Enraged, Wolverine begins to slash away at everything in sight while he holds onto Silver Fox’s medicine bag. He and the others had come to Aldo Ferro’s island fortress outside of Seattle to talk… but he had to go and turn himself into a monster tree and gobble up Silver Fox!
He yells out to Ferro to bring her back or they’ll trash his whole island. Sabretooth leaps into action and agrees with Wolverine. They should trash it anyway; they need some action goin’ there. As the destruction continues, Wolverine calls out to Silver Fox, asking where she is. Maverick stands idly by and reminds them both what they’re there to do. If they can’t track down what’s messing with all of their aging-suppression factors, they’re all in a world of hurt…
John Wraith cuts him off and tells him not be such a wet blanket. He should lighten up and kick out some jams, participate in the willing destruction of private property. As he shoots one of the computers he adds that he’s sure Ferro didn’t build the spiral computer complex under his fortress for the public good. Maverick tells Wraith that he expected this from Wolverine and Sabretooth, but he thought he had more control.
Continuing to shoot his gun, Wraith informs him that they want Aldo Ferro, old El Topo himself, to come out and play, don’t they? He asks Maverick if he can think of any better way than trashing the genetic decoding computer he set up to learn the secret of age suppression from their DNA. He recommends that he get with the program. Maverick responds that he sees, it’s a means to a logical end. Shooting the computers himself he asks if that is satisfactory. Wolverine, continuing to smash things up, answers that they have to let him know they’re busting up his toys.
At the top of the spiral, Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, with spikes coming out of their faces, are standing behind Jubilee. Jubilee calls out to the crew below that they’ll never believe who just showed up. It’s Professor Xavier and Jean. She and informs Xavier that it’s too noisy down there. She asks him why doesn’t he just psi hello to them? When she turns around, “Xavier” and “Jean” have hidden their spikes. “Xavier tells Jubilee that he’d rather not, so Jubilee tells him to have it his way. There’s no way she can reach them by voice, it sounds like they’re wrecking all that computer stuff on the ramps. “Xavier” and “Jean’s” spikes return and they get a look of fear in their faces. They exclaim wrecking? Stop it!!! When Jubilee turns around she finds them both gone.
Down below, Aldo Ferro reforms and asks Wolverine, Sabretooth, Wraith and Maverick if they know what they’re doing? They’re destroying the work of a lifetime! Wolverine tells him why doesn’t he stay in one shape, howsabout pickin’ one his mother would recognize? Ferro transforms into the form of a man covered completely in metal. He asks if that is better – is it a format that they can deal with? He tells them that is the real him, the true face of Psi-Borg.
Once Ferro changes into his new form, Maverick shoots him in the head with a direct shot. After it does nothing, Maverick tells Wolverine that he hit him right between the eyes with an armor-piercing slug and it bounced off. To this, Wolverine quips that he must not have put enough English on it. He then tells Maverick to step aside and let a fella who’s the best at what he does, thrash some adamantium upside his head. When Wolverine charges Psi-Borg and tackles him, they morph through the wall itself. Wolverine mentions to him that is how he oozes outta the woodwork, part o’ the wall is some kind o’ illusion. Psi-Borg replies that the elevator behind it is not, nor is the psi-beam and proceeds to blast him with one. Outside the elevator, Sabretooth and Maverick pound on the elevator door but find it shut. Wraith tells them to stand back; he’ll slap a charge on it.
Inside the elevator, Psi-Borg kicks Wolverine in the face and tells him that he’s the real prize he wanted all along. He wants him upstairs, in his lab, where he can get a closer look at his DNA. Wolverine angrily asks him that he wants to take him upstairs and take him apart? He challenges him to see who does the takin’ apart around there. With that, he charges Psi-Borg. Borg proceeds to shoot him with his psi-beam and tells him that those are hollow threats. His psi-grip is too strong; his superior brain won’t allow him to cut him.
Wolverine battles past the psi-beam and slices through the roof of the elevator and slices the counter-weight cables. Borg points out to Wolverine that was a useless gesture. His body armor will protect him from the fall. Wolverine answers not if he slashes it off. He points out to Borg that he was thinkin’ about fallin’ and took his concentration off his psi-grip. On the main floor, Maverick notices that the elevator is coming back down. Wraith tells him that he already set the timer on the explosive charge.
When the elevator flies past them, Sabretooth mentions that Wolverine and Psi-Borg just tumbled out o’ the elevator down on the lowest level. Once Wraith’s charge goes off and blows off the elevator door, he orders the rest of his crew down the shaft cable. As they proceed down the cable shaft, Wraith points out to Maverick that he was supposed to be protecting this creep. Maverick tells him that he was just doing his job, but now, he’s looking out for number one.
At the bottom of the elevator shaft, Wraith, Sabretooth and Maverick find themselves in a snow-filled location. Wraith asks what is this winter wonderland… Sabretooth tells him that it’s another time an’ another place. As Psi-Borg continues his assault on Wolverine, he tells Sabretooth that he knows this place, he knows it too well. He then asks Wolverine isn’t that right.
Suddenly, Wolverine notices they are in front of a cabin, the cabin he shared with Silver Fox. They both thought Sabretooth had killed her there. Borg replies that they all know that she didn’t die back then, don’t they. But if she didn’t die, what was the great traumatic event that was used as the catalyst in the implanting of their false memories? He asks Wolverine if he ever wondered what was inside Silver Fox’s medicine pouch. Wolverine continues his assault and tells Borg that he can’t keep up his concentration long enough, he’s gonna slip and he’s gonna get him. Borg answers sure but, right now, let’s burn the pouch away and take a look. When the pouch is burned away, a tooth falls into Wolverine’s hand. Borg tells him that Sabretooth’s words were “that uppity squaw said no, and she knocked out his tooth.” Upon hearing that, Wolverine yells out nooooooo!!
While Psi-Borg deals with Wolverine, Wraith gives the order to rush him now, while he’s straining to hold Wolverine back. Borg asks him why do they assume that he is so easily distracted. He unleashes his psi-beams on them all and asks them don’t they remember how he fried their brains with their own horrible memory implants? He tells them that none of them has ever felt the full power of his psi-beam until now. He tells them if they think they’ve ever seen pain and terror, they haven’t seen anything yet. He is the beginning and the end of hurt and horror because he’s the guy who gave them all their worst, most terrifying memory implants. He did it for the Professor and, in return, he was supposed to get the same age-suppression factor that all of them had, but he cheated him.
So, he continues, he had to work it out on his own. He asks if they know how many combinations and permutations he had to sift through. How much easier it would have been to have a steady supply of tissue samples. But they were all so well hidden, or inaccessible the only solution was to make them all search for him. Wolverine leaps towards Borg and tells him that he slipped up, they’re goin’ to slash city. Borg tells him wrong, he’s only going where he wants him to go, or when. When Wolverine reaches him, he flies right through Borg and into the cabin… where he finds a smiling Silver Fox waiting for him.
Now “in the cabin,” Wolverine is no longer in his uniform. He asks Silver Fox what is she… Silver Fox stops him and gives him a big hug. She tells him did he think she would forget what day this is? In his mind, Wolverine knows this is a fake. It’s an illusion of Psi-Borg’s beaming into his skull. He knows it, and he don’t care because it’s so sweet. These were the best moments of his life, and he wants them any way he can get them.
Just then, Silver Fox breaks off their embrace and tells him that he needs to go get lost for an hour so she can get his surprise together. As she ushers him out the door, Logan protests but Silver Fox implores him to give her one hour and she promises him he’ll have a birthday he won’t forget. Outside Logan thinks birthday… birthday! He rushes to the door and begins to bang on it, begging to be let back in. He tells Silver Fox that he can’t leave her alone, not on his birthday. This is the day, the day…
Psi-Borg asks Wolverine what happened on his birthday. Wolverine, back in his costume, tells him that it didn’t happen. Silver Fox is alive today so she couldn’t have been killed by Sabretooth – it was all a lie. He says to Psi-Borg that it was a memory implant made up by him. Psi-Borg informs him that’s about the size of it. An implant, just like bad dreams his other buddies are having. Maverick getting his head crushed, Wraith strapped to the back of a missile, and Sabretooth getting up close and personal with a saw in a sawmill.
Wolverine approaches Psi-Borg and says that all the good times he had with Silver Fox in that cabin, all the lovin’ he had with Silver Fox in that cabin, that was all a lie!! Psi-Borg tells him of course not and asks him why would he waste his time making up all that smarmy tripe? All he ever made up and implanted was the bad stuff. Wolverine asks him that it was true, it was real? As Psi-Borg transforms his body into a tree, he tells Wolverine that it had to be real, or else the pain wouldn’t have been deep enough. He then connects with a blast to his head and asks if that could be it. The common factor that he didn’t share, the intensity of the pain? That must be it, the way physical trauma triggers the adrenals – perhaps there is a mutation that is triggered by psychic pain.
Now convinced, Psi-Borg proceeds to blast Sabretooth with a psi-beam and tells him to get up, he has work for him in the cabin. As Sabretooth busts his way into the cabin, Psi-Borg shoots Wolverine with a psi-beam and tells him to get up, he wants him to watch this very carefully.
Up above, Jubilee hears a thump behind her. She asks if that is Professor X, if he and Jean decided to come back and… She turns around and notices Shiva standing there. She asks him what he is still doing in one piece and how many of them are there. Shiva replies that he is legion. He is capable of regenerating individual modules from damaged components. He then explains that his neutralization program has reprioritized itself. His primary target is now Vole. He informs Jubilee that she will direct Shiva to Vole or Shiva will inflict serious tissue damage. Jubilee asks Vole? Oh, he means Ferro. She tells Shiva that he calls himself Psi-Borg now and that he’s down in the basement, waaaay down there. Shiva answers that he doesn’t see… Jubilee takes that moment to kick Shiva in the back and knock him over the side.
Down below, Psi-Borg orders Wolverine to watch and see what Sabretooth is doing to Silver Fox. Wolverine struggles and tells him no. All the while, he can hear Silver Fox screaming for his help and Sabretooth telling her that he will teach her to say no, “ya uppity squaw.” Plummeting towards the basement, Shiva indicates that visual scan of possible targets do not match the primary target, but voice scan is a positive match – target, code-name Vole is confirmed. Within seconds, Shiva barrels into Psi-Borg. When he does, Wolverine is free of the psi-beam. He calls out to Sabretooth that he’s his!! Just then, he leaps at Sabretooth and slices him open. Sabretooth, bleeding, exits the cabin while Wolverine checks on a prone Silver Fox.
Outside the cabin, Psi-Borg’s armor is damaged and Shiva is laying on the ground next to him. He proceeds to blast Sabretooth with a psi-beam and calls out to him to ignore his own pain and come help him. Sabretooth complies and notices that in his true form, he is old and shriveled. Transforming into a tree, Psi-Borg informs him that his mind is strong and that he has many forms.
As he runs towards the tree, Sabretooth tells it that he is ripped open. The tree replies that he can help him, just come to him. When he does, the tree wraps his branches around him and engulfs him. The tree then proceeds to shrink down to just a twig with a pod attached. Exiting the cabin, Wolverine asks where Sabretooth is. Maverick informs him that the tree ate him and then shriveled down to the little twig he sees before him and this pod. When Maverick crunches the pod, a tooth is all that is in his hand.
