synopsis:
On the Brood colonized world Madrizar, a recently captured Acanti is infected with the Brood slaver virus. Suddenly, the Brood all turn at a bright light in the sky. It is the last thing they see. Binary unleashes her full fury upon the world, and devastates the Brood utterly. She frees the Acanti from its shackles, but it telepathically informs her that it is already infected, and there is no way to reverse the virus. There is only one way for it to be free, and Binary grants its request. Carol leaves the planet and runs into... Storm. Carol is confused by Storm's appearance out in the middle of space. On the one hand, Storm cannot survive in vacuum. On the other, she was also implanted with a Brood embryo and should be dead. Storm reveals that she purged the embryo from herself in an act that basically did kill her, and that this was an astral form. She takes Carol back to her body. On entering Storm's Acanti-body/host through its mouth, they re-unite with the X-Men. The X-Men tease Carol about the explosive decompression she caused leaving the Z'Reee Shar, but the joking is too much for Kitty, who finds it incongruous with their unavoidable death/transformations into Brood queens. Lilandra and Wolverine favor a vengeance mission back to the Brood homeworld, to kill the Queen and as many others as they can. However, Storm offers them another way. The story continues...