At a house on a snowy mountain, we see two people inside. One is Warren Worthington the third, the other is his girlfriend. The two are talking about a scientist Warren knows called Dr. Adler who he sent to Scotland but Warren suddenly ignores his girlfriend's advances and says he'll take her home, saying that she wouldn't like him if she really knew him. As this is going on, the pair don't know that Cable has entered the building, who managed to survive the Dam bursting incident on Genosha. He walks around the room, checking out the various research equipment.



Warren enters the room but as he goes up to a bookcase Cable grabs him and asks if he is Dr. Adler. Warren says he isn't and pulls out a gun to blast the bookcase with. He pushes the bookcase over but sees that his attacker has gone.



Warren goes off to check outside but finds out Cable somehow got behind him. Cable tells him that he should have made his first shot count and the two have a brief firefight which ends when Warren gets hit and falls down into the snow below.



As Warren gets back up he suddenly reveals a pair of wings from his back, he is a mutant! His girlfriend enters the room looking for him but finds Cable, who tells her not to worry as his weapon is set to stun, Warren will be O.K. He does manage to find out from her that the real Dr. Adler is in Scotland, but Cable knows the exact place -Muir Island.



Warren enters the room again and attacks Cable but he and his girlfriend are temporarily blinded when Cable throws a flash grenade. He makes his escape and by the time Warren has recovered, he can't see Cable anymore.



Warren's girlfriend hasn't seen him with his wings before and ends up shooting him. When she realises what she has done she rushes out to the balcony but sees that her boyfriend is flying away. Meanwhile, at Muir Island...



We get to see Moira MacTaggert, the person Xavier was going to communicate with in this episode. Xavier has heard about Dr. Adler and how he has apparently invented a cure, which reverts mutants back to humans. Moira knows this Doctor and is taking Xavier to see him, but when she tries the door the Doc says that no visitors are allowed as he is so busy. Moira tells Charles that Adler is usually always like this. Xavier tries to read his mind but when he does he sees two strange things before collapsing!



Moira takes Charles back to her research lab and when he recovers he tells her that he tried to read Adler's but some force came between his mind and Adler's. Charles wonders if Adler is a mutant himself. Moira wonders if that theory is true, it would explain why Adler is trying to make a cure to use on himself. Charles tells her not to describe it as a "cure" -mutants aren't a disease that need wiping out. She asks him if he has told his X-Men about this. He hasn't, but he plans to do that now.



At the institute, the X-Men are using their powers to rebuild the place after Juggernaut destroyed it. Wolverine seems to be giving out a lot of orders and advice which Gambit gets annoyed with and the two almost get into a fight. But before they can start Gambit gets imprisoned.



Rogue was the one who did that to Gambit and tells the two to stop fighting. But Wolverine then gets her worked up by saying he always knew she had a soft-spot for Gambit. Rogue is ready to fight Wolverine instead but Jubilee arrives to tell everyone that the Professor is contacting them. They all go down to the war room and find out about Dr. Adler and his mutant cure. Wolverine doesn't see it as a cure, he believes the cure actually steals a mutant's powers and may let someone else misuse them. Cyclops agrees but thinks that there are some mutants who may welcome it, one would would want to become "normal" again.



Wolverine doesn't think any mutants would want that but whilst Rogue keeps quiet, it's clear she'd seriously be considering this, as thanks to her powers she can't even do what Scott and Jean are doing. She walks off to her car and gets in it, getting ready to hear to Muir Island. Gambit also jumps in and says Muir Island isn't a place for her, so how about they go on a nice vacation together some place nicer instead?



Rogue tells him to get his butt out of her car and throws him out. As she drives out of the Institute Gambit manages to run up to a wall, leap over it and land back in the passenger seat, asking for a goodbye kiss.



Rogue stops the car and walks away. Gambit persists but Rogue yells at him, he knows what happens when she touches someone with her bare hands. Gambit thinks that it's worth it, which further infuriates Rogue and she starts to fly away. Later on she gets on a plane heading to Scotland, in a way different to most people.



And at Muir Island, we see two guys waiting for someone in a pub. The bigger man is Avalanche, who's playing darts and getting restless. He's that bored he's seriously considering going back to imprisonment on Genosha just to have something to do. The other man, Pyro, tells him to keep waiting. Rogue arrives on the island and goes into the pub, which is full of mutants. As she gets a drink Pyro thinks that she is the one they are waiting for.



Pyro is searching for someone called Mystique -but she's a shape-shifter so he doesn't actually know who she could look like. He tries to turn on the charm for Rogue and displays his mutant power of being able to control fire but Rogue throws him through a wall. Avalanche sees what she did to his friend and uses his earthquake creating powers on her but he ends up also getting thrown, only he crashes out of the wall and down into the sea below.



Later Rogue finds out where Dr. Adler is and heads to his research complex. She tries to talk to him only to be told to go away, no visitors are allowed. She isn't taking no for an answer as she flew over an ocean to get here and opens the door herself. Adler asks what she wants and she mentions about the cure, how he is suppose to be able to turn mutants into normal humans.



Adler wonders why Rogue would want to do this as she clearly has great strength, but she says she doesn't want to go through her entire life without being able to touch another human being. Adler says he will consider it but for now Rogue must go and come back in an hour, he will have a decision on what to do for her then. None of them know that Pyro has been listening to the entire conversation outside. As Rogue leaves, Adler shuts the battered door and reveals the most powerful mutant of all time: Apocalypse!



And it turns out that the Dr. Adler Rogue was talking to isn't the real one as he shape-shifts into the mutant Mystique! Apocalypse says Rogue is a fool but she has great powers, so they will use the machine to turn her into one of his slaves.



Elsewhere Rogue is sitting on a rock thinking about how the Professor taught her and the other X-Men to value their powers. But she also thinks about the time when she discovered she was a mutant with a terrible power. One night, she was out with boyfriend, Cody. After some small talk the two kissed for the first time, but...



...Cody suddenly dropped down because Rogue had taken his strength! Back in the present, Rogue stands up and starts to head back towards Adler's lab. Meanwhile, Pyro is looking for Avalanche but instead finds Cable. Cable says he is looking for Adler.



Pyro responds by trying to melt Cable's face off but he ends up getting blasted and falls into the drink. But he is saved by Avalanche who wants to know why Pyro got himself all wet. Pyro tells him to forget about it, he has some information and wants to go and capture Dr. Adler, who seems to be in big demand these days.



Rogue is at the lab and the treatment is about to begin. Adler says it may bring her some slight pain but then Pyro and Avalanche arrive and destroy a wall. Rogue frees herself and gets ready to fight only for Avalanche to hit the machine and send it...



...crashing down on top of her. With Rogue out of the way, Avalanche captures the doc and then he and Pyro run out of the lab, unaware that Cable has seen them depart. Rogue has survived too and removes herself from the wreckage before going after the two mutants.



Moira and Charles arrive having heard the explosion but they can't get the door to open and don't know what is going on. Pyro and Avalanche make it to some rocks but Avalanche doesn't want to carry the doc any more. Pyro tells the doc that he'll have to walk from here but when he takes off the sack he realises that they have captured Mystique!



Mystique calls Pyro a fool -the only reason she told him to come here is because Apocalypse might have had some use for him. But now he's gone and ruined everything by doing this. Pyro and Avalanche have no idea on who Apocalypse is so Mystique explains that Apocalypse is her master. Pyro then realises that the machine must not "cure" mutants and finds out that it actually makes them slaves of Apocalypse. Avalanche asks of Dr. Adler was even real in the first place and finds out he was, until he met Apocalypse. Mystique changes back into him.



Rogue then appears and starts to fight with Pyro and Avalanche. Mystique tries to sneak off in her Adler disguise only to run into Cable. Meanwhile, Xavier and Moira find the whole in the wall and see the destruction, but they also see that Adler isn't there.



Scott and Jean arrive having flown in via the Blackbird and say that Rogue has gone missing, they think she might have tried to find Adler so he can use his cure on her. Meanwhile Cable says that he's from Genosha, a place where mutants became slaves thanks to some certain control collars that Adler created. Cable says Adler is a dangerous man, too dangerous to live. Before he can put him out of his misery, Rogue arrives and tells Cable to get away from him.



Rogue manages to knock Cable's gun out of his hands but he then throws a plasma grenade to knock her down. He picks up the doc who tells him he's already dead and he then changes into Mystique! She changes back into him just as the Blackbird arrives.



Cable ends up being blasted and falls off the cliff. Rogue recovers and goes over to have a look but she can't see him anywhere, not that she or any of the other X-Men had any idea to who he was. Later Rogue helps repair Adler's lab and says she no longer wants to go through with the treatment -she knows how her powers are there for her to help others. As she heads up out of the lab she bumps into someone.



It's Warren, or Angel as he's also known. Warren wants to know how Rogue can fly without wings but says she is lucky to be a mutant and not be deformed. Rogue heads back home as Angel goes to talk to Adler -he has given the doc a lot of money to research the cure as he wants to have the treatment done on him and asks if it is ready. Later on, Mystique heads to Apocalypse and says she has found another mutant to become one of his slaves. Apocalypse says he already knows about Angel and says he knows more about this world than she could possibly imagine...that is why he plans to destroy it!


NOTES

This episode could be considered the first "proper" appearance of Mystique, Pyro and Avalanche, as whilst they all appeared in "Slave Island" none of them had speaking roles and were small cameo roles.

By the way if you are a little confused about why Pyro is equipped with flame-throwers, it's because whilst the guy can control flames, he can't actually generate them himself.