X-Men Classic Vol 1 102

Continued from last issue...

Following being grazed by a bullet on the African Serengeti, Storm continues her long trek, but now is becoming more delirious due to her injuries. When she is struck by a sandstorm she calls for it to go away, and when it does she mistakenly believes that her powers have returned and attempts to fly. She ends up falling down a hill, injuring herself some more.

She is visited by a vision of Forge, the man she could have loved if it had not been for his invention stripping her mutant powers away. He tries to convince her to find cover while the sandstorm continues to blow, but she refuses and pushes on. She ends up tripping over her feet and falling down in front of a viper. She quickly grabs the poisonous creature and tosses it away before crawling away into a cave, wondering if this will be the death of her.

In the cave she is visited by visions of her fellow X-Men. She bows to them in shame, feeling that without her mutant gifts she is nothing to them. When Phoenix tries to comfort Storm, telling her that no matter what she still loves her and all the other X-Men. Wolverine comes next and tells her that if she wants to give up he is willing to impale her with his claws to put her out of her misery. When the Professor gives advice that she can stay in this cave and live safely until she perishes, she lashes out, making the illusions go away.

When she comes around she finds that another viper has made it's way near her. She doesn't panic and the snake eventually leaves her alone without biting. Storm is determined to get up and keep moving and as she treps onwards she finds that an overturned bus. The only survivor of the vehicle is a lone pregnant woman who surprisingly has not been badly injured. Storm feels that she is a poor candidate to save this woman, however she feels duty bound to bring her back to her village. Providing the woman cove and helping her make her way home provides Storm with a new motivation to keep going in life. Along the way they come across the many abandoned farming machines that have been left disused when attempts to cultivate the land had failed.

When Storm and her new friend Shani arrive at the village, She is worried how her family will react to the idea of her being pregnant. When they get close enough to the village, she is welcomed home byt the tribe lawspeaker the elder Mjnari. Having completed the task of getting this pregnant woman home safe to her family, Ororo collapses. She is awaken some days later by Mjnari who tells her that Shani needs assistance giving birth to her child. Storm goes to the hut where she has lain and helps Shani with the complicated birth. When the child comes out and is not breathing, Storm administers CPR and manages to save the child's life.

With the baby born, Mjnari tells Storm that he has a final task to perform and she is shocked to see him strip himself of most of his clothing and leave the village. Storm is shocked by this she follows after him. She learns that their poor village can only feed so many people, and that with a new born child, the most eldest person in the tribe must now go. He explains that this is the way they live after the attempts to use technology to stimulate crop growth failed after years of neglect and wars caused their once lush land to turn to mostly ruins. Storm is saddened by this, but Mjnari explains the precarious balance of the village and she spends his final moments listening to his wisdom before he wills himself to die. After his death, Storm prepares a grave for him and finally realizes that she has renewed hope to keep on living and promises to keep on fighting on, in honor of her new friend who made the ultimate sacrifice for his people.