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#2
MAR 09 |
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“Hunting Party”
Brazil
“Body’s still warm. He died just a little while ago.”
The X-Man known as Wolverine stood up from the corpse of the Brazilian man he had just found and took several steps away. He was there with Storm and Siryn, two of his fellow X-Men, tracking a group of suspected Weapon X operatives. They were inside a large villa just outside the Amazon rainforest, owned by a wealthy Brazilian diplomat. A dead, wealthy Brazilian diplomat.
“The team must have sprung on them while they were hosting a party,” Storm said.
“And they kept a couple people alive to torture,” Logan growled. He popped one of his Adamantium claws from his right hand, crouched down and speared a small chunk of fabric. He raised it to his face and sniffed.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled. “Definitely Weapon X. Creed’s scent is all over the place. I should have figured he wouldn’t stay dead.”
“They slaughtered them,” Theresa muttered. “Just because they were in the same room as their target.”
“That’s Creed for you,” Logan growled. “Dirty bastard.” He stood again and held up the fabric. “This is from one of the Weapon X team. Whoever it is, he’s wounded. The kids must have done it.”
Storm walked up to him. “Does this give enough of a scent to track them?” she asked.
“‘Ro hun, I could track Creed any time. I already knew which way they went, I just wanted t’ see how many we’re up against.”
“And...?” Siryn asked.
“Five man team,” he said. “I can recognize Creed and Avalanche’s scents.” Logan sheathed his claw.
“Sounds like good odds to me,” Theresa said
Kurt Wagner silently counted heads as students filed in. As one of the most senior X-Men, he’d been given the responsibility for thirty of the students each morning in a homeroom class at the beginning of the day. Had Storm been there that morning she’d be leading the other homeroom, but since she wasn’t Rogue was in that class as the other X-Men were preparing their own lessons.
The youth were a mixed bag. They had come from everywhere in the world, all walks of life, every social and economic status and every culture. This homeroom was half of the student body, giving Storm the other half. Kurt ran his hand through his curly hair as the last of the students came through the door, followed closely by Rachel Summers, one of the two resident advisors. Rachel nodded at Kurt and he nodded back and she sat down.
“Good morning!” he called. Commotion continued. He rolled his eyes. “Good morning!” he repeated. Still nothing. He looked at Marvel Girl and raised an eyebrow. She only shrugged in response. Kurt smiled and mentally chose one of the rowdiest students.
Who’s he? Kurt thought, looking at Rachel again.
Murphy Graves, she replied. Enhanced metabolism resulting in super speed.
Get everyone’s attention. Rachel caught Kurt’s meaning and telekineticly took hold of Murphy’s chair. It quickly rose six feet into the air. Conversation halted.
“Good morning everyone,” Kurt said again while Rachel still held Murphy aloft. “I am Kurt Wagner, your homeroom teacher. I’ve gone by Nightcrawler a good portion of my life, so call me that. I’ll be teaching history, acrobatics and combat with Logan.” He looked up at Murphy. “And I don’t put up with horseplay, understood, Mister Graves?” The boy nodded emphatically.
“Good.” Kurt nodded at Rachel and she lowered Murphy to the ground. “Now the homeroom class is designed to start the day. After this you’ll have four academic classes then lunch, which will be followed by several powers training, skills and survival classes. You’ll each have a minimum of three of those but you can have up to five, your choice. I’ll be teaching history in here, Dani Moonstar will teach math across the hall, Forge will teach science down by the sick room and Ororo Munroe would normally be teaching English in her homeroom classroom. Rogue is substituting for her until she returns from Brazil on assignment. Any questions?”
A dark-haired girl raised her hand. “How are we going to decide which afternoon classes to take?”
Nightcrawler leaned against the front of his desk. “Good question. One of the X-Men will talk with each of you individually this afternoon. There we’ll assess your powers, what skills would suit you best and so on. Then we’ll recommend the classes for you to take.”
A young African man raised his hand and Nightcrawler pointed to him. “So what are your powers?” he asked.
“I’m-” *BAMF* “-a-” *BAMF* “-teleporter.” *BAMF* A murmur of delight moved through the classroom. Almost immediately upon Kurt’s materializing upon his desk, the bell rang and the students jumped to their feet. It was time to get started.
Night was falling quickly in Brazil. Logan had been tracking for hours and Theresa was near exhaustion. Ororo could sense it and she stopped following the shorter man.
“Are you all right child?” she asked Siryn.
“Yeah,” Siryn gasped. “This... is... a good... workout.”
Storm smiled. “Glad to see you’re so optimistic,” she said. Ororo put her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fi--”
“Shhh...” Logan moved quietly to their sides suddenly. “I’ve got them, and it’s not good either.”
“What do you mean, Logan?”
“Sabes brought a special team. ‘Ro, get the wind blowing towards us, keep Sabretooth from smelling us.” He held his finger to his lips and motioned for them to follow him. Storm and Siryn gingerly followed Logan’s steps as he led them to a nearby clearing.
Once they could see into it, Ororo gasped. “Heaven above...” she muttered.
Sabretooth stood in the middle of the clearing, standing directly above the young man that they’d captured. Feral perched above Creed, her head moving back and forth in snappy movements in time with the young black mutant known as Tempo, who paced back and forth before Feral nervously. Arclight and Avalanche stood at the edge of the clearing, whispering quietly. A dark haired young woman lay at Avalanche’s feet, obviously unconscious and bleeding from multiple wounds.
“You want to kick my ass, don’t you kid?” Creed growled. “You’re pissed about what’s happened to your little sister, ain’t ya? You just want to pull yourself off the ground and run me through, just like your little runt of a pop.”
Logan growled softly, causing Storm to place a hand on his shoulder. After several seconds his growl stopped and he glanced at her and nodded.
“I’m going to kill you,” they young man said. “I’m going to kill every one of you.”
“I’d like to see you try, kid,” Feral hissed.
Logan looked over his shoulder and whispered. “‘Ro, I need the biggest flash-bang you can muster without hitting the kids. Then, I need you two to grab them and get back to the jet as fast as you can. Give me two hours, then leave.”
“What about you?” Terri asked.
“Kiddo,” he grinned, “I’ve been dealing with these sons of bitches all my life. I’ll get back to you okay.”
Ororo nodded. She knew Logan and she trusted him. He would make it back, whether it was on the jet with them or two weeks later after swimming across the Gulf of Mexico and hitchhiking across the southern United States. In fact, Wolverine probably would prefer the latter.
“Cover your ears and keep your heads down,” she said. “I am sure Sabretooth himself is the best lightning rod I could ask for.” She drew herself up to her full height and her eyes began to glow. The wind around them began blowing harder and the air started to crackle with electricity. Siryn looked down at her bare arms, noticing the goosebumps starting to rise with the fine hairs on her forearms. She looked up and saw Wolverine charging into the clearing.
*SNIKT*
“CREEEEEED!” he bellowed as the lightning broke the sky in two and struck Sabretooth and Feral simultaneously. Theresa acted quickly, taking two quick steps and leaping into the air, held aloft by her powers. The sonic screech slammed into the remaining three members of the Weapon X team with physical force, knocking each of them back and enabling her to scoop up the young girl and take to the sky again.
“Dad?” muttered the young man. He looked intently at the man he had only ever seen in photos. His mother had split from his father not long after the birth of himself and his sister. He had never dreamed to meet the man in person.
“Dax!” Logan growled. “Follow her, now!” He was shocked again, this time by the fact that Logan knew his name. “GO!” Daxson Logan stared at his father for a moment before breaking into a sprint. He had no idea how his father even knew his name. Now he didn’t want to know what to think.
All he knew was he needed to run.
Cable leaned against the wall of the school’s gymnasium, his mind open to the latent thoughts of the teenagers around him. Each of the other X-Men, except Jono and Rachel, sat with a student, talking with them about their histories and powers. It was incredibly dull for the different members of the team, but he saw so much more than his teammates did. Every time they lied, he saw the truth. He saw the full details of every experience, including the important details they left out. He grinned.
Nate, we have a problem. He stood up straight at the sound of Jono’s telepathic voice. On instinct, he reached down to his belt and unfastened the strap over his pistol. He strode out of the gym and headed towards the school’s communications center.
Talk to me, he said.
Berto’s on the line right now, Jono continued. He and Karima learned about that Project Glimmer you briefed us on and now Karima’s missing.
Son of a bitch, Cable growled. He strode into the comm center and walked up to the console that Jono sat next to, at which point Jono pushed away and gave him a nod.
“Roberto, it’s Nathan,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Roberto said. “Thank goodness.”
“What’s happened?”
“I went to meet Karima for our morning jog,” he said. “Her apartment door was in splinters and there was blood all over the apartment.”
“Like the apartment was drenched in blood?” Jono asked.
“No, not that much,” Roberto replied, “just patches spread throughout. Like there had been an incredibly violent struggle. I’m fairly sure its Shaw’s doing, trying to keep me quiet about Project Glimmer.”
“Dammit,” Cable growled. “Berto, get to our safe house in Boston and stay put. Call me if you have any trouble; I’m bringing cavalry. Got it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead as Jono looked up at Nathan. “Want me to come along?”
“Sorry, Jono, not this time,” Cable replied. “I need Rogue and Kurt with me. You stay here with Sam, Dani and Rach, okay? Keep an eye on the kids.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Jono replied. Cable could feel his young protégé’s disappointment, but he definitely understood. This mission was trouble and required the most experienced X-Men. He just hoped it wouldn’t go bad as anything involving the Hellfire Club often did.
Theresa stopped as the X-Jet came into view. She lowered herself carefully to the ground and set the unconscious girl on the ground. It appeared the girl had inherited Logan’s powers; her various wounds had sealed up and mostly healed, and the few bruises she had suffered had faded. The underbrush behind her began shaking, and Theresa spun, ready to scream. Logan’s son erupted from the trees, breathing heavily. Storm lowered herself behind him.
“Are ye okay?” Terri asked the young man.
“Yeah,” he growled.
“What’s your name child?” Storm asked.
“Didn’t my dad tell you?” he growled.
“What?” Terry asked. “No, he didn’t.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “My name is Daxon and my sister is Laura,” he said. “We never knew our father. Apparently he knew us, though.”
“Excuse me?” Storm said.
“Our mother showed us pictures of them,” Dax said, “and she claimed he was forced away from her before he ever knew she was pregnant. But he knew my name so I’m going back there and I’m getting him back. Then I’m getting answers.” With that, Dax spun and disappeared back into the jungle.
“Goddess,” Storm murmured. “Stay with the girl, I’ll follow him.”
“Mein gott,” Nightcrawler muttered as he peered into the X-Corps safehouse. The small apartment was in shambles; there had obviously been quite a struggle. Rogue and Cable walked in behind him quietly, with Cable drawing his pistol as he moved past Kurt.
Telepathy only, he flashed to his teammates. Rogue, check the kitchen. Kurt, see if the surveillance system caught anything.
On it, Rogue replied.
Ja, Kurt echoed.
The three X-Men spread out in the small apartment and Kurt found the small laptop hooked up to the set of miniature cameras spread through the apartment. He began reviewing the recordings of the last three hours and he gasped as the recording revealed its secrets.
“Nathan, Rogue!” Kurt called. The other two X-Men joined Nightcrawler quickly and Kurt rewound the recording and played the attack on screen. Roberto appeared on screen, pacing back and forth in front of the small couch. A pink-ish portal suddenly opened and a small group of white-masked soldiers appeared in the room. Roberto started to activate his powers, but one of the soldier’s fired several darts at him.
Roberto’s body went completely dark and he thrashed around, tearing apart the apartment before he collapsed. Another portal opened and the soldiers dragged Roberto through it before it closed. The trio of X-Men looked at each other in shock for several seconds before anyone said anything.
“Well,” Cable said, “looks like we need to pay Shaw a visit.”
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To Be Continued...
Next: In Uncanny X-Men #3: The X-Men face deadly threats in two fronts! Storm and Siryn face Weapon X with the fate of Wolverine and his children in the balance! Meanwhile, Rogue, Cable and Nightcrawler confront Sebastian Shaw…and start a war!
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