Wolverine: Return to Weapon X
A/N: This is essentially my version of a post-X-men trilogy sequel to X-men Origins: Wolverine. Wolverine and all related characters are properties of Marvel Comics and 20TH Century Fox.
Chapter 1: The Summons
He raced along the mountain road on his motorcycle…Cyclops' motorcycle which he had 'inherited' since the former X-men field leader's death. He paid no attention to the scenery…to the sights and sounds and smells and the hundreds of little things that a lifetime of violence, remembered only in instinct if not in actuality, had trained him to do whenever he entered a new surrounding. But he couldn't help…he couldn't think, much less act rationally…his mind, his senses were still reeling under the onslaught of an attack. A psychic attack.
It had started two days ago. He had been sitting in the garden at the Mansion when the first visions entered his mind. Visions of a place or places…clearings in the forests, mountains, valleys, lakes…he couldn't make out exactly…and the voices echoing in his head…Logan, Logan, Logan…find me, Logan…I need your help…come and find me…
He had been alarmed by this summons. His first impulse was that it was Jean who was calling him. Jean, who had summoned him once before to a forest clearing where Magneto was planning his war against humanity. Jean, who had summoned her lover Scott Summers to his demise…but no, Jean was dead. Dead by his hand. It was someone else. He could sense it somehow deep down within him. And yet that other person was…familiar. Somehow. All he knew was that he desperately needed to find her. There would be no piece for him otherwise.
So he informed Storm that he would be taking off again. Ororo didn't seem to mind as much as she might have…after all, things had been awfully quite since the Alcatraz incident months ago, so it was not like they desperately needed him…she didn't even bother to ask him where he was going. Probably because she'd learned to give him his own space by now. No matter how much he made himself at home in the Mansion, he would never truly be one of them. It was something he had learned to accept…he was not like other people. Human or mutant.
Logan was deeply concerned however about the effects this psychic attack was having on him. He didn't know where he was going and yet somehow he did. He just kept moving forward, without knowing really where, except that he felt the assurance that he would find the right place. That he would find her. Sometimes, when he stopped for a while to rest, or when he closed his eyes, the visions and voices would start again. They would not let him rest until he'd found her. It scared him, the effects the psychic attack was having on him. Logan didn't really like the idea of psychic power much. He was a man who relied on his senses, and his senses were useless against a force which could manipulate them or render them redundant altogether. It was a strange aversion for a man who had grown close to two people who were in fact psychic, but he had his reasons for that; Professor Charles Xavier had given him a second chance, the opportunity for a fresh start, the chance to become more than just a wandering savage…and Jean, well, he had loved her…
But whoever was calling him wasn't the Professor nor was it Jean…it was someone else entirely. Someone he was sure he knew, but couldn't remember. But whoever it was, he would soon find her. Yes, he was sure it was a her.
It was late in the evening where he stopped by a forest clearing. He stopped his bike, got off it, and made his way into the forest. He tried sniffing around but he could find no one. Sense no one. He walked along the forest silently but aimlessly, having no idea where he was heading. For the first time in the last two days, he did not feel like he was being manipulated, drawn by some mysterious force…
He stopped by a lake towards the end of the forest and stared down into its depths contemplatively, as though waiting for something. For he was convinced that whatever was to happen…it would happen now.
And it did happen. Something induced him to turn around. Which he did, and was confronted by the person he was convinced had led him here. Instinct told him to unsheathe his claws, yet they remained where they were. Try all he could, he wasn't able to unsheathe them…it was as though they didn't exist for him!
As though in a dream, he stared at the figure before him. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, a platinum blonde with shoulder length hair, clad in a white leather suit, with a cape. But struck Logan about her first and foremost was not her beauty but the fact that she seemed, in some strange other-worldly way, familiar to him. He knew her, he'd seen her before…somewhere, somehow…in that forgotten past of his. There was a confidant and assured quality about her…she was a woman used to having her way. That much was evident.
"Oh please keep those claws of your's sheathed, will you Logan?" she said confidently. "You don't mind if I call you Logan, do you? Your other name, 'Wolverine' sounds so…childishly theatrical, wouldn't you say?"
"Who the bloody hell are you?" demanded Logan.
The woman gave a brief smile and said, as though she were announcing a royal title, "My name is Emma Frost".