While returning from Tamarind Island, Aurora lapses into her Jeanne-Marie persona and is horrified by Walter, whom she doesn't even recognize, attempting to kiss her. Without realizing it, she flees flying eastward at super-speed, ending up at her brother's house in Quebec. Jean-Paul looks after her and decides her latest shift is a blessing in disguise, allowing him to renew his partnership with his sister outside of Alpha Flight. The next day he takes her along to a circus managed by one of his old friends, Clementine D'Arbanville. Clementine has contacted Jean-Paul for help because she's been having trouble with her new sideshow fat lady, Pink Pearl, seemingly arranging for other performers to meet with "accidents" and for her own people to fill their positions. As Clementine is filling Jean-Paul in, Pink Pearl makes her move and bursts into the room along with her crony, a contortionist named Bones. Being at a disadvantage in the small space, Northstar, Jeanne-Marie, and Clementine are all knocked out and taken to the big top, where Pink Pearl reveals her plan to detonate a bomb at the site of a meeting between the Canadian and American leaders to establish plans for an anti-nuclear weapon laser defense network. Pearl's group uses the circus as their staging ground since it will be easy to deflect suspicion for the attack to Clementine due to her secret history as a militant separatist. When Jeanne-Marie comes to, she's back in her Aurora persona and remembers nothing since leaving the island with Walter. From Pearl's gloating, she's able to pick up enough to know who to fight when she breaks free, demonstrating her altered powers to a surprised Northstar. Clementine leaps in to throw off Bones' aim with a throwing dagger, which ends up in Pearl's chest. It doesn't go deep enough to kill, but it knocks her out and wins the day for the heroes.

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