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They swarmed out of the complex like ants out of a hill.

“Goddess,” Ororo swore under her breath. Her face was appalled. “They’d do this to so many mutants…” She was already flush with power, eyes emitting sparks. Logan shuddered at the currents of energy flowing through her body like a live wire, feeling its thrum even when they weren’t in direct contact.

She scared him. This wasn’t his ‘Ro.

The units were processing their surroundings, their scanner readings thrown off by the unseasonable fog. Logan’s own senses were tense and on high alert with the number of Prime units stalking the grounds.

At the first sign of a red laser beam setting them in its sights, he lunged for Ororo. “Get DOWN!” She grunted beneath the impact of his body covering hers as they crashed to the ground, narrowly missing a compact explosive. They rolled out of range before it hit; Logan was showered in shrapnel.

“They want to play rough, then we play rough,” she hissed through her teeth. “Go!” she urged, refusing his hand and rising on her own.

“Don’t fly off the handle, darlin’!” he cautioned, but the pent-up frustration of recent days, coupled with Forge’s involvement in the danger they were in gripped her.

“Don’t hold back, Logan.” Her voice was smooth and hard as she hurled herself into the sky.

“HALT, MUTANTS!” Two of the Prime units were already on point, scanners fixed on them warily, assessing the level of threat from the feral and the weather shifter. “Stand down. Access forbidden. Perimeter has been breached.”

“That ain’t all,” Logan snarled. His lips twisted into a grin that promised pain. SNIKT. The sting of his claws bursting through his flesh made him feel alive. “Ya came in and tore our home apart. Didja think we were just gonna sit back and let ya make plans ta do it again?” The Prime unit closest to him readied a whip coil much like that last one that injured Storm over the school grounds. “Stay airborne, darlin’!” The coil nicked him as he dove and rolled, jarring him. Before it could snare him, his claws cleaved through it in a neat arc, sending the severed limb skidding over the dry grass.

“SQUARKK!” A female operative, from the looks of it, got the business end of Ororo’s lightning at close range. Her fists were tangled in her cape, attempting to immobilize her, but Ororo worked her hand free and shocked her directly in the chest, disrupting the control module housed within it. She gave the being a heart attack. Her eyes looked surprised and reverted from the eerie black to dark brown, right before they rolled back in her head. The Prime operative plummeted to the ground.

They kept coming. Logan’s lungs burned from the effort it took to cut a swath through the encroaching tide of Prime. Their objective was the facility, but to also disable the grid. He sensed Gyrich inside and mentally wrapped his hands around the bastard’s neck.

He felt her above him, fighting for him and covering his back.

Thunder suddenly deafened. She was wrapped in it, reveling in its caress as she created a solid wall of pressure and sound, charging it with her electricity. The Prime units heading for her didn’t sense the destructive effects until they were close to evade the current.

“Termination imminent…Fall back. Hostile-“ She was fierce, her face wholly unsympathetic as each one went down like moths who drew too close to the flame.

“Yes. I am,” she agreed. She followed Logan’s progress toward the doors. Henry and Forge should have done their part by now, she reasoned. They should be able to walk right through the front door.

The Prime units had other ideas, as though they sensed her intention. A small flank of them flew toward the rear of the facility, right about where they parked and cloaked the Blackbird.

“Henry!” she hissed, realizing their intent.

Their shadows fell over the two men measuring the readings of the security panel embedded in the wall. Henry peered over Forge’s shoulder, eyes widening as he turned, instinctively shielding the inventor.

“We’ve been found out,” he cried. “Forge, get down!”

“What the “ shit!” he rasped as the beings bore down upon them.

“Mutant 1010-711. Identification designate: McCoy, Henry. Beast. Status: Active. Class Four. Hostile mutate.”

“I’m only hostile when provoked, so I beg to differ,” Henry said smoothly. His fur was bristling with static. He knew it was Ororo’s doing and hoped they wouldn’t manage to survive an attack by the Prime ops only to fall victim to a stray blast of electricity. “Forge…”

“Nearly finished, Blue!”

“I’ll buy you some more time, Maker.” Forge cursed the sound of Ororo’s voice, too close to the source of danger, but he was grateful that she seemed unharmed.

SKARA-THOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM! Before Henry of Forge could even move, they were knocked off their feet by the aftershock of thunder. Henry rolled to his back, awed at the sight of Ororo slamming into her opponent, a particularly burly operative, and channeling her thunder through her fists. His sensitive ears screamed, throbbing with the impact of solid sound.

“Oh, my stars and garters!”

“How the heck did she pull that off?” Forge muttered, hands shielding his own ears.

“Ask her on the way home,” Henry suggested hopefully. The other two operatives recovered quickly from the blast, but Ororo was faster, battering them with wind and knocking them into the wall. They stood pinned, faces staring blandly ahead as though they didn’t know the damage to come.

“Processing…processing…resolution processing. Termination recalculated…” one droned. The creature aimed its fist at the hovering target and set its sight on her, a red laser point neatly centering itself on her forehead.

“Ya wanna back off!” Logan roared. SLASH! SHUNNNKKKKKK! The offending hand was sliced off at the wrist. The being shrieked in pain before Ororo’s lightning did the trick, effectively disabling the processing modules and taking the creatures offline.

That’d teach ‘em to mess with his his girl.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Forge said softly to Ororo.

“You didn’t ask,” she tossed back, flipping her hair back over her shoulder. Henry sighed.

“We’re in?” he inquired, eyeing the console. Forge made one last adjustment with his tools. The small red light beside the panel flashed from red to green.

“We’re in. It’s no longer armed from the outside.”

“What about the alarms inside?” Logan asked, still skeptical.

“We’ve got people inside,” Henry reasoned. “And this complex is full of metal. Lorna and Erik are probably having a field day.”


~0~

“We want Gyrich,” Erik boomed. Lorna stood beside him, not cowering or hanging back. Her hair was already slightly charged, floating around her face. The technicians hunkered back toward the consoles and desks in the lab, looking for the best available opportunity to hit the panic button and to grab secure weapons from their cache.

They were close to the epicenter. Erik could feel it.

“Can’t let you in here, muties! Never should have come,” hissed a man in a flak jacket, wielding a mean-looking rifle. Erik tutted.

“Consider us your guests. You’re a poor host, you know.” KRNNKK! He felt the rifle jerked out of his hands, dangling in mid-air before it was neatly folded into a pretzel. Erik flung it back, hitting him squarely in the forehead and knocking him out.

“Call back the flank! Get ‘em in here, NOW!” The speaker was a young looking technician who stood rooted to the floor in fear. Erik’s display sent many of them running, but a stalwart few looked ready to take them apart.

“Lorna,” Erik murmured. “Show them how impolite they’ve been.”

“You heard my dad,” she shrugged, lips curling in a smile too canny for someone her age. Her hair crackled with energy as she latched onto the metal in their blood stream and froze their limbs.

“What are…you…do…errrrggghhh,” moaned one of the mercs. His face reddened as she choked his blood flow momentarily, strangling him.

“Make it clean, child,” Erik advised, his voice hard. She whipped around to face him, still in control of her powers.

“Erik…”

“Take them down,” he ordered again, “or I will.”

“Daddy ““

“DO IT!” She looked back at the mercs hanging suspended within her magnetic field, and returned her gaze to her father.

His silver eyes were cold. The soft-spoken man who’d held her and comforted her in the Blackbird was gone without a trace. She hesitated moments too long, emotions warring in her chest. He was her father.

He was asking her to kill.

“I can’t, Daddy. I’m sor ““ She flew back and hit the wall when he interrupted the flow of energy from her body. The mercs dropped, landing hard against the steel floor.

“Don’t ever tell me you’re sorry, girl. And never disappoint me.” The mercs attempted to stand. Suddenly they were choking again, bodies jerking like badly manipulated marionettes. Their eyes bulged, faces florid and gaping in pain and shock.

“Don’t!” she screamed. “Erik, NO!” She tried to block him, but she wasn’t strong enough. The backlash of her magnetic field flung her back like a rag doll.

She heard their screams as Erik constricted their blood vessels with a gesture, allowing the minerals to build up and block their arteries. They broke free, zooming straight into the ventricle. She was still linked to her father. To those men, through her field as she tried to re-establish a connection. To save them.

She felt them die. She shivered as they flopped back onto the floor, twitching for a minute and then laying silent and still.

“You killed them.” Her voice was low and disbelieving, the words both an accusation and a plea.

“I removed an obstacle. They were a danger to us, Lorna. They have access to those accursed creatures who attacked us before. They nearly killed me before. Nearly killed us.” She remembered her father’s eyes…her adoptive father’s, the day that she left. Horrified at what she did, of the power she held as she dangled him off the floor.

Was he an obstacle?

“Come,” he beckoned, changing tactics as he watched her. He couldn’t afford to compromise her trust in him. He would prevail. “Come now, child.” He brushed off the pang of guilt and unease at the unshed tears in her blue eyes, making her look so much like Magda it hurt.

She rose and followed him. She made no move to take his hand, and she hugged her trenchcoat around herself protectively. “Step lively. We’re taking a little tour. Then we’re going to introduce ourselves to Mr. Gyrich.” This time his smile reached his eyes. “Won’t that be nice?”

~0~

“Somebody pinch me,” Kitty breathed as she craned her neck to stare at the gleaming control panel and consoles, multiple wide-screen monitors and an enormous three-dimensional array that showed a schematic of the complex. “This would be so cool if they weren’t using it all to try to kill us.”

“One-track mind,” Piotr grumbled. He watched her warily as she ran her gloved fingers over the surface of the console. “Don’t touch it, Katya!”

“Why not? We came in here to see how to disable it. This is their eyes and ears, Colossus,” she reminded him simply. “Forge would be having an orgasm right about now.” Piotr grunted in disgust.

“Can you program it to see where the others are right now?”

“This machine’s my bitch,” she vowed, already bringing up a cursor prompt and typing in random commands. Rows of binary language flashed in response to her rapid-fire typing.

It was like watching Beethoven compose a symphony. It gave Piotr the beginnings of a headache.

She toggled and clicked through several different menus. She tried several sample passwords when it prompted her “UserID: Verify ______?”

“Shit,” she hissed. She ended up with rows of “PASSWORD FAILED. TRY AGAIN? Y/N” as she tried again and again to come up with feasible codes.

“We don’t have that long,” he urged. His tone was becoming desperate.

“What word would float this guy’s boat enough to use it to guard all these goodies?” she pondered. Her lips moved silently as she typed and clicked, mouthing each test code. “Damn it!”

“This is Forge’s area of expertise.”

“Traitor.”

“He might have some way of bypassing the codes.” Then he added “You can’t just phase through it?”

“We don’t know what else runs on this thing’s network. Come on, COME ON!” she carped, smacking the console. “Hate this.”

“You can’t keep banging your head against a wall.”

“Wouldn’t hurt you if you did; wanna do it for me?” He reached out and pinched her arm. “Ow.”

“Gyrich turned on his own contractor,” Piotr mused. “He was even offended by Forge going behind his back.”

“I know,” she agreed absently. “You heard that recording they took from the Prime unit that Forge took down? That guy sounds so creepy! Kept on muttering about Forge not being on the government payroll anymore…” She jumped with a start as Piotr clapped his hand over her shoulder to silence her.

“Try ‘payroll.’ Her brows crumpled, but she turned back to the screen and typed it in, hitting enter.

“Cripes,” she whispered as the a row of prompts laddered down the screen, ending on “Waiting…” until they left the green screen and were taken into the main database. “Got any fantasies, Piotr?”

“Katya!”

“Plan on at least a dozen of ‘em coming true when we get back to the school.”

She then proceeded to wreak havoc.


~0~

Gyrich sprinted down the hallway, technicians and two of his officers hot on his heels.

“That bunker better be ready! Don’t let anyone in! I don’t care if they look like they work here, do you hear me? Anyone who tries to cross that doorway gets their head blown off!”

“Understood,” a voice piped up behind him. He whipped around to face the taller of the two officers, his badge naming him Johnson. “They’ve breached the facility.”

“That shouldn’t have happened, private.”

“We’re on it. We’ve called in another flank to work from the inside.”

“Those muties never should have made it this far in, or don’t you understand the shit we’re in? Or that you’re in?” Johnson swallowed hollowly, his discomfiture felt by everyone in that corridor. Gyrich’s eyes were steely behind his glasses. Before he could reply, a claxon on the wall sounded, the light flashing and blaring bright red.

The clanging stopped, and the light was extinguished with a low rumble.

“Tell me we didn’t just lose power,” Gyrich snarled, clutching Johnson by the lapels.

“N-no, sir, we didn’t. That alarm…I hate to say this, sir, but that’s the one for the mainframe room. It’s been breached.”

“Then so much for your ‘flank,’ private!” He practically bit his tongue and flew back against the wall when Gyrich shoved him away. He fumed as the men attempted to force open the bunker’s outer security door, finally succeeding and ushering him inside.

“Just tell me that the remaining units are still online,” he barked as he approached the console.

“We have backup power here in the bunker, sir. A firewall was installed to keep us connected to the mainframe but to lock out anyone unauthorized from accessing the bunker. They can knock, but there’s nobody home.”

“I’m going to make sure you’re not lying,” Gyrich promised as he used another palm reader that slid open when he punched a black button that booted up the screen. He typed in a command and pressed his palm over the scanner.

[Gyrich, Henry Peter, acknowledged. Access granted.]

The screen pulled up a digital blueprint of the facility. He saw that mainframe access to the east and north wings was lost. Security cameras in the basement were also disabled. He wracked his brain for clues.

“It’s gotta be Forge. Bastard,” he cursed. “He let them in. Should’ve taken him down before he even contacted those muties. “I need the feeds from those cameras.”

“Should be archived on the system. We don’t build anything without a backup, sir.” His voice was full of irony as he added “Forge designed the upgrades to the bunker, sir.” Gyrich ceased his manic typing, and his face turned white.

“Just tell me where to get the feeds.”

~0~

Lorna was numb, her face devoid of true emotion even though something inside her died with the operatives they’d left behind in the lab. She scarcely heard her father’s instructions.

“Open it, child.” She focused on the next set of security doors and disabled them, bending back the locks that were constructed of steel alloy. She levered the doors off their hinges; the metal twisted and groaned as she flung them aside like discarded wrapping paper. They clanged against the wall; Erik winced, rubbing his ear at the noise that vibrated through them both. “That will do, Lorna.”

The next hallway that they approached was empty save for the sounds of someone moving about in an adjacent suite.

“You beat us here,” Erik remarked casually. Piotr turned to face them, merely nodding until he saw Lorna’s blank stare and the way she hugged herself as they entered the lab.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her, ignoring her father for the moment. “Has something happened to you?” Her lip quivered; a strong yearning to dash forward and cling to him and pour out what she witnessed choked her.

She felt her father’s disapproval without even looking at him.

“Nothing’s the matter,” she shrugged before hovering over Kitty while she worked on disabling the rest of the alarms.

“Found something else,” Kitty announced, drawing Erik’s attention to the screens. “Another big room, almost looks like a hangar of sorts. Forge didn’t mention anything about this place housing aircrafts.”

“Not likely, dear Kitten.” She scowled at his use of her pet name; Ororo coined it and it only sounded right coming from her mouth. “The security council can’t risk anyone seeing planes take off from the facility. Yet the air space for the next few miles is restricted, as you can tell by that radar. Run the feed.”

“Why?”

“Their cameras would have seen the Blackbird’s arrival before they were shut down. They’ve had time to study us and assess our capabilities.”

“The Blackbird’s cloaked,” she argued.

“Our friend Forge can build anything. It isn’t unreasonable that he can also take anything apart. If we could bypass the same instruments, alarms and security systems we found here, what’s to stop them from doing the same with our jet?”

“You mean our jet?” she countered tartly. “You two just hitchhiked, remember?”

“Shut your piehole,” Lorna snapped, roughly shoving Kitty. “We came to help you losers!”

“We tried to help you, too. You’re welcome.” Kitty glared at her until Lorna backed down, turning away.

~0~

“After you, Logan.”

“Naw, babe, I insist; after you.”

SPLAANNNGG! Lightning and tornado-level winds battered through the front gate. Astonished eyes sized them up on the other side, staring at the smoking doors. Ororo smiled. Logan smiled back.

They hurled themselves into the melee. Ororo didn’t risk using her lightning with as much abandon as before, relying on her usual credo of “stop, don’t kill.” Weeks of sparring with Logan before he’d left for Canada sharpened her hand-to-hand skills. Leather gloves protected her hands as she punched one of her attackers directly in the teeth.

Logan was barely containing his blood lust, keeping a lid on it as long as Ororo was handling herself beside him. He didn’t pull punches, but his claws reserved for armored jackets and weapons, avoiding flesh in favor of his lover’s technique. They fell into a familiar rhythm of leg sweeps, feints and kidney punches.

Another of the facilities’ guards entered the fray but hung back, almost as if assessing the ongoing struggle.

They could help us. They could free us.

The programming asserted itself, overriding the Prime operative’s thought processes. He wavered before his eyes reverted to black, pupils glowing red from its laser guides.

Nullifier protocols activated. Termination imminent. The being backed off for the moment. The subtle movements from that side of the room drew Logan’s attention.

Above the cacophony of cries and the mingling scents in the room, he smelled one that wasn’t right. Metal meshed in flesh.

“This is bullshit,” he muttered. “Storm, let’s get the fuck outta Dodge.”

“That way?” she nodded toward the entry way.

“That way.” Her wind blew back three more of their attackers, knocking them against the wall. They slumped unconscious to the floor.


~0~

“What’s that?” Lorna demanded.

“What’s what?”

“That blip.”

“What blip?” Kitty asked impatiently.

“The one that’s coming this way.”


~0~

He’d only joined the program to have a better life. He’d bought into it hook, line and sinker. Miracles of technology, “precious metal” and all that crap.

The implants would get him off the transplant donor list and back on the track running marathons again, they’d said. The country’s veterans deserved the best, they’d told him. His mutantcy was kept confidential as long as he served the needs of the Council.

He woke up from the anesthetic in several pieces that had been sewn back together in a gruesome puzzle of wires and leads. That bastard, Winsor, claimed it was a success. He’d be better than ever, he promised. He didn’t cry any tears when he heard the reports that the good doctor had gone missing.

His programming was never turned off, even when he was “dormant.” It wasn’t true sleep. Prime ops were alert twenty-four seven, on call for duty at the drop of a hat.

He kept his sanity with pain. It cut through the commands and prompts drumming themselves into his consciousness, letting him focus on the need to just be. He suffered, but it was his suffering.

They never had the Cure when his curse manifested itself. How much pain would he have been spared, then, if they had?

The nullifier implant seemed to burn him, reminding him of its purpose.

It was grim, cruel irony that his target shared his own pain, and once upon a time, the same purpose.

His scanner picked up four mutant signatures in the mainframe suite.

I’m sorry.


~0~

“It shouldn’t be this easy,” Forge complained, nerves on edge as they stepped gingerly and quickly around fallen men. “Or this quiet.”

“It’s no easier, just because it hasn’t happened on our own front doorstep this time.”

“I never said it was easy.” Forge took a reading of the entryway. “Seeing this many men in uniform just lying like this takes me back to a bad place, Hank. Straight back into hell.”

“I know, Forge.” Henry kicked aside a crumpled door and avoided a security card reader that was emitting sparks and smoke. “Logan and Ororo left a trail of breadcrumbs.” Forge’s snort of disgust was cut short as his scanner began to beep.

“We’re practically on top of the signal.”

“Despite Kitty’s obvious handiwork,” Henry mused, nodding to the security faceplates, “she hasn’t disabled it yet.”

“That means that there’s still Prime units active on the grid.”

“We’re about to step on the hive.”

“There’s a bunker, if this facility’s blueprint is identical to Winsor’s safehouse.”

“So much need for weapons, gates and protection. They knew someone would take offense to what they were doing, yet they thought it was the right thing. It’s madness,” Henry grumbled. “I mean, it is just me?”

“HALT, MUTANTS!”

“Shit!” Forge shoved his scanner back into his protective case hooked to his belt.

“The disruptor,” Henry barked. “Do it, Forge, NOW!”

“It’s only charged for a few shots.”

“Make them count!”

Their eyes. Blank, cold. Devoid of pity, of mercy. Henry didn’t want that sight to be his last. His ears throbbed from the piercing sound the disruptor emitted when Forge aimed it at the closest of their attackers, a man of rangy build and dark coloring. It was no less unnerving than it was when he took out the operative that invaded Ororo’s office in a burst of shattered glass. He was enveloped in the blinding glow of light, features rippling and twisting in agony as its systems were taken offline from the mainframe.

Henry’s fur stood on end; it went against everything he ever worked for as a man of science, seeing it used to destroy rather than help. Forge was his colleague and a man he respected, but something in him roared in outrage that even his gifts had been twisted, that he’d been so lax and complacent to let things go this far…it defied reason. The remaining Prime units witnessed their fallen member and recalculated their plan of attack.

“Processing…processing. Hostile mutants, active. Resolution: 86% probability of termination. Forge, inactive. Resolution reached…” The female operative, one unassuming enough on the street in the light of day, pronounced his fate as she aimed an impact grenade directly at Forge, hitting him squarely in the shoulder.

Fire. Burning agony claimed him, sweeping through him before he could even scream. He was flung back, his body arching as he sailed several feet and landed with a smack. Blood spattered over Henry, stippling his leather uniform and fur. Forge lay there, twitching and seizing as a pool of gore grew wider beneath his body. It seemed to happen in slow motion, even though Henry’s reflexes made him roll out of harm’s way.

“Blue,” he gasped. “Blue!” His hand wasn’t moving, even though he jerked and attempted to wrench himself up. His lower limb hung limp and useless.

They’d disabled his prosthetic, nearly amputating his arm. The neural connection was severed. Crippling him again…

“NOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOO!” he roared with his remaining strength.

“FORGE ““

“Take this! Do it, Blue!” He kicked the disruptor across the floor. Henry clutched it and took aim for the nearest pair of vacant black eyes.

He had to make each shot count. Blinding flashes of light illuminated the hall. Forge’s silent scream warred with the pain coursing through his body until he couldn’t tell one apart from the other.


~0~

“HENRY!” Ororo felt cold, breath crushed out of her lungs by the sight of her dearest friend crouching back, aiming a weapon she never saw before. The operatives closed in on him, obscuring her view of another body lying on the floor nearby.

“Hang in there, Hank!” Logan’s nose told him these weren’t Gyrich’s mercs. SNIKT! SLASH! He cleaved through the Prime’s back, just missing the spine but causing enough pain to take it down. Its companion didn’t hold back, still looming over Henry with deadly intent.

Ororo risked a streak of lightning that wrapped around the being’s torso like a lasso, focusing it enough not to turn the hallway into a giant conductor or compromise her teammates. Its body crackled and sizzled, jerking as it, too, fell inert.

“Henry, oh, Henry…oh, no! Goddess, NO! FORGE! Please, please…get up, do you hear me, GET UP!” She tripped and fell to her knees by his side. He was gray, blood streaking his face and neck. His eyes were glassy but still coherent, riveted on her face.

“Hey…good lookin’,” he drawled raggedly. “M’down…but not…out.” Logan watched him in a mixture of sympathy and confusion.

“They hit him hard.” He watched Henry hovering over him, feeling his pulse. “What next, Blue?”

“We get him back to the Blackbird, asap! In the meantime, we take him with us.” Before he could scoop him up, Ororo stilled his hands.

“Wait. Please.” She unfastened her cape and removed it, handing it to Logan. “Here. Tear off enough of it for a tourniquet. He’ll just bleed out and be gone before we can do anything for him.” Logan obediently flicked his claws through the resilient material, tearing it in one clean cut and handing her a long strip. She worked to bind it around his shoulder, winding it around and tying it tight. Forge was already in so much pain he didn’t even flinch.

“Saves you…trouble…kicking my ass later…for thisss…”

“Hush, now,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes as she laid a finger over his lips to silence him.

“Yer not gonna get outta this that easy, bub,” Logan promised as Henry finally cradled him against his solid bulk and lifted him up. “I’ll make sure ya live long enough fer ‘Ro here ta do just that. Hang in there.”

“Ass…hole,” Forge muttered before he closed his eyes. Ororo looked horrified, stifling a low cry into her glove.

“He’s got a pulse.”

“Let’s move,” Logan spat.


~0~

The girls looked younger than his sister. She never developed any powers. She called him a freak. She couldn’t appreciate how lucky she was.

The one with green hair turned around first, as though she felt his approach. He felt pressure and force bombarding him, enveloping his body and squeezing him.

“Get back,” she cried hoarsely. “Don’t make me do this!”

“Do what has to be done, Lorna!” Erik snapped. The being’s eyes glowed.

“Mutant 1010-952. Identification designate: Lensherr, Erik. Magneto.” It’s expression was almost smug as it named him. Erik met its gaze, unperturbed.

“Those will be your last words.” Lorna raised him off his feet slowly, straining and wavering, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” she demanded.

“Resolution reached.” The being opened its mouth, and a shrill, piercing wave of sound filled the suite. Piotr and Kitty screamed, hands clamped ineffectually over their ears, which dripped crimson onto the concrete floor. He couldn’t maintain his steel form as it taxed his reserves and control. Lorna tore her gaze from the being and watched her friend and the quiet assistant teacher crumple. Her force field protected her from the worst of the sonar, but the distraction took away all margin for error with one glance. Her control faltered. The being made its move.

A constricting net trapped her, its mesh creeping over her and binding her tightly. She writhed on the floor. “ERIK! Help me!”

“Not now, child!” The being advanced on her again. Kitty still reeled from the brunt of the blast and couldn’t phase yet. She watched Erik attack the creature.

Erik stood tall and imposing despite his advanced years, stretching his hand toward the Prime unit and pushing him back, feeling the adamantium implants and the nannites coursing through it. “So much like our friend Wolverine,” he purred. “With so many of the same weaknesses.” Those glowing red eyes never wavered.

“Termination imminent,” it insisted. “Targets acquired.”

“I know you can hear me,” Erik replied. “I know you can understand me when I say you don’t have to be a puppet for those who hate you.”

The being hesitated. Piotr’s face was twisted in agony as he strained to hear the words.

“Magnus,” he grunted. “Stop…him.”

“When was the last time you saw daylight?”

“Resolution…processing.” Erik never released his hold on the being, but he didn’t squeeze him as forcefully.

“They’re drumming it into your brain, what they want you to do. They dangled your freedom in front of you, just out of fingertip’s reach. Told you that you just had to pass one more test. Work for your freedom.” The metal in the being’s body still whispered to Erik seductively, yet taunted him with memories of the camp. Of Magda pleading with him. He pushed down the ache in his soul until he was immune to it.

“Security breached,” it intoned. “Access unauthorized.” Its voice lacked some of its conviction.

“They can’t control you when you have this kind of power. They live at our tolerance, our sufferance, don’t you understand? We allow them life. We’re superior,” he stared simply, shrugging as though explaining this to a child.

“That’s…what Mags…wants you t’believe,” Kitty moaned. Her gloved fingers scraped at the floor as she dragged herself closer to Lorna.

“Look what these children have gotten for their troubles. Struck down by one of their own kind, and for what? Gyrich thinks you’re dangerous. A plague upon the world. What does it serve you to serve him? An upstart destroying the future of this world in the guise of protecting his country!” Erik scoffed. “We ARE this world’s future. Don’t deny that.” He sighed. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Mutant designate…”

“I asked you, son, what is your name?” The being look confused. Strain etched itself across its features for one heavy, charged moment.

Then, “Mark.” Erik smiled.

“That’s a fine name. Tell me, Mark, have you grown tired enough yet of Gyrich pulling your strings?” The being shook itself; Erik felts body tense within the field he’d erected around it and struggled to contain him.

“Security breached. Activate contingency protocols…scanning…scanning…” His face looked triumphant. “Multiple targets confirmed. Mutants ident designate Munroe, Ororo; Howlett, James; McCoy, Henry; Forge, inactive. Termination pending…” Piotr’s blood ran cold.

“Boszhe moi!” That meant they were bearing down on them and walking into a trap.

Lorna felt something stirring against her hand. She peered into Kitty’s brown eyes and saw her lips move.

Take my hand.

She gripped her trembling fingers through the mesh and squeezed. The mesh coils fell away from her body, freeing her.

Ororo and Logan burst inside, breaking Erik’s concentration.

Everything happened so fast.

Lorna aimed for Piotr and seized him, synching herself with the metals and minerals in his bloodstream, discovering how they fed his nerves and tissue. She sent manipulated those elements, sending them to their destinations to activate his mutation once more. She stumbled to her feet, charging toward the Prime operative.

“DADDY!” She saw it attempt to raise its hand. Within its palm, a small lens opened up, glowing with a charge that it aimed toward his captor. She resumed her force field, this time wrapping it securely around her father without interfering with his hold.

They heard the thrum of its weapon as it fired. Red light refracted off the field as it struck, outlining Erik in its radiance and throwing his strained features into stark relief. He still looked triumphant.

Piotr followed his instincts and protected Kitty, wrapping his armored body around hers as she crouched against the wall. She wasn’t phasing and was still limp. Her heart beat hammered as fast as his; her warm scent and wavy hair tickled his nostrils amid the metallic odors of the lab.

Lorna stood fast against the pulse of the being’s ray battering against her shield. She was young an untried, lacking Erik’s experience and knowledge of his limits, as well as his disregard for them in regard to what he wanted. She hadn’t the benefit of a mentor in her newfound home, nor of regular sessions in the Danger Room.

Her shield weakened and lost cohesion. A scream burned in her throat as the ray built momentum from the backlash of the resistance exerted against it being taken away. She closed her eyes and braced for the worst. Goodbye, Daddy!

Ororo moved with a single intent: She had to protect her students, no matter what the cost. She was closer to Lorna than Logan; Piotr and Kitten were huddled back from the blast, but he lifted his gleaming head at the sound of the ray resuming its flight, whistling across the room. He and Ororo met eyes before it dawned on him what she planned to do.

“ORORO, NO!”

“RO! DON’T!” Logan’s heart stopped. His lover’s lithe body hurled itself between Lorna and the glaring red beam.

She glowed like a fallen angel. Pain surged through her, burning through every vein and nerve, turning her inside-out. Lightning flew out from her limbs, pouring from her eyes and fingertips. Her mouth dropped open in horror and denial. She wanted to reach for Logan but couldn’t. It changed her.

It was the end of everything she’d ever been.

He caught her when she fell, too stunned to breathe, focused only on the way her head lolled back and the way her body seemed to collapse into his embrace. Her breath stuttered; her pulse was weak and uneven.

“God, ‘Ro! Baby…?” She licked her lips, cracked and bleeding from the impact of the ray and her own lightning. The white glow that characterized her mutation slowly died like an extinguished flame. He felt the faint touch of her fingers against his jaw, dropping down to his chest. Her palm covered his heart; she attempted to draw strength from it.

“Know that I love you,” she whispered, “no matter what.”

“Good God,” Henry’s voice boomed from the doorway. Horrible déjà vu hit him when he saw Ororo cradled against Logan’s body, anguish wracking him so hard that he couldn’t…wouldn’t come back from it. He shouldered Forge now, who groaned at the sudden shift of position and loss of support as Henry fumbled for the disruptor. The being turned at the sound of this new target, readying itself for another charge.

“Mutant designate McCoy, Henry. Resolution processing…”

“I believe you’ve done enough,” Henry grated out, aiming true and striking the being between the eyes. All pity over its plight was gone in that instance. He would damn himself later, if he survived, and he would anesthetize himself with scotch, even though it wouldn’t dim the pain one bit.

God. Forgive me. Henry and the Prime unit shared the same thought as they each froze in some strange dance of conflict and self-hate over what had to be done. The man who vowed to prove himself a man and to never do harm killed, while the man who was programmed and re-made to kill died, finally free and cursing that he only carried out was he was built to do.

As they witnessed with the other Prime units they had taken down, his eyes burned into them with his final words.

“Thank…you. Couldn’t go on. Still…a man. Can’t…fight anymore. F-forgive me,” he pleaded. He rolled his head toward Ororo, still lying unresponsive in Logan’s arms and staring glassily up at his face. “Never would’ve hurt her…if I could’ve stopped.”

“You have no idea what you’ve taken away, man.” Forge slumped forward, still hanging limply onto Henry and fighting to hold his head upright. He found a ruined man as he took in Logan’s face, everything in him broken. Ororo’s hair flowed over his arm like a blanket.

The being gave up its life and became a man again in death.

Erik recovered first, turning to his daughter and collecting her to him. She sobbed long and hard, craving his comfort like air.

“So sorry, Daddy, m’so sorry! She…didn’t want her to do that! I should’ve done better, and now look what happened! She helped me! She helped me!”

“How could she not?” he murmured soothingly. “How could she not?” he repeated, rocking her as she wept. Kitty stirred, sitting up with help from Piotr, who still looked shaken and unwilling to let her go.

“I ain’t done here,” Logan choked. “I ain’t done.”

“Let’s go, tovarisch,” Piotr urged on a low rumble. “Let’s leave this place.”

“Can’t,” he argued. “Gotta get ‘Ro an’ Forge back ta the plane. Then I’ve gotta take Gyrich’s head off.”

“Logan.” Ororo’s voice cut through the blanket of red rage that settled over him. “Do what you have to. Leave me.”

“The hell I will, ‘Ro!” She gripped his hand, and he hated the pain in her blue eyes, but she was determined.

“Take him down. Shut this down. It’s bigger than you and me.”

“Nothin’s bigger than you an’ me, darlin’. Nothin’ on this earth.”

“I will take her back to the plane,” Piotr promised.

“This is my fault. This is all my fault,” Forge insisted. Tears rolled unchecked down his face, streaking trails through the blood and dust on his cheeks.

“Don’t dwell on that now, Forge.” Henry moved to take him out of the lab.

“No. We need to get to the bunker. It’s in the sub-basement.”

“What about the rest of the Prime units? There’s gotta be more.” Kitty was adamant as she limped painfully to the console. She tracked the signals within the complex. “There aren’t many left.”

“Where are they?” Erik demanded.

“Where they should be,” she mused. “The sub-basement.” She peered up into his face with more gravity than a teenager should have. “There’s our bunker. I can’t hack into its firewall to disable its defenses.”

“You won’t have to.” Erik’s look was calculating. “But there is something you can do, child.”

“Name it.”

“Disconnect them from the mainframe. Rewrite their command protocols, if it can be done.”

“Why not just turn them off?”

“Look what happens when we do,” he pointed out. “More collateral damage. More death of our own. More blood on our hands?” His voice was too measured, too smooth. Too persuasive. She dismissed it.

“Time for someone to have an attitude change,” she murmured, addressing the screen before her. Erik faded away from her as she entered the world of the mainframe, clicking and toggling through screens and speaking the computer’s language. “Buy me some more time, Mags.”

“Lorna, stay with Kitten,” he ordered sternly. She grimaced and shook her head.

“No. I’m going with you.”

“Don’t defy me,” he railed back, wrenching her arm roughly until their faces were mere inches apart. His pupils were dilated and anger twisted his mouth. “You will stay, because that’s what you’ve been told, Lorna!” Her breathing was heavy; she struggled against his too-hard grip as emotions flitted over her face. She gave in first, averting her eyes, her whole body relaxing before he released her. She backed away from him in defeat. A piece of her soul died.

Piotr gently pried Ororo away from Logan. “I have her. I’ll protect her with my life.” It hovered unsaid between them that they each failed that duty only minutes ago.

“Take her back ta the plane, Pete. I’ve got work ta do. Blue, go.”

“The disruptor needs to be charged again,” he worried. “You might not be able to take them all down. It’s a gamble that you can’t lose.”

“I’d bet on Kitten any day of the week.” Kitten didn’t entirely turn away from the screen as she found the command protocols and opened the task manager to see which programs were running on the security system.

“Kick Gyrich’s ass for me, too.”


~0~

Prime units reserved for defensive measures flanked the entrance to the bunker. Inside, Gyrich fumed as Johnson toggled through the network, assessing their vulnerabilities.

“That nullified unit was taken offline. Mainframe’s still running, but someone’s hacking into it, sir.”

“You can’t block it?”

“I can’t.”

“There isn’t any margin for failure here, private!”

~0~

It was like playing Tetris. Each piece fell into its proper place with some maneuvering. Kitty toggled and clicked, searched and decoded the commands as fast as thought would take her.

Her breath caught as she found a file marked “Target Log.” She opened it and recognized feeds that were diverted from the school’s databanks. Names of her classmates and friends danced down the screen in neat rows. She shuddered in disgust.

“Bastard,” she hissed.

“That’s how they knew where to find us.”

“That’s where. God, those bastards.” She hit “select all.”

[Erase all records in Target Log directory? Y/N] She keyed in ‘no’ and hit enter. The system hummed as it processed her command. The screen continued to flicker as the records were erased.

[Command executed.]

“Sons of bitches,” she spat. “Let’s see how you like it.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Something I wish we could’ve done from home. Before Storm got hurt.” She exited the menu and went back to the commands in the feeds. “These are their ‘brains.’ These commands override their minds, from what Hank told me. They’re brainwashed. So we need to rewrite the crap that they’re beating into their brains.”

“Sounds technical.” Lorna sounded unconvinced.

“Hey, who’s in charge, here?”

“That scary guy with the claws.” Kitty shot her a look and saw the tears welling in her blue eyes. She reached up to squeeze her hand.

“It’ll be okay.” She let go of her and went back to work. “We’ll get out of here,” she promised.

“All right. Here’s where we’re at. First we narrow down their scope of attack. Cerebro’s reach extends around the globe, and they’re using it like a metal detector to find us and pick us off. So we deleted the files they already had, but now we finish taking out the connection to the school’s database. Forge already did it from his end, but from what I’m seeing here, he didn’t wipe out the archived feed. So, here it goes. Bye-bye,” she clucked.

“Then what?”

“We close the program that’s running right now before we uninstall it, just like you would on a PC. Can’t remove what’s still running,” she reasoned. “And…that’s…it,” she declared, clicking open different sub-folders until she found “Prime Directives and Commands.” She right-clicked it and attempted to uninstall the .exe file, but a dialog box popped up, stopping her. “Shit!”

“It needs a password.”

“Everything in this damned place needs a password.”

“Hurry up!”

“Fuck off, Lorna, let me think! Last time it was ‘payroll.’” She tried it again.

[Password failed. Retry? Y/N]

“Damn it.”

“We know his birthday?” Lorna offered.

“No. Shit. Wait!” She typed in six alpha characters and held her breath. “Bingo,” she crowed.

“What was it?”

“Gyrich. Guy’s got an ego.”

“Some genius,” Lorna sniffed.

“And this guy’s in charge of national security.”

The blips in the facility, as Lorna so aptly named them, disappeared from the console’s radar.

“Go back to the plane,” Kitty urged. “We’ve done enough here.”

“No, we haven’t. I need to go find my dad.”

~0~

Logan smelled the Prime ops as soon as they exited the elevator to the sub-level. It was darker and more imposing than the rest of the complex. It stank of the same equipment and building materials of Alkali Lake, and it was constructed to be just as much of a maze. And they were the rats.

“I can feel them,” Erik mused, echoing his thoughts.

“Not for long,” Logan grunted, extending his claws.

“That’s always your solution, Wolverine. Your claws.”

“Got any suggestions, bub? Don’t expect me ta look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m just usin’ what they gave me.”

“They weren’t given to you. You already had them before you entered the program.” Cold unease and disbelief swept over his flesh at Erik’s words.

“Yer shittin’ me.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Yer lyin’ now.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered how you could instinctively know how to use those claws, to extend and retract them without anyone showing you how? You can heal, and yours senses have never misled you, but you were born with those gifts. Why can’t you believe you were born with your claws as well, Logan?” Logan’s gut clenched as a light went on. “We only made you unbreakable, my friend.”

“No. Ya tore my life apart.”

“Stay quick. We’re here.” They rounded a corner of a hallway that was too quiet. Two Prime units guarded the bunker door, whose security palm plate was emitting sparks like the ones upstairs, thanks to Kitty’s tampering.

“Ya wanna get outta the way,” Logan growled as they advanced. The Prime units stood unmoving. Then he saw their eyes.

“Who are you?” one of them asked, looking Logan up and down. “What are you doing here?”

“Fuck,” Logan barked. “Are ya kiddin’ me? Ya mean ya don’t know?” He popped his claws warily but didn’t stop.

“Only just picked my own ass up off the floor. Dude, put those things down,” he pleaded with him.

“So you don’t plan to kill us? No orders for us to stand down?” Erik inquired dubiously.

“No,” the other one informed him. “Ya wanna show us the way outta here?”

“Only if ya let us inside.”

“Here?” the man nodded, beckoning to the steel bunker door.

“Yep.”

“Be my guest.” POW! He back-swung and punched the doors off their hinges, sending them flying into the bunker. Several sets of astonished eyes stared out. Gyrich’s face was red with fury.

“See him?” Logan pointed to Gyrich. “That guy’s the one who brought ya here and tried ta make ya kill yer own kind.”

“He’s not lying,” Erik added dryly, but his eyes glittered, cold and hard at the opportunity before him. He concentrated on the metals in his guards’ blood and on the weapons holstered to their belts and pinned them to the walls and the floor. Gyrich’s jaw worked roughly; Logan heard his teeth clicking together. He stretched out his hand and reach for a gun on the console.

“Don’t move, freak!” He aimed it at Logan, who shrugged.

“Go ahead. Fire. Pump me full of lead. I’ll heal.” Gyrich wavered before he leaned back against the console, shooting him a smile.

“I can send a whole flank of ops to that school of yours again before you can even blink, and here you are, miles away. Your plane can’t fly that fast.”

“Won’t have to. You don’t have any flank left. These two guys are it, bub.” The two men watched the scene unfolding before them with stony interest.

“You took me away from my family,” one of them said quietly.

“We’re just freaks to you,” the other one decided. “Fuck you.”

“Woman I love’s hurt ‘cuz of what you did, asshole. Ya ain’t walkin’ outta here.”

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t think there are more ops, more safehouses, and more people in the Council to carry on my work, Wolverine?”

“Project’s a failure. Prime’s offline. Got taken down by a teenage girl. Got a few of yer fancy soldiers alive and left ta tell about it, if they’re willin’ ta testify in a federal court.”

“Mutants don’t have to uphold the laws of ordinary humans,” Erik scowled.

“Yer singin’ the wrong tune, Magneto. Look what happened when Gyrich here felt that way about usin’ the security council’s money without so much as a by-your-leave for this little project of his.”

“Then do it,” Gyrich challenged. “Kill me!”

“Daddy!” Lorna called as she sprinted down the corridor.

“LORNA!” Kitty cried, darting after her, cursing her lack of caution. Erik was distracted and released his hold on the guards.

The guards didn’t let the chance get by, clutching their weapons and aiming straight for Logan. Stray bullets sprayed the bunker and flew into the hall. The Prime personnel jerked as several rounds were pumped into them, but the implants did their work, nannites rushing to repair their damaged systems. Logan took the brunt of the bullets but continued to wade through the guards, claws flashing and fighting his way to Gyrich, who edged back to the end of the bunker, gun still in hand.

Erik wasn’t fighting. He clutched Lorna to his chest and crouched beneath a force bubble. Bullets ricocheted off of it with loud, staccato pings. “It’s all right,” he whispered into her hair. His cape tented them both protectively. He’d held Magda this way in the dark thicket of the woods surrounding the camp so many years ago. She wouldn’t join Anya yet, not while he drew breath. She was his daughter.

Logan kept coming, murder in his eyes. “Time ta quit runnin’, Gyrich.”

“Go to hell,” he snapped, still pointing his gun futilely.

“Meet me there. Ya already killed that part of me that would’ve spared ya.” Gyrich expelled his air in one tortured breath as Logan drove him back, plowing his elbow into his jugular and pinning him.

“So…you are…nothing but a killer. No better than…*cough*…them.” Gyrich’s glasses had slipped off in the scuffle. Fear shone in his eyes, but he kept talking. “You’ll prove the Council right. Muties…need to die. You’re a threat.” He smiled, even though blood suffused his face as Logan ground his arm further into his neck. “You’re an animal.”

He wanted his death; his claws itched to run him through and cut out his black heart.

It wouldn’t bring back ‘Ro, if he lost her. If they didn’t get her home.

He hesitated and pulled back. Gyrich’s lips twisted into a mocking smile.

“You were a wasted effort, Wolverine.”

Before he could give his rage its head, Logan’s claws extended themselves again. Something jerked through him, shocking his nerves. His limbs moved of their own volition. Gyrich saw the surprise in his face before Logan’s fist rammed him back against the wall.

“What the flamin’…”

“HRRUKKGGLLLL!” Logan’s claws drove deep into Gyrich’s belly, twisting their way up into his rib cage. He opened a long, jagged seam through his flesh. Logan couldn’t stop himself, but horror contorted his features as his hand plunged again and again through his body. He struggled to stop himself even as the light in Gyrich’s eyes dimmed.

“Don’t stop,” Erik boomed behind him, “until you’ve cut out his heart.” Logan tried to turn toward his voice and cry out, but his body continued to betray him.

Gyrich’s vitals spilled out onto the floor, followed by his heart, which hung gruesomely by a thread until it, too, landed with a sickening plop on the concrete.

“Oh, my God,” Lorna gurgled before she began to vomit helplessly. Kitty stood numbly, peering over the shoulder of one of the Prime operatives who clutched her protectively, shielding her even though she could phase.

“Wolvie,” she whispered before she began to cry.





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