Prisoner of Fire

Liberation

Summary

  Lucas has phased a hand through the head of Bogan's pet telepath, as part of Sage's plan to free her, but Bogan anticipated this and used Magma to attack Sage.

  Bogan talks to Sage, asking if she's surprised to be alive. He sees her various personas: X-Man, Hellfire Club girl, guerilla; he admires her absolute precision and asks how Xavier was able to gain her loyalty. She remembers: the Hindu Kush, maybe 20 years ago; she watches an attack in the Afghan mountains and suddenly realizes she isn't alone. She follows a voice in her head, half-believing old wives' tales of demons in the caves. She finds Xavier trapped under fallen rocks (cf. X-Men I:20).

  Bogan's telepath congratulates Lucas on surprising her, but then she exudes energy and tosses him away. Kitty phases through her, but she anticipated that and "cross-polarized the molecular valences of my physicality, so passing though me felt like a session with a buzz saw." Remy and Rogue spar with the telepath; Kitty realizes who she is and tries to warn them, but Bogan takes control of their minds.

  Sage binds Xavier's crushed legs; he explains his telepathy is because he's a mutant, and she must be, too, since her mind is naturally walled off. She had kept her power of total recall a secret; he says it's not weak to ask for help, and he asks for hers. She drags him out of the cave and scouts for an escape route; Bogan reveals himself in the memory of Xavier and says she's changing history. He says her teammates are heroes, but she's a monster, which is why Xavier didn't put her in the X-Men. Sage shoots at Afghan raiders killing soldiers in the valley; she finds a dead woman soldier and is horrified; she takes her dog tags.

  Bogan asks the X-Men what they think of Sage now, having seen her memories; they are disturbed but stick by her, saying they fight because they've all seen the alternative. Kitty confronts the telepath, saying they're better than Bogan because they help each other. Bogan threatens but then releases them; they wake to hear Magma screaming that she's been forced to kill Sage. Remy gets Sam to punch the lava rock just so, to shatter it; Sage falls into Lucas's arms, shaken but alive. She finally asks for their help, and remembers she joined Xavier's team because he saw her and still thought her worthy.

  Rogue enters Bogan's crystal and is immediately attacked with various debris, while Kitty sneaks by and gets to the chained telepath. Outside, Lucas powers Sage, who borrows Xavier's strategy (against the Z'Nox, X-Men I:65), using Rogue as a lens to zap Bogan. She then uses her telepathy to break the chains, planning to follow them to Bogan himself; Rogue overhears and stops her from martyring herself. Four emerge from the crystal: Sage, Rogue, Kitty, and Rachel Summers, who had been Bogan's captive telepath.

  Note: Rachel was, of course, the third Phoenix in Marvel Comics and the second on the X-Men (X-Men I:188-209), afterwards moving to Excalibur. She was lost in the timestream till Cable brought her back (Cable 85-86), and was recently at college (Cable 92-95). She would have been Mother Askani of Cable's timeline, but that was aborted by The Twelve storyline (X-Men II:97).