Upon returning to New York City, Scott and Jean turn Alex over to Dr. Kyle Lykos, a doctor who uses hypnosis to help deal with patients mentally and physically. Needing to work in private, Scott and Jean leave Lykos to do his work and return to the X-Mansion. There they are almost blasted with lasers when the safety door to the Danger Room swings open. Inside, Lorna is watching Beast, Warren and Iceman go through a training session. When the session gets out of hand, Cyclops steps in and things end with Iceman once more tossing snow in someone’s face. With the session over, the X-Men comment on the mutants that were captured during their battle against the Sentinels and Hank points out the absence of both Magneto and the Changeling.

While at the office of Dr. Lykos, after treating Alex's physical wounds, Karl sends his nurse home and struggles with some strange addition that has come over him. He recalls back to when he was a young boy and was on an expedition with his father, his associate Mr. Anderssen and his young daughter Tanya in the Antarctic regions of Tierra Del Fuego. When Tanya goes missing, a search party is sent out and young Karl finds her in a cave being attacked by strange pterodactyls that live within the icy cavern. Although Karl saves Tanya from the creatures, one of them manages to wound him. Given medical attention right away, the young Karl was near death and in a fever state for a long time before recovering. When he did, he was greeted by his dog Jagger. To his horror, upon touching the dog, Karl began siphoning the dog’s energy and realized that he has become some kind of energy vampire. Growing up over the years, Karl would keep this need a secret, and as a young adult he and Tanya would fall in love and begin talking of marriage. However, Mr. Anderssen would not consent to their marriage unless Karl learned a profession that would allow him to provide for Tanya and so he went on to medical school. Determined to make a fortune, the obsessed Lykos vows to do anything to marry Tanya.

Lykos hooks Alex up to the machine. He is aware that Xavier had opened a school for mutants prior to his death and correctly deduces Alex to be a mutant. Lykos had helped Xavier in the early days in hope of feeding off mutant’s life energy. Trying this for the first time, Lykos feeds off Alex's mutant energy and it has a strange effect, Lykos transforms into a humanoid pterodactyl that is the embodiment of evil. Recalling his human persona's love of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, the creature christens itself Sauron and flies off into the night.

When reports of a winged being, suspected to be a mutant, causing robberies, the X-Men contemplate investigating the situation. Furious that a winged being is giving him a bad name, Warren storms out of the room and returns later wearing his old Avenging Angel costume and decides to go and investigate the situation on his own fly off before anyone can stop him. With Warren potentially flying into even more trouble, Cyclops orders the other X-Men to get ready to follow after him. Warren manages to track down Sauron, however he tries to attack the creature, Sauron unleashes a hypnotic gaze that enthralls Warren into obedience.

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