Police sirens blare and the press gather as word hits
the street: Juggernaut’s back in town! Juggernaut himself walks calmly through
the street, dressed in his civvies, and catches a live news report detailing
his history against various super-powered beings, including the X-Men.
Meanwhile, at Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters, each of the X-Men reacts
to the early morning report about Juggernaut in different ways. Nightcrawler
wishes he could pretend he didn’t hear it and let someone else handle Juggernaut.
Kitty Pryde sleepily shorts out her radio by phasing through it. Colossus hears
the news and eagerly anticipates a rematch with Juggernaut to pay him back for
their last scuffle. Rachel Summers barely even registers Juggernaut’s mention
and thinks about how alone she feels trapped in a past not her own. Rogue is
quite content to ignore the report, feeling the X-Men have earned a day off.
Finally, Wolverine returns from an early morning run while reflecting on
everything that’s gone on recently. He gets Nightcrawler up and they decide to
go handle Juggernaut, despite the fact that none of them really want to.
Meanwhile, in Kenya, Storm encounters some rowdy
tourist hunters harassing a local waitress. She fights back after they attack
her and she scares them away, continuing her vigil to determine her future by
examining her past. Back in New York, the X-Men split into pairs to surveil
Juggernaut from every angle. Kitty and Rachel find him in a bank seemingly
making a regular legal transaction and Nightcrawler decides that if Juggernaut
causes no trouble, they should leave him in peace. However, trouble soon finds
them as Nimrod appears, announcing he’s there to deal with the criminals he’s
detected, i.e Juggernaut, and the X-Men! Nimrod and Juggernaut start a
massive fight while Kitty phases herself and Rachel down into the bank’s vault
to safety. Nimrod blasts Juggernaut into a nearby construction site where they
cause yet more destruction.
The X-Men arrive as well only to find themselves ill
equipped to deal with Nimrod. He blasts Nightcrawler and Colossus and knocks
Wolverine back with a force field. He even starts to manhandle Juggernaut,
knocking his helmet off and paralyzing him with high-frequency sonics! Kitty
tries phasing into him and discovers he’s a robot, getting shot back by an
energy field that paralyzes her body. Kitty is caught by Rogue and she
intentionally nuzzles her face against Rogue’s so she can absorb her powers and
what she’s learned about Nimrod. While Rachel continues to fight, dropping an
entire building on Nimrod, Rogue finds her fallen teammates and absorbs their
powers, becoming an amalgamation of herself, Kitty, Nightcrawler, and Colossus.
This new souped-up Rogue fights Nimrod, severely damaging him by using
Nightcrawler’s trick of teleporting just his arm off. She shatters his metallic
body and he begins to reassemble himself, before he teleports away in a flash!
The X-Men decide to let Juggernaut go considering none of this was his fault,
before getting out of there themselves. Finally, in Moscow, the KGB decides to
look into Nimrod, fearing the world may be coming to a crossroads to
Armageddon!