In New York, Nightcrawler perches on the balcony of
his girlfriend’s apartment in the pouring rain. Said girlfriend Amanda notes
that Kurt must have been out there all night. Kurt realizes this and teleports
to the bathroom to dry himself off, when Amanda lets him know that she’ll be
gone for a week on a flight. She also tells him that the X-Men called and that
they’ll be home from San Francisco soon. Nightcrawler, however, is lost in his
own troubles, wishing for the days when their lives could be filled with
adventure and fun, feeling that things have gotten too grim lately. When Amanda
probes further, Kurt snaps at her and teleports back out to the balcony where
he admits that he’s lost sight of who he is, or even why he is! Encountering
the Beyonder has really messed with him, making him ponder why he was the only
one not transported to San Francisco with the others, and why he didn’t follow
after them. Kurt doesn’t know what to believe anymore or, due to the power the
Beyonder has, what’s even real, including his feelings for Amanda. This pierces
her to her core and she leaves, and Kurt feels he doesn’t have the drive to
chase after her, effectively ending their relationship.
As Amanda drives off in a cab, a passing jogger is
grabbed by a suspiciously familiar garbage truck. Nightcrawler notices the
occurrence and teleports over, recognizing it as the truck Arcade uses to
capture his targets. Feeling this will be the perfect escape from his troubles,
Nightcrawler follows the truck back to Murderworld in order to help the poor
girl. He sneaks in through a hidden access hatch while his worries still gnaw
at him. Aiming to prove to himself that he’s still a hero, Kurt adjusts the security
sensors so that he won’t be detected until he makes his presence known. He just
hopes whoever Arcade has nabbed can last long enough for him to reach her!
Speaking of, the girl, named Judith, is dropped right into Murderworld, where
Arcade tells her that someone is paying handsomely for her elimination. He
sends her off inside his trademark giant pinball machine, though admits that
he’s not expecting all that much excitement from this job.
Judith is dropped out of the pinball machine and into
a forest, where she has to run from soldiers and attack dogs. She reaches a
clearing where she encounters yet more soldiers, surrounding her on both sides.
She sprints around her pursuers, trying to get them to run into each other, and
eventually ends up falling from a cliff and into the water. There, she’s about
to be eaten by a huge shark, when Nightcrawler finally arrives to teleport her
out of harm’s way! She’s initially distrustful of Kurt, being unable to tell
what’s truly real in this place, and Kurt realizes that it’s the same words he
said to Amanda earlier being thrown back in his face. He asks her to let him
prove his trustworthiness and they hop in a car provided by Arcade as he sends
more to chase after them, Mad Max style! Kurt drives around, avoiding the cars’
attacks and feeling that this was the kind of adventure he’d been missing!
Just then, they’re attacked from the air by planes,
and Nightcrawler has Judith take the wheel while he teleports up to deal with
the planes. After some fancy flying, Kurt manages to get Arcade’s various
forces to crash into each other and keeps flying off, seemingly leaving Judith
to fend for herself! Judith eventually comes to a simulacrum of a city where
she’s threatened by more of Arcade’s robots made up to look like a gang.
Nightcrawler then arrives once more in the nick of time and defends Judith from
the fake gang. He makes off with Judith while taunting Arcade, but before
Arcade can retaliate, more of the X-Men seemingly arrive and trash Arcade’s
command center. Thinking something is off, Arcade realizes that these X-Men are
his own X-Men robots that Nightcrawler must have reprogramed and sent after
him. Amused, he congratulates Nightcrawler for beating him at his own game!
Later, Nightcrawler escorts Judith back to her apartment, where they’re met by
two men from the state department. Nightcrawler and Judith are left with quite
a shock when the men reveal that Judith is actually the last of the Elfburgs,
the new Queen of Ruritania! To be continued?
For the special marvelite in you