She can’t tell if he is dead or not, Wilhelmina Kensington announces to the rest of the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle as she looks down on Kade Kilgore. She intends to pull out a few of his fingernails to see. Kade pushes her aside, snarling he’s not dead. Wilhelmina is still intrigued with the fingernail idea.
Kade asks Manuel and Maximilan what happened. Manuel suggests Kade got his butt kicked by Idie. He told him, making her Black Queen was a bad idea. Max adds they have visitors.
Seeing what’s going on, Kade exclaims this is too soon. Maybe he should tell them that, Manuel mutters. What they are talking about is an attack by a walking Krakoa, an ice-giant and an X-jet.
Kade helplessly demands an emergency teachers meeting. Manuel remarks getting them to work together is like herding cats. If cats were super-powered and homicidal. Kade demands they do something. Max tells him to relax. They didn’t build this school on an archipelago of sentient volcanic man-eating islands for nothing. Several Krakoas rise and the fight is on.
The X-Men and the creatures do battle. Kitty promises Iceman to let him get to second base if he kicks them in the volcanoes. Doesn’t count if she’s phased, he warns and creates a giant glacier fist which hits one of the Krakoas. Wolverine allows another one to swallow him to work his way out. Get to the school, he orders his teammates.
Inside, Manuel mocks that this has become an insanely expensive waste of time. But at least they now have a super-villain named Snot to scare the world. He’s sure that will sell lots of Sentinels. They can blow up the whole school remotely, yes?
Max asks him to give their Krakoas time. Wilhelmina suggests they start killing their own teachers. That’ll show them they mean business. Like that pageant judge mommy had dragged behind the yacht for saying she wasn’t pretty enough.
Kade snarls they are not killing anyone and they are not leaving. If they give in now, this was all for nothing. They can still make this work! They just need more time… Where is the Philistine?
Suddenly, Broo attacks Kade smelling Idie’s blood on him. Kade cries at the others to get him off.
Elsewhere in the building, Idie and Quentin fight their former fellow Hellions. Quentin telepathically tells Idie she should have run when she had the chance. Idie retorts she’d rather die fighting than running. Quentin pragmatically retorts he’d rather not die at all. That too, she agrees, but she never thought she’d live past thirteen anyway and it’s her fault he is here. She is sorry for everything. Everything, except the time she kissed h--
She screams in pain when Infestation’s creatures feed on her, to ease the constant pressure Infestation feels herself.
Quentin tells the others he can read their minds. He knows they don’t want to do this. Actually, Mudbug does, Glob doesn’t know and Snot is about to sneeze.
Idie burns off the infestation and tells the other girl it’s not as easy being a remorseless murderer as she might think. Just look at Toad. If not for him, she’d be murdering someone right now but she’d rather feel what he feels. He’s what it looks like to be in love.
Unfortunately, he looks like choking right now at the hands of a murderous Husk.
Kitty has phased inside the school building but senses a kind of interfering energy which also disrupts Rachel’s telepathy. She decides to search every room.
Outside, the other X-Men are still fighting the Krakoas, and finally the evil teachers. Kick their damn asses! Wolverine orders.
Beast attacks a howling Wendigo. Mystique snarls at Warbird that she is foolish to have made this fight her own. Says the woman who was foolish enough to bring a gun to a swordfight! Warbird retorts. Sauron wants Angel’s pure energy. He hasn’t much to spare, Angel points out apologetically.
Addressing Wolverine as “James Howlett,” Master Pandemonium informs him they remember him in hell. And they are preparing quite the reception for his return. He’s preparing to stab him in the face if he doesn’t tell him where the kids are, is the reply.
Elsewhere, Doop peers into a room to see if there are any of their kids. Instead, he finds Madam Mondo, who welcomes him to her 3-D theater of terror. Prepare to have his mind melted by the strangest cinema this side of the Wildways. Behold film so avant-garde and daring he will eat out his eyeballs to make it stop.
Doop realizes she is right. He spits up the video Doop home movies from 1994 and puts it into a player and soon both are screaming in terror…
As is Kade, when Broo tries to eat him. The other Lords Cardinal mildly wonder if they should help. Max and Manuel aren’t interested and Wilhelmina wants a doggie like that. Suddenly, Broo hears a command in an alien language and runs off.
Kade berates his fellow Lords Cardinal for not helping him. He tells them it is time to stop acting like petulant children. Who’s really being the child here? Manuel asks. His little experiment was a flop. It’s way past time he accepts this so they can get back to who they are supposed to be. Nobody’s leaving! Kade rants. He has never failed in anything in his entire life. No one has his permission to leave! Class is not dismissed!
Broo follows Xanto Starblood’s voice outside. In front of his spaceship, Starblood asks him how he would like to see the far corners of the cosmos and eat all sorts of wondrous creatures.
Inside:
As Husk throttles him, Toad tears at her face. Glob Herman tries to smother Quentin and crows, however telepathically he apologizes. He’s afraid of the Snot guy. He is sorry too, Quentin replies telepathically. Moments later, Krakoa bursts in and chomps on Glob. Quentin thanks Krakoa and manifests a psychic blade.
The Hellfire kids watch the goings-on. Manuel tells Kade the Hellions will fall. Just like they are going to fall if they don’t pull the plug. Kade stubbornly insists Manuel is not seeing it right.
Dog comes in, carrying the “weird mirror” and mentioning the X-Men are outside kicking everybody’s asses.
Max tells Kade he has lost it. Kade’s eyes are glued to the screen. They are all in position… this is better than he could have imagined… this is the beginning of a new age of Hellfire!
Manuel and Max exchange a silent look and go for their guns behind his back.
He’s won! Kade shouts.
