by Friedrich von Roehm is visited by a mysterious darkhaired veiled woman, who imperially tells von Roehm that he is to dismiss the staff for the day as she wants to talk to him. Von Roehm is angry about her arrogance and about to throw her out. She calmly shows him a gem, asking him to appraise it. The gem is unique, she adds, and at a certain angle a face can be seen. The gem shows her face, which von Roehm recognizes as that of Selene. Von Roehm kneels down and prostrates himself before her. He is the high priest of a sect worshipping Selene, that has existed for more than two thousand years. Selene tells him that she needs both a residence and a power base. Von Roehm has the ideal solution – the Hellfire Club.
Meanwhile, in that institution, Sunspot’s father Emanuel DaCosta is being prepared for his admission into the Club’s Inner Circle. He complains to Sebastian Shaw that he feels silly, dressed in those 18th century style clothes that are typical of the Club. Those clothes signify their abandonment of modern society and its rules, Shaw explains, in favor of a simpler, more primal age, where individualism still counted. He warns DaCosta that this is his last chance to decline, but the other man feels ready for the initiation that is to come.
Back in Westchester, unaware of his father’s decision, Roberto is lazing away his time at the pool with Magma, while Rahne sits inside, doodling hearts (with her and Sam’s initials) and writing a fairy tale.
(Rahne’s fairy tale)
Her heroine is an enchanted redheaded princess (not too mention an idealized version of herself) named Alystraea, who like Disney’s version of Snow White lives in a cottage in the forest, surrounded by cute cartoony little animals who help her with her chores. Their idyll is disturbed as her love, the heavily wounded prince Duncan, stumbles into the cottage, crying that he is possessed by a ravenous shadow, before collapsing, the work of the evil Silver Sorceress. Alystraea swears she will break the enchantment and changes into a wolf. In her wolfform she follows Duncan’s trail to a horrible place, the (surreally deformed) city of New York. Alystraea gets accosted and threatened by a sentient cab, but it finally tells her what she wants to know – the location of the Sorceress. Alystraea find the sorceress – a gleaming figure of silver light, with a spectacular golden necklace and her darkly armored protector, the Black Baron, in the park. Alystraea realizes that the Sorceress’ glow is that of stolen lifeforces and that she has no chance. Nevertheless she attacks the two in wolfform, hurling the baron aside, and threatening the sorceress, growling that she will show her the same mercy she showed Duncan.
(present)
Later that night, Rahne lies asleep in her bed, her hand cradling a necklace identical to the one the Sorceress from her story wore.
