Prisoner of Fire

• Writer - Chris Claremont
• Penciler - Igor Kordey
• Inker - Greg Adams
• Lettering - Rus Wooton
• Colorist - Liquid!
• Ass't Editor - Stephannie Moore
• Ass't Editor - Cory Sedlmeier
• Editor - Mike Marts
• Editor in Chief - Joe Quesada

Ambush

Summary

  Bogan, in tar-black female form, leans against a palm tree while Rogue and Remy stroll down the beach. They kiss; Lucas jogs by, startling Rogue; Remy decides to invite everyone to a clambake.

  In the beach house, Whedon hates lawyers: Malloy is going to prison, but he still won't talk, and every lead is a dead end. Marie asks why she hired her after she tried to kill mutants; she says Marie is only on probation. Whedon had been a prosecutor but was fired the day "they" learned she was a mutant. Her parents and fiancé rejected her, too, and with her power she could have gone Godzilla, but she found a way to build, not destroy. The sun is setting, so it's safe for her to turn dragon and stretch her wings.

  Marie finds Sage busy doing research; she apologizes for trying to kill her and asks about her power; Sage says she's a cyberpath, able to think and intuit quicker than a computer, but still limited to available data. She trying to determine why Valle Soleada is so important, and who benefits from the turmoil; she's tracked the X-Corp headquarters to 1921, when a mansion stood there. She realizes the X-mansion is offline (see X-Men II:146) and alerts Ororo.

  Around a fire on the beach, Lila plays guitar, Sam lies in her lap and sips wine, and Rogue and Remy dance. Sam talks darkly about Havok and Polaris's failed romance (X-Men I:425); Lila says he listens to too much country music. He's really worried about his sister, Husk, who he thinks is too young to be getting serious with Archangel. Rogue reminds him he can't get involved; Husk needs to make up her own mind, but she says his parents would be proud of him.

  Whedon lands and morphs back to human form; she's carried Magma and Sunspot; Sam invited everyone, since the X-Men have become splintered and they don't see each other often enough. Sage was busy, and Lucas may turn up later.

  Lucas is still jogging on the beach, planning ways to kill various X-Men if he ever had to. A jeep pulls up in front of him, and Manacle attacks, wrapping his arm in chain. Lucas yanks it, pulling Manacle off his feet, but then he gets shot repeatedly and falls into the water. He realizes it's Rolling Thunder, whom he knew as an adult, and this is how she started. Then he gets slammed by Cudgel and Bludgeon (X-Men I:383), and Manacle wraps him and tosses him to Revenant, their leader.

  Lucas has absorbed all this kinetic energy, and he blasts them all down. He gets his sunglasses to contact Sage, but Bogan sneak up on him and puts a hand through his head. He collapses; Bogan uses the sunglasses to make sure nobody's the wiser.