At Genosha, Gambit, Storm and Jubilee are taken to a construction site where several other captured mutants are. The mutants are being forced to work but each one of them has a collar on. The collar stops a mutant from using his or her powers when it is on. The collars are turned off so the mutants can use their powers to work, but if they try anything stupid they will be turned on again. And if the mutants try to remove their collars, they will explode. The Captain of the guard tells the mutants to go and start working and deactivates the collars, so Storm rather moronically starts to fly and goes to zap the soldiers.
The collars get turned back on and Storm instantly loses her powers, including her ability to fly. A Sentinel captures her and brings her back up where Trask appears. He's moved his operation to Genosha and sees that Storm is a dangerous mutant, so he wants to have her killed. Gambit manages to convince him to keep her alive though, by saying that her powers let her create storms -once they build this dam she can fill it with water in no time.
But for now Trask has her placed where all the bad mutants go -inside something simply called "the box", which doesn't do Storm's claustrophobia any good. The other mutants are finally put to work and we get to see the likes of The Blob, who has incredible strength and Sunfire, a mutant who uses the sun to generate heat beams.
Work comes to a sudden stop when everyone sees a big explosion in the distance. Trask states "It's him" over it and has the mutants return to their cells whilst some Sentinels are dispatched to the blast zone. Whilst everyone was distracted, Jubilee takes some wire and hides it in her raincoat. Meanwhile, at the institute...
...Cyclops is worried about the X-Men at Genosha. He has tried ringing them but hasn't gotten through. Jean is sure that they are fine but they then see that Wolverine has returned, who sneezes and says that he has been at some place cold. Meanwhile, Jubilee is in luck as there has been a power outage at the prison complex, which allows her to use that wire to pick the lock.
She gets out of her cell and goes to Gambit's, telling him that she has a plan for them to get out of here. When they were walking to their cells earlier today, they walked right past the guard who controlled the mutant collars. If they took him out they could turn the collars off and it would make things a lot easier. But Gambit doesn't seem that interested and he tells her to go and tell the other mutants instead. But even they aren't bothered with her plan, thinking it will just get them into trouble. Blob tells her to go back to bed.
The lights start to come back on as the power to the complex is restored, so Jubilee runs back to her cell. Cyclops has had enough of not being able to contact the other team members on Genosha, so he, Jean and Rogue go out in the Blackbird to see what has happened to them. Xavier says he can't go however as he has some things to take care of here and as the other X-Men depart he makes a video call to someone called Moira MacTaggert.
The next morning the mutants are told to get back to work but Jubilee sees that Gambit's cell is empty. Sunfire explains that they took Gambit away in the middle of the night, but he and the other mutants are going to help her with her plan. As they walk out, the mutants attack the guards and Jubilee manages to get the collar control box, but she can't seem to get the collars to turn off! The box she has is a fake!
A Sentinel then appears and blasts the rebelling mutants before tying Jubilee up. The robot reveals that they all knew the rebellion would happen as they got tipped off by one of the mutants! Jubilee gets thrown into the box next to Storm's. Meanwhile, Trask shows Gyrich his latest, greatest creation.
Master Mold is a gigantic robot which is fully self-aware and is capable of creating Sentinel robots. Whilst Trask is happy that Master Mold can create so many Sentinels so quickly, "The Leader" and Cameron Hodge aren't quite as thrilled. The Leader says Master Mold uses up a great deal of power and last night he caused an outage. Trask says that when the dam is ready they won't have to worry about that ever happening again. They also want to know more about the rebellion that happened but Trask says they let that happen to damper the mutant's spirits, especially after they found out that had been betrayed by one of their own. Turns out Gambit was the one responsible for that! He is taken into the room.
Gyrich begins to question him and why he betrayed his friends, but he says the X-Men aren't his friends. He wants to get out of here so he proposes a deal: if he can get the other X-Men to Gyrich, he gets to go free. Gyrich agrees to this and tells two guards to take him back to his cell for now until they are ready for him. As Gambit is taken back however he distracts the guards by throwing some cards everywhere and then elbowing them both before leaping out of the vehicle.
As Gambit starts to run he suddenly gets knocked down and turns around to see that the vehicle has exploded! The one responsible appears and just wants to know one thing: where he can find the man known as "The Leader". Gambit points in the direction of the building Master Mold was in.
The stranger throws Gambit a key, which he uses to take off his collar. He gets told that the key will work on any of the collars so Gambit heads off to free the other mutants. As the rifle-wielding man moves towards his target, Cameron Hodge explains that the man is known as Cable. Cable was a mercenary in The Leader's army until he found out that this Leader wasn't the champion of democracy he thought he was. Cable left the army and has been causing them trouble ever since. Even worse, he is reportedly a mutant.
Meanwhile Gambit goes to the boxes and frees Storm and Jubilee. However he had to trash a Sentinel on the way and some guards see them and give chase. Meanwhile, Gyrich wants to know more about the mutant collars. The Leader explains that they were built by a scientist in Scotland. Gyrich wants to order thousands of them and offers the death of Cable as payment.
Their little meeting is interrupted when Cable starts blasting the building. At the dam, Storm uses his lightning to take out some guards and Gambit runs up to cause a distraction...
...so Jubilee can blast them. This time she gets the real box and turns the collars off, allowing all of the other mutants to wreck havoc.
With the guards out of the way Storm wants the other mutants to help them destroy the Sentinels, but they aren't interested. Sunfire says that they followed Jubilee last time and it ended in disaster, this time they've just been lucky and need to escape whilst they can. He leads the other mutants away. Meanwhile Cable gets inside Master Mold's chamber, taking out some Sentinels on the way. Master Mold sees him and releases a unfinished Sentinel to go deal with him.
Hello gorgeous.
The Leader is trying to get out whilst he still can when Cable runs in. But he then gets blasted by the Sentinel Master Mold sent after him. Cable shoots part of the ceiling above the Sentinel...
...who is to busy trying to shoot Cable to notice that the ceiling is going to collapse, which soon does so and crushes the robot. Outside Jubilee doesn't want Storm to use her powers yet as she hasn't recovered from her time in the box but she says she must.
Using her powers to the fullest, she destroys the dam and sends a lot of water down below. She collapses from doing this and falls out of the sky but is caught by Rogue: the other X-Men have arrived. Elsewhere Cable stops The Leader from making his escape and goes to put him out of his misery.
Hodge appears with a gun but before he can fire Cable starts to laugh and they all notice the huge waves heading straight towards them! It is too late for them to get out of the way. Master Mold knows something is up and attempts to leave only to find out that he is still plugged in! The wave hits his chamber and he and all of his Sentinels are washed away.
With the X-Men together again and the mystery of Genosha unraveled, they head back home. Cyclops tries to contact the Professor but he can't get through. They soon see why though as the Blackbird arrives they see that the Institute has been trashed! To be continued...
NOTES
Several mutants make cameo appearances in this episode, several of whom will appear as more major characters in later episodes, such as Mystique, Northstar and Aurora.