Uncanny X-Men #317

Paige Guthrie regains consciousness after her abduction by the Phalanx. She is surprised to find she’s been supplied with a blanket. The blanket actually turns out to be a fellow captive Mutant named Angelo, who has elastic skin. Sharing the chamber with them are Clarice, Gregor, and Monet St. Croix. Paige assures the others that she’ll help them escape, but they tell her they’ve tried before, to no avail. Angelo tells Paige that the Phalanx are experimenting on them. Paige tries to keep the group’s spirits up, and tells them that people like the X-Men will find and rescue them. Paige realises that she’s been infected by the Transmode Virus.

At that moment, in San Francisco, California, the defence systems of the West Coast offices of Frost Enterprises detect people approaching through the air and, thanks to recognition of Emma Frost as one of them, do not open fire. Emma, along with Banshee, Jubilee, and Everett Thomas, have arrived at Emma’s house on top of the skyscraper after losing Paige’s psionic signature once they got to the California border, having followed it there from St. Louis.

Banshee warns Emma not to double cross the group, after Sabretooth had already abandoned them, and uses his sonic scream to shatter the defence systems on the skyscraper. Once inside Emma brings up schematics of a nearby S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse. Emma suggests that it serves as their best chance at finding the captive Mutants.

The captive Mutants, still in their chamber, are worrying about Paige’s infection. They try to remain hopeful that the X-Men will find them before anything happens to Paige. They are interrupted by Harvest, who mocks their hope by telling them that when he was Human he hoped that joining the Phalanx would make the world safer for Humans by ridding the world of Mutants. Now that he sees himself as a superior life form to Humans he just wants to see the Phalanx rid the world of all organic life.

Following a disastrous event after the first time Clarice used her Mutant power, Clarice promised herself she wouldn’t use her power against a living being again. She breaks that promise and uses her power to scramble Harvest’s physical form. As Gregor pulls her back, worried that Harvest will hurt her, the entrance to the chamber begins to close again, with the sight of Harvest in pain, but recovering being the last sight the young Mutants see, for now, of their captor. Angelo suggests that since the Phalanx couldn’t dampen the group’s Mutant powers, it means the Phalanx are trapped with rather than the other way round.

On the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Everett tries to befriend Jubilee during a rainstorm. She tells him that she hates feeling useless whilst her friends are in danger. Everett tries to reassure Jubilee that he’s impressed by her abilities. Jubilee suggests that, at best, her power is little more than a firework display. She compares herself to the abilities of the other experienced X-Men and says she needs more training. Meanwhile, at the S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse, Banshee and Emma have gained access by tricking the computer systems into not being able to detect them as well as Emma psionically preventing the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents from being able to see them.

In the Phalanx chamber, the young Mutants are talking over their strategy for escape, although Gregor suggests staying put until they’re rescued. Monet speaks for the first time, and tells the group that the Phalanx have been monitoring them through the techno-organic suits they’re wearing. Monet has been able to recalibrate part of hers into a weapon which she powers with a light in the chamber as a power source. The weapon exposes Gregor as a Phalanx mole, to the surprise of the others, and destroys him.

At that moment, in the S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse, Banshee and Emma are communicating telepathically and tracing a low-level Techno-Organic anomaly on one of the computers. Suddenly they find guns being pointed at them by the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. Although Emma had been masking their presence, the pair were given away by puddles formed by water dripping from them after they’d been outside in the rain. The Agent in charge informs the pair that they’re under arrest for trespassing on government property. Emma threatens to fry the minds of the Agents in the room, but Banshee knocks them out with his sonic scream instead. Then Banshee and Emma continue their computer search.

The young Mutants in the Phalanx chamber are listening to Monet explain how she figured out that Gregor had been planted by the Phalanx, as well as the fact that her destroying him will cause an effect that makes the Phalanx believe the group is still being monitored, whilst they’ll actually be escaping. Monet then smashes her way out through a wall. Paige tells Monet that she’s going to stay behind due to being infected by the Techno-Organic virus. Monet sees this as logical, but still brings Paige out with her, refusing to give up on her until Paige is either dead or fully assimilated. Once outside the chamber, the group of young Mutants find they’re being held onboard a naval battleship.