Astonishing X-Men #2 (2005)

Emma Frost is revealed to have been working with the Hellfire Club since she first joined the X-Men. Shadowcat and Colossus get back together.

The X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four to battle one of the Mole Man's monsters. Meanwhile, Wing dies in the Danger Room.

A damaged Sentinel attacks the mansion while the Danger Room appears to turn on the students.

Shadowcat learns the origin of Danger.

The White Queen induces hallucinations causing Shadowcat to think that she and Colossus have a son who is in danger. She frees her "son," in reality removing the Shi'ar artificial body housing Cassandra Nova's intelligence. Cassandra Nova appears to have won until Cyclops arrives. Lockheed is revealed to be the "mole" working for S.W.O.R.D. Wolverine's personality is restored by beer.

Professor X destroys Danger's body while the X-Men recover from their injuries.

On the Breakworld Aghanne presides over the funeral of a baby and professes not to believe in the prophecies of the ship's destruction. On S.W.O.R.D.'s ship, the X-Men, Hisako, Ord, and Danger arrive. After some fighting, Agent Brand explains the prophecy that Colossus will stop them, they have a missile targeting Earth, and she needs superheroes to win this fight. Sydren declares Emma Frost free of Cassandra Nova. Agent Brand uses Ord to bait Powerlord Kruun, but he moves too fast, and their ship is intercepted and destroyed, leaving them about to be exposed to the vacuum of space.

Some S.W.O.R.D. personnel are sent towards the planet in a fast armored decoy ship as the main ship breaks apart. As it draws fire, Agent Brand, the X-Men and Hisako escape in two smaller pods. The pod carrying Colossus, Shadowcat, Wolverine and Hisako breaks up on entry and they are separated. Hisako starts to freak out a little bit and Wolverine tells her to take off the suit or act like an X-Man because he's putting her on the team. She chooses Armor as her code name. Colossus and Shadowcat fight their way out of their landing site, but word of their presence reaches Powerlord Kruun, who has captured Ord and many of the soldiers. Sydren, Lockheed and other soldiers are still free. Colossus is disturbed by the prophecy that he will commit genocide. While Kitty reassures him that there is no one set future, Cyclops, Emma, Beast and Agent Brand find a large stone mosaic of Colossus crushing the Breakworld and its sun in the tomb where all of the teams were to meet.

Wolverine and Armor meet up with Cyclops, Emma and the rest. They have hear evidence that Colossus and Shadowcat are alive but have not seen them. After examining the mural, they split up: Beast and Agent Brand to examine the base under the moon with the missile, Wolverine and Armor to find Colossus and Shadowcat, and Cyclops and Emma to find the S.W.O.R.D. soldiers. Meanwhile Colossus and Shadowcat fight their way through the Breakworld until they are met by Aghanne, who takes them to her place of sanctuary where she tells them she hopes the prophecy means that Colossus reforms their world. Then she gives Kitty and a confused and troubled Piotr a private room for the night. Kruun's aide Sylatin is revealed to be working with S.W.O.R.D. Beast and Agent Brand are caught in an artificially generated snowstorm. And Scott and Emma are shot down by Danger just after Scott tells Emma he loves her.

Kruun aide Sylatin is revealed to be loyal to Kruun. Emma reveals to Danger that she knows that Danger's programming prevents her from killing and offers her a way out. Kitty tells Piotr she's realized you have to grab happiness. Beast is revolted with Kruun and refuses to continue towards the base without the whole team. Everyone meets up. They begin the assault on the moon, only to discover that it is a construct designed to fire a 10-mile-long bullet at the earth. Scott takes the one man repair craft to cover the main ship's escape and is hit. He floats dying in space.

Aghanne and Dafi discuss news that one of the X-Men is dead and their worries about their plans. The remaining X-Men and S.W.O.R.D. split up to head to their next targets. Kruun revives Cyclops to interrogate him while Armor gets herelf and Wolverine captured by trying to rescue some civilians, Beast and Agent Brand further analyze the prophecy, and Shadowcat and Colossus bring Aghanne into the action. Emma reestablishes contact with Scott as Beast and Brand reveal that the prophecy is recent, and reads more like a plan. We then find out that all of this, including Cyclops, Wolverine and Armor's capture was planned telepathically just before Cyclops left the larger ship. Also, Scott's powers work just fine as he demonstrates by blasting Kruun and tearing a huge hole in the roof of his tower, summoning the rest of the X-Men to him for the final attack.

The team meets up with Cyclops. Shadowcat, Beast and Agent Brand go to stop the missile. Cyclops, Emma, Colossus and Aghanne take Powerlord Kruun to the power core where Colossus can threaten to blow up the Breakworld if Kruun does not call off the missile, not knowing it is set to fire no matter what Kruun does. The rest of S.W.O.R.D. provides covering fire. Ord gets through the soldiers, and tackles Aghanne. Cyclops orders Colossus into the power source. Aghanne, wearing a protective suit, meets Colossus there and he realizes it was her intent that he destroy the Breakworld all along. On the surface of the space station, Beast and Shadowcat can't figure out how the missile is controlled. Shadowcat phases into it despite the trouble she has with the metal alloy. More than a mile in she finds a hollow space at the tip, but not controls. As the "missile" fires they see that it has no thrusters- it is not a missile, but a bullet headed straight for Earth with Shadowcat inside.

S.W.O.R.D. has sent the Mega-Sentinel to pick up the X-Men and all other heroes they can find and bring them to S.W.O.R.D.'s orbiting base to find a way to stop the bullet from the Breakworld. Colossus and Aghanne fight in the reactor while the X-Men and Agent Brand's team fight other Breakworld forces outside. Colossus starts to shift back to flesh inside the reactor to prevent Aghanne from using him to destroy the Breakworld, when Ord enters without protection and rips off her helmet. Colossus kills Aghanne and tells the dying Ord that he did it. He saved his world. Meanwhile as the superheroes of Earth try to stop the bullet, Spider-Man realizes his apparently successful scheme to catch it in a big web couldn't possibly have worked, and realizes they've all been made to hallucinate that they stopped it in their own ways. Cyclops and Emma chase the bullet, trying to save Shadowcat, but she's bonded to the bullet and cannot leave. With no options left, she phases the entire bullet through the planet Earth, seemingly at the cost of her life. Colossus, left behind, ruminates on how their happiness was so brief- here, and then, gone.