X-men ReNewed: A Need for Learning
A/N: This fic is the first part of my 'X-men ReNewed' series, in which I have re-imagined the X-men mythos in a new continuity of my own. I will be taking inspiration from the comics, the Ultimate X-men continuity, the movies as well as the cartoons; and I'll be tweaking some things like character origins and relationships as well as events a bit.
X-men and related characters are the properties of Marvel Comics.
Chapter 1: The Meeting
The armor-plated black limousine made its way towards the large imposing looking wrought iron gate that was situated right in the centre of a fifteen foot high solid brick wall.
A guard attired in a black uniform, wearing sun-glasses and a black metal helmet, stepped forward towards the limousine and gestured for the driver to let the window down. The driver did so and simply handed a typewritten sheet of paper to the guard, along with a photograph pinned to it. The guard rigidly glanced through the contents of the paper. For a moment, just a brief moment, his otherwise expressionless face registered awe as he noticed the signature at the bottom of the orders. He then asked the driver to lower the window of the passenger seat so that he may get a glance at the passenger. One glance at the man seated in the back of the car, and the guard had verified that he was indeed the man in the photograph attached to the orders, the signed orders, for granting access.
The guard issued a brief command on his walkie-talkie and in seconds, the large gates mechanically swung open and the limo was allowed to pass through the large drive way.
The limousine stopped in front of a broad two-storey white-washed building. From out of an enclosure, an agreeable looking young man, attired in a dark business suit made his way towards the car and ordered two guards to open the door of the passenger seat, carefully help the paraplegic visitor into his wheelchair, which was removed from the spacious boot of the vehicle and swiftly reassembled. The man then shook the hand of the bald middle-aged man seated in the wheelchair.
"Professor Xavier, my name is Donald Masters. I'm Assistant Chief of Security of the Washington DC branch of SHIELD. Colonel Fury had asked me to personally receive you and escort you into our facility. I trust your journey was comfortable?"
Xavier politely replied that it was.
As one of the guards wheeled him into the building, Charles Xavier could not but help reflect on the efficiency of SHIELD or the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division; a clandestine agency that was so top-secret, that its existence was virtually unknown to all save few high-ranking members of the United States and foreign governments as well as to other privileged individuals such as himself. His journey had been efficiently planned with a precision that, in all probability dated back to weeks; from the charter flight that brought him to Washington from New York City to the reception by six plains-clothes agents who escorted him to the limousine where he passed into the capable hands of a chauffeur who skillful maneuvered the vehicle early evening traffic to this secure facility on the outskirts of the city. The security arrangements too were impressive and while they may have been viewed as paranoiac by some, Xavier understood that the men and women who worked in this facility worked with information and data so classified and technology, or at any rate, knowledge of technology so sophisticated, that the slightest hint of infiltration could be safely considered a National Security threat.
The foyer was a fairly large room with a large mahogany reception desk. The grey marble floor was covered by the large circular SHIELD emblem.
Masters escorted the Professor to the nearby elevator. The guard who had been wheeling Xavier's chair excused himself as the elevator doors slid shut.
On the second storey, the doors slid open and Masters wheeled the Professors chair down a long air-conditioned corridor, the walls of which were dotted, at regular intervals on both sides, with polished mahogany doors bearing brass nameplates. Finally, they reached a door at the far end of the corridor, whose nameplate bore the inscription, 'Colonel Nick Fury, Director'.
Masters knocked discreetly twice on the door. The door was opened, mechanically, as Xavier suspected, and Masters wheeled Xavier into the room, before the door was closed.
A tall muscular looking man, dressed in a long black leather overcoat over what appeared to be a casual black shirt and blue jeans turned away from the large window he was staring out of. The man was dark-skinned and in his late thirties. He was almost bald, with very little black hair, cut short, near the crown of his head. He did, however, have a French beard. The most striking feature of this man however was the black eye-patch over his right eye. The man had a fierce expression on his face which only subtly softened as he welcomed Xavier with the hint of a smile.
"Ah! Professor Xavier. Good of you to come on such short notice", Colonel Fury said with graciousness that he rarely displayed. He bent down, shook Xavier's hands and made wheeled the Professor to his desk, which was covered with three dossiers with 'Director's Eyes Only' stamped in red over their covers, as well as a computer monitor.
"Drink?" he asked, as he poured some brandy into a glass in a small 'bar' that had been set up on the right-side of the room.
"Yes. Thank you", said the Professor.
For a few minutes, the two men; Professor Charles Xavier, renowned genetics expert and secretly a mutant telepath, and Colonel Nick Fury, veteran of both Gulf Wars and now Director of SHIELD sat in silence, and finished their drinks. It is finally Fury who spoke, "You must be wondering why I asked for you to be rushed down here so urgently? Of course, given your, ah, abilities you must already…"
"Now, now Colonel. Surely, by now, you know me well enough to be aware of the fact that I would never use my powers to gain an undue advantage over others", Xavier politely but firmly interrupted the younger.
"Yes", Fury said. "I'd quite forgotten that." He paused before adding, "But not many mutants play the fair game like you do Charles." He grimaced. "And the one I've got down there in the holding cells is certainly no fair player at all".
"I take it that this mutant you're holding is the reason why I'm here?" asked Xavier.
"You've got that right Professor", confirmed Fury. "He's one tough customer. One of my best men here was killed and at least five others were injured ever since he came to this place. We've been moving him around of course, periodically changing his location every fortnight. Most of the time we keep him on tranquilizers, the most potent ones we have. But he resists them…Christ! Does he resist them and how!" exclaimed the veteran soldier. "And you haven't heard the worst of it, Professor. He's made as many as six escape attempts, all of them nearly successful. It took all the troops and Marines stationed in the base to stop him. On one occasion, the base commander in charge authorized the use of lethal force. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, the mutant survived. He heals from wounds sustained in machine gun fire in a matter of hours! Unbelievable!"
"I take it his unusual, resilience, is connected to his mutation?" enquired Xavier.
"Sure it is", replied Fury. "He possesses, in the words of one of our doctors, 'uncharted regenerative capability'. A 'healing factor' of sorts, I guess. Recovers from wounds, even potentially fatal ones, burns, drug effects etc. within hours. And the guy's got limitless stamina. I've had to double, even quadruple, security in and around the facility since he got here, and that's leaving out the hell I went through in the five other facilities".
"This mutant", said Xavier quietly, almost pensively, "When and where did you find him?"
"He broke into a military outpost of ours somewhere in Arizona about three months ago. Took out an entire platoon of men, destroyed three tanks, five cruisers and even a chopper, until he was subdued and held. Seeing as he was a mutant, and a living breathing 'killing machine' at that, the Army had no hesitation in turning him over to us. One look at those claws of his…and you'll easily understand", explained Fury.
"Claws?!" exclaimed Xavier.
Fury sighed. "I'll come to that later, Charles. Anyway, we tried to interrogate him, but he's one stubborn son-of-a-bitch, and that's on his best behavior. At his worst, he's an animal and that certainly lives up to his name. Well, actually we believe it's a codename of some sort. 'Wolverine'. Does have a certain ring to it, you've gotta admit".
"He told you this?" asked Xavier.
"He admitted it when we read it off his dog-tag. Incidentally, the dog-tag is one of the few concrete pieces of evidence we have regarding his identity. It indicates a military connection of some sort, possibly to a black ops group. But which group? We've overloaded him with the most potent truth serums but we've never learnt that. Never learnt anything conclusive anyway. He wasn't wearing any uniform when he attacked the base, just some black leather stuff that pretty much fell part during his assault. Some of our analysts think he may have been part of some terrorist operation, but then again, that does not seem to make much sense to me".
"Then what has he told you?" asked Xavier.
"Nothing. Well, next to nothing anyway. I tell you, most of the time he's conscious, he's totally savage. But there are times when he's quite, almost in a trance of sorts, mostly stimulated by the tranquilizers. He can be quite sarcastic and he's pretty rude most of the time. I asked him once why he destroyed the base and he told me he didn't know. I asked him again, a couple of days later and he claimed that he was sent there. But by whom? And for what purpose? I have no idea. There are times when he talks about himself being a 'caged beast' and that we made a mistake letting him out of the cage the first time round. Doesn't make a lot of sense. His ramblings can be quite incoherent. I've asked him about his real name many times, with practically no success whatsoever. I once asked him where he came from. His reply was quite curious. He said, and these are his exact words, "Where I came from? Ha! That'll be quite a laugh. I dunno where I came from bub. I think mebbe guys like you'll know better"", said Fury.
"Amnesia?" Xavier asked a perplexed frown on his face.
"We don't know. It does look like it on the surface but…", Fury shook his head. "It's a damn mystery".
Xavier paused for a few moments before adding, "Anything else I should know?"
"Nightmares", Fury said softly. "Violent ones. We need to restrain him to his bunk while he sleeps but he still manages to tear through with those claws of his. He doesn't speak during these nightmares. Just gives animal-like cries. Our psychiatrists have asked him about it, but he refuses to talk about it".
Fury walked over to his personal bar and poured himself another drink. "I mean, its so damnably annoying. We have here, an unknown mutant who tears up a base in the middle of a desert for no apparent reason, is a living breathing killing machine and has the mind of an animal when he's not on tranquilizers. What kind of creature is he anyway? Or more to the point, who or what made him this way? That's what I want to find out. And that's what a whole lot of other people want to find out. I've tried to keep this from them, but God knows how long I will succeed", he paused for a moment and added in a more solemn tone, "The number of these so-called 'mutant incidences' is increasing Charles. Years ago, it used to be weeks before anyone made a new mutant sighting and that too, the sightings were rarely officially confirmed. Now, we have a sighting of 'mutant activity' every couple of days and a full-blown 'incident' for lack of a better term, every goddamn week. People are scared Charles, and I'm not sure I can blame them for that".
Xavier sighed and shook his head regretfully, "It has been one of our biggest flaws for millennia. Mankind has always feared what it does not understand".
"Well, you may be right about that Professor, but the point is, some action has got to be taken this time. We can't just have living weapons with the minds of animals going around killing people and trashing Army bases. That's why I need your help".
Xavier look at Fury meaningfully, "You mean, you want me to discover who sent him to destroy your base and why?"
"No, Charles. That base is a closed chapter. It's the past. This is now. I want you to learn everything you can about this son-of-a-bitch. Who he is, where he came from, where does he get the nightmares, the violent mood-swings, the berserker rages from…everything! I want to know exactly who or what I've got down in the cages. Enough to write a goddamn dossier on him that looks like a real dossier. So far all I've got is the codename 'Wolverine', a few pictures and a couple of medical and so called 'psychiatric reports' and of course, three pages on how he trashed a base. I want something more. I need something more".
"And you think I can give that to you, Colonel", Xavier said softly. It wasn't a question.
"With those psychic powers of yours you can probe deep into his mind and find out things my best psychiatrists would never learn in a million years", said Fury.
"You greatly overrate my talents Colonel. The mind is not just a box which can be opened or closed. It's a web of a thousand inter-connected strands that may take a lifetime to unravel. And from what you've told me about this mutant, his mind is extremely fragile. My chances of success are minimal", explained the Professor.
"But you will take a look at him won't you?" asked Fury anxiously.
"Oh yes, I will", replied the Professor.
"Fine", the greatly relieved Director of SHIELD said. "I'll take you down to the cells".