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Do you know those days when it feels like life has a row of jokes lined up like extravagant layout of dominoes, and each and every one of them slaps you in the face on its way down?

The kind of day where it seems, God props up his feet with a cold one and a giant bowl of popcorn and sees just how much fun he can have with you and fate.

Well, if that was the case, Logan was sure that his life was better than a Three Stooges marathon.

His life was the theater screen, and every laser bolt that flew overhead from his ducked down position was the Big Guy hurling juju beans.

Blasters gripped in his hands, Logan leaned against the dumpster and sighed loudly.

“Will you shoot something, please”?

That voice again.

“Sorry, Satan, did you say something?” he said, firing off a few rounds, “I can’t hear ya over all the fucking blaster fire.”

Ororo Munroe scoffed at him. “You see what happens when you use shit for brains; it tends to clog up your eardrums, too.”

“Shut it lady, or I’ll use ya as a human shield to get out of the mess you got me into!” It dawned on him; that might not be a bad idea, he thought, smiling.

“Would be a sensible idea since you can just about hide behind my thigh,” she countered

“Well,” he said, sending another salvo of shots at the men who had pinned them down, “with the way your ass has gotten lately, I sure would have a broad width of protection.”

Storm stopped mid-shot and looked over at him with shock and a hint of hurt in her brilliant eyes.

“You. Bastard.” She hissed, her jaw hanging.

“Truth hurts, Darlin,” he shrugged.

She narrowed her eyes and began firing blasts in rapid succession. “When this is over, Wolverine, I am going to do the galaxy a favor and shoot you right in the crotch.”

Logan pulled a pair of thermo grenades from his belt and hit the pins.

“Grab Hodge!” he said and hurled the two explosives over the dumpster.

Ororo picked up the wounded man and slung his limp arm around her shoulder. Logan grabbed the other arm and did the same just as the grenades detonated, sending a shockwave of force and heat in all directions.

The three would-be assassins were sent flying back in a wave of dust and wreckage. One with an empty socket where his arm should have been.

Logan and Ororo hurried down the alley dragging the dead weight of Hodge. The little sissy had only been grazed by the first shot, but the sight of his own blood was just too much for him to bear.

“Where are we going?” Ororo ground out through clenched teeth.

“Fucking Disneyland! Where do you think? Were getting to my ship,” Logan shouted and pulled them further along.

“I am not getting on that hunk of crap you call a ship,” she said, trying to match his pace. “My ship is closer.”

“I’m not leaving the Canuk on this lousy rock, so you can just put a sock in it and do it, or you can piss off,” Logan countered.

“Well, I’m not leaving The Windrider here either, that ship cost me a fortune.”

“My ship is faster!”

She scoffed. “Yeah, it plummets to the ground like none I’ve ever seen.”

Logan stopped and slung Hodge against the far wall. He bounced off it and made a low, high-pitched whine. “Let me put it this way: Hodge and me are getting on my ship, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Come with me, get to your ship, go have a fucking latte for all I care.”

Logan picked Hodge back up and held him close like one would do when caring for a friend who had too much to drink. “All I know is that he is with me.”

Ororo grabbed Hodge’s other arm. “Well, I’m glad that you’ve finally come out of the closet Logan, you’ll make a cute couple, I’m sure, but for the time being I need him.”

If any passerby were to see this, it would be a humorous spectacle to behold. The two finest bounty hunters in the entire universe were pulling on the arms of an unconscious man as a pair of children would when fighting for the same toy.

“I’m not playing with you, Ororo!” Logan growled out. “Let him go, or I will hurt you.”

“You don’t have the guts anymore, Wolverine, a hunter like you should have either shot me when you first saw me or left me back there to die, You play at being hard, but I know where the soft spot is on that soft little underbelly of yours You haven’t changed any since the War, no wonder they discharged you for that mess on Carnore…”

A fire lit in Logan’s eyes, and with a quick thrust, he sent Hodge and Storm into the wall. Ororo fell down in a tumble and was on her way up when a pair of claws shot out on either side of her throat.

She knew what she had done.

She knew she had crossed a line.

Logan’s face was a mask of barely concealed fury. “You better watch what you say to me, Ororo, or I will show you just how callous that soft spot has gotten.”

“Either let me up, Logan or I swear, I will call up a light show that will leave you nothing but a pile of charred adamantium,” she promised as the energy crackled at her fingertips.

Logan could smell the ozone strongly. He knew she was not kidding, but then again, neither was he.

He retracted the claws and stood up. The energy in her hands dissipated, and they were back to the business at hand.

Logan ran a hand down his face and sighed, trying to control the lingering anger he felt. “Look, I know who is after us, and believe me, were going to need to get off this rock discreetly; my ship is faster and it has a cloak. We take your ship and we’re sitting ducks in the air.”

Ororo was stern. “I said I am not leaving my ship behind.”

“Oh Jesus, woman, you can get another!” Logan said, the exasperation coating his voice. “Last time I checked, God didn’t have any wholesales on extra lives, but I have been out of the loop on that lately, so maybe you know a guy.”

Ororo rolled her eyes. “If I’m going to leave my ship behind, I expect compensation.”

Ah, hell, Logan thought, she used the C word.

“And that would be?” Logan braced himself as best he could.

“I want Seventy percent of the bounty,” she said.

Logan felt another blood vessel pop and his last nerve give way. “No. Fucking. Way.”

“Then we may as well start killing each other now, because if that is not the deal, then I am taking him to my ship.” She stood to her full height and her eyes took on that haunting white.

Of all the devices of torture that had been made in the history of the universe, Logan was sure that not a more devious one had ever been made than this woman. “Forty.”

“Seventy.”

“I meant forty-five.”

“I meant seventy.”

Cracking his knuckles, Logan sighed, “Fifty percent, Storm if you don’t take that, then let’s just you and me throw down now.”

Ororo smiled to herself. That had been easier than she thought. She had left her ship in the care of an associate of hers and it would be safe. She also knew that at this point she would either have to work with Logan on this or risk losing the whole contract. The Canuk had the cloaking tech to get them off the planet without any problems, now, with the entire ruckus that had been made; they would need a quiet getaway. Still, she had not expected to get him up to fifty percent.

“Deal. Your powers of negotiating are amazing, Wolvie.” she said smiling.

Logan flashed his teeth at her and the two began moving again. They had reached the Canuk a few minutes later; Logan threw Hodge into one of the passenger seats and strapped him in. Ororo eyed the interior of the ship and shook her head.

“Surprised not to see beer cans and Playboys spread over the consoles,” she mused as she sat and strapped in.

Logan plopped down into the pilot chair and heated up the engine core. “Keep those in the back.”

A soft hum sounded as the engines were brought on line, and they were off the ground. Logan clicked a few controls, and a strange noise and a brilliant shimmer spread over the length of the ship. The cloaking tech activated and they were off the grid and out of sight.

Logan would not feel comfortable, though, until they broke atmosphere. He angled the ship skyward and pushed the engines harder until the pale blue turned into deep black with tiny dots of light.

Leaning back, he exhaled a sigh of relief. There wasn’t any COM traffic that hinted at any type of standing alert for cruisers in the vicinity, so at this point all was well and good. Logan smiled a bit as he thought of the look on Hammerhead’s face when he got the news of the latest screwing he had been dealt. A black run contract was almost a sure bet this time, one more road to cross when he had to.

For now, though, it was a win.

He knew what it was going to cost him, but a win is a win.

Don’t argue with it when you don’t have to.


The Den


After almost a two-hour trip, Logan stepped off the ship and breathed fast and rapid breaths. That woman was killing him. Bitch, bitch, bitch about this and complain, complain, complain about that.

“Fucking A, woman, please stop revving your menstrual cycle, I can’t take being run over by it again.”

Ororo rolled her eyes as she stepped from the ship. ‘Another witty remark from Shakespeare himself.”

Anna was waiting for him as usual. The look in her pretty green eyes was almost enough to make him crack a smile when she saw Ororo step off his boat.

She eyed him as if he had grown another head; actually, that would be much more believable than what she thought she was seeing.

“Uh…Logan?” she started, pointing to the taller woman.

He raised his hand and violently shook his head. “For the love of all that is good in this piss poor universe, don’t ask.”

Anna’s eyebrows were almost touching the ceiling. “Is there anything I need to know?”

Logan slowly turned his head to face Ororo. “Just that she helped me get out of the fire, we went partners on this, and we agreed on half.”

After hearing this, Anna was sure that all was not right in this galaxy. “Ok, who are you and where is my grumpy, mean, homicidal and greedy Wolverine?”

“He’s still here, but he’s just too fucking tired to argue about it.” Logan dragged his feet over to the lift

Anna looked from him to Ororo and just shook her head. The world had gotten just a little too weird for her, but she would do as she was asked.

“I saw a two-headed calf once, I thought it was the strangest thing ever,” she said to Ororo. “A new milestone has just been made in my life today.”

Ororo cracked a small smile at her and shouted to a slowly retreating Logan, “Nice working with you again, Sweetheart; maybe it won’t be the last time.”

Logan placed both hands on the closing lift doors to keep them open and leaned his head forward. “Lady I will have full-grown bull elephants fly out of my ass wearing funny little hats ‘fore I ever work with you again.”

And with that the lift closed.


Dorm # 616


Logan wanted nothing more than a cold beer, a good cigar, a place to prop his feet up and just a little quiet.

His hopes were dashed to a thousand pieces when he stepped into the dorm.

Before him stood a truly terrifying sight.

Wearing only his trademark black and red mask and a pair of Transformers boxers was a singing and dancing Wilson cooking at the food prep.

“Heavy boots of lead, fills his victims full of dread, running as fast as they can IRON MAN LIVES AGAIN!”

For one horrifying second, Logan could not turn away as Wade began playing a (quite good) air guitar solo that matched perfectly with the music blaring on the small stereo he kept in the kitchen.

“DAH DAH DAH DA DA…” Wade stopped as he saw a stunned into silence Wolverine standing near the front door. He threw his head around in a huff and went back to his cooking

Logan shook his head clear and threw his coat onto one of the nearby chairs. “Ozzy you’re not, Wilson.”

“Not speaking to you,” he said.

“Who says there isn’t a God.” Logan said, undoing the latches on his armor and grabbing a beer out of the fridge. It was his last one, after this he would either have to spend a fortune for the real thing or go back to drinking syntho. After this day though, he figured he earned it.

He plopped down onto the small sofa and took a long and deep swig from the bottle and for one moment he was at peace with the universe.

“I want you to know something.”

And the peace was destroyed by the big bang that was Wade Wilson’s mouth.

“You’re going to need me one day, and I just might not be there and then your gonna be like ’If only the great and powerful Deadpool was here to pull my hairy posterior out of this mess‘ and you know what, then you will see.”

“See what?”

“That you need me.”

Logan shook his head and drained the rest of the beer dry.

“Come on, you know I would even take a bullet for you,” Wade cried as he jumped up and down like a spoiled three year old.

“Tell ya what, Wilson, take a few right now for me and let me get some rest and then we’ll talk,” Logan said as he leaned back into the sofa with hopes of a few hours sleep.

Underneath his mask, Wade took on a smug expression. ‘HA HA! I am wearing you down, Wolvie; we’ll be the next dynamic duo yet! I’m Batman, you’re Robin, together taking on the world.”

Logan had finally passed into sleep and was spared of Wade’s approximately three-hour ramble of how they would need the costumes, a Deadmobile, deadarangs, and something about Anti-Shark Dead spray.

Four hours later

Logan was having a truly remarkable dream about an island paradise filled with beautiful women in grass skirts fanning him and massaging his feet, and buckets upon buckets of beer being laid out before him when Anna burst into the room.

Logan instinctively popped his claws but retracted them just as quick. “Hey, sorry darlin’, didn’t mean to scare ya.”

Anna looked like she had seen a ghost but deep inside Logan knew he was not the cause of it. “What’s the matter, darlin’? Trouble? Catching shit from the guild higher ups over the Hodge thing?”

Anna shook her head a slow no.

Logan ground his teeth, “Is it Storm again I swear I’m gonna kill that pain in the….”

Anna moved to the Holo vid and turned it on and switched to the nearest News feed. ”You are going to want to see this Logan.”

The vid flipped on to a pretty young reporter in the field. There was a lot of activity going on behind her.

“This is Trish Tilby with News feed 7, I am on the site of the planet Nayora in the Gamma Sigma sector with this breaking news.”

Logan leaned in close to the vid as Anna sat next to him and placed her hand over his. She was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind.

“Approximately twelve hours ago, the capital of Nayora, Teldrao, was attacked and laid siege to by a then unknown assailant, casualties are high and damage is at an almost incalculable level, This reporter had a chance to speak to several of the few survivors of the attack.”

The vid switched to an older man with burn marks over the left side of his face. “It happened like nothing I ever seen, it was so loud, like thousands of people screaming at the top of their lungs just over and over again, then it just went quiet, and then…they came, God there were so many of them, they were so fast, so inhuman. I’ll never forget that sound they made, that gears whirling sound and then…then when they took my daughter…” He started to break down into a torrent of tears, “That sucking sound, when they pierced her body, Oh God…Oh God…”

The news feed switched back to the reporter. “There have been few survivors. Federation officials and military are on site but are refusing to comment on anything at this time; however, an amateur photographer managed to get this image not moments before the attack.”

The vid shifted to the picture of a giant ship in low orbit. It was a massive thing that looked like an unholy blending of metal and twisted flesh.

Logan’s blood ran cold. He knew what it was.

“Ladies and Gentleman, if this picture holds to be true than fifteen years after the dreadful War that tore through our galaxies, The Nurachni have returned.”





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