Astonishing X-Men #15: Until Our Hearts Stop (Part III)

Regrouping at the Chock’Lit Shoppe:
Sharing a basket of fries with ex-lover Dazzler, X-Man Beast summarizes the fact that continuing to combat a federal agency may be fraught with perils.  Beast is eating too many of Dazzler’s fries, so presumably because we’d expect a male to say Dazzler shouldn’t be eating, instead she jumps the gun and jokes that Hank is getting fat.

Faster than you can say poster child, the paparazzi find Dazzler and ask her some expositive life questions about touring and her band.  But also the paparazzi smears the name of the current team calling them terrorists as they are not sanctioned by the X-Men and they are acting extrajudicially.  Remember our light-bringer who was in the band Lightbringer is not Jubilee, but may, in fact, be extra.

The not to be officially named X-team of X-people finish their fries and head onward via public transportation much to the chagrin of their broke tights.  Catlike Beast has the wherewithal to book them passage on the Catabus.  Alex decides that he is the one O#N#E  seeks and decides semi-heroically yet aloud because the team is devoid of telepaths that he will face this enemy alo/n/e.

Meanwhile in an Evil Layer: 
We find out for certain what we already know:  The government has conscripted the Reavers and created one too many O*N*E or two cyber-enhanced soldiers.  Twist! We discover that the Reaver team is not working with O^N^E and that the government has instead taken Donald Pierce captive much to the dismay of the Reavers.

In a Seedy Bar:
Alex Summers with the sentinel sowed the seed of something is swallowing spirits at a stellar speed in the Bar with No Name.  No, it has no name because that’s where supervillains hang out and Alex is feeling particularly antiheroic at present due in part to his recent Axis forced to turn as a villain and also because of his villainous seed implantation that is endangering his friends.   Warpath chases Alex down and calls him out for lying about the reasons for forming the team and lets Alex know that the not to be called X-Men X-people have his back unofficially.  Alex says he hasn’t been an X-Man in a long time which might be true as the last time I can recall him being on an X-team officially was circa 2011 so was it really that long ago?

Kitty Pryde is a Garbage Tornado:
The canny Un-X-Men arrive at Piotr’s gross bachelor pad where Dazzler proclaims it looks as though a garbage tornado has gone off, Colossus replies this tornado’s name is Katya.  Dazzler says that the X-people are there for their friends in time of need, excepting at the marriage alter but I digress.  O%N%E drops a literal bomb on them at this point thus launching a garbage tornado of X-persons upon the street.  Beast is injured, Colossus becomes shiny, Banshee destroys a helicopter, and Dazzler does… well nothing.  Queue confusing surrender as apparently Dazzler has never before faced off against opponents with guns.

Back at the bar Warpath lets Havok know that he’s with him and that he trusts not only the garbage tornado, but the Summers family which includes people like Gabriel and Stryfe so is a bit confusing, but let’s assume he means Scott, Cable, and Alex only for logic’s sake.  A reporter who looks startlingly similar to Land’s Tony Stark expounds that the X-Terrorists have been extracted to prison and the excited bars villains exclaim “Lock ’em up” as a semi-timely political satire.

Havok, deciding that the enemy of mine enemy is my friend decides to take Warpath on the warpath to acquire some allies in the form of the Reavers to free their various O$N$E captured compatriots.  Will the alliance of the X-studs and alloymen free Ali and other allies?  Allons y next time.