| Synopsis | - Secret Wars II continues from ...
When Rogue enters the room of Rachel Summers she is greeted by a psychic image of Phoenix telling the X-Men that she has decided to use her expanded powers to destroy the Beyonder because he is a threat to all existence. When the image fades away, Rogue rushes off to alert Storm who tells her to gather the rest of the X-Men and have them report to her loft. Soon Magneto, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Wolverine are gathered in her room and Storm appraises them of the situation. After some discussion the X-Men decide to try and stop Rachel to avoid any sort of negative backlash from the near omnipotent being.
Heading to the lower levels of the Mansion, Magneto uses Cerebro to try and get a lock on Rachel but finds it difficult. Wolverine goads Magneto on the fact that Cerebro worked just fine until Magneto had messed with the Earth' magnetic field some time ago. Magneto stands up for himself, prompting Shadow Cat to worry about Wolverine pushing Magneto too far as the Master of Magnetism would likely take Logan up on any challenge. Magneto finally pinpoints Rachel's location: San Francisco and the X-Men begin to mobilize.
Phoenix meanwhile manages to pinpoint the location of the Beyonder, who is pondering what to do with all existence on Alcatraz island. She attacks him head on at full power causing a massive Phoenix bird shaped explosion that causes no actual damage. The Beyond, unaffected by this attack remembers meeting Rachel previously. The Beyonder tells her that he did not want her to cause any damage and knows what she thinks of him and tries to convince her that she is wrong. She refuses to believe him and continues to attack him. The Beyonder tries to explain that nobody can see his perspective because individuals see only a part of existence while he sees the whole and struggles to understand what drives people. When Rachel suggests that if the Beyonder doesn't like living a self-aware life he should kill himself, he tells her that all she knows is death.
He decides to teach her lesson by transporting her to a vision of the future which she comes from. He explains that her rage and grief consumes her. He then shows her the death of everyone she loved: Franklin, Storm, Colossus, Storm and Wolverine at the hands of the Omega Sentinels, and Kate Pryde at the hands of Nimrod. This causes Rachel to collapse as she once more struggles with the fact that this reality is not her own, this is a world where Rachel Summers could never be born. The Beyonder then offers her an option, granting her sufficient power to kill him, he gives her a choice -- the chance to kill him unopposed, or save her fellow X-Men.
When she notices Storm flying the Blackbird nearby and it begins to have engine problems, Rachel passes on the chance to eliminate the Beyonder to save her friend. She learns that the X-Men have been transported to San Francisco and have been scattered all over the city. As she goes to help Storm, she is attacked by an Omega Sentinel that has been plucked out of her time by the Beyonder. She blasts the Sentinel with a mind bolt and briefly considers going back to kill the Beyonder but cannot abandon her friends. Storm orders her to maintain a psi-link with all the X-Men so she can direct them while she deals with the Omega Sentinel that is still after her. When the mutant-killing robot latches onto the Blackbird, Storm flies it up into the air as quickly as possible hoping to knock it loose. She succeeds after breaking the Earth's atmosphere and the Sentinel begins to fall to Earth, burning up upon re-entry. Before Storm can turn the plane around it's systems begin to fail, threatening to send her to the same doom as her attacker.
While in the city, more Omega Sentinels have appeared and are attacking the rest of the X-Men. When Magneto is caught up in the coils of one robot, Rogue attempts to save him and is blasted for her trouble. With her costume in tatters she lands in a panicked crowd and her skin-to-skin contact begins to absorb peoples stray thoughts which overwhelm her. Wolverine attacks the Sentinel but is knocked aside. Before the Sentinel can blast him, Phoenix arrives and saves him from the blast. Then using the extra power granted to her by the Beyonder she super-charges his healing factor and brings him over to free Magneto. Still weak from the attack, Magneto can only create a magnetic vortex that creates a whirl wind that freeze the super-strong Sentinel in it's tracks, allowing Rogue to smash it to bits. As the vortex continues it also allows Storm to safely land the Blackbird, but also causes enough cold to blanket San Francisco with snow.
Elsewhere in the city, Colossus and Shadow Cat are alone against another Sentinel. They manage to cripple it when Colossus rips out a lamp post and with Kitty's phasing power manages to impale the Sentinel with it. Phoenix arrives and uses her enhanced abilities to reconnect a live wire into the lamp post overloading the Sentinel with the entire city's power supply, overloading it. After the threat has ended and Phoenix has used the last of the power the Beyonder had given her to repair the damage done to the city she confronts the Beyonder again. When the Beyonder explains that he did what he did to expunge her of the guilt of witnessing her friends die in her own time and realize her full potential, she lashes out at him telling him that the only reason todays events happened were because he created the threat to begin with. That such realizations cannot just be given, they must be earned. She then flies off telling him that while he may mean well, all he manages to do is cause harm.
This story is continued next issue...
Secret Wars II continues in ...
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