On Muir Island the Shadow King has taken over the minds of the most X-Men. Forge was able to design a device that frees him from the mental hold, and he is able to use it on Rogue, Wolverine and Banshee too. Sean knows the extent of the Shadow King’s plan. He psionically causes world wide waves of hatred and prejudice, that will bundle in the form of Lorna Dane. Being a catalyst for negative emotions, she has been made his nexus between the physical and the astral plane, and he is getting stronger by the minute. In Washington, Val Cooper and Xavier call in X-Factor for a rescue mission. They secretly approach Muir in a submarine, but aboard is also FBI agent Reisz, the Shadow King’s human host. When X-Factor invades the island, they are held in check by Legion, under the King’s control. On the submarine, Reisz starts to strangle Xavier, who pleads Val Cooper to help, yet she is under the King’s control too – or so he thought. She suddenly shape-shifts, revealing to be the believed killed Mystique and shoots Reisz trapping the Shadow King on the astral plane. X-Factor and X-Men wonder how to free Lorna Dane from the nexus gate to prevent the Shadow King from acquiring a new host. Caught in the dilemma that separating Lorna from the device might kill her, they hesitate too long and the Shadow King takes over Legion as his next host.

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