In an ice-cold ocean far away from the Savage Land…
Swimming below the surface of the ocean, a panicking Amphibius encourages himself not to give up. He is determined to find the person he is looking for. And so, a little while further, the mutated creature finally finds his objective: Magneto! Amphibius quickly grabs his fallen master, floating unconscious in the deep, and drags them both back to shore. Though Amphibius doesn’t know the island he is heading towards to, he realizes he can’t give up if he wants his master to survive.
Meanwhile at Muir Island…
Moira concludes the examination on Jean Grey’s body. She confirms to the Professor that something definitely has happened while she and the other X-Men where in space but, whatever it was, it appears to be completely out of her body. Charles agrees, believing that it might have been nothing more than a dream, like Jean described the events that happened to her.
Jean isn’t so sure about that, and wants a confirmation, since they are using all of these Star Wars look-a-like devices in the lab. They should be able to detect something. Moira explains that whatever force flew into Jean’s body, it would appear it completely erased itself. But, she does warn the Professor to keep an eye open, just to be sure.
After Jean has put on her uniform again, the Professor prepares the jet to head back to the mansion. Moira meets up with Jean and asks if she can speak to her privately for a while. When Jean agrees, Moira admits she can’t help but wonder if there had to be more to Jean’s experience in outer space, and wants to know for sure if Jean really doesn’t remember anything that happened to her. Jean claims she doesn’t, only the slightest feeling of not being in control anymore of her body’s actions for a while. The force also felt like it hadn’t experience any human emotion before, and was suddenly all experiencing them all at once, through her own body!
Moira realizes the force started out with the worst emotion: hurting people and liking it. She adds that she isn’t a telepath like Jean or Charles, but that her interest lies in mutation so that’s why she wants to know about it. Jean recalls that she became a telepath when the Professor triggered those powers that lay dormant within her a while back. Jean also admits that she’s worried, especially about this research center that Moira runs. Before coming to this place, Jean had no idea it existed. She and the Professor even lied to Scott and Hank, telling them they were just going to doctors in Boston who used to be his partners. Moira defends that the lie was necessary, because there exist a lot of evil mutants who would want to destroy her center, should they know about it. This includes some non-mutants as well, like her and Charles old partner who turned evil, Karl Lykos.
Jean admits that Lykos became bad and turned into the monster called Sauron because she and the X-Men have faced him before. But, she only finds it suspicious that the Professor seems to have so many secrets he only shared with her, and not with the others. While heading back to school in their plane, Jean asks the Professor if he has more secrets. The Professor admits he has, but can’t share only a few right now with Jean. He explains he only shares them with her because, with her telepathic powers, she can shield those secrets from detection, and the others can’t. Jean can almost accept that, but she isn’t sure how much longer she can lie to her friends.
Later, back at Westchester…
Once they are back home, Cyclops and Beast welcome Jean and the Professor back. After Xavier informs the two that “his old colleagues” concluded that Jean’s fine, he notices that the two aren’t doing their monitor duty, like he had ordered them to do. Scott and Hank mention that they were, but mention that Cerebro detected a new mutant, so they came here to warn him about it.
Elsewhere…
Ashley’s mom warns her daughter that she’s going to be late for her bus to school if she doesn’t speed up. When her mom can’t find Ashley, she panics a bit. Ashley suddenly comes running through the kitchen door and, after taking her bag, she takes off without mentioning what she was doing. Mrs. Martin notices that the door of the barn behind their house is still open, and wonders what her daughter was doing in there.
Back at the school, Xavier discovers why Hank was feeling so edgy. The signal of the new mutant is strong and shows a lot of potential, but it’s also close to his birth town of Dunfee in Illinois, and his parents still live there. So, the Professor agrees for Hank to join him in the investigation, just to make sure his parents are alright. P>
Once in Dunfee, the mini-Cerebro still hasn’t found a better location of the mutant. Xavier suspects that some sort of signal might be blocking the tracking device, but isn’t sure about it. As they arrive at Hank’s parent’s house, Hank thinks about the fact that it hasn’t been that long since he left this home to join the X-Men. However, with so much having happened in such a short amount of time, it feels like years since the last time he was there.
Hank’s mother happily meets up with him, and hugs Hank for visiting her. She also shakes hands with the Professor and feels honored. When she asks what brings them there, Hank mentions that they are looking for a new student to join the school, just like the Professor was doing when he first approached him. Edna invites them both in, and mentions that Hank’s father will sure be glad to see his son again once he comes back home.
At Xavier’s, Scott and Jean are trying to use the Cerebro computers to locate Warren, who is still missing. Scott thinks he might have found their friend, but the signal is weak. Suddenly, Candy approaches them. Jean recognizes her from the few times they met her with Warren, but isn’t so glad to see her at the school. She quickly explains that the Professor is aware that she knows about the X-Men’s secrets, and has granted her access to the “less sensitive parts” of the school, so that’s why none of the alarms went off when she entered the room. She also suggests that she joins in Warren’s rescue mission, because she has some important news to tell him, and she’s certain he would rather hear it from her than from anyone else!
At the same time in the Savage Land…
While in their jet, Lorna wonders what Iceman is doing there in the Savage Land, because he quit the X-Men a while ago. Alex thinks that Bobby must have caught the telepathic warning signal the Professor had send to them about the X-Men being in danger, so he did what he was trained for to do and joined the rescue mission. Ka-Zar agrees with that, but now Bobby apparently got himself into trouble. Alex doesn’t worry too much, since their mini-Cerebro has already located Bobby’s position so they shouldn’t have too much trouble picking him up.
Meanwhile, as he watches Karl Lykos work, Bobby can’t help but think about the fact that Karl looks familiar too him somehow. Karl claims that can’t be, because Bobby has amnesia and that this is the first time they met each other. However, to himself, Lykos recalls the truth.
He realizes that, if Iceman would come to recognize him, he would immediately attack him, because he is the X-Men’s old nemesis known as Sauron. He concludes that the strange and welcome peace he found in this savage place makes everything that happened seem like such a long time ago, even though it only happened a couple of weeks ago.
With the hypnotic powers of Sauron, Karl was nearly able to turn the X-Men against each other, and even have Angel help him escape. It was only when Sauron almost fatally injured the woman he loved that he realized how dangerous he was in his transformed form. It’s was after that moment that that they took him back to the place where it all began: a cabin on an icy cliff in Tierra Del Fuego. It was the place where Karl was born.
He had hoped that he could forget the trouble he caused, together with his beloved Tanya. However, he didn’t want to risk Tanya’s life anymore, fearing that Sauron’s hunger might consume her, and so he jumped off a cliff to protect her. But, an unexpected edge saved his life once again, and he wasn’t even spotted by the searching X-Men at the time. After the X-Men went back home again, Karl came out of his hiding place and discovered the beauty of the Savage Land. On a certain day, he found the old, abandoned shack of a German expedition team that was investigating the volcanoes on this island. However, with them gone, their home proved of value to Karl so he took it over.
At Dunfee…
Beast and Xavier arrive at the home of the new mutant. When nobody answers the doorbell, Hank goes to check out if everyone’s at the garden behind the house. While doing that, Hank notices that the Professor still treats him and the other students like rookies, and it seems like he hasn’t fully recovered yet from the coma he was in not too long ago. In the garden, Hank sees some dolls and a sandbox, and also a barn. He enters it, thinking somebody might be in there. However, as he searches through it, a giant robot appears behind him!
Elsewhere, across the ocean…
Jean gives Candy a spare copy of her green X-Men uniform, to protect their identities and also to protect Candy from harm during their upcoming mission. Candy doesn’t like the uniform, mostly because green has never been her color, but she understands the reasons behind it, so she puts it on.
Nearby, Scott jokingly asks if he can open his eyes again now, since flying a plane with your eyes closed isn’t so easy as it may look. When Jean says it’s okay, Scott opens his eyes to Jean’s current outfit and asks her why she is still wearing her old uniform, and gave Candy her new one. Jean defends that, with so much happened lately, wearing her old uniform helps her gain a sense of continuity. Plus, it feels comfortable.
Suddenly, they come upon the freighter Cerebro told them Angel was on. After hovering their craft next to it, they climb aboard it, but on first sight it seems like nobody is there. They search through the place and, once in the lower decks, they are attacked by lots of angry mutant-like people!
The X-Men and Candy fight, but Jean notices a weird thing about their attackers: she can’t enter their minds, and fails to get any mental imagery from these people. It seems like their minds are closed somehow. Cyclops notices that the goons are trying to prevent them from going through a door, so he blasts his way through them and through the door as well. Candy goes through it first, and notices a familiar looking white feather. Realizing it must come from Warren, Scott notices another closed door and blasts through it as well. Once going through that one, they find someone spiked against a wall!
At Dunfee…
Ashley arrives back home, and finds the Professor. Scared at a stranger in their yeard, she asks him who she is. The Professor introduces himself, and telepathically senses that Ashley really is the new mutant Cerebro found. Ashley defends that she can’t let the Professor in because her mom hasn’t come back yet. He understands.
On that very moment, an attacked Beast gets thrown through the house by… a Sentinel! The Sentinel recognizes the three nearby mutant signals, and also recognizes the data from Professor X and Beast. He quickly grabs Xavier and tries to grab Beast as well. Luckily, Hank jumps into safety, but the Sentinel strikes him down with delta-7 nerve gas.
Ashley angrily tells the Sentinel to put the two men down, as she didn’t help the robot so it could destroy her home. The Sentinel defends it can’t do that, since it’s only performing the task his creator, Lawrence Trask, programmed him to complete: Destroy all mutants!
