Inside Bishop’s mind:
Across the yellow-green ground, beneath the purple sky, a man with huge arms lumbers towards a girl. ‘SSSSKAUGH’ the man hisses. ‘Dad! No!’ the girl cries out. ‘Stop! Leave me alone!’ ‘Come to me, my dear Amber’ the man demands, his eyes yellow, his teeth large and jagged, but before he can reach her, his body is disintegrated by a blast of energy - fired by Lucas Bishop who rides on an orange deer. ‘This corrupt world is full of demons and I am their hunter. My name is Bishop. You’re safe now’ he tells the girl, who looks up at him, ‘Sssskaugh’ she screeches, her eyes yellow, and teeth large and jagged. Bishop is shocked, ‘Good heavens, child! You’re a revenant just like your father! Stay back!’ he warns her. ‘Back. Baaack. Baaaaaaaaack…’ he calls out, as the landscape around them starts to change.
‘Back’ ‘Back’ ‘Back’ the word is repeated over and over by Bishop at other stages through his mind, as Storm a.k.a. Ororo Munroe and Betsy “Psylocke” Braddock swim through a sea of Bishops. ‘Is this really what Bishop’s mind look like, Betsy?’ Storm asks her friend. ‘It is when it’s being torn apart, Storm’ Betsy replies, as pink pigs with a large M over one eye fly past them. Psylocke reports that someone, or something, in the future took control of Bishop and brought him back to the present, then they used him to attack them. ‘Now they’re gone and trying to cover their tracks by destroying his mind from the inside. It will kill him - unless we can figure out who did this’ Psylocke explains.
Continuing on through Bishop’s mind, Betsy tells Storm that she saw it before, this mental labyrinth, in better shape than it is now. She explains to Storm that they must navigate it, come through his memories of the future. ‘Where is this?’ Storm asks, as they see Bishop confronted by a peculiar creature with a rocky hide, horns and large teeth. Betsy explains that this is the 68th century, right after the last time anyone saw Bishop - he got banished to the future and left for dead. Storm reminds Betsy that Bishop was psychotic, that he was obsessed with killing Hope, that she was just a child and there was no other choice.
They look at Bishop at what they think is a year later, and Storm remarks that it is unimaginable to survive for so long on your own in such a harsh world. Bishop is seemingly killed by the strange creature, but Storm points out that he can’t be dead, as he came back to them in the present.
‘But that’s all there is in this memory. Just death. He died’ Psylocke points out, before remarking that she doesn’t know where they are now, when she sees a tribe of people in black and orange costumes, riding orange deer, collect Bishop’s body. ‘What are they doing?’ Betsy wonders as the three people surround him… and apparently resurrect him. ‘He lives!’ Storm gasps.
Another memory appears as the landscape changes - ‘This city… it’s beautiful!’ Storm gasps as they look upon the small city built into the side of a hill. Betsy reports that Bishop’s memory calls this place the Order, that they saved him, to train him to become a hunter. They see him with other members of the Order, as he kneels before an elder, ‘Rise, Lucas Bishop, and shine a light in this dark world. Take your place among the Order’ he is told.
Betsy tells Storm that Bishop’s psyche won’t last much longer, that they are running out of time, and if they stay they will be trapped and Bishop will die. The landscape changes around them once more, ‘Betsy, down there! The memory we glimpsed before…’ Storm tells her friend, as they see Bishop being confronted by Amber. ‘Good heavens, child! You’re a Revenant, just like your father! Stay back!’ But the girl’s eyes return to normal and the large teeth vanish, as she begs Bishop not to kill her, as she is human, like him. ‘I swear!’ she calls out, before she collapses.
Later, Bishop sits before a fire that he has built, and Amber is wrapped in Bishop’s cloak. He tells her that she should sleep, as he gave her a poultice to help fight the Revenant within her. ‘It’s forbidden knowledge. I’m not supposed to -’ he begins, before Amber thanks him. She asks him if he has a family back home, to which Bishop replies that he doesn’t, but he used to think so. ‘A girl. About your age. Her name was Hope. Told myself I was a father figure, but I know better now’. Bishop admits that he was a monster to Hope, like Amber’s father when he found her. He thought he was doing the right thing, but he was wrong. ‘My home… is a long, long way from here. I can never…’ his voice trails off as he notices Amber has fallen asleep, and he remembers being told by a member of the Order that once infected by a Revenant, they can never be saved, that they must all be killed, immediately and without exception.
Storm and Betsy see Bishop pull out a knife, and look at Amber. ‘Is Bishop going kill her?’ Storm asks. ‘That was his training’ Betsy reminds Storm, when suddenly, there is a rumbling, and both women start to fall, as Betsy tells Storm to hang on, as the devastation is spreading.
Reality:
In a warehouse, the bodies of Betsy, Storm and Bishop are slumped against a wall. ‘Betsy… Betsy…’ Storm utters as her psyche falls through Bishop’s mind.
‘How long is this psychic rescue gonna take?’ Eugene Milton Judd a.k.a. Puck mutters from where he sits nearby, keeping an eye on his companions. ‘I am bored as #$%&’. ‘Getting tired?’ Spiral asks him from where she is tied to a post, all six arms restrained. Judd looks at Spiral and tells her not to worry about him, as he is a hundred years old, and can still go all night. ‘You don’t happen to have an Xbox, do you?’ he asks her. ‘No. but I do have Jagermeister’ Spiral grins. Puck grins back and gets up. ‘Do you…? Now we’re talking!’ he exclaims.
Inside Bishop’s mind:
Storm steadies herself on a fragment of psyche, while calling out to Betsy, whom she can’t see. What she does see is another memory, this time of Bishop, before he was trapped in the future, a time he went rogue, convinced that Hope, the first new mutant in years, would trigger an apocalyptic future. Bishop rationalized that he must kill Hope, and he was relentless, unstoppable and dedicated to murdering the child, no matter who got in the way. Even in the labyrinth, the memory of Bishop’s brutality and commitment shocks and angers Storm. She is still angry that Bishop’s obsession took him away from the X-Men and away from her. She rationalizes that to get her friend back, she must kill that memory - and fires a blast of lightning at both Hope and Bishop.
Up above, clinging to another strand of psyche, Betsy calls out to Storm, ‘Where are you?’ she asks, before Storm flies over to her. ‘Ororo! I thought I lost you!’ Betsy gasps. Ororo assures Betsy that she is all right, and suggests that they get out of this madhouse.
They see another memory, of Bishop in a village, being told by a man to go home and never come back, as they don’t have food for outsiders like him. Another man suddenly recognizes Bishop as one of them - a Brother of the Order, who hunt the Revenants. He pleads with Bishop to help them, as they are terrorized by Revenants, that nearly every night they kill another one of the villagers and even take their children. ‘And in the forest - a bull Revenant’ he explains. Bishop reveals that he has been tracking the bull revenant for two months, and asks where he can find it.
Soon, Bishop and Amber are at a lookout built into a tree, and Bishop tells Amber that the most evil Revenants are psychic creatures who possess humans, like they did with her father. He explains that bull Revenants pull together physical forms of their own, powerful enough creatures and tough. Bishop adds that the Order uses the word of their prophet Sibyline the Haruspex to shine a light in the darkness. He adds that they dedicate their lives to protecting humanity from the dark specters, these evil mirrors of their own souls. ‘Bishop - he didn’t kill the child’ Storm points out. ‘Surprised?’ Betsy asks her friend. Storm tells Betsy that after everything Bishop did in his single-minded quest to kill Hope, yes, she is surprised.
Amber asks Bishop if they know how to kill Revenants where he comes from. Bishop explains that where he comes from, there aren’t many Revenants at all, as humans didn’t always live in fear of them, not until the Great Corruption. Bishop recalls his time with the Order, being told that the Haruspex warns them of the one who brought the Great Corruption, an immortal Revenant in the form of a Great White Owl. Amber asks Bishop how many Revenants he has killed, and he reveals that he has killed at least one a day since he took his sacred vows, as he has sins to atone for. ‘Hang on’ Bishop calls out as he looks through a telescope, and sees a figure moving through the forest. ‘Oh my God - it can’t be’ Bishop gasps, when suddenly, a huge bear moves up and destroys the platform he and Amber are resting on, knocking Bishop off it.
The bear growls at them, and Bishop calls out to Amber, while striking the bear with some blasts of energy. Bishop hangs onto a rope that was attached to the platform, and swings in the air, while declaring that it was a trap, he tells Amber to run. Amber clings to the rope ladder that runs up the side of the tree. The bear thrashes about and flings some dirt up to Bishop, who fires a blast, shattering the dirt into smaller clumps. The bear continues to reach out for Bishop, who urges Amber to run. The girl has made it to the ground and has indeed started to run. ‘Run to the order! Tell them what you saw! Tell them - she’s here!’ Bishop calls out as he falls between the bear’s large claws. Suddenly, the figure whom Bishop saw in the woods appears. ‘It’s the Great White Owl! The Queen of the Revenants is here!’ Bishop warns Amber.
‘Lucas Bishop. I have waited centuries for you to appear’ the Queen of the Revenants declares. She puts a hand to Bishop’s face, and tells him that they are going on a journey together - to the past. Betsy and Storm are still watching, and Betsy announces that this is where the Great White Owl takes possession of him, like they saw at the fountain with Ginny. ‘Whoever the Owl woman is, she forced Bishop to attack us’ Storm declares. The psychic strands that they stand on start to change again, ‘What happened to the memory? What’s going on?’ Storm asks. Betsy explains that the psychic devastation has caught up to them, but that it doesn’t matter, as she knows what they are looking for, she knows what is destroying Bishop. ‘Reveal yourself - DEMON BEAR!’ Betsy screams, and the powerful Demon Bear appears before Betsy and Storm, reaching down for them.
Betsy sees in the Demon Bear’s back, a lance, and points out that the Demon Bear can’t reach it. She explains that he isn’t malicious, but wounded, mad with rage. Betsy asks Storm to cover her, and she floats up towards the Demon Bear, despite Storm telling her to wait. ‘If I can quell the bear - we may save Bishop!’ Betsy explains. She pulls at the lance, and the bear growls. ‘It won’t budge!’ Betsy calls out as she tries to pull harder.
Reality:
In the warehouse, Storm, Betsy and Bishop are all still unconscious, while Puck balances on one hand, upside down, he is telling Spiral a joke, unaware that she is slowly freeing herself from the ropes that bind her arms. ‘So the other guy says, if that’s the dog then where’s the girl from the back of my truck?’ Puck laughs. ‘Haha! What an entirely offensive story - sorry I won’t be able to stay for the sequel!’ Spiral calls out as she leaps at Puck, but he realizes she is attacking, and he spins around, knocking her into a wall. Puck goes into a fit of laughter, ‘Look at you!’ he points at Spiral. Spiral gets to her feet, ‘Nice move, dwarf. Care to up the stakes?’ she asks, before Puck tells her to wait, and turning to Bishop, Storm and Betsy, announces that something is missing. ‘Where the #$%& is Psylocke?’ Puck exclaims.
Indeed, Betsy’s unconscious body is in a hovercraft, speeding along a road, with Cluster at the wheel. ‘I stole you right out from under their noses. Not that those drunk buffoons presented much of a challenge’ Cluster remarks. She looks at Betsy’s body, blood tricking from her nose and mouth, and tells her not to worry, that she is safe with her now….
