Storm is up in her attic home when Cyclops suddenly bursts in and attacks her. She realizes soon that her attacker is actually Candra, who is possessing Cyclops’ body. Before Candra leaves, she says she wants something back that Storm stole from her. Ororo tells Cyclops about her childhood as a thief in Cairo, and how she stole a ruby gem from a guarded building. When she stole it, lightning killed all the guards and the entire building exploded. Storm escaped, but noticed the jewel was no longer glowing as it had been. Her mentor, Achmed El-Gibar, told her it was Candra’s heart-stone, and housed her soul in some manner. Back in the present, Storm leaves to confront Candra and Cyclops tries to get help from the other X-Men.
Meanwhile in Washington, DC, Cannonball and Phoenix have a conversation about the recent assassination of Graydon Creed (see X-Factor 130). Sam thinks of his father who always promised his kids that one day they would visit the Washington monument, but he died before he could fulfill it. Now he is right in front of the monument and can only think that his father who never left Kentucky might have seen more of America and what it represents, than Sam had saw when he attended Creed’s funeral and watched the many “important“ people. Jean tells Sam that he is not to blame for the assasination, he did the best he could to prevent it.
Storm goes to the meeting place, a museum with a replica of an Egyptian temple. Candra arrives and threatens Storm by revealing that she has Karima, an orphan child taken in by El-Gibar, held hostage. She also reveals she has been using a mutant called Jamil, another of El-Gibar’s students, to find out who had her heart-stone. Jamil uses his mind-power to give Storm the illusion that her former fling, the Black Panther was there with her. She breaks the illusion and attacks, but when the smoke clears, Jamil ends up with the gem, and reveals himself to be the Shadow King (not really, see next issue).
