~*~
This ep opens with Area 51. (It’s the base thing where Rogue and the others were imprisoned after DoR II. It’s also where Cyclops abandoned Mystique in Day of Recovery when she wouldn’t tell him where she hid Professor X.) Anyway, inside, Mystique is strapped to a table/stretcher, but it’s positioned vertically, so she was kind of like…standing. Two doctors, a man and a woman, are talking about/to her. Mystique sort of has a flash back of that short scene in “The Stuff of Heroes” where Cyke abandoned her. The woman wants to examine (?) Mystique, and kind of loosens one belt-like strap on her left wrist. The guy leaves to get like a pole or something, but when he returns…Mystique had escaped and morphed into the woman doctor (who was now lying on the stretcher, covered in a blanket) The guy Dr. finds out what happens and alerts the whole base…Mystique escapes by morphing into a guard, kicking the guy’s ass, then morphing into another guard, and finally, a crow. She then flies freely with a crowd of other crows towards freedom.
~*~new intro~*~
It’s the new Institute. It’s almost finished, just needs a few touches. Amara kicks a stone to a group of rocks which formed a “sidewalk” then she melts all the rocks together. Jamie is painting a wall on top of a ladder. He loses his balance and falls to the ground, multiplying into five Jamies. They all dip their roller things into the paint and start to paint everywhere. Inside, Rogue is putting up paintings and Evan suddenly appears, sliding from the hallway, kind of “surfing” on a carpet. He slides down to the other side of the living room and hits the wall. Spikes involuntarily shoot out from his body, going in every direction. Rogue barely dodges them, and (Rogue is so cool in this part!) catches two bone spikes coming straight for her with her two hands! (Awesome!) She growls angrily at Spyke: “I’ve had it, Porcupine!” Then she chases Spyke into the main lobby (“Don’t run away from me! Get back here!”), where Bobby and Hank are working on a computer that’s like attached to the wall….yeah. It’s supposed to be like the electronic brain for the Institute. Hank asks Bobby what the last command he put in was. Bobby tells him it’s a generational thing… “Why don’t you go hook up a VCR or something?” Hank tells him, “Ah, you’re a sharp kid, Bobby, but this is the electronic brain for the Institute."
Outside, Jean is telekinetically lifting a satellite dish from the ground to Scott and Logan up on the roof. (They’re shirtless…hehe) Jean waves from below at the guys and walks away. Kitty phases to the roof, carrying a bunch of wires and eating an apple. (…this is the only scene of her, I think….maybe it’s cuz she and Rogue got all the attention in “The Stuff of Villains.) Cannonball charges up and starts hitting the ground like a bouncing ball. He forms these huge holes. Sunspot carries a tree and puts them on the hole (like planting), and uses his power. Meanwhile, Sam loses control and almost hits Ray who was cementing a pile of bricks.
“Man, they’re going to trash this place up before we even get moved back in,” Logan says sarcastically, and asks Scott for the pliers. Scott ignored the first comment, and throws Logan a tool as he stares at Jean’s walking figure. He asks Logan. “Have you ever…y’know, really cared for someone?” Scott answers quickly, “Uh, no thanks. That’s okay, I’ll do it.”
Later in the hallways, Scott and Jean bump into each other.
At the Mexican airport, Scott walks up to Alex, who was waiting and sitting on a chair, bored. Scott greets him, and as Alex leads him to an empty hallway, then pushes him. Alex turns into Mystique. “It’s payback time,” she says. And she throws a kind of capsule that produced sleeping gas. Scott blacks out. When he wakes up, he is lying down on sand, with no glasses. “Where am I?” He picks up sand, as they run through his fingers. “Where am I?!”
*commercial*
In the desert, Scott is walking, and he yells, “Hello?” and no one answers. He yells, “Anybody there?” but still gets nothing. He stops, and opens his eyes, destroying everything in its path. “The good news…no one was there,” he says wearily, “the bad news…no one was there.”
Meanwhile, Jean is sleeping in a couch in the Institute library(?). She moans, as if having a bad dream. “Scott!” she gasps as she wakes up. The professor rolls in ( ^ ^ hehe..rolls ^ ^) the door. “Are you alright, Jean?” he asks her.
In the desert, Scott is still struggling with the flesh-hungry coyotes. His shirt is torn, and he’s been wounded everywhere. He fires eye beams, with good shots. The beams attract a couple of Mexican oil rig people. “¿Cual es ese? ¡Vayamos!” They ride a jeep and head for Scott’s direction.
In Bayville, Jean runs up to a phone in the hall. “He must have gotten Alex home by now,” she says, dialing. “Oh, Alex, I’m so glad you got back from Mexico alright,” she pauses. “W-What? Have you talked to Scott at all?” Her face ‘pales’ as she realizes what happened. “Oh, no…”
Scott is lying on a hospital bed, where a Mexican doctor is talking to him. Scott asks for a phone, but the doctor says that he needs to check him first. He asks him to open his eyes, and Scott refuses. He pushes the doctor away forcefully, and the doctor asks for assistance. The people tries to hold Scott still as the doctor opens his eyes. The people barely escape the blast as the roof falls, giving Scott a chance to run away.
“He’s in Mexico City,” says Professor X, using the cerebro, “But as you know, Cerebro can’t pinpoint him exactly.”
Back in Mexico, Scott is walking in a dark alley. “Someone help me,” he says, knocking over a trash can. “Please help me. I can’t see…”
(I just gotta say, I really felt sorry for Scott in this part, I mean, his voice was like…really hurting, y’know? I just like the voice acting in this episode, especially the ones by Kirby Morrow & Venus Terzo.)
*commercial*
Scott is using a wall to guide him. He feels a pay phone, and laughs a little, almost hysterically. “Operator?” No one answers. He feels the cord with his finger…it’s cut.
The Blackbird…er, X-Jet, descends down to a wide empty street. Jean, Wolvie, Storm, and the Professor step out. “He’s within a 5-mile radius,” the Prof says.
Three gang members appear, blaming Scott, the mutante, for blowing up the hospital roof. Scott says he’ll pay for it, just help him contact his friends. The gang members close in on him, while two of them throws him hard. Scott says he doesn’t want trouble, and one gang member says, “And still you have it.”
Scott is thrown into a warehouse. He fires a beam to try and hit Mystique again. And again, she dodges it. The blast hits a van, causing it to flip over and land on a pick-up truck. Scott murmurs “Oh, no,” not knowing if he hurt anybody. “I told you,” Mystique warned, “Better keep those eyes to yourself.” She starts to beat Scott up again, and Scott, with his eyes close, was doing quite well blocking her punches. But then his foot gets stuck in a hole, and he can’t get out. Mystique tries to hit him, but Scott blasts the floor where Mystique was standing causing them both to fall to a huge dark basement with a working fluorescent light, and the walls made out of stone bricks. Mystique hits him hard this time, and Scott realizing that she can see, blasts the only light above. Now he starts taunting Mystique. “What’s the matter? Can’t you see?”
“Scott!” Jean flies down towards Scott gracefully. She puts his had on her shoulder, caressing his cheek, and stroking his hair. “Jean? Is it really…” Scott moans.
Later...
“Okay, go ahead,” says Jean’s voice. Scott opens his eyes, and sees Jean looking at him. “There, is that better?” she asks.
“Well, it’s about time,” says Logan, who was sitting near the front of the jet. He smiles.
~*finished*~
Bobby tells him to relax, he’s just fixing the lighting system. A moment later, the lights go out. Bobby laughs nervously. “Uh, ha ha…no biggie…it’s an easy fix.”
Logan answers, “Yeah, once. Most beautiful bike I ever saw. I was so speechless, someone else bought her.” He looks at the tool Scott gave him. “Not wire strippers---pliers! Use your eyes kid.” Logan, getting annoyed, continues, “Look, if you don’t tell her, I will!”
A crow suddenly flies up to Scott’s face. Scott wonders about it for a moment, but starts eyeing Jean again, who was now helping Storm. Below, Jean uses her TK to lift up a lady angelic statue. Her attention wanders to Scott above, and the statue almost hits Storm. She apologizes, “Oh, uh, sorry Storm, I’m just uh, distracted.” She then puts the statue properly on the fountain. Ororo creates a small rain cloud to fill the fountain with water, and Jean pushes a button on the bottom side of it to turn it on, her attention going back to Scott again, looking at him. Storm flies down in front of her, admiring the fountain, “Looks good, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Jean answers dreamily, still staring at Scott. Then, realizes what just happened, she says shyly, “Oh, uh, very nice.” Storm looks at her, “You and Scott have grown quite close this year, haven’t you?” Jean replies, “Yeah, a lot has happened, and Scott’s always been there for me.”
“Like when your powers went crazy, he was so worried about you.”
Jean: “I owe him my life, and the connection he made with me that day was so strong…”
Storm: “Yeah, and something tells me, it still is.”
Jean nods. Storm continues, “It’s a good day for new beginnings...and for telling people how you feel.”
Jean runs her hand through her hair. “Hmm…maybe.”
“Jean, I--” Scott stammers.
”I-I’m sorry, what did you want?” Jean replies, equally nervous.
“No, no, go ahead,” Scott insists, being the true 'gentleman'.
“Uh, you first,” says Jean. Scott was just about to start, but he was interrupted by (wouldn’t you know it!) Kurt, who hands Scott the phone saying it’s from Alex. Alex says he aced the surfing competition in Cabo, but his wallet got snagged, so he’s stranded, and asks Scott if he could pick him up. Scott tells him to wait for him to catch a flight, and apologizes to Jean. They'd talk later, he says.
It is nighttime, and Scott is still walking alone. You can tell that he opens his eyes every once in a while to see where he is going. He does just that. And suddenly, he hears coyotes howling. They attack, while Scott helplessly tries to dodge them, blasting them with his optic blasts.
“Professor, Scott’s in trouble,” Jean says worriedly.
“Or could it be that you just had a nightmare?” he replies.
“No, no, something’s wrong. I sensed it.”
“Jean, Scott is too far out of psychic range, even for me,” he says, trying to convince her, “Please don’t worry. A bad dream is usually just that…a dream.”
Scott falls off a cliff, and is knocked unconscious. The workers arrive just in time, and carry him off to the jeep, and drive away. Mystique is seen on the edge of a cliff, angry. “Meddling fools.”
“I’ll find him,” Jean says, her voice full of determination and anger, her hands clenched.
Scott grabs one of them and pins him up to the wall. Then he blasts the space beside the guy's ear. The other two run away, while the one he pinned to the wall… “Bravo,” says Mystique’s voice, as the guy transforms. Scott lets go, shocked. Mystique then taunts him, asking him how it feels like to be abandoned. Scott says to just leave him alone. Mystique says no, and says, “How about we try the North Pole, next?” She pulls out the capsul thing again, but the metal whining it made while she was opening it made Scott knock it out of her hands. Mystique then decides she’ll have to do it the hard way, and starts to beat Scott up. Scott opens his eyes, trying to hit Mystique. And not so far away, Jean suddenly gets a vision, through Scott’s eyes. It lasts only for a brief second, but it was enough. She contacts the professor with a communicator. “Professor? Mystique is after him. They’re near some ancient tower, like a church.”
“The plaza of three cultures,” he answers quickly, “Get there, we’ll find you.”
He then performs a good throw at Mystique (a Ryu from Street Fighter throw!) Scott leans up against a huge wooden crate, and groans.
“Scott, are you down here?” asks Jean as she descended down the stairs, using the wall to guide her just like Scott did minutes before.
“Jean? Jean, watch out! Mystique’s in here somewhere,” he warns her.
”No, she’s gone,” Jean says, walking towards his direction. “I saw her escape.”
“How did you find me?” Scott asks.
“Cerebro led me right to you,” Jean says reassuringly, picking up a long, sharp pole as she headed towards Scott.
“Right to this warehouse?” Scott asks, surprise.
“Exactly,” Jean replies, raising the pole, preparing to strike him. “Relax, I’m here now.”
“No--you’re not!” Scott yells as he blasts "Jean". She growls, getting up. She runs towards him, and lunges---only to find herself stopped in mid-air. “Huh?”
Jean descends from the hole that Scott and Mystique made, moments before. Her hair is kind of shaped like a phoenix. (I noticed it when I read the thread at the JG Message Board) “My turn,” she slams Mystique hard against the wall. Mystique gets up, “How sweet, girlfriend to the rescue.”
“You got that right, lady!” Jean answers back, lifting Mystique again with her telekinesis, throwing her against a different wall. This time however, she didn’t let go of her. Mystique groans as her own body is forced against the brick wall. Jean concentrates hard, and releases a strong force of telekinetic energy, forcing Mystique’s body to actually break and shatter the wall.
“It’s me. Don’t worry, Mystique is gone.”
“I can’t believe you even knew where I was.”
“It must be a bond we have…" Jean says tenderly, "I don’t know how to explain it..”
“You don’t have to...I just wish I could open my eyes, and see your face,” he says softly.
Scott smiles. “It couldn’t get any better.”
Jean leans close to him, and kisses his cheek. Then she rests her head on his bare shoulder.
“That’s for sure,” adds Storm. They look at the professor piloting the plane.