Title: In the Eye of the Storm, Ch. 32 (The Pursuit of Weapon X, part 3)
Author: W6C Email: wolverine6claws@ yahoo.com
Dated: 12/2010 (4/2012)
Rated: NC-17 for violence and extreme descriptions of torture
Summary: Victor and Logan continue their trek cross country on foot trying to evade the military hunting them. Meanwhile, Dr Maier readies the troops to bring down Weapon X to take him back to the compound. The X-Men pull themselves together after the battle at their home.
Disclaimer: Don't own the ones you recognize, Marvel does. Except for a few not-so-famous OCC's; such as Dr. Devan Maier, Dr. Roger Lindsay, Dr. Felicia Russ, Dr. John Carlton, Dr. Sid Garra, Dr. James Godin and Professor Eichmann, and future to-be-named supporting characters, they're mine and so is this story. No disrespect ever intended to Marvel or the X-Men. No profit made on this story.
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They'd walked about four miles when Victor stopped again to wait for Logan. He turned to face the way he'd come and scanned the dark woods for his companion. The wound he'd inflicted on Wolverine days ago was slowing him down and making their egress a painfully slow event. Creed sighed and toed at the ground a bit, mulling over his options. If they got caught or were set upon he'd have to make some fast decisions.
His options were tough ones; first, he could choose to gather up Logan and run as fast as he could in order to put distance between them and their pursuers, an option he knew he'd probably get skewered in the back for - being carried off like a helpless child would only enrage Wolverine; second option would be to stand his ground with the wounded feral and fight for all he was worth even knowing in the end their courage wouldn't be enough against an entire well-trained and heavily armed military unit backed by an even more well-armed torture team or; three, kill Wolverine where they stood, once and for all and save Logan from future pain, terror and exploitation.
He didn't want to choose from any of those to be honest. He sniffed at the air in all directions to be sure nobody was out there with them, but all he detected were the normal forest scents and that of the feral mutant following his trail. Even though he couldn't see Logan yet, Victor wasn't worried because the wind was at their backs and it carried Wolverine's musky scent on its tendrils. If anyone was beyond his position their scents would also be on the air current.
Since there was nobody else out there to pick up the smell of smoke, he lit a cigarette and settled himself atop the small mound to wait. A few minutes more and Victor's ears twitched as the sound of nearly silent footfalls reached him. He raised his head attentively and his sharp eyes picked out the movement of a dark shadow shuffling through the trees toward him. He took a long drag from his smoke and blew it out.
"You okay?" he asked quietly. He had no need to speak loudly even at a distance since Logan's acute hearing was more powerful than his own.
Logan nodded. "Yeah," he answered as he moved into view.
Victor's eyebrows drew together, noting the severe limp that hobbled the X-Man. "Where are your crutches?" he asked.
"I ditched them a ways back. They're cumbersome in this terrain and they leave unnatural marks on the ground," he told Vic. There were two things one would never find in nature, he knew: straight lines and geometric shapes and the rubber feet on a pair of crutches would leave perfectly circular patterns in the soft ground.
Victor nodded in agreement and stood up to hand off the cigarette which Logan took from his fingers. He propped the smoke between his lips and leaned heavily against a tree trunk. Logan drew on the cigarette and inhaled the smoke, feeling it fill his lungs, before letting it out again. He wrapped his hands around his thigh and closed his eyes feeling the throbbing pain beneath his palms.
"You shoulda kept the crutches," Victor mentioned, watching him.
"I told you, they slow me down."
"The pain is slowing you down," Victor pointed out now.
"Whose fault is that?" Logan shot back accusingly.
"You asked for it."
"Fuck off."
Okay, this was getting them nowhere, Victor realized. "Look... they're gonna catch up to us ---"
"Yeah, probably. All the better if ya' ask me."
"Whatdya' mean all the better?"
"I prefer a straight fight to all this sneakin' around. It ain't like we ain't leavin' a trail."
Victor's scowl deepened. Logan was right. In his condition he could hardly not leave an awkward trail here or there. His limp meant that sometimes he'd drag his foot, pulling up the pine needles and leaves on the forest floor. If the goons behind them had any decent trackers in their midst, they might as well have been hanging out neon signs with arrows pointing "they went thatta way".
"I could carry you," Victor suggested.
"Fuck off."
Yep, that was what he figured. Creed sighed and chewed on his bottom lip. "How far do you think we are from the estate?" he asked.
"About seven or eight miles," Logan answered. "Why?"
"How far behind us do you think they are?"
"I dunno. Depends. Maybe four or five miles... if we're lucky. But that ain't gonna hold. Once they get a good idea of our direction they'll just push forward."
"That's what I figured too," Victor agreed, looking toward the night sky. The thought of suddenly seeing a dark mass silently hovering overhead sent a chill down his spine. Those black ops helicopters with their whisper-mode made them near impossible to detect even with a super-human sense of hearing.
Logan's ears twitched and he looked up too. He watched Victor scanning the skies above and shook his head. "Don't bother. They're still a couple miles out."
"You hear them?"
"Yeah."
"Still... only a couple of miles?"
"What's the big deal? A couple of miles is better than half a mile."
"True enough, but not as good as three miles... minimum."
"Three miles minimum? What's with the three miles minimum crap? You think three miles is gonna ---" Logan paused as a thought ocurred to him. He looked up at Creed; pinning him with a gaze as sharp as honed steel. "You better be kiddin' me!" he growled.
Victor's expression shifted from a focused scowl to open surprise. He turned to look at Logan as if he'd been caught with his hand in a cookie jar. "What?"
"Wraith?" Logan hissed at him. "You're worried about the distance because Wraith is with them." His words dripped with venom and came out as more of a statement of accusation than a question.
"He's not with them," Victor answered. "He's leading the charge."
"You're workin' for Wraith? You're workin' for Weapon X...?" Logan growled. Victor lowered his gaze and didn't answer. Logan stepped forward. "You keep ruining my life!"
His fangs bared at Victor, Logan stormed forward, nearly stumbling on the uneven terrain. Victor glanced at him but held his spot until Wolverine slammed into him. Creed stumbled backward under the impact and the weight of Logan's adamantium-enhanced skeleton and Victor lost his footing on the small knoll directly behind him.
They tumbled to the ground and Victor scrambled to get out from under Logan's weight. He could feel Wolverine's body temperature rise with his anger and the tension in his muscles. The scent of adrenaline and testosterone levels rising meant that the last place Creed wanted to be at the moment was under a raging Wolverine.
"Take it easy, Logan," Victor tried to reason as he scrambled backward and got to his feet.
Despite his wound and the last couple of hours of exertion Wolverine's adrenaline always served to restore his energy reserves. He was on his feet again and launched himself at Victor.
Creed was ready for him and wrapped his arms around him as he took the hit full force. They tumbled backward again, rolling down a hill. Their momentum finally slowed and they slid the last few yards on a carpet of pine needles. Logan squirmed his way out of Victor's grasp and stumbled, trying to stand up.
Victor sat up quickly and spun on his knees to keep Wolverine in sight. "Take it easy, Logan."
"Wraith?" Logan seethed. "You're workin' for Wraith?"
"I was. Sort of," Victor told him the truth. There was no sense in lying; Logan could tell when a person was lying. "I got myself assigned to his unit so I could get close to you. I needed to be able to see and hear what they were planning. I needed to get into position to --"
"To betray me again," Logan finished.
"No, Logan," Victor rebuked as he got to his feet and stepped back as Wolverine stalked toward him again. His hands were up in front of him trying to show Logan that he had nothing up his sleeve. He had no ulterior motives, nor ideas of ambush or weapons. "To help you... when the chance presented itself."
"You call this helpin' me?" Logan growled; his hand on the soiled bandage around his thigh.
"Yeah, I do," Vic told him, stopping his retreat and facing Logan straight on. "I have two choices Logan... to fight them in order to keep them from getting you back... or kill you to keep them from getting you back...."
He let the rest hang in the air between them. He gave Logan a chance to think about those options and it didn't take long for it to sink in. Wolverine stopped his advance and frowned, lowering his eyes.
"No third choice?" he growled in challenge.
"One," Creed offered and Logan looked up at him. "We can try to outrun them." Logan looked at him and Victor thought he'd never seen him look so old or so haggard.
"I'm tired of runnin'," Logan told him.
"Are ya' tired of livin'?" Victor asked, bringing his focus back to what he needed to focus on; survival.
"Ya' call this livin'?" Logan pointed out.
"I'd say what ya' got with the X-Men is worth fightin' for. Wouldn't you?"
Logan was about to answer when he caught a scent on the breeze. His brows furrowed and he sniffed again. Victor noticed and turned into the current.
"Oh crap." He barely had the chance to look up when a large black shadow slammed into him.
Logan blinked as Creed seemed to disappear suddenly. "Shit!"
His heart raced as he imagined Sabretooth being teleported away by Wraith which meant he too was within extraction range. When he heard a loud grunt and a heavy object impacting the ground seconds later he spun around to see Creed pinned to the ground by....
"Angel?" Logan identified his fellow X-Man.
"Get him off!" Victor growled as he struggled to get free.
Logan ran over to them to see Angel had Creed nailed to the ground with a broad sword. The blade was jammed into Vic's shoulder and Warren was putting all of his weight onto it. The sneer on his face was a calculated rage Wolverine had never before seen in Warren's face.
"Angel! Let him up! He's... he's tryin' to help," Logan told him.
"It's not Angel," Creed informed him, growling through the pain. "It's not Worthington... he's been turned. He's a Hound."
Confusion crossed Logan's face as he tried to comprehend what was going on. When Angel leaned down on the sword and twisted it viciously in Creed's chest, Vic's howl of pain and rage triggered Wolverine into action.
Logan lunged at Angel. He slammed into the lighter frame of the winged-mutant and sent Warren off his feet to sprawl on the ground a few yards away.
With a massive flap of heavy wings, Angel lifted himself to his feet and turned to glare at the feral. "I am the Angel of Death. You are in my Protection. I am the Guardian."
"What the hell are you talkin' about?" Logan snarled.
"I am The Guardian."
Logan stared at Angel in confusion. He'd been turned? When? How? And what the hell was he saying?
"A little help here..." Vic requested.
Logan looked down at him, pinned by the sword. He moved quickly to pull it out. It took a couple of good pulls to free it, since Angel had buried the damn thing two feet into the ground through Victor's shoulder. As he pulled it free, the glinting steel now covered in dirt and blood Logan turned toward Warren.
"I'll take that," Angel told him; stepping forward, hand outstretched.
"Like hell," Creed answered. Getting to his feet he snatched the sword from Logan's hands and pointed it at Worthington.
“You’re workin’ for Weapon X?” Logan asked Worthington.
“My purpose is the guardianship of Death. I am the Angel of Death. It is my mission to see you returned to your proper place.”
“My proper place is right here,” Logan replied angrily. “You don’t know what you’re sayin’, they’ve messed with your mind.”
Angel smiled at him. “I am the servant of Death. It is my mission to protect you from… him.”
Logan and Victor exchanged looks. Logan noted that Creed’s bloody shoulder had already stopped bleeding and he held the sword out in front of him as if ready to skewer the turned X-Man. Logan turned back to Warren.
“If I was the Horseman Death, I certainly wouldn’t need your protection. I wouldn’t need anyone’s protection. I am not Death and ---“
“But you will be again,” Angel told him amiably, still smiling. “That is our quest - to return Weapon X to his birthing grounds and to bring him…you to your former glory, for the good of all mutant-kind.”
“That’s not gonna happen, Wings,” Logan told him.
“I’ll make sure of that!” Victor roared and lunged at Worthington.
“Victor!” Logan shouted, but was too slow to stop him.
Warren used his massive wings to lift off the ground as Sabretooth attacked. Hovering a foot off the ground, he swung to his left to avoid the gleaming steel as Creed tried to run him through. As Victor missed his target, Angel reached out and grabbed Creed by the collar of his coat and ascended with the giant mutant again.
Logan watched from the ground as the battle went airborne and then he lowered his gaze to the surrounding darkness; knowing full well that Angel’s distraction of Creed was only allowing Wraith’s army to gain ground on them. He sniffed at the air and growled softly; picking up a variety of human scents on the breeze.
Above him, Victor grappled with the Guardian, opting to lose the sword in favor of his own weaponry. Claws raked at the thickly padded gambeson as the two men wrestled high above the ground. As Angel pushed Creed’s head back, twisting it around, Victor spotted Logan below, watching.
“Go!” Creed shouted down to him.
Logan’s attention was on the forest around him. There’s no way men on foot could’ve followed Worthington to this spot; not with him in the air at night. So how did they find him?
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“We have multiple signals, Sir,” the technician sitting at the console beside Dr. Russ informed Wraith.
“IRF?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir. Identities confirmed. Sabretooth, The Guardian, and Weapon X.”
“Pinpoint their location,” Wraith ordered.
“Already have, Sir. Ground units have already received the information and are en route to intercept and capture.”
“Good,” Wraith replied. “Distance?”
“Four miles…”
“Direction?”
“Northeast.”
Wraith turned and exited the trailer. There was a foot soldier standing just outside the door waiting to do his bidding.
“Tell the pilot to prep the helo.”
“Yes, Sir,” the soldier acknowledged with a salute and moved to complete his assignment.
Wraith chomped down on his soggy cigar, looking satisfied.
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TBC'd
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Victor and Logan continue their trek cross country on foot trying to evade the military hunting them. Meanwhile, Dr Maier readies the troops to bring down Weapon X to take him back to the compound. The X-Men pull themselves together after the battle at their home.
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