Disclaimer: I do not in any way own the X men, Marvel, or any of the X men spinoffs.
Prologue: Arrest
At two A.M. all was peaceful at the Xavier mansion. Not one of the adults or even the normally rambunctious New X men was awake.
The sky was cloudless. Stars shone beside a full moon. A warm breeze blew through the grounds, carrying with it the sounds of chirping crickets and the scents of summer. Nothing indicated that the X men were already about to face their next struggle.
Five thousand feet above the ocean, a B-1B Lancer bomber flew towards its objective. Its cargo, a NonNuclear ElectroMagnetic Pulse device. Its target, the Xavier Institute.
The aircraft arrowed over the bay and released its payload. The EMP device fell, guided by a targeting laser emanating from the bomber towards the Institute. Five hundred feet above the ground the EMP activated, sending a rapidly expanding magnetic field over the mansion's grounds. The field invaded every electronic device, sending a large electric current through their components, permanently ruining them. Cell phones, computers, mansion defenses, Cerebro, all succumbed to the blast.
The first stage of the plan was complete. The second began as the paramilitary operatives who had been waiting aboard helicopters flew in.
Logan was in the middle of a nightmare. The scene was all too dreadfully familiar. He was inside a large tube filled with green liquid. Dozens of metal probes inserted themselves into his skin. Some carried sedative, others were delivering molten adamantium into the Wolverine's body. It was agony. No experience could ever equal its terrible pain…
Logan jolted up, claws outstretched, gasping. For a few minutes he sat in bed, panting, as the after effects of the dream wore off. He looked around and noticed his alarm clock wasn't working. The LED display was completely black. He frowned and reached behind his desk to plug it back in. His frown deepened as he found the outlet with the cord still plugged in. He looked back at the alarm clock, noticing for the first time the smell of solder in the air, along with something else. He sniffed, and determined the source was the alarm clock. With one claw he slit the top off the thing and looked inside.
The electronics were unmistakably fried. Solder had run all over the circuit board, and parts of it were blackened. Some of the parts looked like they had exploded. Wolverine set it down in disgust. He then noticed a similar smell of burned electronics coming from his cellphone. And there was something else, something that smelled like… electricity? Yes, like a bolt of lightning had hit nearby, but fainter, and with no obvious damage.
Logan ran through a mental list of things that could have done this. Only two possibilities came up: either Berserker, or an EMP.
EMP? Could it be that? There was no way Berserker was in any shape to pull something off like this, not with such a strong stench of electricity in the air. It could only be an EMP. And if that was what it was, then someone wanted something in the mansion very badly, and had just played their first card.
Logan's musing was interrupted by noises on the roof. Intruders, and lots of them. Logan quickly got back into bed and started snoring loudly. Through his faux sleep, Logan sensed two people stop at his window and somehow dissolve it. The intruders then stepped inside and, without further ado, fired a dart straight into Logan's neck. The dart's sedative was quickly neutralized by his healing factor. Logan heard one of them say "Target sedated, moving on to next objective"
Logan waited until they drew closer, then burst from his bed with a roar, claws outstretched. The two intruders, taken by surprise, stumbled backwards as Logan sliced their guns to pieces. Two well aimed blows then sent both of them to the floor unconscious.
Having knocked them out, Wolverine took a moment to study the intruders. They were dressed in uniforms and Kevlar body armor, with ammo packs and other military paraphernalia strapped on them. Three letters were marked on their shoulder pads: FOH.
Logan's examination was interrupted by a growling voice coming from one of the intruder's headsets saying "…happened? Hawk team, reply!"
Wolverine rushed to his window and scanned the grounds. Not a thing was moving, but there were noises coming from the mansion roof. Muffled noises, which no regular mutant could have heard, told of men stealthily repelling from the roof and entering through the windows. Judging from the direction of the sounds, most were breaking into…the students wing.
Wolverine sprinted out of his room and down the hall to the foyer. His claws were out and a snarl was on his lips. They had tried to sedate him. If they were doing the same to the others, it meant they were trying to capture the X men. If they weren't…. A ball of fear dropped into his stomach and if at all possible he poured more speed into his running.
He reached the foyer to discover four more of the intruders standing there, possibly to investigate their comrades loss. One of them yelled a warning and four darts sped towards the oncoming mutant. Wolverine staggered as his vision swam momentarily, but he didn't stop running. He hit the first intruder like a cannon ball, ramming him off his feet. As wolverine crashed to the ground the darts' toxin cleared and swept his limbs out, sweeping another two off their feet. Leaping to his feet he kicked the two he had just tripped in the head, then blocked a blow from the third, who had also risen. A dart whizzed past Wolverine's cheek, shot by the fourth intruder. Logan grabbed the arm of the third, who had just punched again, and yanked. His off balance opponent was pulled forward until Wolverine kicked him in the knee. At the same time he wrested the dart rifle from his opponents grasped, aimed, and fired. The man's screams of pain were cut off as the darts' sedative knocked him out. Wolverine turned to the fourth man and fired three rounds. At least one hit its mark and the man sank to the ground.
Gripping the rifle, Wolverine resumed running towards the boys' wing. As he reached the front of the hall, one of the doors was blown off its hinges by a bright red beam. Two intruders followed the door into the wall. A moment later Scott Summers cautiously emerged from the doorway.
"Logan!" he said, spotting his combat mentor. "What's going…"
"Duck now!" Wolverine shouted. Cyclops hit the dirt as a volley of darts flew over him. Wolverine emptied the clip of his rifle into the men further down the hallway. They all sank to the ground as the darts' drug took its toll.
From then on there was no time for words, only combat. Cyclops turned and fired his optic blast as more intruders emerged. The door across from him opened and two more men came out, and Cyclops ducked as the one in front tried to tag him with a dart. A split second later he was hit by Wolverine's rifle. Cyclops blasted the one behind back into the room and into a wall.
Wolverine and Cyclops backed back into the foyer as more intruders flooded the hallway. Using hands, claws, optic blasts, and stolen rifles they desperately tried to stem the tide of intruders. It wasn't easy. Their foes were as numerous as they were trained. In the end, however, the X men prevailed.
Wolverine straightened. Unconscious bodies littered the hallway they had come out of. Cyclops put a hand on the wall and leaned on it, panting.
"Who are these guys? What do they want? And why didn't the mansion defenses take them out?"
"EMP took care of the defenses" Wolverine replied. "As for who they are, look at them"
Scott examined one of the unconscious bodies. "FOH?" he asked.
Wolverine shrugged, then stiffened when he heard the noise of guns being cocked behind him. He turned.
What looked like twenty more intruders stood on the other side of the foyer, guns aimed at the two mutants. One the ground between them was a very familiar man holding a pistol to an unconscious Xavier's head.
"Surrender mutants" Bolivar Trask coldly ordered as he held Xavier.
Cyclops put his hands up. Wolverine snarled, trying to see any way out of this. But there was none. Trask put his finger on the trigger.
Reluctantly, hating Trask through every moment of the action, Wolverine sheathed his claws and raised his arms.
Trask smiled, and ordered "Take them"
Trask's goons started forward. Wolverine growled as they approached, then stiffened as he saw Xavier start to stir. Trask saw it too, and pulled the trigger.
The bang echoed around the room. Cyclops stood where he was, completely stunned. Wolverine couldn't believe it. The man had gotten his surrender, and then killed his prisoner anyways. Fury, volcanic berserker fury welled up inside him. His claws came out and he lunged forward, roaring. The claws slashed through the first goon's armor as if it was paper. The goon crumpled to the floor.
As soon as their compatriot hit the floor, the rest of the FOH soldiers opened fire. No less than fifteen darts hit the enraged mutant, and his healing factor was overwhelmed. He staggered to the floor, then fell backwards. Looking back, he saw Cyclops, still standing there, shocked. "Run!" he slurred.
The last thing he saw was Summers doing exactly that.