Putting The Cat Out

• Writer - Scott Lobdell
• Penciler - John Romita Jr.
• Inker - Dan Green
• Inker - Al Vey
• Lettering - Chris Eliopoulos
• Colorist - Steve Buccellato
• Colorist - Marie Javins
• Editor - Bob Harras
• Editor in Chief - Tom Defalco

Summary

  Jubilee yells at Hank, who is performing a diagnostic on the Shi'ar power core when he's supposed to be taking her into Salem Center for a movie. She tries to get Bobby to take her, but he's busy enhancing security around the med lab. So she waits for Hank: "Almost done." "Then you'll probably have to shed or something!"

  Bishop sits in the snow, remembering when his sister Shard showed him they could absorb the energy of it melting (but from their body heat, so it shouldn't work). Ororo checks if he's okay, before she goes into town. He says he's trying to start living in the moment and playfully throws a snowball at him. She easily avoids it, then buries him in a snow bank.

  Sabretooth is in his cell, raging. Hank finds a glitch in the core, caused by Magneto's E-M pulse (X-Men II:25), and the power goes off. Bobby tries to cover Frost, still comatose, as both of them are caught in an energy backlash. Hank alerts Bishop, who runs to secure the tiger in the tank, who has got loose and got Jubilee by the hair.

  Bishop runs with his hands tearing through the walls, absorbing any residual energy. Jubilee tries her best: "Eat host plasma bursts! Ya' third-rate Wolverine wannabe loser nobody!" Sabretooth tosses her away, and she breaks a rib. She wishes Logan were there.

  Bishop bursts through the wall, and Sabretooth flees. Jubilee is scared to be alone, but Bishop has to chase Sabretooth before he gets to the Morlock tunnel entrance. Hank is frantically making repairs, ten seconds from a core meltdown.

  Sabretooth tries to jump Bishop, but he blasts him and grabs his head. He says he wishes he could just execute him; Sabretooth says he's bluffing and has run out of energy, and dares him to kill him before he rips his face off. Unexpectedly, Jubilee has arrived and zaps him into unconsciousness with a taser.

  Hank has restored the core; Bobby is unconscious and lying across Frost.

  Ororo is in a nightclub in the city meeting Yukio. She realizes she is panicked, under a calm faÁade. She is being hit on by triplets, who now reveal themselves to be Phalanx. Ororo tells Yukio they should have met at the mansion.