We begin with a recap of "Day of Reckoning", and then we get spiffy new credits. More or less the same music, but different animation, largely from Season 2, and showing Magneto's new friends.

We pick up where we left off.

Scott (to Mystique): You did this!

Storm asks where the Professor is, and wants to know how long Mystique has been impersonating him. Jean tries to probe Mystique's mind, but it's blocked. They all glare at each other. Then some police cars and army trucks drive up.

Army Men: Everybody freeze!
Bobby: No problem! *ices up and freezes the ground*
Army Men: *slip on the ice* Whoa!

Battle scene!

Scott zaps a truck's tire. It skids to a stop and another truck crashes into it.
Ray is now leading his New Mutant friends, minus Bobby but plus Tabitha. Two police cars show up, one on either side of them.

Ray: *fries the cars* Let's move!

His team runs after him. An army guy tackles Jamie, who dupes and runs away. The army guy is left holding a clone, which disappears.
Tabitha runs through a little woods, using her bombs to bring down trees and block her pursuers.
Wanda also runs through the woods, and uses her hex powers to blow up some guns.

Toad (hiding up a tree): Ooh, beautiful *and* bad.

Jean is caught by surprise.

Notes: A telepath, caught by surprise?

Army men: You're coming with us!
Jean: Hey!

They throw her in the back of a police car. Kurt 'ports into the front seat.

Kurt: Thanks guys! *drives away*

Notes: His voice sounds a little strange here. Or maybe it's just me.

Kitty: Kurt, wait! *phases through some army guys who are trying to block her*

Kurt skids to a stop and Kitty phases through the door into the backseat.
Bobby is using his powers at something off-screen. The car stops, someone opens the passenger door, and he jumps in.
Meanwhile, Scott is surrounded by trucks and army guys. Storm swoops down and carries him away.
Back to the car. They drive up to a police blockade, so Jean levitates the whole car.

Notes: Oh, come on. The single hardest thing to do by telekinesis is to levitate oneself. Are they suggesting that Jean is strong enough to lift a car containing herself and three other people? I really don't think so.

Scott (voiceover): Everyone, meet tonight at Lookout Point.

Show within a show!

Here it just shows a TV, playing the Channel 9 news. Kitty and Jean are positively ID'ed. Reporters talk about the 'mutant menace'. A reporter lady at Bayville High mentions the 'strange phenomena' there. They show the captured mutants being loaded onto a truck. We hear reports from the Pentagon and the White House. The president urges everyone to stay calm. It's sort of...disorganized.

New scene...

A couple of police cars drive past an alley. Officers on foot look down it with flashlights, and see only trash.
After they leave, Ray and his team pop out from behind the junk.

Notes: How predictable...

Ray leads them to a sewer opening, and we assume they go down.

New scene...

Bobby, Kurt, Jean, and Kitty are standing around. They hear a noise behind them, and Bobby uses his powers all over a tree. It's just Scott and Ororo.

Bobby: Sorry, seems like everyone is out hunting mutants.

Then Mystique and her gang show up. She gives a pretty coherent speech about how she wasn't in with Magneto, and says that the public reaction proves that Xavier's dream is an impossibility.
Jean asks what she wants, and Mystique answers that she wants to recover Fred, but doesn't know where to look.
Then Nick Fury shows up.

Notes: Logan's friend from Shield. Showed up in "Operation: Rebirth", wears an eyepatch. You know him.

Kurt: Man, is there anyone who *didn't* know about this secret meeting?

Fury introduces himself, and Scott briefly explains Shield to the clueless.

Mystique (to Fury): I strongly suggest you forget where you saw us.

She snaps her fingers and her team moves into battle positions.
Fury snaps his fingers, and more army men, with lots of guns, appear out of the bushes.

Commercial break!

Fury snaps again, and his men stand down.

Fury: That was just to prove a point. If I'd wanted to capture you, you'd be captured.
Storm: Then what *do* you want?

Fury gives her a little thingie. He says it has maps and schematics of where the prisoners are.

Mystique: And why are you being so helpful?
Fury: Let's just say...I have my reasons.

Notes: A debt to Logan?

Fury says he can't get involved officially, but he wishes them good luck. Then he leaves.

Lance: *runs over to the bushes* He's gone! Do you think we can trust him?

Jean says she sensed he was telling the truth. Storm begins to take charge of the mission. Mystique snatches the device and says that she's running the show.
Storm gets mad and starts to make some lightning, but Jean tells her to stop.
Mystique wants to find out if Magneto really died. She tells Toad to go to New York, and Wanda says she'll go with him.
Mystique then says the rest of them will plan a rescue mission.

Mystique: Now we'll need some transportation.

Scene change!

A guard is patrolling around a helicopter. He sits on one of the sawhorses surrounding it and reports into his walkie-talkie that it's all quiet.
In the background, the helicopter lifts silently and floats over the perimeter fence to where the teams are standing.

Notes: Jean again! They do show some mild exertion here, but still.

The guard turns around, fails to see the helicopter, and falls over.

Scene change!

Bobby, Lance, Kurt, Kitty, Jean, Scott, Ororo, and Mystique are in the helicopter.
Mystique reads a set of coordinates (from Fury's thingie) to Ororo, who's flying. She doesn't look very happy to be taking orders.

Bobby: *looks at a map* Hey, that's Nevada! Area 51!

Scene change!

Wanda and Toad are standing on top of a building in New York. Through binoculars, they watch a crane lift the smashed Sentinel. Magneto isn't there! Wanda's all mad that he escaped.

Toad: I know someone who needs a hug. *hugs her*
Wanda: *stomps on Toad's foot*
Toad: Ow, ow...the malicious pain of l'amour...ow...

Wanda needs proof, and Toad points to a news van down on the street.

Inside the news van, a guy is working. There's a lot of banging on the door, and he goes to open it. Toad does something to him which is only seen in silhouette. They go in.
Toad brings up the footage from the previous day, and has some fun looking at the shots of himself on the street lamp. Wanda yells at him to go forward.
They watch the Sentinel fall on Magneto.

Toad: Wow, I feel your pain, but...your dad looks pretty well squashed.
Wanda: Play it again, in slow motion.

Toad goes back and slowly advances the tape.

Toad: Yo, that's Pietro!
Wanda: Looks like my dear brother performed a last-minute rescue.
Toad: Which means...
Wanda: ...that means Magneto is still alive! *blows up screens with powers*

Notes: Okay, when they slo-mo, you see Magneto standing under the robot, and then Pietro runs by and grabs him.
Now, at the point where Toad and Wanda are watching in regular speed, I put it on slow, and could clearly see Magneto fall to the ground and get crushed. What's up with that?

New scene!

Ray and his gang are walking through the sewers.

Tabitha: A little paint, a little wallpaper...this place could be downright spooky.

A dark figure appears in front of them and asks what they're doing there. Ray says they're mutants looking for a safe place. The figure knows...he always knows. He tells them to follow him and they will be safe.

Notes: People more familiar with the comics suggest this is Caliban.

New scene!

A large bird flies into the base at Area 51.

A soldier-looking guy goes into the surveillance room. The guard there has a doughnut and coffee. The soldier tells the guard to go see his commanding officer, and he leaves.
The soldier turns back into Mystique and sits down. She talks to the six teenagers, I'm not sure how, and tells them she's turned off the detectors on the perimeter fence.
Kurt and Kitty use their amazing powers of sneaking-around to get everyone in.
Mystique tells Ororo, in the Velocity (helicopter) to wait. Ororo says to make sure everyone gets out safely.

Scene change.

Two scientists are using some sort of tool to free Fred from the green goop.
Meanwhile, a really scary army guy is questioning Logan.

Really Scary Army Guy: Who are you? Who do you work for? Did you build that robot? I want answers!

Logan growls in the guy's face and tries to break the chains holding him onto a table.
We see Evan and Beast in glass cages in the background.

Scene change.

The six teenagers are running down hallways. Bobby is holding Fury's device, with a nifty little map on the screen. He takes Kitty down a side hall, while the others go straight.
Mystique, from the surveillance room, tells him which door to go in, and says she's disabling the motion sensors.
The guard comes back (with a soft drink), says his commanding officer didn't want him, and sees Mystique. She gives him a boot to the head, and he's out.

Back to the hallway.

Bobby and Kitty get to the door.

Sign: Main Circuit Room. Authorized Personnel Only.

Kitty phases them halfway in, and sees that the sensors are still on. Bobby makes an ice slide to the other side of the room.
They get off in front of a control panel. Bobby opens it and looks in at the mess of wires.

Kitty: Are you sure you know what you're doing?
Bobby: If I don't, every alarm in this place is about to go off.

He twirls his wire-cutter (where'd that come from?), and cuts something. Nothing happens. He looks surprised, then goes back to being cool. He spins the thing again, but drops it on the sensors. The alarms go off.

Kitty: You mean like that?

In the building, army guys are running everywhere. Trucks and helicopters are being dispatched.
We see the team of four again. They're surrounded.

Kurt: Well, so much for the stealth portion of our plan!

Commercial break!

Jean uses her powers to throw some of the men, and Lance knocks over the rest with a small earthquake. They run, and meet Mystique coming out of another hallway.
She takes Kurt and tells the other three to stay and fight.
In the other room, Logan motions to Evan. He shoots a spike through one of the air holes in his cage and hits the tiny little chain holding Logan's arm.
Logan than claws up his other chains, jumps off the table, and throws it at some guards. He dices up Evan's cage, and Evan jumps out.
Then Evan throws a ring of spikes at Rogue's cage. Beast, freed by an unseen method, smashes her glass, and they're all free.
Fred breaks out of his goo, lifts his free-standing cage, and throws it across the room. It's now upside-down. Logan and Beast start trashing army guys and throwing them in the cage.
Kurt and Mystique port in.

Logan: 'Bout time you got here, Elf...what's she doing here?
Kurt: Well, it's kinda complicated. See...
Mystique: We'll send you a memo!

They all run out, and rejoin the other three. The exits are all sealing off.

Bobby (offscreen): Over here!

Now they're all back together. They climb a ladder and escape out a hatch onto the roof. How cliche.
Fred gets stuck in the hatch.

Kitty: Like, don't sweat it! *phases him out*

Mystique: *climbing the ladder* Velocity, we need pick-up at Building 5.
Scott: *closes the grate*
Mystique: What are you doing? Let me through!
Scott: Where's Professor X?
Mystique: Release me or you'll never know!
Scott: You have three seconds, lady.
Mystique: Let me pass!
Scott: *slams the hatch*
Lance: Hey, what are you doing?
Scott: She got what she deserved!
Jean: Hey, come on! You guys can tear each other apart later.
Lance: Oh, we will. I guarantee it.

They all get into the Velocity and fly away. Scott, a little late, is hanging from the hatch. He swings dramatically, and then Beast helps him in.
Guns on the roof swivel and aim at them. Storm blasts them with lightning.

Notes: From inside the jet? How does that work?

Military planes chase them and shoot missiles. Scott and Bobby open the hatch and destroy the missiles with their powers.

New scene.

Sign: The Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House. Established 1860.

Toad comes jumping down the roofs, carrying a bag. Lance pulls him into a corner and looks in the bag.

Lance: Hey, these are all Wanda's clothes! *holds up a piece of lingerie*
Wanda: *grabs it*
Lance: What about us?
Toad: Hey, who cares what we wear?

He recommends an outfit to Wanda, and she hits him.

Meanwhile, Logan is looking at the destroyed Institute through binoculars.

Kitty: The Institute is gone, the Professor is missing, we can't go to school, and it's open season on mutants.
Kurt: Look at the bright side...no homework.

Scott is feeling guilty and bashing himself. Jean tells him it's not his fault.

Scott: Without Mystique, there's no way to find the Professor!
Logan: Hey, if you hadn'ta done it, I woulda. We'll find him without her.

Storm says that they have to teach the public that they are the good guys...before it's too late.

The End

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