Prisoner of Fire

Liberation

Summary

  The team returns to Rogue's beach house; there, Marie opens the closet and is horrified to find Callisto with her many, snaky arms, which attack her. Ororo orders Callisto to stand down, and so does Whedon, who starts to turn into a dragon. Callisto tells them to calm themselves, and Kitty phases in, ordering them to keep quiet because Rachel is sleeping. She and Ororo stiffly greet one another; Ororo checks that Rachel is okay; Kitty tells Callisto to keep her tentacles to herself, so she instead entangles herself around Ororo; Kitty and Marie stand amazed, and Sapphic love is implied.

  Kitty looks in the closet and finds Lila's place; she's intrigued by a sentient AI in a tesseract, but Callisto pulls her away, and she can't phase through her tentacles. She and Ororo want a briefing: Kitty says Sage brought her in as a wild card against Bogan, knowing Rachel was his tool. The team is still searching the catacombs for him.

  Lucas, Sunspot, and Magma find his library, full of dinosaur trophies and books about cruelty: unsurprising for the first Lord Imperial of the Hellfire Club. A level above them, Sage and Remy break into the throne room; Remy is tempted but realizes these things are too tainted to steal. Sunspot sees a mannequin with a Roman suit of armor; Magma realizes the sword was her father's and the necklace her mother's; Bogan greets her, and masks fall from the mannequin onto all their faces. As Bogan takes control, Sage shoots Remy; Rachel wakes screaming and uses TK to push everyone in the beach house into Lila's apartment, where they'll be safe.

  Magma is confronted by Selene (cf. New Mutants I:9-11); Sunspot sees himself as the newly crowned Lord Imperial; Rogue sees her friends dead at Vargas's hand, so she transforms herself into Mystique and kisses him. Lucas meditates and easily rips Bogan's mask from his face. Remy wakes Sage; she shot him in the body armor so he couldn't be mind-controlled, being dazed. Rogue eviscerates Vargas, insisting she's an X-Man to the end, freeing herself. Sunspot rejects his crown, freeing himself. Magma realizes it's really Bogan and rejects him violently, causing an earthquake in reality, so Lucas drains power from Sunspot and blasts upward to make an exit. Sam swoops in, carrying Rogue and Skids, and picks up Sage and Remy. Lucas and Sunspot are left with the unconscious Magma, and lava rises around them, but it lifts the rock they're on to the surface, where they jump to safety. Magma wakes, apologizing for destroying the X-Corp building; Sunspot says she had to, and, anyway, it's insured; Remy wonders how they'll explain the volcano where the building used to be.