New book ... and this one is about clearing house and getting to all the things I've been wanting to get to ... and think you'll all appreciate. All our favorite character are here and so a special thanks to Cheshire and Canuckle. You two are amazing and way better then I am or hope to be. Thanks for letting Apex have some friends.
Now onto the first ...
Tracking him at first wasn't that hard. All she had to do was follow the reports of missing persons. Keep tabs of the trips Fury made in the middle of the night holed up in Xavier's office. The lull in missions that weren't much more than pickups.
A mutant slave trader ring leader gone off the map.
Anti-Mutant Senator from Wyoming missing after a hiking accident.
A Middle-Eastern terror network known for enslaving mutants gone dark.
Then the news broke that the Hellfire Club was under siege. Sebastian Shaw even intercepted Scott and Jean on a weekend getaway in some vain attempt to get leverage but that failed in spectacular fashion. Shaw was found three weeks later in a remote village in Peru. Almost impossible to kill by conventional means, Kitty was able to find out that the cause of death had been ruled starvation. He'd been found nailed to a tree.
"For Vanyss." Greer had growled with some satisfaction when she'd read the report.
"Or a warning." Ororo replied cautiously.
After that things went dark. Greer had silently thought that with the Hellfire Club (temporarily) destroyed Colton would come back. She'd be pissed for a while but he'd come back.
But as one month led into two and the summer wore on ... the truth began to sink in.
He didn't want to be found.
Colton wasn't coming back.
3 Months Later
Across the world, Apex found himself standing in a familiar scene. With two important differences.
He'd been tracking a group of disaffected Weapon X scientists willing to sell what they knew about the 'feral meta-gene' to the highest bidder. It didn't surprise him that SHIELD was working to intercept them. Fury would probably claim it was to keep it off the market. But Apex was certain he'd also probably claim to not have a feral task force locked up in western Montana.
Regardless, SHIELD had intel that he needed and he wanted scrubbed from their servers. Breaking into the safe house was simple. All SHIELD safe houses checked off the same boxes and using the same few military contractors meant their layouts and security protocols were predictable. He'd spent a week using one in Madrid to interrogate a target simply by tagging it as 'under construction' on their network.
This safe house was in Berlin. Five man surveillance team. Four men. One woman. One meta code name: Echo. Sound manipulation. Useful for spying but not much for offensive combat. Fourth floor. Six rooms. Three exits including the escape shaft in the last bedroom on the left that leads straight to the subbasement and the waiting SUVs. Computer dock in the main room.
He slipped in while they were asleep, checking the scents and only pausing for a moment before moving on and getting the information he needed.
But an hour later when he dropped into the makeshift Weapon X lab to find it surrounded by bodies ... it was something he was familiar with. The difference was that he hadn't been the one to put them there. The flick of his tail showed he was annoyed ... he'd been tracking this group for almost three days.
His tail waved over the bodies as he surveyed the scene trying to figure out what had happened. The smell of fresh blood mixed with the chemicals from the trashed lab made a scent worthless. So he kneeled over one of the bodies to see what he could learn about the team that had done this.
What he saw got the giant panther to first cock his head to side as he tried to understand what he was seeing ... three clean cuts ... deep ... equal distanced apart ... he'd seen this sort of kill before.
Apex slowly raised from his crouch and looked around the lab, his hackles rising as he fought the obvious. He knew who had done this. It just couldn't have been her. The panther closed his eyes, trying to think when the air shifted a scent hit him, his eyes immediately flashing open.
Only taking long enough to place chargers on the computers and ensuring the chemical fire would take care of the rest, Apex raced back across the city before crashing through the metal enforced doors that led into the SHIELD safehouse. The fact he was still alone confirmed what he'd already known.
He had recognized the scent from the lab was the same misplaced one he had smelled before. Stalking deeper into the apartment he found all five SHIELD agents slashed ... their bodies tossed around the kitchen over what must have been their last dinner.
This whole thing was wrong. The lab. The safe house. Both teams must have been dead for hours ... almost a day at this point. Weapon X. SHIELD. It didn't fit. But one thing was clear:
K had done this.
K had killed them all.
It was the first day for new students at Xavier's. New students ranged from excited, to scared, to just lost looking for Professor Ororo's english lit class. Older students were reclaiming preferred spots and catching up over the summer. Those students that stayed at the school full time relieved to have their friends back or at least a distraction for the teachers to focus on. But as always, once the morning rush had subsided another ripple of excitement ran through the school: evaluations.
New kids got to show off their abilities and older students got the chance to show what they'd been working on. As always, the chance to get a spot on a junior team was on everyone's mind. Well that was almost the only thing on their midns ... because evaluations were as always taken by Logan and K. While some students dreamed of getting one over on the feral couple, the smarter ones knew that simply staying vertical for the allotted time was an achievement. Something very few students were ever able to pull off despite the pair routinely doing their part with a cup of coffee in their hand.
Logan had come in after dawn from an Avenger's run so K had let him sleep. Wasn't like she couldn't handle a room full of teenagers either desperate to showoff or so nervous they could barely look her in the eye.
So when Logan's Avenger device started beeping he let out a low curse as it woke him. He glared at it for a moment but considering the only people who could raise him directly were Rodgers and Fury ...
"This better be good," Logan grumbled into the device.
"Where's K?" The fact Apex had somehow gotten a line into his Avenger's com, or that he was reaching out after all these months didn't register as surprising to Logan. But the panteher's tone got him to at least sit up.
"Why?" Logan wasn't about to answer any questions over a line clearly compromised or anything having to do with his wife.
"I'm in Berlin. K wiped out a Weapon X lab," the kid's tone was still off to Logan. How was that worth a call ... even if it didn't make much sense. Course K might have slipped out last night just for fun.
"No she didn't," Logan replied flatly. "And on some wild chance she was out stretchin', It's none of your damn business."
"And a SHIELD recon outpost." Logan went quiet as Apex tried again, "where's K?"
"Exactly where she should be," Logan answered. "And that's all I'm saying."
Apex witheld a growl at Logan's expected lack of information but happened to glance at a calendar in the kitchen and his tail went still. It was the first day of term. Looking back around at the bodies ... at the very K like slashes ... at the cameras that he knew must have been recording before he shut them down ... and he suddenly realized what had happened. What was about to happen.
"She's one of the students." Apex growled into the phone as the sound of car doors closing and hushed voices echoed up from the street outside, the panther working quickly to toss all the bodies into the kitchen and cut the gas line to the oven as he rigged an explosive.
"Who's one of the students?" Logan was up and dressed at this point as he headed for the door.
"X-23." Apex snarled as he jumped rooftops just in time for the entire floor he'd been on to exploded into flame.
...
K had been running the evaluations down in the Danger Room for the last half hour. The students around her did their best to either impress her or escape her attention entirely. K meanwhile seemed to be more interested in her coffee then in what they were doing paired off but that was far from the truth. K had already mentally marked all of the new kids in desperate need of the basics and a few of the older students finally seemed to have taken the next step for them to start Summer's strategy classes and maybe even Kitty's hacking for the ones interested.
"Alright ... everybody line up. Let's see what you got." The students almost entirely made up of teenagers managed to group around K in a semi-circle ... so close enough.
"Derrick ... let's see if a summer off made a difference," K called out one of the older students she could tell had been doing his best to show off as K had been making her way around. The fact his sparring partner was now sporting a black eye evidence enough. Cautious but cocky, Derrick, a rather tall and gangly sixteen-year old had finally managed to put on some size, and at this point stood a head taller than his teacher.
"You waitin' for an invitation?" K drawled as she shifted her mug to her left hand and looked like she'd just called Derrick up to solve a math problem. But Derrick had seen this shtick before and moved in quickly, not letting the little ferals demeanor throw him off. He actually managed to get K to take a few steps back and check a kick but the second he smiled laughter rang out as l Derrick had somehow seen the world rotate around him and he was on the ground and K was above him offering a hand up.
"Not bad ... but let's leave the suburban dojo nonsense at home." K said it loud enough for everyone to hear as Derrick went back to his friends and K turned back to the assembled teenagers, now eying her far more warily then before.
"Okay," K said brightly. "Who's next ... somebody step up or I'll start calling names again." A girl shrugged forwards, her eyes downcast as she stepped across from K who gave her a quick once-over: she was short, barely five foot and maybe 100 pounds, with black straight hair and with the way that baggy sweatshirt hung on her she guessed pretty skinny. Easily the smallest teen in the group ... which forced K to smile a bit. Few things she respected more than someone who didn't need to be prompted, even when the rest of the class was so obviously wary.
"What's your name?" K. She shifted a little as if unsure what to say before barely muttering out a response.
"Laura."
"Nice to meet you, Laura ... let's see what you can do."
K stood her ground and let Laura come to her and as the girl slowly shuffled away from the group K's brow furrowed as a brief moment of something close to recognition crossed her face as her arms dropped to her sides, Laura seemingly a bit more steady moving closer.
"What did you say your name was-" K's mug crashed to the floor as her hand shot up to block the sudden set of claws that had rushed to plunge themselves into her neck and instead lodged themselves into her arm, an almost familiar snarl and set of green eyes glaring into hers before X-23 kicked K in the chest and flipped back into a fighting position, her sweatshirt gone and glaring up at K.
"Everyone out," K spoke calmly to the class, shifting her stance into one a lot more smooth and controlled, as if this was a normal demonstration she'd already planned, something the students thought might be the case.
"Professor ... should we ..."
"Out!" K ordered as Laura charged once again and this time the students ran for the exit as K started to fight someone who seemed as if they had half a prayer of keeping up. By the time Logan had rushed past the fleeing students K and X-23 were trading slashes and snarls at a rate hard to track. But it was obvious that despite K sporting a number of slash marks including a nasty gash down her thigh ... she had the advantage over her younger opponent. Logan came in time to see K spin under a flurry of claws to land a single hard shot of her own that sent X-23 stumbling backwards with a hiss.
"You alright?" Logan called out to K as she disengaged and took a step back to line up across from the approaching Logan, leaving a clearly furious X-23 between them.
"Peachy. Kid has no manners though," K commented as she took stock and seemed to finally take note of the amount of blood covering her outfit. "Another friend?"
"No," Logan commented as he held up a hand, fingers outstretched on his approach to the angry girl. "Take it easy now, girl. No reason to start something you can't finish."
X-23 snarled at Logan's approach but all three ferals could hear the storm of footsteps coming their way as the rest of the X-Men ran for the Danger Room. Seeming out of desperation, X-23 charged at Logan who stood his ground, easily blocking her wild swings but when she threw a kick he read as almost lazy, he caught it before it could make contact with his head ... right before the toe claw popped out and sliced clear through his neck.
"Logan!" K had been happy to watch Logan handle the pup till she watched him go down, blood spurting from the gash in his neck. Laura rolled out of the way as K went to cover her mate and just as she could hear Scott and Bobby hit their floor she saw the girl grab something from her pocket and a huge explosion rocked what felt like the entire Mansion.
By the time a dust covered Kurt appeared with Hank ... X-23 was gone. A hole sliced clear into the Danger Room wall leading to the ventilation.
"What on earth was that?" Hank muttered more focused on replacing his hands where K's were around Logan's neck, though she shrugged him off to give him more time to heal before bleeding out.
"Sounded like ..." K was trying to place it.
"It sounded like all the munitions you and Logan keep locked in the hangar." Scott said clearly pissed, taking in the scene as he walked in, and with a few scraped and bruises but overall OK as he tried to help check over K who brushed him off. Bobby came stumbling in after him looking pretty much the same though a bit more dazed. He'd run to put out the fire.
"The kids were all yelling some student tried attacking you but ... a student really did all this?" Bobby sounded doubtful as he glanced from K, to the now coughing and grumbling Logan, and back out to the smoke still billowing from the explosion.
"Not sure I'd call her a student." K growled as she went over to check on the now mostly recovered Logan.
"So what would you call her?" Scott pressed as the rest of the X-Men at this point had either made their way downstairs or were busy upstairs calming the students and running security checks.
"A failed weapon." K growled.