Disclaimer: This fan-fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Still unbetaed, mistakes are all mine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The voice, Logan recognised the bastard’s voice.

Same as it had been back in ‘48, damp and sickening like cold molasses. Whispering and crooning about things Jim Logan had done, reminding him of what he was capable of inflicting on the innocent when the beast inside came out to play. Like the ghost of Christmas past Nate Essex had arisen, trying to take his Marie away from him. Hurting her in a way Logan couldn’t hope to stop. Father, he heard her voice whisper inside his head, Ah wanna speak t’Father… Like Marie would ever willingly talk to that worthless sonofabitch. From far away Logan could hear Storm talking to him in a tight, quick voice, trying to remind him that he was inside Marie’s experience and not his own- Trying to remind him that he didn’t need to attack the people around him for hurting her, that she was far away and they were running to rescue her already-

He felt the claws pop then, almost of their own volition. The pain in his knuckles enough to remind himself that he was inside his own body, though he was looking out at the world through Marie’s eyes-

The lilt of slit-through metal filled the Blackbird cabin, a slight hiss of wires tearing the only other sound inside the jet. The X-Men knew better than to make any sudden noises when he was like this, after all. He twisted at the wrist, pretty certain he’d just totalled something, though not something important: In the week since this had first happened, since he’d started seeing Marie’s experiences with Amahl and Essex through their link, he’d managed to scrap three cars and his motorcycle. It was torturous: He felt Marie’s bile rise in his throat as Amahl touched her, felt her burns rise on his skin as the self-proclaimed King of Shadows took his fill from the young woman he’d blackmailed into leaving with him. The one person in this wretched world Logan actually fucking loved. And Marie let him abuse her, so certain that if she fought back she’d somehow hurt Logan through her link with him- She even felt ashamed that she couldn’t protect him, as if the biggest, baddest killing machine Weapon X had ever come up with deserved her pity. Or even her heart. It was making Logan fucking nuts: Not only to know how much trouble she was in, but also to know that he was the one had put her there. Because if he hadn’t been so damn convinced he could track her after she left the Mansion that night, then her and Amahl might never have gotten this far together-

And Logan might not know in intimate detail just how much hurt Marie was willing to put up with, to save the man she loved.

The vision passed then, Marie’s presence in Logan’s mind sputtering out of existence as if she’d never been there at all, just the same as all the other times. He opened his eyes to find a cargo of worried looking X-Men and three of his claws jammed into the pilot’s seat beside him, right up to the knuckle: Half Kitty Pryde’s body had phased to avoid the impact, her face drawn and worried but otherwise none the worse for wear. “Sensei,” was all she muttered, her eyes never leaving the flight controls. “Sensei, are you okay?”

He swallowed sheepishly then.

Pulled the claws in. He didn’t wanna scare the pumkin, even if she was someone’s momma these days. Watched Hank and Kurt as they let out a long breath, exchanged glances. Nodded to Storm, to indicate that Marie had left his mind again, but that he was ready to go.

He tried not to notice the way his hands were shaking in sheer, frustrated rage.

“Report?” Storm snapped crisply then. The atmosphere in the cabin was electric: Everyone knew how he was taking this, they knew what losing Marie would mean to him and nobody wanted a ringside seat for it. But Storm, being Storm, wouldn’t walk on egg-shells around him. She knew how freaked he was: Asking him to go touchy feely about this shit was just gonna make him worse, and nobody needed that.

“I said, report Wolverine,” she repeated, more loudly. The words as much a challenge to the others as to him.

He cleared his throat then.

Tried to sort through the images Marie had shown him, ordering himself to ignore the horror that rose inside him whenever he thought on Essex and Remy, and what all three of them had done in Madripoor. That was a self-flagellation for another day: Rogue needed him now. “She’s underground,” he muttered tersely. “Metal room, eaten through with rust. Walls are hollow, near a water source.” He could still taste the lime-scale and damp in the air. “Heavy population, mainly children.” The others gave an audible gasp, but he didn’t waver. He knew it got worse anyway. “Couple o’ familiar faces there too,” he said tightly, “Gambit’s hostile, Marie might require careful handling-” Storm nodded, she’d suspected as much thanks to Rogue’s time with Amahl- “And at least one of the kids looks like Jean Grey, another kinda like Cyclopes.”

“That bastard’s cloning X-Men?” Kitty demanded. Hank laying a hand on her shoulder to calm her, though from what Logan could see it wasn’t doing a whole Helluva lot o’ good. Kitty always did have a temper…

“Looks like. Essex…” Logan cleared his throat. How much information was too much information? “Essex has a thing about kids. I remember now. He experiments on ‘em. More’n likely that’s what he wants Rogue for. Her mutation’s unique and-”

“How do you know all this?” Braddock demanded from behind him. Her pretty eyes were narrowed, and Logan knew she could feel the way he was blocking her out. Well, more than usual.

Dammit. “You were right, we had run ins-back in the day. Which I remember. Ain’t gonna talk about ‘em,” and he showed her his teeth, “But I remember ‘em. That okay with you, Princess?”

She muttered something unintelligible in a language even Logan had never heard before. Glared at him in unrestrained loathing.

“What was that?”

“I said, fine,” she ground out through clenched teeth. She’d never really forgiven him for locking her out of the mansion when he found out she was trying to break his telepathic link to Rogue. Something about it making him unreliable in the field. She’d had to spend an entire night in the garage before she could be forced to rethink her stance on the matter.

Kurt and Storm rolled their eyes then, at exactly the same moment. “If you two can’t play in the same sand-box, then I’m going to have to separate you,” ’Ro muttered.

Logan shot her his tightest feral grin. “Okay with me. So long as she’s still covering us at the insertion point.” Again Beth narrowed her eyes. “Now can we get on with this people, or are we all gonna braid each other’s hair and talk about our feelings?”

The jet at large promptly shut up.

Kitty banked them then and began her descent, even as Storm pulled up a 3D map of the area and began listing off assignments. Using this kind of technology it was easy to see the only main water-source in the neighbourhood, an underground lake about a click and a half from the drop site. While there might not have been any indication of a settlement, the sheer uniformity of the image they were shown was enough to convince the team there was something down there. No piece of land was that naturally blank, which meant a) that the location was being shielded and b) the technology to do it was advanced enough to counteract the team’s own. Not exactly the kinda thing to help with Logan’s Zen-

Aside from the hardware there was some sort of telepathic field around the place, shielding it from view although the Loaner had assured them that it would provide no problem for her; That’s why she was staying behind in the jet. Princess was too precious to risk singeing. Logan, Kurt and Kitty were to be the first on the ground, followed by the heavier hitters like Storm and Hank. Or as Kitty bluntly put it, Sneak, Snikt, split. Once they were inside Pryde and Kurt would be in charge of disabling the guards, Logan with finding Marie: they were cleared for any amount of force, but Shadowcat liked a clean entrance and exit, it was one of the reasons she’d always worked well with Wolverine. Officially only Marie was being rescued, though that was likely to change now ‘Ro knew there were kids involved; Logan would have to warn her about their fanaticism, but telling the team they might have to kill kids to get their girl out was not gonna go down well. And he wasn’t willing to let Essex make him into a child-killer again. He would be the man Marie had fallen in love with, if only for tonight. Afterwards-

Afterwards Marie would be safe. That was all he needed to know for now.

“So, are vee going to do this, Hairy?” Kurt held out his arms enticingly to Wolverine, earning a dry grin from his wife and a snicker from Kitty, who had already climbed onto his back. Hank didn’t look happy with taking her place at the controls, but they needed it to look like there was only one team instead of two in case they were being watched. Kurt was taking them inside the electric fence surrounding the property, then maybe (if he could get a visual) inside the building. “Come on,” Wagner urged, “I am still zee safest vay to travel-”

“That’s Superman,” Kitty dead-panned.

“Quiet, you!” And his eyes lit up at the idea of teleporting Logan, despite the strain. Nothing ever truly seemed to wreck Kurt’s zest for adventure- Though Logan silently wondered whether this latest job might do the trick- And again he pushed away the memory of Madripoor.

“Fine, I’m coming, Blue,” Wolverine muttered. He stepped into the circle of Nightcrawler’s arms. The elf was lookin’ way too happy ‘bout this fer a married man. “You touch my ass, you die,” he growled.

“Understood, ass-touching is Marie’s job. Now stop pouting and come here, schnuckiputzi.” And with a final grin at Ororo he disappeared. There was a breathless moment- that famous Bamf!- as he reappeared in mid-air, about twelve feet off the ground inside the fence. Naturally, he’d managed to teleport into the deepest shadows in the place, lending all three of them the best camouflage possible. Logan had to admit it, the elf was good: Of the three of them, he was the most visible, and that was sayin’ something. Although it was also kinda painful, the three of ‘em dropping that last twelve feet and hitting the ground. Also disappointing to realise Kitty had learned his way with cuss words. For a little thing, the string of bad language was near silent but damn impressive- Jesus, she kissed Colossus with that mouth..?

But they didn’t have time to lose.

Took them only a second to get to their feet and then Kurt was ‘porting towards the building; Within moments he had his ear to the compound door, a thermal scanner in his hand, that gleeful Errol Flynn grin on his face. Kitty and Logan exchanged a tight smile at his good humour, boundless as ever: There was always something innocent about Kurt, no matter what he was doing. Life was still an adventure for him. Wagner waited for a second, got the image from the room within and (quickly blessing himself) bamfed inside. By the time Logan and Kitty arrived at the entrance he’d taken out the external locks as well as repositioning the cameras to maximize their blind-spots: Anything they couldn’t sneak under could be teleported by. Like Kitty had said, sneak, snikt, split. They moved silently through the building, Kitty on point and phased thoroughly, Logan at the back in case things went south- Which Jesus knew they were likely to do. There were no guards visible now, no monitors to catch them. No kids anywhere, and they were all three thanking their lucky stars ‘bout that because nobody wanted to engage with a bunch o‘ rug rats if they could help it. No matter what they’d done to Marie.

Logan strained every sense, listening for even the lightest footfalls, the most sensitive stealth equipment, but nothing was kicking. It was almost as if the place was deserted, but his nose was telling him otherwise: The stench of death, misery and terror was just the same as back in Madripoor. The place still smelt of kids. Deeper and deeper they wound into the belly of the building, every so often leaving transmitters to show the way for Hank and Storm: Once they were discovered (and they were sure to be discovered) the stealth end of things wouldn’t be worth jack shit and they’d need a tornado. Or two. Kitty kept a quick pace, hands hovering over her weapons: Every so often she’d phase through a wall to check the path ahead and subdue anyone they ran into. But nobody found them. Nobody even seemed to know they were there. They couldn’t have asked for a more text-book insertion. Everything was going according to plan-Which naturally meant that Logan expected the shit to shit the fan.

What he didn’t expect however, was quite how spectacularly it would do so.

Because Kitty was in the process of sneaking ahead when four little boys appeared around the corner before them. Each one of them wearing blind-folds, each one of them bearing a distinct resemblance to one Scott Summers though they were only kids. And not a one of ’em showing up to Logan through either scent or sound. The three X-Men instantly fell back as soon as they spotted the boys, Pryde darting ahead to incapacitate them (though not kill) when she realised that they were escorting someone: Rogue.

But she was alive.

She was alive, and she was right in front of him- Instantly instinct took over. Logan snarled, reaching for her, trying to pull her behind him and away from the boys despite their protests. If they just got her back to Braddock then whatever Essex had done to her could be reversed. Marie’s face became a mask of shock, her newly black-on-red eyes widening in fright as he pulled at her and instantly she began fighting against him. Pulling back and hollering blue murder. Swearing about what Essex would do to him for laying a hand on “his little girl.” The boys were yelling something, something about Father forbidding her touching “the feral,” but Logan didn’t care none. Essex could get as angry as he wanted ‘bout it, Marie was coming with him- She turned to run (Since when did Marie run from a fight?) and he yanked her towards him by the back of her neck, grabbing two of her wrists in one hand, fully determined to throw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes if necessary. But before he could even try it she yanked one hand free, slipping and knocking him backwards- He automatically broke her fall with his body, it was as natural to him as breathing-

And it all kinda slowed down then.

Logan stared up into her red-on-black eyes, so like Essex’, and he felt Marie’s hands against his claws. Her touch light as gossamer against the metal-streaked bone. It made no sense: Marie wasn’t a hands-off kinda fighter, she’d too much Wolverine in her fer that. But then why would she be trying to feel his claws, if she didn’t have an attack plan of some sort? Why wasn’t she trying to touch him, to take his power, if she was trying to beat him back? She was even wearing any gloves-

And that’s when he realised.

She was charging them the way Remy would charge a playing card.

“Aw shit,” he heard Kitty mutter.