“... Oh, shit...” He cracked his eyes open and sat up slowly. Utter chaos greeted him. People were running and screaming, klaxons blaring and the whole building around him was trembling from the force of Cyclops’ concussive blasts.
He wiped off the blood from his eyes; then turned his attention to the support girder still lying across his feet. He was able to squirm loose once he took off his shoes.
“Wolverine, we need you ASAP!” Jean’s panicked voice called him through static. He clicked the radio mounted on his shoulder once. He’d be there as soon as it was possible. Jean had teamed up with Storm as soon as they entered the compound, those two could hold up the fort long enough for him to get his shoes back on.
“Wolverine, hostiles coming your way,” Cyclops warned him.
“Yeah, yeah...” He grunted his response, then crept behind a large filing cabinet. He was going to get his shoes on before he did anything else. The whole fucking mission smelt bad. It looked bad, it sounded bad, and it smelt bad. It was bad, period.
“This is a fucking ambush, Cyke!” He growled, and received no answer from the other man. Either the fearless leader was down, or just generally pissed off at him again.
With shoes on he felt much more at ease. No need to watch broken stuff lying on the ground, now he could turn his whole attention to his adversaries. Instead of five soldiers he had expected to barge in he found himself standing there, surrounded by five of his own kin. Mutants, armed to the teeth with quite frightening arsenal of different kind of weapons.
It was a rule that you never harmed another mutant. A rule that Scott, Professor Xavier, Jean and Ororo respected. Wolverine however had no qualms. He wasn’t going to discriminate anybody over something as menial as race or species. He managed to dispose all the five mutants before they had the chance to use their weaponry on him.
“Jeannie, you still there?” He asked.
“... Still here, move your ass, Wolv... You ...bitch!” Message was muddled with static, but the good doctor sounded as if she was okay.
“Sorry about delay, had to take care of personal problem first. I’m on my way to you now,” he said.
“... sonal hygiene? Wolverine!”
He grasped the radio and tore it off. Obviously it was of no use. Damn trinket had been causing nothing but troubles for him anyway. He crushed under his heel before charging towards the stairs. Jean and Storm were one floor above him.
It was a large, rectangular room. Walls painted white. Floors and roof had undergone the same treatment. After that every visible surface had been decorated with cables and wires. Smack dab middle of the room sat a man. He was naked apart from lap top that lay on his bent knees and multitude of cords and cables that seemed to connect him together with the computer and the room itself.
“Holy shit! What the fuck is that?” Logan asked surprised. Jean shook her head. Storm looked as puzzled as Logan.
“He’s been just sitting there since we broke the door of this room. We thought that you might know more about this,” Jean whispered.
“And what gave you the impression that I’d know jack shit about this?” Logan asked.
“This looks like something that only Stryker could have done. You two share a past, and we thought...”
“You thought wrong, Jeannie. I share nothing with Stryker. And I don’t know what the deal behind this guy is. But he’s freaking me out...” Logan said with a low voice.
“He’s just sitting there,” Jean pointed out.
“Yeah. Would you just sit over there, buck naked when people scream, shout and fight around you?” Logan asked. There was no explaining why he suddenly felt cold chill racing down his spine. There really was no reason why he felt the urge to maim the man sitting on the floor, for all he knew the poor bastard could have been one of the tortured test subjects, but there was no way of denying it. He wanted to kill the man, as quickly as possible.
“Jean, Storm... Let’s get the hell out of here. I have a bad feeling about this guy...” He grunted and started backing out. Suddenly the man on the floor moved. His eyes turned to look at Logan. His blank face transformed slowly through confusion to anger.
“Failure in transdimensional displacement. Script invalid. Unable to proceed.” His lips didn’t move, the voice came from the speakers from the corner of the room.
“We really should get the hell out of here, now!” Logan barked, then grabbed both women with him and fled the room.
He kept running, dragging Jean and Storm with him. He could hear the computerized voice booming everywhere around him, counting down numbers. He didn’t know the purpose of the countdown, but he had a distinct feeling that it was something unpleasant.
“Wolverine!” A new voice echoed from behind him. He stole a quick glimpse, and what he saw made him almost stop.
Rogue stood there. Doorway to the room behind her was shimmering silver, rippling and glistening wetly. She was reaching out for him, trying to beckon him to her. It was Rogue, but it wasn’t the same girl he knew. It wasn’t his Rogue. There was something seriously wrong with the way the apparition kept flickering and blinking as an old movie.
“Wolverine! It’s Rogue! We have to help her!” Storm shouted, struggling against his hold.
“It’s not real, you twit! Real Rogue is at school, remember?” He grunted, forcing both of the women to take the flight of stairs so fast that they all three stumbled; only barely avoiding falling down. All the while they run they could hear sickening sweet and high-pitched noise ringing in the air, making their ears twitch and eyes water.
Cyclops was waiting for them in the room where Logan had maimed the five mutants, his eyes glued to the scattered pieces of the broken radio.
“We better get out of here, Cyke!” Logan huffed, then grasped him as well and started dragging the whole team with him towards a corridor that he hoped would lead them to the exit. When he dared a quick glimpse over his shoulder he could see silver, creeping over the walls, floor and roof, reaching towards them. He couldn’t smell it, but the noise it made and appearance of the substance struck a strange cord inside of him. He was afraid. Genuinely terrified. Nothing good would follow if they got caught in to the silvery embrace, that much he knew on an instinctual level.
“Wolverine, wait! Don’t leave me here alone!” Rogue’s voice called after him. He paid no attention to it, voice was familiar, but the girl was not real. She wasn’t real. The Rogue he knew had only once called him Wolverine, after proper introduction she had always used his real name.
“Wolverine, please don’t leave me! I don’t know what to do if...” Exit was there, they were running through the doors, then they were outside, now even Cyclops helping him to force Jean and Storm towards the jet that waited little further from the compound they had just raided.
Outside the level of the noise was almost bearable. When they stopped to wait for the jet’s loading hatch to open they witnessed quite confusing sight.
Building they had just left behind started to crumble. It looked as if it was collapsing and folding on to itself. Everything was over in a matter of seconds. First the roof caved in. Then the walls started to fall, almost as in slow-motion, everything falling neatly towards the center of the compound and simultaneously disappearing, melting in to a great pool of silvery liquid. When the building was gone the silver pool begun to shrink in size, disappearing from their eyes as well.
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